She moved away from him now that the night was at hand, intending to seek a little knoll that was hollowed out by Nature so that it presented the appearance of a small cave of about six feet in depth and the same in breadth. Above it there grew, tall, stately, and feathery, two cocoa trees close together; around it trailed tropical creepers and huge-leaved plants which bore upon them large white flowers. It was into this cave she had crept the night before and had slept, and to it she now intended to go again, it being, as she thought, better perhaps to pass the night there than in the open air. Yet, had she but known, it offered her no necessary shelter, since, in truth, none was required--especially at this season. Dews scarcely ever arose in the island, there being little, if any, of that dampness at night for which the poisonous deadly West Coast of Africa is so evilly renowned, and one might sleep in the open air as free from the dangers of exhalations as in any closed place that could be devised here.
But, not being aware of this--as how should she who, hitherto, had known so little of the world outside London--outside England?--she spoke to Stephen Charke ere she left him for the night, saying: 'I wish there was something to cover you with--something to protect you. Yet there is nothing--not a rag.'
'It is of no importance,' he said, looking up at her, and able to see her face, pale and ghostlike, by the light of the stars. 'Of none whatever. I shall be able to lie here and sleep very well. There is no fear of damp or fever in all this locality. I know it well. And, tomorrow, I hope to be able to get up and go about the island. Perhaps, beyond that mountain at the back, there may be some signs of human habitation--of human life. Do not think of me. Good-night. Sleep well. Try to sleep well.'
'Good-night,' she answered, 'Good-night'; and then she slowly withdrew to the cave in the little knoll, and so left him.
But, when she had gone, and had lain herself down upon the soft, dry sand within that cave, sleep refused to come to her. The night before she had slept long and soundly, perhaps because of all that she had gone through, and because also she was battered and bruised and weak after her immersion in the sea and the contact with the rocks. But to-night she could not do so--her mind was now triumphant over her body; the hour of that mind's agony was upon her. And she bent and swayed beneath this agony, and recognised, acknowledged, all the ruin that had fallen on her future life and hopes and dreams of happiness to come.
Her lover, her future husband, was gone--was dead! Her heart was broken; there was in actual fact no future before her. She had loved him madly, blindly, almost from the first time she had set eyes on him, and now--now he was dead. There was nothing more. She would never love any other man; none other could ever find his way into her heart as Gilbert Bampfyld had done, nor set every pulse and fibre in her body stirring, nor cause her to thank God when she awoke each morning that another day had dawned when, even though she might not see him, she could still pass many waking hours in thinking of him. No; no other man would ever have the power to cause all that. Henceforth, if she ever left this island alive, it would be to return to a joyless, hopeless life--a woman widowed ere she had become a wife.
Thus she thought and mused as she lay in the cave, her head supported on one hand while she looked out on all that devilish, cruel waste of waters which had hurled the ship to its destruction and slain almost every soul on board her, and which now--like some wanton trampling on the ruin and despair that she has caused--was smiling before her in the rays of a crescent moon that was just peeping above the eastern horizon. Indeed, the glimmer which this young moon sent shimmering along the tropical sea was not unlike the false sad smile that a wanton's lips might wear in the hour of her victim's ruin; the smile that bespeaks 'the painting of a sorrow, a face without a heart.'
A little breeze sprang up now, a ripple soft as a lover's kiss; balmy, too--as it played among all the rich tropical vegetation of the island--as a young girl's pure breath, and she saw that her fellow-castaway perceived it, since he turned himself so as to bring his face towards it--doubtless to cool his heated frame and to get relief from the warm, tepid air that hung all around--air that was like the atmosphere of a Turkish bath. And this led her thoughts away from her own sorrows into the direction of those griefs which must be his--towards this brave, valiant man, who had saved her life at, as she knew must be the case, the risk of his own. His lot was also sad, she recognised, sad because he loved her--as it would have been the merest affectation for her to pretend to doubt--and because she knew that never could this love obtain that which it hungered for. Yet, all the same, there had come into her heart a feeling of intense sorrow for him; sorrow and pity that had welled up into her bosom and was almost holy in its depth and purity.
'To love and lose, as I have done,' she murmured; 'to love and never win, as is the case with him. Oh, God! could there be aught to make our bitterness--our lot--more terrible?'
Suddenly, she started and raised herself higher with her elbow, her nerves quivering, her heart beating violently, her eyes staring intently into the shade beneath a copse, in which grew in wild profusion a tangled mass of cocoa trees and tamarinds, of orange bushes and lemon trees, and into which, now, the new moon's rays were glinting.
For she had seen something moving there--something creeping, crawling close to the ground--stealthily, secretly--as though desirous to approach the spot where they were both so near together, without being heard or seen.
What new horror was this that approached them in the night, that crept in ambush towards them as though intent on secret murder and attack? What! Some native of this horrid region lusting for the stranger's blood, or some wild beast as fierce!
Her; tongue cleaved to her mouth--she could feel that the roof of the latter was becoming dry--she tried to scream--and failed!
