Chapter XII: 'out Yonder, on the Lee Bow, Sir.'

There was not a pulse in the gipsy camp that did not beat more quickly with anxiety on this sad winter's evening when the sudden black squall came roaring over the hills, bringing with it the darkness of night and obliterating both sea and land. Hardly did any one dare to ask another what would become of the helpless child in her little boat. Dread fear and uncertainty seemed at once to kill all hope.

'Were the _Jenny Wren_ a strong man-o'-war pinnace,' said one old sailor, 'or the sturdiest herring-boat that ever turned head to wind, there could be but small chance for her in the teeth of the gale that is now beginning to rage.'

To young Blake the whole affair was too frightful to contemplate. To have tried not to think of it would have been an act of cowardice, and to hope against hope seemed folly. Never till now had he known how his little companion had, with her innocence and winsome ways, wound herself round his heart, entwined herself into his affections. Strong he was, it is true, but in character most gentle and loving. He almost cursed the day now on which he had ordered the new boat. The old one that he had been so awkward as to sink was less safe in reality. Yet Lotty knew it, and would not have dared so much in it.

In about half an hour after the first fierce squall the darkness lifted just a little; then with his best telescope anxiously did Antony sweep the sea, while Biffins with his did the same. Not a speck of anything was to be seen.

'She has gone down,' raved the gipsy Lee; 'boat and all has sunk. And Lotty was the best property of the show. I am ruined! I am ruined!'

Antony was looking at the man hard and angrily.

'It is only the show you think of, Mr Lee. Have you neither love nor pity for the lost child--your daughter?' It was with difficulty Antony could utter the last two words.

'True, true,' Biffins replied; 'it is a pity about the lass; it is a pity all ways of it, and--I'll never get another like Lotty.'

Blake walked away. He felt that had he waited another minute he would have been tempted to fell the man on the beach where he stood.

He met Mary. Poor fat soul! she was wringing her hands in the anguish of really womanly grief.

'Oh, my bonny bairn!' she was crying. 'Oh, Mr Blake, you loved her, but will never see the lassie mair.'

'Cheer up, Mrs Pendlebury; cheer up, we may still hope.'

'Hope, sir; hope? Na, na; there are few ships on that dark sea at this time of the year. Oh, the cruel winds and the cruel, cruel waves!'

Chops was huddled up beside the great caravan, silent, dumb with the great sorrow that had overtaken him. Having no word of comfort to utter, Antony entered the 'Gipsy Queen' and lit his lamps. Wallace was on the sofa. He whined and cried when Antony came in. Well did he know his mistress was gone. The young man sat down beside him and took his great head in his lap; but the dog refused consolation, and at every outside sound lifted his head, holding it a little to one side as he listened and watched the door.

All this was more than Antony could endure, and he formed a sudden resolve. He would go right away out into the night, and, if he could but find his way through the upland woods, pay a visit to Crona in her lonely cottage. Battling with the wind would help to assuage his grief.

'Yes, Wallace, you may come. We are going to the house of Crona, dear boy.'

The dog sprang down off the couch at once and shook himself in readiness. No doubt he thought he was going to find Lotty.

Antony took a strong flashlight with him, and after telling Mary of his intentions, started off at once. Until well into the very depths of the forest the road was by no means difficult to follow; but it was dangerous from the falling branches, while the roar of the wind among the lofty pines was bewildering. But for Wallace he would certainly have failed to keep upon the little winding footpath. But the trees that Chops had blazed assisted him considerably, and after a tiresome march he came out into the open and could now see the blinking light in the witch's window. He was soon near enough to hear the yapping of the startled fox, and when he reached the door and knocked he speedily heard Crona behind it asking in Scotch, 'Fa [who] be ye that knocks sae bauldly at an auld body's door at this untimeous oor o' nicht?'

'It is me, Crona. Me--Antony Blake.'

Then the door was opened, and the light of the blazing fire fell upon his face.

When he told his story she was not nearly so much astonished as he expected she would be.

