A Century Too Soon Part 8

"It will soon be over," said Mr. Holmes in a voice so despairing that it rang in the ears of John Stevens to his dying day. "Crew and pa.s.sengers are nearly all gone, and my turn will come soon."

Even as he spoke, the purser, two men and four women were washed overboard, their drowning screams mingling with the hollow roars of the ocean.

"Take her! take her!" cried Mr. Holmes frantically. "I resign her to you. I am going; I can hold out no longer."

A wave more terrible than any that had preceded it at this moment seemed to bury the s.h.i.+p, which was driving straight toward the unknown sh.o.r.e.

Instinctively John wound one arm about the girl and held to the capstan with the other. It seemed an age, and he was almost on the point of relaxing his hold on the capstan, when they once more rose above the water, and he got a breath of air. He still clung to Blanche in despair, though she lay so limp in his arms that he thought her dead.

It was now dark, for night had fallen upon the awful scene. A flash of lightning illuminated the wreck, Mr. Holmes was gone, and Stevens could not see another soul on the vessel. The wild roar of surf fell on his ears, and a moment later he felt the bottom of the s.h.i.+p grating on the sands. It seemed to glide further and further on the beach, as if the s.h.i.+p were being lifted and driven inland. The tide was at the full, and the wind was blowing a hurricane on sh.o.r.e, so that the wreck was driven far up on the beach, and at low tide it was high and dry.

John Stevens remained by the capstan, as it was highest point, holding Blanche in his arms long after the s.h.i.+p had settled in the sands. The waves leaped and raved angrily below; but not a human voice was heard.

He asked himself if Blanche were dead or living. At last he felt her move and, placing his hand on her heart, was rejoiced to know that it still beat.

"Father--father!" she faintly murmured.

"He is gone," John answered.

"Is this you?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Cling to me."

"I will. We will survive or perish together."

Then she became silent, and the night grew blacker, while the storm howled; but the waves receded with the ebbing tide, and the broken hulk remained fast fixed in the sands. The poor girl s.h.i.+vered all through that night and clung to her preserver. She did not weep at the loss of her father, for the horror of their situation dried the fountains of grief. All night long the warring elements raged about the remaining castaways, who clung with the tenacity of despair to the wreck.

CHAPTER V.

JOHN STEVENS' CHARGE.

The fair wind blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.

Down dropped the breeze, the sails dropped down, 'Twas sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break The silence of the sea.

--COLERIDGE.

Since the art of navigation became known, there have been castaways in romance and reality without number. De Foe's celebrated Robinson Crusoe stands first, but not alone among the s.h.i.+pwrecked mariners of truth and fiction. How many countless thousands have suffered s.h.i.+pwreck and disaster at sea, whose wild narratives have never been recorded, will never be known.

John Stevens was not a reader of romance and poetry, which at his age were in their infancy in Virginia. The hardy pioneers of the New World were kept too busy fighting Indians and building plantations and cities to read romance or history. Consequently he had no similar adventures to compare with his own. John had enough of the st.u.r.dy Puritan in his nature to deeply feel the duty inc.u.mbent on him, and enough of the cavalier to be a gentleman, unselfish and kind.

Throughout the long night he held the half inanimate form of Blanche in his arms. The storm abated and the tide running out left the vessel imbedded in the sands. John watched for the coming morn as a condemned criminal looks for a pardon. He knew no cast nor west in the darkness; but anon the sea and sky in a certain place became brighter and brighter. The clouds rolled away, and he saw the bright morning star fade, as the sable cloak of night was rent to admit the new born day.

Blanche sat up and, gazed over the scene as the flas.h.i.+ng rays of sunlight gleamed over the sea and sh.o.r.e.

"Are we all?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Was no one saved?"

"None but ourselves."

"And the s.h.i.+p?"

"Is a hopeless wreck on the sands," he answered.

As they rose to gaze upon their surroundings, John Stevens thought with regret that if the crew and pa.s.sengers had remained below hatches, they would have been saved; but he and Blanche were all who remained, and he turned his gaze to the wild sh.o.r.es hoping to discover some sign of civilization. There was not a hamlet, house or wigwam to indicate that Christian or savage inhabited the land.

Blanche marked the troubled look on his face and asked:

"Do you know where we are?"

"No."

The sh.o.r.e was wild and rocky, and on their right it was covered with a dense growth of tropical trees. Farther inland rose two towering mountains. The beach directly before them was low and receding. A long, level plain, covered with a dense growth of coa.r.s.e sea-gra.s.s, was between them and the hills, which were covered with palms, maguey and other tropical trees.

John feared that they had been wrecked on the coast of some of the Spanish possessions and would be made captives and perhaps slaves by the half-civilized colonists.

They could not live long on the wreck, and he began to look about the deck for some means of going ash.o.r.e. The pinnace which had been stowed away between decks was an almost complete wreck. It would have been useless had it remained whole, for John and his companion could not have launched it. There was a small boat hanging by the davits, which had sustained no other injury than two holes in its side. He was a fair carpenter, and getting some tools from the carpenter's chest, he mended the boat. After no little trouble, he lowered the boat and, a.s.sisting Blanche into it, pulled to the sh.o.r.e half a mile away.

It was a sh.o.r.e on which no human foot had ever trod. The great black stones which lay piled in heaps along the coast to the northeast until they were almost mountain-high forbade the safe approach of a vessel.

The entire coast was armed with bristling reefs to guard it against the approach of wandering s.h.i.+ps. It was almost miraculous that they had been driven in between the reefs at the only visible opening. A hundred paces in either direction their vessel would have been forced upon the rocks.

"Is this country inhabited?" asked Blanche, when they had landed, and made fast their boat to a great stone.

"I fear not," he answered; "or, if inhabited, it is probably by savages."

"Should that be true, ours will be a sad fate."

"I will not desert you," he answered.

They sat down on the dry white sand to rest and gazed at the wreck, with its head high in the air and its stern low in the water.

"We made a mistake in not bringing some arms to defend ourselves against savages or wild beasts," said John.

"Can we not go back for them?"

"Would you be afraid to remain on the beach while I went?" he asked.

She said she would not, though he noticed her cast nervous glances toward the thickets and forests inland. As he pushed out once more into the shallow waters lying between the beach and wreck, she came down so close to the water's edge that the waves almost touched her toes.

"You won't be long gone?" she called in a low, sweet voice, trembling with dread.

"No."

He reached the wreck and went on board by means of broken shrouds lashed to the gunwale. The sun shone as brightly and the sky was as peaceful as if no storm had ever swept over it. The deck was almost dry, and, the hatches having been fastened, John was agreeably surprised to find but little damage done by the water. He went down to the companion-way and found less water in the hold than he expected. He brought out two muskets, a pair of pistols, a keg of powder, and bullets enough for his arms. The guns and the pistols were all flint-locks, for at this time matchlock and wheel-lock had about gone out of use.