Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 34
If the sloop had not gone over, I knew that it would be somewhere near, and, also, that it would be dangerously close to the island. Hilda would not abandon me until she had exhausted every possibility of picking me up. She would forego her own chances of escape first, no matter how slim they might be. With the caution of a man feeling his way through a dark and unfamiliar room I felt my way among the waves. Although the wind maintained its velocity the rain had appreciably thinned and I was now able to see before me.
Already I was beginning to experience the first sensations of exhaustion. There was a burning feeling in the pit of my stomach, and my breath came with increasing difficulty. After every few strokes I raised my head from the water in the hope of catching a glimpse of the boat, but always a mounting wave cut short my vision. A feeling of growing helplessness added weight to my arms and legs. My strokes were becoming more feeble and undirected. I was no longer striving to reach the island, but merely to keep my head above water. This unconscious abandonment was the beginning of the end. Finally, after a short and futile effort to make headway against the seas I was forced to abandon all attempts at swimming in order to conserve my strength. As each wave drove over me I yielded to its rush and made no effort to resist. In this way I was able to regain a shred of the energy that had been driven from my body.
A wall of water bore down on me, and climbing with all my might to its summit I looked for the sloop. I had just sufficient time to see it racing along parallel to the island before I was plunged down again into a valley of blinding spray. An unsatisfactory feeling of relief filled my heart. I had seen Hilda and lost her, and in losing her I had in all probability lost myself. Here I was, sanely going down to a sharp and suffocating oblivion within a few hundred yards of the woman I loved without her even knowing that I was near, that I had seen her, and that my last earthly thoughts were centered on her safety.
In that short glimpse of the boat I had noticed its jib streaming futilely from the bow. The scene was graphically etched on my memory — Hilda braced in the stern with the tiller hugged to her breast, Elliott’s figure leaning over her in what struck me as an attitude of anger, the little boat with its helpless jib pitching miraculously along through the waves, and as a background, the foam crested summit of the island.
As I mounted with a straining heart to the back of the next wave I threw up one arm and spent my lungs in a long cry across the water. The breath was driven back in my teeth but my gesture had been seen, for almost immediately the boat came about and bore down in my direction. True to her word Hilda had kept a watch for me on the sea. Just before the wave melted I had time to see her raise her hand above her head and Elliott lurch crazily backward as though he had been violently pushed. With this bit of arrested action in my eyes I went down once more into a gulch of water.
To add to my difficulties I became entangled in a floating island of seaweed, and by the time I had succeeded in extricating myself from its coils the waves had nearly done for me. An eternity seemed to have elapsed since I had last seen the boat, and I began to fear some misfortune had overtaken it. When I had seen it I had gained the impression that John Elliott had not been at all favorably disposed to change his course. I now had a mental vision of his fighting with Hilda for the control of the tiller.
Then in the midst of these dreary speculations, I saw the sloop cut through the waves about fifty yards distant and a hundred feet off my position. With the last measure of strength remaining in me I struggled to place myself in its path. Hilda brought the boat’s head as close up in the wind as it would sail and as the sloop plunged by she deftly cast the sheet rope around me. At the same moment Elliott hurled a bottle, and I felt the thing whiz past my head. As the sloop luffed perilously in the wind I pulled myself through the water to the leeward side. Elliott leaned down to me and seized my hand.
“Be careful,” called Hilda in a warning voice.
Elliott looked back with a dark face.
“Damn you, keep quiet!” he yelled.
Instead of helping me he seemed to be trying to hamper my efforts to climb aboard, but as the boat wallowed over in the opposite direction, he was tossed back, and the dead weight of his falling body did much to aid me in scrambling over the side. I fell on top of him and found myself looking down into his blood-shot eyes. Tired as I was I could hardly resist the temptation to strike the sneering smile from his mouth. For a brief space we gazed hatefully at each other, then I staggered back to Hilda, who had already put the boat under way.
“That bottle was meant for you,” she said in a low voice. “Be careful. He’s in one of his most playful moods.”
“This is the second time you’ve given me my life,” I replied.
“Would you be willing to return the compliment?” she asked, without turning her head from the sea.
I looked away without replying, for there was nothing that I could say. Elliott rose to his knees and began to fumble about the bottom of the boat. When at last he succeeded in finding a bottle he cast himself down on a transom and began the serious business of uncorking his prize.
“I was committing the dead men to the deep, Mr. Landor,” he called to me in a thick, apologetic voice, “but that last devil had more life in him than I supposed. I’m afraid I almost struck you. Nothing, of course, could have been further from my mind.”
With a final tug he drew the cork, and was about to raise the bottle to his lips when Hilda spoke directly to him.
“Pass that bottle down here,” she said. “This man needs a drink.”
Elliott regarded her with fuddled amazement, then handed me the bottle with elaborate politeness.
“The lioness fights for her cub,” he said. “Drink hearty, my boy; there’s body and blood in that wine. Look at me!”
The resounding thump he administered to himself was sufficient to send him sprawling once more to the bottom of the boat, where he remained half covered with water.
