IN THE GRASP OF A HURRICANE.
I smoked no more that night.
Somehow my nerves seemed to have become quiet to a degree that was most
extraordinary.
It was the calm of confidence.
I seemed to know that the game rested in my hands, and that with a fair
degree of good luck my market was made.
Looking back now I marvel that I found such peace--that I could go to
my little den and turning in, lose myself in slumber.
It was as if I had reached harbor after two long years of tossing upon
the stormy seas, and, utterly wearied, my frame sought sweet rest, when
the knowledge came that I was safe.
Hildegarde was still mine--she wore the ring I had placed upon her
finger when I first called her by that precious name of wife, and my
unworthy image still reigned in her heart.
True, she seemed to see some species of barrier between us--I knew not
what it could be, but was possessed of a lusty determination to beat it
down.
Nothing on earth should sever us--the old love had sprung up again in
my heart, only many times more fierce, and purified by the fire through
which it had passed.
How I had deceived myself all these years, sneering at womankind,
and endeavoring to convince myself they were one and all of the same
frivolous species.
Now that the mask had been dropped, and I could see things as they
were, what a mockery this whole affair appeared, and how penitently I
admitted to myself that it was not true.
Paradise may rest within a pair of laughing blue eyes, when lighted by
the holy fires of love.
Yes, I slept, and my dreams were sweeter than for many a long night.
It matters not of what they consisted--those who have found their
destiny wrapped up in the life of a woman may easily guess.
I had not endeavored to lay out any elaborate plan of campaign--she
must be on board the yacht for some days, if not weeks, and I was
confident of my ability to plead my cause in that time so successfully
that capitulation and peace must follow.
Perhaps it was just as well; since, after all, I was to have the
manipulation of affairs taken almost wholly out of my hands.
When I awoke it was with a start.
The vessel was plunging very much after the manner of a fiery war horse
upon feeling the cruel barb of the spurs.
It took me several minutes to collect my scattered senses; I had gone
to sleep under dreamy, starry skies, with the soft, sensuous breath of
the tropic sea around me, and now to awaken with the shrill, piercing
gale shrieking through the rigging, and the yacht plunging headlong
into watery valleys that threatened her with destruction, was a change
indeed quite sufficient to stagger one.
I crawled out.
It required considerable agility to dress under such unsteady
conditions, and I received more than one bruise from contact with the
sides of my narrow quarters.
During my ownership of the yacht I had cruised in her tens of thousands
of miles in every sea known upon the face of the globe--I had been
caught in quite a good many violent gales, and even experienced a
fierce typhoon in the treacherous China Sea.
Really, I could not remember any storm that had sprung upon us with
greater suddenness and fiercer opening than this. Why had not the
barometer given warning? Perhaps it had to some extent, but our
departure from the harbor of Bolivar had been so hasty that even the
prospect of a hurricane could not have held us.
And for the first time I felt fear.
Why was this? Experience is supposed to make men hardened; familiarity
breeds contempt; and yet I actually trembled when the sturdy little
vessel made an extraordinarily fierce plunge downward, filled with the
dread that she would be overwhelmed and never rise again.
Why, I never could remember feeling this way before. A wild storm had
seemed to arouse all the daring elements of my nature, until I could
tie myself on deck and shout with the shrieking wind, actually mocking
the curling, foam-crested breakers, as Ajax might have defied the
lightning.
And now I trembled.
Ah! the secret was not hard to discover.
I was no longer the reckless rover, with a memory to drown; I had
something to live for now, and life showed a rosy tint.
Besides, I was concerned, not on account of myself, but for the
precious one who was my guest--for Hildegarde.
When I made my way on deck I found that a wonderful transformation had
taken place in those few hours.
Where I had sat and dreamed, and where she had come to me in the still
watches of the night, like a spirit from another world, no man could
stay and live--the awning had been stowed away, the easy-chairs put
below in the cabin, and now the deck was reeking with spume blown from
the monstrous waves that rushed on high around us, as if eager to
swallow the boat that seemed so like a cork on the angry sea.
I was greatly impressed by the sight, which was certainly wild enough
to please the most ardent lover of stormy scenery.
Once I had been inclined that way, but now a peaceful calm would have
satisfied me better.
The first person discovered was Robbins.
He had secured himself with a twist of rope, and was watching the
behavior of the yacht.
Accustomed as he was to an entirely different class of vessel, I could
see even in the gray light of early morning that my old friend looked
worried.
He had a poor opinion of the quality of resistance in a well-made
little yacht.
I managed to get near him, when a wave that washed across the deck
threatened to carry me over the side, only that Robbins’ strong hand
grasped my arm and gave me assistance until I, too, had the use of his
rope.
