His Unknown Wife

“Not yet… Here! Grope this way. I am giving you a bottle of brandy. Drink some, not much, because we must hoard it. Then we’ll try and get a few drops between these girls’ teeth. After that we must rub their hands and ankles till the friction hurts. It may revive them. I don’t know. It is the only plan I can think of. When they recover, if ever, we’ll seat them side by side with their backs to the rock, you and I will squeeze close, one on each side, and I have a poncho which will cover the lot. By that means we may obtain some degree of warmth in common.”

“Old man, you said a page full!”

There was silence for a few seconds. Then Sturgess said gratefully:

“Gee! That’s some tonic! Now, how about those girls?”

“Give me the bottle. This lady was conscious when I brought her ashore. She may recover quickly.”

The almost tangible blackness in which the little group of people was wrapped greatly enhanced the difficulties attending restorative measures. Maseden discovered that the abundant hair of the girl he was hugging so closely to his heart had become loose, and was in a wet tangle about her throat and mouth.

The clinging strands were troublesome, but, by prizing her lips open between a finger and thumb, he contrived to make her swallow a few drops of the brandy. In fact, while he was yet doubting the efficacy of the dose, some slight convulsive movements showed that consciousness was returning.

He laid her carefully down, and told the American to do likewise with the sister. Sturgess seemed to be curiously slow to obey, and Maseden admonished him sharply, thinking the other might be dazed.

“Now, rub hard!” he said. “First her left hand – then her left ankle.”

Both set to work with a will. Maseden could not understand why the unhappy girl should be nearly naked. The stockings had fallen about her shoes. For the rest, her chief garment was an oilskin coat.

He, be it remembered, had been spared the hard usage of the waves, and his clothing was better adapted to existing conditions. He was shocked to find how cold she was, how icy and lifeless her flesh. He urged Sturgess not to spare her.

Their rough and ready massage soon proved effective. The girl gasped something incoherent, and strove to withdraw her limbs from a distinctly strenuous handling.

“She’s nearly all right, now,” announced Maseden briskly. “Sharp’s the word with the other one.”

The second patient offered a longer task. By the time she gave any sign of life her sister was frantically asking what had become of her, and was only quieted by Maseden saying sternly:

“You will help most by not bothering us. We are doing our best for your sister. She is here, and may recover. That is all I can tell you.”

“We? Who are we?” came the broken cry.

“Mr. Sturgess, yourself, your sister and I. My name is Maseden.”

He caught a strangled gasp of astonishment, but Sturgess broke in breathlessly, for the exertion was warming him:

“Great Scott! You’ve got my name pat, Mr. Maseden. D’ye mean – to tell – me – you were – on board – that poor old ship?”

“Rub! And don’t talk!.. She moved a little then.”

His judgment was well founded. Within a few minutes he heard the second girl address her sister as Nina.

So this one was Madge, his wife! He had literally brought her back from the very gates of death. He could not even see her. What a curious coincidence that when she saved his life, and he saved hers, she was equally hidden from him; then by a veil, now by the pall of the darkest night he had ever experienced!

The girls began exchanging broken confidences. Madge, who had fainted while being towed across the fearsome chasm between bridge and forecastle, did not know of the loss of the captain and chief and second officers, with a passenger, until told by Nina. She wept bitterly, and Maseden could not help noticing that Sturgess tried to console her in a very lover-like manner.

He actually smiled at the tragic humor of it all, especially when Nina seemed to sense his thought, and valiantly interfered by bidding Madge not to add to their misery by useless grief. He refrained purposely from giving them any more brandy until some time had elapsed. Now that their faculties were restored, he knew, from his own experiences, that their tongues and palates were on fire with the salt-laden atmosphere they had perforce inhaled during so many hours.

But each minute of quiet in this sheltered nook, and in breathable air, would do much to alleviate their suffering, and he trusted to the brandy to put them to sleep.

In effect, that was what actually happened. When each of the four had swallowed a small quantity of the spirit Maseden and Sturgess nestled in beside the two girls and tucked the poncho over knees and feet. The bodies of the men served as excellent shields. In the physical and mental reaction which set in with the consciousness of assured safety – because that was what both girls thought, and neither man cared to weaken their faith – they were sound asleep within half an hour of the time they left the wreck.

Sturgess, too, was worn out, and slept fitfully, but it was long before Maseden’s overtaxed nerves would yield. He could not help speculating as to what wretched hap the coming day might bring. There was a gnawing dread in his mind that they might be lodged in a fissure of an unscalable cliff. If that were so, what a fearsome prospect lay before them! The mere notion was unendurable, and he resolutely refused to dwell on it.