And, still, close to the earth, that thing crept--nearer--nearer--and once, as it either pushed some underbrush aside or came more into view, a ray of the moon glistened on a pair of eyes, illuminating the pupils for a moment. Then she found her voice and shrieked aloud:
'Mr. Charke! Mr. Charke! There is something creeping towards us. Save us! Save us!'
In a moment he was endeavouring to spring to his feet, but this he could not do owing to his soreness and contusions; yet, nevertheless, he staggered up a moment later and gazed around, wishing that he had some weapon to his hand.
That cry of Bella's--it rang along the desolate beach as, may be, no woman's voice had ever rung there before!--brought matters to a crisis. There was a rush, a spring from the creature that had, by now, crawled so near to them; a spring which hurled Charke back reeling as the thing passed him and then brought it, itself, close to Bella, about and around whom it at once began to gambol, rudely and roughly, as some great watch-dog might do who had found its lost mistress.
The creature was Bengalee, the tiger-cub, and, in some way, it, if nothing else, was saved from the wreck of theEmperor of the Moon.
'Oh!' cried Bella, half fearfully at its furious bounds and leaps, which, even in her nervousness, she could not but construe into a wild, savage joy on its part at once more being in her presence, 'it is Bengalee. Oh, thank God!'
'Thank God?' Charke repeated, not understanding. 'Thank God for what?'
'It is a sign,' she said, 'a sign that we are not the only ones who have escaped. Think! think! If this creature could get ashore, so--so may others have done.'
For a moment he said nothing, contenting himself with watching the exultation of the creature and in reflecting that it was her shriek which had told it who those were to whom it had drawn so near--with, perhaps, if stung by hunger and privation, a vastly different intention from that of fondling either of them! And he did think of what she hinted in connection with its safety and its having reached the island alive, as well as of that safety pointing to the fact that others, that human beings, might also have done so. Only--he knew, and knowing, refrained from saying, that her deduction was by no means accurate. This animal had been on the deck when the ship heeled over on the reef; it was confined only in a locker from which it might easily have forced its way out in its terror, or, indeed, might have fallen out of it, but it was an animal, and its blindness had left it! Gilbert Bampfyld had also been on the deck, Charke remembered, but was still blind. There was no analogy between the tiger-cub and any human soul on board.
'You do not answer,' she said, as now Bengalee lay panting at her feet, its rough evidences of delight having ceased for a time; 'you do not speak. You think there is no likelihood of any others being saved from the wreck?'
'I cannot think so. Heaven knows that, if I could comfort you with such hopes, I would. But----'
And now he repeated aloud those silent thoughts and arguments of a moment ago; while, as he did so, he saw, in the moonlight, that she turned from him, and he heard her whisper low: 'Heaven help me!'
Then, because her misery and woe struck like a knife to his heart, he said:
'To-morrow, if I am strong enough, as I think I shall be, I will make a journey round the island and explore every spot upon it, where, if--if any one should have, by God's mercy, been fortunate enough to reach the land, I must light upon them. Believe me, nothing shall be left undone that I can do.'
'I do believe you,' she cried; 'I do, indeed. Ah, Mr. Charke,' she almost wailed, 'how good and noble you are! Oh that such goodness, such nobility must go for ever unrequited!'
'That,' he answered, and she, also, could see by the aid of the moon's rays that on his face there came a wan smile, a smile that had not even the ghost of happiness in it, 'that is not to be thought of--never. Let us put away for ever all thoughts of my desires; let us think only of what we have to do. To find, first, whether, in Providence, there should be any others who have escaped from the wreck, and, next, how we are to escape out of this. If there are other islands near here which are inhabited, no matter by whom or what, it may be easy.'
'And if not?'
'Then we must wait until, by some signal or other which I may devise, we can attract the attention of a passing vessel. Beyond this I can think of nothing.'
'Oh!' she exclaimed, 'much as I long to return home to England, to my mother--I think only of her now, I have none other of whom to think--yet--yet, ah, I could not go till I was sure, sure beyond all possibility of doubt, that Gilbert was not here or somewhere near. Think, if he should be still alive and blind and wounded! Here and unable to help himself. Oh, it would be almost worse than to know that he was dead.'
'I do think,' Charke answered; 'I understand. And until we are sure, one way or the other, we will not go: no, not even though rescue came to-morrow.'
Then, looking down at the tiger-cub which had now risen to its feet again, and was pacing restlessly about with the sinuous, lithe movements peculiar to its race, he said: 'But there is also one other thing that must be done. That creature is now beyond control, even by you; and these beasts are treacherous to the core. If it is to live, and we are to live also, it must be secured--made prisoner. Otherwise something terrible will happen. I know it; feel sure of it.'
