CHAPTER XXVI

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*IN DANGER ALL*

It was, indeed, a solemn little group that was seated around the table in the great cabin of the _Stephanie_. The dominant spirit of the occasion was not the masterful financier, the brilliant young executive, or the beautiful and charming maiden. It was a grizzled veteran sailor who had called the conference in that section of the _Stephanie_ which he rarely entered save for business purposes. The grave anxiety of Captain Weatherby's face was reflected in the faces of John Maynard, George Harnash, and Stephanie Maynard.

"And you think the yacht's condition is serious, do you?" asked Maynard.

"Just about as serious as it could be, Mr. Maynard," answered the captain.

"Yet there's not a better built ship on the seas than this," observed Harnash.

"Granted," said Captain Weatherby; "she's all that money and skill and steel and science could make her, but she's only a manufactured article, after all, and she has just bucked the biggest thing in nature. That she has come off as well as she has is a tribute to her builders."

"And to her sailing master," put in Stephanie deftly.

"If you hadn't handled her just as you did, none of us would be here now," added Harnash heartily.

"That's as may be," answered the captain modestly.

"It's the blessing of God and your own skill," commented Maynard.

But the captain went on.

"We are here, but the yacht is in bad condition. She is making water faster than the pumps can keep it down."

"Is there any immediate danger of our foundering?" asked Maynard.

"Every danger. In fact, it is certain, unless--"

The captain paused.

"Unless what?" asked the owner.

"I've sailed with you a long time, now, Mr. Maynard. I know your temper on land and sea, and that of these young people, as well. What you want is the plain, blunt truth, and you're going to get it. Unless I can beach this yacht somewhere within the next twenty-four hours, send a diver down, and, if necessary, careen her, and come at the leaks, she--"

He paused again. It was not necessary for him to go on. His meaning was obvious to all of them.

"In that case, there are always the boats," observed Harnash.

"Have you been on deck this morning, Mr. Harnash?" asked the captain.

"Yes, I have."

"How many boats did you see?"

"By Jove!" exclaimed Harnash, "I forgot that."

"Of course," said the captain, smiling grimly at his own sarcasm; "and a landlubber like you, meaning no offense, sir, wouldn't be apt to notice it, but the deck has been swept clean. The bridge is still there, and the smoke stacks, but pretty much everything else is gone. There's not a boat left at the davits, and even the launch amidships is badly stove up."

"A raft?" said old Maynard.

"There's not much woodwork in this boat fit to make a raft out of, sir," answered the captain, "but I've got the men at work on the wooden fittings and doors trying to patch up something."

"Of course, we're not in any immediate danger," said Stephanie.

"Depends upon what you mean by 'immediate,' Miss Maynard. The yacht will float for twenty-four hours; perhaps thirty-six."

"Then, after that, we shall be in God's hands," said the girl quietly.

It was a platitude, of course; but, in great emergencies, humanity always resorts to platitudes. They are familiar; made to order, as it were; and resorted to as the line of least resistance. There are certain conventional expressions to which man instinctively reverts. Men exclaim, "My God!" in the crisis, even though He be none of theirs and they have not hitherto known Him.

"In His hands, Miss, and mine," said the captain steadily with the assurance of the capable and efficient.

"What else have you done or planned?" asked Maynard.

"I've searched for the leak but we cannot locate it. The hours after the tidal wave were so full that it got a start on us, but we are keeping the pumps going while working away at the raft."

"Of course; but that is a last resort."

"I'm driving the ship as hard as I can, too, sir."

"In the hope of what?"

"There's an uninhabited island to the nor'west of us; hasn't even a name that anyone recognizes. I'm heading for it."

"Can you careen the ship there?"

The captain shook his head.

"The charts say that it is completely surrounded by a barrier reef. It appears to be a volcanic rock about which the coral builders have been busy. But it is the nearest land; the only land we can possibly make in our present condition; and, at least, we won't drown on it. We can save enough from the _Stephanie_ to support life, and I have no doubt we can find some means of getting away or communicating with other ships," continued the veteran sailor confidently, although he knew, and everyone else realized, more or less, that the chance of either was very slim.

