A MIDNIGHT TRAGEDY
Not the slightest alarm had invaded the ship, when Grenville finally
urged his senses back to the normal, notwithstanding the unaccustomed
suddenness with which the aspect of the day had been reversed.
The storm broke at last, about one in the afternoon, with a deluge of
rain and an onslaught of wind that seemed for a time refreshing. The
huge steel leviathan appeared to elevate her nose, give her shoulders a
shake that settled her firmly in the gray disorder of the elements, and
then to accept the rude old contest with a certain indifference, born
of well-established prowess.
By two o'clock there was nothing refreshing suggested. A dull,
stubborn struggle was waging in the drab of a wild and narrow field of
commotion. Chill, musty billows of air, made thick by something that
was neither scud nor mist, pounced heavily upon the laboring "Inca" in
a manner chaotic and irregular. The sea was rising sullenly, its
waves, like tumultuous cohorts, with ragged white banners, ceaselessly
advancing.
With an easy, monotonous assurance the great device of steam and iron
plugged steadily onward. It could ride out a sea of tremendously
greater violence. It knew from long experience every crest and every
abyss of these mountains of air and water. It met huge impacts
majestically, with a prow that cleaved them through, while its huge,
wet bulk plowed up its mileage with a barely diminished speed.
Few of the passengers were actually alarmed. A storm evolved so
suddenly, they were confidently informed, would expend itself in one
brief spasm of impotent fury and subside almost as it had come. It was
all some mere local disturbance that the spell of dry, calm weather had
accumulated too swiftly for any save a violent discharge.
Discomfort increased to a certain pitch; locomotion about the saloon
became impracticable. The crew alone remained upon their legs. It
seemed like the climax to the storm. But another stage swiftly
developed.
It might have been somewhat after three P.M. when a shroud of darkness
settled from the heavens, its substance foreign both to cloud and sea.
It was thicker than before, and decidedly more musty. As black as
night, but unrelated to all ordinary essences of darkness, it wrapped
the stormy universe in Stygian folds with a suddenness strangely
disquieting.
The cataclysm followed almost instantly, as if from behind a concealing
curtain. It came in dimensions incredible, a prodigious wall of
rumpled water, like a mobile mountain chain. It towered forbiddingly
above the quivering vessel for one terrible moment of threat, then
confusion, utter and seemingly eternal, plunged roaringly over and
under the helpless ocean toy of steel, submerging the very sea itself
in Niagaras of sound and weight and motion.
A hideous shudder quivered through the feeble plaything of the
elements. Strange, muffled thunderings, sensations of oblivion
sweeping miles deep across the ocean, and a horrible conviction of the
ship's insignificance, impressed themselves pellmell upon the senses,
while ebon blackness closed instantly down, like annihilation's swift
accompaniment, and the hull seemed sinking countless fathoms.
Such a moment expands to an æon. Doom seemed an old acquaintance when
a complex gyration, a sense of being flung through space, and a
reassertion of the engine's throb preceded the struggle to the surface.
Yet it seemed as if no miracle of buoyancy and might could survive till
the great steel body rose once more to the air. Men held their breath
as if they must drown if the top were not immediately achieved.
A stupendous lurch, an incredible list to starboard, another streaming
by of immeasurable torrents, and the steamer wallowed pantingly out
into daylight once again, to flounder like a thing exhausted till she
steadied once more to the roll and pitch of the former storm-driven sea.
There had been no time for any man to act till the monstrous thing had
come and gone its way. As helplessly as all the others, Grenville had
clutched at the table, there beside Elaine, while death passed and
roared in their faces. He had gone to her chiefly for appearances, yet
quite as if nothing had happened, despite their scene above, while
Elaine had issued from her stateroom in terror of the storm. It was
not till new, sharp sounds of activity broke on his senses, from above,
that Sid left her side and went to inquire concerning the sum of their
damage.
His face had lost a shade only of its usual cheerfulness, when he
finally returned. The ship was rolling heavily, fairly in the trough.
"Our rudder is gone, with six of the lifeboats and as many men," he
told his charge, whose courage he had previously gauged. "The worst is
undoubtedly over. We can steer with the screws, sufficiently to make
the nearest port."
