His Unknown Wife

by Louis Tracy

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE SECOND SHIPWRECK

  A series of reefs does not supply the best of surfaces for a sprint.Maseden slipped on a bed of seaweed and fell headlong, fortunatelyescaping injury. Sturgess, lighter, perhaps more adroit on his feet--itcame out subsequently that he was an accomplished skater--stumbledseveral times, but contrived to keep going.

  Thus he was the first to reach Madge Forbes, who hurried to meet them,followed by Nina, the latter walking more leisurely and carrying therifle.

  "What has happened?" gasped Sturgess. He saw that the girl was pale andfrightened. She and her sister were continually looking backward, asthough expecting to find they were being pursued.

  "I think--it is all right--now," she said brokenly. "Nina shot atit--the most awful monster I have ever seen."

  "Had it two legs, or four?"

  Sturgess was incorrigible. Notwithstanding the start caused by the soundof the gun, he grinned. The girl turned to Nina.

  "Please tell them, Nina, that we are not romancing," she criedindignantly.

  Nina handed the rifle to Maseden.

  "Put this thing right," she said coolly. "It won't work, but I'm sure Ihit the beast with the first bullet."

  Maseden pressed down the lever, and saw that a cartridge had jammed, asthe extractor lever had not been jerked downward with sufficient force.He began adjusting matters with the blade of his knife.

  "Were you attacked by an animal?" he inquired.

  "We don't know exactly what it was," said Madge. "When you left us wedecided to have a bath before putting on dry clothes. As our only towelwas the ship's flag, we arranged that each should rub the other dry withher hands. We had just finished dressing, and Nina had gone to pilefresh logs on the fire, when I heard a splash in the water of the creek.I looked around and saw a fearful creature, bigger than a horse, whichbarked at me. I shrieked, and Nina ran with the rifle. The thing barkedagain--it was only a few feet away--so she fired. Then we both madeoff."

  "You disturbed a seal, I expect."

  "No. If those were seals we saw last night, this was no seal," said Ninadecisively. "It had small, fiery eyes and long tusks. I think it hadflappers, though, in place of feet, but it was enormous."

  "Sounds like a walrus," put in Sturgess.

  "There are no walruses in the South Pacific," said Maseden. "Anyhow, nowthat the magazine works all right, let's go and have a look."

  Ample corroboration of the girl's story was soon forthcoming. Thesplashing of water behind the group of big rocks sheltering the pool inwhich they had taken their bath showed that something unusual was goingon.

  They all reached the spot in time to witness the last struggles of agigantic sea-lion, one of the most fearsome-looking of the ocean's manystrange denizens. The shot fired by Nina Forbes had struck it fairly inthe throat, inflicting a wound which speedily proved mortal.

  The animal was a full-grown male, fully ten feet in length, with a neckand shoulders of huge proportions. Its tusks and bristles gave it a mostmenacing aspect. The wonder was not that the bathers ran, but that Ninahad the courage to face such a monster.

  Maseden was delighted, and patted her on the shoulder.

  "Well done!" he cried. "You've supplied the larder with fresh meat fordays. We must even try our 'prentice hands at curing what we can't eatto-day or to-morrow."

  The girl herself was not elated by her triumph. The water in which thesea-lion lay was deeply tinged with its blood, which had alsobespattered the rocks.

  "I have never before killed any living creature," she said in a rathermiserable tone. "Why did the stupid thing attack us? We were doing it noharm."

  Maseden laughed.

  "Off you go, both of you!" he said. "C. K. and I have the job of ourlives now. It will be no joke disjointing this fellow with a couple ofpocket-knives. But if the fact brings any consolation, I may tell youthat a sea-lion when irritated can be a very ugly customer. Probablythis one was sleeping in the sun under the lee of a rock, and you mayhave come unpleasantly near him without knowing it. When he awoke andsaw you he was curious. Instead of slinking off, he roared at you, andmight easily have killed the pair of you!"

  "Can't we help?" inquired Nina, seeing that Maseden meant to lose notime.

  "No."

  "But we ought to," she persisted. "We must get used to such work."

  "You can do something quite as serviceable by rigging a few lines onstout poles, where there is plenty of sun and air, and seeing that a bigfire is kept up.... And, by the way, don't come this way till we callyou. We shan't be--presentable."

  The two disappeared without further question.

  "This will be a messy undertaking," Maseden explained to his assistant."The best thing we can do is strip, or our clothes will be in an awfulstate."

