Volume Three—Chapter Seventeen.
Communing with Self.
It was evening when Bayle went on deck again, his old calm having returned. He stopped short, and the elasticity of spirit that seemed to have come back—a feeling of hopefulness in keeping with the light champagny atmosphere, so full of life, died out again, even as the breeze that had wafted them on all day had now almost failed, and the ship glided very slowly through water that looked like liquid gold.
“A few short hours,” he said to himself, as he gazed at Mrs Hallam standing with her arm round Julia, bathed in the evening light, watching the golden clouds upon the horizon that they were told were land—to them the land of hope and joy, but to Christie Bayle a place of sorrow and of pain.
“A few short hours,” he said again, “and then the fond illusions must fall away, and they will be face to face with the truth.”
He crept away sick at heart to the other side, where Lieutenant Eaton, who seemed to be hovering about mother and daughter, eager to join them but kept away by respect for their desire to be alone, passed him with a short nod, hesitated, as if about to speak, and then went on again.
Bayle waited hour after hour, ready should those in his charge require his services; but they did not move from their position, and it was Eaton who intercepted Thisbe, and took from her the scarves she was bringing to protect them from the night air; but only a few words passed, and he drew back to walk up and down till long after the Southern Cross was standing out among the glorious stars that looked so large and bright in the clear, dark sky above, when Mrs Hallam drew a deep breath and whispered a few words to Julia, and they descended to their cabin for the night, but not to sleep.
Then by degrees the deck was left to the watch, and a strange silence fell, for a change had come upon all on board. The first excitement that followed the look-out-man’s cry of “Land ho!” had passed, and passengers and soldiers were gathered in groups after their busy preparation for the landing another day distant, and talked in whispers.
Lower and lower sank the weary spirit of Christie Bayle, as he stood leaning on the bulwark, gazing away into the starry depths of the glorious night, for it seemed to him that his task was nearly done, that soon those whom he had loved so well would pass out of his care, and as he thought of Millicent Hallam sharing the home of her convict husband he murmured a prayer on her behalf. Then his thoughts of the mother passed, and he recalled all that he had seen during the past months, above all, Julia’s excited manner that day, and the conduct of Lieutenant Eaton. And as he pondered his thoughts took somewhat this form: