The Wreck of the Titan, Morgan Robertson [best ebook reader ubuntu .TXT] 📗

get supper, Florrie, and, if you can eat, I'll bring you some. Lie down now, and don't get up until I call you, or until you feel better."

He again sought the deck. The wind now came steadily, while the whole sky above and the sea about were assuming the gray hue of a gale. He closed all hatches and companions, taking a peep down into the engine room before closing it up. The dynamo was buzzing finely.

A few splashes of rain fell on him, and he clothed himself in oilskins and rubber boots to watch out the gale, choosing to remain aft—where his footsteps over her might reassure the seasick girl below—instead of the bridge, where he would have placed himself under normal conditions.

The afternoon wore on, each hour marked by a heavier pressure of the wind and an increasing height to the seas, which, at first just lapping at the rail, now lifted up and washed across the deck. The boat rolled somewhat, but not to add to his discomfort or that of those below; and there were no loose articles on deck to be washed overboard.

So Denman paced the deck, occasionally peeping down the engine-room hatch at the dynamo, and again trying the drift by the old-fashioned chip-and-reel log at the stern. When tired, he would sit down in the deck chair, which he had wedged between the after torpedo and the taffrail, then resume his pacing.

As darkness closed down, he sought Florrie's door, and asked her if she would eat something. She was too ill, she said; and, knowing that no words could comfort her, he left her, and in the galley ate his own supper—tinned meat, bread, and coffee.

Again the deck, the intermittent pacing, and resting in the chair. The gale became a hurricane in the occasional squalls; and at these times the seas were beaten to a level of creamy froth luminous with a phosphorescent glow, while the boat's rolling motion would give way to a stiff inclination to starboard of fully ten degrees. Then the squalls would pass, the seas rise the higher for their momentary suppression, and the boat resume her wallowing, rolling both rails under, and practically under water, except for the high forecastle deck, the funnels, and the companions.

Denman did not worry. With the wind northwest, the storm center was surely to the north and east-ward of him; and he knew that, according to the laws of storms in the North Atlantic, it would move away from him and out to sea.

And so it continued until about midnight, when he heard the rasping of the companion hood, then saw Florrie's face peering out. He sprang to the companion.

"Billie! Oh, Billie!" she said, plaintively. "Let me come up here with you?"

"But you'll feel better lying down, dear," he said. "Better go back."

"It's so close and hot down there. Please let me come up."

"Why, yes, Florrie, if you like; but wait until I fit you out. Come down a moment."

They descended, and he found rubber boots, a sou'wester, and a long oilskin coat, which she donned in her room. Then he brought up another chair, lashed it—with more neckties—to his own, and seated her in it.

"Don't be frightened," he said, as a sea climbed on board and washed aft, nearly flooding their rubber boots and eliciting a little scream from the girl. "We're safe, and the wind will blow out in a few hours."

He seated himself beside her. As they faced to leeward, the long brims of the sou'westers sheltered their faces from the blast of rain and spume, permitting conversation; but they did not converse for a time, Denman only reaching up inside the long sleeve of her big coat to where her small hand nestled, soft and warm, in its shelter. He squeezed it gently, but there was no answering pressure, and he contented himself with holding it.

He was a good sailor, but a poor lover, and—a reeling, water-washed deck in a gale of wind is an embarrassing obstacle to love-making. Yet he squeezed again, after ten minutes of silence had gone by and several seas had bombarded their feet. Still no response in kind, and he spoke.

"Florrie," he said, as gently as he could when he was compelled to shout, "do you remember the letter you sent me the other day?"

"The other day," she answered. "Why, it seems years since then."

"Last week, Florrie. It made me feel like—like thirty cents."

"Why, Billie?"

"Oh, the unwritten roast between the lines, little girl. I knew what you thought of me. I knew that I'd never made good."

"How—what do you mean?"

"About the fight—years ago. I was to come back and lick him, you know, and didn't—that's all."

"Are you still thinking of that, Billie? Why, you've won. You are an officer, while he is a sailor."

"Yes, but he licked me at school, and I know you expected me to come back."

"And you did not come back. You never let me hear from you. You might have been dead for years before I could know it."

"Is that it, Florrie?" he exclaimed, in amazement. "Was it me you thought of? I supposed you had grown to despise me."

She did not answer this; but when he again pressed her hand she responded. Then, over the sounds of the storm, he heard a little sob; and, reaching over, drew her face close to his, and kissed her.

"I'm sorry, Florrie, but I didn't know. I've loved you all these years, but I did not know it until a few days ago. And I'll never forget it, Florrie, and I promise you—and myself, too—that I'll still make good, as I promised before."

Poor lover though he was, he had won. She did not answer, but her own small hand reached for his.

And so they passed the night, until, just as a lighter gray shone in the east, he noticed that one of the red lamps at the signal yard had gone out. As the lights were still necessary, he went forward to lower them; but, just as he was about to mount the bridge stairs, a crashing blow from two heavy fists sent him headlong and senseless to the deck.

