Another harsh and half-heard cry rose out of the obscurity. An indistinguishable object plunged past the schooner’s stern, there was a crash to leeward as the schooner rolled, and a man standing up in the boat clutched her rail. The man was swung out of it as the vessel rolled back again, but he crawled on to the rail with a rope in one hand, and after jamming it fast around something, he sprang down with the hooks of the lifting tackles which one of the crew had given him. While two more men scrambled up, there was a clatter of blocks, but a shattered sea struck the boat as they hove her clear, and, when she swung in, the brine poured out through the rents in her. Dampier waved an arm as they dropped her on the deck, and they heard him faintly.
“Boys,” he shouted, “you have got to cut that mainsail down!”
They obeyed somehow, hanging on to the mast-hoops, and now and then enveloped by the madly flogging canvas. After that they trimmed her fore-staysail over, and there was by contrast a curious quietness as Dampier jammed his helm up, and the schooner swung off before the sea.
Then somebody lighted a lantern, and Charly stooped over Wyllard, who lay limp and still beside the wheel. In the feeble light, Wyllard’s face showed gray except where a broad red stain had spread across it. Dampier cast a glance at him.
“Get him below, and into his bunk, two of you,” he commanded.
The men carried him with difficulty, for the Selache lurched viciously each time a white-topped sea came up upon her quarter. As soon as it seemed advisable to leave the deck Dampier went down. Wyllard lay in his bunk, with his eyes half-open. His face was colorless except for the broad smear of blood, which was oozing fast from a laceration in his scalp. Dampier, who noticed his chilliness, did not trouble about the wound. He stripped off the senseless man’s long boots, and, unshipping a hot fender iron from the stove, laid it against his feet. Afterward he contrived to get some whisky down Wyllard’s throat, and then he set to work to wash the scalp wound, dropping into the water a little of the permanganate of potash, which is freely used at sea. When that was done he applied a rag dipped in the same fluid, and seeing no result of his efforts went back on deck. He was anxious about his patient, but not unduly so, for he had discovered long ago that men of Wyllard’s type are apt to recover from more serious injuries.
It was blowing very hard when the skipper stood near the wheel. A steep sea was already tumbling after the schooner, but she was, at least, heading out from where they supposed the ice to be, and he let her go, keeping her away before it, and heading a little south of east. The next morning the sea was very high, and the faint light was further dimmed by snow, but it seemed safe to Dampier, and the vessel held on while the big combers came up astern and forged by high above her rail.
The Selache was traveling fast to the eastward. She was under boom-foresail and one little jib, with her mainmast broken short off where the bolts of the halliard blocks had traversed it. Dampier realized that every knot the vessel made then could not be recovered that season. He wondered, with a little uneasiness, what Wyllard would say when he came to himself again.
Next day the breeze moderated somewhat, and they let the schooner come up a little, heading further south. On the morning after that Wyllard showed signs of returning consciousness. Dampier, however, kept away from him, partly to allow his senses to readjust themselves, and partly because he shrank from the necessary interview. When dusk was falling, Charly went on deck to say that Wyllard, who seemed perfectly conscious, insisted on seeing the skipper, and with some misgivings Dampier went down into the little cabin. The lamp was lighted, and when he sat down Wyllard, who raised himself feebly on his pillow, turned a pallid face to him.
“Charly tells me you picked the boat up,” he said.