“Rot, rot, rot! Didn’t they know I was coming back? Weren’t they expecting me? Wouldn’t they have the lights out so we could see’em? Rot! They’ve gone. The yacht’s gone. What are we going to do?”
“If you will just sit here quietly with Miss Baldwin,” I said, “I’ll take a look around. The yacht must be near, of course, and we can’t help finding it.”
The first part of this statement I felt to be true: the yacht must be near, for no stretch of imagination could picture Riordan putting to sea. On the other hand I recalled the countless crooked indentations of the fiord and knew there were a score of places where the Wanderer, with lights out, might be hidden. We might even have passed it without being aware of its nearness.
I pulled the canoe safely from the water and made my way in the darkness around the island to the open sea. But the sea was only a noisy waste with no light upon it. I went around the island, returning to my starting point, and no glimpse of the yacht or her lights did I have.
Betty now was sitting beside George, who had slumped down against a boulder, and was patting his hand and talking to him assuringly.
“I told you so,” he whined when I made my report. “Nothing doing. She’s gone. Now what in the world are we going to do? Eh?”
“The yacht must be somewhere in the bay. You mustn’t worry so, George; it will all come out all right.” Betty was speaking to him as one might to a frightened child. “Mr. Pitt has only started on his hunt, haven’t you, Mr. Pitt?”
“Of course,” I said, “I’ll take the canoe and run up some of these inlets. She’ll probably be there.”
I paddled away from the island with an appearance of confidence that I did not feel. By this time I had begun to appreciate the ironic humor with which Brack had warned us not to go too far. This was his work, and as I recalled the sly certainty of his smile, such hope as I had of finding the yacht dwindled to a minimum. Nevertheless I searched the inlets on both sides of the bay for the matter of half a mile before I returned to the island with my admission of failure.
Chanler by this time had passed into the furious stage of nervousness. He was pacing swiftly up and down the beach, clenching and unclenching his hands and breathing heavily.