Angel Island

"Say, let's cut out this business of going, over and over it," said

Ralph Addington with a sudden burst of irritability. "I guess I could

give up the ship's cat in exchange for a girl or two." Addington's face

was livid; a muscular contraction kept pulling his lips away from his

white teeth; he had the look of a man who grins satanically at regular

intervals.

By a titanic mental effort, the others connected this explosion with

Billy Fairfax's last remark. It was the first expression of an emotion

so small as ill-humor. It was, moreover, the first excursion out of the

beaten path of their egotisms. It cleared the atmosphere a little of

that murky cloud of horror which blurred the sunlight. Three of the

other four men - Honey Smith, Frank Merrill, Pete Murphy - actually

turned and looked at Ralph Addington. Perhaps that movement served to

break the hideous, hypnotic spell of the sea.

"Right-o!" Honey Smith agreed weakly. It was audible in his voice, the

effort to talk sanely of sane things, and in the slang of every day.

"Addington's on. Let's can it! Here we are and here we're likely to stay

for a few days. In the meantime we've got to live. How are we going to

pull it off?"

Everybody considered his brief harangue; for an instant, it looked as

though this consideration was taking them all back into aimless

meditation. Then, "That's right," Billy Fairfax took it up heroically.

"Say, Merrill," he added in almost a conversational tone, "what are our

chances? I mean how soon do we get off?"

This was the first question anybody had asked. It added its

infinitesimal weight to the wave of normality which was settling over

them all. Everybody visibly concentrated, listening for the answer.

It came after an instant, although Frank Merrill palpably pulled himself

together to attack the problem. "I was talking that matter over with

Miner just yesterday," he said. "Miner said God, I wonder where he is

now - and a dependent blind mother in Nebraska."

"Cut that out," Honey Smith ordered crisply.

"We - we - were trying to figure our chances in case of a wreck," Frank

Merrill continued slowly. "You see, we're out of the beaten path - way

out. Those days of drifting cooked our goose. You can never tell, of

course, what will happen in the Pacific where there are so many tramp

craft. On the other hand - " he paused and hesitated. It was evident,

now that he had something to expound, that Merrill had himself almost

under command, that his hesitation arose from another cause. "Well,

we're all men. I guess it's up to me to tell you the truth. The sooner

you all know the worst, the sooner you'll pull yourselves together. I

shouldn't be surprised if we didn't see a ship for several weeks -

perhaps months."