CHAPTER V

IN THE DITCH--AND OUT

FOR some moments neither spoke. At length Van der Wyck broke the silence.

"They couldn't stop her all at once," he observed. "She might have gone five miles or more before the engineers got the order to stop. She'll be back again, never you fear."

A swirl of phosphorescent water close to the buoy turned Colin's thoughts in another direction.

"Are there sharks about?" he asked.

"Don't fancy so," replied the Afrikander. "If there are, we'll have to kick and splash. Look here, what did you get into this mess for?"

"I jumped ... on the spur of the moment."

"Sorry you did, eh?"

"No," replied Colin. "I knew you couldn't swim."

"That's a fact," admitted the other bitterly. "A man hasn't much chance to learn to swim on the veldt. See anything coming?"

"White light," replied Colin laconically. "Yes, and red ... and green," added the Afrikander. "It's a ship. Can't be the _Huldebras_; she was chock-full of lights."

"How can we attract her attention?" asked Sinclair. "We're right in her track."

"Don't know so much about that," declared Van de Wyck. "Her starboard light's disappeared. She's altering her course. But I'll have a try for it, anyway. I haven't broken the company's regulations concerning firearms for nothing."

Hanging on to the buoy with one hand, Van der Wyck produced a revolver from his hip pocket. Holding it well above his head to allow the water to drain from the barrel, he added:

"I don't think it'll burst, but keep your face turned away. Thank goodness I have waterproof cartridges."

A streak of reddish flame, followed by a deafening; report, stabbed the starlit night. For some moments the flash blinded the pair.

"She's still holding on," declared Colin. "Don't know, though. It looks as if she's altering her course again."

"I'll try another shot," decided Van der Wyck. "Fortunately I've about a dozen cartridges besides five in the pistol."

He fired two shots in quick succession, then handed the still smoking weapon to his companion.

{Illustration: "HE FIRED TWO SHOTS IN QUICK SUCCESSION" [p.42}

"Keep it out of the water a bit," he said. "My hand's getting rather numb .... She's broadside on to us, I'm afraid. Surely she heard those reports. How long have we been here--an hour?"

Colin could give no definite information on the subject. He was feeling exhausted himself. In spite of the warmness of the water his limbs were stiff and cold. But gamely he held the revolver above the water, while Van der Wyck chafed his own benumbed limbs.

"Time to fire again," he observed. "Hand me the pistol."

Colin, from the opposite side of the buoy, handed him the revolver. He felt Van der Wyck's fingers close over the butt, then he heard a muttered exclamation of annoyance. The revolver, slipping from the Afrikander's nerveless fingers, was sinking rapidly, rapidly through three miles of water to the bed of the Atlantic.

"That's about the limit," he remarked dejectedly. "They'll never find us in the darkness, I'm afraid."

* * * * *

The moment Tiny Desmond realised that his chum had leapt overboard he ran for'ard. His shouts of "Man overboard!" had been heard by a few passengers only, and they were helpless in the matter. The noise of the band had drowned his voice, and the warning was unheard by any of the ship's officers and crew.

Desmond knew his way about the ship by this time. Unhesitatingly, he made straight for the bridge. Charging through crowds of astonished and indignant passengers on the promenade deck, he swarmed up the ladder to the bridge-deck and thence to that forbidden ground, the bridge.

"Two people overboard!" he gasped breathlessly, and then a fit of coughing cut short his excited explanation.

Fortunately the third officer, who happened to be on duty at the time, was a man of resource. Ordering the quartermaster to "port sixteen," or, in other words, to turn the vessel until her head pointed in the opposite direction to her previous course, he promptly rang for half-speed ahead.

By this time the _Huldebras_ was more than seven miles from the scene of the accident. All that could be done was to man one of the boats and stand by until the ship, guided by her wake, approached within reasonable distance of the spot where Van der Wyck had made such a close acquaintance with the Atlantic Ocean.

Meanwhile one of the boats had been swung out, manned and lowered until she was suspended by the falls within a few feet of the surface, ready to slip at the word of command, while in order to prevent the men's eyesight being baffled by the glare, all lights visible from without were switched off, with the exception of the regulation steaming lights.

Tiny, a prey to the deepest forebodings, remained on the bridge, gripping the rails and peering through the semi-darkness. No one paid the slightest attention to him. In the excitement the fact that he was now a trespasser on the bridge passed unnoticed.

The engine-room telegraph bell clanged again. The _Huldebras_ was nearing the spot where it was supposed the lost man had fallen overboard; for with the exception of Desmond no one on board knew that there were two human beings in dire peril.

Suddenly a flash leapt up through the darkness, followed by a hollow report. Mystified, the third officer sprang to the binnacle and took a hurried compass-bearing. Somehow he connected that flash with the man in the water, but he was completely puzzled as to how the signal of distress had been made.

"Did you see that light?" he shouted in stentorian tones to the coxswain of the boat.

"Ay, ay, sir," was the reply.

"Nor-a-half-east it bears," continued the third officer. "I'm taking way off the ship now. Stand by to slip. Less noise there!" he added angrily, addressing his remarks to the now excited throng of passengers.

The alteration of speed had been enough to bring the whole of the saloon and second-class passengers on deck, and the startling information that there was a man overboard raised a storm of eager and for the most part purposeless questions.

The determined voice of one in authority quelled the babel. The third officer's anger was justifiable. It was impossible to issue orders clearly--orders on which success of the evolution depended--with scores of people talking excitedly.

A hush fell upon the throng of passengers. To many of them it was an entirely new experience being dragooned by a mere youngster in a brass-bound uniform, whose stinging commands were punctuated with the picturesque and forcible language of the sea.

The silence was broken by two more reports.

"Slip!" yelled the coxswain.

The patent falls were disengaged. The boat smacked the gently heaving swell with a noise like a pistol-shot.

"Give way! For all you're worth!"

The coxswain's exhortation was a mere figure of speech, for the rowers were straining every muscle and sinew as they urged the boat through the water. Her progress was marked by a double scintillation of phosphorescence as the blades dipped. A wake of blue-grey luminosity showed her course even after the boat itself was a mere blur in the starlit night.

Save for the groan of the rowlocks, the creaking of the stout ash oars and stretchers, the laboured breathing of the rowers, and the splash of water from the boat's sharp stem, hardly a sound broke the silence. The coxswain, holding the tiller with one hand, shaded his eyes with the other as he scanned the expanse of sea.

"Why doesn't the silly josser fire again?" he soliloquised. "'Tis looking for a needle in a bloomin' haystack. Lay on your oars!" he added aloud.

The men obeyed. The boat, still carrying way, slipped through the water with a gurgling sound.

"Hear anything?" asked the coxswain of the crew in general.

He was obviously perplexed. According to his own estimation the boat must have overrun the spot from whence those three flashes came.

"There he is; on our port bow!" shouted the bowman.

"Sure thing," agreed the coxswain. "Give way, lads ... way 'nough. In bow ... Bless me if there ain't two of 'em in the bloomin' ditch."

Ten seconds later Colin Sinclair, limp and barely conscious, was hauled over the bows and passed aft like a sack of flour, to collapse inertly upon the stern-sheet gratings. Van der Wyck followed, muttering his thanks, although in a state of exhaustion.

"May as well hike that buoy on board, Tubby," observed the coxswain dispassionately. "Now, lads, let her rip. It's my middle watch, worse luck."