The patriots were unable to adjust themselves to the sudden shift of
events. One moment they were about to land, rejoicing and valorous, to
be welcomed by the tattered legion of Maximo Gomez, and the next they
were snatched away to surge hell-bent in the direction of the enemy and
the detestable sea. Captain O’Shea might have delayed to dump them
into the boats and turn them adrift to flounder about the bay, but
in all probability the Spanish gun-boat would overtake and slay many
before they could reach the shore. He did not love them, but it was his
duty to safeguard them along with the cargo.
Less than ten minutes after the shadow had moved across the entrance of
the bay, the _Fearless_ was swinging to point her nose seaward. As soon
as the tug was fairly straightened out, O’Shea rang for full speed. It
was no longer a silent ship. The patriots raised a lamentable outcry of
grief and indignation, unable to comprehend this slip between the cup
and the lip. They were unconvinced that the captain had really seen a
gun-boat. They accused him of taking fright at phantoms.
Indeed, there was no such thing as slipping unperceived past the
waiting enemy, for besides the loud protests of the Cubans, the engines
of the _Fearless_ made a strident song that re-echoed from the wooded
shores. No longer in ambush, the Spanish craft turned on a search-light
whose streaming radiance picked the tug out of the gloom like a
lantern-slide projected on a screen. The two vessels were perhaps four
hundred yards apart. Straight into the path of the search-light rushed
the _Fearless_, veering neither to right nor left. Her tactics were
disconcerting, her insane temerity wholly unexpected. It was obvious
that unless the gun-boat very hastily moved out of the way there would
occur an impressive collision. And the tall steel-shod prow of an
ocean-going tug is apt to shatter the thin plates of a light-draught,
coastwise gun-boat.
Captain O’Shea himself held the wheel. The Spanish gunners hurriedly
opened fire, but sensations of panic-smitten amazement spoiled their
aim, and they might as well have been shooting at the moon.
“By Judas! ye are so gay with your search-light, I will just have a
look at you,” muttered O’Shea as he switched on the powerful light
which was mounted upon the wheel-house roof. The handsome gun-boat
was sharply revealed, her sailors grouped at the quick-fire pieces
on the superstructure, the officers clustered forward. Jack Gorham’s
Springfield boomed like a small cannon, and a man with gold stripes on
his sleeves toppled from his station and sprawled on the deck below.
The Cubans cheered and let fly a scattering, futile rifle fire, but
the crew of the _Fearless_, convinced that they must fight for their
skins, crouched behind the heavy bulwarks and handled their Mausers
with methodical earnestness. The Spanish officers and seamen took to
cover. They were not used to being shot at, and this filibustering tug
was behaving like a full-fledged pirate. The commander of the gun-boat
made up his mind to dodge collision and sink the _Fearless_ with his
guns before she should flee beyond range outside the bay. His mental
machinery was not working swiftly, because this was what might be
called his crowded hour. He tried to swing his vessel head on and to
sheer to one side of the channel.
Captain O’Shea climbed the spokes of his steering-wheel and swung the
_Fearless_ to meet the manœuvre. He was bent on crippling the gun-boat.
With leaky boiler tubes, the tug was in no condition for another stern
chase and the Spanish gunners would certainly hull her through and
through and explode the cargo before he could run clear of the hostile
search-light.
A few seconds later, the foaming bow of the _Fearless_ struck the
gun-boat a quartering, glancing blow that raked along her side. The
Spanish commander had almost twisted his vessel out of the other’s
path and O’Shea dared not swing to catch her broadside on, for fear
of running aground. The impact was terrific. The Spanish craft had a
low freeboard and the guns of her main-deck battery protruded their
long muzzles only a few feet above the water. The steel stem of the
_Fearless_, moving with tremendous momentum, struck them one after the
other, tore them from their mountings and stripped the starboard side
clean. The tug’s headway was checked and a tangle of splintered stuff
held the two vessels interlocked. The Spanish gunners on the upper deck
could not sufficiently depress the secondary battery to fire down into
the _Fearless_, and on board the tug all hands had been knocked flat by
the collision, so that for the moment there was no hostile action on
either side.
So close together were the two steamers while they hung together that
cases of cargo, toppling over, spilled through the crushed bulwark of
the _Fearless_, and slid upon the gun-boat’s lower deck where the side
had been fairly ripped out of her above the water-line. Then the tug
very slowly forged ahead, tearing herself free and grinding against the
gun-boat’s cracked and twisted plates until the twain parted company.
