by Louis Tracy
CHAPTER XII
A PEEP INTO THE FUTURE
"Oh, forget it!" cried Maseden, more angry now with himself than withthe youngster whose candor had provoked this outburst. "I didn't intendto be offensive. My mind was running on the day's worries. We're in adeuce of a fix, and I can see no way out of it. If I annoyed you by acareless expression, I apologize."
"Rub it off the slate, friend. I only want to put in a first bid forMadge, so to speak."
"But, for all you know, she may be--engaged to some other man," Masedencould not help retorting.
"Nix on the other fellow. He's not on in this film. I'll have him beatento a frazzle long before I see good old New York again."
Then Maseden did contrive to choke back the very obvious comment thatMadge Forbes might even be married already. Sufficient for the day wasthe problem thereof. It was not matrimony that was bothering him, thoughthe queer marriage tie contracted in San Juan seemed fated to make itsfetters felt even in the wilderness. He was wondering what would happenif, as was highly probable, they were marooned on an island rarely ifever visited by man.
He laughed grimly.
"New York is away below the horizon this morning," he said. "Let's goand hunt more oysters!"
Still, for the life of him he could not altogether get rid of thespectre raised by Sturgess's almost banal candor. The New Yorker wasunmistakably a good fellow. He had behaved like a man during twenty-fourhours which tested one's moral fibre as pure metal is separated fromdross in a furnace. Was it quite fair that he should be kept inignorance of the astounding fact that Madge Forbes, and none other, wasthe heroine of that extraordinary ceremony in the Castle of San Juan?
Why not tell him? There was every reason to believe that he had indulgedin no overt love-making as yet. Why not emulate his outspokenness, andthus spare him the certain shock of discovery?
Moreover, when the truth came out, would he not feel with justice thathe had been very badly treated both by Maseden and the woman whom heprofessed to love?
Maseden squirmed under the thought. Such a discussion, at such a moment,savored of rank lunacy, but it was better to act crazily thandishonorably.
Then came a reflection that hurt like a cut from a jagged knife.Sturgess was an impressionable youngster. He might easily transfer hiswooing from Madge to Nina.
Maseden could not help asking himself why a torturing question of thatkind should come to plague him at a time when their lives were in direjeopardy. They might, by chance, exist a week, a month--several monthsin that dreadful fastness of rock, forest and sea, but the briefestglance towards the interior showed how desperate was their case, and heknew only too well that the absence of proper food, of fire, ofclothing, of everything that renders life tolerable and joyous, wouldsoon bring mortal sickness in its train, even though they ran thegantlet of other perils like unto those of yesterday.
Why, he wondered, in addition to ending these present evils, should hebe called on to solve a fine point in ethics?
He did not realize how clearly the torment in his soul was revealed inhis face until Sturgess demanded cheerfully:
"What's worrying you now, boss? You ain't chewing on that littlemisunderstanding of a minute ago, are you?"
Maseden smiled dourly. Here was an opening, and he would take it, nomatter what the personal cost.
"No. That is not my way," he said. "I was merely turning over in my minda somewhat ticklish problem. Sometimes, when a man does not know how toact for the best, it is not a bad plan to run counter to one's owninclinations. Then, at any rate, there is no fear of selfishness warpingone's judgment. In this instance--"
"Is the tide rising or falling?" interrupted Sturgess excitedly.
"Falling."
"Good.... What's that?"
They were walking in the direction of the oyster bed which Maseden hadfound overnight. The beach was strewn with boulders, the surface of eacha mosaic of myriads of tiny mussels. The rock floor was not quite flat,but dipped slightly eastward, and the outcrop of every stratum, wornsmooth by countless tides, offered a number of irregular paths by whichit was possible to walk dry-shod a mile or more towards mid-channel.
Between these tracks, so to speak, the water lodged in pools, and here,too, as might be expected, the smaller rocks gathered, mostly in groups.
Among one such pile Sturgess's sharp eyes had detected some wreckage.
