THE SUNK ROCKS AND THE SINGER
Morris arrived home in safety, and speedily settled the question of the
drainage mill to the satisfaction of all concerned. But he did not
return to Beaulieu. To begin with, although the rural authorities
ceased to trouble them, his father was most urgent that he should stay
and supervise the putting up of the new farm buildings, and wrote to
him nearly every day to this effect. It occurred to his son that under
the circumstances he might have come to look after the buildings
himself; also, that perhaps he found the villa at Beaulieu more
comfortable without his presence; a conjecture in which he was
perfectly correct.
Upon the first point, also, letters from Mary soon enlightened him. It
appeared that shortly after his departure Sir Jonah, in a violent fit
of rage, brought on by drink and a remark of his wife’s that had she
married Colonel Monk she “would have been a happy woman,” burst a small
blood-vessel in his head, with the strange result that from a raging
animal of a man he had been turned into an amiable and perfectly
harmless imbecile. Under so trying a domestic blow, naturally, Mary
explained, Colonel Monk felt it to be his duty to support and comfort
his old friend to the best of his ability. “This,” added Mary, “he does
for about three hours every day. I believe, indeed, that a place is
always laid for him at meals, while poor Sir Jonah, for whom I feel
quite sorry, although he was such a horrid man, sits in an armchair and
smiles at him continually.”
So Morris determined to take the advice which Mary gave him very
plainly, and abandoned all idea of returning to Beaulieu, at any rate,
on this side of Christmas. His plans settled, he went to work with a
will, and was soon deeply absorbed in the manufacture of experimental
receivers made from the new substance. So completely, indeed, did these
possess his mind that, as Mary at last complained, his letters to her
might with equal fitness have been addressed to an electrical journal,
since from them even diagrams were not lacking.
So things went on until the event occurred which was destined
profoundly and mysteriously to affect the lives of Morris and his
affianced wife. That event was the shipwreck of the steam tramp,
Trondhjem, upon the well-known Sunk Rocks outside the Sands which run
parallel to the coast at a distance of about five knots from the
Monksland cliff. In this year of our story, about the middle of
November, the weather set in very mild and misty. It was the third of
these “roky” nights, and the sea-fog poured along the land like vapour
from an opened jar of chemicals. Morris was experimenting at the forge
in his workshop very late—or, rather early, for it was near to two
o’clock in the morning—when of a sudden through the open window, rising
from the quiet sea beneath, he heard the rattle of oars in rowlocks.
Wondering what a boat could be doing so near inshore at a season when
there was no night fishing, he went to the window to listen. Presently
he caught the sound of voices shouting in a tongue with which he was
unacquainted, followed by another sound, that of a boat being beached
upon the shingle immediately below the Abbey. Now guessing that
something unusual must have happened, Morris took his hat and coat,
and, unlocking the Abbot’s door, lit a lantern, and descended the
cement steps to the beach. Here he found himself in the midst of ten or
twelve men, most of them tall and bearded, who were gathered about a
ship’s boat which they had dragged up high and dry. One of these men,
who from his uniform he judged to be the captain, approached and
addressed him in a language that he did not understand, but imagined
must be Danish or Norwegian.
Morris shook his head to convey the blankness of his ignorance,
whereupon other men addressed him, also in northern tongues. Then, as
he still shook his head, a lad of about nineteen came forward and spoke
in broken and barbarous French.
“Naufragé la bas,” he said; “bateau à vapeur, naufragé sur les
rochers—brouillard. Nous échappé.”
“Tous?” asked Morris.
The young man shrugged his shoulders as though he were doubtful on the
point, then added, pointing to the boat:
“Homme beaucoup blessé, pasteur anglais.”
Morris went to the cutter, and, holding up the lantern, looked down, to
find an oldish man with sharp features, dark eyes, and grizzled beard,
lying under a tarpaulin in the bottom of the boat. He was clothed only
in a dressing gown and a blood-stained nightshirt, groaning and
semi-unconscious.
“Jambe cassé, beaucoup mal cassé,” explained the French scholar.
“Apportez-le vite après moi,” said Morris. This order having been
translated by the youth, several stalwart sailors lifted up the injured
man, and, placing the tarpaulin beneath him, took hold of it by the
sides and corners. Then, following Morris, they bore him as gently as
they could up the steps into the Abbey to a large bedroom upon the
first floor, where they laid him upon the bed.
