"Ships that go down in typhoons don't have their chronometers pop up in Shanghai a year later, I'm tellin' ye. There ain't nobody ever saw this here Devil's Admiral, sure enough, that lived to tell it, but ships don't always go down in deep water and never a boat got off or a life-preserver or a spar or a door found on the beach.
"Thar's been bloody work in the last three or four years in these waters—look at the Legaspi; never a man jack out of her, and sailed from Manila, as we did, for Hong-Kong, and never heard of. Steamer she was, too, right in the steamer-lanes. They say the Devil's Admiral got her, and I more'n half believe it."
"Sally Ann! Sally Ann!" said Captain Riggs. "I guess I better go down, Mr. Harris, and look this thing over and get it off yer mind, or ye'll be fretting yerself and losing sleep with such yarns running wild in yer top-piece. I don't like this night prowling a mite, but take the bull's-eye along, and never a bit of light until we are in the storeroom.
"I don't want the crew hugging our heels on this trip below, 'cause ye may be right about it, at that. Be sure the slide is shut in that lantern, and call the boy to watch for us. Be sure that glim is doused—I don't want anybody to know about this."
I slipped off the ladder and clung to the superstructure out of the range of the light which spurted from the open door as Harris came out. He went aft for Rajah, and when he returned in a minute Captain Riggs was standing at the head of the fore-deck ladder waiting for them. Harris whispered something, and I saw the three figures descend to the fore-deck and heard them enter the companionway to the lower deck. I followed them.
CHAPTER VIII
MR. HARRIS HAS A FEW IDEAS
Clutching the iron hand-rail of the ladder leading to the fore-deck, I went down as quickly as I could. For half a minute I stood on the wet plates of the deck, drenched by the spray which swept the head of the vessel every time she lurched forward into the seas. Above me I could make out the dim shape of the bridge and superstructure, and I could hear the wind slatting the storm-apron lashed along the bridge-rail and the singing of the funnel-stays, but it was so black overhead that I could not distinguish any figure on the bridge.
The forecastle-head could barely be made out, and the winch-wheels and ventilators on deck were inchoate masses which took shape only when they were within reach. The green starboard-light threw a sickly glare over the surges which rose to the rail. I had to feel my way along and not release my grip until I had found a hold on something else.
If it was dark on deck, the appalling gloom below was terrifying, and nothing seemed stable—there were times when I mistook the bulkhead for the deck, when the vessel took a long roll and laboured to right herself.