University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.

Though the storm raged the next morning, as
storm had not raged for years, Argus remained in
the green room, and pored over the book of plays,
so well remembered by Virginia. About noon
Mat Sutcliffe burst in, with his tarpaulin jammed
over his head, and carrying an immense spy-glass in
a canvas case. His tidings did not astonish Argus.
A vessel putting into the bay the night before had
dragged her anchors and struck on the White Flat;
her flag was flying from the rigging, and there were
men there; it being low water when she struck, her
quarter deck might afford temporary safety, provided
the cold did not increase and freeze the crew
to death.

“What is the town doing, Mat?” asked Roxalana.

“A great many people are out doing nothing.
They are on the wharves, on the top of King's
Hill, the hair blowing off their heads, and, I believe,
there's a gang along shore somewhere,” he replied.

“No boat can live if put out,” said Argus.
“How low down the bar did the vessel drive on?”

“As near to Bass Headland as can be. If the

wind would chop round, somebody might get out
there.”

“So the sailors must drown,” cried Tempe, notwithstanding
she had put her fingers in her ears, not
to hear. “I'll shut myself up in the cellar till it is
all over.”

“I thought,” continued Mat, looking hard at
Argus, “it might be best to look at the shingle
below here; the ice is about gone there. If we
could start under the lee of Bass Headland a boat
might slant—”

Argus gave such a shrug and grimace that Mat
suddenly stopped, and without another word
abruptly left the room.

“Argus,” said Roxalana, with great composure,
“I shall not get you a mouthful of dinner to-day.”

“I trust you will consent to do your share in disposing
of the poor corpses,” added Tempe sharply.

For reply, Argus rose, book in hand, opened the
shutter of the window towards the quay, sat down
by it, and went on with his comedy.

Tempe telegraphed to her mother her opinion,
that he was a beast of an uncle, and even Roxalana
was moved to eye him with a mild, doubting
severity.

But he was on the alert. When he heard drops
of rain plash on the window ledge, he shut his
fingers in his book, and looked into the fire. A
shower came down, which was neither hail, nor snow,
but warm rain. He started up, stretched his arms,
like one who had long been cramped and weary, and

sat down again with an indifferent air, and opened
his book.

Roxalana came in from the kitchen, and said that
the vane on the summer-house had veered slightly,
and there was less noise from the wind.

“The gale is moderating, luckily.”

Something in his tone struck her. She raised her
eyes to his, and he smiled ironically; it made her
feel like asking his pardon.

“Can I have any dinner?” he asked.

“I think so; what shall it be?”

“Brandy and cigars.”

She disappeared.

Mat came in late in the afternoon, with as little
ceremony as before, and said roughly to Argus,
“You are wanted.”

“I won't go.”

“Captain, if we don't get across within twelve
hours, every soul on board that vessel now will be
in hell.”

“I supposed so.”

“She's bilged, and the White Flat begins to hug
her. It's flood tide, and the waves must be washing
the main deck; a few hours of that work will settle
their hash.”

“What's doing with the life-boat?”

“The loons have tried to launch her, but there's
something wrong, and they are trying to tinker her
up. The will of folks is good enough, but they
can't get out there,—that's the long and short on't.
Bill Bayley swore he'd go out alone; his cock-boat

swamped, first thing, and they had to throw him a
rope. He swore at the man who threw it,—at the
boat,—at the bay,—the wreck,—and the Almighty,
and then he cried. I never liked Bill so well.”

Mat spit into the fire furiously, and stumped
round the room, a shoe on one foot and a boot on
the other, his trousers settling over the hips in spite
of his tight leather belt. He was growing frantic
with excitement.

Argus laughed.

Mat made an energetic, beseeching motion towards
the door; he would have put up his soul for sale for
the sake of seeing Argus move with the intention he
wished to inspire him with. Argus turned back his
sleeves, baring a snow white wrist, and abstractedly
felt his pulse and the muscles of his arms.

“Push ahead,” he said.

“Aye, aye, sir,” Mat shouted, turning very pale,
and lurching towards the door.

“Stoop; where is Roxalana?”

“Roxalana!” Mat shouted.

“What is it, Mat?” she answered, coming with a
bottle.

“Yes; give us a dram, old girl,” continued Mat,
utterly oblivious of the proprieties.

Argus laughed again, and asked for his Mackintosh.

