CITY OF LEEDS EDUCATION COMMITTEE. i} a\ e^erv mee\\x\a o^ \\\e No. HH. Ki-o;.. A. C. Frontispiece. "Yes, that's what did it." CICELY FROME, p. 14. CICELY FROME THE CAPTAIN'S DAUGHTER BESSIE MARCHANT AUTHOR OF 'AMONG THE TORCHES OF THE ANDES" ETC. WITH FOUR ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS EDINBURGH W. P. NIMMO, HAY, & MITCHELL CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. CICELY FROME ..... 7 II. IN THE SCHOOL . . . . .18 III. HURRIED AWAY ..... 36 IV. OUTWARD BOUND ..... 43 V. THE SURVIVOR . . - . .54 VI. TERRA FIRMA ONCE MORE . . . .65 VII. UP-COUNTRY TRAVELS . . . .75 VIII. AT THE FERRY ..... 87 ix. JULIE'S WELCOME ..... 103 x. WIMALA'S REVENGE . . . . .114 xi. "A DAY'S SPORT, AND ITS ENDING" . . 129 XII. THE REVENGE CARRIED OUT . . .148 XIII. THE VEDDAH-STONE ..... 160 XIV. ON THE SPOT . . . . .176 XV. THE BARTER . 191 6 CONTENTS CHAP. PACK XVI. COMMON DANGERS ..... 205 XVII. THE AWAKENING . . . . .215 XVIII. HOW THE STRUGGLE ENDED . . . 222 XIX. THE PADLOCKED BOX .... 230 XX. HIS EXPIATION ..... 238 XXI. THE END . - 247 CICELY FROME CHAPTER I CICELY FROME HE was a big girl of ten, with a shock of rough hair, a plain face, and grey eyes ; a very ordinary sort of girl to look at, it was only when you came to know her that you discovered any difference in Cicely Frome. From babyhood up to this mature age of ten years she had lived with her mother, her grand- father, and her step-brother Bernard Alderson, in the old farmhouse on the turnpike road to Hawkesbury. Her father she only saw at rare intervals, when he had time for a few days of rest and holiday between his voyages ; for he was captain of a big ocean liner, and his work was hard and 8 CICEL Y FROME anxious, his playing spells being few and far between. But the times of his home-coming were the red-letter days in Cicely's life ; for she loved him with all the warm devotion of her impulsive, affectionate heart, and deemed him the wisest, handsomest man, and the bravest sailor the world had ever seen. And he could tell such wonderful stories of his life and adventures at sea, until she cried herself to sleep in hopeless despair, night after night, because she was not a boy who could develop into a sailor later on. But she was comforted eventually by remember- ing that she could ship herself as a stewardess, by and by, when she had arrived at years of discretion. Meanwhile she grew as fast as she could, which was very fast indeed, reckoning by the many times in a year that her frocks needed making longer ; and she got into so much mischief that, according to Mrs. Frome and Bernard, she might be almost said to live in a state of constant pickledom, which means that period of one's existence during which one is either actually doing the mischief or paying the penalty thereof. This was the more trying to Mrs. Frome CICEL Y FROME 9 because Bernard, the only child of her first marriage, had been such a quiet, docile boy ; and she often sighed despairingly over Cicely's torn frocks and dirty pinafores, remembering the difference between the two children, and com- menting upon it much oftener than was good for the little girl or her brother either. Her grandfather was her great ally in troublous times, when she had been playing any prank of more than usual unto wardn ess ; and many were the instances on record of a well-merited thrash- ing averted, bread-and-water diet waved aside, or solitary confinement avoided through the old man's kindly intervention. Bernard was much older than herself, indeed she thought him quite elderly, and would, at this stage of her existence, have much preferred a rough-and-tumble sort of a brother of her own age, who would go shares with her in butter-scotch, long-toffee, and candy, be a co- partner in mischief, and even fight her on occasion. Happily for her, Bernard was away all day in a merchant's office in Hawkesbury, so that she had many hours in every week free from his surveillance, and tiresome, though well- meant, admonitions. Her lessons were done with her mother, and io CICELY FROME it was in the astute avoidance of columns of spelling, paragraphs of history, and the bewilder- ing mazes of the shillings and pence table, that Cicely expended her genius. Sometimes her conscience troubled her because her mother was so easily duped ; and on more than one occasion she had voluntarily gone back to the drudgery of her lessons, confessing her sins, impelled to this wholesome state of mind because of her mother's belief in her former excuses of inability to work. The sad part of it was that these glimpses of reformation were sure to be followed by some worse outbreak, and one glorious July morning in that tenth summer of her life, Cicely Frome decided that come what might she could not and would not be shut up in the house, poring over grammar-books, and doing subtraction of money, when the world out of doors was so well worth living in, and bird, bee, and butterfly were each, in their way, clamouring to her with insistent voices to come and share their fun. It would not do to say that her head ached, that excuse had been trotted out too often already, and her mother would only say that the sun would make it worse, and keep her indoors when lessons were over. CICELY FRO ME n Besides her head did not ache the least bit in the world, and Cicely had scruples about telling a lie, though none about acting one, such is the queer one-sided morality of children. But a bright idea came to her, as she lingered by the house door, gazing wistfully at the garden and sniffing the odours of the scented hayfields beyond ; she would let the pigs out into the cabbage bed, and then volunteer her services in chasing them out. Her grandfather had gone to Hawkesbury that morning, the men were away in the farther clover field, and neither Mary, the maid, nor her mother could run ; truly the idea was inspiration, and nothing short of it ! It acted so well too, no one saw her creep to the house end and set the well - gate ajar, artfully tossing a handful of lettuce to the half- score of swine grubbing about on the green ; and when Mrs. Frome came into the parlour prepared for the daily two hours of wrestling with her daughter's education, it was to find Cicely seated in her place at the table, apparently absorbed in the mysteries of com- parative adjectives. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, and still there were no signs of destruction threaten- ing the cabbages; tears of disappointment were i 2 CICELY FROME welling up in the delinquent's eyes, to think that those short-sighted pigs had been too obtuse to avail themselves of the invitation of the open gate, when, joy of joys ! there came the sound of an unmistakable grunt, right under the window of the parlour, and Mrs. Frome at once started up in consternation and alarm. " Cicely, the pigs are in the garden, they will eat all the cabbages ; run, dear, and help Mary drive them out." Away went Cicely, nothing loath, flinging the grammar on to the floor in her haste, where in falling it broke its back, and a torn leaf or two of abstract nouns and comparative adjectives lay scattered on the carpet. But what cared she for nouns or adjectives then ? It was lovely, lovelier, loveliest out in the sunshine ; and to chase the pigs from the cabbages was better by far in her estimation than to sort miscellaneous words into orderly heaps, each of its kind, like the animals in Noah's ark. When the pigs were chased back to their legitimate feeding - ground, it was of course necessary to rest after her exertions, and to this end she wandered off to the nearest hayfield, and making herself a comfortable nest in the hay, lay down to meditate for a while, not on CICELY FRO ME 13 the interrupted grammar lesson, but on things in general, and her father in particular. So absorbed was she in this pleasant musing, that she failed to see a telegraph boy pass the gate of the meadow on his way to the house,, and was only aroused some ten minutes later by hearing the servant, Mary, calling her name in agitated tones. At first she only nestled closer in the hay r laughing softly to herself, and thinking what a long time it would be before Mary found her ; but a break in the woman's voice, as though tears were close at hand, arrested her attention r arousing her curiosity. Then she jumped up, shaking herself vigorously to get rid of the clinging hay ; Mary had ceased shouting, having probably gone back to the house, and Cicely was about to settle down again in renewed content when her sharp eyes caught a glimpse of the telegraph boy passing the gate. He was going back to Hawkesbury now, having delivered his message, striding away with quick vigorous steps and a cheerful whistle. But Cicely did not waste time in looking at him after that first glance of surprise. Tele- grams to her meant news of her father, and she sped back towards the house with fleet steps, i 4 CICEL Y FROME her face radiant with delight, and shouts of exultation just ready to burst from her lips. They died away though, unuttered, when she reached the house door, and saw her mother lying stretched on the floor of the little square entrance hall in a dead swoon, while Mary hung over her, sobbing bitterly. There was a piece of paper in her mother's hand, whilst the yellow envelope lay on the floor at a little distance away. Cicely opened her mouth to ask what was the matter, but though her lips moved no sound came, and her heart was beating so wildly that its throbbing frightened her. Holding to the post of the door for support with one hand, with the other she pointed to the paper in her mother's hand. "Yes, that's what did it," said the woman, staying her sobs to speak, eager to unburden herself of the heavy tidings that could not long be withheld ; " your father's ship has sunk, that's what the telegraph is about ; and you, poor child, are a horphan like your brother." A wild shriek from Cicely ; and then, not pausing a moment to aid in succouring her poor unconscious mother, she turned and fled. Out into the sunlight she ran, bareheaded ; flecked with grass seeds, and bits of clover CICELY FROME 15 sticking here and there about her frock and pinafore, or clinging to her hair ; and with her face now white, now scarlet, from the tumult in her heart ; she took the same direction in which the telegraph messenger had disappeared, and ran on. It did not take her long to overtake and pass him, and he ceased whistling to shout an inquiry after her as to what was the matter, but she neither heard nor heeded, being unconscious of everything but that she wanted to find her grandfather, Mary's words and her mother's swoon having led her to believe that she was doubly orphaned. Presently she saw the familiar chaise, drawn by the old white horse, coming towards her on the dusty highway, and running to it she began to cry out in her fright and pain, " Grand- father, grandfather, hide me, hide me, I'm so afraid!" Her grandfather stopped the white horse and helped her scramble into the low chaise beside him. " Hey now, what's the latest bit of mischief, Cicely ? have you set the ricks on fire, or drowned your kitten in the horse-well ? " " No, no," sobbed Cicely, cowering closer to the kind old man, " it isn't me at all, it's father ; and 1 6 CICELY FRO ME mother's dead too ; and Mary says I'm an orphan like Bernard ! " The reins fell unheeded from her grandfather's hands, but the white horse was steady and knew her road home. " Cicely, Cicely, it can't be true ! God, my son, my son ! " They cried together then, the old man and the young child, and were comforted even as they wept, so great is the relief of tears. But Mrs. Frome was not dead, but was sitting on a chair with a pale drawn face when Cicely and her grandfather reached home, while Mary was sobbing louder than ever. The old man took the telegram, reading the brief message of calamity at sea : " The Eastern Star foundered off the coast of Ireland, all hands lost." " There may be better news to come later ; they wouldn't surely all be drowned ; and in the middle of summer, with a quiet sea as you may say," he faltered, clinging to a poor pretence of hope even yet. But Cicely's mother lifted her head with a proud light of almost gladness on her poor, agonised face. " Yes, some will be saved doubtless, but not him ; my captain would never desert his ship ! " And despite her keen sorrow of bereavement, CICELY FROME 17 Cicely was not a little comforted by these words of her mother's ; repeating them many times in the sad weeks and months that followed, and never once seeing how strange and cold was the reception they met from the people to whom she said them. CHAPTEE II IN THE SCHOOL IVE years had slipped away, and the child of ten, who had grieved through the bright summer morning among the ox-eyed daisies of the meadow, was a tall girl of fifteen, with all the uncom- fortable angularity that characterises the age, and the added discomfort of a plain face. Cicely Frome had not outgrown her sorrow for her father's untimely end, though it was shaded now to a tender regret by the gentle touches of time. She had experienced other sorrows since then, though never a one so keen. Her mother had died, slipping out of life six months after the loss of her sailor-husband. Then Bernard Alderson, her step-brother, had gone away to Ceylon. And the latest grief her young life had known was the death of her old grandfather, which event sent her to the 18 IN THE SCHOOL 19 guardianship of two prim spinster cousins of her dead father, who in their turn sent her to boarding school. This action of theirs, however, was not the outcome of any unfriendliness on their part, or an outbreak of that antipathy popularly sup- posed to exist between the very old girl and the very young of the same genus ; but merely a common-sense, practical desire on the part of the elderly Misses Frome for their young relative to grow up amid bright, cheerful surroundings, and amongst companions of her own age. Here Cicely was happy in her own way, and was so constantly in mischief of one sort and another as to set her in the position of a leader amongst the more active of her fellows, who thirsted continually for the delight of broken laws. Oh, the varied joys of those days ! The whis- pered consultations in forbidden corners con- cerning attempts to do forbidden things. Until it seemed to Cicely that life would lose half its zest and enjoyment if there were no rules to break, no risks to run, and no teachers to get the better of. Sometimes though not very often existence would be soured for her temporarily by the 20 CICELY FROME knowledge that she was not, and possibly might never be, fair to look upon. And for a brief space she would be fiercely envious of the softly-dimpled curves and delicate colouring of some other girl's more fortunate face. But this mood rarely lasted long, and she was content to take the good that came and make the best of it. The one serious fault that she found with life was that it was so transient. Did she fix her affections on one particular classmate, that girl was certain to leave at the end of the term ; did she find one teacher easier than another to work under, the same condition prevailed, and that teacher vanished at the next vacation. And now the prospect before her was change still, for her step-brother had found himself a wife in far-away Ceylon, and was anxious that his sister should come out to him and share his home. Therefore this was her last term at school, and already it was waning fast. A concert was in prospect for the closing event, and all the girls in the least degree musical were hard at work practising glees, duets, choruses, and pianoforte solos of fearful and wonderful construction, in every spare half-hour that could be stolen from IN THE SCHOOL 21 the ordinary round of study. And for a whole week Cicely had been so subdued by the fact of her impending journey, and so engrossed by steady practising, as to have been in no mischief whatever, a condition of virtue so startling that Miss Sara GifFord looked at her anxiously, wondering whether she was developing scarlatina or German measles, or any of the other ills to which schoolgirl flesh is peculiarly liable ; and even the august Miss Gilford condescended to comment approvingly on this mental and moral reformation in a pupil over whom she had sighed despairingly for so long a time. But, alas, it did not last ! And already vague plans for an unusual outburst of fun and frolic were beginning to shape themselves in the brain of Cicely, though outwardly she still appeared thoughtful and subdued. Miss Gifford's school was situate in the out- skirts of Hawkesbury, a fine old house standing in its own grounds, and containing many little rooms with oak wainscoting, behind which the mice ran races with each other, or gnawed with an insistent scraping of their little white teeth on the hard old boards, making the girls start and scream in the hysterical manner of their class. In the bedrooms this scampering and 22 CICELY FROME scraping was especially noticeable, and Cicely, who slept in a room alone, was startled one night by the sight of a small brown atom hurrying away across the floor when she went to her bed. For a moment she stood irresolute, with her mouth open ready for the shriek of fright which should summons the governess on duty to her aid. Only for a moment, however, and then her mouth shut itself with a snap, and she even laughed softly, from some hidden source of glee, as she set about her preparations for rest, with a brisk determination not to keep the monitress waiting. At intervals during the night she heard the patter, patter of tiny feet on the floor, whereat she would laugh again, and turn on her pillow to sleep once more. Another week passed away with nothing to mark its monotony, and Cicely had risen five places in class by reason of her good conduct, and Miss Gifford's imposition register held nothing but clean blank spaces against her name. "What has come to you, Cicely, you are as slow as old boots now ? " cried Laura Thorn, a little Australian much given to frolic, one day, IN THE SCHOOL 23 coming suddenly on Cicely, who was leaning in a brown study against the stair rail, just outside the music-room. " I'm thinking," she replied soberly, though there was a twinkle in her eyes which was re- garded as distinctly hopeful by the young Australian, who was finding this unblemished record of Cicely's decidedly dull. " Ah, what is it, dear ? Do tell," urged Laura, feeling a delightful anticipatory shudder in the region of her spine ; for some of Cicely's thoughts as revealed to this boon-companion-in-mischief were of a decidedly gruesome colour, which when carried into active operation always produced an abundant crop of shrieks and screams among the victims of her practical jokes. But she only shook her head, declining to be explicit, proving superior to bribery even, although Laura urged upon her the biggest half of a box of chocolate, a shilling box it was too, and Cicely's weakness for this particular delicacy was proverbial in the school. Laura was distinctly impressed by this in- corruptible reticence on the part of her friend, and hurried away to communicate the news of it, in mysterious whispers, to all the other girls with whom she came in contact. Very soon the 24 CICEL Y FROME tidings had spread through the school that " Cicely Frome was up to no end of a lark," and everyone waited with hardly concealed im- patience for its development. Even the governesses got wind of it, and watched Cicely like keen -eyed detectives, prepared at every point, and ready to extinguish the "lark" in its very first appearing. They were all doomed to disappointment, however, for the monotonous days passed on with unvarying quiet, and Cicely remained a model of good behaviour, her register still free from bad - conduct marks, and her French exercises correspondingly well done, it being characteristic of her that of all her studies French suffered most when she was on the war- path of mischief. When the girls found themselves defrauded of their fun, they turned on the little Australian with many murmurs. " A regular sell, to keep us on the hooks like this for nothing at all," grumbled Jessie Boyd, a tall fair girl, whose frocks were always smart and up-to-date, and who rarely suffered from a scarcity of pocket money. " I expect she was afraid to carry out her ideas," sneered Edith Carrington, who was given IN THE SCHOOL 25 to keeping her good things to herself, and was respected accordingly. " Cicely is never afraid," cried the little Australian, turning fiercely on her friend's detractors, her eyes flashing angrily. " Why doesn't she do it then ? " asked Belle Murray, pushing her way into the group of girls who were clustered round the little classroom fire. It was a raw, cold day in early December, and they had been driven in from their walk by a Scotch mist that was changing by degrees into a steady downpour of rain. " I don't know, ask her yourself," retorted the champion, who was rapidly losing her temper under this cross-fire of interrogation. " We have, but she won't say anything ; she won't tell us ! " chorused the group. "And she won't tell me either," admitted Laura, piqued into the confession, though as a rule she preferred to pose as the confidante of Cicely, and to drop exasperating hints of what she could tell if she chose. After this a pretty abundant portion of cold shoulder was meted out to Cicely, and she was made to feel the resentment of her companions for having disappointed them of their anticipated thrill. But it did not appear to trouble her, 26 CICEL Y FROME although she was still quiet and thoughtful in her manner, and given to long fits of meditation. Meanwhile the practising for the concert went on vigorously, the programme was drawn up, the invitations sent out for an evening four days before the end of term, and a delightful flutter of excitement began to pervade the place. Cicely, being one of the older girls, and a good pianist also, was very much to the fore in the programme, she was put down for a pianoforte solo, the principal in two duets, and a leading part in the final item of the evening, which was arranged for three violins, two mandolins, a guitar and piano ; and with all this in prospect, Miss Gifford kindly excused her from any other work during the two days immediately preceding the eventful evening. The nighfc of the concert was clear, fine, and cold ; in the house the girls were moving about in much nervous trepidation, whilst on the drive, stretching down from the entrance door to the gate, the cab wheels were crunching indentations on the gravel, which would bring despair to the heart of the old gardener on the morrow. Miss Gifford's school concert was regarded as an important event in the Christmas festivities of Hawkesbury, and was always well patronised. IN THE SCHOOL 27 The two main schoolrooms, thrown into one by means of folding doors, were filled with a well - dressed throng ; who, later on, in the twenty minutes' interval between the parts, would saunter across the hall to the dining-room, to discuss ices and lemonade, macaroons and sandwiches, and admire the pretty effects of fairy lamps lurking under Japanese fans, and paper lanterns hung across the room on cords tied to the picture rods. Most of the girls were resplendent in new frocks of varying costliness, according to the depth of their parents' pockets. Cicely was in plain white, unrelieved by bow or flower, and a certain degree of nervousness had sent an unusual colour into her cheeks, rendering her plain face for once almost attractive. She was one of the first on the platform, taking her place modestly in the background, and refusing all overtures towards a more prominent position. Kind little Miss Sara Gifford, who looked after the housekeeping, and mothered the girls when they were ill, put this modesty of hers down to shame on account of the plainness of her frock, as contrasted with the ribbons and laces and manifold furbelows of her companions, and mentally resolved to tell 28 CICEL Y FROME her at the close of the evening how very well the plain white frock became her, and brought out the best points of her face and figure. Subsequent events, however, drove this kindly consoling from her mind entirely. The first item, a duet between a big girl and a little one, had been decorously applauded by the audience, and two young violinists with a few faint preliminary squeaks from their instruments were leading off through a mazy wilderness of trills and flourishes, when a sudden confusion arose in the part of the room nearest the platform, a lady sprang up with a little scream of dismay, knocking over a tall palm, which in its descent swept a little girl from the platform, who received sundry and divers scratches, likewise considerable damage to her frock. The duet came to a sudden stop ; the lady, overwhelmed with confusion, apologised pro- fusely, and tendered the unfortunate little girl a bright new half-crown as compensation for her scratches. She stated that a mouse had run from somewhere over her feet, and the sight of & mouse always unnerved her. Miss Gifford accepted the apology with a rsomewhat icy bow ; she was distinctly annoyed, IN THE SCHOOL 29 and deemed the appearance of the mouse to exist only in the lady's brain. The young violinists being perturbed and upset by this unseemly interruption, were waved aside for the present, and Cicely was ordered forward for a pianoforte solo. The first chords had scarcely died away, and her fingers were flying up the keyboard in her first run, when something went scampering along the front of the platform, in full view of girls and visitors, and even of Miss Gifford herself. It was a mouse, a most unmistakable mouse, and the confusion and disorder were past description ; the girls tumbled backwards over each other in their haste to get clear out of the way of a creature so terrifying ; ladies stood on their chairs and shrieked, in a perfect abandonment of fear ; while gentlemen flicked their pocket-hand- kerchiefs about their boots, getting red in the face and angry at the same time. Miss Gifford's countenance was a sight to see, whilst poor Miss Sara was crying with mortifica- tion at such untoward disaster. There was no smoothing the matter over this time, and a proposal was made to clear the room whilst the mouse was hunted for. Accordingly the twenty minutes' interval was anticipated, the 30 CICEL Y FROME visitors trooped off to the dining-room to cool their perturbation with ises pink and white and yellow, and of flavours as numerous as their hues ; while the girls hurried away to the music-room, shutting the door carefully to keep out the mouse. Then the concert-room was taken possession of by all the servants in a body, armed with brushes, brooms, pokers, and other defensive and offensive weapons, and after a tremendous amount of noise and confusion the cook succeeded in dealing the deathblow of the unfortunate mouse with the big kitchen shovel, and bore the mangled corpse in triumph to Miss Gifford. That lady bestowed one fleeting glance on the little battered body, then turning away with a strong shiver of disgust mice being her most particular aversion she led her guests back to the concert-room once more : and the evening's entertainment began again, and went smoothly on for perhaps half an hour, at the expiration of which time Jessie Boyd sprang up with a wild scream, declaring that there was another mouse. Instantly all was confusion again, the girls pushed and scrambled, the audience rose in a body, and the hubbub was extraordinary. Laura Strong, the little Australian, was on the IN THE SCHOOL 31 verge of frightened sobbing, when, happening to catch sight of Cicely standing in a corner con- vulsed with laughter, it flashed upon her quick brain that this must be the work of that young lady. This idea put quite a different colouring on the affair, and her disposition for tears was changed into an almost uncontrollable desire for laughter. She could not get near to Cicely, however, being separated by a surging, swaying mass of girls, who were for the most part shriek- ing wildly. For a few moments this scene lasted, and then Miss Gifford ordered the instant retirement to their bedrooms of the girls and the governesses ; after which, with a few words of vexed apology, she dismissed her guests also, confessing herself to be quite unequal to seeing her programme carried through under existing conditions. Not a little sympathy was felt and expressed for her by the parents and friends of her pupils as they took their departure ; and not a few bestirred themselves to send the unfortunate lady the timely present of a cat, each one warranted a " thoroughly good mouser." Loud was the grumbling of the girls next day at their spoiled concert, Cicely's voice leading 32 CICELY PRO ME the general growl, whereat the little Australian nearly choked with laughter, and grew so suspiciously red in the face that she was at once seized upon by two big girls and commanded to confess the reason of her mirth. But this small Colonial was loyal to the backbone, and, moreover, she had only a suspicion to go upon, therefore she merely said, with a meek air very exasperating to her interrogators, " I was only thinking how very silly we all must have looked, standing on chairs and screaming because a tiny, harmless mouse ran across the room." " Oh, indeed, we looked silly, did we ? " said Jessie Boyd, shaking her roughly. " You did ; I didn't notice the others so much," replied the child, with an impertinent grimace at her senior, and promptly diving beyond reach of the ready blow Jessie aimed at her. " I can't make out how the wretched little animals came to get in the room at all ; mice always clear out when there are people about," remarked Belle Murray thoughtfully, with a perplexed look on her face. " Perhaps someone did it on purpose," sug- gested Rosie Blake, a child of ten, with uncanny eyes and a tangle of dark curly hair. IN THE SCHOOL 33 " Ugh ! no one would touch a mouse," said Jessie, with a shudder. " No girl perhaps, but a boy would ; my brothers bring in a pocketful sometimes," replied Rosie, shaking her curls out of her eyes. "Cicely, Cicely, I have been simply dying to get a chance to speak to you," whispered Laura, coming into the music-room the next day and finding her friend alone there. Cicely blushed vividly, and had the grace to look ashamed ; she had taken great pains to avoid Laura since the eventful evening, and now was fairly caught. "How did you find out?" she asked in an agitated tone, realising how serious was her escapade now that it stood in such imminent risk of discovery. " I saw your face when they were all struggling and screaming, and I nearly died of laughter after that, though I made just as much noise as the rest," went on Laura in breathless eagerness. " It was an awful sell ! " retorted Cicely, so savagely that Laura looked at her in amazement. " Why ? I thought it was splendid, and quite the biggest lark you have ever done," said Laura in an admiring tone. 3 3 N 4 CICEL Y FROME "The lark was all right enough, it was the people who were such idiots ; fancy grown-up men and women stampeding because a mouse ran over their toes ! I had no idea that the concert would be stopped, and I had only those three mice, so if they had caught the last one there would have been no further disturbance, for one of the first got clear away," grumbled Cicely in an injured tone. The little Australian was speechless for some minutes from violent, though suppressed, laughter. Then she said, in a panting, half- incoherent tone, " Cook says that ten cats were sent yesterday, and six more have come this morning ; they fight, too, so dreadfully that she has had to tie them up like dogs." Cicely did not laugh, however, and said presently, " I'm dreadfully worried about it all, for Miss Gifford is very angry, and suspicion might fall on an innocent person a servant or governess. Do you think I ought to 'fess before I go?" " Oh no, you'd get in an awful pickle ; the Gifford would hang you almost, she is so mad at the whole business," said Laura in a frightened tone. " I had better write to her then," replied IN THE SCHOOL 35 Cicely, with a little sigh of dissatisfaction because of the lark that had gone so wrong. " No, I have it ! " cried Laura, whirling round the room in an ecstasy of delight ; " write to the Editor of the Hawkesbury Gazette, and ask him to put it in his paper ! " " I couldn't do that ! " exclaimed Cicely, going redder than ever now. " Yes, you could ; he'd be certain to put it in the paper ; and you needn't put your own name, you know." Cicely meditated with troubled gravity, whilst Laura plied her with persuasions, until at length she began to yield, and finally the two girls sat down in a quiet corner to try their 'prentice hands at journalism. CHAPTER III HURRIED AWAY HE Misses Frome had not been present at the school concert which ended in so much confusion. They lived at Oldstock, a fifteen miles' journey from Hawkesbury as the crow flies, and fully twenty-five by the railway, which indulged in a much more circuitous route. They knew the town well, however, and kept themselves posted in the various items of interest taking place there. On the Friday evening following her return from school, Cicely, who had been more or less ill at ease all day, brought in the Hawkesbury Gazette, which the paper boy had just left, and laid it down beside Miss Selina Frome, with a flutter at her heart which extended to her fingers, causing them to tremble violently. "Are you cold, child?" asked the old lady 36 HURRIED AWAY 37 kindly, as she fumbled for her spectacles in order to read the news to her half-blind sister, Miss Eliza. " No, thank you," Cicely answered, turning quickly and leaving the room out of sheer nervousness, to creep away to the fireless draw- ing-room and play jerky runs on the wheezy old piano there, whilst the two old ladies pored over the news-sheet in the other room. Presently there was a tap at the door, and Molly the maid entered with a quick little ex- clamation of surprise at finding the young lady playing the piano in the dark, "when it was a'most cold enough to freeze your fingers to the keys." " What do you want ? " asked Cicely in an in- different tone, though she guessed what the answer would be. " It's Miss Selina, she wants you in the dining- room please, miss," replied Molly, making swift retreat towards her snug little kitchen, for the snow was three inches deep on the ground, and the thermometer falling still. It might have been a broiling July day, how- ever, judging by the flushed condition of Cicely's cheeks as she walked across the hall and into the room where the sisters were sitting. 