Queensland Cousins Part 29

Then came a hoa.r.s.e cry--the boat was becoming overcrowded, the crew pushed off, and away they went with a bound at every stroke of the oars. To Mrs. Orban it was a hideous nightmare of awful anxiety.

She could not tell whether all her children and her sister were with her or not. Her one ray of hope was that as they had apparently been all standing close together, the others must have been put in after her. But people had rushed so the moment they knew the boats were lowered, there was an awful possibility the children had been swept aside. They were certainly not near her, for she called their names and Dorothy's again and again, and there was no answer.

The men had not been rowing for seven minutes when there was a sudden awful sound behind them, and the boat plunged and rocked as if she were a living thing gone mad with terror.

"Oh, what was that?" Mrs. Orban cried, and the question ran from mouth to mouth.

"The ship," answered a solemn voice with a break in it; "she's gone under, poor thing. Must have been ripped from bows to stern."

The silence that followed was dreadful. How many boats had got away? Who was left on board? There was not one in the boat who had not a thought of agonized pity for the poor souls left behind.

It was so unexpected; every one was so unprepared. Who could suppose that with a sea as calm as a mill-pond a great vessel could strike on a rock and sink in less than seven minutes?

Afterwards, when the matter came to be investigated, it was discovered that the _Cora_ had run on to a coral reef unmarked in the charts. Coral reefs form with extraordinary rapidity, and are infinitely dangerous, because they are so sharp as to cut like razors. The loss of the _Cora_ was no one's fault; but that fact was of but little comfort to those whose friends went down in her.

The boat pulled steadily on awhile, then paused, for no one could be certain where she lay as regarded the sh.o.r.e.

"Easy, mates," said the man in command. "We must hang about till there's a gleam of light to give us our bearings, or we shall go down like that poor thing over there."

In the hush that fell it was possible to hear each other speak.

People began to question who was in the boat with them.

"Eustace, Nesta, Peter, are you there?" cried Mrs. Orban.

"Yes, mother; yes, mother," she heard, and her heart bounded with thankfulness.

"And you, Dorothy?" she forced herself to say.

But to this there was no answer.

"Children," Mrs. Orban said, "isn't your aunt there?"

"I don't know," Eustace said; "she wouldn't come before us."

There could be no doubt that Miss Chase was not there.

The first streak of daylight fell upon a boatload of haggard men and women, afraid of, yet longing for, the day. It was discovered that they had come within half a mile of sh.o.r.e, and the crew pulled with a will till they beached the boat. One after another in the shadowy gloom the stiff, cramped figures landed. There were meetings, but no open rejoicings, because of those others left behind.

Eustace and Nesta clung to their mother, half sobbing.

"And Peter," she said--"where is Peter?"

"Peter?" said the other two blankly.

"I thought you said he was there?" said Mrs. Orban.

"We--we answered for ourselves," faltered Eustace. "I didn't notice he didn't speak."

The boat was empty now. Groups of shivering, unstrung people stood about, utterly incapable of thinking what to do next. But Peter was not there--nor was Dorothy.

CHAPTER XVI.

WHAT THE TIDE BROUGHT IN.

The stranded party was much in need of a leader till one of the crew volunteered the information that some miles higher up the coast there was a beche-de-mer station where they would probably get some means of communicating with the rest of the world, and at least find food, of which every one was much in need. Beche-de-mer fisheries are a feature of the coast, the beche-de-mer being a huge sea-slug, thought to be a great delicacy.

This particular station was owned by some half-caste Portuguese, and worked by a mixture of aborigines and Malays, a most unpromising and ruffianly-looking set. However, they received the unhappy boatload quite civilly, promised that a messenger should be dispatched across country to the nearest civilized centre, and provided a good meal of salt junk, sweet potatoes, rice, and tea.

It did not matter to the exhausted men and women that they had to eat off tin plates, drink out of tin pannikins, and that the food was more roughly prepared and served than any they had ever tasted before.

They camped under some trees for the meal; and many sad eyes looked towards the great calm sea, where not a trace of last night's tragedy was to be seen. In the distance there was the sail of an outgoing vessel--one of the beche-de-mer boats off on a several months' trip. Besides that, there was just one tiny speck, not so far out as the sail, but much smaller.

"It's a boat," said the captain of the station, a swarthy Portuguese. He had been watching the speck for some time through a telescope. "So far as I can make out it is something of the same build as yours."

There was instant excitement. Could it be another of the ship's boats?

It seemed an eternity before the boat came close enough to discover that she did indeed belong to the ill-fated _Cora_. The crowd on the beach was speechless before she pulled in to sh.o.r.e and her worn-out occupants were disembarked.

Amongst the anxious watchers were Mrs. Orban, with the fretful, feverish Becky in her arms, and Nesta and Eustace. But though they pressed forward and saw every man, woman, and child that landed, there was no comfort for them. Miss Chase and Peter had not come.

There was but one interpretation to put on this--they had never left the ship.

"Any more boats likely to come?" asked a woman whose husband was missing.

"No, lady," said a sailor, shaking his head pitifully. "They only got one more out, and she was overcrowded and swamped. There was no time for anything."

There is no describing the misery of the day that followed--the terrible blankness for many, the haunting recollection that all had of the nightmare experience.

The men at the station were as kind as they could be in their rough way. The sailors who had manned the boats set to work to arrange some comforts for the women and children, improvising hammocks for them to lie in, as sleeping in the gra.s.s was dangerous on account of snakes and other disagreeables.

Poor little Becky spent a day of weeping, for her wrist was very painful. She needed all Mrs. Orban's attention, which was perhaps fortunate for the poor lady--it gave her less time for brooding over her terrible loss. Nesta cried herself nearly silly, and then fell asleep in a hammock that a kindly old sailor prevailed on her to try.

Eustace was too restless to settle down. He spent his time hovering about his white-faced, desolate-looking mother. The moment inaction began to tell on him and make him feel sleepy he went away for a while, and paced up and down by the water's edge to rouse himself.

However useless his presence, he could not bear to leave his mother lonely and unwatched; it seemed heartless to forget her and her sorrows in sleep when she could take no rest.

"She might want something, or perhaps she would like to speak," he argued, "or she may cry presently; and there mustn't be no one to comfort her."

But Mrs. Orban asked for nothing for herself, only water now and then to bandage Becky's wrist. She took the food when it was given her, but ate very little. Whatever she was thinking about, she did not speak of her trouble, but inquired after Nesta, and whether she and Eustace had had plenty of food and felt no symptoms of chill or fever.

"I wish father or Bob would come quick," thought the boy helplessly; "we're no good. She is only thinking about taking care of us all the time; and I don't know how to look after her. It would have been better if I had been drowned instead of Aunt Dorothy; she would have known what to do."

He was doing one of his violent pacings up and down, and every turn backwards or forwards he had to change his course, for the tide was running in fast. The sea fascinated him; he could not help watching it, especially now when all sorts of bits of wreckage were beginning to float in--lengths of rope, a life-belt or two, and things belonging to the _Cora's_ deck. The men from the station were watching with the sailors and hauling things in to land.

"Any bodies that went down will be carried by the under current into the next bay," Eustace heard the beche-de-mer owner explaining to the _Cora's_ crew.

"Well, my name's not Swaine," said an old sailor with a telescope, "if that isn't one coming now."

There was a thrill of excitement, an immediate demand for the telescope, as every one pressed forward.