The Red Derelict

But the receding lights away there in the black gloom are receding farther and farther, the receding babel of voices too, and amid these and the roar of steam how shall his hoarse-throated, feeble shout find its way across the intervening waste? It cannot. Instinctively he springs for his canoe, with a wild idea of overtaking his one chance of rescue by sheer strength of arm. But of it there is no sign – except the frayed end of the painter rope by which it had been made fast. Swamped, crushed by the weight of water which had swirled over the hulk, it has gone to the bottom, and with it his slender stock of provisions. And the tiers of lights are now far distant, and he is left here, as one before him was left – alone on this ghastly hulk – left to die, with his one chance of rescue gliding away in demoniacal mockery upon the black midnight sea.

Chapter Thirty Seven.

The Echo of a Prophecy

“Let me pass. Quick! I want to see the captain.”

“But you can’t go on the bridge, miss; it’s against orders.” And the stalwart quartermaster barred with his substantial form the steps leading up to the bridge.

“But I must see the captain, and I will. Do you hear? Let me pass,” with a quick stamp of the foot.

Seen by the electric lights the speaker was a well-formed, beautiful girl, her face pale, and her eyes glowing with excitement and purpose. Behind her, a little in the background, buzzed a throng of excited passengers.

“Very sorry, miss, but it can’t be done,” reaffirmed the quartermaster, not without misgivings, for the speaker was a favourite on board, and not a little so with the captain himself, a grizzled and, withal, crusty salt, of whom those under him stood considerably in awe. “If there were any message now, miss, I might make so bold as to take it,” he added conciliatorily.

“Message? Message? No; I must tell him myself,” came the quick rejoinder, accompanied by another stamp of the foot. “Let me up! Man, man, a life – lives – depend on it – at any rate one.”

The seaman gave way, resigning himself to a “logging,” and, perchance, other pains and penalties. In a moment the girl had gained the bridge. The captain and two of the officers turned in anger, which subsided on the part of the latter as they saw the identity of the intruder. The first still looked grim.

“Well, young lady?” he began in a voice that would have sent most of the other passengers down double quick with a stuttered apology, but with this one it went for nothing.

“Captain, that ship we just ran into – there was someone on board.”

The captain looked grimmer still. “Just ran into” had a characteristically ugly sound in his ears.

“Humph!” he snorted. “Just ran into! Just ran into! That infernal old blasted derelict hulk, whose owners ought to be – ” And then he remembered the sex and identity of the speaker, and with a gulp went on. “Now, how the – how the – well, how d’you make out there’s anyone on board her?” he rapped out in a sort of subdued hurricane blast of a voice.

“Because I saw. I saw a man lying on her deck as plainly as I see you and Mr Gibson now. Do turn back and see – quick – or you may never find her again in the dark. I saw him, mind you – I swear to God I saw him – by the deck lights as we crashed past. You can’t leave him alone to die. You can’t!”

“Saw him? Saw a mare’s nest,” grumbled the captain. “Let me tell you, young lady, it’s not my business to start overhauling derelict hulks at midnight – brutes that might have sent us to the bottom. Fortunately, we only scraped this one. Well, well,” he appended sourly, “we’re ahead of our time, so we might as well make sure of this. Put her round, Gibson.”

“Ah! I thought sailors were always ready to help each other,” said the girl triumphantly.

An order was given, and, in the result, the Runic changed her course, and was bearing round, going dead slow, so as to head for the late dangerous obstruction. The excitement was intense among the passengers, who thronged the bulwarks at every coign of vantage, eagerly scanning the dark, silent sea. Suddenly the engines stopped, and a boat was lowered.

“Where is she? Can you see her?” were among the buzzed, eager comments as the boat’s lantern receded into the gloom. Soon came a hail and the sound of gruff voices over the water. The light of the lantern grew larger and larger. The boat was returning.

Heavens! what was this? With the boat’s crew there stepped aboard a tall, bearded man burned almost to the copper hue of a savage and wearing what looked like the attire of one. Thus he appeared in the electric lights to the eyes of the excited throng.

