Working rapidly now, she dropped sugar into the glass with the powder from the pulverized tablets, put in a few spoonfuls of water to start it dissolving, and squeezed in a whole lemon. Then she opened the door of the tiny electric refrigerator inset in the after bulkhead and took two ice cubes from the tray. She finished filling the glass with water and stirred until there was no trace of the powder left in the bottom and the glass itself was beaded with moisture from the cold. Warriner had been sitting there in the sun since nine this morning with nothing to drink; there wasn’t much chance he could resist it—especially if she didn’t offer it to him and was drinking from it herself. A little of it wouldn’t hurt her.
She carried it up the ladder into the hot glare of sunlight on deck. Warriner looked up from the compass with watchful appraisal but appeared to relax when she sat down on the after edge of the deckhouse beside the mizzenmast, rather than coming down into the cockpit. He said nothing. She ignored him, looking aft as if hoping to see the other boat following them. She took a sip of the lemonade.
The sun was diagonally behind her, falling over her left shoulder, which meant their course was somewhere in the vicinity of southwest. There was a good chance he was steering for the Marquesas or for Tahiti, but she couldn’t depend on that because there was no guarantee he even knew the correct course to either of them. She had to narrow it down. Moodily, as if lost in thought, she let her gaze run idly along the scupper on the port quarter, the extreme edge of the deck where it was crossed by the shadow of the mizzenmast.
Of course the shadow was by no means stationary. With Saracen’s corkscrew motion as she quartered across the swell, and his deviations on either side of the course he was steering, it moved forward and aft along the edge of the deck as much as two feet or more. But by catching it several times when the boat was on an even keel to cancel out the rolling, she was able to strike an average between the extremes of his steering. The after edge of the shadow would be about three inches forward of that lifeline stanchion, the second one counting from astern. All she had to do, if and when she got the wheel, would be to line the shadow up on that spot, note the heading on the compass, and figure out the reciprocal. But was he going to take the bait? It had already been several minutes.
She looked aft and, without appearing even to notice him, saw that his eyes had been on the glass. She raised it to her mouth, took another sip, and set it beside her on the deckhouse while she reached in her pocket for a cigarette. It was well beaded with moisture, and she knew he could see the ice. How much longer could he stand it?
“What’s that you’re drinking?” he asked then.
“Lemonade,” she said.
“Oh.”
She put the cigarette in her mouth, and returned the pack to her pocket. Let him wait. Make him ask for it. Then she saw him look at the glass again and knew she had won. Her only problem had been to make him want it.
There was no way she could lose now, whether he suspected anything or not. If he asked her to bring him a glass, she would merely make another with three of the tablets in it. And whether he did or did not demand to trade after she’d given it to him, it made no difference. But she had an idea he would take the simple way. He did.
“It looks good,” he said.
“Would you like me to make you one?” she asked.
There was a trace of slyness in his eyes now. Mother was all right when he was scared and needed her, but she wasn’t going to put anything over on him. He was too smart for that. “Why not just give me that one and make another for yourself?”
“But I’ve already drunk out of it,” she protested.
“That doesn’t matter.” He smiled, as if thinking of some secret joke, and held out his hand.
She shrugged and handed it to him and started down the ladder. Then she turned and asked, “Would you like me to make you another while I’m at it?”
“No, this will do,” he replied, still smiling. “And thanks a lot.”
Once out of sight at the foot of the ladder, she hurried forward. That should have dispelled the last doubt, she thought, and he’d gulp it right down. How long would it take? Not more than five to ten minutes, probably, but with the first wave of drowsiness he was going to know she’d tricked him and he’d be dangerous until he finally collapsed. She’d better stay here, ready to barricade the door if she saw him start down the ladder, though she didn’t believe he’d ever make it this far. Of course there was the chance he might think to close and fasten the hatch to lock her below, but it couldn’t be helped. She didn’t dare remain on deck. Anyway, noise would never wake him, that thoroughly drugged, and she could tear the hatch cover apart with a hammer and marlinspike and force her way out.
She grabbed a coiled heaving line, which was soft and easy to handle, and the knife she’d used to cut open the box of shotgun shells. With the door just cracked, she peered out, watching the hatch. A minute went by. Three. Ten. Saracen continued to plow ahead, apparently still on course. Had he become suspicious of it after all? She was sure there’d been no taste; it was well covered by the lemon and sugar. Then she felt Saracen lurch and begin to turn. At the same time a demonic cry shot up above the noise of the engine, like a prolonged scream of rage, and the glass came flying in the open hatch. It narrowly missed the radio and smashed against the bulkhead at the forward end of her bunk. Saracen rolled down and turned in the opposite direction. She continued to watch the hatch with apprehension, but sunlight fell through it unobstructed. Almost a full minute went by. Nothing happened except that Saracen continued to turn, as if she were going around in a tight circle. She could visualize what had happened. Trying to get up, holding onto the wheel, he’d turned it, and then collapsed across it.
She ran through the after cabin, mounted the first step of the ladder, and peered out. Then she froze. He had fallen forward across the wheel, but now he was moving again, making one last effort to get up. His face was distorted, and he cried out as though in rage against the darkness swimming around him. One hand reached down to the engine control panel. The noise of the engine cut off abruptly, his arm swung, and she saw the ignition key flash in the sunlight as he threw it overboard.
The brass cover of the binnacle followed it over the side, and then, still screaming, he had hold of the compass itself, swinging in its gimbals. Muscles writhed in his arms and shoulders, and the tendons stood out in his throat. It tore free, and while he was turning with it in his hands to throw it into the sea he fell back onto the seat and collapsed with his head and shoulders on the narrow strip of deck beside him. The compass dropped on deck, burst with an eruption of alcohol, and slid over the side as Saracen rolled down to starboard. In the abrupt and almost terrifyingly lonely silence as Saracen slowed and came to rest she could only cling to the handrail of the ladder in defeat, and for a moment she wished she had killed him when she’d had the chance. There was no other compass aboard.
Then it was gone, and she was moving ahead. After what she’d been through to get this far, nothing was going to stop her. She had no idea how she was going to find her way back across all those miles of open sea with nothing to guide her, but that would have to wait till she could get to it. The first thing was to tie him. Why, she wasn’t quite sure, because he’d probably be unconscious for at least eight or ten hours and if she hadn’t found the other boat in five or less she’d never find it at all and after that nothing mattered anyway, but he had to be immobilized once and for all. Maybe it had something to do with having been completely at his mercy for all those years since early this morning, and if there had been any way to embed him in a barrel of hardening concrete up to his neck she would have done it. She stood above him in the cockpit with her heaving line and her knife.