IX.
_ADRIFT._
DRIFTING! drifting! slowly, but steadily, the boat floated out from theshelter of the pier.
Quite absorbed by the droll movements of the tiny crab, Mamie didnot notice their danger, till, passing out from the shadow which thebreakwater had thrown upon it, the boat glided into the broad sunlightwhich flooded the waves beyond.
Then, startled by the burst of sunshine which fell upon her, she raisedher head, and saw the dreadful truth.
Out on the waters, alone, alone! she and Lulu, two little helplesschildren, with no eye to watch, no hand to help!
For a moment or two she sat perfectly stunned, motionless where shewas, crouched at the bottom of the boat, her eyes fixed upon the nowfast-receding shore, her lips seeming glued together with horror andaffright, a sick, faint feeling coming over her.
Out on the sea! out on the sea! alone! alone!
And so the precious moments were lost.
Little Lulu prattled away, all unconscious of fear or danger, and stillinterested in her captive, and his efforts to escape. But presently shetoo looked up.
"Where we doin', Mamie?" she asked, turning great eyes of wonder uponher sister.
Then Mamie found voice and breath, and, clasping the little one in herarms, shrieked aloud for help.
But none heard, although Lulu, terrified by her sister's cries, nowjoined her own, seeing something was wrong, though she could not yetunderstand their peril. For the wind, blowing as it did from the shore,carried away the sound of their voices, and floated the piteous tonesfar out over the sea.
Mamie. p. 174.]
Farther, still farther, and faster now, as the blue waves, crisping andsparkling in the sunlight, toyed with the frail boat, and its precious,helpless freight, and tossed it from one to another, but ever carryingit farther from home!
Was there no one to see? no one to hear? Why was it that no one lookedout at that time over the dancing waters, and discovered what terribleplaything they had seized upon?
Far off, so far off it seemed to poor Mamie's straining eyes, andgrowing each moment more distant, figures were moving upon the shore;some up and down the road; others, she could distinguish them wellat first, playing croquet upon the lawns; little children, likethemselves, running up and down the long piazzas of the hotels: but noone, no one, turned an eye towards their peril, or lent an ear tothe frantic cries which rang from their lips.
Oh, how cruel, how cruel, it seemed!
The boat drifted onward till it was a long distance from the shore,almost in a straight line, keeping directly in the flood of sunshinewhich fell across the waters; and it may be that if any eye did turnseaward, it was dazzled by the blaze of light, and, even if it saw theboat, could notice nothing amiss. Kind hearts were there that wouldalmost have stood still at the thought of the fearful peril aboutthose little ones; feet which would have flown, hands which would havestrained every nerve to rescue them. But ah! to poor Mamie the wholeworld seemed so heartless, so cruel!
On, on, till she could no longer distinguish any thing more than thelong line of hotels on the shore; the beach glistening on the one hand,the bare, stern rocks upon the other.
What was to become of them, herself and Lulu? Would they toss gentlyabout in this way till they died of hunger, or would great fishes comeand eat them up? Or would some terrible storm arise, and the waves,now so gentle and playful, grow high and fierce, as she had seen themthe other day, and swallow up their frail boat? And the night, thenight! What should they do when the darkness came, and the last faint,lingering hope that some one would yet see them should be gone? Thesun was sinking towards the west even now; by and by it would be quitedark. What would mamma do when she missed her little girls, and knewnot where to look? Would she ever know what had become of them? Wouldthey be found all dead and drowned?
She had ceased to cry aloud now, and sat crouched, in a kind of dumb,helpless despair, at the bottom of the boat, with both arms claspedfast about Lulu, who had also hushed her screams, and sat withquestioning, wistful eyes, wandering from Mamie's face over the waves,up to the sky, and back again to her sister. She did not understand:how could she? She only knew that Mamie had been frightened, andcried; and so she had cried too.
It was well that they both sat quite still in the bottom of the boat,or they might have fallen into the water; but Mamie, in the midst ofall her terror, had sense enough left to know that they were safer so,and she would not suffer Lulu to stir from her encircling arms.
So on, still on, farther and farther out upon the lonely waters, awayfrom home and friends, drifted the little helpless ones.
What though all was now bustle and alarm in that home,--indeed,throughout all the various houses on the shore; that Maria, missing hercharges, so shamefully neglected, had hunted for them in vain, firstabout their own hotel, then in every other one, hoping that they mighthave gone visiting, or been taken away by some friend; that, hearingnothing of them, she had first alarmed the other servants of the house,then the ladies, next roused the sick mother, who grew frantic anddesperate as moment after moment went by, and brought no news of herdarlings? Who dreamed of all the truth?
