WHEREIN THE CAPTAIN REAPPEARS
The fierce hissing of the continuous escape of steam excited alarm in
those not accustomed to machinery. Men and women share the unreasoning
panic of animals when an unknown force reveals its pent-up fury. They
forget that safety-valves are provided, that diminished pressure means
less risk; the knowledge that restraint, not freedom, is dangerous
comes ever in the guise of a new discovery.
The mining engineers, of course, did not share this delusion.
“There must be something serious the matter, or they would not be
wasting power like that,” murmured the American to one of his
fellow-professionals.
“A smash-up in the engine-room. Nada es mas seguro,”[1] was the answer.
[1] Nothing is more certain.
“Wonder if any one is hurt?”
The Spaniard bent a little nearer. “What can you expect?” he whispered
sympathetically.
In the unnatural peacefulness of the ship’s progress, disturbed only by
the roar of the superheated vapor, they all heard the opening of a door
at the head of the saloon stairway. The third officer appeared—his wet
oilskins gleaming and dripping.
“Dr. Christobal, the captain wishes to speak to you,” he said.
Christobal rose and crossed the saloon.
“As you are here, won’t you tell the ladies there is nothing to be
afraid of in the mere stopping of the engines?” he suggested.
“Oh, the ship is right enough,” was the hasty response. “There has been
an accident in the stokehold. That is all.”
“Want any help?” demanded the American.
“Well—I’ll ask the captain.”
Evidently anxious to avoid further questioning, he ran up the
companion. Christobal followed, the door was closed and bolted again.
“I hate the word ‘accident.’ It covers so many horrid possibilities,”
said Isobel.
“I am afraid some poor fellows have been injured, and that is why
Captain Courtenay sent for Dr. Christobal,” said Elsie.
“Oh, of course, I meant that. I was not thinking of the mere delay,
though it is annoying that a breakdown should occur here.”
“It would be equally bad anywhere else,” put in the missionary’s wife,
timidly.
“By no means,” was the sharp response. “If we were in the Straits, for
instance, we could signal to San Isidro or Sandy Point; and there would
be other vessels passing. Here, we are in the worst possible place.”
Miss Baring’s acquaintance with the chief features of the South
American coast-line had seemingly improved. To all appearance, she
alone among the passengers, now that Christobal was gone, realized
vaguely the perilous plight of the _Kansas_. The fact was that even a
girl of her apparently frivolous disposition could not avoid the
influences of environment.
In a maritime community like that of Valparaiso there was every reason
to know and dread the rock-bound coast which fringed the southern path
towards civilization. Strange, half-forgotten stories of the terrors
which await a disabled ship caught in a southwesterly gale on the
Pacific side of Tierra del Fuego rose dimly in her mind. And the
advancing darkness did not tend towards cheerfulness. In her new track,
the _Kansas_ had turned her back on the murky light which penetrated
the storm-clouds towards the west. Unhinged by the external gloom and
the prevalent uncertainty, and finding that no one cared to dispute
with her, Isobel felt that a scream or two would be a relief. For once,
pride was helpful—it saved her from hysteria.
The curious sense of waiting, they knew not for what, which dulled the
thoughts and stilled the tongues of the small company at the table,
soon communicated itself to the stewards. The men stood in little
knots, exchanging few words, and those mostly meaningless; but the
chief steward, whose trained ear caught the regular beat of the
donkey-engine, woke them up with a series of sharp orders.
“Switch on the lights,” he said loudly. “Clear the table and hurry up
with the coffee. Get a move on those fellows, Gomez. Have you never
before been in a ship when the screw stopped?”
The Gomez thus appealed to was the Englishman’s second-in-command; he
acted as interpreter when anything out of the common was required. He
muttered a few words in the Hispano-Indian patois which his hearers
best understood, and the scene in the saloon changed with wondrous
suddenness. The glow of the electric lamps banished the gathering
shadows. The luxurious comfort of the apartment soon dispelled the
notion of danger. Coffee was brought. The smoking saloon was
inaccessible, owing to the closing of the gangway, but the chief
steward suggested that the gentlemen might smoke if the ladies were
agreeable. Under such circumstances the ladies always are agreeable,
and the instant result was a distinct rise in the social barometer.
The noise of the steam exhaust ceased as abruptly as it began. The ship
was riding easily in spite of the heavy sea. Drifting with wind and
wave is a simple thing for a big vessel. There is no struggle, no
tearing asunder of resisting forces. Thus might a boat caught in the
pitiless current of Niagara glide towards the brink of the cataract
with cunning smoothness.
