The Garden of God (Romance Classic). Henry De Vere Stacpoole
was, a man heavy with years, yet in some extraordinary fashion young.
In all his time he had never risen to a command or found himself in the after-guard, he was ignorant as the mainmast of literature and art, politics and history, and he signed the pay sheet with a cross; all the same the fate of the children had perhaps made a deeper impression on this amphibian than it had on the more educated Stanistreet; the sight of the girl and her companion brought on board, so young, beautiful—yet dead, like stricken flowers, had given his simple mind a twist from which it had not recovered.
Down in the fo’c’sle, when the matter had been turned over and turned over and discussed, the dinghy had been talked of as much as its occupants. Where had it come from? To what ship had it belonged, and what ship could have set adrift two people like those with scarcely any clothes on? A rum business, surely.
Bowers had contributed scarcely anything to the discussion. It did not seem to interest him.
Stanistreet snuffed out the binnacle light; the day was now strong, the wind tepid, yet fresh from a thousand miles of ocean, bellying the sails, golden in the level sun blaze.
Before going below he came to the after-rail for a moment and stood looking at the swirl of the wake.
The thought of Lestrange was troubling him. Lestrange, since yesterday, had fallen into a sleep profound as though Nature had chloroformed him. As a matter of fact she had, but the cruelty of Nature lies in the fact that she uses her anæsthetics after instead of during the operations performed by Fate. When man can endure no more she puts the sponge to his nose, lest he should die and escape more suffering. Stanistreet was thinking somewhat like that. He was a good-hearted man who had seen more than enough of tragic happenings, and this last business seemed to him beyond the limit. He was telling himself it would have been better to have put a revolver to the head of the man below and have shot him as one does a maimed animal. He frankly dreaded Lestrange’s awakening. What would he do, what would he say? Would it be a repetition of the terrible scene of yesterday?
Leaning on the rail, he spat at the gold-tinged foam as though to get some bitter taste from his mouth.
Then came the thought, had he done right in holding on south for the island since yesterday? What would be the effect on Lestrange of the traces surely left there by the children?
He was thinking this when from below came a sound, some one was moving about in the saloon, and Stanistreet, taking his courage in both hands, turned to the cabin hatch and went below.
CHAPTER III
THE VISION
He entered the saloon.
The place was gay with the morning beams shining through the ports and skylight. Lestrange, who had been looking into the starboard after-bunk, turned, and as the two men came face to face, Stanistreet saw at once that his fears were groundless. Lestrange had quite recovered himself. That was the first impression; then came another—the thin, nervous Lestrange, always brooding and dreaming as with the air of one possessed by some pressing anxiety, had become altered. He looked cheerful, younger, no longer anxious.
Stanistreet felt almost shocked for a moment, contrasting the vision of the distraught man of yesterday with the figure before him; but a weight was taken from his mind and the next moment, impulsively, his hand went out to grip the hand of the other.
“We are still keeping south?” said Lestrange.
“Yes,” said the captain. “I carried on. I thought it best, but what’s your wishes in the matter?”
“South,” said Lestrange. “Come up on deck, I want to talk to you.”
Stanistreet followed, wondering what was to happen next. There was a contained vivacity in the voice and manner of the other that, to the logical and matter-of-fact mind of the sailor, seemed a portent of troubles to come.
He followed closely, and when Lestrange walked to the port rail and stood with his hands upon it fronting the blazing east, the captain of the Ranatonga came and stood beside him, elbow touching elbow, and ready for any emergency. But his mind was soon put at rest. Lestrange, quite calm and cheerful in manner, stood contemplating the splendour before him and breathing in the fresh sea air with evident delight.
Then he turned and glanced along the deck to where Peterson, one of the hands, had succeeded Bowers at the wheel.
“What is she doing?” asked he.
“Ten knots,” replied Stanistreet.
“And the island?”
“Less than sixty miles from here.”
“Good,” said Lestrange. He turned again to the rail. A land gull passed them flying topmast high, drifted a bit on the wind, lit on the water and rose again, making north.
Lestrange watched it for a moment. Then he spoke.
“Stanistreet, I said down below I had something to tell you. It’s difficult, and I would not say it to any other man. It’s just this. I am happy—for the first time in twelve years I am happy.”
The captain made no reply.
“That sounds strange, does it not?” went on the other; “and maybe you will think my mind has been unhinged by all that has occurred, especially when you hear me out. It has not, and I will just tell you why I am happy. Happy! that is no name for it. I am joyful, jubilant, praising God, who knows all things and does all things right! You believe in God, Stanistreet?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the sailor, not at all happy at the turn things were taking. “I believe in God; ought to, anyway, seeing what I’ve seen.”
“Well, then, listen,” said the other. “For twelve long years, as you know, I sought for the children I loved, always sure that they were alive, always uncertain as to their fate. It is the uncertainty that kills. I suppose I am more imaginative than most people. I conjured up visions of them falling into the hands of Chinese, falling into the hands of the ruffians that infest these seas, finding sin and misery as their portion in life; but worse than that were the things I could not conjure up. There were times when I said to myself, ‘There is surely no God,’ but always I was driven back to prayer, which was my only hope. I prayed that I might meet the children again. I prayed and prayed, and searched and sought, and yesterday my prayer was granted.
“My children were handed back to me by a merciful God—but they were dead! What a mockery! What an answer to the humble and heartfelt prayer of one of His poor creatures! Yesterday as I lay broken in the cabin below whilst you were committing them to the deep, I blasphemed His name, whilst He sat smiling in the Infinite—He who knows all things and does all things right.
“Listen. Grief, when it rises to its true stature, is a magician. I fell asleep and grief drove me beyond sleep into a world of visions where I met the children. It was no dream. I saw them as I see you. Dick and Emmeline, just as they were long years ago, pure and sweet and happy and childlike, but knowing all things. Stanistreet, as sure as there is a God in heaven, what I am telling you is no fiction of the imagination. I have seen the children and I am to see them again, for they are about to return.”
“Return!”
“Yes, return. They have told me the place, but not the time. I am to go to the island and they will come to me. I am to wait for them and they will come to me.”
“But how, sir?” said Stanistreet, for a moment almost believing what the other said, so intense was the conviction in Lestrange’s manner and voice.
“How, I do not know, but they will come to me. It is permitted them for my sake and to save my reason, for otherwise I would have gone mad; also for some other purpose they would not say.—Do you not believe me?”
“Yes, yes,” said the other soothingly. “It’s strange,