“We are still afloat, glory be, and the engines are turnin’ over,”
cried O’Shea.
He spun the wheel hard over to pass out to sea between the headlands,
and steered where he thought deep water ought to be. The gun-boat had
not opened fire, and he began to hope that he might win the freedom of
the sea. Nor was the hostile vessel making any effort to follow him,
and instead of blazing his trail with her search-light it had been
turned skyward to flash signals for assistance against the clouds.
“I jolted the ambition out of her,” joyfully exclaimed O’Shea. “I would
not like to look at my poor old hooker, but she must be an awful hash
on deck----”
The _Fearless_ suddenly yawed to starboard and took the bit in her
teeth. The skipper tried to fetch her back on her course, but she
failed to respond to the wheel. He instantly knew that a rudder chain
had parted. He yelled down the tube to Johnny Kent to reverse his
engines. The masterless tug was heading out of the channel and the
incoming tide caught her bow and swung her away from the seaward
passage, over toward the nearest headland and its submerged reef.
The _Fearless_ felt the powerful backward drag of her screw, but not
in time. The disabled steering-gear wrought the mischief before the
emergency tiller could be manned or an anchor dropped to hold her in
the channel. Her keel scraped along the coral bottom and the hull
trembled to the shock of stranding. The _Fearless_ was hard and fast
aground and the tide lacked three hours of the flood.
Finding it useless to try to work her off, Captain O’Shea had the
engines stopped. The plight was soon discovered by the gun-boat, which
brought her search-light to bear on the tug. The Spanish commander
laughed, no doubt, when he perceived that he could train his remaining
guns and smash the _Fearless_ to pieces at his leisure. It was
point-blank range at a conspicuous target, and the tables had been
turned.
Captain O’Shea comprehended the fate that was about to overtake his
helpless ship. His boats had been cut adrift and there was no means of
conveying his people to the shore. They could only swim for it and try
to find footing on the reef.
“’Tis no use showing a white flag and offering to surrender,” he said
to himself while the sweat ran down his face. “We fired on them and we
rammed their ship.”
There was a life-raft on the deck-house roof, and he was about to order
it shoved overside in order to send Nora Forbes and Miss Hollister
ashore in charge of Van Steen and the mate. It was a forlorn hope,
because the gun-boat would most likely fire at anything seen afloat.
Just then Jack Gorham climbed to the bridge and respectfully saluted
the captain.
“We are up against it, Jack,” said O’Shea. “The Spaniard yonder is
taking his time. He will anchor bow and stern and then shoot us to
splinters. I will be grateful if ye will lend the mate and young Van
Steen a hand with the ladies. If ye can fetch the beach, take to the
woods and try to find the camp of General Gomez.”
“I have a proposition, sir,” returned the soldier, and for once his
voice was unsteady with excitement. “When we were tangled alongside the
gun-boat, some cases of cargo was jolted off our deck onto her deck
where the woodwork and plates was all tore away. For God’s sake, put
your search-light on her for a minute, quick, before she swings her
smashed side away from us. She’s still turnin’.”
“And for what?” queried O’Shea, but he leaped for the lighting-switch,
confident that the soldier knew what he was talking about.
“Two of them cases was nitro-glycerine, sir, and for a wonder they slid
so easy that they didn’t go off. I know them when I see ’em. Just give
me one sight of them.”
The search-light of the _Fearless_ swept across the gun-boat, which
was slowly shifting her position to find the middle of the channel
and a safe anchorage. There was cramped room to manœuvre, and she
was swinging in a small arc which exposed for a little time the
shattered side that had been rammed by the tug. A gaping hole above
water disclosed the main-deck forward, and the search-light of the
_Fearless_ played and flickered in and out, white and brilliant. It
illuminated the wreckage and the heap of wooden cases which lay as they
had slid across the fragments of bulwark that bridged the narrow gap
between the interlocked vessels.
“Hold the light steady, sir,” said Jack Gorham as he dropped to
one knee, shoved the barrel of the Springfield across the rail of
the bridge, and laid his cheek against the stock. “It seems plumb
ridiculous, but it’s worth tryin’.”
