As the sun rose higher still they slept. The genial rays flowed over them, drying their wet, clinging garments, filling their stiffened frames with languorous warmth.
Finally the girl sighed and smiled. Half waking now, she thought she was at home in her own bed. The sunlight always awakened her there. She wondered if it was time for her maid to enter. She hoped not; it was so comfortable, and she was, oh, so sleepy! She turned on her side. Then suddenly she started. Certainly she was lying on nothing that would remotely suggest a bed. Sleepily she tried to open her eyes, but the long lashes were glued together by the heavy salt water.
Arousing still further, she rubbed them open. And then as a heaving, littered deck, with patches of blue sea showing through the shattered rail bore upon her vision, a realizing sense of the situation and the tragic events leading to it came to her.
For a moment she lay still, shuddering. Her head still rested upon Dan's arm. She knew it, but she was afraid to arise. Somehow that arm seemed the only thing which assured her she was in a living world. Even in the brilliant morning sunlight the vessel, soughing, creaking, groaning, as it moved slouchily over the waters impressed her as the shape of terror. From the deck little mist spirals arose like spirits of the men who had deserted the ship. And hovering all about was the gray, sordid reek of desolation, eerie, awe-inspiring.
And yet the Captain must not find her thus. Slowly she withdrew her head. She hated to awaken him. Yet she felt she must hear his voice, for the all-pervading loneliness was unbearable. She sat up and shook him gently by the shoulder. It was as though she had applied an electric shock. With a muffled exclamation he lifted himself by his elbow, and the next instant he was on his feet.
"Miss Howland!" he exclaimed. The sound of his voice echoed hollow along the deck, but it was the most joyous sound Virginia had ever heard. Leaning down, he assisted her to her feet. Their eyes met, and they gazed at each other, wondering, uncertain. Alone of all the world, these two, in the midst of a vast, lonely domain where hidden terrors lurk, where elements unharness their might and work their harm unchecked, where wind and wave whisper of murderous deeds, where the rime of dead ages is still fresh. It was all too big for minds to encompass, for their senses to grasp.
A great sob shook the girl.
"Will—will you please go away—a moment? I think I am going to cry," she stammered. She turned from him hurriedly and walked toward the rail. She tottered as though about to fall. Dan sprang to her side and placed his hand lightly on her arm. The touch seemed to strengthen her. With a convulsive effort she gained control of herself, and as Dan's hand dropped to his side she looked at him with a quivering smile.
"I am going to be brave. I am not going to cry. Captain, tell me, is my father safe, and my aunt—and the rest?"
"There is not the slightest question about that," replied Dan. "They got overboard smartly. The lifeboats were steel, well manned and supplied with provisions for a week. If they weren't picked up last night by some steamship attracted by the fire, they will be within a short time." The girl regarded him closely, as though trying to determine whether he was speaking from conviction or merely to dissipate her fears. Interpreting her expression, Dan shook his head impatiently.
"I am sincere, Miss Howland. I have no more doubt of the safety of your father and the others than I have that I am alive. The sea has been comparatively smooth, the weather clear. Our situation is the one to bother about."
"But some steamship will surely see us."
"I hope so, but remember we are on a derelict. Where we are, or where we are going heaven only knows. Sometimes—there is no sense in trying to avoid the truth—derelicts go for weeks and even months without being sighted. Still, I don't think we shall. At night we'll have our distress lights. We shall come out all right. In the meantime we may not even have to be uncomfortable. Usually when men desert these schooners they go in a hurry, leaving almost everything behind. I am going to investigate affairs. Will you come? You may never have another opportunity of this sort."
Dan's voice, at first grave, had gradually assumed a lighter tone, and at the humorous allusion in the last sentence she smiled. Virginia was a sensible girl, but it must be confessed that her position alone with a man on a derelict in the middle of nowhere would have dazed a woman who held even broader views of the ordinary conventions than she did.
As for the Captain, he evidently intended to accept the inevitable in a matter-of-fact, common-sense way. There was nothing for her but to do likewise. That he would be tactful and considerate in every way she knew. And he would save her too, in the end. Something seemed to tell her that. She smiled at him bravely.
"I think it will be fun, Captain! Lead on."
Their course aft was attended with difficulty. All along the deck was a thick mass of wreckage, broken casks, boxes, sections of spars, tattered canvas, and enough wire rope and other gear, it seemed, to encircle the world. Amidships the hull sagged so that the deck was not three feet above the water.
Ascending the slight incline, Dan led the way to the entrance to the after cabin, containing four rooms—two on either side of a corridor. The cabins were just below the level of the deck but were not flooded.
"Now," said Dan with his hand on the knob of the door at his right, "we will pay the Captain a visit."
The bunk was mussed as though the skipper had left it hastily, but otherwise the apartment was in good order. There was a little oaken desk containing a dictionary, several books on navigation, and writing appurtenances. In the middle, on a piece of blotting-paper, was an overturned inkstand with a pen still in it. Along the top were several photographs of home scenes, probably New England, and a picture of a rather comely young woman.
"And here's a woman's hat," cried Virginia, picking from a corner a rather garishly trimmed creation.
Dan paused and looked at it.
"That's good," he said. "His wife was evidently aboard." He opened a door leading into the next cabin. "This was her room undoubtedly," he said.
The girl peered in with a delighted expression.
"Why, of course." Her eyes took a quick inventory. An ornate if cheap dressing-table! Four waists on coat hangers! Four skirts, beautifully hung! And what a litter of brushes and things on the floor! She turned to Dan, who had not entered, but was standing in the doorway, smiling. "It must have been perfectly maddening for the good lady of the ship to leave all this behind." She walked to the dressing-table and peered into the mirror. It must be said she saw a girl whom under other circumstances she would hardly have recognized. Her heavy hair was dishevelled. Her long, blue broadcloth ulster was stained with salt water and altogether out of shape. A great black smudge ran along her cheek, and on her chin was a deep red scratch.
She looked at Dan from out the mirror, blushing.
"I am afraid I should compare rather unfavorably with the Captain's lady. I think, first of all, I shall sit right down and do my hair. But no—of course not now." She opened her eyes wide.
"Oh, yes, you can," laughed Dan. "I am going to leave you now and look about the ship."
