“Half an hour,” says I.
“Ho! Half an hour! I swan! Young feller, I’ve been clost to two days and a night. Started from home that long ago. Spent most of the time beggin’ this here automobeel of mine to move. Rests an hour, then gits a move on for a hundred feet, then rests an hour. Calc’late I’ll git to town along ’bout Christmas.”
“Well,” says I, “you ain’t encouragin’, but you’re the best chance I’ve got. Here’s the letter. And much obliged.”
“Welcome,” says he. “Wonder if it’ll go. Dumbdest engine ever was in a automobeel.”
I went off and left him pulling and hauling at the mule’s ears, trying to get him to start. For fifteen minutes I could hear him arguing with the critter, and then I passed out of sight. I’d been gone from the island and the citadel about four hours and a half, I figured.
CHAPTER XVIII
I started to swim back, pushing my dishpan ahead of me. The sun began to warm things up and it was a lot more comfortable than it had been on my first trip across. I just poked along, enjoying myself and hoping breakfast would be kept warm for me. That was as near as I came to having breakfast for quite some time. When I got back to the citadel I had something to think about besides eating; in fact, I had before I got to the citadel.
I was about a hundred yards from the citadel and going easy when I heard a splashing off to one side. I raised up, and there, not two hundred feet away, was a raft with two Japanese on it. They hadn’t seen me, but were making for the citadel as fast as they could go. I got as low in the water as was possible to anything but a fish, and put on full steam. It was lucky they had such a clumsy raft and such rotten paddles or I couldn’t have made as good time as they did, but I managed to keep ahead and gain a little.
When I got close to shore I raised my head and let out a bellow:
“Mark Tidd! Hey! Look out!”