My dear, noble little woman was right in more ways than she knew.
At that very time I was in literal truth hurrying home to her as fast as
the fastest available vessel could carry me.
As soon as we had boarded the _Scotia_ at the Cape and greeted our old
shipmates, we shouted for our letters.
There were some for all of us and heaps for me, so I scuttled down to my
cabin, where I sorted the envelopes like a pack of cards, looking for
the small delicate hand that used to write my letters and speeches.
To my dismay it was not there, and realizing that fact I bundled the
letters into a locker and never looked at them again until we were two
days out--when I found they were chiefly congratulations from my
committee, the proprietor of my newspaper, and the Royal Geographical
Society, all welcome enough in their way, but Dead Sea fruit to a man
with an empty, heaving heart.
Going up on deck I found every face about me shining like the aurora,
for the men had had good news all round, one having come into a fortune
and another into the fatherhood of twins, and both being in a state of
joy and excitement.
But all the good fellows were like boys. Some of them (with laughter
seasoned by a few tears) read me funny bits out of their wives'
letters--bits too that were not funny, about having "a pretty fit of
hysterics" at reading bad news of us and "wanting to kiss the newsboy"
when he brought the paper contradicting it.
I did my best to play the game of rejoicing, pretending I had had good
news also, and everything was going splendid. But I found it hard enough
to keep it going, especially while we were sailing back to the world, as
we called it, and hearing from the crew the news of what had happened
while we had been away.
First, there was the reason for the delay in the arrival of the ship,
which had been due not to failure of the wireless at our end, but to a
breakdown on Macquarie Island.
And then there was the account of the report of the loss of the _Scotia_
in the gale going out, which had been believed on insufficient evidence
(as I thought), but recorded in generous words of regret that sent the
blood boiling to a man's face and made him wish to heaven they could be
true.
We were only five or six days sailing to New Zealand, but the strain to
me was terrible, for the thought was always uppermost:
"Why didn't she write a word of welcome to reach me on my return to
civilisation?"
When I was not talking to somebody that question was constantly haunting
me. To escape from it I joined the sports of my shipmates, who with
joyful news in their hearts and fresh food in their stomachs were
feeling as good as new in spite of all they had suffered.
But the morning we smelt land, the morning the cloud banks above the
eastern horizon came out hard and fast and sure (no dreamland this
time), I stood at the ship's bow, saying nothing to anybody, only
straining my eyes for the yet distant world we were coming back to out
of that desolate white waste, and thinking:
"Surely I'll have news from her before nightfall."
There was a big warm-hearted crowd on the pier at Port Lyttelton.
Treacle said, "Gawd. I didn't know there was so many people in the
world, Guv'nor;" and O'Sullivan, catching sight of a pretty figure under
a sunshade, tugged at my arm and cried (in the voice of an astronomer
who has discovered a planet), "Commanther! Commanther! A _girl!_"
Almost before we had been brought to, a company of scientific visitors
came aboard; but I was more concerned about the telegrams that had come
at the same moment, so hurrying down to my cabin I tore them open like a
vulture riving its prey--always looking at the signatures first and
never touching an envelope without thinking:
"Oh God, what will be inside of it?"
There was nothing from my dear one! Invitations to dine, to lecture, to
write books, to do this and that and Heaven knows what, but never a word
from her who was more to me than all the world besides.
This made me more than ever sure of the "voices" that had called me back
from the 88th latitude, so I decided instantly to leave our ship in New
Zealand, in readiness for our next effort, and getting across to Sydney
to take the first fast steamer home.
The good people at Port Lyttelton were loath to let us go. But after I
had made my excuses, ("crazy to get back to wives and sweethearts, you
know") they sent a school of boys (stunning little chaps in Eton suits)
to sing us off with "Forty Years On"--which brought more of my mother
into my eyes than I knew to be left there.
At Sydney we had the same experience--the same hearty crowds, the same
welcome, the same invitations, to which we made the same replies, and
then got away by a fast liner which happened to be ready to sail.
On the way "back to the world" I had slung together a sort of a despatch
for the newspaper which had promoted our expedition (a lame, limping
thing for want of my darling's help to make it go), saying something
about the little we had been able to do but more about what we meant,
please God, to do some day.
"She'll see that, anyway, and know we're coming back," I thought.
But to make doubly sure I sent two personal telegrams, one to my dear
one at Castle Raa and the other to my old people at home, asking for
answers to Port Said.
Out on the sea again I was tormented by the old dream of the crevassed
glacier; and if anybody wonders why a hulking chap who had not been
afraid of a ninety-mile blizzard in the region of the Pole allowed
himself to be kept awake at night by a buzzing in the brain, all I can
say is that it was so, and I know nothing more about it.
Perhaps my recent experience with the "wireless" persuaded me that if
two sticks stuck in the earth could be made to communicate with each
other over hundreds of miles, two hearts that loved each other knew no
limitations of time or space.
In any case I was now so sure that my dear one had called me home from
the Antarctic that by the time we reached Port Said, and telegrams were
pouring in on me, I had worked myself up to such a fear that I dared not
open them.
From sheer dread of the joy or sorrow that might be enclosed in the
yellow covers, I got O'Sullivan down in my cabin to read my telegrams,
while I scanned his face and nearly choked with my own tobacco smoke.
There was nothing from my dear one! Nothing from my people at home
either!
O'Sullivan got it into his head that I was worrying about my parents,
and tried to comfort me by saying that old folks never dreamt of
telegraphing, but by the holy immaculate Mother he'd go bail there would
be a letter for me before long.
There was.
We stayed two eternal days at Port Said while the vessel was taking coal
for the rest of the voyage, and almost at the moment of sailing a letter
arrived from Ellan, which, falling into O'Sullivan's hands first, sent
him flying through the steamer and shouting at the top of his voice:
"Commanther! Commanther!"
The passengers gave room for him, and told me afterwards of his beaming
face. And when he burst into my cabin I too felt sure he had brought me
good news, which he had, though it was not all that I wanted.
"The way I was sure there would be a letter for you soon, and by the
holy St. Patrick and St. Thomas, here it is," he cried.
The letter was from my father, and I had to brace myself before I could
read it.
It was full of fatherly love, motherly love, too, and the extravagant
pride my dear good old people had of me ("everybody's talking of you, my
boy, and there's nothing else in the newspapers"); but not a word about
my Mary--or only one, and that seemed worse than none at all.
"You must have heard of the trouble at Castle Raa. Very sad, but this
happy hour is not the time to say anything about it."
Nothing more! Only reams and reams of sweet parental chatter which (God
forgive me!) I would have gladly given over and over again for one plain
sentence about my darling.
Being now more than ever sure that some kind of catastrophe had
overtaken my poor little woman, I telegraphed to her again, this time
(without knowing what mischief I was making) at the house of Daniel
O'Neill--telling myself that, though the man was a brute who had
sacrificed his daughter to his lust of rank and power and all the rest
of his rotten aspirations, he was her father, and, if her reprobate of a
husband had turned her out, he must surely have taken her in.
"Cable reply to Malta. Altogether too bad not hearing from you," I said.
A blind, hasty, cruel telegram, but thank God she never received it!