The cedar tree stood on a slope of
the bank, and had cast its fiery rain over the herbage
and brushwood for yards around, leaving them crisped
and dry.
Harrington gathered up a quantity
of the seared grass, and heaped a dry couch upon which
Ben laid his charge within the genial heat that came
from the cedar tree. Then they gathered up all
the combustible matter within reach, and began to
kindle a fire so near to the place where she lay that
its heat must help to drive back the chill of death
if there was a spark of life yet vital in her bosom.
Harrington knelt beside Mabel.
He chafed her hands between his own, and wrung the
water from her long hair. But it all seemed in
vain. No color came to those blue fingers.
The purple tinge still lay like the shadow of violets
under the closed eyes, no motion of the
chest no stir of the limbs. At last
drops of water came oozing through the white lips,
and a scarcely perceptible shiver ran through the limbs.
“It is life!” said Harrington,
lifting his radiant face to the boatman.
“Are you sartin it ain’t
the wind a stirring her gown?” asked Ben, trembling
between anxiety and delight.
“No, no her chest
heaves, she struggles. It is life,
precious, holy life; God has given her back to us,
Ben!”
“I don’t know I
ain’t quite sartin yet, if she’d only open
her eyes, or lift her hand!” exclaimed the poor
fellow.
Here a faint groan broke from the
object of his solicitude, and she began to struggle
upon the ground.
“Go,” said Harrington,
“search out the light we saw she will
need rest and shelter more than anything now.”
“I will, in course I will only
let me be sartin she’s coming to.”
The good fellow knelt down by Mabel
as he spoke, and lifting her hand in his, laid it
to his rough cheek.
“It’s alive it
moves like a drenched bird put back in its nest I’ll
go now, Mister James, but d’ye see I felt like
thanking the great Admiral up aloft there, and didn’t
want no mistake about it.”
“Yes, we may well thank God;
she lives,” said Harrington, looking down upon
Mabel with tears in his eyes.
“Then I do thank God,
soul and body, I thanks him,” answered Ben,
throwing his clasped hands aloft, “and if I was
commander of the stoutest man-of-war as ever floated,
I’d thank him all the same.”
With these words Ben disappeared in
the undergrowth and proceeded in search of help.
Admonished by the throes and struggles
which proclaimed a painful return of life, Harrington
lifted Mabel to a sitting posture and supported her
there. His heart was wrung by every spasm of anguish
that swept over her; yet at each one, he sent up a
brief thanksgiving, for it was a proof of returning
consciousness. Still she looked very deathly,
and the sighs that broke through her pale lips seemed
like an echo of some struggling pang within.
“Mabel,” said Harrington,
catching his breath as the name escaped his lips,
“Mabel, do you understand? are you
better, Mabel?”
The name once spoken it seemed as
if he could not repeat it often enough, it fell so
like music upon his soul.
She struggled faintly a
thrill ran through her frame, and both lips and eyelids
began to quiver.
“Who calls me?” she said,
in a whisper. “Who calls and where am I?”
Her eyes were open now, and the refulgence
falling around her from the burning cedar, seemed
like the glory of heaven. In that light she saw
only James Harrington bending over her. A smile
bright and pure, as if she had been in truth an angel,
stole over her face.
“Yes,” she whispered with
a sigh of ineffable happiness, “he may call me
Mabel here.”
He could not distinguish her words,
but knew from the light upon her face, that she was
very happy. His own features grew luminous.
“Mabel, have you ceased to suffer?” he
said.
Her eyes were closed in gentle weariness
now, but the smile came fresh upon her features, and
she murmured dreamily:
“There is no suffering here nothing
but heaven and our two selves.”
Oh, James Harrington, be careful now!
You have heard those soft words you have
drank in the glory of that smile. In all your
life what temptation has equalled this?
For one delirious moment the strong
man gave himself up to the joy of those words:
for one moment his hands were uplifted in thanksgiving then
they were clasped and fell heavily to the earth, and
a flood of bitter, bitter self-reproach flowed silently
from his heart. Mabel moved like a child that
had been lulled to rest by the music of a dear voice.
