The Trey o' Hearts/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII
The Island
NOT more than thirty seconds could have elapsed before Barcus recovered from the shock of the motor's treachery sufficiently to reverse the wheels throttle down the carburetor, and jump out of the engine-pit. But in that small space of time the lifeboat and Alan Law had parted company as definitely as though one of them had been levitated bodily to the far side of the globe. It could not have been more than a minute after the accident before Barcus was guiding the boat over what he could have sworn was the precise spot where Alan had disappeared, but without discovering a sign of him. For the next twenty minutes he divided attention, between vain attempts to soothe the distracted girt and to educe a reply from Alan by stentorian hailing. Then of a sudden he verged so close upon the object of his search that he was warned off in a manner sufficiently arresting by nothing more or less, in fact, than a gunshot. On the echo of this a man's rough voice warned peremptorily:
"Sheer off, damn you! Sheer off! If you come on another yard I'll blow your heads off your shoulders!"
Precipitately Barcus reversed and then silenced the engine.
"Alan!" he yelled. "Alan! Give a hail to tell us you're safe!"
The answer came in another voice—Judith's, clear, musical, effervescent with sardonic humour.
"Be at peace, little one—bleat no more! Mr. Law is with us—and safe!"
Barcus sought counsel of Rose. Her eyes were blank with despair. He shook his head helplessly. With no way on her, the lifeboat drifted.
After a little the girl crept aft, and they conferred in guarded tones.
"What can we do?" Rose implored. "We can't leave him. … Oh, when I think of him there, in her power, I could go mad!"
"If only I knew," Barcus protested, "but my hands are tied. There's nothing to go by—except the bare chance that the reef she mentioned may he Norton's. It doesn't seem possible, but we may have made that much southing. If so, "we're about three miles off the mainland, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Katama Island, a little desolate rocky bump inhabited mainly by fishermen."
The girl racked her hands. "But how could Judith have got there—with her men—and dry ammunition?"
"Don't ask me. Going on my experience with the lady, I'd be willing to bet she was picked up by the steamer that ran us down, and proceeded to make a prize of it—or tried to. Perhaps she found or stole a boat from somebody; she couldn't have made Norton's Reef by swimming—it's too far. That's, the answer, they were picked up, stole a boat, and piled it up on the reef."
"And there's no hope!"
"If we could make the mainland and get help. …"
His accents died away into a disconsolate silence that held unbroken for more than an hour. Rose went back to her place in the bow, crouched there, a huddled shape of wretchedness; and in the stern sat Barcus submerged in a dejection no less profoundly dismal, his gaze directed vacantly at his feet.
Alan was delivered into the hands of the enemy; defeated in the game he had played with such brave spirit—his life for the forfeit.
Brief though their friendship was in actual duration of time, Barcus had come to hold the man in such affection as only is possible between men who have faced danger and endured hardship shoulder to shoulder.
Tom Barcus mourned a brave man and loyal friend. …
So slowly did the current bring the lifeboat toward the beach and so still was the tide that neither appreciated they were near land until the bows grounded with a slight jar and a grating sound.
With a cry of "Land, by all that's lucky!" Barcus jumped up, then stooping, lent the girl a hand, and helped her to her feet. Then sandy beach was revealed to their wondering eyes, backed by a looming wall of rock whose top was lost in vapour.
Hardly had Rose found time to comprehend this good fortune, when Barcus was over the side and dragging the boat up on the shoals. Then lifting Rose down, he set her on dry land, rummaged out anchor and cable and planted the former well up under the foot of the cliff.
As he rose from this last labour, the westering sun broke through the fog. In less than five minutes thereafter the wind had rolled the fog back and sent it spinning far out to sea, while the shore was deluged with sunlight bright and deliciously warm.
"You're about all in?"
She nodded confirmation of what was no more than simple truth.
"Where are we?" she added.
He could only make her party to his own perplexity.
"You're not fit to travel," he pursued. "Do you mind being left alone while I take a turn up the beach and have a look around? We can't be far from some sort of civilization; even if this is an island, there are few desert islands along this coast. I'll find something soon enough, no fear. … There's a niche among the rocks up there," Barcus indicated, "almost a cave, where you'll be warm and dry enough, and secure from overhead observation. Maybe you can even manage a wink of sleep." …
She negatived that suggestion with a dreary smile: no sleep for her until sheer exhaustion overpowered her or she knew Alan's fate!
And so iterating his promise to be no longer than might be absolutely needful, he left her.