_ CHAPTER LX. NEW SHORES
The moonlight lay on the moving Atlantic, and filled the hollow world with a radiance soft and gray and vague; but it struck sharp and white on the polished rails and spars of this great steamer, and shone on the long and shapely decks, and on the broad track of foam that went away back and back and back until it was lost in the horizon. It was late; and nearly all the passengers had gone below. In the silence there was only heard the monotonous sound of the engines, and the continuous rush and seething of the waters as the huge vessel clove its way onward.
Out there by the rail, in the white light, Natalie Lind lay back in her chair, all wrapped up in furs, and her lover was by her side, on a rug on the deck, his hand placed over her hand.
"To-morrow, then, Natalie," he was saying, "you will get your first glimpse of America."
"So you see I have procured your banishment after all," she said, with a smile.
"Not you," was the answer. "I had thought of it often. For a new life, a new world; and it is a new life you and I are beginning together."
Here the bell in the steering-room struck the half-hour; it was repeated by the lookout forward. The sound was strange, in the silence.
"Do you know," he said, after a while, "after we have done a fair share of work, we might think ourselves entitled to rest; and what better could we do than go back to England for a time, and go down to the old place in Buckinghamshire? Then Mrs. Alleyne would be satisfied at last. How proud the old dame was when she recognized you from your portrait! She thought all her dreams had come true, and that there was nothing left but to the Checkers and carry off that old cabinet as a wedding present."
"Natalie," he said, presently, "how is it that you always manage to do the right thing at the right time? When Mrs. Alleyne took your mother and you in to the Checkers, and old Mrs. Diggles led you into her parlor and dusted the table with her apron, what made you think of asking her for a piece of cake and a cup of tea?"
"My dearest, I saw the cake in the bar!" she exclaimed.
"I believe the old woman was ready to faint with delight when you praised her currant-wine, and asked how she made it. You have a wonderful way of getting round people--whether by fair means or otherwise I don't know. Do you think if it had been anybody else but you who went to Von Zoesch in Genoa, he would have let Calabressa come with us to America?"
"Poor old Calabressa!" she said, laughing; "he is very brave now about the sea; but he was terribly frightened that bad night we had after leaving Queenstown."
Here some one appeared in the dusky recess at the top of the companion-stairs, and stepped out into the open.
"Are you people never coming below at all?" he said. "I have to inform you, Miss Natalie, with your mamma's compliments, that she can't get on with her English verbs because of that fat girl playing Strauss; and that she is going to her cabin, and wants to know when you are coming."
"Now, at once," said Natalie, getting up out of her chair. "But wait a moment, Evelyn: I cannot go without bidding good-night to Calabressa. Where is Calabressa?"
"Calabressa! Oh, in the smoking-room, betting like mad, and going in for all the mock-auctions. I expect some of them will sit up all night to get their first sight of the land. The pilot expects that will be shortly after daybreak."
"You will be in time for that, Natalie, won't you?" Brand asked.
"Oh yes. Good-night, Evelyn!" and she gave him her hand.
Brand went with her down the companion-stairs, carrying her rugs and shawls. In the corridor she turned to bid him good-night also.
"Dearest," she said, in a low voice, "do you know what I have been trying all day--to get you to say one word, the smallest word, of regret?"
"But if I have no regret whatever, how can I express any?"
"Sure?"
He laughed, and kissed her.
"Good-night, my darling!"
"Good-night; God bless you!"
Then he made his way along the gloomy corridor again and up the broad zinc steps, and out into the moonlight. Evelyn was there, leaning with his arms on the hand-rail, and idly watching, far below, the gleams of light on the gray-black waves.
"It is too fine a night to go below," he said. "What do you say, Brand--shall we wait up for the daylight and the first glimpse of America?"
"If you like," said Brand, taking out his cigar-case, and hauling along the chair in which Natalie had been sitting.
They had the whole of this upper deck to themselves, except when one or other of the officers passed on his rounds. They could talk without risk of being overheard: and they had plenty to talk about--of all that had happened of late, of all that might happen to them in this new country they were nearing.
"Well," he said, "Evelyn, that settlement in Genoa clinched everything, as far as I am concerned. I have no longer any doubt, any hesitation: there is nothing to be concealed now--nothing to be withheld, even from those who are content to remain merely as our friends. One might have gone on as before; for, after all, these death-penalties only attached to the officers; and the great mass of the members, not being touched by them, need have known nothing about them. But it is better now."
"It was Natalie's appeal that settled that," Lord Evelyn said, as he still watched the shining waves.
"The influence of that girl is extraordinary. One could imagine that some magnetism radiated from her; or perhaps it is her voice, and her clear faith, and her enthusiasm. When she said something to old Anton Pepczinski, on bidding him good-bye--not about herself, or about him, but about what some of us were hoping for--he was crying like a child! In other times she might have done great things: she might have led armies."
