XXXIX.
WHERE DREAMS BECOME REAL.
In the little hut which he had built, and where all the years he had lived alone, he told us his story. It was hardly more than a word. When the vessel went down, he had drifted with one other, on a spar, to this island. The other had died next day from exposure, and was buried not far away. And winter and summer for twenty-one years the survivor had waited for those who never came.
At first he had hoisted the spar with a signal, but long since he had lost hope, and when at last a wind blew it down he had not replaced it. His speech he had preserved by singing and reciting such things as he knew, and so comforted himself. Less than seventy years old, he was still a man of strength and vigor.
In return I informed him of our plight and briefly outlined our previous expedition. When I had finished my Uncle Nicholas regarded me for a moment in silence. Then, smiling:
“So, Nick, you found the warm South Pole. My boy, I have believed in it for fifty years.”
“I always thought of you in that way,” I said. “I knew you would have helped me. I even thought you might have gone there.”
“And so I might if my ship had come into port,” he sighed. Then, to Gale, “As for your ship, I think she is safe enough. She is probably on the sand only. It makes in and out of that place as the winds change. You may have twenty feet of water there in a week.”
He set out with us for the vessel. At first sight of the Billowcrest, he paused and regarded her rapturously.
“Oh, that beautiful ship,” he cried. “How I have longed for this moment.”
It was with him as with Edith when she had welcomed his desert island. The Billowcrest was not really beautiful after her long battle with the elements, and perhaps later he might not altogether approve of her model, but now she seemed as a winged messenger from Paradise.