“Back water, men! Round with her! Pull for your lives!”
Best’s boat glided alongside.
“Can you see her name?”
Frere, white with terror, shouted a reply.
“The Hydaspes! I know her. She is bound for Calcutta, and she has five tons of powder aboard!”
There was no need for more words. The single sentence explained the whole mystery of her desertion. The crew had taken to the boats on the first alarm, and had left their death-fraught vessel to her fate. They were miles off by this time, and unluckily for themselves, perhaps, had steered away from the side where rescue lay.
The boats tore through the water. Eager as the men had been to come, they were more eager to depart. The flames had even now reached the poop; in a few minutes it would be too late. For ten minutes or more not a word was spoken. With straining arms and labouring chests, the rowers tugged at the oars, their eyes fixed on the lurid mass they were leaving. Frere and Best, with their faces turned back to the terror they fled from, urged the men to greater efforts. Already the flames had lapped the flag, already the outlines of the stern carvings were blurred by the fire.
Another moment, and all would be over. Ah! it had come at last. A dull rumbling sound; the burning ship parted asunder; a pillar of fire, flecked with black masses that were beams and planks, rose up out of the ocean; there was a terrific crash, as though sea and sky were coming together; and then a mighty mountain of water rose, advanced, caught, and passed them, and they were alone–deafened, stunned, and breathless, in a sudden horror of thickest darkness, and a silence like that of the tomb.
The splashing of the falling fragments awoke them from their stupor, and then the blue light of the Malabar struck out a bright pathway across the sea, and they knew that they were safe.
* * *
On board the Malabar two men paced the deck, waiting for dawn.
It came at last. The sky lightened, the mist melted away, and then a long, low, far-off streak of pale yellow light floated on the eastern horizon. By and by the water sparkled, and the sea changed colour, turning from black to yellow, and from yellow to lucid green. The man at the masthead hailed the deck. The boats were in sight, and as they came towards the ship, the bright water flashing from the labouring oars, a crowd of spectators hanging over the bulwarks cheered and waved their hats.
“Not a soul!” cried Blunt. “No one but themselves. Well, I’m glad they’re safe anyway.”
The boats drew alongside, and in a few seconds Frere was upon deck.
“Well, Mr. Frere?”
“No use,” cried Frere, shivering. “We only just had time to get away. The nearest thing in the world, sir.”
“Didn’t you see anyone?”
“Not a soul. They must have taken to the boats.”
“Then they can’t be far off,” cried Blunt, sweeping the horizon with his glass. “They must have pulled all the way, for there hasn’t been enough wind to fill a hollow tooth with.” “Perhaps they pulled in the wrong direction,” said Frere. “They had a good four hours’ start of us, you know.”
Then Best came up, and told the story to a crowd of eager listeners. The sailors having hoisted and secured the boats, were hurried off to the forecastle, there to eat, and relate their experience between mouthfuls, and the four convicts were taken in charge and locked below again.
“You had better go and turn in, Frere,” said Pine gruffly. “It’s no use whistling for a wind here all day.”
Frere laughed–in his heartiest manner. “I think I will,” he said. “I’m dog tired, and as sleepy as an owl,” and he descended the poop ladder. Pine took a couple of turns up and down the deck, and then catching Blunt’s eye, stopped in front of Vickers.
“You may think it a hard thing to say, Captain Vickers, but it’s just as well if we don’t find these poor devils. We have quite enough on our hands as it is.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Pine?” says Vickers, his humane feelings getting the better of his pomposity. “You would not surely leave the unhappy men to their fate.”
“Perhaps,” returned the other, “they would not thank us for taking them aboard.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“The fever has broken out.”
Vickers raised his brows. He had no experience of such things; and though the intelligence was startling, the crowded condition of the prison rendered it easy to be understood, and he apprehended no danger to himself.
“It is a great misfortune; but, of course, you will take such steps–”
“It is only in the prison, as yet,” says Pine, with a grim emphasis on the word; “but there is no saying how long it may stop there. I have got three men down as it is.” “Well, sir, all authority in the matter is in your hands. Any suggestions you make, I will, of course, do my best to carry out.”
“Thank ye. I must have more room in the hospital to begin with. The soldiers must lie a little closer.”
“I will see what can be done.”
“And you had better keep your wife and the little girl as much on deck as possible.”
Vickers turned pale at the mention of his child. “Good Heaven! do you think there is any danger?”
“There is, of course, danger to all of us; but with care we may escape it. There’s that maid, too. Tell her to keep to herself a little more. She has a trick of roaming about the ship I don’t like. Infection is easily spread, and children always sicken sooner than grown-up people.”
Vickers pressed his lips together. This old man, with his harsh, dissonant voice, and hideous practicality, seemed like a bird of ill omen.
Blunt, hitherto silently listening, put in a word for defence of the absent woman. “The wench is right enough, Pine,” said he. “What’s the matter with her?”
“Yes, she’s all right, I’ve no doubt. She’s less likely to take it than any of us. You can see her vitality in her face–as many lives as a cat. But she’d bring infection quicker than anybody.”
“I’ll–I’ll go at once,” cried poor Vickers, turning round. The woman of whom they were speaking met him on the ladder. Her face was paler than usual, and dark circles round her eyes gave evidence of a sleepless night. She opened her red lips to speak, and then, seeing Vickers, stopped abruptly.
“Well, what is it?”
She looked from one to the other. “I came for Dr. Pine.”
Vickers, with the quick intelligence of affection, guessed her errand. “Someone is ill?”
“Miss Sylvia, sir. It is nothing to signify, I think. A little feverish and hot, and my mistress–”
Vickers was down the ladder in an instant, with scared face.
Pine caught the girl’s round firm arm. “Where have you been?” Two great flakes of red came out in her white cheeks, and she shot an indignant glance at Blunt.
“Come, Pine, let the wench alone!”
“Were you with the child last night?” went on Pine, without turning his head.
“No; I have not been in the cabin since dinner yesterday. Mrs. Vickers only called me in just now. Let go my arm, sir, you hurt me.”
Pine loosed his hold as if satisfied at the reply. “I beg your pardon,” he said gruffly. “I did not mean to hurt you. But the fever has broken out in the prison, and I think the child has caught it. You must be careful where you go.” And then, with an anxious face, he went in pursuit of Vickers.
Sarah Purfoy stood motionless for an instant, in deadly terror. Her lips parted, her eyes glittered, and she made a movement as though to retrace her steps.
“Poor soul!” thought honest Blunt, “how she feels for the child! D—- that lubberly surgeon, he’s hurt her!–Never mind, my lass,” he said aloud. It was broad daylight, and he had not as much courage in love-making as at night. “Don’t be afraid. I’ve been in ships with fever before now.”
Awaking, as it were, at the sound of his voice, she came closer to him. “But ship fever! I have heard of it! Men have died like rotten sheep in crowded vessels like this.”
“Tush! Not they. Don’t be frightened; Miss Sylvia won’t die, nor you neither.” He took her hand. “It may knock off a few dozen prisoners or so. They are pretty close packed down there–”
She drew her hand away; and then, remembering herself, gave it him again.
“What is the matter?”
“Nothing–a pain. I did not sleep last night.”
“There, there; you are upset, I dare say. Go and lie down.”
She was staring away past him over the sea, as if in thought. So intently did she look that he involuntarily turned his head, and the action recalled her to herself. She brought her fine straight brows together for a moment, and then raised them with the action of a thinker who has decided on his course of conduct.