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"While he can stand, he keeps with Me."
Third Scene—The Iceberg.
Chapter 12.
Alone! alone on the Frozen Deep!
The Arctic sun is rising dimly in the dreary sky. The beams of the cold northern moon, mingling strangely with the dawning light, clothe the snowy plains in hues of livid gray. An ice-field on the far horizon is moving slowly southward in the spectral light. Nearer, a stream of open water rolls its slow black waves past the edges of the ice. Nearer still, following the drift, an iceberg rears its crags and pinnacles to the sky; here, glittering in the moonbeams; there, looming dim and ghost-like in the ashy light.
Midway on the long sweep of the lower slope of the iceberg, what objects rise, and break the desolate monotony of the scene? In this awful solitude, can signs appear which tell of human Life? Yes! The black outline of a boat just shows itself, hauled up on the berg. In an ice-cavern behind the boat the last red embers of a dying fire flicker from time to time over the figures of two men. One is seated, resting his back against the side of the cavern. The other lies prostrate, with his head on his comrade's knee. The first of these men is awake, and thinking. The second reclines, with his still white face turned up to the sky—sleeping or dead. Days and days since, these two have fallen behind on the march of the expedition of relief. Days and days since, these two have been given up by their weary and failing companions as doomed and lost. He who sits thinking is Richard Wardour. He who lies sleeping or dead is Frank Aldersley.
The iceberg drifts slowly, over the black water, through the ashy light. Minute by minute the dying fire sinks. Minute by minute the deathly cold creeps nearer and nearer to the lost men.
Richard Wardour rouses himself from his thoughts—looks at the still white face beneath him—and places his hand on Frank's heart. It still beats feebly. Give him his share of the food and fuel still stored in the boat, and Frank may live through it. Leave him neglected where he lies, and his death is a question of hours—perhaps minutes; who knows?
Richard Wardour lifts the sleeper's head and rests it against the cavern side. He goes to the boat, and returns with a billet of wood. He stoops to place the wood on the fire—and stops. Frank is dreaming, and murmuring in his dream. A woman's name passes his lips. Frank is in England again—at the ball—whispering to Clara the confession of his love.
Over Richard Wardour's face there passes the shadow of a deadly thought. He rises from the fire; he takes the wood back to the boat. His iron strength is shaken, but it still holds out. They are drifting nearer and nearer to the open sea. He can launch the boat without help; he can take the food and the fuel with him. The sleeper on the iceberg is the man who has robbed him of Clara—who has wrecked the hope and the happiness of his life. Leave the man in his sleep, and let him die!
So the tempter whispers. Richard Wardour tries his strength on the boat. It moves: he has got it under control. He stops, and looks round. Beyond him is the open sea. Beneath him is the man who has robbed him of Clara. The shadow of the deadly thought grows and darkens over his face. He waits with his hands on the boat—waits and thinks.
The iceberg drifts slowly—over the black water; through the ashy light. Minute by minute, the dying fire sinks. Minute by minute, the deathly cold creeps nearer to the sleeping man. And still Richard Wardour waits—waits and thinks.
Fourth Scene—The Garden.
Chapter 13.
The spring has come. The air of the April night just lifts the leaves of the sleeping flowers. The moon is queen in the cloudless and starless sky. The stillness of the midnight hour is abroad, over land and over sea.
In a villa on the westward shore of the Isle of Wight, the glass doors which lead from the drawing-room to the garden are yet open. The shaded lamp yet burns on the table. A lady sits by the lamp, reading. From time to time she looks out into the garden, and sees the white-robed figure of a young girl pacing slowly to and fro in the soft brightness of the moonlight on the lawn. Sorrow and suspense have set their mark on the lady. Not rivals only, but friends who formerly admired her, agree now that she looks worn and aged. The more merciful judgment of others remarks, with equal truth, that her eyes, her hair, her simple grace and grandeur of movement have lost but little of their olden charms. The truth lies, as usual, between the two extremes. In spite of sorrow and suffering, Mrs. Crayford is the beautiful Mrs. Crayford still.
The delicious silence of the hour is softly disturbed by the voice of the younger lady in the garden.
"Go to the piano, Lucy. It is a night for music. Play something that is worthy of the night."
Mrs. Crayford looks round at the clock on the mantelpiece.
"My dear Clara, it is past twelve! Remember what the doctor told you. You ought to have been in bed an hour ago."
"Half an hour, Lucy—give me half an hour more! Look at the moonlight on the sea. Is it possible to go to bed on such a night as this? Play something, Lucy—something spiritual and divine."
Earnestly pleading with her friend, Clara advances toward the window. She too has suffered under the wasting influences of suspense. Her face has lost its youthful freshness; no delicate flush of color rises on it when she speaks. The soft gray eyes which won Frank's heart in the by-gone time are sadly altered now. In repose, they have a dimmed and wearied look. In action, they are wild and restless, like eyes suddenly wakened from startling dreams. Robed in white—her soft brown hair hanging loosely over her shoulders—there is something weird and ghost-like in the girl, as she moves nearer and nearer to the window in the full light of the moon—pleading for music that shall be worthy of the mystery and the beauty of the night.
"Will you come in here if I play to you?" Mrs. Crayford asks. "It is a risk, my love, to be out so long in the night air."
"No! no! I like it. Play—while I am out here looking at the sea. It quiets me; it comforts me; it does me good."
She glides back, ghost-like, over the lawn. Mrs. Crayford rises, and puts down the volume that she has been reading. It is a record of explorations in the Arctic seas. The time has gone by when the two lonely women could take an interest in subjects not connected with their own anxieties. Now, when hope is fast failing them—now, when their last news of the Wanderer and the Sea-mew is news that is more than two years old—they can read of nothing, they can think of nothing, but dangers and discoveries, losses and rescues in the terrible Polar seas.
Unwillingly, Mrs. Crayford puts her book aside, and opens the piano—Mozart's "Air in A, with Variations," lies open on the instrument. One after another she plays the lovely melodies, so simply, so purely beautiful, of that unpretending and unrivaled work. At the close of the ninth Variation (Clara's favorite), she pauses, and turns toward the garden.
"Shall I stop there?" she asks.
There is no answer. Has Clara wandered away out of hearing of the music that she loves—the music that harmonizes so subtly with the tender beauty of the night? Mrs. Crayford rises and advances to the window.
No! there is the white figure standing alone on the slope of the lawn—the head turned away from the house; the face looking out over the calm sea, whose gently rippling waters end in the dim line on the horizon which is the line of the Hampshire coast.
Mrs. Crayford advances as far as the path before the window, and calls to her.
"Clara!"
Again there is no answer. The white figure still stands immovably in its place.
With signs of distress in her face, but with no appearance of alarm, Mrs. Crayford returns to the room. Her own sad experience tells her what has happened. She summons the servants and directs them to wait in the drawing-room until she calls to them. This done, she returns to the garden, and approaches the mysterious figure on the lawn.
Dead to the outer world, as if she lay already in her grave—insensible to touch, insensible to sound, motionless as stone, cold as stone—Clara stands on the moonlit lawn, facing the seaward view. Mrs. Crayford waits at her side, patiently watching for the change which she knows is to come. "Catalepsy," as some call it—"hysteria," as others say—this alone is certain, the same interval always passes; the same change always appears.
