THEY rowed more than a mile, so deep was the glorious bay; and then their
oars struck the ground. But Hazel with the boat-hook propelled the boat
gently over the pellucid water, that now seemed too shallow to float a
canoe; and at last looked like the mere varnish of that picture, the
prismatic sands below; yet still the little craft glided over it, till it
gently grazed the soft sand and was stationary. So placidly ended that
terrible voyage.
Mr. Hazel and Miss Rolleston were on shore in a moment, and it was all
they could do not to fall upon the land and kiss it.
Never had the sea disgorged upon that fairy isle such ghastly specters.
They looked, not like people about to die, but that had died, and been
buried, and just come out of their graves to land on that blissful shore.
We should have started back with horror; but the birds of that virgin
isle merely stepped out of their way, and did not fly.
They had landed in paradise.
Even Welch yielded to that universal longing men have to embrace the land
after perils at sea, and was putting his leg slowly over the gunwale,
when Hazel came back to his assistance. He got ashore, but was contented
to sit down with his eyes on the dimpled sea and the boat, waiting
quietly till the tide should float his friend to his feet again.
The sea-birds walked quietly about him, and minded him not.
Miss Rolleston ascended a green slope very slowly, for her limbs were
cramped, and was lost to view.
Hazel now went up the beach, and took a more minute survey of the
neighborhood.
The west side of the bay was varied. Half of it presented the soft
character that marked the bay in general; but a portion of it was rocky,
though streaked with vegetation, and this part was intersected by narrow
clefts, into which, in some rare tempests and high tides combined,
tongues of the sea had entered, licking the sides of the gullies smooth;
and these occasional visits were marked by the sand and broken shells and
other _debris_ the tempestuous and encroaching sea had left behind.
The true high-water mark was several feet lower than these _debris,_ and
was clearly marked. On the land above the cliffs he found a tangled
jungle of tropical shrubs, into which he did not penetrate, but skirted
it, and, walking eastward, came out upon a delicious down or grassy
slope, that faced the center of the bay. It was a gentleman's lawn of a
thousand acres, with an extremely gentle slope from the center of the
island down to the sea.
A river flowing from some distant source ran eastward through this down,
but at its verge, and almost encircled it. Hazel traversed the lawn until
this river, taking a sudden turn toward the sea, intercepted him at a
spot which he immediately fixed on as Helen Rolleston's future residence.
Four short, thick, umbrageous trees stood close to the stream on this
side, and on the eastern side was a grove of gigantic palm-trees, at
whose very ankles the river ran. Indeed, it had undermined one of these
palm-trees, and that giant at this moment lay all across the stream,
leaving a gap through which Hazel's eye could pierce to a great depth
among those grand columns; for they stood wide apart, and there was not a
vestige of brushwood, jungle, or even grass below their enormous crowns.
He christened the place St. Helen's on the spot.
He now dipped his baler into the stream and found it pure and tolerably
cool.
He followed the bend of the stream; it evaded the slope and took him by
its own milder descent to the sands. Over these it flowed smooth as glass
into the sea.
Hazel ran to Welch to tell him all he had discovered, and to give him his
first water from the island.
He found a roan-colored pigeon, with a purplish neck, perched on the sick
man's foot. The bird shone like a rainbow, and cocked a saucy eye at
Hazel, and flew up into the air a few yards, but it soon appeared that
fear had little to do with this movement; for, after an airy circle or
two, he fanned Hazel's cheek with his fast-flapping wings, and lighted on
the very edge of the baler, and was for sipping.
"Oh, look here, Welch!" cried Hazel, an ecstasy of delight.
"Ay, sir," said he. "Poor things, they hain't a found us out yet."
The talking puzzled the bird, if it did not alarm him, and he flew up to
the nearest tree, and, perching there, inspected these new and noisy
bipeds at his leisure.
Hazel now laid his hand on Welch's shoulder and reminded him gently they
had a sad duty to perform, which could not be postponed.
"Right you are, sir," said Welch, "and very kind of you to let me have my
way with him. Poor Sam!"