"Oh, no, you're not," exclaimed the girl; "you're not to leave me alone on this horrid ship just yet. The hair can wait. I'll go with you. If everything is as nice as this cabin I shall feel quite at home."
The cabin opposite the Captain's had been the mate's, and behind it was the mess cabin. Here the greater part of crockery and glass was shattered on the floor. An overturned bird-cage with a dead canary in it lay under the table.
"Well," said Dan, "we ought to be comfortable. Now, Miss Howland, I think you ought to go to your cabin and get off those damp skirts. I have got to take a look at the cargo, see what plans I can make to render us something else than a log on the sea, and nose about in the galley." He started. "By George! I had forgotten about food. That's rather important." He hastily left the cabin and started down the corridor, with the girl's warning not to be long following him.
First he stopped in the carpenter's room and secured the very thing he was looking for,—an axe. With this he broke down the door of the storeroom, which, as he had expected, was locked. There were a barrel of flour, tins of beef and of soups and vegetables, condensed milk, and a number of preserve jars filled with coffee.
Taking one of the jars in which he saw the coffee was ground he poured out a cupful and drew some water from a cask. Then going into the galley, he dug up a coffee-pot from the mass of cooking utensils which covered the floor, and proceeded to light a fire in the range. It was soon roaring, and Dan had just mixed the coffee and water when Virginia appeared at the door.
For an instant Dan hardly recognized the girl in her trim blue skirt, white sailor waist, open at the throat, and a red leather belt with a great brass buckle.
"You have done well," he said at length. "I had no idea you would be so fortunate."
"Yes, everything fits pretty well," laughed the girl, "except that the skirt is a trifle short, but of course that doesn't matter here. That's not the point, though." She gazed at him sternly. "Who gave you permission to come in here and cook?"
As Dan looked at her in amazement she continued:
"Now see here, Captain Merrithew, we might just as well face our situation. This is no time for observance of the minor conventions or gallantry. We are shipwrecked. We are nothing more nor less than two human beings cast away on a derelict. You are to regard me, not as Virginia Howland, helpless, dependent, to be waited upon and watched over, but as you would Ralph Oddington or any one else were he in my place—as an assistant in the common cause of safety. I am going to help you in every way I can, and I am going to begin by establishing myself as cook of this party from now on. Please don't imagine I can't cook. I attended a French culinary school for two seasons. And now—" she stepped into the galley and seized Dan by the sleeve, drawing him gently toward the door—"won't you please go so that I shall have elbow room—this is such a tiny box of a place. Please!"
Dan hesitated no longer. Seizing his axe he left the galley and went forward. The mainmast had snapped about six feet below the truck; of the other two masts nothing was left but the stumps. He chopped away the wreckage hanging over the bow, including the bowsprit and foretopmast, and had made good progress in clearing away the forward deck when Virginia, standing in the doorway of the after cabin, called him.
"Breakfast, Captain," she cried. "Breakfast is served."
The girl was laughing excitedly as she led the way to the dining-cabin and seated herself in front of a great, steaming nickel coffee-pot. Blushing radiantly she pointed to the other chair.
"Sit down, Captain Merrithew." But Dan protested.
"Now, really, Miss Howland," he laughed, "I can just as—"
"Captain," interrupted Virginia, sharply, "don't be a goose. There—" She began to pour the coffee. "It isn't really much of a breakfast," she added; "I shall do much better for luncheon. But, as it is—" she inclined her head with mock unction as she handed him his cup.
Dan never forgot that breakfast. It was one of those events which linger in memory, every detail indelibly stamped, long after more important pictures of the past have lost even a semblance of outline.
Sunlight flowed in through the portholes and rested on the red tablecloth and the glittering steel cutlery. For a centrepiece she had a half shattered clay flower-pot containing a geranium plant which she had picked up from the deck outside the woman's cabin. It was droopy and generally woebegone, but it served its purpose. In front of Dan was a heaping dish of toast artistically browned, and a generous glass jar of marmalade.
And opposite, smiling at him, talking to him as though they had breakfasted together for a number of years, was the most radiant girl he had ever looked upon. The simple costume was wonderfully effective. The white, full throat and the curves of the neck running to the shoulders were revealed by the low rolling collar, and the hair coiled low shone with lustrous sheen.
Opposite, smiling at him, as though they had breakfasted together for years, was the radiant girl.[Illustration: Opposite, smiling at him, as though they had breakfasted together for years, was the radiant girl.]
Opposite, smiling at him, as though they had breakfasted together for years, was the radiant girl.[Illustration: Opposite, smiling at him, as though they had breakfasted together for years, was the radiant girl.]
Despite Dan's fears as to the manner in which their tenancy of the derelict might terminate, he abandoned himself to the sheer charm of it all. When he finally arose, ending a light, laughing conversation, the girl regarded him seriously.
"Now, Captain," she said, "I want to ask you something, and you must tell me truthfully. You have examined this vessel, and you have doubtless some idea as to what we are to do. Tell me the exact situation."
Dan looked her straight in the eye a moment, and the girl returned his gaze unflinchingly.
"I am perfectly honest," she said; "I want you to be."
"Well," said Dan, "first of all I'll tell you what I am going to try to do: I am going to try to sail this derelict into some port. There is enough of the mainmast standing to allow some sort of a sail, and we can't be so terribly far from land. Besides, this hold is filled with logwood and mahogany. Now this is a valuable cargo, worth at least fifty thousand dollars. The vessel herself isn't worth a great deal, but still something. Here is the point: if we take this vessel into port alone we can claim fifty per cent salvage, and we'll get it, too. That means that we shall net, through our little experience, some twenty-five thousand dollars between us."
Virginia stepped toward him with a delighted exclamation. Dan raised his hand admonishingly.
"But," he continued, "we must first get the vessel into port. Several things may prevent this. The chief preventive will be a storm. If God gives us good weather for three or four days that is all I ask. If He doesn't, then we—"
"Go on," said the girl.
"Then we must simply pray for small favors."
Virginia nodded gravely.
"I understand," she said. "I trust you, Captain." She looked at him fixedly. "Can you imagine how much I trust you? I shall be strong and brave and do exactly as you tell me." She started forward suddenly. "What have you under your coat sleeves? Are your arms bandaged?" she cried. "And your neck, too?"
