Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/201

 ocean, so much distance to swallow them up," he explained, indeterminately feeling that the longer he could hold her there the more firmly the tie of their old companionship would be re-established. "Look at this map, for instance, with all these islands that seem so terribly close. In the Bahamas alone there are three dozen good-sized islands, and over six hundred cays, and nearly twenty-five hundred rocks of one kind or another. You'd imagine, to look at them on the map here, that you'd hardly get a ship through without bumping into one of them. But when you're down here actually cruising among them, going days without a glimpse of land, you realise how far apart they actually lie. And it's the same with ships. It's possible we may not get another call all the way across the Caribbean."

"That means the Princeton won't be at Puerto Locombia?"

"Not unless I can pick her up."

"Then it's hopeless!"

"I can't say the case is hopeless," parried McKinnon. "But the chances are against us. All we can do is wait and be ready. Sometimes, on clear nights like these, we can make wireless carry a surprising distance."

"There must be somebody—some ship!" persisted the girl, as she sank into the chair again.