Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/249

Rh two more days he lay discreetly under bare poles, and then headed for the Celebes Sea.

Where the gunboat might be by now he had not the remotest idea, but the ocean is wide, and he knew there was as much chance of his running into the Petrel as there was of finding a needle in a bundle of hay. His course would take him back within a hundred miles or so of Tao Tao, and a queer smile played on his face at the thought of it. He had on board every man in his employment; and, besides, there were two kinky-haired refugees from Tao Tao. One of them had lost an eye. Both Isa and Baloo had a bitter grudge against the planter of Tao Tao, for did their backs not still bear traces of the flogging they had received under his orders?

Vasco Moniz was in the mood to attempt anything, but particularly would he like to square accounts with Trent and the big American sailor who had come between him and all his plans concerning Tao Tao. He lay smoking many cigarettes, with one eye on the sails and the other on the man at the wheel, but his thoughts were not of seamanship. One may as well be hanged for a sheep as a goat, and a dash of profit as well as the pleasure of revenge w r as possible in the project he was turning over in his mind. At last, with a wave of his arm, he summoned Isa to his side.

The diver grunted and an expression of wicked joy spread over his evil face as he listened to the