Louis Tracy

“ Every tide deepened the sap. They were imprisoned in one of nature’s own quarries, where work was relentless and unceasing.
Once again idle chance had decided that Maseden should save Nina and Sturgess Madge. Not that it mattered a jot. If ever four people were in hapless case, it was they. For a time even to Maseden, who had never lost faith in his star, it seemed that the best fortune that could now befall would be for the trembling rock overhead to crash down on them. ”

“ Even the canopied rock on which they found sanctuary after the loss of the raft merely attracted a momentary glance. Madge, eyeing the fissure which had so terrified her, was about to say something when a warning shout from Maseden caused her to pull a few vigorous strokes.
They sheered past a flat boulder. A couple of vultures, scared by the unwonted apparition of a boat, flapped aloft, and they all saw, stretched on the rock, some portions of a human skeleton which most certainly had not been there when they came that way little more than a fortnight earlier. ”

“ It would almost seem that nature knows she may veil her ample splendors in the north, but must make the most of her scantier charms in the south.
Maseden, swinging on his heel in sheer bewilderment, suddenly found himself face to face with the Southern Cross, hanging low above the horizon. Had an impossible meteor flamed forth from the familiar cluster of stars and shot in awe-inspiring flight across the whole arc of the heavens northward to the line, it would not have surprised him more than the discovery that his “wife” was on board the ship. ”

“ He made up his mind to head for a gap in the trees which seemed to mark a recent land-slip, and trust to fortune that the gradient might not be too steep. Better any open risk than the fall of perhaps the whole party into a pit of dead wood choked with fœtid and noisome fungus growths. Once caught in such a trap, they might never emerge.
And now they met with their greatest among many pieces of luck that day. The opening Maseden had noticed was not the track of an avalanche, but a rough water-course, through which the torrential rain-storms of the coast tumbled headlong to the sea. ”

“ Monotony, in itself, is wearying; when, to a dull routine of meals and occasional talk with men of an inferior type is added the positive discomfort of confinement in the most exposed and cramped part of a ship during a stiff gale, monotony becomes akin to torture.
At last, however, night fell. There was no improvement in the weather, which, if anything, grew worse; but a change in the ship’s course, or a shifting of the wind—no one to whom Maseden might speak could give him any reliable data on the point—brought the Southern Cross on a more even keel. ”

“ Then the brandy would be really effective. At present, to hand it around in the darkness, while wind and spindrift were whipping them with scorpions, was merely courting the disaster which he himself had so narrowly averted.
The other man had gained the ledge. He could not see Maseden, because each inch of space increased an obscurity already akin to that of a tomb, but he leaned forward and caught his arm.
“Say!” he yelled. “Isn’t there some way out? We’ll die quick if we stop here!”
“You must wait a little,” said Maseden. “I, like yourself, was on board the ship. ”

“ The marvel was that the women could have done it at all, even with the help which both men gave unstintedly. During the last weary hours no one uttered an unnecessary word. Each of the four was determined to go on, not for his or her own sake, but for the sake of the others. They were roped together. If one fell, it meant disaster to all. So, with splendid grit, each resolved not to fall so long as hand would hold or foot lodge on the tiniest projection.
But, with final success, came utter collapse. Even Maseden, far stronger physically than Sturgess, fell like a log. ”

“ They might, by chance, exist a week, a month—several months in that dreadful fastness of rock, forest and sea, but the briefest glance towards the interior showed how desperate was their case, and he knew only too well that the absence of proper food, of fire, of clothing, of everything that renders life tolerable and joyous, would soon bring mortal sickness in its train, even though they ran the gantlet of other perils like unto those of yesterday. ”

“ The renewed darkness, the continuous uproar of the reef, had broken the girl’s nerve.
Maseden fancied that he had placed too great a strain on her by detailing with such precision the sequence of events during those crowded hours at Cartagena.
“I think,” he said gravely, “that we ought to lie down again, and await patiently the coming of daylight. The sun rises, no matter what else may happen, and dawn cannot be long delayed now.” ”

“ Surely all these problems may be allowed to settle themselves when, if ever, we re-enter the everyday world?”
“That is just my difficulty,” continued Maseden doggedly; he was resolved now to have an irritating hindrance to pleasant relations settled once and for all. “Is it fair to Sturgess to let him believe there is no bar to his wooing? Of course, my marriage was a farce, and can be dismissed as such. But what will C. K. think, what will he say, when he hears of it? Won’t our silence—yes, our silence—you cannot shirk a part of the responsibility—be open to misinterpretation? ”

“ With a quickness born of many a tussle with a bucking broncho, Maseden leaped, caught the rope held by the quartermaster, and jerked it violently. The block missed the half-caste by a few inches, and clanged in the hold far beneath.
The tenth part of a second decided whether the sailor should be dashed headlong into the depths or left wholly unscathed. As it was, he and every onlooker realized that the rakish-looking vaquero had saved his life.
In the impulsive way of his race, the man darted forward, threw his arms around Maseden’s neck, and kissed him. ”

“ Moreover, there was a chance that some other steamer might pick them up and earn a magnificent salvage by a tow to Punta Arenas.
So after breakfast the uncanny harbinger of disaster provided by the body of the drowned sailor was, if not forgotten, at least generally ignored. Pipes were lighted. Men not otherwise occupied gathered in groups, while every eye strove to pierce the gray haze of the spindrift whipped off the waves by each furious gust, each hoping to be the first to discover the friendly smoke-pall of a passing ship. ”

