CONSCIOUSNESS came slowly back to Frank Howard. He raised his head, but
otherwise lay still, painfully reconstructing the world around him.
So tightly was he wedged between a broken ventilator and a skylight
coamings that it was only with considerable difficulty that he finally
managed to lift himself to a sitting position and stare dizzily around.
He was alone on the deck, which had become much steeper than he
remembered it in the gray dawn. Evidently another bulkhead forward had
given way, allowing another compartment to become filled with water and
causing the bow of the steamer to sink deeper.
In compensation the stern had risen somewhat higher, so that the waves
broke against the deck, but no longer rushed violently up it. The sea,
too, had gone down, curbed perhaps by the thick mantle of yellow weed
that floated all about.
With much difficulty he scrambled to his feet, clinging desperately the
while to the ventilator.
“Steady! Steady!” he muttered. “If I tobogganed down into that water I
shouldn’t get up again in a hurry.” He held out his hand and noted its
tremulousness. “By Jove! I’m weak as a cat.”
Rapidly his brain grew clearer. Ship and sea and sky ceased their
momentary whirlings and settled into their proper places. He looked up
at the zenith, to which the sun, though still veiled, had indubitably
climbed.
“Six hours at least,” he soliloquized. “Heavens, I must have been
pounded hard to lie unconscious for that long! If the old tub has
floated six hours she may float indefinitely. But----”
He stared curiously around him. As far as his eye could reach stretched
the yellow gulf-weed, blanketing the blue of the sea. So thick was it
that it held the Queen comparatively stationary, despite the strong
breeze that pressed against her.
Howard uttered a cry of dismay.
“The Sargasso Sea,” he groaned. “We’re inside it--far inside it. Great
Scott!” His brain reeled again. “Where the deuce is Jackson?” he
muttered irritably. “And where’s that woman?”
Pat to the moment, Jackson thrust his head out of the doorway of the
social hall. His dark face was pallid now, and he glared around him
wildly. When he saw Howard standing, his expression brightened.
“So you’re alive,” he rumbled, surlily. “It takes a devil of a lot to
kill some people.”
Howard stared at the man curiously. It was hardly the way he had
expected to be greeted.
“Yes,” he answered, slowly, “it takes a good deal--sometimes. It
didn’t take much for those poor devils in that boat you wanted to go
in. Where’s the girl?”
Jackson jerked his hand over his right shoulder.
“She’s in there,” he responded. Then he hesitated for an instant. “It
was a brave thing you did,” he finished, grudgingly.
Howard shrugged his shoulders.
“Merely a choice of deaths,” he answered. “I expected the ship to sink
any minute, and, personally, I preferred to die fighting. How is she?”
“She’s breathing, but that’s all. She hasn’t moved since I got her
aboard.”
“No wonder. She really hasn’t any right to be alive after what she went
through. Have you done anything for her?”
“I didn’t know what to do. I took her into the social hall and laid
her on the sofa and got some whiskey for her, but I couldn’t get her
to take it, and she looked so horrible and----” He paused, evidently
shaken.
Howard stretched up his hand.
“I must see her,” he declared. “I’m pretty shaky still, but if you’ll
give me a lift I’ll try to scramble up beside you and then we’ll see
what we can do.” He took the hand that Jackson offered. “Now brace
yourself,” he warned. “All set?”
Jackson nodded, and Howard, after an experimental tug or two, put forth
all his strength and drew himself up to the other’s side.
“That’s good,” he remarked. “I guess we’re both worth a dozen dead men
yet. By the way, how did you get the girl up here?”
Jackson showed more animation than he had yet done.
“The deck wasn’t so steep when I moved her,” he explained. “It tilted
worse just as I got her inside. I thought at first we were going down,
but we didn’t.”
Howard stepped inside the social hall--which had never before so belied
its name--and looked around him. After the bright light of the deck,
the room seemed dark, and for a moment he could see nothing. Then he
caught a glimpse of something lying on the big athwartship sofa, and
scrambled over to it.
A girl lay there in a crumpled heap. In her rich golden brown hair
alone was any touch of color. Her eyes were closed and her lips blue.
Her cheeks were so bloodless that it seemed impossible that she still
lived.
Once she might have been pretty--even beautiful--but the sea had robbed
her of all charm, leaving only the pitifulness of youth and womanhood.
Howard drew a long breath as he looked at her, and a sudden rage rose
within him. She should not die! He had torn her from the sea. She
should not die!
