The usual morning revival of the trades, which would help him cover the ocean faster, would also bring the matador sweeping down on him. She could be hidden under the bullfighter’s mantle if the rain moved across his path. And meanwhile, without the trades, the boat was simply marking time, while she struggled somewhere ahead.

He was impelled to move faster. He started the engine. He jammed it full ahead without warming it up, ignoring the clattering uproar. It settled finally into its normal rumble, but its sound frightened him. His main chance was to hear her, not to see her. When he was down in the troughs, he could see nothing but dark-blue hills heaving around him. With the engine drumming at his feet he could miss her if she were screaming and shrilling in a valley fifty yards away.

He considered the odds that they might both be borne aloft at the same instant that he was looking in her direction. Most of the time he was sinking or rising on the slope of a sapphire knoll. He couldn’t attentively sweep the whole 360 degrees of the skyline at one time, so he was taking it one semicircle per wave, ducking under the main boom to see to leeward before he sank into the next trough. His chances of seeing her seemed infinitely small.

But her chance of spotting him was very much greater. The mainmast towered above the wave peaks forty feet. It would be she who discovered him. He had better be ready to hear her when she did.

He cut the engine, conceding the race to the squall. Suddenly he heard only the creak of the boom on the gooseneck, the flutter of the main at the leech. A steering cable squeaked behind him and slow-moving water gurgled under the stern.

Now, in the silence, the boat’s crawling pace chilled him. He envisioned for the first time her body somewhere ahead, trailing strands of burnished bronze, spiraling downward into water turning midnight blue. The vision overcame his fear of the unanswered question of her jacket below. He took a final sweep of the horizon, bobbed through the hatch, and stumbled down the companionway ladder. He grasped the latch on the foul-weather locker and swung it open.

Her jacket was gone. He sagged with relief. Only his windbreaker, the identical orange color but immensely bigger, with a wine stain down its front, rocked on its hanger. Having her jacket, she had the whistle too.

He caught her scent from a plastic bottle of Sea & Ski, teetering on the shelf. It was a good omen, all around.

Incredibly, hypocritically, he found himself on his knees, head bowed in thanks. Feeling suddenly foolish, he got up, slammed the locker door, and sprung topside.