CHAPTER XVI.SAVING THE STORES.
“The next thing to do,” said Justin, as they joined Judith at the fire, “is to get all the stores from the wreck. After I have secured them I may bring away as much ofeverything else that may be useful to us as I can move before the ship breaks up.”
“It is a great labor that you propose for yourself,” said Britomarte, gravely.
“An absolutely necessary labor, and therefore to be undertaken and accomplished,” replied Justin, smiling.
“You must let us take our share of the work.”
“My dear—sister, I mean—the task will be much too laborious for you. The causeway over which all these things have to be brought is no macadamized avenue, I assure you.”
“For all that, Justin, you traversed it; and you know that I must make the attempt. If I fail, I will very quietly yield the point and leave all the labor to yourself alone.”
“Well, well,” said Justin, laughing. “You are ‘queen o’er yourself,’ and all things else here. You must work your own will.”
“And sure, here’s meself, wid me two hands to the fore, ready to fetch and carry wid the best iv yez!”
“Thank you, Judith, I had certainly counted on your help,” said Mr. Rosenthal. “And now—sister—shall we set forth?” he inquired, turning toward Britomarte.
“If you please,” said Miss Conyers.
Justin looked up through the trees toward the blazing sky. For though this was January, yet they were in a climate where that month answers to our July.
“It is very hot and growing hotter; and I dare say you did not bring a bonnet with you when you landed on this island?” he inquired, with a droll look.
“I dare say I did not,” smiled Britomarte.
But Judith took up the matter in grand gravity.
“Bonnet?” she echoed. “Sure mine was lost itself in a fray fight wid the say!—Bonnet? Faix, it was all I could do at all, at all, to kape the hair itself on me head, let alone bonnets!”
“Then we must improvise some defense for your heads against this sun,” said Mr. Rosenthal, looking around. “Ah! I have it! the palm leaves! nothing could be better!” he exclaimed, starting off in a run through the thicket toward the grove of cocoa palms.
“Ah! sure, what would we do without him, at all, at all! Troth, we hadn’t aven a dacent meal’s victuals till hecome to our relaif, so we hadn’t. Sure, we’d perish intirely only for him,” said Judith, looking gratefully in the direction where Justin had disappeared.
The man-hater did not reply. There was no controverting Judith’s words. Perhaps also they expressed Britomarte’s own thoughts. What, indeed, though one was brave and the other strong, could these two women have done for self-preservation, left alone on this desert island, without the help of the one man Providence had sent to their assistance?
Justin soon returned, bearing large palm leaves, which, with some natural dexterity, he doubled and shaped into a rude sort of hoods, more remarkable for utility than for beauty.
“There,” he said; “they are not in the latest Parisian style of ladies’ bonnets, I am afraid, but they will keep the sun off, and to do that is the purpose for which they were formed. I hope we may all answer the end of our creation as well.”
When they were about to start, the little dog, seeing symptoms of a move, began jumping and frisking around them, to testify his approbation of the journey and his willingness to share it.
“No, you don’t, my fine little fellow. I have had enough of crossing the causeway with you. I had rather carry a two-year-old child at once. We’ll leave you here,” said Justin, looking about for some means of confining the dog.
To “leave him” there was easier to say than to do. They might have tied him to a tree, only they had neither rope nor chain. Or they might have shut him up in the grotto, only they had no door to close against his exit.
At length a bright idea struck Justin. He took his handkerchief from his pocket, rubbed it well upon his own face and hands and laid it down on the ground, and called the little dog, and said:
“Fidelle! Fidelle!—watch it!”
And the loyal little creature ran and put his forepaws upon it and stood looking “faithful unto death” with all his might.
“Come—we can go now,” said Justin. “Our way leads up the mountain, immediately over the roof of your grotto,sister; and the ascent is steep and rugged; and although you are not a very ancient lady, I think that you will find this staff serviceable; indeed, indispensible,” he added, handing to Miss Conyers a stick that he had cut for her use in climbing, and which she received with a smile of thanks.
He gave Judith a similar staff, and then they all set forth.
They ascended the mountain in a much shorter time than might have been expected.
When they reached the tableland on the summit, Justin found a fragment of rock that would do for a seat, and advised Britomarte to sit down and rest.
Then he took out his telescope and adjusted it, and invited her to take a survey of their little kingdom—“For this island is our kingdom, my sister!—
“‘We are monarchs of all we survey—Our rights there is none to dispute;From the center all round to the seaWe are lords of the bird and the brute.’
“‘We are monarchs of all we survey—Our rights there is none to dispute;From the center all round to the seaWe are lords of the bird and the brute.’
“‘We are monarchs of all we survey—Our rights there is none to dispute;From the center all round to the seaWe are lords of the bird and the brute.’
“‘We are monarchs of all we survey—
Our rights there is none to dispute;
From the center all round to the sea
We are lords of the bird and the brute.’