“Who are you, my man, and what’s your ship?” began the captain brusquely.

“Thank God, I’m going home at last!” exclaimed the stranger, gazing around in a weary and dazed sort of way.

“Yes – yes; but – who are you?” repeated the captain more crisply.

“Why – it’s Mr Wagram!”

The interruption or answer proceeded from the girl who had been the cause of the search. The castaway turned, looking more puzzled than ever.

“Yes; that’s my name,” he answered. “But – I ought to know that voice, and yet – and yet – ”

“Of course you ought,” and, casting all conventionality to the winds, the girl sprang forward, seizing one of his hands in both of hers. “Oh, how thankful I am that we have been the means of saving you! What must you have been through! Welcome – a thousand times welcome!”

“Miss Calmour, surely? Why, of course it is. How glad I am to see you again.” And in the face of this sun-tanned and unkempt-looking savage here under the ship’s lights Delia could detect the same look as that which had glanced down upon her in the park at Hilversea that glowing summer afternoon after the life-and-death struggle with the escaped beast. “I was a passenger on the Baleka, captain,” he went on to explain.

“Passenger on the Baleka were you? Then, my good sir, it’s lucky we’re homeward bound, because your people will be just about beginning to go to law over your leavings,” returned the captain, who was of a cynical bent. “The only passenger missing from her was given up as lost. But – you haven’t been aboard that old hooker ever since, I take it?”

“No; indeed. I’ve had some strange experiences – can hardly believe I’m not dreaming now. What ship’s this?”

“The Runic. White Torpedo line, bound for London from Australian ports.”

“And what of the Baleka’s people? Were they found?”

“Yes; all picked up, some here, some there.”

“Captain,” interrupted that same clear, sweet, fluty voice, “I’m surprised at you. Here’s a shipwrecked mariner been thrown on board, and instead of doing all you can for him you keep him standing here all night answering questions.”

“By Jove! you’re right, Miss Calmour,” was the bluff reply. “Gibson,” turning to the chief, “take the gentleman to the saloon, and tell the stewards to get him all he wants.”

“I don’t want much at present, thanks,” answered Wagram. “A barber, and some clothes are my most urgent needs; but I suppose we can compass something in that line to-morrow.”

“Why, of course,” said Delia; “but don’t throw away that picturesque costume. Come along below, now. I’m going to take care of you this evening.”

And she did – laying her commands upon the stewards for this and for that as if the whole ship belonged to her. Then she sat and talked to him as he ate some supper, forestalling every possible want, pressing this and that upon him, and yet without ostentatious fuss. And the castaway, who for months had beheld no woman’s face save those of brutal, debased blacks, wondered uneasily whether he were dreaming, as this beautiful girl sat there attending to his wants with an almost loving assiduity. Yes; he decided, she certainly was beautiful. Time, change, the conditions of a new life, had put the last touches to the sufficiency of her attractiveness as he remembered her.

“By Jove!” exclaimed the chief officer, who had dropped in to hear some of the castaway’s story, “you’ve had some pretty rough ups and downs, and no mistake; and you might as well have tumbled into the boats with the rest after all, for the kid was all right and not left below at all.”

“Is that a fact?” said Wagram eagerly.

“Rather. You were throwing away your life going below at such a time in any case, and in this instance it was all for nothing.”

Delia had been wishing the chief officer anywhere. She wanted Wagram to herself, and here Gibson sat prosing his tiresome old sea yarns. Now, however, she brisked up, and insisted upon hearing the whole story. She had been quite out of the way of newspapers of late, and had not even heard of the loss of the Baleka, or that the man sitting here before her had been given up as lost, a victim to his own heroic act.

“By George! I must go,” said the chief. “Mind you ask for anything you want, Mr Wagram, for I conclude you’ve come aboard in a state of temporary and complete destitution.”

“That’s just my case,” laughed Wagram. “Funny, isn’t it?” turning to the girl in time to catch the look in her eyes called there by the story she had just heard. “And now tell me about yourself, and how they all are in Bassingham.”

