XLVI
That thick white bank of mist clung to them for the best part of a week. But, freed from all fear of treacherous assault, it troubled them little.
Once they had to go ashore for water, but got back safely by means of their guiding-line, and as they pushed through the fog they recalled that former time, when the mate's grim figure fashioned itself suddenly out of the clammy whiteness and brought them near to a disastrous end.
For the rest they had no scarcity. The fish bit as well in the fog as in the clear, and they had pork and flour for weeks to come.
In their narrow confinement to the ship, their intimacy and knowledge of one another grew with the days. She talked well, and he was an excellent listener, and led her on and on to tell him of the past and all that had interested her in it, and mused on all she said, and sought in it enlightenment as to her heart's freedom or otherwise.
Once, when she had been roving at length through her earlier days, she broke off suddenly with, "But, mon Dieu, I am doing all the talking! Now, tell me of yourself!"
"I have so little to tell compared with you. Shall I tell you of school-days—of college—of the hospitals—of my patients and their ailments?"
"Tell me why you left it all to seek the new life."
"For very much the same reason as you did, I imagine. I was living in a groove and I wanted something wider and larger."
"And now you are sorry."
"So very sorry that if I had the chance again, and knew beforehand all that was to come, I would jump at it like the fish to our hooks," as he hauled one aboard and knocked it an the head. "And you?"
"Ye—es, I think I would have come also. Not perhaps if I had known I would have to float about on that mast. It was so terribly cold,"—with a shiver. "For the rest, I have no regrets, but it is perhaps too soon to say. In ten years hence I may have come to be sorry."
"Ay—ten years hence!" he said musingly. "Many things may happen in ten years. There's a fish on your hook," and she hauled it in and let him dispose of it.
As they sat at supper that night the blanket which supplied the place of companion-doors began to flap, and, going up to look, he found the mist whirling away before a gusty breeze.
"It's going to blow," he told her, "and when it's blown itself out we may have a spell of fine weather again," and he proceeded to block the opening with some planks he had chipped to size as well as he could with his axe.
The wind was rising rapidly, and before they turned in for the night the birds had all come in and were whirling and screaming round the ship, and lighting on it as was their custom in bad weather. But they had grown accustomed to their clamour and both slept soundly.
Wulf was shaken back to life in the dead of the early morning by a restive jerk of the ship at her rusty anchor-chain, followed by a momentary sense of the unusual. And while he lay sleepily considering the matter, his bunk heeled slowly over—over—over, and rolled him right against the side of the ship. The sound of a heavy fall, somewhere beyond, made him scramble out very wide awake, full of wonder, but dimly perceptive of what must have happened. The rusty chain had evidently parted, the ship had drifted ashore broadside on, and the force of the wind had caused her to heel over. The sound he had heard was, he feared, of Miss Drummond's falling out of her bunk.
He flung on some clothes and clawed his way out to the cabin. The floor of it was tilted up at such an angle that he had to claw his way up by the side wall as best he could.
"Are you hurt?" he cried, outside The Girl's door.
"Bruised a bit. Whatever has happened?"
"The cable has parted and we're ashore on our beam-ends. No danger, I think."
"I'll be out in a minute."
Then he became aware of a smell of burning, and found that the sand hearth with its core of fire had slid downhill and was smouldering among the silken draperies, which were beginning to break into flame.
He crawled back and tore them down and bunched them tightly together, then scooped up handfuls of sand and smothered every cinder he could see.
Miss Drummond's door opened just as he had finished.
"Stop where you are," he cried. "I'll come up for you. Everything's on the slope. I think we'd better sit on the floor and let ourselves down by degrees."
Outside, the wild screaming of the birds mingled eerily with the rush and howl of the gale. It was still quite dark. He could not see her, but groped about till he felt her blankets, then found her hand and eased her carefully down the slope, and they crouched side by side in the angle made by the floor and the side of the ship.
"Will she go down?" she asked quietly.
"Oh, no. No fear of that. We're aground. But whether she'll ever come straight again I don't know. Did it pitch you out of your bunk?"
"Yes. I woke with a crash on the floor, and could not imagine what had happened."
"I hope you didn't break yourself."
She was silent for a moment and then said, "I'm afraid I did break something, but I couldn't——"
"Broke something? What?" he asked hastily.
"My arm feels numb and queer. I fell on it."
"Let me feel it," and, kneeling in front of her, he groped till he found it, and felt it with anxious gentle fingers.
"Good Lord, it's broken!"
"I'm sorry, but I couldn't help it. You see"——
"Your right arm too! Don't move it!"
He groped about for another length of the silken hangings, tore it down, and wound it tightly round her arm. "That will keep it in place," he said. "The moment it is light I will make splints and set it properly. I am truly sorry you should have suffered so."
"Better me than you. It might have been worse. What made that chain break, I wonder? We've had worse storms than this."
"It was bound to give sooner or later. It was very old and rusted. Its time came, I suppose, and it went. Sure you have no other damages?"
"Only bumps and bruises. I felt as if the side of my face were crushed in, but I don't think it is."
"Were you in the top bunk?"
"Yes. I liked to look out of the window in the mornings."
"That's a good big fall to take unawares."
"Yes, I fell out like a sack and woke on the floor. What shall we do if she doesn't come right side up again? We can't live all upside down like this."
"There's always the other ship to fall back on ... unless her chain's broken too."
"I like our own much the best."
"But not if she stops like this.... And even if she straightened up she would heel over again in the next gale. I'm afraid we'll have to move."
"I shall always see that man's black face about the cabin, glaring at me as he used to do as if he wanted to eat me."
