About two o’clock an undulating blur on the eastern horizon told of land. To the best of the captain’s judgment the Southern Cross was off Hanover Island when the accident happened, and her relative longitude had altered but very slightly during the forty-mile drift. It was now or never if anything was to be done to save her.
The forbidding and mountainous coast-line straight ahead was broken up by all manner of deep-water channels, each giving access, by devious ways, to the sheltered Smyth’s Channel; but so barricaded by sunken reefs and steep islets as to present almost insuperable obstacles to the free passage of a large vessel.
Small whalers and guano-boats would not dare any of these straits in fine weather. For the Southern Cross to make the attempt, even provided she ran the gantlet of the barrier reef, was indeed the forlornest of forlorn hopes.
The chief engineer had already assured the captain many times that any further pressure by the engines would inflict irreparable damage, so, risking everything on the throw of the dice and wishful to know the worst, at any rate, before daylight vanished, he ordered the sails to be hoisted again.
All hands were brought on deck, life-belts were adjusted, and boats’ crews stood by. At that moment Maseden caught a glimpse of the two girls. They, with other passengers, were summoned by the ship’s officers and placed in the smoke-room, which, by reason of its situation beneath the bridge, provided a convenient gathering ground in case the boats were lowered.
He saw them only for a moment—two cloaked figures, wearing cloth caps tied tightly to their heads with motor-veils. He could not distinguish Madge from Nina.
It was a strange and most bizarre notion that when the gates of eternity were opening a second time before his eyes the woman who was his lawful wife should now be sharing his peril, yet be separated from him far more effectually than in the Castle of San Juan.
The incongruity of their position did not trouble him greatly, however. Soon he ceased thinking about it. He realized that he, as an individual, could do nothing but obey orders and abide by the decree of Providence.
He was not frightened. Some hours earlier, knowing the physical features of the western coast of South America, he had decided that the odds were a thousand to one against the escape of the ship and her seventy-four occupants. He hoped that when the end came it might not be a long drawn-out agony—that was all. For the rest, he looked forward with a certain spice of curiosity to the fight which captain and crew would make against the giant forces of nature.