In the Roaring Fifties | Page 2

to their parents. The crew increased their stroke.
Already the perspiration was streaming from their indurated hides; their
wet faces and breasts glistened 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