Part 23 (2/2)
He struggled past them and on toward the open deck. An officer caught him and held him firmly until Hugh, Veath, and the two trembling women came up.
”Get back, all of you!” yelled Shadburn. ”You can't come out here. Every sailor on deck has been washed overboard!”
”Don't let us sink! Don't let us sink! For G.o.d's sake!” shrieked Lord Huntingford. Then he saw his wife. ”Save me, Tennys; we are lost! We are lost!”
A great wave swept over the deck, was.h.i.+ng all of them back into the companionway, half drowned.
”Is there any hope, Mr. Frayne?” yelled Hugh to the second officer, holding himself and his half-dead sweetheart against the leaping of the boat.
”One chance in a million! Stay back there and we'll try the boats. G.o.d knows they can't live in this sea, but they're the only hope. We'll turn clear over with the next big wave. Stay back!” he yelled. ”We are trying to get the boats ready. Stay back!”
Hugh and Grace from where they clung could see the great black mountains of water rus.h.i.+ng upon them, each wave a most terrifying spectacle. Then again the whole dark, seething ocean seemed to be below them and they were flying to the clouds. The breath of relief died instantly, for again the helpless s.h.i.+p sank into the trough and the foaming mountains towered about her. Grace hid her eyes and screamed with terror. Those huge murderous waves already had swept many from the s.h.i.+p. A score of sailors and as many courageous soldiers were in the churn of the merciless waters.
Cras.h.!.+ A horrid grating sound, splintering! Then the instantaneous shock, the awful, stunning force of a frightful blow and a s.h.i.+pful of human beings were flung violently in all directions, many never to rise again. The _Tempest Queen_ had struck! The last chance was gone!
”My G.o.d!” groaned the captain. ”It's all over!” Then he roared: ”All hands! All hands! Stations! To the boats! Stand back there!
Women first!”
Ridgeway, dimly realizing that the end had come, staggered to his feet and instinctively reached for the body of the woman who lay before him.
He did not know that she was conscious, nor did he know whether the s.h.i.+p was afloat or sinking. A gigantic wave swept over her, tons of water pouring in upon them. Blankly he dragged her to the opening which led to the watery deck, clinging to a railing with all his might. He was gasping for breath, his life almost crushed out of his body. It required all his strength to drag the limp form safely away from the pa.s.sage, through which now poured their crazed companions, rus.h.i.+ng headlong into the sea.
”In the name of G.o.d what shall we do?” he heard a hoa.r.s.e voice shout in his ear. It was Veath, also burdened with the helpless form of a woman.
”It is death here and death there. I am going to trust to the life preservers,” gasped Ridgeway, as another wave struck. The constant crackling and cras.h.i.+ng told him that the Tempest Queen was being ground to pieces on the rock and that she had but a few minutes to live.
”Wait, Hugh, we may get off in a boat,” cried the other, but he was not heard. Hugh was in the sea!
Just as Veath began his anguished remonstrance the s.h.i.+p gave a tremendous lurch, an overpowering wave hurled itself upon the frail sh.e.l.l and Hugh Ridgeway's frenzied grasp on the rail was broken. When he saw that he was going, he threw both arms about the girl he had brought to this awful fate, and, murmuring a prayer, whirled away with the waters over the battered deck-house and into the black depths.
They shot downward into the sea and then came to the hideous surface, more dead than alive. His one thought was that n.o.body in the world would ever know what had become of Hugh Ridgeway and Grace Vernon.
Chapter XVI
THE NIGHT AND THE MORNING
Gasping for breath, blinded, terrified beyond all imagination, crying to G.o.d from his heart, Hugh gave up all hope. Fathoms of water beneath them, turbulent and gleeful in the furious dance of destruction; mountains of water above them, roaring, swis.h.i.+ng, growling out the horrid symphony of death! High on the crest of the wave they soared, down into the chasm they fell, only to shoot upward again, whirling like feathers in the air.
Something b.u.mped violently against Ridgeway's side, and, with the instinct of a drowning man, he grasped for the object as it rushed away.
A huge section of the bowsprit was in his grasp and a cry of hope arose in his soul. With this respite came the feeling, strong and enduring, that he was not to die. That ever-existing spirit of confidence, baffled in one moment, flashes back into the hearts of all men when the faintest sign of hope appears, even though death has already begun to close his hand upon them. Nature grasps for the weakest straw and clings to life with an a.s.surance that is sublime. The hope that comes just before the end is the strongest hope of all.
”For G.o.d's sake, be brave, darling! Cling tight and be careful when you breathe,” he managed to cry in her ear. There was no answer, but he felt that she had heard.
The night was so black that he could not see the spar to which he clung.
At no time could he see more than the fitful gleam of dark water as some mysterious glimmer was produced by the weird machinery of the air. He could hear the roar of the mighty waves, could feel the uplifting power and the dash downward from seemingly improbable heights, but he could not see the cauldron in which they were dancing.
It was fortunate that he could not, for a single glimpse of that sea in all its fury would have terrified him beyond control. In sheer despair he would have given up the infinitesimal claim he had for salvation and welcomed death from the smothering tons, now so bravely battled against.
The girl to whom he clung and whose rigid clasp was still about his neck had not spoken, and scarcely breathed since the plunge into the sea. At times he felt utterly alone in the darkness, so death-like was her silence. But for an occasional spasmodic indication of fear as they and their spar shot downward from some unusual elevation, he might have believed that he was drifting with a corpse.
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