Lady Tozer adjusted her gold-rimmed eye-glasses with an air of
dignified aggressiveness. She had lived too many years in the Far East.
In Hong Kong she was known as the "Mandarin." Her powers of merciless
inquisition suggested torments long drawn out. The commander of the
Sirdar, homeward bound from Shanghai, knew that he was about to
be stretched on the rack when he took his seat at the saloon table.
"Is it true, captain, that we are running into a typhoon?" demanded her
ladyship.
"From whom did you learn that, Lady Tozer?" Captain Ross was wary,
though somewhat surprised.
"From Miss Deane. I understood her a moment ago to say that you had
told her."
"I?"
"Didn't you? Some one told me this morning. I couldn't have guessed it,
could I?" Miss Iris Deane's large blue eyes surveyed him with innocent
indifference to strict accuracy. Incidentally, she had obtained the
information from her maid, a nose-tilted coquette who extracted ship's
secrets from a youthful quartermaster.
"Well--er--I had forgotten," explained the tactful sailor.
"Is it true?"
Lady Tozer was unusually abrupt today. But she was annoyed by
the assumption that the captain took a mere girl into his confidence
and passed over the wife of the ex-Chief Justice of Hong Kong.
"Yes, it is," said Captain Ross, equally curt, and silently thanking
the fates that her ladyship was going home for the last time.
"How horrible!" she gasped, in unaffected alarm. This return to
femininity soothed the sailor's ruffled temper.
Sir John, her husband, frowned judicially. That frown constituted his
legal stock-in-trade, yet it passed current for wisdom with the Hong
Kong bar.
"What evidence have you?" he asked.
"Do tell us," chimed in Iris, delightfully unconscious of interrupting
the court. "Did you find out when you squinted at the sun?"
The captain smiled. "You are nearer the mark than possibly you imagine,
Miss Deane," he said. "When we took our observations yesterday there
was a very weird-looking halo around the sun. This morning you may have
noticed several light squalls and a smooth sea marked occasionally by
strong ripples. The barometer is falling rapidly, and I expect that, as
the day wears, we will encounter a heavy swell. If the sky looks wild
tonight, and especially if we observe a heavy bank of cloud approaching
from the north-west, you see the crockery dancing about the table at
dinner. I am afraid you are not a good sailor, Lady Tozer. Are you,
Miss Deane?"
"Capital! I should just love to see a real storm. Now promise me
solemnly that you will take me up into the charthouse when this typhoon
is simply tearing things to pieces."
"Oh dear! I do hope it will not be very bad. Is there no way in which
you can avoid it, captain? Will it last long?"
The politic skipper for once preferred to answer Lady Tozer. "There is
no cause for uneasiness," he said. "Of course, typhoons in the China
Sea are nasty things while they last, but a ship like the Sirdar
is not troubled by them. She will drive through the worst gale she is
likely to meet here in less than twelve hours. Besides, I alter the
course somewhat as soon as I discover our position with regard to its
center. You see, Miss Deane--"
And Captain Ross forthwith illustrated on the back of a menu card the
spiral shape and progress of a cyclone. He so thoroughly mystified the
girl by his technical references to northern and southern hemispheres,
polar directions, revolving air-currents, external circumferences, and
diminished atmospheric pressures, that she was too bewildered to
reiterate a desire to visit the bridge.
Then the commander hurriedly excused himself, and the passengers saw no
more of him that day.
But his short scientific lecture achieved a double result. It rescued
him from a request which he could not possibly grant, and reassured
Lady Tozer. To the non-nautical mind it is the unknown that is fearful.
A storm classed as "periodic," whose velocity can be measured, whose
duration and direction can be determined beforehand by hours and
distances, ceases to be terrifying. It becomes an accepted fact, akin
to the steam-engine and the electric telegraph, marvelous yet
commonplace.
So her ladyship dismissed the topic as of no present interest, and
focused Miss Deane through her eye-glasses.
