Part 90 (2/2)
”Then that's two I owe him. I always used to think that Sir John was best man with a gun, but after that--well, I'm done. All I can say is, I hope my turn 'll come to do something for the doctor, and till it does I'll take anything he likes to give me, even if it's jollop, and won't make a face.”
Jack laughed.
”Oh yes, it's easy to smile a grin, sir,” said Ned, ”but if you'd tasted some of the stuff he gave me you wouldn't.”
”Ah, well, you will not want any physic now, Ned.”
”Hah! it seems more natural on board now,” said the mate, coming up smiling. ”You two have given us an anxious time. We must have it all over as soon as we're safe from the hurricane.”
”Hurricane?” said Ned, staring. ”What hurricane? Where?”
The mate pointed astern, and Ned stared out to sea as the yacht raced along.
”Well, I can't see anything,” he said.
”Can't you see that thick, hazy look astern?”
”What, that bit o' fog?”
”Yes; it is chasing us pretty sharply; I'm afraid we shall not get into harbour before it's down upon us. Ah, there's the skipper.”
The speaker walked quickly aft, and found Captain Bradleigh, who had just come on deck from the cabin, and after a look round there was a brief consultation, and all hands were piped on deck. Then for the next hour there was a busy scene. The tops were sent down, the sails doubly secured, boats swung inboard and lashed, and every possible precaution taken to make all that could be caught by a furious tempest thoroughly secure.
”Well, I suppose they know what they're about, Mr Jack, sir,” said Ned; ”but it looks to me like taking a lot of trouble because the sky's getting a bit dark, and a shower's coming.”
But Ned's knowledge of the typhoon of the eastern tropical seas was naturally not very extensive, and he altered his opinion an hour later, when, in spite of the speed with which the yacht had rushed away before the terrible storm sweeping after them, the sea was white, and half the heavens black as night. It was at half-speed the yacht ran in through the gates of the reef into smooth water, and then turning round at full speed again, went on and on, till she was well under the lee of the great volcano, which did its part when anchors were down, and head to the wind they lay facing the quarter from which the awful hurricane blew.
There was no narrative of adventure given by the seekers or the sought that night, nor any thought of sleep, for officers and men never left the deck, but pa.s.sed a terrible time of anxiety in the expectation that one of the terrific blasts would tear the little vessel from her moorings and cast her upon the inner side of the reef. But the steam was kept up, and the propeller gently turning, sufficient to ease the strain upon the cables, and the anchors held fast.
”She's a splendid craft, gentlemen,” said the captain, when they had a.s.sembled for refreshment in the cabin, during one of the brief lulls of the furious blast; ”but I'm afraid we should none of us have seen another day if we had been caught outside. A man feels very small at a time like this. The worst hurricane I was ever in. Didn't think the wind could blow so fiercely, Mr Jack, eh?”
Jack shook his head.
”It feels,” he said slowly, ”as if the world had broke away, and was rus.h.i.+ng on through s.p.a.ce faster and faster, and never to stop again.”
”Yes, sir,” said the captain quietly, as he gazed at the thoughtful lad.
”You're a scholar, and have read and studied these things. So have I, sir, but not from books, and it seems to me that these things work by their wonderful laws for reasons far beyond our little minds to grasp, and all are working for some great end.”
No one answered, and the wind began to increase in violence again, the noise almost stifling the captain's next words:--
”But we have not broken away, sir, and the sun will rise to a minute in the morning, just as if this hurricane had not come, and please G.o.d everything around us will be calm; but be sure yonder you will hardly know the island, it will be such a wreck.”
The captain's words were true enough as to the calm, for just before daylight the intense blackness which had covered the heavens pa.s.sed away, leaving the stars glittering with a most wondrous brilliancy; there was a deep murmur dying away in the distance, and, utterly exhausted, Jack laid himself down on one of the cabin lounges, to drop off into the deep sleep of utter exhaustion, one from which he awoke to find the warm glow of evening s.h.i.+ning in at the open window, and his father watching him with an anxious expression upon his face.
Captain Bradleigh was quite right. The hurricane had pa.s.sed, and the aspect of the island from where Jack stood with his gla.s.s on deck, sweeping the mountain slopes, in places a terrible wreck. The hollows and deep ravines had naturally escaped, but the higher portions, even on that side, were swept bare, and every now and then the lad gazed through his binocular at piled-up ma.s.ses of tangled bough and branch shattered and splintered as if they had been straws.
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