Black Bartlemys Treasure

"Why so it is," says I, "in very truth--but--"

"But what, sir?" she questioned, lifting admonishing finger.

"There may come a day when we may weary of it, how then?"

"Nay we are too busy--"

"Can it--could it be"--says I, beginning to stammer--"that you might live here thus content to the end of your days?"

"The end of my days?" says she staring thoughtfully into the fire. "Why, Martin, this is a long way in the future I do pray, and our future is in the hands of God, so wherefore trouble?"

"Because I who have been stranger to Happiness hitherto, dread lest it may desert me and leave me the more woeful."

"Are you then happy at last--and so suddenly, Martin?"

Now this put me to no little heart-searching and perplexity, for casting back over the time since our landing on the island I knew that, despite my glooms and ill-humours, happiness had come to me in that hour I had found her alive.

"Why, I am no longer the miserable wretch I was," quoth I at last.

"Because of late you have forgot to grieve for yourself and past wrong and sorrows, Martin. Mayhap you shall one day forget them quite."

"Never!" quoth I.

"Yet so do I hope, Martin, with all my heart," says she and with a great sigh.

"Why then, fain would I forget an I might, but 'tis beyond me. The agony of the rowing-bench, the shame of stripes--the blood and bestiality of it all--these I may never forget."

"Why then, Martin--dear Martin," says she, all suddenly slipping from her stool to kneel before me and reach out her two hands. "I do pray our Heavenly Father, here and now before you, that you, remembering all this agony and shame, may make of it a crown of glory ennobling your manhood--that you, forgetting nothing, may yet put vengeance from you now and for ever and strive to forget--to forgive, Martin, and win thereby your manhood and a happiness undreamed--" here she stopped, her bosom heaving, her eyes all tender pleading; and I (O deaf and purblind fool!) hearing, heard not and seeing, saw nought but the witching beauty of her; and now, having her hands in mine, beholding her so near, I loosed her hands and turned away lest I should crush her to me.

"'Tis impossible!" I muttered. "I am a man and no angel--'tis impossible!" Hereupon she rose and stood some while looking down into the fire and never a word; suddenly she turned as to leave me, then, sitting on her stool, drew out her hairpins and shook down her shining hair that showed bronze-red where the light caught it. And beholding her thus, her lovely face offset by the curtain of her hair, her deep, long-lashed eyes, the vivid scarlet of her mouth, I knew the world might nowhere show me a maid so perfect in beauty nor so vitally a woman.