“Wake up, Cole! The ship's on fire!”
It was young Ready's hollow voice, as cool, however, as though he were
telling me I was late for breakfast. I started up and sought him wildly
in the darkness.
“You're joking,” was my first thought and utterance; for now he was
lighting my candle, and blowing out the match with a care that seemed in
itself a contradiction.
“I wish I were,” he answered. “Listen to that!”
He pointed to my cabin ceiling; it quivered and creaked; and all at once
I was as a deaf man healed.
One gets inured to noise at sea, but to this day it passes me how even I
could have slept an instant in the abnormal din which I now heard raging
above my head. Sea-boots stamped; bare feet pattered; men bawled; women
shrieked; shouts of terror drowned the roar of command.
“Have we long to last?” I asked, as I leaped for my clothes.
“Long enough for you to dress comfortably. Steady, old man! It's only
just been discovered; they may get it under. The panic's the worst part
at present, and we're out of that.”
But was Eva Denison? Breathlessly I put the question; his answer was
reassuring. Miss Denison was with her step-father on the poop. “And both
of 'em as cool as cucumbers,” added Ready.
They could not have been cooler than this young man, with death at the
bottom of his bright and sunken eyes. He was of the type which is all
muscle and no constitution; athletes one year, dead men the next; but
until this moment the athlete had been to me a mere and incredible
tradition. In the afternoon I had seen his lean knees totter under the
captain's fire. Now, at midnight--the exact time by my watch--it was as
if his shrunken limbs had expanded in his clothes; he seemed hardly to
know his own flushed face, as he caught sight of it in my mirror.
“By Jove!” said he, “this has put me in a fine old fever; but I don't
know when I felt in better fettle. If only they get it under! I've not
looked like this all the voyage.”
And he admired himself while I dressed in hot haste: a fine young
fellow; not at all the natural egotist, but cast for death by the
doctors, and keenly incredulous in his bag of skin. It revived one's
confidence to hear him talk. But he forgot himself in an instant, and
gave me a lead through the saloon with a boyish eagerness that made me
actually suspicious as I ran. We were nearing the Line. I recalled the
excesses of my last crossing, and I prepared for some vast hoax at the
last moment. It was only when we plunged upon the crowded quarter-deck,
and my own eyes read lust of life and dread of death in the starting
eyes of others, that such lust and such dread consumed me in my turn, so
that my veins seemed filled with fire and ice.
To be fair to those others, I think that the first wild panic was
subsiding even then; at least there was a lull, and even a reaction in
the right direction on the part of the males in the second class and
steerage. A huge Irishman at their head, they were passing buckets
towards the after-hold; the press of people hid the hatchway from
us until we gained the poop; but we heard the buckets spitting and a
hose-pipe hissing into the flames below; and we saw the column of white
vapor rising steadily from their midst.
At the break of the poop stood Captain Harris, his legs planted wide
apart, very vigorous, very decisive, very profane. And I must confess
that the shocking oaths which had brought us round the Horn inspired a
kind of confidence in me now. Besides, even from the poop I could see
no flames. But the night was as beautiful as it had been an hour or two
back; the stars as brilliant, the breeze even more balmy, the sea even
more calm; and we were hove-to already, against the worst.
In this hour of peril the poop was very properly invaded by all classes
of passengers, in all manner of incongruous apparel, in all stages of
fear, rage, grief and hysteria; as we made our way among this motley
nightmare throng, I took Ready by the arm.
“The skipper's a brute,” said I, “but he's the right brute in the right
place to-night, Ready!”
“I hope he may be,” was the reply. “But we were off our course this
afternoon; and we were off it again during the concert, as sure as we're
not on it now.”
His tone made me draw him to the rail.
“But how do you know? You didn't have another look, did you?”
“Lots of looks-at the stars. He couldn't keep me from consulting them;
and I'm just as certain of it as I'm certain that we've a cargo aboard
which we're none of us supposed to know anything about.”