"Our rudder!--half a dozen men," Elaine faintly echoed, her brown eyes
ablaze with dread and sympathy, as she steadied from the shock of
Grenville's news. "What was it? How did it happen?"
"A tidal wave. There must have been a huge volcanic disturbance,
doubtless under the sea. Or it may have been an earthquake,
tremendously violent. Nothing else, according to the Captain, could
account for a storm so sudden, or for all this strange thickness of the
air. He is confident now of our safety. The storm may subside in an
hour."
There was not the slightest cessation of the storm, however, till eight
o'clock in the evening. Even then the night continued thick and wild.
Fortunately the sea was vast and deep. There was nothing known in two
hundred miles on which the ship could blunder. Hour after hour the
crippled "Inca" limped erratically onward, buffeted helplessly here and
there, and scalloping angry abysses of darkness and water, as first one
screw and then the other was driven full speed, or slowed to half, or
reversed altogether, to hold her nose to the altered course that would
finally fetch them to a port for highly essential repairs.
The rage of the elements, abating at last a trifle, had far exceeded
the Captain's expectations. And when at length the center was passed,
and comparative ease had supervened, the wind was still a considerable
gale, while the sea would run high till nearly morning.
The passengers, however, were sufficiently assured to retire at a
fairly early hour. Elaine had readily responded to Grenville's
matter-of-fact instructions, and, long before midnight, was fitfully
sleeping, although she had not undressed.
When eight bells struck from the bridge somewhere above him, Grenville
still sat on the edge of his berth, rumpling his hair with one vigorous
hand, while the other prisoned a book on his knee with a piece of white
paper upon it. The paper was literally covered with mechanical designs
and hieroglyphics, involved in his latest problem.
He arose at last, removed his coat, and began to fumble with his tie.
His eyes were fixed upon his paper. The problem's spell was cast again
upon him. He sank, as before, to his inconvenient seat, and drew yet
another design.
How long he remained there, tranced by the lines that represented
levers, gears, and eccentrics, the man could never have stated. He was
dimly subconscious it was time to go to bed, and from time to time one
hand would return to his collar. As a matter of fact, the hour was
past one of the morning.
Then, of a sudden, apparently beneath his very feet, the frightful
_thing_ occurred.
It came all together--the grinding crunch, the colossal upheaval of the
ship's great belly full of vitals, the scream of iron ripped from iron,
the roar of steam from broken pipes, and the tremor of death-throes,
shuddering thus promptly down to the canted bow and stern from the
wedge-shaped split amidships.
They had struck on a rock, upheaved by the earthquake, where a hundred
fathoms of crystal brine had existed the previous noon!
The hideous conviction of doom and horror sped as swiftly as the shiver
of destruction to the farthest confines of the vessel. Screams far and
near, hoarse bellowing, a shrill, high pæan of mortal fright, and
sounds of disordered scurrying followed with a promptness fairly
appalling.
Grenville waited for nothing. As well as the most experienced officer
on board, he realized the significance of the impact, the ship's awful
buckling, and the quiver stilling the creature's heart--the engines
that had ceased at once to throb.
His door had been flung widely open. Before he could reach the turning
of the corridor, the one electric bulb, left glowing for the night,
abruptly blackened. But he knew the way to Elaine.
He seemed to be plunging through a torture hall, so hurtling full was
the darkness of fearful cries and confusion. The broken hulk of the
steamer slightly lurched, as the plates broke yet farther apart.
Sidney was flung against a cabin wall, but he righted and pitched more
rapidly down the already canted passage.
"Elaine!" he called. "Elaine!"
"Yes!" she answered. "Yes! I can't get out!" She was not at all in a
panic.
Someone, a man, rushed headlong by and nearly bowled Grenville over.
He was spilling golf clubs from a bag and calling for the steward.
Grenville caught at the knob of Elaine's hard-fastened door and threw
his weight upon it. A stubborn resistance met his effort. The frame
had been distorted by the splitting of plates and ribs. The wedging
was complete.
"Stand back!" he called out sharply. "I must break it in at once!"
He knew they were late already--that swarms of beings, nearer the
exits, were wildly pouring from the ship's interior, to be first to the
boats, so fatally reduced in numbers.
