"Where d'you reckon you're off to, then, mate?" Jordan was a rough, independent man at the best of times; he had now entirely dropped whatever slight respect he might have had for Jim's rank. "You must be blinking daft, charging about. Why don't you look where you're going?" And he pointed grimly to the main-deck. It was now like a half-tide rock: most of the deck was swilling deep in white water; only the tops of the hatches showed as islands of sodden green tarpaulin. The freak sea which had swept their companions like flies to their deaths had ripped off part of the cloth of one of the hatches, and each succeeding smaller wave dragged and worried at the hatch-beams and the tarpaulin, so that a bigger and bigger breach was made.
" 'Ow do you fancy your chance o' gitting through that lot, then, you silly young beggar. Now you listen here. You want to git through this turn-out?"
Jim nodded dumbly.
"Right, then, matey. You and me only got one chance. See that forem'st ? Well, git up them shrouds, fast as ever you can." He led the way to the laddered stays on the windward side of the ship, where the wind would force them against, and not away from, their precarious holds on the ratlines. Step by step, Jim forced himself upwards, falling far behind the tough top-mast hand, who ran up and down such dreadful rope stairs every day of his life. As Jim mounted higher the wind seemed to pluck and drag more and more viciously at his strong oilskin coat, and several times his stomach turned somersaults of fear as numb feet and hands slipped on the ropes. Once he cried out in panic as both feet missed the ratlines and kicked wildly in the air; the urge to live was strong now, however, and Jim forced his cold stiff muscles to bend and stretch until at last he saw just above his head the junction of the stays with the mast and the "lubber's-hole" cut in the stout wooden platform of the foretop. As his head passed up through the hole he felt the strong grip of Jordan's hands hauling him up, and heard the harsh taunting voice: "Took your time, didn't you? Scratching about down there like a blessed old hen. Now you're up here, git your back shoved up against them top-m'st shrouds and sit still. It ain't much of a place for having a walk round."
Indeed, their refuge from the sea was nothing but an open, semi-circular wooden platform, sixty feet above the deck, from whose sides the top-mast shrouds led up another eighty dizzy feet to the top-gallant mast-head. There was plenty of room for two men to sit, high above the reach of the waves, until the mast fell, or the wind dislodged them or bit through their clothing to freeze them, or (perhaps) until a rescue boat wallowed in the seas alongside.
Placing their feet against the mast, the two men braced themselves firmly against the taut rigging, turning their backs to the wind, and pressing against each other for warmth. Yet still the deadly cold air seeped into every inch of flesh, and constant shivering racked them, however they beat their arms or pounded their hands together. At length Jordan spoke between rattling teeth: "It ain't no good, is it, cocky ? We got to git some shelter; can't go on like this — very soon freeze else. Gitting near high-water, I know. Never mind — have to charnst it. I'm a-going down again, see what I can find." Jim's mind was almost surrendering to the continuous agony of the cold, and he merely nodded.
He was roused out of his deadly drowsiness by a rough prod in the stomach; Jordan was back, and was busy hauling on a rope which led down through the lubber's hole: "Give us a hand, mate. Here you are, cop hold of this and help me heave up on it. Know what's on the end of it ? The cover off of the old cable-holder. Found it wedged underneath. Good old bit o' cloth, y'know, being as it's new." The bundle of tarpaulin was, of course, swinging wildly on the end of the rope, often getting foul of other objects for a time, so that the struggling men felt, as it came up into view, the first stealing sensations of blessed warmth in their limbs and bodies. There was a further cramped, awkward struggle as they hauled the thick green cloth between them, cautiously spread it and secured it by its own ropes to the stays. Every move and hold was slow and careful, for the battering gusts seemed to be maliciously trying to thwart them and gave sudden vicious tugs at the stiff cover. At last, panting from their efforts, they were able to push their backs firmly against it. Their hands were aching as the tingling blood returned, but it was a blissful feeling to be sheltered against the wind that now shrieked past harmlessly. They were now as safe as they could be from the danger of exposure.
"A-a-ah!" Jordan leant back with a sigh of contentment, and grinned at Jim. "That's a bit better, ain't it, cocky? Just like old Robinson Crusoe!"
Chapter VII
The grin on Jordan's face did not last long, for he looked to his right down along the flooded main-deck to the poop. Clusters of small black figures clung desperately round any fixed object — the mast, the wheel and its casing, the binnacle, the shrouds. The sloping angles of the latter were picked out sharply in black, for they were laden with survivors from top to bottom — doomed passengers clinging with feeble, inexperienced hands and feet to the strange springing ladders.
"Look at them poor beggars," said Jordan with real compassion. "What chance have they got? They'll come off of there like flies presently."
Yet Mr White had done all a man could do for his passengers. They, not the seamen, had been allowed to seek refuge in the shrouds of the mizen-mast. The seamen clung with pale despair to whatever they could find on deck — some silent, some cursing, a few praying, all gasping and shuddering as the icy water flung itself upon them. With every wave the depth of the boiling white flood on deck was greater; each wave was imperceptibly stronger in its drag on numb, exhausted hands and arms; after each wave now the black clusters were thinner and smaller, for each rushing wall of foam licked a few victims from their holds, and shot them across the deck to the yawning gap which earlier seas had torn in the lee bulwark, and so into the sea, now only a few feet below the level of the poop. Many, weary to death of the long struggle, knowingly allowed their grasp to relax, and met their fate half-way.
Captain White, whose grip on life was strong, was still left, under water for most of the time, long after all his passengers and crew had been swept from the deck, choking and gasping, to leeward. Several passengers still clung to the mizen shrouds, but for them there was no refuge such as Jim and Jordan had found in the foremast. Since Sardis was rigged as a barque, she had only two fore-and-aft sails on the mizen, and the mizen-top was not a stout, broad piece of decking like the foretop, but only a light wooden framework, scarcely a refuge for a monkey.
Yet White had the will to live, and the strength of a bull. Carefully timing his rush, he reached the foot of the lee mizen shrouds and began to make his way doggedly to the top. Indeed, he would almost certainly have got there, left to himself. But high above him on the ratlines was a woman passenger who had now been clinging there for nearly an hour, while the remorseless wind froze her fingers and tore at her wide skirts. White had hardly begun his ascent before the north-easter at last overcame that feeble grip. Struck unawares as he climbed by that hurtling body, how could even White survive this last cruelty of fate ? Without a cry he disappeared into the foam to leeward. For thirty years he had watched, worked, starved, bullied and fought to be a master; and yet his only command was not a ship but a stranded carcass. In his hands she had not been afloat one minute.