They climbed the rail. Plainly Harrigan had made them delay too long,
for now they had not time to swim beyond the reach of the swirl that
would form when the ship went down. The _Mary Rogers_ lurched to her
grave as they sprang from the rail. A wave caught them and washed them
beyond the grip of the whirlpool; another wave swung them back, and the
waters sucked them down. Such was the force of that downward pull that
it seemed to Harrigan as if a weight were attached to either foot. He
drew a great, gasping breath before his head went under and then struck
out with all his might.
When his lungs seemed bursting with the labor, he whirled to the
surface again and drew another gasping breath. The storm had torn a
rift in the clouds and through it looked the moon as if some god were
peering through the curtain of mist to watch the havoc he was working.
By this light Harrigan saw that he was being drawn down in a narrowing
circle. Straight before him loomed a black fragment of the wreckage. He
tried to swing to one side, but the current of the water bore him on.
He received a heavy blow on the head and his senses went out like a
snuffed light.
When consciousness returned, there was a sharp pain in both head and
right shoulder, for it was on his shoulder that McTee had fastened his
grip. The captain sprawled on a great timber, clutching it with both
legs and one arm. With the free hand he held Harrigan. All this the
Irishman saw by the haggard moonlight. Then they were pitched high up
on the crest of a wave. As Harrigan grappled the timber with arms and
legs, it turned over and over and then pitched down through empty
space. The wind had literally cut away the top of the wave. He went
down, submerged, and then rose to a giddy height again. As he caught a
great breath of air, he saw that McTee was no longer on the timber.
A shout reached him, the sound being cut off in the middle by the noise
of the wind and waves. He saw McTee a dozen feet away, swimming
furiously. He came almost close enough to touch the timber with his
hands, and then a twist of the wave separated them. Harrigan worked
down the timber until he reached the end of the stanchion which was
nearest Black McTee. All that time the captain was struggling, but
could not draw closer. The wood was drifting before the wind faster
than he could swim.
When he reached the end of the timber, Harrigan wound his long arms
tightly around it and let his legs draw out on the water. McTee, seeing
the purpose of the maneuver, redoubled his efforts. On a wave crest the
storm swept Harrigan still farther away; then they dropped into a
hollow and instantly he felt a mighty grip fall on his ankle. They
pitched up again with the surge of a wave so sharp and sudden that what
with his own weight and the tugging burden of McTee behind him,
Harrigan felt as if his arms would be torn from their sockets. He kept
his hold by a mighty effort, and the tremendous grip of McTee held fast
on his ankle until they dropped once more into a hollow. Then the
captain jerked himself hand over hand up the body of Harrigan until he
reached the timber. They lay panting and exhausted on the stanchion,
embracing it with arms and legs.
Sometimes the wind sent the timber with its human freight lunging
through a towering wave; and several times the force of the storm
caught them and whirled them over and over. When they rose to a wave
crest, they struggled bitterly for life; when they fell into the
trough, they drew long breaths and freshened their holds.
Save once when Harrigan reached out his hand and set it upon that of
Black McTee. The captain met the grip, and by the wild moonlight they
stared into each other's faces. That handshake almost cost them their
lives, for the next moment the full breath of the storm caught them and
wrenched furiously at their bodies. Yet neither of them regretted the
handclasp, for all its cost. If they died now, it would be as brothers.
They had at least escaped from the greatest of all horrors, a lonely
death.
It seemed as if the storm acknowledged the strength of their
determination. It fell away as suddenly as it had risen. A heavy ground
swell still ran, but without the wind to roughen the surface and
sharpen the crests, the big timber rode safely through the sea. The
storm clouds were dropping back in a widening circle beneath the moon
when, as they heaved up on the top of a wave, Harrigan suddenly pointed
straight ahead and shouted hoarsely. On the horizon squatted a black
shadow, darker than any cloud.
All night they watched the shadow grow, and when the morning came and
the tropic dawn stepped suddenly up from the east, the light glinted on
the unmistakable green of verdure.
With the help of the steady wind they drifted slowly closer and closer
to the island. By noon they abandoned the timber and started swimming,
but the submerged beach went out far more gradually than they had
expected. The last hundred yards they walked arm in arm, floundering
through the gentle surf.
