But the kedge cable held nobly, while the long afternoon passed slowly away, though its straining could be felt in every part of the vessel, and it twanged and hummed taut as a violin string. There were no provisions of any sort in the cabin, and, toward evening, Elliott undertook to go forward along the deck to obtain something from the galley. There had been no firing for hours, but the garrison of the hilltop then demonstrated their vigilance. Before Elliott’s body was out of the hatch the distant rifles were snapping, and so sharp a fusilade was opened that he had to go back. Finally, Henninger cut a hole in the bulkhead with an axe, through which food was passed by the crew. The Mussulmans in the forecastle were quietly smoking or sleeping away the hours, apparently totally unperturbed by the fight. They had nothing to do; it was none of their affair, and they were in safe cover.
Late in the afternoon it had rained heavily for half an hour, and the sun went down in a bank of clouds. It was perfectly dark in fifteen minutes, and there was every prospect of a rough night. The surf crashed upon the reef, sending showers of spray over the Clara McClay’s wreck, and occasionally deluging the dhow. The rigging hummed and tingled like the cable, but the breeze appeared to be shifting to the east, for the dhow was drifting to westward, and across the gap in the barrier reef.
In the safety of the darkness the whole party returned to the deck to escape the stifling air of the cabin. The sky was clouded inky black, and intermittent dashes of rain mingled with the spatter of the spray. In the darkness to the eastward gleamed the red starboard light of the steamer, with a white riding-light at her masthead. Complete darkness covered the island and the hill; it was impossible to ascertain whether the landing party were still there or whether they had returned aboard their ship.
Hawke fired an experimental shot at the island, but there was no reply. The night seemed full of mystery and invisible danger, and it was hot and oppressive, in spite of rain and wind. The dhow plunged and quivered as she tugged at her restraining cable, that seemed as if it must break at every lurch. But it held firmly for a whole anxious hour, when a heavier downpour of rain sent the adventurers below again for shelter.
The possibility of getting to sea was debated, but it seemed too dangerous an attempt in the face of the foul weather and the southeast wind. But the enforced truce and suspense was more harassing to the nerves than any actual conflict could have been. The lamp swinging wildly from the ceiling lit up the cabin with a smoky yellow light; on one side lay Sullivan’s corpse under the gray blanket, seeming, Elliott fancied, to chill the room with its presence; on the other side was the locked and iron-barred door to the gold for which the adventurer had died. The rifles stood stacked in a corner, and the men gathered near the port-hole for the sake of air, and discussed the situation till their ideas were exhausted. After an hour or so, in sheer nervous despair, Henninger and Bennett took to playing seven-up on the floor, and Elliott presently took a hand in the game. He played mechanically, paying no attention to the score, hardly knowing what he did, and seeing the faces of the cards with eyes that scarcely recognized them. Margaret sat on the locker and seemed to doze a little; while Hawke prowled restlessly about, now looking over the shoulders of the card-players, now peering through the port, and now climbing half-way up the ladder to the deck.
“It’s stopped raining,” he reported, after one of these ascents. “Looks as if it might clear up.” A few minutes later he went up again. They heard his feet on the planking overhead, and then a startled shout.
“The steamer!”
Henninger dropped his cards, and dashed up the ladder, with Elliott and Bennett at his heels. “What about the steamer?” he cried.
“Where is she? What’s become of her?”
That part of the night where the steamer’s lights had shone was blank. Henninger whistled, and then swore.