Part 24 (1/2)

”Open her out,” he said. ”That's a steamboat coming, and it looks as if she would go by well to the south.”

Bill pulled at a lever, the engine clanked faster, and the launch commenced to rail more sharply as she lurched over the long undulations with an increasing gurgle beneath her side. The sea was oily smooth, and she rolled southwards fast; but the steamer's lights were rising high, and the pounding of engines grew louder in a sharp crescendo, until they could hear the black water frothing under iron bows. Then the launch's whistle broke into a shrill scream. There was no answer, and Austin turned to the fireman again.

”Shake her up! There will not be another boat for a week!” he said.

Bill pulled the lever over a little further, and stirred the furnace, and the clanking grew louder, while the launch rolled more violently.

When she swung up, Austin saw a strip of dusky hull that swayed and heaved in front of them, and then was suddenly lost to view again.

”She's not one of the mailboats, anyway. They'd be lighted, saloon deck and p.o.o.p,” he said. ”It almost looks as if she would get away from us.”

Bill opened the whistle full, and left it screaming while he sprang up on the side deck, a black figure holding high a strip of blazing waste.

Its red glare streaked the water, and the burning oil dripped from it in a sparkling rain, while Austin felt his heart beat when the man flung it down with an imprecation. Then a deep, vibratory blast came trembling across the glimmering water, and he saw the piled-up foam fall away beneath the big iron bows.

”They've seen us,” he said. ”She's standing by.”

Five minutes later the launch lay lurching beneath the steamer's high, black side, while a man leaned out from her slanted bridge above, looking down into her.

”What d'you want?” he said. ”I'm not going in for cargo unless it's worth while. We're tolerably full this trip.”

”A pa.s.sage,” said Austin. ”There are myself and two sick men. We're going to Grand Canary.”

”What's the oil for?”

”To cover the ticket.”

The skipper appeared to be gazing down at him in astonishment.

”Sixteen pounds' worth, at the most, for three men to Grand Canary! You have good nerves,” he said.

”I can't go any further, and you see they're very sick.”

The skipper was understood to say that his s.h.i.+p was not a several adjectived hospital, but Austin only smiled, for he was acquainted with that kind of man, and aware that he was, at least, as likely to do him a kindness as an elaborately got up mailboat's skipper.

”Well,” he said, ”if you won't have us, I'll take them back and bury them. It's tolerably sure to come to that. Two of us will not eat much, any way, and we'll be quite content to sleep on deck.”

There was no answer for a moment, and then, as the bridge came slanting down, the man who leaned out from it laughed.

”It's a puncheon of oil to nothing, and I've been hard up myself,” he said. ”The next thing is, how the devil are you going to get them up?

We've stowed away our ladder.”

”Then it'll have to be a sling. I'll steady them up when she rises, and some of your crowd can hand them in.”

It was done with difficulty, for the steamer rolled with a disconcerting swing, and then Austin grasped Bill's hand before he went up the rope. A gong clanged sharply, the launch slid astern, and several seamen carried the two bundles of foul blankets away. While Austin watched them vacantly a hand fell upon his shoulder, and propelled him into a room beneath the bridge. Then he heard a harsh voice:

”There isn't any factory I'm acquainted with hereabouts. Where d'you get that oil from?” it said.

Austin sat down on the settee and blinked at the burly, hard-faced man in front of him.