by Max Brand
CHAPTER 9
They climbed the rail. Plainly Harrigan had made them delay too long,for now they had not time to swim beyond the reach of the swirl thatwould form when the ship went down. The _Mary Rogers_ lurched to hergrave as they sprang from the rail. A wave caught them and washed thembeyond the grip of the whirlpool; another wave swung them back, and thewaters sucked them down. Such was the force of that downward pull thatit seemed to Harrigan as if a weight were attached to either foot. Hedrew a great, gasping breath before his head went under and then struckout with all his might.
When his lungs seemed bursting with the labor, he whirled to thesurface again and drew another gasping breath. The storm had torn arift in the clouds and through it looked the moon as if some god werepeering through the curtain of mist to watch the havoc he was working.By this light Harrigan saw that he was being drawn down in a narrowingcircle. Straight before him loomed a black fragment of the wreckage. Hetried to swing to one side, but the current of the water bore him on.He received a heavy blow on the head and his senses went out like asnuffed light.
When consciousness returned, there was a sharp pain in both head andright shoulder, for it was on his shoulder that McTee had fastened hisgrip. The captain sprawled on a great timber, clutching it with bothlegs and one arm. With the free hand he held Harrigan. All this theIrishman saw by the haggard moonlight. Then they were pitched high upon the crest of a wave. As Harrigan grappled the timber with arms andlegs, it turned over and over and then pitched down through emptyspace. The wind had literally cut away the top of the wave. He wentdown, submerged, and then rose to a giddy height again. As he caught agreat breath of air, he saw that McTee was no longer on the timber.
A shout reached him, the sound being cut off in the middle by the noiseof the wind and waves. He saw McTee a dozen feet away, swimmingfuriously. He came almost close enough to touch the timber with hishands, and then a twist of the wave separated them. Harrigan workeddown the timber until he reached the end of the stanchion which wasnearest Black McTee. All that time the captain was struggling, butcould not draw closer. The wood was drifting before the wind fasterthan he could swim.
When he reached the end of the timber, Harrigan wound his long armstightly around it and let his legs draw out on the water. McTee, seeingthe purpose of the maneuver, redoubled his efforts. On a wave crest thestorm swept Harrigan still farther away; then they dropped into ahollow and instantly he felt a mighty grip fall on his ankle. Theypitched up again with the surge of a wave so sharp and sudden that whatwith his own weight and the tugging burden of McTee behind him,Harrigan felt as if his arms would be torn from their sockets. He kepthis hold by a mighty effort, and the tremendous grip of McTee held faston his ankle until they dropped once more into a hollow. Then thecaptain jerked himself hand over hand up the body of Harrigan until hereached the timber. They lay panting and exhausted on the stanchion,embracing it with arms and legs.
Sometimes the wind sent the timber with its human freight lungingthrough a towering wave; and several times the force of the stormcaught them and whirled them over and over. When they rose to a wavecrest, they struggled bitterly for life; when they fell into thetrough, they drew long breaths and freshened their holds.
Save once when Harrigan reached out his hand and set it upon that ofBlack McTee. The captain met the grip, and by the wild moonlight theystared into each other's faces. That handshake almost cost them theirlives, for the next moment the full breath of the storm caught them andwrenched furiously at their bodies. Yet neither of them regretted thehandclasp, for all its cost. If they died now, it would be as brothers.They had at least escaped from the greatest of all horrors, a lonelydeath.
It seemed as if the storm acknowledged the strength of theirdetermination. It fell away as suddenly as it had risen. A heavy groundswell still ran, but without the wind to roughen the surface andsharpen the crests, the big timber rode safely through the sea. Thestorm clouds were dropping back in a widening circle beneath the moonwhen, as they heaved up on the top of a wave, Harrigan suddenly pointedstraight ahead and shouted hoarsely. On the horizon squatted a blackshadow, darker than any cloud.
All night they watched the shadow grow, and when the morning came andthe tropic dawn stepped suddenly up from the east, the light glinted onthe unmistakable green of verdure.
