"There was that matter of the deck-calking, the bronze rudder-irons, the overhauling of the engine, the new spinnaker boom, the new davits, and the repairs to the whale-boat.You 0Kd the shipyard bill.It was four thousand one hundred and twenty-two francs.By the regular shipyard charges it ought not to have been a centime over twenty-five hundred francs-""If you take the word of those alongshore sharks against mine--' the other began thickly.
"Save yourself the trouble of further lying," Duncan went on coldly."I looked it up.I got Flaubin before the Governor himself, and the old rascal confessed to sixteen hundred overcharge.Said you'd stuck him up for it.Twelve hundred went to you, and his share was four hundred and the job.Don't interrupt.I've got his affidavit below.Then was when I would have put you ashore, except for the cloud you were under.You had to have this one chance or go clean to hell.I gave you the chance.And what have you got to say about it?""What did the Governor say?" Captain Dettmar demanded truculently.
"Which governor?"
"Of California.Did he lie to you like all the rest?""I'll tell you what he said.He said that you had been convicted on circumstantial evidence; that was why you had got life imprisonment instead of hanging; that you had always stoutly maintained your innocence; that you were the black sheep of the Maryland Dettmars; that they moved heaven and earth for your pardon; that your prison conduct was most exemplary; that he was prosecuting attorney at the time you were convicted; that after you had served seven years he yielded to your family's plea and pardoned you; and that in his own mind existed a doubt that you had killed McSweeny."There was a pause, during which Duncan went on studying the rising squall, while Captain Dettmar's face worked terribly.
"Well, the Governor was wrong," he announced, with a short laugh."I did kill McSweeny.I did get the watchman drunk that night.I beat McSweeny to death in his bunk.I used the iron belaying pin that appeared in the evidence.He never had a chance.I beat him to a jelly.Do you want the details?"Duncan looked at him in the curious way one looks at any monstrosity, but made no reply.
"Oh, I'm not afraid to tell you," Captain Dettmar blustered on.
"There are no witnesses.Besides, I am a free man now.I am pardoned, and by God they can never put me back in that hole again.I broke McSweeny's jaw with the first blow.He was lying on his back asleep.He said, 'My God, Jim! My God!' It was funny to see his broken jaw wabble as he said it.Then Ismashed him...I say, do you want the rest of the details?""Is that all you have to say?" was the answer.
"Isn't it enough?" Captain Dettmar retorted.
"It is enough."
"What are you going to do about it?"
"Put you ashore at Attu-Attu."
"And in the meantime?"
"In the meantime..." Duncan paused.An increase of weight in the wind rippled his hair.The stars overhead vanished, and the Samoset swung four points off her course in the careless steersman's hands."In the meantime throw your halyards down on deck and look to your wheel.I'll call the men."The next moment the squall burst upon them.Captain Dettmar, springing aft, lifted the coiled mainsail halyards from their pins and threw them, ready to run, on the deck.The three islanders swarmed from the tiny forecastle, two of them leaping to the halyards and holding by a single turn, while the third fastened down the engineroom, companion and swung the ventilators around.Below, Lee Goom and Toyama were lowering skylight covers and screwing up deadeyes.Duncan pulled shut the cover of the companion scuttle, and held on, waiting, the first drops of rain pelting his face, while the Samoset leaped violently ahead, at the same time heeling first to starboard then to port as the gusty pressures caught her winged-out sails.
All waited.But there was no need to lower away on the run.The power went out of the wind, and the tropic rain poured a deluge over everything.Then it was, the danger past, and as the Kanakas began to coil the halyards back on the pins, that Boyd Duncan went below.
"All right," he called in cheerily to his wife."Only a puff.""And Captain Dettmar?" she queried.
"Has been drinking, that is all.I shall get rid of him at Attu-Attu."But before Duncan climbed into his bunk, he strapped around himself, against the skin and under his pajama coat, a heavy automatic pistol.
He fell asleep almost immediately, for his was the gift of perfect relaxation.He did things tensely, in the way savages do, but the instant the need passed he relaxed, mind and body.
So it was that he slept, while the rain still poured on deck and the yacht plunged and rolled in the brief, sharp sea caused by the squall.
He awoke with a feeling of suffocation and heaviness.The electric fans had stopped, and the air was thick and stifling.
Mentally cursing all Lorenzos and storage batteries, he heard his wife moving in the adjoining stateroom and pass out into the main cabin.Evidently heading for the fresher air on deck, he thought, and decided it was a good example to imitate.
Putting on his slippers and tucking a pillow and a blanket under his arm, he followed her.As he was about to emerge from the companionway, the ship's clock in the cabin began to strike and he stopped to listen.Four bells sounded.It was two in the morning.From without came the creaking of the gaff-jaw against the mast.The Samoset rolled and righted on a sea, and in the light breeze her canvas gave forth a hollow thrum.
He was just putting his foot out on the damp deck when he heard his wife scream.It was a startled frightened scream that ended in a splash overside.He leaped out and ran aft.In the dim starlight he could make out her head and shoulders disappearing astern in the lazy wake.
"What was it?" Captain Dettmar, who was at the wheel, asked.
"Mrs.Duncan," was Duncan's reply, as he tore the life-buoy from its hook and flung it aft."Jibe over to starboard and come up on the wind!" he commanded.