“Well, yes,” said the mate, giving his head a vicious kind of rub; “I suppose we must call it a wreck. Anyhow, we’re ashore.”
“And it isn’t so dark?” said Oliver, rising to his feet and feeling so giddy that he caught at the nearest rope to save himself from falling.
“No, it isn’t so dark, for the clouds are passing away. We shall have daylight directly.”
“Morning?”
“No; it’s quite late to-morrow afternoon,” said the mate grimly.
“But I don’t hear that thundering now?”
“No; it’s all over seemingly, thank goodness,” said the mate, as his injured companion looked wonderingly up at the thick, blackened clouds still hanging overhead, and listened quite expectant for the next terrible detonation. “I began to think we were going to be carried along full speed into some awful fiery hole on the top of that wave, and that when we struck the water was going on to put out the fire, and I suppose it did.”
“What?” cried Lane, looking round him, and then at the mate, to see if he were in his right senses.
“Yes, you may look, Mr Lane,” he said. “I’m all right, only a bit scared; I know what I’m saying, and as soon as it get’s light enough you’ll see.”
“But I don’t understand.”