consciousness came slowly back to frank howard. he raised his head, but otherwise lay still, painfully reconstructing the world around him. so tightly was he wedged between a broken ventilator and a skylight coamings that it was only with considerable difficulty that he finally managed to lift himself to a sitting position and stare dizzily around.
he was alone on the deck, which had become much steeper than he remembered it in the gray dawn. evidently another bulkhead forward had given way, allowing another compartment to become filled with water and causing the bow of the steamer to sink deeper.
in compensation the stern had risen somewhat higher, so that the waves broke against the deck, but no longer rushed violently up it. the sea, too, had gone[38] down, curbed perhaps by the thick mantle of yellow weed that floated all about.
with much difficulty he scrambled to his feet, clinging desperately the while to the ventilator.
“steady! steady!” he muttered. “if i tobogganed down into that water i shouldn’t get up again in a hurry.” he held out his hand and noted its tremulousness. “by jove! i’m weak as a cat.”
rapidly his brain grew clearer. ship and sea and sky ceased their momentary whirlings and settled into their proper places. he looked up at the zenith, to which the sun, though still veiled, had indubitably climbed.
“six hours at least,” he soliloquized. “heavens, i must have been pounded hard to lie unconscious for that long! if the old tub has floated six hours she may float indefinitely. but——”
he stared curiously around him. as far as his eye could reach stretched the[39] yellow gulf-weed, blanketing the blue of the sea. so thick was it that it held the queen comparatively stationary, despite the strong breeze that pressed against her.
howard uttered a cry of dismay.
“the sargasso sea,” he groaned. “we’re inside it—far inside it. great scott!” his brain reeled again. “where the deuce is jackson?” he muttered irritably. “and where’s that woman?”
pat to the moment, jackson thrust his head out of the doorway of the social hall. his dark face was pallid now, and he glared around him wildly. when he saw howard standing, his expression brightened.
“so you’re alive,” he rumbled, surlily. “it takes a devil of a lot to kill some people.”
howard stared at the man curiously. it was hardly the way he had expected to be greeted.
“yes,” he answered, slowly, “it takes[40] a good deal—sometimes. it didn’t take much for those poor devils in that boat you wanted to go in. where’s the girl?”
jackson jerked his hand over his right shoulder.
“she’s in there,” he responded. then he hesitated for an instant. “it was a brave thing you did,” he finished, grudgingly.
howard shrugged his shoulders.
“merely a choice of deaths,” he answered. “i expected the ship to sink any minute, and, personally, i preferred to die fighting. how is she?”
“she’s breathing, but that’s all. she hasn’t moved since i got her aboard.”
“no wonder. she really hasn’t any right to be alive after what she went through. have you done anything for her?”
“i didn’t know what to do. i took her into the social hall and laid her on the sofa and got some whiskey for her, but i couldn’t get her to take it, and she looked[41] so horrible and——” he paused, evidently shaken.
howard stretched up his hand.
“i must see her,” he declared. “i’m pretty shaky still, but if you’ll give me a lift i’ll try to scramble up beside you and then we’ll see what we can do.” he took the hand that jackson offered. “now brace yourself,” he warned. “all set?”
jackson nodded, and howard, after an experimental tug or two, put forth all his strength and drew himself up to the other’s side.
“that’s good,” he remarked. “i guess we’re both worth a dozen dead men yet. by the way, how did you get the girl up here?”
jackson showed more animation than he had yet done.
“the deck wasn’t so steep when i moved her,” he explained. “it tilted worse just as i got her inside. i thought at first we were going down, but we didn’t.”
[42]howard stepped inside the social hall—which had never before so belied its name—and looked around him. after the bright light of the deck, the room seemed dark, and for a moment he could see nothing. then he caught a glimpse of something lying on the big athwartship sofa, and scrambled over to it.
a girl lay there in a crumpled heap. in her rich golden brown hair alone was any touch of color. her eyes were closed and her lips blue. her cheeks were so bloodless that it seemed impossible that she still lived.
once she might have been pretty—even beautiful—but the sea had robbed her of all charm, leaving only the pitifulness of youth and womanhood. howard drew a long breath as he looked at her, and a sudden rage rose within him. she should not die! he had torn her from the sea. she should not die!
fragmentary ideas as to the proper thing to do came back to him. he bent[43] down, chafing her wrists and temples; and then, raising her head, touched jackson’s bottle to her lips. a long, shuddering sigh shook the girl’s body, and howard saw a pair of brown eyes open and stare up at him; then close wearily. again he raised her head. “drink,” he commanded, as he poured the spirit between her parted lips.
as the strangling liquor went down, the eyes flashed open again, and the girl shook from head to foot with a coughing—so violent and so prolonged that howard feared that he had overdone his task.
but it soon passed, leaving her conscious.
for a moment she lay still, vaguely puzzling over her situation. then recollection returned with a jerk, and she sat up.
“i remember,” she gasped. “oh, that dreadful wave! to see it come down, down, down—— where am i?”
[44]“you’re back on the queen. it’s all right. try to keep cool. you’ll be better in a moment.”
the wonder grew in the girl’s eyes. “the queen!” she murmured. “the—queen! how did i get back?”
“the waves washed you back and we managed to pull you on board. you had better rest a while. you have been unconscious a long time.”
the girl looked from one to the other.
“thank you! thank you both,” she murmured. “i can’t find words now, but—the others! were any of them——?” her lips moved, but no sound followed.
howard bowed his head, but he answered unflinchingly—better the clean, sharp cut of certainty than dragging suspense.
“you were the only one in your boat who was saved,” he answered quietly. “i know nothing of the other boats.”
the girl covered her face with her hands. “oh, poor people!” she moaned.[45] “poor, poor people!” then she dashed the tears from her eyes and dragged herself to her feet, holding fast to the back of the sofa.
“i am miss dorothy fairfax,” she said, with a pretty access of dignity. “and you?” her eye traveled from one man to the other.
if howard hesitated, it was for so short a time that it passed unobserved.
“this is detective jackson, of the new york police,” he answered steadily, “and i am frank howard, his prisoner.”
“frank howard! not—not——”
“yes.”
“my god!” for the first time in her life, dorothy fairfax fainted dead away.