38 CICEL Y FROME " Cicely, there is a most extraordinary para- graph in the Gazette about Miss Gifford's school concert ; you never said anything about it being broken up in disorder ? " and Miss Selina peered a little suspiciously at her young cousin from under her spectacles, though in an ordinary way she was one of the most unsuspicious of people. Cicely paused, hesitated, flushed, and finally walked up to the old lady in a sort of desperation. " May I read the paragraph, please ? " she asked, holding out her hand for the paper. Miss Selina gave it to her without a word, though usually she protested loudly against the practice of permitting young girls like Cicely to read newspapers. The girl's hands shook so that she could hardly hold the paper, and a curious blindness made the printed letters dance a jig backwards and forwards across the broad sheet, until, controlling her nervousness by a strong effort, she was able to read " The disastrous ending to Miss Gifiord's school concert was owing to the mischievous propensities of one of the girls leaving at the end of the term, who had three live mice in her pocket, which she turned loose among the audience. The gentlemen present appeared fully as much disturbed as the ladies, and the entertainment broke up amid great confusion " HURRIED AWAY 39 She read the paragraph right through, and then gave back the paper with a sigh of relief. " It will be all right now, and the wrong person will not get blamed, for Miss Clifford must know well enough that none of the other girls who left this term would dare to carry live mice in their pockets, or turn them out afterwards either," she said gravely. The paper dropped from Miss Selina's hand, and she rose to her feet, staring at the girl as though wondering if she, or Cicely, had been suddenly bereft of her senses. Miss Eliza also rose, though with difficulty, for she was old and feeble, and for a long moment they stood so, with Cicely between them, and then Miss Selina broke the silence by asking in an agitated tone " Cousin Cicely, did you turn those mice out of your pocket ? " " Yes," replied Cicely, choking back some- thing that would have developed into a sob if it had not been strangled in its first begin- ning. " But who discovered it and put it in the paper ? " demanded Miss Selina, with a sound of tears in her voice. " I put it in the paper, to prevent mistakes," 40 CICEL Y FROME declared Cicely, breathing more freely now that it was all out, and not caring much as to what punishment awaited her. Having had the fun, it was only fair that she should pay the penalty, which at the worst might only be solitary con- finement and bread-and-water diet for the next few weeks. Miss Selina dropped into her chair in a collapse of dismay, and Miss Eliza did likewise ; after this the former felt for her handkerchief and began to weep, upon which the other old lady promptly followed suit. If they had stormed Cicely would have borne their raging with a stoical indifference, but as they only sat still and cried she became very uncomfortable, sitting down eventually between the two and joining her lamentations to theirs. The tears acted as a safety valve all round, and cleared the air. Cicely was not condemned to solitary meditation during Christmas, nor to satisfy her appetite on the meagre diet she had anticipated. But she had to write a letter of apology to the not unreasonably offended Miss Gifford, and then her departure was hurried with all possible speed, the Misses Frome feeling totally unequal to the task of keeping in HURRIED AWAY 41 order a girl so lost to a due sense of the proprieties of life. Cicely was very meek and subdued during the remainder of her stay at Oldstock. And the sense of shame at her escapade, which had first developed at the sight of Miss Selina's distress, was deepened, curiously enough, by the letters from her ex-schoolfellows, applauding the lark, and metaphorically carrying her on the shoulders of their applause. She grew sick of the very sound of the lark, so-called, before she left England, and never opened a letter without a shiver of dread as to whether it might be mentioned therein. But in spite of the efforts to hurry her de- parture, and the anxiety of Bernard to have her in his home, there were delays on delays, and it was past the middle of February before she bade farewell to Oldstock and her ancient cousins resident there. She was to travel under the protection of an officer's wife going to join her husband in Trincomalee, whilst her own destination was Batticaloa, where Bernard had arranged to meet her. There were few tears in the parting, and no real regret ; the ancient sisters had each other, 42 CICEL Y FROME and needed no one else ; whilst Cicely was eager now for the change of travel, for the sight of the sea, which she had never yet seen save in pictures, and for the new life awaiting her. CHAPTER IV OUTWARD BOUND N two days Cicely was as much at home on board ship as though she had taken a voyage before ; and memories of her sailor-father stirred restlessly, called forth by the briny odours oi the ocean, and the nautical sayings and doings all around her. Mrs. Farquharson, the officer's wife in whose care Cicely had been placed for the voyage, was ill for the first part of the time, and confined to her cabin ; so that Cicely was left pretty much to her own devices for a while, and spent the clays in the manner that seemed best to her. There were young people among the passengers with whom she fraternised readily enough, taking a leading position in any fun going on, and enjoying herself immensely. One day during their passage through the 44 CICEL Y JEROME Mediterranean, the passengers (the more sober part of them, at least) were electrified by tidings that a mail-bag had been dropped from a flying machine during the night with letters for the passengers. At first no one took the tidings seriously, but when, during breakfast-time, an unmistakable G.P.O. bag was brought into the saloon, plenti- fully plastered with big daubs of sealing-wax, a little stir of anticipation was observable among those sitting at table. " Are there newspapers too ? " asked Major Vincent, a military man with a fiery face sug- gestive of a volcanic temperament within. " There was a message left, sir, that no news- papers would be forthcoming until the next delivery, owing to a gigantic strike of London compositors," replied the stolid official in charge of the bag. Major Vincent stared suspiciously at the man's impassive face, but seeing no gleam of mischief, no lightening of its gravity, he turned away again to watch the captain, who was rapidly sorting the somewhat meagre contents of that mysterious bag. A few letters there were, but circulars were in greater abundance, bulky documents from com- OUTWARD SOUND 45 pany promoters, catalogues from furniture dealers, millinery patterns, choice wine lists, and prospectuses of gold-mining companies. The remarkable thing about them all being that they all appeared to be addressed to the wrong people ; for instance, the irate Major Vincent had a great bundle of matter from a well-known millinery house, and stared aghast at the array of impossible new Paris bonnets therein depicted. Whilst the Irishman, Mr. O'Biley, who was in his way a second Father Matthew, and quite a bigoted teetotaller, had a little pile of wine lists lying beside his plate, at which he was looking with a great amount of disgust, for most of them bore somewhere about them, in unpleasantly aggressive type, " A continuance of your es- teemed orders shall receive our prompt attention." A price list from Whitely's was lying in front of a severe looking gentleman, who had aristo- crat written all over him, from the top of his carefully brushed hair down to the tips of his nails. He was annoyed apparently, and frowning heavily, when the lady sitting next him burst into merry laughter over the letter that had fallen to her share. " This," she said, holding out the epistle, 46 CICEL Y FROME "purports to be from Rider Haggard's She, and contains some valuable advice upon how to keep young. ' She ' is a little uncertain in her grammar, and trips more than once in her spelling, but that of course is not wonderful considering the difficulties of education when 'She' was young." A girl a little older than Cicely, and sitting farther down the table, grew rather red in the face at this juncture, and became suspiciously engrossed by her breakfast. Mrs. Farquharson, who by this time had sufficiently recovered to come to table, was also reading a letter, and appeared to be somewhat mystified by the contents. "Mine is from Zadkiel, of almanac fame, and is chiefly confined to observations on meteorological subjects, with a word of caution at the end to the effect that anyone travelling with Cicely Frome will prob- ably encounter unsettled weather and squalls in mid-ocean." The passengers by this time were beginning to understand that they had been hoaxed, the wooden-faced official had disappeared, probably to enjoy a laugh on the quiet, and most of the victims were exchanging letters, or admiring the careful and elaborate workmanship of the OUTWARD BOUND 47 forged post-marks, when Mr. O'Riley and the aristocratic man, whose name was Cornelius Beverly, began to talk, and Cicely, who was sitting close by, to listen. " Practical joking is always the refuge of the empty-headed and the inane on shipboard," re- marked Mr. Beverly, with a lofty disdain that brought a gleam of angry defiance into the listener's eyes. " Yes ; and it is so very silly," retorted Mr. O'Riley, tearing viciously into little bits a price list of sparkling and dry champagne. "I remember," went on the other, "that last fatal voyage of the Eastern Star we had a constant succession of the silliest jokes per- petrated upon us, until existence became almost intolerable." "Were you on board the Eastern Star in her last voyage ? " asked O'Riley quickly. " Yes, I was one of the five passengers saved, five only out of a ship's company of three hundred and twenty-seven souls ! " and Mr. Beverly swelled visibly with a sort of gloomy importance, emanating from his connection with a tragedy so direful. " Awful catastrophe, wasn't it ! How long ago was it, three years ? " O'Riley said musingly, 48 CICELY FROME trying to fix the date in its right place, yet failing in his effort. " Five years ago last June," replied the other, still in the same tone of portentous solemnity, whilst Cicely almost held her breath to listen. " We were caught in a heavy fog off the south coast of Ireland, and struck on the rocks in Roaring Water Bay." " I know," replied O'Riley ; " but the puzzle to me was how you ever got so far out of your course, the captain must have known that he was on dangerous ground." " It was a puzzle to a good many people, and it will never be solved in this world, for you see those of us who were saved were all passengers, knowing nothing of navigation, and we could therefore throw no light on the working of the vessel, or tell how often the soundings were taken." Cicely was growing very white in the face now, and her hands were clasped very tightly together to keep her from crying out in her pain. But the two men went on with their conversa- tion, not heeding her in the least, and the rest of the people were laughing heartily at some joke emanating from the contents of the post-bag. " Did the Board of Trade inquiry think that OUTWARD BOUND 49 no one was to blame in the matter then ? " asked O'Kiley, who was still reducing the noxious wine lists to waste paper with nervous ringers, that ripped and tore in an irritating manner well calculated to set people's teeth on edge if they listened to it. "People are careful what they say of the dead ; it is a superstition that is almost instinct in the race. You see, dead men can't defend themselves against wrongful imputations and allegations not wholly true. Perhaps if any of the officers or the captain had been saved we might have seen a different ending to the inquiry," replied Mr. Beverly, with the air of a man who had made his own deductions and found them more important than those of other people. Cicely was quick enough to detect this strain of hidden meaning in his tone, but she could not trust herself to listen to what he might say next, and with the instinct similar to that which makes a wounded animal creep to cover that its suffering may be hidden, she rose hurriedly and left the table, intent only on reaching a place of solitude before the breaking down of her self- control should betray her to the curious eyes of her fellow- voyagers. 50 CICEL Y FROME So she crept away to the cabin which she shared with Mrs. Farquharson, and sobbed stormily until her passion was spent, and ex- haustion stopped the flow of her tears. How she hated that well-preserved, aristo- cratic Mr. Beverly, who had dared to insinuate that the loss of the Eastern Star was as much fault as accident ! He would probably have gone further, and openly accused the captain of negligence if only that captain had not been dead. It was awful, horrible ! And the poor girl almost raved in her impotent grieving, until she was too worn out for anything but to lie still and moan. But she was soon missed from the merry saloon party, and sought out in her retirement. To all questioning, however, she only replied with a mournful shake of her head, which, being by her companions imputed to sea - sickness, caused some merriment among those at whom in her turn she had previously pointed with scornful mirth. They left her alone, then, when they had in- dulged in a few harmless sallies of wit at her expense, and she remained all day stretched out in her berth, sometimes crying, sometimes indulging in fits of passionate anger, and some- OUTWARD SOUND 51 times trying to recall all that had ever been told her concerning the manner of her father's death. Then she remembered how very reticent her mother and Bernard had been on the subject. And how her old grandfather had even refused to talk of the catastrophe, although he was sufficiently garrulous on all other topics, and would talk by the hour if only he could find someone willing to listen to him. This avoidance of the subject she had always attributed to the fact of its being so exceedingly full of pain. But, if what this man had in- sinuated was true, there might have been another reason for their reserve they might have deemed his death to have been but the just expiation of an awful blunder in navigation, or some piece of stupendous carelessness scarcely removed from a crime. To lie and think became at last intolerable even to poor Cicely, and in the evening, whilst the others were at dinner, she dressed herself languidly, and went on deck to let the breeze cool her hot brow and efface the tell-tale traces of tears from her cheeks. It was a warm, pleasant evening, with a light breeze blowing, and the sun dropping like a 52 CICELY FRO ME huge ball of fire into the refulgent waters of the glowing west. The deck was deserted, saving for some of the crew, who were altering the awning and getting ready for a dance that was in prospect when the passengers came up from dining. Cicely strolled to a nook in the stern, which she especially delighted in, and which to-night gave her a glorious view of the magnificent sun-setting. Her head was aching badly, and she was weak and languid from her violent grieving, but she was gathering up her courage towards the carrying out of a resolve, and bracing her nerves in the invigorating air to the point where her desires tended. Her resolve was nothing less than to seek out Mr. Beverly, and ask him to give her a clear and full account of the wreck of her father's vessel, keeping her own identity secret the while. But she was only an ex -schoolgirl, of no special importance on board, whilst Mr. Cornelius Beverly was a very grand gentleman, with somewhat magnificent views concerning his own position, and exclusive withal. It was highly probable that he would regard her request in OUTWARD BOUND 53 the light of a great impertinence, and treat it accordingly. Just then, as though to give her the opportunity she wanted, Mr. Beverly slowly approached the place where she was sitting, attracted doubtless by the splendour of the westering sun. It was now, if she dared to do it. And being by nature courageous, and rendered desperate by her anxiety to know the worst, she came close to where he was standing, asking softly " May I speak to you, if you please, sir ? " He turned sharply with an annoyed expres- sion. Having come on deck early in order to be quiet, it was displeasing to him to be accosted in this manner. " What do you wish to say ? " he said, knit- ting his brows, and thinking that of all classes of society schoolgirls were the most objection- able. CHAPTER V THE SURVIVOR ICELY hesitated, the very pronounced unfriendliness of his manner made it difficult for her to ask a favour at his hands. Yet if she did not seize the opportunity which now presented itself the chances were that she might never have another, for Bernard would not tell her, and she was going right away from other means of information. " Would you mind telling me about the wreck of the Eastern Star, I so very much want to know?" she pleaded, with a wistful look in her grey eyes, that were wont to twinkle with gleams of mischief more often than to take on an expression of pathos. The question was unexpected, and for a moment Mr. Beverly hesitated, then recovering, turned on his heel, saying, with an air of bored THE SURVIVOR 55 weariness, " I have no time or inclination for telling stories to children, and the history of that awful tragedy is by no means suitable for the ears of young people." " Oh stay, sir, for just a moment. I did not mean to be rude," she panted, getting in his path, and looking at him imploringly ; she would have seized his arm, to prevent his moving away, had she dared, but Mr. Cornelius Beverly was sufficiently awe-inspiring to make such an action impossible. He stopped, however, with a surprised look, wondering at her importunity. " Why do you want to know about that wreck ? It does not concern you in any way ? " he asked curiously. Cicely's heart was beating with loud heavy throbs, and there was a surging, singing noise in her ears, but she mustered her courage with an effort, though now her eyes were swimming in most unwonted tears. " The captain was my father, my dear, dear father, and I want to know about his death. I was such a child then, and they told me nothing saving that he was dead." He started, and looked very uncomfortable for a minute, then said kindly, " My poor child, I had no idea of this." 5 6 CICEL Y FRO ME Cicely shook herself in an admonitory fashion ; his supercilious indifference had been suffici- ently hard to bear, but his pity was absolutely intolerable. "I must know about it, if you please, and you can forget that I am his daughter. I would not have told you, only you thought my asking was mere curiosity." "Your friends would not care to have you told, probably," he answered in a yielding tone, leading her to the seat she had quitted and sitting down beside her. "There are none left except Bernard." "Who is Bernard?" " My step - brother ; his name is Bernard Alderson, and he lives in Ceylon." "And what is your name?" asked Mr. Beverly, presumably with a view to gaining time. " Cicely Frome. Bernard was mother's son," she explained, with great inward chafing at his reluctance to give her the information she so greatly desired. "And your mother?" " She died six months after father," replied Cicely, winking hard to keep back her tears. " It is such a painful story," objected Mr. Beverly in a musing tone. In his heart he was THE SURVIVOR 57 not disinclined for the narration, for it was a very long time since he had found a listener to whom the telling was fresh, and he loved to live over again his one heroic act, which had saved the life of a man, and lifted his own on to a higher level in consequence. " I must know all about it," panted Cicely, with a breathless emphasis in her tone. He cleared his throat with a formal little cough which was a habit of his, and then he said, " The Eastern Star was homeward bound from New York to Liverpool, and we had made so far a very good passage indeed, though the weather had been more foggy than was usual for the time of year. There had been a large amount of fun and jollity on board, and the passengers were in the highest possible spirits. A grand entertainment was organised for what was expected to be the next to the last night on board, and the feasting and frolic were kept up until nearly midnight. The captain was called down into the saloon, and thanked with great acclamation for his care and kindness on the voyage But you are crying, this is too much for you ! " he exclaimed, twisting round to get a look at her averted face, down w T hich the tears were streaming like rain. 5 8 CICELY FRO ME Cicely gulped down her sobs, and endeav- oured to answer in a steady tone. " No, it is not too much for me to bear, thank you, though I can't help crying, because I loved my father better than anyone. If you will please keep your head turned the other way you won't see me cry, and indeed, sir, I cannot help it." Again Mr. Beverly coughed, but he did as he was requested, and refrained from looking at his listener, even pretending not to hear when she sobbed, although he flinched instinctively from the pain he was giving, and determined to guard his speech carefully that no hint of blame should attach itself to the name of the captain, what- ever his own private theories on the subject might be. " When Captain Frome had suitably replied, he went on deck again, for there was a thick fog, and he had been on the bridge most of the evening, as we were getting near to the south coast of Ireland, and it was impossible to see where we were going. " I too went on deck for a smoke before turning in, and was walking up and down for an hour, perhaps more, when there came a dull scraping sound, and a shiver seemed to go through the vessel. There was instant con- THE SURVIVOR 59 fusion on board, though, owing to most of the passengers being in their berths, it was not so great as it otherwise would have been. I ran forward and asked what was the matter, and the captain called out that we had certainly struck, but he did not think that much harm was done. " Then suddenly one of the officers shrieked out in an awful voice that we were sinking, and started to fight his way through the throng of half-frenzied people down to the engine-room to turn off steam, while the captain gave the order for the boats to be lowered. "Then began the most terrible fight for life that I have ever heard of, maddened men and women struggling to get into the boats, children screaming with terror, officers shouting orders which no one heeded, and the captain alone standing motionless on the bridge. I knew I stood no chance of reaching the boats, nor even of getting one of the life-belts that were being rapidly served out by the men in charge, so I rushed backwards towards the stern, which was deserted now, and, buttoning up the thick over- coat I had on, prepared to take my chance. By great good fortune there was a big air cushion lying on one of the deck chairs as I passed, and 60 CICELY FROME I seized it gladly, fastening it to my coat by a loop that had been made for the purpose of securing it to the chair." " But didn't you try to save anyone else be- sides yourself? " asked Cicely, interrupting him. "There was no chance, you can do nothing with people when they are mad like that. And besides I did not know that I could save myself even," Mr. Beverly replied, a little frown of annoyance, or it might have been pain, creasing his forehead. " Please go on," pleaded Cicely, fearful lest she had offended him. " The deck was sloping steeply now, for the boat was settling bows-foremost, and I plainly saw that if I did not take care I should be sucked down, in the vortex, so I clambered on to the deck rail and took a header into the water, trusting to the air-cushion to keep me afloat until I could find some wreckage to cling to, or until daylight should reveal the shore near which we had come to grief. " I don't think that I had been swimming for more than two minutes, certainly not more than three, when with a hissing, roaring sound the. vessel suddenly sank, and an awful shriek rang out from the poor wretches on board ; one boat The Survivor. CICELY FROME, p. 61. THE SURVIVOR 61 load had got clear away from the ship, I believe, but it was swamped from overcrowding. It was intensely dark after the lights of the boat had gone, and awfully lonely. Presently I heard a shout, and answering it, discovered that a man was floating near me on a spar from the wreck ; we got close together after that, and having the good fortune to bump up against an empty barrel, I secured it to the other man's plank and scrambled up beside him. It was well that I did, for he was growing numb with exposure and cold, and in momentary danger of slipping off his plank. I found he could not swim either, and as he had no life-belt I was under the necessity of fastening my air cushion to him, though in so doing I greatly diminished my own chance of escape. " All night we drifted in the thick darkness, for the fog did not lift, and by the silence we judged ourselves to be the sole survivors of the ship's company, and, for aught we knew, we might be miles from land. Happily for us the dawn comes early in June, and our eyes were gladdened sooner than we expected by the welcome day- light. 1 say our eyes, but it would be more correct to say my eyes, for my companion was by this time unconscious, and needing all my care 62 CICELY FROME to keep him from slipping off our frail raft and disappearing in the water. " But even with daylight the fog did not lift, and because I felt my own strength beginning to fail I gathered up my energies to shout as long and loudly as I could, in the hope of attracting some fishermen returning from a night's fishing. After a time I heard an answering shout, and had the joy of hearing the splash of oars on the water. I hallooed back as loudly as I could, urging my unseen deliverers to make all speed to save me, as my condition was very desperate indeed. By the time the boat was alongside, however, and rough but kindly voices were ex- claiming at our plight, I fainted, and knew no more until I found myself on a bed in a fisher- man's cottage on the shores of Roaring Water Bay." " And then ? " asked Cicely in feverish ex- citement. "Child, there is nothing more to tell," he answered, " nothing at all saving the finding of the bodies day after day, for weeks and months following. The man who was my companion was saved, and three others, who, like ourselves, had secured wreckage to which they could cling." " The captain was his body found ? " asked THE SURVIVOR 63 Cicely in a low, strained voice, resolving that if ever she became rich enough she would go ort pilgrimage to the spot where he lay. But Mr. Beverly answered sadly enough, quenching even that small consolation at its birth, " No, not more than half of those on board were ever seen again. The officer who so pluckily fought his way through the thronging people down to the engine-room to turn off the steam came ashore two days latfer at Clonaberry, five miles from the wreck." " Yet the captain was on the bridge at the time, you said ? " she queried softly. " Yes, I saw him there myself, and one would have expected his body to be one of the first to be found, but the theory was that it got entangled in the wreckage and so held down." " And was he to blame ? You said this morn- ing that" and, unable to finish the sentence, she turned round to look at her companion. He was greatly embarrassed, even distressed, and answered deprecatingly, "The Board of Inquiry left it an open question, and you must be content to do the same. He was your father, and you loved him, love him still, and drop a filial tear to his memory if you will, but do not 64 CICEL Y FROME fret yourself over questions that only death can answer." "But you said" began Cicely, when he stopped her abruptly. " What I said concerns you not at all, and you must forget it as though it had never been uttered. Now it is time for you to go below. You can tell Mrs. Farquharson of our conversa- tion if you will, but, on the other hand, if you do not care to talk of it I shall not do so either." Cicely looked at him gratefully, dimly under- standing that on such a subject silence was best. " Thank you, I shall never forget your kind- ness," she answered brokenly, and hurried below, to cry herself to sleep with pitying grief for the long dead sailor-father who had gone to his end, weighted with the responsibility of so many perishing fellow-creatures. CHAPTER VI TERRA FIRMA ONCE MORE FTER the evening when he had told the story of the wreck of the Eastern Star, Mr. Beverly avoided Cicely, as though afraid lest she should question him further on the subject. But now that she knew so much, she shrank in her heart from hearing more, and was rather glad than otherwise that he should make no overtures towards a friendly understanding. During the latter part of the voyage she lost her fine How of spirits, and took to moping, a condition that aroused first the curiosity of her companions and then their contempt. She was no longer the leader in any fun and frolic that might be on hand, she was not even a sharer in it, and quickly slipped to an unregarded place in the background. A short time before such a position would 5 66 CICEL Y JEROME have been intolerable to her, but in her state of grieving for her father's fate she was indifferent to the neglect, and really glad for an opportunity for undisturbed quiet. In her heart she was dreading the meeting with Bernard, now that she had been made wise as to the reason for his reticence on the subject of Captain Frome's tragic end. Bernard had always been kind, a trifle dicta- torial perhaps, but thoughtful for her comfort, and even indulgent. Yet, with the quick in- stincts of a child, she knew that he did not like her father, and that in heart he must keenly have resented his mother's second marriage, even though he might have made no outward rebellion. If her father's memory had been untarnished by the shadow of a doubt this probably would never have troubled her, but now that she was going to live in Bernard's home, and be de- pendent on him, with this knowledge of distrust hidden in her heart, heavy and dismal fore- bodings came upon her, spoiling the bright days of ocean travel for her, and filling the future with gloom and apprehension. Mrs. Farquharson did not trouble about her, that lady's ideas concerning the duties and TERRA FIRM A ONCE MORE 67 responsibilities of a chaperone were of a very hazy and indistinct kind, and consisted princi- pally in leaving the girl in her charge to take care of herself. So that provided Cicely was in her berth by half-past ten o'clock at night, and did not obtrude herself unpleasantly during the day, Mrs. Farquharson was satisfied, and did not trouble further. They dropped anchor opposite to Batticaloa late at night, and early next morning Cicely was wakened by the stewardess, who said that a gentleman was on . board from the town and asking for her. With joyful haste, her forebodings momentarily forgotten, Cicely dressed herself hurriedly and ran upstairs on deck. It was four years since she had seen Bernard, and she found it hard to recognise in the bronzed and bearded man, who was talking to the captain, the pale-faced, slender young step- brother ; while Bernard on his part was surprised to find her looking so nearly grown-up. " You are very like our mother too," he said softly, his tone just touched with a tender regret ; " like she was when I first knew her, years before you were born, Cicely." She flushed with pleasure at his approbation, 68 CICEL Y FROME though a cold little wonder crept in as to whether he would have been as pleased with her if she had resembled her father instead of her mother. " I did not think that you would come so soon, Bernard ; how well you timed your journey to get here so promptly," she said, thinking how different he was altogether from what her imagination had painted. Bernard laughed. " I have been waiting in Batticaloa for five days, so my journey was not so well managed as you suppose," he replied ; then turned to answer some question of the captain's anent the success of coffee growing in his district. " Coffee is like many other things, pays very well when you look after it properly, and don't trust too much to it either. I grow corn as well as coffee on my plantation, and all kinds of vegetables, so that if the main crop should fail I am still in no danger of starving," he said, with the air of a man who has found the secret of prosperity. "Ah, you have water then. I was in the island for a few weeks some years ago, and all I saw was interminable plains scorched to a brick-dust brown, alive with mosquitoes and TERRA FIRMA ONCE MORE 69 other similar pests," remarked the captain, with a shrug of disgust at the recollection. "You must have been unfortunate in your district then, for we regard it very differently, and are tempted to imagine sometimes that the old geographers would have been more correct had they located the Garden of Eden in Ceylon," said the other, with the honest pride in the land of his adoption which most Colonials feel when success is crowning their efforts. There were several passengers besides Cicely going off at Batticaloa, and these with their luggage being quickly transferred to the little steam-tug lying alongside, the good-byes were spoken, and the small boat glided landwards to where thick fringes of palm trees crowded right down to the water's edge. " I don't see any houses ; there is a town, isn't there?" Cicely asked, surveying the wooded shore in some bewilderment. " Yes ; that is a lagoon, running many miles along the coast, with still water inside, and beyond that land again, and the town. A queer old place it is too, and not very pleasant to live in either, I should think," Bernard answered, surveying the coast -line with an air of dis- approval. 