Adventures in Many Lands Part 19

Then, for the second time that night, my pulses beat fast, and my scalp tingled with something approaching fear, and I wished I had a friend on board with me.

It seemed as if my foolish idea of a dead body asking for compa.s.sion was coming true. For there was a huddled-up form lying on the bottom of the boat, its head inclined half on and half off the stern thwart, its whole att.i.tude suggestive of the helplessness of death.

I stood as if paralysed for a few seconds, filled with a craven longing to get back to the cosy cabin, shut the hatch, and wait till daylight before approaching any nearer that still form, dreading what horrors an examination might reveal. But more humane and reasonable thoughts soon came; perhaps this poor drifting bit of humanity was not dead, but had been sent my way in the dead of night to revive and shelter.

Feeling that I must act at once, or I might not act at all--or at least till daybreak--I put a great restraint upon my feelings of repugnance, caught up the lamp, stepped into the boat, and raised the drooping head on to my arm.

As I did so, the hood-like covering which had concealed the face fell back, and in a moment all my shrinking and horror vanished once for all--swallowed up in pity, compa.s.sion, and amazement--for on my arm rested the sweet face of a young and very pretty girl, marred only by its pallor and a bad bruise on the right temple.

Even in the lamplight I could see she was a lady born and bred; her face alone told me that, and the rich material of fur-lined cloak and hood merely confirmed it.

Here was no horrible midnight visitor, then; but certainly what seemed to me a great mystery--far more so than the dead body of labourer or wherry-man floating down with the tide would have furnished.

A lady, insensible apparently from a blow on the forehead, floating alone in an open boat at midnight, on a lonely tidal water, far from any resort of the cla.s.s to which she seemed to belong, and saved from long hours of exposure--perhaps death--by the marvellous chance (if it could be called so) of colliding with my yacht on the way to the open sea.

It was too great a puzzle to attempt to solve on the spur of the moment, and I had first to apply myself to the evident duty of getting my fair and mysterious visitor into my cabin, there to try to undo the effects of whatever untoward accidents had befallen her.

It was no easy matter, single-handed and in darkness, except for the hazy beam of light from the lamp on deck, to get her from the swinging, lurching boat to the yacht. But, luckily for me, my burden was light and slender, and I did it without mishap, I hardly know how, and then soon had her in the little cabin, laid carefully upon my blankets and rugs, with a pillow under her head.

I soon knew she was alive, for there was a distinct, though slight, rise and fall of her bosom as she breathed, but my difficulty was to know what remedies to apply. I have a little experience in resuscitating the half-drowned, but in this case insensibility seemed to have been caused by the blow on her forehead, if it was not from shock or fear.

So all I could do was to force a few drops of brandy between the white teeth, and bathe the forehead patiently, and hope that nature would soon rea.s.sert itself with these aids.

After what seemed a long while to me, but which I suppose was not more than a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, one of the little white hands moved, a deep sigh came from the lips, and I thought she was "coming to."

But it was merely a change from one state of insensibility to another; for, though a colour came back into the cheeks and the breathing grew stronger and more regular, the warmth of the cabin had its effect, and she sank into a natural and peaceful sleep.

My greatest anxiety being now relieved, and my fair young visitor restored to animation and resting peacefully enough, my mind naturally turned to the consideration of the strange position I was so unexpectedly placed in; but in my state of absolute ignorance as to the ident.i.ty of my charge, where she came from, what had happened, and of the whole chain of circ.u.mstances which led up to her strange visit, I came to the conclusion that I could only wait for her to awake and enlighten me before taking any steps whatever. It might mean losing valuable time to try to find out anything by going off in the fog and darkness; whilst, meanwhile, the poor girl might awake and find herself deserted, instead of finding me ready and waiting to take her instructions for her safe restoration to her friends.

So there was nothing for me to do but wait, and having made up the fire in the stove and put the kettle on in readiness for a cup of tea, I made myself as comfortable as I could in a corner and longed for daylight.

As I watched the face of the sleeping girl, now rather flushed from the warmth of the cabin and the unaccustomed drops of spirit I had given her, I thought I had never before seen a fairer and sweeter countenance, and even then began to bless the chance which had allowed me to become her protector.

Once she stirred, and a look of dread, almost terror, came into her face, and I heard her utter in an agonised voice the single word "Harold."

It may sound ridiculous, but, coming so soon after my feelings of tender "protectiveness," I felt quite a pang of jealousy against the unknown owner of the name, and wondered in what relation she stood to him and why her thought of him should bring such evident pain. However, she did not awake as yet, and I had to possess my soul in patience for this and all the other enlightenment I longed for.

I must have slept at last, for the next thing I remember was seeing a faint daylight struggling through the skylight and realising that the fire was nearly out, in spite of my resolve to keep a watch over it. In making it up I clumsily dropped a lump of coal, and the girl stirred, opened her eyes, and sat up at once, evidently refreshed by her sleep and in full possession of all her faculties, and, of course, utterly bewildered at her surroundings and at finding a perfect stranger in charge of her.

It made my heart ache to see, as memory came back and she recalled the (to me unknown) events of the night, a cloud of dread and anxiety come over her, and her eyes fill with tears at the recollection; and if I had felt drawn to her before, I was doubly so now, when I saw her bravely brace herself to talk of them, and even smile up at me as she said--

"Will you tell me where I am, and how I got here? It seems to me I have a lot to thank you for!"

