“I cieli immensi narranoDel grand’ Iddio la gloria.”
{Illustration: “SHE GAVE HERSELF ENTIRELY UP TO THE JOY OF SONG."}
Her first notes poured forth with a sweetness and fullness that arrested the attention of all on board the ship. It was the first time she had sung, as she afterward said, since Langhetti had left Hong-Kong, and she gave herself entirely up to the joy of song. Her voice, long silent, instead of having been injured by the sorrow through which she had passed, was pure, full, marvelous, and thrilling. A glow like some divine inspiration passed over the marble beauty of her classic features; her eyes themselves seemed to speak of all that glory of which she sang, as the sacred fire of genius flashed from them.
At those wonderful notes, so generous and so penetrating with their sublime meaning, all on board the ship looked and listened with amazement. The hands of the steersman held the wheel listlessly. Brandon’s own soul was filled with the fullest effects. He stood watching her figure, with its inspired lineaments, and thought of the fabled prodigies of music spoken of in ancient story. He thought of Orpheus hushing all animated nature to calm by the magic of his song. At last all thoughts of his own left him, and nothing remained but that which the song of Beatrice swept over his spirit.
But Beatrice saw nothing and heard nothing except the scene before her, with its grand inspiration and her own utterance of its praise. Brandon’s own soul was more and more overcome; the divine voice thrilled over his heart; he shuddered and uttered a low sigh of rapture.
“My God!” he exclaimed as she ended; “I never before heard any thing like this. I never dreamed of such a thing. Is there on earth another such a voice as yours? Will I ever again hear any thing like it? Your song is like a voice from those heavens of which you sing. It is a new revelation.”
He poured forth these words with passionate impetuosity. Beatrice smiled.
“Langhetti used to praise me,” she simply rejoined.
“You terrify me,” said he.
“Why?” asked Beatrice, in wonder.
“Because your song works upon me like a spell, and all my soul sinks away, and all my will is weakened to nothingness.”
Beatrice looked at him with a mournful smile. “Then you have the true passion for music,” she said, “if this be so. For my part it is the joy of my life, and I hope to give up all my life to it.”
“Do you expect to see Langhetti when you reach England?” asked Brandon, abruptly.
“I hope so,” said she, musingly.
The character of Beatrice unfolded more and more every day, and every new development excited the wonder of Brandon.
She said once that music was to her like the breath of life, and indeed it seemed to be; for now, since Brandon had witnessed her powers, he noticed how all her thoughts took a coloring from this. What most surprised him was her profound acquirements in the more difficult branches of the art. It was not merely the case of a great natural gift of voice. Her whole soul seemed imbued with those subtle influences which music can most of all bestow. Her whole life seemed to have been passed in one long intercourse with the greatest works of the greatest masters. All their works were perfectly well known to her. A marvelous memory enabled her to have their choicest productions at command; and Brandon, who in the early part of his life had received a careful musical education, knew enough about it to estimate rightly the full extent of the genius of his companion, and to be astonished thereat.
Her mind was also full of stories about the lives, acts, and words of the great masters. For her they formed the only world with which she cared to be acquainted, and the only heroes whom she had power to admire. All this flowed from one profound central feeling—namely, a deep and all-absorbing love of this most divine art. To her it was more than art. It was a new faculty to him who possessed it. It was the highest power of utterance—such utterance as belongs to the angels; such utterance as, when possessed by man, raises him almost to an equality with them.
Brandon found out every day some new power in her genius. Now her voice was unloosed from the bonds which she had placed upon it. She sang, she said, because it was better than talking. Words were weak—song was all expression. Nor was it enough for her to take the compositions of others. Those were infinitely better, she said, than any thing which she could produce; but each one must have his own native expression; and there were times when she had to sing from herself. To Brandon this seemed the most amazing of her powers. In Italy the power of improvisation is not uncommon, and Englishmen generally imagine that this is on account of some peculiar quality of the Italian language. This is not the case. One can improvise in any language; and Brandon found that Beatrice could do this with the English.
“It is not wonderful,” said she, in answer to his expression of astonishment, “it is not even difficult. There is an art in doing this, but, when you once know it, you find no trouble. It is rhythmic prose in a series of lines. Each line must contain a thought. Langhetti found no difficulty in making rhyming lines, but rhymes are not necessary. This rhythmic prose is as poetic as any thing can be. All the hymns of the Greek Church are written on this principle. So are the Te Deum and the Gloria. So were all the ancient Jewish psalms. The Jews improvised. I suppose Deborah’s song, and perhaps Miriam’s, are of this order.”
“And you think the art can be learned by every one?”
“No, not by every one. One must have a quick and vivid imagination, and natural fluency—but these are all. Genius makes all the difference between what is good and what is bad. Sometimes you have a song of Miriam that lives while the world lasts, sometimes a poor little song like one of mine.”
“Sing to me about music,” said Brandon, suddenly.
