There was a murmur of acquiescence and acceptance,--then a general acclaim of thanks, for the wind was still so high that communication was conducted almost in shouts. Nevertheless, Ducie heard very distinctly when Mrs. Floyd-Rosney turned toward him a pale, pained, troubled face.
“You will come, too? You will have no scruple about--about the ownership?” she faltered.
Adrian Ducie laughed satirically. “Not the least scruple in the world. I have the best right there from every point of view,--even his own!--for if my brother is only a lessee, and not the rightful owner, as he contended this morning, Randal is in possession and my welcome is assured in a house of which he is the host.”
The big child was very big in her arms, and had had his share of the suffering from the general tumult and excitement. He was fractious, hungry, and sleepy, although he could not sleep. But he burrowed with his head in her neck and tried to put his cheek before her lips that she might talk to no one but him, and began to cry, although he forgot his grievance midway and attempted to get down on his own stout legs.
“I wanted to say,--you have been so good to me and the baby,--don’t Ned, be quiet, my pet,--that I could not bear for you to remain in danger or discomfort on the boat because of any sensitiveness about our presence at Duciehurst.”
“Don’t you believe it,” he responded cavalierly. “I am not subject to any sensitiveness about Duciehurst. I shall have the very best that Duciehurst can afford and be beholden to nobody for it.”
A diminution in the floods of rain began to be perceptible, and the extreme violence of the wind was abated. Now and then a gust in paroxysmal fury came screaming down the river, battering tumultuously at the shattered doors and windows of the wreck, setting all the loose wires and chains to clattering, and showing its breadth and muscle by tearing up some riverside tree and carrying it whirling as lightly as a straw through the air above the tortured and lashed currents of the stream. The clouds, dark and slate-tinted, showed occasionally a white transparent scud driving swiftly athwart their expanse, which gave obvious token of the velocity of the wind, for, although the hurricane was spent, the menace of the stormy weather and the turbulent, maddened waters was still to be reckoned with. It was scarcely beyond noon-day, yet the aspect of the world was of a lowering and tempestuous darkness. The alacrity of the Captain in getting them afloat argued that he now accorded more approval to the plan than when it was first suggested, and that, although he would not have assumed the responsibility of the removal of the passengers at such imminent risk, he was glad to forward it when it was of their own volition, indeed insistence. A fact that his long riparian knowledge revealed to him was not immediately apparent to the passengers until the yawl was about to be launched,--the sand-bar was in process of submergence. The rise of the river was unprecedented in so short an interval, due to the fall of the vast volume of rain. During the last ten minutes the Captain began to realize that it was beyond the power of prophecy to judge what proportion of the tow-head would be above water within the hour. It was not difficult to launch the yawl from the twisted timbers of the deck. It swung clear and slipped down with a smart impact, rocking on the tumultuous current as if there were twenty feet of water beneath it.