Part 2

"Mr. Skelly!" Douglas cut in shakily, "are you aware that you used eight-hundred-thousand dollars worth of platinum to paint the ship! What are you trying to do, man--" the young skipper's voice rose to a croaked scream--"buy those damned witches off?"

Tug shuddered visibly at the profane reference to the dreaded Giants of the Pass.

"I wouldn't talk that way about them, Cap'n," he shivered, "no, sir. You see, the formula for purification includes platinum--that's according to old Joshua MacLevy. But I couldn't find any white paint at all. So I jes' had to use--well, what came to hand."

"Which happened to be our cargo of platinum," Captain Douglas murmured incredulously. He sank into his swivel like a man in a dream. It was still possible, of course, to salvage much of the precious metal from the hull. But doing the job now, while en route, would mean a suicidal delay; while bringing the _Lucifer_ in, festooned as she was, would very likely mean his ticket. Misery seemed to threaten both courses equally; but the young skipper felt he had no choice. Somehow--white or black--the _Lucifer_ had to be brought in on schedule.

"Mr. Jackson," Captain Douglas said with forgivable bitterness, "you will have bo'sun Skelly confined to irons for the remainder of the run. We may all lose our jobs for this, but with him in the holds, we'll at least have a chance to complete the voyage alive!"

* * * * *

The _Lucifer_, now a white spear cleaving the darkness, reacted to the proximity of the Cross Straits like a cat to danger. All flight regulations were strictly enforced, by the Captain's special command. Every instrument and delicate warning device was tested out and brought up to specifications. The ship took on the grim aspect of a citadel prepared to withstand any eventuality.

Only bo'sun Tug Skelly was idle as the _Lucifer_ neared the Pass. In the tiny cell underdeck, Tug accepted his enforced inactivity with the resignation of a martyr. But he learned from Andy, the galley-boy, that the _Lucifer's_ white coat lay still untouched, and that brought him some comfort.

"There's things about spacin'," Tug told the boy, as he ate the food Andy had brought him, "that nobody learns in books. Don't make no mistake, Andy, edjacation is good--but it ain't everything. Nossir!"

"Nuts," Andy remarked picking up the fast-emptied tray. "I've heard that the skipper is gonna have you examined in New York. Says you're bugs."

Tug stared ahead of him and nodded with a long-suffering look. "People with real knowledge," he said slowly, "is always considered bugs, Andy. Sure. Look at Mad Old James Flaherty, the man who first reached Moon. And before him there was a feller named Gally Leo who told everybody the earth moved around the sun--like it does. Everybody thought they was bugs, until it turned out they was _geenyusses_!"

"Yeh," Andy grunted unimpressed, "only you _are_ bugs."

The galley-boy's simple but crushing logic left Tug without a reply. He merely growled contemptuously and watched Andy, as the boy leisurely gathered his utensils and exited from the cell. Alone, the big bo'sun shivered suddenly and sat motionless on his cot as if transfixed. It seemed to Tug that through the thick bulkhead before him a low, far-off wailing sound was coming--a sound just like the one Old Joshua MacLevy had described. By Tug's private reckoning, the _Lucifer_ was right at the Straits. And that wail could only be--! Despite the careful and costly precaution he had taken against the Witches of the Pass, Tug Skelly's eyes began to bulge.

Up on the bridge, a few minutes before, Captain Chris Douglas also witnessed a peculiar thing. It was mate Pete Jackson, at the forward sight, who called his attention to it. Douglas reluctantly tore his gaze from the gleaming, many-dialed instrument panel before him, and answered the mate's summons.

"A cloud," Jackson frowned. "Dead ahead."

They were at the lips of the Straits; a few moments more and they would be inside. Captain Douglas glanced hurriedly at the plate. A vague and nebulous gray mist was swirling before the ship; but even as he watched it, it seemed to melt away and disappear. Douglas quickly volted up to maximum the ray-repellers and meteor-deflectors that lined the _Lucifer's_ hull.

"Whatever's in the Straits," Chris Douglas said grimly, "is going to bounce right off our hull. The _Lucifer_ was made for heavy weather."

"Sure thing, Capt'n," Pete Jackson said wistfully, "but I can't help wishing we were through already!"

"We'll get through," Douglas said with more confidence than he actually felt. "The Pass can't be more than twenty-thousand kilos long. We'll be out the other side before you can whistle Home Sweet Home."

"I couldn't whistle anything now," Pete Jackson sighed as he bent his wizened face to the visiplate.

For a few moments, it looked as if the Captain's optimistic prediction might be justified. The _Lucifer_ was covering almost a thousand yards every tenth of a second. It was after about five seconds that the wailing and shrieking noises first came through the hull into the bridge.

"Stars and saints above!" Pete Jackson stiffened slowly in his seat, his little blue eyes engulfed in whiteness. Captain Douglas, too, jerked nervously at the eerie sounds. But the dials before him continued to reveal nothing amiss. He shot a quick, hard command to keep the course. The mate obeyed trembling as from ague. A split-second later they were in the Pass.