70 CICELY FRO ME "Why?" " Too many crocodiles, too many mosquitoes, too many leeches, too much ague, too much malarial fever, in short, too much of everything you don't want, and not enough of what you do," said he, calling her attention a minute later to the first glimpse of the town to be seen as they entered a narrow water-way dividing the wooded lagoon. " Crocodiles ! " cried Cicely, with accents of horror, recalling certain blood-curdling stories of their man-eating proclivities. " Of course ; we have them in the Mataganga, though ours are neither so numerous nor so large. You will find a good many novelties, little sister, and not all of them pleasant ones ; but I hope you will be happy in spite of them." " Will your wife like me, do you think, Bernard ? " she asked timidly ; it seemed so strange to think of Bernard with a wife, although he had been married nearly two years. Bernard smiled, and his eyes had a satisfied look in them as he answered, "Yes, you may make your mind quite easy on that score. If I had not been certain that Julie would be glad to have you, I should never have sent for you to TERRA FIRMA ONCE MORE 71 come out here. And there is someone besides Julie to welcome you at Karrapolla when we get there." " Whom do you mean ? " she asked in surprise, for his letters had never mentioned anyone besides his wife. " I promised not to tell you when I wrote last because we wanted to surprise you, but the fact is, Cicely, you have a small nephew who is nearly six months old." " And I did not know ! " she exclaimed, with an odd sense of comfort at her heart. "Julie didn't want you to be told until we got home, but I should have certainly let it out on the way, because it is so natural to talk of him, and he is such a pickle too already." " Bernard, Bernard, what are those things over there ? " she cried excitedly, as they neared the town quay, and some strange creatures that had been sunning themselves on the low sandy shore beyond slipped with a gliding motion into the water and disappeared from view. " Crocodiles ; but you will soon get used to seeing them," he answered, thinking that she was frightened. When they landed he took her to a clean little inn, kept by a fat Dutch woman, rejoicing 72 CICELY FROME in the impossible name of Frau Hopmerwhistle- berg, and who treated Cicely with great defer- ence, owing to her having just arrived from that centre of civilisation England. Then Bernard went off' on business connected with their journey up-country, returning after a short absence to ask, " Can you manage to sit a horse, do you think, Cicely ? " " I expect so ; I used to ride grandfather's horses, and the cows too," she answered, with a fleeting smile at the recollection of those care- less, happy days, when she was a child and knew nothing of sorrow saving the temporary partings from her father. " Ah, I thought of that, and I will make sure that you have a quiet animal, a mule would be best, and more sure-footed than a horse." " But, Bernard," she called in some consterna- tion, as he was turning quickly away again, " I have no habit." " Could you sew up a sheet, or a tablecloth, or something to make a skirt with ? Frau Hopmer- whistleberg will lend you needles and thread, I suppose," he replied, coming to a full stop to consider this knotty point. " A sheet ! Why, Bernard, I should look like a corpse ! " she cried in dismay. TERRA FIRM A ONCE MORE 73 " It wouldn't matter, there would be no one to see you but me and two or three natives," he said, with a laugh. " But the people that we may meet on the road " she began objectingly ; whereat he laughed again. "We shan't meet anyone, except perhaps a few nearly naked natives, the road to Karrapolla is not very thickly populated or extensively used. Still if you don't feel equal to making yourself a skirt we will go and see if we can buy one. Get your hat and come along." This arrangement was much more satisfactory to Cicely, who was by no means an adept in the use of needles and thread. And who, moreover, found it rather slow work sitting in a dull room waiting for Bernard, when she was longing with her whole heart to be out and about in the queer little town with its innumerable water-ways and foreign appearance. Bernard was very kind, pointing out the various objects of interest, and carefully ex- plaining what was novel and unknown to her. There was little sleep for her that night, the heat was excessive, and brought with it a dull languor and disinclination for movement ; though the mosquitoes which found their way through the 74 CICELY FROME bar-netting did not permit her to lie long undisturbed. She fell asleep just before the dawning, to dream of her father, and that he had not died at all, but was alive and calling to her across a wide foaming river, " Cicely, Cicely, Cicely ! " " Yes, father, yes, I will come," she cried, struggling to loose the bonds in which her sleep had bound her, and starting up in bed to find that it was Bernard's voice that had mixed itself with her dreams and made her think of her father. " Cicely, the horses will be at the door in half an hour ; can you be ready ? " Bernard was asking. " Yes, I will be ready," she called back cheer- fully, and sprang out of bed to make a hasty toilet, which was to be followed by an equally hasty breakfast, and then, heigho for the de- lights of a plunge into the unknown ! CHAPTER VII UP-COUNTRY TRAVELS ILES on miles of monotonous jungle ; more miles of dusty plain, from whence every blade of grass had been shrivelled and scorched by the combined efforts of pitiless wind and blazing sun ; yet more miles of progress up solemn tree-shaded water-courses, where the only variation to the sameness was when a crocodile thrust its ugly head out of the water to gaze with its little, wicked eyes at the boat and its occupants, or a pea-fowl's harsh, discordant cries woke the echoes, as the travellers glided on past the mangrove swamps, to linger near which was, at this season of the year, to court death from miasma. On the evening of their third day's journey, Bernard announced that they were now within twenty miles of Karrapolla, which they w r ould doubtless reach before noon next day. 76 CICELY FRO ME " Oh, I am glad ! " exclaimed Cicely, with a wide-reaching yawn of weariness. She had been sitting in the boat all day, and was sick of the sameness of doing nothing but fight with mosquitoes. " Are you so tired ? " Bernard asked in some surprise, for this was the first time that she had seemed to complain of the journey. "I am tired of doing nothing, very," she responded in an energetic tone ; adding, with a rueful look at the holland riding-habit in which she was clad, " And I am so dirty too." "So am I," replied Bernard, who was peering hard at the left bank of the river as though looking for a land-mark. " What are you looking at ? " asked Cicely, struck by his manner. " Something I wanted to show you ; ah, there it is. Do you see that broad flat stone just there by that jaggery palm ? " " Yes ; what of it ? " and she gave it only a languid look, being more concerned just then by speculations anent her supper and their halting- place for the night. "That is one of the most interesting places that you could find between Batticaloa and Kandy, it is a Veddah-stone ; look at it well, for UP- CO UNTR Y TRA VELS 7 7 you won't find another in many a long day's march." " What is a Veddah-stone ? " she asked, turn- ing to look at the smooth grey slab with more curiosity now. " A place of barter used by the Veddahs, who are by far the strangest and most amazing product of this remarkable country." " What are they, animals or people ? " asked Cicely, stirring with eager interest now, thankful to have her attention distracted from the mono- tony and the mosquitoes. " Umph, in their case it is hard to say where the animal ends and the human begins. Imagine, if you can, a race of people with no vocabulary beyond inarticulate grunts, whose only known relaxation consists in the horrid and repulsive devil-dances, who live in the forests like beasts, and shrink from the sight of their fellow-mortals, as timid deer might shrink from a hunter whose sport is to slay him." " Are they like that ? " she asked, looking at the stone now with a keen interest. " So I have been told, I have never seen one, not a real Eock Veddah at least, though Village Veddahs abound ; indeed I have half a dozen working for me as coolies now. They are very 78 CICELY FROME ordinary mortals, who talk a little, steal a great deal, and are some of them very awkward and tiresome to deal with. Now a real Rock Veddah is very different, being incorruptibly honest to begin with, and most averse to holding any communication with the world outside his ow r n tribe. For instance, if the Veddah in this neighbourhood has anything to sell, he brings it in the dead of night and lays it on that flat stone, at the same time leaving some slight in- dication of the character of the goods he desires in return ; for instance, he brings ivory, and if he wants iron tools he leaves a fragment of rusty iron, perhaps it is a broken nail or a small bit of tin, and some hoes or spades are left on the stone for him." " But doesn't he get cheated sometimes ? " Cicely asked, amazed at this one-sided way of buying and selling. "Yes, it grew to such a pitch a while ago, soon after I came to Karrapolla, that the Govern- ment had to interfere to protect the Veddahs, and since then all the arrangements for barter have been carried out by the ferryman of Mataganga," Bernard said, turning away to give an order in Singhalese to the natives who were rowing. UP- CO UNTR Y TRA VELS 7 9 Cicely was athirst for more information on the subject, but Bernard was still occupied with the rowers, and she could not interrupt him. The boat in which they had travelled so many miles was a big flat-bottomed boat of unmistak- ably Dutch build, an unwieldy craft it was, but well suited to its work, though it required the strength of four dirty perspiring natives, rowing turn and turn about, to get it up the weed- entangled reaches of the stream. Before Cicely had an opportunity for asking any more questions, the boat was run aground near a path leading to a collection of small houses, and she was informed that this was Harraganga, where they would spend the night. " I thought you said it was the Mataganga that we were coming to," she said, when they were walking up from the water's edge to the low-thatched houses which formed the village or town. " That is three miles away ; a wide, roaring river even in the dry seasons, and during the monsoon it is often an unfordable cataract. But let us hurry, child, for you must want your supper. I feel badly in need of mine at anyrate," Bernard said, leading the way to a long, low 8o CICEL Y FROME building with a thatched roof, and a verandah overhung with creepers and looking very pictur- esque. An old woman was waiting at the door to welcome them, who for size and stoutness would have paired well with Frau Hopmerwhistleberg, and who possessed the same characteristic Dutch face. Her name was shorter though, for Bernard addressed her as Frau Grant, and presented Cicely to her, saying that he had brought her a new neighbour. " Ah, the little sister from England that you spoke of when you passed through to the coast. But she is bigger than I had supposed," said the old lady, in such very good English that Cicely looked at her in surprise, her hostess in Batticaloa having used a mongrel dialect of Dutch, French, and English, with a little Singh- alese thrown in. Supper was served for them at a little table on the verandah, and consisted of good white bread, excellent coffee, figs cooked and uncooked, a kind of pancake fried in oil, and a dish of river fish, likewise fried, and done to a turn. But there was no butter or milk on the table, and Cicely looked her surprise at the omission. " Are you wondering if Frau Grant has for- UP- CO UNTR Y TRA VELS 8 1 gotten the milk ? " Bernard asked, smiling at her amazement. " Don't you have milk here ? " she asked, wondering what existence would seem like lack- ing these two common necessaries of everyday life. "We do at Karrapolla, but it is a distinct luxury ; you will get used to our ways in time, little sister." "You speak as though you had lived in Ceylon all your life," she said ; noticing again, as she had done so many times before, how he identified himself with the country of his adoption. "That is because I feel to belong to it, and it is home to me," he answered gravely, think- ing of his troubled, sorrowful boyhood, and the pain and anguish of heart his mother's second marriage had brought to him. " Won't you ever want to go back to England again ; not when you get rich ? " she asked, opening her eyes in surprise. He shook his head decidedly. " I don't in the least object to remaining here all my life ; there are some few disadvantages of course, but they are minor ones. Besides, Cicely, I am not rich ; on the contrary, I am quite a poor man, 6 82 CICELY FROME and most of my capital is borrowed from Julie's people, who live at Kandy." "And you will have to keep me," she said, with a distressful sigh. " You need not be a burden, on a plantation like ours there are numberless things a woman can do. Labour is very difficult to obtain, and even then not to be depended on, and if you like to work I will gladly give you a share in the business when you are twenty-one," he replied cheerfully, determined that no shadows should surround her home-coming if his hand could by any means drive them away. " Yes, I will work, only trust me for that ! " she said brightly, grateful for his kindness, and anxious to prove her words practically true. The coffee was stimulating, and under its in- fluence her courage revived. " Anything astir this way, Frau ? " Bernard inquired, when that portly individual came to be complimented on her coffee. Frau Grant lifted her hands high in the air, as though to infer that more events of a stir- ring nature had taken place since Bernard had been away than could possibly be explained by one person, or in an ordinary space of time. UP- CO UNTR Y TRA VELS 83 But apparently he was used to her capacity for exaggeration, and not specially moved by it, for he merely asked, in a casual manner, " A man eaten by a crocodile ? " " Ah no, Mr. Alderson, it is no death, thanks be to God ! Though indeed it might have but for that brave and noble ferryman of Mata- ganga ! " she cried, her broad face aglow with her honest enthusiasm. " Saved another life, has he ? What a hero that Joe Smith is ! " Bernard said, his own countenance kindling with something of the glow that had radiated that of the Dutch- woman when she spoke. "There were four men," went on the Frau, "and they would cross in their own boat, a flimsy little ballam it was. Though Joe Smith warned them of the whirlpool current, and said that he would row them across without the toll if they had nothing to give him. But they would not listen, declaring that they knew the river better than he did. He followed them, however, mistrusting their skill in avoiding the eddy, and well it was for them that he did, for their boat was caught directly, and they were tossed out into the death-hole, with never a minute to say their prayers, and were whirled 84 CICEL Y FROME round and round and up and down like bits of cork in a mill-race. But Joe was after them in no time, and brought them out one by one, the last man a deal nearer dead than alive, as you may guess, from the bumping and banging he had from the rocks of the death-hole." " It was a plucky thing to do ! " exclaimed Bernard, breathing hard for a minute or two, and then dropping into a silence from which ere long he was roused by the garrulous Frau. " I'm thinking the poor man won't do much more of that work," she said, shaking her head gravely, as she commenced clearing the supper- table with the help of a deformed native boy. " Has he haemorrhage again ? " asked Bernard, with a little start, as though his thoughts had been very far away. " He did have, but he is better now, although weak, still every turn of bleeding at the lungs must be serious, and he has it now after every dive into the death-hole." "What is it, this death-hole?" interrupted Cicely, with a shudder of horror. Bernard hastened to explain. "I told you the Mataganga was a wide, roaring river, owing UP- CO UNTR Y TRA VELS 85 to the rocky nature of its bed, but at the place where the road from here to Karrapolla crosses it the stream falls over a ridge of rocks nearly forty feet high, and at the bottom is a whirlpool current, the centre of which is called the death- hole from the number of fatal accidents that have happened there. Government pays for a responsible ferryman to be always on the spot who knows the currents and can take passengers over in safety. Every now and then, however, there are found some people so foolhardy as to attempt the passage on their own account, and then the poor wretches are either banged to pieces in the death -hole or Joe risks his life by plunging in to save them, and people say that so far he has never failed ; don't they, Frau?" She nodded her head vigorously, shaking her whole body in the effort. " They say that he cuts a fresh notch on the doorpost for every life he saves, and that there are over two hundred notches there already," she replied, and being ashamed of the tears that were running down her cheeks she turned hastily away to scold her servant in very fluent Singhalese. " What a wonderful man ! " cried Cicely, with 86 CICEL Y FROME a wide yawn of weariness, and then, following Bernard's suggestion, she went off to bed, and there slept in dreamless restfulness until the dawning, when he roused her to start on the last stage of their journey to Karrapolla. CHAPTER VIII AT THE FERRY JHE morning air was fresh and pleasant, and Cicely was eagerly on the watch for novelties, as seated on a staid old mule she rode away from the small village of Harraganga, on the road towards Karrapolla. Her trunks, and the various bundles and bales of merchandise that Bernard had pur- chased in Batticaloa, had been sent forward to the ferry in two heavy ox-carts. Their way for the first mile lay through cultivated fields, in some of which sowing was in active operation, whilst in others the harvest was already being reaped. Then the cultivation ceased suddenly, and the road became a mere track through a dense forest, with thick under- growth. It was twilight here, although a few minutes before they had been riding in brilliant sunshine, with never a cloud to be seen in the deep blue vault of the heavens. 87 88 CICEL Y FROME Suddenly the mule on which Cicely was riding executed a wild caper, and then reared violently. Almost flung to the ground by this unexpected movement, she threw her arms round the animal's neck with a swift instinct of self-preservation, and clung with all her might, determined not to be thrown if she could avoid it. In a moment Bernard was beside her, and with his hand on her rein speaking soothing words to the frightened quadruped, and patting it in an encouraging fashion. " What is the .matter ? " gasped Cicely, when at length her steed was induced to return to its wonted posture, with all four feet planted on the earth instead of having first one pair and then the other dangling wildly in mid-air. "A big snake, that was all. See, there it goes," and Bernard pointed to a spot where the undergrowth quivered and bent under the strain of some heavy body passing through it. " Oh, I was frightened ! " she exclaimed, be- ginning to tremble now that the excitement was over and her animal quiet again. " But you stuck on splendidly ; you'll make a first-rate horsewoman with practice. That beast of yours was asleep, or he would have seen the AT THE FERRY 89 snake before, and not have shied like that. Keep his head up in future, and don't let him dream." "I didn't know horses or mules were afraid of snakes," said Cicely soberly, making up her mind to keep a sharp look-out in future, so as to be better prepared in the event of a similar experience. " No animal will step on a reptile if it can be avoided, it is instinct with them," Bernard replied ; and then they urged the mules forward again, though now the path wound steeply uphill, and the pace was of necessity slower. After a long, long climb, they reached the top, at the same time the jungle disappeared, and lo ! they were in the midst of a coffee plantation, with trim, well-cultivated fields on either side of the road, and in the distance a comfortable looking farmhouse with numerous outbuildings. " That was my first home in Ceylon, Cicely," said Bernard, pointing with his whip across to the snug homestead among the trees. " There ? " said she, looking at it with inter- ested eyes, and wondering if Karrapolla was as pleasantly situated. " Yes, I took service under a Scotchman named Donald Yates, and for a year I worked like an ordinary labourer, for I was determined to begin 90 CICEL Y FROME at the beginning and learn as I went along. At the end of the year Donald died, and I went to Karrapolla as overseer ; but the owner was given to drinking and gambling, and soon got himself into difficulties, resulting eventually in the place coming into the market, upon which I borrowed the cash and secured it." As Bernard was speaking they rode round an angle in the road, and came upon a picture that made Cicely cry out in astonishment. A wide valley lay before them, down the centre of which flowed a broad river, while high up on the right hand, where the river valley curved sharply, could be seen the rainbow above the cataract. " Isn't it splendid ! " she exclaimed with en- thusiasm, contrasting it with the tame monotony of the scenery through which they had passed since leaving the coast. "Yes, there is nothing to beat hills and rivers in the matter of the picturesque. But the river is a mere brook now to what it will be after the monsoon. Do you see that little white hut down there among the palm trees, not far from the water's edge ? " " Yes," she answered, peering forward, " I see it ; a pretty little cot it looks from here." "That is where Joe Smith lives, and yonder AT THE FERRY 91 is the ferry-boat," went on Bernard, pointing with his whip to a cove formed by two huge boulders covered with vegetation, in which lay a wide, flat-bottomed boat. But Cicely's mule was belying its character for steadiness that morning, and despite her efforts to hold it in started off down the hill at an un- comfortable lolloping gallop, which reduced her again to the necessity of clinging in an undig- nified manner to the creature's neck to prevent her being thrown off from the violence of the motion. In her heart she wondered whether the animal would come to a standstill when it reached the bottom, or whether it would attempt to ford the river on its own account, and if so what were her chances of being able to escape the horrors of the death-hole, of which already she had heard so much. The mule, however, slowed up about half-way down the slope, and subsided to a gentle amble that was very agreeable after the roughness of its previous progression. Bernard was flying along behind, endeavouring to catch up with her, but his animal proving itself much inferior in pace, he did not arrive alongside until Cicely's mule had got over its 92 CICELY FROME temporary excitement and was going quietly again. "When we get to the ferry I'll change the saddles, Cicely, and then if that animal gets frolicsome I'll teach it a lesson," Bernard said in a tone that boded ill for the restive mule, who heard, and apparently understood, by the way it commenced dancing on all its legs at once, turning round and round, as though seeking a way of escape from some hidden discomfort, darting off finally at a mad gallop again, and with a jerk sending its rider flying among the bushes and tangled grasses of the roadside. She was rather glad than otherwise to find herself safely on terra firma again, for her steed had been too exciting to be pleasant, and she was relieved to be quit of it. Bernard's face was very rueful, however, when he picked her up, and carefully inquired as to whether she was sound in wind and limb. " I'm all right, thanks, only it took my breath away," she answered, determined not to show the white feather. " I should think so. But it is puzzling to know what is the matter with that animal. Look at it now." And Cicely did look at the poor creature, which AT THE FERRY 93 had plunged into the water and was tramping to and fro as though seeking to ease some violent irritation in the splashing of the water. " Ah, I believe I know now what is the matter, it has been attacked by leeches. Will you mount my animal, little sister, or would you rather walk as far as the ferry ? " " Oh, I will walk, please," she answered, with a shiver, not caring to try her equestrian skill again on this side the foaming Mataganga ; almost determining, too, that she would ask Bernard to allow her to make the rest of the journey in the ox-carts with the baggage rather than risk a second downfall. Almost, but not quite, and it was her pride that prevented her ; for she could not endure that Bernard should deem her deficient in courage. o So she marched stolidly on down the long, dusty slope to the ferry, making up her mind to the inevitable. Bernard was walking too, casting sharp glances all about him as he went, then suddenly he called out in an excited tone, " Run, Cicely, run as fast as you can go to the ferry, and when you get there strip off your shoes and stockings ; this place is simply alive with leeches 1 " She needed no second bidding, his tone was too 94 CICEL Y FROME urgent for that, though she had not the slightest idea what he meant, and thought that leeches might be Singhalese for some poisonous descrip- tion of snake, the mere mention of which put wings to her feet to speed her along. Arrived under the trees that shaded the ferryman's house, she remembered Bernard's injunction anent her shoes and stockings, setting to work forthwith to divest herself of them, when to her horror and amazement she discovered that they were swarming with minute creatures which were fastening themselves to her feet and ankles, and even ascending her legs. True to feminine characteristics, she who had stuck to her restive steed until it absolutely flung her, and who had with grim determination made up her mind to mount again when once the ferry was passed, shrieked loud and long at this new disaster, and commenced a wild Indian dance, twirling round and round on her bare toes, crying to Bernard to come to the rescue, and flinging her arms about despairingly. A small boy sunning himself near the boat came to look, evidently under the impression that she was performing for his benefit, and appeared to be much diverted by the spectacle. " Don't be scared, Cicely ! " shouted Bernard, AT THE FERRY 95 who was approaching as fast as he could, leading his mule, which was showing as much restive discomfort as her's had done. " Oh ! oh ! oh ! Help, help, help ! " yelled the victim, dancing more wildly than before, with thin streaks of blood showing on her bare white ankles. The small boy was in an ecstasy of delight, and rolled over in the dust laughing with all his might. But Bernard was on the spot by this time, and seizing his half-distracted sister in a firm grasp, said to her sternly, " Don't be such a baby, Cicely, they are only land leeches and are not poisonous, though I grant you they are unpleasant." " I thought their bites were fatal," sobbed Cicely, thoroughly unnerved by the experience, and quite unable to control herself. " You would have stood a good chance of dying in that case, for you have been well bitten," laughed Bernard, seating her on the trunk of a felled tree lying near, and pulling off the obnoxious pests that had fastened on to her so numerously. Both were so engrossed with this occupation that they did not notice a tall stooping figure 96 CICEL Y FROME that came out of the hut and remained stationary a short distance from them, and regarding them attentively. Cicely was the first to become conscious of his approach, and she arose in some confusion, painfully embarrassed by reason of her naked feet. " Good-morning," said the man in queer guttural tones, speaking too with a strange accent, his face working the while as though he laboured under the influence of some strong emotion. " Ah, Joe," exclaimed Bernard, looking up from peering into the toe of Cicely's right boot, " are you better now ? " The man pulled at a grey forelock hanging down from under his hat, answering gruffly, " I'm getting all right again, though it is slow work this time. Is aught the matter with the young lady, sir?" looking at Cicely, who was scrambling into her shoes as fast as she could. " She had picked up a few leeches, that was all. Can you take us over now, Joe ? " said Bernard, who was in haste to get home. " Ay, sir, at once," he replied, turning round and shouting " Kuda, Kuda ! " whereupon the small boy who had laughed at Cicely's alarm AT THE FERRY 97 reappeared with a somewhat sheepish look on his dirty black face, and proceeded to haul and drag at the boat, in order to get it off the sandy ridge on which it rested. The mules were caught and fastened to the boat with long ropes, and the two passengers having taken their seats, the man and boy scrambled in after and rowed out into the stream. Conversation here was impossible, the roar of the cataract sounded like thunder in their ears, while the rush of the water past the immense rocks protruding here and there in the bed of the river was like the swirling hiss of a great waterspout. Cicely was genuinely afraid, for she had never seen nature in such a magnificent mood before, and the awe and grandeur of the display almost overwhelmed her. Bernard understood something of this, and held out his hand, gripping hers with a re- assuring pressure that brought back the colour, which had momentarily fled from her cheeks. But the worst was not over yet, for the rotary current of the death-hole had still to be avoided ; and she held her breath in alarm to see one of the mules, the animal that had thrown her, 7 98 CICEL Y FRO ME drawn in by the suction of the whirlpool, and dragged down, down, down, plunging and struggling all the time. The rope that fastened it to the boat, however, was strong and good, and the rowers bent to their work with a will, so that in a moment the poor beast was drawn from the jaws of death out to the quiet water beyond the current. A few minutes after the keel of the boat grated on the opposite bank, and the Mataganga was crossed. " Oh, what an awful place ! " cried Cicely, with a shiver of fear as she looked back on the turbulent torrent they had passed over. Then she turned away in some confusion, through becoming suddenly aware that the ferryman was regarding her with a peculiar fixed gaze. " It is fairly quiet now, but it is awful at flood time. I'll bring you over to see it after the next monsoon, Cicely," Bernard