Part 88 (1/2)

”Wind. Tremendous. It will be on us in five minutes.”

But even then it seemed impossible, for we were still sailing swiftly and gently along towards the channel between the islands, and the roar like distant thunder or heavy guns had once more ceased.

”We shall get to the sh.o.r.e first after all,” I whispered.

”No.”

At that moment there was a sensation as of a hot puff of air behind us.

It literally struck my head just as if a great furnace door had been opened, and the glow had shot out on to our necks.

”Here she comes,” growled Tom Jecks; ”and good luck to us.”

And then, as if to carry out the idea of the opened furnace, it suddenly grew lighter--a strange, weird, wan kind of light--and on either side, and running away from us on to the land, the sea was in a wild froth as if suddenly turned to an ocean of milk.

”Down with the sail!” shouted Mr Brooke, who had held on to the last moment, so as to keep the boat as long as possible under his governance; and quickly as disciplined men could obey the sail was lowered, and as far as I could see they were in the act of stowing it along the side, when it filled out with a loud report, and was s.n.a.t.c.hed from their hands and gone.

”Any one hurt?”

”No, sir,” in chorus.

”Oars.”

I heard the rattle of the two pairs being thrust out. Next Mr Brooke's words, yelled out by my ear--”sit fast!” and then there was a heavy blow, heavy but soft and pressing, followed by the stinging on my neck as of hundreds of tiny whips, and then we were rus.h.i.+ng along over the white sea, in the midst of a ma.s.s--I can call it nothing else--of spray, deafened, stunned, feeling as if each moment I should be torn out of my seat, and as if the boat itself were being swept along like lightning over the sea, riding, not on heavy water, but on the spray.

Then all was one wild, confusing shriek and roar. I was deafened; something seemed to clutch me by the throat and try to strangle me; huge soft hands grasped me by the body, and tugged and dragged at me, to tear me from my hold; and then, two arms that were not imaginary, but solid and real, went round me, and grasped the thwart on which I sat, holding me down, while I felt a head resting on my lap.

I could see nothing but a strange, dull, whitish light when I managed to hold my eyelids up for a moment, but nothing else was visible; and above all--the deafening roar, the fearful buffeting and tearing at me--there was one thing which mastered, and that was the sensation of being stunned and utterly confused. I was, as it were, a helpless nothing, beaten and driven by the wind and spray, onward, onward, like a sc.r.a.p of chaff. Somebody was clinging to me, partly to save himself, partly to keep me from being dragged out of the boat; but whether Mr Brooke was still near me, whether the men were before me, or whether there was any more boat at all than that upon which I was seated, I did not know. All I knew was that I was there, and that I was safe, in spite of all the attempts made by the typhoon to drag me out and sweep me away like a leaf over the milky sea.

It cannot be described. Every sense was numbed. And if any lad who reads this were to take the most terrible storm he ever witnessed, square it, and then cube it, I do not believe that he would approach the elemental disturbance through which we were being hurled.

There was a rocky sh.o.r.e in front of us, and another rocky island sh.o.r.e to our left; and between these two sh.o.r.es lay the channel for which we had tried to make. But Mr Brooke's rule over the boat was at an end the moment the storm was upon us, and, as far as I could ever learn afterwards, no one thought of rocks, channel, saving his life, or being drowned. The storm struck us, and with its furious rush went all power of planning or thinking. Every nerve of the body was devoted to the tasks of holding on and getting breath.

How long it lasted--that wild rush, riding on the spray, held as it were by the wind--I don't know. I tell you I could not think. It went on and on as things do in a horrible dream, till all at once something happened. I did not hear it, nor see it, hardly even felt it. I only know that something happened, and I was being strangled--choked, but in another way. The hands which grasped my throat to keep me from breathing had, I believe, ceased to hold, and something hot and terrible was rus.h.i.+ng up my nostrils and down my throat, and I think I then made some effort with my hands. Then I was being dragged along through water and over something soft, and all at once, though the deafening, confusing noise went on, I was not being swept away, but lying still on something hard.

I think that my senses left me entirely then for a few moments--not more, for I was staring soon after at the dull light of white water sweeping along a little way off, and breathing more freely as I struggled hard to grasp what it all meant, for I did not know. I saw something dim pa.s.s me, and then come close and touch me, as if it sank down by my side; and that happened again and again.

But it was all very dream-like and strange: the awful, overwhelming, crus.h.i.+ng sound of the wind seemed to press upon my brain so that I could not for a long time think, only lie and try to breathe without catching each inspiration in a jerky, spasmodic way.

I suppose hours must have pa.s.sed, during which I stared through the darkness at the dull whitish phosph.o.r.escent glow which appeared through the gloom, and died out, and appeared and died out again and again, pa.s.sing like clouds faintly illumined in a ghastly way, and all mingled with the confusion caused by that awful roar. Then at last I began to feel that the rush of wind and water was pa.s.sing over me, and that I was in some kind of shelter; and when I had once hit upon this, I had as it were grasped a clue. I knew that I was lying on stones, and saw that rising above me was a ma.s.s of rock, which I knew by the touch, and this stone was sheltering me from the wind and spray.

”We must have reached the sh.o.r.e safely, then,” I said to myself, for my head was getting clearer; ”and--yes--no--I was not hurt. We were all saved, then.”

At that point a terrible feeling of dread came over me. I was safe, but my companions?

The shock of this thought threw me back for a bit, but I was soon struggling with the confusion again, and I recalled the fact that I had felt some one touch me as he sank down by my side.

Arrived at this point, I turned a little to look, but all was perfectly black. I stretched out my hand and felt about.

I s.n.a.t.c.hed it back with a cry of horror. Yes, a cry of horror; for, though I could not hear it, I felt it escape from my lips. I had touched something all wet and cold lying close beside me, and I felt that it was one of my companions who had been cast up or dragged ash.o.r.e--dead.