His Unknown Wife

The patients weakly resisted his demand that they should share nearly the whole of the mouthful of spirit which remained; but he was firm, and they drank. Sturgess, who staggered and nearly fell when he tried to move after the brief halt, was given a few drops; Maseden himself had what was left. Then he filled the bottle with water, and each took a long drink.

There is this supreme virtue in water, that, while slaking thirst, it stays the worst pangs of hunger, and Maseden had enough strength in reserve to hurry off in search of oysters, or any sort of shell-fish, before daylight failed wholly. He was fortunate in finding a well-stocked bed almost at once.

He alone knew what agony he endured when his bruised and torn fingers were plunged into ice-cold salt water. But he persevered, and gathered such a quantity that in ten minutes he and his companions were enjoying a really satisfying meal.

While they ate, they examined their surroundings. It was half tide. A bleak, rocky foreshore provided at least an ideal breeding-ground for oysters. Behind them rose the solemn bank of pine-trees through which they had come. On the right, only half a mile away, stood the great shoulder of rock which shut out the Pacific on that northern side of the estuary. In front, two miles or more distant, lay a jumble of forests and wild hills, and a similar vista spread far to the left, because the estuary widened to a span of several miles.

It was, indeed, a wild, desolate, awe-inspiring land, a territory abandoned of mankind! In such regions old-time sailors found fearsome monsters, amphibious reptiles larger than ships, and gnomes of demoniac aspect.

Such visions were easy to conjure up. Nina Forbes saw one now in the dusk.

“Oh, what is that?” she cried, in genuine alarm, gazing seaward with terror-laden eyes.

It took some time to unmask the strange denizen of the deep which she had discovered. Three seals, lying in a row on a flat rock, looked remarkably like the accepted pictures of a sea-serpent, but the illusion was destroyed when one of the creatures dived, followed, in turn, by each of the others, in one, two, three order.

“We must rise before dawn to-morrow,” said Maseden. “Seals are good to eat. You and I, Sturgess, can cut one off when the pack comes on shore.”

“Seals may be good to eat, but they will also be hard to eat if we are unable to cook them,” put in Madge.

“There were times to-day when I could have eaten seal cooked or uncooked,” admitted Nina.

“Probably such times will recur to-morrow,” said Maseden. “You will soon grow tired of oysters for every meal. Did you ever hear of the sailing ship which took a cargo of bottled porter from Dublin to Cape Town? After crossing the line she was caught in a gale, disabled, and carried hundreds of miles out of her course. She ran short of water, so, during three wretched weeks, officers and crew drank stout for breakfast, dinner and supper. When, at last, the vessel reached Table Bay, if porter was suggested as a beverage to any member of the ship’s company there was instant trouble.”

“Still,” said Madge thoughtfully, “I don’t think I shall like raw seal… You are very clever, Mr. Maseden. You must find some means of making a fire.”

Maseden glanced up at the darkening sky.

“At present the pressing problem is where are we to sleep,” he said.

“Under the deodars,” suggested Sturgess promptly.

“Yes, I suppose so. But we must make haste.”

“If you ask me to put up any sort of hustle, I’ll crack into small fragments,” said Sturgess, rising to his feet slowly and stiffly.

But this young American – a typical New Yorker in every inch – was blessed with a valiant heart. He helped Maseden to break and cut small branches of the fragrant pines, and pile them beneath the largest tree they could find on a comparatively level piece of ground above high-water mark. The two girls were half carried to this soft couch, which invited sharp comparison with the wet, slimy rock of the previous night.

Despite their protests, they were wrapped in the now dry ship’s flag and the poncho, while the men covered themselves with the oilskins, the coat which Sturgess had found on the reef coming in very useful for Maseden.

Then they slept. And how they slept! The mere fact that they had eaten a quantity of good food induced utter weariness and exhaustion.

During the night it rained heavily, and the tide pounded fiercely on the boulders only a few feet below their resting-place. But they hardly moved, and certainly paid no heed.

Maseden was awakened by a veritable cascade of water on his face; the tree, after the manner of its kind, though shooting the rain generally off its layers of branches, now in full summer foliage, provided occasional channels through which the torrent poured as from a spout, and he was stretched beneath one. He swore softly, saw that the others were undisturbed, moved his position slightly, and fell sound asleep again.

