University of Virginia Library

22. XXII.
OUT OF THE DEPTHS.

AS the night closed in, the wind rose
steadily, still blowing from the southwest.
In Brenton's kitchen they found a
group round a great fire of driftwood; some
of these were fishermen who had with difficulty
made a landing on the beach, and
who confirmed the accounts already given.
The boat had been seen sailing for the Narragansett
shore, and when the squall came, the
boatman had lowered and reefed the sail, and
stood for the lightship. They must be on
board of her, if anywhere.

“They are safe there?” asked Philip, eagerly.

“Only place where they would be safe,
then,” said the spokesman.

“Unless the light-ship parts,” said an old
fellow.

“Parts!” said the other. “Sixty fathom
of two-inch chain, and old Joe talks about
parting.”

“Foolish, of course,” said Philip; “but it's
a dangerous shore.”

“That's so,” was the answer. “Never saw
so many lines of reef show outside, neither.”

“There's an old saying on this shore,” said
Joe:—

“What does it mean?” asked Harry.

“It only means,” said somebody, “that
when you see it white all the way out from
the Neck to the Reef, you can't take the
inside passage.”

“But what does the last half mean?” persisted
Harry.

“Don't know as I know,” said the veteran,
and relapsed into silence, in which all joined
him, while the wind howled and whistled outside,
and the barred windows shook.

Weary and restless with vain waiting, they
looked from the doorway at the weather.
The door went back with a slam, and the gust
swooped down on them with that special blast
that always seems to linger just outside on
such nights, ready for the first head that shows

itself. They closed the door upon the flickering
fire and the uncouth shadows within, and
went forth into the night. At first the solid
blackness seemed to lay a weight on their
foreheads. There was absolutely nothing to
be seen but the two lights of the light-ship,
glaring from the dark sea like a wolf's eyes
from a cavern. They looked nearer and
brighter than in ordinary nights, and appeared
to the excited senses of the young men to
dance strangely on the waves, and to be
always opposite to them, as they moved along
the shore with the wind almost at their backs.

“What did that old fellow mean?” said
Malbone in Harry's ear, as they came to a
protected place and could hear each other,
“by talking of Brenton's Reef coming to
Price's Neck.”

“Some sailor's doggerel,” said Harry, indifferently.
“Here is Price's Neck before us,
and yonder is Brenton's Reef.”

“Where?” said Philip, looking round bewildered.

The lights had gone, as if the wolf, weary
of watching, had suddenly closed his eyes,
and slumbered in his cave.

Harry trembled and shivered. In Heaven's
name, what could this disappearance mean?

Suddenly a sheet of lightning came, so
white and intense, it sent its light all the way
out to the horizon and exhibited far-off vessels,
that reeled and tossed and looked as if wandering
without a guide. But this was not so
startling as what it showed in the foreground.

There drifted heavily upon the waves, within
full view from the shore, moving parallel
to it, yet gradually approaching, an uncouth
shape that seemed a vessel and yet not a vessel;
two stunted masts projected above, and
below there could be read, in dark letters that
apparently swayed and trembled in the wan
lightning, as the thing moved on,

Brenton's Reef.

Philip, leaning against a rock, gazed into
the darkness where the apparition had been;
even Harry felt a thrill of half-superstitious
wonder, and listened half mechanically to a
rough sailor's voice at his ear:—

“God! old Joe was right. There's one
wreck that is bound to make many. The
light-ship has parted.”

“Drifting ashore,” said Harry, his accustomed
clearness of head coming back at a
flash. “Where will she strike?”

“Price's Neck,” said the sailor.

Harry turned to Philip and spoke to him,
shouting in his ear the explanation. Malbone's
lips moved mechanically, but he said nothing.
Passively, he let Harry take him by the arm,
and lead him on.

Following the sailor, they rounded a projecting
point, and found themselves a little
sheltered from the wind. Not knowing the
region, they stumbled about among the rocks,
and scarcely knew when they neared the surf,
except when a wave came swashing round
their very feet. Pausing at the end of a cove,
they stood beside their conductor, and their
eyes, now grown accustomed, could make out
vaguely the outlines of the waves.