Dan laughed.
"It's nothing," he said. "My hands and arms and the back of my neck were pretty well scorched. I dug some picric acid out of the Captain's medicine chest and tied myself up a bit. I am all right now. The pain has all disappeared."
The girl flushed.
"And you didn't ask me to help you?"
"There was absolutely no need. Honestly, if I had needed to bother you I should not have hesitated. The flames did not touch me, you know, just their hot breath; the bandages do not amount to anything."
"Well," replied Virginia, shaking her head, "I don't like it one bit. If I can do anything to repay you, however slightly, for all you have done for me, please give me the opportunity."
"I shall remember that," said Dan.
When the sun that evening sank like a red ball behind the purple horizon, Dan laid aside various implements and went aft with the realization of a day well spent. He had cleared the deck. Using the mainboom and a goodly section of the tattered canvas he had improvised a capacious leg-of-mutton sail which flapped idly in the almost motionless air.
He found Virginia seated in a camp lounging-chair, with a paper-covered novel lying open face downward in her lap, gazing thoughtfully at the dusk which seemed rolling toward them over the sea like a fog.
"It was a beautiful sunset," she said; "but now it has gone, the ocean seems to have such a cruel, cold look. And there are whispering voices on the water."
She shivered slightly and looked at him half humorously.
"I know," said Dan. "But the stars will be out to-night, and, later, the moon."
"It will be dreary at best," replied Virginia. "I think it would be nice if there weren't going to be any night until we—until we—" she paused. "Oh, Captain, you think we—" She stopped short and frowned. "There," she said reproachfully, "I told you I was going to be brave. I'm succeeding admirably!"
"Youaresucceeding admirably," said Dan. "Yes, I think we are going to get out of this. Of course we are. In the meantime, pending dinner, or supper, rather, I am going into my cabin to see if I can't confiscate some of the Captain's clothes. I feel as if I had been in these for years. And—" he hesitated.
"And what?" she asked.
"And if the Captain has left a razor, I am going to shave."
"Are you really?" laughed the girl. "And while you are about it, won't you please telephone for my hairdresser?"
With the dark came a light breeze—and the stars, which Dan hailed with delight as giving him something to go by. The breeze came over the starboard beam, the sail filling nicely, and Dan, taking a stand by the wheel, directed the derelict toward land. He had lighted the red starboard lamp—the port lamp was missing—and hung a lantern at the head of the foremast. Virginia sat beside him.
For an hour Dan had been absorbed in the business of manoeuvring his sodden charge. Waterlogged as she was it was no easy matter to swing her out of the current and head her upon a course. But at last he had succeeded. Having but one sail it could not have been better placed than amidships. Placed in the mainmast it was easier to maintain steerage way and at the same time it served to push the derelict forward. Turning to the girl, he laughed triumphantly; and she, who had begun to be almost jealous of the derelict, inasmuch as it had taken so much of his attention, smiled politely, if faintly.
"And now," said Dan, sitting beside her, with his hands on the lower spokes of the battered wheel, "we are homeward bound. The stars have told me a great deal. See them all. Over there are Regulus and his sickle, and in the northwest you see Queen Vega. There is Ursa Major up there, nearly overhead. There's the Little Bear north of it; and still north is the good old North Star. We are going straight for land, Miss Howland."
"You are awfully clever, Captain Merrithew."
Dan looked at her quickly. She was smiling mockingly.
"Yes," she continued, as though communing with herself, "I really believe he would rather talk about his old stars than bother coming down to the level of a girl who is dying to bring him to earth. I cannot imagine a more disagreeable man to be shipwrecked with."
"Nor I a more agreeable—" He checked himself. "I am entirely at your service, Miss Howland," he added; "which is to say, I have alighted."
She did not answer at once. Instead she leaned forward with her hands supporting her chin, her elbows in her lap, gazing solemnly at the western stars.
"It is nearly eight o'clock, isn't it?" she asked, without moving her head.
"Yes," replied Dan, "about that. Why?"
"Just now in New York," said Virginia in her low, full tones, "they have finished dining on Broadway. All the lights are, oh, so bright! and women in the most gorgeous spring gowns and men in evening dress are pouring out of the Astor, the Waldorf, the Knickerbocker,—every place,—and stepping into red and green taxi-cabs, or strolling leisurely to see the latest play. And on Fifth Avenue, in the club opposite our house, the same five stout men are just about to occupy the same five stout chairs in the big windows. I have watched them for years, and—" The girl paused. "Our house! Do you suppose my father is there now?" She closed her eyes. "I can almost see him. Of course he is mourning me for lost; and Aunt Helen is trying to comfort him and other persons. But there, I must not think of that, must I?" She turned to Dan and smiled bravely.
"No, you must not," he said gravely. "He is a man; he will bear his grief like a man. And when you return—"
"When I return?" interpolated the girl, quickly. "Have you thought about that, Daniel Merrithew?"
"Not a great deal, except to resolve that if I ever get ashore I shall never again go to sea as a sailor."
"Oh, I don't mean that," said Virginia. "Ever since the night when you were shielding me from the fire—"
Dan raised his hand.
"Anything you said that night, Miss Howland, need cause you no regret, no misgiving. As well judge the words, the actions, of a man who knows he has but an hour to live."
Virginia looked at him puzzled. She started to speak, but closed her lips tight upon the words. She was vividly flushed.
"Did I say anything so terrible then?" she asked at length. "I am sure I can remember nothing I regret. Of course I don't remember much; I suppose I was awfully flighty, then. But you were fine and brave and noble; and, whatever I said, I stand pat, as father says," the girl laughed. "This is such a conventional age that when a knight of modern times revives the daring and chivalry of older ages, we women have no adequate way in which to requite it, you know."
"You must not think about it at all," replied Dan.
"And why not? That night I hung at the mercy of your strength and endurance to pain, when you could easily have saved yourself by letting me go. Ah, don't deny it," as Dan made a gesture. "I know! My life was in your keeping, to save it or let it go, as you willed. Daniel Merrithew, do you ever feel that now you have the right to be interested in that life that you alone saved?"
"What do you mean?" Dan was looking at her curiously.
