Chapter V.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 238, 4 November 1876, Page 1

Chapter V.

And now the final stage of tins story draws near. It will not be supposed that those four years had gone over me without leaving deep traces on my character and health. Not unnaturally as I grew older, I became in personal appearance what Jack had been, except that the long, wearing grief of my bereavement, and the unquenched, unsatisfied passion of my revenge had worn me to the shadow of his noble form. More than once, in foreign parts, I had been startled by some voice speaking the name of John Waterton in my ear ; and, turning, found some old shipmate or friend of his eager to grasp his hand. My story carried mourning to every heart that had known his worth : all the more that, now I had the watch for proof, I did not hesitate to hint suspicion that Jack had had foul play. But this relic carried no convictions to their minds : " Most likely," they said, " poor Jack had been compelled to sell or pawn it before it came into the hands of the nigger." What more could I have expected ? Only to me was the convincing Vision known, and of that I did not dare to speak. For more than twelve months had I carried that watch, when, on the voyage home from India I caught a virulent fever. I was taken ashore in a hammock from the P. and 0. steamer in Southampton Water, and lodged in the Infirmary. The fever had spent its force ; but I had long been failing, my health gradually and surely wasting, and this disease only had been wanting to complete the wreck. There were some slight signs, however, of returning strength, and on the second evening after my admission to the hospital I was placed in the convalescent ward. Too feeble both in body and in mind to exert myself, I lay upon my back on the bed pointed out to me as mine. It was already dusk and, the room being long and large, I could not see distinctly any of the occupants, and only knew that there were several by the low murmur of their voices. All else was calm and still ; and for once, while my body was free from pain and excessive weakness, my- mind was tranquil. Never since I had first slept in the ice cave in the Polar Sea had I been so nearly happy, and I remember that my last waking sensation that evening was one of vague, half-wistful, childlike, wonderment, how or why happiness in any degree

should visit me once more. With this question in my thoughts, I fell asleep and dreamed. A pleasant dream at first of meadows where the tali grass and fragrant clover filled the eye avj'Hi beauty and the air with perfume ; where sparkling brooks purling | in their shingly beds, and a hundred merry songsters overhead, made melody in keeping 1 with the glad and glorious sunshine of a cloudless summer's day. Jack and I were boys again, rolling on the luxuriant mead, chasing eaeli other up the gnarled old trees and out upon their broad and brawny arms, paddling barelegged in tha beck, chasing the minnows and bull-heads, frightening the water-rats back to their holes, and anon dashing into the deep water of the pool where we first learned to swim. Then I thought I heard the voices singing in our little church, and Jack and I were standing hand-in-hand by the low, green mouud. beneath which lay j all that remained on earth of that mother whom neither of us had known, but whom we longed to go and meet in heaven. The psalm ceased, and only one voice was heard— coming slowly nearer and nearer, down the aisle, out through the porch, along the church-yard path, round the corner of the nave, and straight on to my mother's grave. I saw the clergyman in his surplice, reading from tin open book ; and behind came those who carried one more dead to the last home. Strangely the dream changed , for I saw my brother, no longer a child, but a tall, sunburnt man, walking as chief mourner ; and then I knew that it was I over whom they were reading the noble words that tell of certain immortality. I was in the grave, the service done ; I heard the lingering footsteps as the mourners turned away ; the sexton took up the work, and the clods fell heavy on my breast. Down, down, down they crushed i and I, who should have been dead, was panting for air, writhing in the agonies of suffocation. With a superhuman effort, I struggled and cried aloud my brother's name — the name was ringing' in the room when I awoke from my dream, and — oh, horror of horrors ! — there, by my bedside, with one gigantic hand pressed down upon my heart, and the other grasping at my throat, and his monstrous eyeballs rolling in mingled hate and terror as he glared upon me, was the black fiend whom I had seen in my vision, when Brother Jack was murdered by his baud ! With sucli strength as I shall never have again, I sprang from his grasp, and we stood face to face, with the narrow bed between us. The monster's dusky visage grew ghastly grey with terror, as lie found breath to cry — " Mas-sa Wa'ton ! Back from dead !" The shouts of the other patients had summoned the attendants from without, and they were hastening to part us, when I held up Jack's watch before the negro's eyes, and transfixed him with the proof. With an appalling yell, he flung up his bony arms, and fell backwards, apparently dead ; but he was only in n fit. When he was roused, he proved to be hopelessly insane, and was removed to an asylum, where lie soon afterwards died.