His Unknown Wife, Louis Tracy [best black authors .TXT] 📗

Sturgess, though only a degree less exhausted, did as he was asked. Sprawling weakly over the prostrate body of the second of the two girls, Maseden felt in the darkness for the other one.

He discovered that she had collapsed sideways in a faint, but, by some marvel, the folded cloak had not rolled down the side of the precipice. His hands were feeble and numb, but he contrived to unfasten the strap. The bottle of brandy was uninjured, and, so unnerved was he by knowing that the spirit probably meant all the difference between life and death for four people-at any rate till dawn-that he actually dropped it.

Again Providence intervened. It fell on the thick poncho, and did not break.

Filled with savage resolve to conquer this weakness, he grasped the bottle more firmly, drew the cork with his teeth, and, resisting the impulse to swallow the contents in great gulps, sipped some of the liquor slowly.

He did not offer any to the others at that moment. His mind was clearing now, and he saw that the one vital thing needed was that he should recover control of his mental and bodily powers. A few minutes more or less of collapse mattered not so much to his companions as that he should lead or carry them to a less exposed position. Then the brandy would be really effective. At present, to hand it around in the darkness, while wind and spindrift were whipping them with scorpions, was merely courting the disaster which he himself had so narrowly averted.

The other man had gained the ledge. He could not see Maseden, because each inch of space increased an obscurity already akin to that of a tomb, but he leaned forward and caught his arm.

“Say!” he yelled. “Isn’t there some way out? We’ll die quick if we stop here!”

“You must wait a little,” said Maseden. “I, like yourself, was on board the ship. I’m going to stand up now and prospect a bit by feeling my way. Take care that neither of the women falls off. They are women, aren’t they?”

“Yes. D’ye think we’d send men ashore first?”

“I was not certain that both girls were still living.”

What a time and place for a discussion on the etiquette of life-saving at sea! It was typical of their race and type.

Placing the bottle in a breast pocket Maseden rose cautiously to his feet. Gripping the rock with his hands, he stepped over the unconscious form of the first girl he brought ashore. Evidently she had collapsed when the forecastle was swept away before her eyes.

The ledge led straight into the crevice he had entered during daylight, and though very uneven, trended generally upward. He had to depend, of course, wholly on the sense of touch, since the darkness here was that of a deep mine.

Some thirty feet inland he was halted abruptly. The ledge seemed to widen out and then end against an overhanging rock. But the place was dry, and the wind hardly penetrated, while the deafening thunder of the reef had died down to a harsh growl. By comparison with the sea face this secluded nook was a niche in Paradise. At any rate, here it was possible to await daylight without necessarily dying from exposure.

He hurried back, having memorized each inequality of floor and wall on the journey of exploration.

“Are you able to carry one of those girls?” he shouted to Sturgess when he was once more in the midst of the external uproar.

“How far?”

“Not more than fifteen short strides. Take her in your left arm, and feel the rock face on the right. Keep close in. I’m not certain about the width of this ledge. It rises a little, but is fairly straight.”

“Go right ahead!”

Soon the two men were in the haven of shelter at the further end. Each was clasping an inanimate woman, but happily, speech no longer demanded a straining of vocal chords.

“Is this the limit of the accommodation?” inquired Sturgess, obeying his guide’s restraining hand.

“Yes.”

“Do we sit right down and hope that the sun will rise sometime?”

“Not yet…. Here! Grope this way. I am giving you a bottle of brandy. Drink some, not much, because we must hoard it. Then we’ll try and get a few drops between these girls’ teeth. After that we must rub their hands and ankles till the friction hurts. It may revive them. I don’t know. It is the only plan I can think of. When they recover, if ever, we’ll seat them side by side with their backs to the rock, you and I will squeeze close, one on each side,and I have a poncho which will cover the lot. By that means we may obtain some degree of warmth in common.”

“Old man, you said a page full!”

There was silence for a few seconds. Then Sturgess said gratefully:

“Gee! That’s some tonic! Now, how about those girls?”

“Give me the bottle. This lady was conscious when I brought her ashore. She may recover quickly.”

The almost tangible blackness in which the little group of people was wrapped greatly enhanced the difficulties attending restorative measures. Maseden discovered that the abundant hair of the girl he was hugging so closely to his heart had become loose, and was in a wet tangle about her throat and mouth.

The clinging strands were troublesome, but, by prizing her lips open between a finger and thumb, he contrived to make her swallow a few drops of the brandy. In fact, while he was yet doubting the efficacy of the dose, some slight convulsive movements showed that consciousness was returning.

He laid her carefully down, and told the American to do likewise with the sister. Sturgess seemed to be curiously slow to obey, and Maseden admonished him sharply, thinking the other might be dazed.