“We’ve left Bassingham, you know, Mr Wagram. My father died soon after you went, and we couldn’t stop on at Siege House. So we went up to London, and – well, things were not easy.”

“I didn’t know; I have had no news from Hilversea for a long, long time – have been so on the move, you know.”

“How you must long to get back. Dear old, beautiful Hilversea!”

The bright spirits and former lightheartedness seemed to have left her. Her voice was sad. The other made a mental note of it, and deduced that they had fallen upon hard times. Well, that he would certainly do his best to remedy by some means or other. Then she told him about herself; how her other sister – not Clytie – had married in Australia, married very fairly well, too, and had got her out there on a visit. But they had not got on – she did not tell him that the other had conceived a jealousy of her from the very first – and so she was returning to England.

They talked on until even the other passengers, who, by twos and threes, had been passing through the saloon in quite unusual numbers to catch another glimpse of the castaway, had disappeared, and the stewards were rolling up the carpets.

“Good-night, Mr Wagram,” said the girl as they parted. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you again, and what a happiness it is to think that the ship I was on board of was the one to rescue you. To-morrow you must tell me your adventures in full. You will – won’t you?”

He promised, with some reservations, and they parted. But Delia found that sleep utterly refused to come her way – and she wanted to sleep, wanted to look her best in the morning. Her cabin mate, an elderly lady, was fast asleep, but she herself seemed doomed to night-long wakefulness. The scuttle was open and she lay with her face to it, watching the dark sky with its twinkle of misty stars, half lulled by the rush and “sough” of smooth water from the sides of the liner. What wonderful workings of Fate had thrown this man here? And he would not have been here but for her. But for her persistence he would have been miles and miles behind, left to perish miserably on the lonely deep. The other passengers had treated her statement with good-humoured ridicule; the captain himself would hardly be persuaded to put back – and what if he had not? But he had – and it had been entirely due to her that he had. She had saved Wagram’s life – as surely as any life ever had been saved – she and she alone.

The sweetness of the thought began to soothe her, and sleep seemed to be coming at last. Then, through it, something – perhaps the sight of the smooth sea through which the great liner was rushing on even keel – brought back to her mind certain words uttered on a woodland road in the dusk of a winter afternoon; weird words about green seas, smooth and oily, and a battered ship, and terrors – and, perhaps, death, but, if not death, then great happiness. The croakings of the old gipsy came back now – and, good heavens! what coincidence was this? Here were all the conditions – the smooth seas and the battered hulk – the terror gone through – terrors of every kind, up to that of being left on the derelict – the agony of seeing this ark of safety recede from reach of call. “Perhaps death?” He had been snatched from death at that moment, snatched from it by her, as surely as though by her own hand. “But, if not death, then great happiness.” In the hot, thick stillness of the night Delia’s brain was busy. The prediction had been directed to herself, not to him. And then it seemed to merge into a joint prediction, but – great happiness? Well, was it not? She had rescued him from death – she alone. Was not that a great happiness? Further, it would be nearly a fortnight ere they reached England, and during that time she would see him daily, talk with him, under conditions of which a week was equivalent to a year under the old state of things. Would not that be “great happiness?”

And then she remembered not only the prediction, but the scorn and contempt with which he had treated both it and its utterer, extending just an overflow ripple of it to her. And with a smile at the recollection she fell into a quiet sleep. Nearly a whole fortnight of happiness – great happiness – lay before her.

In the event so it proved. From the next morning, when they met – he clothed and barbered, and looking exactly as she remembered him in the dear old days of yore – “clothed, and in his right mind” as he smilingly told her in his old, dry, humorous way – pacing the deck in the cool hours, or seated in some snug, shady corner in roomy deck-chairs, talking about home – they two were nearly always together; and the home-sick wanderer felt at home already, and the girl forgot for the time her own dreary prospects, with the struggle for life all opening out before her, to be begun and gone through again. He would go back to luxury and his high estate, while she – ? Yet even this she forgot in those sweet, dreamy, sunny days which would soon – only too soon – be over.