The girl laughed excitedly.
"Oh, I don't know exactly what I do mean—except, except that I have simply felt, well, as though I have no right to be altogether my own selfish self—in the way I used to be, I mean; that I have no longer an absolute right—— Oh, how can I explain it clearly? Let us say that I have a conviction that any serious change I might wish to make in my life should not be done without—well, not consent, exactly, but good wishes—no, I mean consent. There, that may be putting it clumsily, but don't you understand?"
Dan flushed. "I have saved lives before," he said; "and twice men have saved my life, and I never felt,—felt the way you say toward my rescuers."
"But that is different; it is impossible to compare man's attitude toward man as you would a woman's."
"Yes, that's so."
"Then you, too, have felt as I feel?"
"No, I never thought of it in that way."
She was silent a moment, but she regarded him searchingly. His face was upturned, gazing at the flapping sail on the mainmast. She caught the strong, classic profile in the starlight, and over her flooded the deep sense of her utter dependence upon him, upon his skill, his strength, his resource, and the deeper sense of her implicit trust in him as the embodiment of all these qualities.
She yearned now to express to him her emotions; she almost felt she must. And yet she hardly knew how. She had tried to do so, but how inadequate her words had seemed! Bearing in upon her mood, Dan's cool, even voice sounded miles away.
"Miss Howland, had you thought—"
She interrupted him.
"See here, Daniel Merrithew, I said before that ceremony had no part on this boat. Hereafter, if you won't call me by my first name you must address me by my last. It must be either one or the other."
Dan made no comment. He hesitated just a moment, then he said:
"I was going to ask you, Virginia, if you had thought of going to your cabin yet."
She smiled and blushed.
"I—I wanted to speak to you about that," she said, speaking rapidly. "I saw you this evening taking things from the Captain's room into the mate's cabin. Now, if you have any idea that I am going to sleep on this horrid, grisly boat, so far away from you, you are mistaken. You must sleep in the Captain's room—and the door leading into mine must be ajar, too. Oh, I am terribly unmaidenly! I cannot help it; I shall be horribly forlorn and frightened, and shall hear all sorts of sounds; I can hear them now, and so can you—"
"But," interrupted Dan, "I cannot go to sleep, Miss—Virginia. This boat must be sailed to land. There is a breeze. She cannot be left alone; she would go a hundred miles out of her course; and, besides, we might meet a vessel."
For a moment the girl gazed at him uncomprehendingly.
"Do you mean to say you are going to stay up all night and sail? But you have not had a wink of sleep and I shall certainly not go into that—" she suddenly arose. "How stupid of me! Of course both of us must stand watch in turn. While you are steering I shall sleep at the wheel. While I am steering you shall sleep there. How simple! Then we need not be alone at all. Here, I'll hold the wheel first and you go to sleep. I shall wake you at midnight, perhaps before if I get frightened. Then I shall be asleep through those creepy morning hours."
Dan demurred vigorously, but she was steadfast. So he went to the after cabin and brought out several blankets and a pillow, which she arranged deftly.
As he prepared to lie down, he looked at the girl.
"See that star up there?" he said. "Well, just keep the vessel going the way she is, with that star over your shoulder. Don't let it get anywhere else. If it does, wake me quickly. If you become afraid, or see anything, let me know at once."
"Yes," said the girl, "I understand. Good-night, Daniel."
"Good-night, Virginia."
In a few minutes Dan was fast asleep. Through the night sailed the girl, alone, sore afraid, but comforted with the assurance that a touch of her hand would bring to her the powerful man who slept at her feet.
Straight she stood at the wheel, and tall, like some figure of a goddess of antiquity. The moon rose, and its light glorified her. It fell upon the shattered deck, defining every dreary detail. The waves rose and fell with the lilt of music. The tinkling breeze was cool and fresh and invigorating. Fear vanished from her. She felt herself a part of the elements, a part of the night, the lone representative of life and consciousness, and God amid the waste of primeval desolation.
So she sailed, exalted, ennobled, until long after midnight. When her thoughts turned to the man sleeping at her feet, she leaned down, gazing long and earnestly upon his face. Then, as he stirred, she let her hand rest on his forehead a moment.
"It is time to awaken, Daniel," she said.
He was upon his feet in an instant. There was a strange expression upon his face.
"I was far away from here," he said. "I was dreaming, the bulliest sort of a dream."
"Dreaming? And what about, pray?"
"You."
"You were! Tell me the dream."
"They say dreams that are told never come true," replied Dan, slowly.
Their eyes met. Both were smiling. Then her eyes fell; but she still smiled.
"Then," she said, "I guess you had better not tell me—unless—"
"Unless?" asked Dan, as she paused.
Slowly she arranged the blankets, while Dan waited for the completion of the sentence. Then she lay down.
"Good-night," she said.
When she awoke, the sun was rising high. The breeze had died away. The wheel was deserted. She looked down the stretch of deck, but Dan was nowhere to be seen. With a fluttering heart she arose and shook out her skirts, hardly daring to peer into the cabin for fear her dreadful intimations might prove true.
He was not in the cabin. She called his name in a low voice, but only the hollow echo resounded from the corridor. In agonized suspense now she ran out on the deck.
"Dan!" she called with all the power of her lungs, not expecting that he would hear her now. "Dan Merrithew, have you left me?"
There came an answering hail, and looking toward the bow she saw Dan clambering out of the forward hatch. His shoes and trousers were dripping wet. As he ran to her she waited, weeping. He caught her hands and held them.
"Oh, Dan, Dan!" she cried, "you frightened me so! I thought you had gone. I thought you were dead. You are not going to leave me again, are you?"
"Never," said Dan.
Then both started as though the underlying significance of the question and answer had suddenly dawned upon them. Gently she withdrew her hands, which Dan did not seek to retain. In conversational tone, he said:
"I am awfully sorry, Virginia. While you were sleeping, the wind fell, an hour or two after dawn, and the blue of the water struck me. I found the Captain's thermometer and lowered it overboard. My best hopes were realized. We are in the Gulf Stream, Virginia, and moving northward at about four miles an hour. We are all right now if all goes well."
"But why were you hiding?" asked the girl.
