The House Under the Sea: A Romance
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themselves into the sea,to reach the boats again. God! how few of them touched the befriendingprows! The whole water about the reef was now alive with the devilishcreatures; a hundred arms, crushing, sucking, swept the unshelteredrocks and drew the victims down. So near were they, some of them, thatI could see their staring eyes and distorted limbs as, in the fishes'embracing grip, they were drawn under to the gaping mouths or pressedclose to that jellied mass which must devour them. The sea itselfheaved and splashed as though to be the moving witness of that horribleattack; foam rushed up to our feet; a blinding spray was in the air;eyes protruded even in the green water; great shapes wormed andtwisted, rending one another, covering the whole reef with their filthyslime, sending blinding fountains to the highest pinnacles, or sinkingdown when their prey was taken to the depths where no eye could followthem. What sounds of pain, what resounding screams, rent the air inthose fearful minutes! I draw the veil upon it. For all the gold thatthe sea washes to-day in Czerny's house, I could not look upon such apicture again. For death can be a gentle thing; but there is a death noman may speak of.
* * *
At twelve o'clock the clouds broke and the rain began to fall upon arising sea. The vapours still lay thick upon Ken's Island, but the windwas driving them, and they rolled away in misty clouds westward to thedark horizon.
I went below to little Ruth, and in broken words I told her all mystory.
"Little Ruth, the night is passed, the day is breaking! Ah, littleRuth!"
She fell into my arms, sobbing. The sleep-time was past, indeed; thehour of our deliverance at hand.
CHAPTER XXV
IN WHICH THE SUN-TIME COMES AGAIN
I have told you the story of Ken's Island, but there are some thingsyou will need to know, and of these I will now make mention. Let mespeak of them in order as they befell.
And first I should record that we found the body of Edmond Czerny, coldand dead, by that pool in the woods where so many have slept thedreadful sleep. Clair-de-Lune stumbled upon it as we went joyouslythrough the sunny thickets and, halting abruptly, his startled cry drewme to the place. And then I saw the thing, and knew that between himand me the secret lay, and that here was God's justice written in wordsno man might mistake.
For a long time we rested there, looking down upon that grim figure inits bed of leaves, and watching the open eyes seeking that brightheaven whose warmth they never would feel again. As in life, so indeath, the handsome face carried the brand of the evil done, and spokeof the ungoverned passions which had wrecked so wonderful a genius.There have been few such men as Edmond Czerny since the world began;there will be few while the world endures. Greatly daring, a man ofboundless ambitions, the moral nature obliterated, the greed of moneybecoming, in the end, like some burning disease, this man, I said,might have achieved much if the will had bent to humanity's laws. Andnow he had reaped as he sowed. The cloak that covered him was the cloakof the Hungarian regiment whose code of honour drove him out of Europe.The diamond ring upon the finger was the very ring that little Ruth hadgiven him on their wedding-day. The agony he had suffered was such asmany a good seaman had endured since the wreckers came to Ken's Island.And now the story was told: the man was dead.
"It must have been last night," I said, at length, to Clair-de-Lune."His own men put him ashore and seized the ship. Fortune has strangechances, but who would have named such a chance as this? The roguesturned upon him at last, you can't doubt it. And he died in hissleep--a merciful death."
The old man shook his head very solemnly.
"I know not," said he, slowly; "remember how rare that the island givemercy! We will not ask how he died, captain. I see some-thing, but Iforget it. Let us leave him to the night."
He began to cover the body with branches and boughs; and anon, markingthe place, that we might return to it to-morrow, we went on againthrough the woods, as men in a reverie. Our schemes and plans, ourhopes and fears, the terrible hours, the unforgotten days, aye, if wecould have seen that the end of them would have been this!--the gift ofa verdurous island, and the ripe green pastures, and the woodsawakening and all the glory of the sun-time reborn! For so the shadowwas lifted from us that for a little while our eyes could not see thelight; and, unbelieving, we asked, "Is this the truth?"
* * *
I did not tell little Ruth the story of the woods; but there werewhispered words and looks aside, and she was clever enough tounderstand them. Before the day was out I think she knew; but she wouldnot speak of it, nor would I. For why should we call false sorrow uponthat bright hour? Was not the world before us, the awakening glory ofKen's Island at our feet? Just as in the dark days all Nature hadwithered and bent before the death-giving vapours, so now did Natureanswer the sun's appeal; and every freshet bubbling over, every woodalive with the music of the birds, the meadows green and golden, thehills all capped with their summer glory, she proclaimed the reign ofNature's God. No sight more splendid ever greeted the eyes ofshipwrecked men or welcomed them to a generous shore. Hand-in-hand withlittle Ruth I passed from thicket to thicket of the woods, and seemedto stand in Paradise itself! And she--ah, who shall read a woman'sthoughts at such an hour as that! Let me be content to see her as shewas; her face grown girlish in that great release, her eyes sparklingin a new joy of being, her step so light that no blade of grass couldhave been bruised thereby. Let me hear her voice again while she liftsher face to mine and asks me that question which even now I hearsometimes:
"Jasper, Jasper! is it real? How can I believe it, Jasper? Shall we seeour home again--you and I? Oh, tell me that it is true, Jasper--say itoften, often, or I shall forget!"
We were in a high place of the woods just then, and we stood to lookdown upon the lower valley where the rocks showed their rare greenmosses, and every crag lifted strange flowers to the sun, and littlerivulets ran down with bubbling sounds. Away on the open veldt thedoll-like houses were to be seen, and the ashes of her bungalow. Andthere, I say, all the scene enchanting me, and the memory of the bygonedays blotted from my mind, and no future to be thought of but thatwhich should give me forever the right to befriend this little figureof my dreams, I said:
"It is true, little Ruth--God knows how true--that a man loves you withall his heart, and he has loved you all through these weary months.Just a simple fellow he is, with no fine ways and small knowledge ofthe world; but he waits for you to tell him that you will lift him upand make him worthy----"
She silenced me with a quick, glad cry, and, winding both her armsabout my neck, she hid her face from me.
"My friend! Jasper, dear Jasper, you shall not say that! Ah, were youso blind that you have not known it from the first?"
Her words were like the echo of some sweet music in my ears. LittleRuth, my beloved, had called me "friend." To my life's end would Iclaim that name most precious.
* * *
We were picked up by the American war-ship Hatteras ten days after thesleep-time passed. I left the island as I found it--its secrets hidden,its mysteries unfathomed. What vapour rises up there--whether it be, asDoctor Gray would have it, from the bog of decaying vegetation, whichbreathes fever to the south; whether it be this marsh fog steaming upwhen the plants die down; or whether it be a subtler cloud given out bythe very earth itself--this question, I say, let the learned dispute. Ihave done with it forever; and never, to my life's end, shall I see itsheights and its valleys again. The world calls me; I go to my home.Ruth, little Ruth, whom I have loved, is at my side. For us it shall besun-time always; the night and the dreadful sleep are no more.