Chapter III: Part 3

“I tell you I shall go mad,” moaned Helm. “I didn’t think I was a coward, but I can’t stand this. Old chap, don’t let me go mad; shoot me if you see I ‘m going mad.”

“Mad,” said the other bravely, “nonsense, man, you’re all right. You’ll feel better presently when you’ve had a spell.”

The lines of trees resolved itself on closer inspection into close-growing gidya scrub, and long before they reached it the crows had again made their appearance. A little flock kept them company, waiting on in front, rushing up behind as if perchance they might be late, wheeling round on either side.

“There must be water there,” said Helm eagerly, “look at the crows again.”

“Don’t build on it, old chap,” said the other. “The scrub is too thick for us to find it.”

But Helm was not to be dissuaded, and he wasted his energies in a frantic search for water. His mate looked more soberly, because more hopelessly, but the result was the same, and finally they lay down in the shade and slept again, slept soundly too, in spite of the crows, which were more confident, more impudent, than ever. Night fell, and with the darkness grew in Helm an intense desire to be on the way again.

“We ‘re wasting time,” he kept saying hoarsely, for his tongue was so swollen he could hardly speak at all, “wasting time. Don’t you see they ‘ll be expecting us in to supper at Gerring Gerring, and I shouldn’t like the crows to get there first. They might frighten her, you know, she’s only a girl and she hasn’t seen so much of them as you and me. Those knowing old crows! they ‘re not here now. Don’t you see that’s why they want to get there first?”

“Be quiet, man. You ‘re dreaming.”

“Dreaming, was I? Anderson, Anderson, mate, I ‘m not going mad. For God’s sake, don’t let me go mad.”

“No, no, old man, it’s all right. We ‘re on the right track now. Here, I ‘ll take the horse and you give me your arm. There, now then, if we ‘ve luck we may hit Gerring Gerring before morning.”

They walked on in silence, but Helm kept stumbling, and but for his companion’s supporting arm would have fallen more than once. The moon rose up, and as it grew light as day again he stopped short and looked solemnly in his companion’s face. It was worn and haggard and weary, but not so wild, he felt instinctively, as his own.

“Anderson,” he said, “I know I ‘m done for. My head’s all wrong. It ‘s cooler now, but what’ll it be to-morrow? If--if--if I do anything mad before I die, don’t tell her, I ‘d like her to think well of me. Just say I died, don’t say how it hurt.”

“All right, mate,” said the other, for he had no comfort to give.

And then they walked on again in silence till the moon declined before the coming day, the cruel day, which brought the heat and the following crows again. Dawn brought them to a patch of “dead finish,” as the settlers call a dense and thorny scrub with pretty green leaves, through which it is well nigh impossible to force a way even under the most favourable circumstances; and which presented an utterly impassable barrier to men in their condition. They turned aside once more, and Anderson thought to himself that they must indeed have given up hope, to be stopped by an impassable barrier and yet to make no moan. It was surely the very depths of hopelessness when all ways were alike to them. He looked back on their tracks and dismay filled his heart; they were not firm and straight, but wavering and wandering like those of men in the last extremity. He had followed tracks like these before now, and they always led to the same thing. He wondered dully would any one ever follow those tracks. A little further on Helm let go his arm and ran on ahead.

“We’ll never do any good at this rate,” he gasped, “never--never;” and he pulled at the collar of his shirt till he tore it away. “We must have something to drink. We ‘ll die else, and I mean to have a fight for life. There’s the old horse, he can’t stagger a step further; what’s the good of keeping him? Let’s shoot him--and--and--There’s enough blood in him to--to--”

“No, no, man, no. I tell you that’s the beginning of the end--more than the beginning--the end in fact.”

“I don’t care. I can’t stand this;” and before Anderson could stop him, Helm had drawn his pistol and shot the horse in the head.

The poor beast was at his last gasp, and for the last hour Anderson had been meditating the advisibility of leaving him behind, so it was no material loss; his only care now was to prevent his mate from drinking the blood, which, according to the faith of the bushmen, is worse than drinking salt water.

“Poor old beggar,” he said, taking his pistols and cartridges from the saddle, where they had been wrapped among the blankets, “I suppose it was about the kindest thing we could do for him. Come on, mate, we must leave him to the crows now,” and he caught Helm’s arm and would have led him on.

But the other resisted and breaking free ran back, and before he could stop him, had drawn his knife across the horse’s throat and taken a long draught of blood.

Does it sound ghastly? But such things are, and his lips were dry and parched, and his throat so swollen that he could only speak in hoarse whispers, and so great was the temptation that Anderson, looking away at the bare pitiless plain, with the mocking mirage in the distance, felt that he too might as well drink and die; only the thought of the cripple boy who would be alone in the world but for him, made him make one more desperate effort for self-control.

He took the younger man’s arm and dragged him on, skirting slowly round the “dead finish” till at length, late in the afternoon, it gave place to boree. His own senses were clear enough, but Helm was muttering wildly, and he listened with unheeding ears to his babble of home and mother and sweetheart. They could not go far, and soon they forced their way in among the scrub, and though the burning thirst was worse than ever, the shade was grateful. The crows stopped too, and settled on the low trees, turning their evil blue-black heads on one side to get a better view of their prey.

