Mrs. Turner.

"How will you manage alone?"

Mrs. Johns got up and lounged to the table. She wore a long satin
negligee of some sort, draped with lace. It lay around her on the
floor in gleaming lines of soft beauty. Her reddish hair was low on
her neck, and she held a cigarette, negligently, in her teeth. All the
women smoked, Mrs. Johns incessantly.

She laid one hand lightly on the revolver, and flicked the ash from her
cigarette with the other.

"We have decided," she said insolently, "that, if the crew may
establish a dead-line, so may we. Our dead-line is the foot of the
companionway. One of us will be on watch always. I am an excellent
shot."

"I do not doubt it." I faced her. "I am afraid you will suffer for
air; otherwise, the arrangement is good. You relieve me of part of the
responsibility for your safety. Tom will bring your food to the steps
and leave it there."

"Thank you."

"With good luck, two weeks will see us in port; and then--"

"In port! You are taking us back?"

"Why not?"

She picked up the revolver and examined it absently. Then she glanced
at me, and shrugged her shoulders. "How can we know? Perhaps this is a
mutiny, and you are on your way to some God forsaken island. That's
the usual thing among pirates, isn't it?"

"I have no answer to that, Mrs. Johns," I said quietly, and turned to
where Elsa sat.

"I shall not come back unless you send for me," I said. "But I want
you to know that my one object in life from now on is to get you back
safely to land; that your safety comes first, and that the vigilance on
deck in your interest will not be relaxed."

"Fine words!" the stewardess muttered.

The low mumbling from Turner's room had persisted steadily. Now it
rose again in the sharp frenzy that had characterized it through the
long night.

"Don't look at me like that, man!" he cried, and then "He's lost a
hand! A hand!"

Mrs. Turner went quickly into the cabin, and the sounds ceased. I
looked at Elsa, but she avoided my eyes. I turned heavily and went up
the companionway.

CHAPTER XV

A KNOCKING IN THE HOLD

It rained heavily all that day. Late in the afternoon we got some
wind, and all hands turned out to trim sail. Action was a relief, and
the weather suited our disheartened state better than had the pitiless
August sun, the glaring white of deck and canvas, and the heat.

The heavy drops splashed and broke on top of the jolly-boat, and, a