The Weird Sisters: A Romance. Volume 2 of 3. Dowling Richard

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СКАЧАТЬ and all upon it, the living and the dead, were shot down upon the fore-deck.

      Coal and planks and wreck of the saloon, and bodies of those who had been on the after-deck and in the saloon, toiled upward a moment in a dense cloud of steam and water, hung a moment suspended in air, while a dull groaning sound spread abroad from the steamer. Then all descended again, falling upon the ruined boat, upon the placid water, with thud and hiss and shriek.

      For a second all was still.

      Then a dull groan from those forward. Then screams and yells when it was plain the shell of the boat could not float more than a few seconds.

      About fifty people were still alive.

      The wreck made a drive astern. The water washed over the fore-deck, and, striking the forward bulwark, laid the steamer on an even keel for a breath's space.

      Then the water rushed aft once more, and in a stern-board the stern went under water, the boat fell over to star-board, swung half-way back again, and then heeled steadily over and went down.

      The boiler of the Rodwell had burst, and the steamer Rodwell had gone down before any one who still survived had had time to jump overboard.

      CHAPTER XIV

      ON THE RIVER

      Still calling out for help, Grey reached the Castle. When he got in front of the chief gateway he paused a moment, and pressed his hand over his forehead, trying to collect his thoughts.

      The Rodwell had blown up. Yes, that was clear. And all the people who had not been killed or drowned were now struggling in the water, and his wife had been aboard.

      No good purpose could be served by alarming the people at the Castle. They could render no assistance, and they had trouble enough there just now. The best thing to do was to dash across the Island, tell the ferryman to hasten to the scene of the wreck (he could not have seen the steamer from the northern shore of the Island), jump into a boat, and pull rapidly towards the fatal spot.

      Grey crossed the Island at the top of his speed; paused a moment to recover his breath; then shouted to the ferryman the news of the disaster, and, bidding him row with all his might to the place, jumped into another boat himself and pulled rapidly down the river.

      Under the circumstances nothing could have been better for him than the exertion necessary for driving the boat forward.

      He was a powerful man and a skilful oarsman. He bent forward and flung himself back with swift and weighty regularity, that made the boat fly. He deliberately kept his mind free from thought. He concentrated all his attention upon the physical work. When a young man he had often pulled in local amateur races, but never before with such strictly undivided attention.

      "Get all way on the boat! Make her go through the water!" were the thoughts that filled his mind. Gradually as he warmed to his work he felt his power increase. He felt conscious of great skill and enormous strength.

      As he drove onward muscle after muscle of his body seemed to come into sympathy with those in his legs and back and arms, to increase his force. While the muscles came into play their action stole the sluggish blood from his head, sent up his pulse, cooled his forehead, and cleared his mind.

      "There is no use in thinking now. No use in my thinking until I am there and know all. Now I have only to make this boat fly."

      As he swung himself backward and forward, and plucked the blades through the hissing water, he felt all things possible to man were possible to him then.

      "I could crush this wherry flat in my arms, or command a burning ship, or lead a forlorn hope to certain victory at this moment," he thought. "But I must be careful not to break an oar. To break an oar now would be fatal. How they bend! They are the twisted ropes of the catapult, and the wherry is the bolt, and we are going almost as fast as a flying bolt.

      "That's the tail of the Island at last. There is no use in my looking round; it might disturb me. All I have to think of now is, Eyes in boat, a clean wake, and give way with a will.

      "Half ebb, by the marks. Give her a sheer out into mid-stream, and get the crawl of the ebb under her. It's only a crawl compared to what we're doing, although it's a five-knot ebb."

      He was out of training, and his mouth became dry, his tongue parched, and his breathing short; his muscles, under the unaccustomed strain, tingled and grew heated, and his joints fiery hot. But he felt all the better pleased for this. He took a fierce delight in squandering the magnificent resources of his strength.

      "My will," he thought, "is stronger than my body and my arms and my legs, and if they fancy they are to get the better of my will I'll show them their mistake. On you go! ay, faster." And he tore the blades hissing from the water, and feathered, and switched the blades into the water without a sound or a splash.

      "Already," he continued, "the Island dead astern. The Black Rock and the Witches' Tower, my Tower of Silence, in a line, and I out in mid-stream. This means I am near."

      "Where are you going? Eh? Where are you going with that wherry?" Grey was hailed from ahead.

      Backing water with his right hand and pulling with his left he swung the boat round, bringing her gunwale under.

      He had almost run into a four-oared river fishing-boat that had a variety of floating objects in tow, and a few small things in the boat. Four or five other boats were pulling slowly hither and thither, with a man standing up in the bow of each.

      When Grey ceased to pull it was growing dusk. For a moment he sat with his oars peaked, staring around him. Then he tried to speak, but when he opened his mouth his tongue rattled like a bone against his teeth, and his throat felt dusty dry. Notwithstanding that the water here was strong and brackish he leaned out of the boat, and filled his right hand and drank. Then his tongue became flexible again, and although his voice was hoarse and ragged, he could speak.

      "You were here soon after it happened; how long is it now?"

      Notwithstanding the gloom the men in the fishing-boat recognised him, and their manner turned to civility at once.

      "Close upon an hour ago, sir. I did not know your back, Mr. Grey; and you were running right into us, and with such way on too."

      "One, two, three, four, five, six," counts Grey. "Six boats?"

      "Yes, sir, six boats. It's the awfullest thing ever happened on the river in my time; and I'm on the Weeslade, man and boy, upwards of forty year."

      "An hour ago. I did not think it was so long. I came as quickly as I could."

      "I saw you pull a punt-race twenty-five years ago, sir, and you'd have beaten your pulling in the punt then by your pulling in the wherry this evening. Ay, sir, you'd have pulled that wherry round the punt."

      "How many were saved?"

      "About forty."

      "Were they landed at one or both sides of the river?"

      "They were all landed at Asherton's Quay over there."

      "Do you know – did you see any of the saved?"

      "Most of them. I helped to bring in some thirteen."

      "There is, if it is an hour since she blew up, no chance of any more being alive in the water, even clinging on to СКАЧАТЬ