*CHAPTER IX*
*THE RESCUE*
"Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me-- Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods." TENNYSON'S _Ulysses_.
Fortunately the she-oak was one of the largest of its kind, and forkedout into four branches twenty feet or so from the ground. This formed arough cage, in which one could be held very securely if not comfortably.
In this fork, partially covered with a blanket, was huddled the form ofa human creature, presumably a woman; one hand stretched along the trunkas in a painful grip, the legs hanging loosely. There was no movementof limb or body. What if she were dead?
A sudden chill accompanied this thought. The situation was decidedlyuncanny, and bred awesome, not to say fearsome, feelings.
Four boys in a boat! Out on the flood-wastes, and in a particularlyperilous position! The insistent noises of the rushing tide; the hollowmoan of the wind in the foliage of the she-oaks; shut out from all help;missed now at home, and _that thing above_!
All these combined to create a creeping chill in each boy, which in amanner half-paralysed them.
Joe, as usual, recovered more quickly than the others. Gazing at theobject above awhile, and then examining the trunk of the tree with hiseyes, he broke the spell of silence.
"Take my place, Tom. Some un's got to go at once to that poor soulaloft. Pray God we're in time to save her. Keep her up tight againstthe trunk, Jimmy, an' I'll swing on to the limb."
Suiting his action to the word, Joe clambered on to the limb, and fromthence proceeded to climb the tree.
The woman was fixed at the junction of the forks, and her feet and legshung loosely down on each side of a minor fork. One arm, as beforedescribed, was wound round the main limb, while the other firmly graspedher breast. Her head was supported in the V of a branch.
On mounting to the spot, Joe raised himself higher by grasping two ofthe tree-forks, and, twisting his legs round the trunk, steadied himselfwhile he gazed into the face of the dead. It was the first time in hislife that he had looked upon death. The set expression that met hisgaze, so full of anguish, so pitifully pleading, fairly shocked him outof his self-possession. Little wonder at his turning sick and faint.He clutched the branch frantically as he swayed a moment, and beads ofcold sweat stood thick upon his forehead. Indeed, so near fainting washe that his sight began to fade, and the whole world receded from him.Strange noises buzzed in his ears. Bringing all the reserve forces ofhis will to the front, he was beginning to gain the ascendency over hisweakness, when a strange cry startled him into full consciousness.
"Why! she's not dead after all, thank God!" The thought of life madeall the difference to Joe. In a moment his vision is as clear as ever,and his spirits rise high at the sounds of life. "Yes, see!" whisperedthe lad, "there's a movement of the breast. Hurrah, boys!"
cried he to his comrades, looking down and waving with one hand at thesame time. "She's not dead after all!"
The boys at this set up a hearty shout indicative of their relief andjoy.
"Oh yes!" he muttered reassuringly to himself as he took the secondlook, "the poor creature's alive. Her eyes are half open. Her chest isheaving. Wake up, ma'am! Rescue is at hand. Me an' the boys in theboat below are goin' to take you down an' row you across to thetownship."
The woman made no response to this appeal and plan of salvation. "Isshe really alive?" The eyes are half closed and seemingly peering; theform is rigid, the face immobile. There was naught of that expressionin this countenance that Joe, from hearsay, was wont to associate withdeath--the peace that passeth understanding. Yet as the lad gazed atthis apparently inanimate object there was a movement of the body. Theblanket, bunched into many folds across the breast, stirred visibly.
Again that eerie, inarticulate cry!
Disengaging one hand from the tree, the boy stretched it forth to thewoman's breast, which, covered as it was with the clothes, had all theseeming of life and movement.
Joe was in the very act of removing a fold of the blanket, whensuddenly, and without the slightest warning, there rose up into thelad's face an angry, hissing, venomous snake, the deadliest of its kind.Its beady eyes glittered; its forked tongue shot in and out withinconceivable rapidity; its sibilant hiss was accompanied with a muskyodour, sickening in the extreme; its head and body for half its lengthwere erect, and bent forward from the neck, vibrating and swaying in arhythmic movement. The reptile was within striking distance. Inanother second that almost invisible death-stroke will be dealt;invisible, that is, by reason of its lightning-like speed.
But this deadly intention is defeated by an involuntary movement onJoe's part. This young man, for the briefest of brief moments, clung tothe tree with a rigid grasp; eyes staring in amazement and terror, withmouth wide open in automatic gape. Any attempt to defend himself wereuseless in the most absolute sense of that term. In another tick,before he can move a hand, these poison fangs will be deep buried in hishorror-stricken face, so temptingly near. The only hope for the lad layin doing a disappearing trick. And this happened. Had it beenpremeditated, however swiftly, the time taken to make up his mind, andto telegraph the resolution formed in the brain to the nerve cells andmuscles, would have been sufficient for the lightning stroke to fall.
