The Golden Rock Part 5

"Hume."

"What--the pa.s.senger? I gave orders to have you locked in. Never mind that, sir; you did well, and I'm much obliged to you. You're welcome to the run of the ship. That was a close shave, eh? If it hadn't been for the mercy of that steamer we'd have been five fathoms under. You'd better turn in now."

Frank lingered awhile to see whether the lady would appear, and then went down below, where he saw her leaning, as it were, for support against a saloon pillar, a handkerchief pressed to her forehead.

"It has been a trying night," he said gently.

"You had no right to leave your cabin," she replied--then swiftly disappeared.

Frank looked down the narrow gangway, heard the bang of her door, and, with his head up, and feeling mightily offended, entered his own tiny cabin.

"She might have been civil, at least," he muttered.

CHAPTER FOUR.

A STRANGE CRAFT.

Hume had been to the Cape and back; he had also tossed about off the Bristol Channel in a small yacht; but before morning he learnt that the ocean could play more tricks with a ship than he had ever dreamt of in the wildest tossing. He was sleeping on the top bunk, for the sake of the breeze from the open port, and was early awakened by a dream, in which, with the thunder of waters in his ears, he had gone head foremost down a cascade.

Had it been a dream? He sat up, knocking his head against the roof, and in his ears there was the same terrific roar, with a splashing sound, and an unmistakable feeling of dampness. A desperate lurch made him cling to the bra.s.s rail; then, as the port dipped, he saw the sky-line obscured by a moving wall, and was almost washed away by a belching funnel of cold water that boomed on to the floor, and rushed over his cabin, taking with it every movable object. As the ship heeled over he struggled, soaked and shivering, with the bra.s.s hinge of the port-window, which he thrust in and held there until the ship rolled under again. With the backward swing he worked the screw in, then lurched out from his sodden bed to the floor, inches deep in water, when he groped for the switch and turned on the electric light. His portmanteau coming swiftly out from under the lower bunk, carried him off his feet, and then bounded over his body, while his gun-case rammed him viciously in the ribs.

Staggering up, he clambered into the lower bunk, and spent an awful hour of misery with a babel of sounds racking his brain, and every possible motion threatening dislocation to his body. The small bunk was too large for him. He could not brace himself tight; but, like a pea in a drum, was rattled from side to side and top to bottom, his head at one time threatening to fly off as the bows dipped; his body sinking with the most sickening desire to part with his head as the stern went under, and his arms, legs, and head flopping about hopelessly to each dizzy roll.

Then between, and coming through every motion, was the jarring of the screw as the stern was lifted up--a most soul-disturbing sensation, enough in itself to unsettle the innermost lashings, the smallest nerves and sinews of the body.

"What the devil possesses the ship?" thought Frank, in a state of feeble protest against this indignity of sea-sickness that held him in its clammy grasp. "Hulloa!" he groaned, as he heard someone staggering along the alley-way.

The door was opened, and the new-comer dived in to the roll of the ship as though he were violently impelled from the rear, ending up by stumbling over the gun-case.

"That's the fifty-seventh time I've been knocked off my pins within an hour by this infernal buck-jumper. What have you been doing, messmate; taking a shower-bath?" And Mr Webster, the speaker, with a humorous twinkle in his eyes, sat down on the edge of the bunk and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.

Frank turned his head with a look of disgust, but the ship, pitching and rolling at the same moment, sent him and his bedclothes in a heap to one end of the bunk.

"G.o.d forgive me," said the officer, making futile attempts to keep his feet out of the water; "but you're a most dismal object."

"What's the matter with the ship?" growled Frank.

Webster opened his mouth to laugh, but a vicious lurch banged his head against the iron side of the cabin.

"Ship, do you call it?" he cried. "Why, 'tis nothing but a steel tube with an engine in it, and there's not a ship afloat that would not ride over this sea without a heave."

"Isn't it rough, then?"

"Man, we're just in the Channel, with a cross current and the apology for a ripple, but this devil of a sawn-off scaffold-pole just wallows in it like a porpoise. Come up on deck, and you'll blush with shame to think you should have gone under to such little waves, scarce big enough to wet the frills of a Brighton beach-wader."

As if to belie this imputation of mildness, a sea came on board with a crash and rushed along the deck with an angry swirl, making noise enough to spur Frank on to make an effort.

