With the going down of that day's sun a long, heavy swell, accompanied
by the lightest of breezes, set in from the southwest. It was an ominous
sign to Lavelle, nor could he conceal this thought when he carried
Emily's evening meal to her. She asked him to bring his food and eat it
in the tent entrance.
The castaways ate their pitiable rations in silence, but before this
short time passed the island was moving in concert with the heave of the
sea.
A shocking, sense-stunning crash where a part of the western cliff
slithered down into the deep sounded the end of the meal. While the roar
was dying away the eyes of the man and woman met and held in a glance of
understanding.
"This is--is the end?" Emily asked in a low voice.
"I think--it is not very far off, little woman," he answered. He told
her this truth because he knew hers was a spirit unafraid. By it she
knew that he knew and understood many things which words might not
encompass.
"I thank you--so much," was her answer. She spoke with a frank gladness.
But the slightest quaver was in her voice.
Lavelle left her to build up the signal fire. He felt certain that it
was for the last time. It was to him the funeral pyre of a hope which
died by the minute, and he laid on the fuel with unsparing hand. Some
night-borne craft might by miracle see its gleam, yet the light of a
moon in all the splendor of fullness lessened this remotest of
possibilities to the barest minimum.
Although Lavelle was gone from the tent but a little while, it seemed an
eternal time to the woman, who waited for his return. And when he came
her eyes were dry; and she held out a hand for him to help her to her
feet.
"I have no pain," she said, answering his protest. "I speak the truth. I
wish to be out in the night--with you."
After the first step or two Emily walked freely and, indeed, the pain of
her burns had passed away. The while Lavelle knelt to make a seat for
her she stood sweeping the heavens with her luminous eyes. Across the
northern sky a large star, falling, burst upon her vision.
"See!" she exclaimed, and then, turning toward him, she repeated
Calpurnia's words to Cæsar:
"'When beggars die there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes!'"
It was a night made for life and love and the joys of living--not death;
a night to set the soul singing in gladness of being. It seemed to have
garnered the uttermost spaces of their brightest jewels to bedeck its
violet cope and make it the harder for this man and woman to say
farewell to mortality.
Save in the intervals when Paul went to replenish the fire he sat at
Emily's side, and together they watched and listened to the majestic
travailing of the weariless, pitiless deep.
It was not far from midnight when the sea tore away half of the meadow
and the palm tree. This bit of earth floated in their sight for but a
breath. It was; then it was not. Where it had been was a patch of
leaping, roiling waters, white-fanged like wolves at a kill.
Emily put out a hand and took one of Paul's.
"The end--it will come--like that--quickly," she whispered. "I
will--will not be afraid--I am sure--if you will let me hold your hand."
Paul Lavelle could make no answer save pressing the gentle hand in both
of his. It was sufficient to comfort her. After a long silence she
asked:
"Why are you not afraid?"
"I don't know," he answered simply, "unless it is because I can't
believe--that a marvelous creation like mankind stops--with what we call
death. I can't believe that wondrous beings--like you--and Chang,
capable of the sublimest thoughts and impulses--come and go and are no
more. Rather I think that what we are facing is 'Yet a little sleep, a
little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.'"
Nor was Emily conscious of her hand clasping Paul Lavelle's with love's
tightness in its pressure.
"My father believed as you," she began, only to stop short as she felt
him start. She had ever been on her guard against speaking of her people
to this man, for she knew his sensitiveness as to the past. But once had
she made reference to the tragedy which embraced her life and his. That
was in the boat when she had assailed him to save Rowgowskii from
drowning. Now she knew not what else to say.
"Miss Granville," he said presently.
"No, no, please don't!" she protested. "Not that tone; not that
distance. Call me friend, comrade--just as you have been doing these
past few days. Call me Emily. It would please me; it would sound--like
home to--to hear somebody call me by the old name once more."
"Emily," Lavelle went on, "I should like you to know what happened that
night on the _Yakutat_--the truth. If you----"
"No," she interrupted him. "If I say to you that--that I do not wish you
to tell me, you will not misunderstand?"
"As you wish," he answered, but there was a chill in his voice.
"No, no!" she cried. "You do not have to tell me what happened. Don't
you understand? I know. I know you to be brave--and true and upstanding.
I know you acted as only one unafraid--fearless as you are, could have
acted. And I thank God that he has given it to me to know you and--to
understand!"
Her voice broke. Her eyes, swimming with tears, saw him turn toward the
fire. A weight seemed lifted from him. She sensed the coming of a great
peace to his soul.