His heart like ice within his breast--all was lost now, every hope gone that, of late, he had once again begun to cherish!--Stephen Charke advanced to where that man lay, and, approaching noiselessly, looked down on him. Looked down and recognised that here was no sign of death or coming death; that the man was sleeping peacefully and calmly; that he was rescued for the second time within the last month from a sudden doom.
He also saw something else--he observed that Bampfyld had recovered his sight. This he could not doubt. Near him was some fruit which he must have gathered recently. And he had pulled down some of the branches of the trees which grew close by, and had shed them of their leaves, upon which he was now lying, they making an easier pallet than the grass alone would have done, while Charke perceived, also, that he had been fashioning a sturdy branch of the tamarind into a stout stick. Doubtless, he had recovered his sight through the shock of his immersion, when the ship heeled over.
Strong, determined, masterful as Stephen Charke had been through all the disasters which had overwhelmed the Emperor of the Moon; brave and stalwart as he had shown himself when, with none other left to command the doomed ship but himself, he had helped to furl and unfurl sails, to steer like any ordinary seaman at the wheel, and to endeavour manfully to hold the vessel up and ward off instant destruction--he was beaten now. Beaten! defeated! And he felt suddenly feeble, so feeble that he was forced to sit down by the saved man's side, while doing it so quietly that the other did not awaken.
Beaten! defeated! Ay, and with nothing left of prospect in the future, nor ever any hope. Nothing! nothing! nothing! What had he hoped? he found himself asking: what, in these last few days? What dreamt of? A home, a wife; perhaps, in the future, children waiting for his return, running to meet him and to beg for stories of the sea, of tempests surmounted, of dangers passed. Now, there would never be any home, nor wife, nor children. Nothing! He had loved one woman fondly, madly; the one woman in all the world for him. Until ten minutes ago he had believed that, some day, he would win her. And, now, it was never to be. His home would be the desolate home which the sailor ashore inhabits; his existence a long series of toiling across the seas in any ship wherein he could find employment, first one, then the other, for poor wages and without one gleam of sunshine to cheer him. What a life! And--and it had seemed, only an hour ago, that all was likely to be so different. She, Bella Waldron--his love--no, not his! never his now--was being drawn towards him, she relied on him, trusted in him; but, henceforth, she would need him no more. This other had come back, would come back into her life again, and--he would go out of it for ever. God! it was bitter.
His hand, as he lifted it in his agony and let it fall again, struck against something hard in his pocket. Thrusting it into the pocket, he felt there the sailor's knife which he had found in the hold of the ship, and drew it forth, regarding it. It was a good knife, he found himself reflecting, a good knife. The man who owned it had kept it in excellent order, too; sharp and keen. How he must have railed at losing it. And he, Stephen, had found it! A good knife, long and stout-bladed, well pointed--a knife that would sever the stoutest cable or----! Men had been slain with worse weapons than this. A blow from it over the heart, under the left shoulder, and struck downwards--yes! such blows must be struck downwards, or otherwise they might fail--and a life could easily be taken. Easily--in a moment.
It was a good knife, he thought again. As he opened it and ran his finger along its tapering blade, and observed the thick, solid back which that blade possessed, he could not but acknowledge this. The man who had owned it and lost it had paid money for that knife. This was no slop-shop thing bought of a thievish Whitechapel or Houndsditch Jew who preyed on poor seamen. A good knife! He turned his head and looked at Gilbert Bampfyld lying there, still sleeping peacefully; looked at the man whom he had come out to seek, and--had found! Found as he had never expected to do, as he had never believed it possible he should do.
He looked at him, recognising all that his being there meant, all that this third human existence on the island, where formerly there had been but two persons, meant to him; the ruin that it cast upon his hopes. And again he regarded the knife, holding it by the tip, weighing it, balancing it. It was a good knife; one that would strike hard and sure.
And, as he so thought, he rose from his seat, went down to where the surf was beating violently now upon the beach, and flung the thing far off into the sea.
Then he returned to the sleeping man, and, kneeling by his side, shook his arm gently, saying:
'Come, Lieutenant Bampfyld. Come! Wake up, rouse yourself.'