DEATH SHAKES HANDS WITH THE CASTAWAYS.
The castaways arose on the following morning weaker, but refreshed.
Their hunger was not so pressing as upon the previous day, but their
steps were slower, and their vitality had decreased. No reference was
made by either to the conversation of the previous evening. Ben's
face wore a look of great sorrow he could not conceal, and Bertha by
numerous little attentions and pretty little ways, that are the sole
property of her sex, tried to assuage his woes. Alas, the dear girl did
not know that the balm she applied to our friend's wounds made them
grow the deeper and break out afresh.
Cleveland exerted himself among the cottonwoods and Bertha carried
them to the river. During the morning he told her of his own life, and
the nature of the tramp that had led him to his present unfortunate
position. It was then for the first time she knew that Ben was the
boy's champion in Jersey City, and also the stowaway whose passage her
intercessions had secured at Columbus. So little had he occupied her
attention on those occasions that had he not informed her she would
have remained ignorant of the fact that he was Blackoat's antagonist,
or the subject of Mr. Blassfeme's aquatic attentions.
"So then our wreck was not your first acquaintance with the river," she
said, laughing.
"No," he replied, "that was my second bath."
Later in the day Ben, after both had been for some time engaged in
silence at work on the raft, asked suddenly:
"Bertha, what is your cousin's name?"
"Arthur Blackoat," she replied.
"Arthur Blackoat!" exclaimed he in a voice of apprehension. "Why--" and
then he stopped.
She waited for him to continue, but he said no more, and both resumed
their work in silence.
By tearing up one of the young lady's skirts into strips and twisting
these, they made cables with which Ben bound the layers of cottonwood
firmly together at the corners, and in the centre. The raft being made
in the style of a "mattrass" such as the celebrated jettie cribs rest
upon at the mouth of the river, and which are to take Nature by the
ears and show the old Dame how she should walk the straight and narrow
path. Before the middle of the afternoon it would uphold Ben, and by
sundown both could safely float upon it.
"We will not start in the dark," said he, "for we need daylight for the
attempt, and a breeze that will give us a chance to reach the point
below. Early in the morning we will give up Crusoe life, and surrender
our domain back to solitude."
Both retired to the hut in high hopes of the morrow's relief, and
ere they slept an earnest prayer of thanks for their safety and
supplications for the success of their efforts was sent to Him who
holds the whole world in the hollow of his hand.
Then they slept--soundly, if not sweetly--for both were exhausted.
Slept--while the great river went rolling by on its way to the sea.
Slept--while from the north, from the east, from the west, from
thousands of meadow brooks and mountain torrents, from hundreds of
springs and rills, from woodland and from moor, the dragoons of Death
rode out on the flood and bore down upon them!
Ben awoke with a cry of alarm. He was wet through, and the floor of
their hut was flooded! With wild thoughts surging through his brain and
horrible fears palsying his heart, he sprang to his feet and looked
out. And there before his eyes, glistening in the morning sunlight,
lay one vast expanse of water! The island was already submerged by the
flood, _and the raft gone_!
What words can depict the horrors of that moment! Hope? There was no
hope, nothing but _despair_! Great, gigantic, crushing despair! Man was
powerless--he could not push back the hand of God!
The fall rains had swollen the northern rivers, and they had discharged
their superabundance into the Mississippi, and that stream was now
rising at the rate of a foot an hour. Already it was over the island
and the cottonwood brake stood in a field of water. Ben would have been
aroused sooner were it not that he had located his hut on a little
knoll in the sand, higher by a foot than its surroundings. Bertha,
reposing upon an elevation of boughs within still slept, but the hungry
river was now licking her garments, impatient for its prey. For an
instant he thought to plunge into the flood and end his miseries at
once and for ever. Then he looked at the sleeping girl and the prayer
sprang to his lips: "Oh God! Take me but spare her!" and kneeling by
her side he gazed so fondly yet so sorrowfully into her face, and
then waked her with a kiss. She looked up with a smile. But the smile
quickly turned to a look of terror, at the words quietly but earnestly
uttered:
"Bertha, we must die. There is no help for us now. The river is rising.
It has covered the island. Our raft is gone. Death will be upon us
soon."
With a wild cry the girl bounded to her feet and rushed from the hut.
The turbid flood stretched all around her, and she stood in water
over her feet. She turned and looked at Ben, so pityingly, as if for
relief. Oh, the helpless agony of that look! He turned away his head
with a groan, and did not dare to look at her again. So he stood, bowed
down by unutterable woe, for some moments; the cruel waters steadily
and stealthily--oh, how stealthily _creeping, creeping, creeping_,
with a low _plash, plash, plash_, like the dull senseless whisper of
a devil--rising around him. Then a little hand was placed in his and
an arm laid upon his neck: "Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be
thy name. Thy kingdom come thy will be done--." He raised his head and
looked at her beside him. There was no fear there now, no tremor. The
face upturned to heaven was the face of an angel. "Thy will be done on
earth as it is in Heaven." Then in a clear, silvery voice, that neither
trembled or quavered, the souls of both were confided to the mercy of
Him above, and His protection and care invoked for those who should
remain upon earth. There was no supplication for life, for all hope
now left was a hope for the life immortal. Long did that lovely being
appeal to the Most High, and ere she was through, a strange quiet of
mind and peace of heart had come to Ben.
When the prayer was ended they locked their arms about one another and
stood--waiting for death.
Slowly, but how awfully sure, the waters rose around them. Already the
ripples reached their hands as they stood erect. Soon they would be up
to their breasts. A slight current was already agitating the eddy that
covered the bar, and it caused the tops of the cottonwoods to nod and
bend in the water. A little while longer and the current would become a
torrent, irresistible in its might and fury. Once she looked up in his
face, and said:
"Is it not hard to die, dear friend?"
And Ben answered: "No, perhaps it is best," and he thought death was a
relief. It had lost its terrors and he did not fear it.
"Bertha," he said, "it cannot matter now,--but--it would be a last
earthly happiness to me--tell me, do you love me?"
"With all my heart," she replied.
"God bless you, my darling," he cried.
"God bless us both," she said. "Good-bye," and they kissed one another
a last farewell, forever.
Slowly, slowly, oh how terrible and slow, the waters crept, up, up, up!
The current grew in strength. The cottonwoods no longer nodded their
heads, but bent down in the flood. The feet of the castaways refused
their hold upon the crumbling sand. Ben surged with all his strength
against the tide. It was of no avail. Their feet slipped from under
them. The river grasped them. One piercing shriek, one loud cry--and
they were swept away, linked in one another's arms!