During the night the storm developed into that elemental chaos which the landsman exaggerates into a hurricane and the sailor logs as a strong northwesterly gale. Passage along the open decks of the Southern Cross became a hazardous undertaking, an experiment just practicable for a strong man clad in oilskins and seaboots, but positively dangerous for one unable to interpret the vagaries of a ship plunging through a heavy sea. A broken limb or ugly bruise was the certain penalty of an incautious movement, if, indeed, one was not swept overboard.
For a passenger—a non-combatant, so to speak—the only certain way to insure physical safety was to lie prone in a bunk, with a hand ever ready to seize the nearest rail when an unusually violent lurch tilted the vessel to an angle of forty-five degrees and simultaneously drove her nose into a veritable mountain of water.
Maseden contrived to sleep fitfully until a thin gray light, trickling through a tiny port when momentarily free of wave-wash, told him that another day had dawned. The din was incessant. Inanimate things may be inarticulate to human ears, but they speak a language of their own on such occasions—an inchoate tongue made up of banging and clattering, of stunning vibrations, of wind-shrieks, of the groaning of steel framework, riveted plates, and seasoned timber.
The Southern Cross was tackling her work with stubborn energy, but she complained of its severity in every fibre. Ships, like men, prefer easy conditions, and growl in their own peculiar manner when compelled to wage a fierce and continuous fight for mere existence.
Of course a sailor never permits himself to think of his own craft in such wise. “Dirty weather” is simply an unpleasant episode in the routine of a voyage. He regards it much as the average city man views wind and rain—displeasing additions to life’s minor worries, but not to be considered as affecting the daily task.
In a modern, well-found steamship such negative faith is fully justified, and the ship’s company of the Southern Cross went about their several duties as methodically as though the vessel were roped securely alongside a pier in the North River.
The center of the forecastle held a roomy compartment in which meals were served for the crew, and Maseden took refuge there as soon as he was dressed. He obtained an early cup of coffee, and derived some comfort from the fact, communicated by the half-caste sailor he had saved from the falling pulley, that about the same time next day they would sight the Evangelistas light, and soon thereafter be in the land-locked water of the Straits of Magellan.
He realized, of course, that sight or sound of either Madge Gray or her sister was hardly to be expected during the next twenty-four hours. In fact, he might not see them again before Buenos Ayres was reached.
On the whole, it would be better so, he decided. A thrilling and most dramatic incident in a life not otherwise noteworthy for its vicissitudes would close when he was safe on board a homeward-bound mail steamer. After that would come some small experience of a court of law.
For the rest, if he contrived to cheat the newspapers of the full details, he would actually risk his repute as a veracious citizen if he told the plain truth about one day’s history in the Republic of San Juan.
Once, in his teens, when in London during a never-to-be-forgotten European tour, a friend of his father’s pointed out a small, alert man, dressed in gray tweeds, who was hailing a cab in Pall Mall, and said:
“Look, Alec! That is Evans of the Guides. I met him five years ago in Lucknow, and even at that date he had killed his sixty-first tiger on foot and alone. He never shoots stripes any other way. He says it isn’t quite sporting to tackle the brute from the comparative safety of a howdah or a machan—a platform rigged in a tree, you know.”
Philip Alexander Maseden, aged sixteen, neither knew nor cared what a machan was. His faculties were absorbed in the difficult task of reconciling a dapper little man in a gray suit, skipping nimbly into a cab in Pall Mall, with a redoubtable Nimrod who had bagged sixty-one tigers after tracking them into their jungles.
And that was the record of five years earlier. Perhaps in the meantime the bold shikari had added dozens to the total. A mighty hunter, Evans, but hard to reconcile with his environment.
Seated in the wet, creaking cabin, and watching through a window which opened aft the turmoil of seas leaping venomously at and over the stout bulk of the Southern Cross, Maseden thought of Evans of the Guides, and his cohort of tiger-ghosts. Yet not one tiger among the lot had brought Evans so near death as he, Maseden, was when Steinbaum entered his cell on that fateful morning, and, in the closest shave Evans was ever favored with, a violent end had not been averted by stranger means.
How would the story of “Madeleine,” Suarez, and Captain Gomez’s boots sound if told in a cosy corner of a Fifth Avenue club?