Conversation was difficult in the midst of such confusion and deafening
clamor; we were compelled to shout in order to be heard.
I assured Robbins I had passed through as bad blows as this without
material damage, and that unless some wretched accident happened, there
was no reason why we should not come out safely.
Cummings hove in sight.
He looked dreadfully anxious, for this was the first time he had been
in full charge of the boat in a storm; our captain had always managed
everything before.
Still, Cummings knew his business, and was hardly the man to get
rattled.
I told him he must do whatever he considered safest, regardless of any
plans we might have made on the previous night, even if it was to run
once more for the snug harbor of Bolivar, where we could laugh at the
hurricane; and that if we needed any help to call upon Robbins, who was
ready and willing to stand by.
Perhaps my faith in him gave Cummings a little more confidence; he
affirmed what I already suspected, that our course had been changed
some time before to meet the fury of the storm, and that we were
working our way to the north as near as he could hit it.
It was best, he said, to keep clear of the coast, which was always
treacherous; we would be wiser to take our chances out in the open sea;
and Robbins earnestly coincided with this sailor-like declaration.
When the two of them started for the wheelhouse to consult the charts
and find where the present course was apt to bring us, I remembered
those below.
Wet almost to the skin, I made my way into the cabin.
Thorpe met me eagerly.
He no longer looked the fop--a sort of terror gleamed in his eyes, for
which he might easily be excused, since he was not much of a sailor,
and the awful convulsions of the yacht were enough to arouse alarm in
the bravest heart.
But I knew there was something of the true metal in his constitution,
which would come to the surface, now that one he loved was placed in
peril of her life.
“This is awful, Kenneth!” he exclaimed, as he seized hold of me. “Why,
you’re as wet as a drowned rat! Have you been overboard, man?”
I hastened to assure him in the negative, and explained that the seas
occasionally washed the deck, which would save my men the labor.
“What d’ye call this?” he demanded.
I said it was a little blow, possibly a norther, such as sweeps over
the Gulf of Mexico at this season of the year.
“You mean a hurricane,” he insisted.
It was neither the time nor place to explain the vast difference,
nor indeed could I see that it mattered in the least, if the storm
possessed all the violent energies of one of those twisters that in
August come whirling out of their nursery among the Windward Islands,
ravage the West Indies, knock Galveston into splinters, and travel
up the Mississippi Valley, to eventually sweep out to sea off the
Newfoundland Banks, everywhere carrying death and destruction in their
wake. Storms at sea are pretty much alike to the average mind, when
they possess all the attributes of grim destruction.
“How does Diana stand it?” I shouted, as he staggered into my arms when
the yacht made another sudden plunge.
“Good Heavens! I thought we were gone. Diana--she refuses to come out,
though dressed. I left her moaning and praying. Perhaps you might give
her a little encouragement.”
I did not like the task, still it seemed my duty, and I could not well
refuse.
In fact, as matters stood, I really needed encouragement myself, for I
feared the worst.
This was a turn with a vengeance--to have these friends come on board
just the night before to enjoy a charming cruise among the glorious
islands of the West Indies, and have, by the next morning, to solemnly
assure them that I had faith to believe the yacht might weather the
tempest, and by a rare bit of luck we might be saved.
Such a condition of affairs rather took the starch out of me--the
change was so rapid.
I followed him to his stateroom--he had fastened the door back, and
great disorder seemed to reign within, though this was nothing more
than might have been expected under the circumstances.
Diana sprang up at sight of me.
She was indeed the picture of fear, so different from her usual
coquettish self that I was amazed at the change.
Of course, I endeavored to look smiling and cheerful, a hard task
indeed when the little vessel seemed twisting and creaking under our
very feet as though she might be torn asunder by the violence of the
waves.
Perhaps I overshot the mark; I imagine my smile must have been close on
the borders of a graveyard one.
At any rate, it did not calm Diana, who clung to my arm, beseeching me
wildly to tell her the truth--declaring that she was not ready to die,
and begging me to save her.
Gustavus conquered his own fear, and became a man--he threw his arms
around his wife and tried to calm her frenzy.
I knew it would wear out by degrees, to be succeeded perhaps by that
stony despair even more terrible to behold where the horrified soul,
hovering on eternity, looks out from burning eyes, and cries for the
succor no man may give.
I turned away, sick at heart.
Was this, then, the end?--were we all doomed to meet our fate there
amid the wild surges; or would Heaven be merciful and spare us?
Then I remembered Hildegarde, and with my heart in my throat, so to
speak, I walked over to the door of her stateroom and pounded upon it.