XIII
OFFSHORE
"You ask me, I think very excellent damn quick cure."
Sum Fat having for the third time since morning anointed with linimentand massaged Whitaker's ankle, tenderly adjusted and laced the makeshiftcanvas brace, drew a sock over it, and then with infinite care insertedthe foot in a high-cut canvas tennis shoe.
He stood up, beaming.
Whitaker extended his leg and cast a critical eye over the heavilybandaged ankle.
"Anyway," he observed, "the effect is arresting. I look like a halfClydesdale."
Sum Fat's eyes clouded, then again gleamed with benevolent interest."You take it easy one day or two--no walk much--just loaf--no go seepretty ladies--"
"Go 'way, you heathen--go clean your teeth!" cried Whitaker,indignantly.
"--and I think be all well and sound," concluded Sum Fat.
He waddled away, chuckling.
Waiting till he was well out of sight, Whitaker got up, and with the aidof a cane made a number of tentative experiments in the gentle art ofshort-distance pedestrianism. The results were highly satisfactory: hefelt little or no pain, thanks to Sum Fat's ice-packs and assiduousattentions in general; and was hampered in free movement solely by thestiff brace and high-laced shoe.
On the other hand, he felt that the advice to which he had just listenedwas sound; it would be unwise to attempt a neighbourly call within atleast another twenty-four hours.
He resumed his chair on the veranda, and sighed. It was late afternoon,and he was lonely. After the interest and excitement of the precedingday and night, to-day seemed very dull and uneventful; it had been, intruth, nothing less than stupid--a mere routine of meals and pipesinterrupted by no communication from the outer world more blood-stirringthan the daily calls of the village grocer and butcher. Ember had nottelephoned, as Whitaker had hoped he would; and the chatelaine of theneighbouring cottage had not manifested any interest whatever in thewell-being of the damaged amateur squire of dames.
Whitaker felt himself neglected and abused. He inclined to sulks. Theloveliness of a day of unbroken calm offered him no consolation.Solitude in a lonely lodge is all very well, if one cares for that sortof thing; but it takes two properly to appreciate the beauties of thewilderness.
The trouble with him was (he began to realize) that he had lived toolong a hermit. For six years he had been practically isolated and cutoff from the better half of existence; femininity had formed no factorin his cosmos. Even since his return to America his associations hadbeen almost exclusively confined to the wives and daughters of oldfriends, the former favouring him only with a calm maternal patronage,the daughters obviously regarding him as a sort of human curio oldenough to be entitled to a certain amount of respectful consideration,but not to be taken seriously--"like a mummy," Whitaker told himself,not without sympathy for the view-point of the younger generation.
But now, of a sudden, he had been granted a flash of insight into thetrue significance of companionship between a man and a woman who hadsomething in common aside from community in their generation. Not twohours altogether of such intercourse had been his, but it had beenenough to infuse all his consciousness with a vague but irkingdiscontent. He wanted more, and wanted it ardently; and what Whitakerdesired he generally set himself to gain with a single-heartedearnestness of purpose calculated to compass the end in view with theleast possible waste of time.
In this instance, however, he was handicapped to exasperation by thatconfounded ankle!
Besides, he couldn't in decency pursue the woman; she was entitled to acertain amount of privacy, of freedom from his attentions.
Furthermore, he had no right as yet to offer her attentions. It seemednecessary frequently to remind himself of that fact, in spite of thevile humour such reminders as a rule aroused.
He passed into one such now, scowling darkly in the face of anexquisite, flawless day.
One thing was settled, he assured himself: as soon as he was able to getabout with comfort, he would lose no time in hunting up his wife'sattorneys and finding out why they were slow about prosecuting her case.Failing satisfaction in that quarter--well, he would find some way tomake things move. It wasn't fair to him to keep him bound to the vows ofa farcical union. He was not prepared to submit to such injustice. Hewould, if needs must, hire detectives to find him his wife, that hemight see and in person urge upon her his equal right to release from anunnatural bondage!
