Читать книгу The Wings of the Morning - Louis Tracy - Страница 6

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When the Sirdar parted amidships, the floor of the saloon heaved up in the center with a mighty crash of rending woodwork and iron. Men and women, too stupefied to sob out a prayer, were pitched headlong into chaos. Iris, torn from the terrified grasp of her maid, fell through a corridor, and would have gone down with the ship had not a sailor, clinging to a companion ladder, caught her as she whirled along the steep slope of the deck.

He did not know what had happened. With the instinct of self-preservation he seized the nearest support when the vessel struck. It was the mere impulse of ready helpfulness that caused him to stretch out his left arm and clasp the girl's waist as she fluttered past. By idle chance they were on the port side, and the ship, after pausing for one awful second, fell over to starboard.

The man was not prepared for this second gyration. Even as the stairway canted he lost his balance; they were both thrown violently through the open hatchway, and swept off into the boiling surf. Under such conditions thought itself was impossible. A series of impressions, a number of fantastic pictures, were received by the benumbed faculties, and afterwards painfully sorted out by the memory. Fear, anguish, amazement—none of these could exist. All he knew was that the lifeless form of a woman—for Iris had happily fainted—must be held until death itself wrenched her from him. Then there came the headlong plunge into the swirling sea, followed by an indefinite period of gasping oblivion. Something that felt like a moving rock rose up beneath his feet. He was driven clear out of the water and seemed to recognize a familiar object rising rigid and bright close at hand. It was the binnacle pillar, screwed to a portion of the deck which came away from the charthouse and was rent from the upper framework by contact with the reef.

He seized this unlooked-for support with his disengaged hand. For one fleet instant he had a confused vision of the destruction of the ship. Both the fore and aft portions were burst asunder by the force of compressed air. Wreckage and human forms were tossing about foolishly. The sea pounded upon the opposing rocks with the noise of ten thousand mighty steam-hammers.

A uniformed figure—he thought it was the captain—stretched out an unavailing arm to clasp the queer raft which supported the sailor and the girl. But a jealous wave rose under the platform with devilish energy and turned it completely over, hurling the man with his inanimate burthen into the depths. He rose, fighting madly for his life. Now surely he was doomed! But again, as if human existence depended on naught more serious than the spinning of a coin, his knees rested on the same few staunch timbers, now the ceiling of the music-room, and he was given a brief respite. His greatest difficulty was to get his breath, so dense was the spray through which he was driven. Even in that terrible moment he kept his senses. The girl, utterly unconscious, showed by the convulsive heaving of her breast that she was choking. With a wild effort he swung her head round to shield her from the flying scud with his own form.

The tiny air-space thus provided gave her some relief, and in that instant the sailor seemed to recognize her. He was not remotely capable of a definite idea. Just as he vaguely realized the identity of the woman in his arms the unsteady support on which he rested toppled over. Again he renewed the unequal contest. A strong resolute man and a typhoon sea wrestled for supremacy.

This time his feet plunged against something gratefully solid. He was dashed forward, still battling with the raging turmoil of water, and a second time he felt the same firm yet smooth surface. His dormant faculties awoke. It was sand. With frenzied desperation, buoyed now by the inspiring hope of safety, he fought his way onwards like a maniac.

Often he fell, three times did the backwash try to drag him to the swirling death behind, but he staggered blindly on, on, until even the tearing gale ceased to be laden with the suffocating foam, and his faltering feet sank in deep soft white sand.

With frenzied desperation, buoyed now by the inspiring hope of safety, he fought his way onward like a maniac.

Then he fell, not to rise again. With a last weak flicker of exhausted strength he drew the girl closely to him, and the two lay, clasped tightly together, heedless now of all things.

