Chapter 21

A PERILOUS SAIL.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar. --Wordsworth.

By this the storm grew loud apace, The water wraith was shrieking, And in the scowl of heaven each face Grew dark as they were speaking. --Campbell.

There was a bright moon that evening, and Colonel Rolleston and his daughter were crossing the lake. A yacht passed them, sailing rapidly before the wind. Some one on board took his hat off.

"Who was that?" asked Cecil.

"It was very like Lascelles," said the Colonel. "I wonder what he is doing up here."

Cecil's colour rose. The name of Lascelles suggested Bertie. She knew they usually hunted in couples, and her busy mind was alive with conjecture. She wondered if the same idea had occurred to her father. She thought he looked a shade grimmer; but he smoked his cigar in silence, and a few more pulls from the sinewy arm of the boatman shot them into Lyndon's Landing. And then it all seemed to Cecil as if the same scene had been enacted in a previous state of existence. Where before had she seen his dark figure thrown out just so by the moonlight? Certainly not in a dream. Could one's life be repeated? She almost felt, by an exertion of _memory_, she might tell what was coining next.

A deep, calm satisfaction stole over her as Bertie helped her from the boat, and his eyes sought hers under the stars. She heeded not that Colonel Rolleston's greeting was apparently cool and formal, nothing signified--life had suddenly become intense again. What could ruffle the golden content of the present? Happiness is a great beautifier, and as she sprang to shore, her graceful figure so undulating and spirited, and her soul beaming warm in her radiant eyes, he wondered that he could ever have thought Bluebell more beautiful. She often recurred to him hereafter just as she stood that night, shrouded in a crimson Colleen Bawn, under cover of which her hand remained so long in his.

Du Meresq did not stay very late. Both he and Cecil were quiet and dreamy. To be in the same room again was quite happiness enough for the present. Mrs. Rolleston also was entirely satisfied, diverted her husband's attention with creature comforts, and made no effort to detain Bertie. Given a love affair, and a certain interest in it, the most unscheming nature becomes Macchiavellian in tact and policy.

And Du Meresq unmoored a canoe and paddled himself off, unwitting of a young, desolate face pressed against an upper casement. From thence she had watched him waiting for Cecil at the landing, and, with eyes sharpened by anxiety, had detected their happiness in meeting. She could not go down to receive confirmation of what required none. Better receive the _coup de grâce_ from his own lips than to undergo gradual vivisection while looking helplessly on.

Bluebell was young and credulous, her heart had been flattered away by this man, who had had so many before and did not want it now, and yet, poor child, could she have looked beyond, she might have seen cause for thankfulness that the thing most hotly desired was withheld for this early love had not root enough for the wear and tear of life. It was a hob day romance, born of the senses, the bewildering fascination of a graceful presence and winning voice, and well for her if her guardian angel stood with even a flaming sword in the way.

The two girls did not meet till the morning, when Cecil, preoccupied as she was, could not but notice the blanched weariness of Bluebell's face which, owing a great deal of its beauty to colouring, appeared by contrast almost plain.

"You should have come up the Saguenay with us. I am sure Rice Lake cannot agree with you," said she, launching into a glowing and graphic description of their adventures. In reality, Cecil had detested the whole expedition, having been in a continual fever to return; but, now that her mind was at ease, memory brought out the notable points in a surprising way, and she quite talked herself into believing that she had enjoyed it immensely, and had witnessed everything with the utmost relish and curiosity.

They were sitting in the garden over-looking the lake, and a tiny sail shot out from the hotel landing and stood towards them. A light stole over the face of the brunette, but the features of the blonde became rigid as they marked its progress. Neither alluded to the circumstance--Cecil continued her narrative, and Bluebell made the requisite replies; but when the boat had made Lyndon's Landing, and Du Meresq and Lascelles jumped out, Cecil found she was receiving them alone.

