CHAPTER XXXV
INTERVENTION
The "Starlight" struck the sodden derelict shortly before midnight, with
a crash that jarred the yacht to her innermost fibres.
She struck it full abeam, like a motor-car smashing in the dark into an
unlighted farm-waggon drawn across a country lane. Bows crumpled up;
bowsprit snapped away; foremast, loosed from its stay, and forced back
by the pressure of a half-gale on the close-hauled foresail, carried
over to port in a tangle of rope and wire and canvas.
Thrown back on her haunches, the "Starlight" gasped and shivered and
began to settle by the head from the rush of water into the forecastle.
"All on deck with lifebelts!"
A seaman rushed through the saloons, throwing wide the cabin doors, and
shouting the captain's order.
Up above, men were ripping the canvas covers off the life-boats,
flinging oilskins and rugs and provisions into them, slewing round the
davits, hauling on the fall-ropes--a furious medley of energies.
Matheson rushed to his wife's cabin, helped her on with some clothes,
tied her lifebelt, wrapped a rug around her, and hurried her on deck.
"What have we hit?" he snapped at the captain.
"Derelict."
"How long d'you give her?"
"Ten minutes at the outside!" flung back the captain, and then into his
megaphone: "Lower away there with No. 4!"
Lifeboat No. 4 was the second boat on the port side--the leeward side.
No. 3 was buried under the tangle of wreckage from the collapse of the
foremast, and therefore useless.
Pages:
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271