There was something inexpressibly weird and spectral in the aspect of
the deserted saloon as Roden made his way through it. The few lamps
left burning for night purposes flared in the gloom, the rolled-up
carpeting, the round-backed table-chairs, the bottles and glasses in
swinging racks, each had a ghastly and eloquent expression of its own,
each seemed to show something of dumb protest against being left to its
fate by man, whom it had served so faithfully, to sink down and rot
among the far and slimy depths of the black night of waters. And upon
the dead silence of the deserted ship came, ever and anon, rushings and
gurgles, and ghostly cavernous boomings, as the water rose higher and
higher within the doomed hull.
Roden's heart sprang to his throat as he felt a sudden and sickening
tremor in the planking beneath his feet. Was the vessel already heaving
up for her final plunge? Still cool-headed, his nerve as steady as
iron, he would not suffer himself to be flurried out of one single
precaution. He went straight to his own cabin, and, unlocking his
portmanteau, took out the slender stores which by such marvellous
prescience he had put up ready the evening before. If they were picked
up by one of the boats, he intended to keep this secretly for Mona's
use, should the worst befall. The boats were provisioned to a certain
extent, but provision might run short. Others might starve--perish; she
should not. Then he reached for the cork lifebelt usually stowed above
his bunk. It was gone. All the lifebelts in the cabin had been
removed.
Not many seconds had these precautions taken, nor did it take many more
to reach Mona's cabin. Standing on no ceremony he turned the handle.
The door was locked.
"Mona! Mona! Are you there? In God's name open! Open--quick!" he
cried, shaking the handle furiously in his despair. But there came no
reply.
"Mona--open! It is I! There is danger! Open--quick!" he almost
screamed, at the same time raining a succession of blows upon the door.
This time he heard a confused murmur and a sound of movement. Then the
bolt of the door was shot back.
She stood before him in some clinging white garment. Even at that awful
and critical moment he recognised it as the dressing-gown she had worn
that night at Quaggasfontein, when she had come in to soothe him in his
pain. In the faint and feeble light from the saloon lamps he could see
that her eyes were unnaturally large as she confronted him, but dull and
heavy. The drug had left its mark upon them.
"What is the matter? Where are we?" she said in a drowsy murmur,
staring in amazement at him and his wet and dripping condition. Without
a word he stepped past her into the cabin, and snatching the cork
lifebelt stowed above her bed buckled it around her.
"Come," he said. "No--just as you are!" noting a movement to turn back.
"We have not a moment to lose. Quick--trust yourself to me."
As they passed through the saloon, she with his arm around her, still
drowsy and half stupefied, which perhaps was the best state she could
have been in in such an appalling emergency, the quivering tremor of the
deck had increased, and louder sounded the hollow booming of the water.
There was a list which nearly threw them off their feet. A wash of
water swept the scuttles, then the ship lurched slowly over to
starboard, and again the scuttles were under the brine. Surely they
were going--going. It would be awful, shut up there to drown like rats
in a hole, awful--awful; the same death up on deck in the free open air
seemed easy, pleasant, by comparison. Yet as he held her closely to
him, supporting her with his right arm while with his left he groped and
steadied his way--both their ways--ascending the companion stairs, Roden
Musgrave was conscious that even death in this fashion held no
bitterness for him. No, there was a strange, fierce, delirious
sweetness in the situation, which he would not have exchanged at that
moment for life and safety. When her absence was overlooked, when she
had been left to die, he alone had thrown away safety, life; he alone
had returned to die with her. And he had his reward. Were they
entering paradise together? It seemed like it at that moment, when they
were about to die together, she in his arms. In such lightning flashes
of thought did his mind whirl in the brief minute which had elapsed
since the opening of her cabin door.
In close, dank, airless folds, the heavy mist still lay around--dark,
impenetrable as a curtain. The night air, however, and the weird
eloquence of the utter solitude, the disordered deck, the great towering
funnel, the ruined deckhouses, the serpentine lapping of the water,
roused Mona from her semi-lethargy.
"Where are they all?" she said, a start of terror shaking her frame as
she looked around and began to realise her position.
"Gone! I only am left; and I am going to save you, if I can: if not, to
die with you; and death will be sweet."
Something of all that had been passing through his mind passed through
Mona's now. She pressed her lips to his, clasping him convulsively.
"You came back to die with me? Oh, my love! my love!"
She was quite calm as the whole truth struck upon her. Love seemed
utterly to dispel all terrors of death. But Roden did not intend that
it should come to that if he could help it. Keenly and carefully he had
been looking around. Every life-buoy had disappeared, snatched off by
the panic-stricken crowd. The deck cabins, though yawning and seamed,
were so firmly stanchioned that he could not drag out so much as a
plank. The skylights were unloosed. There was nothing. Again the deck
beneath them gave that convulsive, shivering lurch.
"Mona, darling," he whispered, "act now with that splendid courage you
showed before. I will not leave go of you, but don't clutch me or
struggle. We shall go down, but we shall come up again. Now--come."
But before he could gain the side of the ship with her there was an
angry, seething swirl--and there leaped out of the gloom and mist in
front huge wreaths, white and spectral, and hissing like snakes. Then
with this appalling spectacle their footing gave way, and it seemed as
if they were being whirled up into the very heavens. The after-part of
the great hull reared itself aloft, and with a roaring, thunderous
plunge, the _Scythian_ disappeared from mortal sight for ever.
Down, down, into the farther depths--down, down, ever down, with a
vibrating and jarring and crashing as of the destruction of ten million
worlds. The weight of ten million worlds seemed upon these two, as,
socked down in the vortex of the foundering ship, the swiftly flashing
brain realised the terrific, the soul-curdling barrier that lay between
them and the upper air. Down, down--ever down--down through those
roaring, jarring realms of space and of darkness, of black and rayless
night.
Never for the fraction of an instant did Roden relax his grasp; never in
that swift, sickening engulfment, while dragged down and down to the
black depths of creation; never, as the starry fires of suffocation
dared and scintillated before his strained and bursting eyeballs. Never
would he; for even the last awful struggle of dissolution should but
rivet the embrace tighter. Then the engulfment, the suction, seemed to
slacken. A vigorous effort, and he felt himself rising; yes, distinctly
rising. Ha! air! light! yet not light. With a rush as of a bird
through the air, he--they--soared up from that vast ocean depth, gaining
the upper air once more.
Then in nameless fear he put his ear to her lips. Was she still
living--or had she succumbed to that long suffocating immersion? A
faint sigh escaped her breast; but that little sound caused his heart to
leap with a wild and thrilling ecstasy. She lived--lived still. And
then, drawing her closer to him as they floated, he kissed those lips,
cold with semi-unconsciousness, wet with the salt brine of ocean; and it
seemed to him that the kiss was returned. Did ever the world see
stranger love passage,--these two alone, floating in the night mist;
alone on the vast expanse of a silent ocean, nothing between them and
death but the cork lifebelt of the one, and the far from inexhaustible
swimming powers of the other?
Would any of the boats be hanging about the scene of the wreck? Not
likely. Those which had escaped the havoc wrought by the first rush
were crowded to the water's edge. The panic-stricken castaways would
sheer off as far as possible, eager to pat all the distance they could
between themselves and the vortex of the foundering ship. Yet there was
just the chance, and to this end, as soon as he had recovered breath
Roden sent up a long, loud, penetrating call. His voice rang eerily
out, rendering the slimy stillness more dead, more oppressive than
before. But--no answer.
This he had expected. The hopelessness of their position was with him
throughout. It was useless exhausting his forces in swimming hither or
thither; wherefore he employed just enough movement to enable him to
keep himself, and Mona, comfortably afloat. Again he raised his voice
in a louder, clearer call.
Stay! What was that? Echo? Echo from the vastness of the liquid
solitude? No. It was not an echo.
There floated out through the mist a fainter, shriller cry. Roden's
pulses beat like a hammer, and a rush of blood surged to his head. The
boats had waited around, then? They would be picked up, saved--for the
present. Again he shouted, long and loudly.
And now a strange, awesome, wonderful thing befell. Through the
enshrouding mist there darted a nebulous expanding ray, as from the disc
of some mighty lantern, and upon the curtain of vapour was silhouetted,
black and gigantic, the horizontal form of a coffin; and rising from it
and falling back again, the head and shoulders of a man, of huge
proportions, black as night. Heavens! what appalling shade of darkness
was this, haunting the drear, horrible, inky surface of that slimy sea?
The Thing bore down upon them, was almost over them. Roden, convinced
that this new horror was a mere illusion begotten of the mist and his
own exhausted state, closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them
again it had vanished.
But in its place was something else. Brighter and brighter shone the
nebulous ray, and now, parting the mist folds a half-moon looked down;
looked down on these two heads, mere tiny specks upon the vast ocean
surface--down, too, upon that other thing. And seeing what it was, the
revulsion of hope which shot through their two hearts was terrible.
There floated what looked like a plank. No, stay! Was it a plank? It
seemed more solid; it was oblong; and upon it, stretched out and
clinging wildly to its sides, was the figure of a man. This, then,
grotesquely exaggerated and distorted by the mist, was what had
constituted the coffin apparition.
