The low mumbling from Turner’s room had persisted
steadily. Now it rose again in the sharp frenzy
that had characterized it through the long night.
“Don’t look at me like that, man!”
he cried, and then “He’s lost a hand!
A hand!”
Mrs. Turner went quickly into the cabin, and the sounds
ceased. I looked at Elsa, but she avoided my
eyes. I turned heavily and went up the companionway.
A KNOCKING IN THE HOLD
It rained heavily all that day. Late in the
afternoon we got some wind, and all hands turned out
to trim sail. Action was a relief, and the weather
suited our disheartened state better than had the
pitiless August sun, the glaring white of deck and
canvas, and the heat.
The heavy drops splashed and broke on top of the jolly-boat,
and, as the wind came up, it rode behind us like a
live thing.
Our distress signal hung sodden, too wet to give more
than a dejected response to the wind that tugged at
it. Late in the afternoon we sighted a large
steamer, and when, as darkness came on, she showed
no indication of changing her course, Burns and I
sent up a rocket and blew the fog horn steadily.
She altered her course then and came towards us,
and we ran up our code flags for immediate assistance;
but she veered off shortly after, and went on her
way. We made no further effort to attract her
attention. Burns thought her a passenger steamer
for the Bermudas, and, as her way was not ours, she
could not have been of much assistance.
One or two of the men were already showing signs of
strain. Oleson, the Swede, developed a chill,
followed by fever and a mild delirium, and Adams complained
of sore throat and nausea. Oleson’s illness
was genuine enough. Adams I suspected of malingering.
He had told the men he would not go up to the crow’s-nest
again without a revolver, and this I would not permit.
Our original crew had numbered nine—with
the cook and Williams, eleven. But the two Negroes
were not seamen, and were frightened into a state
bordering on collapse. Of the men actually useful,
there were left only five: Clarke, McNamara, Charlie
Jones, Burns, and myself; and I was a negligible quantity
as regarded the working of the ship.
With Burns and myself on guard duty, the burden fell
on Clarke, McNamara, and Jones. A suggestion
of mine that we release Singleton was instantly vetoed
by the men. It was arranged, finally, that Clarke
and McNamara take alternate watches at the wheel, and
Jones be given the lookout for the night, to be relieved
by either Burns or myself.
I watched the weather anxiously. We were too
short-handed to manage any sort of a gale; and yet,
the urgency of our return made it unwise to shorten
canvas too much. It was as well, perhaps, that
I had so much to distract my mind from the situation
in the after house.
