Saved at Sea Part 8

'Well, it's a long story,' said my father; 'let's come in, and I'll tell you all about it.'

So we went in together, and my father still looked at me. 'He's very like HER, father,' he said, in a husky voice.

I knew he meant my mother!

'Then you heard about poor Alice?' said my grandfather.

'Yes,' he said; 'it was a very curious thing. A man from these parts happened to be on board the vessel I came home in, and he told me all about it. I felt as if I had no heart left in me, when I heard she was gone. I had just been thinking all the time how glad she would be to see me.'

Then my grandfather told him all he could about my poor mother. How she had longed to hear from him; and how, as week after week and month after month went by, and no news came, she had gradually become weaker and weaker. All this and much more he told him; and whenever he stopped, my father always wanted to hear more, so that it was not until we were sitting over the watchroom fire in the evening that my father began to tell us his story.

He had been s.h.i.+pwrecked on the coast of China. The s.h.i.+p had gone to pieces not far from sh.o.r.e, and he and three other men had escaped safely to land. As soon as they stepped on sh.o.r.e, a crowd of Chinese gathered round them with anything but friendly faces. They were taken prisoners, and carried before some man who seemed to be the governor of that part of the country. He asked them a great many questions, but they did not understand a word of what he said, and, of course, could not answer him.

For some days my father and the other men were very uncertain what their fate would be; for the Chinese at that time were exceedingly jealous of any foreigner landing on their sh.o.r.e. However, one day they were brought out of the wooden house in which they had been imprisoned, and taken a long journey of some two hundred miles into the interior of the country.

And here it was that my poor father had been all those years, when we thought him dead. He was not unkindly treated, and he taught the half-civilized people there many things which they did not know, and which they were very glad to learn. But both by day and night he was carefully watched, lest he should make his escape, and he never found a single opportunity of getting away from them. Of course, there were no posts and no railways in that remote place, and he was quite shut out from the world. Of what was going on at home he knew as little as if he had been living in the moon.

Slowly and drearily eleven long years pa.s.sed away, and then, one morning, they were suddenly told that they were to be sent down to the coast, and put on board a s.h.i.+p bound for England. They told my father that there had been a war, and that one of the conditions of peace was, that they should give up all the foreigners in their country whom they were holding as prisoners.

'Well, David, my lad,' said my grandfather, when he had finished his strange story, 'it's almost like getting thee back from the dead, to have thee in the old home again!'

CHAPTER XI.

ON THE ROCK.

About a fortnight after my father arrived, we were surprised one Monday morning by another visit from old Mr. Davis. His son-in-law had asked him to come to tell my grandfather that he had received a letter with regard to the little girl who was saved from the _Victory_. So he told my father and me as we stood on the pier; and all the way to the house I was wondering what the letter could be.

Timpey was running by my side, her little hand in mine, and I could not bear to think how dull we should be when she was gone.

'Why, it's surely Mr. Davis,' said my grandfather, as he rose to meet the old gentleman.

'Yes,' said he, 'it is Mr. Davis; and I suppose you can guess what I've come for.'

'Not to take our little sunbeam, sir,' said my grandfather, taking Timpey in his arms. 'You never mean to say you're going to take her away?'

'Wait a bit,' said the old gentleman, sitting down and fumbling in his pocket; 'wait until you've heard this letter, and then see what you think about her going.'

And he began to read as follows: MY DEAR SIR,--I am almost over powered with joy by the news received by telegram an hour ago. We had heard of the loss of the _Victory_, and were mourning for our little darling as being amongst the number of those drowned. Her mother has been quite crushed by her loss, and has been dangerously ill ever since the sad intelligence reached us.

'Need I tell you what our feelings were when we suddenly heard that our dear child was alive, and well and happy!

'We shall sail by the next steamer for England, to claim our little darling. My wife is hardly strong enough to travel this week, or we should come at once. A thousand thanks to the brave men who saved our little girl. I shall hope soon to be able to thank them myself. My heart is too full to write much to-day.

