He placed the tray on the writing-desk and contemplated its contents ruefully.
"I guess that banquet won't spoil for keeping," he said to himself. "I'll just lay round and look at it until the boss quits making speeches by the yard."
A couple of minutes passed. Brand was hoisting the last line of flags, when the American heard faltering footsteps on the stairs.
"Don't follow so close, Mamie," said a child's voice. "My arm hurts just 'nuff for anything when I move."
A towzled head of golden hair emerged into the light. It was one of the two little girls, whom Pyne had not seen since they were swung aloft from the sloping deck of the
Chinook
.
Their astonishment was mutual. The child, aged about eight, recognized in him a playmate of the fine days on board ship. She turned with confident cry.
"I told you so, Mamie. It was up. You said down. Here's the big glass house – and Mr. Pyne."
She quickened her speed, though her left arm was in a sling. Pyne, dreading lest she should fall, hastened to help her.
"I'se all right, Mr. Pyne," she announced with an air of great dignity. "I make one step at a time. Then I ketch the rail. See?"
"You've got it down to a fine point, Elsie," he said. "But what in the world are those women-folk thinking of to let you and Mamie run loose about the place."
Elsie did not answer until Mamie stood by her side. Judged by appearances, Mamie was a year younger. Apart from the nasty bruise on Elsie's left arm and shoulder, the children had escaped from the horrors of the wreck almost unscathed in body and certainly untroubled in mind.
"Mamie came to my room for breakfast," explained Elsie at last. "We'se awful hungry, an' when we axed for 'nother bixit Mrs. Taylor she began to cry. An' when I said we'd go an' find mamma she cried some more."
"Yes. We'se awful hungry," agreed Mamie. "An' please where's mamma?"
Pyne needed no further explanation. The little ones had lost their mother; her disfigured body, broken out of all recognition, was tossing about somewhere in the under-currents of the Channel. None of the women dared to tell the children the truth, and it was a heartrending task to deny them food.
So, they were permitted to leave their refuge, with the kindly belief that they would come to no harm and perchance obtain a further supply from one of those sweet-faced girls who explained so gently that the rations must run short for the common good.
Pyne glanced up at the lantern. Outside he could see Brand hauling down the signal. He sprang to the tray and secured his half biscuit and tea cup.
"Come along, Elsie," he said, crooking his left arm for her. "Follow close, Mamie. Mind you don't fall."
"Your mamma is asleep," he assured them in a whisper on the next landing. "She just can't be woke up for quite a long time."
Then he navigated them to the door of the second bedroom, where Mrs. Taylor was. He broke the hard biscuit in two pieces and gave one to each child.
"Here, Mamie, you carry the cup, and go shares in the tea."
"I don't like tea," protested Mamie. "If I can't have coffee I want some milk."
"Well, now, you wait a little bit, and you'll be tickled to death to see what I'll bring you. But drink the tea. It's good an' hot. Skip inside, both of you."
He held the door partly open and they vanished. He heard Mrs. Taylor say:
"Didn't I tell you those two little dears would do their own business best."
He regained the service-room to find Brand steeping the remains of his biscuit in an almost empty cup. The lighthouse-keeper greeted his young friend with a smile.
"I suppose that you, like the rest of us, never had such an appetite in all your days?" he said.
"Oh, I'm pretty well fixed," said Pyne, with responsive grin.
"Then you are fortunate. There is usually a wretched little fiend lurking in a man's inner consciousness which prompts him to desire the unattainable. Now, I am a poor eater as a rule, yet this morning I feel I could tackle the toughest steak ever cut off a superannuated cow."
"I don't deny," admitted Pyne, "that the idea of a steak sounds good. That is, you know," he went on languidly, "it might sort of appeal to me about one o'clock."
"I should have thought you could do with one now, especially after the hard night we have gone through. Perhaps you are a believer in the French system, and prefer a light breakfast."
Brand finished the last morsel of biscuit and drank the cup dry.
"It's a first-rate proposition – when you are accustomed to it," said Pyne. "But talking about eating when there's little to eat is a poor business, anyway. Don't you find that?"
"I do indeed."
Brand rose and tapped the barometer, adjusting the sliding scale to read the tenths.
"Slightly better," he announced. "If only the wind would go down, or even change to the norrard!"
"What good would a change of wind do?" inquired Pyne, greatly relieved himself by the change of topic.
"It would beat down the sea to some extent and then they might be able to drift a buoy, with a rope attached, close enough to the rock at low tide to enable us to reach it with a cast of a grappling iron."
"Do you mean that we could be ferried to the steamer by that means?"
