"I got your bag ready," says he.
Then I had no cause to trouble....
* * * * *
'Twas deep night, the gale still blowing high with snow, when the wind
changed. It ran to the north--shifted swiftly to the west. The
ice-pack stirred: we felt the schooner shiver, heard the tumult of
warning noises, as that gigantic, lethargic mass was aroused to
unwilling motion by the lash of the west wind. The hull of the
_Shining Light_ collapsed. 'Twas time to be off. I awoke the fool--who
had still soundly slept. The fool would douse the cabin fire, in a
seemly way, and put out the lights; but my uncle forbade him, having
rather, said he, watch the old craft go down with a warm glow issuing
from her. Presently she was gone, all the warmth and comfort and hope
of the world expiring in her descent: there was no more a _Shining
Light_; and we three folk were cast away on a broad pan of ice, in the
midst of night and driving snow. Of the wood they had torn from the
schooner against this time, the fool builded a fire, beside which we
cowered from the wind; and soon, the snow failing and the night
falling clear and starlit, points of flickering light appeared on the
ice beyond us. There were three, I recall, diminishing in the
distance; and I knew, then, what I should do in search of Judith when
the day came. Three schooners cast away beyond us; one might be the
_Likely Lass_: I would search for Judith, thinks I, when day came.
'Twas very long in coming, and 'twas most bitter cold and discouraging
in its arrival: a thin, gray light, with no hopeful hue of dawn in the
east--frosty, gray light, spreading reluctantly over the white field
of the world to a black horizon. I wished, I recall, while I waited
for broader day, that some warm color might appear to hearten us, some
tint, however pale and transient, to recall the kindlier mood of earth
to us; and there came, in answer to my wishing, a flush of rose in the
east, which waxed and endured, spreading its message, but failed, like
a lamp extinguished, leaving the world all sombre and inimical, as it
had been.
I must now be off alone upon my search: my wooden-legged uncle could
not travel the ice--nor must the fool abandon him.
"I 'lowed ye would, lad," says he, "like any other gentleman."