Once more the open sea--the sea whose waters break on the shores of
Newfoundland! An English steamship lies at anchor in the offing. The
vessel is plainly visible through the open doorway of a large boat-house
on the shore--one of the buildings attached to a fishing-station on the
coast of the island.
The only person in the boat-house at this moment is a man in the dress
of a sailor. He is seated on a chest, with a piece of cord in his hand,
looking out idly at the sea. On the rough carpenter’s table near him
lies a strange object to be left in such a place--a woman’s veil.
What is the vessel lying at anchor in the offing?
The vessel is the _Amazon_--dispatched from England to receive the
surviving officers and men of the Arctic Expedition. The meeting has
been successfully effected, on the shores of North America, three days
since. But the homeward voyage has been delayed by a storm which has
driven the ship out of her course. Taking advantage, on the third day,
of the first returning calm, the commander of the _Amazon_ has anchored
off the coast of Newfoundland, and has sent ashore to increase his
supplies of water before he sails for England. The weary passengers have
landed for a few hours, to refresh themselves after the discomforts of
the tempest. Among them are the two ladies. The veil left on the table
in the boat-house is Clara’s veil.
And who is the man sitting on the chest, with the cord in his hand,
looking out idly at the sea? The man is the only cheerful person in the
ship’s company. In other words--John Want.
Still reposing on the chest, our friend, who never grumbles, is
surprised by the sudden appearance of a sailor at the boat-house door.
“Look sharp with your work there, John Want!” says the sailor.
“Lieutenant Crayford is just coming in to look after you.”
With this warning the messenger disappears again. John Want rises with
a groan, turns the chest up on one end, and begins to fasten the cord
round it. The ship’s cook is not a man to look back on his rescue with
the feeling of unmitigated satisfaction which animates his companions
in trouble. On the contrary, he is ungratefully disposed to regret the
North Pole.
“If I had only known”--thus runs the train of thought in the mind of
John Want--“if I had only known, before I was rescued, that I was to be
brought to this place, I believe I should have preferred staying at the
North Pole. I was very happy keeping up everybody’s spirits at the
North Pole. Taking one thing with another, I think I must have been very
comfortable at the North Pole--if I had only known it. Another man in
my place might be inclined to say that this Newfoundland boat-house was
rather a sloppy, slimy, draughty, fishy sort of a habitation to take
shelter in. Another man might object to perpetual Newfoundland fogs,
perpetual Newfoundland cod-fish, and perpetual Newfoundland dogs. We
had some very nice bears at the North Pole. Never mind! it’s all one to
me--_I_ don’t grumble.”
“Have you done cording that box?”
This time the voice is a voice of authority--the man at the doorway is
Lieutenant Crayford himself. John Want answers his officer in his own
cheerful way.
“I’ve done it as well as I can, sir--but the damp of this place is
beginning to tell upon our very ropes. I say nothing about our lungs--I
only say our ropes.”
Crayford answers sharply. He seems to have lost his former relish for
the humor of John Want.
“Pooh! To look at your wry face, one would think that our rescue from
the Arctic regions was a downright misfortune. You deserve to be sent
back again.”
“I could be just as cheerful as ever, sir, if I _was_ sent back again;
I hope I’m thankful; but I don’t like to hear the North Pole run down
in such a fishy place as this. It was very clean and snowy at the
North Pole--and it’s very damp and sandy here. Do you never miss your
bone-soup, sir? _I_ do. It mightn’t have been strong; but it was very
hot; and the cold seemed to give it a kind of a meaty flavor as it went
down. Was it you that was a-coughing so long last night, sir? I don’t
presume to say anything against the air of these latitudes; but I should
be glad to know it wasn’t you that was a-coughing so hollow. Would you
be so obliging as just to feel the state of these ropes with the ends of
your fingers, sir? You can dry them afterward on the back of my jacket.”
“You ought to have a stick laid on the back of your jacket. Take that
box down to the boat directly. You croaking vagabond! You would have
grumbled in the Garden of Eden.”
The philosopher of the Expedition was not a man to be silenced by
referring him to the Garden of Eden. Paradise itself was not perfect to
John Want.
“I hope I could be cheerful anywhere, sir,” said the ship’s cook. “But
you mark my words--there must have been a deal of troublesome work with
the flower-beds in the Garden of Eden.”
Having entered that unanswerable protest, John Want shouldered the box,
and drifted drearily out of the boat-house.
Left by himself, Crayford looked at his watch, and called to a sailor
outside.
“Where are the ladies?” he asked.
