The Wings of the Morning | Page 5

the restraint of the fiddles
everything must have been swept to the floor. There were one or two
minor accidents. A steward, taken unawares, was thrown headlong on
top of his laden tray. Others were compelled to clutch the backs of
chairs and cling to pillars. One man involuntarily seized the hair of a
lady who devoted an hour before each meal to her coiffure. The Sirdar,
with a frenzied bound, tried to turn a somersault.
"A change of course," observed the doctor. "They generally try to avoid
it when people are in the saloon, but a typhoon admits of no labored
politeness. 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