THE KANSAS SUSTAINS A CHECK—
Once, in early days, when Courtenay was a middy on a destroyer, his
ship ran ashore on the Manacles. After a bump or two, and a noise like
the snapping of trees during a hurricane, the little vessel broke her
back, and the after part, with the engines, fell away into deep water.
Courtenay happened to be on the bridge; the forward half held intact,
so he and the other survivors clambered ashore at low water.
He waited now for the rending of plates, the tearing asunder of stanch
steel ribs and cross-beams, which should sound the knell of the ship’s
last moments. But the _Kansas_ seemed to be in no hurry to fall in
pieces. She strained and groaned, and shook violently when a wave
pounded her; otherwise, she lay there like a beaten thing, oddly
resembling the living but almost unconscious men stretched on the
mattresses in the forward saloon.
Courtenay did not experience the least fear of death. Emotion of any
sort was already dead in him. He found himself wondering if an
unexpectedly strong current, setting to the southeast, had not upset
his reckoning—if there were any broken limbs among the occupants of the
saloon—if Elsie had been injured by being thrown down into his cabin.
He looked at his watch; it was past eleven. In four hours there would
be dawn. Dawn! In as many minutes he might see the day that is
everlasting. . . . Ah! Perhaps not even four minutes! The _Kansas_,
with a shiver, lifted to the embrace of a heavy sea, lurched to port,
and settled herself more comfortably. The deck assumed an easier angle.
Now it was possible to walk. There were no rocks here, at any rate.
Courtenay at once jumped to the conclusion that the powerful current
whose existence he suspected had cut out for itself a deep-water
channel towards the land, and the ship had struck on the silt of its
back-wash. Anyhow, the _Kansas_ was still living. The lights were all
burning steadily. He could detect the rhythmic throb of the
donkey-engine. He felt it like the faint beat of a pulse. In her new
position the ship presented less of a solid wall to the onslaught of
the sea. The tumultuous waves began to race past without breaking so
fiercely. Had she started her plates? Were the holds and engine-room
full of water? If so, Walker and his helpers were already drowning
beneath his feet. And, when next she moved, the vessel might slip away
into the depths!
These and kindred thoughts, thoughts without sequence and almost
without number, flew through his mind with incredible speed. They were
lucid and reasoned, their pros and cons equally dealt with—he could
have answered any question on each point were it propounded by a board
of examiners—and all this took place within a few seconds, between the
impact of one big wave and another.
A man rushed by, or tried to do so. Courtenay recognized him as a
leading stoker who had temporary charge of the donkey-boiler and seized
him wrathfully, his eyes ablaze.
“Go back!” he roared.
“Señor! The ship is lost!”
“Go back, and await my orders.”
He could have strangled the fugitive in his sudden rage. The fireman
endeavored to gasp his readiness to obey. Courtenay relaxed his grip,
and, for a time, at least one member of the crew stuck to his post,
fearing the mad captain more than death.
A mob of stewards and kitchen hands came in a torrent up the saloon
stairs. Courtenay met them, a terrifying figure, and thrust a revolver
in their faces.
“Back!” he shouted, “or some of you will die here.”
Even in their frenzy they believed him. The foremost slunk away, and
fought in a new terror with those who would urge them on. Gray,
bleeding from a cut across the forehead, knocked down a man who
brutally tore Isobel out of his path. Tollemache, a revolver in each
hand, set his back against the corner of the saloon at the foot of the
stairs.
“I’m with you, captain,” he yelled.
Courtenay saw that he had conquered them—for the instant. He raised his
hand.
“Behave like men,” he cried. “You can do no good by crowding the deck.
I am going to the bridge to see if it is possible to lower the boats.
Each boat’s crew will be mustered in turn, passengers and men alike. If
you are cowards now you will throw away what chance there is of saving
your lives.”
His voice rang out like a trumpet. His attitude cowed while it
reassured them. Men turned from one to another to ask what the señor
captain was saying. They understood much, but they wanted to make sure
of each word. Was there any hope? Now that the gates of death were
opening, he was a god in their eyes—a god who promised life in return
for obedience.
