When the clatter of the winch began again he hid the effort it cost him to resume his task and stubbornly pulled his oar as the gig floated up the creek with her gunwale near awash. His back hurt him almost unbearably when he lifted a heavy bag, and it was hard to keep upon his feet while he floundered through the mire. Sometimes his head reeled and he could scarcely see. The blisters on his hands had worked into bleeding sores. This, however, did not matter much by comparison with the pain in his head.
After the coal was landed they loaded loose ironwork and towed heavy spars ashore, and Walthew held out somehow until darkness fell, when he paddled back to the Enchantress with a swarm of mosquitos buzzing round his face.
He could not eat when they sat down to a frugal meal, and afterward lay in his berth unable to sleep, and yet not quite awake, lost in confused thoughts that broke off and left him conscious of intolerable heat and pain. When he went languidly on deck the next morning Grahame looked hard at him.
"You had better lie down in the shade," he said.
"I may let up when we reach open water," Walthew answered with a feeble smile. "There's not much enjoyment to be got out of a lay-off here."
Grahame reluctantly agreed. He knew something about malaria and Walthew did not look fit for work; but every man was needed, and this foul swamp was no place to be ill. The sooner they got out the better.
Steam was up when the Enchantress rose with the tide, and shortly afterward the engines began to throb. Muddy foam leaped about the whirling screw, flame mingled with the smoke that poured from her funnel, and steam roared from the blow-off pipe. Then the clatter of winch and windlass joined in, and Grahame stood, tense and anxious, holding a rope that slipped round the spinning drum. The winch could not shorten it, though the vessel was shaking and working in her muddy bed. It was high-water, the tide would soon begin to fall, and the sweat of suspense and strain dripped from the man as, at the risk of breaking the warp, he tightened the turns on the drum. It gripped; to his surprise, a little slack came off, and he nodded to Walthew, who was watching him eagerly from the windlass.
"Give her all, if you burst the chain!" he cried.
The windlass clanked for a few moments, stopped, and clanked again; the Enchantress trembled and crept a foot or two ahead. Then she stuck while the cable rose from the water, rigid as a bar, and the messenger-chain that drove the windlass creaked and strained at breaking tension. While Grahame expected to see links and gear-wheels fly, there was a long shiver through the vessel's frame, a mad rattle of liberated machinery, and she leaped ahead.
Five minutes later Walthew walked shakily aft, scarcely seeing where he went because a confused sense of triumph had brought a mist into his dazzled eyes. This was the first big thing in which he had taken a leading part. He had made good and played the man; but there was still much to be done and he pulled himself together as he stopped near Grahame.