Having come to agreeable terms with Mr. Yancy and having secured the name and location of Babylon’s best restaurant, Dorothy left the waterfront and walked uptown. A glance at her wrist-watch told her it was not yet seven o’clock. She was in no hurry, for she had more than two hours to wait before it would be dark enough to start. So she strolled along the bustling streets of the little city, feeling very much pleased with the way things were progressing.
Arrived at the restaurant, she ordered a substantial meal and while waiting for it to be served, sought a telephone booth. She asked for the toll operator and put in a call for New Canaan. A little while later she was summoned to the phone.
“Is that you, Lizzie? Yes. I—no, no, I’m perfectly all right—” she spoke soothingly into the transmitter. “Don’t worry about me, please. I’ve had to go out of town, and I wanted to let you know that I won’t be back till morning. Never mind, now. I’ll see you tomorrow. Good-by!” She replaced the receiver and went back to her table, a little smile on her lips at the memory of Lizzie’s distracted voice over the wire.
“Poor Lizzie! She’s all worked up again at what she calls my ‘wild doin’s’,” she thought. And with a determined glint in her eyes, she proceeded to eat heartily.
When she had finished, she asked at the desk for a sheet of paper and an envelope. She took these over to her table, ordered a second cup of coffee, and began to compose a letter. This took her some time, for in it she explained her maneuvers during the afternoon, and gave the exact location of the cottage on the dunes, where she believed the Mystery Plane’s pilot had been bound. She ended with a sketch of her plans for the evening and addressed the envelope to Terry Walters’ father. With her mind now easy in case of misadventure, she paid her bill and walked back to the water front.
“Good evening, Miss Dixon,” greeted Yancy as she stepped into his office. “I’ve done what you asked me to. You’ll find a pair of clean blankets, some fresh water and eatables for two days stowed in the Mary Jane’s cabin. I know you don’t intend to be out that long, but it’s always wise to be on the safe side with the grub.”
“Thanks. You’re a great help. Now, just one thing more before I shove off. Although I’ve rented your boat for twenty-four hours, I really expect to be back here tomorrow morning at the latest. If I don’t turn up by noon, will you please send this letter by special delivery to Mr. Walters in New Canaan?”
“I sure will, Miss Dixon. But you’re not lookin’ for trouble, are you?”
Dorothy shook her head and smiled. “Nothing like that, Mr. Yancy. I just want Mr. Walters to know where I am and what I’m doing.”
“Good enough, Mam. Anything else I can do?”
“Not a thing, thank you. Don’t bother to come down to the wharf with me. I’ve got several things I want to do aboard before I set out.”
“Just as you say. Good luck and a pleasant trip.” Yancy’s honest face wore a beaming grin as he doffed his tattered cap to Dorothy.
“Thank you again. Good night.”
Dorothy went outside and found that Yancy’s prediction of rain earlier in the evening had been justified.
“Lucky this is drizzle instead of fog,” she thought as she hurried down to the landing stage. “I’d be out of luck navigating blind on Great South Bay!”
She dove into the Mary Jane’s cabin and after lighting the old fashioned oil lamp in its swinging bracket, put on her slicker and sou’wester. Then she fished the chart of the bay out of the locker and spent the next quarter of an hour in an intensive study of local waters.
Having gained an intimate picture of this part of the bay, she plotted her course, and checked up on the blankets and food. That done, she blew out the lamp, picked up the anchor and left the cabin, closing the door behind her.
Outside in the drizzle, she deposited her burden in the bow, making the anchor rope fast to a ring bolt in the decking. Then she put a match to the side lights and coming aft, cast off from the staging. Next, she started the motor, a difficult undertaking. At the third or fourth heave of the heavy flywheel it got away with a series of barking coughs. She slid in behind the steering wheel and they headed out across the bay.
Night had fallen, but notwithstanding the light rain, visibility on the water was good. The tide, as Dorothy knew, was at the flood, so she cut straight across for the dull, intermittent glow of the Fire Island Light. The boat ran strongly and well and Dorothy gave the engine full gas. She knew from experience that one of its primitive type was not apt to suffer from being driven, but on the contrary was inclined to run more evenly.
It had been at least two years since she had sailed on Great South Bay, but she remembered it to be a big, shallow puddle, where in most places a person capsized might stand on bottom and right the boat.
“No danger of capsizing with the Mary Jane,” she reflected, “she’s built on the lines of a flounder—I’ll bet she’d float in a heavy dew!”
The two and a half feet of tide made it possible for her to hold a straight course and presently she could see the dim outline of sand dunes. The faint easterly draft of air brought the roar of the Atlantic swell as it boomed upon the beach outside. It was time to change her course.
A quarter turn of the wheel swung the Mary Jane to port and straightening out, she headed across the inlet. Five minutes later she had picked up the dunes on the farther side. With the dunes off her starboard quarter, Dorothy made the wheel fast with a bight of cord she had cut for the purpose, and going forward, extinguished her side lights.
Back at the wheel again, she steered just as close to the shore as safety permitted. For the next couple of miles she ran along the shallows.
“Thank goodness!” she muttered at last. Swinging the Mary Jane inshore, she cut her motor and headed into a small cove, to ground a moment later on a pebbly beach.
Springing ashore, Dorothy dragged the anchor up the beach and buried it at its full length of rope in the sand. Then with a sigh of satisfaction, she straightened her back and took a survey of her surroundings.
The little beach ran up to a cup-shaped hollow, encompassed by high sand dunes. She had noticed the inlet on the large-scale chart, and chose it because she figured that it lay about a mile on the near side of the cottage she sought. And since she had decided to use the motor boat instead of the plane because she wanted to cover her approach, this spot seemed made to order for her purpose.
Her eyes scanned the skyline, and for a moment her heart almost stopped. Surely she had seen the head of a man move in that clump of long, coarse grasses at the top of the incline! Standing perfectly still, although her body tingled with excitement, she continued to stare at the suspicious clump.
Then with characteristic decision, she drew a revolver from her pocket and raced up the side of the dune. But although she exerted herself to the utmost, her progress was much too slow. Her feet sank deep in the shifting sand until she was literally wading, clawing with her free hand for holds on the waving sandgrass.
Panting and floundering, she pulled herself to the top, only to find no one there. Nor so far as she could see was there any living thing in sight. The deep boom of the surf was louder here, and peering through the rain, she made out the long stretch of beach pounded by combers, not more than a couple of hundred yards away. Some distance to the right, facing the ocean twinkled the lights of a row of summer cottages. To her left nothing could be seen but tier after tier of grass-topped dunes, a narrow barrier of sand between Great South Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, bleak and desolate, extending farther than the eye could reach.
