CHAPTER XVII.
"NO GOOD IT BETOKENETH."
The positions of the two on Yelholme were reversed, and it became theman's part to speak words of comfort.
"There are plenty of boats about--must be in these parts, my lad," hesaid, "and some one will see your skiff. Don't lose courage about thelittle one. I'm as vexed as can be that this should have happened forme. I'd rather have died straight away."
The generous heart of Yaspard Adiesen was stirred from its bitternessof grief by such words, and after a time he allowed himself to hopethat Signy might be rescued after all. Of his own position he thoughtnot at all, until considering that of his companion. Then heremembered that there were some scraps of biscuit in his jacketpocket--kept there for his pets--and pulling these out he said, "Iwonder if these will be of any use till some boat picks us up. I daresay you need food?"
The biscuit was very welcome; but the jacket had been of still moreservice in restoring a degree of warmth to the chilled and sorelyinjured body, and Yaspard would not listen to the man's remonstrance ashe tucked the coat closer around him.
"I am not in the least cold, and don't need a jacket in such sunnyweather," said Yaspard; "but I hope some of the haaf-boats may comethis way soon, for you ought to be in the doctor's hands. Now I wonderif I can do anything in the way of a bandage?"
It was wonderful how the sight of those wounds had restored the lad'sequanimity, and drawn his distracted mind from thoughts of the forlornchild tossing amid the waves. But that was the way God answered hisprayers at first; and it is a way God often uses for helping us to bearsome overwhelming calamity. The suffering of another is presentedbefore us, and our better nature, our least selfish part, is evoked ina way that makes us dwell less upon our own trial. Yaspard'shandkerchief and necktie, torn into strips, helped wonderfully to bindup some of the wounds, although the boy's hands were inexperienced atsuch work, and he sickened over the job.
When that was done there was nothing more to do but exercise patience,and scan the seas in hope of sighting a vessel of some sort. Whilethey so waited, and tried to cheer each other's flagging courage,Yaspard asked, "Did you fall from a ship; or how was it you came to betossed up here?"
The answer was startling. "You have some cursed bad men in thoseShetland Isles," said the sailor, with all the energy he could command."Hanging is too good for wreckers; they should be roasted at the falsefires they light for poor seafaring men's destruction."
Yaspard stared his astonishment. "I never heard the like!" heejaculated. "Wreckers! Why, there isn't one left in Shetland. Notone, I am sure. What _do_ you mean?"
"I mean that the stout schooner I sailed in would be in a safe harbournow instead of drifting as spindle-wood among those skerries if therewere no wreckers on your islands, my lad!"
"There must be some mistake. Do tell me what happened," was allYaspard could say. And then he heard the story.
The schooner _Norna_ was caught in a tempest crossing the North Sea,and sustained considerable damage--so much that it was deemed advisableto seek harbour for repairs. She was making for Bressa Sound when aslight fog came down which compelled the skipper to defer attempting tothread a way among those rock-bound isles till the atmosphere wasclearer. While beating about, not quite sure of their exact locality,a bright light was observed which was believed to be lit for theirguidance. There was no other reason why a great blaze should appear inthe middle of the night on a lonely height, which loomed fitfullythrough the mist and gloom, and was evidently the crest of some hill.No doubt a safe harbour lay in that neighbourhood, and the _Norna_ wasconfidently put on another course--one which it was believed led herwithin the safe arms of a sheltering fiord. On the one hand could bedimly discerned a low irregular coast, on the other rose the gauntshadowy outline of majestic crags.
It was no friendly voe the hapless schooner had come into, but thedangerous sound, studded with stacks and holmes, which flow betweenLunda and Boden.
Guided by that treacherous beacon, the _Norna_ sailed slowly on andcrashed on a sunken rock not far from the cliffs of Trullyabister.
The man who told the story had gone aloft to take in sail, when it wasdiscovered that the vessel was among breakers; and when she struck hewas dashed from the rigging. He could give no account of what furtherhappened, beyond remembering that he was clinging at one time to aspar, and saw his ship backing (as he described it) into deep ocean.
