Marjorie Part 9

'It was no fault of mine,' he said between his teeth. 'I took all the care I could. I saw all this froth at a distance, and I asked the steersman what it was, and he told me that it was but the sea showing white under the light of the moon.'

Captain Marmaduke gave a little groan of despair.

'What is to be done?' he asked. 'Where are we?'

'G.o.d only knows where we are,' the man answered, still in that sullen, shamefaced way. 'But for sure we are fast upon a bank that I never heard tell of ere this night.'

As they were thus talking, and all around were full of consternation, I saw that Marjorie had come up from below and was standing very still by the companion head. She had flung a great cloak on over her night-rail, and though her face was pale in the moonlight she was as calm as if she were in church. When I came nigh her she asked me, in a low, firm voice, what had happened.

I told her all that I knew--how the ship had by mischance run on some bank through the whiteness of the moonlight misleading the steersman.

With another woman, maybe, I should have striven to make as light as possible of the matter, but with Marjorie I knew that there was no such need. I told her all that had chanced and of the peril we were in, as I should have done to a man.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SHE HAD FLUNG A GREAT CLOAK ON."]

When I had done speaking she said very quietly: 'Is there any hope for the ship?'

I shook my head. 'I am very much afraid----' I began.

She interrupted me with a little sigh, and stepped forward to where Captain Marmaduke stood giving his orders very composedly. Lancelot was busy with Jensen in rea.s.suring the women-folk and getting the men-folk into order. I must say that they all behaved very well. With many of the men, old soldiers and sailors as they were, it was natural enough to carry themselves with coolness in time of peril, but the women showed no less bravely. This, indeed, was largely due to the example set them by Barbara Hatchett, who acted all through that wild hour as a sailor's daughter and a sailor's wife should act. Her composure and her loud, commanding voice and encouraging manner did wonders in soothing the women-kind, and in putting out of their heads the foolish thoughts which lead to foolish actions.

Marjorie went up to Lancelot and laid her hand upon his sleeve. He looked at her with the smile he always gave when he greeted her, and he spoke to her as he might have spoken if he and she had been standing together on the downs of Sendennis instead of on that nameless reef in that nameless danger.

'Well, dear,' he said, 'what is it?'

'What do you wish me to do?' she asked.

'Comfort the women-folk, dear,' he answered. Then, catching sight as the wind moved her cloak of her night-rail, he added quickly: 'Run down and dress first.'

'Is there truly time?'

'Aye, aye, time and to spare. We may float the ship yet, G.o.d willing. Do as I bid you.'

She lingered for a moment, and said softly:

'If anything should happen, let me be next you at the last.'

I was standing near enough to hear, and the tears came into my eyes.

Lancelot caught his sister's hand and pressed it as he would have pressed the hand of a comrade. Then she turned away and slipped silently below.

I am glad to remember that good order prevailed in the face of our common peril. Our colonists, men and women, kept very quiet, and the sailors, under Cornelys Jensen, acted with untiring zeal. I must say to his credit that Jensen proved a cool hand in the midst of a misfortune which must have come as a special misfortune to himself. It is a curious fact, and I know not how to account for it, unless by the smart knock on my head and the confusion of events that followed upon it, but all memory of what I had seen and heard In Jensen's cabin had slipped from my mind. No--I will not say all memory. While I watched him working, and while I worked with him, my head--which still ached sorely after my tumble--was troubled, besides its own pain, with the pain of groping after a recollection. I knew that there was something in my mind which concerned Cornelys Jensen, something which I wanted to recall, something which I ought to recall, something which I could not for the life of me recall. What with my fall, and the danger to the ship, and the strain of the toil to meet that danger, that page of my memory was folded over, and I could not turn it back. I have heard of like cases and even stranger; of men forgetting their own names and very ident.i.ty after some such accident as mine. All I had forgotten was the evil scene in Jensen's cabin, the three evil schemers, their evil flag.

