He was hanging on with one leg and one arm, looking up blearily into the face of his killer, fighting the'rain, the wind, and a man twice as strong as he. He was almost over.

Then abruptly the man let out an unearthly bellow. A howl. A scream of anguish that belonged in a slaughter-house. The iron grip melted.

The power in the hands was gone.

Thomas blinked rapidly and peered through the rain. The man's eyes were bulging, inflated in the most undiluted anguish. He staggered and turned.

Thomas, clinging to the railing, gawked, almost sickened at the sight.

The broad back had been hacked open. Blood poured from a huge seven-inch gash that formed a diagonal cross against his upper backbone. The man staggered, trying to reach with his hands behind his back, trying to get to the source of the pain.

But he couldn't. He could only lurch.

Then Thomas saw. Leslie.

She was standing several feet from him, the fire ax gripped defiantly in her hands, hatred -and perhaps fear in her eyes. Blood, washed by rain, dripped from the blade of the ax.

The man howled obscenely. Thomas was transfixed by what he saw, almost forgetting to pull the part of him that was not on board back from over the rail.

The man lunged at Leslie, cursing her. She held the ax like a spear, thrusting the blunt handle end forward and thumping it with a loud crack against the man's upper chest bone. Then, slashing with the wooden end, she crashed it against his head, sending him down against the wet floorboards.

She dropped the ax. She extended a hand to Thomas and pulled him back from the railing. His mind was a ma.s.s of confusion, his body still anguished in several parts.

"Help me," was all she said.

Help her? he wondered.

The body was still writhing, still alive but bleeding profusely, "Help me " she repeated.

He didn't understand. He didn't know what she wanted.

She went to the body, lifted the struggling a.s.sa.s.sin by a shoulder, and motioned to Thomas. Motioned to the man's other shoulder.

And motioned to the rear of the deck.

He stood there. He knew what she wanted. He couldn't.

"Do it, d.a.m.n it!" she screamed.

"He tried to kill you! Don't you understand? Twice he tried to kill you!"

He grabbed the other shoulder, and with a quick motion across ten feet of wet deck they ran the man to the railing, using their momentum, the man's momentum and the ship's to send him hurtling against the railing, then up and over it.

Thomas expected to hear a splash.

He didn't. The rain, the wind, and the engines covered it.

They were both soaked, of course, and Thomas knew he was going to be sick. He looked at the wide wake left by the boat and tried to see the body.

He couldn't. The indeterminate mixture of sea and rain covered everything with gray. The man was gone. No visibility on Nantucket Sound in a squall. Fifty feet at best.

He turned and faced Leslie. She was surprisingly calm, as if it were all in a day's work. She looked at him inquisitively as if to say, "My, wasn't that close." Then she picked up the ax, carefully holding it by the handle, and glancing around to a.s.sure herself that they remained un.o.bserved.

Then she flung it in a twisting, spinning arc over the rear railing, perhaps to act as a tombstone for the nameless man they'd buried.

Again, they heard no splash.

She took his hand.

"I wouldn't trust Zenger again" she said in a most appalling understatement.

"He's not on our side. Shifty eyes."

She gave his hand a pull.

"Come on," she said.

"Let's get' dry She gathered his car keys for him. Some women think of everything.

He pulled back and shook his head.

"Nlot yet," he said. He motioned to the rail and indicated the turbulence in his digestive system.

"Ah, yes. I see," she said. She paused.

"Well, when you're finished come inside and well have some tea. It will make you feel better."

. He nodded. She disappeared inside and he spent a sickened moment at the rail, alone this time, looking at the gray sea behind the ship and marveling how nature covers everything.

He turned. The rain washed across the floorboards of the deck and the runoff joined the sea. A moment ago the floorboards had been pink with the suggestion of blood. But within another half minute all traces of blood were gone and the color of the deck was a glimmering green again.

He went inside to where the two children were running up and down a different aisle now, shrieking and playing pirates.

Chapter 24 He watched through the drawn front gate of the ferry as the vessel neared land. Occasionally he glanced in his rearview mirror, half expecting the car to be surrounded by police.

"Who was the man you threw over the side?" they'd ask him.

"Why'd you kill him?" they'd demand.

"She swung the ax" he'd answer. And they'd never believe it.

Was that her game? He himself She'd saved his life twice and he'd caught himself still being suspicious.

"I've never been involved in this sort of thing," he mused absently.

He could feel the jitteriness in his stomach. He was shaken.

She looked at him sternly, almost inquisitively.

"Your father was in plenty of them. Wasn't he?" It sounded like a probe.