The Wings of the Morning by Louis Tracy

L >> Louis Tracy >> The Wings of the Morning

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 14917-h.htm or 14917-h.zip:
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/9/1/14917/14917-h/14917-h.htm)
or
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/9/1/14917/14917-h.zip)

THE WINGS OF THE MORNING

by

LOUIS TRACY

Author of _A Son of the Immortals_, _The Stowaways_, _The Message_,
_The Wheel o' Fortune_, etc.

New York Grosset & Dunlap Publishers

1903.

_If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts
of the sea; even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall
hold me. Psalm CXXXIX, 9, 10_

[Illustration: INVOLUNTARILY SHE CAUGHT HIS ARM. HE STEPPED A HALF-PACE
IN FRONT OF HER TO WARD OFF ANY DANGER THAT MIGHT BE HERALDED BY THIS
UNCANNY PHENOMENON. _Frontispiece_]

CONTENTS

I The Wreck of the _Sirdar_
II The Survivors
III Discoveries
IV Rainbow Island
V Iris to the Rescue
VI Some Explanations
VII Surprises
VIII Preparations
IX The Secret of the Cave
X Reality v. Romance--The Case for the Plaintiff
XI The Fight
XII A Truce
XIII Reality v. Romance--The Case for the Defendant
XIV The Unexpected Happens
XV The Difficulty of Pleasing Everybody
XVI Bargains, Great and Small
XVII Rainbow Island Again--and Afterward

CHAPTER I

THE WRECK OF THE _SIRDAR_

Lady Tozer adjusted her gold-rimmed eye-glasses with an air of
dignified aggressiveness. She had lived too many years in the Far East.
In Hong Kong she was known as the "Mandarin." Her powers of merciless
inquisition suggested torments long drawn out. The commander of the
_Sirdar_, homeward bound from Shanghai, knew that he was about to
be stretched on the rack when he took his seat at the saloon table.

"Is it true, captain, that we are running into a typhoon?" demanded her
ladyship.

"From whom did you learn that, Lady Tozer?" Captain Ross was wary,
though somewhat surprised.

"From Miss Deane. I understood her a moment ago to say that you had
told her."

"I?"

"Didn't you? Some one told me this morning. I couldn't have guessed it,
could I?" Miss Iris Deane's large blue eyes surveyed him with innocent
indifference to strict accuracy. Incidentally, she had obtained the
information from her maid, a nose-tilted coquette who extracted ship's
secrets from a youthful quartermaster.

"Well--er--I had forgotten," explained the tactful sailor.

"Is it true?"

Lady Tozer _was_ unusually abrupt today. But she was annoyed by
the assumption that the captain took a mere girl into his confidence
and passed over the wife of the ex-Chief Justice of Hong Kong.

"Yes, it is," said Captain Ross, equally curt, and silently thanking
the fates that her ladyship was going home for the last time.

"How horrible!" she gasped, in unaffected alarm. This return to
femininity soothed the sailor's ruffled temper.

Sir John, her husband, frowned judicially. That frown constituted his
legal stock-in-trade, yet it passed current for wisdom with the Hong
Kong bar.

"What evidence have you?" he asked.

"Do tell us," chimed in Iris, delightfully unconscious of interrupting
the court. "Did you find out when you squinted at the sun?"

The captain smiled. "You are nearer the mark than possibly you imagine,
Miss Deane," he said. "When we took our observations yesterday there
was a very weird-looking halo around the sun. This morning you may have
noticed several light squalls and a smooth sea marked occasionally by
strong ripples. The barometer is falling rapidly, and I expect that, as
the day wears, we will encounter a heavy swell. If the sky looks wild
tonight, and especially if we observe a heavy bank of cloud approaching
from the north-west, you see the crockery dancing about the table at
dinner. I am afraid you are not a good sailor, Lady Tozer. Are you,
Miss Deane?"

"Capital! I should just love to see a real storm. Now promise me
solemnly that you will take me up into the charthouse when this typhoon
is simply tearing things to pieces."

"Oh dear! I do hope it will not be very bad. Is there no way in which
you can avoid it, captain? Will it last long?"

The politic skipper for once preferred to answer Lady Tozer. "There is
no cause for uneasiness," he said. "Of course, typhoons in the China
Sea are nasty things while they last, but a ship like the _Sirdar_
is not troubled by them. She will drive through the worst gale she is
likely to meet here in less than twelve hours. Besides, I alter the
course somewhat as soon as I discover our position with regard to its
center. You see, Miss Deane--"

And Captain Ross forthwith illustrated on the back of a menu card the
spiral shape and progress of a cyclone. He so thoroughly mystified the
girl by his technical references to northern and southern hemispheres,
polar directions, revolving air-currents, external circumferences, and
diminished atmospheric pressures, that she was too bewildered to
reiterate a desire to visit the bridge.