She thirsted for the sound again.
“Did not some one call me Mabel?” she
asked.
Harrington was firm now, and he answered calmly:
“Yes, Mrs. Harrington, it was I.”
“Mrs. Harrington,” muttered
Mabel in a troubled tone, “how came that name
here? It is of earth, earthy.”
“We are all of earth,”
answered James, strong in self command. “You
have been ill, Mrs. Harrington, drenched through,
and almost drowned but, thank God, your
life is saved.”
“My life is saved, and am I
yet of earth? Then what is this light so heavenly,
and yet so false!”
“The storm which overwhelmed
your boat struck this light. It is from a tree
smitten with fire.”
“And you?” questioned
Mabel, but very mournfully. “You are General
Harrington’s guest, and I am his wife?”
“Even so, dear lady!”
Mabel turned her head and tears stole
softly from beneath her closed lashes. How could
she reconcile herself to life again? To be thus
torn back from a sweet delusion, was more painful
than all the pangs she had suffered.
They were silent now. For one
moment they had met, soul to soul, but the old barriers
were fast springing up between them, barriers that
made the hearts of both heavy as death, yet neither
would have lifted a hand to tear them away.
Mabel at last quietly wiped the tears
from her eyes and sat up. She still shivered
and her face was pale, but she smiled yet, only the
smile was so touchingly sad.
“I must have been quite gone, why
did you bring me back?” she said.
“Why did we bring you back,”
repeated Harrington with a sudden outburst of passion,
“why did we bring you back!” He checked
himself and went on more calmly. “It is
the duty of every one to save life, Mrs. Harrington,
and to receive it gratefully when, by God’s mercy,
it is saved.”
“I know, I know,” she
answered, attempting to gather up the tresses of her
hair, “I shall be grateful for this gift of life
to-morrow; but now indeed I am, very thankful
that you saved me.”
“It was Ben more than myself but
for him you would have been lost,” answered
Harrington, rejecting her sweet gratitude with stoicism.
“He followed you in his boat through all the
storm, and was nearly lost with you!”
“Poor Ben!” she said,
“faithful always, I had not thought of him, though
he saved my life.”
Harrington had claimed all her gratitude
for Ben with resolute self-restraint; but when she
acknowledged it so kindly, he could not help feeling
somewhat wronged. But against such impulses he
had armed himself, and directly cast them aside.
“How strange everything looks,”
she said, “are those stars breaking through
between the clouds? They seem very pale and sad,
after the light that dazzled me when I first awoke:
then there is a mournful sound coming through the
trees the waters, I suppose. After
all, this earth does seem very dark and sorrowful,
to which you have brought me back.”
“You are ill yet you suffer, perhaps?”
“No, I am only sad!”
And so was he. Her mournful voice the
reluctance with which she took back the burden of
life, pained him, yet he could offer no adequate consolation.
Commonplaces are a mockery with persons who know that
there are thoughts in the depths of the soul, which
must not be spoken, though they color every other
thought. Silence or subterfuge is the only refuge
for those who dare not speak frankly.
Thus without a word, for they were
too honest for pretence, the two remained together
listening to the low sob of the winds and to the rain
that dripped from the leaves, long after it had ceased
to fall from the clouds. This hush of the storm
was oppressive more to Harrington than the lady.
She was languid and dreamy lying upon her couch of
dry leaves, very feeble and weeping quietly without
a sob, like a helpless child who has no language but
tears and laughter. In this entire prostration
of the nervous system, she forgot if she
had ever been conscious of the words that filled him
with a tumult of painful feelings.
He moved a little from the place where
Mabel lay, and burying his face in both hands, remained
perfectly still, lifting a solemn petition heavenward
from his silent heart, not that she might live not
even of thanksgiving but a subdued cry
for strength rose up with the might of his whole being,
a cry so ardent and sincere, that its very intensity
kept him still.