His Unknown Wife

CHAPTER VI

Maseden contrived to sleep fitfully until a thin gray light, trickling through a tiny port when momentarily free of wave-wash, told him that another day had dawned. The din was incessant. Inanimate things may be inarticulate to human ears, but they speak a language of their own on such occasions—an inchoate tongue made up of banging and clattering, of stunning vibrations, of wind-shrieks, of the groaning of steel framework, riveted plates, and seasoned timber.

The Southern Cross was tackling her work with stubborn energy, but she complained of its severity in every fibre. Ships, like men, prefer easy conditions, and growl in their own peculiar manner when compelled to wage a fierce and continuous fight for mere existence.

Of course a sailor never permits himself to think of his own craft in such wise. “Dirty weather” is simply an unpleasant episode in the routine of a voyage. He regards it much as the average city man views wind and rain—displeasing additions to life’s minor worries, but not to be considered as affecting the daily task.

In a modern, well-found steamship such negative faith is fully justified, and the ship’s company of the Southern Cross went about their several duties as methodically as though the vessel were roped securely alongside a pier in the North River.

The center of the forecastle held a roomy compartment in which meals were served for the crew, and Maseden took refuge there as soon as he was dressed. He obtained an early cup of coffee, and derived some comfort from the fact, communicated by the half-caste sailor he had saved from the falling pulley, that about the same time next day they would sight the Evangelistas light, and soon thereafter be in the land-locked water of the Straits of Magellan.

He realized, of course, that sight or sound of either Madge Gray or her sister was hardly to be expected during the next twenty-four hours. In fact, he might not see them again before Buenos Ayres was reached.

On the whole, it would be better so, he decided. A thrilling and most dramatic incident in a life not otherwise noteworthy for its vicissitudes would close when he was safe on board a homeward-bound mail steamer. After that would come some small experience of a court of law.

For the rest, if he contrived to cheat the newspapers of the full details, he would actually risk his repute as a veracious citizen if he told the plain truth about one day’s history in the Republic of San Juan.

Once, in his teens, when in London during a never-to-be-forgotten European tour, a friend of his father’s pointed out a small, alert man, dressed in gray tweeds, who was hailing a cab in Pall Mall, and said:

“Look, Alec! That is Evans of the Guides. I met him five years ago in Lucknow, and even at that date he had killed his sixty-first tiger on foot and alone. He never shoots stripes any other way. He says it isn’t quite sporting to tackle the brute from the comparative safety of a howdah or a machan—a platform rigged in a tree, you know.”

Philip Alexander Maseden, aged sixteen, neither knew nor cared what a machan was. His faculties were absorbed in the difficult task of reconciling a dapper little man in a gray suit, skipping nimbly into a cab in Pall Mall, with a redoubtable Nimrod who had bagged sixty-one tigers after tracking them into their jungles.

And that was the record of five years earlier. Perhaps in the meantime the bold shikari had added dozens to the total. A mighty hunter, Evans, but hard to reconcile with his environment.

Seated in the wet, creaking cabin, and watching through a window which opened aft the turmoil of seas leaping venomously at and over the stout bulk of the Southern Cross, Maseden thought of Evans of the Guides, and his cohort of tiger-ghosts. Yet not one tiger among the lot had brought Evans so near death as he, Maseden, was when Steinbaum entered his cell on that fateful morning, and, in the closest shave Evans was ever favored with, a violent end had not been averted by stranger means.

How would the story of “Madeleine,” Suarez, and Captain Gomez’s boots sound if told in a cosy corner of a Fifth Avenue club?

By reason of his position in the fore part of the vessel, Maseden could survey the bridge, chart-house and some part of the promenade deck. The head of the officer on watch was visible above the canvas screen which those who go down to the sea in ships have christened the “devil-dodger.” The officer’s sou’wester was tied on firmly, and the placid expression of the strong, weather-stained face was clearly discernible. For the most part, he looked straight ahead, with an occasional glance back, or over the side into the spume and froth churned up by the ship’s passage. Once in a while he would draw away from the screen and compare the course shown by the compass with that steered by the quartermaster at the wheel.

For lack of something better to occupy his mind, Maseden followed each movement of the man on the bridge. Thus, singularly enough, next to the officer himself, and possibly a look-out in the bows, he was the first person on board to become aware of a peril which suddenly beset the Southern Cross.

What that peril was he could not guess, but he saw that the officer was shouting instructions to the quartermaster, and in the same instant the clang of a bell showed that the engine-room telegraph was in use.

Almost immediately the ship’s speed slackened, and as she yielded to the pressure of wind and wave the clamor of her struggle sank to comparative silence.

A few seconds later the captain appeared on the bridge. He, like the officer, gave particular heed to something which lay straight ahead. Evidently he approved of the action taken by his subordinate, because, as well as Maseden could judge, he stood beside the telegraph, with a hand on the lever, but made no further alteration in the ship’s speed.

Naturally Maseden wondered what had happened and watched closely for developments. In better weather he would have gone outside, but it was positively dangerous now to stand close to the ship’s rail, or, indeed, remain on any part of the open deck, while the shadow of an attempt on his part to climb the forecastle ladder would have evoked a gruff order to return.

Within a minute or less, however, he made out that the Southern Cross was passing through a quantity of wreckage, mostly rough-hewn timber. Here and there a spar would unexpectedly thrust its tapering point high above the tawny vortex of the waves; at odd times a portion of a bulkhead and fragments of white-painted panels would be revealed for an instant. Some unfortunate sailing ship had been torn to shreds by the gale, and the steamer was just passing through that section of the sea-plain still cumbered by her fragments, though the tragedy itself had probably occurred many a mile away from that particular point on the map.

By this time the stopping of the engines had aroused every member of the crew not on watch. Some of the men, bleary-eyed with sleep, gathered in the cabin, and their comments were illuminating.

“Wind-jammer gone with all hands,” said one man, after a critical glance at the flotsam on both sides of the ship.

“What for have we slowed up?” inquired another. “The old man ain’t thinkin’ of lowerin’ a boat, is he?”

