Charles Rex

by Ethel M. Dell

  CHAPTER VI

  THE ABYSS

  They sighted the English shore a few days later on an evening of mist andrain. The sea was grey and dim, the atmosphere cold and inhospitable.

  "Just like England!" said Saltash. "She never gushes over her prodigals."

  He was dining alone in the saloon with Toby behind his chair, Larpentbeing absent on the bridge.

  "Don't you like England, sir?" said Toby.

  "I adore her," said Saltash with his most hideous grimace. "But I don'tgo to her for amusement."

  Toby came forward to fill his glass with liqueur. "Too strait-laced,sir?" he suggested with the suspicion of a smile.

  Saltash nodded with a sidelong glance at the young face bent over thedecanter. "Too limited in many ways, my Toby," he said. "But at the sametime useful in certain emergencies. A stern mother perhaps, but a wiseone on the whole. You, for instance--she will be the making of you."

  A slight tremor went through Toby. He set down the decanter and steppedback. "Of me, sir?" he said.

  Saltash nodded again. He was fingering the stem of his glass, hisqueer eyes dancing a little. "We've got to make a respectable citizenof you--somehow," he said.

  "Do you think that matters, sir?" said Toby.

  Saltash raised his glass. "You won't always be a boy of sixteen, youknow, Toby," he said lightly. "We've got to think of the future--whetherwe want to or not."

  "I don't see why, sir," said Toby.

  "You see, you're young," said Saltash, and drank with the air of one whodrinks a toast.

  Suddenly he turned in his chair, the glass still in his hand.

  "Our last night on board!" he said, with a royal gesture of invitation."You shall drink with me."

  Toby's face flushed burningly. He hung back. "Not--not--from your glass,sir!" he said. "Not--liqueur!"

  "Why not? Afraid?" mocked Saltash.

  Toby was silent. His hand closed involuntarily upon the back of hismaster's chair. The flush died out of his face.

  Saltash sat and looked at him for a few seconds, still with that dancinggleam in his eyes. Then abruptly he moved, rose with one knee upon thechair, lifted the glass to Toby's lips.

  "Afraid?" he said again, speaking softly as one speaks to a frightenedchild.

  Toby raised a hand that sought to take the glass but closed insteadnervously upon Saltash's wrist. He drank in response to Saltash'sunspoken insistence, looking straight at him the while.

  Then oddly he smiled. "No, not afraid, sir," he said. "Only--lest I mightnot bring you luck."

  "Oh, don't fret yourself on that account!" said Saltash. "I'm not used toany luck."

  Toby's eyes widened. "I thought you had--everything, sir," he said.

  Saltash laughed and set down the empty glass. "_Au contraire, mon cher_,"he said. "I am no richer than you are. Like Tantalus, I can never quenchmy thirst. Like many a better man than I, I see the stars, but I neverreach them."

  "Does anybody?" said Toby in the tone of one not expecting an answer.

  Saltash laughed briefly, enigmatically. "I believe some people soar. Butthey generally come down hard in the end. Whereas those who always crawlon the earth haven't far to fall. Now look here, Toby, you and I have gotto have a talk."

  "Yes, sir," said Toby, blinking rather rapidly.

  Saltash was watching him with a faint smile in his eyes, half-derisiveand half-tender. "What are you going to be, Toby?" he said. "It all turnson that."

  Toby's hand still gripped the back of his chair. He stood up verystraight, facing him. "That is for you to decide, sir," he said.

  "Is it?" said Saltash, and again his eyes gleamed a little. "Is it for meto decide?"

  "Yes, sir. For you alone." There was no flinching in Toby's look now. Hiseyes were wide and very steady.

  Saltash's mouth twitched as if he repressed some passing emotion. "Youmean--just that?" he asked, after a moment.

  "Just that, sir," said Toby, with a slight quickening of the breath. "Imean I am--at your disposal alone."

  Saltash took him suddenly by the shoulder and looked at him closely."Toby!" he said. "Aren't you making--rather a fool of yourself?"

  "No, sir!" Swiftly, with unexpected vehemence, Toby made answer. "I'mdoing--the only thing possible. But if you--if you--if you--"

  "Well?" Saltash said. "If I what?"

  "If you want to get rid of me--at any time," Toby said, commandinghimself with fierce effort, "I'll go, sir--I'll go!"

  "And where to?" Saltash's eyes were no longer derisive; they heldsomething that very few had ever seen there.

  Toby made a quick gesture of the hands, and dropped them flat at hissides. "I'll get rid of myself--then, sir," he said, with sudden chillpride. "That won't be very difficult. And I'll do it--so that you won'teven know."

  Saltash stood up abruptly. "Toby, you are quite unique!" he said. "Superbtoo in your funny little way. Your only excuse is that you're young. Doesit never occur to you that you've attached yourself to the wrong person?"

  "No, sir," breathed Toby.

  "You're not afraid to stake all you've got on a bad card?" pursuedSaltash, still curiously watching him.

  "No, sir," he said again; and added with his faint, unboyish smile, "Ihaven't much to lose anyway."

