The Sea Wolves/Chapter 10

cry rang out above the thunder of the surf, and echoed through the ship to its ultimate depths. Men in the first grip of sleep sprang from their resting-places at its clarion note, only to find themselves dashed hither and thither as splinters in a whirlpool. Others, dumb to knowledge in the clutch of drink, were drowned as they lay; or washed, yet insensible, to the crags and spikes of the hidden reef, where death took them. A few clung to safety-lines, or lashed themselves to booms or shrouds, and thus, for a spell, bore the brunt of the breaking seas.

The intensity of the night was so profound that for a long while no man knew where the ship lay or what was her environment. In that hour the zenith of the heaven was marked by an envelope of inky vapour which hid the moon and the stars; and the chilling rain beat incessantly upon those who for many days had cried for warmth and had not found it. As for the sea itself, it rose and fell with thunderous echoes. The gigantic breakers, driven by the north-west wind in hollowed and o'er-toppling ridges of water, dissolved themselves at length in swirling eddies of foam upon the reef, or sent showers of spray, as silver fountains, upon the darkness of the night. And over all was the trembling voice of the tempest—a voice which seemed to quaver with the cries of the doomed, and to join in one piteous and long-drawn wail the lamentations of the heavens and the dirge of the deep.

When the first shock had struck the yacht, Messenger, Kenner, and Fisher had been in the saloon, wrapped in blankets, and seeking sleep, even in face of the omnivorous damp. They had ceased, for some hours, to remember the gold, for the mockery of its possession was too obvious in the presence of the overwhelming peril of the sea; and other questions—but principally the one, shall we see the shore again?—were upon their minds, to the exclusion of all else. Thus it came that they lay in silent combat with feverish wakefulness when the Semiramis plunged onward to the iron haven of inhospitable Galicia, and struck, at last, some miles westward of the terrible Cabo Ortegal. But at the first touch of the shock the men awoke with fearsome cries, and, springing to their feet in the infinite darkness, found themselves battling with a flood of water which poured into the cabin and threatened to end them as they stood.

As they awoke, half choking, Fisher's voice was the first to be heard.

"Prince!" cried he, "Prince! where are you? My God, what is it?"

"I'm here!" cried Messenger back to him; "give me your hand. Did you feel the ship strike? Where's Kenner?"

"Going under!" moaned Kenner, as the water gurgled in his throat.

"Then make for the ladder!" cried Messenger, as he exerted himself with a supreme effort. "Hal, hold to me! If we've no legs now we'll drown like dogs!"

And then he fell to calling "Burke! Burke!" as though the skipper could hear him above the crash of seas.

For a spell the struggle was fierce; but Fisher, who had his courage back, fighting water with all his nerve, grasped the companion at last, and hauled himself up with fierce strength. The Prince was at his heels; but the American, tumbling headlong on the slippery floor, fell at the foot of the stairs, and lay there, while another sea poured its suffocating crest upon him. There he might have lain and died but for the lad, who, coming upon the deck, immediately looked about him to see how his companions had fared, and, observing only Messenger at his side, asked:

"Where's Kenner? I thought he was with you."

"He is on the floor, and dead by this," gasped the other, as the whip-like water cut his face, and he clung, with hands benumbed and shivering limbs, to the rail of the poop; "but it's every man for himself now! What an end! what an end!"

He said this, hoping to hold back Fisher, who had turned at to his companion again, for it came to him that he would be better wanting the American's company. But the lad had not heard the words, and was at the ladder while the man yet spoke them.

When at last he brought himself into the saloon, the rollers still shot water through the sky-light, and much poured through the open hatchway; the whole bulk of it washing dismally from end to end of the cabin as the hull swayed even in the shelter of the rocky cup which held it. Utter darkness, too, was upon the place! and when the lad stood shivering at the cabin door, he hesitated for a moment before leaving even the comparative light of the open. At such an instant there came to him the reflection. But the mood passed, and with a deep breath he stepped into the saloon; and being being almost immediately thrown off his foothold, his head went under the water, and he fought again with the unspeakable terror of the danger and the darkness.

