The Message

“I am not sure. The owners gave a big dinner party yesterday. The launch was coming and going at all hours.”

“What is that?” she asked inconsequently, indicating with a glance a small round object bobbing merrily westward some few yards away.

“It is difficult to say. Looks like a float broken loose from a fishing net,” said Warden.

“No, sir, it ain’t that,” pronounced Peter. “Nets have corks an’ buoys, an’ that ain’t neether.”

“You may think it absurd,” cried the girl, “yet I fancied just now that I caught a resemblance to a face, a distorted black face; but it has turned round.”

The boatman lay on his oars, and they all looked at the dancing yellow ball hurrying to the open sea.

“At first sight it suggests a piratical pumpkin,” said Warden.

“But I have been watching it quite a long time, and I am certain it is black on the other side. There! Surely I am not mistaken. And the people on that yacht have seen it, too.”

The girl’s face flushed with excitement. The thing had really startled her, and the two men were ready to agree that it now presented a mask–like visage, more than half submerged, as it swirled about in a chance eddy. That some loungers on a yacht close at hand had also noticed it was made evident by their haste to run down a gangway into a boat fastened alongside.

“After it, Peter!” cried Warden. “It is the lady’s trover by the law of the high seas. Bend your back for the honor of the Nancy. Port a bit – port. Steady all. Keep her there.”

In her eagerness, the girl tried to rise to her feet.

“Sit still, miss,” growled Peter, laboring mightily. “Judging by the position of that other craft, an’ from wot I know of Mr. Warden, there’ll be a devil of a bump in ‘arf a tick.”

“Starboard a point,” cooed Warden, on his knees in the bows. “Steady as she goes.”

Suddenly he sprang upright.

“Hard a–starboard!” he shouted, and leaped overboard.

A yell from the opposing boat, a scream from the girl, a sharp crack as an oar–blade snapped against the sturdy ribs of the dinghy, and the two boats shot past each other, Peter’s prompt obedience to orders having averted a collision.

“My godfather!” he roared, “’e ‘ad to jump for it. But don’t you worry, miss – ’e can swim like a herrin’.”

Nevertheless, the girl did worry, as her white face and straining eyes well showed. Peter swung the dinghy about so nimbly that she lost all sense of direction. It seemed as if the laughing Solent had swallowed Warden, and she gazed affrightedly on every side but the right one.

“Oh, how could he do it?” she wailed. “I shall never forgive myself – “

Then she heard a deep breath from the water behind her, and she turned to see Warden, with blood streaming from a gash across his forehead, swimming easily with one hand. She whisked round and knelt on the seat.

“Quick!” she cried. “Come close. I can hold you.”

“Please do not be alarmed on my account,” he said coolly. “I fear I look rather ghastly, but the injury is nothing, a mere glancing blow from an oar.”

Even in her unnerved condition she could not fail to realize that he was in no desperate plight. But she was very frightened, and grasped his wrist tenaciously when his fingers rested on the stern rail. Yet, even under such trying circumstances, she was helpful. Though half sobbing, and utterly distressed, she dipped her handkerchief in the water and stooped until she could wash the wound sufficiently to reveal its extent. He was right. The skin was broken, but the cut had no depth.

“Why did you behave so madly?” she asked with quivering lips.

“It was method, not madness, fair maid,” he said, smiling up at her. “Our opponents had four oars and a light skiff against Peter’s two and a dinghy that is broad as it is long. To equalize the handicap I had to jump, else you would have lost your trophy. By the way, here it is!”

With his disengaged hand he gave her a smooth, highly polished oval object which proved to be a good deal larger than it looked when afloat. The girl threw it into the bottom of the boat without paying the least heed to it. She was greatly flurried, and, womanlike, wanted to box Warden’s ears for his absurd action.

“You have terrified me out of my wits,” she gasped. “Can you manage to climb on board?”

“That would be difficult – perhaps dangerous. Peter, pull up to the nearest ship’s ladder. Then I can regain my perch forrard.”

But Peter was gazing with an extraordinary expression of awe, almost of fear, at the unusual cause of so much commotion.

“Well, sink me!” he muttered, “if that ain’t Ole Nick’s own himmidge, it’s his head stoker’s. I’ve never seen anything like it, no, not in all my born days. My aunt! It’s ugly enough to cause a riot.”

CHAPTER II

HOW THE MESSAGE WAS DELIVERED

Owing to the return of the rival boat, Peter’s agitation passed unnoticed. A superior person was apologizing for the accident, though inclined to tax Warden with foolhardiness.

“You have only yourself to blame for that knock on the head, which might have been far more serious than it is,” he said.

“Will you kindly go to – Jericho?” said the man in the water.

The superior person’s tone grew more civil when he found that he was talking to one whom he condescended to regard as an equal.

“Don’t you want any assistance?” he inquired.

“No, thanks, unless you will allow me to use your gangway in order to climb aboard the dinghy.”

“By all means. I am sorry the oar caught you. But you annexed the prize, so I suppose you are satisfied. What was it?”

“A calabash, I fancy. You will see it lying in the boat.”

Peter, who was really fascinated by the carved face which drew the girl’s attention in the first instance, suddenly kicked it and turned it upside down with his wooden leg. The men in the second boat saw only the glazed yellow rind of an oval gourd, some twelve inches long and eight or nine in diameter.

“The pot was hardly worth the scurry,” laughed one of them.

“If Greeks once strove for a crown of wild olive, why not Englishmen for a calabash?” said Warden.

There was an element of the ludicrous in the unexpected comment from a man in his predicament. Every true–born Briton resents any remark that he does not quite understand, and some among the strangers grinned. The girl, still holding Warden’s wrist as though she feared he would vanish in the depths if she let go, darted a scornful look at them.

“The truth is that these gentlemen competed because they thought they were sure to win,” she cried.

“It was a fair race, madam,” expostulated the leader of the yacht’s boat.

“Y–yes,” she admitted. “My presence equalized matters.”

As the men were four to two she scored distinctly.

“Give way, Peter,” said Warden. “If I laugh I shall swallow more salt water than is good for me.”

He was soon seated astride the bows of the dinghy, which Peter’s strong arms brought quickly alongside the Sans Souci. By that time, the girl’s composure was somewhat restored. Warden obviously made so light of his ducking that she did not allude to it again. As for the gourd, it rested at her feet, but she seemed to have lost all interest in it. In truth, she was annoyed with herself for having championed her new friend’s cause, and thus, in a sense, condoned his folly.