"It is a holy hatred, Madeleine. The love of money, and what money will
buy, has proved the undoing of--but I don't need to preach to you.
Let's talk about something pleasant. Have you ever seen a finer night
than this?"
"A fine night, and ideal conditions. In a way, we've almost left the
strugglesome, toiling, avariciously dollar-chasing old world behind us,
haven't we?"
"You say 'almost'; why not quite?"
She made a little gesture inclusive of the _Andromeda_ as a whole.
"Too many reminders of the money and what it will buy. We'd need to be
shipwrecked upon some uninhabited island to make the isolation perfect.
As that isn't going to happen, I think I'll make the most of what we
have and go to bed. Good-night." And she left me.
My pipe had gone out and I refilled it. While I had called the night
fine, it was measurably warm. With the yacht at anchor there was little
breeze, and what little there was came from sea. My stateroom was on
the port side, and as the _Andromeda_ was lying with that side toward
the land, I was reluctant to leave the open air for the closer quarters
between decks.
It was while I was smoking a second pipe in comfortable solitude that
I fell asleep. The lapse into unconsciousness seemed only momentary,
but when I picked up the pipe which had fallen into my lap there was no
fire in it and the bowl had grown cold. Also, in the interval, long or
short, the yacht's lights had been switched off and the after-deck was
shrouded in the soft darkness of the tropical night. From somewhere in
the under-depths came a faint clatter of tools to tell me that Haskell
and his men were still at work on the disabled shaft, but apart from
this the silence was unbroken.
Descending the cabin stair I groped my way to the door of my room,
which was the farthest forward on the port side, and I remembered
afterward that I thought it odd that the saloon lights were all off.
On all other occasions when I had been up late I had found a single
incandescent left on; one, at least.
Inside of the luxurious little sleeping-room that had been assigned
to me I felt for the wall switch and snapped it. Nothing happened.
I snapped it back and on again, and still nothing happened. Down in
the machinery hold I could hear the fluttering murmur of the small
auxiliary engine which ran the lighting dynamo, and since it was
running, there seemed to be no reason why the lights shouldn't come on.
But they wouldn't.
While I was speculating upon this curious failure of the lighting
system and wondering if it were worth while to go below to ask Haskell
what was the matter with the cabin circuit, sounds like the subdued
splashing of oars cautiously handled came floating in through the
open port. Since I judged it must be midnight or worse, it was only
natural that I should want to know why a boat should be coming off to
the _Andromeda_ after all the yacht's people save myself were abed and
asleep. Not being able to see anything from the stateroom port-light,
I hurried back through the darkened saloon and up to the deck. From
the rail on the shoreward side I could make out the dim shape of the
approaching craft. As nearly as I could determine, it was a large
row-boat with at least four men in it; at all events there were four
oars. I could see and count the phosphorescent swirls as the blades
were dipped.
It was evident at once that the boat was coming off to the _Andromeda_.
We were anchored well out in the harbor, and there was nothing beyond
us; nothing but the harbor mouth and the open sea. Visions of banditry
began to flit through my brain. When I had been last in the Caribbean,
some three months earlier, Nicaragua had been in the throes of one of
its perennial guerrilla wars. A rich man's yacht, offering dazzling
loot, might easily be a tempting bait to any lawless band happening to
be within striking distance.
While I was straining my eyes to get a better sight of the approaching
boat, and deliberating as to whether or not I hadn't better call Van
Dyck or the sailing-master, a voice at my elbow said: "So you are up
late, too, are you, Dick?" and I faced about with a prickling shock of
surprise to find Bonteck standing beside me.
"I must be getting weak-kneed and nervous," I said. "I thought I was
the only person awake at this end of things, and you gave me a start.
What boat is that?"
"A shore boat, I suppose," he answered evenly. "After I found that we
were likely to be delayed until to-morrow, I told Goff he might give
some of his men shore leave for a few hours. They were asking for it."
"But that isn't one of the _Andromeda's_ boats," I objected.
"No; they didn't take one of our boats; they hailed a harbor craft
of some sort. I fancied they'd make a night of it, but it seems they
didn't."
"What time is it now?" I asked.
"Two bells in the middle watch--otherwise one o'clock."
While we were talking, the boat was pulled up to the port bows of
the yacht and a number of men, some half-dozen or more, came aboard.
We could see dark figures climbing the rail, but since the yacht was
painted white, and Van Dyck and I were both wearing yachting flannels,
I suppose we were invisible to the group at the bows. In a minute or so
the boat pushed off, cut a clumsy half circle in turning, and headed
for the shore, and there was just enough of my foolish nervousness left
to suggest that the oarsmen were still trying not to make any more
noise than they could help. But the second thought made me smile at the
remains of the nervousness. What more natural than that our returning
shore-leave men had cautioned the boatmen against making a racket and
waking everybody on the _Andromeda_?
"I take it you've been down with Haskell," I said to Bonteck, after the
shore boat had become a vanishing blur in the darkness.
"Yes. He is as sore as a boil about that propeller shaft. Says he never
had anything like that happen to him before, and that it reflects upon
him as chief. He tried to tell me how unaccountable it was, but I
hardly know enough about mechanical things to keep me from spoiling."
"It is rather unaccountable," I offered. "I was down a few hours ago
and crawled into the shaft tunnel to have a look at it. Ordinarily,
when a bearing as large as that begins to run dry, it gives warning
some little time beforehand. But Quinby, Haskell's second, says he put
his hand on it less than an hour before it began to complain, and it
was perfectly cool."
"Oh, well," was Van Dyck's easy-going rejoinder, "such things are all
in a life-time. We're in luck that it didn't 'seize,' as Haskell says,
and twist itself off. You're yawning as if you were sleepy. Better turn
in and get whatever this hot night will let you have. Good-night."
That was the end of the day for me, save that when I went to my
stateroom and once more tried the wall switch the lights came on as
usual.
The next morning, after a breakfast so early that I sat alone at the
long table in the white-lacquered saloon, I went below and offered my
services as those of a highly educated jack-of-all-trades to Haskell.
"By golly, you're saving my life, Mr. Preble," said our chief mechanic,
whose eyes were looking like two burned holes in a blanket. "If you'll
boss the job and let me get about a couple of hours in the hay----"
"Sure," I agreed; and crawling into the extra suit of overclothes, I
proceeded to do it, becoming so mechanically interested in a short time
that I not only neglected to call Haskell when his two hours were up,
but also let the luncheon hour go by unheeded.
By keeping faithfully at it, our gang got the recalcitrant thrust
bearing in shape by the middle of the afternoon, the fires were broken
out and the blowers put on, and by four o'clock the _Andromeda_ was
once more under way and pointing her sharp nose for the open water. As
I came up out of the engine-hold to make a bolt for a bath and clean
clothes, I saw that Van Dyck had the wheel and was apparently heading
the ship straight out toward the Mosquito Cays. As the trim little
vessel--which was little only by comparison with the great liners of
which it was a copy in the small--went shearing its way at full speed
through the heaving ground swell with the westering sun fairly astern,
I could not help wondering what our next port of call would be, and if
it would be a disabled piece of machinery which would drive us into it.