V
IN the morning Halvard proposed a repainting of the engine.
“The Florida air,” he said, “eats metal overnight.” And the ketch remained anchored.
Later in the day Woolfolk sounded the water casks cradled in the cockpit, and, when they answered hollow, directed his man with regard to their refilling. They drained a cask. Halvard put it on the tender and pulled in to the beach. There he shouldered the empty container and disappeared among the trees.
Woolfolk was forward, preparing a chain hawser for coral anchorages, when he saw Halvard tramping shortly back over the sand. He entered the tender and, with a vicious shove, rowed with a powerful, vindictive sweep toward the ketch. The cask evidently had been left behind. He made the tender fast and swung aboard with his notable agility.
“There’s a damn idiot in that house,” he declared, in a surprising departure from his customary detached manner.
“Explain yourself,” Woolfolk demanded shortly.
“But I’m going back after him,” the sailor stubbornly proceeded. “I’ll turn any knife out of his hand.” It was evident that he was laboring under an intense growing excitement and anger.
“The only idiot’s not on land,” Woolfolk told him. “Where’s the water cask you took ashore?”
“Broken.”