“I can’t keep my head,” moaned Helm, “I can’t. I have been mad all day. I know I have. It has stretched out into ages this long day and it’s not over yet. When were we lost? Yesterday? The day before? It feels like years.”

“Never mind,” said Anderson, not unkindly, “it can’t be much longer now. Try to sleep, old man.”

“Sleep! with a thousand devils tearing at me!”

But they did sleep after all, a wearied, troubled sleep, a broken sleep full of frightful dreams, or still more cruel ones of cooling streams and rippling waters. Night came, and Anderson awoke from what seemed to him a doze of a moment to find his companion gone from his side. For a second the thought came to him that it was not worth while to look for him. He was mad--mad, and where was the use of troubling about him any further; and then his better feelings, and perhaps that longing for human companionship which we all must feel, made him rise up and look for him. Up and down, he was staggering up and down, a hundred feet one way and then back again on his own tracks.

“We must get on, old chap,” he muttered when he saw Anderson, “we must get on. You rest if you like though; there isn’t anybody waiting for you; but Mabel, she ‘s waiting for me and I must try and get back. She would be disappointed else. Grieve! of course she’ll grieve if I’m lost. All the world isn’t a cynic like you.”

Anderson took his arm again.

“We’ll go together,” he said. “If you do care a straw about seeing her again, come on quietly with me.”

He yielded for the moment, but it required one continuous effort on Anderson’s part to keep him up to it. Plainly his reason was gone, and the other man, growing weaker and weaker, found by the time the sun was high in the heavens that the effort was more than he could make. It was the end, or so close that he could only hope and pray the end would come quickly. The young fellow had struggled on so bravely, so hopefully, and now it had come to this. They had left the scrub behind them and Anderson made his way to a tree, the only specimen of its kind in all the wide plain, and lay down beneath its branches--to rest? No, he felt in his heart it was to die. Helm he could not persuade to lie down. He kept staggering on hopelessly round and round the tree, struggling to keep in the shade, fancying, as many a lost man has done before him, that he was “pushing on.”

It was the same old story. Anderson had heard it told hundreds of times over the camp fire, one man will lie down to die quietly, and the other will go raving mad. So Helm had gone mad, poor chap; and then he remembered his passionate prayer to him, not to let him go mad, to shoot him if he saw he was going mad, and he lay and looked up at the hard blue sky through the leaves, and at the watching crows, and knew that he was only waiting for death, knew that he was too utterly weary to aid in any way his mate. He listened to him muttering to himself for a little, watched him as he went monotonously round and round. It was not so hard after all--not near so hard for him as for Helm. If only the boy were dead, he thought wearily, if only the boy were dead he would be glad that this should end it, his life was never worth much, he had failed all through, he would be glad to be at rest--if only the boy were there before him; but the boy--the poor little helpless thing, he must make another effort for the boy’s sake, and he struggled to his feet again. But the burning landscape was a blood-red blur before his eyes, and then, quite suddenly it seemed to him, sight and hearing left him. He was dying--was this death? How merciful death was--if only the boy--

*****

Very wearily he opened his eyes. Could it be that some one was pouring water down his throat? Some one was bathing his face.

“He’s coming to,” said a voice in his ear. “By Jove, it was a narrow shave. The other poor chap’s done for, isn’t he, Ned?”

“Quite dead. He went mad evidently, clean off his head. Why, the poor chap had begun on his own grave.”

When Anderson came to himself he found he had been picked up by the other exploring party.

“We picked up your tracks away by the ‘dead finish’ there,” said the leader, “and I thought it must be pretty near up with you. You ‘ve had the devil’s own luck, mate. Why, you were within five miles of Gerring Gerring Water, and over by the ‘dead finish’ you passed within three miles of a very decent waterhole, quite good enough to have kept life within you. You shot the horse?”

“My mate did. He was mad, poor fellow.”

“Poor beggar, he seems to have had a bad time, but it’s all over now.”

It was indeed all over now. They had wrapped him in a blanket and were digging a shallow grave. He had begun it himself, they said, and had been digging with his long knife, though whether it was for water, or whether it was really intended for a grave, no one could now say. His sufferings were ended.

They left him there in the desert, the young fellow who had fought so hard for his life and set so much store by it, and as soon as Anderson was a little recovered, set out for Yerlo again.

It was over a week before he reached the station, so far had he wandered out of the track, and as he rode up to the house a stable boy lounged up to him.

“What a while you ‘ve been away, Boss,” he said. “We ‘d most given you up for lost. The mail’s in and there’s a pile of letters for Mr. Helm. None for you though.”

“Is everything all right?” asked Anderson, feeling like a man who had come back from the grave.

“N-o-o, there’s mighty bad news. I don’t like to tell though.”

“Out with it, man, don’t keep me waiting.”

The lad looked away and turned his pipe from side of his mouth to the other.

“It ‘s your youngster,” he said. “He had convulsions last Sunday. Mrs. Brook--she said as nothing couldn’t have saved him. ‘It was a blessed release,’ she said.”

