WRECKED
So began Lang’s strangest professional experience. He got rid of his
companions as soon as he could, returned to the hospital room, and
studied the unconscious man with a doubled and most passionate
interest. He could see no change in his condition; but he set himself
to make a fresh and even more careful examination, recording
temperature, blood pressure, pulse, reflex action on a sort of chart
which he pinned to the wall for continual reference. When he had
finished he pondered a long time, unable to make up his mind whether
the state of coma was the result of some injury he had not discovered,
or whether it was pure shock, neurasthenic paralysis, brought about by
the strain of the “third degree.” Neither theory was quite justified
by the symptoms, and Lang even considered the possibility that the
unconsciousness was shammed, but this was incredible. To feign a week
of complete paralysis would require a nerve control simply superhuman.
He went on deck afterward, still turning over the problem in his mind.
He encountered Carroll, who took him up to the bridge, where Captain
Harding kept a negligent watch, with a negro quartermaster at the
wheel. Louie presently crept up the iron ladder also, looking silent
and furtive as usual, and then Floyd came with a bottle of rum and a
pitcher of fresh orange juice. It appeared that the bridge was the
accustomed lounging place, for within half an hour the engineer off
duty appeared also. He was a sallow man in grimy overalls, whom Lang
had not previously seen. He stayed only a few minutes, however.
The rest drank their rum and chatted openly, since it was understood
that Lang had thrown in his lot with them. They were all deeply
disappointed that by some medical miracle Rockett could not be
suddenly jerked back into consciousness. In fact, they still hoped for
some such performance, and seemed to take it for granted that Rockett
could be induced to part with the desired information as soon as his
speech was restored. But Lang was doubtful. The face of the old
wrecker was not that of a man easy to coerce.
“That bird’s got two hundred grand planted somewheres,” Louie
muttered. “Leave me alone wit’ him, and I’ll make him talk.”
And suppose Rockett talked—suppose the plunderer recovered—what would
become of Rockett then? Lang had already judged his shipmates to the
point of believing that a dark night at sea and a man overboard might
solve the difficulty.
And his own position, for that matter, might prove difficult, in spite
of all the lavish promises of the gang, when the time came for Rockett
to speak or die.
But for the present he was safe enough, and the ship’s company
cherished him like gold. He felt in better health and spirits than for
a long time. A new thrill of adventure entered into him. He had been
violently wrenched away from the consideration of his own misfortunes,
into a dangerous game whose stake might be anything, and his spirit
had reacted to it. He thought with vivid anticipation of the tale he
would have to tell Eva Morrison when he should at last present his
promised report.
He lounged about the _Cavite’s_ decks, trying to kill time, and his
mind reverted much to Miss Morrison. He missed her extraordinarily. It
was wonderful how, within but a few days, she had come to be a comrade
whom it was hard to lose even temporarily. Of course he was not in
love with her. In the desperate condition of his affairs it was no
time to think of love, much less of marriage. Hard work and hard
struggle must be his program for the coming years. And then it crossed
his mind that if he recovered his twelve thousand dollars he could
really think of love and marriage, too. It would be a very respectable
starting capital for a country doctor.
But it was not a middle-aged wreck that Eva Morrison was destined to
marry. He was startled at his own chain of thought, and went again to
look at Rockett. The defaulter lay motionless, breathing slowly,
unchanged in anything. Lang touched the grizzled head that must hold
the secret of so much rascality and so much money.
“If you die, you’re dead. If you wake up and talk you’ll be murdered,”
he murmured. “Better stay just as you are, my friend.”
He went back to the deck and basked in the fresh, warm sea air and the
sun. It was hard to kill time on the _Cavite_. There seemed to be no
books of any sort on board, but finally he discovered a pile of
tattered old magazines in the cabin, and languidly turned them over in
his deck chair. Every hour or so he visited his patient, without ever
discovering any change. He dozed a little in the sun. Carroll and
Harding seemed to spend most of the day on the bridge. Floyd
disappeared into his cabin; and from time to time he caught sight of
Louie prowling about the ship on affairs of his own, silent, secret,
venomous.