"I wasn't. I wanted to see if the water had hurt the logwood, so as to impair its value, and to learn the condition of the hull. You know the cargo is all that is keeping us afloat. Everything is pretty soggy down there, but we'll hold together, I guess; and I don't believe the logwood will suffer a bit. Of course the mahogany is all right. We're lucky. One schooner in a million has mahogany these days."
She had been gazing at him almost vacantly while he was talking. Now she smiled beautifully.
"Oh, I am so glad to see you again," she said. "It seems almost as if you had been away a thousand years."
"That," said Dan, "almost pays me for frightening you. Are you ready for breakfast? I knocked it together a while ago."
"For which you shall be punished—when we get ashore."
After breakfast they drew chairs to the wheel and sat out on deck. It was a wonderful May morning. Thin clouds hung in the blue, like little yachts; and the cool, balmy air and the sparkling sunlight brought the clear, steady call of work to be done, of life to be lived beautifully and nobly, and strong things to overcome, or to accomplish—the call of youth.
And they heard the call, these two, and responded to it with the joyousness of youth, wherein a phrase is a lifetime, and a word, volumes. They talked of themselves, regarding each other wonderingly as hidden depths of character were revealed, or a word, or a sentence, or a sympathetic silence threw light upon a new element of personality.
He spoke of theFledgling. He used to see her through a golden haze. She was his first command. Yet each day came the old question, What next? And the answer. Why, everything. A future—bigger things and better, broader work, not on the sea at the last. No; landward, somewhere, anywhere. But onward, onward!
"Something is linked with every one's destiny, Virginia. Fate fires no salutes; every shot is solid and aimed at something. And the thing that is hit you have to step over and go on; if you stop to look at it and think over it and try to look for something else for Fate to knock down for you, something easier to step over and get away from, you find, perhaps, years later, that just there you missed your chance."
She regarded him with kindling eyes.
"And so that has been your philosophy."
"For want of a better, yes."
"I think it is a splendid one, and it has stood its highest test—it has served you well. Do you know, the first time I had any idea you were interested in the higher things was that day we were in your cabin on theTampico. Do you remember my looking at your books and exclaiming over the selection? I don't know, but somehow the Bible impressed me most."
"I had a pretty good English foundation at Exeter," replied Dan, "and I kept it up after I left there. That Bible—I think I did grow and broaden after leaving school, but I never grew beyond Psalms and St. Paul; which proves that a little knowledge is not dangerous."
The girl smiled.
"Most men would be ashamed to say that," she said. "Most of the men I have known," she added.
"I never would have said it to any one but you." He said this with quiet conviction, and the girl inclined her head slightly.
"I thank you.₀ Do you remember that night at the dinner when I told you that if our friendship was to continue it was to be one of limitations? How long ago that seems now—and how absurd!"
"Does it seem absurd?"
"Doesn't it?" She laughed. "It seems to me you were inclined to regard it so that night."
"Much to your indignation."
"Is it so? If you had asked me, I might have admitted that the fact I ever could be indignant with you was the principal reason why that night of the dinner seemed so long ago." She hastened to qualify. "For, you see, I count you now among my very closest friends."
"That is saying a great deal," smiled Dan. "When we get ashore and you are comfortably installed as queen of your father's drawing-room and Dan Merrithew is—"
An exclamation from the girl interrupted him.
"Dan Merrithew, don't you dare!"
"And Dan Merrithew is just a—" She had risen, and before he could complete the sentence her hands were pressed tightly over his mouth.
"Will you be good?" she cried. She released her hands and regarded him with mock severity.
"But—" laughed Dan.
Again the hands flew to his face.
"Will you?"
"I will," said Dan.
"And you'll promise not to say or think such nonsense again?"
"I promise," said Dan.
And then for a while both fell silent, thinking of the future which lay before them. The girl smiled as her day-dreams opened and expanded. Dan frowned, and the fingers of his well-shaped hands locked and unlocked across his knees.
Suddenly Virginia sprang to her feet with an exclamation.
"Oh, I forgot," she said, and ran, laughing, to the galley, whence she returned with a large plate of fudge. At Dan's look of surprise she tossed her head in mock disdain of what he might say or think.
"I unearthed two great cakes of chocolate last night," she said, "and as I was simply dying for some candy I made fudge while preparing breakfast. I had to use condensed milk, watered; and as there was no marble slab I had to stir it in the pan. I don't know how good it is; it's awfully grainy"; and thus, rattling on, she took a square of the confection and placed it gingerly between her lips.
"Why, it's not so bad," she said. "Here! Open your mouth and shut your eyes!" Which Dan did, declaring that he had never eaten anything half so delicious.
"Really!" she exclaimed, with falling inflection. "Then I must say I feel sorry for you.₀ Now, why have you that little amused twinkle in your eyes? I used to see it sometimes at the table on theTampicowhen Reggie was boasting, and—and sometimes when I was trying to be very brilliant. Do you know, sometimes I felt like boxing your ears, you seemed so superior."
"It was not superiority in your case," laughed Dan, "it was appreciation."
"Thank you," said Virginia; "and now?"
"Oh," smiled Dan, "the thought of fudge on a derelict was and is responsible for this twinkle."
"I don't care," she frowned. "It is the person that rises superior to conditions who triumphs in this world. Anyway, you seem to be disposing of your share, despite your notions of incongruity."
"Have you thought," said Dan, "that it might pay to be very economical with your chocolate? If we stay here two or three months and all our food runs out we can live on ever so little chocolate each day."
"Two or three months!" echoed Virginia. "Now, you are tactful, aren't you? And just as I was sitting here chattering away, with no thought that we were not on a yacht ready to turn home the minute I wished to!"
Dan smiled.
"If we were on a yacht, how soon would you—wish to?" he said.
The girl met his eyes undauntedly.
"If I answered you in one way I should not be at all polite," she said; "and if in another, I should not be—be—"
"Honest?" suggested Dan.
"That would depend upon what I said," she answered with a non-committal shrug. "Now I am going. I've a lot to do in my cabin, and a luncheon menu to make out.Au revoir!" She paused at the entrance to the cabins, smiled brightly at Dan, and then disappeared.