I was a pretty skilled seaman now, thanks to my Captain's patience and my own eagerness, and I was able to lend a hand at the work with the best. The first thing we did was to throw the lead, and sorry information it yielded us. For we found that we had forty-eight feet of water before the vessel and much less behind her. It was then proposed that we should throw our cannon overboard, in the hope that when our ship was lightened of so much heavy metal she might by good hap be brought to float again. I remember as well as yesterday the face of Cornelys Jensen when this determination was arrived at. He saw that it must be done, but the necessity p.r.i.c.ked him bitterly. 'There's no help for it,' he said aloud to Hatchett, with a sigh. Captain Marmaduke took the expression, as I afterwards learnt, as one of pity for him and his ship and her gear of war. But it set me racking my tired brain again for that lost knowledge about Jensen which would have made his meaning plain to me.

It was further decided to let fall an anchor, but while the men were employed upon this piece of work the conditions under which we toiled changed greatly for the worse. Black clouds came creeping up all round the sky, which blotted out the moonlight and changed all that white foam into curdling ink, and with the coming of these clouds the wind began to rise, at first little and moaningly, like a child in pain, and then suddenly very loudly indeed, until it grew to a great storm, that brought with it sheets of the most merciless rain that I had then ever witnessed. Now, indeed, we were in dismal case, wrapped up as we were in all the horrors of darkness, of rain and of wind, which added not merely a gloom to our situation, but vastly increased danger. For our ship, surrounded as she was with rocks and shoals, though she might have lain quiet enough while the sea was calm, now before the fury of the waves kept continually striking, and I could see that the fear of every man was that she would shortly go to pieces.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE NIGHT AND MORNING

It seemed such a heart-breaking thing to be hitched in that place, so immovable, while the seas were slapping us and the wind so foully misbehaving, that I declare I could have wept for bitterness of spirit.

But it was no time for weeping; we had other guesswork on hand, and we buckled to our work with a will. We agreed that the straightest course open to us was to cut away the mainmast, and this we promptly set about doing. There are few sadder sights in the world than to see stout fellows striving with all their strength to hew down the mainmast of a goodly ship. The fall of a great tree in a forest preaches its sermon, but not with half the poignancy of a n.o.ble mast which men who love their vessel are compelled to cast overboard. As the axes rose and fell it seemed to me as if their every stroke dealt me a hurt at the heart. As the white wood flew it would not have surprised me if blood had followed upon the blow--as I have read the like concerning a tree in some old tale--so dear was the ship to me. A man's first ship is like a man's first love, and grips him hard, and he parts from neither without agony. When at last our purpose was accomplished, and the mast swayed to its fall, I could have sat me down and blubbered like a baby.

And yet in another moment, so strange is the ordering of human affairs and so much irony is there in the lessons of life, we who were all ready to weep for the loss of our mainmast would have been only too glad to say good-bye to it. For while its fall augmented the shock, and made us in worse case that way, we were not lightened of it for all our pains, for it was so entangled with the rigging that we could not for all our efforts get it overboard. We were now in sheer desperation, for it did not seem as if we could ever get our ship free, but must needs bide there in our agony until she broke and gave us all to the waters. But a little after there came a gleam of hope, for the furious wind and rain abated, and finally fell away altogether, and at last the longest night I had ever known came to an end, and the dawn came creeping up to the sky as I had often seen it come creeping when I awakened early lying on my bed in Sendennis. Oh, the joy to hail the daylight again, and yet what a terrible condition of things the daylight showed to us! There was our ship stuck fast on the bank; there was her deck all enc.u.mbered with the fallen mast and the twisted ropes and the riven sails. Every man's face was as white as a dish, and there was fear in every man's eyes. Nor was it longer possible to pacify all the women-folk or the children, now that the daylight showed them the full extent of their disaster, and every now and then they would break forth into cries or fits of sobbing which were pitiful to hear. Marjorie did much to calm their terrors, as did Barbara Hatchett, both of whom showed very brave and calm; and, indeed, the only pleasing memory of all that time of terror is the thought of those two women, the one in all the pride of her dark beauty, the other in all the glory of her fair loveliness, moving about like ministering angels amongst all those people whom the sudden peril of death had made so fearful and so helpless. The beautiful woman and the beautiful maid--none on board had braver hearts than they!

