The Incendiary: A Story of Mystery

by William Augustine Leahy

  CHAPTER XLIV.

  THE OCEAN NIGHT.

  "Tristram!"

  The artist started at his sister's voice. He had been lounging over thesteamer's side watching a full-rigged ship in the offing. Its majesticsails glistened as white as snow, but the heaving motion from bow tostern was apparent even at that distance. For the sea was all hills andhollows, and the Yarmouth herself lay darkened under the shadow of acloud.

  "Let me break in on your reverie. This is my brother--Miss Barlow--MissWare."

  "We shall have a storm," said Tristram, after the formalities.

  "Oh, I hope not," cried all three ladies. They had become acquaintedwhile watching the patent log on the saloon-deck stern, which BeulahWare, who knew almost everything, had explained for Rosalie'sinformation.

  "It was due when we started," said Tristram.

  "And you never told me," cried Rosalie.

  "You would have postponed the trip, my dear."

  "Make everything tight," came the cheery voice of the captain. "Get yourwraps on, ladies. It's going to pour in a hurry."

  "Do let us remain outside," cried Beulah. "I've nothing on that willspoil, under a waterproof."

  The others assented, and Tristram and Beulah disappeared for a fewmoments, returning with mackintoshes and rubber cloaks.

  "There, you look like fisher folk," said Tristram, when the ladies hadpulled the cowls of their glazed garments over their heads.

  "And romantic for the first time, I suppose," said Rosalie. "Tristram isa great stickler for barbarism, you know."

  "Esthetically," said Tristram.

  "He has positive ideas."

  "Of negative value."

  The rain had begun to spatter the deck beneath them and the cool windwas working its own will with their garments. They were almost alone onthe quarter-deck. An officer eyed them loftily.

  "That is the first mate," said Tristram.

  "How can you tell?" asked Rosalie.

  "Because he is so far off. The captain is always approachable. The firstmate is rather distant, the second mate more so. The third mate israrely visible to the naked eye."

  "Hear that bell," cried Emily.

  A ding-dong clangor resounded through the ship.

  "Supper! All hands to supper!" piped the steward. "Early supper!Captain's orders! Early supper!"

  "Hang the captain's orders!" said Tristram. "This is better thansupper."

  But the foamy crest of a great wave that was level with the bow wascaught just then by the wind and hurled up in their faces. The ladiessputtered, drenched with the spray, and the water seethed at their feet.Of course they shrieked and there was nothing for it but to descend andrepair to their staterooms to prepare for the supper.

  The dishes were clattering and dancing like marionettes. Capt. Keen hadacted wisely in ordering an early supper. If the sea increased it wouldsoon be impossible to eat at all.

  "Isn't this superb?" cried the enthusiast again, as the vesselperceptibly rose under them, but she fell so suddenly that he probablybit his tongue. At least for a moment his eloquence abated.

  "Now to go above again," he said when at last the tipping of the dishesmade satisfactory eating no longer possible. "What a rare qualityportability is! The portable arts--music and poetry; the portableinstruments--fiddles, flutes, etc.; the portable eatables (excuse theunhappy jingle)--oranges, bananas, biscuits."

  Suiting the word to the action, he laid in a liberal supply himself andpressed as much more on each of the ladies. He was not so unpractical ashe seemed, our friend Tristram, with all his badinage and transparentsophistries.

  "But you are not seriously going out on deck?" cried his sister in somealarm, when he made for the stairs.

  "And surely you are not going to remain in?" answered Tristram infeigned astonishment. "Lose this glorious sea picture? Atmosphere,nature's own murk; canvas, infinity; music furnished by old Boreashimself, master of Beethoven and Rubinstein; accompaniments, night,sleet, danger and the lightning."

  "I fear we are philistines," said Beulah Ware; "we prefer painted stormsand the mimic thunders of the symphony."

  "Accompaniment, dry dresses," added Rosalie. Whereupon Tristramgallantly saw the ladies housed in his sister's cabin and left them,lunching on his portable eatables, but not a little anxious while hehimself climbed up to his perch on the quarter-deck. The sea tumbledover the steamer when she cut her way into a billow, but Tristram haddrawn on thick boots and felt prepared to rough it.

  "Better lash yourself down," cried the captain warningly. The artist'sanswer was lost in the tempest.

  There was little sleep for the passengers on the Yarmouth that night.Stewards and matrons passed about reassuring them. The boat wasseaworthy; everything was locked in; they could lie on their pillowswith an absolute certainty of rising on the morrow with the Nova Scotiashore in view. Only they wouldn't. They dared not. And as Rosalie lookedas timid as any one, her new acquaintances conspired to remain with herin her stateroom, all three sharing the two cots and getting what napsthey could.

  They had run out of talk and were almost drowsing when the great crashcame. Have you felt your heart jump when a pistol-shot smites thesilence? No crack of land ordnance could inspire the fear thatresounding bump did in the breasts of the apprehensive girls.

  "A rock!" was the thought of each, but they only expressed their terrorin an inarticulate shriek. Then the whimpering of women and the cries ofmen were heard in the saloon.

  "We are sinking!" cried some one, and the girls rushed out. A hundredwhite-clad forms darted to and fro like gnats in a swarm, or clungtogether, wringing their hands in misery. Some of the men fought tounbar the doors. But they were bolted from the outside. The whole cabinwas penned in there to drown. Then each one felt for his dearest.

