Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1876-04-05
Tom Hayward's Proserpine.

Tom Hayward's Proserpine.
"Lower the boat and let her drift"
This was the order given by the captain
of the brig Levant, coasting one cloudy
midsummer night along the western
shore of x. The incredulous
sailor hesitated to obey. A second or
der, brutally made explicit, left him no
choice.
Into the boat the enraged captain had
flung rather than lifted woman and
a child.
"w hat do you say now? ?" he asked,
as the hastily lowered boat rocked gid
div betwixt sea and deck. "Do you
repent your rash oath 2"
''Never!' answered firmly and fear
lessly a woman's calm voice. ~ prefer
this.''
the subaltern, who of all his crew was,
morally as well as physically, his slave;
while, lvid with rage, his face glared
upon the woman one parting look.
The boat was cut loose. The. brig
Levant veered on its tack: the boat,
with its silent burden, fell hopelessly
astern; the rolling waves, the darkness,
fell between.
The woman, hardly more than child
in years-sixteen years she might have
known at the most-remained passively
unobservant, instinctively hugging her
child to her breast. One wild scene
had revealed to her the terrors of Life
and obliterated forever the terrOrs of
Death.
The boat bounded along not urgently.
The sea was not running high, and the
night air was not chilling. The clouds,
lowering closely against the face of the
waters, so as effectually to shut away
all light from the sky, were surcharged,
il seemed, with gentlest rain. Death
was inevitable, but it was not harsh.
To 90 down into the oblivion-bearing
embrace of the sea, to sink deep into
the bosom of the never-ceasing sleep
what were the few pangs that might
mark against the heart the edge of this
engulfing? Was there anything to be
feared after that? All terrible aspects
of destruction had passed in the parting
glare of one human face.
"My baby, too" contentedly sighed
the girl.
What was it, then, that made her
suddenly start and quake? Nothing
but sensation of cold against the palm
of her left hand, that had lovingly laid
dormant beside the babes foot-a sem
sation of strange cold, startling her
nerves, piercing her heart, from the
little baby's foot.
BY one of those singular transitions
that only the most subtle analysis of
mental mechanism can unveil, sudden
change occurred in the outcast girl,
areusing her from stupid apathy TO
eager life.
'sThe land-where is the land? ?" her
lips gasped, while her eyes, grown sud
denly intense, peered through the
glooming space. Surely they were
drifting shoreward. Surely she saw
the looming of great rocks. Yes, and
now the flashing of light.
They were borne in bravely on the
upbearing. One great wave, and now
another, friendly and gigantic, lifted
the boat upon its shoulders and urged
it on. Only the rocks were opposing
bars. On each bar the pillows broke
with a shock On these bars the boat
was stricken plank from plank; but the
girl, with a voice rendered keen by the
motherly pang at her breast, sent shrek
and scream through the night, with her
eyes fixed on the light, crying, "Help!
helpi helpi'
Tom HAYWARD, one of the most mat
ter-of-fact men among mortals, had
what he did not believe in at ala
presentiment that night. He was sit
ting idly smoking a cigar in the sea-
ward verandah of his hotel with few
lounging companions, who had been
persuading him, forbidding as the
weather was, to go to the theatre of an
adjacent town to see star actress in
provincial cast; and he had been lazily
considering whether to accept the pro-
position, when sudden impulse, strong
enough to impel him from his noncha-
liant attitude resolutely to his feet,
struck him with this clearly expressed
intent:
Excuse me, for I must go down to
nv cave. | have left D-'s manu-
script and Rs packet of African
rough diamonds upon my eseritoire
shelf, and the postern gate unlocked.
He declined the proposal for the even
ing in town peremptorily, and went
towards the cliffs. "Confound my cul-
pable inertia!' he muttered to himself;
Fit has bred these incoherent yagaries
of the brain. What made me think that
some one is knocking at the sea gate to
night, knocking and crying for help!
Not an ocular illusion, certainly; an
auricular illusion / have never heard
of. | suppose such complaint may
exist. A nervous irritation OF the tym-
panum this undoubtedly is. The sounds
were low, but so distinct. At any rate,
| am on the track,
Walking at a brisk pace, Tom Hay
ward turned from paved causeway OF
a high road that stretched over the
bluffs mile or more beyond the hotel,
strobe across sunburned moorland
into devious seaward path, and, leap
ing down sharp hewn steps in the rock,
encountered a door formidably con-
structed of iron, the "postern gate
left this night accidentally unlocked-
that opened into a masonried passage
connecting the beetling crags with the
subterranean vault known as Haywards
Cave.
Under the seaward gate Of this cavern
in the cliff lay horseshoe-shaped cur
vature of beach. And on this beach
iom Hayward, answering vague cry
ior help, inaudible save to an inward
sense, whose existence had forced itself
into recognition for the first time in his
HE, found girl in clothing drenched