Vandover stayed for two weeks at Coronado Beach and managed to pass the
time very pleasantly. He was fortunate enough to find a party at the
hotel whom he knew very well. In the morning they bathed or sailed on
the bay, and in the afternoon rode out with a pack of greyhounds and
coursed jack-rabbits on the lower end of the island. Vandover's good
spirits began to come back to him, his appetite returned, his nerves
steadied themselves, he slept eight hours every night. But for all that
he did not think that things were the same with him. He said to himself
that he was a changed man; that he was older, more serious.
During this time he received several letters from his father which he
answered very promptly. In the course of their correspondence it was
arranged that they should both leave for Europe on the twenty-fifth of
that month, and that consequently, Vandover should return to the city
not later than the fifteenth. Vandover was having such a good time,
however, that he stayed over the regular steamer in order to go upon a
moonlight picnic down on the beach. The next afternoon he took passage
for San Francisco on a second-class boat.
This homeward passage turned out to be one long misery for Vandover. He
had never been upon a second-class boat before and had never imagined
that anything could be so horribly uncomfortable or disagreeable. The
_Mazatlan_ was overcrowded, improperly ballasted, and rolled
continually. The table was bad, the accommodations inadequate, the
passengers hopelessly uncongenial. Cold and foggy weather accompanied
the boat continually. The same endless procession of bleached hills
still filed past under the mist, going now in the opposite direction,
and the same interminable game of whist was played in the smoking-room,
only with greasier, second-class cards, amidst the acrid smoke of
second-class tobacco. At supper, the first day out, a little Jew who sat
next to Vandover, and who invariably wore a plush skull-cap with
ear-laps, tried to sell him two flawed and yellow diamonds.
The evening after leaving Port Hartford the _Mazatlan_ ran into dirty
weather. It was not stormy--simply rough, disagreeable, the wind and sea
directly ahead. Half an hour after supper Vandover began to be sick. For
a long time he sat on the slippery leather cushions in the nasty
smoking-room, sucking limes, drinking seltzer, and trying to be
interested in the card games. He dozed a little and awoke, feeling
wretched, covered with a cold sweat, racked by a pain in the back of his
head, and tortured by an abominable nausea. He groped his way out upon
the swaying, gusty deck, descended to his cabin, and went to bed.
The _Mazatlan_ had booked more passengers than could be accommodated,
the steward being obliged to make up beds on the floor of the dining
saloon and even upon some of the tables. Vandover had not been able to
get a stateroom, and so had put up with a bunk in the common cabin at
the stern of the vessel.
About two o'clock in the morning he woke up in this place frightfully
sick at the stomach and wretched in body and mind. He had an upper bunk,
and for a long time he lay on his back rolling about with the rolling of
the steamer, vaguely staring straight above him at the roof of the
cabin, hardly a hand's-breadth above his face. The roof was iron,
painted with a white paint very thick and shiny, and was studded with
innumerable bolt-heads and enormous nuts. By and by, for no particular
reason, he rose on his elbow and, leaning over the side of his berth,
looked about him.
The light streaming from two strong-smelling ship's lanterns showed the
cabin, long and narrow. There were two cramped passageways, on either
side of which the tiers of bunks, mere open racks filled with bedding,
rose to the roof, those occupied by women hung with spotted turkey-red
calico.
The cabin was two decks below the open air and every berth was occupied,
the only ventilation being through the door. The air was foul with the
stench of bilge, the reek of the untrimmed lamps, the exhalation of so
many breaths, and the close, stale smell of warm bedding.
A vague murmur rose in the air, the sound of deep breathing, the moving
of restless bodies between the coarse sheets, the momentary noise of the
scratching of blunt finger-tips, a subdued cough, the moan of a sleeping
child. All the while the shaft of the screw, seemingly close beneath
the floor, pounded and rumbled without a moment's stop.
