a crash which shook him bodily brought paul lavelle upstanding from the berth in the lounge. the daze of a heavy sleep clung to him. for an instant he could not imagine where he was. he was in utter darkness.
there was another crash where the spanker boom slammed back from starboard to port again. then, the daphne lay over under the impact of a vicious gust of wind.
it was the boom which had awakened the sleeper. he leaped out on deck to find himself in a shapeless blackness. there was barely a breeze, but the air was filled with eery noises. overhead, overside, wherever he turned, he heard them—snarls, whines, whimperings, and the creaking as of huge pinions wheeling. a wolf pack might have been disputing a kill with a horde of vultures.
the contrast of this with the exquisite moonlight night upon which lavelle had closed his eyes was appalling. he groped his way to the wheel, which was in beckets to keep it from rolling, and peered into the compass. an unconscious sigh of thankfulness for the forethought which had made him light the binnacle lamp escaped from him. the daphne was heading north by east. the gust of wind which had slammed the spanker boom must have come out of the southeast. he faced that point. another gust confirmed the assumption. he ran into the lounge and struck a match. the silver watch lay on the chart table. it said 1 o'clock. he had not returned for this, but to see the barometer. it stood at 30:00; just where it had hung all day.
but what he had not discovered by daylight he now saw in the flickering match light. the barometer hand and the indicator were caught together. his heart went cold, he lit another match and struck the bulkhead with his clenched fist. the blow jarred the hand and indicator apart. the delicate wisp of blue steel quivered at 30:00 for a breath. then, it began to fall. it reached 29:10 and clung. even as the match went out it recorded 29:00 and was still falling.
he had seen a mercurial barometer go from 29:30 to 26:03 in the kau lung. that was a world's record!
despair seized him. what could he and a lone woman do in a brute of a vessel like this—undermanned even with twenty men before the mast?
"god almighty, what have i done?" he cried aloud in agony of spirit.
a smash of wind from the south'ard was the answer he got.
he gritted his teeth and flung a curse at the sea:
"i'll beat you—you and all your foulness! you sneak!" he yelled at the blackness.
he dropped down through the companionway, calling "emily! emily!"
there was no answer. she was asleep, poor girl, he thought. that was why she had let him oversleep; why she had not called him when it turned black.
"emily! emily! where are you?"
echoes answered him. running forward, he saw the light beaming from the derelict's room. as he reached the doorway he beheld the girl standing beside the old man's berth, a book in her left hand and her right uplifted.
"so help me god," the derelict was solemnly repeating after her.
as the last word came from his lips he discovered lavelle.
"'th' prince'!" he cried and fell back, a hand at his brow in salute.
the book dropped from emily's hand. she swayed where she stood. she had fought and won a battle as brave as any field of war ever knew. yet an angry glance, which struck her and cut like a whiplash, was her reward.
"why didn't you answer me when i called?" lavelle demanded, but paused not on an answer. "get aft to that wheel! go! run! keep her nor'east until i can get back to you!"
with that he was gone from her. like a soldier, without questioning, without a word, she went aft to do what this man had bidden.
the fire under the donkey was dead when lavelle got to the engine room. it would take an hour to make steam. the barometer and his sea wisdom told him that he had only minutes to prepare.
whatever the battle was to be it was with his own hands that paul lavelle must fight it. with this realization a terrific rage filled him. it was fed with each breath that he snatched out of the blackness. the sea was a personal enemy. thus men who deal with it in long intimacy come to visualize it. the sea was a sneak—a coward; always striking below the belt.
lavelle had squared the yards before he had gone aft in the evening, leaving the braces slack so as to cast the daphne on the most advantageous tack at the first coming of a breeze. he had expected a wind from the north and west. here it was out of the southeast. the gusts which had roused him had struck the bark on the starboard quarter. it had brought her to on that side. she was now forging ahead on the starboard tack. as she rode she was under a double-reefed foresail, reefed upper and lower fore and main topsails, foretopmast-staysail, and inner or boom jib. the growing breeze lifted the slack out of the starboard or weather braces. the lone worker in the darkness led the falls of the lee braces to the main deck capstan and hove them in. and wherever he went he belayed rope and line with a double hitch. there was a finality about everything he did.
he set the maintopmast-staysail, hoisting it with the capstan. he would ride her with that if it should be possible to heave her to after he had located the bearing of the storm's center.
he ran aft only to stop at the entrance to the alleyway. he remembered the boom jib.