Anderson flung the reins to the lad and walked quietly into the house. It was a mistake, he clearly saw, coming back from the grave. He wished he had died within five miles of Gerring Gerring Water.

THE LOSS OF THE “VANITY

“You don’t care. Oh! Susy, you don’t care!

“But I do,” she sobbed. “You know, you know I care.”

They were standing on a jutting headland, looking away out over the Southern Ocean, and the sea, blue and calm as the sky above, stretched out before them. Behind them were the low forest-clad ranges that bounded the coast line, shutting out the lonely selection from the rest of the colony of Victoria, and the only sign of human habitation was the weatherboard farmhouse the girl called home. Even that was hardly visible from where they stood, hidden as it was by the swell of the hill, and alone here with this man, alone with the sea and sky around her, with the soft South wind blowing among her curls, with the plaintive cry of the seagulls in her ears, the salt savour of the sea in her nostrils, she was sorely tempted to throw off the trammels of her education, to do the thing her heart prompted her to do, to tell this man he was dearer, as she felt in her heart he was dearer, than anything on earth. But so much stood in the way. For twenty years she had lived secluded in this lonely corner of the earth, all her thoughts, her hopes, her fears, bounded by the horizon of her own home, and the narrow limits of the township, just five miles away on the other side of the ranges. And now this sailor man, brought home by her young apprentice brother, had come into her life, bringing new thoughts, new ideas, new--she whispered it to herself, with a hot blush--hopes.

Five-and-twenty years ago now, Angus Mackie and his wife had emigrated from the cold and stormy western isles of Scotland to this sunny South land, and they had brought with them to their new home the stern faith of the old Puritan, the rigid adherence to the old rules, the hard, straitlaced life, and so had they brought up the children that grew up around their hearth. And Susy was the eldest, Susy with the blue eyes and rose-leaf complexion, and waving chestnut hair. So pretty she was, this daughter of the South, it hardly seemed possible she could be the child of the stern Puritan parents, and yet she had grown up in their ways, grave and obedient, walking in the narrow path set so straight before her without a question, and without a doubt. Never for one moment had she looked over the hedges with which she was set about--hardly had she realized there were hedges--and now this man had come like a fresh breeze from the sea, and he had taught her--what had he not taught her? At his glance all the passion born of the blue skies and the bright sunlight, and the warm breezes of her native land, awoke to life, and filled her heart with thoughts and longings that she, untutored, and ignorant of the world’s ways, hardly understood. Only she leaned against the rock that cropped up out of the hillside, and pressed up against it till the hard stone marked her hands. Perhaps the physical pain brought her some rest from the mental disquietude which was so new to her.

The man who stood beside her was a sailor every inch of him. Not handsome perhaps, but certainly good-looking, with honest blue eyes, and a steadfast strong face. A man who had read and thought, and even though now at five-and-twenty he was but second mate of the _Vanity_, had lived his life to some purpose, for the fates had been against him; it had been an uphill struggle always, and in uphill struggles we have little time for the niceties of life. And now this girl, this dainty, fair, feminine thing had come across his path like a gleam of the sunshine of her own land, and when he felt he had fairly won her, his very honesty set a barrier in his way.

“You know I care,” she sobbed. She would have used a stronger word, but shyness prevented her, and she put her face down on her clasped hands, and sobbed aloud.

“If you love me,” he said deliberately; he was not shy now, though he turned away from her bowed head, and looked away over the sea sparkling in the November sunshine, “if you love me, what is there in God’s name to stand between us?”

“That,” she said, in a whisper, “just that.”

“What?”

She lifted up her head now, and looked away at the sea too, but she did not see it, for her eyes were misty with tears. And he did not see that, for he too looked seaward. Far too deeply moved were they to look each other in the face.

“You know,” she said; and in her voice the trace of the Scotch accent which still lingered there, inherited from her father, was softened by the Australian drawl, which, whatever other folks might think, sounded infinitely sweet in Harper’s ears, “you know,” she repeated again, “you know,” and there was an appeal in the soft voice, a prayer that he would not force her too far.

But he had gone too far for pity. In plain words she had told him she loved him, and in plain words now would he have named the bar that she had set up between them.

“What is it?” he asked, and his voice sounded cold and hard, “in heaven’s name, what is it!”

“You know,” she hesitated, “it is written--that--that we shall have no--no dealings--with--with the unrighteous.”

“Am I unrighteous?” he asked bitterly. “How am I unrighteous?”

“You are an unbeliever. You--you told me so yourself. You don’t believe in heaven or--or--hell--or--or--”

“In heaven or hell, don’t I? You know, Susy--good Lord!--Susy, you know you can make this world one or the other for me.

“Don’t--don’t,” she implored. “I mean you don’t think enough about your eternal salvation.”

“Child, how can I? This world is hard enough to get on in, God knows, how can I worry about the next? Who knows? There mayn’t be a next.”

“There is, there is!” she cried, eagerly. “Oh! if you would only repent while there is yet time--if you would only repent and be saved!”

“Oh, child, child, is there anything in the world I would not do for your sweet face?”

