Hours—perhaps days—later I was dimly aware of a soft sobbing sound near my ear. Was it Swank crying? And then I realized that it was the chuckling of water under the Kawa's counter as manned by the intrepid Triplett she merrily footed it over the wrinkled sea.
CHAPTER X
Once more the "Kawa" foots the sea. Triplett's observations and our assistance. The death of the compass-plant. Lost! An orgy of desperation. Oblivion and excess. The "Kawa" brings us home. Our reception in Papeete. A celebration at the Tiare.
That Triplett's refitting of the Kawa had been thorough and seamanlike was amply proven by the speed with which she traveled under the favoring trades. When our saddened but still intrepid ship's company reassembled on our limited quarterdeck there was no sign of land visible in any direction. The horizon stretched about our collective heads like an enormous wire halo. It was as if the Filberts had never existed.
The captain alone was cheerful. Joy bubbled from that calloused heart of his in striking contrast to the gloom of his companions. Most of the time he was our helmsman, his eye cocked aloft at the taut halyards of eva-eva, occasionally glancing from the sun to the compass-plant which bloomed in a shell of fresh water lashed to an improvised binnacle.
At regular intervals he took observations, figured the results, and jotted down our probable course on his chart. This document we could scarcely bear to look at for upon it our beloved island figured prominently. But the course of the Kawa interested us. It was a contradictory course and even Triplett seemed puzzled by the results of his calculations.
"Can't quite figger it out," he would mutter, lowering the astrolabe from its aim at the sun—"accordin' to this here jackass-quadrant we orter be dee-creesing our latitude—but the answer comes out different."
"Too much jackass and too little quadrant," snapped Swank, whose nerves were still like E strings.