There were others on board, though, to whom this change was not so welcome, and who – for human nature is human after all – fervently wished this picked-up castaway – well – back again on the hulk from which he had been picked up. For Delia Calmour, with her beauty and tact and sunniness of disposition, had reigned a queen among the male section of the passengers, and the long voyage, now nearing its close, had been long enough to render more than one heart rather sore.

“I must not monopolise you all day, and every day, like this, child,” Wagram had said to her. “You are good-nature itself towards a tiresome old bore with but one idea in his head. You must go and make things lively for the others a bit sometimes or I shall feel like an interloper.”

“Am I tiring you, then?” she would answer softly.

“Now, you know that is absurd. Still, I must not be selfish.”

“You – selfish? What next?”

“I’m afraid I am – very. Now, they are getting up that last fancy-dress dance before we get into what may possibly be rough water. Go and help them in that as you would have done before. I want to see you enjoying yourself. I am afraid I am too much of a fogey to cut into that sort of thing actively myself.”

She did not answer that “that sort of thing” was an inane and vapid method of enjoying herself, compared with half-an-hour of ordinary conversation with him. She complied – and submissively. Incidentally, she found that the “enjoyment” involved a heated passage-of-arms with the third officer; item, subsequently with a fine young Australian whom she had refused twice during the voyage; but these were trifles light as air under the circumstances.

Then the days grew fewer and fewer, and the grey waters of the Bay of Biscay gave way to the greyer waters of the English Channel. The Runic would soon be securely docked in her berth.

Chapter Thirty Eight.

Time’s Chance

Wagram was seated in his private study at Hilversea, thinking.

It was a lovely spring morning, and through the open window came a very gurgle of bird voices from shrubbery and garden. The young green was rapidly shouldering out the winter brown of the woods, especially where the sprouting tassels of the larch coverts seem to grow beneath one’s very gaze.

Ah, how good it was to be back home again after his wandering and exile and anguish of mind – to be back here in his idolised home, in peace till the end of his days – and surely it would be so. He had done his uttermost to find his half-brother, and had failed – had failed, possibly, because Everard was no longer in the land of the living – murdered by that savage miscreant the renegade, so many of whose atrocities he himself had witnessed. And yet, if Develin Hunt’s account of Everard were correct, it was possible that he might have been slain by the other acting in self-defence.

What a unique experience had this last one been. He had no idea as to the identity of the wild tribes among whom he had moved, and the very haziest as to the part of the coast on which he had landed. As to the latter point, the opinions of the captain and officers of the Runic had differed considerably; indeed, he was not quite sure whether they entirely believed his story in every particular – not implying that he had deliberately invented it, but that parts of it might be due to hallucination begotten of anxiety and privation.

“That you should come to board that derelict twice, with an interval of months between, and each time by a sheer accident, is one of the tallest sea experiences within my knowledge, Mr Wagram,” had said Gibson, the chief officer of the Runic, one day when he was disclosing parts of his story. And he had laughed good-humouredly, and agreed that it really must be.

As a matter of fact, he had been very reticent over his experiences; partly that they would sound rather too wonderful, and partly that the recollection of them was distressing to himself and he would fain help them to fade.

Well, if Everard were no longer alive he himself was just where he had been. But was he? There were others with a claim. No; there were not. On this point he had seriously made up his mind. The very distant branch of the family – so distant, indeed, that it was doubtful whether it could establish a claim at all – he was not even acquainted with, but it was very wealthy. He remembered his father’s solemn declaration: “Morally, and in the sight of God, your position is just what it would have been but for this accident.” And his father had been right. Whatever doubt as to this may have crossed his mind at the time the words were uttered it held none whatever now. He had been brought back to that position, so to say, in spite of himself, had been restored to it by a chain of occurrences well-nigh miraculous, so much so, indeed, that others could scarcely credit them. Surely the finger of Heaven had been directing them.

