A STRANDED SHIP: A STORY OF SEA AND SHORE.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 81, 20 December 1884, Page 4

A STRANDED SHIP: A STORY OF SEA AND SHORE.

By L. CLARKE DAVIS.

PART IV. A LIFE FOR A LIFE. The wind that had been gradually rising since noon had grown into a storm before evening, and the hurtled mists came driving in from the sea dense and spectral, hiding the fields and woods and river j but no rain fell, and above there was a clear, starlit sky, under which floated the compact mists and torn, scudding clouds, each in Its way heralding the coming clouds. All night long the wind thundered through the trees, the ospreya in their rudely shaken nests kept up their wild, unearthly cry, the surf beat and hammered on the shore ; but through and above it all still shone the clear, steady light of the stars, whilebelow them floated in upon the winds the mists and clouds. It was at the breaking of the day that the guests at the old farm-house wore} awakened from sleep by the discharge of a solitary gun ; it sounded so near and distinct that it startled the sleepers from their beds. It was presently followed by a second report, and at intervals by others. Then there was hurried dressing, and a quick tramp to the sea by all who lived either in farm-house or cabin, for the slow booming guns told of another wreck ; of life to be saved, to some ; of plunder and salvage, to others. Professor Daunton had already left the house, when he heard Margaret's voice calling to him. "Will you let me go with you?" she asked, as if fearing a refusal. " Yes, my girl, and thank you for the good company. See the people there, hurrying across the marshes ; there cannot be a man, woman, or child left in the village. These people can scent a wreck in the air, I think." They hurried on with the rest, the girl holding the Professor's arm, and occasionally casting quick, timid glances behind her, evidently looking for some one whom she had not seen among the other guests going down to the sea. They got down in time to see the men and horses thundering along the hard beach, with the life-boats on their rough carriages, surrounded by the yelling wreckers, mad with the excitement of perilous adventure. They trotted along side, their hands upon the gunwales of the boats, grim and alert, like artillerymen hurrying to the front, full of the fire and bravery of the battle. The horses flew along, untouched by whip or goad, as if they knew the value of the freight they bore and the necessity for speed. But when the wreckers arrived opposite to the stranded ship, against which the waves thumped mercilessly, there fell a dead silence among them all, wreckers, fishermen, and villagers alike, and they looked toward the monster wreck and then into each other's faces, hopeless, dismayed. It was no use, they said, one to the other ; no boat could live in such a sea. It was an emigrant ship, from Liverpool ; and about her decks and lower rigging, which the sea almost constantly washed, clung her helpless, doomed passengers and crew, as thick as bees about the hive. She had come on broadside to the bar, at that treacherous, dark hour before the dawn, and was strained badly ; yet she still held together above decks, but at low-water line showed an ugly break in her hull amidship. The people of the village had built a fire of the ocean wrack gathered from alongshore, for the wind, blowing a hurricane directly on land, chilled th«m to their bones. They stood or sat huddled about it in picturesque groups, generally silent, looking off to where the ship lay hard and fast on the bar; wondering in their stolid fashion how long she could hold together, with the sea thumping her sides in that way, and often making clear breaches over her from stem to stern. The women who had husbands in the wrecking service stood about the boats on which the men sat, entreating and forbidding them to venture out. They needed little entreaty, yet somehow they felt that out there, with those despairing wretches, and not idly here on shore, lay their duty ; and in more than one breast among those rough fellows the sense of duty was stronger than sense of fear, or love of wife and child. It only needed the magnetic example of one man, more daring than the rest, to hurry them all into the boats, and, once there, to risk everything for humanity and duty. Captain Brown, the master, stood apart from his men, talking to the Professor and Margaret. " Is there no hope for those poor people, Captain Brown?" she asked. "Surely with these brave men, who