After
that I wash my hands of a' responsibility!"
"Oh, very well. Mr. White!"
The sublieutenant hauled himself in turn to windward. Curley Crothers
gave the wheel a half-spoke and looked as if he had no interest in
anything. Joe Byng in the chains bowed his head and groaned inwardly;
his sticky, spray-washed lead seemed all-absorbing.
"Tell that black robber to hurry aboard, unless he wants me to come
in without him."
The little boat had drifted fast before the wind, and the sublieutenant
had to bellow through a megaphone to where the three men bailed and
the ragged oarsmen swung their weight against the storm. The man
of ebony, who would be pilot and disgrace the Navy, balanced on a
thwart with wide-spread naked toes and yelled an ululating answer.
With his rags out-blown in the monsoon he looked like a sea wraith
come to life. The big gongs clanged again, and the Puncher drifted
rather than drove down on the smaller craft. A hand line caught the
pilot precisely in the face. He grabbed it frantically, fell headlong
in the sea, and was hauled aboard.
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