Meanwhile, by the industrious ringing of bells as they went, Morris had
succeeded in rousing a groom, a page-boy, and the cook. The first of
these he sent off post haste for Dr. Charters. Next, having directed
the cook to give the foreign sailormen some food and beer, he told the
page-boy to conduct them to the Sailors’ Home, a place of refuge
provided, as is common upon this stormy coast, for the accommodation of
distressed and shipwrecked mariners. As he could extract nothing
further, it seemed useless to detain them at the Abbey. Then, pending
the arrival of the doctor, with the assistance of the old housekeeper,
he set to work to examine the patient. This did not take long, for his
injuries were obvious. The right thigh was broken and badly bruised,
and he bled from a contusion upon the forehead. This wound upon his
head seemed also to have affected his brain; at any rate, he was unable
to speak coherently or to do more than mutter something about
“shipwreck” and “steamer Trondhjem,” and to ask for water.
Thinking that at least it could do no harm, Morris gave him a cup of
soup, which had been hastily prepared. Just as the patient finished
drinking it, which he did eagerly, the doctor arrived, and after a
swift examination administered some anaesthetic, and got to work to set
the broken limb.
“It’s a bad smash—very bad,” he explained to Morris; “something must
have fallen on him, I think. If it had been an inch or two higher, he’d
have lost his leg, or his life, or both, as perhaps he will now. At the
best it means a couple of months or so on his back. No, I think the cut
on his head isn’t serious, although it has knocked him silly for a
while.”
At length the horrid work was done, and the doctor, who had to return
to a confinement case in the village, departed. Before he went he told
Morris that he hoped to be back by five o’clock. He promised also that
before his return he would call in at the Sailor’s Home to see that the
crew were comfortable, and discover what he could of the details of the
catastrophe. Meanwhile for his part, Morris undertook to watch in the
sick-room.
For nearly three hours, while the drug retained its grip of him, the
patient remained comatose. All this while Morris sat at his bedside
wondering who he might be, and what curious circumstance could have
brought him into the company of these rough Northmen sailors. To his
profession he had a clue, although no sure one, for round his neck the
man wore a silver cross suspended by a chain. This suggested that he
might be a clergyman, and went far to confirm the broken talk of the
French-speaking sailor. Clearly, also, he was a person of some breeding
and position, the refinement of his face and the delicacy of his hands
showed as much. While Morris was watching and wondering, suddenly the
man awoke, and began to talk in a confused fashion.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“At Monksland,” answered Morris.
“That’s all right, that’s where I should be, but the ship, the
ship”—then a pause and a cry: “Stella, Stella!”
Morris pricked his ears. “Where is Stella?” he asked.
“On the rocks. She struck, then darkness, all darkness. Stella, come
here, Stella!”
A memory awoke in the mind of Morris, and he leant over the patient,
who again had sunk into delirium.
“Do you mean Stella Fregelius?” he asked.
The man turned his flushed face and opened his dark eyes.
“Of course, Stella Fregelius—who else? There is only one Stella,” and
again he became incoherent.
For a while Morris plied him with further questions; but as he could
obtain no coherent answer, he gave him his medicine and left him quiet.
Then for another half-hour or so he sat and watched, while a certain
theory took shape in his mind. This gentleman must be the new rector.
It seemed as though, probably accompanied by his daughter, he had taken
passage in a Danish tramp boat bound for Northwold, which had touched
at some Northumbrian port. Morris knew that the incoming clergyman had
a daughter, for, now that he thought of it, he had heard Mr. Tomley
mention the fact at the dinner-party on the night when he became
engaged. Yes, and certainly she was named Stella. But there was no
woman among those who had come to land, and he understood the injured
man to suggest that his daughter had been left upon the steamer which
was said to have gone ashore upon some rocks; or, perhaps, upon the
Sunk Rocks themselves.
