CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
THE RUSTED PISTOL.
Down--down into the far depths, the weight of a world of water pressingever down; suffocation, the bursting of myriad stars in a black, roaringsky; then upward, as though hurled by some giant catapult--and--air oncemore!
Wagram found himself instinctively battling for life amid the tumultuouseddyings that met and swirled above the spot where the hapless _Baleka_had taken her last plunge.
It was dark--darker than it had been, for the sea mist had deepened,shutting out the stars, shutting out everything around, shutting out inturn the sight of an exhausted man battling for life with the wholeimmensity of a vast ocean, keeping afloat by mere mechanical instinctiveeffort.
It seemed ages since he was sucked down by the sinking ship; in reality,it was hardly a minute. Providentially he had returned on deck beforethe last plunge, and, seeing that it was now or never, had leaped intothe water, and struck out for all he knew how. Thus he had not comewithin the inner vortex, and so had risen to the surface in due course.He had refrained from shouting when he took his leap, lest one of theboats should return to his rescue and be sucked under herself.
Now he lifted up his voice, but the result was a hoarse whisper.Semi-suffocation, sea water, and exhaustion had done their work, and hewas speechless. The boats would certainly lie around in the faint,forlorn hope that he might have got clear of the wreck. One hail mightreach them, yet he was speechless. Aid was at hand--yet, O God! he mustdrown like a dog in the midst of the black, oily, midnight sea.
Then he felt contact with something, and instinctively he grasped it.It was a deck-chair, a large, closely-woven wicker chair; and, though itwould not support his weight, at any rate it would serve to lighten it,to ease the strain upon his sole unaided efforts. He looked around formore substantial wreckage, but the mist and the darkness combinedrendered it impossible to have descried even a boat, had such beenwithin a few yards of him. But even for this miserable support he feltthankful.
Yet who may imagine the horror of those awful hours to the waif floatingthere in the silent, midnight sea--the solitude, the hopelessness, theconsciousness that every hour was but prolonging his agony? Thetropical water was warm, or numbness would have supervened, and claimedits victim long before the day should dawn upon the face of the deep;and, realising this too, again he felt thankful.
But now came the terror of another thought. The tropical waters, ifwarm, abounded in sharks. The unutterable horror of it! Here he was ascompletely at the mercy of the ravenous monsters as a worm thrown into astream is at the mercy of the first fish that comes along. Death wasone thing--such a loathsome and agonising form of it as this wasanother. Against it--in spite of his faith, which was great--all thatwas human in the man cried out in dread and recoil.
So the dark hours wore on, and as they did so a merciful lethargy cameupon his mind and imaginings; and, with his frail support, but thesmallest and most mechanical of efforts sufficed to keep him afloat onthe salt, buoyant surface of the tropical sea.
Day dawned--yet what hope did it bring? Soon the fire rays of a furioustropical sun would beat down upon his unprotected head, burning hisbrain into molten pitch. With the dawning the mist had thinned, andthough it still lay in hot, steamy folds yet a greater area of thesurface was visible. And now to the waif was vouchsafed the first gleamof a great hope. Athwart the shadowy dimness an object was visible--anobject long, low, and substantial. A ship!
Again he essayed his voice. This time his efforts were able to compassa feeble raucous shout. Help at last! Rescue! Oh, he _would_ makethem hear this time.
The sight sent new life through him. Mustering all his strength hestruck out, yet not abandoning his frail support, ever with hopeful gazestrained upon that blessed ark of refuge--and then--and then--
The mist curtain rolled back farther, and it was as though some demonhad been mocking him. There lay the ship, but she was nigh flush withthe surface as she lay log-like upon the water, still and lifeless. Twojagged stumps of masts arose from her, and tattered fragments of rustyratlines scraped her rusty sides. The unutterable stillness of her wasthe unearthly eloquent silence of a dead ship upon a dead sea. _It wasthe Red Derelict again_.