He had lashed himself into a very respectable transport of resentfulrage before he realized what way his thoughts were leading him; but hecalmed down as quickly when, chancing to lift his eyes from theirabsorbed study of the planks composing the veranda floor, he discovereda motor-boat drawing in toward the landing-stage.
At once a smile of childlike serenity displaced the scowl. Instinctivelyhe gathered himself together to rise, but on reconsideration retainedhis seat, gallantry yielding to an intuitive sense of dramatic values; achair-bound invalid is a much more sympathetic object than a mandemonstrating a surprisingly quick recovery from an incapacitatingaccident.
Nevertheless, there seemed no objection to his returning a cheerfulflourish to the salute of a slender arm, brown and bare to the pointwhere a turned-back shirtwaist sleeve met a rounded elbow.
At precisely the proper distance from the dock, the motor ceased itspurring; the boat swept on, white water crisping beneath its stem,ripples widening fanlike from its flanks and sketching sweeping plumesof purple on the calm ultra-marine surface--its speed at first notperceptibly moderated. Gradually, then, it yielded to the passiveresistance of the waters, moving slower and more slow until at length itnosed the landing-stage with a touch well-nigh as gentle as a caress.
Poised lightly over the bows, the woman waited, her figure all in whitesharp-cut against the blue of sky and water, with an effect as vital asit was graceful. Then at the right instant leaping to the dock with theheadwarp, she made the little vessel fast with two deft half-hitchesround the out-most pile, and turning came swinging to dry land and upthe gentle slope to the veranda, ease and strength and joy of livinginherent in every flowing movement, matching well the bright comelinessof her countenance and the shining splendour of her friendly eyes.
No imaginable consideration, however selfish, could have kept Whitakerany longer in his chair.
"The most amiable person I know!" he cried, elated. "Greetings!"
She paused by the steps, looking up, a fascinating vision.
"No--please! I've only stopped for an instant. Do sit down."
"Shan't--until you do."
"But I really can't stop."
She ascended the steps and dropped coolly into a chair, laughing at herown lack of consistency. Whitaker resumed his seat.
"You're really able to stand without assistance?"
"I'm ashamed to admit it. Between you and me--a dead secret--there'snothing really the matter with me any more. Sum Fat's a famousphysician. I could run a race--only it's pleasanter to pretend Imustn't."
"Very well. Then I shan't waste any more sympathy on you."
"As a matter of fact, I can move only at the cost of excruciatingagony."
She considered him with a sober face and smiling eyes. "I don't believeyou. You're a fraud. Besides, I didn't come to see you at all; I came tofind out why Mr. Ember dares so to neglect me. Did you deliver myinvitation?"
"I did, unwillingly. He was desolated, but he couldn't accept--had torun back to town immediately after dinner."
"He's as great a fraud as you. But since he isn't here, I shall go."
She got up with a very evident intention of being as good as her word.Whitaker in despair sought wildly for an excuse to detain her.
"Please--I'm famished for human society. Have pity. Sit down. Tell mewhere you've been with the boat."
"Merely to the head of the bay to have the gasoline tanks filled. A mostboresome errand. They've no proper facilities for taking care ofmotor-boats. Imagine having to sit with your hands folded whilegar
rulous natives fill a sixty-gallon tank by hand."
"Expressions of profound sympathy. Tell me some more. See, I evenconsent not to talk about myself as an extra inducement--if you'll onlystay."
"No--really--unique though the prospect be! I left Elise and the cookalone, two poor defenceless women; the gardener is taking his weeklyday-off in the village. We won't see anything of him till morning,probably--when he'll show up very meek and damp about the head."
"Aren't you afraid?"
"I? Nonsense! I'm shamelessly able-bodied--and not afraid to pull atrigger, besides. Moreover, there aren't any dangerous characters inthis neighbourhood."
"Then I presume it's useless for me to offer my services as watch-dog?"