answered ; then gave the ferryman some directions about the luggage which was following in the ox-carts, the mule- riders having passed the slower travelling oxen nearly a mile farther back. " And now, little sister, we shall have to ride hard to reach Karrapolla before the noon heat is upon us," Bernard said, when they were fairly in the saddle again. AT THE FERRY 99 " Are there any more leeches or snakes ? " asked Cicely, who was becoming surfeited with unpleasant surprises, and desired no more such enlightenments during the remainder of the journey. "There are always leeches among the hills, except in times of very severe drought, but we may not happen on another patch for all that ; and as for snakes, they will get out of our way fast enough if they can." Thus reassured, Cicely bent her energies to the task of sitting on her saddle as gracefully as she could, whilst the mule swung forward at a quick ambling trot that was very delightful after she had got over her dread of another tumble. The road, too, was fairly good, winding gently uphill and down, with no abrupt declivities or ascents to try her skill in horsemanship. They passed many pleasant farm homesteads, each nestling in their groves of sheltering trees, and withdrawn from the road ; then followed patches of jungle, and fields uncultivated, the rises in the road became steeper and more frequent, and Cicely was growing very tired indeed, when Bernard called out to her as they breasted a hill, " Do you see that house across the valley, little sister ? " ioo CICEL Y FROME "Yes," she answered languidly, for the sun was beating hotly on her back, and she was stiff and sore with riding. " Well, that is your home, that is Karrapolla," he answered in a glad tone. " That ? Oh, Bernard, how lovely ! " she cried, a mist of sudden tears dimming her eyes as she looked again at the low, long house crowning the opposite height. " Yes, and in ten minutes we shall be there, for these animals are wise enough to know that rest lies yonder," he answered. Cicely had much ado to keep her seat during this last mile, for the mule was in such haste to reach the end of the journey that it went at a wild gallop, bumping her up and down in a most unceremonious fashion. There was no one to be seen when they entered the gate of the compound and came to a standstill before a side -door at one end of the house, though a sound of pretty vigorous scolding reached their ears as they alighted. Cicely's face clouded anxiously as she listened, for the sound was not prepossessing, and was a bad omen for future harmony in the home. But Bernard laughed, saying, " That is the way AT THE FERRY 101 Julie manages the servants, and she actually thinks they are impressed by it." Cicely did not reply, but followed her brother rather timidly into the wide, cool hall, that was floored with black marble, streaked here and there with a thin veining of yellow. " Julie, Julie ! where are you ? " shouted the man's voice, happy and confident, sure of its welcome ; while the girl cowered in the back- ground speculating on the nature of the one that would be vouchsafed to her. She had not long to wait, the scolding ceased suddenly, there was an eager exclamation, followed by a quick patter of approaching footsteps, and a pretty little woman, with a fluffy, frizzy head of jet black hair, burst into the hall, crying out " Oh, Bernard, my dearest, and I did not see you coming ! " She only stayed to bestow a very brief salute on him, however, and wheeling round upon Cicely hugged her in a most demon- stratively affectionate fashion. " I shall like you, I am sure I shall ! " she cried excitedly, holding Cicely at arm's length to scan her face, and then folding her in a rapturous embrace again. " I told you that I had no doubt about the welcome you would receive ? " said Bernard to 102 CICELY FROME his sister, with a fond look at his lively little wife. " But, Julie, how is the boy ? " " Ah, the sturdy young rascal, he is fine and well, with two more teeth since you went away, my husband ; and a dreadfully strong will of his own that will bring the grey hairs of his mother with sorrow to the grave, if it is not bent and curbed in time," retorted the bright little woman, leading Cicely into a cool, pleasant sitting-room, where a Singhalese girl of a peculiarly unpleasant aspect was rocking the cradle of a sleeping babe. "It is home, home, home," Cicely's heart was singing as she knelt on the floor by the the cradle and, with a cautious finger, just touched the hand of her small nephew. CHAPTER IX JULIE'S WELCOME UT the babe is stealing all your devo- tion, look at me, sister Cicely, and say, do you think we shall get on together ? " As she spoke Mrs. Alderson put her hands on the girl's shoulders, and twisted her round so as to obtain a view of her face. Somehow, she did not quite know why, Cicely found her eyes swimming with tears ; it was the sight of the babe that had unnerved her perhaps, or the experiences of the morning that inclined her to sentimentality. She was ashamed that they should be seen, but was unable to brush them away, because Julie had imprisoned her hands. " Crying, too ; why, what is the matter, dear ? " and the little woman's tone was full of sympathy and regret. 1 04 CICEL Y FRO ME " I am only silly," replied the girl, impatient with herself for having given way. Bernard had gone from the room, likewise the native nurse, and they were alone save for the sleeping babe. " I did not think that you would be so kind," faltered Cicely, surprised into the confession by the kindness of her sister-in-law's manner. Mrs. Alderson's face clouded for a moment, then it brightened again, and she said, with a merry laugh, " Ah, I know what made you afraid, you heard me scolding the servants when you arrived. But everyone here scolds their serv- ants ; life would not be endurable unless. Yet I am not disagreeable or hard to li ve with ; ask Bernard." " I know what Bernard thinks," Cicely answered, with a smile, thinking that the new relationship promised well at all events, and deciding that her brother's wife was a very charming person. " Tut, tut, you must not listen to all he says ; he is given to flattery," cried Julie, with a blush and a laugh ; then suddenly recollecting the many miles Cicely had travelled since the dawn, she awoke to her duties as hostess, and carried her young sister off to a wide, many- windowed JULIE'S WELCOME 105 corner room, where a white bed stood invit- ingly in a shadowy nook, and an open door close by revealed a small bathroom beyond. " You will be glad to rest a while ? " she asked, assisting in getting the dirty, dusty habit unfastened. " I am very tired," admitted Cicely ; adding dubiously, " but " then stopped awkwardly, as though she was still a little uncertain concerning her position at Karrapolla. " But what ? " asked Julie, deftly slipping the habit from Cicely's weary form. " Don't have any buts about it, dear, but just have a splash in yonder, to clear away the dust, and then I will bring you coffee and some food, after which you will sleep, ah, so sweetly ! I will go get the coffee now ; " and she tripped away, leaving Cicely to explore her new chamber and the tiny bath- room beyond. In a brief space she was back again, however, laden now with a tray bearing a dainty luncheon set forth in tempting array ; and coffee, the like of which Cicely had never tasted before, a pellucid, amber-coloured beverage with a marvellous aroma. " You like my coffee ? Ah, I thought you would, most people do ; and Bernard, the flattering one, says it is nectar, a drink for the gods. But io6 CICELY FROME I am French, you know, and my nation under- stand the art of tickling the palate much more than the English, who are such great eaters as a rule that their palates need no tickling at all," laughed Julie, as she watched Cicely eating her luncheon. " When shall I get up ? " the new-comer asked, suppressing a yawn with some difficulty, for she was very weary. " Oh, when you like ; you are at home, you know, and can do as you please. Sleep until you are rested and the noon heat has passed, then you will feel strong and vigorous again." Cicely was not long in obeying the injunction to slumber, gliding off into a deep sleep which lasted a long time ; then she began to dream of a wide, roaring river, ah, it was the Mataganga again, she told herself ; then her fancy changed, and she decided it was the typical river of death, for her father's voice was calling to her above the noise of the rushing, roaring water, " Cicely, Cicely ! " but the tones were agonised, and full of a yearning pathos. Why, oh, why was he so sad, since the Bible stated so plainly that there was no grief in heaven ? But she awoke with the mystery of his sad- JULIE'S WELCOME 107 ness unsolved, and the tears running down her face like rain. It was only a dream, however, and the rest had done her good ; so, banishing sad thoughts, she arose and made some sort of a toilet, then went in search of the household. Julie was at first invisible, and Bernard also, but the native nurse was out on the verandah with the babe, and thither Cicely betook herself. It was near to sunset, and the western horizon was piled with banks of ominous clouds, which the declining sun touched with a lurid light, turning them into fiery masses of red and orange. It was very grand, though a trifle weird, and she turned from the spectacle with a little shiver to take the babe from its dusky attendant. He was not shy, but capered and jumped with delight at the change, making frantic grabs at her hair, and poking his fat fists into her eyes. Cicely was charmed. An infant was a novelty to her, and there was a pleasing dignity about the position of aunt that was soothing to her self-importance. " Oh, he is a dear ! But, nurse, what do you call him, what is his name ? " xoS CICELY FROME The woman, who stood stolidly looking on, shook her head, murmuring something in Sing- halese that sounded like " carra-carra-whir-whir- wullahoo." " My precious, if they have afflicted you with such a name you are indeed to be pitied, and everyone else too ; for I'm sure such a mouthful will choke us if we are in a hurry," laughed Cicely, addressing the infant, who chuckled and crowed as though he quite understood all about it, and was disposed to take her view of the case. They were still making merry in this fashion when Julie bustled out from the window of the sitting-room, exclaiming, " Ah, I thought to rouse you from your slumber, but when I sought you, it was only to find you fled. Are you refreshed ? " Cicely stood up, holding the child in her arms, his little fat hands making bell-ropes of her hair, and tugging at it with joyful satisfaction, gur- gling incoherences the while in an untranslatable tongue. " Yes, thank you ; but will you tell me what is his name ? I could not understand the nurse when she spoke," said Cicely. " No one understands Wimala, I can't make JULIE'S WELCOME 109 her out myself sometimes, though I can interpret for most of the people that Bernard employs," laughed Julie ; then, the laughter dying out of her voice and her face becoming a little grave, she said, " We call him Dick, but his full name is Richard Frome Alderson." Cicely started with the sudden surprise of the answer, then the colour died out of her face, leaving her white and trembling, and her dry lips could scarcely frame the monosyllable, "Why?" " We thought," said Julie in a low tone, that was a trifle hesitating also, " that we should like to do something in the way of a welcome that you could not possibly misread or fail to in- terpret in its right sense ; therefore, when Bernard had told me the sad little story of how the brave sailor-father went down with his ship, and never returned from the last sad voyage, I said, let us call the babe after him, and he will be to her a tie to link the old life with the new. But you must not cry, sister Cicely," she went on in a gayer tone, " or if you must, give little Dick to his ayah, or he will howl in sympathy, and his cries are terrific, tremendous, quite absolutely unbearable." She was right. At the sight of Cicely's 1 1 o CICEL Y FRO ME emotion the corners of the infant's mouth drew down, his eyes gathered an expression of aggrieved and wondering distress, after which he opened his mouth widely and made vocal his sympathy. The stolid Wimala held out her arms to him, and he cuddled into her dusky embrace as a sure refuge from all woes, while his mother and Cicely walked away arm-in-arm to find Bernard and their dinner. "Cicely, if your lips quiver so, and your cheeks remain like chalk, I shall misdoubt the wisdom of my welcome after all," Julie said, finding the girl still laboured under the influence of her overpowering emotion. " I was so surprised, and and I thought Bernard was too prejudiced against father to have named the child after him," Cicely replied unsteadily. " Why prejudiced ? " asked Julie, eyeing her sharply, as though to discover how much she knew or imagined. " Because of the wreck, you know; some people think that it was father's fault." " How did you learn that ? I thought every care had been taken to guard his memory where you were concerned ? " asked Bernard, who, from JULIE'S WELCOME in the window of the dining-room had overheard their conversation as they approached. Cicely turned to him timidly, she was always a little afraid of Bernard, and now his tone was not reassuring. " There was another passenger on board the boat I came out in, who was one of the five survivors from the wreck of the Eastern Star, I overheard him talking about it to another gentleman, and then I asked him to tell me privately all about the foundering of the vessel." " And did he ? " inquired Bernard, his face growing dark with anger, and his fist clenching in an ominous fashion. " He gave me the details as he actually saw them, but he would tell me nothing when I asked him if father was guilty in his estimation," Cicely replied, her breast heaving in a piteous attempt to keep down her sobs. Bernard sighed impatiently, being one of those people who prefer to keep the family skeleton locked safely away out of sight and memory when possible. Seeing, however, that the door had to be unfastened on this occasion, it was manifestly wiser to throw it wide open and have done with it. 1 1 2 CICEL Y FROME " Since you know so much there is little to be gained in withholding the rest," he said gloomily. " Most people blamed him, Cicely most people who read the newspapers, I mean ; but seafaring folk, who know something of the difficulties of navigating a ship in a fog, were kinder in their judgments. I interviewed one captain, whom I knew would be a competent judge of the prob- abilities of the case, and he told me the chances were in favour of your father's innocence from blame, winding up by saying, 'And a sailor is a superstitious man too, you know, Mr. Alderson, and if I took a harsh view of the matter, and declared that poor Frome could have brought his ship into port safely if he'd only taken his soundings oftener, why, supposing that I too sent my ship on the rocks, I couldn't but expect they'd say the same of me.' I comforted myself with that, and an incident occurring soon after deepened my belief in this captain's wisdom, for on his very next voyage he ran his ship on the rocks off the coast of New- foundland, the crew and passengers only being saved by a miracle. But no one blamed him for the accident, because he was alive to ex- plain it." But Cicely was scarcely satisfied yet, and had JULIE'S WELCOME 113 to ask another question. " Did mother believe him guilty ? " "Mother," said Bernard, with a perceptible softening of his tone, "mother always believed in him ; it was the doubts of other people that sent her to her grave so soon." CHAPTER X WIMALA'S REVENGE YEAR had slipped away since the coming of Cicely to Karrapolla, and she had developed in such an all- round fashion as to be scarcely recog- nisable. She wore long frocks now, and had her hair turned up in regulation fashion. Her list of accomplishments had grown more numer- ous also, and though she still could not equal Julie in the making of coffee, she knew much more than that lady on the subject of its cultivation. Hunting, fishing, and rowing had also been added to her repertoire, with consider- able practice in sitting a mule. The life she lived was chiefly an outdoor one, and, despite the fact of her European birth and upbringing, she stood the climate remarkably well, and thus far had not experi- enced even a touch of jungle-fever, although WIMALA '6 1 RE VENGE 1 1 5 Bernard had twice been down with severe attacks of it. Karrapolla was in the heart of a forest dis- trict, with deep marshy valleys where pestilence lurked, although the hilltops were breezy and healthful enough, and the various little rivers feeding the Mataganga kept a greenness in the countryside when all else was scorched and parched with blazing sun and fierce wind. The year that had done so much for Cicely had transformed little Dick from an infant in arms to a sturdy toddler, who was almost always in mischief when he was not asleep. Of course he was a spoiled child, his father and mother could not bring themselves to deny him anything he cried for, his aunt obeyed his lordly behests with almost slavish devotion, yet in spite of all this love lavished upon him, Dick cared for no one so much as his ayah, the un- prepossessing girl, Wimala. Cicely was openly jealous of the black woman's superior place in her small nephew's affections, and redoubled her endeavour to divert his allegiance to herself, though all in vain ; Master Dick having a strong will of his own, and bestowing his favours where he chose. The drought had been of long continuance, 1 16 C1CEL Y FRO ME day after day a hot wind bent and blasted every green thing, until the earth grew grey and brown, and the banks of the rivers were crowded with a daily increasing throng of game, little and big, driven there by the companion needs of hunger and thirst. But the little rivers were dwindling rapidly, some of them being entirely dried up. Even the Mataganga had considerably decreased in volume, the roar of the cataract being sensibly diminished. It was easier to ford in con- sequence, and the ferryman was having a long rest, any person with a knowledge of rowing, joined to a pair of strong arms, might be safely trusted to row a boat over without being caught in the terrible current of the death-hole. One day towards the end of April, Bernard, who had been busy in the plantations from dawn until the heat of noontide had driven everything save the lizards to shelter, came to the darkened sitting-room where Julie and Cicely were sitting at their needlework with visible annoyance on his face. " Julie, we shall have to get rid of Dick's ayah," he said crossly. "What is the matter?" asked Mrs. Alderson, looking up with some anxiety in her face, for WIMALA 'S RE VENGE \ 1 7 lately there had been constant complaints of Wimala, and she was getting rather tired of them. " She takes him about among the people more than I like. I found them this morning right up at Kutch Ganga, chumming up with those Wullabar coolies ; one of them, a horrid low- looking wretch, had the boy in his arms teaching him to sip arrack. And they've no end of skin diseases and other horrors amongst them. It really isn't right that the little fellow should run risks of that kind." Julie flamed up into impetuous anger. " I gave her strict orders only yesterday that she was on no account to go near Kutch Ganga, for Woosh told me he believed there was smallpox among that Wullabar lot. And when I ask her, she will say that she has not been near them, and would not think of such a thing." " Have her in, and let her say it now, then," replied Bernard. " I may be able to assist her memory if she is more than usually forgetful." Cicely rose from her chair and slipped quietly from the room ; she could not bear to enact the part of looker-on when Julie scolded the servants. It hurt her, somehow, to see the little woman who was usually so quiet and 1 1 8 CICEL Y FRO ME dignified, and so extremely kind in her manner, give reins to fierce passion, and stamp and storm and scream, while the dusky culprits gazed at her with stolid indifference, apparently caring not at all for the tirade. But Julie had assured her many times that there was absolutely no other way of managing the natives, that everyone did exactly the same thing, and that to attempt to coerce or govern them by kindness would be understood by them as an indication of fear, and for ever destroy that sense of superiority now enjoyed by whites. Going out through the verandah to her room, Cicely saw Wimala swinging little Dick in a hammock, slung under the thick shade of some aged fig trees growing near the house. The child was singing and shouting the praises of his dearly beloved " Wim," whilst the woman her- self was looking at him with an expression of such adoration as completely transfigured her repellent visage, and made her almost good- looking for the nonce. " I wonder why she subjects him to such risks?" pondered Cicely, watching the pair though unseen by them ; " does she do it to spite Julie, I wonder ? " It was the first time such an idea had occurred WIMALAIS RE VENGE 1 1 9 to her, and it clung with most unwelcome tenacity ; and she was on the point of going back to the sitting-room where Julie was, to speak to her about it, when she saw Woosh, the house- boy, run round the other end of the verandah and imperatively summon Wimala to appear before her tribunal of two. The ugliness came back to the ayah's face in an intensified form, as she gathered her nursling in her arms and moved with a slow step towards the house. With a quick movement Cicely went to meet them, holding out her arms to the child. " Dick, will you come with auntie ? " she pleaded coaxingly ; " auntie will show Dick a horse and soldiers pretty, big red soldiers." For a moment he wavered under the influence of so tremendous a temptation, but a low almost imperceptible whistling sound from the ayah recalled his allegiance with a jerk. " Dick loves Wim, he go wiv Wim," he re- sponded fretfully, for his little soul was torn in two by the magnitude of the bribe, and the condition was not conducive to good temper. Cicely's arms dropped powerless to her side, while a gleam of triumph flashed into Wimala's eyes as she strode away carrying the boy on her 1 20 CICEL Y FRO ME shoulder. Cicely heard his laugh ring out cheerily as he was borne into the house, sure evidence that he was happy again, with the fascinating vision of horse and soldiers, big red soldiers, effectually banished from his mind. The scene between the outraged mother and the ayah was even more tempestuous than usual. And when, Julie having screamed herself hoarse, Wimala stood calmly regarding her infuriated mistress with something nearly like a smile on her face, Bernard lost his temper also, and declared that he would endure it no longer. " Send her away, Julie, and let's have no more of it ; surely you and Cicely can make up to the boy for her loss, so that he will get over it in a week, and not cry himself sick." " Yes, she shall go this minute ! " cried Julie, with another burst of reproachful recriminations, and then she hurried to take Dick from the woman's arms. But he clung with all his might to the ayah's black neck, kicking, screaming, fighting like a little mad creature to maintain his hold. Julie was wounded in every fibre of her maternal love, to think that her idolised child should prefer an ugly black woman to herself. And it was Bernard who finally clutched master WIMALA 'S RE VENGE 1 2 1 Dick, holding him so firmly that he could struggle no more. " Now go," he said sternly, " you have wrought quite sufficient mischief during your stay here." But the ayah either could not, or would not, understand this for dismissal, until she had been told several times over, in as many different dialects, and the boy Woosh had been summoned to assist her understanding by a forcible eject- ment. Then all her stoic calm gave way, and throw- ing herself at Julie's feet she besought forgiveness, with loud lamentations for her past wrong-doing, tearing her hair, and grovelling on the ground in a manner that was, according to Bernard, absolutely sickening. She was got away at last, and sent under the custody of Woosh to a cousin of Julie's, a planter who lived twenty miles higher up the Mataganga valley. It being deemed wiser to send her where she could have instant employment, than to leave her in the neighbourhood with the opportunity of seeing little Dick, and so maintaining her hold on his affections. Julie was quite exhausted after the fray, and thankful to let the care of Dick devolve for a while upon Cicely, who mothered the forlorn 1 22 CICEL Y FROME little boy in a truly maternal fashion, and slaved in his behalf with a devotion beautiful to behold. But Dick's dense little nature failed to ap- preciate it, and he pined for his ayah in a manner pitiful to witness. One day, when he had been more than usually difficult to manage, Cicely bethought herself of that low half-audible whistle she had once heard Wimala use with so much effect, and essayed to try it on her own account, pursing up her lips and venturing on a soft low whistle, wondering, as she did so, what possible fascination it could have for the petulant baby who pined so sorely for his nurse. It had some charm evidently, for Dick gathered himself into an attitude of intent listening, his head held a little on one side, his eyes fixed on Cicely's face, as though he waited for something more. Over and over she repeated the sound, until the expression of his face changed to impatience, and he looked round anxiously, as though to find what he wanted, then he cried out, " Wim, Wim, Dick wants Wim, good Wim. Auntie, take Dick to find Wim," and he stretched his arms forth imploringly to Cicely. She was in despair, believing, and rightly too, WIMALA 'S RE VENGE \ 23 that she had beeu unwise in awakening thoughts of Wimala in his memory that might otherwise have slumbered into oblivion. Gathering him up in her arms, she took him out of doors in order to distract his thoughts, sauntering with him down to the lower tank, where, by dint of damming a stream, some long- ago-proprietor of Karrapolla had formed a res- ervoir of water that the longest and severest drought had never succeeded in emptying. Like all other water in the neighbourhood, it abounded in crocodiles, and, standing on the terrace at the upper end, Cicely pointed the huge unwieldy creatures out to Dick, who clapped his hands and shouted with glee when they slid down the banks and disappeared under the water, or fought with each other in their favourite element over some choice morsel of food. But the air was heavy and sultry, the hot wind, which to-day came in great gusts, was laden with a fine, impalpable dust, that burned and scorched where it touched in a most uncomfortable manner, and the sky was dark and lowering ; under the influence of the heat and the dust Dick's interest in the crocodiles soon vanished, and he began to fret again for his dear lost Wim, whose memory was yet so fragrant in his faithful little heart. 1 24 CICEL Y FRO ME With a sigh of weariness that she could not repress, Cicely strolled back to the house again with her charge, meeting, as she passed under the grove of fig trees, with Woosh, who had only just returned from seeing the ayah safely to the plantation of Julie's cousin, where he had been delayed two or three days longer than was expected. " What a long time you were gone, Woosh ; was anything the matter ? " Cicely asked, wonder- ing if the ayah had been troublesome on the road. "Massa Le'Strange had so many company, him glad to get Woosh to help drive them away," returned the boy, with a wide grin of delight at the fun he had enjoyed. " What do you mean ? " asked Cicely in astonishment. "Massa Le'Strange's place is chock full of kaddia ants. We take brooms and sweep, sweep, sweep ; we shovel 'em up in heaps, and make big fires to smoke them off, but they don't care, and they crawl into beds and cupboards and everywhere, and bite, bite, bite ; ugh, ugh, ugh ! " and Woosh flourished his hands dram- atically, as if to infer that here at least speech was entirely inadequate to the occasion. " How dreadful ! " cried Cicely, in sincere pity WIM ALA'S XEVENGE 125 for the unfortunate household suffering from such a visitation ; she having lived in Ceylon long enough to know something of the discom- fort arising from ant pests. " Ah, shocking ! " said Woosh, with another flourish. "They came in the night, and filled the house. Such a screaming and shouting and flinging of shoes and boots at the foe, but him kaddia not care about such little things ; it kill two perhaps, and a thousand come to eat him's dead brothers. It very fine fun fighting kaddias, and Woosh glad to be there. But, missie" and the boy dropped his voice, and came a step nearer. Cicely was quick to see that his communica- tion had to do with Wimala, and having had experience so lately concerning the unwisdom of speaking of the ayah in presence of the child, said sharply, " Hush ! Wait here a moment until I have taken Master Dick to his mother, then I will hear what you have to say." Hurrying in, she deposited him in his mother's arms, and as swiftly retired again to where Woosh awaited her coming. "Wimala, she bad, wicked one," he began, with a wag of his head, " and she say she will have revenge on them that sent her away." 126 CICEL Y FRO ME " But how can she be revenged when she is so far away ? " asked Cicely, with a thrill of apprehension in her heart. " She no stay," he muttered. " She will have no choice. No one will employ her in this neighbourhood, where she is known, and so she would starve." Woosh wagged his head in dissent from this theory, and continued, " Wimala not Singhalese, though she say so. Wimala real Rock Veddah. No Rock Veddah ever stay in strange place." "Why not?" demanded Cicely. "Woosh not know, but they never do. Woosh wonder how she stayed at Karrapolla so long in a white man's house, but she loved the little white one, and perhaps he kept her." "I thought the Rock Veddahs could not talk except by grunts, and that they lived in solitude," objected Cicely, uncertain as to whether Woosh might not be drawing largely on his imagination for his facts. " Rock Veddahs talk like Singhalese if they begin young. Wimala not talk much, she whistle more. Massa Dick like Wimala to whistle," he said knowingly. Cicely received this communication in silence, though she pondered it carefully ; then she WIM ALA'S REVENGE 127 asked, " What do you think she will try to do, Woosh ? " " Woosh not know. Rock Veddahs good people mostly, and not hurt anyone ; but Wimala, she civilised, and she lost her Veddah heart and learned wicked ways. She look on Massa Dick with the evil eye, and she make him come after her." " Very well, Woosh, I will tell your master ; but don't try to frighten your mistress, for she is very unwell with the worry." Woosh promised compliance, and went off to the kitchen to refresh himself after his journey, and fight his kaddia- battles over again for the edification of his fellow-servants. But Cicely sought out Bernard, and to him retailed the information she had just received. To her surprise he only laughed, however, and told her that had Woosh been an educated European he would probably have developed into a successful novelist, as he had such a convincing way of stringing his falsehoods together and painting them over with a gloss of fact. She was hardly convinced, however, and find- ing Julie much better the next day ventured to see if the story met more credence from her. iz8 CICEL Y FROME It was of no use, however ; and Julie, wise in her lifelong experience of native whims and ways, dismissed it as idle nonsense, and was much more impressed with the attack of the kaddia ants on the house of Mr. Le Strange. CHAPTER XI A DAY'S SPORT, AND ITS ENDING" ICELY, you are getting quite demor- alised with this ayah business. I will take care of Dick myself to- morrow, and you and Bernard can go and shoot peacocks," Julie said one evening two weeks later, seeing that the other's face was worn and tired, and that her shoulders had a weary stoop, very unlike her usually free, erect bearing. " I should love it. I haven't touched a gun for a fortnight, and was desperately afraid the rains would be on us before I had another chance," Cicely replied eagerly. "You shall have it to-morrow then, though you will have a long ride before you reach your shooting ground, for Bernard has to go over the ferry, and will look for his game on the opposite bank of the Mataganga, I expect. We always 9 1 30 CICEL Y IRQ ME think the fowl from over there are better, plumper, and more succulent than anything we find round here ; besides being more plentiful and easy to get," Julie went on, quite as eager as Cicely that the holiday should be an enjoy- able one. " I don't care about the game being plentiful when I go out shooting," retorted the other, with a little shrug that she had copied from her sister-in-law. " In fact I haven't quite got over my distaste for killing, even yet. What I like is tramping along and watching for a chance to fire, the expectation and uncertainty of it all, the having to creep, and scarcely daring to breathe even, that is the charm of sport for me," and her face flushed with enthusiasm as she spoke. " Oh, I love to accomplish something when I begin, that is why I always hated fishing ; to sit for hours dangling a rod in the air and never a nibble all the time is intolerable to me. In fact it takes a very indolent person to be a successful angler. A busy-body like myself is sure to jerk the line at the wrong minute, and so frighten the fish away altogether." Cicely laughed, the prospect of to-morrow was sufficient to make laughter come easily, though "A DAY'S SPORT, AND ITS ENDING" 131 she had felt dull and stupid for days with the oppression of the weather, which daily grew more overcast and thunderous. Bernard was not in until late that evening, and Julie was just beginning to fidget and wonder what detained him when he entered the room. "Three days more, or possibly four, and I prophesy rain," he said, as he flung himself wearily into a chair. " You are sure it won't come to-morrow ? " asked Cicely anxiously, who, tired as she was of hot wind, heat, and dust, was not desirous that the change should come until after she had taken her day's sport among the pea-fowl on the opposite bank of the Mataganga. " I hope not, I must see Joe Smith to-morrow, and it won't play raining when it does begin, I expect," he answered. " I'm going with you, and we're to have a day's shooting," laughed Cicely, executing a festive skip across the room. They were in the saddle just as the rose flush of dawn began to stain the eastern horizon, and their horses being fresh they reached the ferry while the day was yet young, and before the scanty coolness had all been burned away. 1 3 2 CICEL Y FRO ME The horses they rode were quite a recent acquisition, hitherto Bernard had used mules only, but finding business a little more prosperous he had invested in three good saddle horses. Cicely carried her gun and game-bag slung in sportsmanlike fashion, and sat her horse in an easy manner that betokened efficient training. A big horn hung from a chain slung to a tree, by which travellers desiring to cross might summon the ferryman. But there was no need to use it this morning, as Kuda had seen their approach and himself summoned Joe Smith to his duty. Cicely was surprised by the change in him in the few weeks since she had seen him last. His tall form was bowed as from severe and recent illness, and the scar across his face showed darkly purple against the pallor of his skin. " Have you been ill ? " she asked pityingly, as they pushed out into the stream, " I've had a pretty bad turn, another such will about finish me, I guess," he said, with a weary indifference that shocked her. " Haven't you had a doctor ? I'm sure you ought to see one," Bernard said. But Joe shook his head. " A doctor would "A DAY'S SPORT, AND ITS ENDING" 133 stop me working, send me to bed, or something of the sort, and I should die before my work was done. As it is I shall about hold out till it is finished, for there ain't much more, and then the sooner the better," returned the man gloomily. Bernard was silent, not from want of sympathy, but because he knew that in Joe's place he should have felt the same. There was only a circular ring of foam to mark the current of the death-hole, whilst the black rocks stood high out of the water, looking more grim and dangerous than ever. Cicely shivered a little at sight of them, the stories connected with the death-hole were so weird and terrible, and she had heard so many of them, that it was little marvel she should fear the place, even when the crossing was as easy as it was proving this morning. "You'll be coming back to-day, sir?" asked the man of Bernard, when they landed on the other side. " Yes, before sunset. And, Joe, my sister could rest awhile in your hut before we cross this evening, couldn't she ? I've business at Blackson's before I go home, but there's no need to drag her there when she is tired." 