The Masque of Love/Chapter 2

RIAN MONKHOUSE went back to his cabin on the promenade deck, closed and locked the door and, sitting down by the table under the electric lamp, began a systematic reassortment of the papers which had been handed to him at New York. He worked hard, ignoring both the hour and the roar of the dying storm, and by two o'clock he flung the last bundle back into his despatch case with a sigh of grim satisfaction. A passenger list on his table attracted his attention and he picked it up and ran casually over the list. At “Miss R. East” he paused with the same frowning thoughtfulness with which he had considered the name's owner, and then, as though moved by a sudden impulse, he snatched at a small pocketbook lying amongst his. papers and opened it. For a minute he sat very still, the frown giving place to a smile of painful amusement. Then the little leather case was flung back to its place and Monkhouse, stretching himself, wearily rose to his feet.

It was at that moment that the boom and howl which swept round the ship like the voices of frustrated furies gave place to a new sound. It seemed to Monkhouse that he heard it long before the staggering shock flung him back violently against the table—but both sound and blow must have fallen simultaneously. Grinding, groaning from stem to stern, as though each plank and rivet in her voiced a common agony, the Atlantic recoiled upon herself, with a savage lashing of her propellers, flung forward again and then, slowly, painfully, slipped into the trough of the waves, rolling helplessly. The lights went out. Up to that moment a deadly quiet had followed on the hidden catastrophe, but with the passing into complete darkness a long wail of awful terror arose from every corner of the ship. It died down; and then came a rushing of feet—desperate, panic-stricken feet—the shouting of orders, the hoarse breathing of men as they groped their way along the passages congested with a flying, struggling mass of humanity. Beyond groping for a handful of his papers, Monkhouse made no attempt to find his belongings. Possibly he was seaman enough to recognize the curious, lifeless roll of the stricken ship. The lock of his door had jammed, and, without waiting to struggle with it, he drew back a few steps and flung the full weight of his great shoulders against the woodwork, bursting it outwards. The next instant he was being swept along with the invisible stream. The darkness was such that it seemed to him that he had lost his sight and was battling his way through a ghostly world of hands which clung to him, bodies which fell across his path, and human faces wet with terror. He felt them all though he could see nothing. One moment a man's hot cheek would be against his cheek—there would be a groan and a curse and the cheek would be against his knee—a scream of despair and it sank to the bottom of a torrent which knew no mercy. In this inferno of invisible substance Monkhouse kept his feet by virtue of his brute strength. Others went under, but he never stumbled. When the stream endangered him he held back; so long as he was sure of his foothold he allowed it to carry him forward—over everything. The position of his cabin made his passage to the open air of itself easy, but on the verge of his escape he was caught in a maelstrom of humanity surging from the lower decks. There the struggle became hideous—the more so because it was now almost noiseless. Men and women kept their strength to beat each other down, and those who fell went under with little more than a stifled gasp. And still Monkhouse kept on, freeing himself with merciless deliberation from the hands that held him, his eyes straining for the first glimpse of light and—by an irony of chance, it was at the moment when he felt the wind blow against his face that he was brought to a sudden standstill. Something warm had fallen against his knees—a hand stretched itself out of the blackness and clung to him. He seized it to shake it off and instead held it. Not for a second had he lost consciousness of his own danger. But the hand was pathetically small and fragile—its sheer weakness as it yielded to his rough pressure arrested him. He calculated what he risked and bent down. “For pity's sake, help me—I have so much to live for!”

“Put your arms round my neck then—!”

It was done in an instant. He could not tell whether it were a woman or a child that he held, for his burden was frail and insignificant—the voice had been little more than a whisper. Yet it cost him an additional effort to fend off the ruthless force behind him, and even when he reached the deck there was still no relief. A ship's lantern twinkling somewhere overhead seemed to thicken the mantle of darkness which hid the writhing, desperate crowd as it tossed backwards and forwards in frenzied search of safety. The shouted commands from the bridge, culminating in a revolver shot, were lost in the tumult. and the ominousness of the greater terror. Had the gloom lifted only for a moment, men and women might have gripped their courage and met the inevitable unflinchingly; but the invisible death bearing down on them from they knew not where left them with nothing but an instinct to follow. Monkhouse alone made no effort to join in the deadly, purposeless rushes. He drew back against the deckhouse, and found himself, as he had hoped, in a clear space. It was there that a steady hand touched him on the arm.

