The Seafarers

CHAPTER XXV

 
I have loved my last,
And that love was my first.
 

'My God!' exclaimed Gilbert, as, beneath that light touch, he awoke and saw Stephen Charke by his side, 'is it a dream! You-you here! Saved! Thank God for all His mercies. I thought all were lost but me.'

Then, suddenly, even as he rose to his feet (limping on one of them, as Charke saw, and grasping the tamarind cudgel he had cut himself as though for support), he cried, lifting his other hand to his eyes-'But, Bella. Oh, Bella, my darling! Are,' he added hoarsely, 'any others saved besides yourself? Speak, put me out of my misery, one way or the other.'

He saw, he must have seen, the answer in Stephen Charke's eyes, for now he fell down on the leaves and grass at his feet and clasped his hands as though thanking Heaven fervently for its mercies. But he could not speak yet, nor for some moments, or only spoke to once more mutter incoherent words of thanksgiving for this last crowning mercy.

'Yes,' Charke said, and it seemed to himself as though his voice was tuneless, dead-as if it came from him with difficulty. 'Yes, she is saved; is safe. And she hopes always to see you again.'

'But how? How? For God's sake, tell me that. She was in the cabin-surely she was in the cabin-I left her there when I struggled to the wheel. How was she saved?'

'I,' said Charke, 'was enabled to help her. We got ashore together.'

'To help her!' Gilbert said, looking into his eyes. 'To help her! It was more than that, I know. I am a sailor as well as you; such help is no light thing. Should you not rather say you risked your life for hers? You could have done it in no other way.'

'No,' Charke said, 'I risked nothing. It was nothing. Any one could have done it.'

Again the other looked at him, knowing, feeling sure that the man before him was refusing to take any credit for what he had done. Then he said: 'Where is she? Can I see her at once, now? Soon?'

'She is not far. Within two miles from here; she awaits, hopes for, your coming.'

'Two miles! Heaven help me! I can scarcely crawl. Two miles, and I think my ankle is sprained.'

'She can come to you,' Charke replied, and the deadness, the lack of tone in his voice, the lifelessness of it, was apparent to the listener now, as well as to himself. 'I can fetch her.'

'Do! do! at once, I beseech you. Oh to see her, to see my girl again. Yet, still I do not understand. How could she hope to ever see me in life again, how await my coming? She could not dream, she could not dare to dream, that I might be saved.'

'She would not believe anything else. For myself,' Charke went on, scorning to say that which was not the case, 'I did not believe you could be saved. It seems to me now, as you stand before me, that a miracle must have been worked in your behalf. And I told her so, mincing no matters. I told her you must be dead. But she would not believe. Instead, she bade me, besought me to search this island, though, to be honest, I considered it useless to do so. Yesterday I took the other side, to-day this. And she was right. I-have found you.'

His tone was not aggressive, crisp and incisive though his words might be, yet there was something in the former, and, perhaps, the latter, which told Gilbert Bampfyld that the search he spoke of had been one of chivalrous obedience to a helpless woman's request, and not one made at his own desire. And he remembered how Bella had told him this man had loved her once, and had hoped for her love in return. Well, no matter, he had saved her at what must have been peril to his own life. He could not cavil at, nor feel hurt at, the coldness of his speech.

'What you have done,' he said, 'is more than words can repay; and, even though they were sufficient, now is not the time for them. Mr. Charke, can you bring her to me?'

'I will go at once. But-but she will, undoubtedly, be anxious, excited to know something of how you were saved. As we return to you she will desire to be told everything; will be impatient to hear. What shall I tell her, over and above the greatest news of all, that you are restored to her?'

'There is not much to tell. As I was swept over the ship's side my hand touched the port quarter-boat which was being thrown out at the moment.'

'Ah! it has come ashore too.'