"If we have to go we'll give it a good cleaning, and fresh hangings, and make it to your taste."
So they chatted quietly, while the gale and the birds shrieked in chorus outside, and the waves of the lake thumped scornfully on the exposed bottom of the ship.
As soon as he could see, he rooted about for axe and knife, and chopped up a board and made a set of splints for her arm. And, though he grieved for the pain she must have suffered, he could not but feel a huge enjoyment in ministering to her.
The mere touch of her firm white flesh was a rare delight and made his fingers tingle. He did his best to think of her only as a patient, but found it impossible. She was so very much more to him than any ordinary patient ever had been or could be.
But for her suffering, he felt inclined to bless the breaking of the rusty cable. It brought them closer than ever before. It threw her more than ever on to his care. With her right arm prisoner she would be able to do but little for herself. She had not been able to dress herself properly, but had simply swathed a blanket about her night attire, leaving the broken arm free. But even so, her natural taste and capability had so arranged it, even in the darkness and moment of danger, that she looked like a Greek goddess, he said to himself, with one arm in a sling. One can make allowances for him.
As the light grew stronger he saw, to his distress, that her face had also suffered sorely in her fall. The whole right side was badly bruised and discoloured.
"Is it very bad?" she asked, as she saw him looking at it. "It feels sore and my head hums like a bee-hive."
"You got a bad bump there. I will get some salt water and bathe it. Our fresh will all be gone in the upset, but I'll sling a bucket under the scupper-hole and we'll have enough for some coffee presently. When you've had some breakfast you will go and lie down in my bunk. If you could get a good sleep it would be the very best thing for you. Does the arm hurt much?"
"Not so much as it did, but I don't think I can sleep."
"You will when you lie down. You've had a bad shaking up. I'm truly sorry that all the penalties have fallen on you."
"It's a good thing you didn't break yourself too. Suppose we'd broken all our arms!" and she laughed a wry little laugh.
He crawled up the slope, and wormed himself through his barricade, and came back presently with a bucketful of water, found a piece of soft linen and insisted on bathing her face, under plea that she would joggle the broken arm if she tried to do it herself.
Then he scraped together at the foot of the slope sand enough for a small hearth, split some wood and kindled a fire, but found it necessary to open one of the ports to leeward to let out the smoke. When he did so he found the water within a foot of it and could only hope they would heel over no more. He proceeded to make cakes and coffee, and then fried some salt pork, and anointed the bruised face with the fat of it, and she found it soothing.
When he had cut up her meat for her, and she had managed to eat a little, he helped her into his bunk, the upper one because it was airier and allowed more head-room, and covered her with blankets and told her to go to sleep. And then, since there was nothing more to be done, he crawled up the slope and got her blankets off the floor of her room, and made up a bed for himself in the angle at the foot of the slope. He lay for a time listening to the gale, and pondering the possibility of its doing them any further damage, and fell asleep with the matter still unsettled.
XLVII
When he awoke it was close on mid-day, unless his appetite misled him. He prepared another meal and then tapped gently on The Girl's door. Receiving no answer he peeped into the dim little room and found her still sleeping soundly, her head in the crook of her left arm, from which the wide sleeve of her night-dress had slipped down,—as fair a picture as man could wish to look upon, in spite of her bruised face and broken arm.
He stood watching her for a moment with bated breath, and recalled that first morning when she came ashore and he had doubted if he could recover her; and he thanked God again for the dogged obstinacy which would not let him accept defeat so long as smallest hope remained.
She moved, opened her heavy eyes, and lay quietly looking at him, just as she had done that other time, and for a brief space there was no more recognition in them than there had been then.
"What is it? Who are you?" she asked, and he suffered a momentary shock. But for reply he laid his cool strong hand—rougher than it used to be, but vitally sensitive to the feel of her—on the broad white forehead, and found it hot and throbbing. That did not greatly surprise him. There was sure to be a certain feverishness after such an experience. And he would have given much for five minutes' root round his old dispensary.
He had nothing,—nothing but common sense, and his professional knowledge, and Nature's simplest remedies. He went out quietly and got cold water and soft linen, and bathed the throbbing forehead and then laid the wet bandage on it.
"That is nice," she said softly. "What a trouble I am to you!"
"Oh, frightful!" he smiled, as he changed the cloth for a fresh one. "You see how I resent it. Has the arm been hurting?"
"It hurts at times, but my head is the worst, and I feel bruised all over."
"But no more breakages?" he asked anxiously.
"I don't think so, just bruised and stiff and sore."
He hesitated for a second. She was so very much more to him than simply a patient.
"Will you let me remind you that I am a doctor? The very best cure for all that is gentle rubbing. If you will allow me I will undertake to reduce the pains by one half."
"Then please do, Doctor, for I ache in every bone."
And he drew off all her blankets but one, and through it proceeded to massage the aching limbs, and had never in his life found greater enjoyment in his work. He even ventured to treat the throbbing head in the same way, drawing his fingers soothingly over the white forehead and up into the masses of her hair.
"There is virtue in your fingers," she murmured drowsily, and before he had done she was sleeping soundly again. Then he laid another wet cloth on her forehead and left Nature to do her share in the good work.
It was fortunate that she had little appetite for the next few days. The cakes he made for her, and water, scrupulously boiled and cooled and flavoured with coffee, amply satisfied her; and he, himself lived on pork, fish and fresh meat being unobtainable.
For four days the gale bellowed round them, but being to leeward, and protected somewhat by the heeling of the ship, they felt it less than if they had been on an even keel, and it never kept The Girl from sleeping.
