Part 26

“There’s no danger,” he muttered thickly.

The horror of incertitude had seized upon Captain Whalley, the miserable mistrust of men, of things--of the very earth. He had steered that very course thirty-six times by the same compass--if anything was certain in this world it was its absolute, unerring correctness. Then what had happened? Did the Serang lie? Why lie? Why? Was he going blind too?

“Is there a mist? Look low on the water. Low down, I say.”

“Tuan, there’s no mist. See for yourself.”

Captain Whalley steadied the trembling of his limbs by an effort. Should he stop the engines at once and give himself away. A gust of irresolution swayed all sorts of bizarre notions in his mind. The unusual had come, and he was not fit to deal with it. In this passage of inexpressible anguish he saw her face--the face of a young girl--with an amazing strength of illusion. No, he must not give himself away after having gone so far for her sake. “You steered the course? You made it? Speak the truth.”

“Ya, Tuan. On the course now. Look.”

Captain Whalley strode to the binnacle, which to him made such a dim spot of light in an infinity of shapeless shadow. By bending his face right down to the glass he had been able before . . .

Having to stoop so low, he put out, instinctively, his arm to where he knew there was a stanchion to steady himself against. His hand closed on something that was not wood but cloth. The slight pull adding to the weight, the loop broke, and Mr. Massy’s coat falling, struck the deck heavily with a dull thump, accompanied by a lot of clicks.

“What’s this?”

Captain Whalley fell on his knees, with groping hands extended in a frank gesture of blindness. They trembled, these hands feeling for the truth. He saw it. Iron near the compass. Wrong course. Wreck her! His ship. Oh no. Not that.

“Jump and stop her!” he roared out in a voice not his own.

He ran himself--hands forward, a blind man, and while the clanging of the gong echoed still all over the ship, she seemed to butt full tilt into the side of a mountain.

It was low water along the north side of the strait. Mr. Massy had not reckoned on that. Instead of running aground for half her length, the Sofala butted the sheer ridge of a stone reef which would have been awash at high water. This made the shock absolutely terrific. Everybody in the ship that was standing was thrown down headlong: the shaken rigging made a great rattling to the very trucks. All the lights went out: several chain-guys, snapping, clattered against the funnel: there were crashes, pings of parted wire-rope, splintering sounds, loud cracks, the masthead lamp flew over the bows, and all the doors about the deck began to bang heavily. Then, after having hit, she rebounded, hit the second time the very same spot like a battering-ram. This completed the havoc: the funnel, with all the guys gone, fell over with a hollow sound of thunder, smashing the wheel to bits, crushing the frame of the awnings, breaking the lockers, filling the bridge with a mass of splinters, sticks, and broken wood. Captain Whalley picked himself up and stood knee-deep in wreckage, torn, bleeding, knowing the nature of the danger he had escaped mostly by the sound, and holding Mr. Massy’s coat in his arms.

By this time Sterne (he had been flung out of his bunk) had set the engines astern. They worked for a few turns, then a voice bawled out, “Get out of the damned engine-room, Jack!”--and they stopped; but the ship had gone clear of the reef and lay still, with a heavy cloud of steam issuing from the broken deckpipes, and vanishing in wispy shapes into the night. Notwithstanding the suddenness of the disaster there was no shouting, as if the very violence of the shock had half-stunned the shadowy lot of people swaying here and there about her decks. The voice of the Serang pronounced distinctly above the confused murmurs--

“Eight fathom.” He had heaved the lead.

Mr. Sterne cried out next in a strained pitch--

“Where the devil has she got to? Where are we?”

Captain Whalley replied in a calm bass--

“Amongst the reefs to the eastward.”

“You know it, sir? Then she will never get out again.”

“She will be sunk in five minutes. Boats, Sterne. Even one will save you all in this calm.”

The Chinaman stokers went in a disorderly rush for the port boats. Nobody tried to check them. The Malays, after a moment of confusion, became quiet, and Mr. Sterne showed a good countenance. Captain Whalley had not moved. His thoughts were darker than this night in which he had lost his first ship.

“He made me lose a ship.”

Another tall figure standing before him amongst the litter of the smash on the bridge whispered insanely--

“Say nothing of it.”

Massy stumbled closer. Captain Whalley heard the chattering of his teeth.

“I have the coat.”

“Throw it down and come along,” urged the chattering voice. “B-b-b-b-boat!”