Captain Ezekiel, the sturdy, brown-bearded skipper of the _Egret_, welcomed the children kindly enough. He hardly knew the wild Heron girl by sight, but he knew all about her, and had learned through Joe Brazybone of her plans for her little brother. Most of the villagers thought it was tomfoolery, and said the appointments of Providence weren’t good enough for Herons, so this girl was going to try and reverse the Lord’s jedgment about her deef-dummy brother. But Captain Ezekiel knew too much for this point of view, and had silenced the talk, as much as he could, and promised the preacher to befriend the two helpless children.
He was a silent man, and, after nodding kindly to Jacob, and telling Isla to make herself at home, he had nothing further to say. As he and his mate hoisted the shining sail, Isla turned to Joe to say good-by.
“Joe,” she said, “you have been so good and kind. I can’t thank you, Joe, but Giles will be glad if he knows.”
Joe did not take the hand she held out to him.
“I—I wasn’t thinkin’ of goin’ back right away, Isly,” he said, shuffling awkwardly about, with his eyes on the deck. “Cap’n ’Zekle, he’s no objection to me goin’ over to the main, he says. I wa’n’t calc’latin’ to go back right yet, ye see.”
“Oh!” said Isla, in surprise. It was years since Joe Brazybone had left the island, and she knew it.
“I didn’t know you had friends over on the main, Joe.”
“Not—not rightly friends, perhaps I shouldn’t call ’em,” Joe admitted, still studying the planks with attention. “But—well” (and his face brightened visibly), “I ain’t got no enemies. There’s where it is, you see, Isly, I ain’t got no enemies, so there’s nothin’ to hender my goin’ over to the main, so long as Cap’n Zekle has no objection.”
He drew a long breath after this statement, and ventured to steal a look at Isla out of the corner of his eye. But Isla thought little of what he said. She accepted the homage of the queer man who had loved her father; it seemed entirely natural that Joe Brazybone should be devoted to her; but she gave him little thought beyond a kindly feeling, and a consciousness that she could make him happy for a day by smiling and nodding to him, even though she seldom spoke. Now she had said far more than usual, and she thought no more of his matters. Her thoughts still flew forward to the new life, the prisoned life in which Jacob would be all her sun and air, her world, her joy, as she would be his. But her eyes turned backward with passionate longing toward the home that they were leaving. The schooner moved swiftly, sailing along the southern shore. Now they were coming to the South Rocks, her own rocks, where half of her heart must stay, while her body went on, away. They passed the opening of the Dead Valley. It seemed as if the sleeping mammoths must rise from their long slumber and call to her; as if every crag and cliff, every ragged, friendly tree, must see her desertion and cry out upon it. Her eyes strained backward as the schooner flew, the heart seemed torn out of her breast. See! The ravens, rising from a tufted fir, and sailing slowly above the valley. Were they looking for her? Would they know why she had gone, how it killed her to go? Now the wild birds flapped toward the shore, uttering a harsh cry; and it smote on the girl’s heart like a reproach. An answering cry rose to her lips, but she forced it back, and, turning resolutely away, fixed her eyes on little Jacob’s face. The boy was smiling happily at the bright waves as they rose and fell around the schooner; and Isla took his hand in hers and saw her sunshine in his face.