Another great roller struck the _Hawk_ amidships and she reeled till her port bulwarks were under water. Gradually she righted, her funnel-guys twisted into a ma.s.s of tangled wire, her boats carried away or stove in, her decks, fore and aft, littered with wreckage and gear which had been swept loose. Between the deafening peals of thunder, the shouts and curses of the poor wretches in the stokehold could be heard as they were thrown against the glowing furnace doors, or the firebars slipped out, shooting great ma.s.ses of red-hot coal and clinker among their half-naked bodies.

Sometimes a wave would catch the vessel under the stern, lifting her so that her bows plunged forward into the boiling sea ahead, her propeller racing high in the air until the plates quivered with the vibrations. Or she would lift her nose to an oncoming billow, and, rising with it, bury her stern in the seething vortex till the wheel-house disappeared from view beneath the turbid, foaming water. It seemed impossible that any ship could live through such a storm.

But at last the lightning began to grow less vivid, the thunder gradually died away in the distance and the sea, little by little, subsided. Firemen, black from head to foot, staggered along the deck to the forecastle and threw themselves just as they were upon their bunks; the second engineer came off duty, a b.l.o.o.d.y sweat-rag twisted round his head, and reeled, rather than walked, to his cabin. Then McPhulach appeared at the fiddley, mopping his face with a lump of oily waste.

"Are you all right below?" shouted Calamity from the bridge.

"Aye, but some of the puir deils will carry the mairks o' this day upon their bodies as long as they live," answered the engineer. "h.e.l.l must be a garden party to what it was down yon a wee while aback."

As he spoke, two injured firemen, the upper parts of their bodies wrapped round with oil-soaked waste, were brought on deck and carried to the forecastle. Their faces, which had evidently been wiped with sweat-rags, were of a corpse-like whiteness that was accentuated by the circles of black coal-dust round their eyes.

"Half roasted," said McPhulach, indicating with a jerk of his head the two injured men. "If they hadna rinds like rhinoceros hide, they'd be dead the noo. Mon, the stokehold smelt like a kitchen wi' the stink o'

scorching meat."

The engineer disappeared and Calamity turned to Mr. d.y.k.es, who had relieved Smith on the bridge.

"Serve out a tot of rum to all hands," he said. "It's been a trying experience."

"Trying experience!" echoed the mate. "It was as near h.e.l.l as ever I touched, sir."

The Captain was about to make some remark when he suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hed a pair of binoculars out of the box fastened to the bridge-rail. He focussed them upon the seemingly deserted waste of tossing grey waters and then handed them to the mate.

"What do you make of that, Mr. d.y.k.es?" he asked, indicating a point on the port quarter.

The mate stared through the gla.s.ses for some minutes, then handed them back to the Captain.

"It's a boat with a man and a woman in it, or I'm a n.i.g.g.e.r," he said.

"So I thought," answered the Captain.

CHAPTER V

DORA FLETCHER

A signal was immediately hoisted to let the castaways know that they were observed and the steamer's course was changed to bring her as near as possible to the drifting boat. But there was still such a heavy sea running that a near approach would have involved the risk of the boat being dashed against the _Hawk's_ side before the occupants could be rescued. So the bos'n, standing on the foc'sle head, cast a line which, after three vain attempts, was caught by the young woman in the stern sheets, who made it fast to one of the thwarts. Then one of the steamer's derricks was slung outboard with a rope sling suspended and half a dozen men laid on to the line attached to the boat.

"Catch hold of that sling as you pa.s.s under it!" roared Calamity from the bridge.

After some difficult manoeuvring, boat and steamer were brought into such a position that the former pa.s.sed immediately under the sling.

"Quick now, my girl, or you'll lose it!" shouted the Captain.

But, to the amazement and indignation of everyone, it was the man and not the girl who caught the sling and was hoisted safely out of the boat.

"Oh, the gory swine," growled the second-mate. "Get the derrick inboard, men," he added aloud.

The derrick swung round and the sling was let go with a run that deposited the man on the deck with a terrific b.u.mp.

"Outboard again!" cried Calamity. "Stand by, bos'n."

"Get up, you swab!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the second-mate, administering the rescued man a heavy kick. "If the skipper wasn't lookin' I'd pitch your ugly carca.s.s back into the ditch."

The fellow staggered to his feet and cast an ugly look at the c.o.c.kney.

He was a great, hulking brute over six feet tall and broad in proportion, with a sullen, hang-dog countenance that was far from prepossessing.

"What d'you want to kick me for?" he asked truculently.

The second-mate was so astounded at what he regarded as super-colossal impudence and ingrat.i.tude, that he just gasped. Then, before he could recover his speech, the boatswain's mate came up, and, gripping the man by the collar of his jersey, ran him into the foc'sle.

Meanwhile two unsuccessful attempts had been made to repeat the first manoeuvre, but at the third the sling pa.s.sed over the boat and the girl caught hold of it. Next moment she was swung on board and lowered gently to the deck.

"We ain't no stewardesses aboard this packet, Miss," said Mr. d.y.k.es, who had arrived just in time to frustrate the second-mate in a.s.sisting the young woman to her feet. "Still, if you'll come to my cabin I'll send you somethin' hot and you can make free with my duds."

"Or you can go to my cabin," put in the second eagerly. "Sorry I 'aven't any 'airpins," he added with an admiring glance at the tawny mane of hair which had become unfastened during her pa.s.sage from the boat to the ship's deck. "But I've a----"

"The young lady'll find better accommodation in my cabin, Smith,"

interrupted the mate. "This way, please," he added in the tone and manner of a shop-walker, and departed with his prize.

"Talk about nerve," muttered the disgruntled Smith. "That Yank's got more bloomin' nerve than a peddlin' auctioneer."

Calamity had sent word that, as soon as the survivors had been given food and dry clothes, they were to be brought into his cabin. Half an hour later, the man was ushered in by the mate and stood in front of the Captain with the same hang-dog air that he had exhibited when first rescued.

"Your name and all the rest of it, my man," said the skipper curtly.

"I'm Jasper Skelt, bos'n of the barque _Esmeralda_, London to Singapore," answered the fellow in a surly voice. "We were hit by that there typhoon and so far's I know she's at the bottom of the sea by now."

"What about the Captain and the rest of the crew?"

"The skipper was knocked overboard by a boom. Then the crew took to the boats and only me and Miss Fletcher, the Cap'n's daughter, was left. We tried to keep the ship head-on to the seas, but she sprang a leak and we had to abandon her."

"You don't know whether any of the other boats survived?"

"No, sir."

"And the ship's papers?"

"Miss Fletcher's got 'em."

"And now I want to know why you caught on to that sling before the woman had a chance?"

"She told me to, and anyhow my life's as good as hers," answered the man defiantly.

"I see. Well, by your own confession you're a coward, and by your looks you're a scoundrel," answered Calamity. "Mr. d.y.k.es," he added, turning to the mate, "take this blackguard to Mr. McPhulach with my compliments and tell him to give the rascal the worst job he's got in the stokehold."

"I'm not going into no blasted stokehold!" cried the man fiercely.