Beatrice immediately began an improvisation. But the music to which she sang was lofty and impressive, and the marvelous sweetness of her voice produced an indescribable effect. And again, as always when she sang, the fashion of her face was changed, and she became transfigured before his eyes. It was the same rhythmic prose of which she had been speaking, sung according to the mode in which the Gloria is chanted, and divided into bars of equal time.
Brandon, as always, yielded to the spell of her song. To him it was an incantation. Her own strains varied to express the changing sentiment, and at last, as the song ended, it seemed to die away in melodious melancholy, like the dying strain of the fabled swan.
“Sing on!” he exclaimed, fervently; “I would wish to stand and hear your voice forever.”
A smile of ineffable sweetness came over her face. She looked at him, and said nothing. Brandon bowed his head, and stood in silence.
Thus ended many of their interviews. Slowly and steadily this young girl gained over him an ascendency which he felt hourly, and which was so strong that he did not even struggle against it. Her marvelous genius, so subtle, so delicate, yet so inventive and quick, amazed him. If he spoke of this, she attributed every thing to Langhetti. “Could you but see him,” she would say, “I should seem like nothing!”
“Has he such a voice?”
“Oh! he has no voice at all. It is his soul,” she would reply. “He speaks through the violin. But he taught me all that I know. He said my voice was God’s gift. He had a strange theory that the language of heaven and of the angels was music, and that he who loved it best on earth made his life and his thoughts most heavenly.”
“You must have been fond of such a man.”
“Very,” said Beatrice, with the utmost simplicity. “Oh, I loved him so dearly!”
But in this confession, so artlessly made, Brandon saw only a love that was filial or sisterly. “He was the first one,” said Beatrice, “who showed me the true meaning of life. He exalted his art above all other arts, and always maintained that it was the purest and best thing which the world possessed. This consoled him for exile, poverty, and sorrow of many kinds.”
“Was he married?”
Beatrice looked at Brandon with a singular smile. “Married! Langhetti married! Pardon me; but the idea of Langhetti in domestic life is so ridiculous.”
“Why? The greatest musicians have married.”
Beatrice looked up to the sky with a strange, serene smile. “Langhetti has no passion out of art,” she said. “As an artist he is all fire, and vehemence, and enthusiasm. He is aware of all human passions, but only as an artist. He has only one love, and that is music. This is his idol. He seems to me himself like a song. But all the raptures which poets and novelists apply to lovers are felt by him in his music. He wants nothing while he has this. He thinks the musician’s life the highest life. He says those to whom the revelations of God were committed were musicians. As David and Isaiah received inspiration to the strains of the harp, so, he says, have Bach and Mozart, Handel and Haydn, Beethoven and Mendelssohn. And where, indeed,” she continued, in a musing tone, half soliloquizing, “where, indeed, can man rise so near heaven as when he listens to the inspired strains of these lofty souls?”
“Langhetti,” said Brandon, in a low voice, “does not understand love, or he would not put music in its place.”
“Yes,” said Beatrice. “We spoke once about that. He has his own ideas, which he expressed to me.”
“What were they?”
“I will have to say them as he said them,” said she. “For on this theme he had to express himself in music.”
Brandon waited in rapt expectation. Beatrice began to sing:
“Fairest of all most fair,Young Love, how comest thouUnto the soul?Still as the evening breezeOver the starry wave—The moonlit wave—“The heart lies motionless;So still, so sensitive;Love fans the breeze.Lo! at his lightest touch,The myriad ripples rise,And murmur on.“And ripples rise to waves,And waves to rolling seas,Till, far and wide,The endless billows roll,In undulations long,For evermore!”
Her voice died away into a scarce audible tone, which sank into Brandon’s heart, lingering and dying about the last word, with touching and unutterable melancholy. It was like the lament of one who loved. It was like the cry of some yearning heart.
In a moment Beatrice looked at Brandon with a swift, bright smile. She had sung these words as an artist. For a moment Brandon had thought that she was expressing her own feelings. But the bright smile on her face contrasted so strongly with the melancholy of her voice that he saw this was not so.
“Thus,” she said, “Langhetti sang about it: and I have never forgotten his words.”
The thought came to Brandon, is it not truer than she thinks, that “she loves him very dearly?” as she said.
“You were born to be an artist,” he said, at last.
Beatrice sighed lightly. “That’s what I never can be, I am afraid,” said she. “Yet I hope I may be able to gratify my love for it. Art,” she continued, musingly, “is open to women as well as to men; and of all arts none are so much so as music. The interpretation of great masters is a blessing to the world. Langhetti used to say that these are the only ones of modern times that have received heavenly inspiration. They correspond to the Jewish prophets. He used to declare that the interpretation of each was of equal importance. To man is given the interpretation of the one, but to woman is given the interpretation of much of the other. Why is not my voice, if it is such as he said, and especially the feeling within me, a Divine call to go forth upon this mission of interpreting the inspired utterances of the great masters of modern days?
