closer. The vortex sucked his boat toward her, drew the craft with a
mighty pull. A spar, twisting, whirling in the swirl, struck the boat,
and instantly she was a wreck, capsized, engulfed in the mighty hole
the sinking liner made in the sea with her last plunge.
James found himself smothered, drowning, drawn downward by a great
force he could not fight against. The whole ocean seemed to pull down
upon him and crush him into its black depths.
The whole thing took such a small space of time, he hardly realized his
position. The utter blackness, the salt water in his eyes and mouth,
all paralyzed his mind for a few moments. Then he thought of his end.
It was just as well. He was drowning, going to the bottom. He must soon
go, anyhow; he could not face those wrecked passengers; and with the
thought came a grim peacefulness, a satisfaction that the fight was all
over. He could now rest at last.
But nature within him was very strong. He was a powerful man. When he
gave up the struggle, his natural buoyancy lifted him to the surface
of the sea. He came up, his head appearing in the air, and he breathed
again in spite of himself. Then the old, old fighting spirit, the
desire to survive which is so strong within the breast of every young
animal, took charge. No, he would not go down yet. He must see the
finish, the end of things in which he was concerned.
He swam about aimlessly. The swell heaved him high up, dropped him far
down; and he noticed that now the sea was running, the small combers
rising before a stiff breeze. These burst upon his face and head and
smothered him a little. He turned his back to them, and swam on, on,
and still on into the darkness.
He saw nothing. The ship, the boats had all gone. Once he was about to
cry for help; but the thought was horrible, distasteful to the last
degree. He had no right to call for help. He would not. But he swam
and tried to see something to get upon.
Something struck him heavily upon the head. Stars swam before his eyes.
He reached upward with his hands, and they met a solid substance. Then
he sank slowly down, down--and the blackness came upon him.
The object that had hit him was a small boat. In it were a man and a
girl, the girl James himself had picked up from the sea a short time
before. The man was a seaman, and he heard the boat strike. He reached
over the side, caught the glimpse of a human form as it struck the
boat's side and sank.
The seaman took up the boat hook and was about to poke the body away.
He was sick of dead men, sick of seeing corpses floating about. He had
met half a dozen already that night. But this one seemed to move, and
the hook caught in his clothes. He pulled the body up, and saw the man
was not dead, but dazed, moving feebly in a drunken way. Then he pulled
James into the boat.
James regained his senses after half an hour; and during that time the
boat ran before a stiff squall of wind and rain that swept it along
before it into the darkness. The seaman steered with an oar, and kept
the boat's head before the wind. The mate opened his eyes, and in the
gray of the early dawn he saw a man he did not know, a seaman from the
sunken liner, steering the boat calmly before the gale that was now
coming fast with the rising sun. Near him in the bottom of the boat lay
the girl huddled up and moaning with cold and fright, and fatigue.
James arose and staggered aft.
"How'd I get here?" he asked.
"I pulled you in, sir," said the sailor. "Are you from the ship that
sank us?"
"Yes. I'm the mate, the chief officer."
"Well, if I'd 'a' know'd it, I mightn't have taken the trouble," said
the seaman.
James said nothing. There was nothing for him to say. He knew the
sailor was right. He knew the officers of his ship were men to scorn,
to hate--but he would not say it was himself alone who had done
the terrible deed. Something stopped him. It might have been sheer
shame--or fear. He looked at the girl. Then he went to her and raised
her, placing her upon a seat and trying to cheer her up.
"We'll be picked up soon--don't worry about it. Our ship will stand by
and hunt for all the missing----"
"But I'm dreadfully cold," said the girl, with chattering teeth.
"Put my coat on, then," said James; and he took off his soaked coat and
made her put it on.
The man grinned in derision.
"Say," he said, "who was on watch when you hit us?"
James took no notice. He would not answer the question. Then the girl
spoke up.
"Yes, whose fault was it? You belong to the other ship, you'll know all
about it. They ought to hang the man who is responsible for this awful
thing--my poor mother and father--oh----" And she broke into a sob.
The man at the steering oar smiled grimly.
