Maid of the Mist Part 26

"And it does not attract you?"

"Not in the slightest."

"You are, perhaps, rich."

"I have enough, and I have my profession,--and little chance apparently of making any use of either."

"Ah..." and presently, "As to that, am I wrong then in thinking that if you had not been here I would most likely not have been here either?"

and the wind and the sun had whipped a fine colour into her face.

"You would, perhaps, not be very far wrong."

"I remember it dimly, and in broken bits, like a horrible dream,--the crash, the terrible noise of the waves, the shouting and the screaming.

It was the Captain himself who tied me to that mast when everything was going to pieces. And when the waves washed over me, and I felt myself slowly dying, I would have loosed myself if I could, to make an end.

It was terrible to be so long of dying. And the cold of the sea!--oh, it was a horror," and she s.h.i.+vered again at the remembrance... "Then I died.... And then--long long afterwards--I found myself coming slowly back to life, and beginning to get warm again, with p.r.i.c.kly pains like pins and needles all over me----"

"That was your blood beginning to flow again."

"----I felt warm hands rubbing me--rubbing, rubbing, rubbing. They must have rubbed for years, and, all the time, I was slowly coming back. They were very warm and soothing. And at last they rubbed me back to life."

"What was the name of your s.h.i.+p?"

"The 'Ben Lomond,' from Glasgow to New York, and the Captain was John MacDonald. It was a large s.h.i.+p and full of pa.s.sengers. It is terrible to think of them all gone but me.--Oh, terrible!--terrible!"

"Might I ask your name--since we are like to be neighbours for the rest of our lives?"

"I am Avice Drummond," she said, with a quick glance at him. "And you?"

"Wulfrey Dale."

"And the mate?"

"Sheumaish Macro,--or Hamish, I'm not sure which."

"It is the same. He is a good man?--to be trusted?"

"I have no reason to think otherwise, but I have only known him since we landed here. He is chock full of superst.i.tion----"

"That is the Highlander in him."

"A bit hot-blooded too, and apt to boil over."

"That is the Spaniard."

"And he's crazy after the spoil out yonder."

"The Highlander again. It is, as you say, perhaps just as well you do not care for it, or you might have quarrelled."

"He is welcome to it all as far as I am concerned."

"I am of his country. I can understand how he feels. It is the old riever spirit in him finding its opportunity."

XXVIII

He was vitally conscious of her proximity to him as they paced through the soft sand towards the raft. The sight of her pink toes popping in and out from under her blanket-skirt quickened his blood. He knew without looking when she glanced round at him now and again, as when he had asked her name.

He had not thought that the feeling of a woman's eyes upon him could stir him to such an extent, no matter how wonderful they might be in their depths of eloquent darkness. He knew all about women,--physically, organically, professionally, and still held woman in reverence. Experience had taught him also that in reality he and his fellows knew very little about them beyond merest surface indications,--that there were in most women, perhaps in all, deeps beyond man's sounding, heights beyond his attainment,--a general elusiveness mysteriously comprehensive of feelings, instincts, pa.s.sions, emotions, nerves, moods, humours, vapours, which a wise man accepted without expecting ever fully to understand.

That this shapely girl in her swathed blankets should affect him to such an extent that he was actually conscious of a superb new joy in living, of an absolute rejuvenescence, of a vitalising of all his energies, was a very great surprise to him. He could feel the blood running redder in his veins. His heart beat more briskly than it had done since he landed on the island.

But after three months of nothing but Macro and rabbits and screaming birds, it was not to be wondered at after all, he reasoned to himself.

Life had been running on a low level. There had been nothing to lift them above the mere satisfaction of their bodily necessities. Eating, sleeping, getting through the days had sufficed them.

And here, into that rough husk of a life, had suddenly come a soul, to animate them both to higher things, even though it were no more than the ministering to her more delicate necessities.

Even Macro was feeling it, and was toiling out yonder, not for himself but for her. Without doubt life was immensely more worth living than it had been two days ago.

It was a joy even to cook for her, though he had always detested the preparation of food. To know beforehand what one was going to eat was sufficient to reduce one's appet.i.te. To superintend a meal through all its stages, from raw to ready, put anything beyond the mere filling of an internal void out of the question.

But cooking for himself and cooking for her were matters of very different complexion, and he found himself considering culinary enterprises which surprised him greatly.

"You will let me help," she said, when they had climbed on board, and she saw him setting to work on the rabbits.

"Can you make biscuit?"

"If there is anything to make it with," so he provided her with flour and water and a frying-pan, and tackled his own repulsive job, looking forward to the best-made biscuit they had had since they came ash.o.r.e.

"You have no b.u.t.ter--lard--dripping--fat--nothing?" she asked.

"There is some fat pork. We stew it with the rabbit as a rule."

"Get me some and I will render it down and we shall have much better cakes. Men never know how to cook unless they are trained to it. You have no seasonings of any kind--no? Nor salt?"

"Not a sc.r.a.p."

"We might find something on sh.o.r.e there. I saw many little plants. We will search next time we go."

Yes, indeed, even the repellent cooking took on quite a new aspect and became a joyous pastime in her company, and they presently sat down to such a meal as he had not tasted since he left Liverpool. Many a more abundant one he had had, but none with such a flavour to it, and that was due entirely to the deft white hands that had helped to prepare it.

Meals. .h.i.therto had been in the nature of necessary nuisances. He and the mate had often sat eating without a word between them, and with perhaps less enjoyment in it than the rabbits out there among the sandhills. But, henceforth, meals would be feasts full of delight because of this stranger girl, whose presence would be salt and savour and seasoning to the poorest of fare.

"And he--the mate,--when does he eat?" she asked suddenly, after they had begun.

"Not till he gets back,--at night-fall as a rule. It's a good long way, you see, and he likes to spend all his time working."