Part 18

"I won't think about it," Crow was saying to herself, and went on thinking all the time; so, of course, the best thing was to get busy over commonplace things, and she requested Adrian to haul the foresail across and prepare to wait awhile.

Just about then the siren from the lighthouse began to shriek. The regular "hoots", short and long, came across the wild waste in husky screams--immensely distant, so it seemed, to the brother and sister. They had expected the winking light, but had not seen it, no doubt because of the thick dark, which could only be pierced for a certain radius. The wail of the siren made everything more fearsome, and the only way to revive drooping courage was with food and hot cocoa.

They went below, trying to forget the outside horrors in the warmth and glow of the little saloon.

Crow was on tenterhooks, dragged all ways by anxiety and thoughts of her mother, but she tried not to show it, though she realized that Adrian's manner had changed in the last hour. He was feeling the same--and would not show it.

Suddenly an impulse to rush on deck seized Christobel. A thrill of excitement ran through her veins; she set her cup down and listened.

"What's the matter?" asked Adrian, watching her.

"Didn't you hear a--wait a bit, Addie, I must----" She was up and through the door with a swift run. Adrian followed, not understanding.

The blackness seemed to strike their eyes at the instant--blackness and grey shapes moving up and down--across and across--flashes of white foam and with that douches of cold spray.

Christobel was up on the counter holding to the mizzen, and trying to see; the stem of the yacht rose and fell in nasty pitches.

"Come down, Crow," called Adrian; "you'll slip!"

The answer was an excited cry from his sister:

"Addie, Addie, _quick_--the boathook! Get her, get her, don't let the boat go--it's _Pam_!"

Adrian saw--to leeward of the yawl--quite close, too, something dark rise on a wave from under the stern almost. Someone gave a call which was blown away by the wind, only a faint echo of it reaching them.

Christobel held on to the mizzen and shouted directions.

"Row, _row_, Pam--come up to the red light; we'll get you--don't be afraid."

Adrian hurled himself forward with the boathook, and dropped the steps into the hooks.

The figure in the boat was pulling. They could see a white patch of face, and--the hair.

Two minutes, and they had got hold of her.

Christobel did not know what she was saying; she was sobbing--yet not crying--a perfect frenzy of joy in feeling, actually _feeling_ Pamela's arm--not a dream, a solid flesh and blood arm--and dragging her up the steps. She was drenched and speechless, and clung to Crow's hands with a frantic clutch.

"Oh, Pam--darling old Pam--it's all right now--don't be afraid--it's all right--you're safe!"

Crow was saying all sorts of things while Adrian was dealing with the dinghy--as far as he could see there was water washing about in her, nothing dangerous, but enough to cover the floor boards. However, he could not stop to bale now, unless it was absolutely necessary. Pam was safe! His hands shook as he knotted the painter with sharp tugs. No getting away this time! No time to be lost! He thought of his mother's face when they left, of how she would look when they got back--and brought Pam! He choked as he realized that a miracle had happened, and God had sent the dinghy across their path in that wild waste of confusion.

Having secured the dinghy, he plunged down the cabin steps just to have one joyous moment of triumph with old Crow before starting on the voyage--well, back. As he entered, his sister turned round; the hanging lamp shone on her face, and he saw, looking at her first, a curious scared expression; not shocked--_amazed_!

On the bunk-seat by her side sat a girl--not Pamela! Adrian was conscious of her good looks in a second, but also that she looked terribly ill, quite ghastly.

There was a moment or two of tense silence--from words, when the pitching of the yawl seemed more violent, and the noises of rattling, bumping, dashing, splashing, and creaking--the scream of the wind, and the monotonous jar of _Messenger's_ bows as she crashed down on each succeeding wave--appeared louder than ever before in the memory of the Romilly pair.

"I say," said Adrian, sitting down, "what's up? Excuse me, but who on earth are you?"

"Yes, who are you--where's Pamela?" Christobel backed up her brother once he had spoken, almost fiercely.

The girl looked from one to the other. At first hardily, then her lips quivered, and she stared at the table, blinking back tears.

"I wish I was dead," she said.

