CHAPTER XIII.

A LEE SHORE.

‘This is disgraceful, gentlemen!’ exclaimed Dr Lennard; ‘and I am surprised at your so forgetting yourselves. If you do not cease fighting at once, you will compel me to call in the authority of the captain.’

‘Let me go,’ panted Farrell, as he struggled in the detaining grasp of Jack Blythe; ‘let me finish the brute whilst I can! He is a forger and a murderer. He is not fit to live.’

‘_He lies_,’ murmured Harland, faint with loss of blood. ‘He is mad; don’t listen to him.’

But every one was listening. The saloon passengers hung over the fiferail, the stewards appeared in the cabin passage, the shellbacks gathered in a group at the main rigging, and the rest were clustered upon every side.

‘It is the truth!’ gasped Farrell. ‘He has defied and insulted me, and I will expose him.’

‘Don’t let him speak,’ said Harland, shaking with fear.

‘Yes, yes! let us hear him,’ interposed the second-class passengers.

‘Ay, ay, let the lad have fair play!’ exclaimed a veteran shellback.

‘I will tell you about the murder,’ continued Farrell, choking with excitement and fury.

‘_The murder!_’ echoed a dozen voices. But at that moment Mr Fowler pushed his way through the crowd, and caught hold of Will Farrell.

‘Stop, man, for Heaven’s sake!’ he cried.

‘No, no; you shall not stop me,’ replied Farrell, wrenching himself out of his grasp. ‘My blood is up, and everybody shall know the truth of it.’

‘I warn you--’ continued the detective.

‘The time is past for warning,’ said the unhappy Farrell; ‘all I want is my revenge.’

‘Let us hear him. It’s only fair that he should be allowed to speak!’ exclaimed the crowd.

‘That man, who calls himself Godfrey Harland, is Horace Cain, the forger of Starling’s cheque, who escaped to America, and came back under an assumed name.’

Harland’s white lips moved to refute the assertion, but no sound came from them.

‘He is the husband of the lady who calls herself Miss Douglas, and whom he deserted and left (as he thought) in England; and the girl--the poor girl,’ continued Farrell, in a choking voice, ‘as came by her death the other night, and as was to have been my wife, went up at that very hour to meet him, and show him the proofs I hold against him for forgery. What do you say to that?’

‘_Where_ are your proofs?’ gasped Harland, to whom terror seemed to have restored his speech. ‘I don’t know Miss Douglas, or the other woman. I never spoke to either of them. You must mistake me for some other man.’

‘No, he don’t,’ interposed a sailor, ‘for you met Miss Douglas when she was in the spare galley along with me, sir, and you knew her, and called her by her name as soon as you clapped eyes on her!’

‘Can you swear to that?’ asked the detective.

‘_I_ can swear to it,’ replied Iris, suddenly appearing in their midst, ‘for I am his wife, Iris Harland.’

At this announcement, Grace Vansittart gave a slight scream, and fell into the arms of her mother.

‘It is for _her_ sake, not my own, that I have said this,’ continued Iris; ‘and of all the rest, _I know nothing_.’

She swayed forward here, as though she were about to fall, and Vernon Blythe flew to her side and threw his arm around her.

‘Courage,’ he said, in a low voice, and as he spoke she seemed to revive, like a flower when the skies are opened.

‘But who can speak to Mr Harland’s having met Miss Greet on the evening she fell overboard?’ demanded a voice from the crowd.

‘_I_ know that when she was found she wore Miss Douglas’s cloak, which she had taken from her cabin after she was asleep,’ said a steward.

‘And I--’ interposed Dr Lennard, ‘that on that evening, as I left the dinner-table, I found Mr Harland in my surgery, who told me he had dropped the end of a cigar there. The same night, at about eleven o’clock, Captain Lovell and I found him alone by the mainrail, and asked him to accompany us to the smoke-room, which was immediately pervaded by a strong smell of chloroform, proceeding from his pocket-handkerchief. The next morning I discovered one of my bottles of chloroform was missing.

‘I--I--told you--I had the toothache,’ said Harland, with chattering teeth.

‘So you are the hero of the Starling forgery case, Mr Harland. You made a plucky bolt of it, and though I have been on the look-out for you several times since, I little thought to find you so many miles from home. Without a warrant, my power is at present useless, but I must detain you from going on shore, on the charges of forgery and--suspected murder!’

‘Can I--can I--go to my cabin?’ gasped Harland, who felt that every eye--that of Miss Vansittart included--was on him.

‘Certainly; it is better you should do so,’ replied Mr Fowler; ‘and I will see you are not disturbed nor molested in any way.’

The unhappy man shambled off, eager only to hide himself from the scrutiny of his companions, and the company on the quarter-deck broke up.

‘So you are a detective?’ said Captain Lovell to Mr Fowler.

‘Yes, sir. It is useless to keep up the deception any longer. As soon as I arrive at Lyttleton, I shall return by the first mail to London. You little suspected you had an official on board, but as matters have turned out, it is as well that I was here.’

‘And why are you going to New Zealand?’

‘That I must not tell you, but you may be sure it is not for pleasure. Allow me to hand you my card.’

‘_Mark Rendle!_’ exclaimed Captain Lovell; ‘the hero of the International forgeries! I am proud to know you,’ extending his hand. ‘Had you only thrown off your disguise, how you might have amused us during the voyage.’

