In the Roaring Fifties | Page 2

in the night. Every now and again the look-out, discovering a black spot where the moon's rays splashed a smooth-backed wave with silver, uttered an inarticulate cry that struck the men like a spur, and all the time his pointing hand was a finger-post to the steersman.
Meanwhile the object of this chase, a fragile, white-faced girl, had fought with the mammoth waves as with inveterate beasts seeking to stifle her in icy embraces. A mere atom plunged in their depths as in cavernous and boundless darkness, she had struggled with an ocean the whole of the focus of which were leagued against her, possessed all the time with a foolish and trivial remembrance of child hood, the vision of a little gray kitten, with a weight about its neck, striving to beat its way up through clear waters, sending out tiny bubbles of crystal that danced in mockery of its dying.
On the surface she was swung across seeming great distances, till a strong arm out of the night and the vastness of things seized her, and the tension of the struggle passed from her limbs, leaving a sense of appeasement as sweet as sleep. She heard a man's voice directing her, and obeyed without understanding. Now the sea supported her like a soft and pleasant bed, she had no fear and little consciousness. A few stern words buzzed in her head like bees--'Sink your arms! Don't try to breathe when we're under! Keep your mouth shut!' They were very absurd: they could have nothing to do with her; but she had heard them somewhere, and she obeyed.
The man lay well back in the water, with little more than his chin and lips above the surface, his left hand, twisted in the woman's hair, rested in the nape of her neck, sustaining her with scarcely an effort. An ocean swimmer from his early boyhood, great waters had no terrors for him, and when he found the drowning girl he knew that all would be well, provided the ship's boats were successful in their search.
The girl was very tractable: she lay perfectly still. He looked into her pale face; her eyes were wide open, staring straight up at the feeble stars. Every minute or so he cried aloud, or whistled a shrill call between his teeth, but the action did not disturb the flow of his thoughts. Despite the peculiarity of his position, he had drifted into a strange mood of introspection. Why had he done this thing? What was the girl to him that at the first sight of her danger he should have forgotten his philosophy of self, his pride in his contempt for his kind, and his fine aloofness? She was no more in his life than any other of the four hundred strangers on board. The act of leaping into the sea had been a mere impulse, the prompting of an unsuspected instinct. She might hate his race, but he was still its slave. All his life he had been an Ishmael, feared and disliked; humankind had given him only cause to hate and despise it, and yet blood remained stronger than belief when a human life was in peril. The young man laughed, and the boat's from the Francis Cadman, drawing near, heard the mocking laughter and ceased rowing, chilled with a superstitious terror.
'Good God!' cried the look-out, 'there's two of 'em.'
The sailors turned in their seats, staring in stupid awe at two heads clearly visible in the moonlight that lay like silver gossamer on the dark green sea--two heads where they had expected to find but one. The boatswain, frozen in the forward movement of his swing, glared open-mouthed, speechless; he felt his stiff hair stirring strangely under his hat, a pronounced uneasiness moved in the boat. Only one woman had fallen from the ship, and here, out in the deep trough of the lone sea, they found two creatures, and one laughed eerily. Sailormen believed in many awesome mysteries: ghosts and goblins peopled the ocean like a vast graveyard. The boat held off, and no man spoke, but Ryan shivered under his skin, and fumbled his memory for the name of a potent saint.
'Ahoy, there!' cried the young man impatiently; but winning no response, he swam slowly to meet the boat as she drifted. He raised the girl, and one of the men seized her mechanically, and drew her limp form from the water. No hand was offered to the rescuer, but as the boat lifted he seized her prow, and drew himself aboard. All eyes were upon him, staring dubiously.
'Divil take me if it ain't the Hermit!' gasped Ryan, with an expiration of intense relief.
Coleman's stony expression instantly relaxed, he recovered himself with a jerk of the bead.
'Well,' he murmured bitterly, 'of all the