第32章 BUNCHES OF KNUCKLES(4)

And then Boyd Duncan made a mistake.He dived overboard.

When he came up, he glimpsed the blue-light on the buoy, which had ignited automatically when it struck the water.He swam for it, and found Minnie had reached it first.

"Hello," he said."Just trying to keep cool?""Oh, Boyd!" was her answer, and one wet hand reached out and touched his.

The blue light, through deterioration or damage, flickered out.

As they lifted on the smooth crest of a wave, Duncan turned to look where the Samoset made a vague blur in the darkness.No lights showed, but there was noise of confusion.He could hear Captain Dettmar's shouting above the cries of the others.

"I must say he's taking his time," Duncan grumbled."Why doesn't he jibe? There she goes now."They could hear the rattle of the boom tackle blocks as the sail was eased across.

"That was the mainsail," he muttered."Jibed to port when Itold him starboard."

Again they lifted on a wave, and again and again, ere they could make out the distant green of the Samoset's starboard light.But instead of remaining stationary, in token that the yacht was coming toward them, it began moving across their field of vision.Duncan swore.

"What's the lubber holding over there for!" he demanded."He's got his compass.He knows our bearing."But the green light, which was all they could see, and which they could see only when they were on top of a wave, moved steadily away from them, withal it was working up to windward, and grew dim and dimmer.Duncan called out loudly and repeatedly, and each time, in the intervals, they could hear, very faintly, the voice of Captain Dettmar shouting orders.

"How can he hear me with such a racket?" Duncan complained.

"He's doing it so the crew won't hear you," was Minnie's answer.

There was something in the quiet way she said it that caught her husband's attention.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that he is not trying to pick us up," she went on in the same composed voice."He threw me overboard.""You are not making a mistake?"

"How could I? I was at the main rigging, looking to see if any more rain threatened.He must have left the wheel and crept behind me.I was holding on to a stay with one hand.He gripped my hand free from behind and threw me over.It's too bad you didn't know, or else you would have staid aboard."Duncan groaned, but said nothing for several minutes.The green light changed the direction of its course.

"She's gone about," he announced."You are right.He's deliberately working around us and to windward.Up wind they can never hear me.But here goes."He called at minute intervals for a long time.The green light disappeared, being replaced by the red, showing that the yacht had gone about again.

"Minnie," he said finally, "it pains me to tell you, but you married a fool.Only a fool would have gone overboard as Idid."

"What chance have we of being picked up...by some other vessel, I mean?" she asked.

"About one in ten thousand, or ten thousand million.Not a steamer route nor trade route crosses this stretch of ocean.

And there aren't any whalers knocking about the South Seas.

There might be a stray trading schooner running across from Tutuwanga.But I happen to know that island is visited only once a year.A chance in a million is ours.""And we'll play that chance," she rejoined stoutly.

"You ARE a joy!" His hand lifted hers to his lips."And Aunt Elizabeth always wondered what I saw in you.Of course we'll play that chance.And we'll win it, too.To happen otherwise would be unthinkable.Here goes."He slipped the heavy pistol from his belt and let it sink into the sea.The belt, however, he retained.

"Now you get inside the buoy and get some sleep.Duck under."She ducked obediently, and came up inside the floating circle.

He fastened the straps for her, then, with the pistol belt, buckled himself across one shoulder to the outside of the buoy.

"We're good for all day to-morrow," he said."Thank God the water's warm.It won't be a hardship for the first twenty-hour hours, anyway.And if we're not picked up by nightfall, we've just got to hang on for another day, that's all."For half an hour they maintained silence, Duncan, his head resting on the arm that was on the buoy, seemed asleep.

"Boyd?" Minnie said softly.

"Thought you were asleep," he growled.

"Boyd, if we don't come through this--"

"Stow that!" he broke in ungallantly."Of course we're coming through.There is isn't a doubt of it.Somewhere on this ocean is a ship that's heading right for us.You wait and see.Just the same I wish my brain were equipped with wireless.Now I'm going to sleep, if you don't."But for once, sleep baffled him.An hour later he heard Minnie stir and knew she was awake.

"Say, do you know what I've been thinking!" she asked.

"No; what?"

"That I'll wish you a Merry Christmas."

"By George, I never thought of it.Of course it's Christmas Day.We'll have many more of them, too.And do you know what I've been thinking? What a confounded shame we're done out of our Christmas dinner.Wait till I lay hands on Dettmar.I'll take it out of him.And it won't be with an iron belaying pin either, Just two bunches of naked knuckles, that's all."Despite his facetiousness, Boyd Duncan had little hope.He knew well enough the meaning of one chance in a million, and was calmly certain that his wife and he had entered upon their last few living hours--hours that were inevitably bound to be black and terrible with tragedy.

The tropic sun rose in a cloudless sky.Nothing was to be seen.

The Samoset was beyond the sea-rim.As the sun rose higher, Duncan ripped his pajama trousers in halves and fashioned them into two rude turbans.Soaked in sea-water they offset the heat-rays.