"Or--Luttrell?"

Percival Heron knew well enough that no such name had been found amongst the list of passengers; but he had a vague notion that Brian might have resumed his former appellation for some reason or other after he came on board. Thomas Jackson considered the subject for a few minutes.

"I ain't rightly sure, sir. Seems to me there was a gent of that name, or something like it, on board: but if so, he was amongst those in the other boat."

"I should like to see this man Mackay--or Smith," said Percival.

The berth in which the steerage passenger lay was pointed out to him: he looked at the face upon the pillow, and shook his head. A rough, reddened, blistered face it was, with dirt grained into the pores and matting the hair and beard: not in the least like the countenance of the man whom he had come to seek.

"We may fall in with the other boat," suggested the officer.

But though the steamer went out of her course in search of it, and a careful watch was kept throughout the day and night, the other boat could not be seen.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

WRECKED.

Percival cultivated acquaintance with the two sailors, and tried to obtain from them some description of the passengers on board the _Falcon_. But description was not their forte. He gained nothing but a clumsy mass of separate facts concerning passengers and crew, which assisted him little in forming an opinion as to whether Brian Luttrell had, or had not, been on board. He was inclined to think--not.

"But he seemed to have a slippery habit of turning up in odd places where you don't in the least expect to find him," soliloquised Percival over a cigar. "Why couldn't he have stayed comfortably dead in that glacier? Or why did the brain fever not carry him off? He has as many lives as a cat. He, drowned or burnt when the _Falcon_ was on fire? Not a bit of it. I'll believe in Mr. Brian Luttrell's death when I have seen him screwed into his coffin, followed him to the grave, ordered a headstone, and written his epitaph. And even then, I should feel that there was no knowing whether he had not buried himself under false pretences, and was, in reality, enjoying life at the Antipodes. I don't know anybody else who can be, 'like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once.'

I shall nail him to one _alias_ for the future, if I catch him. But there seems very little chance of my catching him at all. I've come on a wild-goose chase, and can't expect to succeed."

This mood of comparative depression did not last long. Percival felt certain that the other boat would be overtaken, or that Brian would be found to have sailed in another ship. He could not reconcile himself to any idea of returning to Elizabeth with his task half done.

They were nearing the Equator, and the heat of the weather was great. It was less fine, however, than was usually the case, and when Percival turned into his berth one night, he noticed that the stars were hidden, and that rain was beginning to fall. He slept lightly, and woke now and then to hear the swish of water outside, and the beat of the engines, the dragging of a rope, or the step of a sailor overhead. He was dreaming of Elizabeth, and that she was standing with him beside Brian Luttrell's grave, when suddenly he awoke with a violent start, and a sense that the world was coming to an end. In another moment he was out of his berth and on the floor. There had been a scraping sound, then a crash--and then the engines had stopped. There was a swaying sensation for a second or two, and then another bump. Percival knew instinctively what was the matter. The ship had struck.

After that moment's silence there was an outcry, a trampling of feet, a few minutes' wild confusion. The voice of the captain rose strong and clear above the hubbub as he gave his orders. Percival, already half-dressed, made his appearance on deck and soon learned what was the matter. The ship had struck twice heavily, and was now filling as rapidly as possible. The sailors were making preparations for launching the long boat. "Women and children first," said the captain, in his stentorian tones.

The noise subsided as he made his calm presence felt. The children cried, indeed, and a few of the women shrieked aloud; but the men passengers and crew alike, bestirred themselves to collect necessary articles, to reassure the timid, and to make ready the boats.

Percival was amongst the busiest and the bravest. His strength made him useful, and it was easier for him to use it in practical work than to stand and watch the proceedings, or even to console women and children.

For one moment he had a deep and bitter sense of anger against the ordering of his fate. Was he to go down into the deep waters in the hey-day of his youth and strength, before he had done his work or tasted the reward of work well done? Had Brian Luttrell experienced a like fate? And what would become of Elizabeth, sitting lonely in the midst of splendours which she had felt were not justly hers, waiting for weeks and months and years, perhaps, for the lovers who would never come back until the sea gave up its dead?

