Jupiter Lights Part 47

"Follow that canoe!" said Cicely.

The man tried to obey Cicely; to intensify his obedience he stood up and paddled with his back bent. There came another flurry of wind; his boat careened again, and he lost his balance, he gave a yell. For a moment Eve thought that he had gone overboard. But he had only crouched. "Go back--while you can," she called, warningly.

And this time he obeyed her.

"Eve, take me with you--take me!" cried Cicely, in a tone that went to the heart.

"We needn't both of us die," Eve answered, calling back for the last time.

As she went forward on her course, lightning began to show itself frequently in pallid forks on the dark cloud-bank. "If only there's no gale!" she thought. Through these minutes she had been able to distinguish what she supposed was the baby's canoe; but now she lost it.

She rowed on at random; then she began to call. Nothing answered. The lightning grew brighter, and she blessed the flashes; they would show her, perhaps, what she was in search of; with every gleam she scanned the lake in a different direction. But she saw nothing. She called again: "Jacky! Jack-y!" A great bird flew by, close over her head, and startled her; its wings made a rus.h.i.+ng sound. "Jack-y! Jack-y!" She rowed on, calling loudly.

It was now perfectly dark. Presently an unusually brilliant gleam revealed for an instant a dark object on her left. She rowed towards it.

"Jacky, speak to Aunty Eve. Aunty Eve is close beside you." She put her whole heart into this cry; then she waited, breathless.

From a distance came a sound, the sweetest which Eve Bruce had ever heard. "Ess," said Jack's brave little voice.

She tried to row towards it. Before she could reach the spot a wind coming from the south drove her canoe back. "Jacky, Jacky, say yes again."

"Ess," said the voice, fainter, and farther away.

The wind was stronger now, and it began to make a noise too, as it crossed the lake.

"Jacky, Jacky, you _must_ answer me."

"Ess."

A cras.h.i.+ng peal of thunder broke over their heads; when it had ceased, she could hear the poor little lad crying. His boat must have drifted, for his voice came from a new direction.

"I am coming directly to you, Jacky," she called, altering her course rapidly.

The thunder began again, and filled her ears. When it ceased, all was still.

"Jacky! Jacky!"

No answer.

And now there came another cry: "Eve, where are you? Wait for me." It was Cicely.

"This way," called Eve.

She never dreamed that Cicely was alone; she supposed that the Irishman had taken heart of grace and ventured back. But presently a canoe touched hers, and there in the night she saw Cicely all alone, like a phantom. "Baby?" demanded Cicely, holding the edge of Eve's boat.

"I heard him only a moment ago," answered Eve, as excited as herself.

"Jacky! Jacky!"

No reply.

Then Cicely's voice sounded forth clearly: "It's mamma, Jack. Speak to mamma."

"Mam-ma!" came the answer. A distant sound, but full of joy.

Eve put her paddle in the water again. "Wait," said Cicely. And she stepped from her canoe into Eve's, performing the difficult feat without hesitation or tremor. The other canoe was abandoned, and Eve was off with a strong stroke.

"Call," she said.

Cicely called, and Jack answered.

"Call again."

"His poor little throat will be so tired!" said Cicely, her own voice trembling.

"We _must_," said Eve.

"Jack-y!"

"Ess."

On they went, never reaching him, though he answered four times; for, in spite of the intensity of Eve's exertion, the sound constantly changed its direction. Cicely called to her child, she sang to him; she even laughed. "How slow you are!" she said to Eve. "Don't stop."

"I stopped to listen."

But presently they were both listening in vain. Jack's voice had ceased.

The wind now blew not in gusts, but steadily. Eve still rowed with all her strength, in reality at random, though; with each new flash of lightning she took a new direction, so that her course resembled the spokes of a wheel.

"He has of course fallen asleep," said Cicely. "He is always so good about going to bed."

Their canoe now rose and fell perceptibly; the tranquillity of the lake was broken, it was no longer gray gla.s.s, nor a black floor; first there was a swell; then little waves showed themselves; by-and-by these waves had crests. Eve, kneeling on the bottom, exerted all her intelligence to keep the boat in the right position.

"These canoes never tip over when left alone; it's only when people try to guide them," said Cicely, confidently. "Now Jack's just like no one; he's so very light, you know."

Words were becoming difficult, their canoe rose on the crest of one wave, then plunged down into the hollow behind it; then rose on the next. A light flared out on their left; it was low down, seeming below their own level.

"They have kindled--a fire--on the beach," called Eve. She was obliged to call now, though Cicely was so near.

"Yes. Porley," Cicely answered.

They were not so far out as they had thought; the light of the fire showed that. Perhaps they had been going round in a circle.

Eve was now letting the boat drift; Jack's canoe was drifting, the same currents and wind might take theirs in the same direction; it was not very long since they had heard his last cry, he could not be far away.

The lightning had begun to come in great sheets of white light; these were blinding, but if one could bear to look, they lit up the surface of the water for an instant with extraordinary distinctness. Cicely, from her babyhood so impressionable to lightning, let its glare sweep over her unmoved; but her beautiful eyes were near-sighted, she could not see far. Eve, on the contrary, had strong eyesight, and after what seemed a long time (it was five minutes), she distinguished a dark, low outline very near at hand; she sent the boat in that direction with all her might.

"It's Jack!" she called to Cicely.

Cicely, holding on to the sides of the canoe, kept her head turned, peering forward with her unseeing eyes into the alternating darkness and dazzling glare. The flashes were so near sometimes that it seemed as if they would sweep across them, touch them, and shrivel them up.

Now they approached the other boat; they came up to it on the crest of a wave. Cicely took hold of its edge, and the two boats went down into the hollow behind together.