The alarm was general now; the news went forth like wildfire: twolittle children lost! and so many dangerous places where they mighthave come to harm!
Stony shore and sandy beach were searched in vain to their farthestextent; one party explored the little river; others started for thegreen, cultivated country lying back of the shore, thinking that thestray lambs might have been tempted by its beauty to wander too far;others again hurried down upon the rocks, hoping to find them, perhaps,hidden in some of their many nooks or niches; the old pier, the dock,the very bathing-houses, were all searched; but who thought of lookingout to sea, where the cockle-shell of a boat floated, floated far away?
It was not even missed, the little boat; for Mamie's brothers and TomNorris were all away, and probably they would not have guessed at thetruth, had they known of its loss.
And so hope grew fainter and fainter as one after another returned fromthe fruitless search only to set forth again; and the dreadful feargrew stronger and stronger that in some way the missing children hadfallen into the water, and would never be seen again; while the poormother went from one fainting fit into another, and those about herscarcely cared to call her back to her misery.
And so the sun sank low in the west, and the twilight gathered, andthe night came down upon land and sea, and still no word came to thoseanxious, aching hearts of the little lost ones for whom they watchedand waited.
How was it meanwhile with those poor little waifs?
With that dull, hopeless feeling that nothing could save them nowseeming to benumb her, Mamie sat silent a long time,--silent, thatis, but for the heavy, gasping sobs that struggled up from her poorlittle bosom, her eyes fixed on the distant stretch of shore, now fastreceding into one gray, undistinguishable line; Lulu, awed by thisstrange, new grief of her sister's into stillness likewise.
But the baby tired at last. She wanted home and mamma, or, at least,her nurse. The boat and the water had been all very wonderful at first,and had perhaps lent their charm to keep her quiet; but she was weariedof them now. She fretted a little; then, finding this failed to drawMamie's attention, she spoke.
"Lulu want mamma. Lulu want no more water," she said plaintively.
"O darling! what shall I do? What will become of us?" answered Mamie,roused by her words from the sort of stupor into which she had fallen.
"Tate Lulu home. Lulu want to do home. Lulu want mamma tate tareof her," said the little child, whose vague feeling of trouble wasbeginning to settle itself into a longing for her mother's care andcomforting.
"O Lulu, Lulu!" broke forth Mamie, "there's no one to take care of us,there's no one to see us, there's no one to hear us. We're all alone,all alone, all alone!" her voice dying away to a low murmur of despair.
Was there no Eye to see? Was there no Ear to hear? Was there no Hand tosave?
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Whose Hand guided the fragile boat over the deep waters, and held theirwaves in check that they might not deal too roughly with the slightthing which was the sole refuge of those little ones? Whose was the Earwhich bent to hear those piteous tones? Whose the Eye which watchedthem on their perilous way?
A few light clouds were sailing overhead on the deep blue sky; and,as the sun sank in the west, they were tinged with purple, pink, andgold, changing every instant from one hue to another. All around, onsea, earth, and sky, poured a flood of golden glory, the little curlingwaves breaking into a thousand diamond sparkles as they caught it ontheir crests.
Lulu gazed wonderingly into Mamie's face as she spoke so piteously,then put up a grieved lip; but, before breaking out into a cry again,she looked about her as if questioning the truth of her words.
The beauty of the sky above caught her eye; a golden-edged cloud fixedher attention for a moment, and her baby thoughts took a new turn.
Lulu had heard that God lived in the sky; she had been told, too, thatGod loved her, and would take care of her; and the little creaturestartled her sister with the words,--
"Mamie, where are Dod?"
And across Mamie's mind flashed her watchword. "The eyes of the Lordare in every place, beholding the evil and the good."
"In every place!" Here, now, watching her and Lulu! For a moment itseemed to bring new terror to her, speaking, as it did, to her guiltyconscience; but the next there came comfort in the thought.
Not all alone, if His eye watched them there.
"Where are Dod?" repeated Lulu.
"God is in the sky, but He sees us here," she said more calmly than shehad spoken before.
"Den He not tate tare of Mamie and Lulu?" questioned the little child.
"Yes, I think He will; I do believe He will," sobbed Mamie. "I b'lieveHe'll take care of you any way, Lulu darling, 'cause this wasn't yourfault, but only mine. Oh, dear! oh, dear!"
"Tell him tate tare of us, tate de boat home to mamma," lisped the babylips. "Tell Him loud up in de sty, Mamie; and tell Him we so 'faid."
