With a grunt of distaste, Marlin turned his attention to the hull. It was progressively deteriorating. The blow had ruptured the corroded shell-plates in numerous places, and they were constantly giving way under the shifting stresses. His thoughts returned to Pearl. Strange that he had not come across the girl. He made an unavailing search of the staterooms, storerooms, the control room, and all passages and aisles of the unsteady superstructure. A taut feeling constricted his chest. She was so defenseless in her childish simplicity. She might have wandered out in the dark and fallen from any one of a dozen or more points of danger he could imagine. Memory of the fate that had overtaken Link, and presumably Norma's body, caused him to shudder. From searching the likely places, he fell to searching the unlikely ones. His flashlight beam unexpectedly picked up the two of them--Pearl and McGruder--in a segment between the outcurving hull and the end-wall of the cabin-like structure containing their sleeping compartments. The narrow crevice between the corner of the straight wall and the hull made it an almost inaccessible retreat. In the brief glimpse Marlin caught before McGruder turned his startled, snarling face toward the flashlight, the whole story was apparent. McGruder had pursued the girl and finally cornered her. She was struggling to escape from his grasp. The man cringed away from the light. "Get outa here!" he yelled hoarsely. "This don't concern you." "No?" Marlin spoke with deadly intensity. "Take your hands off that girl." "Says who?" "I've still got the gun, McGruder--and I don't mind admitting that I've itched all along for an excuse to use it on your carcass. Let go, damn you!" McGruder jerked the girl roughly around so that she offered a shield for his body. "Come ahead--shoot!" he taunted. Marlin pocketed his gun. "I'm coming after you." The lower part of the crevice was too narrow to admit his body, but it widened out above, where the hull sloped away from the wall. Pearl could have squeezed through at the floor level, but McGruder must have had to inch himself up a couple of feet before he could follow her. Methodically, Marlin set out to do the same. * * * * * The feat required both hands, and McGruder seized the opportunity, when Marlin had squirmed himself part way up, to release the girl and plunge toward him with clenched fist. Marlin saved himself from a paralyzing blow in the midriff by leaping backward. He snatched for the gun, but before he could recover it, McGruder was well back inside, again using Pearl for a shield. "Smart guy!" he yelled tauntingly. "Coming in, are you!" This time, Marlin held his flashlight in one hand and the automatic in the other, training both on McGruder, while he slowly worked himself up the angle formed by the two walls by pressure of his out-thrust knees and elbows.