Part 15 (1/2)

She merely nodded and pa.s.sed into the hold. The dim, yellow glow of the lanterns was fading in the growing daylight, making the surroundings more gloomy and depressing than even the half-light. She moved from bed to bed with noiseless steps, performing various little services for the sufferers. One man, who knew that he was dying, asked her to write down and witness his last will and testament--a curiously pathetic doc.u.ment--and for another she wrote a letter that was to be posted at the first port the s.h.i.+p touched. In a far corner she found a man making feeble efforts to undo the front of his s.h.i.+rt. He was too weak to speak, and, wondering what he wanted, the girl unb.u.t.toned it to find a small silver crucifix suspended from a piece of string round his neck.

Divining his need, she placed it in his hand, and the coa.r.s.e, misshapen fingers closed over the Symbol; thus he died.

Soon afterwards the Captain entered and pa.s.sed between the beds, stopping to ask each of the patients how he was getting on, and giving a cheery word of encouragement to everyone. At last he reached the bed where Dora Fletcher stood over the dead figure, whose fingers still clasped the little silver crucifix.

”H'm,” he grunted, ”another loss. Anything to report?”

In a few words the girl described the condition and progress of the various patients. At the conclusion Calamity nodded, but made no comment.

”I should like to ask you a favour, Captain,” she said quietly.

”A favour? Well, what is it?” he demanded in a tone that was the reverse of encouraging.

”Do you think you could give this poor fellow”--she indicated the dead man on the bed--”a Christian burial? I--I think he would have wished it.”

A look of mingled surprise and annoyance came into the Captain's face as he glanced at the unconscious figure.

”The man's dead, isn't he?”

”Yes, of course,” answered the girl, puzzled by the question.

”Then what difference can it make to him how he's buried?” demanded Calamity, and, without waiting for an answer, walked away.

Later on that day Mr. d.y.k.es urged the request again at Miss Fletcher's desire.

”I can't make distinctions,” replied the Captain. ”The man's got to take his chance of paradise with the rest. I'm not going to give him an unfair advantage over the others. Besides, this is a cheerful s.h.i.+p, and I don't intend to depress the living by reading burial services over the dead. They'll get their proper ratings without my a.s.sistance.”

So that evening the corpse, sewed up in canvas and weighted with a piece of pig-iron, was cast over the side without ceremony.

Early on the following morning the look-out upon the foc'sle head reported land on the starboard bow.

The news brought the men rus.h.i.+ng on deck at once, for the sight of land to sailors at sea is always an interesting event, savouring of adventure, women, and wine. The news was immediately reported to the Captain, who hurried on to the bridge and scrutinised the seeming cloud for some time through the gla.s.ses which Smith, who was on watch, handed to him.

”H'm,” grunted Calamity, ”an island.”

”One of the Palau Group I should say, sir.”

”Which means that it's German--eh?”

”_Was_ German, sir,” corrected the second-mate.

”There's no knowing; among so many scattered islands it's quite possible that one or two may have been overlooked by our cruisers.”

”Maybe, sir,” answered Smith doubtfully.

Calamity again focussed the gla.s.ses on the dark smudge in the dim distance. As he had just pointed out to the second-mate, it was quite possible that some of the small islands which went to make up what was once called the Bismarck Archipelago had escaped official annexation.

This seemed the more probable since two German vessels, the gunboat and the commerce-destroyer, were apparently still at large in these waters.

Both s.h.i.+ps, particularly the former, would require a coaling station not too far away, and what more likely, therefore, than that there should be one hidden away among these innumerable islands?

The _Hawk_ slowly bore down upon the land, but her speed was now so reduced that night had set in before those on board were able to get a really good view. By the following morning, however, they found themselves within a mile of it, and its palm-fringed beaches could be seen plainly from the deck. There was nothing about the island to excite wonder or interest, save that it just happened to be dry land amidst a boundless waste of blue waters. Numbers of such islands, many of them far larger, were to be met with in these lat.i.tudes.