JOHN AND MIRIAM
Chapter Nineteen
Miriam continued to climb up the tilting
deck. Stopping every so often, she looked out at the sea, hoping to see a
rescue ship approaching. The ocean remained empty.
Two-thirds of the way up, Miriam heard a
familiar voice calling her name. "John!" she shouted, waving at him
with one hand while holding onto the railing with the other.
John heard her calling and turned around.
"Miriam!" Holding onto whatever he could find to keep from sliding
down the deck, he made his way over to Miriam, grabbing her hand and swinging
over to the railing. They embraced, so happy to have found each other that for
a moment they forgot their plight.
Then John sobered. Noting Miriam's
tear-streaked face, he stated, "You didn't find her."
Miriam clung to him. "I did."
John was startled by this. "Where is
she?"
"She's in a boat."
"Why didn't you get in, too?"
"I couldn't."
For the first time, John noticed Miriam's
torn dress and missing lifebelt. "Why didn't you just get in the boat?
Even without a lifebelt, you would still have been all right. Where is your
lifebelt, anyway?"
"I put it on Mary. She almost drowned,
John."
"But--how?"
Miriam told him the whole story, from
Hockley's unexpected rescue of the child to her throwing the child in the
direction of the boat so that she would have a chance to live.
John grabbed the railing tighter as the ship
tilted farther. He held Miriam tight with his other arm. "Thank you,
Miriam. You could have just abandoned her and saved yourself, or kept the
lifebelt on and had a better chance of surviving."
Miriam shook her head. "I couldn't have
done that. She's just a little girl. Besides, she's as much my daughter now as
she is yours. I couldn't abandon her any more than I could abandon my own
child."
John opened his mouth to speak, but was
suddenly struck from behind by someone tumbling down the deck. Losing his grip
on the railing, he fell against Miriam, who also let go. In seconds, they were
both sliding down the deck, grasping desperately for something to hold onto.
John managed to grab onto the railing near
the bottom of the deck, but Miriam was not so lucky. Tumbling sideways, she
slammed into a piece of railing that separated one level from another. She
landed hard on it, stomach first. A sharp pain shot through her mid-section,
and she felt blood beginning to trickle down her legs.
Her baby! Gritting her teeth against the
pain, Miriam tried to climb to a safer spot within the railing, but another
cramp rushed through her, and she froze, gasping with pain.
Another person hit the railing, narrowly
missing her, and Miriam knew that she had to get out of the way. Ignoring the
pain, she inched out to the edge of the railing, then leaped toward the railing
around the deck, barely grabbing it.
Clinging with one hand to the railing, Miriam
kicked her feet, struggling to find purchase in the slippery deck.
She finally succeeded in climbing onto the
railing, but another falling person nearly knocked her off again. Trying to
ignore the pain just a little bit longer, she climbed over the railing and
clung to the outside, trying not to look at the dark, icy water below.
Looking back onto the deck, she saw John
holding onto the railing far below. Glimpsing her, he gestured to her to climb
down, but at that moment another cramp seized her and she shook her head,
holding onto the railing for dear life.
A strange cracking sound issued from the
ship, and suddenly it began to split. Miriam watched as the piece of railing
that John was clinging to bent and broke away, sending him tumbling into the
deep split in the ship.
As the above-water half of the ship came
crashing down, Miriam lost her own grip on the railing. Desperately, she tried
to hold on, but the impact jarred her loose. Screaming, she tumbled into the
water.
The icy cold ocean closed over her head,
dragging her down as she struggled to reach the surface. Her heavy wool skirt
wrapped around her legs, impeding her movement, and the weight of the sodden
material pulled her down like a stone. Miriam managed to surface once, flailing
helplessly against the water, trying, too late, to learn to swim. Then the
water closed over her head again, and she felt herself sinking into the icy
sea.