Chapter Nine.
Driven to Madness.
As the key turned in the lock, Walford sank down in a state of semi-stupefaction upon one of the saloon sofas, listening like one in a dream to the distant sound of the men’s voices and the occasional tramp of feet, as the mutineers passed, one by one, down the ship’s side into the boats. A few minutes more and these sounds ceased. He lifted up his head, listening eagerly; but he could hear nothing, save the dismal creaking of the bulkheads, the moaning of the wind, the monotonous swish, swish of the water washing across the deck outside with the roll of the ship, and the dull hum and crackling of the flames as they slowly ate their destructive way further and further into the heart of the doomed craft.
“Were they actually gone?” he asked himself. “Was it possible that he was left alone, absolutely alone on that burning wreck, thousands of miles from the nearest land, drifting he knew not whither at the mercy of wind and wave, with no hope of rescue and with the certainty that in a day or two at most the fabric which bore him would be so completely enveloped in the flames kindled by his own clumsiness that it would no longer be tenable, and the only alternative open to him would be that of perishing in the fire or flinging himself into the sea, there to battle despairingly for an extra hour or two of life?” He could not believe it, he would not believe it possible that men could be found so inhuman as to leave a fellow-mortal in so desperate a strait; they were only trying him, as they had tried that poor fellow Thomson; and if he would but have patience to wait until the stipulated half-hour had passed, he would find them still there, waiting to receive him into the boat. He laughed aloud, as he thought what a fool he had been to allow himself to be terrified even for a moment, but the laugh was so utterly the reverse of mirthful, so harsh and ghastly, that he stopped abruptly, startled by the hideous strangeness of the sounds. Then he rose and crept on tip-toe towards the saloon-door, and, on reaching it, crouched down and applied first his eye and then his ear to the key-hole. The key had been removed from the lock and the shield had fallen down over the opening outside, so that he was unable to see anything; neither could he detect any sounds indicative of the presence of others on board. Once or twice indeed he thought he caught the sound of whispered voices just outside the door, but he could not be sure about the matter; and in an agony of uncertainty he crept back to the sofa to watch the lagging minute-hand of the clock, and wait for the expiration of the half-hour.
Oh! what a weary time was that for the lonely watcher, as he sat there with his hands tightly locked together, his frame quivering with anxiety and apprehension, and his eyes fixed upon that inexorable minute-hand, which would not hasten its movement, though his life might be dependent on it. What if the men should grow weary of waiting? A thousand horrible fancies crowded in upon him, until in his distraction he groaned aloud. The suspense became unendurable; and in his anguish he started up to burst open the saloon-door and learn the worst at once, but (remembering Talbot’s threat, and more than half-believing him to be capable of carrying it into execution) turned back again and fell to pacing rapidly to and fro the whole length of the saloon instead.
At last! at last! the half-hour of penance was over, and he was free once more. He dashed at the locked saloon-door, and, frantically hammering upon it with his clenched firsts until his knuckles streamed with blood, shouted eagerly—
“Talbot! Talbot! the half-hour is up; so open the door, please, and let me out, there’s a good fellow.”
Then he applied his ear to the key-hole, listening eagerly for the first sound of approaching footsteps.
Five seconds—ten seconds—twenty—thirty—a minute; why did they not come? Was it possible that they had not heard him? He applied his mouth to the joint between the door and its jamb, and again shouted, “Talbot! Talbot! Talbot!” until his voice cracked with the strain he put upon it. Still no answer, no sound save the wail of the wind, the wash of the water, and the creaking of the ship’s timbers. “Good God! were they really gone? Was he, after all, actually left there to die alone?” He seized the handle of the door and tugged at it, fiercely, desperately, with the strength of a madman; but the stout lock stood firm, defying his utmost efforts. Then he suddenly remembered that the captain’s cabin was situated on the other side of the ship, with one door opening into the saloon and the other out on deck. With a single bound and a wild cry he crossed the saloon, and laying his hand upon the handle of the door of the captain’s cabin, turned it; the door swang open. Another bound and he was at the outer door; was it locked? No; a twist of the handle, and he stepped out on deck, with the water surging and splashing over his feet. But what cared he then for such a trifle; he was not even conscious of it. Swiftly his gaze swept round the decks: they were empty. In an instant he was at the gangway and peering over the side. No boats there; nothing but the empty tackles of the quarter-boats alternately swinging in the air and trailing in the water with the roll of the ship. “Where were the boats? Ha! towing astern, of course, it would simply mean destruction to them if they attempted to remain alongside in so heavy a sea.” In frantic haste he scrambled up the poop-ladder and rushed aft.
The boats were gone!
“Then it was an absolute fact that he was left there alone and powerless, doomed to watch with a horrible fascination the steady relentless approach of the Grim Enemy in his most terrible form, and to suffer the while in imaginative anticipation all the agonies of a thousand fiery deaths. Oh, God! it was too much. Mercy! mercy!” And with a demoniac yell he stood clutching and tugging at his hair with both hands, his teeth clenched, his eyes fixed and almost bursting from their sockets, foam bubbling from his lips—a raving madman!
This terrible state of distraction endured for nearly an hour, and then a species of numbness seized upon his faculties, his anxiety vanished, and he found his thoughts straying away and fixing themselves upon the veriest trivialities, conjuring up again before his mental vision acts and words which had never recurred to him since the day on which they had been done or said, mischievous practical jokes played off upon some unlucky school-fellow, mess-room jests and tattle, and a thousand other absurdities, at which he laughed aloud. Then disconnected words and phrases rushed helter-skelter through his seething brain, having no meaning, yet causing him the keenest annoyance, because he believed he had heard them before, and was anxious to connect them with the circumstances of their utterance. There was one in particular which especially tormented him. “Go for a cruise on your own account; go for a cruise on your own account,” his brain reiterated with merciless pertinacity. What did it mean? Where had he heard those words before, and who had uttered them? He felt absolutely certain that at some time or other he had heard that phrase spoken, and that it had some intimate connection with himself, that it somehow concerned him vitally. “There was something else, too, said at the same time—something about—about—what was it? Something about—ah! yes—spars and a raft—‘spars—raft—go for a cruise on your own account.’ What could it mean?” Finally a gleam of reason returned to his clouded mind, and he realised dimly that it was of the utmost importance that he should construct a raft and “go for a cruise on his own account.”
Having at last grasped this idea, he rose from the seat upon which he had flung himself, and upon which he seemed to himself to have been sitting as long as ever he could remember, and proceeded to carry it out. Sauntering leisurely off the poop, he descended to the waist of the ship, repeating eagerly over and over again the words “spars—raft,” lest he should forget them. There were several spare spars of various sizes, ranging from topmasts down to studding-sail booms, lashed to the deck on each side of the main-hatchway, and these he deliberately set to work to cast adrift. With considerable difficulty he at length succeeded in accomplishing this task, the result being that the spars were set rolling athwart the deck with the roll of the ship. Nothing daunted by this, however, he dashed recklessly in among them, and escaping, heaven knows how, from the incessant danger of fractured limbs, managed to drag out, one after the other, and launch overboard several of the lighter spars. Having commenced the work, he now toiled persistently on, allowing himself neither pause nor rest until he had disposed of every spar which his unaided strength would allow him to move. Then, panting, breathless, and reeking with perspiration, he walked to the side and peered over. The spars were nowhere to be seen; in his madness it had never occurred to him to secure them with ropes, and they had consequently drifted astern, and were of course tossing, some of them miles away, in the wake of the ship.
Somehow the loss of the spars caused him no distress; indeed, as a matter of fact, he had again forgotten all about the raft, and had continued to labour on, merely because it had not occurred to him to stop. Now that he had stopped, however, he began to be conscious not only of fatigue, but also of hunger, for he had tasted no food for nearly twenty-four hours, and had been working hard all through the night; so he made his way by instinct into the saloon and thence to the steward’s pantry, where he found an abundance of food, which he attacked ravenously. He then, after satisfying his hunger, bent his steps in the direction of his own state-room, and, entering, flung himself upon the bed, and soon sank into an uneasy and restless sleep.
