CHAPTER X.THE ROCKS.
All things have an end. That awful night passed at last. Daylight came, slowly enough, through the heaped black clouds that rolled upon the heaving waves below and reached unknown heights in the sky above.
So darkly and gloomily came the morning, that it seemed not so much the dawning of the day as the fading of the black darkness. Night grew paler in the cabin, and the scared inmates could see in the waning darkness the wan faces of their companions rising up and down with the tossing of the ship.
And soon after daylight came that startling cry from the man on the lookout—that cry which is so often a sound of rapture or of despair, because it is a herald of life or of death. Ah, Heaven! it was now a knell of doom.
“Land ho!”
“Where away?”
“On her lee bows!”
“Thank Heaven!” fervently breathed Mrs. Ely, to whom the words conveyed no other idea than that of a good landing place, where they could all leave the dreadful ship, and go on shore in safety.
Mrs. Breton lifted her prostrate head, and ventured to draw a long breath.
Miss Conyers never moved or spoke; too well she knew the deadly meaning of the words she had heard—“Land ho!” “On her lee bows!”—when the ship was being driven before the wind at such a furious rate. Silent and breathless she sat, and waited for what should come next.
The voice of the captain rang clearly out above the roar of wind and wave.
“Luff! Luff!”
Too late! Another instant and the doomed ship was lifted high on the top of an enormous wave, and carried forward and cast down with a tremendous shock that crashed and tore through all her timbers from keel to quarter-deck, while she shuddered in a death agony, impaled upon the horns of the hidden rocks!
The passengers in the cabin were tossed up and thrown down by the concussion. They were jarred and shaken, but not seriously hurt. They quickly recovered themselves; and all the women except Miss Conyers were surprised and pleased to find that the ship, which had been tossing and pitching with such tremendous force for the last twelve hours had now become nearly motionless.
But there was a great deal of rushing about and calling out among the men on deck, and Mr. Ely and Mr. Breton started and ran up to see what it all meant.
“What is the matter? Have we landed anywhere? Oh, I suppose of course we have, but with what a stunning shock! It is bad enough when a river steamer strikes the pier too suddenly; but I declare this quite knocked the breath out of my body; and, besides, it was so unexpected! I didn’t know that ships ever did come quite up to piers, and I did not even know we were near any place. What port is it likely to be, do you know, Miss Conyers?” inquired Mrs. Ely.
“I do not know where we are. We shall hear presently, I suppose,” replied Britomarte. But too well she knew where they were not—in any place of safety.
“Anyhow, I am very glad to be still. I know that,” answered Mary Ely.
Martha Breton, who was often frightened out of her senses by slight or imaginary dangers, was now quitecheerful in the midst of the real and appalling peril of which she was fortunately unconscious. She got off the floor and into a chair and began to smooth her disordered hair and dress and to call out to Judith to light the lamps; for though it was daylight, it was still very dark in the cabin.
“And you know we have got to dress and go on shore,” added poor Martha.
“Ah, bedad, yes! sure we’ve got to go somewhere,” wailed Judith; but she got up and lighted the cabin lamps.
Meanwhile the commotion on deck increased. Suddenly again the captain’s voice was heard above all other sounds:
“Launch the lifeboats!”
And the rushing of many feet on the deck increased, mingled with the rushing of many waters around the ship.
“Lord betune us and harm, the lifeboats! Mary, star of the say,” and so forth, and so forth, said Judith, wailing lamentations and muttering litanies.
“Are we to go on shore in the boats? I thought the ship itself had landed and touched the pier,” said Mrs. Ely, rising to go to her stateroom to put on her bonnet.
“Well, I suppose we shall know what port we have touched sooner or later,” laughed Mrs. Breton, so glad to know that the ship stood still, and to believe that she was about to leave it for the shore.
Britomarte neither spoke nor moved. She knew, if her companions did not, that death was imminent.
The commotion on deck grew furious; it seemed almost as if a mutiny had sprung up among the seamen; too well she knew the meaning of that commotion; the crew were seizing the lifeboats. Again the voice of the captain was heard near the companionway:
“Mr. Bates! see to getting the women in the cabin up on deck immediately—they must first be saved!”
Miss Conyers made no reply.
“Saved! Heaven of Heavens! From what? From what are we to be saved, Britomarte?” exclaimed Mrs. Breton, suddenly seized with terror.
“How strangely you look, Britomarte! Your face isas white and as hard as marble! Oh, dear! oh, dear! what is the matter? What has happened? What are we to be saved from? Tell me! tell me quickly!” cried Martha Breton, wringing her hands in the extremity of distress.