Innocent darling! she did not know why or of what she was afraid; onlythat she and Mamie were in some great trouble, that she wanted mamma,that mamma was not here, and that somehow the beauty of the sunset skyhad brought to her mind the thought of God and of His care, of whichshe had been told.
"So afraid!"
Poor Mamie was indeed afraid, stricken with such awful dread as,happily, seldom finds its way into childish heart; but Lulu's wordsbrought another verse into her mind. It almost seemed to her as if avoice came over the water, and sounded it into her ear, so suddenly andso strongly did it come to her.
"What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee."
Bessie Bradford had told it to her one day in the early part of thesummer.
Mamie had a great terror of a thunder-storm; so had Bessie; but once,when they had happened to be together when one was passing, the formerhad shrieked and cried at every flash and peal, while the latter,though pale and shrinking, had remained perfectly quiet. AfterwardsMamie had said to her,--
"Bessie, how can you keep from crying when you are frightened in athunder-storm?"
And Bessie had answered,--
"When I am very much frightened, I try to think of a verse mamma taughtme to comfort me: 'What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.'"
At the moment it had not made much impression on Mamie; but she had notforgotten the words; and now, in her time of need, they came to her soclearly, as I have said, that it almost seemed as if they were spokento her:--
"What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee."
What a sense of hope and comfort, almost of relief, crept over thepoor, miserable little child with the recollection!
And "the eyes of the Lord are in every place."
How she clung to the thought now,--the thought that she had been soready to put from her for many a day past, which she had tried toforget because it was a reproach to her conscience, a check upon thepurpose of disobedience which had led to such a terrible result!
"O God!" she said with quivering lips, "I am afraid, so afraid! pleaselet me trust in Thee; and take a great deal of care of my Lulu and meon this dreadful water; and if there could be any way for us to go hometo mamma, let us; and help me not to be naughty and disobedient again;and don't let mamma be very much frightened about us. Amen."
"Is mamma tomin' pitty soon now?" asked Lulu.
"I asked God, darling, to let us go back to her," moaned Mamie, "and Hecan help people a great deal; but I don't know but this is 'most toomuch even for Him."
Lulu understood, or noticed, only the first part of her speech, andit satisfied her, at least for the time; and, nodding her pretty headcontentedly, she said,--
"Den Lulu will love Dod, an' be dood dirl."
Still the boat drifted onward, farther and farther from home andsafety, out from the friendly waters of the bay, and more and moretowards the open sea, where, on the distant horizon, hung a misty veil,soft purplish gray beneath, brightening above into tints of pink andamber which melted away again into the clear blue of the heaven above.
Not a sound was to be heard but the plashing of the water against thesides and keel of their boat; not a living thing was to be seen savetheir own two little selves. God's curtain of night was falling; andstill they were alone out on the sea!
The sun was gone now; even the glorious colors which he left paintedon the clouds after he had himself sunk from sight, had faded out; theevening breeze, cool and refreshing on the land, came chilly and dampover the water; and Lulu shivered as it struck through the thin muslincovering upon her tiny shoulders.
She had sat uncomplainingly after Mamie had told her she had asked Godto take care of them, waiting in her own docile way to go to mamma; butnow her baby patience was exhausted, as it well might be; for she wascold, hungry, and tired.
She broke into a pitiful cry.
"Lulu so told; Lulu want hupper; Lulu want mamma," she said appealinglyto her sister, with oh! such a grieved, piteous face and voice, thatMamie's heart was quite broken; and now all thought of self wasforgotten; and she prayed, poor little soul, that darling Lulu, atleast, might be saved, and taken back to mamma, even if she might not.
Then she tried to speak words of comfort to her baby-sister. Ah, howhard it was, and what a mockery they seemed! and, taking off her ownlittle jacket, she wrapped it about Lulu's shoulders, and, resting theweary little head against her own bosom, petted and soothed, until thelong eyelashes drooped upon the dimpled cheek, and Lulu was asleep inher arms.
And then it was so lonely, oh, so lonely! far more so than when Luluwas awake, with her sweet voice prattling broken words now and then;but so great was Mamie's sense of the wrong she had done to herinnocent sister, that she would not wake her, even for the comfort ofher voice and look.
She had no thought or wish for sleep herself; the child's senses wereall strained to the utmost, listening and watching for she knew notwhat.
How still it was, how very still! and deeper and yet deeper grewthe dusky shadows, shrouding the distant white sails which all theafternoon had specked the far horizon, shutting them out from sight,and with them the last faint hope of help, which Mamie had somehowconnected with them, leaving her no ray of comfort to cling to butthose words:--
"What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee."
And night was upon the sea where drifted the lost baby voyagers; but"the eyes of the Lord are in every place."