Fate Knocks at the Door. Will Levington Comfort

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СКАЧАТЬ Truxton was now six days out of Manila. For the past thirty-six hours, she might as well have been sunk in pitch, for any progress she made. … The ship's bell had just struck four. Bedient had finished clearing away tiffin things, and stepped on deck. The planking was like the galley-range he had left, and the fresh white paint of the three boats raised in blisters. The sea had an ugly look, yellow-green and dead, save where a shark's fin knifed the surface. The crew was lying forward under the awnings—a fiend-tempered outfit of Laskars and Chinese. Captain Carreras appeared on deck through the companion-way still farther aft and nodded to Bedient. Then both men looked at the sky, which was brassy above, but thickening in the North. It augmented darkly and streakily—like a tub of water into which bluing is added drop by drop. … A Chinese arose and tossed a handful of joss-tatters into the still air. And now the voice of the Captain brought the rest of the crew to its feet.

      The China Sea can generate much deviltry to a square mile. The calm of death and the burn of perdition are in its bosom. Cholera, glutted with victims, steals to his couch in the China Sea; and since it is the pool of a thousand unclean rivers, the sins of Asia find a hiding-place there. It has ended for all time the voyages of brave mariners and mighty ships, and become a vault for the cargoes, and a tomb for the bones of men. The China Sea fostered the pirate, aided him in his bloody ways, and dragged him down, riches and all. Bed of disease, secret-place of the unclean, and graveyard of the seas; yet, this yellow-breasted fiend, ancient in devil-lore, can smile innocently as a child at the morning sun, and beguile the torrid stars to twinkling.

      It was in this black heart that was first conceived the Tai Fung (typhoon), and there the great wind has its being to-day, resting and rising.

      The Captain's eyes were deep in the North. Bedient's soul seemed to sense the awful solemnity on the face of the waters. He was unable afterward to describe his varying states of consciousness, from that first moment. He remembered thinking what a fine little man the Captain was; that their sailing together was done. … A sympathetic disorder was brewing deep down on the ocean floor; the water now had a charged appearance, and was foul as the roadstead along the mouths of the Godivari—a thick, whipped, yeasty look. The changes were very rapid. Every few seconds, Bedient glanced at the Captain, and as often followed his gaze into the churning, blackening North.

      A chill came into the deathly heat, but it was the cold of caverns, not of the vital open. The heat did not mix with it, but passed by in layers—a novel movement of the atmospheres. Had the coolness been clean and normal, the sailors would have sprung to the rigging to breathe it, and to bare their bodies to the rain—after two days of hell-pervading calm—but they only murmured now and fell to work.

      An unearthly glitter, like the coloring of a dream, wavered in the East and West, while the North thickened and the South lay still in brilliant expectation. … In some hall-way when Bedient was a little boy, he recalled a light like this of the West and East. There had been a long narrow pane of yellow-green glass over the front door. The light used to come through that in the afternoon and fill the hall and frighten him. It was so on deck now.

      The voices of the sailors had that same unearthly quality as the light—ineffectual, remote. Out of the hold of the Truxton came a ghostly sigh. Bedient couldn't explain, unless it was some new and mighty strain upon the keel and ribs.

      A moment more and the Destroyer itself was visible in the changing North. It was sharp-lined—a great wedge of absolute night—and from it, the last vestiges of day dropped back affrighted. And Bedient heard the voice of It; all that the human ear could respond to of the awful dissonances of storm; yet he knew there were ranges of sound above and below the human register—for they awed and preyed upon his soul. … He thought of some papers dear to him, and dropped below for them. The ship smelled old—as if the life were gone from her timbers.

      Above once more, he saw a hideous turmoil in the black fabric—just wind—an avalanche of wind that gouged the sea, that could have shaken mountains. … The poor little Truxton stared into the End—a puppy cowering on the track of a train.

      And then It struck. Bedient was sprawled upon the deck. Blood broke from his nostrils and ears; from the little veins in his eyes and forehead. Parts of his body turned black afterward from the mysterious pressure at this moment. He felt he was being born again into another world. … The core of that Thing made of wind smashed the Truxton—a smash of air. It was like a thick sodden cushion, large as a battle-ship—hurled out of the North. The men had to breathe it—that seething havoc which tried to twist their souls free. When passages to the lungs were opened, the dreadful compression of the air crushed through, tearing the membrane of throat and nostril.

      Water now came over the ship in huge tumbling walls. Bedient slid over the deck, like a bar of soap from an overturned pail—clutching, torn loose, clutching again. … Then the Thing eased to a common hurricane such as men know. Gray flicked into the blackness, a corpse-gray sky, and the ocean seemed shaken in a bottle.

      Laskars and Chinese, their faces and hands dripping red, were trying to get a boat overside when Bedient regained a sort of consciousness. The Truxton was wallowing underfoot—as one in the saddle feels the tendons of his mount give way after a race. The Captain helped a huge Chinese to hold the wheel. The sea was insane. … They got the boat over and tumbled in—a dozen men. A big sea broke them and the little boat like a basket of eggs against the side of the ship.

      Another boat was put over and filled with men. Another sea flattened them out and carried the stains away on the surge. There were only nine men left and a small boat that would hold but seven. Bedient helped to make a rigging to launch this over the stern. He saw that the thing might be done if the small craft were not broken in two against the rudder.

      The Captain made no movement, had no thought to join these stragglers. He was alone at the wheel, which played with his strength. His face was calm, but a little dazed. It did not occur to him other than to go down with his ship—the old tradition. The fatuousness of this appealed suddenly to Bedient. Carreras was his friend—the only other white man left. The two mates and boatswain had tried out the first two boats—eagerly.

      Bedient ran to the wheel, tore the Captain from it and carried him in his arms toward the stern. A Chinese tried to knife him, but the man died, as if struck by a flying bit of tackle. Bedient recaptured the Captain, who during the brief struggle had dumbly turned back to the wheel. It was all done in thirty seconds; Carreras was chucked into the stern-seat of the little boat, where he belonged. The body of a Laskar cushioned the craft from being broken against the rudder. And now they were seven.

      The Truxton had been broken above and below. She strangled—and was sucked down. Bedient saw her stern fling high like an arm; saw the big "X" in the centre of the name in the whitish light.

      He remembered hearing that typhoons always double on their tracks; and that a ship is not done that manages to live through the first charge. This one never came back. They had five days of thirst and equatorial sun. Two men died; two fell into madness; Captain Carreras, Andrew Bedient and a Chinese made Hong Kong without fatal hurt.

      Captain and cook took passage for London. The former declared he was through with the sea, except as a passenger. In twenty-five years he had never encountered serious accident before; he had believed himself accident-proof; and learning differently, did not propose to lose a second ship. He could bring himself to say very little about Bedient's action of the last moment on deck, but he asked the young man to share his fortunes. Captain Carreras intended to stay for a while at his mother's house in Surrey, but realized he could not stand that long. … Bedient told him he was not finished with Asia yet. On the day they parted, the Captain said there would be a letter for Bedient, on or before July first of every year, sent care the "Marigold, New York." … The old embarrassment intervened at the last moment—but the younger man СКАЧАТЬ