"Somewhere in the North Sea, old bird," replied Sefton, with a forced laugh. "Do you happen to have a prescription for an eyelid prop, Pills? My optics seem on the point of becoming bunged up."
"Tell it not in Gath," quoted the surgeon. "I've just made a discovery--worth at the present moment more than untold gold. Egyptian, man, real Egyptian, and the only ones to be found on board."
He proffered his silver case. Sefton seized one of the cigarettes with avidity. For hours he had longed in vain for a smoke. His own supply had vanished. Several hundred, having fallen through a jagged rent in the ward-room floor, were lying, a sodden pulp, in the water that surged in the ship's bilges.
"Thanks awfully!" he exclaimed gratefully.
"Bit of luck," continued Stirling. "Found the case in the wreckage of the beer barrel. I don't think the stuff's affected them. Case seems pretty tight. Thought I'd come on deck and have half a dozen whiffs with you."
Crouching under the lee of the canvas screen that had been rigged up to replace the demolished storm-dodgers, Sefton carefully struck a match. Almost before the cigarette was alight, a jarring shock made the Calder tremble from her shattered bows to her jagged taffrail. Immediately afterwards the remaining engine began to race with frightful rapidity.
Dropping the cigarette like a hot cinder, Sefton sprang to his feet, fully convinced that the long-expected catastrophe had occurred, and that the bulkhead had given way. Stirling, his first thoughts for his patients, scurried down the bridge-ladder and ran aft to where the double line of wounded men lay, each covered by a hammock to protect him from the night dews and drifting spray.
A minute passed. There was no impetuous inrush of water. The bulkhead was still holding. The engine-room ratings had shut off steam, and the horrible, nerve-racking clank of the racing machinery ceased.
"Propeller fouled some wreckage, sir," reported a petty officer. "Blades stripped clean off the boss I'll allow."
The man was right in his surmise. The last of the four propellers had struck some partly submerged object, with the result that the destroyer was no longer capable of moving through the water under her own power. All she could do was to drift helplessly with wind and tide.