Much of that time Wulf spent in an endeavour to obtain salt from sea water, the lack of it being one of their greatest deprivations. As the result of many boilings and the careful scraping up of the slight encrustations on his pans, he managed to get a little, and exultantly let The Girl taste it as a great treat; but it was a long and slow process.
The default of her right arm made her very dependent on him in many little ways, but never was service more tactfully rendered or more delighted in by the servitor. And every service, so rendered and accepted, made for increased knowledge on both sides, and so for closer intimacy.
Never, in all her contact with the greater world, had she met any man in whom she felt such implicit confidence as in this man. Never, since that first time her wondering eyes met his, when his strenuous exertions had dragged her back from the dead, had he by word or deed or look, raised one shadow of fear or mistrust in her mind. In everything, to the extremest point of death itself, he had proved himself a simple, brave, and honest gentleman.
And as she lay there helpless, with the gale howling outside and the broken waves of the lake clop-clopping in the strakes under her ear, she had much time to think of him and all he had done and was doing for her, and all her thought was warm and grateful.
"I am a dreadful burden to you," she would say. "And you are very very good to me."
And he would answer her, with the smile she liked to provoke, "But for your suffering in the matter I would tell you how grateful I am to that rotten chain for giving me the opportunity. I count it a privilege as well as a pleasure."
And when he had left her, she would think at times how it might have been with her if it were not this man but the other with whom she had been left alone. And she would shiver at the thought, and then remember that if the other had been alone she would not have been there, for he could never have drawn her back from the dead as this one had done.
And she thought also at times of their fight with the other in the fog, and followed that idea up and shivered still more. For if the mate had killed this man it would indeed have gone hard with her. Ay, she had much to be thankful for, and thankful she was.
And as to the future.... It was all vague and dim, as the future always must be, but she had no fear of it, because she trusted this man so perfectly.
Vague and dim it might be, but it was shot with rosy gleams.
Whatever he might ask of her she would hold it right because he asked it. She had found him worthy. She would trust him completely, ask what he might. Yes, ... ask ... what ... he ... might.
XLVIII
"The sun's coming out," was his cheerful announcement, one morning when he came in with her breakfast. "And here's some fish for you at last."
"The sight of it makes me hungry."
"That's the best news you've given me for four days. There's some salt for you in payment," he said, with full pride of accomplishment.
"Salt is a great treat. Have you left any for yourself?"
"Oh, I've got some. I'm going to set up a regular salt factory as soon as you're about again."
"I would like to get up and go on deck when I've had breakfast. Surely the ship is not so tilted as it was."
"Not quite so bad, but I'm afraid it will never come quite right side up again. It's hard and fast on the shore at present. I could wade across."
"I must see it. I will get up as soon as I have had my breakfast."
"Can you manage?" he asked doubtfully. "You must keep that arm quiet, you know."
"I'll try anyway. If I get stuck I will call," and in due course she called, and he found that she had managed to get her blankets round her, and that as gracefully as ever in some marvellous fashion, but she had doubted her power of getting out of the bunk in its lopsided state without his help.
He stepped up on to the lower bunk, and worked his arms under her.
"Now, if you wouldn't mind steadying yourself with your usable hand on my shoulder—so! There you are!" and he lifted her gently to her feet on the floor. "Now, hang on to my arm.... But your shoes?—you had better have them on. In your own room of course. Wait and I'll get them," and he climbed up and got them, and put them on and tied them for her. "I've pegged some slats across the slope for better foot-hold. You can't slip," and he got her safely out on to the deck.
"It is delightful to be in fresh air again," she said, as she drank it in. "I wish the good weather would last for ever."
"We'll hope for a good long spell anyhow. Doesn't it feel odd to be so close to the shore? We'll have rabbit for dinner. You must almost have forgotten what it tastes like."
"I can still just remember," she laughed.
"I'll get up some blankets and tuck you into this corner, and then I'll go and get some and some fresh water. Our raft's blown ashore and the other one also. I shall have to wade."
He made her comfortable in the corner, got his buckets and a stick, and dropped over the side.
She lay watching him as he waded ashore, saw him stop for a moment to examine the raft, and then, with a wave of the hand, he set off for the pools, swinging his buckets jauntily.
Were there many such men in the world, she wondered, and why had she never met any of them before? The men she had met were so very different. They were as a rule so elusive and evasive that you never quite knew what they were driving at ... except that it was certain to be for their own satisfaction and advantage ... and that unless you were always on your guard it was likely to turn out ill for you ... a queer world, and life was a puzzle past comprehending.....
She was glad to be out of it ... even on this sandbank.... Life was sweeter here, and certainly very much simpler.... Well, perhaps a little too severely simple in some respects.... But one could not have everything.... Thank God, again, that it was this man who was with her and not that other!...
She saw him coming at last with his full buckets, and presently made out a couple of rabbits hanging round his neck.
"The birds are having a great time out yonder," he called to her. "Lots of new wreckage, I expect, and they've been fasting. I must get across as soon as I can and see if the storm has brought anything for us. One never knows,"—he had come alongside, and lifted the buckets and tossed the rabbits on to the deck. "I'll fasten the raft to the chain there"—and he hauled himself along on it to the bows.
She heard a smothered exclamation, and presently he climbed up and came along the deck with something in his hand.
"What is it?" she asked.
"What do you make of that?" and he handed her the link of the rusty cable which had given way and let them drift ashore.
She turned it over in her fingers. Just where it had opened, the metal glinted in the sunshine, and just above that there was a patch that looked like grease. She shook her head.
"Don't you see?—it's been filed enough to weaken it, and there was grease on the file."
