“But won’t they see you?�
“I don’t think so, but whether they do or not, we must chance it, but if anything should happen to me, I’ll manage first to lower and then to cut the boat adrift and you will be in God’s hands. I don’t think they will see me and I am going to do my best to see that nothing does happen, but always you will have to trust to Him.�
“I do, I do,� she whispered, “and to you.�
There was no irreverence in that, I am sure, and I bowed my head silently, assisting her to take her place in the stern sheets. It was not a large boat, yet she made but a small figure sitting there. Then I went on deck. I had a can of oil with me to oil the blocks. It was as I fancied. By that time everybody on the ship was asleep in a drunken stupor and the bottle I had passed to the hard-headed Glibby as I had left him had done its work, too. The two lookouts were sleeping with the others. The man forward was sprawled on the deck. I went forward to make sure. The ship was deserted so far as human supervision was concerned.
Still, I didn’t neglect any precaution. I oiled the sheaves of the blocks and lowered the boat away carefully inch by inch until it was water-borne. I reassured my mistress by whispered words as I did so. She had had her instructions, and right well she followed them. She had her boat hook out and fended off the minute the boat touched the water. For me to belay the falls and slide down the forward one, to cast off and take my place in the boat was but the work of an instant. The oars had been carefully muffled. Although the noise of the waves rendered conversation quite safe we neither of us spoke a word until I had rowed some distance from the ship.
As I pulled away I half regretted that I had not poured the remainder of the oil down the fore hatch and set fire to it. But as I said, I could not bring myself to wholesale murder like that, for drunk as they were none could have escaped. No, the only thing I could do was to leave them, though there came a time when I regretted my squeamishness and was sorry I had not made way with them while I had a chance.
We were very silent for the first ten minutes or so. I think my mistress was saying her prayers, while I rowed as I had never rowed before. I could see the stern cabin lights plainly as we drew away from the ship, although for the rest she was in total darkness, no other lights showing, and so soon as we did get far enough away to render talking advisable I had too much to do to spend any time in discussion. I had to get the mast stepped and the sail spread. Fortunately, the breeze was blowing directly northwestward and that was the course we wanted to steer. I suppose it was nearly midnight before we got everything shipshape, my lady bravely helping me with her best efforts, and the little vessel threshed gallantly through the big seas.
The wind had gone down considerably but it was very different on the dinghy to what it had been on the ship and my mistress cowered close beside me, clinging to my arm with that instinctive craving for human contact and for human society which we all feel under such circumstances.
I had carefully taken my bearings during the day, and as I had a good compass on the boat I knew exactly how to steer. Fortunately the wind held steady. I laid her course so as to clear the northeast end of the island around which I intended to swing so as to be hidden from the ship at daybreak. Of course we would eventually be pursued, but if I could get a long start there might be other islands among which I could choose my refuge. Many things might turn up of which a bold man might take advantage. At any rate, I had escaped from them, and the one I loved sat by my side. The clouds had gone, overhead the sky sparkled with tropic stars. We looked to the Southern Cross and took courage.
We didn’t talk much. I didn’t dare, and, for a wonder, she had nothing to say. I managed the boat, even if I do say it myself, with great skill. I told her after a while that she was safe. No sound had come from the ship and the lights in the cabin, which at first we could see dimly, presently disappeared. Our escape had not been discovered. I suggested at last that she should go to sleep. I arranged the boat cloak and blankets and although she had to be much persuaded, I finally prevailed upon her to lie down in the boat, her head by my knees, and thus we sailed on through the night.