Despite this evidence to the contrary, Dorothy still retained the impression that she was not alone. She had an uneasy conviction that she was being watched. She shivered.
“My nerves must be going fuzzy,” she thought disgustedly. “I can’t risk using a flash, and if there were any tracks this stiff breeze from the sea would have filled them in while I was climbing up here. Well, get going, Dorothy, my girl—this place is giving you the creeps—good and plenty.”
The Colt was slipped back into her slicker, and she trudged through the loose sand to the black stretch of ocean beach. Here, walking was better, and turning her back on the lighted cottages, she set out along the hard shingle by the surf.
Several times during that walk, Dorothy stopped short and scanned the long line of dunes above her. Try as she might, it seemed impossible to rid herself of the idea that someone was following. When she judged the remaining distance to the cottage to be about a quarter of a mile, she left the beach and continued her way over the dunes.
Although Dorothy had no tangible fact to connect the Mystery Plane with her holdup in New Canaan and Terry’s disappearance, she approached the lonely cottage with the stealth of a red Indian. And even if this night reconnoiter should prove only that the bearded aviator had a sweetie living on the shore of Great South Bay, or that he was making daily trips to visit friends, she had no intention of being caught snooping. No matter what she should learn of the cottage’s inmates, if anything, she proposed to return with the Mary Jane to Yancy’s wharf and spend the rest of the night aboard. She had no desire to tramp about Babylon after midnight, looking for a hotel that would take her in.
As she slowly neared the cottage, taking particular pains now not to appear on the skyline, she wished that this adventure was well over. She still felt the effects of her adventure with the thunderhead. The tiny cabin of the motor boat seemed more and more inviting to the weary girl. Trudging through the rain over sand dunes was especially trying when one was walking away from bed rather than toward it.
Then she caught sight of the house roof over the top of the next dune and her flagging interest in her undertaking immediately revived.
Dorothy skirted the shoulder of the sandy hill, using the utmost precaution to make not the slightest sound. Then she squatted on her heels and held her breath. Directly ahead, not more than thirty or forty feet at most, gleamed the light from an open window, and from where she crouched, there was an unobstructed view of the room beyond.
There were three men sitting about an unpainted kitchen table which held three glasses and as many bottles. All were smoking, and deep in conversation. One man she knew immediately to be the bearded aviator with whom she had talked on the Beach Club shore. But although Dorothy strained her ears to the bursting point, the heavy pounding of the surf from the ocean side prevented her from catching more than a confused rumble of voices.
For a moment or two she waited and watched. The other two men wore golf clothes, were young, and though they were not particularly prepossessing in appearance, she decided that they were American business men on a holiday. They certainly did not look like foreigners.
Miss Dixon, crouching beside the sand dune, felt vaguely disappointed. She did not know exactly what she had expected to find in the cottage, but she had been counting on something rather more exciting than the tableau now framed in the open window. But since she had come this far, it would be senseless not to learn all that was possible. Taking care to keep beyond the path of the light, she crept forward on her hands and knees until she was below the window. Here it was impossible to see into the room, but the voices now came to her with startling distinctness.
“Why?” inquired a voice which Dorothy immediately recognized as belonging to the aviator, though oddly enough, it was now without accent. “You surely haven’t got cold feet, Donovan?”
“Cold feet nothing! The man don’t live that can give me chills below the knee,” that gentleman returned savagely. “But I won’t be made a goat of either, nor sit in a poker game with my eyes shut. Why should I? I’ve got as much to lose as you have.”
“Those are my sentiments exactly,” drawled a third voice, not unpleasantly. “Listen to that surf. There’s a rotten sea running out by the light. Raining too, and getting thicker out there by the minute. By three o’clock you’ll be able to cut the fog with a knife. What’s the sense in trying it—we’re sure to miss her, anyway.”
“Perhaps you chaps would prefer my job,” sneered the aviator. “You make me sick! But you’ll have to do what the old man expects of you,—so why argue?”
“How come the old man always picks days like this to run up his red flag?” Donovan was talking again. “There’s just as much chance of our picking up that stuff tonight as—as—”
“As finding a golf ball on a Scotchman’s lawn,” the third man finished for him. “I know there’s no use grousing—but it’s a dirty deal—and well, we’ve got to talk about something in this God-forsaken dump!”
“I don’t blame you much,” the aviator admitted, “but look at the profits, man. Well, I must be shoving off, myself. We’ll have another bottle of beer apiece and—”
But Dorothy did not hear the end of that sentence. Her vigil was suddenly and rudely interrupted. Someone behind her thrust a rough arm under her chin, jerking back her head and holding her in an unbreakable grip. The sickly-sweet odor of chloroform half suffocated her. For a moment more she struggled, then darkness closed in about her.
Dorothy came slowly back to consciousness. She was vaguely aware of the chug-chug of a small engine somewhere near by. Her head swam and there was a sickly sensation at the pit of her stomach.
She tried to move, and found it impossible. She heard the splash of waves but could see nothing except the boarded wall of her prison a foot or so away from her eyes.
After a while she became accustomed to the gloom and her sight was clearer. She decided that the rounded wall was the side of a boat. Turning her head slightly she saw that she lay on the flooring of an open motor sailor, beneath a thwart. It had stopped raining. Now the sound of the engine and the gurgle of water against the hull told her that the craft was moving.
She hadn’t the slightest idea where this cabinless craft was bound, or how she came to be aboard. Gradually there returned to her a confused memory of the cottage on the dunes, voices through the window. Someone’s arm about her neck, forcing her head back—she remembered, now, and groaned. Her body was one stiffness and ache.
Again she tried to heave herself into a sitting position, only to find that her ankles were bound with a turn or two of cord, and her wrists whipped together behind her back. She was trussed like a fowl, and by the feel of her bonds, the trusser was a seaman. She wriggled and writhed, consumed by rage at her own helplessness. The only result was to restore her circulation and clear her faculties, allowing her to realize just what had happened.
“Shanghied!” Dorothy muttered thickly. “Oh, if I’d only had a chance to let loose a little jiu jitsu on that beast who scragged me!”
Why had they brought her on board this boat and tied her hand and foot? Where was the motor sailor bound? What was going to happen to her next? Mr. Walters would probably get her letter during the afternoon. Yancy seemed a dependable sort of man. Without doubt a raid on the beach cottage would follow, but by that time the birds would have flown, and what good would the raid do her! Her thoughts ran on.
Those men in the cottage were not fools. Their conversation, as they sat around the table, had meant little to Dorothy, but she no longer doubted that the gang was interested in an undertaking that was illegal and fraught with considerable danger to themselves. Could it be bootlegging? Possibly. But Dorothy did not fancy that idea. The Mystery Plane, (she had got in the habit of calling it that now) hadn’t enough storage capacity to carry any great quantity of liquor. Where did that amphibian come into this complicated scheme?
