THE VIRGIN MARY.
"A weary weed, tossed to and fro,
Drearily drenched in the ocean brine,
Soaring high and sinking low,
Lashed along without will of mine;
Sport of the spoom of the surging sea;
Flung on the foam, afar and near,
Mark my manifold mystery--
Growth and grace in their place appear."
With the boy clasped to his heart, the doctor sat beside the altar of
the chapel during all the direful strife without, shielding his little
charge from the clouds of fine sand and rubbish that every few minutes
came swirling within the temple, dashing the padre's candlesticks into
battered lumps of brass on the pavement, and tearing to atoms the votive
offerings hung around the walls by the pirates. But, as if in mercy to
the trustful souls lying there, the Virgin Mary still looked down in
sweet pity upon them, and the little chapel stood unharmed.
When at last, however, the hurricane's back was broken, and Aeolus had
reined up his maddened chargers and curbed their flying wings, and when
all the demons of the wind had gone moaningly back to their caverns in
the clouds, the doctor arose, and with the boy beside him, knelt
devoutly before the altar while he uttered a fervent prayer of
thanksgiving.
"Come, my Henri, now we may go out and see if we can find something to
eat and drink. You are weak and hungry, my poor little boy; but you
shall not suffer much longer."
That strong man, with the heart of a gentle woman, had no thought of how
ill, and famished, and thirsty he himself was from the terrible torture
he had endured. No, he only thought of the child who had saved him.
In front of the chapel the sand and bushes were piled up in ridgy heaps,
the coral wall around the cemetery had been thrown down, while the flat
head-stones over the pirates' graves had disappeared entirely. Not so,
however, with the white slabs near by where those poor doomed women were
lying; for the hurricane had spared their tombs, and a pall of pure
white sand was sprinkled evenly over their remains. Bending over them
was the trunk of the cocoa-nut, with its top stripped and its leafless
branches quivering in the wind; while from below them streamed out the
long, thin green silk rope which had so often served Captain Brand, the
pirate, for his private executions. Near at hand lay the trestle on
which the doctor had been stretched--caught by the base of the cocoa-nut
column, and half buried in sand--while the cruel strips of raw-hide
which had lashed the victim down were tied and twisted into a maze of
complicated knots by the nimble fingers of the winds.
The doctor started, and his half-closed eyes shot out gleams of anger as
he beheld the unconscious implements designed for his torturing murder;
and leaving the child at the doorway to the chapel, he sallied out,
detached the rope, loosened the trestle from its sandy bed, and placed
them in a corner of the chapel.
Then carefully picking his way, with the boy in his great arms, over
the trees and debris which obstructed the pathway, he speedily
reached the site on which had stood the sheds of the "Centipede's"
crew. Fire, water, and wind had done their work effectually, though
the fire had partially spared the detached storehouse and shed which
he had shared with the infamous padre. All else was a ruin of loose
blocks of stone, broken tiles, nearly buried in banks of sand. From a
well in the once busy court-yard, and which had also escaped the
devouring elements, the doctor drew a bucket or two of water, in which
he slaked the boy's thirst and then his own, and afterward poured water
over their bodies. Then, from a still smouldering beam which puffed out
at intervals a thin curl of smoke from beneath one of the sheds, he
lit a fire in the court-yard, while from the wreck of the storeroom he
succeeded in rescuing some hard biscuit and a ham. This last he tore
in shreds, and placing them on sticks before the fire, they were
thus enabled to make a hearty meal, first providing for the wants of
the child, however--soaking the biscuit for him, as if it were his first
duty on earth. Again raising the boy in his arms, he passed from the
ruined sheds and bent his steps toward Captain Brand's former dwelling.
The road was heaped with shells and sand, strewed with shoals of dead
fish and wounded or dying birds, while the wreck of a boat, mingled with
the timbers and planks of the jetty to the basin, were lying pell-mell
on the beach of the little cove. Casting his eyes around in search
of the once spacious dwelling, with its vaults, veranda, and saloon, he
could hardly at first trace a vestige of the structure. The powder,
more destructive even than the hurricane, had tossed walls and
building into a confused heap of rubbish; then came the wind and sand
on top of the rocks which had tumbled down by the concussion of the
first explosion, and then the water, packing all together as if no
habitation had ever existed there. The doctor walked slowly around
until he came to the angle where the kitchen once was, and there, three
fourths hidden beneath a mass of blackened stones and charred timber,
peered forth the white skeleton of a human being. The flesh had been
seared and burned from the face and skull by the instantaneous flash
of the powder, and there lay the remains of Babette, whitely bleached,
as if she had been thrown a lifeless corpse on the sea-beach. A few
yards below this frightful spectacle lay a number of shattered boxes
and trunks, then a confused bundle of clothes, and a sandy saturated
collection of kitchen utensils and crockery. Yes, the poor dumb woman,
the creature and witness of many a cruel scene, ignorant or uncertain
of the warning given her by the master she loved, had fallen another
tribute to his long list of victims.
The doctor only waited long enough to select a few necessary articles
from the heterogeneous heap before him, and then, with the child still
clinging contentedly to his shoulder, he returned to the chapel.