The Captain of the Kansas Part 9

"Would you like to sit in my cabin a little while, if I bring Miss Baring?"

She thought that would be splendid. Courtenay, if any one, would succeed in calming Isobel. In order to make herself heard she, in turn, had to put her lips quite near to Courtenay's face.

"Yes," she cried, "I shall be only too pleased. But be patient with her; she is very frightened."

There is no accounting for the workings of a man's mind. Courtenay, at no time a lady's man, most certainly had other matters to attend to just then. Yet here he was thinking only of a woman's comfort. His dismal forebodings were banished by a rush of absurd delight at the thought that he would have an opportunity of speaking to her occasionally. What a brave girl she was! What a wife for a sailor!

In truth, these were mad notions that jostled in his brain when his life and her's were not worth an hour's purchase. He drew her to the foot of the ladder.

"Run ahead, Joey!" he cried. The dog, a weird little figure leaning forward at a ridiculous angle against the tearing wind, obeyed instantly. "Now, you," he said to Elsie, "but wait until I pa.s.s you at the top."

Though her skirts were troublesome, she managed the ascent. Then she was taken off her feet again, and hardly knew where she was until she found herself in the haven of Courtenay's cabin. Joey was glad to be there, too. He shook himself noisily in his heavy coat.

"You won't mind if I fasten the door on you?" and the captain so far forgot his anxiety as to smile.

"No, indeed," and she smiled in response.

"Very well. I shall bring Miss Baring in about five minutes. You won't stir till we come?"

"What? Face that gale without you?" She almost laughed at the idea.

He bolted the door, and he ran into the chart-house to tap the barometer. It moved appreciably. It was rising! Ah, if only the wind moderated, he could save the _Kansas_ yet! He glanced at the compa.s.s.

Still the same course. Not a fraction of a point gained to the north.

That was bad. The ship was already within the danger zone. Pray Heaven for a falling wind, or even a change to the southward! Still, it was in an altogether more cheerful mood that he regained the promenade deck and made his way towards the saloon.

He was in the very act of entering the doorway when a shudder ran through the ship, and she lifted slightly. Clinging to a rail, he waited, rigid as a statue. A second time the great steel hull shook, but much more violently. Then the _Kansas_ ran her nose into a shoal, swung round broadside to the sea, lifted again, struck heavily, and listed to port.

Courtenay was on the starboard side. He heard a yell of dismay from the men attending to the boats. Screams came from the saloon. The sea leaped triumphantly over the rails and nearly smothered him with its dense spray. So this was the end? It had come all too soon. And what a place for the ship to be cast away! Twenty miles from the nearest land, in the midst of a sea where no boat could live. G.o.d help them all!

CHAPTER V

THE KANSAS SUSTAINS A CHECK--

Once, in early days, when Courtenay was a middy on a destroyer, his ship ran ash.o.r.e on the Manacles. After a b.u.mp or two, and a noise like the snapping of trees during a hurricane, the little vessel broke her back, and the after part, with the engines, fell away into deep water.

Courtenay happened to be on the bridge; the forward half held intact, so he and the other survivors clambered ash.o.r.e at low water.

He waited now for the rending of plates, the tearing asunder of stanch steel ribs and cross-beams, which should sound the knell of the ship's last moments. But the _Kansas_ seemed to be in no hurry to fall in pieces. She strained and groaned, and shook violently when a wave pounded her; otherwise, she lay there like a beaten thing, oddly resembling the living but almost unconscious men stretched on the mattresses in the forward saloon.

Courtenay did not experience the least fear of death. Emotion of any sort was already dead in him. He found himself wondering if an unexpectedly strong current, setting to the southeast, had not upset his reckoning--if there were any broken limbs among the occupants of the saloon--if Elsie had been injured by being thrown down into his cabin. He looked at his watch; it was past eleven. In four hours there would be dawn. Dawn! In as many minutes he might see the day that is everlasting. . . . Ah! Perhaps not even four minutes! The _Kansas_, with a shiver, lifted to the embrace of a heavy sea, lurched to port, and settled herself more comfortably. The deck a.s.sumed an easier angle. Now it was possible to walk. There were no rocks here, at any rate. Courtenay at once jumped to the conclusion that the powerful current whose existence he suspected had cut out for itself a deep-water channel towards the land, and the ship had struck on the silt of its back-wash. Anyhow, the _Kansas_ was still living. The lights were all burning steadily. He could detect the rhythmic throb of the donkey-engine. He felt it like the faint beat of a pulse. In her new position the ship presented less of a solid wall to the onslaught of the sea. The tumultuous waves began to race past without breaking so fiercely. Had she started her plates? Were the holds and engine-room full of water? If so, Walker and his helpers were already drowning beneath his feet. And, when next she moved, the vessel might slip away into the depths!

These and kindred thoughts, thoughts without sequence and almost without number, flew through his mind with incredible speed. They were lucid and reasoned, their pros and cons equally dealt with--he could have answered any question on each point were it propounded by a board of examiners--and all this took place within a few seconds, between the impact of one big wave and another.

A man rushed by, or tried to do so. Courtenay recognized him as a leading stoker who had temporary charge of the donkey-boiler and seized him wrathfully, his eyes ablaze.

