"It is the missionary!" whispered Elizabeth, clenching her hands in an agony of despair.
CHAPTER XXI
A DESPERATE ADVENTURE
Heroism is a plant of strange growth. It springs up suddenly, mysteriously, in unexpected places. A simple peasant girl, tending her flocks, hears a Voice; and she becomes a warrior, a leader of men, the saviour of her country. A maidservant, after a day of scrubbing floors and washing dishes, is darning stockings in the kitchen when she smells fire, rushes into the bedroom where the children are asleep, and carries them one by one through the flames into safety, at the cost of her own life.
Such opportunities fall to few. The most of us trudge a very unheroic journey through life. The road may be dusty, with ups and downs, dangerous corners and wearisome hills; but we plod along, keeping pretty closely to the highway, and taking great care at the crossings. It is only the odd one here and there who, by what we call the accident of circumstance, or by some compelling adventurousness of spirit, strays into the golden fields of romance, and is transformed into the shining semblance of a hero.
Yet the capacity for heroism may be latent under many a sober coat or homely apron. The town girl who shudders at a cow, the country girl who trembles at the looming of a motor omnibus, may show under the stress of some high emotion, at the call of some great emergency, qualities that match her with Joan of Arc or Alice Ayres.
Elizabeth Westmacott's life had been very simple and uneventful. She had had nothing more difficult to cope with than the ordinary crosses and perplexities of the daily round at the farm. She had never come face to face with mortal peril, or felt any stern demand upon her courage and endurance. But as she returned along the tunnel with her sister a great resolution shaped itself within her mind. A white man was in danger of his life; she would at least try to save him.
She was very quiet when she rejoined the little party in the pit. It was Tommy who, quivering with excitement, related to Mary what she had seen. The younger girls deplored the hapless condition of the old missionary; they wished he could be saved, but they felt the vanity of wishing. Elizabeth sat in silence, thinking hard.
"I must go up and get a breath of air," she said at last.