It comes now. Not a change in her eyes; they still remain wide open, fixed and glassy. The first movement is a movement of her hands. They rise slowly from her side and waver in the air like the hands of a person groping in the dark. Another interval, and the movement spreads to her lips: they part and tremble. A few minutes more, and words begin to drop, one by one, from those parted lips—words spoken in a lost, vacant tone, as if she is talking in her sleep.
Mrs. Crayford looks back at the house. Sad experience makes her suspicious of the servants' curiosity. Sad experience has long since warned her that the servants are not to be trusted within hearing of the wild words which Clara speaks in the trance. Has any one of them ventured into the garden? No. They are out of hearing at the window, waiting for the signal which tells them that their help is needed.
Turning toward Clara once more, Mrs. Crayford hears the vacantly uttered words, falling faster and faster from her lips,
"Frank! Frank! Frank! Don't drop behind—don't trust Richard Wardour. While you can stand, keep with the other men, Frank!"
(The farewell warning of Crayford in the solitudes of the Frozen Deep, repeated by Clara in the garden of her English home!)
A moment of silence follows; and, in that moment, the vision has changed. She sees him on the iceberg now, at the mercy of the bitterest enemy he has on earth. She sees him drifting—over the black water, through the ashy light.
"Wake, Frank! wake and defend yourself! Richard Wardour knows that I love you—Richard Wardour's vengeance will take your life! Wake, Frank—wake! You are drifting to your death!" A low groan of horror bursts from her, sinister and terrible to hear. "Drifting! drifting!" she whispers to herself—"drifting to his death!"
Her glassy eyes suddenly soften—then close. A long shudder runs through her. A faint flush shows itself on the deadly pallor of her face, and fades again. Her limbs fail her. She sinks into Mrs. Crayford's arms.
The servants, answering the call for help, carry her into the house. They lay her insensible on her bed. After half an hour or more, her eyes open again—this time with the light of life in them—open, and rest languidly on the friend sitting by the bedside.
"I have had a dreadful dream," she murmurs faintly. "Am I ill, Lucy? I feel so weak."
Even as she says the words, sleep, gentle, natural sleep, takes her suddenly, as it takes young children weary with their play. Though it is all over now, though no further watching is required, Mrs. Crayford still keeps her place by the bedside, too anxious and too wakeful to retire to her own room.
On other occasions, she is accustomed to dismiss from her mind the words which drop from Clara in the trance. This time the effort to dismiss them is beyond her power. The words haunt her. Vainly she recalls to memory all that the doctors have said to her, in speaking of Clara in the state of trance. "What she vaguely dreads for the lost man whom she loves is mingled in her mind with what she is constantly reading, of trials, dangers, and escapes in the Arctic seas. The most startling things that she may say or do are all attributable to this cause, and may all be explained in this way." So the doctors have spoken; and, thus far, Mrs. Crayford has shared their view. It is only to-night that the girl's words ring in her ear, with a strange prophetic sound in them. It is only to-night that she asks herself: "Is Clara present, in the spirit, with our loved and lost ones in the lonely North? Can mortal vision see the dead and living in the solitudes of the Frozen Deep?"
Chapter 14.
The night had passed.
Far and near the garden view looked its gayest and brightest in the light of the noonday sun. The cheering sounds which tell of life and action were audible all round the villa. From the garden of the nearest house rose the voices of children at play. Along the road at the back sounded the roll of wheels, as carts and carriages passed at intervals. Out on the blue sea, the distant splash of the paddles, the distant thump of the engines, told from time to time of the passage of steamers, entering or leaving the strait between the island and the mainland. In the trees, the birds sang gayly among the rustling leaves. In the house, the women-servants were laughing over some jest or story that cheered them at their work. It was a lively and pleasant time—a bright, enjoyable day.
The two ladies were out together; resting on a garden seat, after a walk round the grounds.
They exchanged a few trivial words relating to the beauty of the day, and then said no more. Possessing the same consciousness of what she had seen in the trance which persons in general possess of what they have seen in a dream—believing in the vision as a supernatural revelation—Clara's worst forebodings were now, to her mind, realized as truths. Her last faint hope of ever seeing Frank again was now at an end. Intimate experience of her told Mrs. Crayford what was passing in Clara's mind, and warned her that the attempt to reason and remonstrate would be little better than a voluntary waste of words and time. The disposition which she had herself felt on the previous night, to attach a superstitious importance to the words that Clara had spoken in the trance, had vanished with the return of the morning. Rest and reflection had quieted her mind, and had restored the composing influence of her sober sense. Sympathizing with Clara in all besides, she had no sympathy, as they sat together in the pleasant sunshine, with Clara's gloomy despair of the future. She, who could still hope, had nothing to say to the sad companion who had done with hope. So the quiet minutes succeeded each other, and the two friends sat side by side in silence.
An hour passed, and the gate-bell of the villa rang.
They both started—they both knew the ring. It was the hour when the postman brought their newspapers from London. In past days, what hundreds on hundreds of times they had torn off the cover which inclosed the newspaper, and looked at the same column with the same weary mingling of hope and despair! There to-day—as it was yesterday; as it would be, if they lived, to-morrow—there was the servant with Lucy's newspaper and Clara's newspaper in his hand!
Would both of them do again to-day what both had done so often in the days that were gone?
No! Mrs. Crayford removed the cover from her newspaper as usual. Clara laid her newspaper aside, unopened, on the garden seat.
In silence, Mrs. Crayford looked, where she always looked, at the column devoted to the Latest Intelligence from foreign parts. The instant her eye fell on the page she started with a loud cry of joy. The newspaper fell from her trembling hand. She caught Clara in her arms. "Oh, my darling! my darling! news of them at last."
Without answering, without the slightest change in look or manner, Clara took the newspaper from the ground, and read the top line in the column, printed in capital letters:
THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION.
She waited, and looked at Mrs. Crayford.
"Can you bear to hear it, Lucy," she asked, "if I read it aloud?"
Mrs. Crayford was too agitated to answer in words. She signed impatiently to Clara to go on.
Clara read the news which followed the heading in capital letters. Thus it ran:
"The following intelligence, from St. Johns, Newfoundland, has reached us for publication. The whaling-vessel Blythewood is reported to have met with the surviving officers and men of the Expedition in Davis Strait. Many are stated to be dead, and some are supposed to be missing. The list of the saved, as collected by the people of the whaler, is not vouched for as being absolutely correct, the circumstances having been adverse to investigation. The vessel was pressed for time; and the members of the Expedition, all more or less suffering from exhaustion, were not in a position to give the necessary assistance to inquiry. Further particulars may be looked for by the next mail."
The list of the survivors followed, beginning with the officers in the order of their rank. They both read the list together. The first name was Captain Helding; the second was Lieutenant Crayford.
There the wife's joy overpowered her. After a pause, she put her arm around Clara's waist, and spoke to her.
"Oh, my love!" she murmured, "are you as happy as I am? Is Frank's name there too? The tears are in my eyes. Read for me—I can't read for myself."
