CHAPTER II
A CHRISTENING
Brand was slow to answer. For one thing, he was exhausted. Refreshing as the long swim was after a night of lonely vigil, itself the culmination of two days of hard work, the fierce battle with the shark had shocked into active existence the reserve of latent energy which every healthy animal unconsciously hoards for life-and-death emergencies.
But there was another reason. He had scarce gained the comparative safety of the boat before he was, in the same instant, horrified and astounded to a degree hitherto beyond his experience. Not even the stiff pull of two hundred yards sufficed to restore his senses. So Jim's question fell on his ears with the meaningless sound of the steamer's siren.
"What is it, mate?" repeated his fellow-keeper, more insistently. "You ain't hurt anyways, are you?"
"It is a baby," said Brand, in a curiously vacant way.
"A baby!" shrieked Jones, stretched out over the crane above their heads.
"A what-a?" roared the sailor, whose crudely developed nervous system was not proof against the jar of incredulity induced by this statement. Had Brand said "a tiger," he could not have exhibited greater concern.
"Yes, a baby – and it is living. I heard it cry," murmured the other, sitting down rather suddenly.
Indeed, a faint wail, suggestive of a kitten, now came from beneath the tumbled canvas quite near to Jim. But the Royal Navy does not encourage neurosis. The lighthouse-keeper felt that a minor crisis had arrived. It must be dealt with promptly.
The evil odor which still adhered to the boat told him that Brand had exchanged one Inferno for another, when he clambered out of the reach of the blindly vengeful shark.
He looked up to Jones.
"Lower away," he said, promptly. "Swing the derrick until I grab the tackle, and then hoist me aboard."
This was done. Ungainly in his walk, owing to his wounded limb, Jim, clinging to a rope, had the easy activity of a squirrel.
"Now, lower a jug with some brandy. He's dead beat," he added.
Whilst Jones hastened for the spirit, the sailor stooped and threw back the sail.
Lying in the bottom of the boat, wrapped in a blanket which unavailing struggles had rumpled into a roll beneath the arms, was an infant whose precise age it was impossible to estimate forthwith owing to the emaciated condition of its body.
With the rocking of the boat, the foul bilge-water washed around the child's limbs and back. Instinct alone had saved it from drowning. Perhaps, during the first hours of vigor after abandonment, the little one might have rolled over in infantile search for food and human tendance, but the rush of salt water into eyes and mouth must have driven the tiny sufferer to seek instantly the only position in which life was possible.
So far as the man could judge in a first hasty glance, the child's clothing was of excellent quality. Yet he gave slight heed to such considerations. Jim was the father of three lusty youngsters who were snugly in bed in Penzance, and the sight of this forlorn sea-waif made his eyes misty.
He reached down, unpinned the blanket, which was secured with a brooch, and lifted the infant out of its unpleasing environment. It was piteous to see the way in which the shrunken hands at once strove to clasp his wrists, though they were all too feeble to achieve more than a gentle clutch which relaxed almost as soon as the effort was made.
Jones, also a husband and father, bethought him when he reached the store-room. Hence, when the windlass lowered a basket, there was not only a supply of brandy within but also a bottle of fresh milk, which reached the Gulf Rock, by arrangement with a fisherman, whenever weather permitted.
Jim handed the jug to his exhausted companion.
"Here, cap'n," he said, cheerfully. "Take a couple of mouthfuls of this. It'll warm the cockles of your heart. An' the sooner you shin up the ladder and get them soaked rags off you the better. Can you manage? It's a near thing for the kid, if not too late now."
Brand needed no second bidding. He did not wish to collapse utterly, and the soft breeze, rendered chilly by his wet garments, had revived him somewhat.
The resourceful sailor did not attempt the foolish process of pouring even the smallest quantity of milk into the baby's mouth. He produced a handkerchief, steeped a twisted corner in the milk, and placed it between the parched, salt-blackened lips.
This rough expedient for a feeding-bottle served admirably. The child's eagerness to gulp in the life-giving fluid was only matched by the tender care of the sailor in his efforts to appease its ravenous hunger.
He was so intent on this urgent task that for a little while he paid no heed to Brand. Jones, forty feet overhead, took the keenest interest in the baby's nurture.
"Mind you don't let it suck the handkerchief into its little throat," he cried. "Not too much, Jim. It's on'y a young 'un. 'Half milk, half water, an' a lump of sugar,' my missus says. Pore little dear! However did it come to live, when that man must ha' bin dead for days? Now, Jim, slow an' sure is the motter. S'pose you shove it into the basket an' let me hoist it up here? A warm bath an' a blanket is the next best thing to milk an' water."
"All right, skipper. Just hold on a bit. She's doin' fine."
"Is it a he or a she?"
"I dunno. But I guess it's a gal by the duds."
The baby, in the sheer joy of living again, uttered a gurgling cry, a compound of milk, happiness and pain.
"There! I told you!" shouted Jones, angrily. "You think every kid is a hardy young savage like your own. You're overdoing' it, I say."
"Overdoing' wot?" demanded the sailor. "You don't know who you're talking' to. Why, when I was on the West Coast, I reared two week-old monkeys this way."
Soon these firm friends would have quarreled – so unbounded was their anxiety to rescue the fluttering existence of the tiny atom of humanity so miraculously snatched from the perils of the sea.
But Stephen Brand's dominant personality was rapidly recovering its normal state.
"Jim," he said, "Mr. Jones is right. The child must be made comfortable. Her skin is raw and her eyes sore with inflammation. The little food she has already obtained will suffice for a few minutes. Send her up."
The "Mr. Jones" was a gentle reminder of authority. No further protest was raised, save by the infant when supplies were temporarily withheld, and Jones was too pleased that his opinion should be supported by Brand to give another thought to his subordinate's outburst.
"Now, back up to the rock," said Brand. "I will dress and rejoin you quickly. The boat must be thoroughly examined and swabbed out: Jones will signal for help. Meanwhile, you might moor her tightly. When the tide falls she will be left high and dry."
The sailor's momentary annoyance fled. There was much to be done, and no time should be wasted in disputes concerning baby culture.
"Sure you won't slip?" he asked, as Stephen caught hold of the ladder.
"No, no. It was not fatigue but sickness which overcame me. The brandy has settled that."
Up he went, as though returning from his customary morning dip.
"By jingo, he's a plucked 'un," murmured Jim, admiringly. "He ought to be skipper of a battleship, instead of housemaid of a rock-light. Dash them sea-crows! I do hate 'em."
He seized an oar and lunged so hard and true at a cormorant which was investigating the shark's liver, that he knocked the bird a yard through the air. Discomfited, it retired, with a scream. Its companion darted to the vacant site and pecked industriously. The neighborhood of the rock was now alive with seagulls. In the water many varieties of finny shapes were darting to and fro in great excitement. Jim laughed.
"They'd keep me busy," he growled. "When all's said an' done, it's their nater, an' they can't help it."
Unconscious