"I have found a place," said Hazel, in a low voice. "We can take the boat
close to it. But where is Miss Rolleston?"
"Oh, she is not far off; she was here just now, and brought me this here
little cocoanut, and patted me on the back, she did, then off again on a
cruise. Bless her little heart!"
Hazel and Welch then got into the boat, and pushed off without much
difficulty, and punted across the bay to one of those clefts we have
indicated. It was now nearly high water, and they moored the boat close
under the cleft Hazel had selected.
Then they both got out and went up to the extremity of the cleft, and
there, with the ax and with pieces of wood, they scraped out a
resting-place for Cooper. This was light work; for it was all stones,
shells, fragments of coral and dried sea-weed lying loosely together. But
now came a hard task in which Welch could not assist. Hazel unshipped a
thwart and laid the body on it. Then by a great effort staggered with the
burden up to the grave and deposited it. He was exhausted by the
exertion, and had to sit down panting for some time. As soon as he was
recovered, he told Welch to stand at the head of the grave, and he stood
at the foot, bareheaded, and then, from memory, he repeated the service
of our Church, hardly missing or displacing a word.
This was no tame recital; the scene, the circumstances, the very absence
of the book, made it tender and solemn. And then Welch repeated those
beautiful words after Hazel, and Hazel let him. And how did he repeat
them? In such a hearty, loving tone as became one who was about to
follow, and all this but a short leave-taking. So uttered, for the living
as well as the dead, those immortal words had a strange significance and
beauty.
And presently a tender, silvery voice came down to mingle with the deep
and solemn tones of the male mourners. It was Helen Rolleston. She had
watched most of their movements unseen herself, and now, standing at the
edge of the ravine, and looking down on them, uttered a soft but
thrilling amen to every prayer. When it was over, and the men prepared to
fill in the grave, she spoke to Welch in an undertone, and begged leave
to pay her tribute first; and, with this, she detached her apron and held
it out to them. Hazel easily climbed up to her, and found her apron was
full of sweet-smelling bark and aromatic leaves, whose fragrance filled
the air.
"I want you to strew these over his poor remains," she said. "Oh, not
common earth! He saved our lives. And his last words were, 'I love you,
Tom.' Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!" And with that she gave him the
apron, and turned her head away to hide her tears.
Hazel blessed her for the thought, which, indeed, none but a lady would
have had; and Welch and he, with the tears in their eyes, strewed the
spicy leaves first; and soon a ridge of shingle neatly bound with
sea-weed marked the sailor's grave.
Hazel's next care, and that a pressing one, was to provide shelter for
the delicate girl and the sick man, whom circumstances had placed under
his care. He told Miss Rolleston Welch and he were going to cross the bay
again, and would she be good enough to meet them at the bend of the river
where she would find four trees? She nodded her head and took that road
accordingly. Hazel rowed eastward across the bay, and, it being now high
water, he got the boat into the river itself near the edge of the shore,
and, as this river had worn a channel, he contrived with the boat-hook to
propel the boat up the stream, to an angle in the bank within forty yards
of the four trees. He could get no farther, the stream being now not only
shallow, but blocked here and there with great and rough fragments of
stone. Hazel pushed the boat into the angle out of the current, and
moored her fast. He and Welch then got ashore, and Miss Rolleston was
standing at the four trees. He went to her and said enthusiastically,
"This is to be your house. Is it not a beautiful site?"
"Yes, it is a beautiful site, but--forgive me--I really don't see the
house," was her reply.
"But you see the framework."
Helen looked all about, and then said, ruefully, "I suppose I am blind,
sir, or else you are dreaming, for I see nothing at all."
"Why, here's a roof ready made, and the frame of a wall. We have only to
wattle a screen between these four uprights."
"Only to wattle a screen! But I don't know what wattling a screen is. Who
does?"
"Why, you get some of the canes that grow a little farther up the river,
and a certain long wiry grass I have marked down, and then you fix and
weave till you make a screen from tree to tree; this could be patched
with wet clay; I know where there is plenty of that. Meantime see what is
done to our hands. The crown of this great palm-tree lies at the southern
aperture of your house, and blocks it entirely up. That will keep off the
only cold wind, the south wind, from you to-night. Then look at these
long, spiky leaves interlaced over your head. (These trees are screw
pines.) There is a roof ready made. You must have another roof underneath
that, but it will do for a day or two."