The answer came, in still, sad tones:
"I have read as far as your husband's name. I have no need to read further."
Mrs. Crayford dashed the tears from her eyes—steadied herself—and looked at the newspaper.
On the list of the survivors, the search was vain. Frank's name was not among them. On a second list, headed "Dead or Missing," the first two names that appeared were:
FRANCIS ALDERSLEY. RICHARD WARDOUR.
In speechless distress and dismay, Mrs. Crayford looked at Clara. Had she force enough in her feeble health to sustain the shock that had fallen on her? Yes! she bore it with a strange unnatural resignation—she looked, she spoke, with the sad self-possession of despair.
"I was prepared for it," she said. "I saw them in the spirit last night. Richard Wardour has discovered the truth; and Frank has paid the penalty with his life—and I, I alone, am to blame." She shuddered, and put her hand on her heart. "We shall not be long parted, Lucy. I shall go to him. He will not return to me."
Those words were spoken with a calm certainty of conviction that was terrible to hear. "I have no more to say," she added, after a moment, and rose to return to the house. Mrs. Crayford caught her by the hand, and forced her to take her seat again.
"Don't look at me, don't speak to me, in that horrible manner!" she exclaimed. "Clara! it is unworthy of a reasonable being, it is doubting the mercy of God, to say what you have just said. Look at the newspaper again. See! They tell you plainly that their information is not to be depended on—they warn you to wait for further particulars. The very words at the top of the list show how little they knew of the truth 'Dead or Missing!' On their own showing, it is quite as likely that Frank is missing as that Frank is dead. For all you know, the next mail may bring a letter from him. Are you listening to me?"
"Yes."
"Can you deny what I say?"
"No."
"'Yes!' 'No!' Is that the way to answer me when I am so distressed and so anxious about you?"
"I am sorry I spoke as I did, Lucy. We look at some subjects in very different ways. I don't dispute, dear, that yours is the reasonable view."
"You don't dispute?" retorted Mrs. Crayford, warmly. "No! you do what is worse—you believe in your own opinion; you persist in your own conclusion—with the newspaper before you! Do you, or do you not, believe the newspaper?"
"I believe in what I saw last night."
"In what you saw last night! You, an educated woman, a clever woman, believing in a vision of your own fancy—a mere dream! I wonder you are not ashamed to acknowledge it!"
"Call it a dream if you like, Lucy. I have had other dreams at other times—and I have known them to be fulfilled."
"Yes!" said Mrs. Crayford. "For once in a way they may have been fulfilled, by chance—and you notice it, and remember it, and pin your faith on it. Come, Clara, be honest!—What about the occasions when the chance has been against you, and your dreams have not been fulfilled? You superstitious people are all alike. You conveniently forget when your dreams and your presentiments prove false. For my sake, dear, if not for your own," she continued, in gentler and tenderer tones, "try to be more reasonable and more hopeful. Don't lose your trust in the future, and your trust in God. God, who has saved my husband, can save Frank. While there is doubt, there is hope. Don't embitter my happiness, Clara! Try to think as I think—if it is only to show that you love me."
She put her arm round the girl's neck, and kissed her. Clara returned the kiss; Clara answered, sadly and submissively,
"I do love you, Lucy. I will try."
Having answered in those terms, she sighed to herself, and said no more. It would have been plain, only too plain, to far less observant eyes than Mrs. Crayford's that no salutary impression had been produced on her. She had ceased to defend her own way of thinking, she spoke of it no more—but there was the terrible conviction of Frank's death at Wardour's hands rooted as firmly as ever in her mind! Discouraged and distressed, Mrs. Crayford left her, and walked back toward the house.
Chapter 15.
At the drawing-room window of the villa there appeared a polite little man, with bright intelligent eyes, and cheerful sociable manners. Neatly dressed in professional black, he stood, self-proclaimed, a prosperous country doctor—successful and popular in a wide circle of patients and friends. As Mrs. Crayford approached him, he stepped out briskly to meet her on the lawn, with both hands extended in courteous and cordial greeting.
"My dear madam, accept my heartfelt congratulations!" cried the doctor. "I have seen the good news in the paper; and I could hardly feel more rejoiced than I do now if I had the honor of knowing Lieutenant Crayford personally. We mean to celebrate the occasion at home. I said to my wife before I came out, 'A bottle of the old Madeira at dinner to-day, mind!—to drink the lieutenant's health; God bless him!' And how is our interesting patient? The news is not altogether what we could wish, so far as she is concerned. I felt a little anxious, to tell you the truth, about the effect of it; and I have paid my visit to-day before my usual time. Not that I take a gloomy view of the news myself. No! There is clearly a doubt about the correctness of the information, so far as Mr. Aldersley is concerned—and that is a point, a great point in Mr. Aldersley's favor. I give him the benefit of the doubt, as the lawyers say. Does Miss Burnham give him the benefit of the doubt too? I hardly dare hope it, I confess."
"Miss Burnham has grieved and alarmed me," Mrs. Crayford answered. "I was just thinking of sending for you when we met here."
With those introductory words, she told the doctor exactly what had happened; repeating not only the conversation of that morning between Clara and herself, but also the words which had fallen from Clara, in the trance of the past night.
The doctor listened attentively. Little by little, its easy smiling composure vanished from his face, as Mrs. Crayford went on, and left him completely transformed into a grave and thoughtful man.
"Let us go and look at her," he said.
He seated himself by Clara's side, and carefully studied her face, with his hand on her pulse. There was no sympathy here between the dreamy mystical temperament of the patient and the downright practical character of the doctor. Clara secretly disliked her medical attendant. She submitted impatiently to the close investigation of which he made her the object. He questioned her—and she answered irritably. Advancing a step further (the doctor was not easily discouraged) he adverted to the news of the Expedition, and took up the tone of remonstrance which had been already adopted by Mrs. Crayford. Clara declined to discuss the question. She rose with formal politeness, and requested permission to return to the house. The doctor attempted no further resistance. "By all means, Miss Burnham," he answered, resignedly—having first cast a look at Mrs. Crayford which said plainly, "Stay here with me." Clara bowed her acknowledgments in cold silence, and left them together. The doctor's bright eyes followed the girl's wasted, yet still graceful figure as it slowly receded from view, with an expression of grave anxiety which Mrs. Crayford noticed with grave misgiving on her side. He said nothing, until Clara had disappeared under the veranda which ran round the garden-side of the house.
"I think you told me," he began, "that Miss Burnham has neither father nor mother living?"
"Yes. Miss Burnham is an orphan."
"Has she any near relatives?"
"No. You may speak to me as her guardian and her friend. Are you alarmed about her?"
"I am seriously alarmed. It is only two days since I called here last, and I see a marked change in her for the worse—physically and morally, a change for the worse. Don't needlessly alarm yourself! The case is not, I trust, entirely beyond the reach of remedy. The great hope for us is the hope that Mr. Aldersley may still be living. In that event, I should feel no misgivings about the future. Her marriage would make a healthy and a happy woman of her. But as things are, I own I dread that settled conviction in her mind that Mr. Aldersley is dead, and that her own death is soon to follow. In her present state of health this idea (haunting her as it certainly will night and day) will have its influence on her body as well as on her mind. Unless we can check the mischief, her last reserves of strength will give way. If you wish for other advice, by all means send for it. You have my opinion."