“Lower a boat, saphead, in a sea like this!” scoffed the first speaker.

“Wouldn’t he try to rescue any poor sailor-men who may be clingin’ to the wreck?” came the retort.

“As though any sort of blisterin’ wreck could live in this weather! Try again, Jimmy. We’re dodgin’ planks an’ ropes; that’s our special stunt just now. One o’ them hefty chunks o’ lumber would knock a hole in us below the water-line before you could say ‘knife’. An’ how about a sail an’ cordage wrappin’ themselves lovin’ly around the screw? Where ’ud we be then?... There you are. What did I tell you?”

A heavy thud, altogether different from the blow delivered by a wave, shook the Southern Cross from stem to stern. The captain looked over the port side, and followed the movement of some unseen object until it was swept well clear of the ship. The engines, which had been stopped completely, were rung on to “Slow ahead” again. They remained at that speed for half a minute, not longer. Then they were stopped once more, and the officer of the watch quitted the bridge hurriedly.

“What the devil’s the matter now?” growled the more experienced critic anxiously. “That punch we got can’t of started a plate, or all hands would ’a’ bin piped on deck!”

Singularly enough, he either forgot or was afraid to voice his own prediction as to a possible alternative. The big foremast which had struck the ship’s quarter was stout enough, most unluckily, to support a thin wire rope, and this unseen assailant had fouled the propeller. In all likelihood, had the captain given the order “Full speed ahead,” the evil thing might have been thrown clear before mischief was done.

As it was, the very care with which the Southern Cross was navigated led to her undoing. With each slow turn of the screw the snake-like rope which was destined to choke the life out of a gallant ship had coiled itself into a death grip.

Soon some of the strands were forced between propeller and shaft-casing. The solid steel cylinder of the shaft became fixed as in a vise. The engines were powerless. To apply their force was only to increase the resistance. They could not be driven either ahead or astern.

The Southern Cross promptly fell away to the southeast under the stress of wind and tide. After her, forming a sort of sea-anchor, lolloped the derelict foremast which, by its buoyancy, was the first cause of all the mischief.

Mostly it was towed astern. Sometimes a giant wave would snatch it up and drive it like a battering ram against the ship’s counter.

These blows were generally harmless, the rounded butt of the spar glancing off from the acute angle presented by the molded stern-plates. Once or twice, however, the rudder was struck squarely, so the chief officer, aided by some of the men, quickly put an end to the capacity of this novel battering-ram for inflating further damage by lassoing and hauling aboard the whole mass of wreckage—mast, yards and tattered sails alike.

Then a gruesome discovery was made. Tied to the mast was the corpse of a man, but so bruised and battered as to be wholly unrecognizable. The poor body, nearly naked, and maimed and torn almost out of human semblance, was stitched in a strip of wet canvas, weighted with a few furnace bars, and committed to the deep again without a moment’s loss of time.

But its brief presence had not been helpful. Singularly enough, sailors are not only fatalists, which they may well be, but superstitious. No man voiced his sentiments; nevertheless, each felt in his heart the ship was doomed.

Collectively, they would try to save the ship. As individuals, the paramount question now was—how and when might they endeavor to save their own lives?

Of course there was neither any sign of panic nor shirking of orders. The ship was stanch and eminently seaworthy. She was actually far more comfortable while drifting thus helplessly before the gale than when battling through it.

Yet every sailor on board, from the captain down to the scullery-man, knew that some forty miles ahead lay a shore so forbidding and inhospitable that the United States government charts—than which there are none so detailed and up-to-date—give navigators the significant warning to keep well out to sea, as the coast-line has not been surveyed in detail.

Yet the case was not immediately desperate. Forty miles of sea-room was better than none. If the gale abated, and an anchor was dropped, it was probable that the engineers’ cold chisels would soon cut away the wire octopus.

Moreover, there was a chance that some other steamer might pick them up and earn a magnificent salvage by a tow to Punta Arenas.

So after breakfast the uncanny harbinger of disaster provided by the body of the drowned sailor was, if not forgotten, at least generally ignored. Pipes were lighted. Men not otherwise occupied gathered in groups, while every eye strove to pierce the gray haze of the spindrift whipped off the waves by each furious gust, each hoping to be the first to discover the friendly smoke-pall of a passing ship.

Certain ominous preparations were made, however. Boats were cleared of their wrappings and stocked with water and provisions. Life-belts were examined, and their straps adjusted.

As the day wore, and noon was reached, the chance of encountering another ship became increasingly remote. Sea and wind showed no signs of falling. Indeed, a slight rise in the barometer was not an encouraging token. “First rise after low foretells stronger blow” is as true to-day as when Admiral Fitzroy wrote his weather-lore doggerel, and the principles of meteorology hold good equally north and south of the equator.

For a time the captain tried to steady the ship with the canvas fore-and-aft sails which big steamships use occasionally in fine weather to help the rudder. This devise certainly got the Southern Cross under control again, and the crew were vastly astonished when bid furl the sails after half an hour.

Surprise ceased when some of them got an opportunity to squint into a compass. The wind had veered from northwest to a point south of west.

Only a miracle could save the ship now. It seemed as though the very forces of nature had conspired to bring about her undoing.

From that moment a gloom fell on the little community. Men muttered brief words, or chatted in whispers. A few paid furtive visits to their bunks, and rummaged in kit-bags for some treasured curio or personal belonging which could be stowed away in a pocket. It was not a question now as to whether the Southern Cross would survive, but when and where she would strike, and what sort of fighting chance would be given of reaching a bleak shore alive.

Every one knew that it would be the wildest folly to lower a boat in such a heavy sea. The sole remaining hope was that the ship would escape the outer fringe of reefs, and drive into some rock-bound creek where the boats might live.

By means of a properly constructed sea-anchor the captain kept the vessel’s head toward the east. Thus, when land was sighted, if any semblance of a channel offered, it might be possible to steer in that direction.