"But you will wattle the screen directly," said Helen. "Begin at once,
please. I am anxious to see a screen wattled."
"Well," said Welch, who had joined them, "landsmen are queer folk, the
best of 'em. Why, miss, it would take him a week to screen you with
rushes and reeds, and them sort of weeds; and I'd do it in half an hour,
if I was the Tom Welch I used to be. Why, there's spare canvas enough in
the boat to go between these four trees breast high, and then there's the
foresel besides; the mainsel is all you and me shall want, sir."
"Oh, excuse me," said Miss Rolleston, "I will not be sheltered at the
expense of my friends."
"Welch, you are a trump," said Hazel, and ran off for the spare canvas.
He brought it and the carpenter's basket of tools. They went to work, and
Miss Rolleston insisted on taking part in it. Finding her so disposed,
Hazel said that they had better divide their labors, since the time was
short. Accordingly he took the ax and chopped off a great many scales of
the palm-tree, and lighted a great fire between the trees, while the
other two worked on the canvas.
"This is to dry the soil as well as cook our provisions," said he; "and
now I must go and find food. Is there anything you fancy?" He turned his
head from the fire he was lighting and addressed this question both to
Welch and Miss Rolleston.
Miss Rolleston stared at this question, then smiled, and, in the true
spirit of a lady, said, "I think I should like a good large cocoanut, if
you can find one." She felt sure there was no other eatable thing in the
whole island.
"I wants a cabbage," said Welch, in a loud voice.
"Oh, Mr. Welch, we are not at home," said Miss Rolleston, blushing at the
preposterous demand.
"No, miss, in Capericorn. Whereby we shan't have to pay nothing for this
here cabbage. I'll tell ye, miss: when a sailor comes ashore he always
goes in for green vegetables, for why, he has eaten so much junk and
biscuit, nature sings out for greens. Me and my shipmates was paid off at
Portsmouth last year, and six of us agreed to dine together and each
order his dish. Blest if six boiled legs of mutton did not come up
smoking hot: three was with cabbage, and three with turmots. Mine was
with turmots. But them I don't ask, so nigh the Line. Don't ye go to
think, because I'm sick, and the lady and you is so kind to me, and to
him that is a waiting outside them there shoals for me, as I'm
onreasonable; turmots I wish you both, and plenty of 'em, when some
whaler gets driven out of her course and picks you up, and carries you
into northern latitudes where turmots grow; but cabbage is my right,
cabbage is my due, being paid off in a manner; for the ship is foundered
and I'm ashore. Cabbage I ask for, as a seaman that has done his duty,
and a man that won't live to eat many more of 'em; and" (losing his
temper), "if you are the man I take you for, you'll run and fetch me a
cabbage fresh from the tree" (recovering his temper). "I know I didn't
ought to ax a parson to shin up a tree for me; but, Lord bless you, there
ain't no sarcy little boys a-looking on, and here's a poor fellow mostly
dying for it."
Miss Rolleston looked at Mr. Hazel with alarm in every feature; and
whispered, "Cabbage from the tree. Is he wandering?"
Hazel smiled. "No," said he. "He has picked up a fable of these seas,
that there is a tree which grows cabbages."
Welch heard him and said, with due warmth, "Of course there is a tree on
all these islands that grows cabbages; that was known a hundred years
before you was born, and shipmates of mine have eaten them."
"Excuse me, what those old admirals and buccaneers, that set the legend
afloat, were so absurd as to call a cabbage, and your shipmates may have
eaten for one, is nothing on earth but the last year's growth of the
palm-tree."
"Palm-tree be ----!" said Welch; and thereupon ensued a hot argument,
which Helen's good sense cut short.
"Mr. Hazel," said she, "can you by any possibility get our poor friend
the _thing_ he wants?"
