Part 10

"But it's land," cried Hetty--"land after that awful sea!"

They were silent for a moment and abstracted, gazing with curious eyes at the land rising under the bow. Suddenly Miss Stromberg seized her companion's arm.

"Ah!" she cried, "doze flag--yonner!" She pointed where the red, white-crossed ensign of Denmark flapped straight out in the gale above the little white fort at the water's edge. "And op by doze tall tree," she went on eagerly, "iss ma gahden--wiz yellow wall, and doze red tiles beyon'. Now eet iss shuah-lee home."

"It will be beautiful when the sun shines--Christiansted," said Hetty.

Medbury, going forward, stopped a moment by the main-rigging, where Drew stood alone. The pumps were quiet as they made harbor, and the crew were forward. Drew was watching them with curious eyes. He glanced up as Medbury drew near, and spoke.

"What will be done with them?" he asked in a low voice.

"With what?" asked Medbury.

"With the crew. Wasn't it technically and actually mutiny?"

Medbury laughed.

"It was a beautiful fight," he said; then remembering their talk early on the voyage, he added: "Call it a case of brutality, if you like; but it seemed necessary."

"But the men's part," persisted Drew--"will they not be punished?"

"Man alive!" said Medbury, "they had been standing many hours at those pumps and working as they'd never worked before--with no hope. That's punishment enough, isn't it? They're tired now, and very humble, and, I guess, if the truth could be told, pretty thankful to me. It wasn't mutiny; it was a funk. They simply gave up, that's all. But if the old man had done it, you wouldn't be looking into Christiansted roadstead this morning. There's a man for you!" His voice changed as he added: "And if it hadn't been for you, God knows where I'd be now. Over the rail somewhere, with the steward's pretty little trinket in my back. I haven't said much; but I guess you know I'm not going to forget it."

"Do the ladies know?" asked Drew. He had not mentioned his own slight scratch.

"They know he was swept overboard," the mate replied. "I guess they needn't know any more at present." Then he went forward.

Rolling heavily, low above the sea, white with salt, but with the speed of the gale in her rain-blackened sails, the brig flashed past the shipping, crowded with wondering sailors, and drove straight for the rocky beach where the cocoanut-palms came down to the shore, and on hot mornings the negro washer-women lay their wet clothes upon the smooth rocks, and the roadstead resounds with the echoing beat of their wooden paddles. Then all at once Captain March's voice rang out, and with sails shaking in the wind the _Henrietta C. March_ shot toward a narrow ribbon of sand on the shore, struck, rolled slowly, and with a long, grating sigh came safely to land.

An hour later, as Medbury walked aft, he mounted the steps to the poop-deck before he saw the flutter of Hetty's dress by the main-rigging. She was looking steadily out to sea.

He stopped by her side.

"Here on this side, when you can see the town on the other!" he exclaimed. "Haven't you had enough of the sea?"

She looked up and smiled.

"I was looking beyond the sea--as far as home," she said.

"Are you homesick?"

"No; only thinking of it."

"It's a good thing to think of," he said soberly.

"'East, west, Hame's best.'

After last night, that sounds true, doesn't it?"

"It's always true--home and the old things," she said softly--"the things we've always known."

He looked down into her face.

"Hetty," he said, "last night--you rushed away so quickly--is it all right?"

She turned her eyes seaward again as she answered in a low voice:

"I think so--yes."

"Oh, Hetty!" he whispered.

She dropped her hand to her side, and he caught it for an instant. Overhead there were widening patches of blue sky; the sea was taking on a softer hue. Behind them the tropic world glowed in beauty. On the beach little groups of negro women, in white bandanas and bright-colored, wind-blown skirts, stood and watched the sailors aboard the brig, their shrill laughter and cries coming up softened by the gale, now rapidly falling. The pumps were going again.

"It is the only familiar sound--that pump," said Hetty.

Medbury scarcely heard her.

"I don't understand it yet," he said at last, turning to her. "Just when I thought it was all over, suddenly it comes out right. I don't understand."

"You never will, you poor boy," she replied, smiling up into his face. Then suddenly her face grew grave, and she began to speak again: "It was only when I thought it was all over that I began to think. Then the storm came, and I saw how much it meant to me that you were near me, and I was almost sure that I had made a mistake. I think I wasn't _quite_ sure until you made that dreadful picture yesterday of what it would be for us to be merely friends. Then I knew."

"You said I was cruel," he told her.

"You were," she said.

"But if it brought us together, how--"

"That doesn't make it any different."

"Well," he replied, in his bewilderment, "I am sure I shall never understand, as you say; but I do not care. It is enough to know that everything is right at last. And you are sure that you will not mind giving up China, Hetty, and the missionary work?"

"Yes," she said firmly; "I was almost ready to give that up three days ago--before I thought I cared for you, you know. I have thought many things in these three days. Sometimes, when I think of them, I feel a thousand years old, as Miss Stromberg says."

The door of the cabin below them opened, and they heard the sound of Drew's voice and Miss Stromberg's laugh. She was patiently waiting until she could go ashore.

"I was beginning to think that _he_ was going to stand in my way, Hetty," said Medbury, nodding toward the cabin.

THE END.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

Text in italics is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.