ADRIFT.
“Father, our time has come.”
Virginia Lander spoke gently, and in a calm voice, but her face was
white as snow.
The father bent his colorless face to hers, kissed her on the forehead,
and wound his arms around her.
“God have mercy upon us!” broke from his white lips.
“Oh God, save him!” trembled upon hers.
They would have gone quietly over, but a dozen others, stricken with new
terror by this sudden outburst of flame, rushed over them and separated
the father from his child. It was like a stampede of wild animals,
trampling each other to death. A whole crowd hurled itself into the deep
at once, blackening the waters one horrible minute and sinking into
eternity the next.
Virginia Lander was borne down with the rest, but she rose again, crying
out as her head reached the surface: “Father—father—father!”
No answer! Men were sinking all around her, but among all those
struggling creatures she could not see him. She supported herself on the
water, shrieking as each man went down with a mad fear that it was her
father whose death she witnessed. Then, as the waters swallowed those
toiling wretches one by one, she commenced swimming up and down the
black hull of the vessel, pleading with those who hung by the chains and
ropes to tell her if they had seen him fall.
A sweet voice from one of the trailing ropes answered her at last:
“I saw him come down close by the bow,” it said; “he fell with the great
crowd.”
It was the hunchbacked girl, up to her neck in water, clinging to a
rope.
Virginia made for the rope, and seizing upon it, dragged herself up half
way from the water, searching right and left for that one face. She
dropped at last, bringing the girl with her. But for this she would have
sunk without a struggle, weighed down by despair. The child gave a sharp
cry and struggled for the rope again with a last instinct of life.
While lifted above the water, Virginia had seen the boat lying at a safe
distance, with her cousin in it. She held the girl up, seizing the rope
again.
“Lay your hand on my shoulder; hold firmly, but do not pull me down,”
she said. “We will try for the boat. Are you afraid?”
“No.”
“Cling to me, then: do not struggle—one moment—he may be floating yet.”
She lifted herself out of the water again and made a last despairing
search for her father. Then, with a moan, she settled down and told the
hunchback how to fasten both arms around her.
The girl obeyed without a word, and with her wild eyes fixed upon the
boat, that frail girl gave herself to the deep, burdened with another
human life. Slowly and firmly her delicate arms smote the water. Her
wild eyes were fixed on the boat, which lay motionless just beyond the
fiery glow of the flames. How cool and quiet it looked. That one dark
spot was life to her, all the rest a grave.
It was wonderful how strong and self-possessed she was. That other life
clinging to hers inspired her with a power of compassion. She could have
sunk herself without a moan; but that helpless soul, she must bear her
to a place of safety. While God gave her strength she would use it.
So she moved steadily on, growing weaker and weaker, but slowly nearing
the boat.
When Cora Lander saw that face rising above the water she gave a cry,
which the struggling creature heard, it was so sharp and ringing.
“Take up the oars! Take up the oars! Pull off! pull off!” she called out
to the men.
The men, who had been watching this brave girl struggling toward them,
snatched their oars and pushed forward to meet her. Cora seized one of
them fiercely by the arm.
“Not that way—are you mad? They will be upon us like sharks. How many
boats have you seen swamped before your eyes? Back—back, I say, and out
to sea! We are loaded down already—another would sink us!”
The man shook her off with horror. He thought that the two girls were
sisters.
“Bear away toward the ship, one and all,” he cried “See that head in the
water with its trail of hair, and the other face behind. They shall be
saved if I go overboard to make room.”
Human hearts are full of good impulses, say what you will. Every manly
arm in that boat gave its strength to save those sinking girls.
“Pull on; pull away—see, she wavers; her strength is gone—great Heaven,
they will sink, and we so near!”
Cora half started up in the boat, white as death, but with cruel
expectation in her eyes.
“Keep up, keep up—hold on another minute, and we are with you,” shouted
the generous fellow, while the oar bent under his strong force and the
boat plunged forward like a goaded race-horse.
That brave girl heard the cry, and made another feeble effort to sustain
herself; but the hunchback dragged heavily upon her and she felt herself
going.