In the shock of this blank and bitter disappointment Mona had well-nigh
lost consciousness. But upon her companion and protector the sight
produced a strangely reinvigorating effect. A gleam as of a set, fell
purpose shone from his eyes, as, beneath the sickly, moist light of the
fog-veiled moon, he watched the plank and the clinging man draw nearer
and nearer, while he guided himself and his charge silently,
imperceptibly towards it; and the meaning of the lurid, predatory look
was this:--
_He meant to have that plank_.
But the man who was already on it?
Well, he must get off it. Whatever the support was it certainly would
not uphold two, let alone three. Mona must have it--must take the place
of its present occupant. He himself could continue to swim, to float as
he was doing, just aiding himself by the support of a hand upon its
edge. The man who was on it now must yield it up.
Faint and shrill again came the cry which they had at first heard, and
it had in it the quaver of exhaustion, of terror, of despair. This time
no reply was made. But keeping behind and out of sight of the floating
waif, Roden, with a few noiseless but vigorous strokes, brought his now
unconscious charge and himself to within grasping distance of the
concern. And as he did so he could hardly control his joy. The thing
was a solid hatch, and was fitted with two strong ring-bolts, one at
each diagonal corner.
Just then, alarmed by the faint splash, the man turned. His teeth were
chattering with cold and fright, and his limbs shaking as he clung
convulsively to his support. The moon, falling for an instant upon his
anguished features, revealed the face of Lambert.
"What--who are you?" he quavered. "There's no room--no room here. The
thing won't carry more than one. Oh--Musgrave, by God!"
"Yes. Musgrave, by God!" answered Roden, a kind of snarling triumph
underlying his sneer. "You're right. The thing won't carry more than
one, and that one is going to be Miss Ridsdale. So off you get,
Lambert."
"But I can't swim another stroke. I'm done up," stammered the other.
"Don't care. You can go to the bottom then. Get off, will you?"
"No, I won't," yelled the unfortunate man in the fury of despair. "My
life's as good as other people's. I'm here first, and here I mean to
stick."
"Oh, do you?" And dragging down the side of the impromptu raft which
was nearest him Roden suddenly released it. Up it went with a jerk,
flinging its occupant to the other side, where, losing his hold of the
ring-bolt, he rolled off into the sea. By the time he could recover
himself and think about striking out, the hatch was quite a number of
yards away.
"Musgrave, Musgrave!" shrieked the despairing man, "for God's sake don't
leave me! Let me just rest a hand on the thing to support myself; I
won't try and get on it. I swear I won't."
The only answer was a laugh--a blood-curdling laugh, a demoniacal laugh,
sounding, as it did, from the very jaws of death upon that dark and
horrible waste of waters.
"I wouldn't believe the oath of such a crawling sneak as you, Lambert,
if taken on your deathbed; and that's about where it is taken now.
Remember the valuable discovery you made at Doppersdorp. Well, you
thought to ruin me, but you only twisted the rope to hang yourself with,
for if your discovery hadn't driven me from the country I shouldn't be
here to-day to take your last plank from you. Now we are quits; for I
tell you, if this thing would carry fifty people, _you_ shouldn't get
upon it."
While Roden was thus speaking Lambert had been drawing gradually nearer.
Now making a sudden last despairing effort, with a sort of spring out
of the water, he succeeded in seizing the edge of the hatch, upon which
Mona had already been lifted, and was lying unconscious. It began to
slant perilously.
"Let go, will you!" spake Roden, between his teeth, in a voice like the
growl of a wild beast. "What? You won't!" And with all his force he
struck out, aiming a blow between the other's eyes. But Lambert saw it
coming, and dodged it.
It was a strange and soul-curdling scene, that upon which the ghastly
moon looked down, these two men, both within the very portals of death,
striving, battling alone in the black oiliness of the midnight sea,
fighting for that small slab of wood--fighting, the one for his life,
the other for a life that was far more precious to him than his own.
And of all the horrific and heart-sickening acts which that pale orb has
witnessed, it can seldom have looked upon one more appalling.
Now Lambert made a frantic clutch at his adversary, hoping in his frenzy
of despair to drag the latter down with him. But abandoning his hold of
the raft for a moment Roden dived, then rising seized Lambert by the
neck from behind, battering his head against the hard wood. The
unfortunate surgeon, more than half stunned, relaxed his hold, and fell
back into the sea.
"Good-bye, Lambert," cried the other, with a glee that was hellish in
its ferocity. "Pity I haven't got Sonnenberg here to send after you.
Well, you and I are quits now, at any rate. Good-bye, Lambert!"
For reply came a frightful noise, a gurgling, gasping, inarticulate
yell. Then the struggles of the despairing wretch ceased. A boil of
bubbles came glittering up to the surface of the now moonlit water, then
they too ceased. Roden Musgrave and his unconscious charge were alone
together once more--alone on the dark, silent, midnight sea.