As for rising betimes to catch a seal, it was broad daylight when he shook off the almost overpowering desire to go on sleeping.

Nina and Madge were lying in each other’s arms, breathing easily, and looking extraordinarily well. Beyond them, Sturgess lay like a log, his clean-cut, somewhat cynical features relaxed in a smile. It was a pity to rouse him, but Maseden saw by his watch that they had enjoyed nine hours of real repose, and, as the weather was fine again and there was a promise of sunshine, it behooved them to be up and doing.

So he shook his compatriot gently by the shoulder, and Sturgess was awake instantly.

“Gosh!” he said, gazing at a patch of blue sky overhead. “I was just ordering clams on ice in Louis Martin’s. It must have been a memory of those oysters.”

Maseden, by a gesture, warned him not to speak loudly, whereupon Sturgess sat up, saw the two girls, grinned, and stole quietly after his companion.

“Say,” he confided, when at a safe distance, “they’re the limit, aren’t they?”

“They’re all right, so far as girls go,” agreed Maseden.

“Oh, come off your perch! Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? If we win through I’m going to marry Madge, or I’ll know the reason why, and if you have half the gumption we credit you with you’ll tack on to sister Nina as soon as you’ve shunted that sporty young person who grabbed you at the cannon’s mouth in Cartagena.”

“Will you oblige me by not talking such damn nonsense?” growled Maseden, blazing into sudden and incomprehensible wrath.

“Calm yourself, hidalgo!” came the quiet answer. “Sorry if I’ve butted in on your private affairs. Having fixed things for myself, I thought I’d do you a good turn, too. That’s all.”

“Don’t you realize that you are hardly playing the game by even hinting at such possibilities in present conditions?”

Maseden regretted the words the instant they were uttered. Sturgess stopped as though he had been struck, and his somewhat sallow face flushed darkly.

“It will be a pretty mean business if you and I manage to quarrel, won’t it?” he said thickly.

CHAPTER XII

A PEEP INTO THE FUTURE

“Oh, forget it!” cried Maseden, more angry now with himself than with the youngster whose candor had provoked this outburst. “I didn’t intend to be offensive. My mind was running on the day’s worries. We’re in a deuce of a fix, and I can see no way out of it. If I annoyed you by a careless expression, I apologize.”

“Rub it off the slate, friend. I only want to put in a first bid for Madge, so to speak.”

“But, for all you know, she may be – engaged to some other man,” Maseden could not help retorting.

“Nix on the other fellow. He’s not on in this film. I’ll have him beaten to a frazzle long before I see good old New York again.”

Then Maseden did contrive to choke back the very obvious comment that Madge Forbes might even be married already. Sufficient for the day was the problem thereof. It was not matrimony that was bothering him, though the queer marriage tie contracted in San Juan seemed fated to make its fetters felt even in the wilderness. He was wondering what would happen if, as was highly probable, they were marooned on an island rarely if ever visited by man.

He laughed grimly.

“New York is away below the horizon this morning,” he said. “Let’s go and hunt more oysters!”

Still, for the life of him he could not altogether get rid of the spectre raised by Sturgess’s almost banal candor. The New Yorker was unmistakably a good fellow. He had behaved like a man during twenty-four hours which tested one’s moral fibre as pure metal is separated from dross in a furnace. Was it quite fair that he should be kept in ignorance of the astounding fact that Madge Forbes, and none other, was the heroine of that extraordinary ceremony in the Castle of San Juan?

Why not tell him? There was every reason to believe that he had indulged in no overt love-making as yet. Why not emulate his outspokenness, and thus spare him the certain shock of discovery?

Moreover, when the truth came out, would he not feel with justice that he had been very badly treated both by Maseden and the woman whom he professed to love?

Maseden squirmed under the thought. Such a discussion, at such a moment, savored of rank lunacy, but it was better to act crazily than dishonorably.

Then came a reflection that hurt like a cut from a jagged knife. Sturgess was an impressionable youngster. He might easily transfer his wooing from Madge to Nina.