The Wings of the Morning | Page 5

As its center is now right ahead we are going on the starboard tack to get behind it."
"I must hurry up and go on deck," said Miss Deane.
"You will not be able to go on deck until the morning."
She turned on him impetuously. "Indeed I will. Captain Ross promised me--that is, I asked him----"
The doctor smiled. She was so charmingly insistent. "It is simply impossible," he said. "The companion doors are bolted. The promenade deck is swept by heavy seas every minute. A boat has been carried away and several stanchions snapped off like carrots. For the first time in your life, Miss Deane, you are battened down."
The girl's face must have paled somewhat. He added hastily, "There is no danger, you know, but these precautions are necessary. You would not like to see several tons of water rushing down the saloon stairs; now, would you?"
"Decidedly not." Then after a pause, "It is not pleasant to be fastened up in a great iron box, doctor. It reminds one of a huge coffin."
"Not a bit. The Sirdar is the safest ship afloat. Your father has always pursued a splendid policy in that respect. The London and Hong Kong Company may not possess fast vessels, but they are seaworthy and well found in every respect."
"Are there many people ill on board?"
"No; just the usual number of disturbed livers. We had a nasty accident shortly before dinner."
"Good gracious! What happened?"
"Some Lascars were caught by a sea forward. One man had his leg broken."
"Anything else?"
The doctor hesitated. He became interested in the color of some Burgundy. "I hardly know the exact details yet," he replied. "Tomorrow after breakfast I will tell you all about it."
An English quartermaster and four Lascars had been licked from off the forecastle by the greedy tongue of a huge wave. The succeeding surge flung the five men back against the quarter. One of the black sailors was pitched aboard, with a fractured leg and other injuries. The others were smashed against the iron hull and disappeared.
For one tremulous moment the engines slowed. The ship commenced to veer off into the path of the cyclone. Captain Ross set his teeth, and the telegraph bell jangled "Full speed ahead."
"Poor Jackson!" he murmured. "One of my best men. I remember seeing his wife, a pretty little woman, and two children coming to meet him last homeward trip. They will be there again. Good God! That Lascar who was saved has some one to await him in a Bombay village, I suppose."
The gale sang a mad requiem to its victims. The very surface was torn from the sea. The ship drove relentlessly through sheets of spray that caused the officers high up on the bridge to gasp for breath. They held on by main force, though protected by strong canvas sheets bound to the rails. The main deck was quite impassable. The promenade deck, even the lofty spar deck, was scourged with the broken crests of waves that tried with demoniac energy to smash in the starboard bow, for the Sirdar was cutting into the heart of the cyclone.
The captain fought his way to the charthouse. He wiped the salt water from his eyes and looked anxiously at the barometer.
"Still falling!" he muttered. "I will keep on until seven o'clock and then bear three points to the southward. By midnight we should be behind it."
He struggled back into the outside fury. By comparison the sturdy citadel he quitted was Paradise on the edge of an inferno.
Down in the saloon the hardier passengers were striving to subdue the ennui of an interval before they sought their cabins. Some talked. One hardened reprobate strummed the piano. Others played cards, chess, draughts, anything that would distract attention.
The stately apartment offered strange contrast to the warring elements without. Bright lights, costly upholstery, soft carpets, carved panels and gilded cornices, with uniformed attendants passing to and fro carrying coffee and glasses--these surroundings suggested a floating palace in which the raging seas were defied. Yet forty miles away, somewhere in the furious depths, four corpses swirled about with horrible uncertainty, lurching through battling currents, and perchance convoyed by fighting sharks.
The surgeon had been called away. Iris was the only lady left in the saloon. She watched a set of whist players for a time and then essayed the perilous passage to her stateroom. She found her maid and a stewardess there. Both women were weeping.
"What is the matter?" she inquired.
The stewardess tried to speak. She choked with grief and hastily went out. The maid blubbered an explanation.
"A friend of hers was married, miss, to the man who is drowned."
"Drowned! What man?"
"Haven't you heard, miss? I suppose they are keeping it quiet. An English sailor and some natives were swept off the ship by a sea. One native was saved,