"Oh, _that_ is quite within the bounds of possibility," said Hazel dryly.
"Well, then, suppose you begin by getting him the _thing._ Then I will
boil the thing; and he will eat the thing; and after all that it will be
time to argue about the _name_ we shall give to the _thing."_
The good sense of this struck Mr. Hazel forcibly. He started off at once,
armed with the ax, and a net bag Welch had made since he became unfit for
heavy labor. He called back to them as he went, to put the pots on.
Welch and Miss Rolleston complied; and then the sailor showed the lady
how to sew sailor--wise, driving the large needle with the palm of the
hand, guarded by a piece of leather. They had nailed two breadths of
canvas to the trees on the north and west sides and run the breadths
rapidly together; and the water was boiling and bubbling in the balers,
when Miss Rolleston uttered a scream, for Hazel came running over the
prostrate palm-tree as if it was a proper bridge, and lighted in the
midst of them.
"Lot one," said he cheerfully, and produced from his net some limes, two
cocoanuts, and a land-turtle; from this last esculent Miss Rolleston
withdrew with undisguised horror, and it was in vain he assured her it
was a great delicacy.
"No matter. It is a reptile. Oh, please send it away."
"The Queen of the Island reprieves you," said he, and put down the
terrapin, which went off very leisurely for a reprieved reptile.
Then Hazel produced a fine bream, which he had found struggling in a
rock-pool, the tide having turned, and three sea crayfish, bigger than
any lobster. He chopped their heads off outside, and threw their tails
into the pots; he stuck a piece of pointed wood through the bream, and
gave it to Welch to toast; but Welch waved it aside.
"I see no cabbage," said he, grimly.
"Oh, I forgot. But that is soon found," said Hazel. "Here, give me the
fish, and you take the saw, and examine the head of the palm-tree, which
lies at Miss Rolleston's door. Saw away the succulent part of last year's
growth, and bring it here."
Welch got up slowly.
"I'll go with you, Mr. Welch," said Miss Rolleston.
She will not be alone with me for a moment, if she can help it, thought
Hazel, and sat moody by the fire. But he shook off his sadness, and
forced on a cheerful look the moment they came back. They brought with
them a vegetable very like the heart of a cabbage, only longer and
whiter.
"There," said Welch, "what d'ye call that?"
"The last year's growth of the palm," said Hazel calmly.
This vegetable was cut in two and put into the pots.
"There, take the toasting-fork again," said Hazel to Welch, and drew out
from his net three huge scallop shells. "Soup-plates," said he, and
washed them in the running stream, then put them before the fire to dry.
While the fish and vegetable were cooking, he went and cut off some of
the leafy, piunuated branches of the palm-tree, and fastened them
horizontally above the strips of canvas. Each palm branch traversed a
whole side of the bower. This closed the northern and western sides.
On the southern side, the prostrate palm-tree, on striking the ground,
had so crushed its boughs and leaves together as to make a thick wall of
foliage.
Then he took to making forks; and primitive ones they were. He selected a
bough the size of a thick walking-stick; sawed it off the tree; sawed a
piece six inches long off it, peeled that, split it in four, and, with
his knife, gave each piece three points, by merely tapering off and
serrating one end; and so he made a fork a minute. Then he brought all
the rugs and things from the boat, and the ground being now thoroughly
dried by the fire, placed them for seats; gave each person a large leaf
for a plate, besides a scallop-shell; and served out supper. It was eaten
with rare appetite; the palm-tree vegetable in particular was delicious,
tasting between a cabbage and a cocoanut.
When they had supped, Hazel removed the plates and went to the boat. He
returned, dragging the foremast and foresail, which were small, and
called Welch out. They agreed to rig the mainsail tarpaulin-wise and
sleep in the boat. Accordingly they made themselves very busy screening
the east side of Miss Rolleston's new abode with the foresail, and
fastened a loop and drove a nail into the tree, and looped the sail to
it, then suddenly bade her good-night in cheerful tones, and were gone in
a moment, leaving her to her repose, as they imagined. Hazel, in
particular, having used all his ingenuity to secure her personal comfort,
was now too bent on showing her the most delicate respect and forbearance
to think of anything else. But, justly counting on the delicacy, he had
forgotten the timidity of her sex, and her first night in the island was
a terribly trying one.