They had both slept again by the time that the morning broke with the suddenness of the tropics, while the coming of the sun was heralded by the pale primrose hue which all who have been between Capricorn and Cancer know so well; that hue being followed by the vermilion and golden shafts of light, and then by a deep blood-red tinge which suffused all the horizon. They had slept uneasily, each in their place; with--outside, near the opening of the little cave under the knoll--the tiger lying tranquilly as though keeping watch and ward over her whom, probably, it deemed its friend and mistress. Yet, ever and again, as she, while waking to regard it more than once--because of the fear which Stephen's words had engendered in her mind--saw very well, its yellow eyes peered out restlessly from their closed slits of eyelids, the pupil of each eye being itself a horizontal slit only. And she acknowledged that Charke had spoken aright, that the time had come for the creature to be either imprisoned or made away with. All its evil instincts were undoubtedly being developed with its growth; soon, they would have obtained their full force and be, perhaps, exerted. It was time.
But now the dawn was come, the blood-red of the Eastern sky was plainly visible, and the birds of the island were twittering to each other and pluming themselves; whereon the girl rose and left the cave, and passed quietly by the creature lying so close to her as though in fear of arousing it. In actual fear of it, indeed, since she did not know but that it might turn and rend her at any moment. For it was big enough and strong enough to do so now, its size being that of a large retriever, or a year-old mastiff; and she, or he, even--that stalwart muscular sailor--would probably have had little chance against it if it had set upon them, since both were unarmed and both were weakened and broken down by their struggles in the tempest-tossed waves.
Charke, seeing the girl rise from her recumbent position, rose also, quickly and quietly, and came towards her, while as he did so he said: 'Now, to-day is the time for me to make that search round the island which I promised you. We will but eat a little fruit, and then I will set out.'
'Shall I go with you?' she asked, as, taking up the cocoanut shell, she turned to go towards the rivulet that ran at her feet, 'or is it better for me to remain here? Perhaps, too, it may be more than I can do. Or, indeed,' she hastened to add, 'more than you can accomplish in one day, and in such heat as there will be. Oh, Mr. Charke,' she continued, 'you are not strong enough to undertake it yet!'
'I feel strong enough this morning,' he replied, 'and, if I cannot make the whole tour of the place in one day, I can at least do a considerable part of it. I will begin at once, before the sun becomes too fierce. But, as for you, perhaps it would be best if you stayed here. The outlook from this portion of the island is, I think, the one from which any ship that happened to pass would be most likely to be observed. You see, we look west from here, towards where Africa lies, and vessels use that track in preference to running more out into the open.'
'I will do anything you suggest,' she said. 'Anything you think will be for the best. But'--and again there came upon her face that stricken look which made his heart so sad for her, and which, whenever he observed it, caused him to bury every sorrow for himself in a more profound and unselfish one for her--'but--you know--I--I--at present--just at present--for a day or so--do not wish to see a ship come here to rescue us.'
'I know, I know,' he answered, not daring to keep his eyes fixed full upon that lovely but unhappy face. 'I know. Well, we will not look out for rescue yet. But, still, I think you had better stay here. We do not know for certain the size of this island; it is only guesswork on my part. It may be too far a walk, too much of an undertaking for you. You are not afraid--of that?' he continued, as he directed his eyes towards Bengalee, while seeing how, as he was speaking, she, too, had let her glance fall upon the cub, which was now pacing restlessly about at their feet.
'No,' she said, 'I am not. Yet what you said in the night was true. It is growing beyond control, and, of course, I know how treacherous and savage these animals are. It was a piece of girlish folly on my part to beg poor uncle to save it.'
'I scarcely know how we are to make away with it,' he replied. 'I have nothing but this,'--and he took from his pocket a little white-handled penknife, which he had probably bought for a shilling off a card exposed in a London shop window. 'I could hardly kill it with that. However, one thing is certain, it will die of starvation ere long on this island. It cannot live on fruit as we can, nor catch birds, and there are no signs of animals, not even rats or mice, as far as I can see.'
'Oh, poor thing; what a dreadful death to die!' the girl exclaimed, her pity at once awakened for a creature which had been more or less her pet for some few weeks. Yet she hastened to ask if starvation did not make such animals even more fierce than usual, and if the risk to them both would not, thereby, be increased. Then, before he could reply, she suddenly exclaimed, as her glance fell on the sea, 'What is that out there? Surely--surely--it is not a drowned man? Oh, not that--not that!'
Following the direction of that glance, he saw something drifting about on the tranquil, almost rippleless, water over which by now the rays of the risen sun were gleaming horizontally. Something that, since it was end-on towards them and the island, was not easily to be distinguished, yet was, all the same, undoubtedly no drowned man nor human body, alive or dead. At first he thought it might be a dead shark--his knowledge of the sea telling him at once that it was not a living one, since they never expose aught but the dorsal fin when swimming--then, a second later, he recognised what the object was.
'No,' he exclaimed, anxious to appease her terrors at once--while knowing to whom, and, above all others, to whosedeadbody those terrors pointed--'No, that is no body, living or dead. Instead, it is one of our quarter-boats. Washed out of the chocks when the ship turned on her side, no doubt, and floating about ever since.'
