He turned round to get up and go on deck to see if day was breaking, and, as he did so and put his feet to the cabin floor, he started. It was covered with water--water a foot deep--half up to his knees. Looking down, he perceived it shining in the rays of the moon as a large body of water always shines beneath those rays.
"Heavens!" he exclaimed, "she is filling, sinking! She will not float another ten minutes; the water is almost flush with her deck already." And he rushed to the cabin door.
He had left that door open ere he slept, he felt positive. Now it was shut.
"She has listed a bit, perhaps," was the first thought that came to his mind. Yet in another moment that idea was dispelled. The Pompeia was sinking on as even a keel as did ever any water-logged boat; there was no list in her. Then, almost feeling sure of what he would discover a moment later, he tried to open the door.
It was fast.
"I knew it," he muttered through his teeth, as he shook and banged at the door--there was no time to be wasted; even now the water was on a level with the top of the locker on which he had lately slept; a few more minutes and the yacht must sink--"I knew it. It is the whole history over again. Phips was locked in his cabin--damn the door and he who closed it!--and I am locked in here to sink with the boat and be drowned like a rat. There's no chance--a child could scarcely escape through those windows! Oh! Joseph Alderly, if I ever----"
He stopped. Across the stream, from down by the mouth of it, there came the most awful, blood-curdling cry he had ever heard, the death cry of one who knew he was uttering his last shriek, knew that his doom was fixed. A horrid shriek, followed by the words, "Help! help!"--and then silence--dense as before.
"Ay! call for help," muttered Reginald. "Whoever you are, you do not want it more than I. Another five minutes and the end will have come."
He looked round the cabin in hope of some means of escape presenting themselves, and his eyes lighted on the revolver. Then he knew that, if he were but accorded time, only a few moments, he might get free. But more than two or three such moments would not be his; the water was nearly to his waist now. Once, twice, thrice, the report of the pistol rang out from that doomed yacht, each shot shattering the lock and panels; and then one sturdy push was sufficient to force the door open against the water, and for him to be standing half in the river, half out; and at that instant he felt a heaving beneath his feet, he felt he was sinking to his shoulders, that he was swimming with nothing beneath him any longer. The yacht was gone; he had not been a minute too soon!
The current was strong--the river being swollen with the recent rains--and it bore him downwards to the mouth, he not struggling against it, as he knew very well that he could easily land on the sea-beach outside. So he went with the tide until gradually he reached the outlet, and there he saw a sight that might well affright him, even after what he had gone through. He saw the face of Alderly on the waters, an awful look of fear in the wide-open eyes, and the jaws tightly clenched, but with the lips drawn back from the white teeth on which the moon's rays glistened. And he saw that he was dead.