“But how much happier we are than was poor, solitary Robinson Crusoe, or his prototype, old Alexander Selkirk!” said Justin, placing the telescope in her hands, as she arose and stood beside him. “Rest the glass upon my shoulder to steady it, and then look,” he added, placing himself in a convenient position as a telescope-stand.
She adjusted the instrument according to his advice, pointing it toward the wreck, which she saw distinctly wedged in the cleft of the rock at the end of the causeway.
“Poor ship! I lament her fate almost as if she were a human being doomed to death. For, of course, she is doomed. She must break up sooner or later,” said Britomarte.
“Yes, sooner or later,” replied Justin, contemplatively; “and it seems even the greater pity, because, as she lays now, she is really not injured beyond repair, were the means of repairing her at hand. However, she will hold together the longer for being hurt no worse.”
Britomarte now lifted the end of the telescope from Justin’s shoulder, and, taking it in both her own hands, supported it thus while she made a survey of the wholecircle of the horizon. Some minutes passed in this review, during which no one spoke. Britomarte was the first to break silence.
“A wilderness surrounded by the sea; a desert in the midst of the ocean! It is magnificent—it is sublime in its utter isolation and perfect solitude!” she said, lowering her glass.
“It is,” answered Justin, relieving her of the telescope. “Yet let Providence give me the time, strength, and opportunity and this wilderness shall bloom and blossom as the rose, this desert become a beautiful home. This island shall be a new Eden, of which we shall be the new Adam and Eve. Yes! for all that has come and gone, we shall be very happy here—Sister!”
He brought himself up with a jerk by this last word. His fancy had been running away with him, until he saw the clouds gathering upon the man-hater’s brow, when he suddenly pulled up with—“Sister!”
“Shall we go on?” asked Britomarte.
“Certainly, if you are rested,” replied Justin.
And they resumed their journey, going down the mountain side toward the causeway.
“I think that we had all the necessaries and comforts, and many of the luxuries and elegancies of life on board of our ship, had we not?” inquired Justin as they went on.
“Yes, of course; but you have some reason for asking that question, or rather for reminding me of those things. Now, what is your reason?” inquired Miss Conyers.
“Merely to follow up your answer by assuring you that you shall have all those necessaries, comforts, and perhaps luxuries and elegancies still.”
Britomarte looked up at him inquiringly.
“Nearly all these things remain yet upon the wreck. If it will only hold together for a month, I can, by diligence, convey them all to the land, and store them here. There is a chest of carpenter’s tools in the forecastle; and there are building materials enough on the island. I can build you a very fair little house, and furnish it comfortably with the furniture I shall rescue from the cabin and staterooms of the wreck. There is also a large assortment ofgrain and garden seeds, which poor Ely was carrying out with him to try the experiment of growing them on Indian soil. I will try the more promising experiment of planting them on your island. And then there are the animals to stock your farm! The cow, the pigs, the sheep, and the poultry—if I can only get them over the causeway. This—the removal of the animals—will certainly be the most difficult part of our enterprise. But if it is to be effected by any amount of labor and perseverence, I will effect it.”
“Sure, sir, did ye say as Cuddie is saved, the crayture?” inquired Judith, who was tugging on after them as fast as she could.
“Cuddie!” echoed Mr. Rosenthal, with an air of perplexity.
“Yes, sir, sure—Cuddie, the captain’s cow itself, the crayture! I was asking you, is she saved, sir?”
“Oh, yes,” laughed Justin; “I milked her this morning for your breakfast, you know, Judith. And oh! by the way, I fed your cat and kittens, too, Judith. They, also, are quite safe.”
“Ah, thin, bad luck to thim! Are they safe itself, afther bringing their betthers to ruin sure! Faix! I wish they’d been drowned, so I do, the day I brought them on the ship to bring destruction on us all! Ah, bedad! we’ll lave them where they are, and not bring a bit of them off at all, at all!”
“But that would be cruel, Judith. And as for myself, I shall not leave the smallest living creature to perish on the ship, if any effort of mine will save it.”
“Ah, thin, sure would ye bring thim divil’s imps on the land to bring us to disthruction over agin!”
“People can’t be brought to destruction ‘over again,’ my good girl.”
“Oh, can’t they though, nather! Sure ourselves was brought to disthruction once be the shipwrack, and we may be brought to disthruction over again be wild bastes or ilse be cannibals! Whist! Lord kape us! where are yez a-going to at all, at all?” gasped Judith, breaking off suddenly in her discourse, and stopping short in her progress upon the brink of one of those chasms that cut the causeway across.
“Don’t be frightened, Judith. Stand just where you are until I help Miss Conyers over to the other side, and then I will come back for you,” said Justin, who was carefully supporting Britomarte in her difficult descent down one side of the steep.
