The night was as dark as the inside of a cow! Mr Pryce, the chief mate
of the full-rigged sailing ship _Golden Fleece_--outward-bound to
Melbourne--was responsible for this picturesque assertion; and one had
only to glance for a moment into the obscurity that surrounded the ship
to acknowledge the truth of it.
For, to begin with, it was four bells in the first watch--that is to
say, ten o'clock p.m.; then it also happened to be the date of the new
moon; and, finally, the ship was just then enveloped in a fog so dense
that, standing against the bulwarks on one side of the deck, it was
impossible to see across to the opposite rail. It was Mr Pryce's
watch; but the skipper--Captain Rainhill--was also on deck; and together
the pair assiduously promenaded the poop, to and fro, pausing for a
moment to listen and peer anxiously into the thickness to windward every
time that they reached the break of the poop at one end of their walk,
and the stern grating at the other.
Now, a dark and foggy night at sea is an anxious time for a skipper; but
the anxiety is multiplied tenfold when, as in the present case, the
skipper is responsible not only for the safety of a valuable ship and
cargo, but also for many human lives. For the _Golden Fleece_ was a
magnificent clipper ship of two thousand eight hundred tons register,
quite new--this being her maiden voyage, while she carried a cargo,
consisting chiefly of machinery, valued at close upon one hundred
thousand pounds sterling; and there were thirty-six passengers in her
cuddy, together with one hundred and thirty emigrants--mostly men--in
the 'tween decks. And there was also, of course, her crew.
For a reason that will shortly become apparent, it is unnecessary to
introduce any of the above-mentioned persons to the reader--with two
exceptions. Of these two exceptions one was a girl some three and
twenty years of age, of medium height, perfect figure, lovely features
crowned by an extraordinary wealth of sunny chestnut wavy hair with a
glint of ruddy gold in it where the sun struck it, and a pair of
marvellous dark blue eyes. Her beauty of face and form was perfect; and
she would have been wonderfully attractive but for the unfortunate fact
that her manner towards everybody was characterised by a frigid hauteur
that at once effectually discouraged the slightest attempt to establish
one's self on friendly terms with her. It was abundantly clear that she
was a spoiled child, in the most pronounced acceptation of the term, and
would be likely to remain so all her life unless some extraordinary
circumstance should haply intervene to break down her repellent pride,
and bring to the surface those sterling qualities of character that ever
and anon seemed struggling for an opportunity to assert themselves. Her
name was Flora Trevor; her father was an Indian judge; and, accompanied
by her maid, and chaperoned--nominally, at least--by a friend and former
schoolfellow of her mother, she was now proceeding on a visit to some
relatives in Australia prior to joining her father at Bombay.
The other exception was a man, of thirty-two years of age--but who
looked very considerably older. He stood six feet one inch in his
socks; was of exceptionally muscular build, without an ounce of
superfluous flesh anywhere about him; rather thin and worn-looking as to
face--which was clean-shaven and tinted a ruddy bronze, as though the
owner had been long accustomed to exposure to the weather; of a gloomy
and saturnine cast of countenance; and a manner so cold and
unapproachable that, although on this particular night he had been on
board the _Golden Fleece_ just a fortnight, no one in the ship knew
anything more about him than that he went by the name of Richard Leslie;
and that he was--like the rest of the passengers--on his way to
Australia.
