HELEN"S strength was coming back to her but slowly; she complained of great la.s.situde and want of appet.i.te. But, the following day having cleared up, the sun shone out with great power and brilliancy. She gladly welcomed the return of the fine weather, but Hazel shook his head; ten days" rain was not their portion--the bad weather would return, and complete the month or six weeks" winter to which Nature was ent.i.tled. The next evening the appearance of the sky confirmed his opinion. The sun set like a crimson shield; gory, and double its usual size. It entered into a thick bank of dark violet cloud that lay on the horizon, and seemed to split the vapor into rays, but of a dusky kind; immediately above this crimson the clouds were of a brilliant gold, but higher they were the color of rubies, and went gradually off to gray.
But as the orb dipped to the horizon a solid pile of unearthly clouds came up from the southeast; their bodies were singularly and unnaturally black, and mottled with copper-color, and hemmed with a fiery yellow. And these infernal clouds towered up their heads, pressing forward as if they all strove for precedency; it was like Milton"s fiends attacking the sky.
The rate at which they climbed was wonderful. The sun set and the moon rose full, and showed those angry ma.s.ses surging upward and jostling each other as they flew.
Yet below it was dead calm.
Having admired the sublimity of the scene, and seen the full moon rise, but speedily lose her light in a bra.s.sy halo, they entered the hut, which was now the headquarters, and they supped together there.
While they were eating their little meal the tops of the trees were heard to sigh, so still was everything else. None the less did those strange clouds fly northward, eighty miles an hour. After supper, Helen sat busy over the fire, where some gum, collected by Hazel, resembling India-rubber, was boiling; she was preparing to cover a pair of poor Welch"s shoes, inside and out, with a coat of this material, which Hazel believed to be water-proof. She sat in such a position that he could watch her. It was a happy evening. She seemed content. She had got over her fear of him; they were good comrades if they were nothing more. It was happiness to him to be by her side even on those terms. He thought of it all as he looked at her. How distant she had seemed once to him; what an unapproachable G.o.ddess. Yet there she was by his side in a hut he had made for her.
He could not help sipping the soft intoxicating draught her mere presence offered him. But by and by he felt his heart was dissolving within him, and he was trifling with danger. He must not look on her too long, seated by the fire like a wife. The much-enduring man rose, and turned his back upon the sight he loved so dearly. He went out at the open door intending to close it and bid her good-night. But he did not do so, just then; for his attention as an observer of nature was arrested by the unusual conduct of certain animals. Gannets and other sea-birds were running about the opposite wood and craning their necks in a strange way. He had never seen one enter that wood before.
Seals and sea-lions were surrounding the slope, and crawling about, and now and then plunging into the river, which they crossed with infinite difficulty, for it was running very high and strong. The trees also sighed louder than ever. Hazel turned back to tell Miss Rolleston something extraordinary was going on. She sat in sight from the river, and, as he came toward the hut, he saw her sitting by the fire reading.
He stopped short. Her work lay at her feet. She had taken out a letter, and she was reading it by the fire.
As she read it her face was a puzzle. But Hazel saw the act alone; and a dart of ice seemed to go through and through him.
This, then, was her true source of consolation. He thought it was so before. He had even reason to think so. But, never seeing any palpable proofs, he had almost been happy. He turned sick with jealous misery, and stood there rooted and frozen.
Then came a fierce impulse to shut the sight out that caused this pain.
He almost flung her portoullis to, and made his hands bleed. But a bleeding heart does not feel scratches.
"Good-night," said he hoa.r.s.ely.
"Good-night," said she kindly.
And why should she not read his letter? She was his affianced bride, bound to him by honor as well as inclination. This was the reflection to which, after a sore battle with his loving heart, the much-enduring man had to come at last; and he had come to it, and was getting back his peace of mind, though not his late complacency, and about to seek repose in sleep, when suddenly a clap of wind came down like thunder, and thrashed the island and everything in it.
Everything animate and inanimate seemed to cry out as the blow pa.s.sed.
Another soon followed, and another--intermittent gusts at present, but of such severity that not one came without making its mark.