'And, naturally, I clutched at it. I would not let go; I held on like grim death, knowing that my only chance was in it. And, do you know, I found that I could see again; distinctly, or almost so. I could see the waves, the surf ahead; knew that some shore or coast was near. But, even as I recognised this, wondering, too, why at the moment when I was doomed to be drowned I should have this gift accorded me, I lost my hold on the boat and, a moment later, was thrown ashore or, at least, touched bottom. And-and it was a hard fight; I never thought to win through it. Each recoil of the waves tore me back again only to find myself thrown forward with the next. Three times it happened. Then-then, at last, when I knew that, on the next occasion, I should have no breath left in my body, I was flung still farther on land than I had been before, and, this time, I determined I would not be dragged back alive, so I dug my foot and hands into the soft sand. I wrestled with those waves and I beat them. They receded, leaving me spread-eagled on the shingle, free of them for a moment, and, ere they could return and catch me again, I had scrambled out of their reach.'

'Was that here, on this spot where we are now?'

'No, it was farther that way, between a mile and two miles farther.' And, as Gilbert Bampfyld spoke, he pointed with the stick in the direction where Bella Waldron and Stephen Charke had taken up their quarters since they had got ashore. Therefore, her lover had been close to them once, and they had never known it! 'I stayed there one night,' Gilbert went on, 'then feeling sure there were islands to the north-as there must be, you know-I came this way. Only, I slipped on the beach and, I think, sprained my ankle, so that I could get no farther.'

'God has been very good to you,' Stephen said, 'and to her. Now I will go and bring her here: it will not take long. Soon, very soon, you will be together. You will be happy. In a couple of hours she will be here. It would, perhaps, be in less time than that, only, you observe, the sea is rising and the surf getting very high. We must come inland, above, by the cliffs. Farewell till then.'

'Farewell. God bless you. Ah, Mr. Charke, if you could only know my gratitude to you for saving her, also what happiness you have brought into my life again. If you could only know that!'

But Charke was on his way back to where he had left Bella almost before Gilbert had concluded his sentence, and, beyond a backward wave of his hand, had made no acknowledgment of his words.

He climbed up to the summit of the cliffs easily enough, for by now all his strength had come back to him, and he felt as vigorous as he had ever done in his life. Yet, when he gained the top, he noticed that there was still something wanting, some of the spring and elasticity which had characterised the manner in which he had returned to Bella yesterday from the other side of the island. Why was this, he asked himself? Why? But he could find no answer to the question.

Yet, perhaps, his musings on what he had heard half an hour before were sufficient to have driven all the life, all the hope, out of him. His musings on the change that this last half-hour had brought into his future. God! his future.

'He was there, close to us,' he reflected, 'and we neither of us knew nor dreamt of it. I could have sworn it was impossible he should be saved. She-well, she did not dare to hope. And for two days! For two days he has been close to us, and-and in those two days what have I not pictured to myself, what dreams have I not had! What a fool's paradise I have been imagining for myself. Now, there is nothing before me. Nothing-now, or ever.'

But still he forced himself to stride on, passing sometimes beneath the cocoa trees that grew on the little upland, sometimes through open glades in which the morning sun beat down upon his head with a fierceness only inferior to the strength it would assume an hour or so later-yet he heeded nothing. He felt that he must reach Bella as soon as possible and tell her everything. There was no more joy left in existence for him, but he was the bearer of news that would give her joy extreme, and-he loved her. Because he did so he would not keep that news from her one moment longer than was necessary. 'Yet,' he whispered to himself, while thinking thus, 'she would have come to love me in his place some day, she would-she must. I divined it, saw it. Now, it will never be. Never. My God! it is a long word.'

Then he braced himself up still more and went on, until he stood upon the summit of the little elevation which rose behind the spot that they had made their resting-place.

Perhaps she had seen him returning; perhaps she had had some divination of his approach, since he perceived that she was coming towards him and was mounting the ascent to meet him, her head protected by the cap of the drowned sailor, while, over it, she held with one hand a great palm leaf to protect her from the sun. Then, as they approached each other, she gave a gasp-it was almost a shriek, and cried out:

'Mr. Charke! Mr. Charke! What is the matter? What has happened? You are ghastly pale beneath your bronze. And-and your face is changed. What is it?'

'I come,' he said, – and now she gave another gasp, for his voice was changed too, – 'as the bearer of good-of great tidings. Of-, and he paused. For as he spoke she, too, had turned white. Then, raising both her hands to her breast, she stood panting before him.

