"Better come outen that sun, Chris!" someone called to him. "There's too much of heat in it to be good for unkivered heads!"
Chris knew the voice of the sailor was right, and was on the point of jumping into one of the dinghies, where they lay pulled up on the beach.
Far out on the cove, the decks of the Mirabelle were deserted and unlike themselves, so empty of life. Sweat started out on Chris's forehead, as he imagined Zachary in the hold lighting the fuse, and he wondered where the good Captain and Mr. Finney might be. He wondered too if he could row over in time, or if he would be blown up with the ship.
The boy had his hands on the scorching wood of a dinghy, his muscles tensed to thrust it into the waters of the cove, when out over the still harbor, jangling in the heat, came a prolonged and piercing scream. Hot as he was, Chris felt himself go cold at the sound. He knew instantly, although he had never heard it before, that this was the death cry of a man. The scream came a second time, terrified and despairing, and out over the water following it came a low, scattered rumble.
Silence fell for several frozen seconds, and then all at once Chris became aware as he stood rigid with horror by the boat that the sailors of the Mirabelle had rushed out from the coolness of the shore to stand stiff and appalled beside him. A babble of voices broke out, and one by one the boats were hastily launched, heading back to the ship, leaving Chris shaking and unnerved on the sand. Over the water as brawny backs bent to the oars the words came floating back:
"Someone's dead for sartin sure—"
"Who was left on board, you say?"
"Leave the lads—no sight for young-uns."
"Pull, you lazy lubbers! The Capt'n and Mr. Finney bean't among us!"
It was a little later that Chris remembered Amos having taken his arm and led him into the shade, and of how sick he was—the heat and the scream, the fear, and a sense of having failed in warning the Captain, combining to churn his insides into a queasy place that violently rejected his pleasant breakfast of so short a time before. Then weak, but somehow feeling better, Chris lay in the cool while Amos found a cold pool of water with which he bathed his friend's face, and then sat fanning him without a word.