A revolver barked twice somewhere on deck. A bullet smashed one of the
windows of the music-room and lodged in a panel behind Courtenay. They
all heard the reports, but the captain promptly turned the incident to
advantage.
“You see we mean to maintain order,” he said. “Mr. Malcolm, take care
that every one has a lifebelt.”
A sort of cheer came from the men. Who could fail to believe in a
leader so cool and resourceful? He ran out into the darkness to
discover the cause of the shooting. A number of sailors and firemen
were striving to launch a boat. There was a struggle going on. He could
not distinguish friend from foe in the mêlée, but he threw himself into
it fearlessly.
“You fools!” he shouted. “You may die soon enough without killing each
other. Make way there! Ah! would you?” He caught the gleam of an
uplifted knife, and struck savagely at the face of the man who would
have used it. The butt of the revolver caught the sailor on the temple.
He went down like a stone. Courtenay stumbled over another prostrate
body. It was Mr. Boyle, striving to rise. Their eyes met in the gloom.
Courtenay stooped and swung the other clear of the fight, for the
second and third officers were using their fists, and Walker, even in
the hurry of his ascent from the stoke-hold, had not let go of a
spanner. The yells and curses, the trampling of dim forms swaying in
the fight, the roaring of the gale, and the incessant crash of heavy
spray made up a ghastly pandemonium. It was an orgy of terror, of wild
abandon, of hopeless striving on the edge of the pit—a stupid madness
at the best, as the ship’s life-boats on the port side were on the spar
deck; in their panic the men were endeavoring to lower a dingy. Yet
Courtenay saw that discipline was regaining its influence. He thought
to inspire confidence and stop useless savagery by a sharp command.
“All hands follow me to starboard!”
The struggle ceased instantly. The captain’s order seemed to imply some
new scheme. Men who, a moment ago, would have killed any one who sought
to restrain them from clearing the boat’s falls, now raced pell-mell
after their officers. No heed was paid to those who lay on the deck,
wounded or insensible. Herein alone did these Chilean sailors differ
from wolves, and wolves have the excuse of fierce hunger when they
devour their disabled fellows.
Still carrying Boyle, Courtenay led the confused horde through a
gangway to the higher side of the deck.
“Swing those boats back to the spar deck!” he said. “Get falls and
tackle ready to lift them to port. Don’t lose your heads, men. You will
all be clear of the ship in ten minutes if you do as you are told.”
Two officers and a quarter-master sprang forward. In an incredibly
short space of time the crew were working with redoubled frenzy, but
under control, and with a common object. For an instant, Courtenay was
free to attend to his chief officer. He bore him to the lighted saloon
companion. Boyle was deathly pale under the tan of his skin. The
captain saw that his own left hand, where it clasped the other round
the waist, was covered with blood.
“Below there!” he cried. “Bring two men here, Mr. Malcolm.”
When the chief steward came he gave directions that Mr. Boyle should be
taken to the saloon and Dr. Christobal summoned.
“Send some one you can trust to return,” he continued. “Go then to the
lee of the promenade deck. You will find others there.”
He did not stop to ask himself if solicitude for the unfortunates
wounded in the fight were of any avail. His mind was clear, the habit
of command strong in him. Not until the sea claimed him would he cease
to rule. The clank of pulleys, the cries of the sailors heaving at the
ropes, told him that the crew were at work. At last he was free to go
to the bridge.
He found the quarter-master in the chart-house, on his knees. When the
ship struck, the officer of the watch had been thrown headlong to port.
Recovering his feet before a tumbling sea could fling him overboard, he
hauled himself out of danger just in time to take part in the fray on
deck. He came back now, hurrying to join the captain. Courtenay,
standing in the shelter of the chart-house, was peering through the
flying scud to leeward. The sea was darker there than it had been for
hours. Around the ship the surface was milk-like with foam, but beyond
the area of the shoal there seemed to be a remote chance for a boat to
live.
“We’re on a sort of breakwater, sir,” said the second officer.