Now, any sort of flotsam or jetsam might be peculiarly useful to folkwhose belongings had been reduced to a cloak, a ship's flag, a fewoilskins, and, in the case of the women, little else. The sight of acabin trunk, up-ended among a litter of woodwork and tangled iron, droveinto the special Limbo provided for all vain and foolish things thepersonal difficulty which was perplexing Maseden.
He hurried on, and soon was aware of an oddly familiar aspect about thetrunk, battered though it was, and discolored by long immersion in saltwater.
"Well, if this isn't something like a miracle!" he cried when he couldbelieve his senses. "Here is my own trunk! The last time I saw it, itwas wedged between the forecastle deck and the iron frame of a bunk."
"The court accepts the evidence," chortled Sturgess. "We find in closeconjunction the remains of a bunk and a deck. If you produce a key, andunlock the aforesaid trunk, it will be declared yours without furtherinquiry."
"There is no key. It is only strapped."
"What's inside?"
"Some underclothing, socks and shirts.... By Jove! When dried, they willbe invaluable to those two girls.... How in the world did they contriveto lose most of their clothing? You were all fully dressed when theship struck, I suppose?"
"I guess your college class didn't include a course of heavy seaswashing through a deck-house every half minute during a whole day. Whatsort of feminine rig would stand the tearing rush of tons of water hourafter hour? Man alive, I had the devil's own job to keep any of my ownclothes on, and would never have succeeded if I wasn't well buttoned upin an oilskin. As for the girls' skirts and things, they simply fell off'em. At first they made frantic efforts to save a few rags, but they hadto give up. I saw Madge's skirt washed overboard in strips. All theseams parted. I'm in pretty bad shape myself. Look here."
Sturgess opened his oilskin coat, and showed how the lining had fallenout of his coat and the back had parted from the front of his waistcoat.
"If it hadn't been for the oilskins we would all have been strippedstark naked," he went on. "Gee! It's marvelous what one can withstand inthe shape of exposure when one is pushed to it good and hard. I shouldhave said that those two girls would have died fourteen times on thewreck, let alone the hour before dawn yesterday."
Maseden, meanwhile, was pulling the trunk free from the twisted frame ofthe bunk, which, screwed to the deck, had carried a precious argosynearly a mile from the reef; then, most luckily, it had caught in aclump of seaweed, and remained anchored during two ebbs.
"We needn't bother to open it here," he said. "I know exactly what isinside--rough stuff, bought to maintain my disguise as a _vaquero_, butall the better for present purposes."
He paused dramatically, and said something which might, perhaps, soundbetter in Spanish. When a man who has not been perturbed in the leastdegree by grave and imminent danger shows signs of real excitement, hisemotion is apt to be contagious, and his companion's eyes sparkled.
"Holy gee! What is it?" he almost yelped. "Spit it out! Don't mind me!"
"This trunk contains a gun and cartridges!"
"Gosh! I thought it must be either a steam launch or an aeroplane! Whatis there to shoot, anyhow?"
"Don't you understand? Waterproof cartridges mean fire. We'll have aroaring fire within five minutes."
"Put it there!" shouted Sturgess, holding out his right hand. "There'smillions of tons of iron-stone in that hill above the wood. Let's starta ship-yard!"
They were so elated that they forgot to gather any oysters, and evenneglected to take away the iron and wires of the bunk, scraps of metalwhich might prove of inestim
able worth in the days to come. Luckily,however, they had plenty of time, because the tide would fall duringanother couple of hours.
Maseden's hands almost trembled as he undid the straps. Now that fortunehad proved so kind he feared lest the cartridges might be spoiled. But abullet torn from a brass case was followed by grains of dry, blackpowder.
Soon he had manufactured a squib. Dead branches off the pines--alwaysthe best of fire-wood, and far preferable to dead wood lying on theground--were heaped in a suitable place, and, in less than the specifiedfive minutes, a good fire was crackling merrily.
There were logs in plenty. Had they chosen, the two men could have builta furnace fierce enough to roast an ox whole.
It was good to see the wonderment on the faces of Madge and Nina whenthey awoke to find an array of coarse flax and woolen garments steamingin front of the blaze, and a dozen big oysters, cooked in the shells,awaiting each of them. About that time, too, the sun appeared, and hisfirst rays changed the temperature of the land-locked estuary frombiting cold to an agreeable warmth.
