“Thirty hours,” he admitted. He became too verbal and pressed too hard. He repeated a list of those things which were saving her. Drunk with fatigue, he babbled. He finished by promising that she was still alive, and guaranteed that she was within ten miles of his own position. He begged the destroyer to send for more ships.

Perhaps, but later—plus tard. For now, the destroyer promised to search as long as was necessary.

He fought down his fury. He had better not push further until he calmed himself. He thanked the destroyer again and went topside. He trimmed the jib and climbed to the spreader. A fast-moving squall enveloped him suddenly, drawing a white curtain between him and the world of planes and ships. For ten minutes he simply clung to his perch, peering into driving rain. He could not see 500 yards.

The squall passed. The plane that had dropped the message seemed even further away; his wingman, now visible astern, was droning east.

He had felt less lonely with the two white terns.

When the sun had climbed high enough, it warmed her forehead, but did nothing at all for the chill in her legs. She was continually slipping through the horseshoe and having to fight her way back. It slid away again, and now she was too tired to try to get it. Like a lost skier freezing in the snow, she was at first too sleepy to care.

She realized it suddenly and looked up. The buoy was five feet away. She paddled after it and somehow got herself in once more. If she lost it again, she would not find the strength to reclaim it.

She had forgotten why she was in the water. She had it somehow tied in with the hurricane, and wondered where Mitch was, and if he were swimming beside her. But that was stupid, the boat had survived the hurricane, the hurricane was before they had decided on Tahiti, before Bora Bora.

No, she had fallen in, all by herself, at night. Last night? She thought so. But why had he left her? He should have turned back and picked her up; she had hidden his new Nikon behind the Chunky Beef Soup, and he’d never find it by Christmas.

It rained. Somewhere in the squall she became aware of the drone of engines. She glimpsed a big gray aircraft breaking from wispy clouds. It flashed through a shaft of sunlight. She was too tired to wave. It was instantly swallowed in mist. She wished she were flying it: she’d look for the boat.

She floated for hours. She sensed the sun at its zenith, and in its descent. She dozed. She had a vivid daydream. A great red ketch bore down on her, and its figurehead was Mahura, and Jean-Paul was at its wheel, and Taarii was poised in her bows, harpoon held aloft.