And the grateful children often looked up as they pa.s.sed beneath, and said, "Had it not been for our good Alarm-bell we might all have perished!"
So the Alarm-bell learned what it was made for, and was content to wait another hundred years, or more, before its voice was heard again.
_The Black Ship._
They lived at the foot of the Pine Mountains, in the island of the King"s Garden, the mother, with her little son and daughter. The boy"s name was Hope, and the little girl"s, May. The children loved each other dearly, and were never separated. They never had any quarrels, because Hope was the leader in all their expeditions and plays; and May firmly believed that everything which Hope planned and did, was better planned and better done than it would have been by any one else in the world--by which May meant the island. Hope, on his side, had always a tender consideration for little May in his schemes, such as kings should have for their subjects. May would never have dreamed of originating any scheme herself, or of questioning any which Hope planned. If you had taken away May from Hope, you would have taken away his kingdom, his army, his right hand; if you had taken away Hope from May, you would have robbed her of her leader, her king, her head, her sun. Bereaved of May, I think Hope would have been driven from his desolate home into the wide world; bereaved of Hope, I am sure May would never have left her home, but sat silent there until she pined away. But together, life was one holiday to them; work was a keener kind of play, and every day was too narrow for the happy occupations of which each hour was brimful.
Their cottage was at the foot of the mountains, on the sea-sh.o.r.e.
Indeed, every house and cottage in the island stood on the sea-sh.o.r.e, because the island was so long and narrow, that, from the top of the mountain-range which divided it, you could see the sea on both sides. If in any place the coast widened, little creeks ran in among the hills, and made the sea accessible from all points. The island consisted entirely of this one mountain-range; the higher peaks sometimes tipped with snow, with a strip of coast at their feet, sometimes narrowing to a little shingly beach, sometimes expanding to a fertile plain, where beautiful cities with fairy bell-towers and marble palaces gleamed like ivory carvings amidst the palms and thick green leaves.
But Hope and May knew nothing of the island beyond the little bay they lived in, and no one they had ever seen or heard of had scaled the mountain-range and looked on the other side; no one, either in the scattered fishermen"s huts around them, or in the white town which perched like a sea-bird on the crags on the opposite side of the bay.
Indeed, it was only from their mother"s words that the children knew that their country was an island; and ever since they had heard this, the great subject of Hope"s dreams, and the great object of his schemes, had been to scale the mountains and look on the other side. But this was quite a secret between Hope and May; the happy secret which formed the endless interest of their long talks and rambles, but which they could not speak of to their mother, because she was so tenderly timid about them, and because it was to be the great surprise which one day was to enchant her, when Hope was a man. He was to scale the mountains, penetrate to the wondrous land on the other side, and bring thence untold treasures and tales of marvels to May and his mother.
The children thought Hope would very soon be old enough to go; and they had a little cave in the rocks close to the sea where they treasured up dried fruits, and bits of iron to make tools of with which to chop away the tangled branches in the forests, and cut steps in the glaciers which Hope was to traverse. The lower hills the children knew well; and the ravine which wound up far among the hills they had nearly fixed on as the commencement of the journey.
So the days pa.s.sed on with the children, rich in purposes and bright with happy work. For they were helpful to their mother. From their mountain expeditions they brought her fire-wood, and forest-honey, and eggs of wild-fowl, and various sweet wild-berries, and wholesome roots.
They always noticed that their mother encouraged these mountain expeditions, and seemed much happier when they took that direction than when they kept by the sea.
Once Hope had said to her--
"Mother, how beautiful our country is! and I think it is so happy always to be in sight of the sea. How dull those lands must be you tell us of, which are so large that many people have to live out of hearing of the waves! I could not bear to live there; it must seem so narrow and close to be shut in on the land, with nothing beyond. But here we can never get out of sight of the sea. May and I always find, wherever we roam among the hills, we never lose the sea. When we wander far back from the sh.o.r.e, the beautiful blue waters seem to follow us as if they loved us; and in the inmost recesses of the mountains we always see beneath us some glimpse of bright water in the creeks which run up among the hills, or the rivers which come down to meet them. The sea seems to love every corner of our country, mother, and penetrate everywhere."
A cold shudder pa.s.sed over the mother"s frame, and tears gathered in her eyes.