'It is coming nearer,' Bella exclaimed, her eyes still on it and full of delight at hearing that in it there was, at least, no confirmation of one awful fear; 'do you not think so?'
'Undoubtedly it is coming nearer. It will strike the shore just there if the reef does not catch it'; and he pointed with sailor-like certainty to a spot close by. 'It will be a mercy if it does.'
'Why? We could not escape from this place in that, could we?'
'Hundreds of sailors have escaped death in smaller boats than that; ay, and lived for many days, too, on an open and rough sea in such boats. But it is not for that only. If it comes ashore I can make a visit to the poor oldEmperorand find out something, if not all, that I--that we---want to know. While, though we need not put to sea in it, we may use it to get to some other island which is inhabited, by, perhaps, white men; but, anyhow, by some one. It will be of the greatest assistance, especially as, since it floats, it must be undamaged. I trust the oars, if not the sail, are in it.'
And now, listening to his words, Bella became as eager for the quarter-boat to come ashore as her companion was, and, together, they went down to the spot he had indicated as that which the boat was likely to arrive at--a spot about sixty yards from where they were.
As Bella walked by her preserver's side she was wondering many things, and especially if he would, indeed, be able now to discover what the fate of the others in theEmperorhad been, and, above all, if, by the aid of this boat, he would be enabled to solve for her the question she hourly, momentarily, asked herself by day and night--the question whether there was any hope left of a life of happiness and bliss to be passed by her lover's side, or whether, for her, the future could bring nothing but a joyless, heartbroken existence henceforth. Also, she mused upon one other thing--namely, what Charke was thinking of while, with his eyes never off the incoming boat, he meditated deeply as, from his knit brows and fixed look, she felt sure he was doing. The thoughts, those that actually were in his mind, he would, undoubtedly, not have divulged, even though she had asked him to do so, since they were such as could only have caused grief unspeakable. For he was thinking that, since this quarter-boat had been washed out of the chocks and off the deck into the sea, and had then floated about for forty-eight hours in the neighbourhood previous to being directed by some subtle current to the island, so other things that were on deck would be subject to the same conditions. The bodies of drowned men; the body of her lover! He knew that the sea and its currents and tides work in calm weather with as much regularity as the sun and the moon work in their rising and setting, and, indeed, as the seasons themselves work; and he knew, also, that if Gilbert's body--which was close to where the quarter-boat rested when the ship struck--had been washed into the sea at the same time as it, then it was most probable, nay, almost certain, that it also would come ashore at the same spot and perhaps almost at the same time.
What horror, what fresh horror, would that be for this poor devoted girl to experience! For, in his own heart, he never doubted for one moment that somewhere close at hand the body of Gilbert Bampfyld was floating about.
The boat was coming very close into the shore now, so close that they could see that one oar was in it, but only one, and that there was nothing else, while they observed, too, that the rudder was not fixed in the braces. Yet that mattered little to Stephen Charke if he could only once get possession of the boat itself, since with one oar on such a glossy sheet of water as this ocean was now, he could propel and steer it easily enough.
'I am glad, thankful, it is coming ashore,' he said now. 'I had thought of swimming out to the ship, only I dreaded the sharks. Little use as one's life may be, one would scarcely care to lose it by the jaws of those brutes.'
And, though he did not see it, the girl by his side gave him a glance such as would, perhaps, have cheered his heart had he done so. 'Was not her own life, also, of little enough use,' she asked herself as he spoke, 'to make her sympathise with his remark? Would it not be a broken and dejected one, henceforth, if that which she dreaded, which she had almost forced herself to feel sure must be the case, should be proved to be so beyond all doubt before many more hours had passed?' For every hope with which she had buoyed herself was sinking in her breast, as moment after moment went by and the time grew longer and longer since the wreck had taken place.
The boat touched the white, pebbly beach now, grating on it with a gentle scrape, and Stephen, who had gone close to the water's edge to await its arrival, put out his hand, and, seizing first the stern and then the painter, drew it a foot or two farther on shore. Then he got into it, and, grasping the solitary oar which had remained in the boat simply because the loom, or handle, had got caught beneath the stern thwart, prepared to shove off in it.
'You will not mind,' he said, as he did so, 'being left alone for half an hour? This will not take me away from you for so long as when I go round the island.' While she, in answer, shook her head to indicate that she was not at all afraid of being left by herself.
'She is perfectly sound and watertight,' he called back to her as, with the hand which was uninjured, he threw the oar over the boat's stern, and worked her out from the shore. 'If we want her to help us off to another island she will do it, if I can only find another oar floating about somewhere.'
Then he propelled her as swiftly as he could to where theEmperor of the Moonlay outside the rock, her keel and copper bottom gleaming in the bright morning sun.
