By some strange, mysterious influence, Mona's forebodings were shared by
her late companion. After the latter had parted with her, the rain
having ceased, he betook himself to the silent decks to think, and then
it was, in the weird gloom lighted only by the twinkle of the binnacle
light and the corpse-candle ghastliness of the phosphorescent surface,
that the presentiment came upon him. So strong was it indeed, as to
move him to do a strange thing. He went down to his cabin, of which he,
too, was the sole tenant. Arrived there he produced from his baggage a
large pewter flask which would contain perhaps something over a pint.
Into this he carefully measured a modicum of brandy, filling up the
whole with water. This done, he took a few hard biscuits from a case,
and two or three skins of concentrated soup, each about three inches
long by an inch and a half in diameter. These he enveloped tightly in a
very thin, light, waterproof substance, placing the whole just inside
his portmanteau again. He did not even laugh at himself for taking this
strange and somewhat ominous precaution. He had been in far too
unexpected and particularly "tight" places to laugh at any precaution.
The only thing that did cause him the ghost of a smile was, in
imagination, the faces of his fellow-passengers could they only have
seen what he was doing.
This done, he took his way to the captain's cabin. It was only his
shaken nerves, he told himself, as he picked his way across the wet and
slippery decks. He had put a pretty stiff strain upon them of late, and
now they were paying him out. That was all. Still he did not laugh at
himself on account of the precautions he had been taking, nor would he
do so even in the safe and cheerful light of to-morrow morning.
"Hallo, Musgrave," cried Cheyne, "I had about given you up for to-night.
Thought you had turned in. However, roll up, man. Better late than
never." And diving into a locker, he produced a bottle from his private
store, for the bar was long since closed for the night. "Turton was up
here just now, but had to go down and settle some row that had broken
out among his lambs. Those are passengers I don't care about."
This was in allusion to a number of soldiers who had been sent on board
the _Scythian_ at the last moment, in charge of a captain and subaltern;
and a mutinous, unruly crowd they were.
"Those time-expired men are the devil of a nuisance, Musgrave," went on
Cheyne. "Why on earth can't they send them home in a troopship, or
charter a vessel on purpose, instead of saddling them on to us? Crowded
up, too, with ordinary passengers as we are."
"But they're not all time-expired men, eh?"
"Not much. About a third of 'em are lunatics or prisoners under
sentence, or bad hats generally."
"Been up to anything fresh then?" said Roden, blowing out a cloud.
"Nothing in particular; but they are always more or less unruly. The
last people I want to see on board ship are a lot of soldiers,
especially time-expired ones."
"How many of them are there, skipper? Couple of hundred, eh?"
"Less five. If that lunatic, who jumped overboard yesterday morning at
bath parade, had gone down it would have made yet another less. We were
delayed about twenty minutes or more, and when the boat came up with him
the beggar tried all he knew to swim away from it. I was watching him
through the glass, expecting every minute to see him risen by a shark,
but no. If he'd been a sane man and a useful member of society,
something of the kind would have happened; but being of no earthly good
to himself or anybody else, it didn't."
"Quite so. Two hundred, less five, I think you said. Crowded up too,
fore and aft, with passengers. What would happen if we came to sudden
and unexpected smash? In the matter of the boats I mean."
"What sort of croaking vein are you in, Musgrave? Well, in such a case
it would be a mortal tight fit, I don't mind telling _you_. We fulfil
all the requirements of the Board of Trade in the matter of boat
carrying, but if we have a couple of hundred damned soldiers crammed on
board at the last moment, what are we to do? Why, just drive ahead and
trust to luck; and that's what brings us through far oftener than you
landsmen ever dream."
The talk veered round to other topics, and presently one of the
quartermasters came in to report that the weather was thickening into a
regular fogbank.
"I'll go up on the bridge a bit, Musgrave," said the captain. "It isn't
often we get fogs so near the Line. But the weather has been beastly
this voyage, as hot and steamy as I've ever known it; and there are a
lot of waterspouts about too."
They bade each other good-night, and already as Roden left the cabin,
the more measured throb of the propeller told that the vessel had slowed
down to half-speed. Then the hoarse, rasping screech of the foghorn
rent the night as the ship drove slowly through the smother, whose
steamy folds blotted out the stars. Again and again the voice of the
foghorn was lifted, uttering its hideous, vibrating whoop--causing the
sleeping passengers below to start up wide awake in confused doubt as to
whether the end of the world had come, and a hazy uncertainty as to
whether they themselves were just arriving at Waterloo station or at the
Judgment Seat. There was one, however, whom the unendurably distracting
sound did not awaken; who slept on--heavily, tranquilly, dreamlessly.
