His Unknown Wife

by Louis Tracy

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE TURN OF THE TIDE

  The change, when it came, came swiftly. It was as though theAll-Powerful bade the waters cease their snarling and stilled the furyof the reef. During nearly an hour the sea lapped the very thighs of thefour castaways, but the roar of battle between rocks and current haddied down and it was possible to hear the spoken word.

  Sturgess was the first to break the spell cast on the whole party by theseeming imminence of death.

  "If ever I set foot in New York again I'll be good and go to churchSundays," he said. "This is Sunday, February 6, an' I guess I've been asnear Kingdom Come to-day as I'm likely to get on a round trip ticket."

  For a little while no one passed any comment. Sunday! The mere name ofthe day had a bizarre sound. What had God-given Sunday and its peacefulassociations to do with this grim and savage wilderness?

  Suddenly Nina Forbes began to recite the Lord's Prayer. One byone the others joined in. The concluding petition had a peculiarappropriateness. If ever four Christian people might appeal to bedelivered from evil, surely these four were in great need of heavenlysuccor.

  "That's fine!" said Sturgess, almost cheerfully, when a hearty "Amen"had relieved their surcharged feelings. "Me for the pine pew and theright sort of preacher when next I stroll out of West Fifty-seventhStreet into Broadway of a Sabbath morning. Anyhow, to-day being Sunday,and the hour rather early, which way do we head for the nearest churchwhen the tide falls, commodore?"

  Maseden had already weighed that very question, but the utter collapseof the voyage on which he had founded such high hopes had chastened hispride.

  "I think we had better put it to the vote," he said. "I've led you intosuch a death-trap already that I don't feel equal to a decision."

  He had been watching a big rock on the opposite shore. A little whileago it was awash; now it was submerged, yet the water was appreciablylower where they were standing.

  The seeming contradiction was puzzling. He had yet to learn that thelaws governing water in motion are extraordinarily complex--take towitness the varying levels of the whirlpool in the Niagara River and thealmost phenomenal height of the central stream in the Niagara rapids.

  "Guess we're satisfied with your control so far," said Sturgess. "Whatare you making a kick about? You prophesied just what would occur, andthat's more than the average wizard can do."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Didn't you tell us we might strike a score of reefs between ProvidenceBeach and Smyth's Channel, and that we should be lucky if we didn't haveto build 'steen rafts?"

  Maseden smiled. The rock he had marked as an index was reappearing, andthe water had sunk another inch below his knees. The tide hadunquestionably turned; the water banked up on the opposite shore wasalso yielding to the new force.

  "I never anticipated another complete shipwreck," he said. "We have losteverything, ropes, skins, food--our chief supporter, the brokenforemast--even our flag."

  "But we still have the rifle and cartridges, and we're plus afortnight's experience. If we don't start life again better fixed thanwhen we climbed to the ledge in the dark from the forecastle of the_Southern Cross_, call me a Dutchman."

  "I agree with C. K.," Nina chimed in. "Even here there must be some sortof a passage at low water. Which way shall we go--back or forward?"

  "We gain nothing by going back," said Maseden slowly. "For one thing, weare on the wrong side of the channel. For another, I have been takingstock of the peculiar vagaries of the tide during the past fifteenminutes, and I imagine that there is a slight difference in the waterlevel between this point and that which we left this morning. Stillwater attains a dead level, of course, but strong tides have rules oftheir own.

  "Now, supposing the tide from the Pacific runs into Providence Beach afew minutes earlier than it reaches Nelson Straits, that would accountfor the terrific rush in which we were caught. For the same cause, thefalling tide should be far less strenuous here, but stronger there, andI do really believe that opposite our camp the ebb tide always developeda swifter current than the flood."

  "I'm sure of it," agreed Sturgess. "They were both pretty hefty, butthis morning's flood didn't begin to compare with last night's ebb. Youought to know. You went through it alone on board the raft."

  "Then the answer is, 'Go forward,'" said Madge.

  "I think so. Let us be guided by events. We have the best part of theday before us. Surely we can find some safer lodgment than this beforenight falls."

  The others knew that Maseden's voice had lost its confident ring, butthe fact that they had so narrowly dodged death barred all otherconsiderations.

  In his heart of hearts he was deadly afraid that they might indeed becompelled to return to Hanover Island. The sheer barrenness of the isleton which they were now stranded was its vital defect. Probably theywould still find shell-fish, still knock an occasional seal on the head,but wood they must have, both for fire and raft building, and it seemedto him that there were no trees nearer than the slopes facing ProvidenceBeach.

  However, having come so far, they might at least have a look at theconditions on the south side, where lay yet another island; and therewas also the unalterable fact that if they must escape by using thetides, their first day's experiences, though resulting in disaster, hadbrought them many miles in the right direction.