“You,” she continued, “are a man, and you have a purpose.” Brandon started, but she did not notice it. “You have a purpose in life,” she repeated. “Your intercourse with me will hereafter be but an episode in the life that is before you. I am a girl, but I too may wish to have a purpose in life—suited to my powers; and if I am not able to work toward it I shall not be satisfied.”
“How do you know that I have a purpose, as you call it?” asked Brandon, after a pause.
“By the expression of your face, and your whole manner when you are alone and subside into yourself,” she replied, simply.
“And of what kind?” he continued.
“That I do not seek to know,” she replied; “but I know that it must be deep and all-absorbing. It seems to me to be too stern for Love; you are not the man to devote yourself to Avarice: possibly it may be Ambition, yet somehow I do not think so.”
“What do you think it is, then?” asked Brandon, in a voice which had died away, almost to a whisper.
She looked at him earnestly; she looked at him pityingly. She looked at him also with that sympathy which might be evinced by one’s Guardian Angel, if that Being might by any chance become visible. She leaned toward him, and spoke low in a voice only audible to him:
“Something stronger than Love, and Avarice, and Ambition,” said she. “There can be only one thing.”
“What?”
“Vengeance!” she said, in a voice of inexpressible mournfulness.
Brandon looked at her wonderingly, not knowing how this young girl could have divined his thoughts. He long remained silent.
Beatrice folded her hands together, and looked pensively at the sea.
“You are a marvelous being,” said Brandon, at length. “Can you tell me any more?”
“I might,” said she, hesitatingly; “but I am afraid you will think me impertinent.”
“No,” said Brandon. “Tell me, for perhaps you are mistaken.”
“You will not think me impertinent, then? You will only think that I said so because you asked me?”
“I entreat you to believe that it is impossible for me to think otherwise of you than you yourself would wish.”
“Shall I say it, then?”
“Yes.”
Her voice again sank to a whisper. “Your name is not Wheeler.”
Brandon looked at her earnestly. “How did you learn that?”
“By nothing more than observation.”
“What is my name?”
“Ah, that is beyond my power to know,” said she with a smile. “I have only discovered what you are not. Now you will not think me a spy, will you?” she continued, in a pleading voice.
Brandon smiled on her mournfully as she stood looking at him with her dark eyes upraised.
“A spy!” he repeated. “To me it is the sweetest thought conceivable that you could take the trouble to notice me sufficiently.” He checked himself suddenly, for Beatrice looked away, and her hands which had been folded together clutched each other nervously. “It is always flattering for a gentleman to be the object of a lady’s notice,” he concluded, in a light tone.
Beatrice smiled. “But where,” he continued, “could you have gained that power of divination which you possess; you who have always lived a secluded life in so remote a place?”
“You did not think that one like me could come out of Hong-Kong, did you?” said she, laughingly.
“Well, I have seen much of the world; but I have not so much of this power as you have.”
“You might have more if—if—” she hesitated. “Well,” she continued, “they say, you know, that men act by reason, women by intuition.”
“Have you any more intuitions?” asked Brandon, earnestly.
“Yes,” said she, mournfully.
“Tell me some.”
“They will not do to tell,” said Beatrice, in the same mournful tone.
“Why not?”
“They are painful.”
“Tell them at any rate.”
“No.”
“Hint at them.”
Beatrice looked at him earnestly. Their eyes met. In hers there was a glance of anxious inquiry, as though her soul were putting forth a question by that look which was stronger than words. In his there was a glance of anxious expectancy, as though his soul were speaking unto hers, saying: “Tell all; let me know if you suspect that of which I am afraid to think.”
“We have met with ships at sea,” she resumed, in low, deliberate tones.
“Yes.”
“Sometimes we have caught up with them, we have exchanged signals, we have sailed in sight of one another for hours or for days, holding intercourse all the while. At last a new morning has come, and we looked out over the sea, and the other ship has gone from sight. We have left it forever. Perhaps we have drifted away, perhaps a storm has parted us, the end is the same—separation for evermore.”
She spoke mournfully, looking away, her voice insensibly took up a cadence, and the words seemed to fall of themselves into rhythmic pause.
“I understand you,” said Brandon, with a more profound mournfulness in his voice. “You speak like a Sibyl. I pray Heaven that your words may not be a prophecy.”
Beatrice still looked at him, and in her eyes he read pity beyond words; and sorrow also as deep as that pity.
“Do you read my thoughts as I read yours?” asked Brandon, abruptly.
“Yes,” she answered, mournfully.
He turned his face away.
“Did Langhetti teach you this also?” he asked, at last.
“He taught me many things,” was the answer.
Day succeeded to day, and week to week. Still the ship went on holding steadily to her course northward, and every day drawing nearer and nearer her goal. Storms came—some moderate, some severe; but the ship escaped them all with no casualties, and with but little delay.
