by Mayne Reid
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
AN UNEASY NIGHT.
Long with the agonising pain--for the sensations they experienced wereexceedingly painful--there was confusion in their thoughts, andwandering in their speech. The feeling was somewhat to that ofsea-sickness in its worst form; and they felt that reckless indifferenceto death so characteristic of the sufferer from this very common, butnot the less painful, complaint. Had the sea, seething and surgingagainst the beach so near them, broken beyond its boundaries, and sweptover the spot where they lay, not one of them, in all probability, wouldhave stirred hand or foot to remove themselves out of its reach.Drowning--death in any form--would at that moment have seemed preferableto the tortures they were enduring.
They did not lie still. At times one or another would get up and strayfrom under the tree. But the nausea continued, accompanied by thehorrid retching; their heads swam, their steps tottered, and staggeringback, they would fling themselves down despairingly, hoping, almostpraying, for death to put an end to their agonies. It was likely soonto do so.
During all, Captain Redwood showed that he was thinking less of himselfthan his children. Willingly would he have lain down and died, couldthat have secured their surviving him. But it was a fate thatthreatened all alike. On this account, he was wishing that either he orone of his comrades, Murtagh or Saloo, might outlive the young peoplelong enough to give them the rites of sepulture. He could not bear thethought that the bodies of his two beautiful children were to be leftabove ground, on the desolate shore, their flesh to be torn from them bythe teeth of ravenous beasts or the beaks of predatory birds--theirbones to whiten and moulder under the sun and storms of the tropics.
Despite the pain he was himself enduring, he secretly communicated hiswishes to Murtagh and the Malay, imploring them to obey what might bealmost deemed a dying request.
Parting speeches were from time to time exchanged in the muttered tonesof despair. Prayers were said aloud, unitedly, and by all of themsilently in their own hearts.
After this, Captain Redwood lay resignedly, his children, one on eachside of him, nestling within his arms, their heads pillowed upon hisbreast close together. They also held one another by the hand, joinedin affectionate embrace across the breast of their father. Not manywords were spoken between them; only, now and then, some low murmurs,which betokened the terrible pain they felt, and the fortitude bothshowed in enduring it.
Now and then, too, their father spoke to them. At first he had essayedto cheer them with words of encouragement; but as time passed, theseseemed to sound hollow in their ears as well as his own, and he changedthem to speeches enjoining resignation, and words that told of the"Better Land". He reminded them that their mother was there, and theyshould all soon join her. They would go to her together; and how happythis would be after their toils and sufferings; after so many perils andfatigues, it would be but pleasure to find rest in heaven.
In this way he tried to win their thoughts from dwelling on the terrorsof death, every moment growing darker and seeming nearer.
The fire burned down, smouldered, and went out. No one had thought ofreplenishing it with fuel. Though there were faggots enough collectednot far off, the toil of bringing them forward seemed too much for theirwasted strength and deadened energies. Fire could be of no service tothem now. It had done them no good while ablaze; and since it had goneout, they cared not to renew it. If they were to die, their lastmoments could scarcely be more bitter in darkness than in light.
Still Captain Redwood wished for light. He wished for it, so that hemight once more look upon the faces of his two sweet suffering pets,before the pallor of death should overspread them. He would perhapshave made an effort to rekindle the fire, or requested one of the othersto do it; but just then, on turning his eyes to the east, he saw agreyish streak glimmering above the line of the sea-horizon. He knew itwas the herald of coming day; and he knew, moreover, that, in thelatitude they were in, the day itself would not linger long behind.
"Thank God!" was the exclamation that came from his lips, low muttered,but in fervent emphasis. "Thank God, I shall see them once more!Better their lives should not go out in the darkness."
As he spoke the words, and as if to gratify him, the streak on theeastern sky seemed rapidly to grow broader and brighter, its colour ofpale grey changing to golden yellow; and soon after, the upper limb ofthe glorious tropical sun showed itself over the smooth surface of theCelebes Sea.
As his cheering rays touched the trees of the forest, then eyes werefirst turned upon one another, and then in different directions. Thoseof Captain Redwood rested upon the faces of his children, now trulyoverspread with the wan pallor of what seemed to be rapidly approachingdeath.
Murtagh gazed wistfully out upon the ocean, as if wishing himself oncemore upon it, and no doubt thinking of that green isle far away beyondit; while Saloo's glance was turned upward--not toward the heavens, butas if he was contemplating some object among the leaves of the treeoverhead.
All at once the expression upon his countenance took a change--remarkable as it was sudden. From the look of sullen despair, which butthe moment before might have been seen gleaming out of the sunken orbitsof his eyes, his glance seemed to change to one of joy, almost with thequickness of the lightning's flash.
Simultaneous with the change, he sprang up from his reclining position,uttering as he did so an exclamation in the Malayan tongue, which hiscompanions guessed to be some formula of address to the Deity, from itsending with the word "Allah."
"De gleat God be thank!" he continued, returning to his "pigeonEnglish," so that the others might understand. "We all be save. Buldno poison. We no die yet. Come away, cappen," he continued, bendingdown, and seizing the children by the hands. Then raising both on theirfeet, he quickly added, "Come all away. Unda de tlee death. Out yondawe findee life. Come away--way."
Without waiting for the consent either of them or their father, he led--indeed, almost dragged--Helen and Henry from under the shadow of thetree and out toward the open sea-beach.
Though Captain Redwood did not clearly comprehend the object of Saloo'ssudden action, nor Murtagh comprehend it at all, both rose to theirfeet, and followed with tottering steps.
Not until they had got out upon the open ground, and sat down upon thesand, with the fresh sea-breeze fanning their fevered brows, did Saloogive an explanation of his apparently eccentric behaviour.
He did so by pointing to the tree under which they had passed the night,and pronouncing only the one word--"Upas."