West Wind Drift Part 13

"Completely," he replied.

Later, while Mrs. Spofford was peering through the gla.s.ses, she drew him aside.

"Tell me about the water in the hold," she said in a low tone. "Is it serious?"

He looked grave. "Very. If you will take a peep over the side of the ship, you'll see how low down she is in the water."

"My aunt doesn't know the ship is leaking," she went on, hurriedly. "I want to keep it from her as long as possible." He nodded his head.

"Mr. Mott figures we'll stay afloat for ten or twelve hours,--maybe longer. I will see to it that you and Mrs. Spofford get into one of the boats in case we--well, just in case, you know. We will be given ample warning, Miss Clinton. Things don't look as hopeless as they did last night." He pointed toward the land. "It looks like heaven, doesn't it?"

Her face clouded. "But only a very few of us may--" she stopped, shuddering.

"You poor little girl!" he cried brokenly. He steadied himself and went on: "It wouldn't surprise me in the least if every blessed one of us got safely ash.o.r.e."

"You do not believe that, Mr. Percival. I can tell by the look in your eyes. I want you to promise me one thing. If we have to take to the boats, you will come with us--"

He drew himself up. "My dear Miss Clinton, there is quite a difference between being a stowaway on an ocean liner and being one in a lifeboat.

I have no standing on this ship. I have no right in one of her boats. I am the very last person on board to be considered."

She looked searchingly into his eyes, her own wide with comprehension.

"You mean you will make no effort to leave the ship until every one else is--"

He checked her with a gesture of his hand. "I may be one of the first to leave. But I'll not rob any one else of his place in a boat or his s.p.a.ce on one of those rafts. I'll swim for it."

Slowly the land crept down upon the Doraine. The illusion was startling.

The ship seemed to be lying absolutely motionless; it was the land that approached instead of the other way round. A thin white beach suddenly emerged from the green background to the left, to the right an ugly ma.s.s of rocks took shape, stretching as far as the eye could reach. Farther inland rose high, tree covered hills, green as emeralds in the blazing sunlight. On a sea of turquoise lolled the listless Doraine.

Soundings were taken from time to time. Even the bottom of the ocean was coming up to meet the Doraine. Its depth appreciably lessened with each successive measurement. From fifty fathoms it had decreased to ten since the first line was dropped.

At four o'clock, Captain Trigger ordered a boat lowered and manned by a picked crew in charge of the Second Engineer. The Doraine was about five miles off sh.o.r.e at the time, and was drifting with a noticeably increased speed directly toward the rock-bound coast. He had hoped she would go aground in the shallow waters off the sandy beach, but there was now no chance that such a piece of good fortune was in store for her. She was going straight for the huge black rocks.

The boat's crew rowed in for observations. Even before they returned to report, the anxious officers on board the vessel had made out a narrow fissure in the rocky coast line. They a.s.sumed that it was the mouth of a small river. The Second Engineer brought back the astonishing information that this opening in the coast was the gateway to a channel that in his judgment split the island into two distinct sections. That it was not the mouth of a river was made clear by the presence of a current so strong that his men had to exert themselves to the utmost to prevent the boat being literally sucked into the channel by the powerful tide, which apparently was at its full. This opening,--the water rushed into it so swiftly that he was satisfied it developed into a gorge farther back from the coast,--was approximately two hundred yards wide, flanked on either side by low lying, formidable bastions of rock. The water was not more than fifty feet deep off the entrance to the channel.

Gradually the prow of the Doraine swung around and pointed straight for the cleft in the sh.o.r.e. The ship, two miles out, had responded to the insidious pressure of the current and was being drawn toward the rocks,--at first so slowly that there was scarcely a ripple off her bows; then, as she lumbered onward, she began to turn over the water as a ploughshare turns over the land.

At precisely six o'clock she slid between the rocky portals and entered a ca.n.a.l so straight and true that it might have been drilled and blasted out of the earth under the direction of the most skilful engineers in the world.