“Not for me--oh, not for me! Because--because--”

He put up his hand to stop her. The religious phrases that she had been accustomed to from her youth up, and that came naturally to her tongue, hurt him somehow as the foul-mouthed conversation of the fo’c’sle had never hurt him. From her lips he would not, if he could help himself, hear the phrases he had been accustomed to laugh at as canting and hypocritical.

“Don’t dear, don’t. I know what you are going to say. It is no good. We are so different altogether. I can’t believe--as you believe--I cannot. I ‘ll do my best to be a good man--I ‘ll never lie to you or--”

“It is no use,” she moaned, “no use at all. We cannot prevail by our own strength.”

He laughed bitterly.

“Belief is not a matter of will,” he said, “or I would believe just to please you--just because I want you more than anything in the wide world. All I can do is to be honest, and tell you I can’t believe. It need never make any difference to you, dear, never, never.”

The girl laid her face down on the hard rock again.

“And if--and if--next time your ship goes past here you were to fall from the mast, and be drowned, you think--you think you would just go out like a fire--that--that would be all.”

He kicked a stone till it fell over the edge of the cliff, and they could hear it going by leaps and bounds into the sea a hundred feet below.

“And you think,” he said, “I shall be eternally damned, tormented in fire and brimstone for ever and ever. Upon my word, Susy, mine is the kinder fate.”

“I can’t bear to think of it, I can’t bear to think of it!” she cried. “Oh! Ben, Ben! I can’t bear it!”

He made a step forward then and caught her in his arms. How could he resist the upturned face and the sweet blue eyes brimming with tears. Puritan she might be, the old Covenanter blood might be strong as ever, but she loved him--there was little doubt of that, and he clasped her close in his arms and covered her face with kisses.

“What does it matter, dear, what does it matter? Let the future take care of itself.”

She tried to wrench herself from his embrace then.

“No, no, it is for eternity. I can’t, I can’t.”

“Susy,” he caught both her hands in his, “do you love me?”

“You know I do.”

“Better than any one in the world?”

“Yes.” She whispered it under her breath, as if afraid of her own temerity.

“Then listen. You shall do as you like with me. I ‘ll give up the sea, darling. I ‘ll take up a selection here, you shall teach me your creed and I ‘ll do my best to believe. There, my little girl, will that satisfy you? Who knows, in time I may become as respectable a psalm-singer as that holy swab, Clement Scott, your father’s so fond of quoting. The beggar’s got a tenderness for you, hasn’t he, Susy? Why the first week I was here I was wild with jealousy of the canting brute!”

Gently but firmly she drew herself out of his encircling arms and leaned up drearily against the rock again.

“Clement Scott,” she said, and there was a hopeless ring in her voice that went to his heart like a knife, “Clement Scott is a true Christian man, he is father’s friend, and--and--oh!--” with a sudden burst of passion, “I know--I know he is the better man.”

Ben Harper said nothing, only moved a step or two further seaward. What could he say? The girl loved him, he saw that she loved him well and truly, but she did not love him well enough. She wanted to put him aside, as her training taught her she ought to put aside all the pleasures of this life, all the sunshine and laughter of life, as things hurtful to her soul’s salvation. And because she was young, because she had been born under sunny, laughter-loving skies, his love came to her with a cruel temptation, and because of its very strength, because of the pain it cost her, she would put it aside as a thing wrongful and wicked.

He looked at the silent little figure in its pink gingham frock, leaning up against the rock with head bowed down on its clasped hands. Dimly he understood the struggle that was going on in her breast, and clearly too he foresaw the inevitable end. Her very love for him was an argument against him. Never, never, never!--the booming sea on the rocks below seemed to take up the refrain--would this woman be wife of his? Never, never, never; the play was played out. Down through the vista of years he looked, and saw her the wife of the man he hated--the man who was to him the very incarnation of hypocrisy and cant He saw the hard, loveless life; he saw the lines growing in the fair, young face that was so dear to him; he saw stern Duty take the place of Love; he saw her life grow hard and narrow; he read in her face the bitterness of unfulfilled hopes, and the longing, the unutterable longing for something that might not be put into words, and a great pity for her filled his heart. Not for worlds would he add to her pain. She had come into his life, a dainty, fair, tender thing, and he had only hurt her; by his own pain he gauged hers.

A step forward and he was looking down at the snow-white breakers thundering at the foot of the cliff. The sea was his home, the cruel, fickle sea; he would go back to it and leave the woman he loved in peace. What right had he to come into her life to spoil it? He would go back whence he came, and all should be as it had been before. Go back?--ah! we none of us can go back; surely the Greeks of old were right when they said that not even Omnipotence itself can alter the past. For him he felt, as he watched the white gulls wheel about the face of the inaccessible cliff, there could be no comfort. He had gotten a hurt that would last him a lifetime, but for her--surely he had not hurt her irredeemably.

Very slowly he walked back to her side again, and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Susy,” he said, and he strove with all his strength to banish from his voice all else but kindness, “are you--do you--are you going to marry Clement Scott?”

But she would not raise her face.

“My father--he--I mean--” and so low was her voice, he had to stoop his head to hear, “father said I should--he is a Godfearing man--my father said I--I should beware that I chose--the--the better man. It--it--would be for my soul’s salvation.”

“Susy--Susy, child, I would not harm you, not for all this world or the next could give me. See now, my darling, I must go and leave you, must I?”