  Perhaps they had met and conquered their greatest danger. They had paida dear price for victory, but that was nothing new in war.

  Of course there was a long and wearisome wait before they could do otherthan sit on the slowly emerging rocks. But it was something gained whenthey were free to climb out into the open and see the sky over theirheads. The silent, nerve-racking menace of the canopied rock was quiteas unbearable as the loud-mouthed threats of sea and reef.

  Madge, slightly less self-contained than her sister, promptly voiced herrelief.

  "If I live to be older than I want to be I shall never forget one awfulcrack in the roof just above us," she said. "I couldn't keep my eyes offit. It seemed to be opening and shutting all the time with a horribleslowness."

  "How old do you want to be?" demanded Sturgess, readily seizing thechance to divert her thoughts from a nightmare memory.

  "Forty-five," she answered without any hesitation.

  "Gee! That leaves me less than eighteen years to live!"

  "I wasn't thinking of you, C. K."

  "But your limit rouses one's curiosity. Why forty-five, any more thanfifty or sixty? Granted good health, heaps of people enjoy life atsixty."

  "At forty-five a woman begins to fade and men grow horrid," sheannounced calmly, as though stating an incontrovertible thesis.

  "Please don't talk rubbish, either of you," interrupted Nina sharply."Alec, can't we dodge along from rock to rock? It seems to be ever somuch more open half a mile ahead."

  "Let's try," said Maseden.

  He wondered vaguely why Nina broke in on her sister's quaint theorizing.Any nonsense which took their minds off the troubles of the hour was agood thing in itself.

  They scrambled and slithered through the passage, which resembled themoraine of a glacier, save that the rocks were on the same plane, andthe central stream was clear and greenish instead of being nearly milkwhite. Once they were held up fully fifteen minutes because the channelran close to an overhanging rock which really looked as though it mightbe brought down by the disturbance of a pebble.

  Then Maseden was moved to make investigations, and discovered that themain waterway was extraordinarily deep. In other words, the sea hadpreferred to scoop out a ditch rather than flow through the ample spacebordering Hanover Island. Even at low tide there was deep water here.

  "We must go on, one at a time," he said, and led the way.

  He found that Nina Forbes was close behind.

  "Remain where you are!" he said gruffly. "I'll tell you when to followand indicate the best track."

  She frowned, and her eyes sparkled, but she obeyed. Sturgess, too,growled a pr
otest.

  "He ought to give me that kind of try-out," he said. "If there'strouble, and I go under, it won't matter so much. But you girls can'tspare Alec. He's worth twenty of me when it comes to a show-down."

  However, they all crossed the danger point safely, and each in turnnoticed that which Maseden alone had been able to see at first--that ahuge buttress had fallen quite recently, probably during the precedingtide, so the whole mass might crumble into ruin at any moment. As wastheir way, once a danger had passed they did not discuss it again.Sturgess, of course, had something to say, though it only boreinferentially on this latest risk.

  "I always had a notion that the New York Fire Department was a prettynervy proposition," he informed all and sundry during a halt on the onlystrip of open beach yet encountered in their new exploration, "but Iguess I can show the chief a few fresh stunts first time I blow intoheadquarters on East Sixty-seventh Street."

  Sturgess's airy references to New York were excellent tonics. He refusedto regard that great city and its ordered life as dreamlike figments ofthe imagination. To him the flaring lights of Broadway ever glimmeredabove the horizon. Had he sighted the Statue of Liberty around the nextbend _that_ would mean reality; _this_, the dreary expanse of deadhills, water and black rock, would have been the dream.

  Maseden, recovering his poise, had resumed his everyday air ofwell-grounded optimism. At any rate, he argued, the four of them wereliving and uninjured. They still owned those thrice-precious cartridges,the rifle and the poncho. They had many hours of daylight before them,and would surely find drinkable water and food before dark.

  Happily the weather was fine, though clouds banking up in the west toldof a possible gale, which might blow itself out in a few hours, or lastas many days, or weeks. In that climate there was no knowing. Thealmanac declared that it was high summer, yet it would be no uncommonevent if a snowstorm came from the southwest and mantled all the land afoot deep.

  As for their clothes being wet, these young people thought little ofsuch a trifle. Their skins were becoming, in the expressive Indianphrase, "all face."

  So they trudged on, heading for the mouth of the defile. In the fardistance they discerned the broken line of another mountainous island,the lower slopes black with forests.

  "That's a good sign, folk," said Maseden, smiling cheerfully once more."We're making for a timber belt. When you come to think of it, treessimply couldn't grow on these rocks, and the watershed seems to fallaway on both sides of the gorge, which must have been cut by anearthquake."