His wonderfully keen eyes had distinguished a square wooden case which
sat exposed and somewhat removed from the others on the gun-boat’s
littered deck. He had bragged of his marksmanship. Now was the supreme
opportunity to make good. The gun-boat was moving. Her shattered side
would be hidden from him before he could shoot more than twice or
thrice.
As the sights of his beloved old rifle came true on the tiny target he
pressed the trigger and the heavy bullet went singing on its way.
“Missed, by Godfrey!” grunted Gorham as he reloaded. “If I score a
bull’s-eye, you’ll know it all right.”
Annoyed by this impertinence, the gun-boat let drive with a one-pounder
which put a shell through the funnel of the _Fearless_ and showered
the deck with soot. Gorham wiped his eyes and took aim for the second
shot. Good luck and good marksmanship guided it. No need to wonder
where this bullet struck. The case of nitro-glycerine exploded with a
prodigious detonation that seemed to shake earth and sea and sky. The
forward part of the gun-boat was enveloped in a great sheet of flame.
The people of the _Fearless_ were stunned and deafened and the hull
rocked violently against the reef. Burning fragments rained everywhere,
and fell hissing into the bay. From the place where the gun-boat was
rapidly sinking came cries for help.
“She is gone entirely. God help their poor souls,” brokenly murmured
Captain O’Shea.
He turned to shout to the mate:
“Pull yourself together and paddle over yonder with the life-raft. Pick
up all ye find of the poor men in the water and set them ashore. The
Cuban army will take care of them as prisoners of war. And maybe you
can find some of our boats. ’Tis an awful sight to see a fine vessel
snuffed out like a candle.”
Jack Gorham sat on deck, his head in his hands, a disconsolate figure.
“I made a wonderful shot,” he muttered, “but I hope I’ll never have to
make another one like it.”
“Bridge, ahoy!” roared Johnny Kent from the lower deck. “This is
war. We beat ’em to it. Now let’s get this tug off the reef on the
flood tide, if we rip the bottom out of her. This bay will be full of
gun-boats and cruisers to-morrow.”
Going below for the first time since the _Fearless_ had entered the
bay, the skipper found the decks in chaotic confusion. Broken bulwarks,
smashed doors and windows, parted funnel-stays, twisted deck-houses,
and other signs of the collision were strewn from bow to stern. Some
twenty of the patriots had dived overboard. Of those left on board,
several had been hurt, and the crew of the _Fearless_ were badly cut,
bruised, and banged about.
O’Shea rallied all that were able to turn to, and set them to throwing
cargo overboard. The guns and ammunition were packed in water-proof
cases and could be fished up by the Cuban army at low tide. It was
heavy material, and getting rid of two or three hundred tons of it
must considerably lighten the stranded tug. At this back-breaking task
doggedly labored Gerald Van Steen without waiting for an order. Captain
O’Shea stared at him by the light of a lantern as though reminded of
something important.
“The ladies!” cried he. “Are they safe and sound?”
“They are alive, thank you,” said Van Steen. “I stowed them in their
room, and made them lie on the floor with the mattresses tucked against
the wall to stop the bullets. I could think of nothing else to do.”
“And how did they take it?”
“Very well, indeed. Miss Hollister has been rather hysterical, but one
can scarcely blame her.”
“Well, the worst may be over, and again it may not,” thoughtfully
explained O’Shea. “Now, ’tis this way. I can set you people ashore,
and ye can take a chance that the Cuban army will be able to send you
inside the Spanish lines under a flag of truce. But there may be weeks
of hard living and fever and exposure before ye get anywhere at all.
And it may be the death of the ladies. Or you can stay with me, if we
get this vessel off, and I will carry you back to the United States.”
“It isn’t a hilarious proposition either way,” replied Van Steen. “I
rather think, though, that we had better stick to you.”
The mate returned aboard with the tidings that more than half the crew
of the gun-boat had been rescued by the life-raft and in boats which
had drifted to the beach.
“We ought to have those boats in case we need them,” said the skipper;
“but if the ship can be worked off this tide, and is fit to go to sea,
I will not wait for them or anything else.”
