Seeing that the captain was not disposed to be communicative, the semi-nautical passenger retired to persecute and terrify some of the ladies with his surmises. Meanwhile the well was sounded and a slight increase of water ascertained, but nothing worth speaking of, and the pumps were set to work.
The anxiety of the passengers was soon allayed, everything going on as smoothly as before. The evening merged into night. The moon rose slowly and spread a path of rippling silver from the ship to the horizon. The various groups began to un-crystallise. Sleepy ones went below and melted away somehow. Sleepless ones went to their great panacea, smoke. Lights were put out everywhere save where the duties of the ship required them to burn continually. At last the latest of the sleepless turned in, and none were wakeful through the iron palace except the poor youth who mentally measured the distance from home, and the officers and men on duty. Among the latter was Edgar Berrington, who, standing at his accustomed post down in his own iron depths, pondered the events of the evening while he watched the motions of the great crank and listened to the grinding of the screw.
Chapter Nine.
Treats of a Leak and consequent Difficulties.
It turned out, on investigation, that, whatever the object by which the vessel had been touched, some degree of injury had been done to her iron-plating, for the pumps were found to be insufficient to prevent the rising of water in the hold. This was a serious matter, because although the rise was very slow, it was steady, and if not checked would sooner or later sink the ship. Everything that could be done was attempted in order to discover and stop the leak, but without success.
Fortunately it happened that the Warrior had among her other goods a quantity of diving apparatus on board, consigned to a firm in Hong-Kong that had lost valuable property in a wreck, and meant to attempt the recovery of it by means of divers. The men had gone out by a previous vessel, but their dresses, having been accidentally delayed, had been sent after them in the Warrior. Bethinking himself of these dresses, the captain conceived that he was justified, in the circumstances, in making temporary use of them; but he was disappointed to find, on inquiry, that not a man of his ordinary crew had ever seen a diving-dress put on, or its attendant air-pumps worked. In these circumstances he sent for the chief engineer.
Edgar Berrington was busy about some trifling repairs to the machinery when the message reached him. The place being very hot, he was clad only in shirt and trousers, with a belt round his waist—a by no means unbecoming costume for a well-made figure! His shirt-sleeves were rolled up to the shoulders, displaying a pair of very muscular and elegantly moulded arms—such as Hercules might have been pleased with, and Apollo would not have disdained. His hands were black and oily, and his face was similarly affected.
Expecting to meet the captain at the entrance to his domains, Edgar merely rolled down his sleeves, and seized a bundle of waste with which he hastily wiped his hands and face, thereby drawing on the latter, which had previously been spotty, a series of varied streaks and blotches that might have raised the envy of a Querikoboo savage. But the captain was not where he expected to find him, and on looking aft he saw him on the quarter-deck in converse with one of the passengers. Edgar would rather not have appeared in public in such guise, but being in haste to return to the work from which he had been called, he pulled on a light linen jacket and forage-cap, and walked quickly aft. To his horror he saw Aileen seated on a basket-work easy-chair close to the captain. It was too late, however, to retreat, for the latter had already observed him. Fortunately Aileen was deeply engaged with a book. Edgar quickly advanced and took such a position that his back was turned to her.