THE GIRL FROM THE CROSS-TREES
Clinging to the cross-trees, with the winter seas smoking over the
slanted deck beneath him and the whole wrenched fabric of the ship
quaking at every sloshing blow, Black Dennis Nolan pressed the mouth of
the flask to the girl's colorless lips. A lurch of the hull sent the
brandy streaming over her face; but in a second and better-timed attempt
he succeeded in forcing a little of it between her teeth. He pulled the
glove from her left hand--a glove of brown leather lined with gray fur
and sodden with water--and rubbed the icy palm and wrist with the
liquor. There were several rings on the fingers; but he scarcely noticed
them. He thought of nothing but the girl herself. Never before had he
seen or dreamed of such a face as hers, and a breathless desire
possessed him to see her eyes unveiled. He worked feverishly, heedless
of the yeasting seas beneath, of the wind that worried at him as if it
would tear him from his leaping perch, of the wealth of cargo under the
reeking deck and the men of Chance Along on the edge of the cliff. He
returned the glove to the left hand with fumbling fingers, stripped the
other hand and rubbed it with brandy. After finishing with this and
regloving it he glanced again at the girl's face. The wet lashes
stirred, the pale lids fluttered and blinked wide and two wonderful eyes
gazed up at him. The eyes were clear yet with cross-lights at their
depths, like the water of a still pool floored with sand and touched
with the first level gleams of sunrise. They were sea-eyes--sea-gray,
sea-blue, with a hint even of sea-green. Never before had the master of
Chance Along seen or dreamed of such eyes.
The skipper was strangely and deeply stirred by the clear, inquiring
regard of those eyes; but, despite his dreams and ambitions, he was an
eminently practical young man. He extended the flask and held it to her
lips with a trembling hand.
"Ye must swallow some more o' this," he said, "'Twill take the chill out
o' ye."
The girl opened her lips obediently and swallowed a little of the
spirits; but her crystal gaze did not waver from his face.
"Am I saved?" she asked, quietly.
"Aye, ye bes saved," answered the skipper, more than ever confused by
the astonishing clearness and music of her voice and the fearless
simplicity of her question. He scrambled to his feet, holding to the
stump of the topmast with his right arm (for the spar whipped and sprang
to the impact of every sea upon the hull), and looked at his men on the
edge of the cliff. He saw that they were shouting to him, but the wind
was in their teeth and so not a word of their bellowing reached him. By
signals and roarings down the wind he got the order to them to bend a
heavy line on to the shore end of one of the light lines attached to his
waist. He dragged the hawser in with some difficulty, made it fast to
the cross-trees, and then rigged a kind of running boatswain's chair
from a section of the loose rigging. He made the end of one line fast
just below the loop of the chair on the hawser. The second line was
around his chest and the ends of both were in the hands of the men
ashore. Without a word he cut the girl's lashings, lifted her in his
arms and took his seat. He waved his left arm and the lads on the cliff
put their backs into the pull.
The passage was a terrific experience though the distance between the
cross-trees and the top of the cliff was not great. Neither the girl nor
the skipper spoke a word. He held her tight and she hid her face against
his shoulder. Fifteen of the men, under the orders of Bill Brennen, held
the shore-end of the hawser. When the mast swung toward the cliff they
took up the slack, thus saving the two from being dashed against the
face of the rock, by rushing backward. When the mast whipped to seaward
they advanced to the edge of the cliff. Five others hauled on each of
the lines whenever the hawser was nearly taut, and paid out and pulled
in with the slackening and tightening of the larger rope. But even so,
the sling in which the skipper and the girl hung was tossed about
desperately, now dropped toward the boiling rocks, now twirled like a
leaf in the gale, and next moment jerked aloft and flung almost over the
straining hawser. But the skipper had the courage of ten and the
strength and endurance of two. He steadied and fended with his left hand
and held the girl firmly against him with his right. She clung to him
and did not whimper or struggle. A group of men, unhampered by any duty
with the ropes, crouched and waited on the very edge of the cliff. At
last they reached out and down, clutched the skipper and his burden,
and with a mighty roar dragged them to safety.
Black Dennis Nolan staggered to his feet, still clasping the girl in his
arms. He reeled away to where a clump of stunted spruces made a shelter
against the gale and lowered her to the ground, still swathed in
blankets.
"Start a fire, some o' ye," he commanded.
The men looked curiously at the young woman in the drenched blankets,
then hastened to do the skipper's bidding. They found dry wood in the
heart of the thicket and soon had a fire burning strongly.
"What of the others? Am I the--the only one?" asked the girl.
"Aye, ye bes the only one--so far as we kin see," replied the skipper.
"There bain't no more lashed to the spars anyhow."