“Take the boat and save her if you can,” said Hilda, slipping out of her place and motioning me to take the tiller, “but if not, beach her and we’ll risk the surf. I’m tired, David.”
“The bottle first, Mr. Landor,” called Elliott, reaching out his hand.
Hilda passed him the bottle and I braced myself in her place with the tiller caught against my arm. Already I had a course of action in mind. MacKellar’s rough map of the sea coast flashed vividly before me. On the other side of the point of land extended a natural breakwater which enclosed the marshes and a still lagoon. Before I could reach this, however, I should be forced to take the sloop at least a mile out to sea until I had succeeded in finding an opening in a reef knifing along for several miles from one of the outer islands. Once through the reef we should have nothing to face save the natural hazards of the storm, until we came to the small opening in the breakwater. Whether the boat could point up sufficiently in the wind to head into this refuge remained to be seen. It was a desperate chance, but a feasible one, and it appealed to me as being a splendid way to outwit the egotistical carelessness of the storm.
After running several hundred yards past the island until I had cleared its reef, I brought the boat about and headed it out to sea, thus definitely putting my plan to the test.
It was a heart-breaking decision to sail away from the shore to which we stood so close, but I realized that in spite of its nearness and its familiar, home-like appearance, the shore was one of our greatest perils. For a lingering moment I gazed back at its fading outline, and Hilda followed my eyes.
“I’m going to try the reef,” I told her.
“The opening’s about half-way out,” she said. “Maybe you’ll be able to find it by the change in the water. We’ve done it before.”
I made no reply, but from time to time I lifted my eyes from the sea to study her face. Her hair had come down and was plastered in a damp mat round her cheeks and neck. Her face was pale and drawn, and her thin, white dress, drenched by the rain and the sea, clung tightly to the lines of her body, giving her the appearance of a beautiful draped statue whose eyes had come to life.
“Stick to it,” she said. “I’ll be all right,” and she began to bail the boat, while Elliott, without making any effort to lend a hand, watched her through half closed eyes.
When we reached the outer island, the force of the wind was so great that it felt as if it would tear the little boat from the surface of the sea. The shrieking in the rigging was unnerving to hear. At every onset I expected to see the delicate mast go by the board. The windward stays were as taut as bow strings, but they held fast. I shall never forget the strange scene as it struck me at that moment; the gray, wind-lashed sea on all sides and the waves herding in against us like buffaloes stampeding; John Elliott, unheeding and indolent, partly asleep in the bottom of the boat as the shipped water lapped over his sprawling legs; Hilda, pale and calm, intent on her bailing; and finally myself, sitting shivering and half-drowned in the stern of the boat, anxiously watching for an opening in the reef.
What a cargo of crossed lives and mixed motives, I thought. Elliott, a potential murderer; Hilda, poor wretch, a life in revolt; and I — well, I was no better than a neurotic young man who had been caught in one of life’s undercurrents and was being carried whither he knew not.... Probably to death I decided, as I scanned the waves ahead. Hilda’s voice interrupted my thoughts.
“There it is,” she cried, pointing to some green hillocks rolling ponderously between the white foam flecking the teeth of the reef. “That’s open water, David!”
“Damn me!” shouted Elliott, unexpectedly rising from the bottom of the boat. “You two will be dancing with each other next. So it’s ‘Hilda’ and ‘David,’ now? Get the hell out of my way; I’ll sail this boat. Hand over that tiller, Mr. Poet.”
As Elliott lurched aft Hilda placed herself between us and from the open neck of her dress quickly drew a thin, steel blade. Her face was as calm as the face of an angel and her voice was casual and unhurried, carrying with it an unmistakable note of determination.
“I never wanted to use this thing on you,” she said, “and I hope that even now you won’t force me to do it, but if you make any further attempt to interfere...”
She broke off, and Elliott, with an uncertain smile on his swollen lips, stood swaying above her.
“You don’t like death,” she went on evenly. “I know you don’t. I’ve seen you cower from it before now, but that’s exactly what you’re bringing about — death! One wave badly met will send us all to the bottom. Do you know what it feels like to drown, to smother until your lungs are heavy with water and then to go down, choking and blind into the wet dark where it’s cold and still and hopeless?”
As though she were trying to frighten a child she continued to paint for him a vivid picture of death, and as she spoke a change came over him. Insane terror burned in his eyes, his mouth lost its mean lines, growing oddly flabby, his great body shuddered, and he moved back.
“Do you know what it means to strangle?” she went on, her voice rising against the wind. “To fight for air until your heart snaps and you’re dead, the light gone from your eyes and the breath from your body?”
As he backed away she followed him. He stood before her cowering with his hands held up to his face. Hilda was like a different person. I had never seen her so filled with grim determination. Her voice rose higher as she continued:
“Only the boat stands between you and the bottom of the ocean. You can’t swim and you’d sink like a rock. You’d go down to death and silence and to other things that lurk down there — things that feed—”
“Stop, damn you!” he cried. “Sail your boat to hell, but get me ashore first,” and sinking down on the transom, he raised the bottle to his lips.
Hilda regarded him almost pityingly, then she turned to me and said: “He’s like that. Death terrifies him. The mere mention of the word makes him uneasy. Did you think me cruel?”
