Which shows that Captain Coke confused Providence with David Verity, and goes far to prove how ill-fitted he was to theorize on the ways of Providence.
"Five bells, miss! It'll soon be daylight. If you wants to see the Cross, now's your time!"
Iris had been called from dreamless sleep by a thundering rat-tat on her cabin door. In reply to her half-awaked cry of "All right," the hoarse voice of a sailor told her that the Southern Cross had just risen above the horizon. She had a drowsy recollection of someone saying that the famous constellation would make its appearance at seven bells, not at five, and the difference of an hour, when the time happens to be 2:30 instead of 8:30 a.m. is a matter of some importance. But, perhaps that was a mistake; at any rate, here was the messenger, and she resolutely screwed her knuckles into her eyes and began to dress. In a few minutes she was on deck. A long coat, a Tam o' Shanter, and a pair of list slippers will go far in the way of costume at night in the tropics, and theAndromeda'sseventeenth day at sea had brought the equator very near. At dinner on the previous evening—in honor of the owner's niece fashionable hours were observed for meals—Mr. Watts mentioned, by chance, that the Cross had been very distinct during the middle watch, or, in other words, between midnight and 4 a.m. Iris at once expressed a wish to see it, and Captain Coke offered a suggestion.
"Mr. Hozier takes the middle watch to-night," said he. "We can ax 'im to send a man to pound on your door as soon as it rises. Then you must run up to the bridge, an' 'e'll tell you all about it."
If Iris was conscious of a slight feeling of surprise, she did not show it. Hitherto, the burly skipper of theAndromedahad made it so clearly understood that none of the ship's company save himself was to enjoy the society of Miss Iris Yorke, that she had exchanged very few words with the one man whose manners and education obviously entitled him to meet her on an equal plane. Even at meals, he was often absent, for the captain and chief officer of a tramp steamer are not altruists where eating is concerned. She often visited the bridge, her favorite perch being the shady side of the wheel-house, but talking to the officer of the watch was strictly forbidden. In everything appertaining to the vessel's navigation the discipline of a man-of-war was observed on board theAndromeda. So Coke's complacency came now quite unexpectedly, but Iris was learning to school her tongue.
"Thank you very much," she said. "When shall I see him?"
"Oh, you needn't bother. I'll tell 'im meself."
She was somewhat disappointed at this. Hozier would be free for an hour before he turned in, and they might have enjoyed a nice chat while he smoked on the poop. In her heart of hearts, she was beginning to acknowledge that a voyage through summer seas on a cargo vessel, with no other society than that of unimaginative sailormen, savored of tedium, indeed, almost of deadly monotony. Her rare meetings with Hozier marked bright spots in a dull round of hours. During their small intercourse she had discovered that he was well informed. They had hit upon a few kindred tastes in books and music; they even differed sharply in their appreciation of favorite authors, and what could be more conducive to complete understanding than the attack and defense of the shrine of some tin god of literature?
While, therefore, it was strange that Captain Coke should actually propose a visit to the bridge at an unusual time—at a time, too, when Hozier would be on duty—it struck her as far more curious that he should endeavor to prevent an earlier meeting. But she had never lost her intuitive fear of Coke. His many faults certainly did not include a weak will. He meant what he said—also a good deal that he left unsaid—and his word was law to everyone on board theAndromeda. So Iris contented herself with meek agreement.
"I shall be delighted to come at any time. I have often read about the Southern Cross, yet three short weeks ago I little thought——"
"You reely didn't think about it at all," broke in Coke. "If you 'ad, you'd 'ave known you couldn't cross the line without seein' it."
Here was another perplexing element in the skipper's conduct. That Iris was a stowaway was forgotten. She was treated with the attention and ceremony due to the owner's niece. Coke never lost an opportunity of dinning into the ears of Watts, or Hozier, or the steward, or any members of the crew who were listening, that Miss Yorke's presence in their midst was a preordained circumstance, a thing fully discussed and agreed on as between her uncle and himself, but carried out in an irregular manner, owing to some girlish freak on her part. The portmanteau, with its change of raiment, brought convincing testimony, and Iris's own words when discovered in the lazaretto supplied further proof, if that were needed. Her name figured in the ship's papers, and the time of her appearance on board was recorded in the log. Coke might be a man of one idea, but he held to it as though it were written in the Admiralty Sailing Directions; not his would be the fault if David Verity failed to appreciate the logic of his reasoning long before an official investigation became inevitable.
A keen, invigorating breeze swept the last mirage of sleep from the girl's brain as she flitted silently along the deck. A wondrous galaxy of stars blazed in the heavens. In that pellucid air the sky was a vivid ultramarine. The ship's track was marked by a trail of phosphorescent fire. Each revolution of the propeller drew from the ocean treasure-house opulent globes of golden light that danced and sparkled in the tumbling waters. It was a night that pulsated with the romance and abandon of the south, a night when the heart might throb with unutterable longings, and the blood tingle in the veins under the stress of an emotion at once passionate and mystic.
Iris, spurred on by no stronger impulse than that of the sight-seer, though not wholly unaware of an element of adventurous shyness in her expectation of atête-à-têtewith a good-looking young man of her own status, climbed to the bridge so speedily and noiselessly that Hozier did not know of her presence until he heard her dismayed cry:
"Isthatthe Southern Cross?"
"Is that the Southern Cross?"[Illustration: "Is that the Southern Cross?"]
"Is that the Southern Cross?"[Illustration: "Is that the Southern Cross?"]
He turned quickly.
"You, Miss Yorke?" he exclaimed, and not even her wonder at the insignificance of the stellar display of which she had heard so much could cloak the fact that Hozier was unprepared for her appearance.
"Of course, it is I—who else?" she asked. "Did not Captain Coke tell you to expect me?"
"No."
"How odd! That is what he arranged. A man came and rapped at my door."
"Pardon me one moment."
He leaned over the bridge and hailed the watch. The same hoarse voice that had roused Iris answered his questions, and, in the faint light that came from the binnacle, she caught a flicker of amusement on his face.
"Our excellent skipper's intentions have been defeated," he said. "He told one of the men to call him at seven bells, but not to wake you until the Cross was visible. His orders have been obeyed quite literally. He will be summoned in another hour, and you have been dragged from bed to gaze at the False Cross, which every foremast hand persists in regarding as the real article. The true Cross, of which Alpha Crucis is the Southern Pole star, comes up over the horizon an hour after the false one."
"But Captain Coke said he would see you and warn you of my visit."
"I can only assure you that he did not. Perhaps he thought it unnecessary—meaning to be on deck himself."
"Must I wait here a whole hour, then?"
Hozier laughed. It was amusing to find how Coke's marked effort to keep the girl and him apart had been defeated by a sailor's blunder.
"I hope the waiting will not weary you," he said. "It is a beautiful night. You will not catch cold if you are well wrapped up, and, no matter what you may think of the real Cross when you see it, you will never have a better chance of star-gazing. Look at Sirius up there, brighter than the moon; and Orion, too, incomparably grander than any star in southern latitudes. Our dear old Bear of the north ranks far beyond the Southern Cross in magnificence; but mist and smoke and dust contrive to rob our home atmosphere of the clearness which adds such luster to the firmament nearer the equator."
Under other circumstances, Iris would have reveled in just such an opportunity of acquiring knowledge easily. Astronomy, despite its limitations, is one of the exact sciences; it has the charm of wonderland; it makes to awe-stricken humanity the mysterious appeal of the infinite; but to-night, when the heart fluttered, and the soul pined for sympathy, she was in a mood to regard with indifference the instant extinction of the Milky Way.
"I am glad of the accident that brought me on deck somewhat earlier than was necessary," she said. "You and I have not said much to each other since you routed me out of the lazaretto, Mr. Hozier."
"Our friends at table are somewhat—difficult. If only you knew how I regretted——"
"Oh, what of that? When I became a stowaway I fully expected to be treated as one. I suppose, though, that you have often asked yourself why I was guilty of such a mad trick?"
"Not exactly mad, Miss Yorke, but needless, since Captain Coke partly expected to have your company."
"That is absurd. He had not the remotest notion——"
"Forgive me, but there you are wrong. He says that your uncle and he discussed the matter on the Sunday before we left Liverpool. His theory is rather borne out by the present state of the ship's larder. I assure you that few tramp steamers spread a table like theAndromeda'smess during this voyage."
Iris laughed, with a spontaneous merriment that was rather astonishing in her own ears.
"Being the owner's niece, I am well catered for?" she cried.
"Something of the sort. It is only natural."
"But I think I have read in the newspapers that when some unhappy creature is condemned to death by the law, he is supplied with luxuries that would certainly be denied to any ordinary criminal?"
"Such doubtful clemency can hardly apply to you, Miss Yorke."
"It might apply to the ship, or to that human part of her that thinks, and remembers, and is capable of—of giving evidence."
She paused, fearing lest, perhaps, she might have spoken too plainly. Coke's counter-stroke in alluding to her dread of the proposed marriage was hidden from her ken; Hozier, of course, was thinking of nothing else. For the moment, then, they were at cross purposes.
"Things are not so bad as that," he said gently. "I hope I am not trespassing on forbidden ground, but it is only fair to tell you that the skipper was quite explicit, up to a point. He said you were being forced into some matrimonial arrangement that was distasteful——"
"And to escape from an undesirable suitor I ran away?"
"Well, the story sounded all right."
"Hid myself on my uncle's ship when I wished to avoid marrying the man of his choice?"
Hozier was not neglecting his work, but he did then take his eyes off the starlit sea for a few amazed seconds. There was no mistaking the scornful ring in the girl's words. He could see the deep color that flooded her cheeks; the glance that met his sparkled with an intensity of feeling that thrilled while it perplexed.
"Please pardon me if the question hurts, but if that is not your motive, and there never was any real notion of your coming with us on the this trip, why are you here?" he said.
"Because I am a foolish girl, I suppose; because I thought that my presence might interpose a serious obstacle between a criminal and the crime he had planned to commit. If one wants to avoid hateful people a change of climate is a most effectual means, and I had not the money for ordinary travel. Believe me, Mr. Hozier, I am not on board the Andromeda without good reason. I have often wished to have a talk with you. I think you are a man who would not betray a confidence. If you agree to help me, something may yet be done. At first, I was sure that Captain Coke would abandon his wicked project as soon as he discovered that I knew what was in his mind. But now, I am beginning to doubt. Each day brings us nearer South America, and—and——"
She was breathless with excitement. She drew nearer to the silent, and impassive man at her side; dropping her voice almost to a whisper, she caught his arm with an appealing hand.
"I am afraid that my presence will offer no hindrance to his scheme," she murmured. "I am terrified to say such a thing, but I am certain, quitecertain, that the ship will be lost within the next few days."
Hozier, though incredulous, could not but realize that the girl was saying that which she honestly thought to be true.
"Lost! Do you mean that, she will be purposely thrown away?" he asked, and his own voice was not wholly under control, for he was called on to repress a sudden temptation to kiss away the tears that glistened in her brown eyes.
"Yes, that is what he said—on the rocks, this side of Monte Video."
"He said—who?"
"The—the captain."
"To whom did he say it?"
"Oh, Mr. Hozier, do not ask that, but believe me and help me."
"How?"
"I do not know. I am half distracted with thinking. What can we do? Captain Coke simply swept aside my first attempt to speak plainly to him. But, make no mistake—he knows that I heard his very words, and there is something in his manner, a curious sort of quiet confidence, that frightens me."
After that, neither spoke during many minutes. TheAndromedajogged along steadily south by west, and the threshing of the propeller beat time to the placid hum of her engines. The sturdy old ship could seemingly go on in that humdrum way forever, forging ahead through the living waters, marking her track with a golden furrow.
"That is a very serious thing you have told me, Miss Yorke," muttered Hozier at last, not without a backward glance at the sailor in the wheel-house to assure himself that the man could not, by any chance, overhear their conversation.
"But it is true—dreadfully true," said Iris, clasping her hands together and resting them on the high railing of the bridge.
"It is all the more serious inasmuch as we are helpless," he went on. "Don't you see how impossible it is even to hint at it in any discussion with the man principally concerned? I want to say this, though—you are in no danger. There is no ship so safe as one that is picked out for wilful destruction. Men will not sacrifice their own lives even to make good an insurance policy, and I suppose that is what is intended. So you can sleep sound o' nights—at any rate until we near the coast of Brazil. I can only promise you if any watchfulness on my part can stop this piece of villainy—— Hello, there! What's up? Why is the ship falling away from her course?"
The sudden change in his voice startled the girl so greatly that she uttered a slight shriek. It took her an appreciable time to understand that he was speaking to the man at the wheel. But the sailor knew what he meant.
"Something's gone wrong with the wheel, sir," he bawled. "I wasn't certain at first, so I tried to put her over a bit to s'uth'ard. Then she jammed for sure."
Hozier leaped to the telegraph and signaled "slow" to the engine-room. Already the golden pathway behind theAndromedahad changed from a wavering yet generally straight line to a well-defined curve. There was a hiss and snort of escaping steam as the sailor inside the chart-house endeavored to force the machinery into action.
"Steady there!" bellowed Hozier. "Wait until we have examined the gear-boxes. There may be a kink in a chain."
A loud order brought the watch scurrying along the deck. Some of the men ran to examine the bearings of the huge fan-shaped casting that governed the movements of the rudder, while others began to tap the wooden shields which protected the steering rods and chains. In the midst of the hammering and excitement, Captain Coke swung himself up to the bridge.
"Well, I'm blowed!Youhere?" he said, looking at Iris. "Wot is it now?" he asked, turning sharply to Hozier. "Wheel stuck again?"
"Yes, sir. Has it happened before?"
"Well—er—not this trip. But it 'as 'appened. Just for a minnit I was mixin' it up with the night you nearly ran down that bloomin' hooker off the Irish coast. Ah, there she goes! Everything O.K. now. W'en daylight comes we'll overhaul the fixin's. Nice thing if the wheel jammed just as we was crossin' the Recife!"
Hozier tried to ascertain from the watch if they had found the cause of the disturbance, but the men could only guess that a chance blow with an adze had straightened a kink in one of the casings. Coke treated the incident with nonchalance.
"Thought you was to be called w'en the Cross hove in sight, Miss Yorke?" he said abruptly.
"I am sorry to have to inform you that some people on board cannot distinguish between falsity and truth," she answered. "But please don't be angry with any of the men on my account. Mr. Hozier tells me they often confuse the False Cross with the real one, and the mistake has been enjoyable. Now I know all about it—what were those stars you were telling me the names of, Mr. Hozier?"
Philip took the cue she offered.
"Sirius, and Orion, and Ursa Major. I shall write the names and particulars for you after breakfast," he said with a smile.
"Reg'lar 'umbug the Southern Cross," grunted Coke; "it ain't a patch on the Bear."
"Mr. Hozier said something like that," put in Iris mischievously.
"Did 'e? Well 'e's right for once. But don't you go an' take as Gospel most things 'e says. Every shipmaster knows that the second officer simply can't speak the truth. It ain't natural. W'y, it 'ud bust a steam pipe if 'e tole you wot 'e really thought of the ole man."
Coke grinned at his own pleasantry. To one of his hearers, at least, it seemed to be passing strange that he was so ready to forget such a vital defect in the steering gear as had manifested its existence a few minutes earlier.
At any rate, he remained on the bridge until long after Iris had seen and admired the cluster of stars which oldtime navigators used to regard with awe. When shafts of white light began to taper, pennon-like, in the eastern sky, the girl went back to her cabin. Contrary to Hozier's expectation, Coke did not attempt to draw from him any account of their conversation prior to the inexplicable mishap to the wheel. He examined a couple of charts, made a slight alteration in the course, and at four o'clock took charge of the bridge.
"Just 'ave a look round now while things is quiet," he said, nodding to Hozier confidentially. "I'll tell you wot I fancy: a rat dragged a bit of bone into a gear-box. If the plankin' is badly worn anywhere, get the carpenter to see to it. I do 'ate to 'ave a feelin' that the wheel can let you down. S'pose we was makin' Bahia on the homeward run, an' that 'appened! It 'ud be the end of the pore ole ship; an' oo'd credit it? Not a soul. They'd all say 'Jimmie threw 'er away!' Oh, I know 'em, the swine—never a good word for a man while 'e keeps straight, but tar an' feathers the minnit 'e 'as a misforchun!"
Hozier found a gnawed piece of ham-bone lying in the exact position anticipated by Coke. An elderly salt who had served with the P. & O. recalled a similar incident as having occurred on board an Indian mail steamer while passing through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. He drew a lurid picture of the captain's dash across the forms of lady passengers sleeping inside a curtained space on deck, and his location of the area of disturbance with an ax just in time to prevent a disaster.
The carpenter busied himself with sawing and hammering during the whole of the next two days, for theAndromedarevealed many gaps in her woodwork, but the escapade of an errant ham-bone was utterly eclipsed by a new sensation. At daybreak one morning every drop of water in the vessel's tanks suddenly assumed a rich, blood-red tint. This unnerving discovery was made by the cook, who was horrified to see a ruby stream pouring into the earliest kettle. Thinking that an iron pipe had become oxidized with startling rapidity, he tried another tap. Finally, there could be no blinking the fact that, by some uncanny means, the whole of the fresh water on board had acquired the color if not the taste of a thin Burgundy.
Coke was summoned hastily.Noblesse oblige; being captain, he valiantly essayed the task of sampling this strange beverage.
"It ain't p'ison," he announced, gazing suspiciously at the little group of anxious-faced men who awaited his verdict. "It sartinly ain't p'ison, but it's wuss nor any teetotal brew I've tackled in all me born days. 'Ere, Watts, you know the tang of every kind o' likker—'ave a sup?"
"Not me!" said Watts. "I don't like the look of it. First time I've ever seen red ink on tap. For the rest of this trip I stick to bottled beer, or somethink with a label."
"It smells like an infusion of permanganate of potash," volunteered Hozier.
"Does it?" growled Coke, who seemed to be greatly annoyed. "Wot a pity it ain't an infusion of whisky an' potash!" and he glared vindictively at Watts. "Some ijjit 'as bin playin' a trick on us, that's wot it is—some blank soaker 'oo don't give a hooraw in Hades for tea an' corfee an' cocoa, but wants a tonic. Stooard!"
"Yes, sir," said the messroom attendant.
"Portion out all the soda water in the lockers, an' whack it on the table every meal till it gives out. See that nobody puts away more'n 'is proper allowance, too. I'm not goin' to cry hush-baby w'en theAndromedagets this sort of kid's dodge worked off on 'er."
"If you're alloodin' to me," put in the incensed "chief," whose temper rose on this direct provocation, "I want to tell you now——"
"Does the cap fit?" sneered Coke.
"No, it doesn't. I never 'eard of that kind of potash in me life. D'ye take me for a—chemist's shop?"
"Never 'eard of it!" cried the incensed skipper, who had obviously made up his mind as to the person responsible for the outrage. "There's 'arf a dozen cases of it in the after hold—or there was, w'en we put the hatches on."
"Even if some of the cases were broken, sir, the contents could not reach the tanks," said Hozier, who fancied that Coke's attack on the bibulous Watts was wholly unwarranted. But the commander's wrath could not be appeased.
"Get this stuff pumped out, an' 'ave the tanks scoured. We'll put into Fernando Noronha, an' refill there. It's on'y a day lost, an' I guess the other liquor on board 'll last till we make the island. Sink me, if this ain't the queerest run this crimson ship 'as ever 'ad. I'll be glad w'en it's ended."
Coke lurched away in the direction of the chart-room. Hozier found him there later, poring over a chart of Fernando Noronha. Iris, on hearing the steward's version of the affair, came to the bridge for further enlightenment, but Coke merely told her that the island was a Lloyd's signal station, so she could cable to her uncle.
"Can I go ashore?" she asked.
"I dunno. We'll see. It's a convict settlement for the Brazils, an' they're mighty partic'lar about lettin' people land, but they'll 'ardly object to a nice young lady like you 'avin' a peep at 'em."
As his tone was unusually gruff, not to say jeering, she resolved to find an opportunity of seeking Hozier's advice on the cablegram problem. But the portent of the blood-red water was not to be disregarded. Never was Delphic oracle better served by nature. TheAndromedabegan to roll ominously; masses of black cloud climbed over the southwest horizon; at midday the ship was driving through a heavy sea. As the day wore, the weather became even more threatening. A sky and ocean that had striven during three weeks to produce in splendid rivalry blends of sapphire blue and emerald green and tenderest pink, were now draped in a shroud of gray mist. With increasing frequency and venom, vaulting seas curled over the bows, and sent stinging showers of spray against the canvas shield of the bridge. Instead of the natty white drill uniform and canvas shoes of the tropics, the ship's officers donned oilskins, sou'westers, and sea-boots. Torrents swept the decks, and an occasional giant among waves smote the hull with a thunderous blow under which every rivet rattled and every plank creaked. Despite these drawbacks, theAndromedawormed her way south. She behaved like the stanch old sea-prowler that she was, and labored complainingly but with stubborn zeal in the teeth of a stiff gale.
Iris, of course, thought that she was experiencing the storm of a century. Badly scared at first, she regained some stock of courage when Hozier came twice to her cabin, pounded on the door, and shouted to her such news as he thought would take her mind off the outer furies! The first time he announced that they were just "crossing the line," and the girl smiled at the thought that Neptune's chosen lair was uncommonly like the English Channel at its worst. On the second occasion her visitor brought the cheering news that they would be under the lee of Fernando Noronha early next morning. She had sufficient sea lore to understand that this implied shelter from wind and wave, but Hozier omitted to tell her that the only practicable roadstead in the island, being on the weather side, would be rendered unsafe by the present adverse combination of the elements. In fact, Coke had already called both Watts and Hozier into council, and they had agreed with him that the wiser plan would be to bear in towards the island from the east, and anchor in smooth water as close to South Point as the lead would permit.
As for Iris's wild foreboding that the ship was intended to be lost, Philip did not give it other than a passing thought. Coke was navigating theAndromedawith exceeding care and no little skill. He was a first-rate practical sailor, and it was an education to the younger man to watch his handling of the vessel throughout the worst part of the blow. About midnight the weather moderated. It improved steadily until a troubled dawn heralded some fitful gleams of the sun. By that time the magnificent Peak of Fernando Noronha was plainly visible. Coke came to the bridge and set a new course, almost due west. The sun struggled with increasing success against the cloud battalions, and patches of blue appeared in sky and sea. Soon it was possible to distinguish the full extent of the coast line. Houses appeared, and trees, and green oases of cultivation, but these were mere spots of color amid the arid blackness of a land of bleak rock and stone-strewed hills.
There was a strong current setting from the southeast, and the dying gale left its aftermath in a long swell, but theAndromedarolled on with ever-increasing comfort. Even Iris was tempted forth by the continued sunshine.
Coke was not on the bridge at the moment. Mr. Watts was taking the watch; Hozier was on deck forrard, looking for gravel and shells on the instrument that picks up these valuable indications from the floor of the sea. Suddenly the captain appeared. He greeted Iris with a genial nod.
"Ah, there you are," he cried. "Not seen you since this time yesterday. Sorry, but there'll be no goin' ashore to-day. We're on the wrong side of the island, an' it 'ud toss you a bit if you was to try an' land in eether of the boats. Take 'er in easy now, Mr. Watts. That's our anchorage—over there," and he pointed to the mouth of a narrow channel between South Point and the Ile des Frégates, the latter a tiny islet that almost blocks the entrance to a shallow bay into which runs a rivulet of good but slightly brackish water.
The ship slowed perceptibly, and Hozier busied himself with the lead, which a sailor was swinging on the starboard side from the small platform of the accommodation ladder. Iris did not know what was said, but the queer figures repeated to Coke seemed to be satisfactory. Headlands and hills crept nearer. The rocky arms of the island closed in on them. A faint scent as of sweet grasses reached them from the shore. Iris could see several people, nearly all of them men in uniform, hurrying about with an air of excitement that betokened the unusual. Perhaps a steamer's advent on the south side of the island was a novelty.
Now they were in a fairly smooth roadstead; the remnants of the gale were shouldered away from the ship by the towering cliff that jutted out on the left of the bay. The crew were mostly occupied in clearing blocks and tackle and swinging two life-boats outward on their davits.
"All ready forrard?" roared Coke. Hozier ran to the forecastle. He found the carpenter there, standing by the windlass brake.
"All ready, sir!" he cried.
Coke nodded to him.
"Give her thirty-five," he said, meaning thereby that the anchor should be allowed thirty-five fathoms of chain.
From the bridge, where Iris was standing, she could follow each movement of the commander's hands as he signaled in dumbshow to the steersman or telegraphed instructions to the engine-room. It was interesting to watch the alertness of the men on duty. They were a scratch crew, garnered from the four quarters of the globe at the Liverpool shipping office, but they moved smartly under officers who knew their work, and theAndromedawas well equipped in that respect.
The turbulent current was surging across the bows with the speed of a mill-race, so Coke brought the vessel round until she lay broadside with the land and headed straight against the set of the stream. It was his intent to drop anchor while in that position, and help any undue strain on the cable by an occasional turn of the propeller.
"Keep her there!" he said, half turning to the man at the wheel; he changed the indicator from "Full speed" to "Slow ahead"; in a few seconds the anchor chain would have rattled through the hawse-hole—when something happened that was incomprehensible, stupefying—something utterly remote and strange from the ways of civilized men.
TheAndromedaquivered under a tremendous buffet. There was a crash of rending iron and an instant stoppage of the engines. Almost merging into the noise of the blow came a loud report from the land, but that, in its turn, was drowned by the hiss of steam from the exhaust.
Coke appeared to be dumfounded for an instant. Recovering himself, he ran to the starboard side, leaned over, looked down at a torn plate that showed its jagged edges just above the water-line, and then lifted a blazing face toward a point half-way up the neighboring cliff, where a haze lay like a veil of gauze on the weather-scarred rocks.
"You d—d pirates!" he yelled, raising both clenched fists at the hidden battery which had fired a twelve-pound shell into the doomed ship.
TheAndromedaherself seemed to recognize that she was stricken unto death. She fell away before the current with the aimless drift of a log.
"Let go!" bellowed Coke with frenzied pantomime of action to Hozier. It was too late. Before the lever controlling the steam windlass that released the anchor could be shoved over, another shell plunged through the thin iron plates in the bows, smashing a steam pipe, and jamming the hawser gear by its impact. The missile burst with a terrific report. A sailor was knocked overboard, the carpenter was killed outright, two other men were seriously wounded, and Hozier received a blow on the forehead from a flying scrap of metal that stretched him on the deck.
The gunners on shore had not allowed for the drifting of the ship. That second shell was meant to demolish the chart-house and clear the bridge of its occupants. Striking high and forward, it had robbed theAndromedaof her last chance. Now she was rolling in the full grip of the tidal stream. It could only be a matter of a minute or less before she struck.
The island artillery did not succeed in hitting the crippled ship again. Three more shells were fired, but each projectile screamed harmlessly far out to sea. A trained gunner, noting these facts, would reason that the shore battery made good practice in the first instance solely because its ordnance was trained at a known range. Indeed, he might even hazard a guess that theAndromeda'swarm reception was arranged long before her masts and funnel rose over the horizon. That the islanders intended nothing less than her complete destruction was self-evident. Without the slightest warning they had tried to sink her; and now that she was escaping the further attentions of the field pieces, a number of troops stationed on South Point and the Isle des Frégates began to pelt her with bullets.
Iris, when the first paralysis of fear had passed, when her stricken senses resumed their sway and her limbs lost their palsy, flinched from this new danger, and sank sobbing to her knees behind the canvas shield of the bridge. Somehow, this flimsy shelter, which sailors call the "dodger," gave some sense of safety. Her throbbing brain was incapable of lucid thought, but it was borne in on her mistily that the world and its occupants had suddenly gone mad. The omen of the blood-red water had justified itself most horribly. The dead carpenter was sprawling over the forecastle windlass. His hand still clutched the brake. The sailor at the wheel had been shot through the throat, and had fallen limply through the open doorway of the chart-room; he lay there, coughing up blood and froth, and gasping his life out. The two men wounded by the second shell were creeping down the forward companion in the effort to avoid the hail of lead that was beating on the ship. Hozier was raising himself on hands and knees, his attitude that of a man who is dazed, almost insensible. Watts had gone from the bridge—he might have been whirled to death over the side like the unfortunate foremast hand she had seen tossed from off the forecastle; but Coke, whose charmed life apparently entitled him to act like a lunatic, was actually balancing himself on top of the starboard rails of the bridge by clinging to a stay, having climbed to that exposed position in order to hurl oaths at the soldiers on shore. He had gone berserk with rage. His cap had either fallen off or been torn from his head by a bullet; his squat, powerful figure was shaking with frenzy; he emphasized each curse with a passionate gesture of the free hand and arm; he said among other things, and with no lack of forceful adjectives, that if he could only come to close quarters with some of the Portygee assassins on the island he would tear their sanguinary livers out. It is an odd thing that men made animal by fury often use that trope. They do really mean it. The liver is the earliest spoil of the successful tiger.
TheAndromeda, uncontrollable as destiny, and quite as heedless of her human freight, swung round with the current until her bows pointed to the islet occupied by the marksmen. All at once, Coke suspended his flow of invectives and rushed into the chart-room, where Iris heard him tearing lockers open and throwing their contents on the deck. To enter, he was obliged to leap over the body of the dying man. The action was grotesque, callous, almost inhuman; it jarred the girl's agonized transports back into a species of spiritual calm, a mental state akin to the fatalism often exhibited by Asiatics when death is imminent and not to be denied. The apparent madness of the captain was now more distressing to her than the certain loss of the ship or the invisible missiles that clanged into white patches on the iron plates, cut sudden holes and scars in the woodwork, or whirred through the air with a buzzing whistle of singularly menacing sound. She began to be afraid of remaining on the bridge; her fear was not due to the really vital fact that it was so exposed; it arose from the purely feminine consideration that she was sure Coke had become a raving maniac, and she dreaded meeting him when, if ever, he reappeared.
A bullet struck the front frame of the chart-room, and several panes of glass were shattered with a fearful din. That decided her. Coke, if he were not killed, would surely be driven out. She sprang to her feet, and literally ran down the steep ladder to the saloon deck. Through the open door of the officers' mess she witnessed another bizarre act—an act quite as extraordinary in its way as Coke's jump over the steersman's body. In the midst of this drama of death and destruction, Watts was standing there, with head thrown back and uplifted arm, gulping down a tumblerful of some dark-colored liquid, draining it to the dregs, while he held a black bottle in the other hand. That a man should fly to rum for solace when existence itself might be measured by minutes or seconds, was, to Iris, not the least amazing experience of an episode crammed with all that was new, and strange, and horrible in her life. She raced on, wholly unaware that the drifting ship was now presenting her port bow to the death-dealing fusillade.
Then, from somewhere, she heard a gruff voice:
"Hev' ye shut off steam, Macfarlane?"
"Ou ay. It's a' snug below till the watter reaches the furnaces," came the answer.
So some of the men were doing their duty. Thank God for that! Undeterred by the fact that a live shell had burst among the engines, the oil-stained, grim-looking engineers had not quitted their post until they had taken such precautions as lay in their power to insure the ship's safety. A light broke in on the fog in the girl's mind. Even now, at the very gate of eternity, one might try to help others! The thought brought a ray of comfort. She was about to look for the speakers when a bullet drilled a hole in a panel close to her side. She began to run again, for a terrified glance through the forward gangway showed that the ship was quite close to the land, where men in blue uniforms, wearing curiously shaped hats and white gaiters, were scattered among the rocks, some standing, some kneeling, some prone, but all taking steady aim.
But it showed something more. Hozier was now lying sideways on the raised deck of the forecastle; he partly supported himself on his right arm; his left hand was pressed to his forehead; he was trying to rise. With an intuition that was phenomenal under the circumstances, Iris realized that he was screened from observation for the moment by the windlass and the corpse that lay across it. But the ship's ever increasing speed, and the curving course of her drifting, would soon bring him into sight, and then those merciless riflemen would shoot him down.
"Oh, not that! Not that!" she wailed aloud.
An impulse stronger than the instinct of self-preservation caused the blood to tingle in her veins. She had waited to take that one look, and now, bent double so as to avoid being seen by the soldiers, she sped back through the gangway, gained the open deck, crouched close to the bulwarks on the port side, and thus reached unscathed the foot of the companion down which the wounded men had crawled. The zinc plates on the steps were slippery with their blood, but she did not falter at the sight. Up she went, stooped over Hozier, and placed her strong young arms round his body.
"Quick!" she panted, "let me help you! You will be killed if you remain here!"
Her voice seemed to rouse him as from troubled sleep.
"I was hit," he muttered. "What is it? What is wrong?"
"Oh, come, come!" she screamed, for some unseen agency tore a transverse gash in the planking not a foot in front of them.
He yielded with broken expostulations. She dragged him to the top of the stairs. Clinging to him, she half walked, half fell down the few steps. But she did not quite fall; Hozier's weight was almost more than she could manage, but she clung to him desperately, saved him from a headlong plunge to the deck, and literally carried him into the forecastle, where she found some of the crew who had scurried there like rabbits to their burrow when the first shell crashed into the engine-room.
Iris's fine eyes darted lightning at them.
"You call yourselves men," she cried shrilly, "yet you leave one of your officers lying on deck to be shot at by those fiends!"
"We didn't know he was there, miss," said one. "We'd ha' fetched him right enough if we did."
Even in her present stress of mixed emotions, the sailor's words sounded reasonable. Every other person on board was just as greatly stunned by this monstrous attack as she herself, and the firing now appeared to increase in volume and accuracy. Several bullets clanged against the funnel or broke huge splinters off the boats.
"Gord A'mighty, listen to that," growled a voice. "An' we cooped up here, blazed at by a lot of rotten Dagos, with not a gun to our name!"
Iris was still supporting Hozier, whose head and shoulders were pillowed against her breast as she knelt behind him.
"Can nothing be done?" she asked. "I believe Captain Coke has been killed. Mr. Hozier is badly injured, I fear. Bring some water, if possible."
"Yes, yes, water.… Only a knock on the head.… How did it happen? And what is that noise of firing?"
Hozier's scattered wits were returning, though neither he nor Iris remembered that theAndromedawas waterless. He looked up at her, then at the men, and he smiled as his eyes met hers again.
"Funny thing!" he said, with a natural tone that was reassuring. "I thought the windlass smashed itself into smithereens. But it couldn't. What was it that banged?"
"A shell, fired from the island," said the girl.
Hozier straightened himself a little. He was hearing marvels, though far from understanding them, as yet.
"A shell!" he repeated vacantly. Had she said "a comet" it could not have sounded more incredible.
"Yes. It might have killed you. Several of the men are dead. I myself saw three of them killed outright, and two others are badly wounded."
"Here you are, sir—drink this," said a fireman, offering a pannikin of beer. It was unpalatable stuff, but it tasted like the nectar of the gods to one who had sustained a blow that would have felled an ox. Hozier had almost emptied the tin when an exclamation from an Irish stoker drew all eyes to the after part of the ship.
"Holy war! Will ye look at that!" shouted the man. "Sure the skipper isn't dead, at all, at all."
Iris had failed to grasp the meaning of Coke's antics in the chart-room, but they were now fully explained. The bulldog breed of this self-confessed rascal had taken the upper hand of him. Though he had not scrupled to plot the destruction of the ship, and thus rob a marine insurance company of a considerable sum of money—though at that very instant there was actual proof of his scheme in the preparations he had made to jam the steering-gear when the anchor was raised after the tanks were replenished—it was not in the man's nature to skulk into comparative safety because a foreigner, a pirate, a not-to-be-mentioned-in-polite-society Portygee, opened fire on him in this murderous fashion. Moreover, Coke's villainy would have sacrificed no lives. TheAndromedamight be converted into scrap iron, and thereby give back, by perverted arithmetic, the money invested in her. But her white decks would not be stained with blood. Whatever risk was incurred would be his, the responsible captain's, his only. It was a vastly different thing that shot and shell should be rained on an unarmed ship by the troops of a civilized power when she was seeking the lowest form of hospitality. No wonder if the bull-necked skipper foamed at the mouth and used words forbidden by the catechism; no wonder if he tried to express his helpless fury in one last act of defiance.
He rummaged the lockers for a Union Jack and the four flags that showed the ship's name in signal letters. The red ensign was already fluttering from a staff at the stern, and the house flag of David Verity & Co. was at the fore, but these emblems did not satisfy Coke's fighting mettle. TheAndromedawould probably crack like an eggshell the instant she touched the reef towards which she was hurrying; he determined that she would go down with colors flying if he were not put out of action by a bullet before he could reach the main halyard.
The swerve in the ship's course as she passed the island gave him an opportunity. In justice to Coke it should be said that he recked naught of this, but it would have been humanly impossible otherwise for the soldiers to have missed him. And now, while the vessel lay with straight keel in the set of the current, the national emblem of Britain, with theAndromeda'scode flags beneath, fluttered up the mainmast.
There are many imaginable conditions under which Coke's deed would be regarded as sublime; there are none which could deny his splendid audacity. The soldiers, who seemed to be actuated by the utmost malevolence, redoubled their efforts to hit the squat Hercules who had bellowed at them and their fellow artillerists from the bridge. Bullets struck the deck, lodged in the masts, splintered the roof and panels of the upper structure, but not one touched Coke. He coolly made fast each flag in its turn, and hauled away till the Union Jack had reached the truck; then, drawn forrard by a hoarse cheer that came from the forecastle, he turned his back on the enemy and swung himself down to the fore-deck.
He was still wearing the heavy garments demanded by the gale; his recent exertions, joined to the fact that the normal temperature of a sub-tropical island was making itself felt, had induced a violent perspiration. As he lumbered along the deck he mopped his face vigorously with a pocket handkerchief, and this homely action helped to convince Iris that she was mistaken in thinking him mad. His words, too, when he caught sight of her, were not those of a maniac.
"Well, missy," he cried, "wot'll they say in Liverpool now? I s'pose they'll 'ear of this some day," and he jerked a thumb backwards to indicate the unceasing hail of bullets that poured into the after part of the ship.
The girl looked at him with an air of surprise that would have been comical under less grievous conditions. She knew, with a vague definiteness, that death was near, perhaps unavoidable, and it had never occurred to her that she or any other person on board need feel any concern about the view entertained by Liverpool as to their fate. Before she could frame a reply, however, Hozier seemed to recover his faculties. He stood up, walked unaided to the side of the ship, and glanced ahead.
"Shouldn't we try to lower a boat, sir?" he asked instantly.
"Wot's the use?" growled Coke. "Oo's goin' to lower boats while them blighters on the island are pumpin' lead into us? And wot good are the boats w'en they're lowered? They've been drilled full of holes. You might as well try to float a sieve. Look at that," he added sarcastically, as the side of the cutter was ripped open by a ricochetting shot, and splinters were littered on the deck, "they know wot they want an' they mean to get it. Dead men tell no tales. It won't be anybody 'ere now who'll 'ave the job of lettin' the folk at 'ome know 'ow the pore oleAndromedawent under."
"Are none of the boats seaworthy?"
"Not one. They're knocked to pieces. Sorry for you, Miss Yorke. But we're all booked for Kingdom Come. In 'arf a minnit, or less, we'll be on the reef, an' the ship must begin to break up."
Coke was telling the plain truth, but Hozier ran aft to make sure that he was right in assuming the extent of the boats' damages. One of the men, an Italian, climbed to the forecastle deck in order to see more clearly what sort of danger they were running into. He came back instantly, and his swarthy face was green with terror. Though he spoke English well enough, he began to jabber wildly in his mother tongue. None paid heed to him. It was common knowledge that the vessel must be lost, and that those who still lived when she struck would have the alternatives of being drowned, or beaten to pieces against the frowning rocks, or shot from the mainland like so many stranded seals, if some alliance of luck and strength secured a momentary foothold on one of the tiny islets that barred the way. And at such moments, when the mind is driven into a swift-running channel that ends in a cataract, elemental passions are apt to strive with elemental fears. Few among these rough sailors had ever given thought to the future. They had lived from hand to mouth, the demands of a hard and dangerous profession alternating with bouts of foolish revelry. Most of them had looked on death in the tempest, in the swirling seas, in the uplifted knife. But then, there was always a chance of escape, an open door for the stout heart and ready hand; whereas, under present conditions, there was nothing to be done but pray, or curse, or wait in stoic silence until the first ominous quiver ran through the swift-moving ship. So, all unknowingly, they grouped themselves according to their nationalities, for the Latins knelt and supplicated the saints and the Virgin Mother, the Celts roared insensate threats at the islanders who had thrown them into the very jaws of eternity, and the Saxons stood motionless, with grim jaws and frowning brows, disdaining alike both frenzied appeal and useless execration.
Someone threw a cork jacket over the girl's shoulders, and bade her fasten its straps around her waist. She obeyed without a word. Indeed, she seemed to have lost the power of speech. Everything had suddenly assumed such a crystal clear aspect that her eyes were gifted with unnatural vision though her remaining senses were benumbed. The blue and white of the sky, the emerald green of the water, the russet brown and cold gray of the land—these shone now with a beauty vivid beyond any of nature's tints she had ever before seen. She was conscious, too, of an awful aloofness. Her spirit was entrenched in its own citadel. She seemed to be brooding, solitary and remote, yet shrinking ever within herself; quite unknowing, she offered a piteous example of the old Hebrew's dire truism that man came naked into the world and naked shall he depart.
In a curiously detached way she wondered why Hozier did not return. The prayers and curses of the men surrounding her fell unheeded on her ears. Where was Hozier? What was he doing? Why did he not come to her? She felt a strange confidence in him. If he had not been struck down by that calamitous shell he would have saved the ship—assuredly he would have devised some means of saving their lives! Perhaps, even now, he was attempting some desperate expedient!… The thought nerved her for an instant. Then a rending, grinding noise was followed by a sudden swerve and roll of the ship that sent her staggering against a bulkhead. An outburst of cries and shouting rang through her brain, and a shriek was wrung from her parched throat.
But theAndromedarighted herself again, though there was another sound of tearing metal, and the deck heaved perceptibly under a shock.
Ah, kind Heaven! here came Hozier, running, thundering some loud order.
"The port life-boat … seaworthy!"
There was a fierce rush, in which she joined. She was knocked down. A strong hand dragged her to her feet. It was Coke, swearing horribly. She saw Hozier leap against the flood of men.
"D—n you, the woman first!" she heard him say, and he sent the leaders of the mob sprawling over the hatches of the forehold.
Coke, almost carrying her in his left arm, butted in among the crew like an infuriated bull. Some of the men, shamefaced, made way for them. Hosier reached her. She thought he said to the captain:
"There's a chance, if we can swing her clear."
Then the ship struck, and they were all flung to the deck. They rose, somehow, anyhow, but theAndromeda, apparently resenting the check, lifted herself bodily, tilted bow upward, and struck again. A mass of spray dashed down upon the struggling figures who had been driven a second time to their knees. There was a terrific explosion in the after-hold, for the deck had burst under the pressure of air, and another ominous roar announced that the water had reached the furnaces. Steam and smoke and dust mingled with the incessant lashing of sheets of spray, and Iris was torn from Coke's grip.
She fancied she heard Hozier cry, "Too late!" and a lightning glimpse down the sloping deck showed some of the engineers and stokers crawling up toward the quivering forecastle. She felt herself clasped in Hozier's arms, and knew that he was climbing. After a few breathless seconds she realized that they were standing on the forecastle, where the captain and many of the crew were clinging to the windlass, and anchor, and cable, and bulwarks, to maintain their footing. Below, beyond a stretch of unbroken deck, the sea raged against all that was left of the ship. The bridge just showed above the froth and spume of sea level. The funnel still held by its stays, but the mainmast was gone, and with it the string of flags.
The noise was deafening, overpowering. It sounded like the rattle of some immense factory; yet a voice was audible through the din, for Hozier was telling her not to abandon hope, as the fore part of the ship was firmly wedged into a cleft in the rocks: they might still have a chance when the tide dropped.
So that explained why it was so dark where a few moments ago all was light. Iris pressed the salt water out of her burning eyes, and tried to look up. On both sides of the narrow triangle of the forecastle rose smooth overhanging walls, black and dripping. They were festooned with seaweed, and every wave that curled up between the ship's plates and the rocks was thrown back over the deck, while streams of water fell constantly from the masses of weed. She gasped for breath. The mere sight of this dismal cleft with its super-saturated air space made active the choking sensation of which she was just beginning to be aware.
"I—cannot breathe!" she sobbed, and she would have slipped off into the welter of angry foam beneath had not Hozier tightened a protecting arm round her waist.
"Stoop down!" he said.
She had a dim knowledge that he unbuttoned his coat and drew one of its folds over her head. Ah, the blessed relief of it! Freed from the stifling showers of spray, she drew a deep breath or two. How good he was to her! How sure she was now that if he had been spared by that disabling shell he would have saved them all!
Bent and shrouded as she was, she could see quite clearly downward. The ship was breaking up with inconceivable rapidity. Already there was a huge irregular vent between the fore deck and the central block of cabins topped by the bridge. And a new horror was added to all that had gone before. Swarms of rats were skimming up the slippery planks. They were invading the forecastle and the forecastle deck. They came in an irresistible army, though, fortunately for Iris's continued sanity, the greater number scurried into the darkness of the men's quarters.
She was watching them with fascinated eyes, though not daring to withdraw her head from under the coat, when she heard a ghastly yell from beneath, and an erie face appeared above the stairway. It was Watts, mad with fright and drink.
"Save me! save me!" he screamed, and the girl shuddered as she realized that the man did not fear death so much as he loathed the scampering rats. He had no difficulty in climbing the steep companion, though, by reason of the present position of all that was left of theAndromeda, its pitch was thrown back to an unusual angle. He scrambled up, a pitiable object. A couple of rats ran over his body, and as each whisked across his shoulders and past his cheek he uttered a blood-curdling yell. A big wave surged up into the recesses of the cleft and was flung off in a drenching shower on to the forecastle. It nearly swept Watts into the next world, and it drove every rodent in that exposed place back to the dry interior.
To return, they had to use the unhappy chief officer as a causeway, and the poor wretch's despairing cries were heartrending. He was clinging for dear life to a bolt in the deck when Coke joined hands with a sailor and was thus enabled to reach him. Once the skipper's strong fingers had clutched his collar he was rescued—at least from the instant death that might have been the outcome of his abject terror, for there could be little doubt in the minds of those who saw his glistening eyes and drawn lips that it would have needed the passage of but one more rat and he would have relaxed his hold.
Coke pulled him up until he was lodged in safety in front of the windlass. The manner of the welcome given by the captain to hisaideneed not be recorded here. It was curt and lurid; it would serve as a sorry passport if proffered on his entry to another world; but the tragi-comedy of Watts's appearance among the close-packed gathering on the forecastle was forthwith blotted out of existence by a thing so amazing, so utterly unlooked for that during a couple of spellbound seconds not a man moved nor spoke.