"That is absolutely out of the question until the weather moderates to a far greater extent than I dare hope at present. But, once we had the line, we could rig up a running tackle and obtain some stores."
"Is it as bad as all that?" said the younger man, after a pause.
They looked at each other. The knowledge that all true men have of their kind leaped from eye to eye.
"Quite that bad," answered Brand.
Pyne moistened his lips. He produced a case containing two cigars. He held it out.
"Let us go shares in consolation," he said.
Brand accepted the gift, and affected a livelier mood.
"By lucky chance I have an ample supply of tobacco. It will keep the men quiet," he said. "By the way," and he lifted a quick glance at Pyne, "do you know anything about chemistry?"
"Well – er – I went through a course at Yale."
"Can colza oil be converted into a food."
"It contains certain fats," admitted Pyne, taking dubious stock of the question.
"But the process of conversion, the chemical reaction, that is the difficulty."
"Bi-sulphide of carbon is a solvent, and the fatty acids of most vegetable oils can be isolated by treatment with steam super-heated to about 600° Fahrenheit."
Brand threw out his hands with a little gesture of helplessness; just then Constance appeared.
"Dad," she cried, "did not Mr. Pyne tell you of my threat?"
"No, dear one. I am not living in terror of you, to my knowledge."
"You must please go to sleep, both of you, at least until ten or eleven o'clock. Mr. Emmett is sending a man to keep watch here. He will not disturb you. He is bringing some rugs and pillows which you can arrange on the floor. I have collected them for your special benefit."
"At this hour! Impossible, Connie."
"But it is not impossible, and this is the best hour available. You know quite well that the
Falcon
will return at high water. And you must rest, you know."
She bustled about, with the busy air of a house-wife who understood the whole art of looking after her family. But something puzzled her.
"Mr. Pyne," she inquired, "where is your cup?"
"I – er – took it down," he explained.
For some reason, Constance felt instantly that she had turned the tables on him since their last
rencontre
. She did not know why. He looked confused, for one thing: he was not so glib in speech, for another.
"Down where?" she demanded. "Not to the kitchen. I have been there since you brought up your breakfast and dad's on the same tray."
"I breakfasted alone," remarked Brand calmly. "Mr. Pyne had feasted earlier."
"But he had not," persisted Constance. "I wanted him to – "
She stopped. This impudent American had actually dared to wink at her, a confidential, appealing wink which said plainly: "Please don't trouble about me."
"You gave your tea and biscuit to somebody," she cried suddenly. "Now, who was it? Confess!"
"Well," he said weakly, "I did not feel – er – particularly hungry, so, when I met those two little girls foolin' round for an extra supply, I – er – thought nobody would mind if – er – "
"Father!" said Constance. "He has not had a mouthful."
"Then take him downstairs and give him one. You must have found my conversation interesting, Mr. Pyne, whilst I was eating. But, before you go, let me add a word in season. There must be no further discrimination between persons. Stand or fall, each must abide by the common rule."
Pyne, with the guilty feeling of a detected villian, explained to Constance how the cup might be rescued.
"I shall keep a close eye on you in future," she announced as they went below.
"Do," he said. "That is all I ask for."
"I am a very strict person," she went on. "Dad always encouraged us in the sailor's idea of implicit obedience."
"Kick me. It will make me feel good," he answered.
Entering the second bed-room, where Elsie and Mamie were seated contentedly on the floor, she stooped and kissed them. And not a word did she say to Enid as to the reason why Mr. Pyne should be served with a second breakfast. She knew that any parade of his unselfishness would hurt him, and he, on his part, gave her unspoken thanks for her thought.
Conversation without words is an art understood only by master-minds and lovers, so these two were either exceptionally clever persons or developing traits of a more common genus – perhaps both.
CHAPTER XI
MRS. VANSITTART'S FEAR
The tribulations which clustered, in bee-like swarm, in and around the Gulf Rock Lighthouse during those weary hours were many and various. Damp clothing, insufficiency of food, interior temperatures ranging from the chill draught of the entrance passage and stair-ways to the partial suffocation of rooms with windows closed owing to the incursions of the rising tide – this unpleasing aggregate of physical misery was seriously augmented by an ever-increasing list of sick people, an almost total absence of any medical comforts, and a growing knowledge, on the part of those not too despondent to think, that their ultimate relief might be deferred for days rather than hours.
No mere man can understand, and a woman of ordinary experience can but dimly imagine, the difficulty and arduousness of the task undertaken by Constance and Enid.
To cook and supply food for eighty-one persons with utensils intended for the use of three, to give each separate individual an utterly inadequate portion, so skilfully distributed that none should have cause to grumble at his or her neighbor's better fortune – here were culinary problems at once complex and exhaustive.