"And you think——" with a shocked look.
"Undoubtedly. No one else could have done it. But what his idea was, I can't make out. Just to make trouble, I suppose. Of course if the wind had come the other way, as it has done once or twice, we might have blown right down the lake. It was a mean trick. I wonder when he did it."
"I am more thankful than ever that he's gone."
"So am I.... I've been thinking we'd better move across there as soon as possible."
"Must we? I have grown so fond of this old ship."
"But we can't live on the slope like this. Besides, if a gale did come the opposite way we might have trouble. I'll go over presently and begin cleaning. When I've finished you'll find it much more comfortable than this."
"I shall always like this the best."
"I was thinking as I went over to the pools that it might not be a bad idea to build some kind of a house on shore. I can get timber enough for a hundred. You see, we don't quite know what winter may be like in this place, but it's pretty sure to be a time of storms."
"Can you build a house?"
"One never knows what one can do till one tries. This is a great place for bringing out one's unknown faculties. I've done a good many things I never expected to do, since I came here."
"It might be a good plan. Can't it wait till I can help?"
"We'll see. We must do like the ants and squirrels—work hard while it's fine and get in our supplies for the winter. We are mighty fortunate to have such a store to draw upon."
He spent all the rest of the day slaving like a charwoman on the 'Jane and Mary,' and The Girl lay in her nest watching him, as he went up and down, now flinging rubbish overboard, then hauling up buckets of water, and sluicing and mopping, with every now and again a cheery wave of hand or mop in her direction, and long periods below devoted, she did not doubt, to the doing of more of those things which he had never done, or expected to do, until he came there. And her heart was very warm to him, knowing that it was not for his own comfort but for hers that all these great labours were toward.
She saw him busy on deck, bending and bobbing up and down, and once she caught the gleam of vivid colours, and wondered what he was at. He was a long time below after that, and then he went ashore for a load of sand, and when it was getting dark she suddenly caught glimpse of his head in the water as he wound up the day's work with a very necessary swim.
He came across on the raft all aglow, but visibly tired and hungry, and greeted her with a cheery, "I think you'll find it all to your liking. I've swabbed away every trace of the former tenants and everything is fresh and new."
"I wish I could have helped."
"Oh, but you did, by sitting quietly here and getting better, to say nothing of a wave of the hand now and then."
"That was not doing much when you were working like a——"
"Like a nigger. I looked like one too till I'd had that swim. Now I'll get supper ready, and tomorrow we'll flit, and you'll be able to walk about on an even keel without any danger of falling."
He helped her down to the cabin and their very close quarters at the bottom of the slope, and set to work preparing their evening meal. And the more incongruous his occupations and the more menial his tasks, the more The Girl's heart warmed towards him.
XLIX
In the morning, as soon as they had eaten, he got the raft round to the lower side of the ship, ruthlessly hacked out a section of the bulwarks so that she could step down with the smallest possible exertion, and took her across to the new house.
Getting her on board without shock to the broken arm was not so easy. He moored the raft, stem and stern, and braced it tight so that it could not move. Then he built on it a pyramid of three empty boxes, forming steps up which she could climb high enough to grip his strong hand teaching down through the gap in the side and so be drawn safely up on to the deck, which he had swabbed with sand and water till it was cleaner than it had been for years.
"It is nice to be able to walk on the flat of one's feet again," she said, and he led her down below to a cabin gorgeous as an Eastern room with drapings of amber silk and blue, and every bit of woodwork scoured as clean as elbow-grease could make it.
"It is delightful," she said fervidly. "How you must have slaved at it!"
"And how I enjoyed doing it!"
There was a new sand hearth, nicely banked up between planks pegged upright on the floor, and a pile of wood on it ready for lighting. He lit a match with his flint and steel, and handed it to her as before, so that she might start the first fire in the new home.
"You will take your old room," he said. "Then if we should topple over again you won't be able to fall out of your bunk. Now I'll go back and bring over all our belongings. I made a complete clearance here, except some of the stores which we can use," and before mid-day he had everything transferred and stowed away.
He spent most of the afternoon weaving in and out of their rusty cable lengths of the least-rotten rope he could lay hands on, in order to strengthen it and stop its chafing as much as possible. But below water he could not go beyond a foot or two, and the lower links he had to leave to Providence.
As he worked, The Girl paced the deck, rejoicing in its horizontality, and came each time to lean over the bows and watch him and say a lively word or two. And, if any had been there to see, it would have been difficult to believe that two such cheerful people were, to the very best of their belief, condemned by an inscrutable fate to imprisonment for life on this lonely sandbank,—to a confinement as solitary in some respects, and in the prospect of escape as hopeless, as that of the Bastille itself.
But—they were together; and Adam and Eve, cast out of the Garden, could still make a home in the wilderness and turn the joys that were left them to fullest account.
L
He was up betimes next morning, and had fish for their breakfast before she came out of her room, and, moreover, had made cakes and full provision for all her needs during the day.
"I shall go out there at once," he said. "You will not mind being left? I want to get in everything we shall need for the winter as soon as possible."
"I am sorry not to be able to help, but I shall be quite all right here. You will..." she began, with a quite novel access of timidity, and finished with a rush,—"you will be very careful. I am rather fearful of that horrid wreckage. If you never came back——"
"I will be very careful, and I will certainly come back—laden, I hope, with good things," and he went off on the raft, and she stood watching and waving her hand at times when he turned, until he disappeared along the spit. And as he went his heart beat high, for he did not believe that her fears were chiefly for herself, although she had made it appear so.
