The shadow, cloaked from head to foot,Who keeps the keys of all the creeds.
As she walked back to Grosvenor Gardens, Eve reflected with some satisfaction that the Ingham-Bakers had left Mrs. Harrington’s hospitable roof. From this shelter they had gone forth into a world which is reputed cold, and has nevertheless some shelter still for such as are prepared to cringe to the overbearing, to flatter the vain, to worship riches.
Eve wanted time to think over her new position, to reflect with satisfaction over her new independence, for the Caballero Challoner, if he had bequeathed little else, had left to her a very active pride. She knew so little of the world that she never paused to wonder why John Craik should have made her a proposal which could hardly be beneficial to himself. She was innocent enough to think that the good things of this world are given just where and when they are wanted.
Captain Bontnor was the chief object of her thoughts, and she was already dreaming of restoring him to Malabar Cottage and his bits of things. So engrossed was she in these reflections, that she noticed nothing unusual in the face of the butler who opened the door which had shut upon Luke FitzHenry some years before.
“I’m glad you’re back, miss,” he said gravely.
Something in his tone--cold and correct--caught Eve’s attention.
“Why?” she asked, and a consoling knowledge that theTerrificwas safe in Chatham Dockyard leapt into her mind.
“Mrs. Harrington’s been took rather bad, miss.”
The man’s manner said more than his words. Eve hurried upstairs to Mrs. Harrington’s bedroom. She tapped at the door and went in without waiting. There was a strong smell of ammonia in the air. The blinds were half lowered, and in the dim light Eve did not see very clearly. Presently, from the depths of a huge four-poster bed, she descried a pair of keen eyes--the face of Mrs. Harrington. The face, the eyes, the mind were alive, the body was stricken; it was almost dead already. Mrs. Harrington looked down at the shapeless limbs beneath the coverlet with something like fear in her eyes, something of the expression of a dog that has been run over. This woman meant to die hard.
Eve knew little of life, but she was no stranger to death. She recognised our last enemy in the grey face beneath the canopy of the four-poster.
“Where have you been so long, child?” said Mrs. Harrington querulously, “leaving me to these fools of servants. I have been unwell, but I’m better now. They’ve sent for the doctor. I shall be better presently. I have no pain, only--only a sort of numbness.”
She looked down at her left hand, which lay outside the coverlet, and fear was in her eyes. She had defied men too long to be afraid of God, but she did not want to die; she had too keen an enjoyment for the good things of this world.
Eve came to the bedside.
Mrs. Harrington’s face was drawn together in anger. She was annoyed that Death should have come for her, and, true to herself, she insulted him by deliberately ignoring his presence. There was something defiant in her cold eyes still, something unbeaten, although she knew that there was no one on her side. The general feeling was against her. So far as the world was concerned, Death could have her.
Eve turned away from the bed and faced the doctor, who was coming into the room with Mrs. Harrington’s maid. No one displayed the slightest emotion. A selfish life and a happy death are rarely vouchsafed to the same person. The doctor did not ask Eve to stay, so she went downstairs and wrote to Fitz, sending the note round to his rooms in Jermyn Street by a servant. It was the second time in her life that she had sent for Fitz.
When the doctor came downstairs, Eve went out into the hall. He pointed with his finger to the room from which she came, and followed her back there. He was a middle-aged man, educated to the finger-tips - all science and no heart.
“Are you a relation of Mrs. Harrington’s?” he inquired.
“We are distantly connected,” answered Eve.
The doctor was not giving much attention to her answer. He had a habit of tapping his teeth with his thumbnail, which made Eve dislike him at sight.
“Has she any one else?” he asked. “Any one who--cares?”
He was quite without the intention of being rude but he was absorbed in his profession, and had a large practice. He wanted to go.
“She has a nephew. I have sent for him.”
The doctor nodded. He glanced at Eve, then he said quietly -
“She will live about an hour. She wants me to come again and bring another man. I will do it, although it is useless. There are some things money cannot buy.”
With a quick mechanical smile he was gone.
Eve went upstairs again to the room where Mrs. Harrington was fighting her last fight. As she passed up the stairs, she noticed two letters on the hall table awaiting postage; one was addressed to Mrs. Ingham-Baker, the other to Luke, at Malta.
Mrs. Harrington had ordered the blinds to be pulled up, and the daylight showed her face to be little changed. It had always been grey; the shadows on it now were grey; the eyes were active and bright. It was only the body that was dying; Mrs. Harrington’s mind was bright and keen as ever.
