When they were a week out from Cape Town the weather changed and became wet and stormy. The rolling was dreadful, and great was the groaning and the lamentation when they were not allowed on deck for three whole days in succession.
The fourth day broke without wind, although the sea was still very rough. But, having gained permission to go on deck, the three younger boys were out, steadying themselves by anything which came handy, and vastly enjoying the fun of seeing other people lurching about in all sorts of funny antics, all involuntary ones of course.
Then suddenly something happened which might easily have been a tragedy. Rumple and Billykins were rounding the curve of one of the lower decks, when a heavy sea struck the vessel as she pitched nose first down into a deep valley of foam, and a stout old lady, who had been rashly trying to ascend the stairs to the upper deck, was hit by the shower of spray and knocked off the stairs. She must have fallen with great violence, and would probably have been very badly hurt, had it not been for Rumple, who ran in to her, as if she had been an extra big cricket ball which he was trying to catch. Of course she descended upon him with an awful smash, and nearly knocked the wind out of him, and equally of course they both rolled over together, and were drenched by the showers of spray. But he had broken her fall, and although she was badly shaken there were no limbs broken, as there must have been had she fallen with full force on to the slippery boards. A steward who was passing ran to pick up the old lady, while a passenger sorted Rumple out from under the old lady's skirts, and, draining some of the water out of him, held him up so that the air might revive him.
Meanwhile Billykins, who had been a horrified spectator of his brother's rash heroism, and had remained speechless until Rumple was picked up, burst into the very noisiest crying of which he was capable, and, standing with his legs very wide apart and his mouth as far open as it would go, howled his very loudest, the sound of his woe speedily bringing a crowd to see what was the matter.
"I don't think that he is very much the worse for his fall, only a little bit dazed by having the old lady come flop down upon him; but if he had not been there to break her fall, it is quite likely that she would have broken her neck," said the gentleman who had picked Rumple up, as he handed him over to the care of Nealie.
"Poor, poor boy, how frightened he must have been when she fell upon him!" cried Nealie, who thought that the whole affair was an accident, and had no idea of Rumple's bravery.
Then Billykins promptly stopped howling to explain, which he did in jerks, being rather breathless from his vocal efforts.
"Rumple saw her fall, and rushed in to save her. It was just splendid heroism—the sort that gets the Victoria Cross; but so dreadful hopeless you see, because she was so big, and she came down flop on the top of him, and he was just—just extinguished, you know, like the candle flame when we used to put the tin extinguishers on them when we lived at Beechleigh."
"I'll be all right in a minute, only my wind is gone," gasped Rumple, who looked rather flattened, and was not at all pleased to find himself momentarily famous.
The old lady's daughter, a thin, angular person with a long nose, rushed up at this juncture, and, seizing upon Rumple, hugged and kissed him in the presence of everyone, declaring that she would always love him for having saved her dear mother's life in such a noble fashion.