Now, there is no need to make a secret of this man's history; on the
contrary, a brief sketch of it will lead to a tolerably clear
understanding of much that would otherwise prove incomprehensible in his
character and actions. Let it be said, therefore, at once, that he was
the second, and at one time favourite, son of the Earl of Swimbridge,
whom the whole world knows to be beyond all question the proudest member
of the British peerage. Amiable, generous, high-spirited, and with
every trait of the best type of the British gentleman fully developed in
him, this son had joined the British navy at an early age, as a
midshipman, and had made rapid progress in the profession of his
choice--to his father's unbounded satisfaction and delight--up to a
certain point. Then, when he was within a few months of his
twenty-fifth birthday, a horrible thing happened. Without a shadow of
warning, and like a bolt from the blue, disgrace and disaster fell upon
and morally destroyed him; and almost in a moment the once favoured
child of good fortune found himself an outcast from home and society;
disowned by those nearest and dearest to him; with every hope and
aspiration blasted; branded as a felon; and his whole life ruined, as it
seemed to him, irretrievably. In his father's house, and while enjoying
a short period of well-earned leave, he was arrested upon a charge of
forgery and embezzlement; and, after a short period of imprisonment,
tried, found guilty, and sentenced to a period of seven years' penal
servitude! Vain were all his protestations of innocence; vain his
counsel's representation that there was no earthly motive for such a
crime on the part of his client; the evidence adduced against him was so
overwhelmingly complete and convincing--although the greater part of it
was circumstantial--that his protestations were regarded as a positive
aggravation of his offence; and the last news that reached him ere the
prison gates closed upon him were that the girl who had promised to be
his wife had already given herself to his rival; while his father,
stricken to earth by the awful blow to his family pride, as well as to
his affection, was not expected to live.
That so fearfully crushing a catastrophe should have fallen with
paralysing effect upon the moral nature of the convict himself was only
what might naturally be expected. With the pronouncement of that
terrible sentence by the judge the victim's character underwent a
complete and instantaneous transformation, as was evidenced by the fact
that to him the worst feature of the case seemed to be that he was
innocent! He felt that had he been guilty he could have borne his
punishment, because he would have richly merited it; but that, being
_innocent_, he should thus be permitted to suffer such abasement and
disgrace seemed incomprehensible to him; the injustice of it appeared to
him so rank, so colossal, as to destroy within him, in a moment, every
atom of his former faith in the existence of a God of justice and of
mercy! And with his loss of faith in God went his faith in man. Every
good instinct at once seemed to die within him; while as for life,
henceforth it could be to him only an intolerable burden to be laid down
at the first convenient opportunity.
Feeling thus, as he did, full of rebellion against fate, full of anger
and resentment against his fellow-man for the bitterly cruel injustice
that had been meted out to him, and kicking hard against the pricks
generally, it was scarcely to be expected that he would prove very
amenable to the harsh discipline of prison life; and as a matter of fact
he did not; he was very careful to avoid the committal of any offence
sufficiently serious to bring down upon him the disgrace of a flogging--
that crowning shame he could not have endured and continued to live--
but, short of that, he was so careless and intractable a prisoner, and
gave so much trouble and annoyance to the warders in charge of him, that
he earned none of those good marks whereby a prisoner can purchase the
remission of a certain proportion of his sentence; and as a result he
served the full term of his imprisonment, every moment of which seemed
crowded with the tortures of hell! And when at length he emerged once
more into the world, he did so as a thoroughly soured, embittered,
cynical, utterly hopeless and reckless man, without a shred of faith in
anything that was good.
The first thing that he learned, upon attaining his freedom, was that
although the Earl, his father, had, after all, survived the shock of his
son's disgrace, he had made a solemn vow never to forgive him, never to
see him again, and never to have any communication with him. He had,
however, made arrangements with his solicitors that his son should be
met at the prison gates and conveyed thence to London, where he was
lodged in a quiet hotel until arrangements could be made for his
shipment off to Australia. This was quickly done; and within a week of
his release the young man, under the assumed name of Richard Leslie,
found himself a saloon passenger on board the _Golden Fleece_, with a
plain but sufficient outfit for the voyage, and one hundred pounds in
his pocket to enable him to make a new start in life at the antipodes;
the gift of the money, however, was accompanied by a request from the
Earl that he would never again show his face in England, or even in
Europe.
