“Oh, it isn’t really late yet,” laughed the boy. “It’s such a peachy night that I hate to go below. So does Pickles, don’t you, you old rascal?”
Apparently he did, for he wagged a stiff tail enthusiastically and burrowed his nose further into the crook of the boy’s arm.
“Well, don’t make it too late,” advised his father, turning away. “If I find you on deck at seven bells I’ll put you in the lazaret on hard tack and water for the rest of the voyage.” With which dire threat Captain Troy strode off toward the stern.
Left to themselves, boy and dog sat a few minutes longer, and then, finding that the breeze was seeking them out, arose. Nelson yawned deeply and Pickles wagged his tail, as they went sleepily aft to the companion. As Nelson’s head dropped below the deck level he caught an uncertain glimpse of his father’s form by the helmsman and a glowing speck that showed that Leo’s pipe was drawing well. Nelson shared his father’s cabin, and twenty minutes later he was sound asleep there, while Pickles, half under the bunk and half out, twitched his legs and made little sounds, dreaming, perhaps, that he was doing battle royal with some long-whiskered, squeaking denizen of the hold.
Seven bells had struck some time ago, when Nelson was midway between sleeping and waking, and now it was close on midnight. From across the passage came the deep snores of Mr. Cupples. The mate was a vigorous, hearty man even when he slumbered. In the dimly lighted captain’s cabin Pickles, having vanquished his adversary, sighed and stretched his long legs into new positions, without waking, and the boy above, dreaming, too, doubtless, muttered faintly in his sleep. And then——
And then he awoke to chaos!
The first disturbing sound had been a dull, crackling thud from somewhere forward, and the schooner had reeled and shivered with the shock as though she had driven head-on to a reef. The second sound had followed so close on the heels of the first that it had been virtually but a continuation of it. Nelson was never certain that he had heard the first sound at all, for he came fully awake with his ears fairly splitting with the awful concussion that shook the ship. The noise was beyond imagination, and yet so peculiar that he knew instinctively what it meant.
An explosion!
Confused, frightened, too, if the truth must be told, he struggled from his berth. The light was out. Somewhere in the darkness Pickles was whimpering. On deck were shouts and the rushing of heavy feet. The cabin floor slanted amazingly and Nelson, groping for the passage, found the door swung wide and had to pull himself through the aperture with a hand on each side of the frame. He remembered the dog then and called. But his heart was beating too loudly for him to know whether Pickles followed as, clinging to whatever his groping hands encountered, he made his way to the companion. As he set foot on the lowest step another rending shock shook the Jonas Clinton, and there was the sound of splintering wood and the crash of yards and tackle to the deck above.