Night and darkness at last shut out the ill-fated ship from her view.
Leaving the house, she hastily made her way to the sh.o.r.e, and standing on a high, projecting peak, waited for the moon to rise, to view the scene of tempest and death.
It lifted its wan, spectral face at last from behind a bank of dull, black clouds, and lit up with its ghastly light the heaving sea and driving vessel. The tempest seemed momentarily increasing. The waves boiled, and seethed, and foamed, and lashed themselves in fury against the beetling rocks. And, holding by a projecting cliff, Gipsy stood surveying the scene. You might have thought her the spirit of the storm, looking on the tempest she had herself raised. Her black hair and thin dress streamed in the wind behind her, as she stood leaning forward, her little, wild, dark face looking strange and weird, with its blazing eyes, and cheeks burning with the mad excitement of the scene.
Down below her, on the sh.o.r.e, a crowd of hardy fishermen were gathered, watching with straining eyes the gallant craft that in a few moments would be a broken ruin. On the deck could be plainly seen the crew, making most superhuman exertions to save themselves from the terrible fate impending over them.
All in vain! Ten minutes more and they would be dashed to pieces. Gipsy could endure the maddening sight no longer. Leaping from the cliff, she sprang down the rocks, like a mountain kid, and landed among the fishermen, who were too much accustomed to see her among them in scenes like this to be much startled by it now.
"Will you let them perish before your eyes?" she cried, wildly. "Are you men, to stand here idle in a time like this? Out with the boats; and save their lives!"
"Impossible, Miss Gipsy!" answered half a dozen voices. "No boat could live in such a surf."
"Oh, great heaven! And must they die miserably before your very eyes, without even making an effort to save them?" she exclaimed, pa.s.sionately, wringing her hands. "Oh, that I were a man! Listen!
Whoever will make the attempt shall receive five hundred dollars reward!"
Not one moved. Life could not be sacrificed for money.
"There she goes!" cried a voice.
Gipsy turned to look. A wild, prolonged shriek of mortal agony rose above the uproar of the storm, and the crew were left struggling for life in the boiling waves.
With a piercing cry, scarcely less anguished than their own, the mad girl bounded to the sh.o.r.e, pushed off a light _batteau_, seized the oars, and the next moment was dancing over the foaming waves.
A shout of fear and horror arose from the sh.o.r.e at the daring act. She heeded it not, as, bending all her energies to the task of guiding her frail bark through the tempestuous billows, she bent her whole strength to the oars.
Oh! surely her guardian angel steered that boat on its errand of mercy through the heaving, tempest-tossed sea! The salt spray seemed blinding her as it dashed in her face; but on she flew, now balanced for a moment on the top of a snowy hill of foam, the next, sunk down, down, as though it were never more to rise.
"Leap into the boat!" she cried, in a clear, shrill voice, that made itself heard, even above the storm.
Strong hands clutched it with the desperation of death, and two heavy bodies rolled violently in. The weight nearly overset the light skiff; but, bending her body to the oars, she righted it again.
"Where are the rest?" she exclaimed, wildly.
"All gone to the bottom. Give me the oars!" cried a voice.
She felt herself lifted from where she sat, placed gently in the bottom of the boat, and then all consciousness left her, and, overcome by the excitement, she fainted where she lay.
When she again opened her eyes she was lying in the arms of some one on the sh.o.r.e, with a circle of troubled, anxious faces around her. She sprang up wildly.
"Are they saved?" she exclaimed, looking around.
"Yes; thanks to your heroism, our lives are preserved," said a voice beside her.
She turned hastily round. It was Doctor Nicholas Wiseman. Another form lay stark and rigid on the sand, with men bending over him.
A deadly sickness came over Gipsy--she knew not why it was. She turned away, with a violent shudder, from his outstretched hand, and bent over the still form on the sand. All made way for her with respectful deference; and she knelt beside him and looked in his face. He was a boy--a mere youth, but singularly handsome, with a look of deep repose on his almost beautiful face.
"Is he dead?" she cried, in a voice of piercing anguish.
"No; only stunned," said the doctor, coming over and feeling his pulse.
