章节正文
then to port as the gusty pressures caught her winged-out
sails.
All waited. But there was no need to lower away on the run. The
power went out of the wind, and the tropic rain poured a deluge
over everything. Then it was, the danger past, and as the
Kanakas began to coil the halyards back on the pins, that Boyd
Duncan went below.
"All right," he called in cheerily to his wife. "Only a puff."
"And Captain Dettmar?" she queried.
"Has been drinking, that is all. I shall get rid of him at
Attu-Attu."
But before Duncan climbed into his bunk, he strapped around
himself, against the skin and under his pajama coat, a heavy
automatic pistol.
He fell asleep almost immediately, for his was the gift of
perfect relaxation. He did things tensely, in the way savages
do, but the instant the need passed he relaxed, mind and body.
So it was that he slept, while the rain still poured on deck
and the yacht plunged and rolled in the brief, sharp sea caused
by the squall.
He awoke with a feeling of suffocation and heaviness. The
electric fans had stopped, and the air was thick and stifling.
Mentally cursing all Lorenzos and storage batteries, he heard
his wife moving in the adjoining stateroom and pass out into
the main cabin. Evidently heading for the fresher air on deck,
he thought, and decided it was a good example to imitate.
Putting on his slippers and tucking a pillow and a blanket
under his arm, he followed her. As he was about to emerge from
the companionway, the ship's clock in the cabin began to strike
and he stopped to listen. Four bells sounded. It was two in the
morning. From without came the creaking of the gaff-jaw against
the mast. The Samoset rolled and righted on a sea, and in the
light breeze her canvas gave forth a hollow thrum.
He was just putting his foot out on the damp deck when he heard
his wife scream. It was a startled frightened scream that ended
in a splash overside. He leaped out and ran aft. In the dim
starlight he could make out her head and shoulders disappearing
astern in the lazy wake.
"What was it?" Captain Dettmar, who was at the wheel, asked.
"Mrs. Duncan," was Duncan's reply, as he tore the life-buoy
from its hook and flung it aft. "Jibe over to starboard and
come up on the wind!" he commanded.
And then Boyd Duncan made a mistake. He dived overboard.
When he came up, he glimpsed the blue-light on the buoy, which
had ignited automatically when it struck the water. He swam for
it, and found Minnie had reached it first.
"Hello," he said. "Just trying to keep cool?"
"Oh, Boyd!" was her answer, and one wet hand reached out and
touched his.
The blue light, through deterioration or damage, flickered out.
As they lifted on the smooth crest of a wave, Duncan turned to
look where the Samoset made a vague blur in the darkness. No
lights showed, but there was noise of confusion. He could hear
Captain Dettmar's shouting above the cries of the others.
"I must say he's taking his time," Duncan grumbled. "Why
doesn't he jibe? There she goes now."
They could hear the rattle of the boom tackle blocks as the
sail was eased across.
"That was the mainsail," he muttered. "Jibed to port when I
told him starboard."
Again they lifted on a wave, and again and again, ere they
could make out the distant green of the Samoset's starboard
light. But instead of remaining stationary, in token that the
yacht was coming toward them, it began moving across their
field of vision. Duncan swore.
"What's the lubber holding over there for!" he demanded. "He's
got his compass. He knows our bearing."
But the green light, which was all they could see, and which
they could see only when they were on top of a wave, moved
steadily away from them, withal it was working up to windward,
and grew dim and dimmer. Duncan called out loudly and
repeatedly, and each time, in the intervals, they could hear,
very faintly, the voice of Captain Dettmar shouting orders.
"How can he hear me with such a racket?" Duncan complained.
"He's doing it so the crew won't hear you," was Minnie's
answer.
There was something in the quiet way she said it that caught
her husband's attention.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that he is not trying to pick us up," she went on in
the same composed voice. "He threw me overboard."
"You are not making a mistake?"
