The surface fog, or mist, which had lately obscured the view, rising from the water immediately after the last gleams of the sunset had disappeared from the western sky, had now cleared away, giving place to the pale spectral light of night, an occasional star twinkling here and there in the dark vault overhead, like a sign-post in the immensity of space, making the wild billowy waste, through which we tore with all the power of wind and steam, seem all the wilder from contrast.
We had carried on like this for about an hour, steering steadily to the southwards, without catching sight again of the strange ship, though Spokeshave and I had continued to let off signal rockets and burn blue lights at intervals, the gale increasing in force each instant, and the waves growing bigger and bigger, so that they rose over the topsail as we raced along, when, all at once, a great green sea broke amidships, coming aboard of us just abaft of the engine-room hatchway, flooding all the waist on either side of the deckhouse and rolling down below in a regular cataract of tumid water, sweeping everything before it.
“That’s pretty lively,” exclaimed Captain Applegarth, clutching hold of the rail to preserve his balance as he turned to the quartermaster at the wheel. “Steady there, my man! Keep her full and by!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” answered Atkins. “But she do yaw so, when she buries her bows. She’s got too much sail on her, sir.”
“I know that,” said the skipper. “But I’m going to carry on as long as I can, all the same, my man.”
Even as he spoke, however, a second sea followed the first, nearly washing us all off the bridge, and smashing the glass of the skylight over the engine-room, besides doing other damage.
By Captain Applegarth’s directions, a piece of heavy tarpaulin was lashed over the broken skylight, securing the ends to ringbolts in the deck; but hardly had the covering been made fast ere we could see the chief engineer picking his way towards us, struggling through the water that still lay a foot deep in the waist and looking as pale as death.
“Hullo, Mr Stokes,” cried the skipper, when the old chief with great difficulty had gained the vantage of the bridge-ladder. “What’s the matter now, old fellow?”
He was too much exhausted at first to reply.
“What’s the matter?” he echoed ironically when able at last to speak. “Oh, nothing at all worth mentioning; nothing at all. I told you how it would be, sir, if you insisted on going ahead full speed in such weather as we’re having! Why, Cap’en Applegarth, the stoke-hold’s full of water and the bilgepump’s choked, that’s all; and the fires, I expect, will be drowned out in another minute or two. That’s what’s the matter, sir, believe me or not!”