"The sea is indeed everywhere, my children," she murmured; and then, with a burst of irresistible emotion, she clasped them to her heart, and added bitterly, "Happy the country which that sea cannot approach!"
May and Hope wondered greatly at her words; but there was something in her manner which awed them into silence. For some time after that, they often speculated together as to what her words could mean, and a vague terror seemed to murmur in the ripple of the waves. But gradually the impression wore off in the happy forgetfulness of childhood, and their old schemes were resumed with the same zest as before.
One evening, however, as they were busied with their treasures in the cave, the tide surprised them; and when they set out to return home they found the rocky point which separated them from their cottage surrounded with deep water. The sides of the cliff in the little cove where their cave lay were sheer precipices of smooth rock, too steep to climb, so that the children had to wait some hours before they could creep round the point. Eagerly they watched the declining sun and the retreating tide, until when the waves became only ankle-deep they bounded through them, and in a few minutes were at the cottage door. It was not yet dark, and the children were dancing into the cottage full of spirits at their adventure, when they were startled at the appearance of their mother. She was leaning, stony and motionless, with fixed eyes and clasped hands, against the door-post, and for a moment the sight of her darlings did not seem to rouse her. Then springing up with a cry of joy, she strained them to her heart, covered them with kisses, laughed a wild laugh, broken with convulsive sobs, and at last fell fainting on the floor.
The children knelt beside her, and gradually she revived, and fell into a sleep. But every now and then she started as if with some terrible dream, and murmured in her sleep, "The ship--the Black Ship: not now, not yet: take me, not them; or take us all--take us all!"
The terrified children could not sleep; and all the next day they clung close to their mother, and scarcely spoke a word. In the evening, however, she rallied, and tried to speak cheerfully, and account for her alarm.
"You were late, darlings, and I knew you were by the sea--the terrible sea."
But the children could not be comforted. They felt the weight of some vague apprehension; they could not be tempted to leave their mother; they crept noiselessly about, watching her movements, until at last one night they whispered together, and resolved to take courage and ask their mother what made her dread the sea; and then they consulted long as to the best way of introducing the forbidden subject.
The next evening, as they sat together by the fireside, Hope began, and forgetting all the speeches they had prepared, fixed his large eyes on his mother"s and said abruptly, "Mother, what is there terrible in the sea?"
She paused a moment, her face grew deadly pale, and her lips trembled.
"Children, why should you wish to know? You will learn too soon, without my telling you."
"O mother, tell us," said May. "We can bear anything from you. Do not let any one else tell us."
A sudden thought seemed to flash across her, and she said, "Children, you are right."
Then folding one arm around Hope as he stood by her, and taking May on her knee, she said, "It is not the sea I dread; it is the Black Ship.
That is the terrible secret; and it is, indeed, better you should learn it from my lips than learn it by losing me, and no one be left to tell you how. My children," she continued, making a great effort to speak calmly, "this is the one sorrow of our country. From time to time a Black Ship, without sails or oars, glides silently to our sh.o.r.es, and anchors there. A dark, Veiled Figure lands from it, and seizes any one of our people whom it chooses, without violence, without a sound, but with irresistible power, and quietly leads the victim away to the Ship, which immediately glides away again from our coasts as swiftly and noiselessly as it came; but no one ever sees those who are thus borne away any more."
"Whence does the Ship come, mother?" asked Hope, after a long silence, "and whither does it go?"
"No one knows, my child. That is the terrible thing about it. There is no sound nor voice. The agonized cries of those who are thus bereaved avail not to bring one word of reply from those lips, or to raise one fold of that dark veil. If we only knew, we could bear it."
"Have you ever seen it, mother?" asked Hope, determined bravely to plunge to the bottom of the terrible mystery, while May could only cling round her mother"s neck and cry.