This night’s work had turned out a failure so far as she was concerned: she should never have undertaken the job of ferreting out the truth alone.
If only Bill Bolton were not away. He would never have allowed her to get into this mess!
Suddenly she heard the creak of a board and the sound of footsteps approaching. Dorothy realized that she lay huddled in the bow of the craft, with her head aft and her feet forward. That was why she had not been able to see anything of the crew. She shut her eyes again as someone flashed a torch in her face.
“She’s not much better,” said a voice she recognized as belonging to the man called Donovan. “Doesn’t look to me as if she’d be out of it for a long time. I think you must have given her an overdose of the stuff, Peters.” He stirred her none too gently with his foot.
“I hope I did!” answered a new voice. “That little wildcat got my thumb between her teeth while I was holdin’ the rag to her face. She bit me somethin’ terrible, I tell yer.”
“Never mind your thumb. We’ve heard enough of that already. How long did you hold the chloroform to her nose?”
“I dunno. I gave her plenty. If her light’s out, I should worry.”
“You’re right, you should. I’m not handling stiffs on the price of this job.” Donovan’s tone was biting.
A hand pressed Dorothy’s side.
“No stiffer than you are,” affirmed Peters matter-of-factly. “I can feel her breathe.”
“She looks pretty bad to me,” Donovan insisted. “The old man will raise the roof if you don’t get her over to Connecticut O.K. You know what he said over the phone!”
“Then why not ask Charlie? He used to be a doctor before he did that stretch up the river.” He raised his voice. “Hey, there, Charlie! Leave go that wheel and come here for a minute.”
“Can’t be done,” replied Charlie, and Dorothy knew that the third man on the beach cottage group was speaking. “What do you want me to do—run this sailor aground in the shallows?”
“Well, Donovan thinks the girl’s goin’ to croak.”
“That’s your worry. You’re the lad who administered the anesthetic. You probably gave her too much.”
“Say, Charlie, this is serious,” Donovan broke in anxiously. “Quit high-hatting and give us your opinion.”
The steersman snorted contemptuously. “She’ll come out of it all right—that is, unless her heart’s wobbly. If it is, I couldn’t do anything for her out here. You’re supposed to be running this show, Don, and Peters did your dirty work. I’m only the hired man. If she goes out, you two will stand the chance of burning, not me. Cut the argument! There’s shipping ahead. What are you trying to do—wake the harbor?”
Donovan and Peters stopped talking and went aft. Presently their voices broke out again but this time came to the girl in the bow as a low, confused murmur.
So she owed this situation to Mr. Peters. Dorothy was feeling better now and despite her discomfort she spent several minutes contemplating what she would do to Mr. Peters, if she ever got the chance.
The motor sailor’s engine stopped chugging and soon the boat came to rest.
“I’ll carry her in myself,” spoke Donovan from somewhere beyond her range of vision. “Peters bungled the business when he was on watch at that dump across the bay. I want no more accidents until she’s safely off my hands.”
Dorothy was caught up in a pair of strong arms as if she had been so much mutton.
“Think I’d drop her in the drink?” laughed Peters.
“You said it.—Sure this is the right dock, Charlie?”
“No, Donny, it’s the grill room of the Ritz—shake a leg there, both of you. We’ve got a long boat ride and a sweet little job ahead of us. We can’t afford to be late—hustle!”
Donovan did not bother to reply to this parting shot. He slung Dorothy over his shoulder, stepped onto a thwart, from there to the gunwale and on to the dock. They seemed to be in some kind of backwater from where a set of steps led up from the dock to a small wharfyard, shut in on three sides by high walls and warehouses.
Donovan shouldered open a door and ascended a narrow flight of rotting stairs. It had been dark in the yard, but inside the warehouse the night was Stygian. At the top he waited until Peters came abreast.
“Where’s your flash, Peters?” he growled.
“Haven’t got one, Cap.”
“Here—take mine, then, and show a glim. It’s in my side pocket. My hands are full of girl!”
“Got it,” said Peters, a moment later.
The light came on and Dorothy, between half-shut eyelids saw that they were in a long, dismal corridor.
“I’ll go ahead,” continued the man, “I’ve got the key.”
Down this long corridor they passed, then into another narrow passage running at right angles from the first.
Peters eventually stopped at a door which he unlocked and flung open.
“Here we are,” he announced and preceded them over the sill.
Dorothy caught a glimpse of a small room that smelt of rats and wastepaper with a flavor of bilgewater thrown in. Then she closed her eyes as Donovan dumped her on the bare floor, propping her shoulders against the wall.
“Well, that’s done,” Donovan said with great satisfaction. “Are you going to wait here for the car, Peters, or out in the yard?”
“The yard for mine, Cap. This joint is full o’ spooks. It’s jollier outside.”
“Right. We’ll get going then.”
Peters paused and looked at the girl. “There might be some change—maybe a bill or two in the lady’s pockets, Cap?” He winked at Donovan hopefully.
“You leave the girl’s money alone. The boss distinctly said not to search her. He wants her delivered just as she is.”
“Well, what if she passes out on me hands, Cap?”
“Deliver her just the same. And mind—you obey orders or you’ll bite off a heap more trouble than you can chew. Come along now!”
The two men left the room. The bolt in the door shot home, then the key turned in the lock; As the sound of their footsteps over the bare floor died away, Dorothy opened her eyes. Summoning all her strength, she wrenched at the bonds that held her, but she accomplished no more than lacerating her wrists.
She was to be shifted to some safer place, presumably in Connecticut, where she was to be taken by car. Meanwhile, there was no escape from where she was, even if her limbs were free. Should she show signs of consciousness, the best she had to hope for was another dose of chloroform or a gag when that enterprising thug, Mr. Peters, returned. He was not the kind to leave anything to chance.
Almost before she had got her wits to work, Dorothy heard steps in the passage and let herself go limp again, her knees drawn up, her head and neck against the wall. The bolt was drawn, and Peters entered the room. He flashed the torch over his prisoner.
“I don’t think there’ll be any harm in me takin’ a dollar or two,” he muttered. “What’s the use of money to a stiff? And you sure do look good and dead, young woman!” he chuckled as he bent down to begin the search.
“Guess again!”
Dorothy’s bound feet shot upward with the force of a mainspring uncoiling. Her neck was braced against the wall and the whole strength of her thighs was behind the kick that drove her boot heels smashing under her captor’s chin. The gangster sailed backward. His head hit the base of the opposite wall with a resounding crack and he lay like a log.
