CHAPTER XXII.THE RESCUE.
“The dream is over, and I standAlone upon the sun-kissed shore;My heart is lone—empty each hand;My love comes here no more.Oh, hush! ye waves; dance not in playWhen I am waiting here;Ye breezes, pass upon your way,There is no pastime here.“Oh, love, lost love, the world shall knowNo more of this unfinished tale;It shall not taunt with laughter lowBecause I chance to fail.And so, I stand alone and muteUpon the bare, forsaken shore,And broken is Love’s fairy lute.I hear its notes no more.”
“The dream is over, and I standAlone upon the sun-kissed shore;My heart is lone—empty each hand;My love comes here no more.Oh, hush! ye waves; dance not in playWhen I am waiting here;Ye breezes, pass upon your way,There is no pastime here.“Oh, love, lost love, the world shall knowNo more of this unfinished tale;It shall not taunt with laughter lowBecause I chance to fail.And so, I stand alone and muteUpon the bare, forsaken shore,And broken is Love’s fairy lute.I hear its notes no more.”
“The dream is over, and I standAlone upon the sun-kissed shore;My heart is lone—empty each hand;My love comes here no more.Oh, hush! ye waves; dance not in playWhen I am waiting here;Ye breezes, pass upon your way,There is no pastime here.
“The dream is over, and I stand
Alone upon the sun-kissed shore;
My heart is lone—empty each hand;
My love comes here no more.
Oh, hush! ye waves; dance not in play
When I am waiting here;
Ye breezes, pass upon your way,
There is no pastime here.
“Oh, love, lost love, the world shall knowNo more of this unfinished tale;It shall not taunt with laughter lowBecause I chance to fail.And so, I stand alone and muteUpon the bare, forsaken shore,And broken is Love’s fairy lute.I hear its notes no more.”
“Oh, love, lost love, the world shall know
No more of this unfinished tale;
It shall not taunt with laughter low
Because I chance to fail.
And so, I stand alone and mute
Upon the bare, forsaken shore,
And broken is Love’s fairy lute.
I hear its notes no more.”
For an instant, that seemed the length of eternity, Jess stood on the bank, watching, with strained eyes, the spot where the boat and its occupant had gone down to death among the treacherous lilies that floated to and fro on the bosom of the waters.
In all the after years of her life she could never fully explain just how it was accomplished. The girl was only conscious of seizing a little skiff that floated idly near at hand, and rowing for dear life to the scene of the catastrophe. She was indifferent to the awful danger, though she had just witnessed a cruel example of it. Her one thought was to seek death in the same spot where the victim of her foolish caprice had gone down to his untimely fate.
In that moment her athletic powers stood the girl in good stead, for the arms that wielded the oars were like steel, which told in the powerful strokes with which she sent the little skiff fairly flying over the placid water.
In less time than it takes to describe it, Jess had reached the spot; but her weight was too slight to capsize the boat, though she could feel it being drawn down—down—down.
She reached out and grasped the lilies, and as she did so, the boat disappeared, and she was left struggling in the water, with apparently the same fate which her hapless companion met awaiting her.
And as she realized this, she realized also that her hands were grasping something else beside the slimy stems of the lilies. One glance, and the heart in her bosom seemed to fairly leap with wild exultation and joy. Her fingers were clutching tightly the hand of the man whom she had told herself that she would rescue, or she would meet the same fate which had befallen him.
By the strange ministration of Providence, in reaching out for the lilies, he had fallen among them, and the thick network of stems had borne him up, despite the underground springs which would have carried him down had he not fallen in just the spot where fate had placed him.
He had not lost consciousness, but was struggling with might and main to keep his head above water.
A cry broke from Jess’ lips, and her grasp tightened on his hand.
“Courage!” cried the girl. “I will save you! Keep still and let me float you along. I—I am an expert swimmer.”
“No, no! Save yourself!” he cried, white to the lips. “I would only hamper you. I have nothing left in life worth the effort of living for. To you life is sweet; life is everything. Save yourself, girl—never mind me.”
If the girl heard, she did not heed his words, but grasping him the more firmly with one hand, with the other she struck out into the stream again, dragging him with her by main force.
He was sorry that she had undertaken such an herculean task—this slender child—yet he dared not struggle to free himself from her grasp, knowing that it would not only retard her progress, but make it doubly hard for her.
With a courage that was almost superhuman, Jess struck out, dragging her living burden after her.
And with the strength of an Amazon, strength which had been developed by her out-of-door life and daring exploits, the girl passed safely over the mouth of the undergroundcurrent, which yawned wide to swallow her, and struck out valiantly for the shore.