As he drew near to the ship he began to perceive how all hope of the likelihood that any one should still be alive and imprisoned in the ship must be abandoned. She had turned over even more than he had at first imagined when regarding her from the shore of the island, so that the keel was almost level in a manner exactly the opposite from what sailors mean when they talk about a 'level keel.' It stuck up now, so far as it was out of water, as some sharp mountain ridge seems to stick up when regarded from a valley, and showed an almost horizontal line; while, beneath the keel and above the water, for half the length of the vessel, there was visible a portion of the outside of the main hold, down to (or up from) her diagonal ribboned-lines. And, here, there was a great gaping wound, a hole smashed into her side large enough to have let the whole Indian Ocean pour into the devoted ship directly it was made, and (although there might well be others which were not visible) sufficient to have filled and sunk, forthwith, the largest vessel that was ever launched. The force of the impact was to be appreciated, too, by the manner in which her copper sheathing was driven into her and burst, so that, where the blow had been struck by the jagged tooth of the rock, the latter looked like a destroyedchevaux-de-frise, or, for a better comparison, a paper hoop through which an acrobat had passed. And, in this burst and broken protection, as in other and less terrible circumstances it might have been (though naturally it had proved useless here), the sheathing-nails stuck out like brilliant, gleaming yellow teeth, all broken and distorted.
Charke brought the quarter-boat alongside the upturned or leaning bottom, so that, by looking through this gaping wound, he could peer into the now reversed decks and see that there lay, on what had once been the roof of it but was now the floor, a mass of articles, such as is usually stowed away in a ship's lower decks. A mass, composed of cables and old and new sails, as well as some stores, consisting of dozens of tinned-meat cans unopened, boxes of sardines, and so forth, and several old sea chests and trunks--all lying, of course, helter-skelter, as they had been thrown together by the ship's reversal.
'There are some things of use here,' Charke thought, 'and worth taking away,' whereupon he ran the painter through a small hole in the sheathing and tied it tightly, and then scrambled up the vessel's inverted side until he was able to drop himself through the opening into the deck, taking care that he tore neither his flesh nor his clothes in doing so. Being there, he selected a small sail which he found; it was indeed, a boat sail, and had its gear of mast and tackle attached, while, passing it through the orifice, he dropped it carefully into the boat, and then he took next a few of the tins of provisions, and dropped them into her, too. And, also, he found something which would be to him, in the utterly unprovided condition in which Bella and he had escaped to the island, of the greatest service. This was a long, sharp knife in its leather sheath, such as sailors strap to their sides, and was new and in good condition, so that he did not doubt that the last seaman who had been sent below to this deck had dropped it there, and he was able to picture to himself the man's annoyance, probably expressed aloud and with a good deal of vehemence and strong language, over his loss. This done--and the doing of it had not taken long--he prepared to leave the disordered hold, when he remembered that there was one thing he wanted, namely, some cable. 'That tiger has to die at once,' he muttered to himself. 'With a piece of stout rope and this knife--which would slay anything, from a horse downwards--its death should not be difficult of accomplishment.'
Then, having selected two or three pieces of cable of different strands, he got out through the hole again and into the boat.
It is almost needless to write down that he found no sign of human life as he rowed about and round the wreckedEmperor of the Moonfor some moments afterwards. Needless, too, perhaps, to add that he had never expected to find any. He was a sailor, accustomed to disaster at sea and full also of much acquired knowledge pertaining to many of the calamities which it had never been his lot to experience heretofore; and he knew--he felt sure, and would have staked his life upon the certainty of his convictions--that of all who had been in that doomed ship an hour before she struck, none except Bella Waldron and himself were now alive. Those who had been below in the cabins or saloon, those also who were in forecastle or galley, had met, must have met, not only with their deaths but their graves at one and the same time; while as for the unhappy and blind young officer who had caused him so much heartache by winning the woman whom he loved so fondly, and whom he had once hoped to win--why, it was impossible that he should still be alive. If he had been washed ashore, it could be only as a corpse, and it was most improbable that even that should have happened. In truth, he believed that, with all the others, he had been carried below by the overturning of the ship and then pinned down, buried, beneath the mass of the fabric. Otherwise, since the boat had floated ashore, so, too, would he have done by now.
'The woman he had hoped to win,' he repeated softly to himself, as still he sculled the quarter-boat round and round while peering down into the dark blue depths as far as he could penetrate; and while endeavouring also to perceive some sign or memorial--even so much as a cap or straw hat--of one of those poor drowned sailors imprisoned below--'the woman he had hoped to win!' And as the phrase rose to his mind, though not to his lips, he recalled as well how he had cherished the thought of the length of voyage that had lain before her ere she could join her lover in India; how, too, he had pondered on half a hundred things which might happen ere the oldEmperorshould be anchored in Bombay harbour. Almost, now, those meditations seemed to have been prophetic--for what had not happened! The girl's lover was gone, removed by death, and she had none other in the world on whom to lean but himself. And what was more, she spoke kindly to him; she pitied him, he could well perceive; there was something between them now, a deep sympathy, a reliance on each other in their misfortunes, which had never existed before.
