CHAPTER XIX.
THE COLLISION--THE PILOT AT THE WHEEL.
Gerelda had been looking intently out of the window. Suddenly she sprangback with a wild cry that fairly froze the blood in Varrick's veins.
"What has frightened you, Gerelda?" he asked, gravely; and the look sheturned on him he never forgot, there was something so terrible in thegaze of those dark eyes. She did not attempt to repel him from drawingnear her, or from clasping her hands; but ever and anon she would laughthat horrible laugh that froze the blood in his veins.
"Let us talk the matter over calmly, Gerelda," he said at length, "andarrive at an understanding."
"There is no need," she returned. "As long as I understand, that isquite sufficient."
There was something in the tone of her voice that frightened him. Helooked into her face. A grayish pallor overspread it. To Varrick'sinfinite surprise, Gerelda commenced to laugh immoderately; and thesespells of laughter so increased as the moments flew by, that he becamegreatly alarmed.
He wondered what he could do or say to comfort her. She grew soalarmingly hysterical as he watched her, that it occurred to him he mustfind medical aid for her. Fortune favored him; he found a doctor seatedin the compartment next to him. The gentleman was only too glad to beable to render him every assistance in his power.
One glance at the beautiful bride, and an expression of the gravestapprehension swept over the doctor's face.
"My dear sir," he said, turning to Varrick, "I have something to tellyou which you must summon all your fortitude to hear. Your young wifehas lost her reason; she is dangerously insane."
Varrick started back as though the man had struck him a sudden blow.
"You are bound for Montreal, I believe," continued the doctor. "You willsee the need of conveying her to an asylum, with the least possibledelay, as soon as you arrive there. If there is anything which I can doto assist you during this journey, do not hesitate to call upon me.Consider me entirely at your service."
That was a day in Hubert Varrick's life that he never looked back towithout shuddering. How he passed the long hours he never knew. Gereldagrew steadily more violent, and twice Varrick's life would have paid theforfeit had it not been for his watchfulness.
With great difficulty he succeeded, with the doctor's assistance, inmaking the change from the train to the boat.
That was how his wedding journey began.
As night came on, the doctor touched him again on the arm.
"You have not left your young bride's side for an instant during allthese long hours," he said. "You are wearing yourself out. Let me beg ofyou to go out on deck and take a few turns up and down; the cool airwill revive you. Nay, you must not refuse; I insist upon it, or I shallhave you for a patient before your journey is ended."
To this proposition, after some little coaxing, Varrick consented.
The doctor was quite right; the cool air did revive him amazingly. Hefelt feverish, and paced up and down the deck, a prey to the bitterestthoughts that ever tortured a man's soul.
One by one the stars came out in the great blue arch overhead, andmirrored themselves in the bluer waters.
Varrick watched them in silence, his heart in a whirl. All at once itoccurred to him that he knew the pilot of the boat--that, as he was fromMontreal, it wouldn't be a bad idea to interview him as to the locationof some private asylum to which he might take Gerelda.
He acted upon this thought at once, and making his way to the upperdeck, he recognized the man at the wheel, in the dim light, although hisback was turned to him.
"How are you, John?" he exclaimed, tapping him on the shoulder. "Don'tlet me frighten you; it is your old friend Varrick."
Much to his surprise, the pilot neither stirred nor spoke. Varrickstepped around, and faced him with some little laughing remark on hislips. But the words died away in his throat in a gasp. The dim light wasfalling full upon the pilot's features. What was there in that ashy faceand those staring eyes that sent the cold blood back to his heart?
"John!" he cried, bending nearer the man and catching hold of his armroughly as it rested upon the wheel. But his own dropped heavily to hisside.
The terrible truth burst upon him with startling force--the pilot wasdead at the wheel!
But even in the same instant that he made his horrible discovery, astill greater one dawned upon him. Another steamer came puffing andpanting down the river, signaling the "St. Lawrence."
Each turn of the ponderous wheels swept her nearer and nearer, and the"St. Lawrence" was drifting directly across her bow. It was a moment sofeighted with horror it almost turned Varrick's brain. Five hundredsouls, or more, all unconscious of their deadly peril, were laughing andchattering down below, and the pilot was dead at the wheel!
Ere he could give the alarm, a terrible catastrophe would occur. Herealized this, and made the supreme effort of his life to avert it. Butfate was against him. In his mad haste to leap down the stair-way togive warning, his foot slipped, and he fell headlong to the floor of thelower deck, his temple, coming in contact with the railing, renderinghim unconscious. Heaven was merciful to him that he did not realize whattook place at that instant.
There was a sudden shock, a terrible crash, and half a thousand souls,with terrified shrieks on their lips, found themselves struggling in thedark waters!
It was a reign of terror that those who participated in it, neverforgot.
When Hubert Varrick returned to consciousness he found himself lyingfull length upon the greensward, and his face upturned to the moonlight,with the dead and dying around him, and the groans of the woundedringing in his ears.
For an instant he was bewildered; then, with a rush, Memory mounted itsthrone in his whirling brain, and he recollected what had happened--thepilot dead at the wheel, another steamer sweeping down upon them; how hehad rushed below to inform the passengers of their peril; how his foothad slipped, and he knew no more.
He realized that there must have been a horrible disaster.
How came he there? Who had saved him? Then, like a flash, he thought ofGerelda. Where was she? What had become of her? He struggled to hisfeet, weak and dazed.
He made the most diligent search for her, but she was nowhere to befound. Some one at length came hurriedly up to him. In the clear brightmoonlight Varrick saw that it was the doctor in whose care he had lefthis young bride when he had gone on deck for fresh air.
"You are looking for _her_, sir?" he asked, huskily.
"Yes," cried Varrick, tremulously.
"Are you brave enough to hear the truth?" said the other, slowly.
"Yes," answered Varrick.
"Your wife was lost in the disaster. I was by her side when the steamerwas struck. We had both concluded to go on deck to join you. With thefirst terrible lurch we were both thrown headlong into the water. I didmy utmost to save her, but it was not to be. A floating spar struck her,and she went down before my eyes."
For an instant Varrick neither moved nor spoke.
"She is dead?" he interrogated.
"Yes," returned the doctor.
Varrick sank down upon a fallen log, and buried his face in his hands.For a moment he could scarcely realize Gerelda's untimely fate. He hadnot loved her, it was true; still, he would have given his life to havehad her reason restored to her.
For an hour or more Hubert Varrick forgot his own sorrow in alleviatingthe terrible distress of others.
When there was no more assistance that he could render he thought itwould be best for him to get away from the place as quickly as possible.
Scarcely heeding whither he went, he took the first path that presenteditself. How far he walked he had not the least idea. In the distance hesaw lights gleaming, and he knew that he was approaching some littlevillage. He said to himself that it would be best to stop there for afew hours--until daylight, at least, and to recover Gerelda's body ifpossible.
He followed the path until it brought him to the edge of a little brook.The white, sh
ining stones that rose above the eddying little waveletsseemed to invite him to cross to the other side. Midway over the brookhe paused.
Was it only his fancy, or did he hear the sound of music and revelry?
He stood quite still and looked around him; the scene seemed familiar.
For an instant Hubert Varrick was startled; but as he gazed herecognized the place. He must be at Fisher's Landing. Up there throughthe trees, lay the home of Captain Carr, the uncle of little JessieBain.
As he stood gazing at it, the clock in some adjacent steeple slowlystruck the midnight hour. He wondered if Jessie was there. How he feltlike telling some one his troubles!