THAT same night the change we had been expecting came on us, and a storm
raged furiously till the dawn. Sometimes, but very occasionally, a
summer gale will carry as much weight in it as one of its winter
brethren. And, when this is so, it works far wider damage both by sea
and land. It will catch our seamen, unprepared and unsuspecting, on a
lee shore of dangerous approach, with some headland or cape to windward
that bars their only path to safety.
Less dangerous it may be to dwellers on the shore, but not less dreaded.
For it destroys, almost in a moment, the wealth of emerald foliage which
Nature in her thriftiness had meant to last for six long months, to
perish gradually in greater glory still of gold and scarlet, orange and
russet-brown. And then one morning she wakes to find her handiwork
destroyed, at a time when it is just too late for her to repair the
damage. Nothing left of all she has been secretly and silently creating
through the long months of winter, except a few torn and tattered leaves,
which she will make all speed she can to discard, seeing that theirs can
only be a discredited old age of uniform withered brown.
It was over a foreground like this that I looked seawards that morning.
Under my bedroom window two men were talking. “Aye, she’s done for,”
said one of them; “it won’t be more than half-an-hour before she strikes.
With only a rag of canvas upon her, and one of her masts gone, he’d
better give it up and put her on shore as soon as he can find a quiet
place. Though, for the matter of that, one place is no better than
another, so far as their chance of saving her goes.”
“That’s just what he’s doing,” his neighbour answered. “Don’t you see
he’s trying to push her along just outside the breakers till he can bring
her about opposite the coastguard station, and then he’ll shove her on
shore. I can see them watching and waiting for her; and they’ve got the
rockets ready on the beach.” And they moved off quickly in the direction
of their gaze.
Long before our party, which included the Squire and Marion, had reached
the scene of the disaster, the busiest part of the proceedings was over.
When she first struck, a heavy sea had canted her round and laid her
broadside to the shore, where she lay, heaving and groaning like some
living creature, under the weight of the seas as they struck her and then
flung themselves over her in sheets of foam.
A rocket had carried a guiding rope well across the wreck and into the
hands of the crew. Having secured it to the one remaining mast, they had
attached the travelling cradle, and, as we came upon the scene, were one
by one escaping to the shore.
Not a minute too soon. For the seas were growing heavier with the rising
of the tide, and as each one struck her, the ship shuddered through all
her length, while jets of foam that burst up through her decks showed
that her timbers were yielding to the strain. Even as we stood watching
her she rose on the top of a huge breaker, and, as she settled down again
upon the bottom, her sole remaining mast cracked and fell, and with it
went the rope and cradle that had wrought the safety of the crew.
Another moment, and, above the rush of wind and water, the plaintive howl
of a dog reached us from the deck. A large black retriever had been
fastened to the mast, and in the hurry and confusion of their own escape
the crew had forgotten to loose him. He had waited most patiently, poor
beast, while the crew were saving themselves, waited in the belief that
his own turn would come at last. And all the while he had never uttered
a sound, though the seas that swept over the wreck must almost have
drowned or strangled him.
But now that he felt he was abandoned by the crew, fear had fallen on
him, which became panic when the mast to which he was tethered crashed
down at his side, leaving only the stump standing to which he had been
chained. We could see him struggling violently as the seas swept over
him, while now and again he uttered a piteous howl, looking appealingly
landwards as if to call attention to his despair. His terror wrought
painfully on all our hearts. It was no sight for a woman to see, and I
shuddered to think that Marion was there to see it.
“Oh! it’s too cruel,” she cried. “Will no one, no one save him? I would
give anything to see him safe.”
“Anything? really _anything_?” I asked, bending my head to hers, for the
roar of wind and water made speech and hearing difficult.
She looked me steadily in the face, as if trying to read my meaning in my
eyes. And then her own eyes fell before mine. “Yes, anything,” she
said, and the word came to me like an echo of the question I had asked
her, “anything that friend may claim and I can give.”
It may be that her answer determined me though I think I should have
tried it, even without the incentive she had given. It was intolerable
to see the poor brute drowning before our eyes without an effort being
made to save him, especially when he had faced the danger so bravely,
while he had watched us rescuing the crew and felt there was still a
chance for him of life. Only, if it was to be done at all, I saw it must
be quickly done. Each sea as it came in was higher than the last, and a
seam that had opened in her side towards us showed us that the ship was
going fast.
My only chance, I saw, was to follow a spent wave and gain the deck if
possible before the next one broke on her. It was all in my favour that
she lay broadside to the shore, for her bulk acted as a breakwater
against the sea, making it fairly calm water on the side of her that
faced us. This would save me, I saw, from the worst danger of all, that
of being carried out to sea by the retreating wave, though it brought
with it another and almost graver peril in the risk that I might be
caught and crushed against her side by the force of its retreat.
In any case now, if ever, my muscular training must stand me in good
stead. First of all I wound a rope about me, leaving the shore-end of it
in the hands of the coastguards, as I relied on their help to ensure my
safety in case I should be overpowered by the rush of the retiring wave.
Then I watched and waited my time while one, two, three seas broke over
her; but none of them retreated far enough to serve my purpose. The
fourth was the heaviest of all, and when it had spent itself, retreated
further in proportion. Seizing the opportunity, I dashed through the
lake of foam that lay between us and the wreck, and, grasping a rope that
hung adrift over her side, and which I had long marked as my one hope on
the chance of its being well secured at the further end, I swung myself
by means of it up and on to the deck.
Only just in time; for as I landed on the deck a plank broke loose at my
feet, through which I saw that her whole side seawards was gone, and that
the cargo had nearly all washed out of her. The next blow, I saw, would
finish her. So, loosing the dog and dropping him over the side, I hung
for a moment while the wave surged round me before I lowered myself. And
on the calm that followed the wave’s retreat the watchers drew me to the
shore. And then, with a crash that echoed high above the storm, she
parted amidships, and the sea poured in volumes through the rent in the
severed hull.
I walked straight to the place where Marion was sitting with the dog at
her feet.
A word of thanks—no more. But it satisfied me, for a light had sprung
into her eyes that told me I had won her love.