I stood beneath the bridge holding on to a friendly stanchion, and gazing apathetically before me. I could see Waller’s brawny figure outlined upon the bridge, every movement of his muscles showing up against the moonlit sky. He wrestled strenuously with the bucking wheel as it fought in his grasp, while above him the ragged clouds scudded fiercely, giving him the effect of rushing violently backward into space as they passed swiftly over him. The wind had increased with the rise of the waning moon, and the lull, which mercifully allowed us to rescue the derelict boat, was blotted out in a turmoil of foam and fury. The tumult of the night found an echo in my heart.
For, unlike my usual custom, I had allowed myself to hope. In my conceit of my plan for gaining an interview with Gwen—in my hopes and fears of our meeting coming off—I had not dwelt much on the fact that it might end in failure—in despair. Gerry was partly responsible for this. For the last week he had continually dinned his sanguine reassurances into my ears till they had almost ousted my natural pessimism. I had forgotten to deceive Fate with a pretense of despondency, and she had turned to sneer wickedly in my face and to flout me for my inattention. I gripped the stanchion savagely as I thought of these things, I turned a silent face to the hubbub of the night, while every passion of my body rioted in my brain. I took an infuriate comfort in the thunderous grapple of the elements.
For, look at it how I would, I was condemned to hours—if not days—of smiling torture. Here was I cooped up in the same ship with the woman to whom I had utterly given over my heart, and honor—bare courtesy, in fact—forbade me to so much as hint to her my love. Mere common kindness bade me further the wooing of my rival. And he—I gnashed my teeth as I remembered it—if my luck had only allowed, might have been a thousand fathoms deep in this shrieking whirlpool of a sea. If ever the temptations of Cain filled a man’s heart, they crowded mine that tempest-ridden night.
I fought with my passion, thrusting these ideas back from me, conjuring up to myself every thought of chivalry that my upbringing could give birth to. I remembered my apathetic renunciation of Gwen when we parted six months before—my calm and fatalistic determination to live down dispassionately the desire of my life. None the more did it bring comfort as I told myself that now I had the right and the means to win her—that as before God, and not before a sordid, money-worshipping world, we were just man and maid, and had looked upon each other in natural love and liking. I cursed the narrow world of Society with an insistence that gained power from the fact that I stood in the very cradle of nature’s wrath, and Society was dimmed by the distance of three thousand miles—veiled behind a curtain of storm and dancing spray. Thus during the long hours of the night I battled with myself in disjointed, hopeless argument, and the storm rattled round me with growing clamor.
It was about three in the morning when the climax of the tempest came. A shock quivered up from our stern, vibrating through every timber of our hull as if by electricity—a tremor such as no mere breaking wave could have caused. It was as if we had been smitten by some Titan sledge-hammer. Above the bellow of the storm I heard Waller’s cry of dismay, and saw the wheel spin uselessly through his hands. He came headlong down from the bridge.
I sprang forward to steady him as he half stepped, half fell from the ladder, and he lurched into my arms. As the unguided ship swung round before the impact of the rollers, the deck stood up at an angle that shed our footing from it. We gripped each other unhandily. The bow leaped, and shook itself as if in pain. A ponderous surge charged into it. The ship gave before the shock, throbbing through every timber. It swayed, hesitated, and then, defeated in the unequal struggle, broached to, and lay in the trough of the sea. A great flood roared down the deck, snatching up the captain and myself in its green mane and dashing us stunningly against the deck-house. We spluttered and choked, gasping for breath.
“The rudder-chains are broken,” exclaimed Waller hoarsely, as he gulped and crowed, and he made a dash for the foc’sle, roaring aloud for the watch below. They never heard him till he thrust his face into the very door. Unsteadily they came tumbling out to scramble along the listed deck, and find and splice the sundered links. The rattle of their intermitting hammering and dragging could only be heard if you stood within a foot of them.
The seas boiled over us eternally while this was doing, and for half-an-hour we were practically beneath the waves, the ship settling under the weight of water as she rolled broadside into the seas. The engine still thrashed wearily round, but ungoverned as we were, our leeway was twice our speed of steam. We only butted our prow more and more under the combs of the great rollers. Finally six men were stationed with ropes spliced to the broken chains, and Waller mounted the bridge again. By strenuous tugs they hauled upon the tiller as his hand motioned to them, and slowly we came round to face the gale again. As we did there was a clang and a jar. The white wake faded from behind us, and came flying up past the sides. We were sidling back with gathering speed into our sternway. The cover was flung off the engine-room man-hole, and Eccles’s grizzled head appeared.