So the four breakfasted, and, at the close of the meal, held a councilof war. With a charred stick, Maseden drew on a rock a rough map ofHanover Island.
"I overheard from one of the crew of the _Southern Cross_," he said,"that the ship was supposed to be drifting towards Nelson Straits, whichis the only opening into Smyth's Channel ever attempted hereabouts, evenin fine weather, by small sealers and guano-boats. Now, it happens," hewent on reflectively, "that this coast has always had a strangefascination for me."
"It was a treat to see you clinging to it lovingly for hours at a timeyesterday," put in Sturgess.
"We want to hear what Mr. Maseden has to say," cried Madge sharply.
"Sorry. I shan't interrupt again. But, before the court resumes may Ithrow in a small suggestion? How about dropping these formal Misters andMisses? My front names are Charles Knight, usually shorted by my friendsand admirers into C. K. What's yours, Maseden?"
"Philip Alexander, otherwise 'Alec.'"
"Got you. Now, girls, what do Nina and Madge stand for?"
He little guessed the explosive quality of that harmless question, buthe did wonder why both Nina and Madge should blush furiously, and whytheir eyes should flash a species of appeal to Maseden.
Nina was the first to recover her composure.
"Nina and Madge should serve all ordinary purposes, C. K.," she saidwith a rather nervous laugh.
"They'll do fine," agreed Sturgess. But he did not forget his ownsurprise--and the cause of it.
Maseden, quite unprepared for this verbal bombshell, plunged intogeneralities somewhat hurriedly.
"Barring the polar regions, the southern part of Chile is the wildestand least known part of the world," he said. "It is extraordinary in thefact that every ship which sails to the west coast of both the Americasfrom Europe, and vice versa, either passes it in the Pacific or windsamong its islands for hundreds of miles along Smyth's Channel; yet itremains, for the greater part, unexplored and almost uncharted. Darwincame here in the _Beagle_, and the sailor to-day depends on observationsmade during that voyage, taken nearly three-quarters of a century ago.Darwin's Journal, and other of his works containing references to SouthAmerica, shortened many an evening for me on the ranch."
He paused a moment, before adding, in an explanatory way:
"My place, Los Andes, was a good twelve miles from Cartagena, and I hadno English-speaking neighbors. I told you last night, if you remember,how I came to settle down there?"
Sturgess, though evidently burning to ask a question, merely nodded,grinning cheerfully when he caught Nina's eye.
"I only want you to understand why I claim some knowledge, such as itis, of this locality," continued Maseden. "At the southwest corner ofHanover Island is a ten-mile patch called Cambridge Island, and the twoform the northern boundary of Nelson Straits. But in the channel betweenthem are two smaller islands, and, unless I am greatly mistaken, therethey are."
He pointed across the estuary, and indicated a break in the coast-line,beyond which other more distant hills were visible.
"It follows," he went on, "that when we sail up this channel to theleft, we shall find ourselves in Nelson Straits, and, after coveringfifty or sixty miles of fairly open water--open, that is, in the sensethat there is plenty of it--we shall be in Smyth's Channel, and in thetrack of passing ships."
He paused, but did not try to ignore the plain demand legible on threeintent faces.
"Yes; that is the only way," he said quietly. "We are here. We arealive. There is plenty of wood, and we have brains, hands, and fire. Wemust construct some sort of a raft, something in the style of thelumber-rafts built on big rivers, and take advantage of the tides. Ourpresent position is quite inaccessible by land, and, I fear, equallyunapproachable by water.
"And I'll tell you why I think so. Within quarter of a mile of us aresome splendid oyster-beds. The coastal aborigines live mainly onshell-fish, and this store would have been visited by them times out ofnumber if they could get at it. But I have seen no heaps of shells, suchas must have remained if the savages came here.
"What has stopped them? Impassable forests, glaciers, and precipices onland, dangerous reefs and fierce tidal currents by sea. The geologicalfeature which helped our climb yesterday must create reef after reefacross the track of the channel.
