Foul Play

by Charles Reade

  CHAPTER XXXII.

  THE next day was Sunday. Hazel had kept a calendar of the week, and everyseventh day was laid aside with jealousy, to be devoted to such simplereligious exercises as he could invent. The rain still continued, withless violence indeed, but without an hour's intermission. After breakfasthe read to her the exodus of the Israelites, and their sufferings duringthat desert life. He compared those hardships with their own troubles,and pointed out to her how their condition presented many things to bethankful for. The island was fruitful, the climate healthy. They mighthave been cast away on a sandy key or reef, where they would haveperished slowly and miserably of hunger and exposure. Then they werespared to each other. Had she been alone there, she could not haveprovided for herself; had he been cast away a solitary man, the islandwould have been to him an intolerable prison.

  In all these reflections Hazel was very guarded that no expression shouldescape him to arouse her apprehension. He was so careful of this that sheobserved his caution and watched his restraint. And Helen was thinkingmore of this than of the holy subject on which he was discoursing. Thedisguise he threw over his heart was penetrable to the girl's eye. Shesaw his love in every careful word, and employed herself in detecting itunder his rigid manner. Secure in her own position, she could examine hisfrom the loop-holes of her soul, and take a pleasure in witnessing thesuppressed happiness she could bestow with a word. She did not wonder ather power. The best of women have the natural vanity to take for grantedthe sway they assume over the existence which submits to them.

  A week passed thus, and Hazel blessed the rain that drove them to thissociability. He had prepared the bladder of a young seal which haddrifted ashore dead. This membrane, dried in the sun, formed a piece ofexcellent parchment, and he desired to draw upon it a map of the island.To accomplish this, the first thing was to obtain a good red ink from thecochineal, which is crimson. He did according to his means. He got one ofthe tin vessels and filed it till he had obtained a considerable quantityof the metal. This he subjected for forty hours to the action oflime-juice. He then added the cochineal, and mixed till he obtained afine scarlet. In using it he added a small quantity of a hard and puregum--he had found gum abounded in the island. His pen was made from anosprey's feather, hundreds of which were strewn about the cliffs, andsome of these he had already secured and dried.

  Placing his tin baler before him, on which he had scratched his notes, hedrew a map of the island.

  "What shall we call it?" said he.

  Helen paused, and then replied, "Call it 'GODSEND' Island."

  "So I will," he said, and wrote it down.

  Then they named the places they had seen. The reef Helen had discoveredoff the northwest coast they called "White Water Island," because of thebreakers. Then came "Seal Bay," "Palm-tree Point," "Mount Lookout" (thiswas the hill due south of where they lived). They called the cane-brake"Wild Duck Swamp," and the spot where they lunched "Cochineal Clearing."The mountain was named "Mount Cavity."

  "But what shall we call the capital of the kingdom--this hut?" said MissRolleston, as she leaned over him and pointed to the spot.

  "Saint Helen's," said Hazel, looking up; and he wrote it down ere shecould object.

  Then there was a little awkward pause, while he was busily occupied infilling up some topographical details. She turned it off gayly.

  "What are those caterpillars that you have drawn there, sprawling over mykingdom?" she asked.

  "Caterpillars! you are complimentary, Miss Rolleston. Those aremountains."

  "Oh, indeed; and those lines you are now drawing are rivers, I presume."

  "Yes; let us call this branch of our solitary estuary, which runswestward, the river Lea, and this, to the east, the river Medway. Is suchyour majesty's pleasure?"

  _"La Reine le veut,"_ replied Helen, smiling. "But, Master Geographer, itseems to me that you are putting in mountains and rivers which you havenever explored. How do you know that these turns and twists in the streamexist as you represent them? and those spurs, which look so real, haveyou not added them only to disguise the caterpillar character of yourrange of hills!"

  Hazel laughed as he confessed to drawing on his fancy for some littledetails. But pleaded that all geographers, when they drew maps, werelicensed to fill in a few such touches, where discovery had failed tosupply particulars.

  Helen had always believed religiously in maps, and was amused when shereflected on her former credulity.