“Oh, Heaven, do you not know, then? The ship is wrecked on the rocks! The crew are leaving her in the lifeboats!” said Miss Conyers, solemnly.
“Oh, no, no, no! Oh, don’t say that! Oh, mercy!” screamed Mrs. Breton, wild with horror and despair.
“Be firm! For Heaven’s sake, be firm! Be a woman! Let these men see that we can brave death with the best of them!” said Britomarte, for you see the ruling passion was “strong in death.”
“I don’t care what they see! Oh, dear! oh, dear!” wailed the poor woman.
“What is all this fuss about?” cried Mrs. Ely, coming out of her stateroom equipped in bonnet and shawl for her landing.
Before any one could answer her, there was a rush of many feet down the companion ladder, and several men entered the cabin, which was still too dark to enable the occupants to recognize the new comers. But Judith hurried out of Mrs. Breton’s stateroom with a lighted lantern, and then they saw that the visitors were Justin Rosenthal, Terrence Riordan, and the two young missionaries.
Mr. Ely and Mr. Breton each rushed to the rescue of his wife.
Riordan hurried his daughter up the companion ladder.
Justin Rosenthal came to the side of Britomarte Conyers.
His face was very pale, but his voice was firm as he hastily addressed her.
“The ship is a total wreck; the crew are about to abandon her, but they have consented to save the women. Let me take you to the lifeboats.”
“I will go with you on deck,” she answered, calmly giving him her hand.
The other women of the cabin had been taken away by the men that had come for them.
Justin and Britomarte now followed them up on deck.
But oh! what a scene of unparalleled horror and desolation met their appalled sight! The sun was just struggling up above the horizon through masses of black and ragged clouds; the thunder and lightning had ceased, and the wind had died away, but the infuriated sea still foamed with rage, and rose in mighty waves, and roared above the ship and fell in thunder over her decks. The ship, a mere shattered wreck, lay impaled upon the sharp rocks that had penetrated her keel; her bows were under water, and the waves dashed over her every minute, threatening to divide her amidships, but fortunately, her stern was lifted high out of the sea, and wedged in a ravine or crevice of the rocks; heavy clouds and fogs rested on the tempestuous ocean, and no one could see where the land lay, if indeed there was any land near, or anything else but this chain of sunken rocks which had proved a reef of death to the fated ship.
The lifeboats were all launched, and the crew were crowding into them.
Captain McKenzie stood, pale and stern, by the starboard gangway, seeing to the lowering of the women into the boats. Mrs. Ely and Mrs. Breton were let down into one, and Judith Riordan into the other.
“Hand the other girleen down! Sure we’ll save the women, the craytures! but as for the other passengers, faix they must take their chance along with the ould ship itself! troth, they’d swamp us all if we was to have thim in here,” said Mike Mullony, the carpenter’s mate, who, in this hour of confusion, worse than chaos, and horror worse than death, had seized the command of the boat he was in.
On hearing these dreadful words that doomed their husbands to death, the two unhappy young wives began to scream and sob and pray to the crew; and to stretch out their arms in an agony of yearning to those beloved ones who had grown so dear to them on their voyage, and who now stood fixed and livid with despair upon the quaking deck.
Sick at heart at this sight, Miss Conyers turned away and walked as rapidly as she could up the inclined plane formed by the leaning quarter-deck, to the stern of theship, where she stopped, looking down upon the “hell of waters” beneath her.
Justin Rosenthal stepped hastily after her and stood by her side.
He stood for a moment silent, livid, and breathing hard, like an animal spent in a long chase; but in his eyes burned the intense fire of a love victorious over horror and despair. Then he suddenly seized her hand and nearly crushed it in his convulsive grip, as he whispered hoarsely, in a voice vibrating with the strong passion of his soul—stronger than death and the grave:
“Woman! spirit! we are on the immediate brink of eternity! I love you more than life in this world or the next! I love you more than all created things in earth or heaven! Tell me, in this last mortal hour! tell me before we part—Britomarte—that you love me!”
She looked him in the face and met his eye; she raised her hand and pointed upward, as she answered in a low and thrilling voice:
“We shall meet there! I will tell you then!”
Her answer seemed to satisfy him; a ray of joy inspired and exalted his countenance; once more he crushed her hand in all too strong a grasp, and then he stooped and said.
“Come! your companions are all in the boats. Let me take you to them.”
“And you?”
“They are leaving me in the ship! no matter! Come!”
“Why do they leave you?”
“There is no room in the boats! Come! come! there is not an instant to be lost!”
“No! I will not enter the lifeboat! I will remain with the wreck! I am not afraid of death at all,” she answered, with that iron resolution that he seldom ever saw in any other human being.