"I think it must have happened not far from here," he said; andYaspard, looking towards Boden, over which the soft tints of twilightwere beginning to blend with mists from the surrounding seas, replied--
"Yes; it must have been the Easting Ban upon which she struck--that's asunken rock quite near this holme. But I can't think what light it wasyou saw. You see the land on Lunda is very low along the sound, andthere are only a very few people living on my island--that is Bodenthere; the light couldn't have been there."
The sailor raised himself on an elbow and looked at the cliffs ofBoden, and the sound with its many isolated and barbarous rocks; thenhe said--
"The fire blazed from beside that cone. I recognise its shape," and hepointed to the Heogue towering steeply over Trullyabister and its rangeof mighty cliffs.
Yaspard shook his head.
"It couldn't be," he said positively; and then his thoughts once morebecame filled by the image of his little sister all alone in the_Osprey_ drifting out to sea as the evening fell, and he could not takefurther interest in the _Norna's_ fate. He never even asked if it waslikely that any others had escaped the fate of their ship. Signy, inher holiday attire, with her bright face blanched with fear, her handsstretched to him, her small slight form bent in the attitude ofprayer;--Signy floating away, away, and alone! It was terrible.
He rose up from his place beside the sailor, and going to the otherside of the holme, he again knelt down and "wrestled in prayer" for hisdarling. Never once did he think of his own serious position, beyonddesiring fervently that help might come in time to enable him to go insearch of his sister with some hope of finding her.
But the twilight came slowly and softly down, and some sea-fowl whowere wont to nest on Yelholme circled around it, clamouring to findtheir night abode invaded, but no welcome boat appeared.
The sailor gradually fell into an exhausted sleep, which looked so likedeath that Yaspard's heart sank with a new fear, and he scarcely daredbend over the still, prostrate figure lest he should find that fearrealised. By-and-by the mists drew nearer, wrapping the holme in theirfilmy veil; then the sea-birds, emboldened by the motionless silence ofthe castaways, dropped upon the crags, and folded their wings for thenight. Around the lonely islet thundered the ocean, whose waves rockednever-endingly, until Yaspard, gazing fixedly on them, felt as thoughthe holme itself were some tremulous cradle swinging with therhythmical ebb and flow of those majestic billows.
His brain seemed on fire, however, and would not be lulled to sleep bythe influence of night and the anthem of ocean. The poor lad sufferedsuch torment of soul as we can scarcely imagine; to the young,compulsory inaction during mental pain is almost unendurable, andsometimes Yaspard felt that to fling himself into the water, tostruggle there and drown, would be better than sitting on the holmeidle, helpless, picturing Signy's fate.
He gave up at last gazing on the sea, which seemed to mock his hopesand fears with its monotonous roll and roar, and fixed his eyes on thedim outline of the Heogue, which his sister had named "Boden's purplecrown;" and he wondered if Signy could see the dear old hill from herplace amid the waves. He _would not_ think that the _Osprey_ hadcapsized or broken on some crag, but continued to picture the child inthe boat as he had last seen her.
While Yaspard sat there straining his eyes upon the hill-cap, hefancied he saw a flicker of red light on its side. For a moment hebelieved his sight had deceived him, and he rubbed his lashes andlooked again. There it was again, a more distinct flicker than atfirst; then it grew brighter and steadier, and presentl
y flashed upinto a merry blaze which sent its ruddy life far over the sea.
Yaspard stood up wondering and trembling, till in a moment the truthflashed into his mind, and he sat down again dumfoundered, and sayingwithin himself, "_That_ explains the whole affair! Yes. It'sfule-Tammy without question. A pretty fix he has made for himself!"
Then Yaspard thought of waking the sailor to see the false light; buton second thoughts he muttered, "What's the use? If I _have_ to speak,and am ever in another place than this, I'll do it. But there isn'tany use in telling upon that born fool just now. Well! I'm glad he isa fool. I could not bear this fellow to accuse us of having wreckersin Shetland--though there _have been_ plenty. But so there were inother places when folk were like savages."
He watched fule-Tammy's fire burn up and blaze steadily, then wane anddie out; and when every spark was extinguished there came over theeastern sky a faint blush heralding the dawn of day.
The brief dream of night was over, and Yaspard, sighing wearily,murmured, "If some boat could but find Signy it would not matter somuch about us--about me, I mean. I deserve my fate. I ought not tohave left her in the boat alone for any earthly consideration. Andyet--it seemed the right thing to do."