Читать книгу Ivan Greet's Masterpiece - Allen Grant - Страница 22

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They sat that day out, for the most part in the silence of despair. From hour to hour the waves rose higher, and washed over the raft time and again, in ever-increasing force, drenching them through and through to the skin; but the two men still crouched side by side in speechless misery, peering, in vain, with weary eyes for a speck of white sail on that monotonous horizon.

Towards late afternoon, Verstoff began to grow delirious with thirst. The fever increased upon him. He babbled feebly of thousands of francs and exacting managers. His talk was of Karen. Ivan held him in his arms, lest the waves should wash his failing body overboard. And now a still more ghastly terror disturbed Ivan Utovitch’s mind. Suppose Peter were to die, there in his very arms, and he himself were to be picked up alive by some passing ship afterwards! How could he ever face Verstoff’s widow with that tale upon his lips? Would Karen believe he had done his best in that final crisis to save her husband’s life?

That internal torment was worse to him now than all the terrors of the sea, or of hunger and thirst. It almost decided him to jump off as he first intended. But as things now stood, even that resort was impossible: do what he would, he couldn’t desert Verstoff.

By sunset, for the first time, rain began to fall, at first in stray drops, then steadily, heavily. At sea rain means fresh water. With a burst of relief Ivan held out his handkerchief, caught the precious drops in its folds as they fell, and wrung them out eagerly into Verstoff’s mouth. Only after he had done so five or six times running did Ivan venture to pour a little at last upon his own parched tongue. For Karen’s sake, though he died himself, he must do his very best to save her husband.

It rained without intermission for some hours at a stretch, and they were able to quench their thirst as much as they liked before the shower ended. Meanwhile, darkness came on. A fourth night of horrors opened out before them. Verstoff couldn’t hold out much longer; cold and exposure were killing him.

And if he died, Ivan thought, he would feel himself almost a suspected murderer.

About eleven o’clock, as Ivan judged, a faint gleam showed dim upon the water to westward. He shaded his eyes, and looked out through the rain towards the dark horizon. Slowly the faint gleam divided itself up into two vague red lights, and then by degrees drew nearer and nearer. Yes, yes; it drew nearer! It was coming towards them! It was a liner under full steam! No doubt about that. Would she pass close enough to see them? Could they manage in that thick gloom to attract her attention?

Twenty minutes of intense anxiety followed. Ivan saw the great ship shaping her course straight towards them. His heart beat high. Surely, surely she would pass alongside! She would be well within hailing distance. He could wave his handkerchief above his head and signal to the look-out! He could——

And then, all at once, with an awful revulsion of still blacker despair, a new horror burst upon him. She was coming near indeed, but too near! She was bearing down upon them in a straight line. Her great sharp bows, and her gigantic shearwater were ploughing the sea with mad haste to devour them. That knife-like edge—keen, powerful, irresistible—would cut in two their frail raft without ever feeling or knowing it. He held his breath, and looked up. Great heavens, the huge monster was close upon them. There was nothing for it now but to die together. He shut his eyes tight, and clasped Verstoff spasmodically.

Next instant, he was aware, by a sudden bound of the raft, that the wash from the steamer’s bows had caught them on its crest and cast them out of her course; they were tossing in the trough of the wave by the great creature’s broadside.

With one last despairing effort, Ivan staggered to his feet, and waved his handkerchief wildly over his head towards the passing steamer. He shouted with all his voice. He cried aloud through the gloom. He gesticulated and shrieked like a madman.

There was another faint pause. Then a voice spoke out clear from the liner’s forecastle. “Raft on the starboard bow!” it cried aloud, in sharp tones. “Two men on the raft! More survivors from the Atlas!”

It was the steamer’s look-out man. He had seen them! He had seen them!

In a second, a search-light was turned hastily over the waters where they tossed helpless in the trough. The giant ship slackened speed; she slowed; she was at a standstill. A boat!—a boat! Something danced on the waves. They were saved! They were saved! Men were coming to rescue them!

Ten minutes later Ivan and Verstoff lay half dead on the deck of a Cunard liner. Passengers offered them food and drink, while the doctor leaned over them with his flask of brandy.

It was almost too late; Verstoff was seriously ill with cold and exposure. He reached Liverpool just alive, and that was all. Ivan watched by his berth till they got him into port. Then the ship’s doctor took him on to rooms in London, where Karen was hastily summoned by telegram from Berlin to meet him.

At such a moment of suspense Ivan couldn’t bear to see her.

Before a week was out, a pencilled note arrived at his hotel. He tore it open and read it. There were just four lines, with no beginning at all. “My poor husband died, conscious, at five o’clock this morning. He knew every one to the last. He told me of all your kindness. So many—many thanks. It was good of you.—Karen.”

When men have faced deadly peril together, all else is forgotten. Ivan burst into tears as he read that letter. His thoughts went back to the old days when they had roamed side by side as boys in the woods of the Upper Ottawa, and when Karen as yet was nothing to either of them.