Goulding Francis Robert
The Young Marooners on the Florida Coast
The boys were compelled to watch very carefully the blazing upon the trees, and what few signs of their path remained. There were no stars to guide their course, and the marks upon the earth were so perfectly obliterated by the storm, that several times they missed their way for a few steps, and recovered it with the utmost difficulty. It is scarcely possible for the best woodsman in the world, of a dark night, and after a storm, to keep a course, or to regain it after it is lost. The boys were extremely fortunate in being able to reach the river by the break of day.
Nothing yet was visible. The river and marsh looked like a dark abyss, from which rolled hoarse and angry murmurs. They gathered some wet fragments of pine left by them near the oak, and made a fire, beside which they sat and talked. Was there any person in the river! Surely it was time to hear some voice or gun, or to see some answering light. They would have hallooed, but there was something oppressive and ominous in the gloom of that storm-beaten solitude; and, for aught they knew, their call might come only to the wet ears of the drowned and the dead. They waited in painful and reverential silence.
Gradually the dark rolling water became visible; then afar off appeared black, solitary things, that proved to be the tops of mangroves, higher than the rest, around which had gathered moss and dead twigs of the marsh. When the light of day more fully developed the scene, they descried, at the distance of two miles, an object which the glass revealed to be a small vessel, of the pilot boat class, dismantled, and on her beam ends. This sight filled them with apprehension.
There was no person visible on the side or yards; was there any one living within? The companion-way was closed. Possibly a gun might cause the persons on board to give some sign of life.
The boys made ready to shoot, but neither gun could be discharged. The powder was wet. The only leak in the tent the night before had been directly over the guns, and the rain had dripped into the barrels. It was vain to attempt cleansing them for use; and if they succeeded in producing a discharge, how could that help the persons on board?
"No, no," said Robert, "what they want is our boat. Let us get that, and go immediately to their rescue."
Before leaving the bluff they planted conspicuously a small pole, in the cleft top of which Robert slipped a piece of paper, on which was written, "We have gone for our boat; you will see us as we pass. Robert."
When they arrived at the orange landing the boat was floating so far from shore, that without swimming it could scarcely be reached. The raft, however, to which it was moored, was nearer the bank, and Harold managed, by climbing a slender sapling near the water's edge, and throwing his weight upon the proper side, to bend it so that he could drop upon the raft, and from that to enter the boat. It was ankle deep with water, and there was no gourd nor even a paddle with which to bale it. Robert's ingenuity devised a plan; he threw into the boat an armful of moss, which soaked up the water like a sponge, and lifting this over the gunwale, he squeezed it into the river.
After a short delay they pushed from shore. To their delight, the tide was so high that they could row over the marsh in a straight line for the river, which was hardly a mile distant. On their way the sun burst through a cloud, and appeared so high as to prove that the hour of eight was already passed, and that Mary's company was probably on their way to the point before them. The water in the river was dark and rough, from the action of the neighbouring sea, but undisturbed by wind. On reaching it they paused, and hallooed to know whether the party by land had reached the point; hearing no answer, they resumed their oars, and crossed to the other side of the river, where the water was more smooth.
We will now leave them for awhile, and return to the company at the tent. Mary reclined on the sofa, but could not sleep. The idea of her father in danger, perhaps lost in his effort to rescue them, and thoughts of the perilous night-march of the boys through a dense forest, and then the nameless adventures into which her daring cousin and excited brother might be tempted, haunted her mind until the grey light of morning stole through the white canvas, and admonished her to rise. Frank was fast asleep upon the sofa, covered with a cloak; and Sam's snores sounded long and loud from his shed-room. On looking at the watch, which Harold had left for her convenience, she found that it was nearly seven o'clock; she did not know that when the sky is densely covered by clouds, the dawn does not appear until the sun has nearly reached the horizon.
It was not long after this before a fire was made, and breakfast ready for the explorers. Mary employed herself in every useful way she could devise, until the slow minute hand measured the hour of eight; then taking a hasty meal, they set out upon their march. Sam led the van with a gun upon his shoulder, and a gourd of water in his hand. Mary followed, carrying a basket of provision for the hungry boys, and Frank went from one to the other, at will, or lagged behind to watch the motions of the dogs, that looked thoughtful, as if aware that something unusual was on hand.
The ground was still quite wet, and they were compelled to pick their way around little pools and puddles that lay in their path; but with care they succeeded so well that they would have reached Duck Point in advance of the boys, had it not been for a circumstance that interested them much, while it filled them with gloom.
Nearing the point, the dogs, that had hitherto followed very demurely behind, pricked up their ears, and trotted briskly towards the water's side. Sam noticed this, and remarked, "Dey after tukkey I 'speck, but we a'n't got no time fo' tukkey now." Soon after, their attention was arrested by hearing a cry from the dogs, which was neither a bark nor a whine, but a note of distress made up of both.
