It was manifest that I had been saved that night of my fall over the cliff (by Anderson?—I prayed not); that I had been desperately ill—for the hands and arms upon which I looked down with sarcastic pity were emaciated; that I had been tenderly cared for—for the couch was soft, the cave well kept, and a rude screen stood at one side to shield me when the winds came into the cave-mouth. I raised my hands to my head. It was bandaged; and at one side my hair had been much cut away. But my hair—how long the rest of it was! And then came a stroke of wonder—my once smooth chin was deeply bearded! How long, how long must I have rested here, to grow so patriarchal an adornment!
Stung to a fierce restlessness, and with a sinking at my heart, I rose, tottered to the cave-mouth, and looked out.
The world I had last seen was a green world on the threshold of June. The world I looked on now was a world of fading scarlets, the last fires of autumn fast dying from the ragged leafage.
Below, beyond trees and a field, was outspread the wide water of Minas, roughened to a cold and angry indigo under the wind. To the left, purple-dim and haze-wrapped, sat Blomidon. Grand Pré must be around to the left. Then the cave was in the face of the Piziquid bluff. So near to friends, yet hidden in a cave! What had happened the while I lay as dead? I tottered back to the couch, and fell on my back, and thought. My apprehensions were like a mountain of lead upon the pit of my stomach, and I laboured for my breath.
First I thought of Nicole as having saved me—Anderson I knew would have done his best, but was helpless among an unfriendly people, and well occupied to keep his own scalp. Yet Nicole would have taken me to Father Fafard! And surely there were houses in Grand Pré where the son of my father would have been nursed, and not driven to hide in a hole—till his beard grew! And surely, after all that had happened, Yvonne would no longer count me a traitor, Monsieur and Madame would make amends for this dreadful misjudgment! And surely—but if so, where were all these friends?
Or what had befallen Grand Pré?
“If evil has befallen them (I did not say Yvonne) I want to die! I will go out, and fight, and die at once!” I cried, springing to my feet.
But I was still very weak, and my passion had yet further weakened me, so that I fell to the floor beside the couch; and in falling I knocked over the little jar and broke it. Even then I was conscious of a regret for the little jar; I realized that I was thirsty; and though I wanted to die, I wanted a drink of water first.
This inconsequent mood soon passed, and I crawled back on to the couch, the conviction well hammered into my brain that I was not yet fit to die with credit. And now, having found me no comfort in reason, and having faced the fact that there was nothing I could do but wait, I began to muse more temperately, and to cast about, as one will when weak, for omens and auguries. They kill time, and I hold them harmless.
But a truce to cant. Who am I that I should dare to say I laugh at or deny them? I may laugh at myself for a credulous fool. And I have no doubt whatever that most omens are sheer rubbish, more vain than a floating feather. But again there are things of that kindred that have convinced me, and have blessed me; and I dare not be irreverent to the mock mysteries, lest I be guilty of blaspheming those which are true. We know not—that is the most we know.