With all his might he hurled his shoulder against the door, that merely
creaked at his impotent assault. The hall was narrow. He could gain
no momentum for his blow. The second and third attack made no
impression.
A clammy sweat exuded from his forehead. That the sea was tumbling
torrentially into the helpless vessel he knew by countless indications.
Elaine must perish helplessly in her trap, could he not immediately
force the barrier. He suddenly got down, full length, upon the floor,
braced his shoulders against the opposite cabin, and, with knees
slightly raised, placed both his feet against the door. Then he
strained with superhuman strength. The door remained immovable, but
its paneling slightly cracked.
Meantime the shrieks, the shouts, the roaring of steam, and the
terrible chaos of destruction had increased to a horrifying chorus.
The corridor was filling with hot, moist vapor from the burst pipes. A
dozen stokers had perished. Fire had attacked a portion of the vessel
abaft the midships section.
Once more, with a wild, fanatic conjuring of energy, Grenville spent
himself upon the door--and a panel snapped out, flinging little
splinters on Elaine. In a fury of desperate activity the man on the
floor beat out more with his driving feet.
"It's large enough! It's large enough!" cried the girl as the orifice
widened. "Don't wait to break it larger!"
She was now fully dressed, having swiftly prepared for any sort of
emergency. A candle, provided from her bag, was glowing in her hand.
This she thrust forth for Grenville to take, and then, with deliberate
care, she wormed her way out through the jagged hole with the confident
skill of a child.
"Not there!" called Grenville, as she hastened ahead to gain the
forward companionway. "Everybody's there, all fighting for their
lives!"
He caught her actively about the waist, as a further lurch and settling
of the "Inca" would have hurled her to the floor. Down through a
shorter passage and up a strangely tilted stair he drew her rapidly,
his heart assailed by a sickening fear of what their delay might have
cost them. Yet less than five minutes had actually passed since the
first vast shock of disaster.
They emerged to a portion of the slanted deck that seemed to be utterly
deserted. A gust of wind blew out the candle. The sky was clear. An
uneven fragment of the aging moon shone dully on the broken ship,
whence fearful sounds continued to arise.
Only one of the boats had been dropped to the tide--to be instantly
whirled _inside_ the parting steamer, on the torrent filling her mighty
belly, where the latest lurch had laid her widely open.
Grenville ran to the starboard rail for a glance towards the struggle
farther forward. There, about the impotent crew, laboring hotly with
people, boats and davits no longer adjusted to normal working order,
the wildest confusion existed.
A boat that hung out above the sea was filled with screaming beings.
Some madman arose and slashed with maniacal fury at the rope of the
blocks, to hasten the craft's descent. Of a sudden its bow shot
perpendicularly downward, its stern still high in the air. Its cargo
dropped out like leaden weights, while the empty shell, like a
pendulum, swayed to and fro above the smothered cries.
To join such a throng would be but to choose a larger company in which
to perish. Grenville saw that the steamer must presently drop from her
rock and sound illimitable depths. This could hardly be delayed for
more than ten minutes longer.
A sickening qualm assailed his vitals at the thought of Elaine, doomed
to drown thus helplessly, along with himself and the others. He knew
that not only were the boats insufficient, but there was no time left
to load and launch them!
Then, at length, he remembered the life-raft on the roof. Once more,
with his arm supporting Elaine, he clambered up a tilted stairway. The
place was deserted. The raft was there--but securely fastened to the
planking, fore and aft and at the sides! The ropes that bound it down
were thick and doubled!
With his knife the man attacked them desperately. The blade broke out
of the handle when one strand only had been severed. His second blade
was small and useless for such a labor.
He groaned, for a ghastly tremor was seizing the "Inca" as she hung
above some crumbling abyss for a final plunge to the bottom. Then the
moonlight gleamed on the carpenter's adze, which had slid down the deck
to the railing. He darted upon it like an animal, and, hastening back,
swung it with swift and savage blows that severed the ropes like cheese.
"Quick! Quick!" he shouted to Elaine, as he flung the implement from
him; and, catching her roughly about the waist, he bore her face
downward beside himself, full length upon the raft.
It was already slightly in motion, where the ship was toppling to her
grave!