know the sea and shore, you cai- do something Help them, Captain ; they are so many ; there are women and children among them, such as your wife and children are. Try to help them. Do not let them go down into the gea before our eyes without making a single effort, Captain." The girl's hand had caught his own, and her wet, passionate eyes looked right into his, pleading with him for the women and children, who had their counterparts in his own home and heart. •'It's no use. Marg'ret. She's doomed, that ship is, an' she'll go down afore our eyes, an' we cant help it. I'm main sorry, but we can't help 'em." •• I am not a strong man, Captain Brown," said the Professor slowly, " but I was accounted a good stroke once in the Cambridge crew, and I would like to make one of a party to attempt the rescue of those

people there. "You would— you? Then by the good Lord, Professor, Til make another. Hello, men ! I daren't force one of you into that boat while the sea pitches like that, though it's your duty, you know, men ; but who'll volunteer to go out there with a line to that ship ? It's a desp'rit service, but Professor Daunton is going an I'm going ; and now, who else'llgo? Good for you, Bill Shadrack ; good for you, Tom Hemphill ; you're men, you are. Now some more of you as hasn't got anybody at home. Who's

the next man to get into the boat? Two others instantly volunteered, and despite the cries of children and wives, the men leaped into the boat, and each one with a last look shoreward, quietly poised his oar in the air, stiffened himself in his place, and sat solemnly watching the mountainous wave over which he was to be hurled. Half a hundred brawny hands seized the boat and tried to launch her, uneuccesßßully at first ; but on the fourth trial she plunged into the breakers, and in the ne^t moment she was thrown high and dry upon the beach, smashed like an eggshell ; her crew of six all safe, but all a good deal bruiaed and hurt. The oid Captain gathered himself up withKtbei reet- •• I told you it waa no use*

Professor," he said. "I know a soa when I see it, and I knqwed no boat could live a minute out there.*' » " I see it is no use, Captain. God help them all, for only He, can now," and tho Professor turned away sick at heart, not noticing tho blood dripping freely from his fingers. But Margaret was in an instant at his side, tying her handkerchief about his bleeding hand. When it was done she went up to the fire where poor Tom Hemphill had been carried, his face gashed and bloody. Margaret stooped down by him, took the rough unkempt head on her knees, while she staunched the blood and bound up the wounds. Tom was only a fishorman, with no wife nor child to care for his coming or going; but as the beautiful lady put her arui about his neck to raise his battered head to her lap, he closed his oyes suddenly as if he had no right to look at her " You have dono a brave thing, Mr Hemphill," sho said as she arranged some blankets under him. " I'd do it agon, Miss, only to have your little finger touch me, I would," rejoined honest Tom. " It was better," she said, not displeased, "to have done it for those poor people there." " What chance, Captain ?" It was a pleasant voice that had asked the question, the old wrecker thought, before he looked up at the gigantic figure of the speaker on horseback ; a little too cheery and careless, though, he thought again, as he looked into the cool, grey eye, and saw a bright, easy smile on Luke Connor's face ; then he said : " Capt'n Connor, I shouldn't be obleeged to tell you, as knows tho sea, that there is no chance for them poor souls on that wrack. Only God and a miracle will ever let them see home agen." "Only God and a miracle?" the man asked, a doubtful smile on his face. 11 Yes— jest that, Capt'n. Connor." The Professor stood by jealously watching and noting every expression of the man who had robbed him of his wife and home and love ; and remarking his light, incredulous tone, his rareless bearing in the face of such calamity as there was before him in the stranded ship, he turned suddenly away, afraid of himself ; afraid lest his anger and contempt should make him drag the cool, indifferent devil from his saddle, and beat the life out of him. He thought of Margaret as this wretch's wife, and his heart grew sick within him. "Have you tried the boat, Captain Brown ?" Luke Connor asked. "Does that look as if we had tried the boat, young man?" and the old wrecker pointed sternly to whore the shattered fragments lay strewn about the beach. " Very much