"How could I? I was at the main rigging, looking to see if any
more rain threatened. He must have left the wheel and crept
behind me. I was holding on to a stay with one hand. He gripped
my hand free from behind and threw me over. It's too bad you
didn't know, or else you would have staid aboard."
Duncan groaned, but said nothing for several minutes. The green
light changed the direction of its course.
"She's gone about," he announced. "You are right. He's
deliberately working around us and to windward. Up wind they
can never hear me. But here goes."
He called at minute intervals for a long time. The green light
disappeared, being replaced by the red, showing that the yacht
had gone about again.
"Minnie," he said finally, "it pains me to tell you, but you
married a fool. Only a fool would have gone overboard as I
did."
"What chance have we of being picked up . . . by some other
vessel, I mean?" she asked.
"About one in ten thousand, or ten thousand million. Not a
steamer route nor trade route crosses this stretch of ocean.
And there aren't any whalers knocking about the South Seas.
There might be a stray trading schoonerrunning across from
Tutuwanga. But I happen to know that island is visited only
once a year. A chance in a million is ours."
"And we'll play that chance," she rejoined stoutly.
"You ARE a joy!" His hand lifted hers to his lips. "And Aunt
Elizabeth always wondered what I saw in you. Of course we'll
play that chance. And we'll win it, too. To happen otherwise
would be unthinkable. Here goes."
He slipped the heavy pistol from his belt and let it sink into
the sea. The belt, however, he retained.
"Now you get inside the buoy and get some sleep. Duck under."
She ducked obediently, and came up inside the floating circle.
He fastened the straps for her, then, with the pistol belt,
buckled himself across one shoulder to the outside of the buoy.
"We're good for all day to-morrow," he said. "Thank God the
water's warm. It won't be a hardship for the first twenty-hour
hours, anyway. And if we're not picked up by nightfall, we've
just got to hang on for another day, that's all."
For half an hour they maintained silence, Duncan, his head
resting on the arm that was on the buoy, seemed asleep.
"Boyd?" Minnie said softly.
"Thought you were asleep," he growled.
"Boyd, if we don't come through this--"
"Stow that!" he broke in ungallantly. "Of course we're coming
through. There is isn't a doubt of it. Somewhere on this ocean
is a ship that's heading right for us. You wait and see. Just
the same I wish my brain were equipped with wireless. Now I'm
going to sleep, if you don't."
But for once, sleep baffled him. An hour later he heard Minnie
stir and knew she was awake.
"Say, do you know what I've been thinking!" she asked.
"No; what?"
"That I'll wish you a Merry Christmas."
"By George, I never thought of it. Of course it's Christmas
Day. We'll have many more of them, too. And do you know what
I've been thinking? What a confounded shame we're done out of
our Christmas dinner. Wait till I lay hands on Dettmar. I'll
take it out of him. And it won't be with an iron belaying pin
either, Just two bunches of naked knuckles, that's all."
Despite his facetiousness, Boyd Duncan had little hope. He knew
well enough the meaning of one chance in a million, and was
calmly certain that his wife and he had entered upon their last
few living hours--hours that were inevitably bound to be black
and terrible with tragedy.
The tropic sun rose in a cloudless sky. Nothing was to be seen.
The Samoset was beyond the sea-rim. As the sun rose higher,
Duncan ripped his pajama trousers in halves and fashioned them
into two rude turbans. Soaked in sea-water they offset the
heat-rays.
"When I think of that dinner, I'm really angry," he complained,
as he noted an anxious expression threatening to set on his
wife's face. "And I want you to be with me when I settle with
Dettmar. I've always been opposed to women witnessing scenes of
blood, but this is different. It will be a beating."
"I hope I don't break my knuckles on him," he added, after a
pause.
Midday came and went, and they floated on, the center of a
narrow sea-circle. A gentle breath of the dying trade-wind
fanned them, and they rose and fell monotonously on the smooth
swells of a perfect summer sea. Once, a gunie spied them, and
for half an hour circled about them with majestic sweeps. And,
once, a huge rayfish, measuring a score of feet across the
tips, passed within a few yards.