The electric torch trundled over the planks and came to a standstill, throwing its pencil of light across the floor. For a couple of seconds, Dorothy peered and listened. Then with intense exhilaration of spirit, she rolled and wriggled herself across the intervening space until she was underneath the window. Here, after a little straining and wobbling, that nearly cracked her sinews, she got on her knees. Then she heaved herself upright so that she leaned sideways against the sash. With a thrust she drove her elbow through the pane. There was a crash and a tinkle of falling glass.
Two more thrusts shivered the pane until there remained only a fringe of broken glass at either side. Turning her back to it, she felt for the broken edge with her fingers and brought her rope-lashed wrists across it. Splintered window glass has an edge like a razor. Dorothy fumbled the cord blindly to the cutting edge, sawed steadily and felt one of the turns slacken and part.
It was enough. In a few seconds her wrists were free and she stooped and cast loose the lashings from her ankles. She staggered a little and collapsed on the floor. After chafing her arms and legs, she turned to attend to her companion.
There was no need. Mr. Peters showed no further sign of animation than a ham. To insure against interference or pursuit, Dorothy turned him over, untied a length of cord from her ankle-bonds, and cast a double sheet-bend about his wrists.
Picking up the flashlight, she hurried out through the door which that canny seeker of “pickings” had left open. She hurried along the two passages and down the rickety stairs. The door at the bottom was closed, so snapping off her light, she pulled it open and stepped into the yard.
But here she was certain there was no egress except by swimming unless she could find a way through the other side of the house. Somewhere out in the darkness she heard the lap and plash of water and the faint creak of rowlocks. Instantly she ducked behind a pile of empty barrels.
A boat skulled stealthily through the gloom and fetched up alongside the dock. A tall figure made the little craft fast, climbed the steps and peered around the yard.
At that very moment, a water rat dropped from the top of the wall to the ground by way of Dorothy’s shoulder. It was impossible for her to suppress the exclamation of fright that escaped her.
The figure in the middle of the yard swung round and an electric torch flashed over the barrels.
“Come out of that or I’ll shoot!” ordered the stranger. “And come out with your hands up!”
With the white sabre of light blinding her vision, Dorothy walked out from behind the stack of barrels, hands above her head.
“Dorothy!” exclaimed the tall figure in astonishment. “What on earth are you doing here?”
There was an instant’s pause; then Dorothy giggled.
“Gee, what a relief—but you scared me out of six years’ growth, Bill Bolton!”
As her arms dropped to her sides, she staggered and would have fallen if Bill had not stepped quickly forward and placed his arm about her. He led her to an empty packing case and forced her to sit down. The surprise of this meeting coming as a climax to the strenuous events of the evening had just about downed her splendid nerves.
“Oh, Bill—” she sobbed hysterically on his shoulder—“you can’t guess how glad I am to see you. I’ve really had an awful time of it tonight.”
“Take it easy and have a good cry. Everything’s all right now. You’ll feel better in a minute,” he soothed.
“What a crybaby you must think me,” she said presently, in a limp voice. “Do you happen to have a handkerchief, Bill?”
“You bet. Here’s one—and it’s clean, too.”
Dorothy dried her eyes and blew her nose rather violently.
“Thanks—I do feel much better now. Do you mind turning on the light again? I must be a sight. There—hold it so I can see in my compact.”
Bill began to laugh as her deft fingers worked with powder, rouge and lipstick.
“What’s the joke?” she asked, then answered her own question. “Oh, I know! You think girls do nothing but prink. Well, I don’t care—it’s horrid to look messy. Is there such a thing as a comb in your pocket, Bill? I have lost mine.”
“Sorry,” he grinned, “but I got my permanent last week. I don’t bother to carry one any more.”
“Don’t be silly!” she began, then stopped short. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she said and snapped her compact shut. “They are coming after me in a car. Donovan or Peters, I forget which, said so.”
“Who are Donovan and Peters—and where are they going to take you?”
“Not that pair—other members of the same gang. D. and P. are two of the crew over at the beach cottage who chloroformed me, then tied me up and carted me over here in an open motor sailor.”
“Well, I’ll be tarred and feathered!” Bill switched off his torch. “Here I’ve been following you for over two hours and never knew it was you! Never got a glimpse of your face, of course—took you for a man in that rig! Well, I’ll be jiggered if that isn’t a break!”
“So you were the man I thought I saw in the grass clump?”
“Sure. You led me to the house. I knew the gang had a cottage somewhere along that beach, but I didn’t know which one it was. By the way, I’ve got your Mary Jane tied to a mooring out yonder—Couldn’t take a chance on running in closer. That old tub’s engine has a bark that would wake George Washington.”
Dorothy sprang to her feet. “That’s great! We’ll make for the Mary Jane, Bill, right now. If those men in the car catch us here there’ll be another fight. Dorothy has had all the rough stuff she wants for one night, thank you!”
Bill took her arm.
“O.K. with me,” he returned. “Think you’re well enough to travel?”
“I’m all right. Hanging around this place gives me the jim-jams—let’s go.”
Together they crossed the yard and hurried along the narrow planking of the dock to the dinghy. Bill took the oars and a few minutes later they were safely aboard the motor boat. It began to rain again and the dark, oily water took on a vibrant, pebbly look.
“Come into the cabin,” suggested Dorothy, watching Bill make the painter fast. “We’ll be drier there—and I’ve got about a million questions for you to answer.”
“Go below, then. I’ll join you in a minute.”
Dorothy slid the cabin door open and dropped down on a locker. Presently Bill followed and took a seat opposite her.
“Better not light the lamp,” he advised, “it’s too risky now. By the way, Dorothy, I’m darn glad to see you again.”
Dorothy smiled. “So ’m I. I’ve missed you while you were away, and I sure do need your help now. Tell me—where in the wide world am I?”
“This tub is tied up to somebody else’s mooring off the Babylon waterfront,—if that’s any help to you.”
“It certainly is. I hate to lose my bearings. Here’s another: I don’t suppose you happen to know what this is all about?”
Bill crossed his knees and leaned back comfortably.
“There’s not much doubt in my mind, after tonight’s doings. Those men in the beach cottage are diamond smugglers and no pikers at the game, take it from me!”
“Ooh!” Dorothy’s eyes widened. “Diamonds, eh! That’s beyond my wildest dreams. How do they smuggle them, Bill?”
“Well, these fellows have a new wrinkle to an old smuggling trick. Somebody aboard an ocean liner drops a string of little boxes, fastened together at long intervals—the accomplices follow the steamer in a boat and pick them up. And now, from what I’ve found out, there’s every reason to believe that this gang are chucking their boxes overboard in the neighborhood of Fire Island Light.”
Dorothy sat bold upright, her eyes snapping with excitement.
“Listen, Bill! Those men in the cottage—I heard them talking, you know—couldn’t make anything out of their conversation then, but now I’m beginning to understand part of it.”