At the moment when this story opens the sound of the ship's bell--upon
which "four bells" had just been struck--was still vibrating upon the
wet, fog-laden air; the steerage passengers were all below, and most of
them in their bunks; while the cuddy people, with one solitary
exception, were in the brilliantly lighted saloon, amusing themselves
with cards, books, and music. The exception was Leslie, who, having
changed out of his dress clothes into a comfortable suit of blue serge,
was down in the waist of the ship, smoking a gloomily retrospective
pipe. The ship's reckoning, that day, had placed her, at noon, in
Latitude 32 degrees 10 minutes North, and Longitude 26 degrees 55
minutes West; she was therefore about midway between the parallels of
Madeira and Teneriffe, but some four hundred miles, or thereabouts, to
the westward of those islands. The wind was blowing a moderate breeze
from about south-east by South; and the ship, close-hauled on the port
tack, and with all plain sail set, to her royals, was heading
south-west, and going through the water at the rate of a good honest
seven knots. The helmsman was steering by compass, and not by the
sails, since it was impossible to see anything above a dozen feet up
from the deck; hence the ship was going along with everything a-rap
full.
Captain Rainhill was very far from being easy in his mind. Seven knots,
he meditated, was a good pace at which to be sailing through a fog thick
enough to cut with a knife, and would mean something very much like
disaster if the ship happened to run up against anything, particularly
if that "anything" happened also to be travelling at about the same
speed in the opposite direction; from this point of view, therefore, the
speed of the _Golden Fleece_ just then constituted a decided element of
danger. On the other hand, however, it enabled her to promptly answer
her helm, and thus might be the means of enabling her to swerve quickly
aside and so avoid any danger that might suddenly loom up out of the fog
around her; and in this sense it became a safeguard. Then there was the
fact that the _Golden Fleece_ was no longer in a crowded part of the
ocean; it was three days since they had sighted a craft of any
description, and there might be at that moment nothing within a couple
of hundred miles of them, in which case there was absolutely nothing to
fear. Furthermore, his owners made an especial point of persistently
impressing upon their captains the great importance of--nay, more, the
urgent necessity for--making quick passages; there were two keen-eyed
lookouts stationed upon the topgallant-forecastle, and between them a
third man provided with a fog-horn, upon which he at brief intervals
blew the weirdest of blasts. Taking into consideration all these
circumstances the skipper finally decided to leave things as they were,
and put his trust in the "sweet little cherub that sits up aloft to look
after the life of poor Jack."
"Five bells" pealed out upon the dank air, and the responsive cry of
"All's well" from the look-outs came wailing aft from the forecastle.
Leslie's pipe was out. He knocked out the dead ashes, and turned to go
below. Then, considering the matter further, he decided that it was
full early yet to turn in, and, sauntering across the deck to the port
rail, he stood gazing abstractedly out to windward as he slowly filled
his pipe afresh. The man with the fog-horn was still industriously
blowing long blasts to windward when, ruthlessly cutting into one of
these, there suddenly came--from apparently close at hand, on the port
bow--the loud discordant yell of a steam syren; and the next instant
three lights--red, green, and white, arranged in the form of an
isosceles triangle--broke upon Leslie's gaze with startling suddenness
through the dense fog, broad on the port bow of the _Golden Fleece_. A
large steamer, coming along at full speed, was close aboard and heading
straight for the sailing ship!
Leslie's professional training at once asserted itself and, as a
frenzied shout of "Steamer broad on the port bow!" came pealing aft from
the throats of the two startled lookouts, he made a single bound for the
poop ladder, crying, in a voice that rang through the ship, from stem to
stern--
"Port! hard a-port, for your life! Over with the wheel, for God's
sake!"
His cry was broken in upon by a mad jangling of engine-room bells
accompanied by a perfect babel of excited shouts--evidently in some
foreign tongue--on board the stranger, mingled with equally excited
shouts and the sudden trampling of feet forward, and loud-voiced
commands from Captain Rainhill on the poop. As Leslie reached the head
of the poop ladder the steamer crashed with terrific force into the port
side of the ill-fated _Golden Fleece_, just forward of the fore rigging.
