The silver light from the Bengola enabled me to see clearly the strange sight that presented itself to our gaze. Owen was smoking his cigar, and Washburn and my father were talking about India. The whistle and the shout from the steamer were the first intimations we had that anything was wrong. I could see some lights in the gloom that hung over the river, but nothing to enable me to ascertain the situation, until the Bengola illuminated the scene.
It was a strange sight. I could not tell whether the building was a house or a stable, though it appeared to have too many windows for the latter. The Islander, it appeared, had run her bow into the structure up to the pilot-house. The steamer was still working her screw. But the odd complication floated slowly down the stream towards the bank of the river opposite the position of the Sylvania.
"Call all hands!" I said, with energy. "Tell the engineer to stir up the fires."
Washburn hastened to execute the orders, and the rest of us watched with increasing wonder the floating mass, which was every moment increasing its distance from us.
"I say, Captain Alick, can you tell me what all that means?" asked Owen Garningham. "Was the Islander going into that house to spend the night?"
"I really can't say whether she was or not; but it is not likely that the steamer went on shore for a night's lodging in the building," I replied.
"I dare say the Islander could not handle herself very well on the land, if she found any land to get on," added Owen.
"It is more likely that the house, or whatever it is, was afloat when the Islander knocked for admission," I continued.
"If the steamer knocked, the house appears to have opened to her."
"How is your steam, Moses?" I called through the tube to the engineer.
"Rather low for working in this current," came back to me through the tube.
At that moment the Islander whistled again. I pulled our whistle line, and found we had steam enough to give a smart reply; but I was not willing to trust the Sylvania to the rapid river without a full head of steam. I lighted another Bengola. In its glare I saw that the other steamer was backing her screw, as probably she had been doing from the beginning. I judged that the building was about fifty feet long, and, as it was partly submerged, it presented a large broadside to the rapid current.