'I will fetch him directly,' Bella cried, full of excitement, and, swiftly, she ran down the companion to the saloon on her way to hammer on Gilbert's cabin-door and awaken him. But, as she reached the place she stopped, petrified almost and filled with a vague alarm at she scarcely knew what, while, at the same time, she smothered a shriek which rose to her lips, and exclaimed in its place: 'Bertie! Bertie! What is the matter?'
For she saw him standing by the saloon-table gazing at her, smiling even as he heard her loved voice, yet holding on to the edge with one hand while, with the other, he felt, as it seemed, cautiously before him. And again she cried: 'Bertie, what is it? What does it mean?'
Then she heard his voice saying: 'It means, darling, that I too am struck down. That I too am blind.'
CHAPTER XV
[A LIGHT FROM THE PAST]
Four seamen only left untouched by blindness now, and two officers, to work a ship of six hundred tons! How was it to be, how could it ever be, done? The task was hopeless, and so all recognised on board that unhappy, ill-omened ship, even as now the wind freshened and the bosom of the ocean became flecked with little white spits of foam, while the breeze, hot as the breath of a panting wolf, swept up from the south. A breeze hot now, though once it had been cool--glacial--as it left the icebergs of the Antarctic Circle.
What was to be done? they muttered now, as, together, the six unstricken men took counsel while they stood in the shade of the foredeck awning, and forgot, in their excitement, that one was the master and owner, the other the first officer, and the four remaining ones only poor, ignorant sailors. What! what! what!
'I,' exclaimed Pooley, at last, after much discussion, 'can at least steer her. Some one must do it if she is to move at all; otherwise, in spite of my seventeen stone, I would be up those ratlins like a boy. But, even then, of what use are five to fist all the canvas she can carry?'
'We can fist some of it, at any rate,' said Charke, strong, determined as ever. 'By Heaven!' he cried, 'Lieutenant Bampfyld shall never go back to any of Her Majesty's ships and say that half-a-dozen men under the red ensign couldn't do something; couldn't make one stroke to save themselves!' Then, in an instant, he asked the captain to go to the wheel, while he sent the man, whose trick it was, forward, and, a second later, he was issuing orders to his subordinates.
Somehow, these orders were obeyed, and in about an hour, during which time all worked with a will and as if their lives depended on it, the Emperor of the Moon was under close-reefed topsails, foresail and fore-topmast staysail, when, if she had only had her full complement of able-bodied men to do the necessary work, she might well have been under full sail before the still increasing wind, and making a good nine or ten knots an hour. But, now, that was impossible; even if those five could have got all her canvas on her the thing would have been madness. A little further increase of force in the wind, and they would at once have to shorten sail again--which, in the circumstances, it would be almost impossible for them to do--or to stand by and see the masts jumped out or blown overboard. As it was, the Emperor, under the combined power of the current and what wind they could avail themselves of, was making something like five knots an hour.