Then to his ears came the steady purr of a motorboat. It was
close to him and coming closer.

"Boat ahoy!" he sang out treading water and raising himself as
high as possible to peer about him through the dusk.

"Boat ahoy!" he called again, shouting to be heard above the
motor's hum. "Man overboard! Ten dollars if you'll carry me
to the mainland!"

And now he could see against the paler hue of the sky. the
dark outlines of the boat's prow. It was bearing down on him.
Above the bow's edge he could make out the vague silhouette of
a head and upper body.

Then into his memory flashed something which the shock of his
upsetting had completely banished. He recalled the motorboat
which had darted, arrow-like, out from around the southern
edge of the mangrove swamp, and which he had been watching
when his scow went to pieces on the reef.

If this were the same boat--if its steersman chanced to be
Milo Standish crossing to the key to learn if his murderplot
had yet culminated--so much the better! Man to man, there
between sea and sky in the gathering gloom, they could settle
the account once and for all.

Perhaps Standish had recognized him. Perhaps he merely took
him for some capsized fisherman. In either event. a swimming
man is the most utterly defenseless of all creatures against