Poor Michali collapsed in a spasm of coughing seasickness.
Curtis, gnashing his teeth and declaring that he would not yield, scrambled up the ladder and butted the hatches open with his head. The most incongruous ideas kept running through his brain, sick as he was. As he sprawled out upon the deck and the two trapdoors fell behind him with a slam, he thought of a jack-in-the-box that had been given him on his fourth Christmas. Curtis rose cautiously erect, and threw himself at the nearest mast. It was not raining, but occasional faint electric flashes revealed a lurid world full of inky waves.
"There's no danger at all in this sort of thing," he muttered, "if these beggars understand their business."
The hatches came down again with a slam. Michali, kneeling upon the deck, gave vent to his sufferings in elliptical groans. At the point of greatest diameter they were suggestive of a strong man vainly striving to yield up the ghost.
"Come here, old man," shouted Curtis, "the fresh air will fix you all right in a minute."
"That tobacco," gasped Michali, "would have made me to be sick on land or sea."
"What's going on up there?" asked the American. The three sailors were gathered about the captain and all were talking excitedly. Michali listened. The stinging spray was whipping the sickness out of him.
"They see the signal," he replied. "Ah, there it is!"
High up and far away flickered a ruddy flame. No object was distinguishable near it or anywhere else. It simply glowed there alone in the darkness, like a witch's candle. Had there been any earth or sky it would have been half way between them.
"It is our beacon," exclaimed the Greek, "we shall sail straight for that and we come to the part of the shore where we the landing make. They have light it far up in the mountain, that all who see may think it a shepherd's camp."