By reason of his position in the fore part of the vessel, Maseden could survey the bridge, chart-house and some part of the promenade deck. The head of the officer on watch was visible above the canvas screen which those who go down to the sea in ships have christened the “devil-dodger.” The officer’s sou’wester was tied on firmly, and the placid expression of the strong, weather-stained face was clearly discernible. For the most part, he looked straight ahead, with an occasional glance back, or over the side into the spume and froth churned up by the ship’s passage. Once in a while he would draw away from the screen and compare the course shown by the compass with that steered by the quartermaster at the wheel.
For lack of something better to occupy his mind, Maseden followed each movement of the man on the bridge. Thus, singularly enough, next to the officer himself, and possibly a look-out in the bows, he was the first person on board to become aware of a peril which suddenly beset the Southern Cross.
What that peril was he could not guess, but he saw that the officer was shouting instructions to the quartermaster, and in the same instant the clang of a bell showed that the engine-room telegraph was in use.
Almost immediately the ship’s speed slackened, and as she yielded to the pressure of wind and wave the clamor of her struggle sank to comparative silence.
A few seconds later the captain appeared on the bridge. He, like the officer, gave particular heed to something which lay straight ahead. Evidently he approved of the action taken by his subordinate, because, as well as Maseden could judge, he stood beside the telegraph, with a hand on the lever, but made no further alteration in the ship’s speed.
Naturally Maseden wondered what had happened and watched closely for developments. In better weather he would have gone outside, but it was positively dangerous now to stand close to the ship’s rail, or, indeed, remain on any part of the open deck, while the shadow of an attempt on his part to climb the forecastle ladder would have evoked a gruff order to return.
Within a minute or less, however, he made out that the Southern Cross was passing through a quantity of wreckage, mostly rough-hewn timber. Here and there a spar would unexpectedly thrust its tapering point high above the tawny vortex of the waves; at odd times a portion of a bulkhead and fragments of white-painted panels would be revealed for an instant. Some unfortunate sailing ship had been torn to shreds by the gale, and the steamer was just passing through that section of the sea-plain still cumbered by her fragments, though the tragedy itself had probably occurred many a mile away from that particular point on the map.
By this time the stopping of the engines had aroused every member of the crew not on watch. Some of the men, bleary-eyed with sleep, gathered in the cabin, and their comments were illuminating.
“Wind-jammer gone with all hands,” said one man, after a critical glance at the flotsam on both sides of the ship.
“What for have we slowed up?” inquired another. “The old man ain’t thinkin’ of lowerin’ a boat, is he?”
“Lower a boat, saphead, in a sea like this!” scoffed the first speaker.
“Wouldn’t he try to rescue any poor sailor-men who may be clingin’ to the wreck?” came the retort.
“As though any sort of blisterin’ wreck could live in this weather! Try again, Jimmy. We’re dodgin’ planks an’ ropes; that’s our special stunt just now. One o’ them hefty chunks o’ lumber would knock a hole in us below the water-line before you could say ‘knife’. An’ how about a sail an’ cordage wrappin’ themselves lovin’ly around the screw? Where ’ud we be then?... There you are. What did I tell you?”
A heavy thud, altogether different from the blow delivered by a wave, shook the Southern Cross from stem to stern. The captain looked over the port side, and followed the movement of some unseen object until it was swept well clear of the ship. The engines, which had been stopped completely, were rung on to “Slow ahead” again. They remained at that speed for half a minute, not longer. Then they were stopped once more, and the officer of the watch quitted the bridge hurriedly.
“What the devil’s the matter now?” growled the more experienced critic anxiously. “That punch we got can’t of started a plate, or all hands would ’a’ bin piped on deck!”
Singularly enough, he either forgot or was afraid to voice his own prediction as to a possible alternative. The big foremast which had struck the ship’s quarter was stout enough, most unluckily, to support a thin wire rope, and this unseen assailant had fouled the propeller. In all likelihood, had the captain given the order “Full speed ahead,” the evil thing might have been thrown clear before mischief was done.
As it was, the very care with which the Southern Cross was navigated led to her undoing. With each slow turn of the screw the snake-like rope which was destined to choke the life out of a gallant ship had coiled itself into a death grip.