When she was within a rod or so of the bank, her splendid strength and heroic courage seemed suddenly to fail her, and when within reach of safety by but a few more strokes, she suddenly sank back.
It was at this critical moment that he whom she had thus far brought from a watery grave came to the rescue.
The water was up as far as his neck, but he knew that the danger was past. Catching the lithe form in his arms as she sank backward in the water, he succeeded in bringing her quickly to the shore.
When Jess returned to consciousness, she found herself back in the old Caldwell farmhouse, in her own bed-chamber, with Lucy bending over her.
“What is the matter? What has happened?” she exclaimed, with wide-open eyes staring into Lucy’s white face. But before a reply could be given, she cried out, shrilly:
“Oh, I remember it all—the water lilies, and Mr. Moore going for them because I dared him to—the accident, and how I tried to save him, for he could not swim—and how everything grew black around me when within but a few yards of the bank!”
“Mr. Moore turned the tables then, and saved you,” said Lucy. “You had brought him to wading depths; the rest was easy. It gave us all a terrible scare when he brought you in, dripping wet and white in the face as one drowned! And then he explained, in a word, almost, how it had all come about.”
“It was all my fault!” sobbed Jess. “Will he ever forgive me? I deserve that he should despise me to the end of his life. If he had died! Oh! oh! oh!”
“Never mind conjuring up such a possibility,” declared Lucy. “Be glad that he did not, and never send any human being into such danger again. I hope this will be a warning.”
“Don’t say any more,” sobbed Jess, pitifully. “Indeed, I feel bad enough over it. Will you tell him that for me, Lucy?”
The farmer’s daughter shrugged her shoulders. Theturn affairs had taken was not at all to her liking. Jess and Mr. Moore were getting along altogether too famously in their friendship to suit her. They had not known each other twenty-four hours, and now Mr. Moore owed his life to the girl, and she, in turn, owed hers to him.
It was with some little trepidation that Jess entered the presence of Mr. Moore, late that afternoon. The feeling was so strong within her breast that he would hate her for sending him to the death which he missed so narrowly.
He held out his strong, white hand to her, with a grave smile which disarmed her fears at once.
“I am so sorry it happened,” she faltered. “Do you forgive me?”
“Certainly,” he responded. “That should go without saying. I may also add, but for that affair I should never have known what a brave and daring little girl you are, I have to thank you profoundly for the life you have saved to me, useless though I find it, and wish also to add that hereafter it is to be devoted to you and your interests, if you will allow it to be so. If life and living were sweet to me, I should thank you for giving me a chance to continue them.”
Jess was puzzled at his words. She was too young, and had too little experience with the world, to comprehend them fully.
The entrance of the family interrupted the reply she would have made him.
But from that hour the friendship between the two ripened wonderfully. Each hour little Jess fell deeper and deeper under the glamour of a spell which she could not cast off—the glamour of a young girl’s awakened heart, with its sweet throbbings, proclaiming that it had learned its first lesson from the book of love, and the lesson enthraled her.
What Mr. Moore’s feelings were it was hard to conjecture.
One moment he hated all womankind, for the sake of the one he had found so fair and so false—beautiful Queenie Trevalyn, whom he had loved too well, and to his bitter cost.
Then he found himself softening toward one of the hated sex—little Jess, whose heart was as innocent and pure as a little babe’s.
He wondered if she would ever have the heart to draw a man on to declare his love, and then, when she found that he was not possessed of wealth, discard him as unconcernedly as she would a withered flower of which she had grown tired.
Had it not been for his cruel lesson in that unhappy past, he might have looked with favor upon the girl whom his uncle picked out for him to wed—might even have learned to care for her, though she was little more than a child, while he was a man of the world, too used to finding all things different from what they appeared on the surface.
A week passed, and during that time he was thrown constantly into the companionship of Jess.
To him she was nothing more than an innocent, young girl, a very happy, thoughtless child; one who would grow, perhaps, in the years to come, into a very interesting woman. Further than that, his thoughts regarding Jess never traveled.
He remained at the farm simply because the cause which would have taken him down to Louisiana—to see this selfsame little Jess—was now removed.
He had now no need to go to the mountain, as it were, for the mountain had come to him.
He wondered idly at the interest the girl seemed to take in his society, with never a thought as to whether he was rich or poor. But, then, she was very young; all such worldly knowledge as to the importance of making a good match—that is, marrying a man who had money—would come to her later.
And at the thought a bitter smile curved his lips, a smile accompanied by a heavy sigh.