INTO THE INFINITE
The midnight hour drew near, and, above deck, tranquillity reigned. It
was, however, the comparative quiet that follows a storm. A threatening
day had culminated in a fierce tropical downpour--a cloud-burst--when
the very heavens had seemed to open. The _Nevski_, steaming forward at
half speed, had come almost to a stop; struck by the masses of water,
she had fairly staggered beneath the impact. Now she lay motionless,
while every shroud and line dripped; the darkness had become inky. Only
the light from cabin windows which lay on the wet deck like shafts of
silver relieved that Cimmerian effect. The sea moaned from the lashing
it had received--a faint undertone, however, that became suddenly
drowned by loud and harsh clangor, the hammering on metal somewhere
below. Possibly something had gone wrong with a hatch or iron
compartment door inadvertently left open, or one of the ventilators may
have got jammed and needed adjusting. The captain, as he hastened down a
companionway, muttered angrily beneath his breath about water in the
stoke room. The decks, in the vicinity of the cabins, seemed now
deserted, when from the shadows, a figure that had merged in the general
gloom, stepped out and passed swiftly through one of the trails of
light. Gliding stealthily toward the stern, this person drew near the
rail, and, peering cautiously over, looked down on one of the small
boats swung out in readiness for the landing party at dawn.
"Mademoiselle," he breathed low.
"Is that you, Francois?" came up softly from the boat.
He murmured something. "Is all in readiness?"
"Quite! Make haste."
The person above, about to swing himself over the rail, paused; a cabin
door, near by, had been thrown open and a stream of light shot near him.
Some one came out; moreover, she--for the some one was a woman--did not
close the door. The youth crouched back, trying to draw himself from
sight but the woman saw him, and coming quickly forward spoke. She
thought him, no doubt, one of the sailors. He did not answer, perhaps
was too frightened to do so, and his silence caused her to draw nearer.
More sharply she started to address him in her own native Russian but
the words abruptly ceased; a sudden exclamation fell from her lips. He,
as if made desperate by what the woman, now at the rail, saw or divined,
seemed imbued with extraordinary strength. The success or failure of the
enterprise hung on how he met this unexpected emergency. Heroic, if
needs be, brutal measures were demanded. Her outcry was stifled but
Sonia Turgeinov was strong and resisted like a tigress. Perhaps she
thought he meant to kill her, and in an excess of fear she managed to
call out once. Fortunately for the youth, the hammering below
continued, but whether she had made herself heard or not was uncertain.
Confronted by a dire possibility, he exerted himself to the utmost to
still that warning voice. In frenzied haste he seized the heavy scarf
she had thrown around her shoulders upon leaving the cabin and wound it
about her face and head. The sinuous body seemed to grow limp in his
arms. His was not a pleasant task but a necessary one. This woman had
delivered the girl to the prince in the first place; would now attempt
to frustrate her escape. Any moment some one else might come on deck and
discover them.
"Quick! Why don't you come?" Betty Dalrymple's anxious voice ascended
from the darkness.
The youth knew well that no time must be lost, but what to do? He could
not leave the woman. She might be only feigning unconsciousness. And
anyway they would soon find her and learn the truth. That would mean
their quick recapture. Already he thought he heard a footstep descending
from the bridge--approaching--With extraordinary strength for one of
Francois' slender build, he swung the figure of the woman over the side,
dropped her into the boat and followed himself. A breathless moment of
suspense ensued; he listened. The approaching footsteps came on; then
paused, and turned the other way. The youth waited no longer. The little
boat at the side was lowered softly; it touched the water and floated
away from the _Nevski_ like a leaf. Then the darkness swallowed it.
"How far are we from the yacht now, Francois?"
"Only a few miles, Mademoiselle."
"Do you think we'll be far enough away at daybreak so they can't see
us?"
"Have no fear, Mademoiselle." The voice of Francois in the stern,
thrilled. "There's a fair sailing wind."
"Isn't it strange"--Betty Dalrymple, speaking half to herself, regarded
the motionless form in the bottom of the boat--"that she, of all
persons, and I, should be thus thrust together, in such a tiny craft,
on such an enormous sea?"
"I really couldn't help it, Mademoiselle"--apologetically--"bringing her
with us. There was no alternative."
"Oh, I'm not criticizing you, who did so splendidly." The girl's eyes
again fell. "She is unconscious a long time, Francois."
The youth's reply was lost amid the sound of the waters. Only the sea
talked now, wildly, moodily; flying feathers of foam flecked the night.
The boat took the waves laboriously and came down with shrill seething.
She seemed ludicrously minute amid that vast unrest. The youth steered
steadily; to Betty Dalrymple he seemed just going on anyhow, dashing
toward a black blanket with nothing beyond. It was all very wonderful
and awe-inspiring as well as somewhat fearsome. The waves had a cruel
sound if one listened to them closely. A question floating in her mind
found, after a long time, hesitating but audible expression:
"Do you think there's any doubt about our being able to make one of the
islands, Francois?"
"None whatever!" came back the confident, almost eager reply. "Not the
slightest doubt in the world, Mademoiselle. The islands are very near
and we can't help seeing one of them at daybreak."
"Daybreak?" she said. "I wish it were here now."
Swish! swish! went the sea with more menacing sound. For the moment
Francois steered wildly, and the boat careened; he brought her up
sharply. The girl spoke no more. Perhaps the motion of the little craft
gradually became more soothing as she accustomed herself to it, for,
before long, her head drooped. It was dry in the bow; a blanket
protected her from the wind, and, weary with the events of the last few
days, she seemed to rest as securely on this wave-rocked couch as a
child in its cradle. The youth, uncertain whether she slept or not,
forbore to disturb her. Hours went by.
