The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1899-03-28
MIRIAM'S DREAM.


Miriam laughed gleefully. She and
her Dick had been separated for three
years, and now he had fallen into a
good berth at Toronto and had written
to her to decide whether they should
both spend their winter in loneliness or
whether she would go to him and set
tie down at once as his wife.
Miriam did not hesitate a moment.
She set aside the shortest time possible
for winding up her affairs in England
and arranged to sail in the Sivonian
from Liverpool to Halifax.
"But you'll have a dreadful overland
journey after that. 1t must be a long
way to Toronto" said her friend Nora.
81 don't know how you'll get through
all by yourself"
"Ah, but I'm not going to. Dick has
been sent by his firm to New York on
some business, and he intends to take a
berth in the Meldrum, a coasting
steamer, which will bring him to Hall
fax about the same time that 1 get
there"
Miriam was in a fever of joy and was
altogether oblivious of such small mat
tiers as intense cold, a pitching, rolling
ship and battened down matches. The
good ship fought gayly through a
stormy, ice threatened sea, and at last
q morning broke when the sun shone
fair and the waves sank into a COM
parative calm. Passengers swarmed on
deck, congratulating each other on their
escape from prison, and the anxious
captain sighed with relief to think that
the worst was over. He was upon his
bridge, stamping up and down to keep
the blood circulating in his feet, when
ahead of them he saw a strange speck
dancing on the waves.
AS he drew nearer he found it an APP
parently empty boat, and he sent off
one of his boats to tow the stranger to
the steamer. When it reached the side,
however, the limp form of a sailor was
lifted from it. Under care and good
treatment the blood began to run again
through his stiff veins, and he was able
to tell what had befallen him. But be-
fore that happened his boat had been
landed ON deck, and the name upon it
Meldrum-made known.
"How funnyl' cried Miriam. ga
steamer sailing from New York to Hal
flax is named Meldrum."
"Aye, missile" said a sailor omi-
nously, land this is n of her boats.
"But how can it be? How could it
have got loose out hereF'
eff that poor chap lives he can tell
us that, and no one else perhaps"
After some time the sailors words
began to beat into Miriam's stupefied
brain. She tried to speak to some one
standing near, but her tongue would
not move, only her knees shook so much
that she nearly fell. Her neighbor drew
her to a seat.
SIS the Medium wreckedP" Miriam
asked, with tragic eyes.
81 do not know, but 1 hope not. That
poor fellow will tell us, if he lives"
That evening it was known that the
Medium had collided with another
vessel in the storm, and that, although
all the boats had been lowered, they
had one after another been swamped.
The rescued sailor had just jumped into
n when its ropes snapped, and he
was therefore the only person saved.
The stewardess took the tidings with
a cup of tea to Miriam as she lay inert
and despairing on her sofa, and she let
the woman gossip out her news without
uttering a sound. AT last the stewardess
went away, and Miriam lay still, not
thinking, only suffering.
Later she crawled into her bed,
where, through the night, visions of
Dick, as a boy, as a youth, as a man,
rushed through her mind. Sometimes
she saw his face shining through the
darkness, but when she clasped him
round the neck he was cold as ice and
wet with salt water.
Then she was out on the upper deck
and not alone. By her side stood some
one-a huge man, a giant, who seemed
to reach to the sky. His clothes changed
their color from light to dark, from
black to brown, His great body undu-
lated all the time, and when he put his
arm round her he seemed to be sur
rounded with a dry, ~suffocating warmth.
Then he pointed a long arm to the
northeast, and seemed to slip farther
and farther away, though he still stood
by her side; the monster heightened
into miles; Miriam followed him with
straining eyes, when a fash of light
ming lit up the sky and sea. 1t played
for a moment round a distant spot,
which the giant was touching, and in
4l~4 ,,oo,.,,o% ,ba o-- 4,o4r-o rrISol
she never forgot.
In the little circle of light a boat rock
ed helplessly upon the waters. Under a
sail were crouched some dozen people,
trying, by budding together, to keep
the warmth in their bodies. She knew
that Dick was there, and called his
name shrilly. There was a sudden
movement in the human heap, a white
face peeped cut, and then the vision
passed.
Miriam lay in her berth, the new
dawn already tightening the sky. Then
feverishly she got up and went IN deck,
to see nothing but the gray sky and
grayer sea, to hear nothing but the
throbbing of the engines and the sough
of the wind and waves. Breakfast time
came, but she needed it not. For hours
she stood ~immovable, gazing to the
northeast over the bulwarks. What did
that dream of hers mean? Was Dick
floating somewhere helplessly, with 9TH
er passengers?
1t was moor when the wind, veering,
sent a cloud of smoke over her head
and a shower of black smudges upon
her hands. With them came a passing
sensation of warmth. This slight Incl
nected with her dream. The black col
umn of smoke, changing at its edges to
brown, thinning out until she could see
the gray sky through it, starting ever
from her side and yet reaching far into
the distance, caught her eye.
Inspiration followed quickly. The
smoke was the giant of the night be-
fore, and where it pointed lay Dick and
his compartment Sight danced into her
eyes, hope beat strongly in her heart.
She turned a glorified face to the ship.
What could she do2 How save them?
She saw a foot surmounted by blue
cloth moving methodically ON the deck
above, and in a moment flew up the
stairs leading to the captains bridge.
The captain turned round sharply at
the sound of strange footsteps, and per-
emptorily ordered her down. Clutching
his arm she cried:
"Captainl They are out there, under
the line of smoke A dozen survivors Of