Maid of the Mist Part 22

"'S no good. She's gone, sure," he said.

"I don't think so.... Too soon to give up anyway," and the Doctor worked on tirelessly. "If she should come round----"

"She won't."

"--She'll be starving. You might break up some hard-tack very small and warm it up in some weak rum and water," and he went on with his rubbing.

And at last, when he had almost given up hope himself, he had his reward. The mate, poking in a head deprecatory of further waste of time and energy on so hopeless a job, stood staring amazedly. For the pinched dead look of the pitiful white face had given place to a faint presage of life, like the first flutter of dawn on the pallid darkness of the night. Death had visibly relaxed his chill grip. There was a tinge of colour in the parted lips, and the white teeth inside had come together.

"She lives," said Wulfrey softly. "Her heart is at work again. Warm up that rum and water," and when it came he administered it cautiously in drops again, and this time they were visibly swallowed.

"Have the warm mash ready," he said; and even as he spoke the blue-veined lids fluttered, but so feebly as hardly to lift the long dark lashes from the white cheeks. And through that narrowed window the recovered soul looked mistily out on life once more.

He gave her still a little more hot rum and water, and when the warm mashed biscuit came fed her slowly with that, and she swallowed it hungrily if unconsciously.

Then, well satisfied with his work, he piled more blankets on her and left her to herself.

He had had many a fight with death, but none closer than this. The s.n.a.t.c.hing of a life from the cold hand that was closing on it was always a cause for rejoicing with him. And this life, by reason of its comely tenement, had appealed to him in quite an unusual way.

Who she was, and what manner of woman, was still to be learned. For the moment it was enough that she had been within an ace of death and was alive again, and that she was unusually good to look upon.

XXV

When the Doctor had had a plunge overboard to restore the vitality he had expended on his patient, they sat down to eat, and the mate was inclined to enlarge somewhat exuberantly on the morning's work,--upon his own share in it especially.

"A wonderful fine piece of goods for any man to drag out of the water.

I'm doubting if you'd have seen her if you'd bin there, Doctor. Just happened to lift my eye that way, and the white of her caught it, and in I went. Not that I thought she could be living, you understand.

She felt like Death itself when I carried her ash.o.r.e in my arms----"

"She'll be distressed for lack of clothes when she's ready to get up.

But that won't be to-day anyway. Do you think you can light on any out yonder?"

"Lit on some last time I was there, but left 'em 'cause they were no use to us. That lot'll mebbe be gone, but there's plenty more for the finding. I'll see to it to-morrow."

"She will be grateful to you, I'm sure."

"She should, for if it hadn't bin for me she'd be tumbling about on yon spar still, and dead by this time, I'm thinking."

"She couldn't have stood much more, that's certain. I was near losing hope myself at times."

"Wouldn't have believed she'd ever come back if I hadn't seen it. It's being a doctor made ye keep on so."

"One feels bound to keep on while there's a possible chance left. In this case one couldn't but feel that there was a chance, if only a small one. We've done a good day's work to-day."

"Ay," said the mate, and presently, "I'm thinking I'll go out there today to get her some clothes. They'll need a lot of drying, you see."

"Can you do it before dark?"

"I'll do it. Ye'll see to her."

"I'll see to her all right. A little more food and then the longer she sleeps the better. If she'd lie where she is for a couple of days it would be all to the good."

"Then I'll go," but he came back to bend down into the little companion-way and say, "If she's asking, ye'll tell her it was me pulled her out the water."

"I'll tell her."

When, presently, Wulfrey went to see how she was going on, he found her sleeping quietly the sleep of utter exhaustion, and as he stood looking at her it seemed to him that she grew more beautiful each time he saw her.

The long wet tresses, whose clamminess he had carefully disposed behind the rolled-up blankets which served as a pillow, were drying to a deep warm brown. As they carried her in he had thought her hair was black.

It was very thick and long. The texture of her skin, now that the coursing blood had obliterated to some extent the pinch and the bite of the sea, was fine and delicate, he could see, though suffering still from the salt.

The pink fingers of one hand had pulled down the blankets round her neck as though she had craved more air, and the soft white neck was smooth and white as marble. The one ear turned towards him was like a delicate little pink sh.e.l.l.

All these things he noted before his gaze settled on the quiet sleeping face, and lingered there with a strange new sense of joyous discovery and unexpected increase, as one might feel who suddenly unearths a hidden treasure.

He wondered again who she was and whence she came. Of gentle birth, he was sure. It showed in every feature of the placid face,--in the strong sweet curves of a not too small mouth,--in the delicately-turned nostrils,--in the soft level brows,--in the long fringing lashes which, with the shadows left by her sharp encounter with Death, cast about her closed eyes a misty enchantment full of witchery and allurement. He wondered what colour her eyes would be when they opened.

A wide white forehead, somewhat high cheek-bones, and a round well-moulded chin, added a fine dignity to the sleeping face. He stood so long gazing at its all-unconscious fascination that he feared at last lest the very earnestness of his look might disturb her.

So he picked up her only earthly possession, and leaving her, sleeping soundly, in sole charge of the s.h.i.+p, paddled across to the nearer sh.o.r.e, washed the salt out of her dainty single garment in a fresh-water pool, and spread it in the sun to dry, and then went after rabbits for her benefit when she should waken ravenous.

Returned on board, after a glance at his still-sleeping patient,--who lay so motionless that, but for the slight, slow rise and fall of the blankets over her bosom, one might have deemed her dead,--he set to the making of as tempting a soup as rabbit and rice could furnish, and regretted, more sorely than ever before, his lack of salt and seasoning.

Then he sat waiting for her to awake and for Macro to come home. If she did not wake of her own accord before sunset he decided to wake her himself. Sleep was without doubt the best of all restoratives, but Nature craves sustenance, and she was almost certainly starving. She would recover strength more quickly still if her system had something to draw upon.

Then, too, they had no light but that of the fire. If she woke up in the dark she would be sorely exercised in her mind to know where she had got to. It would be better to satisfy her, mentally and bodily, while still there was daylight to see by.

So, when the sun shone level through the western portholes, he went softly to where she lay, still sleeping soundly, and after watching her again for a moment, he placed his hand gently on her forehead.

She frowned at the touch and moved uneasily among her blankets. Then the heavy eyes opened and she lay staring wonderingly up at him, evidently trying to piece past and present together, and to make out where she was.

"Where am I? ... Who are you?" she jerked, in a voice that would have been rich and full if it had not been a little hoa.r.s.e and husky. And the pink fingers grasped the blanket and drew it up under the rounded white chin.

"You are quite safe on a s.h.i.+p. I am a doctor. I want you to eat some warm soup and then you shall sleep again as long as you can. Here is your night-rail, washed and dried; perhaps you would like to put it on.

I will go and fetch the soup."

When he came back presently she was visibly more at ease with her frills about her neck. She raised herself on her left elbow, and he placed the tin pannikin of soup in front of her, together with some broken biscuit.

"Can you feed yourself?" he asked.

"Oh, yes--if I had a spoon."

"I am sorry to say we have no spoons."

"No spoons?" and she stared at him in vast surprise.