The detonation boomed through the hollow hold as though a broadside had been fired within half a mile of us by a line-of-battle ship.
‘There’s her ladyship a-singing out,’ exclaimed Finn; and sure enough we heard Lady Monson violently calling for her sister.
‘Heaven preserve us! I hope she hain’t been hurt by that flash,’ shouted Cutbill.
‘Up with us, now lads, before it is upon us!’ I cried.
Dowling, seizing the two ends of the whip, went up hand after hand, and in a few moments we were all on deck.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE SECOND NIGHT.
The dim hectic that was lingering in the atmosphere when we entered the hold was now gone; the evening had fallen on a sudden as dark as midnight: it was all as black as factory smoke away west and overhead, but a star still shone weak as a glow-worm in the east. A second flash of lightning, but this time afar, glanced out the figure of Lady Monson standing on the forecastle and calling to Laura.
‘She is not hurt!’ I exclaimed.
‘I am coming, Henrietta,’ said Laura.