The morning dawned upon a boundless expanse of sea. The first object
that presented itself to my sight was an enormous whale spouting water,
about a quarter of a mile distant from me; then I observed another, then
a third, and subsequently, several more: they presented a singular and
picturesque appearance, as one or other of these vast animals was
continually throwing up a column of water that caught the rays of the
sun, and looked very beautiful in the distance.
I looked in vain for land; I looked equally in vain for a ship; there
was nothing visible but this shoal of whales, and Mrs Reichardt
endeavoured to cheer me by describing the importance of the
whale-fishery to England, and the perils which the men meet with who
pursue the fish for the purpose of wounding them with an iron instrument
called a harpoon.
I felt much interest in these details; and my companion went into the
whole history of a whaling expedition, describing the first discovery of
the huge fish from the ship; the pursuit in the boats, and the
harpooning of the whale; its struggles after having been wounded; its
being towed to the ship's side; the subsequent manufacture of oil from
the blubber of the animal, and the preparation of whalebone.
In attending to this discourse, I completely, forgot that I was being
tossed about in the open sea, I knew not where; and where I might be in
a short time it would be proved I was equally ignorant: perhaps I should
be a corpse floating on the surface of the ocean, waiting for a tomb
till a shark came that way; perhaps I should be suffering the torments
of hunger and thirst; perhaps cast lifeless upon a rock, where my
bleached bones would remain the only monument which would then declare
that there once existed in these latitudes, such a being as the Little
Savage.
Where now could be the island I, though long so anxious to quit, now was
a thousand times more desirous of beholding? I felt that nothing could
be more agreeable to me than a glimpse of that wild rocky coast that had
so often appeared to me the walls of an intolerable prison.
I strained my eyes in vain in every direction; the line of the horizon
stretched out uninterrupted by a single break of any kind all around.
Where could we be? I often asked myself; but except that we were on the
wide ocean, neither myself nor my companion had the slightest idea of
our geographical position. We must have been blown a considerable
distance during the storm: much further than the current had taken us
from the island.
I calculated that we must have passed it by many a mile, if we had
continued the same course; but the wind had shifted several times, and
it might be that we were not so very long a sail from it, could we gain
the slightest knowledge of the direction in which it was to be found.
But this was hopeless. I felt assured that we must abandon all idea of
seeing it again.
In the midst of these painful reflections, my companion directed my
attention to an object at a very considerable distance, and intimated
her impression that it was a ship. Luckily, I had brought my glass with
me, and soon was anxiously directing it to the required point. It was a
ship: but at so great a distance that it was impossible, as Mrs
Reichardt said, for any person on board to distinguish our boat. I
would have sailed in that direction, but the wind was contrary: I had,
therefore, no alternative but to wait till the ship should approach near
enough to make us out; and I passed several hours of the deepest anxiety
in watching the course of the distant vessel.
She increased in size, so that I could observe that she was a large ship
by the unassisted eye; but as we were running before the wind in a
totally different direction, there seemed very little chance of our
communicating, unless she altered her course.
Mrs Reichardt mentioned that signals were made by vessels at a distance
to attract each other's attention, and described the various ways in
which they communicated the wishes of their respective captains. The
only signal I had been in the habit of making was burning quantities of
wood on the shore and pouring water on it to make it smoke--this was
impossible in our boat.
My companion at last suggested that I should tie a tablecloth to the
mast; its peculiar whiteness might attract attention. The sail was
presently taken in, and the tablecloth spread in its place; but,
unfortunately, it soon afterwards came on a dead calm--the breeze died
away, and the cloth hung in long folds against the mast.
No notice whatever was taken of us. We now took to our oars and pulled
in the direction of the ship; but after several hours' hard rowing, our
strength had so suffered from our previous fatigues, that we seemed to
have made very little distance.
In a short time the sun set, and we watched the object of all our hopes
with most anxious eyes, till night set in and hid her from our sight.
Shortly afterwards a light breeze again sprung up; with renewed hope we
gave our sail to the wind, but it bore us in a contrary direction, and
when morning dawned we saw no more of the ship.
The wind had now again shifted, and bore us briskly along. But where?