"Entirely so. And when I choose a protector, I shall pick out one soundof limb as well as wind."
"Snubbed," he said mournfully. "And me that lonesome.... Think of thelong, dull evening I've got to live through somehow."
"I have already thought of it. And being kind-hearted, it occurred to methat you might be one of those mean-spirited creatures who can enjoydouble-dummy."
"It's the only game I really care for with a deathless passion."
"Then, if I promise to come over this evening and play you a rubber ortwo--will you permit me to go home now?"
"On such terms I'll do anything you can possibly suggest," he declared,enchanted. "You mean it--honest Injun?"
"Cross my heart and hope to die--"
"But ... how will you get here? Not alone, through the woods! I can'tpermit that."
"Elise shall row me down the shore and then go back to keep cookcompany. Sum Fat can see me home--if you find it still necessary to keepup the invalid pose."
"I'm afraid," he laughed, "I shall call my own bluff.... Must you reallygo so soon?"
"Good afternoon," she returned demurely; and ran down the steps and offto her boat.
Smiling quietly to himself, Whitaker watched her cast the boat off, getunder way, and swing it out of sight behind the trees. Then his smilewavered and faded and gave place to a look of acute discontent.
He rose and limped indoors to ransack Ember's wardrobe for eveningclothes--which he failed, perhaps fortunately, to find.
He regarded with an overwhelming sense of desolation the tremendous aridwaste of time which must intervene before he dared expect her: a goodfour hours--no, four and a half, since she would in all likelihood dineat a sensible hour, say about eight o'clock. By half-past eight, then,he might begin to look for her; but, since she was indisputably no womanto cheapen herself, she would probably keep him waiting till nearlynine.
Colossal waste of time, impossible to contemplate withoutexacerbation...!
To make matters worse, Sum Fat innocently enough served Whitaker'sdinner promptly at six, under the misapprehension that a decentconsideration for his foot would induce the young man to seek his bedsomething earlier than usual.
Three mortal hours to fritter away in profitless anticipation ...
At seven Whitaker was merely nervous.
By eight he was unable to sit still.
Half an hour later the house was too small to contain him. He found hiscane and took to the veranda, but only to be driven from its shelter bya swarm of mosquitoes attracted by the illuminated windows. Not in theleast resentful, since his ankle was occasioning him no pain whatever,he strolled down toward the shore: not a bad idea at all--to be there towelcome her.
The night was loud and dark. The moon was not to rise for anotherhalf-hour, and since sundown the wind had come in from the southwest todissipate the immaculate day-long calm and set the waters and the treesin motion with its urgent, animating breath. Blowing at first fitfully,it was settling momentarily down into a steady, league-devouring stride,strong with the promise of greater strength to come.
Whitaker reflected: "If she doesn't hurry, she won't come by boat atall, for fear of a wetting."
He thought again: "And of course--I might've known--she won't start tillmoonrise, on account of the light."
And again, analyzing the soft, warm rush of air: "We'll have rain beforemorning."
He found himself at the end of the dock, tingling with impatience, butfinding some little consolation in the restless sweep of the windagainst his face and body. He stood peering up along the curve of theshore toward the other landing-stage. He could see little--a mereimpressionistic suggestion of the shore-line picked out with the dim,semi-phosphorescent glow of breaking wavelets. The night was musicalwith the clash of rushing waters, crisp and lively above the long,soughing drone of the wind in the trees. Eastward the barrier beach waslooming stark and black against a growing greenish pallor in the sky. Amile to the westward, down the shore, the landlocked lighthouse rearedits tower, so obscure in gloom that the lamp had an effect of hangingwithout support, like a dim yellow Japanese lantern afloat in mid-air.
Some minutes elapsed. The pallor of the east grew more marked. Whitakerfancied he could detect a figure moving on the Fiske dock.
Then, startled, he grew conscious of the thick drone of aheavily-powered motor boat near inshore. Turning quickly, he discoveredit almost at once: a black, vague shape not twenty yards from where hestood, showing neither bow nor side-lights: a stealthy and mysteriousapparition creeping toward the dock with something of the effect of ananimal about to spring.