"Oh, is that what you came out for?" Adrian retorted, with something like exasperation. "Well, you jolly nearly were dead. As you say you wish to be, I suppose you wouldn't have minded, but you seem to forget that you've risked our lives too--let alone the fearful anxiety to my mother, and----"

"Don't, Addie," urged Crow; "what's the good--we'll settle all that afterwards. The point is, where's Pam?" Then speaking directly to the girl she asked: "Where is Pamela, my sister?"

"Oh, quite safe--on land--in the Crown Hill wood, I expect."

"How do you know?" suspiciously.

"I asked her to meet me. To come at half-past five. I asked her particularly."

"Why?" asked Adrian.

There was silence; the girl looked sullen; her eyes seemed sunken almost, so deep were the shadows round them.

"Why?" demanded Adrian again. "What was your object? If you wanted to borrow our dinghy why didn't you come and ask for it--not that we should have let you have it this weather," he added _sotto voce_, in an Adrian-like aside.

"Don't ask any more till she's had something to eat and drink," said Crow. "Here, take off your coat; you're awfully wet."

She pulled the coat off with a firm hand. There, fastening the silk blouse in front, was the diamond safety-pin. The light made it glitter with a hundred tiny rays.

"_Addie_!" exclaimed Crow.

"Well, it is my own," said the girl.

"Just so. We are beginning to see light--at least _I_ am," retorted Adrian stiffly. "You've been posing as my sister Pamela, haven't you? Was it you who went to Miss Ashington and asked for that brooch?"

"It is _mine_!" flamed the girl. "Cannot I have my own?"

Adrian shrugged his shoulders.

"You don't seem to see that there are two ways of getting one's own," he said, "a decent way--and, well--a rotten one. Did you by any chance happen to let out Badger's sheep and his horses, and come along to the cliff above Champles cove the other day?"

"How can I tell? Perhaps I did. I think you are rude and unkind," said the girl in an aggrieved voice.

"Great Scot!" ejaculated Adrian. "Well, of all the extraordinary females----"

Christobel was putting food on the table while this curious conversation took place. She now interrupted it by ordering this surprising visitor to eat, which she did, heartily and hungrily. Afterwards Crow ordained that she was to take off her skirt, shoes, and stockings, and they could be dried at the stove.

"You can roll up in a blanket," she said, "and stay where you are; you'll soon be warm all through down here. Adrian and I have got to get home now."

"I don't want to go home," said the girl, untying her shoes.

"Why not?"

"I am not happy. If I go back I shall be very uncomfortable."

"It looks as though you thought of no one but yourself," said Crow. "I dare say you don't _mean_ it, but it sounds so."

The girl took off her shoe and felt the wet foot. Then she glanced up at Crow, and said with more strength in her voice--she was revived by the food:

"But, of course, I mean it. Everyone is the most important person in the world to himself. You _must_ think of yourself first, of course."

Christobel was so startled at this point of view that she said nothing at all. She was not very ready with words at a crisis. So she contented herself by helping this young person into the bunk, with cushions and blankets; then she left the saloon, closing the door all but an inch or two; as it slid in a groove this arrangement was easy enough.

Adrian was outside; she could hear him on deck, settling matters ship-shape, stowing down all loose ends and gear that might get free. The "tug of war" was coming; she knew that well enough; they had got to get home.

"Hullo, old lady," said Adrian cheerfully, coming down beside her, "we've got to get home now. It's a straight-forward job, anyway, no side issues! 'All is safely gathered in'," he laughed, so did Christobel.

"I wonder where we are--about," she said.

"Oh, can't be far off. We shall soon know when we've had a shot or two," declared Adrian easily.

The idea of "taking shots" at a lee shore, mainly consisting of rocks, in pitch darkness, with a strong wind behind you, would no doubt have been new and interesting to most sailors.

*CHAPTER XXI*

*Ladders of Light*

"Pay off, pay off," cried Adrian; "we'll run for it! The wind should be on our quarter, considering where it comes from; when we pick up the siren from Ramsworthy lighthouse--or better still, the light--we shall know how to get into Bell Bay."

Christobel suggested that the bay would be too rough. As it was not possible to see to pick up the mooring-buoy, she proposed Salterne. It would be safe and calm within the estuary.

