The moon has arisen, and now courses across the blue canopy of sky, in full effulgence, her beams falling bright upon the bosom of the river.
At intervals the boat, keeping the deeper channel, is forced close to either bank. Then, as the surging eddies set the floating but stationary logs in motion, the huge saurian asleep on them can be heard giving a grunt of anger for the rude arousing, and pitching over into the current with dull sullen plash.
She sees, and hears all this. It should shake her nerves, and cause shivering throughout her frame.
It does neither. The despair of life has deadened the dread of death-- even of being devoured by an alligator!
Fortunately, at this moment, a gentle hand is laid on her shoulder, and a soft voice sounds in her ear. They are the hand and voice of her sister.
Jessie, coming out of her state-room, has glided silently up. She sees Helen prepossessed, sad, and can somewhat divine the cause. But she little suspects, how near things have been to a fatal climax, and dreams not of the diversion her coming has caused.
"Sister!" she says, in soothing tone, her arms extended caressingly, "why do you stay out here? The night is chilly; and they say the atmosphere of this Red River country is full of miasma, with fevers and ague to shake the comb out of one"s hair! Come with me inside! There"s pleasant people in the saloon, and we"re going to have a round game at cards--_vingt-un_, or something of the sort. Come!"
Helen turns round trembling at the touch, as if she felt herself a criminal, and it was the sheriff"s hand laid upon her shoulder!
Jessie notices the strange, strong emotion. She could not fail to do so. Attributing it to its remotest cause, long since confided to her, she says:--
"Be a woman, Helen! Be true to yourself, as I know you will; and don"t think of him any more. There"s a new world, a new life, opening to both of us. Forget the sorrows of the old, as I shall. Pluck Charles Clancy from your heart, and fling every memory, every thought of him, to the winds! I say again, be a woman--be yourself! Bury the past, and think only of the future--_of our father_!"
The last words act like a galvanic shock, at the same time soothing as balm. For in the heart of Helen Armstrong they touch a tender chord-- that of filial affection.
And it vibrates true to the touch. Flinging her arms around Jessie"s neck, she cries:--
"Sister; you have saved me!"
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
SEIZED BY SPECTRAL ARMS.
"Sister, you have saved me!"
On giving utterance to the ill-understood speech, Helen Armstrong imprints a kiss upon her sister"s cheek, at the same time bedewing it with her tears. For she is now weeping--convulsively sobbing.
Returning the kiss, Jessie looks not a little perplexed. She can neither comprehend the meaning of the words, nor the strange tone of their utterance. Equally is she at a loss to account for the trembling throughout her sister"s frame, continued while their bosoms stay in contact.
Helen gives her no time to ask questions.
"Go in!" she says, spinning the other round, and pushing her towards the door of the state-room. Then, attuning her voice to cheerfulness, she adds:--
"In, and set the game of _vingt-un_ going. I"ll join you by the time you"ve got the cards shuffled."
Jessie, glad to see her sister in spirits unusually gleeful, makes no protest, but glides towards the cabin door.
Soon as her back is turned, Helen once more faces round to the river, again taking stand by the guard-rail. The wheel still goes round, its paddles beating the water into bubbles, and casting the crimson-white spray afar over the surface of the stream.
But now, she has no thought of flinging herself into the seething swirl, though she means to do so with something else.
"Before the game of _vingt-un_ begins," she says in soliloquy, "I"ve got a pack of cards to be dealt out here--among them a knave."
While speaking, she draws forth a bundle of letters--evidently old ones--tied in a bit of blue ribbon. One after another, she drags them free of the fastening--just as if dealing out cards. Each, as it comes clear, is rent right across the middle, and tossed disdainfully into the stream.
At the bottom of the packet, after the letters have been all disposed of, is something seeming different. A piece of cardboard--a portrait-- in short, a _carte de visite_. It is the likeness of Charles Clancy, given her on one of those days when he flung himself affectionately at her feet.
She does not tear it in twain, as she has the letters; though at first this is nearest her intent. Some thought restraining her, she holds it up in the moon"s light, her eyes for a time resting on, and closely scanning it. Painful memories, winters of them, pa.s.s through her soul, shown upon her countenance, while she makes scrutiny of the features so indelibly graven upon her heart. She is looking her last upon them--not with a wish to remember, but the hope to forget--of being able to erase that image of him long-loved, wildly worshipped, from the tablets of her memory, at once and for ever.
Who can tell what pa.s.sed through her mind at that impending moment? Who could describe her heart"s desolation? Certainly, no writer of romance.
Whatever resolve she has arrived at, for a while she appears to hesitate about executing it.--
Then, like an echo heard amidst the rippling waves, return to her ear the words late spoken by her sister--
"Let us think only of the future--_of our father_."
The thought decides her; and, stepping out to the extremest limit the guard-rail allows, she flings the photograph upon the paddles of the revolving wheel, as she does so, saying--
"Away, image of one once loved--picture of a man who has proved false!
Be crushed, and broken, as he has broken my heart!"
The sigh that escapes her, on letting drop the bit of cardboard, more resembles a subdued scream--a stifled cry of anguish, such as could only come from what she has just spoken of--a broken heart.
As she turns to re-enter the cabin, she appears ill-prepared for taking part, or pleasure, in a game of cards.
And she takes not either. That round of _vingt-un_ is never to be played--at least not with her as one of the players.
Still half distraught with the agony through which her soul has pa.s.sed-- the traces of which she fancies must be observable on her face--before making appearance in the brilliantly-lighted saloon, she pa.s.ses around the corner of the ladies" cabin, intending to enter her own state-room by the outside door.
It is but to spend a moment before her mirror, there to arrange her dress, the plaiting of her hair--perhaps the expression of her face--all things that to men may appear trivial, but to women important--even in the hour of sadness and despair. No blame to them for this. It is but an instinct--the primary care of their lives--the secret spring of their power.
In repairing to her toilette, Helen Armstrong is but following the example of her s.e.x.
She does not follow it far--not even so far as to get to her looking-gla.s.s, or even inside her state-room. Before entering it, she makes stop by the door, and tarries with face turned towards the river"s bank.
The boat, tacking across stream, has sheered close in sh.o.r.e; so close that the tall forest trees shadow her track--the tips of their branches almost touching the hurricane-deck. They are cypresses, festooned with grey-beard moss, that hangs down like the drapery of a death-bed. She sees one blighted, stretching forth bare limbs, blanched white by the weather, desiccated and jointed like the arms of a skeleton.
"Tis a ghostly sight, and causes her weird thoughts, as under the clear moonbeams the steamer sweeps past the place.
It is a relief to her, when the boat, gliding on, gets back into darkness.
Only momentary; for there under the shadow of the cypresses, lit up by the flash of the fire-flies, she sees, or fancies it, a face! It is that of a man--him latest in her thoughts--Charles Clancy!
It is among the trees high up, on a level with the hurricane-deck.
Of course it can be but a fancy? Clancy could not be there, either in the trees, or on the earth. She knows it is but a deception of her senses--an illusive vision--such as occur to clairvoyantes, at times deceiving themselves.
Illusion or not, Helen Armstrong has no time to reflect upon it. Ere the face of her false lover fades from view; a pair of arms, black, sinewy, and stiff, seem reaching towards her!
More than seem; it is a reality. Before she can stir from the spot, or make effort to avoid them, she feels herself roughly grasped around the waist, and lifted aloft into the air.