The second night of the imprisonment had come. The second mate had gone to the door and was listening; but beyond the pad of a bare foot, or hum of hoarse voices, there was nothing to tell of the watchers about the decks.
For her part, the girl was busying herself clearing away the few eatables from which they had been making a meal. This done, she hesitated a moment, then went over to the second mate.
“Let me stay up tonight and watch, Jack. You have not had any sleep, and I have slept most of the day. I could wake you up the moment anything happened.”
The big man put a hand on each side of her shoulders and looked down upon her with a grave half-smile.
“Do, Jack! You can trust me,” she urged.
“Trust you, little girl,” he replied. “Yes, child, with a thousand lives if I had them.”
“Then you will let me stay up and watch?” He shook his head slowly.
“There will be no need tonight, at any rate. They cannot get at us without noise. We may both sleep.”
This he said to quiet her entreaties; for he had no intention to allow her to sit alone in the darkness with her thoughts, and that blanket-covered mound, while he slept. More, he wished her to sleep; for he had a project which he hoped to carry out during the hours of darkness.
For a moment she stood looking up at him in the half-light. Then she slipped her hands on to his shoulders.
“Then I will say good night, Jack, for we must save the oil in the lamp.”
The second mate stooped and kissed her. “Good night, Mary,” he said gravely.
“Good night,” she whispered, kissing him in return.
Then she left him and went behind the blanket which he had rigged up before the bunks on the starboard side.
A space of about two hours passed, during which the second mate lay awake listening. Presently, realizing that the girl was asleep, he got up and quietly opened the door of the house. He listened a minute and found no one about, then swiftly he carried out each of the dead bodies on to the deck and left them there. He returned to the house and locked the door.
All at once, from outside the door, there rose an outcry. At that, he knew that the dead had been discovered. The outcries sank to a subdued murmur; for there had come fear among the men. Yet from thence onward, the door was never left unguarded day or night.
IX
The morning of the fourth day of their imprisonment dawned, and the second mate was awakened by a noise of hammering close against the port on the left side of the door. He jumped from his bunk quietly, and crept softly to the one on his right. He had the revolver in his hand.
Very cautiously he unscrewed the fastening of the iron cover, and glanced out, but could see no one. For a little he listened, and between the blows he caught a murmur of talk some little distance away. Abruptly he recognized Pathan’s voice. At that, quickly but silently, he unscrewed the fastening of the glass and opened it. He thrust his head out and looked to the left.
Close to him, and right in front of the door, stood one of the men. He held the muzzle of a clumsy ship’s musket, the butt resting on the deck. The second mate remembered having observed this same antique weapon hanging in the steward’s pantry. It was evident that they were but poorly supplied with firearms.
Beyond the guard, he made out a couple more of the men fixing a heavy piece of timber across the other port. Evidently they had hit upon this plan of preventing his interfering with their operations. With the two after ports blocked they could do much as they pleased.
Suddenly a sharp exclamation on his right startled the second officer. He glanced round. There was Pathan fumbling with his revolver.
Instantly the second mate snatched his head into the shelter of the house. Almost at the same moment there sounded a thunderous bang, close to the left. He heard Pathan give a scream of pain, breaking off into a blatter of cursing.
At the risk of his life he shoved his head out. Pathan was nursing his right hand, while big tears of pain were running down his cheeks to that strange accompaniment of blasphemy. On the deck, close to his feet, lay the shattered butt of his revolver. The second mate twisted to the left for a brief glance. He saw that the guard was sitting upon the deck, rubbing his right shoulder. He looked woefully scared, while nearby lay the cumbrous weapon with which he had been armed.
What had happened was now clear to the big officer. The man had fired at the protruding head—but a fraction too late—with the result that the bolt, with which the gun had been loaded, had strickenthe passenger’s revolver, destroying it and wounding his hand.
Even as the solution came to the officer, the guard had reached for his gun and scrambled to his feet. In another moment he would have clubbed the second mate, but that a bullet sent him twitching to the deck.
The second mate turned his pistol upon Pathan. Could he but rid the ship of that fiend, all might yet be well.
Yet, as he pressed the trigger for the second time, his elbow was jogged from within the house. He swore between his teeth and tried another shot, only to be warned by the unsatisfying click of the hammer that his ammunition had come to an end.
He drew away from the port with an angry gesture, and well it was for him that he did so, for one of the two at work upon the port, seeing that the weapon was empty of cartridges, had run at him with a hammer. The blow missed, and the following instant the second mate had slammed the covers and fastened up the port.
He turned and found the girl standing by him.
“Do you know,” he said a trifle sternly, “you made me miss Pathan when you touched me. If I had shot that wretch the men would have been glad enough to come to terms.”
He was hot with his failure, or he had not spoken so to her. And she, having but touched him because of the fear which had seized her at his rashness in so exposing himself, burst into crying; for she had been sorely overstrained with the rough happenings of late.