She raised her face now, and the bright sunlight showed it to him white and strained. She was paying for her love, if ever woman was. It went to his heart to see her quivering lips, to read in her eyes that voiceless appeal to him, not to tempt her beyond her strength.

“My poor little girl!”

He put out his arms and drew her close to his breast again, and at the sound of his voice, at the tender touch of his hands, she broke down--broke down and cried passionately with her face hidden on his shoulder. He pushed back her hat, and some strands of her hair fell loose across his hand. He held it lightly and tenderly, noting how it shone in the sunlight, noting that it looked like spun gold.

“Don’t cry like that, my darling, it breaks my heart to hear you.”

But he knew there was no hope for him in those tears. There was resignation, heartbroken resignation to the inevitable, but not a touch of yielding, not a spark of hope for him.

“My poor little girl!” he said again. “My poor little girl!”

“It is my poor boy, I think,” she sobbed, “if you care, my poor, poor Ben!”

She was so close and yet so far, so very far away from him.

“Susy, child, I can’t bear this,” his voice was hoarse with the passion that now he could not keep under control, “you must let me go--now.”

She raised her face and looked with her tear-dimmed eyes straight into his.

“Ben, Ben, I love you, I _will_ tell you this once, whether it’s right or wrong. I love you, I love you, I love you!” And she flung her arms round his neck, and drawing down his face to her own covered it with kisses, hot, passionate kisses in which the future, which for her stretched away into eternity, was forgotten.

“I must go. Susy, Susy, if you will not have me, in pity’s name let me go!”

“Go then, go, my darling.”

She drew herself out of his arms firmly, sadly, and they stood for a moment looking into each other’s eyes, only for a moment though, then with a long-drawn sigh she turned away and covered her face with her hands.

He stood a little apart and took a long farewell to all his hopes. Would the picture ever fade from his mind, he wondered. There it all lay before him, blue sea and sky and dark bushland, and the only living thing visible the trembling girl in her simple pink frock, her face hidden in her hands, and the sunlight bringing out lines of gold in her fair hair. So it ended--his month-old romance. To-day he must go back to the old dull routine that makes up the sum of a sailor’s life, and this brief madness must be but a tender memory of the past.

“Susy,” he whispered, “Susy,” but the little figure never raised its head.

“Susy, won’t you wish me good-bye. Say something to me before I go. Must I go?”

He had no hope she would change her mind. He had learned her steadfastness only too well in the last four weeks, only he asked because it gave him the faintest shadow of an excuse for stopping at her side.

“Yes, go, go!” And the command was almost prayerful in its intensity.

“But--but--one word--one word--you--”

“God bless you! God keep you! Go, go!”

He turned away then, away from the bright water sparkling in the sunlight, away from the woman he loved with all his strength; but a chimera, it seemed to him, a vague fancy, stood between them, yet it was stronger than iron bars, and with a heavy sigh he turned his face towards the dark ranges and went down to the township, five miles beyond.

The good ship _Vanity_ had lain three long months at Port Melbourne Pier, but they were weighing anchor at last. Standing there on the poop, the second mate listened sadly enough to the chanting of the men as they walked slowly round the capstan. There was almost a wail in the tune, though the words were the essence of common-placeness, and related how the singers had courted Sally Brown for seven years, and when she had proved obdurate, with great complacency had taken her daughter instead.

“Seven long years I courted Sally,
Ay, ay, roll and go!
Seven long years and she wouldn’t marry,
Spend my money on Sally Brown.”

“Ay! ay!” it rose loud and clear above the noise of the busy pier, above the voices of the men at work there, above the creaking and groaning of the crane that was loading the great iron tank that lay next them, “ay! ay! roll and go!”

Yes, he was going now, leaving all the sunshine of his life behind him, the best part of his life and--

“Now then, mister, bear a hand there, ain’t there longshore lubbers enough wi’out you?”

“Ay! ay! roll and go!” It was only another way of saying “Blessed be drudgery,” only a reminder that work is a universal panacea for all ills and heartaches. And after all the second mate of the sailing-ship is not likely to have much time for idle dreams--regretful or otherwise--for the life of such men is monotonous enough; and two days later when they had come through the Rip, and were out in the Southern Ocean sailing along eastward, there was little enough to remind Ben Harper of the events of a week before. True it was on this stern, forbidding coast lay the Mackie selection; it was over this expanse of sea they two had stood and looked when they said farewell--he had even heard tell that the lights from their cottage window, the bright glow from the kitchen fire, were plainly visible to ships at sea, so close was she. And he wondered to himself should he see those lights to-night. Hardly. He lay there in his bunk and listened to the row in the rigging. Things had not mended evidently since he went below. Gone was the summer and the bright November sunshine, the wind from the south was coming up cold and chill, and the prospect of four hours to-night on a very cold, wet, bleak poop was anything but inviting.

