accession of strength in this crisis of her life. She put her
arms up and felt his hand on her face. And then, giving way to an
obscure and primitive impulse, she buried her teeth in his wrist. And
for a long while they remained there, two undisciplined hearts, voyaging
through a perilous darkness together.

CHAPTER XIV

Mr. Spokesly, looking down from the bridge at the up-turned and
uncompromising face of Joseph Plouff, frowned.

"What does he say?" he repeated uneasily.

"He says keep the course."

"You gave him the note?"

"No, he didn't open the door. He just said, to keep the course. I said
'You mean, don't alter it, Captinne?' and he said, 'No.'"

Plouff handed up the note Mr. Spokesly had given him, and the puzzled
chief officer took it and opened it, as though he had forgotten or was
uncertain of its contents. But before he read it afresh, he took a look
round. This told him nothing for he was entirely lost in a white fog
that rolled and swirled in slow undulating billows athwart the ship's
bows. For four hours he had been going through this and the captain had
not made his appearance on the bridge. Each time had come up the same
message, to keep the course. And at last Mr. Spokesly had written a
little note. He had torn a page out of the scrap-log and written these
words:

TO CAPTAIN RANNIE

SIR,

We have run our distance over this course. Please give bearer your
orders. Weather very thick.

R. SPOKESLY. Mate.

And he hadn't even opened the door. It was this singular seclusion which
caused Mr. Spokesly so much anxiety. Fog, and the captain not on deck!
Plouff, whose presence was an undeniable comfort for some reason or
other, pulled himself up the steep little ladder and stood staring
lugubriously into the fog.

"Funny sort of old man, this," muttered the mate.

"He's always the same at sea," said Plouff, still staring.

"What? Leaves it to the mate?"

"Yes. Always."

"But...." Mr. Spokesly looked at the fog, at Plouff, at the binnacle,
and then hastily fitted himself into the little wheel-house. He bent
over the chart with a ruler and pair of dividers, spacing first a
pencilled line drawn from Cape Kassandra to a point a few miles south of
Cape Fripeti on the Island of Boze Baba, and then along the scale at the
edge of the chart.

"See what's on the log, Bos', will you?" he called.

This was serious. Within a few minutes the course ought to be altered