"Well, whatever happens to us, Captain Weatherby," said Harnash, "I'll never forget my last glimpses of you on the bridge, jumping the boat at full speed into that tidal wave."

"It was our only chance, Mr. Harnash," said the captain. "If that wave had caught us broadside, or even on the quarter or astern, we would have gone down like a stone."

Indeed, no one aboard the ship would ever forget the approach of that great, roaring, thunderous tidal wave. No one would ever fail to remember how Captain Weatherby, as cool as he was at that moment in the cabin, standing on the bridge, had shifted his helm, had pointed the bows of the yacht at the rushing, whirling water, had signaled for every pound of steam, and had driven the great white ship at full speed fairly and squarely into the midst of it.

Before it broke and fell the three passengers had been ordered--yes, that is the word, ordered--below. Captain Weatherby had been prepared to detail seamen, who would have obeyed him unquestionably, to carry the great magnate who owned the ship and the other two below if they had hesitated a moment in complying with his command. He did not even stop in the emergency to put it in the form of a request or suggestion. John Maynard knew a man when he saw him, and without a moment's hesitation, he went aft and plunged below with the others, just in time, too, for the hatches to be battened down and every opening through which the water could penetrate the ship from above as tightly closed as the wit of man could devise. They would never forget, either, how they stood close together in the cabin, waiting the meeting of ship and sea.

They could not see, but they could feel the appalling shock of the bows of steel encountering the hurtling water wall. They could feel the gigantic wave break over the deck and fall crashing upon the steel ceiling over their heads. So great was the tumult, so loud the smashing falling of the water, that they did not hear the rending and tearing of the upper works of the ship, the boats carrying away, the deckhouse going adrift, and everything movable swept astern; and even the screams of some of the men, washed helplessly away, in spite of the life lines, at which they clutched frantically, were not noticed in the wild tumult of the storm.

Following the great wave came the short but terrible cyclonic disturbance, which almost completed their undoing. It was not until calmer weather supervened and the night fell that Captain Weatherby could take account of his ship and of his crew. He deemed it best to say nothing of his terrifying discoveries until the morning, but at dawn he had awakened his passengers to the melancholy conference in the cabin.

It was rare, indeed, that John Maynard found himself helpless. There were few situations to which his readiness, his resources, his inventiveness were unequal; but this was one. It was Captain Weatherby's field of action. There was nothing that Maynard could contribute, except an example of cheerful willingness to do what he was told without hesitation and without argument. It was a good lesson for the master financier, albeit the price he bade fair to pay for the learning of it might render it of little avail.

"Well, Captain Weatherby," he said, rising, "as my daughter says, we are in God's hands, and, as you justly added, in yours, too. We have every confidence in you that you will do the best for us that humanity can do under God. If it should prove of no avail, it will not be your fault. Meanwhile, this is the first chance I've had to express my admiration and gratitude. My friendship and respect you have had for a long time, but never as today." Maynard extended his hand to him.

"Mine, too," said Harnash, following the older man's example.

Stephanie, more moved than the other two, less restrained, perhaps, slipped her arm about the captain's neck and kissed him on his weather-beaten check.

"As from your daughter at home," she said.

"Here are brave hearts," said the captain, deeply touched. "Good stuff in all of you. We'll all fight harder because of this," he added.

The next moment the hatchway was darkened by one of the junior officers.

"Captain Weatherby," he began.

"What is it, Mr. Lefner?"

"We've made out the wreck of a boat adrift off the starboard bow with two people on her; one of them at least is alive, for through the glass we can see hands waved."

"Have a boat cleared away at--" He stopped. He had forgotten for the moment that there were no boats. He glanced up at the telltale compass above his head and noticed the shifting of the needle. The first officer was changing the course of the yacht to run down the wreck; that would be the only way. "We are still capable of saving life, Mr. Maynard, even though it be for a little space. Perhaps you would like to come on deck. It is safe enough now. I've rigged up a railing of life lines to take the place of those carried away."