"Yes, miss, that's right, they sure ought to hang the officer who
runs down a liner on a clear night when he's bound to see the lights
plainly. I don't make no excuses for him--it's more'n murder."
"You were on watch, on duty--you are dressed?" said the girl.
"Yes, I knowed it when I first seen you," snarled the seaman. "I reckon
you're the man who did it--what was the matter? Couldn't you keep
awake, or what?" The tone was a sneer, an insult, yet the sailor did
wish to find out how so unusual a thing could happen as the running
down of a ship on a clear night when her lights could be seen fifteen
miles or more.
James tried to defend himself. It was instinctive. The contempt of the
sailor was too much. On other occasions, he never allowed the slightest
insolence from the men of his own vessel. But now the officer was numb,
paralyzed. He was guilty--and he knew it.
For hours they sat now in silence, the seaman holding the boat steady
before the northeaster, which grew in power until by nine in the
morning it was blowing a furious gale, and the sea was running strongly
with sweeping combers. There was nothing to do but keep the boat before
it. To try to head any other way meant to risk her filling from a
bursting sea. The exertion of steering was great. The seaman, with set
face, held onto the oar, and James could see the sweat start under the
constant strain, but he said nothing--he waited.
"You'll have to take her, sir--a while--I'm getting played out," panted
the man.
"All right," said James, "give her to me--now----"
He took the oar during the backward slant as she dropped down the side
of the sea that passed under her. He was ready for the rush as she rose
and shot forward again upon the breaking crest of the following hill.
The exercise did him good. It made him think clearly, it took his mind
from the hopelessness of his life.
All that day the two men took turns keeping the small boat before the
sea; and they ran to the southward a full half hundred miles before
the gale let up. Both were too exhausted to talk, too thirsty to even
speak--and there was neither water nor food in the boat. Her ration of
biscuit and water had been lost when she had been drawn down by the
sinking liner.
The sailor had righted the boat after great effort, aided by the sea;
and owing to the smoothness of the swell at the time he had managed to
get her clear of water. Then he had picked up the girl who had been
floating about, swimming and holding onto fragments of wreckage since
James' boat had gone under.
The mate noticed that, although the girl had not spoken to him again
after knowing he had caused the disaster, she still wore his coat. He
studied the matter, the inconsistency of women, and he thought it
strange. The sun shone for a moment before it set that evening; and
in the glowing light James gazed steadily at the woman. She was very
beautiful. She had not made a complaint since the morning. The sea was
still running high, although the wind was going down with the sun, yet
the girl had not been seasick, nor had she shown any suffering.
"How do you feel now?" he whispered, as he waited his turn at the oar.
"I'm all right, thank you. Do you think we will get picked up?" she
said.
"We'll be picked up to-morrow--sure," said the officer. "We are now
right in the track of the West India ships, and will sight something by
daylight when we can set a signal. Are you very thirsty?"
"Tell me first, how did this accident occur? Were you really asleep, or
just what? I can stand the thirst, and I'm warm enough now. This water
is like milk in comparison with the air, it's so warm."
"We are in the Stream," said James; "the Gulf Stream, and that is about
eighty along here--it's better than freezing in the high latitudes."
"You haven't answered my question," said the girl.
"I don't know--I don't remember what it was. I must have lost my
head--been asleep--or something--yes, I was on duty, on watch--it was
my fault entirely. I saw your ship, saw her red light to starboard--the
right, you know. She had the right of way under the rules. I intended
to swing off, waited a few minutes to see her better--then her
green light showed--and--then it was too late. I went hard aport,
did my best--but hit her--we were going very fast--both ships were
going twenty-five knots--making the approaching speed fifty miles
an hour--nearly a mile a minute--I must have lost my head just a
moment--maybe I was dreaming----"
"I know you are not to blame," said the girl, placing her hand in
his. "You have told me the truth, a straight story--but yet I don't
see how it all happened. I'm not a sailor, anyhow; perhaps I couldn't
understand. But I feel you didn't do it on purpose----"
"No, no," whispered James. "How could a man do a thing like that on
purpose?" He could not tell her the truth. He was ashamed to mention a
woman, to say he was sullen, depressed, stupefied at the loss of a love
he bore a woman.