And then, while the occupants of the saloon were endeavoring to
persuade each other that all was well, the loud wail of the siren
thrilled them with increased foreboding. It was not the warning note of
a fog, nor the sharp course-signal for the guidance of a passing ship,
but a sustained trumpeting, which announced to any steamer hidden in
the darkening waste of waters that the _Kansas_ was not under control.
It was a wild, sinister appeal for help, the voice of the disabled
vessel proclaiming her need; and the answer seemed to come in a fiercer
shriek of the gale, while the added fury of the blast brought a curling
sea over the poop. The _Kansas_ staggered and shook herself clear. The
wave smashed its way onward; several iron stanchions snapped with
reports like pistol-shots, and there was an intolerable rending of
woodwork. But, whatever the damage, the powerful hull rose triumphantly
from the clutch of its assailant. Shattered streams of water poured off
the decks like so many cascades. Loud above the splash of these
miniature cataracts vibrated the tense boom of the fog-horn.
It was a nerve-racking moment. It demanded the leadership of a strong
man, and there are few gatherings in Anglo-Saxondom which cannot
produce a Caesar when required.
“Say,” shouted the American, his clear voice dominating the turmoil,
“that gave us a shower-bath. If we could just stand outside and see
ourselves, we should look like an illuminated fountain.”
That was the right note—belief in the ship, contempt of the darkness
and the gale. The crisis passed.
“There really cannot be a heavy sea,” said Elsie, cheerfully
inaccurate. “Otherwise we should be pitching or rolling, perhaps both,
whereas we are actually far more steady than when dinner commenced.”
“I find these lulls in the storm most trying,” complained Isobel. “They
remind me of some wild animal hunting its prey, creeping up with silent
stealth, and then springing.”
“I have never before heard a fog-horn sounded so continuously,” said
the missionary’s wife, a Mrs. Somerville. “Don’t you think they are
whistling for assistance?”
“Assistance! What sort of assistance can anybody give us here? Unless
the ship rights herself very soon we don’t know what may happen.”
Isobel seemed to have a premonition of evil, and she paid no heed to
the effect her words might have on the others. Although the saloon was
warm—almost uncomfortably hot owing to the closing of the main
air-passages—she shivered.
Mr. Somerville drew a book from his pocket. “If that be so,” he said
gently, “may I suggest that we seek aid from One who is all-powerful?
We are few, and of different religions, but in this hour we can surely
worship at a common altar.”
“Right!” said the taciturn Englishman, varying his adjective for once.
The missionary offered up a short but heartfelt prayer, and, finding
that he carried his congregation with him, read the opening verse of
Hymn No. 370, “For those at Sea.”
The stewards, most of whom understood a few words of English, readily
grasped the fact that the _padri_ was asking for help in a situation
which they well knew to be desperate. They drew near reverently, and
even joined in the simple lines:
O hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea.
During the brief silence which followed the singing of the hymn it did,
indeed, seem to their strained senses that the fierce violence of the
gale had somewhat abated. It was not so, in reality. A steady fall in
the barometer foretold even worse weather to come. Courtenay, assured
now that the main engines were absolutely useless, thought it advisable
to get steering way on the ship by rigging the foresail, double-reefed
and trapped. The result was quickly perceptible. The _Kansas_ might not
be pooped again, but she would travel more rapidly into the unknown.
Yet this only afforded another instance of the way men reason when they
seek to explain cause from effect. The hoisting of that strip of stout
canvas was one of the time-factors in the story of an eventful night,
for it was with gray-faced despair that the captain gave the requisite
order when the second engineer reported that his senior was dead, the
crown of two furnaces destroyed, and the engines clogged, if not
irretrievably damaged, by fallen debris. None realized better than the
young commander what a disastrous fate awaited his ship in the gloom of
the flying scud ahead. There was a faint chance of encountering another
steamship which would respond to his signals. Then he would risk all by
laying the _Kansas_ broadside on in the effort to take a tow-rope
aboard. Meanwhile, it was best to bring her under some sort of control,
the steam steering-gear, driven by the uninjured donkey-engine, being
yet available.
In the saloon, Elsie had shielded her face in her hands, to hide the
tears which the entreaty of the hymn had brought to her eyes. Some one
whispered to her:
“Won’t you sing something, Miss Maxwell?”
It was the American. He judged that the sweet voice which unconsciously
led the singing of the hymn must be skilled in other music.
