A MEETING BY MOONLIGHT.
Britomarte conducted her frightened companion to the thicket of woods
and grottoes where she had found the spring.
She made her sit down on a fragment of rock under a spreading tree, and
then she went to the spring and found a large leaf, which she doubled up
in the form of a cup, and caught some water, which she brought to the
woman, who drank it eagerly.
“Ah, thin! bless the Lord for giving us water itself! Sure, there’s
nothing like it, at all at all, whin the thirst is upon one!” said
Judith, gratefully, drawing a long breath.
Britomarte brought some wild plums and cocoanuts which she saw growing,
and gave them to Judith.
At first the woman was too frightened by the chattering of monkeys and
the growls of hidden forest fiends to open her mouth; but Britomarte
overcame her fears and she ate and drank with avidity.
Miss Conyers made a meal of the plums she had gathered.
But Judith, now that her appetite was satisfied, found another source of
trouble.
“Sure, the sun is setting, and it will soon be dark! And Lord kape us,
where will we slape?”
“It is a lovely summer evening, Judith. And there is a deep, dry grotto
in the thicket that we have left. We will stay here through the
twilight, and through the dark hours before moonrise, and then we will
go to the grotto and sleep.”
And there they sat through the short twilight, and through the long,
dark hours that intervened before the moon arose. The moon arose, a
glorious, golden globe, illumining with its rich, soft light the broad
expanse of sea, and the strange, wild land, with its stately palm trees.
Britomarte sat gazing with something like calm enjoyment upon the
exceeding beauty of the scene. Sleeping, or forgotten in this quiet
hour, seemed all her sorrows.
Judith gradually fell to nodding and snoring.
She was awakened with a vengeance.
A grim footstep came crunching through the pebbles on the beach.
With a scream, Judith started to her feet.
Miss Conyers also arose and listened.
And almost at the same instant Justin Rosenthal appeared before them.
“Lord kape us—it’s his sperit!” gasped Judith, who was too
panic-stricken to turn and fly; but stood with her face blanched as
white as snow, and her mouth and eyes distended with terror.
Almost as much amazed stood Justin and Britomarte, gazing upon each
other in incredulous astonishment and unspeakable joy! For an instant
they stood thus, and then their joy broke forth:
“Saved! Oh, thank God! thank God!” exclaimed Justin, holding out his
arms toward her.
She extended her hands. She could not speak; the overwhelming tide of
joy had deprived her of the power.
But he caught her to his bosom; and she dropped her head upon his
shoulders, and burst into a passion of tears and sobs.
“Oh, my own! my own!” he cried; “my beloved! my peerless treasure! This
is the very happiest moment of my life! How cheaply purchased with
shipwreck and the loss of everything else!”
Still she sobbed upon his shoulder, unable to make any other reply.
“You are with me! I have you, and I care for nothing that can befall me
that does not part us!” he continued.
“And I’m left out in the cowld entirely,” said Judith, who had gradually
recovered from her panic, and recognized the apparition as Mr. Rosenthal
in the flesh.
“Britomarte! Love! love! Do you know how happy I am? Speak to me, love!
I have not heard the sound of your voice yet, except in sobs. Speak to
me, my own, only love!” whispered Justin.
“Oh, I am so glad, so glad, that you are saved! Oh, thank God! thank
God! Oh, in what words can I thank God enough!” exclaimed Britomarte,
with an emotion that shook her whole delicate frame.
He caught her closer to his bosom, and bent down his head over hers
until his lips touched her forehead and his auburn locks mingled with
her dark brown tresses.
“God bless you for every sweet word you have spoken, oh, my dearest! my
dearest!” he murmured.
But it was not until her great passion of joy had somewhat exhausted
itself that she recollected herself, and gently attempted to withdraw
from his embrace.
But of course he held her fast; until at length she said, ever so
kindly, but ever so firmly:
“Let me go, please. I am not quite sane, I think. Oh, I am so glad, so
glad you are safe! Thank God with all my heart and soul! Oh, thank Him
forever and ever! I do not care that I am shipwrecked on this foreign
shore now!” she added, earnestly.
“Nor I; not one whit. I rather like it,” agreed Justin, as he sat her
down upon a ledge of rocks and took a seat by her side.
“No more would I, if I had Fore Top Tom foreninst me, and daddy, and
could get me tay, and toast, and mate, and granes rigalar,” muttered
Judith, dropping into her old place.
“I was so overjoyed to see you safe, that I forgot to ask how you were
saved, or where your companions are,” said Justin.
“My companions! Ah, Mr. Rosenthal, how selfish I was to forget them for
a moment! They are all lost! Our boat foundered in that last gale! Only
myself and Judith Riordan chanced to be saved by having life preservers
on, and by being cast ashore by a wave. Our companions are lost!” said
Britomarte, solemnly.
“Lost!” repeated Justin, gravely.