“But it is your duty to try and save your life! Heaven and earth! there is no time to argue this point! The ship is doomed! the boats are leaving her! Come!” he rapidly and eagerly exclaimed.
“My mind is made up! I will share the fate of—the ship!” she answered, calmly.
“Then I will save you whether you will or not!” he cried, hastily laying hands on her.
“Stop! Don’t dare to use force with me, Mr. Rosenthal!” she exclaimed, in a tone that made his hands fall from her person as if they had been struck off.
“But Heaven of Heavens! there is no time—not an instant of time for persuasion! The ship is sinking, I tell you!” he cried, breathing hard.
“Then I will sink with—the ship,” she persisted.
“But why? oh, why?” he demanded, quickly, scarcely able all the while to keep his hands off her. “Why? why?” he pleaded. Perhaps he hoped that in this last awful hour she would give him a supreme proof of love, and say that she was resolved to stay to share his fate. And perhaps “to share his fate” was her strongest motive for wishing to remain on the wreck; but if so, she gave a weaker one; she said:
“Because I would rather at once sink with the ship, and meet a quick and easy death, than take the chance of life amid the horrors of the lifeboats. I will stay here, and wait my fate.”
“Then, before Heaven, I will not permit you to do so! You are mine by the right of the strongest love man ever felt for woman, and I will dispose of my own as I please,” he exclaimed, throwing his arms around her, and lifting her up as easily as a child would lift a kitten. He bore her down to the starboard gangway, from which the last lifeboat was just putting off.
“Stop!” he shouted. “Men! seamen! some of you help to lower her down! Some of you take her as I let her go! Riordan!—Mullony!—hold up your arms!”
“Bedad, and meself will do that same! Let her go!” exclaimed Mike, standing up in the boat, and spreading his arms, to receive the form that Justin was preparing to lower down.
Too proud, or too fragile to struggle with superior force, up to this instant Britomarte had been quiet enough; but now, as he was letting her go, she turned with a half-suppressed cry and clung to his breast. But he tore her away from that hold, and dropped her into the strong arms of Mike Mullony. And then, steppingback upon the deck, he waved his hand for them to push off.
But oh! what a cry of unspeakable anguish came up from that boat, as Britomarte started to her feet, and stretched forth her arms yearningly, longingly toward him, exclaiming:
“Justin! With you! Take me! My beloved! my beloved!”
But he waved his hand to Mike to take charge of her, and turned away, white as death.
And it was an insensible form that Mike Mullony laid gently in the lap of Judith Riordan, who, with his own wife, Biddy, were the only other women in that boat; Mrs. Ely and Mrs. Breton being in the other one.
While Britomarte lay still in that swoon, the boat was put off from the side of the ship. There were on board of her, besides the crew and the women, the ship’s doctor and the supercargo. And oh! in the midst of all their selfish anxiety for the preservation of their own lives, and their natural sorrow for their companions left behind to perish, what grief they also felt in abandoning the brave ship that had so gallantly borne them through such a waste of waters; the good ship that had so safely brought them through such tremendous storms, and that had only succumbed at last to the overwhelming power of winds and waves! Aye, they grieved remorsefully for her, as for a human being, deserted at her utmost need, and left alone to die.
When Britomarte recovered from the deep, deathlike swoon that had held her life in abeyance, the boat was some distance from the ship. Her senses and memory returned instantly with her consciousness. Her first thought was of her lover—her first act to raise herself on her elbow, and with her eyes to sweep the horizon in search of the abandoned wreck.
Yes, there it was yet—distant and dimly seen—but certainly there, with the bows under water, and the stern wedged up in the crevice of the sunken rocks, and the sea breaking over it as before; while all above were dark and driving clouds, and all below foaming and heaving waves. The boat made very little headway over this heavy sea. Britomarte never took her eyes from thewreck. As she gazed on all that remained of the good ship, the sun suddenly burst through a black cloud; and some shining object on the stranded stern caught the rays and lighted up the wreck, like a star of hope.
“Save him! oh, God of Mercy, save him!” was the perpetual, though unuttered cry of her heart.
“Spake to me, ma’am! Look at me!” said Judith Riordan, coaxingly. “Don’t be setting your eyes out on sticks, and twisting your head around like Lot’s wife, looking after that wreck. God save the craytures that were left behind, for we could do nothing for thim! Sure this boat wouldn’t howld another sowl! And the other boats were as heavy laden, and they left the ship first. And Lord knows what’s become of them, for I don’t see one of them! though troth, this fog to the landward swallows up every object, so it does. Ah, well, thin, sure I have been praying for the poor sinners left on the wreck, and saying the litany of the ‘Star of the Say’ ever since we left thim there! And I’ll aven go at it again.”
