"Oh! thank you, sir, this is plain speaking. I am to forget honor and plighted faith; and then you will trust me with your secrets, when I have shown myself unworthy to be trusted with anything. Keep your secrets, and I'll try and keep faith; ay, and I shall keep it, too, as long as there's life in my body."
"Can't you keep faith without torturing me, who love you?"
Helen's bosom began to heave at this, but she fought bravely. "Love me less, and respect me more," said she, panting; "you affront me, you frighten me. I looked on you as a brother, a dear brother. But now I am afraid of you-- I am afraid "
He was so injudicious as to interrupt her, instead of giving her time to contradict herself. "You have nothing to fear," said he; "keep this side of the island, and I'll live on the other, rather than hear the name of Arthur Wardlaw."
Helen's courage failed her at that spirited proposal, and she made no reply at all, but turned her back haughtily, and went away from him, only, when she had got a little way, her proud head drooped, and she went crying.
A coolness sprang up between them, and neither of them knew how to end it. Hazel saw no way to serve her now, except by flying weighted ducks, and he gave his mind so to this that one day he told her he had twenty-seven ducks in the air, all charged, and two-thirds of them weighted. He thought that must please her now. To his surprise and annoyance, she received the intelligence coldly, and asked him whether it was not cruel to the birds.
Hazel colored with mortification at his great act of self-denial being so received.
He said, "I don't think my worst enemy can say I am wantonly cruel to God's creatures."
Helen threw in, deftly, "And I am not your worst enemy."
"But what other way is there to liberate you from this island, where you have nobody to speak to but me? Well, selfishness is the best course.
Think only of others, and you are sure not to please them."
"If you want to please people, you must begin by understanding them," said the lady, not ill-naturedly.
"But if they don't understand themselves?"
"Then pity them; you can, for you are a man."
"What hurts me," said Hazel, "is that you really seem to think I fly these ducks for my pleasure. Why, if I had my wish, you and I should never leave this island, nor any other person set a foot on it. I am frank, you see."
"Rather too frank."
"What does it matter, since I do my duty all the same, and fly the ducks?
But sometimes I do yearn for a word of praise for it; and that word never comes."
"It is a praiseworthy act," said Helen, but so icily that it is a wonder he ever flew another duck after that.
"No matter," said he, and his hand involuntarily sought his heart; "you read me a sharp but wholesome lesson, that we should do our duty for our duty's sake. And as I am quite sure it is my duty to liberate you and restore you to those you-- I'll fly three ducks to-morrow morning instead of two."
"It is not done by my advice," said Helen. "You will certainly make yourself ill."
"Oh, that is all nonsense!" said Hazel.
"You are rude to me," said Helen, and I am not aware that I deserve it."
"Rude, am I? Then I'll say no more," said Hazel, half humbly, half doggedly.
His parchment was exhausted, and he was driven to another expedient. He obtained alcohol by distillation from rum, and having found dragon's blood in its pure state, little ruby drops, made a deep red varnish that defied water; he got slips of bark, white inside, cut his inscription deep on the inner side, and filled the incised letters with this red varnish. He had forty-eight ducks in the air, and was rising before daybreak to catch another couple, when he was seized with a pain in the right hip and knee, and found he could hardly walk, so he gave in that morning, and kept about the premises. But he got worse, and he had hardly any use in his right side, from the waist downward, and was in great pain.
As the day wore on, the pain and loss of power increased, and resisted all his remedies; there was no fever to speak of; but Nature was grimly revenging herself for many a gentler warning neglected. When he realized his condition, he was terribly cut up, and sat on the sand with his head in his hands for nearly two hours. But, after that period of despondency, he got up, took his boat-hook, and, using it as a staff, hobbled to his arsenal, and set to work.
Among his materials was a young tree he had pulled up; the roots ran at right angles to the stem. He just sawed off the ends of the roots, and then proceeded to shorten the stem.
But meantime Helen, who had always a secret eye on him and his movements, had seen there was something wrong, and came timidly and asked what was the matter.
"Nothing," said he, doggedly.
"Then why did you sit so long on the sand? I never saw you like that."
