CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.
THE ECHO OF A PROPHECY.
"Let me pass. Quick! I want to see the captain."
"But you can't go on the bridge, miss; it's against orders." And thestalwart quartermaster barred with his substantial form the stepsleading up to the bridge.
"But I must see the captain, and I will. Do you hear? Let me pass,"with a quick stamp of the foot.
Seen by the electric lights the speaker was a well-formed, beautifulgirl, her face pale, and her eyes glowing with excitement and purpose.Behind her, a little in the background, buzzed a throng of excitedpassengers.
"Very sorry, miss, but it can't be done," reaffirmed the quartermaster,not without misgivings, for the speaker was a favourite on board, andnot a little so with the captain himself, a grizzled and, withal, crustysalt, of whom those under him stood considerably in awe. "If there wereany message now, miss, I might make so bold as to take it," he addedconciliatorily.
"Message? Message? No; I must tell him myself," came the quickrejoinder, accompanied by another stamp of the foot. "Let me up! Man,man, a life--lives--depend on it--at any rate one."
The seaman gave way, resigning himself to a "logging," and, perchance,other pains and penalties. In a moment the girl had gained the bridge.The captain and two of the officers turned in anger, which subsided onthe part of the latter as they saw the identity of the intruder. Thefirst still looked grim.
"Well, young lady?" he began in a voice that would have sent most of theother passengers down double quick with a stuttered apology, but withthis one it went for nothing.
"Captain, that ship we just ran into--there was someone on board."
The captain looked grimmer still. "Just ran into" had acharacteristically ugly sound in his ears.
"Humph!" he snorted. "Just ran into! Just ran into! That infernal oldblasted derelict hulk, whose owners ought to be--" And then heremembered the sex and identity of the speaker, and with a gulp went on."Now, how the--how the--well, how d'you make out there's anyone onboard her?" he rapped out in a sort of subdued hurricane blast of avoice.
"Because I saw. I saw a man lying on her deck as plainly as I see youand Mr Gibson now. Do turn back and see--quick--or you may never findher again in the dark. I saw him, mind you--I swear to God I saw him--by the deck lights as we crashed past. You can't leave him alone todie. You can't!"
"Saw him? Saw a mare's nest," grumbled the captain. "Let me tell you,young lady, it's not my business to start overhauling derelict hulks atmidnight--brutes that might have sent us to the bottom. Fortunately, weonly scraped this one. Well, well," he appended sourly, "we're ahead ofour time, so we might as well make sure of this. Put her round,Gibson."
"Ah! I thought sailors were always ready to help each other," said thegirl triumphantly.
An order was given, and, in the result, the _Runic_ changed her course,and was bearing round, going dead slow, so as to head for the latedangerous obstruction. The excitement was intense among the passengers,who thronged the bulwarks at every coign of vantage, eagerly scanningthe dark, silent sea. Suddenly the engines stopped, and a boat waslowered.
"Where is she? Can you see her?" were among the buzzed, eager commentsas the boat's lantern receded into the gloom. Soon came a hail and thesound of gruff voices over the water. The light of the lantern grewlarger and larger. The boat was returning.
Heavens! what was this? With the boat's crew there stepped aboard atall, bearded man burned almost to the copper hue of a savage andwearing what looked like the attire of one. Thus he appeared in theelectric lights to the eyes of the excited throng.
"Who are you, my man, and what's your ship?" began the captainbrusquely.
"Thank God, I'm going home at last!" exclaimed the stranger, gazingaround in a weary and dazed sort of way.
"Yes--yes; but--who are you?" repeated the captain more crisply.
"Why--it's Mr Wagram!"
The interruption or answer proceeded from the girl who had been thecause of the search. The castaway turned, looking more puzzled thanever.
"Yes; that's my name," he answered. "But--I ought to know that voice,and yet--and yet--"
"Of course you ought," and, casting all conventionality to the winds,the girl sprang forward, seizing one of his hands in both of hers. "Oh,how thankful I am that we have been the means of saving you! What mustyou have been through! Welcome--a thousand times welcome!"
"Miss Calmour, surely? Why, of course it is. How glad I am to see youagain." And in the face of this sun-tanned and unkempt-looking savagehere under the ship's lights Delia could detect the same look as thatwhich had glanced down upon her in the park at Hilversea that glowingsummer afternoon after the life-and-death struggle with the escapedbeast. "I was a passenger on the _Baleka_, captain," he went on toexplain.