At last they passed the equator, and seemed to have entered the last stage of their journey.
At length the ship came within the latitude of the Guinea coast.
For some days there had been alternate winds and calms, and the weather was so fitful and so fickle that no one could tell in one hour what would happen in the next. All this was at last terminated by a dead, dense, oppressive calm like those of the Indian Ocean, in which exertion was almost impossible and breathing difficult. The sky, however, instead of being clear and bright, as in former calms, was now overspread with menacing clouds; the sea looked black, and spread out before them on every side like an illimitable surface of polished ebony. There was something appalling in the depth and intensity of this calm with such accompaniments. All felt this influence. Although there was every temptation to inaction and sleep yet no one yielded to it. The men looked suspiciously and expectantly at every quarter of the heavens. The Captain said nothing, but cautiously had all his preparations made for a storm. Every half hour he anxiously consulted the barometer, and then cast uneasy glances at the sea and sky.
But the calm which had set in at midnight, and had become confirmed at dawn, extended itself through the long day. The ship drifted idly, keeping no course, her yards creaking lazily as she slowly rose and fell at the movement of the ocean-undulations. Hour after hour passed, and the day ended, and night came once more.
The Captain did not turn in that night. In anxious expectation he waited and watched on deck, while all around there was the very blackness of darkness. Brandon began to see from the Captain’s manner that he expected something far more violent than any thing which the ship had yet encountered, but, thinking that his presence would be of no consequence, he retired at the usual hour.
The deep, dense calm continued until nearly midnight. The watchers on deck still waited in the same anxious expectation, thinking that the night would bring on the change which they expected.
Almost half an hour before midnight a faint light was seen in the thick mass of clouds overhead—it was not lightning, but a whitish streak, as though produced by some movement in the clouds. All looked up in mute expectation.
Suddenly a faint puff of wind came from the west, blowing gently for a few moments, then stopping, and then coming on in a stronger blast. Afar off, at what seemed like an immeasurable distance, a low, dull roar arose, a heavy moaning sound, like the menace of the mighty Atlantic, which was now advancing in wrath upon them.
In the midst of this the whole scene burst forth into dazzling light at the flash of a vast mass of lightning, which seemed to blaze from every part of the heavens on every side simultaneously. It threw forth all things—ship, sea, and sky—into the dazzled eyes of the watchers. They saw the ebon sky, the black and lustrous sea, the motionless ship. They saw also, far off to the west, a long line of white which appeared to extend along the whole horizon.
But the scene darted out of sight instantly, and instantly there fell the volleying discharge of a tremendous peal of thunder, at whose reverberations the air and sea and ship all vibrated.
Now the sky lightened again, and suddenly, as the ship lay there, a vast ball of fire issued from the black clouds immediately overhead, descending like the lightning straight downward, till all at once it struck the main truck. With a roar louder than that of the recent thunder it exploded; fast sheets of fire flashed out into the air, and a stream of light passed down the entire mast, shattering it as a tree is shattered when the lightning strikes it. The whole ship was shaken to its centre. The deck all around the mast was shattered to splinters, and along its extent and around its base a burst of vivid flame started into light.
Wild confusion followed. At once all the sailors were ordered up, and began to extinguish the fires, and to cut away the shattered mast. The blows of the axes resounded through the ship. The rigging was severed; the mast, already shattered, needed but a few blows to loosen its last fibres.
But suddenly, and furiously, and irresistibly it seemed as though the whole tempest which they had so long expected was at last let loose upon them. There was a low moan, and, while they were yet trying to get rid of the mast, a tremendous squall struck the ship. It yielded and turned far over to that awful blow. The men started back from their work. The next instant a flash of lightning came, and toward the west, close over them, rose a long, white wall of foam. It was the van-guard of the storm, seen shortly before from afar, which was now upon them, ready to fall on their devoted heads.
Not a word was spoken. No order came from the Captain. The men awaited some word. There came none. Then the waters, which thus rose up like a heap before them, struck the ship with all the accumulated fury of that resistless onset, and hurled their utmost weight upon her as she lay before them.
The ship, already reeling far over at the stroke of the storm, now, at this new onset, yielded utterly, and rolled far over on her beam-ends. The awful billows dashed over and over her, sweeping her in their fury from end to end. The men clung helplessly to whatever rigging lay nearest, seeking only in that first moment of dread to prevent themselves from being washed away, and waiting for some order from the Captain, and wondering while they waited.
At the first peal of thunder Brandon had started up. He had lain down in his clothes, in order to be prepared for any emergency. He called Cato. The Hindu was at hand. “Cato, keep close to me whatever happens, for you will be needed.” “Yes, Sahib.” He then hurried to Beatrice’s room and knocked. It was opened at once. She came forth with her pale, serene face, and looked at him.
“I did not lie down,” said she. “I knew that there would be something frightful. But I am not afraid. At any rate,” she added, “I know I will not be deserted.”
