The words ceased to be mere sounds, and carried intelligence to his brain.
“...must be a fire.”
It was the girl who spoke.
“I should say it was a volcano, well away from us. There will probably be others,” came from the scientist.
Phil sat up, and became conscious of a more or less violent rocking. The interior of the boat was almost dark. It was visible in a peculiar red half-light that showed objects in a vague, unnatural manner.
“Hello,” said Phil, conscious of the throbbing in his head.
They came toward him, looks of concern on their faces.
“Are you all right?”
“Right as a rivet,” said Phil. “What happened?”
“We went over and over. We all got pretty badly shaken. You got a blow on the head and have been unconscious for several hours. The sky’s overcast, both with clouds and some sort of a dust. There’s an illumination that makes everything seem reddish, that Professor Parker thinks is from a volcano.”
Phil nodded.
“So you’re Professor Parker. I’m Phil Bregg of Fairbanks.”
He glanced at the girl.
“I’m Stella Ranson,” she said “and I was employed as a secretary. I guess that’s all over now. Ugh!” and she shuddered.
Phil found that they had placed him on one of the little berths in the cabin. He swung his feet over.
“Well, we seem to be on an even keel now. What can I do to help — anything?”
The man who had been introduced as Professor Parker shook his head.
“The sea’s comparatively calm. We have reason to believe there are earthquakes going on, probably quakes of considerable magnitude. We have found there is some gasoline in the fuel tanks, and a little kerosene in the stove and storage tanks. But we have no reason to waste any of it by starting the motor. So we’re waiting. There is some motion, but it’s not at all violent, and there’s no wind to speak of. The rain’s keeping up. You can hear it on the deck.”
And Phil became conscious of an undertone of steady drumming which now impressed his senses as the beat of rain.
“Well,” Phil grinned, “things could have been worse. When do we eat, if at all?”
“There’s some cold concentrated rations in the emergency kit,” said Parker. “We were just discussing trying a fire in the kerosene cook stove and warming up some of the concentrated soup. We’ll have to go pretty light on rations for a while, until we... er... experience a change.”
“Drinking water?”
“The boat seems to have been fairly well supplied,” said Parker. “Evidently they used her as a sort of a closing room where they could get a customer, cook a demonstration meal, and close the order.”
“Then there must be some canned goods or something stored in her.”
“We haven’t found any as yet. There are cooking utensils, however.”
Phil grinned at them.
“Find me a little flour, bacon and some baking powder, and I can give you some real chow,” he said.
There was a heartiness about his voice, an enthusiasm in his manner which radiated to his listeners. Despite the blow he had suffered, Phil was a well built, husky man of the outdoors, and he was accustomed to roughing it.
Parker grinned; the girl smiled.
“Well,” she said, “eat, drink and be merry, because tomorrow...”
And her voice trailed off into silence as she realized the deadly aptness of the familiar saying.
Professor Parker made a remark to fill in the sudden silence.
“I don’t want you folks to get a mistaken impression about me. My title of ‘professor’ is merely a courtesy title. In fact, it has been applied in recent years more in a spirit of derision.”
He was a small wisp of a man, pathetically earnest, with eyes that were intelligent, yet washed out in expression. Phil noticed that he appealed to the motherly impulses of Stella Ranson, those maternal instincts with which every woman is endowed, be she an infant or a grandmother.
“Well, I don’t know why anyone should laugh at you!” exclaimed Stella, jumping to his defense. “You’ve been right, and it was horrid of the newspapers to give you the razz that way!”
Phil nodded his assent. “Now you are talkin’, ma’am. And, if you’ll get out that soup powder, professor, I’ll get the fire going, and then I’ll be having a look around. There are lots of trick storage spaces on these yachts, and I may run onto a bit of flour yet.”
And he turned to the stove, primed it, pumped up the pressure tank, and had a fire going within a short time. Then he started an exploring expedition and, to his delight, he found that the couple had entirely overlooked a storage space in a closet back of the little sink.
This closet had a label on the inner, side of the door:
“Balanced Ration for a Six Weeks’ Cruise — Suggested Supplies.”
Phil grinned at them.
“Probably their idea of a six weeks’ cruise when they were showing the ample storage space in the boat didn’t agree with a healthy cowpuncher’s idea of food; but it’ll last for a while.” And he set about the preparation of a camp meal.
The girl watched him with wistful eyes.
“It must be great to live in the open! Lord, how I hate office buildings and apartments! I’d like to live for a while right out in the open.”
Phil grinned, “Why don’t you?”
“I’m chained to an office job, and...”
And with an abrupt little gasp, she realized that the office and the apartment were no more; that she was having her wish for a life in the open.
For a second there was the hint of panic in her eyes, and then she laughed, a throaty little laugh.
“To-morrow,” she said, “I’ll take charge of the cooking. I’ve done quite a bit of it. But I did want to see some of your camp cooking tonight.”
Phil Bregg chuckled.
“Maybe one meal of my cooking’ll do what the flood didn’t do, and put you under!”
And he rolled up his sleeves, looked around him. “Thunder!” he said. “Here I am wondering about fresh water for washing, and it’s raining cloudbursts outside. Let’s set some buckets and see that the tanks are filled up. There must be quite a water storage system here if they advertise the capacity of the boat for a six weeks’ cruise!”
“Here,” she said, “you take the buckets and fill the tanks. I’ll do this and you can give us a camp meal some other time.”
And she stepped to the stove, took over the duties of chef, while Bregg and Parker fought their way out into the rain, set buckets where they would catch rain water, used some canvas coverings they found to act as funnels, and gradually filled the tanks.
The girl called them to a steaming, savory repast, and Phil, accustomed to camp fare, served any old way by a masculine cook of rough and ready attainments, felt suddenly intimate and homelike as he saw the table, spread with a clean cloth, and Stella Ranson’s eyes smiling at him. But he had a healthy appetite, and he made a sufficient dent in the food to make him realize that the supply he had discovered in the cupboard would last far short of six weeks unless he curbed his hunger.
They resumed their water carrying after the meal. Phil, working on the outside, became soaked to the skin. But the water tanks were filling, and the boat seemed as dry as a chip, a seaworthy little craft.
There was very little wave motion, and Phil called the attention of the professor to that fact.
“Yes,” said Professor Parker, “this is not the sea proper. As nearly as I can determine, we are being swept in by the inrush of a body of water. Our direction is northwesterly, or it would have been northwesterly under our old compass. I don’t know what is happening now. The compass keeps veering, and I’m satisfied it is due to a magnetic disturbance rather than a change in our course.