“The propeller-shaft, my lord,” he bawled, his voice rising screamingly in his excitement, “the propeller-shaft’s split. I daren’t give her another turn in this sea.”
As our way lost itself in the force of the contending waters, and died down into nothingness, we slowed, stopped, and a huge mass of ocean roared against our prow. It lifted, lifted, lifted, soaring towards the very heavens. I saw it eclipse a red, angry planet that I had noticed high above the bowsprit-stays a moment before. It hovered a single tense instant, and then with a swirl and heave came flying round, reeling and staggering. There was a rush of the crew to gain some hold or to brace themselves against some shelter. Then with a frightful roll we swung over, and lay on our beam ends, the hungry waves licking along our submerged decks like wolves ravening for their quarry.
Out of this hopelessness Waller led us like the brave man he was. After infinite research the carpenter produced a storm-sail, which had not been buried beneath the weight of superincumbent wreckage. Under the captain’s skilful supervision this was bent as a jib. Slowly, as the wind gained force upon it, we dragged from under the weight of the waves that were thrusting us deeper and deeper under their piled thronging, and drew round to show our stern to the wind. As we ploughed our way out of the trough of the sea, the waters rushed more and more from off our streaming decks. We rose; the ship shaking itself like a dog. We gained speed. The men took up the rudder ropes they had flung aside, and in another two minutes we were riding—racing, before the gale, back—straight back—to the regions of the Great South Wall.
As we gained way the ship steadied herself. The ponderous lurch and roll grew less. The keel sat more evenly in the hollow between the seas, cutting through their crests like a knife as the sail bellied out and tautened. We managed to get another piece of canvas spread, and then like a thing endowed with sudden life the Racoon began to tear before the wind, bursting aside the surges as she overtook them, as if she would revenge haughtily the shame they had put upon her helplessness. There was an exhilaration about the fury of our rushing. It was like riding a mettled and tireless steed.
I left the crew to their work of re-connecting the broken rudder-chain and went below. The saloon was a desolation. Every movable thing had been swept to port by the list of our sudden broach to. The table was leaning with its top against the side. A litter of glass and crockery filled the port corners. A mass of pantry gear had been shot across the floor. Smears of various sauces from the same locality stained the carpets. Water had forced itself down through the hatchway—though this had been battened—and sparkled in puddles beneath the electric light. The knives and forks and splinters of glass jingled as they clustered and broke apart again at each heave of the ship. And in the midst of this conglomerate desolation sat poor Lady Delahay and her daughters.
The former rose hastily as I swung myself off the stairs into the doorway. She staggered towards me, her face white with anxiety. Her hand trembled as she dropped it unsteadily on my arm.
“Lord Denvarre?” she questioned, tugging insistently at my sleeve. “He’s recovering?”
“Right as the mail,” answered I; “he was a bit knocked out of time at first, but we’ve brought him round famously between us. And you?” I queried, “I hope you have been ministered to properly?”
“I could think of nothing—absolutely nothing,” she answered, “while we were without news of him. Oh, Lord Heatherslie, supposing my darling had been practically widowed before my eyes?”
“It’s been a terrible night for you,” said I, “but I’m glad you were spared that crowning sorrow. Then I suppose I’m to congratulate Miss Gwendoline on her engagement?” I went on, looking across to where the two girls were trying to tidy up some of the worst of the jumbled disorder of the floor. “I’m sure she has the best wishes for luck and happiness from me.”
“It’s not announced at all yet,” said the good lady hurriedly, “in fact, you see there was no one to announce it to. There were no people of any position on board, and it has only really been seriously taken into consideration the last few days. A little awkward, you know, under the circumstances, our being fellow-travellers for so long. So we have decided that it shall not be recognized just yet. Just an understanding, you see, not a formal betrothal till we return to England, if we ever do,” added the poor old thing doubtfully. “Oh, my dear Lord Heatherslie, shall we ever reach any port alive?” and she sank back on to the cushions of the locker seats with a groan.
“Well, at present,” said I, “I must confess that we’re flying away from the nearest port at the rate of about twenty miles an hour. Our engine’s broken down, and we have to run before the gale. But it’ll only be the case of an hour or two, I hope, and then we shall be able to beat up for the Falklands. But it’ll be a long business at the best. You will have to put up with our bachelor quarters and our rough accommodation.”
