Cord and Creese Part 32

The close connection which had existed between them for so many weeks was now severed, and Brandon thought that this might perhaps remove that extraordinary power which he felt that she exerted over him. Not so. In her absence he found himself constantly looking forward toward a meeting with her again. When with her he found the joy that flowed from her presence to be more intense, since it was more concentrated. He began to feel alarmed at his own weakness.

The 6th of March came, and they left in the s.h.i.+p _Juno_ for London.

Now their intercourse was like that of the old days on board the _Falcon_.

"It is like the _Falcon_," said Beatrice, on the first evening. "Let us forget all about the journey over the sea, and our stay on the island."

"I can never forget that I owe my life to you," said Brandon, vehemently.

"And I," rejoined Beatrice, with kindling eyes, which yet were softened by a certain emotion of indescribable tenderness--"I--how can I forget!

Twice you saved me from a fearful death, and then you toiled to save my life till your own sank under it."

"I would gladly give up a thousand lives"--said Brandon, in a low voice, while his eyes were illumined with a pa.s.sion which had never before been permitted to get beyond control, but now rose visibly, and irresistibly.

"If you have a life to give," said Beatrice, calmly, returning his fevered gaze with a full look of tender sympathy--"if you have a life to give, let it be given to that _purpose_ of yours to which you are devoted."

"You refuse it, then!" cried Brandon, vehemently and reproachfully.

Beatrice returned his reproachful gaze with one equally reproachful, and raising her calm eyes to Heaven, said, in a tremulous voice,

"You have no right to say so--least of all to _me_. I said what you feel and know; and it is this, that others require your life, in comparison with whom I am nothing. Ah, my friend," she continued, in tones of unutterable sadness, "let us be friends here at least, on the sea, for when we reach England we must be separated for evermore!"

"For evermore!" cried Brandon, in agony.

"For evermore!" repeated Beatrice, in equal anguish.

"Do you feel very eager to get to England?" asked Brandon, after a long silence.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I know that there is sorrow for me there."

"If our boat had been destroyed on the sh.o.r.e of that island," he asked, in almost an imploring voice, "would you have grieved?"

"No."

"The present is better than the future. Oh, that my dream had continued forever, and that I had never awaked to the bitterness of life!"

"That," said Beatrice, with a mournful smile, "is a reproach to me for watching you."

"Yet that moment of awaking was sweet beyond all thought," continued Brandon, in a musing tone, "for I had lost all memory of all things except you."

They stood in silence, sometimes looking at one another, sometimes at the sea, while the dark shadows of the Future swept gloomily before their eyes.

The voyage pa.s.sed on until at last the English sh.o.r.es were seen, and they sailed up the Channel amidst the thronging s.h.i.+ps that pa.s.s to and fro from the metropolis of the world.

"To-morrow we part," said Beatrice, as she stood with Brandon on the quarter-deck.

"No," said Brandon; "there will be no one to meet you here. I must take you to your home."

"To my home! You?" cried Beatrice, starting back. "You dare not."

"I dare."

"Do you know what it is?"

"I do not seek to know. I do not ask; but yet I think I know."

"And yet _you_ offer to go?"

"I must go. I must see you to the very last."

"Be it so," said Beatrice, in a solemn voice, "since it is the very last."

Suddenly she looked at him with the solemn gaze of one whose soul was filled with thoughts that overpowered every common feeling. It was a glance lofty and serene and unimpa.s.sioned, like that of some spirit which has pa.s.sed beyond human cares, but sad as that of some prophet of woe.

"Louis Brandon!"

At this mention of his name a flash of unspeakable surprise pa.s.sed over Brandon's face. She held out her hand. "Take my hand," said she, calmly, "and hold it so that I may have strength to speak."

"Louis Brandon!" said she, "there was a time on that African island when you lay under the trees and I was sure that you were dead. There was no beating to your heart, and no perceptible breath. The last test failed, the last hope left me, and I knelt by your head, and took you in my arms, and wept in my despair. At your feet Cato knelt and mourned in his Hindu fas.h.i.+on. Then mechanically and hopelessly he made a last trial to see if you were really dead, so that he might prepare your grave. He put his hand under your clothes against your heart. He held it there for a long time. Your heart gave no answer. He withdrew it, and in doing so took something away that was suspended about your neck. This was a metallic case and a package wrapped in oiled silk. He gave them to me."

Beatrice had spoken with a sad, measured tone--such a tone as one sometimes uses in prayer--a pa.s.sionless monotone, without agitation and without shame.

Brandon answered not a word.

"Take my hand," she said, "or I can not go through. This only can give me strength."

He clasped it tightly in both of his. She drew a long breath, and continued:

"I thought you dead, and knew the full measure of despair. Now, when these were given me, I wished to know the secret of the man who had twice rescued me from death, and finally laid down his life for my sake.

I did it not through curiosity. I did it," and her voice rose slightly, with solemn emphasis--"I did it through a holy feeling that, since my life was due to you, therefore, as yours was gone, mine should replace it, and be devoted to the purpose which you had undertaken.

"I opened first the metallic case. It was under the dim shade of the African forest, and while holding on my knees the head of the man who had laid down his life for me. You know what I read there. I read of a father's love and agony. I read there the name of the one who had driven him to death. The shadows of the forest grew darker around me; as the full meaning of that revelation came over my soul they deepened into blackness, and I fell senseless by your side.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I THOUGHT YOU DEAD, AND KNEW THE FULL MEASURE OF DESPAIR."]

"Better had Cato left us both lying there to die, and gone off in the boat himself. But he revived me. I laid you down gently, and propped up your head, but never again dared to defile you with the touch of one so infamous as I.

"There still remained the other package, which I read--how you reached that island, and how you got that MS., I neither know nor seek to discover; I only know that all my spirit awaked within me as I read those words. A strange, inexplicable feeling arose. I forgot all about you and your griefs. My whole soul was fixed on the figure of that bereaved and solitary man, who thus drifted to his fate. He seemed to speak to me. A fancy, born out of frenzy, no doubt, for all that horror well-nigh drove me mad--a fancy came to me that this voice, which had come from a distance of eighteen years, had spoken to me; a wild fancy, because I was eighteen years old, that therefore I was connected with these eighteen years, filled my whole soul. I thought that this MS. was mine, and the other one yours. I read it over and over, and over yet again, till every word forced itself into my memory--till you and your sorrows sank into oblivion beside the woes of this man.

"I sat near you all that night. The palms sighed in the air. I dared not touch you. My brain whirled. I thought I heard voices out at sea, and figures appeared in the gloom. I thought I saw before me the form of Colonel Despard. He looked at me with sadness unutterable, yet with soft pity and affection, and extended his hand as though to bless me. Madder fancies than ever then rushed through my brain. But when morning came and the excitement had pa.s.sed I knew that I had been delirious.

"When that morning came I went over to look at you. To my amazement, you were breathing. Your life was renewed of itself. I knelt down and praised G.o.d for this, but did not dare to touch you. I folded up the treasures, and told Cato to put them again around your neck. Then I watched you till you recovered.

"But on that night, and after reading those MSS., I seemed to have pa.s.sed into another stage of being. I can say things to you now which I would not have dared to say before, and strength is given me to tell you all this before we part for evermore.