The Wedge of Gold Part 29

Next morning Jordan was comfortable, but the fever was having its way.

Sedgwick went ash.o.r.e, got his own and Jordan's baggage and the bullion, and when he returned the s.h.i.+p was at once got under way for her northern voyage.

The attentions of Sedgwick to his sick friend were simply incessant. The s.h.i.+p's surgeon was also a.s.siduous in his care. Captain McGregor was all the time most solicitous. As they approached the equator, they fixed for Jordan a bed on deck where the air, even if it was hot, was better in motion over him than in the stifling state-room.

The s.h.i.+p rounded the great cape in ten days, and reached the Red Sea on the twelfth day. Then the surgeon motioned Sedgwick aside, and said: "The case of your friend makes me very anxious. His wound is not of itself serious. He has a little fever, but it would not be of a dangerous type in an ordinary patient. In this case the sick man acts like one who has lost hope, and under the sorrow of his loss his nerve power has ceased to exert its force, and the man is liable to die simply because he will make no effort to live."

"I know," said Sedgwick, "and I have been dreading such a report as you have made me, for the last seven days. If you can keep his life from going out until we can reach Naples, I believe we can then find a tonic that will save him."

"I will try," was the answer, "but he is growing weaker every day, and I am afraid. However, the temperature is growing cooler and it gives us a better chance."

Sedgwick tried by talking, by reading, and by drawing rosy pictures of what they would do in England and America, to rouse Jordan, but without much success.

He lay patient and still on his couch, and to all inquiries would answer: "I'm perfectly comfortable, dear friend. Do not worry about me; everything is as it should be."

Then Sedgwick tried another experiment. He told the sick man that he must exert himself to be better; that sickness was often influenced by the will of the patient, and added that the real work of trying to undo the wrong perpetrated upon Browning would have to be done when they reached England, and that he should then need the best counsel and help of his friend.

Jordan listened and said: "I'll do the best I ken, Jim, but it will be all right, I'm shor."

So the hours went by, and Captain McGregor told the engineer to crowd on all steam, and to bribe the fireman to give the s.h.i.+p all the speed possible.

At Suez, Sedgwick went ash.o.r.e and cabled his wife that he was on the "Pallas;" to come at once to Naples; to induce Jack and Rose to come also, and, if she thought best, to bring Mrs. Hazleton, for Jordan was ill, and he feared nothing but the cheer of friendly faces would arouse him and give him the strength to live. He added that she must use her woman's wits as to what she would tell Mrs. H., and that to outsiders it must all seem but as running over to the continent for a few days'

outing.

When Grace Sedgwick, very early one morning, received and read that message, she held it for many minutes, lost in thought. She had grown very near to Mrs. Hazleton, but except when she had drawn from her the story of her life, she had never probed in the least to see if in her heart she was nursing a vast regret.

But she had noticed some things that led her to believe that the lady had an anxiety which she was trying to conceal. She was always ready to visit any point of interest that would naturally attract a stranger, or to attend any public a.s.semblage that a stranger might be lured to. Again, she always approached such places with vivacity, and returned from them in silence.

As Mrs. Sedgwick sat with the dispatch doubled up in her closed hand, Mrs. Hazleton came into the room. Touching a chair by her side, Grace said: "Come and sit by me, Margaret. I want to talk with you."

She complied, merely saying: "What do you want to talk about, love?"

"Are you happy?" asked Grace.

"Indeed, yes. Why do you ask?" was the reply. "Have you not been making my life a bed of roses ever since your blessed eyes first rested on me?"

Grace looked at her intently for a moment, then said: "Is there some one whom you wish exceedingly to see?"

A rosy flush swept like a wave over her face, which was followed by a quick pallor. But she recovered herself almost instantly, and said: "Why, Mrs. Sedgwick, do you ask me so strange a question?"

Grace arose, then bending down, took her hand, laid the dispatch upon the palm, closed the fingers gently over it and said:

"My dear, there is a paper for you to read. I am going to Rose for a few minutes. When I return, you may tell me anything you please, or nothing at all, as you please; only let me tell you first that before my husband went to Nevada, he went to another State, lived there with a great-hearted man for a year, and that man was with him when he left me at the church door on my wedding day, and they have been together since, except when my husband left him to go to America to buy machinery and came back this way to join him again." Then she suddenly bent and kissed her friend and was gone.

She went through to Rose's side of the house, found her, and asked where Mr. Browning was.

"He is in the library," said Rose; "he has not yet gone out this morning."

