Chapter XXIII--The Man

by Bram Stoker

　　On the Scoriac Harold An Wolf, now John Robinson, kept aloof fromevery one. He did not make any acquaintances, did not try to. Someof those at table with him, being ladies and gentlemen, now and againmade a polite remark; to which he answered with equal politeness.Being what he was he could not willingly offend any one; and therewas nothing in his manner to repel any kindly overture toacquaintance. But this was the full length his acquaintanceshipwent; so he gradually felt himself practically alone. This was justwhat he wished; he sat all day silent and alone, or else walked upand down the great deck that ran from stem to stern, still alwaysalone. As there were no second-class or steerage passengers on theScoriac, there were no deck restraints, and so there was ample roomfor individual solitude. The travellers, however, were a sociablelot, and a general feeling of friendliness was abroad. The firstfour days of the journey were ideally fine, and life was a joy. Thegreat ship, with bilge keels, was as steady as a rock.Among the other passengers was an American family consisting ofAndrew Stonehouse, the great ironmaster and contractor, with his wifeand little daughter.Stonehouse was a remarkable man in his way, a typical product of theAnglo-Saxon under American conditions. He had started in youngmanhood with nothing but a good education, due in chief to his ownindustry and his having taken advantage to the full of suchopportunities as life had afforded to him. By unremitting work hehad at thirty achieved a great fortune, which had, however; been upto then entirely invested and involved in his businesses. With,however, the colossal plant at his disposal, and by aid of the finecharacter he had won for honesty and good work, he was able withinthe next ten years to pile up a fortune vast even in a nation wheremulti-millionaires are scattered freely. Then he had married, wiselyand happily. But no child had come to crown the happiness of thepair who so loved each other till a good many years had come andgone. Then, when the hope of issue had almost passed away, a littledaughter came. Naturally the child was idolised by her parents, andthereafter every step taken by either was with an eye to her good.When the rigour of winter and the heat of summer told on the child ina way which the more hardy parents had never felt, she was whirledaway to some place with more promising conditions of health andhappiness. When the doctors hinted that an ocean voyage and a winterin Italy would be good, those too were duly undertaken. And now, thechild being in perfect health, the family was returning before theweather should get too hot to spend the summer at their chaletamongst the great pines on the slopes of Mount Ranier. Like theothers on board, Mr. and Mrs. Stonehouse had proffered travellers'civilities to the sad, lonely young man. As to the others, he hadshown thanks for their gracious courtesy; but friendship, as in othercases, did not advance. The Stonehouses were not in any waychagrined; their lives were too happy and too full for them to takeneedless offence. They respected the young man's manifest desire forprivacy; and there, so far as they were concerned, the matter rested.But this did not suit the child. Pearl was a sweet little thing, areal blue-eyed, golden-haired little fairy, full of loving-kindness.All the mother-instinct in her, and even at six a woman-child can bea mother--theoretically, went out towards the huge, lonely, sad,silent young man. She insisted on friendship with him; insistedshamelessly, with the natural inclination of innocence which riseshigh above shame. Even the half-hearted protests of the mother, wholoved to see the child happy, did not deter her; after the secondoccasion of Pearl's seeking him, as she persisted, Harold could butremonstrate with the mother in turn; the ease of the gentle lady andthe happiness of her child were more or less at stake. When Mrs.Stonehouse would say:'There, darling! You must be careful not to annoy the gentleman,'Pearl would turn a rosy all-commanding face to her and answer:'But, mother, I want him to play with me. You must play with me!'Then, as the mother would look at him, he would say quickly, and withgenuine heartiness too:'Oh please, madam, do let her play with me! Come, Pearl, shall youride a cock-horse or go to market the way the gentleman rides?' Thenthe child would spring on his knee with a cry of delight, and theirgames began.The presence of the child and her loving ways were unutterably sweetto Harold; but his pleasure was always followed by a pain that renthim as he thought of that other little one, now so far away, and ofthose times that seemed so long since gone.But the child never relaxed in her efforts to please; and in the longhours of the sea voyage the friendship between her and the man grew,and grew. He was the biggest and strongest and therefore most lovelything on board the ship, and that sufficed her. As for him, thechild manifestly loved and trusted him, and that was all-in-all tohis weary, desolate heart.The fifth day out the weather began to change; the waves grew moreand more mountainous as the day wore on and the ship advanced west.Not even the great bulk and weight of the ship, which ordinarilydrove through the seas without pitch or roll, were proof againstwaves so gigantic. Then the wind grew fiercer and fiercer, coming inroaring squalls from the south-west. Most of those on board werealarmed, for the great waves were dreadful to see, and the sound ofthe wind was a trumpet-call to fear.The sick stayed in their cabins; the rest found an interest if not apleasure on deck. Among the latter were the Stonehouses, who wereold travellers. Even Pearl had already had more sea-voyages thanfall to most people in their lives. As for Harold, the storm seemedto come quite naturally to him and he paced the deck like a ship-master.It was fortunate for the passengers that most of them had at thisperiod of the voyage got their sea legs; otherwise walking on theslippery deck, that seemed to heave as the rolling of the vesselthrew its slopes up or down, would have been impossible. Pearl was,like most children, pretty sure-footed; holding fast to Harold's handshe managed to move about ceaselessly. She absolutely refused to gowith any one else. When her mother said that she had better sitstill she answered:'But, mother, I am quite safe with The Man!' 