What really happened was this: the apparition of the red-bellied, blacksnake simply petrified Joe. An awful, blood-curdling, hair-raising,galvanic shock of abject terror, contradictory as it may seem, paralysedthe lad. Simultaneously with that he is falling through space, an inertmass, to be soused into the water with a splash that sent the sprayflying over the boat's crew.
At the moment of the splash, Joe's mind, will, and nerve were restoredto their normal activity. The instinct of self-preservation, so strongin all healthy natures, especially boys', did for the lad in aninfinitesimal fraction of time as much and as effectively as though hehad taken, say, half an hour to plan his procedure.
He had, however, in escaping Scylla fallen into Charybdis. As soon asJoe reached the water he made for the boat. Fortunately he did not fallinto it, or this story might never have been told. He fell into thestream, some two or three yards away from the skiff. Quickly as he wascarried down-stream he managed by violent efforts to reach the boat atthe stern. Tom clutched him frantically by the shirt collar, enablingthe swimmer to get his hands on the gunwale. Joe, thus helped,clambered into the boat or ever the boat's crew had recovered from theirconsternation.
"Oh, Moses!" exclaimed, or rather gasped, he, "that--was--a go. Whew!"
"My goodness! How'd yer come to fall kersplosh like that?"
"Why!" pointing up. "See! there's the beast. See him crawling outthere?"
The boys, looking up, descried the snake winding its sinuous way along alateral bough that grew up above the forks. The disturbed and excitedsnake, having reached the limb, wound its course till it reached a clumpof bushy branches on the limb's extremity. On this it coiled itself,save the head and neck, which stood erect in vigilant attitude.
"Oh, crikey! was that _there_ on--in the body's--the woman's body?"
"Yes, Jimmy; right in the blanket on her breast. 'Twas that brute movingunder the blanket that I thought was _her_ breathing. Oh, my!" againexclaimed the youth, with a shudder, as he thought of the imminence ofthe danger which confronted him a moment before.
"Is--it--her--dead, Joe?" asked Tom after an interval of silence.
"No doubt of it, boys."
"Wonder if the snake bit her?"
"May have. Anyway the poor thing is dead all right."
"What's bes' thing to do now?"
"W-e-ll, I d-o-n't know----"
Again that shrill wailing cry!
"_Can't_ be the woman!" said Joe excitedly. "Why, she's as dead as aherrin'!"
"I have it, boys!" shouted Tom, as he jum
ped up excitedly and cut acaper. "It's the darned ole cat!"
A look of great relief passed over each countenance at the thought.
Tom, meanwhile, lifted up the locker lid, disclosing the rescued cat,which, together with her two bairns, were stowed in the locker shortlyafter being saved from the flood. The animals were snuggled together ona cornsack, and looked the very picture of contentment. The kittens weredining baby fashion, and the mother's purr declared the very excess ofmaternal rapture.
On seeing the boys, pussy gave a low, affectionate miaow, and made asympathetic movement of the tail, as if to say: "Thank you a thousandtimes, young gentlemen, for the good deed which we never, never shallforget." And then, motherlike, proceeded to "lick" her offspring.
"It's not the cat, Tom."
"Well, what on earth, water, or air is it?"
The mystery is insoluble. As the boys look down upon the happy andcontented felines, they one and all reject Tom's confident affirmationof a moment before. If not the cat, what then?
Again the tiny, shrill cry arose, but not from the cat's mouth. It camefrom the tree above, and as the startled youths looked up they saw theoverhanging end of the blanket agitated.
"Why, why--the poor thing must really be alive after all, chaps.There's something more up there than I've discovered; so here's upagain!"
Acting on this impulse, Joe again ascended the tree. Those below watchedintently, their feelings strained to the utmost tension. As soon as ourhero got to his former position in the forks, he received another shock.It was sudden as the other, but not so disastrous. An inarticulate andinvoluntary cry brought fresh alarm to his pals, who all the while werestaring up, too frightened to ask any questions. The boy, despite thesecond shock, still clung to the tree. The woman was dead beyond alldoubt, but death is counterbalanced by life. A brief and astonishedsurvey, and the boy leans over the limb and speaks quietly to thosebelow--
"The woman's dead, boys, but _there's a baby here_. It's tied to herbreast. It's alive!"