Thrice she opened her mouth to call Welch and Hazel back, but could not.
Yet, when their footsteps were out of hearing, she would have given the
world to have them between her and the perils with which she felt herself
surrounded.
Tigers; snakes; scorpions; savages! what would become of her during the
long night?
She sat and cowered before the hot embers. She listened to what seemed
the angry roar of the sea. What with the stillness of the night and her
sharpened senses she heard it all round the island: she seemed environed
with peril, and yet surrounded by desolation. No one at hand to save her
in time from a wild beast. No one anywhere near except a sick sailor and
one she would almost rather die than call singly to her aid, for he had
once told her he loved her.
"Oh, papa! Oh, Arthur!" she cried, "are you praying for your poor Helen?"
Then she wept and prayed; and half nerved herself to bear the worst.
Finally, her vague fears completely overmastered her. Then she had
recourse to a stratagem that belongs to her sex--she hid herself from the
danger, and the danger from her; she covered herself face and all, and so
lay trembling, and longing for the day.
At the first streak of dawn she fled from her place of torture, and after
plunging her face and hands in the river, which did her a world of good,
she went off and entered the jungle, and searched it closely, so far as
she could penetrate it. Soon she heard "Miss Rolleston" called in anxious
tones. But she tossed her little head and revenged herself for her night
of agony by not replying.
However, Nature took her in hand; imperious hunger drew her back to her
late place of torture; and there she found a fire, and Hazel cooking
cray-fish. She ate the crayfish heartily, and drank cocoanut milk out of
half a cocoanut, which the ingenious Hazel had already sawn, polished and
mounted for her.
After that, Hazel's whole day was occupied in stripping a tree that stood
on the high western promontory of the bay, and building up the materials
of a bonfire a few yards from it, that, if any whaler should stray that
way, they might not be at a loss for means to attract her attention.
Welch was very ill all day, and Miss Rolleston nursed him. He got about
toward evening, and Miss Rolleston asked him, rather timidly, if he could
put her up a bell-rope.
"Why, yes, miss," said Welch, "that is easy enough; but I don't see no
bell." Oh, she did not want a bell--she only wanted a bell-rope.
Hazel came up during this conversation, and she then gave her reason.
"Because, then, if Mr. Welch is ill in the night, and wants me, I could
come to him. Or--" finding herself getting near the real reason she
stopped short.
"Or what?" inquired Hazel, eagerly.
She replied to Welch. "When tigers and things come to me, I can let you
know, Mr. Welch, if you have any curiosity about the result of their
visit."
"Tigers!" said Hazel, in answer to this side slap; "there are no tigers
here; no large animals of prey exist in the Pacific."
"What makes you think that?"
"It is notorious. Naturalists are agreed."
"But I am not. I heard noises all night. And little I expected that
anything of me would be left this morning, except, perhaps, my back hair.
Mr. Welch, you are clever at rigging things--that is what you call
it--and so please rig me a bell-rope, then I shall not be eaten alive
without creating some _little_ disturbance."
"I'll do it, miss," said Welch, "this very night."
Hazel said nothing, but pondered. Accordingly, that very evening a piece
of stout twine, with a stone at the end of it, hung down from the roof of
Helen's house; and this twine clove the air until it reached a ring upon
the mainmast of the cutter; thence it descended, and was to be made fast
to something or somebody. The young lady inquired no further. The very
sight of this bell-rope was a great comfort to her; it reunited her to
civilized life. That night she lay down, and quaked considerably less.
Yet she woke several times; and an hour before daylight she heard
distinctly a noise that made her flesh creep. It was like the snoring of
some great animals. This horrible sound was faint and distant; but she
heard it between the roll of the waves, and that showed it was not the
sea roaring; she hid herself in her rugs, and cowered till daybreak. A
score of times she was minded to pull her bell-rope; but always a womanly
feeling, strong as her love of life, withheld her. "Time to pull that
bell-rope when the danger was present or imminent," she thought to
herself. "The thing will come smelling about before it attacks me, and
then I will pull the bell;" and so she passed an hour of agony.