"Sir Arthur proposes to come home in June, I understand?" she inquired.
Iris was a remarkably healthy young woman. A large banana momentarily
engaged her attention. She nodded affably.
"You will stay with relatives until he arrives?" pursued Lady Tozer.
The banana is a fruit of simple characteristics. The girl was able to
reply, with a touch of careless hauteur in her voice:
"Relatives! We have none--none whom we specially cultivate, that is. I
will stop in town a day or two to interview my dressmaker, and then go
straight to Helmdale, our place in Yorkshire."
"Surely you have a chaperon!"
"A chaperon! My dear Lady Tozer, did my father impress you as one who
would permit a fussy and stout old person to make my life miserable?"
The acidity of the retort lay in the word "stout." But Iris was not
accustomed to cross-examination. During a three months' residence on
the island she had learnt how to avoid Lady Tozer. Here it was
impossible, and the older woman fastened upon her asp-like. Miss Iris
Deane was a toothsome morsel for gossip. Not yet twenty-one, the only
daughter of a wealthy baronet who owned a fleet of stately ships--the
Sirdar amongst them--a girl who had been mistress of her
father's house since her return from Dresden three years ago--young,
beautiful, rich--here was a combination for which men thanked a
judicious Heaven, whilst women sniffed enviously.
Business detained Sir Arthur. A war-cloud over-shadowed the two great
divisions of the yellow race. He must wait to see how matters
developed, but he would not expose Iris to the insidious treachery of a
Chinese spring. So, with tears, they separated. She was confided to the
personal charge of Captain Ross. At each point of call the company's
agents would be solicitous for her welfare. The cable's telegraphic eye
would watch her progress as that of some princely maiden sailing in
royal caravel. This fair, slender, well-formed girl--delightfully
English in face and figure--with her fresh, clear complexion, limpid
blue eyes, and shining brown hair, was a personage of some importance.
Lady Tozer knew these things and sighed complacently.
"Ah, well," she resumed. "Parents had different views when I was a
girl. But I assume Sir Arthur thinks you should become used to being
your own mistress in view of your approaching marriage."
"My--approaching--marriage!" cried Iris, now genuinely amazed.
"Yes. Is it not true that you are going to marry Lord Ventnor?"
A passing steward heard the point-blank question.
It had a curious effect upon him. He gazed with fiercely eager eyes at
Miss Deane, and so far forgot himself as to permit a dish of water ice
to rest against Sir John Tozer's bald head.
Iris could not help noting his strange behavior. A flash of humor
chased away her first angry resentment at Lady Tozer's interrogatory.
"That may be my happy fate," she answered gaily, "but Lord Ventnor has
not asked me."
"Every one says in Hong Kong--" began her ladyship.
"Confound you, you stupid rascal! what are you doing?" shouted Sir
John. His feeble nerves at last conveyed the information that something
more pronounced than a sudden draught affected his scalp; the ice was
melting.
The incident amused those passengers who sat near enough to observe it.
But the chief steward, hovering watchful near the captain's table,
darted forward. Pale with anger he hissed--
"Report yourself for duty in the second saloon tonight," and he hustled
his subordinate away from the judge's chair.
Miss Deane, mirthfully radiant, rose.
"Please don't punish the man, Mr. Jones," she said sweetly. "It was a
sheer accident. He was taken by surprise. In his place I would have
emptied the whole dish."
The chief steward smirked. He did not know exactly what had happened;
nevertheless, great though Sir John Tozer might be, the owner's
daughter was greater.
"Certainly, miss, certainly," he agreed, adding confidentially:--"It
is rather hard on a steward to be sent aft, miss. It makes such
a difference in the--er--the little gratuities given by the
passengers."
The girl was tactful. She smiled comprehension at the official and bent
over Sir John, now carefully polishing the back of his skull with a
table napkin.
"I am sure you will forgive him," she whispered. "I can't say why, but
the poor fellow was looking so intently at me that he did not see what
he was doing."