The tide was rising fast and the company worked like mad to heave the
cargo overboard. At length Johnny Kent set his engines going hard
astern and the _Fearless_ began to slide along her coral bed. Halting,
bumping, grinding, she gradually moved into the deeper water of the
channel and rolled in the swell that ran past the headlands. Collision
and stranding had fearfully racked and strained her hull, and the
captain was not surprised when Johnny Kent bellowed from below:
“We’re leakin’, of course. I guess every rivet in her must have pulled
loose. You’d better pray for a spell of good weather.”
“Would ye rather be shot or drowned decent in a gale of wind, Johnny?
’Tis suicide to stay on this coast till daylight.”
The forlorn tug limped out to sea at her best speed, which was not
much. The fire-room gang was more or less disabled and the engines
needed a deal of tinkering. Drop an able-bodied man from a third-story
window and he may not break his neck, but his gait is not apt to be
brisk.
“By the holy poker!” ejaculated O’Shea to the mate as they watched the
shadowy mountains drop astern. “We delivered the cargo, though it is in
a few feet of water, but I have some patriots left. I could think of
only one thing at a time. What will I do with them?”
“You can search me, sir. Dump ’em ashore at Key West, if we ever get
that far.”
“I will not run into this coast again with a leaky old crab of a ship
and no more than coal enough to carry me to a friendly port.”
Men must sleep, and when the _Fearless_ had left the coast twenty miles
behind her Captain O’Shea set the regular watches and curled up on
the wheel-house transom for a nap before daylight. Johnny Kent, after
a sorrowful survey of his engines and boilers, crawled into his bunk
and presently his snores rose and fell with the cadenced beat of the
steam-pump that fought to keep the water from rising in the leaky hold.
The sea was smooth, the clouds no longer obscured the stars, and the
weary crew was suffered to rest before clearing away the wreckage and
patching the broken upper works.
When O’Shea awoke the dawn was bright and a fresh breeze whipped across
an empty sea. George, the cook, greeted him with melancholy demeanor.
“You-all suttinly did play th’ mischief with mah galley when you
kerbumped that gun-boat, cap’n. Every las’ dish is busted.”
“Where were you, George?”
“Hidin’ behind th’ range, please, suh. An’ when that there Spaniard
blew up it broke all th’ galley windows an’ filled me plumb full of
glass. Ain’t we had mos’ excitement enough?”
“I hope so. Did your friend, big Jiminez, swim ashore last night?”
“No, suh. He’s in th’ galley helpin’ me straighten things out. Him an’
me ain’t a mite hostile. Mistah Gorham suttinly did knock a heap o’
sense into that niggah’s skull.”
The breeze blew with steadily increasing weight and began to kick up
a choppy sea which racked the sluggish, laboring tug. Johnny Kent
reported that the pump was not keeping the water down as easily as
during the night. O’Shea chewed over this disquieting news and was
undecided whether to attempt the long passage around Cape San Antonio
into the Gulf of Mexico. The alternative was to run for Jamaica and
take refuge in the nearest neutral port. The English government would
probably seize his ship, but her company would be safe against arrest
and condemnation as pirates by the Spanish authorities.
While he was considering this grave problem his eyes were gladdened
by the sight of Nora Forbes, who came on deck and halted to gaze
with amazement at the wrecked appearance of the vessel. Her splendid
color paled and she smiled rather tremulously at Captain O’Shea, who
reassured her:
“We are still afloat, but we look like a junk heap. And how did ye
pull through? And is your aunt getting the upper hand of that nervous
prostration?”
“Miss Hollister was terribly frightened, and--and--so was I. I would
rather not hear about all that happened last night--not just yet.”
“And I would rather not think of it, just now, Miss Forbes. Perhaps I
ought to have set ye ashore among the Cubans. I hope you will not be
worse off at sea again.”
“I am glad to be at sea again, with you, Captain O’Shea,” said Nora,
and she looked him in the eyes like a true viking’s daughter who
scorned subterfuge and spoke as her heart moved her.
It was perhaps as well that Gerald Van Steen decided to join them just
then.
“And are ye convinced that the Spanish are not a courteous people when
ye meet them by night?” O’Shea cheerfully asked him.
“Do you know, I begin to like this filibustering,” answered the
industrious young man, who looked as trampish as any of the crew. “One
feels so well pleased after he has pulled out of one of these scrapes
that it is almost worth while running into it.” He turned to Nora and
addressed her with a shade of appeal in his voice: “Will you sit down
with me for a while? I have no end of things to talk about.”