Now, indeed, the water surged in his eyes, and got into his gullet, so that he gasped for breath like one upon the point of suffocation. Then he stood again, with the flood almost at his waist, and, going to advance a step, struck his head against the projecting frieze of the ceiling, and was thrown back almost insensible upon the soaking cushions. But the fall saved Kenner. As he lurched back with the pain of the blow he put his foot upon the American, and in a moment he had him in his arms and was staggering toward the companion. Nor did he know until he had laid him upon the deck, and there made sure that he breathed, whether the man were alive or dead.

The amazing darkness was, plainly, the first cause of so few escaping from the unhappy yacht. As the three men lay in what shelter they could, and even their wild exclamations were unheard in the play of seas, they had no vision or sign what had happened forward. And such a sight would have been of little moment to Kenner, who was nigh insensible; but the others had terror in the thought that they were alone, and yearned for a sight of the sky as sick men weary for dawn. Again and again Fisher asked of Messenger, "Can you see any thing?" Again and again he got for answer the plain monosyllable "No!" Once he thought that he observed the figure of Burke black upon the bridge, and heard his strong voice even above the crying of the gale; but the vision was gone in a moment, and the face of the impenetrable night alone remained. And for more than an hour the three survivors, as they then thought themselves, clung together for warmth under the poor breakwater they had found, and waited only for the death that seemed about to come to them.

It must have been three o'clock, and very near to the hour of dawn, when there was a break in the enveloping vapour, and less thunder of the waves. At that time, the three men, lying in dull stupor, heard the sound of Burke's voice—unmistakable and clear—and were by it aroused to show of activity. For the cleavage of cloud cast a dim light upon the scene, and showed to them the huge form of the man of iron upon the bridge; and the deep baying of his voice was to be heard above the falling seas.

"You, there, forward!" he suddenly bellowed. "That mast's going—look to yourselves!"

He spoke almost with the spreading of the steely light, then striking cold and grey upon the turmoil of the sea and upon the ship. The passing of the deeper darkness had with far-reaching swiftness conjured—as it seemed, from the very deep—distant shapes and forms as of cliff and headland; had set down a line of foam-washed shore; had surrounded the yacht with jagged spires of iron rock which stood over her as grim sentinels. The land rose a mile away dark and terrible and precipitous; but a great gulf of churning, seething billows cut them from it; and as the men realized their position a great shout went up from them, a-wailing and a-cursing, as of men about to die, but for whom in death there was no sleep.

"The mast! Come off the mast, I tell you!" roared Burke for the second time, and the men aft took up the cry as they saw his meaning. Eight of the hands were huddled together in the foretop; and the mast which sheltered them was giving to the seas, and threatening with every shook to plunge into the cavern of spuming water which lay between the crags.

In this minute of panic one of the hands, bolder than his fellows, set off to swarm across the top-mast stay, and was then hanging in mid-air, while the others watched him, but made no move to dare the passage. At first it appeared probable that the foremast would go before he had reached the bridge and had dropped upon it; and the intense excitement of those watching him got strength from the lurches of the stay, which promised every moment to hurl the seaman from his hold. Nor did those aft understand why the men remained in the foretop, wanting the knowledge that the yacht had broken in half at the engine room, and that her forepart lay completely submerged; while there was another great channel running between the aft-deck and the poop. The eight hands had taken refuge in the foretop at the first crash of disaster; and when the light came, they were, for the more part, half-dead with the cold and incapable of effort. One alone amongst them had life for the passage of the stay, and his struggles were unavailing, as the sequel proved.

The fellow had nigh reached the bridge—was getting purchase to make the leap, in fact—when the scene culminated. A "ninth" wave hit the tottering mast, and it snapped like a rotten branch, dashing the seven men hard upon the surface of the sea, and throwing the eighth from his hold so that he went down as from a trapeze. Then his head struck a spike of rock with such a horrid sound that those who heard it covered their faces and turned from the sight. Of the seven who went under with the mast but two rose again, showing terror-struck visages in the dawn light, and crying piteously, as though the sea would relent or the rocks rise to give them foothold.

Meanwhile Burke upon the bridge paced like a caged beast, for there was water everywhere below him, and he could not grasp any stay by which he might reach the safer haven of the poop. But when he saw the three aft, he seemed to gather coherence, and he bawled to them—

"You there! Have you got ever a line?"