"too much headsail with a reefed spanker," he muttered.
he sped forward again, found the jib halyards, and let them go. as a last touch of precaution he bent the jib downhaul to the foretopmast-staysail clew as a preventer sheet.
aft he sped again and through the cabin. a faint murmur came to him as he ran by the derelict's room.
out of the pile of slop-chest staff in the after cabin he snatched an oilskin coat and sou'wester. he struggled into them as he climbed through the companion way into this lounge.
a flash of a match brought the barometer's dial out of the blackness. 28:03!
an impulse to smash it for its trickery seized him. he forbore and plunged outside. he thrust emily away from the wheel. as he bent to peer into the binnacle she shuddered at the rage which distorted his face. thus men, she thought, must look in battle with the blood lust upon them. there was something primordial, relentless, about him. he was the elemental man, sensate that a kill was at hand.
the daphne was heeling over, further and further, under the onslaught of the rising wind.
the roughness with which lavelle had pushed emily away from the wheel started a demon of resentment to life in her. her arms were aching. it had seemed that the wheel must draw them from their sockets while she was alone. steering the daphne while lavelle had been forward had not been the tame task of the afternoon.
she stood trembling where this man had shoved her. she could have struck him.
"get below! close every port—every door! jump! then, come back and light that lamp in the lounge!"
anger swept her at his brutal tone. tears blinded her. they were the tears of a rage of which she had never believed herself capable, oho could not move.
"go—on!" he yelled.
a furious squall twisted the two words into a shriek.
a sea slopped over the weather quarter and ran hissing across the deck to leeward. it sucked hungrily at the gold woman's feet and ankles. at its touch her rage grew, but passed from the man at the wheel to the sea. it was the sea that he hated, not her. it was the sea that she hated. it was the sea that had spoken through him. the sea was his enemy. it became in that moment personal to her—her enemy.
thus the spirit of lavelle reacted upon emily granville's. could she have seen her face at that instant she would have discovered in it the same elemental, the same primitive passion, which had shocked her in his.
the girl ran from the deck and below.
lavelle saw her when she returned and lit the lamp in the lounge. she wore a long oilskin. a sou'wester covered her head. out of the tail of his eye he caught her staring at the barometer. he noted it with a thought that she had "some sense."
she came out to him and had to press her lips against his ear to make him hear her message.
"everything—closed—be—low! barom—28:00!"
that was a fall of three-hundredths of an inch in less than ten minutes!
the daphne was in a trap. somewhere near her—somewhere in the southern quadrants of the compass between the east and the west—the center of a storm was bearing down upon her. whether the barometer was lying or telling the truth was of little moment now. lavelle knew he could not be mistaken in the signs of a revolving storm. he knew the meaning of the wolf-like noises and the wing creakings in the air; the oily, sooty, sight-killing blackness. but one sign was absent and, even as he noted this, it appeared—a sickening, brick-red coloring which cuts the eyes acridly like hay smoke. it diffused itself through the blackness without lessening the night's impenetrability. with its coming the wind veered quickly from the s.s.e. into the south. by the law of storms this change told the lone man arrayed against the sea that the center was bearing upon the daphne eight points to the right, or out of the s.s.w. the bark was trapped in the storm's advancing or dangerous semicircle. he could not heave her to now. there was but one thing to do: run. let the storm overtake the bark and catch her in its vortex and—the sea must win. it depended alone on the daphne's worthiness and the hands and brain of the man at her helm to beat it.
