CHAPTER XI

AT WORK AT LAST Chess Copley stumbled in at the companionway door and slid down the steps to the curtains that were hung for privacy at their foot, floundering a good deal like some sea-monster that had just come aboard. A swishing wave broke angrily against the slide he had closed behind him. “Are you still alive down here?” he asked Helen and Ruth who seemed to be the only members of the party on their feet—and they were hanging on grimly to the rail. “So far nobody has passed away,” admitted Helen. “But Jean and…