"Then come with me," said Grace. Once in the library, she said: "I have news from my James this morning. He cabled me from Suez. He is coming home, and he wants us to meet him at Naples. Mr. Jordan has been with him--is coming with him, is ill, I fear very ill, and he wants us to meet him, I believe chiefly on that dear man's account. I shall leave this afternoon; can you go with me?"

"I can," said Jack.

"I can," said Rose.

"I am so glad," said Grace. "And say, there must be nothing said to the servants, except that we have run over to the continent on a lark, for a few days. And now good-bye until we are ready."

With that she returned to her own sitting room. Mrs. Hazleton was gone, and it was a full half hour before she returned. When she did, she was very pale. A look of anxiety was on her face, but a radiant new light was in her eyes.

She came straight up to Grace, and in a low voice said: "When do you start?"

"To-day," said Grace; "by the first Dover train."

"O, thanks; pray G.o.d we be not too late," was the answer; and then the poor woman sank into a chair, covered her face with her hands, and broke into sobs that were almost hysterical.

Grace stood by her for a few minutes, then knelt down, put one arm around her, drew her toward her, gently drew down the hands and laid her cheek against the tear-dripping cheek of her friend, and said: "Now you must be brave, dear Margaret; it's going to be all well. I feel it in every fibre of my being. My husband is with him. He will supply him with the vitality to live until the vision of your face above his pillow will bring the stimulus that he needs."

The true woman recovered herself at length, and said: "O Mrs. Sedgwick, how did you discover my secret, and the great-hearted man whom I have sought for and prayed for so long?"

"It was not I," said Grace. "It was my husband. He lived with Mr.

Jordan a year in Texas. After he had made his little fortune in Nevada, he--thanks be to G.o.d--came home with Jack. He met his old friend here, who frankly told him how he loved you, and why he had sold his home and turned wanderer. Just then Jack had been induced by his step-father and mine, and the knave Stetson, to invest part of his fortune in a gold mine in South Africa; and by a deception, nearly all that was left of his fortune was lured away into the same channel. Jack was well-nigh frantic.

Rose had been waiting for him for four years and a half, so my husband insisted upon their marriage and determined to go and see if anything could be made out of the wreck, and asked me to wait until his return.

I agreed, only stipulating that we, too, should be married before he went. I left him at the church. My husband was a silver miner; Mr. Jordan was a gold miner--I do not know the difference, only the gold miner can test gold ore--and they together went to Africa. They found the mine good, and found a new road to it, over which the machinery could be transported. Then my husband sailed via Australia for San Francisco to buy the machinery; Mr. Jordan remained to open the mine. My husband cabled me from Australia, and the next day I received his letter from South Africa, telling me that he would be two months in San Francisco, and then would come by London on his way back to the South Land. I took the first s.h.i.+p and reached San Francis...o...b..fore his s.h.i.+p came in from Australia; then when I knew the s.h.i.+p was coming up the bay, I had the apartments dressed in flowers, robed myself in attire such as I had meant should be my wedding garments, and waited his coming."

Then she paused a moment as the memory of that meeting swept over her, while the arms of her friend stole around her.

Continuing, she said: "When ready to start for England, we, as you know, made arrangements to stop a day or two with our friends in Indiana. When you were presented, my husband recognized you instantly by the name and description given of you by his friend. When you sang that first song, he guessed your secret and told me his thought, and helped me to work the stratagem to lure you here. When he reached Port Natal, he tried to invent some plausible reason to induce Mr. Jordan to come here, but he could not; and so has hurried to get the mill working, and now both are on the way, and I must meet them. Jack and Rose are going with me; will you?"

The arms of Margaret Hazleton were clinging to Grace, and the tears were raining down her face. So soon as she could speak, she said:

"And so, while I thought you were my best friend, you have really been my guardian angel. I came with you because I hoped to find the n.o.ble man who had self-exiled himself, and all the time when I thought I was disguising my heart, your clear eyes have been reading it. I remember now in Texas the boys were always talking of a famous Jim who had lived with them, but I never dreamed that he was your husband.

"My grat.i.tude to you and your grand husband is bankrupt, but now no matter. The first thing to do is to be on our way--only, do Mr. and Mrs.

Browning also know my secret?"

"Not at all," said Grace. "Until just now they did not even know that Mr.

Jordan was with my husband, but I will tell Rose all that may be necessary."

All left that day, in due time reached Naples, and engaged ample quarters before the "Pallas" entered the bay.

CHAPTER XXVI.

FEVER VISIONS.

As the "Pallas" pa.s.sed out of the ca.n.a.l upon the broad-breasted Mediterranean, Jordan noticed the change in the motion of the s.h.i.+p, and said to Sedgwick: "Jim, old friend, we is back agin on ther waters whar men first learned ter be sailors, aren't we?"