CHAPTER XVII

THE GRAVE OF THE LITTLE _TREMENDOUS_

I

A roar drowned the boy's senses, sweeping his mind away on a mountainous billow of sound.

Earth and sea were a bubble beneath his feet, swelling and sailing; and he was walking on the bubble, and toppling backwards as he walked.

He felt himself smiling in a foolish way. There was no pain then about dying, he thought with a pleased and remote surprise--only this silly smiling content.

Things hit him outside. He was aware of them; but they did not hurt. His body was wood, dull to sensation. He himself was within somewhere, snug and safe. He had heard the parson at home talk about eternal life. Now he knew what the man meant. To be alive yet above pain, to be dead yet dimly comfortable--that was the heavenly life. It was very curious, and not half bad.

And--he had been there before. When and where, he could not recollect. But all was friendly, all familiar.

Suddenly there came a change, and for the worse. A great wet cloud swamped him. The light went out. All about him was cold, and dark, and clinging. Was this the grave and gate of Death?

He shuddered, and yet was not greatly afraid.

Everything was so far away, on the circumference of being, as it were; and he at the centre, safe and warm, was mildly interested--little more.

Somehow he knew he was in the sea, walking dream-waters; whether conscious, or unconscious, in the spirit or out of it, he knew not, and didn't greatly care.

Grotesque yet beautiful impressions of things familiar flitted across his mind. He saw his mother in a cocked hat; Cuddie Collingwood, his pet canary, strutting the maindeck and picking his teeth; and Gwen with a tarred pigtail, her brawny bosom tattooed with dancing-girls.

She was making faces at him, the faces that none but Gwen could make; and he was about to shoot his tongue back brotherly, when there came another change, terrible this time.

There was a singing in his ears; a sense of suffocation and appalling impotence. He was rushing back to the world of sense and pain--in time, no doubt, to die, when he thought he was through that trouble. Just his luck!

He was throttled, battling, distraught. About him was the rush and smother of waters. A secret power clutched him about the waist and tugged him back. For the first time in his life he felt the aweful and inexorable grip of Necessity; and his heart screamed.

Then with a bob and a gasp, he was up; the water in his nostrils; and his hands clinging to a spar.

II

About him was a fog of smoke, and the throes of water in torment, sucking, spewing, pouncing.

Then a great swell, roaring into foam, lifted him. He was swung out of the stinging smother, away from the shock and battle of waters, out and out under the calm sky.

Beneath him a sheer white wall rose. There was no top to it, and no bottom. He could have screamed. It was so huge, so blank, so incomprehensible. It fell from heaven. Was it the skirt of God?

Then he saw the dark crest miles overhead, and knew it for a cliff. He was right beneath it, and swinging towards it.

Suddenly he became aware of a badger-grey head bobbing beside him on the spar.

"Hullo, sir!" he gasped.

A voice spluttered,

"Pockets sprung a leak!--tailor! ruffian!"

A great following swell lifted them.

"Hold fast, sir!" called Kit. "This'll throw us up."

The swell drove forward, toppling to a fall; curled, and crashed down.

Kit found himself on hands and knees, banged, dripping, dizzy, in a hiss and turmoil of waters. The backward sweep of the waves almost carried him with it. But his hands were in the shingle up to the wrist, anchoring him. The body of water passed him. A thousand tresses of foam reminding him of his Granny's hair swept across his fingers.

He looked up. He was kneeling on a tiny strip of beach at the foot of the cliff. On his left sprawled the old Commander. His knees, cocked by the receding wave, swayed and toppled now; the legs wooden and dreadful as a dummy's.

Kit crawled towards him.

"Are you hurt, sir?"

The old man answered nothing. His eyes were shut, his arms wide. He lay upon his back on the wet and running shingle, his white knee-breeches sodden and rusty with blood, the square chin heavenward.

Another of those sleek green monsters stole towards them out of the smoke.

In an agony the lad tried to drag the old man back under the cliff. He might as well have attempted to lift a cask of lead.

"O, what shall I do?" wailed the boy to heaven.

"Why, cut and run," answered the voice from earth.

Then the wave was on them, swooping, worrying, white-toothed.

Kit did his best. Kneeling behind the old man, he heaved him into a sitting position, and propped him there, as the tumult of waters sluiced about them. Over the limp legs, up the great chest, the wave swept greedily; but the badger-grey head stayed above the flood.

Then the water withdrew, blind and baffled.

Kit lowered the grey head.

"Thank ee," grunted the old man, and seemed to sleep.

Kit made no answer. He was watching the sea with dreadful anxiety. Was it coming up? Was it going down? Were there to be more of those smothering floods? If so, they were lost. He knew he could not lift again that leaden old man.

No. The worst was over. A lesser wave swept towards them. It tossed those wooden legs, dreadfully sporting with them, and fled, snarling.

The boy bent with thankful heart.

"That's all, sir. It won't come again. It's the swell made by the explosion--not the tide."

"Ah," said the other sleepily; and opened his eyes.

Seaward hung a huge toad-stool of smoke. Out of the heart of it came the clash and cry of torn waters. All else was still, save for the scream of disturbed sea-birds.

Through the frayed and drifting edge of the smoke could be seen the frigate and the spars of the privateer; and sticking out of the water, a jagged mizzen--all that was left of the little _Tremendous_.

As his eye fell on the splintered stump the old Commander lifted a hand to his forehead.

"Plucky little packet," he muttered. "Plucky little packet."

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