“Lord Heatherslie,” she said brokenly, “when I think what might have happened, I should be less than Christian if I didn’t give thanks with a full heart. Even though we have lost everything in the way of clothes and property, I have my darlings safe, and their happiness is secured. That is sufficient for me.”
“Oh,” I said, “then I have to congratulate Miss Violet also. Mr. Garlicke, I presume?” I inquired with an air of savage festivity. Poor Gerry, his optimism was to get felled to earth along with mine. Well, I felt there was something in both being in the same boat. We could make our moans in company.
“Quite on a par with Gwendoline’s affair,” answered Lady Delahay, holding up a warning finger. “Nothing to be said about it yet, please. Is it possible I recognized Mr. Carver on the deck?”
“Quite possible,” I replied dryly, “you did. He and I and the Professor Lessaution—who is helping him tend the rescued men—are the only passengers aboard,” and as the girls gave over their useless competition with the litter of the crockery, and came and sat beside their mother, I began to give them the whole story.
For a girl who had just been dragged by main force out of the blackest shadow of death, I never saw anything to equal Gwen. Her eyes were bright, her complexion was pink and shining, the sparkle of the salt spray was on her hair. She looked as smiling and content as if she had found the desire of her heart, instead of having just seen fivescore of fellow-beings consigned to a frightful end. Her gaze dwelt upon my face as she listened intently to my story. She looked as complacent as if we were at anchor off Monaco, instead of driving Lord knows where into an uncharted sea, before one of the fiercest gales that ever started a ringbolt. I reflected with internal wretchedness that a girl’s horizon is bounded very narrowly when she is in love, and envied Denvarre under my breath furiously.
In their turn they told me of their adventure, and what had befallen them on that night of horror. How in the midst of light and life, and the friendly converse of the yacht’s saloon, a dishevelled lampman had appeared, grimy, hot, and with fear of death writ largely on his face, and beckoned out the captain from amidst the throng. How, restless in his continued absence, one or two unquiet passengers had followed him, and returned with vague reports of a fire in the lamp-room forward, and how on the word the whole mob of passengers had surged on deck. That then the iron sea discipline of a well-ordered British merchant vessel had been closed around them instantly, and they had been marshalled in parties to the boats to which they had been assigned. But the fire continuing to gain, and the sea to rise, they had been confronted by an awful death on either hand. When the captain had been obliged to abandon hope, he had lowered away the first boat, and within seconds they had seen it dashed to pieces like an eggshell on their bulwarks. The second and third boats had shared the same fate, and two more had been swamped in sight of the vessel. Then as a last chance the captain had had a boat swung from the bow with a long tether, and they had been transferred to it one by one as the seas swung it backward and forward between their passing and repassing, but when but a dozen of them were aboard, the painter had parted—worn with the constant to and fro against the timbers—and they had been swept to leeward as in a flash. Five minutes later the flames had covered the ship from stem to stern, and they shuddered when they told what they had seen, as dark forms began to drop from her red-hot decks into the merciful cold of the sea. And they ended the tale with the tears that are the due of utter terror and long despair, and I made no effort to stay this gracious relief of nature’s pity.
As the ship began to steady her plunging, we made efforts to find accommodation for the ladies, to whom, of course, we gave up our cabins. They were absolutely destitute of everything beyond what they stood up in, and were robed as it was in such rugs and blankets as had been collected while their outer garments were dried in the stoke-hole. We got them at last to retire and find a much-needed repose, a thing that their terror had forbidden so far, for the rolling of the masterless ship had been enough to make any one believe that she would only find a resting-place on the bottom of the furious sea.
I left them with good wishes for sleep and for forgetfulness of the horrors they had experienced. I sought the smoke-room to make inquiry for the rescued men, and found that they had all lapsed into unconsciousness, tucked up in the blankets which the crew had surrendered to their use. Lessaution and Gerry were stretched upon the floor, sleeping heavily after their strenuous attendance on the half-frozen folk, and I left them to their slumbers; amid my own misery I had a heartache to spare for Gerry’s awakening of sorrow.
