"Aubrey says he had a desert island, with Jennings for his man Friday," said Blanche.
"Harry," said little Gertrude, who had established herself on his knee, "did you really poke out the giant's eye with the top of a fir- tree?"
"Who told you so, Daisy?" was the general cry; but she became shy, and would not answer more than by a whisper about Aubrey, who indignantly declared that he never said so, only Gertrude was so foolish that she did not know Harry from Ulysses.
"After all," said Ethel, "I don't think our notions are much more defined. Papa and Norman may know more, but we have heard almost nothing. I have been waiting to hear more to close up my letters to Flora and Tom. What a shame that has not been done!"
"I'll finish," said Mary, running to the side-table.
"And tell her I'll be there to-morrow," said Harry. "I must report myself; and what fun to see Flora a member of Parliament! Come with me, June; I'll be back next day. I wish you all would come."
"Yes, I must come with you," said Norman. "I shall have to go to Oxford on Thursday;" and very reluctant he looked. "Tell Flora I am coming, Mary."
"How did you know that Flora was a married lady?" asked Blanche, in her would-be grown-up manner.
"I heard that from Aunt Flora. A famous lot of news I picked up there!"
"Aunt Flora!"
"Did you not know he had been at Auckland?" said Dr. May. "Aunt Flora had to nurse him well after all he had undergone. Did you not think her very like mamma, Harry?"
"Mamma never looked half so old!" cried Harry indignantly.
"Flora was five years younger!"
"She has got her voice and way with her," said Harry; "but you will soon see. She is coming home soon."
There was a great outcry of delight.
"Yes, there is some money of Uncle Arnott's that must be looked after, but he does not like the voyage, and can't leave his office, so perhaps Aunt Flora may come alone. She had a great mind to come with me, but there was no good berth for her in this schooner, and I could not wait for another chance. I can't think what possessed the letters not to come! She would not write by the first packet, because I was so ill, but we both wrote by the next, and I made sure you had them, or I would have written before I came."
The words were not out of his mouth before the second post was brought in, and there were two letters from New Zealand! What would they not have been yesterday? Harry would have burned his own, but the long closely-written sheets were eagerly seized, as, affording the best hope of understanding his adventures, as it had been written at intervals from Auckland, and the papers, passing from one to the other, formed the text for interrogations on further details, though much more was gleaned incidentally in tete-a-tetes, by Margaret, Norman, or his father, and no one person ever heard the whole connectedly from Harry himself.
"What was the first you knew of the fire, Harry?" asked Dr. May, looking up from the letter.
"Owen shaking me awake; and I thought it was a hoax," said Harry. "But it was true enough, and when we got on deck, there were clouds of smoke coming up the main hatch-way."
Margaret's eyes were upon him, and her lips formed the question, "And he?"
"He met us, and told us to be steady--but there was little need for that! Every man there was as cool and collected as if it had been no more than the cook's stove--and we should have scorned to be otherwise! He put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Keep by me,' and I did."
"Then there was never much hope of extinguishing the fire?"
"No; if you looked down below the forecastle it was like a furnace, and though the pumps were at work, it was only to gain time while the boats were lowered. The first lieutenant told off the men, and they went down the side without one word, only shaking hands with those that were left."
"Oh, Harry! what were you thinking of?" cried Blanche.
"Of the powder," said Harry.
Ethel thought there was more in that answer than met the ear, and that Harry, at least, had thought of the powder to-night at church.
"Mr. Ernescliffe had the command of the second cutter. He asked to take me with him; I was glad enough; and Owen--he is mate, you know-- went with us."
As to telling how he felt when he saw the good ship Alcestis blown to fragments, that was past Harry, and all but Blanche were wise enough not to ask. She had by way of answer, "Very glad to be safe out of her."
Nor was Harry willing to dwell on the subsequent days, when the unclouded sun had been a cruel foe; and the insufficient stores of food and water did, indeed, sustain life, but a life of extreme suffering. What he told was of the kindness that strove to save him, as the youngest, from all that could be spared him. "If I dropped asleep at the bottom of the boat, I was sure to find some one shading me from the sun. If there was an extra drop of water, they wanted me to have it."