"I have seen it twice," she replied, speaking low and rapidly. "We did not always live here. Your father was rich, and a man of rank, and, loving us most dearly, he resolved to do all in his power to keep the terrible Form away. For this end he built that castle you have often seen above the white tower. It is far above the sea; the rocks are perpendicular; it is built of solid stone; the doors were of oak, studded with iron; the windows barred with iron. No one was ever to be permitted to cross the moat without being strictly scrutinized. The gates were always to be closed. When it was finished he made a feast; and after it, when the guests had left, and every bolt was drawn, we stood at the window of the room where you slept, and looked down triumphantly on the sea. A little sister of yours was sleeping in my arms. Suddenly, close beneath us, in the bay at our feet, we saw moored the Black Ship! Our eyes seemed fascinated to it, and we could not speak. We saw the Veiled Figure descend the side, and slowly scale the precipice beneath us, as if it had been a road made for it to tread. It walked over the water of the castle moat, which did not seem to wet its feet. There was no plunge or splash in the waves, no sound of footsteps on the rock; yet, in a moment, it stood on the balcony outside our window, and we could not stir. It pa.s.sed through the iron bars. It laid its hand on my sleeping babe. Your father"s strong arm was around us both, but before we could utter a cry, our darling had glided like a shadow from our embrace. The bright face of our baby was hidden from us under the folds of that impenetrable veil. We watched the terrible Form noiselessly descend the steep, re-enter the Ship, and not until the Black Ship was already gliding swiftly out of sight could we overcome the terrible fascination. Then my cries of agony awoke the household,--boats were manned in pursuit; but in vain, in vain--we felt it was in vain. We never saw the babe again." She spoke with the languor of a sorrow which had been overwhelmed by greater sorrows still.
"But our father?" asked Hope.
"He left the castle the next day," she answered. "We never returned to it. He said the strong walls only mocked our helplessness; and since then the castle has been empty. Birds build their nests in our chambers, wild beasts make their lair in our gardens, the iron bars rust on the open doors; and if the Veiled Figure enter again, it will find no prey."
"But where did you go?"
"We came here. Your father said he would dare the foe, and, since no fortification could keep it out, meet it on its own ground. So he built this cottage close to the sea, and here we have lived ever since. I was content to remain here because I thought we might avoid seeing any one, and keep the terrible secret from you.
"And here," she continued with the calmness of despair, "one morning we saw the Black Ship moored, and your father went to meet it. I wept and clung to him, to keep him back, but he said, "It shall speak to me."
"The Dark Form came up, a black shadow across the sunny beach. Your father encountered it boldly, and said, "Where is my child?"
"There was no sound in reply. For a moment there seemed to be a struggle. I rushed towards them, but the terrible touch was on your father"s hand. There seemed no violence, no chain was on his arm--only that paralyzing touch. He went from me silent and helpless as the babe.
""Whither, whither?" I cried; "only tell me where!"
"He looked back once, but he spoke to me no more. I rushed madly into the sea, but the Ship was gone in a minute; and your voices, your baby voices, called me back, and I came."
"Is there no help, mother?" said Hope at last. "Has no one ever tried?
If I were but a man! Oh, surely some help could be found?"
"So thousands have thought, tried, and asked in vain. Fleets have scoured the seas, but none ever came on the Black Ship"s track."
Hope was silenced, and the little family sat up together that night.
They did not dare to separate, even to their beds; yet before long the children were asleep.
Sleep revived the brother and sister; and by the evening Hope"s ardent heart had found another point to rest on.
"Mother," he said, "if we could only find out whence the Black Ship comes, we might be comforted. Perhaps it comes from a happy place. Can no one even guess?"
"There are some who profess to know something of it," she replied; "but your father never believed them."
"Who are they?" asked Hope.
"The amulet-makers. There is a band of men in the White Town who profess to know something of the country from which the Black Ship comes, and who sends it. But they talk very mysteriously, in learned words; and I do not understand them. Your father said it was all a deception; because some of them profess to make amulets or charms which keep the Veiled Form away; and your little sister had one round her neck when she was taken from us. You have each one, but I cannot trust it; and I never could find out that the amulet-makers had anything but guesses as to where the Ship came from; and your father said we could guess as well as they. There is one thing," she added with a faint smile, "which gives me more comfort than anything they ever said. When our baby was taken away from my arms--when she felt that terrible touch--she did not seem to be at all afraid. She looked up in my face, and then at the Veiled Form, and stretched out her baby arms from me to it and smiled. At first, I hated to think of that. It seemed as if some cruel charm was on her to win even her heart from me; but often in the night, in my dreams, that smile has come back to me, like a promise; and I have awaked, comforted--I hardly know why."