He found the wreckage considerably altered. The gale had swept it bare of all traces of their previous peckings and nibblings, and had piled and stuffed it with tempting-looking new plunder. And with things less attractive. Whatever had been left of the mate had disappeared, hurled down probably into some black crack. But, during the day, in various crannies he came on no less than three drowned men, partly dressed in what appeared to him naval uniform, anyway not in the usual slops of the merchant service. And they set him thinking how narrow, yet how sharp, was the dividing line between themselves and the outer world.
He built his raft as usual and toiled all day, smashing his way through scores of boxes, cases, seamen's chests, and rooting in them as eagerly as ever did the mate, but with a different spirit within him.
First he gathered indispensable stores, and practice had by this time so perfected his eye that he could tell almost at a glance what a cask or box contained, how long it had been afloat, and what damage its contents were likely to have suffered.
Many odd, and some extraordinary and incomprehensible, things his hasty search brought to light. It was indeed an absorbing inquisition into, an endless revelation of, the ruling passions and frailties of the human heart.
Little hoards of money and jewelry were his commonest finds, pitiful now in view of their uselessness to those who had gathered them. But he would take from the pile nothing but what it rightly owed them, means of life and the tempering of its hard conditions, and he left all these untouched. Tobacco and pipes, and flints and steel, were lawful plunder.
One brass-bound chest he broke open and found great store of women's clothing, rich with lace and finely wrought even to the eyes of a man. The Girl might find that useful and he began to make a selection, with the eyes of her delight dancing before him as he did so. Then with a start, and a sharp breath of amazement, he straightened up for a moment, crammed everything back into the chest, and hauled it to the edge of the pile and hurled it into the sea. For there, at the bottom, wedged tight among all these delicate draperies was the body of a new-born child, strangled at its birth, as he knew by the look of it.
Bundles of letters, papers which might be of highest import to waiting friends, anxious heirs, business houses, he found in places, but left them as they were.
He came on another box containing women's clothes, of plainer material and simpler make, and rooted carefully after the character of its owner before deciding to take some back for The Girl. It seemed above suspicion, and he rejoiced to be able to supply some of her more pressing needs. Clothes for himself the wreckage had always been generous of, but to come upon two chests of women's things in one day was extraordinary. They had at times searched far and wide and anxiously, and never lighted on one.
He got back with his load, and in two journeys from the spit got it all on board, before it was too dark for his reward in The Girl's exuberant joy at the things he had brought for her.
"Shoes! ... stockings! ... Some proper needles and thread! ... and oh, but I am glad to see these other things! ... I was washing some of my things while you were away, but it was not easy with one hand ... And another brush and comb! ... and scissors! If we can clean them I can cut your hair for you."
"I shall be grateful. I feel like a savage. I'll clean them all right."
"And did you make any strange discoveries?" she asked, while they sat at supper, as one asks news of the outer world from a traveller.
"Oh, heaps. Jewels and money, and papers, letters and so on——"
"They might be interesting,—in winter days."
"I had not thought of that. I'll bring you an armful tomorrow."
"You will go again tomorrow?"
"I must go till I think we have enough for the winter's siege. There may be weeks when I can't get out there. This storm brought in a mighty pile of stuff and it's best to get it while it's in good condition. Do you want more clothes if I can find them?"
"A woman never has too many," she laughed. "But don't waste time searching for them. I can manage very well, especially now that I have needles and thread."
"I just smash open each box as I come to it. One never knows what one may come upon. Their contents are as different as their owners. I have been trying to imagine them from their belongings."
He wrought at the pile for many days, and she filled in the time at home by evaporating endless pans of water over the fire to get the salt, and managed to accumulate quite a fair supply.
He brought over for her amusement a great bundle of written papers which she was too busy to delve into at the moment, all her time being given to salt-making. And then one day he returned exultant with some great lumps of rock salt, such as cattle love to lick, and her little efforts were like to be put in the shade. But he averred that her salt was infinitely the finer to a cultivated taste and they would use it only on very special occasions.
He brought her too a quantity of oatmeal in cases, and—treasure-trove indeed—a dozen cans of the oil used for ships' lights. He searched in vain for a lantern, but felt sure he could turn that oil to account in some way during the long winter nights. From the marks on the cases in the neighbourhood of these discoveries, and the superior quality of some of their contents, he thought a warship must have gone down not very far away.
His belief was confirmed by finding other unusual supplies in the same place, and he worked at it for days until there was hardly a case or box or barrel which he had not tapped.
One of his greatest finds was a handful of spare tools, in a chest that had probably belonged to a ship's carpenter—an auger, a gimlet, a chisel, a screwdriver, and a small piece of sharpening hone. And that same day he lighted on an unpretentious little box, stoutly made of deal, which had swelled with the water to the partial protection of its contents. A glance inside showed him how great was this treasure, and he carried it at once to his raft and bestowed it with care.
When he opened the little deal case on deck that evening The Girl gave a joyful cry, "Books! Oh, but I am glad, and the winter nights will not be long! Let me see them all quickly.—"Poems," by Robert Burns. "Life of Samuel Johnson," by James Boswell. The Book of Common Prayer. "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," by Edward Gibbon, Vol 1. "The Vicar of Wakefield," by Oliver Goldsmith. "Tristram Shandy," by Laurence Sterne. "The Castle of Otranto," by Horace Walpole. The Annual Register—one, two, three volumes. "Tom Jones," by Henry Fielding. "Clarissa Harlowe," by Samuel Richardson. Cruden's Concordance. Hymns by Rev. Isaac Watts, D.D. A Bible. One, two, three volumes of sermons. John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" and "Holy War," and Foxe's "Book of Martyrs"! Oh, we shall do famously. Now what do you make of the owner of this fine thing?" she challenged him merrily.
