Part 7

“You’ve won,” he gritted. “You’ve won. Take your prize.” Then his eyes fell on Dorothy and Jackson, now close to the edge of the deck. “Stop those two!” he yelled. “By Heaven, no one shall say Peter Forbes does not play fair. She’s chosen you, you infernal convict, and marry you she shall, here and now.”

Howard faced him. “I refuse,” he declared. “Miss Fairfax owes me nothing. I give her back her promise.”

“You do! Then she shall marry me. Me or you! The captain or the jailbird. We’ll have a wedding before we part.”

The man’s face was a mass of cuts and bruises, and his words came gaspingly; but there was no doubt that he was in earnest, and none that he had the men behind him.

Fickle as the wind, they veered back to his side. “A wedding. Let’s have a wedding!” they cried.

Howard looked despairingly around, then darted to the mainmast, caught up a handspike, and swung Dorothy behind him. The fight would be hopeless, but it was for her!

“Come on,” he challenged.

Grimly the men drew near, but before a blow could be struck, Dorothy’s voice rang out.

“Wait!” she cried. Then she turned to Howard. “If you will have me, I will marry you,” she murmured, gently.

XIV

NIGHT was falling fast as Howard and Dorothy, with Jackson close behind, made their way slowly back to the Queen over the tangled wreckage, following the trail blazed by Howard two days before. The Joyces had promised to join them later.

Except for necessary help and caution about the road, the three walked and climbed for the most part in silence, each immersed in thought. Only once did Dorothy speak.

“Captain Forbes said that his men had taken possession of the Queen and were removing her stores,” she warned. “Do you think he was telling the truth?”

Howard shook his head. “Probably not,” he answered. “But we shall see.”

The Queen came in view at last, and each of the three thrilled at sight of her familiar form. Wrecked, ruined, half-sunken, nevertheless she stood to all three as a home and place of refuge, however insecure. Glad as they had been to leave her, they were far gladder to return and find her untouched. For Forbes had been lying.

With the touch of the deck beneath their feet, a feeling of embarrassment descended on the three. On the way over they had been silent because they were thinking; now they were silent because of the strange new relation in which they stood to each other. Even Jackson was conscious of it, and stammered and hesitated when he tried to speak; while Dorothy’s flushed cheeks and quivering lips showed that the nerves which had so well sustained her while necessity lasted, were on the verge of giving way.

Fortunately supper had to be prepared and served and eaten, and these familiar tasks relieved the tension somewhat. Even then no one dared to speak of what had occurred, though no one thought of anything else. The thing lay too close to their hearts to be lightly or easily broached. At last Jackson, with glances at his two companions, threw down his knife and fork and slouched out of the saloon without a word.

Left alone, the girl and the man looked at each other, she with trembling lips and lovely, frightened eyes, and he with an infinite compassion in his face.

“You want to say something to me?” he questioned, gently. “Say it. Don’t be afraid. You will find that I can understand.”

Tears welled in Dorothy’s eyes. “To-day,” she murmured, brokenly, “I made a bargain. I saw myself trapped, driven into marriage with a man whom I loathed--oh, God only knows how I had come to loathe him! Anything was better than he--anything! So I made my offer. I would be a loyal wife to any man who would save me from Captain Forbes. You answered.”

“I answered.”

“You are a much smaller man than Captain Forbes. No one would have thought you a match for him, least of all himself. He meant to kill you. There was murder in his eye. You must have seen it. Yet you faced him. Why did you do it?”

Howard shrugged his shoulders. “You make too much of the affair,” he said, lightly. “The man was strong, but he was past his first youth and moved slowly. After the first two minutes I had no fear of the result. But you ask me why I came forward. What else could any gentleman do--and, in spite of my trial and conviction, I trust I am still a gentleman. I came forward because I had to.”

“Then you did not fight for the poor prize I offered?”

Howard smiled. “Assuredly not,” he answered. “Why, you yourself saw that I was ready to fight again a moment later to avoid taking it!”

“But you took it.”

“Yes--I took it.”

