King Kong (1932) Read Online Free PDF Page B

down at her indulgently, "we ought to find it in the next twenty-four hours."
    "Mr. Denham's so worked up about it he can't keep still. I don't believe he went to bed all last night."
    "I'm kind of worked up myself," Driscoll admitted, looking toward the southwest.
    Ann turned upon him accusingly.
    "You? Why, you don't even believe there is an island."
    "I hope there isn't," Driscoll said soberly.
    "And you the lad who ran away from home to find a life of adventure! Fie, Mr. Mate!"
    Her voice was teasing. If she had any suspicion as to the cause of his reluctance to encounter Mystery Island, she did not betray it. Driscoll looked at her sharply.
    "Don't you know why I'm worked up, Ann? Don't you know it's because of you? Denham's such a fool for risks. What will he expect you to do?"
    "After what he did for me, Jack, I'd do whatever he asks. You wouldn't want me to do anything else."
    "Yes I would, Ann. There's a right limit. But Denham doesn't remember it when there's a picture at stake. He doesn't care what happens, so long as he gets what he's after. Yes, I know! You're going to say that he never asks us to do what he won't do, and that's O.K. as far as men are concerned. But it's different with you aboard."
    "Well, you don't need to worry yet."
    "I can't help it If anything happened to you ...! Ann, look at me!"
    Instead of looking, Ann turned her head so that only one white ear with a wisp of yellow curl behind it remained in Driscoll's view.
    "Ann, you know I love you!"
    Still, she did not turn her head, but the ear with the curl behind it grew pink.
    Driscoll put his hands on her shoulders, drew her slowly against him.
    For the briefest moment, Ann rested there. Then she twisted away to welcome a chattering Ignatz who appeared behind them.
    "Jack! He's broken loose again."
    "Ann! Look at me!"
    But Ann was too busy with the wildly careening Ignatz. He leaped to her shoulder and clung about her neck.
    "I really believe he's jealous of you, Jack."
    Driscoll lifted the monkey urgently and firmly from her neck.
    "Ann!" he said. "We have so little time. Please, Ann, I'm scared of you, and I'm scared for you, and I love you so."
    Ann looked at him then, and with an end to all pretense she stepped forward into his arms. Driscoll's lips bent to her hair, to the ear with the curl behind it, to her lips which she lifted, curving them into a smile.
    Sunset had come on. The bright clear blue of the daylight sky was flooded to the westward with pinks and indigos, with emeralds and jades, with russet, saffron, peach and yellow.
    Against this brilliant camouflage, the distant albatross swung briefly and was lost to sight.
    Southward the faint fleecy rope had grown by minute degrees to a low barrier of fog which was moving perceptibly closer to the ship.
    None on the crow's nest noticed it, however; least of all, Ignatz, who chattered furiously at Ann's feet.

Chapter Six

    All through the night the fog thickened. Hours before daylight the Wanderer , headed by Captain Englehorn toward the Norwegian skipper's incredible island, had slowed to little more than steerage way. When morning came she was still creeping through a yellow-white blanket, miles in extent.
    Against the penetrating dampness of this blanket no garment was proof. The clothes of everyone drooped in loose, sodden folds. Water dripped everywhere, from spars, stays and walls, and gathering on the cold deck ran in slow, uncertain rivulets.
    At a distance of a dozen feet, men and such solid objects as masts and ventilators became vaguely wavering wraiths. At greater distances they vanished behind the soft, yellow-white silence. Up on the bridge Denham and Englehorn, Driscoll and Ann could see nothing of the sailor who heaved a lead in the bow, or of the other sailor who tried to pierce the thick veil from the high vantage point of the crow's nest. These could be heard, however. By some atmospheric trick their voices seemed to ring more loudly through the fog than they had