Part 3 (1/2)

”A trifle better, I think.”

”I have sent for some refreshments. Let us have another _dekko_[Footnote: Hindustani for ”look”--word much used by sailors in the East.] before we tackle them.”

The two officers pa.s.sed out into the hurricane. Instantly the wind endeavored to tear the charthouse from off the deck. They looked aloft and ahead. The officer on duty saw them and nodded silent comprehension. It was useless to attempt to speak. The weather was perceptibly clearer.

Then all three peered ahead again. They stood, pressing against the wind, seeking to penetrate the murkiness in front. Suddenly they were galvanized into strenuous activity.

A wild howl came from the lookout forward. The eyes of the three men glared at a huge dismasted Chinese junk, wallowing helplessly in the trough of the sea, dead under the bows.

The captain sprang to the charthouse and signaled in fierce pantomime that the wheel should be put hard over.

The officer in charge of the bridge pressed the telegraph lever to ”stop” and ”full speed astern,” whilst with his disengaged hand he pulled hard at the siren cord, and a raucous warning sent stewards flying through the s.h.i.+p to close collision bulkhead doors. The ”chief”

darted to the port rail, for the _Sirdar's_ instant response to the helm seemed to clear her nose from the junk as if by magic.

It all happened so quickly that whilst the hoa.r.s.e signal was still vibrating through the s.h.i.+p, the junk swept past her quarter. The chief officer, joined now by the commander, looked down into the wretched craft. They could see her crew lashed in a bunch around the capstan on her elevated p.o.o.p. She was laden with timber. Although water-logged, she could not sink if she held together.

A great wave sucked her away from the steamer and then hurled her back with irresistible force. The _Sirdar_ was just completing her turning movement, and she heeled over, yielding to the mighty power of the gale. For an appreciable instant her engines stopped. The ma.s.s of water that swayed the junk like a cork lifted the great s.h.i.+p high by the stern. The propeller began to revolve in air--for the third officer had corrected his signal to ”full speed ahead” again--and the c.u.mbrous Chinese vessel struck the _Sirdar_ a terrible blow in the counter, smas.h.i.+ng off the screw close to the thrust-block and wrenching the rudder from its bearings.

There was an awful race by the engines before the engineers could shut off steam. The junk vanished into the wilderness of noise and tumbling seas beyond, and the fine steamer of a few seconds ago, replete with magnificent energy, struggled like a wounded leviathan in the grasp of a vengeful foe.

She swung round, as if in wrath, to pursue the puny a.s.sailant which had dealt her this mortal stroke. No longer breasting the storm with stubborn persistency, she now drifted aimlessly before wind and wave.

She was merely a larger plaything, tossed about by t.i.tantic gambols.

The junk was burst asunder by the collision. Her planks and cargo littered the waves, were even tossed in derision on to the decks of the _Sirdar_. Of what avail was strong timber or bolted iron against the spleen of the unchained and formless monster who loudly proclaimed his triumph? The great steams.h.i.+p drifted on through chaos. The typhoon had broken the lance.

But brave men, skilfully directed, wrought hard to avert further disaster. After the first moment of stupor, gallant British sailors risked life and limb to bring the vessel under control.

By their calm courage they shamed the paralyzed Lascars into activity.

A sail was rigged on the foremast, and a sea anchor hastily constructed as soon as it was discovered that the helm was useless. Rockets flared up into the sky at regular intervals, in the faint hope that should they attract the attention of another vessel she would follow the disabled _Sirdar_ and render help when the weather moderated.

When the captain ascertained that no water was being s.h.i.+pped, the damage being wholly external, the collision doors were opened and the pa.s.sengers admitted to the saloon, a brilliant palace, superbly indifferent to the wreck and ruin without.

Captain Ross himself came down and addressed a few comforting words to the quiet men and pallid women gathered there. He told them exactly what had happened.

Sir John Tozer, self-possessed and critical, asked a question.

”The junk is destroyed, I a.s.sume?” he said.

”It is.”

”Would it not have been better to have struck her end on?”

”Much better, but that is not the view we should take if we encountered a vessel relatively as big as the _Sirdar_ was to the unfortunate junk.”

”But,” persisted the lawyer, ”what would have been the result?”

”You would never have known that the incident had happened, Sir John.”

”In other words, the poor despairing Chinamen, clinging to their little craft with some chance of escape, would be quietly murdered to suit our convenience.”

It was Iris's clear voice that rang out this downright exposition of the facts. Sir John shook his head; he carried the discussion no further.