The Ghost Ship: A Mystery of the Sea. John C. Hutcheson

out his clenched hands with a jerk, as if he were suddenly galvanised into life, thereby displaying the magnificent proportions of his torso, he being stripped to the waist, Jackson opened his eyes, drawing a deep breath the while, a breath something between a sob and a sigh!

      “Where—where am I?” he said, looking round with a sort of far-away, dreamy stare, but meeting Mr. Stokes’ sympathetic gaze, he at once seemed to recover his consciousness. “Ah, I know, sir. I found out what was the matter with the suction before that plate buckled and gripped me. I have cleared the rose box, too, sir, and you can connect the bilge-pumps again as soon as you like, sir.”

      Of course all this took him some time to get out.

      “All right, my man,” answered the old chief, greatly overcome at the fact of the old sailor, wounded to the death, thinking of his duty in the first moment of his recovery. “Never mind that, man! How do you feel now, my poor fellow—better, I trust?”

      “Why, just a little pain here, sir,” said Jackson, pressing his hand to his right side. “I’m thankful, though, my legs escaped, sir. I’ve no pain there.”

      Garry O’Neil looked grave and shook his head at this, and looking too as he cast down his eyes over the lower part of the unfortunate man’s body, I saw that the cruel edges of the iron plates had torn away part of his canvas overalls from the thigh to the knee of one leg, peeling off with the covering, the flesh from the bone; while the foot of the other—boot and all—was crushed into a shapeless bloody mass horrible to behold, the sight making one feel sick.

      “It’s a bad sign his having no fayling there, Haldane,” whispered the Irishman to me very low, so that Jackson could not hear. “It’s jost what I thought, sure. God may help him, but I can’t. He’ll niver recover, do what we moight for him, niver in this worruld. The poor misfortunate fellow has his spoine injured, and he can’t live forty-eight hours, if as long as that, sure!”

      He did not tell him this, however; nor did he lead any of the others to understand, either, that Jackson’s case was hopeless!

      On the contrary, when he spoke aloud, as he did immediately afterwards, he seemed in the best of spirits, as if everything was going on as well as possible, though I noticed a tear in his eye and a quiver in his voice that touched me to the heart, making me turn away my head.

      “Now you mustn’t talk now, old fellow, for we want you to husband all your strength to get up the hatchway to a foine cabin of yer own on the upper deck, where we’re goin’ to nurse ye, me darlint, till ye’re all roight, sure!” he said cheerfully. “Here, now, just dhrink another drop of the craythur, me bhoy, to kape yer spirits up, and you, Master Haldane, jist hand over that hammock ye’ve got storved away on ye shulder, so that we can fix up Jackson comfortable like for his trip to the upper reggins!”

      So saying, the good-hearted Irishman busied himself, with the help of Stoddart, who was equally gentle in handling the poor fellow, getting him ready for removal; and when he had been carefully placed in the hammock and covered with the blanket, the two of them, both being strong and powerful men, they lifted their burden with the utmost tenderness and carried him upward to the main deck, where he was put into a berth in one of the state rooms that the steward had prepared, and every attention paid him.

      Mr. Fosset and I helped up Blanchard, the other fireman, he, luckily, not requiring to be carried; and we then went down for Mr. Stokes, who had refused to leave the stoke-hold until his men had been attended to.

      Propping up the stout old chap behind so that he could not slip back down the slippery steel ladder, as he only had the one arm now to hold on by, the three of us reached the level of the engine-room all right, the chief, resting here a moment to give a look round and a word to Grummet, who of course was still in charge, telling him to slow down still further and use all his spare steam for clearing the bilge, as the sluice valves had been opened to prevent the fires being flooded out, and the pumps were in good working order again.

      Grummet promised to attend carefully to these directions, and a host of others I cannot now recollect, poor Mr. Stokes being as fussy and fidgetty as he was fat, and in the habit of unintentionally worrying his subordinates a good deal in this way, and the three of us again started on our way upwards, the old chief leading, as before, and Mr. Fosset and I bringing up the rear very slowly, so as to prevent accident, when all at once there was a fearful crash that echoed through my brain, followed by a violent concussion of the air which nearly threw us all down the engine-room ladder, though Mr. Fosset and I were both hanging on to it like grim death and supporting the whole weight of Mr. Stokes between us.

      At the same instant, too, the crank shaft stopped revolving, all motion of the machinery ceased, and the hatchway, with all the space around us, was filled by a dense cloud of hot steam!