When the sound of her breathing stopped, the silence was like something screaming in my ears, and I let go of her and ran up on deck and the sun was just going down. The sky was red in the west, and the sea was like blood, and everywhere there was that terrible silence that went on and on and on as if it was pressing in on me from all around the horizon…” Warriner dropped his face in his hands.

Tears were overflowing Rae’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” Ingram said, conscious at the same time of something that disturbed him. It was the word theatrical intruding on the perimeter of his mind, and he was angry with himself at this apparent callousness. Try it on your own stiff upper lip, he thought, before you throw any rocks; try ten days of it without hearing another voice and you might get a little purple about it too. He wished uncomfortably that he could think of something to add to the simple “I’m sorry,” but nothing was going to help the boy except the passage of time. He reached toward the ignition key to start the engine. “But we’d better shag over there and see if we can salvage some of your gear before she goes under.”

Warriner shook his head. “There’s nothing worth going after. It’s all ruined by the water—radio, sextant, chronometer, everything—”

“How about clothes?”

“These will do. Anyway, I don’t think I could go back aboard. You understand, don’t you? It isn’t only their dying. Remember, they all died below deck. Can you imagine what it was like, what I had to do?”

Ingram nodded.

Warriner’s face twisted. “Talk about the dignity of death, and last respects to the dead—pallbearers and bronze caskets and music and flowers. I dragged my wife’s body up a companion ladder with a rope—”

“Stop it!” Rae cried out. “You’ve got to quit thinking about it!”

“I understand,” Ingram said. “But you don’t have to go aboard; I’ll take care of it, if you’ll just tell me where to find things—”

“But there’s not anything, I tell you!”

“We ought to get your passport,” Ingram pointed out. “And whatever money you have aboard. We’re bound for Papeete, and you’ll need it for your passage home from there. Also, there’s the log and ship’s papers—”

Warriner gestured impatiently. “The log and ship’s papers and passport and money are all pulp and sloshing around in the bilges in three feet of water. If I haven’t already pumped them overboard.”

“I see,” Ingram said, wondering if he did. “But there’s another thing. Is she insured?”

“John.” Something in Rae’s voice made him turn. She went on sweetly, but with a glint in her eyes he’d never seen before. “I don’t think we’re being very hospitable, or very considerate. Mr. Warriner needs sleep more than anything at the moment, so I’m going to fix a bunk for him. If you’ll just come with me and move those sailbags, dear.”

She went down the ladder.