That was a woeful night on the fog-shrouded Pacific. In less than ten
minutes from the moment of the crash the Idaho's stern was lifted high,
then down she dove for her final berth, untold fathoms underneath--her
steadfast captain standing to his post till the last soul left the
doomed and deserted wreck. It was God's mercy that limited the passenger
list to a mere dozen in the first cabin and less than twenty in the
second. The boat, with all the women, was pushed off from the side, the
first officer taking charge. Through the fog they could dimly see the
others lowered, then manned and laden. Discipline had been restored.
Water and bread and blankets had been hastily passed to the longboat.
The purser had found time to dive into his safe, and to load up with
some, at least, of the valuable contents. There was even a faint cheer
when the steamer took the final plunge. Huddled together, many of the
women were weeping, all were pale with dread, but Loring and the ship's
officer bade them be of good cheer. Even if they were not found by the
Santiago they were but a few miles from shore. The sea, though rolling
heavily, was not dangerous. They were sure of making land by morning.
But there were women who could not be comforted. Their husbands or
brothers were in the two smaller boats, perhaps paddling about in the
darkness in vain search for the steamer that cut them down. For awhile
there were answering shouts across the heaving waters. Then for half an
hour the boat with the second officer, crammed with male passengers and
members of the crew, kept close alongside--too close, for some of the
former scrambled into the bigger craft and others tried to follow; so
close that its young commander could mutter to his mate: "The captain's
boat is even fuller than mine. Can't you take off half a dozen?"
But the first officer shook his head: "If the worst comes, they've got
life preservers and can swim," said he. "These women would be helpless
except for what we can do for 'em."
For a time they shouted in hopes of being heard aboard the Santiago, but
only those who have tried it know that it is a matter of merest luck
when a steamer rounding to in a fog succeeds in finding or even coming
anywhere near the spot where she was in collision not ten minutes
before. The Santiago's captain swore stoutly that, though badly damaged
and compelled to put back to San Francisco, for three mortal hours they
cruised about the scene, setting off rockets, firing guns, sounding the
whistle, listening intently with lowered boats, but never heard a sound
from the wreck, never until two days after knew the fate of the vessel
they had cut down. At last the first officer, fearful for his precious
freight, bade his four oarsmen to pull for shore, his little pocket
compass pointing the way. At dawn they heard the signals of a steamer
through the dripping mist, and raised their voices in prolonged shout.
An hour more and they were lifted, numb and wearied, but, oh, so
thankful, to the deck of a coaster creeping up from Wilmington and Santa
Barbara, and were comforted with chocolate and coffee, while for long,
long hours the steamer cruised up and down, to and fro, seeking for
their companions and never desisting until again the pall of night
spread over the leaden sea. Late the following morning the fog rolled
back before the waking breeze and the Broderick steamed hopefully on for
the Golden Gate, and by nightfall was moored at her accustomed dock,
there to be met by the tidings that, while the second officer managed to
beach his boat in safety, the captain's overloaded craft was swamped in
the breakers off Point Pinos, and that brave old Turnbull had lost his
life, dragged under by drowning men. At Monterey the people thought the
longboat too must have overturned, and that all the women had perished.
The Santiago, nearly sinking, had only just reached port. The beach
above Point Pinos was thronged with people searching in the surf for the
bodies of the victims, and the captain of the Idaho was broken hearted,
if not well-nigh crazed. The news of the safety of the women flew from
street to street, fast as the papers could speed their extras. Loving
friends came pouring down to meet and care for the survivors on the
Broderick. The owners of the Idaho hastened to congratulate and commend
their first officer and praise his seamanship and wisdom. The women were
conveyed in carriages to the homes of friends or cared for by the
company, and after a brief handclasp and parting word with Pancha, whose
pathetic eyes haunted him for days, Mr. Loring took a cab and drove
alone to headquarters. Evidently the story of the panic and its prompt
suppression had not yet been told.
And then for at least five days the papers teemed with details of that
marine disaster, and public-spirited citizens started a subscription for
a presentation to the first officer, through whose heroism and
determination was checked what promised to be a mad scene of disorder
and dismay, such as ensued when the Arctic went down and that "stern,
brave mate, Gourlay, whom the sailors were wont to obey" was not there
to check the undisciplined rush to the boats. For forty-eight hours and
thereafter the first officer modestly declared he had merely done his
duty, sir, and no good seaman would have done less. The public dinner to
be given in his honor, however, languished as a project on the later
arrival of survivors from Monterey, and then inquiries began to be made
for Lieutenant Loring and new stories to appear in papers that had not
already committed themselves to other versions of the affair, and then
it transpired that something had gone amiss at Department Headquarters.
