Louis Tracy - Flower of the Gorse

Meanwhile Ingersoll, exercising splendid self control, had not deserted his post. After the heavy backwash caused by the tidal wave, a sea had curled in from the open to fill the inlet again, and the Hirondelle was carried so near the reef that the stout oar bent under the strain of fending her off, and might conceivably have snapped had not some assistance been given by the ropes attached to the Stella. Another and more normal backwash came in the nick of time, and the boat retreated to her earlier position. Now, if the Fates were aught but merciless, there might be a breathing space.

Peridot's gray-green eyes sparkled as they met Tollemache's brown eyes, gazing up steadily from the swirl of waters.

"You all right?" he said, seizing the woman's arms.

"Why not?" said Tollemache. "Lift her aboard. Don't bother about me."

Ere Peridot had laid the dead or unconscious woman by the side of the man who had already given his life for her sake, Tollemache was on deck again, and lending a hand to the first sailor to cross by the ropes. The survivors followed rapidly, and the last to leave the Stella was her captain.

Ten men were rescued, – five sailors, including the master, two stokers, an engineer, a steward, and a passenger. The two last were in the saloon when the vessel struck, and had crawled on deck as best they could, the passenger having sustained a broken arm, and the steward a sprained ankle.

It was obvious, from the measures taken to safeguard the injured pair, that they were in urgent need of attention; but Peridot knew that the lives of all still trembled in the balance. So he bawled to Tollemache:

"Get the lady below, and as many of the others as you can pack in. During the next few minutes I want none but sailors on deck. Gars! Be quick about it too! No, don't trouble about that poor fellow. He's gone!"

Already he had cast off the ropes that formed the precarious bridge. Tollemache told the shipwrecked crew what the Breton had said, and they obeyed with the readiness of men who were aware of the paramount necessity of prompt action.

The Stella's captain had already summed up the new problem facing the Hirondelle, and issued his orders with decision. He and a sturdy deckhand helped Tollemache and Ingersoll with the sweeps, which were now to be used as oars, while the others carried the woman to the cabin, and helped their disabled shipmates to make the descent.

Yvonne, though unwilling to leave the deck until the next ordeal was ended, felt that she ought to sacrifice her own wishes to the need of a sister in distress; but Peridot settled the matter by bidding her take the tiller.

"We can't get back to the inside passage on this wind. If we tried it, Les Verrés would catch us," he said. "We'll forge out a bit with the sweeps. When clear of the yacht we'll be just clear of the reef too. When you see me begin to haul at the sail put the helm hard over for the seaward tack. We're going outside. You understand?"

"Perfectly," she said.

She ran between the four men laboring at the oars, well pleased to have a task that would absorb her mind to the exclusion of all else, and profoundly relieved because it took her away from the vicinity of the dead body. Even as the Stella's company were climbing on board she could not avoid an occasional glance at the huge and inert form at her feet. It was a dreadful thing to see the soul battered out of such a magnificent frame in such a way. Never before had she set eyes on a man of similar proportions. He was inches over six feet in height, and stout withal, so that he completely dwarfed the tall and sinewy frame of Laurence Tollemache, who hitherto had loomed as a giant among undersized Frenchmen. Oilskins and heavy sea boots added to the dead man's apparent bulk. His face, which wore a singularly placid expression, was well modeled. In youth he must have been extremely good looking; in middle age – apparently he was over fifty – he still retained clear-cut features, and strands of a plentiful crop of iron-gray hair dropped over a broad and high forehead.

The woman whom he had declined to intrust to the care of any but himself was probably his wife. Was she dead too? Yvonne wondered. It was almost equally certain that the yacht was theirs; though perhaps they might have hired it for a winter cruise in the Mediterranean by way of the Spanish coast.

These thoughts flitted through the girl's brain as she followed the last phases of the rescue. Now that her hand was on the tiller, and the open sea began to show beyond the yacht's bowsprit, her mind was occupied by the one remaining hazard to the exclusion of all else. She had every confidence in Peridot's seamanship, having been out with him many a time in weather that, if not quite so threatening as this, offered sufficient test of skill and nerve. But she knew well that once the full force of the tide was felt the oars would be useless, chiefly owing to their unwieldy length, and the doubt remained whether the Hirondelle would gain enough way to win out close hauled into deep water.

Still her heart leaped with high courage as her eyes took in the bold and striking picture presented by the deck of the fishing boat during that brief transit through broken seas. In the immediate foreground a small hatchway framed the weather-tanned faces of two men lodged in the companionway so as to avoid overcrowding the cabin. Behind were her father and the yacht's Captain at one oar, and Tollemache and a sailor at the other, pulling with the short, jerky, but powerful stroke alone possible in the conditions. Ingersoll's sallow, well marked, intellectual features were in sharp contrast with the fiery red skin, heavy cheeks and chin, bullet head, and short neck of the man by his side. For an instant the eyes of father and daughter met. He smiled encouragement, and the odd notion occurred to Yvonne that strangest of all the occurrences in an hour packed with incident was the fact that the thin hands that could achieve such marvels by the delicate manipulation of a camel's hair brush should be able to toil manfully at a cumbrous oar.

Then she looked at Lorry, and he grinned most cheerfully.

Skipper and sailor wore the stolid expression of men who didn't know, and didn't particularly care, what happened next. If anything, their watchful glances betrayed a total lack of belief in the wisdom of intrusting the helm to this slip of a girl.

Amidships, and slightly forward, Peridot was standing, both hands laced in the rope that should hoist the sail. The small jib had not been lowered. It was now flapping in the wind with reports like irregular pistol shots; but Yvonne knew it would fill and draw instantly when the tiller brought the boat's head around.

And beyond Peridot was the body of the man who had been snatched from life with such awful suddenness. The broad back and slightly outstretched legs kept it motionless no matter how the deck tilted; but the front skirts of the oilskin coat crackled noisily in the gale, and a lock of hair, though soaked and thick with salt, freed itself from the clammy forehead, and moved fitfully in every gust.

The artist instinct in the girl's heart dominated every other emotion at that moment. She felt that she could transfer this somber scene to canvas if she was spared. And what a study of action it would make! What staring lights and shadows! What types of character! The four men in strenuous effort, the anxious faces peering from the semiobscurity of the hatch, Peridot's sturdy figure braced for prompt and fierce endeavor, the still form with sightless eyes peering up at the sky, and all contained within the narrow compass of the deck, with the boat's prow now cutting the horizon, now threatening to take one last horrific dive into a wave overhanging it like a moving hillock! Beyond were a slate-blue sea flecked with white and scurrying clouds tipped with russet and gold by the last beams of a wintry sun.