Part 4 (1/2)
”The very ones!” cried Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne. ”And what relation are you to Emily? and Lucille to her?”
The gentleman stepped backward and laid down the package which he had held under his arm, and advancing towards me with outstretched hands, and with tears starting to his eyes, he exclaimed:
”And this man then, to whom I owe so much, is Mr. Craig!”
”Owe me!” I said. ”It is to you that we owe our very lives, and our escape from death in mid-ocean.”
”Do not speak of it,” he said, shaking his head with a sorrowful expression on his face. ”You owe me nothing. I would to Heaven it were not so! But we will not talk of that, now. And this is Mrs. Craig,”
he continued, taking Ruth by the hand,--”the fair lady whose nuptials were celebrated in my house. And Mrs. Lecks, and Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne.” As he spoke he shook hands with each. ”How I have longed to meet you! I have thought of you every day since I returned to my island, and discovered that you had been--I wish I could say--my guests. And where is the reverend gentleman? And the three mariners? I hope that nothing has befallen them!”
”Alas!--for three of them at least,” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne; ”they have left us, but they are all right. And now, sir, if you could tell us what relation you are to Emily, and what Lucille----”
”Barb'ry!” cried Mrs. Lecks, making a dash towards her friend, ”can't you give the man a minute to breathe? Don't you see he's so dumfl.u.s.tered that he hardly knows who he is himself! If them two women was to sink down dead with hunger and hard slidin' right afore your very eyes while you was askin' what relation they was to each other and to him, it would no more 'n serve you right! We'd better be seein' if anythin' 's the matter with 'em, and what we can do for 'em.”
At this moment the younger of Mr. Dusante's ladies quickly stepped forward. ”O Mrs. Craig, Mrs. Lecks, and Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne!” she exclaimed, ”I'm just dying to know all about you!”
”And which, contrariwise,” cried Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne, ”is the same with us, exactly.”
”And of all places in the world,” continued the young lady, ”that we should meet here!”
No one could have been more desirous than I was to know all about these Dusantes, and to discuss the strange manner of our meeting, but I saw that Ruth was looking very pale and faint, and that the elder Dusante lady had sat down again upon the ground, as though obliged to do so by sheer exhaustion, and I therefore hailed with a double delight the interruption of further explanations by the appearance of two men on horseback who came galloping towards us.
They belonged to the house which I had noticed from the road above, and one of them had seen our swift descent down the mountain-side. At first he had thought the black object he saw sliding over the snow slopes was a rock or ma.s.s of underbrush, but his keen eye soon told him that it was a group of human beings, and summoning a companion, he had set out for the foot of the mountain as soon as horses could be caught and saddled.
The men were much surprised when they heard the details of our adventure, but as it was quite plain that some members of our party needed immediate nourishment and attention, the questions and explanations were made very short. The men dismounted from their horses, and the elder Dusante lady was placed upon one of them, one man leading the animal and the other supporting the lady. Ruth mounted the other horse, and I walked by her to a.s.sist her in keeping her seat, but she held fast to the high pommel of the saddle and got on very well. Mr. Dusante took his younger companion on one arm, and his package under the other, while Mrs. Lecks, having relieved her foot from the encircling bonnet, and Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne, now free from the entangling shawls, followed in the rear. The men offered to come back with the horses for them if they would wait; but the two women declared that they were quite able to walk, and intended to do no waiting, and they trudged vigorously after us. The sun was now high, and the air down here was quite different from that of the mountain-side, being pleasant and almost warm. The men said that the snows above would probably soon melt, as it was much too early in the season for snow to lie long on these lower sides of the mountains.
Our way lay over an almost level plain for about a mile. A portion of it was somewhat rough, so that when we reached the low house to which we were bound, we were all very glad indeed to get there. The house belonged to the two men, who owned a small ranch here. One of them was married, and his wife immediately set herself to work to attend to our needs. Her home was small, its rooms few, and her larder very plain in quality; but everything she had was placed at our disposal. Her own bed was given to the elder Dusante lady, who took immediate possession of it; and after a quickly prepared but plentiful meal of fried pork, corn-bread, and coffee, the rest of us stretched ourselves out to rest wherever we could find a place. Before lying down, however, I had, at Ruth's earnest solicitation, engaged one of the men to ride to the railroad station to inquire about Mr. Enderton, and to inform him of our safety. By taking a route which ran parallel with the mountain chain, but at some distance from it, the station, the man said, could be reached without encountering snow.
None of us had had proper rest during the past two nights, and we slept soundly until dark, when we were aroused to partake of supper.
All of us, except the elder Dusante lady, who preferred to remain in bed, gathered around the table. After supper a large fire, princ.i.p.ally of brush-wood, was built upon the hearth; and with the bright blaze, two candles, and a lamp, the low room appeared light and cheery. We drew up about the fire--for the night was cool--on whatever chairs, stools, or boxes we could find, and no sooner had we all seated ourselves than Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne exclaimed:
”Now, Mr. Dusante, it ain't in the power of mortal man, nor woman neither,--an' if put the other way it might be stronger,--to wait any longer before knowin' what relation Lucille is to Emily, and you to them, an' all about that house of yours on the island. If I'd blown up into bits this day through holdin' in my wantin' to know, I shouldn't have wondered! An' if it hadn't been for hard sleep, I don't believe I could have held in nohow!”
”That's my mind exactly,” said Mrs. Lecks; ”and though I know there's a time for all things, and don't believe in crowdin' questions on played-out people, I do think, Mr. Dusante, that if I could have caught up with you when we was comin' over here, I'd have asked you to speak out on these p'ints. But you're a long-legged walker, which Mrs.
Ales.h.i.+ne is not, and it wouldn't have done to leave her behind.”
”Which she wouldn't 'a' been,” said Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne, ”long legs or short.”
Ruth and I added our entreaties that Mr. Dusante should tell his story, and the good ranch man and his wife said that if there was anything to be done in the story-telling line they were in for it, strong; and quitting their work of clearing away supper things, they brought an old hair trunk from another room and sat down just behind Mrs. Lecks.
The younger Dusante lady, who, having been divested of her wraps, her veil, and the woolen shawl that had been tied over her head, had proved to be a very pretty girl with black eyes, here declared that it had been her intention at the first opportunity to get us to tell our story, but as we had asked first, she supposed we ought to be satisfied first.
”I do not wish, my good friends,” said Mr. Dusante, ”to delay for a moment longer than necessary your very pardonable curiosity concerning me and my family; and I must say at the same time that, although your letter, sir, gave me a very clear account of your visit to my island, there are many things which naturally could not be contained within the limits of a letter, and about which I am most anxious to make inquiries. But these I will reserve until my own narration is finished.
”My name is Albert Dusante. It may interest you to know that my father was a Frenchman and my mother an American lady from New England. I was born in France, but have lived very little in that country, and for a great part of my life have been a merchant in Honolulu. For the past few years, however, I have been enabled to free myself in a great degree from the trammels of business, and to devote myself to the pursuits of a man of leisure. I have never married, and this young lady is my sister.”
”Then what relation,” began Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne, ”is she to----?”
At this moment the hand of Mrs. Lecks, falling heavily into the lap of the speaker, stopped this question, and Mr. Dusante proceeded:
”Our parents died when Lucille was an infant, and we have no near blood relations.”