"Tell me their names, Harry!" cried Dr. May. "If ever I meet one of them--"
"But the storm, Harry, the storm?" asked Blanche. "Was that not terrible?"
"Very comfortable at first, Blanche," was the answer. "Oh, that rain!"
"But when it grew so very bad?"
"We did not reck much what happened to us," said Harry. "It could not be worse than starving. When we missed the others in the morning, most of us thought them the best off."
Mary could not help coming round to kiss him, as if eyes alone were not enough to satisfy her that here he was.
Dr. May shuddered, and went on reading, and Margaret drew Harry down to her, and once more by looks craved for more minute tidings.
"All that you can think," murmured Harry; "the very life and soul of us all--so kind, and yet discipline as perfect as on board. But don't now, Margaret--"
The tone of the don't, the reddening cheek, liquid eye, and heaving chest, told enough of what the lieutenant had been to one, at least, of the desolate boat's crew.
"Oh, Harry, Harry! I can't bear it!" exclaimed Mary. "How long did it last? How did it end?"
"Fifteen days," said Harry. "It was time it should end, for all the water we had caught in the storm was gone--we gave the last drop to Jones, for we thought him dying; one's tongue was like a dry sponge."
"How did it end?" repeated Mary, in an agony.
"Jennings saw a sail. We thought it all a fancy of weakness, but 'twas true enough, and they saw our signal of distress!"
The vessel proved to be an American whaler, which had just parted with her cargo to a homeward bound ship, and was going to refit, and take in provisions and water at one of the Milanesian islands, before returning for further captures. The master was a man of the shrewd, hard money-making cast; but, at the price of Mr. Ernescliffe's chronometer, and of the services of the sailors, he undertook to convey them where they might fall in with packets bound for Australia.
The distressed Alcestes at first thought themselves in paradise, but the vessel, built with no view, save to whales, and, with a considerable reminiscence of the blubber lately parted with, proved no wholesome abode, when overcrowded, and in the tropics! Mr. Ernescliffe's science, resolution, and constancy, had saved his men so far; but with the need for exertion his powers gave way, and he fell a prey to a return of the fever which had been his introduction to Dr. May.
"There he was," said Harry, "laid up in a little bit of a stifling cabin, just like an oven, without the possibility of a breath of air! The skin-flint skipper carried no medicine; the water--shocking stuff it was--was getting so low, that there was only a pint a day served out to each, and though all of us Alcestes clubbed every drop we could spare for him--it was bad work! Owen and I never were more glad in our lives than when we heard we were to cast anchor at the Loyalty Isles! Such a place as it was! You little know what it was to see anything green! And there was this isle fringed down close to the sea with cocoa-nut trees! And the bay as clear!--you could see every shell, and wonderful fishes swimming in it! Well, every one was for going ashore, and some of the natives swam out to us, and brought things in their canoes, but not
many; it is not encouraged by the mission, nor by David--for those Yankee traders are not the most edifying society--and the crew vowed they were cannibals, and had eaten a man three years ago, so they all went ashore armed."
"You stayed with him," said Margaret.
"Ay, it was my turn, and I was glad enough to have some fresh fruit and water for him, but he could not take any notice of it. Did not I want you, papa? Well, by and by, Owen came back, in a perfect rapture with the place and the people, and said it was the only hope for Mr. Ernescliffe, to take him on shore--"
"Then you did really go amongst the cannibals!" exclaimed Blanche.
"That is all nonsense," said Harry. "Some of them may once have been, and I fancy the heathens might not mind a bit of 'long pig' still; but these have been converted by the Samoans."