'Something told me what would happen,' she replied smiling; 'and I tell you now, Frank Antony Blake, to keep up your heart, for Lotty will return.'

'Oh, Crona, if I could but believe it! But tell me, now that we are alone, have you really the gift of second-sight?'

Said Crona in reply, 'There is no gift about it, dear boy, though to ignorant people who consult me on their future I might put on airs of mystery, and say:

'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.'

Antony held his peace.

'To you,' she added, 'I tell the truth, that palmistry, even prophecy, if you like to call it so, is only the outcome of long study and science. I know you are fond of your playmate, boy, for you are little else; well, pray if you like, for there is One who heareth prayer.'

'Oh, I have prayed, Crona, ever so much, all the way through the forest. But you give me a little hope, and I am so glad I have come.'

'Lotty will return,' Crona said again.

And Antony was now smiling.

'Think you she has been picked up by some vessel already?'

She did not answer immediately. The blazing peat and wood sent darting tongues of flame up through the blue-white smoke, and it was at these the witch was gazing.

'I can see the dear bairn at this moment,' she said. 'Lotty is crouching under the bows of her boat, and this is riding to the lee of something, I cannot tell you what. That is all you or I will know to-night.' Then she placed her hand on the back of his, and smoothed, patted, and stroked it.

It may have been some magnetic influence, or it may not; but true it is that from that moment Antony mourned no more for Lotty, only hoped.

But now she began to speak of himself, and told him much as she looked at his palm about his past and not a little about his future.

'Have you an enemy,' she said abruptly; 'a tall, dark man?'

'Oh, there is nearly always a tall, dark man in fortune-telling, Crona.'

'I am not fortune-telling, dear, foolish boy.'

Then Antony suddenly remembered his cousin Gustus.

'That man,' said Crona, 'will work you and yours evil. Beware of him.'

The fire was making Blake drowsy perhaps. He could see Tod Lowrie curled up in a corner into which Wallace had quietly rolled him, as he always did; pussy nodding in the binkie; and, not far off, Joe himself with his head buried underneath his ragged wing. Then he knew nothing more until daylight. But he went back home to camp with a new hope in his heart that nothing could entirely extinguish, and told poor Mary all his adventure.

* * * * *

Perhaps at the very time that Antony awoke in Crona's cottage, Lotty also awoke, but under sadly different circumstances. The wind was still roaring across the sea, but the boat was almost empty of water, and, crouched up as she had been, she was fairly dry and warm. But she noted now that one of the lashings of the sail she had fixed around the oars and mast was coming undone. She got hold of the painter and commenced, against the scud of the sea, to round in the slack of it, thus working the little boat at great risk up to her floating moorings.

It took her a whole hour to make things taut and trim and safe. But they were so at last, and now the child discovered that she was very hungry. So she opened the bag and looked over the stores, as she termed the food. Quite as wise and provident was Lotty as any skipper who had been to sea all his life. She found that the food would last for a whole day, and the milk longer. Then there would be the nuts--Chops's nuts.

'Poor Chops!' she sighed. 'Why, the stupid boy loves me so much that he will be half-dead with grief.'

She had a meagre breakfast and a little sup of milk, but felt very cold after eating, and her legs were cramped. But Lotty did not dare to stand up, the wind was so high. She simply stretched her numbed limbs, and this relieved her a little.

The whole of that day, whenever the boat was on the crest of a high wave, she kept looking out. But nothing saw she until the red sun was nearly setting and turning the spray into frothy blood; then, oh joy! a steamer bearing right down towards her. Oh joy! and oh hope! but oh grief and collapse when it passed on its way and never saw the _Jenny Wren_!

Then down went the angry sun, and, slowly to-night, came darkness on. But although the spray dashed inboard so much that she scarce could look to windward, the sky was clear and a thousand bright stars were shining.

Later on there was the aurora borealis. Later still, and after eating a few nuts, the gipsy lass, still crouching in the old place, fell into a deep, sound sleep while saying her prayers.

* * * * *

'But I tell you it is, sir. Just out yonder on the lee bow, sir; my night-glass never told me a fib yet.'