  His eyes had been searching constantly for signs of the raft's wreckage,but never so much as a splintered log could he see. Nina, not sopreoccupied, was gazing farther afield.

  Suddenly she stopped, and something in her manner arrested the others.

  "I don't think I'm mistaken," she said, "but are not those two pointsthe flanks of these islands?"

  "There can be little doubt of that," agreed Maseden, following herglance towards the gap some three or four miles in front. It wasdifficult to estimate distance accurately in that region of vastsolitudes.

  "Then, if that is so," she went on in a puzzled tone, "where does theremainder of the land go to? The cliffs end not so very far away. Whydon't we see other bits sticking out?"

  The underlying sense of the question was clearer than its form. For someundetermined cause the passage between the islands evidently widenedconsiderably before it closed in at the ultimate southern exit.Hopefulness is often a close blend of curiosity and expectation. Theypressed on more rapidly, eager as children to see what lay around thecorner.

  They were soon enlightened, and most agreeably so. They entered aspacious amphitheatre--in its way, almost a place of beauty. Not onlywere the hillsides clothed with pines and other trees, but, rarest sightof all along that stark coast, strips of white sand bordered theforeshore.

  The tidal water, now near the lowest ebb, was placid as a lake, and onits surface disported flocks of many varieties of wild fowl. Moreover,wreckage began to line the beach at high-water mark. They found theplanks and spars of many ships, some quite fresh, and evidently theremains of the _Southern Cross_; others weather-beaten, even crumblingwith age.

  Remains of the raft were discovered, and Nina shrieked with joy at sightof the ship's flag, hardly damaged, lying on its halliard alongside thebroken topmast.

  Madge claimed the most remarkable bit of flotsam--nothing less than thebrandy bottle, unbroken, but nearly full of salt water, half buried insand.

  It was their only drinking utensil, and therefore prized very highly.How it had passed through the turmoil of the rapids was one of thosemysteries which voyaging bottles alone can solve; and they, if sometimeseloquent of humanity's adventures, are invariably silent as to theirown.

  The skins of the sea-lion and seals had vanished. Indeed, a very closesearch of a three-mile semi-circular beach, conducted for reasons whichshall presently appear, yielded no trace of them.

  There was a dramatic fitness in thus reaching a land of plenty afterenduring the horrors of the pass.

  "It's like a fairy tale," cried Nina joyously. "This is the enchantedrealm, guarded by dragons which must be slain ere the prince can enter."

  "Gosh!" grinned Sturgess, "she's calling you a prince now, Alec. Say,Madge, can't you invent a name for me?"

  "Yes, you're the Ugly Duckling which grew into a Swan."

  "Huh! I'll think that over. Far be it from me, fair maid, to disputeyour views as to my future plumage. Now, Alec, your turn. It's up to youto christen Nina."

  "Cinderella, maid of all work," said Maseden promptly. "So, let's getbusy, the lot of us. Girls, you'll probably find an oyster-bed on thatreef over there. Sturgess and I will hunt for water, and bring you abottleful. Then we must set to work and build a shack above high-watermark before night. We're going to stop here and launch a more navigablecraft next time."

  "Your highness has forgotten one thing," said Nina, with sudden gravity.

  "What is that?"

  "It is still Sunday."

  With one accord they dropped to their knees and thanked Providence forthe mercy which had been shown them. Such prayers are the spontaneoustribute of the overflowing heart. They are not to be uttered aloud orrecorded in the written word.

  The men had no difficulty in locating a stream, owing to the "creek," asMadge had phrased it, which marked the approach of each torrent to thesea. Here, too, were oysters in abundance. Whether or not the bivalvesliked a certain admixture of fresh water and brine, their enthusiasticadmirers did not know; but certainly the best-stocked beds wereinvariably situated near the mouth of a mountain stream.

  With a plentiful supply of shaped planks, cordage, even rusty nails,they soon knocked together a low hut, not more than breast high, andclosed at one end. The ship's flag curtained off the inner section,which was allotted to the two girls, while the men could sleep, onguard, as it were, in the outer part.

  As night came on they started a fire and cooked two birds of the penguintype, which allowed themselves to be chased and captured. The flesh wastough and none too well flavored, but the feasters were not hard toplease. When the repast was ended, and they sat on piles of soft sandlooking out over the darkening expanse of waters, for the tide was highagain, Maseden electrified Sturgess by saying:

  "Do you smoke, C. K.?"

  "Does a duck swim?" was the prompt reply.

  Maseden produced from his coat pocket a pipe and tin of tobacco.

  The other eyed them with downright amazement.

  "Well, can you beat it?" he cried. "What else have you got in yourpocket, old scout? A bottle of rye whisky and a box of chocolates forthe girls, or what?"