like it, Captain Brown ; but are there no more volunteers ?" Luke Connor did not wait for the savage answer of the wrecking- master — but rode down to the wreckers and their wives — a gallant, noble figure, straight as a maple, and as shapely,' holding his impatient horse in hand easily as a child holds a kitten ; a powerful figure, robust, hardy, wearing easily and gracefully the strength and nerve of a dozen common men. The wreckers' faces lighted up pleasantly as they touched their hats to the gallant sailor, who had defied the dangers of the inlet as he swept into the river one day. They had been witnesses to his bravery, his skill they could understand, and his strength they envied. "My men," he said, as he drew rein among them, " you know mo. You know that I can make my offer good. I will give a thousand dollars to every man who lends a hand to carry a line to that ship !" A dead silence among the men, flashing eyes and dark scowls among the women, followed the offer of the speaker. "What, no answer?" he said. "You want more. Well, you shall have it. Any six of you stand out there, and name your price. Don't be afraid ; I'll pay it down on the nail." He paused, but no one stirred ; the women crept closer to their husbands, holding their arms and glaring savagely at Connor. "You won't go? Then let one man among you swim to that ship, and he shall be the owner of Captain Brown's seafarm. You all know it— you all know that it will be a fortune to any one who owns it when your railroad comes down here. I will give it out and out to the man who swims to that ship. Still no answer ? Why, you cowards, are you afraid of a bit of dirty water or of some salt spray washing over you ? Will nothing tempt you, you miserable devils?" . „ " We are not cowards, Captain Connor, but no boat can live out there ; it has been tried, and no man among us can swim j there," a wrecker said, doggedly. " Try it again, you cowards. omy God," he exclaimed, " for one hour's life of the old Argo, and I weuld show you what a single man could do. I would sail her out there, if the waves of hell washed her sides ; you have been upon the seas all your miserable lives, and yet not a man of you will stir." The bitter words were scarcely uttered, when a gaunt old fish-wife, a woman tall and muscular, apparently, as himself, her arms bared to the shoulders, her face as brown as the dead kelp, her sharp features watched over by grey, hawkish eyes, her voice shriller, more piercing than the wind, seized his bridle, and with a quick jerk threw Luke Connor's horse back on his haunches. 11 Cowards, are we ?" she cried. "Then what are you ? What are you, coming here to tempt to their certain death these men with children and wives ? Why don't you go yourself? What makes you tempt other men with fortunes greater than they ever dreamed ot, to do a thing your own cowardly heart will not let you do? What is your dirty money to youl You never worked for it ; no, not a penny of it. You don't know the value of money ; these men do. You never worked with the nets, wet to the armpits, from sunset till morning, for a poor mess of fish to keep starvation from your door ! You never worked in storm, in sleet and hail and snow, for a dollar a day, at wrecking and saving human lives. These men have done it hundreds of times, and will do nothing else as long as long as they live ; and the like of you comes here tempting them with more money than they could count over. Go carry a line to the ship yourself ; save your filthy bribes, you murderer, and earn the right to call our sons and husbands cowards. Go yourself." During the delivery of this fierce tirade, Luke Connor sat back on his horse, more amused than vexed at the earnestness of the old fish-wife, until the single word murderer escaped her lips, and then his cheeks blanched, and he grew dizzy for a moment ; but recovering himself, he leaned forward in his saddle and gravely addressed the wreckers one and all. "My friends," he said, "I am sorry. I was wrong, and this good wife is right. I will carry a line to the ship." The old woman let go the bridle, stared hard into the man's face, full of unbelief, and for a moment her haggard countenance expressed it, but something she saw in the calm, solemn eyes of Luke Connor told her that* he meant to do it, and it chilled the blood in her heart* Her voice was not