The latter was come on a farewell call. The two friends meant to sail to a railway station five miles up the lake, where Lascelles would take the car, and Du Meresq bring the canoe back. After a short visit, Mrs. Rolleston and Cecil strolled down to see them off.

"I have never tried the canoe with a sail up," remarked the latter. "With this wind it must be absolutely flying."

"Not quite so dry," said Lascelles, laughing. "Du Meresq is such a duffer; he ships a lot of water."

"Cecil," said Bertie, giving a pre-conceived idea the air of an _impromptu_, "come up to Coonwood with us; it's lovely scenery all the way, and I should have a companion back."

"What do you say, mamma; may I go?" dropping her eyes and speaking in an indifferent voice, to disguise her delight in the anticipation.

"May I go?" mimicked Lascelles to himself. "Bertie is always sacrificing me to some girl or other. She will swamp the boat,--it's within an inch of the water already with my portmanteau,--and very likely make me miss my train, or get wet through pulling her out." This in soliloquy, but he looked courteous and smiling.

Mrs. Rolleston hesitated; in her heart she acquiesced; but what would the Colonel say? The younger ones took silence for consent, and Cecil was reclining on a bear-skin at the bottom of the canoe, Lascelles kneeling in a cramped attitude, with the steering paddle, in the bow, and Bertie in charge of the sail, before words of prohibition could come from her.

"Dear me! I don't half like it," said she, nervously. "How stormy it looks in the west. How long will it take you?"

"We shall have the wind back," said Bertie. "About two hours and a half--three at the outside. I'll bring her home in good time for dinner,"--and Cecil kissed her hand in laughing defiance while he spread the sail to the wind, and, catching the light breeze after a flap or two, they glided gaily on their course.

"Don't move about, Cecil," said Du Meresq; "we are rather low down in the water."

No one knew better than Cecil, who had quite appreciated the small spice of risk in weighting the frail bark with an additional person; but then it was worth it to sail back alone with Bertie.

"You are getting dreadfully wet, I am afraid, Miss Rolleston," said Lascelles. "Ease the sail a bit, Bertie."

"You shouldn't keep her head to the waves," argued the other, "as if it were a boat. Keep her broadside to them, and we shan't ship half so many."

There was a fresh breeze when they left the landing, but, after getting three miles or so on their way, the wind rose almost into a squall; white horses raced on the lake, and, in spite of every effort of the two young men, about one wave in ten flung a curl of spray over Cecil. Bertie threw off his coat, and made her thrust her arms into it as well as she could, and Lascelles followed suit by spreading his over her knees. The sky became stormier, and the wind howled ominously. They had started full of spirits, and gay talk and chaff had been bandied among them. No one could quite tell when it dropped, for it had been kept up with an effort after the threatening appearance of things had sobered them.

Cecil was drenched to the skin, but they ceased to express solicitude on that account, for a more pressing apprehension filled each mind, that the canoe so weighted could not live through it much longer.

The girl was stiffening in the rigidity of her reclining attitude. The least movement would have capsized them, and each wave larger than the rest she expected to swamp the canoe. Suddenly she remembered Du Meresq having once said he could not swim, and then, for the first time, her heart sunk, and a sickening horror came over her.

Lascelles, she supposed, in the event of their being upset, would endeavour to save her. But Bertie! He would drown before her eyes, for the water was deep, and the shore for some time had been only a nearly perpendicular rock. Probably Lascelles so laden might be unable to land even her. Looking upon Du Meresq as doomed, that contingency did not disturb her. Drowning, she had heard, was a pleasant death. It didn't look so though, with that cruel steel water lapping thirstily for its prey. After the one supreme moment when she sunk with her love, would they rise again in the land where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, with the Platonic serenity of spirits, all earthly passion etherealized away?

She looked up; Lascelles was baling out the water with his hat. "Du Meresq, you had better haul down the sail and take the paddle," said he significantly.

"Our only chance is to make Coonwood," returned the other; "there's no landing nearer. We should never get there paddling. I must keep up the sail and run for it."