The ex-Chief Justice was instantly mollified. He did not mind the
application of ice in that way--rather liked it, in fact--probably ice
was susceptible to the fire in Miss Deane's eyes.
Lady Tozer was not so easily appeased. When Iris left the saloon she
inquired tartly: "How is it, John, that Government makes a shipowner a
baronet and a Chief Justice only a knight?"
"That question would provide an interesting subject for debate at the
Carlton, my dear," he replied with equal asperity.
Suddenly the passengers still seated experienced a prolonged sinking
sensation, as if the vessel had been converted into a gigantic lift.
They were pressed hard into their chairs, which creaked and tried to
swing round on their pivots. As the ship yielded stiffly to the sea a
whiff of spray dashed through an open port.
"There," snapped her ladyship, "I knew we should run into a storm, yet
Captain Ross led us to believe---- John, take me to my cabin at once."
From the promenade deck the listless groups watched the rapid advance
of the gale. There was mournful speculation upon the Sirdar's
chances of reaching Singapore before the next evening.
"We had two hundred and ninety-eight miles to do at noon," said
Experience. "If the wind and sea catch us on the port bow the ship will
pitch awfully. Half the time the screw will be racing. I once made this
trip in the Sumatra, and we were struck by a south-east typhoon
in this locality. How long do you think it was before we dropped anchor
in Singapore harbor?"
No one hazarded a guess.
"Three days!" Experience was solemnly pompous. "Three whole days. They
were like three years. By Jove! I never want to see another gale like
that."
A timid lady ventured to say--
"Perhaps this may not be a typhoon. It may only be a little bit of
a storm."
Her sex saved her from a jeer. Experience gloomily shook his head.
"The barometer resists your plea," he said. "I fear there will be a
good many empty saddles in the saloon at dinner."
The lady smiled weakly. It was a feeble joke at the best. "You think we
are in for a sort of marine steeple-chase?" she asked.
"Well, thank Heaven, I had a good lunch," sniggered a rosy-faced
subaltern, and a ripple of laughter greeted his enthusiasm.
Iris stood somewhat apart from the speakers. The wind had freshened and
her hat was tied closely over her ears. She leaned against the
taffrail, enjoying the cool breeze after hours of sultry heat. The sky
was cloudless yet, but there was a queer tinge of burnished copper in
the all-pervading sunshine. The sea was coldly blue. The life had gone
out of it. It was no longer inviting and translucent. That morning,
were such a thing practicable, she would have gladly dived into its
crystal depths and disported herself like a frolicsome mermaid. Now
something akin to repulsion came with the fanciful remembrance.
Long sullen undulations swept noiselessly past the ship. Once, after a
steady climb up a rolling hill of water, the Sirdar quickly
pecked at the succeeding valley, and the propeller gave a couple of
angry flaps on the surface, whilst a tremor ran through the stout iron
rails on which the girl's arms rested.
The crew were busy too. Squads of Lascars raced about, industriously
obedient to the short shrill whistling of jemadars and quartermasters.
Boat lashings were tested and tightened, canvas awnings stretched
across the deck forward, ventilator cowls twisted to new angles, and
hatches clamped down over the wooden gratings that covered the holds.
Officers, spotless in white linen, flitted quietly to and fro. When the
watch was changed. Iris noted that the "chief" appeared in an old blue
suit and carried oilskins over his arm as he climbed to the bridge.
Nature looked disturbed and fitful, and the ship responded to her mood.
There was a sense of preparation in the air, of coming ordeal, of
restless foreboding. Chains clanked with a noise the girl never noticed
before; the tramp of hurrying men on the hurricane deck overhead
sounded heavy and hollow. There was a squeaking of chairs that was
abominable when people gathered up books and wraps and staggered
ungracefully towards the companion-way. Altogether Miss Deane was not
wholly pleased with the preliminaries of a typhoon, whatever the
realities might be.
