Part 27 (1/2)

”Ice!” he roared. ”Big pack of it right under your weather bow.”

Dampier shouted something, but Wyllard did not hear what he said. He was conscious only that he had to decide what he must do in the next few seconds. If he let the _Selache_ come up to avoid the boat, there was the ice ahead, and at the speed she was traveling it would infallibly incrush her bows, while if he held her straight there was the boat close in front of her. To swing her clear of both by going to leeward he must bring the mainsail and boom-foresail over with a tremendous shock, but that seemed preferable, and with his heart in his mouth he pulled his helm up.

He fancied he cried out in warning, but was never sure of it, though three men came running to seize the mainsheet. The schooner fell off a little, swinging until the boom-foresail came over with a thunderous bang and crash. She rolled down, heaving a wide strip of wet planking out of the sea, and now for a moment or two there were great breadths of canvas swung out on either hand. Then the ponderous main-boom went up high above his head, and he saw three shadowy figures dragged aft as they tried in vain to steady it The big mainsail was bunched up, a vast, portentous shape above him, and he set his lips, and pulled up the helm another spoke as it swung.

He never quite knew what happened after that. There was a horrible crash, and the schooner appeared to be rolling over bodily. The spokes he clung to desperately reft themselves from his grasp, the deck slanted until one could not stand upon it, and something heavy struck him on the head. He dropped, and Dampier flung himself upon the wheel above his senseless body.

There was mad confusion, and a frantic banging of canvas as the schooner came up beam to the wind, with her rent mainsail flogging itself to tatters. Its ponderous boom was broken, and the mainmast-head had gone, but it was not the first time the sealers had grappled with similar difficulties, and Dampier kept his head. He had the boat to think of, and she was somewhere to windward, hidden in the sudden darkness and the turmoil of the quickly rising sea, but the schooner counted most of all!

His crew could scarcely hear him through the uproar made by the thundering canvas, and the screaming of the wind, but the orders were given, and from habit and the custom of their calling the men knew what the commands must be.

They hauled a jib down, backed the fore-staysail, and got the boom-foresail sheeted in, but they let the rent mainsail bang, for it could do no more damage than it had already done.

A man sprang up on the rail with a blue light in his hand, and as the weird radiance flared in a long streak to leeward a cry rose from the water. In another few moments a blurred object, half hidden in flying spray, drove down upon the schooner furiously on the top of a sea, and then there was sudden darkness as the man flung down the torch.

Another harsh and half-heard cry rose out of the obscurity. An indistinguishable object plunged past the schooner's stern, there was a crash to leeward as the schooner rolled, and a man standing up in the boat clutched her rail. The man was swung out of it as the vessel rolled back again, but he crawled on to the rail with a rope in one hand, and after jamming it fast around something, he sprang down with the hooks of the lifting tackles which one of the crew had given him. While two more men scrambled up, there was a clatter of blocks, but a shattered sea struck the boat as they hove her clear, and, when she swung in, the brine poured out through the rents in her. Dampier waved an arm as they dropped her on the deck, and they heard him faintly.

”Boys,” he shouted, ”you have got to cut that mainsail down!”

They obeyed somehow, hanging on to the mast-hoops, and now and then enveloped by the madly flogging canvas. After that they trimmed her fore-staysail over, and there was by contrast a curious quietness as Dampier jammed his helm up, and the schooner swung off before the sea.

Then somebody lighted a lantern, and Charly stooped over Wyllard, who lay limp and still beside the wheel. In the feeble light, Wyllard's face showed gray except where a broad red stain had spread across it. Dampier cast a glance at him.

”Get him below, and into his bunk, two of you,” he commanded.

The men carried him with difficulty, for the _Selache_ lurched viciously each time a white-topped sea came up upon her quarter. As soon as it seemed advisable to leave the deck Dampier went down. Wyllard lay in his bunk, with his eyes half-open. His face was colorless except for the broad smear of blood, which was oozing fast from a laceration in his scalp. Dampier, who noticed his chilliness, did not trouble about the wound. He stripped off the senseless man's long boots, and, uns.h.i.+pping a hot fender iron from the stove, laid it against his feet. Afterward he contrived to get some whisky down Wyllard's throat, and then he set to work to wash the scalp wound, dropping into the water a little of the permanganate of potash, which is freely used at sea. When that was done he applied a rag dipped in the same fluid, and seeing no result of his efforts went back on deck. He was anxious about his patient, but not unduly so, for he had discovered long ago that men of Wyllard's type are apt to recover from more serious injuries.

It was blowing very hard when the skipper stood near the wheel. A steep sea was already tumbling after the schooner, but she was, at least, heading out from where they supposed the ice to be, and he let her go, keeping her away before it, and heading a little south of east. The next morning the sea was very high, and the faint light was further dimmed by snow, but it seemed safe to Dampier, and the vessel held on while the big combers came up astern and forged by high above her rail.

The _Selache_ was traveling fast to the eastward. She was under boom-foresail and one little jib, with her mainmast broken short off where the bolts of the halliard blocks had traversed it. Dampier realized that every knot the vessel made then could not be recovered that season. He wondered, with a little uneasiness, what Wyllard would say when he came to himself again.

Next day the breeze moderated somewhat, and they let the schooner come up a little, heading further south. On the morning after that Wyllard showed signs of returning consciousness. Dampier, however, kept away from him, partly to allow his senses to readjust themselves, and partly because he shrank from the necessary interview. When dusk was falling, Charly went on deck to say that Wyllard, who seemed perfectly conscious, insisted on seeing the skipper, and with some misgivings Dampier went down into the little cabin. The lamp was lighted, and when he sat down Wyllard, who raised himself feebly on his pillow, turned a pallid face to him.

”Charly tells me you picked the boat up,” he said.

”We did,” answered Dampier. ”She had three or four planks on one side ripped out of her.”

Wyllard's faint grimace implied that this did not matter, and Dampier braced himself for the question he dreaded. He had to face it another moment.

”How's she heading?”

”A little south of east.”

Wyllard's face hardened. It was still blowing moderately and by the heave of the vessel and the wash of water outside he could guess how fast she was traveling. For a moment or two there was an oppressive silence in the little cabin. Then Wyllard spoke again.

”You have been running to the eastwards since I was struck down?” he asked.

Dampier nodded. ”Three days,” he confessed. ”Just now the breeze is on her quarter.”

He winced under Wyllard's gaze, and spread out his hands with a deprecating gesture.