So tremendous was the shock that every individual who happened at the
moment to be on his, or her, feet on board the sailing ship was thrown
to the deck; while, as for the ship herself, she was heeled over by it
until the water poured like a cataract in over her starboard topgallant
rail; there was a horrid crunching sound as the ponderous iron bows of
the steamer irresistibly clove their way through the wooden side and
decks of the ship; a loud twanging aloft told of severed rigging; there
was a terrifying crash of breaking spars overhead; and then, all in a
moment, as it seemed, the main deck and poop became alive with
shrieking, shouting, distraught people rushing aimlessly hither and
thither, and excitedly demanding of each other what was the matter.
The skipper, confounded for the moment by the appalling suddenness of
the catastrophe, quickly recovered himself and, turning to the chief
mate, ordered him to go forward to investigate the extent of the damage.
Then, finding Mr Ferris, the second mate, at his elbow, he said--
"Mr Ferris, muster the watches at once--port watch to the port side,
and starboard watch to the starboard side--and set them to work to clear
away the boats for launching. Where is the chief steward?"
"Here, sir," answered the individual in question, forcing his way
through the excited crowd that surrounded the skipper.
"Good!" ejaculated Rainhill. "Muster your stewards, sir, and turn-to
upon the job of getting provisions and water up on deck for the boats.
And, as you go, pass the word for all passengers to dress in their
warmest clothing, and make up in packages any valuables that they may
desire to take with them in the event of our being obliged to leave the
ship. But they must leave their luggage behind; there will be no room
for luggage in the boats. And tell any of them who may be below to
complete their preparations and come on deck without delay."
At this moment Mr Pryce, having completed his investigations forward,
came rushing up the poop ladder and, wild with excitement, shouted to
the skipper--
"We can't live five minutes, sir! We are cut down from rail to bilge;
there is a hole in our side big enough to drive a coach and six through,
and the water is pouring into her like a sluice!"
"And where is the steamer?" demanded the skipper.
"She has backed out, and vanished in the fog," answered the mate.
"My God! what an appalling mess," ejaculated the distracted skipper.
"And all through the lubberly carelessness of those foreign fellows, who
were too lazy to sound their syren until they were aboard of us! Now,
Mr Ferris, what is the news of the boats? Hurry up and get them into
the water as smartly as possible. Back the main-yard, Mr Pryce."
This mention of the boats, added to the ill-advised candour of the
mate's loudly proclaimed statement as to the condition of the ship, took
immediate hold upon the mob of anxiously listening people who were
crowding round the two men, and galvanised them into sudden, breathless
activity; hitherto they had only vaguely realised that what had happened
_might_ possibly mean danger to them; now, in a flash, it dawned upon
them, one and all, that they were the victims of a ghastly disaster, and
that death was actually staring them in the face! And therewith a mad,
unreasoning panic took possession of them, and with one accord they made
a rush for the boats.
"Stand back, there; stand back, I say, and leave the men room to work,"
yelled the skipper. "Do you hear, there, you people from the steerage?
Stand back, as you value your lives! Do you want to drown yourselves
and everybody else? Here, Mr Pryce, lend me a hand to keep these
madmen in order. Back, every man of you; get off this poop--"
He might as well have appealed to and attempted to reason with the ocean
that was pouring in through the gash in the ship's side! It is doubtful
whether any one of those to whom he addressed himself heard him; if they
did they certainly took no notice. In a moment the ship's crew were
swept away from the davits and tackle falls, and in another the maddened
mob, with a wild yell of "We're sinking, we're sinking!" were struggling
together, striking and trampling down everybody who happened to be in
the way, and fighting desperately with each other for a place in the
boats, that had been swung out and were ready for lowering. The skipper
and the mate dashed manfully into the thick of the _melee_, no doubt
hoping that their authority, and the habit of discipline that was being
gradually cultivated among the emigrants would enable them to stem the
tide of panic that was raging, and restore order for at least the few
minutes that were needed to get the boats into the water. In vain! the
two men were visible for a moment, fighting desperately, side by side;
then they went down before that maniacal charge--in which the cuddy
passengers had by this time joined--and were seen no more.
