"I think he is splendid," said Constance.
The wreck was now wholly demolished. The first big wave of the retreating tide enveloped the lighthouse and smote it with thunderous malice. Screams came from the women's quarters.
"Go, Enid," said Constance. "Tell them they have nothing to fear. They must expect these things to happen for nearly two hours. Tell them what dad said. Twenty-five years, you know."
Brave hearts! What infinite penetration inspired the man who first said "Noblesse oblige!"
Constance looked in at the kitchen. Pyne loomed through a fog of steam.
"Pay no heed to these—" she was interrupted by another mighty thump and cataract roar—"these blows of Thor's hammer," she cried.
"Play me for an anvil," he returned.
She descended to the depths, to reassure the men. Talking with shrill cheerfulness at each doorway was easy. It helped her to go down, down, feeling stone and iron trembling as every surge was hurled many feet above her head. At last, she stood on the lowest floor. Beneath her feet was naught but granite and iron bars. Here was solidity. How grateful to know of this firm base, rooted in the very world. Her heart leaped to her mouth, but not with fear. She was proud of the lighthouse, strong in the knowledge of its majestic strength.
Nevertheless, in this place, the source of her own sense of security, she found uneasiness among the men. They were all sailors in this lowest habitable region. Their pre-conceived ideas had been rudely reversed. The ship, the noble structure which defied the storm by yielding to its utmost fury, had for them no terrors. But the stark pillar which flinched from no assault bewildered them. It was impossible to believe that it could withstand the strain. Ha! Listen to that. The battering-ram of ocean applied to a thin shaft of stone. Surely it must be pounded into fragments.
Said one, with indefinite bellow amidst the black turmoil: "I can't stand this, mates."
"Up aloft for me!" cried another.
"Let's die with our eyes open, anyhow," chimed in a third.
But a light flashed in the rolling orbs of the man who was already on the stairs. Astounded, he drew back. Constance stood in their midst, a mere girl, radiant, smilingly unconcerned, addressing them in calm words broken only by the fitful noises.
"Sorry your quarters—so very unpleasant. Only last a—couple of hours. Twenty-five years—far worse gales. Want any more cocoa?"
"Thank you kindly, miss, we're quite comfortable." This from the man who wished to die with his eyes open.
"Please, miss, may we smoke?" said he who couldn't stand it.
Constance hesitated. Blithely unconscious that a whiff of mutiny had swept through the storm-tossed fold, she pondered the problem. She saw no harm in it.
"Yes," she said. "Smoke by all means. I will ask my father, and if it should be dangerous I will come back and let you know. In a few hours it will be daylight and if the sea falls he will come and open the door."
By sheer inspiration she had uttered the formula destined to annihilate the necromantic bluster of the hammering waves. Open the door! So this ponderous racket was a mere tidal trick, a bogey, which each passing minute would expose more thoroughly.
"All right, miss, an' Gawd bless yer," growled one who had not spoken hitherto. There was a chorus of approval. Constance gave a little gulp. The cultured and delicate lady lying in the bunk above had not spoken so.
"Indeed," she gasped, "God has blessed some of us this night."
Then she fled, further utterance failing her.
Nearer the sky, Brand tended the lamp and discussed matters with chief officer Emmett. The sailor, with the terse directness of his class, told how theChinookhad made an excellent voyage from New York until she ran into bad weather about four hundred miles west of the Lizard.
"It seems to me," he said, "as if we dropped onto the track of that hurricane after it had curved away to the norrard, and that the d——d thing swooped down on us again when we were abreast of the Bishop Light."
Brand nodded. This surmise agreed with his own theory of the storm, as indicated by the sea.
Mr. Emmett held out a clenched fist with thumb jerked towards the reef.
"I wouldn't breathe a word ifhewasn't gone," he said, "but the old man was drivin' her too hard. I knew it, and the chief knew it"—he meant the chief engineer—"but he wouldn't listen to either Mac or me. Fact is, he was fair crazy to set up a new record for the boat. She's been crossin' the Atlantic forty times a year for upwards of twenty years, and the recent alterations, although they added fifty feet to her length, only increased her engine-power in proportion."
"You surprise me," broke in Brand. "You speak as if theChinookwere nearly as old as this lighthouse, yet I have never even heard her name before."
"You know her well enough all the same," said the other ruefully. "This is her maiden voyage since she was altered; an' they rechristened her, too—always a d——d unlucky thing to do, I say. Bless your heart, man, she is the oldPrincess Royal. Eh? What's that?"
He guffawed mournfully at Brand's involuntary exclamation.
"Certain! Well, surely I ought to know. I have passed most of my service with the company in her, and when I took a crew to Cramp's to navigate her to New York after she was smartened up I little imagined I would see her laid by forever the next time we saw the lights of Old England. My goodness, even what was left of the old girl ought to know her way better'n that."
"But what did really happen?"
"Drivin' her, I tell you—drivin' her full pelt to land the mails at Southampton twelve hours ahead of schedule. With that awful sea liftin' her, and a shaft twenty feet longer, what could you expect? Poor Perkins! A rare hard worker, too. Now he's gone down with his ship an' over two hundred passengers an' crew."
"Judging by the number saved I feared that more were lost."
"It's the off season, you know. The passenger list was light. For the Lord's sake, think of what it might have been in May or June!"
"It is bad enough as it is. All has not ended with the disappearance of the vessel."
The sailor shot a sharp glance at Brand.
"You can't be thinkin' anyone was to blame—" he commenced. But Brand waved aside the fancied imputation.
"Blame!" he said. "With a broken shaft! In that whirlwind! No, no. I sent for you to talk over the new difficulty which has to be faced. There are food, water and fuel here for three men for two months. If you do a little sum you will find that the available stores on the basis of full rations will maintain eighty-one people for two days and a quarter."
"But we're only six miles from the mainland." Mr. Emmett had not yet grasped the true meaning of the figures.
"I have been here more than once for six weeks at a stretch, when, for all the assistance we could receive, we might as well have been within the Arctic Circle."
Again the sailor jerked his thumb towards the reef.
"Is it as bad as all that?" he queried anxiously.
"Yes."
"But six weeks. Good Lord!" Mr. Emmett had done the little sum.
"That is exceptional. A week is the average unless the unexpected happens, after a gale like this. And a week will test our endurance to the limit."
Mr. Emmett whistled softly. A grisly phantom was creeping at him. He shivered, and not from cold.
"By Jove!" he said. "What's to be done?"
"In the first place, you must help me to maintain iron discipline. To leave the rock today or tomorrow will be an absolute impossibility. On the next day, with luck and a steady moderation of the weather, we may devise some desperate means of landing all the active men or getting fresh supplies. That is in the hands of Providence. I want you to warn your officers, and others whom you can trust, either sailors or civilians. Better arrange three watches. My daughters will have charge of the stores. By going through the lists in the store-room I can portion out the rations for six days. I think we had better fix on that minimum."