Then the commander hurriedly excused himself, and the passengers saw no
more of him that day.

But his short scientific lecture achieved a double result. It rescued
him from a request which he could not possibly grant, and reassured
Lady Tozer. To the non-nautical mind it is the unknown that is fearful.
A storm classed as "periodic," whose velocity can be measured, whose
duration and direction can be determined beforehand by hours and
distances, ceases to be terrifying. It becomes an accepted fact, akin
to the steam-engine and the electric telegraph, marvelous yet
commonplace.

So her ladyship dismissed the topic as of no present interest, and
focused Miss Deane through her eye-glasses.

"Sir Arthur proposes to come home in June, I understand?" she inquired.

Iris was a remarkably healthy young woman. A large banana momentarily
engaged her attention. She nodded affably.

"You will stay with relatives until he arrives?" pursued Lady Tozer.

The banana is a fruit of simple characteristics. The girl was able to
reply, with a touch of careless hauteur in her voice:

"Relatives! We have none--none whom we specially cultivate, that is. I
will stop in town a day or two to interview my dressmaker, and then go
straight to Helmdale, our place in Yorkshire."

"Surely you have a chaperon!"

"A chaperon! My dear Lady Tozer, did my father impress you as one who
would permit a fussy and stout old person to make my life miserable?"

The acidity of the retort lay in the word "stout." But Iris was not
accustomed to cross-examination. During a three months' residence on
the island she had learnt how to avoid Lady Tozer. Here it was
impossible, and the older woman fastened upon her asp-like. Miss Iris
Deane was a toothsome morsel for gossip. Not yet twenty-one, the only
daughter of a wealthy baronet who owned a fleet of stately ships--the
_Sirdar_ amongst them--a girl who had been mistress of her
father's house since her return from Dresden three years ago--young,
beautiful, rich--here was a combination for which men thanked a
judicious Heaven, whilst women sniffed enviously.

Business detained Sir Arthur. A war-cloud over-shadowed the two great
divisions of the yellow race. He must wait to see how matters
developed, but he would not expose Iris to the insidious treachery of a
Chinese spring. So, with tears, they separated. She was confided to the
personal charge of Captain Ross. At each point of call the company's
agents would be solicitous for her welfare. The cable's telegraphic eye
would watch her progress as that of some princely maiden sailing in
royal caravel. This fair, slender, well-formed girl--delightfully
English in face and figure--with her fresh, clear complexion, limpid
blue eyes, and shining brown hair, was a personage of some importance.

Lady Tozer knew these things and sighed complacently.

"Ah, well," she resumed. "Parents had different views when I was a
girl. But I assume Sir Arthur thinks you should become used to being
your own mistress in view of your approaching marriage."

"My--approaching--marriage!" cried Iris, now genuinely amazed.

"Yes. Is it not true that you are going to marry Lord Ventnor?"

A passing steward heard the point-blank question.

It had a curious effect upon him. He gazed with fiercely eager eyes at
Miss Deane, and so far forgot himself as to permit a dish of water ice
to rest against Sir John Tozer's bald head.

Iris could not help noting his strange behavior. A flash of humor
chased away her first angry resentment at Lady Tozer's interrogatory.

"That may be my happy fate," she answered gaily, "but Lord Ventnor has
not asked me."

"Every one says in Hong Kong--" began her ladyship.

"Confound you, you stupid rascal! what are you doing?" shouted Sir
John. His feeble nerves at last conveyed the information that something
more pronounced than a sudden draught affected his scalp; the ice was
melting.

The incident amused those passengers who sat near enough to observe it.
But the chief steward, hovering watchful near the captain's table,
darted forward. Pale with anger he hissed--

"Report yourself for duty in the second saloon tonight," and he hustled
his subordinate away from the judge's chair.

Miss Deane, mirthfully radiant, rose.

"Please don't punish the man, Mr. Jones," she said sweetly. "It was a
sheer accident. He was taken by surprise. In his place I would have
emptied the whole dish."

The chief steward smirked. He did not know exactly what had happened;
nevertheless, great though Sir John Tozer might be, the owner's
daughter was greater.

"Certainly, miss, certainly," he agreed, adding confidentially:--"It
_is_ rather hard on a steward to be sent aft, miss. It makes such
a difference in the--er--the little gratuities given by the
passengers."