“Now then,” said Mat, having swallowed nearly
a tumbler of brandy. Argus drank a little, and
poured the rest of the bottle into a flask which he
buttoned inside his coat. Tempe ran down to the

door as they passed out, and Argus looking back
called out,—

“Where is your crape veil, Tempe?”

“Where the courage of Kent is,—shut up in a
band-box,” she answered.

Roxalana, after gazing at her a moment, took her
by the arm, and dragged her into the green room.

“I believe,” she said, in a breathless undertone,
“that you are possessed sometimes. Do you know
that your uncle Argus may have gone for his
shroud?”

“Was that why he inquired for the veil?”

“Could you choose no other moment to express
your insensibility? Are you never to be anything
but a child?”

“Mother, you must be crazy. You don't mean to
say, that you are going to protest against the Gates
character,—as I represent it?”

Roxalana said no more, but went her way, feeling
a painful excitement. She replenished the fires,
hung kettles of water over them, collected blankets,
cordials, and liquors, and then went to the kitchen
to bake bread.

Twilight brought Mary Sutcliffe and her youngest
boys. Dumping them in a corner of the kitchen as
if they were sacks, and threatening them with a
whipping if they moved, she rolled up her sleeves,
and said that she thought the fathers of families had
better stay at home, instead of risking themselves to
save nobody knew who. Another boat had started
since Mat had got under way, and she guessed the

wreck would turn out to be a great cry and little wool;
she did not think there would be much drowning
this time. She wondered if the good folks in Kent
had stirred themselves,—your religious Drakes, and
your pious Brandes, and the rest of the church.

“Hold your tongue, Mary Sutcliffe,” ordered
Tempe.

Then Mary whimpered, sobbed, and shrieked, declaring
she had known all along she should never
set eyes on Mat Sutcliffe again, who was well enough,
considering what he was. And who else would have
done what he was doing? and she gloried in his
spunk. Drying her eyes with her fat hands, and
shaking out her apron, she begged Roxalana to let
her make the bread, and put the house to rights,—in
case there were bodies coming in.

“Do, Mrs. Gates,” she pleaded, “I feel as strong
as a giant to-night; I can wrestle with any amount
of work.”

“If you will stop whining, Mary, I will accept
your services; for, to tell the truth, my head is not
very clear just now, I am afraid I may spoil something.”

“Likely as not,” replied Mary; “go right into
your sitting-room, sit down in your own chair, and
you'll come to. It won't do for you, of all persons,
to be upset, Mrs. Gates.”

Roxalana was quite ready to act upon Mary's suggestion.
Death was near, and she felt it. After
dark Mary began to walk about,—to the alley, and
into the garden, and report what she saw and heard.

She ran down to the quay once, but came back
scared and subdued at the sight of the angry solitude
of the hoarse, black sea, though she shook her impotent
fist at it with indignation.

Roxalana felt a relief when Virginia Brande came
down from the Forge, enveloped in a plaid cloak.
She had ventured at last to come by the path, the
moment she heard that Captain Gates was making
an attempt to get to the wreck. Her mother was so
frightened and ill about it, that Chloe and herself
were obliged to make representations of the necessity
for help in Kent from every hand and heart, before
she consented to spare her. The Forge was deserted;
her father had gone into town with the intention
of offering a reward to the man who should
first reach the wreck. Mary Sutcliffe, hearing this
cried:

“And I suppose old Drake has offered as much
again,—hasn't he? Wouldn't I like to see Mr.
Mat Sutcliffe Esquire handling that reward? I wish
somebody would pay me for doing my duty. I'd
put the money right into the contribution box at Mr.
Brande's church. Oh yes, don't I see myself doing
it.”

“Mary,” said Virginia, “you are talking nonsense.
Please find some hair pins; mine must have dropped
along the path.”

She removed the cloakhood, and her hair tumbled
in a mass down her shoulders; she could have hid
herself in it.

“Goodness me!” cried Mary, “what splendid hair

you've got; I never thought of it before. It is as
black as the sky was just now on the quay.”

“Have you been to the quay, Mary?” asked Roxalana.
“Do content yourself within doors. Where
is Tempe?”

“I saw her kiting up stairs just now. If she
does not take care she'll keel over. It is as true as
the gospel, that she has got a look in her face as
new as a drop of cream would be to my cat.”

“Go and tell her that Virginia Brande is here, and
she will come back.”