Then they stumbled up the beach, reeling with weariness, and sprawled
out in the shade of a palm tree. They were asleep almost before they
struck the sand.
It was late afternoon when they woke, ravenously hungry, their throats
burning with thirst. For food McTee climbed a coconut palm and knocked
down some of the fruit. They split the gourds open on a rock, drank the
liquor, and ate heartily of the meat. That quelled their appetites, but
the sweet liquor only partially appeased their thirst, and they started
to search the island for a spring. First they went to the center of the
place to a small hill, and from the top of this they surveyed their
domain. The island was not more than a thousand yards in width and
three or four miles in length. Nowhere was there any sign of even a
hut.
"Well?" queried Harrigan, seeing McTee frown.
"We can live here," explained the captain, "but God knows how long it
will be before we sight a ship. Our only hope is for some tramp
freighter that's trying to find a short cut through the reefs. Even if
we sight a tramp, how'll we signal her?"
"With a fire."
"Aye, if one passes at night. We could stack up wood on the top of this
hill. The island isn't charted. If a skipper saw a light, he might take
a chance and send a boat. But how could we kindle a fire?"
They went slowly down the hill, their heads bent. At the base, as if
placed in their path to cheer them in this moment of gloom, they found
a spring. It ran a dozen feet and disappeared into a crevice. They
cupped the water in their hands and drank long and deep. When they
stood up again, McTee dropped a hand on Harrigan's shoulder. He said:
"You've cause enough for hating me."
"Pal," said Harrigan, "you're nine parts devil, but the part of you
that's a man makes up for all the rest."
McTee brooded: "Now we're standing on the rim of the world, and we've
got to be brother to each other. But what if we get off the
island--there's small chance of it, but what if we should? Would we
remember then how we took hands in the trough of the sea?"
Harrigan raised his hand.
"So help me God--" he began.
"Wait!" broke in McTee. "Don't say it. Suppose we get off the island,
and when we reach port find one thing which we both want. What then?"
Harrigan remembered a word from the Bible.
"I'll never covet one of your belongin's, McTee, an' I'll never cross
your wishes."
"Your hair is red, Harrigan, and mine is black; your eye is blue and
mine is black. We were made to want the same thing in different ways.
I've never met my mate before. I can stand it here on the rim of the
world--but in the world itself--what then, Harrigan?"
They stepped apart, and the glance of the black eye crossed that of the
cold blue.
"Ah-h, McTee, are ye dark inside and out? Is the black av your eye the
same as the soot in your heart?"
"Harrigan, you were born to fight and forget; I was born to fight and
remember. Well, I take no oath, but here's my hand. It's better than
the oath of most men."
"A strange fist," grinned Harrigan; "soft in the palm and hard over the
knuckles--like mine."
They went down the hill toward the beach, Harrigan singing and McTee
silent, with downward head. On the beach they started for some rocks
which shelved out into the water, for it was possible that they might
find some sort of shellfish on the rocks below the surface of the
water. Before they reached the place, however, McTee stopped and
pointed out across the waves. Some object tossed slowly up and down a
short distance from the beach.
"From the wreck," said McTee. "I didn't think it would drift quite as
fast as this."
They waded out to examine; the water was not over their waists when
they reached it. They found a whole section from the side of the
wheelhouse, the timbers intact.
_On it lay Kate Malone, unconscious._
Manifestly she never could have kept on the big fragment during the
night of the storm had it not been for a piece of stout twine with
which she had tied her left wrist to a projecting bolt. She had wrapped
the cord many times, but despite this it had worn away her skin and
sunk deep in the flesh of her arm. Half her clothes were torn away as
she had been thrown about on the boards. Whether from exhaustion or the
pain of her cut wrist, she had fainted and evidently lain in this
position for several hours; one side of her face was burned pink by the
heat of the sun.
They dragged the float in, and McTee knelt beside the girl and pressed
an ear against her breast.
"Living!" he announced. "Now we're three on the rim of the world."
"Which makes a crowd," grinned Harrigan.