I had fallen asleep during the preceding night, wearied out with labour
and anxiety, and I did not wake till long after daybreak. Mrs
Reichardt would not disturb me. In sleep I was insensible to the
miseries and dangers of my position. She could not bring herself to
disturb a repose that was at once so necessary to mind and body; and I
fell into a sweet dream of a new home in that dear England I had prayed
so often to see; and bright faces smiled upon me, and voices welcomed
me, full of tenderness and affection.
I fancied that in one of those faces I recognised my mother, of whose
love I had so early been deprived, and that it was paler than all the
others, but infinitely more tender and affectionate: then the
countenance seemed to grow paler and paler, till it took upon itself the
likeness of the fair creature I had buried in the guano, and I thought
she embraced me, and her arms were cold as stone, and she pressed her
lips to mine, and they gave a chill to my blood that made me shake as
with an ague.
Suddenly I beheld Jackson with his sightless orbs groping towards me
with a knife in his hand, muttering imprecations, and he caught hold of
me, and we had a desperate struggle, and he plunged a long knife into my
chest, with a loud laugh of derision and malice; and as I felt the blade
enter my flesh, I gave a start and jumped up, and alarmed Mrs Reichardt
by the wild cry with which I awoke.
How strongly was that dream impressed upon my mind; and the features of
the different persons who figured in it--how distinctly they were
brought before me! My poor mother was as fresh in my recollection as
though I had seen her but yesterday, and the sweetness of her looks as
she approached me--how I now tried to recall them, and feasted on their
memory as though it were a lost blessing.
Then the nameless corpse that had been washed from the wreck, how
strange it seemed, that after this lapse of time she should appear to me
in a dream, as though we had been long attached to each other, and her
affections had been through life entirely my own. Poor girl! Perhaps
even now some devoted lover mourns her loss; or hopes at no distant date
to be able to join her in the new colony, to attain which a cruel
destiny had forced her from his arms. Little does he dream of her
nameless grave under the guano. Little does he dream that the only
colony in which he is likely to join her, is that settlement in the
great desert of oblivion, over which Death has remained governor from
the birth of the world.
But the most unpleasant part of the vision was the appearance of
Jackson; and it was a long time before I could bring myself to believe
that I had not beheld his well-known features--that I had not been
stabbed by him, and that I was not suffering from the mortal wound he
had inflicted. I however at last shook off the delusion, and to Mrs
Reichardt's anxious inquiries replied only that I had had a disagreeable
dream.
In a short time I began to doubt whether the waking was more pleasant
than the dreaming--the vast ocean still spread itself before me like a
mighty winding-sheet, the fair sky, beautiful as it appeared in the rays
of the morning sun, I could only regard as a pall--and our little bark
was the coffin in which two helpless human beings, though still
existing, were waiting interment.
"Has God abandoned us?" I asked my companion; "or has He forgotten that
two of His creatures are in the deepest peril of their lives, from which
He alone can save them?"
"Hush! Frank Henniker," exclaimed Mrs Reichardt, solemnly; "this is
impious. God never abandons those who are worthy of His protection. He
will either save them at His own appointed time--or if He think it more
desirable, will snatch them from a scene where so many dangers surround
them, and place them where there prevails eternal tranquillity and
everlasting bliss.
"We should rather rejoice," she added, with increasing seriousness,
"that we are thought worthy of being so early taken from a world in
which we have met with so many troubles."
"But to die in this way," I observed gloomily; "to be left to linger out
days of terrible torture, without a hope of relief--I cannot reconcile
myself to it."
"We must die sooner or later," she said, "and there are many diseases
which are fatal after protracted suffering of the most agonising
description. These we have been spared. The wretch who lingers in
torment, visited by some loathsome disorder, would envy us, could he see
the comparatively easy manner in which we are suffered to leave
existence.
"But I do not myself see the hopelessness of our case," she added. "It
is not yet impossible that we may be picked up by a ship, or discover
some friendly shore whence we might obtain a passage for England."
"I see no prospect of this," said I; "we are apparently out of the track
of ships, and if it should be our chance to discover one, the people on
board are not likely to observe us. I wish I had never left the
island."
Mrs Reichardt never reproached me--never so much as reminded me that it
was my own fault. She merely added, "It was the will of God."
We ate and drank our small rations--my companion always blessing the
meal, and offering a thanksgiving for being permitted to enjoy it. I
noticed what was left. We had been extremely economical, yet there was
barely enough for another day. We determined still further to reduce
the trifling portion we allowed ourselves that we might increase our
chance of escape.