With the help of the steady wind they drifted slowly closer and closerto the island. By noon they abandoned the timber and started swimming,but the submerged beach went out far more gradually than they hadexpected. The last hundred yards they walked arm in arm, flounderingthrough the gentle surf.
Then they stumbled up the beach, reeling with weariness, and sprawledout in the shade of a palm tree. They were asleep almost before theystruck the sand.
It was late afternoon when they woke, ravenously hungry, their throatsburning with thirst. For food McTee climbed a coconut palm and knockeddown some of the fruit. They split the gourds open on a rock, drank theliquor, and ate heartily of the meat. That quelled their appetites, butthe sweet liquor only partially appeased their thirst, and they startedto search the island for a spring. First they went to the center of theplace to a small hill, and from the top of this they surveyed theirdomain. The island was not more than a thousand yards in width andthree or four miles in length. Nowhere was there any sign of even ahut.
"Well?" queried Harrigan, seeing McTee frown.
"We can live here," explained the captain, "but God knows how long itwill be before we sight a ship. Our only hope is for some trampfreighter that's trying to find a short cut through the reefs. Even ifwe sight a tramp, how'll we signal her?"
"With a fire."
"Aye, if one passes at night. We could stack up wood on the top of thishill. The island isn't charted. If a skipper saw a light, he might takea chance and send a boat. But how could we kindle a fire?"
They went slowly down the hill, their heads bent. At the base, as ifplaced in their path to cheer them in this moment of gloom, they founda spring. It ran a dozen feet and disappeared into a crevice. Theycupped the water in their hands and drank long and deep. When theystood up again, McTee dropped a hand on Harrigan's shoulder. He said:"You've cause enough for hating me."
"Pal," said Harrigan, "you're nine parts devil, but the part of youthat's a man makes up for all the rest."
McTee brooded: "Now we're standing on the rim of the world, and we'vegot to be brother to each other. But what if we get off theisland--there's small chance of it, but what if we should? Would weremember then how we took hands in the trough of the sea?"
Harrigan raised his hand.
"So help me God--" he began.
"Wait!" broke in McTee. "Don't say it. Suppose we get off the island,and when we reach port find one thing which we both want. What then?"
Harrigan remembered a word from the Bible.
"I'll never covet one of your belongin's, McTee, an' I'll never crossyour wishes."
"Your hair is red, Harrigan, and mine is black; your eye is blue andmine is black. We were made to want the same thing in different ways.I've never met my mate before. I can stand it here on the rim of theworld--but in the world itself--what then, Harrigan?"
They stepped apart, and the glance of the black eye crossed that of thecold blue.
"Ah-h, McTee, are ye dark inside and out? Is the black av your eye thesame as the soot in your heart?"
"Harrigan, you were born to fight and forget; I was born to fight andremember. Well, I take no oath, but here's my hand. It's better thanthe oath of most men."
"A strange fist," grinned Harrigan; "soft in the palm and hard over theknuckles--like mine."
They went down the hill toward the beach, Harrigan singing and McTeesilent, with downward head. On the beach they started for some rockswhich shelved out into the water, for it was possible that they mightfind some sort of shellfish on the rocks below the surface of thewater. Before they reached the place, however, McTee stopped andpointed out across the waves. Some object tossed slowly up and down ashort
distance from the beach.
"From the wreck," said McTee. "I didn't think it would drift quite asfast as this."
They waded out to examine; the water was not over their waists whenthey reached it. They found a whole section from the side of thewheelhouse, the timbers intact.
_On it lay Kate Malone, unconscious._
Manifestly she never could have kept on the big fragment during thenight of the storm had it not been for a piece of stout twine withwhich she had tied her left wrist to a projecting bolt. She had wrappedthe cord many times, but despite this it had worn away her skin andsunk deep in the flesh of her arm. Half her clothes were torn away asshe had been thrown about on the boards. Whether from exhaustion or thepain of her cut wrist, she had fainted and evidently lain in thisposition for several hours; one side of her face was burned pink by theheat of the sun.
They dragged the float in, and McTee knelt beside the girl and pressedan ear against her breast.
"Living!" he announced. "Now we're three on the rim of the world."
"Which makes a crowd," grinned Harrigan.