FROM THE JAWS OF DEATH

I THINK it must be in the blood of all of New England birth to love the sea. They may never have seen it, nor even heard its wild, stern music; yet the fascination of great waters is part of their heritage. The thought of that vast inland ocean, of the magnitude and sublimity of which I had only the vaguest conception, haunted me all that afternoon; and I scarcely removed my eyes from those oddly constructed mounds of drifted sand, striving vainly to gain, through some depression between them, a fleeting glimpse of the restless waters that had helped to shape them into such fantastic forms.

As the sun sank, angry red in our faces, presaging a storm, the course of the little stream we had been following drew in closer toward these grotesque piles, and the trail we followed became narrower, with the sluggish current pressing upon one side and that odd bank of gleaming sand upon the other. In a little open space, where quite a carpet of coarse yellowish grass had found lodgment, beneath the protecting shadow of a knot of cottonwoods, we finally made camp, and proceeded to prepare our evening meal. Determined to strike north through those guarding sand-dunes, and reach the shore of the lake if possible before final darkness fell, I hastily crowded my pockets with food, and looked eagerly around for some congenial companion. Captain Wells, whom I should have preferred to be with me, was deep in conference with one of the Miami chiefs, and not to be disturbed; Jordan had seemingly been detailed to the command of the night-guard; so, as a last resort, I turned aside and sought De Croix. I found him seated cross-legged on a blanket beneath one of the cottonwoods, a silver-backed mirror propped against a tree-butt in his front, while the obsequious darkey was deliberately combing out his long hair and fashioning it anew. The Frenchman glanced up at me with a welcoming smile of rare good-humor.

"Ah, sober-face! and have you at last mustered courage to break away from the commander of this most notable company?" he cried mockingly. "'Tis passing strange he does not chain you to his saddle! By Saint Guise! 'twould indeed be the only way in which so dull a cavalier would ever hold me loyal to his whims. Friend Wayland, I scarce thought you would ever thus honor me again; and yet, 'tis true, I have had an ambition within my heart ever since we first met. 'Tis to cause you to fling aside those rough habiliments of the wilderness, and attire yourself in garments more becoming civilized man. Would that I might induce you, even now, to permit Sam to rearrange those heavy blond locks À la Pompadour. Bless me! but it would make a new man of you."

"Such is not at all my desire, Monsieur," I answered, civilly. "I came now merely to learn if you would walk with me through these dunes of sand before the daylight fades."

He looked out, idly enough, across that dreary expanse of desolation, and shrugged his shoulders.

"Use the other powder, Sam, the lighter colored," he murmured languidly, as if the sight had wearied him; "and mind you drop not so much as a pinch upon the waistcoat."

Then he lifted his eyes inquiringly to mine.

"For what?" he asked.

"To look forth upon the Great Lake. Captain Wells tells me 'tis but a brief and safe walk from here to the shore-line."

"The lake?—water?" and the expression upon his face made me smile. "Mon Dieu, man! have you become crazed by the hard march? What have I ever said in our brief intercourse that could cause you to conceive I care greatly for that? If it were only wine, now!"

"You have no desire to go with me, then?"

"Lay out the red tie, Sam; no, the one with the white spots in it, and the small curling-iron. No, Monsieur; what you ask is impossible. I travel to the west for higher purpose than to gaze upon a heaving waste of water. Sacre! did I not have a full hundred days of such pleasure when first I left France? My poor stomach has not fairly settled yet from its fierce churning. Know ye not, Master Wayland, that we hope to be at this Fort Dearborn upon the morrow, and 'tis there I meet again the fair Toinette? Saints! but I must look my best at such a time, not worn and haggard from tramping through the sand. She was ever a most critical maid in such matters, and has not likely changed. 'Tis curled too high upon the right brow, you black imp! and, as I live, there is one hair you have missed entirely."

Realizing the uselessness of waiting longer, I turned my back upon his vanity, and strode off alone. It is not my nature to swerve from a purpose merely because others differ in desires; and I was now determined to carry out my plan. I took one of the narrow depressions between two mounds of sand and plunged resolutely forward, endeavoring to shape my course as directly northward as the peculiarities of the path would admit. To my mind, there was little to fear from the hostile Indians, as every sign proved them to be hastening westward in advance of us; while I was too long accustomed to adventure to be easily confused, even in the midst of that lonely desolation.