“Seems like it. Is the ship hard and fast?”
“I am afraid so.”
“I think the weather is moderating. Go and see how the barometer
stands.”
“Steady improvement, sir,” came the report.
“Any water coming in?”
“Mr. Walker said he thought not.”
“Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Try to get the first life-boat lowered. Let
her carry as many extra hands as possible. We have lost two boats. But
do not send any women in her. If all is well, let them go in the next
one. Take charge of that yourself.”
“Would you mind tying this handkerchief tightly just here, sir?”
The second officer held out his left forearm.
“Were you knifed, too?” asked Courtenay.
“It is not much, but I am losing a good deal of blood.”
“The brutes—the unreasoning brutes!” muttered the captain. As he
knotted the linen into a rough tourniquet the other asked:
“Shall I report to you when the first boat gets away, sir?”
“No need. I shall see what happens. When she is clear I shall bring the
ladies to you.”
Pride of race helped these men to talk as collectedly as if the ship
were laid alongside a Thames wharf. They knew not the instant the
_Kansas_ might lift again and turn turtle, yet they did not dream of
deviating a hair’s breadth from their duties. The second officer went
aft to carry out the captain’s instructions. Courtenay followed a
little way, passing to leeward of the chart-house, until he reached his
own quarters. There was no door on that side, but light streamed
through a couple of large port-holes across which the curtains had not
been drawn. He looked in. Elsie was leaning against the table to
balance herself on the sloping deck. She held Joey in her arms. She
seemed to be talking to the dog, who answered in his own way, by trying
to lick her face. The glass was so blurred that Courtenay could not see
that she was crying.
“Better wait,” he muttered, and turned his gaze seaward again. Yes,
there could be no doubt that the almost unbroken swell within half a
cable’s length of the ship promised a possibility of escape. There was
no telling what dangers lay beyond. To his reckoning, the nearest land
was twenty miles distant, but the shoal water might extend all the way,
and, with a falling wind, waves once disintegrated would not regain any
considerable size. It was a throw of the dice for life, but it must be
taken. He indulged in a momentary thought as to his own course. Would
he leave the ship in the last boat? Yes, if every wounded man on board
were taken off first; and how could he entertain even a shred of hope
that his cowardly crew would preserve such discipline to the end as to
permit of that being done?
The answer to his mute question came sooner than he expected. He had
been standing there alone about five minutes, intently watching the set
of the sea, so as to determine the best time for lowering a boat, when,
amid the sustained shriek of the wind and the lashing of the spray, he
heard sounds which told him that the forward port life-boat was being
swung outward on the davits. The hurricane deck was a mass of confused
figures. The two boats to starboard, a life-boat and the jolly-boat,
had been carried across the deck in readiness to take the places of the
port life-boats. A landsman might think that medley reigned supreme;
but it was not so. Sailor-like work was proceeding with the utmost
speed and system, when an accident happened. For some reason never
ascertained, though it was believed that the men in the leading boat
were too anxious to clear the falls and failed to take the proper
precautions, the heavy craft pitched stern foremost into the sea. She
sank like a stone, and with her went a number of Chileans; their
despairing yells, coming up from the churning froth, seemed to be a
signal for the demoniac passions latent in the crew to burst forth
again, this time in a consuming blaze that would not be stayed. Each
man fought blindly for himself, heedless now of all restrictions. The
knowledge of this latest disaster spread with amazing rapidity. Up from
the saloon came a rush of stewards and others. Overborne in the
panic-stricken flight, Gray, Tollemache, Christobal, the French Count
and the head steward, not knowing what new catastrophe threatened,
brought Mr. Somerville and the almost inanimate women with them,
leaving to their fate those who, like Boyle, were unable to move. Some
of the mob rushed up the bridge companion; others made for the after
ladders used only by sailors; others, again, swung themselves to the
spar deck by the rails and awning standards. Even before Courtenay
could reach the scene, both the second and third officers were stabbed,
this time mortally. He saw one of the infuriated mutineers heave the
third officer’s body overboard—a final quittance for some injury
previously received.
