Chapter Seventeen.
The Malays!
The occupants of the fort retired to rest that night, as usual, at the early hour of ten o’clock; and, thoroughly fagged out with the day’s labour, soon sank to sleep. Nobody felt in the least degree anxious about the skipper, because, when Gaunt and Henderson took a last look at the weather before turning in, there was nothing particularly alarming in its aspect; they agreed that there was going to be a change, and that it would probably occur before morning; but Blyth, they considered, was not the man to be caught napping; moreover, he had already been absent long enough to make his return possible at any moment; so, with this opinion expressed and understood, all hands sought their bunks with perfectly easy minds.
Manners and Nicholls were the first to awake, which they did simultaneously when the hurricane burst over the island, their sleeping-room happening to be on the weather side of the fort, or that upon which the gale beat with the greatest fury, and they were therefore naturally the first to be disturbed by the uproar of the storm.
“Whew!” whistled Manners, as he settled himself more comfortably in his cosy bunk; “it’s blowing heavily! I’m glad I have no watch to keep to-night. Listen to that!” as the wind went howling and careering past the house, causing it to tremble to its foundations; “if it’s like that down here in this sheltered valley what must it be outside in the open sea?”
“Bad enough, Mr Manners, you may depend on’t,” answered Nicholls, who, occupying the adjoining bunk, had overheard this muttered soliloquy, “bad enough! This is the worst bout we’ve had since we’ve been on the island. Why—listen to that, now!—and did ye feel the house shake, sir? Why, it must be blowing a regular tornado—or typhoon, as they calls ’em in these latitudes. The skipper sleeps pretty sound through it, don’t he, sir?”
“He does, indeed,” replied Manners; and then, a sudden recollection of the fishing expedition coming upon him, he added, “I suppose he is asleep—I suppose he is in his berth. Did you hear him come in?”
“Not I, sir,” was the answer. “I dozed off to sleep almost before I had time to make myself comfortable, and I never woke again until a minute or two since when the roar of the gale disturbed me.”