Plain Mary Smith Part 7

"Tell me why I should, and I will," she says. Well, what was the use?

Hadn't she the right to know? When old Jesse said trouble was turning the corner, you could expect the knock on the door. He had the reputation of being the most fearless as well as the most careful skipper in the coast trade. He never took a chance, if there was nothing in it, and he'd take 'em all, if there was.

Sax bent to us. "What's up?" says he. I didn't say a word--pointed behind him. He looked for a full five seconds.

"Tornado, by G.o.d!" he says in a sort of savage whisper.

He took the violin and bow in those thin strong hands of his and crumpled 'em up, and threw the pieces overboard. I'll swear he felt what I did--that he _had_ called up a devil from the sea.

Then he put a hand on Mary's shoulder. "Go below, sweetheart," he said.

"But you'll call me--you'll let me--" she says, an agony in her eyes.

"You ought to know that I will be with you, if there's no need of me here," he said. We stood stock-still for a minute. It had come with such a stunning bang.

"There is great danger, Mary," said Saxton. "But you'll be brave, my dear?"

"I will, Arthur," she answered. Then her eyes filled with panic and she caught him around the neck. "Save me, Arthur! Save me!" she cried. "Oh, I don't want to die!"

Never in his life had Arthur Saxton stood up more of a man and gentleman. He put his hand on her head and looked courage into her. "Nor do I want to die while there's a chance of you," he said. "Now you'll believe and trust me, and go with Will?"

I think he kissed her--I don't remember. That h.e.l.l aloft was sudsing fast to us, and I was dancing inside to do something beside wait for a drowning. Anyhow, old Jesse's voice ripped out ferocious; there was a rattle of blocks, and I put Mary below at the bottom of the step, picked up a lantern for her, told her we'd watch out more for her than we would for ourselves, and seeing how utterly G.o.d-forsaken the poor girl looked, I kissed her, too.

"Don't leave me, Will! Oh, don't!" she cried; "I can't stand it!"

"I must," I pleaded. "Mary, think! I may be some use."

She gripped herself. "That is so. Go, Will."

It hurt to go. The lantern made a dim light in which her face half showed. The shadows shifted black, here and there. From above came a grinding, shattering sort of roar, like a train crossing a bridge. It was horrible to leave a woman alone to face it. But then came a scurry and trampling of feet on deck; yells and orders. That was my place.

"Good-by! G.o.d save you!" I said, caught her hand for a good-by, and jumped up the stair.

I was just in time. They slammed the hatch down almost on my heels.

"Mary's there!" I screamed in Jesse's ear.

"It's her only chance!" he roared back.

On deck that machinery roar drowned everything. It rattled the bones in your body. The deck sung to it. You felt the humming on your feet. It dumbed and tortured you at the same time, like a fever-dream. You couldn't think for it, and your temper was spoiled entirely.

Lightning! My G.o.d! It was zippitty-flash-flash-flash, so fast and fearful that the whole world jumped out into broad day and back a hundred times a minute. Heaven send I'll never see another such sight as the sea those flashes showed. Under the spout it was as if somebody had run a club into a snake-hole. You got it, to the least crinkle, in the lightning blasts. There were walls of water like Niagara Falls, jumbled up, falling, smashing together. If it hit us square we'd vanish.

Saxton stood near me. He pa.s.sed me a rope and signed for me to make myself fast. I couldn't do it. I must be free. I thought of Mary, below, and shook. What must she feel? We couldn't get down to her now, and that made me sick. Saxton fastened the rope around me. He put his mouth to my ear and shouted, "You never could hold without it!"

I let him do what he liked. All desire to do anything myself, one way or the other, was rattled out of me.

"How is she?" he shrieked again. I could just hear him at a one-inch range.

"All right,"! said.

"Make a little prayer to Himmel," he says, "for here it comes!"

Here it come. Something that looked like the Atlantic up-ended loomed over the bows. The wind struck me flat on my back, in one grand crash of snapping wood, roaring water, thunder, and the fall of the pillars of the world. The ocean swept over me, yet I rose high in the air. I felt that the _Matilda_ was turning a back somersault. The rope nearly cut me in half. Just when my lungs were pumping so I couldn't hold my breath a heart-beat longer, the wind suddenly cut over my face. Man! It hit like a fire-engine stream! I turned and swallowed some of it before we went down into the deep again. After that, it was plain disorderly conduct.

Part of the time I was playing at home, a little boy again, and part of the time I was having a hard time trying to sleep in strange lands. But the next thing I can swear to is that the moon was shining, and the _Matilda_ jumping like a horse. In spite of the aches and pains all over me, I just lay still for a minute and let it soak in that I was still on board this pretty good old world. Next, I thought of Mary and the rest of them and scrambled to my feet. I was dizzy--a three-inch cut across the top of my head gave reason enough for that, let alone the rest of the racket--and one eye was swelled shut. Otherwise, barring a sprained arm, a raw circle around me where the rope cut, a black-and-blue spot the size of a ham on my right leg, and all the skin off my knuckles, I was the same person.

Saxton got himself up. We stared at each other.

"h.e.l.lo!" says he.

"h.e.l.lo!" says I.

"Well, what the devil are you doing alive?" he says. He meant it, too.

It seemed to astonish him greatly. This made me mad.

"Well, I guess I have a right to," I says. At this we both laughed very hard. So hard I couldn't stop, till he grabbed me by the arm.

"Mary!" he says.

We both tried to cast our moorings. The knots were jammed beyond fingers and teeth. He took out a knife and we cut loose. On the way to the hatch we come across Jesse sitting up straight, staring out to sea. He put his hand to his head and put it down again, looking at his fingers. What he found so interesting in the fingers I don't know, but he couldn't take his eyes off of them.

"Hurt, Jesse?" we asked him.

He turned a face like a child's to us. "My," he says, "wasn't it wet!"

"Come on!" says Sax; "he's all right!"

We pulled the scuttle off by main strength.

"Mary!" we called. "Mary!"

"Yes!" she answered. The relief was so sweet my knees weakened. She came to the stair and looked up. Durned if the old lantern wasn't burning.

That knocked me. I remembered lighting that lantern several hundred years ago, and here it was, still burning!

"Are you hurt?" said Saxton.

"Not--no, not much," she answered. "But nearly dead from fright--is it over?"

"All over, thank G.o.d!" says Sax. "We only caught the edge of it, or-- The moon is shining now. There's a heavy sea still, but that's harmless if the boat isn't strained--do you want us to stay with you?"

She looked up and laughed--a great deal nearer being sensible than either Sax or me.

"If I could stand the other, I can stand this alone--where's your promise, Arthur? You never came near me."

He took this very seriously. "Why, Mary," he began, "do you think I would have left you if I could have helped it! They closed the hatch--"

"Come along," I said. "She's joking."

He turned and looked at me. "_Is_ she?" he asked, as earnest as if his life hung on it. Not the least strange memory of that night is when Arthur Saxton turned and said, "Is she?"