IN THE DITCH--AND OUT
FOR some moments neither spoke. At length Van der Wyck broke the
silence.
"They couldn't stop her all at once," he observed. "She might have
gone five miles or more before the engineers got the order to stop.
She'll be back again, never you fear."
A swirl of phosphorescent water close to the buoy turned Colin's
thoughts in another direction.
"Are there sharks about?" he asked.
"Don't fancy so," replied the Afrikander. "If there are, we'll have
to kick and splash. Look here, what did you get into this mess for?"
"I jumped ... on the spur of the moment."
"Sorry you did, eh?"
"No," replied Colin. "I knew you couldn't swim."
"That's a fact," admitted the other bitterly. "A man hasn't much
chance to learn to swim on the veldt. See anything coming?"
"White light," replied Colin laconically. "Yes, and red ... and
green," added the Afrikander. "It's a ship. Can't be the
_Huldebras_; she was chock-full of lights."
"How can we attract her attention?" asked Sinclair. "We're right in
her track."
"Don't know so much about that," declared Van de Wyck. "Her
starboard light's disappeared. She's altering her course. But I'll
have a try for it, anyway. I haven't broken the company's
regulations concerning firearms for nothing."
Hanging on to the buoy with one hand, Van der Wyck produced a
revolver from his hip pocket. Holding it well above his head to
allow the water to drain from the barrel, he added:
"I don't think it'll burst, but keep your face turned away. Thank
goodness I have waterproof cartridges."
A streak of reddish flame, followed by a deafening; report, stabbed
the starlit night. For some moments the flash blinded the pair.
"She's still holding on," declared Colin. "Don't know, though. It
looks as if she's altering her course again."
"I'll try another shot," decided Van der Wyck. "Fortunately I've
about a dozen cartridges besides five in the pistol."
He fired two shots in quick succession, then handed the still
smoking weapon to his companion.
{Illustration: "HE FIRED TWO SHOTS IN QUICK SUCCESSION"
[p.42}
"Keep it out of the water a bit," he said. "My hand's getting rather
numb .... She's broadside on to us, I'm afraid. Surely she heard
those reports. How long have we been here--an hour?"
Colin could give no definite information on the subject. He was
feeling exhausted himself. In spite of the warmness of the water his
limbs were stiff and cold. But gamely he held the revolver above the
water, while Van der Wyck chafed his own benumbed limbs.
"Time to fire again," he observed. "Hand me the pistol."
Colin, from the opposite side of the buoy, handed him the revolver.
He felt Van der Wyck's fingers close over the butt, then he heard a
muttered exclamation of annoyance. The revolver, slipping from the
Afrikander's nerveless fingers, was sinking rapidly, rapidly through
three miles of water to the bed of the Atlantic.
"That's about the limit," he remarked dejectedly. "They'll never
find us in the darkness, I'm afraid."
* * * * *
The moment Tiny Desmond realised that his chum had leapt overboard
he ran for'ard. His shouts of "Man overboard!" had been heard by a
few passengers only, and they were helpless in the matter. The noise
of the band had drowned his voice, and the warning was unheard by
any of the ship's officers and crew.
Desmond knew his way about the ship by this time. Unhesitatingly, he
made straight for the bridge. Charging through crowds of astonished
and indignant passengers on the promenade deck, he swarmed up the
ladder to the bridge-deck and thence to that forbidden ground, the
bridge.
"Two people overboard!" he gasped breathlessly, and then a fit of
coughing cut short his excited explanation.
Fortunately the third officer, who happened to be on duty at the
time, was a man of resource. Ordering the quartermaster to "port
sixteen," or, in other words, to turn the vessel until her head
pointed in the opposite direction to her previous course, he
promptly rang for half-speed ahead.
By this time the _Huldebras_ was more than seven miles from the
scene of the accident. All that could be done was to man one of the
boats and stand by until the ship, guided by her wake, approached
within reasonable distance of the spot where Van der Wyck had made
such a close acquaintance with the Atlantic Ocean.
Meanwhile one of the boats had been swung out, manned and lowered
until she was suspended by the falls within a few feet of the
surface, ready to slip at the word of command, while in order to
prevent the men's eyesight being baffled by the glare, all lights
visible from without were switched off, with the exception of the
regulation steaming lights.
Tiny, a prey to the deepest forebodings, remained on the bridge,
gripping the rails and peering through the semi-darkness. No one
paid the slightest attention to him. In the excitement the fact that
he was now a trespasser on the bridge passed unnoticed.
The engine-room telegraph bell clanged again. The _Huldebras_ was
nearing the spot where it was supposed the lost man had fallen
overboard; for with the exception of Desmond no one on board knew
that there were two human beings in dire peril.
Suddenly a flash leapt up through the darkness, followed by a hollow
report. Mystified, the third officer sprang to the binnacle and took
a hurried compass-bearing. Somehow he connected that flash with the
man in the water, but he was completely puzzled as to how the signal
of distress had been made.
"Did you see that light?" he shouted in stentorian tones to the
coxswain of the boat.
"Ay, ay, sir," was the reply.
"Nor-a-half-east it bears," continued the third officer. "I'm taking
way off the ship now. Stand by to slip. Less noise there!" he added
angrily, addressing his remarks to the now excited throng of
passengers.
The alteration of speed had been enough to bring the whole of the
saloon and second-class passengers on deck, and the startling
information that there was a man overboard raised a storm of eager
and for the most part purposeless questions.
The determined voice of one in authority quelled the babel. The
third officer's anger was justifiable. It was impossible to issue
orders clearly--orders on which success of the evolution
depended--with scores of people talking excitedly.
A hush fell upon the throng of passengers. To many of them it was an
entirely new experience being dragooned by a mere youngster in a
brass-bound uniform, whose stinging commands were punctuated with
the picturesque and forcible language of the sea.
The silence was broken by two more reports.
"Slip!" yelled the coxswain.
The patent falls were disengaged. The boat smacked the gently
heaving swell with a noise like a pistol-shot.
"Give way! For all you're worth!"
The coxswain's exhortation was a mere figure of speech, for the
rowers were straining every muscle and sinew as they urged the boat
through the water. Her progress was marked by a double scintillation
of phosphorescence as the blades dipped. A wake of blue-grey
luminosity showed her course even after the boat itself was a mere
blur in the starlit night.
Save for the groan of the rowlocks, the creaking of the stout ash
oars and stretchers, the laboured breathing of the rowers, and the
splash of water from the boat's sharp stem, hardly a sound broke the
silence. The coxswain, holding the tiller with one hand, shaded his
eyes with the other as he scanned the expanse of sea.
"Why doesn't the silly josser fire again?" he soliloquised. "'Tis
looking for a needle in a bloomin' haystack. Lay on your oars!" he
added aloud.
The men obeyed. The boat, still carrying way, slipped through the
water with a gurgling sound.
"Hear anything?" asked the coxswain of the crew in general.
He was obviously perplexed. According to his own estimation the boat
must have overrun the spot from whence those three flashes came.
"There he is; on our port bow!" shouted the bowman.
"Sure thing," agreed the coxswain. "Give way, lads ... way 'nough.
In bow ... Bless me if there ain't two of 'em in the bloomin'
ditch."
Ten seconds later Colin Sinclair, limp and barely conscious, was
hauled over the bows and passed aft like a sack of flour, to
collapse inertly upon the stern-sheet gratings. Van der Wyck
followed, muttering his thanks, although in a state of exhaustion.
"May as well hike that buoy on board, Tubby," observed the coxswain
dispassionately. "Now, lads, let her rip. It's my middle watch,
worse luck."