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No sooner did her black prow appear between the pier heads than a score of boats left the steps, their rowers gesticulating, quarrelling, laughing among themselves with Maltese vivacity. One boat, flying the Croonah's houseflag, made its way more leisurely through the still, clear water. This boat was bringing mails to the Croonah, and in the letter-bag Mrs.
She clung to her lover's arms and watched his face with a faith that nothing could shake. Thus they stood during three eternal seconds while the Croonah seemed to hesitate, poised on the brink. Then the great steamer slowly slid backwards, turning a little as she did so. There was a sickening sound of gurgling water. The Croonah was afloat, but only for a few seconds.
He delivered his papers and then he went to the cable office. He telegraphed the single word "Milksop" to Willie Carr in London. When he got back to the Croonah, worn out, dirty, and morose, the passengers were not yet astir. He had an unsatisfactory breakfast, and went to his cabin for a few hours' necessary sleep.
And all the while the engines throbbed, and the Croonah held proudly on her course to the north battered, torn, and sore stricken, yet a victor. After changing their clothes, Luke and Carr breakfasted together at the after-end of the second officer's table in the saloon. With a certain humour the captain allowed of no relaxation in the discipline of the ship.
The two men bowed. "Are you a sailor?" inquired Luke, almost pleasantly. With Willie Carr it was difficult to be stiff and formal. "Not I; but I'm interested in shipping not the navy, you know merchant service. I'm something in the City, like the young man on the omnibus, eh?" "I'm in the merchant service," answered Luke. "Ah! What ship?" "The Croonah."
He loved danger and difficulty with the subtle form of love which a fighting man experiences for a relentless foe. From light to light he pushed his intrepid way through the darkness and the bewildering intricacies of the Downs, and in due time, in the full sunlight of the next day, the Croonah sidled alongside the quay in the Tilbury Dock.
He harboured no personal dislike towards the man, whose bluff and honest manner made him popular among his fellows. It was the evening of the first day in the Bay of Bengal that a steamer passed the Croonah, running south, and flying a string of signals. The Croonah replied, and the homeward-bound vessel disappeared in the gathering twilight with her code flags still flying.
The Croonah raced on, a ship full of sleeping human beings. There came a faint blue tinge into the eastern sky, a gleam over the eastern sea. The Burling light an eye looking round into the darkness, seeming to open and shut sleepily grew brighter and brighter. It was right ahead! it rose as they approached it until it stood right above the bowsprit. Then Luke FitzHenry changed the course.
The night was over and the dread Bay had had her thousand lives and more, for a cyclone simply wipes out the native craft like writing on a slate. The Croonah had been right through the corner of the worst cyclone of a generation. Luke crawled back to the bridge where the captain stood, as he had stood all night, motionless. Sheer skill and a great experience had pulled the Croonah through.
The Croonah had been thrown away for her sake the Croonah, the patient, obedient servant to Luke's slightest word, almost an animal in its mechanical intelligence, filling that place in the sailor's heart that some men reserve for their horses and others for their wives. Women have been jealous of a ship before now. Eve was jealous of the Terrific; Agatha had always been jealous of the Croonah.
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