Chapter LXXIX: Out in the Storm

It stormed heavily that night. The rain drifted across Diamond Island in sheets. The great trees swayed and bent under whirling rushes of wind, that threatened to uproot them. The waters of the river were dark as midnight, save where the wind plowed them into furrows and the blue lightning struck them.

Bertha watched the darkness from her window while it gathered like a pall over the island. She had dressed herself carefully in the afternoon, braiding her rich hair tightly in a thick roll back of her head, and thrusting through its coils a small poniard, very slender and keen, but elaborated with jewels at the haft, as if intended for an ornament. It was a pretty trifle, which she had worn at private theatricals in her school-days. In the dead blackness of her mourning this bright object took the lightning now and then, as it flamed across the window, and seemed to flash back living fire.

When it was quite dark, Bertha threw a waterproof cloak over her, and, with her head buried in the hood, went out into the storm. Directly, another figure, also shrouded in a cloak, glided after her, close as a shadow—had one been possible that stormy night—until she came to the log bridge just as Bertha went down under it.

The second figure stood upon the logs, looking over. All at once it made a leap, and almost upset a tiny boat that Bertha was pushing out of the inlet toward the raging waters of the river. A shrill cry broke from her, which the storm seized upon and smothered. She dropped an oar, and it was being carried swiftly away, but Lydia snatched at it and dragged it back.

“Hand the oars to me; I am the strongest. You have been sick, and might give out,” said the girl quietly, as if she had been expected to take that very place.

“Lydia! oh, Lydia! why will you follow me so? Is not one enough for danger like this?”

“No,” answered Lydia, bending to her oars, and shooting her craft into the great stream; “one is not enough. Don’t try to cheat me; it’s not to be done. Up stream, I reckon?”

“Yes; but give me the oars now—I want the work.”

“Take them, if you must; but keep to the bank. The current will be too much for us if you don’t.”

It would have proved too much at any ordinary time, for those round, white arms would have given way; but Bertha was gifted with superhuman strength that night, and battled the waves as if they had been wild beasts. She took no heed of the current nor the swirl of the winds, but cut through them both with mad heroism.

All at once the black shadows of some vessel, reefed close and swinging at anchor, rose in her path. She could just discern the skeleton spars piercing the darkness and veered a little, passing within a few feet of her. A crash of thunder, a lurid sheet of lightning, and for some seconds all the river seemed aflame, and the yacht they were passing lay upon that sea of fire with every rope and spar revealed with the vividness of noonday.

Bertha saw nothing more than a flood of blinding light and a ship at anchor, but a sharp cry, which ended in a wail, broke from Lydia, who sprang up in the boat and flung out her arms, as if appealing to some one for help.

During some moments both the boat and that spectral craft had been wrapped in one great blaze of fire. The hood had fallen back from Bertha’s face, revealing its deadly whiteness, and Lydia’s slight figure rose at its full height in the boat, clearly revealing itself as she uttered that cry.

That picture created by the lightning vanished with it, and was buried in darkness again. Bertha, always looking forward, like a sibyl inspired, kept on her way, giving no heed to the craft she had passed, nor to Lydia’s cry. The storm was still unabated, the air was full of shooting rain which, pierced by lightning flashes, mingled gold and silver together for a moment, then merged into the inky darkness of the river through which that boat was so desperately urged.

Since that one wild cry Lydia had remained silent in the bow of the boat; but her frame trembled from some cause more potent than the wet or cold, and when a gleam of lightning shot athwart them she keenly watched the face of her companion, and saw that it was like marble, and that her eyes were large and glittering, as if they drank in fire from the lightning.

Indeed, Bertha was unconscious of danger. Lydia understood the peril, but braved it without shrinking; though she never expected to climb the shore alive. Occasionally they saw lights gleaming through the drifting blackness; but no habitations were visible, even in outline. Those glittering sparks of fire bespoke their presence on the bank, but that was all. Now Lydia pulled up stream. Bertha had fallen into thought, given up the oars, and sat motionless, folded in her cloak.

“Where are we going? When can we stop?” inquired Lydia, resting a moment and gasping for breath.

“We shall know—there will be light,” answered Bertha, hoarse and shivering.

The boat was drifting back. Lydia worked her oars again. According to her best calculation, they must be near Willow Bend, possibly close there, for a dense mass of blackness lay at their left, heaving up and down like billows of ink; and, farther on, she saw two or three star-like lights. That blackness might be those vast willows on the verge of Mr. Noel’s lawn. The lights might burn in his windows.

Lydia, yielding to fatigue and a vague wish for shelter, pushed her boat close to the bank, until great sweeping branches trailed over them like wet banners, and the moan of heavy foliage, lashed by the wind, came out from the black masses over head, like lost spirits wailing in heaped-up thunder-clouds. Beneath these heaving branches, burning dimly through the storm, were those lights.

Lydia believed this to be Willow Bend, and rested a little, waiting for Bertha to speak. But the girl said nothing, and did not seem to know how those long wet branches were lashing them.

All at once another great sheet of lightning rolled down the river, poured itself into the writhing willows, and wrapped a great mansion house, near by, in quivering flame. Lydia bent her face down to her bosom, closing her eyes to the awful glare. Bertha rose so quickly that the boat rocked with dangerous violence, dipping water. She sank down again in a dark heap; for following this awful surge of lightning came a peal of thunder, booming over them with reverberations that seemed to shake the very earth; and out from the darkness, which rolled back upon everything, shot up a spire of flame, red and slender, like the tongue of some huge serpent, quivering through the awful gloom.

The lightning had struck a dead pine tree, up stream, and was leaping up the splintered trunk, devouring it in the midst of the black storm. Bertha once more lifted her head. Flashes of this lurid light shot in and out through the willows, gleams of it reached the house, revealing its outlines, and blotting them out again, fitfully.

“It lights me on!”

Bertha caught a branch of the willow and swung herself on shore as she spoke. The next instant she was gone.