At dinner that evening I sat down resolved to lead the conversation
around to Garvin’s new-born docility, but, face to face with Brack, I
admit that I feared to attempt it. I was no match for him. His
terrible eyes, I felt, would have read the thoughts in my mind try as
I might to hide them, and I smiled and replied as best I could to his
sallies, and wondered in vain over what was going on behind that
gross, smiling mask.
The weather grew suddenly rougher toward the end of the meal.
“That’s the tail of it,” said Wilson in reply to my question. “Now
we’re getting the blow that has been chasing the rough weather down
from the north, where it’s been a lot worse than we’ve been having.
It’ll kick up hard for a few hours. Ought to die down and clear off by
tomorrow morning.”
The smashing storm drove Brack and Wilson to their duties on deck.
Riordan went, too, presently, and while Chanler and Dr. Olson,
agreeing that the dining salon was the best place on a night like
this, ordered another bottle, I found an oilskin and sou’wester and
followed.
As I stepped out on deck I wished for a moment to be back in the warm,
lighted cabin. The wind had increased to what seemed to me a tornado,
and the night was so dark that only in the beam of the _Wanderer’s_
search-light could one see the tossing water.
The sea had changed with the rising of the wind, and in place of the
long, slow rollers, sharp, spiteful waves shot their crests high over
the yacht’s bridge, and with the driving rain which was falling made
the decks uncomfortable, even dangerous. I recoiled from the dark, the
wind and the rain.
A gust of wind and a slanting deck swept me off my feet and sent me
slithering on my knees, gasping for breath, into the scuppers. I grew
angry. My anger was with myself. I was timid, and I was weak; and, so,
moved probably by some inherited streak of stubbornness, I forced
myself to my feet, forced my face to meet the wind and rain without
flinching, and so forced myself, much against a portion of my will, to
remain outside, with the warmth and comfort of the cabin only a step
away.
The storm grew worse. A life-boat on the port side was torn loose from
a davit and swung noisily along the side. Through the brawl of the
storm Wilson’s voice rang out sternly, there was a rush of feet on the
deck and suddenly men were swinging the boat back to its place, making
it fast, while the wind and waves snatched at them hungrily. Then the
decks were empty again.
The wind strove to force me back to the cabin, and with a new
stubbornness I refused to go. It was boyish, it was silly, but the
harder the wind blew, the more the spray drenched me, the more
determined I was to remain. I began to glow with the struggle.
New and strange sensations came and went. I felt an inexplicable
desire to shout back at the storm. For the first time in years I was
thrilled by the impulse of a physical contest, and I fought my way to
the bow and stood spread-legged, leaning forward against the
wave-crests which drenched me. Then I went leisurely aft, hanging onto
the rail, denying the wind the right to hurry me. And in the noise and
darkness I all but walked squarely into Captain Brack and Riordan.
They were standing in the lee of the engineer’s cabin. I did not see
them, for I was moving by hand-holds along the cabin wall when, in a
lull of the storm, I heard their voices and stopped.
“You got a bad one, sir, when you picked Larson,” Riordan was saying.
“Larson?” repeated Brack, as if trying to place the name. “Oh, the
young hand from the Sound boat? What’s wrong with him?”
“He knows Madigan.”
“——!” said Brack. “Is he the only one?”
“Yes. I’ve sounded the others a second time to make sure. But Larson
knew Madigan in some little town up the Sound. What’s more he’s no
good to us. He’s ambitious and he’s working for a mate’s certificate,
got a good family, and he won’t keep his mouth shut. I know he won’t.”
Brack made a sound in his throat like a bear growling.
“Oh, yes he will,” he said. “I’ll have a talk with him. He’ll keep his
mouth shut when he understands there’s something in it for him. He’s
one of the lookouts tonight, isn’t he? All right. Tell Garvin I want
to see him in your cabin in half an hour.”
“Yes sir.”
A door slid open and shut as Riordan slipped back into his cabin, and
I heard Brack’s heavy breathing as he came around the corner toward
where I was hiding.
I retreated, swiftly and noiselessly, and slipped back into my
stateroom. All hope that Pierce’s interpretation of Brack’s
conversation with Garvin was wrong now had vanished. Brack was
plotting something, and Riordan was partner to it, whatever it was. I
did not sleep much that night.
In the morning I went in to breakfast early and found Wilson sitting
staring at a cup of black coffee which he had ordered. One glance at
the gravity of his lean, brown face and I knew that something was
wrong.
“What has happened, Mr. Wilson?” I asked nervously.