"Not a yard but the lashing!" roared Messenger in reply.

"Do you make out anything ashore?" he asked next.

"Nothing but a headland, and hills beyond it," cried Messenger; but he went on with a question—

"Is it ebb or flow?"

"It's ebb, if I'm not dreaming," roared Burke. "We struck at the top of the tide. Is your end holding, or is she full?"

"She's holding; but there's more shift in her than I like," responded Messenger.

"Same ez with me," yelled Burke. "I'm going shoreward. I'll die quick, by gosh! if there ain't no other road."

The man was calm enough, and they watched him grasp a belt from the bridge and worm his shoulders into it. He stood thus irresolute above the chasm of waters for a long-drawn minute, and spoke again before the sea cast him to the venture, not biding his irresolution—

"Where's Kenner?" said he.

"Dying!" gasped Kenner, who had got consciousness, and sat up against the hatchway; but his croaking voice was lost in the scream of wind.

"Is he gone?" shouted the skipper, pausing at the lee side of the bridge.

"No, but he's mighty sick," cried Messenger, helping his voice with his hands.

"Wal," responded Burke, "he's had a run for his money, anyway. We'll share the yaller load in hell, all of us, I guess!"

He was about to say more, but the bridge beneath him of a sudden fell before the ceaseless onslaught of the swell, and, rearing up its edge high above the water, disappeared in a moment, carried by the rushing current which swept between the crags. Those on the poop saw Burke battling with the surf for a spell, then he disappeared between the islets of rock, and before they could think more of him their attention was turned to their own position and the hazardous shifting of the stern of the yacht.

Fisher was the first to notice it.

"Prince," said he, "we've got to move our quarters—the poop's going over."

"I was noticing it," replied Messenger.

"Do you think you could swim to shore if you got free of the rocks?" asked Fisher, adding: "One of us will have to stand by Kenner."

Messenger turned to look at the American, who was sitting half dazed and voiceless, and he said—

"Kenner, we're going to swim for it."

At these words the American raised his head and struggled to his feet.

"You won't leave me," he gasped; "I can't die alone!" And then he fell to wailing like a woman, and staggered toward the door of the staircase, whence he slid down the inclined plane of the deck until he was caught by the stream amidships and carried into the whirlpool. Fisher had followed him instinctively, and was in the water to grip him even before he sank for the first time; and from that moment began the lad's terrible battle with the cataracts of the reef. "Twice," said the lad, in his account of it, "I felt the seas closing over my head. Then a great hill of wave rose over me, and sent me deep down with a terrible singing in my ears. Each time that I rose, holding to Kenner—who, to my surprise, did not hamper me in the water—I saw the rocky pinnacles towering (they looked a great way) above me; and I was drawn so near to them in the vortex that I thought every minute I should be ended with a clout on the head which would stun me. How it really was I cannot say, but suddenly, as Kenner began to give in, and I was wasting all my strength in holding his head above water, we were carried immediately into a channel where there was scarcely any sea; and from that moment I could swim in comfort. Even then there seemed no hope of reaching the dark line of the shore; and the great headland, which loomed like some black phantom on my right hand, appeared only as a shadow on my hopes. You may judge of my surprise at last when, having swum no more than a couple of hundred yards, I found myself able to touch ground with my feet, and discovered that there was not a man's height of water below me. Thence onward was lurching, staggering work, but half-an-hour of it brought us right up out of the sea, and we sank breathless upon a heap of sand at the foot of a tremendous cliff, and there lay like dead men."

Meanwhile Messenger had not hesitated to face the terror of the rock-pool, and, having given one piteous glance at the wreck wherein all his hope lay, had dived boldly from the poop, and had come more readily than the others into the comparative calm of the open water, and so to the shallows. He was, as were the two who had first reached land, exhausted and nigh dead; he trembled with the cold; his face was an ashen colour; his clothes hung in rags upon him. But his first act, on coming to the inhospitable haven, was to turn a long look to the distant islets, where the relic of the ship lay, and to stand motionless for many minutes before he sank upon the sand and buried his face in his hands.

For he knew in that moment that the great stake he had played for was lost, and that the gold was gone.