The latter piece of gossip was, indeed, all over the ship; but this
allusion to it struck me as foolishly irrelevant and frivolous. As to
the other matter, I suggested that the officers would have had more to
say about it than Ready, if there had been anything in it.
“Officers be damned!” cried our consumptive, with a sound man's vigor.
“They're ordinary seamen dressed up; I don't believe they've a second
mate's certificate between them, and they're frightened out of their
souls.”
“Well, anyhow, the skipper isn't that.”
“No; he's drunk; he can shout straight, but you should hear him try to
speak.”
I made my way aft without rejoinder. “Invalid's pessimism,” was my
private comment. And yet the sick man was whole for the time being; the
virile spirit was once more master of the recreant members; and it
was with illogical relief that I found those I sought standing almost
unconcernedly beside the binnacle.
My little friend was, indeed, pale enough, and her eyes great with
dismay; but she stood splendidly calm, in her travelling cloak and
bonnet, and with all my soul I hailed the hardihood with which I had
rightly credited my love. Yes! I loved her then. It had come home to me
at last, and I no longer denied it in my heart. In my innocence and my
joy I rather blessed the fire for showing me her true self and my own;
and there I stood, loving her openly with my eyes (not to lose another
instant), and bursting to tell her so with my lips.
But there also stood Senhor Santos, almost precisely as I had seen him
last, cigarette, tie-pin, and all. He wore an overcoat, however, and
leaned upon a massive ebony cane, while he carried his daughter's guitar
in its case, exactly as though they were waiting for a train. Moreover,
I thought that for the first time he was regarding me with no very
favoring glance.
“You don't think it serious?” I asked him abruptly, my heart still
bounding with the most incongruous joy.
He gave me his ambiguous shrug; and then, “A fire at sea is surely
sirrious,” said he.
“Where did it break out?”
“No one knows; it may have come of your concert.”
“But they are getting the better of it?”
“They are working wonders so far, senhor.”
“You see, Miss Denison,” I continued ecstatically, “our rough old
diamond of a skipper is the right man in the right place after all. A
tight man in a tight place, eh?” and I laughed like an idiot in their
calm grave faces.
“Senhor Cole is right,” said Santos, “although his 'ilarity sims a
leetle out of place. But you must never spik against Captain 'Arrees
again, menma.”
“I never will,” the poor child said; yet I saw her wince whenever the
captain raised that hoarse voice of his in more and more blasphemous
exhortation; and I began to fear with Ready that the man was drunk.
My eyes were still upon my darling, devouring her, revelling in her,
when suddenly I saw her hand twitch within her step-father's arm. It was
an answering start to one on his part. The cigarette was snatched from
his lips. There was a commotion forward, and a cry came aft, from mouth
to mouth:
“The flames! The flames!”
I turned, and caught their reflection on the white column of smoke and
steam. I ran forward, and saw them curling and leaping in the hell-mouth
of the hold.
The quarter-deck now staged a lurid scene: that blazing trap-door in
its midst; and each man there a naked demon madly working to save his
roasting skin. Abaft the mainmast the deck-pump was being ceaselessly
worked by relays of the passengers; dry blankets were passed forward,
soaking blankets were passed aft, and flung flat into the furnace one
after another. These did more good than the pure water: the pillar of
smoke became blacker, denser: we were at a crisis; a sudden hush denoted
it; even our hoarse skipper stood dumb.
I had rushed down into the waist of the ship--blushing for my delay--and
already I was tossing blankets with the rest. Looking up in an enforced
pause, I saw Santos whispering in the skipper's ear, with the expression
of a sphinx but no lack of foreign gesticulation--behind them a fringe
of terror-stricken faces, parted at that instant by two more figures,
as wild and strange as any in that wild, strange scene. One was our
luckless lucky digger, the other a gigantic Zambesi nigger, who for
days had been told off to watch him; this was the servant (or rather the
slave) of Senhor Santos.