Men were told off to be in readiness to hoist the sails again at a moment’s notice. The anchors were cleared, both fore and aft. Nothing else could be done but watch and wait, while the great ship rolled into yawning gulfs or slid down huge curves of yellow-gray water, rolled and slid ever onward to sure destruction.

During those weary hours, so slow in passing, so swift in succession when sped, Maseden had not once set eyes on his wife or her sister. He had seen Sturgess talking to the captain and first officer, but neither of the ladies appeared on deck.

Still it was an easy thing to imagine just what was going on. The two women were the only persons on board left in ignorance of the certain fate awaiting the Southern Cross. They were told the half truth that the engines were disabled, but that the vessel was in no immediate danger.

It was better so. Of what avail to frighten them needlessly? The ship would have been absolutely safe if the gale blew from the east instead of the west. Even now she might survive. Her chances were of the slenderest nature, but there would be ample time to get the women into an upper deck saloon or the chart-room when the position became desperate. Why embitter the few hours of life yet remaining by knowledge of the dreadful fate which threatened when the end came?

About two o’clock an undulating blur on the eastern horizon told of land. To the best of the captain’s judgment the Southern Cross was off Hanover Island when the accident happened, and her relative longitude had altered but very slightly during the forty-mile drift. It was now or never if anything was to be done to save her.

The forbidding and mountainous coast-line straight ahead was broken up by all manner of deep-water channels, each giving access, by devious ways, to the sheltered Smyth’s Channel; but so barricaded by sunken reefs and steep islets as to present almost insuperable obstacles to the free passage of a large vessel.

Small whalers and guano-boats would not dare any of these straits in fine weather. For the Southern Cross to make the attempt, even provided she ran the gantlet of the barrier reef, was indeed the forlornest of forlorn hopes.

The chief engineer had already assured the captain many times that any further pressure by the engines would inflict irreparable damage, so, risking everything on the throw of the dice and wishful to know the worst, at any rate, before daylight vanished, he ordered the sails to be hoisted again.

All hands were brought on deck, life-belts were adjusted, and boats’ crews stood by. At that moment Maseden caught a glimpse of the two girls. They, with other passengers, were summoned by the ship’s officers and placed in the smoke-room, which, by reason of its situation beneath the bridge, provided a convenient gathering ground in case the boats were lowered.

He saw them only for a moment—two cloaked figures, wearing cloth caps tied tightly to their heads with motor-veils. He could not distinguish Madge from Nina.

It was a strange and most bizarre notion that when the gates of eternity were opening a second time before his eyes the woman who was his lawful wife should now be sharing his peril, yet be separated from him far more effectually than in the Castle of San Juan.

The incongruity of their position did not trouble him greatly, however. Soon he ceased thinking about it. He realized that he, as an individual, could do nothing but obey orders and abide by the decree of Providence.

He was not frightened. Some hours earlier, knowing the physical features of the western coast of South America, he had decided that the odds were a thousand to one against the escape of the ship and her seventy-four occupants. He hoped that when the end came it might not be a long drawn-out agony—that was all. For the rest, he looked forward with a certain spice of curiosity to the fight which captain and crew would make against the giant forces of nature.

An awesome panorama of mighty cliffs, inaccessible islands and isolated rocks over which the seas dashed with extraordinary fury, was opening up with ever-increasing clearness. A mist of driven froth and spindrift hung low over the surface of the water, but the great hills of the interior were distinctly visible.

Irregular white patches near their summits marked the presence of huge glaciers. Lower down the valleys were choked with black masses of firs. Countless generations of trees had grown, and fallen, and rotted, ultimately forming a new, if unstable, basis for more recent growths.

An occasional red scar down a hillside revealed the latest landslide. A cascade would leap out from the topmost part of a forest and bury itself again in the depths.

These outstanding features were all on a huge scale. It was a weird, monstrous land, a place utterly unfitted for human habitation, a part of creation quite out of keeping with the rest of the world. Surveying it impartially, one might wonder whether it had traveled far in advance of the general scheme of things or lagged millions of years behind.

But its aspect was sinister and forbidding in the extreme, and never have its depressing characteristics been etched in darker shadows than when viewed that January day from the decks of the ill-fated Southern Cross.

CHAPTER VII

It was at this crisis, when life or death for all on board might depend on the veriest trifle, that the captain had to decide whether or not to let go both anchors and endeavor to ride out the gale.

He was an experienced and cool-headed sailor. He knew quite well that the odds were heavy against an anchor holding in such ground, or, if it held, against any cable standing the strain of a six-thousand-ton ship in that terrific sea. But, as Maseden learned subsequently, he sought advice.

The first and second officers were consulted in turn, and each confirmed their chief’s opinion that the only practicable course was to run into the passage which still offered a comparatively clear way ahead.

So the Southern Cross sped on.

The second officer came forward with some of the crew to superintend the dropping of the anchor. The fourth officer took charge of the aft anchor. All other members of the crew stood by the boats.

Maseden, feeling oddly remote and unclassed among men of his own race, followed the second officer to the forecastle deck. There, at least, he could stare his fill at the inferno of rock and broken water which the vessel was approaching, though even his landsman’s eyes saw that she was in a waterway of considerable width, while each mile now traversed must tend to diminish the seas and bring a secure anchorage within the bounds of possibility.

No one paid heed to him. Among these stolid sailor-men he was a “Dago,” a somewhat dandified specimen of the swaggering vaqueros they had met at times in the drinking dens of South American ports. He was minded to have speech with the second officer, and proclaim once and for all that he was of the same kith and kin; but the impulse was stayed by a glance at the set, resolute face, intent only on obeying a signal from the captain. It was no time for confidences. He questioned even if the sailor would have answered.

A touch on a lever would set a winch spinning as the anchor leaped to its task. The man charged with carrying out that duty without hitch or delay could spare thought for nothing else.

One of the deck-hands, stationed near the chocks, chanced to be the very Spaniard whose life had been endangered by the falling block on the day after the ship left Cartagena. The ship’s carpenter was ill, and the Spaniard was carpenter’s mate.