"Of course I will back you up in every way," said Mr. Emmett, who felt chillier at this moment than at any time during the night. "I know you are acting wisely, but I admit I am scared at the thought of what may happen—if those days pass and no help is available."
Brand knew what would happen, and it was hard to lock the secret in his heart. He alone must live. That was essential, the one thing carved in stone upon the tablets of his brain, a thing to be fought out behind barred door, revolver in hand.
Whatever else took place, if men and women, perhaps his own sweet girls, were dying of thirst and starvation, the light must shine at night over its allotted span of the slumbering sea. There, on the little table beside him, lay the volume of Rules and Regulations. What did it say?
"The keepers, both principal and assistant, are enjoined never to allow any interests, whether private or otherwise, to interfere with the discharge of their public duties, the importance of which to the safety of navigation cannot be overrated."
There was no ambiguity in the words, no halting sentence which opened a way for a man to plead: "I thought it best." Those who framed the rule meant what they said. No man could bend the steel of their intent.
To end the intolerable strain of his thoughts Stephen Brand forced his lips to a thin smile and his voice to say harshly:
"If the worst comes to the worst, there are more than three thousand gallons of colza oil in store. That should maintain life. It is a vegetable oil."
Then Constance thrust her glowing face into the lighted area.
"Dad," she cried, cheerfully, "the men wish to know if they may smoke. Poor fellows! They are so miserable—so cold and damp and dreary down there. Please say 'Yes.'"
The purser, faithful to his trust, had secured the ship's books. He alone, among the survivors of theChinook, had brought a parcel of any sort from that ill-fated ship. The others possessed the clothes they wore, their money, and in some cases their trinkets.
Mr. Emmett suggested that a list of those saved should be compiled. Then, by ticking off the names, he could classify the inmates of the lighthouse and evolve some degree of order in the community.
It was found that there were thirty-seven officers and men, including stewards, thirty-three saloon passengers, of whom nineteen were women, counting the two little girls, and seven men and one woman from the steerage.
"It isn't usual, on a British ship, for the crew to bulk so large on the list," said Mr. Emmett huskily. "But it couldn't be helped. The passengers had to be battened down. They couldn't live on deck. We never gave in until the last minute."
"I saw that," said Brand, knowing the agony which prompted the broken explanation.
"An' not a mother's soul would have escaped if it wasn't for young Mr. Pyne," went on the sailor.
"Is that the name of the youngster who climbed the fore-mast?"
"That's him. It was a stroke of genius, his catching onto that way out. He was as cool as a cucumber. Just looked up when he reached the deck an' saw the lighthouse so near. Then he asked me for a rope. Planned the whole thing in a second, so to speak."
"He is not one of the ship's company?"
"No, sir, a passenger, nevvy of Cyrus J. Traill, the Philadelphian millionaire. Haven't you heard of Traill? Not much of a newspaper reader, eh? There was a lady on board, a Mrs. Vansittart, who was coming over to marry old Traill, so people said, and the weddin' was fixed to take place in Paris next week. Young Pyne was actin' as escort."
"Is she lost? What a terrible thing!"
The chief officer glanced down the purser's lists and slapped his thigh with much vehemence.
"No, by gosh! Here she is, marked O. K. Well, that beats the band."
"So the lad has discharged his trust to his uncle?"
Mr. Emmett was going to say something, but checked the words on his lips.
"Queer world," he muttered. "Queer world."
With that he devoted himself to planning out the watches. Soon he and the purser betook themselves to the depths with a roll-call. As they crept below gingerly—these sailor-men were not at home on companion ladders which moved not when the shock came—they met Enid, for the first time. She, coming up, held the swinging lantern level with her face. They hung back politely.
"Please come," she cried in her winsome way. "These stairs are too narrow for courtesy."
They stepped heavily onward. She flitted away. Emmett raised his lantern between the purser's face and his own.
"What do you think ofthat?" he whispered, awe-stricken.
The man of accounts smiled broadly.
"Pretty girl!" he agreed, with crudely emphatic superlatives.
Emmett shook his head. He murmured to himself: "I guess I'm tired. I see things."
Enid handed an armful of dry linen to the damp, steaming women in the lower bedroom. She was hurrying out; someone overtook her at the door. It was Mrs. Vansittart.
"Miss Brand," she said, with her all-sufficing smile, "give me one moment."
They stood in the dark and hollow-sounding stairway. The seas were lashing the column repeatedly, but the night's ordeal was nearly ended. Even a timid child might know now that the howling terror without had done its worst and failed. From the cavernous depths, mingling with the rumble of the storm, came the rhythm of a hymn. Those left in gloom by the withdrawal of Mr. Emmett's lantern were cheering their despondent souls.
Surprised, even whilst Enid awaited the older woman's demand, the listeners heard the words:
"Awake, my soul, and with the sunThy daily stage of duty run;Shake off dull sloth, and joyful riseTo pay thy morning sacrifice."
"Awake, my soul, and with the sunThy daily stage of duty run;Shake off dull sloth, and joyful riseTo pay thy morning sacrifice."
The rough tones of the men were softened and harmonized by the distance. It was a chant of praise, of thanksgiving, the offering of those who had been snatched from death and from mortal fear more painful than death.
The singing ceased as suddenly as it began. Mr. Emmett and the purser were warning the first watch.
The interruption did not seem to help Mrs. Vansittart. She spoke awkwardly, checking her thoughts as though fearful she might be misunderstood, or say too much.
"I am better," she explained, "quite recovered. I—gave up my bunk to one who needed it."
"I am sure we are all doing our best to help one another," volunteered Enid.
"But I am restless. The sight—of your sister—aroused vague memories. Do you mind—I find it hard to explain—your name is familiar. I knew—some people—called Brand—a Mr. Stephen Brand—and his wife."
She halted, seemingly at a loss. Enid, striving helplessly to solve the reason for this unexpected confidence, but quite wishful to make the explanation easier, found herself interested.
"Yes," she said. "That is quite possible, of course, though you must have been quite a girl. Mrs. Brand died many years ago."
Mrs. Vansittart flinched from the feeble rays of the lantern.
"That is so—I think I heard of—of Mrs. Brand's death—in London, I fancy. But—they had only one child."
Enid laughed.
"I am a mere nobody," she said. "Dad adopted me. I came here one day in June, nineteen years ago, and I must have looked so forlorn that he took me to his heart—thank God!"
Another solemn chord of the hymn floated up to them:
"Let all thy converse be sincere,Thy conscience as the noonday clear."
"Let all thy converse be sincere,Thy conscience as the noonday clear."
The rest of the verse evaded them. Probably a door was closed.
Mrs. Vansittart seemed to be greatly perturbed. Enid, intent on the occupation of the moment, believed their little chat was ended. To round it off, so to speak, she went on quickly:
"I imagine I am the most mysterious person living, in my early history, I mean. Mr. Brand saw me floating towards this lighthouse in a deserted boat. I was nearly dead. The people who had been with me were gone, either starved and thrown into the sea or knocked overboard during a collision, as the boat was badly damaged. My linen was marked 'E. T.' That is the only definite fact I can tell you. All the rest is guess-work. Evidently, nobody cared to claim me. And here I am."