And Judith opened her little book and went at it again, muttering her litanies in a half audible voice.
Miss Conyers paid no sort of attention to her. She also was breathing earnest prayers for the salvation of one left to perish, while she strained her eyes for a sight of the wreck that was often hidden from her view by the rising of some great wave that threatened to carry it down, and as often loomed again through fog and spray to assure her of its continued existence.
“Oh! if it can but hold together for a few days, some ship may pass and take him off! Oh, if this dreadful sea would but subside! Oh, God have mercy on me and save him!”
Such was the constant burden of her thoughts and prayers.
There might have been others left on the wreck with Justin Rosenthal, but she scarcely remembered their existence; she thought only of him!
There was appalling danger surrounding herself and her companions in the boat, but she hardly cared for it; she suffered only for him!
Now, in this awful hour of doom, all the depths of hersoul had been opened up, and she knew how strongly, how ardently, how devotedly she really loved him—how entirely he possessed her life!
Meanwhile, the danger to the boat and its crew was imminent. The sea ran high and heavy, threatening every instant to swallow them up. The shore, toward which they were blindly struggling, was covered with clouds and fogs that might hide, for aught they knew, more frightful perils than those from which they were trying to escape.
What this shore was, no one had the least idea. For twenty-four hours before the storm, no observation had been taken and no reckoning made; and during the storm, the ship had been driven some hundreds of miles out of her course, so that no one knew on what rocks she was wrecked, or to what land this struggling boat was tending. The wind, that had fallen at sunrise, now started up from another quarter, and blew directly off the fog-hidden land. This soon cleared away all the mist and revealed a rugged, rock-bound coast, more terrific in its aspect than the sea itself.
And the sea was growing darker and wilder every instant, and the boat was tossed like a cockle shell on the mad waves. They lowered the little sail to prevent the wind capsizing the boat, and they took to the oars and worked hard through the heavy seas along the shores, keeping as well as they could off the rocks, and watching for some opening to effect a landing.
One of the men had a pocket compass in his possession, and he took it out and set it, and saw that they were rowing northward.
The sun was sinking down through a bank of clouds behind the land, when the boat’s crew, still striving with the wild waves and rowing northward, saw that they were coming to a point that seemed to be the most northern extremity of some island.
“If we can once round that point,” said one of the sailors, “we can get under the lee shore, and may manage to make a landing.”
“We must give it a wide berth, then, if we double it at all; the current around that point would suck theboat down to destruction in no time,” said another seaman.
They turned a little off and struck out to sea, meaning to give the point with its fatal maelstrom “the wide berth” that their comrade recommended.
The sun went down and night gathered, and all was hidden from her view.
The boat’s crew labored on through the darkness of the night, the beating of the wind and the roughness of the sea, striving to round that point and get under the lee short of the land. But as night deepened the sky grew darker, the wind higher, and the sea wilder. It was a miracle that the boat lived from moment to moment, through several hours of that dread death struggle, but while they strove for life, they expected only death. They made what blind preparations they could to meet the greater calamity, when the boat itself should be lost. The men were strong swimmers, as well as good sailors and good oarsmen. Some of them took the oars, while others fastened what life-preservers they had at hand on the persons of the helpless women.
Miss Conyers objected.
“Pray, don’t,” she said. “It will be but a prolongation of the death agony. I had rather drown at once and have it all over, than beat about for hours in this wild, dark sea, and perish miserably at last.”
“Bedad, though, there’s a chance of life at last! And sure I promised the masther to thry and save ye, and faix I’ll do it! Help me here, Terry!” said Mike Mullony, and with the assistance of Terry Riordan, the father of the Irish stewardess, he invested Miss Conyers with the life-preserver.
Not an instant too soon!
There came roaring onward an enormous wave that lifted itself high above and fell with annihilating force upon them. And in an instant the boat was gone, and the souls that had intrusted themselves to her were struggling in the mad sea.
Britomarte almost lost her senses in this shock of doom; and then she found herself in the wild waters, kept up indeed by the life-preserver, but dashed hither and thither, a helpless creature, at the mercy of the waves.And the night was appalling with the howling of the wind and the roaring of the waters and the shrieks of the drowning men and women!
In this scene of horror unutterable, Britomarte was beaten about, now driven out to sea, now dashed in towards the land; and through all one sublime thought exalted her soul above all the despair of the situation:
“We are immortal souls and cannot be destroyed! We are spirits and must live forever!”
At last she felt herself lifted up by an enormous wave, that, roaring as in triumph over its prey, bore her forward with great velocity and threw her with deadly force upon the shore; and with the shock she lost her consciousness.