CHAPTER XX IN WHICH WE ARE IN DESPERATE CASE
"GOD walketh upon the sea as he walketh upon the land," said theminister. "The sea is his and we are his. He will do what it likethhim with his own." As he spoke he looked with a steadfast soul into theblack hollow of the wave that combed above us, threatening destruction.
The wave broke, and the boat still lived. Borne high upon the shoulderof the next rolling hill, we looked north, south, east, and west, andsaw only a waste of livid, ever forming, ever breaking waves, a graysky streaked with darker gray shifting vapor, and a horizon impenetrablyveiled. Where we were in the great bay, in what direction we were beingdriven, how near we might be to the open sea or to some fatal shore, weknew not. What we did know was that both masts were gone, that we mustbail the boat without ceasing if we would keep it from swamping, thatthe wind was doing an apparently impossible thing and rising higher andhigher, and that the waves which buffeted us from one to the other werehourly swelling to a more monstrous bulk.
We had come into the wider waters at dawn, and still under canvas. Anhour later, off Point Comfort, a bare mast contented us; we had hardlygotten the sail in when mast and all went overboard. That had been hoursago.
A common peril is a mighty leveler of barriers. Scant time was therein that boat to make distinction between friend and foe. As one manwe fought the element which would devour us. Each took his turn atthe bailing, each watched for the next great wave before which we mustcower, clinging with numbed hands to gunwale and thwart. We fared alike,toiled alike, and suffered alike, only that the minister and I cared forMistress Percy, asking no help from the others.
The King's ward endured all without a murmur. She was cold, she was wornwith watching and terror, she was wounded; each moment Death raised hisarm to strike, but she sat there dauntless, and looked him in the facewith a smile upon her own. If, wearied out, we had given up the fight,her look would have spurred us on to wrestle with our fate to the lastgasp. She sat between Sparrow and me, and as best we might we shieldedher from the drenching seas and the icy wind. Morning had shown me theblood upon her sleeve, and I had cut away the cloth from the white arm,and had washed the wound with wine and bound it up. If for my fee, Ishould have liked to press my lips upon the blue-veined marble, still Idid it not.
When, a week before, I had stored the boat with food and drink and hadbrought it to that lonely wharf, I had thought that if at the last mywife willed to flee I would attempt to reach the bay, and passing outbetween the capes would go to the north. Given an open boat and thetempestuous seas of November, there might be one chance out of a hundredof our reaching Manhattan and the Dutch, who might or might not give usrefuge. She had willed to flee, and we were upon our journey, and theone chance had vanished. That wan, monotonous, cold, and clinging misthad shrouded us for our burial, and our grave yawned beneath us.
The day passed and the night came, and still we fought the sea, andstill the wind drove us whither it would. The night passed and thesecond morning came, and found us yet alive. My wife lay now at my feet,her head pillowed upon the bundle she had brought from the minister'shouse. Too weak for speech, waiting in pain and cold and terror fordeath to bring her warmth and life, the knightly spirit yet lived in hereyes, and she smiled when I bent over her with wine to moisten her lips.At length she began to wander in her mind, and to speak of summer daysand flowers. A hand held my heart in a slowly tightening grip of iron,and the tears ran down the minister's cheeks. The man who had darkenedher young life, bringing her to this, looked at her with an ashen face.
As the day wore on, the gray of the sky paled to a dead man's hue andthe wind lessened, but the waves were still mountain high. One momentwe poised, like the gulls that now screamed about us, upon some giddysummit, the sky alone above and around us; the next we sank into darkgreen and glassy caverns. Suddenly the wind fell away, veered, and roseagain like a giant refreshed.
Diccon started, put his hand to his ear, then sprang to his feet."Breakers!" he cried hoarsely.
We listened with straining ears. He was right. The low, ominous murmurchanged to a distant roar, grew louder yet, and yet louder, and was nolonger distant.
"It will be the sand islets off Cape Charles, sir," he said. I nodded.He and I knew there was no need of words.