Birds were driven away like paper; the sea-lions whimpered, and crouched into corners, and huddled together, and held each other, whining.
Hazel saw but one thing; the frail edifice he had built for the creature he adored. He looked out of his boat, and fixed his horror-stricken eyes on it; he saw it waving to and fro, yet still firm. But he could not stay there. If not in danger she must be terrified. He must go and support her. He left his shelter, and ran toward her hut. With a whoop and a scream another blast tore through the wood, and caught him. He fell, dug his hands into the soil, and clutched the earth. While he was in that position, he heard a sharp crack; he looked up in dismay, and saw that one of Helen"s trees had broken like a carrot, and the head was on the ground leaping about; while a succession of horrible sounds of crashing, and rending, and tearing showed the frail hut was giving way on every side; racked and riven, and torn to pieces. Hazel, though a stout man, uttered cries of terror death would never have drawn from him; and, with a desperate headlong rush, he got to the place where the bower had been; but now it was a prostrate skeleton, with the mat roof flapping like a loose sail above it, and Helen below.
As he reached the hut, the wind got hold of the last of the four shrubs that did duty for a door, and tore it from the cord that held it, and whirled it into the air; it went past Hazel"s face like a bird flying.
Though staggered himself by the same blow of wind, he clutched the tree and got into the hut.
He found her directly. She was kneeling beneath the mat that a few minutes ago had been her roof. He extricated her in a moment, uttering inarticulate cries of pity and fear.
"Don"t be frightened," said she. "I am not hurt."
But he felt her quiver from head to foot. He wrapped her in all her rugs, and, thinking of nothing but her safety, lifted her in his strong arms to take her to his own place, which was safe from wind at least.
But this was no light work. To go there erect was impossible.
Holding tight by the tree, he got her to the lee of the tent and waited for a lull. He went rapidly down the hill, but, ere he reached the river, a gust came careering over the sea. A st.u.r.dy young tree was near him. He placed her against it, and wound his arms round her and its trunk. The blast came. The tree bent down almost to the ground, then whirled round, recovered, shivered; but he held firmly. It pa.s.sed. Again he lifted her, and bore her to the boat-house. As he went, the wind almost choked her, and her long hair lashed his face like a whip. But he got her in, and then sat panting and crouching, but safe. They were none too soon; the tempest increased in violence, and became more continuous. No clouds, but a ghastly glare all over the sky. No rebellious waves, but a sea hissing and foaming under its master"s lash. The river ran roaring and foaming by, and made the boat heave even in its little creek. The wind, though it could no longer shake them, went screaming terribly close over their heads--no longer like air in motion, but, solid and keen, it seemed the Almighty"s scythe mowing down Nature; and soon it became, like turbid water, blackened with the leaves, branches and fragments of all kinds it whirled along with it. The trees fell crashing on all sides, and the remains pa.s.sed over their heads into the sea.
Helen behaved admirably. Speech was impossible, but she thanked him without it--eloquently; she nestled her little hand into Hazel"s, and, to Hazel, that night, with all its awful sights and sounds, was a blissful one. She had been in danger, but now was safe by his side. She had pressed his hand to thank him, and now she was cowering a little toward him in a way that claimed him as her protector. Her glorious hair blew over him and seemed to net him. And now and then, as they heard some crash nearer and more awful than another, she clutched him quickly though lightly; for, in danger, her s.e.x love to feel a friend; it is not enough to see him near. And once, when a great dusky form of a sea-lion came crawling over the mound, and whimpering peeped into the boathouse, she even fled to his shoulder with both hands for a moment, and was there, light as a feather, till the creature had pa.s.sed on. And his soul was full of peace, and a great tranquillity overcame it. He heard nothing of the wrack, knew nothing of the danger.
Oh, mighty Love! The tempest might blow, and fill the air and earth with ruin, so that it spared her. The wind was kind, and gentle the night, which brought that hair round his face, and that head so near his shoulder, and gave him the holy joy of protecting under his wing the soft creature he adored.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV.
ON the morning that followed this memorable night, our personages seemed to change characters. Hazel sat down before the relics of the hut--three or four strings dangling, and a piece of network waving--and eyed them with shame, regret and humiliation. He was so absorbed in his self-reproaches that he did not hear a light footstep, and Helen Rolleston stood near him a moment or two, and watched the play of his countenance with a very inquisitive and kindly light in her own eyes.
"Never mind," said she, soothingly.
Hazel started at the music.
"Never mind your house being blown to atoms, and mine has stood?" said he, half reproachfully.
"You took too much pains with mine."
"I will take a great deal more with the next."
"I hope not. But I want you to come and look at the havoc. It is terrible; and yet so grand." And thus she drew him away from the sight that caused his pain.
They entered the wood by a path Hazel had cut from the sea-sh.o.r.e, and viewed the devastation in Terrapin Wood. Prostrate trees lay across one another in astonishing numbers, and in the strangest positions; and their glorious plumes swept the earth. "Come," said she, "it is a bad thing for the poor trees, but not for us. See, the place is strewed with treasures.
Here is a tree full of fans all ready made. And what is that? A horse"s tail growing on a cocoa-tree! and a long one, too! that will make ropes for you, and thread for me. Ah, and here is a cabbage. Poor Mr. Welch!
Well, for one thing, you need never saw nor climb any more. See the advantages of a hurricane."
From the wood she took him to the sh.o.r.e, and there they found many birds lying dead; and Hazel picked up several that he had read of as good to eat. For certain signs had convinced him his fair and delicate companion was carnivorous, and must be nourished accordingly. Seeing him so employed, she asked him archly whether he was beginning to see the comforts of a hurricane. "Not yet," said he; "the account is far from even."
"Then come to where the rock was blown down." She led the way gayly across the sands to a point where an overhanging crag had fallen, with two trees and a quant.i.ty of earth and plants that grew above it. But, when they got nearer, she became suddenly grave, and stood still. The ma.s.s had fallen upon a sheltered place, where seals were hiding from the wind, and had buried several; for two or three limbs were sticking out, of victims overwhelmed in the ruin; and a magnificent sea-lion lay clear of the smaller rubbish, but quite dead. The cause was not far to seek; a ton of hard rock had struck him, and then ploughed up the sand in a deep furrow, and now rested within a yard or two of the animal, whose back it had broken. Hazel went up to the creature and looked at it; then he came to Helen. She was standing aloof. "Poor bugbear," said he. "Come away; it is an ugly sight for you."
"Oh, yes," said Helen. Then, as they returned, "Does not that reconcile you to the loss of a hut? We are not blown away nor crushed."
"That is true," said Hazel; "but suppose your health should suffer from the exposure to such fearful weather. So unlucky! so cruel! just as you were beginning to get stronger."
"I am all the better for it. Shall I tell you? excitement is a good thing; not too often, of course; but now and then; and, when we are in the humor for it, it is meat and drink and medicine to us."
"What! to a delicate young lady?"
"Ay, "to a delicate young lady." Last night has done me a world of good.
It has shaken me out of myself. I am in better health and spirits. Of course I am very sorry the hut is blown down--because you took so much trouble to build it; but, on my own account, I really don"t care a straw.
Find me some corner to nestle in at night, and all day I mean to be about, and busy as a bee, helping you, and-- Breakfast! breakfast! Oh, how hungry I am." And this spirited girl led the way to the boat with a briskness and a vigor that charmed and astonished him.
_Souvent femme vane._
This gracious behavior did not blind Hazel to the serious character of the situation, and all breakfast-time he was thinking and thinking, and often kept a morsel in his mouth, and forgot to eat it for several seconds, he was so anxious and puzzled. At last he said, "I know a large hollow tree with apertures. If I were to close them all but one, and keep that for the door? No: trees have betrayed me; I"ll never trust another tree with you. Stay; I know, I know--a cavern." He uttered the verb rather loudly, but the substantive with a sudden feebleness of intonation that was amusing. His timidity was superfluous; if he had said he knew "a bank whereon the wild thyme grows," the suggestion would have been well received that morning.
"A cavern!" cried Helen. "It has always been the dream of my life to live in a cavern."