HELEN'S strength was coming back to her but slowly; she complained of
great lassitude and want of appetite. But, the following day having
cleared up, the sun shone out with great power and brilliancy. She gladly
welcomed the return of the fine weather, but Hazel shook his head; ten
days' rain was not their portion--the bad weather would return, and
complete the month or six weeks' winter to which Nature was entitled. The
next evening the appearance of the sky confirmed his opinion. The sun set
like a crimson shield; gory, and double its usual size. It entered into a
thick bank of dark violet cloud that lay on the horizon, and seemed to
split the vapor into rays, but of a dusky kind; immediately above this
crimson the clouds were of a brilliant gold, but higher they were the
color of rubies, and went gradually off to gray.
But as the orb dipped to the horizon a solid pile of unearthly clouds
came up from the southeast; their bodies were singularly and unnaturally
black, and mottled with copper-color, and hemmed with a fiery yellow. And
these infernal clouds towered up their heads, pressing forward as if they
all strove for precedency; it was like Milton's fiends attacking the sky.
The rate at which they climbed was wonderful. The sun set and the moon
rose full, and showed those angry masses surging upward and jostling each
other as they flew.
Yet below it was dead calm.
Having admired the sublimity of the scene, and seen the full moon rise,
but speedily lose her light in a brassy halo, they entered the hut, which
was now the headquarters, and they supped together there.
While they were eating their little meal the tops of the trees were heard
to sigh, so still was everything else. None the less did those strange
clouds fly northward, eighty miles an hour. After supper, Helen sat busy
over the fire, where some gum, collected by Hazel, resembling
India-rubber, was boiling; she was preparing to cover a pair of poor
Welch's shoes, inside and out, with a coat of this material, which Hazel
believed to be water-proof. She sat in such a position that he could
watch her. It was a happy evening. She seemed content. She had got over
her fear of him; they were good comrades if they were nothing more. It
was happiness to him to be by her side even on those terms. He thought of
it all as he looked at her. How distant she had seemed once to him; what
an unapproachable goddess. Yet there she was by his side in a hut he had
made for her.
He could not help sipping the soft intoxicating draught her mere presence
offered him. But by and by he felt his heart was dissolving within him,
and he was trifling with danger. He must not look on her too long, seated
by the fire like a wife. The much-enduring man rose, and turned his back
upon the sight he loved so dearly. He went out at the open door intending
to close it and bid her good-night. But he did not do so, just then; for
his attention as an observer of nature was arrested by the unusual
conduct of certain animals. Gannets and other sea-birds were running
about the opposite wood and craning their necks in a strange way. He had
never seen one enter that wood before.
Seals and sea-lions were surrounding the slope, and crawling about, and
now and then plunging into the river, which they crossed with infinite
difficulty, for it was running very high and strong. The trees also
sighed louder than ever. Hazel turned back to tell Miss Rolleston
something extraordinary was going on. She sat in sight from the river,
and, as he came toward the hut, he saw her sitting by the fire reading.
He stopped short. Her work lay at her feet. She had taken out a letter,
and she was reading it by the fire.
As she read it her face was a puzzle. But Hazel saw the act alone; and a
dart of ice seemed to go through and through him.
This, then, was her true source of consolation. He thought it was so
before. He had even reason to think so. But, never seeing any palpable
proofs, he had almost been happy. He turned sick with jealous misery, and
stood there rooted and frozen.
Then came a fierce impulse to shut the sight out that caused this pain.
He almost flung her portoullis to, and made his hands bleed. But a
bleeding heart does not feel scratches.
"Good-night," said he hoarsely.
"Good-night," said she kindly.
And why should she not read his letter? She was his affianced bride,
bound to him by honor as well as inclination. This was the reflection to
which, after a sore battle with his loving heart, the much-enduring man
had to come at last; and he had come to it, and was getting back his
peace of mind, though not his late complacency, and about to seek repose
in sleep, when suddenly a clap of wind came down like thunder, and
thrashed the island and everything in it.
Everything animate and inanimate seemed to cry out as the blow passed.
Another soon followed, and another--intermittent gusts at present, but of
such severity that not one came without making its mark.