‘Possibly; but I had my duty to think of, and had I permitted pleasure to interfere with it, this little game, for one, would have been spoiled. But as it is blowing hard, I will go below and get my overcoat. The one I feel for most in this business is poor Miss Vansittart. There is no doubt this rascal has been passing himself off on her as a single man. How will she bear the shock?’

‘Better than you think, I imagine,’ replied Captain Lovell. ‘She is not a young woman of very deep feelings, and her vanity will be more hurt than anything else. Will you join me in a glass of whisky?’

And Mr Mark Rendle having assented, the two men strolled together to the bar.

It was then past seven o’clock, and the shades of night had hidden the land. The fog also made it very thick ahead, so that the entrance to the bay could not be distinguished.

The wind howled and wailed with piercing accents through the rigging, the sea was very high, and boiling torrents of foam hissed around the _Pandora_. The mainsail and crossjack were both safely rolled up, and the vessel began to labour heavily in the turbulent sea.

Long, grey clouds sailed across the sky, making the moon appear as though she were travelling at an enormous speed.

For two hours more the good ship stood on, and then the wind was blowing a strong gale. Captain Robarts was getting very uneasy. He was not certain if he was steering straight for the mouth of the bay, and it was too late for him to turn back.

The truth is, he was close to a very dangerous lee shore. Mr Coffin and Mr Blythe stood together by the rigging trying to peer through the mist, whilst Mr Sparkes, with two seamen, was on the look-out. Half-an-hour afterwards, a voice sung out ‘Land ho! on the port beam, sir!’ The _Pandora_ had entered the bay.

‘Lower away the topsail halliards,’ ordered the captain. ‘Stand by your port anchor, Mr Coffin.’

‘Land right ahead!’ shouted the voice from the forecastle.

‘What’s that?’ yelled the skipper. ‘Hard a-port with your helm, man!--over with it!’

There was a sudden movement made by a few of the passengers toward the wheel, the vessel answered her helm, and paid off; but Captain Robarts had miscalculated his position. A moment afterwards there was an ugly, grating noise, that seemed to scrape the ship’s keel fore and aft,--a sudden lurch,--a tremendous crash, and the _Pandora_, with her fore and main-topgallant masts and jiboom carried away--a pitiful, miserable wreck--heeled over, with the sharp-pointed, cruel rocks deeply imbedded in her side.

Before any one on board was fully aware of their perilous situation, a monstrous sea washed over her deck, carrying the first officer, Mr Coffin, and several sailors away before it, and half-filling the cabin, followed by others that leapt over at the fore and main chains. In a moment all was confusion. Vernon Blythe was witness to the disappearance of the mate, and immediately took command in his stead.

‘Man the starboard lifeboat!’ he ordered, in a firm, loud voice.

All realised the meaning of those terrible words. The women shrieked and clung to each other, whilst their faces blanched with mortal fear. With clenched teeth, and eyes staring into vacancy, they tried to pray, but only succeeded in wringing their hands in despair. The furious seas that were clearing the ship’s maindeck--the wild confusion on board--the warring of the elements as they thrashed and battled against the precipitous cliffs--resounding in the chasms with the noise of thunder, and retreating only to charge again; the hoarse cries of the sea birds, and the thought of their close proximity to Death, appalled them beyond description.

The men stood bewildered, clutching at the rails, and watching the agonised frenzy of the weaker sex without offering them any comfort or assistance. They were unnerved themselves, and showed their terror by their scared and expressionless faces, trembling limbs, and speechless tongues.

Vernon Blythe was busily employed on the skids, cheering on the sailors, and superintending the lowering of the lifeboat. His face was very white and strained, but his hands were steady; and of all there, young or old, he was the most courageous and self-possessed. He had no leisure to think of the sad fate of his chief officer, poor Abel Coffin, who, with five sturdy shellbacks, had been swept from his side into the boiling deep. He dared not even think of Iris Harland, though every effort he made seemed to be done for her, and her alone. He was conscious of only one thing,--that, in that fearful hour, he stood alone, responsible for the actions of the sailors, and the safety of their living freight. He stood there, calm and collected, taking no heed of the confusion by which he was surrounded. His lip quivered a little, and a drop of blood, which he had drawn with his closed teeth, trickled slowly on to his chin. But his orders were given in a clear, authoritative voice--slowly and deliberately, and without the least sign of fear. The seamen noticed his cool courage, and it urged them on to redouble their efforts, and fight against the raging storm. Vernon Blythe, young as he was, to assume such a command, taught them a lesson that night which those who survived it never forgot. He showed them the value of self-control in a time of danger, and what a pitiable creature the man without it can prove himself to be.

That man, strange to say, was the very one who should have been to the front in everything--the commander of the vessel, Captain Robarts. There he stood, next to Jack Blythe, with a face of ashen paleness, a trembling frame, chattering teeth, that rattled like castanets against each other, wild, haggard looks, and a total inability to supply his young officer’s place. When the man was most wanted to show an example of courage and trust in God--when he should have taken the sole command of his ship’s company, and lived or died with them--his despicable cowardice completely unsexed him, and he might have been the smallest cabin-boy on board, for the picture of abject terror he displayed.

When the tempest arose, and the wrath of Heaven seemed poured out upon them, and that beautiful axiom of George Herbert’s--‘He that will learn to pray, let him go to sea’--appeared most applicable, then Captain Robarts forgot his Creator, his position, and his duty.

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