Mrs. Vansittart was leaning back in the deep gloom, supporting herself against the door of the bedroom.
"What a romance!" she said, faintly.
"A vague one, and this is no time to gossip about it. Can I get you anything?"
Enid felt that she really must not prolong their conversation, and the other woman's exclamation threatened further talk.
"No, thank you. You'll excuse me, I know. My natural interest—"
But Enid, with a parting smile, was halfway toward the next landing, and Mrs. Vansittart was free to re-enter the crowded apartment where her fellow-sufferers were wondering when they would see daylight again. She did not stir. The darkness was intense, the narrow passage draughty, and the column thrilled and quivered in an unnerving manner. She heard the clang of a door above and knew that Enid had gone into the second apartment given over to the women. Somewhere, higher up, was the glaring light of which she had a faint recollection, though she was almost unconscious when unbound from the rope and carried into the service-room.
And at that moment, not knowing it, she had been near to Stephen Brand, might have spoken to him, looked into his face. What was he like, she wondered. Had he aged greatly with the years? A lighthouse-keeper! Of all professions in this wide world how came he to adopt that? And what ugly trick was fate about to play her that she should be cast ashore on this desolate rock where he was in charge? Could she avoid him? Had she been injudicious in betraying her knowledge of the past? And how marvelous was the likeness between Constance and her father! The chivalrous, high-minded youth she had known came back to her through the mists of time. The calm, proud eyes, the firm mouth, the wide expanse of forehead were his. From her mother—the woman who "died many years ago," when she, Mrs. Vansittart, was "quite a girl"—the girl inherited the clear profile, the wealth of dark-brown hair, and a grace of movement not often seen in Englishwomen.
Though her teeth chattered with the cold, Mrs. Vansittart could not bring herself to leave the vault-like stairway. Once more the hymn-singers cheered their hearts with words of praise. Evidently, there was one among them who not only knew the words but could lead them mightily in the tunes of many old favorites.
The opening of a door—caused by the passing to and fro of some of the ship's officers—brought to her distracted ears the concluding bars of a verse. When the voices swelled forth again she caught the full refrain:
"Raise thine eyes to heavenWhen thy spirits quail,When, by tempests driven,Heart and courage fail."
"Raise thine eyes to heavenWhen thy spirits quail,When, by tempests driven,Heart and courage fail."
Such a message might well carry good cheer to all who heard, yet Mrs. Vansittart listened as one in a trance, to whom the divinest promise was a thing unasked for and unrecognized. After passing through the greater peril of the reef in a state of supine consciousness, she was now moved to extreme activity by a more personal and selfish danger. There was she, a human atom, to be destroyed or saved at the idle whim of circumstance: here, with life and many things worth living for restored to her safe keeping, she saw imminent risk of a collapse with which the nebulous dangers of the wreck were in no way comparable. It would have been well for her could she only realize the promise of the hymn: "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."
Not so ran Mrs. Vansittart's jumble of thoughts. The plans, the schemes, the builded edifice of many years, threatened to fall in ruin about her. In such bitter mood there was no consolation. She sought not to find spiritual succor, but bewailed the catastrophe which had befallen her.
It assuredly contributed to that "affliction which is but for a moment," that Constance should happen just then to run up the stairs towards the hospital. Each flight was so contrived that it curved across two-thirds of the superficial area allotted to the stairway. Anyone ascending made a complete turn to the right-about to reach the door of the room on any given landing and the foot of the ladder to the next.
Hence, the girl came unexpectedly face to face with Mrs. Vansittart. The meeting startled her. This pale woman, so thinly clad in the demi-toilette of evening wear on ship-board, should not be standing there.
"Is anything wrong?" she cried, raising her lantern just as Enid did when she encountered the sailors.
"No, no," said the other, passing a nervous hand over her face. Constance, with alert intelligence, fancied she dreaded recognition.
"Then why are you standing here? It is so cold. You will surely make yourself ill."
"I was wondering if I might see Mr. Brand," came the desperate answer, the words bubbling forth with unrestrained vehemence.
"See my father?" repeated the girl. She took thought for an instant. The lighthouse-keeper would not be able to leave the lamp for nearly three hours. When dawn came, she knew he would have many things to attend to, signals to the Land's End, the arrangement of supplies, which he had already mentioned to her, and a host of other matters. Four o'clock in the morning was an unconventional hour for an interview, but time itself was topsy-turvy under the conditions prevalent on the Gulf Rock.
"I will ask him," she went on hurriedly, with an uncomfortable feeling that Mrs. Vansittart resented her judicial pause.
"Thank you."
To the girl's ears the courteous acknowledgment conveyed an odd note of menace. If the eyes are the windows of the soul surely the voice is its subtle gauge. The more transparently simple, clean-minded the hearer, the more accurate is the resonant impression. Constance found herself vaguely perplexed by two jostling abstractions. If they took shape it was in mute questioning. Why was Mrs. Vansittart so anxious to revive, or, it might be, probe, long-buried memories, and why did her mobile smile seem to veil a hostile intent?
But the fresh, gracious maidenhood in her cast aside these unwonted studies in mind-reading.
"He has so much to do," she explained. "Although there are many of us on the rock tonight he has never been so utterly alone. Won't you wait inside until I return?"
"Not unless I am in the way," pleaded the other. "I was choking in there. The air here, the space, are so grateful."
So Constance passed her. Mrs. Vansittart noted the dainty manner in which she picked up her skirts to mount the stairs. She caught a glimpse of the tailor-made gown, striped silk underskirt, well-fitting, low-heeled, wide-welted expensive boots. Trust a woman to see all these things at a glance, with even the shifting glimmer of a storm-proof lantern to aid the quick appraisement.
As the girl went out of her sight a reminiscence came to her.
"No wonder I was startled," she communed. "That sailor's coat she wears helps the resemblance. Probably it is her father's."
Then the loud silence of the lighthouse appalled her. The singing had ceased, or was shut off by a closed door. One might be in a tomb as surrounded by this tangible darkness. The tremulous granite, so cold and hard, yet alive in its own grim strength, the murmuring commotion of wind and waves swelling and dying in ghost-like echoes, suggested a grave, a vault close sealed from the outer world, though pulsating with the far-away existence of heedless multitudes. Thus, brooding in the gloom, a tortured soul without form and void, she awaited the return of her messenger.
Constance, after looking in at the hospital, went on to the service-room. Her father was not there. She glanced up to the trimming-stage, expecting to see him attending to the lamp. No. He had gone. Somewhat bewildered, for she was almost certain he was not in any of the lower apartments, she climbed to the little door in the glass frame.