“I have always thought,” Mary replied, sticking a
pin between her teeth, and allowing her eyes to take
a reflective cast, “that it was as much as my life was
worth to interfere with the way of a Gates; but I
may change my mind. I'll go right after Tempe.
Oh Lord-a-mercy, where do you think the two creatures
are by this time? Sho: I know they will be
along soon; it is not likely that Captain Argus Gates
is going to be lost at sea, after he has given up going
to sea; and,—it would be foolish to suppose Mat Sutcliffe
will venture more than getting his boots soaked
through.”

“Hair pins, please,” said Virginia.

“Go, immediately,” added Roxalana. “Where is
Tempe? Tell her that Virginia Brande is here.”

Tempe fell into a fit of weeping and laughing the
moment she saw Virginia, which was ended by a
dead faint.

At last the boat was launched. Argus and Mat
were afloat; so much was gained, and Argus thought

the danger was preferable to the labor they had undergone
in getting ready to risk their lives. The
gloomy twilight, spreading from the east, dropped
along the shore, while they were dragging, pushing,
and lifting the boat over the shingle, slush, and into
the opposing sea.

“Hell bent be it!” said Mat, apostrophizing the
waves, “if you say so. You are not alone, my
friends.”

Mat seemed a part of the storm; his spirits were
in a wild commotion, his clothes were torn and soggy
with brine, and his hands were gashed and bloody.
Argus had lost his cap, and broken his oar; he
bound his head with Mat's woolen comforter, jammed
his shoulder against the gunwale, and used the shortened
oar with much composure. They did not
make much headway; the boat appeared to be riding
in all directions in the roar and foam of the sea;
darkness pressed upon them, and shut them between
the low-hanging sky and the shaking plain of water
In the midst of his silent, measured, energetic action
the thoughts of Argus drifted idly back to the trifling
events of his life; a new and surprising charm
was added to them; they were as bright, quiet, and
warm as the golden dust of a summer sunset which
touches everything as it vanishes.

Mat swore at the top of his voice, that the wind
was more nor'rard, and it would be an even chance
about beating back—or not. Argus looked up, and
saw a circular break in the clouds, but said nothing.

“By the crucifix,” cried Mat, throwing himself

forward, “I heard a yell. Where away are we?
We are shoaling!”

Argus plunged his hands into the water from the
stern sheets; it felt like the wrinkled, hideous flesh
of a monster, trying to creep away.

“We are under lee, or there is a lull, for the water
don't break,” he said.

“If the moon was out we should see the White
Flat. I reckon we are on the tongue of the bar, and
the vessel has struck below. Her hull must be sunk
ten feet by this time, and her shrouds and spars are
washed off, that yell will not be heard again.”

“Damn em,” said Mat savagely, “if they have
drowned afore ever we could reach 'em, I'll take 'em
dead, carry every mother's son of 'em to Kent, and
bury 'em against their wills.”

The endless, steady-going rockers which slid under
them from the bay outside tossed the boat no
longer; the wind ceased to smite their faces, but tore
overhead and ripped the clouds apart. The moon
rolled out, and to the right they saw the ghastly,
narrow crest of the White Flat. A mass of spume on
their left which hissed madly proved what Argus
had said, that they were close to the end of the bar.
Within the limits of the moonlight they saw nothing.
In the bewildering, darkling illumination of the
shattering water around them they were alone.

“If she's parted,” continued Mat, “something
might wash this way; her gear at least. I'd like to
catch a cabin door, or an article to that effect, it
might come handy.”

Argus did not hear him, for he was overboard.
Missing him, Mat gave way for a moment; he felt
the keel shove resisting sand, and remained passive,
merely muttering, “I'm blasted, but she may drive.”

Argus had seen, or thought he had, to the right of
the boat, some object dipping in and out of the water
and making towards them. He met it coming
sideways, where the water was just below his breast:
missed a hold of it, struggled for it, the shifting bottom
impeding his footway, and the water battling
against his head and arms, till rearing itself up and
stranding on the beach, he stumbled and fell beside
it exhausted.

