Silent Struggles. Ann S. Stephens

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СКАЧАТЬ were all aroused now; other human beings were yet in the waves. He left the strange female and the youth, helpless as they were, and went back in search of other lives.

      It took time, for the poor boatmen were struggling hard for life, and the storm fought them inch by inch, sweeping one man into eternity, and washing over the others every moment.

      While feelings of humanity transformed this dreamer into an activity that would have astonished any one that knew him, the two persons he had already saved lay senseless on the bank of ferns where he had cast them down. It was not yet dark, and a black shadow from the hills rolled over them, making their white faces ghastly as death. The woman was the first to move; she struggled a little, clasping and unclasping her hands with quick spasms of pain. Then the violet tinge grew to a faint flush on her eyelids, and they quivered open, allowing two large gray eyes yet filled with dull affright to look upward with vague wonder upon the sky.

      Directly other senses awoke from their lethargy. The boom of the ocean struck a shudder through all her frame; she began to tremble beneath the cold sweep of the winds, and felt vaguely about with her hand for something to fold about her.

      Instead of the garment she sought, her hand fell across the pale face of the young man, and struck a fresh chill to her heart. She began to remember where she was, and what had happened. Her first thought was that one of the dead seamen had been cast to her side, but, for a time, she had no strength to rise up and look at the cold horror.

CHAPTER II.

       Table of Contents

THE OLD STONE HOUSE.

       Table of Contents

      It must have been a death-chill, indeed, that could long restrain the warm heart of Barbara Stafford. Her first real impulse was to arise, and see if the poor man at her side was indeed dead.

      The effort was a painful one, but, to her, will was strength. She lifted her two hands, parted the wet locks from her face, struggled up to a rest on one elbow, till her eyes fell on the pale, beautiful face of the young man. Slowly her lips parted, and her large, wild eyes filled with holy wonder. She was like a spirit just landed on the shores of eternity, doubting if her companion were in truth an angel.

      She held the dripping hair back from her cheek with one hand, for the sight of that young face had arrested it there, and slowly over her singular features dawned a pale, soft light, that illuminated her countenance without leaving a tint of color there.

      After a little, Barbara Stafford drew a deep, tremulous breath, that was long in coming, for the holy depths of her heart could not be broken up at once. She arose to a sitting posture, and lifted the head of the young man to her lap.

      That moment Samuel Parris came up followed by the three sailors his courage had rescued.

      "Ah, me!" said the old man, clasping his hands sorrowfully over the body. "The youth has gone to his last account; there is no life here."

      The woman looked quickly around; a spasm of pain contracted her features when she saw the ocean, the dripping sailors, and that singular old man, stricken with sorrow, and moaning over the cold form in her arms. She was still of earth; this conviction left her gazing wistfully in the old man's face; she was trying to comprehend the connection of his words. At last, understanding them, she dropped her eyes sorrowfully downward again.

      "He is gone of a verity," said Parris, dropping the hand of the youth from his fingers, which had been tremulously searching for the beat of a pulse. "He has gone, and those that have seen him shall see him no more."

      Again Barbara Stafford lifted a gaze full of mournful intensity upon the old man's face.

      "Dead," she echoed, in a voice that thrilled even that rough atmosphere with pathetic sweetness. "Dead! what, does he belong to that shore and I to this? Oh, would to God I had died also!"

      Her head bent slowly downward as she spoke. With her two hands she began smoothing the wet hair back from that pale forehead. Then, as if overcome with unaccountable tenderness, she bent down her mouth and kissed it slowly, lingeringly, as the first sigh of returning life had left her bosom.

      Up to that moment the young man had lain frozen lifeless, without a beat of the pulse or a flutter of the breath. As that woman's lips touched his forehead, a shudder ran visibly through what seemed marble a moment before, and a low cry broke from his lips. Life had come back to him with a pang either of pain or pleasure; no one could tell which.

      "Behold," said Samuel Parris with enthusiasm, "truly our Lord has worked a miracle in behalf of this youth; for of a verity there was no life in him when his hand rested in mine a moment since."

      Barbara Stafford had withdrawn her lips from his forehead; but, as his quivering eyelids opened, the look of strange tenderness with which she bent over him penetrated to every fibre of his heart. The same holy expression that had crept over her features a little time before, came to his also, bringing warmth and color, almost a smile with it.

      "At last!" he murmured, like one just aroused from a dream, "at last you have come."

      The words were uttered in a low murmur, but Barbara Stafford gathered them into her heart unshared by the men about her; they heard a faint moan, which spoke of returning life, nothing more.

      By this time the whole group began to feel the cold insupportably. The old man, without cloak or coat, shook in all his limbs, while the sailors could hardly stand, so fierce had been their struggle with the waves.

      "Tell me," said Samuel Parris, addressing one of the sailors, "to whom were you conveying this lady?—for such I take her to be."

      "We do not know," answered the man; "she gave us a guinea a-piece to set her upon one of the wharves yonder before sunset; that is all we can tell you of the matter."

      "Lady," said Parris, addressing Barbara directly, "we must find speedy shelter or this new-born life will go out again."

      The lady lifted her face; it was cramped and so cold that a violet tinge shadowed the mouth and lay underneath the eyes.

      "Yes, he is very cold," she said, gathering her wet mantle over the youth; "have you nothing else?"

      "Arouse yourself, lady," said the old man after a moment's perplexed thought; "to remain here would be death to us all. It is impossible for you or this youth to reach the town to-night. Around this curve of the hill is a farm-house, where you can have rest. It is but a brief walk."

      "Let us go before this ice touches his heart!" she said, earnestly. "I can walk; carry him among you. Which way lies the house?"

      Her teeth chattered as she spoke; but even this chill gave way to her resolution.

      Two of the sailors lifted the young man between them, and moved slowly forward, following the lady, who leaned on the minister's arm. After the first few steps the youth planted his feet more firmly on the earth, and, though staggering from exhaustion, insisted on supporting the lady, walking on one side while she kept the arm of the minister on the other.

      At last a farm-house of stone, low-roofed and sheltered in a hollow СКАЧАТЬ