OUT IN THE STORM.
It stormed heavily that night. The rain drifted across Diamond Island in
sheets. The great trees swayed and bent under whirling rushes of wind,
that threatened to uproot them. The waters of the river were dark as
midnight, save where the wind plowed them into furrows and the blue
lightning struck them.
Bertha watched the darkness from her window while it gathered like a
pall over the island. She had dressed herself carefully in the
afternoon, braiding her rich hair tightly in a thick roll back of her
head, and thrusting through its coils a small poniard, very slender and
keen, but elaborated with jewels at the haft, as if intended for an
ornament. It was a pretty trifle, which she had worn at private
theatricals in her school-days. In the dead blackness of her mourning
this bright object took the lightning now and then, as it flamed across
the window, and seemed to flash back living fire.
When it was quite dark, Bertha threw a waterproof cloak over her, and,
with her head buried in the hood, went out into the storm. Directly,
another figure, also shrouded in a cloak, glided after her, close as a
shadow—had one been possible that stormy night—until she came to the log
bridge just as Bertha went down under it.
The second figure stood upon the logs, looking over. All at once it made
a leap, and almost upset a tiny boat that Bertha was pushing out of the
inlet toward the raging waters of the river. A shrill cry broke from
her, which the storm seized upon and smothered. She dropped an oar, and
it was being carried swiftly away, but Lydia snatched at it and dragged
it back.
“Hand the oars to me; I am the strongest. You have been sick, and might
give out,” said the girl quietly, as if she had been expected to take
that very place.
“Lydia! oh, Lydia! why will you follow me so? Is not one enough for
danger like this?”
“No,” answered Lydia, bending to her oars, and shooting her craft into
the great stream; “one is not enough. Don’t try to cheat me; it’s not to
be done. Up stream, I reckon?”
“Yes; but give me the oars now—I want the work.”
“Take them, if you must; but keep to the bank. The current will be too
much for us if you don’t.”
It would have proved too much at any ordinary time, for those round,
white arms would have given way; but Bertha was gifted with superhuman
strength that night, and battled the waves as if they had been wild
beasts. She took no heed of the current nor the swirl of the winds, but
cut through them both with mad heroism.
All at once the black shadows of some vessel, reefed close and swinging
at anchor, rose in her path. She could just discern the skeleton spars
piercing the darkness and veered a little, passing within a few feet of
her. A crash of thunder, a lurid sheet of lightning, and for some
seconds all the river seemed aflame, and the yacht they were passing lay
upon that sea of fire with every rope and spar revealed with the
vividness of noonday.
Bertha saw nothing more than a flood of blinding light and a ship at
anchor, but a sharp cry, which ended in a wail, broke from Lydia, who
sprang up in the boat and flung out her arms, as if appealing to some
one for help.
During some moments both the boat and that spectral craft had been
wrapped in one great blaze of fire. The hood had fallen back from
Bertha’s face, revealing its deadly whiteness, and Lydia’s slight figure
rose at its full height in the boat, clearly revealing itself as she
uttered that cry.
That picture created by the lightning vanished with it, and was buried
in darkness again. Bertha, always looking forward, like a sibyl
inspired, kept on her way, giving no heed to the craft she had passed,
nor to Lydia’s cry. The storm was still unabated, the air was full of
shooting rain which, pierced by lightning flashes, mingled gold and
silver together for a moment, then merged into the inky darkness of the
river through which that boat was so desperately urged.
Since that one wild cry Lydia had remained silent in the bow of the
boat; but her frame trembled from some cause more potent than the wet or
cold, and when a gleam of lightning shot athwart them she keenly watched
the face of her companion, and saw that it was like marble, and that her
eyes were large and glittering, as if they drank in fire from the
lightning.
Indeed, Bertha was unconscious of danger. Lydia understood the peril,
but braved it without shrinking; though she never expected to climb the
shore alive. Occasionally they saw lights gleaming through the drifting
blackness; but no habitations were visible, even in outline. Those
glittering sparks of fire bespoke their presence on the bank, but that
was all. Now Lydia pulled up stream. Bertha had fallen into thought,
given up the oars, and sat motionless, folded in her cloak.
“Where are we going? When can we stop?” inquired Lydia, resting a moment
and gasping for breath.
“We shall know—there will be light,” answered Bertha, hoarse and
shivering.
The boat was drifting back. Lydia worked her oars again. According to
her best calculation, they must be near Willow Bend, possibly close
there, for a dense mass of blackness lay at their left, heaving up and
down like billows of ink; and, farther on, she saw two or three
star-like lights. That blackness might be those vast willows on the
verge of Mr. Noel’s lawn. The lights might burn in his windows.
Lydia, yielding to fatigue and a vague wish for shelter, pushed her boat
close to the bank, until great sweeping branches trailed over them like
wet banners, and the moan of heavy foliage, lashed by the wind, came out
from the black masses over head, like lost spirits wailing in heaped-up
thunder-clouds. Beneath these heaving branches, burning dimly through
the storm, were those lights.
Lydia believed this to be Willow Bend, and rested a little, waiting for
Bertha to speak. But the girl said nothing, and did not seem to know how
those long wet branches were lashing them.
All at once another great sheet of lightning rolled down the river,
poured itself into the writhing willows, and wrapped a great mansion
house, near by, in quivering flame. Lydia bent her face down to her
bosom, closing her eyes to the awful glare. Bertha rose so quickly that
the boat rocked with dangerous violence, dipping water. She sank down
again in a dark heap; for following this awful surge of lightning came a
peal of thunder, booming over them with reverberations that seemed to
shake the very earth; and out from the darkness, which rolled back upon
everything, shot up a spire of flame, red and slender, like the tongue
of some huge serpent, quivering through the awful gloom.
The lightning had struck a dead pine tree, up stream, and was leaping up
the splintered trunk, devouring it in the midst of the black storm.
Bertha once more lifted her head. Flashes of this lurid light shot in
and out through the willows, gleams of it reached the house, revealing
its outlines, and blotting them out again, fitfully.
“It lights me on!”
Bertha caught a branch of the willow and swung herself on shore as she
spoke. The next instant she was gone.