You may imagine with what eagerness we scanned the sea for any sight of land. But though Captain Amber searched the whole horizon with his spy-gla.s.s, we could find nothing better than an island which lay off from us at a distance of about two leagues, and what seemed to be a smaller island, which lay further from us. This did not offer any great promise of refuge to us, but as it was apparently the only hope we had we all strove to make the best of it, and to pretend to be greatly rejoiced at the sight of even so much land.

Captain Amber immediately ordered Hatchett to man one of the ship's boats and to make for those islands to examine them, a task that now presented no difficulty, for the wind had fallen away and the sea was smooth as it had been turbulent. I would fain have gone with the boat for the sake of the change, for I was sick at heart of the moaning and the groaning of the poor wretches on board, but Captain Amber did not send me, and I had no right to volunteer; and, besides, I was still troubled by a confused sense of something that I had to tell him; some danger that I was instinctively seeking to ward off from him--and from her.

There was something piteous in the sight of that single boat creeping slowly across the sea towards those distant islands, and I watched it as it grew smaller and smaller, until it was little more than a mere speck upon the waters.

Everything depended for us upon the fortunes of that boat, upon the tidings that it might bring back to us. I am proud to say that my thoughts went out across that sea to the home where my mother was, who prayed day and night for her boy's safety, and that my lips repeated that prayer she had taught me while I supplicated Heaven with all humility of heart, if it were His will, to bring us out of that peril.

We spent the time during the boat's absence in clearing the decks as well as we might, in renewing our efforts to pacify our women-kind, and in fresh attempts, which, however, were unavailing, to get our mast overboard. Captain Amber had gathered together those of his men who were old soldiers, and, having addressed them in a stirring speech, which made my blood beat more warmly, he set them to various tasks in preparation for what now appeared to be inevitable--our leaving the ship. The brave fellows behaved as obediently as if they had been on parade, as courageously as if they had been going into action. They were picked men of fine mettle, and they were yet to be tested by severer tests, and to stand the test well.

At about nine o'clock or a little later the boat returned. We could see it, of course, a long way off, as it made its course towards us, but none of those on board made any sign to us, which we took, and rightly, too, to be a sign of no great cheer. Then our hopes, which had begun to run a little higher, ebbed away again, and we waited in silence for the boat to come alongside and for Hatchett to climb on board and to make his report to Captain Marmaduke. This he did in private, Captain Marmaduke taking him a little apart, while we all looked on and hungered for the news.

We had not long to wait, and when it came it was not so bad as we had feared, if it was not so good as some of us had hoped for.

Captain Amber came forward to the middle of the deck, where everybody was a.s.sembled waiting for the tidings.

'Friends and companions,' he said, 'our explorers report that yonder island is far from inhospitable. It is not covered by the sea at high water, as we feared at first; it is much larger than it seems to us at this distance; there will be ample room for us all during the short time that we may have to abide there before we sight a ship. I must indeed admit to you that the coast is both rocky and full of shoals, and that the landing thereupon will not be without its difficulties, and even its dangers, but we came out prepared to face difficulties and dangers if needs were, and these shall not dismay us. As for the further island, we may learn of that later.'

He looked very gallant as he said all this, standing there with the morning sunlight shining upon his brave face and upon his fine coat--for by this time he was fully habited and in his best, as beseemeth the leader of an expedition when about to disembark upon an unfamiliar sh.o.r.e. All around him had listened in silence while he spoke, but now, at the close, some of the soldier-fellows set up a kind of cheer in answer to his speech. It was not very much of a cheer, but it was better than nothing in our dismal case. It served to set our bloods tingling a little, so Lancelot and I caught it up, and kept it up too, with the whole strength of our lungs, till the example spread, and soon we had every man on deck huzzaing his best, while Cornelys Jensen and Hatchett swung their caps and lifted their voices with the best. It was a strange sound, that hearty British cheer ringing out through that lonely air; it was a strange sight, all those stout fellows marshalled as best they might on the sloping deck and fanning their scanty hopes into a flame with shouting, while the ruined mast, thrust over the side, pointed curiously enough straight in the direction of those islands whose hospitable qualities we were soon to try.