"A parson, I should say. They are the greatest readers. But that is easily seen," and he turned to the fly-leaves of several of the volumes and found them all inscribed with the same name, 'James Elwes, Esq. M.A. Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford.'
"Good Mr Elwes! I am sorry he is drowned, but I am grateful to him for taking his books with him when he travelled, and leaving them behind him when he went. That is the greatest find yet," said she.
"We won't despise the lower things. All the same I'm glad to have the books."
"They will be a wonderful help. Let us dry them at once. They are more precious than jewels," and he got her soft cloths, and they carefully mopped up and wiped over every volume and promised them they should be set in the sun to complete their cure on the morrow.
"And those horrid birds?" she asked, as they worked. "You had no trouble from them?"
"They were all too busy elsewhere. There is grain enough floating about there to feed a city. They will be plump and happy birds for some time to come. They were too busy even to quarrel and they never so much as looked my way."
LI
As though exhausted by its late violence, or needing rest before renewing it, the weather continued mild and open except for occasional mists.
Thanks to her own caution and Wulfrey's assiduous attention, The Girl's arm was going on well, and she was looking forward eagerly to being an active member of society again.
"You see, I have never been laid up in my life before," she said, "and it is unnatural to me. A dozen times a day I have to stop that wretched arm when it wants to do something."
"A very little longer and it shall do what it wants, within reason. Let me rub it again for you."
"You are a great believer in rubbing," she said, with reminiscent smiles, as she surrendered the arm to him, and he rubbed it gently and tirelessly to keep the sinews and muscles from stiffening.
"I have found great virtue in it, and great reward," he smiled back.
He took her ashore almost every day, and they rambled far along the northern beach and enjoyed the soft autumnal days to the full. But all the time his thoughts were on the coming winter whose rigours he had no means of forecasting. And so, like a wise man, he made such provision as was possible for the worst.
He set her to gathering and drying every herb she deemed suitable for seasoning purposes. And he himself caught very many fish and split them open and dried them in the sun as he had read was done elsewhere. He tried some rabbits in the same way, but they did not take to it and had to be used for bait.
And, after a few days' rest from his exertions at the wreckage, he set to work on building a house on shore, in case anything should happen to the 'Jane and Mary,' or they should find solid ground preferable to water during the winter gales.
He had for a long time past secured every nail he could knock out of the old timbers, and regarded them as most precious possessions. The finding of the auger and gimlet opened up wider possibilities. Where nails are scarce, a hole and a peg may take their place. Wood he had in superfluity, for the remains of every raft that had brought cargo from the pile lay strewn about the spit, in some cases hurled half-way across it by the waves that broke there in the storm times.
Where best to build was a matter not easily decided. They would need all the sunshine obtainable. But all the heaviest gales came from the south and west and from these they wanted shelter. And they must be within easy reach of the fresh-water pools and not too far from the ship, where their supplies would be mostly stored.
After much discussion they fixed on an odd little hollow—a mere cup in the centre of three sandhills of size, which stood close together and moreover were well matted with wire-grass and looked too solid to whirl away in a gale as the smaller hills constantly did.
To the south-west of these stood the largest hill in the neighbourhood, and this would break the force of the gales in that direction. The water-pools lay out in the sandy plain just beyond this hill.
Wulf entered on the building of this first house he had ever attempted, with the gusto of a schoolboy.
"I feel about fourteen," he laughed, as he detailed his ideas to her.
"So do I,—except this wretched arm, which is one hundred and five."
"We'll soon have it back to fourteen. You see, if I can carve out the sides of those three smaller hills, and back our house into each of them, it will make immensely for solidity and warmth. No gale can blow through a sand-hill, though they do waltz about now and again. But these seem fairly well set and fixed. I'll start on it tomorrow. I wish I had a spade and a saw. I can chop out some kind of a spade from a plank, maybe, but, lacking a saw, the house will be a bit rough, I'm afraid."
"That doesn't matter as long as it stands up and keeps us warm."
"Oh, I'll guarantee it will stand up and keep you warm."
"Can you make a chimney?"
"I've been thinking of that. I will run four boards up through a hole in the roof, and we must try to induce the smoke to go up. There is no clay here, you see, nor stone,—nothing but sand."
The site settled, he set to work at once rafting his timber across the lake from the spit, and then hauling it across the sandy plain past the fresh-water pools, and this gave him a full week's hard labour. Some of the lighter planks he let The Girl drag across, since she insisted on having at all events one hand in the work. The heavier ones were as much as he could handle himself. In his rest times, and after supper of a night, he whittled pegs till he had an ample supply, and sharpened his axes with the bit of hone he had found in the carpenter's chest.
With his axe he hacked out a rude spade from a plank, and trimmed the handle and the point with his knife; and then he set to work on his three sandhills, cutting down the side of each where it rounded down into the cup-like hollow, and flinging the sand into the cup itself to make a level floor.
The building of such a house was entirely new to him, but he had brains and he bent them all to every problem that presented itself, and never failed to find the way out. For instance,—the space he wished his house to occupy between the sandhills was quite twelve feet in width, and his planks ran mostly to six or eight feet only. There must therefore be a row of posts in the middle, with one or more beams on top as a ridge-pole, from which he could carry side pieces to the walls six feet away on either side, and he had foreseen some difficulty in fixing these posts absolutely rigid in the yielding sand. If they wobbled or gave in any direction his roof would be in danger.