  At the outset they abandoned any thought of actually dismembering thecolossal carcass. They skinned it with difficulty, and then cut off theflesh in layers. After an hour's hard endeavor they had gathered a finestore of meat, while the pelt, after being well washed in salt water,was stretched on a flat rock to dry.

  They were dressing again when a new trouble arose. From out of the voidhad gathered a flock of vultures. These fierce, evil-looking birds wereso daring in their efforts to raid the pile of meat that two actuallyallowed themselves to be knocked over by the staves the men carried.

  Sturgess remained on guard, therefore, while Maseden took the strips andhung them on the lines the girls had already prepared.

  Madge volunteered to do the cooking. She had found two flat, thinstones, somewhat resembling hard slate, and she fancied that by placingsome steaks between these and covering them with glowing charcoal thetrick would be achieved. As a matter of fact, she succeeded wonderfullywell. Even Nina, sniffing her portion, vowed that the shooting of asea-lion had its compensations.

  More vultures arrived. The sea-lion's bones were rapidly picked clean,but one of the men had to keep close watch all day over the curingoperations.

  An amusing argument arose as to the correct method of drying meat.Maseden held that he distinctly remembered reading that _biltong_, orSouth African antelope steak, was prepared by hanging the strips in thesun. The girls were positive that this would cause putrefaction, andthat the meat should be placed in the shade.

  As Maseden was not quite sure of his facts, he compromised as to aquarter of the supply, with the result that this smaller quantity wasrendered uneatable.

  * * * * *

  The story of Alexander Selkirk has been told so often, and in so manyforms, that it will not bear repeating here. During a whole fortnightthese four young people devoted their wits and their muscles to theall-important task of feeding themselves and securing some means ofescape into the interior. The men soon learned how to circumvent thewily seal, and thus store plenty of meat and skins, which latter, withsinews and a knife, were converted first into garments for the womenand, as supplies increased, into a tent.

  Maseden noticed that the high-water mark fell daily, so he reasoned thatthe _Southern Cross_ struck during a high spring tide, and that the neapwould occur in fourteen days. He laid his plans on that assumption,which was justified almost to a day.

  Another gale blew up, but despite its discomfort it helped themmaterially, because the men loosened a barrier of logs which had formedhigh up the wooded cliff, and the rain freshet brought down far moretimber than was needed for the biggest raft they could hope toconstruct.

  After some experiments they decided to make it a three-tier one, andflexible in the center. Hence it was fully thirty feet in length, theaverage length of a thick log being fifteen feet after its roots andthin section had been burnt off. For the same reason the raft wasfifteen feet wide. It had a step in the forepart for their old friend,the broken topmast. They dispensed with a rudder, believing they couldguide their ark with poles.

  Observation showed that the tide flowed swiftly in mid-stream, and theirwell-matured project was to push out to a prearran
ged point athigh-water, anchor while the tide fell, and travel as far as practicableon the next tide. They tried to avoid all risks that could be foreseen.

  The raft was built in the waterway which Madge had termed the"creek"--the gulley cleared for itself by the torrent whose dry bed hadoffered them a road through the otherwise impenetrable forest. Everytest of stability their inventiveness could devise proved that an areaof thirty feet by fifteen of logs arranged in three rows would supportfour or five times the weight they were likely to place on it. Bymanipulating the poles Maseden and Sturgess found that they couldcontrol the movements of even such an unwieldy bulk, while if the windsuited they might rig a sail of skins.

  They were able to build quickly and well because of three essentials.The timber was at hand, they had a fire, and in the pieces of rope andstrips of iron and wire they had invaluable means of making thestructure secure.

  At last, on the fifteenth day after the wreck, Maseden poled out theraft during the slack tide at high-water, and fastened it to ropesalready fixed and buoyed nearly a quarter of a mile from the shore. Hewould allow none of the others to accompany him, nor did he carry any ofthe few stores they possessed. He could not be absolutely certain thatthe cables would withstand the strain, and if the raft were sweptseaward by the falling tide only one life was in jeopardy, whileSturgess might be able to help him from the shore.

  His vigil was watched by anxious eyes, especially when he thought fit toease the stress on the ropes by planting a long pole against a big rockwhich he knew rested a few feet astern and below the surface. The twohours of half-tide were the worst, but the anchors held. Three hourslater the raft was aground and he came ashore.

  It was then nearly dark, as their first voyage would naturally be takenin broad daylight. Nothing was said at the time, but he was toldafterwards, that for no conceivable guerdon would any of the three againgo through the agony of suspense they endured while the raft swung andlurched in the fierce current.