The throat of the cove was so shoal and
narrow, and the mass of the waves so great,
that they reared their heads enormously, just
outside, and spending their strength there, left
a lower level within the cove. Yet sometimes
a series of great billows would come straight
on, heading directly for the entrance, and then
the surface of the water within was seen to
swell suddenly upward as if by a terrible inward
magic of its own; it rose and rose, as if
it would ingulf everything; then as rapidly

sank, and again presented a mere quiet vestibule
before the excluded waves.

They saw in glimpses, as the lightning
flashed, the shingly beach, covered with a
mass of creamy foam, all tremulous and fluctuating
in the wind; and this foam was constantly
torn away by the gale in great shreds,
that whirled by them as if the very fragments
of the ocean were fleeing from it in terror, to
take refuge in the less frightful element of
air.

Still the wild waves reared their heads, like
savage, crested animals, now white, now black,
looking in from the entrance of the cove.
And now there silently drifted upon them
something higher, vaster, darker than themselves,
— the doomed vessel. It was strange
how slowly and steadily she swept in, — for
her broken chain-cable dragged, as it afterwards
proved, and kept her stern-on to the
shore, — and they could sometimes hear amid
the tumult a groan that seemed to come from
the very heart of the earth, as she painfully
drew her keel over hidden reefs. Over five
of these (as was afterwards found) she had already
drifted, and she rose and fell more than
once on the high waves at the very mouth of

the cove, like a wild bird hovering ere it
pounces.

Then there came one of those great confluences
of waves described already, which, lifting
her bodily upward, higher and higher and
higher, suddenly rushed with her into the
basin, filling it like an opened dry-dock, crashing
and roaring round the vessel and upon the
rocks, then sweeping out again and leaving
her lodged, still stately and steady, at the centre
of the cove.

They could hear from the crew a mingled
sound, that came as a shout of excitement from
some and a shriek of despair from others.
The vivid lightning revealed for a moment
those on shipboard to those on shore; and
blinding as it was, it lasted long enough
to show figures gesticulating and pointing.
The old sailor, Mitchell, tried to build a fire
among the rocks nearest the vessel, but it
was impossible, because of the wind. This
was a disappointment, for the light would
have taken away half the danger, and more
than half the terror. Though the cove was
more quiet than the ocean, yet it was fearful
enough, even there. The vessel might hold
together till morning, but who could tell? It

was almost certain that those on board would
try to land, and there was nothing to do but
to await the effort. The men from the farm-house
had meanwhile come down with ropes.

It was simply impossible to judge with any
accuracy of the distance of the ship. One of
these new-comers, who declared that she was
lodged very near, went to a point of rocks,
and shouted to those on board to heave him a
rope. The tempest suppressed his voice, as
it had put out the fire. But perhaps the lightning
had showed him to the dark figures on
the stern; for when the next flash came, they
saw a rope flung, which fell short. The real
distance was more than a hundred yards.

Then there was a long interval of darkness.
The moment the next flash came they saw a
figure let down by a rope from the stern of the
vessel, while the hungry waves reared like
wolves to seize it. Everybody crowded down
to the nearest rocks, looking this way and that
for a head to appear. They pressed eagerly in
every direction where a bit of plank of a barrel-head
floated; they fancied faint cries here
and there, and went aimlessly to and fro. A
new effort, after half a dozen failures, sent a
blaze mounting up fitfully among the rocks,

startling all with the sudden change its blessed
splendor made. Then a shrill shout from
one of the watchers summoned all to a cleft
in the cove, half shaded from the firelight,
where there came rolling in amidst the surf,
more dead than alive, the body of a man. It
was the young foreigner, John Lambert's boatman.
He bore still around him the rope that
was to save the rest.