There was a game of poker in the cabin that night, in which they all
took part but Lang, leaving the steamer apparently in charge of the
negro crew. Lang watched the game for some time, and went to bed late,
but throughout the night he heard fitfully the mutter of voices, the
rustle and click of cards and chips, the ring of glasses, and once the
sound of a sudden, sharp altercation, which was immediately stilled.
They were a rather weary and heavy-eyed crew at breakfast. Carroll
told him afterward that Floyd had won heavily; that he almost always
won; that Louie was a bad-tempered loser, and that they always had to
take his gun away from him when they played cards.
After breakfast Lang again visited his patient, and methodically took
pulse and temperature, recording them on the chart. He looked again
into the blind eyes, tested the reflexes, and found no change. He had
been turned over, and that was all. Some one visited him periodically,
every hour or two, Carroll had said, in hopes of a change, and this
had been kept up day and night ever since he came on board.
That day was very much a duplicate of the one before it. The ship’s
company left him to himself. Carroll invited him to the bridge, but he
did not care for these rum gatherings, and declined, lounging in his
deck chair, smoking, meditating. The company gathered for dinner and
scattered again; and the _Cavite_ continued to plow forward, at half
speed, through ever-bluer seas where porpoises plunged looping, and
flights of flying fish glittered past. They were heading nowhere. It
was a real yachting cruise after all, Lang thought, complicated with
medicine and something like piracy.
It turned hazy toward sunset and they ran into fog. All the same there
was poker in the cabin that evening, though to Lang it seemed
monstrous that the navigation of the ship should be abandoned to an
ordinary sailor in such weather. It was hot and damp; the cabin reeked
with whisky and tobacco smoke, and when Lang went on deck about nine
o’clock he found the air close and muggy, and so dense with fog that
each of the ship’s lights glowed in a cottony ball of vapor.
He looked on at the card players for an hour, tried to read, went on
deck again, took a last look at Rockett, and finally went to his
berth, trying to believe that Jerry Harding knew his business.
The noise of the gamblers beyond the door kept him awake for some
time, but he slept soundly at last. A frightful roar awakened him that
seemed to shake the whole earth. It was their own siren, blowing
appallingly up above, and he heard startled exclamations in the
saloon, a crash of glasses upset, and a rush of feet to the deck.
The next moment another steam whistle mixed with the bellowing uproar
of their own—right overhead, too, it seemed—and as Lang jumped from
his berth he was pitched across the stateroom by a terrific shock.
The floor tilted under him, heeling over, over, till it seemed as if
the ship were capsizing. He heard a tumult of yelling that seemed over
him, under, he knew not where. And then, with a terrible grinding and
rending, the _Cavite_ reeled back to an even keel, and he heard a
great splashing of water.
Lang righted himself, too, pulled on trousers and coat and rushed out
and up, barefooted, to the deck. The ship’s electric lights went
suddenly out, flickered, and then shone again. He could still hear an
uncertain throbbing of the engines.
A dark scrimmage of men surged over the deck, apparently to no
purpose. The fog hung blindingly close, but perhaps a quarter of a
mile away loomed and shone a vast glare of white light. It was the
vessel that had run into them, her outlines invisible in the fog. He
could hear her steam blowing off with a roar, and even the sound of
furious shouting aboard her; but she showed nothing but the diffused
glow of all her lights.
The _Cavite_ was still moving ahead slowly, under her momentum now,
for her engines had stopped. Lang could hear water cascading into her.
It sounded as if she had been cut half in two. She was lower in the
water already; and Lang suddenly remembered his patient below, who was
likely to be drowned like a rat in his berth.
He rushed down to the cabin again. The lights were out, and he slipped
on spilled liquor and scattered cards, and groped into the hospital
stateroom. At the door he stopped short, as if he saw a resurrection
from the dead.
Rockett was sitting up, on the edge of the berth. There was a dim glow
in the room from the porthole. He was moving; he seemed to be trying
to get to his feet.
The next instant it flashed upon Lang that the shock of the collision
had worked a miracle; had startled the stunned nerves out of their
paralysis. He rushed to the berth and seized the man around his big
chest.
“Are we—going down?” he heard a thick, lifeless whisper.
“I think so,” said Lang, too flurried to realize the queerness of the
colloquy. “You must get on deck. Here, lean on me. Can you stand?”
