‘Afraid! Oh, yes! Such a home even for a year, even for a month, might terrify a stouter heart than yours into more than tears.’
‘I was afraid because I thought to myself, standing alone just now and recalling the past and looking into the darkness where the island lies, all this must be a dream—I shall awaken from it and find Tom a prisoner and away from me, and my heart aching for him.’
He viewed me with impassioned earnestness; his face lighted up; he smiled with one of those looks which brought him before me in the days of his glowing, manly beauty, when I had first met him, when calamity was still afar and all was well.
‘Dearest!’ he said, and coming to me he tenderly rested my head upon his shoulder; and thus we sat with our hearts too full for speech.
The brig being hove to, the helm needed but little or no attention. The wheel was secured, and the vessel lay in the hollow of the large, wide swell, rolling as regularly as the breast rises and falls in sleep. It was decided that the three should divide the watches, one keeping a look-out at a time and the others lying near, handy to arouse. Tom told me to rest throughout the night, and I obeyed him; but my rest was very broken, and when I slumbered I dreamed strangely.
CHAPTER XLII
SHE MEETS THE TRISTAN ISLANDERS
I was awakened shortly after daybreak by Tom. He called to me that it was a fine morning, with a pleasant air of wind, and that I was wanted at the wheel whilst he and the others trimmed sail. I passed through the cabin-door to the wheel, and found the morning fair and bright indeed, the air delicate and soft as a tender day in May at home; the wind was north, blowing directly for the island, which, when I went on deck, was off the starboard beam, a giant lump of land, truly, and more imposing than Teneriffe, as I have heard sailors say, because of its colour and loneliness, though the mighty Canary peak soars to nearly double Tristan’s altitude.
It stood at a distance of seven or eight miles. The upper half of the mountain was clothed in motionless lines or wreaths of steam-white cloud, but the snow-clad summit sparkled in the early sunshine and looked like the moon, but more brilliant, soaring out of vapour. The base was of a dark and sullen hue.