CHAPTER XXI.
IN THE GRASP OF A HURRICANE.
I smoked no more that night.
Somehow my nerves seemed to have become quiet to a degree that was most extraordinary.
It was the calm of confidence.
I seemed to know that the game rested in my hands, and that with a fair degree of good luck my market was made.
Looking back now I marvel that I found such peace—that I could go to my little den and turning in, lose myself in slumber.
It was as if I had reached harbor after two long years of tossing upon the stormy seas, and, utterly wearied, my frame sought sweet rest, when the knowledge came that I was safe.
Hildegarde was still mine—she wore the ring I had placed upon her finger when I first called her by that precious name of wife, and my unworthy image still reigned in her heart.
True, she seemed to see some species of barrier between us—I knew not what it could be, but was possessed of a lusty determination to beat it down.
Nothing on earth should sever us—the old love had sprung up again in my heart, only many times more fierce, and purified by the fire through which it had passed.
How I had deceived myself all these years, sneering at womankind, and endeavoring to convince myself they were one and all of the same frivolous species.
Now that the mask had been dropped, and I could see things as they were, what a mockery this whole affairappeared, and how penitently I admitted to myself that it was not true.
Paradise may rest within a pair of laughing blue eyes, when lighted by the holy fires of love.
Yes, I slept, and my dreams were sweeter than for many a long night.
It matters not of what they consisted—those who have found their destiny wrapped up in the life of a woman may easily guess.
I had not endeavored to lay out any elaborate plan of campaign—she must be on board the yacht for some days, if not weeks, and I was confident of my ability to plead my cause in that time so successfully that capitulation and peace must follow.
Perhaps it was just as well; since, after all, I was to have the manipulation of affairs taken almost wholly out of my hands.
When I awoke it was with a start.
The vessel was plunging very much after the manner of a fiery war horse upon feeling the cruel barb of the spurs.
It took me several minutes to collect my scattered senses; I had gone to sleep under dreamy, starry skies, with the soft, sensuous breath of the tropic sea around me, and now to awaken with the shrill, piercing gale shrieking through the rigging, and the yacht plunging headlong into watery valleys that threatened her with destruction, was a change indeed quite sufficient to stagger one.
I crawled out.
It required considerable agility to dress under such unsteady conditions, and I received more than one bruise from contact with the sides of my narrow quarters.
During my ownership of the yacht I had cruised in her tens of thousands of miles in every sea known upon the face of the globe—I had been caught in quite a goodmany violent gales, and even experienced a fierce typhoon in the treacherous China Sea.
Really, I could not remember any storm that had sprung upon us with greater suddenness and fiercer opening than this. Why had not the barometer given warning? Perhaps it had to some extent, but our departure from the harbor of Bolivar had been so hasty that even the prospect of a hurricane could not have held us.
And for the first time I felt fear.
Why was this? Experience is supposed to make men hardened; familiarity breeds contempt; and yet I actually trembled when the sturdy little vessel made an extraordinarily fierce plunge downward, filled with the dread that she would be overwhelmed and never rise again.
Why, I never could remember feeling this way before. A wild storm had seemed to arouse all the daring elements of my nature, until I could tie myself on deck and shout with the shrieking wind, actually mocking the curling, foam-crested breakers, as Ajax might have defied the lightning.
And now I trembled.
Ah! the secret was not hard to discover.
I was no longer the reckless rover, with a memory to drown; I had something to live for now, and life showed a rosy tint.
Besides, I was concerned, not on account of myself, but for the precious one who was my guest—for Hildegarde.
When I made my way on deck I found that a wonderful transformation had taken place in those few hours.
Where I had sat and dreamed, and where she had come to me in the still watches of the night, like a spirit from another world, no man could stay and live—the awning had been stowed away, the easy-chairs put below in the cabin, and now the deck was reeking with spume blown from the monstrous waves that rushed on higharound us, as if eager to swallow the boat that seemed so like a cork on the angry sea.
I was greatly impressed by the sight, which was certainly wild enough to please the most ardent lover of stormy scenery.
Once I had been inclined that way, but now a peaceful calm would have satisfied me better.
The first person discovered was Robbins.
He had secured himself with a twist of rope, and was watching the behavior of the yacht.
Accustomed as he was to an entirely different class of vessel, I could see even in the gray light of early morning that my old friend looked worried.
He had a poor opinion of the quality of resistance in a well-made little yacht.
I managed to get near him, when a wave that washed across the deck threatened to carry me over the side, only that Robbins’ strong hand grasped my arm and gave me assistance until I, too, had the use of his rope.