"I am quite satisfied with your opinion," Mrs. Crayford replied. "For God's sake, tell me, what can we do?"
"We can try a complete change," said the doctor. "We can remove her at once from this place."
"She will refuse to leave it," Mrs. Crayford rejoined. "I have more than once proposed a change to her—and she always says No."
The doctor paused for a moment, like a man collecting his thoughts.
"I heard something on my way here," he proceeded, "which suggests to my mind a method of meeting the difficulty that you have just mentioned. Unless I am entirely mistaken, Miss Burnham will not say No to the change that I have in view for her."
"What is it?" asked Mrs. Crayford, eagerly.
"Pardon me if I ask you a question, on my part, before I reply," said the doctor. "Are you fortunate enough to possess any interest at the Admiralty?"
"Certainly. My father is in the Secretary's office; and two of the Lords of the Admiralty are friends of his."
"Excellent! Now I can speak out plainly with little fear of disappointing you. After what I have said, you will agree with me, that the only change in Miss Burnham's life which will be of any use to her is a change that will alter the present tone of her mind on the subject of Mr. Aldersley. Place her in a position to discover—not by reference to her own distempered fancies and visions, but by reference to actual evidence and actual fact—whether Mr. Aldersley is, or is not, a living man; and there will be an end of the hysterical delusions which now threaten to fatally undermine her health. Even taking matters at their worst—even assuming that Mr. Aldersley has died in the Arctic seas—it will be less injurious to her to discover this positively, than to leave her mind to feed on its own morbid superstitions and speculations, for weeks and weeks together, while the next news from the Expedition is on its way to England. In one word, I want you to be in a position, before the week is out, to put Miss Burnham's present conviction to a practical test. Suppose you could say to her, 'We differ, my dear, about Mr. Francis Aldersley. You declare, without the shadow of a reason for it, that he is certainly dead, and, worse still, that he has died by the act of one of his brother officers. I assert, on the authority of the newspaper, that nothing of the sort has happened, and that the chances are all in favor of his being still a living man. What do you say to crossing the Atlantic, and deciding which of us is right—you or I?' Do you think Miss Burnham will say No to that, Mrs. Crayford? If I know anything of human nature, she will seize the opportunity as a means of converting you to a belief in the Second Sight."
"Good Heavens, doctor! do you mean to tell me that we are to go to sea and meet the Arctic Expedition on its way home?"
"Admirably guessed, Mrs. Crayford! That is exactly what I mean."
"But how is it to be done?"
"I will tell you immediately. I mentioned—didn't I?—that I had heard something on my road to this house."
"Yes."
"Well, I met an old friend at my own gate, who walked with me a part of the way here. Last night my friend dined with the admiral at Portsmouth. Among the guests there was a member of the Ministry who had brought the news about the Expedition with him from London. This gentleman told the company there was very little doubt that the Admiralty would immediately send out a steam-vessel, to meet the rescued men on the shores of America, and bring them home. Wait a little, Mrs. Crayford! Nobody knows, as yet, under what rules and regulations the vessel will sail. Under somewhat similar circumstances, privileged people have been received as passengers, or rather as guests, in her majesty's ships—and what has been conceded on former occasions may, by bare possibility, be conceded now. I can say no more. If you are not afraid of the voyage for yourself, I am not afraid of it (nay, I am all in favor of it on medical grounds) for my patient. What do you say? Will you write to your father, and ask him to try what his interest will do with his friends at the Admiralty?"
Mrs. Crayford rose excitedly to her feet.
"Write!" she exclaimed. "I will do better than write. The journey to London is no great matter—and my housekeeper here is to be trusted to take care of Clara in my absence. I will see my father to-night! He shall make good use of his interest at the Admiralty—you may rely on that. Oh, my dear doctor, what a prospect it is! My husband! Clara! What a discovery you have made—what a treasure you are! How can I thank you?"
"Compose yourself, my dear madam. Don't make too sure of success. We may consider Miss Burnham's objections as disposed of beforehand. But suppose the Lords of the Admiralty say No?"
"In that case, I shall be in London, doctor; and I shall go to them myself. Lords are only men; and men are not in the habit of saying No to me."
So they parted.
In a week from that day, her majesty's ship Amazon sailed for North America. Certain privileged persons, specially interested in the Arctic voyagers, were permitted to occupy the empty state-rooms on board. On the list of these favored guests of the ship were the names of two ladies—Mrs. Crayford and Miss Burnham.
Fifth Scene—The Boat-House.
Chapter 16.
Once more the open sea—the sea whose waters break on the shores of Newfoundland! An English steamship lies at anchor in the offing. The vessel is plainly visible through the open doorway of a large boat-house on the shore—one of the buildings attached to a fishing-station on the coast of the island.
The only person in the boat-house at this moment is a man in the dress of a sailor. He is seated on a chest, with a piece of cord in his hand, looking out idly at the sea. On the rough carpenter's table near him lies a strange object to be left in such a place—a woman's veil.
What is the vessel lying at anchor in the offing?
The vessel is the Amazon—dispatched from England to receive the surviving officers and men of the Arctic Expedition. The meeting has been successfully effected, on the shores of North America, three days since. But the homeward voyage has been delayed by a storm which has driven the ship out of her course. Taking advantage, on the third day, of the first returning calm, the commander of the Amazon has anchored off the coast of Newfoundland, and has sent ashore to increase his supplies of water before he sails for England. The weary passengers have landed for a few hours, to refresh themselves after the discomforts of the tempest. Among them are the two ladies. The veil left on the table in the boat-house is Clara's veil.
And who is the man sitting on the chest, with the cord in his hand, looking out idly at the sea? The man is the only cheerful person in the ship's company. In other words—John Want.
Still reposing on the chest, our friend, who never grumbles, is surprised by the sudden appearance of a sailor at the boat-house door.
"Look sharp with your work there, John Want!" says the sailor. "Lieutenant Crayford is just coming in to look after you."
With this warning the messenger disappears again. John Want rises with a groan, turns the chest up on one end, and begins to fasten the cord round it. The ship's cook is not a man to look back on his rescue with the feeling of unmitigated satisfaction which animates his companions in trouble. On the contrary, he is ungratefully disposed to regret the North Pole.
"If I had only known"—thus runs the train of thought in the mind of John Want—"if I had only known, before I was rescued, that I was to be brought to this place, I believe I should have preferred staying at the North Pole. I was very happy keeping up everybody's spirits at the North Pole. Taking one thing with another, I think I must have been very comfortable at the North Pole—if I had only known it. Another man in my place might be inclined to say that this Newfoundland boat-house was rather a sloppy, slimy, draughty, fishy sort of a habitation to take shelter in. Another man might object to perpetual Newfoundland fogs, perpetual Newfoundland cod-fish, and perpetual Newfoundland dogs. We had some very nice bears at the North Pole. Never mind! it's all one to me—I don't grumble."
"Have you done cording that box?"