1 34 CICEL Y FRO ME " I shall be most happy to give her shelter," said the man in his slow, guttural tones. " It's a poor place, but it's clean." " Yes, yes, I know," Bernard answered, a trifle impatiently Cicely thought, and then with a few more words they mounted their horses and rode away. They did not follow the road leading to Harraganga, but skirted the rice - fields lying along the river bank, plunging into little thickets of sedges that rose almost as high as the heads of the horses. Game was there in plenty, a magnificent stag started up from a thicket of ironwood trees, where it had been making an unsatisfactory meal from some of the more tender foliage which had managed to escape the withering influences of the drought. But their purpose was not big game on this expedition, and they let the noble creature go. Jungle-fowl were to be had in plenty, and the more succulent and toothsome pea-fowl. Cicely shot four, and then desisted, feeling that she had done sufficient execution to sustain her reputation as a marksman, and need not violate her conscience further. Bernard, who had no scruples, but was imbued with that lust of killing which is peculiar to masculine natures, filled his "A DAY'S SPORT, AND ITS ENDING" 135 game-bag to overflowing, and when it would hold no more declared himself well tired. The wiry young retriever, which accompanied the expedition, also showed signs of pretty considerable fatigue, and lay down panting in the shade of a tree when they stopped to rest for an hour or two during the fiercest heat of noon. Whilst Bernard kindled a fire, and prepared a bed of coals, Cicely rapidly denuded one of the birds of its feathers, and wrapping it in the broad leaves of an aromatic shrub growing near, spitted it cleverly on a forked stick and roasted it over the coals. The dog, sniffing the savoury smell of the cooking, came closer to the fire, wagging his tail, and evincing other signs of satisfactory anticipation. " Ah, Ponto, you sly old thing, you can revive in prospect of dinner," laughed Cicely, as she dished her fowl on a broad palm leaf, and called to Bernard that she was ready. A tin billy was already filled with water and beginning to boil at the edge of the fire, and throwing in a big pinch of tea, she squeezed a little lemon juice into it, and lo, a refreshing beverage was prepared, which taken scalding hot 136 CICEL Y FROME sensibly diminished the fatigues of the morning. When the meal was over, while Ponto demolished the bones and what else remained from the feast, Cicely took an uneasy rest, stretched at length on the trunk of a fallen tree, whilst Bernard sat on another and smoked two big cigars. In the jungle the heat was terrific, the horses stamped and fretted with the fierce attacks of mosquitoes, while the perspiration ran down their glossy sides, and fell in drops to the ground. Cicely fanned herself lazily with a big leaf, and fought the mosquitoes like the horses, whilst even Ponto snapped and yelped when they settled on the tender tip of his nose. Bernard alone remained unaffected by them, as even mosquitoes do not relish cigar smoke, and regarding him, by reason of it, as an undesir- able morsel, they let him alone. Presently a low roll of thunder met their ears, and Bernard surveyed the sky, what was visible of it at least, with some anxiety. "Do you know, Cicely, I think we ought to be moving ; it looks uncommonly as though the weather was on the break, and I'd rather be the other side of Mataganga before it comes," he said, getting up and throwing the end of his cigar on to the spent ashes of their fire. "A DAY'S SPORT, AND ITS ENDING" 137 " It can't be hotter riding than it is sitting here, or lying, as the case may be, and doing nothing," she answered, getting up from her log, with a big yawn, " How far are we from the ferry, do you expect ? " " Not more than three or four miles when we strike a trail. You shall ride on with Ponto to Joe's hut whilst I go round to Blackson's, that will save time, if you are not afraid." "What can there be to be afraid of?" she laughed, as she put the query. " I may see a few monkeys, but they won't eat me, I expect they'll be more interested in Ponto than me ; and it is too near to civilisation for me to happen on a Veddah village, I suppose ? " "Yes, we are about eight miles from the Veddah country here, though they would not hurt you, poor wretches. But I have a prejudice against young girls riding alone, and I shan't leave you until we reach cultivated fields," he answered. They rode in silence after this, the heat being too great for the exertion of sustained conversa- tion. Their progress was slow, and they were nearly an hour in reaching the open ground. This time they rode round the sedges instead of through them, because of the snakes and 1 38 CICEL Y FROME other uncomfortable creatures that might have sought shelter there from the fierce heat of noontide. When they came out into the rice - fields bordering the river, Bernard turned his horse's head towards the rising ground intervening betweeen him and Blackson's, whilst Cicely, with Ponto for a companion, rode forward to the ferry. Joe Smith was sitting at the door of his hut when she rode up, and he came to help her dismount, summoning his satellite, Kuda, to tend the horse and give it a rub down. " You'll come inside and rest, miss ? " he asked hesitatingly. " I think you'll find it cooler, though it is hot in most places to-day." Cicely followed him over the threshold, mar- velling a little at the poverty of the interior. A narrow wooden framework covered with coarse canvas, and standing in a corner, was manifestly a bed, and beside it the only other articles of furniture contained in the place were a stool, a small rough table, and a box with a padlock. The stool Joe brought forward to the doorway for her to sit upon, placing it where the best "A DAY'S SPORT, AND ITS ENDING" 139 view of the cascade could be obtained, and him- self taking up a position on the box. " Aren't you very lonely here sometimes ? " she asked, wondering a little what she could find to talk about to this strange man until Bernard's return. " Not more than I should be in a crowd," he answered, in a tone that sounded more guttural than ever, and which for the first time struck her as being assumed for a purpose, it being too strained and deep to be either natural or the result of accident. He was watching her closely too, and she felt uncomfortable. " Have you lived here long ? " she ventured, wishing that his eyes were not so terribly pathetic in their wistful yearning. But she sprang to her feet in great amazement, when, instead of answering her trivial question, he said in a low tone " Cicely, I once knew your father." " My father ! is it possible ? When, when, where ? " she cried, clasping her hands in her agitation. " I knew him when he was captain of the Eastern Star" he answered in a firmer tone, as though he had somewhat regained control of himself. 140 CICEL Y FROME " Oh, tell me, why did you not say this before ? " said Cicely, flushing and paling in her surprise and emotion. But he held up his hand warningly, and his voice was stern as he said, " Hush ! If you take it in this fashion I shall have to regret having told you, young lady, the information was for your ears alone, and I should not have ventured to bestow it but for the fact that your father left a message for me to give to you." " For me ? " her breath came in hard pants, it was like opening a grave this harking back to the tragedy of the past, and it moved her profoundly. The man, too, appeared to have difficulty in repressing his emotion, and his face worked strangely as he said, " It was just as the vessel was going down that he said to me, ' I should like my little Cicely to know that her father was not wholly to blame." 1 " Oh, my father, my dear, dear father, to have to die like that ! " she wailed, covering her face with her hands and weeping bitterly. " There are many things harder to bear than death life for instance," said the man ; but she turned on him fiercely. " If you were my father's friend, why did you "A DAY'S SPORT, AND ITS ENDING" 141 not see that I had his message sooner ? Not that I needed anything to make me understand that he was not to blame, but for the consolation of knowing that he thought of me right up to the last. Could you not know what it would mean to me ? " There was no answering irritation in his tone when he spoke, only a terrible sadness, " Alas ! I had no means of telling you, for the curse of Cain is on me, and I have been in hiding many years now, not for the sake of my own wretched neck, believe me, but that some whom I love may not have to share my shame." " Poor man, poor man ! " Cicely murmured, touched by the hopeless wretchedness of his face. At this moment, Kuda, who had been lying under the shelter of the boat, ran past the door, shouting, " Massa's coming, massa's coming ! " " You will keep my secret from him your brother for a little while ? " the man asked nervously, his face twitching painfully. " Yes, yes, do not doubt it," she said earnestly, striving hard to repress her emotion, and to appear calm and composed by the time Bernard reached the hut. " Cicely, Cicely," said the man in a low, hoarse tone that quivered and thrilled with 142 CICEL F FROME anguish, " will you let me kiss your hand for for your father's sake ? " Bernard was drawing closer now, and Cicely could hear the thud of his horse's hoofs on the dusty ground outside. She was impulsive by nature, and here was given her no time to reflect. Memories of the father so dearly loved, so deeply lamented, swept in a surging flood to her brain, and flinging her arms round his neck, she kissed him on his poor scarred cheek, murmuring softly, "For father's sake!" A low "Thank God !" broke from Joe Smith, and then he turned with her to the open door to greet Bernard, who had just drawn rein before the step. " I nearly had my journey for nothing after all," Bernard said to his sister as they walked down to the boat. " Did you ? " she asked indifferently, her mind in a whirl from the strange discovery of the last half-hour. "Nearly, but not quite," he answered cheer- fully, and then as they were crossing the stream he turned to the ferryman, saying, " I have been talking to Noel Blackson about you, Joe, and he has promised to come down and lend you a hand directly the rains come ; you'll be sure to "A DAY'S SPORT, AND ITS ENDING" 143 need help then, and, next to yourself, I should say that he would be about as good at clearing the current as anyone about here." " Thank you, sir," the man replied gruffly, bringing out the last word with a very evident effort ; then he went on, " Yes, he has more knowledge, and more common sense too, than most of the men hereabouts, and it needs both to work the ferry safely when the river is in flood." " How did you learn, Joe ? " Bernard asked, as they neared the other bank. " By experience," answered the other curtly. "You have saved a great number of lives, have you not ? " Cicely asked, breaking silence for the first time since she had entered the boat. " Yes, miss, over three hundred," he replied, his voice more gentle than when he spoke to Bernard. At this moment the boat grated against the bank, and the travellers landed and once more climbed into their saddles. Cicely turned as she rode away to have one more look at the bowed, sad figure of the ferry- man, but a crash of thunder sounded close above them, the frightened horses started off at a gallop, and her last sight of him was a weird form 144 CICELY FRO ME standing in a boat, outlined against the flowing water of the river, lit up with the fierce glare of blue lightning. " We must race for it, Cicely," cried Bernard, as he urged his horse to a greater speed. She shouted back in reply, but her voice was inaudible above the rolling and crashing of the thunder, whilst a continual flicker of steely blue lightning warned them that the spirit of the storm was unchained and abroad, and that they must hasten if shelter was to be reached in time. The horses knew this as well as the riders, galloping wildly uphill and down ; while the wind roared an accompaniment to the bellowing thunder, great branches of trees snapped off and fell to the ground, and the air was full of weird sighings and premonitions of disaster. As yet there was no rain. But clouds of dust raced them as they rode, or, with the incon- sistency of dust-clouds generally, turned again to meet them, enveloping horses and riders in a whirling, suffocating mass, that blinded and choked them, that stung their faces and tortured them beyond description. But they did not hesitate or falter, though Cicely had long since let the reins fall loose on her horse's neck, and concentrated her efforts on "A DAY'S SPORT, AND ITS ENDING" 145 clinging to the saddle, to the creature's mane, to anything that could give a vestige of support, and yet not check the animal in its career. At last they saw the lights of Karrapolla gleaming brightly on the opposite hill, a colder wave passed into the sultry air, and the first clash of rain struck their faces. How welcome it was ! The panting horses were revived by it, and gathered their energies for a final spurt, and Cicely sat up in her saddle to look eagerly at the home lights shining on the opposite hill as they careered down into the dark valley. It struck her as singular, even then, that they should be so numerous. Supposing that Julie had been frightened at the delay in their arrival, and the swift on-coming of a night of storm, one bright light, or at most two, would surely have sufficed. But here were at least six or seven, not stationary, and burning with a steady glow, but flickering and moving as though from torches carried hither and thither. They were climbing the last hill now, and the tired horses had slackened their speed to a shuffling walk. " Bernard," she cried, turning round in her saddle to let her voice reach him better, his 10 1 46 CICEL Y FRO ME horse having dropped a little behind, " Bernard, do you see all those lights ? Is anything wrong at home do you suppose ? " " They are frightened for us," he shouted back, but there was a hollow ring about his tone, as though he too feared lest disaster had come to his home that day. Another dash of rain struck their faces now, almost taking their breath away with the sting of its cold. And when they recovered from it, and could open their eyes, and begin to gasp again, both were startled to hear Julie's voice raised to a piercing shriek, and coming through the darkness to meet them. " Dick is gone, little Dick ! He has been lost for hours, and we cannot find him ! " The lightning showed her running down the road to meet them, and Bernard, flinging himself from the saddle, caught her in his arms as she rushed upon them, her hair streaming wildly over her shoulders, her garments torn and disordered. " Julie, Julie, do you mean it ? " he asked, with the wild hope that she was only delirious and labouring under the influence of some horrid delusion. " Mean it, oh, hear him ! " she cried, her voice sharp and shrill with anguish. "A DAY'S SPORT, AND ITS ENDING" 147 " Tell me, dear," he said soothingly, realising how nearly maddened with grief she was. " I never left him, Bernard, never once," she wailed, the shrillness of her tones melting and breaking in a moan of pain. " He was playing on the verandah, with me sitting at needlework close by, and I must have dozed, for when I looked again he was gone." " Wimala, it must have been Wimala 1 " cried Cicely, clasping her hands in despair. But a fiercer burst of rain was upon them, a big teak tree fell across the road with a crash not six yards away, and the fury of the storm came down in the fulness of its power. CHAPTER XII THE REVENGE CARRIED OUT HERE had been a week of ceaseless rain. Not the gentle, fertilising droppings of an English shower, but torrents of water poured from inky clouds, with a monotone of thunder all the while, varied only by fitful streaks of blue lightning. Not merely were the rivers in flood, but the jungle and all low-lying lands were converted into vast lakes, roads were impassable, and com- munication between village and village broken up and impossible saving by boat and canoe. And all this time the search for little Dick had been carried on in vain. Night and day, despite the pitiless pouring of the rain, they had searched. Hired coolies who worked on the plantation, natives from the surrounding villages, house- servants, kind neighbours who sympathised in the terrible grief that had fallen on Bernard THE REVENGE CARRIED OUT 149 Alderson's home, all joined forces in search for the missing baby. Cicely's belief that Wimala had aught to do with Dick's loss was shared by only one or two. Most people thought that he had wandered away and got lost, and they searched not for a living child, but for his little corpse, or, failing that, some fragment of clothing that should give a clue to his fate. But after the first hours of anguish Julie was spared the pain of suspense which everyone around her was enduring, and lay like one para- lysed, bereft of sense and motion, absolutely un- conscious. And her condition added to the burdens borne by the others, for the doctor from Harraganga, who by almost incredible exertions had succeeded in reaching Karrapolla, declared that if Dick's fate was still an uncertainty when his mother awoke to consciousness, either her reason would go, and she would become lunatic, or else the shock would kill her outright. Therefore whilst Bernard led the search, or took brief spells of rest, that were more the exhaustion of outraged nature than ordinary, health-giving slumber, Cicely remained within the house on duty in the sick-room, which in all those seven days and nights she had scarcely left. 150 CICEL Y FROME On the eighth day the sun shone out in fervid brilliancy once more, and the dense masses of cloud disappeared as though by magic. The worst was over now, and though in all probability the weather would be uncertain for days and weeks to come, the showers would not be of long duration. Towards noon Cicely was summoned from Julie's room by one of the native women, who assisted in the work of the house. "Massa wants you, they have found " but she did not complete her sentence, running away instead, sobbing loudly. How Cicely's limbs shook, and her heart throbbed, as she walked with unsteady steps to the back verandah, where Bernard stood in the centre of a group of sympathising friends. She was expecting to see a little battered body, almost unrecognisable most likely ; and was gathering her courage to bear the sight without swooning, when Bernard stepped out from the group and came towards her holding something in his hand. " Cicely," he cried hoarsely, " do you know if Dick was wearing shoes like these the day when he was lost ? " She took the soiled scrap of leather from his THE REVENGE CARRIED OUT 151 hand, looking at it intently. " Yes," she answered slowly, " he had them on in the morning, at least, when we started, for Julie had dressed him early in order that he might see us off." A little groan broke from the group who were listening, and Bernard fell back as though some- one had struck him a blow. " Where did you find it ? " she asked in an awed tone. " By the tank, lodged fast in a crevice," said one of the men, setting his teeth together, whilst a fierce light shone from his eyes. " Do you think he wandered so far and fell into the water?" she asked, her face blanching with horror ; she had so often taken him to the tank, that if he had met his fate there she felt the responsibility of it would in a manner rest on her. Bernard had turned away, unable to bear the question or hear the answer one of the men was giving to Cicely. " It's more likely that a crocodile jumped up and seized him as he stood, he was too clever to go and tumble in like some, baby though he was ; but he would stand no chance of escape if one of them creatures sprang at him," replied the man who had spoken before. 1 5 2 CICEL Y PRO ME Cicely shivered. Like Bernard, she would rather have found a tiny corpse from which the breath of life had been beaten by the fury of the tempest than to think of the boy crushed to death in the terrible jaws of a crocodile. She was turning away to return to her post, not crying, because she had already wept until the fount of tears was dry, when the doctor, who made one of the group, though she had not previously noticed him, drew her aside, saying gravely " It is very sad, I know, Miss Frome, but you must not break down now." " No," she answered steadily, " I shall not break down." He looked at her admiringly, thinking how different she was in force of character and self- control from the ill-balanced, hysterical daughters of the south, whose endurance has become ener- vated and spoiled by the indolent influences of their daily lives. He did not let his approval of her pluck and courage go further, however, than looks, but said gravely, " And if Mrs. Alderson becomes con- scious, you must tell her now positively that the child is dead. There must be no element of doubt in your manner or words, and indeed I fear there THE REVENGE CARRIED OUT 153 is no faintest room for doubt concerning his fate, poor little chap." " But the shock may kill her," objected Cicely, maintaining her composure by an effort as she realised what might lie before her. " That we can only leave to a higher Power than mine to decide," he replied ; " but certainty will be more bearable than uncertainty." " If some one else could do it ? " pleaded Cicely, trembling visibly now. " But there is no one else than you," he urged ; " you could not let her hear it from the lips of a stranger ; and your brother is not fit for it either. Indeed I am watching him closely just now, and I shall not be surprised if he goes down with a fever in the course of the next twenty-four hours. I mean to remain for the purpose of looking after him, so I shall be on hand if you want me." " Thank you," Cicely answered, moving away, too stunned to realise the full extent of the trouble, or what it would mean to them all if Bernard also was to be smitten down with sickness. Towards the evening of the next day there came a welcome arrival at Karrapolla in the person of Mrs. Le Strange, the wife of Julie's cousin, from Whitehills. Woosh had succeeded in making the journey 154 CICELY FRO ME to Whitehills, despite the pouring rain which rendered travelling so immensely difficult, and, carrying thither the tidings of disaster, had brought the lady of the house back with him. Mrs. Le Strange was an Englishwoman, a bustling, capable individual of forty, or perhaps forty -five, who took in the situation at a glance, and straightway acted up to it. She did not reprove Cicely for breaking down and crying when she arrived, but encouraged and petted her, telling her that everything would come right by and by. Which, vague and un- certain though it was, comforted Cicely like a prophecy of hope for the future. With the finding of the little shoe all search for Dick was practically at an end. And Bernard had justified the doctor's prognostica- tions by going down with a sharp attack of fever, raving and moaning in delirium, and ceaselessly calling for little Dick. "You know," sobbed Cicely, when she welcomed Mrs. Le Strange, "that I believed Dick had been stolen away by Wimala, and that was why I sent Woosh to your place. But yesterday when they found nis little shoe I gave up that hope." Mrs. Le Strange shook her head. " So the boy THE REVENGE CARRIED OUT 155 Woosh said ; but, my dear, you see that it was in a manner impossible, for the poor thing was stolen away herself, as you may say. It was only the day after Woosh went away before, that time when he brought her to our place I mean, that the chief of her tribe, a hideous-looking savage he was too, came and claimed her, and took her away with him." " She did leave your house, then ? " said Cicely, a flash of something like hope coming into her heart. " She was dragged away, as you may say, though she cried and screamed and implored the man to leave her. I would have insisted on her remaining but for Mr. Le Strange, who told me I had much better not interfere, for those Eock Veddahs are not nice people to be on bad terms with, despite all that is said and written on the subject of their meek inoffensiveness." " Woosh believed that Wimala had stolen the boy," Cicely replied, harping on the string of her former belief with a curious persistence. " Yet even Woosh sees now how impossible it would have been for the girl, who was no better than a prisoner herself, to have abducted the child and got clear away without having been seen by someone," urged Mrs. Le Strange, 156 CICELY FROME anxious to save Cicely the tortures of a hopeless suspense. She shook her head, deep down in her heart there was a tiny germ of hope that quite refused to die, try as she would to stamp it out as being unreasonable and impracticable. It was growing and growing all the time, pushing its head between the uncongenial rocks of adverse facts, and making a glow of rosy promise where all else was intensely dark and drear. " But, child, we must make arrangements for you to have a night's rest, or you will be going down with fever like your brother," Mrs. Le Strange went on, seeing how worn Cicely looked with the terrible strain of the past days. " I should be glad to have a long sleep, for I am getting blind and dazed with weariness," she answered, choking back a wide yawn, yet scarcely succeeding in suppressing it, so com- pletely was she tired out and longing for rest. " I am sure you must be. If Woosh can manage Bernard for to-night, I will look after Julie. The doctor is coming back, isn't he ? " " Yes ; but I am not sure that he can stay, for they have cholera at Wullamah, and he goes there twice a day." " Poor wretch ! " cried Mrs. Le Strange, with THE REVENGE CARRIED OUT 157 a shrug of her comfortable shoulders, " I wonder who would be a doctor, in rural Ceylon at least. But you be off to your bed, child, and sleep whilst you can." " I will lie down on the couch here if you don't mind, because if Julie rouses I must tell her about Dick, the doctor said I was to let no one else do it," Cicely replied, with an enormous yawn, which this time escaped her without the semblance of suppression even. " Fudge and nonsense, the doctor is an old woman though that, I know, is a vile slander of my own sex. If Julie wakes I will tell her what I think proper, just that and no more. But you must go away to a quiet room and have your sleep out ; Mahdoo can get anything I may want." Mahdoo was the kitchen girl, who scrubbed and cleaned and helped with the cooking ; a slow, heavy-footed Singhalese woman, whose density was only equalled by her faithfulness. She and Woosh were the only house servants, and had lived at Karrapolla as long as Bernard himself. Cicely rolled herself in a rug and fell asleep, all too weary for the ceremony of undressing. She had only one sensation, it was not sufficiently vivid to be called a thought, as she lay down, 1 58 CICEL Y FRO ME and that was gratitude for the opportunity to slumber. It was only sunset when she went to her room, and soon after the moon had risen the doctor arrived to pay a flying visit and away again, for the cholera at Wullamah was proving trouble- some ; ten people had died in the short space of two days, and fifteen more had sickened. He expressed his entire approval of the arrange- ments Mrs. Le Strange had made, and then asked if he could borrow a horse, his own beast having stumbled and received a hurt through the badness of the roads. " Why, yes, Dr. Durrant, we should be worse than heathen if we refused such a request. Go and help yourself, there are horses in the stables ; two are fresh, but mine and the one Woosh rode are a bit winded, for it was no joke riding down from Whitehills to-day, I can assure you," Mrs. Le Strange answered, sending Mahdoo with a lantern to assist the doctor in making his choice. " I shall probably sleep at Wullamah, if I can find a place clean enough to lie down in, that is ; and I shall be here not later than sunset to- morrow," he said, as he bade her good-night and followed Mahdoo out to the stables. THE REVENGE CARRIED OUT 159 It was very still and solemn at Karrapolla that night ; in one room Julie lay in her death- like trance, in another Bernard moaned and tossed in feverish restlessness, murmuring little Dick's name, whilst Cicely lay in a profound slumber huddled on her bed. Mrs. Le Strange, passing quietly as a shadow from room to room, shivered a little, and was thankful for the com- panionship of the two friendly blacks. So the night passed and the morning came, the dawn of a day that was to see a mighty increase in the growth of the tiny hope-germ that was enshrined in Cicely's heart. CHAPTER XIII THE VEDDAH-STONE ] CELT'S slumber had lasted many hours, and her brain, having re- covered somewhat from its exhaus- tion, began to stir and grope in that mysterious tangle of fancies which we call dreams. She was a little child at home once more, and her mother was reading to her from the Bible, and the tones of the weak, somewhat fretful, voice that she remembered so well rose and fell in reverent cadences, whilst Cicely strove to catch