Ah! There he was, on the landward side of the gallery. What was the matter now? Surely there was not another vessel in distress. However, being relieved from any dubiety as to his whereabouts she went back to the service-room and gave herself the luxury of a moment's rest. Oh, how tired she was! Not until she sat down did she realize what it meant to live as she had lived, and to do all that she had done, during the past four hours.
Her respite was of short duration. Brand, his oilskins gleaming with wet, came in.
"Hello, sweetheart, what's up now?" he cried, in such cheerful voice that she knew all was well.
"That was exactly what I was going to ask you," she said.
"TheFalconis out there," he replied, with a side nod towards Mount's Bay.
Constance knew that theFalconwas a sturdy steam-trawler, a bull-dog little ship, built to face anything in the shape of gales.
"They can do nothing, of course," she commented.
"No. I stood between them and the light for a second, and they evidently understood that I was on the lookout, as a lantern dipped seven times, which I interpreted as meaning that they will return at daybreak. Now they are off to Penzance again."
"They turned safely then?"
"Shipped a sea or two, no doubt. The wind is dropping, but the sea is running mountains high."
He had taken off his oilskins. Constance suddenly felt a strong disinclination to rise. Being a strong-willed young person, she sprang up instantly.
"I came to ask you if you can see Mrs. Vansittart," she said.
"Mrs. Vansittart!" he cried, with a genuine surprise that thrilled her with a pleasure she assuredly could not account for.
"Yes. She asked if she might have a word with you."
He threw his hands up in comic despair.
"Tell the good lady I am up to my eyes in work. The oil is running low. I must hie me to the pump at once. I have my journal to fill. If there is no sun I cannot heliograph and I have a host of signals to look up and get ready. And, a word in your ear, Connie dear. We will be 'at home' on the rock for the next forty-eight hours. Give the lady my very deep regrets and ask her to allow me to send for her when I have a minute to spare, some hours hence."
She kissed him.
"You dear old thing," she cried. "You will tire yourself to death, I am sure."
He caught her by the chin.
"Mark my words," he laughed. "You will feel this night in your bones longer than I. By the way, no matter who goes hungry, don't prepare any breakfast until I come to you. I suppose the kitchen is your headquarters?"
"Yes, though Enid has had far more of Mr. Pyne's company. She is cook, you know."
"Is Pyne there too?"
"He is laundry-maid, drying clothes."
"I think I shall like him," mused Brand. "He seems to be a helpful sort of youngster. That reminds me. Tell him to report himself to Mr. Emmett as my assistant,—if he cares for the post, that is."
He did not see the ready spirit of mischief that danced in her eyes. She pictured Mr. Pyne "fixing things" with Mr. Emmett "mighty quick."
When she reached the first bedroom floor Mrs. Vansittart had gone.
"I thought it would be strange if she stood long in this draught," mused Constance. She opened the door. The lady she sought was leaning disconsolate against a wall.
"My father—" she began.
"I fear I was thoughtless," interrupted Mrs. Vansittart. "He must be greatly occupied. Of course, I can see him in the morning before the vessel comes. Theywillsend a ship soon to take us off?"
"At the earliest possible moment," was the glad answer. "Indeed, dad has just been signalling to a tug which will return at daybreak."
There was a joyous chorus from the other inmates. Constance had not the requisite hardihood to tell them how they misconstrued her words.
As she quitted them she admitted to herself that Mrs. Vansittart, though disturbing in some of her moods, was really very considerate. It never occurred to her that her new acquaintance might have suddenly discovered the exceeding wisdom of a proverb concerning second thoughts.
Indeed, Mrs. Vansittart now bitterly regretted the impulse which led her to betray any knowledge of Stephen Brand or his daughter. Of all the follies of a wayward life, that was immeasurably the greatest, in Mrs. Vansittart's critical scale.
But what would you? It is not often given to a woman of nerves, a woman of volatile nature, a shallow worldling, yet versed in the deepest wiles of intrigue, to be shipwrecked, to be plucked from a living hell, to be swung through a hurricane to the secure insecurity of a dark and hollow pillar standing on a Calvary of storm-tossed waves, and then, whilst her senses swam in utmost bewilderment, to be confronted with a living ghost.
Yet that was precisely what had happened to her.
Fate is grievous at times. This haven of refuge was a place of torture. Mrs. Vansittart broke down and wept in her distress.
A primrose light in the east heralded a chilly dawn. The little world of the Gulf Rock bestirred itself in its damp misery at the news. The fresh watch, delighted by the prospect of activity, clattered up and down the iron stairs, opened all available windows, unclamped the door when Brand gave the order, and busied itself exceedingly with the desultory jobs which offered to so many willing hands.
It was now, by the nautical almanac, dead low water on the reef, but the strong southwesterly wind, hurling a heavy sea completely over the rocks, showed that the standards of war and peace differ as greatly in the matter of tides as in most other respects.
As the light increased it lost its first warm tinge. Steel gray were sky and water, sombre the iron-bound land, whilst the whereabouts of the sun became a scientific abstraction. Therefore, the heliograph was useless, and Brand, helped by some of the sailors, commenced to flaunt his flag-signals to the watching telescopes on the far-off promontory of the Land's End. TheFalcon, strong-hearted trawler, was plunging towards the rock when the first line of gay bunting swung clear into the breeze. And what a message it was—in its jerky phrases—its profound uncertainties—for communication by flag code is slow work, and Brand left much to an easier system of talk with the approaching steamer.
"Chinook—New York to Southampton—struck reef during hurricane—propeller shaft broken—78 survivors in lighthouse—captain, 201 passengers, officers and crew—lost with ship."
"Chinook—New York to Southampton—struck reef during hurricane—propeller shaft broken—78 survivors in lighthouse—captain, 201 passengers, officers and crew—lost with ship."
The awful significance of the words sank into the hearts of the signallers. For the first time, the disaster from which, by God's Providence, they had emerged safely became crystallized into set speech. Seventy-eight living out of two hundred and eighty who might have lived! This was the curt intelligence which leaped the waves to fly over the length and breadth of the land, which sped back to the States to replace the expected news of a safe voyage, which thrilled the civilized world as it had not been thrilled for many a day.
Not a soul in the lighthouse gave thought to this side of the affair. All were anxious to reassure their loved ones, but, in their present moribund condition, they could not realize the electric effect of the incident on the wider world which read and had hearts to feel.
Even whilst Stephen Brand was signalling to theFalcon, with little white flags quickly extemporized as soon as she neared the Trinity buoy, newspaper correspondents ashore were busy at the telegraph-office, and their associates on the trawler were eagerly transcribing the lighthouse-keeper's words wherewith to feed to fever heat the sensation which the night had provided for the day.
Brand, foreseeing the importance of clearness and brevity, had already written out a full draft of his detailed message.
Faithful to his promise, Stapleton was acting as signaller-in-chief on board theFalcon, so Brand might manipulate his flags as quickly as lay in his power, with chief officer Emmett reading the words at his elbow: there was no fear that any mistake would be made by the receiver.