By adopting fantastic devices, bringing into service empty jam-pots and sardine-tins, they found it was possible to feed twenty at a time. This meant the preparation of four distinct meals, each requiring an hour's work. Long before the last batch, which included themselves, was lamenting the absurd discrepancy between appetite and antidote in the shape of anything to eat, the first was ravenous again.
The women complained the least. In the occupants of the two bedrooms the girls encountered a passive fortitude which was admirable. It was an extraordinary scene which met their eyes when they entered either of these stuffy apartments. Many of the rescued ladies had not given a thought to changing the demi-toilette of evening wear on board ship for more serviceable clothing when the hurricane overtook the vessel. They all, it is true, possessed cloaks or wraps of some sort, but these garments were still sodden with salt water and therefore unwearable, even if the oppressive warmth in each room rendered such a thing possible. Their elegant costumes of muslin, cotton, silk or satin, were utterly ruined. Lucky were the few whose blouses or bodices had not been rent into tatters.
Some of the worst sufferers in this respect were now the best provided. Blankets and sheets had been ruthlessly torn up and roughly stitched into articles of clothing. Mrs. Vansittart, for instance, who first suggested this
via media
, wore an exquisite Paris gown and a loose dressing-jacket arrangement of yellow blanket, the component parts of which she persuaded two other women to sew together on the model provided by her own elegant figure.
A few quick-witted ones who followed her example exhausted the available stock, and pillow-cases and rugs would have undergone metamorphosis in the same way had not Constance come to the rescue by impounding them, declaring that they must be reserved for the use of those sufferers who needed warmth and rest.
The men passed their time in smoking, singing, yarning and speculating on the chance of the weather clearing. Ultimately, when the banging of the waves again made the column feel unsafe, a small section began to plan petty attempts to pilfer the provisions. It is the queer mixture of philosopher and beast in the average human being that makes it possible for the same man, in one mood, to risk his life quite voluntarily to save others, and in another, to organize selfish theft.
After an ingenious seaman had been detected in the attempt to pick the store-room lock, and when a tray of cold ham was deliberately upset whilst a football scrimmage took place for the pieces, Mr. Emmett stopped these ebullitions by arming the watch with assorted weapons from the work-shop and issuing stern orders as to their use in case of need.
Here, again, the warring elements which form the human clay were admirably displayed. On duty, under the bonds of discipline, the coarse-grained foremast hand who had gobbled up a surreptitious lump of fat pig during the first successful scuffle would brain the daring rascal who tried to better his condition by a similar trick a second time. Discipline, sometimes, converts a skulker into a hero.
When the state of the tide permitted, storm-shutters were opened and a free draught of air allowed to enter through the door. Then all hands eyed the sea with anxiety. The wind was strong and piercing, and the reef maintained its ceaseless roaring. Wherever a window opened towards the land there was a small crowd waiting to peep through it. At last, the sense of orderliness gradually permeating the inmates of the lighthouse actually resulted in the formation of queues, with stated intervals for moving on. There was a momentary relief in looking at the land. The cliffs, the solitary white houses, the little hamlets half hidden in cozy nooks, seemed to be so absurdly near. It was ridiculous to imagine that help could be long deferred. The seaward passing of a steamer, carrying flowers from the Scilly Isles to Penzance for Covent Garden, caused a flutter, but the sight of a Penzance fishing-smack scudding under jib and close-reefed foresail between the rock and Guthenbras Point created intense excitement. Noah, gazing across the flood for the return of the dove with the olive branch, could not be more pleased than these castaways in their granite ark when the brown-sailed boat came within their view.
The window in the coal-cellar opened fair towards the Land's End, and the grimy occupants of this compartment could look their fill at the messenger of life. A rich New Yorker in vain offered a hundred dollars to any man who gave up his place in the line after he himself, by the operation of the time-limit, was remorselessly sent away from the narrow loop-hole. Dollars and pounds sterling have a curiously depreciated value under such circumstances.
The men of the watch were always questioned for news by the unemployed majority. They related the comings and goings of the
Falcon
, carried sympathetic inquiries from story to story – promiscuous passing to and fro being forbidden owing to the narrowness of the stairs – and seized every trifling pretext on their own part to reach the topmost height and feast their eyes on the extensive panorama visible from the storm-girt gallery. Had they watched the coast-line less and the reef more their observations would have had value.
Quite early in the day, the purser handed to the occupants of each room a full list of passengers and crew, with the survivors grouped separately. In only three instances were husband and wife both saved. The awful scene in the saloon accounted for this seeming discrepancy. Dazed men and senseless women were wrenched from each other's clasp either by the overwhelming seas or during the final wild fight for life at the head of the companion stairway. A wreck, a fire in a theatre, pays little heed to the marriage tie.