I climbed up upon the bridge again and stood beside Waller. White-faced and haggard with the anxieties of the night, he was still at his post. He watched with hopeful eyes the coming of the dawn, which was already tingeing the east with an angry, lurid crimson. Still racing before the billows that hunted us we were plunging ever southward, returning swiftly down the track up which we had fought so ploddingly the last six days. The captain’s clothes hung about him in limp sodden clingings; he leaned wearily upon the wheel, guiding it delicately in the strong grip of Rafferty, who shared the toil of restraining it. There was weariness and exhaustion in his every pose, but his eye was still bright and his face set steadfastly upon his duty. I watched him with admiration—the strong, confident sailor who held our lives resourcefully in his unshaken grip. A glow of pride pulsed through my veins as I recognized that this was the type of commander who was lifting England’s honor high across the seas of two hemispheres, that what this staunch self-reliant man was doing would have been done in like case by unreckoned hundreds of his fellows. I thanked God again for the mercies of the night, with special acknowledgment for the fact that we were manned by a wholesome British crew.
I laid my hand lightly upon his shoulder.
“Take a rest, captain,” said I; “let Janson come and have his spell. You’ve been at it twelve long hours already. Surely there’s nothing left but to let her drive.”
“Thanks, my lord,” he answered, smiling back cheerily into my inquiring eyes. “Janson’s only been two hours below. I’ll give him an hour longer at least.”
“But Rafferty’s here, and I can hold the wheel, if that’s all,” said I reproachfully; “what’s the good of killing yourself, man?”
“I’ve had many a longer bout in weather no better,” and he shifted the spokes a point in his deft, unhesitating hands.
“But what’s the trouble?” I answered, almost irritated by his unswerving determination. “Why can’t we take her from you? We’ve got the sense not to let her broach to, at any rate.”
“Ice is the matter, my lord. Ice—and acres of it. You forget we’re racing back into the South at fifteen knots an hour. If the gale doesn’t drop before evening, we shall be among the bergs again. We may meet outlying floes at any moment.”
“Then we’d call you,” said I argumentatively; “so just you skip along and take a snooze with a clear conscience.”
“Thanks, my lord, I shouldn’t sleep,” he said dryly, wiping the spray from his beard, and there was nothing further to be said. I shrugged my shoulders and left him there, vigilant, alert, eternally craning his eyes into the veil of the spin-drift, a valiant warrior of the deep.
The presage of the lurid sunrise was fulfilled. All day long the gale shrieked and raved behind us, screaming through our taut rigging like some inarticulate storm-spirit’s agony. The sullen waves still thundered after us, lifting our stern, and burying our bows now and again in the crest of some laggard comber. They broke thunderously across our bulwarks, dashing themselves into a very dust of spray. It glistened snow-like in the sun-rifts, as they broke now and again through the leaden haze that hid the sky. The scud of the clouds kept pace above us, wreathing and twisting into a thousand fantastic shapes. The gulls screamed and hovered, and the petrels dipped and scurried from crest to crest. The roar of the surges and the shiver of the laboring timbers followed one upon the other monotonously. One got stupefied by their ceaseless, recurrent boom and thud.
About mid-day the stress of the night began to tell upon me. I remembered that during four-and-twenty hours of physical and mental excitement I had had no sleep. I staggered wearily down into the smoke-room, curled myself up beside Gerry’s still motionless form, and before I had closed eye a minute, sank off into dreamless unconsciousness.
The dark was falling again as I woke. Both Gerry and Lessaution had disappeared, but I could hear the bellow of the tempest strong as ever.
I scrambled to my feet, and made my way uncertainly to the saloon. The remains of a meal stood uncleared upon the table, and I began to satisfy a hunger which had got stupendous. Then back up the pitching companion-steps I tottered, and strode out upon the deck.
The seas were still leaping along our sides, but not quite so strongly. Up on the bridge I recognized Janson’s burly figure, and perceived with thankfulness that Waller had at last surrendered his post. In the bow Gerry and Lessaution were clutching the foremost stays, and pointing excitedly before them. I wormed my way along the deck and joined them.
Standing out blue-white above the froth of the boiling sea a great iceberg was rearing its head. It hung there haughtily and unmoved, despising the rage that made the breakers raven at its feet. The wind shrieked about its pinnacles, thrusting one now and again from its seat upon the ice buttresses, and sending it crashing into the deep. But the main mass of the white mountain stayed motionless, a mighty breakwater sheltering the leeward surface into a rippling pool.
Janson raised his hand to his mouth, and roared some indistinguishable order to the watch on deck. The men came racing forward, and hauled at the sheets. The sails came lumbering down, and as we lost the steadiness of their grip upon the wind we began to pitch and tumble again.
