Thus speaking, Captain George disencumbered himself rapidly of these garments, and assisted by Bottle-Jack, tilted the light vessel on its side, to get rid of its superfluous weight of water. Then standing waist-deep in the lagoon, he prepared it for the reception of its freight; no easy matter with a craft of this description, little more roomy and substantial than a cockle-shell, without the advantage of being water-tight. Spreading his laced coat along the bottom of the canoe, he steadied it carefully against the bank, and signed to the ladies that all was now in readiness for embarkation.
They exchanged wistful looks. Neither seemed disposed to grasp at her own safety and leave the other in danger. Bottle-Jack, leaning over the canoe, continued bailing the water out with his hand. Notwithstanding the Captain’s precautions it leaked fast, and seemed even now little calculated to land a passenger dry on the farther shore.
“Mamma, I will not leave you,” said Cerise, “you shall go first with George. With monsieur, I mean.” She corrected herself, blushing violently. “Monsieur can then return for me, and I shall be quite safe with this good old man, who is, you perceive, armed to the teeth, and as brave as a lion besides.”
“That is why I do not fear to remain,” returned the Marquise. “Child, I could not bear to see this sheet of water between us, and you on the dangerous side. We can neither fly nor swim, alas! though the latter art we might have learned long ago. Cerise, I insist on your crossing first. It may be the last command I shall ever lay upon you.”
But Cerise was still obstinate, and the canoe meanwhile filled fast, in spite of Bottle-Jack’s exertions. That worthy, whose very nose was growing pale, though not with fear, took no heed of their dilemma, but continued his task with a mechanical, half-stupefied persistency, like a man under the influence of opium. The quick eye of the Marquise had detected this peculiarity of manner, and it made her the more determined not to leave her daughter under the old seaman’s charge. Their dispute might have been protracted till even Captain George’s courtesy would have given way; but a loud yell from the defile they had lately quitted, followed by a couple of shots and a round of British cheers, warned them all that not a moment was to be lost, for that their retreat was even now dependent on the handful of brave men left behind to guard the pass.
“My daughter shall go first, monsieur? Is it not so?” exclaimed the Marquise, with an eagerness of eye and excitement of manner she had not betrayed in all the previous horrors of the night.
“It is better,” answered George. “Mademoiselle is perhaps somewhat the lightest.” And although he strove to make his voice utterly unmoved and indifferent, there was in its tone a something of intense relief, of deep, heartfelt joy, that told its own tale.
The Marquise knew it all at last. She saw the past now, not piece by piece, in broken detail as it had gone by, but all at once, as the mariner, sailing out of a fogbank, beholds the sunny sky, and the blue sea, and the purple outlines of the shore. It came upon her as a shot goes through a wild deer. The creature turns sick and faint, and knowing all is over, yet would fain ignore its hurt and keep its place, erect, stately, and uncomplaining, amongst the herd; not the less surely has it got its death-wound.
How carefully he placed Cerise in the frail bark of which she was to be the sole occupant. How tenderly he drew the laced coat between the skirt of her delicate white dress and the flimsy shattered wood-work, worn, splintered, and dripping wet even now. Notwithstanding the haste required, notwithstanding that every moment was of such importance in this life and death voyage, how he seemed to linger over the preparations that brought him into contact with his precious freight. At last they were ready. A farewell embrace between mother and daughter; a husky cheer delivered in a whisper from Bottle-Jack; a hurried thanksgiving for perils left behind; an anxious glance at the opposite shore, and the canoe floated off with its burden, guided by George, who in a few yards was out of his depth and swimming onward in long measured strokes that pushed it steadily before him.
The Marquise, watching their progress with eager restless glance, that betrayed strong passions and feelings kept down by a stronger will, observed that when within a pistol-shot of the opposite shore the bark was propelled swiftly through the water, as if the swimmer exerted himself to the utmost—so much so as to drive it violently against the bank. George’s voice, while his dripping figure emerged into sight, warned her that all was well; but straining her eyes in the uncertain light, the Marquise, though she discerned her daughter’s white dress plainly enough, could see nothing of the boat. Again George shouted, but she failed to make out the purport of what he said; though a gleam of intelligence on the old seaman’s face made her turn to Bottle-Jack. “What is it?” she asked anxiously. “Why does he not come back to us with the canoe?”