Soundings were hastily taken. Discovering that the water was not deep enough even at high tide to submerge the vessel when the inevitable came to pa.s.s and she sank to the bottom, Captain Trigger renewed his efforts to release the anchor chains, which had been caught and jammed in the wreckage. He realized the vital necessity for checking the Doraine in her flight before she accomplished the miracle of pa.s.sing unhindered through the channel and out into the open sea beyond. The swiftness of the current indicated plainly enough that this natural ca.n.a.l was of no great length.

The ship slid on between the tree lined banks. The trees were of the temperate zone, with spreading limbs, thick foliage and hardy trunks.

There were no palms visible, but in the rarely occurring open s.p.a.ces a large shrub abounded. This was instantly recognized by Percival, who proclaimed it to be the algaroba, a plant commonly found on the Gran Chaco in Argentina. While the woodland was thick there was nothing about it to suggest the tropical jungle with its impenetrable fastnesses.

The keel of the half-sunken Doraine was sc.r.a.ping ominously on the bed of the channel. She shivered and swerved from frequent contact with submerged rocks, but held her course with uncanny steadiness, while every soul on board gazed with stark, despairing eyes at the land which mocked them as they pa.s.sed. Far on ahead loomed the lofty hills, and beyond them lay--What? The ocean?

Gradually the pa.s.sage widened. Its depth also increased. The ship no longer sc.r.a.ped the bottom, she no longer caromed off the sunken rocks.

On the other hand, water poured into her interior with increasing force and volume, indicating a disastrous rent forward. She was sloshing along toward the centre of a basin which appeared to be half a mile wide and not more than a mile long. Directly ahead of her the hills came down to meet the water. A dark narrow cut, with towering sides, indicated an outlet for the tiny, inland sea. This gorge, toward which the Doraine was being resistlessly drawn, appeared to be but little wider than the ship itself.

Almost in the shadow of the hills, and within a dozen ship-lengths of the sinister opening, the worn, exhausted, beaten Doraine came to rest at the end of her final voyage. She shivered and groaned under the jarring impact, forged onward half her length, heeled over slightly--and died! She was anch.o.r.ed for ever in the tiny landlocked sea, proud leviathan whose days had been spent in the boundless reaches of the open deep.

And here for the centuries to come would lie the proud Doraine, guided to her journey's end by the pilot Chance, moored for all time in the strangest haven ever put into by man.

Behind the stranded vessel stretched centuries incalculable, and in all these centuries no man had entered here. Screened from the rest of the world, untended by chortling tugs, unheralded by raucous sirens, welcomed only by primeval solitude, the Doraine had come to rest.

She settled down on her bed of rocks to sleep for evermore, a mottled monster whose only covering was the night; indifferent to storm and calm, to time and tide, to darkness and light, she sat serene in her little sea. Her lofty walls towered high above the waves that broke tremblingly against them, as if afraid of this strange object from another world that could rest upon the bottom of the ocean and yet be so far above them.

Reported "Lost with all on board!"

CHAPTER VIII.

Captain Trigger and a dozen men stood on the boat deck with guns and revolvers, facing several hundred sullen, determined men and women from the steerage. Night had not yet fallen; the shadow of the hills, however, was reaching half way across the oval pool; gloom impenetrable had settled on the wooded sh.o.r.es.

With the striking of the Doraine, nearly every one on board was hurled to the decks. As she heeled over five or six degrees in settling herself among the rocks, a panic ensued among the ignorant people of the steerage. They scrambled to their feet and made a rush for the boats, shouting and screaming in their terror. Other pa.s.sengers were trampled under foot and sailors standing by the davits were hurled aside.

Captain Trigger, antic.i.p.ating just such a stampede, rushed up with members of the gun crew. The gaunt, broken old master of the Doraine drove the horde back from the boats, but as he stood there haranguing them in good maritime English he could see plainly enough that they were not to be so easily subdued. The first panic was over, but they were crazed by the fear that had gripped them for days; they believed that the ship was soon to sink beneath their feet; safety lay not more than a hundred yards away,--and it was being denied them by this heartless, unfeeling despot.

