“You’ve killed me fair and square and I don’t bear you any malice,” said the captain with great difficulty.
“Killed nothing,” growled Garnett, with half a smile; “I only blowed a gallon or two of tallow into your whiskers; you were so almighty quick, you know.”
Here the skipper muttered an oath and tried to get up again, but Frisbow and I both held him quiet.
“You lie quiet to-night,” said the professor; “there’s no tremendous hurry about this business, and to-morrow this dizziness will be out of your head.”
He poured out a stiff glass of spirits, which the captain gulped down, and, after bandaging up the lower part of the bruised face with wet towels, we left him and went on deck.
Garnett kept chuckling to himself during the evening as we loaded the boat, and when the moon came up he and two men started to carry the load to the beach.
While they were absent Frisbow and I sat on the rail and discussed our chances of getting to sea again in a few days. I did not like to tell him how small our chances were, for he appeared to have perfect confidence in our ability to float the vessel overland on a heavy dew if it became necessary.
The boat had been gone about an hour and the moon was now high in the cloudless heavens, and I was getting sleepy, so I lit my pipe and smoked hard to keep awake. The water shone like a polished mirror of silver, and the dark outline of the reef loomed distinctly through the night on all sides. We could hear Garnett and the men talking on the beach as they unloaded the boat, but besides this there was not a sound on that desolate spot save the deep hum of the surf outside the barrier.
My thoughts turned to the wreck, which shone like a black speck in the white wash of the sea, and we talked of how she had probably run on the ledge in the night, years ago, and then slid off into deep water. Her crew, even if they were rescued, must have died over a century ago, and there was little chance of our ever finding any record of her loss. That she was a Spanish ship and her name Isabella I felt quite certain; but even that fact conveyed little knowledge to any of us.
While we sat on the rail and talked a deep booming like thunder suddenly broke the stillness about us, and the little vessel trembled violently. We started to our feet and listened as the great volume of sound filled the air around us, dying away gradually in pulsations. We heard the cries of the men on the beach, followed by a few moments of silence; then the booming began again and lasted a few seconds, dying out as before.