“Come on, Mary!” he shouted. “We’ve got to get out of this! The motorboat may blow up! Hurry!”
“Where’s Tom?”
“Flung overboard!”
“Didn’t you save him?”
“I couldn’t—the current’s too swift. Come on, or we’ll both be blown sky-high!”
Bud grasped his sister by the hand and dragged her toward the door, but she held back.
“The jewels, Bud! We must get them!”
“There isn’t time! There may be an explosion, and, anyhow, this boat is listing more every minute!”
“But we can’t go without them.”
“I tell you we must! The boat that rammed us may belong to the government patrol. They’d jail us in a minute if we were caught with the loot. Come on!”
Against her will, Mary was dragged to the door. As she looked out and saw that water was washing over the deck, she became panic stricken.
“We’ll never make shore,” she wailed. “I can’t swim a stroke.”
“The boat’s almost up to the dock. We can jump for it.”
Bud glanced back and saw Nancy lying on the floor where she had been flung at the time of the collision. “How about it?” he demanded of his sister. “Shall we cut her loose?”