"Eh! eh!" said Sam. "Wat dem dog after now? Dah no cry for deer, nor for tukkey, nor for squirrel. Missus, you and Mas Frank stay here one minute, till I go see w'at dem dog about. I sho' dey got some'n strange. Only harkee how dey talk!"
Sam was in fact fearful that some sad accident had befallen Robert and Harold, and that the dogs, having scented them by the light wind coming down the river, had given utterance to this moan of distress. He therefore walked with hurried steps in the direction from which the sound proceeded, while Mary and Frank, unwilling to be left alone, followed slowly behind him. He had not gained more than twenty paces the advance, when they saw him stop-run a few steps forward-then stop again, and lift up his hands with an exclamation of surprise. They hurried to his side, and found him gazing, with looks of horror, into a little strip of bushes that skirted the margin of the tide water.
"What is the matter, Sam?" inquired Mary.
"Look, Missus," he replied, pointing with his finger. "Enty17 dat some people drown dey in de ma'sh?"
Mary and Frank looked, and saw what appeared to be in truth, the bodies of two persons fast locked in each other's arms, and lodged upon the top of a submerged mallow, which allowed them to sway back and forth with the undulations of the water. Sam was hesitating what to do-for negroes are almost universally superstitious about dead people. Mary urged him on.
"You will not leave them there, will you?" she inquired; "you will surely draw them out, and see who they are. May be, too, they are not dead. O, get them out, Sam, get them at once."
Shamed out of his superstitious fear, Sam reluctantly obeyed the injunction of his mistress. He waded carefully and timidly along, until he could lay hold of the bodies, and drag them to shore.
"W'ite man and nigger, Missus," he said, solemnly, as the movement through the water revealed the pale features of the one, and the woolly head of the other. "De w'ite man, I dun-know18 who he is, he look like sailor; and de nigger-" He had now drawn them ashore, and examined their features. It would have made any one's heart sad to hear the groan that came from the poor fellow, when he had looked steadily into the face of the dead man. He staggered, fell on his knees in the water, embraced the wet body, and kissed it.
"O my Missus," he cried, "it is Peter! my own brudder Peter! De only brudder I got in dis wide wull. O Peter-Peter!" and he wept like a child.
"Draw them out, Sam," said Mary, energetically; "draw them on high ground, and let us rub them as we rubbed you. There may be life in them yet."
"No, Missus," he replied, pulling the bodies higher ashore. "No life here. He cold-he stiff-he dead. O Peter, my brudder, I glad to meet you once mo'. Huddee19 Peter! Huddee boy!" The poor fellow actually shook hands with the corpse, and poured out afresh his unaffected sorrows.
As soon as the bodies were drawn sufficiently from the water, Mary proceeded to examine them. The face of the white man was unknown to her, he appeared to have been a respectable sailor. He and Peter were evidently stiff dead. She was so certain they were beyond all hope of recovery, that she did not even require their clothes to be unloosed, or any means to be used for their restoration. She waited on the mourning brother until the first burst of his grief was over, then she and Frank aided him to make a sort of brush wood fence around the bodies, to protect them until something could be done for their interment.
It was while they were engaged in this last duty that Robert and Harold passed the point. Their halloo might, under ordinary circumstances, have been heard; but with their own occupation of mind, the rustle of bushes dragged along, and the roar of the distant surf, the voices of the boatmen sounded in vain.
From the point the boys proceeded, it was said, to the other side of the river, to escape the waves that dashed heavily against the island. The whole marsh, from bluff to bluff, was one flood of water, with the exception of patches of the more luxuriant herbage that peered above the rolling surface. The mangroves, though generally immersed, broke so completely the violence of the waves, that the water above and around them, was comparatively smooth, while in the channel of the river it was too rough for safety.
Picking their way over the tops of the low bushes, and around the branching summits of the taller, the boys rowed steadily towards the unfortunate vessel. They had gone not quite half a mile from shore, when they heard a gun, and looking back, they saw Mary's company beckoning to them. It was too late to return, without great sacrifice of time; and Robert pointed with one hand to the distant vessel, and with the other to the place of the old encampment. These signs were understood; the company on shore, after looking steadily at the distant object on the water, disappeared in the woods, and afterwards re-appeared above the old spring.
The labour of rowing increased as the boat proceeded. The passage through the marsh became more intricate, and the swell from sea began to be more sensibly felt through the irregular openings. But with the increase of difficulties came also an increase of energy, as they approached the vessel. They were now about a quarter of a mile distant. Their hands were sore, and their limbs weary with rowing. They tried not to exert themselves any more vigorously than before, lest they should utterly exhaust their strength, but they nevertheless observed, that as they neared the vessel, their boat did somehow move more rapidly through the water, and crowd with greater skill through the narrow opening.