'The woman he had hoped to win?' Well!--he scarce dared whisper the thought to his longing heart, yet it was there!--the thought, the hope that in days to come, in after-months, perhaps years, when her grief for Gilbert Bampfyld was mellowed and softened by time, when she knew him better and should fully recognise how profound his adoration for her was, he might still win her! She could not, young as she was, and with all the years of a long life before her, sorrow for ever--sorrow for a memory that would at last be nothing but a shadow.
'Hewouldwin her!' he said aloud to himself now, as he worked the boat ashore, 'he was resolved he would.' The one obstacle in his path was removed, the brave, gallant young officer was gone, brushed aside by Fate. He would win her yet!
He stepped ashore now to where she was standing watching him, and it seemed almost--if his recent thoughts had not tinged his present fancies with a roseate hue--that there was a look of greeting and welcome to him in her eyes, even as she saw that he had come back--even at the ending of so short an absence as his had been! Was she beginning now--now that she had none other in the world to watch for--to desire to have him always near her? Ah, if that were indeed so! Then--then he might win her at last.
'You found,' she asked, speaking low, and in those sad tones which had come into her voice of late, and since disaster had fallen heavily on them, 'you found no sign of any others having been saved?'
'No,' he said, also softly. 'No, there are no signs of that. Miss Waldron--I am neither cruel nor hard of heart, but--oh, how can I say it!--it is useless to hope.'
'Useless! Ah, well, I suppose it is--it must be! And, God help me, it must also be borne.' Then she turned away from him with the desire to prevent the tears which had risen to her eyes from being seen by him, and went back to the shade of the trees under which she had been sitting until she saw the quarter-boat returning with him in it. And he followed her, carrying the cable which he brought away from the ship; the knife which he had found being in his pocket and the sail with its gear left in the boat. The sun was terribly fierce now, so fierce that to be beneath its rays for only a few moments was to risk sunstroke or to be burnt more red than he had long since been, or she since her exposure on the island; and, of course, he could not attempt the projected tour of the place until that sun once more sank low in the west. There was, therefore, nothing now to do but to sit idly gazing out to sea and watch for signs of any ship which might pass near enough to perceive them, when they should have erected signals.
'After the tour round the island,' he said to her, as he sat by her side beneath the palm trees and occupied his time in plaiting some of the long, thick grass which grew at their feet into something that should serve for hats, or, at least, coverings for their heads, 'after the tour, when we have had the last sad satisfaction of knowing that there can be none who have escaped, you will not object to my endeavouring to arrange for our being taken off? The Mozambique Channel is full of ships on their way to India during the time of the southwest monsoon--you will let me make signals, will you not?'
'I am in your hands,' she replied, her eyes on him. 'You must do all that you think best. Ah, Mr. Charke, you do not know how grateful I feel to you!'
'Never say that. Not a word. I knew, I thought, I could save one besides myself, and, naturally,' he went on simply, 'I saved you.'
Then both sat on musing and meditating in silence.
'Here comes the tiger,' he said now, seeing the creature stalking towards them in the lithe, treacherous manner peculiar to its race. 'I imagine it has been endeavouring to find food. I brought off some tinned things from the ship; yet, cruel as it seems to be, it is not advisable, I think, to give it anything in the shape of flesh. Meanwhile, if it will only go to sleep we ought to secure it,' and, as he spoke, he took up one of the pieces of cable and commenced tying what is known to sailors as a double-diamond knot. But, previously, he had fastened the other end securely round one of the palm trees that grew close by him.
'There will be one advantage in this,' he said, 'namely, that the more it pulls against it the tighter will come the loop, so that its intelligence will prevent it from straining at the rope and strangling itself.'
'Poor wretch,' Bella exclaimed, 'how gaunt and lean it is growing! I recognise that it cannot be kept alive or even taken off with us when we are found here; yet--yet I am sorry for it.'
'Yes,' he answered, 'I understand that, but it has to be done--must be done--it is imperative. In the state it is now in from hunger, and also owing to its increasing strength, our lives are no longer safe with it, and certainly not with it at large; while, if one of us were to scratch our hands, or even get the slightest wound, and the creature smelt the blood, which it would undoubtedly do--well, the result might be terrible. Now, see, it's going to sleep; it appears exhausted. I must drop the loop over its head.'
'No,' she answered, 'let me do that. It is still very docile with me,' and, as she spoke, she took the loop from his hand and, while patting the creature's head--whereon it raised it as a dog will raise its head when stroked by a loved hand--she dropped that hand down until the rope was round its neck, though not without muttering some words of regret as to what she deemed her treachery.
'It is no treachery,' he said, 'no more treachery, indeed, than to tie up a mastiff in its kennel. And, even though it were, it would not matter. These creatures are themselves the incarnation of treachery. However, the main point is that it is now secure. It is not yet strong enough to burst this rope.'
Such was the case, yet it was strange that to so acute a mind as Charke's there had not occurred the idea that it would not take a tiger very long to gnaw a ship's rope through if it desired its release.