How long the man remained prostrate he could only guess subsequently. The Sirdar struck soon after daybreak and the sailor awoke to a hazy consciousness of his surroundings to find a shaft of sunshine flickering through the clouds banked up in the east. The gale was already passing away. Although the wind still whistled with shrill violence it was more blustering than threatening. The sea, too, though running very high, had retreated many yards from the spot where he had finally dropped, and its surface was no longer scourged with venomous spray.

Slowly and painfully he raised himself to a sitting posture, for he was bruised and stiff. With his first movement he became violently ill. He had swallowed much salt water, and it was not until the spasm of sickness had passed that he thought of the girl.

She had slipped from his breast as he rose, and was lying, face downwards, in the sand. The memory of much that had happened surged into his brain with horrifying suddenness.

"She cannot be dead," he hoarsely murmured, feebly trying to lift her. "Surely Providence would not desert her after such an escape. What a weak beggar I must be to give in at the last moment. I am sure she was living when we got ashore. What on earth can I do to revive her?"

Forgetful of his own aching limbs in this newborn anxiety, he sank on one knee and gently pillowed Iris's head and shoulders on the other. Her eyes were closed, her lips and teeth firmly set—a fact to which she undoubtedly owed her life, else she would have been suffocated—and the pallor of her skin seemed to be that terrible bloodless hue which indicates death. The stern lines in the man's face relaxed, and something blurred his vision. He was weak from exhaustion and want of food. For the moment his emotions were easily aroused.

"Oh, it is pitiful," he almost whimpered. "It cannot be!"

With a gesture of despair he drew the sleeve of his thick jersey across his eyes to clear them from the gathering mist. Then he tremblingly endeavored to open the neck of her dress and unclasp her corsets. He had a vague notion that ladies in a fainting condition required such treatment, and he was desperately resolved to bring Iris Deane back to conscious existence if it were possible. His task was rendered difficult by the waistband of her dress. He slipped out a clasp-knife and opened the blade.

Not until then did he discover that the nail of the forefinger on his right hand had been torn out by the quick, probably during his endeavors to grasp the unsteady support which contributed so materially to his escape. It still hung by a shred and hindered the free use of his hand. Without any hesitation he seized the offending nail in his teeth and completed the surgical operation by a rapid jerk.

Bending to resume his task he was startled to find the girl's eyes wide open and surveying him with shadowy alarm. She was quite conscious, absurdly so in a sense, and had noticed his strange action.

"Thank God!" he cried hoarsely. "You are alive."

Her mind as yet could only work in a single groove.

"Why did you do that?" she whispered.

"Do what?"

"Bite your nail off!"

"It was in my way. I wished to cut open your dress at the waist. You were collapsed, almost dead, I thought, and I wanted to unfasten your corsets."

Her color came back with remarkable rapidity. From all the rich variety of the English tongue few words could have been selected of such restorative effect.

She tried to assume a sitting posture, and instinctively her hands traveled to her disarranged costume.

"How ridiculous!" she said, with a little note of annoyance in her voice, which sounded curiously hollow. But her brave spirit could not yet command her enfeebled frame. She was perforce compelled to sink back to the support of his knee and arm.

"Do you think you could lie quiet until I try to find some water?" he gasped anxiously.

She nodded a childlike acquiescence, and her eyelids fell. It was only that her eyes smarted dreadfully from the salt water, but the sailor was sure that this was a premonition of a lapse to unconsciousness.

"Please try not to faint again," he said. "Don't you think I had better loosen these things? You can breathe more easily."

A ghost of a smile flickered on her lips. "No—no," she murmured. "My eyes hurt me—that is all. Is there—any—water?"

He laid her tenderly on the sand and rose to his feet. His first glance was towards the sea. He saw something which made him blink with astonishment. A heavy sea was still running over the barrier reef which enclosed a small lagoon. The contrast between the fierce commotion outside and the comparatively smooth surface of the protected pool was very marked. At low tide the lagoon was almost completely isolated. Indeed, he imagined that only a fierce gale blowing from the northwest would enable the waves to leap the reef, save where a strip of broken water, surging far into the small natural harbor, betrayed the position of the tiny entrance.

