“Now, my lads,” said the captain gravely, “our lives have been spared, thank Heaven! and we are to see the light of another day.”
There was again silence, with the muffled roar of the breakers farther away than ever, and as the boat rocked away slowly with the same gentle motion, the wet, cold, and misery were forgotten by one after another, the darkness helping, the occupants of the little craft dropped off to sleep, one of the last being Mark.
Cramped, faint, and miserable, the lad woke at last with a start, to lie with his eyes open staring straight up at the blue sunlit sky, his mind for the time being a perfect blank. In fact it was some minutes before he realised that he was in the bottom of the boat, with his head resting upon Bruff’s curly coat, and that Jack was huddled up close to him staring down into his face with an inquiring look, which, being interpreted, really meant, Where is the food?
Mark struggled up so painfully that he felt ready to lie down again; but he persevered and knelt in the bottom of the boat, to see as strange a sight as had ever before met his eyes. For, in spite of their cramped positions, every soul on board was sleeping heavily, the men in the bottom of the boat forward making pillows of each other, the tired ladies clinging together in the stern, and the officers amidships—the extreme stern with its limited space having been left to Mark, Bruff, and the monkey.
Haggard, pale, some with faces blackened with powder, others with their heads bound up with handkerchiefs and bandages which showed the necessity for their application, and all in the sleep which comes of utter exhaustion.
The ladies, with their hair dishevelled and their wet garments clinging to them, evoked most of the lad’s pity, which was the next moment withdrawn for his father, who looked ghastly pale, and lay back with his head against the side of the boat, his hand resting upon that of Mr Morgan, whose face was buried in his chest as he leaned against a thwart.
The first-mate, too, crouched amidships in a very uneasy position, where he had tried to settle down with the major so as to leave more room. While the latter seemed the most placid of all, and lay back with half a cigar in his teeth—one which had evidently been cut in two, for there was no sign of the end having been lit.
Mark gazed round in a half-stupefied way for some minutes, hardly realising what it all meant, and it was only by scraps that he recalled the events since the fight in the cabin.
But by degrees all came back, even to the grazing of the reef and the gliding into calm water, and he looked to the right, to see about a mile away a long line of white foam, whose sound came in a low murmur, while between them and it lay blue water quite smooth and unruffled, save that it heaved softly, and far beyond the line of white foam there was the sunlit sea.
Sunlit, for, save to his left, there was not a cloud to be seen. The sky was of an intense blue, and the cloud that remained was peculiar-looking—fleecy and roseate, and hanging over the centre of a beautiful land whose shore was of pure white sand, rising right out of which and close to the water were the smooth straight columns of the cocoa-nut trees with their capitals of green.