'The Man' was the nameshe had given Harold, and by which she always now spoke of him. Theyhad had a good many turns together, and Harold had, with thecaptain's permission, taken her up on the bridge and showed her howto look out over the 'dodger' without the wind hurting her eyes.Then came the welcome beef-tea hour, and all who had come on deckwere cheered and warmed with the hot soup. Pearl went below, andHarold, in the shelter of the charthouse, together with a good manyothers, looked out over the wild sea.Harold, despite the wild turmoil of winds and seas around him, whichusually lifted his spirits, was sad, feeling lonely and wretched; hewas suffering from the recoil of his little friend's charmingpresence. Pearl came on deck again looking for him. He did not seeher, and the child, seeing an opening for a new game, avoided bothher father and mother, who also stood in the shelter of thecharthouse, and ran round behind it on the weather side, calling aloud 'Boo!' to attract Harold's attention as she ran.A few seconds later the Scoriac put her nose into a coming wave atjust the angle which makes for the full exercise of the opposingforces. The great wave seemed to strike the ship on the port quarterlike a giant hammer; and for an instant she stood still, trembling.Then the top of the wave seemed to leap up and deluge her. The windtook the flying water and threw it high in volumes of broken spray,which swept not only the deck but the rigging as high as the top ofthe funnels. The child saw the mass of water coming, and shriekingflew round the port side of the charthouse. But just as she turneddown the open space between it and the funnel the vessel rolled tostarboard. At the same moment came a puff of wind of greaterviolence than ever. The child, calling out, half in simulated halfin real fear, flew down the slope. As she did so the gale took her,and in an instant whirled her, almost touching her mother, over therail into the sea.Mrs. Stonehouse shrieked and sprang forward as though to follow herchild. She was held back by the strong arm of her husband. Theyboth slipped on the sloping deck and fell together into the scuppers.There was a chorus of screams from all the women present. Harold,with an instinctive understanding of the dangers yet to beencountered, seized a red tam-o'-shanter from the head of a younggirl who stood near.Her exclamation of surprise was drowned in the fearful cry 'Manoverboard!' and all rushed down to the rail and saw Harold, as heemerged from the water, pull the red cap over his head and then swimdesperately towards the child, whose golden hair was spread on therising wave.The instant after Pearl's being swept overboard might be seen thesplendid discipline of a well-ordered ship. Every man to his post,and every man with a knowledge of his duty. The First Officer calledto the Quartermaster at the wheel in a voice which cut through thegale like a trumpet:'Hard a port! Hard!'The stern of the great ship swung away to port in time to clear thefloating child from the whirling screw, which would have cut her topieces in an instant. Then the Officer after tearing the engine-roomsignal to 'Starboard engine full speed astern,' ran for the lifebuoyhanging at the starboard end of the bridge. This he hurled far intothe sea. As it fell the attached rope dragged with it the signal,which so soon as it reaches water bursts into smoke and flame--signalby day and night. This done, and it had all been done in a couple ofseconds, he worked the electric switch of the syren, which screamedout quickly once, twice, thrice. This is the dread sound which means'man overboard,' and draws to his post every man on the ship, wakingor sleeping.The Captain was now on the bridge and in command, and the FirstOfficer, freed from his duty there, ran to the emergency boat, swungout on its davits on the port side.All this time, though only numbered by seconds, the Scoriac wasturning hard to starboard, making a great figure of eight; for it isquicker to turn one of these great sea monsters round than to stopher in mid career. The aim of her Captain in such cases is to bringher back to the weather side of the floating buoy before launchingthe boat.On deck the anguish of the child's parents was pitiable. Close tothe rail, with her husband's arms holding her tight to it, thedistressed mother leaned out; but always moving so that she was atthe nearest point of the ship to her child. As the ship passed on itbecame more difficult to see the heads. In the greater distance theyseemed to be quite close together. All at once, just as a great wavewhich had hidden them in the farther trough passed on, the motherscreamed out:'She's sinking! she's sinking! Oh, God! Oh, God!' and she fell onher knees, her horrified eyes, set in a face of ashen grey, lookingout between the rails.But at the instant all eyes saw the man's figure rise in the water ashe began to dive. There was a hush which seemed deadly; theonlookers feared to draw breath. And then the mother's heart leapedand her cry rang out again as two heads rose together in the waste ofsea:'He has her! He has her! He has her! Oh, thank God! Thank God!'and for a single instant she hid her face in her hands.Then when the fierce 'hurrah' of all on board had been hushed inexpectation, the comments broke forth. Most of the passengers had bythis time got glasses of one kind or another.'See! He's putting the cap on the child's head. He's a cool onethat. Fancy him thinking of a red cap at such a time!''Ay! we could see that cap, when it might be we couldn't see anythingelse.''Look!' this from an old sailor standing by his boat, 'how he'sraisin' in the water. He's keeping his body between her an' thespindrift till the squall has passed. That would choke them both ina wind like this if he didn't know how to guard against it. He's allright; he is! The little maid is safe wi' him.''Oh, bless you! Bless you for those words,' said the mother, turningtowards him. 'At this moment the Second Officer, who had run downfrom the bridge, touched Mr. Stonehouse on the shoulder.'The captain asked me to tell you, sir, that you and Mrs. Stonehousehad better come to him on the bridge. You'll see better from there.'They both hurried up, and the mother again peered out with fixedeyes. The Captain tried to comfort her; laying his strong hand onher shoulder, he said:'There, there! Take comfort, ma'am. She is in the hands of God!All that mortal man can do is being done. And she is safer with thatgallant young giant than she could be with any other man on the ship.Look, how he is protecting her! Why he knows that all that can bedone is being done. He is waiting for us to get to him, and issaving himself for it. Any other man who didn't know so much aboutswimming as he does would try to reach the lifebuoy; and would chokethe two of them with the spindrift in the trying. Mind how he tookthe red cap to help us see them. He's a fine lad that; a gallantlad!'