Chapter LIII: The Chapter of Accidents

The party broke up, brilliant with fun, and but half subdued by the merriment of the day. A boat full of household servants, hampers, and well-worn musical instruments, had already put off. Then up the James river swept the barge, flinging gleams of quivering scarlet on the water as she went. The men who pulled the oars accompanied the soft movement with one of those touching negro melodies that thrill the very air with pathetic simplicity. Lower down—for the laden boat had drifted astern—came answering voices, the ring of banjos and the strains of a violin, to which the flowing waters and shivering leaves whispered a low symphony. Above the noble barge two graceful little boats, scarcely larger than swans, cut through the waves, seemingly chasing each other through the misty purple which began to float upon the river.

One of these tiny boats contained a man and a woman; in the other sat a woman alone, rowing vigorously, as if fierce exercise were a relief to her. Now and then she would almost reach the other boat, then fall back and drift a little while. A deep manly voice and clear soprano took up the floating music from down stream, and sent it on, refined and glorified.

Thus the sunset came down upon the river, and the boats floated on through purple and gold, which seemed like the atmosphere of Paradise, and filled those young hearts with pleasant sadness.

Two or three plantations stretched down to the banks of the river, at which some of the young ladies in the barge wished to be landed. Thus the boats at last parted company, and those two little crafts were left alone, with the music broken up and stars twinkling over them.

Bertha watched the other boat as it cut away from her, turning to a shadow in the purple mist which had swallowed her friend and her lover, leaving her quite alone. She let her oars drag: a feeling of unutterable sadness came upon her. The disappearance of the boat seemed like a desertion. Her head drooped on her bosom, and finding herself alone, she began to cry, drifting away from her friends all the time.

A great, rushing noise aroused her. A steamboat, that had been stopping for wood, swept around a curve in the river, and bore down on the very spot where that shadowy craft had just disappeared. There was still some dying crimson on the water, through which that monstrous boat plowed ruthlessly, its lights glowing like great bloodshot eyes, and its prow dipping deep, as wild boars root for food.

“Oh, my God! oh, my God!”

Uttering this cry for help, Bertha plunged her oars, with mad strength, into the water, and shot her craft forward, until it rocked in the very foam of the passing steamboat, which gave a shriek from its pipes, and rushed on, roaring hoarsely.

Bertha looked up the river. In that broad pathway of foam she saw a dark object, heaving up and down. With this came a cry, sharp and cutting—that of a female in mortal terror; then a wild, fierce shout from the lungs of a strong man, afraid of death—the voice of her lover.

“Oh, God! God help me!”

Bertha’s face was lifted upward—white, impassioned, resolute. Her arms wielded those oars as heroes strike with their swords. She would save those two, or die with them.

“Hold firmly!” she shouted. “I am coming! I am coming!”

Her voice rang over the drifting boat to which those human lives were clinging, and it reached a man on the shore, who was sitting dreamily in the gloom.

On she went, flying like an arrow from its bow, through the melting foam, up the blackness of the settled waters, crying out as she went. She saw them plainly at last, the boat keel upward, two dark objects holding to it, all drifting with the current.

True bravery is calm and quick as lightning. Bertha slackened her oars, and met the drifting boat cautiously, drawing nearer and nearer the path it must take—then pouncing on it as a hawk strikes its prey, she drew back with a woman in her arms, and a prayer on her lips.

“Lift yourself up—one arm around my neck—the other on the boat. Now! now! Oh, thank Heaven! thank my God! she is safe! she is safe!”

In her terror and her gratitude, that half-dead girl would have clung to the young creature who had saved her; but Bertha pushed her off.

“Have you forgotten? _He_ is there yet! You seized upon me first, and now cling to me while he is drowning. Russell! Russell! Oh, my beloved! my darling!”

The boats had drifted apart. That white face was turned upon her with a terrible appeal. She cut the water with her oars, reached out her arms, and drew them back empty, with a cry that cut the air like a knife. Then she tore the outer garments from her person, and lifting both arms, plunged into the water, diving downward where that face had disappeared, like a pearl-fisher.

In the black depths of the water she found him, given up to death, his brain vivid with ten thousand memories, his hands uplifted with a faint struggle for life. That brave girl seized him, wound her arms around him with superhuman strength, and dragged him up through the buoyant waters, till they were cleft apart, and the stars shone down upon two drifting white faces, lying close together.

One of those faces turned wildly in search of the boat. It had drifted on, with that half-lifeless girl lying in the bottom. Those two were alone, with the cruel waters drawing them down, and those calm stars shining upon them without help or pity.

When he came to the surface, the man drew in a breath of life, and clung madly to the brave creature who toiled to save him, dragging her down with the power of his grasp. She felt herself sinking, and struggled no more. They were together. In those arms death seemed sweet to her. His clasp was welcome, though it did drag her down to perish.

As the water closed over those two heads, a great black shadow struck it like a tempest. Bertha’s hair—which floated upward, as sea-weed drifts in a storm, when she sunk—was fiercely entangled and drawn back—back into the light of the sky, to which Waldon was also lifted, senseless, but still clinging to her.

