Geoffrey Hamstead Part 22

Geoffrey had to roar to make himself heard above the gale and noise of waters.

"Get your buckets!" he said; and Jack pa.s.sed his order forward by a messenger, who crawled along by the main-boom carefully, lest he should go overboard in the pitching.

"Why, the pumps were gaining on the leak a while ago!" Jack said to Geoffrey. "Did you examine the well?"

"There is no well left that I could see. It's all a lake on the cabin floor. The leak gained on the pumps an inch in half an hour! I waited and watched to make sure, and to quiet the women."

"Then it is only a question of time," said Jack. "The buckets and pumps won't keep her afloat long. She is working the caulking out of her seams, and that will get worse every moment."

There were no loiterers on board after that. They all "turned to" and worked like machines. Even the steward and cook were on deck to take their trick at the pumps. Five men in soaking trousers and s.h.i.+rts worked five buckets in the cabin, heaving the water out of the companion-way.

Of these five, some dropped out from time to time exhausted, but the others relieved them, and so kept the five buckets going as fast as they could be worked. Some fell deadly sick with the heat, hard work, and terrible pitching and driving motion of the boat, but n.o.body said a word. If a man fell sick, he had something else to think of than his comfort, and he staggered around as well as he could. From the companion-way to the well, and from the well to the companion-way, for two hours more they kept up the incessant toil. At first some had attempted to be pleasant by saying it was easy to get water enough for the whisky, and by making other light remarks. But now it was changed.

They said nothing on the exhausting and dreary round, but worked with their teeth clinched--while the sweat poured off them as if they, too, had started every seam and were leaking out their very lives.

Still the pitiless great ma.s.s of a steamer in front of the yacht plunged and yawed and dragged them without mercy through the black waters, where a huge surge could now be occasionally discerned sweeping its foaming crest past the little yacht, which was gradually succ.u.mbing to the wild forces about it.

Margaret was back again in the cabin now. She had wedged herself in, with her back against the bunks, and one foot up against the table as a prop to keep her in position. In one hand she held a bottle of brandy and in the other a gla.s.s. And when a man fell out sick and exhausted she attended to him. There was no water asked for. They took the brandy "neat." She had succeeded in quieting the other women, and as they could not hear the bailing in the after-cabin they were in happy ignorance of the worst. Whatever fears she had had when the knowledge of danger first came to her, she showed no sign of them now--but only a compa.s.sion for the exhausted workers that heartened them up and did them good.

A third hour had nearly expired since they began to use the buckets, and Margaret for a long time had been watching the water, in which the bailers worked, gradually creeping up over their feet as they spent themselves on a dreary round, to which the toil of Sisyphus was satisfactory. The water was rising steadily in spite of their best efforts to keep the boat afloat. Margaret had quietly made up her mind that they would never see the land again. There did not seem to be any chance left, and she was going, as men say, to "die game." Her courage and cheering words inspired the others to endless exertions. She was like a big sister to them all. At times she was hilarious and almost boisterous, and when she waved the bottle in the air and declared that there was no Scott Act on board, her conduct can not be defended.

Maurice Rankin tried to say he wished they could get a Scott Act on the water, but the remark seemed to lack intrinsic energy, and he failed from exhaustion to utter it.

Another half-hour pa.s.sed, and while the men trudged through the ever-deepening water Margaret experienced new thoughts whenever she gazed at Geoffrey, who had worked almost incessantly. She looked at the knotted cords on his arms and on his forehead, at the long tenacious jaw set as she had seen it in the hurdle race, and she knew from the swelling nostril and glittering eye that the idea of defeat in this battle with the waters was one which he spurned from him. His clothes were dripping with water. The neck-b.u.t.ton of his s.h.i.+rt had carried away, his trousers were rolled up at the bottom, and his face perspired freely with the extraordinary strain, and yet in spite of his appearance she felt as if she had never cared for him so much as when she now saw him.

On through the night she sat there doing her woman's part beside those who fought with the water for their lives. She saw the treacherous enemy gaining on them in spite of all their efforts, and in her heart felt fully convinced that she could not have more than two hours to live.

The hot steam from men working frantically filled the cabin, the weaker ones grew ill before her, and she looked after them without blenching.

Hers was no place for a toy woman. She was there to help all those about to die; and to do this rightly, to force back her own nausea, and face anxiety and death with a smile.

As for Geoffrey, life seemed sweet to him that night. For him, it was Margaret or--nothing. To him, this facing of death did just one thing.

It raised the tiger in him. He had what Shakespeare and prize-fighters call "gall," that indomitable courage which women wors.h.i.+p hereditarily, although better kinds of courage may exist.

Another long half-hour pa.s.sed, and then Maurice fell over his bucket, keel-up. He had fainted from exhaustion, and was dosed by Margaret in the usual way, and after this he was set on his pins and sent on deck for the lighter work at the pumps. After that, the paid hands, having in some way purloined too much whisky, mutinied, and said they would be blanketty-blanketted if they would sling another bucket.

