That night at midnight, when Lavelle relieved Chang at the steering oar,
the Chinaman told him that it was hopeless to go as they were going.
"This boat no can do. Go loo'ard all time. All same like crab--go
sideways."
Lavelle had observed this early in the afternoon when the wind had
sprung up from the northeast and he had laid a course to the eastward.
Such boats as this, lapstreaked and air-tanked, practically keelless and
without centerboard or leeboard, were never built for sailing and least
of all on the wind.
"See," said Chang, flashing an electric pocket torch which had been
found among the boat's outfit. "Look him now, master." The light was on
the boat compass. "Make him now eas' by sou'. One time turn all loun'.
'Nother time eas'sou'eas'--sou'eas' by eas'--fi' slix ploint off wind.
No good! All same dam sklare lig ship."
Lavelle ordered Chang to turn in and the serang handed him the Shanghai
woman's tiny emerald-studded watch--the one thing of value that
remained of all her years of trafficking. She had turned it over to
Lavelle to keep the boat's time. The Chinaman curled up obediently under
the lee gunwale, pausing as he sank into the darkness to inquire if the
"caplun's topside" still hurt. Lavelle told him that the pain had gone
out of his head completely and Chang grunted in satisfaction.
In the first fifteen minutes of his watch Lavelle realized the truth of
all that Chang had told him. It was impossible to keep the boat on an
easterly course. The leeway she made in only the light breeze that was
blowing was appalling. She was not making more than three knots an hour.
The breeze which had persisted out of the north since the afternoon he
knew for the first breath of the trades--although it was a degree or two
above their northern limit. With provisions for twenty days and only a
week's supply of water he had to admit to himself that he was courting
destruction to try to make the chain of islands--Midway, Oceana,
Gardner, and Laysan--stretching away to the northwest of the Hawaiian
group.
Of a sudden something which he had struggled all day to visualize came
to his mind's eye. He saw a pilot chart of the region as vividly as if
it were spread before him on a lighted table. It was here that an
offshoot of the Japan Current set to the westward at from twelve to
thirty knots a day!
The thought straightened him with a start. To the westward lay two
thousand miles of empty, unfrequented sea until one nearly fetched the
coast. To the northwest twelve hundred miles at the least, lay the lanes
of the liners--a bare chance there of salvation, if a ship sighted one.
But with the trades and current against such a helpless craft, there was
but one thing to do: take no chances. To the southwest, twelve or
thirteen hundred miles away, lay the Ratack Chain of the Marshall group,
with the Marianas impinging on its western axis. Under the drive of the
trades, sailing before the wind, the boat, with driving, should make
between one hundred and one hundred and twenty miles a day; and twelve
days of such sailing meant land underfoot and--life! His heart throbbed
at the thought. It meant life for her--his gold woman--and suddenly he
realized that all his thoughts were of Emily Granville.
With a skillful sweep of the oar he brought the boat round and put her
before the wind. By the flash of the electric torch he laid the course
southwest. The craft instantly did better and surprised him into
speaking aloud, as boats do surprise men:
"This is your best sailing point, old girl."
In the silence that followed he became conscious of somebody moving in
the boat. There was a low murmur of voices. It made him uneasy until he
located it finally in the space between the second and third thwarts
which he had assigned to the women. He had partitioned it off with a
steamer rug which Chang had taken away from Rowgowskii. A hand pushed
back a flap of the rug and Emily Granville crawled out and stood up
timidly.
Lavelle flashed the torch in the bottom of the boat and she came toward
him uncertainly. He became conscious for the first time of the poverty
of her dress as he saw her ankles gleaming in the light. She was not
wearing the long tan coat now. A golfing jacket and a short black skirt,
which it had covered during the day, composed her attire as she revealed
herself in the torch's gleam.
"Do you mind if--if I come out here with you?" she whispered timidly.
"Certainly not," he whispered back, moving further aft to make room for
her and sure that she must be able to hear the pounding throb of his
pulse.
"I have been awake for hours."
"You should make an effort--try to get all the sleep possible. It brings
strength and--forgetfulness, too."
"Not always, but--I came--I thought you should know that Mrs. Moore
seems very ill."
"There is something I can do for her?"
"I think--think not." There was a note of hesitancy in her voice and
Lavelle caught it.
"Is there nothing you can do, Miss Granville?"
"She is burning with a terrible fever."
"Water? Is that it?" he whispered very low.
"Yes, but she told me I was not to ask. She is very--plucky."
"And you were afraid to come to me? Afraid I would refuse?"
"Yes," she answered slowly. "But I am here and--and I did not ask. I
don't know why I came."
Without another word Lavelle flashed the torch on a breaker at his feet.
At a nod of his head she slipped down from the seat to the bottom of the
boat. He handed her a tin cup from the air-tank locker. Somebody stirred
forward and he snapped out the light until they were still. The spirit
of conspiracy made her crouch lower. She hardly breathed until he
turned on the light again.
The torch made her glorious head glow vividly. It transformed the thick
braids falling over her shoulders and across her bosom into bands of
filagreed gold. A mist of pity swept his vision.
"You take a drink; you are thirsty, too," he said, bending so low that
his lips nearly touched her head. She turned her face up to him quickly
and shook her head.
"It wouldn't--be fair."
"I will make it fair," he answered.
Impulsively, with a thirst which burned her throat--a thirst such as she
never dreamed she would know--she drank. It was only a sup that she
took, but in the instant she wet her lips she was ashamed of what this
man might think of her. She started up quickly, taking the hand he held
out to her.
"You have not done wrong," he whispered. She shuddered that he had
sensed her thought. "I will straighten this out. Say to Mrs. Moore that
I sent the water."
Turning to go forward, Emily paused with a start.
"See!" she exclaimed. "What is that?"
She pointed to where a light moved low along the dip of the southern
horizon. Lavelle recognized a steamer's masthead light at a glance. In
that instant it passed out of sight.
"Only a shooting star," he answered, for he would not add to her misery,
and she left him alone in the night, undreaming of the bitter thought
that was smiting him.
If he had put the boat on her present course an hour sooner he
undoubtedly would have crossed that vessel's track.