Kitabı oku: «His Unknown Wife», sayfa 8
It was at that moment, when in a plight seldom equaled and never surpassed by any man destined to survive a disastrous shipwreck, that Maseden’s thoughts reverted to his fellow passengers. There was no need to watch the spar, since he could not fail to become aware of any further movement of the forecastle, so he lashed the kit-bag to a sail ring, again turned his back on the cliff, and gave close attention to the chart-house.
Despite the increasing darkness it was a good deal more visible now than when he had looked that way earlier. No dense clouds of spray or spindrift intervened; hence he noticed for the first time the improvised shutters which had replaced the glass front of the structure on the seaward side.
He was wondering whether or not it was possible that some one might still be living on the only other part of the ship still intact, when he became aware of a figure silhouetted against the sky above the canvas screen of the bridge.
It was, in fact, the captain, who crept out of the chart-house every now and then to examine the state of the iron uprights and the condition of the reef. The gallant old sailor had abandoned, or never formed, any notion of escape, because nothing could live for an instant on the reef itself, and he could not possibly detect the chance of salvation offered by the broken mast. But the nature of the man demanded that he should keep watch and ward over those committed to his care. In all likelihood he experienced a vague sense of relief in being able to discharge even the melancholy duty of noting the gradual breaking-up of the supports.
Three had gone, two on the port side and one on the starboard. When the third stanchion yielded on the port side, bridge and chart-room would fall with a crash and there would be an end. He said nothing of this to the unhappy company within.
“The weather is improving,” he told them cheerfully, as Maseden heard later. “I can’t honestly give you any prospect of escape, but – while there’s life there’s hope!”
And all the time he was listening for the ominous crack which would be the precursor of that final sinking into the depths! The marvel was that the middle of the ship had held together so long, but by no miracle known to man could what was left of her survive the next tide.
Yet why should he add to misery already abyssmal? Death would be a blessed relief; waiting for certain death was the worst of tortures.
No one answered. The survivors – of the twelve four were dead now – were perishing with cold and dumbly resigned to their wretched fate. Had it not been for the protection afforded by the improvised screen, none would have been alive even then.
The wind still swirled and eddied into every nook and cranny. Though huddled together, the little group of men and women were conscious of no warmth. It was with the greatest difficulty that those not clad in oilskins kept any garments on their bodies.
So merciless is the havoc of the sea that its victims are stripped naked even while clinging to the battered hulk of a ship, though this last device of a seemingly demoniac savagery is easily accounted for. No product of loom or spinning machine can withstand the disintegrating effects of breaking waves helped by a fierce gale. The seams and fastenings of ordinary garments cannot resist the combined assault. In such circumstances, a woman’s flimsy attire will be torn off her in a few minutes, while the strongest of boots have been known to collapse after some hours of this kind of exposure.
Luckily a number of oilskins were kept in the chart-room of the Southern Cross; these were quickly served out to the shivering girls, whose clothing had practically melted away as though made of thin paper.
Soon after the captain had tried to hearten them with that scrap of proverbial philosophy, one of the girls, Nina, screamed in an elfin note that dominated even the roaring of the reef for an instant. Her father had collapsed. It was useless to pretend that he might only have fainted. They who fell now were doomed. In Mr. Gray’s case, he was dead ere he sank down.
The chief officer put a consoling hand on the girl’s shoulder. He was a Bostonian, and had daughters of his own. In that hour of tribulation his speech reverted to the homely accents of New England.
“It comes hard to see your father drop like that,” he said. “But it’s better so. He’s just spared a bit of the trouble we may have to face.”
“It is not that,” wailed the girl brokenly. “I’m thinking of my mother. She will never know. Oh, if I could only make her understand, I would not care!”
A strange answer, the sailor deemed it, most probably. At that instant he caught the captain’s eye. Both men had the same thought. The dead should be thrown overboard and thus lessen the weight supported by the one stanchion on the port side.
But of what avail were such precautions? They might as well all go together, the quick and the dead. Why should any of them wish to live on until the sea rose again in the small hours of the morning?
The girls were crying in each other’s arms. Two of the men lifted Gray’s body and placed it with four others. Five gone out of twelve!
