It was quite dark when the rolling thunder awoke the sleeper, and with a scream of horror she sprang to her feet to find her alluring dreams, her fancied bliss, all dispelled as the realities of danger burst upon her. She called loudly, but the sea gave only a dismal echo to her ears; she shouted but the deep-toned thunders alone sent back a reply. Where now was the brightness that had so dazzled her? The sunbeams had gathered up all their sparkling gems and with them had disappeared! The music of the waves had died away, the little song which a few hours before had bubbled up in her joyous heart was hushed, and all was darkness and gloom. Ah, little mariner, life is full of just such changes! Sunshine and tempest – noonday and darkness; all intermingling their lights and shades! Thy first great lesson is a sad one, but it will never leave thee. Better so than that it should be only half learned.
Phebe lay in the bottom of the boat famished with hunger, wet with the drenching rain, pale and sick, when the captain of a gallant yacht which had "laid to" during the storm, espied from its deck a little speck far away to leeward, apparently lying still upon the waters.
"I say, Thornton," he remarked to a shipmate near him; "isn't that a boat off yonder? Here – take the glass! I can hardly make it out. But it's something, whether there's any life about it or not."
"Yes, it's a boat clear enough," replied his companion eyeing it intently; "but I imagine it's one that has been washed from some ship during the storm for there is nothing alive about it as I can see."
"I think you are right so we'll leave it to its fate."
In a few moments the beautiful craft had disappeared and the little boat with its helpless occupant was left unheeded except by Him who permits not a sparrow to fall to the ground without his notice. Ah – thy fate was near thee, little one but the unseen hand has removed it and it is well! Through the waves the yacht ploughed its way, for the breakers were rushing back from the shore and all on board save one returned to their berths for the rest that had been deprived them by the howling winds and the tossing of the staunch hull which the day before had seemed so sure and safe in its strength, but which the billows bore high on their foaming crests, then dashed as a helpless thing into the dark furrows the storm-king had ploughed out from the angry deep as he marched onward! O the horrors of a night spent amid a "storm at sea!"
Seated in one of the state rooms was a tall, queenly woman, robed in a rich deshabille of gray silk, with her elbow resting on the window sill, her hand supporting the head that bent wearily upon it, while her dark eyes gazed through the heavy plate glass out upon the black waters that kept dashing and surging against the victorious yacht proudly crushing the intruding waves that presumed to cross its pathway.
"Mother," said a winning voice near, "why will you not lie down awhile before breakfast? The danger is all over, and listen! Hear how calmly the seamen walk the deck! I presume everyone has concluded to make up for the fearful lying awake and will not be astir for two hours at least. Come Mother!"
"No – I can rest here! We shall be out another night, and it may be two," was the desponding reply.
"You used to sing 'life on the ocean wave' Mother, and I remember your saying once that you had no sympathy with Headley who declared that 'to sing that song by a good warm fire and being in it were two very different experiences,' for you rather enjoyed the one you passed through during your first voyage."
"Yes, child, I remember! I was not as old then as now;" and she might have added "and not as guilty then as now;" but they passed on.
It was nearly noon before a coasting vessel came in sight, and spying the little boat that was floating amid the waves the kind-hearted captain ordered three sturdy tars to go and capture it.
"Not so great a job as we've had sometimes," remarked one playfully.
"Pull away boys, see – there is something in the bottom! Steady, – " and as they came alongside the speaker sprang into the boat.
"Och – but she's dead!" exclaimed Mike, as he raised the insensible child in his arms. "She is! Look at her, shipmates," he continued bringing her forward as he would a coil of rope.
"There isn't a bit of color in her face under the dirt; poor wee thing!" and he passed her over to a man with a very brown, weather-beaten face, who laid her tenderly on some blankets and began chafing her hands.
"She is alive, boys," he said a few minutes after; "here Mike – pass me that little bottle I saw you put in your pocket this morning, it looked to me like very good brandy," he continued with a laugh, at the same time reaching out for it.
"Sorra a bit of brandy!"
"Never mind, pass it over, whatever it is. For once I'll not expose you for the good it may do now." The small bottle was passed and the kind man placed it to the lips of the insensible girl.
"Drink it, child," he said in tones as low and soft as a woman's; "it will make you well."
She did not hear him; yet she did swallow the few drops that were turned into her mouth, and the good man's predictions proved correct, for in a few moments she opened her eyes, but turned her head, hid her face in the blankets on which she was lying.
"She is afraid of our hard old faces," remarked the sailor who was bending over her; "but we will soon be where there will be more agreeable ones. Give way, boys, they are waiting for us," and rising, he left the "wee" stranger to herself.
"I should think she would have got used to ugly faces if she has been where there's a glass," remarked the third of the party, rather cruelly, but laughing and good-natured. They reached the schooner, and the wearied child was handed on board, amid many exclamations and intermingling remarks of sympathy and astonishment.
There were two women down in the small cabin; one the wife of Mike, who, in accordance with the kindness natural to her people, took the little outcast mariner under her especial care, and, with feminine instincts, provided for her wants.
The next few days the diminutive figure of Phebe Blunt sat upon the dark, dingy chest beneath the small narrow window in the cabin, looking out upon the blue, blue sea her beating heart so much loved, as it gathered up the jewels of emerald, and gold, and crystal pearls which the sunbeams scattered upon the wavelets' snowy crests, and with them her fancy built a palace of its own, to which in after years memory would often return and bear away some precious stones to adorn her sober real life.
"Ye're a strange child," said Cathreen, one day, after watching her for a long time, as she sat coiled up on the heavy chest, her large eyes peering from the window at the dark waters over which they were sailing. "What makes ye look so much at the sea? I'd rather see the land any time; and I wouldn't care a farthing if I never put my eyes on a bit of water again as long as I live." The child turned her beaming face towards the speaker with an expression of wonder and incredulity playing over it.
"How can it?" she asked at last, as her little brown hands brushed back the mass of dark hair from her broad forehead.
"Can what?" and the two women laughed heartily.
"Walk on the water. I couldn't, and I don't believe He could," and the bewildered gaze was turned again out of the narrow window.
"Who, child? Are you beside yourself?"
"He! Lutie Grant's mother said He walked on the great sea, but I don't believe it. How could He? I can't."
"Ye don't know what ye're talking about."
"Yes she does," interrupted the other. "It's Christ, the Bible tells about."
"And he used to love little girls, and took 'em up and kissed 'em; she said so; but, pshaw! that's nothing! Maria kissed me once, but 'twasn't much. I'd like to walk on the water, though," and again the eyes sought the far-off, and dropping her head upon her arms sat motionless as before.
"She's a puzzle," remarked Cathreen as she went about her work.
"I'd