As for Leslie, the nearest approach to happiness that had been his for
more than seven years came to him now with the conviction that he was at
last face to face with inevitable, kindly Death. He had endured seven
years of physical misery and mental torment because he had too much grit
to resort to the cowardly expedient of taking his own life; but now,
_now_ fate--he no longer believed in the existence of such a being as
God--fate had taken pity upon him and, through no act of his own, he was
going to be relieved of his intolerable burden. For he knew that, with
that fighting mob of raging maniacs struggling madly round the boats,
escape was a sheer impossibility, and that in a few minutes--or hours,
at the outside--for he was a strong swimmer--he would go down inanimate
into the dark depths, and his load of disgrace and humiliation would
fall from him for ever.
So, serene and contented in mind, he stood well back beyond the outer
fringe of that frantic, swaying, cursing crowd, and cynically watched
its proceedings. The scene upon which he gazed was precisely what he
had expected from the moment when those three ill-omened lights had
burst through the fog and told him that the _Golden Fleece_ was a doomed
ship. Here was selfishness supremely triumphant, beating down and
eradicating in a moment every nobler instinct of humanity. It was
"Every man for himself" with a vengeance; women and children were struck
out of men's way with horrid curses and savage, murderous blows; men
were fighting together like furious beasts; knives were out, blood was
flowing freely, and the air was clamorous with shrieks, groans, and
imprecations; the whole accentuated and made still more dreadful by the
loud clash of dangling wreckage aloft, and the awful creaking and
groaning of the riven hull as it writhed upon the low swell to the
gurgling and sobbing and splashing sound of the water alongside and
under the counter; the weird and horror-inspiring effect being still
further intensified by the hollow moaning of the night wind over the
heaving surface of the deep. The struggling crowd was no longer human,
save in shape; it had become a mob of senseless, raging demons!
Blind, insensate selfishness! Yes; that was the motive that dominated
every individual in that seething crowd. Had they but kept their heads
and listened to poor Captain Rainhill, had they but helped instead of
hindered, all might have been well. Many hands make light and quick
work; and had every man there devoted but a tithe of the energy he was
now displaying to the task of helping the crew to launch the boats it is
possible that every life on board might have been saved. But, as it
was, the boats hung there at the davits, crowded far beyond their utmost
capacity with men who ignorantly sought to lower themselves, while
others fought and struggled with the occupants for the places that they
had secured; and nothing useful was done.
Meanwhile, although not one of that crowd of mad folk seemed to be aware
of the fact, the ship was settling down with awful rapidity. Already
she was sunk to her channels, and was heaving heavily upon the swell
with the slow, deadly sluggishness of movement that, to the initiated,
told so plainly that her end was nigh.
Now, utterly hopeless as Leslie's future appeared to him, impossible as
seemed to be the task of ever rehabilitating himself in the eyes of the
world, crushed as he was by the burden of his disgrace, and glad as he
was at the prospect of deliverance from all his misery through the
kindly agency of death, it was characteristic of him that, even now, at
the supreme moment of his impending deliverance, his self-respect
imperiously demanded of him that at all costs must he eschew even the
faintest taint of so cowardly an act as that of suicide; if death were
really close at hand--as it certainly appeared to be--well and good; it
was what he was hoping for, and would be thrice welcome. Nevertheless,
he felt it incumbent upon himself that he should take full advantage of
such slender aids to escape as happened to present themselves; and
accordingly, as the bows of the ship became depressed, while the stern
rose in the air, telling that the _Golden Fleece_ was about to take her
final dive, he mechanically sprang to the taffrail and, disengaging a
life-buoy that hung there, passed it over his shoulders and up under his
armpits. Then, climbing upon the rail, he leapt unhesitatingly into the
black, heaving water below him at the precise moment when a loud wail of
indescribable anguish and despair from the frantic crowd fighting about
the boats told that to them, too, had at last come the realisation of
imminent doom.
