“Feel better?” demanded Dick. Then, without waiting for a reply, he added: “If you can only manage to get to your feet and walk about a bit, we’ll soon restore our circulation. Let me give you a lift.”
“Wait,” gasped the American. “Breast pocket—br–r–randy flask. Take nip and give me one.”
The brandy flask was found, and after applying it to the lips of its owner, Dick took a mouthful himself before replacing the top. The effect of the spirit upon their chilled bodies was almost miraculous, a wave of warmth surged through them, and presently the American was on his feet, and, with Dick’s arm linked in his, was staggering to and fro upon the surface of the ice. As the stiffness and cramp worked out of their limbs they were able to increase their pace, until within a few minutes they were trotting to and fro across the mass and feeling almost warm once more.
Meanwhile, although the sounds of conflict and confusion aboard the Everest still floated to the pair, horribly suggesting the awful scenes that were being enacted on her deck, the ship herself had settled so deeply in the water that only the lights in the cabins of the promenade deck and the clusters illuminating the boat deck now marked her whereabouts, and it soon became apparent that the end was very near. As a matter of fact it was even nearer than the occupants of the floe imagined, for as with one accord they paused to glance at the ship in response to an exceptionally strident outburst of sound, they beheld the line of lights suddenly incline from the horizontal, saw the slope grow steadily steeper, and then, as the great mass of the vessel’s stern hove up, an indistinct blur of deeper blackness on the darkness of the night, the line of lights slid forward and vanished one after another until all had disappeared, while at the same moment a heartrending wail from hundreds of throats pealed out across the water, punctuated by a crackling volley of pistol shots.
“Gone!” ejaculated Dick’s companion—and the ejaculation was almost a groan. “The unsinkable Everest, that triumph of human ingenuity which was finally to insure travellers against every peril of the sea, is gone, sent to the bottom by a chunk of ice so small that, we may assume, the look-outs never saw it until it was too late. And with her she has taken, I suppose, the best part of a thousand people—of whom you and I, my friend, might have been two, if those tarnation cowardly Dagos had not knocked us overboard, for which I am obliged to them, although I wasn’t by a long chalk, a quarter of an hour ago. Now I guess we’re just as well off here as those people are in the boats; better, maybe, for we can at least move about and keep ourselves warm here, whereas—say! What’s that? See, over there! Isn’t it a rocket?”
As Dick looked in the direction toward which his companion pointed, he caught a momentary glimpse of a sudden faint irradiation in the sky, followed by the appearance of a minute cluster of tiny falling stars.
“Yes,” he replied, “that’s a rocket all right; and it means that the Bolivia or one of the other ships is coming up, and is firing rockets to let us know that help is at hand. But whatever she is, she is a long way off yet, and probably will not arrive for the next half-hour at least. So let me recommend another sprint or two across the ice just to keep the blood moving in our veins.”
“Correct again,” returned the American, as they started off at a brisk walk. “But—say!” he continued, turning to Dick and extending his hand, “we’ve been so darned busy getting ourselves warm that I haven’t yet found time to thank you for saving my life. But I’ll do it now—”
“Saving your life?” ejaculated Dick. “I don’t think I understand.”
“Oh yes, I guess you do,” answered the American. “Or, if you don’t, I calculate I can easily enlighten you. You saved my life, young man, when you took me in tow out there and navigated me to this desirable ice floe, and don’t you forget it. You may bet your bottom dollar that I shall not, and there’s my hand upon it, stranger. Now, let me introduce myself. I know who you are all right; you’re Mr. Cavendish, late fifth officer of the unsinkable steamship Everest, very recently gone to the bottom. Isn’t that right?”
Dick acknowledged the truth of his companion’s statement, whereupon the latter resumed.
“Very good,” he said. “Now, I suppose you’ve never heard of Wilfrid Earle, of New York, the man who undertook to hunt his way from Cairo to the Cape—”
“Oh! but of course I have,” interrupted Dick. “I’ve read about you in the papers—and, come to think of it, I’ve seen your photograph also in the papers. Somehow your face seemed familiar when I noticed you a while ago on the boat deck—”
“Sure!” cut in the other. “That’s me—Wilfrid Earle, the eccentric New Yorker, all right, all right. Only arrived home from Cape Town little more than a fortnight ago, with a whole caravan load of skins, horns, tusks, and so on; and now I guess they’re about half a mile down, in the hull of the Everest. Gee! Guess you’re thinking me a heartless brute for talking so lightly about the awful thing that’s just happened; but, man, I’ve got to do it—or else go clean crazy with thinking about it. Or, better still, not think about it at all, since thinking about it won’t mend matters the least little bit. Say! what are all those little lights dotted about over there?”
“Oh!” answered Dick, “they are the lights of the Everest’s boats. Each boat was provided with a lantern, in order that they might keep together, and be the more easily found when the rescuing ships come up.”
“Ah!” returned Earle. “A very excellent arrangement. But say! what about us? We have no lantern. How are we going to make our whereabouts known? Those boats are a good mile away, and—”
“I don’t think we need worry very greatly about that,” answered Dick. “Naturally, the Bolivia—or whatever the coming craft may be—will pick up the people in the boats directly she arrives; but she’ll lower her own boats, too, and send them away to search the sea in the immediate neighbourhood for people who may be floating about in lifebuoys or cork jackets. There must be quite a number of them at no great distance from us—though how long they are likely to survive, drifting about in the ice-cold water, I should not like to say. But I think we may take it for granted that, once they have arrived, the rescuing ships will not quit the scene of the disaster until they have made quite sure that they have got all the survivors. They will wait about until daylight comes, without a shadow of doubt.”
“Good! it is comforting to hear you say that,” returned Earle. “You see, I don’t know much about the sea and sailor ways, and it occurred to me that those rescuing ships might take it for granted that when they had recovered the people from the boats, they would have done all that was possible—and quit. Gee! but it’s cold here on this ice. Lucky that there’s no wind, or we should be frozen stiff in half an hour. We’ll have another nip of brandy each; it’ll do us both good. Lucky thing, too, that I had the sense to fill the flask and slip it into my pocket when I knew what had happened to the ship. I sort of foresaw some such experience as this, and concluded that a drop of brandy might be a good thing to have about one’s person.”
They had their nip and felt all the better for it; but it was necessary for them to keep moving briskly in order to combat the numbing chill of their wet clothes, and they resumed their pacing to and fro across their narrow block of ice.
For a time their conversation was of a desultory and fragmentary character, for they were both intently watching the progress of the approaching steamer, which continued to send up rockets until the glow of the flames from her funnels became clearly visible. Then the display of rockets suddenly ceased, no doubt because—as Dick surmised—the lights of the boats had been sighted by the eager look-outs aboard her. Then her mast-head light came into view, followed, a little later, by her port and starboard side lights; and at length the dark, scarcely discernible blotch that represented her hull lengthened