St. Winifred's; or, The World of School

by F. W. Farrar

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.

  ON THE DARK SEA.

  Boys Leaning upon their oars, with splash and strain, Made white with foam the green and purple sea.

  Shelley.

  In a moment Walter's strong arms had caught him, and lifted him tenderlyinto the boat. While the waves tossed them up and down they placed himat full length as comfortably as they could,--which was not verycomfortably--and though his clothes were streaming with salt water, andhis fainting fit still continued, they began at once to row home. For,by this time, it was dim twilight; the wind was blowing great guns, theclouds were full of dark wrath, and the stormy billows rose higher andhigher. There was no time to spare, and it would be as much as theycould do to provide for their own safety. The tide was already bumpingthem against the cliff at the place where, just in time, they hadrescued Kenrick, and, in order to get themselves fairly off, Walter,forgetting for a moment, pushed out his oar and pressed against thecliff. The damaged oar was weak enough already, and instantly Waltersaw that his vigorous shove had weakened and displaced the old splicingof the blade. Charlie too observed it, but neither of them spoke aword; on the contrary, the little boy was at his place, oar in rowlock,and immediately smote lightly and in good time the surface of the water,splashed it into white foam, and pulled with gallant strokes.

  They made but little way; the waves pitched them so high and droppedthem with such a heavy fall between their rolling troughs, that rowingbecame almost impossible, and the miserable old boat shipped quantitiesof water. At last, after a stronger pull than usual, Walter's oarcreaked, snapped, and gave way, flinging him on his back. The loosenedtwine with which it had been spliced was half rotten with age; it brokein several places, the oar blade fell off and floated away, and Walterwas left holding in both hands a broken and futile stump.

  "My God, it is all over with us!" was the wild cry that the sudden andawful misfortune wrung from his lips; while Charlie, shipping his nowuseless oar, clung round his brother's neck and cried aloud. The threeboys--one of them faint, exhausted, and speechless--were in an unsafeand oarless boat on the open tempestuous sea, weltering hopelessly atthe cruel mercy of winds and waves; a current was sweeping them theyknew not whither, and the wind, howling like a hurricane, was drivingthem farther and farther away from land.

  "O Walter, I can't die, I can't die yet; and not out on this black sea,away from every one."

  "From every one but God, Charlie; and I am with you. Cheer up, littlebrother, God will not desert us."

  "O Walter, pray to God for you and me and Kenrick | pray to Him forlife."

  "We will both pray, Charlie;" and folding his arms round him, for nowthat the rowing was over and there was nothing left to do, the littleboy was frightened at the increasing gloom, Walter, calm even at thatwild moment, with the calm of a clear conscience and a noble heart,poured forth his soul in words of supplication, while Charlie, his voicehalf stifled with tears, sobbed out a terrified response and echo to hisprayer.

  And after the prayer Walter's heart was lightened and his spiritstrengthened, till he felt ready in himself to meet anything and braveany fate; but his soul ached with pity for his little brother and forhis friend. It was his duty to cheer them both and do what could bedone. Kenrick had so far recovered as to move and say a few words, andthe brothers were by his side in a moment.

  "You have saved my life, Walter, when I had given it up; saved it, Ihope, to some purpose this time," he whispered, unconscious as yet ofhis position; and he dragged up his feet out of the pool of water inwhich they were lying at the bottom of the boat. But gradually thesituation dawned upon him. "How is it you're not rowing?" he asked;"are you tired? let _me_ try, I think I could manage."

  "It would be of no use, Ken," said Walter; "I mean that we can't row,"and he pointed to the broken oar.

  "Then you have saved me at the risk, perhaps at the cost, of your ownlives. O you noble, noble Walter!" said Kenrick, the tears gushing fromhis eyes. "How awfully terrible this is! I seem to be snatched fromdeath to death. Life and death are battling for me to-night; yes,eternal life and death too," he whispered in Walter's ear, catching himby the wrist. "All this danger is for me, Walter, and for my sin. I amlike Jonah in the ship; I have been buffeting death away for hours, buthe has been sent for me, he must do his mission. I see that _I_ cannotescape, but, O God, I hope that _you_ will escape, Walter. Your lifeand Charlie's must not be spilt for mine."

  It was barely light enough to see his face, but it looked wild andhaggard in the ragged gleams of moonlight which the black flittingclouds suffered to break forth at intervals; and his words, after this,were too incoherent to understand. Walter saw that the long intensityof fear had rendered him half delirious and not master of himself. Soonafter he sank into a stupor, half sleep, half exhaustion, and even thelurching of the boat did not rouse him any more.

  "Walter, he's asleep, or--oh! is he dead, Walter?" asked Charlie, inhorror.

  "No, no, Charlie; there, put your hand upon his heart. You see itbeats; he is only exhausted, and in a sort of swoon."

  "But he will be pitched over, Walter."

  "Then I'll show you what we'll do, Charlie. We must make the best ofeverything." Walter lifted up the useless rudder, pulled out the stringof it to lash Kenrick safely to the stern bench by which he lay, andtook off his own coat in order to cover him up that he might sleep; andthen, anxious above all things to relieve Charlie's terror, theunselfish boy, thinking only of others, sat beside him on the centrebench, and encircled him with a protecting arm. And, as though toincrease their misery, the cold rain began to fall in torrents.

  "O Walter, it's so cold, and wet, and stormy, and pitch dark. I'mfrightened, Walter. I try not to be, but I can't help it. Take me onyour knees and pray for us again."

  Walter took him on his knees, and laid his head against his own breast,and folded him in his arms, and wiped his tears; and the little boy'ssobs ceased as Walter's voice rose once more in a strain of intenseprayer.

