The Destroying Angel

by Louis Joseph Vance

  XIV

  DEBACLE

  The _Trouble_, meantime, was closing in upon the scene of tragedy withlittle less than locomotive speed. Yet, however suddenly disaster hadovertaken the other vessel, Whitaker saw what he saw and had time totake measures to avoid collision, if what he did was accomplished whollywithout conscious thought or premeditation. He had applied the reversinggear to the motor before he knew it. Then, while the engine choked,coughing angrily, and reversed with a heavy and resentful pounding inthe cylinder-heads, he began to strip off his coat. He was within tenyards of the wreck when a wave overtook the _Trouble_ and sent a sheetof water sprawling over her stern to fill the cockpit ankle-deep. Thenext instant he swung the wheel over; the boat, moving forward despitethe resistance of the propeller, drove heavily against the wreck,broadside to its stern. As this happened Whitaker leaped from one to theother, went to his knees in the cockpit of the wreck, and rose just intime to grasp the coaming and hold on against the onslaught of ahurtling comber.

  It came down, an avalanche, crashing and bellowing, burying him deep ingreen. Thunderings benumbed him, and he began to strangle before itpassed....

  He found himself filling his lungs with free air and fighting his waytoward the cabin doors through water waist-deep. Then he had won tothem, had found and was tearing frantically at the solid brass bolt thatheld them shut. In another breath he had torn them open, wide,discovering the woman, her head and shoulders showing above the flood asshe stood upon a transom, near the doorway, grasping a stanchion forsupport. Her eyes met his, black and blank with terror. He snatchedthrough sheer instinct at a circular life-preserver that floated outtoward him, and simultaneously managed to crook an arm round her neck.

  Again the sea buried them beneath tons of raging dark water. Greenlightnings flashed before his eyes, and in his ears there was a crashinglike the crack of doom. His head was splitting, his heart on the pointof breaking. The wave passed on, roaring. He could breathe. Now ifever....

  As if stupefied beyond sensibility, the woman was passive to hishandling. If she had struggled, if she had caught at and clung to him,or even if she had tried to help herself, he would in all likelihoodhave failed to cheat destruction. But she did none of these things, andhe managed somehow to drag her from the cabin to the cockpit and to jamthe life ring over her head and under one arm before the next wave boredown upon them.

  As the wall of living green water drew near, he twisted one hand intothe life-line of the cork ring and lifted the woman to the seat of thecockpit.

  They were borne down, brutally buffeted, smothered and swept away. Theycame to the surface in the hollow of a deep, gray swale, fully fiftyfeet from the wreck. Whitaker retained his grasp of the life-preserverline. The woman floated easily in the support. He fancied a gleam oflivelier consciousness in her staring eyes, and noticed with a curiouslykeen feeling of satisfaction that she was not only keeping her mouthclosed, but had done so, apparently, while under water.

  Relieved from danger of further submersion, at all events for the timebeing, he took occasion to rally his wits and look about him as well ashe was able. It was easy, now, to understand how the kidnappers had cometo their disaster; at this distance he could see plainly, despite thescudding haze, the profile of a high bluff of wave-channelled and bittenearth rising from a boulder-strewn beach, upon which the surf broke witha roar deafening and affrighting. Even a hardy swimmer might be pardonedfor looking askance at such a landing. And Whitaker had a woman to thinkof and care for. Difficult to imagine how he was to drag her, andhimself, through that vicious, pounding surf, without being beaten tojelly against the boulders....

  As the next billow swung them high on its racing crest, he, gaining abroader field of vision, caught an instantaneous impression of a starkshoulder of the land bulking out through the mists several hundred yardsto the left; suggesting that the shore curved inward at that spot. Thethought came to him that if he could but weather that point, he mightpossibly find on the other side a better landing-place, out of the moreforcible, direct drive of surf. It would be next to an impossibility tomake it by swimming, with but one arm free, and further handicapped bythe dead weight of the woman. And yet that way lay his only hope.

  In that same survey he saw the _Trouble_, riding so low, with only bowand coamings awash, that he knew she must be waterlogged, rollingbeam-on in to the beach. Of the two men from the other boat he sawnothing whatever. And when again he had a similar chance to look, thehapless power-boat was being battered to pieces between the boulders.Even such would be their fate unless....

  He put forth every ounce of strength and summoned to his aid all hiswater wisdom and skill. But he fought against terrible odds, and therewas no hope in him as he fought.

  Then suddenly, to his utter amazement, the lift of a wave discovered tohim a different contour of the shore; not that the shore had changed,but his position with regard to it had shifted materially and inprecisely the way that he had wished for and struggled to bring about.Instead of being carried in to the rock-strewn beach, they were in thegrip of a backwash which was bearing them not only out of immediatedanger, but at the same time alongshore toward the point under whose leehe hoped to find less turbulent conditions.