'He is saved!' she said. 'He is saved! Gilbert is saved. Is that it? Are those the tidings?'

'Yes,' he answered. 'Yes. He is saved.'

For a moment she stood before him, her hands still raised to her bosom, then, suddenly, she swayed forward and would have fallen but that he caught her in his arms, and, an instant later, had laid her on the soft grass, while he ran down to the rivulet to fetch some water to revive her.

This happened directly after he had returned, but, when he had bathed her forehead and moistened her lips with the water, she soon sat up, saying: 'Come, let us go to him. At once. We must go at once. Yet-why does he not come to me?'

'He has hurt his foot. But it is nothing. Only a sprain. If you are recovered from your swoon let us set out. It is not far. We shall be there soon.' Whereon he gave her his hand and assisted her to rise, repeating that it was best to set out at once. And then they did so, he offering his arm to assist her up the slope, while explaining that, owing to the increased roughness of the sea, it was impossible to proceed by the beach to where her lover was. And, next, he began the account of how he found Gilbert, and went through with it almost uninterruptedly, she listening without saying a word beyond now and again exclaiming, 'Poor Gilbert!' or 'Thank God!' Indeed, her silence during his narrative was such that more than once he glanced down at her, while wondering at that which seemed listlessness on her part.

Yet he would have wronged her deeply had he really believed her listless, since Bella Waldron would have been no true, honest, English girl had she by this time become indifferent to the news that her betrothed was saved. Indeed, in her heart she was thanking God again and again, and far more often than she was giving outward utterance to those thanks, for having saved her lover and preserved him to her-only! Only what? Only, that she knew how, with their restored happiness, there had come to this other man-to him to whom she owed her life and, with it, the possibility of being once more united to Gilbert-a broken heart and the destruction of every hope of happiness that he had cherished. She could see it in his face, hear it in his voice, discern it even by the manner in which he walked by her side. That which she knew he hoped for could never have been, she told herself; never, never, never! Had Gilbert died, still it could never have been; none could ever have taken his place.

But, she was a woman with a true woman's heart in her breast-and her pity was womanly-sublime.

CHAPTER XXVI

 
"Here is my journey's end, here is my butt,
And very seamark of my utmost sail."
 

They had progressed so far towards the cliffs above the little bay or cove, where Gilbert was, that now they had but to cross the summit of one more spur and then they would be able to descend to him.

'You will see him soon now,' Charke said to the girl, 'very soon. Then you will be happy. To-night, he and I will arrange the signals that may bring some succour to us. At any rate, it cannot be long in coming. If we are where I think, hundreds of ships pass near here annually. And, at the worst, one may live here very well for some time.'

She heard his words, she missed no tone nor inflection of his voice-but she could not answer him. It was impossible. For, though he spoke on subjects which were appropriate enough to their surroundings, she knew that his speech, instead of conveying his thoughts, was only used to hide them; and that beneath what he said lay a sadness too deep for utterance. Therefore, she made no attempt at reply, but contented herself with letting her eyes rest on his face now and again, and then withdrawing them directly afterwards.

Suddenly, however, and after having cast a glance backwards across the little plateau which they had passed along, he exclaimed:

'Why, Lieutenant Bampfyld will find another companion of his in the poor old Emperor here to greet him. See, there comes Bengalee, behind us. How has he broken away from the cable? It was stout enough to hold a small frigate,' and, as she turned to look in the direction he had indicated, she saw the tiger-cub coming after them along the plateau at a considerable pace. Coming swiftly, too, and always with the lithe and hateful sinuosity which marks the progress of the species.

Then, as she, too, turned and saw its striped body winding in and out beneath the tamarind and palm trees, she remembered that she had observed it gnawing at the cable ere she set out, and told Stephen so. And she also told him that it had seemed much excited at being left behind, and had made considerable struggles to break loose when she moved away.

'It will perhaps be appeased,' he answered, 'when it finds itself once more with you. Poor wretch! its hunger must be frightful. Yet-yet-how else to kill it? And killed it must be.'

'I wish,' she said again, as she had so often said before, 'that I had never asked to have it saved. It would have been better to have let it die in the sea.'