* * * * *

There wasn't any doubt they were in something! A wave of superheated steam seemed to strike the _Lucifer_ simultaneously from all sides. The needle on the tempogauge jerked sharply upward. The pressure oxygen in the bridge grew suddenly warm. Captain Douglas and mate sweat in a trice.

"What's this?" Pete Jackson started from his seat.

"Can't tell what it is," Captain Douglas frowned before the dials. "The tempogauge is going up, but I don't know why."

"Hah!" Pete Jackson's laugh broke queerly. "It couldn't be the hot breath o' Tug Skelly's witches now, could it, Capt'n?"

"Witches be blowed!" Douglas snarled.

"Still," Jackson protested weakly, "it might be a good idea to turn back, even now. That tempo-needle's going up awful fast."

"Hold the course, Mr. Jackson," Douglas said angrily. To execute a slow turning maneuver at this point would be tantamount to suicide! Jackson knew that too, only the mate wasn't using his head any longer. Whatever danger they were in, their best chance was to hold speed and try to slip through the Pass before the blistering heat outside melted down their hull plates.

The mate steadied in his seat.

"Give her everything she'll take," Captain Douglas ordered the engine-room via his speaking-tube. "Everything!"

"_Aye, aye, sir._" The choked reply from below was followed by a long, muttered oath that almost made young Douglas grin. He called down a word of encouragement, and stepped swiftly back to the instrument panel. The tempo-needle was mounting in the dangerous red ever closer and closer to the hull melting-point. The heat inside the bridge was insufferable by now; the two men, stripped to the waist, their bodies shining oilily, could hardly breathe. The shrieking outside had risen to a horrendous, deafening clamor. The end, one way or another, could scarcely be more than a few seconds off.

"We can't take much more," Pete Jackson gulped miserably. "She'll open a seam sure!"

"Jackson," Douglas said with sudden thought, "better get Skelly out of the hold. If the ship goes, we might have a chance with the emergency-dories." The thought was futile though, and both men knew it. A temperature that could melt the _Lucifer's_ hull would reduce one of the flimsy dories to ash in an instant. Nevertheless, Jackson got to his feet. But, before he could take a step, something in the port sight caught the mate's eye. Pete Jackson slowly stiffened until he stood rigid and pallid as a corpse.

"Capt'n Douglas!" Jackson cried in the weak and despairing voice of a man whose innermost dread is all too horribly realized. "_There's the witch!_"

* * * * *

With an impatient frown, Douglas sprang to the port plate where the mate's gaze was transfixed. But the vision that met the skipper brought him up in his tracks. An icy chill trickled down Chris Douglas's spine despite the terrible heat around him. A great black shape, long as the _Lucifer_ herself, loomed beside them; half-shrouded in mist, huge funereal form now rode alongside the freighter, so close that hissing sparks from the _Lucifer's_ steaming plates sprayed it. Like some grim and timely escort from beyond, the apparition kept pace with the stricken white ship.

"Merciful Mary!" Pete Jackson gasped incoherently. "We're done for now, Capt'n!"

Douglas ran a dazed hand over his sweat-ridden eyes, opening them wider. Then, even as he watched, the black shape began to turn slowly, falling back from the hurtling _Lucifer_. Only then could he see it fully. A cry of astonishment broke from the skipper as he recognized the thing for what it was. This Witch of the Pass was the gaunt and charred corpse of an ether-blaster, whose orbit lay round and round inside the Straits that had destroyed it. Like a mute, accusing ghost, the old ship was forever destined to haunt the narrow scene of its murder.

No wonder that for an instant he had half-believed the Straits bewitched! The sight outside wasn't very pleasant. Nor was it comforting to think that the _Lucifer_ might yet join that lonely vigil. Captain Douglas turned from the plate and choked an angry oath back at the searing heat around him.

"Get Skelly," he snapped to Jackson; but the mate was clearly in no condition to obey. Pete Jackson still stood like a man who has looked into the inferno and is only awaiting the summons of a ghastly tap on the shoulder. Douglas scowled, blinked the sweat from his eyes, and started to exit himself. It didn't seem to make much difference, but he couldn't let the bo'sun perish like a caged rat.

However, he didn't leave the bridge. Something on the instrument panel gave Captain Douglas the sudden hope that he might be able to let Skelly stay where he was. The tempo-needle had halted its upward swing. The tiny arrow hovered motionless a hair's breadth from the hull melting-point; but it did not advance. As he watched it, the needle began to retreat, imperceptibly at first; then faster. Douglas jumped incredulously to the forward plate.

The twilighted expanse before the _Lucifer_ was wide, frosty and marvelously clear. The mists had disappeared. They were through! The Captain's call brought mate Jackson up from his seat and all the way across the bridge in two jumps.

"Praise be!" Pete Jackson blinked joyfully into the sight. "It's a miracle--that's what it is!"

"A miracle, my big toe!" was Captain Douglas's very unskipperish retort. A thought which might explain the _Lucifer's_ narrow escape from the fate of the charred ether-blaster, was forming in the skipper's mind. It was a thought which gained credence when Douglas quickly tested the contents of a vial in the bridge. The glass receptacle was filled with a sampling of the misty vapor in the Straits.