I soon found the walking difficult; for I sank to the ankles with each step, while the soft sliding sand rolled beneath me so as to yield no solid foothold. The irregularity of the mounds continually blocked my passage, and caused me to deviate in direction, so that I grew somewhat bewildered, the entire surface bearing such uniformity of outline as to afford little guide. Yet I held to my original course fairly well, for I could pilot somewhat by the dim north star; and it was not long before my alert ears caught the pounding of surf along the shore-line. Much encouraged, I pressed forward with greater rapidity, ignoring the lanes between the dunes, and clambering over the mounds themselves in my eagerness to reach the lake before the complete closing down of night.

At last I topped a particularly high ridge that felt solid to the feet; and as I did so the wind came, hard and biting, against my face. There, just below me, not fifty feet away, were rolling the great waves, white-capped and roaring, pounding like vast sledges upon the anvil of the sand. My entire being thrilled at the majestic sight, and for the moment I forgot everything as I gazed away across those restless, heaving waters, seemingly without limit, stretching forth into the dim northward as far as the eye could reach, until water and sky imperceptibly met and blended. Each advancing wave, racing toward the beach, was a white-lipped messenger of mystery; and the vast tumultuous sea, rolling in toward me out of that dark unknown, with its deep voice of thunder and high-bursting spray, breathed the sublimest lessons of the Infinite to my soul. It awed, impressed, silenced with the sense of its solemn power. No dream of ocean grandeur had ever approached the reality now outspread before me, as this vast inland sea tossed and quivered to the lashing of the storm-wind that swept its surface into fury.

To the left and right of where I stood motionless, curved the shore-line, a seemingly endless succession of white shining sand-hills, with the sloping shingle up which the huge breakers tossed and rolled in continuous thunder and foam, rising, breaking, receding, chasing each other in gigantic play. How savagely strong it all looked! what uncontrollable majesty lived in every line of the scene! The very suggestion of tremendous power in it was, to my imagination, immeasurably increased by its unutterable loneliness, its seemingly total absence of life; for not a fin rose above the surface, not a wing brushed the air overhead. The sun, sinking slowly behind the rim of sand, shot one golden-red ray far out into that tumbling waste, forming a slender bridge of ever-changing light that seemed to rest suspended upon the breaking crests of the waves it spanned. Then, gradually, stealthily, silently, the denser curtain of the twilight drew closer and closer, and my vista narrowed, as the shadows swept toward me like black-robed ghosts.

I turned about reluctantly, to retrace my steps while the dim light yet lingered. Some unseen angel of mercy it must have been that bade me pause, and led me gently down the steep bank to the water's edge, where the sharp spray lashed my cheeks. If this be not the cause, then I know not why I went; or why, once being there, I should have turned to the right, and rounded the edge of the little bay. Yet all of this I did; and God knows that many a time since I have thanked Him for it upon my knees.

I saw first the thing bobbing up and down behind a bare wave-washed rock that lifted a hoary crown close beside the water's edge. A branch from off some tree, I thought, until I had taken a half-dozen curious steps nearer, and felt my heart bound as I knew it to be a boat. My first thought, of course, was of hostile Indians; and I swept the sand-hills anxiously for any other sign of human presence. The world about me was soundless except for the ceaseless roaring of the waves, and there was not even a leaf within my sight to flutter. I crept forward cautiously, seeing no footprints on the smooth sand, until my searching eyes rested upon a white hand, dangling, as if lifeless, over the boat's gunwale. Forgetting everything else in the excitement of this discovery, I sprang hastily forward and peered within the boat.

It was an awkward and rudely-formed water-craft, with neither mast nor oars, yet of fair size, broad-beamed and seaworthy. In the forward part lay the body of a woman; curled up and resting upon the boat's bottom, the head buried upon the broad seat so that no face was visible, with one hand hidden beneath, the other outstretched above the rail. So huddled was her posture that I could distinguish few details in the fading light; yet I noted that she wore a white upper garment, and that her thick hair flowed in a dense black mass about her shoulders.

