A PERIOD OF TWENTY-THREE YEARS
It took hours for the overjoyed wife and mother and the long-lost
husband and father to tell their stories. Alice's was told first, and
was followed by young Quincy's recital of his life at Fernborough, his
four years at Harvard, and the story of the returned bill of exchange
leading him to Europe, and his search for his mother in Vienna which
ended with such happiness for all. Finally, the father began:
“On the night of the collision, after seeing you safely started in the
life-boat with the last of the passengers, Captain Hawkins thought of
a small boat on the upper deck which had been overlooked in the general
scramble to get away from the doomed _Altonia_. Shouting to me to follow
him, the Captain rushed up the ladder to the railing, and together we
started to lower the boat. It was raised about three feet above the
deck, being held in position by two supports shaped like a letter X. I
had already loosened the ropes on my side, and then tried to kick out
the support nearest me. It stuck, and finally I got down on my hands and
knees thinking I could force it out better in that position. The water
was steadily pouring in at the ship's side, and it was only a question
of a few minutes before the _Altonia_ would founder. Finally I gave one
mighty push, the support gave away, the boat came down upon me like a
ton weight,--and that was the last I knew until I awoke in a large room
full of single beds, and a kindly faced old priest told me I was in the
Hospital of San Marco, Palermo, Sicily.
“My God, the shock when I found that my sleep,--for such it was to
me,--had lasted over twenty-three years! What thoughts went through
my mind! Had you, Alice, been saved or lost? If saved, were you still
living, and my son, whom I had never seen, was he living? Were Aunt Ella
and my father and mother and my sisters still alive? I was roused from
my revery by the good Father Paolo.
“He told me that the week before he had been summoned to the death-bed
of an old seaman, Captain Vando, who had confessed that over twenty
years before, while sailing from Boston to Palermo, two days after a
very bad fog, he had picked up at sea a small open boat in which were
two men, both of whom at first seemed dead. One, it was Captain Hawkins,
was beyond all help; he was frozen to death,--frozen to death, Alice,
in an effort to save my life, for, besides my own coat, his was found
tucked around me.
“After hours of work, I was brought back to life,--but a life worse than
death. The Captain told Father Paolo that my mind was a blank, I could
remember nothing of my past, I did not know my name. Then temptation
came to Captain Vando. He took from me my belt, in which I had some
English gold, a few English bank-notes, and the five bills of exchange,
each for a thousand pounds. The latter he did not dare to dispose of,
but the money he appropriated to his own use. He soon found I could be
of no use to him on ship-board, so, on his arrival at Palermo, he sold
me to a rich planter, for a hundred lire, and I was put to work in the
orange groves.
“Captain Vando in his confession told Father Paolo that he still had my
belt containing the bills of exchange, and before his death he delivered
these over to the priest. After the Captain's death, Father Paolo went
to Signor Matrosa, who, when confronted with the facts, admitted I had
been sold to him, and that I was known under the name of Alessandro
Nondra, but he told him that I had been mixed up in a fight, and had
received such a bad wound that I had been sent to the hospital. One of
his managers, an Italian, had married an English girl, and they had a
daughter with light hair, and blue eyes. It seems I had been sent to his
house one day with a message, and when I saw his daughter, I cried
out, 'Alice, Alice,' and caught the girl in my arms. Her father was so
enraged that he picked up a gun lying near at hand, and gave me such
a terrific blow on the head that I was knocked senseless. I remember
nothing of it, but mistaking Anita for you was, undoubtedly, my first
approach to my former consciousness. That scene was probably the one
which you saw in your dream, Alice, and to think that afterwards you
should be so near me in Palermo, and neither of us know it!
“At the hospital the doctors found that the blow on my head had caused
but a comparatively unimportant scalp wound, but, in dressing it,
they found that at some earlier time my skull had been crushed. They
performed the delicate operation of trepanning the skull, and when I
came out from the effects of the ether, my mind was in the same state as
it had been twenty-three years before.
“After that my recovery was rapid. Father Paolo made Signor Matrosa pay
me thirty-three hundred lire as my wages for the many years I had worked
for him, and I gave a thousand of it to the manager's daughter, to whom,
in a way, I owed my return to my natural self. The rest I gave to Father
Paolo for the use of his church.
“Luckily, in my belt that Captain Vando had appropriated was my
passport. I went to the United States consul at Palermo, Mr. Drake, had
the passport viséd, and got him to cash one of the bills of exchange for
me. Suddenly, one day, the thought came into my mind, had you, Alice,
thinking me dead, married again? I decided to find out before the
announcement of my return to the land of the living could be spread
broadcast, and I persuaded Mr. Drake to keep back the information
from his official report for a while, at least. This he was able to do
easily, as he was on the point of going away for a vacation of a few
months, and the other members of the consulate knew very little of my
case.
“I decided to continue bearing the name of Alessandro Nondra for a
while, at least, and I knew I could make a living in some way when my
present funds were exhausted. How I regretted the cashing of that bill
of exchange, because I knew it would eventually lead to my discovery;
but I was so changed, with my iron-gray hair, and Van Dyke beard, that I
felt I could escape detection until I knew whether my wife still waited
for me or not.
“I decided to make my way north to Ostend, and would cross from there to
England, where I felt sure I could find some news of you, or Aunt Ella.
I stopped off here in Vienna for a day or two. When I heard my son
called by name this morning I could not resist, and instead of finding
my son alone, I have also found his mother, my wife.”