Not for long. The wheel spun in the mate’s hands, and with our way still swift upon us we began to turn. We nosed in towards the white pyramid. We swung past its leeward edge. Our cutwater broke a burnished line across the stillness of the sheltered pool. In a very instant the travail of our storm-hunted vessel ceased. We swung, heaved to, upon the calm, gently swaying to the ripples, while outside the storm still bellowed for our lives.
Behind this sudden refuge we lay almost motionless, looking up wonderingly at the shining peaks above. Baines and the cook accepted the altered conditions with surprise and thankfulness, making immediate preparations for a meal which should obliterate the discomforts of the past eight-and-forty hours. The smoke began to curl anew from the galley, and various tinned victuals were disinterred from the pantry wreckage.
Within five minutes of our finding this unexpected harbor the door of the captain’s cabin opened, and Waller strode forth, gaping upon our changed surroundings. The sixth sense that lies in the seaman’s brain had warned him, sleeping as he was, that we no longer dipped and tossed amid the breakers. A glance to starboard, and he understood, giving Janson a quick nod as the other pointed to the ice. He stayed still a moment, watching the edge of the berg curiously, and then climbed up and joined the mate.
I could not hear the words they exchanged, but I saw a shake of Waller’s head as he jerked his thumb over his shoulder. They strode together to one end of the bridge, and the captain gesticulated toward the berg again. A half-smile crossed Janson’s face. He was evidently meeting his chief’s arguments with a polite incredulity. Following the line of Waller’s pointing finger, I was in time to see a strange thing happen.
The edge of the ice rose slowly, but perceptibly, mounting from the water-level with a heavy swish. I looked up in amazement, and saw the topmost pinnacles bow slantingly across the drifting clouds. There was a suck and a wash as the water rolled in toward the ice to fill the vacuum. The berg lurched slowly back again, and a big breaker gathered itself up, and crested out toward us. There was a line of foam across the pool.
An order roared from between Waller’s lips, and Janson came at a bound from the bridge to wake the watch below. His face was white with terror. He shrieked into the foc’sle in a shrill, unnatural voice.
The men came leaping up, and at the captain’s shout dropped the two port boats over the side. A rope was passed to them, and with furious tugs they passed ahead, towing desperately. The men left on deck set the sails again, waiting for the first breath of the gale to catch them. They stared wide-eyed over their shoulders, watching, staring, gluing their gaze to the mighty ice-cliffs astern.
I scrambled up to Waller, full of unquiet surprise. I felt that something was imminent—some possible disaster that I could not fathom. I demanded explanations.
“Mr. Janson has committed a very serious error of judgment, my lord,” said the sailor shortly. “A few minutes will see it repaired, I hope.”
“But, good gracious!” said I with some annoyance, “you’re taking us out into that whirlpool again just when we were comfortable. What on earth’s the matter?”
Before he could answer me the first breath of the gale began to catch upon the sails. The sailors hauled upon the sheets to tauten them as he bawled his orders down, and the boats’ crews were beckoned back. As they slipped alongside, and the davit-hooks caught again upon the pulleys, Waller gave a great sigh of relief and turned to me again.
“That iceberg——” he began, and at the words no explanation became necessary.
We were both staring at it when again the edge of it began to lift. But this time there was no return. Up, up, it soared, lifting its dripping flanks into the air, and the seas poured back from it in torrents. The waters boiled behind our stern, heaving as if in the bath of some gigantic geyser. For one single moment we danced haltingly upon the turbulence, the wind fighting with all its strength upon our canvas against the under-currents that tore at our keel. Then, thank God, the gale was victor. We slid away from the grip of the backflow, out into the riot of the storm again. And behind us one of nature’s dramas was enacted awfully. With a roar and a thunderous crash the iceberg slanted, swayed, poised itself one motionless instant, and then rolled completely over, dashing its topmost summit into the heart of the deep, and, heaved up by its mighty fall, a huge wave rose and almost engulfed it. The great rollers came clamoring after our flying bark as if in vindictive disappointment for the escape of their nearly won prey. But their fury defeated them. Their crests thundered on our stern, and flung us with growing force out into the ocean, while behind us the berg slowly emerged among the tossing, to point new pinnacles toward the clouds. And out in the storm again we continued our ceaseless race before the seas, flying anew down the long trail south, buffeted, tempest driven, but safe again by the favor of a brave sailor’s quick-witted knowledge.