THE ISLAND.
As the young girl disappeared beneath the dark waters, two persons
dove after her, determined to accomplish her rescue or perish in the
attempt.
Those two were Harry Glenville and old Tom Turk.
Could they reach the girl and bring her to the surface, they might
easily manage to lash her to some one of the many planks and spars
floating around them, and faintly revealed in the lurid gleam
streaming along the waters from the volcano, now less than two miles
distant.
Down under the sea, Turk and his friend finally came upon the girl,
when, with one blow of his knife, hold ready in his right hand, Harry
severed the rope holding Mary to the raft.
Now, however, he felt the force of the downward suction of the doomed
ship, and was unable to ascend with his burden to the surface of the
sea.
In this situation the young man preserved his presence of mind,
holding to Mary with a firm grasp, his right arm round her waist,
while with the other he paddled under water, hoping soon to get out of
range of the suction force dragging him down.
In about a minute, he became aware that he was ascending with great
rapidity, and then comprehended that the whirlpool formed by the
sinking craft had subsided, shooting him and his precious charge
upward with the bubble caused by the collapsing of the waters.
He was soon at the surface of the sea, to behold his shipmates all
around him clinging to spars and fragments.
He swam to a spar near him, and, with the ropes dangling therefrom,
lashed the girl to it; then looked down upon her white, upturned face,
closed eyes and drooping hair, almost fearing that she was dead!
Far along the waters the light of the volcano, streaming luridly,
illumined that pale face and shining hair with unearthly radiance.
"Mary, speak to me!" exclaimed the young man. "Tell me that you are
alive--that you hear me calling you!"
Vain the supplication. Her closed lips remained mute, the eyes were
not opened, the sad pallor of the face remained unchanged.
Suddenly he became aware of a noise like a porpoise blowing, and
turning, beheld Tom Turk, who had just risen alongside of him,
clinging to the same spar to which he hung.
"Phew, bless my eyes!" ejaculated the old sailor, "this is sartinly
a most uncomfortable siterwation for them as has always sarved their
captins faithful."
Then he looked closely at the young girl.
"Don't be afraid," he exclaimed, "the gal is all right. That waxy
look, I'm sartin, ain't from death. She'll git over it! I never saw
one of the female sect in this siterwation afore, except once off the
Cape of Good Hope where I was wrecked in the bark _Tempest_. The poor
creatur' was in the water tied to the bottom of a boat a whole day,
but the water bein' warm, as it is here, she got over her hardship,
and I believe is now livin' parfectly healthy with a famerly of small
children."
"It seems to me, Turk," said Harry, suddenly, "that we are receding
from the volcanic inland; instead of approaching it."
"I was a-thinkin' of that same," answered Turk; "in fact the wind has
hauled round a little, and is now a-blowin' from the island, instead
of towards it."
This troubled the young man much. He now had little hope, in fact, of
Mary's being saved.
Meanwhile, through the din of the storm, the voices of Turk's
shipmates were now and then heard, as they drifted along, attached to
their respective spars.
With the strange coolness of seamen in the most perilous situations,
many of these men even ventured so far as to laugh and crack jokes as
they were tossed about on that stormy ocean; so true it is that "Jack
never despairs while there is a plank under him."
Gradually the voices became more detached as the poor fellows were
separated further and further from each other by the intervening seas,
perhaps never again to meet on earth!
Mary Manton now opened her eyes. The plank to which she was attached
had by this time drifted out of range of the stream of light, but
Harry and Turk could see the gleam of those bright orbs through the
darkness.
"Why! where am I? Harry! Harry! where are you?" exclaimed the poor
girl, while shudder after shudder convulsed her frame.
"I am here, Mary!" he answered. "Cheer up! You are with friends. We
may, in time, succeed in reaching land."
"Oh, I am so glad you are safe!" she exclaimed, impulsively, resting
her bright head on his shoulder. "Do you think we are far from land?"
"I hope not," he answered. Then, raising himself halfway out of water,
and glancing far ahead through the gloom. "God be praised! I think I
see land, now! at all events there are breakers."
Turk looked in the indicated direction, to behold a long line of white
water gleaming through the darkness.
"Ay! ay!" he shouted, in a ringing voice, "there is land, sure enough.
