George was the only person who understood it all. George sat on a cushioned locker and grinned and appreciated Mr. Shelf’s changed manner to the full. If he could have shown derision for the gulls they had left behind in England, he would have done it cheerfully. Mr. Shelf was all George’s world. He was a most immoral dog.
Now it came to pass that a sudden change swept over the scene. Whilst Mr. Shelf was initiating his new friends into the beauties of an after-breakfast liqueur, the steamer’s helm was put hard a-port to avoid a fishing-boat which had got in her way; and whilst he chose a cigarette from his elaborate silver case, the steam steering-gear chose to break down, and before he had lit the dainty roll of tobacco and blown out his match and inhaled four puffs of smoke, the steamer was hard-and-fast ashore on one of the outlying reefs of Lundy Island.
The mate in charge on the bridge had done his best with reversed engines, but the steamer’s way was too great, and the ported helm gave her a steer which no one could govern; and so she took the shore on a falling tide.
Mr. Shelf’s vocabulary lengthened still more surprisingly. The scheme of easy escape had of a sudden been snatched away. The fear of worse than death was upon him, and he cursed the mate, the steamer, and all within her by all the gods he had ever served. The captain suggested that the blame would fall upon the pilot in charge, and Mr. Shelf cursed the pilot with fluent rage. The man was in a perfect hysteria of passion and rage.
But by degrees he calmed down, and, when the shipboard flurry was at an end, drew the captain aside and addressed him confidentially.
“When can you get her off?” he asked.
“Next tide, if I wanted to; but I don’t. My mate’s been below, and he says there are half a dozen plates started. I’m sorry, Mr. Shelf, but this is going to be a job for the salvage people. I hope, sir, you’ll take into consideration that it’s through no fault of mine the old boat’s got herself piled up. I know you don’t give berths to any officer who’s once been unlucky, even though he has kept his ticket clean; but, seeing that I’m a shareholder——”
“Man!” broke in Shelf, passionately, “you must get her off with the next tide, and try and push on across the Atlantic. I can’t afford to waste the time. Good heavens, Captain Colson, you have pumps! What are pumps for if they can’t counterbalance a bit of a leak? Besides, the weather’s fine enough.”