Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/134



O, the life at Resthaven could not even be enlivened by invented distractions, but aboard the Delphian invention was not needed to supply excitement. It was a stifling night when the stars seemed to have scorched holes through the heavy blanket of the sky. An ominous oily silence held the sea; the running riffle that flees before the storm sometimes wrinkled it momentarily and passed. Mark went on watch with those stars still burning his brain. Mechanically he went about his task, thrusting his hand here and there upon the great shining machinery with the precision that he had gained in these weeks. His long-nosed oil-can probed about like an animate thing, feeding the lubrication-cups.

"If anything's ever going to heat up, now's its time, if it has human feelings," he thought, 114