He glanced at Cecil as he spoke, who met his eyes with a calm, strange smile.

A muttered consultation between Du Meresq and Lascelles alone broke the silence for some time. The latter continued to bale, rejecting Cecil's offer of assistance, only entreating her to continue perfectly still. The canoe was almost level with the water. "It must come very soon now," she thought, and, shutting her eyes, tried to realize the great change approaching.

Her favourite day-dream of sailing away to a new strange country with Bertie recurred to her. What if this was to be the fulfilment of it, and they were to explore for ever an unknown land beyond the skies! But would it be so? No sooner should the frail bark sink from under them than she would feel Lascelles clutch her in a desperate grip, and be dragged through the water, and placed alive, though half-suffocated, on the shore. But Du Meresq would be sucked down in the blue lake, and travel to that bourn alone.

Cecil shuddered, and formed a rapid resolve. "Who was Lascelles that he should separate them? Let him save himself if he thought it worth while. Whatever was Bertie's fate should be hers also."

Thus determined, Cecil waited for the end. She had only to elude Lascelle's grasp at the critical moment, and her fate was as certain as Du Meresq's. She gave a regretful thought to her father; but he had other children, and Cecil had no strong family ties.

As she waited in a state of half exaltation, a quiet little thought crept in,--how was it, after all this time, the boat still lived? Why they could not be far from Coonwood! Lascelles was still baling, but Bertie, from improved dexterity in the management of the sail, evaded the waves more successfully.

Cecil continued to watch, and the tension of her mind yielded to a flutter of hope as she saw the water no longer gained on them.

"We should be pretty near now," observed Lascelles.

"Yes, here we are!" rose in almost a shout of triumph from both, as, on rounding the point, the wished-for harbour appeared in view. With one last effort the envious waves dashed over, drenching them through and through as they landed.

"A drop more or less doesn't much matter now," cried Cecil, gaily, wringing her dripping garments. And they all shook hands in their elation of spirits, with short expressions of relief, and congratulations at their escape, which all confessed to have been in doubt of at one time.

"You are a regular heroine, Miss Rolleston," said Lascelles, heartily. "If you had jumped up, or gone into hysterics, as some girls would, we should have gone under pretty soon. As it was, I thought I had my work cut out, for do you know that Du Meresq can't swim?"

"Yes, I know," grudgingly, for she could not bear Bertie to be at a disadvantage. "But I am sure it is quite miraculous how he managed the sail through that squall."

"Only if we had swamped, Lascelles must have saved you," whispered he, regretfully; "and I would never have forgiven him!"

Cecil did not make any verbal answer, but, as usual, her face was not so reticent. Lascelles felt himself rather _de trop_ as he concluded,--"Well, if they are on for a spoon already, I may as well be looking after my car."

"There's your Bullgine," cried Du Meresq, with some alacrity. "I daresay it has been there an hour: no fear of losing a train in this leisurely country!"

"Well, adieu, Miss Rolleston; I trust you will not suffer from your soaking. You will have an hour or two to wait, I am afraid, before the gale goes down, and Du Meresq will hardly fulfil his promise of getting you home in good time for dinner."

"We are only too lucky to require another dinner; but I suppose we shall be in an awful scrape," answered Cecil, speaking quickly and nervously, for somehow she began to half dread being alone with Bertie. "Good-bye, Captain Lascelles. Here's your coat, which you were so good as to spare me; I am afraid it is not a valuable acquisition in its present spongy state;" and "Good-bye, old man," from the two friends as Lascelles ran off; shooting a momentary humorous glance of intelligence at Du Meresq.

The former, as he settled himself in the locomotive, thought rather seriously of the "situation" he had left his friend in. He rather wondered at Bertie, who appeared dangerously in earnest this time. To be sure, she was a nice enough girl, and very "coiny," he believed; but though convinced that such a marriage would be a piece of good fortune for his friend, remembering the convenience of their mutual partnership, he sincerely hoped he would "behave badly," and get out of the scrape somehow.