“It ‘s just going eight bells, sir.” He scrambled out of his bunk and into some clothes and oilskins, and was standing alongside the mate under the lee of the weather cloth in the rigging, by the time the watch got aft. They were the average crew of a sailing ship, men from every nation under the sun, and as they passed slowly round the capstan, their shoulders hunched to their ears, each man answered sullenly to his name. Not that they bore the second mate any ill-will, but Jack ashore spends his last weeks in riotous living and suffers a slow recovery for the first few days of the voyage. Besides the night was bitter cold, the wind that whistled shrilly through the rigging already bore on its chill breath drops of icy rain; there was no prospect of things mending, and after the hot summer days at Port Melbourne extra wraps--indeed any clothes in the fo’c’sle beyond what each man stood up in--were conspicuous by their absence. Merchant Jack is a thriftless beggar at best, and who could have foreseen wintry weather like this?

“Andersen!” called the mate, as a tall, fair haired Swede, his hairy breast bare to the cold night air, stepped forward.

“Sir.”

“Muntz!”

“Herr.”

“Reed!”

“‘Ere, sir.”

“Portross!”

“Sah-h.”

What a motley crew they were! Swedes and Germans, cockneys and niggers, they passed on till the two watches had answered to their names, and the last man was a Russian Finn, black-haired and swarthy, with a flat face and eyes like a Tartar.

“They Finns,” said the bo’sun confidentially to Harper, “is just pisen. Never knew no ship come to any good as carried em.

“Pooh!” said the second mate, who was not troubled with superstitious fears; besides the bo’sun made the same remark every time the watches were mustered, then he shouted, “Relieve the wheel and look out. Keep yourselves handy there, the watch.”

“She ‘s got the main-to’g’ll’nts’le on, mister,” said the mate, “and the outer jib. It’s been like this all the watch, steady enough. The sea’s getting up a bit, and having the spanker set makes her steer so badly, but the old man wouldn’t let me douse it;” and muttering something about the “glass going right down into the hold” the oil-skinned figure departed down the companion.

It was dark, very dark indeed, for though the moon was nearly full, heavy clouds obscured the sky, and only now and then she managed to pierce them, showing as clear as day the deserted wet decks--for the watch had all stowed away--the few sails set and just under the foot of the foresail the lookout man, banging his arms to and fro to keep himself warm.

The second mate paced briskly up and down the poop, for’ard was the lookout man, aft the man at the wheel, they three seemed to compose the whole ship’s company, and it gave him for a moment a sense of loneliness. Hardly a week ago and he had hoped for such different things.

He had lost nothing, nothing; he told himself so over and over again, as he drew his oilskins close round him, and yet there was a sense of loss in his life, a great and terrible loss. She would be nothing to him, the girl he loved so well, she would marry Clement Scott, she had as good as told him so--because--because he was the better man. The better man--the better man--the words formed themselves into a sort of rhythm that his steps kept time to--“the better man, the better man.”

“Binnacle light’s goin’ hout, sir,” said the man at the wheel, breaking in on his sad thoughts.

“Below there. One of you boys trim this light.”

Young Angus Mackie answered his hail, unshipped the light, and lingered for a moment.

“We ‘ll be right aboard t’auld place in an hour or two, sir.”

“What?”

“I was sayin’ that goin’ on this tack we ‘ll be awfu’ close in shore. Ye could pretty nigh chuck a biscuit in at the kitchen door. I wonder if they’ll be thinkin’ o’ us.”

“E--h--h?” muttered Harper, for had not his thoughts been taking the same road, though not for worlds would he have owned it.

“I’m thinkin’ Susy will. Ye see I ‘m thinkin’ Susy was a bit gone--”

“You boy, trim that lamp,” said Harper angrily. “Look here, my lad, you just keep your tongue lashed amidships, and don’t go gassing about things that don’t concern you in the least, or you and I ‘ll part brass rags.”

The boy scurried below and returned with the lamp retrimmed. He slipped the light into the binnacle and looked doubtfully at the second mate. It was dull and he was inclined to talk, but after his late rebuff hardly dared. Harper began to pace up and down again, and the boy stowed himself under the lee of the house, volunteering the information as he passed the mate.

“Bo’sun says the wind ‘s goin’ to shift ahead.”

“You be hanged, and the bo’sun too!”

But before an hour had gone by he was obliged to acknowledge that the bo’sun’s weather prophecies were very correct, for the wind shifted point after point till it was right ahead and blowing half a gale. Harper looked aloft and noted the clouds scurrying across the sky. Heavier and heavier they were growing to wind’ard.

“By Jove!” he muttered to himself, “we ‘re in for a nasty night.”

Suddenly the lookout man reported, “Light right ahead, sir.”

Harper stepped forward to the skylight and peered down into the cabin, dimly lighted by an oil lamp. It was a bare enough little place at best, but it looked comfort itself as contrasted with the wet decks above. The skipper was lying on a settee sound asleep, one hairy arm thrown out, and on the table meditatively surveying him was Dinah, the ship’s cat.

“Hallo there!” reported the mate through the skylight; “light right ahead, sir.”

Very lazily he rolled off the sofa, scared puss out of her senses by a rough sweep of his hand, and came up on deck.

“Great Scott!” he growled, “what a night!” Then he took a squint through his night glasses.

“Oh, yes, mister,” he said, “that’s all right. It’s just a small light--a leading mark for the small craft going into the creek there for lime. Fixed white light, I heard of it the day before we left. It’s deep water right up. We’ll go right in, mister, and make a long board of it on the next tack.”

