“Never have another chance like this to look around,” says he. “Here’s our chart,” says he, “laying right on this shelf. See, they’ve been making calculations on it.” He folded it and stuffed it in his pocket. “Going to be kind of hard for them to calculate any more,” says he.
He looked into the stateroom, and there, on the bed was a leather document case. “Um.... Wish we had time to take a look,” says he, and he reached for it. Just as he reached there was a sort of grating jar, and we could hear voices hollering up on deck.
“We’ve drifted down on somebody,” says Catty. “Come on.”
He grabbed the document case and ran up the stairs, me right at his heels—and, would you believe me, but there right against us, scraping her paint off against ours, was the Albatross.
“Jump,” says I, but just then we drifted apart so we couldn’t jump. I saw Catty draw back his arm and throw the document bag across the water. It landed on the deck of the Albatross.
“Ahoy, the Albatross!” Catty yelled at the top of his lungs. “We’re all right—aboard the Porpoise. Don’t worry.”
CHAPTER IX
It was pretty confused for a while, what with fending off and getting the engine started, and I guess Mr. House and Mr. Robbins were too busy to notice what we were up to. At last we got to moving, though, in the blackness, it was hard to see where we were moving to. Not much to go by but the flashes of lightning.
Catty got hold of my arm and drew me aft. “Guess we can’t do much more good here,” says he.
“No,” says I, “and so far as I can see, we haven’t done a heap of good anywhere.”