Conversation was difficult in the midst of such confusion and deafening clamor; we were compelled to shout in order to be heard.
I assured Robbins I had passed through as bad blows as this without material damage, and that unless some wretched accident happened, there was no reason why we should not come out safely.
Cummings hove in sight.
He looked dreadfully anxious, for this was the first time he had been in full charge of the boat in a storm; our captain had always managed everything before.
Still, Cummings knew his business, and was hardly the man to get rattled.
I told him he must do whatever he considered safest, regardless of any plans we might have made on the previous night, even if it was to run once more for thesnug harbor of Bolivar, where we could laugh at the hurricane; and that if we needed any help to call upon Robbins, who was ready and willing to stand by.
Perhaps my faith in him gave Cummings a little more confidence; he affirmed what I already suspected, that our course had been changed some time before to meet the fury of the storm, and that we were working our way to the north as near as he could hit it.
It was best, he said, to keep clear of the coast, which was always treacherous; we would be wiser to take our chances out in the open sea; and Robbins earnestly coincided with this sailor-like declaration.
When the two of them started for the wheelhouse to consult the charts and find where the present course was apt to bring us, I remembered those below.
Wet almost to the skin, I made my way into the cabin.
Thorpe met me eagerly.
He no longer looked the fop—a sort of terror gleamed in his eyes, for which he might easily be excused, since he was not much of a sailor, and the awful convulsions of the yacht were enough to arouse alarm in the bravest heart.
But I knew there was something of the true metal in his constitution, which would come to the surface, now that one he loved was placed in peril of her life.
“This is awful, Kenneth!” he exclaimed, as he seized hold of me. “Why, you’re as wet as a drowned rat! Have you been overboard, man?”
I hastened to assure him in the negative, and explained that the seas occasionally washed the deck, which would save my men the labor.
“What d’ye call this?” he demanded.
I said it was a little blow, possibly a norther, such as sweeps over the Gulf of Mexico at this season of the year.
“You mean a hurricane,” he insisted.
It was neither the time nor place to explain the vast difference, nor indeed could I see that it mattered in the least, if the storm possessed all the violent energies of one of those twisters that in August come whirling out of their nursery among the Windward Islands, ravage the West Indies, knock Galveston into splinters, and travel up the Mississippi Valley, to eventually sweep out to sea off the Newfoundland Banks, everywhere carrying death and destruction in their wake. Storms at sea are pretty much alike to the average mind, when they possess all the attributes of grim destruction.
“How does Diana stand it?” I shouted, as he staggered into my arms when the yacht made another sudden plunge.
“Good Heavens! I thought we were gone. Diana—she refuses to come out, though dressed. I left her moaning and praying. Perhaps you might give her a little encouragement.”
I did not like the task, still it seemed my duty, and I could not well refuse.
In fact, as matters stood, I really needed encouragement myself, for I feared the worst.
This was a turn with a vengeance—to have these friends come on board just the night before to enjoy a charming cruise among the glorious islands of the West Indies, and have, by the next morning, to solemnly assure them that I had faith to believe the yacht might weather the tempest, and by a rare bit of luck we might be saved.
Such a condition of affairs rather took the starch out of me—the change was so rapid.
I followed him to his stateroom—he had fastened the door back, and great disorder seemed to reign within, though this was nothing more than might have been expected under the circumstances.
Diana sprang up at sight of me.
She was indeed the picture of fear, so different from her usual coquettish self that I was amazed at the change.
Of course, I endeavored to look smiling and cheerful, a hard task indeed when the little vessel seemed twisting and creaking under our very feet as though she might be torn asunder by the violence of the waves.
Perhaps I overshot the mark; I imagine my smile must have been close on the borders of a graveyard one.
At any rate, it did not calm Diana, who clung to my arm, beseeching me wildly to tell her the truth—declaring that she was not ready to die, and begging me to save her.
Gustavus conquered his own fear, and became a man—he threw his arms around his wife and tried to calm her frenzy.
I knew it would wear out by degrees, to be succeeded perhaps by that stony despair even more terrible to behold where the horrified soul, hovering on eternity, looks out from burning eyes, and cries for the succor no man may give.
I turned away, sick at heart.
Was this, then, the end?—were we all doomed to meet our fate there amid the wild surges; or would Heaven be merciful and spare us?
Then I remembered Hildegarde, and with my heart in my throat, so to speak, I walked over to the door of her stateroom and pounded upon it.