For a moment I stood there helpless, believing I gazed upon death. She either moved slightly, or the waves rocked the boat so as to somewhat disturb her posture. That semblance of life sent my blood leaping once more within my veins, and I leaned over and touched her cautiously.

"Oh, go away! Please go away!" she cried, not loudly, but with a stress of utterance that caused me to start back half in terror. "I am not afraid of you, but either take my soul or go away and leave me."

"For whom do you mistake me?" I asked, my hand closing now over hers.

"For another devil come out of the black night to torture me afresh!" she answered, never once moving even to my touch. "Ah, what legions there must be to send forth so many after the soul of one poor girl! 'Tis not that I shrink from the end. Death! why, have I not died a hundred deaths already? Yet do I trust the Christ and Mother Mary. But why does the angel of their mercy hold back from me so long?"

Was she crazed, driven mad by some extremity of suffering at which I could only guess? That oarless boat, beached amid the desolation of sand and the waste of water, alone told a story to make the heart sick. I hesitated, not knowing what I had best say. She lifted her head slowly, and gazed at me. I caught one glimpse of a pale young face framed in masses of black dishevelled hair, and saw large dark eyes that seemed to glow with a strange fire.

"You,—you cannot be a devil also," she said, stammeringly. "You do not look like those others,—are you a man?"

I bowed in silence, astounded by her words and appearance.

"Yet you are not of the garrison,—not of Dearborn. I have never seen your face before. Yet you are surely a man, and white. Holy Mother! can it indeed be that you have come to save me?"

"I am here to serve you by every means in my power," I answered soberly, for the wildness of her speech almost frightened me. "God, I truly think, must have led me to you."

Her wonderful eyes, questioning, anxious, doubtful, never once left my face.

"Who are you? How came you here?"

"I am named John Wayland," I replied, striving to speak as simply as might be, so that she would comprehend, "and form one of a small party travelling overland from the east toward the Fort. We are encamped yonder at the edge of the sand. I left the camp an hour ago, and wandered hither that I might look out upon the waters of the Great Lake; and here, through the strange providence of God, I have found you."

She glanced apprehensively backward over her shoulder across the darkened waters, and her slight form shook.

"Oh, please, take me away from it!" she cried, a note of undisguised terror in her voice, and her hands held out toward me in a pitiful gesture of appeal. "Oh, that horrible, cruel water! I have loved it in the past, but now I hate it; how horribly it has tortured me! Take me away, I beg,—anywhere, so that I can neither see nor hear it any more. It has neither heart nor soul." And she hid her face behind the streaming hair.

"You will trust me, then?" I asked, for I had little knowledge of women. "You will go with me?"

She flung the clinging locks back from her eyes, with an odd, imperious gesture which I thought most becoming, holding them in place with one hand, while extending the other frankly toward me.

"Go with you? Yes," she replied, unhesitatingly. "I have known many men such as you are, men of the border, and have always felt free to trust them; they are far more true to helpless womanhood than many a perfumed cavalier. You have a face that speaks of honor and manliness. Yes, I will go with you gladly."

I was deeply impressed by her sudden calmness, her rapid repression of that strange wildness of demeanor that had at first so marked her words and manner. As I partially lifted her from the boat to the sand, she staggered heavily, and would have fallen had I not instantly caught her to me. For a single moment her dark eyes looked up confidingly into mine, as she rested panting against my shoulder, and I could feel her slender form tremble within my arms.

"You are ill—faint?" I questioned anxiously.

She drew back from me with all gentleness, and did not venture again to attempt standing entirely without support.

"I am ashamed so to exhibit my weakness," she murmured. "I fear I am greatly in need of food. What day is this?"

"The twelfth of August."

"And it was the night of the tenth when I drifted out of the mouth of the river. Ever since then I have been drifting, the sport of the winds and waves."

"Sit you down here, then," I commanded, now fully awakened to her immediate need. "The sand is yet warm from the sun, and I have food with me in my pockets."