Maseden caught his eye, and the man smiled wanly.

“You did me a good turn the other day, señor,” he said. “Let me repay you now.”

“But how?” came the surprised inquiry.

“Underneath my bunk, the lowest one on the left in number seven berth, you will find my kit-bag. Beneath some clothes is a bottle of good old brandy. Get it, and drink it quickly.”

“Why?”

“You will put a pint of honest liquor to good use, and in ten minutes you won’t care what happens.”

“I have no desire to die drunk,” said Maseden quietly.

The Spaniard shrugged his shoulders.

“You’ll never have a better excuse for swallowing excellent cognac,” he grinned.

“Shut up, you two!” growled the officer.

He had not understood a word of their talk. He simply voiced the eminently American notion that anything said in the Spanish language could not be of the least importance just then.

Oddly enough, Maseden was angered by being thus outcasted, as it were. He was tempted to retort, but happily checked the words on his lips. Nerves were apt to be on a raw edge in such conditions, he remembered. Even the stern-faced ship’s officer, awaiting a command which would settle the fate of the Southern Cross once and for all, might well resent the magpie chattering of a couple of Spaniards.

Maseden turned for an instant to look at the bridge. The captain stood there, apparently the most unmoved person on board. The sails, tugging fiercely at their rings and bolts, still kept the ship under control, notwithstanding the ten-knot tidal current which carried her onward irresistibly. The foresail was bellied out to port, so the captain remained on the starboard side of the bridge, whence he had an uninterrupted view ahead.

Suddenly two cloaked figures emerged from the obscurity of the smoking-room and hurried to the transverse rail which guarded the fore part of the promenade deck. With them came some men, among whom Maseden recognized Sturgess; while another man, who caught the arm of one of the girls in a helpless sort of way, was probably Mr. Gray.

Evidently there was no concealing the ship’s peril from the passengers now. Everyone wore a life-belt, and was clothed to resist the cold. A plausible explanation of this general flocking out on to the deck was that they had discerned the cleft in the rocky heights through a blurred window, and refused to remain any longer in the sheltered uncertainty of the smoking-room.

At this period there was little or no difficulty in keeping one’s feet. The great hull of the Southern Cross swung easily on an even keel with the onrush of the sea-river. The ship was not fighting now, but yielding—a complacent leviathan held captive by a most puissant and ruthless enemy.

During the few seconds Maseden stared at the veiled women. One of those two—which one he could not tell—was his wife. It was the maddest, most fantastic thing he had ever heard of. In a spirit of sheer deviltry he waved a greeting. One of the girls raised a hand to her face—perhaps to her lips.

What did it matter? In all human probability that was their eternal farewell. He waved again, and turned resolutely to scan the frowning headlands now rapidly closing in on both sides of the vessel’s path.

About that time a new and disturbing sound reached his ears. Hitherto there had been nothing but the unceasing chant of the gale, the thud and swish of the seas, the steady plaint of the ship, and an occasional crash like a volley of musketry when the crest was torn off some giant roller and flung against poop or superstructure. But now there came a crashing, booming noise, irregular, yet almost continuous, and ever growing louder and more insistent; a noise almost exactly similar to distant gun-fire and the snarling explosions of heavy projectiles.

It was the noise of the bitterest and longest war ever waged. Those old enemies, sea and land, were engaged in deadly combat, and, as ever, the sea was winning.

Even while the Southern Cross swung past an overhanging fortress of rock, a mighty bastion crumbled into ruin. It was singular to watch a cloud of dust mingle with the spindrift—to note how the next breaker climbed higher in assault over the vantage ground provided by the successful sap.

A disconcerting feature of the ship’s hurried transit into this unchartered territory was the clearness with which all things were visible above a height of some twelve feet from the surface of the sea; whereas, below that level, the clouds of spray and flying scud formed an almost impenetrable wall.

Taking his eyes from the everchanging panorama, Maseden looked over the side. The foam-flecked water was black but fairly transparent. In its depths he was astounded by the sight of writhing, sinister shapes like the arms of innumerable devil-fish.

At first he experienced a shock of surprise so close akin to horror that he felt the chill of it, as though one of these fearsome tentacles were already twined around his shrinking body. Then he realized that he had been startled by some gigantic species of seaweed. The ship was crossing a submarine forest. Down there in the depths on this January day in the southern hemisphere some mysterious form of plant life was enjoying its leafy June.

But science had no joys for him in that hour. Better the outlook on crag and clearing sky than a furtive glimpse of the limbs and foliage of that monstrous growth.

All at once a cry from the look-out in the bows sent a quiver through every hearer.

“Rock ahead!”

After a pause, measured by seconds, but seeming like as many minutes, the same voice shouted:

“Channel opens to starboard!”

The ship answered the helm. She swept past a jagged little islet so closely that a sailor could have cast a coil of rope ashore.

Forthwith another sound mingled with the crash of the breakers. The rock had been bored right through by the waves, and the gale set up a note in the tunnel such as no organ-builder ever dreamed of.

That mighty chord pursued the Southern Cross for nearly half a mile. It was a melancholy and depressing wail. Maseden, whose faculties were supernaturally alert, noticed that the South American sailor’s face had turned a sickly green. The man was paralyzed with fright. His right hand fumbled in a weak attempt to cross himself.

Out of the tail of his eye the second officer caught the gesture.

“Pull yourself together, you swab!” he said bitingly. “What the hell good will you be if you give way like that?”

The Spaniard grasped the sense of command in the words rather than their meaning. He was no coward. He even contrived to grin. It was a tonic to be cursed by an American, even though the pierced rock howled like a lost soul!

Still the Southern Cross drove on. The tidal stream was, if anything, swifter than ever, but the size of the waves had diminished sensibly. The walls of the straits had closed in to within a half-mile span. There could not be the slightest doubt that the vessel was actually passing through one of the waterways which connect the Pacific with Smyth’s Channel.

