Page:Weird Tales Volume 10 Number 2 (1927-08).djvu/76

 it crawled a haggard and disheveled figure—Manton.

Stolid and deliberate as ever, calmly he surveyed the heaving expanse of tremendous seas; stared thoughtfully from the wild sea to the now calm blue sky, and growled.

"Another twenty-four hours and there won't be nothing but a swell on—it'll be soon enough to chance it." Then turning landward he gazed grimly at the work of the storm, and, as men of sociable temperament will when solitary and under the stress of emotion, again spoke aloud.

"If it wasn't for the lee of that boulder I'd be lying there too. Anyway the blow chased those bloody things to perdition out of it—guess they won't trouble me now, if I don't flag them."

The supposition was not unlikely, as these lightly framed monsters must have been driven far in the first blast that had leapt out of the darkness and screamed across the island. And with it had come ashore, bottom up, the little craft, straight to the grasp of Manton, who, foreseeing such a providential chance, was instantly again waist-deep in the swirling waters.

Lit by the continuous lightning, there was just time for a Samson such as Manton to run the craft ashore high and dry in a sheltered corner of the cove and sling the meager outfit alongside; luckily Haynes, in his insane terror, had not spared the time to ship a single article.

All that night, wet and cold to the bone, Manton had lain in the lee of a providential boulder, but, now that the boat and provender were regained, calm and stolidly hopeful.

The second dawn found him launching the frail shell, a task his great thews made light of. True, only a single scull had been regained, but with the seaman's handiness he had, the previous day, laboriously whittled and trimmed with his sheath-knife a very fair substitute from a fair-sized growth.

Sped by his powerful strokes, the craft took the water, and soon the island was receding into the speckless blue background.

Later he slackened his efforts, and holding no more than way on the craft as it rose and sank over the crests and valleys of the huge smooth swell, stared with scowling wrath at the evil spot where fate had smiled so fairly as though to hide the deadly malice in her heart.

"God!" he muttered. "To think that hell lies there—and Haynes is lying somewhere among the coral, fathoms deep! Poor guy, I guess he wasn't to blame—but his nerve broke. Poor guy! I ain't no judge and jury—and we with two thousand to rig us up anew!" he said mournfully, glancing at a small bundle tightly lashed under the stem seat.

"Well, so long, mate; you ain't to blame. So—long," he called gravely and even gently, then resumed his long, methodical stroke.