As the young boatmen came within hail they would have called, had they not been restrained by the same ominous feeling which they experienced on the beach. With beating hearts they rowed silently around the bow of the vessel. The waves dashed heavily against it, and came up the inclined deck, oftentimes higher than the companion-way. They moored the boat to the broken mast, and then clambering along the pile of sea-weed and mangroves, which the vessel had collected in drifting, came at last to the cabin door. Robert could not say one word; his heart had risen into his mouth, and he felt almost ready to faint.
"Hallo!" cried Harold, his own voice husky with emotion. "Is anybody within?"
"Thank God!" responded a voice near the cabin door. It was a female voice, and its familiar tones thrilled to Harold's very soul. "Yes, yes, there are three of us here. Who is that calling?"
"Harold," he answered, "Harold Mc-." The name was not finished. He reeled as he spoke, and leaned pale as a sheet against the companion-way. That voice was not to be mistaken, little as he expected to hear it on that dark river. It was the voice first known to him, and first loved of all earthly voices. He tried again to answer; it was in vain. He groaned in very anguish of joy, and the big tears rolled down his face. Robert answered for him.
"Harold McIntosh and Robert Gordon. Who is in here?"
The voice from within did not reply. It seemed as if the person to whom it belonged was also overcome by emotion; for soon after they heard her speak tremulously,
"Brother! Sister! Thank God-our boys-are here!"
Robert did not recognize the voice of his aunt, nor did he understand the speechless look which his cousin turned upon him, until after two or three violent sobs, Harold replied to his inquiring look, "My mother! Robert, mother!"
Hearing the exclamation from within, Robert had now recovered from his own torture of suspense, and leaned down to the cabin-door in time to hear the manly voice of Dr. Gordon, asking in tones that showed he too was struggling to command himself,
"My children, are you all well?"
"Yes, father, all well," Robert replied. He wished to ask also, "Is mother here?" but his voice again failed; he fell upon the leaning door, and gave vent to a passionate flood of tears. While leaning there he heard his aunt call out, "Come, help me, brother. She has fainted." But that answer was enough; his mother was there.
The boys tried in vain to open the door; it was secured on the inside, and it was not until after some delay that Dr. Gordon removed not only the bolt, but various appliances that he had used to keep the water from dripping into his sister's berth, and gave each a hearty shake of the hand as they leaned sideways to enter the door, and clambered in the dark cabin. Dark, however, as that cabin was, and insecure as was the footing of the boys, it was not long before each was locked in his mother's arms.
Mrs. Gordon was very feeble, and her face much emaciated with suffering. She said little more at first than to ask after Mary and Frank. This silence alarmed Robert; he knew that joy is usually loquacious, and he heard his aunt talking very earnestly with Harold; but he forgot that his mother was just recovering from a swoon, and that extreme joy expresses itself differently in different persons. His father, seeing him look anxiously into her pale, thin face, remarked, "She will recover fast enough, now. The only medicine she needed was to meet you all."
"O, yes," she too observed. "Give me now my dear Mary and Frank, and I think I shall soon get well."
"We can give them to you in an hour, if you are able to bear removal," said Robert. "Is she able, father?"
"Yes, yes, able enough," his father answered. "And, I presume, we had better go, before the tide recedes, or we may be caught in the marsh. Come, let us load without delay."
They removed the trunks, and other things needful, to the boat; the boys relating all the while to their delighted parents what a beautiful prairie home they had, and how well it was stocked with every comfort. "Everything," said Robert, "except father and mother; and now we are taking them there."
The boat was brought close to the vessel's side, and held there firmly by Dr. Gordon, while the ladies were assisted by the boys. And with what pride those mothers leaned upon those brave and manly sons-grown far more manly since their exile-may be imagined, but can not be described. Mrs. Gordon recovered her vivacity, and a great portion of her strength, before she left the cabin. Joy had inspired her heart, and energized her muscles. Mrs. McIntosh also seemed to grow happier every moment, as she discovered the mental and moral developments of her son. Dr. Gordon, having carefully closed the companion-way, took the helm, and the boys the oars, while the mothers, with their faces towards the bow, looked with eyes of love and admiration upon the young labourers, who were requiting life for life, and love for love, what had been bestowed on them in their infancy.
As they were passing through the marsh, Mrs. Gordon spied several human figures on a distant bluff. They were exceedingly small, but distinctly marked against the sky.
"Can they be my dear little Mary and Frank?" she asked.
The boys replied that they were, and she waved her white handkerchief to them, in the hope of attracting their attention.