"Take him to Sunset Hall, then," said Gipsy, turning to some of the men standing by.
A shutter was procured, and the senseless form of the lad placed upon it, and, raising it on their shoulders, they bore him in the direction of the old mansion-house.
Doctor Wiseman went toward his own home. And Gipsy, the free mountain maid, leaped up the rocks, feeling, for the first time in her life, sick and giddy. Oh! better, far better for her had they but perished in the seething waves!
CHAPTER XX.
THE SAILOR BOY"S DOOM.
"With gentle hand and soothing tongue She bore the leech"s part; And while she o"er his sick bed hung He paid her with his heart."--SCOTT.
The sunshine of a breezy June morning fell pleasantly into the chamber of the invalid. It was a bright, airy room--a perfect paradise of a sick chamber--with its snowy curtained bed, its tempting easy-chair, its white lace window curtains fluttering softly in the morning air. The odor of flowers came wafted through the open cas.e.m.e.nt; and the merry chirping of a bright-winged canary, hanging in the sunshine, filled the room with its cheerful music.
Reclining in the easy-chair, gazing longingly out at the glorious sunshine, sat the young sailor whose life Gipsy had saved. His heavy dark hair fell in shining waves over his pale, intelligent brow; and his large blue eyes had a look of dreamy melancholy that few female hearts could have resisted.
Suddenly his eye lighted up, and his whole face brightened, as a clear, sweet voice, singing a gay carol, met his ear. Gipsy still retained her old habit of singing as she walked; and the next moment the door opened, and she stood, like some bright vision, before him, with cheeks glowing, eyes sparkling, and her countenance bright and radiant from her morning ride; her dark purple riding-habit setting off to the best advantage her straight, slight; rounded form; and her jaunty riding-hat, with its long, sweeping, sable plume, giving her the air of a young mountain queen, crowned with vitality, and sceptered with life and beauty.
"Oh, I have had such a charming canter over the hills this morning," she cried, with her wild, breezy laugh. "How I wished you had been well enough to accompany me. Mignonne fairly flew, leaping over yawning chasms and rocks as though he felt not the ground beneath him. But I am forgetting--how do you feel this morning?"
"Much better, sweet lady. Who could be long ill with such a nurse?" he replied, while his fine eyes lit up with admiration and grat.i.tude.
Gipsy, be it known, had installed herself as the nurse of the young sailor; and, by her sleepless care and tender nursing, had almost restored him from death to life. And when he became convalescent, she would sit by his bedside for hours, reading, talking, and singing for him, until grat.i.tude on his part ripened into fervent love; while she only looked upon him as she would on any other stranger--taking an interest in him only on account of his youth and friendliness, and because she had saved his life.
"Well, I"m glad to hear it, I"m sure! I want you to hurry and get well, so you can ride out with me. Are you a good horseman?"
"Yes, I think so," he said, smiling.
"Because, if you"re not, you mustn"t attempt to try our hills. It takes an expert rider, I can tell you, to gallop over them without breaking his neck."
"Yet _you_ venture, fairest lady."
"_Me?_ Ha, ha! Why, I"ve been on horseback ever since I was two years old. My horse is my other self. I could as soon think of living without laughing as without Mignonne."
"Then, sweet lady, you will kindly be my teacher in the art of riding."
"Oh, I wouldn"t want better fun; but look here, Mr. Danvers, don"t be "sweet lady"-ing me! I ain"t used to it, you know. People generally call me "Monkey," "Imp," "Torment," "Wretch," and other pet names of a like nature. But if you don"t like any of them, call me Gipsy, or Gipsy Gower, but don"t call me "sweet lady" again. You see, I never could stand nicknames."
"And may I ask you why you have received those names?" inquired the young midshipman (for such he was), laughing.
"Why, because I _am_ an imp, a wretch, and always was--and always will be, for that matter. I believe I was made to keep the world alive. Why, everybody in St. Mark"s would be dead of the blues if it weren"t for me."
"Yes; I have heard of some of your wild antics. That good old lady, Mrs.
Gower, was with me last night, and we had quite a long conversation about you, I a.s.sure you."