The sky grew paler and paler, and soon upon the woof of the cloudsa splash of dull yellow showed where the sun would be. The fog rose,laying bare the desolate ocean. Before us were two very small islands,mere handfuls of sand, lying side by side, and encompassed half by theopen sea, half by stiller waters diked in by marshes and sand bars. Acoarse, scanty grass and a few stunted trees with branches bending awayfrom the sea lived upon them, but nothing else. Over them and over themarshes and the sand banks circled myriads of great white gulls. Theirharsh, unearthly voices came to us faintly, and increased the desolationof earth and sky and sea.
To the shell-strewn beach of the outer of the two islets raced longlines of surf, and between us and it lurked a sand bar, against whichthe great rollers dashed with a bull-like roar. The wind drove usstraight upon this bar. A moment of deadly peril and it had us fast,holding us for the waves to beat our life out. The boat listed, thenrested, quivering through all its length. The waves pounded against itsside, each watery battering-ram dissolving in foam and spray but to giveplace to another, and yet it held together, and yet we lived. How longit would hold we could not tell; we only knew it could not be for long.The inclination of the boat was not so great but that, with caution, wemight move about. There were on board rope and an axe. With the latter Icut away the thwarts and the decking in the bow, and Diccon and I madea small raft. When it was finished, I lifted my wife in my arms and laidher upon it and lashed her to it with the rope. She smiled like a child,then closed her eyes. "I have gathered primroses until I am tired," shesaid. "I will sleep here a little in the sunshine, and when I awake Iwill make you a cowslip ball."
Time passed, and the groaning, trembling timbers still held together.The wind fell, the sky became blue, and the sun shone. Another while,and the waves were less mountainous and beat less furiously against theboat. Hope brightened before us. To strong swimmers the distance to theislet was trifling; if the boat would but last until the sea subsided,we might gain the beach. What we would do upon that barren spot, wherewas neither man nor brute, food nor water, was a thing that we had notthe time to consider. It was land that we craved.
Another hour, and the sea still fell. Another, and a wave struck theboat with force. "The sea is coming in!" cried the minister.
"Ay," I answered. "She will go to pieces now."
The minister rose to his feet. "I am no mariner," he said, "but oncein the water I can swim you like any fish. There have been times when Ihave reproached the Lord for that he cased a poor silly humble preacherlike me with the strength and seeming of some might man of old, andthere have been times when I have thanked him for that strength. I thankhim now. Captain Percy, if you will trust the lady to me, I will takeher safely to that shore."
I raised my head from the figure over which I was bending, and lookedfirst at the still tumultuous sea, and then at the gigantic frame of theminister. When we had made that frail raft no swimmer could have livedin that shock of waves; now there was a chance for all, and for theminister, with his great strength, the greatest I have ever seen in anyman, a double chance. I took her from the raft and gave her into hisarms. A minute later the boat went to pieces.
Side by side Sparrow and I buffeted the sea. He held the King's wardin one arm, and he bore her safely over the huge swells and through theonslaught of the breaking waves. I could thank God for his strength, andtrust her to it. For the other three of us, we were all strong swimmers,and though bruised and beat about, we held our own. Each wave, overcome,left us nearer the islet,--a little while and our feet touched bottom.A short struggle with the tremendous surf and we were out of the maw ofthe sea, but out upon a desolate islet, a mere hand's-breadth of sandand shell in a lonely ocean, some three le
agues from the mainland ofAccomac, and upon it neither food nor water. We had the clothes upon ourbacks, and my lord and I had kept our swords. I had a knife, and Diccontoo was probably armed. The flint and steel and tinder box within mypouch made up our store.
The minister laid the woman whom he carried upon the pebbles, fell uponhis knees, and lifted his rugged face to heaven. I too knelt, and withmy hand upon her heart said my own prayer in my own way. My lord stoodwith unbent head, his eyes upon that still white face, but Diccon turnedabruptly and strode off to a low ridge of sand, from the top of whichone might survey the entire island.
In two minutes he was back again. "There's plenty of driftwood furtherup the beach," he announced, "and a mort of dried seaweed. At least weneed n't freeze."
The great bonfire that we made roared and crackled, sending out a mostcheerful heat and light. Under that genial breath the color cameslowly back to madam's cheek and lip, and her heart beat more strongly.Presently she turned under my hand, and with a sigh pillowed her headupon her arm and went to sleep in that blessed warmth like a littlechild.
