“Well, I’m blithered and damned if that kid won’t bring us bad luck,” said O’Hara.
Soogy had calmly got to the rear of the canoe, had taken the steering-rod, and had started to guide us with the splendid precision of a native child. The prow was toward the south, bound for the isle of Lakemba.
“I suppose you know your way?” suddenly said the old gentleman, as he leaned forward, struck a match, and lit a cigar.
O’Hara never answered, simply looked contemptuously at the white-whiskered face as the mouth sent up curling whiffs of blue smoke into the clear moonlit air. We were out in the deep ocean by then, paddling for all we were worth. The distance by night took one quite out of sight of land; even by daylight the nearest shore-line in the farthest distance looked like a blue blotch on the horizon.
I think we had been paddling about an hour when the moon suddenly went out and seemed to leave a puff of bright smoke behind—it had gone behind a cloud.
“That was sudden-like!” said O’Hara.
It was a puff of wind; it blew the old gentleman’s hat off.
“Hope it’s not going to blow,” was my mental comment, as once again a breath came down from the sky and stirred the glassy surface. The old fellow saw the look in our eyes, and, guessing that things were not as well as they could be, said: “Why didn’t you tell me we had to go out of sight of land? I’d never have risked this; I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t,” he muttered to himself. Then without further warning it came—crash! a typhoon was on us. The first blast nearly blew the outrigger out of the water. The only reason that it didn’t turn turtle was that the outrigger contrivance had been constructed by the superior savage intellect. It seemed that the bright worlds of stars and sea had been sponged off the map of existence, as we clung to each other, and the mountainous seas heaved their backs and began to roar like thunder around us. The old fellow had lost his nerve, he wept and implored us to save him; but O’Hara and I were very busy saving ourselves in that chaos of dark and wind and ramping seas.
Soogy was there all right, I felt his hand clinging to my leg.
“Keep still! For God’s sake, don’t move!” we both cried, as the old man came to our end of the canoe, nearly upsetting our planet, for such that craft was to us. Soogy had taken a paddle to help O’Hara and so keep her head on to the tremendous seas, but it was no use; she slewed round and went broadside on, and so the seas swamped us. But still we did not sink. Those stout bamboo poles kept the craft buoyant and steady as compared to what would have happened had they not been there. For Soogy was sitting on the dancing outrigger, balancing it as the big seas came on and tried in vain to turn us upside down! Ah, he was a plucky little beggar, quite devoid of fear. We three men simply gave up the ghost so far as making intelligent efforts to save ourselves were concerned. O’Hara clung to me, I clung to O’Hara, and the old fellow clung to us both. The hot, terrific wind hissed, shrieked over us as we felt the canoe go up—up! on the mountainous seas, then down—down! into the terrible thundering valleys as the angry waters fell. Then once again we were climbing the travelling hills that were drifting us away far out into the vast solitude of the Pacific Ocean!