Chapter XII: Child of the Wreck

The strife of fiends is on the battling clouds,
The glare of hell is in the sulphurous lightnings.
This is no earthly storm!
_—Maturin’s Bertram._

The sun went down. The wind seemed to lull. Alice arose and put on her bonnet and shawl for a start. Old Diogenes buttoned his coat up to his chin, and took up his old felt hat to attend her. Miss Joe threw her check apron over her head to accompany them, and the little party opened the door and set out for the beach. The eyes of old Diogenes rolled

“From heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,”

in a great trouble!

Though the sun had but just set, the sky was no longer blue, but of a lurid, metallic, coppery color, mottled over by leaden clouds, athwart which, and lower down, scudded huge, black, inky masses of vapor, driven wildly before the wind that had shifted and was again rising. Lower down and nearer the earth flew other clouds, flocks of wild sea fowl, screaming frightfully and dashing hither and thither, or settling upon the island as for shelter from the coming tempest. Such was the sky.

The look of the sea was still more terrible. The surface of the water was very rough, the waves breaking into foam as though frost were thrown up from the depths of the sea. The whole enormous mass of waters was rising with a vast, slow, mighty swell, as though some monstrous under-power were laboring to upheave the ocean from its bed and shatter it into precipices and caverns. And all around the lurid horizon boomed the low, deep, awful sound of the coming storm.

“It will never do to try to cross the water to-night, my dear child,” said Miss Joe, solemnly and fearfully. “We’re going to have an awful storm, and it may burst upon us at any minute.”

“’Deed, Miss Ally, child, it’s wery unsafe—wery! Don’t let’s be a-tempting o’ Providence! Don’t!” said Diogenes, his teeth chattering with cold and terror.

Just then the voice of the wind wailed across the waters like the shriek of a lost spirit, and the salt spray of the sea was dashed in their faces. The sky seemed to be settling down over the isle, and the waters, black, heavy, and dark! The mighty sea was heaving, settling, rising to meet the lowered sky! The vapor of the clouds and waves seemed intermingling! The rising wind howled and shrieked!

“Well, child, if you venter upon the water this evening, you’ll row to the Kingdom of Heaven,” said Miss Joe. “Turn—hurry back! We must get to the house as fast as possible, or the storm will be upon us! Child, alive! what are you standing looking out to sea for? I do believe you are more afraid of braving General Garnet’s anger than that of the wind and sea themselves.”

“I should not have come,” said Alice, turning shuddering, away from the beach.

“Yes, you should!” replied Miss Joe; “and now you should come back! Hurry! hurry! hurry! Look at that mass of black cloud rushing like a demon up the sky!”

It was now very dark, and they hastened on toward the house. They reached it as a furious blast of wind drove them against its walls. They went in the house. Shutters were closed, props were placed against the doors to assist the old locks in holding them against the fury of the storm. And as the room was now pitch dark, except by the lurid light of the smoldering fire, Miss Joe lit a candle and set it on the mantelpiece. Alice sat down in the chimney-corner armchair, very pale.

The storm raged, shrieked and howled around the house. Hourly its violence increased; tenfold the crash of falling trees, twisted off at the roots, the clatter of rattling tiles and shingles, reft off and rained down from the roof; the scream of the frightened water-fowl, the howl of the alarmed cattle, mingled with the shriek of the wind and the thunder of the waves in the grand diapason of nature’s wildest, most terrific harmony.

At last came the awful crisis of the storm. The wind had

“Paused to gather its fearful breath.”

and now rushed upon the house with the invincible power of a storming battery, with a sound, a shock, as if two planets had met in fatal concussion. The earth trembled; the massive roof of the strong house was torn off and hurled aloft; heavy blocks of sandstone came clattering down from the topmost wall, and then the rain fell its vast sheets, as if “all heaven was opened.” And now came a sound more terrific than that of an advancing army!

The ocean was upon them in its might!

Speechless with awe, like those in the immediate presence of sudden death, Alice and Miss Joe remained locked in each other’s arms. The old negro ran wildly about, like one perfectly distracted, screaming:

“Oh, my God! my God! we shall be all drowned in this very house, like blind puppies in a tub! Oh, will nobody ’fess me o’ my sins? Oh, Lord! I ’fess to de breaking o’ all de ’mandments, rather dan miss absolushum for dem as I has broke!”

And so he ran about and raved, while Alice and Miss Joe remained motionless, waiting for death where they sat.

The water that dashed against the wall was no longer the rain, but the sea—the sea cannonading the house!

An hour like an eternity passed, during which the waves, with deafening sounds, stormed the walls, and the inmates waited for death. Then the horrible tempest seemed to abate; the ocean seemed to be retiring.