Maseden, after scanning the interior highlands for the hundredth time, glanced again at the second officer. The grimness of the clean-cut, stern face had somewhat relaxed. Quite unconsciously the sailor’s expression showed that hope had replaced calm-visaged despair. Given an unhindered run of another mile, the ship could at least drop anchor with some prospect of success.

The strength of the tide would diminish in less than an hour, and it might be possible to maneuver in the slack water for a comparatively safe berth. Next day, if the weather moderated as promised by the barometer, the steam pinnace could spy out the land in front.

Smyth’s Channel was not so far away—perhaps fifty miles. Once there, the Southern Cross could repair damage and proceed under her own steam to Punta Arenas.

A gleam of yellow light irradiated the surface mist, which had grown markedly denser. The clouds were parting, and the sun was vouchsafing some thin rays from the northwest.

The mere sight was cheering. The blood ran warmer in the veins. It was as though the ship’s company, after days and nights of cold and starvation, had been miraculously supplied with food and hot liquids.

Then the golden radiance died away, and simultaneously came the cry:

“Reef ahead!”

There was no need for further warning by the men in the bows. The Southern Cross had hardly traveled her own length before every person in the fore part of the ship, together with the occupants of bridge and promenade deck, became aware that a seemingly impassable barrier lay right across the channel. At the same time the line of cliffs fell away to the southward.

Beyond the reef, then, lay a wide stretch of land-locked water; its unexpected existence explained the frantic haste of the tidal current. It was cruel luck that nature should have thrown one of her defensive works across that bottle-neck entrance. A few cables’ lengths away was safety; here, unavoidable—sullen and rigid as death himself—were the rock fangs.

At the supreme moment the second officer never turned his head. His eyes were riveted on the motionless figure standing on the starboard side of the bridge.

The captain raised his hand; the sails flapped loudly in the wind; both anchors splashed overboard with hoarse rattling of chains. The after anchor failed, but the forward one held at a depth of ten fathoms.

The second officer was quick to note the sudden strain, and eased it—once, twice, three times. But it was now or never. The ship was swinging in the stream, and her stern-post would just clear the fringe of the reef if the anchor made good its grip.

The Southern Cross had gone round, with a heavy lurch to port, caused by the tremendous pressure of wind and wave, and was almost stationary when the cable parted. The thick chain flew back with all the impetus of six thousand tons in motion behind it.

Missing Maseden by a hair’s breadth, it struck the foretop, and the spar snapped like a carrot. It fell forward, and the identical block which had nearly brought about the death of the South American sailor now caught his rescuer on the side of the head.

In the same instant a heavy stay dragged Maseden bodily over the fore-rail and he pitched headlong to the deck, where, however, the actual fall was broken by the stout canvas of the sail.

A woman screamed, but he could not hear, being knocked insensible.

“All hands amidships!” shouted the captain, and there was a race for the ladders. One man, however, the Spaniard, stooped over the young American’s body. His eyes were streaming with tears.

“Good-by, friend!” he sobbed. “Maybe this is a better way than that opened by my bottle of brandy!”

He was sure that the vaquero who swore like an Americano had been killed, because blood was flowing freely from a scalp wound; but he lifted Maseden’s inert form, and, without any valid reason behind the action, placed him in his bunk, as the cabin door stood open.

Then he ran after the others.

Poor fellow! He little dreamed that he was repaying a thousand-fold the few extra days of life the good-looking vaquero had given him.

Almost immediately the ship struck. There was a fearsome crash of rending plates and torn ribs, the great vessel reeled over, struck again and bumped clear of the outer reef.

Now, too late, the after anchor lodged in a sunken crevice; the cable did not yield, because the vessel was sucked into a sort of backwash and driven, bow on, close to an apparently unscalable cliff.

She settled rapidly. As it happened a submerged rock smashed her keel-plate beneath the engine-room, and the engines, together with the stout framework to which the superstructure was bolted amidships, became anchored there, offering a new obstacle to the onward race of the seas pouring over the reef.

Every boat was either smashed instantaneously or wrenched bodily from its davits. Two-thirds of the hull fell away almost at once, the forecastle tilting towards the cliff, and the poop being swept into deep water.

With the after part went at least half the ship’s company, their last cries of despair being smothered by the continuous roar of the wind and the thunder of the waves. The bridge, with the rooms immediately below, remained fairly upright, but the smoking-room, and officers’ quarters close to it, were swept by water breast high.

Some one—who it was will never be known—had ordered the passengers to run into the smoking-room when the forward cable parted. Now, with the magnificent courage invariably shown by American sailors even when the gates of death gape wide before their eyes, the first and second officers contrived to hoist the two girls to the chart-room behind the bridge.

Sturgess, behaving with great gallantry, helped the women first, and then their father, who was floating in the room, to reach the only available gangway. Others followed, but the difficulty of rescue—if such a sorrowful transition might be called a rescue—was enhanced by the noise and sudden darkness.

Ever the central citadel of the Southern Cross was sinking lower. Ever the leaping waves and their clouds of spray tended more and more to shut out the light.

Seven people were plucked from immediate death in this fashion. All told, officers, crew and passengers, the survivors of seventy-four souls numbered twelve.

There was a thirteenth, because Maseden was lying high and dry in his bunk. But of him they took no count.

They gathered in the chart-room. Those who still retained their senses tried to revive the more fortunate ones to whom was vouchsafed a merciful oblivion of their common plight. Even in the temporary haven of the chart-room the conditions quickly savored of utter misery. The windows were blown away. The doors were jammed open by the warping of the deck. Wind, waves and sheets of spray seemed to vie with demoniac energy as to which could be most cruel and deadly. The ceaseless warping and working of what was left of the ship presaged complete collapse at any moment, and the din of the reef was stupefying.

Still, the captain did not abate one jot of his cool demeanor. He eyed the sea, the rocks, the remains of his ship and the beetling crags from which he was cut off by sixty feet of raging water.

Then he deliberately turned his back on it all. Going to a locker, he produced a screwdriver and began methodically drawing the screws of the door-hinges.

The chief officer thought that the other man’s brain had yielded to the stress.