The girl was tactful. She smiled comprehension at the official and bent
over Sir John, now carefully polishing the back of his skull with a
table napkin.

"I am sure you will forgive him," she whispered. "I can't say why, but
the poor fellow was looking so intently at me that he did not see what
he was doing."

The ex-Chief Justice was instantly mollified. He did not mind the
application of ice in that way--rather liked it, in fact--probably ice
was susceptible to the fire in Miss Deane's eyes.

Lady Tozer was not so easily appeased. When Iris left the saloon she
inquired tartly: "How is it, John, that Government makes a shipowner a
baronet and a Chief Justice only a knight?"

"That question would provide an interesting subject for debate at the
Carlton, my dear," he replied with equal asperity.

Suddenly the passengers still seated experienced a prolonged sinking
sensation, as if the vessel had been converted into a gigantic lift.
They were pressed hard into their chairs, which creaked and tried to
swing round on their pivots. As the ship yielded stiffly to the sea a
whiff of spray dashed through an open port.

"There," snapped her ladyship, "I knew we should run into a storm, yet
Captain Ross led us to believe---- John, take me to my cabin at once."

From the promenade deck the listless groups watched the rapid advance
of the gale. There was mournful speculation upon the _Sirdar's_
chances of reaching Singapore before the next evening.

"We had two hundred and ninety-eight miles to do at noon," said
Experience. "If the wind and sea catch us on the port bow the ship will
pitch awfully. Half the time the screw will be racing. I once made this
trip in the _Sumatra_, and we were struck by a south-east typhoon
in this locality. How long do you think it was before we dropped anchor
in Singapore harbor?"

No one hazarded a guess.

"Three days!" Experience was solemnly pompous. "Three whole days. They
were like three years. By Jove! I never want to see another gale like
that."

A timid lady ventured to say--

"Perhaps this may not be a typhoon. It may only be a little bit of
a storm."

Her sex saved her from a jeer. Experience gloomily shook his head.

"The barometer resists your plea," he said. "I fear there will be a
good many empty saddles in the saloon at dinner."

The lady smiled weakly. It was a feeble joke at the best. "You think we
are in for a sort of marine steeple-chase?" she asked.

"Well, thank Heaven, I had a good lunch," sniggered a rosy-faced
subaltern, and a ripple of laughter greeted his enthusiasm.

Iris stood somewhat apart from the speakers. The wind had freshened and
her hat was tied closely over her ears. She leaned against the
taffrail, enjoying the cool breeze after hours of sultry heat. The sky
was cloudless yet, but there was a queer tinge of burnished copper in
the all-pervading sunshine. The sea was coldly blue. The life had gone
out of it. It was no longer inviting and translucent. That morning,
were such a thing practicable, she would have gladly dived into its
crystal depths and disported herself like a frolicsome mermaid. Now
something akin to repulsion came with the fanciful remembrance.

Long sullen undulations swept noiselessly past the ship. Once, after a
steady climb up a rolling hill of water, the _Sirdar_ quickly
pecked at the succeeding valley, and the propeller gave a couple of
angry flaps on the surface, whilst a tremor ran through the stout iron
rails on which the girl's arms rested.

The crew were busy too. Squads of Lascars raced about, industriously
obedient to the short shrill whistling of jemadars and quartermasters.
Boat lashings were tested and tightened, canvas awnings stretched
across the deck forward, ventilator cowls twisted to new angles, and
hatches clamped down over the wooden gratings that covered the holds.
Officers, spotless in white linen, flitted quietly to and fro. When the
watch was changed. Iris noted that the "chief" appeared in an old blue
suit and carried oilskins over his arm as he climbed to the bridge.

Nature looked disturbed and fitful, and the ship responded to her mood.
There was a sense of preparation in the air, of coming ordeal, of
restless foreboding. Chains clanked with a noise the girl never noticed
before; the tramp of hurrying men on the hurricane deck overhead
sounded heavy and hollow. There was a squeaking of chairs that was
abominable when people gathered up books and wraps and staggered
ungracefully towards the companion-way. Altogether Miss Deane was not
wholly pleased with the preliminaries of a typhoon, whatever the
realities might be.

And then, why did gales always spring up at the close of day? Could
they not start after breakfast, rage with furious grandeur during
lunch, and die away peacefully at dinner-time, permitting one to sleep
in comfort without that straining and groaning of the ship which seemed
to imply a sharp attack of rheumatism in every joint?

