THE SOUL OF NUMBER 13
Scarcely had the Ithaca cleared the reef which lies almost across the mouth of the little harbor where she had been moored for so many months than the tempest broke upon her in all its terrific fury.Bududreen was no mean sailor, but he was short handed, nor is it reasonable to suppose that even with a full crew he could have weathered the terrific gale which beat down upon the hapless vessel.Buffeted by great waves, and stripped of every shred of canvas by the force of the mighty wind that howled about her, the Ithaca drifted a hopeless wreck soon after the storm struck her.
Below deck the terrified girl clung desperately to a stanchion as the stricken ship lunged sickeningly before the hurricane.For half an hour the awful suspense endured, and then with a terrific crash the vessel struck, shivering and trembling from stem to stern.
Virginia Maxon sank to her knees in prayer, for this she thought must surely be the end.On deck Bududreen and his crew had lashed themselves to the masts, and as the Ithaca struck the reef before the harbor, back upon which she had been driven, the tall poles with their living freight snapped at the deck and went overboard carrying every thing with them amid shrieks and cries of terror that were drowned and choked by the wild tumult of the night.
Twice the girl felt the ship strike upon the reef, then a great wave caught and carried her high into the air, dropping her with a nauseating lunge which seemed to the imprisoned girl to be carrying the ship to the very bottom of the ocean.With closed eyes she clung in silent prayer beside her berth waiting for the moment that would bring the engulfing waters and oblivion--praying that the end might come speedily and release her from the torture of nervous apprehension that had terrorized her for what seemed an eternity.
After the last, long dive the Ithaca righted herself laboriously, wallowing drunkenly, but apparently upon an even keel in less turbulent waters.One long minute dragged after another, yet no suffocating deluge poured in upon the girl, and presently she realized that the ship had, at least temporarily, weathered the awful buffeting of the savage elements.Now she felt but a gentle roll, though the wild turmoil of the storm still came to her ears through the heavy planking of the Ithaca's hull.
For a long hour she lay wondering what fate had overtaken the vessel and whither she had been driven, and then, with a gentle grinding sound, the ship stopped, swung around, and finally came to rest with a slight list to starboard.The wind howled about her, the torrential rain beat loudly upon her, but except for a slight rocking the ship lay quiet.
Hours passed with no other sounds than those of the rapidly waning tempest.The girl heard no signs of life upon the ship.Her curiosity became more and more keenly aroused.She had that indefinable, intuitive feeling that she was utterly alone upon the vessel, and at length, unable to endure the inaction and uncertainty longer, made her way to the companion ladder where for half an hour she futilely attempted to remove the hatch.
As she worked she failed to hear the scraping of naked bodies clambering over the ship's side, or the padding of unshod feet upon the deck above her.She was about to give up her work at the hatch when the heavy wooden cover suddenly commenced to move above her as though actuated by some supernatural power.Fascinated, the girl stood gazing in wide-eyed astonishment as one end of the hatch rose higher and higher until a little patch of blue sky revealed the fact that morning had come.Then the cover slid suddenly back and Virginia Maxon found herself looking into a savage and terrible face.
The dark skin was creased in fierce wrinkles about the eyes and mouth.Gleaming tiger cat's teeth curved upward from holes pierced to receive them in the upper half of each ear.The slit ear lobes supported heavy rings whose weight had stretched the skin until the long loop rested upon the brown shoulders.The filed and blackened teeth behind the loose lips added the last touch of hideousness to this terrible countenance.
Nor was this all.A score of equally ferocious faces peered down from behind the foremost.With a little scream Virginia Maxon sprang back to the lower deck and ran toward her stateroom.Behind her she heard the commotion of many men descending the companionway.
As Number Thirteen came into the campong after quitting the bungalow his heart was a chaos of conflicting emotions.His little world had been wiped out.
His creator--the man whom he thought his only friend and benefactor--had suddenly turned against him.
The beautiful creature he worshipped was either lost or dead; Sing had said so.He was nothing but a miserable THING.There was no place in the world for him, and even should he again find Virginia Maxon, he had von Horn's word for it that she would shrink from him and loathe him even more than another.
With no plans and no hopes he walked aimlessly through the blinding rain, oblivious of it and of the vivid lightning and deafening thunder.The palisade at length brought him to a sudden stop.Mechanically he squatted on his haunches with his back against it, and there, in the midst of the fury of the storm he conquered the tempest that raged in his own breast.
The murder that rose again and again in his untaught heart he forced back by thoughts of the sweet, pure face of the girl whose image he had set up in the inner temple of his being, as a gentle, guiding divinity.
"He made me without a soul," he repeated over and over again to himself, "but I have found a soul--she shall be my soul.Von Horn could not explain to me what a soul is.He does not know.None of them knows.I am wiser than all the rest, for I have learned what a soul is.