And then, why did gales always spring up at the close of day? Could
they not start after breakfast, rage with furious grandeur during
lunch, and die away peacefully at dinner-time, permitting one to sleep
in comfort without that straining and groaning of the ship which seemed
to imply a sharp attack of rheumatism in every joint?
Why did that silly old woman allude to her contemplated marriage to
Lord Ventnor, retailing the gossip of Hong Kong with such malicious
emphasis? For an instant Iris tried to shake the railing in comic
anger. She hated Lord Ventnor. She did not want to marry him, or
anybody else, just yet. Of course her father had hinted approval of his
lordship's obvious intentions. Countess of Ventnor! Yes, it was a nice
title. Still, she wanted another couple of years of careless freedom;
in any event, why should Lady Tozer pry and probe?
And finally, why did the steward--oh, poor old Sir John! What
would have happened if the ice had slid down his neck?
Thoroughly comforted by this gleeful hypothesis, Miss Deane seized a
favorable opportunity to dart across to the starboard side and see if
Captain Ross's "heavy bank of cloud in the north-west" had put in an
appearance.
Ha! there it was, black, ominous, gigantic, rolling up over the horizon
like some monstrous football. Around it the sky deepened into purple,
fringed with a wide belt of brick red. She had never seen such a
beginning of a gale. From what she had read in books she imagined that
only in great deserts were clouds of dust generated. There could not be
dust in the dense pall now rushing with giant strides across the
trembling sea. Then what was it? Why was it so dark and menacing? And
where was desert of stone and sand to compare with this awful expanse
of water? What a small dot was this great ship on the visible surface!
But the ocean itself extended away beyond there, reaching out to the
infinite. The dot became a mere speck, undistinguishable beneath a
celestial microscope such as the gods might condescend to use.
Iris shivered and aroused herself with a startled laugh.
A nice book in a sheltered corner, and perhaps forty winks until
tea-time--surely a much more sensible proceeding than to stand there,
idly conjuring up phantoms of affright.
The lively fanfare of the dinner trumpet failed to fill the saloon. By
this time the Sirdar was fighting resolutely against a stiff
gale. But the stress of actual combat was better than the eerie
sensation of impending danger during the earlier hours. The strong,
hearty pulsations of the engines, the regular thrashing of the screw,
the steadfast onward plunging of the good ship through racing seas and
flying scud, were cheery, confident, and inspiring.
Miss Deane justified her boast that she was an excellent sailor. She
smiled delightedly at the ship's surgeon when he caught her eye through
the many gaps in the tables. She was alone, so he joined her.
"You are a credit to the company--quite a sea-king's daughter," he
said.
"Doctor, do you talk to all your lady passengers in that way?"
"Alas, no! Too often I can only be truthful when I am dumb."
Iris laughed. "If I remain long on this ship I will certainly have my
head turned," she cried. "I receive nothing but compliments from the
captain down to--to----
"The doctor!"
"No. You come a good second on the list."
In very truth she was thinking of the ice-carrying steward and his
queer start of surprise at the announcement of her rumored engagement.
The man interested her. He looked like a broken-down gentleman. Her
quick eyes traveled around the saloon to discover his whereabouts. She
could not see him. The chief steward stood near, balancing himself in
apparent defiance of the laws of gravitation, for the ship was now
pitching and rolling with a mad zeal. For an instant she meant to
inquire what had become of the transgressor, but she dismissed the
thought at its inception. The matter was too trivial.
With a wild swoop all the plates, glasses, and cutlery on the saloon
tables crashed to starboard. Were it not for the restraint of the
fiddles everything must have been swept to the floor. There were one or
two minor accidents. A steward, taken unawares, was thrown headlong on
top of his laden tray. Others were compelled to clutch the backs of
chairs and cling to pillars. One man involuntarily seized the hair of a
lady who devoted an hour before each meal to her coiffure. The
Sirdar, with a frenzied bound, tried to turn a somersault.
