Rainsford sprang up and moved quickly to the rail, mystified.
He strained his eyes in the direction from which the reports had come, but it was like trying to see through a blanket.
He leaped upon the rail and balanced himself there, to get greater elevation; his pipe, striking a rope, was knocked from his mouth.
He lunged for it; a short, hoarse cry came from his lips as he realized he had reached too far and had lost his balance.
The cry was pinched off short as the blood-warm waters of the Caribbean Sea closed over his head.
He struggled up to the surface and tried to cry out, but the wash from the speeding yacht slapped him in the face and the salt water in his open mouth made him gag and strangle.
Desperately he struck out with strong strokes after the receding lights of the yacht, but he stopped before he had swum fifty feet.
A certain coolheadedness had come to him; it was not the first time he had been in a tight place.
There was a chance that his cries could be heard by someone aboard the yacht, but that chance was slender and grew more slender as the yacht raced on.
He wrestled himself out of his clothes and shouted with all his power.