with a full-manned ship the thing to do now was heave to. the enraged man laughed to himself at the thought of his trying to do this alone.
by half-past two the wind had veered into the s.s.w. and was blowing a whole gale. taking it broad over the starboard quarter the daphne was fleeing northeast. at times her helmsman was sure she was lifting free of the mauling waters and hurtling through space. again he felt that she was bound headlong toward the quiet ooze; that no vessel could withstand the onslaughts of wind and brine which were being rained upon her. but never his rage at the sea grew less. it burned in him like a living fire; it robbed him of all sense of fatigue.
emily, sitting in the lounge and watching the barometer for any change, saw the silver watch mark the hour when the day should have been breaking. but no light rifted the blackness outside. the barometer hand clung quivering at 28:00! the daphne's master—yes, her master, too—had told her she must rest as much as she could. not for her own sake, but the battle's; that was his reason. "because i may want to use you!" was what he had yelled when she had put her ear up to his lips.
when the watch said six o'clock and there came no day, emily suddenly realized what a time had passed since paul had taken the wheel from her hands—four hours and a half. not a bite had crossed lips in eleven hours. it was impossible to get forward to the galley. as she admitted this she remembered the canned provisions in the alleyway stateroom opposite the derelict's. she recalled also the flour and biscuit barrels in the starboard alleyway stateroom.
the gold woman went caroming down the companionway and through the reeling saloons. the din of an hundred forges filled them. the derelict's light was giving a last flicker. daniel mcgovern slept. as the lamp went out emily discovered her book on the floor and picked it up. she put it on a shelf in the storeroom and fled with three cans which she felt out of the darkness. she carried these up into the lounge. one of the cans held corn—the others tomatoes. she dropped below again and groped to the pantry. she was seeking water. there wasn't a drop in the tank. the discovery staggered her. the man at the wheel must drink. an idea of a substitute flashed into her mind. the tomatoes would serve for food and drink. she located a hook under the china racks and found a can opener she remembered having seen there.
as a glimmer of day asserted itself in the blackness, it found emily standing at the wheel beside paul, holding a can of tomatoes up to his lips so that he could drink when he dared. he managed to snatch two mouthfuls. then, the can was blasted out of the girl's hands. it flattened itself against the mizzonmast. the tin cylinder might have been a bit of cardboard. it held where it struck for a second, as if the gale had imbedded it in the steel mast.
with this sudden growth in the fury of the gale came the slightest increase of daylight. this light seemed to spring from the sea; not from overhead. it was sufficient to trace what lay forward of the break of the poop. two tall, reeling masts with whalebone tips, the edges of the rails, an outline of the top of the forward house, and the forecastle head rising out of a roil of waters composed the suggestion to emily's mind that that part of the daphne was still there. and all round were ragged peaks of water like the ice-crusted crests of mighty mountains. they were alps gone drunk. the daphne was hurtling from one peak to another—smashing through them.
the light restored lavelle's vision to enable him to read in one glance the tally of the battle. but a ribband remained of the big mainsail which he had been unable to furl. the fore-upper topsail had left only its leech ropes behind. there was not a head sail left except the foretopmast-staysail. this, the maintopmast-staysail, the reefed foresail, the fore lower topsail, and the upper and lower main topsails and the spanker still held. the fore and aft bridges were gone. a twisted stanchion told where the standard compass had stood. the donkey funnel, the galley stovepipe, and the empty boat-chocks were missing—the top of the forward house was swept clean.
scarcely had lavelle's eyes made this assessment when the main upper topsail went. it split with a shot-like crackling. a second later only a wisp of canvas was left to tell that a sail had ever been bent to the yard.
anger burned in emily at the sight. it was personal—the ravaging of that sail. the gale flung a cry of protest back in her throat. the slope of paul's sou'wester hid his face from her. the point of a grim jaw was all that she could see. only his arms moved with the wheel in steadying the bark's drive. otherwise he might have been a fixture of the ship. it was not enough to be near him. a yearning to hear his voice came upon her; to look in his eyes; to read his thoughts. she caught him, jerking his head to bring her nearer. she struggled up in the lee of him and pressed her ear to his lips.