the meaning of the words she uttered : " ' And being warned of God in a dream/ " the plaintive tones repeated over and over again, until Cicely, growing impatient, cried out "Mother, mother, is there nothing but that in your Bible to-day?" " Yes, child, yes, one thing more," said her THE VEDDAH-STONE 161 mother's voice, speaking low and distinctly, whilst a thin finger went searching up and down the page. " See here, daughter Cicely, ' It came and stood over where the young child was.' 5 Scarcely had the words been uttered than with a start Cicely awoke. Awoke to find that she had been dreaming, though so vivid and forceful was the dream that it seemed like a vision, an actual scene from the remote past, yet why it had been sent she knew not. But slumber was heavy on her still, and the day was only just dawning, surely she might take one short hour longer in which to yield to the delicious drowsiness that held her so fast. Even whilst she lingered on the debatable ground 'twixt duty and inclination, sleep over- took her once more, and again she began to dream. This time, however, it was no resuscitated page of her past that was spread out before her, but she herself was the centre of intense endeavour. She was rowing in a small boat down a dark silent stream, hurrying, hurrying, with a chill dread at her heart, while the storm clouds gathered darker above her, and a wild 162 CICELY FROME wind moaned all around. On and on she panted, knowing nothing of whither her journey tended, but striving always to reach her goal. Then suddenly a flat grey stone came into view on the bank of the river. Ah, that was the spot she was trying to reach ; and on the stone something was lying. " The Veddah - stone ! the Veddah -stone ! " she cried, and her effort to shout awoke her. Mrs. Le Strange was standing by her bed, holding a tray with a cup of steaming coffee on it. " I had to wake you because it is so late ; but what a nightmare you were having. What was it all about, child?" Cicely hesitated. She was trying hard to grope amongst her mental mists and fogs of thought, endeavouring to fit together the mosaic of dreams that had so vividly impressed them- selves upon her, and to make of the fragments a coherent whole. But the effort was beyond her, her faculties being still numb and torpid from the lethargy of sleep. And instead she addressed herself to the coffee, eating her breakfast with a relish born of renewed vigour and strength. " Mrs. Le Strange, I don't believe that Dick THE VEDDAH-STONE 163 is dead," she said suddenly, looking up from her breakfast ruminations. " Where is he, then ? " was that lady's very reasonable query. " I don't know. But I am sure those two dreams did not come to me for nothing ; " and then she detailed for the benefit of Mrs. Le Strange the visions, which, though so opposite in character, had, she was assured, some hidden connection with each other. Mrs. Le Strange was not impressed however, and though she was too polite to make open fun of Cicely's faith, there was so much covert un- belief in her manner that the other sighed despairingly, and wondered where she might turn to find a sympathiser and a friend who might help her in her need. For the present she was fain to put the matter from her and attend to the business in hand, the invalids had to be cared for, a counsel of ways and means gone into with Mrs. Le Strange, and lastly, but by no means least in the matter of im- portance, she had to look after outdoor interests, which at this time of the year especially it would be ruinous to neglect. But all the time that her attention was occu- pied in this fashion, the hope in her heart was 1 64 CICEL Y FRO ME fast merging to a certainty that little Dick was still in the land of the living. She was in the stable, looking after the wounded leg of the doctor's horse, making the bare-legged boy who was helping her bathe the limb with clean water whilst she prepared for it a bandage of arnica leaves, when a sudden inspiration came to her that fairly made her gasp with the magnitude of its daring. Why should she not go to the secret haunts of the Eock Veddah and demand from the chief of the tribe the boy who had been stolen away ? It looked an impossible thing to do. To begin with, Wimala might not have stolen the child, but the chances were that she had ; in which case it was just as reasonable for her to demand him of the tribe, as for the chief to visit Whitehills and bring away Wimala from the household of Mr. Le Strange. It was the ways and means that troubled her most. She was only a girl of seventeen, pretty well inured to roughing it by now, but only a girl for all that, and, in consequence, hemmed in and fettered by the restrictions of custom and habit, and the thraldom of the unemancipated woman. If only she had been a boy ! And her foot THE VEDDAH-STONE 165 came down in an angry stamp on the hard clay- floor of the stable as she inwardly bewailed this disadvantage of sex. Fretting and fuming would not help, however, and having finished with the doctor's horse, she ordered her own to be saddled and brought round, as she had to visit some out- lying fields, and would have in consequence of the floods to wade through acres of submerged plantations. The outdoor exercise was delightful after her close confinement to the house, and her spirits were rising as she cantered down the lane and away across country to those distant fields she proposed to personally inspect that day. She did not succeed, however ; in fact she very nearly shared poor little Dick's supposed fate instead, only escaping by a miracle a miracle due to the fact that she belonged to the sex she had been so scornfully despising, and wore the habit of her fellows in misfortune. It came about in this manner. Owing to the tremendous violence of the rains the tank had overflowed, washing numerous crocodiles over into the fields below, where they disported in the temporary rivers and lakes, having a good time of it generally, but suffering only the slight drawback of insufficient diet. Their case would be 1 66 CICELY FRO ME harder later on, when the rivers and lakes would be resolved into the solid ground once more, and they left stranded and helpless to perish miser- ably through lack of their favourite element. Cicely was riding through one of these submerged fields on her way to the higher ground beyond, her horse splashing cautiously along with a view to the avoidance of holes, treacherous tree stumps, and the like, when suddenly a huge scaly body arose from the water close beside her, and a pair of big jaws seized her linen riding-skirt. The frightened horse reared madly, and with a shriek of terror Cicely clung with all her might to its neck as it dashed frantically away ; the pull was awful, it seemed as though her arms were being torn from their sockets, but life and death were in the balance and she maintained her hold. Then came a noise of tearing fabric, a sudden lessening of the strain, and she knew that she was saved. With the instinct of self-preservation that is almost the first sense of a horse, the animal dashed onward with its rider, making straight for the higher grounds, where alone safety could be assured. There was no cautious stepping to avoid pitfalls now, but a wild rush through water that often rose to the stirrup, and all the THE VEDDAH-STONE 167 time she was lying across the saddle wondering if the girths would hold. But dry land was reached at last, and the horse came to a standstill of its own accord, trembling with terror, and fairly blown from the race across the flooded fields. And Cicely, as though in order to show that she belonged to the weaker and inferior sex, slid to the ground beside her good steed and fainted quietly away. She soon recovered though, and sat up to indulge in a good cry by way of relieving her feelings, whilst the horse looked on, mutely marvelling maybe on the paradoxes presented by human nature, that kept quiet when danger was imminent and shed tears when it was past. No advantage was to be gained by this kind of thing, however, and after a short indulgence in the luxury of weeping, Cicely looked about to meditate a way out of her dilemma. There was no question of visiting those distant fields, which on her setting out she had intended to survey, for between them and her lay another wide, deep valley which was probably now a roaring water - course, and she wanted no more wading through submerged fields that day. The return journey to Karrapolla presented even greater difficulties, for the nearer to the 1 68 CICELY FRO ME tank the more likelihood of meeting another scaly tourist, a contingency that neither horse nor rider would care to risk again. She knitted her brows in great perplexity, she was on the beginning of a range of low hills that sloped away to the eastward, descending finally to the Mataganga valley. The thought of the river suggested the ferryman, and then it came to her like a flash of inspiration that if anyone could discover the whereabouts of Wimala in the camp of the Rock Veddahs it would be Joe Smith, who was the authorised middle - man between them and the trading world. For a moment she hesitated, held back by the thought of the two invalids at Karrapolla, and the anxiety Mrs. Le Strange would suffer if her absence from home were unduly prolonged. " Being warned of God in a dream." How the words haunted her ; surely the vision would not have been sent but for a good purpose, and if it really was a warning she would be very much to blame if she neglected to put it to the test. "I'll stop at Tom Colman's and get him to ride over to Karrapolla," she said to herself, as she led her horse to a convenient stump which might serve as a mounting-block, surveying the gaping rents in her riding-skirt as she rode away THE VEDDAH-STONE 169 with a rather rueful air, mentally resolving that she would implore the loan of another skirt from Mrs. Colman when she reached their place. The Colmans managed a large coffee plantation for a gentleman living in Kandy, and were the nearest neighbours on that side that the Alder- sons had. They were simple, hard-working people, with a swarm of shock-headed children. Cicely had always looked down upon them as uninter- esting, and not worth knowing ; but even the most commonplace and ordinary people come in useful at a pinch, and so without further ado she turned her horse's head in the direction of their place. The house was built in bungalow style, and had in the early fifties been a place of consider- able importance. But it had fallen into decay now, and the larger portion of it was ruinous in the extreme. Three or four children were playing on the verandah as Cicely rode up to the house, along a carriage-drive all choked and overgrown with weeds, but they ceased their game at her approach, and fled to cover like rats to a hole. But she had been there before, and knew her way in. Slipping from her saddle, and throwing the rein over a post, she ran up the verandah steps and entered the house by a French window 1 70 CICEL Y FRO ME that always remained open because it was too infirm to shut. A tousled-headed child peeped timidly from behind a great heap of broken boards that reposed in the centre of this dilapidated drawing-room, and Cicely addressed herself to the owner of the entangled locks, asking coaxingly, "Won't you come out from there and show me where to find your mother ? " A prolonged stare was the only reply to this, and the visitor cast about for a suitable bribe. " My horse is out there tied to the verandah post. I shan't stay long, and when I go I might give you a ride on its back down the avenue," she went on in a tone of studied indifference, passing as she spoke from the ruinous reception room to the no less ruinous hall beyond. In a moment the child was beside her, slipping a small grubby hand into hers, and asking in an anxious tone, " Say now, Miss Frome, will it buck, do you reckon ? " "What is that?" inquired the visitor, her vocabulary proving inadequate. " Standing on its forelegs, and waggling the hind 'uns in the air," replied the juvenile Colman, illustrating her explanation by practical demon- stration, walking on the palms of her hands, whilst a pair of dirty white canvas shoes very THE VEDDAH-STONE 171 much the worse for wear were kicked vigorously in the air, in no bad imitation of a bucking broncho. " Oh no, my horse will do nothing of that kind. It is perfectly gentle, and safe to ride," Cicely answered, her eyes growing moist at the thought of how the creature had saved her life that day. " Bally, I'd as soon ride a bullock as a horse like that, so you can find mother yourself, she ain't a mile away ; " and Miss Colman retired, mightily indignant at the feeble and unattractive character of the bribe held out to her by the " Gal from Karrapolla." Thrown upon her own resources, Cicely crossed the hall, passed down a short corridor, descended a flight of some half-dozen shallow steps, and entered the big kitchen, which was in a much better state of preservation, and looked comfort- able, and inviting even, with its well-scoured tables and bamboo rocking-chairs. A little woman who was swaying herself and a baby to and fro in one of these last rose hastily at sight of a visitor, and came forward with effusive greeting. " Sakes alive, Miss Frome, I am glad to see you ! But do tell, how is poor Mrs. Alderson to- 1 7 2 CJCEL Y FROME day ? I was going to ask Tom to ride over and see, for I felt real anxious to know." " She is just the same, thank you, Mrs. Colman ; there has been no change," answered Cicely sorrowfully. A stream of sympathetic tears gushed from the eyes of the friendly little woman. "Poor soul, I don't wonder she's so bad, to lose a child like that is enough to kill a mother. Poor dear, poor dear ! " But Cicely's time was short, if she meant to carry out her planned intentions before dark, and at the risk of appearing unsympathetic she had to ignore the sorrows resting on Karrapolla and come to the point at once. "Mrs. Colman, I've been called away on business, and they don't know at home ; would Mr. Colman ride over, do you think, and tell them I am going to Harraganga, and shall not be back for two days perhaps ? Mrs. Le Strange is there, and will see to Julie and Bernard. But I should be glad if Mr. Colman would give an eye to the coolies, they are such an idle, thieving lot that we have now." " Sure they're all that, Miss Frome ; bad's the best, I says, where . coolies are concerned. But Tom shall go, and he'll give an eye to things till THE VEDDAH-STONE 173 you come back. Do tell, is anything the matter that you've to go off in such a hurry ? " asked the little woman, whose kindness was only equalled by her curiosity. Cicely hesitated, then out it came, the telling prompted by that yearning for sympathy which should add weight to her own belief in the reality of her vision or dream. " I have dreamed that little Dick is alive, and that I shall find him among the Rock Yeddahs. Mrs. Le Strange laughs, and says it is nonsense, and the doctor will say so too, but I cannot rest until I have made sure, and I'm going to the ferry to ask Joe Smith to help me, and then I shall ride on and sleep at Harraganga, at the place where we stayed on our way up from the coast." " Well, well I never, but you are a plucky one, Miss Frome ! And with only a dream to back you either. You are all ragged too, and wet as wet ! Say now, where have you been ? " and Mrs. Colman nearly dropped her baby in her astonish- ment at Cicely's bedraggled appearance. The episode of the crocodile had to be told then, whereat Mrs. Colman exclaimed still more, but she promptly produced another skirt, which though somewhat startling in pattern, was whole i 7 4 CICELY FROME and presentable, and Cicely donned it in all haste. She was riding away when a frantic scream of " Stop, stop ! " from Mrs. Colman made her turn her horse's head and ride back to the verandah steps once more. " I won't be a second," shrieked that worthy woman, darting back into the house as Cicely drew rein at the steps again. But it was nearer two minutes by the clock before she returned, panting and triumphant, bearing in her arms a hideous semblance of a human head, curiously fashioned from a rock- crystal, and having for its eyes two gleaming rubies. " Oh," cried Cicely, shrinking back in disgust, for the thing was so ugly, "what is it, Mrs. Colman ? " " I don't know what they call it, Miss Frome, but I'm told all Veddahs prize that sort of thing very highly. The children found it the very first flood-time after we came here, and they were wild to have it for a plaything, but Tom wouldn't let them, for he said it wasn't fitting that what was god to one set of people should be playthings for another, so I put the thing away and forgot all about it till three minutes ago. But you THE VEDDAH-STONE 175 take it with you, my dear, and the ferryman of Mataganga will be able to tell you whether or no it's of any use." " Thank you very much, Mrs. Colman," she answered, not shrinking now from the grim distorted visage, with its gleaming, blood red eyes, but stooping eagerly down to gather it under her arm. Mrs. Colman waved her away with many loudly expressed wishes for her good luck, finishing by screaming out when Cicely had once more got clear away that the name by which the stone was known was the Holy-Ved. " And now, old fellow," said Cicely, talking to her horse as she rode away, " we are bound for the Veddah-stone, so hurry away, or we'll not reach the ferry to-night, I fear." CHAPTER XIV ON THE SPOT HE road to the ferry was still flooded in many places, though the waters were subsiding rapidly. But here Cicely did not fear so much, as the water in no case rose higher than half-way the horse's legs, and she could see better where danger lurked below the surface. When, however, she heard the thunder of the cataract, and saw the hissing, seething waters of the Mataganga, her heart almost stood still with fear at the thought of crossing that raging flood. And steeling her courage with the thought of little Dick, and the effort she was making to find out whether the leading of her dream had been anything beyond the chaos of confused fancies induced by trouble, she rode up to where the horn hung suspended from the tree and blew it long and loudly. 176 ON THE SPOT 177 But it needed more than one blast before the door of the little hut opened, and she saw two men come down to the shore and push off from the opposite bank. To her surprise they let the boat drift down stream for some distance before steering across, this method of crossing took some time, as they had to row against the current to reach the place where Cicely waited. The man, Joe Smith, came towards her with a curious blending of hesitation and eagerness on his sombre face, but Cicely had been so engrossed by the suspense and sorrow of little Dick's loss as to have banished from her mind completely the strange behaviour of this sad-faced old man on the day when she and Bernard went a-hunting. " Do you want to cross, Miss Frome ? " he asked, his big brown hands working nervously as they hung down by his sides. "I want your advice first, and then if you think it is of any use going on with my ideas I will go back with you in the boat," she said, launching forth into her story, and winding it up with displaying the Holy-Ved which Mrs. Colman had bestowed upon her. Joe Smith did not speak for a time, but walked to and fro thinking deeply. " There's reason in your idea, but then, of 12 1 78 CICEL Y fROME course, it is only an idea, and as likely as not this girl Wimala may be entirely innocent of any hand in the child's loss. Still you've come at a fortunate time, for I have to be at the Veddah-stone to-night at midnight, to do the regular monthly barter arranged for by the authorities, and I can take you and that ugly green thing with me," he said, his face unbend- ing somewhat as he looked at the green-hued crystal with its eyes of fire. " To-night ! oh, will you ? " she cried, choking down a big lump in her throat brought there by gratitude for the way in which the obstacles were melting from her pathway. Cicely took her place in the boat, and, the horse being fastened by a rope to prevent accidents, they pushed off into the stream again, taking the same precautions of drifting down with the current that had been observed IB coming over. " That beast is getting spent," remarked the other man, whose speech had a northern ring ; this was Noel Blackson, who had come to help the ferryman in the heavy work of flood-time ferrying. " Poor thing," Cicely said regretfully, " I have worked it hard to-day, but it shall rest to-morrow, ON THE SPOT 179 even if I have to borrow a mule to do its work. Oh, what is that ? " this last with a little scream of fright, for the animal began to plunge and kick violently. " It's a crocodile," yelled Noel, applying his oars diligently in order to drag the horse beyond the reach of its cruel foes ; whilst the small boy Kuda, who was steering, set up a series of unearthly yells in order to frighten the enemy, whose nerves are, according to popular belief, very liable to be upset by shrieks and screams. Joe Smith was drawing in the rope, hand over hand, in order to get the horse as close as possible, while Cicely, pale, and trembling with horror, could only sit still and look on at this unequal warfare. " Ha ! " cried Noel sharply, " it's no use, Joe, they've got it." At the same moment the poor animal gave a frightened shriek that was almost human in its tone, disappearing at the same moment under the water that showed faintly red from the stain of its blood. And then Cicely, grown-up though she was, fairly broke down, and sobbed like a baby at this tragic ending to the creature that had carried her so well. 1 80 CICEL Y FRO ME Noel looked painfully embarrassed by this exhibition of feeling on the part of the young lady, whilst Kuda would have grinned with delight at the spectacle but from a whole- some dread of someone boxing his ears for so doing. Joe Smith, however, took upon himself the office of comforter, and laying his hand gently on her arm, said in his queer gutturals, " Don't fret, Miss Frome, the poor beast didn't suffer they never do when they die like that." Cicely looked up at him gratefully, and wondered even then that his instinct should have been quick enough to discover that it was the probable death-agony of the horse, and not her own steedless plight, that was trying her so sorely. There was no time for anything more to be said, as the landing-place was at that moment reached. But when Cicely stood irresolute, wondering what was the best thing to do, Joe Smith approached her again, " You will come and rest a bit in my hut, Miss Frome, and then we can settle the best means of getting you to Harraganga." She followed him thankfully, wondering a little what Bernard would say about the loss ON THE SPOT 181 of the horse ; and how she should manage to get little Dick to Karrapolla, supposing she found him. As these questions called for no immediate answer, she was glad to put them aside and to entertain the more pressing wonderment as to how she might satisfy her hunger, which was beginning to obtrude itself very unpleasantly upon her notice. Joe brought a stool for her to be seated, then asked sharply, " Are you quite sure that you can trust yourself to me, to-night ? " " Yes, of course ; besides, there's no danger, is there ? " she asked, looking up into the thin, pain- lined face of the man whose life was under a cloud. "There is no danger. But your brother might very strongly disapprove, if he knew what you are doing," he replied, still doubtfully. " If Bernard knew that there was any possi- bility of finding Dick, do you think he would object ? and surely with you I shall be as safe as though I were with my own father ? " she said, marvelling at his objections and fears. " Ay, that indeed you will ! " he said in a moved tone, averting his head suddenly. " Then I had better tell the boy that he must bring me 1 82 CICEL Y FRO ME two mules down from Blackson's, and we'll be off in another hour or so." " I want to get away from here before the doctor comes over, if I can," Cicely said, suddenly remembering that he had spoken of coming before sundown. A queer little smile hovered round Joe Smith's face at this. He was busying himself now in bringing forward his one small table, and, placing it in front of Cicely, set about furnishing forth some sort of a meal. "He is a good fellow, the doctor, though a bit fond of having his own way perhaps ; you think he would say that you were not to go, I suppose ? " "He gives me a great many orders that I never think of obeying," she answered, with a toss of defiant scorn. Joe Smith chuckled audibly at this, then asked, rather anxiously, "Can you eat ship biscuit ? I've no bread." " Yes, I'm very fond of it ; it always makes me think of my father," she answered. He grunted, whether from pleasure or dis- pleasure she could not determine, and turned away to his cupboard once more. " The doctor brought me that the last time he crossed," he said, putting a roast peacock on ON THE SPOT 183 the table, where it was kept in countenance by a pot of honey and a pile of biscuit. " Won't you have something to eat too ? " she asked, seeing there was only knife and fork for one. "Presently, when you've finished, I've only one knife and fork," he answered, seating himself on his padlocked box and preparing to watch her feed. But she was fumbling in her pocket, an inside contrivance very difficult of access to the owner, as is the way of ladies' pockets generally, though pickpockets find them easily enough. " I have a knife and fork somewhere, I always carry them ; oh, here they are ! " and she drew forth a little case that looked as though it might contain a pocket-comb, but which held in reality a small ivory fork. " Bernard used to laugh at me so when we first went out shooting together be- cause I never could enjoy my dinner without a fork, and then one day when he had been to Kandy he brought me this, and with my pocket knife I am never at a loss." They made a comfortable meal from the doctor's peacock and the biscuit and honey, though Cicely did most of the eating, Joe Smith apparently finding more pleasure in watching 1 84 CICEL Y FROME his visitor feed than in ministering to his own appetite. When they had finished, and he was clearing away the fragments, Cicely was intently examin- ing the farther doorpost of the hut, that is the one upon which the door hung ; from the top right down to the ground it was filled with deeply indented notches cut into the wood. " What are these notches cut like this for ? " she asked, bringing his attention round to the doorpost. He hesitated a minute, then came to stand beside her, running his hand lovingly down the scored post. "It is my record, and the most valuable thing I possess," he answered, his voice broken with emotion. " Your record ? " she asked, uncomprehending still. He bowed his head, while a curious hesitancy was upon him. " Tell me about it ? " she insisted softly, thinking that modesty tied his tongue. " It looks like bragging, I know ; still, there it is, and you will understand some day, if not now, why I have kept such a careful account. Every one of those cuts stands for a life that I have saved, not merely that have been kept ON THE SPOT 185 from danger, but rescued from actual peril," he replied. " How many are there ? " she asked, in sur- prise that one man should have been able to do so much. " Count them, and see for yourself," he replied, with the air of one who has the number by heart, but does not choose to tell it lest by so doing he should appear unduly conceited or proud of his own brave deeds. By the time she had reckoned up the notches to her own satisfaction the sun was dipping behind the opposite bank of the Mataganga, and the mules were at the door. " Who will look after the ferry whilst you are away ? " asked Cicely of her guide, as they rode away up the long hill towards Harraganga. "Noel; he is very good and safe at the business ; besides, it's as well that he should be left to try his hand at it alone, he'll be the better able to get on by himself when my time comes, and the doctor doesn't give me more than a month now," Joe Smith said calmly, speaking of the on-coming of death as though it were an affair of little moment, a change to another abode, perhaps, or an excursion to the nearest town. 1 86 CICEL Y FRO ME " Did you save the lives of three hundred and twenty people entirely by yourself ? " she asked, her mind clinging with peculiar tenacity to the notched doorpost and the story it had to tell. " Single handed, every one of them ; there have been others, but for those I had help, so I didn't reckon them," he answered. " It is a great deal for one man. Were they all here at the Mataganga ferry ? " she asked, thinking it would surely pay the Government to do something to make the navigation of that river safer if its toll of human lives were always so great. " No, not more than two hundred here ; but there's an account of it all that I've written out and put in my lock-up box, so that when my time comes people may know for themselves," he answered, in a tone that did not invite further discussion, and for a while they rode in silence. By this time it was intensely, weirdly dark. Cicely could not see the head of her mule, whilst her companion might have been miles away for all the good her eyes got of his presence. Leav- ing the reins loose on the necks of their animals, they left the sagacious beasts to the guidance of their own unfaltering instincts, and were not disappointed in the result. ON THE SPOT 187 When the lights of Harraganga began to twinkle in front of them, the moon was coming up over the belt of forest to the eastward ; not a visible moon as yet, but a faint gleam of light all along the horizon, such as shows in England when a tardy winter dawn is struggling at its birth. In an hour it would be brilliantly light, saving in the thick jungle, through which neither sun nor moon could avail to send their rays. At Harraganga came an hour's necessary delay, spent by Joe Smith in sorting the various goods sent to be offered in barter to the Veddahs ; these comprised chiefly iron tools to be used in the cultivation of the land, such as hoes, rakes, and spades, together with various lengths of coloured calicoes, a few blankets, and cooking utensils. Having seen these put aboard a river boat, and in charge of two stout rowers, he went to the house of Frau Grant, where Cicely was resting and awaiting the time to start. She rose up eagerly when he entered the house, thankful perhaps for the chance of escape from the active cross-questioning of the worthy Frau, whose curiosity was neither more nor less than that of her sex in general, but who yet had a keen and wholly natural thirst for information, which tendency was apt to prove distinctly 1 88 CICEL Y FROME trying to any victim not desirous of absolute frankness. " I'm almost ready, Miss Frome," he said, in answer to the appeal in her eyes, which, with his knowledge of the worthy Frau, he had no difficulty in rightly interpreting. " I am very glad," she said, with a sigh of relief, for the suspense was growing harder to be borne, and doubts were assailing her now as to the wisdom and common sense of her venture. Supposing it failed to show any light on the fate of her missing nephew, she was hearing the confident " I told you so's " of Mrs. Le Strange, of the doctor, of everyone, in fact, with whom she came in contact, whilst all the time her own conscience would upbraid her in that she had left a known duty for a wild-goose chase such as this. Before they started Frau Grant brought a warm cloak and put it round Cicely's shoulders. " I don't like your going one bit, and I'd stay you by force if you hadn't Joe Smith to take care of you," said the old lady, hovering between anger and tears, snorting and sniffing, and seemingly in a very mixed frame of mind, as she buttoned the cloak with little vicious tweaks expressive of her inward indignation at the escapade. ON THE SPOT 189 " She'll be all right, never you fear, Mother Grant. Come along, if you're ready, Miss Frome, for now we've no time to lose," and, giving her his hand, the ferryman helped Cicely down the steps to the boat. In a few moments the lights of Harraganga were hid from sight by a bend in the stream, and they were plunged into a world of silence and darkness, saving for that ribbon of brilliant moonlight lying on the black waters of the river that shone in between the overarching tree-tops. Cicely, wrapped in her cloak, sat absolutely silent, Joe Smith also appearing to have lapsed into a reverie. They were dropping down with the current, with nothing to do but to keep the boat's head well in the centre of the stream, just where that ribbon of silver stretched its narrow track, and the swift flowing water did the rest. "You did not forget the Holy-Ved?" the ferryman asked, leaning forward and speaking to her in a low tone, which yet seemed curiously out of place in that profound hush. " I have it here, safe under my cloak," she answered in a whisper, not daring to speak above her breath lest she should disturb the awful repose reigning all around, that was like 1 90 CICEL Y FRO ME the slumber of a giant who