She looked up at him, her eyes shining.
“Sing! Do you think it possible?” she asked.
“Yes. You can do a brave thing, I guess, and that would be brave.”
“I will try,” she said, and she walked to the piano which was screwed
athwart the deck in front of the polished mahogany sheath of the steel
mainmast. It was in her mind to play some lively excerpts from the
light operas then in vogue, but the secret influences of the hour were
stronger than her studied intent, and, when her fingers touched the
keys, they wandered, almost without volition, into the subtle harmonies
of Gounod’s “Ave Maria.” She played the air first; then, gaining
confidence, she sang the words, using a Spanish version which had
caught her fancy. It was good to see the flashing eyes and impassioned
gestures of the Chilean stewards when they found that she was singing
in their own language. These men, owing to their acquaintance with the
sea and knowledge of the coast, were now in a state of panic; they
would have burst the bonds of discipline on the least pretext. So, as
it chanced, the voice of the English señorita reached them as the
message of an angel, and the spell she cast over them did not lose its
potency during some hours of dangerous toil. Here, again, was found one
of the comparatively trivial incidents which contributed materially to
the working out of a strange drama, because anything in the nature of a
mutinous orgy breaking out in the first part of that soul-destroying
night must have instantly converted the ship into a blood-bespattered
Inferno.
Excited applause rewarded the song. Fired by example, the dapper French
Count approached the piano and asked Elsie if she could play Beranger’s
“Roi d’Yvetot.” She repressed a smile at his choice, but the chance
that presented itself of initiating a concert on the spur of the moment
was too good to be lost, so M. de Poincilit, in a nice light tenor,
told how
Il était un roi d’Yvetot
Peu connu dans l’histoire,
Se levant tard, se couchant tôt,
Dormant fort bien sans gloire.
The Frenchman took the merry monarch seriously, but the lilting melody
pleased everybody except “Mr. Wood.” The “Oh, Oh’s” and “Ah, Ah’s” of
the chorus apparently stirred him to speech. He strolled from a corner
of the saloon to the side of Gray, the American engineer, and said,
with a contemptuous nod towards the singer:
“What rot!”
“Not a bit of it. He’s all right. Won’t _you_ give us a song next?”
If Gray showed the face of a sphinx, so did “Mr. Wood,” whose real name
was Tollemache. He bent a little nearer.
“Seen the rockets?” he asked.
“No. Are we signaling?”
“Every minute. Have counted fifteen.”
“You don’t say. Things are in a pretty bad shape, then?”
“Rotten.”
“Well, like Brer Rabbit, we must lie low and say nothing.”
This opinion was incontrovertible. Moreover, Tollemache was not one who
needed urging to keep his mouth shut. Indeed, this was by far the
longest conversation he had indulged in since he came aboard; nor was
he finished with it.
“Ship will strike soon,” he said.
Gray turned on him sharply. “Oh, nonsense!” he exclaimed. “What has put
that absurd notion into your head?”
“Know this coast.”
“But we are far out at sea.”
“Fifty miles from danger line, two hours ago. Thirty now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Certain.”
“Do you mean to tell me that in three hours, or less, the ship may be a
wreck?”
“Will be,” said Tollemache. “Have a cigar,” and he passed a well-filled
case to his companion.
The American was beginning to take the silent one’s measure. He bit off
the end of a cigar and lit it.
“What’s at the back of your head?” he asked coolly. The other looked
towards the Chileans.
“Those chaps are rotters,” he said.
“You think they will cut up rough? What can they do? We must all sink
or swim together.”
“Yes; but there are the women, you know. They must be looked after. You
can count on me. Tell the chief steward—and the padri.”
Gray felt that here was a man after his own heart, the native-born
American having a rough-and-ready way of classifying nationalities when
the last test of manhood is applied by a shipwreck, or a fire.
“Got a gun?” he inquired.
“Cabin. Goin’ for it first opportunity.”
“Same here. But the captain will give us some sort of warning?”
“Perhaps not. Die quick, die happy.”
Then Gray smiled, and he could not help saying: “Tell you what, cousin,
if you shoot as straight as you talk, these stewards will come to heel,
no matter what happens.”
“Fair shot,” admitted Tollemache, and he stalked off to his stateroom,
while the Count was vociferating, for the last time:
Quel bon p’tit roi c’était la!
La, la!
Between Elsie and de Poincilit the chorus made quite a respectable din.
