“I’d never thought to set tooth in a biscuit again when that smash came last night,” said Bompard addressing no one in particular.
“I wasn’t thinking of biscuits,” said La Touche, “I was bowled over in the alley-way. You see, I was running, so it took me harder. What set me running I don’t know, my legs took care of themselves—I was just leaning like this, see, on the look out and between two blinks there was the hooker crossing our course or making that way. She’ll clear us, maybe, said I to myself, then the engines went full speed and I knew we were done. Then I cleared aft, running, with no thought in my mind but to get out of the way, dark, too, but I didn’t barge against nothing, till the smash came, and I went truck over keel in the alley-way.”
“I was coming up the cabin stairs,” said Cléo, “and something seemed to knock me down. Then when I got on deck the light was put on and I saw a great ship on the right hand side; she seemed sinking, but I read her name, she was quite close. Then the light went out and someone caught me and threw me—I don’t know where, but it must have been into this boat.”
“That was it,” said Bompard, talking and eating at the same time, “us two was in the boat.”
“I thought it was Larsen,” cut in La Touche. “Larsen helped me to get the canvas off her, that was when the electric was on—what became of Larsen?”
“Lord knows,” said Bompard. “I scrambled into her just as the light was shut off, then the chaps on deck chucked the lady in. Next thing we were fending her off from the ship. I was shouting to the chaps on deck to jump and we’d pick them up, we’d got the oars out then. I tell you I was fuddled up for I’d got it in my head that the hooker was to port of us though I’d seen her with my own eyes to starboard. I was thinking we’d be taken down with the suck of her and I was bent on getting ahead of her.”
“I didn’t hear you shouting to the fellows on deck,” said La Touche, “but I heard you shouting to me to row. Then when we’d got her away a bit the Gaston blew up.”
“Blew up,” said the girl.
“The boilers,” said Bompard, “they lifted the decks off her. She must have gone like a stone.”
“So you think no one at all escaped but us?”