would slay when he awoke. After that no word was spoken until they reached a spot where the moonlight broadened out to a big patch, and softly illumined the goal of their journeying, the Veddah-stone. With the same silence that had characterised their journey down the stream, the two native men and Joe Smith swiftly cleared the merchandise from the boat, and carrying it up the bank, bundle by bundle, laid it on the flat grey stone, where the moonlight caught the sharpened edges of the hoes and turned them into silver forthwith. For Cicely the ferryman had found a seat on a fallen log, placed well back in the shadow, where, muffled in her dark cloak, she was com- pletely hidden from view, a shadow among shadows. The boat with its two native rowers dropped away from the bank and was hidden by the darkness, while Joe Smith stood alone and un- armed in the bright patch of moonlight shining down on the stone. CHAPTER XV THE BARTER OTIONLESS as a figure carved in stone stood Joe Smith, while Cicely watched him until her eyes ached. When she opened 'them, after one second of resting with them closed, she saw to her amazement that he was no longer alone. Two other figures were there examining with apparent curiosity the articles of barter lying on the grey old stone. Odd and distorted they looked, standing out in sharp silhouette against the vivid lunar light. No words passed between them saving some low inarticulate grunts of satisfaction, which doubtless stood to them in place of speech. Then, when their investigation was ended, they began to clear the things to one side of the stone, leaving the other half empty. Joe Smith, looking on, made no attempt to assist them or to in any way interfere with their 1 9 2 CICEL Y FRO ME proceedings. But when they had settled the merchandise, and with a quick, silent movement disappeared into the jungle again, he stepped forward and laid the hideous face of the Holy- Ved on the empty stone, its red eyes catching a light from the moonbeams, and shining like two baleful fires in a shimmer of green from the rock-crystal. How the minutes lagged after that ! Cicely felt a clammy cold something brush against her face, and could have shrieked in very terror, but she dared not ; something glided over her feet too, a snake probably, yet still she maintained her attitude of impassive silence, and presently she had her reward. It might have been five minutes, it might have been ten, or even half an hour, so im- possible is it to reckon time by heart-beats, when two dark figures glided out of the deep shadow of the jungle towards the lighted space round the Veddah-stone. They were about to place 'some heavy bundles on the stone, when, their attention being caught by the gleam of the ruby eyes, they uttered a simultaneous howl of amazement, and, dropping their bundles, fled back into the shadows whence they had just emerged. THE BARTER 193 And now a strange thing happened ; the jungle which had been so silent and lifeless hitherto had become suddenly instinct with palpitating emotion. There was no sound of voices, but a sensation of movement and soft low whistling, such as Wimala had used in her subjugation of little Dick. It was more like a nightmare than an actuality, and Cicely drove her nails into the fleshy part of her palms to keep from crying out in an ecstasy of fear. Joe Smith's figure was reassuring, and she fixed her eyes on him with a feeling of helpless bewilderment, wondering why he did not move and break the spell. The Veddahs were approaching again ; this time seven or eight of them emerged from the shadow into the circle of moonlight surrounding the stone. Then dropping on their knees, they crawled with abject humility to where lay the ugly green face with its gleaming eyes. One man, apparently the chief, touched it with a reverent finger, whilst the rest gave a deep, hoarse growl of satisfaction, and after a few minutes spent in grovelling before the face, which was so evidently an object of worship, they crawled back into the shadow, and one 13 1 94 CICEL Y FRO ME man, rising to his feet, came to speak with Joe Smith. But to Cicely's surprise the ferryman appeared quite unable to understand the language of grunts, and growls, and energetic gesticulation with which the wild man made known his desires. She herself, isolated as she was, and with the further disadvantage of having his back turned towards her, could clearly make out that he was asking for the Holy-Ved, and demanding what com- pensation the white man wanted to induce him to part with a treasure so precious. Joe Smith, however, shook his head as though in utter perplexity, until, losing patience, or perhaps thinking it time to try a fresh means of communication, the man disappeared into the darkness, to emerge again a minute later with a companion more fluent of speech, or at least with a readier method of making himself under- stood. But still the ferryman was dense as ever, though this time he replied to them volubly, asking what it was they wanted so badly, and stating how delighted he should be to meet their wishes if it lay in his power to do so. This kind of thing seemed to puzzle them a great deal, and they retreated again to bring up THE BARTER 195 a third, though with precisely the same result. The night was waning, no bargain had been struck, and it seemed impossible to do anything, when Joe Smith said suddenly, " Bring Wimala to me, she will understand my speech, and can also interpret your desires to me." This, delivered partly in the dialect of the Village Veddahs, partly in English, with plenty of gesticulation thrown in, produced an instant effect, the low whistling recommenced, there was a snapping of twigs as a way was forced through the undergrowth, then later came the sounds of struggle and resistance, followed by the unmis- takable noise of blows, as though Wimala were proving refractory, and needed some castigation to compel her to the front. All this Cicely heard with ears strained to the utmost, though the ferryman stood in unmoved meditation by the stone. Suddenly a child's sharp cry broke on the night silence, and, forgetful of consequences, she sprang to her feet ; but with three strides the ferrryman stood beside her. " Hush, hush ! everything depends on your patience now," he whispered sternly, then hastened to take up his old position once more. She noticed how carefully he had refrained 196 CICEL Y FROME from looking at her when he spoke, and she sank on to the ground again with a wild prayer that her impetuosity might not have spoiled the plans of the quiet man yonder. That the cry had come from little Dick there could be not the faintest doubt, the old petulance that she knew so well, and the shortened name of " Wim, Wim," it had all been so distinct and clear, that great tears of thankfulness began to roll down her cheeks at this certainty of his having escaped a dreadful death among the crocodiles. Two men appeared in the moonlight now, dragging a shrinking female figure between them. And stripped of her snowy draperies and the gay turbans in which she had been wont to deck herself at Karrapolla, Cicely had some difficulty in recognising Wimala in the miserable figure, swathed round with a mat of native manufacture, and with bare arms and legs. And now the ferryman, roused to an active anger, and a stern indignation, made himself understood, not only to Wimala, but to the two men who held her. He denounced her in good all-round terms for her treachery, in first stealing little Dick's heart and then abducting his body. He drew no pictures of the harrowing suspense and terrible grief of the lost child's parents, THE BARTER 197 knowing well how her cruel, revengeful nature would have gloated over the details of such suffering ; but with true artistic touches, went on to paint a fancy picture of how the red-coated British soldiers were arming themselves to come and utterly destroy the tribe of the Rock Veddahs, and how even the Holy-Ved had voluntarily taken sides with the basely defrauded white people. Like most other scoundrels, small and great, Wimala was an arrant coward, and at this prospect of pains and penalties fell on the ground shrieking for mercy. Now indeed was confusion, and disquiet among these only half-humanised sons of the soil, many more crowded out into the circle of moonlight, to growl and grunt and gesticulate, but above the grumble of their inarticulate mutterings the voice of the ferryman rang out clear and stern, " Bring the child, the little white child, and put him on the stone of barter, otherwise my peaceful errand is at an end, and I depart straightway, taking back with me that symbol of greatness and might, the Holy-Ved." It was characteristic of the downtrodden, spiritless nature of these wild people that no one resented these words of the ferryman's, or even 198 CICEL Y FRO ME expressed any dissent or dislike to his denuncia- tions ; yet they were twenty to one, and might, had they so chosen, have possessed themselves of the goods laid forth for barter without further ado. Instead of this they cowered in meek dejection all around, while one, who appeared to be chief or elder of the tribe, attempted an elaborate explanation of how when they had found it necessary to recall Wimala, she had brought with her a small white child, whom she said had been deserted of its kin, and had no one in the wide world to care for it but herself, therefore they had permitted it to remain amongst them, though so fierce was their poverty that even the burden of one more mouth to feed was a very serious thing to undertake. It took the united efforts of ten men to get this explanation reeled off, and even then a large amount of guess-work was necessary in order to get within reasonable distance of their meaning. " Bring the child ! " was all Joe Smith con descended to say in reply to this ; and again the woodland resounded with the soft, mysterious whistling, as two men started to obey the command. The Barter. CICELY FROME, p. 199. THE BARTER 199 Presently there came the little petulant cry again, as of a child roused from slumber, and a o ' peevish call of " Wim, Wim," as Dick, sleepy and cross, was borne through the jungle in the arms of a strange nurse. Cicely's heart was beating almost to suffocation now, as she heard the foot- steps coming nearer. "Cicely, come here," said the ferryman quietly ; and getting up from her low seat she stumbled across the tangled weeds and creepers, to stand by his side. Her appearance had all the effect of an appari- tion, and her cloak slipping partly from her shoulders, she stood a slim erect figure in her white jacket and Mrs. Colman's riding-skirt, her face haggard and worn from all she had gone through, and her hair streaming wildly down her back. " Take that thing in your hands, and pass it to whoever gives Dick to you," the ferryman said briefly ; and catching up the green rock-crystal, she held it and waited for the child. Wimala all this time was tearing her hair and shrieking with rage and despair, not even silenced when one of the men gave her an admonitory kick with his foot. " Wim, Wim ! Dick wants Wim ! " cried the 200 CICEL Y FROME child, when he was brought forward into the moonlight. With a frantic leap the ayah was on her feet, and would have seized the child but for the ferryman, who promptly put out his foot and tripped her up. " Now, Cicely," he said, in a warning tone ; and she, quick to understand him, held out the hideous green face with its lurid, gleaming eyes, and in return gathered into her trembling grasp little Dick. He was whole, and sound at any- rate, though painfully thin, and so dirty that she could barely suppress a feeling of disgust when she touched him. Joe Smith blew a whistle, summoning the boat, at the sound of which every man of the Veddahs fell instantly prostrate on the ground, desiring to be hidden from view of the rowers, and lack- ing time to gain the effectual shelter of the dark jungle. Wimala alone evinced no such desire of secrecy, but still persisted in her frantic efforts to regain possession of her nursling, from which she was forcibly withheld by the ferryman. " Get into the boat, and hold the boy firmly, for we are not out of the wood yet," he said to Cicely, as the little keel grated against the bank, THE BARTER 201 and the two native rowers, seizing the drooping tendrils of the waterside creepers, held the craft steadily in position. Clutching Dick tightly in her arms, and wind- ing her cloak firmly about him, she made the best of her way over the tangle of climbers and creepers that encumbered the few remaining steps to the river ; meanwhile Joe Smith was by sheer force holding down the woman, who was fighting with the strength and ferocity of a jungle cat, she with the power of passion, he a man dying by inches. " Make haste, Cicely !" he called sharply, feeling his ability to hold the wild creature growing momentarily less. She reached the boat, and was helped aboard by one of the men, stumbling awkwardly as she took her place, thereby hurting little Dick and causing him to cry out. At the sound of his note of protest, Wimala gave a sudden violent twist, and, flinging Joe Smith to the ground, rushed down on the boat with the same fierce desire to reclaim her treasure that a tigress might display who saw her cubs being carried off before her eyes. Cicely shrieked with dismay, and with an in- stinct of defence wrapped the cloak closely over 202 CICEL Y FROME the head and ears of the child, bending over him so that Wimala could not snatch him from her. But Joe Smith was on his feet again, and now with that rage in his heart which any moderately brave man would feel at being ignominiously flung by a woman. He was just in time to pre- vent Wimala flinging herself upon Cicely in the boat, and catching her round the waist he tossed her into a bed of creepers, himself springing into the boat and pushing off from the bank. Wimala was not subdued yet, however, and rising from the smother of jungle- vines, where she had been thrown, she jumped into the water and swam after the boat. The two natives, stolid and hard to move in a usual way, were now in lively terror, thinking she must be a witch. This same fear lent strength to their arms, and the boat bounded along, though being against current the pace did not tell so much. Wimala was an expert swimmer, and despite the efforts of the two Singhalese gained steadily on them. "Cicely," said the ferryman, bending over where she sat a huddled heap with the child in her cloak, " I shall have to shoot that woman, I must shoot her in the arm sufficient to wound THE BARTER 203 her and stop her from following, or she will swamp the boat and drown us all." " Is there no other way ? " she panted, with a shiver of repulsion at being compelled to sit by and see a woman shot before her eyes. " I fear not. Ah, ah, but there is ; quick, turn your face away, child, it is no sight for you ! " Instinctively obedient, she turned her head away, carrying with her a picture of a fierce wild face and gleaming, awful eyes. Then suddenly a wild shriek of agony cut the air, there was a chuckle of relief and satisfaction from the two natives, while Joe Smith said in an awed tone, " God's judgments are swift and sure." Cicely shook as though from an ague fit ; she understood now that Wimala had fallen victim to a hungry crocodile, but she did not turn her head, only crouched the lower over Dick, who, lulled by the warmth of the cloak, had fallen asleep in her arms. Presently the ferryman touched her on the shoulder, " Look up, child, look up," he said, " for see, the dawn has come." CHAPTER XVI COMMON DANGEKS T was dawn certainly, but such a dawn ! Huge cloud masses obscured the rays of the rising sun, and a suffocating heat that was almost sulphurous in its oppressiveness betokened an atmosphere highly electric, with a promise of storms later on. Joe Smith's face was ghastly in the morning light, while ever and anon he pressed a red cotton handkerchief to his lips. "Is it hsemorrhage ? " Cicely asked, with a fluttering compassion in her heart for this big silent man who suffered so much and said so little. He nodded, with a patient acquiescence in the inevitable, and turned his head away. It was slow work rowing up to Harraganga, for the current was unusually strong, and the two native rowers seemed to feel the heat of the COMMON DANGERS 205 morning to a serious degree, labouring at their oars with every appearance of extreme exhaustion. Little Dick lay snugly asleep in Cicely's lap, sobbing in his slumber sometimes, as if some hidden consciousness had whispered to him of Wimala's fate. Frau Grant was standing on the landing-stage when they reached the village, and appeared hugely relieved at the sight of Cicely. " Such a night I have had, not a wink of sleep because of you," she said reproachfully, shaking her head from side to side with an attempt to look stern, which was rather a failure after all. " Frau, I was quite right in going, and I have Dick here in my arms," Cicely cried joyfully, drawing the cloak aside to show the face of the sleeping boy. " Ach, ach, but the dirt of the creature ! " cried the Frau, drawing back with an expression of disgust. "Yes, I know, and your cloak will be all spoiled, but we will give you another," the girl exclaimed gleefully, as she followed Frau Grant into the little house where breakfast was waiting. Joe Smith did not accompany them, he had to despatch another boat and two rowers down 206 CICELY FROME stream to the Veddah-stone to bring off the payment for the goods he had taken down, and which, in their haste to get clear away with the child, they had left behind them. Cicely was wholly absorbed with her recovered treasure, begging warm water of the surly Singhalese house-girl, in which to wash away the dirt that already encrusted him like an outer skin, and wrapping him in two clean towels, other juvenile garments not being obtainable in Harraganga, where all the children ran about in a state of nature, and were not encumbered with the unnecessary luxury of clothes, until they grew to be nine or ten years of age. During these toilet performances Frau Grant entered the room, and stood silently watching Cicely's active attempts at restoring Dick to a civilised condition. " And you will lend me the towels to carry the dear child home in, won't you ? " asked Cicely, bursting into a happy laugh as she surveyed the odd little figure swathed in towels, holding him at arm's length to get the full effect of it all, then hugging him again to her breast with a hysterical burst of thankfulness for his rescue. " Don't laugh," said the woman, shaking her head sourly. COMMON DANGERS 207 " I can't help it. Just think what we have all endured since he has been lost, the sweet darling, and imagine the relief to have him again safe and unharmed ! " and, nearer crying than laughing now, Cicely hugged her small nephew to such an extent that he set up a whimper of protest, which he further emphasised by scratching her face. " There's news come from Karrapolla since you went down river last night," said the Frau, more sourly than before, which acidity was mainly used as a cloak to her grief, she being a kindly soul with a sympathetic heart. " News ? Ah, the doctor came home, I suppose ? " Cicely looked up now, and the old woman braced herself for her task. " No, he didn't come ; things at your brother's was too bad for him to leave," she answered, measuring off her words like drops from a phial, so many to a dose. " How bad ? Is Julie worse ? " cried the girl, a cold shiver of dread going through her as she thought of the silent sufferer whose awakening had been so dreaded by them all. " My dear, she has gone, and they don't reckon as your brother can last over to-day." " Dead ! Julie dead ? " and Cicely rose to her feet in unbelieving dismay. 2o8 CICEL Y FROME " Yes, my dear, about sundown last night, so I should say ; there was a man come over the ferry after the moon rose, and he told us." Cicely sat down again, for the solid earth was reeling, and the chairs and table appeared to be having a dance on their own account, and were waltzing all around her in a most incompre- hensible manner. Only for a minute though, and then she had rallied her energies. If Julie was dead there would be time for grief later on. Perhaps if she hurried with little Dick she might be in time to save Bernard's life, or at least to gladden his eyes in dying with a sight of his son. "Joe Smith, where is he?" she asked, her voice so calm that Frau Grant thought her dazed, and in danger of brain-paralysis. " Dear heart, don't take it like that, cry, dear child, cry, here's my bosom to lean upon ! " exclaimed the worthy woman, advancing upon Cicely in order to fold her in a loving embrace. But the girl repelled her fiercely, " Peace, Frau, it is no time for grief yet, or tears either. I must away with the child with all haste to Karrapolla ; who knows but that Bernard may be saved if he sees little Dick ? " There was a sound of trampling feet outside, COMMON DANGERS 209 and, still holding Dick in her arms, she ran out, to find that Joe Smith was there with the mules. " I've just heard, and I thought you would like to be going on at once," he said briefly, taking Dick from her whilst she mounted. Cicely nodded her thanks, and when she was safely in her saddle reached out her arms for the child. " Leave him to me, I'm more used to riding with a weight than you are, and we must move if we're to keep in front of the storm," the ferry- man said, with a motion of his head towards the lowering east, as he flung himself across the mule still holding the child. Dick was delighted, drumming with his small fists on the neck of the mule, and shouting, " Gee whoa, gee whoa," as they rode away. Then memory began to stir faintly in the baby mind, and to associate this kind of exercise with the father from whom he had been stolen ; first he looked intently at the mule, regarding the up- standing ears of the animal with a curious fixity of gaze, from this he turned to the face of the man who was holding him, and after a minute's intent survey cooed out in sweetest baby fashion, " Dadda, dadda ; Dick's dadda ! " 14 2 1 o CICEL Y FRO ME The ferryman gathered him a little closer, and stooping his head kissed the soft little face up- turned to his. Who shall say what thoughts were stirring his heart then, or how the child's simple confidence was compensating him for years of cold isolation from all he held most dear. But the storm was pursuing them, a pall-like gloom was hiding the face of the earth, thunder crashes were frequent, while the lightning made a continual play of fitful flickering flame. " We must go faster," shouted the man, kicking the sides of his mule to urge it to a greater speed. On, on they galloped, but the storm came swiftly after, and as they tore down the hill to the ferry, the rain struck them with a fierce dash that made little Dick shriek out with fright and pain. To creep to shelter in the ferryman's hut was a blessed relief, but there could be no staying there for Cicely, whose only hope lay in action that should be swift and decisive. " How soon can we cross ? " she asked wistfully, looking from Joe Smith to Noel Blackson, who, with the boy Kuda, were all sheltering from the storm. " There's a lull, now," said Noel slowly, as the COMMON DANGERS 2 1 1 dashing of the rain grew fainter and the thunder crashes less frequent. " It is only a lull, there's another storm be- hind," said Joe Smith, pointing to a big black cloud following close on the heels of the one that was even now breaking above them. " Would there be time before it comes ? " pleaded Cicely, with a dreadful terror at her heart lest the next downpour should produce a freshet and render the river unferryable for perhaps a week to come. The same thought was in the minds of the men, as they looked into each other's faces again. " Shall we try ? " asked Noel, thinking of the many good turns Bernard Alderson had done him in past days, and not unwilling to brave danger for the sake of Cicely either, for whom he had a very profound admiration. " Kuda, the boat ! " said the ferryman sharply > and, opening the door, the boy sped down to the shore to slip off the mooring rope. " The beasts must go, and I'll ride with Miss Frome to Karrapolla, you ain't fit," decided Noel Blackson judicially. But Joe Smith paid no heed to him, perhaps he did not hear, being just then binding little: 2 1 2 CICEL Y FROME Dick to Cicely, so that she might have her hands free and yet keep the boy safe as well. " God bless you, child, and keep you always," he was muttering, as he swathed the cloak round the two like a swaddling band. She thought he was talking to Dick, and looked up to him with grateful eyes. "We shall never, never forget how you have given us back our boy. If Julie had lived, how she would have blessed you ! " " I shan't see you again maybe," he interrupted hastily, " and when I'm dead you'll know it all," nodding his head in the direction of the padlocked box that stood in the corner. Noel's voice was heard at this minute shouting to them to hurry, as the storm was coming up so fast. " It's now or next week, mate," he said, as Joe Smith half lifted Cicely and her burden into the boat. Kuda was already in his place, and without further delay they pushed out into the stream. Already the second storm was upon them, the wind was shrieking with a doleful wail, and the thunder crashes reverberated with a dull roar from the rocks around. " No time to drift down stream, we must COMMON DANGERS 2 1 3 make straight across and trust in God ! " shouted Joe Smith to his helper, who nodded in reply, and bent himself with all his might to his heavy task. The moments seemed endless to Cicely, as with both hands clutching the sides of the boat she watched the rotary current of the death-hole, which they were slowly approaching. They were opposite to it now, a moment more and it was past. When lo ! a crash of thunder directly over their heads, a blinding flash of lightning that seemed to stupefy Kuda, who was steering, and then the boat was swept backwards again, and being caught in the outer edge of the current was swung round with awful force against the jagged rocks of the death-hole. With one swift slash of his big knife Joe Smith cut the ropes and freed the mules, leaving them to struggle to land if they could get there, and then the fight for life began. They might win through yet if only the boat held together, for both men were practised oarsmen, and were working now with the strength of desperation. Round and round whirled the current, swinging the boat with it, but the exertions of the men were beginning to tell, and they were forcing their way inch by 2 1 4 CICEL Y F OME inch, when bang went the boat against a hidden rock, and a moment later they were struggling in the water. Cicely, burdened as she was with little Dick, had no choice but to sink, but as she slid down into the dark, cold depths, she heard a voice crying above the rush and roar of the water "Cicely, Cicely, do not fear, your father is here, and he will save you." " It must be death," she thought to herself, as she slid down, down, down, clutching little Dick the closer as she went. It was all confusion after that, thunderous noises everywhere, the breath was choked out of her, water filled her ears and nose and mouth, and with one feeble struggle for room to breathe, consciousness went out, and she knew no more. CHAPTER XVII THE AWAKENING HE is coming round at last ! " ex- claimed a voice, and Cicely opened her eyes languidly to see who was talking. Several faces were bending over her, but at first, and by reason of her weakness, she could recognise none. " Perhaps I am dead," she said to herself, and shivered as she remembered her plunge into the death-hole. " Another blanket here, quick," said the voice in imperative tones, and something warm and soft was tucked about her. " I'm not dead, that's certain," she murmured, and then with a faint stirring of curiosity to know how her rescue had been accomplished she opened her eyes again. " Where am I ? " she asked, then recollection 2 1 6 CICEL Y FROME returning with leaps and bounds, she tried to struggle to a sitting posture, crying out sharply, " Oh, where is Dick ? was he not saved too ? " "Yes, yes, Dick is quite safe," a voice was saying in her ears, that same voice which had spoken before, while a firm hand pressed her back on to her pillow and held her there. She was so strangely weak and giddy, so utterly powerless to resist, that she just did as she was ordered, and, after a moment or two spent in trying to recall her scattered senses, dropped into a light slumber. From this she was aroused presently by a murmur of voices around her, and one louder than the rest ex- claiming, "Well, really now, if it isn't as in- teresting as a story-book ! " " Mrs. Colman ? " Cicely's eyes came open with a jerk this time. " Yes, my dear Miss Frome, I'm here," and a vigorous hand patted the coverings lying about her shoulders. " How did you get here, and where am I ? " demanded Cicely. " The doctor sent Massoo with a message that I was to come at once, I wasn't even to stop to take my apron off; and I didn't, see," and Mrs. Colman laughed nervously, as she held out for THE AWAKENING 217 inspection a rather ragged and very dirty apron. " Massoo ? " Cicely was frowning in -her endeavour to recall the name. " Yes, don't you remember ? the brown hut in the tamarind-grove, half a mile from the ferry, that is where you are," rejoined the little woman soothingly, yet evidently nervous still. " Where is Dick ? " was Cicely's next query. "Here he is," said the voice she had first heard on recovering her senses, and which she now recognised as belonging to the doctor. He came forward as he spoke, holding the child in his arms wrapped in a blanket. "He is very pale," said Cicely, shocked at the weary wanness of the poor little fellow's face, as it peeped out from the dingy blanket. " So are you. People don't as a rule look very robust and rosy, when they have been within an ace of drowning. But look here, Miss Frome, Mrs. Colman can take care of you for a while, and I want to carry this boy off to Karrapolla at once ; he'll be of more use there than a whole chemist's shop full of drugs." " Dr. Durrant, when did Julie die ? " asked Cicely, beginning to cry in spite of herself, at the thought of her lively sister-in-law lying cold 2 1 8 CICEL Y FR OME and stiff, and all unwitting that her boy had come home to her again. " Mrs. Alderson is not dead, she is recovering," he said slowly, dropping out the words one by one in deliberate fashion, so that she might understand him. " Was it Bernard then ? " and her heart re- fused to be relieved by the removal of the first burden, fearing lest another and heavier might be impending. " No ; he is very ill though, and I was on my way to Harraganga for fresh remedies, arriving here in time to help you back to life again. It is lucky you came across when you did, for the river won't be ferryable for three days at least, and until it is I am homeless." " And you won't be able to get the remedies ? " asked Cicely in an anxious tone. " I shan't need them, as I fancy Master Dick will be remedy sufficient himself, at anyrate 1 am going to try. Now you lie still and rest, and don't venture to move until I return," he said in a peremptory fashion, going off a moment or two later bearing Dick in his arms, that young gentleman showing no dislike to his stranger nurse. Massoo's wife, and some two or three dark- THE AWAKENING 219 skinned babies were present in the low hut, which was little better or cleaner than an English cattle-shed. And Mrs. Colman, having looked about in vain for a suitable something that might be utilised as a chair, came at length and crouched down by Cicely. " How was it I wasn't drowned, and Dick too ? The boat was smashed in at one side, I remember, and we were all flung into the water," she said, turning a little so that she might scan Mrs. Colman's face. The little woman grew restless under the scrutiny, and shifted uneasily, as she replied, " I only know just the bare facts, of course, but Massoo said that the ferryman dived into the death-hole and brought you out you and the child." " Ah, it was his voice I heard telling me not to fear, for he would save me ; I thought it was my father," she said, a little sob catching at her throat. Mrs. Colman made no reply, only edged farther away, and turned her head as though to look through the little window, to where the tamarind trees were dripping with the still falling rain. But Cicely was thinking of that strange, silent 2 20 CICEL Y FROME man who had done so much towards the recovery if of Dick, and then had saved her life and his from that awful pool of circling waters. What a strange sad career his had been, hiding these many years from justice, yet filling his days with the bravest deeds that mortal man could do. He had known her father too, and by his own confession had stood by the side of Captain Frome, when that ill-fated Eastern Star had foundered. Who was he then ? Cicely remembered the words she had heard, when she was sinking into those black engulfing waters, " Father is here, he will save you ! " Was he could he be Captain Frome, her own father ? She started up in profound agitation, as