Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/88

76 "Miss Trent," he began, "Moniz isn't going to get the best of us. He's scored the first trick, and I expect it has tickled him to death. It's no use butting up against him single-handed, but I'm not going to lie down and call the deal off. Maybe your brother will turn up early in the morning, in which case there'll be something doing out there. Until he does come, though, Moniz has everything his own way. All we can do is to hope he won't find any pearls."

Throughout the forenoon he paced the beach restlessly, pausing now and then to look out in the direction of the reef. It was maddening to be so utterly impotent. Towards evening he was quick to notice a change in the direction of the wind. It had been coming in light breezes from the south all day, but now it was due southeast, and increasing in strength. Moreover the sky was overcast, and the night promised to be a dark one. As the wind steadily grew stronger an idea came to him. He was in the frame of mind to take bigger chances than he might have done usually. By midnight, he reasoned, everybody on the schooner would be sound asleep except, possibly, one or two on watch. The schooner was lying in such a position that if her anchor cable were severed she would drift straight on to the long reef before a southeast wind, and with a sharp knife he could cut through her cable in three or four minutes.