First, of course, I had to get the hell out of here. I looked at the wrench. It was no beauty, but it was in working order. I pulled off my belt. The rectangular buckle wasn't as big as I'd have liked-Lash Petroni hadn't been the type for wide, cowboy-style belts-but under the leather covering it was of hardened steel with sharp edges, built to come in handy in emergencies.

I snapped the buckle from the belt, and peeled the leather from the buckle. The pencil from the coat pocket of my Petroni suit went through the hole in the buckle for leverage, and I had a reasonable facsimile of a screwdriver. Teddy was watching me with a kind of fearful respect, as if expecting me to produce a pocket model ray gun, or a Dick Tracy wrist radio. Her attitude annoyed me. She wasn't really very bright, or she'd have been asking why I hadn't done all this two hours ago.

"Put up the side of that bunk so our patients don't fall out if things get rugged," I said. "Then keep an eye to the porthole and an ear to the door, if you can manage. If you see anything out there, let me know. If you hear anybody coming, let me know. Okay?"

"Yes, Matt," she said, but I noted she didn't get too far from the bunk until I'd made my way past her into the bathroom.

It still looked as interesting as it had when I first cased the joint for possible tools or weapons-that husky lever, I mean, the one that ran the plumbing. It was attached to the machinery in two places: through a pivot at the bottom, and a rod about halfway up that actuated a kind of piston when you pushed and pulled. There were two paint-choked screws to be extracted from two paint-choked nuts. It took me about ten minutes to do the job, and I had a piece of steel about two feet long with a shiny brass handle.

I also had some bleeding knuckles and an incipient case of seasickness: the kid had messed up the place pretty badly, and the schooner was by no means standing still. In fact, it seemed damn close to capsizing as it roared along, but I wasn't taking time out to ask damn fool questions. I figured, if we were really going over, my little nautical expert would come in and give me the word.

When I made my way back into the cabin, she was braced against the door, having a hard time staying there, since it was on the high side. I could see why she'd given up the porthole; it was showing nothing but water and shiny bubbles rushing past. The floor had a slant of about forty-five degrees. Things were getting pretty noisy. You'd have thought we were about to crack the sound barrier with afterburners blazing, instead of just plowing through the water at a measly fourteen knots-well, call it fifteen now.

Teddy looked at the metal bar in my hand and started to ask something. I waved her aside, and took a look at the door.

"What gives?" I shouted, searching for a point of attack. "Maybe sailboats normally travel on their ears, but isn't our skipper overdoing it a bit?"

"I think she's carrying sail deliberately," Teddy shouted back. "We draw less water well heeled over. We must be getting out of the lee of the island, into the full force of the wind. That means we should be entering the channel soon. If she can find it."

"And if she can't," I said, "things will start getting very wet in here, very suddenly? Well, I'm going to try prying this door open a bit. You stick the wrench in the crack I make, to hold it open. Here." I gave her the tool. "If you try to crown me with it, I'll knock you clear across the cabin. That's a promise."

She gave me a breathless little grin. "All right. It's an armistice. Matt!"

"What?"

"There's somebody outside the door, a guard! I just heard him move. A couple of times before I thought I heard something, but-"

I glanced at her, and put my ear to the door. After a moment, I heard him, too, quite plainly, as he struck a match, presumably lighting a cigarette. I wondered how long he'd been standing out there, and how much he'd heard. Not much, with the noise the ship was making. If he'd heard me working in the bathroom, he'd have come in to investigate.

However, we certainly weren't going to break the door down with him standing there. I thought for a moment, and went quickly back into the head and opened every valve in sight. At first I thought it wasn't going to work, although we were on the low side of the ship. Then water rose in the toilet bowl and started sloshing over with the schooner's motion. It ran across the floor and into the cabin as the Freya rolled. I beckoned the kid to me, and told her what to do.

"If it's Nick, he won't fall for it," she protested. "He knows the ship is sound."

"It won't be Nick," I said, hoping I was right. "Big Nick's needed on deck at a time like this. It'll be landlubber Loeffler or his unseen pal. Go on."

I stationed myself in the cabin, slipping the iron bar behind the edge of the bunk. Teddy glanced at me. I nodded. She stepped forward and hammered on the door with her small fists.

"Help!" she shouted. "Help, we're going to drown! The water's coming in. Oh, help us, please!"

It was pretty corny. For a moment, there was no response. Then somebody fumbled with the bolt. I didn't recognize his voice.

"Get back. Don't try anything funny."

The door swung open, slamming hard against the dresser. A big man with a pug's thick ears and flattened nose appeared, hanging onto both doorjambs to keep himself from being pitched into the slanting cabin by the force of gravity. He looked at me, safely out of the way, and at the kid.

"There!" she cried, pointing to the water on the floor. "It's coming in, more all the time! We've tried to stop it, but nothing helps!"

He was a landlubber, too. He didn't like the idea of a ship springing a leak, even a little one, with him on board. He took a step forward, still holding the edge of the door with one hand, swinging towards the bathroom. As he turned away from me briefly, I picked up the iron bar and smashed it across his kidneys. He came erect and more than erect. He bent backwards like a bow, grabbing himself back there; then he doubled over with a gasping moan.

I put him down for good with a crack across the neck, and went on my knees to search him for a gun, although if he'd had one, he'd presumably have had it ready when he came in. But I just wasn't passing up any more bets of that kind. But he was clean. He was strictly muscle, the jailer type; and jailers don't carry guns for prisoners to take away from them. Loeffler would supply the brains and artillery for the combination. Well, if he'd had a gun, he'd have been harder to take; we couldn't have it both ways.

I rose. Teddy was staring at the dead man, wide-eyed, her hand to her mouth. I said irritably, "What the hell did you think I was going to do, spend half an hour tearing sheets into strips so I could bind and gag him, like in the movies?"

She drew a deep, ragged breath. "All right. I-I'm all right. What-do we do now?"

"How many ways are there of getting up on deck-"

As I said it, the Freya struck. There was no mistaking it this time. She hit hard enough to throw us both to the end of the cabin. There was a sickening moment of scraping and grinding, and she came free, gathering speed again, but the water outside the porthole seemed to have changed color. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed to have turned brownish with roiled-up mud or sand.

"There must have been a bar across the mouth of the channel." Teddy's voice was husky. She cleared her throat and spoke breathlessly. "There are three hatches. One leads from the owner's cabin directly into the cockpit. One opens on deck from the main cabin-"

"I know that one. Just back of the mainmast."

"-and there's a scuttle way up forward, with a ladder from the foc's'le."

"Scuttle," I said. "I'll take the scuttle, whatever it may be. We'll use Louis' plan with a change of cast. You get back there where you can watch the cockpit and Mrs. Rosten. Don't let her see you. I'll start some action up forward. When you see a chance, when she's distracted, get that shotgun away from her. I don't mind pistols so much, nobody's going to hit anything with a pistol on a boat jumping around like this, but buckshot scares me. She'll have her hands full, steering. You get the gun. Don't try to use it if you don't know how; just pitch it overboard. Okay?"