shrill ixowy. but .husky and iull«»of* pauu *• Fou," she said, u you oarry a line to yon popr Crotches' ! It can tbe donej Capt'n Luko—it can'tTbo 1 do^e,'!" tell 1 you. I'm only a miserable old- woman, but I know, I lived on this coast before you was born, Master Luke, and! have seen the sea since I was a baby, and I know it, I do. ' I'm hurt that I vexed you. I didn't mean to call you a murderer, I didn't mean to be rough and to make you do a mad thing like that, but you drove my man bitter hard with your piles of money and your hard words. You can't save 'em, Captain Luke ; only God can do that." The woman clung to his arm at last, as if by her Bhnple strength sho would hold him back. "Then, under God," he said solemnly, "I will do it." She turned fiercely upon the gaping wreckers, who stood in little groups, shaking their heads in earnest protest and excitedly discussing this new danger. They readily forgave Luke Connor his hard words. They had soen him do a braver thing than they had ever done when before them all he lashed his muinsheet to the deck in a fierce storm, at tho moment when his crew would no longer aid him ; they had seen him sail his toy ship through the hungry mouth of hell, as it were, into their river. They liked this young fellow, who threw his money around among them so lavishly, who had helped them at their nets, sat on their hearths, shared their luck in deep sea fishing, and who was a hail-fellow well met with the humblest of them all. They knew him to be so reckless of personal danger that he would certainly risk a passage to the wreck, and they did not like it. "Will you let him do it, men?" sho asked, looking into their faces for help. " Will you let him go out into that boiling hell-broth ? He's been like a brother to you men, he has. You've eaten of his salt ever since he came among us. Do you mean to let him throw his life away before your eyes? If you do, you're greater cowards and meaner men than he called you just now. You speak to him, Captain Brown, he'll mind you." 11 What is tho young one going to do now, friend Wagner?" the Captain inquired. The young fellow leaped isom his horse, drew his arm through the bridle, and, taking the old wrecking-master by both shoulders, looked down in his face, with a grave, tender smile in his eyes. " Captain Brown," ho said, " I propose to carry a line to yonder ship. You said, awhile ago, that only God and a miraclo could save those poor people there " "Yes, 1 did say that," the Captain j answered, looking blankly amazed at the other's eai'nestness. "Well, Captain, is not your God as alive to-day as He was eighteen hundred ye t ars ago ? Is He not as strong and able to help His people now as then? Can He not do a miracle to-day as easily as then? You, Captain Brown, are a prayerful, God-fear-ing man — a good man, I call you— -will you help me !" The old wrecker's eyes measured and weighed the sturdy giant looking down upon, before he spoke. He had seen in his active life so many things done which men had not called miracles, but which had been pronounced impossible, that he was not prepared to say what might or might not be done by a man strong, resolute, and daring as this young man, "This aren't the time of miracles, Capt'n Luke, but you're a strong man and you know the sea ; now look for yourself, can you carry a line out yonder — can any man do it ?" Luke Connor deliberately surveyed the prospect before him, before he answered ; he saw ell the danger, all the necessity too, and felt how desperate the chances really were. No other man than ho would have tried it, after so fully weighing its impossibilities ; but no other man would have had his motive, nor been guided to it by the same curious fancy. But to the morbid soul of Luke Connor, it was no fancy ; rather a solemn message to him from his God, wh eh he would blindly and implicitly obey. " I can try, Captain Brown," he said. I am not a bi ster, I think you know, but I have livei ur>on the water a long while; there are y ew men who can swim as I can ; there are but few men with half my strength or endurance. The most of the danger lies there in that first breaker ; there is some in the second, and less in the third. I don't mind that swashing sea beyond, for it I could pass the three lines of breakers, the tide would favour me, and I could feel almost certain of success. Will you help me?" The Captain turned to his men for counsel. The young fellow was so calm and earnest about this matter, though his eyes shone with an unnatural brilliancy, and his face was pale as if death had already marked him out from among living men. The wreckers looked at the master, and 3hook their heads. "It's no use, Capt'n Luke. The men are all agen your doing