“Now, rub hard!” he said. “First her left hand-then her left ankle.”

Both set to work with a will. Maseden could not understand why the unhappy girl should be nearly naked. The stockings had fallen about her shoes. For the rest, her chief garment was an oilskin coat.

He, be it remembered, had been spared the hard usage of the waves, and his clothing was better adapted to existing conditions. He was shocked to find how cold she was, how icy and lifeless her flesh. He urged Sturgess not to spare her.

Their rough and ready massage soon proved effective. The girl gasped something incoherent, and strove to withdraw her limbs from a distinctly strenuous handling.

“She’s nearly all right, now,” announced Maseden briskly. “Sharp’s the word with the other one.”

The second patient offered a longer task. By the time she gave any sign of life her sister was frantically asking what had become of her, and was only quieted by Maseden saying sternly:

“You will help most by not bothering us. We are doing our best for your sister. She is here, and may recover. That is all I can tell you.”

“We? Who are we?” came the broken cry.

“Mr. Sturgess, yourself, your sister and I. My name is Maseden.”

He caught a strangled gasp of astonishment, but Sturgess broke in breathlessly, for the exertion was warming him:

“Great Scott! You’ve got my name pat, Mr. Maseden. D’ye mean-to tell-me-you were -on board-that poor old ship?”

“Rub! And don’t talk!… She moved a little then.”

His judgment was well founded. Within a few minutes he heard the second girl address her sister as Nina.

So this one was Madge, his wife! He had literally brought her back from the very gates of death. He could not even see her. What a curious coincidence that when she saved his life, and he saved hers, she was equally hidden from him; then by a veil, now by the pall of the darkest night he had ever experienced!

The girls began exchanging broken confidences. Madge, who had fainted while being towed across the fearsome chasm between bridge and forecastle, did not know of the loss of the captain and chief and second officers, with a passenger, until told by Nina. She wept bitterly, and Maseden could not help noticing that Sturgess tried to console her in a very lover-like manner.

He actually smiled at the tragic humor of it all, especially when Nina seemed to sense his thought, and valiantly interfered by bidding Madge not to add to their misery by useless grief. He refrained purposely from giving them any more brandy until some time had elapsed. Now that their faculties were restored, he knew, from his own experiences, that their tongues and palates were on fire with the salt-laden atmosphere they had perforce inhaled during so many hours.

But each minute of quiet in this sheltered nook, and in breathable air, would do much to alleviate their suffering, and he trusted to the brandy to put them to sleep.

In effect, that was what actually happened. When each of the four had swallowed a small quantity of the spirit Maseden and Sturgess nestled in beside the two girls and tucked the poncho over knees and feet. The bodies of the men served as excellent shields. In the physical and mental reaction which set in with the consciousness of assured safety-because that was what both girls thought, and neither man cared to weaken their faith-they were sound asleep within half an hour of the time they left the wreck.

Sturgess, too, was worn out, and slept fitfully, but it was long before Maseden’s overtaxed nerves would yield. He could not help speculating as to what wretched hap the coming day might bring. There was a gnawing dread in his mind that they might he lodged in a fissure of an unscalable cliff. If that were so, what a fearsome prospect lay before them! The mere notion was unendurable, and he resolutely refused to dwell on it.

Then he mused on the queer chance which, even in this small company, divorced him from his wife. He had rescued Nina first. By the accident of situation he was nearest the rock which closed the ledge, and she next. It was her body, not his wife’s, to which he was close pressed, and in which his more vigorous frame had already induced a certain comfortable warmth.

Her head had fallen on his shoulder. An unconscious movement revealed that some roughness in the rock wall was hurtful, so he put his left arm around her neck and pillowed her gently.

Try as he might, he found himself still brooding on the chances of the coming day. Fortune favoring, they might find a way to the summit of the cliff. Would they be much better off? Water they would surely obtain-but what of food?

Somehow, in such woful plight, a man’s mind turns instinctively to a pipe. He actually had a cherished briar between his teeth and a tobacco pouch in his hand, when his heart sank at the remembrance that he had struck the last match in the only box of matches in his pocket after breakfast that morning. He recollected tossing the empty box into the sea. Subsequently, in lighting a cigar, he had borrowed a match.

Searching his pockets without disturbing the exhausted girl by his side, he made sure of the unhappy truth. He had no match. Even if they reached the interior of the island they could not possibly start a fire.

He knew at once that Sturgess, who had been soaked in salt water for many hours, was in a worse predicament than himself, because his own clothing was dry inside, whereas the other was wet to the skin, and any matches he might have carried must be in a pulp.

Tucked away in a money belt, Maseden carried ten thousand dollars in American bills, yet