CHAPTER XXVII.
THE PROMISE OF THE SKIES.
I had no room-fellow that night. The Captain had gone on board, to sleep, leaving word that he would fire his signal-gun very early in the morning. I should have been ready for it, if it had come at dawn.
The day was but just breaking, when I heard someone stirring in the next room. I ran in, with I know not what wild hope, but only to find the old man.
He was standing near the recess that formed her bed-chamber, with the sliding panel in his hand, and staring helplessly at the empty bed. It had not been used that night.
The glance he turned on me was enough; I did not wait for his words, but rushed out of the house.
That horror, thank God, was a false alarm. The child who was her favourite was running towards our cottage with a message that should have been delivered the night before. She had passed the night under a neighbour’s roof.
As I hurried back with the news to the old man, I heard the signal gun.
A week has passed, yet I cannot clearly recall what followed. I am dimly aware of a last look at the cottage and the settlement, of a crowd of weeping villagers, of the grasp of the Ancient’s hand. There is an almost absolute void of perception between the boat at the landing-stage, and the ship, with her solitary passenger, flying at full speed from the shore. Active consciousness seems to have been suspended between these two decisive facts. Memory is resumed, with one ineffaceable impression that it must hold for life—Victoria stretching her arms towards the ship, from the summit of the Peak. As she stood there, with her background of fleecy cloud, she seemed rather of heaven than of earth, and her gesture was a promise of the skies. Then, I knew that it was well with me; and I turned my face from the Island with a joyful heart.
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