This time the voice is a voice of authority—the man at the doorway is Lieutenant Crayford himself. John Want answers his officer in his own cheerful way.
"I've done it as well as I can, sir—but the damp of this place is beginning to tell upon our very ropes. I say nothing about our lungs—I only say our ropes."
Crayford answers sharply. He seems to have lost his former relish for the humor of John Want.
"Pooh! To look at your wry face, one would think that our rescue from the Arctic regions was a downright misfortune. You deserve to be sent back again."
"I could be just as cheerful as ever, sir, if I was sent back again; I hope I'm thankful; but I don't like to hear the North Pole run down in such a fishy place as this. It was very clean and snowy at the North Pole—and it's very damp and sandy here. Do you never miss your bone-soup, sir? I do. It mightn't have been strong; but it was very hot; and the cold seemed to give it a kind of a meaty flavor as it went down. Was it you that was a-coughing so long last night, sir? I don't presume to say anything against the air of these latitudes; but I should be glad to know it wasn't you that was a-coughing so hollow. Would you be so obliging as just to feel the state of these ropes with the ends of your fingers, sir? You can dry them afterward on the back of my jacket."
"You ought to have a stick laid on the back of your jacket. Take that box down to the boat directly. You croaking vagabond! You would have grumbled in the Garden of Eden."
The philosopher of the Expedition was not a man to be silenced by referring him to the Garden of Eden. Paradise itself was not perfect to John Want.
"I hope I could be cheerful anywhere, sir," said the ship's cook. "But you mark my words—there must have been a deal of troublesome work with the flower-beds in the Garden of Eden."
Having entered that unanswerable protest, John Want shouldered the box, and drifted drearily out of the boat-house.
Left by himself, Crayford looked at his watch, and called to a sailor outside.
"Where are the ladies?" he asked.
"Mrs. Crayford is coming this way, sir. She was just behind you when you came in."
"Is Miss Burnham with her?"
"No, sir; Miss Burnham is down on the beach with the passengers. I heard the young lady asking after you, sir."
"Asking after me?" Crayford considered with himself as he repeated the words. He added, in lower and graver tones, "You had better tell Miss Burnham you have seen me here."
The man made his salute and went out. Crayford took a turn in the boat-house.
Rescued from death in the Arctic wastes, and reunited to a beautiful wife, the lieutenant looked, nevertheless, unaccountably anxious and depressed. What could he be thinking of? He was thinking of Clara.
On the first day when the rescued men were received on board the Amazon, Clara had embarrassed and distressed, not Crayford only, but the other officers of the Expedition as well, by the manner in which she questioned them on the subject of Francis Aldersley and Richard Wardour. She had shown no signs of dismay or despair when she heard that no news had been received of the two missing men. She had even smiled sadly to herself, when Crayford (out of compassionate regard for her) declared that he and his comrades had not given up the hope of seeing Frank and Wardour yet. It was only when the lieutenant had expressed himself in those terms and when it was hoped that the painful subject had been dismissed—that Clara had startled every one present by announcing that she had something still to say in relation to Frank and Wardour, which had not been said yet. Though she spoke guardedly, her next words revealed suspicions of foul play lurking in her mind—exactly reflecting similar suspicions lurking in Crayford's mind—which so distressed the lieutenant, and so surprised his comrades, as to render them quite incapable of answering her. The warnings of the storm which shortly afterward broke over the vessel were then visible in sea and sky. Crayford made them his excuse for abruptly leaving the cabin in which the conversation had taken place. His brother officers, profiting by his example, pleaded their duties on deck, and followed him out.
On the next day, and the next, the tempest still raged—and the passengers were not able to leave their state-rooms. But now, when the weather had moderated and the ship had anchored—now, when officers and passengers alike were on shore, with leisure time at their disposal—Clara had opportunities of returning to the subject of the lost men, and of asking questions in relation to them which would make it impossible for Crayford to plead an excuse for not answering her. How was he to meet those questions? How could he still keep her in ignorance of the truth?
These were the reflections which now troubled Crayford, and which presented him, after his rescue, in the strangely inappropriate character of a depressed and anxious man. His brother officers, as he well knew, looked to him to take the chief responsibility. If he declined to accept it, he would instantly confirm the horrible suspicion in Clara's mind. The emergency must be met; but how to meet it—at once honorably and mercifully—was more than Crayford could tell. He was still lost in his own gloomy thoughts when his wife entered the boat-house. Turning to look at her, he saw his own perturbations and anxieties plainly reflected in Mrs. Crayford's face.
"Have you seen anything of Clara?" he asked. "Is she still on the beach?"
"She is following me to this place," Mrs. Crayford replied. "I have been speaking to her this morning. She is just as resolute as ever to insist on your telling her of the circumstances under which Frank is missing. As things are, you have no alternative but to answer her."
"Help me to answer her, Lucy. Tell me, before she comes in, how this dreadful suspicion first took possession of her. All she could possibly have known when we left England was that the two men were appointed to separate ships. What could have led her to suspect that they had come together?"
"She was firmly persuaded, William, that they would come together when the Expedition left England. And she had read in books of Arctic travel, of men left behind by their comrades on the march, and of men adrift on ice-bergs. With her mind full of these images and forebodings, she saw Frank and Wardour (or dreamed of them) in one of her attacks of trance. I was by her side; I heard what she said at the time. She warned Frank that Wardour had discovered the truth. She called out to him, 'While you can stand, keep with the other men, Frank!'"
"Good God!" cried Crayford; "I warned him myself, almost in those very words, the last time I saw him!"
"Don't acknowledge it, William! Keep her in ignorance of what you have just told me. She will not take it for what it is—a startling coincidence, and nothing more. She will accept it as positive confirmation of the faith, the miserable superstitious faith, that is in her. So long as you don't actually know that Frank is dead, and that he has died by Wardour's hand, deny what she says—mislead her for her own sake—dispute all her conclusions as I dispute them. Help me to raise her to the better and nobler belief in the mercy of God!" She stopped, and looked round nervously at the doorway. "Hush!" she whispered. "Do as I have told you. Clara is here."
Chapter 17.
Clara stopped at the doorway, looking backward and forward distrustfully between the husband and wife. Entering the boat-house, and approaching Crayford, she took his arm, and led him away a few steps from the place in which Mrs. Crayford was standing.
"There is no storm now, and there are no duties to be done on board the ship," she said, with the faint, sad smile which it wrung Crayford's heart to see. "You are Lucy's husband, and you have an interest in me for Lucy's sake. Don't shrink on that account from giving me pain: I can bear pain. Friend and brother! will you believe that I have courage enough to hear the worst? Will you promise not to deceive me about Frank?"
The gentle resignation in her voice, the sad pleading in her look, shook Crayford's self-possession at the outset. He answered her in the worst possible manner; he answered evasively.
"My dear Clara," he said, "what have I done that you should suspect me of deceiving you?"
She looked him searchingly in the face, then glanced with renewed distrust at Mrs. Crayford. There was a moment of silence. Before any of the three could speak again, they were interrupted by the appearance of one of Crayford's brother officers, followed by two sailors carrying a hamper between them. Crayford instantly dropped Clara's arm, and seized the welcome opportunity of speaking of other things.
