The fragment of the junk, which somewhat resembled the roof of a house that had been tilted, showed no sign of sinking. There was precious little freeboard—about nine feet from the water’s edge to the heel of the keel. It was a precarious refuge even in calm weather. Should the breeze pipe up and a sea develop, the two men would stand very little chance. And if sleep overcame them, what then? It was only by holding on to the wide keel that they were able to prevent themselves from slipping into the shark-infested sea.
It was now high noon and the sun’s rays were oppressively powerful. The hitherto saturated planking emitted clouds of vapour, the noxious fumes of which added to the survivors’ distress. Overhead, large sea-birds wheeled and soared as if waiting until their intended prey was in no condition to resist the vicious pecks of those formidable beaks.
The doctor’s arm was giving trouble. The wound had reopened and was bleeding freely. He made light of it, however; but Raxworthy noticed that he was looking pretty ghastly.
“You’d better have a caulk, Doc,” he suggested.
“Young man, you’re as much in want of sleep as I am.”
The midshipman caught sight of a rope trailing overboard. It gave him an idea.
“Look here,” he declared. “We’ll get hold of that rope and bend it round our waists. There’s nowhere else we can make fast to. Then you get one side of the keel and have a doss, and I’ll do the same on the other side.”
Clambering down the jagged planking, the midshipman secured the rope. Most of it was sound, although one end had been charred by the explosion. Deftly he made a couple of bowlines at a distance of three or four feet apart, and the two survivors took up their positions as Raxworthy had suggested.
Although they were reclining on a slope, the intervening keel prevented them from slipping and soon they were dozing in spite of the heat.
Some time later, Raxworthy opened his eyes and sat up. Everything seemed to have taken a reddish hue, but through the blur he thought he saw smoke some distance away.