“I know,” said Tommie. She was sitting forward in her chair, clasping her knees, biting her lip in thought and staring at the deck planking. She saw the position of the unfortunates as clearly as they did. The fact that these men had done for her a fine and chivalrous action which was still absurd hit her in an extraordinary way. Her sturdy and honest little soul revolted at the thought of what the press would make of the business. She could hear the laughter only waiting to be touched off, she could read the scare head-lines. She knew, for publicity was part of her life.
The stage was already prepared for the farce: by now every paper in America would be setting up the story of how Tommie Coulthurst had been abducted. It only waited for these men to be dragged on as the abductors amidst a roar of laughter that would sound right round the world.
She had read in the Los Angeles papers the humorous comments on them and their expedition and now, this!
No, it must not be.
For a moment she looked back at the scene of the night before, finer than any scene in a cinema play, real, dramatic, heroic, yet seemingly based on absurdity—was it absurdity? Not a bit—not unless the finer promptings of humanity were absurd and courage and daring ridiculous. They had risked a lot, these men, and she had never in her life before seen men in action. Ridicule of them would hit every fibre of her being. No, it must not be. Question was how to save them.
“Say,” said Tommie, suddenly clasping her knees tighter and looking up, “we’re in a tough tangle, aren’t we?”
The others seemed to agree. “Sam Brown,” went on Tommie, “he’s one of the electric men at the Wallack Studios, caught a rat an’ put it in a flower pot with a slate on top and a weight on the slate and left it till next morning; he keeps dogs, an’ came to find it and it was gone, said it must have got out and put the slate back, and Wallack told us to remember that rat if we were ever cornered by difficulties in our work an’ take as our motto, ‘Never say die till you’re dead.’ Well, we’re in a tight place but we aren’t dead. Question is what’s the first thing to do?”
“The first thing,” said Hank, “why, it’s to get you back safe.”
“I’m safe enough,” said Tommie. “It’s not a question of safety s’much as smothering this thing. S’pose we put back now to Santa Barbara, where’d you be? No, the first thing is to get you time. I reckon that rat would have been eaten if he hadn’t had time to think his way out or if someone hadn’t foozled along and loosed him. What’s your plans? You said you were out after Vanderdecken, where’d you expect to catch him?”
Hank looked at Candon and noticed that he had turned away.