CHAPTER XXVII.
I FALL TO WONDERING.
I had sprung up the ladder, which was always at the side of the Celsis, before Dan had gathered his scattered wits to remember that it was there. It was worth much to watch that honest fellow as he gripped my hand in his two great paws: and then let it go to walk away, and survey me at a distance; or drew nearer again, and seemed to wish to give me a great hug as a bear hugs its cub. But I cut him short with a gesture, and asked him if Roderick and Mary were aboard.
"They're down below, as I'm alive, and the hands is ashore, but they'll come aboard for this, drunk or sober. Thunder! if I was ten years younger—but there, I ain't, and you'll be waking 'em; do you see, they're resting after victuals down in the saloon. Shall I tell 'em as you've called in passing like? Lord, I can hardly see out of my eyes for looking at you, sir."
Poor old Dan did not quite know what he was doing. I left him in the midst of his strange talk, and walked softly down the companion way to the door of the saloon, and I opened it and stood, I doubt not, before them as one come from the dead. Mary, whose childish face looked very drawn, was seated before a book, open upon the table, her head resting upon her hands, and a strange expression of melancholy in her great dark eyes. But Roderick lay upon a sofa-bunk, and was fast asleep, with the novel which he had been reading lying crumpled upon the floor.
I had opened the door so gently that neither of them moved as I entered the room. It was to me the best moment of my life to be looking again upon them, and I waited for one minute till Mary raised her head, and our eyes met. Then I bent over the cabin table and kissed her, and I felt her clinging to me, and though she never spoke, her eyes were wet with hot tears; and when she smiled through them, it was as a glimpse of bright sunlight shining through a rain-shower. In another moment there was nothing but the expression of a great childish joy on her face, and the old Mary spoke.
"Mark, I can't believe it," she said, holding me close lest I might go away again, "and I always guessed you'd come."
But Roderick awoke with a yawn, and when he saw me he rubbed his eyes, and said as one in a dream—
"Oh, is that you?"