THE TORNADO
Evelyn was wakened by a peal of thunder, and as she drowsily lifted her
head a blaze of lightning filled the narrow room. It vanished and there
was another deafening crash. The darkness was now impenetrable, but the
startled girl had seen that the deck was sharply slanted and her clothes
hung at a wide angle to the paneling of the bulkhead. It was obvious
that the _Enchantress_ was listed down nearly on her beam ends. A
confused uproar was going on, and Evelyn thought she could distinguish
the beating of heavy rain upon the deckhouse. This, however, was only
for a few moments, because the other noises swelled into an overwhelming
din.
Dropping from her berth, she began to dress in the dark, but found it
difficult to keep her footing on the slanted deck, which lurched and
threw her against the lockers, while the planking worked and shook with
the throb of engines. Evelyn could not hear them, but the strong
vibration showed that they were running fast.
It cost her an effort to refrain from rushing out on deck. Buttons
baffled her nervous fingers, the pins she tried to use instead doubled
up, but she persevered. She would not leave her room until she was
ready: if the worst came, she could not make an open-boat voyage in a
disheveled state. That this should seem of importance did not strike her
as curious then, but she afterward blushed as she remembered her
determination to look as well as possible.
At last she opened the door and stepped out, ankle-deep in water. She
was to lee of the deckhouse, and, seizing the hand-rail, tried to look
about. The rain did not seem so heavy now, and the house sheltered her,
although clouds of spray were flying across its top. A few feet away,
the low bulwark was faintly distinguishable, but outside this there was
only a dim glimmer of foam in the dark. The _Enchantress_ had the wind
and sea on her broadside. This surprised Evelyn, because it was not a
safe position if the gale were as bad as it seemed. Then a shower of
sparks leaped from the funnel and by the momentary light they gave she
saw a white streak, cleanly cut off and slanting downward, at the crown
of the escape pipe. Evidently, Macallister had raised more steam than he
could use.
Wondering why Grahame had not brought the vessel head to wind, she moved
aft cautiously, clinging to the rail, until she saw that the awning had
broken loose from its lashings. Part of it thrashed about the deck,
making a furious noise, but the rest, blown forward, had fouled the
foresail boom, and was stretched tight, but distended like a half-filled
balloon. Acting as a sail, it prevented the steamer from answering her
helm. One or two very indistinct figures struggled with the canvas, but
they seemed unable to master it, and Evelyn crept on until she could
look through the skylight into the engine-room. It was here the real
battle must be fought, for the cylinders that strained under top
pressure were the vitals of the ship. She could see them shake, as if
about to burst their fastening bolts and leap from the columns, as the
big cross-heads banged up and down.
The iron room was well lighted, though the lamps hung at an alarming
angle to the beams, and there was a confused glimmer of steel that
flashed through the light and plunged into shadow. A half-naked man lay
on a narrow grating, leaning down and touching a ponderous mass of metal
as it swept past. In the momentary intervals before it came back he
rubbed the bright slide it traveled on with a greasy swab, and the girl
knew how important it was that nothing should get hot. The work was
dangerous, because the least clumsiness might cost him his arm. When he
stopped and turned sideways on the grating the light touched his face,
and Evelyn started as she recognized Walthew.
He had enjoyed all the comforts and refinements to which she was
accustomed, and it was from choice and not necessity that he was doing
this rough, hazardous work. There were obviously people who did not
attach an undue value to the ease that wealth could buy; this boy, for
example, had left the safe, beaten track, and now, when still weak from
fever, was taking the consequences without dismay. It looked as if there
might be something wrong with her mother's philosophy; but she could
think of this better when there was less risk of the steamer's
foundering.
A man came along the deckhouse and put his arm round her waist as the
ship gave a wild lurch. Evelyn laughed as she recognized her father. For
a moment she had thought it was Grahame. Holding her tight, Cliffe
moved on a yard or two, and then stopped at the corner of the house,
where they could see something of what was going on.
It was lighter now that the rain had stopped, and presently a ray of
moonlight traveled across the sea and touched the laboring vessel. Hove
down by the pressure of the wind on deckhouse and awning, she had buried
her lee bulwarks and lifted her weather side. Sheets of water blew
across her, and the sea looked white as snow. It was not running high:
the heavy rain had beaten down the swell; but it would soon rise, and
unless the vessel could be brought head to wind the combers would sweep
her deck.
As the beam of moonlight widened, the figures of the toiling men grew
clear. One was clinging to the top of a tall stanchion in a grotesque
monkey-like attitude, trying to cut loose the awning, for a knife
sparkled in his hand. Another crouched on the deck with folds of the
canvas in his arms. Miguel was bent over the wheel. The tenseness of his
pose and his hard-set face suggested heavy muscular strain.
Grahame stood near by, his hand on a stay, swaying with the movement of
the steamer. He was bareheaded and the spray lashed his face, but there
was something that reassured the girl in his tranquillity.
It was useless to speak. The voice would have been drowned by the roar
of the gale, while wire-shroud and chain-guy shrilled in wild harmonies.
Evelyn stood fascinated, watching the quick, tense movements of the
crew.
Presently Grahame turned his head, and, seeing them against the
deckhouse, pointed toward the sea. Following his gesture, Evelyn saw a
blurred object leap out of the dark. It grew suddenly into definite
form as it drove across the belt of moonlight: a small wooden barque
with a deck-load of timber, staggering before the hurricane.