  "I've reached the end of my resources now," laughed Maseden. "I resolvedto keep this small stock of tobacco till the time came when we mightregard half our troubles as ended. I think we've reached that stageto-night. After this morning's escape I shall never again lose hopeuntil the light goes out forever."

  "Oh, please, don't put it
that way," said Nina.

  "I mean it as an optimist," he exclaimed. "If I have to swim in the opensea, or am buried under a landslide, I shall still believe, while mysenses last, that Providence will see me through. Do you know why? Youmight supply many good reasons, but not _the_ reason. Ten minutes afterwe climbed under that overhanging rock, it fell. I happened to lookback, and saw it collapse. None of us heard the crash, because we wereclose to a rather noisy rapid at the moment. But I actually saw thething happen."

  "Why didn't you tell us at the time?" inquired Madge.

  "I thought our nervous systems, collectively, had borne enough strainjust then.... Here you are, C. K. I give you first turn with the pipe."

  "Not on your life!" vowed Sturgess, flaming into volcanic energy. "If Inever smoke again, I'll not touch that pipe until you've gone rightthrough a packed bowl-full."

  Maseden knew that his friend meant what he said, so filled and lightedthe pipe immediately.

  "It's a moot point," he commented philosophically, "whether you don'tenjoy smoking more in anticipation than I in actuality. I haven't smokednow during sixteen days, and I believe I could give it up for sixteenyears if need be."

  "Good gracious!" tittered Madge. "Poor C. K. will have only two years ofhis beloved New York."

  It was a subtle thrust. Sturgess himself was the first to see its point.

  "Gosh!" he said. "S'pose we four had to live here straight on forsixteen years!"

  Nina Forbes seemed to have a keener sense of the dangerous trend ofsuch careless talk than her sister.

  "I do wish you two wouldn't babble," she broke in sharply. "Alec issimply chock full of information. I can see it in his calculating eye.For instance--"

  Maseden took the cue readily.

  "For instance," he said. "This inland lagoon explains the rush of thetide this morning. The greater part of the water which runs through thepass never goes back. It floods this immense area, is held up by thetide from the south, but goes out that way, because, by some irregulartidal action, the ebb begins in that direction. Therefore, an idealbackwash is set up, which accounts for all the wreckage strewed on thebeach. Parts of ships which were lost a century ago will be stored here.The place is a maritime museum."

  "We may find a whole ship," exclaimed Madge.

  "What? After coming through the hell-gate we have left behind?"

  "The bottle came through," she persisted.

  "Though it's a black bottle it must have been white with fear many ascore of times. Have you noticed the way in which the logs of our ownraft were battered and bruised?... No, the way in was vile, and, I hadbetter warn you now, the way out may be worse."

  "Oh, why?" cried both girls.

  "Because of the absence of Indians. Consider what an ideal sitethis would be for a colony of savages. Plenty of fish, birds andoysters--sand--even a few level strips which might be cultivated--ifthe South American Indian ever does till the land. The logic of thesituation is clear. Our refuge is inaccessible. That is just thedifference between romance and reality. In the fairy tale, once you slaythe dragons guarding the enchanted palace the remainder is a compound ofnectar and kisses. In real life, having stormed the fortress, you findyourself besieged."

  None disputed his conclusions. They were learning to think like him,and each had been struck by the virgin solitude of this land-lockedsea-lake, which must compare favorably with the most fertile andexceedingly scarce localities of the kind in an area of many scoresof thousands of square miles.

  "Anyhow, while you finish your pipe, it's up to me to fix the fire,"said Sturgess blithely, leaping to his feet, and beginning to arrange anumber of big flat stones around and above a pile of glowing charcoalin such wise that rain could not extinguish it, and a few twigs placedamong the embers next morning would quickly burst into a blaze.

  They had taught themselves these minor aids to comfort. Madge hadconstructed a very creditable field oven, and Nina, with a bit ofsharpened wire and a supply of dried sinews, could sew a skin as acobbler stitches the sole on to a boot. Physically all four were insplendid condition, so it was a sheer impossibility that they shouldremain downcast in spirit. Maseden knew that quite well when he recitedthe trials they must yet face and conquer. He addressed them asco-workers, not as pampered young people who must be humored intoputting forth the necessary efforts if they would win through finally.

  They slept that night as soundly as though the morning's tribulationwas something they had read in a book. Rain pounded on their shelter,but it was roofed with pine branches above the planks, and not a dropentered. They awoke into a world of blue sky and sunshine, and, afterbreakfasting on oysters, cold fowl, and good water, spent an idle hourin watching the tidal race from the north.

  Then, after tending the fire, they set off on a tour of the shore,meaning to note every scrap of wreckage which might be of value.Moreover, Maseden was specially anxious to have a peep at the southernexit.

  And thus they made the great discovery.