“Rub! And don’t talk!... She moved a little then.”
His judgment was well founded. Within a few minutes he heard the second girl address her sister as Nina.
So this one was Madge, his wife! He had literally brought her back from the very gates of death. He could not even see her. What a curious coincidence that when she saved his life, and he saved hers, she was equally hidden from him; then by a veil, now by the pall of the darkest night he had ever experienced!
The girls began exchanging broken confidences. Madge, who had fainted while being towed across the fearsome chasm between bridge and forecastle, did not know of the loss of the captain and chief and second officers, with a passenger, until told by Nina. She wept bitterly, and Maseden could not help noticing that Sturgess tried to console her in a very lover-like manner.
He actually smiled at the tragic humor of it all, especially when Nina seemed to sense his thought, and valiantly interfered by bidding Madge not to add to their misery by useless grief. He refrained purposely from giving them any more brandy until some time had elapsed. Now that their faculties were restored, he knew, from his own experiences, that their tongues and palates were on fire with the salt-laden atmosphere they had perforce inhaled during so many hours.
But each minute of quiet in this sheltered nook, and in breathable air, would do much to alleviate their suffering, and he trusted to the brandy to put them to sleep.
In effect, that was what actually happened. When each of the four had swallowed a small quantity of the spirit Maseden and Sturgess nestled in beside the two girls and tucked the poncho over knees and feet. The bodies of the men served as excellent shields. In the physical and mental reaction which set in with the consciousness of assured safety—because that was what both girls thought, and neither man cared to weaken their faith—they were sound asleep within half an hour of the time they left the wreck.
Sturgess, too, was worn out, and slept fitfully, but it was long before Maseden’s overtaxed nerves would yield. He could not help speculating as to what wretched hap the coming day might bring. There was a gnawing dread in his mind that they might be lodged in a fissure of an unscalable cliff. If that were so, what a fearsome prospect lay before them! The mere notion was unendurable, and he resolutely refused to dwell on it.
Then he mused on the queer chance which, even in this small company, divorced him from his wife. He had rescued Nina first. By the accident of situation he was nearest the rock which closed the ledge, and she next. It was her body, not his wife’s, to which he was close pressed, and in which his more vigorous frame had already induced a certain comfortable warmth.
Her head had fallen on his shoulder. An unconscious movement revealed that some roughness in the rock wall was hurtful, so he put his left arm around her neck and pillowed her gently.