“Aye, aye, sorr,” was the hearty response, and the “cling, clang” of the pumps was soon heard resounding with a will through the ship, the men encouraged by the mate to do their best.
Still, it was a bad look-out.
The ship had first been scudding due east, and then to the northward, goodness only knew how many miles off her course; and now, here she was, drifting southwards, dismasted and rudderless, a hopeless wreck in unknown waters, at the mercy of the elements!
Chapter Twelve.
Ice Ahead!
Although the wind and sea had being doing their utmost, without, to transform the previously trim ship, that had sailed from Plymouth so gallantly, into the veritable semblance of a battered hulk, no further damage had been done below: so that, in the cuddy, all was comparative comfort—in contrast to the scene on deck.
Mr Zachariah Lathrope, who made light of his injuries, albeit his left arm was in a sling—confessing, too, that his side “felt kinder painful, as if some coon had given him a sockdolager in the ribs, or a grizzly bar put his hug on”—was seated at the replaced table, pitching into a sort of heavy lunch, to make amends for his missed breakfast, while the steward was cutting up a plentiful supply of ham for him on his plate, so that he could use his solitary hand with a fork and so feed himself. Mrs Major Negus was busily engaged in her cabin, and with the assistance of Mary Llewellyn, the stewardess, was rearranging all her numerous goods and chattels that had been so ruthlessly banged about in the night; and Master Maurice, whom the turmoil had not disturbed in the least, was still sleeping in the top bunk as composedly as he had continued doing all through the period of his mother’s struggles on the floor and narrow escape from suffocation, unawakened either by the noise or her loud calls for help—the worthy lady as soon as she came to herself having earnestly cautioned Kate and the stewardess not to arouse her darling boy, for “he would be so frightened, you know, if he saw me like this!”
Kate herself, recovered from her faint, but yet feeling weak and languid from the effects of all she had gone through, was mechanically assisting Florry to dress, wondering the while, in a dull apathetic way, whether she would ever again have to tender the same offices to her little sister, for she was prepared for the worst and believed that the ship was in imminent danger—although she hoped still, with the ardent nature of youth, that they might be delivered, trusting to the loving mercy and watchful care of that God to whom she had prayed during the night, even before her earthly father’s counsel, and before whose footstool she had already that morning bent the knee more than once.