The Blue Lagoon

CHAPTER V: VOICES HEARD IN THE MIST

CHAPTER V

VOICES HEARD IN THE MIST

The sun became fainter still, and vanished. Though the air round the dinghy seemed quite clear, the on-coming boats were hazy and dim, and that part of the horizon that had been fairly clear was now blotted out.

The long-boat was leading by a good way. When she was within hailing distance the captain's voice came.

"Dinghy ahoy!"

"Ahoy!"

"Fetch alongside here!"

The long-boat ceased rowing to wait for the quarter-boat that was slowly creeping up. She was a heavy boat to pull at all times, and now she was overloaded.

The wrath of Captain Le Farge with Paddy Button for the way he had stampeded the crew was profound, but he had not time to give vent to it.

"Here, get aboard us, Mr Lestrange!" said he, when the dinghy was alongside; "we have room for one. Mrs Stannard is in the quarter- boat, and it's overcrowded; she's better aboard the dinghy, for she can look after the kids. Come, hurry up, the smother is coming down on us fast. Ahoy!"--to the quarter-boat, "hurry up, hurry up."

The quarter-boat had suddenly vanished.

Mr Lestrange climbed into the long-boat. Paddy pushed the dinghy a few yards away with the tip of a scull, and then lay on his oars waiting.

"Ahoy! ahoy!" cried Le Farge.

"Ahoy!" came from the fog bank.

Next moment the long-boat and the dinghy vanished from each other's sight: the great fog bank had taken them.

Now a couple of strokes of the port scull would have brought Mr Button alongside the long-boat, so close was he; but the quarter- boat was in his mind, or rather imagination, so what must he do but take three powerful strokes in the direction in which he fancied the quarter-boat to be.

The rest was voices.

"Dinghy ahoy!"

"Ahoy!"

"Ahoy!"

"Don't be shoutin' together, or I'll not know which way to pull. Quarter-boat ahoy! where are yez?"

"Port your helm!"

"Ay, ay!" putting his helm, so to speak, to starboard--"I'll be wid yiz in wan minute, two or three minutes' hard pulling."

"Ahoy !"--much more faint.

"What d'ye mane rowin' away from me?"--a dozen strokes.

"Ahoy!" fainter still.

Mr Button rested on his oars.

"Divil mend them I b'lave that was the long-boat shoutin'."

He took to his oars again and pulled vigorously.

"Paddy," came Dick's small voice, apparently from nowhere, "where are we now?"

"Sure, we're in a fog; where else would we be? Don't you be affeared."

"I ain't affeared, but Em's shivering."

"Give her me coat," said the oarsman, resting on his oars and taking it off. "Wrap it round her; and when it's round her we'll all let one big halloo together. There's an ould shawl som'er in the boat, but I can't be after lookin' for it now."

He held out the coat and an almost invisible hand took it; at the same moment a tremendous report shook the sea and sky.

"There she goes," said Mr Button; "an' me old fiddle an' all. Don't be frightened, childer; it's only a gun they're firin' for divarsion. Now we'll all halloo togither--are yiz ready?"