"—piece—bacco!"
that was all she heard. she did not understand for the moment what he meant. then, it dawned upon her wondering consciousness that he wanted a piece of tobacco. a piece of tobacco! her brain pounded on this as if it would never let the thought go. she fought her way into the lounge, and as she went she remembered a box of oaky, black slabs which she had seen in the slop-chest litter. she had reached the bottom of the companion way when the daphne gave a shuddering leap. it hurled the girl across the saloon to leeward. she caught the knob of a stateroom door and dragged herself from her knees to her feet. looking forward, through the port alleyway, she saw a flood of water pouring in through the door opening out on the main deck.
instinct carried emily to this breach in the wall of the bark's defense. she got her back to the door, like a woman of the zuyder zee warding a broken dyke gate, and she closed it. the strength of the primitive fighting man's woman was hers in the struggle which accomplished this. she cried in anger as she bolted the teakwood slab against the ravaging waters. yet with this thing done, her first thought was that she must get back to the wheel with a piece of tobacco. going aft, she did not notice that the derelict's berth was empty, but the man at the wheel knew that the stranger was not there.
hardly had emily left the deck when the fore lower topsail went tattering out of its bolt ropes. the daphne shook herself as if freed from a leash. the man who watched nodded in approval. had it been possible for him to have cut this sail away when the main upper topsail had gone he would have done it. in the moment that he nodded he saw the flash of a man's face going over the rail in the welter to leeward. the face was calm. death seemed already to have masked it. it was the derelict going away.
"why, that—that's driscoll—the quartermaster who was with me—stood by me—the night the yakutat was lost!"
it was thus in the instant that the sea gulped daniel mcgovern that recognition flashed into paul lavelle's mind. but as the thought formed he put it away from him. his eyes were tricking him. a man can't stand for six, seven, or eight hours—he had lost count of time—staring at a compass card which whirls and dips like a crazy roulette wheel at macao and trust his sight. after chang had spent a twelve-hour trick at the kau lung's wheel he had imagined many strange things. the quartermaster, driscoll, had been lost these ten years past—ten years this very month of march. and the sea was trying to make him believe that the derelict was he: endeavoring to trick his brain because it couldn't beat him any other way. this thought refueled his rage.
the belly of the spanker split from head to foot with the sharp staccato-rattling of a gatling. the helmsman's senses apprehended it as it happened. before the daphne's head had fallen off half a point at this sudden release of pressure on her after part lavelle had met it.
emily, struggling to force the lounge door open against the gale, saw and heard the spanker go. it dazed her to note that lavelle did not glance up. she had to throw herself flat on the deck to get to the wheel. crawling up under paul's lee she held the tobacco up in front of him, keenly wondering what he meant to do with it. she had been able to imagine only that he intended to use it in some mysterious way in connection with the compass; perhaps to keep the card from rolling and whirling. paul settled the mystery quickly by wolfing a corner of the black plug. he nodded with satisfaction as his jaws closed on it. it seemed fantastic to the girl. she could have screamed in delight—she who had loathed tobacco chewers as long as she could remember. the incident was fraught with a message of hope that words could not have conveyed.
by signs paul made emily understand that she was to fill and trim the binnacle lamp. this task took her below to levy on the oil in the derelict's lamp and the lamp in the medicine chest. then it was she discovered that daniel mcgovern had left the daphne. she realized how the alleyway door had come to be open, but at the time her senses were beyond apprehending that a stranger had come out of the sea and gone back to it. she levied upon the storerooms again and crawled up into the lounge. the silver watch said noon. the barometer stood at 28:01! when she tried to open the door and get back to paul with food and this news, she could not budge it more than an inch. the gale held it. she looked out of the after weather port. through the flying spume she saw paul glance up. his eyes rested on her for a second. he shook his head for her to stay where she was.