How had they come together once more? But a few hours ago he and othershad gazed with curiosity upon this dead hulk from the deck of thebounding powerful steamship pulsating with life as she swept past. Nowthe live steamship was gone for ever to the utmost extremity of the fardepths; but the dead hulk rode on, riding, as it were, throughouteternity upon a dead sea.
For the first few moments of this revelation the revulsion of feelingwas so great, so overwhelming to the despairing waif, that he wastempted to cast away his frail support, and, abandoning all furthereffort, let himself sink for ever. One brief struggle, then rest--atleast, so he trusted, so he ventured to hope. But to that somemysteriously conscious voice of good counsel seemed to reply that thegift of life was not to be voluntarily relinquished even then, that hehad been brought back from the very depths of the sea, that a means ofsupport, frail though it was, had been literally thrust into his hand,and now here was an even more substantial form of temporary safety. Heremembered, too, how this wreck had been drifting for years, and wasoccasionally sighted by passing vessels; who could tell but what itmight be the means of safety for himself, desperate and, humanlyspeaking, hopeless, as his plight now was? He decided that he would geton board the derelict; and no sooner had he come to this decision thanhe saw that the sooner he should carry it into effect the better, andthat for reasons very weighty, very imminent indeed.
A dark, glistening object was moving above the surface, and well he knewwhat it represented. It was the dorsal fin of a shark.
As yet it was some little way off, moving slowly, and not coming in hisdirection. This was something; but as he strained every effort now toreach the derelict it seemed that even that weird refuge was aHeaven-sent one. But it seemed, too, that the hulk was receding fromhim as fast as he was approaching it. He remembered the captain'sdictum as to the strange action of currents. What if a current weremoving it faster than he could move? He looked round. The glisteningfin seemed almost stationary, but--it was nearer. Yes; he felt sure itlooked larger.
Often from the deck of a ship he had looked down upon the grim monstersof the deep with an interest enhanced by a sense of absolute security.Now, here he was, floating helplessly in their natural element. Smallwonder that his whole being should recoil, his flesh creep at therealisation of his utter helplessness.
There was no mistake about it now. The thing was coming straighttowards him, and--the hulk was quite twenty yards away. What, too, ifthere were more of them?
Nearer, nearer, came that cruel glide, and still he could make but slowheadway. He would have abandoned the deck-chair, and so got alongfaster, but for an inspiration that, perhaps, the strange appearance ofit might scare the sea-tiger, suggesting possibly to its instinct theidea of a trap. The beast was very near now.
Wagram began splashing mightily, at the same time uttering as loud ashout as he could compass--and that was not very loud. It seemed toanswer, though. The gliding triangular fin became motionless; then, asif the great fish had altered its course, it turned broadside on, asthough concluding to manoeuvre a little further before closing.
Now the hulk was almost within grasp. Two or three strokes, and thewaif was about to seize the taffrail, when he was conscious of a swirlbeneath him. Rising from under the keel of the derelict came into viewa monstrous shape. It stamped itself upon his brain--the gleaming whitebelly, the snake-like writhe of the tail, the great open mouth with itsrows of awful teeth, and then--those teeth closed with a snap upon thedeck-chair, which Wagram had, with rare quickness and presence of mind,thrust down where his legs had been when the rush was made, and, beforethe sound of the crunching of wood and wicker was stilled, by a mightyeffort he had hoisted himself on board the hulk.
It was a
near thing. He stood for a moment chest-deep on the submergedmain deck, then clambered up to the poop and looked forth. The dark,glistening fin which had first alarmed him was still moving lazily atabout the same distance off; but immediately beneath, the fragments ofthe deck-chair and the lashings and soundings of the monster that hadtried to seize him made him vividly realise the awful peril from whichhe had escaped. It seemed as if the evil beast had indeed bitten offmore than it could chew, for it darted to and fro, and sank and roseagain in quite an abnormal way, as though seriously uneasy within.
