All hands were brought on deck, life-belts were adjusted, and boats’ crews stood by. At that moment Maseden caught a glimpse of the two girls. They, with other passengers, were summoned by the ship’s officers and placed in the smoke-room, which, by reason of its situation beneath the bridge, provided a convenient gathering ground in case the boats were lowered. He saw them only for a moment—two cloaked figures, wearing cloth caps tied tightly to their heads with motor-veils. He could not distinguish Madge from Nina. It was a strange and most bizarre notion that when the gates of eternity were opening a second time before his eyes the woman who was his lawful wife should now be sharing his peril, [Pg 110]yet be separated from him far more effectually than in the Castle of San Juan. [Pg 110] The incongruity of their position did not trouble him greatly, however. Soon he ceased thinking about it. He realized that he, as an individual, could do nothing but obey orders and abide by the decree of Providence. He was not frightened. Some hours earlier, knowing the physical features of the western coast of South America, he had decided that the odds were a thousand to one against the escape of the ship and her seventy-four occupants. He hoped that when the end came it might not be a long drawn-out agony—that was all. For the rest, he looked forward with a certain spice of curiosity to the fight which captain and crew would make against the giant forces of nature. An awesome panorama of mighty cliffs, inaccessible islands and isolated rocks over which the seas dashed with extraordinary fury, was opening up with ever-increasing clearness. A mist of driven froth and spindrift hung low over the surface of the water, but the great hills of the interior were distinctly visible. Irregular white patches near their summits marked the presence of huge glaciers. Lower down the valleys were choked with black masses of firs. Countless generations of trees had grown, and fallen, and rotted, ultimately [Pg 111]forming a new, if unstable, basis for more recent growths. [Pg 111] An occasional red scar down a hillside revealed the latest landslide. A cascade would leap out from the topmost part of a forest and bury itself again in the depths. These outstanding features were all on a huge scale. It was a weird, monstrous land, a place
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