I turned to look at Pauline. She was deathly white; evidently frightened at being made the vehicle of this message from the beyond. Her mother clutched at her, as though protecting her from unseen dangers. Geoffrey’s imagination had caught fire, his eyes were bright with excitement.
“My sakes! Pauline!” he cried. “I believe you now! You couldn’t have written that out of your head. I’ve read of things like this before—I guess you’re a medium and didn’t know it!—Father! We’ll track this message down, wherever it comes from, say now?”
“It comes from the Devil! Tear it up—oh, tear it up!” implored Mrs. Vandermeulen. “William! Tear it up—don’t follow it!”
Old Vandermeulen turned to the skipper. His jaw had set hard, his lips were compressed, only the glitter in his eyes, peering in a momentary fixation of thought from under his bent brows, showed that he shared the excitement of his son. So he must have looked in his office when he took the decisions which had made his millions.
“Captain Higgins,” he said, curtly ignoring the supplications of his wife, “how long will it take us to reach that island?”
The skipper put his finger on the chart at a point south of Haiti.
“We’re here,” he said. He measured off the distance. “At our best rate of twelve knots—about sixty hours steaming.”
The old man nodded.
“Put her about,” he said. His harsh tone had an odd ring about it, as though he was secretly conscious of affronting mysterious dangers, was all the more emphatic. “Right now!”