The captain, speaking in the most matter-of-fact way, suggested that they should open and drink the last bottle of claret before the light failed.
“It’s a poor substitute for a meal,” he said, “but it’s the only thing we can lay hands on.”
The chief officer nodded his head towards the grief-stricken sisters.
“Maybe we can wait a bit longer,” he said. “You couldn’t persuade them to touch it just now… What’s that, sir? Did you hear anything?”
“No. What could we possibly hear?”
“It sounded like a voice, some one hailing.”
“I think I know whose voice it is,” said the captain. He himself had almost yielded to the delusion. It was distressing to find the same eery symptom of speedy breakdown in his old friend, the chief officer.
Both men listened, nevertheless, and were convinced. In silence they went out into the open, walking stealthily. Each knew that any undue movement might send the remains of the ship headlong to the reef. They strained their eyes in the only possible direction from which a voice might have come – the scrap of forecastle, sixty feet nearer the headland, or, incredible as it seemed, the headland itself. They could see nothing. Maseden’s body was not only in line with the receding angle of the foremast, but that piece of the wreck was merged in the gloom of the towering rock.
Maseden saw them, however, and shouted again, striving his uttermost now that he had attracted attention.
With each effort at speech his voice was becoming stronger. Though it was useless to think of conveying an intelligible message through the uproar of wind and water, he fancied he could get into communication with the inmates of the chart-room, provided they were on the alert. In effect, he had a knife, and was surrounded by an abundance of tangled cordage, and it would be a strange thing if after so many years of active life on a South American ranch he could not cast a weighted lasso as far as the bridge.
He began fashioning the necessary coil at once, working with feverish haste, because his refuge was on the move again, and ever towards the land. A trial cast fell short, as he had not allowed enough lee-way for the wind. He was gathering up the rope preparatory to another effort when a great voice boomed at him from the shadows:
“You have no chance here. You are as well off where you are. If you hear me, hail three times!”
The captain was using a megaphone.
Maseden yelled “Hi!” three times, thinking the short, sharp syllable would carry best. Then, with splendid judgment, he threw the lasso in a lateral parabola that landed its end across the rail of the bridge, where it was promptly made fast by the first officer.
Again came that mighty voice:
“Is there any hope of escape on your side? If so, hail three times.”
He replied. After a short delay he heard the order:
“Haul in!”
Attached to the noose of his rope was another rope, and a second thinner one, rigged as a “whip,” or communicating cord. Tied at the junction was the megaphone. The intent of the senders was plain. He was to bawl directions, and they would obey.
He fancied that by this time the topmast must be near the rock, if not quite touching it, but he had decided already that he would either save those hapless people in the chart-room or die in the attempt.
Perhaps his “wife” was there yet. Unless those American sailors had broken the first law of their order of chivalry, the women committed to their care had been safeguarded.
Well, he owed her a life. Now he might be able to repay the debt in full.
He had never before handled a speaking trumpet, so his initial essay was brief:
“Can you hear?”
He could just catch three faint sounds in answer.
“As soon as a sailor can cross by the rope, send one,” he shouted, “I shall need help at this end. I have made fast the heavy rope. Shall I haul in the whip?”
There was a pause of a few seconds, but he counted on that. Then he felt three tugs on the thinner cord, and began to haul steadily. Soon, by the sagging of the main rope and the weight at the end of the whip, he realized that some one was making the transit.
Before long he discerned a figure coming towards him hand over hand along the rope. The man’s feet were caught midway by the seas boiling over the reef, but Maseden knew that the gallant fellow’s forward movement was never checked, and in a very little while the breathless chief officer was seated astride the mast beneath him.
“Who in the world are you?” demanded the newcomer; at any rate, he used words to that effect.
Maseden answered in kind, and explained his project; whereupon the chief officer seized the megaphone and bellowed the necessary instructions. On a given signal the two men hauled on the whip.
This time a figure lashed to a life-buoy, which, in turn, was tied to a pulley traveling on the guide-rope, came to them out of the darkness. It was a woman, hardly in her senses, yet able to obey when told to sit astride the mast and hold fast to a ring.