"You see those pathways there?" and he stretched a hand towards theseries of rock outcrops lining the shore like groins. "They have beenalmost leveled by the storms of centuries. But the _Southern Cross_ waslost on one of them, and there must be scores of others between here andSmyth's Channel. There may be passages between many if not all, but itis self-evident that navigation is far too risky for the small coraclesof the natives. We must go slowly and safely, if possible. If our raftwill not cross a reef, we must abandon it, and build another on the farside. We may have to do that six times, a dozen times, even in sixtymiles. There is no other means of escape. We may be weeks, months, inwinning through, but that is our only practicable plan."
"Gee!" murmured Sturgess. "And I'm due in New York on February 10!"
The sheer absurdity of naming a date relaxed the tension. They alllaughed, though not with the light-hearted mirth which four young peoplemight reasonably display after dodging death continuously duringtwenty-four hours.
"By the way, what day is it?" inquired Nina Forbes wistfully.
"Sunday, January 23," said Sturgess. "I know, because it was my birthdayyesterday. Somewhere about eleven o'clock a. m., I was twenty-seven. Ididn't make a fuss about it. Just at that time, wise Alec here washolding on to a rock by his teeth and one toe, and telling us we had togo back carefully after a beastly difficult climb."
"Sunday!" repeated the girl.
Her thoughts traveled many a thousand miles to the quiet little NewJersey township where her mother was living during the absence ofhusband and daughters in South America. It was winter in the North, andthere might be snow on the fields and ice on the streams, but snow andice conforming to New Jersey notions of order and seemliness.
What a contrast between the white mantle marked out in rectangles by thecountry roads and ditches, with here and there a group of trees, a trimshrubbery, a red-roofed farm or dwelling house, and this chaos of rock,forest, cliff and ocean!
"Will the loss of the _Southern Cross_ be reported?" she asked suddenly.The query was addressed to no one in particular, but Maseden answered.
"Her non-arrival will be noted at Punta Arenas," he said. "After a timethe insurance people will post her as 'missing.' Then she will beassumed to be lost. Possibly some of the wreckage may be picked up. Or aboat. What became of all the boats?"
"Some of 'em were stove in, others washed clean off their davits," saidSturgess. "It was absolutely impossible to lower one. No one who did notwitness it would have believed that a fine ship could break to pieces soquickly. Gee whiz! One minute I was standing near the fore-rail, lookingat the narrowing entrance in full confidence
that we should win through,and the next I was fighting for my life in the smoking-room, up to mywaist in water."
"You are not quite doing yourself justice, C. K.," said Madge. "You werefighting for other people's lives as well. I have the clearestrecollection of being hauled up the companion ladder to the bridge byyou and one of the ship's officers. Then you went back and helped Ninaand Mr. Gray."
"That is what I was there for," was the prompt reply.
"This being Sunday, do we labor or rest, Alec?" inquired Nina.
It was the first time either girl had used Maseden's Christian name, andthe sound on a woman's lips was like a caress. He reddened, and smiled.Nina's eyes met his, and dropped confusedly.
"We rest," he said. "We need rest. At least, I am free to confess that_I_ do. You energetic people are inclined to forget that I began areally strenuous life by receiving a rap on the head that put me out ofcommission during several hours.... Now, Mr. Sturgess--sorry, C. K.--andI are going on a little tour along the coast. We shall be away an houror more. I advise you two to rig yourselves as best you can in mysuperfluous garments. Make sure they are quite dry. It may seem ratherabsurd, but putting on damp clothing is an altogether different thingfrom allowing wet clothes to dry on your body. Keep a good fire. Thereis nothing to be afraid of. In this strange land there are neitheranimals nor reptiles."
"Nor birds," said Nina.
"Yes, plenty of birds, but the nesting season is long over, and many ofthe sea-birds have gone south. As we progress further inland we shallcome across great colonies of puffins, ducks and swans. Curiouslyenough, there are plenty of humming-birds, which is about the lastspecies one would expect off-hand to find in these wastes.... Comealong, C. K. Let us try and circumvent the wily seal."
"Why not shoot one?" said Sturgess.