“What are you doing, sir?” he said, placing a hand gently on his friend’s shoulder.

“We haven’t a ten-million to one chance of remaining here till the gale gives out,” was the calm answer, “but we may as well rig up some sort of protection from the weather. There are four lockers and four doors. Let’s block up those broken windows as well as we can.”

A curiously admiring light shone in the chief officer’s eyes. He said nothing, but helped. Soon a corner was completely walled. They decided it was better to have one section thoroughly shielded than the whole only partially.

They made a quick job of it. The girls, Mr. Gray, and two men recovering consciousness were allotted to the angle.

Then the captain opened one of the three bottles of claret stored in a locker, and portioned out the contents among the survivors.

There was no need to measure the share of a heavily-built Spaniard who was reputed to be a wealthy rancher from the Argentine. His spine was broken when the ship lurched over the reef. He was found dead when they tried to move him to the sheltered corner.

And now a pall of darkness spread swiftly over the face of the waters. The tide fell, but the ship sank with it. She no longer rocked and shook under the blows of the waves. It seemed as though she knew herself crippled beyond all hope of succor, and only awaited another tide to meet annihilation.

Wind and sea were more furious than ever. In all likelihood, the gale would blow itself out next day. But long before dawn the rising tide would have made short work of what was left of the Southern Cross.

Never was a small company of Christian people in a more hopeless position. Every boat was gone. They had no food. They were wet to the skin, and pierced with bitter cold. Even the hardy captain’s teeth chattered as he took a pipe from his pocket, rolled some tobacco between the palms of his hands, and said smilingly to those near him:

“This is one of the occasions when a water-tight pipe-lighter is a real treasure. Who’d like a smoke? You must find your own pipes. I can supply some ’baccy and a light!”

CHAPTER VIII

He was dry and warm. The weather-proof garments of the pampas were admirably adapted to resist exposure, while the pitch of the deck, aided by the conformation of the bows, diminished the striking power of the waves and carried the spray and broken water clean over the remains of the forecastle.

Maseden’s position resembled that of a man ensconced in a dry niche of a cave behind a waterfall. So long as he did not move and the cavern held intact he was safe and comfortable. Happily, a long time elapsed between the first glimmer of consciousness and the moment when the knowledge was borne in on him that he was actually beset by immediate and most deadly peril.

He imagined that the ship had been cast ashore after he met with some rather serious accident, that some kind Samaritan had tucked him into his own berth, and that, in due course, some one would look in on him with a cheery inquiry as to how he was faring. His answer would have been that his head ached abominably, that his mouth and throat were on fire, and that a long drink of cold water was the one thing needed to send him to sleep and speedy recovery.

He did not realize that when he dropped face downward into the folds of the sail he had swallowed a quantity of salt water lodged there instantly by the pelting seas. It was not until he moved, and yielded to a fit of vomiting, which relieved the pain in his head and cleared his faculties, that the dreadful truth began to dawn in his mind.

Once, however, the process of clear reasoning set in, it developed rapidly. He noticed, in the first instance, that the angle of the deck was becoming steeper. It was strange, he thought, that although the light was failing, no one came near. His ears, too, told him that seas were still hammering furiously on every side.

Finally, a marked movement of the forecastle as it slipped over a smooth rock race, owing to the increase of dead weight brought about by the falling tide, induced a species of alarmed curiosity which proved a most potent tonic. At one moment feeling hardly able to move, the next he was scrambling out of the bunk and climbing crab-like through the doorway.

Then he saw that the forecastle deck had been torn away in line with the forward bulkhead of the fore hold. With some difficulty, being still physically weak and shaken, he raised head and shoulders above this jagged edge and peered over.

Then he understood. The ship was in pieces on the reef. Two bits of her still remained; the forecastle, a stubborn wedge nearly always the last part of a steel-built vessel to collapse, and the bridge, with its backing of the chart house. All else had gone—the funnels had fallen an hour earlier.

Even the steel plates and stout wood work of the superstructure had melted away from the six strong ribs to which the sunken engines were bolted, leaving the bridge and chart house in air.

Already, too, one of the six pillars which had proved the salvation of that forlorn aerie had yielded to the strain and snapped. In the half-light it was difficult to discern just what support was given to the squat rectangle of the chart-house; Maseden had to look long and steadily through the flying scud before he gathered the exact facts.

The upper deck of the forecastle shut off any glimpse of the cliffs. All he could see was the reef, much more visible now, but still partially submerged by every sea; beyond it, a howling wilderness of broken water, and in the midst of this depressing picture, the ghost-like chart-house and bridge.

But he recalled vividly enough the sight of an awesome precipice close at hand before something had hit him and robbed him of senses. If the ship, or what was left of her, was lodged on the reef towards which she was being driven at the time of his mishap, the shore could not be far distant.

Within a foot of where he lay on the deck, clinging to it as a man might save himself from falling off the steeply-pitched roof of a house, was the big bole of the foremast, on which the rings of the sails formed a sort of ladder. He pulled himself up, stretched his body along the mast in the opposite direction, and made out the uneven summit of the cliff above the straight line of the upper deck.

He was exposed to the weather here, but the waves were not breaking across the forecastle now, and the spray and biting wind tended rather to dissipate the feeling of lassitude which had proved quite overpowering while he remained in the bunk. He raised himself cautiously another foot or so, and the rugged wall of the precipice loomed so close that at first he fancied the wreck was touching it.

The broken topmast, however, swaying in the wind, and still held to its more solid support by a couple of wire stays, pointed drunkenly at the cliff, and the pulley dangling from it was occasionally dashed by the gale against an overhanging ledge.

Even while Maseden was arriving at a pretty accurate estimate of the way in which he had been injured—because he now recalled the parting of the anchor cable—the forecastle moved again, the wet and frowning wall became even more visible, and although an awesome gap intervened, the swaying, pointed spar seemed to offer a fantastic glimpse of a means of escape.

As yet, the truck, or top of the mast, was fully sixteen feet distant from the face of the cliff. But it had been twenty feet or more distant a moment ago, and that last movement of the hull had lessened the width of the chasm.