Immediately underneath Vandover two men, saloonkeepers, awoke and lit
their cigars and began a long discussion on the question of license. Two
or three bunks distant, a woman, a Salvation Army lassie, one of a large
party of Salvationists who were on board, began to cough violently,
choking for breath. Across the aisle the little Jew of the plush
skull-cap with ear-laps snored monotonously in alternate keys, one a
guttural bass, the other a rasping treble. The _Mazatlan_ was rolling
worse than ever, now up and down, now from side to side, and now with
long forward lurches that combined the other two motions. During one of
these latter the little Jew was half awakened. He stopped snoring,
leaving an abrupt silence in the air. Then Vandover could hear him
threshing about uneasily; still half asleep he began to mutter and
swear: "Dat's it, r-roll; I woult if I were you; r-roll, dat's
righd--dhere, soh--ah, geep it oop--r-roll, you damnt ole tub, yust
_r-r-roll_."
The continued pitching, the foul air, and the bitter smoke from the
saloonkeepers' cigars became more than Vandover could stand. His stomach
turned, at every instant he gagged and choked. He suddenly made up his
mind that he could stand it no longer, and determined to go on deck,
preferring to walk the night out rather than spend it in the cabin. He
drew on his shoes without lacing them, and dressed himself hurriedly,
omitting his collar and scarf; he put his hat on his tumbled hair, swung
into his overcoat, and, wrapping his travelling-rug around him, started
up toward the deck. On the stairs he was seized with such a nausea that
he could hardly keep from vomiting where he stood, but he rushed out
upon the lower deck, gaining the rail with a swimming head.
He sank back upon an iron capstan with a groan, weak and trembling, his
eyes full of tears, a bursting feeling in his head. He was utterly
miserable.
It was about half-past two in the morning, and a cold raw wind was
whistling through the cordage and flinging the steamer's smoke down upon
the decks and upon the water like a great veil of crêpe. A sickly
half-light was spread out between the sea and the heavens. By its means
he could barely distinguish great, livid blotches of fog or cloud
whirling across the black sky, and the unnumbered multitude of
white-topped waves rushing past, plunging and rising like a vast herd of
black horses galloping on with shaking white manes. Low in the northeast
horizon lay a long pale blur of light against which the bow of the
steamer, inky black, rose and fell and heaved and sank incessantly. To
the landward side and very near at hand, so near that he could hear the
surf at their feet, the long procession of hills continually defiled,
vague and formless masses between the sea and sky. The wind, the noise
of the waves rushing past, the roll of the breakers and the groaning of
the cordage all blended together and filled the air with a prolonged
minor note, lamentable beyond words. The atmosphere was cold and damp,
the spray flying like icy bullets. The sombre light that hung over the
sea reflected itself in long blurred streaks upon the wet decks and
slippery iron rods. Here and there about the rigging a tremulous ball of
orange haze showed where the ship's lanterns were swung. Directly under
him in the stern the screw snarled incessantly in a vortex of boiling
water that forever swirled away and was lost in the darkness. From time
to time the indicator of the patent log, just beside him, rang its tiny
bell.
Vandover drew his rug about him and went up to the main deck, dragging
his shoelaces after him. The wind was stronger here, but he bent his
head against it and went on toward the smoking-room, for the idea had
occurred to him that he could shut himself in there and pass the rest of
the night upon the cushions; anything was better than returning to the
cabin downstairs.
The deck was jerked away from beneath his feet, and he was hurled
forward, many times his own length, against a companionway, breaking his
thumb as he fell. A second shock threw him down again as he rose;
everything about him shook and danced like glassware upon a jarred
table. Then the whole ship rose under his feet as no wave had ever
lifted it, and fell again, not into yielding water, but upon something
that drove through its sides as if they had been paper. A deafening,
crashing noise split the mournful howl of the wind, and far underneath
him Vandover heard a rapid series of blows, a dreadful rumbling and
pounding that thrilled and quivered through all the vessel's framework
up to her very mast-tips. On all fours upon the deck, holding to a cleat
with one hand, he braced himself, watching and listening, his senses all
alive, his muscles tense. In the direction of the engine-room he heard
the furious ringing of a bell. The screw stopped. The _Mazatlan_
wallowed helplessly in the trough of the sea.
Vandover's very first impulse was a wild desire of saving himself; he
had not the least thought for any one else. Every soul on board might
drown, so only he should be saved. It was the primitive animal instinct,
the blind adherence to the first great law, an impulse that in this
first moment of excitement could not be resisted. He ran forward and
snatched a life-preserver from the pile that was stored beneath the
bridge.