“Why, certainly, Gerald. Good-by, Captain O’Shea. The top o’ the
morning to ye.”
The captain bowed and raised his straw hat. His ingenuous countenance
wore a somewhat puzzled expression, as if he beheld a new complication
in this tumultuous voyage of his.
It was well into the forenoon before Johnny Kent found a
breathing-spell and climbed above to confer with the skipper. The
indomitable engineer appeared aged and haggard. The pain of his burns
distressed him and he was spent with worry and weariness. His hands
trembled as he pulled himself up the bridge stairway.
“I ain’t as young as I was, Cap’n Mike,” he huskily exclaimed. “Blamed
if I don’t feel kind of strained and shook up, same as the poor old
_Fearless_. Looks like one of them fair-weather gales, don’t it? Bright
sky and a big sea and wind to peel your whiskers off before night.”
“’Tis a good guess,” soberly replied O’Shea. “Can we weather it,
Johnny?”
“I don’t want to make the ladies nervous and fretty,” confided the
chief, “but we ain’t keepin’ the water down, Cap’n Mike. It will be in
the fire-room before dark at this rate----”
“And then she will fall off into the trough of the sea and founder,”
said O’Shea. “And we have no boats. Will your men stay on duty and keep
her going?”
“They will, Cap’n Mike. The big nigger feels spry enough to turn to,
and the gang is scared to death of him. They believe he’ll murder ’em
if they quit on me.”
“Well, Johnny, make steam as long as ye can, and if the weather will
not moderate I can try to fetch up somewhere before she goes to the
bottom.”
“I ain’t particularly anxious, Cap’n Mike. I never saw you in a hole
you couldn’t work your way out of. Of course, there’s the ladies.
How are they, anyhow? The young one is on deck, lookin’ like a
morning-glory. But what about Miss Hollister? She ain’t sick, is she?”
“Van Steen says the flurry last night gave her a sort of nervous
prostration,” answered O’Shea. “She is up and dressed now and taking
it easy in her room. Maybe ye would like to duck in and hand her a few
kind words.”
“I sure would,” and Johnny Kent beamed. “Ladies like her are mighty
refined and delicate and sensitive, and they’re liable to be took with
this nervous prostration. I don’t blame her a bit, Cap’n Mike. Why,
when we piled up on that reef and the gun-boat was fixin’ to shoot us
all to hell-and-gone, I felt nervous myself. Honest I did.”
“Go to it, Johnny, but don’t mention the fact that we are due to
founder as the next act of this continuous performance.”
It was really extraordinary to see how much animation came into the
face of Miss Hollister when Johnny Kent poked his gray head inside
the open door and grinned a bashful greeting. Never did a hero wear
a more unromantic aspect, but the spinster had selected him as her
own particular hero, nevertheless. He was rugged, elemental, as she
had come to regard him, and, in fact, there was something uncommonly
attractive to the discerning eye in the modest courage, inflexible
devotion to duty, and simple kindliness of this grizzled old sea rover.
“I’m ashamed that we had to give you such a scare last night, ma’am,”
he began. “It’s a hoodooed voyage, any way you look at it. Why, Cap’n
Mike and me ran a cargo into Hayti last summer and you would have
enjoyed it. Stuff on the beach in three hours and a funny old stone
fort bangin’ away at us just enough to keep all hands amused.”
“But after this experience, you will not dream of going filibustering
again, will you?” Miss Hollister asked him.
Johnny Kent tugged at his gray mustache and looked rather blank as he
ejaculated:
“Why not? I ain’t fit for anything else. Of course, I get big wages for
runnin’ these risks, and if I can ever save some money, I’m hopin’ to
buy a farm down in Maine and raise chickens and such truck. That’s what
I call really excitin’ and romantic.”
Miss Hollister responded eagerly:
“And a vegetable garden and cows, and----”
“Yes, ma’am. And flowers in the front yard--hollyhocks, and asters,
and peonies, and a lilac bush by the front door-step. I set and think
about it a lot.”
It did not appeal to the chief engineer as at all incongruous that the
conversation should have taken this turn while the ship was slowly
sinking beneath them.
“I have been very successful with flowers,” brightly returned Miss
Hollister. “I shall be delighted to send you some seeds and cuttings
whenever you return to New England to live on that wonderful farm of
yours.”
