Peak's Island Part 6

The ladies were on their feet in an instant. Mrs. Carleton running to a birch tree a few yards back from the beach, and breaking off a piece of bark, deftly bent it into a cup, which she handed to Miss Vyvyan to fill from the same pond that had supplied them with water the first day they were thrown upon the island. Refreshed by the draught the stranger tried to thank them, but speech and strength failed him, and tottering a few paces toward the land, he fell down insensible beside a fissure in one of the rocks. The ladies went to him.

"His hands are as cold as if he were dead, Ada," said Miss Vyvyan. "What will it be best to do?"

"What did you do for me, when you first tried to help me?" replied Mrs.

Carleton.

"I tried to get you warm."

"Well, then, we must do that."

At these words, they simultaneously took off the outside wraps they wore, and laid them over him, and hastened about among the wreckage, until they had a good supply of warm rugs and coverings.

"Where did you get those hot stones that you placed at my feet," said Mrs. Carleton?

"I made a fire and heated them."

Then we will make a fire and do the same thing.

They covered the poor fellow over, and put hot stones to his feet, and he seemed to be sleeping. In the meantime they prepared some light food for him. They sat in silence near by, waiting to see what they could do, should he return to consciousness. They observed the color coming back to his face, and a bright pink spot burned on each cheek.

"I fear," said Mrs. Carleton, "fever is setting in. I will make something with the fruit we brought down, that will quench his thirst."

The child seemed to echo the thoughts of her companions, seeing them anxiously engaged in ministering to the sufferer. She began gathering up anything that she thought pretty, and laid it by his side. Presently she went to him with a few wild flowers, which she had picked from the crevices of the rocks and among the sh.o.r.e gra.s.s close by. She observed the ladies spoke in low tones to each other and moved about very quietly. She knew there was some cause for this, for, young as she was, she had already an idea of illness and suffering, and her little heart was full of pity for others. She stood looking at him as he lay asleep before her, waiting with her wild flowers, until the time should come for her to give them to him. "Poorest, poorest," she repeated, at the same time stroking his hair with her baby hand. That was her own word, and her own way of showing sympathy and pity. The little one's vocabulary was, at this period of her life, very limited, but equally significant of all that she saw and felt. She possessed no extraneous babble. The only words she was capable of uttering came from her heart; hence they fell upon her hearers with all the beauty and strength of truth. "Poorest, poorest," she again repeated; "dorn seep; papa dorn seep, too."

At the child's last sentence, a shudder quivered through Mrs.

Carleton's frame, and a still whiter shade pa.s.sed over the already pale face. She clasped her little one close to her and bowed down upon its head. She did not utter a sound. Her silence said more than any words could have done, for hers was a sorrow that had no speech.

After a restful sleep, the young man awoke, and sitting up among the many rugs and coverings by which he was surrounded, he looked about in every direction, and appeared to be endeavoring to realize his true position. He saw the high tower of the castle rising so near to him among the trees; he saw the ladies and the child, but he did not feel quite sure of the truth of all he saw until Mrs. Carleton put a cup into his hand and said,

"This is a fever drink; will you take some? I have just made it from fruit, the same as we make it in Virginia."

"Thank you," he said. "I know what it is. I am a Virginian. I sailed from that colony in the ship Sir Walter Raleigh. Who has been so kind as to bring me all these rugs," he continued.

"We did," replied Mrs. Carleton, looking in the direction of Miss Vyvyan, who with the child stood near them.

"What, with your own hands? I regret to have caused you so much trouble; although I am grateful to you in the extreme, I would have preferred you to have given orders to some of your servants. It is not seemly that ladies such you are should wait upon me; it is not consistent with the chivalry of a gentleman."

"I understand your feelings on this subject," said Mrs. Carleton, "for I, too, am a Virginian; but we have no servants now, and my friend and I are glad that we can be useful. It is five days since your ship was wrecked, therefore we know that you must have suffered greatly. Pray do not be disturbed by seeing us doing what little we can to save you from perishing; let me a.s.sure you that we are very happy to do our utmost."

The young man bowed, his cheeks still wore the bright flush of fever which heightened the intensity of his soft brown eyes, that beamed with grat.i.tude.

"Do you say that you are a Virginian?" he inquired, addressing Mrs.

Carleton.

"Yes," she answered; "we were in the Sir Walter Raleigh, too; that is to say, my husband and child with myself, but I never saw any of the pa.s.sengers. I remained in my cabin all the time we were at sea."

"I recollect you, now," he said. "I saw Colonel Carleton lift you and your child into a boat when our ship went ash.o.r.e."

"Were you acquainted with Colonel Carleton?" she inquired. "He was my husband."

"We were not acquainted until we met on board, but during the several weeks we were at sea we pa.s.sed all the time together. You say he _was_ your husband. Is it possible that generous-hearted man is lost?"

Mrs. Carleton made an inclination with her head.

"Forgive me," he said, "my conversation has caused you pain."

"Please continue," she replied, "tell me all you know about him."