Raising himself on his hands and knees, he brought
his face close to two persons, a man and a woman,
fastened together by the embrace of death. The
woman's face was upturned; its white oval, wet and
glistening, shed a horrid light; the repeated blows of
the murderous waves had tangled and spread her
long hair over her. Tears of rage rushed into Argus's
eyes when he saw that it had been half torn
from its roots. Her arms were round the man's
head; her hands clutched his temples, his face was so
tightly pressed into her bossom that Argus instinctively
believed he was still alive in a stifled swoon.
She was dead. Take her lover away from that breast
of stone, Argus, let him not see those open lips—no
longer the crimson gates to the fiery hours of his enjoyment,
nor let him feel those poor bruised fingers
clenching his brain; those delicate stems of the will
are powerless to creep round his heart! May Satan

of the remorseless deep alone be destined to know
and remember the last hour of this woman's passion,
despair, and sacrifice!

Argus rose to his feet, wondering why he saw so
clearly, and possessed with an idea which was a mad
one, perhaps, but which allied him, in greatness of
soul, to the woman before him. He was still confused,
and had forgotten where Mat and the boat were,
but Mat had seen his dark figure rising against the
sky, and was ploughing through the sand with the
intention of remonstrating with Argus, on the impossibility
of ever getting it off again. But when he
came up behind him, there was something in his attitude—a
familiar one,—which imposed his respectful
attention. Mat bent over the bodies silently, and
touched them with his foot.

“She is dead?” interrogated Argus.

“Never will be more so.”

“This man is alive. Lift his head. I am out of
breath. The wind is going down, and we can run
him back easy.”

“It may raly be called pleasant. There now I
have got you, safe enough from her. God! She put
on shirt and trousers to jump overboard with him,
swapping deaths, and getting nothing to boot. He
is limber; give me the brandy and let's warm up
the boy.”

“Here,” said Argus, in a suppressed voice, “pour
it down, quick. Have you a lashing? I should
like to put her out of his sight; one of the ballast

stones will do. Help me to carry her to the other
side of the bar; the deep water will cover her.”

Mat pretended to be too busy to hear.

“Crazier than ever,” he muttered. “I might have
known his damned crankiness would bile out somewhere.”

Argus wrapped the poor girl in his Mackintosh,
and staggered towards the boat carrying her; there
was no help against it, and Mat rose to his assistance.
In a moment or two she was buried in the
grave she had so terribly resisted.

The gale was nearly spent, and Mat ventured to
hoist the sail. Argus tumbled the still insensible
man into the boat by the head and heels, and they
ran across the harbor, landing at the quay below the
house. Mary was there before the boat was tied to
a spile.

“How are you off for elbow grease?” cried Mat.
“Put the lantern down, and jump in; here's a bundle
for you to take up to the house. Capen and I
are clean gone, I tell you. I've lost the rims of my
ears, and expect to leave a few toes in these ere boots
when I pull 'em off. Come, quick.”

Without a word she lifted the man from the bottom
of the boat, and, with Mat's help, clambered up
the wharf, and took him into the house. Tempe ran
shrieking when she saw him stretched on the floor
before the fire, in the green-room. Roxalana sat
rigid, nailed to her chair, incapable of motion at the
sight; Virginia and Mary were collected. Mat adroitly
peeled off a portion of his wet clothes, and

told Mary to rub him like damnation. It was a
long time before he gave sign of life. At the first
choking breath Mat poured some brandy over his
face and neck; he rose galvanically to a sitting posture,
and fell back again, to all appearance dead.
But Mat declared he was all right, and went out to
change his own wet clothes for dry ones. Virginia
looked up at Argus, convinced herself that the man
was saved.

“Take care of me, if you please,” he said. “I
want two bottles of brandy, and a dry shirt. How
are you, Roxalana?”

At the sound of his voice she turned in her chair.
Mat returned with his arms full of clothes for Argus,
and asked her if she would be good enough to step
out with Virginia, and go to bed. There wasn't any
use in praying now, for they were back. Not one
of them thought of the unhappy crew, all lost, except
one who laid before them.

“That 'ere Virginia,” said Mat, when she and
Roxalana had gone, and he was watching the man's
eyelids, “is as mealy a gal as I ever saw in my life.
She's cool, and smooth, and soft. She beat Moll in
rubbing. Hullo! his eyes are open. Look here,
Spaniard, you belong to us. Drink this, my lad,
and let me hold you up. So—all right, young un.
Shut up, Gates, you are drunk, and have reason to
be. I reckon you are black and blue from the
bruises you got. I've had a pint of swipes myself,
and feel inwardly correct. Hark ye—he's off in a
reglar, natural sleep, aint he?”