We who had no mind for sleep sat there beside the fire and watched thesun sink behind the low black line of the mainland, now plainly visiblein the cleared air. It dyed the waves blood red, and shot out one longray to crimson a single floating cloud, no larger than a man's hand,high in the blue. Sea birds, a countless multitude, went to and fro withharsh cries from island to marsh, and marsh to island. The marshes werestill green; they lay, a half moon of fantastic shapes, each parted fromthe other by pink water. Beyond them was the inlet dividing us fromthe mainland, and that inlet was three leagues in width. We turned andlooked seaward. Naught but leaping waves white-capped to the horizon.
"We touched here the time we went against the French at Port Royal andSt. Croix," I said. "We had heard a rumor that the Bermuda pirates hadhidden gold here. Argall and I went over every foot of it."
"And found no water?" questioned the minister.
"And found no water."
The light died from the west and from the sea beneath, and the nightfell. When with the darkness the sea fowl ceased their clamor, adreadful silence suddenly enfolded us. The rush of the surf made nodifference; the ear heard it, but to the mind there was no sound. Thesky was thick with stars; every moment one shot, and the trail of whitefire it left behind melted into the night silently like snowflakes.There was no wind. The moon rose out of the sea, and lent the sandy isleher own pallor. Here and there, back amongst the dunes, the branches ofa low and leafless tree writhed upward like dark fingers thrust from outthe spectral earth. The ocean, quiet now, dreamed beneath the moon andcared not for the five lives it had cast upon that span of sand.
We piled driftwood and tangles of seaweed upon our fire, and it flamedand roared and broke the silence. Diccon, going to the landward side ofthe islet, found some oysters, which we roasted and ate; but we had norwine nor water with which to wash them down.
"At least there are here no foes to fear," quoth my lord. "We may allsleep to-night; and zooks! we shall need it!" He spoke frankly, with anopen face.
"I will take one watch, if you will take the other," I said to theminister.
He nodded. "I will watch until midnight."
It was long past that time when he roused me from where I lay atMistress Percy's feet.
"I should have relieved you long ago," I told him.
He smiled. The moon, now high in the heavens, shone upon and softenedhis rugged features. I thought I had never seen a face so filled withtenderness and hope and a sort of patient power. "I have been with God,"he said simply. "The starry skies and the great ocean and the littleshells beneath my hand,--how wonderful are thy works, O Lord! What isman that thou art mindful of him? And yet not a sparrow falleth"--I roseand sat by the fire, and he laid himself down upon the sand beside me.
"Master Sparrow," I asked, "have you ever suffered thirst?"
"No," he answered. We spoke in low tones, lest we should wake her.Diccon and my lord, upon the other side of the fire, were sleepingheavily.
"I have," I said. "Once I lay upon a field of battle throughout a summerday, sore wounded and with my dead horse across my body. I shall forgetthe horror of that lost field and the torment of that weight before Iforget the thirst."
"You think there is no hope?"
"What hope should there be?"
He was silent. Presently he turned and looked at the King's ward whereshe lay in the rosy light; then his eyes came back to mine.
"If it comes to the worst I shall put her out of her torment," I said.
He bowed his head and we sat in silence, our gaze upon the groundbetween us, listening to the low thunder of the surf and the cracklingof the fire. "I love her," I said at last. "God help me!"
He put his finger to his lips. She had stirred and opened her eyes. Iknelt beside her, and asked her how she did and if she wanted aught.
"It is warm," she said wonderingly.
"You are no longer in the boat," I told her. "You are safe upon theland. You have been sleeping here by the fire that we kindled."
An exquisite smile just lit her face, and her eyelids drooped again."I am so tired," she said drowsily, "that I will sleep a little longer.Will you bring me some water, Captain Percy? I am very thirsty."
After a moment I said gently, "I will go get it, madam." She made noanswer; she was already asleep. Nor did Sparrow and I speak again. Helaid himself down with his face to the ocean, and I sat with my head inmy hands, and thought and thought, to no purpose.