It was soon decided, after a brief conference between Captain Amber and Cornelys Jensen, that we should transfer our company as fast as might be to the near island, for there was no knowing when the smooth weather might shift again and how long our Royal Christopher would hold together if the waves, which were now lapping against its sides, grew angrier. It was resolved that the most pressing business was to send on sh.o.r.e at once the women and children and such sick people as we had on board, for these, as was but natural, were the most troublesome for us to deal with in our difficulty, being timorous and noisy with their fears, and setting a bad example.

So when it was about ten of the clock, or maybe later, for the time slipped by rapidly, we got loose our shallop and our skiff and lowered them into the water, and got most of the women and the children and the sick folk into them and sent them off, poor creatures, across the waste of waters to the islands. Barbara Hatchett went with them, for her firmness and courage served rarely to keep them quiet and inspire them with some little fort.i.tude. As for Marjorie, she would by no means leave the ship so long as Lancelot was on board, so she stayed with us, at which I could not help in my heart being glad, in spite of the danger that there was to everyone who stuck by the ship.

While these first boat loads were away we on board made efforts for the provisioning of our new home, getting up the bread and such viands as we could, and packing them in as portable a manner as might be for the next journey. But by this time unhappily we began to be threatened by a fresh trouble. No sooner were we free from the women-folk and the children, whose presence had hampered us so sorely, than a far more pressing vexation came upon us. For certain of the sailors, who up to this point had behaved well enough, suddenly flung aside their good behaviour. They had got at the wine, of which, unhappily, in the first confusion of our mischance no care had been taken, and many of them were roaring drunk, and capable of doing little service beyond shouting and cursing at one another. When Cornelys Jensen saw this he did his best to prevent them, and though some of them were too sullen to obey him, he did at last contrive with threats and oaths to keep such of the sailors as were still sober away from the liquor. By this time Lancelot, facing the new danger, got from his uncle the key of the storeroom where the arms were kept, and served out weapons to all those on board who had been soldiers and who loved Captain Amber. A pretty body of men they made, each with a musket on his shoulder, a hanger by his side, and a brace of pistols in his belt. They were all reliable men--many of them, indeed, had experienced religion, and had in them something of the old Covenanting spirit, which had worked such wonders under General Cromwell.

I could see that Cornelys Jensen was very ill-pleased with this act on our part, but he could say nothing, for the thing was done before he could say or do aught to prevent it, and very fortunate it was that we had done so betimes, for now Captain Marmaduke had under him a body of sober, disciplined, well-armed men, who would obey him and stand by him to the last extremity. I myself had slung a hanger by my side and thrust a brace of pistols into my girdle, and I believe that I well-nigh rejoiced in the peril which gave me the chance to carry those weapons and to make, as I fancied, so brave a show. Lancelot armed himself too in like fashion, for he served as second in command of our little troop under Captain Amber. For my part, I held no rank indeed in the little army, but I looked upon myself as a kind of _aide-de-camp_ to my Captain.

With half a dozen of those men we gathered together all the cases of wine that had been brought out and placed them back in the spirit room, over which we mounted two men as guard. It was idle to try and lock the door, for the lock had been shattered, possibly when we ran aground, and would not hold. But we locked the door of the room where our weapons and ammunition were, and placed another guard there.

I think many of the sailors were mightily annoyed at this action of ours, and gladly would have resented it. But there was nothing they could do just then, and though Cornelys Jensen was more savage than any of them, he wore a smooth face, and kept them in check by his authority.

Though we did not dream of it then, it was a mighty blessing for us, that same shipwreck, for if it had not come about just when it did worse would have happened. As matters now stood, our little party--for it was becoming pretty plain that there were two parties in the ship--was well-armed, while the sailors had no other weapons than their knives.

CHAPTER XIX

HOW SOME OF US GOT TO THE ISLAND