When the sun began to drop towards where Africa lay, afar off and invisible, and when (because of the dense foliage which crowned the slopes of the island that rose behind the beach) that portion where they sat was rapidly becoming shaded from its burning rays, Stephen Charke said that the time had come for him to think of making his tour of the place, or, at least, of accomplishing a part of it. The air, it is true, still resembled that which one feels when they have approached too near to a furnace, or, for a further simile, have descended into the engine-room of a steamer. Yet, now, there would be no danger of sunstroke, and the expedition, such as it was, might very well be undertaken.
'My idea is,' Charke said, 'to begin now, this afternoon, by starting to the left and going on along the shore until I am nearly opposite this place on the other side of the island; then I will come back here, crossing it, and to-morrow I will do the same thing with the other side. That way there cannot be much left unexplored by to-morrow evening. What do you think?'
'I think,' Bella answered, 'that you are the most unselfish, heroic man I ever knew. Ah, Mr. Charke,' she continued, 'I know very well why you are doing this, why you are going to make this journey round the island. It is to satisfy me, it is for my sake. If you were alone here you would never do it, but occupy yourself only on thoughts of how to get away, and----'
'No,' he said, 'no. Had I been the only person who got ashore from the wreck I should, as a sailor, as a comrade of the others, have deemed it my duty to make a thorough search through the island ere I took steps to quit it. I shall have, as the survivor of theEmperor of the Moon, to make a report----'
'I understand,' she said quietly. 'I understand. Nothing that you can say will make me feel my obligations to you any the less.'
For Bella Waldron knew as well as Stephen Charke himself knew, that what she had just said was the absolute fact; she knew that he was going to undertake this fresh toil--for toil it was, after all he had gone through, after his bruises and buffeting with the waves, and in this terrible torrid-zone heat--for her and on her account alone. He was going to undertake it with the desire of easing her heart and preventing her, in after-years, from being able to reproach herself with having left the spot while any chance remained of there being one of those who were dear to her upon it.
She was, too, perfectly aware that he did not for one moment believe--alas! how could he, a trained, intelligent seaman, believe?--that there was any other soul left alive out of all those who had been in the ill-fated vessel when she struck on the rock. And, being thus unable to believe, could she regard him as aught else than that which a moment before she had termed him, 'a most unselfish, heroic man'?
Before he left her he asked if she would not partake of some of the tinned meats, or sardines, which he had managed to obtain from the upturned hold, but as the girl replied that it was far too hot to eat anything but the wild fruit growing in such profusion all around, and also that she was not hungry, he decided that he would not open one of the tins for himself. He, too, could do very well on what there was to their hands for the trouble of picking, since, here, in this tropical, steaming atmosphere, eating scarcely seemed a necessity of life; while, if it were, then those glorious bananas whose golden and crimson hues merged so superbly into each other were amply sufficient. But, also, he had another reason for not opening the preserved meat. The odour of it would--might--arouse the cub's desires, and, once aroused, they would possibly stir the animal almost to frenzy if ungratified.
He rose now and prepared to set out, there being still two full hours of daylight left; two full hours ere the sun would be gone and the swift, dark night had fallen at once upon all around--the outcome of a dusky veil which the sun appears to fling behind it as it departs, and out of which emerges black obscurity, lit only by the burning, silvery constellations. But, ere he went, he asked if she feared to be left alone for so long.
'No,' she replied, 'no. Why should I? What is there to hurt me here?'
'There may be people on the island all the same,' he replied, 'even if they have not yet discovered our presence; although I do not think it likely.'
'Nor do I. If there were they would by now, in two days, have observed that,'--and she pointed towards the wreck--'and have come down to it. We are alone,' she concluded with a sigh. 'There is no one else here but you and I.' And still again she sighed.
'Yes,' he answered, understanding all that her words meant, all the heartbrokenness that they expressed. 'Yes, we are alone; there are no others.' After which he left her, saying that, by dark, or very shortly afterwards, he would be back again.
When he had departed, after looking round once to wave his hand ere a bend of the shore hid him from her view (and she noticed that, true to his sailor's instincts, he went towards the boat and inspected it, and then drew it up a little more on to the white-pebbled beach and made the painter more secure), she went down to the rivulet and cooled her face and hands and feet in it, and made some attempt at arranging her hair, while using the stream as a mirror. Yet it was little enough that she could do in the way of a toilet, since she had nothing that would serve as a comb nor any soap or towel. After which, feeling refreshed, nevertheless, by this attempt, she returned to where she had been sitting and gazed out seaward, meditating deeply.
'What an end,' she murmured, as she did so, while from her eyes the tears flowed freely now--the more so because there was none to observe them--'what an end to all! Gilbert, who was to have been my husband, dead! Gilbert, whom I so loved with my whole heart and soul, dead! and lying beneath that ship. Oh, Gilbert, Gilbert, Gilbert, my love, come back to me. And my poor uncle and aunt, too. Oh, God, what a disaster! What a disaster!'
