CHAPTER XVII
"HE KILLED YOUR FATHER"
Alan ran aft along the starboard side, catching at the rail as the decktilted; the sounds within the hull and the tremors following each soundcame to him more distinctly as he advanced. Taking the shortest way tothe car deck, he turned into the cabins to reach the passengers'companionway. The noises from the car deck, no longer muffled by thecabins, clanged and resounded in terrible tumult; with the clang andrumble of metal, rose shouts and roars of men.
To liberate and throw overboard heavily loaded cars from an endangeredship was so desperate an undertaking and so certain to cost life thatmen attempted it only in final extremities, when the ship must belightened at any cost. Alan had never seen the effect of such anattempt, but he had heard of it as the fear which sat always on thehearts of the men who navigate the ferries--the cars loose on arolling, lurching ship! He was going to that now. Two figuresappeared before him, one half supporting, half dragging the other.Alan sprang and offered aid; but the injured man called to him to goon; others needed him. Alan went past them and down the steps to thecar deck. Half-way down, the priest whom he had noticed among thepassengers stood staring aft, a tense, black figure; beside him otherpassengers were clinging to the handrail and staring down in awestruckfascination. The lowest steps had been crushed back and half up-torn;some monstrous, inanimate thing was battering about below; but thespace at the foot of the steps was clear at that moment. Alan leapedover the ruin of the steps and down upon the car deck.
A giant iron casting six feet high and yards across and tons in weight,tumbled and ground before him; it was this which had swept away thesteps; he had seen it, with two others like it, upon a flat car whichhad been shunted upon one of the tracks on the starboard side of theferry, one of the tracks on his left now as he faced the stern. Heleaped upon and over the great casting, which turned and spun with themotion of the ship as he vaulted it. The car deck was a pitching,swaying slope; the cars nearest him were still upon their tracks, butthey tilted and swayed uglily from side to side; the jacks were gonefrom under them; the next cars already were hurled from the rails,their wheels screaming on the steel deck, clanging and thuddingtogether in their couplings.
Alan ran aft between them. All the crew who could be called from deckand engine room and firehold were struggling at the fantail, under thedirection of the captain, to throw off the cars. The mate was workingas one of the men, and with him was Benjamin Corvet. The crew alreadymust have loosened and thrown over the stern three cars from the twotracks on the port side; for there was a space vacant; and as the traincharged into that space and the men threw themselves upon it, Alanleaped with them.
The leading car--a box car, heavily laden--swayed and shrieked with thepitching of the ship. Corvet sprang between it and the car coupledbehind; he drew out the pin from the coupling, and the men withpinch-bars attacked the car to isolate it and force it aft along thetrack. It moved slowly at first; then leaped its length; sharply withthe lift of the deck, it stopped, toppled toward the men who, yellingto one another, scrambled away. The hundred-ton mass swung from sideto side; the ship dropped swiftly to starboard, and the stern wentdown; the car charged, and its aftermost wheels left the deck; it swungabout, slewed, and jammed across both port tracks. The men attacked itwith dismay; Corvet's shout called them away and rallied them fartherback; they ran with him to the car from which he had uncoupled it.
It was a flat car laden with steel beams. At Corvet's command, thecrew ranged themselves beside it with bars. The bow of the ferry roseto some great wave and, with a cry to the men, Corvet pulled the pin.The others thrust with their bars, and the car slid down the slopingtrack; and Corvet, caught by some lashing of the beams, came with it.The car crashed into the box car, splintered it, turned it, shoved it,and thrust it over the fantail into the water; the flat car, telescopedinto it, was dragged after. Alan leaped upon it and catching atCorvet, freed him and flung him down to the deck, and dropped with him.A cheer rose as the car cleared the fantail, dove, and disappeared.