The first feeling produced in Wagram by the sight was one of intensethankfulness, and yet his position was still desperate enough in allconscience. Here he was, on board a waterlogged hulk in mid-oceanwithout a scrap of food or a drop of water. He had a brandy flask whichhe had filled and put in his pocket with an eye to emergencies on theoccasion of the first alarm, but that was all. Still, he would not byany means abandon hope. The idea uppermost in his mind was less that hehad escaped so far than that he had been preserved--and if he had beenpreserved it was with some good reason. So far, too, he felt neitherhunger nor thirst--his immunity from the latter perhaps due to hisprolonged submersion. The poop deck was dry--in fact, very dry--and ifhe wanted to reach the forecastle he had only to wade along the maindeck.
He glanced around seaward. The mist had completely disappeared, andfrom sky-line to sky-line the sea was open--open and blank; not a speck,not a sail. The hope which had sprung up within him that when the mistlifted some or all of the _Baleka's_ boats might be in sight wasdispelled. He was alone.
Turning, he glanced down. Some loose rusty iron lay at his feet,remnants of the old rigging. This he was turning idly over when anobject attracted his attention. Stooping, he picked it up. It was apistol, a five-chambered revolver, but the woodwork of the stock had allbut rotted away, and even as he held it something came off it and fellon the deck. Picking this up he examined it, then nearly dropped itagain. The thing was of metal, and had come loose from the rottingwood. It, like the rest of the metal, was red with rust; but now, asWagram stood staring at it, he thought he must be dreaming. It was anameplate which had been let into the stock of the weapon, and throughthe rust there stood forth two letters--"E.W."
Half dazed, he stared at the thing; rubbed his eyes, and stared again.Then he examined the pistol itself. No; there could be no mistake aboutit. The weapon had belonged to his brother. He ought to know it, ifanybody ought, for it had been a present from himself when Everard hadfirst left home years ago, and he himself had specially designed thefashioning of the initials on the nameplate--"E.W." It was afive-chambered weapon, too, and five-shooters were not so common as six.And now--and now here it was, here it came into his hands again, onboard a battered and abandoned hulk which seafaring authority hadpronounced to have been afloat in its battered and derelict conditionfor years. What mystery--what awful mystery of the deep lay behindthis?
For long he stood gazing at the relic in his hand. It had been apowerful weapon, one of large and heavy calibre. Did its presence herebear silent witness to an unseen and buried tragedy; to a grim fight forlife here on this ghostly craft before she had been abandoned to herendless driftings? What ghastly remnants of such might even then belying below within her hull, perhaps even of the man to search for whomhe had travelled over half the world--sepulchred for ever beneath thewater which precluded any further exploration of the fabric? Again, wasit for this that he himself had been so wonderfully preserved--that hemight light upon this long-forgotten object to serve as a clue in hisfurther search? Who might say?
Now a great drowsiness came over him--the drowsiness of exhaustion--and,almost without knowing it, he sank down upon the deck. One thing he didhalf instinctively, half mechanically, and well was it for him he didso. That was to divest himself of his coat, and with it shelter hishead from the fierce sun rays. Then he fell into a profound sleep--theslumber of exhaustion.
The red sun sank like a great globe in the smoky offing of the tropicalsky. The intense heat of the day was about to give place to the dews ofnight, which, however, served to abate but little of the sultriness;though relief from the burning rays was something to be thankful for,thought those in the boats. But before the rush of night should settledown with its accustomed rapidity an incident was in store for them. Adark object lay outlined against the lurid sky-line. Quickly, eagerlyglasses were brought to bear. Those who had not got glasses hung noless eagerly on the result. A ship?
But more than a smothered curse broke from those who saw.
"It's only that derelict again," burst from young Ransome, the fourthofficer, wearily. "Only that derelict--that damned Red Derelict. We'veseen enough of _her_."
And the boats of the _Baleka_, with their castaway freight, held ontheir course, running before a light breeze which had sprung up withsunset, leaving behind them the Red Derelict with its one humanpassenger--the missing one from among themselves who had thrown away hisown life to save that of a child who was already safe. And he lay,still fast asleep, with his coat over his head, drifting away with thegrim hulk--away, away, over the pathless plain of the vast lonely sea.
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