Long he sat, gazing out over the serene waters, filled with a great inward thrill. The wonder of all the fast-crowding events of the past fortnight was asserting itself potently in his mind, and it was difficult to realize he was not now living some wild, improbable dream. But, after all, he found the sense of responsibility dominant. To his care was committed a beautiful life,—a life that must be saved, cherished, and ultimately restored to its proper environment. Of late, it seemed, an evil star had pursued him; everything he had commanded or had anything to do with had either sunk or burned—an extraordinary train of misfortune not lacking in the lives of many able masters of craft. What next? He passed over that thought with a frown. He was living in a beautiful present; the future would be met as the past had been, bravely and with no cry for quarter.
The present! He was immediately to learn how dearly he prized it; for as he gazed seaward, the smoke of a steamship, below the horizon, appeared. He sprang to his feet and watched it eagerly; and yet when that faint column grew more dim and finally faded, he sat back constrained to confess that he was almost glad the course of the steamship was as it was. He fought against it, thinking of the girl in the cabin and her interests. And yet—and yet? He shrugged his shoulders and walked toward the door, lured by the song which he remembered so clearly.
"If I had you! If I had you! You!"
"WillIdo?" he laughed, peering in at her open door.
"For the present, yes," she bowed, "because I want you to admire. See, I have been decorating my room with unbleached muslin. Aren't those curtains dear? And those silesia bunk tapestries, aren't they fascinating?"
"They are, indeed. How much would you charge to beautify my cabin?"
Virginia blushed.
"You had better ask how much you owe me," she said. Then, "You haven't looked in your cabin! And after all my labor, too!"
With an exclamation Dan darted across the corridor and beheld, with kindling eyes, many evidences of that feminine touch without which hardened bachelors may fancy their quarters complete. She had followed him to the door and was gazing over his shoulder. Something caught in Dan's throat. Always a man's man, as the saying is, the full force of the realization of his strange situation seemed rushing from the interior of that cabin to overpower him. A girl, a beautiful girl, one whom he had looked upon as he had looked upon the beautiful unattainable things of this life, planning and executing for his pleasure, and blushing joyously to find that which she had done for him pleasing in his sight, left him bereft of words.
He turned to her and strove to speak, and then suddenly he faced about and walked hurriedly to the deck. She came up behind him and placed her hand upon his shoulder and smiled, understanding. His eyes met hers, and then, with an involuntary movement, his arm was about her waist. For a full minute they stood thus, neither moving, she regarding him with wondering eyes, but still smiling slightly.
Suddenly he started; his arm swiftly dropped, and he glanced with a jerk of his head towards the sail.
"Are we getting out of our course?" she asked.
"I was," he said, scowling, "but I won't again. Can you forgive one who is no better than a—than a blamed pirate?"
"I can forgive you everything but calling yourself names," she said gently.
Before another hour had passed, clouds began to rise from out the sea. There came a fitful breeze, with a little hum to it. To the southeast-ward the horizon assumed a grayish-white tinge.
Dan watched it anxiously, and the girl followed his gaze and then glanced at him inquiringly.
"It's going to cloud over," he said. "There may be some deviltry before we make shore."
He moistened his fingers, moving them to and fro in the air.
"It isn't a storm," he said; "it is fog."
"Fog!" The girl was trembling. "What does that mean?"
"It means that for a while old ocean is going to destroy all our pretty scenery, and that it is going to be cold and nasty and disagreeable."
Already, in fact, the ocean had lost its color. Heavy blue-white clouds with shredded, filmy foundations, which seemed almost to sweep the waters, moved swiftly to the westward, while in the background the wall of mist advanced silently to encompass them. They could feel its breath, heavy, clammy, chilling.
Presently a mass of vapor, like a detached squadron of cavalry, swept about the derelict and then moved on, leaving little shredded patches hanging about the foremast.
Quite unknown to the girl, Dan, the preceding day, had constructed a raft, which he regarded as being quite as safe for ocean travelling, if not quite so comfortable, as the derelict. He had lashed supplies, a small cask of water, and the like thereon, and now, with the fog-pall gathering about, he went amidships, examined it carefully, and made sure that nothing would prevent a hasty launching in event of disaster.
When he returned the murk had closed in thickly. It was as though the vessel were immured from the world. Virginia was standing at the wheel, and with the pall throwing the derelict into more sombre relief, Dan caught more strongly than ever the utter contrast which her presence brought to this abandoned hulk. Whenever she had walked along the deck it had seemed a profanation to him that the uneven planking should know her tread; that she should be on the derelict at all was, he felt, a working of Fate against everything that was beautiful and graceful.
Now, as she stood there in the pallid gloom, she suggested some tall, beautiful genius, presiding over the wrack of elemental things, facing a more glorious future.
"How shut in everything seems!" she said, as Dan took the wheel from her hands. He had a long fog-horn which he blew at intervals.
"We haven't seen a speck of a ship," he explained, "but now the fog is about us there's liable to be a fleet of them in our vicinity at any time. At least that has been my experience with fogs. It would not be much fun to be rammed, although in our present condition I fancy it would hurt the other vessel more than it would this."
Hour after hour they went on blindly, silently, save at such times as Dan's raucous horn blasts went tearing through the fog. The wind had died away. Sometimes the forward part of the vessel was hidden from their view. Frequently it seemed distorted; strange phantom shapes filled the deck, and the soughing of the yielding hull brought strange, uncanny sounds to their ears.
Dan was seated on the deck, his eyes peering about on all sides, trying to pierce the veil, every nerve taut, every sense alert. The girl crept close beside him, so that she touched him, and there she remained, while all the terrors of the ghostly ship arose to confront her. The weed-hung, slimy rails and wave-bitten deck stretched away in ever-fading perspective to the foremast where everything ended in an amorphous blur.
There came a time when the two felt almost a part of the deep—two mortals admitted into all the hidden evils that lurk thereon. Their lot to witness the inception of mighty tempests; to hear great gray waves boast of the harm they had done and the winds to plan their rending deeds. Perhaps they themselves would be called to the work, to deal to some proud vessel the death blow as so many derelicts have done.
Once far off there sounded a series of whistle blasts, hoarse, tremulous notes of warning and inquiry. But as the two listened with straining ears the sounds became more dim. Finally they ceased altogether.