The water was still so rough in the channel, that, anxious as the parents were to embrace their long-lost children, Dr. Gordon decided that instead of attempting the passage directly across, in their heavily loaded skiff, they must continue up the river, through the irregular openings of the marsh.
They came at last near enough to be discovered by Mary and Frank, who, seeing the boat load of passengers going up the river, needed no invitation to meet them at Duck Point. The two companies reached the beach about the same time. Frank rushed right through the water, and sprang into his mother's lap; Mary was lifted into the boat by Robert, who waded back and forth to bring her; and Sam, though he was saddened by the melancholy fate of his brother, came with open lips and shining teeth, to shake hands with Mossa and Missus, as soon as the children gave him an opportunity.
Here they stopped long enough to allow the hungry boys to refresh themselves from Mary's basket of provisions, and Sam's gourd of water. They were almost ravenous. Dr. Gordon then went with Robert overland, to bring the other boat from the prairie to the portage, while Harold and Sam conducted the company by water to the orange landing. From this latter place Mrs. McIntosh preferred to walk alone with her son to the tent, leaving the others to descend the river.
During this part of the voyage, Dr. Gordon first learnt with certainty the fate of Peter and the sailor. As soon therefore as Mrs. Gordon had landed, he left Robert to support her to the tent, and re-entering the boat with Sam, went to rescue the bodies from their exposure, and to prepare them for a decent burial. It was late in the afternoon when they returned; and, as the best they could do with the dead bodies, they left them all night in the boat, covered with a sail, and pushed a little distance from the land.
The young housekeepers laid themselves out to entertain their welcome guests. Mary provided them with an early and delightful supper, which was highly seasoned with love and good will. Mrs. Gordon and Mrs. McIntosh reclined on Mary's sofa, the others gathered round to complete the circle, and the young people gave snatches of their eventful history. It was late before any one thought of retiring. Then Dr. Gordon called for a copy of the Scriptures. He talked of their separation, their sorrows, dangers, escapes, and now of their joyful reunion. After that, he read the ninety-first Psalm, which speaks of the protection that God promises to His people, and kneeling down, he offered their united thanksgiving for all the past, and their united prayer that the Lord would be their God, and make them His loving, grateful people. When they arose from their knees, every eye was wet with the tears of gratitude and joy.
The sleeping arrangements for the night were hasty and scant. Mary lay between her mother and aunt, for whom two of the narrow mattresses of the vessel had been placed side by side, and covered with the bear-skin. Frank nestled into the bosom of his father, and close beside him on another mattress lay Robert. Harold had chosen the sofa. After the labours and disturbances of the past twenty-four hours, sleep came without invitation. The moon and stars shone brilliantly overhead, the air was uncommonly pure, as if washed clean by the preceding rain, and the leafy forest, which had so often enclosed in its bosom the young but hopeful exiles, now murmured all night its soft blessings upon a reunited family.
* * * * *
Having extended this history far beyond the limits originally intended, it is time to close with a few hurried words.
Poor Peter was buried the next night by torchlight, according to the romantic custom prevalent among the negroes. Locked indissolubly in each other's arms, he and the sailor were laid in the same grave, and a double head and foot-board was sunk to mark the spot.
After much labour, and many dangers and delays (to recount which would require almost another volume), they raised and launched their little vessel, recovered the sail boat, provided suitably for their brute pets, sailed from the Island of Refuge and arrived safely at Bellevue, where they had been long expected, and almost given up for lost.
Before they left, the health of Mrs. Gordon was rapidly and almost perfectly restored. Fed from her children's stores, drinking from their tupelo spring, and regaled in every sense by the varied productions of that land of enchantment, but more especially charmed by her children's love there was nothing more for her to desire, except the presence of the dear ones left behind.
The joy of beginning their return to Bellevue was, however, strangely dashed with sorrow, at parting from scenes tenderly endeared by a thousand associations. As they passed down the river, a gentle gale came from the woods, loaded with the perfume of flowers. Harold pointed to his mother the tall magnolia on the river bank, which had been to him a Bethel (Gen. xviii. 16-19); it was now in bloom, and two magnificent flowers, almost a foot in diameter, set like a pair of brilliant eyes near the top, looked kindly upon him, and seemed to watch him until he had passed out of sight. The live oak, under whose immense shade their tent had been first pitched, was the last tree they passed; a nonpareil, hidden in the branches, sat whistling plaintively to its mate; a mocking bird was on the topmost bough, singing with all its might a song of endless variety; and underneath a herd of shy, peeping deer had collected, and looked inquisitively at the objects moving upon the water. It seemed to the young people as if the whole island had centred itself upon that bluff, to reproach them with ingratitude, and protest against their departure. But their resolution could not now be changed; the prow of their vessel held on its way. The Marooning Party was Over.