Chapter 11

THE WRECK OF THE _ALTONIA_

“Florence will be ready to start to-morrow,” said Alice. This was welcome intelligence to Quincy, who wished several days to spare in New York before sailing.

As soon as his wife and sister were located at a hotel in New York, he made the trip to Lyndon in the Adirondacks to see Arthur Scates. He found him greatly improved, and he told Quincy that he had not felt so well in years. The doctors, too, were more than pleased with his condition, and said that it was only a question of a few months when he would be entirely well again.

When he returned to New York he found that Alice had been to visit Mrs. Ernst in West 41st Street. Madame Archimbault lived with them and still carried on the millinery establishment on Broadway, in which Quincy had accidentally discovered the long-sought Linda Putnam masquerading under the name of Celeste. How that discovery had operated to change the lives of many people came forcibly to Quincy as he sought Leopold Ernst in his down-town office.

Leopold was almost hidden behind piles of manuscripts and newspapers when Quincy entered his room.

“Up to your neck, Leopold?”

As soon as Leopold saw who had addressed him, he jumped up, pushed a pile of manuscripts from his desk to the floor, and grasped Quincy's extended hand in both of his.

“Let me help you pick up your papers,” said Quincy.

“No, they're in their proper places. They're rejected. I have accepted two out of fifty or more. The American author sends tons to the literary mill, but it grinds out but a few pounds. But the novices are improving. They will yet lead the world, for we have a new country full of God's wonderful works, and a composite population whose loves and hates reproduce in new scenes all the passions of the Old World. They are the same pictures of human goodness and frailty in new frames--and my business is to judge the workmanship of the frames.”

They talked about old times, particularly the success of Alice's first romance.

“Marriage is often fatal to literary activity. Is your wife to write another book?”

“I think not. We expect an addition--not edition--to our family library soon after our return from England.”

“That settles it. Literature takes a back seat when Maternity becomes its competitor. It is well. Otherwise, how could we keep up our supply of authors?”

The evening before the sailing of the _Altonia_, a happy party assembled in a private dining room at Quincy's hotel. Toasts were drunk. Alice and Rosa sang and Florence accompanied and played classic selections upon the piano.

“Bon voyage,” cried Leopold, as they separated. “Make notes of something really new, make a book of up-to-date travels, and our house will publish it for you, for I'll recommend it no matter how bad it is. We have to do that often for friends of the firm,--why not for our own?”

A foggy night on the ocean. The barometer ranged low. An upward glance disclosed a black mist--no sign of moon or stars. A bad night on land, when trains of cars crash into others laden with humanity--some dying mercifully without knowing the cause; others cruelly, by slow cremation, with willing hands nearby powerless to help.

A bad night off shore, when freight-laden craft, deceived by beacon lights, are beached upon the treacherous sand or dashed against jagged rocks. The life-savers, with rocket, and gun and line, and breeches-buoys, try in vain, and, as a last resort, grasp the oars of the life-boat and bring to safety one or two of a crew of ten. Sad hearts in homes when the news comes; but it is only one of the scenes in the drama of life.

A bad night at sea--with a great ocean liner, its iron heart pulsating, plunging through the black waves into dense mountains of fog.

Despite the darkness and chill of the winter night, Quincy, Alice, and Florence were on the deck of the _Altonia_. Alice shuddered and Quincy drew her wrap more closely about her.

“Shall we go down into the cabin?”

“Not yet. There is nothing enjoyable about this Cimmerian gloom, and yet it has its attractions. Florence, what is it that Tom Hood wrote about London fog?”

“I only remember one line, and I'm not sure I can quote that correctly. I think it reads: 'No sun, no moon,' I should add 'no stars, no proper time of day.'”

During the two days since leaving New York, Florence had been a creature of moods: sad, when she brooded over her trouble due, she felt sure, to another's act; light-hearted when she thought of the prospect of again meeting Reginald and having him prove his innocence.

She had been spared newspaper publicity. Not for ten times the sum he had lost would the Hon. Nathaniel have had his daughter's name in the public prints. He was a lawyer, but it was his business to get other people out of trouble, and not to get his own family into it--which shows that great lawyers are not exempt from that very common human frailty, selfishness.

Sounds of applause were borne to their ears. “Let us go in,” said Florence, “some one has been singing.”

In the main saloon, all was merriment. Each passenger had faith in Capt. Robert Haskins, who had crossed the Atlantic hundreds of times. The _Altonia_ belonged to a lucky line, the luck that follows careful foresight as regards every detail, the luck that brings safety and success from constant vigilance.

In the first cabin were more than two hundred souls--young and old, maids and matrons, young and middle-aged men, and a few beyond the allotted three score years and ten.

