Wilkie Collins

“ Richard Wardour knows that I love you—Richard Wardour’s vengeance will take your life! Wake, Frank—wake! You are drifting to your death!” A low groan of horror bursts from her, sinister and terrible to hear. “Drifting! drifting!” she whispers to herself—“drifting to his death!”
Her glassy eyes suddenly soften—then close. A long shudder runs through her. A faint flush shows itself on the deadly pallor of her face, and fades again. Her limbs fail her. She sinks into Mrs. Crayford’s arms. ”

“ Earnestly pleading with her friend, Clara advances toward the window. She too has suffered under the wasting influences of suspense. Her face has lost its youthful freshness; no delicate flush of color rises on it when she speaks. The soft gray eyes which won Frank’s heart in the by-gone time are sadly altered now. In repose, they have a dimmed and wearied look. In action, they are wild and restless, like eyes suddenly wakened from startling dreams. ”

“ Sad experience has long since warned her that the servants are not to be trusted within hearing of the wild words which Clara speaks in the trance. Has any one of them ventured into the garden? No. They are out of hearing at the window, waiting for the signal which tells them that their help is needed.
Turning toward Clara once more, Mrs. Crayford hears the vacantly uttered words, falling faster and faster from her lips,
“Frank! Frank! Frank! Don’t drop behind—don’t trust Richard Wardour. While you can stand, keep with the other men, Frank!” ”

“ Let’s do something. Work, Crayford—that’s the true elixir of our life! Work, that stretches the muscles and sets the blood a-glowing. Work, that tires the body and rests the mind. Is there nothing in hand that I can do? Nothing to cut? nothing to carry?”
The door opened as he put the question. Bateson—appointed to chop Frank’s bed-place into firing—appeared punctually with his ax. Wardour, without a word of warning, snatched the ax out of the man’s hand.
“What was this wanted for?” he asked.
“To cut up Mr. Aldersley’s berth there into firing, sir.” ”

“ This process accomplished, the Arctic explorer proceeded resolutely on his way to further discoveries.
“May I ask, ma’am, if you have ever seen her in a state of trance with your own eyes?” he inquired.
“My sister and I both saw her in the trance, little more than a month since,” Mrs. Crayford replied. “She had been nervous and irritable all the morning; and we took her out into the garden to breathe the fresh air. Suddenly, without any reason for it, the color left her face. She stood between us, insensible to touch, insensible to sound; motionless as stone, and cold as death in a moment. ”

“ In his innocence of all suspicion he clapped Wardour heartily on the shoulder. “When I feel the fatigue,” said poor simple Frank, “you will help me, comrade—won’t you? Come along!”
Wardour snatched his gun out of the hands of the sailor who was carrying it for him. His dark face became suddenly irradiated with a terrible joy.
“Come!” he cried. “Over the snow and over the ice! Come! where no human footsteps have ever trodden, and where no human trace is ever left.”
Blindly, instinctively, Crayford made an effort to part them. His brother officers, standing near, pulled him back. ”

“ The minutes passed, and there rose a sudden burst of cheering from the sailors on the beach, near the spot where the fishermen’s boats were drawn up. Every man left his work. Every man waved his cap in the air. The passengers, near at hand, caught the infection of enthusiasm, and joined the crew. A moment more, and Richard Wardour appeared again in the doorway, carrying a man in his arms. He staggered, breathless with the effort that he was making, to the place where Clara stood, held up in Mrs. Crayford’s arms. ”

“ Taking advantage, on the third day, of the first returning calm, the commander of the Amazon has anchored off the coast of Newfoundland, and has sent ashore to increase his supplies of water before he sails for England. The weary passengers have landed for a few hours, to refresh themselves after the discomforts of the tempest. Among them are the two ladies. The veil left on the table in the boat-house is Clara’s veil.
And who is the man sitting on the chest, with the cord in his hand, looking out idly at the sea? The man is the only cheerful person in the ship’s company. ”

“ Crayford has shared their view. It is only to-night that the girl’s words ring in her ear, with a strange prophetic sound in them. It is only to-night that she asks herself: “Is Clara present, in the spirit, with our loved and lost ones in the lonely North? Can mortal vision see the dead and living in the solitudes of the Frozen Deep?” ”