Brandon said nothing, but held out to her an India-rubber life-preserver. “What is this for?” “For you. I wish you to put it on. It may not be needed, but it is best to have it on.” “And what will you do?” “I—oh! I can swim, you know. But you don’t know how to fasten it. Will you allow me to do so?” She raised her arms. He passed the belt around her waist, encircling her almost in his arms while doing so, and his hand, which had boldly grasped the head of the “dweller in the wreck,” now trembled as he fastened the belt around that delicate and slender waist.
But scarcely had this been completed when the squall struck the ship, and the waves followed till the vessel was thrown far over on her side; and Brandon seizing Beatrice in one arm, clung with the other to the edge of the skylight, and thus kept himself upright.
He rested now for a moment. “I must go on deck,” he said. “I do not wish you to leave me,” was her answer. Nothing more was said. Brandon at once lifted her with one arm as though she were a child and clambered along, grasping such fixtures as afforded any thing to which he could cling; and thus, with hands and feet, groped his way to the door of the cabin, which was on the windward side. There were two doors, and between them was a seat.
“This,” said he, “is the safest place for you. Can you hold on for a short time? If I take you on deck you will be exposed to the waves.”
“I will do whatever you say,” she replied; and clinging to the arm of the almost perpendicular seat, she was able to sustain herself there amidst the tossing and swaying of the ship.
Brandon then clambered out on deck. The ship lay far over. The waves came leaping upon her in successive surges. All around the sea was glistening with phosphorescent lustre, and when at times the lightning flashed forth it lighted up the scene, and showed the ocean stirred up to fiercest commotion. It seemed as though cataracts of water were rushing over the doomed ship, which now lay helpless, and at the mercy of the billows. The force of the wind was tremendous, exceeding any thing that Brandon had ever witnessed before.
What most surprised him now was the inaction of the ship’s company. Why was not something being done? Where was the Captain?
He called out his name; there was no response. He called after the mate; there was no answer. Instantly he conjectured that in the first fierce onset of the storm both Captain and mate had been swept away. How many more of that gallant company of brave fellows had perished he knew not. The hour was a perilous and a critical one. He himself determined to take the lead.
Through the midst of the storm, with its tumult and its fury, there came a voice as full and clear as a trumpet-peal, which roused all the sailors, and inspired them once more with hope. “Cut away the masts!” The men obeyed, without caring who gave the order. It was the command which each man had been expecting, and which he knew was the thing that should be done. At once they sprang to their work. The main-mast had already been cut loose. Some went to the fore-mast, others to the mizzen. The vast waves rolled on; the sailors guarded as best they could against the rush of each wave, and then sprang in the intervals to their work. It was perilous in the highest degree, but each man felt that his own life and the lives of all the others depended upon the accomplishment of this work, and this nerved the arm of each to the task.
At last it was done. The last strand of rigging had been cut away. The ship, disencumbered, slowly righted, and at last rode upright.
But her situation was still dangerous. She lay in the trough of the sea, and the gigantic waves, as they rolled up, still beat upon her with all their concentrated energies. Helpless, and now altogether at the mercy of the waves, the only hope left those on board lay in the strength of the ship herself.
None of the officers were left. As the ship righted Brandon thought that some of them might make their appearance, but none came. The Captain, the mate, and the second mate, all had gone. Perhaps all of them, as they stood on the quarter-deck, had been swept away simultaneously. Nothing could now be done but to wait. Morning at last came to the anxious watchers. It brought no hope. Far and wide the sea raged with all its waves. The wind blew with undiminished and irresistible violence. The ship, still in the trough of the sea, heaved and plunged in the overwhelming waves, which howled madly around and leaped over her like wolves eager for their prey. The wind was too fierce to permit even an attempt to rig a jury-mast.
The ship was also deeply laden, and this contributed to her peril. Had her cargo been smaller she would have been more buoyant; but her full cargo, added to her dangerous position as she lay at the mercy of the waves, made all hope of escape dark indeed.
Another night succeeded. It was a night of equal horror. The men stood watching anxiously for some sign of abatement in the storm, but none came. Sea and sky frowned over them darkly, and all the powers which they controlled were let loose unrestrained.
Another day and night came and went. Had not theFalconbeen a ship of unusual strength she would have yielded before this to the storm. As it was, she began to show signs of giving way to the tremendous hammering to which she had been exposed, and her heavy Australian cargo bore her down. On the morning of the third day Brandon saw that she was deeper in the water, and suspected a leak. He ordered the pumps to be sounded. It was as he feared. There were four feet of water in the hold.
The men went to work at the pumps and worked by relays. Amidst the rush of the waves over the ship it was difficult to work advantageously, but they toiled on. Still, in spite of their efforts, the leak seemed to have increased, for the water did not lessen. With their utmost exertion they could do little more than hold their own.