"Go back!" he roared.

"Senor! The ship is lost!"

"Go back, and await my orders."

He could have strangled the fugitive in his sudden rage. The fireman endeavored to gasp his readiness to obey. Courtenay relaxed his grip, and, for a time, at least one member of the crew stuck to his post, fearing the mad captain more than death.

A mob of stewards and kitchen hands came in a torrent up the saloon stairs. Courtenay met them, a terrifying figure, and thrust a revolver in their faces.

"Back!" he shouted, "or some of you will die here."

Even in their frenzy they believed him. The foremost slunk away, and fought in a new terror with those who would urge them on. Gray, bleeding from a cut across the forehead, knocked down a man who brutally tore Isobel out of his path. Tollemache, a revolver in each hand, set his back against the corner of the saloon at the foot of the stairs.

"I'm with you, captain," he yelled.

Courtenay saw that he had conquered them--for the instant. He raised his hand.

"Behave like men," he cried. "You can do no good by crowding the deck.

I am going to the bridge to see if it is possible to lower the boats.

Each boat's crew will be mustered in turn, pa.s.sengers and men alike.

If you are cowards now you will throw away what chance there is of saving your lives."

His voice rang out like a trumpet. His att.i.tude cowed while it rea.s.sured them. Men turned from one to another to ask what the senor captain was saying. They understood much, but they wanted to make sure of each word. Was there any hope? Now that the gates of death were opening, he was a G.o.d in their eyes--a G.o.d who promised life in return for obedience.

A revolver barked twice somewhere on deck. A bullet smashed one of the windows of the music-room and lodged in a panel behind Courtenay. They all heard the reports, but the captain promptly turned the incident to advantage.

"You see we mean to maintain order," he said. "Mr. Malcolm, take care that every one has a lifebelt."

A sort of cheer came from the men. Who could fail to believe in a leader so cool and resourceful? He ran out into the darkness to discover the cause of the shooting. A number of sailors and firemen were striving to launch a boat. There was a struggle going on. He could not distinguish friend from foe in the melee, but he threw himself into it fearlessly.

"You fools!" he shouted. "You may die soon enough without killing each other. Make way there! Ah! would you?" He caught the gleam of an uplifted knife, and struck savagely at the face of the man who would have used it. The b.u.t.t of the revolver caught the sailor on the temple. He went down like a stone. Courtenay stumbled over another prostrate body. It was Mr. Boyle, striving to rise. Their eyes met in the gloom. Courtenay stooped and swung the other clear of the fight, for the second and third officers were using their fists, and Walker, even in the hurry of his ascent from the stoke-hold, had not let go of a spanner. The yells and curses, the trampling of dim forms swaying in the fight, the roaring of the gale, and the incessant crash of heavy spray made up a ghastly pandemonium. It was an orgy of terror, of wild abandon, of hopeless striving on the edge of the pit--a stupid madness at the best, as the ship's life-boats on the port side were on the spar deck; in their panic the men were endeavoring to lower a dingy. Yet Courtenay saw that discipline was regaining its influence. He thought to inspire confidence and stop useless savagery by a sharp command.

"All hands follow me to starboard!"

The struggle ceased instantly. The captain's order seemed to imply some new scheme. Men who, a moment ago, would have killed any one who sought to restrain them from clearing the boat's falls, now raced pell-mell after their officers. No heed was paid to those who lay on the deck, wounded or insensible. Herein alone did these Chilean sailors differ from wolves, and wolves have the excuse of fierce hunger when they devour their disabled fellows.

Still carrying Boyle, Courtenay led the confused horde through a gangway to the higher side of the deck.

"Swing those boats back to the spar deck!" he said. "Get falls and tackle ready to lift them to port. Don't lose your heads, men. You will all be clear of the ship in ten minutes if you do as you are told."

Two officers and a quarter-master sprang forward. In an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time the crew were working with redoubled frenzy, but under control, and with a common object. For an instant, Courtenay was free to attend to his chief officer. He bore him to the lighted saloon companion. Boyle was deathly pale under the tan of his skin. The captain saw that his own left hand, where it clasped the other round the waist, was covered with blood.

"Below there!" he cried. "Bring two men here, Mr. Malcolm."

When the chief steward came he gave directions that Mr. Boyle should be taken to the saloon and Dr. Christobal summoned.

"Send some one you can trust to return," he continued. "Go then to the lee of the promenade deck. You will find others there."

He did not stop to ask himself if solicitude for the unfortunates wounded in the fight were of any avail. His mind was clear, the habit of command strong in him. Not until the sea claimed him would he cease to rule. The clank of pulleys, the cries of the sailors heaving at the ropes, told him that the crew were at work. At last he was free to go to the bridge.

He found the quarter-master in the chart-house, on his knees. When the ship struck, the officer of the watch had been thrown headlong to port.

Recovering his feet before a tumbling sea could fling him overboard, he hauled himself out of danger just in time to take part in the fray on deck. He came back now, hurrying to join the captain. Courtenay, standing in the shelter of the chart-house, was peering through the flying scud to leeward. The sea was darker there than it had been for hours. Around the ship the surface was milk-like with foam, but beyond the area of the shoal there seemed to be a remote chance for a boat to live.