“That doctor is a fool,” she said. “I have told him to come back and bring Sir James Harlow with him. And will you please send and tell Fitz that I should like to see him? You must arrange to stay on a few days until I am better. Captain Bontnor will have to do without you. My servants are not to be trusted alone. I shall want you to keep them in order; they require a tight reign.”
“I have sent for Fitz,” said Eve.
“Why?” snapped Mrs. Harrington. “To come and make love to you? Leave that to Agatha. She has been teaching them both to do that for the last three years. Her idea is to marry the one who gets my money. I’ve known that all along.”
Eve’s dark eyes hardened suddenly. She could not believe what the doctor had told her five minutes earlier. Five minutes - one-twelfth part of Mrs. Harrington’s life ebbed away.
“Pray do not talk like that,” said the girl quietly.
Mrs. Harrington’s cold grey eyes fell before Eve’s glance of mingled wonder and contempt; her right hand was feebly plucking at the counterpane.
Far below, in the basement, a bell rang, and soon after there was a step on the stairs.
“Who is that?” inquired Mrs. Harrington.
“Fitz.”
The dying woman was looking at the door with an unwonted longing in her eyes.
“You seem to know his step,” she said, with a jealous laugh.
Eve said nothing. The door opened, and Fitz came in.
Mrs. Harrington was the first to speak.
“I am not well this morning, dear,” she said. “I sent for you because I have a few things I want you to do for me.”
“Pleasure,” murmured Fitz, glancing at Eve. He either did not know how ill Mrs Harrington was, or he did not care. It is probable that these two persons now at the dying woman’s bed were the only two people who would be in any degree sorry at her death.
Eve, with a woman’s instinct, busied herself with the pillow - with the little adjuncts of a sick-room which had already found their way to the bedside. She looked at Mrs. Harrington’s face, saw the hard eyes fixed on Fitz, and something in the glance made her leave the room.
“Just leave me alone,” the dying woman said peevishly as Eve went away; “I don’t want a lot of people bothering about.”
But Fitz stayed, and when Eve had closed the door the sudden look of cunning that came over the faded face did not appear to surprise him.
“Quick!” whispered Mrs. Harrington, “quick! I do not believe I am dying, as that doctor said I was, but it is better to make sure. Open the left-hand drawer in the dressing-table; you will find my keys.”
Fitz obeyed her, bringing the bunch of keys, rusty and black from being concealed in a thousand different hiding-places.
“Now,” she said, “open that desk; it was--your father’s. Bring it here. Be quick! Some one may come.”
Her shrivelled fingers fumbled hastily among some old papers. Finally she found an envelope, brown with age, on which was written, in her own spidery handwriting, “Recipe for apple jelly.”
She thrust the envelope into Fitz’s hands, and he smilingly read the superscription.
“That’s nothing,” she explained sharply; “that’s only for the servants. One cannot be too careful. Inside there is some money. I saved it up. It will help to furnish your new cabin.”
“Thank you,” said Fitz, looking critically at the envelope. “But--”
“You must take it,” she interrupted; “it is the only money I ever saved.” She broke off with a malicious laugh. “All these fools thought I was rich,” she went on. “They have been scheming and plotting to get my money. There is no money. That is all there is. You and Luke were the only two who never thought about it. You are both like your father. Here, shut the desk up again. Put it back on the table. Now hide the keys--left-hand corner, under the box of hairpins.”
Fitz obeyed her and came back towards the bed. His large mind felt a sudden contempt for this petty and mean woman. He did not understand her, and the contempt he felt for her in some way hurt him. He was afraid of what she was going to say next.
“But,” she said, “if I get better you must give me the money back.”
Fitz gave a little laugh. Something prompted him to open the envelope and look at the contents. There were five notes of ten pounds each. The rich Mrs. Harrington of Grosvenor Gardens had saved fifty pounds, and she lay on her death-bed watching Fitz count this vast hoard with a quiet deliberation. In its way it was a tragedy--the grimmest of all--for its dominant note was the contemptibility of human nature.
“I do not want the money. I should not keep it under any circumstances.”
“What would you do with it?” she asked sharply.
“Give it to a charity.”
“No, no, you must not do that; they are all swindles!”
In her eagerness she tried to sit up, and fell back with a puzzled look on her face, as if some one had struck her.
“Here,” she gasped, “give it to me! give it to me!”
She clutched the envelope in her unsteady hands, and suddenly her jaw dropped.