Yet at this very point a fine cocoanut palm reared its stately column high in air, and its long tremulous fronds were now swinging wildly before the gale. From where he stood it appeared to be growing in the midst of the sea, for huge breakers completely hid the coral embankment. This sentinel of the land had a weirdly impressive effect. It was the only fixed object in the waste of foam-capped waves. Not a vestige of the Sirdar remained seaward, but the sand was littered with wreckage, and—mournful spectacle!—a considerable number of inanimate human forms lay huddled up amidst the relics of the steamer.

This discovery stirred him to action. He turned to survey the land on which he was stranded with his helpless companion. To his great relief he discovered that it was lofty and tree-clad. He knew that the ship could not have drifted to Borneo, which still lay far to the south. This must be one of the hundreds of islands which stud the China Sea and provide resorts for Haïnan fishermen. Probably it was inhabited, though he thought it strange that none of the islanders had put in an appearance. In any event, water and food, of some sort, were assured.

But before setting out upon his quest two things demanded attention. The girl must be removed from her present position. It would be too horrible to permit her first conscious gaze to rest upon those crumpled objects on the beach. Common humanity demanded, too, that he should hastily examine each of the bodies in case life was not wholly extinct.

So he bent over the girl, noting with sudden wonder that, weak as she was, she had managed to refasten part of her bodice.

"You must permit me to carry you a little further inland," he explained gently.

Without another word he lifted her in his arms, marveling somewhat at the strength which came of necessity, and bore her some little distance, until a sturdy rock, jutting out of the sand, offered shelter from the wind and protection from the sea and its revelations.

"I am so cold, and tired," murmured Iris. "Is there any water? My throat hurts me."

He pressed back the tangled hair from her forehead as he might soothe a child.

"Try to lie still for a very few minutes," he said.

"You have not long to suffer. I will return immediately."

His own throat and palate were on fire owing to the brine, but he first hurried back to the edge of the lagoon. There were fourteen bodies in all, three women and eleven men, four of the latter being Lascars. The women were saloon passengers whom he did not know. One of the men was the surgeon, another the first officer, a third Sir John Tozer. The rest were passengers and members of the crew. They were all dead; some had been peacefully drowned, others were fearfully mangled by the rocks. Two of the Lascars, bearing signs of dreadful injuries, were lying on a cluster of low rocks overhanging the water. The remainder rested on the sand.

The sailor exhibited no visible emotion whilst he conducted his sad scrutiny. When he was assured that this silent company was beyond mortal help he at once strode away towards the nearest belt of trees. He could not tell how long the search for water might be protracted, and there was pressing need for it.

When he reached the first clump of brushwood he uttered a delighted exclamation. There, growing in prodigal luxuriance, was the beneficent pitcher-plant, whose large curled-up leaf, shaped like a teacup, not only holds a lasting quantity of rain-water, but mixes therewith its own palatable and natural juices.

With his knife he severed two of the leaves, swearing emphatically the while on account of his damaged finger, and hastened to Iris with the precious beverage. She heard him and managed to raise herself on an elbow.

The poor girl's eyes glistened at the prospect of relief. Without a word of question or surprise she swallowed the contents of both leaves.

Then she found utterance. "How odd it tastes! What is it?" she inquired.

But the eagerness with which she quenched her thirst renewed his own momentarily forgotten torture. His tongue seemed to swell. He was absolutely unable to reply.

The water revived Iris like a magic draught. Her quick intuition told her what had happened.

"You have had none yourself," she cried. "Go at once and get some. And please bring me some more."

He required no second bidding. After hastily gulping down the contents of several leaves he returned with a further supply. Iris was now sitting up. The sun had burst royally through the clouds, and her chilled limbs were gaining some degree of warmth and elasticity.

"What is it?" she repeated after another delicious draught.

"The leaf of the pitcher-plant. Nature is not always cruel. In an unusually generous mood she devised this method of storing water."

