"Never mind, get to your bunk."

Though well-nigh exhausted and shivering with cold, the little c.o.c.kney obeyed with reluctance, being loth to leave the Captain up there to con the ship alone. But he knew better than to disobey or argue, and so, grumbling to himself, he crawled down the companion-ladder and sought his cabin.

At last the dawn broke, chill and sombre and leaden. Calamity, weary and heavy-eyed, scanned the forbidding, sullen sky in the hope of glimpsing a break in its glowering expanse. But no break was there; only wind-torn, tattered shreds of black cloud driving across it to a.s.semble eastward in a ma.s.sed and solid bank of evil aspect.

At six bells--seven o'clock in the morning watch--Smith tumbled out of his bunk after three hours' unbroken slumber, dragged on his oilskins, and stepped into the alleyway with the object of relieving the Captain, who had now been on the bridge over twenty hours. As he reached the deck, still only half awake, he was caught up by a huge sea which came leaping over the bulwarks, swept him off his feet, and dashed him violently against the iron ladder leading up to the bridge. It was a miracle that the wave, as it receded, did not carry him overboard. As it was, it left him a limp, crumpled figure, lying motionless under the ladder with one foot jammed beneath the lowest rung.

Calamity, who alone had witnessed the accident, took the wheel from the quartermasters and sent them to rescue the second-mate from his perilous position. After some difficulty they succeeded in releasing the imprisoned foot and then carried the unconscious man, whose left leg dangled loosely from the knee, to his cabin. Here, after roughly bandaging a wound on his forehead, they stripped him of his dripping garments and laid him in his bunk.

When these details were reported to the Captain he frowned and muttered something under his breath. He dared not leave the bridge, and yet there was no one on board but himself who could set a broken leg or even administer first-aid. No one, that is, except----

"Tell Miss Fletcher," he said curtly.

That order, probably, represented the biggest humiliation he had ever suffered.

One of the men went to Miss Fletcher's cabin and informed her of what had taken place, adding that he had been sent by the Captain.

"What did he say?" asked the girl.

"All 'e says was 'Tell Miss Fletcher,'" answered the man.

"Tell him I will attend to Mr. Smith," she said with a curtness that matched Calamity's own. "Stop," she added as the man was leaving, "send the steward along first."

There was a look of triumph in the girl's eyes as she stepped out of her cabin and went over to the one occupied by the hapless second-mate. He was still unconscious and she at once proceeded to remove the crude bandage from his forehead and bathe the wound properly. While she was in the act of binding it up again Sing-hi entered.

"I want you to help me fix Mr. Smith's broken leg," said the girl. "Do you think you can manage it?"

"Plenty savee," answered the Chinaman with a grin, "two piecee man fixee one piecee leg." He had often a.s.sisted Calamity with surgical cases and was proud of his experience.

"Yes, that's right. Can you make me a splint?"

"One piecee leg wantchee two piecee wood?" inquired Sing-hi.

"Yes."

The Chinaman glanced round the cabin, then removed the books from a narrow shelf just above the bunk and took it down. He split this in two with his hands, and, without awaiting further instructions, started to wind a towel round it to form a pad on which the injured limb could rest.

"Excellent," she said, watching him. "You're a splendid a.s.sistant."

Sing-hi understood her tone more than her words.

"Plenty muchee helpee," he replied modestly.

At that moment Smith opened his eyes, stared about him in bewilderment, and then uttered a loud groan.

"Gawd, what's happened?" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"Your left leg is broken and there's a nasty gash on your forehead,"

answered the girl tersely.

"Just my bloomin' bad luck. As if----" he broke off suddenly, a new thought having occurred to him. "What the devil will the old man do now?

He's been on watch over twenty hours, and there ain't a soul to relieve him. d.y.k.es is on that blighted packet astern--leastways, I suppose he is if she's still afloat--and I'm half corpsed. It's a cheerful look-out and no bloomin' error."

"Don't worry," answered the girl calmly as she took the improvised splint from Sing-hi. "I'll relieve the Captain myself presently."

"What--you!" And Smith, despite the pain he was suffering, laughed outright. "Oh my stars, I can see him going below and leaving you in charge of the ship--I don't think."

"Then the sooner you do think, the better," retorted the girl cheerfully.

CHAPTER XIX

AT THE WHEEL

Before Smith had time to recover from his astonishment at Miss Fletcher's remark, the business of placing his broken leg in splints was begun. The operation--no easy one with the ship rolling and lurching incessantly--proved so painful that he swooned before he was able to make any audible comment.

"There," remarked the girl when the difficult task had been accomplished, "it may not be a perfect job, but I think it'll answer till we reach port."

"Heap good doctor pigeon," murmured Sing-hi complacently.

Having made the patient as comfortable as circ.u.mstances would permit, the girl left the cabin and stepped into the alleyway. Here she paused for a moment, steadying herself against the bulkhead and gazing at the waves breaking over the bulwarks and flooding the decks knee-deep with a swirling ma.s.s of turbid, green water. Then, with an abrupt movement as though she had arrived at some momentous decision, she went to her own cabin and hastily donned sea-boots, oilskins, and sou'-wester. This done, she pa.s.sed out into the alleyway again, just as the bos'n, with a life-belt strapped over his oilskins, appeared at the entrance, staggering and slithering.

"S'truth!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "it's 'ell down there."

"Down where?" asked the girl.

The bos'n jerked his head in the direction of the after-hatch.

"In the 'old," he answered. "Jest been down there, and, Gawd, it fair made me sick. Never see'd anything like it since I was aboard a River Plate cattle boat."

"What's the matter there, then?"

"Matter! Why, it's what I said it was just now--'ell. The 'atches are battened down, it's as 'ot as a furnace, and the stink of the bilge water's enough to knock you down. There ain't no light except for a lantern, which don't give no more than a glim, and the air's that thick you could cut it into slabs and 'eave it overboard."

He was about to turn away when the girl's attire arrested his attention.

"You ain't going on deck?" he said.

"I am."

"Well, don't you go; you didn't ought to this weather."

"That's my affair, bos'n."

"It'll be the skipper's, too, when 'e catches sight of you," answered the man grimly. "Still, it ain't no business of mine, and if you wants to try and get drownded, I s'pose you must," with which philosophical reflection the bos'n proceeded on his way.