"Then accept the consequences, and leave me alone."
"And if I can"t----"
She looked him squarely in the eyes. "I am Joe"s wife," she said.
"Madge," he said, "I am not trying to defend myself. I"m throwing myself on your mercy. I"m begging you, on my knees, for what I threw away.
I----"
"You"ve broken my heart," she said; "why should I mind if you break yours?"
"Madge," he cried, "in ten minutes we can be aboard the _Northern Light_ and under weigh; in an hour we can be outside the reef; in two, and this cursed island will sink forever behind us, and no one here will ever see us again or know whither we have gone. Let us follow the gale, and push into new seas, among new people--Tahiti, Marquesas, the Pearl Islands--where we shall win back our lost happiness, and find our love only the stronger for what we"ve suffered."
She pointed to the windward sky. "I think I know the port we"d make,"
she said.
"Then make it," he cried, "and go down to it in each other"s arms."
For a moment she looked at him in a sort of exaltation. She seemed to hesitate no longer. Her hot hands reached for his, and he felt in her quick and tumultuous breath the first token of her surrender. Herself a child of the sea, brought up from infancy among boats and ships, her hand as true on the tiller, her sparkling eyes as keen to watch the luff of a sail as any man"s, she knew as well as Gregory the h.e.l.l that awaited them outside. To accept so terrible an ordeal seemed like a purification of her dishonor. If she died, she would die unstained; if she lived, it would be after such a bridal that would obliterate her tie to the sot below. Then, on the eve of her giving way, as every line in her body showed her longing, as her head drooped as though to find a resting place on the breast of the man she loved, she suddenly called up all her resolution and tore herself free.
"I"m Joe"s wife!" she said.
Gregory faltered as he tried again to plead with her; but in his mind"s eye he saw that stiffening corpse below, lying stark and b.l.o.o.d.y on the cabin floor.
"You gave me to him," she burst out. "I"m his, Greg. I will not betray my husband for any man."
Again he besought her to go with him. But the moment of her madness had pa.s.sed. She listened unmoved, and when at last he stopped in despair, she bade him take his boat and go.
He sat down on the rail instead, his eyes defying her.
She stepped aft, and his heart stood still as she seemed on the point of descending the companion. But she had another purpose in mind. Throwing aside the gaskets, she stripped the sail covers off the mainsail and began, with practiced hands, to reef down to the third reef. Then she went forward and did the same to the forestaysail. A minute later, hardly knowing why or how, except that he was helping Madge, Gregory, like a man in a dream, was pulling with her on the halyards of both sails. The wind thundered in them as they rose; the main boom jerked violently at the sheet and lashed to and fro the width of the deck; the anchor chain fretted and sawed in the hawse hole; the whole schooner strained and creaked and shook to the keelson. Gregory, in amazement, asked Madge what she was doing.
"Going to sea, Greg," she said.
"Alone?" he cried. "Alone?"
"Joe and I," she said.
It was on his tongue to tell her Joe was dead; but, though he tried, he could not do so. It wasn"t in flesh and blood to tell her he had killed her husband. He could only look at her helplessly, and say over and over again, "To sea!"
"Greg," she said, "I mean to leave you while I am brave--while I am yet able to resist--while I can still remember I am Joe"s wife!"
"And drown," he said.
"What do I care if I do?" she returned. "What do I care for anything?"
"If it"s to be one or the other," he said, "I"ll go myself. With my big schooner I"d have twice the chance you"d have."
She put her arms round his neck and kissed him. "You sweet traitor," she said, "you"d play me false!"
He protested vehemently that he would not deceive her.
"Besides," she said, "I could risk myself, but I couldn"t bear to risk you, Greg."
He tried a last shot. The words almost strangled in his throat.
"And Joe?" he said. "Have you no thought of Joe?"
"Joe loves me," she said--"loves me a thousand times better than you ever did. Joe"s man enough to chance death rather than lose his wife."
"But I won"t let you go!" said Gregory.
"You can"t stop me," she returned.
He caught her round the body and tried to hold her, but she fought herself free. His strength was gone; he was as feeble as a child; in the course of those short hours something seemed to have snapped within him. Even Madge was startled at his weakness.
"Greg, you"re ill!" she cried, as he staggered, and caught at a backstay to save himself from falling. He sat down on the house and tried to keep back a sob. Madge stooped, and looked anxiously into his face. She had known him for two years as a man of unusual sternness and self-control; obstinate, reserved, willful, and moody, yet one that gave always the impression of unflinching courage and resolution. It was inexplicable now to see him crying like a woman, his square shoulders bent and heaving, his sinewy hands opening and shutting convulsively.
"You"re ill," she repeated. "I"ll go down and fetch you something."
This pulled him together. "I"m all right, Madge," he said faintly. "I suppose it"s just a touch of the old fever. See, it"s pa.s.sing already."
She watched him in silence. Then she stepped forward, dropped down the forecastle hatchway, and reappeared with an ax. While he was wondering what she meant to do, she raised it in the air and crashed it down on the groaning anchor chain. It parted at the first blow, and the _Edelweiss_, now adrift, blundered broadside on to leeward.
Madge ran aft, brought the schooner up in the wind, and cried out to Gregory to get into his boat.
He said sullenly he wouldn"t do anything of the kind.
She lashed the wheel and came up to him.
"I mean it, Greg," she said.
"You are going to your death, Madge," he said.
"Get into your boat!" she repeated.
He rose, and slowly began to obey.
"You may kiss me good-by, Greg," she said.
She put up her face to his; their lips met. Then, with her arm around him, she half forced, half supported him to the port quarter, where his boat was slopping against the side. He wanted to resist; he wanted to cry out and tell her the truth, but a strange, leaden powerlessness benumbed him. He got into the dinghy, drew in the dripping painter she cast after him, and watched her ease the sheet and set the vessel scudding for the pa.s.sage. With her black hair flying in the wind, her bare arms resting lightly on the wheel, her straight, girlish, supple figure bending with the heel of the deck, she never faltered nor looked back as the water whitened and boiled in the schooner"s wake.
Gregory came to himself in his own cabin. Cracroft, the mate, was bending over him with a bottle of whisky. The Malita steward was chafing his naked feet. Overhead the rush and roar of the gale broke pitilessly on his ears.
"The _Edelweiss_!" he gasped; "the _Edelweiss_!"
"Went down an hour ago, sir," said Cracroft grimly.