As he was fastening it about him, the passengers began to pour out upon
the deck, from their staterooms, from the companionways, and from the
dining saloon. In an instant the deck was crowded. Men and women ran
about in all directions, pushing and elbowing each other, calling
shrilly over one another's heads. Near to Vandover a woman, clothed only
in her night-dress, clung to the arm of a half-dressed man, crying again
and again for a certain "August." She wrung her hands in her excitement;
at times the man shouted "August!" in a quavering bass voice. "August,
here we are over _here_!" "Oh, where _is_ Gussie?" wailed the woman.
"Here, here I am," another voice answered at length; "here I am, I'm all
right." "Oh," exclaimed the woman with a sob of relief, "here's Gussie;
now let's all keep together whatever happens."
All about the decks just such scenes were going on; most of the women
wore only their night-gowns or dressing-gowns, their hair tumbling down
and blowing about their cheeks, their bare feet slipping and sliding on
the heaving wet decks. The men were in shirt and drawers, standing in
the centre of their family groups, silent, excited, very watchful;
others of them ran about searching for life-preservers, shouting
hoarsely, talking to themselves, speaking all their thoughts aloud.
But there was no panic; there was excitement, confusion, bewilderment,
but no excess of fear, no unreasoning terror, deaf, blind, utterly
reckless.
All at once a man parted the crowd with shoulders and elbows, passing
along the deck with great strides. It was the captain. The next instant
Vandover saw him on the bridge, hatless, without his vest or his coat,
just as he had sprung from his berth. From time to time he shouted his
orders, leaning over the rail, gesturing with his arm. The crew ran
about, carrying out his directions, jostling the men out of the way,
knocking over women and children, speaking to no one, intent only upon
their work.
In a few moments the deck steward and one of the officers appeared amid
the crowd of passengers. They were very calm, and at every instant
shouted, "There is no danger; every one go back to his berth; clear the
deck, please; no danger, gentlemen; everybody be quiet; go back to your
berths!" The steward even came up to Vandover and pulled at the straps
of his life-preserver, exclaiming, "Take this off! There is no danger;
you're only exciting the other passengers. Come on, take it off and go
back to your berth."
Vandover obeyed him, slowly loosening the buckles, looking around him,
bewildered, but still holding the preserver in his hands.
Best of all, however, was the example of a huge old fellow wearing the
cap and clothes of a boatswain's mate of a United States battleship; he
seemed to dominate the excited throng in a moment, going about from
group to group, quieting them all, spreading a feeling of confidence and
courage throughout the whole ship. He was an inspiration to Vandover,
who began to be ashamed of having yielded to the first selfish instinct
of preservation.
Just as the boatswain's mate was offering his flask to the woman whom
Vandover had heard calling for "August," the _Mazatlan_ lurched heavily
once or twice, and then slowly listed to the port side, going over
farther and farther every instant. Vandover heard a renewed rumbling and
smashing noise far beneath him, and in some way knew that the cargo was
shifting. Instead of righting herself, the ship began to heave over more
and more. The whole sea on the port side seemed to rise up to meet the
rail; under Vandover's feet the incline of the deck grew steeper and
steeper. All at once his excitement came back upon him with the
sharpness of a blow, and he caught at the brass grating of a skylight
exclaiming: "By God! We're going _over_." The women screamed with
terror; one heard the men shouting, "Look out! hold on! catch hold
there!" An old man, wearing only a gray flannel shirt, lost his footing;
he fell, and rolled over and over down the deck stupidly, inertly,
without making the slightest effort to save himself, without uttering
the least cry; he brought up suddenly against the rail, with a great
jar, the shock of his soft, withered body against the hard wood sounding
like the sodden impact of a bundle of damp clothes. There was a cry;
they thought him killed--Vandover had seen his head gashed against a
sharp angle of iron--but he jumped up with sudden agility, clambering up
the slope of the deck with the strength and rapidity of an acrobat.
There had been a great rush to the other side of the ship, a wild
scrambling up the steep deck, over skylights and between masts and
ventilators. People clung to anything, to cleats, to steamer chairs, to
the brass railings, to the person who stood next to them. They no longer
listened to the protestations of the brave boatswain's mate; that last
long roll had terrified them. The sense of a great catastrophe began to
spread and widen all about like the rising of some fearful invisible
mist. "_What_ had happened? What was to become of them?"