“And now I ask you to give it up again. I--I--Mr. Howard, I have heard of you for two years. You have been painted very black in my eyes. I have known you two weeks, and they have reversed the picture. I should not have looked for generosity in the man I once thought you to be, but I beg it from the man I have found you to be. I am your wife. I have promised before God to be loyal, loving, and obedient to you. I made that promise with my eyes open, and if you ask it I shall try to keep it. I am not of those who take their marriage vows lightly. I am your wife and I am wholly at your mercy. But--but--you do not love me nor I you. We are mere acquaintances. Do not--oh, it is hard for me to say this. Have pity on me. Hold me, not as your wife, as I must hold myself, but as only a poor girl in distress, and--see, I kneel to you----”

Howard caught her hands and drew her to her feet again. “Poor little girl,” he murmured gently. “So that is what is troubling you! Do not fear. You are my wife--yes. But it is a tie that can easily be sundered when once we get back to dry land. A marriage like this is no marriage without the after-consent of the parties. Any court in the land would dissolve it--or, more likely, declare it null and void from the beginning. Do not fear. You are quite safe with me.”

Dorothy’s breath came fast, but she did not speak. She tottered and put her hand out for support. Howard guided her to a chair.

“Sit quietly for a moment,” he ordered gently. “I must see Jackson about something, but I will soon be back and help you to your state-room. You must be worn out.”

With the last word he turned and went up the companionway, more to give the girl time to recover herself than because of any desire to see Jackson. As he reached the top of the stairs his foot struck something, and he stooped and picked up a pistol wrapped round with a half-sheet of paper.

Wonderingly he took it to the lamp. He read:

I know where Forbes keeps his rifles. Mrs. Joyce is going to get some of them for us. I’m going back to help. I leave my pistol in case I don’t get back. Anyhow, I guess you’d rather be alone to-night.

JACKSON.

P.S.--That was a great match.--J.

Howard laughed bitterly. Then he turned and descended the stairs.

“Jackson has gone on an errand to Mrs. Joyce,” he said. “He left his pistol for you. After what has happened, he thinks, and I think, that you had better be armed. If any man--if _any_ man molests you do not hesitate to use it. I believe you told me once that you were rather a good shot.”

It had been no part of Howard’s intention to spend the night upon the Queen. He had no faith in Forbes’s protestations of fair play, and felt certain that he would hear from that individual very shortly and in unpleasant fashion. Although he scarcely expected any attack that night, doubting Forbes’s ability to bring his men to the fighting point so speedily, he intended to take no chances, and to seek sleeping quarters on some near-by vessel. But Dorothy’s fear of himself and her very evident nearness to collapse, taken with Jackson’s unexpected departure, had knocked his plans completely on the head.

After Dorothy had retired, he sat up for some time considering the situation. He was terribly sore and wearied from the heart-breaking struggle of the afternoon, which had been nothing like so easy as he had portrayed it to Dorothy. Coming on top of the anxiety of his confinement, in ignorance of what was happening to the girl he had promised to restore to her home, it had nearly worn him out. The question that presented itself to him was whether he should trust to his belief in Forbes’s inability to resume the struggle so quickly, and take his much-needed rest so as to be ready for the probable stress of the morrow, or whether he should remain on watch all night and thereby be less efficient the next day, supposing the contest were put off till then.

Doubts and difficulties lay in each alternative, but he finally decided to sleep while he could, trusting to his life-long ability to awake fully and instantly at the slightest unaccustomed sound. He did not believe that Forbes and his men could steal upon him without waking him; and, in any event, he could not hope, alone and unarmed, to keep them off the ship.

So, after stringing several ropes across the gangway in the deepest shadows of the Queen’s deck, he slipped into his state-room, just across the corridor from Dorothy’s, and lay down, fully dressed, with an axe--his sole weapon, since he had given Dorothy Jackson’s pistol--close beside him. In an instant he was fast asleep.

He was aroused several hours later by a sound whose cause he had no difficulty in interpreting. Somebody had tripped over one of the ropes he had stretched, and had fallen. Instantly he was on his feet, axe in hand, and was cautiously opening his door. Stillness now reigned, but Howard had no doubt that murder was stalking close at hand.

With infinite precaution he stole from the room, noted that Dorothy’s door was still fast, and slipped like a shadow along the corridor. It took him half an hour to gain the other deck, scarcely fifty feet from where he had slept. But when he had done so, he was certain that no foes lurked in his rear.

The moon loomed huge in the cloudless sky as he peered from the door of the social hall. Before him the deck stretched away, silvery-white except where criss-crossed by the black shadows cast by the stanchions that supported the half-furled awnings, and by the narrow border of shadow cast by the awnings themselves.

Slowly he crept out into the black border and made his way forward, eager to front the danger, whatever it might be.

But all was still save for a very faint, rustling sound impossible to locate--a sound like dry leaves whisking through a November night; a sound that made Howard’s hair stir upon his head. At two o’clock in the morning courage is rare, and never perfect.

Still Howard crept on until he reached a spot where a broken boat-davit was twisted across a stanchion. By this he paused and stood listening.

Then, without warning, the attack came. From the cross-beam overhead something fell upon him with cruel force--something heavy, crushing, deadly; some live thing that wrapped him round and round.

With a half-strangled shriek of terror he caught himself back against the crossed davit and the stanchion, just in time to involve them in the coiling horror. His right arm, instinctly thrown aloft, grasped vainly at the throat of a huge serpent whose darting head cut fantastic silhouettes against the Milky Way, while its body tightened swiftly about his middle.

Had it not been for the iron rods that shielded him, Howard’s first cry would have been his last. To the great snake the resistance of a man’s body was as nothing. One unhampered constriction of its mighty coils would have crushed an ox. But the davit and the stanchion stood firm; not for nothing had they been planned to withstand the assaults of the sea. They held firm, while Howard, with starting eyeballs and slowly crushing chest, strove to beat back the forked death that flicked about his face.

The end could not be long deferred; yet the man fought on, as living things will fight for life--life so common, life so cheap, yet so desperately clung to. He fought and shrieked until the ever-tightening constriction stopped the inflation of his lungs; till the roaring in his ears swelled to thunder; till the driven blood burst from his ears and nostrils.

Then came a flash and a louder roar; the gleaming eyes that confronted him grew suddenly dull; the great coils relaxed and fell away; dimly he saw Dorothy’s face; her gown white in the moonlight; the smoking pistol in her hand.

Then girl and snake and moon and sky blended in one common blur of blackness. For the first time in his life Frank Howard fainted.

When he came to, he was lying on the deck, with his head in Dorothy’s lap. On his face her tears dropped slowly, one by one. As, dazed, he lay still for an instant, he heard her pray:

“Oh, God! God!” she sobbed, “give him back to me! Give my darling back to me.”

A mad throb of exultation crossed through Howard’s veins to be followed by a quicker revulsion. “Not yet, oh, God!” he implored in his turn silently. “Not until----”

He opened his eyes and looked up into hers.

The moonlight was white and bright as day, and for one moment each looked deep into the other’s heart.

“Thank God! Oh, thank God!” sobbed the girl. “You’re alive! Alive! Alive!”

Howard tried to smile. “Thanks to you,” he answered. “It was the bravest act I have ever known. I don’t see how----”

But Dorothy threw up her hand. “Please! Please, don’t speak of it!” she implored. “I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it.”

Howard struggled to his feet. He longed to take her in his arms and comfort her, but honor held him back. Perhaps she loved him--yes, but she was overwrought. He could not take advantage of her emotion--nor of her position. Later, when she was restored to her friends--the light died from his eyes as he remembered his own doom.

“Thank you,” he said softly. “It is all that I can say. Thank you.”

Dorothy’s bosom heaved. “No,” she said, “it is not all. You said more while you were unconscious. You were about to say more an instant ago. Then you stopped. Why?”

“I--I----”

“I could read your heart in your eyes. Say what you had in it. Say it! Say it!”

“I am not worthy. I am----”

“Hush! Not that! You are not guilty. You could not be guilty. You! so brave, so tender, so sacrificing! You! to murder a woman. It is not true. Since the day I first met you I have never believed it. Since you told me the story, I have wanted no other testimony. Now, will you say what was in your heart a moment ago?”

“I cannot. I----”

“Listen. To-night I said that we were mere acquaintances. I said I did not love you. I lied! I do love you. With all my heart and soul I love you.”

“Dorothy!”

“Frank! Husband!”

XV

DESPITE the nerve and body-racking experiences of the day before, Howard was up and on deck the next morning at the first peep of day, straining his eyes for sight of Jackson and the Joyces.

The need for instant action was strong upon him. He did not doubt that Forbes had sent the snake upon him, just as (judging from Mother Joyce’s tale to Dorothy) he had before sent it against one of Prudence Gallegher’s ill-fated husbands, and he only wondered that the doughty captain had not followed up the attack.

“I suppose the fellow didn’t know how devilish near he came to succeeding,” he muttered to himself grimly. “But he’ll bring his men next time, and we must fight or get out of his reach in a hurry. If Jackson and the others were only here!”

But neither Jackson nor the Joyces were there. Strain his eyes as he might, Howard could see no moving figures anywhere on the wreck-pack, and, with an anxious sigh, he turned away to inspect the scene of the last night’s encounter.

Half submerged in the weed at the foot of the sloping deck he made out the great body of the snake, terrible even in death, and shuddered as he thought of what would inevitably have been his fate had Dorothy been less courageous or the iron stanchions been less honestly wrought; these last, bent almost double, gave mute but effective evidence of the mighty power of the reptile.

Wishing to save Dorothy, as far as he could, from all reminders of the contest, Howard lowered himself to the water’s edge and poked the snake down beneath the weed; then he climbed back to the taffrail and again searched the horizon for sight of Jackson.

This time his quest was successful. Approaching over the wreckage, quite near at hand, were four figures. As they drew nearer he recognized Jackson, the minister who had married him the day before, Mother Joyce, and his jailer of the day before. Each of the men carried several rifles over his shoulder, and was girt about with belts of cartridges. Mother Joyce bore a less and indeterminable weight.

At Howard’s call, Dorothy came on deck to greet the newcomers. Rosy and smiling, with head erect and sparkling eyes, she looked little like the woebegone maiden who had answered Forbes’s call the day before.

Mother Joyce’s sharp eyes quickly spied the difference. “Holy mither! What’s this?” she cried. “And was it you, miss, that didn’t want to marry at all, at all? And was it you that was so sure that you and Mr. Howard could niver be anything to each other? Faith, look at the bright eyes and the blushing cheeks of her! Sure, Tim, man, it carries me back forty years, so it does!” With a fond look she turned to the man beside her.

“Thrue for you, Kathleen, darlint,” he replied. “The top of the mornin’ to you, ma’am, and may you live a million years and have a hundred----”

“Arrah! Be still with your foolishness, Tim. Sure, you make the young lady blush.”

Meanwhile Jackson was explaining matters to Howard. He had, he said, circled round to the other side of the village and lurked there for several hours, waiting his chance. Then he had slipped up on the deck and run directly into Mother Joyce, who promptly whisked him below. “Cap’n Forbes’s big snake had got away, and he had gone after it,” continued the policeman, “and----”

Howard held up his hand. “It won’t get away again,” he interjected. “It came here.”

“Here?”

Howard nodded. “Yes, it came here,” he repeated. “Came here and attacked me. It was a very intelligent snake--from Forbes’s standpoint. It would have killed me, beyond a doubt, but for Miss Fair--but for my wife. She shot it with your pistol, Jackson. But we haven’t time to talk about it now,” he concluded with some impatience. “Go on with your story.”

Jackson, however, had little more to tell. In Forbes’s absence, it seems, he and the others had had no difficulty in getting at the rifles and ammunition. Further, under Mother Joyce’s direction, he had broken open the captain’s private storeroom and procured a compass, sextant, and a chronometer, which Mother Joyce had declared would enable them to navigate a boat as soon as they found one. “An’,” concluded Jackson, “I think we’d better be findin’ it soon, for Gallegher has gotten out a Gatling gun, and is making every preparation to do us up for fair.”