Fluttering rags showed where her maintopsail had blown from the ropes;
curved ribands, held fast at head and foot, marked what was left of her
fore-course, and puny figures dotted the yards, struggling futilely with
clewed-up canvas that bulged out as if inflated hard. She had a torn jib
and topsails set--strips of sail that looked absurdly small by
comparison with the foam-lapped hull, but they were bearing her on at
tremendous speed. Caught, no doubt lightly manned, by the sudden gale,
they had had no time to shorten sail and bring her head to sea. She must
run with what canvas was left her until the tornado broke, unless she
broached to and her heavy deckload rolled her over.
So far, Evelyn had not felt much fear. There was something in the mad
fury of the elements that, for a time, banished thought of personal
danger. She was overwhelmed and yet conscious of a strange excitement;
but the sight of the helpless ship had a daunting effect. Belted with
leaping foam, bows up, poop down, the dripping hull drove by, plowing a
snowy furrow through the tormented sea. When she plunged into the dark
Evelyn was glad that she had gone. She wondered what could be done in
this wild weather if the _Enchantress_ would not come round. But she had
confidence in Grahame. As she looked at him he commandingly raised his
hand.
Two men scrambled forward and a dark patch rose at the bows. It swelled
and emptied, but the canvas held, and Grahame struggled forward to help
the others. The sail might stand if they could hoist it before it split.
It ran higher up the stay; the _Enchantress_ slowly fell off before the
wind, and then leaped ahead with her bows lifted out of the foam.
Evelyn drew a deep breath of relief, for the immediate danger was over,
and the vessel might run out of the worst of the storm. Cliffe nodded
when she looked at him, and with some trouble they made their way into
the house, where, with the door shut, they could hear themselves speak.
Evelyn was wet with spray, but there was a high color in her face and
her eyes shone. As she sat down, the house shook beneath a blow, and
there was a savage flapping on the roof. Then something seemed driven
across it, and they could hear only the wind and the sea again.
"The awning!" Cliffe said. "They've managed to cut it loose now that
she's before the wind. I guess Grahame would rather have brought her
head-on, but he won't have much trouble if they can keep her from
broaching to. Were you scared?"
"No," Evelyn answered thoughtfully. "I suppose it was so appalling that
I couldn't realize the danger. I really feel that I'd be sorry if I'd
missed it."
Cliffe made a sign of comprehension.
"Well, this is the first time you've seen men hard up against a big
thing. It's an illuminating experience; though a large number of people
never get it. Some of them seem to imagine things go right of
themselves, and there's no call now for strength and nerve. Anyhow, I
was glad to feel that Grahame knew his business."
Evelyn was silent for a few moments. Her clothes were wet and ought to
be changed, but the tension on her nerves had not slackened much, and
she felt restless and unwilling to be alone. Besides, there was a mild
satisfaction in doing something imprudent, and she thought the storm had
roused her father into a talkative mood. While indulgent to her, he was
often marked by a certain reserve, which she had noticed her mother
never tried to penetrate.
"I wonder why you decided to cross in this little boat, when we could
have gone by one of the big passenger liners?" she said.
"Saved waiting, for one thing," Cliffe answered in a deprecatory tone.
"Then I'll confess that I felt I'd like to do something that wasn't
quite usual."
Evelyn laughed.
"It isn't a wish one would suspect you of."
"Well," Cliffe said with a twinkle, "I guess it was boyish, but we all
have our weaknesses, though I don't often indulge mine. I find it
doesn't pay. I'm a sober business man, but there's a streak of
foolishness in me. Sometimes it works out and I feel that I want a
frolic, for a change."
"Then you must have exercised some self-control."
"When I was a young man, I found my job square in front of me. I had to
sit tight in the office, straighten out a business that had got rather
complicated, and expand it if possible. It wasn't quite all I wanted to
do, but I'd a notion that I could make my pile and then let myself go.
It took me some years to get things straight, the pile was harder to
make than I reckoned, and your mother had a use for all the money I
could raise. Her ambition was to put the family high up in the social
scale--and she's done it."
"So you stifled your longings and went on making money that we might
have every advantage!" Evelyn said with a guilty feeling. "I feel
ashamed when I realize it."
"I've been repaid," Cliffe replied. "Then, after a time, my job became
congenial and got hold of me. The work became a habit; I didn't really
want to break away." He paused and resumed with a humorous air: "It's
only at odd moments I play with the notion that I'd like something
different. I know it would jar me if I got it; and I'm getting old."
Evelyn mused. Her father's story had its pathetic side. Though they had
not much in common, he had been her mother's willing slave: toiling in
the city to further plans which Evelyn suspected he would not have made.
In a sense, his life had been bare and monotonous; there was something
he had missed. Evelyn thought that he recognized this, though not with
regret.
She started as Grahame came in. Salt water dripped from him and gathered
in a pool on the floor, but he turned to them with a smile.
"The wind is dropping fast, and the sea hadn't time to get up. We had
some trouble at first when the awning blew out of its lashings and
stopped her coming round, but she steered all right as soon as we got
her before the sea."
"We were on deck most of the time," Evelyn said.
Grahame laughed as he recalled their conversation in the early evening.
"After what you must have seen," he asked, "don't you agree that there
are advantages in keeping in smooth water?"
"Oh, one can't deny it. For all that, my experience to-night strengthens
my belief that there's something very exhilarating in taking a risk."
She went out on deck and stood for a minute or two, holding on by a
shroud. There was now no fury in the wind, and the moon was bright. The
swell had gathered itself up into tumbling combers that shook their
crests about the rail as the _Enchantress_ lurched over them. A few torn
clouds drove across the southern sky, but the rest of the wide sweep was
clear and the scene was steeped in harmonies of silver and dusky blue.
By daybreak the vessel would be steaming on an even keel, but Evelyn
knew that she would not again be content with glassy calm and languorous
tranquillity. The turmoil of the storm had made a subtle change in her;
it was as if she had heard a call in the elemental clamor and her heart
had answered.