The Samoans, it was further explained, are the inhabitants of the Navigator Islands, who, having been converted by the Church Missionary Society, have sent out great numbers of most active and admirable teachers among the scattered islands, braving martyrdom and disease, never shrinking from their work, and, by teaching and example, preparing the way for fuller doctrine than they can yet impart. A station of these devoted men had for some years been settled in this island, and had since been visited by the missions of Newcastle and New Zealand. The young chief, whom Harry called David, and another youth, had spent two summers under instruction at New Zealand, and had been baptised. They were spending the colder part of the year at home, and hoped shortly to be called for by the mission-ship to return, and resume their course of instruction.
Owen had come to an understanding with the chief and the Samoans, and had decided on landing his lieutenant, and it was accordingly done, with very little consciousness on the patient's part. Black figures, with woolly mop-heads, and sometimes decorated with whitewash of lime, crowded round to assist in the transport of the sick man through the surf; and David himself, in a white European garb, met his guests, with dignified manners that would have suited a prince of any land, and conducted them through the grove of palms, interspersed with white huts, to a beautiful house consisting of a central room, with many others opening from it, floored with white coral lime, and lined with soft shining mats of Samoan manufacture. This, Harry learned, had been erected by them in hopes of an English missionary taking up his abode amongst them.
They were a kindly people, and had shown hospitality to other Englishmen, who had less appreciated it than these young officers could. They lavished every kindness in their power upon them, and Mr. Ernescliffe, at first, revived so much, that he seemed likely to recover.
But the ship had completed her repairs, and was ready to sail. The two midshipmen thought it would be certain death to their lieutenant to bring him back to such an atmosphere; "and so," continued Harry's letter to his father, "I thought there was nothing for it but for me to stay with him, and that you would say so. I got Owen to consent, after some trouble, as we were sure to be fetched off one time or another. We said not a word to Mr. Ernescliffe, for he was only sensible now and then, so that Owen had the command. Owen made the skipper leave me a pistol and some powder, but I was ashamed David should know it, and stowed it away. As to the quarter-master, old Jennings, whose boy you remember we picked up at the Roman camp, he had not forgotten that, and when we were shaking hands and wishing good-bye, he leaped up, and vowed 'he would never leave the young gentleman that had befriended his boy, to be eaten up by them black savage niggers. If they made roast-pork of Mr. May, he would be eaten first, though he reckoned they would find him a tougher morsel.' I don't think Owen was sorry he volunteered, and no words can tell what a blessing the good old fellow was to us both.
"So there we stayed, and, at first, Mr. Ernescliffe seemed mending. The delirium went off, he could talk quite clearly and comfortably, and he used to lie listening, when David and I had our odd sort of talks. I believe, if you had been there, or we could have strenthened him any way, he might have got over it; but he never thought he should, and he used to talk to me about all of you, and said Stoneborough had been the most blessed spot in his life; he had never had so much of a home, and that sharing our grief, and knowing you, had done him great good, just when he might have been getting elated. I cannot recollect it all, though I tried hard, for Margaret's sake, but he said Hector would have a great deal of temptation, and he hoped you would be a father to him, and Norman an elder brother. You would not think how much he talked of Cocksmoor, about a church being built there, as Ethel wished, and little Daisy laying the first stone. I remember one night, I don't know whether he was quite himself, for he looked full at me with his eyes, that had grown so large, till I did not know what was coming, and he said, 'I have seen a ship built by a sailor's vow; the roof was like the timbers of a ship--that was right. Mind, it is so. That is the ship that bears through the waves; there is the anchor that enters within the veil.' I believe that was what he said. I could not forget that--he looked at me so; but much more he said, that I dimly remember, and chiefly about poor dear Margaret. He bade me tell her- -his own precious pearl, as he used to call her--that he was quite content, and believed it was best for her and him both, that all should be thus settled, for they did not part for ever, and he trusted-- But I can't write all that." (There was a great tear-blot just here). "It is too good to recollect anywhere but at church. I have been there to-day, with my uncle and aunt, and I thought I could have told it when I came home, but I was too tired to write then, and now I don't seem as if it could be written anyhow. When I come home, I will try to tell Margaret. The most part was about her; only what was better seemed to swallow that up."
