Chapter XX: 'i Do Believe You'

She moved away from him now that the night was at hand, intending to seek a little knoll that was hollowed out by Nature so that it presented the appearance of a small cave of about six feet in depth and the same in breadth. Above it there grew, tall, stately, and feathery, two cocoa trees close together; around it trailed tropical creepers and huge-leaved plants which bore upon them large white flowers. It was into this cave she had crept the night before and had slept, and to it she now intended to go again, it being, as she thought, better perhaps to pass the night there than in the open air. Yet, had she but known, it offered her no necessary shelter, since, in truth, none was required--especially at this season. Dews scarcely ever arose in the island, there being little, if any, of that dampness at night for which the poisonous deadly West Coast of Africa is so evilly renowned, and one might sleep in the open air as free from the dangers of exhalations as in any closed place that could be devised here.

But, not being aware of this--as how should she who, hitherto, had known so little of the world outside London--outside England?--she spoke to Stephen Charke ere she left him for the night, saying: 'I wish there was something to cover you with--something to protect you. Yet there is nothing--not a rag.'

'It is of no importance,' he said, looking up at her, and able to see her face, pale and ghostlike, by the light of the stars. 'Of none whatever. I shall be able to lie here and sleep very well. There is no fear of damp or fever in all this locality. I know it well. And, tomorrow, I hope to be able to get up and go about the island. Perhaps, beyond that mountain at the back, there may be some signs of human habitation--of human life. Do not think of me. Good-night. Sleep well. Try to sleep well.'

'Good-night,' she answered, 'Good-night'; and then she slowly withdrew to the cave in the little knoll, and so left him.

But, when she had gone, and had lain herself down upon the soft, dry sand within that cave, sleep refused to come to her. The night before she had slept long and soundly, perhaps because of all that she had gone through, and because also she was battered and bruised and weak after her immersion in the sea and the contact with the rocks. But to-night she could not do so--her mind was now triumphant over her body; the hour of that mind's agony was upon her. And she bent and swayed beneath this agony, and recognised, acknowledged, all the ruin that had fallen on her future life and hopes and dreams of happiness to come.

Her lover, her future husband, was gone--was dead! Her heart was broken; there was in actual fact no future before her. She had loved him madly, blindly, almost from the first time she had set eyes on him, and now--now he was dead. There was nothing more. She would never love any other man; none other could ever find his way into her heart as Gilbert Bampfyld had done, nor set every pulse and fibre in her body stirring, nor cause her to thank God when she awoke each morning that another day had dawned when, even though she might not see him, she could still pass many waking hours in thinking of him. No; no other man would ever have the power to cause all that. Henceforth, if she ever left this island alive, it would be to return to a joyless, hopeless life--a woman widowed ere she had become a wife.

Thus she thought and mused as she lay in the cave, her head supported on one hand while she looked out on all that devilish, cruel waste of waters which had hurled the ship to its destruction and slain almost every soul on board her, and which now--like some wanton trampling on the ruin and despair that she has caused--was smiling before her in the rays of a crescent moon that was just peeping above the eastern horizon. Indeed, the glimmer which this young moon sent shimmering along the tropical sea was not unlike the false sad smile that a wanton's lips might wear in the hour of her victim's ruin; the smile that bespeaks 'the painting of a sorrow, a face without a heart.'

A little breeze sprang up now, a ripple soft as a lover's kiss; balmy, too--as it played among all the rich tropical vegetation of the island--as a young girl's pure breath, and she saw that her fellow-castaway perceived it, since he turned himself so as to bring his face towards it--doubtless to cool his heated frame and to get relief from the warm, tepid air that hung all around--air that was like the atmosphere of a Turkish bath. And this led her thoughts away from her own sorrows into the direction of those griefs which must be his--towards this brave, valiant man, who had saved her life at, as she knew must be the case, the risk of his own. His lot was also sad, she recognised, sad because he loved her--as it would have been the merest affectation for her to pretend to doubt--and because she knew that never could this love obtain that which it hungered for. Yet, all the same, there had come into her heart a feeling of intense sorrow for him; sorrow and pity that had welled up into her bosom and was almost holy in its depth and purity.

'To love and lose, as I have done,' she murmured; 'to love and never win, as is the case with him. Oh, God! could there be aught to make our bitterness--our lot--more terrible?'

Suddenly, she started and raised herself higher with her elbow, her nerves quivering, her heart beating violently, her eyes staring intently into the shade beneath a copse, in which grew in wild profusion a tangled mass of cocoa trees and tamarinds, of orange bushes and lemon trees, and into which, now, the new moon's rays were glinting.

For she had seen something moving there--something creeping, crawling close to the ground--stealthily, secretly--as though desirous to approach the spot where they were both so near together, without being heard or seen.

What new horror was this that approached them in the night, that crept in ambush towards them as though intent on secret murder and attack? What! Some native of this horrid region lusting for the stranger's blood, or some wild beast as fierce!