  Saltash's hand tightened upon him. He was smiling also, but the gleam inhis eyes had turned to leaping, fitful flame. "Well," he said slowly, "Ihave never yet refused--a gift from the gods."

  And there he stopped, for suddenly, drowning all speech, there arose adin that seemed to set the whole world rocking; and in a moment therecame a frightful shock that pitched them both headlong to the floor.

  Saltash fell as a monkey falls, catching at one thing after another tosave himself, landing eventually on his knees in pitch darkness with onehand still gripped upon Toby's thin young arm. But Toby had struck hishead against a locker and had gone down stunned and helpless.

  The din of a siren above them filled the world with hideous clamour asSaltash recovered himself. "Damn them!" he ejaculated savagely. "Do theywant to deafen us as well as send us to perdition?"

  Then very suddenly it stopped, leaving a void that was instantly filledwith lesser sounds. There arose a confusion of voices, of running feet, ahubbub of escaping steam, and a great rush of water.

  Saltash dragged himself up in the darkness, sought to drag Toby also,found him a dead weight, stooped and lifted him with wiry strength.He trod among broken glass and plates as he straightened himself. Thenoise above them was increasing. He flung the limp form over his shoulderand began desperately to claw his way up a steep slant towards thesaloon-door and the companion-way. Sound and instinct guided him, for thedarkness was complete. But he was not the man to die like a trappedanimal while the most slender way of escape remained. Hampered as he was,he made for the open with set teeth and terrible foreign oaths of whichhe was utterly unconscious.

  Whether that fierce struggle for freedom could ever have ended in successsingle-handed, however, was a point which he was not destined to decide,for after a space of desperate effort which no time could measure, theresuddenly shone the gleam of an electric torch in front of him, and he sawthe opening but a few feet away.

  "Saltash!" cried a voice, piercing the outer din, "Saltash!"

  "Here!" yelled back Saltash, still fighting for foothold and finding itagainst the leg of the table, "That you, Larpent? How long have we got?"

  "Seconds only!" said Larpent briefly. "Give me the child!"

  "No! Just give me a hand, that's all! Hang on tight! It'll be a pull."

  Saltash flung himself forward again, his free hand outstretched, slippedand nearly fell on his face, then was caught by a vice-like grip thatdrew him upward with grim strength. In a moment he was braced against theframe of the door, almost standing on it, the saloon gaping below him--ablack pit of destruction. Larpent's torch showed the companion stairspractically perpendicular above them.

  "Go on!" said Larpent. "Better give me the child. It's you that ma
tters."

  "Get out, damn you!" said Saltash, and actually grinned as he began toclimb with his burden still hanging upon his shoulder.

  Larpent came behind him, holding his torch to light the way. They climbedup into a pandemonium indescribable, a wild torrent of sound.

  There was light here that shone in a great flare through billows of fog,showing the monster form of a great vessel towering above them with onlya few yards of mist-wreathed water between. The deck on which they stoodsloped upwards at an acute angle, and still from below there came theclamour of escaping steam accompanied by a spasmodic throbbing that waslike the futile beating of giant wings against Titanic bars.

  A knot of men were struggling to lower a boat by the ghostly glare thatlit the night about them, clambering and slipping against the rails,while a voice from beyond the fog-curtain yelled through a megaphoneunintelligible commands.

  All these things were registered upon Saltash's brain, his quickperception leaping from point to point with a mental agility that waswholly outside all conscious volition on his part. He was driven bycircumstance as a bird is driven by storm, and he went before itundismayed, missing no chance of refuge.

  A life-buoy hanging beside the hatch caught his eye as he glanced swiftlyaround and in a second he pounced upon it. Toby slipped from his shoulderas he bent, and slipping awoke. But he only lay and stared with dazedeyes at the man frantically unlashing the rope, as one who looked on fromafar.

  Then Larpent was with them again. He dragged Toby to his feet, and in aflash Saltash turned, the life-buoy on his arm.

  "What the devil are you doing?"

  Larpent pointed. "They've got the boat free. Go--while you can!"

  But Saltash barely glanced across. He put the life-buoy over Toby's headand shoulders, and began to wind the rope around him. It did not need aglance to know that the boat would never get away.

  At his action Toby gasped, and sudden understanding awoke in his eyes. Hedragged one arm free, and made as if he would cling to Saltash.

  "Keep me with you, sir!" he cried out wildly. "Don't make me go alone!"

  Saltash gripped the clutching hand, dropping the end of rope. It traileddown, and Larpent caught it, flung it round Saltash's body, and knottedit while he was lifting Toby over the rail.

  Then for a second Saltash hung, one hand still gripping Toby's, the otherholding to the rail of his sinking yacht, the two of them poised side byside above the abyss.

  "You'll save yourself, Larpent!" he cried. "I shall want you."

  And with that he turned suddenly to his shivering companion andactually smiled into the terrified eyes. "Come on, Toby!" he said. "Wego--together!"

  He flung his leg over with the words, and leapt straight downwards.

  Toby's shriek sounded through the tumult as they went into the greydepths.