it. We like you, Capt'n Connor, and we know you've got the pluck, but it aren't in mortal power to do it, an' we aren't going to stand by an' see you dashed to pieces on this shore." " [ am only one man, Captain Brown," he urged, " and there are at least a hundred men, women, and children on that ship. She cannot last many hours longer with j that sea hammering the life out of her at every stroke. She will go to pieces before night. Will you help me -or am Ito try it without your help ?" While he paused, waiting for the Captain's answer, an awful, piercing cry went up from the wreck, drowning for a moment the beat of the waves and the roar of the wind. The men turned to the vessel and saw that she had parted amidships, and that men and women were struggling in the sea, clinging desperately to fragments of the wreck. The old wrecking-maater gave but a single glance at this .lew and imminent danger, and then sai.l : " Yes, Capt'n Luke, rllhelp you ; there's not a man here as won't help you. But have you squared accounts up there ? Is it all right with you, Japt'n 1" "It will be all right, if I don't come back. I will hx >c squared all accounts then, Captain Bic wn," the man said, grasping tho other's 1 and; "for then I shall have g'ven a life tor a life." "I don't exactly know what you mean by a life for a life, though I've been taught that works aren't nothing without faith and repentance ; but if you don't come back — an' God help you will— l'd like to stand near you up t icre ; I'd be satisfied with your chances.' There was some salt water in the old c low's eyes, and his voice trembled a bit is he released Luke Connor's ! hand. "An 1 now, when will you be ready?" he asked. "In a few minutes, Captain Brown; when I have said good-by to my friends there. Get out the lines at once, and let the first one be as light and strong as possible ; have ropes fastened above and run down on either side of the lines a few feet apart. The men can hold on by them close to the breakers, and maybe save me from being dashed ashore in case I make a mistake, Let the strongest and coolest men go to the end ; there are none of them, I think, who will mind x knockdown or two from the sea on my account?" He lopked down among them, shaking hands withone and

— * XX .t± *■#» Is. -rfa — — /*• ~ ' I all, smiling h ,a grand, brave smile, hisjyes wondrously bi ight and tender. i "All right. Captain ' Luke. There's npne here as will shirk any danger to help you." Luke wolfed up the beach to the fire, wheie the Professor and Margaret were still busy nt'ursingpoorHemphill. When yet several yards distant he called to the Professor, who looked annoyed for^ a moment, but got up and went to him. The two men had not spoken together a dozen time* during the summer, and then only when it wob unavoidable. The younger man was the first to speak, as they ncv" stood face to face. His usual, ihabit of re traint in presence of the Professor wr 3 gone ; and as he spoke, the simple, earnest manner of the old, boyish time waft upon him, which was curiously puzzling^ to the other. "I think that you know me, Professor Daunton, tlespite your affected ignorance?" " Yes, Mi Connor, I do' know you. At college 1 knew you for a brilliant}, passionate boy, and I know you now as a brilliant, reokless, and dangerous man." " Hard words, Professor Daunton, antf you are a brave man to say them in my teeth in this way, but I .won't quarrel with you now. One question, if you please. Have you told Mlsb Daunton all you know of me 1 Understand me, I don't dispute your right to have done it " The Professor interrupted him, speaking with his usual grave, controlled manner. "No, I have told her nothing. If I had such a right, I never used it." "Professor Daunton," Luke Connor said, " you are a braver man than I thought —a braver and a better man than I could ever be, sir." "I have been an honourable man, I trust, if that is what you mean. Having answered your question, may I consider our interview at an end?" the Professor asked, touching his hat and moving away. " One moment more, if you please, Professor Daunton. i would have liked, even at college, to have made such a man as you my friend ; but that was not possible ; you never liked me— and then my trouble came '' Luke Connor spoke hurriedly as if the moments of his life were numbered. " But that is nothing now to either of us. I am going to cany a line to yonder ship ; and before I go I am glad to have learnt that your sister does not know my story. It will be easier to die thinking that she will never