Meanwhile the wind had been steadily dropping, the sea going down at the same time, and when, just before sunset, the glorious orb burst through and dispersed the curtain of storm-tattered clouds which had for so long a time overspread the sky, his golden rays fell upon the Princess Royal, now no longer rolling gunwale-under, but swinging with a slow stately motion over the long swell, and still drifting lazily to the eastward; her bows heading now this way, now that; her fore-mast burned through and towing over the side; and the flames in complete possession of her as far aft as the main-mast.
Walford’s sleep, if such it could be called, lasted all through the night and until just before the dawn. Then the overpowering heat and smoke, the loud crackling roar of the flames, and the fierce ruddy light streaming into the saloon and through the open state-room door aroused him. Sitting up in his berth, he looked around him in a bewildered way, passing his hand impatiently over his brow repeatedly, as if striving to recall distinctly the remembrance of something vaguely haunting his memory, but ever eluding his mental grasp. Glancing vacantly around him, the red glare of the flames fascinated his gaze, and he turned to watch the leaping, flickering flashes of light as they came and went with the sway and roll of the ship.
“Red,” he began to mutter, “red as blood. Blood? Who said that I had been the cause of bloodshed? Who dares to say that it is my hand which has splashed those walls—that floor—with such hideous stains? Ha! see how they leap and dance, rise and fall; the place is full of them. Horrible! horrible! Are they there to taunt me, to reproach me, to accuse me? I say I did not do it; I am not to blame. How could I know that—that—what was it? Let me think. ‘His blood is upon your hands.’ Whose hands? Not mine, I swear; I could not do it; I have not the nerve, the courage for it. ‘His blood is upon your hands.’ Who said that? It was not said to me. But stay—was I to blame—was it my fault? Ugh! what a terrible thing it was to see him standing there with the rope round his neck, to know that they were going to take away his life for a fault which perhaps he would never have committed but for me, and to feel that I had not the courage to intercede in his behalf; to stand there quaking with fear whilst he was driven to his death. No, no; I did not drive him to it; it was they; and I had no control over them—but—but—ah! I never tried to save him. Yes, yes, I am coming. Is that you, Thomson? Are you calling me?”
He sprang out of his berth, and, making his way through the captain’s cabin, passed out on deck. The first faint rays of the approaching dawn were lighting up the eastern horizon; but he saw them not; they were effectually hidden from his sight by the dazzling brightness of the flames and the dense clouds of smoke which went rolling heavily to leeward before the now scanty wind. The fire had made steady progress during the night, the hull forward being burned down nearly to the waters’ edge; while aft, the flames had extended to the after hatchway, and the main-mast, burnt through at its heel, had gone by the board and fallen forward into the fiercest of the fire, where it was rapidly consuming. Luckily for the wretched Walford, the ship was once more dead before the wind, and the flames were fanned forward; had her head been in the opposite direction, his retreat would have been effectually cut off. As it was, the heat was so intense that he instinctively avoided it by springing up the poop-ladder and making his way as far aft as possible.
Arrived at the extreme end of the poop, he stood gazing intently down into the black water, and presently he began muttering again.
“Yes,” he said, pointing down into the hollow of the swell as it came creeping up after the ship, “that is the spot where he went down; I saw him; I was standing near the bulwarks, and when he sprang my eyes followed him; I heard his dying cry; and I saw his last agonised upward look of despair as he went down with a plunge into the hollow between the waves, and the waters closed over his head for ever. For ever? Yes, surely—and yet—what is that white gleaming object there now, glaring up at me from beneath the water? It is—it is the face of the dead man. Ha! see he is beckoning to me. Then it was his voice I heard calling to me. Listen—what was that? Did you call, Thomson? He will not answer; he is tired of calling; but the white ghastly face is still there, and—see—there too is the beckoning hand. It is my summons, and I must obey.”
At that moment the weird plaintive scream of a sea-bird came floating down out of the grey shadows of the dawn, and Walford, starting violently, stood for a moment in an attitude of rapt attention. The cry was repeated; he glared wildly round him for an instant, and then, screaming hoarsely “I come—I come!” sprang over the guard-rails and into the sea.