“Didn’t you tell me they were arguing against going somewhere—or meeting someone—in the fog?”
“That’s right. It was the man they called Charlie—the one who’d been a physician. Let me see ... he said that there was a rotten sea running out by the light. That must mean the Fire Island Light! Then, listen to this. He was sure that by three o’clock the fog off the light would be thick enough to cut with a knife—and that they would probably miss her anyway!—Don’t you see? ‘Her’ means the liner they are to meet off the Fire Island Light about three o’clock this morning!”
“Good work, Miss Dixon—” Bill nodded approvingly. “And that is where Donovan and Charlie headed for when they parked you with Peters,” he supplemented. “On a bet, they’re running their motor sailor out to the light right now.”
Dorothy glanced at the luminous dial of her wrist watch.
“It is just midnight. Think we have time to make it?”
“Gosh, that’s an idea! But, look here, Dorothy—” Bill hesitated, then went on in a serious tone, “if we run out to the lightship and those two in the motor sailor spot us, there’s likely to be a fight.”
Dorothy moved impatiently. “What of it?”
“Oh, I know—but you’ll stand a mighty good chance of getting shot. This thing is a deadly business. They’re sure to be armed. Now, listen to me. I’ll row you ashore and meet you in Babylon after I’ve checked up on those guys.”
Dorothy stood up and squeezing past Bill, opened the cabin door.
“And my reply to you is—rats!” she flung back at him. “Of course I’m going with you. There’ll be no argument, please. Get busy and turn over that flywheel while I go forward and slip our mooring.”
Bill made no answer, but with a resigned shrug, followed her out to the cockpit. They had known each other only a few months, but their acquaintance had been quite long enough to demonstrate that when Miss Dixon spoke in that tone of voice, she meant exactly what she said. Bill knew that nothing short of physical force would turn the girl from her project, so making the best of things as he found them, he started the engine.
Bill was heading the boat across the bay when Dorothy came aft again. She went inside the cabin and presently emerged with a thermos of hot coffee, some sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs.
“We may both get shot or drowned,” she remarked philosophically, “but we needn’t starve in the meantime.”
“Happy thought!” Bill bit into a sandwich with relish, “One drowns much more comfortably after having dined.”
“Hm! It would be a cold wet business, though. Doubly wet tonight.” She looked at the black water pock-marked with raindrops and shook her head. “Hand me another sandwich, please. Then tell me how you came to be mixed up with this diamond smuggling gang, Bill.”
By this time they were well on their way across Great South Bay toward the inlet. From the bows came the steady gurgle and chug of short choppy seas as the stiff old tub bucked them. Holding a straight course, the two by the wheel were able to make out the grey-white gleam of sand on Sexton Island.
“Well, it was like this,” began Bill. “You remember the Winged Cartwheels.[1] Well that was a Secret Service job for the government.”
“I know,” nodded Dorothy.
“Well, as I was saying—because of that and some other business, Uncle Sam knew that I could pilot a plane. Six weeks ago I was called to Washington and told that an international gang of criminals were flooding this country with diamonds, stolen in Europe. What the officials didn’t know was the method being used to smuggle them into this country. However, they said they had every reason to believe that the diamonds were dropped overboard from trans-Atlantic liners somewhere off the coast and picked up by the smugglers’ planes at sea. My job was to go abroad and on the return trip, to keep my eyes peeled night and day for airplanes when we neared America.”
“Did you go alone?”
“Yes, but I gathered that practically every liner coming over from Europe was being covered by a Secret Service operative. I made a trip over and back without spotting a thing. On the second trip back, something happened.”
“When was that?”
“Night before last. The liner I was aboard had just passed Fire Island lightship. I stood leaning over the rail on the port side and I saw half a dozen or more small boxes dropped out of a porthole. They seemed to be fastened together. Once in the water, they must have stretched out over a considerable distance. Of course, there are notices posted forbidding anyone to throw anything overboard: and there are watchmen on deck. But they can’t very well prevent a person from unscrewing a porthole and shoving something out!”
“Did you report it?”
“You bet. The skipper knew why I was making the trip. We located the stateroom and found that it belonged to three perfectly harmless Y.M.C.A. workers who were peaceably eating their dinner at the time. Somebody slipped into their room and did the trick.”
“Did you hear or see any plane?”
“I thought I heard a motor, but it didn’t sound like the engine of a plane. I couldn’t be sure.”
“The motor sailor, probably?”
“It looks like it, now. Well, to continue: I landed in New York and took the next train to Babylon. Then I got me a room in one of those summer cottages on the beach. I was out on the dunes for a prowl when the Mary Jane put in at that little cove. That in itself seemed suspicious, so I followed you to the house and saw Peters scrag you. Although, at the time I had no idea who you were. Then when they tied you up and went off with you in the motor sailor, I knew for certain that some dirty work was on. So I beat it back to the cove and came along in this old tub.”
Dorothy finished the last of the coffee.
“Did you see the amphibian tied up to the cottage dock?” she asked.
“Yes. It took off just before the motor sailor left.”
“Just how do you figure that it comes into the picture?”
“I think these people have a lookout stationed farther up the coast—on Nantucket Island, perhaps. When a ship carrying diamonds is sighted off the Island, the lookout wires to the aviator or his boss and the plane flies over to let the men in the cottage know when to expect her off the lightship. Then when they pick up the loot, he flies back with it to their headquarters next day. Of course, I don’t know how far wrong I am—”
“But he’s been doing it every day for weeks, Bill—maybe longer. Surely they can’t be smuggling diamonds every day in the week?”
“He probably carries over their provisions and keeps an eye on them generally. I don’t know. What he is doing is only a guess, on my part, anyway.”
Dorothy smothered a yawn. “Do you suppose the red flag those men spoke of is a signal of some kind?”
“Guess so. But look here, you’re dead tired. I can run this tub by myself. Hop in the cabin and take a nap. I’ll call you when we near the lightship.”
“You must be sleepy, too.”
“I’m not. I had an idea I might be up most of the night, so slept until late this afternoon. And after those sandwiches and the coffee, I feel like a million dollars. Beat it now and get a rest.”
Dorothy yawned again and stretched the glistening wet arms of her slicker above her head.
“Promise to wake me in plenty of time?”
“Cross my heart——”
“Good night, then.”
“Good night. Better turn in on the floor. We’re going to run into a sea pretty soon. Those lockers are narrow. Once we strike the Atlantic swell you’ll never be able to stay on one and sleep!”
“Thanks, partner, I’ll take your advice.” She turned and disappeared below.
|
See Bill Bolton and The Winged Cartwheels. |
The ebb tide soon caught the Mary Jane in the suck of its swift current and the boat rushed seaward. Presently she struck the breakers and floundering through them like a wounded duck, commenced to rise and fall on the rhythmic ground swell.