Next morning, at daybreak, Hazel met her just issuing from her hut, and
pointing to his net told her he was going to forage; and would she be
good enough to make the fire and have boiling water ready? he was sorry
to trouble her; but poor Welch was worse this morning. Miss Rolleston cut
short his excuses. "Pray do not take me for a child; of course I will
light the fire, and boil the water. Only I have no lucifer matches."
"Here are two," said he. "I carry the box wrapped in oil-skin. For if
anything happen to _them,_ Heaven help us."
He crossed the prostrate palm-tree, and dived into the wood. It was a
large beautiful wood, and, except at the western edge, the trees were all
of the palm-tree genus, but contained several species, including the
cocoanut tree. The turf ran under these trees for about forty yards and
then died gradually away under the same thick shade which destroyed all
other vegetation in this wood, and made it so easy to see and travel.
He gathered a few cocoanuts that had burst out of their ripe pods and
fallen to the ground; and ran on till he reached a belt of trees and
shrubs, that bounded the palm forest. Here his progress was no longer
easy. But he found trees covered with a small fruit resembling quinces in
every particular of look, taste and smell, and that made him persevere,
since it was most important to learn the useful products of the island.
Presently he burst through some brushwood into a swampy bottom surrounded
by low trees, and instantly a dozen large birds of the osprey kind rose
flapping into the air like windmills rising. He was quite startled by the
whirring and flapping, and not a little amazed at the appearance of the
place. Here was a very charnel-house; so thick lay the shells, skeletons
and loose bones of fish. Here too he found three terrapin killed but not
eaten, and also some fish, more or less pecked. "Aha! my worthy
executioners, much obliged," said he. "You have saved me that job." And
into the bag went the terrapin, and two plump fish, but slightly
mutilated. Before he had gone many yards, back came the sailing wings,
and the birds settled again before his eyes. The rest of the low wood was
but thin, and he soon emerged upon the open country; but it was most
unpromising; and fitter for geese than men. A vast sedgy swamp with water
in the middle, thin fringes of great fern-trees, and here and there a
disconsolate tree like a weeping-willow, and at the end of this lake and
swamp, which all together formed a triangle, was a barren hill without a
blade of vegetation on it, and a sort of jagged summit Hazel did not at
all like the look of. Volcanic!
Somewhat dismayed at finding so large a slice of the island worthless, he
returned through the wood, guiding himself due west by his
pocket-compass, and so got down to the shore, where he found scallops and
cray-fish in incredible abundance. Literally, he had only to go into the
water and gather them. But "enough" is as good as "a feast." He ran to
the pots with his miscellaneous bag, and was not received according to
his deserts. Miss Rolleston told him, a little severely, the water had
been boiling a long time. Then he produced his provender, by way of
excuse.
"Tortoises again!" said she, and shuddered visibly.
But the quinces and cocoanuts were graciously received. Welch, however,
cried out for cabbage.
"What am I to do?" said Hazel. "For every such cabbage a king must die."
"Goodness me!"
"A monarch of the grove."
"Oh, a King Log. Why, then down with them all, of course; sooner than
dear Mr. Welch shall go without his cabbage."
He cast a look of admiration on her, which she avoided, and very soon his
ax was heard ringing in the wood hard by. Then came a loud crash. Then
another. Hazel came running with the cabbage and a cocoa-pod. "There,"
said he, "and there are a hundred more about. While you cook that for
Welch I will store them." Accordingly he returned to the wood with his
net, and soon came back with five pods in it, each as big as a large
pumpkin.
He chucked these one at a time across the river, and then went for more.
It took him all the afternoon to get all the pods across the river. He
was obliged to sit down and rest.
But a suggestion of Helen's soon set him to work again.
"You were kind enough to say you would store these for me. Could you not
store them so as to wall out those terrible beasts with them?"
"What terrible beasts?"
"That roar so all night, and don't eat us, only because they have not
found out we are here yet. But they will."
