Dennis shook hands with the fisherman, who grinned and eyed the ship.
"Looks kind o' fussed up, don't she?" said Nickers. "Where's everybody?"
Florence glanced around quickly. "Oh! Where are they, Tom? Quick, you must get away——"
"Take it easy," said Dennis, and pointed to the whaleboat standing down the wind toward them. "Where they are, I don't know! Lots of things have happened. So you came all this way to give me warning?"
"You bet," said Nickers. "Say, Dennis, if I had a wife like you have—by gum, I'd give a million dollars! That run over here ain't no cinch for a lady, let me tell you; but she stood watch an' watch with me like an old hand—well, she's a wonder!"
"We had to," Florence laughed, flushing under the ardent words of grizzled old Nickers. "I was terribly afraid for you, Tom, and there was no one else we could get—but tell us, what's happened?"
Dennis glanced at the approaching boat and saw that she would not reach them for ten minutes. So, dispatching the steward to make ready some coffee, he gave Florence and Nickers a brief outline of the situation, making light of his own peril.
"Where the Japs are," he concluded, "I've not the faintest idea. And I can't figure out what happened last night—where Pontifex and the others went. I don't believe he blew up the Jap ship, for I can't see any signs of wreckings except Mr. Leman's boat. Well, here's this boat coming in. What's that in her stern, Nickers?"
Having dropped his glasses in the excitement of getting Florence aboard Dennis could make out only that the approaching whaleboat was manned by three Kanakas of the Pelican's crew, but in her stern was a queer shapeless mass that looked strangely terrible. Across the thwarts forward lay two silent brown figures, inanimate and evidently dead. It was manifest that from this boat there was nothing to fear.
"Why, Tom!" Florence caught Dennis' arm, a wild thrill in her voice. "In the stern—it's Mrs. Pontifex."