'Perhaps,' he answered. 'Perhaps. We can, however, leave it here when we get taken off, and then it must take its chance.'

They were now upon the last ridge of the spur beneath which he had left Gilbert, and he told her that, in another moment, she would see him by looking down. 'Indeed,' he said, 'if you glance over now you can see him, I imagine.'

Then he bade her hold his hand and lean over the lip of the precipice, and trace the run of the hill seawards. Following his instructions, she did so, when suddenly, below, they heard a rattling, a sliding as of a mass of earth and stones slipping, and he felt a slight withdrawal, a sinking of the ground, beneath their feet. He felt it and understood its significance in an instant, while recalling the masses of fallen chalk and earth which he had observed lying at the foot of this and other cliffs earlier in the day.

'Back,' he cried, 'Back!' while, as he did so, he seized Bella with his other hand as well as the one she already held, and sprang away from the ridge, the violence of his action causing her to fall on her knees. Yet, still knowing her danger-their danger-he dragged her back and saved her. Though not a moment too soon-not an instant! – for, as he clutched at her, the earth for a foot or so in front of them-the very portion of it on which they had been standing! the very portion, indeed, across which he had but now drawn her-gave way. It gave way, broke off in a long line, and fell with a crash to the depths below, leaving an abyss above the spot over which he had drawn her.

'My God!' she gasped, 'you have saved my life again! Again-ah!'

That last exclamation was, in truth, a shriek of dismay, of awful agony, of terror in the extreme. For she, whose face was towards the way they had come, as his back was towards it, saw that which he had no knowledge of; that which paralysed her, struck her an instant after dumb with horror.

She saw the tiger-cub close behind him and crouching for a spring, she saw its devilish eyes gleaming like topazes, and she saw its body hurled with tremendous force towards Charke as he stood looking down on her.

Full at him it sprang, its savage jaws open and its forelegs extended. And it partly missed him through passing on his left side, yet not doing so altogether. Instead, it struck his left shoulder, spinning him round like a drunken, reeling man, and causing him to stagger backwards towards the chasm and, with a gasp, to fall over it and disappear.

And Bella, left alone in that awful moment-for the tiger's leap had carried it far over the cliff and to its own destruction-saw a man below-her lover-shouting and gesticulating-and then she knew no more.

* * * * * *

An hour later, Stephen Charke lay on his back below the cliff, his eyes upturned to the sun, which was by now peeping over the hill and illuminating all the little valley with its rays-he lay there breathing his last and with his back broken. By his side knelt Bella Waldron, while Gilbert Bampfyld stood near, their faces the true index of their sorrow.

'No,' Stephen whispered hoarsely, now, in answer to a question from her. 'No. I feel no pain, nothing but the numbness of my back and lower limbs. Nay, nay, do not weep.' Then he lowered the poor, feeble voice a little more and whispered even more calmly to her-'I am content, well content. And-it-is better so. There was no life, no future for me.'

'Oh!' she said, wringing her hands while the tears streamed from her eyes and dropped upon his upturned face. 'Oh! that you should have died in saving me. That you, whom I honour so, should die at all-young, strong, as you are. And through the outcome of my wilfulness, of my letting that creature be saved. Saved to slay you. Ah! God, it is too hard!'

'It thought,' he said, after a pause, during which she wiped the drops from his forehead and moistened his lips, 'that I was attacking you. Doubtless it did so. It hated me and loved you.' Then, he added to himself, 'As all love you.'

'Gilbert,' she shrieked now to her lover, 'Gilbert, can nothing be done; nothing to save him? Ah! perhaps his back is not broken; it may be but a terrible fall-he may recover yet. Can we do nothing?'

But it was Stephen who answered, 'Nothing.'

'Old chap,' said Gilbert, also close by him now, and kneeling down to take his hand, 'is-is there anything you want done; any message sent to any one at home? Only say the word. You know you can depend on me.'

'If it can be,' the dying man said, and now his voice was very low, almost inaudible, 'if you can have it done later, when you are found, bury me-at-the-spot where she and I-came ashore. There, in the little knoll. You know.' And his eyes sought hers. 'That is where I want-to lie-until we meet again.'

