Picked up at Sea Part 17

He was now coming back to himself, for his limbs twitched convulsively, and there was a faint tremor about the eyelids.

Just then Ernest Wilton came up and stood by the side of Mr Rawlings, while Seth was rubbing the boy's bared chest vigorously with his brawny hand to hasten the restoration of the circulation; and at that moment Sailor Bill opened his eyes--eyes that were expressionless no longer, but with the light of reason in their hidden intelligence--and fixed his gaze on the young engineer as if he recognised him at once.

"Ernest!" the boy exclaimed wonderingly, "what brings you here? Why, where am I?"

And he looked from one to the other of the group around him in a half-puzzled way, "Jerusalem!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Seth, jumping to his feet and turning to the young engineer. "He knows you, mister. Ken you rec'lect him?"

"By Jove!" said Ernest, "I do believe it's my cousin, Frank Lester, now I hear his voice. Frank!"

"Yes, Ernest," answered the boy, heaving a sigh of relief. "Then it is you after all. I thought I was dreaming."

And he sank back into a calm sleep as if he were in bed.

STORY ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

AFTER THE BATTLE.

"Now didn't I say so, Rawlings?" said Seth triumphantly, turning to that gentleman. "I leave it to any one if I didn't diagnose the boy's symptoms correctly! I said ef he can meet with a similar shock to that which cost him his reason, he'd get it back again. I told you that from the first on board the _Susan Jane_."

"You certainly did," replied Mr Rawlings. "It's the most curious case I ever heard or read of! Do you think, Seth, when he wakes up he'll be still all right here?" tapping his forehead expressively.

"Sartain as thaar's snakes in Virginny!" said the ex-mate, returning for a moment to his vernacular mode of speech; although, his medical instincts a.s.serting themselves again presently, he spoke more formally and in professional style in continuation of his reply to Mr Rawlings.

"He is still in a semi-comatose condition, as that somnolent fit a.s.sures us; but he will sleep it off, and rouse up by and by in the proper possession of his faculties, a glimpse of which we observed just now."

"I'm right glad to hear it," said Mr Rawlings. "What a difference that look of intelligence in his eyes made in him! I declare I would hardly have known him to be the same boy!"

"You're right there," said Seth. "I've read in some book of the eyes bein' called 'the windows of the soul;' an' I believe it's pretty near the mark."

"Golly, ma.s.sa Rawlings," put in Jasper at this juncture--the darkey had been dying to speak for a long time--"p'raps him turn out to be gran'

fine genelmun, for sure, 'sides bein' ma.s.sa Willerton's cuzzing, hey?"

"P'raps I'll souse you in the river if you don't make tracks and bring down somethin' as we can take poor Sailor Bill up to the hut in," said Seth, speaking again in his customary way and in a manner that Jasper plainly understood, for he disappeared at once, returning shortly in company with Josh, the two bearing a mattress between them, on which the boy was placed, still asleep, and carried up to the house, where he was softly put down on Mr Rawlings' bed and left, with Seth watching by his side until he should wake up, as the latter expected, in his proper senses.

The camp was in a state of tremendous excitement, as may be supposed, for no less than three thrilling episodes of interest had occurred all in one day, any one of which would have been sensational enough in itself to have afforded matter for gossip for a month.

The starting of the stamps--the attack and repulse of the long-dreaded Indian band--the fact of Sailor Bill recovering his lost senses--all happening at once, all coming together!

It was too much for even the most apathetic of the miners to contemplate calmly. And when, after the final departure of the American soldiery-- whose commander returned, after pursuing the Sioux for some distance amongst the Black Hills, to report that no further attack need be feared from the band, which was now thoroughly dispersed and incapable of a.s.sailing the camp a second time, that year at least--Minturne Creek resumed its normal quietude, and seemed duller than ever after such stirring events as had recently been witnessed, the excited gold-diggers gathered together in twos and threes, thinking over and talking about what had happened.

Beyond the stirring events that had happened they had also to mourn the loss of two of their number, as gallant comrades as men ever had--for, ere long, Black Harry had followed the smart foretopman to the silent land, succ.u.mbing to the dangerous wound he had received towards the end of the struggle from an Indian tomahawk wielded by a powerful arm, which had almost cleft the poor fellow's skull in twain; and, after so many months of close companions.h.i.+p, the death of the two sailors was keenly felt.

The best way to banish painful thoughts, however, as Mr Rawlings knew from sad experience, was to engage in active employment; so he did not allow the men to remain idle, although he gave them ample time for a rest after the fight was over.

Summoning to his aid Noah Webster, who, like some of the others who had received trivial wounds, made light of the bullet hole through his arm, he mustered the hands late in the afternoon of the eventful day, and delivered a short practical address to them before resuming operations-- a speech which, being to the point, had the desired effect of making the men go back to their work with a will.

"Now, lads," said he, "we must be up and going. Sitting there talking will not bring back the poor fellows that have gone. I mourn our comrades just as much as you do, for they worked steadfastly, like the honest, true-hearted men they were, through the hard time of toil and trouble we had till recently, and at the last fought and died bravely in the defence of the camp. But, crying over them won't help them now; all we can do is to bury them where they so n.o.bly fell, and then turn our hands to carry on our work to the end that is now so near in view, just as they would have insisted on doing if they had been alive still and with us!"