"Passenger on the _Baleka_ were you? Then, my good sir, it's luckywe're homeward bound, because your people will be just about beginningto go to law over your leavings," returned the captain, who was of acynical bent. "The only passenger missing from her was given up aslost. But--you haven't been aboard that old hooker ever since, I takeit?"
"No; indeed. I've had some strange experiences--can hardly believe I'mnot dreaming now. What ship's this?"
"The _Runic_. White Torpedo line, bound for London from Australianports."
"And what of the _Baleka's_ people? Were they found?"
"Yes; all picked up, some here, some there."
"Captain," interrupted that same clear, sweet, fluty voice, "I'msurprised at you. Here's a shipwrecked mariner been thrown on board,and instead of doing all you can for him you keep him standing here allnight answering questions."
"By Jove! you're right, Miss Calmour," was the bluff reply. "Gibson,"turning to the chief, "take the gentleman to the saloon, and tell thestewards to get him all he wants."
"I don't want much at present, thanks," answered Wagram. "A barber, andsome clothes are my most urgent needs; but I suppose we can compasssomething in that line to-morrow."
"Why, of course," said Delia; "but don't throw away that picturesquecostume. Come along below, now. I'm going to take care of you thisevening."
And she did--laying her commands upon the stewards for this and for thatas if the whole ship belonged to her. Then she sat and talked to him ashe ate some supper, forestalling every possible want, pressing this andthat upon him, and yet without ostentatious fuss. And the castaway, whofor months had beheld no woman's face save those of brutal, debasedblacks, wondered uneasily whether he were dreaming, as this beautifulgirl sat there attending to his wants with an almost loving assiduity.Yes; he decided, she certainly was beautiful. Time, change, theconditions of a new life, had put the last touches to the sufficiency ofher attractiveness as he remembered her.
"By Jove!" exclaimed the chief officer, who had dropped in to hear someof the castaway's story, "you've had some pretty rough ups and downs,and no mistake; and you might as well have tumbled into the boats withthe rest after all, for the kid was all right and not left below atall."
"Is that a fact?" said Wagram eagerly.
"Rather. You were throwing away your life going below at such a time inany case, and in this instance it was all for nothing."
Delia had been wishing the chief officer anywhere. She wanted Wagram toherself, and here Gibson sat prosing his tiresome old sea yarns. Now,however, she brisked up, and insisted upon hearing the whole story. Shehad been quite out of the way of newspapers of late, and had not evenheard of the loss of the _Baleka_, or that the man sitting here beforeher had been given up as lost, a victim to his own heroic act.
"By George! I must go," said the chief. "Mind you ask for anything youwant, Mr Wagram, for I conclude you've come aboard in a state oftemporary and complete destitution."
"That's just my case," laughed Wagram. "Funny, isn't it?" turning tothe girl in time to catch the look in her eyes called there by the storyshe had just heard. "And now tell me about yourself, and
how they allare in Bassingham."
"We've left Bassingham, you know, Mr Wagram. My father died soon afteryou went, and we couldn't stop on at Siege House. So we went up toLondon, and--well, things were not easy."
"I didn't know; I have had no news from Hilversea for a long, longtime--have been so on the move, you know."
"How you must long to get back. Dear old, beautiful Hilversea!"
The bright spirits and former lightheartedness seemed to have left her.Her voice was sad. The other made a mental note of it, and deduced thatthey had fallen upon hard times. Well, that he would certainly do hisbest to remedy by some means or other. Then she told him about herself;how her other sister--not Clytie--had married in Australia, married veryfairly well, too, and had got her out there on a visit. But they hadnot got on--she did not tell him that the other had conceived a jealousyof her from the very first--and so she was returning to England.
They talked on until even the other passengers, who, by twos and threes,had been passing through the saloon in quite unusual numbers to catchanother glimpse of the castaway, had disappeared, and the stewards wererolling up the carpets.
"Good-night, Mr Wagram," said the girl as they parted. "I can't tellyou how glad I am to see you again, and what a happiness it is to thinkthat the ship I was on board of was the one to rescue you. To-morrowyou must tell me your adventures in full. You will--won't you?"
