The Coast of Adventure Part 21

She found him elusive. He was frank, in a way, but avoided personal topics. Then, remembering the sc.r.a.p of verse he had quoted, she reflected that he was certainly a Northerner in feeling; but was truth, after all, an essential feature of the type? To be really true, one must be loyal to one's inner self and follow one's heart. But this was risky.

It might mean sacrificing things one valued and renouncing advantages to be gained. Prudence suggested taking the safe, conventional course that would meet with the approval of one's friends; but Romance stood, veiled and mysterious, beckoning her, and she thrilled with an instinctive response. Now, however, she felt that she was getting on to dangerous ground, and she joined Cliffe, who sat in the shade of the deckhouse, talking to Walthew; but they did not help her to banish her thoughts. Her father was a practical business man, and Walthew had enjoyed a training very similar to hers. It was strange that he should now seek adventures instead of riches, and stranger still that her father should show some sympathy with him.

An hour later Grahame found Macallister leaning on the rail, contentedly smoking his pipe.

"She's only making seven knots; you're letting steam down," he said.

"Weel," rejoined Macallister, "we're saving coal, and we'll be in Kingston soon enough. Then, Miss Cliffe's no' in a hurry. She's enjoying the smooth water; she telt me so."

Grahame looked hard at him.

"You have a dangerous love of meddling, Mack," he said.

"I'll no' deny it. For a' that, I've had thickheaded friends who've been grateful to me noo and then. What ye have no' is the sense to ken an opportunity."

"What do you mean by that?"

Macallister's manner grew confidential.

"She's thinking about ye and when a la.s.sie goes so far----"

Grahame stopped him with a frown.

"I'd sooner you dropped this nonsense. It's a poor joke."

"Weel, if ye have no ambition! Selling guns to revolutionists is no' a remarkably profitable business, particularly if ye're caught, and I was thinking ye might do better. The girl's no' bad to look at; I've seen ye watching her."

"Not bad to look at!" Grahame checked himself. "We'll talk about something else."

"As ye like!"

Macallister took out a small, tapered piece of steel.

"This, ye ken, is a cotter, and the dago from the foundry put it in. He was a good fitter, but the pin's a sixty-fourth too small for the slot.

Maybe it was carelessness; but there would have been trouble when the cotter shook out if Walthew hadna' heard her knocking. Yon lad has the makings o' an engineer."

Grahame looked thoughtful.

"Gomez was in Havana, and I dare say he has his agents and spies. Still, if he suspected anything, it would have been a better stroke to have watched and seized us when we had the arms on board. I'd expect him to see it."

"Weel," said Macallister grimly, "if I meet yon dago another time, I'll maybe find out something before I throw him off the mole. A good engine's nearer life than anything man has made, and wrecking her is as bad as murder."

"I don't think our opponents would stick at that," Grahame replied as he turned away.

Toward evening the barometer fell, and it grew very hot. There was no wind, the sky was cloudless, and the sea rolled back to the horizon without a ripple. For all that, there was a curious tension in the atmosphere, and Evelyn noticed that soon after Macallister came up for a few minutes and looked carefully about, thick smoke rose from the funnel. The girl's head felt heavy, and her skin p.r.i.c.kly; and she saw that Grahame's hawk look was more noticeable than usual. He was, however, not fidgety, and after dinner he sat talking to her and Cliffe under the awning. The air was oppressively still, and a half-moon hung like a great lamp low above the sea.

About nine o'clock Cliffe went to his cabin to look for a cigar, and Evelyn and Grahame sat silent for a while, wrapped in the mystery of the night.

Evelyn was the first to speak.

"I suppose you don't expect this calm to last?" she asked in a hushed voice.

"I'd like it to last while you're with us. But I can't promise that,"

Grahame answered. "If we do get a breeze it will probably soon blow itself out."

Evelyn glanced at the sea.

"It doesn't look as if it could ever be ruffled," she said. "One likes smooth water--but it's apt to get monotonous."

"That's a matter of temperament, or perhaps experience. When you've had to battle with headwinds, you appreciate a calm."

"I don't know. So far, I've had only sunshine and fine weather, but then I've always clung to the sheltered coast. It's nice to feel safe, but one sometimes wonders what there is farther out."

"Breaking seas and icy gales that drive you off your course. Now and then islands of mystic beauty, but more often surf-beaten reefs. On the whole, it's wiser to keep in smooth water."

"Perhaps," Evelyn said skeptically. "Still, there's a fascination in adventure, if it's only as a test of courage, and one feels tempted to take a risk."

She rose with a laugh.

"I don't know why I talk like this! I'm really a very practical girl--not a sentimentalist."

