Someone bawled huskily in his ear:
“They’ve gone! My God! What rotten luck! I could almost have touched the man crossing behind me!... Can we get these girls out of this?... Which way did you come?”
It was the young American passenger, Sturgess. He imagined that the man who had brought hope and life to the doomed survivors of the Southern Cross had reached the vessel from the land and could now pilot the three who alone were saved to some place where food and repose would be attainable.
“I’m tied to someone,” Maseden contrived to say. “Try and unfasten the rope, and shove me up on to the ledge.... I’m all in, but I’ll soon be better.... Mind you hold fast yourself!”
Sturgess, though only a degree less exhausted, did as he was asked. Sprawling weakly over the prostrate body of the second of the two girls, Maseden felt in the darkness for the other one.
He discovered that she had collapsed sideways in a faint, but, by some marvel, the folded cloak had not rolled down the side of the precipice. His hands were feeble and numb, but he contrived to unfasten the strap. The bottle of brandy was uninjured, and, so unnerved was he by knowing that the spirit probably meant all the difference between life and death for four people—at any rate till dawn—that he actually dropped it.
Again Providence intervened. It fell on the thick poncho, and did not break.
Filled with savage resolve to conquer this weakness, he grasped the bottle more firmly, drew the cork with his teeth, and, resisting the impulse to swallow the contents in great gulps, sipped some of the liquor slowly.
He did not offer any to the others at that moment. His mind was clearing now, and he saw that the one vital thing needed was that he should recover control of his mental and bodily powers. A few minutes more or less of collapse mattered not so much to his companions as that he should lead or carry them to a less exposed position. Then the brandy would be really effective. At present, to hand it around in the darkness, while wind and spindrift were whipping them with scorpions, was merely courting the disaster which he himself had so narrowly averted.
The other man had gained the ledge. He could not see Maseden, because each inch of space increased an obscurity already akin to that of a tomb, but he leaned forward and caught his arm.