DRIFTING
Skippy nosed the motor boat toward the Hook. He had no thought of
anything save that he was angry and hurt and wanted to feel the fresh,
salt breeze blow over his burning face. He felt that he must think over
this new and humiliating status in which Marty Skinner had so cruelly
placed him, and he wanted to think of it where no one could see the
unhappiness that it caused him.
He hadn’t the heart to turn back toward the Basin and home. Home! He
frowned at the word, for it seemed that the _Minnie M. Baxter_ and all
that it represented could bring him nothing now but recurring thoughts
of the hated Skinner. All that the man had said had left its mark on the
sensitive boy’s mind and for the first time in his life he felt a bitter
hatred toward a fellow being.
That Marty Skinner, old Josiah Flint’s right-hand man, should call his
father a rogue, was hardly to be endured. But if it were so, he reasoned
in a calmer moment, then all the more reason for the blame to fall on
the dead Josiah. Hadn’t Old Flint himself been the worst rogue of all?
He was tempted to return and shout these thoughts so that all aboard the
_Apollyon_ might hear. He wanted to tell them what Toby had said about
Josiah Flint making the despised Brown’s Basin possible because of his
selfish, unscrupulous dealings.
But, boy-like, Skippy’s anger was soon reduced to a smoldering memory
and his father’s imminent incarceration was a thing that had to be
faced. Just now he was forced to think of his own present situation, for
a significant sputtering from the motor gave warning that he was about
to have trouble.
He had not his father’s knack for adjusting the rebellious motor, and so
he decided to turn the boat about and make for the quieter waters of the
bay. But just then the motor stalled and despite his earnest efforts, it
refused to respond.
Skippy looked about him anxiously and saw that he had already been
carried an alarming distance. Dusk was rapidly settling, hastened by the
deepening haze and in a few moments the tide and undertow had swept him
out of sight of all the anchored craft clustered about the _Apollyon_.
He looked hopefully toward the Hook but saw that it was useless to try
and reach it even with the one oar that the little boat had in reserve.
The tide was against him.
After a quick glance about, he hunted around among some neglected tools
lying at his feet and picked out the searchlight. But that, too, refused
to respond; the battery was dead. Then he looked for some matches only
to meet with disheartening disappointment.
He got to his knees after that and worked furiously at the cold motor,
squinting at his hopeless task in the near-darkness. The boom of thunder
could be heard from out at sea, and with the swiftly passing minutes the
storm came nearer and nearer until it broke directly overhead.
Lightning flashed across the drifting boat and Skippy dodged under the
bow. There was something terrifying about the elements when one was
alone and drifting steadily toward the sea in an open boat.
After a momentary lull, he crept out, not a little ashamed of his
cowardice. He looked about, trying hard not to look or feel panicky
despite the fact that he could see nothing of the Hook or anything else.
Darkness and high, shadowy waves upon which the little boat bobbed were
all that met his frightened gaze. Then a damp, cold wind began to blow.
He crouched down in the bottom of the boat with a feeling of dull
despair. Rain pattered into an old rusty bait can that lay at his feet
and he edged his shivering body closer under the bow. Curiously enough,
he was quite calm now and the thought that his situation was dangerous
did not enter his mind.
Skippy-like, he was thinking only that he was terribly hungry and more
than anything else he wanted to eat.