A hand seized one side of the boat. Close to the manly head he had seen, was the marble face of Mabel Harrington, half veiled by tresses of wet hair. Ben fell upon his knees, and plunging his arms into the waves, drew her into the boat.
"For the sh.o.r.e--for your life!" shouted James Harrington, refusing to be helped, but clinging to the boat. "No, no--strike out; I will hold on--pull--pull!"
Ben took off his coat, and rolling it in a bundle, placed it under Mabel Harrington"s head. It was all he could do. The boat was a third full of water, and he had nothing else.
"Get in--get in--or she will be drowned over again!" he pleaded, seizing James Harrington by the shoulders, and dragging him over the side. "Get down, keep her head out of water, and it"ll take a worse storm than this to drive me back."
Harrington fell rather than sat down, and took Mabel in his arms, close to a heart so chilled that it had almost ceased beating. But as her cold face fell upon his bosom, a glow of life came back to it, with a pang of unsupportable feeling. It was not joy--it was not sorrow--but the warmth in his veins seemed like a sweet poison, which would end in death.
He put the numb and senseless form aside with a great effort, resting the head upon Ben"s coat. Twice he attempted to speak, but his trembling lips uttered nothing but broken moans.
"Take her," he said to Ben, "take her and I will pull the oars."
"You haven"t life enough in you, sir," pleaded Ben, shrinking from the proposal.
"I am strong again," said Harrington, placing himself on the seat and taking the oars. "See!"
The boat plunged heavily sh.o.r.eward. Ben held his mistress with a sort of terror at the sacrilege. His brawny arms trembled around her. He turned his face to the storm, rather than allow his eyes to rest upon her. But James Harrington had no compa.s.sion; he still kept to the oars.
At last they shot into a point of the sh.o.r.e, formed by two or three jutting rocks. Harrington dropped the oars, and the two men lifted Mabel Harrington from the boat, and bore her to a slope of the hill. No shelter was in sight. The sudden storm was abating, but rain still dropped in showers from the trees.
"Where can we convey her? What shall we do?" said Harrington, looking around in dismay. "She will perish before we can obtain warmth, if she is not already gone."
Ben had flung down his coat. They laid her upon it. James Harrington knelt upon the turf, and lifted her head to his knee. The face was pale as death; purple shadows lay about the mouth, and under the eyes; her flesh was cold as marble.
Again the deathly cold came creeping to Harrington"s heart. He shuddered from head to foot, "She is dead--she is dead!" broke from his chilled lips.
"Oh, Mr. Harrington, Mr. Harrington, what can we do? What can we do?"
groaned Ben, clasping his huge hands, and crying like a child over the poor lady. "She isn"t dead--don"t! That word is enough to kill a poor miserable feller, as wanted to die for her and couldn"t."
His only answer was a low moan from James Harrington.
"Is there no house, no living soul near to give us help?" said James Harrington, lifting his white face to that of Ben Benson, while his voice shook, and his arms trembled around the cold form they half supported, half embraced. "If there is a spark of life left it will go out in this cold--if she is dead--"
"Don"t! oh, Mister James, don"t!" cried Ben wringing his hands with fresh violence, "them"s cruel words to stun a poor fellow"s heart with--she ain"t dead, G.o.d don"t take his angels up to glory in that "ere way!"
James laid Mabel reverently from his arms, and stood up casting anxious glances through the storm.
"There is a light, yonder upon the hill-side,--you can just see it through the drifting clouds--go, Ben, climb for your life and bring us help!"
Ben stooped down, clapped a hand on each knee and took an observation.
"There is a light, that"s sartin," he said joyfully, settling himself in his wet clothes and making a start for the hill; but directly he turned back again.
"If she"s so near gone as you speak on, Mister James, it wouldn"t be of no use for me to go up there for help--she"d be chilled through and through, till there was no bringing her back, long afore I could half-way climb the hill!"
"I fear it, I fear it!" said Harrington, looking mournfully down on the white face at his feet, "G.o.d help her!"
"See," said Ben stretching forth his hand towards the burning cedar, "G.o.d Almighty has gin us light and fire close by--the gra.s.s is crisped and dried up all around that tree. What if we carry the madam there?
I"ll go up the hill with a heart in it arter that!"
Ben stooped as if about to take the cold form of his mistress in his arms, but as his hands touched her garments some inward restraint fell upon him, and he drew back, looking wistfully from Harrington to the prostrate woman he dared not raise from the earth even in her extremity.
As he stooped a strange light had flashed into James Harrington"s eyes, and he made a motion as if to push the poor boatman aside.
Ben did not see this, as we have said, his retreat was a voluntary impulse. He saw James Harrington take up the form he dared not touch, with a feeling of deep humiliation, submitting to the abrupt and stern manner which accompanied the action, as a well deserved rebuke for his boldness.
A small ravine separated the point of land occupied by the little party from the burning cedar, and towards this Harrington bore his silent burden. His cheeks grew deadly pale from a feeling deeper than fear or cold, and his eyes flashed back the gleams of light that reached him from the burning tree with a wild splendor that no mortal man had ever seen in them before.
He held Mabel closer and closer to his heart, which rose and heaved beneath its burden; his breath came in broken volumes from his chest, and an insane belief seized upon him, that though dead he could arouse her from that icy sleep, by forcing the breath of his own abundant existence through her lips.
Fired by this wild thought he bowed his head nearer and nearer to the pallid face upon his shoulder. But the voice of Ben Benson brought him back to sanity again.
"Be careful, sir! The hollow is full of ruts and broken stones! She is too heavy--You stagger and reel like a craft that has lost her helm!
Steady, sir--steady, or she"ll be hurt!"
James Harrington stopped suddenly, as if a war trumpet had checked his progress. His face changed in the burning light. His arms relaxed around the form they had clasped so firmly a moment before.
"Take her!" he said, with an imploring look. "Take her! I am very weak.
You see how I falter--Take her, Benson. She is not heavy, it is only I that have lost all strength!"
Ben reached forth his brawny arms, as we sometimes see a great school-boy receive a baby sister, and folded them reverently around the form which Harrington relinquished with a sigh of unutterable humiliation.
Ben moved forward with a quick firm tread, following Harrington, who went before trampling down the undergrowth, and putting aside the drooping branches from his path.
CHAPTER IX.
THE BURNING CEDAR.
The cedar tree stood on a slope of the bank, and had cast its fiery rain over the herbage and brushwood for yards around, leaving them crisped and dry.
Harrington gathered up a quant.i.ty of the seared gra.s.s, and heaped a dry couch upon which Ben laid his charge within the genial heat that came from the cedar tree. Then they gathered up all the combustible matter within reach, and began to kindle a fire so near to the place where she lay that its heat must help to drive back the chill of death if there was a spark of life yet vital in her bosom.
Harrington knelt beside Mabel. He chafed her hands between his own, and wrung the water from her long hair. But it all seemed in vain. No color came to those blue fingers. The purple tinge still lay like the shadow of violets under the closed eyes,--no motion of the chest--no stir of the limbs. At last drops of water came oozing through the white lips, and a scarcely perceptible shiver ran through the limbs.
"It is life!" said Harrington, lifting his radiant face to the boatman.
"Are you sartin it ain"t the wind a stirring her gown?" asked Ben, trembling between anxiety and delight.
"No, no--her chest heaves,--she struggles. It is life, precious, holy life; G.o.d has given her back to us, Ben!"
"I don"t know--I ain"t quite sartin yet, if she"d only open her eyes, or lift her hand!" exclaimed the poor fellow.
Here a faint groan broke from the object of his solicitude, and she began to struggle upon the ground.