Fitz ran to the door. On the stairs were the two doctors, followed closely by Eve. In a moment the doctors were at the bedside.
“Yes,” said one of them--the younger of the two--and he glanced at his watch. “I gave her an hour.”
The elder man took the dead woman’s hand in his. He released the envelope from her grasp and read the superscription, “Recipe for apple jelly.” With a grave smile he handed the envelope to Eve as Fitz took her out of the room.
They went downstairs together, and both were thinking of D’Erraha. They went into the library, which was silent and gloomy. Fitz had not spoken yet, but she seemed to understand his silence, just as she had understood it once before. She had told him then. She did not do so now.
Eve was not thinking of the dead woman upstairs. This death came to her only as a faint reflection of the one great grief which had cut her life in two--as great griefs do. She was perhaps wondering how it was that Fitz seemed always to come to her at those moments when she could not do without him. She was more probably not thinking at all, but resting as it were in the sense of complete safety and protection which this man’s presence gave her.
There was a little silence, broken only by the sound of street traffic faintly heard through the plate-glass windows. Fitz was looking at her, his blue eyes grave and searching. This was not a man to miss his opportunity, this youngest commander on the list.
“Eve,” he said, “I used to think at D’Erraha that you cared for me.”
“I have always cared for you,” she answered, with a queer little smile, half bold, half shy.
So Love came in at the windows as Death crept up the stairs.
Before long they heard the doctors go away, but they heeded not. They only forgot each other when Cipriani de Lloseta came into the room. The Spaniard’s quick eyes read something in Eve’s face. He looked sharply at Fitz, but he said nothing of what he saw.
“So our dear lady has been taken from us,” he said quietly, with an upward jerk of the head.
Fitz nodded. Cipriani de Lloseta walked to the window and quietly drew down the blind.
“So falls the curtain,” he said, “on the little drama of my humble life.”
He turned and looked from one to the other with that sudden warmth of love which either of them seemed able to draw from him.
“Some day,” he said, “I will tell you--you two - the story, but not now.”
He stepped forward and raised Eve’s fingers to his lips. A quaint, half-Spanish grace marked the picture of Southern chivalry.
“My child,” said Lloseta, “may Heaven always bless you!” And he left them.
What have we made each other?
The cathedral bells were calling good Papists to their morning devotion as theCroonahmoved into Valetta harbour. No sooner did her black prow appear between the pier heads than a score of boats left the steps, their rowers gesticulating, quarrelling, laughing among themselves with Maltese vivacity.
One boat, flying theCroonah’shouseflag, made its way more leisurely through the still, clear water. This boat was bringing mails to theCroonah, and in the letter-bag Mrs. Harrington’s last missive to Luke had found its place. This letter had been posted by the well-trained footman while Eve and Fitz stood at Mrs. Harrington’s bedside. Before it was stamped at the district office the hand that wrote it was still. And it contained mischief. Even after her death Mrs. Harrington brought trouble to the man whose life she had spoilt by her caprice. The letter ran--
“DEAR LUKE,--Just a line to tell you that you may bring your portmanteau straight up to Grosvenor Gardens when your ship arrives in London. I read of your fortunate escape from the cyclone, and congratulate you. I dare say I shall be having a few friends to stay when you are with me, so you need not fear dulness. Yours affectionately,“MARIAN HARRINGTON.
“P.S.--I always suspect you of having, consciously or unconsciously, possessed yourself of the affections of a young lady who shall be nameless. A word to the wise: make good use of your opportunities, for there are other aspirants in the field--a certain brilliant young naval officer not unknown to you. Moreover his chance appears to be a good one. You must waste no more time.”
It happened that Luke FitzHenry was in a dangerous mood when he read this letter. He had been up half the night. The captain had been cross-grained and unreasonable. Even the mildest of us has his moments of clear-sightedness when he sees the world and the hollowness thereof. Luke saw this and more when he had read Mrs. Harrington’s evil communication. He seemed to have reached the end of things, when his present life became no longer tolerable. It must be remembered that this man was passionate and very resolute. Moreover he had been handicapped from the beginning of his life by a tendency to go wrong. He was not a good subject for ill-fortune.
It was his duty to go ashore with papers to be delivered at the agent’s office. He delivered his papers and then he went to the cable office. He telegraphed the single word “Milksop” to Willie Carr in London. When he got back to theCroonah, worn out, dirty, and morose, the passengers were not yet astir. He had an unsatisfactory breakfast, and went to his cabin for a few hours’ necessary sleep. He had given way to a great temptation, not as the weak give way, on the spur of the moment, with hesitation, but as a strong man--strong, even in his weaknesses.