There was just one thorn beneath the rose leaves, and it spelt Develin Hunt. What if that worthy should, on hearing of his return, conclude to try for a little more blackmail? In that event he had made up his mind to defy him. He was in possession – and such “possession” as that meant was practically unassailable legally; and it was only with the legal side of the situation he felt now concerned. But nothing had been heard of the adventurer since he had received the last instalment of his price. He seemed to have disappeared as suddenly as he had arisen.

Decidedly Wagram’s train of thought was strange that morning. Everything had been restored to him – everything as it had been; and yet – and yet – something was wanting. A feeling as of loneliness was upon him – upon him, the envied of all his acquaintance. He missed his father now that he reigned alone – missed him every minute of the day. The dear old man’s chair at table, in which he himself now sat – he missed him even while he was sitting there; his constant flow of sparkling reminiscence, his pungent wit, his good-natured cynicism and his affection for himself; and yet – and yet – he missed something else. What was it? The musical flow of a sweet young voice, the bright presence and ready and tactful sympathy of one who had been his companion for a short – in point of time, but in actual fact concentrated – fellowship. He went over again his first meeting with Delia Calmour and his father’s unhesitating dictum upon the house of Calmour in general. “A Calmour at Hilversea! Pho!” And now it seemed to him that the one thing lacking to render his cup of contentment full was the presence of one Calmour at Hilversea, and that one Delia. Incidentally, it struck him that for present purposes it was a good thing that old Calmour had been removed to another, and, he hoped, a better world; but only incidentally, for, having come to the conclusion he had, the mere removal of old Calmour and Siege House to a remoter part of the realm than Bassingham, and that under far greater conditions of comfort than that old toper could ever have pictured in his wildest dreams, would have been the merest matter of detail. However, old Calmour was no longer there, which simplified matters.

Then the cynical element came uppermost. His experience of the matrimonial bond had been lamentable; why, then, should he be ill-advised enough to make a second experiment of it? And yet – and yet – he had had ample opportunities of watching this girl, and she had seemed to shine out as pure gold from the alloy of her surroundings and bringing up. He was no fool, and had a large experience of the seamy side of life, which was sufficient to safeguard him from illusions. She was in poor circumstances, and life to her must be one of struggle. Such a bait as his position and wealth would be under the circumstances irresistible, but it was not under these circumstances that he wanted her. He was considerably her senior in years, and it was probable that in her young mind he ranked as a serious and elderly bore, whom she might have reason to hold in some regard, perhaps; but still – Against that, again, he remembered how that bright, beautiful face used to light up on such occasions as their first meeting of a morning, while on board ship, and on others. No; there was a spontaneity and genuineness about that expression that was due to no sordid motive.

Since his return he had been overwhelmed with calls and congratulations; indeed, part of his aim in life seemed to have become the dodging of such whenever practicable. Invitations, too, had not been lacking, with very propitious “beauty’s eyes” in the background, but for such he had no inclination. This girl whose acquaintance he had made in so strange and semi-tragical a manner, whose character he had watched develop ever since, seemed to have become bound up with his life, and now the last phase in the acquaintance was that she – and she alone – had been the actual instrument in the saving of his life. For herself, she had come out splendidly through all her disadvantages. Yes; her presence here was the one thing he needed – and he needed it greatly.

He remembered the arrival of the Runic. Clytie had been there to meet her sister, and the frank, cheerful greeting which she had extended to him had impressed him very favourably. He had been to see them since, and the favourable impression had deepened. There was no pretence about them in their new home. They had got to work, and work pretty hard too, and they were doing it with a brave hopefulness that was beyond all praise. And he had extracted a promise from them that if ever they found themselves in need of a friend – no matter what manner of difficulty might overtake them – they were to apply to him unhesitatingly, which was all he was able to do for them for the present.

Then his train of thought took another turn. The tin case he had found in the cuddy of the derelict he had never yet investigated – had not even opened it. He had been very busy since his return, and had put it aside till arrears of business should have been disposed of. He had resisted an inclination to open it on board the Runic, moved by the consciousness that there is no real privacy on board ship, and this, he felt instinctively, was a matter needing undisturbed and uninterrupted attention. Now he thought the time had come when he might very well do so.