Walter Besant

'Alice!' I cried.

She rose from her knees and turned to meet me. Her face was pale; her eyes were heavy and they were full of tears.

'Alice!'

'I saw you when you came here, a week ago,' she said. 'Oh! Humphrey, I saw you, and I was ashamed to let you know that I was here.'

'Ashamed? My dear, ashamed? But how—why—what dost thou here?'

'How could I meet Robin's eyes after what I had done?'

'It was done for him, and for his mother, and for all of us. Poor child, there is no reason to be ashamed.'

'And now I meet him, and he is in a fever, and his mind wanders; he knows me not.'

'He is sorely stricken, Alice; I know not how the disease may end; mind and body are sick alike. For the mind I can do nothing; for the body I can do but little: yet with cleanliness and good food we may help him to mend. But tell me, Child, in the name of Heaven, how camest thou in this place?'

But before anything she would attend to the sick man. And presently she brought half-a-dozen negresses, who cleaned and swept the place, and sheets were fetched and a linen shirt, in which we dressed our patient, with such other things as we could devise for his comfort. Then I bathed his head with cold water, continually changing his bandages so as to keep him cool; and I took some blood from him, but not much, because he was greatly reduced by bad food and hard work.

When he was a little easier we talked. But, Heavens! to think of the villainy which had worked its will upon this poor child! As if it was not enough that she should be forced to fly from a man who had so strangely betrayed her, and as if it was not enough that she should be robbed of all her money—but she must also be put on board, falsely and treacherously, as one, like ourselves, sentenced to ten years' servitude on the Plantations! For, indeed, I knew and was quite certain that none of the Maids of Taunton were thus sent abroad. It was notorious, before we were sent away, that, with the exception of Susan Blake, who died of jail-fever at Dorchester, all the Maids were given to the Queen's ladies, and by them suffered to go free on the payment by their parents of thirty or forty pounds apiece. And as for Alice, she was a stranger in the place, and it was not known that she had joined that unfortunate procession. So that, if ever a man was kidnapper and villain, that man was George Penne.

It behoves a physician to keep his mind under all circumstances calm and composed. He must not suffer himself to be carried away by passion, by rage, hatred, or even anxiety. Yet, I confess that my mind was clean distracted by the discovery that Alice herself was with us, a prisoner like ourselves; I was, I say, distracted, nor could I tell what to think of this event and its consequences. For, to begin with, the poor child was near those who would protect her. But what kind of protection could be given by such helpless slaves? Then was she beyond her husband's reach; he would not, it was quite certain, get possession of her at this vast distance. So far she was safe. But then the master, who looked to make a profit by her, as he looked to make a profit by us—through the ransom of her friends! She had no friends to ransom her. There was but one, the Rector, and he was her husband's father. The time would come when the avarice of the master would make him do or threaten something barbarous towards her. Then she had found favour with Madam, this beautiful mulatto woman, whom Alice innocently supposed to be the master's wife. And there was the young planter, who wished to buy her with the honourable intention of marrying her. In short, I knew not what to think or to say, because at one moment it seemed as if it was the most Providential thing in the world that Alice should have been brought here, and the next moment it seemed as if her presence only magnified our evils.

'Nay,' she said, when I opened my mind to her, 'seeing that the world is so large, what but a special ruling of Providence could have brought us all to this same island, out of the whole multitude of isles—and then again to this same estate out of so many? Humphrey, your faith was wont to be stronger. I believe—nay, I am quite sure—that it was for the strengthening and help of all alike that this hath been ordained. First, it enables me to nurse my poor Robin—mine, alas! no longer! Yet must I still love him as long as I have a heart to beat.'

'Love him always, Child,' I said. 'This is no sin to love the companion of thy childhood, thy sweetheart, from whom thou wast torn by the most wicked treachery'—but could say no more, because the contemplation of that sweet face, now so mournful, yet so patient, made my voice to choke and my eyes to fill with tears. Said I not that a physician must still keep his mind free from all emotion?

All that day I conversed with her. We agreed that for the present she should neither acknowledge nor conceal the truth from Madam, upon whose good-will we now placed all our hopes. That is to say, if Madam questioned her she was to acknowledge that we were her former friends; but, if Madam neither suspected anything nor asked her anything, she should keep the matter to herself. She told me during this day all that had happened unto her since I saw her last, when we marched out of Taunton. Among other things I heard of the woman called Deb, who was now working in the canefields (she was one of a company whose duty it was to weed the canes). In the evening this woman, when the people returned, came to the sick-house. She was a great strapping woman, stronger than most men. She was dressed, like all the women on the estate, in a smock and petticoat, with a thick coif to keep off the sun, and a pair of strong shoes.

She came to help her mistress, as she fondly called Alice. She wanted to sit up and watch the sick man, so that her mistress might go to sleep. But Alice refused. Then this faithful creature rolled herself up in her rug and laid herself at the door, so that no one should go in or out without stepping over her. And so she fell asleep.

Then we began our night watch, and talked in whispers, sitting by the bedside of the fevered man. Presently I forgot the wretchedness of our condition, the place where we were, our hopeless, helpless lot, our anxieties and our fears, in the joy and happiness of once more conversing with my mistress. She spoke to me after the manner of the old days, but with more seriousness, about the marvellous workings of the Lord among His people; and presently we began to talk of the music which we loved to play, and how the sweet concord and harmony of the notes lift up the soul; and of pictures and painting, and Mr. Boscorel's drawings and my own poor attempts, and my studies in the schools, and so forth, as if my life was, indeed, but just beginning, and, instead of the Monmouth cap, and the canvas breeches, and common shirt, I was once more arrayed in velvet, with a physician's wig and a gold-headed cane.

Lastly she prayed, entreating merciful Heaven to bestow health of mind and enlargement of body to the sick man upon the bed, and her brother, and her dear friend (meaning myself), and to all poor sufferers for religion; and she asked that, as it had been permitted that she should be taken from her earthly lover by treachery, so it might now be granted to her to lay down her life for his, so that he might go free and she die in his place.

Through the open window I saw the four stars which make the constellation they call the 'Crucero,' being like a cross fixed in the heavens. The night was still, and there was no sound save the shrill noise of the cigala, which is here as shrill as in Padua. Slave and master, bondman and free, were all asleep save in this house, where Robin rolled his heavy head, and murmured without ceasing, and Alice communed with her God. Surely, surely, I thought, here was no room for doubt! This my mistress had been brought here by the hand of God Himself, to be as an angel or messenger of His own, for our help and succour—haply for our spiritual help alone, seeing that no longer was there any help from man.