As Leslie struck the water and floated there, supported by the
life-buoy, the rudder and stern-post of the ship hove themselves slowly
out of the water close alongside him until the keel, for a length of
some thirty feet, was exposed; then the huge hull began to slide forward
and away from him with an ever-quickening motion until, with a rush, a
weird whistling of air escaping from the ship's interior that mingled
horribly with the shrieks of those on deck, and a dull booming as the
decks were burst up, the fabric plunged headlong and was gone!
Then came the deadly suction of the sinking ship; the waters poured from
all round, like a raging torrent, into the swirling hollow where the
craft had been; and as Leslie felt himself caught and dragged
irresistibly toward the vortex he instinctively drew a deep breath,
filling his lungs to their utmost capacity with air in readiness for the
long submergence that he knew was coming.
Another moment and it had come; the tumbling waters had closed over him,
and he felt himself being dragged down, down, down, and whirled
helplessly hither and thither as he clung resolutely to his life-buoy.
As he continued to descend he was constantly reminded that he was not
alone in this frightful plunge into the depths; he several times came
into more or less violent contact with objects, some at least of which
were certainly struggling human beings like himself. Once he felt
himself strongly clutched by the hair for a moment, but the swirl of the
water almost immediately tore him free again. And still that awful,
implacable downward drag continued, until he began to wonder dreamily
whether he would ever return to the surface alive, or whether, after
all, deliverance from his wretchedness--which in some inexplicable way
already seemed much less poignant to him--was coming to him down there
in those black depths. The pressure upon his body was rapidly becoming
unendurable; the air was being forced from his lungs; he was
suffocating! Involuntarily he began to struggle, throwing out his arms
and legs instinctively in a powerful effort to return to the surface.
Then, in a moment, he lost all consciousness of his dreadful situation
and found himself once more back among the scenes of his childhood, a
multitude of trivial and long-forgotten incidents recurring to his
memory with inconceivable rapidity. He was a dying man; the agony of
drowning was over, and he had entered upon that curious phase of
retrospection that most drowning people experience, and that so
pleasantly precedes that form of dissolution.
But after an indefinite period of oblivion consciousness returned, and
he found that he had somehow come back to the surface and was painfully
taking in great gulps of air, clinging tenaciously, meanwhile, to what,
so far as he could discover, in the intense darkness, was the body of a
woman!
Whether that woman was alive, or dead, Leslie knew not; but, still
animated by the old reckless disregard for his own safety that had
become a part of his nature, as well as by that innate feeling of
chivalry that even his great sorrow had not eradicated, his first
impulse was to give his unknown companion the benefit of whatever
slender possibility of ultimate escape might exist; and he accordingly
lost not a moment in disengaging himself from the life-buoy that still
supported him, and adjusting it beneath the unconscious body of the
woman in such a manner that she sat within it almost as though it were
an armchair; the buoy floating aslant in the water, with its lower rim
supporting the weight of the body, while its upper rim, which rose
several inches above the surface of the water, pressed against and
supported the woman's shoulders. By this arrangement the woman's head
was raised well above the water; and if she were not already dead there
was some prospect that she would ultimately revive and recover
consciousness. As for Leslie, he was so powerful a swimmer that he
really needed no support, now that he was once more himself; he
accordingly threw himself prone upon his back and, in that position,
floated easily, retaining his hold upon the buoy by means of the beckets
of light line that were looped around it.
The water was quite warm; there was therefore no hardship in being
immersed in it; there was not much sea running, and such as there was
seldom broke. Leslie felt therefore that the probability of several
hours of life still lay before him; and he began, with a queer feeling
of dismay and disappointment, to ask himself whether, after all, he
might not ultimately be doomed to escape. He knew that the catastrophe
had occurred right in the usual track of ships bound south; and it was
quite upon the cards that one of these might come along at any moment
and pass within hail of him, or, at all events, close enough to permit
of his being seen. And if this should happen to occur between daylight
and dark he would feel bound to adopt such measures as might be possible
to attract the attention of her crew and cause himself to be picked up.
Well, he argued, if such a thing should happen it could not be helped;
perhaps there might occur some other occasion. Besides, there was his
companion. She might possibly be alive; and if such should be the case
she would doubtless be anxious to escape; she had, in an accidental way,
come under his protection, and he must do everything he possibly could
for her.
The question as to whether life still lingered in the occupant of the
life-buoy was speedily determined; for while Leslie still lay floating
tranquilly upon his back, weighing the _pros_ and _cons_ of the
situation, a faint groan reached his ear, quickly followed by a second,
louder and more sustained; then followed certain sounds indicative of
violent sickness; the patient was getting rid of the very considerable
quantity of sea water that she had swallowed.
Leslie waited patiently until this unpleasant episode appeared to have
come to an end, when, raising himself upright in the water, he said
cheerfully--
"That's capital; you will soon be all right now. Are you feeling
tolerably comfortable in that buoy?"
"Oh Heaven!" moaned a voice that Leslie fancied was not altogether
unfamiliar to him, "is it possible that there is some one else in the
same horrible plight as my unfortunate self?"
"Nay," said Leslie, "do not speak or think of yourself as unfortunate,
at least as yet. You have thus far escaped with life--which is, I fear,
more than any one else except myself has done--and while there is life
there is hope, you know."
"Surely not in such a dreadful situation as ours!" said his companion.
"What hope dare we entertain? What possible prospect of escape have we?
Is it not a certainty that we shall perish miserably by thirst and
starvation if we succeed in avoiding death by drowning? I must confess
that I shall bitterly regret the respite that has in some mysterious way
come to me, if I am doomed to linger on and endure the protracted
horrors of death from hunger and thirst."
"Naturally you will," assented Leslie; "I fully agree with you that, if
one or the other fate must necessarily overtake us, that of drowning is
much to be preferred. But it is early yet to despair. We are in a part
of the Atlantic that is much frequented by ships; and if fate will only
be kind to us, it is quite on the cards that we may be picked up in the
course of a day or two. And surely, if this fine weather will but
last--as I believe it will--we can hold out for that length of time.
And let me reassure you upon one point: so long as we are fully immersed
in the water, as we now are, we shall not suffer very greatly from
thirst; the water penetrates through the pores of the skin, and, being
filtered as it were in the process, alleviates to a very considerable
extent the craving for liquid that must otherwise result from long
abstinence. Hunger, of course, is another matter; but we must make up
our minds to endure that as best we may. You will understand that I am
now looking at the bright side of things; there is a dark side also, but
we will not consider that at present. What we have to do just now is to
be hopeful; to maintain one's hopefulness is half the battle. And, if
the assurance will help in the least to encourage you, I should like you
clearly to understand that so long as life--or at least consciousness
and a particle of strength--remains to me, you may rely upon my doing my
level best for you. And, being by profession a sailor, I may be able to
do much that a landsman could not. Meanwhile, however, all that we can
do at present is to wait patiently for daylight. One point is already
declaring itself in our favour; I notice that the fog is lifting."
"Is it?" responded the girl, wearily. "I cannot say that I am able to
detect any improvement. But, naturally, a sailor's trained eyes would
be more quick to see such a change than those of a lands-woman like
myself. And you spoke of yourself as a sailor. I seem to recognise
your voice. Are you one of the officers of the _Golden Fleece_?"