He put his foot on the ladder and mounted to the deck, followed by the others. Harnash snatched a glass from the transom as he passed. They knew exactly where to look for the wreck. It was quite visible to the naked eyes. There were no glasses on the bridge. It had been stripped clean of everything by the wave and only stood by a miracle. The whole party moved up toward the bow of the ship and mounted the bridge. Harnash handed the glass to Captain Weatherby. He focused it and fixed his eyes on the rapidly nearing object, now directly over the bows, since the yacht's course had been changed.

"I make out two naked figures on what appears to be the fore part of a whaleboat. One of them is a woman, sir," he observed, handing the glass to Mr. Maynard, who stared and then passed it to the others standing by.

"Ropes to the starboard gangway," said Mr. Gardner, the first officer, after a word with the captain. "Mr. Gersey," he spoke to a veteran seaman, who stood forward, easily balancing himself to the roll of the ship, his arms folded. Instantly the boatswain turned and saluted. "Stand by the starboard gangway. Have some hands ready at the battens with a rope. One of those castaways doesn't look able to help himself, and we'll have to draw him aboard."

"Aye, aye, sir," he answered, turning aft to the gangway, followed by the seamen he summoned to his assistance.

Although she was already deep in the water and sluggish, the _Stephanie_ was under complete command. Nicely steered, she passed the bit of wreck to windward and rounded to. Her engines had been stopped previously, and just as the wreck surged to the gangway she came to a rest in the gently moving sea. Gersey had sent Templin, who had proved himself one of the smartest seamen on the yacht, down the battens of the starboard gangway with a rope's end, in which a bowline had been cast. Standing on the lower batten with the water halfway up to his waist on account of the ever-deepening draught of the leaking yacht, Templin caught the surging boat by the stem and held it firmly.

The woman was sitting crouched down on the forward lockers, or what remained of them. Templin motioned her to try the battens. She shook her head and pointed to the figure of the man, who lay at her feet, his head in the very bows of the boat, his legs dragging in the water. He was alive, but apparently helpless. His face was flushed and his eyes bright with fever. Templin sensed the situation at once.

"The lady wants the man passed aboard first," he called out.

Gersey nodded. He sent another seaman down to help Templin, and although the situation was difficult, the two men worked together intelligently. They passed the bowline around the body of the man, drew it tight, and the next moment willing hands aboard ship hauled away, and while Templin bore the body out so it would not scrape along the sides of the yacht, the man was soon drawn aboard. The girl watched without a word, but in great anxiety, until this rescue had been effected. Then she strove to rise, but she had been so cramped by sitting so long in that position that she could not make it. The seamen helped her to her feet and, half carrying, half urging, they finally got her on the deck. She had no sooner set foot thereon than she collapsed and fell in a dead faint. The officers and men were crowded about the two figures near the gangway, when Maynard, Harnash, and Stephanie approached.

"Take the woman to my cabin," said Stephanie. She turned to her maid, who had also come on deck, as two of the seamen picked up the fainting castaway and bore her aft. "Celeste, you and I will look after her, with Dr. Welch's help."

"At your service, Miss Maynard," said the ship's surgeon, following her.

"Take the man aft to the spare cabin," said Maynard, as the others moved away. "Dr. Welch, you'd better examine him as soon as you can. Harnash--"

But Harnash did not hear. He was bending over the prostrate man. The man's face was covered with a thick, short, dark beard and mustache, but there was no mistaking him. Harnash had been struck by something familiar in his appearance as the wreck lay alongside, and when he bent over him on the deck he knew at once who it was, in spite of his beard.

"This is the man we have been seeking," he said to Mr. Maynard.

"Good God!" exclaimed Maynard, looking hard in turn. "Yes," he added, "it's Beekman!"

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