I had no time to answer, for at that moment a great wave tossed itself across the bow of the boat, completely smothering it in foam. As the craft pitched head down in the water I heard Elliott scream like a stricken animal and saw that his body had been carried half overboard. Hilda sprang forward and seized him by the arms. Still uttering his half- animal cry, he struggled back into the boat and fell sobbing to the bottom. The sloop righted itself and bounded ahead as I drove her at the opening in the reef.
When we neared the rocks I cast a glance at Hilda. Her eyes were fixed anxiously on mine.
“The tide’s running out,” I said. “If we hit, it’s the end of the sail. Give me your hand, Hilda. We’ll sink or swim together.”
I held out my left hand to her and she took it in both of hers. When she spoke I was surprised by the note of fear in her voice, it was so unlike her.
“Be careful, David,” she pleaded, her lips close to my ear. “We can’t let it end here. You’ve got to drive her through. Do it for me, please. We mustn’t go down now.”
I squeezed her hand reassuringly and watched the reef come on. The next moment we were in the midst of a deafening roar. Spray flew round us and from out of it long, fang-like rocks struck at the boat. Hilda clung to my hand and looked straight ahead. We were lost in a wet hell in which the waves turned to demons. When we emerged from the din the voice of the wind seemed muffled in comparison with the tumult we had left behind.
I looked back at the reef and wondered how we had ever come through. At that moment I loved the sloop as a human being, and as we bore down on the point of land and rounded it, a cry of triumph escaped my lips.
We were running with the waves now and parallel with the breakwater. There was a good chance for the success of my plan. Already we could see the marshes and the quiet water spreading out from them. One long tack to windward and we would be in a position to try for the passage. With a feeling of reluctance I headed the boat away from the narrow strip of land and out once more to the open sea. If only the mast would hold, I felt sure that the sloop would take us home. Hilda pressed close to me, and I could feel her wet clothes clinging to mine.
“You must be cold,” she said. “I wish I had something to put over you.”
“Here!” came a voice from the bottom of the boat. “Give him another drink. Mr. Landor, I apologize. I really do. I must have been drunk to have behaved so wretchedly. You’ll forgive me, won’t you?”
Elliott, completely sobered by fear, handed me a bottle from which I took a long drink before I passed it back to him.
“Thanks,” I said. “That will last me to shore — I hope.”
He took the bottle, but this time he did not drink.
“You cursed eloquently going through the reef,” Hilda said with a smile. “I was even trying to think up some new ones to pass along.”
“I’ll need them in a little while,” I told her as I cast a backward look at the low-lying breakwater against which the waves were cannonading in white, dancing plumes.
After a long reach to sea I brought the boat about and headed in. It flew across the waves like a homing bird and as the seas rolled up behind us it seemed to leap away from danger. No one spoke now, for we were all intent on reaching that quiet haven secluded behind the breakwater. As the boat swept steadily on I kept alert for the opening. Presently I made it out, flanked on either side by trees that were bending down in the wind. We were headed directly for it. In a few minutes we should be safe and the adventure ended.
Hilda would return once more with her husband to the bleak house among the trees and I should go back to my small room in the cottage... back to the dream and to Scarlet. Nothing would be changed.
I felt tired and overstrained, and it was only with a great effort that I was able to hold the boat to its course. Then, in a surprisingly short time, the passageway stood out in front of us. One side was formed by the breakwater and the other by an overlapping jetty reaching out from the shore. We were driving now directly at the surf-covered side of the breakwater and should have to keep to our course up to the last moment before it would be wise to put the boat about for a try at the narrow opening. The wind, as if fearing that at the last minute it would be robbed of its toy, lashed furiously round us, plucking maliciously at the rigging. Then, just as the rocks appeared before our bows, I put the boat about for the last time and with spilling sails heeled down the passage into the protected basin of the lagoon.
At an old deserted pier we made fast the boat and climbed stiffly ashore. The moment Elliott was on dry land he once more became master of the situation.
“Hurry,” he said to his wife. “I must get you back to the house. Remember, you’ve not been well.”
He held out his hand to me and shook mine heartily.
“Mr. Landor,” he said, “I have nothing but the greatest admiration for your seamanship. I hope you’ll dine with us soon.”
He turned and started up a narrow path leading into the woods. Hilda held back for a moment.
“Why were you so frightened out there?” I asked. “It wasn’t like you.”
Before she answered she looked back at the waves we had so fortunately placed behind us, then she said in a low voice, “I couldn’t bear the thought of our going down with him. It would have been different if we’d been alone. Do you understand, or am I just a superstitious person?”
“I understand,” I replied, “or, at least, I think I do. You’d like to leave him behind when that happens?”
“Yes,” she answered. “One world is quite enough. I want my chance... some day.”
“Alone?” I asked.
“I’m supposed to have a friend,” she replied, looking at me enigmatically.
“Only a friend, Hilda?”
“How can I answer that?”
She must have caught the shade of disappointment that passed across my face, for she added, “I can hope, though, and I do... lots of things.”