The digger planted himself before the captain. His face was reddened by
a fire as consuming as that within the bowels of our gallant ship. He
had a huge, unwieldy bundle under either arm.
“Plain question--plain answer,” we heard him stutter. “Is there any ----
chance of saving this ---- ship?”
His adjectives were too foul for print; they were given with such a
special effort at distinctness, however, that I was smiling one instant,
and giving thanks the next that Eva Denison had not come forward with
her guardian. Meanwhile the skipper had exchanged a glance with Senhor
Santos, and I think we all felt that he was going to tell us the truth.
He told it in two words--“Very little.”
Then the first individual tragedy was enacted before every eye. With
a yell the drunken maniac rushed to the rail. The nigger was at his
heels--he was too late. Uttering another and more piercing shriek, the
madman was overboard at a bound; one of his bundles preceded him; the
other dropped like a cannon-ball on the deck.
The nigger caught it up and carried it forward to the captain.
Harris held up his hand. We were still before we had fairly found our
tongues. His words did run together a little, but he was not drunk.
“Men and women,” said he, “what I told that poor devil is Gospel truth;
but I didn't tell him we'd no chance of saving our lives, did I? Not
me, because we have! Keep your heads and listen to me. There's two
good boats on the davits amidships; the chief will take one, the second
officer the other; and there ain't no reason why every blessed one of
you shouldn't sleep in Ascension to-morrow night. As for me, let me see
every soul off of my ship and perhaps I may follow; but by the God that
made you, look alive! Mr. Arnott--Mr. McClellan--man them boats and
lower away. You can't get quit o' the ship too soon, an' I don't mind
tellin' you why. I'll tell you the worst, an' then you'll know. There's
been a lot o' gossip goin', gossip about my cargo. I give out as I'd
none but ship's stores and ballast, an' I give out a lie. I don't mind
tellin' you now. I give out a cussed lie, but I give it out for the
good o' the ship! What was the use o' frightenin' folks? But where's the
sense in keepin' it back now? We have a bit of a cargo,” shouted Harris;
“and it's gunpowder--every damned ton of it!”
The effect of this announcement may be imagined; my hand has not the
cunning to reproduce it on paper; and if it had, it would shrink from
the task. Mild men became brutes, brutal men, devils, women--God help
them!--shrieking beldams for the most part. Never shall I forget them
with their streaming hair, their screaming open mouths, and the cruel
ascending fire glinting on their starting eyeballs!
Pell-mell they tumbled down the poop-ladders; pell-mell they raced
amidships past that yawning open furnace; the pitch was boiling through
the seams of the crackling deck; they slipped and fell upon it, one over
another, and the wonder is that none plunged headlong into the flames.
A handful remained on the poop, cowering and undone with terror. Upon
these turned Captain Harris, as Ready and I, stemming the torrent of
maddened humanity, regained the poop ourselves.
“For'ard with ye!” yelled the skipper. “The powder's underneath you in
the lazarette!”
They were gone like hunted sheep. And now abaft the flaming hatchway
there were only we four surviving saloon passengers, the captain, his
steward, the Zambesi negro, and the quarter-master at the wheel. The
steward and the black I observed putting stores aboard the captain's gig
as it overhung the water from the stern davits.
“Now, gentlemen,” said Harris to the two of us, “I must trouble you to
step forward with the rest. Senhor Santos insists on taking his chance
along with the young lady in my gig. I've told him the risk, but he
insists, and the gig'll hold no more.”
“But she must have a crew, and I can row. For God's sake take me,
captain!” cried I; for Eva Denison sat weeping in her deck chair, and my
heart bled faint at the thought of leaving her, I who loved her so, and
might die without ever telling her my love! Harris, however, stood firm.
“There's that quartermaster and my steward, and José the nigger,” said
he. “That's quite enough, Mr. Cole, for I ain't above an oar myself;
but, by God, I'm skipper o' this here ship, and I'll skip her as long as
I remain aboard!”