“Thank you. Now when it comes to chickens, for all-round service there
ain’t a bird to beat the Plymouth Rock. I subscribe to the _Poultry
Journal_, and always bring it to sea to read----”
The mate dodged out of the wheel-house to shout:
“You’re wanted below, chief. The assistant sends up word that the loose
coal is sucking into the pump and she’s chokin’ up.”
“Don’t worry, ma’am,” gently spoke Johnny Kent as he ceremoniously
shook Miss Hollister’s hand. “Engines and pumps are provokin’ critturs
and they’re always getting out of kilter.”
He paused outside to ask Captain O’Shea:
“What’s the answer? Do we win or lose? There’s bad news from below. The
bunker coal is awash. The pump is liable to quit on me ’most any time.”
“I have overhauled the charts, Johnny, and there is a bit of a coral
key marked down thirty miles from our present position, bearing
sou’-sou’west. I have changed me course to head for it.”
“Thirty miles! Five hours or more at the speed we’re makin’. It will be
a close finish, Cap’n Mike.”
“Life seems to be a game of close finishes for you and me, Johnny.”
The _Fearless_ wallowed sluggishly over a rolling, foamy, blue sea.
Already the water in the holds had diminished her natural buoyancy.
The waves leaped through her broken bulwarks and flung themselves
across the deck. The crew and the remaining Cubans had a listless,
discouraged demeanor. Their energy was deadened by misfortune. The
voyage was ill-fated. Jack Gorham, by contrast, undertook whatever
duty came handiest with a kind of machine-like, routine fidelity,
unhurried, efficient, his melancholy countenance reflecting neither
fear nor impatience. Now and then Jiminez emerged from the stoke-hole
to sluice his huge body with pails of salt water. At such times Gorham
crossed the deck to slap the negro on his bare back and speak words of
approval in broken Spanish. The responsive grin of Jiminez showed every
big, white tooth in his head. He had found a master whom he vastly
respected, and there was no ill-will between them.
Long before the thirty miles had been run down Captain O’Shea was
searching the sea with his glasses to find the tiny coral islet where
he hoped to find refuge. It was out of the track of steamer traffic,
and so far from the Cuban coast that the danger of discovery by the
Spanish navy seemed fairly remote. The chart failed to indicate any
harbor, but O’Shea had no expectation of saving his ship. He would
drive her ashore and try to put his people on the beach.
At length he was able to descry a low, sandy strip almost level with
the sea, along which the breakers flashed white and green. It was the
key, and as the _Fearless_ moved nearer it was seen that the vegetation
comprised only a few ragged bushes. Desolate, sun-baked, and wind-swept
was the place, but it was dry land, and better than the deep sea in a
foundering ship.
Captain O’Shea laid down his glasses and called Van Steen.
“’Tis not what I expected, but the _Fearless_ is done for,” said he.
“We have fresh water and stores to last some time. And I have faith
enough in me luck to feel sure we will be picked off that bit of a key
yonder. Please ask the ladies to pack their traps, and you will put
life-belts around them.”
As the _Fearless_ lurched drunkenly toward the beach, it seemed as
though every comber would stamp her under. The water in the hold had
covered the fire-room floor, and was hissing and swashing under the
furnaces. The deck-hands were strung along the ladder and hatch,
bailing with buckets to aid the choking, sputtering steam-pump.
“I ain’t got any business to be drowned in this lump of a tug,” said
Johnny Kent to the first assistant. “I’m thinkin’ about that farm with
the hollyhocks and Plymouth Rocks.”
“If that pump stops, which it has symptoms of doing, you’d better be
thinking of your wicked old soul,” growled the assistant.
“I can’t swim a lick,” muttered the chief engineer.
“You’d better learn quick. There go the fires,” yelled the other as
clouds of steam poured out of the engine-room, and the men below came
up the ladder, fighting, scrambling, swearing. Johnny Kent dodged the
wild rush, glanced out to sea, and shouted, “Breakers ahead! There are
a few more kicks in the old packet and she’ll hit the beach yet.”
As the steam pressure rapidly ran down, the dying engines turned over
more and more feebly, but the propeller continued to push the vessel
very languidly into the shoal water. Presently she ceased to move,
there was a slight jar, and she heeled to starboard. The doomed tug
rested upon a sandy bottom.
Now that she was inert, aground, lifting no more to the heave and swing
of the seas, the breakers shook her with an incessant bombardment.