"Oh, _rather_--of course," Adrian agreed warmly; he did not intend to tell his sister all he thought about their position, but he assumed the tiller.

Christobel protested eagerly.

"Truly, Addie, I'm not tired."

"All right, you're not, old lady; but we've got a stiffish time ahead, you know. We're going to take this in turns, so save yourself for your watch. Why don't you go in and take an easy now?"

But Crow refused. She preferred the frenzied turmoil and Addie's company, outside, to the warm ease within, and the neighbourhood of this strange girl.

Brother and sister sat shoulder to shoulder in the spray-wet darkness holding the tiller between them, for it took one man's strength at least to keep it steady.

The white yawl ran like a terrified deer pursued by hounds. With her wet sheets straining hard as steel, she tore through, and over, the black cauldron of leaping water. Wherever sea is, there must be a little lessening of darkness, for dim reflection comes from somewhere in the sky. It is only darkness made faintly visible, just enough to show up its terrors. Masses of torn cloud raced above them with a mad speed that dazzled; heavy sea thundered along below. Walls of dread closed them in, shut them down, tried to force them back, opened for them below. And there was no sight or sound of human company, no possibility of a human hand to cling to, no chance of a word of human sympathy. Christobel had had some experience, but, she owned to herself, never one like this--and she prayed that, if they came through it alive, she might never see it again. It was so _cruel_.

In "running free" as they were, the strain on vessel and steersman is greatest. The ship, whatever her rig, does not run without using every mite of her power to escape from the pressure to which she is held. Her natural motion is, of course, to sweep clean round, because of the weight on the mainsail, but the rudder holding her to a straight line is in the power of the helmsman, and with all that force will she rush ahead to get away, as it were, from the drive of it. In this headlong flight, too, the least variation of the tiller causes her to swoop in a terrifying way, while she leaves behind her a path of bubbling foam as white as the wake of a steamer.

Once Christobel began to speak about the girl asleep in the saloon; she thought it would distract them both from the dread monotony; also she was curious about her. But Adrian refused.

"Let's cut her out, Crow," he said. "I think there isn't an ounce of doubt that she's a young Hun. How she comes to be here we shall know in time--but her manners and customs are--well--you know. It does not beseem me as a male Briton to abuse a female, even a Hun female, so, if you don't mind, we'll cut her out. One thing I'll say, I'm taking off my hat to old Pam all the time. She had a rotten time over that brooch, and over Badger too--while--oh, never mind!"

"Let me tell you one thing, Addie," urged Crow, "then I'll not say one word till we are home." She told him about the handkerchief, letting in the light instantly upon the identity of the person who had raided _Messenger_.

Adrian nearly loosed the tiller in his excitement.

"Crow, don't you see now _who_ it was the Midget was escorting out of our grounds at four in the morning? Good old Midget! I _say_, Crow, that kid has been sharpening his wits on other folks' business; he's certainly coming along! Wonder why he didn't speak."

"Probably Pam told him not to--then he wouldn't, and I expect _this_ girl appealed to Pam to hold her tongue. You know what she is--Pam, I mean--at any time, and just now she's full up with notions about helping all the world--the Girl Guides' profession. She'd bear anything, of course," so said Crow, understanding her sister.

"And this young person would let----" Adrian checked the comment. "Hold up, Crow, let's talk about the weather! Jolly fine for the time of year, isn't it? Who was it said 'We've been having a lot of weather lately?' We are to-night, about a month of weather in twelve hours!"

So these two laughed and "carried on" through the bleak storm, while the one who had caused it all lay sleeping soundly among her pillows.

After a bit they fell silent, just doing their work, they were tired, of course, and talking against the howlings of the night was exhausting work.

An hour passed; it seemed a whole night; it seemed as though the horror had been going on through endless ages. Crow stood up and stretched.

"I'm going to make you some cocoa," she said.

"Right-o!" agreed Adrian cheerfully.

Presently she came back with a big cup and two stout bacon sandwiches, a thing Adrian greatly liked.

"Now I'll fetch mine," said Crow; and did so, planting herself firmly. "Can you manage your cocoa without spilling?" she said.

