Now, I have thought of all this, and yet there are other things in my mind, and they jostle one with the other, the sweet and the bitter, the good and the bad, until it seems to me that I no longer get at the heart of it, but am as a man drifting without a chart, set free on some unknown sea whose very channels I may not fathom. Three hours ago when I came ashore and lifted the dead man out, and sent the sleeping girl to shelter, Ruth Bellenden's hand was the first to touch my own, her word the first my ear would catch. So clear it was, such music to a man to hear that girlish voice asking of his welfare as a thing most dear to her, that all the night vanished at the words, and Ken's Island was lost to my sight, and only the memory of the olden time and of my life's great hope remained to me.
"Jasper!" she said, "it was not you—oh, Jasper, it was not you, then!"
I stepped from the boat, and, taking her hand in mine, I drew her a little nearer to me; then, fearful of myself, I let go her hand again and told her the simple truth.
"Miss Ruth," said I, "it is yon poor fellow. I will not say 'Thank God!' for what right have I to serve you before him? He did his duty; help me to do mine."
She turned away and gazed out over the sea to the yacht still thundering its cannon and ploughing with its wasted shot the unoffending sea. Deep thoughts were in her mind, I make sure, a torture of doubt, and hope, and trepidation. And I—I watched her as though all my will was in her keeping, and there, on the lonely rock, was the heart of the world I would have lived and died in.
"You cannot forbid me to be glad, Jasper," she said, presently; "you have given me the right. I saw you on the shore. Oh! my heart went with you, and I think that I counted the minutes, and I said, 'He will never come; he is sleeping.' And then I said, 'It is Jasper's voice.' I saw you stand up in the boat and afterwards there were the shadows. Jasper, there cannot be shadows always; the sun must shine sometimes."
She held my hand again and touched it with her cheek. I think that I forgot all the place about, the sea and the men, the distant shore and the island's shape, the still night and the dawn to come; and knowing nothing save that Ruth, little Ruth, was by my side, I went into dreamland and said, "It shall be forever."
Monday. At six o'clock.
I cannot sleep and I have come to keep watch on the rock. Old Clair-de-Lune is with me, but silence is in the house below, where some sleep and some are seeking sleep. Of all who can discuss our future bravely, none speaks better sense than this simple old man; and if he rebukes my own confidence he rebukes it justly. I ask him when the sleep-time will pass and the sun-time come. He shakes his head, he will not prophesy.
"God forbid that it should pass," says he. "They will go ashore to the island, and we—we perish," says he. "Pray that it shall not be, captain. We have food for three week—month; but what come after? You pick up by ship, you say. But not so. When your ship come here the devils set trap, and all is wreck and burn and steal! They take your ship and you perish, you starve. Ah, monsieur, pray that the sun-time do not come."