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When Paul got up to them, he found by the dim light of the lantern which Sam had that he had made the child fast to a stanchion, evidently for fear of his again running away, and he was now busily engaged in casting him loose.
He was dressed in a suit of oilskins, a life-preserver strapped under his arms; he wore no hat, and at every gust his drenched hair and beard whipped across his face. Just as the boat was pulling away from the wreck, Vandover and the others saw the little Jew of the plush cap with the ear-laps standing upon the rail of the steamer, holding to a stanchion.
The man had merely slipped over the edge of the quay, and clung like a limpet to the rough baulks of timber which faced it; when his pursuers were safely disposed of on board the barge, one cut of a sharp knife had sent them adrift by the stern, while the forward rope, released of any strain, had probably uncoiled itself from a stanchion with the diabolical ingenuity which inanimate objects can display at unlooked-for moments.
The light from a brazier, fitted into a stanchion in the prow of the boat, in which some pieces of birch-bark were kindled, brought the deep dark shadow of the woods into sharp relief, and gave a more vivid brilliance to the immediate surroundings; but along the dimly-lit path in the forest all the magical influences of the night held sway.
It struck with the full force of a tropic hurricane. The boat rocked, the wind blew, and billows swept the deck. At the height of the tempest Beulah Baxter sprang from the cabin to the deck, clutching wildly at a stanchion. Buffeted by the billows she groped a painful way along the side, at risk of being swept off to her death.
"I have a mind to turn you over to the police," I told him, expecting him to take alarm and run away, for I was not so sure he had not had a hand in the murder of the sailor in the Flagship Bar. The cochero had pulled up his horse on the mole in the thick of the scattered cargo, and Petrak still clung to the stanchion supporting the canvas-top of the carriage.
With a sudden plunge of arms and legs, the prisoner swept the bed sheet from him, and sprang at the wooden rail and grasped the iron stanchion beside it. He had his knee pressed against the top bar and his bare toes on the iron rail beneath it. Below him the blue water waited for him. It was cool and dark and gentle and deep.
My feet were just off the stanchion when the bow struck fairly into the middle of the sea, and it washed the ship fore and aft, burying her in the water. As soon as she rose out of it, I looked aft, and everything forward of the mainmast, except the long-boat, which was griped and double-lashed down to the ring-bolts, was swept off clear.
What's the use keepin' track of how high you are, anyway? You'll only bore just so big a hole in the water if you fall. But it's funny how soon you can get over feelin's like that. Inside of three minutes I'd quit grippin' the stanchion and was sittin' there peaceful, enjoyin' the ride.
Nearly a third of the shed roof over our heads was destroyed, and one of the stove lids, after cutting a small stanchion half in two in front of the Indian, whizzed between us and drove partly through the weather-boarding beyond. I was as white as a sheet and as weak as a kitten and speechless. But the Indian betrayed no trepidation, no distress, not even discomfort.
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