Alan clambered to his feet. Corvet already was back among the carsagain, shouting orders; the mate and the men who had followed himbefore leaped at his yells. The lurch which had cleared the two carstogether had jumped others away from the rails. They hurtled from sideto side, splintering against the stanchions which stayed them fromcrashing across the center line of the ship; rebounding, they batteredagainst the cars on the outer tracks and crushed them against the sideof the ship. The wedges, blocks, and chains which had secured thembanged about on the deck, useless; the men who tried to control thesecars, dodging as they charged, no longer made attempt to secure thewheels. Corvet called them to throw ropes and chains to bind the loadswhich were letting go; the heavier loads--steel beams, castings,machinery--snapped their lashings, tipped from their flat cars andthundered down the deck. The cars tipped farther, turned over; othersbalanced back; it was upon their wheels that they charged forward, halfriding one another, crashing and demolishing, as the ferry pitched; itwas upon their trucks that they tottered and battered from side to sideas the deck swayed. Now the stern again descended; a line of carsswept for the fantail. Corvet's cry came to Alan through the screamingof steel and the clangor of destruction. Corvet's cry sent men withbars beside the cars as the fantail dipped into the water; Corvet,again leading his crew, cleared the leader of those madly charging carsand ran it over the stern.
The fore trucks fell and, before the rear trucks reached the edge, thestern lifted and caught the car in the middle; it balanced, half overthe water, half over the deck. Corvet crouched under the car with acrowbar; Alan and two others went with him; they worked the car onuntil the weight of the end over the water tipped it down; the balancebroke, and the car tumbled and dived. Corvet, having cleared anotherhundred tons, leaped back, calling to the crew.
They followed him again, unquestioning, obedient. Alan followed closeto him. It was not pity which stirred him now for Benjamin Corvet; norwas it bitterness; but it certainly was not contempt. Of all the waysin which he had fancied finding Benjamin Corvet, he had never thoughtof seeing him like this!
It was, probably, only for a flash; but the great quality of leadershipwhich he once had possessed, which Sherrill had described to Alan andwhich had been destroyed by the threat over him, had returned to him inthis desperate emergency which he had created. How much or how littleof his own condition Corvet understood, Alan could not tell; it wasplain only that he comprehended that he had been the cause of thecatastrophe, and in his fierce will to repair it he not onlydisregarded all risk to himself; he also had summoned up from withinhim and was spending the last strength of his spirit. But he wasspending it in a losing fight.
He got off two more cars; yet the deck only dipped lower, and waterwashed farther and farther up over the fantail. New avalanches of irondescended as box cars above burst open; monstrous dynamo drums,broad-banded steel wheels and splintered crates of machinery batteredabout. Men, leaping from before the charging cars, got caught in themurderous melee of iron and steel and wheels; men's shrill cries cameamid the scream of metal. Alan, tugging at a crate which had struckdown a man, felt aid beside him and, turning, he saw the priest whom hehad passed on the stairs. The priest was bruised and bloody; this wasnot his first effort to aid. Together they lifted an end of the crate;they bent--Alan stepped back, and the priest knelt alone, his lipsrepeating the prayer for absolution. Screams of men came from behind;and the priest rose and turned. He saw men caught between two wrecksof cars crushing together; there was no moment to reach them; he stoodand raised his arms to them, his head thrown back, his voice calling tothem, as they died, the words of absolution.
Three more cars at the cost of two more lives the crew cleared, whilethe sheathing of ice spread over the steel inboard, and dissolution ofall the cargo became complete. Cut stone and motor parts, chasses andcastings, furniture and beams, swept back and forth, while the cars,burst and splintered, became m
onstrous missiles hurtling forward,sidewise, aslant, recoiling. Yet men, though scattered singly, triedto stay them by ropes and chains while the water washed higher andhigher. Dimly, far away, deafened out by the clangor, the steamwhistle of Number 25 was blowing the four long blasts of distress; Alanheard the sound now and then with indifferent wonder. All destructionhad come for him to be contained within this car deck; here the shiploosed on itself all elements of annihilation; who could aid it fromwithout? Alan caught the end of a chain which Corvet flung him and,though he knew it was useless, he carried it across from one stanchionto the next. Something, sweeping across the deck, caught him andcarried him with it; it brought him before the coupled line of truckswhich hurtled back and forth where the rails of track three had been.He was hurled before them and rolled over; something cold and heavypinned him down; and upon him, the car trucks came.
But, before them, something warm and living--a hand and bare armcatching him quickly and pulling at him, tugged him a little fartheron. Alan, looking up, saw Corvet beside him; Corvet, unable to movehim farther, was crouching down there with him. Alan yelled to him toleap, to twist aside and get out of the way; but Corvet only crouchedcloser and put his arms over Alan; then the wreckage came upon them,driving them apart. As the movement stopped, Alan still could seeCorvet dimly by the glow of the incandescent lamps overhead; the truckseparated them. It bore down upon Alan, holding him motionless and, onthe other side, it crushed upon Corvet's legs.