The moon was completely hidden now, and both men hanging over the break of the the poop could see nothing but the bright light right ahead.

“It looks small, sir,” ventured Harper, taking another look through his glasses.

“Didn’t I tell ye it was small? If ye will be for ever--”

Harper still looked steadily through his glasses.

“By the Lord! sir, that looks uncommonly like a line of breakers! There--to port!”

The skipper made one hesitating step forward, and then the truth flashed on him like lightning.

“Great Scott!” he cried again, “so it is! Call all hands. Hands ‘bout ship!” Then he turned to the man at the wheel, who was the Russian Finn the bo’sun objected to as unlucky, “Keep her clean full for stays.”

The men came tumbling out from the holes and corners where they had stowed away, and the watch below came up growling audibly at having their rest disturbed, but none apparently understanding the danger of the situation. It is all in the day’s work that a sailor should be disturbed before he has had more than a taste of the bliss of sleep. The wild tumbling waters and the shrieking wind told them no tale; they only thought the wind had gone round and freshened a bit since they went below.

Harper standing on the fife rail at the crojack braces could have told them a different story. Clearly he saw the danger. There ahead, a little to leeward, were the long line of breakers; even in this pitchy darkness he could see their white foam-topped crests against the inky water; he fancied that even above the roaring of the wind through the rigging he could distinguish the crash with which they flung themselves hungrily against the rocks, the long-drawn sob as of disappointment with which they fell back into the sea again, there to gather strength for a fresh onslaught. Above them was the loom of the land showing only like thick cloud-bank against the horizon, and the bright light beckoning, it seemed, with friendly hands.

“Ready about!” shouted the skipper.

“O--o--oh, o--o--oh, o--o--oh!” sang the men at the braces in mournful monotone. Bang went the wet sail against the mast, and the second mate from his vantage point watched her slowly come up to wind. Slowly--slowly--the towering seas came pouring aboard--she took it in by the deck-house by ton loads, and the men all hung on to the nearest thing handy for dear life. Slowly, slowly her nose came up to the wind. Would she go round? Would she? Would she?

“Gummy!” he heard the bo’sun’s voice near him in the darkness, and above all the din; “she is a blanked old bathing machine, ain’t she?”

Nobody disputed the fact. Would she come round? Would she? Would she? Surely she was coming.

Then there was a pause for a brief second. Every man in that pause, it seemed, realized the gravity of the situation.

By Jingo! Will she come? Will she not?

Then the hoarse voice of the skipper broke in.

“Up with your helm, hard up! Flatten in your head sheets! Haul in your weather cro’jack brace!”

“Jammed, by G--d!” said the bo’sun, taking a squint over the side at the racing water and the ship rolling helplessly in the trough of the seas, “jammed, by G--d! like Jackson’s cat.”

The ship was in irons. “Would they ever get out of this fix?” thought Harper, while he listened to the skipper shouting orders to the man at the wheel, as she gathered stern-way and heard the Russian Finn’s hoarse:

“Helm’s amidships, sir,” in reply. He was a plucky old man, old Alick MacDonald, given to carrying on as long as he dared, which was a good deal longer than most men would have dared, and his second mate had seen him in some very tight places already, but his good luck had always stood him in good stead; would it hold good once more?

Gradually the ship paid off, slowly her nose came round, and Harper, looking at the foaming line of breakers, thought how perilously close they were. But--but--surely after all she would come through scot free, a moment more--only a moment more. The moon came from behind the heavy clouds paling the light ashore before her bright rays, and showing them just for a second the seething white water all around. So close was the danger, every man held his breath.

“We’re clear!” The words were on Harper’s lips, then--crash--the ship struck with a sickening shock that shook her from stem to stern, and brought down the foreto’g’ll’t mast from aloft with all its tackle, and strewed the deck with wreckage. In a moment the men had dropped the ropes and rushed as one man aft to be clear of the falling top hamper.

“Stand fast, men, stand fast!” sung out Harper. “Where are you off to there?”

“Well,” growled the bo’sun, who still stood by the second mate, “hell’s the next port, if you ask me!” And his companion could not but wonder at his coolness. He too, clinging for life, realized that the good ship _Vanity_ was a total wreck, and as he realized it, he raised his eyes and saw the light, which had been their guiding star till now, go suddenly out and leave all the cliff in pitchy darkness.

Crash went the ship again, bumping heavily and bringing down more hamper from aloft to add to the confusion on deck, and sea after sea swept over her. The two men scrambled aft, and above the thunder of the seas that fell aboard and the roar of the breakers that were not to be disappointed of their prey, heard the skipper shouting orders for the launching of the life-boat. It seemed to Harper no boat could live in such a raging sea, of a surety no boat could land on such a coast--at least not the coast as he knew it, the coast where was the Mackie selection--and the Mackie selection was somewhere hereabouts, you might see the light of their kitchen fire from--Good God! it came upon him like a flash--was that the light that had led them to destruction?

But there was no time for questions like that. The idea passed through his mind as he heard the skipper shout,

“Port watch, rig tackles! Starboard watch, see port life-boat all clear for going out!”

The raging wind and sea seemed to have gone down for a moment, now they had accomplished their end. The moon came out again, and he saw the watch at the skids, and the tall figure of the first mate as he stood on the boat, ripping off the covering with a sheath knife. One step forward he made to go to his assistance when there rose a towering wall of dark water to wind’ard.

“Stand from under--stand from under!” yelled every throat, but it was too late. It was doubtful if they heard, it was certain they had no time to get away. The wave came on resistlessly, and when the water had passed over them, boat and skids, part of the bulwarks, the first mate, and half the starboard watch had been swept away. There was a wailing cry above the roar of the seas, but it was impossible to say who had gone.

“Gone to port,” muttered the bo’sun, “an’ darned quick too!” And that was their requiem, for now it was each man for himself. The old skipper’s voice was silent, and the second mate feared he too must have been carried overboard by the last sea.

“Jump for a blue light,” he said to a boy next him, who was clinging to the broken skylight, “they’re in the locker in the cabin.”

The lad hesitated, then swung himself down, and in a minute or so returned, clambering back through the skylight holding two blue lights in his hand. He struck the end of one and illuminated the whole place with the ghastly glare. The _Vanity_, but a few minutes before a trim, smart ship, lay there on the reef a total wreck. The bright light showed her broken bulwarks with the seas making clean sweeps through them, the decks one mass of wreckage in hopeless confusion, cordage and rigging, splintered yards, and shattered deck-house--all alike had suffered a sea change. The foremast and the mainmast were gone, and their stumps stood up jagged and torn, but the mizzen lower mast still remained, and the men--those of them that were left--were in the rigging, for the deck every moment was becoming more untenable. The wheel was broken and the Russian Finn lay dead beside it, killed by a falling gaff, his swarthy face, white now in the bright light, turned up to the stormy sky; and a little farther for’ard, close to where Harper himself was standing, lay the skipper, jammed against the skylight by a heavy hencoop.

He bent over him and attempted to move the hencoop.

“All right, mister,” said the old man bitterly, “better leave it alone. The old barkie’s clean done for, an’ I’m thinkin’ we ‘re all bound for the same port.”

As the blue light died down the lad lighted another, and one or two men dropped from the rigging and crawled to Harper’s assistance.

“I ain’t worth much now, mister,” moaned the old man again; uwe ‘ll never get out of this fix; “but they succeeded in dragging him aft and lashing him in the rigging. The boy who had burned the blue lights scrambled after them, and then, clinging there, hardly out of reach of the hungry waves, commenced their long wait for daylight.

“What ‘s the time, sir?” asked the lad next the second mate.

“About eleven.”

The boy drew a long sigh.

“Oh, Lordy! we can never hold on till morning, can we?”

“God knows.”

A light started out of the darkness against the cliff--a light that grew and grew till it was a great flame even from where they stood, and the men in the rigging raised a shout.

“They see us ashore! Hurrah! hurrah!”

“Mighty little good their seeing us ashore ‘ll do us,” said the bo’sun; “hell ‘s between!” And looking at the strip of seething boiling water that lay between them and the coast, Harper was obliged to acknowledge the man was right.

Still it lent them some comfort--that bright fire. They were a handful of men clinging there, drenched to the skin already, and every wave wetted them again with its salt spray, the wind whistled through the rigging bitter and cold, the icy rain like spear points cut their faces; there was no hope for them, no hope at all save in that blazing fire on shore.

Who shall describe the thoughts of men in extremity? Who shall say whether they thought at all--those men half dead with cold, clinging for dear life with numb hands to a slender rope that might give way at any moment? Would they see the morning light?

Harper was surprised to find he took it so quietly. There was none of the despair he had fancied he should feel in like case--or rather, he questioned, was it not despair that made him take it so calmly, utter despair? And after all what did a few years more or less of life matter to him? If death only came quickly without much pain, would it not be well with him? What had he to live for? Bitterly came back to him the last time he had looked over this raging sea. If it was not here, it was somewhere hereabouts, somewhere quite close. He could not help thinking of it, and contrasting it, that lovely summer’s afternoon, and this bitter winter’s night, with just ten days in between them. He looked at the fire on shore, now dying down, now blazing up brightly, replenished by willing hands, and between it and him came Susy Mackie’s fair face. So sweet and dainty and fair, all that a man might long for, and yet she would give no thought to him. No thought! A wave higher than its fellows drenched him through and through, and made him wonder was the Vanity settling down, slipping off the reef into the deep water beyond it. No thought! What did it matter? It was only a little nearer the inevitable end, and if she had given him thought--if she had given him her heart, it was in despite her better judgment; her narrow up-bringing had won the day, and only that morning he had thought that life was not worth living without her. Why should he repine now that fate had taken him at his word? Then a great wave of tenderness came over him. His little girl, his sweet, pretty little girl, who made even of the stern, hard, unlovable faith of her fathers, a thing that was holy and beautiful. His little girl! He remembered--and the very thought sent a warm glow through his chilled veins--how she had wept over his possible death, wept bitter tears because she thought her God was harder and more cruel than the children He had made with His hands. His little girl, his darling!