"I deny their existence," said Hazel. "But I'll wall them out all the
same," said he.
"Pray do," said Helen. "Wall them out first, and disprove them afterward;
I shall be better able to believe they don't exist when they are well
walled out--much."
Hazel went to work, and with her assistance laid cocoa-pods two wide and
three deep, outside the northern and western sides of her leafy bower,
and he promised to complete the walls by the same means in two days more.
They all then supped together, and, to oblige him, she ate a little of
the terrapin, and, when they parted for the night, she thanked him, and
said, with a deep blush, "You have been a good friend to me--of late."
He colored high, and his eyes sparkled with delight; and she noticed, and
almost wished she had kept her gratitude to herself.
That night, what with her bell-rope and her little bit of a wall, she was
somewhat less timorous, and went to sleep early.
But even in sleep she was watchful, and she was awakened by a slight
sound in the neighborhood of the boat.
She lay watching, but did not stir.
Presently she heard a footstep.
With a stifled cry she bounded up, and her first impulse was to rush out
of the tent. But she conquered this, and, gliding to the south side of
her bower, she peered through the palm-leaves, and the first thing she
saw was the figure of a man standing between her and the boat.
She drew her breath hard. The outline of the man was somewhat indistinct.
But it was not a savage. The man was clothed; and his stature betrayed
him.
He stood still for some time. "He is listening to see if I am awake,"
said Helen to herself.
The figure moved toward her bower.
Then all in a moment she became another woman. She did not rely on her
bell-rope; she felt it was fast to nothing that could help her. She
looked round for no weapon; she trusted to herself. She drew herself
hastily up, and folded her arms; her bosom panted, but her cheek never
paled. Her modesty was alarmed; her blood was up, and life or death were
nothing to her.
The footsteps came nearer; they stopped at her door; they went north;
they came back south. They kept her in this high-wrought attitude for
half an hour. Then they retired softly; and, when they were gone, she
gave way and fell on her knees and began to cry hysterically. Then she
got calmer, and then she wondered and puzzled herself; but she slept no
more that night.
In the morning she found that the fire was lighted on a sort of shelf
close to the boat. Mr. Hazel had cut the shelf and lighted the fire there
for Welch's sake, who had complained of cold in the night.
While Hazel was gone for the crayfish, Welch asked Helen to go for her
prayer-book. She brought it directly, and turned the leaves to find the
prayers for the sick. But she was soon undeceived as to his intention.
"Sam had it wrote down how the _Proserpine_ was foundered, and I should
like to lie alongside my messmate on that there paper, as well as in
t'other place" (meaning the grave). "Begin as Sam did, that this is my
last word."
"Oh, I hope not. Oh, Mr. Welch, pray do not leave me!"
"Well, well then, never mind that; but just put down as I heard Sam; and
his dying words, that the parson took down, were the truth."
"I have written that."
"And that the two holes was on her port-side, and seven foot from her
stain-post; and _I_ say them very augers that is in our cutter made them
holes. Set down that."
"It is down."
"Then I'll put my mark under it; and you are my witness."
Helen, anxious to please him in everything, showed him where to put his
mark.
He did so; and she signed her name as his witness.
"And now, Mr. Welch," said she, "do not you fret about the loss of the
ship; you should rather think how good Providence has been to us in
saving us three out of so many that sailed in that poor ship. That Wylie
was a wicked man; but he is drowned, or starved, no doubt, and there is
an end of him. You are alive, and we are all three to see Old England
again. But to live, you must eat; and so now do pray make a good
breakfast to-day. Tell me what you can fancy. A cabbage?"
"What, you own it is a cabbage?"
"Of course I do," said Helen, coaxing. "You must excuse Mr. Hazel; these
learned men are so crotchety in some things, and go by books; but you and
I go by our senses, and to us a cabbage is a cabbage, grow where it will.
Will you have one?"
"No, miss, not this morning. What I wants this morning very bad, indeed,
it is--I wants a drink made of the sweet-smelling leaves, like as you
strewed over my messmate--the Lord in heaven bless you for it."