Miss Deane reached out her hand for more. Her troubled brain refused to wonder at such a reply from an ordinary seaman. The sailor deliberately spilled the contents of a remaining leaf on the sand.

"No, madam," he said, with an odd mixture of deference and firmness. "No more at present. I must first procure you some food."

She looked up at him in momentary silence.

"The ship is lost?" she said after a pause.

"Yes, madam."

"Are we the only people saved?"

"I fear so."

"Is this a desert island?"

"I think not, madam. It may, by chance, be temporarily uninhabited, but fishermen from China come to all these places to collect tortoise-shell and bêche-de-mer. I have seen no other living beings except ourselves; nevertheless, the islanders may live on the south side."

Another pause. Amidst the thrilling sensations of the moment Iris found herself idly speculating as to the meaning of bêche-de-mer, and why this common sailor pronounced French so well. Her thoughts reverted to the steamer.

"It surely cannot be possible that the Sirdar has gone to pieces—a magnificent vessel of her size and strength?"

He answered quietly—"It is too true, madam. I suppose you hardly knew she struck, it happened so suddenly. Afterwards, fortunately for you, you were unconscious."

"How do you know?" she inquired quickly. A flood of vivid recollection was pouring in upon her.

"I—er—well, I happened to be near you, madam, when the ship broke up, and we—er—drifted ashore together."

She rose and faced him. "I remember now," she cried hysterically. "You caught me as I was thrown into the corridor. We fell into the sea when the vessel turned over. You have saved my life. Were it not for you I could not possibly have escaped."

She gazed at him more earnestly, seeing that he blushed beneath the crust of salt and sand that covered his face. "Why," she went on with growing excitement, "you are the steward I noticed in the saloon yesterday. How is it that you are now dressed as a sailor?"

He answered readily enough. "There was an accident on board during the gale, madam. I am a fair sailor but a poor steward, so I applied for a transfer. As the crew were short-handed my offer was accepted."

Iris was now looking at him intently.

"You saved my life," she repeated slowly. It seemed that this obvious fact needed to be indelibly established in her mind. Indeed the girl was overwrought by all that she had gone through. Only by degrees were her thoughts marshaling themselves with lucid coherence. As yet, she recalled so many dramatic incidents that they failed to assume due proportion.

But quickly there came memories of Captain Ross, of Sir John and Lady Tozer, of the doctor, her maid, the hundred and one individualities of her pleasant life aboard ship. Could it be that they were all dead? The notion was monstrous. But its ghastly significance was instantly borne in upon her by the plight in which she stood. Her lips quivered; the tears trembled in her eyes.

"Is it really true that all the ship's company except ourselves are lost?" she brokenly demanded.

The sailor's gravely earnest glance fell before hers. "Unhappily there is no room for doubt," he said.

"Are you quite, quite sure?"

"I am sure—of some." Involuntarily he turned seawards.

She understood him. She sank to her knees, covered her face with her hands, and broke into a passion of weeping. With a look of infinite pity he stooped and would have touched her shoulder, but he suddenly restrained the impulse. Something had hardened this man. It cost him an effort to be callous, but he succeeded. His mouth tightened and his expression lost its tenderness.

"Come, come, my dear lady," he exclaimed, and there was a tinge of studied roughness in his voice, "you must calm yourself. It is the fortune of shipwreck as well as of war, you know. We are alive and must look after ourselves. Those who have gone are beyond our help."

"But not beyond our sympathy," wailed Iris, uncovering her swimming eyes for a fleeting look at him. Even in the utter desolation of the moment she could not help marveling that this queer-mannered sailor, who spoke like a gentleman and tried to pose as her inferior, who had rescued her with the utmost gallantry, who carried his Quixotic zeal to the point of first supplying her needs when he was in far worse case himself, should be so utterly indifferent to the fate of others.

He waited silently until her sobs ceased.