Lieutenant Loring, after an interview with the commanding general, had
hastened to Monterey in search of the captain and purser. The former he
found there prostrate and actually flighty, so much so that he could
give no coherent answer to questions propounded to him. In the marine
hospital, suffering from a gunshot wound, was the huge sailor who had
felled the commander to the deck in the rush for the remaining boats, a
rush in which he was ringleader, and a piteous tale he told--that he had
been shot by a passenger whom he was trying to prevent from getting into
the boat they were holding for the women. The gallant little second
officer had gone to his wife and children in the southern part of the
State, and was not there to tell the truth. The captain was almost
delirious. The first officer in San Francisco had been tacitly posing as
a marine lion, and could not well be expected to volunteer information
that might rob him of his laurels. The survivors among the passengers
were scattered by this time, and the purser, whose testimony might be of
great value, had disappeared. "Must be in 'Frisco," said the agent who
had been sent down to see that every man was furnished with clothing and
money at the company's expense, and sent on his way measurably
comforted. "Traynor had a desperate squeak for life," said the agent.
"He was in the captain's boat when she sunk and was weighed down with
his money packages, belted about him underneath his coat, and was
hauled ashore more dead than alive, and some of his valuables were
lost--he couldn't tell how much."
And this was the man Mr. Loring most needed to see. There had come to
Department Headquarters a person representing himself as the San
Francisco agent of the Escalante brothers, presenting a written order
for a valuable package which had been given the purser for safe
keeping--had been locked by him in his safe, and which now could be
found nowhere. Mr. Traynor had declared to the owners that after getting
the women aboard the boat he had taken all the money from the safe and
such packages as it was possible to carry, and tossed three or four to
Loring as he stood balancing himself on a thwart and clinging to the
fall, and that he was sure one of them was that of the Señorita Pancha,
for she was at the moment clasping Loring's knees and imploring him to
sit down. The boat was alternately lifting high and sinking deep as the
great waves rolled by, and Traynor, while admitting haste and
excitement, declared that he could almost swear that Loring received
three packages and one of them must have been that now demanded by the
Escalante's agent. Hence the visit of that somber person to headquarters
and his importunate appeals to Loring, who told him the whole story was
absurd.
But then this agent had appealed to the general, and that officer, whose
manner the day of Loring's return to duty had been marked by odd
constraint, sent for the Engineer and required of him a statement as to
the truth or falsity of these allegations, and when Loring, startled and
indignant, answered "False, of course, sir," and demanded what further
accusation there was, the chief tossed aside the paper folder he was
nervously fingering, sprang up and began to pace the floor, a favorite
method, said those who long had known him, of working off steam when he
was much excited.
"I can't--discuss this painful matter, Mr. Loring," said he, testily.
"You'll have to see Colonel Strain, the adjutant-general. This
deplorable loss of Colonel Turnbull has upset everybody."
So Loring went to Colonel Strain, a man to whom he was but slightly
known, and then it was developed that a young lady wearing mourning, a
very lovely girl, so every one described her, had called no less than
three times to inquire if Mr. Loring were not returned. Once only had
the general seen her, but Strain was three times her listener, and a
patient one he proved, and a most assiduous friend and sympathizer for
several days, until, as it subsequently transpired, in some way matters
reached the ears of Mrs. Strain. The colonel very pointedly told the
engineer lieutenant that the lady claimed to have received letters
proving that he was still in possession of the Nevins jewels while
sojourning at Fort Yuma, had endeavored to compromise the matter by the
tender of a check for two hundred dollars, which in her destitute
condition her sister had felt compelled to accept until she could have
legal advice, "and this," said Colonel Strain, "followed now by the
claim of this Mexican agent, has created such a scandal in the
general's eyes that you cannot too speedily take steps to assure him of
your innocence, which of course you should have no difficulty in doing
unless--unless--" and the colonel coughed dubiously.
For a moment Loring stood there like one in a daze. Good God! Geraldine
Allyn his accuser! The girl who had wronged him so bitterly before! The
girl whom he had sought to aid when he found her well-nigh destitute!
Gradually the whole force of the situation dawned upon him. With
Turnbull dead, the captain daft and Traynor telling the strange story of
his (Loring's) eagerness to examine the Escalante packet early on the
voyage, and now declaring that he had given it into Loring's keeping!
Who in the name of Heaven was left to speak for him? Loring had come a
stranger to this distant station. He had chosen to be sent at once to
duty in a desert land. He was personally as little known to his
superiors here at San Francisco as though they had never met. Even as
the men began about the steamship offices and on the streets and in the
hotels whither the Idaho's few passengers had told the tale, to speak of
Walter Loring as the man who really quelled the panic, if not a mutiny,
and saved the lives of a score of helpless men and women, that officer
stood accused before his comrades of the army of breach of trust, of
mean embezzlement, of low-down theft and trickery, and not a man could
he name to help to prove him innocent. Blake, to be sure, was at Yuma,
but what could he establish save that the stage had been attacked,
Loring left alone, and when the cavalry returned there lay the Engineer
apparently unconscious, the empty saddle-bag beside him. Blake had seen
no robbers. Blake suspected Sancho of every villainy, but could convict
him of none. Traynor, the purser, whether he believed or disbelieved his
own story that he had passed that packet down to Loring, could
truthfully declare that Loring had displayed most mysterious and
unaccountable interest in it. One talk with Pancha, it seems, had
banished Loring's intention of confiding his suspicion and the whole
story, in fact, to Mr. Traynor. And so there was no friend to whom he
could turn. Five days after his arrival in San Francisco Loring found
himself facing charges of the gravest nature, for Traynor, being sent
for, told his story to the general in person, and Loring stood alone.