"A change of course," observed the doctor. "They generally try to avoid
it when people are in the saloon, but a typhoon admits of no labored
politeness. As its center is now right ahead we are going on the
starboard tack to get behind it."
"I must hurry up and go on deck," said Miss Deane.
"You will not be able to go on deck until the morning."
She turned on him impetuously. "Indeed I will. Captain Ross promised
me--that is, I asked him----"
The doctor smiled. She was so charmingly insistent. "It is simply
impossible," he said. "The companion doors are bolted. The promenade
deck is swept by heavy seas every minute. A boat has been carried away
and several stanchions snapped off like carrots. For the first time in
your life, Miss Deane, you are battened down."
The girl's face must have paled somewhat. He added hastily, "There is
no danger, you know, but these precautions are necessary. You would not
like to see several tons of water rushing down the saloon stairs; now,
would you?"
"Decidedly not." Then after a pause, "It is not pleasant to be fastened
up in a great iron box, doctor. It reminds one of a huge coffin."
"Not a bit. The Sirdar is the safest ship afloat. Your father
has always pursued a splendid policy in that respect. The London and
Hong Kong Company may not possess fast vessels, but they are seaworthy
and well found in every respect."
"Are there many people ill on board?"
"No; just the usual number of disturbed livers. We had a nasty accident
shortly before dinner."
"Good gracious! What happened?"
"Some Lascars were caught by a sea forward. One man had his leg
broken."
"Anything else?"
The doctor hesitated. He became interested in the color of some
Burgundy. "I hardly know the exact details yet," he replied. "Tomorrow
after breakfast I will tell you all about it."
An English quartermaster and four Lascars had been licked from off the
forecastle by the greedy tongue of a huge wave. The succeeding surge
flung the five men back against the quarter. One of the black sailors
was pitched aboard, with a fractured leg and other injuries. The others
were smashed against the iron hull and disappeared.
For one tremulous moment the engines slowed. The ship commenced to veer
off into the path of the cyclone. Captain Ross set his teeth, and the
telegraph bell jangled "Full speed ahead."
"Poor Jackson!" he murmured. "One of my best men. I remember seeing his
wife, a pretty little woman, and two children coming to meet him last
homeward trip. They will be there again. Good God! That Lascar who was
saved has some one to await him in a Bombay village, I suppose."
The gale sang a mad requiem to its victims. The very surface was torn
from the sea. The ship drove relentlessly through sheets of spray that
caused the officers high up on the bridge to gasp for breath. They held
on by main force, though protected by strong canvas sheets bound to the
rails. The main deck was quite impassable. The promenade deck, even the
lofty spar deck, was scourged with the broken crests of waves that
tried with demoniac energy to smash in the starboard bow, for the
Sirdar was cutting into the heart of the cyclone.
The captain fought his way to the charthouse. He wiped the salt water
from his eyes and looked anxiously at the barometer.
"Still falling!" he muttered. "I will keep on until seven o'clock and
then bear three points to the southward. By midnight we should be
behind it."
He struggled back into the outside fury. By comparison the sturdy
citadel he quitted was Paradise on the edge of an inferno.
Down in the saloon the hardier passengers were striving to subdue the
ennui of an interval before they sought their cabins. Some talked. One
hardened reprobate strummed the piano. Others played cards, chess,
draughts, anything that would distract attention.
The stately apartment offered strange contrast to the warring elements
without. Bright lights, costly upholstery, soft carpets, carved panels
and gilded cornices, with uniformed attendants passing to and fro
carrying coffee and glasses--these surroundings suggested a floating
palace in which the raging seas were defied. Yet forty miles away,
somewhere in the furious depths, four corpses swirled about with
horrible uncertainty, lurching through battling currents, and perchance
convoyed by fighting sharks.
The surgeon had been called away. Iris was the only lady left in the
saloon. She watched a set of whist players for a time and then essayed
the perilous passage to her stateroom. She found her maid and a
stewardess there. Both women were weeping.
"What is the matter?" she inquired.