I told her as briefly as I could the happenings of the night as far as I knew them, and then said--

"Now I am burning to hear your adventures, and longing to help you to get back to your friends; but I beg of you not to tell me more than you feel inclined, nor to put any strain on yourself at present, but just tell me sufficient for me to know how to act for you."

She a.s.sured me she felt quite well, except for a headache (which certainly was only to be expected with such a bruise on her poor white forehead), and would like to tell me everything, as it would be a relief to her mind to do so, and with the most charming little blush she added--

"I feel so sure you will know just what is best to be done, and I should like to confide my fears to you."

So, whilst I busied myself in getting a sort of hasty breakfast ready, partly because we both needed it, but more for the sake of making it easier for her to speak of things which might be painful for her to mention with my eyes upon her, she told me all, and it was quite amazing how simply everything was explained.

Her name--which she mentioned no doubt because I had carefully told her mine--was Lilian Burfield, and she and her brother Harold (I felt foolishly relieved to hear it was her _brother's_ name she had called on in her sleep) lived with their father at a large house some three miles from the village up the river. A day or two before these events, some friends of theirs, a Mr. and Mrs. Small, had brought their wherry up the river to visit them, whilst on a cruise. On the Friday they had spent the afternoon on board, and she and her brother had been induced to stay to dinner, and play a game or two afterwards; but her father had been obliged to leave earlier on account of some engagement.

About 10.30 they left (although the Smalls pressed them to stop on board all night when they saw how thick the fog had become), feeling confident that they could not well miss the landing-stage, as it was not more than a hundred yards from the yacht.

However, it seemed that they _had_ done so, as the boat took the ground on a mud-bank, and stuck fast.

Her brother was unable to push off, and asked her to help, so she stood up and, with the other oar, moved to a.s.sist him. The s.h.i.+fting of her weight must have loosened the boat, as at that very moment her brother gave a shove and they shot off the mud with a lurch, sending her with great violence into the bottom of the boat and stunning her.

As she fell (and here I heard a break in the low, sweet voice which was telling me the tale) she remembered seeing her brother disappear overboard, upset by the sudden movement of the boat beneath him, and believed she gave a cry at the sight; but knew no more till she awakened in the cabin of the _Thelma_.

The simple narrative ceased, and I wondered that when trying to puzzle out where she could have come from, I had never thought to connect the wherry I had seen in the morning with my visitor's sudden appearance.

How marvellous it seemed, though, that the boat with its helpless freight should have been carried by the ebbing tide straight into my care, and how deeply thankful I was that it had been so ordered, saving the poor girl from a terrible, lonely drift out to sea, from many hours'

exposure, perhaps from being run down by a pa.s.sing vessel, certainly from grave danger in many ways!

Now I could see my way at last as to my next move, and hastened to a.s.sure my anxious visitor that I had little fear for her brother's safety, as I knew there were no mudbanks in that part of the river except those along the edge of the sh.o.r.e, and therefore he would almost certainly have been able to scramble out.

There were still one or two things I did not quite understand, however, so, whilst we ate a fairly hearty meal off the remainder of my whiting, I plied her with a question or two, and by-and-by we got very friendly and cheerful, and I quite disliked the idea of going out into the misty morning to make arrangements for giving up my fair and charming visitor.

As for Miss Burfield (as I now must call her), her spirits rose with my hopeful words, and as the food had its effect on her physically.

But in my mind was a sinister fear, which I carefully kept from her.

I had heard no shouts, no sound of any search, either in the night nor since daybreak, which seemed strange; and it had occurred to me that _if_ the young fellow had been drowned this would be explained, for those on the wherry might know nothing, thinking their visitors had reached the sh.o.r.e, while those ash.o.r.e might think they had stopped overnight on board on account of the fog, and so no search would be made, no alarm taken.

I asked whose was the boat they were in and which I had secured, wondering if it would be missed.

"It belonged to a man in the village," she said. "We borrowed it because the man who works the wherry for the Smalls was away for the night, and we thought we would save Mr. Small the trouble of rowing us ash.o.r.e so late at night in his own boat."

"Was the owner waiting up for you to bring the boat back?" I asked.

"No, we promised to tie it up safely, so that he need not worry about it," she answered.

So, there again, they would not be missed till the man failed to find his boat, which might not be for hours yet. It seemed to me that I might have the terrible duty of breaking the bad news of the loss of the young man, instead of, as I had thought, the good tidings of the finding of the lost girl.

But that remained to be proved, and I could only hope for the best.

In any case my duty was now plain, and with a few cheering words to my companion, telling her that I was going to the village to report her safety, and to send a messenger to her home that they might come and fetch her, and would be back as soon as possible with (I hoped) the good news of her brother's safety, I set off, early as it was, and rowed myself ash.o.r.e in the dinghy. I was glad to see that the fog was thinning even then, and by the time I had landed and run along the towing-path to the village, the sun was just visible through the haze, giving every hope of a lovely day.

With mingled feelings of dread and hope I approached the scattered houses of the little hamlet, half fearing to see groups of men by the river-side searching for some gruesome object, and, again, when all seemed still and peaceful, fearing that the absence of movement might mean the very thing I dreaded--namely, that the catastrophe had happened, and no one any the wiser.

There lay the wherry, without sight or sound of any living person on board; no one was moving in the little straggling street; not a dog barked.

I went straight to the old inn, which stood about a hundred yards from the landing-stage, opposite the wherry's anchorage, and knocked loudly at the door. No one answered, so I tried the latch, the door opened to my hand, and I walked into the brick-floored bar, and at first thought it was empty.