'Ay, but there would, though,' muttered Charke to himself--'there would. Ha! by God, look there,' he cried aloud, forgetting that the only man who could hear his words was blind. The ship had given another hideous plunge--had wrenched herself as a giant might give a wrench in endeavouring to free himself from the chains that bound him--then down! down! down! she went into the hollows of the ocean, so that up above her on either side were nothing but vast walls of sea. Walls that would, that must close together, Charke understood, fifty feet above their heads, leaving the ship beneath them. And then he turned to the other man by his side, saying calmly: 'Now is the time! You love Bella Waldron. So do I. And neither of us will ever set eyes on her again. Farewell--my rival!'
CHAPTER XVIII
['SHE WILL NEVER KNOW']
'How in Heaven's name has she ever done it?' muttered Charke to himself, three minutes later, as, dripping like a dog dragged out of a pond, he still stood by the wheel while holding on like a vice to the spokes. And still both he and Gilbert had each got their legs twisted in the radii to prevent them from slipping, since now the ship lay over frightfully to starboard and did not recover herself at all. 'Ah, well,' he continued, 'it does not matter much how. Another five minutes and over she goes--turtle. It is a hundred to one she has six feet of water below.'
How had she done it? That was the wonder, the marvel; the more especially a wonder if, as Charke thought, she had six feet of water in her, since twice that amount would have taken her to the bottom even though she lay in the most tranquil waters of the universe. It was impossible she would have risen again, if overloaded thus. Yet, water in her or not, she had accomplished a marvellous feat for any craft that ever left the shipbuilder's yard. For, from down below in those awful depths, with, on either side of her, and glistening all around her in the glare of the lightning like the sides of a crevasse, those walls of sea, she had still risen above them and had (a moment or so after they seemed to be closing in on her and shutting her out for ever from the world above) been once more poised on the crest of a huge billow. She had done it, and now lay listing over on to her starboard side, as some great wounded creature might do whose right ribs had all been broken in by the blows of a pole-axe. But still she travelled through the water in the darkness of the night; for now the lightning was ceasing and, also, she carried no lighted lantern since there were none to attend to such things--while, even though there had been, the beating of the gale would soon have extinguished them. She travelled swiftly, too, cutting her way through billow and wave, taking in huge seas aft which swept her decks--yet going still. But with some of those spectral forms, those blind groping men, departed for ever; swept down the sloping deck by tons of water, down and over into the ocean. And of the few, the three who had still their sight, one lay with a broken neck at the foot of the foredeck companion-way, having been flung down the hatch-way head foremost; the other two were drunk. They had broken into the steward's room, where there were none to control them, and had found some bottles of beer, as well as one of brandy and one of rum--and this was the result!
At that moment the wheel spun round in Gilbert's hands, dragging him with it in its revolution, so that he thought he would have to let go or be thrown in a somersault over into the sea; then, as he forced it back, he heard Charke's voice bellowing at him:
'Can you hold her up for five minutes? I can grasp the spokes no more; I am done. I would not have let go like that, God knows I wouldn't, but I have lost all sensation in my arms and hands. I will lead Fagg out. Perhaps he can help.'
'I may hold her steady,' Gilbert answered, 'but no more. What can a blind, stricken man do?'
'It is enough,' Charke said. 'Sight would not aid you to do more, and, after all, it is of no use. We but prolong life for nothing. Yet, here goes.'
He made his way below, falling, sliding down the companion-ladder, tumbling along in the darkness to where he judged the door of Fagg's cabin was; he fell over things that had been hurled out of the steward's pantry on the port side--broken dishes, plates, tin utensils, potatoes peeled ready for cooking, and a joint of meat--he felt all these with his feet and benumbed hands, and found a bottle, too, which his smell told him was rum. Then he tore the cork out of it with his teeth and drained a tumblerful of the raw spirits. That gave him fresh life and energy; the blood coursed and danced through his veins again, his fingers began to feel, his arms to strengthen. Sliding back the door of Fagg's cabin he called him by name, and, receiving no answer, felt in the berth to see if he was there, while, even as he discovered that the bed was empty, he trod on an upturned face, and then stooped down and felt it and the head, and found the latter all broken. Whereby he understood what had happened to the unfortunate young officer, and knew that he had either been hurled out of his bed against a bulkhead, or, being out of it, had been dashed to death.