The Island of Gold Part 23

"We waited not a moment to speak. I lifted the young lady in my arms.

How light she was! James escorted the elder, sometimes carrying her, sometimes permitting her to walk.

"Then the journey back was commenced.

"But in the open a glimmer of moonlight fell on the face of the beautiful burden I bore. She had fainted. That I could see at a glance.

"But something more I saw, and, seeing, tottered and nearly fell; for hers was the same lovely and childlike face I had seen that evening, which now appeared so long ago, in the Liverpool theatre.

"I felt now as if walking in the air. But I cannot describe or express my feelings, being only a sailor, and so must not attempt to.

"We might have still been a hundred yards from the bridge and river, when suddenly there rang out behind and on each side of us the most awful yells I had ever listened to, while the beating of tom-toms, or war-drums, sounded all over the eastern part of the island.

"'On, men, on to the bridge!' shouted brave James. No need for concealment now.

"It was a short but fearful race, but now we are on it, on the bridge!

"On and over!

"All but James!

"Where is he? The moon escapes from behind a cloud and s.h.i.+nes full upon his st.u.r.dy form, still on the other side, and at the same time we can hear the sharp ring of his revolver. Then, oh! we see him tearing up the planks of the bridge, and dropping them one by one into the gulf beneath. We pour in a volley to keep the savages back.

"'Fly for your lives!' shouts brave James. 'Save the ladies; I'll swim.'

"Next minute he dives into the chasm! For one brief moment we see his face and form in the pale moonlight. Then he disappears. He is gone.

"'O my friend, my brother!' I cry, stretching out my arms as if I would plunge madly into the pool that lies far beneath yonder, part in shade and part in s.h.i.+ne.

"But they dragged me away by main force. They led me to the boat. The savages could not follow. But I seemed to see nothing now, to know nothing, to feel nothing, except that I had lost the dearest friend on earth. He had sacrificed himself to save us!"

Book 2--CHAPTER SEVEN.

"I THINK YOU'RE GOING ON A WILD-GOOSE CHASE."

Halcott paused, and gazed seawards over the great stretch of wet beach.

So wet was it that the sun's parting rays lit it up in great stripes of crimson chequered with gold.

And yonder are the children coming slowly home across these painted sands.

A strange group, most certainly, but united in one bond of union--oh, would that all the world were so!--the bond of love.

The brother's arm is placed gently around his sister's waist; the Admiral is stepping drolly by Ransey's side, with his head and neck thrust through the lad's arm.

Something seems to tell the bird that fate, which took away his master before, might take him once again.

Bob brings up the rear. His head is low towards the sands, but he feels very happy and satisfied with his afternoon's outing.

Halcott once more lit his pipe.

The two others were silent, and Mr Tandy nodded when Halcott smiled and looked towards him.

"Yes," he said, "there is a little more of my story yet untold; there is a portion of it still in the future, I trust. With this, however, destiny alone has to do. Suffice it to say, that as far as Doris and myself--my simple sailor-self--are concerned, we shall be married when I return from my next cruise, if all goes well, and, like two vessels leaving the harbour on just such a beautiful night as this, sail away to begin our voyage of life on just such a beautiful sea.

"You must both know Doris before I start. But where, think you, do I mean to sail to next? No, do not answer till I tell you one thing.

Neither Doris nor her mother received, while in that little lake island, the slightest injury or insult."

"Then there is some good in the breast of even the wildest savage," put in Weathereye. "I always thought so; bother me if I didn't. Ahem!"

"Ah, wait, Captain Weathereye, wait! I fear my experience is different from yours. Those fiendish savages on that Isle of Misfortune were reserving my dear Doris and her mother for a fate far more terrible than anything ever described in books of imagination.

"We rescued them, by G.o.d's mercy, just in time. They were then under the protection of the awful priests, or medicine-men, and were being fed on fruits and on the petals of rare and beautiful flowers. Their hut itself was composed of flowers and foliage.

"The king, no, not even he, could come near them, until the medicine-men had propitiated the demons that live, according to their belief, in every wood and in every ravine and gully in the island.

"Then, at the full of the moon, on that tiny islet I have marked on the map, the king and his warriors would a.s.semble at midnight, and the awful orgies would commence.

"I shudder even now when I think of it. I happily cannot describe to you the tortures these poor ladies would have been put to before the final, fearful act. But the king would drink 'white blood.' He would then be invulnerable. No foe could any more prevail against him.

"While the blood was still flowing, the stake-fires would-be lit, and--

"But I'll say no more; a cannibal feast would have concluded the ceremonies."

"You mean to say," cried Weathereye, bringing his fist, and a good-sized one it was, down with a bang on the sill of the open window by which he sat--"do you mean to tell me that these devils incarnate would have burned the poor dear ladies alive, then? Oh, horrible!"

"I said that they meant to; but look at this!"

He handed Weathereye a small yellow dagger.

"What a strange little knife! But why, I say, Halcott, Tandy, this knife is made of gold--solid, hammered gold!"

"Yes," said Halcott; "and it is this dagger of hammered gold that would have saved my poor Doris and her mother from the torture and the stake.

"But," he added, "not this dagger only, but every implement in the cave of those fearsome priests was fas.h.i.+oned from the purest gold."

"This is indeed a strange story," said Tandy.

"And now, gentlemen," added Halcott, "can you guess to what seas my barque shall sail next?"

Tandy rose from his seat and took two or three turns up and down the floor.

He was a man who made up his mind quickly enough, and it is such men as these, and only such, who get well on in the world.

Weathereye and Halcott both kept silence. They were watching Tandy.

"Halcott," said the latter, approaching the captain of the _Sea Flower_--"Halcott, have you kept your secret?"