But before he began carving down his sand-slopes he had settled that point. He selected his uprights, the longest and strongest in his stock, chopped them to size, and to the end of each pegged stout flat cross-pieces, boring the holes with his auger and driving home the pegs with the back of his axe. These he set up in a line in the middle of the hollow, standing upright on their cross-piece feet. Then, as he carved down his slope, every spadeful of sand buried the cross-pieces deeper, till, when he had finished, they were under two feet of well-trampled sand and he looked upon their rigidity as a personal triumph.
That was surely as extraordinary a house as was ever built by a man who knew nothing whatever about building. It took him five full weeks and he enjoyed every minute of it. And so did The Girl, for she sat in the sun, watching all his cheerful activities with envious eyes because she was so unable to share them, discussing points with him as they arose, giving suggestions and advice which he always adopted when they chimed with his own, and approving heartily of all he did.
"I wish I could help,"—how many times she said it, and thought it very many more. "It is disgusting to have to sit and watch while you work like a—like a galley-slave."
"Galley-slaves don't build houses—not such houses as this anyway. There never was such a house before," he laughed. "Besides, you help more than you know by simply sitting there and approving of it. 'They also serve,' you know, 'who only sit and watch.'"
"Who says that?"
"One John Milton,—not quite in those words, but the meaning is the same. As a matter of fact, he had, I believe, just gone blind when he said it and was feeling rather out of it. Your arm will soon be all right again. It's doing famously."
Truly a wonderful house, not so much because of the quaint way in which its difficulties were surmounted or evaded—which alone might have given an ordinary builder nightmares for the rest of his life, but more especially by reason of the rose-golden thoughts which swept at times like flame through hearts and minds of both watcher and builder as they wrought. If all those glowing thoughts could have transmuted themselves into visible adornment of that rough little home no fairy palace could have vied with it.
For ever and again—and mostly ever—in his heart—helping the auger as it bored and the axe as it hammered the pegs well home—was the thought that was radiant enough and mighty enough to transform that desolate bank of sand into a veritable Garden of Eden;—"If no rescue comes, here we shall live—she and I—together,—one in heart and soul and body, and here, maybe, we shall die. But death is a long way off, and Love lives on forever. I would not exchange my Kingdom for all the Kingdoms of the earth."
And perhaps he would permit himself a foretaste from the cup of that intoxicating happiness, in a quick caressing glance at her as she sat in the sand nursing her arm; and at times she caught those stolen glances, for her eyes found great satisfaction in his tireless energy and visible enjoyment in his work.
And she knew as well as if he had told her in words,—nay better, for, without a word, the heart speaks louder than all the words in the world when it shines through honest eyes,—she knew all that possessed him concerning her, and she was not discomforted thereby.
She trusted him completely. She had never felt towards any man as she did to this man. Whatever he willed for her would be right. Her whole heart and soul rejoiced that he should find such hope and joy in her. She was wholly his for the asking, but she knew he would not ask it all until he was satisfied in his own mind that he was right in asking and she in giving.
She felt like a wounded bird, sitting below there, while her mate built their nest up above. But not, she said to herself, like their island birds, for they were harsh and cruel, with cold hard eyes, and ever-craving hunger in place of hearts.
That wonderful house, when at last it was finished, would have given no satisfaction to the soul of any ordinary builder, but to these two it was a monument of hard work and difficulties overcome.
It contained one room twelve feet square in front, with two smaller rooms opening out of it at the back. The roof sloped slightly from ridge-pole to side-walls and was made in four layers—boards side by side below, then thick sheets of crimson velvet, an outer shield of overlapping planks, and a thick coat of sand and growing wire-grass over all. He was hopeful that it would withstand the heaviest gales and rains the winter might bring. The walls were of stout boards backed up against the sandhills, with new sandhills thrown up in the intervening spaces, and inside they were draped with more crimson velvet, of which they had a large supply. The floor was of planks. The door had been a troublesome problem, and, lacking hinges, had to be lifted bodily in and out of its place. The bay-window alongside it was the cabin skylight from the 'Martha' and this, and the square smoke-shaft of four stout boards above the sand hearth, they regarded as crowning achievements.
Emboldened by success, and finding enjoyment in the development of a craft of which he had never suspected himself until now,—experiencing too, to the very fullest, the primal blessing of work, he evolved an arm-chair for The Girl, out of a barrel that had once held salt pork, and when its asperities were softened and hidden under voluminous folds of red velvet she assured him it was the most comfortable chair she had ever sat in.
And, for his part, he knew that no girl ever sat in any chair that ever was made who could compare with her.
Beds too he made with some old sail-cloth fitted to rough frames, and a table, and their furnishing sufficed, though he promised to add to it during the winter.
The Girl's arm was well again, though he still urged caution in the use of it, and kept a watchful eye on it and her; and never had he felt himself so full of the joy and strength of life. When the house was finished, they brought over a supply of stores and lived in it for a time, and turned the waning autumn days to account by long ramblings all over the island, in anticipation of the days when ill weather might coop them strictly within narrower bounds.
There were no discoveries to make in land or sea or sky, scarcely any in themselves. He felt assured in his own mind that she was not unaware of all that he felt for her. The fact, the great undeniable fact, that she did not seem to resent it, was a deep joy to him.
Their good-comradeship had known no cloud. She was as charmingly frank and gracious as ever. She talked away without reserve or constraint of that strange past life of hers, which, in every smallest particular, was so absolutely the opposite of this one. And never once did she display any hankering after Egypt, rather seemed to regard this as the Promised Land, or at all events the doorway to it.
