[CHAPTER XV]
A Murderous Grip
Bert was having his first glimpse of the sea since he started on his trip. He was weary of the land which he had traversed so swiftly and steadily for two weeks past. The impression stamped upon his brain was that of an endless ribbon of road, between whose edges his motorcycle had sped along, until he seemed like a living embodiment of perpetual motion. That ribbon had commenced to unwind at the eastern end of the continent, and there were still a good many miles to be reeled off before the race was ended. But now, as he sat on the veranda of the beach hotel facing the sea whose surf broke on the sands a hundred feet away, he could feel his weariness dropping away like a cast-off garment. The tang of the ocean was a tonic that filled him with new life, and his nostrils dilated as they drew in great draughts of the salt air.
“Ponce de Leon was wrong when he looked for the elixir of life in a fountain,” he thought to himself. “He should have sought for it in the sea.”
Before him stretched the mighty Pacific, its crested waves glittering in the sun. Fishing vessels and coasting craft flashed their white sails near the shore, while, far out on the horizon, he could see the trail of smoke that followed in the wake of a liner. Great billows burst into spray on the beach, and the diapason of the surf reverberated in his ears like rich organ music. He drank it all in thirstily, as though storing up inspiration for the completion of his task.
A man sitting near by looked at him with a quizzical smile, frankly interested by Bert’s absorption in the scene before him. With easy good-fellowship, he remarked:
“You seem to be getting a lot of pleasure out of the view.”
“I am,” replied Bert promptly; “I can’t get enough of it.”
“There are plenty of people who have got enough of it,” he observed drily, “your humble servant among the number.”
Bert scented a story, but repressed any sign of curiosity.