It was plain that this sort of thing could not last. Already three nights and three days of incessant toil and anxiety, in which no one had slept, had produced their natural effects. The men had become faint and weary. But the brave fellows never murmured; they did every thing which Brandon ordered, and worked uncomplainingly.
Thus, through the third day, they labored on, and into the fourth night. That night the storm seemed to have reached its climax, if, indeed, any climax could be found to a storm which at the very outset had burst upon them with such appalling suddenness and fury, and had sustained itself all along with such unremitting energy. But on that night it was worse for those on board, since the ship which had resisted so long began to exhibit signs of yielding, her planks and timbers so severely assailed began to give way, and through the gaping seams the ocean waters permeated, till the ocean, like some beleaguering army, failing in direct assault, began to succeed by opening secret mines to the very heart of the besieged ship.
On the morning of the fourth day all hands were exhausted from night-long work, and there were ten feet of water in the hold.
It now became evident that the ship was doomed. Brandon at once began to take measures for the safety of the men.
On that memorable day of the calm previous to the outbreak of the storm, the Captain had told Brandon that they were about five hundred miles to the westward of the coast of Senegambia. He could not form any idea of the distance which the ship had drifted during the progress of the storm, but justly considered that whatever progress she had made had been toward the land. Their prospects in that direction, if they could only reach it, were not hopeless. Sierra Leone and Liberia were there; and if they struck the coast any where about they might make their way to either of those places.
But the question was how to get there. There was only one way, and that was by taking to the boats. This was a desperate undertaking, but it was the only way of escape now left.
There were three boats on board—viz., the long-boat, the cutter, and the gig. These were the only hope now left them. By venturing in these there would be a chance of escape.
On the morning of the fourth day, when it was found that the water was increasing, Brandon called the men together and stated this to them. He then told them that it would be necessary to divide themselves so that a sufficient number should go in each boat. He offered to give up to them the two larger boats, and take the gig for himself, his servant, and the young lady.
To this the men assented with great readiness. Some of them urged him to go in the larger boat, and even offered to exchange with him; but Brandon declined.
They then prepared for their desperate venture. All the provisions and water that could be needed were put on board of each boat. Firearms were not forgotten. Arrangements were made for a long and arduous voyage. The men still worked at the pumps; and though the water gained on them, yet time was gained for completing these important preparations.
About mid-day all was ready. Fifteen feet of water were in the hold. The ship could not last much longer. There was no time to lose.
But how could the boats be put out? How could they live in such a sea? This was the question to be decided.
The ship lay as before in the trough of the sea. On the windward side the waves came rushing up, beating upon and sweeping over her. On the leeward the water was calmer, but the waves tossed and raged angrily even there.
Only twenty were left out of the ship’s company. The rest were all missing. Of these, fourteen were to go in the long-boat, and six in the cutter. Brandon, Beatrice, and Cato were to take the gig.
The sailors put the gig out first. The light boat floated buoyantly on the waters. Cato leaped into her, and she was fastened by a long line to the ship. The nimble Hindu, trained for a lifetime to encounter the giant surges of the Malabar coast, managed the little boat with marvelous dexterity—avoiding the sweep of the waves which dashed around, and keeping sufficiently under the lee to escape the rougher waves, yet not so much so as to be hurled against the vessel.
Then the sailors put out the long-boat. This was a difficult undertaking, but it was successfully accomplished, and the men were all on board at last. Instantly they prepared to row away.
At that moment a wilder wave came pouring over the ship. It was as though the ocean, enraged at the escape of these men, had made a final effort to grasp its prey. Before the boat with its living freight had got rid of the vessel, the sweep of this gigantic wave, which had passed completely over the ship, struck it where it lay. Brandon turned away his eyes involuntarily.
There was a wild shriek—the next moment the black outline of the long-boat, bottom upward, was seen amidst the foaming billows.
The men who waited to launch the cutter were at first paralyzed by this tragedy, but there was no time to lose. Death threatened them behind as well as before; behind, death was certain; before, there was still a chance. They launched the cutter in desperation. The six men succeeded in getting into her, and in rowing out at some distance. As wave after wave rose and fell she disappeared from view, and then reappeared, till at last Brandon thought that she at least was safe.
Then he raised his hand and made a peculiar signal to Cato.
The Hindu understood it. Brandon had given him his directions before; now was the time. The roll of the waves {illegible} up was for the present less dangerous.
Beatrice, who during the whole storm had been calm, and had quietly done whatever Brandon told her, was now waiting at the cabin-door in obedience to his directions.
As soon as Brandon had made the signal he hurried to the cabin-door and assisted Beatrice to the quarter-deck. Cato rowed his boat close up to the ship, and was waiting for a chance to come within reach. The waves were still more moderate. It was the opportunity for which Cato had been watching so long. He held his oars poised, and, as a sudden swell of a wave rose near the ship, he forced his boat so that it came close beside it, rising high on the crest of the swell.
