He sat "abaft the mainmast" at a table that was splotched already
with abundant perspiration, and the acting engineer who stood in
front of him shifted from foot to foot in attitudes expressive of
increasing agony of mind. It grew obvious at last that there was
a limit to Mr. Hartley's store of courteous deference.
There had been news, red hot but wrong, of dhows loaded to the water-
line with guns and ammunition somewhere up the Gulf. India, ever
fretful for her tribes beyond the border, had borrowed Applewaite
and his destroyer by instant cablegram, and jealously held records
had been broken while the Puncher quartered those indecent seas and
heated up her bearings. It was almost too much to have to come back
empty-handed. It was quite too much to have to run for shelter under
the lee of Adra's uninviting coral reef. And to be told by an acting
engineer that he would have to stay a week was utterly beyond the
scope of polite conversation.
"Why a week?" asked Commander Applewaite, with eyebrows raised to
the nth power of incredulity.
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