He held up a hand to enforce silence. A deep hush fell on the ship.
"Listen!" he muttered, so low that Elsie alone caught the words. "Can
you hear firing?"
She thought she could distinguish an irregular patter of dull reports,
and the behavior of the Indians showed that additional excitement was
toward. Many of them stood up and waved their arms, possibly as a
signal to their allies on shore. The canoes raced madly. Where speed
was vital the rough-hewn native craft were far swifter than the
solidly-built lifeboat, with its broad beam and deep draft.
And that was all. Though they strained their eyes and spoke with bated
breath, never a sight of boat or canoes was obtainable for hours after
the latter were swallowed up by the trees which shrouded the creek at
the foot of Guanaco Hill.
Isobel Baring, moved by genuine pity for her distraught friend, tried
to induce her to leave the deck. But she shrank away, terrified by the
fire which blazed from the blue eyes resting on her for an instant.
Mrs. Somerville came, but she, too, was repulsed. Elsie spoke no word.
She hardly moved. She clung to the rail, and gazed at the deepening
shadows with the frozen stare of abiding horror. All things around her
were unreal, fantastic; she dwelt in a world peopled by her own
terrible imaginings. The smiling landscape was alive with writhing
shapes. She fancied it a monstrous jungle full of serpents and
grotesquely human beasts. The inert mass of the Kansas, so modern,
so perfectly appointed in its contours and appurtenances, crushed her
by its immense helplessness. The dominant idea in her mind was one of
voiceless rage against the ship and its occupants. Why should her
lover, who had saved their lives--who had plucked the eight thousand
tons of steel fabric from the sharp-toothed rocks time and again--why
should he be lying dead, disfigured by savage spite, while those to
whom he had rendered such devoted service were coolly discussing his
fate and speculating on their own good fortune? That thought maddened
her. Her very brain seemed to burn with the unfairness of it all.
When Christobal made a serious effort to lead her away, she threatened
him with the fierceness of a mother defending her child from evil.
But relief was vouchsafed in the worst throes of her agony. It was
some poor consolation to let her sorrow-laden eyes rest on the far-off
trees which enshrouded him. What would befall her when night came, and
the ship drew back out of the living world into the narrow gloom of
deck and gangway, she could not know. She felt that her labored heart
would refuse to bear its pangs any longer. If death came, that would
be sweet. Her only hope lay in the life beyond the grave. . . . And
what a grave! For her, the restless tides. For him! Surely her mind
would yield to this increasing madness.