He did it after mature deliberation--did it thoroughly and carefully, without the least intention of regretting it afterwards. He was desperate and driven. He could not think of life without Agatha, and he did not see why he should be called upon to do so. Ill fortune had dogged him from his childhood. He had borne it all, morosely but without a murmur. He was going to turn at last. TheCroonahmust go. She was well insured, he knew that. That the cargo was fully covered against loss he could safely suppose. As to the passengers and the crew, none of them should suffer; he thought he was a clever enough sailor for that.
So he laid him down in his little cabin to sleep, while the sun rose over the blue Mediterranean, while some passengers went ashore and others came on board, while the single word “Milksop” was spelt over a continent; and he was still sleeping when the anchor was jerked up from its muddy bed, and the watchers on pier and harbour looked their last on the grand oldCroonah.
A breeze was blowing out in the open, one of those bright westerly breezes that bring a breath of the Atlantic into the Mediterranean, and often make the short passage from Malta to Gibraltar the worst part of the voyage from India to the Channel.
None of the passengers took any interest in the morose second officer, and few of them remarked his absence from table during the two days’ passage. TheCroonaharrived at Gibraltar after dark, took her mails and passengers on board, and proceeded down the Straits about eight o’clock in the evening. It was late autumn, and the breeze from the cool Atlantic still hurried in over the parched lands of Africa and Southern Europe.
Tarifa light was sighted and left twinkling behind. Trafalgar stared out of the darkness ahead, and in its turn was left behind. A few of the passengers had recovered their Mediterranean ill-usage sufficiently to dine in the Straits, but the Atlantic swell soon sent them below. The decks were deserted, for many of these people were returning to England after long years in India, and the first chill northern breeze they met made them shiver while it delighted them.
Luke FitzHenry was on the bridge from eight o’clock till midnight, motionless at his post--a mere navigating machine, respected and feared by all who worked with him, understood of none.
When midnight came he exchanged a few words with the first officer, and together they superintended the shaking out of the foresails before the watch went below. The wind was on the quarter, strong and steady. Almost immediately the good steamer felt the canvas, leaning gently over to leeward, adding another mile to her great speed. The sea was black, and the air seemed to be full of the sounds of waves breaking and hissing. Ahead the mast-head and the side-lights shone down on the face of the waters and lighted up an occasional white-capped wave. In the air, brisk and masterful, there was a sense of purpose and tension which sailors understand, while mere printed words cannot convey it to landsmen. It was a very dark night.
“St. Vincent,” said Luke tersely, as he turned to leave the bridge. The first officer, a man grown old at his post, followed the direction of his junior’s gaze, but some seconds elapsed before he distinguished the light twinkling feebly low down on the horizon.
Luke went to his cabin and lay down on his berth all dressed. He was due on the bridge again at four o’clock. TheCroonahsailed by time-table, subjecting the winds and seas, as the great steamships do nowadays. Luke FitzHenry had calculated this to a minute before he telegraphed the single word “Milksop” to Willie Carr in London.
He was on the bridge a few minutes before eight bells rang, and found the captain. He knew his chief’s customs. He knew that this wise old sailor was in the habit of accumulating as much sleep in his brain as possible before passing Ushant light, because he lived on the bridge when theCroonahhad once turned eastward up the Channel. Whenever the captain took a night’s rest, he broke it at four o’clock, at the change of the watch. He stood muffled in a big coat over his pyjamas, and exchanged a few words with his subordinates. After the first officer had gone below, Luke went to his post at the starboard end of the bridge, while the captain walked slowly backwards and forwards. They remained thus for half an hour. The ship was all quiet. The breeze had fallen a little. There was as yet no sign of daybreak towards the east. A steamer passed, showing a red light and a white mast-head light.
Presently the captain paused in his walk near to Luke.
“Call me,” he said, “when you raise the Burling light.”
Luke answered with a monosyllable, and the elder sailor went towards the ladder.
No one had heard the order given. Luke followed him to the ladder, and watched him go down into the darkness. They had sailed together six years in fair weather and foul; they had fought and conquered a cyclone in the Bay together from that bridge; but Agatha Ingham-Baker was stronger than these things. Woman is the strongest thing in a man’s life.
There was still no sign of daylight, no faintest gleam in the eastern sky, when the Burling light was sighted right ahead. The look-out on the forecastle did not “sing out” the lights on board theCroonah, but sent a companion aft to the bridge with the report. This was done for the comfort of the passengers.
