We were all so excited, that I forgot all about Mr. Langham and Jim till Mr. Langham came dripping up the gangway, asking if everything was all right, and if Jim had turned up, as he had lost sight of him after leaving the buoy.
"A jolly strong tide's running, and it was about as much as I could do to get here," he said, rather out of breath, and rather anxiously.
We all peered over the side, and tried to see his head coming along; but it was too dark to see anything at all, although Dicky and I went down to the foot of the accommodation ladder and looked along the surface of the water. Poor Dicky was almost off his head with fright. He kept on squeaking out: "Jim! Jim!" but daren't do it too loudly. And we listened, but there was no answer, and I, too, was quite frightened, and wished that we could do something, only it was so jolly difficult to know what to do, and no one dare make a great noise, or run a searchlight, or anything like that, for fear of having to wake the Captain or the Commander, and giving the whole show away.
But Mr. Langham—just as he was, wringing wet—the "A.P." and Mr. Hamilton and four mids went away in the gig.
"He'll probably have drifted down with the tide, and will try and get hold of a buoy," Mr. Hamilton told me, and they disappeared in the darkness.
I could not go down below, because I was so worried, and had the most horrid feelings inside me, which Dicky made worse by asking such silly questions. Everything was so horribly dark, and the tide was running so strongly, and I knew that Jim must be in fearful danger, although Mr. Trevelyan kept saying that he would turn up all right.
I had forgotten all about the wretched gun, till someone—"Pongo", I think it was—said to Mr. Trevelyan, "Jolly to have the gun all right, sir, and the carriage. Isn't it, sir?" And Mr. Trevelyan answered, "What gun? I don't know anything about a gun. I've been forward with the quartermaster for the last quarter of an hour, and haven't seen anything."
I believe that the silly ass would have begun telling him, if Mr. Trevelyan hadn't said, "What the dickens are you doing up here at this time? Go and turn in at once!"
I really wasn't quite sure, then, whether he was "pretending" or not.
We waited for nearly half an hour, we all were fearfully nervous, and Mr. Trevelyan kept on saying, "I shall have to wake the Commander if he doesn't come back in another three minutes," and would wait, and say it again. And at last he actually started to go down to the Commander's cabin, but before he had got halfway down, the Tyne's masthead signal lamp began winking and blinking.