While Vandover clung to the starboard rail, rolling his eyes wildly,
trying to control himself again, a young man, a waiter in the dining
saloon, rushed up to him from out of the crowd, holding out his hand.
"It's all up!" he shouted.
Vandover grasped his extended palm, shaking hands with him fervently,
without knowing why. The two looked straight into each other's eyes,
their hands gripped close; then the waiter turned away, and dropping on
his knees began to pray silently to himself.
Vandover saw a great many others praying; there was even a large group
gathered about the band of Salvationists trying to raise a hymn. Every
now and then their voices could be heard, singing all out of tune, a
medley of discords.
At one time Vandover caught sight of the little Jew of the plush cap
with the ear-laps; he was grovelling upon the deck, huddling a small
black satchel to his breast; without a moment's pause he screamed, "God
'a' mercy! God 'a' mercy!"
The sight revolted Vandover and in a great measure helped to calm him.
In a few moments he had himself in hand again, cool and self-collected,
resolved not to act like a fool before the others, but to help them if
he could.
Near to him a Salvation Army lassie was down upon her knees trying to
cord up a huge bundle wrapped in sail-cloth. "Here," exclaimed Vandover
coming up to her, "let me help. I'll tie this for you--you put _this_
on." He took the wet, stiff ropes from between her fingers and held the
life-preserver toward her; but she refused it.
"No," she cried enthusiastically, "I'm going to be saved anyhow; I ain't
going to drown; Jesus is watching over me. Oh!" she suddenly exclaimed
with a burst of fervor, "Jesus is going to save me. I _know_ I'm going
to be saved. I feel it, I feel it _here_," and she struck her palm on
the breast of the man's red jersey she was wearing.
"Well, I wish _I_ could have such a confidence," answered Vandover,
sincerely envying the plain little woman under the ugly blue bonnet.
She seemed as if inspired, her face glowing. "Only _believe_; that's
all," she told him. "It isn't too late for you now. Ah," she went on,
smiling, "ah, you don't know what it is in a time like this! What a
comfort! What a support! Oh, _look, look_!" she cried, breaking off and
starting to her feet. "That man is going to jump!"
It was the boatswain's mate, the hero who had filled all the passengers
with his own coolness and courage, who had been Vandover's inspiration.
Some strange reaction seemed to have seized upon him. Of a sudden he
rushed to the rail, the starboard rail that was heaved so high out of
the water, stood upon it for a moment, and then with a great shout
jumped over the side. His folly was as infectious as his courage. Four
more men followed him, three going over all at the same time, and a
fourth a little later, hanging an instant upon the outside of the rail,
then dropping down feet first, disappearing with a great splash that
made itself heard in the great silence that had suddenly fallen upon the
throng.
Every one had seen what had happened; a thrill of fear and apprehension
passed over them all like a cold breath. They were silent, struck dumb,
feeling the presence of death close by.
Suddenly a long flash of yellow upon the bridge made a momentary streak
on the darkness, and there was the report of a gun. A minute later it
was fired again, and alternating with it the _Mazatlan's_ whistle began
to roar, like a hoarse shout for help. Between these sounds could be
heard the renewed clamour upon the decks, the shouting, the screaming,
and the rush of many feet; the little children clung about the knees of
their mothers, shrieking and wailing monotonously, "Oh, ma_ma_--oh,
ma_ma_!" rolling their eyes fearfully behind them.
But many of the children, even some of the older passengers, were
absolutely silent, dazed, stupefied with terror and excitement, their
eyes vague and distended, looking slowly about them, scarcely daring to
move a limb.
Meanwhile the _Mazatlan_ was settling forward, and already the spray was
beginning to fly over the decks. Little by little the terror increased;
people threw themselves down upon the deck, rising up again, their arms
raised to heaven, praying aloud, screaming the same things over and over
again. The Salvationists tried to raise another hymn, but the sound of
their voices was drowned out by the tumult, the roaring of the whistle,
the barking of the minute guns, the straining and snapping of the
cordage, and the sound of waves drawing closer and closer. Prone upon
the deck, his arms still clasped about his black satchel, the little Jew
of the plush cap went into some kind of fit, his eyes rolled back, his
teeth grinding upon each other. Vandover turned from him in disgust.
Then he looked around and above him, drawing a long breath, saying aloud
to himself:
"It looks as though it were the end--well!"