And immediately he heard a man's voice from the boat, abrupt with anger:
"Not this place, you ass--the next."
"Shut up," another voice replied. "There's somebody on that dock."
At the same time the bows of the boat swung off and the shadow slippedaway to westward--toward the Fiske place.
A wondering apprehension of some nameless and desperate enterprise,somehow involving the woman who obsessed his thoughts, crawled inWhitaker's mind. The boat--running without cruising lights!--was seekingthe next landing-stage. Those in charge of it had certainly some reasonfor wishing to escape observation.
Automatically Whitaker turned back, let himself down to the beach, andbegan to pick his way toward the Fiske dock, half running despite hisstiff ankle and following a course at once more direct and moredifficult than the way through the woods. That last would have affordedhim sure footing, but he would have lost much time seeking and stickingto its meanderings, in the uncertain light. As it was, he had on onehand a low, concave wall of earth, on the other the wash of crispingwavelets; and between the two a yard-wide track with a treacheroussurface of wave-smoothed pebbles largely encumbered with heavybolster-like rolls of seaweed, springy and slippery, washed up by therecent gale.
But in the dark and formless alarm that possessed him, he did not stopto choose between the ways. He had no time. As it was, if there wereanything evil afoot, no earthly power could help him cover the distancein time to be of any aid. Indeed, he had not gone half the way before hepulled up with a thumping heart, startled beyond expression by a cry inthe night--a cry of wild appeal and protest thrown out violently intothe turbulent night, and abruptly arrested in full peal as if a hand hadclosed the mouth that uttered it.
And then ringing clear down the wind, a voice whose timbre wasunmistakably that of a woman: "_Aux secours! Aux secours!_"
Twice it cried out, and then was hushed as grimly as the firstincoherent scream. No need now to guess at what was towards: Whitakercould see it all as clearly as though he were already there; thepower-boat at the dock, two women attacked as they were on the point ofentering their rowboat, the cry of the mistress suddenly cut short byher assailant, the maid taking up the appeal, in her frightunconsciously reverting to her native tongue, in her turn being forciblysilenced....
All the while he was running, heedless of his injured foot--pitching,slipping, stumbling, leaping--somehow making progress.
By now the moon had lifted above the beach high enough to aid himsomewhat with its waxing light; and, looking ahead, he could distinguishdimly shapes about the dock and upon it that seemed to bear out his mostcruel fears. The power-boat was passably distinc
t, her white sideshowing plainly through the tempered darkness. Midway down the dock hemade out struggling figures--two of them, he judged: a man at closegrips with a frantic woman. And where the structure joined the land, asecond pair, again a man and a woman, strove and swayed....
And always the night grew brighter with the spectral glow of the moonand the mirroring waters.
For all his haste, he was too slow; he was still a fair thirty yardsaway when the struggle on the dock ended abruptly with the collapse ofthe woman; it was as if, he thought, her strength had failed all in aninstant--as if she had fainted. He saw the man catch her up in his arms,where she lay limp and unresisting, and with this burden step from thestage to the boat and disappear from sight beneath the coaming. Aninstant later he reappeared, standing at full height in the cockpit.Without warning his arm straightened out and a tongue of flame jettedfrom his hand; there was a report; in the same breath a bullet burieditself in the low earth bank on Whitaker's right. Heedless, he peltedon.
The shot seemed to signal the end of the other struggle at thelanding-stage. Scarcely had it rung out ere Whitaker saw the man lift afist and dash it brutally into the woman's face. Without a sound audibleat that distance she reeled and fell away; while the man turned, ranswiftly out to the end of the dock, cast off the headwarp and jumpedaboard the boat.
She began to sheer off as Whitaker set foot upon the stage. She wastwenty feet distant when he found himself both at its end and at the endof his resource. He was too late. Already he could hear the deeperresonance of the engine as the spark was advanced and the throttleopened. In another moment she would be heading away at full tilt.