Spray flew over the bridge and pelted into the cabin windows. The key
was about three hundred yards distant from the tug. Between her and the
dry land was a strip of deeper water than the shoal on which she had
stranded, and then the wide barrier of surf where the breakers tossed
and tumbled in a thundering tumult.
Captain O’Shea scanned the angry water and wondered how he could send
his people through it. The clumsy life-raft was all he had to put them
on. It was buoyant enough, but unmanageable in such boisterous weather
as this, and would most likely be blown out to sea and miss the key
entirely. To remain on board and hope for quieter weather on the morrow
was to risk pounding to pieces overnight.
Then O’Shea caught sight of the jagged timbers of an ancient wreck
half covered by the sand on the ridge of the key. If a line could be
carried from the ship and made fast to one of those stout timbers, the
life-raft might be hauled through the surf.
“’Tis a terrible swim to undertake,” he painfully reflected. “I will
try it meself, but if I go under there is nobody to take charge of
these people. My men are a rough lot, and it will be hard living on
this God-forsaken bit of a key.”
As if Jack Gorham had read what was in the skipper’s mind, he crawled
across the sloping deck and shouted something in the ear of Jiminez.
The negro nodded and waved an arm in the direction of the beach. The
soldier was urging and explaining, the other eagerly assenting. Gorham
shouted to the bridge:
“This fine big nigger of mine will carry a rope ashore. He can swim
like a duck, and there’s nobody aboard with half his strength.”
“Aye, aye, Jack!” exclaimed O’Shea. “I will give him a heaving-line,
and when he hits the beach he can haul a light hawser ashore and make
it fast.”
Jiminez had no need to strip for active service, clad as he was only in
tattered dungaree breeches chopped off above the knees. It was apparent
that he proposed risking his life because the soldier had asked it of
him. For the lives of the others he cared not a snap of his finger.
Knotting an end of the heaving-line around his waist, he poised himself
upon the guard-rail, a herculean statue of ebony. Gorham grasped his
hand and said in farewell:
“You keep on going, Jiminez, old boy, or I’ll cave in your cocoanut
with the butt of my Springfield.”
The negro grinned and shot downward into the foaming sea. His round
head and gleaming shoulders emerged for an instant and then he dived
again to pass under the toppling crest of a breaker. A few overhand
strokes, and he was in the deeper water with a hundred yards of
comparatively easy swimming. He ploughed through it with tremendous
ease and power while Captain O’Shea paid out the heaving-line in his
wake. Turning on his back, Jiminez rested before the final struggle
with the surf on the beach.
The people on the _Fearless_ forgot their forlorn situation. They were
absorbed in the picture of the bright, hot sand, the dazzling wall of
surf, with the gulls dipping and screaming overhead, and the tossing
figure of the black swimmer. Jiminez vanished in the outer line of
breakers, bobbed into view for an instant, and was whirled over and
over. The undertow caught him and pulled him down, but he fought clear
and came to the surface, now beaten seaward, now gaining a yard or so.
From the tug it looked as though he were being battered about like
a piece of drifting wreckage, but the sea could not drown him. More
than once the beholders were sure he had been conquered. Then they
shouted as they saw him shoot landward on the crested back of a rearing
comber. He felt the sand with his feet. He was knocked down and rolled
back, but regained a foothold and resisted the drag of the out-rushing
waves. Wading powerfully, he stumbled into shallow water and fell on
his knees, too exhausted to walk, and crawled on all fours to the dry
sand. There he sprawled on his back like a dead man, while the hearts
of those on board the _Fearless_ beat slow and heavy with suspense. A
little while and Jiminez staggered to his feet, shook himself like a
dog, and made for the timbers of the old wreck. Making the end of the
heaving-line fast, he threw his arms over his head as a signal.
Captain O’Shea bent to the other end of the line the strong rope which
he had used for towing the surf-boats. Jiminez sat himself down, dug
his heels in the sand, and began to haul in like a human capstan. The
rope trailed slowly through the surf without mishap, and the negro
firmly belayed it to one of the embedded timbers. Having accomplished
what he had set out to do, Jiminez sensibly rolled over, pillowed his
head on his arm, and let the other men rescue themselves.