Roden, though intending to go below, still remained on deck, held by a
kind of fascination, as the ship glided slowly through the silent fleecy
smother. Then again the jarring blast of the foghorn rolled out, and--
on Heaven! Was it an echo--louder, more appalling than the sound
itself? For, as he gazed, there leaped forth something out of the mist.
In that rapidly flashing moment of time was photographed upon his brain
a massive hull, the loom of a huge funnel, a towering cut-water--a human
figure, wild with horror, upon the extremity of the latter. Then came a
shock which flung him, bruised, partly stunned, to the deck.
Keeping his presence of mind amid the awful and appalling crash, he
managed to save his head from injury; then, before he could rise, came
another shock more jarring, more shivering than the first, and with it
the blasting screech of escaping steam. He saw a heavy body, flung from
the bridge, fall head downwards. He heard the grinding, crunching sound
of that cut-water shearing through strong iron plates; the frantic
shrieks and yells now arising beneath, which even the deafening
demoniacal blast from the steampipe could not drown. Then, his confused
senses whirling round, he saw the great hull--the towering cut-water
which had crashed into them right amidships, recede and vanish into the
mist. The _Scythian_ floated once more alone upon the fog-enshrouded
waters, and it needed no abnormal instinct of prescience to tell that
very soon she would float no longer.
And now there followed the most indescribable scene of terror and
confusion ever witnessed in the annals of ocean tragedy. The saloon
passengers, already alarmed and uneasy by the repeated blasts of the
foghorn, came pouring up the companion; crowding, crushing past each
other in their furious panic. The second-class passengers, too, from
the tore part of the ship, tore aft, crying that the water was already
flooding their cabins. Each fed the other's fears; till the decks were
alive with what seemed nothing less than a surging crowd of shrieking,
fighting maniacs. And then, to complete the chaotic unwieldy horror of
the situation, the time-expired men made a rush for the boats, and
casting two of them loose before they could be prevented, poured over
the side into them with the result of capsizing both.
Not all behaved thus. There were several cool heads among them, but in
such a minority as to be utterly powerless to sway that screeching,
frantic mob. And when it was discovered that the captain was lying
atone dead, having been hurled to the deck by the shock when about to
descend from the bridge, and the chief officer so injured as to be
unconscious and beyond recovery, why then, all hope of quelling the
panic was over. In vain the remaining ship's officers strove to guard
the boats with revolvers. The weapons were knocked from their grasp,
and themselves trampled under foot or hustled overboard. The stalwart
quartermasters were dragged from their footing and the seamen so
separated among the dense, impenetrable crowd, that cohesion was
impossible; under such circumstances, even to some of the ship's company
a little of the demoralisation communicated itself. In like manner the
two officers in charge of the troops were helpless, and the efforts of
all were further impeded by the masses of screaming, praying, fainting
women, dashing themselves about the decks in the frenzy of their panic.
Not many minutes had gone by since the first crash, not many minutes of
this shocking scene, and already the beat of the propeller had ceased.
The great gasping hole which was letting out the ship's life was letting
in her deadly enemy, the sea. The fires in the engine-room were already
out. There was a horrible stillness now as of the fabric settling more
and more beneath their feet.
Throughout the indescribable horror of this hideous panic Roden Musgrave
kept his head. It was nothing to him that the whole of this shrieking,
demoralised horde should perish, provided he could save one life. One
life! but where was the owner of that life? Himself jammed against the
bulwarks by the swaying frantic crowd, it required his utmost efforts to
prevent the breath from being crushed out of him; but while thus
occupied, never for a moment did he lose sight of the ruling idea. His
eyes scanned the scared faces and wildly rushing forms, but that which
he sought was not there. He heard the furious tumult of oaths and
curses and beast-like yells, where men, brutalised in the face of death,
yielding to the unbridled selfishness and cowardice of their real
nature, fought wildly for the boats, trampling down and hurling aside
women and children indiscriminately, and, in short, all weaker than
themselves. The great crowded passenger ship had become a floating hell
of all the evil sides of human nature. All this and more did he hear;
and still with a wild despair at his heart, he strained his eyes through
the smother, now so thick that they could hardly see the width of the
ship. But she for whom he sought was not there.
