It was some time after three o'clock in the afternoon, that on a sudden the engines were "slowed down," as I believe the term is, and a minute later the revolutions of the propeller ceased. There is always something startling in the abrupt cessation of the pulsing of the screw in a steamer at sea. One gets so used to the noise of the engines, to the vibrating sensation communicated in a sort of tingling throughout the frame of the vessel by the thrashing blades, that the suspension of the familiar sound falls like a loud and fearful hush upon the ear. Grace, who had been dozing, opened her eyes.
"What can the matter be?" cried I.
As I spoke I heard a voice, apparently aboard the yacht, hailing. I pulled on my cap, turned up the collar of my coat, and ran on deck expecting to find the yacht in the heart of a thickness of rain and fog with some big shadow of a ship looming within biscuit-toss. It was raining steadily, but the sea was not more shrouded than it had been at any other hour of the day, saving perhaps that something of the complexion of the evening, which was not far off, lay sombre in the wet atmosphere. I ran to the side and saw at a distance of the length of the steam yacht, my own hapless little dandy, the Spitfire! Her main mast was wholly gone, yet I knew her at once. There she lay, looking far more miserably wrecked than when I had left her, lifting and falling forlornly upon the small swell, her poor little pump going, plied, as I instantly perceived, by the boy, Bobby Allett.
I had sometimes thought of her as in harbour, and sometimes as at the bottom of the sea, but never, somehow, as still washing about, helpless and sodden, with a gushing scupper and a leaky bottom. Caudel, poor old Caudel, stood at the rail shouting to Captain Verrion, who was singing out to him from the bridge.
I rushed forward, bawling to Captain Verrion, "That's the Spitfire; that's my yacht!" and then at the top of my voice I shouted across the space of water between the two vessels, "Ho, Caudel! where are the rest of you, Caudel? For God's sake launch your boat and come aboard!"
He stood staring at me, dropping his head first on one side, then on the other, doubting the evidence of his sight, and reminding one of the ghost in Hamlet: "It lifted up its head and did address itself to motion as it would speak." Astonishment appeared to bereave him of speech. For some moments he could do nothing but stare, then up went both hands with a gesture that was eloquent of—"Well, I'm blowed!"
"Come aboard, Caudel! Come aboard!" I roared, for the little dandy still had her dinghey and I did not wish to put Captain Verrion to the trouble of fetching the two fellows.
With the motions and air of a man dumb-founded, or under the influence of drink, Caudel addressed the lad, who dropped the pump handle, and between them they launched the boat, smack-fashion. Caudel then sprang into her with an oar and sculled across to us. He came floundering over the side, and yet again stood staring at me as though discrediting his senses. The colour appeared to have been washed out of his face by wet; his very oilskins seemed to have surrendered their water-proof properties, and they clung to his frame as soaked rags would. His boots were full of water, and his eyes resembled pieces of jellyfish fixed on either side his nose. I grasped his hand.
"Of all astonishing meetings, Caudel! But how is it that you are here? What has become of the main mast? Where are the rest of the men? Never did a man look more shipwrecked than you. Are you thirsty? Are you starving?"
By this time Captain Verrion had joined us, and a knot of the steamer's crew stood on the forecastle looking first at the Spitfire, then at Caudel; scarcely, I daresay, knowing as yet whether to feel amused or amazed at this singular meeting. Caudel had the slow, laborious mind of the merchant sailor. He continued for some moments to heavily and damply gaze about him, then said: