The discovery both caused me an exquisite joy and added to my wretchedness. At the first I painted a bright and glowing picture of the future. Flora should be mine! I would make her my wife, and carry her off into the wilderness or to one of the lower towns. I was young and strong. I had some money laid by, and it would be but a delightful task to carve a home and a fortune for the two of us. So I reasoned for a time, and then a more sober mood followed. I saw that I had been indulging in an empty dream.
“There is no such happiness for me!” I groaned aloud. “I was a fool to think of it for a moment. The girl loves me, it is true, but no persuasion of mine could ever induce her to break her promise. She belongs to Griffith Hawke, and she will marry him. And even if it were possible to win her, honor and duty, which I have always held sacred, would keep me from such a knavish trick. If I proved unfaithful to my trust, could I ever hold up my head among men again?”
Thus I revolved the matter in my mind, and I confess that I was sorely tempted more than once to stake all on the chance of making Flora my own. But in the end I resolved to be true to my manhood—to the principles my father had been at such pains to teach me. Without taking the trouble to undress, I stretched myself on my bed—the hour was late—and for a long time I dozed or tossed restlessly at intervals. At last I fell into a sound sleep, and it could have been no great while afterward when I was rudely awakened by a crash that pitched me out of my bunk to the floor. A second and far louder crash followed at once, immediately overhead, and then a shrill commotion broke out. I knew the ship had struck, and I lost no time in getting to my feet. Luckily no bones were broken, and with some difficulty—for the vessel was pitching heavily—I groped my way through the darkness to the deck.
Here I beheld such a scene as I trust I may never see again. The mainmast had fallen, tearing a great gap in the bulwark, and crushing two sailors under its weight. Hiram Bunker and some of his men were rushing to and fro, shouting and yelling; others were gazing as though stupefied at the wreckage of shattered spars, flapping canvas, and twisted cordage. The ship was plunging fore and aft—a sure sign that she was not now aground. The mist had partly cleared, and the air was raw and cutting. A storm of wind and rain was raging, blowing from the starboard or seaward side. Several of the crew had followed me above, but most of them had evidently been busy on deck at the time of the disaster.
A single lamp was burning, and at first none observed my presence. All was seemingly confusion and panic, and the skipper’s orders were being tardily obeyed. I moved forward a little, and recognized Captain Rudstone holding to the snapped-off end of the mast.
“What has happened?” I demanded anxiously. “Are we in danger?”
“Little doubt of it, Mr. Carew,” he answered calmly. “The ship struck on a submerged rock—probably the side edge of it—and immediately sheered off into deep water. It was a hard blow to shatter the mast, which crushed two poor fellows to death in its fall.”
“What is the time?” I asked.
“Two o’clock in the morning, and we are close to the shore.”
“The vessel might have fared worse,” said I. “But is she leaking?”