“We can hardly find room for five more people here,” shouted the chief officer. “Are you game to shin along the mast and see if that loose spar is practicable yet?”
“Yes,” said Maseden.
He vanished in the darkness. He was absent fully five minutes, a period which, to the waiting chief officer, who alone knew what was actually happening, must have seemed like as many hours. Then Maseden returned. By this time there were two more astride the foremast, four in all. He tied the nearest one to his back with a rope.
“Can you steady yourself by placing your hands on my shoulders, but not around my neck?” he said.
For answer two slim hands caught his shoulders. He began working his way forward into the gloom.
CHAPTER IX
THE LOTTERY
Maseden’s prolonged absence on the first occasion was readily accounted for by what he had done. When he reached the end of the foremast – at the junction of spars known to the sailor as the couplings – he found that the topmast was, in fact, thrust tightly against the rock wall.
Thus far, his most sanguine calculations had been justified to the letter.
It was impossible to determine how the other end of that precarious bridge was secured. He saw at once, however, that a great strain was being placed already on the stays which attached it, by chance and loosely at first, but now with ever-increasing rigidity, to the lower mast. He thought that a vigorous kick would ease the pressure by partly freeing one of the wire ropes which had become entangled in the splintered wood.
Of course, he was only choosing the lesser of two evils. If the spar snapped a second time, the last hope of rescue was absolutely destroyed. On the other hand, by reducing the thrust on the retaining spar, the forecastle might slip.
He kicked, and the stay was released! To the best of his belief the wreck did not move.
Fastening the seaward end of the topmast in a rough and ready fashion, in such wise that it was held in position, yet allowed some play if subjected to irresistible weight, he tested it with one hand. It remained taut. Then, murmuring something which had the semblance of a prayer, he committed himself to the crossing.
The wind carried his body out at an astonishing angle, but he held on. Of course, he had not far to travel, because a steamer’s topmast is of no great length, but, if he lives to become a centenarian, Maseden will never forget the extraordinary thrill of thankfulness and jubilation which ran through every fibre when his right foot rested on a projecting knob of rock.
A ghostly light coming from the white maelstrom beneath enabled him to make sure that the crevice in which the spar had stuck extended some distance into the face of the cliff. He scrambled ashore, and found that a narrow ledge ran inward about the height of his breast. It was practicable as far as a hand could reach; so, well knowing how precious was every second, he commenced the return journey.
He simply did not allow himself to think. The slightest hesitation might have been fatal. He could form no sort of estimate of his own nervous strength. He knew that any man’s willpower may carry him to a certain point and then desert him. He realized that he was leaving a sort of safety for a no mean chance of speedy death; but there is safety that is dishonor, and death that is everlastingly honorable.
Without any semblance of hesitation, this gallant young American swung forth to the desolation and chaos he had just quitted.
Nor did his spirit quail when he had deposited a helpless woman on the ledge. But his hands fumbled in untying the rope which had bound her to him, and he became conscious of an affrighting lassitude which brought with it a grimmer menace than the howling furies of the reef.
He tried to persuade himself that the poncho strapped to his back had made the burden of another body almost unbearable. Hurriedly unfastening it, he said to his collapsed companion – or, rather shouted, because the din created by the breakers was almost stupefying:
“Are you able to hold this?”
Probably she replied, but her utterance was swept away by the wind ere the words had crossed her lips. She took the folded cloak in her hands, and the action sufficed.
Then Maseden left her. During this second crossing to the forecastle he knew beyond range of doubt that he had reached the limit of physical endurance. He had eaten nothing during many hours, he had been knocked insensible and had lost a good deal of blood. It was not in human nature that any man, howsoever fit and active he might be, could survive these heavy drains on his energies and yet put forth the sustained effort now called for.
It tasked his grit to the uttermost to go on this time. He knew in his heart that a third double passage was not to be thought of.
So, during the brief respite while a wholly insensible woman was being tied to him, he contrived to shout to the nearest man on the spar:
“I’m all in! You fellows must follow as best you can. It’s not so bad for a man crossing alone. Turn your back to the wind.”
He had adopted that method while carrying the girl already on the rock, and the force of the gale had seemed to exert less drag on his arms.