"Because I have only twenty-four cartridges, and each one may yet beworth its weight in diamonds. Remember, everybody!--we only use therifle in the last extremity, either for food, or fire, or actualself-preservation. Once lighted, on no account must the fire be allowedto die out. Even when we build a raft, we can imitate the natives, andcarry a fire with us. To save us men from temptation to-day, should wefind a seal, we'll leave the gun with the ladies.
"A couple of cudgels, with ends sharpened and hardened in the fire,should serve our needs, and do the seal's business as well. If not, wemust try again, and exist on oysters until we become more expert....I'll put five cartridges in the magazine, and show you girls how itworks. If you regard each shell as worth, say, five thousand dollars,you'll appreciate the net value of the whole twenty-four."
Within a few minutes Maseden and Sturgess set off. The tide was now atits lowest point, so they had no difficulty in walking in almost anydirection. Their first act was to drag ashore the remains of the bunk.Given a quantity of malleable iron and a fire, it would not be animpossible task to construct some rough tools.
While placing this treasure-trove above high-water mark they saw the twogirls examining the stock of underclothes which Providence had literallyprovided for their needs.
"Gosh!" said Sturgess, almost reverently. "It beats me to know how acouple of delicate women could endure the hardships we have gonethrough."
"But women are not delicate. I don't understand why men invariablyharbor that delusion. In passive resistance women are more steadfast,even hardier, than men. That is an essential, don't you see? Thecontinuance of the race depends far more on the female than on the male.Civilization tries to upset the great principles of life, but fails,luckily. Savage tribes are aware of that elementary fact. Low down inthe social scale the women do all the work, while the men loaf around,and only get busy when hunting or fighting."
"Tell you what, Alec," said Sturgess admiringly, "once fairly started,you talk like a book."
Such a remark could hardly fail to act as a gag on one of Maseden'stemperament. By habit a silent man, he shrank from even the semblance ofloquacity. Sturgess could extract no further information from him. He inhis turn soon learned to guard his tongue when the Vermonter was in thetalking vein, and unconsciously pouring out the stock of knowledge andphilosophy garnered during those peaceful years on the ranch.
"We had better go this way," said Maseden, pointing towards the west."Don't you think it advisable to search the coast seaward? There havebeen three tides since the ship struck, and anything likely to comeashore should have shown up by this time."
"Go right ahead, Alec. What you say goes."
Their search was fruitless. Indeed, the position in which the leathertrunk was found proved that the set of the current on a rising tide wasin the direction of the channel between the two small islands.
Maseden had little or no experience of the sea and its vagaries, or hewould have noticed this highly significant fact, and thus saved himselfand his companions much hardship and a good deal of needless risk.
Of course, he saw quickly that there was a remarkable absence ofwreckage on the north side of the estuary, but he attributed it to thefury of the gale, which must have driven a great body of water far intothe network of channels which stretched inland, with a resultantoutpouring when the wind pressure was relaxed.
The only satisfactory outcome of a close visit to the bar was thecomplete vindication of their means of escape from the ledge. It wouldhave been a sheer impossibility to round the point at or slightly abovesea-level. The tides of untold ages had literally scooped a chasm out ofthe cliff, and perversely chosen to batter a passage through the rockrather than take the open path farther south.
They could not see the reef which had destroyed the _Southern Cross_.But they could hear it. Ever above the clatter of the rollers on thenearer rocks they caught the sullen roar of the outer fury.
"Let's clear out of this," said Sturgess suddenly. "That noise sends achill right down my backbone."
Maseden turned at once. In any case, they could not have remained theremuch longer, because the tide was on the flow, and they had yet todiscover how swiftly it covered the rock-paved foreshore.
They did not hurry, but kept a sharp look-out for seals, seeing several,but at a great distance. While they were yet nearly a quarter of a milefrom the camping ground, from which came a pillar of smoke, showing thatthe fire was not being neglected, they were startled by a gun-shot.
It smote the air with a sound that was all the more insistent in that itwas wholly unexpected. It drove into the sea, with a loud splash, a sealclose at hand which had been hidden by a rock, and even brought a pairof circling bustards from some eyrie high up on the hills.
With never a word to one another, both men began to run.