The girl eventually lost all sense of acute feeling. She sat dumb, her undeviating eyes fastened upon Dan's face, as though in him she found all that was tangible or normal or real. Her hand was resting on his shoulder now, clutching it tight; but if he knew it was there, he made no sign.
At length, toward evening, as though in a dream, Dan's voice bore upon her ears. For a moment she gazed at him dully, and then she comprehended his words.
"It is beginning to rain, Virginia. The fog will go away now."
"Oh, good!" she exclaimed.
"The wind is freshening, too," he added, "and it doesn't feel very good. I think we're going to have a blow for a change."
It seemed so. Already the mists were beginning to scuttle away before the increasing wind-rush which moaned with evil breath.
"Will you hold the wheel for a moment, please," said Dan.
As she placed her hands on the spokes he went forward and lowered the sail. There were two lines of reef points in the section of canvas and Dan took in both. When he hoisted it again there was just a patch of three-cornered sail.
Within half an hour it was raining hard. The wind was increasing slowly but surely, and the sea was rising. Dan asked the girl to go into the cabin and to remain there either until the storm was over, or he summoned her. She obeyed him partially. She went into the cabin, but returned quickly with two slickers.
"Do you suppose," she cried, "I am going to let you be alone now? I am going to help you, and, if it must be, to die with you. I am not a bit afraid any more."
Dan placed his hand on her arm.
"Get down here, then, under the lee of this cabin. We are not going to die. At least not yet a while."
So the storm came. With his patch of sail Dan had headed the craft up into the wind; and thus, with the boat already beginning to rise and fall, with the broad bow groaning, and oozing ends of planking, and dirty water, and the deck, contracting and expanding like the belly of a stricken whale, he settled down to the long fight.
The fog had all departed now. North, east, south, and west, nothing but the gray of onrushing waves and a shrouded sky as implacable as the morning of doom. Darkness was falling swiftly. Soon the terrible night began.
Not that it was the worst storm in which Dan had ever been, but certainly he had never faced North Atlantic tumult under such a disadvantage, under conditions so desperately precarious. The bow rose but heavily to the seas, and never topped them. The water rushing over, poured down the deck in mill-races, filling it to the rails, occasionally springing up over the poop and the top of the after cabin, lashing the faces of the two crouching at the wheel behind it.
"It's a sou'easter, I'm almost certain," roared Dan in the girl's ear. "It will work up to a climax gradually, and then gradually go down, at this season of the year. Don't be afraid of the water. We can't sink, I believe; the only danger is that we might break up—and we won't do that."
But despite the optimism of his words, Dan was not altogether certain that the wallowing wreck would hold together. There was nothing to do but wait and see. The situation he grasped in all its grievous details. He had never been so happy, so utterly at peace as aboard this derelict. No gilded barge of antiquity had ever been so glorious, so golden as this mangled wraith of the seas in the sunlit hours of the immediate past. Her voice, her laughter, had filled them with music, her presence with all the poetry and romance of the world, and the light in her eyes shining for him alone had filled him with a great tenderness.
Now, the night, the storm, danger—death, perhaps. He shut his jaws and drove the flooding thoughts from his mind. Anger,—the anger of bereavement,—filled him, and he glared into the tempest and twisted the wheel as though combating a sentient adversary.
An hour passed, Cimmerian blackness had fallen. The waves came savagely, ill-defined masses let loose from a viewless limbo to work their harm. Sometimes they caught the dull gray flash of breaking waters, but more often everything was hidden. The roar of the wind and wave was incessant.
Dan's efforts to keep the derelict's head to the seas had failed. The hulk had slued around and was driving before the tempest, whither he did not know. Groaning, crashing, crackling, the hulk lumbered on. Once a wave leaped over the stern, stunning them with its thunderous impact, dragging at them powerfully, as though to draw them back into the sea whence it came.
Plunging thus, helpless, unseeing, they seemed to be flying as swiftly as the wind. A wild ride—to where? Were they driving out into the lonely heart of the deep, there to perish in a last long dive? Or was it shoreward, with oblivion coming in the dreadful grinding and crashing and shattering of timbers?
Neither had the heart for even a faint hope for safety; and yet Dan, with his hands stiffened on the wheel spokes, fought on. The girl, with her head bowed, sat still, her hands clinging to his shoulders. They did not speak. Twice Dan had attempted to utter a cheering word, but the wind had swept the sounds from his lips.
Both knew that at any moment the derelict might succumb to the forces striving to destroy her. And, as they sat waiting, the realization came to both what a small part of the incidents of this heaving night the dismemberment of their washing vessel would be. In the vortex of the riot, when the heavens and the ocean seemed united in the creation of chaos, they sensed the littleness of their own lives and the vanity of their affairs.
As a thunderous roar of wind smote the vessel Dan felt the pressure of Virginia's hand on his shoulder suddenly tighten. He turned to her, and through the darkness caught the vague outlines of her face, which was fixed on the faint blur which marked the forward part of the hulk.
His eyes followed just as her fingers loosened their grasp. He saw nothing save the dull flash of swirling waters and the amorphous blotch of hull. Slowly her hand tightened again; and then, as he looked he caught above the deck an impression of something moving. It seemed to be something that was revealing itself to the instinct rather than to their visual senses.
As the wind passed on, leaving that confused murmur, broken only by the dogged rush of waters, Virginia spoke to Dan with trembling voice.
"What is it?"
Dan's eyes were still staring forward. He spoke through his clenched teeth.
"Wait a moment." More accustomed to the gloom ahead he was able to determine that the sail had torn from the boom and was waving out from the shattered mast-top like a flag. The mast itself seemed to be reeling. Was the hull opening and disintegrating?
Almost without volition he half arose to his feet. The girl followed his action, still clinging to his shoulder. Dan inclined his head to speak to her, when with a shriek the wind came again. There was a dull crash forward, a splintering and rearing of wood, a quivering of the entire hull; and then, as though hurled by a giant hand, a huge section of wood, whether a part of cargo or hull Dan could not tell, shot out of the night, crashing a hole in the roof of the cabin behind which they were crouching, and then bounded over their heads into the sea.
Both remained still, as though carved in stone. Forward there was a crashing sound, a series of blows, as though some great hammer were engaged in disintegrating the hull. There was a grinding of wood against wood which caused the deck under their feet to tremble. Still neither moved. The terrible thought that the derelict was going to pieces was in both their minds. They had no doubt of this now. They simply waited.
