Chapter XVI
THE NIGHT AND THE MORNING
Gasping for breath, blinded, terrified beyond all imagination, crying toGod from his heart, Hugh gave up all hope. Fathoms of water beneaththem, turbulent and gleeful in the furious dance of destruction;mountains of water above them, roaring, swishing, growling out thehorrid symphony of death! High on the crest of the wave they soared,down into the chasm they fell, only to shoot upward again, whirling likefeathers in the air.
Something bumped violently against Ridgeway's side, and, with theinstinct 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 arosein his soul. With this respite came the feeling, strong and enduring,that he was not to die. That ever-existing spirit of confidence, baffledin one moment, flashes back into the hearts of all men when the faintestsign of hope appears, even though death has already begun to close hishand upon them. Nature grasps for the weakest straw and clings to lifewith an assurance that is sublime. The hope that comes just before theend is the strongest hope of all.
"For God's sake, be brave, darling! Cling tight and be careful when youbreathe," he managed to cry in her ear. There was no answer, but he feltthat 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 somemysterious glimmer was produced by the weird machinery of the air. Hecould hear the roar of the mighty waves, could feel the uplifting powerand the dash downward from seemingly improbable heights, but he couldnot see the cauldron in which they were dancing.
It was fortunate that he could not, for a single glimpse of that sea inall its fury would have terrified him beyond control. In sheer despairhe would have given up the infinitesimal claim he had for salvation andwelcomed death from the smothering tons, now so bravely battled against.
The girl to whom he clung and whose rigid clasp was still about his neckhad not spoken, and scarcely breathed since the plunge into the sea. Attimes he felt utterly alone in the darkness, so death-like was hersilence. But for an occasional spasmodic indication of fear as they andtheir spar shot downward from some unusual elevation, he might havebelieved that he was drifting with a corpse.
Rolling, tossing, dragging through the billows, clinging to the friendlyspar, Hugh Ridegway sped onward, his body stiff and sensationless, hisbrain fogged and his heart dead with that of the girl to whom he clungso desperately. At last the monstrous waves began to show theiroutlines to his blinding eyes. The blackness of the dome above becametinged with a discernible shade of ever-increasing brightness. A thrillshot through his fagging soul as he realized that the long night wasending and day was dawning. The sun was coming forth to show himhis grave.
Slowly the brightness grew, and with it grew the most dreadful aspectthat ever fell upon the eye of man--the mighty sea in all its fury.Suddenly, as he poised on the summit of a huge wave, something aheadstruck him as strange. A great mass seemed to rise from the ocean faraway, dim, indistinct, but still plain to the eye. With the next upwardsweep he strained his eyes in the waning darkness and again saw the vastblack, threatening, uneven mass.
An uncanny terror enveloped him. What could the strange thing be thatappeared to be rushing toward him? As far as the eye could see on eitherside stretched the misty shape. The sky grew brighter, a faint glowbecame apparent ahead, spreading into a splendor whose perfection wassoon streaked with bars of red and yellow, racing higher and higher intothe dome above. His dull brain observed with wonder that the brightnessgrew, not out of the sea, but beyond the great object ahead, and he wasmore mystified than ever. The tiny, fiery beams seemed to spring fromthe dark, ugly, menacing cloud, or whatever it might be. Finally herealized that it was the sun coming into the heavens from the east,and--his heart roared within him as he began to grasp the truth--thegreat black mass was land!
"Oh, God! It is land--land!" he tried to shriek. "Grace! Grace! Lookup!See! The land!"
The arms about his neck tightened sharply and a low moan came to hisears. Slowly and painfully he turned his head to look at the face thathad been so near in all those awful hours of the night, unseen. Hisheart seemed to stop beating with that moan, for it bore theannouncement that the dear one was still alive.
It was still too dark to distinguish her features plainly. The face waswet and slimy with the salt water; her hair was matted over the foreheadand wrapped in ugly strips about the once pretty face, now ghastly withthe signs of suffering, fear and--yes, death, he thought, as he stroveto see one familiar feature.
Into his eyes came a quizzical stare that slowly changed to an intenselook of bewilderment. Gradually they grew wider with horror.
The death-like face was not that of the girl he loved!
While he gazed numbly, almost insanely, upon the closed eyelids, theyslowly opened and a pair of wild, dark eyes gazed despairingly into his,expressive of timidity more than fear. The trembling lips parted, butthe effort to speak ended in a moan. Again the eyes closed and her armsslipped from his neck.
Every vestige of strength left him with this startling discovery and,had his arm been anything but rigid with paralysis, she might havedrifted off with the billows, a fate which her voluntary action invited.
A great wave rushed them violently forward and the next moment Ridgeway,faint, bewildered, and unable to grasp the full force of the remarkableending to that night in the water, found himself, still grasping hislimp burden and the broken spar, washed far upon the sands. A secondwave swept them higher, and he realized, as he lay gasping on the edgeof the waters, that the vast ocean was behind him and the beautifulwoman he had rescued by mistake.