The man rose half upright, stumbled, and, straightening himself, moved towards the open gangway with a lurch. Then he vanished suddenly and there was a crash below. Austin leaned out through the opening, and his voice rose harsh and strained:
"Come down, one of you, and cut this warp! The devil's hanging on!" he said.
Wall-eye, the Canario, sprang down with his knife, and when Austin climbed back to the bridge deck the men clustering along the rails saw a canoe with a shadowy object lying in the stern of her slide through the blaze of radiance cast by the blast-lamp and vanish into the blackness outside it. Then Tom put out the light, and a hoarse murmur of relief rose out of the darkness.
A minute or two later Austin stood, a trifle grey in face, in the doorway of the skipper's room, and stepped back suddenly when Jefferson approached him.
"Keep off!" he said. "Give me the permanganate out of the side drawer. I left it there. Miguel, bring me the clothes you washed out of my room in the poop, and fill me a bucket."
The last was in Castilian, and one of the Canarios went scrambling down the ladder, while when he came back with an armful of duck clothing Jefferson held out a jar to his comrade.
"No!" said Austin sharply. "Put it down!"
Jefferson did as he was bidden, and Austin, who stripped the thin garments from him and flung them over the rail, shook the permanganate into the bucket, and then, standing stark naked, when it had dissolved, sluiced himself all over with the pink solution. It was ten minutes later when he stepped into the room, dripping, with a wet rag about his waist, and shook his head when Jefferson handed him a towel.
"I think not," he said. "If there's any efficacy in the thing, I may as well let it dry in. After all, it's consoling to remember that it mayn't be necessary."
Jefferson's fingers quivered as he leaned upon the table. "No. Of course not!" he said, and added, inconsequently: "I don't think I'm unduly sensitive, but a very little thing would turn me deadly sick."