"I don"t know," said Elsie. "I was here quite alone, except for Joey."
"Ah, it was true then. He was acting secretly, and the men broke loose as soon as they heard of it."
Elsie found this recurring suspicion of Courtenay"s motives harder to bear than the preceding paroxysm of unreasoning rage. She had heard the shooting, bellowing, and tramping on deck, and she knew that some terrible scene was being enacted there, while the mere fact that the captain himself placed the female pa.s.sengers in his cabin proved that he was doing his best for all.
"I do not believe for one instant that Captain Courtenay was acting otherwise than as a brave and honorable gentleman," she said; and then the fantastic folly of such a dispute at such a moment overcame her.
She drew apart from Isobel, leaned against the wall of the cabin, and wept unrestrainedly.
Her companions in misfortune did not realize how greatly her calm self-reliance had comforted them until they witnessed this unlooked-for collapse. The Spanish maid slipped to her knees, Mrs. Somerville began to rock in her chair in a new agony, and Isobel, to whom a turbulent spirit denied the relief of tears when they were most needed, buried her face in a curtain which draped one of the windows.
It was thus that Courtenay found them, when he appeared at the door after a lapse of time which none of them could measure.
"Now, Miss Maxwell, you first," he said with an air of authority which betokened some new move of utmost importance.
"First--for what?" she managed to ask.
"You are going off in a boat. It is your best chance. Please be quick."
"No, Miss Baring goes before me. Then the others, I shall come last."
"Have it as you will. I addressed you because you were nearest the door. Come along, Miss Baring."
He waited for no further words. He grasped Isobel"s arm and led her out into the darkness. It seemed to be a very long time before he returned.
"Now, Mrs. Somerville," he said, but that unhappy lady was so unnerved that he had to carry her.
"Can you manage to bring the maid?" he asked over his shoulder to Elsie. This trust in her drove away the weakness which had conquered her under Isobel"s taunts. She stooped over the maid, but the girl wrestled and fought with her in frantic dread of the pa.s.sage along the deck and of facing that howling sea in a small boat.
Elsie herself was almost worn out when Courtenay came back. He took in the situation at a glance. He picked up the shrieking maid in his strong arms.
"You won"t mind waiting for me," he said to Elsie.
"Don"t attempt to come alone. You are too exhausted."
It was a fine thing to do, but she smiled at him to show that she could still repay his confidence.
"I shall wait," she said simply.
So she was left there, all alone again, without even the dog to bear her company.
CHAPTER VI
--BUT GOES ON AGAIN INTO THE UNKNOWN
This final waiting for the chance of succor seemed to be the hardest trial of all. The door had been hooked back to keep it wide open, so wind and sea invaded the trim privacy of the cabin. Spray leaped over the ship in such dense sheets that a considerable quant.i.ty of water quickly lodged on the port side where Courtenay"s bunk was fixed.
There was no means of escape for it in that quarter, and the angle at which the _Kansas_ lay would permit a depth of at least two feet to acc.u.mulate ere the water began to flow out through the door to the starboard.
At the great crises of existence the stream of thought is apt to form strange eddies. Courtenay, when the ship struck, and it was possible that each second might register his last conscious impression, found himself coolly reviewing various explanations of the existence of an uncharted shoal in a locality situate many miles from the known danger zone. Elsie, strung half-consciously to the highest tension by the affrighting probability of being set adrift in a small boat at the mercy of the sea roaring without--a sea which pounded the steel hull of the _Kansas_ with such force that the great ship seemed to flinch from each blow like a creature in pain--Elsie, then, faced by such an intolerable prospect, was a prey to real anxiety because the wearing apparel scattered by Courtenay on the floor was becoming soaked in brine.
She actually stooped to rescue a coat which was not yet saturated beyond redemption. As she lifted the garment, a packet of letters, tied with a tape, fell from its folds. She placed the coat on the writing-table, and endeavored to stuff the letters into a pigeon-hole.
They were too bulky, so she laid them on the coat. In doing this she could not avoid seeing the words, "Your loving sister, Madge," written on the outer fold of the last letter in the bundle.
And that brought a memory of her previous visit to the captain"s stateroom; the contrast between the careless chatter of that glorious summer afternoon and the appalling midnight of this fourth day of the voyage was something quite immeasurable; it was marked by a void as that which separates life and death. She was incapable of reasoned reflection. A series of mental pictures, a startling jumble of ideas--trivial as the wish to save the clothes from a wetting, tremendous as the near prospect of eternity--danced through her brain with bewildering clearness. She felt that if she were fated to live to a ripe old age she would never forget a single detail of the furniture and decorations of the room. She would hear forever the dolorous howling of the gale, the thumping of the waves against the quivering plates, the rapid, methodic thud of the donkey-engine, which, long since deserted by its cowardly attendant, was faithfully doing its work and flooding the ship with electric light.
She could scarcely believe that it was she, Elsie Maxwell, who stood there on the tremulous island of the ship amidst a stormy ocean the like of which she had never seen before. She seemed to possess an ent.i.ty apart from herself, to be a pa.s.sive witness of events as in a dream; presently, she would awake and find that she was back in her pleasant room at the Morrisons" hacienda, or tucked up in her own comfortable cabin. Yet here was proof positive that the terror which environed her was real. Bound up with the thunder of the gale were the words, "Your loving sister, Madge"--evidently the sister Captain Courtenay had spoken of--"matron of a hospital in the suburbs of London," he said. Would he ever see her again? Or his mother? Had he thought of them at all during this night of woe? Beneath his iron mask did tears lurk, and dull agony, and palsied fear--surely a man could suffer like a woman, even though he endured most n.o.bly?
And then, not thinking in the least what she was doing, she scrutinized the closely tied packet. She wondered idly why he treasured so many missives. Each and every one, oddly enough, was written on differently sized and variously colored note-paper. And it could be seen at a glance that they were from as many different people. The outside letter was the most clearly visible. Miss Courtenay wrote a well-formed, flowing hand. If handwriting were a clue to character, she was a candid, generous, open-minded woman.
But what was this? Elsie suddenly threw down the letters. She had read a sentence at the top of the page twice before she actually grasped its purport. When its significance dawned on her, she flushed violently. For this was what she read:
"I am glad of it, too, because under no other circ.u.mstances would I wish to greet and embrace the woman destined to be your wife."
The knowledge that she had involuntarily intruded on Captain Courtenay"s private affairs brought her back with a certain slight shock to a sense of actualities. The storm, the horrible danger she was in, emerged from shadow-land. Why had he not come for her? Surely there must have been some further mishap! Heavens! Was she alone on the ship, alone with the dead men and the dying vessel? Her head swam with a strange faintness, and she placed a hand to her eyes. She felt that she must leave the cabin at once, and strive to make her way unaided along the deck. Yes, whatever happened, she would go now. It was too dreadful to wait there any longer in ignorance as to her fate.
Then Joey sprang in through the doorway, and, with that splendid disregard for sentiment displayed by a fox-terrier who has just come out of a first-rate fight, shook his harness until it rattled.
But he eyed the inrush of the sea with much disfavor, so he leaped up on the table beside Elsie, and looked at her as though he would ask why she had permitted this sacrilege.
Though the dog was apparently unscathed and in the best of condition, his head and forepaws were blood-stained. His advent dispelled the mist which was gathering in the girl"s brain. She feared a tragedy, yet Joey a.s.suredly would not be so cheerful, so daintily desirous to avoid the splashing water in the cabin, if his master were injured.
She was doubtful now whether to go on deck or not. The mere presence of the dog was a guarantee that Courtenay had not quitted the ship.
Indeed, Elsie colored again, and more deeply, at the disloyalty of her ungoverned fear. Joey"s master would be the last man to desert a woman, no matter what the excuse. She strove to listen for any significant noises without, but wind and sea rendered the effort useless to untrained ears, and there was no shooting or frenzied yells to rise above the storm.
"Oh, Joey," she said, "I wish you could speak!"
The sound of her own voice startled her. In a fashion, it gave her a measure of time. It seemed so long since she had heard a spoken word.
The captain could certainly have gone round the whole ship since he left her. What could have detained him? She was yielding to nervousness again, and was on the point of venturing out, at least as far as the deck-house ran, to see if she could distinguish what was taking place on the after part of the vessel, when Dr. Christobal entered.
"I suppose you thought you were forgotten," he cried with a pleasant smile, for Christobal would have a smile for a woman even on his death-bed. "There, now! Don"t try to explain your feelings. You have had a very trying time, and I want you to oblige me by drinking this."
"This" was a gla.s.s of champagne, which he hurriedly poured out of a small bottle he was carrying into a gla.s.s which he produced from a pocket. The trivial action, no less than Dr. Christobal"s manner, suggested that they were engaged in some fantastic picnic. The outer horrors were not for them, apparently. They were as secure as sight-seers in the Cave of the Winds, awe-smitten tourists who cling to a rail while mighty Niagara thunders harmlessly overhead.
The mere sight of the wine caused Elsie to realize that her lips and palate were on fire with salt. At one moment she had not the slightest cognizance of her suffering; at the next, she felt that speech was impossible until she drank. Never before had she known what thirst was. A somewhat inferior vintage suddenly a.s.sumed a bouquet which surpa.s.sed the finest cru ever dreamt of by Marne valley vigneron.
"Ah, that is better," said the doctor. "Now, if you don"t mind, we shall have the door closed."
With peace suddenly restored to the room, and her faculties helped more than she suspected, Elsie began to wonder what had happened.
"Where are the others?" she asked; "and why are you taking things so coolly? Captain Courtenay said--"
"Captain Courtenay said exactly what he meant. But circ.u.mstances proved too strong for him. We shall not be able to leave the ship just yet."
"Can"t they lower any of the boats?"
"Most decidedly. Two boats have been gone some time. I imagined you knew that. Did not the captain tell you?"