What if the spar jammed? Could a man obtain foothold on that slimy rock surface?

He thought it possible. A deep crevice seemed to promise some vague prospect of upward progress to one who could climb, and to whom any risk was preferable to the certain fate which must attend remaining on the wreck during the coming tide.

But, notwithstanding his partial recovery, he still felt very feeble and quite unequal to more exertion. As nothing in the way of an attempt to save his life was possible until the broken topmast was lodged firmly against the cliff, he wondered whether he would find some sort of food in the forecastle.

It was improbable, of course. Meals were brought from the cook’s galley amidships, and utensils only were stored in the lockers of the dingy saloon in which he and many of the sailors used to eat.

Still, spurred by the necessity of doing something to take his mind off the fearsome alternative should the forecastle topple over sideways, or even remain in its present position, he turned his back on the cliff. With never a glance at the bridge, he regained the sloping deck, lowered himself to the doorway of his own cabin, and peered into the gloom in the effort to determine how best and where to begin his search.

At first his heart sank, because the saloon was awash. Then he remembered the Spanish sailor’s queer offer of a bottle of brandy, stored in a kit-bag in number seven berth, “the lowest bunk on the left.”

Number seven! Had he not seen the man at odd times entering or leaving the second cabin on the port side? At any rate, there was no harm in trying.

Crawling farther into the darkness, he walked on what was normally the cross bulkhead of the saloon, groped to a doorway, found a kit-bag in the stated position, opened it, and came upon a bottle of brandy!

He drank a little. Luckily it was not the raw spirit beloved of such men as its late owner, but sound, mellow liquor, which the Spaniard had probably bought as a medicine.

Be that as it may, the brandy exercised the magical effect which good cognac always produces in those wise enough not to vitiate the blood with alcohol when in robust health. For the first time since he was struck down, Maseden felt himself capable of putting forth physical effort involving sustained muscular exertion.

He returned to his own cabin, secured the poncho, or cloak, and wrapped the bottle in it. Rummaging round in the dark, he laid hands on a strap, with which he buckled the folded poncho tightly to his shoulders. Then reviewing the prospects which awaited an unfortunate castaway on that inhospitable coast, he endeavored to get at his own trunk.

Therein, however, he failed. The iron frame of the bunk had buckled, and the trunk was held as in a vise.

Realizing that he had very little time before the light in the interior of the forecastle would vanish altogether, he hurried back to the Spaniard’s berth and hauled out the kit-bag. He had an uncomfortable feeling that he was robbing the dead, but if it were practicable to land any sort of stores the effort should be made.

He had not a moment to spare for further search. The forecastle slipped again, and he experienced no little difficulty in regaining his perch on the solid stump of the foremast, on which, so nearly had it approached the horizontal, he could sit quite easily.

The dangling spar, he estimated, was now about eight feet from the cliff. Would it catch the rock wall while any glimmer of light remained, or would some new movement of the wreck divert its progress? He could only hope for the best and be ready to seize the opportunity when, if ever, it presented itself.

To his thinking, the gale was moderating; but he dared not indulge in the smallest hope that the forecastle would live through the next tide. The heavy swell of the Pacific after a westerly storm would create a worse sea on the reef than that already experienced. Probably the breakers would be more destructive immediately after than during the gale.

It was at that moment, when in a plight seldom equaled and never surpassed by any man destined to survive a disastrous shipwreck, that Maseden’s thoughts reverted to his fellow passengers. There was no need to watch the spar, since he could not fail to become aware of any further movement of the forecastle, so he lashed the kit-bag to a sail ring, again turned his back on the cliff, and gave close attention to the chart-house.

Despite the increasing darkness it was a good deal more visible now than when he had looked that way earlier. No dense clouds of spray or spindrift intervened; hence he noticed for the first time the improvised shutters which had replaced the glass front of the structure on the seaward side.

He was wondering whether or not it was possible that some one might still be living on the only other part of the ship still intact, when he became aware of a figure silhouetted against the sky above the canvas screen of the bridge.

It was, in fact, the captain, who crept out of the chart-house every now and then to examine the state of the iron uprights and the condition of the reef. The gallant old sailor had abandoned, or never formed, any notion of escape, because nothing could live for an instant on the reef itself, and he could not possibly detect the chance of salvation offered by the broken mast. But the nature of the man demanded that he should keep watch and ward over those committed to his care. In all likelihood he experienced a vague sense of relief in being able to discharge even the melancholy duty of noting the gradual breaking-up of the supports.

Three had gone, two on the port side and one on the starboard. When the third stanchion yielded on the port side, bridge and chart-room would fall with a crash and there would be an end. He said nothing of this to the unhappy company within.

“The weather is improving,” he told them cheerfully, as Maseden heard later. “I can’t honestly give you any prospect of escape, but—while there’s life there’s hope!”

And all the time he was listening for the ominous crack which would be the precursor of that final sinking into the depths! The marvel was that the middle of the ship had held together so long, but by no miracle known to man could what was left of her survive the next tide.

Yet why should he add to misery already abyssmal? Death would be a blessed relief; waiting for certain death was the worst of tortures.

No one answered. The survivors—of the twelve four were dead now—were perishing with cold and dumbly resigned to their wretched fate. Had it not been for the protection afforded by the improvised screen, none would have been alive even then.

The wind still swirled and eddied into every nook and cranny. Though huddled together, the little group of men and women were conscious of no warmth. It was with the greatest difficulty that those not clad in oilskins kept any garments on their bodies.

So merciless is the havoc of the sea that its victims are stripped naked even while clinging to the battered hulk of a ship, though this last device of a seemingly demoniac savagery is easily accounted for. No product of loom or spinning machine can withstand the disintegrating effects of breaking waves helped by a fierce gale. The seams and fastenings of ordinary garments cannot resist the combined assault. In such circumstances, a woman’s flimsy attire will be torn off her in a few minutes, while the strongest of boots have been known to collapse after some hours of this kind of exposure.