He promised, with some reservations, and they parted. But Delia foundthat sleep utterly refused to come her way--and she wanted to sleep,wanted to look her best in the morning. Her cabin mate, an elderlylady, was fast asleep, but she herself seemed doomed to night-longwakefulness. The scuttle was open and she lay with her face to it,watching the dark sky with its twinkle of misty stars, half lulled bythe rush and "sough" of smooth water from the sides of the liner. Whatwonderful workings of Fate had thrown this man here? And he would nothave been here but for her. But for her persistence he would have beenmiles and miles behind, left to perish miserably on the lonely deep.The other passengers had treated her statement with good-humouredridicule; the captain himself would hardly be persuaded to put back--andwhat if he had not? But he had--and it had been entirely due to herthat he had. She had saved Wagram's life--as surely as any life everhad been saved--she and she alone.
The sweetness of the thought began to soothe her, and sleep seemed to becoming at last. Then, through it, something--perhaps the sight of thesmooth sea through which the great liner was rushing on even keel--brought back to her mind certain words uttered on a woodland road in thedusk of a winter afternoon; weird words about green seas, smooth andoily, and a battered ship, and terrors--and, perhaps, death, but, if notdeath, then great happiness. The croakings of the old gipsy came backnow--and, good heavens! what coincidence was this? Here were all theconditions--the smooth seas and the battered hulk--the terror gonethrough--terrors of every kind, up to that of being left on thederelict--the agony of seeing this ark of safety recede from reach ofcall. "Perhaps death?" He had been snatched from death at that moment,snatched from it by her, as surely as though by her own hand. "But, ifnot death, then great happiness." In the hot, thick stillness of thenight Delia's brain was busy. The prediction had been directed toherself, not to him. And then it seemed to merge into a jointprediction, but--great happiness? Well, was it not? She had rescuedhim from death--she alone. Was not that a great happiness? Further, itwould be nearly a fortnight ere they reached England, and during thattime she would see him daily, talk with him, under conditions of which aweek was equivalent to a year under the old state of things. Would notthat be "great happiness?"
And then she remembered not only the prediction, but the scorn andcontempt with which he had treated both it and its utterer, extendingjust an overflow ripple of it to her. And with a smile at therecollection she fell into a quiet sleep. Nearly a whole fortnight ofhappiness--great happiness--lay before her.
In the event so it proved. From the next morning, when they met--heclothed and barbered, and looking exactly as she remembered him in thedear old days of yore--"clothed, and in his right mind" as he smilinglytold her in his old, dry, humorous way--pacing the deck in the coolhours, or seated in some snug, shady corner in roomy deck-chairs,talking about home--they two were nearly always together; and thehome-sick wanderer felt at home already, and the girl forgot for thetime her own dreary prospects, with the struggle for life all openingout before her, to be begun and gone through again. He would go back toluxury and his high estate, while she--? Yet even this she forgot inthose sweet, dreamy, sunny days which would soon--only too soon--beover.
There were others on board, though, to whom this change was not sowelcome, and who--for human nature is human after all--fervently wishedthis picked-up castaway--well--back again on the hulk from which he hadbeen picked up. For Delia Calmour, with her beauty and tact andsunniness of disposition, had reigned a queen among the male section ofthe passengers, and the long voyage, now nearing its close, had beenlong enough to render more than one heart rather sore.
"I must not monopolise you all day, and every day, like this, child,"Wagram had said to her. "You are good-nature itself towards a tiresomeold bore with but one idea in his head. You must go and make thingslively for the others a bit sometimes or I shall feel like aninterloper."
"Am I tiring you, then?" she would answer softly.
"Now, you know that is absurd. Still, I must not be selfish."
"You--selfish? What next?"
"I'm afraid I am--very. Now, they are getting up that last fancy-dressdance before we get into what may possibly be rough water. Go and helpthem in that as you would have done before. I want to see you enjoyingyourself. I am afraid I am too much of a fogey to cut into that sort ofthing actively myself."
She did not answer that "that sort of thing" was an inane and vapidmethod of enjoying herself, compared with half-an-hour of ordinaryconversation with him. She complied--and submissively. Incidentally,she found that the "enjoyment" involved a heated passage-of-arms withthe third officer; item, subsequently with a fine young Australian whomshe had refused twice during the voyage; but these were trifles light asair under the circumstances.
Then the days grew fewer and fewer, and the grey waters of the Bay ofBiscay gave way to the greyer waters of the English Channel. The_Runic_ would soon be securely docked in her berth.