And a deep silence fell between them—a reverential silence in tribute to
the dead, taken away so awfully; a long silence, broken at length by the
voice of Judith, who, reminded of her losses, recommenced her howling.
“Lost!” again repeated Justin. “Well, God’s will be done. All our grief
will not restore them to us. And, much as I lament the calamity, I am
too happy in this hour of reunion with you to feel inconsolable at any
circumstance whatever.”
“How were you saved? Though I am so glad to see you saved that I have
scarcely room to feel curious about the manner,” said Miss Conyers.
“When the storm was over, and the wind and the waves had fallen, the
ship was left high and dry upon the rocks, in a crevice of which the
stern was tightly wedged. These rocks formed the extremity of a long
chain, or natural causeway, extending from the land far out into the
sea. When the subsiding of the sea left this chain bare, I passed over
it to the land. And here I am—your lover and servant, to work for you
and defend you, through life and unto death!”
“Again and again, and forever and forever, thank God that you are safe!
But for the rest——”
She paused and hesitated.
“Yes, for the rest—for the rest, Britomarte?” he eagerly repeated.
“Do not speak of it now, or here! It would be scarcely generous or like
yourself to do so.”
“It would not be like myself to do anything repugnant to your feelings!”
said Justin, a little abashed; then recovering his self-possession and
dignity, he added, slowly and thoughtfully, as if he weighed every word
before he uttered it:
“We three persons—being two women and one man—are cast here upon this
unknown and uninhabited island, where we may remain for years, or even
for the term of our natural lives; for, however little we do know of it,
we know that it is out of the course of ships, since our own ship was
driven very far out of her course before she was wrecked upon its
shores. There are no habitations here, nor any of the commonest
conveniences of human life. All these have to be provided by labor—hard
manual labor, such as women cannot perform—such as men only can
accomplish. This being so, Miss Conyers, while ever we remain together
on this island, whether it be for years or for our lives, I will serve
you with all the honor a subject owes his queen, and all the love a
brother bears his sister. Let us close hands upon that.”
“Willingly,” said Britomarte, giving her hand. “Be—not my subject, for
that savors too much of the old folly—but be my brother, and as my
brother I will love and honor you infinitely! I will pray God to bless
you always.”
“Agreed! But this compact is to last so long as we remain on this
island,” said Justin.
“Yes.”
“And when we are rescued, if ever we should be; when I see you among
your friends again—if ever I should see you so—then, Britomarte—then I
shall sue for some nearer and dearer tie than that which unites the most
loving brother and sister!”
“Mr. Rosenthal! Justin! why will you advert to this forbidden subject? I
esteem and honor you beyond all men, because you are an exceptional man!
but I tell you I esteem and honor you only as a good and noble brother!
In no other light can I ever regard you. You know what my principles
are, and what my frequent declarations have been: that I never will
become the wife of any man while the present unjust laws of marriage
prevail,” said Miss Conyers, earnestly.
And while she spoke these cold words, the sound of other words—uttered
in her wild agony, at that bitter moment of parting were echoing through
his memory—“Justin! Justin! With you! My beloved! My beloved!”
And he saw again the outstretched arms and the wild, appealing gaze with
which she hid uttered them. Had she forgotten them? or did she wish to
ignore them? He could not tell. But he felt, of course, that honor and
delicacy forbade him to allude to them, or even to the joy with which he
received them—all these circumstances being “proof as strong as Holy
Writ” that she loved him as no sister ever loved a brother.
Now he answered her cold words as calmly as she had spoken them:
“While we remain on this island I will never even ask you for a promise
or a hope of the sort; and this is the last time I will ever allude to
the subject. But now you should have some repose. I can understand why
you should deem it prudent to watch the night out rather than sleep, in
this strange land, which might, for aught you knew, be infested with
wild beasts; but now that I am here to defend you, there is no reason
why you should not sleep in peace.”
“I was not afraid to go to sleep,” replied Miss Conyers, a little
proudly; “but my companion here refused to go into the shelter that I
proposed, and I did not think it right to leave her alone.”
“It was like you to think of others first; but now you can both seek
shelter and sleep while I watch. There is a fine grotto that I passed in
my rambles over the island, which I think would afford you a safe place
of refuge for to-night. To-morrow better shelter shall be provided.”
“I thank you earnestly,” said Miss Conyers. “That grotto was the place
of shelter I first wished to go to. Come, Judith.”
“Sure, and I’ll not budge a fut unless the gentleman promises to stand
at the hole all night to keep off the wild bastes!” said the woman,
defiantly.
“I promise that, Judith. I had a good night’s rest on the wreck last
night, and so I can very well afford to lose this night’s sleep,”
replied Mr. Rosenthal.
Britomarte objected strongly to Justin’s proposed watching; but he
succeeded in convincing her that he could watch without inconvenience.
And so they all went to the grotto in the thicket.
Justin spread his greatcoat on the floor to make a bed for Britomarte,
and then he bade her good-night, and went out and took up his stand as
sentinel before her rude bower.