Francis Lynde

“ Volney, the sailing master of the yacht, had been lost when the Waikiki struck and the first boatload of the panic-stricken went down, and from what Alison was able to tell me I gathered that there was no one among the survivors who could make even an intelligent guess as to the longitude and latitude of our island.
“Brill 'shot the sun' yesterday and he says our latitude is between nineteen and twenty degrees, north, which would put us well out of the track of the steamer lines,” I said. “Beyond that it is all guesswork. We are just somewhere in the Caribbean.” ”

“ At this I remembered another thing that Alison had said; that the Waikiki was still above water on an offshore rock or shoal. There were doubtless plenty of provisions on board the yacht, out of reach for the boatless crew on the other side of the island but not out of reach for us. The Vesta's whaleboat was still firmly lashed in its chocks on top of our deck house, having come through the hurricane without being carried away and without damage. If the sea should remain calm, what was to prevent our sailing around the island and looting the wreck in our own behalf? ”

“ Brill hadn't slept the clock around. I saw his red head and heavy shoulders coming up out of the companionway and heard his astonished whistle when his eyes lighted upon the women. Alison heard it, too, and started up like a scared wild creature. By that time I had run aft and was on the job.
“The least said is the soonest mended, Brill,” I snapped at him. “I'm the captain of this ship and this lady and her maid are my guests. So long as you treat them as my guests you'll live. When you forget you'll die. Go up forward and Dorgan will tell you what happened in the night.” ”

“ One never knows what experience in life is going to turn up later as the one thing critically needful. Once on a preliminary survey for a mining railroad in the Idaho mountains I had numbered in my gang an old hunter and woodsman who had taught me the art—for it is no less than an art—of deer stalking. ”

“ Pedro and José had gotten the whaleboat over the side and around under the stem of the schooner and Brill had rigged a spare staysail boom for a stub mast with a lug sail. It seemed only the part of prudence to take what was left of our provisions, so I told José to empty the galley locker into the boat and to add a breaker of water drawn from the Vesta's fresh-water butt. ”

“ With so much assumed it was not to be supposed that Jeffreys would quit simply because Alison and her maid had disappeared in the night. He would know that the two women could not get very far away and with the men of his party to help he would speedily comb the island for them. The only thing that might delay the search would be the lack of food; but this lack was going to be our own too, very shortly. True, there were coconuts on the trees and shellfish in the lagoon; Alison had told me that a scanty supply of both had been gathered by the Waikiki survivors during the day ”

“ I had rearranged the blankets and now I told the Swedish girl to lie down and have her nap out. When she was asleep, which was in less than half a minute after she had stretched herself under the lee of the rail, I answered Alison's question by asking one of my own:
“Tell me; is Jeffreys as madly in love with you as all this cave-man stuff would seem to indicate?”
“Honestly, Dick, I don't think he is; not even the kind of love that such a brute as he is is capable of. I imagine there is something bigger and deeper at the bottom of all this. Whatever else he is, Wickham is not a fool. ”

“ I went on. “You are his sheet anchor—his hope of salvation —and he isn't going to lose you without a struggle. What sort of a crew did you have in the Waikiki? Scoundrels, I should say, from what they did when the yacht struck.”
“Those that were saved were no better. You'd think they were hired ruffians from the way they act.”
“They probably are, and Jeffreys picked them for his purpose. This island is small and he'll comb it in his search for you and Hedda. When he finds this schooner and recognizes her he'll know what's happened and that you are with me. That will mean war. ”