They could not answer him, their voices were no longer their own; hardly could they see him through their tears, but still they were able to tell him by their gestures that it should be as he desired. After which Gilbert managed to rise to his feet and whisper in Bella's ears, 'He is-going-now. The end is close at hand. Say-say "goodbye" to him, and-and kiss him. He deserves it from you, and-I shall not grudge it.' Then, in his manliness, he turned away from them.

Perhaps the dying man guessed what had been said; and, because he knew his hour had come, he opened his eyes for the last time and gazed wistfully at her.

'Goodbye,' he said. 'Farewell.'

'Goodbye. Oh, God! that I should have to say it to you. Goodbye-goodbye, Stephen,' and she stooped down and kissed the cold, white lips of the man who had loved her so. And, next, she put her arm beneath his neck and let his head lie on it, while, amidst the tempest of her sobs, she heard him murmur feebly:

'I loved you-from-the first-moment. I love-you-now.'

Then his head turned over on her arm and lay there motionless.

* * * * * *

The wedding was over, Gilbert Bampfyld and Bella were man and wife, the marriage having taken place at Capetown. While the only difference between the ceremony and that which had been originally intended was that the Archbishop of Capetown joined their hands instead of the Bishop of Bombay doing so. Therefore, at last, these two loving hearts were made happy, and, in spite of all that had threatened both Bella and her lover during the past few months, the future now looked bright and cheerful.

Not three days had elapsed since Stephen Charke's death when Gilbert (who, with Bella, sat from sunrise to sunset beneath a clump of cocoa trees on the highest point to which they could attain, he being soon able to reach it quite easily by the aid of his cudgel and owing to the rapid improvement in the sprain he had suffered from) saw a vessel not two miles away from the island.

'And I swear,' he exclaimed, 'one of Her Majesty's cruisers. Look at those yellow funnels, one aft of the other. That's a cruiser right enough. I wonder if it's the Briseus.'

Then he fell to making every kind of signal which he could devise when unprovided with the means of attracting her attention either by pistol-shot or fire, and in about half an hour they had the joy of seeing one of her cutters manned and lowered, and, a moment later, making for the shore.

The cruiser turned out to be the Clytie, on her way home from Calcutta to Plymouth, and, even as the cutter fetched the shore, the coxswain recognised Gilbert as an officer with whom he had previously served. Then he furnished him with the intelligence that he was reported dead.

'Not yet,' said Gilbert; 'though, since I left the Briseus, when in charge of her whaler, I have had two narrow escapes. Unfortunately, others, with whom I have been in company, are so.' Then, briefly, he told the man all that had happened to him, and stated that he was going to ask the captain of the Clytie for a passage for himself and his future wife, the young lady by his side.

First, however, there was one thing to be done-namely, to bury Stephen Charke in the place which he had indicated. This was a thing which would now be very easy of accomplishment, since the sea was perfectly calm again and the body could be easily carried from the spot where he had fallen to that where he desired to be buried. But, to begin with, the permission of the captain had to be obtained, which was done by signalling, and then the rest was easy. Some more men were sent off in the second cutter, with the chaplain as well as some spades for digging a grave, after which the sailors marched under Gilbert's command to where he and Bella had covered up Stephen Charke's remains with palm and other leaves that were within their reach, and then removed the body. And very reverently was the interment performed, all standing round the spot with the exception of Bella, who was so overcome that she had to be led away from the grave.

And so they laid him in it; and there, in the little solitary island, they left him to his long sleep.

Perhaps, nothing so much as his death-not even his heroism in the stricken ship, nor his masterful strength in fighting the storm and the waves, and in succeeding at the risk of his own life in saving that of the woman whom he so tenderly loved-kept his memory green in both their hearts. Perhaps, too, that last sacrifice which he made-his life! – at the moment when once more he was preserving hers, furnishes the reason which again and again prompts Gilbert to say to his wife, in a voice always full of a tone of regret for the brave man who lies so far away:

'After all, Bella, I am not sure that you chose the right one. Poor Stephen Charke was the better man of the two.'

Yet, when he observes the glance she gives him in return, he is comforted by knowing that, in no circumstances, could that other have ever won her heart as he did.

>THE END