“Can’t believe we’ve got so far out of the course. Why, if”—
At this moment a tremendous wave struck the yacht midships, making her reel and strain under the irresistible blows of the sea, and the jolly-boat on the port side was smashed up like matchwood, the iron davits being twisted out of all shape in the giant grip of the water. The Eunice shuddered under the stroke, paused almost imperceptibly, then sprung forward like a spur-touched horse, and in another second was out of danger, riding lightly on the frothing crest of a huge wave, from whence she slid down smoothly into the smaragdine hollow beyond.
“Boat gone!” quoth the captain, regaining his breath; “bad loss.”
Crispin thought so too, but had no time to reply, for at this moment the raucous voice of the captain was heard shouting to the second officer as he passed by,—
“Send Gurt here! look sharp!”
Gurt was a grizzled old salt with one eye, and an unlimited capacity for rum, who, having knocked about in these latitudes all his sinful life, knew the Archipelago like a book. When he arrived, the captain put him in charge of the wheel, and went off, not to his cabin to look at the chart, but down to the engine-room, as he feared for the safety of the propeller. Crispin followed him, and they staggered like drunken men along the streaming decks towards the hatch. Down the iron ladder leading to the engine-room they scrambled, holding on like grim death, for the yacht was now rolling at an angle of twenty-five degrees, an uncomfortable motion which she occasionally varied by dipping her bows so deeply into the water that her stern was sticking nearly straight up in the air; in fact, to use a nautical expression, she stood on her head.
The screw beat the waves regularly enough when in its normal position, but the moment the yacht lifted, it was out of the water, whirling round and round with tremendous velocity, coming down again with a resonant smash, which threatened to snap off short the huge fans of the propeller. To obviate this danger, Martin spoke to the chief engineer, who, at once recognizing the perilous position, took his station beside the throttle-valve, and immediately the yacht dipped her nose, shut off steam, so that, when she plunged her stern again into the waters, the down-stroke was not so dangerous to the motionless blades.
The enormous steel bars of the cranks, shining with oil in the dim lamplight, arose and fell irregularly, owing to the pitching of the vessel, one moment slowing down to half speed, the next beating the air as rapidly as the wings of a swallow. Round and round swept the giant wheels with noiseless speed, and nothing could be heard but the lash of the waves thrashing the sides of the yacht, the intermittent throbbing of the machinery, and the sharp hiss of escaping steam, but the moment the engineer put his hand to the throttle-valve, in an instant the screw, already spinning like a top, hung motionless, until, with the recurring lurch, the great pistons again began to slide smoothly in and out of the cylinders. It was wonderful to see the absolute command this one man had over the colossal mass of machinery, which worked or rested as he let on or shut off steam at every plunge of the ship.
As Martin and the poet returned to the deck, they heard the smashing of dishes in the pantry, the subsequent bad language of the stewards, and The Eunice groaned, creaked, strained, and shrieked like a living being as she strove to make headway against the furious blast.
“All right!” yelled Crispin when they were once more on the streaming decks.