I unhooked both the lanterns and started up the companion-way with them. Rather than remain in the dark Uncle brought himself and his cigar after me.
I gave Ned one of the lights and we began to look about us. Duncan Moit lay unconscious beside his machine, the engines of which were still running smoothly. I threw back the lever and stopped them, and then a couple of seamen carried the inventor into the cabin. Black Nux had lighted another lantern, and with my uncle’s assistance undertook to do what he could to restore the injured man.
Ned and I slid aft and found the stern still washed by a succession of waves that dashed over it. Walking the deck was difficult because the ship listed from stem to stern and from port to starboard. Her bow was high and dry on a sand-bar—or such I imagined it to be—but it was only after I had swung a lantern up a halyard of the foremast, so that its dim rays would illumine the largest possible area, that I discovered we had plunged straight into a deep inlet of the coast. On one side of us appeared to be a rank growth of tangled shrubs or underbrush; on the other was the outline of a forest. Ahead was clear water, but its shallow depth had prevented our proceeding farther inland.
Either the gale had lessened perceptibly or we did not feel it so keenly in our sheltered position. An examination of the men showed that one of them had broken an arm and several others were badly bruised; but there were no serious casualties.
The ship was now without any motion whatever, being fast on the bottom of the inlet. The breakers that curled over the stern did her no damage, and these seemed to be gradually lessening in force.
Ned sent his tired men to their bunks and with the assistance of Bryonia, who was almost as skillful in surgery as in cooking, prepared to set the broken arm and attend to those who were the most bruised.
I went to the cabin again, and found that Uncle Naboth and Nux had been successful in restoring Duncan Moit, who was sitting up and looking around him with a dazed expression. I saw he was not much hurt, the fall having merely stunned him for the time being.
“The machine—the machine!” he was muttering, anxiously.
“It’s all right, sir,” I assured him. “I shut down the engines, and she seems to have weathered the shock in good shape.”
He seemed relieved by this report, and passed his hand across his brow as if to clear his brain.