When he had lifted her across the stream at the bottom, and helped her to climb the other side, and seen her safe upon the top, he returned to fetch Judith.
“Troth, I’ve heard tell iv the divil’s highway, but niver saw it before; and sure this must be itself!” said Judith, as she gave her hand to Mr. Rosenthal, and clambered awkwardly down the descent.
When he had convoyed Judith safely to the other side of the chasm they all three resumed their walk. Several of these chasms they crossed in the same manner. And finally they reached the ship, which remained in the state in which Justin had left it.
Mr. Rosenthal handed Miss Conyers on deck, and then helped Judith up beside her.
Britomarte looked around with sorrowful reminiscences of that dire calamity which had separated her from all her late companions.
“I never expected to tread these planks again! It seems strange to be here! It seems almost wrong to be here! as if we had no right to be alive, now that all our fellow-voyagers are lost! I cannot rejoice in being saved, remembering their destruction!” she murmured, sadly.
“We do not know that they have been destroyed. I think it highly probable that the boat which first left the ship’s side—the boat containing the missionary party—was saved,” said Justin, with the purpose of consoling her.
“Why do you think so?”
“Because it was the most seaworthy boat of the two, and it was manned by a more knowing crew, and finally, because they had sense enough to sail for the open sea instead of making for that fatal rock-bound coast upon which your boat was wrecked.”
“Oh, Heaven grant they may have been saved!” fervently exclaimed Britomarte.
“Oh, the poor ould ship! Oh, me poor ould daddy! Oh, me darlint Fore Top Tom! Are yez all lost intirely?Drowned in the dape say? Oh, me fine ship! Oh, me good daddy! Oh, me gay Tom! Ow-oo! Ow-oo! Ow-oo!” cried Judith, sitting down upon the deck, flinging her apron over her head, rocking herself to and fro, and howling dismally.
And as she was howling, not only from an acute feeling of grief, but also from a profound sense of propriety, there was not the least use of any one’s attempting to console her.
Britomarte laid her hand gently upon the woman’s head, and kept it there a moment as a tacit assurance of sympathy, and then passed on.
To get into the cabin she was obliged first to climb up the leaning deck, and then go round to the companion ladder and climb down.
Justin helped her as much as she would allow him to do.
Looking around upon the empty cabin and the vacant staterooms, lately the home of herself and her fellow-voyagers, she was almost overwhelmed by the realization of the awful calamity that had befallen them.
She wondered why it was that she could not weep! but she really could not! the feeling of awe overpowered the feeling of grief, and, besides, the pressure of necessity was upon her—the necessity of immediate action.
She went into the stateroom and changed all her clothing, and from her good stock of wearing apparel, which she found in excellent preservation, she selected two more changes; then she took her sewing materials—needles, thread, scissors and thimble, and her little toilet service—combs, brushes, soap and towels, and she rolled all these articles up together in a compact little parcel, and tied it up with pocket handkerchiefs. And while doing this, she experienced a feeling of compunction for taking off anything for her own individual comfort only, when so much needed to be carried off for the general good. But then, again, she reflected that the common decencies of life, no less than her own inclination, made it absolutely necessary that she should provide herself with the means of personal neatness and cleanliness.
By the time she had made up her little parcel, Judith, who had finished her performance on deck, and so satisfiedher sense of what was expected from her, came stumbling down the companion ladder.
And Judith’s cat and kittens, recognizing their mistress, jumped out of the spare stateroom and ran up to her, purring and lifting their little tails, and rubbing their sides against her feet.
But Judith made short work with them all.
“Ah, thin, get out iv me way, ye divil’s bastes. Sure, if it wasn’t bad luck to kill cats, I’d haive the whole iv yez into the say, so I would!” she cried, lifting them one by one upon her foot, and tossing them away as fast and as far as she could.
And then she went in turn to all the staterooms except Britomarte’s.
“Sure, I suppose I may help meself to everything that you doesn’t want here? For, sure, what you won’t take lies betwane meself and the say. And if meself don’t take it, the say will. And the rightful owners will niver want it at all, at all! Say, ma’am!”
“Judith,” said Miss Conyers, doubtfully, “if I understand what you mean by so many ‘selfs,’ you are asking my leave to take what you want from this cabin?”
“Sure, yes, ma’am, that’s just what I mane itself!”
“Then I have no right either to give or withhold leave. Here we have equal privileges, and you must do as you please; or, rather, you must act according to the dictates of your own conscience.”
“Sure, ma’am, I know betther than that intirely. Sure, I’m not going to act according to the dictates iv what’s-its-name, nor anything else, at all, at all. I’m going to do as ye bid me. Faix, meself knows we are both depinding on the gintleman to save us from perishing intirely. And, troth, ye can wind the gintleman around yer finger, so ye can; and so, bedad, it behooves me to do as ye say, since he’s king and you’re quane.”