"That's right," said Webster, taking him by the arm. "Now come and have a nip and a bite." Together they rolled out of the cabin and down the alley to the officers' box, where Hume duly swallowed a stiff gla.s.s of grog, and was suited with a shiny covering of oilskin overalls. Then, holding on to anything that came handy, they clambered on deck, where the keen morning air very soon dispelled the nausea contracted in the stuffy cabin.

It was a brilliant morning, with wisps of wind-lashed clouds scurrying across the clear blue sky, and a buoyant property in the salt-laden air that brightened the eyes. It had brought a flush to the cheeks of the lady, whose figure, clad in oils, had been the first thing to catch and hold Frank's gaze. She stood on the low bridge, holding with both hands to the rail, her feet braced and her body bending to the dips and roll of the steamer with a grace that even the heavy tarpaulin could not hide. The spray which came aft in a white and gleaming drizzle glistened on her covering, and ever and again with a low laugh she would bend her head to an unusually heavy gust of wet tossed up by the plunging bows of the steamer.

"Isn't she a beauty!" growled Webster, brushing his hand across his eyes to wipe away the drops.

"She is, indeed!" murmured Frank. "May I ask who she is?"

Webster followed his companion's gaze, and led him forward. "I'm not talking of her," he said, dropping his voice; "and you'd best leave her out of your thoughts, young fellow. It's this craft I mean; this narrow-gutted rib of a steel monument, that's fit for nothing but to be stuck on end with a lamp in its stern, when it would make a good lighthouse. Ugh! the brute. See her bury her nose in that sea like a pig in a mash-tub."

This wave was a gentle swell of dull green, covered with a lace-like tracing of air bubbles in round patches of white, and the top of it fringed with a line of hissing foam. A lumbering coal-ship would have ridden over it without wetting her eye-holes, but this strange craft, with a snort, leapt into the very heart of it, tossing up a column of spray, while the divided sea swelled up to the gunwales and foamed along the side with ripping noise, and went aft in a swirl of eddying whirlpools.

"Tell me," said Webster, flicking the wet from his sou'wester, "what sort of a ship she is."

Frank, standing wide on the slippery deck, cast his eyes fore and aft with growing wonder at the long, narrow shape of her, at the inward slope of her heavy bulwarks, at the wide, short funnels and sharp bows.

"I can't liken her to anything but a wasp or a shark," said he, "there's such a vicious air about her."

"Ay, she carries a sting in her tail and a devilish set of teeth. She's ugly as a shark, and as narrow and vicious as a wasp. Well, what is she?"

"She's a deuced bad sea boat, anyhow," said Frank, as the deck suddenly sloped away at a fearful angle. "Is she a yacht?"

"You've hit it first shot. She's a yacht--that's what she is--a nice pleasure-boat for ladies and children, with engines strong enough to get twenty-seven knots out of her, and steel frame like a man-o'-war.

What's that you're leaning against?"

"A ship's boat, I suppose, covered with tarpaulin."

"Right again, sir; that's the yacht's dinghy, fitted with velvet cushions. Take a peep."

Frank looked under the tarpaulin, and saw the vast b.u.t.t and machinery of a gun.

"That's the yacht's popgun, a four-inch quick-firing toy," and Webster's jolly face broke into a grin.

"She's not a yacht, then?"

"Lord, how fresh you are! She's no more a yacht than a bull-terrier is a pet pug--she's a torpedo-catcher. Do you mean to say you had no suspicion when that ironclad opened fire on us last night?"

"I knew there was something dark afoot. A torpedo-catcher! Is this the _Swift_, the boat that was seized by the Customs authorities last week, on the suspicion that she had been bought for the rebel fleet at Rio de Janeiro?"

"The same, my boy; and seeing that you took an active part in her escape, it wouldn't be safe for you to talk about this adventure.

You've committed high treason, or some offence as bad, and would to a dead certainty be drawn and quartered." Here Webster broke into another fit of laughter, ending up by smacking Frank on the back. "You're in the same boat as we are, and if she doesn't drown you, or roll you overboard, or knock your brains out, you may live to be shot."

"Many thanks," said Frank, with an answering smile. "And what fate is reserved for you?"

"Oh, as for me, I'll die of a falling chimney. You feel better now, don't you?"

"Thanks to your cheerful predictions."

"Then come and report yourself to our chief, and harkee, you'll be offered a billet as captain of the cook's galley. Take my advice, and accept it; it's comforting, sustaining, and by far the safest place in the ship."