  "Walter, God _must_ grant that prayer; I'm sure He must; He can't rejectit," said Charlie simply.

  "He will answer it in the way best for us, Charlie; whatever that is."

  "But shall we die?" asked his brother again, with a cold shudder at theword.

  "Remember what you said just now, Charlie, and be brave. But even if wewere to die, could we die better, little brother, than in doing ourduty, and trying to save dear Ken's life? It isn't such a terriblething, Charlie, after all. We must all die some time, you know, andboys have died as young and younger than you or me."

  "Ay, but not like this, Walter: out in these icy, black, horrid waters."

  "Yes, they have indeed, Charlie; little friendless sailor-boys dashed onfar-away rocks that splintered their ships to atoms, or swallowed upwhen their vessel foundered in great typhoons, thousands of miles awayfrom home and England, in unknown seas; little boys like you, Charlie;and they have died bravely, too, though no living soul was near them tohear their cries, and nothing to mark their graves but the bubble forone minute while they sank."

  "Have they, Walter?"

  "Ay, many and many a time they have; and the same God Who called fortheir lives gave them courage and strength to die, as He will give us ifthere is need."

  There was a pause, and then Charlie said, "Talk to me, Walter; itprevents my listening to the flapping and plunging of the boat, and allthe other noises. Walter, I think... I think we shall die."

  "Courage, brother, I have hope yet; and if we die we will die like thistogether--I will not let you go. Our bodies shall be washed ashoretogether--not separated, Charlie, even in death."

  "You have been a dear, dear good brother to me. How I love you,Walter!" and as he pressed yet closer to him, he said more bravely,"What hope have you then, Walter?"

  "Look up, Charlie; you see that light?"

  "Yes; what is it?"

  "Sharksfin Lighthouse; don't you remember seeing it sometimes at nightfrom Saint Win's
? Yes; and those lights twinkling far-off are SaintWin's. Those must be the school lights; and those long windows you canjust see are the chapel windows. They are in chapel now, or the lightswouldn't be there. Perhaps some of our friends--Power, perhaps, andEden--are praying for us; they must have missed us since tea-time."

  "How I wish we were with them!"

  "Perhaps we may be again; and all the wiser and better in heart and lifefor this solemn time, Charlie. If we are but carried by this wind andcurrent within hearing of the lighthouse!"

  The Sharksfin Lighthouse is built on a sharp high rock two miles out atsea. I have watched it from Bleak Point on a bright, warm summer's day,when the promontory around me was all ablaze with purple heather andgolden gorse, and there was not breeze enough to shake the wing of thebutterfly as it rested on the blue-bell, or disturb the honey-laden beeas it murmured in the thyme. Yet even then the waters were seething andboiling in never-ended tumult about those hideous sunken rocks; and theocean all around was hoary as with the neesings of a thousand leviathansfloundering in its monstrous depths. You may guess what they are on awild February night--how, in the mighty rush of the Atlantic, the tornbreakers beat about them with tremendous rage, till the whole sea is inangry motion like some demon caldron that seethes over roaring flame.

  Drifting along, or rather flung and battered about on the current, theypassed within near sight of the lighthouse, and they might have thankedGod that they passed no nearer, for to have passed nearer would havebeen certain death. The white waves dashed over it, enveloped its tallstrong pillar that buffeted them back, like a noble will in the midst ofcalumny and persecution; _they_ fell back hissing and discomfited, andcould not dim its silver or quench its flame but _it_ glowed on withsteady lustre in the midst of them--flung its victorious path ofsplendour over their raging motion, warned from the sunken reef theweary mariner, and looked forth untroubled with its broad, calm eye intothe madness and fury of the tempest-haunted night.

  Through this broad track of light the boat was driven, and Waltershouted at the top of his voice with all his remaining strength. Thethree men in the lighthouse fancied indeed, as they acknowledgedafterwards, that they had heard some shouts; but strange, mysterious,inarticulate voices are often borne upon the wind, and haunt always thelonely wastes of foamy sea. The lighthouse men had often heard theseunexplained wailings and weird screams. Many a time they had lookedout, and been so continually deceived, that unless human accents wereunmistakable and well-defined, they attribute these sounds to otheragencies, or to the secret phenomena of the worst storms. And even ifthey _had_ heard, what could they have done, or how have launched theirboat when the billows were running mountain-high about their perilousrock?

  Charlie had been quiet for a long time, his face hidden on Walter'sshoulder; but he had seen the glare which the light threw across thewaves, and had observed that they had gradually been driven through itinto the blackness again, and he asked, "Have we passed the lighthouse,Walter?"

  "We have."

  "Oh, I am so hungry and burning with thirst! Oh! what shall we do?"

  "Try not to think about it, Charlie; a little fasting won't hurt usmuch."

  Another long pause, during which they clung more closely to each other,and their hearts beat side by side, and then Charlie said, in a barelyarticulate whisper--

  "Walter!"

  "I know what you are going to say, Charlie."

  "The water in the boat is nearly up to my knees."

  "We have shipped a great deal, you know."

  "Yes; and besides that--"

  "Yes, it is true; there is a leak. Do you mind my putting you down andtrying what I can do to bail the water out?"

  "O Walter, don't put me off your knee--don't let go of me."

  "Very well, Charlie; it wouldn't be of much use."

  "Good God!" cried the little boy in a paroxysm of agony, "we aresinking--we are foundering!"

  They wound their arms round each other, and Walter said, "It is even so,my darling brother. Death is near, but God is with us; and if it isdeath, then death means rest and heaven. Good-bye, Charlie, good-bye;we will be close together till the end."