there came a lull at three o'clock. emily's recruited strength enabled her to fight her way to the wheel with another can of tomatoes and some crackers. she replaced the lighted binnacle lamp. it went out. four times she had to return to the lounge and relight it before she succeeded in spiting the gale. as she straightened up finally in success, she saw paul's gaze shoot up to windward.
not three hundred yards away and abreast of the daphne drove a big four-masted, painted-port bark—a bulk of twenty-five hundred tons—under a reefed foresail and a reefed main lower topsail. for a breath her midship section hung poised on a peak of water, the rest of her red underbody, fore and aft, clear of the welter. her poles pierced the lowering sky. the peak dropped from under her like the jet of a fountain ceasing. she fell away into a ca?on, wave-walled higher than her tops. the wind went out of her foresail. the topsail drooped. she paused in her flight like a wounded bird, reeled helplessly; and then the wall of water over her stem fell, pooping her. a huddle of men started from around the foot of her jiggermast. one of them in bright yellow oilskins reached the doomed thing's port rail and waved to the daphne high over him as if cheering her on. another wall of water and still a third crashed upon her. her bows rose. stern first she went down to the port of missing ships, a hurricane shrieking her requiem.
in the twinkling of an eye, even as a trout snatches a fly, this proud venture of man was; and then it was no more.
brain-stunned, incapable of comprehension, emily crawled round the binnacle and got behind the lee side of the wheel. in a lull she heard paul yelling.
"—be—low! eat—rest! need—help—by and——"
she obeyed as one in a trance. as the lounge door banged behind her the comparative quiet within, though it was a veritable orgy of sound, enveloped her senses like a drug.
it was seven o'clock when she awoke. through the weather port she saw the yellow-colored head at the wheel touched by a gleam of the binnacle light. seventeen hours now he had been standing there like that. she lighted the lounge lamp. the barometer stood at 28:00.
when she fought her way out to him with this word and shrieked it at him he simply nodded that he heard.
"when—are—you—going to—let—me—help?"
she succeeded in crying this question into his ear in segments.
"damn it! shut—up!"
he cried this at her savagely.
in that instant the daphne, paused slightly. a shiver went through her. there was a crash which sounded even above the roar of the storm. it was as if a masked battery had ambushed the bark from overhead. the foretop-gallant mast and all its hamper and everything above the crosstrees on the main were going by the board. a streak of lightning illuminated the gale's work.
emily found the end of the gasket with which paul was lashed to the wheel shaft. she tied it around her waist and took hold of the lee wheel. it was her answer to his savagery. he saw what she did and he did not send her away.
thus, with never a word, they stood together for two hours during the height of the storm, hurtling along the coast of eternity.
of a sudden there came a rift in the clouds overhead. a shaft of moonlight shot through the blackness and paul's hand covered the gold woman's in a gentle pressure where it clutched a spoke.
"—think—beaten—it!" he shouted at her presently, "—thirsty!"
emily unlashed herself and brought him another can of tomatoes. she took her post beside him again without a word. by midnight the gale's back was broken. the sea kept dropping with the lessening of the wind. it was long after dawn, however, when paul unlashed himself from the wheel and put emily in his place.
"you take her now for a few minutes," he said in a broken husky voice. "going heave her to."
he started forward. his legs went out from under him. he struggled to his feet only to drop again. he got up moaning and with a curse on his lips. clutching the rail he reeled down to the main deck.
emily heard the palls of the capstan and then paul's voice came to her in a pathetic wail.
"hard down! hard down!" he cried, but it was a sweep of his arm which carried his meaning to her. in obeyance she rolled the wheel over. the daphne came round on her heel, until the maintopsail, flying aback, hove her to.
paul staggered aft again, balanced the wheel and put it in beckets.
"i'm pretty tired—tired," he said in a whisper. he crumpled in exhaustion where he had fought for thirty hours. blood oozed from the ends of his swollen fingers. his eyes lay far back in his head. his breath came in moans and sobs.
