Rose of Dutcher's Coolly Part 46

"O G.o.d! can't somebody help them?"

"They're out of reach!" said Mason solemnly. And then the throng was silent.

"They are building a raft!" shouted a man with a gla.s.s, speaking at intervals for the information of all. "One man is tying a rope to planks ... he is helping the other men ... he has his little raft nearly ready ... they are crawling toward him--"

"O see them!" exclaimed Rose. "O the brave men! There! they are gone--the vessel has broken up."

On the wave nothing now lived but a yellow spread of lumber; the gla.s.s revealed no living thing.

Mason turned to Rose with a grave and tender look.

"You have seen human beings engulfed like flies--"

"No! no! There they are!" shouted a hundred voices, as if in answer to Mason's thought.

Thereafter the whole great city seemed to be watching those specks of human life, drifting toward almost certain death upon the breakwater of the south sh.o.r.e. For miles the beach was cl.u.s.tered black with people.

They stood there, it seemed for hours, watching the slow approach of that tiny raft. Again and again the waves swept over it, and each time that indomitable man rose from the flood and was seen to pull his companions aboard.

Other vessels drifted upon the rocks. Other steamers rolled heavily around the long breakwater, but nothing now distracted the gaze of the mult.i.tude from this appalling and amazing struggle against death.

Nothing? No, once and only once did the onlookers s.h.i.+ft their intent gaze, and that was when a vessel pa.s.sed the breakwater and went sailing toward the south through the fleet of anch.o.r.ed, straining, agonized s.h.i.+ps. At first no one paid much attention to this late-comer till Mason lifted his voice.

"By Heaven, the man is _sailing_!"

It was true; steady, swift, undeviating, the vessel headed through the fleet. She did not drift nor wander nor hesitate. She sailed as if the helmsman, with set teeth, were saying,

"By G.o.d! If I must die on the rocks, I'll go to my death the captain of my vessel!"

And so, with wheel in his hand and epic oaths in his mouth, he sailed directly into the long row of spiles, over which the waves ran like h.e.l.l-hounds; where half a score of wrecks lay already churning into fragments in the awful tumult.

The sailing vessel seemed not to waver, nor seek nor dodge--seemed rather to choose the most deadly battle-place of waves and wall.

"G.o.d! but that's magnificent of him!" Mason said to himself.

Rose held her breath, her face white and set with horror.

"O must he die?"

"There is no hope for him. She will strike in a moment--she strikes!--she is gone!"

The vessel entered the grey confusion of the breakers and struck the piles like a battering ram; the waves buried her from sight; then the recoil flung her back; for the first time she swung broadside to the storm. The work of the helmsman was over. She reeled--resisted an instant, then submitted to her fate, crumbled against the pitiless wall like paper and thereafter was lost to sight.

This dramatic and terrible scene had held the attention of the onlookers--once more they searched for the tiny raft. It was nearing the lake wall at another furious point of contact. An innumerable crowd spread like a black robe over the sh.o.r.e waiting to see the tiny float strike.

A hush fell over every voice. Each soul was solemn as if facing the Maker of the world. Out on the point, just where the doomed sailors seemed like to strike, there was a little commotion. A tiny figure was seen perched on one of the spiles. Each wave, as it towered above him, seemed ready to sweep him away, but each time he bowed his head and seemed to sweep through the gray wall. He was a negro and he held a rope in his hands.

As they comprehended his danger the crowd cheered him, but in the thunder of the surf no human voice could avail. The bold negro could not cry out, he could only motion, but the brave man on the raft saw his purpose--he was alone with the s.h.i.+pwrecked ones.

In they came, lifted and hurled by a prodigious swell. They struck the wall just beneath the negro and disappeared beneath the waves.

All seemed over, and some of the spectators fell weeping; others turned away.

Suddenly the indomitable commander of the raft rose, then his companions, and then it was perceived that he had bound them all to the raft.

The negro flung his rope and one man caught at it, but it was swept out of reach on a backward leaping billow. Again they came in, their white, strained, set faces and wild eyes turned to the intrepid rescuer. Again they struck, and this time the negro caught and held one of the sailors, held him while the foam fell away, and the succeeding wave swept him over the spiles to safety. Again the resolute man flung his noose and caught the second sailor, whose rope was cut by the leader, the captain, who was last to be saved.

As the negro came back, dragging his third man over the wall, a mighty cry went up, a strange, faint, mult.i.tudinous cry, and the negro was swallowed up in the mult.i.tude.

Mason turned to Rose and spoke: "Sometimes men seem to be worth while!"

Rose was still clinging to his arm as they walked away. Mason did not speak again for some time.

"We have suffered in vain," he said at last, "and you are cold and stiffened with long standing. Let me put you in a cab and--"

"Oh, no, thank you! The walk will do me good."

"Perhaps you are right. I'll go with you to the car, and then I must go to my desk for six hours of hard work. Put this behind you," he said tenderly. "It does no good to suffer over the inevitable. Forget those men!"

"I can't! I shall never forget them while I live. It was awful!" She shuddered, but when she looked into his face she nearly cried out in astonishment at the light in his eyes.

"It had its grandeur. They went to their death like men. They have taught me a lesson. Hitherto I have drifted--henceforth _I sail_!" He bent to her with a mystical smile.

She drew away in a sort of awe as if she looked unworthily upon a sacred place. He misunderstood her action and said, "Don't be afraid. I have something to say to you, but not here; perhaps I'll write it. When do you go?"

"On Sat.u.r.day."

"I will write you soon. Good bye."

She watched him as he moved away into the crowd, with powerful erect body--the deskman's droop almost gone out of his shoulders. What did he mean?

She was standing waiting for a chance to board a car when Elbert Harvey came pus.h.i.+ng along against the wind, fresh and strong and glowing with color like a girl.

"O, I've been looking for you, Rose," he said. "I was at your house.

They said you were over on the lake front and so--See here! You're all wet and cold. I'm going to get a carriage."

He would not be gainsaid, and she was really glad to escape the crowd in the car. He said: "I'm going to take you home to get warm."

She allowed herself to be driven to the door before she realized what it might be taken to mean, but it was then too late to insist on being driven home, it would do no harm to see Mrs. Harvey for a moment--and then she was so tired, too tired to resist.

Mrs. Harvey met her in the hall, smiling and scolding:

"Why, you reckless girl! Have you been down town? Elbert, where did you get her?"

"I found her on the street waiting for a State street car--s.h.i.+vering, too."

"Why, you're all wet! Come up to my room and change your shoes."

The warm air and the glow of the beautiful rooms seemed to narcotize her, and Rose allowed herself to be led away like a sleepy child. It was delicious to be so attended. Mrs. Harvey took her to her own room, a room as big and comfortable and homely as herself, and there she put Rose down before the grateful fire and rang for her maid.