Why did that silly old woman allude to her contemplated marriage to
Lord Ventnor, retailing the gossip of Hong Kong with such malicious
emphasis? For an instant Iris tried to shake the railing in comic
anger. She hated Lord Ventnor. She did not want to marry him, or
anybody else, just yet. Of course her father had hinted approval of his
lordship's obvious intentions. Countess of Ventnor! Yes, it was a nice
title. Still, she wanted another couple of years of careless freedom;
in any event, why should Lady Tozer pry and probe?

And finally, why did the steward--oh, poor old Sir John! What
_would_ have happened if the ice had slid down his neck?
Thoroughly comforted by this gleeful hypothesis, Miss Deane seized a
favorable opportunity to dart across to the starboard side and see if
Captain Ross's "heavy bank of cloud in the north-west" had put in an
appearance.

Ha! there it was, black, ominous, gigantic, rolling up over the horizon
like some monstrous football. Around it the sky deepened into purple,
fringed with a wide belt of brick red. She had never seen such a
beginning of a gale. From what she had read in books she imagined that
only in great deserts were clouds of dust generated. There could not be
dust in the dense pall now rushing with giant strides across the
trembling sea. Then what was it? Why was it so dark and menacing? And
where was desert of stone and sand to compare with this awful expanse
of water? What a small dot was this great ship on the visible surface!
But the ocean itself extended away beyond there, reaching out to the
infinite. The dot became a mere speck, undistinguishable beneath a
celestial microscope such as the gods might condescend to use.

Iris shivered and aroused herself with a startled laugh.

A nice book in a sheltered corner, and perhaps forty winks until
tea-time--surely a much more sensible proceeding than to stand there,
idly conjuring up phantoms of affright.

The lively fanfare of the dinner trumpet failed to fill the saloon. By
this time the _Sirdar_ was fighting resolutely against a stiff
gale. But the stress of actual combat was better than the eerie
sensation of impending danger during the earlier hours. The strong,
hearty pulsations of the engines, the regular thrashing of the screw,
the steadfast onward plunging of the good ship through racing seas and
flying scud, were cheery, confident, and inspiring.

Miss Deane justified her boast that she was an excellent sailor. She
smiled delightedly at the ship's surgeon when he caught her eye through
the many gaps in the tables. She was alone, so he joined her.

"You are a credit to the company--quite a sea-king's daughter," he
said.

"Doctor, do you talk to all your lady passengers in that way?"

"Alas, no! Too often I can only be truthful when I am dumb."

Iris laughed. "If I remain long on this ship I will certainly have my
head turned," she cried. "I receive nothing but compliments from the
captain down to--to----

"The doctor!"

"No. You come a good second on the list."

In very truth she was thinking of the ice-carrying steward and his
queer start of surprise at the announcement of her rumored engagement.
The man interested her. He looked like a broken-down gentleman. Her
quick eyes traveled around the saloon to discover his whereabouts. She
could not see him. The chief steward stood near, balancing himself in
apparent defiance of the laws of gravitation, for the ship was now
pitching and rolling with a mad zeal. For an instant she meant to
inquire what had become of the transgressor, but she dismissed the
thought at its inception. The matter was too trivial.

With a wild swoop all the plates, glasses, and cutlery on the saloon
tables crashed to starboard. Were it not for the restraint of the
fiddles everything must have been swept to the floor. There were one or
two minor accidents. A steward, taken unawares, was thrown headlong on
top of his laden tray. Others were compelled to clutch the backs of
chairs and cling to pillars. One man involuntarily seized the hair of a
lady who devoted an hour before each meal to her coiffure. The
_Sirdar_, with a frenzied bound, tried to turn a somersault.

"A change of course," observed the doctor. "They generally try to avoid
it when people are in the saloon, but a typhoon admits of no labored
politeness. As its center is now right ahead we are going on the
starboard tack to get behind it."

"I must hurry up and go on deck," said Miss Deane.

"You will not be able to go on deck until the morning."

She turned on him impetuously. "Indeed I will. Captain Ross promised
me--that is, I asked him----"

The doctor smiled. She was so charmingly insistent. "It is simply
impossible," he said. "The companion doors are bolted. The promenade
deck is swept by heavy seas every minute. A boat has been carried away
and several stanchions snapped off like carrots. For the first time in
your life, Miss Deane, you are battened down."

The girl's face must have paled somewhat. He added hastily, "There is
no danger, you know, but these precautions are necessary. You would not
like to see several tons of water rushing down the saloon stairs; now,
would you?"

"Decidedly not." Then after a pause, "It is not pleasant to be fastened
up in a great iron box, doctor. It reminds one of a huge coffin."