The stewardess tried to speak. She choked with grief and hastily went
out. The maid blubbered an explanation.
"A friend of hers was married, miss, to the man who is drowned."
"Drowned! What man?"
"Haven't you heard, miss? I suppose they are keeping it quiet. An
English sailor and some natives were swept off the ship by a sea. One
native was saved, but he is all smashed up. The others were never seen
again."
Iris by degrees learnt the sad chronicles of the Jackson family. She
was moved to tears. She remembered the doctor's hesitancy, and her own
idle phrase--"a huge coffin."
Outside the roaring waves pounded upon the iron walls.
Were they not satiated? This tragedy had taken all the grandeur out of
the storm. It was no longer a majestic phase of nature's power, but an
implacable demon, bellowing for a sacrifice. And that poor woman, with
her two children, hopefully scanning the shipping lists for news of the
great steamer, news which, to her, meant only the safety of her
husband. Oh, it was pitiful!
Iris would not be undressed. The maid sniveled a request to be allowed
to remain with her mistress. She would lie on a couch until morning.
Two staterooms had been converted into one to provide Miss Deane with
ample accommodation. There were no bunks, but a cozy bed was screwed to
the deck. She lay down, and strove to read. It was a difficult task.
Her eyes wandered from the printed page to mark the absurd antics of
her garments swinging on their hooks. At times the ship rolled so far
that she felt sure it must topple over. She was not afraid; but
subdued, rather astonished, placidly prepared for vague eventualities.
Through it all she wondered why she clung to the belief that in another
day or two the storm would be forgotten, and people playing quoits on
deck, dancing, singing coon songs in the music-room, or grumbling at
the heat.
Things were ridiculous. What need was there for all this external fury?
Why should poor sailors be cast forth to instant death in such awful
manner? If she could only sleep and forget--if kind oblivion would blot
out the storm for a few blissful hours! But how could one sleep with
the consciousness of that watery giant thundering his summons upon the
iron plates a few inches away?
Then came the blurred picture of Captain Ross high up on the bridge,
peering into the moving blackness. How strange that there should be
hidden in the convolutions of a man's brain an intelligence that laid
bare the pretences of that ravenous demon without. Each of the ship's
officers, the commander more than the others, understood the why and
the wherefore of this blustering combination of wind and sea. Iris knew
the language of poker. Nature was putting up a huge bluff.
What was it the captain said in his little lecture? "When a ship meets
a cyclone north of the equator on a westerly course she nearly always
has the wind at first on the port side, but, owing to the revolution of
the gale, when she passes its center the wind is on the starboard
side."
Yes, that was right, as far as the first part was concerned. Evidently
they had not yet passed the central path. Oh, dear! She was so tired.
It demanded a physical effort to constantly shove away an unseen force
that tried to push you over. How funny that a big cloud should travel
up against the wind! And so, amidst confused wonderment, she lapsed
into an uneasy slumber, her last sentient thought being a quiet
thankfulness that the screw went thud-thud, thud-thud with such firm
determination.
After the course was changed and the Sirdar bore away towards
the south-west, the commander consulted the barometer each half-hour.
The tell-tale mercury had sunk over two inches in twelve hours. The
abnormally low pressure quickly created dense clouds which enhanced the
melancholy darkness of the gale.
For many minutes together the bows of the ship were not visible.
Masthead and sidelights were obscured by the pelting scud. The engines
thrust the vessel forward like a lance into the vitals of the storm.
Wind and wave gushed out of the vortex with impotent fury.
At last, soon after midnight, the barometer showed a slight upward
movement. At 1.30 a.m. the change became pronounced; simultaneously the
wind swung round a point to the westward.
Then Captain Ross smiled wearily. His face brightened. He opened his
oilskin coat, glanced at the compass, and nodded approval.
"That's right," he shouted to the quartermaster at the steam-wheel.
"Keep her steady there, south 15 west."