  It was quite half the battle--more than half; he had now merely to seethat the set of this backward flow did not drag them too far from shore.Renewed faith in his star, a sense of possible salvation, lent strengthto his flagging efforts. Slowly, methodically, he worked with his chargetoward the landward limits of the current, cunningly biding the time toabandon it. And very soon that time came; they were abreast the point;he could see something of a broad, shelving beach, backed by lesserbluffs, to leeward of it. He worked free of the set with a mightyexpenditure of force, nervous and physical, and then for a time, rested,limiting his exertion strictly to the degree requisite to keep himafloat, while the waves rocked him landwards with the woman. He foundleisure even to give her a glance to see whether she still lived, wasconscious or comatose.

  He found her not only fully aware of her position, but actually swimminga little--striking out with more freedom than might have been expected,considering how her arms and shoulders were hampered by the life-ring. Asuspicion crossed his mind that most probably she had been doing as muchfor a considerable time, that to her as much as to himself their escapefrom the offshore drift had been due. Certainly he could not doubt thather energies had been subjected to a drain no less severe than he hadsuffered. Her face was bloodless to the lips, pale with the pallor ofsnow; deep bluish shadows ringed eyes that had darkened strangely, sothat they seemed black rather than violet; her features were so drawnand pinched that he almost wondered how he could have thought herbeautiful beyond all living women. And her wondrous hair, broken fromits fastenings, undulated about her like a tangled web of soddensunbeams.

  Three times he essayed to speak before he could wring articulate soundsfrom his cracked lips and burning throat.

  "You ... all right?"

  She replied with as much difficulty:

  "Yes ... you may ... let go...."

  To relax the swollen fingers that grasped the life-line was puretorture.

  He attempted no further communication. None, indeed, was needed. It wasplain that she understood their situation.

  Some minutes passed before he became aware that they were closing inquickly to the shelving beach--so swiftly, indeed, that there was reasonto believe the onward urge of the waves measurably reenforced by ashoreward set of current. But if they had managed to escape the greaterfury on the weather side of the point, they had still a strong and angrysurf to reckon with. Only a little way ahead, breakers were flauntingtheir white manes, while the thunder of their breaking was as thethundering of ten thousand hoofs.

  Whitaker looked fearfully again at the woman. But she was unquestionablycompetent to care for herself. Proof of this he had in the fact that shehad contrived to slip the life-preserver up over her head and discard italtogether. Thus disencumbered, she had mor
e freedom for the impendingstruggle.

  He glanced over his shoulder. They were on the line of breakers. Behindthem a heavy comber was surging in, crested with snow, its concave bellyresembling a vast sheet of emerald. In another moment it would be uponthem. It was the moment a seasoned swimmer would seize.

  Whitaker felt land beneath his feet]

  His eye sought the girl's. In hers he read understanding and assent. Ofone mind, they struck out with all their strength. The comber overtookthem, clasped them to its bosom, tossed them high upon its great glassyshoulder. They fought madly to retain that place, and to such purposethat they rode it over a dozen yards before it crashed upon the beach,annihilating itself in a furious welter of creaming waters. Whitakerfelt land beneath his feet....

  The rest was like the crisis of a nightmare drawn out to the limit ofhuman endurance. Conscious thought ceased: terror and panic and theblind instinct of self-preservation--these alone remained. The undertowtore at Whitaker's legs as with a hundred murderous hands. He fought hisway forward a few paces--or yard or two--only to be overwhelmed, grounddown into the gravel. He rose through some superhuman effort and lungedon, like a blind, hunted thing.... He came out of it eventually to findhimself well up on the beach, out of the reach of the waves. But thevery earth seemed to billow about him, and he could hardly keep hisfeet. A numbing faintness with a painful retching at once assailed him.He was but vaguely aware of the woman reeling not far from him, butsaved....

  Later he found that something of the worst effects had worn away. Hisscattered wits were reestablishing intercommunication. The earth wasonce more passably firm beneath him. He was leaning against the careenedhulk of a dismantled cat-boat with a gaping rent in its side. At alittle distance the woman was sitting in the sands, bosom and shouldersheaving convulsively, damp, matted hair veiling her like a curtain ofsunlit seaweed.

  He moved with painful effort toward her. She turned up to him herpitiful, writhen face, white as parchment.

  "Are you--hurt?" he managed to ask. "I mean--injured?"

  She moved her head from side to side, as if she could not speak forpanting.

  "I'm--glad," he said dully. "You stay--here.... I'll go get help."

  He raised his eyes, peering inland.

  Back of the beach the land rose in long, sweeping hillocks, treeless butgreen. His curiously befogged vision made out a number of shapes thatresembled dwellings.

  "Go ... get ... help ..." he repeated thickly.

  He started off with a brave, staggering rush that carried him a dozenfeet inland. Then his knees turned to water, and the blackness of nightshut down upon his senses.