Part 36 (1/2)
Roden's heart sprang to his throat as he felt a sudden and sickening tre beneath his feet Was the vessel already heaving up for her final plunge? Still cool-headed, his nerve as steady as iron, he would not suffer hile precaution He went straight to his own cabin, and, unlocking his portmanteau, took out the slender stores which by suchbefore If they were picked up by one of the boats, he intended to keep this secretly for Mona's use, should the worst befall The boats were provisioned to a certain extent, but provision ht starve--perish; she should not Then he reached for the cork lifebelt usually stowed above his bunk It was gone All the lifebelts in the cabin had been removed
Not many seconds had these precautions taken, nor did it takeon no ceremony he turned the handle
The door was locked
”Mona! Mona! Are you there? In God's na the handle furiously in his despair But there caer! Open--quick!” he al a succession of blows upon the door
This time he heard a confused murmur and a sound of movement Then the bolt of the door was shot back
She stood before hiarnised it as the dressing-gown she had worn that night at Quaggasfontein, when she had coht from the saloon lae as she confronted hi had left its mark upon them
”What is thein a condition Without a word he stepped past her into the cabin, and snatching the cork lifebelt stowed above her bed buckled it around her
”Co a movement to turn back
”We have not a moment to lose Quick--trust yourself to h the saloon, she with his arm around her, still drowsy and half stupefied, which perhaps was the best state she could have been in in such an appalling e tremor of the deck had increased, and louder sounded the hollow boo of the water
There was a list which nearly threw them off their feet A wash of water swept the scuttles, then the shi+p lurched slowly over to starboard, and again the scuttles were under the brine Surely they were going--going It would be awful, shut up there to drown like rats in a hole, awful--awful; the same death up on deck in the free open air seemed easy, pleasant, by co her with his right arroped and steadied his way--both their ways--ascending the corave was conscious that even death in this fashi+on held no bitterness for hie, fierce, delirious sweetness in the situation, which he would not have exchanged at that moment for life and safety When her absence was overlooked, when she had been left to die, he alone had throay safety, life; he alone had returned to die with her And he had his reward Were they entering paradise together? It seeether, she in his arht did his mind whirl in the briefof her cabin door
In close, dank, airless folds, the heavy mist still lay around--dark, iht air, however, and the weird eloquence of the utter solitude, the disordered deck, the great towering funnel, the ruined deckhouses, the serpentine lapping of the water, roused Mona froy
”Where are they all?” she said, a start of terror shaking her fraan to realise her position
”Gone! I only a to save you, if I can: if not, to die with you; and death will be sweet”
Soh his h Mona's now She pressed her lips to his, clasping him convulsively
”You came back to die with me? Oh, my love! my love!”
She was quite calm as the whole truth struck upon her Love seemed utterly to dispel all terrors of death But Roden did not intend that it should come to that if he could help it Keenly and carefully he had been looking around Every life-buoy had disappeared, snatched off by the panic-stricken crowd The deck cabins, though yawning and sea out so hts were unloosed There was nothing Again the deck beneath the lurch
”Mona, darling,” he whispered, ”act noith that splendid courage you showed before I will not leave go of you, but don't clutch ain Now--coain the side of the shi+p with her there was an angry, seething swirl--and there leaped out of the glooe wreaths, white and spectral, and hissing like snakes Then with this appalling spectacle their footing gave way, and it see whirled up into the very heavens The after-part of the great hull reared itself aloft, and with a roaring, thunderous plunge, the _Scythian_ disappeared froht for ever
Down, down, into the farther depths--down, down, ever doith a vibrating and jarring and crashi+ng as of the destruction of ten ht of ten million worlds seemed upon these two, as, socked down in the vortex of the foundering shi+p, the swiftly flashi+ng brain realised the terrific, the soul-curdling barrier that lay between theh those roaring, jarring realht
Never for the fraction of an instant did Roden relax his grasp; never in that swift, sickening engulfed down and down to the black depths of creation; never, as the starry fires of suffocation dared and scintillated before his strained and bursting eyeballs Never would he; for even the last awful struggle of dissolution should but rivet the eulforous effort, and he felt hiht! yet not light With a rush as of a bird through the air, he--they--soared up fro the upper air once more
Then in na--or had she succuh escaped her breast; but that little sound caused his heart to leap with a wild and thrilling ecstasy She lived--lived still And then, drawing her closer to him as they floated, he kissed those lips, cold with semi-unconsciousness, ith the salt brine of ocean; and it seemed to hier love passage,--these two alone, floating in the nightbetween them and death but the cork lifebelt of the one, and the far fro powers of the other?
Would any of the boats be hanging about the scene of the wreck? Not likely Those which had escaped the havoc wrought by the first rush were crowded to the water's edge The panic-stricken castaould sheer off as far as possible, eager to pat all the distance they could between the shi+p Yet there was just the chance, and to this end, as soon as he had recovered breath Roden sent up a long, loud, penetrating call His voice rang eerily out, rendering the slimy stillness more dead, more oppressive than before But--no answer