As the night wore on a few stars came out in a discouraged kind of way.
Heretofore he had been steering by the wind; now, that scanty
peripatetic band, adrift on celestial highways, assisted him in keeping
his course. When one sleepy-eyed planet went in, another, not far away
(from the human scope of survey) came out, and Francois, with the
perspicacity of a follower of the sea, seemed to have learned how to
gage direction by a visual game of hide-and-seek with the pin-points of
infinitude. Between watching the stars, the sea and the sail, he found
absorbing occupation for mind and muscle. Sometimes, in the water's
depressions, a lull would catch them, then when the wind boomed again
over the tops of the crests, slapping fiercely the canvas, a brief
period of hazard had to be met. The boat, like a delicate live creature,
needed a fine as well as a firm hand.
His faculties thus concentrated, Francois had remained oblivious to the
dark form in the center of the boat, although long ago Sonia Turgeinov
had first moved and looked up. If she made any sound, he whose glance
passed steadily over her had not heard it. She raised herself slightly;
sat a long time motionless, an arm thrown over a seat, her eyes
alternating in direction, from the seas near the downward gunwale, to
the almost indistinguishable figure of him in the stern, the while her
fingers played with a scarf--the one that had been wound around her
head. Once she leaned back, her cheek against the sharp thwart, her gaze
heavenward. She remained thus a long while, with body motionless, though
her fingers continued to toy with the bit of heavy silk, as if keeping
pace with some mercurial rush of thoughts.
A wastrel, she had been in many strange places, but never before had she
found herself in a situation so extraordinary. To her startled outlook,
the boat might well have seemed a chip tossed on the mad foam of chaos.
This figure, almost indistinguishable, yet so steadfastly present at the
stern of the little craft, appeared grim and ghostlike. But that he was
no ghost--His grip had been real; certainly that. He had been, too,
perforce, a master of action. She leaned her head on her elbow.
Strangely, she felt no resentment.
The tired stars, as by a community of interest and common
understanding, slowly faded altogether. The woman bent her glance
bow-ward. The day--what would it reveal? She understood a good deal, yet
much still puzzled her. As through a dream, she had seemed to hear the
name, "Francois"--to listen to a crystalline voice, fresh as the
tinkling bells in some temple at the dawn. The darkness of the sky fused
into a murky gray, and as that somber tone began, in turn, to be
replaced by a lighter neutral tint, she made out dimly the figure of the
girl. As by a species of fascination, she continued to look at her while
the morn unfolded slowly. From behind a dark promontory of vapor,
Aurora's warm hand now tossed out a few careless ribbons. They lightened
the chilly-looking sea; they touched a golden tress--just one, that
stole out from under the gray blanket. The girl's face could not be
seen; the heavy covering concealed the lines of the lithe young form.
As she continued to sleep--undisturbed by the first manifestations of
the dawn--the woman's glance swept backward to him at the helm. The
shafts of light showed now his face, worn and set, yet strangely
transfigured. He did not seem to notice her; beneath heavy lids his
quick glances shot this way and that to where wisps of mist on the
surface of the sea partly obscured the outlook. Sonia Turgeinov divined
his purpose; he was looking for the _Nevski_. But although he continued
to search in the direction of the yacht, he did not catch sight of her.
Only the winding and twining diaphanous veils played where he feared she
might have been visible. An expression of great satisfaction passed over
his features.
Then he swayed from sheer weariness; he could have dropped gladly to the
bottom of the boat. Brain as well as sinew has its limitations and the
night had been long and trying. He had done work that called for
tenseness and mental concentration every moment. He had outlasted divers
and many periods when catastrophe might have overwhelmed them, and now
that the blackness which had shrouded a thousand unseen risks and perils
had been swept aside, an almost overpowering reaction claimed him. This
natural lassitude became the more marked after he had scanned the
horizon in vain for the prince's pleasure-yacht.
His task, however, was far from over, and he straightened. To Sonia
Turgeinov, his gaze and his expression were almost somnambulistic. He
continued steering, guiding their destinies as by force of habit.
Luckily the breeze had waned and the boat danced more gaily than
dangerously. It threw little rainbows of spray in the air; he blinked at
them, his eyes half closed. In the bow the old dun-colored blanket
stirred but he did not see it. A glorious sun swept up, and began to lap
thirstily the wavering mists from the surface of the sea.
Sonia Turgeinov spoke now softly to the steersman. What she said he did
not know; his lack-luster gaze met hers. All dislike and disapproval
seemed to have vanished from it; he saw her only as one sees a face in a
daguerreotype of long ago, or looks at features limned by a soulless
etcher.
"Do you see it?" he asked.
"What?"
"Trees? Aren't those trees?"
"I see nothing."
"You do. You must. They are there." He spoke almost roughly, as if she
irritated him.
"Oh, yes. I think I do see something," she said, and started. "Like a
speck?--a film?--a bird's wing, perhaps?"
In the bow the blanket again stirred. Then, as from the dull chrysalis
emerge brightness and beauty, so from those dun folds sprang into the
morning light a red-lipped, lovely vision.
"Trees," repeated the steersman to Sonia Turgeinov. "I am positive--" he
went on, but lost interest in his own words. Fatigue seemed to fall from
him in an instant; he stared.
From beneath her golden hair Betty Dalrymple's eyes flashed full upon
him.
"You!" she said.
Mr. Heatherbloom appeared to relapse; his expression--that smile--vague,
indefinite--again partook of the somnambulistic.