Page:Weird Tales volume 30 number 06.djvu/58

708 "Well, we're home again," I remarked as the train slid to a stop.

"Yes, grâce à Dieu, we have escaped," de Grandin answered piously.

"It did look pretty bad at times," I nodded. "Especially when that fellow at the window poised his knife, and those devilish flames began to flicker"

"Ah bah," he interrupted scornfully. "Those things? Pouf, they were not to be considered! I speak of something far more hideous we have escaped. That dreadful English cooking, that cuisine of the savage. That roast of mutton, that hell-brew they call coffee, that abominable apple tart!

"Come, let us take the fastest cab and hasten home. There a decent drink awaits us, and tonight in hell's despite I shall complete construction of the perfect bouillabaisse!"

little yawl clove the blue waters of the sunlit sea, its white sails taut with a strong wind. Steadily it crept eastward across the vast wastes of the Atlantic, toward the Azores, still hundreds of miles away, In the cockpit at the stern, David Russell stood over the wheel, his lean, brown, bareheaded figure bent forward, his smiling gray eyes watching his wife.

Christa Russell was earnestly coiling ropes on the deck forward. Now she finished and came back toward him, a slim, boyish little figure in white slacks and blue jersey. Her soft, dark eyes, always oddly serious beneath her childish forehead and smoothly brushed black hair, met her husband's and returned his smile.

"Happy, kid?" he asked, his arm going around her slender waist as she jumped down into the cockpit to his side.

She nodded, her uplifted eyes adoring. "It's the best honeymoon anyone ever had, David. Just you and me and the sea."

He grinned. "I felt a little guilty about dragging you on a risky cruise like this, but you've been the best sailing partner I ever had. And the only one who could really cook."

He added, "Speaking of cooking, suppose you get down in that galley and exercise your talents, gal. I'm hungry."

Christa said dismayedly, "Oh, I'd forgotten all about lunch. I'll only be a few minutes."

She disappeared hurriedly down the companionway. Left alone, David Russell drew a long breath of utter contentment. His gray eyes swept the horizon happily. Sunlight and sea, a good boat