'Well, mate, if you like to keep away a bit and maybe save a life, as you suggest, you may do so; only, don't let her get stove on top of some floating wreckage.'

'The wind is nearly down, skipper, though the seas are a bit high.'

'Hard a-port!'

'Hard it is, sir!'

'Easy, steady as you go!'

A short, sturdy sailor was this mate, a bearded man with a kindly eye, who had roughed it far away in the Greenland Ocean even from his boyhood, and the bark he was now on board of was the _Nor'lan' Star_ of Hull, on a voyage now to Archangel for timber. Few vessels dared so dangerous a voyage at this season; but those brave fellows who did managed to make a very good thing of it. There was a big lump of a boy standing by his side in the starlight.

'Take a look through that glass, Ben, my lad.

LASS. PAGE 129. ]

Focus her to your own tune, and squint ahead. See anything?'

'Ay, that do I, mate. Summat dark but dippin', dippin' ahind the seas like.'

'I thought your young sight was better than mine. See anything else?'

'It is a small boat, sir, and she is moored to leeward of something floating. And oh, sir, I can see a figure for'ard. Now, now I see a hand raised!'

Lotty's hand might have been raised in a dream, yet was she fast enough asleep.

'Ben, hustle aft with all your might and fetch me a Roman candle.'

There was a bright dazzling light all around the little boat, and Lotty awoke with a start, very much bewildered to see stars, bright crimson, blue, and green, falling all about her in the sea.

But she had sense enough to know it was a rocket of some kind, and quickly pulled herself together. A noise of voices shouting came down the wind, and she flashed her light over and over again to show the sailors of that huge, dark ship that someone was alive in the boat. Presently the black hull of the bark was looming within fifty yards over her, and she could see her masts waving back and fore among the glittering stars. She did not forget to thank God for the deliverance that was close at hand. She, too, had been praying until, childlike, she had fallen asleep in the middle of 'Our Father, who art.'

The rough sailors carried her tenderly on deck and aft, and even the _Jenny Wren_ was hoisted. Then sails were filled, and northwards once more sailed the _Nor'lan' Star_.

The skipper had his wife on board, and she hardly knew how kind to be to poor Lotty, who was soon sound asleep on the saloon sofa, all her cares forgotten for the time being.

* * * * *

The time in camp went wearily by--oh, so wearily!--day after day, a whole week, and there was no word or sign of Lotty.

Antony got all the newspapers he could think of, and read them, inch by inch, handing them quietly to Biffins Lee to glance at after he had finished. As long as he found nothing about Lotty in the paper hope lived in his heart, but again and again, to keep it burning, he had to recall the words of Crona. He feared, somehow, to go back there again notwithstanding, lest she might have received some second revelation that would dash all that hope aside.

Wallace followed him everywhere and slept in his caravan at night. But the dog seemed very nervous at times, and would start as if with fear when he heard the slightest unusual sound. Antony avoided Biffins as much as he possibly could, because the man appeared to have but one string on which he cared to harp--namely, the utter ruin to the Queerest Show that the loss of Lotty Lee was bound to entail.

But one day a strange thing happened. Antony Blake was walking sadly enough by the seashore at some distance from the camp, and Wallace himself quietly followed. Suddenly the great dog gave a yap of impatience, and, looking about, the young man saw him rush seawards, and, with a howl of mingled joy and despair apparently, take the water with a splash. And to his horror Antony noticed that the dog was making for some sort of cloth or garment that was rising and falling on the waves a long distance out. His heart almost stood still, and there were beads of cold perspiration on his brow as the dog seized the fearful something and was seen making his way inshore with it. It must be, young Antony thought, poor Lotty's dead body. He placed his hand over his eyes and kept it there for quite a long time, until he heard the dog bark again close beside him on the beach. What he had brought in was the mast and sail of the _Jenny Wren_. And Antony could breathe more freely now. But that night he made his way again to Crona's cottage, and, strangely enough, the old lady was waiting to receive him.