"Now, madam," he said, "it is essential that we should obtain some food. I don't wish to leave you alone until we are better acquainted with our whereabouts. Can you walk a little way towards the trees, or shall I assist you?"

Iris immediately stood up. She pressed her hair back defiantly.

"Certainly I can walk," she answered. "What do you propose to do?"

"Well, madam—"

"What is your name?" she interrupted imperiously.

"Jenks, madam. Robert Jenks."

"Thank you. Now, listen, Mr. Robert Jenks. My name is Miss Iris Deane. On board ship I was a passenger and you were a steward—that is, until you became a seaman. Here we are equals in misfortune, but in all else you are the leader—I am quite useless. I can only help in matters by your direction, so I do not wish to be addressed as 'madam' in every breath. Do you understand me?"

Conscious that her large blue eyes were fixed indignantly upon him Mr. Robert Jenks repressed a smile. She was still hysterical and must be humored in her vagaries. What an odd moment for a discussion on etiquette!

"As you wish, Miss Deane," he said. "The fact remains that I have many things to attend to, and we really must eat something."

"What can we eat?"

"Let us find out," he replied, scanning the nearest trees with keen scrutiny.

They plodded together through the sand in silence. Physically, they were a superb couple, but in raiment they resembled scarecrows. Both, of course, were bare-headed. The sailor's jersey and trousers were old and torn, and the sea-water still soughed loudly in his heavy boots with each step.

But Iris was in a deplorable plight. Her hair fell in a great wave of golden brown strands over her neck and shoulders. Every hairpin had vanished, but with a few dexterous twists she coiled the flying tresses into a loose knot. Her beautiful muslin dress was rent and draggled. It was drying rapidly under the ever-increasing power of the sun, and she surreptitiously endeavored to complete the fastening of the open portion about her neck. Other details must be left until a more favorable opportunity.

She recalled the strange sight that first met her eyes when she recovered consciousness.

"You hurt your finger," she said abruptly. "Let me see it."

They had reached the shelter of the trees, pleasantly grateful now, so powerful are tropical sunbeams at even an early hour.

He held out his right hand without looking at her. Indeed, his eyes had been studiously averted during the past few minutes. Her womanly feelings were aroused by the condition of the ragged wound.

"Oh, you poor fellow," she said. "How awful it must be! How did it happen? Let me tie it up."

"It is not so bad now," he said. "It has been well soaked in salt water, you know. I think the nail was torn off when we—when a piece of wreckage miraculously turned up beneath us."

Iris shredded a strip from her dress. She bound the finger with deft tenderness.

"Thank you," he said simply. Then he gave a glad shout. "By Jove! Miss Deane, we are in luck's way. There is a fine plantain tree."

The pangs of hunger could not be resisted. Although the fruit was hardly ripe they tore at the great bunches and ate ravenously. Iris made no pretence in the matter, and the sailor was in worse plight, for he had been on duty continuously since four o'clock the previous afternoon.

At last their appetite was somewhat appeased, though plantains might not appeal to a gourmand as the solitary joint.

"Now," decided Jenks, "you must rest here a little while, Miss Deane. I am going back to the beach. You need not be afraid. There are no animals to harm you, and I will not be far away."

"What are you going to do on the beach?" she demanded.

"To rescue stores, for the most part."

"May I not come with you—I can be of some little service, surely?"

He answered slowly: "Please oblige me by remaining here at present. In less than an hour I will return, and then, perhaps, you will find plenty to do."

She read his meaning intuitively and shivered. "I could not do that," she murmured. "I would faint. Whilst you are away I will pray for them—my unfortunate friends."

As he passed from her side he heard her sobbing quietly.

When he reached the lagoon he halted suddenly. Something startled him. He was quite certain that he had counted fourteen corpses. Now there were only twelve. The two Lascars' bodies, which rested on the small group of rocks on the verge of the lagoon, had vanished.

Where had they gone to?