Percival crushed back the thought. There was no time for anything but action. And his senses seemed gifted with preternatural acuteness. He saw a child near him put her little hand into that of a soldierly-looking man, and heard her whisper--"You won't leave me, papa?" And the answer--"Never, my darling. Don't fear." Just behind him a man whispered in a woman's ear--"Forgive me, Mary." Percival wondered vaguely what that woman had to forgive. He never saw any of the speakers again.

For a strange thing happened. Strange, at least, it seemed to him; but he understood it afterwards. The ship was really resting upon a ledge of the rock on which she had struck: there was little to be seen in the darkness except a white line of breakers and a mass of something beyond--was it land? The ship gave a sudden outward lurch. There went up a cry to Heaven--a last cry from most of the souls on board the ill-fated _Arizona_--and then came the end. The vessel fell over the edge of the rocky shelf into deep water and went down like a stone.

Percival was a good swimmer, and struck out vigorously, without any expectation, however, of being able to maintain himself in the water for more than a very short time. Escape from the tangled rigging and floating pieces of the wreck was a difficult matter; but the water was very calm inside the reef, and not at all cold. He tried to save a woman as she was swept past him: for a time he supported a child, but the effort to save it was useless. The little creature's head struck against some portion of the wreck and it was killed on the spot. Percival let the little dead face sink away from him into the water and swam further from the point where it went down.

"There must be others saved as well as myself," he thought, when he was able to think at all coherently. "At least, let me keep myself up till daylight. One may see some way of escape then." It had been three o'clock when the ship struck. He had remembered to look at his watch when he was first aroused. Would his strength last out till morning?

If his safety had depended entirely on his swimming powers he would have been, indeed in evil case. But long before the first faint streak of dawn appeared, it seemed to him that he was coming in contact with something solid--that there was something hard and firm beneath him which he could touch from time to time. The truth came to him at last.

The tide was going down; and as it went down, it would leave a portion of the reef within his reach. There might be some unwashed point to which he could climb as soon as daylight came. At any rate, as the waters ebbed, he found that he could cling to the rock, and then, that he could even stand upon it, although the waves broke over him at every moment, and sometimes nearly washed him from his hold.

Never was daylight more anxiously awaited. It came at last; a faint, grey light in the east, a climbing flush of rose-colour, a host of crimson wavelets on a golden sea. And, as soon as the darkness disappeared, Percival found that his conjecture was a correct one. He was not alone. There were others beside himself who had won their way to even safer positions than his own. Portions of the reef on which the ship had struck were now to be plainly seen above the sea-level; it was plain that they were rarely touched by the salt water, for there was an attempt at vegetation in one or two places. And beyond the reef Percival saw land, and land that it would be easy enough to reach.

He turned to look for the remains of the _Arizona_, but there was little to be seen. The tops of her masts were visible only in the deep water near the reef. Spars, barrels, articles of furniture, could here and there be distinguished; nothing of value nor of interest. Percival determined to try for the shore. But first he would see whether he could help the other men whom he had discerned at a little distance from him on a higher portion of the reef.

He crept out to them, feeling his way cautiously, and not sure whether he might not be swept off his feet by the force of the waves. To his surprise, when he reached the two men, he found that they were two of the survivors from the wreck of the _Falcon_. One of them was Thomas Jackson, and the other was Mackay, the steerage passenger.

"It's plain you weren't born to be drowned," said Percival, addressing Jackson, familiarly.

"No, sir, it don't seem like it," returned the man. "There's one or two more that have saved themselves by swimming, too, I fancy. We'd better make land while we can, sir."

"Your friend's not able to help himself much, is he?" said Percival, with a sharp glance at the bearded face of the steerage passenger.

"Swims like a duck when he's all right, sir; but at present he's got a broken leg. Fainted just now; he'll be better presently. I wouldn't have liked to leave him behind."

"We'll haul him ashore between us," said Percival.

It was more easily said than done; but the task was accomplished at last. Thomas Jackson was of a wiry frame: Percival's trained muscles (he had been in the boats at Oxford) stood him in good stead. They reached the mainland, carrying the steerage passenger with them; for the poor man, not yet half-recovered from the effects of exposure and privation, and now suffering from a fracture of the bone just above the ankle, was certainly not in a fit state to help himself. On the island they found a few cocoa-nut trees: under one of these they laid their burden, and then returned to the shore to see whether there was any other castaway whom they could assist.

In this search they were successful. One man had already followed their example and swam ashore, but he was so much exhausted that they felt bound to help him to the friendly shade of the cocoa-nut trees, where the steerage passenger, now conscious of his position, and as deadly white with the pain of his broken bone as the discolouration of his scorched face permitted him to be, moved aside a little in order to make room for him. There was another man on the reef; but he had been crushed between the upper and lower topsails, and it was almost impossible to get him to shore. Percival and Jackson made the effort, but a great wave swept the man into a cavern of the reef to which he was clinging before they could come to his assistance, and he was not seen again. With a lad of sixteen and another sailor they were more fortunate. So that when at last they met under the tree to compare notes and count their numbers, they found that the party consisted of six persons: Heron, Thomas Jackson, and his pet, the steerage passenger; George Pollard, the steward; Fenwick, the sailor; and Jim Barry, the cabin boy. They stared at each other in rather helpless silence for about a minute, and then Heron burst into a strange laugh.

"Well, I've heard of a desert island all my life," he said, "but I never was on one before."

"I was," said Fenwick, slowly, "and I didn't expect to get landed upon another. But, Lord! if once you go to sea, there's no telling."

"You must feel thankful that you're landed at all," remarked Percival.

"You might have been food for the fishes by this time."

"I'd most as soon," said Fenwick, in a stolid tone, which had a depressing effect on the spirits of some of the party. The lad Barry began to whimper a little, and Pollard looked very downcast.

"Cheer up, lads," said Percival, quickly. It was wonderful to see how naturally he fell into a position of command amongst them. "That isn't the way to get home again. Never fear but a ship will pass the island and pick us up. We can't be far out of the ordinary course of the steamers. We shall be here a day or two only, or a week, perhaps. What do you say, Jackson?"

Jackson drew the back of his hand across his mouth, and seemed to meditate a reply; but while he considered the matter, the steerage passenger spoke for the first time.

"Mr. Heron is right," he said, causing Percival a moment's surprise at the fact of his name being so accurately known by a man to whom he had never spoken either on board the _Arizona_ or since they landed. "We all ought to feel thankful to Almighty God for bringing us safe to land, instead of grumbling that the island has no inhabitants. We have had a wonderful escape."

"And so say I, sir," said Jackson, touching an imaginary cap with his forefinger, while Barry and Fenwick both looked a little ashamed of themselves, and Pollard mechanically followed the example set by the sailor. "Them as grumbles had better keep out of my sight unless they want to be kicked."

"You're fine fellows, both of you," cried Percival, heartily. And then he shook hands with Jackson, and would have followed suit with the steerage passenger, had not Mackay drawn back his hand.

"I'm not in condition for shaking hands with anybody," he said, with a smile; and Percival remembered his burns and was content.

"I know this place," said Jackson, looking round him presently. "It's a dangerous reef, and there's been a many accidents near it. Ships give it a wide berth, as a general rule." The men's faces drooped when they heard this sentence. "The _Duncan Dunbar_ was wrecked here on the way to Auckland. The _Mercurius_, coming back from Sydney by way of 'Frisco, she was wrecked, too--in '70. It's the Rocas Reef, mates, which you may have heard of or you may not; and, as near as I remember, it's about three degrees south of the Line: longitude thirty-three twenty, west."

"I remember now," said Percival, eagerly. His work as a journalist helped him to remember the event to which Jackson alluded. "The men of the _Mercurius_ found some iron tanks filled with water, left by the _Duncan Dunbar_ people. We might go and see if they are still here. But first we must attend to this man's leg."

"It is not very bad," said Mackay.

"It's tremendously swollen, at any rate. Are you good at this sort of work, Jackson? I can't say I am."

"I know something about it," said Jackson. "Let's have a look, mate."