We hurried through the supper, and then leaving Mr. Millward comfortably seated in the armchair, I started with Alice for a little walk up to the rising ground to show her a view of the orange grove and plantation buildings which could be seen from this side. Along the old road, a great part of which was overgrown with weeds and straggling volunteer plants from the various crops that had formerly been cultivated here: Indian-corn, tall, tasselled sugar-cane, pink-blossomed tobacco, with great, velvety leaves and up-shooting stalk, an occasional dried cotton plant with shreds of cotton still clinging to the brown bolls, yams run wild and growing in broad green bands of fleshy vine across the path in tropical luxuriance,--these and countless wild weeds and plants not only filled the fields but trenched upon the road.
Before we reached a point at which the groves and houses could well be seen Miss Millward had already gathered a great armful of samples to carry back to the tent that her father might see them. We went along up the road until we came to the remains of a gate,--two upright stones roughly resembling pillars, and having iron hinge-pieces let into one of them. The gate itself had been thrown down at one side. Here we were in full sight of all the buildings, and of the grove of fruit trees. I left her here a few moments while I waded through the weeds to gather a bunch of bananas, some of which were ripe and red. As I came back I saw her beckon to me to hasten; and I ran as fast as I could, until I reached her side.
“Listen,” said she, “I thought just now I heard a cry.”
We listened a moment, and then I heard distinctly, from the direction of the cove, her father’s voice as though calling for help.
“It is father calling us,” she cried, and immediately began running down the road.
I threw down my bunch of bananas and soon passed her, impeded as she was with her skirts and the weeds. I plunged through the last heavy growth of weeds and canes that separated me from a clear view of the tent, and was thunderstruck to behold a man coming toward us from that direction. At first I thought of the pearl-fishers, and feared that violence had perhaps already been done to the helpless Mr. Millward, whose voice we had just heard calling for assistance. My first impulse was to turn back and stop Miss Millward, whom I could hear struggling through the weeds behind me. But in a moment I was still more astonished to recognize in the approaching figure Mr. Millward himself! I do not believe I should have been more surprised to have seen a dead man rise and walk. I had never seen him, you will remember, otherwise than helpless, and my mind was completely habituated so to regard him. Now here he was, upright and walking with apparent firmness toward me. I was inexpressibly astonished, and for the moment quite speechless. I stood there with open mouth staring at him when Miss Millward came panting through the weeds to my side.
