“Mate sent us down for a warm,” said one of the men. “To stay half an hour, and then relieve some more. We can do nothing on deck.”
“Let’s leave them,” said the doctor in Steve’s ear; and after warning the cook to be ready with the refreshment in half an hour, they made their way back to the cabin.
Those refreshments were not taken to the men on deck, for in turn all were sent down to the engine-room for warmth and food; and at last, to Steve’s great delight, the captain entered the cabin, to reply to the grips of the hand given him, and then drink with avidity the hot coffee ready on the table.
“I don’t like leaving the deck,” he said cheerfully; “but I must have coal and water for my engine, or I cannot work. No, no, don’t question me; I have no news. We are in an awful storm, and are being carried with the drifting ice, Heaven only knows where.”
That storm lasted forty-eight hours—hours of as great trial as man could go through, and live. Steve had borne up till, in spite of the danger, his eyes would keep open no longer, and then he had slept a troubled nightmare-like sleep to dream of shipwreck and struggling with the wind and waves. Every now and then he would start awake suffering from cold, and draw the great skin rug in which he had nestled closer round him, and drop off again into what was almost a stupor.
There was one time, or else he dreamed it—he never quite knew which—when he crept all about the deck again, to find it deeply encumbered with snow. Then he was back in the cabin lying on a locker, and he opened his eyes and saw the captain rolled up in a blanket lying asleep on the table. The next minute he was looking about again, to find that the captain had gone, and that the doctor only was there. Once it was Mr Lowe, but he, too, disappeared, and then all was blank, till he started into wakefulness, to find that the deafening rush and roar had ceased, and that a peculiar weird light was forcing its way into the cabin; while at intervals there came a curious grinding, cracking sound, followed every now and then by a loud, rending crash. The ship was rolling slowly upon a heaving sea, and steaming slowly, for the vibration of the screw made the things in the cabin quiver. Then there was more light in the cabin, for the door was opened with a crackling sound, as of moving broken ice, and the captain, glistening and white, entered the cabin.
“Awake, Steve?” he said in a low, weary voice.
“Yes, I’m so ashamed. Then the storm is over?”
“Yes, my lad,” said the captain, sinking down on the locker with his great oil-skin coat crackling loudly; “at last, thank God!”
There was a deep, heartfelt ring in Captain Marsham’s voice as he uttered those words, and for some moments Steve was silent, conscious now that the doctor was lying on the cabin floor sleeping soundly.