  "Tristram!" moaned Rosalie, knocking at his stateroom door. "Tristram!"But there came no answer. "He is out on the deck! He is swept away anddrowned!" she cried, with truer tears than the imagined sorrows ofDesdemona had ever drawn from her eyes. But Tristram was safe in thepilot's box, where Capt. Keen was signaling the engineer to reverse hisengines; and the engineer, shut in amid the deafening clangor of hismachinery, ignorant of what had happened but trained to his duty, obeyedpromptly his bell and forced the great vessel back.

  The headlights of the Yarmouth had been doused out long before, andthere was no lantern that could live in that surge, even if it werepossible to hang a second one aloft From time to time the captain hadordered a rocket sent up, to warn approaching vessels, for the air wasdensely opaque. Only out of the gloom before them, just before the shockcame, Tristram could see a long row of lights, feeble and flickering.His imagination constructed the broadside of a steamship about them andonce it seemed that he really did catch a vague, shadowy outline. Butthe reality became certain to another sense. Before the Yarmouth'sengines were reversed and her bow disengaged itself, a wail of terrorreached him out of the night, and a tearing as of parted timbers. Thenhoarse shouts were heard from the emptiness soaring high above the wind.

  "We stove in her side," said the captain. Then a signal rocket, hissinginto the quenching rain, told him of his fellow's distress. The Yarmouthstill receded. The double row of lights was withdrawn into the gloom.But the wailing increased and from the covered cabin below rose theresponsive clamor of the passengers.

  "Say that we have struck a vessel," telephoned the captain to thesteward. After several repetitions the message was understood and itquieted the half-clad throng a little. But anxiety was legible on everyface.

  Twice more the signal of distress went up and the captain answered it,though helpless to assist. Then the air was blank.

  "Head her east," said the captain to the pilot. He knew by the lightsthat the other vessel was pointed to the larboard when she crossed hisbow. He could not back forever or heave to in that sea. He mustcircumnavigate the vessel or the vortex if she were sunk. So he nosedhis prow oceanward into the teeth of the wind. Under thesecircumstances the headway of his bo
at was slow.

  "Ahoy!"

  Was it a voice from the darkness? A huge wave rose over them like acliff and hurled itself against the strong glass of the pilot's window.In a moment they were soused and the wind blowing in upon them told themthat their brittle sheath was shattered. But the electric globes stillcast their white gleams over the foredeck and revealed a dark objectthat was not there before.

  "A boat!" cried Tristram.

  "Save them!" shouted Capt. Keen, rushing down the steps, with the artistat his heels. It was indeed a lifeboat, which had been carried on thecrest of a billow clear over the Yarmouth's gunwale and left high, ifnot dry. Only five forms could be seen--three of them stirring, theother two motionless. All were men.

  "Climb!" shouted Keen, seizing one of the limp bodies in his arms.Tristram caught up the other and staggered back in the direction of thelight, the three wrecked men following and grappling at them in theirbewilderment. Another wave like the last and they were lost, all seven.But these great surges come in rhythmic intervals. Rescuers and rescuedreached the pilot house in safety.

  "Who are you, shipmates?" asked the captain, pouring brandy down themouths of the unconscious men. The others answered in German.

  "The Hamburg liner, Osric," translated Tristram. "She broke her rudderand was driven off her course by the gale."

  "Heaven save us from meeting any more such driftwood," said the pilotunsteadily with a hiccough.

  "Were any other boats out?" asked Capt. Keen. Tristram interpretedquestion and answer.

  "Two others, but they were swamped. All on board are lost."

  A thrill went through the strong men. Usage does not render sailorscallous to the perils of the sea. Death under the ocean is still themost awe-inspiring of fates--the doom of the irrecoverable body, of theskeleton lying on the bottom, like a coral freak.

  "Mostly immigrants from Germany and Sweden," answered the spokesman tothe next question. All five were common sailors. They had waited theirturn and the captain had ordered them into the lifeboat when it came. Hehimself had stood by his sinking ship to the end.

  In a lull of the breaking seas, Tristram and Capt. Keen picked their waydown into the cabin. The captain's appearance was a signal for a cheer.He addressed the passengers briefly, outlined the terrible event andassured them that, as lightning never strikes twice in the same spot,they might turn in and count on a clear voyage oceanward for the rest ofthe night. He could not control the weather or promise them sleep. Buthe felt so safe himself that he had just come down to retire for his ownspell of slumber.

  This little lie was one of those which the recording angel will blotaway with tears. The old salt would no more have slept that night thanhe would have taken a dose of poison. Even for the few minutes he wasbelow he had been as uneasy within as a young mother when she sees herbaby in the arms of some one whose carelessness she has good reason todread. The pilot was in liquor, and Capt. Keen, making a quick tour aftso that every one might get a view of him and a cheery word, togetherwith a brazen repetition of his salutary invention, simply turned intothe cook's room forward and swung himself out by its skylight-hatch.Meanwhile Tristram elbowed his way through the crowd to Rosalie. Hisreappearance soothed her, but she was still hysterical, and the goodoffices of the other two ladies were found seasonable during the night.