The intensity of the night was so profound that for a long while no man knew where the ship lay or what was her environment. In that hour the zenith of the heaven was marked by an envelope of inky vapour which hid the moon and the stars; and the chilling rain beat incessantly upon those who for many days had cried for warmth and had not found it. As for the sea itself, it rose and fell with thunderous echoes. The gigantic breakers, driven by the north-west wind in hollowed and o'er-toppling ridges of water, dissolved themselves at length in swirling eddies of foam upon the reef, or sent showers of spray, as silver fountains, upon the darkness of the night. And over all was the trembling voice of the tempest—a voice which seemed to quaver with the cries of the doomed, and to join in one piteous and long-drawn wail the lamentations of the heavens and the dirge of the deep.
When the first shock had struck the yacht, Messenger, Kenner, and Fisher had been in the saloon, wrapped in blankets, and seeking sleep, even in face of the omnivorous damp. They had ceased, for some hours, to remember the gold, for the mockery of its possession was too obvious in the presence of the overwhelming peril of the sea; and other questions—but principally the one, shall we see the shore again?—were upon their minds, to the exclusion of all else. Thus it came that they lay in silent combat with feverish wakefulness when the Semiramis plunged onward to the iron haven of inhospitable Galicia, and struck, at last, some miles westward of the terrible Cabo Ortegal. But at the first touch of the shock the men awoke with fearsome cries, and, springing to their feet in the infinite darkness, found themselves battling with a flood of water which poured into the cabin and threatened to end them as they stood.
As they awoke, half choking, Fisher's voice was the first to be heard.
"Prince!" cried he, "Prince! where are you? My God, what is it?"
"I'm here!" cried Messenger back to him; "give me your hand. Did you feel the ship strike? Where's Kenner?"
"Going under!" moaned Kenner, as the water gurgled in his throat.
"Then make for the ladder!" cried Messenger, as he exerted himself with a supreme effort. "Hal, hold to me! If we've no legs now we'll drown like dogs!"
And then he fell to calling "Burke! Burke!" as though the skipper could hear him above the crash of seas.
For a spell the struggle was fierce; but Fisher, who had his courage back, fighting water with all his nerve, grasped the companion at last, and hauled himself up with fierce strength. The Prince was at his heels; but the American, tumbling headlong on the slippery floor, fell at the foot of the stairs, and lay there, while another sea poured its suffocating crest upon him. There he might have lain and died but for the lad, who, coming upon the deck, immediately looked about him to see how his companions had fared, and, observing only Messenger at his side, asked:
"Where's Kenner? I thought he was with you."
"He is on the floor, and dead by this," gasped the other, as the whip-like water cut his face, and he clung, with hands benumbed and shivering limbs, to the rail of the poop; "but it's every man for himself now! What an end! what an end!"
He said this, hoping to hold back Fisher, who had turned at to his companion again, for it came to him that he would be better wanting the American's company. But the lad had not heard the words, and was at the ladder while the man yet spoke them.
When at last he brought himself into the saloon, the rollers still shot water through the sky-light, and much poured through the open hatchway; the whole bulk of it washing dismally from end to end of the cabin as the hull swayed even in the shelter of the rocky cup which held it. Utter darkness, too, was upon the place! and when the lad stood shivering at the cabin door, he hesitated for a moment before leaving even the comparative light of the open. At such an instant there came to him the reflection. But the mood passed, and with a deep breath he stepped into the saloon; and being being almost immediately thrown off his foothold, his head went under the water, and he fought again with the unspeakable terror of the danger and the darkness.
Now, indeed, the water surged in his eyes, and got into his gullet, so that he gasped for breath like one upon the point of suffocation. Then he stood again, with the flood almost at his waist, and, going to advance a step, struck his head against the projecting frieze of the ceiling, and was thrown back almost insensible upon the soaking cushions. But the fall saved Kenner. As he lurched back with the pain of the blow he put his foot upon the American, and in a moment he had him in his arms and was staggering toward the companion. Nor did he know until he had laid him upon the deck, and there made sure that he breathed, whether the man were alive or dead.
The amazing darkness was, plainly, the first cause of so few escaping from the unhappy yacht. As the three men lay in what shelter they could, and even their wild exclamations were unheard in the play of seas, they had no vision or sign what had happened forward. And such a sight would have been of little moment to Kenner, who was nigh insensible; but the others had terror in the thought that they were alone, and yearned for a sight of the sky as sick men weary for dawn. Again and again Fisher asked of Messenger, "Can you see any thing?" Again and again he got for answer the plain monosyllable "No!" Once he thought that he observed the figure of Burke black upon the bridge, and heard his strong voice even above the crying of the gale; but the vision was gone in a moment, and the face of the impenetrable night alone remained. And for more than an hour the three survivors, as they then thought themselves, clung together for warmth under the poor breakwater they had found, and waited only for the death that seemed about to come to them.
It must have been three o'clock, and very near to the hour of dawn, when there was a break in the enveloping vapour, and less thunder of the waves. At that time, the three men, lying in dull stupor, heard the sound of Burke's voice—unmistakable and clear—and were by it aroused to show of activity. For the cleavage of cloud cast a dim light upon the scene, and showed to them the huge form of the man of iron upon the bridge; and the deep baying of his voice was to be heard above the falling seas.
"You, there, forward!" he suddenly bellowed. "That mast's going—look to yourselves!"
He spoke almost with the spreading of the steely light, then striking cold and grey upon the turmoil of the sea and upon the ship. The passing of the deeper darkness had with far-reaching swiftness conjured—as it seemed, from the very deep—distant shapes and forms as of cliff and headland; had set down a line of foam-washed shore; had surrounded the yacht with jagged spires of iron rock which stood over her as grim sentinels. The land rose a mile away dark and terrible and precipitous; but a great gulf of churning, seething billows cut them from it; and as the men realized their position a great shout went up from them, a-wailing and a-cursing, as of men about to die, but for whom in death there was no sleep.
"The mast! Come off the mast, I tell you!" roared Burke for the second time, and the men aft took up the cry as they saw his meaning. Eight of the hands were huddled together in the foretop; and the mast which sheltered them was giving to the seas, and threatening with every shook to plunge into the cavern of spuming water which lay between the crags.
In this minute of panic one of the hands, bolder than his fellows, set off to swarm across the top-mast stay, and was then hanging in mid-air, while the others watched him, but made no move to dare the passage. At first it appeared probable that the foremast would go before he had reached the bridge and had dropped upon it; and the intense excitement of those watching him got strength from the lurches of the stay, which promised every moment to hurl the seaman from his hold. Nor did those aft understand why the men remained in the foretop, wanting the knowledge that the yacht had broken in half at the engine room, and that her forepart lay completely submerged; while there was another great channel running between the aft-deck and the poop. The eight hands had taken refuge in the foretop at the first crash of disaster; and when the light came, they were, for the more part, half-dead with the cold and