Soon some of the strands were forced between propeller and shaft-casing. The solid steel cylinder of the shaft became fixed as in a vise. The engines were powerless. To apply their force was only to increase the resistance. They could not be driven either ahead or astern.
The Southern Cross promptly fell away to the southeast under the stress of wind and tide. After her, forming a sort of sea-anchor, lolloped the derelict foremast which, by its buoyancy, was the first cause of all the mischief.
Mostly it was towed astern. Sometimes a giant wave would snatch it up and drive it like a battering ram against the ship’s counter.
These blows were generally harmless, the rounded butt of the spar glancing off from the acute angle presented by the molded stern-plates. Once or twice, however, the rudder was struck squarely, so the chief officer, aided by some of the men, quickly put an end to the capacity of this novel battering-ram for inflating further damage by lassoing and hauling aboard the whole mass of wreckage—mast, yards and tattered sails alike.
Then a gruesome discovery was made. Tied to the mast was the corpse of a man, but so bruised and battered as to be wholly unrecognizable. The poor body, nearly naked, and maimed and torn almost out of human semblance, was stitched in a strip of wet canvas, weighted with a few furnace bars, and committed to the deep again without a moment’s loss of time.
But its brief presence had not been helpful. Singularly enough, sailors are not only fatalists, which they may well be, but superstitious. No man voiced his sentiments; nevertheless, each felt in his heart the ship was doomed.
Collectively, they would try to save the ship. As individuals, the paramount question now was—how and when might they endeavor to save their own lives?
Of course there was neither any sign of panic nor shirking of orders. The ship was stanch and eminently seaworthy. She was actually far more comfortable while drifting thus helplessly before the gale than when battling through it.
Yet every sailor on board, from the captain down to the scullery-man, knew that some forty miles ahead lay a shore so forbidding and inhospitable that the United States government charts—than which there are none so detailed and up-to-date—give navigators the significant warning to keep well out to sea, as the coast-line has not been surveyed in detail.
Yet the case was not immediately desperate. Forty miles of sea-room was better than none. If the gale abated, and an anchor was dropped, it was probable that the engineers’ cold chisels would soon cut away the wire octopus.
Moreover, there was a chance that some other steamer might pick them up and earn a magnificent salvage by a tow to Punta Arenas.
So after breakfast the uncanny harbinger of disaster provided by the body of the drowned sailor was, if not forgotten, at least generally ignored. Pipes were lighted. Men not otherwise occupied gathered in groups, while every eye strove to pierce the gray haze of the spindrift whipped off the waves by each furious gust, each hoping to be the first to discover the friendly smoke-pall of a passing ship.
Certain ominous preparations were made, however. Boats were cleared of their wrappings and stocked with water and provisions. Life-belts were examined, and their straps adjusted.
As the day wore, and noon was reached, the chance of encountering another ship became increasingly remote. Sea and wind showed no signs of falling. Indeed, a slight rise in the barometer was not an encouraging token. “First rise after low foretells stronger blow” is as true to-day as when Admiral Fitzroy wrote his weather-lore doggerel, and the principles of meteorology hold good equally north and south of the equator.
For a time the captain tried to steady the ship with the canvas fore-and-aft sails which big steamships use occasionally in fine weather to help the rudder. This devise certainly got the Southern Cross under control again, and the crew were vastly astonished when bid furl the sails after half an hour.
Surprise ceased when some of them got an opportunity to squint into a compass. The wind had veered from northwest to a point south of west.
Only a miracle could save the ship now. It seemed as though the very forces of nature had conspired to bring about her undoing.
From that moment a gloom fell on the little community. Men muttered brief words, or chatted in whispers. A few paid furtive visits to their bunks, and rummaged in kit-bags for some treasured curio or personal belonging which could be stowed away in a pocket. It was not a question now as to whether the Southern Cross would survive, but when and where she would strike, and what sort of fighting chance would be given of reaching a bleak shore alive.
Every one knew that it would be the wildest folly to lower a boat in such a heavy sea. The sole remaining hope was that the ship would escape the outer fringe of reefs, and drive into some rock-bound creek where the boats might live.
By means of a properly constructed sea-anchor the captain kept the vessel’s head toward the east. Thus, when land was sighted, if any semblance of a channel offered, it might be possible to steer in that direction.
