His Unknown Wife

All at once a cry from the look-out in the bows sent a quiver through every hearer.

“Rock ahead!”

After a pause, measured by seconds, but seeming like as many minutes, the same voice shouted:

“Channel opens to starboard!”

The ship answered the helm. She swept past a jagged little islet so closely that a sailor could have cast a coil of rope ashore.

Forthwith another sound mingled with the crash of the breakers. The rock had been bored right through by the waves, and the gale set up a note in the tunnel such as no organ-builder ever dreamed of.

That mighty chord pursued the Southern Cross for nearly half a mile. It was a melancholy and depressing wail. Maseden, whose faculties were supernaturally alert, noticed that the South American sailor’s face had turned a sickly green. The man was paralyzed with fright. His right hand fumbled in a weak attempt to cross himself.

Out of the tail of his eye the second officer caught the gesture.

“Pull yourself together, you swab!” he said bitingly. “What the hell good will you be if you give way like that?”

The Spaniard grasped the sense of command in the words rather than their meaning. He was no coward. He even contrived to grin. It was a tonic to be cursed by an American, even though the pierced rock howled like a lost soul!

Still the Southern Cross drove on. The tidal stream was, if anything, swifter than ever, but the size of the waves had diminished sensibly. The walls of the straits had closed in to within a half-mile span. There could not be the slightest doubt that the vessel was actually passing through one of the waterways which connect the Pacific with Smyth’s Channel.

Maseden, after scanning the interior highlands for the hundredth time, glanced again at the second officer. The grimness of the clean-cut, stern face had somewhat relaxed. Quite unconsciously the sailor’s expression showed that hope had replaced calm-visaged despair. Given an unhindered run of another mile, the ship could at least drop anchor with some prospect of success.

The strength of the tide would diminish in less than an hour, and it might be possible to maneuver in the slack water for a comparatively safe berth. Next day, if the weather moderated as promised by the barometer, the steam pinnace could spy out the land in front.

Smyth’s Channel was not so far away – perhaps fifty miles. Once there, the Southern Cross could repair damage and proceed under her own steam to Punta Arenas.

A gleam of yellow light irradiated the surface mist, which had grown markedly denser. The clouds were parting, and the sun was vouchsafing some thin rays from the northwest.

The mere sight was cheering. The blood ran warmer in the veins. It was as though the ship’s company, after days and nights of cold and starvation, had been miraculously supplied with food and hot liquids.

Then the golden radiance died away, and simultaneously came the cry:

“Reef ahead!”

There was no need for further warning by the men in the bows. 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. A few cables’ lengths away was safety; here, unavoidable – sullen and rigid as death himself – were the rock fangs.

At the supreme moment the second officer never turned his head. His eyes were riveted on the motionless figure standing on the starboard side of the bridge.

The captain raised his hand; the sails flapped loudly in the wind; both anchors splashed overboard with hoarse rattling of chains. The after anchor failed, but the forward one held at a depth of ten fathoms.

The second officer was quick to note the sudden strain, and eased it – once, twice, three times. But it was now or never. The ship was swinging in the stream, and her stern-post would just clear the fringe of the reef if the anchor made good its grip.

The Southern Cross had gone round, with a heavy lurch to port, caused by the tremendous pressure of wind and wave, and was almost stationary when the cable parted. The thick chain flew back with all the impetus of six thousand tons in motion behind it.

Missing Maseden by a hair’s breadth, it struck the foretop, and the spar snapped like a carrot. It fell forward, and the identical block which had nearly brought about the death of the South American sailor now caught his rescuer on the side of the head.

In the same instant a heavy stay dragged Maseden bodily over the fore-rail and he pitched headlong to the deck, where, however, the actual fall was broken by the stout canvas of the sail.

A woman screamed, but he could not hear, being knocked insensible.

“All hands amidships!” shouted the captain, and there was a race for the ladders. One man, however, the Spaniard, stooped over the young American’s body. His eyes were streaming with tears.

“Good-by, friend!” he sobbed. “Maybe this is a better way than that opened by my bottle of brandy!”

He was sure that the vaquero who swore like an Americano had been killed, because blood was flowing freely from a scalp wound; but he lifted Maseden’s inert form, and, without any valid reason behind the action, placed him in his bunk, as the cabin door stood open.

Then he ran after the others.

Poor fellow! He little dreamed that he was repaying a thousand-fold the few extra days of life the good-looking vaquero had given him.

Almost immediately the ship struck. There was a fearsome crash of rending plates and torn ribs, the great vessel reeled over, struck again and bumped clear of the outer reef.

Now, too late, the after anchor lodged in a sunken crevice; the cable did not yield, because the vessel was sucked into a sort of backwash and driven, bow on, close to an apparently unscalable cliff.

She settled rapidly. As it happened a submerged rock smashed her keel-plate beneath the engine-room, and the engines, together with the stout framework to which the superstructure was bolted amidships, became anchored there, offering a new obstacle to the onward race of the seas pouring over the reef.

Every boat was either smashed instantaneously or wrenched bodily from its davits. Two-thirds of the hull fell away almost at once, the forecastle tilting towards the cliff, and the poop being swept into deep water.

With the after part went at least half the ship’s company, their last cries of despair being smothered by the continuous roar of the wind and the thunder of the waves. The bridge, with the rooms immediately below, remained fairly upright, but the smoking-room, and officers’ quarters close to it, were swept by water breast high.

Some one – who it was will never be known – had ordered the passengers to run into the smoking-room when the forward cable parted. Now, with the magnificent courage invariably shown by American sailors even when the gates of death gape wide before their eyes, the first and second officers contrived to hoist the two girls to the chart-room behind the bridge.

Sturgess, behaving with great gallantry, helped the women first, and then their father, who was floating in the room, to reach the only available gangway. Others followed, but the difficulty of rescue – if such a sorrowful transition might be called a rescue – was enhanced by the noise and sudden darkness.

Ever the central citadel of the Southern Cross was sinking lower. Ever the leaping waves and their clouds of spray tended more and more to shut out the light.

Seven people were plucked from immediate death in this fashion. All told, officers, crew and passengers, the survivors of seventy-four souls numbered twelve.

There was a thirteenth, because Maseden was lying high and dry in his bunk. But of him they took no count.

They gathered in the chart-room. Those who still retained their senses tried to revive the more fortunate ones to whom was vouchsafed a merciful oblivion of their common plight. Even in the temporary haven of the chart-room the conditions quickly savored of utter misery. The windows were blown away. The doors were jammed open by the warping of the deck. Wind, waves and sheets of spray seemed to vie with demoniac energy as to which could be most cruel and deadly. The ceaseless warping and working of what was left of the ship presaged complete collapse at any moment, and the din of the reef was stupefying.

Still, the captain did not abate one jot of his cool demeanor. He eyed the sea, the rocks, the remains of his ship and the beetling crags from which he was cut off by sixty feet of raging water.

Then he deliberately turned his back on it all. Going to a locker, he produced a screwdriver and began methodically drawing the screws of the door-hinges.

The chief officer thought that the other man’s brain had yielded to the stress.

“What are you doing, sir?” he said, placing a hand gently on his friend’s shoulder.

“We haven’t a ten-million to one chance of remaining here till the gale gives out,” was the calm answer, “but we may as well rig up some sort of protection from the weather. There are four lockers and four doors. Let’s block up those broken windows as well as we can.”

A curiously admiring light shone in the chief officer’s eyes. He said nothing, but helped. Soon a corner was completely walled. They decided it was better to have one section thoroughly shielded than the whole only partially.

They made a quick job of it. The girls, Mr. Gray, and two men recovering consciousness were allotted to the angle.