He emptied his revolver into the tumbling mass of men, but he was swept
aside by the fresh gang from the saloon, and perhaps owed his escape
from instant death by falling on the slippery deck. He was up again,
shouting, entreating, striking right and left, but he felt bitterly
that his efforts now were of no avail, and he bethought him that there
was only one resource left. These frenzied wretches would destroy
themselves and all others—so, if he would save even a few of the lives
entrusted to his care, at least one of the boats must be protected. The
struggle was fiercest for the possession of the two life-boats. By a
determined effort the jolly-boat might be secured.
So he ran to obtain help from the few he could trust, from the tiny
company of white men he had left in the saloon; he met them, a forlorn
procession, coming up to the bridge. The all-powerful instinct of
self-preservation, aided, no doubt, by the stinging, drenching showers
of spray, had gone far towards reanimating Isobel and her maid, while
Mrs. Somerville, a woman advanced in years, was able to walk, though
benumbed with the sudden cold. Courtenay unlocked the door of his
cabin. Elsie, her face pale and tear-stained, but outwardly composed,
was yet standing near the table, and the dog sprang from her arms the
moment his master appeared.
“Thank God!” she said, all of a flutter now that the solitary waiting
for a death which came not was ended. “I feared I should never see you
again. Is the ship lost?”
The wild soughing of the wind rendered her words indistinct. And the
captain had no time for explanations.
“In here!” he shouted to Gray, who had helped Isobel to enter the
chart-room, the first refuge available on this exposed deck.
“Sharp with it!” he thundered, when Isobel was unwilling to face the
storm again. The men took their cue from his imperative tone. Gray
clasped Isobel in his arms and lifted her bodily through the doorway.
The others followed his example. Soon the three women were with Elsie
in the cabin. Isobel, by sheer reaction from her previous hysteria, was
sullen now, and heedless of all considerations save her own misery.
When she set eyes on Elsie she snapped out:
“You here!”
“Yes. Captain Courtenay brought me to his cabin after our return from
the fore saloon.”
“Oh, did he? And he left me with those devils beneath!”
They both heard Courtenay’s hurried order:
“Leave the ladies here until we can come for them. Follow me at once.”
The door slammed behind the men. Even the missionary was fired to
action by Courtenay’s manner. Elsie helped Mrs. Somerville to a chair.
Then she turned to Isobel, and said gently:
“It is a slight thing to discuss when any moment may be our last, but
the captain placed me here while he went to bring you. He had gone only
a few seconds when the ship struck.”
The crest of a wave combed over the upper works and pounded the solid
beams and planks of the cabin until they creaked. The ship lifted
somewhat as the sea enveloped her.
“Oh, this is awful!” shrieked Isobel. “If I must die, let me die
quickly. I shall go mad.”
“Calm yourself, dear. There must be an end of our sufferings soon.
Perhaps we may escape even yet.”
“Yes, I know. If any one is saved it will be you. You left me down
there to take my chance among those fiends. You have been here hours,
with your precious captain, no doubt. Were he looking after his ship
this might not have happened. . . . Why did I ever come on this
wretched vessel? And with you, who ran away from Ventana! I should have
been warned by it. When he could work me no other evil he sent you. . .
. Oh, you have taken a fine vengeance, Pedro Ventana! May you be denied
mercy as I am denied it now! . . . Go away! If you touch me I shall
strike you. I hate you! I tell you I am losing my senses. Do you wish
me to tear your face with my nails?”
Elsie, who would have soothed her distraught friend with a loving hand,
drew back in real fear that she was confronted by a maniac. The utter
outrageousness of this new infliction brought tears to her eyes. Yet
she choked back her grief for the sake of the others.
“Isobel, darling, please try to control yourself,” she pleaded. “Don’t
say such cruel things to me. You cannot mean them. I would do anything
to serve you. I am more sorry for you than for myself. I have little to
bind me to this life, whereas you have everything. Indeed, indeed, I
have not been away from you many minutes.”