Her; tongue cleaved to her mouth--she could feel that the roof of the latter was becoming dry--she tried to scream--and failed!

And, still, close to the earth, that thing crept--nearer--nearer--and once, as it either pushed some underbrush aside or came more into view, a ray of the moon glistened on a pair of eyes, illuminating the pupils for a moment. Then she found her voice and shrieked aloud:

'Mr. Charke! Mr. Charke! There is something creeping towards us. Save us! Save us!'

In a moment he was endeavouring to spring to his feet, but this he could not do owing to his soreness and contusions; yet, nevertheless, he staggered up a moment later and gazed around, wishing that he had some weapon to his hand.

That cry of Bella's--it rang along the desolate beach as, may be, no woman's voice had ever rung there before!--brought matters to a crisis. There was a rush, a spring from the creature that had, by now, crawled so near to them; a spring which hurled Charke back reeling as the thing passed him and then brought it, itself, close to Bella, about and around whom it at once began to gambol, rudely and roughly, as some great watch-dog might do who had found its lost mistress.

The creature was Bengalee, the tiger-cub, and, in some way, it, if nothing else, was saved from the wreck of the _Emperor of the Moon_.

'Oh!' cried Bella, half fearfully at its furious bounds and leaps, which, even in her nervousness, she could not but construe into a wild, savage joy on its part at once more being in her presence, 'it is Bengalee. Oh, thank God!'

'Thank God?' Charke repeated, not understanding. 'Thank God for what?'

'It is a sign,' she said, 'a sign that we are not the only ones who have escaped. Think! think! If this creature could get ashore, so--so may others have done.'

For a moment he said nothing, contenting himself with watching the exultation of the creature and in reflecting that it was her shriek which had told it who those were to whom it had drawn so near--with, perhaps, if stung by hunger and privation, a vastly different intention from that of fondling either of them! And he did think of what she hinted in connection with its safety and its having reached the island alive, as well as of that safety pointing to the fact that others, that human beings, might also have done so. Only--he knew, and knowing, refrained from saying, that her deduction was by no means accurate. This animal had been on the deck when the ship heeled over on the reef; it was confined only in a locker from which it might easily have forced its way out in its terror, or, indeed, might have fallen out of it, but it was an animal, and its blindness had left it! Gilbert Bampfyld had also been on the deck, Charke remembered, but was still blind. There was no analogy between the tiger-cub and any human soul on board.

'You do not answer,' she said, as now Bengalee lay panting at her feet, its rough evidences of delight having ceased for a time; 'you do not speak. You think there is no likelihood of any others being saved from the wreck?'

'I cannot think so. Heaven knows that, if I could comfort you with such hopes, I would. But----'

And now he repeated aloud those silent thoughts and arguments of a moment ago; while, as he did so, he saw, in the moonlight, that she turned from him, and he heard her whisper low: 'Heaven help me!'

Then, because her misery and woe struck like a knife to his heart, he said:

'To-morrow, if I am strong enough, as I think I shall be, I will make a journey round the island and explore every spot upon it, where, if--if any one should have, by God's mercy, been fortunate enough to reach the land, I must light upon them. Believe me, nothing shall be left undone that I can do.'

'I do believe you,' she cried; 'I do, indeed. Ah, Mr. Charke,' she almost wailed, 'how good and noble you are! Oh that such goodness, such nobility must go for ever unrequited!'

'That,' he answered, and she, also, could see by the aid of the moon's rays that on his face there came a wan smile, a smile that had not even the ghost of happiness in it, 'that is not to be thought of--never. Let us put away for ever all thoughts of my desires; let us think only of what we have to do. To find, first, whether, in Providence, there should be any others who have escaped from the wreck, and, next, how we are to escape out of this. If there are other islands near here which are inhabited, no matter by whom or what, it may be easy.'

'And if not?'

'Then we must wait until, by some signal or other which I may devise, we can attract the attention of a passing vessel. Beyond this I can think of nothing.'

'Oh!' she exclaimed, 'much as I long to return home to England, to my mother--I think only of her now, I have none other of whom to think--yet--yet, ah, I could not go till I was sure, sure beyond all possibility of doubt, that Gilbert was not here or somewhere near. Think, if he should be still alive and blind and wounded! Here and unable to help himself. Oh, it would be almost worse than to know that he was dead.'

'I do think,' Charke answered; 'I understand. And until we are sure, one way or the other, we will not go: no, not even though rescue came to-morrow.'

Then, looking down at the tiger-cub which had now risen to its feet again, and was pacing restlessly about with the sinuous, lithe movements peculiar to its race, he said: 'But there is also one other thing that must be done. That creature is now beyond control, even by you; and these beasts are treacherous to the core. If it is to live, and we are to live also, it must be secured--made prisoner. Otherwise something terrible will happen. I know it; feel sure of it.'