Birds were driven away like paper; the sea-lions whimpered, and crouched
into corners, and huddled together, and held each other, whining.
Hazel saw but one thing; the frail edifice he had built for the creature
he adored. He looked out of his boat, and fixed his horror-stricken eyes
on it; he saw it waving to and fro, yet still firm. But he could not stay
there. If not in danger she must be terrified. He must go and support
her. He left his shelter, and ran toward her hut. With a whoop and a
scream another blast tore through the wood, and caught him. He fell, dug
his hands into the soil, and clutched the earth. While he was in that
position, he heard a sharp crack; he looked up in dismay, and saw that
one of Helen's trees had broken like a carrot, and the head was on the
ground leaping about; while a succession of horrible sounds of crashing,
and rending, and tearing showed the frail hut was giving way on every
side; racked and riven, and torn to pieces. Hazel, though a stout man,
uttered cries of terror death would never have drawn from him; and, with
a desperate headlong rush, he got to the place where the bower had been;
but now it was a prostrate skeleton, with the mat roof flapping like a
loose sail above it, and Helen below.
As he reached the hut, the wind got hold of the last of the four shrubs
that did duty for a door, and tore it from the cord that held it, and
whirled it into the air; it went past Hazel's face like a bird flying.
Though staggered himself by the same blow of wind, he clutched the tree
and got into the hut.
He found her directly. She was kneeling beneath the mat that a few
minutes ago had been her roof. He extricated her in a moment, uttering
inarticulate cries of pity and fear.
"Don't be frightened," said she. "I am not hurt."
But he felt her quiver from head to foot. He wrapped her in all her rugs,
and, thinking of nothing but her safety, lifted her in his strong arms to
take her to his own place, which was safe from wind at least.
But this was no light work. To go there erect was impossible.
Holding tight by the tree, he got her to the lee of the tent and waited
for a lull. He went rapidly down the hill, but, ere he reached the river,
a gust came careering over the sea. A sturdy young tree was near him. He
placed her against it, and wound his arms round her and its trunk. The
blast came. The tree bent down almost to the ground, then whirled round,
recovered, shivered; but he held firmly. It passed. Again he lifted her,
and bore her to the boat-house. As he went, the wind almost choked her,
and her long hair lashed his face like a whip. But he got her in, and
then sat panting and crouching, but safe. They were none too soon; the
tempest increased in violence, and became more continuous. No clouds, but
a ghastly glare all over the sky. No rebellious waves, but a sea hissing
and foaming under its master's lash. The river ran roaring and foaming
by, and made the boat heave even in its little creek. The wind, though it
could no longer shake them, went screaming terribly close over their
heads--no longer like air in motion, but, solid and keen, it seemed the
Almighty's scythe mowing down Nature; and soon it became, like turbid
water, blackened with the leaves, branches and fragments of all kinds it
whirled along with it. The trees fell crashing on all sides, and the
remains passed over their heads into the sea.
Helen behaved admirably. Speech was impossible, but she thanked him
without it--eloquently; she nestled her little hand into Hazel's, and, to
Hazel, that night, with all its awful sights and sounds, was a blissful
one. She had been in danger, but now was safe by his side. She had
pressed his hand to thank him, and now she was cowering a little toward
him in a way that claimed him as her protector. Her glorious hair blew
over him and seemed to net him. And now and then, as they heard some
crash nearer and more awful than another, she clutched him quickly though
lightly; for, in danger, her sex love to feel a friend; it is not enough
to see him near. And once, when a great dusky form of a sea-lion came
crawling over the mound, and whimpering peeped into the boathouse, she
even fled to his shoulder with both hands for a moment, and was there,
light as a feather, till the creature had passed on. And his soul was
full of peace, and a great tranquillity overcame it. He heard nothing of
the wrack, knew nothing of the danger.
Oh, mighty Love! The tempest might blow, and fill the air and earth with
ruin, so that it spared her. The wind was kind, and gentle the night,
which brought that hair round his face, and that head so near his
shoulder, and gave him the holy joy of protecting under his wing the soft
creature he adored.