Part 50 (1/2)
About midnight she awoke and felt uneasy. So she did what since his illness she had done a score of times without his knowledge--she stole from her lair to watch him.
She found him wrapped in her present, which gave her great pleasure; and sleeping like an infant, which gave her joy. She eyed him eloquently for a long time; and then very timidly put out her hand, and, in her quality of nurse, laid it lighter than down upon his brow.
The brow was cool, and a very slight moisture on it showed the fever was going or gone.
She folded her arms and stood looking at him; and she thought of all they two had done and suffered together. Her eyes absorbed him, devoured him.
The time flew by unheeded. It was so sweet to be able to set her face from its restraint, and let all its suns.h.i.+ne beam on him; and, even when she retired at last, those light hazel eyes, that could flash fire at times, but were all dove-like now, hung and lingered on him as if they could never look at him enough.
Half an hour before daybreak she was awakened by the dog howling piteously. She felt a little uneasy at that; not much. However, she got up, and issued from her cavern, just as the sun showed his red eye above the horizon. She went toward the boat, as a matter of course. She found Ponto tied to the helm. The boat was empty, and Hazel nowhere to be seen.
She uttered a scream of dismay.
The dog howled and whined louder than ever.
CHAPTER XLI.
WARDLAW senior was not what you would call a tender-hearted man; but he was thoroughly moved by General Rolleston's distress, and by his fort.i.tude. The gallant old man! Landing in England one week and going back to the Pacific the next! Like goes with like; and Wardlaw senior, energetic and resolute himself, though he felt for his son, stricken down by grief, gave his heart to the more valiant distress of his contemporary. He manned and victualed the _Springbok_ for a long voyage, ordered her to Plymouth, and took his friend down to her by train.
They went out to her in a boat. She was a screw steamer, that could sail nine knots an hour without burning a coal. As she came down the Channel, the general's trouble got to be well known on board her, and, when he came out of the harbor, the sailors, by an honest, hearty impulse that did them credit, waited for no orders, but manned the yards to receive him with the respect due to his services and his sacred calamity.
On getting on board, he saluted the captain and the s.h.i.+p's company with sad dignity, and retired to his cabin with Mr. Wardlaw. There the old merchant forced on him by loan seven hundred pounds, chiefly in gold and silver, telling him there was nothing like money, go where you will. He then gave him a number of notices he had printed, and a paper of advice and instructions. It was written in his own large, clear, formal hand.
General Rolleston tried to falter out his thanks. John Wardlaw interrupted him.
”Next to you I am her father; am I not?”
”You have proved it.”
”Well, then. However, if you do find her, as I pray to G.o.d you may, I claim the second kiss, mind that; not for myself, though; for my poor Arthur, that lies on a sick-bed for her.”
General Rolleston a.s.sented to that in a broken voice. He could hardly speak.
And so they parted: and that sad parent went out to the Pacific.
To him it was indeed a sad and gloomy voyage; and the hope with which he went on board oozed gradually away as the s.h.i.+p traversed the vast tracks of ocean. One immensity of water to be pa.s.sed before that other immensity could be reached, on whose vast, uniform surface the search was to be made.
To abridge this gloomy and monotonous part of our tale, suffice it to say that he endured two months of water and infinity ere the vessel, fast as she was, reached Valparaiso. Their progress, however, had been more than once interrupted to carry out Wardlaw's instructions. The poor general himself had but one idea; to go and search the Pacific with his own eyes; but Wardlaw, more experienced, directed him to overhaul every whaler and coasting vessel he could, and deliver printed notices; telling the sad story, and offering a reward for any positive information, good or bad, that should be brought in to his agent at Valparaiso.
Acting on these instructions they had overhauled two or three coasting vessels as they steamed up from the Horn. They now placarded the port of Valparaiso, and put the notices on board all vessels bound westward; and the captain of the _Springbok_ spoke to the skippers in the port. But they all shook their heads, and could hardly be got to give their minds seriously to the inquiry, when they heard in what water the cutter was last seen and on what course.
One old skipper said, ”Look on Juan Fernandez, and then at the bottom of the Pacific; but the sooner you look there the less time you will lose.”
From Valparaiso they ran to Juan Fernandez, which indeed seemed the likeliest place; if she was alive.
When the larger island of that group, the island dear alike to you who read, and to us who write, this tale, came in sight, the father's heart began to beat higher.