Now, the only rocks within twenty miles of them were these famous Sunk
Rocks, about six knots away. Even within his own lifetime four vessels
had been lost there, either because they had missed, or mistaken, the
lightship signal further out to sea, as sometimes happened in a fog
such as prevailed this night, or through false reckonings. The fate of
all these vessels had been identical; they had struck upon the reef,
rebounded or slid off, and foundered in deep water. Probably in this
case the same thing had happened. At least, the facts, so far as he
knew them, pointed to that conclusion. Evidently the escape of the crew
had been very hurried, for they had saved nothing. He judged also that
the clergyman, Mr. Fregelius, having rushed on deck, had been injured
by the fall of some spar or block consequent upon the violence of the
impact of the vessel upon the reef, and in this hurt condition had been
thrown into the boat by the sailors.
Then where was the daughter Stella? Was she killed in the same fashion
or drowned? Probably one or the other. But there was a third bare
possibility, which did no credit to the crew, that she had been
forgotten in the panic and hurry, and left behind on the sinking ship.
At first Morris thought of rousing the captain of the lifeboat. On
reflection, however, he abandoned this idea, for really what had he to
go on beyond the scanty and disjointed ravings of a delirious man? Very
possibly the girl Stella was not upon the ship at all. Probably, also,
hours ago that vessel had vanished from the eyes of men for ever. To
send out the lifeboat upon such a wild-goose chase would be to turn
himself into a laughing-stock.
Still something drew his thoughts to that hidden line of reef, and the
ship which might still be hanging on it, and the woman who might still
be living in the ship.
It was a painful vision from which he could not free his mind.
Then there came to him an idea. Why should he not go to the Sunk Rocks
and look? There was a light breeze off land, and with the help of the
page-boy, who was sitting up, as the tide was nearing its full he could
manage to launch his small sailing-boat, which by good fortune was
still berthed near the beach steps. It was a curious chance that this
should be so, seeing that in most seasons she would have been by now
removed to the shed a mile away, to be out of reach of possible damage
from the furious winter gales. As it happened, however, the weather
remaining so open, this had not been done. Further, the codlings having
begun to run in unusual numbers, as is common upon this coast in late
autumn, Morris that very morning had taken the boat out to fish for
them, an amusement which he proposed to resume on the morrow in the
hope of better sport. Therefore the boat had her sails on board, and
was in every way ready for sea.
Why should he not go? For one reason only that he could suggest. There
was a certain amount of risk in sailing about the Sunk Rocks in a fog,
even for a tiny craft like his, for here the currents were very sharp;
also, in many places the points of the rocks were only just beneath the
surface of the water. But he knew the dangerous places well enough if
he could see them, as he ought to be able to do, for the dawn should
break before he arrived. And, after all, what was a risk more or less
in life? He would go. He felt impelled—strangely impelled—to go, though
of course it was all nonsense, and probably he would be back by nine
o’clock, having seen nothing at all.
By this time the injured Mr. Fregelius had sunk into sleep or stupor,
doubtless beneath the influence of the second draught which he had
administered to him in obedience to the doctor’s orders. On his
account, therefore, Morris had no anxiety, since the cook, a steady,
middle-aged woman, could watch by him for the present.
He called her and gave her instructions, bidding her tell the doctor
when he came that he had gone to see if he could make out anything more
about the wreck, and that he would be back soon. Then, ordering the
page-boy, a stout lad, to accompany him, he descended the steps, and
together, with some difficulty, they succeeded in launching the boat.
Now for a moment Morris hesitated, wondering whether he should take the
young man with him; but remembering that this journey was not without
its dangers, finally he decided to go alone.
“I am just going to have a sail round, Thomas, to look if I can make
out anything about that ship.”
“Yes, sir,” remarked Thomas, doubtfully. “But it is rather a queer time
to hunt for her, and in this sea-haze too, especially round the Sunk
Rocks. Shall I leave the lunch basket in the locker, sir, or take it up
to the house?”
“Leave it; it wasn’t touched to-day, and I might be glad of some
breakfast,” Morris answered. Then, having hoisted his sail, he sat
himself in the stern, with the tiller in one hand and the sheet in the
other. Instantly the water began to lap gently against the bow, and in
another minute he glided away from the sight of the doubting Thomas,
vanishing like some sea-ghost into the haze and that chill darkness
which precedes the dawn.
