After a couple of dozen turns round the sphere the exercisers went inside again except Derek, who declared that he must keep fit somehow and, weather permitting, intended to do at least 500 turns a day; although he found later that he could not yet manage that number because he was still limping from his injured shin and it began to pain him badly.
Under Gervaise's directions they set about giving the contents of the Ark a thorough overhaul, a job they had not previously felt up to, and they spent several hours rearranging cargo that had shifted, fixing cords along the book-shelves and making many other arrangements to ensure that things should not be thrown about quite so readily if the sphere were to receive another buffeting.
It was as well that they had done so as, on the fourth day, a wind got up and from a gentle rocking the motion of the Ark increased to a heavy roll. Margery was ill again and Sam, too, was overcome by sea-sickness. By midday they could not see more than fifty yards from the port-holes as huge waves lashed the Ark, tossing it to and fro while blinding sheets of spray hissed over it. The constant rolling proved a frightful strain upon their nerves, as they could settle to nothing in any comfort but had to cling on to fixtures to prevent themselves from being thrown about.
Hemmingway had been feeling ill all day and lost what little lunch he had eaten. Lavina followed suit but she refused to go to her bunk and made those of the party who were still well enough play 'Consequences' with her.
Margery lay groaning in her cabin; Sam could not trust himself to stand for long on the heaving floor owing to his ankle, which although better was still weak, and none of the others felt like making tea; so Gervaise went below to get a bottle of brandy from their small cellar. When his grey head appeared above the hatch again and he staggered forward to a chair, Lavina noticed that his expression was unusually grave-
Looking round at them he said sternly: 'I should be glad it you would remember that when you elected me Captain of the Ark I stipulated that I should have control of all stores. One ot you has had a bottle of brandy out of the wine locker without my authority.'
Everyone denied having taken the bottle and Sam suggested that Gervaise might have miscounted.
He assured Sam that he had not. But Hemmingway wen below with him to check the cellar and pointed out that although, allowing for the bottle he had just brought up, there were now only ten out of the original dozen instead of eleven as there should have been, owing to the arrangement of the bins it was quite possible that there had only been eleven bottles there in the first place; and that one might have been found broken in the case when the whole consignment of wines and spirits had been unpacked on arrival from Justerini and Brooks' London cellars. As there was no other explanation Gervaise had to agree that it might have been so but, all the same, he felt quite certain that there had been twelve bottles of brandy there when he had taken a look round the cellar on the day before the comet had struck the earth.
It was pointless to argue further, so the matter was dropped. Their cellar space being limited, Hemmingway had ordered only of the best, and the mellow, sixty-year-old brandy warmed their stomachs; but the waves continued to thud upon the Ark, making the whole sphere shudder. Restless, uneasy and shaken, they made a scratch evening meal of biscuits and then as there seemed no object in remaining up they lurched to their cabins; but the storm continued throughout the night so they spent miserable hours pitching and tossing in their bunks, able to snatch only brief periods of troubled sleep at intervals.
Derek was first up the following morning and he noticed an unpleasant mess at one end of the living-room. When the others, a hollow-eyed, woebegone-looking crew, had assembled for breakfast, he pointed it out to them.
'I don't know who's responsible for that but, whoever it was, if they hadn't time to find a basin to be sick in, they might at least have mopped it up afterwards.'
Everyone looked at everyone else but no one confessed to having been the culprit and they were all so miserable that it hardly seemed worth holding an inquest on the matter. Derek, who was as strong as a horse and had never in his life known vvhat it was like to be seasick, mopped up the mess himself. On Gervaise's then insisting that they should try to eat a little 'f they could, as it would give their stomachs something to work on, the party sat down to the swaying table and sipped 'he hot coffee Margery had made for them in spite of her fetched ness.
For the whole of the fifth day the storm continued. Rain sheeted down, obscuring the view from the port-holes. The Ark alternately wallowed in the troughs of the waves or was cast high up on their crests to slide down a farther slope. It never actually turned over, owing to the weight of the stores on its lower deck which acted as ballast, but it pitched about in so terrifying a manner that even those who were not seasick were utterly worn out by the evening. Margery, Sam and Hemmingway lay prostrate in their bunks. Lavina was sick again but would not give in and staggered or sat about the living-room, her eyes unnaturally large, and her small face chalk-white.
On the second night of the storm it eased somewhat and the morning of the sixth day after the flood they crawled from their bunks to find that the sea had subsided to an oily swell. During the past few days the rocking of the Ark had been too violent for any of them to have a bath so they employed the best part of the forenoon in that way and by midday were feeling considerably better. The rain had ceased but low clouds still covered the whole sky, so, although they knew from the compass that they were now drifting south they were still unable to calculate their position and had not the faintest idea in which direction or the number of miles that the wind and currents might have carried them. It was still too rough for them to go outside and exercise without danger but by evening they were in normal spirits and had all taken up their allotted duties once more.
Twelve hours later the sea was calm again, but when they looked out of the port-holes they were amazed to see that it had changed colour: it was as black as ink. On going out on to the platform they found the explanation to be that the Ark was now drifting through a great expanse of water which had a foot of sodden black ash floating on its surface.
'This is the result of a terrific volcanic eruption,' said Gervaise. 'The ash has either drifted up here from southern Europe or we have been washed down there by the storm.'
Derek's leg was now all right and, as the sea was now calflj he decided to do his five hundred turns round the Ark but' was a raw and bitter morning so the others hurried insid6 again.
By an adjustment of the ventilators and the heating plant the interior of the Ark could be kept at a pleasantly warm temperature without becoming stuffy, so Lavina changed into an old suit of beach-pyjamas. As her normal high spirits had returned to her and they had now been cooped up in the Ark for over a week, she was becoming extremely bored. Having danced for an hour to the gramophone with Derek she decided to occupy herself by writing a film scenario and cast round among the others for possible assistance.
Sam declared that he was quite useless at that sort of thing. Oliver, who had become a little morose during the last few days, was still automatically busying himself with astronomical calculations which could now be of little value. Gervaise was too interested in the books on folk-lore he was reading. Lavina mentally ruled out Margery as having little imagination and, in any case, being much too busy with her work in the kitchen. That left only Derek and Hemmingway.