It needed a real life-and-death struggle to gain the ledge this time. During a minute or longer he could not even endeavor to undo the rope. He merely lurched forward on to the tiny platform and sank in a heap with the inert body of a girl bound to his back. Then he felt dizzily that someone was gaining a foothold on the rock behind. With a mighty effort he bundled his own body and the girl’s out of the way.
He fancied he heard a shout and a scream, but was beyond knowing or caring what had happened. Had he slipped down into the raging vortex beneath and been whirled to almost instant death he would have felt a sense of relief that the long drawn-out and unequal fight was ended.
He revived under the stress of a new horror. He found himself gazing blankly into a dim obscurity in which there was neither broken topmast nor unheaved forecastle. The tons of metal piled on a slippery rock had vanished completely, and the hapless few who had survived the slow agony of those hours of waiting in the chart-room were hurled to death at the very moment when fate tantalized them with the prospect of rescue!
Someone bawled huskily in his ear:
“They’ve gone! My God! What rotten luck! I could almost have touched the man crossing behind me!.. Can we get these girls out of this?.. Which way did you come?”
It was the young American passenger, Sturgess. He imagined that the man who had brought hope and life to the doomed survivors of the Southern Cross had reached the vessel from the land and could now pilot the three who alone were saved to some place where food and repose would be attainable.
“I’m tied to someone,” Maseden contrived to say. “Try and unfasten the rope, and shove me up on to the ledge… I’m all in, but I’ll soon be better… Mind you hold fast yourself!”
Sturgess, though only a degree less exhausted, did as he was asked. Sprawling weakly over the prostrate body of the second of the two girls, Maseden felt in the darkness for the other one.
He discovered that she had collapsed sideways in a faint, but, by some marvel, the folded cloak had not rolled down the side of the precipice. His hands were feeble and numb, but he contrived to unfasten the strap. The bottle of brandy was uninjured, and, so unnerved was he by knowing that the spirit probably meant all the difference between life and death for four people – at any rate till dawn – that he actually dropped it.
Again Providence intervened. It fell on the thick poncho, and did not break.
Filled with savage resolve to conquer this weakness, he grasped the bottle more firmly, drew the cork with his teeth, and, resisting the impulse to swallow the contents in great gulps, sipped some of the liquor slowly.
He did not offer any to the others at that moment. His mind was clearing now, and he saw that the one vital thing needed was that he should recover control of his mental and bodily powers. A few minutes more or less of collapse mattered not so much to his companions as that he should lead or carry them to a less exposed position. Then the brandy would be really effective. At present, to hand it around in the darkness, while wind and spindrift were whipping them with scorpions, was merely courting the disaster which he himself had so narrowly averted.
The other man had gained the ledge. He could not see Maseden, because each inch of space increased an obscurity already akin to that of a tomb, but he leaned forward and caught his arm.
“Say!” he yelled. “Isn’t there some way out? We’ll die quick if we stop here!”
“You must wait a little,” said Maseden. “I, like yourself, was on board the ship. I’m going to stand up now and prospect a bit by feeling my way. Take care that neither of the women falls off. They are women, aren’t they?”
“Yes. D’ye think we’d send men ashore first?”
“I was not certain that both girls were still living.”
What a time and place for a discussion on the etiquette of life-saving at sea! It was typical of their race and type.
Placing the bottle in a breast pocket Maseden rose cautiously to his feet. Gripping the rock with his hands, he stepped over the unconscious form of the first girl he brought ashore. Evidently she had collapsed when the forecastle was swept away before her eyes.
The ledge led straight into the crevice he had entered during daylight, and though very uneven, trended generally upward. He had to depend, of course, wholly on the sense of touch, since the darkness here was that of a deep mine.
Some thirty feet inland he was halted abruptly. The ledge seemed to widen out and then end against an overhanging rock. But the place was dry, and the wind hardly penetrated, while the deafening thunder of the reef had died down to a harsh growl. By comparison with the sea face this secluded nook was a niche in Paradise. At any rate, here it was possible to await daylight without necessarily dying from exposure.
He hurried back, having memorized each inequality of floor and wall on the journey of exploration.
