The Pillar of Light Part 32

"If you would like to see him," he said, "I have no doubt Mr. Brand will let you stand on the gallery for a little while."

She declined, excusing herself on the ground of weakness.

"In this high wind," she said, "it will be very cold out there, and any further exposure would make me very ill."

"That's true enough," he agreed, though he wondered why she raised no question concerning the message she wished him to convey to Mr. Traill.

Had she forgotten the urgency of her words over night? He had carried her instructions quite faithfully to Brand and the latter smiled at the fantasy.

"Time enough to think of such things when we are a.s.sured of the lady's departure," he said, and they left it at that.

Thinking to interest her, Pyne told her of the crowd on the _Falcon_.

"Mostly reporters, Brand thinks," he said. "What a story they will build up in the New York papers. It will be more fun than a box of monkeys to get hold of this week's news and read all the flapdoodle they are printing."

But Mrs. Vansittart was not to be roused from her melancholy. She dreaded the least physical suffering. Privation was a new thing in her life. Today she was inert, timid, a woman who cowered away from the door and was obviously anxious that he should leave her to the quiet misery of the packed bedroom.

As the day pa.s.sed, a wearisome iteration of all that had gone before, a new feature in the relations of the crowded community made itself disagreeably apparent. Men drew apart from each other, singly, or in small groups. An inconsolable gloom settled on the women. By some means, the knowledge spread that they might all starve to death in the heart of this cold dungeon. They began to loathe it, to upbraid its steadfastness with spoken curses or unrestrained tears. The sanctuary of one day was becoming the tomb of the next. No longer was there compet.i.tion to look at land or sea from the open windows. Everywhere was settling down a pall of blank, horrible silence and suspicion.

Even Constance yielded to the common terror once when the men of the watch escorted the bearer of a tray-load of provisions to the occupants of the coal-cellar.

"Enid," she whispered, "did you see the light in their eyes? What is it?

Does hunger look that way?"

"It must be so, yet it is almost unbelievable. They are far removed from real starvation."

"One would think so. But it is so hard to realize things beforehand. And they have nothing to do. They are brooding all the time. We are slaves to our imagination. Many a sick person is allowed to eat far less than these men have been given, and the deprivation is not felt at all."

"What will become of us, Constance, if we are detained here for many days."

"Dear one, do not ask me. We must not think of such things."

"But dad is thinking of them. I watched his face when I took him a sc.r.a.p of food just now, and--"

"Hush, dear. Let us pray--and hope."

There was a clatter of feet down the iron stairs. The men of the watch were hustling to unbar the iron door. A solidly built, circular raft had been lowered from the Trinity tender.

An a.s.sistant-keeper, wearing a cork jacket, with a rope about his waist, was clinging to a stumpy mast in the centre. Two stout guide-ropes were manipulated from the deck of the vessel, and the flat, unwieldly ma.s.s of timber was slowly drifting nearer to the lighthouse with the tide.

The door of the column opened towards the east, so the wind, with its pelting sheets of spray, was almost in the opposite quarter, and the stout granite shaft itself afforded some degree of protection for the entrance.

The scheme signaled from the steamer was a good one. None but a lunatic would endeavor to approach the rock itself, but there was a chance that the raft might be made to drift near enough to the door to permit a grapnel to be thrown across the rope held by the gallant volunteer on the raft.

It was his duty to attach the two ropes and thus render it possible for a stronger line to be drawn from the vessel to the pillar. There was no other way. The lighthouse did not possess a rope of sufficient length to be drawn back by the raft without the intervention of some human agency.

This was precisely the puny, half-despairing dodge that the reef loved to play with. Cat-like, it permitted the queer, flat-bottomed craft to approach almost within hail. Then it shot forth a claw of furious surf, the heavy raft was picked up as if it were a floating feather, turned clean over, and flung many fathoms out to sea, whilst both of its guiding cables were snapped with contemptuous ease.

The a.s.sistant-keeper, kept afloat by his jacket, was hauled, half drowned, back through the choking froth, whilst the wave which overwhelmed the raft curled up a spiteful tongue and almost succeeded in dragging out several of the men stationed in the doorway.

With a clang the iron shutter was rushed into its place, and when the sailor was rescued the Trinity boat steamed away to try and secure the raft.

So joyous hope gave way once more to dark foreboding, and the only comfort was the faint one to be extracted from the parting signal:

"Will try again next tide."

CHAPTER XIII

BEFORE THE DAWN

Discipline slackened its bonds that night. For one thing Mr. Emmett fell ill. Although inured to hards.h.i.+p in the elemental strife, being of the stocky mariner race which holds the gruff Atlantic in no dread, he had never before been called on to eat sodden bread, to drink condensed steam flavored with varnish, and to chew sustenance from the rind of raw bacon. These drawbacks, added to the lack of exercise and the constant wearing of clothes not yet dry, placed him on the sick list.

Again, there were ominous whispers of unfair division in the matter of food. It was not within the realm of accomplishment that the purser, Constance, Enid, and others who helped to apportion the eatables could treat all alike. Some fared better than others in quality if not in quant.i.ty. The unfortunate ones growled, and talked of favoritism.

A crisis was reached when the second officer mustered the night watch.

When one sheep leads the others will follow. A stout German from Chicago asked bluntly:

"Vere's de goot of blayin' at moundin' gart? Dere is bud von ting to gart, und dat is der kidchen."

Community of interest caused many to huddle closer to him. Here was one who dared to say what they all thought. Their feet shuffled in support.

The officer, faithful to his trust, was tempted to fell the man, but he thought the circ.u.mstances warranted more gentle methods.

"Why are you dissatisfied?" he sternly demanded. "What do you suspect?

Are you fool enough to imagine that you are being cheated by people who are dividing their last crust with you?"

"How do ve know dat? Dose girls--dey are chokin' mit Mr. Pyne all der day. Dey can'd do dat und be hungry, like us."

"You unmitigated a.s.s!" said the disgusted officer. "There is food here for three people. They have fed eighty-one of us for two days and will keep us going several more days. Can't you figure it out? Isn't it a miracle? Here! Who's for guard and who not? Let us quit fooling."

And the doubters were silenced for the hour.

The hymn-singer endeavored to raise a chorus. He was not greeted with enthusiasm, but a few valiant spirits came to his a.s.sistance. A couple of hymns were feebly rendered--and again--silence.

"Say when," observed Pyne calmly when he entered the service-room to find Brand tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the spare lamp.

"Not tonight," said Brand.

"Why not? h.e.l.l may break loose at any moment downstairs."

"What has occurred? I heard something of a dispute when the watch mustered at eight o'clock."

"Things are worse now. One of the men found a gallon of methylated spirit in the work-shop."

"Good Heavens! Did he drink any of it?"