All at once Vandover knew that the water had reached the boilers; there
came a noise of hissing: deafening, stunning; white billows of steam
poured up over the deck.
It was no longer the _Mazatlan_, no longer a thing of wood and iron, but
some strange huge living creature that was dying there under his feet,
some enormous brute that was plunging and writhing in its last agony,
its belly ripped open by a hidden enemy that struck from beneath, its
entrails torn out, its life-breath going from it in great gasps of
steam. Suddenly its bellow collapsed; the great bulk was sinking lower;
the enemy was in its very vitals. The great hoarse roar dwindled to a
long death rattle, then to a guttural rasp; all at once it ceased; the
brute was dead--the _Mazatlan_ was a wreck.
Almost at the moment, he heard an order shouted twice from the bridge,
where he could see the shadowy figures of the captain and officers
moving about through the clouds of steam and smoke and mist. Immediately
there followed the shrill piping of the boatswain's whistle; one of the
officers, the first engineer, and some half dozen of the crew came
dashing through the crowd, and there was a great shout of "The boats!
The boats!"
The crowd broke up, rushing here and there about the ship, reforming
again in smaller bands by the boats and life-rafts. Vandover followed
the first engineer, running forward toward one of the boats in the bow.
"Come on!" he shouted to the little Salvationist lassie, pausing a
moment to help her with her heavy canvas-covered bundle. "Come on!
they're going to lower the boats."
She started up to follow him and the boom of the foremast, which the
accident had in some way loosened, swung across the deck at the same
moment. Vandover was already out of its path but it struck the young
woman squarely across the back. She dropped in a heap upon the deck,
then her body slowly straightened out, stiff and rigid, her eyes rapidly
opened and shut, and a great puff of white froth slowly started from her
mouth. Vandover ran forward and lifted her up, but her back was broken;
she was already dead. He rose to his feet exclaiming to himself, "But
she was so sure--she _knew_ she was going to be saved," then suddenly
fell silent again, gazing wonderingly at the body, disturbed, very
thoughtful.
When Vandover finally reached the lifeboat, he found a great crowd
gathered there; three people were already in the boat itself. The first
engineer, who commanded that boat, and three of the crew stood by the
falls preparing to cast off. Just below on the deck of the _Mazatlan_
stood two sailors keeping the crowd in order, continually shouting,
"Women and children first!" As the women passed their children forward,
the sailors lifted them into the boats, some shrieking, others silent
and stupid as if stunned. Then the women were helped up; the men,
Vandover among them, climbing in afterward. The davits were turned out
and the boat was swung clear of the ship's side.
Vandover looked out and below him and then made an involuntary movement
to regain the ship's deck. Far below him, or so at least it seemed, were
mountains of tumbling green water, huge, relentless, irresistible,
rushing on by thousands, to shatter themselves with dreadful force
against the ship's side. It seemed simple madness to attempt to launch
the boat; even the sinking wreck would be safer than this chance.
Vandover was terrified, again deserted by all his calmness and
self-restraint.
The sailors standing in the bow and the stern let out the ropes little
by little, the vast black hulk of the ship began to loom up above them
all, higher and higher, and to their eyes the lifeboat began to grow
smaller and smaller, more and more frail, more and more pitiful.
All at once it struck the water with a crash, in an instant it was
tossed up again in the air, heaving on the crest of a wave, was carried
in and dashed up against the ship, all the oars on that side snapping in
an instant. It was a fearful moment; the little boat was unmanageable in
an instant, leaping and plunging among the waves like a terrified horse,
banged and battered between the heaving water and the hull of the
steamer itself. Vandover believed that all was over; he partially rose
from his seat preparing to jump before the boat should swamp.
There was an interval of shouting and confusion, the first engineer and
the crew leaning over the sides fending off the boat with the stumps of
the oars and with long boathooks. Some oars were shipped to the other
side to take the place of the broken ones, and a score of hands tugging
at them, the boat was at length pulled away out of danger.
The lifeboat had been built to hold thirty-five people; more than forty
had crowded into it, and it needed all prudence and care to keep it
afloat in the heavy seas that were running. The sailors and two of the
passengers were at the oars, while the first engineer took command,
standing in the stern at the steering-oar. He was dressed in a suit of
oilskins, a life-preserver strapped under his arms; he wore no hat, and
at every gust his drenched hair and beard whipped across his face.
