At this moment they were passing a beautiful white yacht.
"That's the Comte de Bauge's Castor," cried one of the four boys. "She's on her way to Dieppe."
Two ladies and two gentlemen were lunching under an awning, Isabel bowed her head so as to hide her face.
This thoughtless movement displeased her; for, a moment later, she said (and all the words which they exchanged during these few minutes were to remain engraved on their memories):
"Simon, you really believe, don't you, that I was entitled to leave home?"
"Why," he exclaimed, in surprise, "don't we love each other?"
"Yes, we love each other," she murmured. "And then there's the life which I was leading with a woman whose one delight was to insult my mother.."
She said no more. Simon had laid his hand on hers and nothing could reassure her more effectually than the fondness of that pressure.
The four boys, who had disappeared again, came running back:
"You can see the company's mail-boat that left Dieppe at the same time that we left Newhaven. She's called the Pays de Caux. We shall pass her in a quarter of an hour. So you see, mama, there's no danger."
"Yes, but it's afterwards, when we get closer to Dieppe."
"Why?" objected her husband. "The other boat hasn't signalled anything extraordinary. The danger is altering its position, moving farther away.."
The mother made no reply. Her face retained the same piteous expression. The little girl at her knee was still silently crying.
The captain passed Simon and saluted.
And a few more minutes elapsed.
Simon was whispering words of love which Isabel did not catch very distinctly. The little girl's constant tears were causing her some distress.
Shortly after, a gust of wind made the waves leap higher. Here and there streaks of white, seething foam appeared. There was nothing remarkable in this, as the wind was gaining in force and lashing the crests of the waves. But why did these foaming billows appear only in one part and that precisely the part which they were about to cross?
The father and mother had risen to their feet. Other passengers were leaning over the rails. The captain was seen running up the poop-steps.
And it came suddenly, in a moment.
Before Isabel and Simon, sitting self-absorbed, had the least idea of what was happening, a frightful clamour, made up of a thousand shrieks, rose from all parts of the boat, from port and starboard, from stem to stern, even from below; from every side, as though the minds of all had been obsessed by the possibility of disaster, as though all eyes, from the moment of departure, had been watching for the slightest premonitory sign.
A monstrous sight. Three hundred yards ahead, as though in the centre of a target at which the bows of the vessel were aimed, a hideous fountain had burst from the surface of the sea, bombarding the sky with masses of rock, blocks of lava and flying masses of spray, which fell back into a circle of foaming breakers and yawning whirlpools. And a wind of hurricane force gyrated above this chaos, bellowing like a bull.
Suddenly silence fell upon the paralysed crowd, the deathly silence that precedes an inevitable catastrophe. Then, yonder, a rattle of thunder that rent the air. Then the voice of the captain at his post, roaring out his orders, trying to shout down the monster's myriad voices.
For a moment there seemed some hope of salvation. The vessel put forth so great an effort that she appeared to be gliding along a tangent away from the infernal circle into which she was on the point of being drawn. But it was a vain hope! The circle seemed to be increasing in size. Its outer waves were approaching. A mass of rock crushed one of the funnels.
And again there were shrieks, followed by a panic and an insane rush for the life-boats; already some of the passengers were fighting for places..
Simon did not hesitate. Isabel was a good swimmer. They must make the attempt.
"Come!" he said. The girl, standing beside him, had flung her arms about him. "We can't stay here! Come!"
And, when she struggled, instinctively resisting the course which he had proposed, he took a firmer hold of her.
She entreated him:
"Oh, it's horrible.. all these children.. the little girl crying!.. Couldn't we save them?"
"Come!" he repeated, in a masterful tone.
She still resisted him. Then he took her head in his two hands and kissed her on the lips:
"Come, my darling, come!"
The girl fainted. He lifted her in his arms and threw one leg over the rail:
"Don't be afraid!" he said. "I will answer for your life!"
"I am not afraid," she said. "I am not afraid with you.."
They leapt into the water.
CHAPTER III
GOOD-BYE, SIMON
Twenty minutes later, they were picked up by the Castor, the yacht which by this time had passed the Queen Mary. As for the Pays de Caux, the steamer sailing from Dieppe, subsequent enquiries proved that the passengers and the crew had compelled the captain to flee from the scene of the disaster. The sight of the huge waterspout, the spectacle of the ship lifting her stern out of the waves, rearing up bodily and falling back as though into the mouth of a funnel, the upheaval of the sea, which seemed to have given way beneath the assault of maniacal forces and which, within the circumference of the frenzied circle, revolved upon itself in a sort of madness: all this was so terrifying that women fainted and men threatened the captain with their levelled revolvers.
The Castor also had begun by fleeing the spot. But the Conte de Bauge, detecting through his field-glasses the handkerchief which Simon was waving, persuaded his sailors, despite the desperate opposition of his friends, to put about, while avoiding contact with the dangerous zone.
For that matter, the sea was subsiding. The eruption had lasted less than a minute; and it was as though the monster was now resting, sated, content with its meal, like a beast of prey after its kill. The squall had passed. The whirlpool broke up into warring currents which opposed and annulled one another. There were no more breakers, no more foam. Beneath the great undulating shroud which the little waves, tossing in harmless frolic, spread above the sunken vessel, the tragedy of five hundred death-struggles was consummated.
Under these conditions, the rescue was an easy task. Isabel and Simon, who could have held out for hours longer, were taken to the two cabins and supplied with a change of clothing. Isabel had not even lost consciousness. The yacht sailed away immediately. Those on board were eager to escape from the accursed circle. The sudden subsidence of the sea seemed as dangerous as its fury.
Nothing occurred before they reached the French coast. The oppressive, menacing lull continued. Simon Dubosc, directly he had changed his clothes, joined the count and his party. A little embarrassed in respect of Miss Bakefield, he spoke of her as a friend whom he had met by chance on the Queen Mary and by whose side he had found himself at the moment of the catastrophe.
For the rest, he was not questioned. The company on board the yacht were still profoundly uneasy; the thought of what might happen obsessed them. Further events were preparing. All had the impression that an invisible enemy was prowling stealthily around them.
Twice Simon went below to Isabel's cabin. The door was closed and there was no sound from within. But Simon knew that Isabel, though she had recovered from her fatigue and was already forgetting the dangers which had threatened them, nevertheless could not shake off the horror of what she had seen. He himself was still terribly depressed, haunted by the vision so frightful that it seemed the extravagant image of a nightmare rather than the memory of an actual thing. Was it true that they had one and all lost their lives: the three clergymen with their austere faces, the four happy, cheerful boys, their father and mother,