The Crusade of the Excelsior Part 6

"You are better then, Mr. Hurlstone? We--we were all so frightened for you."

An angry shadow crossed his thin face, and he hesitated. After a pause he recovered himself, and said,--

"I was saying you were taking all this very quietly. I don't think there's much danger myself. And if we should go ash.o.r.e here"--

"Well?" suggested Miss Keene, ignoring this first intimation of danger in her surprise at the man's manner.

"Well, we should all be separated only a few days earlier, that's all!"

More frightened at the strange bitterness of his voice than by the sense of physical peril, she was vaguely moving away towards the dimly outlined figures of her companions when she was arrested by a voice forward. There was a slight murmur among the pa.s.sengers.

"What did he say?" asked Miss Keene, "What are 'Breakers ahead'?"

Hurlstone did not reply.

"Where away?" asked a second voice.

The murmur still continuing, Captain Bunker's hoa.r.s.e voice pierced the gloom,--"Silence fore and aft!"

The first voice repeated faintly,--

"On the larboard bow."

There was another silence. Again the voice repeated, as if mechanically,--

"Breakers!"

"Where away?"

"On the starboard beam."

"We are in some pa.s.sage or channel," said Hurlstone quietly.

The young girl glanced round her and saw for the first time that, in one of those inexplicable movements she had not understood, the other pa.s.sengers had been withdrawn into a limited s.p.a.ce of the deck, as if through some authoritative orders, while she and her companion had been evidently overlooked. A couple of sailors, who had suddenly taken their positions by the quarter-boats, strengthened the accidental separation.

"Is there some one taking care of you?" he asked, half hesitatingly; "Mr. Brace--Perkins--or"--

"No," she replied quickly. "Why?"

"Well, we are very near the boat in an emergency, and you might allow me to stay here and see you safe in it."

"But the other ladies? Mrs. Markham, and"--

"They'll take their turn after YOU," he said grimly, picking up a wrap from the railing and throwing it over her shoulders.

"But--I don't understand!" she stammered, more embarra.s.sed by the situation than by any impending peril.

"There is very little danger, I think," he added impatiently. "There is scarcely any sea; the s.h.i.+p has very little way on; and these breakers are not over rocks. Listen."

She tried to listen. At first she heard nothing but the occasional low voice of command near the wheel. Then she became conscious of a gentle, soothing murmur through the fog to the right. She had heard such a murmuring accompaniment to her girlish dreams at Newport on a still summer night. There was nothing to frighten her, but it increased her embarra.s.sment.

"And you?" she said awkwardly, raising her soft eyes.

"Oh, if you are all going off in the boats, by Jove, I think I'll stick to the s.h.i.+p!" he returned, with a frankness that would have been rude but for its utter abstraction.

Miss Keene was silent. The s.h.i.+p moved gently onward. The monotonous cry of the leadsman in the chains was the only sound audible. The soundings were indicating shoaler water, although the murmuring of the surf had been left far astern. The almost imperceptible darkening of the mist on either beam seemed to show that the Excelsior was entering some land-locked pa.s.sage. The movement of the vessel slackened, the tide was beginning to ebb. Suddenly a wave of far-off clamor, faint but sonorous, broke across the s.h.i.+p. There was an interval of breathless silence, and then it broke again, and more distinctly. It was the sound of bells!

The thrill of awe which pa.s.sed through pa.s.sengers and crew at this spiritual challenge from the vast and intangible void around them had scarcely subsided when the captain turned to Senor Perkins with a look of surly interrogation. The Senor brushed his hat further back on his head, wiped his brow, and became thoughtful.

"It's too far south for Rosario," he said deprecatingly; "and the only other mission I know of is San Carlos, and that's far inland. But that is the Angelus, and those are mission bells, surely."

The captain turned to Mr. Brooks. The voice of invisible command again pa.s.sed along the deck, and, with a splash in the water and the rattling of chains, the Excelsior swung slowly round on her anchor on the bosom of what seemed a placid bay.

Miss Keene, who, in her complete absorption, had listened to the phantom bells with an almost superst.i.tious exaltation, had forgotten the presence of her companion, and now turned towards him. But he was gone.

The imminent danger he had spoken of, half slightingly, he evidently considered as past. He had taken the opportunity offered by the slight bustle made by the lowering of the quarter-boat and the departure of the mate on a voyage of discovery to mingle with the crowd, and regain his state-room. With the anchoring of the vessel, the momentary restraint was relaxed, the pa.s.sengers were allowed to pervade the deck, and Mrs.

Markham and Mr. Brace simultaneously rushed to Miss Keene's side.

"We were awfully alarmed for you, my dear," said Mrs. Markham, "until we saw you had a protector. Do tell me--what DID he say? He must have thought the danger great to have broken the Senor's orders and come upon deck? What did he talk about?"

With a vivid recollection in her mind of Mr. Hurlstone's contemptuous ignoring of the other ladies, Miss Keene became slightly embarra.s.sed.

Her confusion was not removed by the consciousness that the jealous eyes of Brace were fixed upon her.

"Perhaps he thought it was night, and walked upon deck in his sleep,"

remarked Brace sarcastically. "He's probably gone back to bed."

"He offered me his protection very politely, and begged to remain to put me in the boat in case of danger," said Miss Keene, recovering herself, and directing her reply to Mrs. Markham. "I think that others have made me the same kind of offer--who were wide awake," she added mischievously to Brace.

"I wouldn't be too sure that they were not foolishly dreaming too,"

returned Brace, in a lower voice.

"I should think we all were asleep or dreaming here," said Mrs. Markham briskly. "n.o.body seems to know where we are, and the only man who might guess it--Senor Perkins--has gone off in the boat with the mate."

"We're not a mile from sh.o.r.e and a Catholic church," said Crosby, who had joined them. "I just left Mrs. Brimmer, who is very High Church, you know, quite overcome by these Angelus bells. She's been entreating the captain to let her go ash.o.r.e for vespers. It wouldn't be a bad idea, if we could only see what sort of a place we've got to. It wouldn't do to go feeling round the settlement in the dark--would it? Hallo! what's that? Oh, by Jove, that'll finish Mrs. Brimmer, sure!"

"Hus.h.!.+" said Miss Keene impulsively.

He stopped. The long-drawn cadence of a chant in thin clear soprano voices swept through the fog from the invisible sh.o.r.e, rose high above the s.h.i.+p, and then fell, dying away with immeasurable sweetness and melancholy. Even when it had pa.s.sed, a lingering melody seemed to fill the deck. Two or three of the foreign sailors crossed themselves devoutly; the other pa.s.sengers withheld their speech, and looked at each other. Afraid to break the charm by speech, they listened again, but in vain an infinite repose followed that seemed to pervade everything.

It was broken, at last, by the sound of oars in their rowlocks; the boat was returning. But it was noticed that the fog had slightly lifted from the surface of the water, for the boat was distinctly visible two cables' length from the s.h.i.+p as she approached; and it was seen that besides the first officer and Senor Perkins there were two strangers in the boat. Everybody rushed to the side for a nearer view of those strange inhabitants of the unknown sh.o.r.e; but the boat's crew suddenly ceased rowing, and lay on their oars until an indistinct hail and reply pa.s.sed between the boat and s.h.i.+p. There was a bustle forward, an unexpected thunder from the Excelsior's eight-pounder at the bow port; Captain Bunker and the second mate ranged themselves at the companionway, and the pa.s.sengers for the first time became aware that they were partic.i.p.ating at the reception of visitors of distinction, as two strange and bizarre figures stepped upon the deck.

CHAPTER V.

TODOS SANTOS.