"Oh, Mr Musgrave, for Christ's sake get us a place in one of the
boats!" gasped an imploring voice. He turned, and beheld a lady with
whom he had been on fairly friendly terms. Her two little ones, pretty,
engaging children, were clinging to her hands.
"Where is Miss Ridsdale?" he asked, stone deaf to her appeal. "Her
cabin is next to yours."
"She's in yonder boat. I saw her lowered into it. Quick, quick! Take
me there. She is there, I tell you."
"Are you sure?"
"Quite, quite. Oh, lose no time!" wringing her hands piteously.
"Come, then!"
With a deft rapidity that was marvellous under the circumstances, he
forced a way through the swaying crowd, now very much thinned out. The
boat she had pointed to was worked by some of the ship's company, who,
cool-headed, had left the panic to take care of itself, and were
devoting their efforts to rescuing such of the women and children as
they could. The boat was lying by, already loaded down to the water's
edge.
"Here's another passenger for you, Smithers," sang out Roden,
recognising one of the quartermasters. "Now, Mrs Mainwaring, down you
go! I'll hand down the little ones."
But she refused, until the children were first taken off. Then she
followed.
"Is Miss Ridsdale there, Smithers?" he cried.
"Very sorry, sir, but we can't take you off. No more room for any
males."
"I didn't ask you to take me off. Is Miss Ridsdale with you?" And just
then, a recumbent figure in the after-part of the boat caught his eye in
the misty gloom. Yes, that was Mona. He was satisfied.
"Stay, stay!" shrieked Mrs Mainwaring, the lady whom he had just
rescued. "Take him with you, if you are men. There is room for one
more. All the women are safe in the other boats--I saw them! We were
nearly the last. Come, Mr Musgrave!"
The old quartermaster looked doubtful, then yielded.
"Jump, sir, jump! We haven't a moment to lose. That's it. Give way,
my lads."
The heavily laden boat laboured ponderously from the side of the big
ship. The sound of hoarse shouting through the misty smother, the
shrieks of hysterical women, the splash of the oars, the raucous,
suffocating cry of a drowning wretch, sinking back exhausted here and
there, made a weird and appalling situation, such as those now in it
would remember their lives long--if their lives were spared them. And,
settling down more and more, black, and hardly distinguishable in
outline, lay the huge, helpless hull of what a few minutes back was a
mighty steamship, and any moment might witness the final plunge.
Already most of the boats were out of sight of each other, almost out of
hail, having made all the offing they could from the foundering ship.
But of the great steamer which had crashed into them there was visible
no sign, no, nor even audible. Had she left them to perish, or had she
herself foundered instantaneously? Surely this awful hubbub was audible
for miles. Surely if she were above water, her people could not leave
them thus to die. Still--of her no sign.
"Put back, Smithers," said Roden. "Miss Ridsdale is not in the boat."
A storm of murmurs arose.
"She is in some other boat, then. It's too late to put back."
"She is not. She's still on board the ship. Would you leave a woman to
drown? Put back."
The storm of discontent redoubled. Here were many women and children.
If the boat got back, she would certainly be drawn down in the vortex of
the sinking ship. It was better that one should perish than many.
Besides, how did anybody know that that one was still on board?
Well, one did know, but how he knew was another matter. For, as sure as
though he had heard her voice crying to his ears, did Roden Musgrave
then know that Mona was still on board the doomed hull, left to die
alone.
"Very well. Do as you like!" he answered; "I am going back." And
before any could prevent him, he had flung himself into the sea, and was
striking out, with long, easy, vigorous strokes, for the ill-fated
_Scythian_.
"We'll stand by for you," sang out old Smithers. "But be quick, sir."
Roden seized the rope-ladder by which the boat's load had been lowered,
and soon regained the now silent and deserted deck. But, as he did so,
a panic shout went up from those in the boat. The hull, now very low
down in the water, was seen to lurch, and to heave. The cry went up
that the ship was already sinking, and all hands, straining with a will
at the oars, thought of nothing for the next few minutes but to poll as
far as possible outside that dangerous and fatal vortex.
And, thus abandoned, Roden Musgrave stood upon the deck of the doomed
ship--alone.