The story, if condensed, was complete. Beginning with an explanation of the liner's disablement, it dealt with her desperate but unavailing struggle to weather the reef, described Pyne's gallant and successful effort to get in touch with the lighthouse, the rescue of a fourth of those on board, the names of the survivors, and, finally, their predicament in the matter of food and water.
All this took long to tell.
Within the lantern, Mr. Charles A. Pyne, appointed supernumerary assistant-keeper, was burnishing brasswork as per instructions received. He little knew the use which was being made of his name by the tiny bits of linen tossing about on the exterior gallery. In such wise, helped by a compositor and dignified by headlines, does a man become a hero in these days of knighthood conferred by the Press.
Constance was scrutinizing theFalconfrom the trimming-stage. Hearing Enid's cheery "Good-morning" to Pyne when that young lady raced upwards from the kitchen to catch a glimpse of the reported vessel, she dropped her glasses for a moment.
"Jack is on board," she announced. "Of course he would be there. And there is such a lot of other men—half Penzance, I think."
Enid joined her; Pyne, too, thought he could polish a burner up there as well as on the floor of the service-room.
Stanhope's stalwart figure, clad in oilskins, was clearly defined as he stood alone on the port side of theFalcon's small bridge, reading off the signals and sending back spasmodic twitterings of the flags which he, also, had procured, to indicate that each word was understood.
"Who is the skipper of the tug?" inquired Pyne quietly.
Both girls laughed.
"You mean Jack," cried Enid. "He is not the captain. He is an officer of the Royal Navy, our greatest friend."
"Jack is his front name, I suppose," went on Pyne, breathing on the copper disc in his hands to test its clearness.
"We will introduce you, even at this distance," said Constance airily. "Mr. Pyne—this is Lieutenant John Percival Stanhope, only son of the late Sir Charles and Lady Margaret Stanhope, of Tregarthen Lodge, Penzance, one of the best and dearest fellows who ever lived."
"It must be nice to be a friend of yours, Miss Brand, if you always talk about the favored person in that way," said Pyne, rubbing industriously.
Enid, to whom the mere sight of the steamer had restored all her vitality, giggled joyously.
"You know, Mr. Pyne, we all love Jack, as the song says. It was a mere accident that he did not accompany us to the rock yesterday. Connie would not let him come."
"Ah," said Pyne.
"I forbade him," explained Constance, "because he has only three days' leave from his ship, and I thought he should give the first afternoon to his mother instead of playing poodle for Enid."
"How dare you call Jack a poodle?" was the indignant exclamation.
"Allow me," drawled Pyne. "I'm very glad your sister classified him."
Constance suddenly felt her neck and face aflame. Pyne was standing on her left, Enid on her right. The quiet jubilation of Pyne's voice was so unmistakable that Enid, for one instant, withdrew her eyes from the distant ship. A retort was quick on her lips, until she bethought her that the American's statement might have two meanings.
Being tactful withal, she chose her words whilst she bubbled forth:
"He promised to take us for a drive today. That is the dot and dash alphabet father and he are using. If dad requires all the dots I'm sure Jack is monopolizing the dashes. He must be furious about this gale."
Constance, who wanted to pinch Enid severely, had reverted to her normal healthy hue by this time. She dropped her glasses.
"We are shamefully wasting precious minutes here," she said. "Enid, you and I ought to be in the kitchen."
Then she glanced with cold self-possession at Pyne, who was whistling softly between his teeth as he plied the duster.
"As for you," she said, "I never saw anyone work so hard with less need."
He critically examined the shining burner.
"We Americans are taught to be strenuous," he said smilingly. "That is the only way you can cut in ahead of the other fellow nowadays, Miss Brand."
She almost resigned the contest. That unhappy explanation had delivered her bound into his hands. Yet she strove desperately to keep up the pretence that their spoken words had no ulterior significance.
"Such energy must be very wearing," she said.
"It is—for the other man."
"But in your case it is unnecessary. My father believes we will be here at least forty-eight hours." Then she became conscious that again she had not said exactly what she meant to say. "So you, at any rate, need not wear your fingers to the bone," she added hurriedly.
"Guess it must be a national vice," he said with irritating complacency. "Just now I feel I have a regular hustle on."
"Your example equals your precepts. Enid, tear yourself from the attractive spectacle. There are eighty-one ravenous people to be fed."
"Sorry you haven't hit upon the real reason of my abounding industry," said Pyne, who skipped down the ladder first to give the girls a helping hand as they descended.
"Please tell us. It may be inspiring," said Constance.
"I'm going to ask the boss if I can't take a turn as scullery-maid when I'm through here."
"Then I veto the idea now," she answered. "Enid and I have had a most comfortable nap, and I am certain you have not closed your eyes all night. I will make it my personal business to see that both my father and you lie down for a couple of hours immediately after breakfast."
"Or else there will be a mutiny in the kitchen," chimed in Enid.
"Connie," she whispered, when they were safely out of hearing from the service-room, "I never saw a worse case. Talk about the young men suddenly smitten you read of in novels—"
Her sister whirled round.
"How can you be so silly?" she blazed forth.
"Why did you libel Jack so readily?" tittered Enid.
The other, utterly routed, went on in dignified silence. She did not speak again until they surveyed the store apportioned for the coming feast.
"Eighty-one!" she murmured. "What a monstrous deal of people for a half-penny worth of bread!"
"What is the use of repining?" sang Enid, with a fortissimo accent on the penultimate syllable. "For where there's a will there's a way. Tomorrow the sun will be shining, although it is cloudy today."
But Constance was not to be drawn a second time. Her clear brain was troubled by a formless shadow. It banished from her mind all thought of a harmless flirtation with the good-looking youngster who had brought a blush of momentary embarrassment to her fair face.
How dreadful it would be to meet hunger with refusals—perhaps there were worse things in the world than the midnight ordeal of an angry sea.
Indeed, when Pyne did join them in accord with his intention, he soon perceived the extent of the new danger. The stress of the night had only enhanced the need of an ample supply of food. Everybody—even the inmates of the hospital—was outrageously hungry, and the common allotment was half a cup of tea and half a ship's biscuit.
For the midday meal there would be two ounces of meat or bacon, one potato, and another half biscuit with about a wine-glassful of water. For supper the allowance was half a cup of cocoa and two ounces of bread, which must be baked during the day. Not quite starvation, this menu, but far from satisfying to strong men and worn-out women.
TheFalcon, knowing the uselessness of attempting to creep nearer to the Gulf Rock, had gone off with her budget to startle two continents. Stanhope's last message was one of assurance. He would do all that lay in man's power. The lighthouse soon quieted down to a state of passive reaction. Pyne, refusing to be served earlier, carried his own and Brand's scanty meal on a tray to the service-room.
The unwearied lighthouse-keeper was on the balcony, answering a kindly signal from the Land's End, where the coast-guards were not yet in possession of the news from Penzance.
He placed the tray on the writing-desk and contemplated its contents ruefully.
"I guess that banquet won't spoil for keeping," he said to himself. "I'll just lay round and look at it until the boss quits making speeches by the yard."
A couple of minutes passed. Brand was hoisting the last line of flags, when the American heard faltering footsteps on the stairs.
"Don't follow so close, Mamie," said a child's voice. "My arm hurts just 'nuff for anything when I move."
A towzled head of golden hair emerged into the light. It was one of the two little girls, whom Pyne had not seen since they were swung aloft from the sloping deck of theChinook.
Their astonishment was mutual. The child, aged about eight, recognized in him a playmate of the fine days on board ship. She turned with confident cry.
"I told you so, Mamie. It was up. You said down. Here's the big glass house—and Mr. Pyne."
She quickened her speed, though her left arm was in a sling. Pyne, dreading lest she should fall, hastened to help her.
"I'se all right, Mr. Pyne," she announced with an air of great dignity. "I make one step at a time. Then I ketch the rail. See?"
"You've got it down to a fine point, Elsie," he said. "But what in the world are those women-folk thinking of to let you and Mamie run loose about the place."
Elsie did not answer until Mamie stood by her side. Judged by appearances, Mamie was a year younger. Apart from the nasty bruise on Elsie's left arm and shoulder, the children had escaped from the horrors of the wreck almost unscathed in body and certainly untroubled in mind.
"Mamie came to my room for breakfast," explained Elsie at last. "We'se awful hungry, an' when we axed for 'nother bixit Mrs. Taylor she began to cry. An' when I said we'd go an' find mamma she cried some more."
"Yes. We'se awful hungry," agreed Mamie. "An' please where's mamma?"
Pyne needed no further explanation. The little ones had lost their mother; her disfigured body, broken out of all recognition, was tossing about somewhere in the under-currents of the Channel. None of the women dared to tell the children the truth, and it was a heartrending task to deny them food.
So, they were permitted to leave their refuge, with the kindly belief that they would come to no harm and perchance obtain a further supply from one of those sweet-faced girls who explained so gently that the rations must run short for the common good.
Pyne glanced up at the lantern. Outside he could see Brand hauling down the signal. He sprang to the tray and secured his half biscuit and tea cup.
"Come along, Elsie," he said, crooking his left arm for her. "Follow close, Mamie. Mind you don't fall."
"Your mamma is asleep," he assured them in a whisper on the next landing. "She just can't be woke up for quite a long time."
Then he navigated them to the door of the second bedroom, where Mrs. Taylor was. He broke the hard biscuit in two pieces and gave one to each child.
"Here, Mamie, you carry the cup, and go shares in the tea."
"I don't like tea," protested Mamie. "If I can't have coffee I want some milk."
"Well, now, you wait a little bit, and you'll be tickled to death to see what I'll bring you. But drink the tea. It's good an' hot. Skip inside, both of you."
He held the door partly open and they vanished. He heard Mrs. Taylor say:
"Didn't I tell you those two little dears would do their own business best."
He regained the service-room to find Brand steeping the remains of his biscuit in an almost empty cup. The lighthouse-keeper greeted his young friend with a smile.
"I suppose that you, like the rest of us, never had such an appetite in all your days?" he said.
"Oh, I'm pretty well fixed," said Pyne, with responsive grin.
"Then you are fortunate. There is usually a wretched little fiend lurking in a man's inner consciousness which prompts him to desire the unattainable. Now, I am a poor eater as a rule, yet this morning I feel I could tackle the toughest steak ever cut off a superannuated cow."
"I don't deny," admitted Pyne, "that the idea of a steak sounds good. That is, you know," he went on languidly, "it might sort of appeal to me about one o'clock."
"I should have thought you could do with one now, especially after the hard night we have gone through. Perhaps you are a believer in the French system, and prefer a light breakfast."
Brand finished the last morsel of biscuit and drank the cup dry.
"It's a first-rate proposition—when you are accustomed to it," said Pyne. "But talking about eating when there's little to eat is a poor business, anyway. Don't you find that?"
"I do indeed."
Brand rose and tapped the barometer, adjusting the sliding scale to read the tenths.
"Slightly better," he announced. "If only the wind would go down, or even change to the norrard!"
"What good would a change of wind do?" inquired Pyne, greatly relieved himself by the change of topic.
"It would beat down the sea to some extent and then they might be able to drift a buoy, with a rope attached, close enough to the rock at low tide to enable us to reach it with a cast of a grappling iron."
"Do you mean that we could be ferried to the steamer by that means?"
"That is absolutely out of the question until the weather moderates to a far greater extent than I dare hope at present. But, once we had the line, we could rig up a running tackle and obtain some stores."
"Is it as bad as all that?" said the younger man, after a pause.
They looked at each other. The knowledge that all true men have of their kind leaped from eye to eye.
"Quite that bad," answered Brand.
Pyne moistened his lips. He produced a case containing two cigars. He held it out.
"Let us go shares in consolation," he said.
Brand accepted the gift, and affected a livelier mood.
"By lucky chance I have an ample supply of tobacco. It will keep the men quiet," he said. "By the way," and he lifted a quick glance at Pyne, "do you know anything about chemistry?"
"Well—er—I went through a course at Yale."
"Can colza oil be converted into a food."
"It contains certain fats," admitted Pyne, taking dubious stock of the question.
"But the process of conversion, the chemical reaction, that is the difficulty."
"Bi-sulphide of carbon is a solvent, and the fatty acids of most vegetable oils can be isolated by treatment with steam super-heated to about 600° Fahrenheit."
Brand threw out his hands with a little gesture of helplessness; just then Constance appeared.
"Dad," she cried, "did not Mr. Pyne tell you of my threat?"
"No, dear one. I am not living in terror of you, to my knowledge."
"You must please go to sleep, both of you, at least until ten or eleven o'clock. Mr. Emmett is sending a man to keep watch here. He will not disturb you. He is bringing some rugs and pillows which you can arrange on the floor. I have collected them for your special benefit."
"At this hour! Impossible, Connie."
"But it is not impossible, and this is the best hour available. You know quite well that theFalconwill return at high water. And you must rest, you know."
She bustled about, with the busy air of a house-wife who understood the whole art of looking after her family. But something puzzled her.
"Mr. Pyne," she inquired, "where is your cup?"
"I—er—took it down," he explained.
For some reason, Constance felt instantly that she had turned the tables on him since their lastrencontre. She did not know why. He looked confused, for one thing: he was not so glib in speech, for another.
"Down where?" she demanded. "Not to the kitchen. I have been there since you brought up your breakfast and dad's on the same tray."
"I breakfasted alone," remarked Brand calmly. "Mr. Pyne had feasted earlier."
"But he had not," persisted Constance. "I wanted him to—"
She stopped. This impudent American had actually dared to wink at her, a confidential, appealing wink which said plainly: "Please don't trouble about me."
