“Gad! Time goes slow, doesn’t it, Gardy?” he exclaimed half a dozen times during the day. “Well, we’ll have a little something to break the monotony soon. The City of Nome will overtake us about nine tomorrow morning.”
And Captain Brack, as he heard, smiled secretively; and I wondered what joke he might be keeping to himself.
Next morning at dawn a rush of feet outside my stateroom put an end to my efforts to sleep. I dressed and went on deck. A seaman came hurrying past, running toward an excited group gathered on the after-deck. I shouted to ask the cause of the excitement.
“We’ve run a man down in an open boat at sea,” he called back, “and he’s lousy with gold!”
XII
I followed the man, caught by the electricity of excitement which seemed to dominate all on deck.
On the after-deck of the Wanderer, near the rail, was a long settee, and about this eight or nine men were grouped closely. In the half light of dawn their figures loomed bulkily and strangely alike. As I drew near I made out Captain Brack, Riordan and Garvin. Pierce was there, too, I saw on closer scrutiny, in the center of the throng, apparently as excited as any of them.
A black figure, dripping wet, was lying on one end of the settee. I saw that it was a man, and that Dr. Olson was bending over him, a bottle of brandy in his right hand.
“He’s coming to again,” said the doctor. “He’ll be all right.”
No one paid any attention; not a man turned to look. They were bending over something that lay on the other end of the settee, and so eager were their attitudes that I, too, paid no attention to Dr. Olson, or the man he was nursing, but crowded in among the close-pressed shoulders for a sight of what the magnet might be.