Still, I don't think we shall. At night we'll have our
distress lights. We shall come out all right. In the meantime we may
not even have to be uncomfortable. Usually when men desert these
schooners they go in a hurry, leaving almost everything behind. I am
going to investigate affairs. Will you come? You may never have
another opportunity of this sort."
Dan's voice, at first grave, had gradually assumed a lighter tone, and
at the humorous allusion in the last sentence she smiled. Virginia was
a sensible girl, but it must be confessed that her position alone with
a man on a derelict in the middle of nowhere would have dazed a woman
who held even broader views of the ordinary conventions than she did.
As for the Captain, he evidently intended to accept the inevitable in a
matter-of-fact, common-sense way. There was nothing for her but to do
likewise. That he would be tactful and considerate in every way she
knew. And he would save her too, in the end. Something seemed to tell
her that. She smiled at him bravely.
"I think it will be fun, Captain! Lead on."
Their course aft was attended with difficulty. All along the deck was
a thick mass of wreckage, broken casks, boxes, sections of spars,
tattered canvas, and enough wire rope and other gear, it seemed, to
encircle the world.
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