  Meat, fresh and dried, a quantity of oysters, the leather trunk, and acharcoal fire cunningly packed in oyster shells kept in position bywire--this cooking brazier being the invention of Nina Forbes--formedthe cargo. Most fortunately Maseden carried the poncho and the rifleslung across his back with rope, and the cartridges were in his pockets.

  They slept on board. Soon after daybreak the raft was afloat, but wasnot allowed to move until there was a fair depth of water, owing to thevery great probability of the whole structure being dashed to piecesagainst some awkwardly placed boulder. At last, however, Masedenthought the channel was practicable, and the ropes were cast loose,being sacrificed, of course, but that could not be helped.

  They were off! The first of the sixty miles was already slipping away.They were so excited, so bent on the adventure ahead, that none of themthought of looking back until Providence Beach, which was the name theygave their refuge, was nearly out of sight.

  Suddenly Madge Forbes remembered, and turned her eyes in that direction.She waved a hand and cried:

  "Good-by, trees and rocks! You were kind to me and to all of us! I havenot had two such happy weeks since I came to South America!"

  Maseden heard, but paid no particular heed. For one thing, he haddecided now not to re-open the question of the extraordinary relationsbetween his wife and himself until, if ever, they reached civilizationagain. For another, he was busily conning the channel and noting thebehavior of their clumsy but quite buoyant craft.

  He estimated the pace of the current at fully six miles an hour. Theraft was traveling about half that rate, which was quite fast enough forhis liking, so, although there was a strong breeze from the west, he didnot hoist the "sail." He stood on the port side and Sturgess on thestarboard. The two girls were seated on a pile of fir branches behindthe mast, which was stayed by ropes in such wise that all four hadsomething to cling to if the raft struck a sunken rock and lurchedsuddenly.

  The project was to drift as far inland as the day's tide would takethem, pole ashore at the nearest suitable place, and repeat theovernight anchoring until they reached smooth water, when they mightperhaps make longer voyages. If they ran six miles that day they wouldhave done admirably. Providing Maseden's calculations as to theirprecise locality were reasonably accurate, the next day would bring theminto a much wider arm of the sea.

  Here the conditions might vary, but they would adapt themselves tocircumstances, always bearing in mind the exceeding wisdom of theItalian proverb: _Che va piano va sano_--"He goes safely who goescautiously."

  But there are other proverbs which are equally applicable to humanaffairs, and especially to the hazards awaiting rafts floating onunknown waters. For an hour they ran on gaily, with little or notrouble, because the men could see broken water a long way ahead andpromptly piloted their argosy towards the open channel.

  Then came the unexpected, or, to be exact, the crisis arose whichMaseden had foreseen many days earlier, but forgotten as the raft grewstrong and seaworthy under their hands.

  About four miles from Providence Beach the gap between the two smallislands which shut off Hanover Island from its southerly neighbor cameinto full view. Maseden anticipated a little difficulty at this point,but he was quite unprepared for that which really took place.

  He had every reason to believe that the main stream would flow straightahead until the second island was passed; he meant to land on HanoverIsland again, just short of the easterly end of Island Number Two.Therefore he was annoyed, but not alarmed at first, at finding that thecurrent carried the raft into the straits between the islets.

  The others, of course, noticed the change of direction, and being wellaware of his hopes and plans, asked him in chorus if this deviationmattered.

  "I don't see that it does," he said. "In any case, we must follow thetide, and if this is the short cut so much the better."

  He told them that which he actually believed. Still, at the back of hishead lay an uneasiness hard to account for. The raft was traveling southnow, not east, having swept round the bend in magnificent style. Theprecipitous heights were closing in, but the channel was fully a quarterof a mile in width. He would vastly have preferred skirting the woodedslopes of Hanover Island, because these smaller islets were absolutelybarren in this hitherto invisible section, but, having no choice in thematter, silenced his doubts by recalling his first and quite correcttheory that the real deep-water passage lay beyond, the _Southern Cross_having in fact struck several miles north of Nelson Straits.

  Owing to the steady narrowing of the waterway the rate at which theytraveled was increasing momentarily, though progress was delightfullysmooth and easy. The simile did not occur to any of the four untilcomplete disaster had befallen them, but the silent, resistless onrushof the current was ominously suggestive of the course of some greatriver during the last few miles before it hurls itself over a cataract.

  Hanover Island soon vanished from sight altogether, and the toweringcliffs on either hand seemed to merge into an unbroken barrier ahead.But the tidal race hurried on, so there must be an outlet, and thispresented itself, after a sharp turn to eastward again, when they hadcovered a couple of miles on the new course.

