13 Four Days

ANOTHER night, another dawn, another day night, a third time, and still the lost ones are lost in the wild mountain side!

With the breaking of the third day, there breaks, also, the fine weather that up to this time has served them. This third day dawns with a coppery sky, a lurid, angry-looking sun rises redly over the water, a dead calm holds land and sea locked in an ominous hush. The heat is intolerable. A sultry cloud rises slowly, and gathers and enlarges, grows and advances, and slowly, surely, the whole red sky glooms over. The surf breaks down below, in a dull, threatening whisper, there are fitful soughs of wind, from every quarter of the compass, it seems, at once. Sea-birds whirl and scream, white sails, hull down on the horizon, furl and vanish, the sky lowers, until its dark pall seems to rest on the mountain top. All nature is gathering her forces to hurl out, and meet the coming storm.

These three weary days have brought little change that can be written down, to the hapless trio left stranded. They have dawned and darkened, and between morning and night nothing more exciting than raspberry picking and reading Shakespeare have gone on. Nothing can possibly happen here; no boats approach, there are no wild animals, no reptiles more deadly than garter snakes and grasshoppers, no savages, no anything! And they dare not leave where they are; it is the one spot accessible on all the mountain; the rest is a howling, untrodden, inaccessible wilderness.

The most important event has been the improvement and enlargement of Snowball’s bower. From that inexhaustible receptacle, a boy’s pocket, Johnny has exhumed a ball of string and half a dozen nails. With these he and Rene have widened and tightened the bower, twisted more supple branches, until the little shelter is comparatively strong, and prepared to keep out bleak night blasts, and even withstand a tolerably strong gale. It stands with its back to a great bowlder, the north wind thus cut off, and the branches closely enough locked to exclude at all times the rays of the fierce sea-side sun. Here Snowball has already learned to sleep on her turfy bed as deeply and soundly as ever in the little white cot at home. There is room enough in the bower for her to lie at full length, but decidedly none for superfluous turning round, or standing up. She crawls in on her hands and knees, and backs out—as people do from the presence of royalty—but always on all fours. Here, too, the boys, who remain alternately on the lookout at night, take turns during the day, to woo balmy slumber. And there is nothing else to be done. No fishing, snaring, shooting—nothing but to pick the everlasting raspberry, of which their souls long since wearied, and lie on the furze, and gaze with longing, haggard eyes over the pitiless sea. Sails come and go, but always afar off. They have hoisted their handkerchiefs on trees, they light fires during the day on the hill-side—all in vain. They dare not burn beacons at night, lest vessels should mistake the signal for Dree Island Light, and so be lured on the fatal reefs. And it is the afternoon of this third day, and rescue cometh not.

They rest in different positions on the grass, all silent and sad, and watch, with vague fear, the rising storm. It promises to be a very violent one—a tempest of thunder and lightning—a tornado of wind and rain—a swift summer cyclone, dealing death and destruction upon land and sea.

“And Snowball is so afraid of lightning and thunder,” thinks Rene, “and the bower, that we have tried so hard to rig up for her—will it stand five minutes in the teeth of this rising gale?”

His languid gaze turns to where Snowball lies, prone, and listless, and mute, and pale, with closed eyes, her fair head pillowed on one wasted arm. Yes, wasted, although the remains of the luncheon and the chief share of the raspberries have been hers. She has passionately protested and appealed for an equal division, but Rene, the inflexible, has not yielded a jot.

“You will take what we give you; do as I tell you, or we will never be friends again!” he says, in his most obstinate voice, and she has sobbed and succumbed. But he is very good to her in all else, very gentle, surprisingly tender, amazingly yielding—altogether unlike the self-willed, domineering Rene she has hitherto known. No other quarrel has followed that memorable reconciliation; she may be fretful and irritable at times -she is indeed—but his patience with her never flags. Johnny himself is not sweeter of temper, in these disastrous days. But it is an unnatural state of goodness on both sides, not in the least likely to last, if they only get off with life, but Rene has made up his mind it shall last, during their stay on Chapeau Dieu, and Rene’s resolutions are as those of the Mede and the Persian. His Shakespeare is as a diamond mine to them all. The volume contains four of the tragedies, and Rene, a fine reader, both of English and French, reads aloud to them, and never tires. He dips, too, into the depths of his memory and brings forth such store of anecdote, story, fable, poetry—Victor Hugo’s and Beranger’s, mostly that his two hearers can only listen in gratitude and admiration, and wonder if this most entertaining companion can be the silent and somewhat grim Rene they have hitherto had the honor of knowing.

“I never would have thought you had it in you,” Snowball says to him, with that charming candor, which is a distinguishing character of their intimacy. “No one would. You always seemed to me about as silent and stupid as a white owl. Didn’t he to you, Johnny? I dare say he may grow up to be quite a credit to us yet mightn’t he, Johnny?”

“He won’t grow up much if he has to spend three more days on Chapeau Dieu,” responds Johnny, languidly. “He doesn’t look good for over twenty-four more hours of it. You don’t eat enough, Rene, old boy. You keep all you pick for Sn—I mean you are slowly starving. Let me go and gather you a cupful of berries.”

