by Theo. Gift [Dorothy Boulger], author of "Pretty Miss Bellew," "Dishonoured," etc.
As published in Strange Doings in Strange Places (Cassell & Company, Ltd.; 1890), originally published in Cassell's Saturday Journal.
I.
Two men and a girl were leaning over the bulwarks of a big steamer, somewhere in mid-ocean, between Singapore and the Gulf of Aden.
It was a very still night. You could hear the thud, thud, thud of the mighty screw as it pounded its way through the oily, blue-black, scarcely-heaving waves, stained here and there by the red gleam from a lighted port-hole above, or glittering with the momentary phosphorescent flash of some leaping fish. There had been dancing during the evening to the music of an amateur band, a very fair one as amateurs go. But it was over now, and the band had gone below to refresh themselves in the saloon, marked out at present by three broad squares of orange light on the still water astern; while of the dancers, some had followed their example, and others had retired to rest in their hot and stuffy cabins, leaving only half a dozen or so still languidly perambulating the quarter-deck, and enjoying the brief and partial coolness which only the fleeting hours of the night afford in these regions.
Nella Wilson, the girl in question, was among the last-named of these, and had attracted the usual amount of attention accorded to her, partly on account of her prettiness (she was so completely the belle of the ship that there was not even any rivalry on the subject), partly because, while a passenger steamer is proverbially the place of all others for love and match-making, Miss Wilson had employed the ten days that the present voyage had already lasted, not in forming, but breaking, an engagement; and that in such a way that, although she "wore the willow" with even obtrusive frankness, and spoke of herself to her intimate friends as "jilted and forlorn," it was the general opinion of both friends and enemies alike that the conduct which had led to the aforesaid "jilting" had been too flagrant, and deliberately provocative of that end, to warrant any pity for the young lady affected by it; and that, so far from being left forlorn, she had already provided herself with a swain to all appearance very much more acceptable to her than the one she had discarded.
For they were both on board with her at the present moment, and Nevill Wilberforce, the man she had been engaged to, had actually left his coffee plantation, and put his affairs in the hands of an overseer, simply because his beautiful sweetheart preferred to be married in England, and to enjoy the pleasure of a twelve months' honeymooning there and on the Continent, before settling down to conjugal life in Singapore. As Captain White, Nella's brother-in-law, who was going home on furlough, said, "Wilberforce was a fool to give in to such a thing with such a spoiled child as Nellie. He should have nailed her when he had her; married her first and given her a European trip afterwards," while Mrs. White, in tearful confidences, with half a dozen female friends in the ladies' cabin, was heard to add that she really didn't know what to say to mamma when she got home! Here it was only four months since Nella had come out to pay them a visit in Singapore, and so quickly had her engagement followed on her arrival (though indeed she had had time to refuse two other proposals first) that the letters containing her parents' consent to that arrangement had barely been received in Singapore before the date for their departure thence arrived. "And it was such a good match, they didn't even make Nellie's coming home first a condition," Mrs. White sobbed (she was an emotional little person of a confiding disposition); "and now the first news I shall have to tell them is that he has thrown her over on account of her fickleness. What mamma will—"
"But surely Colonel Legrand, so far as position goes, would be the better match of the two," one of the friends observed, consolingly; "and as your mother is not personally acquainted with either—"
Mrs. White stamped a very little foot as impatiently as if the speaker were her husband.
"But Jack and I are; and if you only knew what a good friend Nevill Wilberforce has been to us all the while we were quartered out there, and what a good fellow he is altogether! A little stern and reserved perhaps—"
"Oh, yes, dreadfully so!" the friends chorused eagerly. "Why, we always say he's the most—most difficult man on board. That's what made it seem so strange that your sister, who is so—well, just the opposite, don't you know? should ever have taken to
him. And do you think he cares? Of course it would be a horrid position for him if he did; but he certainly couldn't seem more cool and indifferent. He doesn't even avoid her."
"No; it's me—me and Jack that he avoids," Mrs. White retorted, grammar giving way to distress for the time being. "As for Nella, I believe if he doesn't it's just because he despises her too much; and no wonder, when she behaves in such a way, flirting morning, noon, and night with that man, and under his very eyes, too. I warned her Nevill wouldn't stand that sort of thing, but she wouldn't take advice. She said Colonel Legrand and she were friends, and nothing more; that she had told Nevill so, and that if he were too suspicious to trust her, or allow her a friendship, they were better apart. It is she who doesn't care!"
She certainly did not seem to do so that evening. No one had joined with more spirit in the impromptu dance. No one's laugh had rung out more lightly as her slender figure, encircled by Colonel Legrand's arm, swayed to and fro to the passionate waltz tunes. No one's eyes shone brighter, no one's voice sounded more sweetly, when, still supported on the gallant colonel's arm, she slowly followed the other promenaders in their languid circling of the deck. As for the colonel's voice (always tenderly subdued when addressed to a young and feminine ear) it had grown almost inaudible by now, while his smoothly-brushed, baldish head and waxed moustache bent lower and lower over his partner's lovely brow, and with his inflated shirt front and closely-pressed arm, he seemed so to envelop and overshadow her that even a young couple, who should have been occupied with their own flirtation, smiled and glanced meaningly at one another as they passed, and between two young men leaning against the binnacle a murmured bet might be heard in five to one that, if Legrand hadn't popped before, he was doing it now—by Jove, yes!
"And, by Jove, just under the nose of the coffee man, too!" observed the other. "Rather rough on the poor beggar, ain't it?"
Miss Wilson did not seem disposed to make it smoother. True, she had withdrawn her hand (and rather abruptly, as though the contiguity had become too close to be pleasant) from the colonel's manly arm; but as she only did so to lean over the bulwarks within a yard or two of where Nevill Wilberforce was enjoying his cigar in a similar position, and turned her head over her shoulder to make a blithe remark to her late companion at the same moment, the latter evidently did not consider himself rebuffed, but promptly placed himself at her side, where he continued certain low-toned confidences, which, whatever their import, certainly seemed to have an agitating effect on her. A sudden, startled pallor had come upon the girl's face, to be chased as suddenly by a deep flush; the gay flippancy of her tone was exchanged for one of smothered reproach; and she might even have been seen to edge herself away from her companion and (once or twice) to glance in a frightened, furtive way towards the solitary, lounging figure on her other side, as though craving protection from some hitherto unguessed-at danger.
II.
"Nella, wake up! Open the door! Quick! Quick! For Heaven's sake, wake!"
Was it a voice in a dream, or that of her brother-in-law in reality? And why and what was that frantic knocking at the cabin door, rudely startling the girl from her sleep and rousing her to a sudden consciousness of rushing footsteps stumbling wildly up the companion stairs and trampling on the deck overhead, of frightened cries and voices harsh in command, of a strange, strong, acrid smell becoming more and more pungent in her nostrils each moment, of a sense of suffocation, and of being enveloped in dense, blinding smoke?
It was still night time. All was quite dark. She could see nothing, though she heard Margaret, her maid, spring from the sofa berth she occupied in the same cabin, and hurry to the door; but just then there came the knock, knock, knocking again and the cry—
"Nella! Margaret! Wake up! For mercy's sake, don't delay!", and for one moment the darkness and the two suddenly-roused female figures were lit up by a passing lurid glare, and something like a huge torch whizzed past the porthole, and fell hissing into the water. The next instant Nella's fingers, firmer than the terrified maid's, had got the door open, and Captain White, fully dressed, but pale as death, and almost breathless with excitement, darted in, adjuring them to make haste, to throw something round them, put their watches and money, if they had them handy, in their pockets, and come on deck with him as quickly as possible.
The ship was on fire!
They had no pockets, for both girls were in their nightgowns, and were far too frightened, in the presence of the volumes of grey, choking smoke now rolling in on them, the crackling and smell of fire, and the loud, hissing roar of flame and water meeting where the hose was being turned on above, to care about any considerations of property. A couple of wraps, a mackintosh, and a long, dark-blue cloak, with a hood, were hanging behind the door. Nella rolled herself in the latter, and gave the other to her maid, and together, clinging to Captain White on either side, they made their way on deck within five minutes of their awakening. The servant, indeed, seemed half dazed with the shock and fright, and was sobbing wildly; but Nella herself was quite quiet. One half-gasping cry she had uttered when she first saw her brother's face.
"Oh, Jack, Alice? Is Alice safe and Nev—" but the last word was not even audible, and the officer's hurried reply, "She's on deck already. Wilberforce carried her up—she'd turned her foot, and he's stronger than I—while I came for you," seemed to satisfy her. She did not utter another word, and the hood that she had pulled over her face hid its paleness.
On deck the scene was strangely altered from what it had been a few hours previously. Captain, officers, and crew, as well as the passengers, were all crowded together in the after part of the vessel; for the fire (which had broken out somewhere amidships in the hold, and had been burning for nearly a couple of hours before all hopes of subduing it were abandoned or the order given to rouse the sleeping passengers) had already broken through the hatches in several places; and was soaring heavenwards in a great sheet of red flame, only kept from advancing on them by the persistent efforts of those who manned the hose and kept a constant stream of water turned upon the devouring element. Nella had just time to see that Nevill Wilberforce was among the men thus engaged when her sister clasped her in her arms; and then Colonel Legrand, looking strangely unlike himself, with his waxed moustache limp and rough, his shirt front uninflated, and his waist uncompressed, came to their sides, pressing their hands tenderly as he implored them not to be frightened, and whispering to Nella that he would make her his special care and never leave her till they were once more in safety.
They had every chance in their favour. The sea was almost as calm as a mill-pond, and they were right in the track of the home-coming steamers from the East. They would be certain to be picked up before morning. There is a terrible monotony even in the horror and excitement of such scenes: the crowd of half-dressed passengers huddled together in the stern of the vessel; husbands clasping their wives, mothers their infants; some of the women crying, some fainting; children shrieking with terror or clapping their hands at the sight of the red tongues of flame leaping out of the cloud of smoke and steam which covered the forward part of the vessel; but all such noises rendered faint, and dominated by the roar and hiss of fire and water, the crackle of burning timber, and hoarse voices of command or objurgation. Then the order for all hands to take to the boats; the discovery (always made, and always made too late) that one or other is hors-de-combat and that there is not room for everybody on board of them; the mad rush of a few cowardly spirits for the gangway, as swiftly repelled by the officers already stationed there pistol in hand; the stern voice of the captain, ringing out sharp and peremptory over the tumult and restoring discipline by its very sound; the division of the people into the boats that remain: women and children, and those of the male passengers most nearly connected with them, in one; in the next the remainder of the passengers; finally as many of the officers and crew as had not been required for the management of the others, and could find stowing place, in the third. The captain, second officer, and some half dozen sailors (the latter chosen by lot after the married men and those with families dependent on them had been given the first chance) remained behind. There was no room for them. The boats were almost too heavily laden as it was. They must trust to a raft or die. In such cases heroism becomes simply duty; and even when the almost speechless hurry of the routine was momentarily disturbed by a piteous wail from one of the crew (a mere lad, poor fellow!) on whom the lot to remain had fallen, because, though not married and with neither mother nor sisters, there was "his lass" waiting for him—his lass to whom he had been 'trothed since they were bairns together, and who was only awaiting his return home this time for their marriage—the brief outcry was stilled as promptly a it had risen. One of the passengers—it was Nevill Wilberforce—had stepped back from the gangway and motioned the lad to take his place; but few noticed the fact, and fewer still heard the brief words which silenced remonstrance from the officer in command.
"He needs the chance more than I. I have no one in the world belonging to me."
A moment or two later, however, there was another little disturbance. Mrs. White, about to be lowered to the boat in her husband's arms, had missed Nella, and was calling frantically to her that they might keep together; but almost in the same instant Colonel Legrand caught sight of the young lady's blue cloak in the centre of a little group of weeping, hysterical women, chiefly steerage passengers; and lifting her from the ground (for she seemed to be half fainting) carried her swiftly to the boat. Wilberforce, too, had sprung forward at the first sound of her name; but when he saw her carried past him in the colonel's arms, her face hidden against his breast under the hood of her cloak, and one arm feebly clinging round his neck, the young man stepped back without a word or sound, and again took his place at the hose with which the few left to work it were still labouring to keep back the flames. Nevertheless, he kept his eyes fixed on the slender, shrouded figure until it had been safely laid in the bottom of the boat; and only turned away with a long, deep-drawn sigh when, the last woman having followed, he heard the quick splash of the oars in the water, and Captain McBride's shout of command to pull to leeward as fast as possible so as to be out of danger from the showers of sparks and fragments of blazing wood and canvas which were already filling the air, and descending in a red cloud on the waves below.
