"Okay," she breathed. "Matt?"

"Yes, kid?"

She paused in the doorway, and glanced at her father. "If I was wrong-if I was wrong, I apologize."

I stood there for a moment after she'd gone down the passage. Then made a face at my own thoughts, and hauled myself out of there. With my impromptu weapon in my hand, I made my way forward, through a kitchen or galley, into a wedge-shaped compartment that held two bunks, another seagoing john, a washbasin, and an iron ladder leading up into a kind of miniature deckhouse with a curved, slanting roof, half of which slid on tracks. I took a chance on being seen, shoved the lid forward. and got a faceful of spray. I elbowed myself up and out and found myself on the pointed, tilting, streaming deck forward of the masts.

I looked around for Nick and couldn't see him. The long bowsprit was empty. So much for clairvoyance. It looked as if I'd damn well better see the coach after the game and turn in my crystal ball. Loeffler wasn't in sight, either. From where I clung, I couldn't see the cockpit for masts and sails and rigging. I started to crawl to windward for a better viewpoint, and stopped, looking around, aghast. Until that moment, I hadn't really noticed what we were sailing through.

I mean, it wasn't just that the damn sea was going crazy all around us; I'd kind of expected that. Way off to port and behind us I thought I saw a shadow that could have been Mendenhall Island; way off to starboard I thought I saw the loom of the land. The rest was just broken water, with the spray ripped off the crests of the waves by the howling wind. All right, I'd seen that before; but the thing that really shook me was that the damn stuff was glowing.

I'm not kidding. Ask anybody who knows the Bay. Call it phosphorescence, call it what you like: those waves lit up like neon tubes when they broke. The stuff that washed aboard as the schooner put her lee rail under shone pale whitish green; and all around us the foam was luminous. A man with a literary turn of mind might have said we were sailing through the coldly burning seas of hell…

He almost got me while I crouched there, staring. I didn't hear him, of course. Up there, you couldn't hear anything except the cracking roar that was the Freya's bow splitting the water. I just felt him, I guess. I knew it was time to move by the instinct you get after long years of this work; and I threw myself aside as he dropped out of the rigging. He landed where I'd been. I caught a fistful of ropes on the foremast and cut at him with the johnny-lever and hit nothing but solid shoulder muscle. The bar just bounced.

He came for me, his white teeth shining in his black face. He seemed to be made of the same kind of crazy, luminous stuff as the sea around us. Just the same, it should have been easy. A good man with a stick ought to be able to handle a fair-sized mob or a full-grown male gorilla. I was pretty good at fencing long before anybody in this country ever heard of kendo. I should have been able to pick his eyes out of his head, smash his Adam's apple, and tear his guts out. No matter how big he was. I should have been able to-take him easily, and I could have, too, if the damn ship had only stood still.

It didn't seem to bother him. His bare feet seemed to cling to the slanting deck. I feinted at his head as he moved in. He ducked, throwing up an arm, wide open. Still clinging to the mast, I gave him the end of the bar in the stomach, as hard as I could from that position.

It wasn't hard enough. He was made of tarred rope and old whalebone. It stopped him momentarily, but I was clumsy recovering. There was supposed to be some fancy footwork in here, but I was having a hard enough time just staying on the boat. I chopped at his head and got a forearm instead, not hard enough; then he had me by the arm. I remembered what had happened to Louis' arm under similar circumstances. Well, it had been a loused-up operation from the very beginning.

The Freya hit bottom, hard. It made him lose his grip and hurled him forward, away from me. I went to my knees, still clinging to my friendly halyards, if that's what they were; but he was lying there in the bow, momentarily dazed, and I let go and went after him. The schooner hit again, throwing me off balance, and bumped along the bottom, losing speed. A big wave broke over the rail and sent solid water sluicing across the deck.

"Nick!" It was Robin Rosten's voice, sounding miles away. "Nick, damn you, call it! Give me the course!"

Nick picked himself up, jumped over me, and reached the foremast in three bounds. He ran right up it, using the wooden hoops of the foresail as a ladder. I saw him take one look around up there.

"Bear off, ma'am. Helm a'weather

The schooner swung to leeward. For a moment I wouldn't have put money on it either way; then, slowly, the bottom lost its grip on the keel and we began to gain speed again.

"Steady as you go!"

He was still up there, calling it. What he could see ahead of us, I didn't know. it all looked like the same phosphorescent welter of spray and foam to me. It was, I thought, a hell of a place for an innocent boy from the arid state of New Mexico; but while he was up the mast, I'd better attend to business aft.

"Look sharp on deck! Prisoner loose!"

His bellow alerted them before 1 got amidships. I saw Loeffler's head appear above the deckhouse. There was a little spit of flame, but I'd anticipated that and thrown myself down. I don't know where the bullet went. I crawled after with my iron bar, wondering how to get at him without getting shot.

"Luff her, ma'am! Luff her hard!"

That was Big Nick up in the crosstrees, conning the ship. I didn't have to worry about him for a while..

Suddenly the schooner was coming upright; the deck was level under my feet; and all the sails were breaking into thunderous flapping as the ship ran up into the wind. He must have slid down a rope somehow, because there he was, riding the boom of the foresail in. He launched himself at me from the spar, bellowing something to his mistress at the wheel. it was kind of like playing tag with Tarzan of the apes.

It was too bad, really. I mean, he'd given it a good try. You had to give him A for effort. He'd just made one mistake; he'd given me, for a moment, a level deck to fight on. I wasn't where he landed; and when he reached for me, I was set. The kendo rule is: thrust to the soft, cut to the hard. 1 didn't take a chance on going in close for a quick finish. I just swung with all my strength and broke the hard bone of his arm between wrist and elbow.

Then the sails were filling again, the Freya was heeling over, water was coming over the rail, and Big Nick tried to grab at the mainmast to catch himself, but that was the arm that no longer worked. He went down into the torrent pouring along the deck to leeward, and was washed aft. I went after him, but ducked as Loeffler thrust his head and gun out of the cockpit. The bullet dug splinters out of the deck to my left.

"Don't you shoot him, man! He's mine!"

That was Nick, picking himself out of the scuppers. Loeffler was taking aim for a second shot. Nick knocked him cockeyed. I saw the pistol glint in the air, flying out to sea. Nick was coming forward past the deckhouse. Behind him, I saw Loeffler painfully pull himself up and crawl towards something in the cockpit: the shotgun.

Whether he was planning to use it on Nick or me will never be known, because as he turned, a small figure jumped him from nowhere and twisted the gun in his hands. Mr. Loeffler must already have had the safety off and his finger on the trigger. The twelve-gauge fired and blew off most of his head. Even in the darkness, he was a fairly horrible sight, as he toppled over backwards into the glowing wake.

Big Nick had paid attention to none of this. He'd been stalking me slowly, but I wasn't worried about a one-armed man, no matter how big and tough. I waited for him, braced against a skylight amidships. When he rushed, I again gave him the feint to the head that brought his good arm up. Then I stepped in with the steel bar held low in both hands and all my weight behind it, driving it in hard from below, up under the ribs to rupture the diaphragm…