Page:Vance--The trey o hearts.djvu/103

Rh Vainly straining his vision against the blank pallor of the encompassing fog, Alan wondered, worried, dreaded. …

At irregular intervals, starting from proccupation, he would manipulate the brass pull on the wheel-box, provoking the horn's stuttering blasts of protest. It seemed improbable that any of the schooner's former crew could fail to recognize that weirdly singular whoop, a sound like nothing else that Alan could recall.

Only the coldest comfort was to be extracted from the reflection that, even with the aid of that fog- signal, hunting a lost schooner in those mist-masked waters was a task like that traditional one of the needle and the haystack. Alan's life of late seemed simply one endless tissue of wild improbabilities. So long as his luck held, the least likely thing was always to be considered the one thing most certain to come to pass.

And the exhaust of that restless motor-boat was never for an instant still: it echoed an incessant strumming from the surface of the waters as from some gigantic sounding-board.