The _Willi-Waw_ was tearing through the water with a bone in her teeth,
for the breath of the passing squall was still strong. The blacks were
swinging up the big mainsail, which had been lowered on the run when the
puff was at its height. Jacobsen, superintending the operation, ordered
them to throw the halyards down on deck and stand by, then went for'ard
on the lee-bow and joined Griffiths. Both men stared with wide-strained
eyes at the blank wall of darkness through which they were flying, their
ears tense for the sound of surf on the invisible shore. It was by this
sound that they were for the moment steering.
The wind fell lighter, the scud of clouds thinned and broke, and in the
dim glimmer of starlight loomed the jungle-clad coast. Ahead, and well
on the lee-bow, appeared a jagged rock-point. Both men strained to it.
“Amboy Point,” Griffiths announced. “Plenty of water close up. Take the
wheel, Jacobsen, till we set a course. Get a move on!”
Running aft, barefooted and barelegged, the rainwater dripping from his
scant clothing, the mate displaced the black at the wheel.
“How's she heading?” Griffiths called.
“South-a-half-west!”
“Let her come up south-by-west! Got it?”
“Right on it!”
Griffiths considered the changed relation of Amboy Point to the
_Willi-Waw_'s course.
“And a-half-west!” he cried.
“And a-half-west!” came the answer. “Right on it!”
“Steady! That'll do!”
“Steady she is!” Jacobsen turned the wheel over to the savage. “You
steer good fella, savve?” he warned. “No good fella, I knock your damn
black head off.”
Again he went for'ard and joined the other, and again the cloud-scud
thickened, the star-glimmer vanished, and the wind rose and screamed in
another squall.
“Watch that mainsail!” Griffiths yelled in the mate's ear, at the same
time studying the ketch's behaviour.
Over she pressed, and lee-rail under, while he measured the weight of
the wind and quested its easement. The tepid sea-water, with here and
there tiny globules of phosphorescence, washed about his ankles and
knees. The wind screamed a higher note, and every shroud and stay
sharply chorused an answer as the _Willi-Waw_ pressed farther over and
down.
“Down mainsail!” Griffiths yelled, springing to the peak-halyards,
thrusting away the black who held on, and casting off the turn.
Jacobsen, at the throat-halyards, was performing the like office. The
big sail rattled down, and the blacks, with shouts and yells, threw
themselves on the battling canvas. The mate, finding one skulking in the
darkness, flung his bunched knuckles into the creature's face and drove
him to his work.
The squall held at its high pitch, and under her small canvas the
_Willi-Waw_ still foamed along. Again the two men stood for'ard and
vainly watched in the horizontal drive of rain.
“We're all right,” Griffiths said. “This rain won't last. We can hold
this course till we pick up the lights. Anchor in thirteen fathoms.
You'd better overhaul forty-five on a night like this. After that get
the gaskets on the mainsail. We won't need it.”
Half an hour afterward his weary eyes were rewarded by a glimpse of two
lights.
“There they are, Jacobsen. I'll take the wheel. Run down the
fore-staysail and stand by to let go. Make the niggers jump.”
Aft, the spokes of the wheel in his hands, Griffiths held the course
till the two lights came in line, when he abruptly altered and headed
directly in for them. He heard the tumble and roar of the surf, but
decided it was farther away--as it should be, at Gabera.
He heard the frightened cry of the mate, and was grinding the wheel down
with all his might, when the _Willi-Waw_ struck. At the same instant
her mainmast crashed over the bow. Five wild minutes followed. All hands
held on while the hull upheaved and smashed down on the brittle
coral and the warm seas swept over them. Grinding and crunching, the
_Willi-Waw_ worked itself clear over the shoal patch and came solidly to
rest in the comparatively smooth and shallow channel beyond.
Griffiths sat down on the edge of the cabin, head bowed on chest, in
silent wrath and bitterness. Once he lifted his face to glare at the two
white lights, one above the other and perfectly in line.
“There they are,” he said. “And this isn't Gabera. Then what the hell is
it?”
Though the surf still roared and across the shoal flung its spray
and upper wash over them, the wind died down and the stars came out.
Shoreward came the sound of oars.
“What have you had?--an earthquake?” Griffiths called out. “The bottom's
all changed. I've anchored here a hundred times in thirteen fathoms. Is
that you, Wilson?”
A whaleboat came alongside, and a man climbed over the rail. In the
faint light Griffiths found an automatic Colt's thrust into his face,
and, looking up, saw David Grief.
“No, you never anchored here before,” Grief laughed. “Gabera's just
around the point, where I'll be as soon as I've collected that little
sum of twelve hundred pounds. We won't bother for the receipt. I've your
note here, and I'll just return it.”
“You did this!” Griffiths cried, springing to his feet in a sudden gust
of rage. “You faked those leading lights! You've wrecked me, and by--”
“Steady! Steady!” Grief's voice was cool and menacing. “I'll trouble you
for that twelve hundred, please.”
To Griffiths, a vast impotence seemed to descend upon him. He was
overwhelmed by a profound disgust--disgust for the sunlands and the
sun-sickness, for the futility of all his endeavour, for this blue-eyed,
golden-tinted, superior man who defeated him on all his ways.
“Jacobsen,” he said, “will you open the cash-box and pay this--this
bloodsucker--twelve hundred pounds?”