"Any instructions from the ship, Steventon?" he asked, approaching the officer.
"Verbal instructions only," Steventon replied. "The ship will sail with the flood-tide. We shall fire a gun to collect the people, and send another boat ashore. In the meantime here are some refreshments for the passengers. The ship is in a state of confusion; the ladies will eat their luncheon more comfortably here."
Hearing this, Mrs. Crayford took her opportunity of silencing Clara next.
"Come, my dear," she said. "Let us lay the cloth before the gentlemen come in."
Clara was too seriously bent on attaining the object which she had in view to be silenced in that way. "I will help you directly," she answered—then crossed the room and addressed herself to the officer, whose name was Steventon.
"Can you spare me a few minutes?" she asked. "I have something to say to you."
"I am entirely at your service, Miss Burnham."
Answering in those words, Steventon dismissed the two sailors. Mrs. Crayford looked anxiously at her husband. Crayford whispered to her, "Don't be alarmed about Steventon. I have cautioned him; his discretion is to be depended on."
Clara beckoned to Crayford to return to her.
"I will not keep you long," she said. "I will promise not to distress Mr. Steventon. Young as I am, you shall both find that I am capable of self-control. I won't ask you to go back to the story of your past sufferings; I only want to be sure that I am right about one thing—I mean about what happened at the time when the exploring party was dispatched in search of help. As I understand it, you cast lots among yourselves who was to go with the party, and who was to remain behind. Frank cast the lot to go." She paused, shuddering. "And Richard Wardour," she went on, "cast the lot to remain behind. On your honor, as officers and gentlemen, is this the truth?"
"On my honor," Crayford answered, "it is the truth."
"On my honor," Steventon repeated, "it is the truth."
She looked at them, carefully considering her next words, before she spoke again.
"You both drew the lot to stay in the huts," she said, addressing Crayford and Steventon. "And you are both here. Richard Wardour drew the lot to stay, and Richard Wardour is not here. How does his name come to be with Frank's on the list of the missing?"
The question was a dangerous one to answer. Steventon left it to Crayford to reply. Once again he answered evasively.
"It doesn't follow, my dear," he said, "that the two men were missing together because their names happen to come together on the list."
Clara instantly drew the inevitable conclusion from that ill-considered reply.
"Frank is missing from the party of relief," she said. "Am I to understand that Wardour is missing from the huts?"
Both Crayford and Steventon hesitated. Mrs. Crayford cast one indignant look at them, and told the necessary lie, without a moment's hesitation!
"Yes!" she said. "Wardour is missing from the huts."
Quickly as she had spoken, she had still spoken too late. Clara had noticed the momentary hesitation on the part of the two officers. She turned to Steventon.
"I trust to your honor," she said, quietly. "Am I right, or wrong, in believing that Mrs. Crayford is mistaken?"
She had addressed herself to the right man of the two. Steventon had no wife present to exercise authority over him. Steventon, put on his honor, and fairly forced to say something, owned the truth. Wardour had replaced an officer whom accident had disabled from accompanying the party of relief, and Wardour and Frank were missing together.
Clara looked at Mrs. Crayford.
"You hear?" she said. "It is you who are mistaken, not I. What you call 'Accident,' what I call 'Fate,' brought Richard Wardour and Frank together as members of the same Expedition, after all." Without waiting for a reply, she again turned to Steventon, and surprised him by changing the painful subject of the conversation of her own accord.
"Have you been in the Highlands of Scotland?" she asked.
"I have never been in the Highlands," the lieutenant replied.
"Have you ever read, in books about the Highlands, of such a thing as 'The Second Sight'?"
"Yes."
"Do you believe in the Second Sight?"
Steventon politely declined to commit himself to a direct reply.
"I don't know what I might have done, if I had ever been in the Highlands," he said. "As it is, I have had no opportunities of giving the subject any serious consideration."
"I won't put your credulity to the test," Clara proceeded. "I won't ask you to believe anything more extraordinary than that I had a strange dream in England not very long since. My dream showed me what you have just acknowledged—and more than that. How did the two missing men come to be parted from their companions? Were they lost by pure accident, or were they deliberately left behind on the march?"
Crayford made a last vain effort to check her inquiries at the point which they had now reached.
"Neither Steventon nor I were members of the party of relief," he said. "How are we to answer you?"
"Your brother officers who were members of the party must have told you what happened," Clara rejoined. "I only ask you and Mr. Steventon to tell me what they told you."
Mrs. Crayford interposed again, with a practical suggestion this time.
"The luncheon is not unpacked yet," she said. "Come, Clara! this is our business, and the time is passing."
"The luncheon can wait a few minutes longer," Clara answered. "Bear with my obstinacy," she went on, laying her hand caressingly on Crayford's shoulder. "Tell me how those two came to be separated from the rest. You have always been the kindest of friends—don't begin to be cruel to me now!"
The tone in which she made her entreaty to Crayford went straight to the sailor's heart. He gave up the hopeless struggle: he let her see a glimpse of the truth.
"On the third day out," he said, "Frank's strength failed him. He fell behind the rest from fatigue."
"Surely they waited for him?"
"It was a serious risk to wait for him, my child. Their lives (and the lives of the men they had left in the huts) depended, in that dreadful climate, on their pushing on. But Frank was a favorite. They waited half a day to give Frank the chance of recovering his strength."
There he stopped. There the imprudence into which his fondness for Clara had led him showed itself plainly, and closed his lips.
It was too late to take refuge in silence. Clara was determined on hearing more.
She questioned Steventon next.
"Did Frank go on again after the half-day's rest?" she asked.
"He tried to go on—"
"And failed?"
"Yes."
"What did the men do when he failed? Did they turn cowards? Did they desert Frank?"
She had purposely used language which might irritate Steventon into answering her plainly. He was a young man—he fell into the snare that she had set for him.
"Not one among them was a coward, Miss Burnham!" he replied, warmly. "You are speaking cruelly and unjustly of as brave a set of fellows as ever lived! The strongest man among them set the example; he volunteered to stay by Frank, and to bring him on in the track of the exploring party."
There Steventon stopped—conscious, on his side, that he had said too much. Would she ask him who this volunteer was? No. She went straight on to the most embarrassing question that she had put yet—referring to the volunteer, as if Steventon had already mentioned his name.
"What made Richard Wardour so ready to risk his life for Frank's sake?" she said to Crayford. "Did he do it out of friendship for Frank? Surely you can tell me that? Carry your memory back to the days when you were all living in the huts. Were Frank and Wardour friends at that time? Did you never hear any angry words pass between them?"
There Mrs. Crayford saw her opportunity of giving her husband a timely hint.
"My dear child!" she said; "how can you expect him to remember that? There must have been plenty of quarrels among the men, all shut up together, and all weary of each other's company, no doubt."
"Plenty of quarrels!" Crayford repeated; "and every one of them made up again."