“ The Southern Cross had hardly traveled her own length before every person in the fore part of the ship, together with the occupants of bridge and promenade deck, became aware that a seemingly impassable barrier lay right across the channel. At the same time the line of cliffs fell away to the southward.
Beyond the reef, then, lay a wide stretch of land-locked water; its unexpected existence explained the frantic haste of the tidal current. It was cruel luck that nature should have thrown one of her defensive works across that bottle-neck entrance. ”

“ Moreover, wreckage began to line the beach at high-water mark. They found the planks and spars of many ships, some quite fresh, and evidently the remains of the Southern Cross; others weather-beaten, even crumbling with age.
Remains of the raft were discovered, and Nina shrieked with joy at sight of the ship’s flag, hardly damaged, lying on its halliard alongside the broken topmast.
Madge claimed the most remarkable bit of flotsam—nothing less than the brandy bottle, unbroken, but nearly full of salt water, half buried in sand. ”

“ Philip Alexander Maseden,” he persisted.
“I may or may not be. I am not sure. I used a name not my own. It was the first that come into my head—a frightened woman’s attempt to leave herself some loophole of escape in the future.”
“You are mistaken, Nina. I know enough about the law to say definitely that it is the ceremony which counts, not the name. You will see at once that this must be so. If you married another man to-morrow, and signed yourself ‘Mary Smith,’ you would still be committing bigamy.” ”

“ Maseden, feeling oddly remote and unclassed among men of his own race, followed the second officer to the forecastle deck. There, at least, he could stare his fill at the inferno of rock and broken water which the vessel was approaching, though even his landsman’s eyes saw that she was in a waterway of considerable width, while each mile now traversed must tend to diminish the seas and bring a secure anchorage within the bounds of possibility. ”

“ Even while the Southern Cross swung past an overhanging fortress of rock, a mighty bastion [Pg 118] crumbled into ruin. It was singular to watch a cloud of dust mingle with the spindrift—to note how the next breaker climbed higher in assault over the vantage ground provided by the successful sap.
A disconcerting feature of the ship’s hurried transit into this unchartered territory was the clearness with which all things were visible above a height of some twelve feet from the surface of the sea; whereas, below that level, the clouds of spray and flying scud formed an almost impenetrable wall. ”

“ When an avowed enemy first broached the subject of this extraordinary marriage, he had made a bitter jest on the use in real life of a well-worn histrionic situation. And now, perforce, he had become an actor of rare merit. Each look, each word must lead up to the grand climax. The penalty of failure was not the boredom of an audience, but death; such a “curtain” would sharpen the dullest wits, and Maseden, if wholly innocent of stage experience hitherto, was not dull. ”

“ Suddenly two cloaked figures emerged from the obscurity of the smoking-room and hurried to the transverse rail which guarded the fore part of the promenade deck. With them came some men, among whom Maseden recognized Sturgess; while another man, who caught the arm of one of the girls in a helpless sort of way, was probably Mr. Gray.
Evidently there was no concealing the ship’s peril from the passengers now. Everyone wore a life-belt, and was clothed to resist the cold. ”

“ Maseden so well endowed with this world’s goods that she spared no expense in attaining her object?
The most contrary emotions surged through Maseden’s conscience. He was by turns curious, sympathetic, suspicious, absurdly eager to learn more.
In this last mood he resolved to have one straight look at the lady. Surely a man was entitled to see his bride’s face! Yes, come what might, he would insist that she must raise the “thick, white veil” which had hitherto screened her features from Steinbaum’s goggle eyes—supposing, that is, the rascal had told the truth. ”

“ And now, on that sultry January morning, the lawful owner of the Los Andes ranch, while awaiting the appearance of a peon, who, he knew, was tending some cattle in a byre behind the lodge, was wondering whether or not he might urge a tired charger into a final canter to the door of his own house without bringing about a pitched battle when he arrived there.
At last came Pedro—every second man in South America is named after the chief of the Apostles—a brown, lithe, Indian-looking person. But he was Spanish enough in the expression of his emotions. ”

“ Tied to the mast was the corpse of a man, but so bruised and battered as to be wholly unrecognizable. The poor body, nearly naked, and maimed and torn almost out of human semblance, was stitched in a strip of wet canvas, weighted with a few furnace bars, and committed to the deep again without a moment’s loss of time.
But its brief presence had not been helpful. Singularly enough, sailors are not only fatalists, which they may well be, but superstitious. No man voiced his sentiments; nevertheless, each felt in his heart the ship was doomed. ”

“ Every one knew that it would be the wildest folly to lower a boat in such a heavy sea. The sole remaining hope was that the ship would escape the outer fringe of reefs, and drive into some rock-bound creek where the boats might live.
By means of a properly constructed sea-anchor the captain kept the vessel’s head toward the east. Thus, when land was sighted, if any semblance of a channel offered, it might be possible to steer in that direction.
Men were told off to be in readiness to hoist the sails again at a moment’s notice. ”

“ Inanimate things may be inarticulate to human ears, but they speak a language of their own on such occasions—an inchoate tongue made up of banging and clattering, of stunning vibrations, of wind-shrieks, of the groaning of steel framework, riveted plates, and seasoned timber.
The Southern Cross was tackling her work with stubborn energy, but she complained of its severity in every fibre. Ships, like men, prefer easy conditions, and growl in their own peculiar manner when compelled to wage a fierce and continuous fight for mere existence. ”