CHAPTER XXIV
In Which the Tragedy of the Racing Ship Is Completed
League upon league of the sea—across and again across two oceans—the sister ships had raced, to fall afoul of each other here almost within sight of port!
While we aboard the Gullwing were cutting adrift the wreckage for dear life, another mast—the mizzen—fell across the Seamew. She was down dreadfully by the head. We could hear the roar of the water pouring into the hole stove in her hull.
I knew Mr. Hollister’s voice, and he was shouting orders to the crew. But nobody heard Cap’n Si speaking; nor was he in sight. I knew as well then as I did afterward that, at the moment of the collision, the master of the Seamew went overboard, sank, and never came up again!
Down came the aftermast of the Seamew; the mainmast was swaying. I reckon the crew responded to Mr. Hollister’s orders not at all. I heard the wail of:
“Boats! boats! take to the boats!”
But when they took another look at the wabbling masts, they waited to launch no boat. With a few words but much action the crew went over her rail, now almost even with the sea, and one after the other began to claw out for the Gullwing which lay to not two cable’s lengths away from the sinking ship.
But Mr. Alfred Barney held to the spokes of her wheel; he made no offer to leave the Seamew, although Mate Hollister, like the men, was already in the sea.
As I hacked at the steel cordage and broken spars I heard Captain Bowditch shouting directions to the men below, and to the men in the water. Ropes and life-buoys were flung to the seamen from the sinking ship. In this comparatively quiet sea there was little likelihood of any of them being drowned.
Mr. Hollister waited to see his hands drawn over the rail of the Gullwing before he came inboard himself. But while this was going on Captain Bowditch discovered the missing second mate still on the wreck.
“Come away from that!” he shouted to Alfred Barney. “Come on! Jump in! We’ll haul you out.”
The young man made no reply, nor did he move from the wheel.
“Come away, you fool!” roared Captain Bowditch.
But Alfred Barney, like Jim Barney, seemed frozen to the spokes of the wheel. The thought in my confused mind was: Had the two brothers deliberately wrecked the sister ships?
The Gullwing had recovered from the shock of the collision. She was not going to sink—at least, not right away. All her crew were inboard now, and Mr. Hollister followed. Nobody spoke of poor Cap’n Si. We all knew that he was missing. But there was a great to-do about Alfred Barney.
“What does that etarnal fool want to stay over there for?” yelled Captain Joe to Mr. Hollister. “Is he a dummy?”
“He iss fey,” whispered old Stronson in my ear.
“Looks like it was his fault the ships came together,” said Bob Promise.
We had descended to the deck again now. Our upper works were in an awful tangle; but we could do no more at present. The tug was steaming in near to us now and it did not matter if we did drift.
All our eyes were fastened upon the Seamew. She was going down steadily, head-on. Already her bows were being lapped by the waves clear to the butt of the jib-boom.
Mr. Hollister sent another wailing cry across to the second mate at the Seamew’s wheel; but the figure did not move, nor did Alf Barney make any reply.
Suddenly our Mr. Barney left the helm. He just motioned to me, and I grabbed the spokes. He sprang to the rail and held out both his arms to his brother.
“Come! Alf, Alf! Come!”
Then it was that Alfred Barney turned his head and looked across at us. His face, white as his brother’s had been, broke into a frosty smile. He raised one hand and waved it to his twin. And then——
There was a roar of sound, a rush of wind, a yell in chorus from all hands aboard the Gullwing, and the mainmast of the Seamew came rushing down, astern! The great spar had been shaken loose and it fell with all its weight along the deck of the laboring schooner. The topmast broke off and sprang into the air, along with a tangle of steel cable and shredded sails.
And when that topmast struck the deck again it wrecked the Seamew’s wheel and pinioned Mr. Alfred Barney beneath its wreckage!
A general shout of horror arose from the Gullwing; but above it rang the clarion tone of Jim Barney’s voice:
“Boat! Boat! Launch the quarterboat!”
Our men sprang to their stations; the young second mate gave his orders quick and sharp. Captain Bowditch did not gainsay him. Mr. Jim Barney had it all his own way.
His crew—the same that had manned the boat when she had picked up the castaways—quickly took their places in the craft. She was lowered with a plop into the sea.
“Give way, men!”
They bent to the oars like giants. The boat shot across the sea to the fast sinking Seamew. I held the spokes of the Gullwing’s wheel idly and watched. Indeed, the tug coming up to hook us attracted no attention from anybody aboard our ship at that moment.
The Seamew was wallowing deep in the water now. Her head was under and her stern was kicking up. She was about to dive like a duck to the bottom.
Suddenly the air-pressure below blew off her forward hatch. Instantly the waves broke across the deck and the water poured into the open hatchway.
Swiftly and more swiftly she sank. When our boat came to the hulk, she presented a steep side for one to mount from the small boat.
“Alf! Alf!” we heard our second mate yell. We could not hear that there was an answer from the man under the wreckage of the topmast.
“Hold her in close, boys!” commanded Mr. Jim Barney. “Give me that boathook!”
“You’ll be drowned, sir!” I heard Thankful Polk cry.
“She’s going down—she’ll suck us all under,” declared Bob Promise.
“Stand by, as I tell you!” commanded the second mate again.
In a moment he had fastened the boathook somehow, and went up hand over hand. He seized the rail of the sinking ship. The small boat backed away. I believe Bob Promise thrust her off with his oar.
“Look out there!” bawled Captain Bowditch, from our poop. “You’re taking your life in your hand, lad!”
Mr. Jim Barney merely waved his hand, notifying the master of the Gullwing that his warning had been heard. But he crawled right up to the stern over that wreckage. He did not look back once.
And down settled the Seamew, lower and lower. She was under seas as far back as the stump of the mainmast. The water boiled around her. There was good reason for our men in the quarterboat to back off. Once caught in the suck of the sinking ship, our men and their craft would go under, too!
I saw Mr. Jim Barney spring over a pile of debris. He stooped, tore away some of the wrecked stuff, and then stood up with his brother’s body clasped in his arms.
For an instant I saw the white face of the unconscious man. There was a streak of crimson on his forehead. Jim Barney looked down into the countenance of his brother and the men in our quarterboat uttered in chorus a long-drawn cry. The Seamew was going down.
Slowly, the eddying water seething about her wounded hull, the ship settled.
“Jump!” shouted Cap’n Bowditch, leaning over the rail, his own face pallid and his eyes aglare.
But that would not have saved them. Mr. Barney could not have leaped far enough with his burden to have overcome the suck of the maelstrom forming about the wreck. And it was right for the men in the small boat to sheer off.
The wreck slid under the surface. Almost the last thing we saw was Mr. Barney, holding his burden in his arms, his own face still bent above the unconscious countenance of his brother.