"She's moored where she won't ground again, but perhaps you had better see that the chain-compressors and warp fastenings are right."
"If you're satisfied, it's enough," said Grahame.
"Then I'll take the gig and get the coal on board."
"If you feel equal to it," Grahame answered.
Walthew got into the boat with a sense of elation. His eyes had met Grahame's while they spoke, and a pledge of mutual respect and trust had passed between them. But this was not quite all. He felt he had won official recognition from a leader he admired; he was no longer on trial but accepted as a comrade and equal. The thought sustained him through a day of murderous toil, during which his worn-out muscles needed constant spurring by the unconquered mind. It was not dainty and, in a sense, not heroic work in which he was engaged, but it must be done, and he dimly saw that human nature rose highest in a grapple with obstacles that seemed too great to overcome. Whatever the odds against him were, he must not be beaten.
The heat was pitiless in the afternoon, but Walthew pulled his oar and carried the hundred-pound coal bags across a stretch of mire that grew broader as the tide ebbed. He could scarcely pull his feet out and keep the load upon his aching back, and he sometimes sank knee-deep in the softer spots. The air was heavy with exhalations from the swamps; he had thrown off his jacket and the coal wore holes in his shirt and rubbed raw places on his skin. He was wet from the waist downward and black above, while the gritty dust filled his eyes and nostrils. Still he held out until the work was finished, when the Enchantress's cargo-light began to twinkle through the dusk; and then, losing his balance, he fell forward into the boat with his last heavy load. Miguel pushed her off, and with oars splashing slackly she moved downstream. When she ran alongside the steamer, Grahame saw a limp, black figure lying huddled on the floorings. The others lifted it gently, but Walthew did not speak when he was laid on deck, and Macallister, bending over him, looked up at Grahame.
"Fever and exhaustion! I allow that ye were right about the lad. But we must do the best we can for him."
They washed off the coal-dust, and when Walthew, wrapped in thick blankets, lay unconscious in his berth, they debated earnestly over the medicine chest before administering a dose that experience in the unhealthy swamps of the tropics alone justified. They forced it, drop by drop, between his clenched teeth, and then Macallister waited with a grimy finger on his pulse, while Grahame sat down limply on the edge of the berth. His hands were bruised, his thin clothes were torn, and he felt the reaction after the day's strain. He had now an hour or two in which to rest, and then he must pull himself together to take the vessel down the creek.
When at last Macallister nodded, as if satisfied, Grahame went wearily up on deck. Except for a faint hiss of steam, everything was quiet. Tired men lay motionless about the deck, and the mist that clung to the mangroves did not stir. After a while the lap of the flood-tide against the planks made itself heard, and the moon, which was getting large, rose above the trees.
Grahame, sitting limply on the grating, half dozing while he waited, suddenly jumped to his feet, startled. Out of the semi-darkness came distinctly the splash of oars, faint at first and then nearer.