Another heavy sea pitched on board. The _Kansas_ trembled and listed
suddenly. Isobel screamed shrilly, and burst into a storm of dry-eyed
sobs. Her mood changed instantly into one of abject submission. She
sprang towards Elsie with hands outstretched.
“Oh, save me, save me!” she wailed. “God knows I am not fit to die!”
There are some noble natures which find strength in the need to comfort
the weakness of others. Elsie drew the distracted girl close to her,
and placed an arm round her neck.
“It is not for us to say when we shall die,” she murmured. “Let us try
to be resigned. We must bear our misfortunes with Christian faith and
hope. Somehow, I feel that I have endured so much to-night that death
looks less terrible now. Perhaps that is because it is so near. To me,
the specter seems to be receding.”
“Did the captain tell you we had any chance of escape, señorita?” asked
the Spanish maid.
“What hope did Captain Courtenay hold out?” demanded Mrs. Somerville,
who had listened to Isobel’s raving with small comprehension.
Elsie left unuttered the protest on her lips. They all thought she
possessed Courtenay’s confidence in the same extraordinary degree.
Well, she would try to impart consolation in that way. It was
ridiculous, but it would serve.
“Of course we are in a desperate situation,” she said, “but while the
ship holds together there is always a chance of rescue, and you can see
quite clearly that she is far from breaking up yet.”
“Rescue! Did he speak of rescue?” cried Isobel. “That is impossible,
unless we take to the boats. And the cry in the saloon was that two
boats were lost long ago and a third just now. That is why we were
brought on deck. Were they launching a boat?”
“I don’t know,” said Elsie. “I was here quite alone, except for Joey.”
“Ah, it was true then. He was acting secretly, and the men broke loose
as soon as they heard of it.”
Elsie found this recurring suspicion of Courtenay’s motives harder to
bear than the preceding paroxysm of unreasoning rage. She had heard the
shooting, bellowing, and tramping on deck, and she knew that some
terrible scene was being enacted there, while the mere fact that the
captain himself placed the female passengers in his cabin proved that
he was doing his best for all.
“I do not believe for one instant that Captain Courtenay was acting
otherwise than as a brave and honorable gentleman,” she said; and then
the fantastic folly of such a dispute at such a moment overcame her.
She drew apart from Isobel, leaned against the wall of the cabin, and
wept unrestrainedly.
Her companions in misfortune did not realize how greatly her calm
self-reliance had comforted them until they witnessed this unlooked-for
collapse. The Spanish maid slipped to her knees, Mrs. Somerville began
to rock in her chair in a new agony, and Isobel, to whom a turbulent
spirit denied the relief of tears when they were most needed, buried
her face in a curtain which draped one of the windows.
It was thus that Courtenay found them, when he appeared at the door
after a lapse of time which none of them could measure.
“Now, Miss Maxwell, you first,” he said with an air of authority which
betokened some new move of utmost importance.
“First—for what?” she managed to ask.
“You are going off in a boat. It is your best chance. Please be quick.”
“No, Miss Baring goes before me. Then the others, I shall come last.”
“Have it as you will. I addressed you because you were nearest the
door. Come along, Miss Baring.”
He waited for no further words. He grasped Isobel’s arm and led her out
into the darkness. It seemed to be a very long time before he returned.
“Now, Mrs. Somerville,” he said, but that unhappy lady was so unnerved
that he had to carry her.
“Can you manage to bring the maid?” he asked over his shoulder to
Elsie. This trust in her drove away the weakness which had conquered
her under Isobel’s taunts. She stooped over the maid, but the girl
wrestled and fought with her in frantic dread of the passage along the
deck and of facing that howling sea in a small boat.
Elsie herself was almost worn out when Courtenay came back. He took in
the situation at a glance. He picked up the shrieking maid in his
strong arms.
“You won’t mind waiting for me,” he said to Elsie.
“Don’t attempt to come alone. You are too exhausted.”
It was a fine thing to do, but she smiled at him to show that she could
still repay his confidence.
“I shall wait,” she said simply.
So she was left there, all alone again, without even the dog to bear
her company.