Mlle. Carenta, a member of a troupe of grand opera singers, whom many had heard during the company's engagement in New York, arose from the piano amid cries of “bravo,” for her superb vocalism. She had sung Gounod's _Ave Maria_.

“How sweetly she sang,” said Alice, as she touched her husband's arm to more fully draw his attention from the beautiful vocalist. “Don't you think so, Quincy?”

“Divine,” was the reply. “One can almost fancy the doors of Heaven are open.”

The cabin was warm--in reality, hot,--but Alice shuddered as she had when chilled by the mist and cold. She caught quickly at her husband's arm.

“I wish we were safe at Fernborough Hall with Aunt Ella.”

“And so do I, my dear, but the walking is poor, and we must put up with our present method of locomotion for a few days longer. Think of the good times we have had and those in store for us.”

Alice reassured by the words and the accompanying pressure of Quincy's hand exclaimed: “How delightful it was in the country, and how I enjoyed our visits. I shall always love Mason's Corner as it was called when--”

“I met my fate,” her husband added. “My line fell in a pleasant place--”

“Don't call me a fish,” said his wife, as she smiled half reprovingly.

“Well, we're on the water; if we were in it, we all might wish to be fish--or rather whales.”

The next moment all was confusion. Faces that were white became red--those that were red turned white--even through the colour that art had given to niggardly nature. Fully half the occupants of the saloon were thrown violently to the floor in a promiscuous heap. Others saved themselves from falling by grasping frantically at the nearest object. Many of the lights went out. Some of the women swooned, while men who had deemed themselves brave shook like palsied creatures.

A man half ran, half fell, down the stairway that led into the saloon and stood before the affrighted passengers. No tongue could form a question, but each eager face asked,

“What is it? What has happened?”

His voice came, thin and husky, “We've been struck by another ship in the fog!”

At sea, at night, and that a night of winter chill--and the fog! Such the thought. The fact--ten thousand tons of steel and wood, the product of man's industry, fashioned by his brain, and blood, and bone, crushed and useless, and half a thousand human beings--looking forward to years of happiness--doomed to a terrific struggle with the elements. Strong, courageous, creative man--now a weak, fear-stricken, helpless creature!

“_To the boats!_” came the cry from above, and it was echoed by hundreds of voices. In those three words were a gleam of hope: they opened a path, but through what and to what would it lead? The other ship, a tramp steamer, which had collided with the _Altonia_ was already sinking, and in a few minutes went down, bow foremost, only a few of the crew having escaped in their own boats.

Quincy had been an athlete in his college days. In time of danger, whether the man be ignorant or educated, one feeling--the instinct of self-preservation--is paramount. Alice and Florence had stood mute, helpless. Quincy put an arm about each and sprang to the narrow doorway. It was blocked by two stout men who fought frantically to gain precedence.

Quincy placed his wife in front of him, and, with the hand thus temporarily freed, he grasped one of the men by the collar and threw him back into the saloon where he was trampled upon by the frenzied passengers.

Regardless of the consequence of his act, Quincy mounted the stairs quickly and gained the deck. The boats were being filled rapidly. He placed his wife and sister in one of them.

Alice cried, “Come, Quincy, there is room here.”

“No, Alice, not yet. The women must go first.”

“I will not go without you.”

“Yes, you will, Alice--and you know why.”

The mighty craft was filling rapidly. Captain Haskins feared that like the tramp steamer it would founder before the passengers could get into the boats--their frail hope for safety. For himself, he asked no place. He had the spirit of the soldier who expires beside his dying horse, looking fondly at the animal that has borne him so many times in safety, and now gives up his life with his master's.

“For God's sake, come, Quincy!” cried Alice. “For our sake!” and Florence added her entreaties.

Quincy turned and saw a woman with a child by her side. She had made her way from the steerage. She was being deported, for she suffered from trachoma. She had been refused permission to land and join her husband who had stood outside the “pen” and gazed at her and the child. Quincy placed the woman in the boat beside his wife and put the child in its mother's arms.

“Lower away!” came a shrill cry.

“Oh, Quincy, must we part thus?”

Captain Haskins grasped Quincy by the arm.

“Get into the boat, Mr. Sawyer.”

Quincy saw that the boat, filled with women, was already over-loaded.

He turned to the Captain and said: “There is more room here with you.”

Nature's ways are mysterious but effective. A brisk breeze broke the fog, and the rays of the noonday sun fell upon a placid sea. The boat containing Alice and Florence was picked up by the _Macedonian_ of a rival line and the rescued made comfortable. For hours the steamer cruised about rescuing hundreds of the _Altonia_'s passengers, but some of the boats were never heard from.

Alice and many others had hoped that the wrecked vessel was still afloat, but the _Altonia_ had disappeared,--was far below in hundreds of fathoms of water.