By-and-by he said,
"As for those decrees, what use were they? From all I could learn, only ten have been issued since the Society was in existence; and eight of those were for the punishment of officers, who ought merely to have been expelled. Of course you will get people like Calabressa, with a touch of theatrical-mindedness, who have a love for the terrorism such a thing can produce. But what use is it? It is not by striking down an individual here or there that you can help on any wide movement; and this great organization, that I can see in the future will have other things to do than take heed of personal delinquencies--except in so far as to purge out from itself unworthy members--its action will affect continents, not persons."
"You can see that--you believe that, Brand?" Lord Evelyn, said, turning and regarding him.
"Yes, I think so," he answered, without enthusiasm, but with simple sincerity. Presently he said, "You remember, Evelyn, the morning we turned out of the little inn on the top of the Niessen, to see the sun rise over the Bernese Alps?"
"I remember it was precious cold," said Lord Evelyn, almost with a shiver.
"You remember, when we got to the highest point, we looked down into the great valleys, where the lakes and the villages were, and there it was still night under the heavy clouds. But before us, where the peaks of the Jungfrau, and the Wetterhorn, and the rest of them rose into the clear sky, there was a curious faint light that showed the day was coming. And we waited and watched, and the light grew stronger, and all sorts of colors began to show along the peaks. That was the sunrise. But down in the valleys everything was misty and dark and cold--everything asleep; the people there could see nothing of the new day we were looking at. And so I suppose it is with us now. We are looking ahead. We see, or fancy we see, the light before the others; but, sooner or later, they will see it also, for the sunrise is bound to come."
They continued talking, and they paced up and down the decks, while the half-hours and hours were struck by the bells. The moon was declining to the horizon. Long ago the last of the revellers had left the smoking-room, and there was nothing to interrupt the stillness but the surge of the waters.
Then again--
"Have you noticed Natalie's mother of late? It is a pleasure to watch the poor woman's face; she seems to drink in happiness by merely looking at her daughter; every time that Natalie laughs you can see her mother's eyes brighten."
"I have noticed a great change in Natalie herself," Evelyn said. "She is looking younger; she has lost that strange, half-apprehensive expression of the eyes; and she seems to be in excellent spirits. Calabressa is more devotedly her slave than ever."
"You should have seen him when Von Zoesch told him to pack up and be off to America."
By-and-by he said,
"You know, Evelyn, if you can't stay in America with us altogether--and that would be too much to expect--don't say anything as yet to Natalie about your going back. She has the notion that our little colony is to be founded as a permanency."
"Oh, I am in no hurry," said Evelyn, carelessly. "Things will get along at home well enough without me. Didn't I tell you that, once those girls began to go, they would go, like lightning? It is rough on Blanche, though, that Truda should come next. By-the-way, in any case, Brand, I must remain in America for your wedding."
"Oh, you will, will you?" said Brand. "Then that settles one point--you won't be going back very soon."
"Why?"
"Of course, Natalie and I won't marry until she is of age; that is a good year and a half yet. Did you hear of Calabressa's mad proposal that he should extort from Lind his consent to our marriage as the price of the good news that he, Calabressa, had to reveal? Like him, wasn't it? an ingenious scheme."
"What did you say?"
"Why, what could I say? I would not be put under any obligation to Lind on any account whatever. We can wait; it is not a long time."
The moonlight waned, and there was another light slowly declaring itself in the east. The two friends continued talking, and did not notice how that the cold blue light beyond the sea was gradually yielding to a silver-gray. The pilot and first mate, who were on the bridge, had just been joined by the captain.
The silver-gray in its turn gave place to a clear yellow, and high up one or two flakes of cloud became of a saffron-red. Then the burning edge of the sun appeared over the waves; the world lightened; the masts and funnels of the steamer caught the glory streaming over from the east. The ship seemed to waken also; one or two stragglers came tumbling up from below, rubbing their eyes, and staring strangely around them; but as yet no land was in sight.
The sunrise now flooded the sky and the sea; the number of those on deck increased; and at last there was an eager passing round of binoculars, and a murmur of eager interest. Those with sharp eyes enough could make out, right ahead, in the midst of the pale glow of the morning, a thin blue line of coast.
The great steamer surged on through the sunlit waters. And now even those who were without glasses could distinguish, here and there along that line of pale-blue land, a touch of yellowish-white; and they guessed that the new world there was already shining with the light of the new day. Brand felt a timid, small hand glide into his. Natalie was standing beside him, her beautiful black hair a trifle dishevelled, perhaps, and her eyes still bearing traces of her having been in the realm of dreams; but those eyes were full of tenderness, nevertheless, as she met his look. He asked her if she could make out that strip of coast beyond the shining waters.
"Can you see, Natalie? It is our future home!"
"Oh yes, I can see it," she said; "and the sunrise is there before us: it is a happy sign."
* * * * *
There remains to be added only this--that about the last thing Natalie Lind did before leaving England was to go and plant some flowers, carefully and tenderly, on Kirski's grave; and that about the first thing she did on landing in America was to write to Madame Potecki, asking her to look after the little Anneli, and sending many loving messages: for this girl--or, rather, this beautiful child, as Calabressa would persist in calling her--had a large heart, that could hold many affections and many memories, and that was not capable of forgetting any one who had been kind to her.
[THE END]
William Black's novel: Sunrise
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