As the wave rose, Brandon also had watched his opportunity as well as the action of Cato. It was the moment too for which he had been watching. In an instant, and without a word, he caught Beatrice in his arms, raised her high in the air, poised himself for a moment on the edge of the quarter-deck, and sprang forward into the boat. His foot rested firmly on the seat where it struck. He set Beatrice down, and with a knife severed the line which connected the boat with the ship.
Then seizing an oar he began to row with all his strength. Cato had the bow oar. The next wave came, and its sweep, communicating itself to the water, rolled on, dashing against the ship and moving under it, rising up high, lifting the boat with it, and bearing it along. But the boat was now under command, and the two rowers held it so that while it was able to avoid the dash of the water, it could yet gain from it all the momentum that could be given.
Brandon handled the oar with a dexterity equal to that of the Hindu, and under such management, which was at once strong and skillful, the boat skimmed lightly over the crests of the rolling waves, and passed out into the sea beyond. There the great surges came sweeping on, rising high behind the boat, each wave seeming about to crush the little bark in its resistless grasp, but notwithstanding the threat the boat seemed always able by some good luck to avoid the impending danger, for as each wave came forward the boat would rise up till it was on a level with the crest, and the flood of waters would sweep on underneath, bearing it onward.
After nearly half an hour’s anxious and careful rowing Brandon looked all about to find the cutter. It was nowhere to be seen. Again and again he looked for it, seeking in all directions. But he discovered no sign of it on the raging waters, and at last he could no longer doubt that the cutter also, like long-boat, had perished in the sea.
All day long they rowed before the wind and wave—not strongly, but lightly, so as to husband their strength. Night came, when Brandon and Cato took turns at the oars—not over-exerting themselves, but seeking chiefly to keep the boat’s head in proper direction, and to evade the rush of the waves. This last was their constant danger, and it required the utmost skill and the most incessant watchfulness to do so.
{Illustration: “WITHOUT A WORD HE CAUGHT BEATRICE IN HIS ARMS.” ETC.}
All this time Beatrice sat in the stern, with a heavy oil-cloth coat around her, which Brandon directed her to put on, saying nothing, but seeing every thing with her watchful, vigilant eyes.
“Are you afraid?” said Brandon once, just after they had evaded an enormous wave.
“No!” was the reply, in a calm, sweet voice; “I trust in you.”
“I hope your trust may not be vain,” replied Brandon.
“You have saved my life so often,” said Beatrice, “that my trust in you has now become a habit.”
She smiled faintly as she spoke. There was something in her tone which sank deep into his soul.
The night passed and morning came.
For the last half of the night the wind had been much less boisterous, and toward morning the gale had very greatly subsided. Brandon’s foresight had secured a mast and sail on board the gig, and now, as soon as it could be erected with safety, he put it up, and the little boat dashed bravely over the waters. The waves had lessened greatly as the day wore on; they no longer rose in such giant masses, but showed merely the more common proportions. Brandon and Cato now had an opportunity to get some rest from their exhaustive labors. Beatrice at last yielded to Brandon’s earnest request, and, finding that the immediate peril had passed, and that his toil for the present was over, she obtained some sleep and rest for herself.
For all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, the little boat sped over the waters, heading due east, so as to reach land wherever they might find it, in the hope that the land might not be very far away from the civilized settlements of the coast. The provisions and water which had been put in the boat formed an ample supply, which would last for a long time. Brandon shared with Cato in the management of the boat, not allowing the big man to have more of the labor than himself.
During these days Brandon and Beatrice were of course thrown into a closer intimacy. At such a time the nature of man or woman becomes most apparent, and here Beatrice showed a noble calm and a simple trust which to Brandon was most touching. He knew that she must feel most keenly the fatigue and the privations of such a life; but her unvarying cheerfulness was the same as it had been on shipboard. He, too, exhibited that same constancy and resolution which he had always evinced, and by his consideration for Cato showed his natural kindness of heart.
“How sorry I am that I can do nothing!” Beatrice would say. “You are killing yourself, and I have to sit idle and gain my safety at your expense.”
“The fact that you are yet safe,” Brandon would reply, “is enough for me. As long as I see you sitting there I can work.”
“But can I do nothing? It is hard for me to sit idle while you wear out your life.”
“You can sing,” said Brandon.
“What?”
“Langhetti’s song,” he said, and turned his face away.
She sang at once. Her tones rose in marvelous modulations; the words were not much, but the music with which she clothed them seemed again to utter forth that longing which Brandon had heard before.
Now, as they passed over the seas, Beatrice sang, and Brandon did not wish that this life should end. Through the days, as they sailed on, her voice arose expressive of every changeful feeling, now speaking of grief, now swelling in sweet strains of hope.
Day thus succeeded to day until the fourth night came, when the wind died out and a calm spread over the waters.
Brandon, who waked at about two in the morning so as to let Cato sleep, saw that the wind had ceased, and that another one of those treacherous calms had come. He at once put out the oars, and, directing Cato to sleep till he waked him, began to pull.