know it ; that she can always think of me as she knows me now— at my best." When Luke Conuor announced so quietly hi 3 resolution to the Professor, the grave scholar, whose sympathies with brave deeds lay very near the surface, but had deep roots in his nature, came closer to the speaker, his face lighting up with instinctive recognition of the greatness of the man before him. "You must never attempt that, Mr Connor," he said, oarnestly. " All that men can do has been tried here to-day already. But I know you better now than I ever knew you before ; and I promise you that Margaret shall never know your old, sad secret, if I can ke«p it from her. But you must not make this hopeless attempt. You will? Are you sure that there is nothing that I can say or do that will cause you to abandon it ? Trust me there is nothing that I will not do." " You can do or say nothing, Professor Daunton. It is my one chance. I have not lived a good, true life since we parted. I have lived to myself and for myself, abusing and degiading what was best in me. I have road somewhere that God grants it to but few men to carry a line to a stranded ship. I have a fancy that He will grant it to me. If he does, I shall take it as a token that my sin is forgiven me. But if it bell 3 wii 1 that I shall perish in the tr i ', t -vv i be befct so, for the weight of my c*.' tin ha*, beej heavy on me these years, ail I m t rel. You once refused to take tv y hand, Professor; will you take it now ? I somehow feel already as if the miserable, unclean past was dead for ever, as if I was again the equal of honourable men/ The Professor took the proffered hand and held it, while he said, " Forgive me, Mr Connor, that I did not understand you sooner. It has been my loss. I can understand, I think, that you feel as if God had called you to do this thinp" ; but think again, and let me and Margaret dissuade you from it." "You could not dissuade me; I even think she would not try to do it. Let us say good-by here. The men will be ready before me." They held each other's hand for a long while, as it seemed to those who saw them, and then said, "Good-bye;" but Luke Connor did not go ; he stood irresolute for an instant, an unuttered question on his lips. The Professor, seeing something in the man's glowing eyes as yet unexpressed, asked him what it was. " If I should come back, Professor Daunton V Connor asked. " If you should come back to us, Mr Connor, there is no man living to whom I would rather give my sister than yourself," the Professor answered, heartily. " Thank you, and good-bye again." "Good-bye," said the Professor. Then he stood looking after the man, going so bravely to his death, with already the glow of immortality in his eyes, yet with the springy, buoyant step of youth ; and the loyal gentleman had only sorrow for the brilliant fellow, harbouring not a thought of how Luke Connor's death 'would affect his own cause. He was a brave, true man. It had already spread around among the people on the beach that Captain Connor intended carrying a line to the wreck ; j and when they heard the story, and saw by the wreckers' hurried preparations that it was true, they gathered about him, tearful and quiet, silently taking the proffered hand, the women sobbing over, or showering kisses upon it, saying under their breath, " God bless you." Directly he Btood before Margaret. Her face had grown pallid and haggard since she had heard the story. "I am going now, Margaret," he said. " Let us say good-bye quickly. The curious kindness of these people is taking the strength and nerve out of me. I must go at once." She put out her hand uncertainly, like one gone suddenly blind, and groping in the dark. She only said, "Is it right for you to go?" " Yes, it is right," he answered. "Then go, Luke -and God bless you, and bring you back to me. "In the olden time, Margaret," he said, the Roman mothers— not braver nor noblei than you— when they sent their sons to the battle, they sanctified them for death by a kiss ; I have thought in this last minute that death waits for me out there ; will you kiss me now,?" She bent forward and kissed his forehead, bared reverentially for her lips to touch and anoint for death. Then^ all the fierce, ""hungry passion surging in her woman's heart mastered her, and she threw her arms about him and held him close to her breast. "0 God I" she cried; "I daren't do what is right. I cannot let you fo, Luke— -I cannot let you go." But her old about him relaxed, and she sank down motionless upon the sands. (To be continued,)