A VISITATION
My agitations were harshly interrupted. There came a crash out of the
silence, and before I could even ask myself what it meant I was flung
forward and my legs were taken from under me. I pitched on to a coil of
rope, luckily for me, or I might have come to worse hurt, and I had my
hands extended, which in a measure broke the force of my fall. But I
rapped my head smartly against the wall of the passage--never had I more
reason in my life to be grateful for the thickness of my skull--and for
a few moments I lay there in the darkness, dizzy--indeed, almost
stunned--and scarcely realising that there was the most horrible
grinding noise going on beneath me, and that the ship seemed to be
screaming in every timber. I could have only lain there for a few
seconds, for no human clamour had mingled with the sound of the ship's
agony when I staggered to my feet. My head was aching furiously, and my
right wrist was numb from the fall, but my senses had now come back to
me, and I knew that some great calamity had befallen the ship. In
desperation I pulled myself together and ran with all speed, heedless of
the darkness, to the end of the passage where the ladder was, and so up
it and on to the deck.
The weather was fair, and a moon like a wheel made everything as visible
as if it were daytime. The decks shone silver and the sky was as blue as
I have ever seen it; but the sea, as far as eye could reach, appeared to
be wholly covered with a white froth, which rose and fell with the waves
like a counterpane of lace upon a sleeper. All that there was to see I
saw in a single glance; in another second the deck was full of people.
Captain Marmaduke came on deck clad only in his shirt and breeches, and
Lancelot was by his side a moment after in like habit. At first the
sailors rushed hither and thither in alarm and confusion, but Cornelys
Jensen brought them to order in a few moments, while Hatchett and half a
dozen of the men proceeded to reassure the passengers and to keep them
from crowding on to the deck. All this happened in shorter time than I
can take to set it down, and yet after a fashion, too, it seemed
endless.
Captain Marmaduke rushed up to the watch and caught him by the
shoulder. 'What have you done?' he said; 'you have lost the ship!'
The man shook himself away from the Captain's hand.
'It was no fault of mine,' he said between his teeth. 'I took all the
care I could. I saw all this froth at a distance, and I asked the
steersman what it was, and he told me that it was but the sea showing
white under the light of the moon.'
Captain Marmaduke gave a little groan of despair.
'What is to be done?' he asked. 'Where are we?'
'God only knows where we are,' the man answered, still in that sullen,
shamefaced way. 'But for sure we are fast upon a bank that I never heard
tell of ere this night.'
As they were thus talking, and all around were full of consternation, I
saw that Marjorie had come up from below and was standing very still by
the companion head. She had flung a great cloak on over her night-rail,
and though her face was pale in the moonlight she was as calm as if she
were in church. When I came nigh her she asked me, in a low, firm voice,
what had happened.
I told her all that I knew--how the ship had by mischance run on some
bank through the whiteness of the moonlight misleading the steersman.
With another woman, maybe, I should have striven to make as light as
possible of the matter, but with Marjorie I knew that there was no such
need. I told her all that had chanced and of the peril we were in, as I
should have done to a man.
[Illustration: "SHE HAD FLUNG A GREAT CLOAK ON."]
When I had done speaking she said very quietly: 'Is there any hope for
the ship?'
I shook my head. 'I am very much afraid----' I began.
She interrupted me with a little sigh, and stepped forward to where
Captain Marmaduke stood giving his orders very composedly. Lancelot was
busy with Jensen in reassuring the women-folk and getting the men-folk
into order. I must say that they all behaved very well. With many of the
men, old soldiers and sailors as they were, it was natural enough to
carry themselves with coolness in time of peril, but the women showed no
less bravely. This, indeed, was largely due to the example set them by
Barbara Hatchett, who acted all through that wild hour as a sailor's
daughter and a sailor's wife should act. Her composure and her loud,
commanding voice and encouraging manner did wonders in soothing the
women-kind, and in putting out of their heads the foolish thoughts
which lead to foolish actions.
Marjorie went up to Lancelot and laid her hand upon his sleeve. He
looked at her with the smile he always gave when he greeted her, and he
spoke to her as he might have spoken if he and she had been standing
together on the downs of Sendennis instead of on that nameless reef in
that nameless danger.
'Well, dear,' he said, 'what is it?'
'What do you wish me to do?' she asked.
'Comfort the women-folk, dear,' he answered. Then, catching sight as the
wind moved her cloak of her night-rail, he added quickly: 'Run down and
dress first.'
'Is there truly time?'
'Aye, aye, time and to spare. We may float the ship yet, God willing. Do
as I bid you.'
She lingered for a moment, and said softly:
'If anything should happen, let me be next you at the last.'
I was standing near enough to hear, and the tears came into my eyes.
Lancelot caught his sister's hand and pressed it as he would have
pressed the hand of a comrade. Then she turned away and slipped silently
below.
I am glad to remember that good order prevailed in the face of our
common peril. Our colonists, men and women, kept very quiet, and the
sailors, under Cornelys Jensen, acted with untiring zeal. I must say to
his credit that Jensen proved a cool hand in the midst of a misfortune
which must have come as a special misfortune to himself. It is a curious
fact, and I know not how to account for it, unless by the smart knock on
my head and the confusion of events that followed upon it, but all
memory of what I had seen and heard In Jensen's cabin had slipped from
my mind. No--I will not say all memory. While I watched him working, and
while I worked with him, my head--which still ached sorely after my
tumble--was troubled, besides its own pain, with the pain of groping
after a recollection. I knew that there was something in my mind which
concerned Cornelys Jensen, something which I wanted to recall, something
which I ought to recall, something which I could not for the life of me
recall. What with my fall, and the danger to the ship, and the strain of
the toil to meet that danger, that page of my memory was folded over,
and I could not turn it back. I have heard of like cases and even
stranger; of men forgetting their own names and very identity after some
such accident as mine. All I had forgotten was the evil scene in
Jensen's cabin, the three evil schemers, their evil flag.
I was a pretty skilled seaman now, thanks to my Captain's patience and
my own eagerness, and I was able to lend a hand at the work with the
best. The first thing we did was to throw the lead, and sorry
information it yielded us. For we found that we had forty-eight feet of
water before the vessel and much less behind her. It was then proposed
that we should throw our cannon overboard, in the hope that when our
ship was lightened of so much heavy metal she might by good hap be
brought to float again. I remember as well as yesterday the face of
Cornelys Jensen when this determination was arrived at. He saw that it
must be done, but the necessity pricked him bitterly. 'There's no help
for it,' he said aloud to Hatchett, with a sigh. Captain Marmaduke took
the expression, as I afterwards learnt, as one of pity for him and his
ship and her gear of war. But it set me racking my tired brain again for
that lost knowledge about Jensen which would have made his meaning plain
to me.
It was further decided to let fall an anchor, but while the men were
employed upon this piece of work the conditions under which we toiled
changed greatly for the worse. Black clouds came creeping up all round
the sky, which blotted out the moonlight and changed all that white foam
into curdling ink, and with the coming of these clouds the wind began to
rise, at first little and moaningly, like a child in pain, and then
suddenly very loudly indeed, until it grew to a great storm, that
brought with it sheets of the most merciless rain that I had then ever
witnessed. Now, indeed, we were in dismal case, wrapped up as we were in
all the horrors of darkness, of rain and of wind, which added not merely
a gloom to our situation, but vastly increased danger. For our ship,
surrounded as she was with rocks and shoals, though she might have lain
quiet enough while the sea was calm, now before the fury of the waves
kept continually striking, and I could see that the fear of every man
was that she would shortly go to pieces.