“On the port side—aft. They're lowering a boat. Go round quietly. We can't hope to save many or give the women first show. The dynamos have gone wrong and we can't last an hour. You'd better take a chance with the boat. Thank God the storm's dying.”

Monkhouse recognized the quiet tones of authority, although the speaker was hidden from him.

“Where's the damage?” he asked.

“Bulkhead. Struck a derelict. Pray Heaven the steerage doesn't get loose. We're trying to keep them quiet, but the poor devils know they're done for and—”

The voice broke off and Monkhouse heard running steps along the deck which had already begun to slope perilously. He bent his head so that a soft, warm, woman's breath touched his face.

“You heard what he said,” he whispered. “I shall try and get round. But we must go quietly. If anyone found us it would be all up with them and us. Sheer waste of life—”

“Let me walk then,” the voice answered. “I can walk now—they trampled me down—”

“I know. But you'd better let me carry you. I know the ropes.”

“I am too heavy—”

He smiled grimly to himself but vouchsafed no answer. He had already begun to grope his way astern and he had not boasted of his abilities. With a sureness that was half instinct, half knowledge, he threaded his way through the hurrying, struggling packs of men and women, seeming to swerve round with them, in reality steadily keeping to his course. The woman he carried felt herself placed gently on her feet, though a powerful hand still supported her. By now the angle of the deck had become terrifying, and the swish of the water sounded almost immediately beneath her. Through the shrouding obscurity she could hear a voice, muffled with fear, harsh and unrecognizable with suppressed passion.

“I tell you—there's no room. Another may swamp the lot of us.”

The man beside her answered coolly:

“You've room for a woman even if you give her your place, my good friend.”

“None of that tosh. It's each man for himself. Damn you—stand clear, will you?”

She heard the creak of straining pulleys—a scuffle and then a savage oath.

“You infernal coward—there are only five of you—if you don't take this woman I'll call down the whole crowd on to you.”

“If you do—” The voice snapped like a broken string. Far forward a new tumult had broken loose—a medley of shouts scarcely human in their frenzy. Revolver shots followed each other in quick succession and for an instant predominated,

“The steerage,” Monkhouse remarked casually. “They must have forced their way through. They'll be on you in an instant. How long do you need to get clear?”

“Three minutes.”

“If I run back I might distract them. I believe I can do it. Take this woman with you. It's a bargain.”

“Shove her in, then.”

Monkhouse turned quickly.

“You must risk it,” he said. “There's no hope here—”

“I shall not buy my safety at such a price,” she retorted fiercely.

“There's no time for such quixotic nonsense. You're risking all our lives—” He broke off and added roughly, satirically: “Afford me this last and only satisfaction of a misspent life.”

He felt her small hands cling to him.

“I don't know who you are—but it couldn't have been misspent—I shall think of you every night of my life and thank you and pray for you—take this in memory—”

Something small and hard was thrust into his hand. He laughed under his breath and pushed her from him into the arms of her unwilling rescuers. Then he turned and ran forward. There was now no time to lose. On her port side the decks of the Atlantic were already awash, and she had the curious, sluggish roll of a water-logged ship on the point of foundering. Monkhouse stumbled in the direction of the despairing shouts and came to a standstill, blinded by the flood of white light which poured over the scene of the disaster. He understood instantly. Some heroic soul, sticking to his job in the inferno below decks, had brought the dynamos into working order—but too late. The ironic illumination revealed only the nearness of the end. The Atlantic, wallowing in the trough of the waves, seemed to have broken up already into a shapeless, bodyless thing of funnels and twisted iron. Walls of green, phosphorescent water, gleaming in the light, rolled up on either hand and rolled back again as though patiently awaiting the instant when they should close over forever. The scene held even the mad crowd of steerage in abeyance. Those who could keep their footing shrank back against the deckhouse—others were spilled overboard. But one thing they saw at last—the half-filled boats on the port side, and the instant's paralysis passed. The leaders led the rush, and it was a leader whom Monkhouse flung back so that he rolled down the full length of the deck and vanished like a pebble thrown into a bottomless lake.

“Keep back!” Monkhouse thundered at them. “Don't you see it's too late?”

A choking, savage growl answered him.

“It's not too late for them—curse you!”

“It's too late for them if you swamp them—what's the good of it? Let them get away—they can't save you—you can save them. Isn't that worth while?”