Fragmentary ideas as to the proper thing to do came back to him. He
bent down, chafing her wrists and temples; and then, raising her head,
touched Jackson’s bottle to her lips. A long, shuddering sigh shook
the girl’s body, and Howard saw a pair of brown eyes open and stare
up at him; then close wearily. Again he raised her head. “Drink,” he
commanded, as he poured the spirit between her parted lips.
As the strangling liquor went down, the eyes flashed open again, and
the girl shook from head to foot with a coughing--so violent and so
prolonged that Howard feared that he had overdone his task.
But it soon passed, leaving her conscious.
For a moment she lay still, vaguely puzzling over her situation. Then
recollection returned with a jerk, and she sat up.
“I remember,” she gasped. “Oh, that dreadful wave! To see it come down,
down, down---- Where am I?”
“You’re back on the Queen. It’s all right. Try to keep cool. You’ll be
better in a moment.”
The wonder grew in the girl’s eyes. “The Queen!” she murmured.
“The--Queen! How did I get back?”
“The waves washed you back and we managed to pull you on board. You had
better rest a while. You have been unconscious a long time.”
The girl looked from one to the other.
“Thank you! Thank you both,” she murmured. “I can’t find words now,
but--the others! Were any of them----?” Her lips moved, but no sound
followed.
Howard bowed his head, but he answered unflinchingly--better the clean,
sharp cut of certainty than dragging suspense.
“You were the only one in your boat who was saved,” he answered
quietly. “I know nothing of the other boats.”
The girl covered her face with her hands. “Oh, poor people!” she
moaned. “Poor, poor people!” Then she dashed the tears from her eyes
and dragged herself to her feet, holding fast to the back of the sofa.
“I am Miss Dorothy Fairfax,” she said, with a pretty access of dignity.
“And you?” Her eye traveled from one man to the other.
If Howard hesitated, it was for so short a time that it passed
unobserved.
“This is Detective Jackson, of the New York police,” he answered
steadily, “and I am Frank Howard, his prisoner.”
“Frank Howard! Not--not----”
“Yes.”
“My God!” For the first time in her life, Dorothy Fairfax fainted dead
away.
V
AS Dorothy fell Howard caught her in his arms and laid her upon the
sofa. Then he faced Jackson.
“Nice thing, this!” he remarked, grimly. “A very nice thing,
considering the state of affairs. No!” he interjected, as he saw
Jackson’s eyes wander to the girl. “Don’t worry about her just now.
She’s exhausted, anyway, and she’ll sleep it off and be all the better
when she rouses. Meanwhile, there’s work for us. We all need food, and
it’s imperative that we should find some at once. Come.”
The angle of the ship’s deck made examination both difficult and
dangerous; but when, by the exercise of care, it had been safely
carried out, it was evident that the voyagers need not fear either
starvation or thirst for a long time to come. The store-rooms of the
Queen were above, though only just above, the new waterline, and in
them there was food for months to come.
It was good food, too, intended for the consumption of passengers
who paid well. In addition to canned goods, of which the stock was
large and varied, there was a quantity of ice and fresh meat, fresh
vegetables, flour, biscuits, sauces, breakfast foods, and so forth, to
say nothing of wines, liquors, and tobacco.
With water the ship was equally well supplied. Not only was the saloon
scuttle-butt full, but, after some search, Howard found two large tanks
whose contents had not even been touched. In the pantry, just forward
of the saloon, was a refrigerator with cooked food enough for two or
three days.
All these things were not found in an instant. As it chanced, the
pantry came last; and the moment the cooked food was discovered,
further investigation was promptly suspended and preparations made to
comfort the inner man. A plentiful supply was quickly transferred to
the big saloon-table, where it was held in place by the fiddles, which
had been put on the night before at dinner and had not been removed.
Leaving Jackson to brew the coffee, an art in which he asserted that he
was proficient, Howard went to see after Miss Fairfax.
As he had expected, he found her sleeping, her swoon having quietly
passed into slumber. A little color had come back to her cheeks and to
her lips, and her breathing was regular.
For several moments he stood looking down at her, noting the sweep of
her long lashes on her cheeks, the delicate penciling of her eyebrows,
and the pure curve of her parted lips. She was of his own class in life
and---- He checked his thoughts shortly.
From this girl and all connected with her he had been cut off by his
trial and his sentence. Had it not been for the storm and the wreck, he
would never have spoken to one of her kind again.
Suddenly he realized that her eyes were open and that she was regarding
him curiously. The next instant she blushed furiously and struggled to
her feet. Howard did not offer to help her; he did not dare to.
