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Updated: May 3, 2025
Then came a thud, as of the swift contact of two hard objects, and a sound as of a bag of potatoes falling to the deck, which told Denman that some one had been knocked down. "Go ahead with the machine, Sampson," said Jenkins again, "and forward, there. Port your wheel, and steer for the yacht." Denman sprang to a starboard deadlight and looked.
As there was no helping him until I could see what was the matter with him, I hurried first into the machine-shop for a wrench, and then went forward into that dark place cautiously until by a glint of light on the ship's side I made out where a port was, and so got loose the deadlight and could look around.
He entered the lighted wardroom and looked at the telltale above; it told him that the boat was heading due north. Then he entered an opposite room all were unlocked now from which, slantingly through the deadlight, he saw lights. He threw open the thick, round window, and saw more clearly. Lights, shore lights, ahead and to port.
"No guess not," came the answer, through the small deadlight. "Fainted away since we picked her up. Burned or scalded, somewhat." Denman saw the boat for a moment or two as it came alongside, and noticed the still form of the woman in the stern sheets, her face hidden by a black silk neckerchief.
By the light of a lantern shining in his eyes, together with the gray of the early day through the deadlight, he could perceive that two men were bending over him one, a negro in a striped shirt, with a yellow handkerchief around his head and silver ear-rings in his ears; the other, a white man, clad in a strange, outlandish dress of a foreign make, with great mustachios hanging down below his chin, and with gold ear-rings in his ears.
The four changed from the window to the deadlight, and watched the approaching disk with every bit of the excitement and interest they had felt when nearing Mercury. The doctor had warned them that the heavy atmosphere which Venus was known to possess would prevent seeing as clearly as in the case of the smaller planet.
He heard Sampson's footsteps going forward, and called to her softly; but she, too, had moved forward, and he went back to his deadlight. It was a repetition of the scene with the oil steamer. Forsythe, loudly and profanely announcing their wants, and calling the yacht's attention to two twelve-pounders aimed at her water line.
But in this Captain Williams was doomed to disappointment. The coast guard arrived in time and released them. But before this each man of the twenty-four had passed before the open deadlight, derided and jeered the unlucky prisoners, called them unprintable names, and slid down the side on a rope to dry land.
Then he left the room, locking the door behind him. Denman smoked until he had finished the cigar, and, after he had eaten a supper brought by Billings, he smoked again until darkness closed down. And with the closing down of darkness came a plan. Tossing his cigar through the opened deadlight, Denman arose and unlocked his door, passing into the small and empty wardroom.
Leary dragged himself up beside the skipper. As the deadlight had been closed over the port, the state-room was illumined only by a gray half-gloom from the cabin. "This bunk bes nigh full o' junk," said Nolan. "The skipper o' this ship must ha' slept in the lower bunk an' kept his stores here.
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