a hundred things lent confirmation to the thought. " My dear, the doctor said that you must lie still, he is so afraid of fever," urged Mrs. Colman, frightened at the wild excitement of Cicely's appearance. " Am I going mad, do you think ? " she asked, pressing her hands against the sides of her head, and trying to think coherently. " You will do, if you don't lie down," retorted Mrs. Colman, gently thrusting her back on to THE A WAKENING 2 2 1 her pillow, and drawing the blankets well up round her throat again. " I want you to tell me" began Cicely, but Mrs. Colman cut her short. " I shan't tell you anything, so it ain't the least use in the world to ask me. The doctor's orders were for you to be left perfectly quiet, and I'm not going to break them for you or anyone else." This was evident enough, and Cicely lay and thrashed the question out in her head until, weakness prevailing, she fell asleep. CHAPTER XVIII HOW THE STRUGGLE ENDED T so happened that when they were all flung into the water the boat was not overturned, and Kuda, who could swim like a water-rat, was quickly back in the boat again, and flinging a rope with great dexterity over an upstanding rock, brought it to a perilous anchorage just on the outer edge of the death-hole. Then Noel Blackson was swept round, fighting, struggling against the current which was dragging him down. " Hold hard, massa ! " shouted the boy, leaning over at the risk of another ducking, and clutching Noel with all his might. The help, small as it was, proved effectual, and hanging for one brief moment on the side of the boat just to recover his breath, the man scrambled in beside the boy, and began to look for the others. HOW THE STRUGGLE ENDED 223 " There, there ! " shrieked the boy, " he's got her, he's got 'em both," as Joe Smith rose to the surface of the hissing, boiling waters of the death-hole, one hand tightly clutching the cloak which bound Cicely and Dick together, and with the other striking out boldly to reach the boat. But this had been badly damaged by its crash against the rocks, and it was as much as Kuda could do to keep it baled out and in floating condition ; whilst the swirling of the waters were bumping it continually against the rock of anchorage and threatening to wreck it entirely. The oars, save one, were gone too, but Noel stretched this out for the ferryman to grasp. " She'll never hold us all, and keep above water," muttered the man, doing his best never- theless to aid Joe Smith in getting his burden safely on board. The ferryman was nearly exhausted, and when, by the united exertions of Noel and Kuda, Cicely and the child had been lifted into the questionable safety of the damaged boat, he was almost slipping back to the death from whence he had just rescued the others. But Kuda had clutched him, and, with doleful shrieks and yells, was doing his best to drag 224 CICEL Y FR OME him on board, and, Noel also helping, he was hauled in, falling like a log beside the other two, who were quite unconscious, and without a sign of life. " We'll never get to land ! " panted Noel, looking on this as only respite and not salvation, for they were in the current still, if only on its outer edge, and the moment they cast off from their perilous anchorage to the rock were likely to be swallowed up by the greedy, voracious destruction of raging water and rugged rocks. " There's a boat, another boat ! " yelled Kuda, who was baling again with all his might, intent on saving himself and the others if such a thing were possible. Noel looked round, and lo ! there was another boat approaching, though by reason of the down- pour it was only dimly visible. " They'll never save us, they'll be sucked in and drowned," he cried out, half maddened to think that yet more lives must be thrown away in the ineffectual attempt at rescuing their own. " No, no ! " yelled Kuda, whose vision was of the keenest, " they're not coming, they're going to throw; look out !" ducking his own head sharply to avoid the rope, which even now was whizzing past his head. HOW THE STRUGGLE ENDED 225 To catch it and fasten it securely to the boat was the work of a minute, and then, whilst Noel cut them adrift from their friendly rock, and prepared to assist in rowing as best he could with one oar, Kuda baled with all his might in order that they might not be swamped. They held their breath almost whilst their rescuers towed them clear of the current, for if the rope had given way, or had come unfastened, their destruction must have been swift and inevitable. No accident happened, however, and slowly but surely they were dragged beyond the influence of the whirlpool, and towards the bank of the river. But despite the efforts of Kuda, the water in the boat was gaining fast, and the sides were sinking nearer to the level of the river. " Stop rowing, and help me bale ! " yelled Kuda ; " quick, quick ! " Noel, who seemed dazed with the length and o fierceness of the struggle, shipped his oar and did as he was bidden, though there was nothino- ' O O but his tarpaulin hat for him to bale with, and even that was leaky in the crown. At last what a long, long time it seemed they reached the bank, and were helped on 15 2 2 6 CICEL Y FRO ME shore by the friendly hands of their rescuers, who then turned to lift out the unconscious forms of the three lying in the water at the bottom of the boat. " Why, doctor, is it you ? " exclaimed Noel, recovering somewhat from his dazed condition now that solid ground was under his feet. " Yes ; and lucky for you that I came along just then, and had the good fortune to find Massoo here waiting to cross," replied the doctor, who was busy disentangling the cloak that was wrapped round Cicely. " What in the world is this ! not Alderson's boy, surely ? " he cried out in great amazement, as little Dick's face came into view from under the cloak. " Yes, it's the little chap right enough ; Joe and the gal there fetched him up river last night. But give an eye here, doctor, I'm afraid poor Joe is in a bad way." The doctor glanced round. He was anxious about Cicely and the child, but he left them after that first casual look, and came to stoop over the ferryman. The thin face was peaceful and quiet, and the eyes were closed. There was a trickle of red at the corner of his mouth, and with a sigh and a HOW THE STRUGGLE ENDED 227 shake of his head the doctor went back to Cicely again. " He's dead, poor fellow, and the world's the loser by a brave man gone to his reward," he said in a reverent tone. Kuda flung himself down by the body with sobs and cries, but the doctor bestirred himself to get Cicely to a place of shelter. " Your house is the nearest, Massoo ; we must carry her there. Bring the child, will you, and let's be moving," he said, turning to the native who had assisted in the work of rescue. But the half mile was a long one, and Cicely was a dead weight in her unconscious condition, so that the doctor, vigorous and muscular though he was, had to take many a resting spell before he reached the shelter of Massoo's house. Even then it was some time before she could be brought back to life, and he had despatched Massoo for Mrs. Colman as being the nearest available white woman, and one, moreover, whom his patient knew and liked. Dick came to consciousness much quicker than his aunt, and was snugly sleeping in a dirty blanket, before a blazing fire, when Cicely roused to ask for him. And all this time the doctor was ill at ease, 2 2 8 CICEL Y F OME and chafing with a desire to be off to Karrapolla, with the child that had so miraculously turned up at the moment when he was most needed. About the dead man on the river bank he troubled not at all, it was only the living that had any interest for him, the living, suffering ones, who might be coaxed back to health again, if only the right means for their restoration were forth- coming. Upon Mrs. Colman's arrival he rolled Dick yet tighter in the dingy blanket, and then wrapping him round with his own mackintosh, departed for Karrapolla. He had not got clear of the tamarind grove, however, when he saw two figures of very unequal height toiling along, with a heavy burden between them. It was Noel Blackson and Kuda, and they were bringing Joe Smith's dead body to the house of Massoo. " You mustn't carry it there, not until Miss Frome can be moved, at least," the doctor ex- claimed impatiently, riding up to them. " There's the shed where Massoo keeps his tools, we can lay him there," said Noel. " Very well ; only mind, don't let her get wind of what has happened, she's too excitable already," HOW THE STRUGGLE ENDED 229 retorted the doctor, riding away with a frown on his face. He did not like leaving Cicely exposed to the chances of tragic details. But duty and necessity alike called him to Karrapolla with all speed, and he had no choice but to obey. CHAPTER XIX THE PADLOCKED BOX WEEK had passed away, and Cicely was back at Karrapolla. She was somewhat of an invalid still, and with many traces of her recent ex- periences still hanging about her, although she resolutely disclaimed the idea of weakness, and openly scoffed at the doctor for wanting her to submit to medical surveillance. Bernard and Julie were on the high road to recovery, though in the case of the latter it was likely to be a long time before full health and strength was arrived at, so severe had been the suffering through which she had passed. Little Dick had proved a very effectual tonic in the critical part of his father's illness, and the two in- valids seemed to need no greater good than to watch him as he played, or to hear his baby laughter echoing through the home that had missed him so sorely. 230 The Convalescents. CICELY FROME, p. 230. THE PADLOCKED BOX 231 And Joe Smith had been given a hero's funeral. He was buried at the little English Church stand- ing midway between Karrapolla and the ferry, and all the countryside that were able flocked to do him honour. The funeral taking place before the Mataganga was ferryable, none of the Harraganga people were able to be present, or indeed knew anything of his death. But there was a great crowd notwithstanding, and amongst them all each one mourned the dead man as his friend. The office of chief mourner was by tacit consent given to Cicely, who, setting Mrs Le Strange and the doctor at defiance, had risen from her bed and ridden to the church, that she might pay the last tokens of respect to the man who had died in saving her life. But Joe Smith had been lying in his quiet grave for four days now, and Cicely's wonder as to his identity was still unsatisfied. It was a subject, too, on which she could speak to no one. Perhaps if Bernard had been strong and well she might have opened her heart to him, but in his present condition such a thing was wholly out of the question, and she was fain to keep her doubts and surmises to herself. That morning the doctor, who had taken up 232 CICEL Y FROME his abode at Karrapolla pending the going down of the waters, had started with the avowed in- tention of getting across the river somehow, and before he went, Cicely had screwed up her courage to ask a favour at his hands. " I should very much like to have something that belonged to Joe Smith, if there are any books or papers would you could you get them for me ? " she said, looking at him with a wistful expression in her grey eyes. It was not often she looked at him, and the doctor paused before replying, in order to get the full benefit of the experience. " If it will be any trouble " she began, holding herself stiffly erect ; but he stopped her with a laugh. " Not at all, Miss Frome ; I would have the hut taken down and brought over the ferry, to be erected again at Karrapolla, if it would give you pleasure." " I don't want the hut," she answered simply, with a literal interpretation of his words that nettled him somewhat. " That is fortunate," he said lightly ; "his other effects are so scanty, that the transit is not likely to be a very momentous business I should fancy. However, I will see what I can THE PADLOCKED BOX 233 do, and either come or send to you before sundown." " Thank you," she answered, flushing hotly over face and brow. And though the doctor thought a great deal concerning that accession of colour as he rode to the ferry, he could not congratulate himself on being the cause of her blushing. Indeed, sanguine as his nature was, he was shrewd enough to know that she was not wasting a thought on him then, saving as a means to a desired end. Cicely lived through the day in a state of dis- tressful agitation and unrest. It seemed im- possible to keep her eyes away from the road to the ferry, or her thoughts from the subject of Joe Smith's identity. Mrs. Le Strange noticed her uneasiness, and was much edified by it, she having match-making proclivities, and having already decided that a marriage between Cicely and the doctor would be a very suitable arrangement, despite the fact of the former being not yet seventeen. But she wisely forbore any comment, and Cicely strained her eyes over the opposite hill, with never a thought that she was being watched, or what kind of interpretation was put to her restlessness. It wanted only half an hour to sundown, when Cicely, who was on the verandah with Dick, 234 CICELY FROME saw a horseman approaching down the opposite hill. She could tell even at that distance that it was not the doctor by the way he rode and the untidy slouch of his figure ; but it might be the doctor's messenger, and with this thought in her heart she caught Dick up in her arms, and hurried away to the gate of the compound, to await the coming of the horse and its rider. Great was her disappointment, however, to find that it was only Tom Colman, and that he bore a bulky package before him on his saddle. " Only some more of Mrs. Colman's cookery, I guess," she said fretfully, yet with a smile of amusement curling at the corners of her lips, for Mrs. Colman's cookery had grown to be a stand- ing joke in the household during the last few days. The little woman appeared to labour under the delusion that they must be in danger of starving, since the recovery of little Dick ; and at least once every day Tom Colman made the journey between his house and Karrapolla laden with a big chicken pie, or a batch of cake, or some special kind of pudding of which Mrs. Colman was sole patentee. But she waited by the gate nevertheless while the horseman rode at a leisurely pace up the hill. THE PADLOCKED BOX 235 " Gee whoa, gee whoa ! " shouted the small boy gleefully, clapping his hands in anticipation of a ride. " Not this evening, young man," she said, giving him a toss up in her arms, and trying to look as happy as she could, though her gaze was straining away across the valley to catch the first glimpse of the doctor or his messenger. " Evenin', Miss Frome," said the horseman, drawing near enough to salute. " Good evening," she responded, opening the gate for him to enter. " I won't come in, thank you, it's getting latish, an' my missus will be wondering if I've taken a lodging free, gratis, and for nothing, in the death- hole," he answered, with a slow chuckle of amuse- ment at his own lumbering wit. Cicely grew white to her lips, and leaned heavily against the gate for support. " I've been over the ferry to-day with the doctor; we've been looking through poor Joe's things, and the doctor, he commissioned me to bring this along and deli ver to you. Can you take it, or shall I get down ? " he asked, swinging the bulky bundle down from his saddle, and holding it towards her. " I can take it, thank you," she replied, putting 236 CICEL Y FROME Dick on the ground and coming forward to the side of the horse. " Mind, it ain't no light weight," he cautioned, lowering it into her outstretched arms, and leaning down to assist her in getting it on to the ground. " It is heavy, but I can manage it, thank you," she said, flushing and paling with the intensity of her excitement. " The doctor, he said as I was to tell that he should be along to-morrow if all is well. And likewise I was to tell you that though we had to break the box open by reason of not being able to find the key, yet we didn't disturb the contents when we saw what they was." Cicely bent her head in thanks, being unable to speak ; and Tom Colman turned his horse's head homewards again. " Well, good-night, Miss Frome ; the wife is going to send you a chicken pie along in the morning, and I reckon it'll be a topper too, for her chicken pies ain't easy to beat." Something more he shouted back as he rode away down the hill, but she heeded it not, being engrossed by what he had left behind. It was the padlocked box she remembered so THE PADLOCKED BOX 237 well, tied up for greater security in a big square of rough canvas. Taking it up in her arms, she hurried with it to her room, and, delivering Dick to the care of Mrs. Le Strange, stole away to investigate the contents of the box. With trembling fingers she untied the big knots in which the canvas had been fastened, and then with a strange flutter at her heart, for it was like uncovering the face of the dead, she lifted off the lid and looked inside. Some bundles of clothing, a bag containing coin, and a big roll of papers was what she saw. Seizing on the roll of papers, she was about to pull off the string, when a boldly written direction caught her eye. " To be given to my dear daughter, Miss Cicely Frome, at my death." That was all, but it was enough, and casting herself on the floor by the box, she wept long and bitterly. CHAPTER XX HIS EXPIATION HEN her sorrow had spent itself some- what, Cicely rose from the floor, and, lighting her lamp, for it had by this time become quite dark, set herself to the task of examining the roll of papers. These were, some of them, sheets of foolscap, some pieces of paper in which parcels had been wrapped, and an old exercise-book or two, but all were closely covered with writing in the well- remembered hand of the father, so long and faithfully mourned. The sheets were all neatly numbered, like the manuscript pages of a story, and she searched with feverish haste for the beginning. It was not far to find, and settling herself where the lamp threw the most light, she pre- pared to read what her father had left behind HIS EXPIATION 239 him. It was in the form of a letter, and bore date the day when she had first come to Karrapolla, and had been rowed over to Mataganga for the first time in his ferry boat. " MY DEAR DAUGHTER CICELY. Having seen you to-day, after five long years of parting, it has been impressed upon me to leave some word of explanation in case a chance accident should ever reveal to you that I did not die in the wreck of the Eastern Star, but am to this day still alive ; a most unhappy man it is true, yet working out my expiation in the humble hope, that thereby I may not go to my grave with the awful burden of my mistake still weighing me down. My intention was never by word or sign to let my fellow-creatures know that my body was not lying fathoms deep among the rocks in Roaring Water Bay. " But when you came over the ferry with Bernard Alderson to-day, and I looked into your face, which has grown so like to what your mother's used to be, a hungry desire came to me to let you know that I, your father, have done what in me lay to atone for my fatal blunder, which sent so many poor souls to their account, with barely time to say a prayer. " But I must not waste words in the beginning, or it may chance that I shall die with my purpose unfinished, my calling in life having given me more freedom in handling a rope, or in 2 40 CICEL Y FR OME managing a boat, than in wielding a pen with any sort of dexterity. " That night when my natural life ended, and this existence of unavailing sorrow began, was one of the foggiest that I ever experienced during summer months at anyrate. The day before it had been hazy, but when night fell everything was wrapped in a veil of impenetrable mist ; to a casual observer it was only foggy, to a sailor it was very foggy indeed, with a mis- leading quality in it that I have never seen equalled. " I had been on the bridge for some hours, when I was called down to the saloon to receive a complimentary address from the passengers, on the care and efficiency with which I had brought them home. I was there for perhaps half an hour, feeding my soul with flattery, and laying up for myself such a bitterness of con-- demnation, as surely never came on a son of Adam before, and when I went back to my post, the officer in charge reported that the Cape Clear light was passed. " I was very much surprised at this, not having seen the Mizen Head light at all. But the fog having lifted somewhat, he asserted that it had been plainly visible, and described it so exactly that I was sure he must be correct. " To make myself easy I had soundings taken directly after, and then, the fog still remaining thinner, crowded on steam with the hope of HIS EXPIATION 241 gaining a miserable half-hour or so in arriving in the Mersey. I did not trouble myself to take any more soundings, but kept at my post, wrapped in happy thoughts of soon seeing home and dear ones again. "Then came the collision, which seemed so slight at first that I did not apprehend any serious mischief, though I did wonder where I had got to. " I need not go over the details of that most awful tragedy, I died to you then, and it may be wiser that the silence of my supposed ending should never be broken for you. Man at his best is but human, however, and the fatherhood in me cries out to leave one word behind, not of justification, I have never attempted that even to myself, but a word of explanation why I am still living. " I went down with the vessel, that I distinctly remember, and making no effort to save myself, because death was better than life to such as I. After that I have no recollection, until I opened my eyes again to find myself floating on a part of the bridge probably on an empty sea, with utter silence all around. At first I could not remember how I had come there, but little by little the horror of my situation returned to me, and I prayed for death. But strange as it may seem to you, I did not dare to take it ; and although one roll from my frail raft would have found me the grave I sought so anxiously, I hesitated to take it, having a thought to the 16 242 CICEL Y FROME hereafter, and deeming such issues as life and death best left in the hands of the Almighty. " Before the morning broke I was unconscious again, and when next I came to my senses I was lying on the deck of a small barque, with foreign sailors bending over me and jabbering in a language that I could not even put a name to. I pointed to my uniform, and then to their captain, to explain my rank ; but they didn't understand me, and I gave up the attempt. I was very ill for days after this, delirious often, I fancy, though, speaking as I did in an unknown tongue, no one was any the wiser for the things I uttered. " As I grew better they gave me to understand that they were short-handed, and that I must pay in work, for the care and nursing that I had received at their hands. This I was willing to do, being thankful, moreover, for the chance that had thrown me amongst people who would not deliver me up at the next port at which they might call, for surely there is no greater degradation to a sea-captain than to find himself alive, when all his ship's company have found a watery grave through his misadventure. " I found that they were Portuguese from Setubal, and having carried a cargo of salt and oil to Liverpool, were returning laden with manufactured goods. They had been driven out of their course somewhat, and their interpreter had been washed overboard. All this I learned, HIS EXPIATION 243 partly by signs, and then as I began to pick up the language, and was able to piece fragments together, with the aid of a few Spanish words that I had gathered in my travels. " When we were nearing port, a quarrel broke out, which developed into mutiny, and the captain and first mate being killed, the second mate took the command, and decided to steer across the Atlantic for Cuba, where he could dispose of his cargo with advantage. But he knew next to nothing of navigation, and I was pressed into service, and made to do the work, whilst he strutted about and gave the orders. " Of our sufferings on the voyage I need not speak ; wretchedly provisioned, with a scanty allowance of water, our plight was miserable enough ; and, to make matters worse, yellow fever broke out on board during the time we lay in harbour at Havana. I went down with it, and was hustled off to a shed on a deserted quay, in company with three more of the crew, to live or die, as might chance to happen. The others died, but I, who yearned for death as weary ones for sleep, got better, and had to face life again as best I might. Then I shipped aboard a Spanish merchantman, homeward bound for Barcelona, and reaching that port was again adrift, on the tender mercies of whoever would employme. " Whilst in Barcelona, by a queer chance an old English newspaper fell into my hands, contain- 244 CICEL Y FR OME ing an account of the inquiry on the wreck of the Eastern Star. After reading that, any idea I might have cherished of making myself known again to my friends was for ever banished, and I set my face, with what steadiness I could, to the endurance of such a term of life as should be meted out to me. It was while I hung about the docks, half starving, that the longing to expiate my mistake came to me, and it was there I made my first beginning, by jumping into deep water and saving a boy's life from drown- ing. It was two months before I found a vessel, and in that time I rescued thirty people from a watery grave. Then I got a berth on board a boat bound for the Philippine Islands, and on the voyage there mOre chances occurred to me. Life had found an object again, and at times I was almost happy in my lot. " On the return voyage we experienced fright- ful storms in the Indian Ocean, and were finally wrecked on the coast of Ceylon. Only seven lives were lost, however, and I had a grand haul, bringing my record up to fifty. I was a good bit battered, however, and forced to remain at Point de Galle, on my beam ends, whilst my ship- mates were sent back to Spain on board an English vessel. " Three months I stayed there, earning my living as best I could, and always on the look-out for the chance of saving a life, and if you're so minded you don't have to wait long either. HIS EXPIATION 245 " It was while I was hanging about there, wondering what to do next, that I heard of the Mataganga and the dangers of the rotary current. An odd fancy struck me that I'd like to be ferryman in a place where chances to add to my record would be so plentiful. So when my numbers had reached a hundred, I got the governor to give me a testimonial, and started on the journey here. " It has been like a Providence directing my steps all the way. I had no sooner offered myself as a candidate for the office of ferryman, and been accepted, than I dived into the death- hole and brought out a planter, who proved a good, kind friend to me. Your brother Bernard went to live with him afterwards, and so I got to hear of your mother's death, and occasionally a word of your welfare. "Then Bernard went to Karrapolla, and shortly after that his marriage took place. But months had passed without a word of you coming to my ears ; until one fine morning a few weeks ago he came over the ferry and said that he was on his way to the coast to meet his sister, and a few days after that I saw you, my child, again. " I began this on the day that you came over the ferry for the first time, but I have been weeks in accomplishing my task, which has been a heavy and painful one. "It is done now, and I shall lock away the 246 CICEL Y FROME papers in my box until such time as death, kind death, shall set me free. There is my old uniform, too, in the box, which no nearness to starvation has ever induced me to part from. And the money in the bag is the result of a collection made for me at Point de Galle. " May your life be happy and unshadowed, my child ! That Bernard will be kind to you I have no doubt, for he has already proved himself a good brother. Do not grieve for me, but rejoice when this meets your eye that my weary task is over, and rest is mine at last. Your loving, sorrowing father, "RICHARD FROME." CHAPTER XXI THE END WO weeks later, when the sun was near its setting, and the coolness of the evening was drawing over the rain- refreshed country round Karrapolla, a little company of four entered the gate of the burying-ground attached to the English Church, and gathered round the grave of the late ferry- man, Joe Smith. Julie was there, pale and thin with recent illness, her face wearing a tender regret for the man whose mortal remains lay at rest below. She leaned on her husband's arm, and his face was pale too, but more from emotion than weak- ness, and there was ever and anon a quivering of the muscles round his month, telling of depths beneath that w^ere stirred alike by gratitude and grief. " If we had only known, and could have 248 CICEL Y FROME comforted him ! " wailed Cicely, falling on her knees by the grave, her tears dropping like rain on the ground. Dick plucked at her gown in troubled wonder, " Why auntie cry ? she not naughty. Dick naughty sometimes, then he cry ; " and he shook his head solemnly. But no one noticed him then, which was per- haps not pleasing to his self-love, though he graciously forbore to resent it. And stooping a little, Bernard laid his hand on Cicely's shoulder. " Little sister," he said gently, " it was best so. Nothing on earth could have comforted him like the doing of his duty, and the per- formance of such brave deeds as made his expiation." " But his heart, how it must have ached with the sorrow, and the loneliness of it all ! " she cried, her own soul wrung with anguish at the thought of what he had to endure. " It was part of the price," Bernard rejoined moodily ; " the world is full of sorrow, turn where you will." " But not such sorrow," objected Cicely. "It is not sorrow now, the expiation is all worked out, and the very remembrance faded. Ah, what a good kind man he was to give me THE END 249 back my Dick from the clutches of Wimala, and then to drag him from the death-hole ! " cried Julie, gathering her boy in her arms with a burst of fervent thanksgiving. " What shall we put on his stone, Cicely ? " asked Bernard as they turned away, and the last rays of sunset made a glory round the grave. " I think," she answered slowly, that it would please him best if we only put, ' Here lies the Ferryman of Mataganga'; and no one will forget him the sooner for not knowing his real name." And they went away, while the shadows of peaceful night fell and brooded over the hero's quiet bed. THE END PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED, EDINBURGH BY THE SAME AUTHOR Among the Torches . . Of the Andes By BESSIE MARCHANT (Mrs. J. A. Comfort). Crown 8vo, Gilt Edges With Six Illustrations by Q. M. 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By Eu.mii PAI.KKB. 27. The Letton of Obedience. By the Rev. RiOHAao-NswiOK. D.D. 28. T%< 7<*jon of Diligence. By the Rev.RiGHAjm NBWTOB, D J). 23. Fergut: A Tale. By Jssr-b ABBOTT. 80. S6ert and At Afo*Ay. By JACOB ABBOTT. 31. T Shepherd of Salisbury Plain. By HANNAH MOM. 32. Emily Barton, and other Stories. By CHABLBB and UABT LAID. 33. Slieaotth VUliert, and other Stories. By OHAiLBS nd M -.ar LAMB. 34. The Grateful Negro. By MASIA ED9KWORTH. 36. Forgive and Foryet By MASIA EDOKWOSTH 36. Waite not. Want wt. By MAJUA EDOKWOSTB. 37. The Falte Key. By Maria KDOBWOBTR. jg. 2% Bracelet*, By Mania Jfttbnrile $o0Ks. Tht above Series of Books is also kept in rmbossed ami illuminated paper covers, beautifully ftrinitd in gold front entirely netu each. Selections from NIMMO'S FOURPEIIMjnWENILE BOOKS. SHORT STORIES FOR CHILDREN, by Mrs. SHERWOOD, JANE TAYLOR, RICHARD Ro WE, etc. Deny 18mo, doth, Iliuttrated. 1. George said bis Fenny, by Mrs. SKRBWOOD ; and other Tales. 3. 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Helpful Texts for Every Day In the Year. 6. THE BIRTH-DAT GARLAND AND LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. Snatches from the Poets in Praise of Flowers. 7. BIRTH-DAT WISHES FROM BURNS. (Also in Tartan, price IB.) 8. THE JEWEL BIRTH-DAY BOOK Compiled by Mary Donald. 9. THE BIRTH-DAT BOOK OF RIDDLES AND GUESSES. Compiled by MART DONALD. 10. LITTLE BRIGHTETES BIRTH-DAT BOOK. Compiled by MART DONALD. 11. BIRTH-DAY WISHES FROM SCOTT. Selections from the Poems and Tales of Sir Walter Scott. DEVOTIONAL TEXT- BOOKS. New Editions, crown 32mo, printed on antique laid paper, and neatly bound in cloth, price 6d. each ; also in paste grain, gilt edget, It. 1. SAINTLY WORDS. Being Devout Thoughts gathered from the Writings of A'Kinpis, AUGUSTINE, and JEREMY TAYLOR. t. LIGHT FROM THE SACRED PAGE. Being a Keligious Text-Book in the very Words of Scripture. g. WATCHWORDS FOR CHBI8TIAN LIVING. Being Good Thoughts selected from th Best Re- ligious Writers. 4. ACROSS THE RIVER. Scrip- tural Views of the Heavenly Home. By Dr. NORMAN MACLEOD, Dr. CANBI.ISH, etc. Miniature Edition Abridged. 5. OOUNSEL AND COMFORT FOB DAILY LIFE. Selected from the Works of the Best Keligious Writers.