“Very sad!”
“Melancholy affair!” but it is doubtful if their hearts were so overcharged with sympathy as to interfere to any marked degree with their slumbers.
The girl remained upon the deserted deck and watched the quartermasters collecting and storing away all the passengers’ chairs which lay scattered about, just as their owners had vacated them. When they had finished their job no one of the ship’s company remained on the quarterdeck. The sound of the little swish made by a leaping flying-fish had a suggestion of something mysterious about it as it reached her ears: it seemed like the faint whisper of a secret of the sea—it seemed as if some voice outside the ship was saying “Hist!” to her, to attract her attention before making a revelation to her.
But she knew what the sound was, and she did not move from her chair.
“Alas—alas!” she murmured, “you can tell me nothing. Ah! there is nothing for me to be told. I know all that will be known until the sea gives up its dead. He loved me, and the sea snatched him from me.”
The tears with which her heart was filled began to overflow. She wept softly for a long time, and when at last she gave a sigh and wiped the mist from her eyes she found that the moon, previously so brilliant, had become dim. Its outline was blurred, so that, although the atmosphere was full of moonlight, it was impossible to say what was the centre of the illumination. It seemed to Viola as if a thin diaphanous silk curtain had fallen between the moon and the sea. Every object which an hour before had cast a black shadow athwart the deck—the spars of the mainmast, the quarterboat hanging in its davits—was clearly seen as ever, only without the strong contrasts of light and shade. The sea out to the horizon was of a luminous grey, which bore but a shadowy resemblance to the dark-blue carpet traversed by the glittering golden pathway to the moon, over which Viola had pensively gazed in the early night before Somers had come to her side.
She now stood at the bulwarks looking across that shadowy expanse, marvelling at the change which had come about within so short a space of time.
“My life—it is my life,” she sighed. “A short time ago it was made luminous by love; but now—ah! now——”
She turned away with another sigh and walked back to her deck chair. She was in the act of picking up her cushions from the seat when, glancing astern, she was amazed on becoming aware of the fact that she was not alone at that part of the ship. She saw two figures standing together on the raised poop that covered the steam-steering apparatus at the farthest curve of the stern.
She was amazed. She asked herself how it was possible that she had failed to see them when she had looked astern a few minutes before. The figures were of course shadowy in the strange mistily luminous atmosphere, but they were sufficiently conspicuous in the place where they stood to make her confident that, had they been there five minutes before, she would have seen them.
She stood there wondering, the cushion which she had picked up hanging from her hand, who the men were that had come so mysteriously before her eyes an hour after the last of the passengers had, as she thought, descended to their berths.
She could not recognise either of them. They were separated from her by half the length of the stern.
Suddenly she gave a little gasp. The cushion which she had held dropped from her hand, for one of the figures made a movement, turning his back to the low poop rail over which he had been leaning, and that moment was enough, even in the pale light, to allow of her recognising the features of Jack Norgate.
She gave a little cry of mingled wonder and joy, but before she had taken even a step toward that tableau, she had shrieked out; for in the second that separated her exclamations, the figure whom she saw in front of the one she knew had sprung upon him, causing him to overbalance himself on the low rail against which he was leaning, and to disappear over the side.
She shrieked and sprang forward; at that moment the second figure seemed to fade away and to vanish into nothingness before her eyes. She staggered diagonally across the deck astern, but before she had taken more than a dozen blind steps her foot caught in the lashing of the tarpaulin which was spread over a pile of deck chairs, and she fell forward. One of the officers on watch, who had heard her cry, swung himself down from the roof of the deckhouse and ran to her help.
“Good God! Miss Compton, what has happened anyway?” he cried.
“There—there,” she gasped, pointing to the poop. “He went over the side—a minute ago—there is still time to stop the steamer and pick him up.”
“Who went over the side? No one was aft but yourself,” said the officer.
“It was Jack—Mr. Norgate. Oh, why will you make no effort to rescue him? I tell you that I saw him go over.”
The officer felt how she was trembling with excitement. She tried to rush across the deck, but would have fallen through sheer weakness, if the man had not supported her. He brought her to the seat at the side of the cabin dome-light.
“You are overcome, Miss Compton,” he said. “You must calm yourself while I look into this business.”
“You do not believe that I saw anything; but I tell you—oh, he will be lost while you are delaying,” she cried.
“Nothing of the sort,” he said. “But for heaven’s sake sit here. Leave the thing to me.”
He ran astern and made a pretence of peering into the distance of the ship’s seething wake. He was wondering what he should do. The poor girl was evidently the victim of a hallucination. Several weeks had passed since her lover had disappeared, and all this time her grief at his loss had been poignant. This thing that had happened was the natural result of the terrible strain upon her nerves. Of course he never thought of awaking the captain or of stopping the vessel.
While he was still peering over the taffrail, her voice sounded beside him.
“Here—it was just here,” she said.
He turned about.
“Good Lord! Miss Compton, you should not have left your seat,” he cried. “Let me help you down to the cabin.”
“Have you not seen him in the water?”
“There is no one in the water. In this light I would be able to see a man’s head a mile astern. I will put my arm under yours and help you to get below. Trust to me. We would all do whatever it was in our power for your sake. We all sympathise with you. Shall I send a quartermaster for the doctor?”
Viola had thrown herself down on the seat where he had placed her, and was sobbing with her hands before her face. The man did his best to soothe her. He made a sign to a quartermaster who had come aft to register the patent log, and told him to send the ship’s doctor aft. He had no notion of accepting the sole responsibility of soothing a young woman who was subject to disquieting hallucinations.
In a few minutes the doctor relieved him of his charge. Miss Compton had become quite tranquil. Only now and again she gazed into the steamer’s wake and pressed her hand to her side. She allowed herself to be helped below in a short time, and did not refuse the dose of bromide which the doctor thought it his duty to administer to her.
The next day the doctor and the fourth officer had a whispered conference. They agreed that it would be better to say nothing to any of the other passengers respecting Miss Compton’s hallucination.
“Poor girl—poor girl!” said the doctor. “I have been observing her for some time, and I cannot say that I was surprised at what occurred last night.. It is only remarkable that the breakdown did not happen