CHAPTER XXVIII.
DEATH SHAKES HANDS WITH THE CASTAWAYS.
The castaways arose on the following morning weaker, but refreshed. Their hunger was not so pressing as upon the previous day, but their steps were slower, and their vitality had decreased. No reference was made by either to the conversation of the previous evening. Ben's face wore a look of great sorrow he could not conceal, and Bertha by numerous little attentions and pretty little ways, that are the sole property of her sex, tried to assuage his woes. Alas, the dear girl did not know that the balm she applied to our friend's wounds made them grow the deeper and break out afresh.
Cleveland exerted himself among the cottonwoods and Bertha carried them to the river. During the morning he told her of his own life, and the nature of the tramp that had led him to his present unfortunate position. It was then for the first time she knew that Ben was the boy's champion in Jersey City, and also the stowaway whose passage her intercessions had secured at Columbus. So little had he occupied her attention on those occasions that had he not informed her she would have remained ignorant of the fact that he was Blackoat's antagonist, or the subject of Mr. Blassfeme's aquatic attentions.
"So then our wreck was not your first acquaintance with the river," she said, laughing.
"No," he replied, "that was my second bath."
Later in the day Ben, after both had been for some time engaged in silence at work on the raft, asked suddenly:
"Bertha, what is your cousin's name?"
"Arthur Blackoat," she replied.
"Arthur Blackoat!" exclaimed he in a voice of apprehension. "Why—" and then he stopped.
She waited for him to continue, but he said no more, and both resumed their work in silence.
By tearing up one of the young lady's skirts into strips and twisting these, they made cables with which Ben bound the layers of cottonwood firmly together at the corners, and in the centre. The raft being made in the style of a "mattrass" such as the celebrated jettie cribs rest upon at the mouth of the river, and which are to take Nature by the ears and show the old Dame how she should walk the straight and narrow path. Before the middle of the afternoon it would uphold Ben, and by sundown both could safely float upon it.
"We will not start in the dark," said he, "for we need daylight for the attempt, and a breeze that will give us a chance to reach the point below. Early in the morning we will give up Crusoe life, and surrender our domain back to solitude."
Both retired to the hut in high hopes of the morrow's relief, and ere they slept an earnest prayer of thanks for their safety and supplications for the success of their efforts was sent to Him who holds the whole world in the hollow of his hand.
Then they slept—soundly, if not sweetly—for both were exhausted.
Slept—while the great river went rolling by on its way to the sea.
Slept—while from the north, from the east, from the west, from thousands of meadow brooks and mountain torrents, from hundreds of springs and rills, from woodland and from moor, the dragoons of Death rode out on the flood and bore down upon them!
Ben awoke with a cry of alarm. He was wet through, and the floor of their hut was flooded! With wild thoughts surging through his brain and horrible fears palsying his heart, he sprang to his feet and looked out. And there before his eyes, glistening in the morning sunlight, lay one vast expanse of water! The island was already submerged by the flood,and the raft gone!
What words can depict the horrors of that moment! Hope? There was no hope, nothing butdespair! Great, gigantic, crushing despair! Man was powerless—he could not push back the hand of God!
The fall rains had swollen the northern rivers, and they had discharged their superabundance into the Mississippi, and that stream was now rising at the rate of a foot an hour. Already it was over the island and the cottonwood brake stood in a field of water. Ben would have been aroused sooner were it not that he had located his hut on a little knoll in the sand, higher by a foot than its surroundings. Bertha, reposing upon an elevation of boughs within still slept, but the hungry river was now licking her garments, impatient for its prey. For an instant he thought to plunge into the flood and end his miseries at once and for ever. Then he looked at the sleeping girl and the prayer sprang to his lips: "Oh God! Take me but spare her!" and kneeling by her side he gazed so fondly yet so sorrowfully into her face, and then waked her with a kiss. She looked up with a smile. But the smile quickly turned to a look of terror, at the words quietly but earnestly uttered:
"Bertha, we must die. There is no help for us now. The river is rising. It has covered the island. Our raft is gone. Death will be upon us soon."
With a wild cry the girl bounded to her feet and rushed from the hut. The turbid flood stretched all around her, and she stood in water over her feet. She turned and looked at Ben, so pityingly, as if for relief. Oh, the helpless agony of that look! He turned away his head with a groan, and did not dare to look at her again. So he stood, bowed down by unutterable woe, for some moments; the cruel waters steadily and stealthily—oh, how stealthilycreeping, creeping, creeping, with a lowplash, plash, plash, like the dull senseless whisper of a devil—rising around him. Then a little hand was placed in his and an arm laid upon his neck: "Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come thy will be done—." He raised his head and looked at her beside him. There was no fear there now, no tremor. The face upturned to heaven was the face of an angel. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." Then in a clear, silvery voice, that neither trembled or quavered, the souls of both were confided to the mercy of Him above, and His protection and care invoked for those who should remain upon earth. There was no supplication for life, for all hope now left was a hope for the life immortal. Long did that lovely being appeal to the Most High, and ere she was through, a strange quiet of mind and peace of heart had come to Ben.
When the prayer was ended they locked their arms about one another and stood—waiting for death.
Slowly, but how awfully sure, the waters rose around them. Already the ripples reached their hands as they stood erect. Soon they would be up to their breasts. A slight current was already agitating the eddy that covered the bar, and it caused the tops of the cottonwoods to nod and bend in the water. A little while longer and the current would become a torrent, irresistible in its might and fury. Once she looked up in his face, and said:
"Is it not hard to die, dear friend?"
And Ben answered: "No, perhaps it is best," and he thought death was a relief. It had lost its terrors and he did not fear it.
"Bertha," he said, "it cannot matter now,—but—it would be a last earthly happiness to me—tell me, do you love me?"
"With all my heart," she replied.
"God bless you, my darling," he cried.
"God bless us both," she said. "Good-bye," and they kissed one another a last farewell, forever.
Slowly, slowly, oh how terrible and slow, the waters crept, up, up, up! The current grew in strength. The cottonwoods no longer nodded their heads, but bent down in the flood. The feet of the castaways refused their hold upon the crumbling sand. Ben surged with all his strength against the tide. It was of no avail. Their feet slipped from under them. The river grasped them. One piercing shriek, one loud cry—and they were swept away, linked in one another's arms!