And now she wept piteously, so piteously that, if that other man, who had risked his own chances to save her as well as himself, could have seen her, the sight would have gone near to break his heart. That other man! At this moment her thoughts turned to him too. Almost unconsciously she found herself thinking of him, speculating on what his future would be. 'He will never marry,' she murmured. 'I know it. Feel sure of it. It would be the idlest affectation to ignore his sentiments for me. Yet--yet--how sad, how mournful a life must his be henceforth; no home to go to, no wife to welcome him, none to make him happy. Poor Mr. Charke. Poor Stephen. Our lots will be similar, we must be friends, always friends.'
Meanwhile, he was making his way along the beach, which was still shaded from the sun and becoming, indeed, more and more so as he progressed farther round the island, away from the west. And every step which he took served only to confirm him in what he had believed, known from the first--the unlikelihood of there being any other person saved from the wreck.
'Surely,' he muttered to himself, 'if he should have drifted ashore, it would have been here. The current sets this way, and also the monsoon blows towards this island. Living or dead, he would have come to this neighbourhood if he had come at all. The tiger did that, and, doubtless----'
He paused at those words. 'The tiger did that!' and for a moment it seemed to him that his heart stood still. 'The tiger did that!' Ay, but did it? Was he wrong in the surmise, wrong in his deduction? Did the cub land here or hereabouts? Reflecting, recalling the night before, the early dawn, when Bella shrieked to him and awoke him from a half-slumber into which he had fallen, he recollected that the beast had sprung forth from the copse of orange and lemon trees that was to the right of the little spot where he had waded ashore with the girl in his arms, and where, after carrying her up far above the waterline, he had dropped senseless. It had sprung at them from the right side, was coming from the right; and it was not to be believed, it was, indeed, beyond all belief, that it could previously have passed across where they were from the other side without having been noticed by one of them, especially by Bella, who was wide awake. It was coming from the right; it had, doubtless, therefore, got ashore, been cast ashore, to the right. And he was seeking for signs on--had set out to--the left! Had he, therefore, chosen the most unlikely place in which, if, by the most remote chance, any human being should have been washed ashore, to discover them?
'Shall I go back,' he mused, 'and begin again on the other side? Shall I?' Yet, as he meditated, he reflected that there would be little use in doing so; certainly little use in doing so to-day. An hour had now passed, or nearly so, since he quitted Bella; the sun, he knew, since he could no longer see it, was sinking fast--over the whole of the rich, luxurious vegetation that stretched inland there was now the golden hue, the amber light that, in the tropics, follows after the dazzling, blinding, molten brilliancy of the noontide, directly the sun is no longer vertically above the globe. And also, there was the odour of the coming night all about him, the odour of the declining day when, from every fruit and flower that has drooped through the hottest hours of the earlier portions of that day, there exudes the luscious, sickly scent that travellers know so well.
'No,' he said to himself, 'no. It would be little use to turn back now or to begin again to-night! And--and,' he murmured, thinking deeply as he did so, 'even though he had been cast ashore, he could not now be alive. Blind--unable to see his way--to find any of all the fruit that grows here in such profusion, poor Bampfyld would succumb to starvation, even if the life had not been beaten out of him by the waves.'
It was of Gilbert Bampfyld alone that he thought, of him alone about whom he speculated, since, of all the others who had been in theEmperor of the Moon, he was the only one whose body could by any possibility have come ashore. They, those others, Pooley and his wife, were in the submerged cabin, no power on earth could have got them out of it; any men left in the galley and the forecastle were in as equally bad a plight. Nothing could have saved them, or have even released their bodies. But, as he thought of Gilbert Bampfyld, so he felt sure that he also must have perished, even though he was not thus below as those others had been. Still musing on all this, but with one other image ever present to his mind--the image of the woman he loved--dishevelled and storm-beaten, but always beautiful--the woman of whom, now, he began to dream once more, to dream of winning for his own in some distant day--he went on along the beach, his eyes glancing everywhere around and near him. Glancing into the wild, tangled vegetation, along the channels of the rivulet's courses, but sometimes with them fixed on the beach.
Suddenly he stopped, his heart quivering again, beating fast.
At his feet there lay a sailor's rough jacket, and, a little farther off, a cap--a common, blue-flannel thing, such as the mercantile sailor buys for a few pence at a Ratcliffe Highway slop-shop.
He stopped, regarding them--not with that agitation which the greatest romancer who ever lived has depicted as clutching at Crusoe's heart when he saw the footmarks, but, instead, with a feeling of astonishment; yet a feeling of astonishment which, he told himself, he, a sailor, ought not to experience.
'Do not all wrecks,' he muttered, 'send forth around them countless articles of débris, countless portions of the raffle that encumbers their decks? What more likely than that a sailor's jacket and a cap should have floated ashore?'
Then he stooped, and, feeling them, found that they were thoroughly dry, so that they must have been ashore for some hours at least, since even the fierce sun of the now declining day could not have dried them in less time, all soaked with water as they had been.