Part 16 (1/2)

Midwinter smiled. ”Nothing whatever,” he replied. ”But I couldn't be sure that we were to have the whole s.h.i.+p to ourselves till I got over the bulwark and looked about me.”

Allan took a turn on the deck, and surveyed the wreck critically from stem to stern.

”Not much of a vessel,” he said; ”the Frenchmen generally build better s.h.i.+ps than this.”

Midwinter crossed the deck, and eyed Allan in a momentary silence.

”Frenchmen?” he repeated, after an interval. ”Is this vessel French?”

”Yes.”

”How do you know?”

”The men I have got at work on the yacht told me. They know all about her.”

Midwinter came a little nearer. His swarthy face began to look, to Allan's eyes, unaccountably pale in the moonlight.

”Did they mention what trade she was engaged in?”

”Yes; the timber trade.”

As Allan gave that answer, Midwinter's lean brown hand clutched him fast by the shoulder, and Midwinter's teeth chattered in his head like the teeth of a man struck by a sudden chill.

”Did they tell you her name?” he asked, in a voice that dropped suddenly to a whisper.

”They did, I think. But it has slipped my memory.--Gently, old fellow; these long claws of yours are rather tight on my shoulder.”

”Was the name--?” He stopped, removed his hand, and dashed away the great drops that were gathering on his forehead. ”Was the name _La Grace de Dieu_?”

”How the deuce did you come to know it? That's the name, sure enough.

_La Grace de Dieu_.”

At one bound, Midwinter leaped on the bulwark of the wreck.

”The boat!” he cried, with a scream of horror that rang far and wide through the stillness of the night, and brought Allan instantly to his side.

The lower end of the carelessly hitched rope was loose on the water, and ahead, in the track of the moonlight, a small black object was floating out of view. The boat was adrift.

IV. THE SHADOW OF THE PAST.

One stepping back under the dark shelter of the bulwark, and one standing out boldly in the yellow light of the moon, the two friends turned face to face on the deck of the timber-s.h.i.+p, and looked at each other in silence. The next moment Allan's inveterate recklessness seized on the grotesque side of the situation by main force. He seated himself astride on the bulwark, and burst out boisterously into his loudest and heartiest laugh.

”All my fault,” he said; ”but there's no help for it now. Here we are, hard and fast in a trap of our own setting; and there goes the last of the doctor's boat! Come out of the dark, Midwinter; I can't half see you there, and I want to know what's to be done next.”

Midwinter neither answered nor moved. Allan left the bulwark, and, mounting the forecastle, looked down attentively at the waters of the Sound.

”One thing is pretty certain,” he said. ”With the current on that side, and the sunken rocks on this, we can't find our way out of the sc.r.a.pe by swimming, at any rate. So much for the prospect at this end of the wreck. Let's try how things look at the other. Rouse up, messmate!” he called out, cheerfully, as he pa.s.sed Midwinter. ”Come and see what the old tub of a timber-s.h.i.+p has got to show us astern.” He sauntered on, with his hands in his pockets, humming the chorus of a comic song.

His voice had produced no apparent effect on his friend; but, at the light touch of his hand in pa.s.sing, Midwinter started, and moved out slowly from the shadow of the bulwark. ”Come along!” cried Allan, suspending his singing for a moment, and glancing back. Still, without a word of answer, the other followed. Thrice he stopped before he reached the stern end of the wreck: the first time, to throw aside his hat, and push back his hair from his forehead and temples; the second time, reeling, giddy, to hold for a moment by a ring-bolt close at hand; the last time (though Allan was plainly visible a few yards ahead), to look stealthily behind him, with the furtive scrutiny of a man who believes that other footsteps are following him in the dark. ”Not yet!” he whispered to himself, with eyes that searched the empty air. ”I shall see him astern, with his hand on the lock of the cabin door.”