Few noticed that the saloon main companion had been opened again, until
the sharp bark of a dog joining in the hand-clapping turned every eye
towards the stairway. Captain Courtenay was descending. In front ran
Joey, who, of course, imagined that the plaudits of the audience
demanded recognition. Courtenay had removed his oilskins before leaving
the bridge. His dark blue uniform was flecked with white foam, and a
sou’wester was tied under his chin, otherwise his appearance gave
little sign of the wild tumult without. Joey, on the other hand, was a
very wet dog, and inclined to be snappy. When, in obedience to a stern
command, he ceased barking, he shook himself violently, and sent a
shower of spray over the carpet. Then he cocked an eye at the chief
steward, who represented bones and such-like dainties.
Courtenay, removing his glistening head-gear, advanced a couple of
paces into the saloon. He seemed to avoid looking at any individual,
but took in all present in a comprehensive glance. Elsie, who had
exchanged very few words with him since the first afternoon she came on
board, thought he looked worn and haggard, but his speech soon revealed
good cause for any lack of sprightliness.
“I regret to have to inform you,” he said, with the measured
deliberation of a man who has made up his mind exactly what to say,
“that the ship has been disabled by some accident, the cause of which
is unknown at present. The unfortunate result is that she is in a
position of some peril.”
There was a sudden stir among the Chilean stewards, whose wits were
sharpened sufficiently to render the captain’s statement quite clear to
them. Isobel uttered a little sob of terror, and Mrs. Somerville gasped
audibly, “Oh, my poor children!” Elsie, her lips parted, sat forward on
the piano-stool. Her senses seemed to have become intensified all at
once. She could see everything, hear everything. Some of the Chileans
and Spaniards crossed themselves; others swore. Count Edouard breathed
hard and muttered “Grand Dieu!” She wondered why the captain and Mr.
Tollemache, who had returned from his stateroom, and was standing in
the half light of a doorway, should simultaneously drop their right
hands into a coat pocket. Mr. Tollemache, too, gave a queer little nod
to the American, who had moved near to Isobel and placed a hand on her
shoulder. Elsie was quite sure that Gray whispered: “For goodness’
sake, don’t cause a scene!” And, indeed, he did ask Isobel and Mrs.
Somerville, with some curtness, to restrain themselves.
Courtenay, with one cold glance, chilled into silence the muttered
prayers and curses of the Chileans.
“It may be necessary, about daybreak, to endeavor to beach the ship,”
he continued. “I wish you all, therefore, to guard against possible
exposure by wearing warm clothes, especially furs and overcoats. Money
and jewelry should be secured, but no baggage of any sort, not even the
smallest handbag, can be carried, as all other personal belongings must
be left on board. Passengers will gather here, and remain here until I
send one of the officers for them. The companion doors will not be
closed again, but the decks are quite impassable. You hear for
yourselves that they are momentarily swept by heavy seas.”
He turned to the chief steward.
“Your men, Mr. Malcolm,” he said, “will begin at once, under your
directions, to draw stores for each boat. There need be no hurry or
excitement. We are, as yet, many miles distant from the nearest known
land. If the wind changes, or one of several possible things happens,
the _Kansas_ will suffer no damage whatever. I wish all hands to be
prepared, however, for the chance, the remote chance, I trust, of the
ship’s being driven ashore, and I beg each one of you to remember that
discipline and strict obedience to orders are not only more necessary
now than ever, but also that they will be strictly enforced.”
The concluding sentence was uttered very slowly and clearly. It was
evident he meant the ship’s company to understand him. Before any of
his hearers attempted to question him, he jammed the sou’wester on his
head and ran up the stairs. The dog followed, somewhat ruefully, the
cozy saloon being far more to his liking than the wind-swept,
spray-lashed chart-house. Mr. Malcolm promptly stirred his myrmidons
with a command to fall in by boats’ crews, and Gomez won his chief’s
approval by quietly translating the captain’s orders. Beyond Mrs.
Somerville’s subdued sobbing there was little outward manifestation
that another crisis in the history of the _Kansas_ and her human
freight had come and gone.
“The skipper did turn up, you see,” said the American, when Tollemache
came to him. The silent man screwed his lips together as if he would
put a padlock on them.
“From your knowledge of the coast, do you think he will be able to
beach the ship?” went on Gray, some humorous imp prompting him, even in
that tense moment, to draw the expected answer from his new friend and
ally.
“Yes, in pieces,” said Tollemache, and the reply was neither humorous
nor expected.