“Are you able to carry one of those girls?” he shouted to Sturgess when he was once more in the midst of the external uproar.
“How far?”
“Not more than fifteen short strides. Take her in your left arm, and feel the rock face on the right. Keep close in. I’m not certain about the width of this ledge. It rises a little, but is fairly straight.”
“Go right ahead!”
Soon the two men were in the haven of shelter at the further end. Each was clasping an inanimate woman, but happily, speech no longer demanded a straining of vocal chords.
“Is this the limit of the accommodation?” inquired Sturgess, obeying his guide’s restraining hand.
“Yes.”
“Do we sit right down and hope that the sun will rise sometime?”
“Not yet… Here! Grope this way. I am giving you a bottle of brandy. Drink some, not much, because we must hoard it. Then we’ll try and get a few drops between these girls’ teeth. After that we must rub their hands and ankles till the friction hurts. It may revive them. I don’t know. It is the only plan I can think of. When they recover, if ever, we’ll seat them side by side with their backs to the rock, you and I will squeeze close, one on each side, and I have a poncho which will cover the lot. By that means we may obtain some degree of warmth in common.”
“Old man, you said a page full!”
There was silence for a few seconds. Then Sturgess said gratefully:
“Gee! That’s some tonic! Now, how about those girls?”
“Give me the bottle. This lady was conscious when I brought her ashore. She may recover quickly.”
The almost tangible blackness in which the little group of people was wrapped greatly enhanced the difficulties attending restorative measures. Maseden discovered that the abundant hair of the girl he was hugging so closely to his heart had become loose, and was in a wet tangle about her throat and mouth.
The clinging strands were troublesome, but, by prizing her lips open between a finger and thumb, he contrived to make her swallow a few drops of the brandy. In fact, while he was yet doubting the efficacy of the dose, some slight convulsive movements showed that consciousness was returning.
He laid her carefully down, and told the American to do likewise with the sister. Sturgess seemed to be curiously slow to obey, and Maseden admonished him sharply, thinking the other might be dazed.
“Now, rub hard!” he said. “First her left hand – then her left ankle.”
Both set to work with a will. Maseden could not understand why the unhappy girl should be nearly naked. The stockings had fallen about her shoes. For the rest, her chief garment was an oilskin coat.
He, be it remembered, had been spared the hard usage of the waves, and his clothing was better adapted to existing conditions. He was shocked to find how cold she was, how icy and lifeless her flesh. He urged Sturgess not to spare her.
Their rough and ready massage soon proved effective. The girl gasped something incoherent, and strove to withdraw her limbs from a distinctly strenuous handling.
“She’s nearly all right, now,” announced Maseden briskly. “Sharp’s the word with the other one.”
The second patient offered a longer task. By the time she gave any sign of life her sister was frantically asking what had become of her, and was only quieted by Maseden saying sternly:
“You will help most by not bothering us. We are doing our best for your sister. She is here, and may recover. That is all I can tell you.”
“We? Who are we?” came the broken cry.
“Mr. Sturgess, yourself, your sister and I. My name is Maseden.”
He caught a strangled gasp of astonishment, but Sturgess broke in breathlessly, for the exertion was warming him:
“Great Scott! You’ve got my name pat, Mr. Maseden. D’ye mean – to tell – me – you were – on board – that poor old ship?”
“Rub! And don’t talk!.. She moved a little then.”
His judgment was well founded. Within a few minutes he heard the second girl address her sister as Nina.
So this one was Madge, his wife! He had literally brought her back from the very gates of death. He could not even see her. What a curious coincidence that when she saved his life, and he saved hers, she was equally hidden from him; then by a veil, now by the pall of the darkest night he had ever experienced!
The girls began exchanging broken confidences. Madge, who had fainted while being towed across the fearsome chasm between bridge and forecastle, did not know of the loss of the captain and chief and second officers, with a passenger, until told by Nina. She wept bitterly, and Maseden could not help noticing that Sturgess tried to console her in a very lover-like manner.