Beatrice remonstrated. “Do not,” said she, in an imploring tone. “You have already done too much. Why should you kill yourself?”
“The wind has stopped,” answered Brandon. “The calm is treacherous, and no time ought to be lost.”
“But wait till you have rested.”
“I have been resting for days.”
“Why do you not rest during the night and work in the daytime?”
“Because the daytime is so frightfully hot that work will be difficult. Night is the time to work now.”
Brandon kept at his oars, and Beatrice saw that remonstrances were useless. He rowed steadily until the break of day: then, as day was dawning, he rested for a while, and looked earnestly toward the east.
A low, dark cloud lay along the eastern horizon, well-defined against the sky, which now was growing brighter and brighter every hour. Was it cloud, or was it something else? This was the question that rose in Brandon’s mind.
The sky grew brighter, the scene far and wide opened up before the gathering light until at last the sun began to appear. Then there was no longer any doubt. It was LAND.
This he told to Beatrice; and the Hindu, waking at the same time, looked earnestly toward that shore which they had been striving so long and so earnestly to reach. It was land, but what land? No doubt it was some part of the coast of Senegambia, but what one? Along that extensive coast there were many places where landing might be certain death, or something worse than death. Savage tribes might dwell there—either those which were demoralized by dealings with slave-traders, or those which were flourishing in native barbarism. Yet only one course was now advisable; namely, to go on till they reached the shore.
It appeared to be about fifty miles away. So Brandon judged, and so it proved. The land which they had seen was the summit of lofty hills which were visible from a great distance. They rowed on all that day. The water was calm and glassy. The sun poured down its most fervid beams, the air was sultry and oppressive. Beatrice entreated Brandon now to desist from rowing and wait till the cool of the night, but he was afraid that a storm might come up suddenly.
“No,” he said, “our only hope now is to get near the land, so that if a storm does come up we may have some place of shelter within reach.”
After a day of exhaustive labor the land was at last reached.
High hills, covered with palm-trees, rose before them. There was no harbor within sight, no river outlet, but a long, uninterrupted extent of high, wooded shores. Here in the evening they rested on their oars, and looked earnestly at the shore.
Brandon conjectured that they were somewhat to the north of Sierra Leone, and did not think that they could be to the south. At any rate, a southeasterly course was the surest one for them, for they would reach either Sierra Leone or Liberia. The distance which they might have to go was, however, totally uncertain to him.
So they turned the boat’s head southeast, and moved in a line parallel with the general line of the shore. That shore varied in its features as they passed along: sometimes depressed into low, wide savannas: at others, rising into a rolling country, with hills of moderate height, behind which appeared the summits of lofty mountains, empurpled by distance.
It was evening when they first saw the land, and then they went on without pausing. It was arranged that they should row alternately, as moderately as possible, so as to husband their strength. Cato rowed for the first part of that night, then Brandon rowed till morning. On the following day Cato took the oars again.
It was now just a week since the wreck, and for the last two days there had not been a breath of wind in the air, nor the faintest ripple on that burning water. To use even the slightest exertion in such torrid heat was almost impossible. Even to sit still under that blighting sun, with the reflected glare from the dead, dark sea around, was painful.
Beatrice redoubled her entreaties to Brandon that he should rest. She wished to have her mantle spread over their heads as a kind of canopy, or fix the sail in some way and float idly through the hottest part of the day. But Brandon insisted that he felt no evil effects as yet; and promised when he did feel such to do as she said.
At last they discovered that their water was almost out, and it was necessary to get a fresh supply. It was the afternoon of the seventh day. Brandon had been rowing ever since midday. Beatrice had wound her mantle about his head in the style of an Eastern turban so as to protect him from the sun’s rays. Looking out for some place along the shore where they might obtain water, they saw an opening in the line of coast where two hills arose to a height of several hundred feet. Toward this Brandon rowed.
Stimulated by the prospect of setting foot on shore Brandon rowed somewhat more vigorously than usual; and in about an hour the boat entered a beautiful little cove shut in between two hills, which formed the outlet of a river. Far up its winding course could be traced by the trees along its borders. The hills rose on each side with a steep slope, and were covered with palms. The front of the harbor was shut in from the sea by a beautiful little wooded island. Here Brandon rowed the boat into this cove; and its prow grated against the pebbles of the beach.
Beatrice had uttered many exclamations of delight at the beauty of this scene. At length, surprised at Brandon’s silence, she cried,
“Why do you not say something? Surely this is a Paradise after the sea!”
She looked up with an enthusiastic smile.
He had risen to his feet. A strange, vacant expression was in his eyes. He made a step forward as if to land. His unsteady foot trembled. He reeled, and stretched out his arms like some one groping in the dark.
Beatrice shrieked and sprang forward. Too late: for the next moment he fell headlong into the water.