“Where’s Drew?” shouted Oliver Lane; but the wind bore away his words, and he yelled out his question again.
“Cabin!” came back in a temporary cessation of the turmoil of roaring wind, hissing spray, and creaking and groaning of the vessel’s timbers.
Oliver Lane tried to ask another question, but the wind caught him full in the face with such force that for a few moments he could only gasp and try to recover his breath, while directly after the vessel gave so tremendous a pitch and roll, he was jerked from his footing and hung by his hands with the sensation of having his arms jerked from their sockets.
But the young Englishman had been engaged in similar struggles for hours, and recovering himself he shouted, “Panton?”
“Hullo!”
“Is Drew hurt?”
“Yes. So am I.”
“So we are all, Mr Panton,” yelled the mate. “If we get through this we shall all be covered with bruises, let alone broken ribs and other bones—Yah!—Hold on.”
The advice was not needed, for the two young men with him had suddenly seen something grey loom up in front, and taught by experience that it was a mass of foaming water, they clung for dear life, sheltering themselves as well as they could beneath the bulwark as the wave curled over and thundered along the deck with a hideous crashing din that literally stunned them. When it had passed over Oliver Lane shook his head and tried with his smarting eyes to get rid of the water and make out whether his companions were safe.
To his horror Arthur Panton was hanging from the belaying pin to which he had lashed himself, with his head down and his hands close to his feet, apparently lifeless, while the mate was gone.