“ Is it so very surprising that she should catch the infection of the superstition about her? And is it quite incomprehensible that her nervous system should suffer accordingly, at a very critical period of her life?”
“Not at all, Mrs. Crayford—not at all, ma’am, as you put it. Still it is a little startling, to a commonplace man like me, to meet a young lady at a ball who believes in the Second Sight. Does she really profess to see into the future? Am I to understand that she positively falls into a trance, and sees people in distant countries, and foretells events to come? ”

“ Judging by what the quartermaster tells me, I am afraid the poor fellow has broken his leg.”
“I will supply his place,” cried a voice at the other end of the hut.
Everybody looked round. The man who had spoken was Richard Wardour.
Crayford instantly interfered—so vehemently as to astonish all who knew him.
“No!” he said. “Not you, Richard! not you!”
“Why not?” Wardour asked, sternly.
“Why not, indeed?” added Captain Helding. “Wardour is the very man to be useful on a long march. He is in perfect health, and he is the best shot among us. I was on the point of proposing him myself.” ”

“ Still reposing on the chest, our friend, who never grumbles, is surprised by the sudden appearance of a sailor at the boat-house door.
“Look sharp with your work there, John Want!” says the sailor. “Lieutenant Crayford is just coming in to look after you.”
With this warning the messenger disappears again. John Want rises with a groan, turns the chest up on one end, and begins to fasten the cord round it. The ship’s cook is not a man to look back on his rescue with the feeling of unmitigated satisfaction which animates his companions in trouble. ”

“ A man, completely hidden by his bedclothes, is sleeping in the hammock. By the fireside there is a second man—supposed to be on the watch—fast asleep, poor wretch! at the present moment. Behind the sleeper stands an old cask, which serves for a table. The objects at present on the table are, a pestle and mortar, and a saucepanful of the dry bones of animals—in plain words, the dinner for the day. By way of ornament to the dull brown walls, icicles appear in the crevices of the timber, gleaming at intervals in the red fire-light. ”

“ Crayford’s lively invention supplied her with an answer on the spur of the moment.
“Do you believe in dreams, Frank? Of course you don’t! Clara has been dreaming about you; and Clara is foolish enough to believe in dreams. That’s all—it’s not worth talking about. Hark! they are calling you. Say good-by, or you will be too late for the boat.”
Frank took Clara’s hand. Long afterward—in the dark Arctic days, in the dreary Arctic nights—he remembered how coldly and how passively that hand lay in his.
“Courage, Clara!” he said, gayly. “A sailor’s sweetheart must accustom herself to partings. ”

“ Will the Second Sight oblige me by seeing the shortest way to the Northwest Passage, before we leave England?”
Mrs. Crayford declined to humor the joke. “If you will excuse my leaving you,” she said quietly, “I will try and find out what is the matter with Miss Burnham.”
At the entrance to the conservatory, Mrs. Crayford encountered her husband. The lieutenant was of middle age, tall and comely. A man with a winning simplicity and gentleness in his manner, and an irresistible kindness in his brave blue eyes. In one word, a man whom everybody loved—including his wife. ”

“ I assert, on the authority of the newspaper, that nothing of the sort has happened, and that the chances are all in favor of his being still a living man. What do you say to crossing the Atlantic, and deciding which of us is right—you or I?’ Do you think Miss Burnham will say No to that, Mrs. Crayford? If I know anything of human nature, she will seize the opportunity as a means of converting you to a belief in the Second Sight.”
“Good Heavens, doctor! do you mean to tell me that we are to go to sea and meet the Arctic Expedition on its way home?” ”

“ But a man who is worth having is worth waiting for. This man is worth having; this man is worth his weight in gold to such an expedition as ours. Seasoned to all climates and all fatigues—a strong fellow, a brave fellow, a clever fellow—in short, an excellent officer. I know him well, or I should never have taken him. The country gets plenty of work out of my new volunteer, Crayford. He only returned yesterday from foreign service.”
“He only returned yesterday from foreign service! And he volunteers this morning to join the Arctic expedition? ”

