The Great Taboo | Page 4

half a dozen of them, one after another, with hasty but
well-aimed throws, far, far astern, in the direction where Felix had
disappeared into the black water. The belts were painted white, and
they showed for a few seconds, as they fell, like bright specks on the
surface of the darkling sea; then they sunk slowly behind as the big
ship, still not quite stopped, ploughed her way ahead with gigantic
force into the great abyss of darkness in front of her.
It seemed but a minute, too, to the watchers on board, before a party of
sailors, summoned by the whistle with that marvellous readiness to

meet any emergency which long experience of sudden danger has
rendered habitual among seafaring men, had lowered the boat, and
taken their seats on the thwarts, and seized their oars, and were getting
under way on their hopeless quest of search, through the dim black
night, for those two belated souls alone in the midst of the angry
Pacific.
It seemed but a minute or two, I say, to the watchers on board; but oh,
what an eternity of time to Felix Thurstan, struggling there with his live
burden in the seething water!
He had dashed into the ocean, which was dark, but warm with tropical
heat, and had succeeded, in spite of the heavy seas then running, in
reaching Muriel, who clung to him now with all the fierce clinging of
despair, and impeded his movement through that swirling water. More
than that, he saw the white life-belts that the sailors flung toward him;
they were well and aptly flung, in the inspiration of the moment, to
allow for the sea itself carrying them on the crest of its waves toward
the two drowning creatures. Felix saw them distinctly, and making a
great lunge as they passed, in spite of Muriel's struggles, which sadly
hampered his movements, he managed to clutch at no less than three
before the great billow, rolling on, carried them off on its top forever
away from him. Two of these he slipped hastily over Muriel's shoulders;
the other he put, as best he might, round his own waist; and then, for
the first time, still clinging close to his companion's arm, and buffeted
about wildly by that running sea, he was able to look about him in
alarm for a moment, and realize more or less what had actually
happened.
By this time the Australasian was a quarter of a mile away in front of
them, and her lights were beginning to become stationary as she slowly
slowed and reversed engines. Then, from the summit of a great wave,
Felix was dimly aware of a boat being lowered--for he saw a separate
light gleaming across the sea--a search was being made in the black
night, alas, how hopelessly! The light hovered about for many, many
minutes, revealed to him now here, now there, searching in vain to find
him, as wave after wave raised him time and again on its irresistible

summit. The men in the boat were doing their best, no doubt; but what
chance of finding any one on a dark night like that, in an angry sea, and
with no clue to guide them toward the two struggling castaways?
Current and wind had things all their own way. As a matter of fact, the
light never came near the castaways at all; and after half an hour's
ineffectual search, which seemed to Felix a whole long lifetime, it
returned slowly toward the steamer from which it came--and left those
two alone on the dark Pacific.
"There wasn't a chance of picking 'em up," the captain said, with
philosophic calm, as the men clambered on board again, and the
Australasian got under way once more for the port of Honolulu. "I
knew there wasn't a chance; but in common humanity one was bound to
make some show of trying to save 'em. He was a brave fellow to go
after her, though it was no good of course. He couldn't even find her, at
night, and with such a sea as that running."
And even as he spoke, Felix Thurstan, rising once more on the crest of
a much smaller billow--for somehow the waves were getting incredibly
smaller as he drifted on to leeward--felt his heart sink within him as he
observed to his dismay that the Australasian must be steaming ahead
once more, by the movement of her lights, and that they two were
indeed abandoned to their fate on the open surface of that vast and
trackless ocean.


CHAPTER II.
THE TEMPLE OF THE DEITY.
While these things were happening on the sea close by, a very different
scene indeed was being enacted meanwhile, beneath those waving
palms, on the island of Boupari.