“C. Q.”; or, In the Wireless House
aged to drag him, white and motionless, but safe, upon the deck.
Cloud lay there upon his back, his face ghastly in the waning light of the moon, his eyes closed and the blood oozing from a broad scalp wound in his high forehead. His coat still hung idly upon the rail, flopping to and fro with every rise and fall of the ship. Micky, faint now that the horrible danger of the moment was over, sank weakly upon the wooden bench and rested his head on his hands. Both their hats had slipped overboard in the melee, and one arm of Cloud’s coat hanging free of the rest of the garment waved almost like a human thing and seemed to beckon Micky towards the stern. He shuddered at the thought of what they had escaped, and yet his action had been so utterly instinctive, so automatically altruistic, that not until this moment when the man was lying at his feet did he fully perceive the significance of his act. He gazed curiously at this inanimate thing who was in fact no second-class passenger, or shabby adventurer, but the son of an earl, a high-rolling, hunting swell to whom by the curse of the high gods his Lady of the Order of St. John79
