"Can't we help?" persisted Tommy.
But there was no answer. Captain Barton had clapped on the hatch.
"Poor little lassies!" he said to himself.
The girls drank some coffee, and ate some biscuits, waiting impatiently for their release. It was no longer difficult to keep their seats; the howling of the wind had ceased, and the noise above gradually diminished, and the vessel steadied. But now they were conscious of a sound that they had not heard before. It was like the clanking of a steam-engine.
"I wonder what it is!" cried Tommy, springing up. "Oh, I do so wish Uncle would let us go up. There's no danger now, surely."
But the Captain still remained above. The clanking sound continued, and slight noises were heard occasionally. The weather became still calmer, and the girls, when they had finished their simple breakfast, began to doze. Never since they left Southampton had their sleep been broken, and they would have returned to their bunks had it not been so near morning. So they cuddled up together on the sofa, Elizabeth in the middle and the other girls with their arms about her.
All at once there was a sudden jolt that set the tin cups flying from the table, and made the girls spring up in alarm. They were aware of a strange, rasping, scraping sound. Clutching one another, their startled faces asked a mute question, to which, inexperienced as they were, their instinct supplied a clear answer. The ship had struck.
There were loud shouts from above, a renewal of the scurrying on deck, then silence. A minute or two after the girls heard the hatch removed, and their uncle hurried down. Even in the dim light of the smoky oil lamp they saw how pale and haggard he looked. They were too much frightened to speak.
"Girls," he said quietly, "put on your macintoshes and anything warm you have, and come on deck at once. Don't wait for anything else."
He was gone. The very calmness of his tone, the absence of his wonted jocularity, struck them with a chill feeling of dread. Silently, with pale faces, the girls fetched wraps and macintoshes from their cabin and hurriedly mounted the companion. When they reached the wet and slippery deck a terrible spectacle lay before them in the light of the crescent moon, shining fitfully out through the scudding clouds. The foremast had snapped off at the height of a man. The deck was strewn with broken spars and a litter of torn sails and shattered rigging. On the lee side the davits were twisted and bent, and the boats had disappeared. On the weather side, the boats still swung on the ropes, but were so battered that it was impossible to hope that they were seaworthy. Three or four men were loosing the lashings that secured the little dinghy, others were bringing up provisions from the cook's galley. The monotonous clank, clank of the pumps told how the rest were engaged.