It was very dark, and the mist was very damp, and the wind, what there
was of it, very cold, especially as in his hurry he had forgotten to
bring a thick ulster, and had nothing but a covert coat and a thin
oil-skin to wear. Moreover, he could not see in the least where he was
going, or do more than lay his course for the Sunk Rocks by means of
the boat’s compass, which he consulted from time to time by the help of
a bull’s-eye lantern.
This went on for nearly an hour, by the end of which Morris began to
wonder why he had started upon such a fool’s errand. Also, he was
growing alarmed. He knew that by now he should be in the neighbourhood
of the reef, and fancied, indeed, that he could hear the water lapping
against its rocks. Accordingly, as this reef was ill company in the
dark, Morris hauled down his sail, and in case he should have reached
the shallows, threw out his little anchor, which was attached to six
fathoms of chain. At first it swung loose, but four or five minutes
later, the boat having been carried onward into fleeter water by the
swift current that was one of the terrors of the Sunk Rocks, it touched
bottom, dragged a little, and held fast.
Morris gave a sigh of relief, for that blind journey among unknown
dangers was neither safe nor pleasant. Now, at least, in this quiet
weather he could lie where he was till light came, praying that a wind
might not come first. Already the cold November dawn was breaking in
the east; he was able to see the reflection of it upon the fog, and the
surface of the water, black and oily-looking, became visible as it
swept past the sides of his boat. Now, too, he was sure that the rocks
must be close at hand, for he could hear the running tide distinctly as
it washed against them and through the dense growth of seaweed that
clung to their crests and ridges.
Presently, too, he heard something else, which at first caused him to
rub his eyes in the belief that he must have fallen asleep and dreamt;
nothing less, indeed, than the sound of a woman’s voice. He began to
reason with himself. What was there strange in this? He was told, or
had inferred, that a woman had been left upon a ship. Doubtless this
was she, upon some rock or raft, perhaps. Only then she would have been
crying for help, and this voice was singing, and in a strange tongue,
more sweetly than he had heard woman sing before.
It was incredible, it was impossible. What woman would sing in a winter
daybreak upon the Sunk Rocks—sing like the siren of old fable? Yet,
there, quite close to him, over the quiet sea rose the song, strong,
clear, and thrilling. Once it ceased, then began again in a deeper,
more triumphant note, such as a Valkyrie might have sung as she led
some Norn-doomed host to their last battle.
Morris sat and listened with parted lips and eyes staring at the fleecy
mist. He did not move or call out, because he was certain that he must
be the victim of some hallucination, bred of fog, or of fatigue, or of
cold; and, as it was very strange and moving, he had no desire to break
in upon its charm.
So there he sat while the triumphant, splendid song rolled and thrilled
above him, and by degrees the grey light of morning grew to right and
left. To right and left it grew, but, strangely enough, although he
never noted it at the time, he and his boat lay steeped in shadow. Then
of a sudden there was a change.
A puff of wind from the north seemed to catch the fog and roll it up
like a curtain, so that instantly all the sea became visible, broken
here and there by round-headed, weed-draped rocks. Out of the east also
poured a flood of light from the huge ball of the rising sun, and now
it was that Morris learned why the gloom had been so thick about him,
for his boat lay anchored full in the shadow of the lost ship
Trondhjem. There, not thirty yards away, rose her great prow; the
cutwater, which stood up almost clear, showing that she had forced
herself on to a ridge of rock. There, too, poised at the extreme point
of the sloping forecastle, and supporting herself with one hand by a
wire rope that ran thence to the foremast, was the woman to whose
siren-like song he had been listening.
At that distance he could see little of her face; but the new-wakened
wind blew the long dark hair about her head, while round her, falling
almost to her naked feet, was wrapped a full red cloak. Had Morris
wished to draw the picture of a Viking’s daughter guiding her father’s
ship into the fray, there, down to the red cloak, bare feet, and flying
tresses, stood its perfect model.
The wild scene gripped his heart. Whoever saw the like of it? This girl
who sang in the teeth of death, the desolate grey face of ocean, the
brown and hungry rocks, the huge, abandoned ship, and over all the
angry rays of a winter sunrise.
Thus, out of the darkness of the winter night, out of the bewildering
white mists of the morning, did this woman arise upon his sight, this
strange new star begin to shine upon his life and direct his destiny.
