A Wounded Name

by Charles King

"The devil you have! What?"

"She's innocent—utterly!"

And that bright morning was followed by a cloudless afternoon and a sweet, still, starlit evening, and by this time all men and all women were on deck, and the Idaho was foaming swiftly on through the summer seas, and people went below reluctantly at night, and woke to new and brighter life on the morrow; and Loring was up with the sun and drinking deep draughts of old ocean's ozone, as he paced the decks till Pancha came. And one day followed another, and Turnbull read and yawned and dozed and tried to talk to the charming señoritas, but couldn't muster enough Castilian, and Traynor chalked the decks for "horse billiards" and shuffleboard, and everybody took a hand at times, and one evening, despite the havoc moist salt air plays with catgut, Pancha's guitar and that of the purser were brought into requisition, and Pancha was made to sing, a thing she didn't do too well as yet, and Pancha knew it without asking when she looked in Loring's eyes, and no power or persuasion could make her try again—until long, long after.

They were having now an ideal voyage, so far as wind and weather were concerned, but the Señoritas de la Cruz declared it the stupidest they'd ever known, and the officers—los Americanos—the least attentive or attractive of those with whom they had ever sailed. And everybody seemed to long for the sight of the green headlands of the Golden Gate and the terraced slopes of San Francisco—all save two; Pancha, to whom the ending of that voyage meant the ending of the sweetest days her life had ever known, and the beginning of a school drudgery she dreaded, and Loring, to whom the return to San Francisco meant the taking up anew of a tangled case that had become hateful to him, to whom there was the prospect of a meeting that he would gladly avoid, to whom there was coming an inevitable parting, the thought of which oppressed him strangely, and he could not yet tell why.

The marvelous green of the California bluffs spanned the horizon for miles on their starboard hand one radiant afternoon as they went below to the captain's dinner, the last before reaching port. The sunshine had been brilliant all the day, yet there came a chilly, shivering air toward two o'clock, and the first officer shrugged his shoulders and looked dubiously ahead, but gave no other sign. Gaily they drank the skipper's health and pledged the Idaho in her best champagne. Long they lingered over the table and laughter, jest and song and story enlivened the hours that came to an end at last, and Pancha stole her little hand within Loring's arm for the last starlight walk along the now familiar decks, and lo, when they issued from the brightly-lighted saloon the stars were gone, the steamer was forging ahead through a chill mist that grew thicker with every moment, and as half-speed was ordered and the mournful notes of the whistle groaned out throbbingly over the leaden sea, she swayed uneasily over a heavy ground swell that careened her deeper and deeper as the mist thickened to fog, and oilskins and sou'westers came out and dark figures went dripping about the decks, and Loring fetched his uniform cape from below and muffled in it Pancha's slender form, and for awhile they tottered up and down, then abandoned the attempt to walk, and settled in their chairs at the end of the bench, just where she had sat and clung to the white stanchion and sobbed her heart out that night in Guaymas Bay. Ay de mi—Pancha could have sobbed almost as hard, though no longer in loneliness and desolation—this very night.

As early as 9.30 Señora Valdez had gone below, following her lovely nieces, and warning Pancha to come at once. It was too dark, too damp to remain there longer, but Loring begged, and the Idaho lurched and rolled sympathetically at the moment and the duenna found further argument impossible. She had to rush for her room, and later to confide her mandates as to Pancha to the stewardess, who came, peeped, and considered them ill-timed. At six bells Turnbull and a few determined, yet uncomfortable souls were consuming cognac and playing vingt et un in the cabin, while the lookouts were doubled on the deck and every ship's officer stood to his post. The sound of the muffled tinkle of the bell roused Pancha from the silence that had fallen on the pair.

"I must go," she murmured for perhaps the twentieth time, and yet she could not.

Once more, mournful, moaning, the deep-toned whistle poured forth its warning on the night, and before the long blast had died away, up from the depths of the dense fog bank ahead arose an echo, accentuated with sharp, staccato shrieks. Then came a sudden, startling cry at the bow; then deep down in the bowels of the ship the clang of the engine gong; then, shouts, and rushings to and fro at the hidden forecastle; and Loring started to his feet only to be hurled headlong to the deck, for, with fearful shock, some mammoth monster struck and pierced and heeled to port the stanch little coaster, and then, withdrawing from the fearful rent in her quarter, came crushing and grinding down the side, sweeping away every boat that hung at the starboard davits, ripping through the shrouds like pack-thread, and rolling and wallowing off astern amid a pandemonium of shouts for aid, and frantic screams of startled women. In one minute the great steamer had vanished as suddenly as she came, and the Idaho was settling by the bows. A signal rocket tore aloft to tell the tale of desperate peril.

"Stand by us, Santiago! Don't you see you've cut us down?" bellowed the captain through his trumpet. Again the steam-pipe roared and the mournful whistle crooned the death song. No answering signal came to cheer their hearts with hope of rescue. The great Pacific mailer was lost in the fog full half a mile away. The crew came rushing up on deck, reporting everything under water below. There was a mad dash of fear-crazed men for the boats, discipline and duty both forgotten.

Over the first officer's prostrate form they sprang at the "falls" of the sternmost—the longboat, a huge, bearded seaman in the lead. The captain, with fury in his eye, leaped in the way, shouting blasphemy and orders to go back, and was knocked flat with a single blow. The brawny hand had seized the swaying tackle and three seamen were already scrambling into the swinging craft when a revolver cracked; the big leader threw up his hands with a yell of agony and toppled headlong upon the deck. Then a lithe figure vaulted over the longboat's gunwale. One after another three seamen came tumbling out abashed and overawed. The captain regained his feet and senses. The boat was lowered by cooler hands until it danced in safety on the waves, and one after another the women were carefully passed down to the care of him whose stern, clear-headed sense and instant action had proved their sole salvation—a landsman, Loring of the Engineers.