He actually smiled at the tragic humor of it all, especially when Nina seemed to sense his thought, and valiantly interfered by bidding Madge not to add to their misery by useless grief. He refrained purposely from giving them any more brandy until some time had elapsed. Now that their faculties were restored, he knew, from his own experiences, that their tongues and palates were on fire with the salt-laden atmosphere they had perforce inhaled during so many hours.
But each minute of quiet in this sheltered nook, and in breathable air, would do much to alleviate their suffering, and he trusted to the brandy to put them to sleep.
In effect, that was what actually happened. When each of the four had swallowed a small quantity of the spirit Maseden and Sturgess nestled in beside the two girls and tucked the poncho over knees and feet. The bodies of the men served as excellent shields. In the physical and mental reaction which set in with the consciousness of assured safety – because that was what both girls thought, and neither man cared to weaken their faith – they were sound asleep within half an hour of the time they left the wreck.
Sturgess, too, was worn out, and slept fitfully, but it was long before Maseden’s overtaxed nerves would yield. He could not help speculating as to what wretched hap the coming day might bring. There was a gnawing dread in his mind that they might be lodged in a fissure of an unscalable cliff. If that were so, what a fearsome prospect lay before them! The mere notion was unendurable, and he resolutely refused to dwell on it.
Then he mused on the queer chance which, even in this small company, divorced him from his wife. He had rescued Nina first. By the accident of situation he was nearest the rock which closed the ledge, and she next. It was her body, not his wife’s, to which he was close pressed, and in which his more vigorous frame had already induced a certain comfortable warmth.
Her head had fallen on his shoulder. An unconscious movement revealed that some roughness in the rock wall was hurtful, so he put his left arm around her neck and pillowed her gently.
Try as he might, he found himself still brooding on the chances of the coming day. Fortune favoring, they might find a way to the summit of the cliff. Would they be much better off? Water they would surely obtain – but what of food?
Somehow, in such woful plight, a man’s mind turns instinctively to a pipe. He actually had a cherished briar between his teeth and a tobacco pouch in his hand, when his heart sank at the remembrance that he had struck the last match in the only box of matches in his pocket after breakfast that morning. He recollected tossing the empty box into the sea. Subsequently, in lighting a cigar, he had borrowed a match.
Searching his pockets without disturbing the exhausted girl by his side, he made sure of the unhappy truth. He had no match. Even if they reached the interior of the island they could not possibly start a fire.
He knew at once that Sturgess, who had been soaked in salt water for many hours, was in a worse predicament than himself, because his own clothing was dry inside, whereas the other was wet to the skin, and any matches he might have carried must be in a pulp.
Tucked away in a money belt, Maseden carried ten thousand dollars in American bills, yet one small box of matches would be of far greater practical value in that hour than all the money. Slight wonder, then, if his stout heart failed him at last and the darkness closed in on his soul as on his eyes.
The sleeping girl, conscious only of warmth and protection, snuggled her head a little nearer.
“Mother, darling,” she murmured, “we had to do it! We had no choice. It was for your dear sake!”
That was all – some troubled confidence of a dream – but it sufficed to set Maseden musing on the strange vortex into which fate had sucked him from the peace and seclusion of Los Andes ranch.
His mind wandered. He saw again the magnificent groves of mahogany trees and coyal palms, with their golden flowers fully three feet in height, and the chicka sap oozing from the bark. He sauntered through the well-cultivated plantations of bananas, yams, arrow-root, guavas, and all the fruit and cereals which that favored region of Central America produces in such abundance that men grow lazy and are content to plot and thieve rather than toil. He particularly recalled a number of “chocolate” trees, the marvelous growth which yields a more delicately flavored beverage than the cocoa-tree.
The original owner of the ranch prided himself on these trees – botanically, the Herrania purpurea– because they were not indigenous to San Juan, but had been brought from Guatemala. Los Andes ranch was indeed a veritable Garden of Eden.
While roaming through it in spirit Maseden dropped off to sleep.
And that was a kindly act on the part of a Providence which marks even the fall of a sparrow from a house-top. A full day lay before this man and those others committed to his care. Even a couple of hours’ fitful repose served as a splendid restorative. Without some such respite he could never have faced and carried through the almost Sisyphean task which awaited him at daylight.
