CHAPTER VIII
IN WHICH SATAN HAS HIS WAY WITH THE
CONCEPCION
DAWN crept sullenly across the heaving bosom of the gulf, as if disaffected by the night’s dark deed. The sun gazed for a moment upon a ship accursed, then hid its light behind black, evil-looking clouds. From the east and south came winds that smote the sea and dug deep valleys in the briny waste. Then, where the valleys gaped, great hills of water rose and wet the air, and chased each other toward the wind-made chasms just beyond. Losing their temper in their wild career, the boisterous blasts let forth an angry roar and lashed the waters viciously. Before the dawn could take the name of day, a mighty battle raged between the gale and gulf.
The command of the Concepcion had fallen to Miquel Sanchez, a veteran seaman, but unskilled in the nicer points of navigation. Knowing the treacherous nature of the waters through which his ship was reeling, uncertain of his course, and depending for aid upon a sullen, superstitious crew, already persuaded that the vessel had been doomed to destruction, the outlook seemed menacing, wellnigh hopeless, to the new master of the Concepcion, as he paced his narrow deck at dawn, and hoarsely shouted orders for the taking in of sail. The ship, showing her keel to the yawning chasms in the sea, rushed affrighted under bare poles through the welter toward the west. As the storm increased in fury, the panic of the crew grew less controllable. Even the helmsman strove to tell his beads when the eyes of Sanchez turned to scan the sky; and, broken by the howling blasts, the noise of prayers and curses echoed from the decks. The desperate sailors knew the sea too well to hug the hope that such a ship as theirs could foil the fury of the storm. Had not a priest deserted them? Had not their captain perished in the waves? Who doubted Satan’s presence on the ship would be too dull to die!
Don Rodrigo de Aquilar had made his way with much effort to Doña Julia’s cabin, and had found her on her knees before the painting of the Virgin, praying for a miracle that should snatch the vessel from its certain doom. The girl’s face, above which raven-black locks were coiled in picturesque disorder, was white from the imminence of their peril, while her soft, dark eyes gleamed with the fervor of her supplication. As she arose to greet her father, the hand which she slipped into his was cold, but trembled not. If the fear of death lurked in her heart, it was only by the pallor of her cheek its presence could be known. Her eyes were steady and her lips were firm as she stood there reading her father’s haggard face to find, if so the saints decreed, a gleam of hope to cheer her soul.
“God’s mercy on us all!” muttered the old Spaniard, pressing his daughter’s hand to his breast. “This Sanchez is as stubborn as a Moor! He will not change his helm! I am no seaman, but I’ve sat with poor Hernandez many an hour and conned the chart of this same sea we sail. But yesternoon he made a reckoning. If the sun spake sooth, upon the course we hold we’ll dash to pieces ’gainst a curving coast. I told this sullen Sanchez what I knew, but, ’though he crossed himself, he gave no heed to me.”
Doña Julia’s arm, showing white as marble against the black cloak hanging from his shoulders, was thrown around her father’s neck. Kissing his pallid cheek, she said:
“I have no love of life; no fear of death! To die with you, my father—will it be so hard?”
“To die without confession—that is hard!” exclaimed Don Rodrigo, despondently. “I begged the Carmelite to stay with us; but, still, he gave me absolution ere he left. And if I perish, ’tis for Mother Church! But listen, Julia! I am old and worn. A few years more or less are little worth. But you are young. You must not die, my child! If I had lured you to an ocean grave, I’m sure my soul would find no peace in Paradise.”
Doña Julia had seated herself upon the edge of her uneasy hammock, and was looking down at her father, who had attempted to maintain an upright posture upon the treacherous surface of a sea-chest fastened by clamps to the cabin floor. Suddenly the old Spaniard arose and stumbled to the hatchway.
“Juan!” he cried, striving to cast his voice amidships in spite of the howling of the gale, the ominous thumping of the loosened ballast, the cries of frantic sailors, and the thunder of the seas as they pounded vengefully against the frail timbers of the ship. “Juan Rodriquez, come aft at once! Juan! Juan!”
A hand, cold as ice, was clapped upon the old man’s white and trembling lips.
“Father, I implore you, do not summon him,” prayed Julia, striving to drag the aged Spaniard back into her cabin. “He cannot serve you now. For Mother Mary’s sake, I beg of you to leave him to his prayers. He has sore need of them.”
Her protest came too late. In the dim, gray light of the hatchway the girl caught sight of a face which even in that awful hour wore an inscrutable, evil smile, as if the diabolical spirit of the storm had rejoiced the soul of Juan Rodriquez.
“We’re driving fast, Juan, upon an unknown coast,” said Don Rodrigo, coolly, a detaining arm thrown around his daughter’s waist. “You’re lithe and muscular, and come of fearless stock. I’ve seen you in the water at Seville.” At this moment the increasing uproar aboard ship compelled the old man to raise his thin voice to a shout. Drawing from his breast a package wrapped in oil-skin, he thrust it toward the out-stretched hand of his secretary. “Here is my patent from the King of Spain. ’Twill serve as Julia’s title to the mines—to the greater glory of our Mother Church! And, for the sake of heathen souls beyond, your arm, my Juan, must save my daughter from these hungry seas. I say to you—”
“Father, as you love me, as you hope for Paradise, put no trust in this man’s loyalty! If you must die, I do not care to live. A thousand deaths were better than a life saved by a—”
At that instant a crash, as if the storm had served as usher to the crack of doom, drove the word she would have uttered back upon her tongue. Don Rodrigo’s white head was turned to crimson by its impact with an iron-jointed beam, and, plunging forward, he lay dead beside his daughter’s feet. Doña Julia tottered forward a step or two, and then fell swooning into Juan’s arms.