Just as the boat was pulling away from the wreck, Vandover and the
others saw the little Jew of the plush cap with the ear-laps standing
upon the rail of the steamer, holding to a stanchion. He believed that
he had been abandoned, and screamed after them, stretching out his
hands. The engineer turned and saw him, but shook his head. "Give way
there!" he commanded the men; "there's no more room."
The Jew flung his satchel from him and jumped; for a moment he
disappeared, then suddenly came up on the crest of a wave, quite close
to them, gasping and beating his hands, the water running out of his
mouth, and his plush cap, glossy with wet, all awry and twisted so that
one ear-lap hung over his eye like a shade. In another moment he had
grasped one of the oar-blades. Every one was watching and there was a
cry, "Draw him in!" But the engineer refused.
"It's too late!" he shouted, partly to the Jew and partly to the boat.
"One more and we are swamped. Let go there!"
"But you can't let him drown," cried Vandover and the others who sat
near. "Oh, take him in anyhow; we must risk it."
"Risk hell!" thundered the engineer. "Look here, you!" he cried to
Vandover and the rest. "I'm in command here and am responsible for the
lives of all of you. It's a matter of his life or ours; one life or
forty. One more and we are swamped. Let go there!"
"Yes, yes," cried some. "It's too late! there's no more room!"
But others still protested. "It's too horrible; don't let him drown;
take him in." They threw him their life-preservers and the stumps of the
broken oars. But the Jew saw nothing, heard nothing, clinging to the
oar-blade, panting and stupid, his eyes wide and staring.
"Shake him off!" commanded the engineer. The sailor at the oar jerked
and twisted it, but the Jew still held on, silent and breathing hard.
Vandover glanced at the fearfully overloaded boat and saw the necessity
of it and held his peace, watching the thing that was being done. The
sailor still attempted to tear the oar from the Jew's grip, but the Jew
held on, panting, almost exhausted; they could hear his breathing in the
boat. "Oh, don't!" he gasped, rolling his eyes.
"Unship that oar and throw it overboard," shouted the engineer.
"Better not, sir," answered the sailor. "Extra oars all broken." The Jew
was hindering the progress of the boat and at every moment it threatened
to turn broad on to the seas.
"God damn you, let go there!" shouted the engineer, himself wrenching
and twisting at the oar. "Let go or I'll shoot!"
But the Jew, deaf and stupid, drew himself along the oar, hand over
hand, and in a moment had caught hold of the gunwale of the boat. It
careened on the instant. There was a great cry. "Push him off! We're
swamping! Push him off!" And one of the women cried to the mate, "Don't
let my little girls drown, sir! Push him away! Save my little girls! Let
him drown!"
It was the animal in them all that had come to the surface in an
instant, the primal instinct of the brute striving for its life and for
the life of its young.
The engineer, exasperated, caught up the stump of one of the broken oars
and beat on the Jew's hands where they were gripped whitely upon the
boat's rim, shouting, "Let go! let go!" But as soon as the Jew relaxed
one hand he caught again with the other. He uttered no cry, but his face
as it came and went over the gunwale of the boat was white and writhing.
When he was at length beaten from the boat he caught again at the oar;
it was drawn in, and the engineer clubbed his head and arms and hands
till the water near by grew red. The little Jew clung to the end of the
oar like a cat, writhing and grunting, his mouth open, and his eyes
fixed and staring. When his hands were gone, he tried to embrace the oar
with his arms. He slid off in the hollow of a wave, his body turned over
twice, and then he sank, his head thrown back, his eyes still open and
staring, and a silver chain of bubbles escaping from his mouth.
"Give way, men!" said the engineer.
"Oh, God!" exclaimed Vandover, turning away and vomiting over the side.
A little while later some one on the bow of the boat called to the
engineer asking why it was they were not heading for the shore. The
engineer did not answer, but Vandover in some way understood that it was
too dangerous to attempt to run the breakers in such heavy weather, and
that they must keep in the open, holding the boat head on to the seas
until either the wind fell or they were picked up by some other vessel.