“Mrs. Crayford is coming this way, sir. She was just behind you when you
came in.”
“Is Miss Burnham with her?”
“No, sir; Miss Burnham is down on the beach with the passengers. I heard
the young lady asking after you, sir.”
“Asking after me?” Crayford considered with himself as he repeated the
words. He added, in lower and graver tones, “You had better tell Miss
Burnham you have seen me here.”
The man made his salute and went out. Crayford took a turn in the
boat-house.
Rescued from death in the Arctic wastes, and reunited to a beautiful
wife, the lieutenant looked, nevertheless, unaccountably anxious and
depressed. What could he be thinking of? He was thinking of Clara.
On the first day when the rescued men were received on board the
_Amazon_, Clara had embarrassed and distressed, not Crayford only, but
the other officers of the Expedition as well, by the manner in which she
questioned them on the subject of Francis Aldersley and Richard Wardour.
She had shown no signs of dismay or despair when she heard that no news
had been received of the two missing men. She had even smiled sadly to
herself, when Crayford (out of compassionate regard for her) declared
that he and his comrades had not given up the hope of seeing Frank and
Wardour yet. It was only when the lieutenant had expressed himself in
those terms and when it was hoped that the painful subject had been
dismissed--that Clara had startled every one present by announcing that
she had something still to say in relation to Frank and Wardour, which
had not been said yet. Though she spoke guardedly, her next words
revealed suspicions of foul play lurking in her mind--exactly reflecting
similar suspicions lurking in Crayford’s mind--which so distressed
the lieutenant, and so surprised his comrades, as to render them quite
incapable of answering her. The warnings of the storm which shortly
afterward broke over the vessel were then visible in sea and sky.
Crayford made them his excuse for abruptly leaving the cabin in which
the conversation had taken place. His brother officers, profiting by his
example, pleaded their duties on deck, and followed him out.
On the next day, and the next, the tempest still raged--and the
passengers were not able to leave their state-rooms. But now, when the
weather had moderated and the ship had anchored--now, when officers
and passengers alike were on shore, with leisure time at their
disposal--Clara had opportunities of returning to the subject of the
lost men, and of asking questions in relation to them which would make
it impossible for Crayford to plead an excuse for not answering her. How
was he to meet those questions? How could he still keep her in ignorance
of the truth?
These were the reflections which now troubled Crayford, and which
presented him, after his rescue, in the strangely inappropriate
character of a depressed and anxious man. His brother officers, as
he well knew, looked to him to take the chief responsibility. If he
declined to accept it, he would instantly confirm the horrible suspicion
in Clara’s mind. The emergency must be met; but how to meet it--at once
honorably and mercifully--was more than Crayford could tell. He
was still lost in his own gloomy thoughts when his wife entered the
boat-house. Turning to look at her, he saw his own perturbations and
anxieties plainly reflected in Mrs. Crayford’s face.
“Have you seen anything of Clara?” he asked. “Is she still on the
beach?”
“She is following me to this place,” Mrs. Crayford replied. “I have been
speaking to her this morning. She is just as resolute as ever to insist
on your telling her of the circumstances under which Frank is missing.
As things are, you have no alternative but to answer her.”
“Help me to answer her, Lucy. Tell me, before she comes in, how this
dreadful suspicion first took possession of her. All she could possibly
have known when we left England was that the two men were appointed to
separate ships. What could have led her to suspect that they had come
together?”
“She was firmly persuaded, William, that they _would_ come together when
the Expedition left England. And she had read in books of Arctic travel,
of men left behind by their comrades on the march, and of men adrift on
ice-bergs. With her mind full of these images and forebodings, she saw
Frank and Wardour (or dreamed of them) in one of her attacks of trance.
I was by her side; I heard what she said at the time. She warned Frank
that Wardour had discovered the truth. She called out to him, ‘While you
can stand, keep with the other men, Frank!’”
“Good God!” cried Crayford; “I warned him myself, almost in those very
words, the last time I saw him!”
“Don’t acknowledge it, William! Keep her in ignorance of what you
have just told me. She will not take it for what it is--a startling
coincidence, and nothing more. She will accept it as positive
confirmation of the faith, the miserable superstitious faith, that is in
her. So long as you don’t actually know that Frank is dead, and that he
has died by Wardour’s hand, deny what she says--mislead her for her own
sake--dispute all her conclusions as I dispute them. Help me to raise
her to the better and nobler belief in the mercy of God!” She stopped,
and looked round nervously at the doorway. “Hush!” she whispered. “Do as
I have told you. Clara is here.”