There was a strange, bright light in the eyes of the young girl as she spoke these words, and she was arraying her hair coquettishly with some bunches of sea-weed, which had been cast up by the storm, and from which the eager, famishing lips of the little boy had been permitted to suck the gluten before discarding the skeleton stems.
That hair was in itself a grace and glory—rippling from crown to waist in sheeny, golden splendor, fine as silk, and glossy as the yellow floss threads of pale, ripe Indian-corn—beautiful, even in its dishevelled and drenched condition, as an artist's dream. Devoid as it was of regular beauty, the face beneath, with its clear blue eyes, red lips, and pure complexion, the pink and white that reminds one of a sweet-pea or ocean-shell, had struck me as very lovely from the first; nothing to support this ground work of excellence had I discovered, however, either in the form of the head, which was ignoble, or the expression of the face, which was both timid and defiant, or the tones of the voice, which were shrill and harsh by turns—yet, as my fellow-voyager and sufferer, I was interested in this young creature, not forgetting, either, her attention during my pending swoon, of which mention has been made.
"I am going to the party, whatever the preacher may say, and whether Captain Ambrose wills it or no. I am under his care and protection, you see, to go to New York to my aunt, Madame Du Vert, the famous milliner, and I am to learn her trade. Her name is Greene, so they call her Du Vert, to make out that she is French—vert is green, in French, you see; or so they tell me. Now, Captain Ambrose is a church-member, too, and he does not want dancing on his ship, and so he made the calkers pitch the deck—that was to break up the ball, you know; but don't tell any one this for the 'land's sake,'" drawing near to me and whispering strangely, with her forefinger raised—"or all those proud Southern people would pitch into me—pitch, you understand?" and she laughed merrily—"their white satin slippers and all!"
"You must not talk so, Ada;" and I took her hand, which was burning.
"Why not? Who are you, to prevent me? I am as good as you any day—or Miss Lamarque either, or any of those haughty ones—though my father was a negro-trader. Well, whose business was that but God's? If He don't care, who need care?—An't I right, old mammy?" appealing to the ancient negress, who had suspended her croon to listen.
"Yes, indeed—that you is, honey; right to upholden your own dad—nebber min' what he did to serbe the debble. But you looks mighty strange, chile, outen your eyes. Wat dat you sees ober dar—is it a ship, gal?—or must we—" and her voice sank to a mutter—"must we fall back on dis picaninny, to keep from starvation?—"
I understood her dreadful suggestion even before the words fully left her cannibal lips, exposing her yellow fangs; from the glance of her cruel eye in the direction of the child, and the working of her long, crooked talons, rather than fingers, writhed like knotted serpents; I understood them with an instinct that made me clutch him closely to my breast, and narrowly watch his enemy from that hour until the time when my brain failed and my eyes closed in unconsciousness, and with the determination to plunge with him into the sea rather than devote him to such a fate or yield to such an alternative as this wretch in human form had more than hinted—even should the animal instinct, underlying every nature, presume to dictate to reason at the last!
We could but die—that was the very worst that Fate had in store for us—but die in the body! How infinitely worse that the soul should perish through the selfish sensuousness of cannibalism, which would degrade life itself below dissolution, even if preserved by such means!
"I am ready now to go to Captain Ambrose for assistance," said Ada Greene, poising herself before me, and having surrendered or forgotten her first idea, evidently, in the new mania of the moment. "Of course, he does not intend to leave us here to perish, and he is in the next cabin—but a step; see how easily I can get to him, and I shall be back before you can say 'Presto!'"
As nimbly as a sea-gull runs upon the sand, the young creature flew across the now level raft toward the sea, but a strong hand clutched her as she was about to step overboard, and compelled her back to her place on the platform, where, bound with cords, she lay raving, until sleep or unconsciousness mercifully supervened to spare me the spectacle of her agony, which no human power could alleviate.