THE CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS.
The party broke up, brilliant with fun, and but half subdued by the
merriment of the day. A boat full of household servants, hampers, and
well-worn musical instruments, had already put off. Then up the James
river swept the barge, flinging gleams of quivering scarlet on the water
as she went. The men who pulled the oars accompanied the soft movement
with one of those touching negro melodies that thrill the very air with
pathetic simplicity. Lower down—for the laden boat had drifted
astern—came answering voices, the ring of banjos and the strains of a
violin, to which the flowing waters and shivering leaves whispered a low
symphony. Above the noble barge two graceful little boats, scarcely
larger than swans, cut through the waves, seemingly chasing each other
through the misty purple which began to float upon the river.
One of these tiny boats contained a man and a woman; in the other sat a
woman alone, rowing vigorously, as if fierce exercise were a relief to
her. Now and then she would almost reach the other boat, then fall back
and drift a little while. A deep manly voice and clear soprano took up
the floating music from down stream, and sent it on, refined and
glorified.
Thus the sunset came down upon the river, and the boats floated on
through purple and gold, which seemed like the atmosphere of Paradise,
and filled those young hearts with pleasant sadness.
Two or three plantations stretched down to the banks of the river, at
which some of the young ladies in the barge wished to be landed. Thus
the boats at last parted company, and those two little crafts were left
alone, with the music broken up and stars twinkling over them.
Bertha watched the other boat as it cut away from her, turning to a
shadow in the purple mist which had swallowed her friend and her lover,
leaving her quite alone. She let her oars drag: a feeling of unutterable
sadness came upon her. The disappearance of the boat seemed like a
desertion. Her head drooped on her bosom, and finding herself alone, she
began to cry, drifting away from her friends all the time.
A great, rushing noise aroused her. A steamboat, that had been stopping
for wood, swept around a curve in the river, and bore down on the very
spot where that shadowy craft had just disappeared. There was still some
dying crimson on the water, through which that monstrous boat plowed
ruthlessly, its lights glowing like great bloodshot eyes, and its prow
dipping deep, as wild boars root for food.
“Oh, my God! oh, my God!”
Uttering this cry for help, Bertha plunged her oars, with mad strength,
into the water, and shot her craft forward, until it rocked in the very
foam of the passing steamboat, which gave a shriek from its pipes, and
rushed on, roaring hoarsely.
Bertha looked up the river. In that broad pathway of foam she saw a dark
object, heaving up and down. With this came a cry, sharp and
cutting—that of a female in mortal terror; then a wild, fierce shout
from the lungs of a strong man, afraid of death—the voice of her lover.
“Oh, God! God help me!”
Bertha’s face was lifted upward—white, impassioned, resolute. Her arms
wielded those oars as heroes strike with their swords. She would save
those two, or die with them.
“Hold firmly!” she shouted. “I am coming! I am coming!”
Her voice rang over the drifting boat to which those human lives were
clinging, and it reached a man on the shore, who was sitting dreamily in
the gloom.
On she went, flying like an arrow from its bow, through the melting
foam, up the blackness of the settled waters, crying out as she went.
She saw them plainly at last, the boat keel upward, two dark objects
holding to it, all drifting with the current.
True bravery is calm and quick as lightning. Bertha slackened her oars,
and met the drifting boat cautiously, drawing nearer and nearer the path
it must take—then pouncing on it as a hawk strikes its prey, she drew
back with a woman in her arms, and a prayer on her lips.
“Lift yourself up—one arm around my neck—the other on the boat. Now!
now! Oh, thank Heaven! thank my God! she is safe! she is safe!”
In her terror and her gratitude, that half-dead girl would have clung to
the young creature who had saved her; but Bertha pushed her off.
“Have you forgotten? _He_ is there yet! You seized upon me first, and
now cling to me while he is drowning. Russell! Russell! Oh, my beloved!
my darling!”
The boats had drifted apart. That white face was turned upon her with a
terrible appeal. She cut the water with her oars, reached out her arms,
and drew them back empty, with a cry that cut the air like a knife. Then
she tore the outer garments from her person, and lifting both arms,
plunged into the water, diving downward where that face had disappeared,
like a pearl-fisher.
In the black depths of the water she found him, given up to death, his
brain vivid with ten thousand memories, his hands uplifted with a faint
struggle for life. That brave girl seized him, wound her arms around him
with superhuman strength, and dragged him up through the buoyant waters,
till they were cleft apart, and the stars shone down upon two drifting
white faces, lying close together.
One of those faces turned wildly in search of the boat. It had drifted
on, with that half-lifeless girl lying in the bottom. Those two were
alone, with the cruel waters drawing them down, and those calm stars
shining upon them without help or pity.
When he came to the surface, the man drew in a breath of life, and clung
madly to the brave creature who toiled to save him, dragging her down
with the power of his grasp. She felt herself sinking, and struggled no
more. They were together. In those arms death seemed sweet to her. His
clasp was welcome, though it did drag her down to perish.
As the water closed over those two heads, a great black shadow struck it
like a tempest. Bertha’s hair—which floated upward, as sea-weed drifts
in a storm, when she sunk—was fiercely entangled and drawn back—back
into the light of the sky, to which Waldon was also lifted, senseless,
but still clinging to her.