“Hold on,” said Rockett, in his thick mutter. “Got to—beat these
pirates. Listen—you know—north of Persia——”
“Do you want to tell me where you’ve hidden the money? Be quick!” said
Lang sharply.
“Wait. Six to—nine. Twelve o’clock. Remember—noon——”
A rush of feet outside, and Carroll plunged into the room. He stopped
short with an astounded cry, as Lang had done.
“By God, he’s alive! He spoke. I heard him. What did he say?”
“Delirious. Raving,” Lang snapped. “Here, help me get him on deck.”
A sudden wild stampede of yelling men thundered across the deck
overhead. There was no time for talk. Between them they gripped the
big man around the body, and half dragged, half carried him across the
cabin. He was enormously heavy, and seemed to sag back into paralysis
again, so that it was with the utmost breathless straining that they
got him up the stairs to the deck, where all hell seemed to have
broken loose.
The other steamer, more distant now, had turned a searchlight on her
victim, dimly illumining the _Cavite’s_ decks, and began to sound her
roaring siren again, as in desperate signaling. Lang’s first glance
saw the black water. It seemed almost up to the level of his feet.
A dark scrimmage of men was surging about the motor launch that was
hoisted in amidships. They hacked savagely at the tackle, with curses
and shrieks, black faces and white, a shifting, squirming medley. Lang
caught a glimpse of Harding hitting out. Knives flashed. A figure in a
white sweater was shot out of the mob, falling on the deck. Louie
raised his arm and projected two tiny red flashes, the reports drowned
by the uproar.
Then the motor boat went over with a great splash, and the wave of its
launching surged over the _Cavite’s_ deck.
“Keep out of that. This way!” Carroll was saying, dragging him toward
the other side.
Here hung the other boat, seldom used, and forgotten at the moment.
Letting go Rockett, Carroll strove to loosen the tackle, which seemed
jammed. The _Cavite_ lurched heavily forward. A surge seemed to wash
clear over her.
Lang snatched a life belt and slipped it over Rockett’s shoulders. He
could see no other. Carroll was still wrenching desperately and
swearing at the boat. Leaning heavily on his shoulder, Rockett
muttered hoarsely in Lang’s ear.
“I’m going under. Remember—I trust you. Go to—my house north of
Persia. See six and nine—the digger—twelve o’clock. Noon. Remember—the
negro digger——”
The whole deck suddenly tilted forward as the ship plunged bow first,
till Rockett and Lang tumbled together down the slope into black
water. Lang went under, came up, but Rockett had gone. Everything was
black, and in terror of being drawn down with the sinking ship he
struck out desperately, blindly.
He was no great swimmer, but he made headway with sheer energy. He
found himself suddenly clear of the ship. A long way behind him she
towered up, standing on end, her stern rising yards into the fog,
towering like a skyscraper, as she hung balanced before finally
sinking. He saw the rusty hull, the screw, the rudder hanging high
overhead. He took it all in with one terrified glance, and the same
glance showed him a floating object a yard away, a big deck chair
which he gripped.
The next minute the nightmare figure of the steamer plunged down, in a
vast flood that seemed to carry him with it. He clung like death to
the wooden chair frame, almost beaten out of consciousness, holding
his breath, hardly realizing it at last when he found himself afloat
again. A heavy swell went over him; another heaved him and dropped
him; and his misted eyes saw again the great blurred glow of the
strange steamer, much more distant now, and all around him a frothing
welter.
He still held the chair, but he was almost too weak to cling to it.
Boats would be coming, he knew; he had only to keep afloat a few
minutes more. The swell of the _Cavite’s_ sinking was subsiding, but
his hands slipped from the chair frame; he almost went under,
recovered himself with a wild clutch, almost gave up hope. Dimly he
heard a shout. Something was floating within a few feet. It was an
overturned boat, with a man dimly outlined astride the keel. Lang
could never have reached it unaided, but somehow, he knew not how, he
found himself supported, assisted, half dragged upon the rounded boat
keel.
“Where’s Rockett?” his rescuer shouted in his ear. It was only then
that he recognized Carroll, but Lang was too exhausted to do more than
shake his head feebly.