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Page 176
push me overboard,'' he muttered. "No. I don't believe it. I don't. I"
"Peter, can you stand up?"
"Just a minute. I caught my head a crack on the rail, I think, and everything's on a merry-go-round."
Linda's first impulse was to run for help, but she discarded the notion as fast as it came to her. She couldn't leave Peter alone. Although she had heard the door of the passage close, there was no guarantee that whoever had assaulted Peter was not waiting there, hoping to catch him in a weakened condition. The idea made Linda look nervously over her shoulder at the door, but the light behind the glass remained unshadowed. Linda also thanked God she had come along just then. She did not want to think about what might have happened if she had walked a little slower or watched the stars a few minutes longer.
Fortunately, before she could frighten herself any more, Peter pulled himself erect. He seemed to waver, then steadied. "I'm all right," he said. "I was only dazed for a minute."
He stretched out a hand and Linda, who had risen with him, caught and held it. "Come to my cabin," she urged. "I'll call the ship's doctor."
"Don't need him."
"If you hit your head hard enough to be dazed, you do need a doctor. Oh, Peter, did you hit your head, or" She couldn't finish that thought and left the words hanging.
"Of course I hit my head. There was no or

 
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