"I've drunk it," answered her brother promptly. "Addie, it was boiling!"

"Well, it's boiling still for all I know. Ever so much warmer in the region of the waistband! Sandwiches don't spill, thank goodness. Awfully decent grub this, Crow."

When all the "grub" had gone the way of the boiling cocoa, the pair felt more conversational.

"We don't seem to pick up the lighthouse, Addie," said Crow tentatively.

Adrian agreed; he also said that by all his calculations they ought to have run bang on to Bell Bay beach about half an hour ago.

"We've nothing to steer by but the wind," he allowed, "and that may change. One never knows. What time is it, Crow?"

Christobel said it was after twelve o'clock.

"I wish we could hear that siren. But, Addie, we may be going the wrong way!"

"Probably are, my child. I tell you honestly I'm not sure of anything in the wind line--and I'm not sure whether we are going with the tide or against it--well, naturally, considering I don't know where we are going. It's about the rummest old stunt I ever played up to--quite a new experience, in polite language."

"I wish day would come," said Christobel. "Addie, do you remember the thunderstorm?"

Adrian looked round to see what the dinghy was doing. Crow laughed; then she said in a warning voice:

"And you _quite_ understand that if you even dared to get out and bale her, I'll scream. I'll begin, and not stop. It would be worse than the lighthouse siren."

"I won't bale her out now, but I think I ought to shorten the painter," said Adrian thoughtfully; "the thing will snap--just look at that."

_That_ was a lightning forward swoop of _Messenger_ on the back of a wave, followed by a check as she met the force of a curling crest; the dinghy checked also--in the trough behind. Then as the yawl leaped again the tow-rope tightened with a jar that sent out a perfect Catherine wheel of dazzling spray.

"Here, just a moment," said Adrian, surrendering the tiller to his sister; "I'd better just give it a----"

"Don't--Addie, _don't_!" cried Christobel, with a sudden sense of desperation--it was the breaking-point of nerves, only she did not realize it.

Adrian jumped up on the counter, and stooping above the rail got hold of the tow-rope. At that instant, a long black wave-head swept after them out of the dark, carrying the dinghy on its crest.

The little boat nearly came on board, striking hard with her sharp bows; there was a sudden lift of the counter as the wave roared under their keel; Adrian lurched, fell over and rolled. Christobel let go the tiller, sprang up with a shriek so piercing that she did not recognize her own voice, and flung her whole weight on Adrian's legs. It steadied him for the instant, and getting his balance he flung an arm round the mizzen, and directly after righted himself.

But _Messenger_ had got her head! With the tiller loose she was free.

There was one appalling moment when she drove broadside on, heeling over almost at right angles. The water poured along the leeward rail, and she was almost buried to the mast in seething foam. It streamed into the companion--down to the saloon--everywhere. The noise was perfectly indescribable, one riot of roar, rattle, and storm. Then the white yawl finished her mad dash for freedom and suddenly righted on a level keel, gasping, as it were, while other sounds were lost in the rush of water pouring away through the scuppers.

Christobel did nothing. She was shaking from head to foot and sobbing in a distracted manner. Adrian, utterly amazed, patted her back, the while he seized the kicking tiller.

"Hullo, old lady--what's up? Get a holt on it. Why--nothing's happened, only this beastly row."

"Oh, Addie--Addie--Addie!" choked poor Crow, "if you'd--gone. I thought--I thought----"

"No harm done. Miss is as good as a mile any day," shouted Adrian cheerfully above the din. "I say, Crow, look! If it isn't Miss Hun, come to inquire after our health!"

The Countess had pushed open one door, and was standing on the step looking about--evidently she could see nothing, her eyes being dazzled by the lamp within.

"Everything is falling down," she said in her deliberate voice. "What is the matter?"

"Nothing at all," answered Adrian. "My sister and I are playing hockey to warm ourselves."

"That is an untruth. Do you suppose I should believe it?" retorted the girl.

"Not at all. Why should you?" Adrian's tone was the essence of courtesy.

"Why do you say so then?"

"Ah--there you have me, Miss A.," said Adrian, leaning his head back and looking at her from under the peak of the sou'wester.

