CHAPTER XXIII
THE RECAPTURED KEY
McKinnon turned from the quiet and horror-stricken figure of Alicia, huddled back on his berth-end, and contemplated what was left of his broken and dismantled apparatus. He felt like a child in an open boat, without oars, approaching an inevitable Niagara.
Then he turned back to the girl. There was no message of consolation he could bring to her. It came slowly home to him how hopeless the entire future stretched before them. A great hatred for the ship on which he stood grew up in him. His spirit revolted against the horrors it had housed, against the ordeals through which it had thrust a tender and innocent life, against the enigmatic perils with which it was still to threaten that life and his own.
Then he grew calmer-thoughted. He began to grope and probe about for explanations that would sustain her. But the task was a fruitless one. There was nothing to say. Instinctively,
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