Luke altered the course half a point. From the wheel-house the men could not see the light, which was hidden by the fore-mast. Luke went aft and looked at the patent log. His calculations were all correct. He glanced at his watch--he had to go to the wheel-house to do this, and the binnacle-lights showed his face to be still and pale. He moved and had the air of a man upon whose shoulders an immense responsibility was weighing. He was going to wreck theCroonah, but he had two hundred and ninety lives to save. He carefully studied the eastern sky. He did not want daylight yet.
The Burling light is not a very big one--not so big, some mariners think, as it should be. It is visible twenty-five miles away; but Luke’s knowledge told him that in thick and misty weather, such as hovers over this coast in a westerly wind, the glare of the revolving lamp could not be distinguished at a greater distance than ten or twelve miles.
TheCroonahraced on, a ship full of sleeping human beings. There came a faint blue tinge into the eastern sky, a gleam over the eastern sea.
The Burling light--an eye looking round into the darkness, seeming to open and shut sleepily--grew brighter and brighter. It was right ahead! it rose as they approached it until it stood right above the bowsprit.
Then Luke FitzHenry changed the course. TheCroonahturned her blunt prow half a point out into the Atlantic, and she raced on; she passed by Burling Island, leaving the slowly winking eye on her starboard quarter. Ahead lay the complete darkness of the north-west horizon.
Luke stood at his post, his eyes hidden by his binoculars. He was studying the horizon in front of him--in front of theCroonah. There was a little lump on the horizon, like the top of a mountain sticking out of the sea; this he knew to be the rock called the Great Farilhao. Again he altered the course, still seeking the Atlantic, another quarter point to the west. He was going to pass the Great Farilhao as he had passed the Burling, within a stone’s throw. This he actually did, the rugged outline of the barren rock standing out sharply against the eastern sky. There was now nothing ahead; the horizon lay before him, clear, unbroken.
Luke moved a few paces. He went and stood by the engine-room telegraph. The engines throbbed merrily, but the steamer was still asleep. There was no sound but the thud of the piston-rods and the whispering swirl of the water lashed by the huge screw.
TheCroonahraced on, her sails set, her engines working at full speed. Suddenly Luke FitzHenry grasped the handle of the engine-room signal. He wrenched it to one side--“Stand by.” Instantly the gong answered, “Stand by.” “Half speed ahead.”
And half speed ahead it was. Luke FitzHenry was clever even in his crime; he had three hundred lives to save. He stood motionless as a statue, gazing at the smooth unbroken water in front of him; he grasped the rail and set his teeth; he stood well back with his feet firmly planted. And there was a grinding crash. TheCroonahseemed to climb up into the air, then she stopped dead, and below--inside her--there was a long, rumbling crash, as if all that was inside her had been cast forward in confusion. She had run on to the sunken rocks that lie north-west of the Farilhoes.
A great silence followed and immediately the pattering of bare feet. A confused murmuring of voices rose from the saloon gangway--a buzzing sound, like that of a hive disturbed. A single voice rose in a shriek of mortal terror, and immediately there followed a chorus of confused shouts.
Luke already had his lips at the speaking-tube. He was telling the engineer on watch to steam ahead; he knew the danger of theCroonahslipping back into deep water and sinking.
In a marvellously short time the decks were thronged with people, some standing white-faced and calm in the dim light of early morning; others, mad with terror, rushing from side to side.
The strange part of it was that Luke remained alone on the bridge. The captain and the other officers were busy with the passengers. The second officer remained motionless at his post; he commanded the steersman by a wave of the arm to stay at the wheel, although he knew that theCroonahwould never answer her helm again; her travelling days were done.
In the dim light now increasing momentarily, Luke FitzHenry looked down upon the wildly confused decks and saw discipline slowly assert itself. He saw the captain commanding by sheer force of individual power; he saw the quartermasters form in line across the deck and drive the passengers farther aft, leaving room to get out the boats.
In a few moments--in a marvellously short space of time--the work of saving life began. A boat was lowered, the crew slipped into their places, and a certain number of lady passengers were hastily handed down the gangway. The first boat eased away. The oars were thrown out. It was off, and some of the passengers cheered. One can never tell what men, especially Englishmen, may do when they actually see death face to face. The boat was headed to the south-east, towards the Carreiro do Mosteiro, on Burling Island, the only possible landing-place.
Luke felt a touch on his arm and turned sharply. It was a quartermaster, breathless but cool.