He turned over, as far as he could, and spoke to Alan. "You have beensaving me, so now I tried to save you," he said simply. "What reasondid you have for doing that? Why have you been keeping by me?"
"I'm Alan Conrad of Blue Rapids, Kansas," Alan cried to him. "Andyou're Benjamin Corvet! You know me; you sent for me! Why did you dothat?"
Corvet made no reply to this. Alan, peering at him underneath thetruck, could see that his hands were pressed against his face and thathis body shook. Whether this was from some new physical pain from themovement of the wreckage, Alan did not know till he lowered his handsafter a moment; and now he did not heed Alan or seem even to be awareof him.
"Dear little Connie!" he said aloud. "Dear little Connie! She mustn'tmarry him--not him! That must be seen to. What shall I do, what shallI do?"
Alan worked nearer him. "Why mustn't she marry him?" he cried toCorvet. "Why? Ben Corvet, tell me! Tell me why!"
From above him, through the clangor of the cars, came the four blastsof the steam whistle. The indifference with which Alan had heard thema few minutes before had changed now to a twinge of terror. When menhad been dying about him, in their attempts to save the ship, it hadseemed a small thing for him to be crushed or to drown with them andwith Benjamin Corvet, whom he had found at last. But Constance!Recollection of her was stirring in Corvet the torture of will to live;in Alan--he struggled and tried to free himself. As well as he couldtell by feeling, the weight above him confined but was not crushinghim; yet what gain for her if he only saved himself and not Corvet too?He turned back to Corvet.
"She's going to marry him, Ben Corvet!" he called. "They're betrothed;and they're going to be married, she and Henry Spearman!"
"Who are you?" Corvet seemed only with an effort to become consciousof Alan's presence.
"I'm Alan Conrad, whom you used to take care of. I'm from Blue Rapids.You know about me; are you my father, Ben Corvet? Are you my father orwhat--what are you to me?"
"Your father?" Corvet repeated. "Did he tell you that? He killed yourfather."
"Killed him? Killed him how?"
"Of course. He killed them all--all. But your father--he shot him; heshot him through the head!"
Alan twinged. Sight of Spearman came before him as he had first seenSpearman, cowering in Corvet's library in terror at an apparition."And the bullet hole above the eye!" So that was the hole made by theshot Spearman fired which had killed Alan's father--which shot himthrough the head! Alan peered at Corvet and called to him.
"Father Benitot!" Corvet called in response, not directly in reply toAlan's question, rather in response to what those questions stirred."Father Benitot!" he appealed. "Father Benitot!"
Some one, drawn by the cry, was moving wreckage near them. A hand andarm with a torn sleeve showed; Alan could not see the rest of thefigure, but by the sleeve he recognized that it was the mate.
"Who's caught here?" he called down.
"Benjamin Corvet of Corvet, Sherrill, and Spearman, ship owners ofChicago," Corvet's voice replied deeply, fully; there was authority init and wonder too--the wonder of a man finding himself in a situationwhich his recollection cannot explain.
"Ben Corvet!" the mate shouted in surprise; he cried it to the others,those who had followed Corvet and obeyed him during the hour before andhad not known why. The mate tried to pull the wreckage aside and makehis way to Corvet; but the old man stopped him. "The priest, FatherBenitot! Send him to me. I shall never leave here; send FatherBenitot!"
The word was passed without the mate moving away. The mate, after aminute, made no further attempt to free Corvet; that indeed wasuseless, and Corvet demanded his right of sacrament from the priest whocame and crouched under the wreckage beside him.
"Father Benitot!"
"I am not Father Benitot. I am Father Perron of L'Anse."
"It was to Father Benitot of St. Ignace I should have gone, Father! ..."
The priest got a little closer as Corvet spoke, and Alan heard onlyvoices now and then through the sounds of clanging metal and the drumof ice against the hull. The mate and his helpers were working to gethim free. They had abandoned all effort to save the ship; it wassettling. And with the settling, the movement of the wreckageimprisoning Alan was increasing. This movement made useless theefforts of the mate; it would free Alan of itself in a moment, if itdid not kill him; it would free or finish Corvet too. But he, as Alansaw him, was wholly oblivious of that now. His lips moved quietly,firmly; and his eyes were fixed steadily on the eyes of the priest.