He took his place at the oar for the last time that night. The sea was
no longer dangerous. They spoke of rigging a drag with the oar and
thwarts, making a drag by the aid of the painter or line, which still
was fast to her forward. They had finished this before dark, and then
they lay down, exhausted. The girl stood watch. In the dim dawn the
girl gave out. She had stood watch all night, and she was exhausted.
"I understand," she muttered to herself, "this poor fellow, this
officer was tired out--he slept--I don't blame him at all, it was not
his fault."
The sun shone upon the three sleeping, the boat riding safely and
dry to the drag made of the oar and thwarts. James aroused himself
first, awakening dimly with the warmth of the sun. He sat up. The two
others slept on. The girl was breathing loudly, almost panting, and her
parted lips were blue. Yet she was beautiful. James knew it. She was
exhausted, and help must come soon for her.
He sat and gazed at the horizon, and when the sea lifted the boat,
he stared hard all around to see if anything showed above the rim.
Hours passed in this fashion. The girl moaned in her sleep. The sailor
shifted uneasily, and grunted, snored, and murmured incoherently. They
were all very thirsty.
It was about ten o'clock in the morning that James saw something to
the northward. It was just a speck, just a tiny dot on the rim of sea;
but he knew it was a ship of some kind, a vessel passing. The minutes
dragged, and he was about to rouse the sailor to get him to help watch.
Then he remembered how the fellow had striven so manfully the day
before when they rode out the gale. No, he would let them sleep.
By noon, the vessel was close aboard and coming slowly with the wind
upon her port beam. She was a schooner bound south. James could see the
lumber on her decks. Her three masts swung to and fro in the swell, and
she made bad weather of the sluggish sea. The foam showed white under
her forefoot, and told of the speed being at least a few knots an hour.
James called the sailor.
"Get up--turn out--there's a schooner alongside," he said. The man
moved slightly, and slept on. James shook him roughly.
"Lemme alone," muttered the seaman.
"Ship ahoy!" yelled the mate as the schooner came within a quarter of
a mile and headed almost straight for them. He stood up and waved his
arms. Nothing came of it. The girl awoke. She sat up and realized the
position. In a moment she had taken off her skirt and handed it to the
mate. He waved it wildly; and his yelling finally awoke the exhausted
seaman. The man stood up and bawled loudly. Then he washed his mouth
with salt water, and yelled again and again. James swung the skirt. The
girl prayed audibly.
The schooner stood right along on her course. She had not noticed the
boat. Passing a few hundred fathoms from them caused all three to
become frantic. The men bawled, cursed, and begged the schooner to take
them in.
The captain of the vessel, coming on deck, happened to look in their
direction. He spoke to the man at the wheel, who for the first time
seemed to take his eyes from the compass card. Then, taking his glass,
the captain saw that three living souls were in the small boat. The
next instant he was bawling orders, and the schooner hauled her wind
and came slatting into the breeze.
Six men appeared on her deck. James saw them working to get the small
boat clear from her stern davits. Then they seemed to realize that this
was unnecessary, and the schooner, flattening in her sheets, worked
up to them slowly, rising and falling into the high swell. She stood
across to windward, and then came about, easing off her sheets and
drifting slowly down upon the boat.
She drew close aboard.
"Catch a line," yelled the captain from her deck.
James waved his hand in reply, and a heaving line flaked out and fell
across the boat's gunwales.
In another moment they were being hauled aboard.
Explanations came at once. The master of the schooner was bound for
South America.
"Of course, I'll put you all aboard the first homeward-bound ship I
fall in with," said he.
"But you surely will put us ashore at once," said the girl, after she
had drunk tea and changed her clothes. They were eating gingerly of
ship's food and drinking water ravenously.
"That I cannot do, miss," said the captain. "I'm bound to Valparaiso
with cargo, and I must take it there."
"But we will pay you to take us ashore--pay you anything, for I am very
rich," said the girl.
The master smiled sadly. The effects of the forty hours in the open
boat were evidently having their effect upon the young woman.
"No," he said, "you go below, and the steward will give you all you
want to eat, and your clothes will be dry enough to put on again before
night. We might fall in with a ship bound north any time now. Then
you'll have a chance."