How pale and eager their faces looked as
they bent above him! But the eagerness was
all gone from his, and only the pallor left.
While the fishermen got the tackle rigged,
such as it was, to complete the communication
with the vessel, the young men worked upon
the boatman, and soon had him restored to
consciousness. He was able to explain that
the ship had been severely strained, and that
all on board believed she would go to pieces
before morning. No one would risk being the
first to take the water, and he had at last volunteered,
as being the best swimmer, on condition
that Emilia should be next sent, when the
communication was established.

Two ropes were then hauled on board the
vessel, a larger and a smaller. By the flickering
firelight and the rarer flashes of lightning

(the rain now falling in torrents) they saw a
hammock slung to the larger rope; a woman's
form was swathed in it; and the smaller rope
being made fast to this, they found by pulling
that she could be drawn towards the shore.
Those on board steadied the hammock as it
was lowered from the ship, but the waves
seemed maddened by this effort to escape
their might, and they leaped up at her again
and again. The rope drooped beneath her
weight, and all that could be done from shore
was to haul her in as fast as possible, to abbreviate
the period of buffeting and suffocation.
As she neared the rocks she could be kept
more safe from the water; faster and faster
she was drawn in; sometimes there came
some hitch and stoppage, but by steady patience
it was overcome.

She was so near the rocks that hands
were already stretched to grasp her, when
there came one of the great surging waves
that sometimes filled the basin. It gave a
terrible lurch to the stranded vessel hitherto
so erect; the larger rope snapped instantly;
the guiding rope was twitched from the hands
that held it; and the canvas that held Emilia
was caught and swept away like a shred of

foam, and lost amid the whiteness of the
seething froth below. Fifteen minutes after,
the hammock came ashore empty, the lashings
having parted.

The cold daybreak was just opening, though
the wind still blew keenly, when they found
the body of Emilia. It was swathed in a roll
of sea-weed, lying in the edge of the surf, on a
broad, flat rock near where the young boatman
had come ashore. The face was not disfigured;
the clothing was only torn a little, and tangled
closely round her; but the life was gone.

It was Philip who first saw her; and he stood
beside her for a moment motionless, stunned
into an aspect of tranquillity. This, then, was
the end. All his ready sympathy, his wooing
tenderness, his winning compliances, his self-indulgent
softness, his perilous amiability, his
reluctance to give pain or to see sorrow, — all
had ended in this. For once, he must force
even his accommodating and evasive nature
to meet the plain, blank truth. Now all his
characteristics appeared changed by the encounter;
it was Harry who was ready, thoughtful,
attentive, — while Philip, who usually had
all these traits, was paralyzed among his
dreams. Could he have fancied such a scene

beforehand, he would have vowed that no hand
but his should touch the breathless form of
Emilia. As it was, he instinctively made way
for the quick gathering of the others, as if
almost any one else had a better right to be
there.

The storm had blown itself out by sunrise;
the wind had shifted, beating down the waves;
it seemed as if everything in nature were exhausted.
The very tide had ebbed away. The
light-ship rested between the rocks, helpless,
still at the mercy of the returning waves, and
yet still upright and with that stately look of
unconscious pleading which all shipwrecked
vessels wear. It is wonderfully like the look I
have seen in the face of some dead soldier, on
whom war had done its worst. Every line of
a ship is so built for motion, every part, while
afloat, seems so full of life and so answering to
the human life it bears, that this paralysis of
shipwreck touches the imagination as if the
motionless thing had once been animated by a
soul.

And not far from the vessel, in a chamber of
the seaside farm-house, lay the tenderer and
fairer wreck of Emilia. Her storms and her
passions were ended. The censure of the world,

the anguish of friends, the clinging arms of
love, were nothing now to her. Again the soft
shelter of unconsciousness had clasped her in;
but this time the trance was longer and the
faintness was unto death.

From the moment of her drifting ashore, it
was the young boatman who had assumed the
right to care for her and to direct everything.
Philip seemed stunned; Harry was his usual
clear-headed and efficient self; but to his
honest eyes much revealed itself in a little
while; and when Hope arrived in the early
morning, he said to her, “This boatman, who
once saved your life, is Emilia's Swiss lover,
Antoine Marval.”