"And every one of them made up again," Mrs. Crayford reiterated, in her turn. "There! a plainer answer than that you can't wish to have. Now are you satisfied? Mr. Steventon, come and lend a hand (as you say at sea) with the hamper—Clara won't help me. William, don't stand there doing nothing. This hamper holds a great deal; we must have a division of labor. Your division shall be laying the tablecloth. Don't handle it in that clumsy way! You unfold a table-cloth as if you were unfurling a sail. Put the knives on the right, and the forks on the left, and the napkin and the bread between them. Clara, if you are not hungry in this fine air, you ought to be. Come and do your duty; come and have some lunch!"
She looked up as she spoke. Clara appeared to have yielded at last to the conspiracy to keep her in the dark. She had returned slowly to the boat-house doorway, and she was standing alone on the threshold, looking out. Approaching her to lead her to the luncheon-table, Mrs. Crayford could hear that she was speaking softly to herself. She was repeating the farewell words which Richard Wardour had spoken to her at the ball.
"'A time may come when I shall forgive you. But the man who has robbed me of you shall rue the day when you and he first met.' Oh, Frank! Frank! does Richard still live, with your blood on his conscience, and my image in his heart?"
Her lips suddenly closed. She started, and drew back from the doorway, trembling violently. Mrs. Crayford looked out at the quiet seaward view.
"Anything there that frightens you, my dear?" she asked. "I can see nothing, except the boats drawn up on the beach."
"I can see nothing either, Lucy."
"And yet you are trembling as if there was something dreadful in the view from this door."
"There is something dreadful! I feel it, though I see nothing. I feel it, nearer and nearer in the empty air, darker and darker in the sunny light. I don't know what it is. Take me away! No. Not out on the beach. I can't pass the door. Somewhere else! somewhere else!"
Mrs. Crayford looked round her, and noticed a second door at the inner end of the boat-house. She spoke to her husband.
"See where that door leads to, William."
Crayford opened the door. It led into a desolate inclosure, half garden, half yard. Some nets stretched on poles were hanging up to dry. No other objects were visible—not a living creature appeared in the place. "It doesn't look very inviting, my dear," said Mrs. Crayford. "I am at your service, however. What do you say?"
She offered her arm to Clara as she spoke. Clara refused it. She took Crayford's arm, and clung to him.
"I'm frightened, dreadfully frightened!" she said to him, faintly. "You keep with me—a woman is no protection; I want to be with you." She looked round again at the boat-house doorway. "Oh!" she whispered, "I'm cold all over—I'm frozen with fear of this place. Come into the yard! Come into the yard!"
"Leave her to me," said Crayford to his wife. "I will call you, if she doesn't get better in the open air."
He took her out at once, and closed the yard door behind them.
"Mr. Steventon, do you understand this?" asked Mrs. Crayford. "What can she possibly be frightened of?"
She put the question, still looking mechanically at the door by which her husband and Clara had gone out. Receiving no reply, she glanced round at Steventon. He was standing on the opposite side of the luncheon-table, with his eyes fixed attentively on the view from the main doorway of the boat-house. Mrs. Crayford looked where Steventon was looking. This time there was something visible. She saw the shadow of a human figure projected on the stretch of smooth yellow sand in front of the boat-house.
In a moment more the figure appeared. A man came slowly into view, and stopped on the threshold of the door.
Chapter 18.
The man was a sinister and terrible object to look at. His eyes glared like the eyes of a wild animal; his head was bare; his long gray hair was torn and tangled; his miserable garments hung about him in rags. He stood in the doorway, a speechless figure of misery and want, staring at the well-spread table like a hungry dog.
Steventon spoke to him.
"Who are you?"
He answered, in a hoarse, hollow voice,
"A starving man."
He advanced a few steps, slowly and painfully, as if he were sinking under fatigue.
"Throw me some bones from the table," he said. "Give me my share along with the dogs."
There was madness as well as hunger in his eyes while he spoke those words. Steventon placed Mrs. Crayford behind him, so that he might be easily able to protect her in case of need, and beckoned to two sailors who were passing the door of the boat-house at the time.
"Give the man some bread and meat," he said, "and wait near him."
The outcast seized on the bread and meat with lean, long-nailed hands that looked like claws. After his first mouthful of the food, he stopped, considered vacantly with himself, and broke the bread and meat into two portions. One portion he put into an old canvas wallet that hung over his shoulder; the other he devoured voraciously. Steventon questioned him.
"Where do you come from?"
"From the sea."
"Wrecked?"
"Yes."
Steventon turned to Mrs. Crayford.
"There may be some truth in the poor wretch's story," he said. "I heard something of a strange boat having been cast on the beach thirty or forty miles higher up the coast. When were you wrecked, my man?"
The starving creature looked up from his food, and made an effort to collect his thoughts—to exert his memory. It was not to be done. He gave up the attempt in despair. His language, when he spoke, was as wild as his looks.
"I can't tell you," he said. "I can't get the wash of the sea out of my ears. I can't get the shining stars all night, and the burning sun all day, out of my brain. When was I wrecked? When was I first adrift in the boat? When did I get the tiller in my hand and fight against hunger and sleep? When did the gnawing in my breast, and the burning in my head, first begin? I have lost all reckoning of it. I can't think; I can't sleep; I can't get the wash of the sea out of my ears. What are you baiting me with questions for? Let me eat!"
Even the sailors pitied him. The sailors asked leave of their officer to add a little drink to his meal.
"We've got a drop of grog with us, sir, in a bottle. May we give it to him?"
"Certainly!"
He took the bottle fiercely, as he had taken the food, drank a little, stopped, and considered with himself again. He held up the bottle to the light, and, marking how much liquor it contained, carefully drank half of it only. This done, he put the bottle in his wallet along with the food.
"Are you saving it up for another time?" said Steventon.
"I'm saving it up," the man answered. "Never mind what for. That's my secret."
He looked round the boat-house as he made that reply, and noticed Mrs. Crayford for the first time.
"A woman among you!" he said. "Is she English? Is she young? Let me look closer at her."
He advanced a few steps toward the table.
"Don't be afraid, Mrs. Crayford," said Steventon.
"I am not afraid," Mrs. Crayford replied. "He frightened me at first—he interests me now. Let him speak to me if he wishes it!"
He never spoke. He stood, in dead silence, looking long and anxiously at the beautiful Englishwoman.
"Well?" said Steventon.
He shook his head sadly, and drew back again with a heavy sigh.
"No!" he said to himself, "that's not her face. No! not found yet."
Mrs. Crayford's interest was strongly excited. She ventured to speak to him.
"Who is it you want to find?" she asked. "Your wife?"
He shook his head again.
"Who, then? What is she like?"
He answered that question in words. His hoarse, hollow voice softened, little by little, into sorrowful and gentle tones.
"Young," he said; "with a fair, sad face—with kind, tender eyes—with a soft, clear voice. Young and loving and merciful. I keep her face in my mind, though I can keep nothing else. I must wander, wander, wander—restless, sleepless, homeless—till I find her! Over the ice and over the snow; tossing on the sea, tramping over the land; awake all night, awake all day; wander, wander, wander, till I find her!"
He waved his hand with a gesture of farewell, and turned wearily to go out.
At the same moment Crayford opened the yard door.
"I think you had better come to Clara," he began, and checked himself, noticing the stranger. "Who is that?"