James knew the man was within his rights, of course. He was glad to be
in the schooner. The sailor didn't seem to mind where he went. One
ship was very much like another to him. The consul would be bound to
ship him home, anyway. The girl was given a stateroom in the after
cabin; and she soon slept the sleep of the exhausted.
The mate stayed on deck. The whole thing had a strange look to him.
He had decided to kill himself. He dared not go back to the States,
anyhow, to face the charges that would be made against him. He might
slip overboard any night on the run down, and no one would be the wiser.
The fact that the schooner was bound to South America seemed to give
him a respite. There was no hurry to commit the desperate act that he
felt he must, in all honor and decency, do. He might live a month at
least before dying.
After the awful struggle through the gale and shipwreck, he felt a
desire to live more than before. The whole affair was more distant,
almost effaced. And now he was not going back, anyhow.
The captain asked him few questions regarding his wreck, seeming to
feel a certain delicacy about it. The day passed, and the next and the
next, and no ship was sighted going north. They were now drawing out of
the track of vessels, and a strange hope arose with the mate that they
would not meet one.
The girl sat with him often, and they talked of other things than
shipwreck. She was beautiful--there was no question about it. The
glow of returning strength made her more lovely. James found himself
wondering at her. She had been the only human being so far that would
condescend to speak to him without contempt. He was lonely, very
lonely, and the girl seemed to feel he needed some one to cheer him
up. She did not realize his weakness. He was very strong to her; a
strong man who had suffered from an accident, due, perhaps, to his
carelessness, but not to criminal negligence. But he knew, he knew, and
could not tell.
The days passed, and the terror of the thing he had in his mind began
to fade slightly. He knew he must die. The sailor, his shipmate who had
been picked up with him, had told every one in the schooner that he,
James, was on watch and was responsible for a terrible disaster, the
death of a great number of persons. James saw it in their looks. He
knew he would never get a ship again, never hold a place among white
men. Yes, he must die.
It gave him a sort of grim satisfaction to feel that he was just to
live a certain length of time, that he would cut that short at the last
moment. He wondered how a prisoner felt when the sentence of death
was pronounced upon him. He had pronounced it upon himself. It was
a genuine relief, for the vision of those terror-stricken, drowning
passengers was always with him night and day, except when he was in a
dreamless sleep. That sleep seemed to be portentous of what he would
face.
The days turned to weeks and the weeks to months. The voyage was long
and the winds light. They were ninety days to the latitude of the
Falklands when they struck a furious "williwaw" from the hills of
Patagonia. The schooner was in a bad fix. She was lightly manned; and,
in spite of the addition of James and the seaman from the wreck, she
held her canvas too long.
The struggle was short but terrific. The fore-topsail blew away and
saved the mast; but the main held, and the topmast buckled and finally
went by the board. The headsails had been lowered, but they blew
out from the gaskets, and the jibboom snapped short off under the
tremendous threshing of flying canvas. The maintopmast, hanging by the
backstays, fell across the triatic stay, and the steel of the backstays
cut into the spring until it finally parted under the jerks, and the
mizzen was left to stand alone. It went by the board, and the great
mast, snapping short at the partners, went over the side, and smashed
and banged there at each heave of the ship.
There was desperate work to do to save the vessel. Her master did
wonders and showed his skill; but the most dangerous and deadly task of
going to leeward to cut adrift the lanyards was left to James. No one
else would go.
James was a powerful man, and had won his way to an officer's berth
by endeavor, not by nepotism. His hope was that he might be killed in
the struggle. He dared anything, tried to do the impossible--and did
it. How he succeeded in clearing away the wreck of that mast remains a
mystery to those who watched him. He was almost dead when dragged back
and the schooner floated clear.
The girl had seen the whole affair from the glass of the companionway.
She had held her breath, almost fainted again and again at the
sight of James in that fight for life. To her it was simply grand,
tremendous--she had never been touched by a man's heroism before.
