第15章

Accordingly we hauled up the boat by the tow-rope till it was right under the stern of the dhow, and Job bundled into her with all the grace of a falling sack of potatoes.Then we returned and sat down on the deck again, and smoked and talked in little gusts and jerks.The night was so lovely, and our brains were so full of suppressed excitement of one sort and another, that we did not feel inclined to turn in.For nearly an hour we sat thus, and then, I think, we both dozed off.At least I have a faint recollection of Leo sleepily explaining that the head was not a bad place to hit a buffalo, if you could catch him exactly between the horns, or send your bullet down his throat, or some nonsense of the sort.

Then I remember no more; till suddenlya frightful roar of wind, a shriek of terror from the awakening crew, and a whip like sting of water in our faces.

Some of the men ran to let go the halyards and lower the sail, but the parral jammed and the yard would not come down.I sprang to my feet and hung on to a rope.

The sky aft was dark as pitch, but the moon still shone brightly ahead of us and lit up the blackness.

Beneath its sheen a huge white-topped breaker, twenty feet high or more, was rushing on to us.It was on the breakthe moon shone on its crest and tipped its foam with light.On it rushed beneath the inky sky, driven by the awful squall behind it.Suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, I saw the black shape of the whale-boat cast high into the air on the crest of the breaking wave.Thena shock of water, a wild rush of boiling foam, and I was clinging for my life to the shroud, aye, swept straight out from it like a flag in a gale.

We were pooped.

The wave passed.It seemed to me that I was under water for minutesreally it was seconds.I looked forward.The blast had torn out the great sail, and high in the air it was fluttering away to leeward like a huge wounded bird.Then for a moment there was comparative calm, and in it I heard Job's voice yelling wildly, "Come here to the boat."Bewildered and half drowned as I was, I had the sense to rush aft.I felt the dhow sinking under me she was full of water.Under her counter the whale-boat was tossing furiously, and I saw the Arab Mahomed, who had been steering, leap into her.I gave one desperate pull at the towrope to bring the boat alongside.

Wildly I sprang also, and Job caught me by one arm and I rolled into the bottom of the boat.Down went the dhow bodily, and as she did so Mahomed drew his curved knife and severed the fibre-rope by which we were fast to her, and in another second we were driving before the storm over the place where the dhow had been.

"Great God!" I shrieked, "where is Leo? Leo! Leo!""He's gone, sir, God help him!" roared Job into my ear; and such was the fury of the squall that his voice sounded like a whisper.

I wrung my hands in agony.Leo was drowned, and I was left alive to mourn him.

"Look out;" yelled Job, "here comes another."I turned; a second huge wave was overtaking us.I half hoped that it would drown me.With a curious fascination I watched its awful advent.The moon was nearly hidden now by the wreaths of the rushing storm, but a little light still caught the crest of the devouring breaker.There was something dark on ita piece of wreckage.It was on us now, and the boat was nearly full of water.But she was built in air-tight compartmentsHeaven bless the man who invented them!

and lifted up through it like a swan.Through the foam and turmoil I saw the black thing on the wave hurrying right at me.I put out my right arm to ward it from me, and my hand closed on another arm, the wrist of which my fingers gripped like a vise.l am a very strong man, and had something to hold to, but my arm was nearly torn from its socket by the strain and weight of the floating body.Had the rush lasted another two seconds I must either have let go or gone with it.But it passed, leaving us up to our knees in water.

"Bail out! bail out!" shouted Job, suiting the action to the word.

But I could not bail just then, for as the moon went out and left us in total darkness, one faint, flying ray of light lit upon the face of the man I had gripped, who was now half lying, half floating in the bottom of the boat.

It was Leo.Leo brought back by the waveback, dead or alive, from the very jaws of Death.

"Bail out! bail out!" yelled Job, "or we shall founder."I seized a large tin bowl with a handle to it, which was fixed under one of the seats, and the three of us bailed away for dear life.The furious tempest drove over and round us, flinging the boat this way and that, the wind and the storm wreaths and the sheets of stinging spray blinded and bewildered us, but through it all we worked like demons with the wild exhilaration of despair, for even despair can exhilarate.One minute! three minutes! six minutes!

The boat began to lighten, and no fresh wave swamped us.Five minutes more, and she was fairly clear.Then, suddenly, above the awful shriekings of the hurricane came a duller, deeper roar.Great heavens! It was the voice of breakers!

At that moment the moon began to shine forth againthis time behind the path of the squall.Out far across the torn bosom of the ocean shot the ragged arrows of her light, and there, half a mile ahead of us, was a white line of foam, then a little space of openmouthed blackness, and then another line of white.

It was the breakers, and their roar grew clearer and yet more clear as we sped down upon them like a swallow.There they were, boiling up in snowy spouts of spray, smiting and gnashing together like the gleaming teeth of hell.

"Take the tiller, Mahomed!" I roared in Arabic."We must try and shoot them." At the same moment I seized an oar, and got it out, motioning to Job to do likewise.