"I find our disaster was on the Maiden Rocks, a horrible group, I only wonder that any one gets past them. There are five of them, the wicked Sirens, and three have lighthouses, but not very efficient ones, and apt to disappear in the fog, and there are reefs beneath on one of which we came to grief. The folk here think a wreck on these Maidens absolutely fatal, so we cannot be but most thankful for being alive, though it is a worse experience than the Rotuma earthquake.
"Fergus would think the place worth all we have undergone. The crags are wonderful, chalk at the bottom, basalt above, and of course all round to the Giant's Causeway it is finer still. Well may we, as the Bishop is always doing, give thanks that we were taken, by the Divine Hand guiding tide and current, to this milder and less inhospitable opening.
"We can afford to dispense with less majesty, for one of those finer cliffs would have been our destruction.
"This is going to Larne, where there is a railway station and something of a town, and the Bishop has written to the doctor of the place. I will write again when he has been here. I hope to send you another and more cheery account to-morrow, or whenever post goes.
"Nag is writing to her sister. I trust you will have heard of Bernard and Angela. Their boat was a better one than ours, and certainly got off safely. Let us know as soon you can.
"Your most loving niece,
"D. M. MOHUN."
Agatha had also written to Magdalen, very briefly, to assure her of her safety and thankfulness, and to say she could not leave Wilfred till more efficient care arrived, or till she had means to come back with. She was evidently too busy over her patient to have much possibility of writing, even if she had paper, which seemed to be scarce at Corncastle.
The Bishop also wrote to Clement, and to Sir Jasper and others; but he also could say little, only that he trusted that Angela and Bernard were safe elsewhere, having heard them called, and, as he believed, seen them off in the first boat, so that probably they had been already heard of before these letters arrived. Their own party had been spared from being dashed against the rocks almost by a miracle; and Agatha Prescott's courage and readiness, as now her nursing faculties, were beyond all praise, as indeed was the brave patience of Miss Mohun. He could only look on and be thankful, and hope for tidings of those who were as his own children. The next day's letters spoke of the doctor as so much perplexed about Wilfred, and nothing had been heard at Larne of the other boats.
But no tidings came; there was too much cause to fear that the first boat had been borne away by the currents and swamped. Lady Merrifield could not leave Phyllis in such a crisis of suspense, and Sir Jasper was hardly fit for such a journey, so that his wife was much relieved when her brother, General Mohun, came to Clipstone, and undertook to hasten out to Corncastle, with money and appliances, including a nurse.
"Oh, Reggie, always good at need! I hardly dare to send my good old Halfpenny-!"
"No, Mamma, send me. You know I had the ambulance lessons with Nag," said Mysie, "and we could get a real nurse from Belfast or Dublin, if it was wanted."
So it was arranged, and uncle and niece started, but hope faded more and more! Were those two precious young lives so early quenched?
CHAPTER XXXI-THE WRECK
"How purer were earth, if all its martyrdoms,
If all its struggling sighs of sacrifice
Were swept away!"
E. HAMILTON KING.
No tidings of Bernard and Angela. The suspense began to diminish into "wanhope" or despair; and the brothers and sisters continued to say that they were sorry above all for Phyllis, whose gentle sweetness had made her one with them.
But at last, one forenoon, a telegram was put into Clement's hand, dated from Ewmouth:
Muriel Ellen, Ewmouth Harbour, October 14th. Blaine to Rev. Underwood. Brother here. Come to infirmary.
Clement and Geraldine lost no time in driving to the infirmary, too anxious to speak to one another. Blaine's name was known to them as a Gwenworth lad, who had gone to sea, and risen to be sailing master of the Muriel Ellen, a trader plying between Londonderry and Bristol. He, with another, who proved to be the American captain of the Afra, were at the gate of the hospital, where an ambulance had just entered.
"Oh! Sir," as Clement held out his hand, "I could not save her. I'd have given my life!"
"My brother?" as Clement returned his grasp fervently.
"We've just got him in here, Sir. I hope! I hope! And here's the doctor."
The house surgeon, who, of course, knew the Rector of Vale Leston, met him with, "Best see him before we touch him, it will set his mind at rest-You must be prepared, Sir-No, better not you, Mrs. Grinstead."
Clement followed in silence, leaving Geraldine to the care of the matron. All he was allowed to see was a ghastly, death-like face and form, covered with rugs, lying prostrate on a mattress; but as he came in, at the sound of his step, there was a quiver of recognition, the eyes opened and looked up, the lips moved, and as Clement bent down with a kiss, there was a faint sound gasped out, "Telegraph to Clipstone."
"I will, I will at once."
"It was noble!" Then was added, "She gave herself for the Bishop, for me." Then the eyes closed, and unconsciousness seemed to prevail. Some one came and put Clement aside, saying-
"Go now, Sir; you shall hear!"
Clement, who thought it might be death, would have stayed at hand; but he was turned away, and could only murmur an inarticulate blessing and prayer, as he meant to fulfil the earnest desire that was thought to have been conned over and over again by Bernard, as these half sentences recurred again and again in semi-consciousness. His telegram despatched, Clement returned to his sister, to hear from the two masters all they had to tell. Captain Miller, of the Afra, had slight hurts, which had been looked to before he should take the train for London; and Blaine had waited to tell his story before pursuing his voyage to Bristol, both, indeed, to hear the report of the patient, and likewise to collect the news of the few who had been landed at Corncastle, to the great relief of Captain Miller; but of the first boat there were no tidings, and Blaine thought there was little probability that it had not sunk or been dashed against the crags of the savage coast.
Captain Miller's account was, that not long after leaving the Mersey, there had set in an impenetrable fog, lasting for a night and a day. There was perhaps some confusion as to charts, and the scarcely visible lights upon the Maidens. At any rate, the Afra had suddenly struck on a reef, and, shifting at once, had been hopelessly rent, so as to leave no hope save in the boats. Every one seemed to have behaved with the resolute fortitude and unselfishness generally shown by English and Americans in the like circumstances. The sea was not in a dangerous state, and there was a steady east wind, so that the boats were lowered without much difficulty, and most of the women disposed of in the first.
Before the second could be put off however, the water had reached the fires; there was a violent lurch, the ship had heeled completely over, washing many overboard, and of course causing a great confusion among those who had been steady before, and making the deck almost perpendicular. The captain, however, succeeded in lowering another boat, and putting into it, as he trusted, the few remaining women, the Bishop, and most of the men. This was, of course, that which had safely reached Corncastle, and of which he only now heard. The last boat was so overcrowded that he, with three of his crew, had thought it best to remain for the almost desperate chance of being picked up before they sank.
He had supposed Mr. Underwood had been washed overboard in the heeling over of the ship, and that his sister had been put into the first boat; but presently he heard a call.
"Oh, help me, please!" And he became aware that Sister Angela was hanging over her brother, who lay crushed by a heavy chest which had fallen on him, and thrown him against the gunwale, though a moan or two showed him to be still alive. The remaining sailors removed the weight, lifted him, and laid him in the best place and position they could, while his sister hung over him and supported his head. To Miller's dismayed exclamation at finding a woman still on board, she replied-