* * * * * As the ship entered the pass, the skipper threw the wheel hard over. The schooner spun on its keel. Coral flashed by on either side, close enough to touch. There was a metallic shriek as an upper main-mast spreader snagged and came free. Then they were in the pass, bucking a six-knot current. The mate pushed the diesel to full throttle, then sprang back to help the skipper wrestle with the wheel. Under sail and power the schooner forged through the pass, scraped by an outcropping to port, and came onto the placid surface of the lagoon. The skipper mopped his forehead with a large blue bandanna. "Very snug work," he said. "_Snug!_" the mate cried. He turned away, and the skipper smiled a brief smile. They slid past a small ketch riding at anchor. The native hands took down sail and the schooner nosed up to a rickety pier that jutted out from the beach. Lines were made fast to palm trees. From the fringe of jungle above the beach a white man came down, walking briskly in the noonday heat. He was very tall and thin, with knobby knees and elbows. The fierce Melanesian sun had burned out but not tanned him, and his nose and cheekbones were peeling. His horn-rimmed glasses had broken at the hinge and been repaired with a piece of tape. He looked eager, boyish, and curiously naive. One hell-of-a-looking treasure-hunter, the mate thought. "Glad to see you!" the man called out. "We'd about given you up for lost." "Not likely," the skipper said. "Mr. Sorensen, I'd like you to meet my new mate, Mr. Willis." "Glad to meet you, Professor," the mate said. "I'm not a professor," Sorensen said, "but thanks anyhow." "Where are the others?" the skipper asked. "Out in the jungle," Sorensen said. "All except Drake, and he'll be down here shortly. You'll stay a while, won't you?" "Only to unload," the skipper said. "Have to catch the tide out of here. How's the treasure-hunting?" "We've done a lot of digging," Sorensen said. "We still have our hopes." "But no doubloons yet?" the skipper asked. "No pieces of eight?" "Not a damned one," Sorensen said wearily. "Did you bring the newspapers, Skipper?" "That I did," Sorensen replied. "They're in the cabin. Did you hear about that second spaceship going to Mars?" "Heard about it on the short wave," Sorensen said. "It didn't bring back much, did it?" "Practically nothing. Still, just think of it. _Two_ spaceships to Mars, and I hear they're getting ready to put one on Venus." The three men looked around them and grinned. "Well," the skipper said, "I guess maybe the space age hasn't reached the Southwest Pacific yet. And it certainly hasn't gotten to _this_ place. Come on, let's unload the cargo." * * * * *