Men were told off to be in readiness to hoist the sails again at a moment’s notice. The anchors were cleared, both fore and aft. Nothing else could be done but watch and wait, while the great ship rolled into yawning gulfs or slid down huge curves of yellow-gray water, rolled and slid ever onward to sure destruction.
During those weary hours, so slow in passing, so swift in succession when sped, Maseden had not once set eyes on his wife or her sister. He had seen Sturgess talking to the captain and first officer, but neither of the ladies appeared on deck.
Still it was an easy thing to imagine just what was going on. The two women were the only persons on board left in ignorance of the certain fate awaiting the Southern Cross. They were told the half truth that the engines were disabled, but that the vessel was in no immediate danger.
It was better so. Of what avail to frighten them needlessly? The ship would have been absolutely safe if the gale blew from the east instead of the west. Even now she might survive. Her chances were of the slenderest nature, but there would be ample time to get the women into an upper deck saloon or the chart-room when the position became desperate. Why embitter the few hours of life yet remaining by knowledge of the dreadful fate which threatened when the end came?
About two o’clock an undulating blur on the eastern horizon told of land. To the best of the captain’s judgment the Southern Cross was off Hanover Island when the accident happened, and her relative longitude had altered but very slightly during the forty-mile drift. It was now or never if anything was to be done to save her.
The forbidding and mountainous coast-line straight ahead was broken up by all manner of deep-water channels, each giving access, by devious ways, to the sheltered Smyth’s Channel; but so barricaded by sunken reefs and steep islets as to present almost insuperable obstacles to the free passage of a large vessel.
Small whalers and guano-boats would not dare any of these straits in fine weather. For the Southern Cross to make the attempt, even provided she ran the gantlet of the barrier reef, was indeed the forlornest of forlorn hopes.
The chief engineer had already assured the captain many times that any further pressure by the engines would inflict irreparable damage, so, risking everything on the throw of the dice and wishful to know the worst, at any rate, before daylight vanished, he ordered the sails to be hoisted again.
All hands were brought on deck, life-belts were adjusted, and boats’ crews stood by. At that moment Maseden caught a glimpse of the two girls. They, with other passengers, were summoned by the ship’s officers and placed in the smoke-room, which, by reason of its situation beneath the bridge, provided a convenient gathering ground in case the boats were lowered.
He saw them only for a moment—two cloaked figures, wearing cloth caps tied tightly to their heads with motor-veils. He could not distinguish Madge from Nina.
It was a strange and most bizarre notion that when the gates of eternity were opening a second time before his eyes the woman who was his lawful wife should now be sharing his peril, yet be separated from him far more effectually than in the Castle of San Juan.
The incongruity of their position did not trouble him greatly, however. Soon he ceased thinking about it. He realized that he, as an individual, could do nothing but obey orders and abide by the decree of Providence.
He was not frightened. Some hours earlier, knowing the physical features of the western coast of South America, he had decided that the odds were a thousand to one against the escape of the ship and her seventy-four occupants. He hoped that when the end came it might not be a long drawn-out agony—that was all. For the rest, he looked forward with a certain spice of curiosity to the fight which captain and crew would make against the giant forces of nature.
An awesome panorama of mighty cliffs, inaccessible islands and isolated rocks over which the seas dashed with extraordinary fury, was opening up with ever-increasing clearness. A mist of driven froth and spindrift hung low over the surface of the water, but the great hills of the interior were distinctly visible.
Irregular white patches near their summits marked the presence of huge glaciers. Lower down the valleys were choked with black masses of firs. Countless generations of trees had grown, and fallen, and rotted, ultimately forming a new, if unstable, basis for more recent growths.
An occasional red scar down a hillside revealed the latest landslide. A cascade would leap out from the topmost part of a forest and bury itself again in the depths.
These outstanding features were all on a huge scale. It was a weird, monstrous land, a place utterly unfitted for human habitation, a part of creation quite out of keeping with the rest of the world. Surveying it impartially, one might wonder whether it had traveled far in advance of the general scheme of things or lagged millions of years behind.
But its aspect was sinister and forbidding in the extreme, and never have its depressing characteristics been etched in darker shadows than when viewed that January day from the decks of the ill-fated Southern Cross.