Mary Grant could not reply; sobs choked her utterance. A thousand emotions agitated her soul at the thought that new attempts would be made to find her father, and that the young captain’s devotion was boundless.
“Does Mr. John still hope?” asked she.
“Yes,” replied Robert. “He is a brother who will never forsake us. I shall be a sailor, shall I not, sister—a sailor to seek my father with him? Are you willing?”
“Yes,” said Mary. “But must we be separated?”
“You will not be alone, Mary, I know. John has told me so. Lady Helena will not permit you to leave her. You are a woman, and can and ought to accept her benefits. To refuse them would be ungrateful. But a man, as my father has told me a hundred times, ought to make his own fortune.”
“But what will become of our house at Dundee, so full of associations?”
“We will keep it, my sister. All that has been well arranged by our friend John and Lord Glenarvan, who will keep you at Malcolm Castle like a daughter. He said so to John, who told me. You will be at home there, and wait till John and I bring back our father. Ah, what a joyful day that will be!” cried Robert, whose face was radiant with enthusiasm.
“My brother, my child!” exclaimed Mary, “how happy our father would be if he could hear you! How much you resemble him, dear Robert! When you are a man you will be quite like him!”
“God grant it, Mary!” said Robert, glowing with holy and filial pride.
“But how shall we pay our debt to Lord and Lady Glenarvan?” continued Mary.
“Oh, that will not be difficult,” answered Robert, with his boyish impulsiveness. “We will tell them how much we love and respect them, and we will show it to them by our actions.”
“That is all we can do!” added the young girl, covering her brother’s face with kisses; “and all that they will like, too!”
Then, relapsing into reveries, the two children of the captain gazed silently into the shadowy obscurity of the night. However, in fancy they still conversed, questioned, and answered each other. The sea rocked the ship in silence, and the phosphorescent waters glistened in the darkness.
But now a strange, a seemingly supernatural event took place. The brother and sister, by one of those magnetic attractions that mysteriously draw the souls of friends together, experienced at the same instant the same curious hallucination.
From the midst of these alternately brightening and darkening waves, they thought they heard a voice issue, whose depth of sadness stirred every fibre of their hearts.
“Help! help!” cried the voice.
“Mary,” said Robert, “did you hear?”
And, raising their heads above the bulwarks, they both gazed searchingly into the misty shadows of the night. Yet there was nothing but the darkness stretching blankly before them.
“Robert,” said Mary, pale with emotion, “I thought—yes, I thought like you.”
At this moment another cry reached them, and this time the illusion was such that these words broke simultaneously from both their hearts:
“My father! my father!”
This was too much for Mary Grant. Overcome by emotion, she sank senseless into her brother’s arms.
“Help!” cried Robert. “My sister! my father! help!”
The man at the helm hastened to Miss Grant’s assistance, and after him the sailors of the watch, Captain Mangles, Lady Helena, and Lord Glenarvan, who had been suddenly awakened.
“My sister is dying, and my father is yonder!” exclaimed Robert, pointing to the waves.
No one understood his words.
“Yes,” repeated he, “my father is yonder! I heard his voice, and Mary did too!”
Just then Mary Grant recovered consciousness, and, looking wildly around, cried:
“My father, my father is yonder!”
The unfortunate girl arose, and, leaning over the bulwark, would have thrown herself into the sea.
“My lord! Madam!” repeated she, clasping her hands, “I tell you my father is there! I declare to you that I heard his voice issue from the waves like a despairing wail, like a last adieu!”
Then her feelings overcame the poor girl, and she became insensible. They carried her to her cabin, and Lady Helena followed, to minister to her wants, while Robert kept repeating:
“My father! my father is there! I am sure of it, my lord!”
The witnesses of this sorrowful scene perceived at last that the two children had been the sport of an hallucination. But how undeceive their senses, which had been so strongly impressed? Glenarvan, however, attempted it, and taking Robert by the hand, said:
“You heard your father’s voice, my dear boy?”
“Yes, my lord. Yonder, in the midst of the waves, he cried, ‘Help! help!’ ”
“And you recognized the voice?”
“Did I recognize it? Oh, yes, I assure you! My sister heard and recognized it, too. How could both of us be deceived? My lord, let us go to his rescue. A boat! a boat!”
Glenarvan saw plainly that he could not undeceive the poor child. Still, he made a last attempt, and called the helmsman.
“Hawkins,” asked he, “you were at the wheel when Miss Grant was so singularly affected?”
“Yes, my lord,” replied Hawkins.
“And you did not see or hear anything?”
“Nothing.”
“You see how it is, Robert.”
“If it had been his father,” answered the lad, with irrepressible energy, “he would not say so. It was my father, my lord! my father, my father—!”
Robert’s voice was choked by a sob. Pale and speechless, he, too, like his sister, lost consciousness. Glenarvan had him carried to his bed, and the child, overcome by emotion, sank into a profound slumber.
“Poor orphans!” said Captain Mangles; “God tries them in a terrible way!”
“Yes,” replied Glenarvan, “excessive grief has produced upon both at the same moment a similar effect.”
“Upon both!” murmured Paganel. “That is strange!”
Then, leaning forward, after making a sign to keep still, he listened attentively. The silence was profound everywhere. Paganel called in a loud voice, but there was no answer.
“It is strange!” repeated the geographer, returning to his cabin; “an intimate sympathy of thought and grief does not suffice to explain this mystery.”
Early the next morning the passengers (and among them were Robert and
