CHAPTER XXXV - AFTER THE STORM
“Alive and on land. In
the country, back a little from the coast, we have
found a shelter from the shipwreck. That we live
at all is owing to the bravery of a seaman who superintended
the making of a raft after the ship struck, and almost
forced us to save our lives by risking them upon it.
The other passengers refused to go, and for a long
time we hesitated, but Ben Benson was so determined,
that at last we trusted every thing to his frail craft,
which, alas! was all of our brave vessel that ever
reached the shore.
“I shudder even now, as I remember
the fearful rush of waters around us when our craft
was cut loose from the sinking vessel. A hundred
ghostly forms looked down upon us from the crowded
stern, dreading the death for us, which too surely
fell on them.
“It was a terrible venture.
The storm still raging, the sea rising high, and breakers
howling on either hand, like hungry tigers tearing
at their chains. It all seems like a hideous
dream to me now, but I remember one thing that kept
the life in my heart, when it seemed turning to stone.
In the midst of the storm, as the raft reeled and plunged
over the lightning-stricken waves, I found myself
gathered to his bosom, and while the warmth of that
embrace reached my heart, I heard such words as sent
the blood thrilling like a gush of wine, back through
all my veins. In the rage and whirl of the storm,
while we were quivering in the very jaws of death,
James Harrington uttered in many a wild word, the love
that I had felt to be mine before. He seems to
have forgotten it now, for since we have been housed
safely on land, with the breath of a dozen orange
groves awaking nothing but sweet emotions, he seems
to have lost the passion of those delirious words,
but that they are burned like enamel on my heart,
I might fancy them a dream and nothing more.
“Why is this? What makes
him so reserved and yet so gently courteous.
There is no impediment to free speech. Are we
not equals in birth and as for fortune,
thank Heaven, I am rich enough for both. Why should
he almost shun me then, and spend so much time wandering
along the coast, looking upon the waves that have
almost proved fatal to us? These thoughts make
me very sad. Does he repent, or has a passion
that seemed so strong when death was nigh, gone out
with the storm that witnessed its first utterance.”