“I hope so,” said Colin, gravely. He was still more startled by the strain in which his new companion proceeded; but a dying man had privileges. “I hope so,” Colin repeated; “one of many here.”
“Ah, no, not of many,” said the invalid; “if you can feel certain of being a child of God, it is what but few are permitted to do. My dear friend, it is not a subject to deceive ourselves upon. It is terribly important for you and me. Are you sure that you are fleeing from the wrath to come? Are you sure that you are prepared to meet your God?”
They had turned into the full moonlight, which streamed upon their faces. The ship was rushing along through a sea still agitated by the heavings of the past storm, and there was nothing moving on deck except some scattered seamen busy in their mysterious occupations. Colin was slow to answer the new question thus addressed to him. He was still very young; delicate, and reticent about all the secrets of his soul; not wearing his heart upon his sleeve even in particulars less intimate and momentous than this. “I am not afraid of my God,” he said, after a minute’s pause; “pardon me, I am not used to speak much on such subjects. I cannot imagine that to meet God can be less than the greatest joy of which the soul is capable. He is our Father. I am not afraid.”
“Oh, my friend!” said the eager stranger; his voice sounded in Colin’s ear like the voice of a desperate man in a lifeboat, calling to somebody who was drowning in a storm,—“don’t deceive yourself; don’t take up a sentimental view of such an important matter. There is no escape except through one way. The great object of our lives is to know how to die—and to die is despair, without Christ.”
“What is it to live without Him?” said Colin. “I think the great object of our lives is to live. Sometimes it is very hard work. And, when one sees what is going on in the world, one does not know how it is possible to keep living without Him,” said the young man, whose mind had taken a profound impression from the events of the last three months. “I don’t see any meaning in the world otherwise. So far we are agreed. Death, which interests you so much, will clear up all the rest.”
“Which interests me?” said his new friend; “if we were indeed rational creatures, would it not interest every one? Beyond every other subject, beyond every kind of ambition and occupation—think what it is to go out of this life, with which we are familiar, to stand alone before God, to answer for the deeds done in the body——”
“Then, if you are so afraid of God,” said Colin, “what account do you make of Christ?”
A gleam of strange light went over the gaunt eager face. He put out his hand with his habitual movement, and laid it upon his sister’s hand, which was clinging to his arm. “Alice, hush!” said the sick man; “don’t interrupt me. He speaks as if he knew what I mean; he speaks as if he too had something to do with it. I may be able to do him good or he me. I have not the pleasure of knowing your name,” he said, suddenly turning again to Colin with the strangest difference of manner. “Mine is Meredith. My sister and I will be glad if you will come to our cabin. I should like to have a little conversation with you. Will you come?”
Colin would have said No; but the word was stayed on his lips by a sudden look from the girl who had been drawn on along with them, without any apparent will of her own. It was only in her eyes that any indication of individual meaning on her part was visible. She did not speak, nor appear to think it necessary that she should second her brother’s invitation; but she gave Colin a hasty look, conveying such an appeal as went to his heart. He did not understand it; if he had been asked to save a man’s life the petition could not have been addressed to him more imploringly. His own wish gave way instantly before the eager supplication of those eyes: not that he was charmed or attracted by her, for she was too much absorbed, and her existence too much wrapt up in that of her brother, to exercise any personal influence. A woman so preoccupied had given up her privileges of woman. Accordingly, there was no embarrassment in the direct appeal she made. The vainest man in existence could not have imagined that she cared for his visit on her own account. Yet it was at her instance that Colin changed his original intention, and followed them down below to the cabin. His mind was sufficiently free to leave him at liberty to be interested in others, and his curiosity was already roused.
The pair did not look less interesting when Colin sat with them at the table below, in the little cabin, which did not seem big enough to hold anything else except the lamp. There, however, the sister exerted herself to make tea, for which she had all the materials. She boiled her little kettle over a spirit-lamp in a corner apart, and set everything before them with a silent rapidity very wonderful to Colin, who perceived at the same time that the sick man was impatient even of those soft and noiseless movements. He called to her to sit down two or three times before she was ready, and visibly fumed over the slight commotion, gentle as it was. He had seated himself in a corner of the hard little sofa which occupied one side of the cabin, and where there already lay a pile of cushions for his comfort. His thoughts were fixed on eternity, as he said and believed; but his body was profoundly sensitive to all the little annoyances of time. The light tread of his sister’s foot on the floor seemed to send a cruel vibration through him, and he glanced round at her with a momentary glance of anger, which called forth an answering sentiment in the mind of Colin, who was looking on.