“Captain wants you, sir. I’ll take the bridge.”
Luke turned to obey orders.
“Keep her steaming full speed ahead,” he said, jerking his head towards the engine-room telegraph.
“Ay, sir,” the man replied.
“Until the water gets to the furnaces,” he added to himself, “and then we’re dead men.”
Luke ran lightly down the iron ladder to the lower bridge, which was deserted. From thence he made his way aft to the quarter-deck. As he passed the saloon staircase he ran against two women; one was dragging the other, or attempting to do so, towards the group of passengers huddled together amidships.
“You go,” the younger woman was saying, “if you want to. I will wait.”
Luke stopped. The elder woman was apparently wild with terror. She had not even stopped to put on a dressing-gown. Her thin grey hair fluttered in the breeze. She was stout and an object of ridicule even with death clutching at her.
“Go on, mother,” said the younger woman, with contempt in her voice.
“Agatha!” cried Luke. “You here?”
“Yes; we came on board at Malta.”
Our life is given us as a blank;Ourselves must make it blest or curst.
A man came running along and clutched at Luke’s arm.
“Captain wants you, sir, immediate!” he cried.
“All right,” answered Luke. “Here, take this lady and put her into a boat.”
Mrs. Ingham-Baker was clinging to him.
“Luke,” she said firmly, “you must provide us with a lifeboat--a safe one. I will not stand this neglect.”
“Here!” cried Luke to the man. “Take her away.”
“You come along o’ me, marm,” said the man, with a twinkle in his eye. “I’ll pervide ye with a lifeboat, bless yer heart!”
And in the dim light of the saloon stairhead lamp, Luke and Agatha were left facing each other.
“Why did you not let me know you were coming?” he asked sharply. He looked round with haggard eyes; they were quite alone.
“I had no time. We just caught the boat by an hour.”
She was singularly quiet. Both of them seemed to forget that every moment lost increased the danger of their position.
“Why did you come?” he asked.
She looked at him, and there was that in her eyes that makes men mad.
“Because I could not stay away from you.”
His breath came sharply with a catch.
For a few moments they forgot such things as life and death. They did more, they defied death; for surely such love as this is stronger than the mere end of life. Again it was the possibility of something good and something strong that lurked hidden behind the worldliness of Agatha Ingham-Baker, and Luke FitzHenry, of all men, alone had the power of bringing that possibility to the surface.
All around them the wind moaned and shrieked through the rigging; the waves, beating against the sheer side of the doomedCroonah, filled the air with a sound of great foreboding--the deep voice of an elemental power that knows no mercy. Within twenty feet of them men and women were struggling like dumb and driven animals for bare life--struggling, shouting, quarrelling over a paltry precedence of a minute or so in going to the boats; within a hundred yards of them, out over the dark waters, Agatha’s mother, thrown from an overturned boat, was struggling her last struggle, with her silly old face turned indignantly up to heaven. But they saw none of these things.
All the good men were wanted for the boats, and the captain, with two officers only and a few stewards, defended the gangway against the rush of the panic-stricken native crew.
“FitzHenry! FitzHenry!” the old captain shouted. “For God’s sake, come here!” For Luke alone was dreaded by the lascars.
But Luke and Agatha heeded nothing. These people, these lives, were nothing to them, for a passionate love is the acme of selfishness.
They heard the sounds, however; they heard the captain calling for the man who had never failed him.
“I wrecked her for you,” said Luke, in Agatha’s hungry ears. “I did it all for you.”
And at last the woman’s vanity was satisfied; it was thrown a sop that would suffice for its eternal greed. Luke had done this thing for her. She was quick enough to guess how and why, for she knew Willie Carr. She knew that good ships are thrown away for money’s sake. TheCroonahhad been thrown away for her sake--theCroonah, the patient, obedient servant to Luke’s slightest word, almost an animal in its mechanical intelligence, filling that place in the sailor’s heart that some men reserve for their horses and others for their wives. Women have been jealous of a ship before now. Eve was jealous of theTerrific; Agatha had always been jealous of theCroonah. And now the ship had been thrown away for her, and with his ship Luke had cast away his unrivalled reputation as a seaman, his honour as a gentleman, his conscience. He was a criminal, a thief, a murderer for Agatha’s sake. She, true to her school, to her generation, to her training, was proud of it; for she was one of those unhappy women who will not have their lovers love honour more.
