“Purser, you might have been doing this all your life,” the officer told him.
Colet reflected. “I think I have,” he said. Quite true; all the life he had had. Collins glanced at him, with a trace of alarm.
“I say, Colet. Don’t you go lightheaded like some of ’em.”
“I’m all right.”
“I wish it would rain.”
“A drop would about save the worst cases. Lycett’s bad.”
“Yes. I can’t do any more, can I?”
“Collins, you’re fine. We’re lucky.”
“I wonder how Sinclair’s bunch is getting on?”
There she was, just on the round of a sea, a tiny model. They sighted her together.
“About the same, of course.”
“Well, we’ll hear when we’re picked up. I say, Colet, it wouldn’t do to give the fellows more water, would it?”
“No. Not the way we’ve reckoned it. Wouldn’t do. We must wait.”
“Yes. Take our chance. Colet … talking of drink. Lord. I was going to talk about it, but I won’t.”
“No. Keep off the drink, Collins.”
“I know. My mouth’s coated with gum.”
The quivering of the sail had a strange effect. It was like a ceaseless glittering. It was like sun-points on a milldam on a drowsy summer afternoon, when you could just hear the rumbling of the mill. Colet took his eyes off that hypnotising movement, and glanced to windward. A mass of smooth glass was about to pass under them, and deep in its body he saw a long phantom, a suspended monster, that writhed once, and faded. It had gone under the boat.
The steersman’s eyes went back to the sail. Collins was still talking, but his voice was only like the muttering of the mill. The men were very still. Somebody ought to cover up Lycett’s face. The sun was too bright.
“Wilson,” he said, “cover up Lycett’s face.” But he did not hear his own voice in that silence. It was impossible to break that silence. Wilson did not move. The seaman sat like a statue. He was the Sphinx, his hands on his knees, staring like that.
Nobody moved. Nobody. They couldn’t. They would never move again. They were dead. There was only a deep humming. That was the world. It was droning in space. That was the sound of its sleep. They were floating off. All their weight had gone. Their boat was under them, and so plain you could still see it. There it was, that shadow inside the sea, but it was fading, fading. The old world was sinking under them. That was why they could hear it. It was dwindling and droning away. Wilson was watching the world leave them, and it was all right. You could trust Wilson. They were getting near that star now. Light ahead! The star was coming their way, and it was growing, growing round, like the sun, growing bigger every minute: so bright that it was a white blaze, the white centre of eternity with time streaming from it in spears. That was God. His face was going to show in that white light. They must keep looking. …
“Colet!”
“What’s that?”
“Were you asleep?”
“Not me … I dunno.”
“The sun’s cruel hot. I wish a squall would come along. Some rain. … Those men look pretty sick.”
They sat with their heads close together, their tousled hair grizzled with dry salt. They looked aged, with grey beards. Only the boat retained youth and eagerness. She was as buoyant as ever. They could find nothing more to say. Collins sighed, and stood up. He looked to Sinclair’s charge, a mile away to windward. His eyes circled round, and suddenly his hand gripped hard the steersman’s shoulder.
“Coming up astern! Colet, a ship.”
His voice was raised and confident.
“Sail-ho!”
The dead figures stirred. They came to life. Some of them rose, clutching the gunwale, crouching with a grip on the thwarts, or clasping the mast. They were staring aft.
“All over, boys. Here she comes.”
“It’s a liner, sir,” said Wilson.
“Of course it is. That’s what we want. Share round what’s in the breaker, Wilson. She can’t miss us.”
Sinclair had seen it too. His boat had luffed. Colet did not remember afterwards very much of what followed. Collins took the helm. She was black, the liner, with a long row of round ports, circles of gold. She was enormous, when she stopped. She was bigger than the sea; she blotted it out. Her upper works were white, and she hardly moved, though the waters were dancing beneath her. There was someone shouting from her bridge. Along her rail was a row of still figures, regarding them silently, from a great height. Colet sat in dazed astonishment. Women in white dresses were looking down at them.
XXI
The liner’s deck was a neat road, a disciplined promenade, and the seams of its scoured woodwork ran so far and straight that they were as incredible as plain truth. It had garden seats. The extraordinary thing about that deck was that it was too solid and steady. Colet could only flop loose feet upon it. It was funny, trying to walk on a steady deck. The feet didn’t know it was steady.
“Purser, I can’t move,” complained Collins, in a whisper. “I can’t walk.”
A beneficence had come unexpectedly out of the blue, just as the apparitions of monsters had loomed beside the boat in the body of the sea, and as the hopeful lights of ships, in night watches, had declined into setting stars. But it had come. It enfolded them. They
