My head was clearing—and aching. I was sure the stone had not been there when I fell. And why, if his object was to save me, had Smith not dragged me out of its way? It would have been easier, and simpler, and the natural thing to do. Was he trying to kill me, and in a way which would make my death seem a regrettable accident? It was not to be borne. A great rage filled my heart as the question seemed to answer itself.
Upon landing, I had provided myself with a club, as a boy will naturally pick up any handy stick. That club lay where I had fallen; but I staggered to my feet, and got it. In that moment I became as mad as any Berserker. Nothing could hurt me, nothing could stop me. I would kill Smith. I was no longer small, but fairly grown, and I was strong. I heaved up my club, and I suppose I glared at Smith. He stood there, on top of the rock, and laughed; and I walked around the rock, looking for a place to mount, where it would be less like storming a citadel. Smith laughed as if he would split; and there came a call for me, and Peter and Mr. Brown hove in sight.
I did not kill Smith. As I stood there, breathing hard, my rage left me suddenly, as my rages always did. Smith jumped down off the rock, and came to me, smiling, as though to say something, but I turned away. In my heart I was sure of him now. He went to Mr. Brown, and said something about my fall, and about its having put me out of my head for a time. Mr. Brown listened, but made no reply.
After spending nearly the whole day in tramping over hills, we went back to the ship empty-handed. I did not know what we had been looking for.
It was February, 1874, before we left Desolation behind us, and headed northerly for warmer seas. There was not a man aboard who was not glad to see the last of this home of gales and wet and cold.
CHAPTER XXVII
For five days the wind held from the westward, and we held a course a little east of north. I saw the chart every day, and sometimes pricked the position of the ship on it. I took an occasional observation, and worked out that position, checking up my observation and the position worked out from it by the captain’s. I really think that I knew more of the mathematics of the matter than he did. In another respect Captain Nelson had an immense advantage. That was in dead reckoning, which was very important where we had clear skies, either by day or by night, only about half the time or less.
The prickings on the chart pointed straight for Amsterdam Island, with St. Paul possibly rising above the horizon to leeward. Then we ran into head winds and a gale, which lasted for two days. That gale lost me completely. I tried dead reckoning, and I was so mortified about it that I did not mention it to anybody. I spent all my spare time, for the first day after we ran out of the bad weather, in trying to reconcile my reckoning with the captain’s.
It was nearly sunset when I gave it up finally, and went on deck, feeling rather low in my mind, for the observation on that day had shown the official reckoning to be only a few miles out. I stood at the rail, under the stern of the waist boat, and gazed out moodily over the water, cursing myself; for I had got into the way of the ship long before, and could curse fluently, although I was no expert at it, as Mr. Baker was.
I must have been muttering my curses aloud, for I heard a voice at my shoulder. It was Peter.