"South 15 west it is, sir," yelled the sailor, impassively watching the
moving disk, for the wind alteration necessitated a little less help
from the rudder to keep the ship's head true to her course.
Captain Ross ate some sandwiches and washed them down with cold tea. He
was more hungry than he imagined, having spent eleven hours without
food. The tea was insipid. He called through a speaking-tube for a
further supply of sandwiches and some coffee.
Then he turned to consult a chart. He was joined by the chief officer.
Both men examined the chart in silence.
Captain Ross finally took a pencil. He stabbed its point on the paper
in the neighborhood of 14° N. and 112° E.
"We are about there, I think."
The chief agreed. "That was the locality I had in my mind." He bent
closer over the sheet.
"Nothing in the way tonight, sir," he added.
"Nothing whatever. It is a bit of good luck to meet such weather here.
We can keep as far south as we like until daybreak, and by that
time--How did it look when you came in?"
"A trifle better, I think."
"I have sent for some refreshments. Let us have another
dekko[Footnote: Hindustani for "look"--word much used by sailors
in the East.] before we tackle them."
The two officers passed out into the hurricane. Instantly the wind
endeavored to tear the charthouse from off the deck. They looked aloft
and ahead. The officer on duty saw them and nodded silent
comprehension. It was useless to attempt to speak. The weather was
perceptibly clearer.
Then all three peered ahead again. They stood, pressing against the
wind, seeking to penetrate the murkiness in front. Suddenly they were
galvanized into strenuous activity.
A wild howl came from the lookout forward. The eyes of the three men
glared at a huge dismasted Chinese junk, wallowing helplessly in the
trough of the sea, dead under the bows.
The captain sprang to the charthouse and signaled in fierce pantomime
that the wheel should be put hard over.
The officer in charge of the bridge pressed the telegraph lever to
"stop" and "full speed astern," whilst with his disengaged hand he
pulled hard at the siren cord, and a raucous warning sent stewards
flying through the ship to close collision bulkhead doors. The "chief"
darted to the port rail, for the Sirdar's instant response to
the helm seemed to clear her nose from the junk as if by magic.
It all happened so quickly that whilst the hoarse signal was still
vibrating through the ship, the junk swept past her quarter. The chief
officer, joined now by the commander, looked down into the wretched
craft. They could see her crew lashed in a bunch around the capstan on
her elevated poop. She was laden with timber. Although water-logged,
she could not sink if she held together.
A great wave sucked her away from the steamer and then hurled her back
with irresistible force. The Sirdar was just completing her
turning movement, and she heeled over, yielding to the mighty power of
the gale. For an appreciable instant her engines stopped. The mass of
water that swayed the junk like a cork lifted the great ship high by
the stern. The propeller began to revolve in air--for the third officer
had corrected his signal to "full speed ahead" again--and the cumbrous
Chinese vessel struck the Sirdar a terrible blow in the counter,
smashing off the screw close to the thrust-block and wrenching the
rudder from its bearings.
There was an awful race by the engines before the engineers could shut
off steam. The junk vanished into the wilderness of noise and tumbling
seas beyond, and the fine steamer of a few seconds ago, replete with
magnificent energy, struggled like a wounded leviathan in the grasp of
a vengeful foe.
She swung round, as if in wrath, to pursue the puny assailant which had
dealt her this mortal stroke. No longer breasting the storm with
stubborn persistency, she now drifted aimlessly before wind and wave.
She was merely a larger plaything, tossed about by Titantic gambols.
The junk was burst asunder by the collision. Her planks and cargo
littered the waves, were even tossed in derision on to the decks of the
Sirdar. Of what avail was strong timber or bolted iron against
the spleen of the unchained and formless monster who loudly proclaimed
his triumph? The great steamship drifted on through chaos. The typhoon
had broken the lance.
But brave men, skilfully directed, wrought hard to avert further
disaster. After the first moment of stupor, gallant British sailors
risked life and limb to bring the vessel under control.
