“Well, well! Where does he intend to look for us now, I wonder? At any rate, he doesn’t think that we are stuck here among the breakers.”
“Mate, you old optimist. Those words I’ll never forget. Great God! If you are right! Then certainly——”
“He is already turning,” the little chap cut me short, and jammed his nose against the window-glass, so as to be able to see better.
I grabbed him by the neck and pulled him away, as my blood rushed to my head.
“What? What is it you are saying? Is he turning—good God in heaven—yes, it’s true—he really is turning, all the time turning—now his broadside swings round towards us, now his stern—he has turned—he is departing. He has not seen us, he has not seen us!”
I remember that once, when I was a little boy, I got a roe-deer as a present.
I loved it a great deal and we were inseparable. It had to sleep on a rug by my bed. One beautiful summer’s day we were playing in the sun on a large lawn before the house when suddenly a large, unknown hound came rushing towards my little pet and blood-thirstily chased it around the lawn. The nasty dog was about to run it down when my pet, with a shrill shriek, appealed for help. I was standing paralyzed in terror and could not get a word through my lips, when unexpectedly the owner called the dog back with a whistle. Then I threw myself, with great exultation, down alongside my pet, pressed it to my heart, kissed its black snoot, and cried and laughed with joy.
Those were my feelings now, when, with my own eyes, I saw the impossible—that the destroyer, without suspecting our presence, had steered away from us. Was it possible that he did not see us, when, according to my estimation, he was only about eight hundred meters away? Could the mate be right, and the foolish destroyer have only searched the passage in accordance with his schedule? “But,” I thought, with a shiver, “how easily would not perchance a glance in our direction have betrayed us?”
Radiant with joy, I told the crew in the “Centrale” what a happy turn the affairs had taken at the last moment. A burden must have fallen from the hearts of my splendid, brave boys.
I then revealed my plans to the engineer: