A great silence followed and immediately the pattering of bare feet.
A confused murmuring of voices rose from the saloon gangway--a buzzing sound, like that of a hive disturbed. A single voice rose in a shriek of mortal terror, and immediately there followed a chorus of confused shouts.
Luke already had his lips at the speaking-tube. He was telling the engineer on watch to steam ahead; he knew the danger of the Croonah slipping back into deep water and sinking.
In a marvellously short time the decks were thronged with people, some standing white-faced and calm in the dim light of early morning; others, mad with terror, rushing from side to side.
The strange part of it was that Luke remained alone on the bridge.
The captain and the other officers were busy with the pa.s.sengers.
The second officer remained motionless at his post; he commanded the steersman by a wave of the arm to stay at the wheel, although he knew that the Croonah would never answer her helm again; her travelling days were done.
In the dim light now increasing momentarily, Luke FitzHenry looked down upon the wildly confused decks and saw discipline slowly a.s.sert itself. He saw the captain commanding by sheer force of individual power; he saw the quartermasters form in line across the deck and drive the pa.s.sengers farther aft, leaving room to get out the boats.
In a few moments--in a marvellously short s.p.a.ce of time--the work of saving life began. A boat was lowered, the crew slipped into their places, and a certain number of lady pa.s.sengers were hastily handed down the gangway. The first boat eased away. The oars were thrown out. It was off, and some of the pa.s.sengers cheered. One can never tell what men, especially Englishmen, may do when they actually see death face to face. The boat was headed to the south-east, towards the Carreiro do Mosteiro, on Burling Island, the only possible landing-place.
Luke felt a touch on his arm and turned sharply. It was a quartermaster, breathless but cool.
"Captain wants you, sir. I"ll take the bridge."
Luke turned to obey orders.
"Keep her steaming full speed ahead," he said, jerking his head towards the engine-room telegraph.
"Ay, sir," the man replied.
"Until the water gets to the furnaces," he added to himself, "and then we"re dead men."
Luke ran lightly down the iron ladder to the lower bridge, which was deserted. From thence he made his way aft to the quarter-deck. As he pa.s.sed the saloon staircase he ran against two women; one was dragging the other, or attempting to do so, towards the group of pa.s.sengers huddled together amidships.
"You go," the younger woman was saying, "if you want to. I will wait."
Luke stopped. The elder woman was apparently wild with terror. She had not even stopped to put on a dressing-gown. Her thin grey hair fluttered in the breeze. She was stout and an object of ridicule even with death clutching at her.
"Go on, mother," said the younger woman, with contempt in her voice.
"Agatha!" cried Luke. "You here?"
"Yes; we came on board at Malta."
CHAPTER XII. THE END OF THE "CROONAH".
Our life is given us as a blank; Ourselves must make it blest or curst.
A man came running along and clutched at Luke"s arm.
"Captain wants you, sir, immediate!" he cried.
"All right," answered Luke. "Here, take this lady and put her into a boat."
Mrs. Ingham-Baker was clinging to him.
"Luke," she said firmly, "you must provide us with a lifeboat--a safe one. I will not stand this neglect."
"Here!" cried Luke to the man. "Take her away."
"You come along o" me, marm," said the man, with a twinkle in his eye. "I"ll pervide ye with a lifeboat, bless yer heart!"
And in the dim light of the saloon stairhead lamp, Luke and Agatha were left facing each other.
"Why did you not let me know you were coming?" he asked sharply. He looked round with haggard eyes; they were quite alone.
"I had no time. We just caught the boat by an hour."
She was singularly quiet. Both of them seemed to forget that every moment lost increased the danger of their position.
"Why did you come?" he asked.
She looked at him, and there was that in her eyes that makes men mad.
"Because I could not stay away from you."
His breath came sharply with a catch.
For a few moments they forgot such things as life and death. They did more, they defied death; for surely such love as this is stronger than the mere end of life. Again it was the possibility of something good and something strong that lurked hidden behind the worldliness of Agatha Ingham-Baker, and Luke FitzHenry, of all men, alone had the power of bringing that possibility to the surface.
All around them the wind moaned and shrieked through the rigging; the waves, beating against the sheer side of the doomed Croonah, filled the air with a sound of great foreboding--the deep voice of an elemental power that knows no mercy. Within twenty feet of them men and women were struggling like dumb and driven animals for bare life--struggling, shouting, quarrelling over a paltry precedence of a minute or so in going to the boats; within a hundred yards of them, out over the dark waters, Agatha"s mother, thrown from an overturned boat, was struggling her last struggle, with her silly old face turned indignantly up to heaven. But they saw none of these things.
All the good men were wanted for the boats, and the captain, with two officers only and a few stewards, defended the gangway against the rush of the panic-stricken native crew.
"FitzHenry! FitzHenry!" the old captain shouted. "For G.o.d"s sake, come here!" For Luke alone was dreaded by the lascars.
But Luke and Agatha heeded nothing. These people, these lives, were nothing to them, for a pa.s.sionate love is the acme of selfishness.
They heard the sounds, however; they heard the captain calling for the man who had never failed him.
"I wrecked her for you," said Luke, in Agatha"s hungry ears. "I did it all for you."
And at last the woman"s vanity was satisfied; it was thrown a sop that would suffice for its eternal greed. Luke had done this thing for her. She was quick enough to guess how and why, for she knew Willie Carr. She knew that good ships are thrown away for money"s sake. The Croonah had been thrown away for her sake--the Croonah, the patient, obedient servant to Luke"s slightest word, almost an animal in its mechanical intelligence, filling that place in the sailor"s heart that some men reserve for their horses and others for their wives. Women have been jealous of a ship before now. Eve was jealous of the Terrific; Agatha had always been jealous of the Croonah. And now the ship had been thrown away for her, and with his ship Luke had cast away his unrivalled reputation as a seaman, his honour as a gentleman, his conscience. He was a criminal, a thief, a murderer for Agatha"s sake. She, true to her school, to her generation, to her training, was proud of it; for she was one of those unhappy women who will not have their lovers love honour more.
There was a sudden roar far down in the bowels of the vessel, and immediately volumes of steam issued from every skylight. The inrushing sea had broken down the bulk-heads, the water had reached the engine-rooms. In an instant Luke was alive to the danger--the good sailor that was within the man all awake. His trained ears and the tread of his feet on the deck told him that the screw was still.
"Come," he cried to Agatha, "you must get away in the next boat."
But Agatha resisted his arm. That which had hitherto been mere pertness in her manner and carriage had suddenly grown into a strong determination. The woman was cool and fearless.
"Not without you," she answered. "I will not leave the ship until you do."