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A Man to His Mate, a novel by J. Allan Dunn |
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Chapter 18. Lund's Luck |
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_ CHAPTER XVIII. LUND'S LUCK Lund glanced at the geyser of spray where the shell from the pursuing gunboat had fallen short, and then at the bank of mist ahead. They were in the narrows of Bering Strait, between the Cape of Charles and Prince Edward's Point, the gold aboard, a full wind in their sails, making eleven knots to the gunboat's fifteen. It was mid-afternoon, three hours since they had seen smoke to the north and astern of them. Either the patrol had found them gone from the island, freed by blasting from the floe, and followed on the trail full speed, or the wireless from some Japanese station on the Tchukchis coast had told of their homing flight. The great curtain of fog was a mile ahead. The last shell had fallen two hundred yards short. Five minutes more would settle it. Hansen had the wheel. Lund stood by the taffrail, his arm about Peggy Simms. He shook a fist at the gunboat, vomiting black smoke from her funnel, foam about her bows. "We'll beat 'em yet," he cried. The next shell, with more elevation, whined parallel with them, sped ahead, and smashed into the waves. "Hold yore course, Hansen! No time to zigzag. Got to chance it. Damn it, they know how to shoot!" A missile had gone plump through main and foresails, leaving round holes to mark the score. Another fairly struck the main topmast, and some splinters came rattling down, while the remnants of the top-sail flapped amid writhing ends of halyard and sheet. They entered the beginning of the fog, curling wisps of it reached out, twining over the bowsprint and headsails, enveloping the foremast, swallowing the schooner as a hurtling shell crashed into the stern. The next instant the mist had sheltered them. Lund released the girl and jumped to the wheel. "Now then," he shouted, "we'll fool 'em!" He gripped the spokes, and the men ran to the sheets at command while the Karluk shot off at right angles to her previous course, skirting the fog that blanketed the wind but yet allowed sufficient breeze to filter through to give them headway, gliding like a ghost on the new tack to the east. Rainey, tense from the explosion of the shell, jumped below at last and came back exultant. "It was a dud, Lund!" he shouted. "Or else they didn't want to blow us up on account of the gold. But they've wrecked the cabin. The fog's coming in through the hole they made. Tamada's galley's gone. It's raked the schooner!" "So long's it's above the water line, to hell with it! We'll make out. Listen to the fools. They've gone in after us, straight on." The booming of the gunboat's forward battery sounded aft of them, dulled by the fog--growing fainter. "Lund's luck! We've dodged 'em!" "They'll be waiting for us at the passes," said Rainey. "They've got the speed on us." "Let 'em wait. To blazes with the Aleutians! Ready again there for a tack! Sou'-east now. We'll work through this till we git to the wind ag'in. It's all blue water to the Seward Peninsula. We're bound for Nome." "For Nome?" asked Peggy Simms. "Nome, Peggy! An American port. The nearest harbor. An' the nearest preacher!" [THE END] _ |
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