Rose à Charlitte

by Marshall Saunders

  CHAPTER XV.

  THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGER GOES AWAY WITHOUT HER CAPTAIN.

  "Repentance is the relinquishment of any practice from the conviction that it has offended God. Sorrow, fear, and anxiety are properly not parts but adjuncts of repentance, yet they are too closely connected with it to be easily separated."

  --_Rambler._

  Charlitte did not plan to show himself at all in Sleeping Water. Hepossessed a toughened conscience and moral fibre calculated to stand aconsiderably heavy strain, yet some blind instinct warned him that hehad better seek no conversation with his friends of former days.

  For this reason he had avoided the corner on his way to Rose's house,but he had not been able to keep secret the news of his arrival. Somewomen at the windows had recognized him, and a few loungers at thecorner had strolled down to his boat, and had conversed with thesailors, who, although Norwegians, yet knew enough English to tell theircaptain's name, which, according to a custom prevailing among Acadiens,was simply the French name turned into English. Charlitte de Foret hadbecome Charlitte Forrest.

  Emmanuel de la Rive was terribly excited. He had just come from thestation with the afternoon mail, and, on hearing that Charlitte wasalive, and had actually arrived, he had immediately put himself at thehead of a contingent of men, who proposed to go up to the cottage andascertain the truth of the case. If it were so,--and it must beso,--what a wonderful, what an extraordinary occurrence! Sleeping Waterhad never known anything like this, and he jabbered steadily all the wayup to the cottage.

  Charlitte saw them coming,--this crowd of old friends, headed by themail-driver in the red jacket, and he looked helplessly up at Rose.

  "Come back," she called; "come and receive your friends with me."

  Charlitte, however, glanced at Agapit, and preferred to stay where hewas, and in a trice Emmanuel and the other men and boys were beside him,grasping his hands, vociferating congratulations on his escape fromdeath, and plying him with inquiries as to the precise quarter of theglobe in which the last few years of his existence had been passed.

  Charlitte, unable to stave off the questions showered upon him, wastortured by a desire to yield to his rough and sailorlike sense ofhumor, and entertain himself for a few minutes at the expense of hisfriends by regaling them with his monstrous yarns of shipwreck andescape from the cannibal islands.

  Something restrained him. He glanced up at Rose, and saw that she hadlost hope of his returning to her. She was gliding down the hill towardshim,--a loving, anxious, guardian angel.

  He could not tell lies in her presence. "Come, boys," he said, withcoarse good nature. "Come on to my ship, I'll take you all aboard."

  Emmanuel, in a perfect intoxication of delight and eager curiosity,crowded close to Charlitte, as the throng of men and boys turned andbegan to surge over the bridge, and the hero of the moment, hisattention caught by the bright jacket, singled Emmanuel out for specialattention, and even linked his arm in his as they went.

  Bidiane, weary of her long stay in the garden, at that minute camearound the corner of the house on a reconnoitring expedition. Her browneyes took in the whole scene,--Rose hurrying down the hill, Agapitstanding silently on it, and the swarm of men surrounding the newcomerlike happy buzzing bees, while they joyfully escorted him away from thecottage.

  This was the picture for an instant before her, then simultaneously witha warning cry from Agapit,--"The bridge, _mon Dieu_! Do not linger onit; you are a strong pressure!"--there was a sudden crash, a brief andprofound silence, then a great splashing, accompanied by shouts andcries of astonishment.

  The slight rustic structure had given way under the unusually heavyweight imposed upon it, and a score or two of the men of Sleeping Waterwere being subjected to a thorough ducking.

  However, they were all used to the water, their lives were partly passedon the sea, and they were all accomplished swimmers. As one head afteranother came bobbing up from the treacherous river, it was greeted withcries and jeers from dripping figures seated on the grass, or crawlingover the muddy banks.

  Celina ran from the house, and Jovite from the stable, both shriekingwith laughter. Only Agapit looked grave, and, snatching a hammock from atree, he ran down the hill to the place where Rose stood with claspedhands.

  "Where is Charlitte?" she cried, "and Emmanuel?--they were closetogether; I do not see them."

  A sudden hush followed her words. Every man sprang to his feet.Emmanuel's red jacket was nowhere to be seen,--in the first excitementthey had not missed him,--neither was Charlitte visible.

  They must be still at the bottom of the river, locked in a friendlyembrace. Rose's wild cry pierced the hearts of her fellow countrymen,and in an instant some of the dripping figures were again in the river.

  Agapit was one of the most expert divers present, and he at once tookoff his coat and his boots. Bidiane threw herself upon him, but hepushed her aside and, putting his hands before him, plunged down towardsthe exact spot where he had last seen Charlitte.

  The girl, in wild terror, turned to Rose, who stood motionless, her lipsmoving, her eyes fixed on the black river. "Ah, God! there is no bottomto it,--Rose, Rose, call him back!"

  Rose did not respond, and Bidiane ran frantically to and fro on thebank. The muddy water was splashed up in her face, there was a constantappearance of heads, and disappearance of feet. Her lover would besuffocated there below, he stayed so long,--and in her despair she wasin danger of slipping in herself, until Rose came to her rescue and heldher firmly by her dress.

  After a space of time, that seemed interminably long, but that inreality lasted only a few minutes, there was a confused disturbance ofthe surface of the water about the remains of the wrecked bridge. Thentwo or three arms appeared,--a muddy form encased in a besmeared brightjacket was drawn out, and willing hands on the bank received it, and indesperate haste made attempts at resuscitation.

  "Go, Celina, to the house,--heat water and blankets," said Rose, turningher deathly pale face towards her maid; "and do you, Lionel and Sylvain,kindly help her. Run, Jovite, and telephone for a doctor--oh, be quick!Ah, Charlitte, Charlitte!" and with a distracted cry she fell on herknees beside the inanimate drenched form laid at her feet. Tears raineddown her cheeks, yet she rapidly and skilfully superintended the effortsmade for restoration. Her hands assisted in raising the inert back. Shefeverishly lifted the silent tongue, and endeavored to force air to thechoked lungs, and her friends, with covert pitying glances, zealouslyassisted her.

  "There is no hope, Rose," said Agapit, at last. "You are wasting yourstrength, and keeping these brave fellows in their wet clothes."

  Her face grew stony, yet she managed to articulate, "But I have heardeven if after the lapse of hours,--if one works hard--"

  "There is no hope," he said, again. "We found him by the bank. There wastimber above him, he was suffocated in mud."

  She looked up at him piteously, then she again burst into tears, andthrew herself across the body. "Go, dear friends,--leave me alone withhim. Oh, Charlitte, Charlitte!--that I should have lived to see thisday."

  "Emmanuel is also dead," said Agapit, in a low voice.

  "Emmanuel,--good, kind Emmanuel,--the beloved of all the village; notso--" and she painfully lifted her head and stared at the secondprostrate figure.

  The men were all standing around him weeping. They were not ashamed oftheir tears,--these kind-hearted, gentle Acadiens. Such a calamity hadseldom befallen their village. It was equal to the sad wrecks of winter.

  Rose's overwrought brain gave way as she gazed, and she fell senselessby Charlitte's dead body.

  Agapit carried her to the house, and laid her in her bed in the roomthat she was not to leave for many days.

  "This is an awful time," said Celina, sobbing bitterly, and addressingthe mute and terrified Bidiane. "Let us pray for the souls of those poormen who died without the last sacraments."<
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  "Let us pray rather for the soul of one who repented on his death-bed,"muttered Agapit, staring with white lips at the men who were carryingthe body of Charlitte into one of the lower rooms of the house.