"Don't, Addie," urged Crow, on the verge of a fit of giggles, though tears still stood on her lashes; "it's no use. She can't understand, poor thing." Then she went to the door and suggested to their visitor that she should stay inside. She told the girl it was very rough, very uncomfortable, and they did not know where they were.

The Countess saw this was the truth.

"But I'm not afraid," she said. "I can come out too."

"You'll get wet," warned Crow.

The Countess shrugged her shoulders.

"If we must drown," she said, "I prefer to see. Also I can swim. I learned in the swimming baths at----" she broke off. Crow guessed why. She was put into an odd mackintosh coat, and sat outside. Adrian did not want her at all; he hated it; also she was in the way if anything happened. However, she just asserted herself as she always did, and there she was.

Hours went by--hours of black monotony, in which the lost voyagers hardly realized that the wind was harder and the sea rougher. They ceased to talk, but every now and then Adrian and Crow changed places. Also they took hot cocoa at intervals, and "hoped for the day", like St. Paul and his wrecked companions; it was their only hope. The girl was no trouble. She seemed to have courage and endurance; she did not complain, and said "thank you" when they gave her cocoa. The only remark she made in several hours was that she "did not understand why people did all this dirty work for amusement". She said she liked a big yacht with plenty of servants, but a small one was "menial work".

Adrian agreed; then he looked sideways at Crow, who was close to him, with such an absurd face, that she nearly burst into giggles again.

It must have been three o'clock in the morning when they two became aware of a sound in the air, a sound that was not wind or waves--a steady pulsing sound, rapid and regular, growing also in distinctness.

Christobel and Adrian looked at each other; they tried to locate it, but the dark smother and eternal driving of the tireless wind baffled them. It was something that steamed, for the swift beat of the engines was now clearly defined--louder, louder, drumming against the howling gusts.

Adrian was steering, head up and listening keenly; Crow was seized with sudden panic--her imagination leaped to the thought of collision, of being run down there--helpless and unseen.

Adrian realized, and said "Lights are all right." She felt easier--they all listened, staring into the black confusion as well as the stinging spray would let them. The air was full of the throb.

Then, all in a moment, a towering black shape materialized from the darkness, and bore down upon them with the rush of a railway train--out of the night, without lights, without warning, it passed. To them, as the yawl wallowed in the wake of its seething track, there seemed to be inches only to spare! Of course there was very much more, but the nearness was rather staggering all the same.

The three on the little yacht saw the keen knife edge of the bows speed by with high fountains of water flung up either side the cutting line.

It was a moment of tense excitement. Adrian gave a suppressed shout.

"Oh, Crow, did you see her--the beauty! A destroyer! I say, how awfully _alive_ they are--isn't one jolly proud of them?"

"It was rather a near thing, wasn't it?" murmured Christobel, holding on as the yawl leaped.

"Jolly well worth it, though. I've never seen a destroyer pass so close, on her 'lawful occasions'," answered Adrian, quoting a certain well-known story; "nothing can take that from one."

The drumming faded away down wind, and the Romilly pair settled again to wait for the slow-coming dawn, when suddenly Adrian gave a whoop--a positive wild Indian screech.

"Oh, I say, Crow, look--look! Of all the crowning luck, this is----"

Moving over the "face of the waters", over the black tossing waste, was a ladder of dazzling white light. It searched in miles, it searched in inches, like some living, busy, sensing creature. Christobel thought of the fingers of light in the "Martians", that hunted for the victims. It was thrilling. Dumb, dazed, they watched the brilliant feelers creeping over the water.

Crow hardly breathed; she was standing, just petrified.

Suddenly Adrian slammed his hand down on the tiller.

"_They're looking for us_!" he cried. "Great Scot! Of all the----"

"Oh, but, Addie, how could they have----"

"My good girl, do you suppose anything escapes the Navy? The look-outs saw our little bit of a blink; they want to know who we are--they know everything--they are simply _It_."

Adrian's rhapsody was cut off on his lips; the dazzling feeler had found them. It rested on the white yawl, and stayed. He waved his arm wildly; Crow waved both arms. The Countess sprang to her feet, shielding her face with her sleeve, and the white light glinted upon her golden hair plait.