The Lamp of Fate Part 45

CHAPTER XIX

AT THE END OF THE STORM

"This is very nice--but it won't exactly contribute towards finis.h.i.+ng the picture!"

As she spoke Magda leaned back luxuriously against her cus.h.i.+ons and glanced smilingly across at Michael where he sat with his hand on the tiller of the _Bella Donna_, the little sailing-yacht which Lady Arabella kept for the amus.e.m.e.nt of her guests rather than for her own enjoyment, since she herself could rarely be induced to go on board.

It had been what Magda called a "blue day"--the sky overhead a deep unbroken azure, the dimpling, dancing waters of the Solent flinging back a blue almost as vivid--and she and Quarrington had put out from Netherway harbour in the morning and crossed to Cowes.

Here they had lunched and Magda had purchased one or two of the necessities of life (from a feminine point of view) not procurable in the village emporia at Netherway. Afterwards, as there was still ample time before they need think of returning home, Michael had suggested an hour's run down towards the Needles.

The _Bella Donna_ sped gaily before the wind, and neither of its occupants, engrossed in conversation, noticed that away to windward a bank of sullen cloud was creeping forward, slowly but surely eating up the blue of the sky.

"Of course it will contribute towards finis.h.i.+ng the picture."

Quarrington answered Magda's laughing comment composedly. "A blow like this will have done you all the good in the world, and I shan't have you collapsing on my hands again as you did a week ago."

"Oh, then, you brought me out on hygienic grounds alone?" derided Magda.

She was feeling unaccountably happy and light-hearted. Since the day when she had fainted during the sitting Michael seemed to have changed.

He no longer gave utterance to those sudden, gibing speeches which had so often hurt her intolerably. That sense of his aloofness, as though a great wall rose between them, was gone. Somehow she felt that he had drawn nearer to her, and once or twice those grey, compelling eyes had glowed with a smothered fire that had set her heart racing unsteadily within her.

"Haven't you enjoyed to-day, then?" he inquired, responding to her question with another.

"I've loved it," she answered simply. "I think if I'd been a man I should have chosen to be a sailor."

"Then it's a good thing heaven saw to it that you were a woman. The world couldn't have done without its Wielitzska."

"Oh, I don't know"--half-indifferently, half-wistfully. "It's astonis.h.i.+ng how little necessary anyone really is in this world. If I were drowned this afternoon the Imperial management would soon find someone to take my place."

"But your friends wouldn't," he said quietly.

Magda laughed a little uncertainly.

"Well, I won't suggest we put them to the test, so please take me home safely."

As she spoke a big drop of rain splashed down on to her hand. Then another and another. Simultaneously she and Michael glanced upwards to the sky overhead, startlingly transformed from an arch of quivering blue into a monotonous expanse of grey, across which came sweeping drifts of black cloud, heavy with storm.

"By Jove! We're in for it!" muttered Quarrington.

His voice held a sudden gravity. He knew the danger of those unexpected squalls which trap the unwary in the Solent, and inwardly he cursed himself for not having observed the swift alteration in the weather.

The _Bella Donna_, too, was by no means the safest of craft in which to meet rough weather. She was slipping along very fast now, and Michael's keen glance swept the gray landscape to where, at the mouth of the channel, the treacherous Needles sentinelled the open sea.

"We must bring her round--quick!" he said sharply, springing up. "Can you take the tiller? Do you know how to steer?"

Magda caught the note of urgency in his voice.

"I can do what you tell me," she said quietly.

"Do you know port from starboard?" he asked grimly.

"Yes. I know that."

Even while they had been speaking the wind had increased, churning the sea into foam-flecked billows that swirled and broke only to gather anew.

It was ticklish work bringing the _Bella Donna_ to the wind. Twice she refused to come, lurching sickeningly as she rolled broadside on to the race of wind-driven waves. The third time she heeled over till her canvas almost brushed the surface of the water and it seemed as though she must inevitably capsize. There was an instant's agonised suspense.

Then she righted herself, the mainsail bellied out as the boom swung over, and the tense moment pa.s.sed.

"Frightened?" queried Quarrington when he had made fast the mainsheet.

Magda smiled straight into his eyes.

"No. We almost capsized then, didn't we?"

"It was a near shave," he answered bluntly.

They did not speak much after that. They had enough to do to catch the wind which seemed to bl.u.s.ter from all quarters at once, coming in violent, gusty spurts that shook the frail little vessel from stem to stern. Time after time the waves broke over her bows, flooding the deck and drenching them both with stinging spray.

Magda sat very still, maintaining her grip of the wet and slippery tiller with all the strength of her small, determined hands. Her limbs ached with cold. The piercing wind and rain seemed to penetrate through her thin summer clothing to her very skin. But unwaveringly she responded to Michael's orders as they reached her through the bellowing of the gale. Her eyes were like stars and her lips closed in a scarlet line of courage.

"Port your helm! _Hard_! . . . Hold on!"

Then the thudding swing of the boom as the _Bella Donna_ slewed round on a fresh tack.

The hurly-burly of the storm was bewildering. In the last hour or so the entire aspect of things had altered, and Magda was conscious of a freakish sense of the unreality of it all. With the ridiculous inconsequence of thought that so often accompanies moments of acute anxiety she reflected that Noah probably experienced a somewhat similar astonishment when he woke up one morning to find that the Flood had actually begun.

It seemed as though the storm had reached out long arms and drawn the whole world of land and sea and sky into its turbulent embrace. Driving sheets of rain blurred the coastline on either hand, while the wind caught up the grey waters into tossing, crested billows and flung them down again in a smother of angry spume.

Overhead, it screamed through the rigging of the little craft like a tormented devil, tearing at the straining canvas with devouring fingers while the slender mast groaned beneath its force.

Suddenly a terrific gust of wind seemed to strike the boat like an actual blow. Magda saw Michael leap aside, and in the same instant came a splitting, shattering report as the mast snapped in half and a tangled ma.s.s of wood and cordage and canvas fell crash on to the deck where he had been standing.

Magda uttered a cry and sprang to her feet. For an instant her heart seemed to stop beating as she visioned him beneath the ma.s.s of tackle.

Or had he been swept off his feet--overboard into the welter of grey, surging waters that clamoured round the boat?

The moment of uncertainty seemed endless, immeasurable. Then Michael appeared, stepping across the wreckage, and came towards her. The relief was almost unendurable. She stretched out shaking hands.

"Oh, Michael! . . . Michael!" she cried sobbingly.

And all at once she was in his arms. She felt them close about her, strong as steel and tender as love itself. In the rocking, helpless boat, with the storm beating up around them and death a sudden, imminent hazard, she had come at last into haven.

An hour later the storm had completely died away. It had begun to abate in violence almost immediately after the breaking of the _Bella Donna's_ mast. It was as though, having wreaked its fury and executed all the damage possible short of absolute destruction, it was satisfied. With the same suddenness with which it had arisen it sank away, leaving a sulky, sunless sky brooding above a sullen sea still heaving restlessly with the aftermath of tempest.

The yacht had drifted gradually out of mid-channel sh.o.r.ewards, and after one or two unsuccessful efforts Quarrington at last succeeded in casting anchor. Then he turned to Magda, who had been a.s.sisting in the operation, with a smile.

"That's about all we can do," he said. "We're perfectly helpless till some tug or steamer comes along."