Part 7 (1/2)

On we sped, and on. About four in the afternoon we heard sounds from Bastin's cabin which faintly reminded me of some tune. I crept to the door and listened. Evidently he had awakened and was singing or trying to sing, for music was not one of his strong points, ”For those in peril on the sea.” Devoutly did I wish that it might be heard. Presently it ceased, so I suppose he went to sleep again.

The darkness gathered once more. Then of a sudden something fearful happened. There were stupendous noises of a kind I had never heard; there were convulsions. It seemed to us that the s.h.i.+p was flung right up into the air a hundred feet or more.

”Tidal wave, I expect,” shouted Bickley.

Almost as he spoke she came down with the most appalling crash on to something hard and nearly jarred the senses out of us. Next the saloon was whirling round and round and yet being carried forward, and we felt air blowing upon us. Then our senses left us. As I clasped Tommy to my side, whimpering and licking my face, my last thought was that all was over, and that presently I should learn everything or nothing.

I woke up feeling very bruised and sore and perceived that light was flowing into the saloon. The door was still shut, but it had been wrenched off its hinges, and that was where the light came in; also some of the teak planks of the decking, jagged and splintered, were sticking up through the carpet. The table had broken from its fastenings and lay upon its side. Everything else was one confusion. I looked at Bickley.

Apparently he had not awakened. He was stretched out still wedged in with his cus.h.i.+ons and bleeding from a wound in his head. I crept to him in terror and listened. He was not dead, for his breathing was regular and natural. The whisky bottle which had been corked was upon the floor unbroken and about a third full. I took a good pull at the spirit; to me it tasted like nectar from the G.o.ds. Then I tried to force some down Bickley's throat but could not, so I poured a little upon the cut on his head. The smart of it woke him in a hurry.

”Where are we now?” he exclaimed. ”You don't mean to tell me that Bastin is right after all and that we live again somewhere else? Oh! I could never bear that ignominy.”

”I don't know about living somewhere else,” I said, ”although my opinions on that matter differ from yours. But I do know that you and I are still on earth in what remains of the saloon of the Star of the South.”

”Thank G.o.d for that! Let's go and look for old Bastin,” said Bickley. ”I do pray that he is all right also.”

”It is most illogical of you, Bickley, and indeed wrong,” groaned a deep voice from the other side of the cabin door, ”to thank a G.o.d in Whom you do not believe, and to talk of praying for one of the worst and most inefficient of His servants when you have no faith in prayer.”

”Got you there, my friend,” I said.

Bickley murmured something about force of habit, and looked smaller than I had ever seen him do before.

Somehow we forced that door open; it was not easy because it had jammed.

Within the cabin, hanging on either side of the bath towel which had stood the strain n.o.bly, something like a damp garment over a linen line, was Bastin most of whose bunk seemed to have disappeared. Yes--Bastin, pale and dishevelled and looking shrunk, with his hair touzled and his beard apparently growing all ways, but still Bastin alive, if very weak.

Bickley ran at him and made a cursory examination with his fingers.

”Nothing broken,” he said triumphantly. ”He's all right.”

”If you had hung over a towel for many hours in most violent weather you would not say that,” groaned Bastin. ”My inside is a pulp. But perhaps you would be kind enough to untie me.”

”Bos.h.!.+” said Bickley as he obeyed. ”All you want is something to eat.

Meanwhile, drink this,” and he handed him the remains of the whisky.

Bastin swallowed it every drop, murmuring something about taking a little wine for his stomach's sake, ”one of the Pauline injunctions, you know,” after which he was much more cheerful. Then we hunted about and found some more of the biscuits and other food with which we filled ourselves after a fas.h.i.+on.

”I wonder what has happened,” said Bastin. ”I suppose that, thanks to the skill of the captain, we have after all reached the haven where we would be.”

Here he stopped, rubbed his eyes and looked towards the saloon door which, as I have said, had been wrenched off its hinges, but appeared to have opened wider than when I observed it last. Also Tommy, who was recovering his spirits, uttered a series of low growls.

”It is a most curious thing,” he went on, ”and I suppose I must be suffering from hallucinations, but I could swear that just now I saw looking through that door the same improper young woman clothed in a few flowers and nothing else, whose photograph in that abominable and libellous book was indirectly the cause of our tempestuous voyage.”

”Indeed!” replied Bickley. ”Well, so long as she has not got on the broken-down stays and the Salvation Army bonnet without a crown, which you may remember she wore after she had fallen into the hands of your fraternity, I am sure I do not mind. In fact I should be delighted to see anything so pleasant.”

At this moment a distinct sound of female t.i.ttering arose from beyond the door. Tommy barked and Bickley stepped towards it, but I called to him.

”Look out! Where there are women there are sure to be men. Let us be ready against accidents.”

So we armed ourselves with pistols, that is Bickley and I did, Bastin being fortified solely with a Bible.