Part 16

Another week passed. Charlie began to complain that the shark were growing scarce again.

“I think bime-by him go away, once a mo'.”

That same night, Wilbur, lying in his hammock, was awakened by a touch on his arm. He woke to see Moran beside him on the deck.

“Did you hear anything?” she said in a low voice, looking at him under her scowl.

“No! no!” he exclaimed, getting up, reaching for his wicker sandals. “Did you?”

“I thought so--something. Did you feel anything?”

“I've been asleep, I haven't noticed anything. Is it beginning again?”

“The schooner lifted again, just now, very gently. I happened to be awake or I wouldn't have noticed it.” They were talking in low voices, as is the custom of people speaking in the dark.

“There, what's that?” exclaimed Wilbur under his breath. A gentle vibration, barely perceptible, thrilled through the schooner. Under his hand, that was clasped upon the rail, Wilbur could feel a faint trembling in her frame. It stopped, began again, and died slowly away.

“Well, what the devil IS it?” he muttered impatiently, trying to master the returning creep of dread.

Moran shook her head, biting her lip.

“It's beyond me,” she said, frowning. “Can you see anything?” The sky, sea, and land were unbroken reaches of solitude. There was no breath of wind.

“Listen,” said Moran. Far off to landward came the faint, sleepy clucking of a quail, and the stridulating of unnumbered crickets; a long ripple licked the slope of the beach and slid back into the ocean. Wilbur shook his head.

“Don't hear anything,” he whispered. “Sh--there--she's trembling again.”

Once more a prolonged but faint quivering ran through the “Bertha Millner” from stem to stern, and from keel to masthead. There was a barely audible creaking of joints and panels. The oil in the deck-tubs trembled. The vibration was so fine and rapid that it tickled the soles of Wilbur's feet as he stood on the deck.

“I'd give two fingers to know what it all means,” murmured Moran in a low voice. “I've been to sea for--” Then suddenly she cried aloud: “Steady all, she's lifting again!”

The schooner heaved slowly under them, this time by the stern. Up she went, up and up, while Wilbur gripped at a stay to keep his place, and tried to choke down his heart, that seemed to beat against his palate.

“God!” ejaculated Moran, her eyes blazing. “This thing is--” The “Bertha” came suddenly down to an easy keel, rocking in that glassy sea as if in a tide rip. The deck was awash with oil. Far out in the bay the ripples widening from the schooner blurred the reflections of the stars. The Chinamen swarmed up the hatch-way, voluble and shrill. Again the “Bertha Millner” lifted and sank, the tubs sliding on the deck, the masts quivering like reeds, the timbers groaning aloud with the strain. In the stern something cracked and smashed. Then the trouble died away, the ripples faded into the ocean, and the schooner settled to her keel, quite motionless.

“Look,” said Moran, her face toward the “Bertha's” stern. “The rudder is out of the gudgeons.” It was true--the “Bertha Millner's” helm was unshipped.

There was no more sleep for any one on board that night. Wilbur tramped the quarterdeck, sick with a feeling he dared not put a name to. Moran sat by the wrecked rudder-head, a useless pistol in her hand, swearing under her breath from time to time. Charlie appeared on the quarterdeck at intervals, looked at Wilbur and Moran with wide-open eyes, and then took himself away. On the forward deck the coolies pasted strips of red paper inscribed with mottoes upon the mast, and filled the air with the reek of their joss-sticks.

“If one could only SEE what it was,” growled Moran between her clinched teeth. “But this--this damned heaving and trembling, it--it's queer.”

“That's it, that's it,” said Wilbur quickly, facing her. “What are we going to do, Moran?”

“STICK IT OUT!” she exclaimed, striking her knee with her fist. “We can't leave the schooner--I WON'T leave her. I'll stay by this dough-dish as long as two planks in her hold together. Were you thinking of cutting away?” She fixed him with her frown.

Wilbur looked at her, sitting erect by the disabled rudder, her head bare, her braids of yellow hair hanging over her breast, sitting there in man's clothes and man's boots, the pistol at her side. He shook his head.

“I'm not leaving the 'Bertha' till you do,” he answered; adding: “I'll stand by you, mate, until we--”

“Feel that?” said Moran, holding up a hand.

A fine, quivering tremble was thrilling through every beam of the schooner, vibrating each rope like a harp-string. It passed away; but before either Wilbur or Moran could comment upon it recommenced, this time much more perceptibly. Charlie dashed aft, his queue flying.

“W'at makum heap shake?” he shouted; “w'at for him shake? No savvy, no likee, pretty much heap flaid; aie-yah, aie-yah!”