At this his anger left him and he made to comfort her, so, for that morning they sat together, she taking little heed of the various sounds about the house which told him that the fiends outside were preparing to batter down the door. They had covered up the second port immediately after his closing of the cover, so that he had no means of knowing how matters were progressing beyond such as his ears, trained in ship-craft, could tell him.
Very slowly the day passed to its close. He knew that the final struggle was at hand; but he did not by any means consider their chances of life beyond hope; for he knew that the crew had been greatly reduced, so that, could he but avoid the fire of the big musket, he might slay Pathan and put the rest to flight. Yet he had no knowledge but that the house might be their prison for a day or two longer; though, beyond that time they could not hope to stay, for of food they had but little, and less water.
The day had been a fine one, as they could tell by the light which came through the crevices around the somewhat loosely fitting door, and when at last the evening came, the girl went to the door to try to get a look at the sunset.
“Come and look, Jack,” she said suddenly, after a period of silence.
He turned from the water breaker at which he was busy emptying the last few drops.
“What is it, Mary?”
His voice was perhaps a trifle uneasy, for he had made the discovery that there was left only half a pannikin of water. During the last two days of their imprisonment he had been limiting his allowance; for he would not see her stinted, and now, through some mischance, the spigot, which someone had fixed near the bottom of the little cask, had been loosened, and the small quantity of the imperative liquid which had been theirs was all squandered save for the drainings which he had emptied into the enameled mug.
He came across to where she stood. For the moment he was minded not to tell her, then, remembering because of the fiends outside, that a clear knowledge of their position was her due, he told her not only of this matter but of the likelihood of the crisis being near at hand.
When he had made an
end, she reached up one hand to his shoulder, then held out the other for the mug. She drew him down to the crevice through which she had been peering.
“See,” she said, “did you ever see such a sunset?” Her voice dropped. “And it may be our last, Jack.” She patted his shoulder as she spoke. “You know, boy, I may be only a silly girl, but I know nothing but a miracle can save us.”
It was the first time she had spoken out so plainly, and he, having nothing to answer, stared out blindly into the dying glory outside.
In a little, perhaps the half of a minute, she drew him back somewhat and held the little mug up before them.
“We will drink it together, darling,” she whispered, and bent her head over and kissed the brim, then handed it to him; but he was not deceived.
“Fair play, little woman. You have drunk nothing.”
He passed it back to her, and she, knowing him, sipped a little, then held it up to him and made him drink from her own hands. He was hideously thirsty, but controlled himself to one gulp only; then took the mug from her and set it down upon the table. For the end was not yet, and she might have need of it ere then.
It was almost dark in the berth, for the oil of the lamp was done this long while, the only light they had coming in through the crannies about the door.
For a while the two of them stood together. He was deep in pondering as to when the attack would come. Probably as soon as it was dark; for, of course, they could not be absolutely sure that he had no further supply of cartridges.
She for her part was leaning forward, peering through the narrow opening at the red splendor of the sun’s shroud. Once or twice she ran her fingers up and down this crack, as if she would fain enlarge it. Possibly the tips showed outside, for her hands were very slender; yet, however it may have been, it is certain that one of the devils upon the deck was attracted and crept up on tiptoe. Inside, the girl, staring out, saw something come abruptly between her and the sun. The second mate saw it at the same moment, else she had been dead on the instant.
He pushed her from him, out of a line with the crack, and in so doing brought himself almost directly opposite. There came a sudden spurt of flame into the semi-darkness of the house, and a tremendous report close up against the door. The girl gave a little scream which almost drowned her lover’s moan of pain, but not quite.
“You are not hurt, dearest?” she cried out loud.
For a moment he did not answer, and in that quick silence she heard a man outside laugh brutally.
The second mate had his hand up to his eyes and was very silent. In the dimness of the place she saw that he was swaying upon his feet.
“Jack,” she said in an intense whisper of fear. “Are you hurt?”
She caught his wrist with a gentle hold. Still he did not reply. Beyond the door she heard the murmur of voices, and odd words and fragments of sentences drifted to her uncomprehending brain.
“—for?”
“Fiddlin’ at ther door!”
“—bust! The gun’s busted!”
“Thank God!” It was the second mate who had spoken, and the girl loosed her hands from his wrists in her astonishment. Then, with a sudden applying of his words to satisfy the desire of her soul—
“You are not hurt, then, dear?”
“A—a little. My eyes—”
“What? Let me see!” But he swung round from her.
“Can you get me some—something for a bandage?” There was a desperate levelness in his tone.
He took two or three uncertain steps across the floor, as if bewildered. She followed him. He took his hands from his face and moved his head from side to side, as if peering about the house. Abruptly, he turned and blundered into her clumsily. She would have fallen, but that he caught and steadied her.
“Jack! Oh, Jack!” she cried, for even in the dimness of the place she had caught a glimpse of where his eyes ought to have been.
“It’s all right, little woman,” he replied in a voice that was nearly steady. “I—can’t see very well while the pain’s bad.” He had covered his face again with his hands.
She answered nothing. She was tearing one of her undergarments into strips, and trying to quiet her sobs.