"I witnessed many of his acts of kindness during our voyage, and received kindness from him at what I suppose was the last moment of his life. The boat you were in was full and I urged him to get into another one, but he refused, saying, 'I can swim and you cannot.' At the same moment he took hold of me and dropped me into the boat as easily as if I were a child. You know how tall and powerful he was. The next instant your boat was capsized and I saw Colonel Carleton leap into the sea and swim toward you. His hand was almost upon your arm, when an enormous wave swept him out of sight. The same wave capsized our boat, and the next one threw me into the cove below. I might have got away before, but part of a broken mast lay across my chest and I was entangled hand and foot by the rigging. I could neither move nor call aloud. I heard voices more than once, the voices of ladies. I believe it was your voice and that of your friend, for I never knew my ear to deceive me. I saw corpses lying all around me. The tide took them away and brought them back again many times while I was there. All one night a dead hand lay across my throat, but I could not disengage my hands to remove it. I had no fever; I was conscious of everything. The tide was higher than usual this morning. It lifted the mast and I crawled from under it."

He appeared to suffer much from exhaustion and lay down again upon the rugs, and closing his eyes remained silent. After a little rest, he again sat up and resumed his conversation with Mrs. Carleton.

"I have a great love of music," he began. "I left the colony of Virginia with the intention of going to London, to perfect my study of that divine art, under the direction of Orlando Gibbons. He is very young to be a composer, but he is already of much renown."

For some time he continued to speak fluently on the subject of music, a subject of which the ladies perceived he was a complete master. As he talked, he became full of enthusiasm, and that wondrous light which belongs to genius alone illumined his beautiful, eyes and his whole soul spoke through them.

"Ah, my madrigals," said he, "they will yet be sung to His Majesty, King James. My symphonies I shall submit to Orlando Gibbons, then I shall hear them played by a full orchestra, the world will hear, then justice will be accorded to me, the great masters will be my judges, genius such as theirs allows them to be generous and true in their opinions of other men. They will see me as I am. They will not condemn what they cannot understand. They will not call my life useless, because my tastes, my talents and my whole being compel me to be different from those among whom I live. I cannot help it, and I would not if I could."

An expression of mental pain pa.s.sed over his face as he thus proceeded.

"Why did my uncle call my life and my work useless? It is hard to be misunderstood. If I can create out of my own brain something that is pure and beautiful, that gives happiness, that draws coa.r.s.e natures away from their coa.r.s.eness, to feelings more elevated, that can bring to some an ecstasy of delight, to others a sweet calm. If I follow a pursuit which injures no human being, no living creature, why am I to endure displeasure? Is it more manly, more n.o.ble to hunt the poor, panting deer till it falls gasping on the ground, and then to save its life for the purpose of chasing it again for sport? Is it more n.o.ble to ride races till the horses drop down dead? Tell me, do such pursuits elevate or brutalize?"

Taking a roll of paper from his breast, he handed it to Mrs. Carleton, saying, "I have a symphony here which I composed since I left my home; would you like to look at it? I wish my twin brother Ronald could see this; he understands me, and he will understand my music, although since his accident, his hand can no longer obey his will; yet he will read my symphony, aye, more, he will play it in his soul. With it you will find a song also, the words and music are both mine; when you have read it, will you hand it to your friend?"

Mrs. Carleton took the roll of music into her hand, but observing that the writing was almost obliterated from having been so long wet with sea water, she pa.s.sed it to Miss Vyvyan, who sat a little farther off, desiring to spare him the pain of seeing that his composition was destroyed. The many pages of music were entirely illegible, with the exception of part of the refrain of the song, the words of which ran thus:--

Bury me deep, Where the surges sweep, And the heaving billows moan.

At the bottom was the name "Ralph." The following part of the signature was destroyed.

As Anna read over the words of the song, she could not help feeling that they might be prophetic of what was very near. She folded the paper together and returned it to him.

"Is that your signature?" she asked.

"Yes, that is my name," he replied. "Do you like music," he continued.

"I do," she said.

"How much do you like it?"

"I like it to such a degree," she replied, "that I think life is not life without music."

"Ah, that is what I think," he said. "But I am exhausted. Ladies, will you pardon me if I sleep a little while? I want to get back my strength, that I may be able to wait upon you both, and make all the return in my power for your great kindness to me."

He soon fell into a restless, broken sleep, constantly murmuring to himself incoherently.

"Anna," said Mrs. Carleton, "he is very ill, and it is almost sunset, and quite impossible for us to take him up to the castle. We must make some shelter here for him; the breeze already comes in from the sea much cooler, and the night will be cold." The ladies picked up loose stones and planks and everything they could move, and formed a low wall around him, making a place of shelter as large as a small room. They then drew up a portion of a sail and laid it partially across for a roof. He still slept, but as they looked at him, they saw the fever was rapidly increasing; a still brighter flush was on his cheeks; his lips were parched, and his breathing distressingly short and oppressed.

"What can we do?" said Mrs. Carleton. "See there, Anna! The sun has gone behind the hill to the west of the castle; it will soon be dark. It would be terrible to leave him here to perish, for he needs great care, beside the wolves may come, and he is too ill to defend himself. Do tell me what you think it best to do?"