"Oh, Mr. Welch, that is a curious fancy; but you shall not ask me twice
for anything; the jungle is full of them, and I'll fetch you some in five
minutes. So you must boil the water."
She scudded away to the jungle, and soon returned with some aromatic
leaves. While they were infusing, Hazel came up, and, on being informed
of Welch's fancy, made no opposition; but, on the contrary, said that
such men had sometimes very happy inspirations. He tasted it, however,
and said the smell was the best part of it, in his opinion. He then put
it aside to cool for the sick man's use.
They ate their usual breakfast, and then Welch sipped his spiced tea, as
he called it. Morning and afternoon he drank copious draughts of it, and
seemed to get suddenly better, and told them not to hang about him any
longer; but go to their work: he was all right now.
To humor him they went off in different directions; Hazel with his ax to
level cocoanut trees, and Helen to search for fruits in the jungle.
She came back in about an hour, very proud of some pods she had found
with nutmegs inside them. She ran to Welch. He was not in the boat. She
saw his waistcoat, however, folded and lying on the thwart; so she knew
he could not be far off and concluded he was in her bower. But he was not
there; and she called to Mr. Hazel. He came to the side of the river
laden with cocoanuts.
"Is he with you?" said Helen.
"Who? Welch? No."
"Well, then, he is not here. Oh, dear! something is the matter."
Hazel came across directly. And they both began to run anxiously to every
part whence they could command a view to any distance.
They could not see him anywhere, and met with blank faces at the bower.
Then Helen made a discovery.
This very day, while hanging about the place, Hazel had torn up from the
edge of the river an old trunk, whose roots had been loosened by the
water washing away the earth that held them, and this stump he had set up
in her bower for a table, after sawing the roots down into legs. Well, on
the smooth part of this table lay a little pile of money, a ring with a
large pearl in it, and two gold ear-rings Helen had often noticed in
Welch's ears.
She pointed at these and turned pale. Then, suddenly waving her hand to
Hazel to follow her, she darted out of the bower, and, in a moment, she
was at the boat.
There she found, beside his waistcoat, his knife, and a little pile of
money, placed carefully on the thwart; and, underneath it, his jacket
rolled up, and his shoes and sailor's cap, all put neatly and in order.
Hazel found her looking at them. He began to have vague misgivings. "What
does this mean?" he said faintly.
"'What does it mean!'" cried Helen, in agony. "Don't you see? A legacy!
The poor thing has divided his little all. Oh, my heart! What has become
of him?" Then, with one of those inspirations her sex have, she cried,
"Ah! Cooper's grave!"
Hazel, though not so quick as she was, caught her meaning at a word, and
flew down the slope to the seashore. The tide was out. A long irregular
track of footsteps indented the sand. He stopped a moment and looked at
them. They pointed toward that cleft where the grave was. He followed
them all across the sand. They entered the cleft, and did not return.
Full of heavy foreboding he rushed into the cleft.
Yes; his arms hanging on each side of the grave, and his cheek laid
gently on it, there lay Tom Welch, with a loving smile on his dead face.
Only a man; yet faithful as a dog.
Hazel went back slowly, and crying. Of all men living, he could best
appreciate fidelity and mourn its fate.
But, as he drew near Helen, he dried his eyes; for it was his duty to
comfort her.
She had at first endeavored to follow him; but after a few steps her
knees smote together, and she was fain to sit down on the grassy slope
that overlooked the sea.
The sun was setting huge and red over that vast and peaceful sea.
She put her hands to her head, and, sick at heart, looked heavily at that
glorious and peaceful sight. Hazel came up to her. She looked at his
face, and that look was enough for her. She rocked herself gently to and
fro.
"Yes," said he, in a broken voice. "He was there--quite dead."
He sat gently down by her side, and looked at that setting sun and
illimitable ocean, and his heart felt deadly sad. "He is gone--and we are
alone--on this island."
The man said this in one sense only. But the woman heard it in more than
one.
ALONE!
She glanced timidly round at him, and, without rising, edged a little
away from him, and wept in silence.