Ever and again the possibilities of rescue or escape came to the front in their discussions, but grew less and less as the weeks went by. He had been seven months on the island, and she four, and save herself, in all that time no other living soul had come to it,—unless, as the mate had so strenuously held, the bodies of those discomforting sea-birds were occupied by the souls of drowned sailor men.
"And you, you know, were a miracle," he would remind her. "The chances against you were about a thousand to one——"
"And you were that one."
"It was not that I was thinking of——"
"I never forget it."
"This place is undoubtedly shunned, as Macro said. It is known as a death-trap. No ship comes here except in pieces. No man comes until he is dead. And so, our prospects of rescue or escape are very small, I fear. For your sake I wish it were otherwise."
"Have I shown signs of discontent, then? I assure you I have never been so ... so content to wait and hope. It is the most delightful holiday from the world I have ever had.... Sometime perhaps we shall look back upon it as the wide dividing line between the old world and the new ... and between the old life and the new."
"A line is black as a rule."
"It may be light," she said, and waved her hand expressively towards the shimmering golden spear which the setting sun sent quivering over the water right up to their feet, as they stood watching it on the beach.
"If we could only walk on it!" she said softly, as the red disc swelled and sank and disappeared amid a glory of tender lucent greens and blues and glowing orange, with a line of crimson fire on the edge of every hovering cloud, and a heavenful of crimson flakes and splashes smouldering slowly into gray above their heads.
"It points the road, but we cannot take it," he said quietly, and they turned and went back to the house.
There were times when she thought he was about to tell her all that was in his heart concerning her. She could see it in his face and eyes and restless manner. And she was ready to respond.
There were times when it was almost more than he could do to keep it all in. He believed she knew. He hardly doubted her response.
But he said to himself, with set jaw and a firmer grip of his manhood,—"She has known me just four months. She is here helpless in my hands. I may not press her unduly, for she might feel that she could hardly say me nay. Her very helplessness must make me the more careful and considerate."
And more than once, when the desire of his heart was leaping to his lips, he jumped up abruptly and went out into the night and strode away along the beach. And there he would pace to and fro under the quiet stars, with the black waves swirling up the shore in long slow gleams of shimmering silver, till the peace of it all passed into his blood, and presently he would go quietly in again, with face and heart toned down to reasonableness.
And when he went out so, The Girl would smile to herself at times, as one who understood. And again, at times the smile would slowly fade and she would sit thoughtful. But, if she wondered somewhat, and found him beyond her complete understanding, she liked him none the less for his restraint.
She was quite happy in their present fellowship, but she knew it could not continue so, indefinitely. A man always wants more. The woman gives.
She felt towards this man as she had never felt towards any man before. Without a word spoken, she was satisfied as to the integrity of his intentions, as she had never been of any of those who had approached her in that old life, and she had been approached by many. But the coinage of love about the Court had grown as debased as did the paper money of the Republic later on. Whispers of love had become but fair cloaks for foul deeds. This man had whispered nothing, but she understood him and held him in honour.
And she was in no hurry. His love would not burn out, or she was much mistaken in him. The flame repressed burns brightest in the end.
And then ... and then.... Well, she sometimes laid hold of the future by the ears, as it were, and held its changing face while she peered intently into it, and endeavoured to read there all that it might mean for her.
Sooner or later he would open his heart to her—and that would be the first change. Their relationship would of necessity become closer and warmer. She would welcome that. It would bring great happiness to them both.
And then—later on—sometime—when all hope of rescue or escape had left them ... he would ask still more of her.... That was inevitable.... And in her heart, hiding behind a thinning cloud of doubt, which had, when first it came upon her, been tinged with dismay, she knew he would be right, and that in consenting, she would do no wrong, although it must run counter to all her normal views of right and wrong.
She faced it all squarely and honestly,—Courtship properly ends in Marriage. If by this accident of their strange fate the regular marriage rites prescribed by the law of the land could not take place, they would have to content themselves without them. It was inevitable.
Elemental views of right and wrong were indeed tap-rooted in her heart and safe from bruising. But she recognised that circumstances alter cases and that normal views were out of place here.
And as to the law of the land—what country claimed this bank of sand she did not know. It was a No Man's Land, outside the pale of all laws save God's and Nature's.
With no man she had ever met, except this man, could she have imagined herself considering possibilities such as these. But with him she would feel as safe and happy as if all the archbishops and bishops in the land had performed the ceremony. For, after all, it was only man's law and man's ceremony; and God's law and Nature's were mightier than these.
With such thoughts in her—deep thoughts and long—she could wait quietly, and she veiled her feelings for him lest he should deem her of light mind and too easily to be won.
Now and again, induced perhaps by some adverse humour of body or atmosphere, a plaguy little fear would leap at her heart and nibble it with sharp teeth,—could it be that he had ties in the old life of which he had never dared to hint,—some other woman—to whom he was bound by honour or by law?
He had told her much, and yet not very much. Had he told her all? Did men ever tell all? He had told her much, but there was room in what he had not told for anything—for everything.
But surely he had one time said that he had left no ties behind him,—that he was alone.
If there should be anything of the kind it would explain his self-restraint, his quiet service, the looks he could not wholly check, the words he did not speak.
That his heart had gone out to herself she could not mistake. But that was not incompatible with ties elsewhere that might keep them apart.
But fears such as that could not hold her long. They had sprung up, in spite of her, once or twice when he had jumped up and left her alone, and gone out into the night to pace the beach. But when he returned, quieted and all himself again, they disappeared at once, and her heart was at rest. Wrong and this man had nothing in common, she said to herself. She felt as sure of his honour as of her own.