By sunset, Minnie began to rave, softly, babblingly, like a
child. Duncan's face grew haggard as he watched and listened,
while in his mind he revolved plans of how best to end the
hours of agony that were. coining. And, so planning, as they
rose on a larger swell than usual, he swept the circle of the
sea with his eyes, and saw, what made him cry out.
"Minnie!" She did not answer, and he shouted her name again in
her ear, with all the voice he could command. Her eyes opened,
in them fluttered commingled consciousness and delirium. He
slapped her hands and wrists till the sting of the blows roused
her.
"There she is, the chance in a million!" he cried.
"A steamer at that, heading straight for us! By George, it's a
cruiser! I have it!- the Annapolis, returning with those
astronomers from Tutuwanga.
. . . . . .
United States Consul Lingford was a fussy, elderly gentleman,
and in the two years of his service at Attu-Attu had never
encountered so unprecedented a case as that laid before him by
Boyd Duncan. The latter, with his wife, had been landed there
by the Annapolis, which had promptly gone on with its cargo of
astronomers to Fiji.
"It was cold-blooded, deliberate attempt to murder," said
Consul Lingford. "The law shall take its course. I don't know
how precisely to deal with this Captain Dettmar, but if he
comes to Attu-Attu, depend upon it he shall be dealt with,
he--ah--shall be dealt with. In the meantime, I shall read up
the law. And now, won't you and your good lady stop for lunch!"
As Duncan accepted the invitation, Minnie, who had been
glancing out of the window at the harbor, suddenly leaned
forward and touched her husband's arm. He followed her gaze,
and saw the Samoset, flag at half mast, rounding up and
dropping anchor scarcely a hundred yards away.
"There's my boat now," Duncan said to the Consul. "And there's
the launch over the side, and Captain Dettmar dropping into it.
sails.
All waited. But there was no need to lower away on the run. The
power went out of the wind, and the tropic rain poured a deluge
over everything. Then it was, the danger past, and as the
Kanakas began to coil the halyards back on the pins, that Boyd
Duncan went below.
"All right," he called in cheerily to his wife. "Only a puff."
"And Captain Dettmar?" she queried.
"Has been drinking, that is all. I shall get rid of him at
Attu-Attu."
But before Duncan climbed into his bunk, he strapped around
himself, against the skin and under his pajama coat, a heavy
automatic pistol.
He fell asleep almost immediately, for his was the gift of
perfect relaxation. He did things tensely, in the way savages
do, but the instant the need passed he relaxed, mind and body.
So it was that he slept, while the rain still poured on deck
and the yacht plunged and rolled in the brief, sharp sea caused
by the squall.
He awoke with a feeling of suffocation and heaviness. The
electric fans had stopped, and the air was thick and stifling.
Mentally cursing all Lorenzos and storage batteries, he heard
his wife moving in the adjoining stateroom and pass out into
the main cabin. Evidently heading for the fresher air on deck,
he thought, and decided it was a good example to imitate.
Putting on his slippers and tucking a pillow and a blanket
under his arm, he followed her. As he was about to emerge from
the companionway, the ship's clock in the cabin began to strike
and he stopped to listen. Four bells sounded. It was two in the
morning. From without came the creaking of the gaff-jaw against
the mast. The Samoset rolled and righted on a sea, and in the
light breeze her canvas gave forth a hollow thrum.
He was just putting his foot out on the damp deck when he heard
his wife scream. It was a startled frightened scream that ended
in a splash overside. He leaped out and ran aft. In the dim
starlight he could make out her head and shoulders disappearing
astern in the lazy wake.
"What was it?" Captain Dettmar, who was at the wheel, asked.
