The Seafarers

by John Bloundelle-Burton

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.