By their calm courage they shamed the paralyzed Lascars into activity.
A sail was rigged on the foremast, and a sea anchor hastily constructed
as soon as it was discovered that the helm was useless. Rockets flared
up into the sky at regular intervals, in the faint hope that should
they attract the attention of another vessel she would follow the
disabled Sirdar and render help when the weather moderated.
When the captain ascertained that no water was being shipped, the
damage being wholly external, the collision doors were opened and the
passengers admitted to the saloon, a brilliant palace, superbly
indifferent to the wreck and ruin without.
Captain Ross himself came down and addressed a few comforting words to
the quiet men and pallid women gathered there. He told them exactly
what had happened.
Sir John Tozer, self-possessed and critical, asked a question.
"The junk is destroyed, I assume?" he said.
"It is."
"Would it not have been better to have struck her end on?"
"Much better, but that is not the view we should take if we encountered
a vessel relatively as big as the Sirdar was to the unfortunate
junk."
"But," persisted the lawyer, "what would have been the result?"
"You would never have known that the incident had happened, Sir John."
"In other words, the poor despairing Chinamen, clinging to their little
craft with some chance of escape, would be quietly murdered to suit our
convenience."
It was Iris's clear voice that rang out this downright exposition of
the facts. Sir John shook his head; he carried the discussion no
further.
The hours passed in tedious misery after Captain Ross's visit. Every
one was eager to get a glimpse of the unknown terrors without from the
deck. This was out of the question, so people sat around the tables to
listen eagerly to Experience and his wise saws on drifting ships and
their prospects.
Some cautious persons visited their cabins to secure valuables in case
of further disaster. A few hardy spirits returned to bed.
Meanwhile, in the charthouse, the captain and chief officer were
gravely pondering over an open chart, and discussing a fresh risk that
loomed ominously before them. The ship was a long way out of her usual
course when the accident happened. She was drifting now, they
estimated, eleven knots an hour, with wind, sea, and current all
forcing her in the same direction, drifting into one of the most
dangerous places in the known world, the south China Sea, with its
numberless reefs, shoals, and isolated rocks, and the great island of
Borneo stretching right across the path of the cyclone.
Still, there was nothing to be done save to make a few unobtrusive
preparations and trust to idle chance. To attempt to anchor and ride
out the gale in their present position was out of the question.
Two, three, four o'clock came, and went. Another half-hour would
witness the dawn and a further clearing of the weather. The barometer
was rapidly rising. The center of the cyclone had swept far ahead.
There was only left the aftermath of heavy seas and furious but
steadier wind.
Captain Ross entered the charthouse for the twentieth time.
He had aged many years in appearance. The smiling, confident, debonair
officer was changed into a stricken, mournful man. He had altered with
his ship. The Sirdar and her master could hardly be recognized,
so cruel were the blows they had received.
"It is impossible to see a yard ahead," he confided to his second in
command. "I have never been so anxious before in my life. Thank God the
night is drawing to a close. Perhaps, when day breaks----"
His last words contained a prayer and a hope. Even as he spoke the ship
seemed to lift herself bodily with an unusual effort for a vessel
moving before the wind.
The next instant there was a horrible grinding crash forward. Each
person who did not chance to be holding fast to an upright was thrown
violently down. The deck was tilted to a dangerous angle and remained
there, whilst the heavy buffeting of the sea, now raging afresh at this
unlooked-for resistance, drowned the despairing yells raised by the
Lascars on duty.
The Sirdar had completed her last voyage. She was now a battered
wreck on a barrier reef. She hung thus for one heart-breaking second.
Then another wave, riding triumphantly through its fellows, caught the
great steamer in its tremendous grasp, carried her onward for half her
length and smashed her down on the rocks. Her back was broken. She
parted in two halves. Both sections turned completely over in the utter
wantonness of destruction, and everything--masts, funnels, boats, hull,
with every living soul on board--was at once engulfed in a maelstrom of
rushing water and far-flung spray.