Dorothy came out of the cabin rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“You didn’t take much of a rest,” said Bill from his place at the wheel.
She yawned and caught at the cabin roof to steady herself.
“Mary Jane’s gallop through the breakers woke me up. Sleeping on a hard floor isn’t all it’s cracked up to be—and the cabin was awfully stuffy.”
“Are you as good a sailor as you are a sport?”
“I don’t know much about this deep water stuff, but I’ve never been seasick. Thought I might be if I stayed in there any longer, though.”
“Feel badly now?”
“No, this fresh air is what I needed. Is that the lightship dead ahead? I just caught the glow.”
“Yep. That’s Fire Island Light. I wish this confounded drizzle would stop. The swell is getting bigger and shorter. Must be a breeze of wind not far to the east of us.”
“D’you think we’re in time, Bill?”
“Yes, I think so. The weather is probably thick farther out and up the coast, and the ship will be running at reduced speed. It’s likely she’ll be an hour or so late. There is a ship out yonder, but it’s a tanker or a freighter.”
“How do you know that?”
“Why, a liner would be showing deck and cabin lights. Here comes the breeze—out of the northeast.”
“It’s raining harder, too. Ugh! What a filthy night.”
Bill nodded grimly in the darkness. “You said a mouthful. It’ll be good and sloppy out here in another hour or two. Jolly boating weather, I don’t think! And we can’t get back into the bay until daylight, I’m afraid.”
The big boat continued to pound steadily seaward and before long the lightship was close abeam. Bill ran some distance outside it, then stopped the engine.
“No use wasting gas,” he said, and emptied one of the five-gallon tins into the fuel tank.
He went into the cabin again and reappeared with two life preservers.
“It’s lucky the law requires all sail and motor craft to carry these things. Better slip into one—I’ll put on the other.”
Dorothy lifted her eyebrows questioningly. “Think we’re liable to get wrecked?”
“Nothing like that—but a life preserver is great stuff when it comes to stopping bullets.”
“Gee, Bill, do you really expect a scrap? There isn’t a sign of the motor sailor yet.”
“I know—but they’re out here somewhere, just the same. Neither of us is showing lights, so in this weather we’re not likely to spot each other unless our boats get pretty close. And if they do, those hyenas won’t hesitate to shoot! Here, let me give you a hand.”
Having put on the life preservers over their dripping slickers, they sat down and waited. The wind was freshening. A strong, steady draft blew out of the northeast and it was gradually growing colder. The rain had turned into sleet, fine and driving, but not thick enough to entirely obscure the atmosphere.
“Good gracious, Bill—sleet! That’s the limit, really—do you suppose we’ll ever sight the ship through this?” Dorothy’s tone was thoroughly disgusted.
“Oh, yes,” he replied cheerfully, “this isn’t so bad. Her masthead lights should have a visibility of two or three miles, at least.”
Dorothy said nothing, but, hands thrust deep into her pockets and with shoulders hunched, she stared moodily out to sea.
For about an hour they drifted, the broad-beamed motor boat wallowing in the chop which crossed the ground swell. Twice Bill started the motor and worked back to their original position. He did not like the look of things, but said nothing to Dorothy about it. The wind grew stronger and seemed to promise a gale. The low tide with the line of breakers across the mouth of the inlet would effectually bar their entrance to Great South Bay for the next ten hours. And he doubted if they would have enough fuel for the run of nearly fifty miles to the shelter of Gravesend Bay.
Then as they floundered about, he heard the distant, muffled bellow of a big ship’s foghorn. Again it sounded; and twice more, each time coming closer. Bill started the engine and headed cautiously out in the direction from whence it came.
Suddenly there sounded a blast startlingly close to the Mary Jane. This was answered from the lightship, and through the flying scud and sleet they saw a vivid glare. Bill put his helm hard over and when the steamer had passed about four hundred yards away, he turned the motor boat again to cut across the liner’s wake. Faint streams of music reached their ears emphasizing the dreariness of their position.
Directly they were astern of the great ship, he swung the Mary Jane into the steamer’s course. Running straight before the wind, it was easy to follow the sudsy brine that eddied in her wake. He was by no means certain, however, that he could keep the dull glow of her taffrail light in sight. That depended upon the liner’s speed, which might be more than the Mary Jane could develop. But he soon discovered he had either underestimated the power of the motor boat or, what was more probable, the steamer had reduced her own. Before long he was obliged to slow down to keep from overhauling.
And so for nearly an hour they tagged along, astern, keeping a sharp lookout on the band of swirling water. Little by little their spirits sank, as no floating object appeared to reward their perseverance. The weather was becoming worse and worse, but the sea was not troublesome; partly because the Mary Jane was running before it and partly because the great bulk of the liner ahead flattened it out in her displacement.
“If this keeps on much longer, we’re going to run short of gas,” said Dorothy, still peering ahead. “Any idea how long it will keep up?”
Bill shrugged and swung the boat’s head over a point.
“Not the dimmest. I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll have to follow her all the way to the pilot station and then cut across for Gravesend Bay.”
“We’ll sure be out of luck if we run out of fuel with this wind backing into the northwest. It will blow us clean out to sea!”
“Take the wheel!” said Bill abruptly. “I’m going to see where we stand.”
Dorothy, with her hands on the spokes, saw him measure the gasoline in the tank and then shake his head.
“How about it?” she called.
“Not so good,” he growled, and poured in the contents of another tin. “This engine is powerful, but when you say it’s primitive, you only tell the half of it. The darn thing laps up gas like a—”
“Bill!” Dorothy raised her arm—“there’s another motor boat ahead!”
Both of them stared forward into the gloom. For a moment Bill could see nothing but the seething waters and the faint glimmer of the liner’s taffrail light. Then in an eddy of the driving sleet he caught a glimpse of a dark bulk rising on a swell a couple of hundred yards ahead. At the same time they both heard the whir of a rapidly revolving motor distinctly audible between the staccato barks of their own exhaust.
“The motor sailor, Bill!”
“Sure to be. It must have cut in close under the steamer’s stern. Let me take the wheel again, Dorothy.”
“O. K. Do you think they’ve seen us?”
“Not likely. They’ll be watching the ship and her wake. To see us, they’d have to stare straight into the teeth of the wind and this blinding sleet.”
“But they’ll hear us, anyway?”
“Not a chance. That motor sailor’s got one of those fast-turning jump-spark engines. They run with a steady rattle. There’s no interval between coughs. Ours are more widely punctuated. Anyhow, that’s the way I dope it. They’ve probably signaled the ship by this time, and the contraband ought to be dropped from a cabin port at any time now.”
“Got a plan?”