"Not a bit. The _Sirdar_ is the safest ship afloat. Your father
has always pursued a splendid policy in that respect. The London and
Hong Kong Company may not possess fast vessels, but they are seaworthy
and well found in every respect."

"Are there many people ill on board?"

"No; just the usual number of disturbed livers. We had a nasty accident
shortly before dinner."

"Good gracious! What happened?"

"Some Lascars were caught by a sea forward. One man had his leg
broken."

"Anything else?"

The doctor hesitated. He became interested in the color of some
Burgundy. "I hardly know the exact details yet," he replied. "Tomorrow
after breakfast I will tell you all about it."

An English quartermaster and four Lascars had been licked from off the
forecastle by the greedy tongue of a huge wave. The succeeding surge
flung the five men back against the quarter. One of the black sailors
was pitched aboard, with a fractured leg and other injuries. The others
were smashed against the iron hull and disappeared.

For one tremulous moment the engines slowed. The ship commenced to veer
off into the path of the cyclone. Captain Ross set his teeth, and the
telegraph bell jangled "Full speed ahead."

"Poor Jackson!" he murmured. "One of my best men. I remember seeing his
wife, a pretty little woman, and two children coming to meet him last
homeward trip. They will be there again. Good God! That Lascar who was
saved has some one to await him in a Bombay village, I suppose."

The gale sang a mad requiem to its victims. The very surface was torn
from the sea. The ship drove relentlessly through sheets of spray that
caused the officers high up on the bridge to gasp for breath. They held
on by main force, though protected by strong canvas sheets bound to the
rails. The main deck was quite impassable. The promenade deck, even the
lofty spar deck, was scourged with the broken crests of waves that
tried with demoniac energy to smash in the starboard bow, for the
_Sirdar_ was cutting into the heart of the cyclone.

The captain fought his way to the charthouse. He wiped the salt water
from his eyes and looked anxiously at the barometer.

"Still falling!" he muttered. "I will keep on until seven o'clock and
then bear three points to the southward. By midnight we should be
behind it."

He struggled back into the outside fury. By comparison the sturdy
citadel he quitted was Paradise on the edge of an inferno.

Down in the saloon the hardier passengers were striving to subdue the
ennui of an interval before they sought their cabins. Some talked. One
hardened reprobate strummed the piano. Others played cards, chess,
draughts, anything that would distract attention.

The stately apartment offered strange contrast to the warring elements
without. Bright lights, costly upholstery, soft carpets, carved panels
and gilded cornices, with uniformed attendants passing to and fro
carrying coffee and glasses--these surroundings suggested a floating
palace in which the raging seas were defied. Yet forty miles away,
somewhere in the furious depths, four corpses swirled about with
horrible uncertainty, lurching through battling currents, and perchance
convoyed by fighting sharks.

The surgeon had been called away. Iris was the only lady left in the
saloon. She watched a set of whist players for a time and then essayed
the perilous passage to her stateroom. She found her maid and a
stewardess there. Both women were weeping.

"What is the matter?" she inquired.

The stewardess tried to speak. She choked with grief and hastily went
out. The maid blubbered an explanation.

"A friend of hers was married, miss, to the man who is drowned."

"Drowned! What man?"

"Haven't you heard, miss? I suppose they are keeping it quiet. An
English sailor and some natives were swept off the ship by a sea. One
native was saved, but he is all smashed up. The others were never seen
again."

Iris by degrees learnt the sad chronicles of the Jackson family. She
was moved to tears. She remembered the doctor's hesitancy, and her own
idle phrase--"a huge coffin."

Outside the roaring waves pounded upon the iron walls.

Were they not satiated? This tragedy had taken all the grandeur out of
the storm. It was no longer a majestic phase of nature's power, but an
implacable demon, bellowing for a sacrifice. And that poor woman, with
her two children, hopefully scanning the shipping lists for news of the
great steamer, news which, to her, meant only the safety of her
husband. Oh, it was pitiful!

Iris would not be undressed. The maid sniveled a request to be allowed
to remain with her mistress. She would lie on a couch until morning.

Two staterooms had been converted into one to provide Miss Deane with
ample accommodation. There were no bunks, but a cozy bed was screwed to
the deck. She lay down, and strove to read. It was a difficult task.
Her eyes wandered from the printed page to mark the absurd antics of
her garments swinging on their hooks. At times the ship rolled so far
that she felt sure it must topple over. She was not afraid; but
subdued, rather astonished, placidly prepared for vague eventualities.
Through it all she wondered why she clung to the belief that in another
day or two the storm would be forgotten, and people playing quoits on
deck, dancing, singing coon songs in the music-room, or grumbling at
the heat.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21