"Look at this," Douglas called the mate to him. Jackson peered at the results of the test, incredulously at first; then with an abject expression as he realized what it meant. Captain Douglas's further explanation did not make the little mate feel any happier.

"I just don't know what happened to me," Pete Jackson shook his head. "First those infernal shrieks and then that old oxy-burner back there--" The mate broke off with a woeful, contrite look.

"I know, Pete," Douglas grinned with a mock shudder. "Seeing that old hulk had me believing in ghosts for a while myself. Anyway, it's over and we're damned lucky. It's double rations all around at mess tonight. And I think we'll get Skelly out of the brig. He's probably so overcooked by now that he doesn't need any more punishing. Besides, I want to talk to him."

And Chris Douglas offered the mate a significant look which made Jackson brighten up considerably as he grinned back in understanding.

* * * * *

"So you see, Skelly,"--several hours later Captain Douglas summed up the points of the simple but precise lecture in his cabin: "The myth of the Twin Witches can be altogether explained by the facts on hand now. The real danger in the Straits was--air. Plain dust-filled air. A wide column of it circulates about the Pass at better than gale velocity. That, and nothing else, accounts for the howling noises."

The _Lucifer's_ skipper addressed his bo'sun in the presence of mate Jackson and a few other crew members. Tug Skelly's great face, as he listened, was the livid hue of broiled lobster. The heat in his little cell _had_ been terrific. But no gleam of enlightenment lit the bo'sun's eyes as the Captain spoke. Tug's only reaction was a rather mistrustful frown.

"It's clear," Douglas went on carefully, "that the old ships that tried the Straits were charred instantly by the terrible friction set up when they struck the air. The same thing would have happened to us, if it hadn't been for the platinum on our hull."

Tug's face brightened with that; but his grin cost him such pain that he gulped hard and swallowed it down. In the little room, his swollen, flaming countenance flared like a great beacon.

"Sure, Cap'n," Tug nodded as he managed an imperceptible smile. "I told you we'd get through all right if yuh left it to me."

"Now, listen," Douglas said a trifle testily, "the platinum didn't do a thing but insulate our hull from the heat. Don't you see? It was just enough to keep the plates from melting. Platinum can't be oxidized--it can't be burnt! And that's what saved our lives. You see it now, don't you, Skelly?"

"Yessir, Cap'n," Tug frowned. "I get what you're drivin' at." The big bo'sun did seem to be making an effort to understand the simple mechanics that underlay their escape. And that, Captain Douglas felt, was a momentous step in the right direction.

"Good!" Captain Christopher Douglas said with feeling. He relaxed and looked about him with a pleased smile. Another convert had been led from darkness into the light of truth and science. It was not every day that Chris Douglas was privileged to rescue some poor, superstition-ridden soul. A sense of warm beneficence filled the young skipper. But he had another reason, besides the fact that the _Lucifer_ was now certain to fetch New York on schedule, to congratulate himself.

"I've got good news for you, Skelly," Douglas smiled; "you'll be glad to learn that the platinum you used on the hull was caked by the heat; and it is almost a hundred-percent recoverable."

"That's jes' fine!" Tug said with much relief. "I was sort of worried about that."

"Yes," Douglas went on pointedly but not unkindly, "and since it was your boner in Orion City that got us into the mess in the first place, I have decided, Skelly, that you're going to do the recovering, by yourself! However, once the platinum is back in the hold we'll call all accounts square. How is that?"

"Me, Cap'n? Myself?" Tug's singed eyebrows went up in surprised disappointment. It was clear the bo'sun had expected a different kind of reward for the part he played in traversing the dread Pass. Tug scratched his head wryly. "It's OK I guess," he sighed.

"You've got three days," Douglas said, "before we arrive in New York to do the job. That's providing you start at once. I think you'd better get your bulger and go out on the hull right now--unless--" the Captain smiled a little--"unless you're still afraid of those witches, Skelly."

The Captain bantered easily. The light of science brightened every corner of the cabin now. The darkness was a thing of the past. It was impossible even to think of witches without snickering. However, the painful grin on Tug Skelly's face was hardly a snicker; rather it was a sly and knowing grin.

"No sir! Cap'n," Tug scoffed heavily. "Not me! I never was afraid o' those witches on account of myself--it was the rest of the crew I was thinkin' about all along! Yessir. Y'see, I had _this_ all the time, Cap'n."

Tug drew from his huge bosom a tiny, bedraggled object that hung by a cord from his neck. With some pride, he exhibited his possession to Captain Douglas who stared puzzledly at the little, shapeless thing. But before Douglas could examine it, the bo'sun tucked it back inside his shirt and saluted with as much vigor as his par-boiled frame would allow.

"Yessir!" Tug Skelly announced confidently. "I'll have that platinum back in the hold before morning mess."

It wasn't until the group had followed Tug Skelly out of the cabin, leaving him alone, that Captain Douglas realized what the bo'sun had held up in his gnarled palm. The realization made the young skipper sigh heavily and sink back into his seat. The victory of science over bo'sun Tug Skelly was not destined to be an easy one. Tug was going bravely out onto the _Lucifer's_ hull armed with an old and much-used--rabbit's foot!