“I think I have.”
He gave the boat full gas, then a couple of spokes of the wheel sheered her off to starboard.
“What’s that for?” Dorothy thought he had decided to give up the attempt. “Not quitting, are we?”
“What do you take me for? Get out that gun of yours and use your wits. I’m goin’ to loop that craft and bear down on them from abeam. If they beat it, O. K. If they don’t, we’ll take a chance on crashing them!”
“You tell ’em, boy!” Dorothy had caught his excitement. “If they shoot, I’ll fire at the flashes!”
Bill was working out his plan in detail and did not reply. He felt sure his scheme was sound. The Mary Jane was heavily built, broad of beam, with bluff bows and low freeboard. The motor sailor was a staunch craft, too, but she was not decked and with a load of but two men aboard she would have no great stability. He was certain that if he could work out and make his turn so as to bear down upon her from a little forward of the beam, striking her amidships with the swell of his starboard bow, she would crack like an egg.
Bill did not dare risk a head-on ram. That might capsize them both. To cut into her broadside at the speed she was making would possibly tear off or open up his own bows. The Mary Jane must strike her a heavy but a glancing blow at an angle of about forty-five degrees. Such a collision meant taking a big chance with their own boat. But the Mary Jane was half-decked forward and the flare of her run would take the shock on the level of her sheer strake.
Quickly he explained his project.
“I’m taking a chance, of course, if I don’t hit her right,” he finished.
“Go ahead—” she flung back. “I’m all for it!”
Bill grinned at her enthusiasm, and with the engine running full, he started to edge off and work ahead. But he could not help being impatient at the thought that the contraband might be dropped at any minute and hooked up by the others. He took too close a turn. As the Mary Jane hauled abreast about two hundred yards ahead, the smugglers sighted them. Their motor sailor swerved sharply to port, and with a sudden acceleration, it dived into the gloom and was lost to sight.
“Bluffed off!” he shouted triumphantly.
He turned the wheel and was swinging back into the liner’s wake when Dorothy gave a cry and pointed to the water off their port quarter.
“Look! There! There!” she screamed.
Staring in the same direction, Bill saw what at first he took to be a number of small puffs of spume. Then he saw that they were rectangular. The Mary Jane had already passed them and a second later they disappeared from view.
Bill nearly twisted off the wheel in an effort to put about immediately. The result was to slow down and nearly stop their heavy boat. Gradually the Mary Jane answered her helm and presently they were headed back in the ship’s path.
And then as the Mary Jane was again gathering speed, the motor sailor came slipping out of the smother headed straight for the contraband, her broadside presented toward her pursuers.
“Stand by for a ram!” yelled Bill and pulled out his automatic.
Not fifty yards separated the two boats. Bows to the gale, the Mary Jane bore down on the motor sailor. If those aboard her realized their danger, they had no time to dodge, to shoot ahead, or avoid the ram by going hard astern. They swerved and the Mary Jane struck full amidships with a fearful grinding crash.
Bill caught a glimpse of two figures and saw the flame streak out from their barking guns. He felt a violent tug at his life preserver. Then a yell rang out and the two boats ground together in the heave of the angry sea.
Steadying himself with a hand on the wheel, he reversed and his boat hauled away. As she backed off he heard the choking cough of the other craft which had now been blotted out by the darkness and driving sleet.
Bill turned about with a triumphant cry on his lips, then checked it suddenly as he saw that Dorothy had fallen across the coaming and was lying halfway out of the boat.
The engine gave a grunt and stopped. But Bill scarcely noticed it. Hauling desperately to get Dorothy inboard, he thought his heart would burst. Suddenly he heard her cry:
“Don’t pull! Just hold me by my legs.”
She squirmed farther across the coaming and he gripped her by the knees.
“That’s it,” she panted. “There—I’ve got it! Now haul me in.”
Bill gave a heave and just then the boat, caught by a huge wave, rolled far over and landed Bill on his back with Dorothy sprawled across him. As they struggled to their feet he saw that she was laughing.
“Aren’t you hurt at all?” he asked, rubbing a bruised elbow.
“Only—out of—breath,” she gasped. “They—are all—fastened together. Haul them in.”
Glancing down, he saw that she was holding one of the white boxes toward him. He made no motion to take it, but stared to windward, listening.
Dorothy could hear nothing but the wind and the waves and the swirling sleet.
“What is it?” she jerked out, striving to regain her breath.
“Wait a minute.” Suddenly Bill snatched up his electric torch and dove into the cabin.
Dorothy dropped down on a thwart with the box in her hand. After a short rest, she renewed her endeavors to get the remainder of her haul overside. When Bill clambered out of the cabin she was tugging at the strong line to which the boxes were tied.
“It’s jammed, or caught, or something,” she announced.
Bill looked overside.
“Yes, dash it all!” he growled. “We fouled the line and wound it round the tail shaft when I backed off just now. That’s what stopped the motor, of course. Let me see what I can do. You’re blown.”
He picked up another box bobbing alongside and started to haul in the line. One end of this he found was jammed under the stern, while on the other length a box appeared every thirty or forty feet.
“Ten, in all,” he told her and drew the last aboard.
“Hooray! We’ve done it!” cried Dorothy exultantly.
“We sure have. You just said it all—” His tone was sarcastic. “The boat is leaking like a sieve. That lateral wrench started it. The propeller’s jammed. It’s beginning to blow a gale and there isn’t enough gas to run us out of it. Three cheers and a tiger! Also, hooray!”
Dorothy’s enthusiasm evaporated. “Gee, I’m sorry. I’m always such a blooming optimist—I didn’t think about our real difficulties.”
“O. K. kid. I apologize for being cross. That water in the cabin kind of got me for the moment. Let’s see what it looks like here.”
He wrenched up the flooring and flashed his torch.
Dorothy gave a gasp of dismay. The boat was filling rapidly.
“I’ll get that bucket from the cabin,” she said at once.
“Good girl! I’ve just got to get this coffee mill grinding again, or we’ll be out of luck good and plenty.”
Dorothy fetched the bucket and began to bail. She saw that Bill was trying to start the engine.
“The shaft wound up that line while we were going astern,” he explained. “It ought to unreel if I can send the old tub ahead.”
Switching on the current, he managed to get a revolution or two. Then the motor stopped firing.
“No go?” inquired Dorothy.
“Not a chance!”
He ripped off his life preserver and slipping out of his rubber coat, pulled forth a jack-knife and opened it.
“What are you going to do?” Dorothy paused in her bailing.
“Get overboard and try to cut us loose. Don’t stop! Keep at it for all you’re worth. It’s our only chance of safety!”