There was no more lethargy after Mr Rawlings' exhortation: as Solomon says,--"A word in season, how good it is!"

The men sprang up with alacrity to set about what he had suggested rather than ordered; and, as soon as graves had been dug in the shelter trench of the rampart that Tom Cannon and Black Harry had held so courageously against the Indians, and their bodies interred with all proper solemnity, Mr Rawlings himself reading the burial service over their remains, the miners grasped their picks and shovels with one hand as they wiped away a tear with the other, and went back to the mine, some of them possibly with the reflection that, all things considered, their slain mates were perhaps after all now better off than themselves!

STORY ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

SAILOR BILL'S STORY.

After the sad ceremony which he had just performed, Mr Rawlings did not feel much inclined for gold-seeking or any worldly affairs, although he went towards the mine as a matter of duty; and when he reached the stamps he found Ernest Wilton already standing there, but looking pale and perturbed, as if anxious about something.

"What is the matter?" said Mr Rawlings. "You seem out of sorts, beyond what the loss of these poor fellows would have affected you?"

"Yes, I am," replied the other. "I can't help thinking of that cousin of mine, and why I did not recognise him when I first saw him; but then he was quite a little boy at school, and who would have dreamt of your picking him up at sea?"

"Strange things do happen sometimes," said Mr Rawlings. "When was it that you last saw him in England?"

"Four years ago last Christmas, if I recollect aright. He was then a little schoolboy not half his present size. How on earth did he manage to get to sea? my aunt had a perfect horror of a sailor's life, and would never have let him go willingly. But, there, it only serves me right for my selfish neglect! As you told me before, I ought to have kept up my communication with my family, and then I should have known all about it. I can't help now fancying all sorts of queer things that may have occurred. My poor aunt, who used to be so fond of me, may be dead; and my uncle, who was of a roving nature kindred to mine, may--"

"Nonsense!" said Mr Rawlings, good-naturedly, interrupting him. "If you go on like that, you'll imagine you're the man in the moon, or something else! Sailor Bill, or rather your cousin Frank, as we must now call him, will wake up presently and enlighten us as to how he came to be in his present position--or rather in the Bay of Biscay, where we picked him up; for we all know his subsequent history; and then you'll learn what you are now puzzling your brains about, without any bother.

I confess I am curious in the matter too, for I wish to know the secret of that mysterious packet round his neck; but we must both wait with patience, and dismiss the subject for the present from our minds. Come along with me now, my boy," he added, as the body of the miners hastened up after paying their last tribute of respect at their comrades' graves.

"I'm just going to have a look at your sluices, and see whether the stuff is coming out as rich as before."

This invitation at once caused the young engineer to brighten up, as the idea of action had aroused the miners from dwelling on what had happened.

The yield upon being examined proved fully as rich as before the first experiment.

"You see, Mr Rawlings," said Ernest, cordially holding out his hand for a friendly grip, "the lead has turned out just as I fancied it would do, and my efforts to open it out proved successful. You are now, as I told you would be the case, the richest man in this State, or in Montana either, for that matter, with all their talk of Bonanza Kings there."

"You bet," chimed in Noah Webster, who felt equally proud and delighted with the young engineer at the result of their joint operations; but Mr Rawlings could say little.

The Indian attack had hitherto prevented his realising this sudden change of fortune, and now that he was fully conscious of it, all he could do was to silently shake Ernest Wilton's hand first, and then Noah Webster's; and after that each of those of the miners who pressed near him for the purpose, full of sympathy with "the good luck of the boss,"

and forgetting already the fate of their lost comrades in the sight of the glittering metal before them--their natural good spirits being perfectly restored a little later on, when Mr Rawlings a.s.sured them, on his recovering his speech, that he fully intended now keeping to the promise he had given when the venture was first undertaken, and would divide half the proceeds of the mine, share and share alike, among the men, in addition to paying them the wages he had engaged to do.

The ringing hurrahs with which the jubilant miners gave vent to their gladness on the reiteration of Mr Rawlings' promise, were so loud that they reached the ears of Seth, who was watching by the sleeping boy, and the latter woke up immediately with a frightened air, as if suffering from the keenest terror.

"It's all right, my b'y, all right," said Seth soothingly; and at the same time Wolf, who had entered the house and crept up by the side of the bed, leapt up on the boy and licked his face.

"Where am I, Sam?" he said to Seth, the dog's greeting having apparently calmed him down as well as the ex-mate's kindly manner; "are they after me still, Sam?"

"You are here with us," saith Seth, puzzled at the boy's addressing him so familiarly; "but my name arn't Sam, leastways, not as I knows on."

The boy looked in his face, and seemed disappointed.

"No, you are not Sam, though you are like him. Oh, now I recollect all?" and he hid his face in his hands and burst into a pa.s.sionate fit of crying, as if his heart would break.

"There, there," said Seth, patting him on the back, "it's all right, I tell you, my b'y; an' when Seth says so I guess he means it!"