At the moment that he saw her she seemed to see him. At any rate, she
ceased her ringing, defiant song, and, leaning over the netting rail,
stared downwards.
Morris began to haul at his anchor; but, though he was a strong man, at
first he could not lift it. Just as he was thinking of slipping the
cable, however, the little flukes came loose from the sand or weeds in
which they were embedded, and with toil and trouble he got it shipped.
Then he took a pair of sculls and rowed until he was nearly under the
prow of the Trondhjem. It was he, too, who spoke first.
“You must come to me,” he called.
“Yes,” the woman answered, leaning over the rail; “I will come, but
how? Shall I jump into the water?”
“No,” he said, “it is too dangerous. You might strike against a rock or
be taken by the current. The companion ladder seems to be down on the
starboard side. Go aft to it, I will row round the ship and meet you
there.”
She nodded her head, and Morris started on his journey. It proved
perilous. To begin with, there were rocks all about. Also, here the
tide or the current, or both, ran with the speed of a mill-race, so
that in places the sea bubbled and swirled like a boiling kettle.
However skilled and strong he might be, it was hard for one man to deal
with such difficulties and escape disaster. Still following the port
side of the ship, since owing to the presence of certain rocks he dared
not attempt the direct starboard passage, he came at last to her stern.
Then he saw how imminent was the danger, for the poop of the vessel,
which seemed to be of about a thousand tons burden, was awash and
water-logged, but rolling and lifting beneath the pressure of the tide
as it drew on to flood.
To Morris, who had lived all his life by the sea, and understood such
matters, it was plain that presently she would float, or be torn off
the point of the rock on which she hung, broken-backed, and sink in the
hundred-fathom-deep water which lay beyond the reef. There was no time
to spare, and he laboured at his oars fiercely, till at length, partly
by skill and partly by good fortune, he reached the companion ladder
and fastened to it with a boat-hook.
Now no woman was to be seen; she had vanished. Morris called and
called, but could get no answer, while the great dead carcass of the
ship rolled and laboured above, its towering mass of iron threatening
to fall and crush him and his tiny craft to nothingness. He shouted and
shouted again; then in despair lashed his boat to the companion, and
ran up the ladder.
Where could she have gone? He hurried forward along the heaving,
jerking deck to the main hatchway. Here he hesitated for a moment;
then, knowing that, if anywhere, she must be below, set his teeth and
descended. The saloon was a foot deep in water, which washed from side
to side with a heavy, sickening splash, and there, carrying a bag in
one hand, holding up her garments with the other, and wading towards
him from the dry upper part of the cabin, at last he found the lady
whom he sought.
“Be quick!” he shouted; “for God’s sake, be quick! The ship is coming
off the rock.”
She splashed towards him; now he had her by the hand; now they were on
the deck, and now he was dragging her after him down the companion
ladder. They reached the boat, and just as the ship gave a great roll
towards them, Morris seized the oars and rowed like a madman.
“Help me!” he gasped; “the current is against us.” And, sitting
opposite to him, she placed her hands upon his hands, pressing forward
as he pulled. Her slight strength made a difference, and the boat
forged ahead—thirty, forty, seventy yards—till they reached a rock to
which, exhausted, he grappled with a hook, bidding her hold on to the
floating seaweed. Thus they rested for thirty seconds, perhaps, when
she spoke for the first time:
“Look!” she said.
As she spoke the steamer slid and lifted off the reef. For a few
moments she wallowed; then suddenly her stern settled, her prow rose
slowly in the air till it stood up straight, fifty or sixty feet of it.
Then, with a majestic, but hideous rush, down went the Trondhjem and
vanished for ever.
All round about her the sea boiled and foamed, while in the great
hollow which she made on the face of the waters black lumps of wreckage
appeared and disappeared.
“Tight! hold tight!” he cried, “or she will suck us after her.”
Suck she did, till the water poured over the gunwale. Then, the worst
passed, and the boat rose again. The foam bubbles burst or floated away
in little snowy heaps; the sea resumed its level, and, save for the
floating debris, became as it had been for thousands of years before
the lost Trondhjem rushed downward to its depths.