He makes a weary motion to rise—truth to tell, he—they all—are almost too weak to stir. The raspberries are not so very plentiful, and an utter distaste for their insipid sweetness has seized them all. Rene looks decidedly the worst. His dark, thin face, pale at all times, is blanched to a dull, clayey hue—its outline against the darkening sky has the shrunk, pinched look that only starving gives. He is worn with anxiety; he hardly sleeps; he gives, as Johnny says, the lion’s share of all the fruit he gathers to Snowball, and compels her to take it. His great dark eyes look hollow, and twice their natural size—they shine with a dry, feverish glitter not well to see. But the light that looks out of them now, on his brother, is very sweet.

“Never mind me, mon ami, I am all right. I haven’t much flesh to lose, you know, and we black people show this sort of thing soonest. Look out for yourself. If I can take you and Snowball back in tolerable condition, nothing else matters.”

Then there is silence again; they are too weak, too spent, too thoroughly worn out and spiritless in mind and body to care for talking. And Rene’s voice is past reading. It is husky and broken, and pretty well gone. With a tired sigh Johnny relapses on his hillock, his brown, curly head clasped in his laced fingers, his blue, gentle eyes wandering aimlessly over the bay.

He never complains, never is cross, never wishes, audibly, even for rescue. His face has a dull, slow, patient look of pain, and waiting. He is consumed with grinding hunger and filled with dire forebodings. For raspberries are giving out, and, after another day or two, if help does not come——

He never gets further. A fellow can die but once, he says to himself, with forlorn philosophy. Only this is such slow dying. And then there is papa—always there is papa—back by now, and frantic with fear and grief. At this point Johnny’s face goes down on the turf, and he lies very still for a long time.

“Johnny is sleeping,” Snowball will say to herself, in a loud whisper, and keep very close to her boy, and ward off gnats and bees, with a cedar branch. For her, surprising to relate, she keeps up the best of the three, is cross and fractious at times, and full of loud complaints—on the hardship of things in general, and the stupidity of old Tim, and Ma’am Weesy, and all St. Gildas, in particular.

Perhaps this natural mental vent has something to do with her superior physical endurance; but then she is a girl, and needs less, and the slender frame is wonderfully vigorous and healthful.

Still more, she has double rations of berries, although she does not know it. She eats what she picks herself, and, as has been said, the larger share of Rene’s. If she refuses, Rene’s great, dark, lustrous, solemn, severe eyes, transfix her.

“You promised,” he says, and the resolute young lips set.

And then Snowball knows she has found her master, and meekly yields.

“But if ever I get off this horrid place,” she says, in protest to Johnny, “‘this sort of thing will come to an end, let me tell you. Rene may think he is going to tyrannize over me like this all his life! Just you wait until we are back home and you will see.”

“I will,” groans Johnny; “I wish I was back to see now. I sometimes think, Snowball—”

” Well?”

“That “—in a low tone—”we will never go back!”

“Oh, Johnny!”

“This is the afternoon of the third day. Papa must have come back yesterday. Snowball, think of papa!”

“Oh, Johnny! dear, old Johnny!” a great sob, “l do.”

“A storm is rising—look at that sky. We have not had a storm for over two weeks—it will be all the worse when it comes. You know what storms are on this coast. It may last for days.”

“Yes,” sobs Snowball, in despair.

No boat can put off to come to us while it lasts, even if they knew where we were. No boat could land even at Sugar Scoop, except in calm weather. The surf all along the base of Chapeau Dieu is something that requires to be seen to be believed in.”

Snowball is sobbing, with her face in her lap.

The sound arouses Rene, who is lying in a sort of torpor, but is neither sleeping nor waking, and he looks angry at his brother.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” he says; “why do you make her cry? What are you telling her?”

“Nothing much,” says Johnny, surprised at his own performance. “I didn’t mean to make her cry; I was saying a storm is rising—a bad one—and no boat can come until it is over. I say, Snowball, hold up.”

But Snowball, weak, frightened, hungry, sobs on.

“You need not tell her such things—time enough for trouble when it comes, Snowball!” Rene cries out, and his voice is sharp with nervous pain, “don’t. It hurts me to hear you. Oh, my God!” he says, under his breath, “help us—help her! Do not leave us here to die!”

Then, with the prayer still on his lips, he sinks back, too weary even to sit upright, and seems to sleep. Rene is in a very bad way—indeed, is the worst case of the three, and somehow the knowledge comes home to Snowball, and stills her tears.

She looks at him—if Rene, their mainstay, fails, what is to become of them. As she looks, a smile crosses his worn, pallid face—Rene has a very sweet smile, the more sweet for being rare.

“Give it to her,” he says; “we don’t want it, Johnny. For me, I will have coffee, I think.”

“Oh, hear him!” Snowball says, her ready tears streaming again. “He is dreaming of home and something to eat. And look at his face—like death. He is starving, Johnny. Oh, Johnny, it breaks my heart.” Johnny says nothing, he has nothing to say. He turns away, that he may not see his brother’s face, and watches the rapidly rising storm.

