The Wings of the Morning | Page 8

directed, wrought hard to avert further disaster.
After the first moment of stupor, gallant British sailors risked life and
limb to bring the vessel under control.
By their calm courage they shamed the paralyzed Lascars into activity.
A sail was rigged on the foremast, and a sea anchor hastily constructed
as soon as it was discovered that the helm was useless. Rockets flared
up into the sky at regular intervals, in the faint hope that should they
attract the attention of another vessel she would follow the disabled
Sirdar and render help when the weather moderated.
When the captain ascertained that no water was being shipped, the
damage being wholly external, the collision doors were opened and the
passengers admitted to the saloon, a brilliant palace, superbly
indifferent to the wreck and ruin without.
Captain Ross himself came down and addressed a few comforting
words to the quiet men and pallid women gathered there. He told them
exactly what had happened.
Sir John Tozer, self-possessed and critical, asked a question.
"The junk is destroyed, I assume?" he said.
"It is."
"Would it not have been better to have struck her end on?"
"Much better, but that is not the view we should take if we encountered
a vessel relatively as big as the Sirdar was to the unfortunate junk."
"But," persisted the lawyer, "what would have been the result?"

"You would never have known that the incident had happened, Sir
John."
"In other words, the poor despairing Chinamen, clinging to their little
craft with some chance of escape, would be quietly murdered to suit
our convenience."
It was Iris's clear voice that rang out this downright exposition of the
facts. Sir John shook his head; he carried the discussion no further.
The hours passed in tedious misery after Captain Ross's visit. Every
one was eager to get a glimpse of the unknown terrors without from the
deck. This was out of the question, so people sat around the tables to
listen eagerly to Experience and his wise saws on drifting ships and
their prospects.
Some cautious persons visited their cabins to secure valuables in case
of further disaster. A few hardy spirits returned to bed.
Meanwhile, in the charthouse, the captain and chief officer were
gravely pondering over an open chart, and discussing a fresh risk that
loomed ominously before them. The ship was a long way out of her
usual course when the accident happened. She was drifting now, they
estimated, eleven knots an hour, with wind, sea, and current all forcing
her in the same direction, drifting into one of the most dangerous places
in the known world, the south China Sea, with its numberless reefs,
shoals, and isolated rocks, and the great island of Borneo stretching
right across the path of the cyclone.
Still, there was nothing to be done save to make a few unobtrusive
preparations and trust to idle chance. To attempt to anchor and ride out
the gale in their present position was out of the question.
Two, three, four o'clock came, and went. Another half-hour would
witness the dawn and a further clearing of the weather. The barometer
was rapidly rising. The center of the cyclone had swept far ahead.
There was only left the aftermath of heavy seas and furious but steadier
wind.

Captain Ross entered the charthouse for the twentieth time.
He had aged many years in appearance. The smiling, confident,
debonair officer was changed into a stricken, mournful man. He had
altered with his ship. The Sirdar and her master could hardly be
recognized, so cruel were the blows they had received.
"It is impossible to see a yard ahead," he confided to his second in
command. "I have never been so anxious before in my life. Thank God
the night is drawing to a close. Perhaps, when day breaks----"
His last words contained a prayer and a hope. Even as he spoke the ship
seemed to lift herself bodily with an unusual effort for a vessel moving
before the wind.
The next instant there was a horrible grinding crash forward. Each
person who did not chance to be holding fast to an upright was thrown
violently down. The deck was tilted to a dangerous angle and remained
there, whilst the heavy buffeting of the sea, now raging afresh at this
unlooked-for resistance, drowned the despairing yells raised by the
Lascars on duty.
The Sirdar had completed her last voyage. She was now a battered
wreck on a barrier reef. She hung thus for one heart-breaking second.
Then another wave, riding triumphantly through its fellows, caught the
great steamer in its tremendous grasp, carried her onward for half her
length and smashed her down on the rocks. Her back was broken. She
parted in two halves. Both sections turned completely over in