The third, and last meal of the day was eaten in silence and gloom. All the spare lamps were diverted to the kitchen, because Brand, during a further detailed survey of the stores, made in company with Mr. Emmett and the purser, discovered that there was an alarming deficit of fresh water in the cistern.
In the hurry of the earlier hours a serious miscalculation had been made in transmuting cubic feet into gallons. It became an instant necessity to use every heating appliance at command and start the distillation of a drinkable fluid.
The Gulf Rock Light did not possess a proper apparatus. The only method that could be adopted was to improvise a coil from canvas sewn into a tube. The exterior was varnished, and wrapped in wet cloths to assist the condensation of the steam. Hence, every kettle and pot being requisitioned for this paramount need, cocoa could be supplied to the women alone, whilst the taste of the water, even thus disguised, was nauseating. No more potatoes could be boiled. Raw, they were almost uneatable. And potatoes happened to be the food most plentiful.
The genuine fresh water, reduced to a minimum in the cistern, was only a little better in condition unless it was filtered, and Brand decided that it ought to be retained for the exclusive use of those seriously ill. Patients were multiplying so rapidly that the hospital was crowded; and all fresh cases, as they occurred, perforce remained where they were.
Neither Constance nor Enid felt the time hang heavily on their hands. They were too busy, though the new ordinance regarding the food supply transferred their attention from active cooking to the replenishing of utensils which must be kept full of salt-water at boiling-point.
Pyne was an invaluable assistant.
In the adjustment of refractory canvas tubes over hot spouts, in the manipulation of the condensing plant so that it might act efficiently, in the trimming of lamps, and the stocking of the solitary coal fire, he insisted on taking to himself the lion's share of the work.
He always had a pleasant quip or funny story to brighten their talk.
"You can conquer trouble with a grin," he said. "Worry doesn't cut ice."
Enid, of course, chaffed him about his American accent, which, she protested, she would acquire after a week's practice.
"It is so quaint to our ears," she went on. "I never before grasped the reason why Mark Twain makes me laugh. All he does is to act as a phonograph. Every American is a born humorist."
"There's something in that," admitted Pyne. "We do try to dis-inter a joke. Say, have you girls ever heard how an English professor explained the Yankee drawl?"
"No," they cried.
"He said it represented the effort of an uneducated man to make a speech. Every time his vocabulary gave out he lifted his voice to show he wasn't half through with his ideas."
"Oh," said Constance, "that is neither kind nor true, surely."
"Well," agreed Pyne slowly, "that is the view a friend of mine took of the remark. So he asked the professor if he had a nice agreeable sort of definition, all ready for use, of the way Englishmen clipped their syllables. The other fellow allowed that he hadn't pondered on it. 'I guess,' said my friend, 'it represents the effort of an educated ass to talk English.'"
Though the laugh was against them they were forced to snigger approval.
"I think," said Constance, "that our chief national failing is pomposity, and your story hits it off exactly. In one of our small Cornish towns we have a stout little Mayor who made money in cheese and bacon. He went to see the Paris Exhibition, and an Exeter man, meeting him unexpectedly at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, hailed him with delight. 'Hello, Mr. Mayor – ' he began. 'Hush,' said the mayor, glancing around mysteriously, 'I'm 'ere
in cog
.'"
None who heard these light-hearted young people yelling with merriment would imagine that they had just dined off a piece of hard-baked bread made without yeast and washed down with water tasting of tar and turpentine.
"Now, Miss Enid, your turn," cried Pyne.
Her eyes danced mischievously.
"Unfortunately, by the accident of birth, I am deprived of the sense of humor," she said.
"It seems to be in the family all right," he hazarded, looking at Constance.
"Alas!" said Enid, "I am an American."
"I'll smile now, if that is all," said Pyne.
"But, please, I am not joking a little bit. When you go ashore you will probably hear all about me, so I may as well take the wind out of the sails of gossip. I am a mere waif, who came sailing in out of the West one day in a little boat, which must have come from the New World as no one appeared to have lost either me or it in the Old. Dad picked us both up and adopted me."
Pyne did not know whether to take her seriously or not, until he sought confirmation in a pair of tranquil eyes which he gazed into at every opportunity.
"It is quite true," said Constance, gravely. "I suppose that the mysterious affinity between parents and long-lost children which exists in story-books is all nonsense in reality. No family could be more united and devoted to each other than we are, yet Enid is not my sister, and my father is her's only by adoption. He found her, half dying, drifting past this very rock, and before he could reach her he fought and killed a dreadful shark. We are very proud of dad, Mr. Pyne. You see, he is our only relation. Enid knows neither her father nor mother, and my mother died when I was a baby."