'Our child was travelling home under the care of a friend, as we wished her to leave India before the hot weather set in, and I was not able to leave for two months. This accounts for the name Villiers not being on the list of pa.s.sengers on board the _Victory_.

'Thanking you most sincerely for all your efforts to let us know of our child's safety, 'I remain, yours very truly,

'EDWARD VILLIERS.'

'Now,' said the old gentleman, looking at me, and laughing, though I saw a tear in his eye, 'won't you let them have her?'

'Well, to be sure,' said my grandfather, 'what can one say after that?

Poor things, how pleased they are!

'Timpey,' I said, taking the little girl on my knee, 'who do you think is coming to see you? Your mother is coming--coming to see little Timpey!'

The child looked earnestly at me; she evidently had not quite forgotten the name. She opened her blue eyes wider than usual, and looked very thoughtful for a minute or two. Then she nodded her head very wisely, and said,--

'Dear mother coming to see Timpey?'

'Bless her!' said the old gentleman, stroking her fair little head; 'she seems to know all about it.'

Then we sat down to breakfast; and whilst we were eating it, old Mr.

Davis turned to me, and asked if I had read the little piece of paper.

'Yes, sir,' said my grandfather, 'indeed we have read it;' and he told him about Jem Millar, and what he had said to me that last morning. 'And now,' said my grandfather, 'I wish, if you'd be so kind, you would tell me _how to get on the Rock_, for I'm on the sand now; there's no doubt at all about it, and I'm afraid, as you said the last time you were here, that it won't stand the storm.'

'It would be a sad thing,' said old Mr. Davis, 'to be on the sand when the great storm comes.'

'Ay, sir, it would, said my grandfather; 'I often lie in bed at nights and think of it, when the winds and the waves are raging. I call to mind that verse where it says about the sea and the waves roaring, and men's hearts failing them for fear. Deary me, I should be terrible frightened, that I should, if that day was to come, and I saw the Lord coming in glory.'

'But you need not be afraid if you are on the Rock,' said our old friend. 'All who have come to Christ, and are resting on Him, will feel as safe in that day as you do when there is a storm raging and you are inside this house.'

'Yes,' said my grandfather, 'I see that, sir; but somehow I don't know what you mean by getting on the Rock; I don't quite see it, sir.'

'Well,' said Mr. Davis, 'what would you do if this house was built on the sand down there by the sh.o.r.e, and you knew that the very first storm that came would sweep it away?

'Do, sir!' said my grandfather, 'why, I should pull it down, every stone of it, and build it up on the rock instead.'

'Exactly!' said Mr. Davis. 'You have been building your hopes of heaven on the sand--on your good deeds, on your good intentions, on all sorts of sand-heaps. You know you have.

'Yes,' said grandfather, 'I know I have.'

'Well, my friend,' said Mr. Davis, 'pull them all down. Say to yourself, "I'm a lost man if I remain as I am; my hopes are all resting on the sand." And then, build your hopes on something better, something which _will_ stand the storm; build them on Christ. He is the only way to heaven. He has died that you, a poor sinner, might go there. Build your hopes on Him, my friend. Trust to what He has done for you as your only hope of heaven--_that_ is building on the Rock!'

'I see, sir; I understand you now.'

'Do that,' said Mr. Davis, 'and then your hope will be a sure and steadfast hope, a good hope which can never be moved. And when the last great storm comes, it will not touch you; you will be as certainly and as entirely safe in that day as you are in this lighthouse when the storm is raging outside, because you will be built upon the immovable Rock.'

I cannot recollect all the conversation which Mr. Davis and my grandfather had that morning, but I do remember that before he went away he knelt down with us, and prayed that we might every one of us be found on the Rock in that last great storm.

And I remember also that that night, when my grandfather said good-night to me, he said, 'Alick, my lad, I don't mean to go to sleep to-night till I can say, like poor Jem Millar,

'On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand, All other ground is sinking sand.'

And I believe that my grandfather kept his word.