CHAPTER XXVI.
AN OCEAN TRAGEDY.
Of the horrors that attended the burning of the Atlanta in mid-ocean that September night none could clearly tell, not even the survivors, so sudden had been the alarm, so terrible the onset of the leaping flames, so wild the ferocity of almost every one as they fought over the lifeboats, forgetting honor and chivalry in the mad rush for continued existence.
From the first moment it was evident that the ship was doomed. The fire had gained such headway before it was discovered that its progress could not be checked. So the dread alarm, “Fire! Fire! Fire!” rang out in horror from anguished voices blending with the roaring, leaping flames, and the sullen roar of old ocean, both deadly enemies to mankind, and eager for their destruction.
Over the hurly-burly of wind and wave and fire rose the captain’s voice, ordering out the lifeboats, and then the struggle for life began, intensified by the anguished shrieks of women and children, wailing and screaming in their despair.
The boats were lowered, but, alas, there would not be room for all the Atlanta’s freight of human souls!
So the struggle for supremacy began, the young and the strong jostling the old and weak, fighting for place and supremacy. Ah, Heaven, that such cruelty and selfishness should exist beneath the sky!
The few brave, chivalrous souls, the captain and first mate among them, who insisted that the women and children should be given first place and the men take their chances, had their voices drowned by angry, clamorous cries, as the traitors scrambled down the ladder pell-mell into the boats, crowding them till they almost sank with their heavy freight.
In the awful glare of light that illuminated the sea and sky and the scene of terror, Leon Lyndon leaned against the deck rail with his arm about his daughter, pleading, praying the selfish wretches to take her in and save her, though he must himself perish.
In the lurid scene of smoke and flame Jessie’s face shone clear and pale as a lily, as she clasped his neck, entreating him not to let her be separated from him.
“Oh, papa, darling, there is no one to love poor Jessie but you! Think how lonely I should be in the wide world without you, my only friend! If both cannot be saved, let us die together!”
The man’s face, white already with the anguish of despair, grew more pallid still in the lurid light that glared on it as though her pathetic plaint went through his heart.
Clasping her close as though in a last embrace, he cried passionately:
“Oh, my darling, it is a cruel pass to which we are brought, but, as for me, I am growing old, and it does not much matter. My life has been a failure, and there are times when I have been tempted to end it with my own hands. But since I found you, Jessie, you have made it sweeter, so that I would fain live for you! But it cannot be. Even if I can persuade those selfish men to give you a place in the lifeboat, I must be left behind. In a moment we part forever! Listen, Jessie, my sweet daughter, to the last words of a dying man!”
She clasped her fair arms about his neck, and raised her lovely face, tear-wet and pain-drawn, to his own.
“Papa, darling, we cannot part. Do not send me from you!”
All this time a man had been lingering near them unheeded. He could see their agony, but he could not catch their words, drowned in the ocean’s roar and the crackling of the flames, blent with the wild cries of the panic-stricken passengers.
Leon Lyndon bent his convulsed face to his daughter’s and pressed his lips to hers, then murmured solemnly:
“Darling, you will not be alone in the world as you said just now, and as I have made you believe in my selfish anger. You have your mother!”
“Papa!” she gasped.
The fire roared and crackled over their heads; the beasts still fought going down the ladder to safety, and the man close to them watched with impatience for the father to make some effort to save his child.