  They were only given the briefest warning of the peril into which theywere being carried. The stream flung itself against a great mass ofrock, which had been undermined until the upper edge of the precipicehung out fifty feet or more over the rushing waters beneath. A mostuncanny maelstrom was thus created.

  No sooner had the two men seen the danger than they labored with mightand main to slew the raft away to the opposite shore.

  They succeeded in avoiding the first jumble of black rocks which lay atthe base of the cliff, but the whole character of the stream changedinstantly. It became a furious turmoil of broken water. The raft washurled hither and thither as though by some titanic force, and a fewyards farther on was dashed against a second and even more terrifyingreef.

  The violence of the impact smashed the whole structure to pieces. Hadnot the logs been arrange
d in tiers crosswise they must have split upinstantly, but the method in which they were put together held them forone precious moment while the men each clutched one of the girls andleaped for the nearest rock.

  By rare good luck they kept their feet, and reached a great flat masswhich, judged by appearances, had only recently fallen.

  Further advance or retreat was alike impossible. On three sides roaredthe cheated torrent; behind and above, canopy-wise, towered the cliff.If the evidence of ominous fissures and lateral cracks were to be readaright, there was no telling the moment when they might be buried underanother avalanche of thousands of tons of stone.

  Every tide deepened the sap. They were imprisoned in one of nature's ownquarries, where work was relentless and unceasing.

  Once again idle chance had decided that Maseden should save Nina andSturgess Madge. Not that it mattered a jot. If ever four people were inhapless case, it was they. For a time even to Maseden, who had neverlost faith in his star, it seemed that the best fortune that could nowbefall would be for the trembling rock overhead to crash down on them.

  The din was terrific, and the water level was rising so rapidly thatfive minutes after they had gained their present position the bouldersto which they had sprung from the sundering platform of logs were a footdeep in the swirling current. Each of the girls, wholly unconscious ofher attitude, clung despairingly to the man at her side and watched theclimbing surge with somber eyes.

  They were too stunned to yield to fear, and the life of the pastfortnight had so steeled their nerves and strengthened their bodies thatfainting was no longer the readiest means of obtaining a mercifulrespite from present horrors. Rather did a bitter rage possess them, forit was a harsh and monstrous decree of fate which had not only robbedthem of a hard-won means of escape, but immersed them in a veritablecondemned cell.

  Maseden, like the others, was watching the encroaching water-line in abenumbed way when he became aware that Nina was speaking. He looked intoher drawn face and tried to smile, though a sort of mist clouded hiseyes.

  "What is it, girlie?" he said, putting his mouth close to her ear andaddressing her as though she were a timid child.

  "Is this the end?" she cried, imitating him.

  "Not yet, anyhow," and he gave her a reassuring hug.

  "Tell me--if you think--we have only a few more minutes," she said.

  He read nothing into the request save a natural desire that she shouldbe prepared for the worst and try to cross the Great Divide with aprayer on her lips. The pitiful words helped to dispel the cloud whichhad befogged his wits, and he began to weigh the pros and cons of theforlornest of forlorn hopes.

  The water was lapping their feet. The rock arched outward over theirheads. Between the spot where they stood and the actual wall of rockthere was already a flowing stream.

  He looked at his watch. The hour was seven o'clock, and he estimated thetime of high-water at about half-past seven. Then, as when he was lyingalong the foremast of the _Southern Cross_ amid the thunders of thereef, a tiny seed of hope sprang into life in his brain. If they couldoutlast the tide there was still a chance!

  The very fact that this chaos of fallen cliff created a fearsome rapidin the tide-way showed that the passage must be fairly open during lowwater. If promptness in decision could enable a man to conquer adifficulty, Maseden was certainly not lacking in that attitude.

  "Come!" he said. "Not for the first time, we must put our backs to thewall. We may find a good grip for our feet before the water mounts toohigh. The four of us must lace arms and cling together. I believe thetide will not rise above our knees. At any rate, we cannot be swept awayeasily. It is worth trying."

  She nodded. Turning to her sister, she explained Maseden's scheme. Soonthey were braced against the rock and facing valiantly their new ordeal.

  In the Middle Ages, when a lust for inflicting torture infected some menlike a cancerous growth, a favorite method of at once punishing anddestroying an unfortunate enemy was to chain him in a dungeon to which atidal river had access, and leave him there until the slow-rising flooddrowned him.

  They were in some such plight, self-chained to a rock, though notknowing when a sudden swirl of water might sweep them to speedy death.