"Mrs. Duncan," was Duncan's reply, as he tore the life-buoy
from its hook and flung it aft. "Jibe over to starboard and
come up on the wind!" he commanded.
And then Boyd Duncan made a mistake. He dived overboard.
When he came up, he glimpsed the blue-light on the buoy, which
had ignited automatically when it struck the water. He swam for
it, and found Minnie had reached it first.
"Hello," he said. "Just trying to keep cool?"
"Oh, Boyd!" was her answer, and one wet hand reached out and
touched his.
The blue light, through deterioration or damage, flickered out.
As they lifted on the smooth crest of a wave, Duncan turned to
look where the Samoset made a vague blur in the darkness. No
lights showed, but there was noise of confusion. He could hear
Captain Dettmar's shouting above the cries of the others.
"I must say he's taking his time," Duncan grumbled. "Why
doesn't he jibe? There she goes now."
They could hear the rattle of the boom tackle blocks as the
sail was eased across.
"That was the mainsail," he muttered. "Jibed to port when I
told him starboard."
Again they lifted on a wave, and again and again, ere they
could make out the distant green of the Samoset's starboard
light. But instead of remaining stationary, in token that the
yacht was coming toward them, it began moving across their
field of vision. Duncan swore.
"What's the lubber holding over there for!" he demanded. "He's
got his compass. He knows our bearing."
But the green light, which was all they could see, and which
they could see only when they were on top of a wave, moved
steadily away from them, withal it was working up to windward,
and grew dim and dimmer. Duncan called out loudly and
repeatedly, and each time, in the intervals, they could hear,
very faintly, the voice of Captain Dettmar shouting orders.
"How can he hear me with such a racket?" Duncan complained.
"He's doing it so the crew won't hear you," was Minnie's
answer.
There was something in the quiet way she said it that caught
her husband's attention.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that he is not trying to pick us up," she went on in
the same composed voice. "He threw me overboard."
"You are not making a mistake?"
"How could I? I was at the main rigging, looking to see if any
more rain threatened. He must have left the wheel and crept
behind me. I was holding on to a stay with one hand. He gripped
my hand free from behind and threw me over. It's too bad you
didn't know, or else you would have staid aboard."
Duncan groaned, but said nothing for several minutes. The green
light changed the direction of its course.
"She's gone about," he announced. "You are right. He's
deliberately working around us and to windward. Up wind they
can never hear me. But here goes."
He called at minute intervals for a long time. The green light
disappeared, being replaced by the red, showing that the yacht
had gone about again.
"Minnie," he said finally, "it pains me to tell you, but you
married a fool. Only a fool would have gone overboard as I
did."
"What chance have we of being picked up . . . by some other
vessel, I mean?" she asked.
"About one in ten thousand, or ten thousand million. Not a
steamer route nor trade route crosses this stretch of ocean.
And there aren't any whalers knocking about the South Seas.
There might be a stray trading schoonerrunning across from
Tutuwanga. But I happen to know that island is visited only
once a year. A chance in a million is ours."
"And we'll play that chance," she rejoined stoutly.
"You ARE a joy!" His hand lifted hers to his lips. "And Aunt
Elizabeth always wondered what I saw in you. Of course we'll
play that chance. And we'll win it, too. To happen otherwise
would be unthinkable. Here goes."
He slipped the heavy pistol from his belt and let it sink into
the sea. The belt, however, he retained.
"Now you get inside the buoy and get some sleep. Duck under."
She ducked obediently, and came up inside the floating circle.
He fastened the straps for her, then, with the pistol belt,
buckled himself across one shoulder to the outside of the buoy.
"We're good for all day to-morrow," he said. "Thank God the
water's warm. It won't be a hardship for the first twenty-hour
hours, anyway. And if we're not picked up by nightfall, we've
just got to hang on for another day, that's all."
For half an hour they maintained silence, Duncan, his head
resting on the arm that was on the buoy, seemed asleep.
"Boyd?" Minnie said softly.