It was still very dark, and seen under the night from the little boat,
the ocean and the sky seemed immense and terrible; the great waves grew
out of the obscurity ahead of them, rushing down upon the boat, big,
swelling, silent, their crests occasionally hissing and breaking into
irruptions of cold white froth. As one of them would draw near, the boat
would rise upon it as though it would never stop, would hang a moment
upon its summit and then topple into the black gulf that followed,
sending the bitter icy spray high into the air. The wind blew steadily.
Suddenly toward three o'clock it began to rain.
Vandover, the engineer, all the five sailors, and two of the passengers
were clothed. The rest of the passengers were little better than naked.
Here and there a man had snatched a blanket from his berth, and one or
two of them were wearing their trousers, but the rest were clothed for
the most part only with their shirts and drawers. There were eighteen
women and five little girls in the boat. The little girls were well
looked after. Two were wrapped in Vandover's travelling-rug and a couple
of men had put their coats around the third. But there were not wraps
enough to go around among the women, by far the larger part of them were
covered only by their night-dresses or their bed-gowns.
It was abominably cold; the rain fell continually, and the wind blew in
long gusts, piercing, cutting. Every plunge of the boat threw icy
bullets of spray into the air, which the wind caught up and flung down
broad upon the boat. Sometimes even a huge wave would break just upon
their quarter, and then great torrents of bitter, freezing water would
fall over them in a deluge, leaving a sediment of salt that cracked the
skin. The women were huddled upon the bottom of the boat near the waist,
where they had been placed for greater safety. They were fouled with
the muddy water that gathered there, their long hair dishevelled,
dripping with sleet, clinging to their wet cheeks and throats, their
bodies showing pink with cold, through their thin, soaked coverings,
their limbs racked with long incessant shudderings, a wretched group,
miserable beyond words. One of them close by Vandover's feet, he noticed
particularly, had but a single garment to cover her. She was drenched
through and through, her bare feet were blue with the cold, her head was
thrown back, her eyes closed. She was silent except when an unusual gust
of wind whipped the rain and spray across her body like the long, fine
lash of a whip. Then with every breath she moaned, drawing in her breath
between her teeth with a little whistling gasp, too weak, too exhausted,
too nearly unconscious to attempt to shield herself in any way.
Vandover could do nothing; he had almost stripped himself to help clothe
the others. Nothing more could be done. The suffering had to go on, and
he began to wonder how human beings could endure such stress and yet
live.
But Vandover himself suffered too keenly to take much thought for the
sufferings of the others, while besides that anguish which he shared
with the whole boat, the pain in his broken thumb gnawed incessantly
like a rat. From time to time he stared listlessly about him, looking at
the dark sky, the tumbling ocean, and the crowded groups in the
plunging, rolling lifeboat.
There was nothing picturesque about it all, nothing heroic. It was
unlike any pictures he had seen of lifeboat rescues, unlike anything he
had ever imagined. It was all sordid, miserable, and the sight of the
half-clad women, dirty, sodden, unkempt, stirred him rather to disgust
than to pity.
At last the dawn came and grew white over a world of tumbling green
billows and scudding wrack. Some three miles distant, seen only when the
boat topped a higher wave, the same procession of bleached hills moved
gradually to the south under the fog, their feet covered by the white
line of the surf. Not far behind in the wake of the boat the stern of
the _Mazatlan_ rose out of a ring of white foam, the waves breaking over
her as if she had been there for ages, the screw writhing its flanges
into the air like some enormous starfish already fastened upon the hulk.
One of the other boats could be seen now and then between them and the
shore, a momentary dot of black on the vast blur of green and gray.
There was no conversation; the men relieved each other at the oars or
bailed out the water with their caps and hands, scarcely interchanging a
word. The only utterance was an occasional moaning from among the women
and children. There was nothing to eat; long since the two whisky flasks
had been exhausted. The rain fell steadily into the sea with a prolonged
rippling noise.
Vandover was leaning upon the gunwale of the boat, his head buried in
his arms, when suddenly he raised himself and asked of the man who sat
next to him:
"What was the matter last night? What caused the accident?"
The other shook his head, wearily, turning away again. However, the
engineer answered:
"We couldn't carry coal enough to keep up the right pressure of steam
and drifted in upon a reef. I said once before that it would happen some
time."
About an hour later Vandover dropped off to sleep, in spite of the cold,
the wet, and the torment in his thumb. He dozed and woke, and dozed
again all through the morning. About noon he was awakened by a more
violent rolling of the boat, the sound of voices, and a stir among the
other passengers.