Wielding her bucket in feverish haste, she watched Bill lower himself over the stern. The water pounded by this unseasonable sleet must be freezingly cold. She wished it were possible to help him. Fortunately, the Mary Jane was light of draft. He would not have to get his head under, but that tough line must be twisted and plaited and hard as wire. What if his knife broke, or slipped from his numbed fingers? Dorothy shuddered. Meanwhile, the storm was getting worse and the heavy boat drifted before it.
“Hey, there, Dorothy! Give me a hand up!”
She dropped the bucket and sprang to his assistance. Then, as his head came in sight, she leaned over and gripping him under the arms, swung him over the stern.
“My word—your strength’s inhuman—” he panted.
“Don’t talk nonsense. Get busy and start the engine. The water’s gaining fast.”
“Confound!” he exclaimed. “I’d no idea the cockpit flooring was awash. Another six inches and it will reach the carburetor.”
While Bill talked he was priming the cylinder. A heave of the crank and the motor started with a roar. Then he flashed his light on the compass and after noting the bearing of the wind, laid the Mary Jane abeam it.
“Take the wheel,” he said to Dorothy. “And steer just as we’re heading now.”
“What about the bailing, Bill?”
“My job. You’ve had enough of it.”
“But I’m not tired—”
“Don’t argue with the skipper!”
“But you’re soaked to the skin!”
“Of course I am—what I need is exercise—I’m freezing!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry—here—turn over the wheel, skipper.”
Dorothy grabbed the spokes and Bill hastily slipped into his rubber coat and adjusted the life belt over it.
“How are we headed?” she inquired. “I can’t see the compass without a light.”
“Straight for shore, and we’ll be lucky if the old tub stays afloat that long. The whole Atlantic Ocean’s pouring in through her seams.”
“Maybe the pump would be better?”
“No-sir: not that pump. I’ve seen it!”
“Mmm. That’s why I chose the bucket. Say, I hope you won’t get a chill.”
“I’ll hope with you,” returned Bill and kept his remaining breath for his labors.
A heavy wave broke against the Mary Jane’s bow and swept them both with a deluge of water. Dorothy paid off the boat’s head half a point.
“Lucky that didn’t stall the motor for good and all,” she observed grimly. “One more like it, and we’ll be swimming.”
“Tide’s on the ebb,” grunted Bill. “Wind’s barking around—it’ll be blowing off the land in half an hour, I guess.”
“Do you think the old tub will last that long? She’s getting terribly sluggish. Steers like a truck in a swamp!”
“Listen!” he cried. “There’s your answer.”
From somewhere ahead came the unmistakable booming roar of breakers. As they topped the next wave Dorothy saw a white band on the sea. She steadied the wheel with her knee and tightened her life preserver. She knew they could not hope to reach the beach in the Mary Jane. Low and open as she was, the first line of breakers would fill her. The motor was still pounding away when she leaned forward and raised her voice to a shout.
“Stop bailing, Bill! Stand by to swim for it!”
“O. K., kid.”
Bill dropped the bucket and dove for the cabin. A second later he was back in the cockpit with a three fathom length which he had cut from the anchor line. He fastened one end about Dorothy’s waist and took a turn about his own body with the other. Then, catching up a bight of the line which secured the boxes he made it fast to his belt with a slip hitch.
The Mary Jane was forging strongly ahead, her actual weight of water being about that of her customary load of passengers. The swells began to mount, to topple. Searching the shore, Dorothy could see no sign of any light or habitation.
“If I’d known we were so nearly in, we might have raised the coast guard with the flash light.” Bill groaned his self-contempt. “I ought to have kept an eye out—and the Navy said I was a seaman!”
“Don’t be silly! It was my fault, if anyone’s. You were busy bailing. Chances are the light couldn’t have been seen from shore, anyway. Gosh, what weather! Who ever heard of sleet in August!”
“Look out—behind you!” yelled Bill.
A moment later she felt herself snatched from the wheel and was crouching below the bulwark with Bill’s arm around her waist. Then as a brimming swell lifted them sluggishly, its combing crest washed into the boat. The next wave flung them forward and crumpled over the gunwale.
The Mary Jane’s motor gave a strangled cough and stopped. The boat yawed off and came broadside on her stern upon a line with the beach.
“This is what I hoped for,” he shouted in her ear. “Gives us a chance to get clear.”
She saw him gather up the boxes and fling them overboard.
“Keep close to me. We’ll need each other in the undertow!” she yelled back at him, as he pulled her to her feet.
Then as the next big comber mounted and curled, they dove into the driving water and the wave crashed down upon the sinking boat. Dorothy felt her body being whirled over and over, sucked back a little and driven ahead again. The water was paralyzingly cold, but she struck out strongly and with bursting lungs reached the surface. A second later, Bill’s head bobbed up a couple of yards away. Blowing the water from her nose, she saw they were being washed shoreward. Her life preserver, new and buoyant, floated her well—almost too well. She found it difficult to dive beneath the curling wavecrests to prevent another rolling.
Bill was swimming beside her now and as a great wave caught them up and carried them forward he grasped her under the arm.
There came a last crumbling surge and the mighty swirl of water swept them up the beach and their feet struck bottom. Fortunately, the beach was not steep. The tide was nearly at the last of the ebb and there was but little undertow. Together they waded out and staggered up the shingle to sink down on the sand breathing heavily.
The boxes were washing back and forth at the water’s edge and Bill’s first act was to haul them in.
“Well, the government’s precious loot is safe,” he said grimly. “Are you able to walk?”
“I—I guess so.”
“Then, let’s get going. We’ll freeze if we don’t.”
He gathered up the boxes and looped them from his shoulders, rose to his feet and held out a hand. Dorothy took it, scrambled up and stood for a moment swaying unsteadily.
“The end of a perfect d-day—” she tried to grin, her teeth chattering with cold.
“I don’t think!” replied Bill unenthusiastically, and helped her to get rid of the heavy life belt.
“Know where we are?” she inquired when he had dropped the belts on the sand.
“Not precisely. But if we keep going we ought to strike a lifesaving station or something—come on.”
Dorothy groaned. “I suppose I must, but—gee whiz—I sure want to rest.”
Bill, who knew that physical exertion was absolutely necessary now, got his arm about her and they started unsteadily down the beach assisted by the gale at their backs.
They had walked about half a mile when he felt her weight begin to increase and her steps to lag. He stopped and peered into her face. As he did so, she sank to the sand at his feet. Bending over her, he was surprised to see that she was asleep—utterly exhausted.
The outlook was anything but pleasant. They had apparently struck upon a wild and desolate strip of sand—an island, he thought, cut off by inlets at either end and flanked by the maze of marshes in the lower reaches of Great South Bay. Without doubt they were marooned and to make matters worse, Bill knew he had just about reached the limit of his own strength.