Then he mused on the queer chance which, even in this small company, divorced him from his wife. He had rescued Nina first. By the accident of situation he was nearest the rock which closed the ledge, and she next. It was her body, not his wife’s, to which he was close pressed, and in which his more vigorous frame had already induced a certain comfortable warmth.

Her head had fallen on his shoulder. An unconscious movement revealed that some roughness in the rock wall was hurtful, so he put his left arm around her neck and pillowed her gently.

Try as he might, he found himself still brooding on the chances of the coming day. Fortune favoring, they might find a way to the summit of the cliff. Would they be much better off? Water they would surely obtain – but what of food?

Somehow, in such woful plight, a man’s mind turns instinctively to a pipe. He actually had a cherished briar between his teeth and a tobacco pouch in his hand, when his heart sank at the remembrance that he had struck the last match in the only box of matches in his pocket after breakfast that morning. He recollected tossing the empty box into the sea. Subsequently, in lighting a cigar, he had borrowed a match.

Searching his pockets without disturbing the exhausted girl by his side, he made sure of the unhappy truth. He had no match. Even if they reached the interior of the island they could not possibly start a fire.

He knew at once that Sturgess, who had been soaked in salt water for many hours, was in a worse predicament than himself, because his own clothing was dry inside, whereas the other was wet to the skin, and any matches he might have carried must be in a pulp.

Tucked away in a money belt, Maseden carried ten thousand dollars in American bills, yet one small box of matches would be of far greater practical value in that hour than all the money. Slight wonder, then, if his stout heart failed him at last and the darkness closed in on his soul as on his eyes.

The sleeping girl, conscious only of warmth and protection, snuggled her head a little nearer.

“Mother, darling,” she murmured, “we had to do it! We had no choice. It was for your dear sake!”

That was all – some troubled confidence of a dream – but it sufficed to set Maseden musing on the strange vortex into which fate had sucked him from the peace and seclusion of Los Andes ranch.

His mind wandered. He saw again the magnificent groves of mahogany trees and coyal palms, with their golden flowers fully three feet in height, and the chicka sap oozing from the bark. He sauntered through the well-cultivated plantations of bananas, yams, arrow-root, guavas, and all the fruit and cereals which that favored region of Central America produces in such abundance that men grow lazy and are content to plot and thieve rather than toil. He particularly recalled a number of “chocolate” trees, the marvelous growth which yields a more delicately flavored beverage than the cocoa-tree.

The original owner of the ranch prided himself on these trees – botanically, the Herrania purpurea– because they were not indigenous to San Juan, but had been brought from Guatemala. Los Andes ranch was indeed a veritable Garden of Eden.

While roaming through it in spirit Maseden dropped off to sleep.

And that was a kindly act on the part of a Providence which marks even the fall of a sparrow from a house-top. A full day lay before this man and those others committed to his care. Even a couple of hours’ fitful repose served as a splendid restorative. Without some such respite he could never have faced and carried through the almost Sisyphean task which awaited him at daylight.

He awoke with a shiver. He was chilled to the bone. Not knowing what he was doing, he had drawn the poncho closely over Nina Gray, leaving his own limbs almost uncovered. Startled lest the others might be stiff in death, since his clothes were dry, while theirs, such as they possessed, were wet, he touched the girl’s cheek. It was quite warm and soft.

The oilskins she and her sister wore and the huddling together of the four under the heavy poncho had generated a moist heat which probably helped to preserve the two delicate women from some type of deadly pneumonia.

At first it did not strike Maseden as strange that he should be able to see her face. As the initial feeling of panic passed, and he glanced around, he understood what had happened. The sky was clear, and the moon, late risen, was spreading a mild radiance over rocks and sea.

By raising himself a little, so as not to disturb the sleeper still trustfully tucked under his arm, he peered sidewise down on the reef. The tide was high, and great rollers were smashing over the barrier which had broken the Southern Cross.

So far as he could tell, not a vestige of the ship remained. Bridge and chart-house had vanished. He fancied that some part of the framework accounted for a particularly vexed boiling of the surges on a spot where the engines and stoke-hold had lodged. But that was only guesswork.

The morning tide had done its work with thoroughness. The Southern Cross had become a memory.

Then he surveyed the ledge and the cleft. Apparently, at this point, he was some twenty feet above high-water mark. To the left was the sea. To the right, the rock overhung the ledge in such wise that the place was almost a cave. This fact, combined with the elevation of the opposite wall, explained the shelter the castaways had been vouchsafed from the bitter gale now blowing itself out. But it was affrighting to realize that the very physical feature which provided a refuge might also immure them in a living tomb.

He shuddered, and moved involuntarily, and the girl awoke with a start.

She lifted her head, and gazed at him with uncomprehending eyes.