Virginia had no great fear. Her dominant thought was the dread of the first immersion in the cold, cruel, black waters. But it would not last long. Not long, not long—these two words kept ringing in her mind. Her shoulders were drawn up, as though preparing for the shock.
Dan had not moved. Half crouching, half kneeling, his eyes were fastened upon the vague deck ahead. Now, as though the elements had worked to give him sight, the black sky was suddenly seared by a long, lurid line of lightning. It was but the fraction of a second; it was long enough. In that blue glow the derelict took form, grim, ghostly, heaving, as a spirit picture might be thrown upon a black cloth, every detail limned in filmy perfection.
With a cry Dan leaped to his feet and seized an axe lying by his side.
"We are not breaking," he shouted. "The mast has torn out of its step and is pounding us. I am going to cut it away. We shall be all right."
The girl heard his voice, caught the enthusiasm of it, but distinguished not a single word. As he crawled slowly by the side of the cabin to the steps leading to the deck she half arose as though to follow him.
"Dan, Dan," she cried, "don't leave me!"
He waved her back, and a second later had gained the deck. For a few minutes she sat there, wondering, fearing, and then in a lull in the storm she heard the blows of the axe. A great wave rose over the quarter and ran forward with a roar. There came a shout. She listened. The sounds of the axe were heard no more.
"Dan!" she called. "Dan!" Her words were whistled away on the wind.
In desperation she worked her way to the steps and peered down upon the deck. She heard nothing but the wind and the waves. And then with her hair streaming wild, with lips bloodless, she stood upright and rushed to the deck. The wind tore at her, flying water buffeted her, and the hulk swayed under her feet; but, as though endowed with superhuman power, as though scorning the elements to which she had bowed through the night she ran forward, heedless of everything but that her companion was in danger.
Where she was going she knew not, nor cared. A hand grasped the end of her slicker and brought her to a halt. She looked down and saw Dan stretched upon the deck, the mast lying across his legs. She knelt at his side.
"Dan!"
He drew her head down so that her ear was near his mouth.
"Not hurt," he said coolly. "The wave knocked the mast across me just as I had almost cut it through. Find the axe. Two strokes will free me. Hurry. Another wave may drown me."
The girl swept her hands hastily over the deck. She found the axe a few feet from Dan, and with that frenzied, nervous strength which comes to women in times of stress, she hacked at the mast, which Dan had almost cut through when the wave struck him. Three times the edge of the implement glanced. She ground her teeth, raised it a fourth time taking careful aim. Then she let fly with all her strength, and the axe bit deep. She raised it again, smiling now. Two strokes, three strokes, four strokes. The keen blade severed the last inch of wood, the hulk pitched forward, and the mast with its boom and its tangle of rigging and canvas rolled from Dan and plunged into the sea.
He was on his feet in a second, and with his arm about her waist they ran astern and reached their posts at the wheel in safety. But there was no need to bother with the wheel now. There was nothing to do, in fact, but sit inactive and accept what came to them.
And yet, had they but known it, Fate, which it may be said takes the lives of the young grudgingly, had worked for their ultimate good. The Gulf Stream had carried them to a point off Hatteras, and there the storm had enveloped them. As Dan had surmised, it was from the south-east, and laboring and flailing as sorely as she might, the winds and the waves had steadily lashed the vessel toward safety.
They could not know that. It was only after an unusual interval in the powerful wind-blast that Dan looked upward and suddenly held up his hand. He looked at the vague form of the girl and bared his teeth in a quick, mirthless smile.
"The wind is changing," he muttered. "What now?"
There came another rush of wind. But it was not so strong as its predecessors had been; and looking into the sky he could see the cloud movement. He shook Virginia by the shoulder, and there was a triumphant ring in his voice as he shouted into her ear,
"The gale is passing!"
Gradually but surely the shrieking of the elements diminished; the seas were palpably falling. Great, dark shapes could now be seen rushing across the lightening firmament, and once the girl, stretching her arm upward, exclaimed, as through a rift overhead she caught a glimpse of a little star.
Half an hour—there came a great peace.
Now, a man and a woman out of the chaos—with the world and all its civilization and its manners and its men and its affairs as though they had never been, as though the two had lived for a flashing minute in some old dream—the strain of years that makes for ceremony and diffidence and convention and custom suddenly stopped, turned backward.
They were the first man and the first woman on the verge of upheaval, having felt fear, not as we feel it, but in a dull, instinctive way—wondering horribly. Just two, just a man and a woman, emerging from all the destructive might of the world.
She—not Virginia Howland now—just She—turned toward the man who crouched with one hand still clutching the wheel, the other lying loosely, palm downward upon the deck. Her face was filled with the glow of returning blood, her hair streamed, her eyes shone.
Gone, the tempest. The waves were lashing, surly, hissing a monotone as old as Time is old. The darkness was the gloom of an age before the sun was born. The air was filled with low sounds that had been dead for aeons. And she turned to him, and he turned to her.
Her bosom was rising and falling; he could hear her quick, hard breathing. As though without volition, she moved a step forward, and with a low cry held out her arms to him, trembling no more, her heart filled with a wild, joyous song. Suddenly she felt his breath upon her face, felt herself crushed in his arms, as she would be crushed. Gently he kissed her upon the lips, and then again and again and again. For a moment she lay dumb in his arms, and then as he drew back his head she put her arms around his neck and held his lips to hers. So they stood.
A force far greater than the unharnessed might of the ocean now thrilled and filled and exalted them. Slowly she raised her hands and passed them over his face, lingeringly; once more she felt herself drawn to him, and laughed joyously.
As Dan turned, out of the darkness ahead he saw a light. He looked again. He saw it plainly now, that steady white disc with its red sector.
"Cape Henry!" he cried. "Good God!"
The girl started.
"What?" she said, wonderingly.
"Cape Henry to port, Virginia. We'll have a tug in an hour. The dawn is coming now. The sun will see us in Newport News."
Virginia regarded him dreamily, and tightened her clasp about his neck.
"Newport News," she said; "and what do I care! You have not kissed me in an age."