“So,” thought the man-hater to herself, “what power I possess in virtue of superior intellect and education goes for nothing with this, my only female companion; but what power I possess, through my interest with this one able-bodied male creature, is all in all, because, forsooth, we are both dependent upon him (with his physical superiority) to save us from perishing. Why, the physicalsuperiority is a quality he possesses in common with the ox and the ass! Yes; but the ox and the ass have not physical superiority united to intellectual power as he has. A drove of oxen or asses could not save us, as this one man can! Bah! nature has been very unjust to women, and that is the sacred truth! She should have given us strong bodies to match our strong hearts and heads!”
“And ye have niver tould me whether or no I may take what I like,” said Judith.
“Then I tell you now: Judith, help yourself.”
“Thanky, ma’am! Sure, it’s a privilege I nivir had before in all me life; but, thanks to the shipwrack, I have it now! Sure, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good,” said Judith, going into Mrs. Ely’s room and beginning to rummage over that poor woman’s finery with great satisfaction.
Mary Ely, having been the daughter of a wealthy merchant, had as large and as rich a stock of wearing apparel as any woman in the middle class of life could wish to possess; and Judith overhauled it with great enjoyment.
“Ah, what an illigant shawl!” she cried, holding up a fine, large camel’s-hair wrap. “What an illigant shawl entirely to wear to mass! What would Fore Top Tom think iv me in this? And, sure, won’t it astonish them all whin I wear it! Father O’Neil may talk as much as he likes about the lilies of the field and Solomon in all his glory; but, sure, I’ll wear this shawl to mass if I have to make up for it wid a thousand ‘Hail Marys.’ But, sure, there’s no mass nor no church on that baste iv an island, and I should only wear it for them wild bastes to grin at. But, ah, what a darlint iv a green silk dhress, and how beautiful it will go with the shawl, sure! Look, ma’am!” she exclaimed, rushing up to Miss Conyers, and holding up the shawl in one hand and the dress in the other for inspection.
Britomarte turned away, revolted at the woman’s exhibition of thoughtlessness or heartlessness. If one of the common enemy had acted as Judith did in this matter, Britomarte would have poured upon him the full measure of her scorn and indignation; but with her own sex she was ever most merciful and forbearing.
“Look, ma’am—oh, look! the beautiful red shawl andthe green silk dhress. Sure, ye niver set eyes on ’em before! She’d niver be wearing the like iv these on the deck, to be spoilt intirely wid the salt say wather. Look, ma’am,” persisted Judith, too much absorbed in her own delight to observe the pained expression of Miss Conyers’ countenance.
“Oh, Judith! how can you! Don’t—don’t!” was all that she could reply.
But it was enough; for in an instant the consciousness of her own seeming want of heart flashed upon Judith’s mind and quite overwhelmed her with remorse. She dropped the finery, flung herself down upon the floor in a sitting position, threw her apron over her head, and began to rock her body to and fro, crying:
“Oh, the baste that I was! Oh, the haythen I made iv meself! Oh, the divil I was turning into wid me vanity and hardness iv heart! To be enjoying ov the property before iver graving for the dead! Oh, the poor young craythur, cut off in the bloom iv her youth! Sure, she was the core iv me heart and the light iv me eye! But I shall niver see her again—niver! She’s gone! gone! gone!—lost in the salt say wather! Ow-oo! ow-oo! ow! Och-hone! och-hone! och-hone!”
And Judith set in for a regular bout of rocking and howling—not by any means in the spirit of hypocrisy, but as a matter of business, from a sense of duty, and with a feeling of some little sorrow which she was conscientiously trying to increase.
Miss Conyers liked this performance quite as little as she had the other; but, as she was not a habitual fault-finder, she said nothing.
Meanwhile, on deck Justin had collected together as many stores as the united strength of himself and party could carry to the shore.
And now he came down the companion ladder, and inquired:
“Are you ready to return, sister?”
“Quite,” answered Miss Conyers. Then turning to her companion, she said: “Come, Judith, my good girl, compose yourself, and make your bundle. We have got to go on shore.”
“Is the gintleman ready?” inquired Judith, droppingher apron from her head and revealing a red, swollen, tear-stained face.
“Yes, Judith, and waiting. Let me help you up.”
“Thankey, ma’am! Sure, I wouldn’t throuble ye, only me limbs bend under me wid the graif I’m failing for the poor young crayture who has left me her clothes!” said Judith, trying hard to feel as badly as she said she did.
Nevertheless, she was very particular in making up her bundle of finery, which was so large that she could afford Mr. Rosenthal but little assistance in conveying a part of the stores that he had gathered together. But at length she managed to tie her bundle on her back and take a box of tea on her head. And so she followed Mr. Rosenthal and Miss Conyers, who were both laden with as much as they could carry.