A long blare from the ship’s siren thrilled their hearts, but the excitement became frantic when three short, sharp blasts followed, and every sailor knew that the chief officer had signalled: “My engines are going full speed astern.”
That was a pardonable exaggeration, but the Kansas was certainly moving. They could see the white foam churned up by her propeller. With one accord they cheered madly, and the oars, double-handed now, tore the life-boat onward at a pace which outstripped even the shallow canoes.
Then the Indians did a wise thing. They spared many of their own lives, and, perchance others of greater value to the world, by ceasing to paddle. The unlooked-for interference of the great vessel was too much for them. They merely stared and cackled in amaze, while the small flotilla dashed towards the towering black hull, and Boyle lowered the gangway in readiness to receive the captain, his bride elect, and a good half of the passengers and crew.
Courtenay lost not an instant of favoring tide and fine weather. When Boyle told him that Walker could work the engines under easy steam, he dashed up to the bridge three steps at a time. With his hand on the telegraph, he superintended the hoisting on board of the life-boat and two of the canoes, which he meant to carry away as trophies—be sure that Elsie’s own special craft was one of them. Meanwhile, Boyle saw to the safe stowing in the remaining canoes of the wounded Indians in the fore cabin, and a few furnace bars attached to a rope anchored them in mid channel, whence their friends could bring them to shore later.
At last, the captain of the Kansas had the supreme satisfaction of hearing the clang of the electric bell in the engine-room as he put the telegraph lever successively to “Stand By,” and “Slow Ahead.” Gradually the ship crept north, gaining way as the engines increased their stroke and the full body of the ebb tide made its volume felt. Round swung the Kansas to the west, just as the sun cleared the highest peak of the unknown mountains. Courtenay had not forgotten his bearings. Although he had men using the lead constantly, he did not need their help. Once clear of the reefs which he had seen when the vessel first ran into the inlet, he made straight for the pillar rock, and rather raised the hair of the man at the wheel, not to mention most of the people on deck, by the nearness of his approach to that solitary buoy set in the midst of a broken sea. How good it was to feel the steady thrust of the pistons, the long roll of the ship over the swell! And then, when Elsie brought him his breakfast, and stood by his side as he watched the set of the tide with unwavering eyes, what a joy that was, to listen to her story of the night’s wanderings, and to know that, with God’s help, their Odyssey was nearing its end!
For every sailor is a fatalist, and in the unwritten code of the sea the law runs that once a ship has undergone her supreme trial she has the freedom of the great highway for that voyage, though she girdle the earth ere the dock gates open.
But best of all was it to hear Elsie tell how Dr. Christobal had handed her a bulky packet, in which she found Courtenay’s words of farewell, together with those wonderful letters which fate had held back from her twice already. They were only glowing epistles from the hundreds of passengers on the Florida, but six of them were proposals from enthusiastic ladies, all well dowered, and eager to give their charms and their cash to the safe keeping of the man who had saved their lives. It was with reference to some joking comment by Courtenay on these missives that his sister wrote to congratulate him on having escaped matrimony under such conditions. Elsie, brimful of high spirits, amused herself by teasing him with nice phrases culled from each of the six.
Long before noon the Kansas cleared White Horse Island. There was a ticklish hour while Courtenay and Boyle looked for the shoal. When its long, low sandspit was revealed by the falling tide, the ship took thought of her agony there, and traversed those treacherous waters with due reverence. Thenceforth, the run was due south until eight bells, when, for the second time within a fortnight, the captain set the course “South-40-East.”
A stiff breeze blowing from the south-west, and heavy clouds rolling up over the horizon, showed that the land of storms was repenting the phenomenal frivolity which had let it bask in sunshine for an unbroken spell of ten days. But the gale which whistled into Good Hope Inlet that night carried with it no disabled and blood-stained ship. Mr. Malcolm, who got his diminished squad of stewards in hand as though the vessel had quitted port that day, served dinner promptly at two bells in the second dog watch—by which no allusion is intended to an animal already gorged to repletion—and wore a proper professional air of annoyance because everybody was late, owing to the interesting fact that the half-minute fixed dashing light on Evangelistas Island had just been sighted.
Elsie noted that Count Edouard de Poincilit came with the rest, and sat beside Isobel. Courtenay put in an appearance later to partake of a hasty meal. He gave monsieur a black look, but, of course, catching Elsie’s eye instantly, he meekly sat down and said nothing—nothing, that is, of an unpleasant nature. All good ladies will recognize such behavior as one of the points of a man likely to become a model husband.