It was still raining; the boat was no longer cutting the waves with her
nose, but was being rowed seaward flank on; a sailor stood in the bow
holding a coil of rope. Close in and seen over the tops of the waves
were the shaking and slatting sails of a pilot-boat, lying to. One of
the sails bore an enormous number six.
Vandover slept all that day and the night following, rolled in hot
blankets. The next morning he awoke with a strange sense of unreality
and of having dropped a day somewhere. As he lay in his stuffy little
bunk between decks, and felt the rolling of the pilot-boat under him, he
still fancied himself upon the _Mazatlan_; he felt the pain in his
bandaged thumb and wondered how it came there. Then his fall on the deck
came back to him, the wreck of the steamer, the excitement on board,
the reports of the rifle fired as a minute gun, the clouds of steam that
smelt of a great laundry, and the drowning of the little Jew of the
plush cap with the ear-laps. He shuddered and grew sick again for a
minute, telling himself that he would never forget that scene.
Such of the passengers as could get about breakfasted as best they could
in the cabin with the boatkeeper and four of the pilots. Here they were
informed as to what was to be done with them. The schooner would not go
in for two weeks, and it was out of the question to keep the castaways
on board for that length of time. However, at that moment the pilots
were cruising in the neighbourhood on the lookout for two Cape Horners
that were expected to be up at any moment. It was decided that when the
first of these should be met with the party should be transferred.
An hour after they had been picked up, the wind had begun to freshen. By
noon of the second day it had come on to blow half a gale. One could
hope only for the best as regarded the rest of the _Mazatlan's_ boats
and rafts. Not another sign of the wreck was seen by the schooner.
The castaways filled the little schooner to overflowing, hindering her
management, and getting in the way at every step. The pilot crew hustled
them about without ceremony, and after dinner one had to intervene to
prevent a fight between one of them and a sailor from the _Mazatlan_
over the question of a broken pipe. The women of the _Mazatlan_ kept in
their berths continually, rolled in hot blankets, dosed with steaming
whisky punches. In the afternoon, however, Vandover saw two of them in
the lee of the house attempting to dry their hair; one of them was the
woman he had particularly noticed in the lifeboat clad in a night-dress,
and he wondered vaguely where the dress had come from she now was
wearing.
About three o'clock of the afternoon of the following day Vandover was
sitting on the deck near the stern, fastening on his shoes with a length
of tarred rope, the laces which he had left trailing having long before
broken and pulled out. By that time the wind was blowing squally out of
the northeast. The schooner was put under try sails, "a three-reefed
mitten with the thumb brailed up," as he heard the boatkeeper call it.
This latter was at the wheel for a moment, but in a little while he
called up a young man dressed in a suit of oilskins and a pea jacket and
gave him the charge. For a long time Vandover watched the boy turning
the spokes back and forth, his eyes alternating between the binocle and
the horizon.
In the evening about half-past ten, the lookout in the crow's nest sang
out: "Smoke--oh!" sounding upon his fish horn. The boatkeeper ran aft
and lit a huge calcium flare, holding it so as to illuminate the big
number on the mainsail. Suddenly, about a quarter of a mile off their
weather-bow, a couple of rockets left a long trail of yellow against the
night. It was the Cape Horner, and presently Vandover made out her
lights, two glowing spots moving upon the darkness, like the eyes of
some nocturnal sea-monster. In a few minutes she showed a blue light on
the bridge; she wanted a pilot.
The schooner approached and was laid to, and the towering mass of the
great deep-sea tramp began to be dimly seen through the darkness. There
was little confusion in making the transfer of the castaways. Most of
them seemed still benumbed with their recent terrible exposure. They
docilely allowed themselves to be pushed into the pilot tender and again
endured the experience of being lowered to the shifting waves below.
Silently, like frightened sheep, they stood up in turn in the rocking
tender and allowed the life preserver to be fitted about their shoulders
to protect them from the bite of the rope's noose beneath their arms.
There followed a sickening upward whirl between sea and sky, and then
the comforting grasp of many welcoming hands from the deck above. By
three o'clock in the morning the transfer had been made.
Vandover boarded the Cape Horner in company with the pilot and the rest
and reached San Francisco late on the next day, which happened to be a
Sunday.