CHAPTER X
"ONCE ON BOARD THE LUGGER"
It was Roger Broom's voice which sent across the water that ominous shout so appalling to Trent's ears. Mechanically George swam toward the place where the dark head had risen, but as he took his first stroke a second head appeared beside the other, then both went down together.
That moment concentrated more of anguish for George Trent than all the years of his past life had held. He believed that both Roger and Maxime had almost before his eyes suffered the most hideous death possible to imagine, and he knew that at any instant he might share their fate. But that thought no longer shook him as before. Since the others had died so horribly it would be well that he should die too. A moment of sharp agony, and all would be over. Better so, since he could not go back to Virginia or to Madeleine Dalahaide alone.
His eyes strained despairingly over the cruel glitter of the rippling sea, with a cold, vague feeling that he had reached the edge of the world, and was looking over into the dim mystery of the next. He was young and vigorous, and had loved life for its own sake; but, with Roger and Dalahaide both dead, there was no longer a full-blooded craving for help to save himself in his mind as he gazed toward the yacht and the French boat. Instead he wondered with a sickly curiosity how long it would be before the filthy brutes, which had put an end to his companions, would make a meal of him, and whether it would hurt much, or if unconsciousness would come soon. Mechanically he swam on, more or less in the direction of the Bella Cuba and the French boat, which were at close quarters now; and perhaps there was a scarcely defined hope in his heart that a stray shot might finish him before the hideous "guardians of the Ile Nou" found their chance.
The state of his own brain and nerves became a matter of cold surprise to him; the suspense without fear, though tingling with physical dread, and the capacity for separation of emotions. He found himself thinking of Virginia, and pitying her. This would break her heart, he told himself. She would have a morbid feeling that she was to blame for the disaster; that she had caused the death of her brother and cousin, and the other man so strangely important in her life of late. He wished that he might talk to her, and tell her not to mind, because it was not in the least her fault, and she had done nothing but good.
Then he began to wonder why the yacht and the French boat had ceased firing. The latter had only two guns, while the Bella Cuba had four, and, as he had said to Roger a few minutes (or was it years?) ago, she was but a poor "makeshift," rigged up more as a kind of "scarecrow" for forçats meditating escape than for actual service. Still, she must carry at least ten or twelve rounds of ammunition. Could it be that the little Bella Cuba had contrived to knock a hole in her hull, and that her men must choose between beaching her immediately or having her sink? It looked as if this explanation might be the right one, for she was certainly retiring, and that with haste. To beach she must go round the point whence she had come in, approaching the lagoon, and this she was doing, the yacht having no more to say to her.
"The Frenchies know what their sea-wolves have done," George thought grimly, "and so they can afford to let things slide and save themselves. No good sending out a boat and trying to pick up their man under the nose of the enemy, for the poor fellow's gone where neither friends nor foes can get him. The episode is closed. And all the Bella Cuba wanted was to put the prison boat out of the running. There's no good being vindictive. I could get to her now, if I liked—provided those brutes would let me. But it's impossible—I won't think of it. Afterward I should loathe myself for being a coward and going back to life without the others. I couldn't have helped them—but it would seem as if I might have, and didn't. Heavens! When is this going to end? I can't bear it long. The best thing I could do would be to drown myself like a man, and get it over before the worst can happen."