He ate alone and in silence. In silence he smoked his pipe on the veranda until midnight. Then he went to the house of Pean, his head native.
“Pean,” he said, “she has not returned. At three o’clock, unless I come again, tell Camean to make wanga with the drums.”
“Make wanga at three. Can do,” said Pean.
CHAPTER XVI
VOICE OF DRUMS
Johnny, meanwhile, was having a very bad hour all by himself. Still drifting a thousand feet beneath the surface of the sea, he awaited his deliverance—a deliverance he knew might never come.
Knowing little about the rate at which the powerless boat might be drifting, he made a guess; it should be about two miles per hour. “That gives me less than two hours,” he told himself, grimly.
After noting the time, he decided to take a few more pictures—just in case.
Never before, he imagined, had such opportunity for taking undersea shots been given any living being. Moving at fairly steady speed, he passed through countless schools of deep-sea creatures, and never before had Johnny looked upon such fantastic sights.
“Like things in a nightmare,” he told himself. “All heads—practically no bodies at all—some long and slim as a leadpencil, with noses half the length of their bodies. If ever I get out of this I probably shall be famous. But—”
What was this? His eyes stared at the compass. It appeared to have gone wrong, or else—