“The Sargasso Sea,” he groaned. “We’re inside it—far inside it. Great Scott!” His brain reeled again. “Where the deuce is Jackson?” he muttered irritably. “And where’s that woman?”
Pat to the moment, Jackson thrust his head out of the doorway of the social hall. His dark face was pallid now, and he glared around him wildly. When he saw Howard standing, his expression brightened.
“So you’re alive,” he rumbled, surlily. “It takes a devil of a lot to kill some people.”
Howard stared at the man curiously. It was hardly the way he had expected to be greeted.
“Yes,” he answered, slowly, “it takes a good deal—sometimes. It didn’t take much for those poor devils in that boat you wanted to go in. Where’s the girl?”
Jackson jerked his hand over his right shoulder.
“She’s in there,” he responded. Then he hesitated for an instant. “It was a brave thing you did,” he finished, grudgingly.
Howard shrugged his shoulders.
“Merely a choice of deaths,” he answered. “I expected the ship to sink any minute, and, personally, I preferred to die fighting. How is she?”
“She’s breathing, but that’s all. She hasn’t moved since I got her aboard.”