Sea-gift. Fuller Edwin Wiley

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СКАЧАТЬ the red spot that had attracted our notice. At her side was strapped a curiously carved steel box, now heavily oxidized by the salt sea.

      The door and its human freight had been cast high up on the shore; but, tied by one wrist to the knob of the door, lower towards the water, stretched the figure of a man. He was lying on his face, which was so much sunk in the yielding sand that we could only observe his hair, which was long and gray. His form was tall and large, and clad in a black suit of clothes; around his waist was strapped a broad belt of leather, to which, if anything was attached, we could not see it, as the ends must have been beneath him. Ever and anon a wave would break on the shore, and, as if mocking its victims, come rustling up the sand, covering the half buried feet, floating the clinging clothes, on and up, till it lifted and waved like moss the dank gray hair, then sink, sighing, back to the sea; while he lay there, so heedless of all, stretching the cord-bound hand, with its blue, water-shrivelled fingers, appealingly yet protectingly, toward the child on the door.

      We gazed long, with all the silence of horror, at the sad spectacle, and with agitated looks at each other. I at length spoke:

      “Boys, what must we do? They ought to know of this at Mr. Cheyleigh’s.”

      “Yes, indeed, they ought,” said Ned. “Let’s go over and get the negroes and the big boat, and carry both bodies home.”

      “Do you reckon they are both dead?” whispered Frank.

      “They must be,” returned Ned, looking at them both attentively. “The man is, I am sure; for, if not dead before, the water washing so constantly over him since he has lain here would have drowned him.”

      “Let’s see, any way,” said I; and we all three stooped to lift the man first. Not without a shudder did we touch the cold, clammy flesh, as we strove to drag him up from the water’s edge. His weight was too great for us, clogged as he was with sand and water, and we could only move him up the bank a foot or two, and turn him over on his back. We cleaned the sand as well as we could from his mouth, nostrils and eyes – the faded blue balls of the last being so thickly covered with the fine, sharp grains that we had to wipe them very hard with our handkerchiefs – at least Ned and I did; Frank vowed he wasn’t going to put his handkerchief in a dead man’s eyes, just to get the grits out.

      We then left the man and tried the girl with better success. We cut the cords that held her to the door, and lifted her up; Ned supporting her head as tenderly as a woman. Never had I dreamed of such beauty! Her face was as colorless as marble, but showed more perfectly for that its exquisite outline; her temples were chased with a network of blue veins that were brought out more distinctly by the cold water she had been in so long. Her eyes were closed, but the lids atoned by their rose-leaf texture and long black fringe. Her mouth was partially open, as if gasping, but made up for this slight disfigurement by disclosing a set of the clearest, smoothest teeth. But, though each separate feature was beautiful, there was a look about them when combined that baffles all description. Perhaps her beauty was enhanced by her romantic surroundings; but I could not help thinking, as she lay there so passive and still, that the angel who had borne her soul away had been trying on the faces of heaven, to see which would suit her best, and had forgotten to take off his fairest.

      As we looked on in silent admiration, Ned placed his hand upon her forehead, and exclaimed with great animation:

      “Look here, John! her flesh does not feel like the other’s – it is cold, but not so clammy.”

      A touch confirmed his remark; for while her hands and forehead were icy cold, there was not that peculiar deathlike clamminess or inelasticity about them that tells so infallibly that the soul has departed, and we drew hope from this circumstance that she might yet live. We ran at the next wave and caught our hats full of water, which we dashed into her face, without stopping to reflect that she had perhaps had enough of water for the present. We loosened her clothing as delicately as possible, and began chafing her hands and arms. Our anxiety to revive her made us almost drown her again with our hats of water, and in our eagerness we rubbed the tender flesh almost raw on her hands and arms.

      In the midst of our efforts Ned, who was supporting her, exclaimed:

      “Look! look! she drew her breath.”

      We gathered excitedly around and watched her closely, but her face was still marble – no sign of life in its pale outlines! After we had gazed a long while in the most intense suspense, a quick spasmodic gasp came through her parted lips, and a quiver played over her eyelids.

      What a moment for our heroism! We felt that we were saving from the monster sea a fairer being than ever Palamon and Arcite tilted for. Beowulf, conquering the hideous Grendel, felt no more chivalric pride than did we, as our lovely waif lay with fitful breathings in our arms.

      At length her respiration became more regular, and her eyes slowly unclosed. “Eyes” is a meagre word for the magnificent black orbs turned so timidly and wonderingly upon us; they probably served the commonplace purpose of vision, but the pleading eloquence of their look, and the emotions of fear and amazement which were almost audible in her gaze, declared their primary object to be expression.

      Turning them restlessly from one to another of us, and failing to recognize any one, she closed them, as if in pain. Ned now ventured to speak, though we were almost afraid he would scare the soul away again that had been so hardly persuaded to return.

      “Are you suffering now? Don’t be alarmed, we are all friends.”

      Again she opened her eyes, looked wildly at him, then suddenly seemed to come to consciousness. With a frantic look of horror she cried out: “Oh, padre! padre! oh donde està mi padre!” and other frantic sentences, in a language unknown to us, and strove to rise to her feet. Ned and I assisted her, and she stood up on the sand. It was most unfortunate that she did so; for, as she gained her feet, her eyes fell on the corpse near the water, and, with a soul-piercing shriek, she sank to the earth, and all our efforts to revive her again were unavailing. As it had now grown quite dark we intended to hurry across the sound and tell Mr. Cheyleigh. Our sail boat being very small, it was thought best to leave one of us with the body, and to take the little girl in the boat over to the house. As it was not a pleasant solitude by any means, we drew pebbles to see who should remain, and it fell to my lot. Accordingly, Ned and Frank took up their fair burden, and promising me to make all the possible haste they could, went slowly up the banks to their boat. I saw them lay their charge down gently, hoist the sail and glide away in the darkness, and I was alone with the dead. The sun had long since gone down, and the red tinge of the sky was paling into the dusky gray of twilight. Far up and down the beach the dreary waste of waters grew drearier in the deepening shades, and the darkness fell so fast that when I looked up at the sky for a moment, and then turned to the sea, an hour seemed to have elapsed when measured by the increase of gloom. The sail of Ned’s boat at last disappeared behind a point of land, and there was nothing for me to watch but the dead man’s face and the moaning, tossing waters. It was now too dark to distinguish his features; there was only the ghastly white shape of his face, that, as I gazed so long upon it, seemed to make hideous grimaces at me – now sneering at my timidity, now opening its faded eyes to glare at me for having sent the little girl away; now shutting one eye and opening the other, sometimes reversing the face, putting the eyes in the chin and the mouth in the forehead; sometimes disappearing entirely, then suddenly coming back as white as ever. I would have fled up the beach, but I was afraid the corpse would spring up and run after me. And the whole scene was full of death! The stars seemed dead men’s eyes, the sob of each wave was a dying groan, the white foam caps were dying faces, struggling for life, and a white gull, flying across the sky, was a cloth from the face of a corpse.

      Suddenly a light came over the waters, and I looked up to find that the moon, at its full, was raising its great yellow disc from the waves. As if in kindly sympathy with me, the light came dancing СКАЧАТЬ