There was a sudden roar far down in the bowels of the vessel, and immediately volumes of steam issued from every skylight. The inrushing sea had broken down the bulk-heads, the water had reached the engine-rooms. In an instant Luke was alive to the danger--the good sailor that was within the man all awake. His trained ears and the tread of his feet on the deck told him that the screw was still.
“Come,” he cried to Agatha, “you must get away in the next boat.”
But Agatha resisted his arm. That which had hitherto been mere pertness in her manner and carriage had suddenly grown into a strong determination. The woman was cool and fearless.
“Not without you,” she answered. “I will not leave the ship until you do.”
“I must stay till the last,” he said.
She looked at him with a little smile, for women love courage, though it sometimes frightens them. She never dreamt of danger to either of them. Her trust in Luke was all-sufficient, without reserve, without hesitation.
“Then I will stay too.”
For a moment his iron nerve--a nerve which had deliberately planned all this destruction--wavered.
“Why did you not let me know you were coming?” he asked desperately.
“I had no time,” she answered, with a singular shortness, for she could not tell him that a letter from Mrs. Harrington to her mother--the companion to that received by Luke at Valetta--had brought about this sudden decision. She could not tell him that, egged on by a transparent hint from Mrs. Harrington that Luke was to be her heir, she and her mother had taken the first boat to Malta; that she had deliberately planned to marry him for the money that was to be his. Such a confession was impossible at that time; with his arms still round her, the mere thought of it nauseated her. For a moment, she saw herself as others had seen her--a punishment which for some women is quite sufficient.
At this moment a man came running along the deck--the same quartermaster who had taken charge of Mrs. Ingham-Baker. He was a man of no nerves whatever, and of considerable humour.
“Any more ladies?” he was shouting as he ran. “Any more for the shore?”
He laughed at his own conceit as he ran--the same fearless laugh with which he sent Mrs. Ingham-Baker down the gangway to her death. He paused, saw Luke and Agatha standing together beneath the lamp.
“Captain’s callin’ you like hell!” he cried. “Engine-room’s full. The old ship’s got it this time, sir.”
“All right, I know,” answered Luke curtly; and the man ran on, shouting as he went.
At this moment theCroonahgave a shiver, and Luke looked round hastily. He ran to the rail and looked over with a quick sailor’s glance fore and aft. He turned towards Agatha again, but before he could reach her the steamer gave a lurch over to starboard. The deck seemed to rise between them. For a moment Agatha stood above him, then she half ran, half fell, down the short steep incline into his arms. Luke was ready for her, with one foot against the rail--for the deck was at an angle of thirty and more; no one could stand on it. He caught her deftly, and the breeze whirling round the deck-house blew her long hair across his face.
She never changed colour. There was the nucleus of a good and strong woman somewhere in Agatha Ingham-Baker. She clung to her lover’s arms and watched his face with a faith that nothing could shake. Thus they stood during three eternal seconds while theCroonahseemed to hesitate, poised on the brink. Then the great steamer slowly slid backwards, turning a little as she did so.
There was a sickening sound of gurgling water. TheCroonahwas afloat, but only for a few seconds. There was no time to lower another boat, and all on board knew it. There were not many remaining, for the passengers had all left the ship--the stokers, the engineers. Amidships the captain stood, surrounded by his officers and a few European sailors--faithful to the end. They had only one boat left, and that was forward, half under water--out of the question. So they stood and waited for the ship to sink beneath them.
In the distance, on the rough sea, now grey in the light of a sullen dawn, two boats were approaching, having landed their human freight on Burling Island.
“Now, my lads,” cried the captain, “if any of you are feeling like going overboard, over you go.”
One man slowly took off his coat. He stooped down and unlaced his boots, while the others watched him. It seemed to take him hours. The bows of the great steamer were almost buried in the broken seas; her stern was raised high in the air, showing the screw and the rudder.
The man who preferred to swim for it looked round with a strange smile into the quiet, rough faces of his undismayed companions. It seemed to be merely a choice of deaths.
“Well, mates,” he said, “so long!”
He dived overboard and swam slowly away.
Luke watched him speculatively. He knew that had he been alone he could have saved himself quite easily. With Agatha his chances were less certain. Agatha it was who had spoilt his careful calculation. Without conceit--for he was a stubbornly self-depreciating man--he knew that his absence from his captain’s side had just made the difference--the little difference between life and death--to twenty or thirty people. Had he been beside the captain and the other officers the native crew would have worked quietly and intrepidly; there would have been time for all hands to leave theCroonahbefore she slipped back into deep water.