“Here it is!” he cries out.

A great drop of rain falls from the sullen sky and flashes in his upturned face, then another, and another. There is a profound hush, nature seems to hold her breath for a second, then in its might the swift summer tempest is upon them. The lightning leaps out like a fiery sword, a terrific clap of thunder shakes the sky and sea. The bay wrinkles for a moment in an awful way; it crouches before the fury of the wind; and then the hurricane sweeps down upon them like a giant let loose. Flash after flash cuts the sky asunder, peal after peal shakes the mighty mountain to its base, the blast roars down from the summit with hoarse bellowing; the sea answers back with deep and hollow echo. Spruce and cedar saplings are torn up with, one fierce rush, and whirled out to sea. The bower went hurling at the first stroke of the tornado, torn wildly into shreds.

Rene grasps his rock, his hat blown into space in the first gust, and clings for his life, his thin clothes drenched through in a moment.

Johnny and Snowball are together; Snowball, with a shriek, has flung her arms about him at the first flash of lightning, and so clings, her face hidden on his shoulder, her long, light hair streaming in the gale.

Johnny holds her hand; he can feel her quiver from head to foot at each flash, at each clap—except for that she is still.

So they crouch, beaten down, soaked through, breathless atoms, in the mad hurly-burly of wind, and lightning, and rain. Darkness has fallen, too, swift, dense—they can hardly see each other’s faces, though but a few yards apart.

It lasts for nearly an hour—a lifetime it seems to them. Then slowly, as if with reluctance, to see the evil it has wrought, the dark clouds light, the sky brightens, the thunder rumbles off into space, the wind lulls, the rain ceases. Only the sea, like some sullen monster, slow to wrath, is slow also to forgive, keeps up its dull bellowing, and breaks, and beetles, and thunders in huge great breakers over the sunken reefs, and up against the granite sides of Chapeau Dieu.

But they can breathe once more, and Snowball lifts her head, with all its dripping flaxen hair; and three white young faces—blue eyes, gray eyes, brown eyes look into each other, in awful hush. There is nothing to be said, nothing to be done; they are wet to the skin; the breath is nearly beaten out of their bodies; the surf may roll heavily for days around the mountain; no help can come now—and the last of the raspberries have been beaten off the bushes and washed into pulp by the fury of the storm. It is the crowning disaster of all.

“So be it!” Rene says at last, aloud, as if in answer to their thought—”we can but die!”

“It was death before,” Johnny responds, “and no fellow can die more than once.”

“Snowball,” the elder boy says, and rises slowly, and sits beside her, “you are not afraid, are you? Dear little Snowball. I am sorry for you!”

She makes no reply. She is only conscious of being very tired—very, very tired. She is not conscious of being afraid, but Rene sees that nervous quiver strike through her again.

“Are you cold?” he asks, in his weak voice.

“No; only tired. Let me rest—so—Rene, dear.”

He holds her, and so they sit; and so night finds them, when it falls. It falls soft and star-lit, but very chill; the clouds sweep away before the bright wind, and the moon looks down on these three forlorn lost children sitting helpless here, waiting for the end. For hope has died out, and it is death now, they know—slow, dragging death, far from friends and home. There is nothing more that can be done, or said, or planned for no need of further bowers—no strength left to make them. They only want to keep close together, and so let death find them when its slow mercy comes.

Johnny lies on his face on the soaked grass. Rene and Snowball rest against the great, mossy bowlder, her head on his shoulder, in stupor, or sleep. Strange, that in this supreme hour, with the end so near, it is to Rene she clings—her last hold on earth as life slips away. Such a feeble hold! the weak little arms have scarcely strength enough left to clasp his neck.

So the night wears. The breeze blows; they are chilled to the marrow of their bones. All through the cold, bright, pale hours, the surf thunders below—their lullaby—and life wanes weaker with the deathly chill coming of the new day. But when the night has passed, and the stars paled and waned, and another sun has risen, they are still alive. Alive—and but little more. It is with a labored, painful effort that Johnny gathers himself together and stands on his feet.

“Try it, Snowball,” he says, huskily. “See if you can stand. Let us go and look for—for berries.”

She does as she is told, but in a dazed sort of way. Yes, she can stand, can walk, but not easily, over the sodden furze.

“Will you come, Rene?” she says. “We are going to look for—berries.”

Each word comes with pain, her throat and lips are swollen and dry. But starvation is stronger than weakness, even with Rene, most spent of the three, and he too, gets on his feet in a blind and giddy fashion.

“Come,” he says, and holds out his hand.

She takes it, and they totter on a few steps. Johnny recovers first and most, and manages to walk tolerably well after a moment; but it is hard work for the other two.

“There is something—the matter—with the ground,” Rene gasps, giddily. “It is—going—up and down, Snowball!”

He utters a cry. Earth and sky go up, and come down, and seem to strike him with a crash on the back of his head. With that cry he reels forward, and falls at her feet like the dead.