“Let’s say that when we’ve tried and failed,” cried Steve. “You can get hot water here; I’ll fetch coffee and sugar.”
“Very well, sir, I’ll try; but how are we to get it to them on deck?”
“Bottles, man, bottles!” cried the doctor. “Where there’s a will there’s a way.”
The energy displayed by the new-comers, aided by the warmth, had its effect upon the man; the engineer remembered that he had two clean bottles in a locker, and Steve and the doctor fought their way again over the slippery, snowy deck to the cabin, from which they emerged again well laden, and in another quarter of an hour they were on their way first to the wheel, holding on tightly to prevent their being swept heavily across the poop, and they felt, more than saw, the two men, and by them the captain and mate.
They did not speak their mission, but told it dumbly by pressing a bottle of hot coffee in each man’s hand, waiting while it was consumed, and then returning to get the bottles refilled, their thanks being a warm, hearty pressure and a shouted warning from the captain to take care as they turned to creep back under such shelter as they could get, Steve having hard work once to save himself from being driven forward by the wind, which seemed to come from all quarters at once.
The men huddled forward on deck were now relieved in the same way, this taking two journeys, after which they joined the engineer in partaking of the hot, steaming compound, and prepared to return on deck.
“Hadn’t you better stay below here, sir?” said the man; “there’s nothing to be done on deck.”
“We’ll come down again,” replied the doctor. “Why, Steve,” he cried, “Captain Marsham is on the bridge!”
For at that moment there was a sharp ting upon the gong just overhead, which the engineer responded to by seizing the lever and altering the number of revolutions per minute of the screw. The next moment he staggered, and would have fallen but for his grasp of the lever, the doctor staggered up against the side, and Steve caught hold of the engineer, while Watty Links was pitched from his seat on to the iron flooring, and evidently uttered a yell, though it was not heard in the terrific noise of the storm; neither did they hear a tremendous crash; but all knew that they had struck something, for there was a fearful shock, and a peculiar thrill ran through the vessel just as if she were being shaken to pieces and her timbers were about to fall apart.