"Great Scott!" cried Pyne.
He turned quickly towards the door. Mrs. Vansittart, very pale, with eyes that looked unnaturally large in the faint light, stood there. For an instant he was startled. He had not seen Mrs. Vansittart since they came to the rock, and he was shocked by the change in her appearance. He did not like her. His alert intelligence distrusted her. But it was not his business in life to select a wife for his uncle, as he put it, and he had always treated her with respectful politeness. Now, owing to some fleeting aspect which he could not account for, some vague resemblance to another which he did not remember having noticed before, he viewed her with a certain expectant curiosity that was equally unintelligible to him.
She held out a scrap of paper.
"Mr. Traill is here," she said quietly.
"Here!" he repeated, wondering what she meant, and perplexed by her icy, self-contained tone, whilst he thought it passing strange that she had no other greeting for him.
"Well," she said, "that is the best word I can find. He is near to us, as near as a steamer can bring him. Mr. Brand has received a signaled message; he wrote it out and sent it to me by a man. I inquired where you were, and was told you were engaged in the kitchen."
For some reason Mrs. Vansittart seemed to be greatly perturbed. Her presence put an end to the gaiety of the place quite effectually.
The young man took the paper in silence.
He read: "Dear Madam – a signal just received from the
Falcon
runs as follows: – 'Mr. Cyrus J. Traill is on board and sends his love to Etta and Charlie. He will make every preparation for their comfort ashore and trusts they are bearing up well under inevitable hardships.' Yours faithfully, Stephen Brand."
Pyne strode to the door.
"I must see if I can't get Mr. Brand to answer the old boy," he cried. "Perhaps you have attended to that already."
She did not make way for him to pass.
"No," she said. "I came to seek you on that account. If not too late, will you tell your uncle that I do not wish to delay a moment in Penzance. He will please me most by arranging for a special train to await our arrival at the station."
"What's the hurry?" he demanded.
"A woman's whim, if you like, but a fixed resolve, nevertheless."
"Will you travel in that rig-out?" he asked quizzically.
"It is an easy matter to call at a shop if we reach shore by daylight. Then I can purchase a cloak and hat to serve my needs. Otherwise, it is matterless how I am attired. Will you do this?"
"Why, certainly."
She gave a little gasp of relief. In another instant Pyne would have gone, but Enid, who happened to glance through the window which opened towards the northwest, detained him.
"There is no hurry now, for sure," she said. "The
Falcon
is half way to Carn du by this time. I do not suppose she will return until it is too dark to do more than signal important news very briefly."
"But this is important," cried Mrs. Vansittart shrilly. "It is of the utmost importance to me."
"'Fraid it can't be helped ma'am," said Pyne civilly. "Anyhow we're not ashore yet, and I can't see that any time will be wasted."
The electric bell jangled in the room, causing Mrs. Vansittart to jump visibly.
"Oh, what is it?" she screamed.
"My father is calling one of us up," explained Constance. "It may be a message from Jack. You go, Enid."
Enid hurried away. She had scarcely reached the next floor before Mrs. Vansittart, who seemed to have moods in full compass, said sweetly:
"Convey my deep obligations to Mr. Brand, won't you, Charlie. Indeed, you might go now and write out the text of my message to your uncle. Some early opportunity of despatching it may offer."
"All right," he said in the calm way which so effectually concealed his feelings. "Shall I escort you to your room?"
"By no means. I came here quite unassisted. Miss Brand and I can chat for a little while. It is most wearying to be pent all day and all night in one little room. Even the change to another little room is grateful."
Pyne bowed, and they heard his steady tread as he ascended the stairs.
"Quite a nice boy, Charlie," said Mrs. Vansittart, coming forward into the kitchen, with its medley of queer-looking, hissing, steaming contrivances.
"Yes. We think he is exceedingly nice," said Constance. She wondered why the other woman seemed always to stand in the shadow, by choice. The strongest light in the darkened chamber came from the grate, and Mrs. Vansittart deliberately turned away from it.
"If all goes well he will soon be my nephew by marriage," went on the other. "I quitted New York yesterday week in order to marry his uncle in Paris. Rather a disastrous beginning to a new career, is it not?"
"I hope not, indeed. Perhaps you are surmounting difficulties at the commencement rather than at the end."
"It may be. I am so much older than you that I am less optimistic. But you did not grasp the significance of my words. I said I was to be married in Paris."
"Yes," said Constance