The great steamer rolled slowly from side to side, like a helpless dumb animal in death agony, but she never righted herself, her decks were never level. At length she gave a roll to leeward and failed to recover herself. From some air-shaft there came a ceaseless whistle, deep and sonorous, like the emission of air from the bunghole of a beer-barrel. The engines were quite still, even the steam had ceased to rise.
Luke stood holding Agatha with one arm. He was watching the two boats making their way through the choppy sea towards them, and Agatha was watching his face.
TheCroonahwas now lying right over on her beam ends. Luke was standing on the wire network of the rail. Suddenly he threw himself backwards, and as they fell through space Agatha heard the captain’s voice quite distinctly, as from the silence of another world.
“She’s going!” he cried.
They struck the water together, Luke undermost, as he had intended. Agatha shut her eyes and clung to him. They seemed to go down and down. Then suddenly she heard Luke’s voice.
“Take a breath,” he gasped short and sharp. His voice was singularly stern.
With his disengaged hand he put her hair from her face. She opened her eyes and saw him smiling at her; she saw a huge piece of wreckage poised on the edge of a wave over his head; she saw it fall; she felt the shock of it.
Luke’s arm lost its hold; he rolled over feebly in the water, the blood running down his face, a sudden sense of sleep in his brain. He awoke again to find himself swimming mechanically, and opened his eyes. Close to him something white was floating half under water. Spread out over the surface of the wave Agatha’s long hair rose and fell like seaweed, almost within his grasp. It was like a horrible nightmare. He tried to reach it, but his arms were powerless; he could not make an inch of progress; he could only keep himself afloat. Agatha’s face was under water. On the rise of a wave he saw her little bare foot; it was quite still. He knew that she was dead, and the blessed sleepiness took him again, dragging him down.
. . . . .
So the last of theCroonahwas her good name written large on a yellow telegram form, nailed to the panel of the room technically known as the Chamber of Horrors at Lloyd’s.
Around this telegram a group of grave-faced men stood in silence, or with muttered words of surprise.
“TheCroonah!” they said, “theCroonah!” as if a pillar of their faith had fallen. For once no one had a theory: no carpet mariner could explain this thing.
Against the jamb of the window, behind them all, Willie Carr stood leaning.
“Done anything on her?” some one asked him.
“Yes, bad luck,” he answered. “Had friends on her, too.”
It was a long and expansive telegram, giving the list of the lost, twenty-nine in all, and among the names were mentioned Mrs. Ingham-Baker and her daughter.
“Ship in charge of second officer,” said the telegram. And lower down, at the foot of the fatal list: “Second officer picked up unconscious. Doing well.”
Suddenly Willie Carr moved, and, turning his back somewhat hastily, looked out of the window.
Fitz had just come into the dreary, fateful little room, conducted thither by the Admiralty agent. He read the telegram carefully from beginning to end.
“Luke on the Burlings!” he muttered, as he turned to go. “Luke! I can’t understand it. He must have been mad!”
And after all Fitz only spoke the truth; but it was a madness to which we are all subject.
There is no statute so sublimeAs Love’s in all the world; and e’en to kissThe pedestal is still a better blissThan all ambitions.
Three years later Eve was sitting on the terrace of the Casa d’Erraha. It was late autumn, and we who live in Northern latitudes do not quite realise what the autumn of Southern Europe is. Artists and others interested in the beauties of nature love a dry summer for the autumn that is sure to follow it. In Spain and in the islands of the Mediterranean every summer is dry, and every autumn is beautiful.
The Casa d’Erraha has not changed in any way--nothing changes in the Balearics. The same soft Southern odours creep up from the valley to battle with the strong resinous scent of the pines that crown the mountains.
Eve had been a year in D’Erraha--the whole of her married life. The Count de Lloseta placed the house at their disposal for the honeymoon. Fitz and she came to stay a month; they had remained twelve. It is often so in Majorca. A number of Spaniards came six hundred years ago--nine families; the nine names are there to-day.
Fitz had taken D’Erraha on the Minorcan rotas lease, so the old valley, the old house, was his.
Eve was not alone on the terrace, for a certain small gentleman, called Henry Cyprian FitzHenry, a prospective sailor, lay in a pink and perfect slumber on her lap. Henry Cyprian fully appreciated the valley of repose.
Eve was reading a letter--a lamentable scrawl, by the way--obviously the work of a hand little used to the pen.
“My dearie,” the letter ran; and it bore the address - Malabar Cottage, Somarsh, Suffolk.