“One charnsh,” growled Dumlow, whose voice sounded as if he were very sore indeed. “I on’y want half a charnsh, my lad; that’ll be enough for me. I don’t brag, but on’y give me half a charnsh, I don’t care if he’s all pistols. I says on’y give me half a charnsh, and the side of the ship close by—”
“What’ll you do?—chuck him overboard, mate?”
“Ay, that I will, just as if he were a mad cat, and that’s about what he is. Just think of it, our getting that dose as the doctor meant for him. I can’t get over it, and that’s a fact.”
The night passed slowly by—so slowly that I felt we must have been roused up quite early, and directly after we had gone to sleep. But at last the golden clouds began to appear high up in the sky, then it was all flecked with orange and gold, and directly after the great sun rolled slowly up over the ruddy water, lighting the ship where she lay not a quarter of a mile off, till the whole of her rigging looked as if the ropes were of brass, and the sails so many sheets of ruddy gold. To us it seemed to give life as well as light, and instead of feeling despairing, and as if all was over, the brightness of that morning made me look eagerly at the ship, and ask myself whether the time had not come for us to make our dash and secure it. For I could not see a soul visible at first, not even a man at the wheel. Then my heart gave a throb, for I could see a white face framed in the little opening of one of the cabin-windows.
“It’s Miss Denning,” I said to myself, and I waved my hand, and then felt for a handkerchief to wave that.
But I had none, though it did not matter, for my signal had been seen, and a white handkerchief was waved in response.
I turned to Mr Frewen, who was bending down over Walters, and was about to point out the face at the window, but it disappeared.
“How is he?” I asked.
“Very bad,” was the laconic answer, and I could not help shuddering as I looked at the pinched, changed features of my messmate, as he lay there in the bottom of the boat, evidently quite insensible.
“I must not move him now,” said Mr Frewen gravely. And turning to Dumlow he was about to offer to dress the wound better now that he could see, but the great fellow only laughed.