Then with almost frantic haste he scrambled on deck, feeling as if by being down there another minute he might be risking his chance of rescue. But when he again reached the mainmast and looked around only the same blank circle greeted him. And his mind, until then fairly calm, fiercely rebelled at the idea of being lost now, when the weight burdening him told him that should he reach home again, he would be able to secure a position for himself as captain of a ship by the hitherto impossible means of buying an interest in her. Had he waited to analyze his feelings, he would no doubt have wondered why the possession of a little gold should have the power to change his usually calm and philosophic behaviour into the fretful eager frame in which he now found himself; but at the time all his hopes, all his energies, were concentrated upon the one idea, how to save, not merely his life, but his newly gotten gold for the enjoyment of that dear one bravely waiting at home.
The long bitter day passed without other sign of life around, than the occasional deep breathing of a whale close at hand, or the frolicsome splash of a passing porpoise. His vitality, great though it was, began to fail under the combined influences of cold and hunger and thirst. So that he passed uneasily to and fro between sleeping and waking, only dimly conscious all the time of decreasing ability to resist the combined influences of these foes to life. Day faded into night, and still the wind did not rise, although the sky continually threatened, being so lowering that the night shade was almost opaque. As he lay semi-conscious some mysterious premonition smote him to his very vitals, and raised him erect with such nervous energy that he felt transformed. There, almost upon him, glared the two red and green eyes of a great ship, while, high above, the far-reaching electric beams from her fore masthead made a wide white track through the darkness. He shouted with, as it seemed to him, ten voices, “Ship ahoy.” And back like an echo came the reply, “Hullo.” The alarm was taken, and close aboard of the derelict the huge mail steamer came to a standstill, saved from destruction. In ten minutes John Furness was in safety, and three days after he landed in London, bringing the first news of the loss of the Kafirstan. And in three days more his treasure trove had secured for him the position he had so long fruitlessly striven to obtain by merit and hard work.