"You gave your tea and biscuit to somebody," she cried suddenly. "Now, who was it? Confess!"
"Well," he said weakly, "I did not feel—er—particularly hungry, so, when I met those two little girls foolin' round for an extra supply, I—er—thought nobody would mind if—er—"
"Father!" said Constance. "He has not had a mouthful."
"Then take him downstairs and give him one. You must have found my conversation interesting, Mr. Pyne, whilst I was eating. But, before you go, let me add a word in season. There must be no further discrimination between persons. Stand or fall, each must abide by the common rule."
Pyne, with the guilty feeling of a detected villian, explained to Constance how the cup might be rescued.
"I shall keep a close eye on you in future," she announced as they went below.
"Do," he said. "That is all I ask for."
"I am a very strict person," she went on. "Dad always encouraged us in the sailor's idea of implicit obedience."
"Kick me. It will make me feel good," he answered.
Entering the second bed-room, where Elsie and Mamie were seated contentedly on the floor, she stooped and kissed them. And not a word did she say to Enid as to the reason why Mr. Pyne should be served with a second breakfast. She knew that any parade of his unselfishness would hurt him, and he, on his part, gave her unspoken thanks for her thought.
Conversation without words is an art understood only by master-minds and lovers, so these two were either exceptionally clever persons or developing traits of a more common genus—perhaps both.
The tribulations which clustered, in bee-like swarm, in and around the Gulf Rock Lighthouse during those weary hours were many and various. Damp clothing, insufficiency of food, interior temperatures ranging from the chill draught of the entrance passage and stair-ways to the partial suffocation of rooms with windows closed owing to the incursions of the rising tide—this unpleasing aggregate of physical misery was seriously augmented by an ever-increasing list of sick people, an almost total absence of any medical comforts, and a growing knowledge, on the part of those not too despondent to think, that their ultimate relief might be deferred for days rather than hours.
No mere man can understand, and a woman of ordinary experience can but dimly imagine, the difficulty and arduousness of the task undertaken by Constance and Enid.
To cook and supply food for eighty-one persons with utensils intended for the use of three, to give each separate individual an utterly inadequate portion, so skilfully distributed that none should have cause to grumble at his or her neighbor's better fortune—here were culinary problems at once complex and exhaustive.
By adopting fantastic devices, bringing into service empty jam-pots and sardine-tins, they found it was possible to feed twenty at a time. This meant the preparation of four distinct meals, each requiring an hour's work. Long before the last batch, which included themselves, was lamenting the absurd discrepancy between appetite and antidote in the shape of anything to eat, the first was ravenous again.
The women complained the least. In the occupants of the two bedrooms the girls encountered a passive fortitude which was admirable. It was an extraordinary scene which met their eyes when they entered either of these stuffy apartments. Many of the rescued ladies had not given a thought to changing the demi-toilette of evening wear on board ship for more serviceable clothing when the hurricane overtook the vessel. They all, it is true, possessed cloaks or wraps of some sort, but these garments were still sodden with salt water and therefore unwearable, even if the oppressive warmth in each room rendered such a thing possible. Their elegant costumes of muslin, cotton, silk or satin, were utterly ruined. Lucky were the few whose blouses or bodices had not been rent into tatters.
Some of the worst sufferers in this respect were now the best provided. Blankets and sheets had been ruthlessly torn up and roughly stitched into articles of clothing. Mrs. Vansittart, for instance, who first suggested thisvia media, wore an exquisite Paris gown and a loose dressing-jacket arrangement of yellow blanket, the component parts of which she persuaded two other women to sew together on the model provided by her own elegant figure.
A few quick-witted ones who followed her example exhausted the available stock, and pillow-cases and rugs would have undergone metamorphosis in the same way had not Constance come to the rescue by impounding them, declaring that they must be reserved for the use of those sufferers who needed warmth and rest.
The men passed their time in smoking, singing, yarning and speculating on the chance of the weather clearing. Ultimately, when the banging of the waves again made the column feel unsafe, a small section began to plan petty attempts to pilfer the provisions. It is the queer mixture of philosopher and beast in the average human being that makes it possible for the same man, in one mood, to risk his life quite voluntarily to save others, and in another, to organize selfish theft.
After an ingenious seaman had been detected in the attempt to pick the store-room lock, and when a tray of cold ham was deliberately upset whilst a football scrimmage took place for the pieces, Mr. Emmett stopped these ebullitions by arming the watch with assorted weapons from the work-shop and issuing stern orders as to their use in case of need.
Here, again, the warring elements which form the human clay were admirably displayed. On duty, under the bonds of discipline, the coarse-grained foremast hand who had gobbled up a surreptitious lump of fat pig during the first successful scuffle would brain the daring rascal who tried to better his condition by a similar trick a second time. Discipline, sometimes, converts a skulker into a hero.
When the state of the tide permitted, storm-shutters were opened and a free draught of air allowed to enter through the door. Then all hands eyed the sea with anxiety. The wind was strong and piercing, and the reef maintained its ceaseless roaring. Wherever a window opened towards the land there was a small crowd waiting to peep through it. At last, the sense of orderliness gradually permeating the inmates of the lighthouse actually resulted in the formation of queues, with stated intervals for moving on. There was a momentary relief in looking at the land. The cliffs, the solitary white houses, the little hamlets half hidden in cozy nooks, seemed to be so absurdly near. It was ridiculous to imagine that help could be long deferred. The seaward passing of a steamer, carrying flowers from the Scilly Isles to Penzance for Covent Garden, caused a flutter, but the sight of a Penzance fishing-smack scudding under jib and close-reefed foresail between the rock and Guthenbras Point created intense excitement. Noah, gazing across the flood for the return of the dove with the olive branch, could not be more pleased than these castaways in their granite ark when the brown-sailed boat came within their view.
The window in the coal-cellar opened fair towards the Land's End, and the grimy occupants of this compartment could look their fill at the messenger of life. A rich New Yorker in vain offered a hundred dollars to any man who gave up his place in the line after he himself, by the operation of the time-limit, was remorselessly sent away from the narrow loop-hole. Dollars and pounds sterling have a curiously depreciated value under such circumstances.
The men of the watch were always questioned for news by the unemployed majority. They related the comings and goings of theFalcon, carried sympathetic inquiries from story to story—promiscuous passing to and fro being forbidden owing to the narrowness of the stairs—and seized every trifling pretext on their own part to reach the topmost height and feast their eyes on the extensive panorama visible from the storm-girt gallery. Had they watched the coast-line less and the reef more their observations would have had value.
Quite early in the day, the purser handed to the occupants of each room a full list of passengers and crew, with the survivors grouped separately. In only three instances were husband and wife both saved. The awful scene in the saloon accounted for this seeming discrepancy. Dazed men and senseless women were wrenched from each other's clasp either by the overwhelming seas or during the final wild fight for life at the head of the companion stairway. A wreck, a fire in a theatre, pays little heed to the marriage tie.