With the breath dead upon her lips, and water blinding her eyes, Bertha knew that some strength not her own dragged her into a boat, that her arms never once lost their hold of the man she loved, and that her kisses seemed to warm the cold lips to which she gave the first glow of her returning life.

Then his lips answered hers very faintly, as those of a sleepy child stir to the caress of a loving mother, and his arms tightened around her a little, while the boat rocked them like a cradle, and the flowing waters hushed them dreamily.

A face bent over Bertha—one that shot a vague sense of pain through her confused thoughts, and a voice that aroused her like a trumpet asked if the man was strong enough to move, or help himself on shore.

Some other person was in danger. Cries that had come sharply up the river were growing faint now, and a moment might be life or death to the poor creature.

Bertha understood it all, and struggled first to her knees, holding by an edge of the boat, then to a sitting posture, where she parted the dripping hair from her face, and lifted her eyes to the man who had saved them.

Egbert Fletcher stood dumb for a moment, then he seized her two hands, and wrung them.

“God be thanked that I was in time! How—how—But this man—who is he? Great Heavens! that cry!”

“It is Mary Noel. Go to her! go to her!” cried Bertha, forgetting everything but the poor girl she had cast away for that more precious life. “Waldon! Waldon! Mary is drifting to her death!”

Waldon made a weary effort to lift himself up, but his hands fell from the side of the boat, and he lay helpless in the bottom, muttering that he had not strength to rise.

“That man!” groaned Fletcher, between his teeth—and, for one moment, he was tempted to leap on shore, and escape the pain of looking on his rival; but a nobler impulse followed swiftly, conquering the other. Without a word, he took Bertha in his arms, left her on the bank, and leaping back into the boat, raised Waldon, and tottering under his weight, laid him down upon the grass at the girl’s feet.

Before Bertha could speak, he was in the boat again, had flung a brandy flask out upon the bank, and was pulling down the river, with a long, powerful sweep of the oars, that sent his craft forward like the flight of an eagle.

Bertha sat down on the grass, and taking Waldon’s head in her lap, held the brandy flask to his lips. He drank greedily, and in a short time the strong, hot liquor threw its fire and warmth into all his veins; but the pangs of returning strength seized upon him, and he grew keenly conscious.

“What! what! is it you?” he said. “I thought—I thought—”

“Who did you think it was?” inquired Bertha, with a terrible chill in her voice.

He did not answer her at first, but sat up, releasing himself rather violently from her arms.

“Who did I think it was, Bertha? Why—why, some man. Surely, it was the strong arms of a man that lifted me from the boat.”

Bertha breathed again.

“Yes, it was a man that saved us both—a strong, brave man. We were down in the black waters together, Russell—you and I. But for this man, we should have been dead!”

“But how came it that you were there? Surely, I set out with another. Is she dead? I mean Mary Noel. Tell me, Bertha Canfield, what have you done with Mary Noel?”

“I think she is coming now,” answered Bertha, in a cold, hard voice, that aroused Waldon to something like caution. “She was in the boat when I left it, sensible, and, I hope, strong enough to guide it. But the man who saved us has gone after her. He heard her voice crying out for help. That was why he left us here.”

“Heard her voice crying out for help! And you left her to that?”

“You were sinking, and I followed you. If the last breath of life had been on Mary Noel’s lips, I should have done that!” answered Bertha. “What was she, that I should give your life for hers?”

“What is she? Oh, nothing but a young, helpless girl, set adrift in her extremity by one who pretended to love her!”

“Are you blaming me, Waldon—blaming me that your life is saved?” said Bertha, with mournful bitterness.

The anguish in her voice aroused Waldon to a sense of his cruel ingratitude, and, more important still, to the imprudence of his own speech.

“Blame you for saving my life—for thinking it of greater worth than that of a girl like Mary Noel! If I seem to have done that, it is because the water or the brandy has crazed me.”

Bertha drew a free breath.

“I think you are a little wild,” she said, shivering in her wet garments.

“Wild? Yes—no wonder. What with the chill of the water and the heat of the brandy, I hardly know what I have been saying. The stars reel over my head like drunken things. So you saved my life, Bertha?”

Waldon drew close to the girl as he spoke, and took her icy hands in his. They both shuddered a little under their wet clothes, and Bertha felt cold at heart. His words, though he disclaimed them, chilled her worse than the water.

“Hark!” he said, listening; “that is the dip of oars.”

He had heard them first. Was it because he had been more earnestly listening?

The boat came up rapidly, towing the “Katydid,” and bearing Mary Noel, who was on her knees weeping with gratitude for her deliverance.

Fletcher pushed his boat close to the bank.

“Miss Canfield, and you, sir, pray get in. We have a mile to row, and the ladies in their wet clothes. Toss me that flask of brandy. Miss Noel is shivering.”

Waldon got up, staggering, and taking Bertha’s hand, got into the boat. The moment Mary Noel found Bertha by her side, she flung both arms around her.

“But for you, Bertha, I should be dead now!”

Bertha made no answer.