The others went on as steadily as before, while the crew went forward to wait sulkily for the end.

Jack and Charley then consulted as to what was best to be done. To hold on in this way meant going to the bottom, without a shadow of doubt.

They had tried to signal to the steamer, to get her to slow up and take all hands on board. But the watchers at the stern of the steamer had been taken off to work at the steamer's pumps; for, as was afterward found, she also was leaking badly and in a dangerous condition.

Ought they to cut the towline, throw out the inside ballast, and cut away the mast to ease the straining at the seams? The wooden hull, minus the inside ballast, might float in spite of the lead on the keel, which was not very heavy, and in this way they might drift about until picked up the next day. But the ballast was covered with water. They could not get it out in time to save her. Yet the seas seemed somewhat lighter than they had been. Would not the boat leak less while proceeding in an ordinary way, instead of being dragged from wave to wave? No doubt it would, but was it safe to let the steamer leave them? Ought they to cut the towline, get up a bit of a sail, and endeavor to make the north sh.o.r.e of the lake?

While duly weighing these things, Jack was making a rough calculation in his head, as he took a look at the clock. Then he walked forward, took a halyard in his hands, and embracing the plunging mast with his legs, he swarmed up about twenty feet from the deck. Then, after a long look, he suddenly slid down again, and running aft he called to the others, while he pointed over the bows.

"Toronto Light, ahoy!"

"Holy sailor!" cried Charley in delight. "Are you sure of it?"

"Betcherlife!" said Jack. "Can't fool me on Toronto Light. Go and see for yourself."

Charley climbed up and took a look. Then he went down into the forecastle and told the men they would get no pay for the trip if they did not help to bail the boat.

Seeing that not only life but good pay awaited them, they turned to again and helped to keep the s.h.i.+p afloat.

In a few minutes more Jack called to Margaret to come on deck. When she had ascended, she sat on the dripping cabin-top and watched a changing scene, impossible to forget. Soon after she appeared, there came a flicker in the air, as short as the pulling of a trigger, and all at once she perceived that she began dimly to see the waves and the pitching boat. It was like a revelation, like an experience of Dante's Virgil, to see at last some of that h.e.l.l of waters in which they had struggled so long for existence.

As the first beginning of weird light, coming apparently from nowhere, began to spread over the weary waste of heaving, tumbling, merciless waters and to dilute the ink of the night, as if with only a memory of day, a momentary chill went through Margaret, as she began to realize a small part of what they had come through. But as the ragged sky in the east paled faintly, rather than warmed, with an attempt at cheerfulness, like the tired smile of a dying man, it sufficed, although so deficient in warmth, to cheer her heart. The calm certainty of an almost immediate death that had settled like a pall upon her was dispelled by rays of hope that seemed to be identical with the invading rays of light. "Hope comes from the east," she thought, as a ray from that quarter made the atmosphere take another jump toward day, and as she fell into a tired reverie she remembered, with a heart forced toward thanksgiving, those other early glad tidings from the East. Worn out, she yielded to early emotions, and thanked G.o.d for her deliverance. She arose and went carefully along the deck, holding to the wet boom, until she reached the mast, where she stopped and gazed at the black ma.s.s of the great steamer still plunging and yawing and swinging through the waters, with its lights looking yellow in the pale glimmer of dawn. After viewing the disorder on decks she could form an idea of the work the men had had during the darkness of the night.

But, oh, what a broken-nosed nightmare of a yacht it was, in the dreary morning light, with all the dripping black-looking heap of wreckage piled over the bows, the mast pitching back toward the stern with a tangled ma.s.s of everything imaginable wound in a huge plait down the lifts. In this draggle-tailed thing, with a boom lying on deck and hanging over the counter and its canvas trailing in the water, Margaret could not recognize the peerless swan that a short time ago poised itself upon its pinions and swept so majestically out of Toronto Bay.

The water, at every mile traversed, now grew calmer as the gale came partly off the land. Soon the pitching ended altogether. The opened seams ceased to smile so invitingly to the death that lurks under every boat's keel. The pumps and buckets had begun to gain upon the water in the cabin, and by the time they had swept round the lighthouse and reached the wharf the flooring had been replaced, while the pumps were still clanging at intervals.

When they made fast to the dock a drawn and haggard group of men--a drooping, speechless, and even ragged group of men--allowed themselves to sleep. It did not matter where or how they slept. They just dropped anywhere; and for five hours Nature had all she could do to restore these men to a semblance of themselves.

[Note.--If Captain Estes, of the Mail Line Steamer Abyssinian, should ever read this chapter, he will know a part of what took place at the other end of the hawser on the night of September 5, 1872.]

CHAPTER XVI.