"No," answered Leslie. "My connection with the ship was simply that of
a passenger like yourself. But I used to belong to the British navy;
and although I left it some seven years ago, I venture to believe that
my knowledge of seamanship has not yet grown quite rusty. My name is
Leslie--Richard Leslie, and unless my ears deceive me you are Miss
Trevor."
"Yes," assented the girl; "you are quite right. I am that unfortunate
individual--unfortunate, that is to say, in that I yielded to my poor
aunt's persuasions and consented to embark in a sailing ship instead of
going out to Australia in a mail steamer. I had not been very well for
some months, and it was thought that the longer voyage by a sailing ship
would benefit my health. And so you are Mr Leslie, the gentleman who
held himself so rigidly aloof from all that he excited everybody's most
lively curiosity as to his business, his antecedents, and, in short,
everything about him. Well, Mr Leslie, let me say at once that I am
profoundly grateful to you for your promise to help me so far as you
can. At the same time, I must confess that at present I quite fail to
see in what way you can possibly be of the slightest assistance to me,
excepting, of course, that your presence and companionship are a great
comfort and encouragement to me. It would be awful beyond words to find
one's self quite alone in such a frightful situation as this. By the
way, do you think it likely that any others besides ourselves have
survived this horrible accident--if accident it was?"
"Oh," answered Leslie, "there is no doubt as to its being an accident.
But it was one of those accidents that might have been avoided.
Rainhill was not to blame; he observed every possible precaution; the
fault lay with the other fellow, who came blundering along through that
dense fog at full speed. I take it he approached us so rapidly that he
failed to hear our fog-horn until it was too late to avoid us. He
ought, under the circumstances, to have been steaming dead slow. Then,
upon hearing our fog-horn, he could at once have stopped his engines,
and, if necessary, reversed them, until the danger of collision was
past. As it is, it is quite upon the cards that he, too, has gone to
the bottom. No ship could strike so terrific a blow as that steamer did
without suffering serious damage herself. As to the probability of
there being other survivors than ourselves, I doubt it. It is
absolutely certain that nobody could possibly have escaped in either of
the boats; and, watching the mad fight for them, at a distance, as I
did, I imagine that when the ship went down, every one of those frantic
people went under in the grasp of somebody else, and so lost, in another
person's death-grip, whatever chance he might otherwise have had of
coming to the surface. It is a marvel to me how _you_ escaped. Where
were you when the ship plunged?"
"I? Oh, I was down on what they called the `main deck,'" answered Miss
Trevor. "I heard the captain give orders that every one was to don
their warmest clothing, so I slipped into my cabin and changed my
evening frock for a good stout serge that I wore when I first came on
board; and when I emerged from the saloon I found myself quite alone. I
was just about to climb up on the poop when the ship seemed to slide
from under me, and I found myself being dragged down beneath the
surface. Then I lost consciousness, and knew no more until I awoke to
find myself afloat in this life-buoy. I have been wondering how I came
to be in such a singular position. Can you by any chance enlighten me?"
"Well, to be perfectly candid, I put you there," answered Leslie. "I
recognised from the first that, with the mad panic prevailing on board,
there would be no possibility of utilising the boats; so I took the
precaution to provide myself with a life-buoy, in which I jumped
overboard. Like you, I was of course dragged under by the suction of
the ship, as she went down; and, like you, I lost consciousness, though
not, I think, for very long. And when I recovered my senses I found
myself once more afloat, with a fold of your dress in my grasp. So, as
the simplest means of relieving myself of the fatigue of supporting you,
I placed you in the buoy, not needing it myself, since I am a strong
swimmer, and can support myself for practically any length of time in
the water."
"From which it would appear that I am indebted to you for the
circumstance that I am alive at the present moment," commented Miss
Trevor. "I suppose I ought to be profoundly grateful to you; but--"
"Excuse me for interrupting you," broke in Leslie, "but if I am not
greatly mistaken there is something floating out there that may be of
use to us. I will tow you to it. In our present circumstances we must
avail ourselves of everything that affords us an opportunity to better
our condition."