Now, for the first time, knowing the immediate peril past, Morris
looked at the face of his companion. It was a fine face, and beautiful
in its way. Dark eyes, very large and perfect, whereof the pupils
seemed to expand and contract in answer to every impulse of the
thoughts within. Above the eyes long curving lashes and delicately
pencilled, arched eyebrows, and above them again a forehead low and
broad. The chin rounded; the lips full, rich, and sensitive; the
complexion of a clear and beautiful pallor; the ears tiny; the hands
delicate; the figure slim, of medium height, and alive with grace; the
general effect most uncommon, and, without being lovely, breathing a
curious power and personality.
Such was the woman whom he had saved from death.
“Oh, how splendid!” she said in her deep voice, and clasping her hands.
“What a death! For ship or man, what a death! And after it the great
calm sea, taking and ready to take for ever.”
“Thank Heaven that it did not take you,” answered Morris wrathfully.
“Why?” she answered.
“Because you are still alive, who by now would have been dead.”
“It seems that it was not fated this time,” she answered, adding: “The
next it may be different.”
“Yes,” he said reflectively; “the next it may be different, Miss
Fregelius.”
She started. “How do you know my name?” she asked.
“From your father’s lips. He is ashore at my house. The sailors must
have seen the light in my workshop and steered for it.”
“My father?” she gasped. “He is still alive? But, oh, how is that
possible? He would never have left me.”
“Yes, he lives, but with a broken thigh and his head cut open. He was
brought ashore senseless, so you need not be ashamed of him. Those
sailors are the cowards.”
She sighed, as though in deep relief. “I am very glad. I had made up my
mind that he must be dead, for of course I knew that he would never
have left me otherwise. It did not occur to me that he might be carried
away senseless. Is he—” and she paused, then added: “tell me the
worst—quick.”
“No; the doctor thinks in no danger at present; only a break of the
thigh and a scalp wound. Of course, he could not help himself, for he
can have known no more than a corpse of what was passing,” he went on.
“It is those sailors who are to blame—for leaving you on the ship, I
mean.”
She shrugged her shoulders contemptuously.
“The sailors! From such rough men one does not expect much. They had
little time, and thought of themselves, not of a passenger, whom they
had scarcely seen. Thank God they did not leave my father behind also.”
“You do not thank God for yourself,” said Morris curiously, as he
prepared to hoist the sail, for his mind harked back to his old
wonderment.
“Yes, I do, but it was not His will that I should die last night. I
have told you that it was not fated,” she answered.
“Quite so. That is evident now; but were I in your case this really
remarkable escape would make me wonder what is fated.”
“Yes, it does a little; but not too much, for you see I shall learn in
time. You might as well wonder how it happened that you arrived to save
me, and to what end.”
Morris hesitated, for this was a new view of the case, before he
answered.
“That your life should be saved, I suppose.”
“And why should it happen that your boat should come to save me?”
“I don’t know; chance, I suppose.”
“Neither do I; but I don’t believe in chance. Everything has its
meaning and purpose.”
“Only one so seldom finds it out. Life is too short, I suppose,”
replied Morris.
By now the sail was up, the boat was drawing ahead, and he was seated
at her side holding the tiller.
“Why did you go down into the saloon, Miss Fregelius?” he asked
presently.
She glanced at herself, and now, for the first time, he noticed that
she wore a dress beneath her red cloak, and that there were slippers on
her feet, which had been bare.
“I could not come into the boat as I was,” she explained, dropping her
eyes. “The costume which is good enough to be drowned in is not fitted
for company. My cabin was well forward, and I guessed that by wading I
could reach it. Also, I had some trinkets and one or two books I did
not wish to lose,” and she nodded at the hand-bag which she had thrown
into the boat.
Morris smiled. “It is very nice of you to pay so much respect to
appearances,” he said; “but I suppose you forgot that the vessel might
come off the rocks at any moment and crush me, who was waiting.”
“Oh, no,” she answered; “I thought of it. I have always been accustomed
to the sea, and know about such things.”
“And still you went for your dress and your trinkets?”
“Yes, because I was certain that it wouldn’t happen and that no harm
would come to either of us by waiting a few minutes.”
“Indeed, and who told you that?”
“I don’t know, but from the moment that I saw you in the boat I was
certain that the danger was done with—at least, the immediate danger,”
she added.