“Oh!” she begged. “Please forgive me.”
Howard mumbled something indistinct. He was too much surprised to speak
clearly. Miss Fairfax, however, did not accept his presumably polite
disclaimer.
“No, but really,” she reiterated, “I owe you an apology. It was very
silly of me to faint. I was exhausted, and the discovery----”
“The discovery that you were alone at sea with a detective and a
convicted murderer appalled you--as well it might. Do not blame
yourself, Miss Fairfax, and do not think that I am sensitive. No man
can go through an experience such as mine and fail to have his cuticle
thickened. Give yourself no uneasiness about me.”
Dorothy began to reply, when suddenly the dinner-gong rang out
imperatively.
“What’s that?” she gasped.
Howard smiled. “That’s Jackson,” he explained, “and he’s hungry. Will
you come to dinner?”
But Dorothy did not come to dinner at once. When she did, ten minutes
later, after a visit to her state-room, which luckily was far aft
and consequently above water, Howard noted with amused surprise that
in those few minutes she had managed to bind up her tangled hair
and change her dress for another. She glanced at the table as she
approached and flushed at Jackson’s glum looks.
“Oh!” she cried. “Why did you wait? I told you not to.” She slipped
into her seat. “I’m so hungry!” she sighed.
The hot coffee and the abundant meal lightened the spirits of the trio
in spite of the predicament in which they found themselves. With a
ship, albeit a crippled one, under their feet and with plenty of food
and water at hand, it was not in human nature to despair, especially as
the sea had gone down so much that it no longer threatened them.
To both Jackson and Miss Fairfax the worst seemed to be over; in a day
or two some one would pick them up, they thought, and all would be
well. Howard alone, wiser in the ways of the sea, doubted. He listened
to the others’ hopeful prognostications, but said little.
“I must study the situation before I can say anything,” was as far as
he would commit himself, even in answer to a direct question.
When they had finished their meal, Dorothy rose.
“I’ll clear away these dishes,” she announced. “I’m sure you two have
more important things to attend to. Later, when Mr. Howard has studied
the situation, as he wishes, we will hold a council of war.”
Howard bowed and went on deck. His first glance assured him that his
worst fears were true. The Queen was evidently far within the Sargasso
Sea, and under the impulse of a strong breeze from the west was
steadily driving eastward, into ever-thickening fields of weeds.
Wreckage was floating here and there, mute evidence of disasters that
had occurred, perhaps close at hand, perhaps thousands of miles away.
The passages of open water that had trellised the sea an hour before
had disappeared, and with them had gone whatever faint hope Howard
might have had of rescue.
No skipper would venture into that tangle; no boat could move through
it; almost it seemed that one could walk on it; yet Howard knew that
any one trusting to that deceptive firmness would drown, and drown
without even a chance to swim. The weeds would coil round him, soft,
slimy, but strong, and drag him down.
Like all who have sailed these waters, Howard had heard many tales of
the great Sargasso Sea, and had whiled away many an hour listening to
the sailors’ yarns of the haven of dead ships buried far within those
tangled confines--a haven in the middle of the ocean, a haven without
a harbor, a haven where the ships, dropping to pieces at last by slow
decay, must sink for two miles or more before they reached the floor of
the ocean.
And into this haven the Queen was drifting, slowly but surely. Nothing
but sinking could prevent her from moving onward till she reached the
innermost haven.
What would it be like? he wondered. Would the wrecks really be crowded
together so that one could pass from one to the other? That there had
been plenty of them borne in to make a very continent of ships he did
not doubt, but had they floated long enough to accumulate to any great
extent?
The sailors declared that the sea was as large as Europe; that the weed
was impenetrable over an area larger than France; that there might well
be an area of massed wreckage two or three hundred miles in diameter.
But these were sailors’ tales. Would they prove true?
“Well?”
Howard turned around. Dorothy and Jackson had come up behind him and
were staring curiously over the weedy sea. “Well?” reiterated the
latter.
Howard hesitated.
“I fear it is not well,” he answered at last. “Our chances of escape
for the present seem practically nil.”
Miss Fairfax paled, but Jackson flushed darkly.
“What are you givin’ us?” he demanded, roughly. “The ship ain’t going
to sink, is she?”
“No. That is not the danger. Look around you.” He waved his hand to the
weed-strewn horizon.
Jackson looked again. “Well! What of it?” he demanded.
“This! You see how thick the weed is--thicker even than it was an hour
ago. I’ve sailed these seas long enough to know what that means. It
means that we have been blown a long way inside the Sargasso Sea.”