Frantic with despair, he thrashed the air with impotent arms: a fairmark, his white garments shining bright against the dark background ofthe land. Aboard the moving boat an automatic fluttered, spitting tenshots in as many seconds. The thud and splash of bullets all round himbrought him to his senses. Choking with rage, he stumbled back to theland.
On the narrow beach, near the dock, a small flat-bottomed rowboat lay,its stern afloat, its bows aground--as it had been left by the womensurprised in the act of launching it. Jumping down, Whitaker put hisshoulder to the stem.
As he did so, the other woman roused, got unsteadily to her feet,screamed, then catching sight of him staggered to his side. It was--ashe had assumed--the maid, Elise.
"_M'sieur!_" she shrieked, thrusting a tragic face with bruised andblood-stained mouth close to his. "_Ah, m'sieur--madame--cescanailles-la--!_"
"Yes, I know," he said brusquely. "Get out of the way--don't hinder me!"
The boat was now all afloat. He jumped in, dropped upon the middlethwart, and fitted the oars in the rowlocks.
"But, m'sieur, what mean you to do?"
"Don't know yet," he panted--"follow--keep them in sight--"
The blades dipped; he bent his back to them; the rowboat shot away.
A glance over his shoulder showed him the boat of the marauders alreadywell away. She now wore running lights; the red lamp swung into view ashe glanced, like an obscene and sardonic eye. They were, then, makingeastwards. He wrought only the more lustily with the oars.
Happily the Fiske motor-boat swung at a mooring not a great distancefrom the shore. Surprisingly soon he had the small boat alongside.Dropping the oars, he rose, grasped the coaming and lifted himself intothe cockpit. Then scrambling hastily forward to the bows, he disengagedthe mooring hook and let it splash. As soon as this happened, theliberated _Trouble_ began to drift sluggishly shoreward, swingingbroadside to the wind.
Jumping back into the cockpit, Whitaker located the switch and closedthe battery circuit. An angry buzzing broke out beneath the engine-pithatch, but was almost instantly drowned out by the response of the motorto a single turn of the new-fangled starting-crank which Whitaker hadapproved on the previous morning.
He went at once to the wheel. Half a mile away the red light wasslipping swiftly eastward over silvered waters. He steadied the bowstoward it, listening to the regular and business-like _chug-chug_ of themotor with the concentrated intentness of a physician with an ear overthe heart of a patient. But the throbbing he heard was true if slow;already the boat was responding to the propeller, resisting the actionof wind and water, even beginning to surge heavily forward.
Hastily kicking the hatch cover out of the way, he bent over the openengine-pit, quickly solved the puzzle of the controlling levers,accelerated the ignition and opened the throttle wide. The motoranswered this manipulation with an instantaneous change of tune; thestaccato drumming of the slow speed merged into a long, incessant rumblelike the roll of a dozen muffled snare-drums. The _Trouble_ leaped outlike a live thing, settling to its course with the fleet precision of anarrow truly loosed.
With a brief exclamation of satisfaction, Whitaker went back to thewheel, shifted the ignition from batteries to magneto; and for the firsttime since he had appreciated the magnitude of the outrage found himselfwith time to think, to take stock of his position, to consider what hehad already accomplished and what he must henceforward hold himselfprepared to attempt. Up to that moment he had acted almost blindly,swayed by impulse as a tree by the wind, guided by unquestioninginstinct in every action. Now....
He had got the boat under way with what in retrospect appealed to him asamazing celerity, bearing in mind his unfamiliarity with its equipment.The other boat had a lead of little if any more than half a mile; or sohe gauged the distance that separated them, making due allowance for theillusion of the moon-smitten night. Whether that gap was to diminish orto widen would develop before many minutes had passed. The _Trouble_ wasmaking a fair pace: roughly reckoned, between fourteen and sixteen milesan hour. He suspected the other boat of having more power, but this didnot necessarily imply greater speed. At all events (he concluded) twentyminutes at the outside would see the end of the chase--however it was toend: the eastern head of the bay was not over five miles away; theycould not long hold to their present course without running aground.
