“Look here, my lad,” I said. “If what you say is true, that only your mother, your sister, you and I are left aboard this ship, somebody will have to take charge of things, and that somebody will be myself. There will be a multitude of things to be done, and you will have to lend a hand. And I will see that you do so. Henceforth it will be I who will give orders; and—understand me, my young friend—if I give you an order, you will execute it, or I’ll know the reason why. Hitherto, it seems to me, you have been spoiled by too much indulgence; but if this ship proves to be a wreck, as I more than suspect is the case, there will be no more spoiling for you, and I’ll see if I cannot make something like a man of you. Now, just turn that saying over in your mind, and don’t let me have any more of your nonsense. Now we will go and see what can be done for your mother. Come along!”
For a moment I really thought that the boy meant to strike me, but I kept my eyes steadily staring into his, and presently I saw that I had mastered him, for the moment at all events. The gleam of mingled anger and defiance faded out of his eyes, and he muttered: “All right! let’s go.”
As we wended our way from my cabin to the drawing-room, abaft which Mrs Vansittart’s cabin was situate, I had time to note several matters. The first of these was that the ship was evidently hard and fast aground; for although she rolled slightly from time to time the motion was not continuous like that of a floating ship, but intermittent, with intervals when she did not move at all, but lay motionless with a list to starboard. Also, when she moved, there was a gritty, grinding sound, which at once suggested to me that she was lying upon a bed of coral. There was also another sound, a bumping sound, accompanied by a perceptible jar of the hull, recurring at frequent and pretty regular intervals, which I set down to the bumping of wreckage alongside. The next thing I observed was that the lee side of the deck was about a foot or more deep in water, showing that a very considerable quantity must have come below, the greater part of it probably through the hatchways, although some had no doubt come in through the open ports.
Then I went up the hatchway ladder to the main-deck. Heavens! what a picture of wreck and ruin I there beheld! The three hollow steel masts were snapped off close to the deck, and now, with all attached, were over the starboard side, still fast to the hull by the standing and running gear, which lay, a confused raffle of wire and hemp, across the deck. The mizenmast, heel upward, leaned against the side of the poop in a slanting position, showing that it had fallen forward as well as sideways; and immediately to leeward, in the water that heaved and seethed round us, rose and fell a tangle of wrecked spars, sails, and rigging. Every inch of the bulwarks, from poop to topgallant forecastle on both sides, had disappeared, leaving only the bent and broken steel stanchions standing here and there. The deckhouses were gone, as were every one of the boats except the motor launch, and even she was represented only by a shattered, fragmentary skeleton. Four of the six main-deck guns in the starboard battery were either smashed or missing altogether; and, in short, the whole appearance of the main-deck was such as to suggest that the ship had been repeatedly swept from end to end by a succession of tremendously heavy seas.
All these things I observed during my brief passage from the after hatchway to the face of the poop. I also observed that no land was in sight from the main-deck; therefore, if we had hit an unknown atoll during the night, it must be so small as to be entirely hidden by the poop.
Followed submissively enough by the boy, who now seemed tongue-tied, I passed through the cabin into the drawing-room; and it gave me quite a sharp pain to see the dreadful havoc that had been wrought in that splendid apartment since I had left it only a few hours before. For not only had all the ports been left open during the night, for the sake of coolness, but the skylight and companion had both been swept away, and, from the appearance of things, tons of water must have flooded the place. Even now, when it had had time to drain away to a small extent, the lee side of the room was flooded to the depth of fully four feet, and chairs, ottomans, table, grand piano, organ—the latter capsized—in fact, everything movable had settled away to leeward, and now lay in a confused heap in the water. The rich carpet was everywhere sodden, several of the electric-light shades were smashed, two or three of the pictures had fallen; in short, the destruction was practically complete. And there, in the midst of all the ruin, stood poor little Anthea, a most forlorn and pathetic-looking object.
I hastened toward her with the idea of saying something comforting, though what I could have said I am sure I don’t know. Happily, she forestalled me by coming to meet me with outstretched hands.
“Oh! Mr Leigh,” she exclaimed, “isn’t this just awful! I am so glad you are here, for Momma is in her cabin and can’t get out; and Jule and I haven’t been strong enough to help her. She says that the wardrobe has fallen across her door, and she cannot move it.”
“All right!” I said; “I will see what I can do to help her;” and I moved toward the door in question.
“But don’t you think you had better get some of the men to help you?” demanded the girl. “I guess that wardrobe is a pretty heavy piece of furniture and—But what are you looking at me like that for? And what have you done to your head?”