Just then, as if to demonstrate the truthfulness of the statement, thebabe lifted up its voice once more in a feeble cry. The scene in thattree Joe never will forget; the like he will not see again though herival Methuselah in age. The only thing he can yet see is a little handand arm, which have wriggled from the covering. Moving cautiously alongthe branch to the converging point, leaning on one fork, and placing hisfeet against another so as to stiffen himself, the boy was able to usehis two hands. He first, and not without an inward tremor, removed thedead hand which lay upon the blanket, the stiffened fingers stillclutching the clothes and holding them to the breast. The last thoughtand the last act of the exhausted and dying woman was to succour and todefend her little one.
Straightening the arm so that it lay by her side, Joe opened the blanketfrom where the little hand stuck up. There, on the breast of the dead,she lay, a sweet-faced baby girl! The little one's face was puckeredup, 'tis true, and there were tears upon her pale cheeks. The cries andtears were not the symbols of pain, they were those of hunger. Joecould plainly see that all the mother's thoughts were for the child. Itwas snugly folded in the blanket end; then tied to her waist by ahandkerchief passed round the body. The remainder of the blanket wasthen arranged so as to thoroughly protect the child from the inclementweather.
Untying the handkerchief, the lad folded it in a peculiar fashion likeas he had seen the black gins do. Carefully lifting the babe, he laid itin the widest part, made it secure to the body under the arms, andplaced it on his back, bringing the ends of the wrapper together. roundhis neck.
This done, he prepared for the descent. It was easily accomplished,even with the incumbrance of the child. Landing safely in the boat,which was kept well up to the tree, Joe placed her in the stern on thelocker seat, where the little one lay squirming and crying piteously.
The news of the baby variously affected the boys. Jimmy Flynn, whosebaby sister had died a few months before, looked very tenderly upon thisnameless waif.
"Make a place on the floor for it, Joe," said he. "It'll lie there morecomfortably, an' it'll be more like a cradle."
The advice was good. The coats, which the boys shed soon as theyentered upon the expedition in the morning, made a soft bed for thelittle one. The wee mite was evidently about nine months old. For allits adventure and exposure it seemed to have suffered little, and now inits cry is only voicing the pleadings of its empty stomach. It wasadequately, though very plainly dressed, and through all the rain of thepreceding night had kept dry. Fortunately, too, the snake which hadbeen curled up in one of the blanket folds had not come into actualcontact with the child. There were only two things required to bring itto a condition of happy contentment: nursing and feeding.
Capable as this quartet of Australian lads were in many ways, in thisthey were novices. So it was with a look of ashamed helplessness thatthey gazed at the new passenger, as she lay in the bottom of the boat onher back, kicking her heels in the air at a great rate, and doubling herdimpled hands first into her eyes and then into her mouth. The cry wentforth without ceasing, its only variation being the peculiar noisecaused by an intermittent sucking of her diminutive fists.
By a happy thought of Jimmy the hunger difficulty was overcome. Theboys had picked up a fine lot of oranges, as well as some dozens ofplantains, in the back-water. After they had eaten a quantity theystowed the balance away in the bow locker, and completely forgot them inthe exciting events which followed. Jimmy suddenly remembered thefruit. Selecting a fine specimen, he quickly peeled and quartered it.Then, seeding some of the quarters, he put one in baby's fist, guidingthe same to her mouth. The sweet, juicy orange was simply nectar to thefamished child. It sucked as only a hunger-bitten baby can. The boyswere highly amused at the way in which she mouthed the skin, and thedifficulty Jimmy encountered in unlocking her little fingers order tosubstitute a full for an empty quarter. It indeed a happy solution; anadmirable recipe for tears and squalls. As long as baby had an orangequarter it was peaceful. After a little while Jimmy took the little oneon his knee, giving furtive glances towards the others as he did so.The boys, however, under all the sad circumstances forebore to chaff.Substituting, at length, a ripe plantain for an orange section, the babewas taken to the seventh heaven of gastronomic bliss.
"The neighbours saw, far out on the wild, wreckage-strewnwaters, a tiny boat with four slight figures."--_See p._ 69]
And the while above them in the she-oak, whose thread-like leaves makemournful music to the wind, lies the mother who has sacrificed her lifefor that of the babe. There is no doubt of this. The poor woman musthave been exposed to the winds and waves long before she reached thetree refuge. How she got there was never known. She had almost denudedherself to protect the babe. Little wonder that at some moment of thatawful night vigil the vital spark should have quitted its terror-hauntedtenement.