She stared at him for a moment, then crouched close to the fire, covered
her face with her hands, and wept bitterly. The skipper groaned. The
tears of Lady Harwood had not moved him in the least; but this girl's
sobs brought a strangling pinch to his own throat. He told two lads to
keep the fire burning, and then turned and walked away with lagging
feet. Joining the men who were still tending the line that was attached
to the wreck, he gazed down at the scene of tumult and pounding
destruction without a word.
"The gale bes blowin' herself out, skipper," remarked Bill Brennen.
Nolan stared blankly for a moment, then aroused himself furiously from
the strange spell that had enthralled his mind since first he had looked
at the face of the girl lashed to the cross-trees. He swore violently,
then flung himself full-length at the very edge of the cliff, and
studied the position of the stranded vessel. He saw that she was firm on
the rocks for almost half her length. She was badly ripped and stove,
but her back was not broken. She seemed to be in no danger of slipping
off into deep water, and as the wind and seas were moderating, she
promised to hold together for several hours at least. He got to his feet
and gave his opinion of the situation to the men as if it were a law.
"She bes hard an' fast," he said. "Wid the weather liftin', she'll not
fall abroad yet awhile, nor she don't be in any risk o' slidin' astarn
an' founderin'. We has plenty o' time to break out the cargo, men,
after the sea quiets a bit. Aye, plenty o' time to sculp her. Now, I
wants four o' ye to rig up a hammock o' some sort, wid lines an' a
tarpaulin, an' help me tote the lady back-along to the harbor. Step
lively, men!"
A few of the men ventured to show something of the amazement which they
all felt by staring at him, round-eyed and open-mouthed; but he glared
them down in short order. So four of them set about the construction of
a hammock and the others crowded along the cliff and gazed down at the
unfortunate ship. For awhile they gazed in silence; for wonder, and the
fear of the skipper, were heavy upon them. What madness was this that
had so suddenly come upon him? Had prosperity and power already turned
his head? Or could it be that the young woman he had found on the wreck
was a fairy of some kind, and had bewitched him with the glance of her
sea-eyes? Or perhaps she was a mermaid? Or perhaps she was nothing but a
human who had been born on an Easter Sunday--an Easter child. Strange
and potent gifts of entrancing, and of looking into the future, are
bestowed upon Easter children of the female sex by the fairies. Every
one knows that! Whatever the girl might be, it was an astounding thing
for Black Dennis Nolan to turn his back on a stranded and unlooted
vessel to escort a stranger--aye, or even a friend--to shelter. They
knew that, for all his overbearing and hard-fisted ways toward men, he
was kind to women; but this matter seemed to them a thing of madness
rather than of kindness; and never before had they known him to show any
sign of infatuation. They glanced over their shoulders, and, seeing the
skipper some distance off, supervising the construction of the hammock,
they began to whisper and surmise.
"Did ye mark the glint in the eyes o' her, Pat?" inquired one of
another. "Sure, lad, 'twas like what I once see before--an' may the holy
saints presarve me from seein' it agin! 'Twas the day, ten year back
come July, when I see the mermaid in Pike's Arm, down nort' on the
_Labrador_, when I was hook-an'-linin' for Skipper McDoul o' Harbor
Grace. She popped the beautiful head o' her out o' the sea widin reach
o' a paddle o' me skiff an' shot a glimp at me out o' her two eyes that
turned me heart to fire an' me soul to ice, an' come pretty nigh
t'rowin' me into the bay."
"Aye," returned the other in a husky whisper. "Aye, ye bes talkin' now,
Tim Leary. Sure, bain't that power o' the glimp o' the eye a mark o' the
mermaid? They bewitches a man's heart, does mermaids, an' kills the
eternal soul of him! Sure, b'y! Didn't me own great-gran'father, who
sailed foreign viyages out o' Witless Bay, clap his own two eyes on to
one o' they desperate sea-critters one night he was standin' his trick
at the wheel, one day nort' o' Barbados? Sure, b'y! He heared a whisper
behind him, like a whisper o' music, and when he turned his head 'round
there she was, nat'ral as any girl o' the harbor, a-gleamin' her
beautiful, grand eyes at him in the moonshine. An' when he come ashore
didn't he feel so desperate lonesome that he died o' too much rum inside
the year, down on the land-wash wid his two feet in the sea?"
"Aye, Pat," returned Tim, "but I bain't sayin' as this one bes a
mermaid. She was lashed to the cross-trees like any human."
"An' that would be a mermaid's trick," retorted the other. "Where be the
other poor humans, then?"
At that moment the skipper approached.
"Mind the wrack, men," said he. "Make fast some more lines to her, if ye
kin. I'll be back wid ye afore long."