“More than lover,” said the young Swiss,
overhearing. “She was my wife before God,
when you took her from me. In my country,
a betrothal is as sacred as a marriage. Then
came that man, he filled her heart with
illusions, and took her away in my absence.
When my brother was here in the
corvette, he found her for me. Then I
came for her; I saved her sister; then I
saw the name on the card and would not give
my own. I became her servant. She saw me
in the yacht, only once; she knew me; she

was afraid. Then she said, `Perhaps I still
love you, — a little; I do not know; I am in
despair; take me from this home I hate.' We
sailed that day in the small boat for Narragansett,
— I know not where. She hardly
looked up or spoke; but for me, I cared for
nothing since she was with me. When the
storm came, she was frightened, and said,
`It is a retribution.' I said, `You shall never
go back.' She never did. Here she is. You
cannot take her from me.”

Once on board the light-ship, she had been
assigned the captain's state-room, while Antoine
watched at the door. She seemed to
shrink from him whenever he went to speak
to her, he owned, but she answered kindly and
gently, begging to be left alone. When at
last the vessel parted her moorings, he persuaded
Emilia to come on deck and be lashed
to the mast, where she sat without complaint.

Who can fathom the thoughts of that bewildered
child, as she sat amid the spray and
the howling of the blast, while the doomed
vessel drifted on with her to the shore? Did
all the error and sorrow of her life pass distinctly
before her? Or did the roar of the

surf lull her into quiet, like the unconscious
kindness of wild creatures that toss and bewilder
their prey into unconsciousness ere they
harm it? None can tell. Death answers no
questions; it only makes them needless.

The morning brought to the scene John
Lambert, just arrived by land from New
York.

The passion of John Lambert for his wife
was of that kind which ennobles while it lasts,
but which rarely outlasts marriage. A man
of such uncongenial mould will love an enchanting
woman with a mad, absorbing passion,
where self-sacrifice is so mingled with
selfishness that the two emotions seem one;
he will hungrily yearn to possess her, to call
her by his own name, to hold her in his arms,
to kill any one else who claims her. But when
she is once his wife, and his arms hold a body
without a soul, — no soul at least for him, —
then her image is almost inevitably profaned,
and the passion which began too high for
earth ends far too low for heaven. Let now
death change that form to marble, and instantly
it resumes its virgin holiness; though
the presence of life did not sanctify, its departure
does. It is only the true lover to

whom the breathing form is as sacred as the
breathless.

That ideality of nature which love had developed
in this man, and which had already
drooped a little during his brief period of marriage,
was born again by the side of death.
While Philip wandered off silent and lonely
with his grief, John Lambert knelt by the
beautiful remains, talking inarticulately, his
eyes streaming with unchecked tears. Again
was Emilia, in her marble paleness, the calm
centre of a tragedy she herself had caused.
The wild, ungoverned child was the image of
peace; it was the stolid and prosperous man
who was in the storm. It was not till Hope
came that there was any change. Then his
prostrate nature sought hers, as the needle
leaps to the iron; the first touch of her hand,
the sight of her kiss upon Emilia's forehead,
made him strong. It was the thorough subjection
of a worldly man to the higher organization
of a noble woman, and thenceforth
it never varied. In later years, after he had
foolishly sought, as men will, to win her to
a nearer tie, there was no moment when she
had not full control over his time, his energies,
and his wealth.

After it was all ended, Hope told him everything
that had happened; but in that wild
moment of his despair she told him nothing.
Only she and Harry knew the story of the
young Swiss; and now that Emilia was
gone, her early lover had no wish to speak of
her to any but these two, or to linger long
where she had been doubly lost to him, by
marriage and by death. The world, with all
its prying curiosity, usually misses the key to
the very incidents about which it asks most
questions; and of the many who gossiped or
mourned concerning Emilia, none knew the
tragic complication which her death alone
could have solved. The breaking of Hope's
engagement to Philip was attributed to every
cause but the true one. And when the storm
of the great Rebellion broke over the land, its
vast calamity absorbed all minor griefs.