They stared at him—the foreigners amongst them gesticulating with a despairing frenzy—but he guarded the narrow passage that was safe from the wash of the water, and one man he had already sent to his fate. For the moment he held them in a half-hypnotic, half-superstitious thrall, and each moment doubled his chance.

“It's money!” someone shouted hoarsely. “They're rich—the boats are for them—they'd have let us drown like rats in a trap. Swamp them, boys—the swine—”

Monkhouse held his ground doggedly.

“Swamp them, then, by all means, you blackguards!” he sneered. “You're not English—you're a half-breed lot—you can't even play the game—swamp them—it's all you're good for—you've no honor to lose—why don't you go ahead?”

But now they wavered. Pleading had failed. His curses, his biting contempt, held them shamed. The foremost shrank back, his bloodshot eyes flickering in the light.

“You talk—you bloomin' swell. You'll save your skin right enough.”

“That's a lie. I am going to Kingdom Come in five minutes. But I'm going in good company—not with you scum. Let me pass.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the bridge.”

Yet he hesitated. The Atlantic shivered under their feet like some mortally wounded monster in its death-throes. The two men glanced at each other. Monkhouse was still counting the minutes.

“Yer could 'ave got away, guv'ner, Wot'cher do it for?”

“Oh, for someone or other,” Monkhouse answered carelessly. The three minutes were passed. He fancied in the deepening stillness that he could hear the rhythmic splash of oars. The cockney laid his hand on Monkhouse's arm.

“It's too late, guv'ner. You'd best stay where you are. You don't need to mind abart us. We ain't goin' to swamp no one, are we, mates?”

There was no answer. The light flickered—went out—burned up again—and in that last blaze Monkhouse saw a white wall of faces that were all eyes—wide, staring eyes fixed beneath them on what was coming—and beyond that on an unspeakable revelation. No one screamed. The panic was dead. As the Atlantic heeled over a woman called out shrilly, but the cry was instantly choked by the roar of bursting boilers. Then it was finished. Sea and sky and what was to them as earth melted together in one monstrous chaos, and Monkhouse loosened his hold of the rail and slipped down through. an icy darkness into a region of fantastic dancing lights and dull, thunderous sound. There was no bottom in the world whither he was being drawn by a merciless hand, but suddenly the lights went out and the sounds faded, and there was a great stillness. How long it lasted he did not know; but suddenly the hand relaxed its grip and the silence passed into another change. He believed he was in hell; and through the agony which burned him he could hear sounds again—sounds like the near splashing of oars and the murmur of voices. Presently the splash grew nearer, the voices clearer. Floating on in the grip of a vast, indeterminate half-consciousness, he listened to the voices till the murmur broke up into words.

“Row back! I insist on it. You can't let him drown like that. Mr. Haig, do as I ask!”

A laugh, and then a man speaking.

“Don't be a little fool. He's dead.”

“I don't believe it. The boat's light was on his face and it wasn't the face of a dead man.”

“I am not going to risk the boat on that chance!”

“Risk! And the boat's half empty. You cowardly hound! You would have let me drown and now this man—”

“No great loss. Blackguard Brian—”

There was a silence. He knew that something had happened. The rowing had ceased. He felt no excitement—no desire—only a dull curiosity. The woman's' voice spoke again.

“If you do not row back, Mr. Haig, I will see to it that you are hounded out of all decent society. I warn the other men in this boat not to incriminate themselves—”

“Take care! It wouldn't break anyone's heart if we were one less. It's each man for himself and—”

“And each woman for herself. Stand back! I am going to count five. If by that time you do not begin to row back I shall shoot—and I can shoot straight, Mr. Haig!”

Silence—then the rhythmic splash was resumed. A hand stretched itself out of the black sky and seized him, dragged him, as it seemed, out of his place into a chill, bleak reality. For the first time he realized that he had been drowning. He fell, crouching against the gunwale, and his dulled eyes drawn towards the boat's solitary light looked into a woman's face. Then he made a sound that was a laugh.

“You wouldn't have done it if you had known—” he whispered.

“I did know—Blackguard Brian.”

He fell forward then, his face buried on her knees.

The five men resumed their rowing. They kept the boat before the run of the still threatening waves but no more. Almost they had ceased to try to control their fate. The woman sat very still in the prow of the boat. An icy, merciless wind, which heralded the morning blew across from the east, chilling the night's anguish and the feverish need of life to a dull apathy. The woman looked down at the unconscious man whose head still rested against her knee, and frowning, drew her sable coat about his shoulders.