The life-raft was now shoved overboard and secured to the swaying rope
by means of pulley blocks. Four picked men and the mate were detailed
to make the first trip, which was in the nature of an experiment. They
paddled the life-raft across the strip of quieter water, the pulleys
holding them close to the fastened hawser. When the raft reached the
surf, they laid hold of the hawser and lustily hauled their careering
craft shoreward, hand over hand. Drenched and breathless, they gained
the beach and sought a few minutes’ rest before undertaking the return
journey.
As soon as the raft had safely come back to the _Fearless_ Captain
O’Shea shouted:
“Now for the ladies! ’Tis time they quit the poor old hooker.”
Nora Forbes was waiting, a lithe round arm about Miss Hollister’s
waist. The spinster was white to the lips, and her eyes sought, not the
protecting care of Gerald Van Steen, but the bracing presence of that
stout-hearted old pirate Johnny Kent, who was profanely wrestling with
the fresh-water barrels.
“You will get wet, ladies,” said O’Shea, “but ’tis not at all
dangerous. The raft will take you through the surf like a toboggan. Mr.
Van Steen will go with you. Ye are a brave pair, and I would ask no
better shipmates.”
The raft was pitching and bucking alongside, but the lower deck of the
vessel was now level with the sea. O’Shea caught Miss Hollister in his
arms, waded to the rail with her and waited until Van Steen and the
other men were ready to catch her. Then with a wrenching heave, O’Shea
tossed her into their outstretched arms. It was Nora Forbes’s turn to
leave the vessel.
“You will pardon the liberty,” O’Shea whispered in her ear, “but this
is no small consolation for losing me ship.”
He swung her clear of the deck and her arms, perforce, had to cling
around his neck while he balanced himself with sailorly agility and
waited for the tug to right itself and the raft to rise on the next
wave. Perhaps he held her a moment longer than was necessary. Captain
Michael O’Shea was a man with a warm heart and red blood in him.
Deftly and carefully he swung her over the rail, and the men on the
raft placed her beside Miss Hollister. Nora waved her hand in a blithe
farewell. Miss Hollister had closed her eyes, but she opened them
quickly enough when Johnny Kent came rolling aft to flourish his cap
and shout:
“Sorry I can’t make the passage with you. We’ll have lots of time to
talk flowers and hens on that patch of sand, but it looks like mighty
poor soil for gardenin’ ma’am.”
Guided by the pulley-blocks that creaked along the hawser, the raft
made the tempestuous passage through the surf. The shipwrecked ladies
set themselves down on a sandy hummock in the hot sunshine. They were
waterlogged and appeared quite calm and collected because they lacked
strength for anything else.
The raft plied to and fro in a race against time. Such stores as
would be damaged by wetting were wrapped in tarpaulins. The precious
water-barrels were filled from the ship’s tank, and the wise Johnny
Kent packed spare copper piping, a gasolene torch, empty tin cases,
and tools for making a condenser to distil salt water. Captain O’Shea
took care to send all the arms which had been served out to the crew,
besides several boxes of rifles and ammunition that had been overlooked
in dumping the cargo. Also he saved a number of shovels and picks
designed for use as intrenching tools.
Before the last load of stuff had been hauled to the beach, the
_Fearless_ was driven so far on the shoal that she began to break
amidships. O’Shea ordered Colonel Calvo and his Cubans off the vessel,
and then sent his crew ashore. He was left on board with Johnny Kent,
Jack Gorham, and the men needed to help manage the life-raft. The
little group stood in the lee of the deck-house. The tragedy of the
ship oppressed them. They were mourners at the funeral of a faithful
friend. Sentimental Johnny Kent exclaimed with a husky note in his
voice:
“The _Fearless_ did her best for us, Cap’n Mike. It’s a rotten finish
for a respectable, God-fearin’ tow-boat.”
“She was a good little vessel, Johnny,” softly quoth O’Shea. “But those
guns we dumped in the bay will come in mighty useful to old Maximo
Gomez, and maybe the voyage is worth while after all.”
“I seem to be sort of side-tracked, but I ain’t complainin’,” murmured
Jack Gorham. “I hope the Cubans will keep the rebellion moving along
until I can get to ’em and help mix it up.”
One by one they jumped to the raft and Captain O’Shea was the last man
to leave. With a shake of the head he turned to gaze no more at the
_Fearless_, but at the disconsolate cluster of men on the key, who were
waiting for him to take command.