What slender youth, bedewed with liquid odors, Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave, Pyrrha? For whom bindest thou In wreaths thy golden hair, Plain in its neatness? Oh, how oft shall he On faith, and changed G.o.ds, complain, To whom thou untried seemest fair?

HORACE, _Lib. I, Ode 5._

A fine spring afternoon. A dark-eyed, well-dressed young lady with an attractive figure descends from a street car near the Don Bridge. She crosses the bridge leisurely and proceeds eastward along the Kingston Road toward Scarborough. Whatever her destination may be, the time at which she arrives is evidently of no consequence. She does "belong" down Kingston Roadway. The street car dropped her there, and one may come a long way for ten cents on street cars. From the uninterested way in which she views the semi-rural surroundings one can see that she is carelessly unfamiliar with the region.

A fine horse, with his glossy coat and harness s.h.i.+ning in the sun, comes along behind her at a rate that would not be justified in a crowded thoroughfare. Behind the horse a stylish dog-cart bowls along with its plate-gla.s.s lamps also s.h.i.+ning in the sun. Between this spot and the city of Kingston there is no man on the road handsomer than he who drives the dog-cart. The lady looks pleased as she hears the trap coming along; a flush rises to her cheeks and makes her eyes still brighter.

When the horse trots over the sod and stops beside the sidewalk her surprise is so small that she does not even scream. On the contrary, she proceeds, without speaking, to climb into the vehicle with an expression on her face in which alarm has no place.

In some a.n.a.logy with that mysterious law which rules that an elephant shall not climb a tree, symmetrical people in fas.h.i.+onable dresses, whose lines tend somewhat toward convexity, do not climb into a high dog-cart with that ease which may compensate others for being long and lanky. A middle-aged elder of the Established Kirk stands on his doorstep directly opposite and looks pious. He says this is a meeting not of chance but of design, and reproof is shown upon his face. The lady wears Parisian boots, and the general expression of the middle-aged elder is severe except where the eyes suggest weakness unlooked for in a face of such high moral pitch. Once in, the young lady settles herself comfortably and wraps about her dress the embroidered dust-linen as if she were well accustomed to the situation. They drive off, and the middle-aged elder shakes his head after them and says with renewed personal conviction that the world is not what it ought to be.

The road is soft and smooth, and the horse saws his head up and down as he steps out at a pace that makes him feel pleasantly disposed toward country roads and inclined to travel faster than a gentlemanly, civilized, by-law-regulated horse should desire. The young lady lays aside her parasol, which is remarkable--a gay toy--and takes up a black silk umbrella which is not remarkable but serviceable. The good-looking man pulls out of his pocket a large brown veil rolled up in paper, and she of the Parisian boots ties it quickly around a little skull-cap sort of bonnet of black beads and lace. The veil is thrown around in such a way that the folds of it can be pulled down over her face in an instant.

Here, also, the lady shows a deftness in a.s.suming this head-gear that argues prior practice, and when this is done she lays her hand on the handsome man's arm and looks up at him radiantly, while the silk umbrella shuts out a couple of farmer's wives.

"Doesn't it make me look hideous?" she says, referring to the veil.

"Yes, my dear, worse than ever," says the handsome man. His face is a mixture of careless good-nature and quiet devil-may-care recklessness.

Perhaps there are women who never make men look spiritual. It is to be hoped that the umbrella hides his disregard for appearances on the public street and that the farmer's wives in the neighborhood are not too observant.

"For goodness' sake, Geoffrey, _do_ behave better on the highway! What will those women think?"

"Their curiosity will gnaw them cruelly, I fear. They are looking after us yet. I can see them."

"Well, it is not fair to me to go on like that; besides I am terrified all the time lest the people may find out who it is that wears the brown veil about the country. I have heard four or five girls speaking about it. It's the talk of the town."

"No fear about that, Nina. I don't think your name was ever mentioned in connection with the veil, but, in case it might be, I drove out Helen Broadwood and Janet Carruthers lately, and, in view of the dust flying, I persuaded them to wear the brown veil. We drove all over the city and down King Street several times. So now the brown veil is divided between the two of them. It was not much trouble to devote a little time to this object, and besides, you know, the old people give excellent dinners."

"That was nice of you to put it off on those girls and to take so much trouble for me, but it can't last, Geoffrey, dear. We are sure to be recognized some day. Helen and Janet will both say they were not on the Indian road near the Humber the day we met the Joyces's wagonette, and those girls are so stupid that people will believe them; and that bad quarter of an hour when Millicent Hart rode behind us purposely to find out who I was. That was a mean thing of her to do, but I paid her off. I met her at Judge Lovell's the other night. It was a terrible party, but I enjoyed it. I knew she expected to bring things to a climax with Mr.

Grover; she's _folle_ about that man. I monopolized him the whole evening--in fact he came within an ace of proposing. Gracious, how that girl hates me now!"