“ Nobody can grumble.”
“I am quite satisfied,” said Frank. “But I know of one man among the officers who is sure to make objections.”
“Who is the man?”
“You know him well enough, too. The ‘Bear of the Expeditions’ Richard Wardour.”
“Frank! Frank! you have a bad habit of letting your tongue run away with you. Don’t repeat that stupid nickname when you talk of my good friend, Richard Wardour.”
“Your good friend? Crayford! your liking for that man amazes me.”
Crayford laid his hand kindly on Frank’s shoulder. Of all the officers of the Sea-mew, Crayford’s favorite was Frank. ”

“ Richard Wardour lifts the sleeper’s head and rests it against the cavern side. He goes to the boat, and returns with a billet of wood. He stoops to place the wood on the fire—and stops. Frank is dreaming, and murmuring in his dream. A woman’s name passes his lips. ”

“ Here in the freezing cold, or away in the deadly heat; in battle or in shipwreck; in the face of starvation; under the shadow of pestilence—I, though hundreds are falling round me, I shall live! live for the coming of one day! live for the meeting with one man! ”

“ He wants to see you immediately.”
“I will go at once. Rouse the doctor.”
Answering in those terms, Crayford returned to the inner hut, followed by the sailor. John Want shook his head again, and smiled more drearily than ever.
“Rouse the doctor?” he repeated. “Suppose the doctor should be frozen? He hadn’t a ha’porth of warmth in him last night, and his voice sounded like a whisper in a speaking-trumpet. Will the bones do now? Yes, the bones will do now. Into the saucepan with you,” cried John Want, suiting the action to the word, “and flavor the hot water if you can! ”

“ I have come home and found a trouble to welcome me, which goes near to break my heart. If I don’t take refuge in absence and hard work, I am a lost man. Will you give me a refuge?’ That’s what he said, Crayford, word for word. ”

“ Captain Helding answered the general suggestion in favor of volunteering by a question which instantly checked the rising enthusiasm of the meeting.
“Well,” he said, “suppose we say volunteers. Who volunteers to stop in the huts?”
There was a dead silence. The officers and men looked at each other confusedly. The captain continued:
“You see we can’t settle it by volunteering. You all want to go. Every man among us who has the use of his limbs naturally wants to go. But what is to become of those who have not got the use of their limbs? ”

“ A voice, worthy of the nose, expressed its opinion of the Arctic climate, in these words:
“Lord! Lord! here’s all my breath on my blanket. Icicles, if you please, sir, all round my mouth and all over my blanket. Every time I have snored, I’ve frozen something. When a man gets the cold into him to that extent that he ices his own bed, it can’t last much longer. Never mind! I don’t grumble.”
Crayford tapped the saucepan of bones impatiently. John Want lowered himself to the floor—grumbling all the way—by a rope attached to the rafters at his bed head. ”

“ One is a dark beauty in the prime of womanhood—the wife of First Lieutenant Crayford, of the Wanderer. The other is a young girl, pale and delicate; dressed simply in white; with no ornament on her head but her own lovely brown hair. This is Miss Clara Burnham—an orphan. She is Mrs. Crayford’s dearest friend, and she is to stay with Mrs. Crayford during the lieutenant’s absence in the Arctic regions. She is now dancing, with the lieutenant himself for partner, and with Mrs. Crayford and Captain Helding (commanding officer of the Wanderer) for vis-a-vis—in plain English, for opposite couple. ”

“ They are going away together, Lucy—away to the eternal ice and snow. My foreboding has come true! The two will meet—the man who is to marry me and the man whose heart I have broken!”
“Your foreboding has not come true, Clara! The men have not met here—the men are not likely to meet elsewhere. They are appointed to separate ships. Frank belongs to the Sea-mew, and Wardour to the Wanderer. See! Captain Helding has done. My husband is coming this way. Let me make sure. Let me speak to him.”
Lieutenant Crayford returned to his wife. She spoke to him instantly. ”

“ He was still lost in his own gloomy thoughts when his wife entered the boat-house. Turning to look at her, he saw his own perturbations and anxieties plainly reflected in Mrs. Crayford’s face.
“Have you seen anything of Clara?” he asked. “Is she still on the beach?”
“She is following me to this place,” Mrs. Crayford replied. “I have been speaking to her this morning. She is just as resolute as ever to insist on your telling her of the circumstances under which Frank is missing. As things are, you have no alternative but to answer her.”
“Help me to answer her, Lucy. ”