Cheer up, lass, we are near land after all."
"I am afraid our shipmates will not succeed in reaching it," said
Harry, "as they must be far to leeward of us by this time."
"There's no tellin'," answered Turk; "but I'm afraid not. I hope,
hows'ever, the poor lads will be picked up, between this and
to-morrow night, by some passing craft."
All night long the three were borne on, at the mercy of winds and
waves, nearer and nearer towards the line of white water.
The sufferings of poor Mary were meanwhile intense, and were fully
appreciated by the two men, notwithstanding the girl's efforts to hide
her pain and seem cheerful.
Poor child! drenched through and through, cold and feverish by turns,
with a terrible pain in her head, and half smothered by the seas
continually breaking over her, no wonder that she suffered!
Almost unconscious when the gray dawn stole upon the waters, she heard
the ringing tones of Harry Glenville, breaking like music upon her
half-bewildered senses.
"Land O! right ahead!"
Then Harry, loosening her lashings so that she could turn her head,
pointed out to her a lofty cape, covered with shrubbery, beneath which
was a beach covered with beautiful cocoanut trees, now waving wildly
in the gale!
"Thank God!" she murmured, and endeavored to smile.
The effort, however, was too much. With a faint but glad cry, she fell
back, half fainting, upon her lover's shoulder.
The drifting spar was now close upon the reef, scarcely five fathoms
ahead.
In less than half an hour it struck against one of the rocks, when
Harry and Turk, loosening their fair charge from the spar, surveyed
the water between the reef and the island.
Concluding that it was shallow enough to enable them to wade, they
made their way toward the beach, carrying the girl between them.
Soon landing, they found a clear stream, in the heart of a breadfruit
thicket, with a bank of soft turf upon which they laid the young girl.
Then Turk, with a knowing wink, drew from his pocket a small flask,
containing a red liquid.
"Though temperance!" said he, "although I ain't never signed no
pledge, still I will indulge in a draught of this, by way of
celebratin' our wonderful preservation!"
Before drinking, the old tar put the neck of the bottle between the
lips of the young girl, pouring some of the brandy down her throat.
The effect was instantaneous; color came to her cheeks, and she opened
her beautiful blue eyes, which were turned upon her lover before she
spoke.
"Harry! Where are we now? Are you perfectly safe--uninjured--"
"Ay, ay," interrupted Turk; "that's the way with her sect, always
a-thinkin' of t'others before themselves."
"I am perfectly well, and uninjured," answered Harry, as he helped
Mary to her feet. "Come, Turk," he added, to the old sailor, "let us
get some kind of a shelter up for this poor child!"
A fire was first kindled, dry wood having been found in a hollow
behind some stones. Then Harry procured a log and made a good seat for
the girl before the fire, that she might dry her saturated garments.
"This is comfortable," said Turk, as he again raised his flask to his
lips; "here we are all out of them perils which--"
Harry quietly seized his arm.
"Turk," said he, "we may need that brandy. I will buy it of you."
At this the movements of the old tar were peculiar.
He put the flask down on a flat rock; then he spread his legs apart
like a pair of compasses, and thrust both hands in his pockets,
looking at his friend with eyebrows elevated almost to the top of his
forehead.
"This," said he, slowly, "is an insultin' proposition. Avast! avast!
about buyin' my grog! D'ye think I would sell it, if it'll be of any
use to the gal? No; she is perfectly welcome to that and to a gallon,
had I as much in my possession."
"Nay, Harry," said Mary sweetly, noticing the wistful glances the old
tar cast at the bottle, even while delivering his magnanimous speech.
"Mr. Turk shall keep his liquor. I will not need it! See, I am quite
strong!" and she rose briskly to her feet.
"Mr. Turk," muttered the old sailor, "that Mr. which I ain't heard for
many a year, sounds mighty queer. It's too respectful to sich an old
hulk as me, Miss. Please drop it and call me plain Tom Turk."
"Tom Turk it shall be, then," answered the young girl.
As she spoke, there was a rustling in the shrubbery near the fire.
"Savages!" gasped Mary; "let us fly."
She shrank back, when parting the bushes a familiar form emerged to
view.
It was Captain Brand.