The narrative broke off here, but had been subsequently resumed.
"For all Mr. Ernescliffe talked as I told you, he was so quiet and happy, that I made sure he was getting well, but Jennings did not; and there came an old heathen native once to see us, who asked why we did not bury him alive, because he got no better, and gave trouble. At last, one night--it was the third of August--he was very restless, and could not breathe, nor lie easily; I lifted him up in my arms, for he was very light and thin, and tried to make him more comfortable. But presently he said, 'Is it you, Harry? God bless you;' and, in a minute, I knew he was dead. You will tell Margaret all about it. I don't think she can love him more than I did; and she did not half know him, for she never saw him on board, nor in all that dreadful time, nor in his illness. She will never know what she has lost."
There was another break here, and the story was continued.
"We buried him the next day, where one could see the sea, close under the great palm, where David hopes to have a church one of these days. David helped us, and said the Lord's Prayer and the Glory with us there. I little thought, when I used to grumble at my two verses of the psalms every day, when I should want the ninetieth, or how glad I should be to know so many by heart, for they were such a comfort to Mr. Ernescliffe.
"David got us a nice bit of wood, and Jennings carved the cross, and his name, and all about him. I should have liked to have done it, but I knocked up after that. Jennings thinks I had a sun-stroke. I don't know, but my head was so bad, whenever I moved, that I thought only Jennings would ever have come to tell you about it. Jennings looked after me as if I had been his own son; and there was David too, as kind as if he had been Richard himself--always sitting by, to bathe my forehead, or, when I was a little better, to talk to me, and ask me questions about his Christian teaching. You must not think of him like a savage, for he is my friend, and a far more perfect gentleman than I ever saw any one, but you, papa, holding the command over his people so easily and courteously, and then coming to me with little easy first questions about the Belief, and such things, like what we used to ask mamma. He liked nothing so well as for me to tell him about King David; and we had learned a good deal of each other's languages by that time. The notion of his heart--like Cocksmoor to Ethel--is to get a real English mission, and have all his people Christians. Ethel talked of good kings bein
g Davids to their line; I think that is what he will be, if he lives; but those islanders have been dying off since Europeans came among them."
But Harry's letter could not tell what he confessed, one night, to his father, the next time he was out with him by starlight, how desolate he had been, and how he had yearned after his home, and, one evening, he had been utterly overcome by illness and loneliness, and had cried most bitterly and uncontrollably; and, though Jennings thought it was for his friend's death, it really was homesickness, and the thought of his father and Mary. Jennings had helped him out to the entrance of the hut, that the cool night air might refresh his burning brow. Orion shone clear and bright, and brought back the night when they had chosen the starry hunter as his friend. "It seemed," he said, "as if you all were looking at me, and smiling to me in the stars. And there was the Southern Cross upright, which was like the minster to me; and I recollected it was Sunday morning at home, and knew you would be thinking about me. I was so glad you had let me be confirmed, and be with you that last Sunday, papa, for it seemed to join me on so much the more; and when I thought of the words in church, they seemed, somehow, to float on me so much more than ever before, and it was like the minster, and your voice. I should not have minded dying so much after that."
At last, Harry's Black Prince had hurried into the hut with the tidings that his English father's ship was in the bay, and soon English voices again sounded in his ears, bringing the forlorn boy such warmth of kindness that he could hardly believe himself a mere stranger. If Alan could but have shared the joy with him!
He was carried down to the boat in the cool of the evening, and paused on the way, for a last farewell to the lonely grave under the palm tree-one of the many sailors' graves scattered from the tropics to the poles, and which might be the first seed in a "God's acre" to that island, becoming what the graves of holy men of old are to us.
A short space more of kind care from his new friends and his Christian chief, and Harry awoke from a feverish doze at sounds that seemed so like a dream of home, that he was unwilling to break them by rousing himself; but they approved themselves as real, and he found himself in the embrace of his mother's sister.
The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations Page 70