He hazarded wild guesses as to their plans: of which the leastimplausible was that they were making for some out-of-the-way landing,intending there to transfer to a motor-car. At least, this wouldpresumably prove to be the case, if the outrage were what, at firstblush, it gave evidence of being: a kidnapping uncomplicated by anyfouler motive.... And what else could it be?... But who was he to say?What did he know of the woman, of her antecedents and circumstances?Nothing more than her name, that she had attracted him--as any handsomewoman might have--that she had been spied upon within his personalknowledge and had now been set upon and carried off by _force majeure_.
And knowing no more than this, he had without an instant's thought ofconsequences elected himself her champion! O headlong and infatuate!
Probably no more severe critic of his own chivalric foolishness ever sethimself to succour a damsel in distress. Withal he entertained not theshadow of a thought of drawing back. As long as the other boat remainedin sight; as long as the gasoline and his strength held out; as long asthe _Trouble_ held together and he retained the wit to guide her--solong was Whitaker determined to stick to the wake of the kidnappers.
A little more than halfway between their starting-point and the head ofthe bay, the leading boat swung sharply in toward the shore, then shotinto the mouth of a narrow indentation. Whitaker found that he wascatching up quickly, showing that speed had been slackened for thismanoeuvre. But the advantage was merely momentary, soon lost. The boatslipped out of sight between high banks. And he, imitating faithfullyits course, was himself compelled to throttle down the engine, lest herun aground.
For two or three minutes he could see nothing of the other. Then heemerged from a tortuous and constricted channel into a deep cut, perhapsfifty feet in width and spanned by a draw-bridge and a railroad trestle.At the farther end of this tide-gate canal connecting the Great West Baywith the Great Peconic, the leading power boat was visible, heading outat full speed. And by the time he had thrown the motor of the _Trouble_back int
o its full stride, the half-mile lead was fully reestablished,if not improved upon.
The tide was setting in through the canal--otherwise the gates had beenclosed--with a strength that taxed the _Trouble_ to surpass. It seemedan interminable time before the banks slipped behind and the boat pickedup her heels anew and swept out over the broad reaches of the Peconiclike a hound on the trail. The starboard light of the leader was slowlybecoming more and more distinct as she swung again to the eastward. Thatway, Whitaker figured, with his brows perplexed, lay Shelter Island,Greenport, Sag Harbor (names only in his understanding) and what else hecould not say. Here he found himself in strange waters, knowing no morethan that the chase seemed about to penetrate a tangled maze of islandsand distorted channels, in whose intricacies it should prove a matter offacility to lose a pursuer already well distanced.
Abandoning the forward wheel in favour of that at the side, near theengine pit, for a time he divided his attention between steering andtinkering with the motor, with the result that the _Trouble_ beganpresently to develop more speed. Slowly she crept up on the leader,until, with Robins Island abeam (though he knew it not by name) thedistance between them had been abridged by half. But more than that sheseemed unable to accomplish. He surmised shrewdly that the others,tardily observing his gain, had met it with an equalizing demand upontheir motor--that both boats were now running at the extreme of theirpower. The _Trouble_, at least, could do no better. To this he must beresigned.
Empty of all other craft, weird and desolate in moonlight, the LittlePeconic waters widened and then narrowed about the flying vessels. Shorelights watched them, now dim and far, now bright and near at hand.Shelter Island Sound received them, slapped their flanks encouraginglywith its racing waves, sped them with an ebbing tide that tore seawardsbetween constricted shores, carried them past high-wooded bluffs and lowwastes of sedge, past simple cottage and pretentious country home, pastbobbing buoys--nun and can and spar--and moored flotillas of smallpleasure craft, past Sag Harbor and past Cedar Island Light, deliveringthem at length into the lonelier wastes of Gardiner's Bay. Theirrelative positions were unchanged: still the _Trouble_ retained herhard-won advantage.