“It is me—it is me—I am sinking you,” cried the sweet voice, and the
slender arms loosened their hold.
“No, no,” broke in a sob from the noble young creature, as the tightness
was removed from her neck. “Clasp tighter—tighter—God is giving me new
strength.”
But the girl dropped away in silence, sunk and rose again close by the
boat, which came up with cautious slowness. An oar was thrust out for
her. She seized it and was dragged in half suffocated.
A drift of human hair, weltering like sea-weed in the water, was all
that could be seen of Virginia, who was sinking. The man who had taken
command leaped overboard, gave a plunge and brought her up, senseless.
“Make room,” he cried, lifting her up to the hands stretched out to
receive her. “God help us, she may be dead!”
“No,” said that sweet voice once more, “God would not let her die so.
Put her head in my lap; she shall have some of my life.”
The hunchback struggled up to a sitting posture in the bottom of the
boat, and they laid Virginia’s head in her lap, while the man who had
saved her took a travelling flask of brandy from his pocket and poured
some of it through those white lips.
“Is she better—will she come to life?” cried Cora Lander, bending over
her. “Does that blue around her mouth mean death? She is my cousin, sir,
and I have a right to know.”
“She is not dead,” answered the hunchback, looking up. “With my hand
here, I can feel her heart stir.”
The strange creature had forced one of her tiny hands under the wet
garments that lay heavily on Virginia’s bosom, and found her heart
fluttering with faint thrills of life—so faint, that a rude hand might
not have discovered them.
Cora took up one of her cousin’s hands and began to chafe it in her own,
stopping now and then to feel if there was a pulse in the wrist.
“You feel anxious now,” said the man who had saved that young creature.
“Still, if we had listened to you, she would have been dead long ago.”
Cora lifted her eyes to his face with something like defiance.
“How could I know that it was my cousin?”
“As I did from the first; sister or cousin, I scarcely know which, the
likeness is so great.”
“But I did not dream of it.”
“Still she was a woman struggling for life,” replied the man, forcing a
few more drops of brandy between the lips, which had parted a little,
but were yet without color.
“Man or woman, I had no power of knowing,” was the half reproachful
answer. “I, who am so short-sighted.”
“But you seemed to be the first one conscious of her struggles to reach
us.”
“You are unkind—almost rude, sir. I saw a crowd of black objects
plunging down the sides of the vessel and swarming this way. How could
we withstand them? If I begged you not to let them swamp us, was that so
very unfeeling? But you have saved my dear cousin, and I can forgive
all.”
“See, her lips move—she stirs,” said the low voice of the hunchback once
more. “Let us thank God and be still.”
Cora crouched down by her cousin, sobbing piteously.
“Oh, Virgie, dear Virgie, open your eyes and say if I deserve all this
man has been saying! I, who love you better, a thousand times, than
myself! Cousin, cousin, do you hear me?”
The hand which she was chafing clasped itself feebly around her fingers,
and a low, gurgling murmur died on those lips. Then the soft gray eyes
opened, and dazzled by the slanting sunbeams, closed again.
“Is it you, Cora?”
“Yes, cousin—yes, we are safe now.”
“And—and father?”
No one answered her. She waited awhile and a spasm of pain swept over
her.
At last she spoke very, very faintly:
“Is my father here, Cora?”
“No; we have not seen him!”
Virginia fell back heavily on the hunchback’s lap, and visible thrills
of pain swept over her. At last two great drops came from under her
closed lashes and rolled slowly down her cheeks. She did not mention her
father again, but lay still while the sunset came and went, leaving the
waters purple around her.
The boat had drifted slowly off from this burned ship, which lay a
smouldering heap of blackness upon the ocean. A few human beings were
desperately clinging to the bowsprit, which could be seen cutting
blackly against the sky. But Virginia Lander had no courage to look at
the mournful spectacle, and the boat, with its freight of human souls,
drifted slowly out to sea. The night closed in upon them with purple
warmth awhile, then deepened into a black void with one fiery spot
burning like a red-hot coal through that chaos. That one glow of fire
was the burning ship.