Part 40 (1/2)

CHAPTER XIX

LAUNCHING A NEW INVENTION

The eastern sky was just flus.h.i.+ng into light when I got back to the creek at four o'clock. It was a beautiful morning--cool and still--with the sweet freshness of early dawn in the air, and the promise of a long unclouded day of spring suns.h.i.+ne.

I tugged the dinghy down to the water, and pushed off for the _Betty_, which looked strangely small and unreal lying there in the dim, mysterious twilight. The sound I made as I drew near must have reached Joyce's ears. She was up on deck in a moment, fully dressed, and with her hair twisted into a long bronze plait that hung down some way below her waist. She looked as fresh and fair as the dawn itself.

”Beautifully punctual,” she called out over the side. ”I knew you would be, so I started getting breakfast.”

I caught hold of the gunwale and scrambled on board.

”It's like living at the Savoy,” I said. ”Breakfast was a luxury that had never entered my head.”

”Well, it's going to now,” she returned, ”unless you're in too great a hurry to start. It's all ready in the cabin.”

”We can spare ten minutes certainly,” I said. ”Experiments should always be made on a full body.”

I tied up the dinghy and followed her inside, where the table was decorated with bread and b.u.t.ter and the remnants of the cold pheasant, while a kettle hissed away cheerfully on the Primus.

”I don't believe you've been to bed at all, Joyce,” I said. ”And yet you look as if you'd just slipped out of Paradise by accident.”

She laughed, and putting her hand in my side-pocket, took out my handkerchief to lift off the kettle with.

”I didn't want to sleep,” she said. ”I was too happy, and too miserable. It's the widest-awake mixture I ever tried.” Then, picking up the teapot, she added curiously: ”Where's the powder? I expected to see you arrive with a large keg over your shoulder.”

I sat down at the table and produced a couple of gla.s.s flasks, tightly corked.

”Here you are,” I said. ”This is ordinary gunpowder, and this other one's my stuff. It looks harmless enough, doesn't it?”

Joyce took both flasks and examined them with interest. ”You've not brought very much of it,” she said. ”I was hoping we were going to have a really big blow-up.”

”It will be big enough,” I returned consolingly, ”unless I've made a mistake.”

”Where are you going to do it?” she asked.

”Somewhere at the back of Canvey Island,” I said. ”There's no one to wake up there except the sea-gulls, and we can be out of sight round the corner before it explodes. I've got about twenty feet of fuse, which will give us at least a quarter of an hour to get away in.”

”What fun!” exclaimed Joyce. ”I feel just like an anarchist or something; and it's lovely to know that one's launching a new invention. We ought to have kept that bottle of champagne to christen it with.”

”Yes,” I said regretfully; ”it was the real christening brand too.”

There was a short silence. ”I've thought of a name for it,” cried Joyce suddenly. ”The powder, I mean. We'll call it Lyndonite. It sounds like something that goes off with a bang, doesn't it?”

I laughed. ”It would probably suggest that to the prison authorities,”

I said. ”Anyhow, Lyndonite it shall be.”

We finished breakfast, and going up on deck I proceeded to haul in the anchor, while Joyce stowed away the crockery and provisions below. For once in a way the engine started without much difficulty, and as the tide was running out fast it didn't take us very long to reach the mouth of the creek.

Once outside, I set a course down stream as close to the northern sh.o.r.e as I dared go. Except for a rusty-looking steam tramp we had the whole river to ourselves, not even a solitary barge breaking the long stretch of grey water. One by one the old landmarks--Mucking Lighthouse, the Thames Cattle Wharf, and Hole Haven--were left behind, and at last the entrance to the creek that runs round behind Canvey Island came into sight.