The third, and last meal of the day was eaten in silence and gloom. All the spare lamps were diverted to the kitchen, because Brand, during a further detailed survey of the stores, made in company with Mr. Emmett and the purser, discovered that there was an alarming deficit of fresh water in the cistern.
In the hurry of the earlier hours a serious miscalculation had been made in transmuting cubic feet into gallons. It became an instant necessity to use every heating appliance at command and start the distillation of a drinkable fluid.
The Gulf Rock Light did not possess a proper apparatus. The only method that could be adopted was to improvise a coil from canvas sewn into a tube. The exterior was varnished, and wrapped in wet cloths to assist the condensation of the steam. Hence, every kettle and pot being requisitioned for this paramount need, cocoa could be supplied to the women alone, whilst the taste of the water, even thus disguised, was nauseating. No more potatoes could be boiled. Raw, they were almost uneatable. And potatoes happened to be the food most plentiful.
The genuine fresh water, reduced to a minimum in the cistern, was only a little better in condition unless it was filtered, and Brand decided that it ought to be retained for the exclusive use of those seriously ill. Patients were multiplying so rapidly that the hospital was crowded; and all fresh cases, as they occurred, perforce remained where they were.
Neither Constance nor Enid felt the time hang heavily on their hands. They were too busy, though the new ordinance regarding the food supply transferred their attention from active cooking to the replenishing of utensils which must be kept full of salt-water at boiling-point.
Pyne was an invaluable assistant.
In the adjustment of refractory canvas tubes over hot spouts, in the manipulation of the condensing plant so that it might act efficiently, in the trimming of lamps, and the stocking of the solitary coal fire, he insisted on taking to himself the lion's share of the work.
He always had a pleasant quip or funny story to brighten their talk.
"You can conquer trouble with a grin," he said. "Worry doesn't cut ice."
Enid, of course, chaffed him about his American accent, which, she protested, she would acquire after a week's practice.
"It is so quaint to our ears," she went on. "I never before grasped the reason why Mark Twain makes me laugh. All he does is to act as a phonograph. Every American is a born humorist."
"There's something in that," admitted Pyne. "We do try to dis-inter a joke. Say, have you girls ever heard how an English professor explained the Yankee drawl?"
"No," they cried.
"He said it represented the effort of an uneducated man to make a speech. Every time his vocabulary gave out he lifted his voice to show he wasn't half through with his ideas."
"Oh," said Constance, "that is neither kind nor true, surely."
"Well," agreed Pyne slowly, "that is the view a friend of mine took of the remark. So he asked the professor if he had a nice agreeable sort of definition, all ready for use, of the way Englishmen clipped their syllables. The other fellow allowed that he hadn't pondered on it. 'I guess,' said my friend, 'it represents the effort of an educated ass to talk English.'"
Though the laugh was against them they were forced to snigger approval.
"I think," said Constance, "that our chief national failing is pomposity, and your story hits it off exactly. In one of our small Cornish towns we have a stout little Mayor who made money in cheese and bacon. He went to see the Paris Exhibition, and an Exeter man, meeting him unexpectedly at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, hailed him with delight. 'Hello, Mr. Mayor—' he began. 'Hush,' said the mayor, glancing around mysteriously, 'I'm 'erein cog.'"
None who heard these light-hearted young people yelling with merriment would imagine that they had just dined off a piece of hard-baked bread made without yeast and washed down with water tasting of tar and turpentine.
"Now, Miss Enid, your turn," cried Pyne.
Her eyes danced mischievously.
"Unfortunately, by the accident of birth, I am deprived of the sense of humor," she said.
"It seems to be in the family all right," he hazarded, looking at Constance.
"Alas!" said Enid, "I am an American."
"I'll smile now, if that is all," said Pyne.
"But, please, I am not joking a little bit. When you go ashore you will probably hear all about me, so I may as well take the wind out of the sails of gossip. I am a mere waif, who came sailing in out of the West one day in a little boat, which must have come from the New World as no one appeared to have lost either me or it in the Old. Dad picked us both up and adopted me."
Pyne did not know whether to take her seriously or not, until he sought confirmation in a pair of tranquil eyes which he gazed into at every opportunity.
"It is quite true," said Constance, gravely. "I suppose that the mysterious affinity between parents and long-lost children which exists in story-books is all nonsense in reality. No family could be more united and devoted to each other than we are, yet Enid is not my sister, and my father is her's only by adoption. He found her, half dying, drifting past this very rock, and before he could reach her he fought and killed a dreadful shark. We are very proud of dad, Mr. Pyne. You see, he is our only relation. Enid knows neither her father nor mother, and my mother died when I was a baby."
"Great Scott!" cried Pyne.
He turned quickly towards the door. Mrs. Vansittart, very pale, with eyes that looked unnaturally large in the faint light, stood there. For an instant he was startled. He had not seen Mrs. Vansittart since they came to the rock, and he was shocked by the change in her appearance. He did not like her. His alert intelligence distrusted her. But it was not his business in life to select a wife for his uncle, as he put it, and he had always treated her with respectful politeness. Now, owing to some fleeting aspect which he could not account for, some vague resemblance to another which he did not remember having noticed before, he viewed her with a certain expectant curiosity that was equally unintelligible to him.
She held out a scrap of paper.
"Mr. Traill is here," she said quietly.
"Here!" he repeated, wondering what she meant, and perplexed by her icy, self-contained tone, whilst he thought it passing strange that she had no other greeting for him.
"Well," she said, "that is the best word I can find. He is near to us, as near as a steamer can bring him. Mr. Brand has received a signaled message; he wrote it out and sent it to me by a man. I inquired where you were, and was told you were engaged in the kitchen."
For some reason Mrs. Vansittart seemed to be greatly perturbed. Her presence put an end to the gaiety of the place quite effectually.
The young man took the paper in silence.
He read: "Dear Madam—a signal just received from theFalconruns as follows:—'Mr. Cyrus J. Traill is on board and sends his love to Etta and Charlie. He will make every preparation for their comfort ashore and trusts they are bearing up well under inevitable hardships.' Yours faithfully, Stephen Brand."
Pyne strode to the door.
"I must see if I can't get Mr. Brand to answer the old boy," he cried. "Perhaps you have attended to that already."
She did not make way for him to pass.
"No," she said. "I came to seek you on that account. If not too late, will you tell your uncle that I do not wish to delay a moment in Penzance. He will please me most by arranging for a special train to await our arrival at the station."
"What's the hurry?" he demanded.
"A woman's whim, if you like, but a fixed resolve, nevertheless."
"Will you travel in that rig-out?" he asked quizzically.
"It is an easy matter to call at a shop if we reach shore by daylight. Then I can purchase a cloak and hat to serve my needs. Otherwise, it is matterless how I am attired. Will you do this?"
"Why, certainly."
She gave a little gasp of relief. In another instant Pyne would have gone, but Enid, who happened to glance through the window which opened towards the northwest, detained him.