When it was all over and the schooner, dismantled and storm-driven, lay
riding down the giant seas that swept around the Horn in the Pacific
Antarctic Drift, she watched over and attended the officer as he lay
in his bunk with a broken arm, a cut across the head, and the toes of
one foot gone. She knew that there was something behind the will to do
as James had done. But she could not fathom it, could not tell why he
was unresponsive. He lay silent mostly, and seldom looked at her. Yet
he was sane in his conversation, not delirious in any way. It worried
her. It caused that peculiar thing that is in every woman to make the
man she admires responsive. And the more she showed her feelings, the
less he seemed to care. It ended the way it usually does under such
conditions. She fairly worshiped him.
After that storm the weather grew very calm. The dark ocean seemed to
be at rest for a spell. The schooner was now to the south'ard of the
Falklands, and the captain decided that he would not venture around the
Horn in the desperate condition he was in. Stanley Harbor was under his
lee, and he bore away for it. Then, with the perversity of the southern
zone, the wind hauled to the eastward and blew steadily for a week;
blew right in their faces.
James came on deck before they were within a hundred miles of the
land. He sat about in the cold of the evening wrapped up in rugs, and
the girl waited upon him, brought him anything he wished. In the long
hours of daylight--for it was light enough to read until midnight--they
sat near the taffrail. The captain said nothing; he would not notice.
He liked the man who had saved his ship. The girl was sympathetic, and
James often held her hand. She did not attempt to withdraw it.
But he would not tell her he cared for her. That was absurd. He had
already sacrificed his life. He was as good as dead. Yet he wondered
at the passion that had brought him into such desperate trouble and
had caused so much ruin and death. He pondered silently, and now often
watched the girl furtively.
Into the beautiful harbor, the great fiord of Port Stanley, they came,
the schooner making fairly good way in spite of her crippled condition.
Her arrival was greeted with joyous acclaim by the land sharks, who
smelled the wound and saw the damage. They would make a good haul.
Ships didn't come often--but when they did, well, they paid.
The governor was notified of the arrival. He was told everything but
the relation of the passengers to the ships to which they originally
belonged. The master was generous; and, besides, it was not America
they were now in. It was an outlying foreign colony at the edge of
the world, a place where one seldom went or heard from. They might
go ashore if they wished. The seaman asked to remain aboard. He was
allowed to do so, and consequently did not go ashore and talk too much.
James passed that last night in high spirits. He was going out on his
last voyage. He was going to die, going to leave the woman who he knew
loved him, who had been so sympathetic, so lovable. They were on deck a
long time that evening, and the captain, being wise and old enough to
understand, did not molest them.
"Good night," she said finally. "Good night. I'll see you to-morrow
before we go ashore. We can take the ship across to the straits, and
meet the regular liner as she comes through from Punta Arenas. We'll be
home again in a few weeks."
"Good-by," he said simply. That was all. She went below.
Shortly after four bells--two o'clock in the morning--James, with set
face and grim resolution, stole on deck. He gazed up at the Southern
Cross for a few moments, at the beautiful constellation that he would
see for the last time; then at the grim, barren hills back of the
settlement.
It was a farewell look, his farewell to things in this world. He was
determined not to be disgraced. He would die like a man, as he could no
longer live like one.
Then he dropped softly over the side, and sank down--down into the
quiet waters of Stanley Harbor.
* * * * *
The instinct of woman is often more certain than her reason. The girl
had noticed something strange in the man's behavior. She had woman's
instinct to divine its cause. She had not gone to bed that night, but
waited to see just what might happen to the man who owned her very
soul. She had not realized before that she loved this officer, this man
who had confessed partly to his disgrace. The realization awakened her
wits. She would see what he meant.
At the slight splash, she was on deck in an instant. Her first thought
was to call for help. Then she knew to do so was to call for an
explanation; and she realized the disgrace that would follow instantly
upon the explanation. She seized a life buoy always hanging upon the
taffrail, and with it dropped over the side.
She swam silently toward a spot that showed disturbed water rapidly
drifting astern with the tide. Within a minute she had reached the form
of James, who had not placed enough weights in his clothes to insure
quick sinking. He was lying silently upon his back, waiting--waiting
for the end that must come shortly.
"Swim with me," she pleaded. "You must--come with me--we'll swim ashore
together."