I saw his hand go to his belt; I saw the pistols stuck there for
mutineers. I looked at Santos. He answered me with his neutral shrug,
and, by my soul, he struck a match and lit a cigarette in that hour of
life and death! Then last I looked at Ready; and he leant invertebrate
over the rail, gasping pitiably from his exertions in regaining the
poop, a dying man once more. I pointed out his piteous state.
“At least,” I whispered, “you won't refuse to take him?”
“Will there be anything to take?” said the captain brutally.
Santos advanced leisurely, and puffed his cigarette over the poor wasted
and exhausted frame.
“It is for you to decide, captain,” said he cynically; “but this one
will make no deeference. Yes, I would take him. It will not be far,” he
added, in a tone that was not the less detestable for being lowered.
“Take them both!” moaned little Eva, putting in her first and last sweet
word.
“Then we all drown, Evasinha,” said her stepfather. “It is impossible.”
“We're too many for her as it is,” said the captain. “So for'ard with
ye, Mr. Cole, before it's too late.”
But my darling's brave word for me had fired my blood, and I turned
with equal resolution on Harris and on the Portuguese. “I will go like
a lamb,” said I, “if you will first give me five minutes' conversation
with Miss Denison. Otherwise I do not go; and as for the gig, you may
take me or leave me, as you choose.”
“What have you to say to her?” asked Santos, coming up to me, and again
lowering his voice.
I lowered mine still more. “That I love her!” I answered in a soft
ecstasy. “That she may remember how I loved her, if I die!”
His shoulders shrugged a cynical acquiescence.
“By all mins, senhor; there is no harm in that.”
I was at her side before another word could pass his withered lips.
“Miss Denison, will you grant me five minutes', conversation? It may be
the last that we shall ever have together!”
Uncovering her face, she looked at me with a strange terror in her great
eyes; then with a questioning light that was yet more strange, for in it
there was a wistfulness I could not comprehend. She suffered me to take
her hand, however, and to lead her unresisting to the weather rail.
“What is it you have to say?” she asked me in her turn. “What is it that
you--think?”
Her voice fell as though she must have the truth.
“That we have all a very good chance,” said I heartily.
“Is that all?” cried Eva, and my heart sank at her eager manner.
She seemed at once disappointed and relieved. Could it be possible she
dreaded a declaration which she had foreseen all along? My evil first
experience rose up to warn me. No, I would not speak now; it was no
time. If she loved me, it might make her love me less; better to trust
to God to spare us both.
“Yes, it is all,” I said doggedly.
She drew a little nearer, hesitating. It was as though her
disappointment had gained on her relief.
“Do you know what I thought you were going to say?”
“No, indeed.”
“Dare I tell you?”
“You can trust me.”
Her pale lips parted. Her great eyes shone. Another instant, and she had
told me that which I would have given all but life itself to know. But
in that tick of time a quick step came behind me, and the light went out
of the sweet face upturned to mine.
“I cannot! I must not! Here is--that man!”
Senhor Santos was all smiles and rings of pale-blue smoke.
“You will be cut off, friend Cole,” said he. “The fire is spreading.”
“Let it spread!” I cried, gazing my very soul into the young girl's
eyes. “We have not finished our conversation.
“We have!” said she, with sudden decision. “Go--go--for my sake--for
your own sake--go at once!”
She gave me her hand. I merely clasped it. And so I left her at the
rail--ah, heaven! how often we had argued on that very spot! So I left
her, with the greatest effort of all my life (but one); and yet in
passing, full as my heart was of love and self, I could not but lay a
hand on poor Ready's shoulders.
“God bless you, old boy!” I said to him.
He turned a white face that gave me half an instant's pause.
“It's all over with me this time,” he said. “But, I say, I was right
about the cargo?”
And I heard a chuckle as I reached the ladder; but Ready was no longer
in my mind; even Eva was driven out of it, as I stood aghast on the
top-most rung.