“I expected something of the sort,” said Howard, nodding. “We shall be ready to leave the Queen the moment we have had breakfast. So, now, if you’ll come below----”

At the breakfast-table Howard unfolded his plan.

“None of us want to fight if we can help it,” he declared. “We haven’t anything to gain by it, and everything to lose. And we don’t want to stay near here. From all I can learn, Forbes has destroyed all the boats within fifty miles or so, and we must go at least that far away to have any chance of finding one. Now, what I propose is this: We will leave now in a few minutes, but instead of going north along the coast, which is what Forbes will expect us to do, we will go east straight into the pack, make a detour around the village, and come back to the coast to the south. By this means I think we will outwit him, and can make our preparations in peace. Without a compass, I might have hesitated to go into the depths of the pack, but since Mother Joyce has brought us one, we can afford to risk it. As there will probably be nothing to eat there, we must take food and water enough to carry us through. I have already made up three bundles of these, and it will take only a few moments to prepare three more. Then we can be off.”

Ten minutes later the party left the Queen forever. Dorothy’s eyes were streaming wet as she looked at the vessel for the last time.

“Frank! Frank!” she murmured. “We’ve been happy on her, after all. Shall we be equally happy elsewhere? I--I would be glad to stay here with you if-- Oh! I know it’s impossible, of course. We must go back to the world and clear your name. Yes, we will! We must! God is good. I have confidence in His justice. He would not have let me love you so much if He didn’t mean to clear you.”

Hand in hand the two followed the others, already well ahead, plunging straight into the wreck-pack. Howard drew a long breath when they were well away without having seen any sign of Forbes or his companions. Unfortunately, though he saw no one, he did not go unseen. As the little party vanished among the tangle of masts and sails, a man rose from behind a deckhouse, where he had been lurking, and peered after it till certain of its course, then he set off for the village as fast as he could go.

XVI

IT is one thing to lay a course even in the open sea, and it is quite another to follow it. Wind, waves, and currents often drive a vessel from the way she wishes to go; and all of these had acted on the wreck-path, seemingly conspiring to make difficult the line of progress that Howard had mapped out. Again and again he had to make long detours to pass some insurmountable wreck that lay across his path, and finally he had to turn aside from it altogether to skirt a narrow but impassable channel of weed-grown water that corkscrewed unexpectedly across his path.

“It’s that hurricane we had a month agone,” explained Joyce. “It isn’t often they come here, but when they do, faith it’s the foine mix-up they make! I moind one of thim ten years agone! It split the pack for miles back, and filled the hole up again with wrecks that would have made the fortune of a dime-museum man, so they would. The most of them were fair rotten with age, and sank as soon as they began to rub up against the strong new ships. The last storm wasn’t so bad, and, belike, it only split the pack here and there.”

Howard nodded. The explanation seemed very probable, as in no other way could he account for the open channel in the midst of the vessel-wrecks. Mere mutual attraction ought to have closed it up years before. It made him anxious, for the channel had already led him a mile deeper into the pack than he had intended to go, and still showed no signs of ending.

It might go on even to the heart of the wreckage, where lay the ancient ships on which all food had rotted away centuries before. If a former storm had opened up a channel that far, so might a later one.

That the cases were parallel was soon exhibited with startling proof. For some moments Howard had been noticing a great grey hull, banded with tarnished gold, that loomed across the pack two or three ships ahead. As he drew nearer, he saw, with wonder, its strange architecture. Huge, round-bellied, with castle-like structures reared at stem and stern, it rose about the other wrecks, tier above tier, with lines of frowning ports from which protruded the mouths of old fashioned cannon. No such ship had sailed the ocean for years--not since the days when Spain was in her glory and her rich fleets bore the riches of America to fill her already overflowing coffers. It must have lain screened in the heart of the ship-continent for at least two centuries, to be at last spewed forth in time to meet the curious gaze of an alien race.

From the topgallant poop of a modern sailing-ship, Howard studied it curiously, while behind him the rest of the party looked on with amazement.