"Easy, sir. Had we better overhaul that diving-tackle, sir?"
"Yes. Break it out to-day. Bo'sun Joe, rig up a derrick for'ard to-day; chances are we'll be able to lay close enough to the wreck to swing the stuff directly aboard, and we'll not want to waste time. A south-easter might lay us up on those islands. Ever been diving, Mr. Dennis?"
Dennis nodded. "Twice. Never at sea, but in Lake Michigan."
"Then we'll have a new sensation for you, if you like." Pontifex smiled cruelly.
"Bo'sun Joe and I are the only ones aboard with any experience, and if you care to take a shift with us, we'll be glad."
"I'm in for anything that'll make me useful," said Dennis. "You think the wreck is still on the rocks where we can reach it, then?"
"We're gambling on it," returned Pontifex curtly.
The wind held, and the old whaler blew down the miles of westering with every stitch of canvas taut as a drumhead. That afternoon Tom Dennis got a good straight look at the new cook—a most disreputable little man, dirty and slouchy in the extreme. Gone were the trim mustachios, gone was all the natty air; but the man was the same who had spilled a vial of chloroform in the Chicago room of Tom Dennis. There was no doubt about it.
Dennis, however, said nothing; later, when Corny introduced the cook as Frenchy, he shook hands and was very pleasant, and if Dumont suspected anything, his suspicions were set at rest by Dennis' air of careless non-interest.
Upon the following day the brigantine was still tearing along with a swirl of water hissing under her counter. Off to the north the islands showed their mountain-tips against the sky, blue and continuous as some distant mainland. Talking with the mates and boat-steerers and Kanakas, Tom Dennis was entertained with many stories of those islands: how fox- and seal-farmers were scattered through the group; how small launches cruised the entire length of the island chain with impunity; how in time to come there would be a thriving island population where now were empty stretches of land or scattered communities of miserable natives.