He went to work swiftly then, in a fever of haste.  In his ears the clamour of the shipwrecked men upon the decks was only a distant droning, hardly recognised for what it was by him who had not one thought other than to make all possible advantage of every precious instant; and so with the roar of steam from the escape-valves.

Stripping off coat and waistcoat, he took from the pocket of the latter the wallet that held his papers, then ripped open his shirt and unbuckled the money belt round his waist.  Its pockets were ample and fitted with trustworthy fastenings; and all but one, that held a few English sovereigns, were empty.  The jewels of Madame de Montalais went into them as rapidly as his fingers could move.

Thus engaged, he heard a pistol explode in the saloon, and saw the polished writing-bed of the captain’s desk scored by a bullet.  His gaze shifting to the door, he discovered a neat round hole in one of its rosewood panels.  At the same time, to the tune of another report, a second hole appeared, and the bullet, winging above the desk, buried itself in the after-bulkhead, between the dead-lights.  A stream of bullets followed, one after another boring the stout panels as if their consistency had been that of cheese.

Lanyard stepped out of their path and hugged the partition while he finished stuffing the jewels into the belt and, placing the thin wallet beneath it, strapped it tightly round him once more....

That would be Phinuit out there, no doubt, disdaining to waste time breaking in the door, or perhaps fearing his reception once it was down.  An innocent and harmless amusement, if he enjoyed it, that it seemed a pity to interrupt.  At the same time it grew annoying.  The door was taking on the look of a sieve, and the neighbourhood of the deadlights, Lanyard’s sole avenue of escape, was being well peppered.  Something would have to be done about it...

Lanyard completed his preparations by kicking off his shoes and taking up another notch in the belt that supported his trousers.  If the swim before him proved a long one, he could get rid of his garments in the water readily enough; if on the other hand the shore proved to be close at hand, it would be more convenable to land at least half clothed.

Then—­the fusillade continuing without intermission save when the man outside stopped long enough to extract an empty clip and replace it with one loaded—­Lanyard edged along the partition to the door, calculated the stand of the lunatic in the saloon from the angle at which the bullets were coming through, and emptied the pistol he had taken from Phinuit at the panels as fast as he could pull trigger.

There was no more firing...

He tossed aside the empty weapon, made sure of Popinot’s on his hip, approached one of the deadlights, placed a chair, climbed upon it, and with infinite pains managed to wriggle and squirm head and shoulders through the opening.  It was very fortunate for him indeed that the Sybarite happened to have been built for pleasure yachting, with deadlights uncommonly large for the sake of air and light, else he would have been obliged to run the risk of opening the door to the saloon and fighting his way out and up to the deck.