But it was little comfort that Whitaker derived from contemplation ofthis fact. He was beginning to be more definitely perplexed anddistressed. He had no watch with him, no means of ascertaining the timeeven roughly; but unquestionably they had been upwards of two hours ifnot more at full tilt, and now were braving wilder waters; and still hesaw no sign of anything resembling a termination of the adventure. Infact, they were leaving behind them every likely landing place.
"Damn it!" he grumbled. "What are they aiming at--Boston?"
Near the forward wheel a miniature binnacle housing a compass withphosphorescent card, advised him from time to time, as he consulted it,of the lay of their course. They were just then ploughing almost duenortheast over a broad expanse, beckoned on by the distant flicker of agas-buoy. But the information was less than worthless, and everyreasonable guess he might have made as to their next move would haveproved even more futile than merely idle; for when they had rounded thebuoy, instead of standing, as any reasonable beings might have beenexpected to, on to Fisher's Island or at a tangent north toward theConnecticut littoral, they swung off something south of east--a coursethat could lead them nowhere but to the immensities of the sea itself.
Whitaker's breath caught in his throat as he examined this startlingprospect. The Atlantic was something a trifle bigger than he hadbargained for. To dare its temper, with a southwester brewing (by everyweather sign he knew) in what was to all intents an open boat, since hewould never be able to leave the cockpit for an instant's shelter in thecabin in any sort of a seaway--!
He shook a dubious, vastly troubled head. But he held on grimly in theface of dire forebodings.
Once out from under the lee of Gardiner's Island, a heavier run of wavesbeset them, catching the boats almost squarely on the beam: fortunatelya sea of long, smooth, slow shouldering rollers, as yet not angry. Nowand again, for all that, one would favour the _Trouble_ with aquartering slap that sent a shower of spray aboard her to drenchWhitaker and swash noisily round the cockpit ere the self-bailingchannels could carry it off. He was quickly wet to the skin andshivering. The hour was past midnight, and the strong air whipping infrom the open sea had a bitter edge. His only consolation inhered in thereflection that he had companions in his misery: those who drove theleading boat could hardly escape what he must suffer; though he hopedand believed that the woman was shut below, warm and dry in the cabin.
Out over the dark waste to starboard a white light lifted, flashing. Fora while a red eye showed beneath it, staring unwinkingly with asteadfast and sardonic glare, then disappeared completely, leaving onlythe blinking white. Far ahead another light, fixed white, hung steadilyover the port counter, and so remained for over an hour.
Then most gradually the latter wore round upon the beam and droppedastern. Whitaker guessed at random, but none the less rightly, that theywere weathering Block Island to the south with a leeway of severalmiles. Indisputably the Atlantic held them in the hollow of itstremendous hand. The slow, eternal deep-sea swell was most perceptible:a ceaseless impulse of infinite power running through the pettier, ifmore threatening, drive of waves kicked up by the wind. Fortunately thecourse, shifting to northeast by east, presently took them out of theswinging trough of the sea. The rollers now led them on, an endlessherd, one after another falling sullenly behind as the two boats shotdown into their shallow intervals and began to creep slowly up over thelong gray backs of those that ran before.
It was after three in the morning, and, though Whitaker had no means ofknowing it, they were on the last and longest leg of the cruise. Theystill had moonlight, but it was more wan and ghastly and threatenedpresently to fail them altogether, blotted out by the thickeningweather. The wind was blowing with an insistent, unintermittent force ithad not before developed. A haze, vaguely opalescent, encircled thehorizon like a ghost of absinthe. The cold, formless, wavering dusk ofdawn in time lent it a sickly hue of gray together with a seeming moresubstantial. Swathed in its smothering folds, the moon faded to thesemblance of a plaque of dull silver, then vanished altogether. Byfour-thirty, when the twilight was moderately bright, Whitaker wasbarely able to distinguish the leading boat. The two seemed as ifsuspended, struggling like impaled insects, the one in the midst, theother near the edge, of a watery pit walled in by vapours.