He did not mention a greater danger still, but, though few of the brave men left on board could fail to remember the fact of the gunpowder stored in the magazine, and the explosion which must ensue when the flames reached the latter, they had courage to raise a parting cheer as the heavily-laden boats shot out, one after another, across the deep; each stroke of the strong arms that pulled them leaving a wider and wider space between the freight they carried and the doomed vessel.
III.
There was little enough time now for those on the latter to provide for their own safety. Hitherto, thanks to the direction of the wind (such as there was of it) and the exertions of those at the hose, the flames had been kept from encroaching on the quarter-deck; but already the planks on which they stood, though drenched with water, felt hot to their feet, while ominous jets and puffs of smoke issuing from the crevices of the closely-battened-down hatchways showed that the fire had penetrated at last through bulkheads and partitions to the saloons below; and the heat and smoke of the flames now raging in the forecastle, and wrapped like scarlet serpents round the masts and rigging, scorched their faces and made their position momentarily more untenable.
Already the captain and some of the men were flinging over the stern spare spars, torn-up benches, and anything they could lay hold of to form a raft, which others, who had lowered themselves over the side, were lashing together for the purpose. One of them shouted for more rope, and Wilberforce was just turning to look for a coil he had seen under one of the bulwarks, when something that looked like a roll of mackintoshes beside it was lifted up; two small hands, white and soft in all that heat and grime, clasped and held him by the arm; and he saw, gazing into his, the fair pale face and violet eyes of the girl whom he had thought of as in comparative safety, and fully half a mile away by that time. Her name came to his parched lips like a hoarse cry.
"Nella! Oh, it cannot be! No, it's only my brain going. I saw him put her in the boat."
Yet surely no brain phantom ever had hands that clung like these, or a voice as penetratingly sweet and tender as that which answered him.
"It was not I: it was Margaret. I changed cloaks with her when I heard you say you would stay. He never guessed it! Oh, Nevill, Nevill, forgive me! You can't put me away now."
"Put you away! Would that I could, so only you were safe! Child, child!"—the strong man's voice breaking in anguish—"why did you do this if—if it was he—"
"But it was not! Nevill, believe me, for I must tell you now, even if we are to die the next moment. I did speak the truth; it was only friendship. You all thought him unmarried; but he is not. He has a wife; only they are divorced. He told me so (but in strict confidence, soon after we sailed) because he found that I knew her. She lives near us at home under her maiden name; and when he spoke of all he had suffered, and I thought of her pale, sad face, the idea came to me that I might bring them together again. But then you got jealous and spoke harshly, and I—I was hurt and angry at not being trusted; and when you gave me up, pride made me let you go, and I acted as I did lest you should see I cared. I wanted to punish you, and I thought I was quite safe with him till—till last evening, when he began to say things, and behave as if—as if it were me he—Oh! Nevill, you must forgive me. I am so young still. I didn't know—"
"Forgive you! " he said, hoarsely, the tears raining from his stern blue eyes upon the sweet face and glittering hair, all lit up and irradiated by the fire's lurid glow as he held her pressed tightly now against his heart. "You who have laid down your life for me! Oh, if I could but give it you back! Your parents—"
"They will have Alice to comfort them," the girlish voice answered him, with just a sob breaking its bravery. "Alice and Jack, God bless them! Oh, Nevill, He won't think it wicked of me, will He, that I would rather be here with you? How could I have lived on alone? And you would not have come if I had requested you—then."
"Not at that lad's expense. It is better so." Then, as there came a shout from the raft. "Darling, come! There's just a grain of hope left. We may keep afloat till help comes. If not—"
"Kiss me first, then," she said, piteously. "I know you love me, but—you haven't yet—once."
And even as he obeyed, and their lips met in a close, clinging pressure, the death that both had dared came!
There was a sound as of a mighty roar and crash; a huge volume of flame rushing from sea to sky in a sheet of white-hot fire, illumining the whole wide ocean round for miles and miles; and then—darkness! and an enormous mass of black, sulphurous cloud filled with burning masses of spars and rigging and great fragments of machinery, falling heavily back into the churned-up whirlpool below, and strewing the waves in every direction with wreck and ruin.
When it cleared away the ship had disappeared; and not one of those who had been left behind on her was ever seen again.