For many days James Malone was far too weak to talk much, and he told them his story only by slow degrees as he reclined on the couch in the Sea Flower’s cabin, as often as not with little Nelda seated on a camp-stool beside him, her little hand in his. She had quite taken to James, and the child’s gentle voice and winning manners appeared to soothe him.
His story was one of suffering, it is true, but of suffering nobly borne.
Hope had flown away at last, however. He found himself too ill to find his own living. At the very time Halcott spied him, he had come forth expecting to look his last at sun and sky, just to pray, and then creep back into the cooler gloom of his hut to die.
How he had been saved from the savages, in the first instance, is soon told. He had leaped, after he had seen every one safely over the bridge, into the deep pool with the intention of swimming down stream, hoping thus to avoid the natives, and, gaining the beach, make his way along the coast or across the promontory to join his friends on the other side.
He had got almost a mile on, and was feeling somewhat exhausted, when the river suddenly narrowed again, and before he could do anything to help himself, he was caught in the rapids and hurried along at a fearful rate.
Sick and giddy, at last, and stunned by repeated blows received by contact with stones or boulders, he suddenly lost consciousness.
“Darkness, dearie,” he said, as if addressing Nelda only, “darkness came over me all at once, and many and many a day after that I lived to wonder why it had not been the darkness of death.
“When I recovered consciousness—when I got a little better, I mean, dearie—and opened my eyes, I found myself lying in a clearing of the forest, pained, and bruised, and bleeding.
“Pained I well might be, for feet and hands were tightly bound with a species of willow. But I was alone. I thanked God for that. I had no idea how long I had lain there, but it was night, and the stars that brightly shone above me were, for a time, my only companions. They gave me hope—oh, not for this world, but for the next. I felt my time would soon come, and that, baulked in their designs on the ladies, the savages would torture and sacrifice me. In spite of my sores and sufferings, some influence seemed to steal down from those holy stars to calm me, and I fell fast asleep once more. It could not have been for long, though. I had a rude awakening. All around me, but some distance off, was a circle of dusky warriors, spear-armed. I could see their eyes and teeth gleaming white in the starlight, as they danced exultingly round and round me, brandishing their weapons and uttering their wild yells, their savage battle-cries.
“But every now and then the circle would be suddenly narrowed, as a dozen or more of the fiercest and most demon-like rushed upon me with levelled spears, and it was then I thought my time had come. But the bitterness of death was past, and now, as if mad myself, I defied them, laughed at them, spat at them. My voice sounded far-off. I could hardly believe it was my own.