He recognized in this phenomenon of the weather an exceptionallystriking variation of what his sea-going experience had taught him toterm a smoky sou'wester.
That hour found him on the verge of the admission that he was, as hewould have said, about all in: the limit of endurance nearly approached.He was half-dazed with fatigue; his wet skin crawled with goose-flesh;his flesh itself was cold as stone. In the pit of his stomach lurked anindefinite, sickening sensation of chilled emptiness. His throat wassore and parched, his limbs stiff and aching, his face crusted withstinging particles of salt, his eyes red, sore and smarting. If hisankle troubled him, he was not aware of it; it would need sharp agony topenetrate the aura of dull, interminable misery that benumbed hisconsciousness.
With all this, he tormented himself with worry lest the tanks run dry.Though they had been filled only the day before, he had no clear notionof the horse-power of the motor or its hourly consumption of gasoline;and the drain upon the supply could not have been anything butextraordinary. If it were to run out before they made a landing or safeanchorage, he would find himself in ticklish straits; but this troubledhim less than the fear that he might be obliged to give up the chase towhich he had stuck so long and with a pertinacity which somewhatsurprised even his own wonder.
And to give up now, when he had fought so far ... it was an intolerablethought. He protested against it with a vain, bitter violence void ofany personal feeling or any pride of purpose and endurance. It was hissolicitude for the woman alone that racked him. Whatever the enigmaticanim
us responsible for this outrage, it seemed most undeniable that nonebut men of the most desperate calibre would have undertaken it--men inwhose sight no crime would be abominable, however hideous. Tocontemplate her fate, if abandoned to their mercies...!
The end came just before dawn, with a swiftness that stunned thefaculties--as though one saw the naked wrath of God leap like lightningfrom the sky.
They were precisely as they had been, within a certain distance of oneanother, toiling on and ever on like strange misshapen spirits doomed torun an endless race. The harsh, shapeless light of imminent day alonemanufactured a colour of difference: Whitaker now was able to see as twodark shapes the men in the body of the leading boat. The woman was notvisible, but the doors to the cabin were closed, confirming his surmisethat she at least had been sheltered through the night. One of the menwas standing by the wheel, forward, staring ahead. The other occupied aseat in the cockpit, head and shoulders alone visible above the coaming.For the most part he seemed sunk in lethargy, head fallen forward, chinon chest; but now and then he looked up and back at the pursuing boat,his face a featureless patch of bleached pink.
Now suddenly the man at the wheel cried out something in a terriblevoice of fright, so high and vehement that it even carried back againstthe booming gale for Whitaker to hear. Simultaneously he put the wheelover, with all his might. The other jumped from his seat, only to bethrown back as the little vessel swung broadside to the sea, heelinguntil she lay almost on her beam ends. The next instant she ceased,incredibly, to move--hung motionless in that resistless surge, anamazing, stupefying spectacle. It seemed minutes before Whitaker couldforce his wits to comprehend that she had struck and lay transfixed uponsome submerged rock or reef.
A long, gray roller swept upon and over her, brimming her cockpit withfoaming water. As it passed he saw the half-drowned men release thecoamings, to which they had clung on involuntary impulse to escape beingswept away, scramble upon the cabin roof, and with one accord abandonthemselves to the will of the next wave to follow. As it broke over theboat and passed, he caught an instantaneous glimpse of their heads andarms bobbing and beating frantically as they whirled off through theyeasty welter.
But he saw this without pity or compassion. If he had been able to havehis will with them, he would have sunk both ten fathoms deep without aninstant's respite. His throat was choked with curses that welled up froma heart wrenched and raging at this discovery of cowardice unparalleled.
They had done what they could for themselves without even hesitating torelease the woman imprisoned in the cabin.