Luckily a number of oilskins were kept in the chart-room of the Southern Cross; these were quickly served out to the shivering girls, whose clothing had practically melted away as though made of thin paper.

Soon after the captain had tried to hearten them with that scrap of proverbial philosophy, one of the girls, Nina, screamed in an elfin note that dominated even the roaring of the reef for an instant. Her father had collapsed. It was useless to pretend that he might only have fainted. They who fell now were doomed. In Mr. Gray’s case, he was dead ere he sank down.

The chief officer put a consoling hand on the girl’s shoulder. He was a Bostonian, and had daughters of his own. In that hour of tribulation his speech reverted to the homely accents of New England.

“It comes hard to see your father drop like that,” he said. “But it’s better so. He’s just spared a bit of the trouble we may have to face.”

“It is not that,” wailed the girl brokenly. “I’m thinking of my mother. She will never know. Oh, if I could only make her understand, I would not care!”

A strange answer, the sailor deemed it, most probably. At that instant he caught the captain’s eye. Both men had the same thought. The dead should be thrown overboard and thus lessen the weight supported by the one stanchion on the port side.

But of what avail were such precautions? They might as well all go together, the quick and the dead. Why should any of them wish to live on until the sea rose again in the small hours of the morning?

The girls were crying in each other’s arms. Two of the men lifted Gray’s body and placed it with four others. Five gone out of twelve!

The captain, speaking in the most matter-of-fact way, suggested that they should open and drink the last bottle of claret before the light failed.

“It’s a poor substitute for a meal,” he said, “but it’s the only thing we can lay hands on.”

The chief officer nodded his head towards the grief-stricken sisters.

“Maybe we can wait a bit longer,” he said. “You couldn’t persuade them to touch it just now.... What’s that, sir? Did you hear anything?”

“No. What could we possibly hear?”

“It sounded like a voice, some one hailing.”

“I think I know whose voice it is,” said the captain. He himself had almost yielded to the delusion. It was distressing to find the same eery symptom of speedy breakdown in his old friend, the chief officer.

Both men listened, nevertheless, and were convinced. In silence they went out into the open, walking stealthily. Each knew that any undue movement might send the remains of the ship headlong to the reef. They strained their eyes in the only possible direction from which a voice might have come—the scrap of forecastle, sixty feet nearer the headland, or, incredible as it seemed, the headland itself. They could see nothing. Maseden’s body was not only in line with the receding angle of the foremast, but that piece of the wreck was merged in the gloom of the towering rock.

Maseden saw them, however, and shouted again, striving his uttermost now that he had attracted attention.

With each effort at speech his voice was becoming stronger. Though it was useless to think of conveying an intelligible message through the uproar of wind and water, he fancied he could get into communication with the inmates of the chart-room, provided they were on the alert. In effect, he had a knife, and was surrounded by an abundance of tangled cordage, and it would be a strange thing if after so many years of active life on a South American ranch he could not cast a weighted lasso as far as the bridge.

He began fashioning the necessary coil at once, working with feverish haste, because his refuge was on the move again, and ever towards the land. A trial cast fell short, as he had not allowed enough lee-way for the wind. He was gathering up the rope preparatory to another effort when a great voice boomed at him from the shadows:

“You have no chance here. You are as well off where you are. If you hear me, hail three times!”

The captain was using a megaphone.

Maseden yelled “Hi!” three times, thinking the short, sharp syllable would carry best. Then, with splendid judgment, he threw the lasso in a lateral parabola that landed its end across the rail of the bridge, where it was promptly made fast by the first officer.

Again came that mighty voice:

“Is there any hope of escape on your side? If so, hail three times.”

He replied. After a short delay he heard the order:

“Haul in!”

Attached to the noose of his rope was another rope, and a second thinner one, rigged as a “whip,” or communicating cord. Tied at the junction was the megaphone. The intent of the senders was plain. He was to bawl directions, and they would obey.

He fancied that by this time the topmast must be near the rock, if not quite touching it, but he had decided already that he would either save those hapless people in the chart-room or die in the attempt.

Perhaps his “wife” was there yet. Unless those American sailors had broken the first law of their order of chivalry, the women committed to their care had been safeguarded.

Well, he owed her a life. Now he might be able to repay the debt in full.

He had never before handled a speaking trumpet, so his initial essay was brief:

“Can you hear?”

He could just catch three faint sounds in answer.

“As soon as a sailor can cross by the rope, send one,” he shouted, “I shall need help at this end. I have made fast the heavy rope. Shall I haul in the whip?”

There was a pause of a few seconds, but he counted on that. Then he felt three tugs on the thinner cord, and began to haul steadily. Soon, by the sagging of the main rope and the weight at the end of the whip, he realized that some one was making the transit.

Before long he discerned a figure coming towards him hand over hand along the rope. The man’s feet were caught midway by the seas boiling over the reef, but Maseden knew that the gallant fellow’s forward movement was never checked, and in a very little while the breathless chief officer was seated astride the mast beneath him.

“Who in the world are you?” demanded the newcomer; at any rate, he used words to that effect.

Maseden answered in kind, and explained his project; whereupon the chief officer seized the megaphone and bellowed the necessary instructions. On a given signal the two men hauled on the whip.

This time a figure lashed to a life-buoy, which, in turn, was tied to a pulley traveling on the guide-rope, came to them out of the darkness. It was a woman, hardly in her senses, yet able to obey when told to sit astride the mast and hold fast to a ring.

“We can hardly find room for five more people here,” shouted the chief officer. “Are you game to shin along the mast and see if that loose spar is practicable yet?”

“Yes,” said Maseden.

He vanished in the darkness. He was absent fully five minutes, a period which, to the waiting chief officer, who alone knew what was actually happening, must have seemed like as many hours. Then Maseden returned. By this time there were two more astride the foremast, four in all. He tied the nearest one to his back with a rope.

“Can you steady yourself by placing your hands on my shoulders, but not around my neck?” he said.

For answer two slim hands caught his shoulders. He began working his way forward into the gloom.