The shipwrecked man, hearing another voice in the room, looked round slowly over his shoulder. Struck by his appearance, Crayford advanced a little nearer to him. Mrs. Crayford spoke to her husband as he passed her.
"It's only a poor, mad creature, William," she whispered—"shipwrecked and starving."
"Mad?" Crayford repeated, approaching nearer and nearer to the man. "Am I in my right senses?" He suddenly sprang on the outcast, and seized him by the throat. "Richard Wardour!" he cried, in a voice of fury. "Alive!—alive, to answer for Frank!"
The man struggled. Crayford held him.
"Where is Frank?" he said. "You villain, where is Frank?"
The man resisted no longer. He repeated vacantly,
"Villain? and where is Frank?"
As the name escaped his lips, Clara appeared at the open yard door, and hurried into the room.
"I heard Richard's name!" she said. "I heard Frank's name! What does it mean?"
At the sound of her voice the outcast renewed the struggle to free himself, with a sudden frenzy of strength which Crayford was not able to resist. He broke away before the sailors could come to their officer's assistance. Half-way down the length of the room he and Clara met one another face to face. A new light sparkled in the poor wretch's eyes; a cry of recognition burst from his lips. He flung one hand up wildly in the air. "Found!" he shouted, and rushed out to the beach before any of the men present could stop him.
Mrs. Crayford put her arms round Clara and held her up. She had not made a movement: she had not spoken a word. The sight of Wardour's face had petrified her.
The minutes passed, and there rose a sudden burst of cheering from the sailors on the beach, near the spot where the fishermen's boats were drawn up. Every man left his work. Every man waved his cap in the air. The passengers, near at hand, caught the infection of enthusiasm, and joined the crew. A moment more, and Richard Wardour appeared again in the doorway, carrying a man in his arms. He staggered, breathless with the effort that he was making, to the place where Clara stood, held up in Mrs. Crayford's arms.
"Saved, Clara!" he cried. "Saved for you!"
He released the man, and placed him in Clara's arms.
Frank! foot-sore and weary—but living—saved; saved for her!
"Now, Clara!" cried Mrs. Crayford, "which of us is right? I who believed in the mercy of God? or you who believed in a dream?"
She never answered; she clung to Frank in speechless ecstasy. She never even looked at the man who had preserved him, in the first absorbing joy of seeing Frank alive. Step by step, slower and slower, Richard Wardour drew back, and left them by themselves.
"I may rest now," he said, faintly. "I may sleep at last. The task is done. The struggle is over."
His last reserves of strength had been given to Frank. He stopped—he staggered—his hands waved feebly in search of support. But for one faithful friend he would have fallen. Crayford caught him. Crayford laid his old comrade gently on some sails strewn in a corner, and pillowed Wardour's weary head on his own bosom. The tears streamed over his face. "Richard! dear Richard!" he said. "Remember—and forgive me."
Richard neither heeded nor heard him. His dim eyes still looked across the room at Clara and Frank.
"I have made her happy!" he murmured. "I may lay down my weary head now on the mother earth that hushes all her children to rest at last. Sink, heart! sink, sink to rest! Oh, look at them!" he said to Crayford, with a burst of grief. "They have forgotten me already."
It was true! The interest was all with the two lovers. Frank was young and handsome and popular. Officers, passengers, and sailors, they all crowded round Frank. They all forgot the martyred man who had saved him—the man who was dying in Crayford's arms.
Crayford tried once more to attract his attention—to win his recognition while there was yet time. "Richard, speak to me! Speak to your old friend!"
He look round; he vacantly repeated Crayford's last word.
"Friend?" he said. "My eyes are dim, friend—my mind is dull. I have lost all memories but the memory of her. Dead thoughts—all dead thoughts but that one! And yet you look at me kindly! Why has your face gone down with the wreck of all the rest?"
He paused; his face changed; his thoughts drifted back from present to past; he looked at Crayford vacantly, lost in the terrible remembrances that were rising in him, as the shadows rise with the coming night.
"Hark ye, friend," he whispered. "Never let Frank know it. There was a time when the fiend within me hungered for his life. I had my hands on the boat. I heard the voice of the Tempter speaking to me: Launch it, and leave him to die! I waited with my hands on the boat, and my eyes on the place where he slept. 'Leave him! leave him!' the voice whispered. 'Love him!' the lad's voice answered, moaning and murmuring in his sleep. 'Love him, Clara, for helping me!' I heard the morning wind come up in the silence over the great deep. Far and near, I heard the groaning of the floating ice; floating, floating to the clear water and the balmy air. And the wicked Voice floated away with it—away, away, away forever! 'Love him! love him, Clara, for helping me!' No wind could float that away! 'Love him, Clara—'"
His voice sank into silence; his head dropped on Crayford's breast. Frank saw it. Frank struggled up on his bleeding feet and parted the friendly throng round him. Frank had not forgotten the man who had saved him.
"Let me go to him!" he cried. "I must and will go to him! Clara, come with me."
Clara and Steventon supported him between them. He fell on his knees at Wardour's side; he put his hand on Wardour's bosom.
"Richard!"
The weary eyes opened again. The sinking voice was heard feebly once more.
"Ah! poor Frank. I didn't forget you, Frank, when I came here to beg. I remembered you lying down outside in the shadow of the boats. I saved you your share of the food and drink. Too weak to get at it now! A little rest, Frank! I shall soon be strong enough to carry you down to the ship."
The end was near. They all saw it now. The men reverently uncovered their heads in the presence of Death. In an agony of despair, Frank appealed to the friends round him.
"Get something to strengthen him, for God's sake! Oh, men! men! I should never have been here but for him! He has given all his strength to my weakness; and now, see how strong I am, and how weak he is! Clara, I held by his arm all over the ice and snow. He kept watch when I was senseless in the open boat. His hand dragged me out of the waves when we were wrecked. Speak to him, Clara! speak to him!" His voice failed him, and his head dropped on Wardour's breast.
She spoke, as well as her tears would let her.
"Richard, have you forgotten me?"
He rallied at the sound of that beloved voice. He looked up at her as she knelt at his head.
"Forgotten you?" Still looking at her, he lifted his hand with an effort, and laid it on Frank. "Should I have been strong enough to save him, if I could have forgotten you?" He waited a moment and turned his face feebly toward Crayford. "Stay!" he said. "Someone was here and spoke to me." A faint light of recognition glimmered in his eyes. "Ah, Crayford! I recollect now. Dear Crayford! come nearer! My mind clears, but my eyes grow dim. You will remember me kindly for Frank's sake? Poor Frank! why does he hide his face? Is he crying? Nearer, Clara—I want to look my last at you. My sister, Clara! Kiss me, sister, kiss me before I die!"
She stooped and kissed his forehead. A faint smile trembled on his lips. It passed away; and stillness possessed the face—the stillness of Death.
Crayford's voice was heard in the silence.
"The loss is ours," he said. "The gain is his. He has won the greatest of all conquests—the conquest of himself. And he has died in the moment of victory. Not one of us here but may live to envy his glorious death."
The distant report of a gun came from the ship in the offing, and signaled the return to England and to home.
THE END |
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