STORY ONE, CHAPTER FORTY.
A DREARY TIME.
The occupants of the two boats, as they lay together that eveningbeneath the spangled canopy of heaven, little thought that the third ofthe schooner's boats lay within a few miles of them, with Laure onboard, or they would not have slept in turn so peacefully and in suchcalm hope of being saved, for as the schooner sank with its treasure itseemed to all on board that with the silver sank the kind of curse thathad been upon them all along.
It was an empty sense of superstition, but it influenced them andcheered them on through the long, sunny, scorching days as they bent totheir oars and toiled on; and in the evenings, when, taking advantage ofthe soft breezes, the little sails were spread, and they crept on evernorth and east in the hope of gaining the course of one of the vesselsgoing south or west. But the days stole slowly by, and no sailgladdened their sight, and at last, as the water grew low in the littlebreakers and the provisions threatened to become exhausted, Dutch felthis heart sink, and told himself with a bitter smile that they had notyet worn out the power of the curse, if curse there were.
After long days of rowing, in which every man in the boats took part inurging them up the sides of the long rollers and then down theirhill-like descent, the feeling of weary lassitude made itself more andmore felt. They suffered, too, from their cramped position in theboats, but no one murmured. Even Rasp and Oakum ceased to wrangle, andthe former pursed up his wrinkled mouth and followed the example ofOakum in whistling for a favouring wind.
At times the breeze would come, and, the sails filling, the boats spedonwards, but the few miles they made before the wind again droppedseemed as nothing in the immensity of the watery space around, and atlast, half-delirious with the heat, after being reduced to a few dropsof warm water each day, the sun went down like a great globe of fire,and Dutch Pugh felt that the time had come when they must die.
A re-arrangement of the occupants of the boat had long been made, sothat both Dutch and Meldon were by those they loved, and now it seemedthat the nuptial bed of the latter would be that of death. Hope seemedlong before to have fled upon her bright wings, leaving only blackdespair to brood over them like the eternal night. Hardly a word wasspoken in either boat, and once more the rope had been passed from oneto the other so that their desolate state might not become more desolateby parting company during the night.
The night in question had fallen as black as that when the schooner wasblown away, but no one heeded it, neither did they listen to the ravingsof poor Wilson, who lay back in the stern sheets talking of his birds,and calling some particular pet by name. Then he would whisper Bessy'sname, and talk to himself constantly about his love for her, till atlast the poor girl would be roused from her state of lethargy, andlaying her head on Meldon's breast sob for a few minutes--dry hystericalsobs--and then subside once more. Oakum sat twisting up a piece ofyarn, crooning scraps of old songs, and 'Pollo would now and then, in ahalf-delirious fashion, try to sing the fragment of a hymn; but theseattempts had grown now more and more spasmodic, and with the knowledgebluntly felt now that they had but a few fragments to support them onthe following day, and no water, all sat or lay in a kind of stupefieddespair, waiting for the end.
Upon Dutch Pugh had of late fallen the leading of the little party, forCaptain Studwick had been taken ill from over-exertion with his oarbeneath the burning sun, and before dusk Dutch had directed a longinggaze round the horizon in search of a sail, but in vain; and now he satwith Hesters head resting upon his lap, her large bright eyes gazing upinto his, as longingly and full of love as ever, till, in the madness ofhis despair, as he saw her dying before him, he had strained her wastedform to his breast, and held her there when the darkness fell.
"Is there no hope, Dutch?" she whispered to him, faintly, as her lipsrested close by his ear.
"Yes, always--to the last, darling," he whispered.
"I am not afraid to die," she whispered back; "it is for you. If Icould only save your life."
He covered her lips with his kisses, and her arms passionately embracedhis neck, till a kind of heavy stupor fell on both, even as on all theothers in the boat. The rest of the food was eaten next day, and thenthey sank back in their places to die.
But their fate was not that of Laure, whose boat was never seen again.'Ere another day had passed, a fast steamer sighted them where they lay,and bore down upon them as 'Pollo, the only one with strength enoughleft, hoisted a handkerchief upon one of the oars and held it aloft.
It was but just in time, and long and energetic was the attentionrequired before the little party was out of danger, and by that time theport of Southampton was reached, and the next day--home.