Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/350

 *mings of her dress to form a temporary bandage. Then she bent down to the lagoon to dip her coroneted handkerchief in water and lay it across his brow, while she supported his sinking frame upon her knees. He looked in her face with a puzzled, wandering gaze, like a man in a dream. The vision seemed so unreal, so impossible, so unlike anything he had ever seen before, Bottle-Jack began to think he had reached Fiddler's Green at last.

The minutes dragged slowly on. The sky became darker, the breeze colder, and the strangely matched pair continued in the same position on the brink of the white lagoon, the Marquise dipping her handkerchief at short intervals, and moistening the sailor's mouth. It was all she could do for him, and like a faithful old dog, wounded to the death, he could only thank her with his eyes. More than once she thought he was gone, but as moment after moment crept by, so sad, so slow, she knew he was still alive.

Would it never be day? She could scarcely see him now, though his heavy head rested on her knees, though her hand with the moistened handkerchief was laid on his very lips. At last the breeze freshened, sighing audibly through the tree-tops, which were soon dimly seen swaying to and fro against a pale streak of sky on the horizon. Bottle-Jack started and sat up.

"Stand by!" he exclaimed, looking wildly round. "You in the fore-chains! Keep you axe ready to cut away when she rounds to. Easy, lads! She'll weather it now, and I'll go below and turn in."

Then he laid his head once more on Madame de Montmirail's knees, like a child who turns round to go to sleep.

The grey streak had grown to a wide rent of pale green, now broadening and brightening into day. Ere the sky flecked with crimson, or the distant tree-tops tinged with golden fire, the life of the whole jungle was astir, waking the discords of innumerable menageries. Cockatoos whistled, monkeys chattered, parrots screamed, mockingbirds reproduced these and a thousand other sounds a thousandfold. All nature seemed renewed, exulting in the freshened energies of another day, but still the Marquise sat by the lagoon, pale, exhausted, worn out, motionless, with the dead seaman's head in her lap.