The hammock was swung on a pole. Four men and the skipper accompanied
the girl from the wreck, two carrying the hammock for the first half of
the journey and the relay shouldering it for the second spell. The
skipper walked alongside. The girl lay back among the blankets, which
had been dried at the fire, silent and with her eyes closed for the most
part. It was evident that her terrible experience had sapped both her
physical and mental vitality. She had been lashed to the cross-trees of
the foremast soon after the ship had struck the rocks, and fully eight
hours before Black Dennis Nolan had released her. The second mate, who
had carried her up and lashed her there, had been flung to his death by
the whipping of the mast a moment after he had made the last loop fast
about her blanketed form. She had been drenched and chilled by the
flying spume and the spray that burst upward and outward from the foot
of the cliff. The wind had snatched the breath from her lips, deafened
her, blinded her, and driven the cold to her very bones. The swaying and
leaping of the spar had at last jarred and wrenched her to a state of
insensibility.
She spoke only three times during the journey.
"I would have died if I had been left there a little longer. You were
brave to save me as you did. What is your name?"
"Aye, 'twas a terrible place for ye," replied the skipper. "I bes Dennis
Nolan, skipper o' Chance Along; an' now I bes takin' ye to my granny,
Mother Nolan, an' a grand, warm house. Ye'll have Father McQueen's own
bed, for he bes away till June, an' a fire in the chimley all day."
Her only answer was to gaze at him with a look of calm, faint interest
for a moment and then close her eyes. Ten minutes later she spoke again.
"The _Royal William_ was bound for New York," she said. "There were ten
passengers aboard her. My maid was with me--a Frenchwoman."
This was Greek to the skipper, and he mumbled an unintelligible answer.
What could she mean by her maid? Her daughter? No, for she was scarcely
more than a girl herself--and in any case, her daughter would not be a
Frenchwoman. As they reached the broken edge of the barrens above
Chance Along she spoke for the third time.
"In London I sang before the Queen," she said, this time without raising
her pallid lids. Her lips scarcely moved. Her voice was low and faint,
but clear as the chiming of a silver bell. "And now I go to my own
city--to New York--to sing. They will listen now, for I am famous. You
will be well paid for what you have done for me."
The skipper could make little enough of this talk of singing before the
Queen; but he understood the mention of making payment for his services,
and his bitter pride flared up. He gripped the edge of the hammock
roughly.
"Would ye be payin' me for this?" he questioned. "Would ye, I say? Nay,
not ye nor the Queen herself! I have money enough! I bes master o' this
harbor!"
She opened her wonderful, clear, sea-eyes at that, full upon his flushed
face, and he saw the clear cross-lights in their depths. She regarded
him calmly, with a suggestion of mocking interest, until his own glance
wavered and turned aside. He felt again the surging of his heart's
blood--but now, across and through the surging, a chill as of fear. The
flush of offended pride faded from his cheeks.
"Of course I shall pay you for saving my life," she said, coolly and
conclusively.
The skipper was not accustomed to such treatment, even from a woman; but
without a word by way of retort he steadied the hammock in its descent
of the twisting path as if his very life depended upon the stranger's
comfort. The women, children and very old men of the harbor--all who had
not gone to the scene of the wreck save the bedridden--came out of the
cabins, asked questions and stared in wonder at the lady in the hammock.
The skipper answered a few of their questions and waved them out of the
way. They fell back in staring groups. The skipper ran ahead of the
litter to his own house and met Mother Nolan on the threshold.
"Here bes a poor young woman from a wrack, granny," he explained. "She
bes nigh perished wid the cold an' wet. Ye'll give her yer bed, granny,
till the fire bes started in Father McQueen's room."
"Saints save us, Denny!" exclaimed Mother Nolan. "First it bes diamonds
wid ye, an' now it bes a young woman. Wracks will sure be the ruin o'
ye yet, Denny Nolan! This way, b'ys, an' give me a sight o' the poor
lamb. Lay her here an' take yer tarpaulin away wid ye. Holy saints fend
us all, but she bes dead--an' a great lady at that!"
The stranger opened her eyes and looked at the old woman. Her wonderful
eyes seemed to bewitch Mother Nolan, even as they had bewitched the
skipper. The old dame stared, trembled and babbled. Turning to the
gaping men, including Denny, she cried to them to get out where they
belonged and shut the door after them. They obeyed, treading on each
other's heels. Even the skipper departed, though reluctantly.
"May every hair o' yer head turn into a wax candle to light ye to
glory," babbled the old woman, as she unwound the coarse blankets from
about the girl's unresisting body. The other smiled faintly.
"I don't want to be lighted to glory--just now," she said. "I must sing
in New York--to my own people--just as I sang before the Queen in
London. But now I am so cold--and so tired."
Mother Nolan gaped at her.
"Glory be!" she whispered. "Eyes like fairies' eyes an' a voice like a
mermaid's! An' the little white hands of her, soft as cream! An' the
beautiful rings! Glory be!"