Oh, were the waves indeed receding, or was it only one of those fatal pauses, during which the storm fiend gathered new strength for destruction?

Alice, fearful, hopeful, raised her head, doubtful of the reprieve from immediate death.

Miss Joe clasped her closer in her arms, but listened.

Diogenes stopped in his wild walk and began to praise all the saints.

Yes, the ocean was certainly receding. They were saved! But now, amidst their joy, came a knell of doom!

The signal gun of a ship in distress!

No one knew how often that knell had pealed before. It could not have been heard, amid the deafening noise of the waves, any more than the report of a single cannon could have been distinguished in the thunder of a million others. The sound struck to the hearts of all present.

“Oh!” said Miss Joe, “that ship! that ship! It is the very ship I spied—I know it is—I know it is! And, oh! it may be the ship of Hugh!”

Again the minute gun boomed over the sea.

“Oh, Heaven, how I pity them! What can be the nature of their danger? The storm has almost ceased; if they could live through that terrific tempest, surely they can save themselves now. What can be the danger to which they are exposed now?” asked Alice.

“The ship, tossed about so in the horrible storm, must a’ sprung a leak. Oh, if it should be Hugh’s ship!” replied Miss Joe.

Again the minute gun wailed across the waters.

“And, oh!” exclaimed Alice, wringing her hands, “if there is one thing worse than imminent danger or death to one’s own, it is to be in perfect safety and to hear, near by, the cry of others in extremity, and to be unable to give them aid!”

Once more the minute gun wailed across the waters. It seemed the voice of a last appeal.

“My God, I can scarcely stand this!” exclaimed Alice, shuddering, cowering, stopping her ears, while Miss Joe walked about, groaning, groaning, groaning!

But once more the minute gun wailed across the waters. It seemed the voice of a last reproach.

The two women and the old negro could do absolutely nothing to help the dying ship. They felt their own safety as a shame, and covered their heads to shut out the sound of death. They need not have done so.

The minute gun wailed no more across the waters. The voice was silenced for ever!

“Oh, my God! my God! she is gone down! she is gone down!” screamed Miss Joe, wrought up to an agony of terror and grief beyond all self-control.

The dread silence that followed was more insufferable than the terrific storm in its utmost fury had been—than the awful voice of the minute gun, in its vain appeal, had been! It was long after midnight now. Miss Joe, unable longer to bear the awful pause of fate, went and pulled open the door and looked out.

The wind had lulled, the rain had ceased, the waves had gone down, the storm was nearly over. Yet in the deep darkness she could only guess the wild ruin that had been wrought around. The sky hung over the waters black as a pall, yet by the phosphoric light of the sea that still moved and sparkled she discovered a dark object, like the hulk of a huge vessel, disappear under the waves.

And, hush! What sound is that, low and distinct, in the deep silence of the awful night? The sound of approaching footsteps and voices hurrying on, and now very near.

“Light another candle, for God’s sake! some people are coming. God send it may be Hugh and his men! Light another candle, quick! and thrust it into a lantern!” exclaimed Miss Joe, hastening into the house.

And before the light of the other candle blazed, the room was filled with sailors, storm-beaten, dripping wet, two of the foremost of whom bore the body of a fainting woman in their arms.

It was Agnes.

“Where is Hugh—where is your captain? My God! where is Hugh?” exclaimed Miss Joe, as her eyes roamed over this wild party in the vain quest of her nephew.

“We left the captain on the deck of his vessel. He refused to leave it while a man remained on board. We are going back for him, and half a dozen others,” said the mate, looking about in haste for a place to lay Agnes; then, putting her in the arms of old Dodgy, he turned, with three others of the men, and left the house for the beach.

“Too late! too late! I saw the ship go down myself!” exclaimed Miss Joe, beside herself with grief.

“What must I do with this here young ’oman, Miss Ally?” inquired Diogenes of his mistress.

“Take her upstairs, Diogenes, and I will go up and attend to her,” said Alice. And leaving Miss Joe and the shipwrecked sailors below, Alice followed the old negro with his burden upstairs.

But there a scene of ruin met her startled gaze. The roof had been reft from the house in the storm; the rain had poured through the ceiling of the loft and drenched the bed-chambers. One of the beds, however, being in a more protected angle of the room, was comparatively dry. This Alice turned over, and upon this the old negro was directed to lay his insensible burden.

While Alice was rubbing and chafing the cold, cold hands and feet of the shipwrecked girl, a loud cry of despair came up from below.

She hastened downstairs to know the cause.

The mate had returned from a fruitless errand. The _Belle Agnes_ had gone down with all left on board, and among them the brave and generous Captain Hugh Hutton!

* * * * *

Within the next three dreadful hours, “in night and storm and darkness,” a man-child was born—son of the storm and the wreck—heir of a desert and a ruin!