With the breath dead upon her lips, and water blinding her eyes, Bertha
knew that some strength not her own dragged her into a boat, that her
arms never once lost their hold of the man she loved, and that her
kisses seemed to warm the cold lips to which she gave the first glow of
her returning life.
Then his lips answered hers very faintly, as those of a sleepy child
stir to the caress of a loving mother, and his arms tightened around her
a little, while the boat rocked them like a cradle, and the flowing
waters hushed them dreamily.
A face bent over Bertha—one that shot a vague sense of pain through her
confused thoughts, and a voice that aroused her like a trumpet asked if
the man was strong enough to move, or help himself on shore.
Some other person was in danger. Cries that had come sharply up the
river were growing faint now, and a moment might be life or death to the
poor creature.
Bertha understood it all, and struggled first to her knees, holding by
an edge of the boat, then to a sitting posture, where she parted the
dripping hair from her face, and lifted her eyes to the man who had
saved them.
Egbert Fletcher stood dumb for a moment, then he seized her two hands,
and wrung them.
“God be thanked that I was in time! How—how—But this man—who is he?
Great Heavens! that cry!”
“It is Mary Noel. Go to her! go to her!” cried Bertha, forgetting
everything but the poor girl she had cast away for that more precious
life. “Waldon! Waldon! Mary is drifting to her death!”
Waldon made a weary effort to lift himself up, but his hands fell from
the side of the boat, and he lay helpless in the bottom, muttering that
he had not strength to rise.
“That man!” groaned Fletcher, between his teeth—and, for one moment, he
was tempted to leap on shore, and escape the pain of looking on his
rival; but a nobler impulse followed swiftly, conquering the other.
Without a word, he took Bertha in his arms, left her on the bank, and
leaping back into the boat, raised Waldon, and tottering under his
weight, laid him down upon the grass at the girl’s feet.
Before Bertha could speak, he was in the boat again, had flung a brandy
flask out upon the bank, and was pulling down the river, with a long,
powerful sweep of the oars, that sent his craft forward like the flight
of an eagle.
Bertha sat down on the grass, and taking Waldon’s head in her lap, held
the brandy flask to his lips. He drank greedily, and in a short time the
strong, hot liquor threw its fire and warmth into all his veins; but the
pangs of returning strength seized upon him, and he grew keenly
conscious.
“What! what! is it you?” he said. “I thought—I thought—”
“Who did you think it was?” inquired Bertha, with a terrible chill in
her voice.
He did not answer her at first, but sat up, releasing himself rather
violently from her arms.
“Who did I think it was, Bertha? Why—why, some man. Surely, it was the
strong arms of a man that lifted me from the boat.”
Bertha breathed again.
“Yes, it was a man that saved us both—a strong, brave man. We were down
in the black waters together, Russell—you and I. But for this man, we
should have been dead!”
“But how came it that you were there? Surely, I set out with another. Is
she dead? I mean Mary Noel. Tell me, Bertha Canfield, what have you done
with Mary Noel?”
“I think she is coming now,” answered Bertha, in a cold, hard voice,
that aroused Waldon to something like caution. “She was in the boat when
I left it, sensible, and, I hope, strong enough to guide it. But the man
who saved us has gone after her. He heard her voice crying out for help.
That was why he left us here.”
“Heard her voice crying out for help! And you left her to that?”
“You were sinking, and I followed you. If the last breath of life had
been on Mary Noel’s lips, I should have done that!” answered Bertha.
“What was she, that I should give your life for hers?”
“What is she? Oh, nothing but a young, helpless girl, set adrift in her
extremity by one who pretended to love her!”
“Are you blaming me, Waldon—blaming me that your life is saved?” said
Bertha, with mournful bitterness.
The anguish in her voice aroused Waldon to a sense of his cruel
ingratitude, and, more important still, to the imprudence of his own
speech.
“Blame you for saving my life—for thinking it of greater worth than that
of a girl like Mary Noel! If I seem to have done that, it is because the
water or the brandy has crazed me.”
Bertha drew a free breath.
“I think you are a little wild,” she said, shivering in her wet
garments.
“Wild? Yes—no wonder. What with the chill of the water and the heat of
the brandy, I hardly know what I have been saying. The stars reel over
my head like drunken things. So you saved my life, Bertha?”
Waldon drew close to the girl as he spoke, and took her icy hands in
his. They both shuddered a little under their wet clothes, and Bertha
felt cold at heart. His words, though he disclaimed them, chilled her
worse than the water.
“Hark!” he said, listening; “that is the dip of oars.”
He had heard them first. Was it because he had been more earnestly
listening?
The boat came up rapidly, towing the “Katydid,” and bearing Mary Noel,
who was on her knees weeping with gratitude for her deliverance.
Fletcher pushed his boat close to the bank.
“Miss Canfield, and you, sir, pray get in. We have a mile to row, and
the ladies in their wet clothes. Toss me that flask of brandy. Miss Noel
is shivering.”
Waldon got up, staggering, and taking Bertha’s hand, got into the boat.
The moment Mary Noel found Bertha by her side, she flung both arms
around her.
“But for you, Bertha, I should be dead now!”
Bertha made no answer.