“His voice, too, as the day went on, got weaker, till about an hour before sunset, and when at last the surf was beginning to go down, he dropped quietly into the sea. The others had died hours before. So I doubt if we can do any good, even if we find a wreck. It’s a bad thing, too, Major, to see poor creatures in mortal agony, yet not be able to help ‘em. You’ll wish you’d never come. But as you say go, go we do.”
“Thank you,” answered Major Gordon, with a husky voice, deeply moved by the sad narratives of the speaker, and almost convinced that he was only conducting them to the threshold of another drama of the same character. “But I could never again rest in my bed, if I didn’t make an effort, at least, to see if there’s a wreck, and try what can be done. I should be always hearing the boom of the alarm gun in my dreams.”
The rain had now ceased, but a drizzling mist had set in, through whose folds the dreary landscape looked more desolate than ever. The slate-colored clouds, flying just overhead, drifted rapidly in from the sea, and sweeping past, like the wings of gigantic birds seen in the dusk of night, disappeared in the vague haze inland. As the boat beat across the bay, the water flew crackling over her forecastle, often even wetting Major Gordon and Mullen in the stern; while the parted waves, bubbling and hissing by, whirled off behind in creamy eddies.
After awhile the southern edge of the open water was attained, when the craft entered a labyrinth of comparatively narrow channels, winding between salt-marshes. The black, saline mud of these marshes emitted a pungent smell, as the waves washed along the banks; while the long grass, which thickly covered their surface, whistled or rattled in the gale. Occasionally, a gull was seen, screaming aloft, in spite of the storm, now swept swiftly down the wind, and now slowly battling his way up against the tempest.
“There it is,” suddenly cried one of the crew, and, as he spoke, he pointed across the beach, along whose inner side the boat was now coasting.
They were opposite where, at its narrowest part, sea. and bay approached within a few hundred yards of each other; and, following the direction of the man’s finger, Major Gordon saw a large ship, lying some distance from the shore, with her masts gone and apparently deserted.
She lay, careened towards the south, at a right angle to the coast, so that nearly every wave swept her for the entire length of her decks. At first, as we have said, she seemed deserted. But, looking more closely, Major Gordon discovered, under the lee of her weather side, and sheltered by the high stern, two female figures, attended by a solitary companion of the other sex.
“Luff, luff,” he cried to Mullen, who was steering. “She’ll lay close alongside the bank, won’t she? Let go everything with a run.”
In a moment the craft rasped against the steep mud bank, and in another Major Gordon had leaped ashore, and was moving towards the surf, leaving the others to follow more at leisure.