Part 13 (1/2)

His grasp was rea.s.suring, and Agatha watched the straining curves of canvas and the line of half-submerged hull. The brig rose with streaming bows, swung high above the sea, sank again, and vanished with bewildering suddenness into a belt of driving fog.

Agatha was not sure that there had been any peril, but it was certainly past now, and she was rather puzzled by her sensations when Wyllard had held her shoulder. For one thing, she had felt instinctively that she was safe with him. She decided not to trouble herself about the reason for this, and presently she looked up at him. The expression that she had noticed now and then was once more in his face.

”I don't think you like the fog any more than I do,” she said.

”No,” responded Wyllard, with a quiet forcefulness that startled her. ”I hate it.”

”Why?”

”It recalls something that still gives me a very bad few minutes every once in a while. It has been worrying me again to-night.”

”I wonder,” said Agatha simply, ”if you would care to tell me?”

The man looked down on her. ”I haven't told it often, but you shall hear,” he replied. ”It's a tale of a black failure.” He stretched out a hand and pointed to the ranks of tumbling seas. ”It was very much this kind of night, and we were lying, reefed down, off one of the Russians'

beaches, when I asked for volunteers. I got them--two boats' crews of the finest seamen that ever handled oar or sealing rifle.”

”But what did you want them for?”

”A boat from another schooner had been cast ash.o.r.e. It was blowing hard, as it usually does where the Polar ice comes down into the Behring Sea.

They'd been shooting seals. We meant to bring the men off if we could manage it.”

”Wouldn't one boat have been enough?”

”No,” answered Wyllard dryly, ”we had three, and I think that was one cause of the trouble. There was one from the other schooner. You see, those seals belonged to the Russians, and we free-lances could shoot them only off sh.o.r.e. I'm not sure that the men in the wrecked boat had been fis.h.i.+ng outside the limit.”

Agatha did not press for further particulars, and he went on.

”We managed to make a landing, though one boat went up bottom uppermost.

I fancy they must have broken or lost an oar then. We got the wrecked men, but we had trouble while we were getting the boats off again. The surf was running in savagely, and the fog shut down as solid as a wall.

Any way, we pulled off, and went out with a foot of water in one boat.

One of the rescued men took my oar when I let it go.”

”Why did you let it go?”

Wyllard laughed in a grim fas.h.i.+on.

”My head was laid open with a sealing club,” he said. ”Some of the other men had their scratches, but they managed to row. For one thing, they knew they had to. They had reasons for not wanting to fall into the Russians' hands. Well, we cleared the beach, and once or twice, as I tried to bale, there was a shout somewhere near us, and the loom of a vanis.h.i.+ng boat. It was all we could make out, for the sea was slopping into the boat, and the spray was flying everywhere. If there had been only two boats we probably would have found out our misfortune, and perhaps would have set it straight. As it was, we couldn't tell that it was the same boat that had hailed us.”

He broke off for a moment, and then added quietly:

”Two boats reached the schooners. There was a nasty sea running then, and it blew viciously hard next day. There were three men in the other.”

”Ah!” cried Agatha, ”they were drowned?”

Wyllard made a forceful gesture. ”I'm not quite sure. That's the trouble. At least, the boat was nowhere on the beach next day, and it's difficult to see how the men could have faced the sea that piled up when the gale came down. In all probability, they had an oar short, and the boat rolled them out when a comber broke upon her in the darkness.” The girl saw him close one hand tight as he added, ”If one only knew!”

”What would have befallen them if they had reached sh.o.r.e?”