Part 85

“We're making water fast in the forward compartment,” came a voice through the speaking-tube.

Already they in the pilot-house could hear the ululation of women in the depths of the ship, and then the husky clamor of the many voices of men drowned the shriller cries.

Captain Mayo had seen the survivors from the schooner struggling in the water. But he rang for full speed ahead and ordered the quartermaster to aim her into the north, knowing that land lay in that direction.

“Eight hundred lives on my shoulders and a hole in her,” he told himself, while all his world of hope and ambition seemed rocking to ruin. “I can't wait to pick up those poor devils.”

In a few minutes--in so few minutes that all his calculations as to his location were upset--the Montana plowed herself to a shuddering halt on a shoal, her bow lifting slightly. And when the engines were stopped she rested there, sturdily upright, steady as an island. But in her saloon the men and women who fought and screamed and cursed, beating to and fro in windrows of humanity like waves in a cavern, were convinced that the shuddering shock had signaled the doom of the vessel. Half-dressed men, still dizzy with sleep, confused by dreams which blended with the terrible reality, trampled the helpless underfoot, seeking exit from the saloon.

The hideous uproar which announced panic was a loud call to the master of the vessel. He understood what havoc might be wrought by the brutal senselessness of the struggle. He ran from the pilot-house, stepping on the feet of the general manager, who was stumbling about in bewildered fashion.

“Call all the crew to stations and guard the exits,” Captain Mayo commanded the second mate.

On his precipitate way to the saloon the captain passed the room of the wireless operator, and the tense crackle of the spark told him that the SOS signal was winging its beseeching flight through the night.

Three men, half dressed, with life-preservers buckled on in hit-or-miss fashion, met him on the deck, dodged his angry clutch, and leaped over the rail into the sea, yelling with all the power of their lungs.

A quartermaster was at the captain's heels.

“Get over a life-boat on each side and attend to those idiots!” roared Mayo.

He thrust his way into a crowded corridor, beating frantic men back with his fists, adjuring, assuring, appealing, threatening. He mounted upon a chair in the saloon. He fairly outbellowed the rest of them. Men of the sea are trained to shout against the tempest.

“You are safe! Keep quiet! Sit down! This steamer is ashore on a sand-bank. She's as solid as Bunker Hill.” He shouted these assurances over and over.

They began to look at him, to pay heed to him. His uniform marked his identity.

“You lie!” screamed an excited man. “We're out to sea! We're sinking! Where are your life-boats?”

Bedlam began again. Like the fool who shouts “Fire!” in a throng, this brainless individual revived all the fears of the frenzied passengers.

Mayo realized that heroic action was necessary. He leaped down from the chair, seized the man who had shouted, and beat the fellow's face with the flat of his hard hand.

That scene of conflict was startling enough to serve as a real jolt to their attention. They hushed their cries; they looked on, impressed, cowed.

“If there's any other man in this crowd who wants to tell me I'm a liar, let him stand out and say so,” shouted Captain Mayo. “You're making fools of yourselves. There's no danger.”

He released the pallid and trembling man of whom he had made an example and stepped on to a chair. He put up his hand, dominating them until he had secured absolute silence.

“You--you--you!” he said, crisply, darting finger here and there, pointing out individuals. “You seem to have more level heads than the rest, you men! Go forward where the man is casting the lead. Cast the lead yourselves. Come back here and report to these passengers, as their committee. I'm telling you the truth. There's no water under us to speak of.” He remained in the saloon until his committee returned.

The man who reported looked a bit sheepish. “The captain is right, ladies and gentlemen. We could even see the sand where she has plowed it up--they've got lanterns over the rail. There's no danger.”

A steward trotted to Captain Mayo and handed him a slip of paper. The captain read the message and shook the paper in the faces of the throng.

“The revenue cutter Acushnet has our wireless call and is starting, and the Itasca will follow. I advise you to go to bed and go to sleep. You're perfectly, absolutely safe. You will be transferred when it's daylight. Now be men and women!”

He hurried out on deck. His men were hoisting aboard the three dripping, sputtering passengers who had run amuck.

“And those same men would look after a runaway horse and sneer that he didn't have any brains,” remarked Captain Mayo, disgustedly.

For the next half-hour he was a busy man. He investigated the Montana's wound, first of all. He found her flooded forward--her nose anchored into the sand with a rock-of-ages solidity.

His heart sank when he realized what her plight meant from the wrecking and salvage viewpoint. In those shifting sands, winnowed constantly by the rushing currents of the sound, digging her out might be a Gargantuan task, working her free a hopeless undertaking.