"Thought you were asleep," he growled.
"Boyd, if we don't come through this--"
"Stow that!" he broke in ungallantly. "Of course we're coming
through. There is isn't a doubt of it. Somewhere on this ocean
is a ship that's heading right for us. You wait and see. Just
the same I wish my brain were equipped with wireless. Now I'm
going to sleep, if you don't."
But for once, sleep baffled him. An hour later he heard Minnie
stir and knew she was awake.
"Say, do you know what I've been thinking!" she asked.
"No; what?"
"That I'll wish you a Merry Christmas."
"By George, I never thought of it. Of course it's Christmas
Day. We'll have many more of them, too. And do you know what
I've been thinking? What a confounded shame we're done out of
our Christmas dinner. Wait till I lay hands on Dettmar. I'll
take it out of him. And it won't be with an iron belaying pin
either, Just two bunches of naked knuckles, that's all."
Despite his facetiousness, Boyd Duncan had little hope. He knew
well enough the meaning of one chance in a million, and was
calmly certain that his wife and he had entered upon their last
few living hours--hours that were inevitably bound to be black
and terrible with tragedy.
The tropic sun rose in a cloudless sky. Nothing was to be seen.
The Samoset was beyond the sea-rim. As the sun rose higher,
Duncan ripped his pajama trousers in halves and fashioned them
into two rude turbans. Soaked in sea-water they offset the
heat-rays.
"When I think of that dinner, I'm really angry," he complained,
as he noted an anxious expression threatening to set on his
wife's face. "And I want you to be with me when I settle with
Dettmar. I've always been opposed to women witnessing scenes of
blood, but this is different. It will be a beating."
"I hope I don't break my knuckles on him," he added, after a
pause.
Midday came and went, and they floated on, the center of a
narrow sea-circle. A gentle breath of the dying trade-wind
fanned them, and they rose and fell monotonously on the smooth
swells of a perfect summer sea. Once, a gunie spied them, and
for half an hour circled about them with majestic sweeps. And,
once, a huge rayfish, measuring a score of feet across the
tips, passed within a few yards.
By sunset, Minnie began to rave, softly, babblingly, like a
child. Duncan's face grew haggard as he watched and listened,
while in his mind he revolved plans of how best to end the
hours of agony that were. coining. And, so planning, as they
rose on a larger swell than usual, he swept the circle of the
sea with his eyes, and saw, what made him cry out.
"Minnie!" She did not answer, and he shouted her name again in
her ear, with all the voice he could command. Her eyes opened,
in them fluttered commingled consciousness and delirium. He
slapped her hands and wrists till the sting of the blows roused
her.
"There she is, the chance in a million!" he cried.
"A steamer at that, heading straight for us! By George, it's a
cruiser! I have it!- the Annapolis, returning with those
astronomers from Tutuwanga.
. . . . . .
United States Consul Lingford was a fussy, elderly gentleman,
and in the two years of his service at Attu-Attu had never
encountered so unprecedented a case as that laid before him by
Boyd Duncan. The latter, with his wife, had been landed there
by the Annapolis, which had promptly gone on with its cargo of
astronomers to Fiji.
"It was cold-blooded, deliberate attempt to murder," said
Consul Lingford. "The law shall take its course. I don't know
how precisely to deal with this Captain Dettmar, but if he
comes to Attu-Attu, depend upon it he shall be dealt with,
he--ah--shall be dealt with. In the meantime, I shall read up
the law. And now, won't you and your good lady stop for lunch!"
As Duncan accepted the invitation, Minnie, who had been
glancing out of the window at the harbor, suddenly leaned
forward and touched her husband's arm. He followed her gaze,
and saw the Samoset, flag at half mast, rounding up and
dropping anchor scarcely a hundred yards away.
"There's my boat now," Duncan said to the Consul. "And there's
the launch over the side, and Captain Dettmar dropping into it.