They were mainly low-caste Portuguese bound for Rio and Bahia, and they had obeyed him through all those tortuous days out on the deep where he was the shepherd and they the flock. But now,--now they could well afford to turn upon and rend him, for he had brought them safe to land and they no longer owed him anything!

"My G.o.d, I don't want to shoot any of them," groaned the Captain, steadying himself against the rail. "But they've got guns, and they're crazy. I--"

Some one touched his arm, and a firm, decisive voice spoke in his ear.

"I'm used to handling gangs like this, Captain Trigger. They don't understand you, but they'll d.a.m.n soon understand me, if you'll turn the job over to me. I'm not trying to be officious, sir, and I'm not even hinting that you can't bring 'em to their senses. I know how to handle 'em and you don't, that's all. They're not sailors, you see. And it isn't mutiny. They need a boss, sir,--that's what they need. And they need him d.a.m.ned quick, so if you don't mind saying the word,--they're ready to make a rush, and if--"

"Go ahead, Percival,--if you can hold them--"

"Say no more!" shouted Percival, and stepped resolutely forward. His hands were bare,--swollen, red and ugly; his eyes were as cold as steel, his voice as sharp as a keen-edged sword. He spoke in Spanish to the wavering, threatening horde.

"You d.a.m.ned, sneaking, low-lived cowards! What sort of swine are you?

Have you no thought for the women you've trampled upon and beaten out of your path,--your own women, as well as the others,--think of them and ask yourselves if you are men. I'm in command of this ship now, and, by G.o.d, I'm going to let you get into those boats and start for sh.o.r.e.

Don't cheer! You don't know what's coming to you. I'm going to turn that cannon on you up there and blow every one of you to h.e.l.l and gone before you get fifty feet from the side of this ship. You don't believe that, eh? Well, that's exactly what I'm going to do. Lieutenant Platt!" He called over his shoulder in English to the young commander of the gun's crew. "Get some of your men up there and train that gun so as to blow these boats to smithereens. Quick!" In a half-whisper to the Captain: "It's all right. I know what I'm talking about." Then to the crowd: "We don't want you on board this ship a minute longer than we can help.

We've got no room for dogs here among decent white men and women. Do you understand that? We don't want to have anything more to do with you, either here or on sh.o.r.e. I'm going to wipe you out, every d.a.m.ned one of you,--men women and children. You're not fit to live. You're going to climb into those boats now and get off this ship. You'll never realize how safe you are here till you get down there in the water and hear that gun go off. Come on! Get a move! We're through with you, now and for ever. n.o.body's going to stop you. I'm even going to have the boats lowered for you, so as not to delay matters." He shouted after Lieutenant Platt: "Be lively, please. You've got your orders. We'll make short work of this pack of wolves." To Captain Trigger, authoritatively: "Withdraw your men, sir. I am going to let them leave the ship. At once, sir! Do you mean to disobey me, sir?" He gave the captain a sly wink.

Then as the bewildered master withdrew with his armed men, he turned once more to the mob. "Come on! Step lively, now! No rushing! Take your turn. Every blasted one of you, I mean. What the h.e.l.l are you hanging back for,--you? You were so darned eager to go a little while ago, what's the matter with you now? No one's trying to stop you. Here are the boats. Put up your guns and knives, and pile in. You're absolutely free to go, you swine. We'll be d.a.m.ned good and rid of you, and that's all we're asking. It's a pity to waste powder and cannon-b.a.l.l.s on you, when we may have use for all we've got later on, killing the lions and tigers and anacondas up there in the woods, but I'm going to do it."

He stepped back. Not a man or woman moved. They stood transfixed, packed in a huddled ma.s.s along the deck. Then a woman cried out for mercy. The cry was taken up by other women. Percival halted and faced them once more.

"Get into those boats!" he roared savagely. "It won't do you a bit of good to whine and pray and squeal. I'm through with you. You've got to--Well?"

Several of the men edged forward, some of them trying to smile.

"Would you kill us when we are only trying to save our lives?" called out one of them, finding his courage and voice.