X
The night had come. The second mate, the upper portion of his face swathed in wrappings, was seated on the sea-chest below his bunk. The girl was sitting by him, and their right hands were clasped.
The crack along the edge of the door had been stuffed up with a strip of blanket. Upon the edge of the table was stuck a tiny fragment of candle, and by the light of this she was reading slowly the betrothing passage from the Solemnization of Matrimony—that in which the man plights his troth. The second mate was repeating the words after her.
Presently they had made an end, and the girl slipped her hand gently from his; then, taking hold of his in turn, she read in a firm voice that passage in which the woman gives her troth. At the end, she released the second mate’s hand and drew a ring from off one of her fingers. This she put gently into his hand. Then having given him her left, he slid the ring on her third finger, repeating themeanwhile, after her, the passage which she whispered to him.
And after that they sat a while, too full of thought for speech.
Presently the candle went out abruptly, and the two were alone in the darkness.
From the deck beyond the door came an occasional mutter of speech, an occasional padding of feet and an occasional creaking of gear, and the two within sat and waited.
Toward midnight the moon rose and limned the outline of the door in pale light. Presently the girl spoke.
“The moon has risen, Jack.”
She rose from his side and moved to the door. Perhaps she might be able to see what the crew were busied at. Abruptly, as she stooped forward to peer, something struck the door a tremendous blow, filling the interior of the house with a deafening, hollow boom. She cried out in fear, and even as she cried came the second blow and the crack of a breaking rivet.
She realized that the attack had begun, and groped a moment for the matches. She struck one and examined the door. To the casual glance it was unharmed; but by the light of the third match she made out that a rivet in the bottom hinge was snapped. By this, a dozen blows had been dealt, and yet, from the second mate, seated upon the sea-chest, no sound.
All at once he spoke.
“Come here, Mary.”
She came to him quickly, wondering, half-consciously, at the strange harshness of his tone. By the light of the match which she carried, she saw that he had in his hand the revolver.
“It’s no good, Jack,” she said despairingly, thinking he had a mind that she should use it in their defense. “There are no cartridges!”
“I kept—one,” he said with a jerk, and still in that unnatural voice.
He reached out his left hand to her. And at that she comprehended, and comprehending shrank back with a little wail.
“O-o-h! O-o-h! Jack!” she sobbed, with a sudden plumbing of the abyss of mortal terror.
There came a louder crash on the door, and then the second mate’s voice.
“Mary!”
She went up to him, quivering.
“Not yet, Jack! Not yet!”
He put his left arm round her.
“Mary!” he said, and the fierce agony which possessed him spoke out in his voice. “Tell me when the door begins to go!”
And she knew that the time of the door’s standing was the span of her life.
At each ringing thud of the ram she could feel the place quiver. By now it had become a steady, almost rhythmic boom, boom, boom, which, as a rivet gave, blent into a crash. The inside of the steel house was like the inside of a great drum.
And so a minute passed, and another, and still the door stood, while that dread booming beat out the knell of the two within—he grim for very fear of himself, and she shaking because of the thing that was to happen, and still with some room in her soul for his sufferings, yet unable to s
ay anything; for in those last moments he had become her executioner as well as her lover, and there were things she could not say to the two.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Crash!
“Mary?” His voice sounded like the cry of a lost soul, and the love in the woman answered to it. Yet the physical terror of death was upon her.
“The—the door—is—is—stop! It’s only the bottom hinge has broken. It isn’t down yet!” Crash! Crash! Crash!
The girl, all of a shiver, turned suddenly and put her arms round his neck.
“Kiss me, Jack!”
Crash! Crash!
He repelled her for a moment, then, drawing her to him, kissed her good-by.
Crash! C-r-a-s-h!
“Don’t! Don’t! Not yet! It isn’t down yet! Give me—give me as long as you—you can!”
For the arm about her shoulders had tightened with a sudden grip. Then abruptly—
“Have you—have you a—a—a knife, Jack?”
He took his arm from about her and brought something from behind, which he held out for her to take.
She saw it faintly by the glimmer of moonlight that came through the shaken door.
“No, no, no!” she cried, and shuddered. “You—you take it! Give me the pistol. I—I can see.”
He gave up the revolver to her and shifted the knife to his right hand. Even as he did so, the door crashed in. He felt the girl thrill in the grip of his arm; then her right hand went up, and, an instant later came the click of the hammer, but no report—the cartridge had missed fire. She had aimed at a dark figure beyond the doorway, which she had recognized as Pathan. Yet the cruelty of fate denied her even the consolation of knowing that she died leaving her lover not at the mercy of that creature.
She cried out her dismay, and then again in terror, for the grip of the second mate’s arm warned her that the end had indeed come. There came the rush of feet along the deck, and the blaze of a flare. Then Pathan’s voice:
“Don’t hurt the girl!”
She caught so much of it. Then the touch of her lover’s fingers upon her breast made her quiver. She felt his right arm go back for the blow.
The William Hope Hodgson Megapack Page 39