“No ships come here; sailing ships would lose nearly all their speed,
and steamers would lose all of it, for their screws would soon be
hopelessly fouled. No vessel will come to rescue us. If we are ever to
leave the Queen, it must be by our own efforts.”
“What can we do?” asked Dorothy, quietly.
“That is it exactly. What _can_ we do? Frankly, I don’t see that we
can do anything at present. We have no boats, and nothing but a boat,
and a sharp-edged one at that, could make any way through this morass.
And every minute we are getting deeper in. The current below catches
our sunken bow, and the wind above catches our uplifted stern, and
both sweep us eastward--toward the center of the weed. If we took to
a raft we would move much more slowly--but we would starve much more
quickly--and our chances of being picked up would not be improved.”
“But what will become of us?”
“I don’t know. It seems likely that we will be swept into the center
of the sea, where there are supposed to be thousands of derelicts, the
combings of the North Atlantic for four hundred years--I say ‘supposed’
because nobody has ever seen them, but there isn’t much doubt about it.”
Jackson laughed scornfully.
“What are you givin’ us?” he demanded incredulously.
Dorothy turned to him.
“It’s all true,” she corroborated, with a catch in her voice. “Only
yesterday Mr. Sprigg told me about it. He was wishing for a chance to
explore the place, poor fellow. And now----” She broke off and turned
to Howard. “Isn’t there any chance at all of our being picked up?” she
asked.
Howard shook his head.
“None, I fear,” he answered, gently. “I am sorry, Miss Fairfax, more
sorry than I can say; but I fear we shall be on this wreck or on
another for weeks and months to come. So far as I can see now we can do
nothing till we reach the central wreckage. There we may find a boat or
the tools to build one--ours are far under water--or some other way to
escape.”
“It will be desperately hard to wait; to drift deeper and deeper into
this tangle day after day, hoping that things will change when they
come to the worst; but it’s all we can do. Meanwhile we can thank God
that we have food, drink, and comfortable shelter, and we are on our
way to see what no one has ever seen before and returned to tell it.
Let’s make the best of it.”
“The best of it!” Jackson’s face was flushed and his eyes distended.
“The best of it!” he vociferated. “By Heaven, it’s well for you to yap!
You’re all right here. You’re safe from the electric chair here. You
can afford to wait and wait. But how about us? How about me? How about
my wife and children?”
“It’s hard,” Howard assented. “It’s bitter hard, but----”
“Bah! You’re lying to us! You’re a sailor and can get us out of this,
if you will. You don’t want to get out. You hope that you’ll get a
chance to escape, but, by Heaven, you shan’t! I’ll kill you first! By
God, I will!”
“It’s your duty to do so!” Howard spoke quietly, but a spot of red
glowed on each cheek. “It is your duty to kill me rather than let me
escape. But it is not your duty to insult me. I permit no man to do
that, and I warn you not to repeat your offense.
“For the rest, Miss Fairfax, there is some reason in what this
man says. The catastrophe which has brought death to so many, and
suffering, both past and future, to you, has saved me. I am safe from
the electric chair. Anywhere else in the wide world I would have to
shrink from every casual glance; would have to lie in answer to every
wanton question. But no extradition runs to the heart of the Sargasso
Sea. So it might seem natural that I should wish to stay here. In so
far, our excitable friend is right. But I give you my word of honor,
not as a jailbird, but as the gentleman I once was, that I am even more
anxious to get out of here than yourself. I have still a task to do in
the world; my view is not entirely bounded by the electric chair. If
any faintest chance offers for us to escape, be sure that I will seize
it. But I am helpless until we reach the central wrecks and see what
aid they have to offer. Then I will do what a man may.”
“I do not promise to go on to New York with Jackson, but I do promise
to get you and him safely out of this place, if it is within my power
to do so--and I believe it will be. Say that you believe me.”
It was impossible not to believe this clear-eyed, straight-spoken
gentleman, convicted murderer though he were. Dorothy held out her hand.
“I believe you,” she said, “and I trust you.”
Howard looked at the hand doubtfully.
“That is not nominated in the bond,” he suggested.
“Then we’ll put it in,” returned the girl. “As for what you have done
in the past--I have forgotten it. We will all forget it--till then.”
“So be it--till then!”
The hands of the two met. But Jackson, standing aside, grunted
scornfully.
“I’ll not forget it,” he growled. “Not for a single minute; not till I
get you to New York. I’ve known your smooth-spoken sort before.”