She moved away, and Grahame, calling one of the men to furl the awning, went into the deckhouse and deliberately pored over a chart. There were times when it was not safe to permit himself to think of Evelyn.

CHAPTER XV

THE TORNADO

Evelyn was wakened by a peal of thunder, and as she drowsily lifted her head a blaze of lightning filled the narrow room. It vanished and there was another deafening crash. The darkness was now impenetrable, but the startled girl had seen that the deck was sharply slanted and her clothes hung at a wide angle to the paneling of the bulkhead. It was obvious that the _Enchantress_ was listed down nearly on her beam ends. A confused uproar was going on, and Evelyn thought she could distinguish the beating of heavy rain upon the deckhouse. This, however, was only for a few moments, because the other noises swelled into an overwhelming din.

Dropping from her berth, she began to dress in the dark, but found it difficult to keep her footing on the slanted deck, which lurched and threw her against the lockers, while the planking worked and shook with the throb of engines. Evelyn could not hear them, but the strong vibration showed that they were running fast.

It cost her an effort to refrain from rushing out on deck. b.u.t.tons baffled her nervous fingers, the pins she tried to use instead doubled up, but she persevered. She would not leave her room until she was ready: if the worst came, she could not make an open-boat voyage in a disheveled state. That this should seem of importance did not strike her as curious then, but she afterward blushed as she remembered her determination to look as well as possible.

At last she opened the door and stepped out, ankle-deep in water. She was to lee of the deckhouse, and, seizing the hand-rail, tried to look about. The rain did not seem so heavy now, and the house sheltered her, although clouds of spray were flying across its top. A few feet away, the low bulwark was faintly distinguishable, but outside this there was only a dim glimmer of foam in the dark. The _Enchantress_ had the wind and sea on her broadside. This surprised Evelyn, because it was not a safe position if the gale were as bad as it seemed. Then a shower of sparks leaped from the funnel and by the momentary light they gave she saw a white streak, cleanly cut off and slanting downward, at the crown of the escape pipe. Evidently, Macallister had raised more steam than he could use.

Wondering why Grahame had not brought the vessel head to wind, she moved aft cautiously, clinging to the rail, until she saw that the awning had broken loose from its lashings. Part of it thrashed about the deck, making a furious noise, but the rest, blown forward, had fouled the foresail boom, and was stretched tight, but distended like a half-filled balloon. Acting as a sail, it prevented the steamer from answering her helm. One or two very indistinct figures struggled with the canvas, but they seemed unable to master it, and Evelyn crept on until she could look through the skylight into the engine-room. It was here the real battle must be fought, for the cylinders that strained under top pressure were the vitals of the ship. She could see them shake, as if about to burst their fastening bolts and leap from the columns, as the big cross-heads banged up and down.

The iron room was well lighted, though the lamps hung at an alarming angle to the beams, and there was a confused glimmer of steel that flashed through the light and plunged into shadow. A half-naked man lay on a narrow grating, leaning down and touching a ponderous ma.s.s of metal as it swept past. In the momentary intervals before it came back he rubbed the bright slide it traveled on with a greasy swab, and the girl knew how important it was that nothing should get hot. The work was dangerous, because the least clumsiness might cost him his arm. When he stopped and turned sideways on the grating the light touched his face, and Evelyn started as she recognized Walthew.

He had enjoyed all the comforts and refinements to which she was accustomed, and it was from choice and not necessity that he was doing this rough, hazardous work. There were obviously people who did not attach an undue value to the ease that wealth could buy; this boy, for example, had left the safe, beaten track, and now, when still weak from fever, was taking the consequences without dismay. It looked as if there might be something wrong with her mother's philosophy; but she could think of this better when there was less risk of the steamer's foundering.

A man came along the deckhouse and put his arm round her waist as the ship gave a wild lurch. Evelyn laughed as she recognized her father. For a moment she had thought it was Grahame. Holding her tight, Cliffe moved on a yard or two, and then stopped at the corner of the house, where they could see something of what was going on.

It was lighter now that the rain had stopped, and presently a ray of moonlight traveled across the sea and touched the laboring vessel. Hove down by the pressure of the wind on deckhouse and awning, she had buried her lee bulwarks and lifted her weather side. Sheets of water blew across her, and the sea looked white as snow. It was not running high: the heavy rain had beaten down the swell; but it would soon rise, and unless the vessel could be brought head to wind the combers would sweep her deck.

As the beam of moonlight widened, the figures of the toiling men grew clear. One was clinging to the top of a tall stanchion in a grotesque monkey-like att.i.tude, trying to cut loose the awning, for a knife sparkled in his hand. Another crouched on the deck with folds of the canvas in his arms. Miguel was bent over the wheel. The tenseness of his pose and his hard-set face suggested heavy muscular strain.