"Oh, good gracious, that's nothing—for me," I answered.
But if I am throwing dust in Martin's eyes I am deceiving nobody else, it seems. To-night after he and Dr. O'Sullivan had gone back to the "Plough," Father Dan came in to ask Christian Ann how she found me, and being answered rather sadly, I heard him say:
"Ugh cha nee! [Woe is me!] What is life? It is even a vapour which appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away."
And half an hour later, when old Tommy came to bring me some lobsters (he still declares they are the only food for invalids) and to ask "how's the lil woman now?" I heard him moaning, as he was going out:
"There'll be no shelter for her this voyage, the vogh! She'll carry the sea in with her to the Head, I'm thinking."
JULY 27. I must keep it up—I must, I must! To allow Martin's hopes and dreams to be broken in upon now would be enough to kill me outright.
I don't want to be unkind, but some explorers leave the impression that their highest impulse is the praise of achievement, and once they have done something all they've got to do next is to stay at home and talk about it. Martin is not like that. Exploration is a passion with him. The "lure of the little voices" and the "call of the Unknown" have been with him from the beginning, and they will be with him to the end.
I cannot possibly think of Martin dying in bed, and being laid to rest in the green peace of English earth—dear and sweet as that is to tamer natures, mine for instance. I can only think of that wild heroic soul going up to God from the broad white wilderness of the stormy South, and leaving his body under heaving hummocks of snow with blizzards blowing a requiem over his grave.
Far off may that glorious ending be, but shall my poor failing heart make it impossible? Never, never, never!