This, however, occasioned little or no anxiety to Betsy Waroonga, for she was not an anxious mother; but when, raising her eyes a little higher, she beheld the tip of the back-fin of a shark describing lively circles in the water as if it had scented the tender morsel and were searching for it, her easy indifference vanished. She gave vent to a yell and made a bound that told eloquently of the savage beneath the missionary, and, in another instant was up to the knees in the water with the coal-scuttle quivering violently. Seizing Zariffa, she squeezed her almost to the bursting point against her palpitating breast, while the shark headed seaward in bitter disappointment.
“Don’t go so deep agin, Ziffa,” said the mother, with a gasp, as she set her little one down on the sand.
“No, musser,” said the obedient child; and she kept on the landward side of her parent thereafter with demonstrative care.
It may be remarked here that, owing to Waroonga’s love for, and admiration of, white men, Zariffa’s native tongue was English—broken, of course, to the pattern of her parents.
“It was a narrow escape, Betsy,” said Marie, solemnised by the incident.
“Yes, thank the Lord,” replied the other, continuing to gaze out to sea long after the cause of her alarm had disappeared.
“Oh! Marie,” she added, with a sigh, “when will the dear men come home?”
The question drove all the playful humour out of poor Marie, and her eyes filled with sudden tears.
“When, indeed? Oh! Betsy, my man will never come. For Orley and the others I have little fear, but my Antonio—”
Poor Marie could say no more. Her nature was as quickly, though not as easily, provoked to deep sorrow as to gaiety. She covered her face with her hands.