When he came to, he was bound hand and foot as he had bound the men—with neckerchiefs—and lay close to the forward funnel, with the whole thirteen, Jenkins and all, looking down at him. But Jenkins was not speaking. Forsythe, searching Denman's pockets, was doing all that the occasion required.

CHAPTER XVII

When Sampson had entered the forecastle after his rescue by Denman, he found a few of his mates in their bunks, the rest sitting around in disconsolate postures, some holding their aching heads, others looking indifferently at him with bleary eyes. The apartment, long and triangular in shape, was dimly lighted by four deadlights, two each side, and for a moment Sampson could not distinguish one from another.

"Where's my bag?" he demanded, generally. "I want dry clothes."

He groped his way to the bunk he had occupied, found his clothes bag, and drew out a complete change of garments.

"Who's got a knife?" was his next request; and, as no one answered, he repeated the demand in a louder voice.

"What d'you want of a knife?" asked Forsythe, with a slight snarl.

"To cut your throat, you hang-dog scoundrel," said Sampson, irately. "Forsythe, you speak kindly and gently to me while we're together, or I'll break some o' your small bones. Who's got a knife?"

"Here's one, Sampson," said Hawkes, offering one of the square-bladed jackknives used in the navy.

"All right, Hawkes. Now, will you stand up and rip these wet duds off me? I can't get 'em off with the darbies in the way."

Hawkes stood up and obeyed him. Soon the dripping garments fell away, and Sampson rubbed himself dry with a towel, while Hawkes sleepily turned in.

"What kept you, and what happened?" asked Kelly. "Did he douse you with a bucket o' water?"

Sampson did not answer at once—not until he had slashed the side seams of a whole new suit, and crawled into it. Then, as he began fastening it on with buttons and strings, he said, coldly:

"Worse than that. He's made me his friend."

"His friend?" queried two or three.

"His friend," repeated Sampson. "Not exactly while he has me locked up," he added; "but if I ever get out again—that's all. And his friend in some ways while I'm here. D'you hear that, Forsythe?"

Forsythe did not answer, and Sampson went on: "And not only his friend, but the woman's too. Hear that, Forsythe?"

Forsythe refused to answer.

"That's right, and proper," went on Sampson, as he fastened the last button. "Hide your head and saw wood, you snake-eyed imitation of a man."

"What's up, Sampson?" wearily asked Casey from a bunk. "What doused you, and what you got on Forsythe now?"

"I'll tell you in good time," responded Sampson. "I'll tell you now about Denman. I threw all the booze overboard at his orders. Then I tumbled over; and, as I can't swim, would ha' been there yet if he hadn't jumped after me. Then we couldn't get up the side, and the woman come with a tablecloth, that held me up until I was towed to the anchor ladder. That's all. I just want to hear one o' you ginks say a word about that woman that she wouldn't like to hear. That's for you all—and for you, Forsythe, a little more in good time."

"Bully for the woman!" growled old Kelly. "Wonder if we treated her right."

"We treated her as well as we knew how," said Sampson; "that is, all but one of us. But I've promised Denman, and the woman, through him, that they'll have a better show if we get charge again."

"Aw, forget it!" grunted Forsythe from his bunk. "She's no good. She's been stuck on that baby since she was a kid."

Sampson went toward him, seized him by the shirt collar, and pulled him bodily from the bunk. Then, smothering his protesting voice by a grip on his throat, slatted him from side to side as a farmer uses a flail, and threw him headlong against the after bulkhead and half-way into an empty bunk. Sampson had uttered no word, and Forsythe only muttered as he crawled back to his own bunk. But he found courage to say:

"What do you pick on me for? If you hadn't all got drunk, you wouldn't be here."

"You mean," said Sampson, quietly, "that if you hadn't remained sober enough to find your way into the after cabin and frighten the woman, we wouldn't ha' been here; for that's what roused Denman."

A few oaths and growls followed this, and men sat up in their bunks, while those that were out of their bunks stood up. Sampson sat down.

"Is that so, Sampson?" "Got that right, old man?" "Sure of it?" they asked, and then over the hubbub of profane indignation rose Forsythe's voice.

"Who gave you that?" he yelled. "Denman?"

"Yes—Denman," answered Sampson.

"He lied. I did nothing of the—"

"You lie yourself, you dog. You're showing on your chin the marks of Denman's fist."

"You did that just now," answered Forsythe, fingering a small, bleeding bruise.

"I didn't hit you. I choked you. Denman knocked you out."

"Well," answered Forsythe, forgetting the first accusation in the light of this last, "it was a lucky blow in the dark. He couldn't do it in the daylight."

"Self-convicted," said Sampson, quietly.

Then, for a matter of ten minutes, the air in the close compartment might have smelled sulphurous to one strange to forecastle discourse. Forsythe, his back toward them, listened quietly while they called him all the names, printable and unprintable, which angry and disgusted men may think of.

But when it had ended—when the last voice had silenced and the last man gone to the water faucet for a drink before turning in, Forsythe said:

"I'll even things up with you fellows if I get on deck again."

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