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He could still feel the chug-chug-chug of the ocean liner's engines and had to hold tight to the ladder's splintered rungs to preserve his equilibrium. Mr. Motherwell raised the lantern with sudden interest. "Say," he said, more cheerfully than he had yet spoken, "you haven't been drinking, have you?" "Intoxicants, do you mean?" the Englishman asked, without turning around. "No, I do not drink."
It was just a little sandy bay, lone and desolate; but directly I slipped out of the launch I discovered footprints leading to the ladder's foot, and I knew that men had gone up before me, that very morning it must be, seeing that the tide had ebbed and the sand was still wet.
The Islanders are a child-like race, and from his post at the foot of the deserted accommodation ladder the Commandant could hear them laughing, exclaiming, chattering with the passengers in high-pitched voices. He stood with his boat-hook, holding on by the grating of the ladder's lowest step, and stared at the gray wall-sides of the liner.
Other skaters were dashing up from a distance, and, with the ladder's help, they could get him out of his death-trap without having to trust themselves on the margin of rotten ice. Rupert sprang on to the surface of lumpy, frozen snow, and staggered to where the ladder lay.
But no sooner did the Count look angry, and shake the formidable dagger, than the intelligent animal seemed at once to take his resolution, and clenching his hands firmly together in the fashion of one who has made up his mind, he returned from the ladder's foot, and drew up behind Count Robert, with the air, however, of a deserter, who feels himself but little at home when called into the field against his ancient commander.
"We must get him down, somehow or other," was the reply. "Perhaps the Horners can find a way," suggested Ojo. So they all went through the gate and Dorothy asked the Chief Horner how they could get the Scarecrow off the fence. The Chief didn't know how, but Diksey said: "A ladder's the thing." "Have you one?" asked Dorothy. "To be sure. We use ladders in our mines," said he.
The sky was again all covered with clouds, and fine, warm rain had come on, pattering gayly on the crests of the waves. "Stop! easy!" commanded Chelkash. The boat's nose knocked against the hull of the vessel. "Are they asleep, the devils?" grumbled Chelkash, catching with his boat-hook on to some ropes that hung over the ship's side. "The ladder's not down. And this rain, too.
Here's your grip, here's your hat. The ladder's on the port side. Look where you're stepping. We can't show any lights, and it's dark as " But, even as he spoke, like a flash of powder, as swiftly as one throws an electric switch, as blindingly as a train leaps from the tunnel into the glaring sun, the darkness vanished and the tug was swept by the fierce, blatant radiance of a search-light.
"Pah!" exclaimed this officer, as he arrived at the ladder's foot, and peered around. "Set the light down on the floor and leave us. What a hole!" He waited whilst the corporal re-ascended the ladder and disappeared; then, picking up the lantern, held it aloft and let its rays shine full on Tristram's face.
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