"AT LAST!"
A busy day on ship-board, with the excitement growing fast, and officers
and men cheerfully turning themselves into guides and describers of the
scenery on either hand.
A glorious day, with a brisk breeze, and the white sails curving out,
and the great vessel, that had borne them safely to their destination,
careening gently over, with the white foam dividing and swelling away to
starboard and to port.
The sky overhead might have been that of Italy, so gloriously bright and
pure it seemed to all, as at last the vessel glided in between the
guardian giants of the port, and then, as they stood well within the two
grey rocky precipices, the swell upon which they had softly swayed died
away, the breeze sank, and the great white sails flapped and filled and
flapped, the ship slowly slackened its speed, and at last lay
motionless, waiting for the tide that would bear them on to the
anchorage within.
It was evening when the tantalising waiting was at an end, and the
expectant groups saw themselves once more gliding on and on, past a long
beach of white sand, into the estuary that, minute by minute, took more
and more the aspect of some widening river.
Seen by the glory of the sinking sun, and after the long, monotonous
voyage, it was like some glimpse of Eden, and with one consent the
soldiers sent forth a hearty cheer, which died away into silence as the
great ship glided on. Jutting promontories, emerald islands, golden
waters, and a sky like topaz, as the sun slowly sank. Curving bays
filled with roseate hues reflected from the sky, swelling hills in the
distance of wondrous greyish green, with deepening slopes of softly
darkening shadows. The harbour was without a ripple, and glistened as
polished metal, and mirrored here and there the shore. Away in the
distance, the soft greyish verdure stood out in the clear air; and as
the wearied travellers drank in the glorious scene, there was a
solemnity in its beauty that oppressed them, even unto tears.
Millicent Hallam stood in that self-same spot where she had so patiently
watched for this her promised land, and as she bent forward with
half-extended hands, Julia saw her lips part, and heard from time to
time some broken utterances, as the tears of joy fell slowly from her
dreamy eyes.
Time after time the most intimate of their fellow-passengers approached,
but there was that in the attitude of mother and daughter which
commanded respect, and they drew away.
On glided the ship, nearer and nearer, with the houses and rough
buildings of the settlement slowly coming into sight, while, as the sun
flashed from the windows, and turned the sand that fringed the shore for
the time to tawny gold, the hearts of mother and daughter seemed to go
out, to leap the intervening distance, and pour forth their longings to
him who, they felt, was watching the ship that bore to him all he held
dear.
Golden changing to orange, to amber, to ruddy wine. Then one deep glow,
and the river-like harbour for a few minutes as if of molten metal
cooling into purple, into black, and then the placid surface glistening
with fallen stars.
And as Julia pressed nearer to the trusting woman, who gazed straight
before her at the lights that twinkled in the scattered houses of the
port, she heard a sweet, rich voice murmur softly:
"Robert, husband--I have come!" And again, soft as the murmur of the
tide upon the shore:
"My God, I thank thee! At last--at last!"