"Noooo, not a chance!" Captain Valvick assured him, with cheerful scorn. "He be all right where he iss. Ay fold him up against de bulkhead, Ha-ha-ha! Giff me de box, Miss Glenn. Ah, you shiver! You should not haf come out wi'out de coat. Now you giff me de box and go back where it iss warm. Dere iss not'ing to be afraid of now, because we haf—"
"Captain Whistler, sir!" cried a voice, almost directly above their heads.
Morgan's heart executed a somersault over a couple of rowdy lungs. He stared at the others, who were stricken silent, and stayed motionless without daring to look up. The voice seemed to have come from the top of the companion-way to B deck, near which Warren and Valvick were standing. They were in shadow, but Morgan feared the worst. He glanced at Peggy, who was petrified, and who held the steel box like a bomb. He saw what was passing in her mind. She looked at the rail, as though she had a wild impulse to toss the box overboard, and he gestured a savage negative. Morgan felt something knocking at his ribs…
"Captain Whistler, sir!" repeated the voice, more loudly. The sea battered back in answer. "I could've sworn," the voice continued, in tones which Morgan recognised as belonging to the second officer, "I heard something down there. What's happened to the old man, anyway? He said he'd be up… " The rest of it was lost in the gale, until a second voice — it sounded like the ship's doctor — said:
"It sounded like a woman. I say, you don't suppose the old man's up to any funny business with the ladies, do you? Shall we go down?"
Feet scuffled on the iron companion-ladder, but the second officer said: "Never mind. It might've been imagination. We'll—"
And then, to the horror of the little group by the glass enclosure, the captain's corpse sat up.
"!!!!3^1/2&£!?!??0???" roared Captain Whistler-weakly it is true, and huskily, but with gathering volume as his sticky wits ceased to whirl."!&£&/£/!" He gasped, he blinked, and then, as the full realisation smote him, he lifted shaking arms to heaven and set soaring his soul in one hoarse blast: "M!!&/£—!!?????&—&£/!!/?%3/4Vsll Thieves! Murderers! Help!"
"That's torn it," breathed Morgan, in a fierce whisper. "Quick! There's only one… What are you doing?" he demanded, and stared at Peggy Glenn.
After saying, "Eiee!" the girl did not hesitate. Just behind her there was the porthole to somebody's cabin, open and fastened back. As the obliging boat rolled over to assist her aim, she flung the steel box inside. It was a dark cabin, and they heard the box bump down. Without looking at the others, who were staring aghast, she had turned to run, when Morgan caught her arm…
"Gawd lummy!" said the ghostly voice from the top of the companionway, as though it were coming out of a trance, "that's the old man! Come on!"
Morgan was shooing his charges before him like chickens. He spoke so fast, under cover of the crashing swell, that he wondered if they heard him: "Don't try to run, you fatheads, or Whistler'll see you! He's still groggy… Stick in the shadow, make a lot of noise with your feet as though you'd heard him and were running to help! Say something! Talk! Run about in circles… "
It was an old detective-story trick, and he hoped it would work. Certainly their response was magnificent. To Captain Whistler, opening gummy eyes as he sat on the deck, it must have seemed that he was being rescued by a regiment of cavalry. The din was staggering especially Captain Valvick's realistic impersonation of a horse starting from far away and growing louder and more thunderous as it galloped near. Morgan's stout-hearted trio also cut the gale with such cries as, "What is it?" "What's wrong?" "Who's hurt?" They had timed themselves to spin round the forward bulkhead just as the second officer and the doctor came pelting up, their waterproofs swishing and the gilt ensigns on their caps gleaming out of the murk. There was silence while everybody clung to what was convenient, and several moments of hard breathing. The second officer, bending down, snapped on his flashlight. One good eye — undamaged, although the pickled-onion blaze of its pupil was distended horribly — one good eye smouldered and glared back at them out of a face which resembled a powerful piece of futurist painting. Captain Whistler was breathing hard. Morgan thought of the Cyclops, and also of incipient apoplexy. Captain Whistler sat on the wet deck, supporting himself with his hands behind him, and his cap was pushed back over his short white hair. He did not say anything. He was incapable, at that moment, of saying anything. He only breathed.
"Gor!" whispered the second officer.
There was another silence. Without removing his gaze from that terrifying face, the second officer beckoned behind him to the doctor. "I — er—" he faltered; "that is, what happened, sir?"
A certain terrible spasm and shiver twitched over the captain's face and chest, as though a volcano were trembling at its crust. But he still said nothing, and continued to wheeze noisily. His Cyclopean eye remained fixed.
"Come on, sir!" urged the second officer. "Let me help you up. You'll — er — catch cold. What happened?" he demanded, bewilderedly, turning to Morgan. "We heard—"
"So did we," agreed Morgan, "and came running when you did. I don't know what happened to him. He must have fallen off the bridge or something."
Among the dusky figures Peggy pressed forward. "It is Captain Whistler!" she wailed. "Oh, the poor dear! This is awful! Whatever can have happened to him? I say—" She seemed to have a shocking presentiment. Although she lowered her voice, there was only a hissing recoil of waters on the rise, and her shocked whisper to Warren carried clearly. "I say, I hope the poor man hasn't been drinking, has he?"
"What's that Tattling on the deck?" demanded Warren, who was peering about him in the gloom. Following his glance, the uneasy second officer directed the beam of the flashlight down on the deck…
"I–I do believe it's a whisky-bottle," said Peggy, earnestly contemplating the object that rolled there. "And — er — it seems to be empty. Oh, poor man!"
Morgan looked at her over his misted spectacles. A fair-minded person, he was bound to consider that this was laying it on a bit thick. Besides, he was momentarily afraid that Captain Whistler might have an apoplectic stroke. There were even richer hues blooming in the Cyclopean-eyed face; there were gurglings and rattlings and mysterious internal combustions which apparently defied nature. The second officer coughed.
"Come along, sir," he urged, soothingly. "Let me help you up, now. Then the doctor can—"
Captain Whistler found his voice.
"I will not get up!" he roared, gasping. "I am perfectly sober!" But so violent was the steam pressure that it even blocked the escape-valve; he could only gurgle insanely, and the pain of his swollen jaw made him grimace and stop, clapping a hand to it. Yet one thought remained burning. "That bottle — that bottle. That's what they hit me with. I am perfectly sober, I tell you. That's what they hit me with. There were three of 'em. Giants. They all jumped on me at once. And — my elephant. O, my God! what's happened to my elephant?" he demanded, galvanised suddenly. "They stole my elephant!
Don't stand there like a dummy, damn you! Do something. Look for it. Find that elephant or, strike me blind? I'll have the ticket of every crimson immoral landlubber on this… "
There is no discipline like that of the British merchant service. The second officer stiffened and saluted. His not to reason why.
"Very good, sir. A search shall be instituted immediately, sir. It cannot have got far. In the meantime," he continued crisply, and turned to the others with a jealous safeguarding of the captain's reputation, "while the hunt for the commander's elephant is in progress, it is his instructions that all of you go below. Captain Whistler feels that it will be unnecessary for any of his guests to mention what has occurred to-night… Let me help you up, sir."