- instant [´instənt]
a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词) - evidently [´evidəntli] ad.明显地 (初中英语单词)
- emerge [i´mə:dʒ] vi.出现；显露；暴露 (初中英语单词)
- breeze [bri:z] n.微风；不费力的事 (初中英语单词)
- canvas [´kænvəs] n.帆布；油画(布) (初中英语单词)
- scream [skri:m] v.&n.尖叫(声) (初中英语单词)
- splash [splæʃ] v.&n.溅水声；涉水而进 (初中英语单词)
- confusion [kən´fju:ʒən] n.混乱(状态)；骚乱 (初中英语单词)
- rattle [´rætl] n.嘎吱声 (初中英语单词)
- vision [´viʒən] n.视觉；想象力；幻影 (初中英语单词)
- compass [´kʌmpəs] n.指南针；圆规 (初中英语单词)
- working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- pistol [´pistl] n.手枪 vt.用手枪射击 (初中英语单词)
- trousers [´trauzəz] n.裤子，长裤 (初中英语单词)
- anxious [´æŋkʃəs] a.担忧的；渴望的 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- sunset [´sʌnset] n.日落；晚霞 (初中英语单词)
- softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
- circle [´sə:kəl] n.圆圈 v.环绕；盘旋 (初中英语单词)
- steamer [´sti:mə] n.汽船；轮船；蒸笼 (初中英语单词)
- promptly [´prɔmptli] ad.敏捷地；即时地 (初中英语单词)
- meantime [´mi:ntaim] n.&ad.其间；同时 (初中英语单词)
- invitation [,invi´teiʃən] n.邀请；请帖；吸引 (初中英语单词)
- anchor [´æŋkə] n.锚 v.抛锚 (初中英语单词)
- storage [´stɔ:ridʒ] n.贮存；存储器 (高中英语单词)
- decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
- tackle [´tækəl] n.用具；装置 vt.处理 (高中英语单词)
- faintly [´feintli] ad.微弱地，软弱无力的 (高中英语单词)
- schooner [´sku:nə] n.纵帆船 (高中英语单词)
- hardship [´hɑ:dʃip] n.受苦，吃苦；苦难 (高中英语单词)
- majestic [mə´dʒestik] a.雄伟的；崇高的 (高中英语单词)
- consciousness [´kɔnʃəsnis] n.意识；觉悟；知觉 (高中英语单词)
- consul [´kɔnsəl] n.领事；执政官 (高中英语单词)
- deliberate [di´libəreit] a.慎重的；故意的 (高中英语单词)
- precisely [pri´saisli] ad.精确地；刻板地 (高中英语单词)
- launch [lɔ:ntʃ] vt.发动 n.发射；汽艇 (高中英语单词)
- tropic [´trɔpik] n.热带地区；回归线 (英语四级单词)
- cheerily [´tʃiərili] ad. 高兴地；愉快地 (英语四级单词)
- automatically [ɔ:tə´mætikli] ad.自动地；无意识地 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- stationary [´steiʃənəri, -neri] a.固定的；稳定的 (英语四级单词)
- withal [wi´ðɔ:l] ad.加之；同样；然而 (英语四级单词)
- composed [kəm´pəuzd] a.镇静自若的 (英语四级单词)
- overboard [´əuvəbɔ:d] ad.向船外；到水中 (英语四级单词)
- inevitably [in´evitəbli] ad.不可避免地；必然地 (英语四级单词)
- haggard [´hægəd] a.憔悴的 (英语四级单词)
- elderly [´eldəli] a. 较老的，年长的 (英语四级单词)
- heaviness [´hevinis] n.重；重量 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- nightfall [´nait,fɔ:l] n.黄昏；傍晚 (英语六级单词)
- offset [´ɔ:fset] n.&vt.抵销；补偿 (英语六级单词)
- unprecedented [ʌn´presidentid] a.空前的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
京公网安备 11011202003401号
