CHAPTER XXXVI. THE EVENING STAR.

The mails in the State of North Carolina, like the prudential arrangements of the slave states generally, were very little to be depended upon; and therefore a week had elapsed after the mailing of Nina's first letter, describing the danger of her condition, before it was received by Clayton. During that time the fury of the shock which had struck the plantation appeared to have abated; and, while on some estates in the vicinity it was yet on the increase, the inhabitants of Canema began to hope that the awful cloud was departing from them. It was true that many were still ailing; but there were no new cases, and the disease in the case of those who were ill appeared to be yielding to nursing and remedies.

Nina had risen in the morning early, as her custom had been since the sickness, and gone the rounds, to inquire for the health of her people. Returned, a little fatigued, she was sitting in the veranda, under the shadow of one of the pillar-roses, enjoying the cool freshness of the morning. Suddenly the tramp of horse's feet was heard, and, looking, she saw Clayton coming up the avenue. There seemed but a dizzy, confused moment, before his horse's bridle was thrown to the winds, and he was up the steps, holding her in his arms.

"Oh, you are here yet, my rose, my bride, my lamb! God is merciful! This is too much! Oh, I thought you were gone!"

"No, dear, not yet," said Nina. "God has been with us. We have lost a great many; but God has spared me to you."

"Are you really well?" said Clayton, holding her off, and looking at her. "You look pale, my little rose!"

"That's not wonderful," said Nina; "I've had a great deal to make me look pale; but I am very well. I have been well through it all—never in better health—and, it seems strange to say it, but never happier. I have felt so peaceful, so sure of God's love!"

"Do you know," said Clayton, "that that peace alarms me—that strange, unearthly happiness? It seems so like what is given to dying people."

"No," said Nina, "I think that when we have no one but our Father to lean on, he comes nearer than he does any other time; and that is the secret of this happiness. But, come,—you look wofully tired; have you been riding all night?"

"Yes, ever since yesterday morning at nine o'clock. I have ridden down four horses to get to you. Only think, I didn't get your letter till a week after it was dated!"

"Well, perhaps that was the best," said Nina; "because I have heard them say that anybody coming suddenly and unprepared in the epidemic, when it is in full force, is almost sure to be taken by it immediately. But you must let me take care of you. Don't you know that I'm mistress of the fortress here—commander-in-chief and head-physician? I shall order you to your room immediately, and Milly shall bring you up some coffee, and then you must have some sleep. You can see with your eyes, now, that we are all safe, and there's nothing to hinder your resting. Come, let me lead you off, like a captive."

Released from the pressure of overwhelming fear, Clayton began now to feel the reaction of the bodily and mental straining which he had been enduring for the last twenty-four hours, and therefore he willingly yielded himself to the directions of his little sovereign. Retired to his room, after taking his coffee, which was served by Milly, he fell into a deep and tranquil sleep, which lasted till some time in the afternoon. At first, overcome by fatigue, he slept without dreaming; but, when the first weariness was past, the excitement of the nervous system, under which he had been laboring, began to color his dreams with vague and tumultuous images. He thought that he was again with Nina at Magnolia Grove, and that the servants were passing around in procession, throwing flowers at their feet; but the wreath of orange-blossoms which fell in Nina's lap was tied with black crape. But she took it up, laughing, threw the crape away, and put the wreath on her head, and he heard the chorus singing,—

"Oh, de North Carolina rose!

Oh, de North Carolina rose!"

And then the sound seemed to change to one of lamentation, and the floral procession seemed to be a funeral, and a deep, melancholy voice, like the one he had heard in the woods in the morning, sang,—

"Weep, for the rose is withered!

The North Carolina rose!"

He struggled heavily in his sleep, and, at last waking, sat up and looked about him. The rays of the evening sun were shining on the tree-tops of the distant avenue, and Nina was singing on the veranda below. He listened, and the sound floated up like a rose-leaf carried on a breeze:—

"The summer hath its heavy cloud,

The rose-leaf must fall,

But in our land joy wears no shroud—

Never doth it pall!

Each new morning ray

Leaves no sigh for yesterday—

No smile passed away

Would we recall!"

The time was a favorite melody, which has found much favor with the popular ear, and bore the title of "The Hindoo Dancing-Girl's Song;" and is, perhaps, a fragment of one of those mystical songs in which oriental literature abounds, in which the joy and reunion of earthly love are told in shadowy, symbolic resemblance to the everlasting union of the blessed above. It had a wild, dreamy, soothing power, as verse after verse came floating in, like white doves from paradise, as if they had borne healing on their wings:—

"Then haste to the happy land,

Where sorrow is unknown;

But first in a joyous band,

I'll make thee my own.

Haste, haste, fly with me

Where love's banquet waits for thee;

Thine all its sweets shall be,—

Thine, thine, alone!"

A low tap at his door at last aroused him. The door was partly opened, and a little hand threw in a half-opened spray of monthly-rosebuds.

"There's something to remind you that you are yet in the body!" said a voice in the entry. "If you are rested, I'll let you come down, now."

And Clayton heard the light footsteps tripping down the stairs. He roused himself, and, after some little attention to his toilet, appeared on the veranda.

"Tea has been waiting for some time," said Nina. "I thought I'd give you a hint."

"I was lying very happy, hearing you sing," said Clayton. "You may sing me that song again."

"Was I singing?" said Nina; "why I didn't know it! I believe that's my way of thinking, sometimes. I'll sing to you again, after tea. I like to sing."

After tea they were sitting again in the veranda, and the whole heavens were one rosy flush of filmy clouds.

"How beautiful!" said Nina. "It seems to me I've enjoyed these things, this summer, as I never have before. It seemed as if I felt an influence from them going through me, and filling me, as the light does those clouds."

And, as she stood looking up into the sky, she began singing again the words that Clayton had heard before:—

"I am come from the happy land,

Where sorrow is unknown;

I have parted a joyous band,

To make thee mine own!

Haste, haste, fly with me,

Where love's banquet waits for thee;

Thine all its sweets shall be,—

Thine, thine, alone!

"The summer has its heavy cloud,

The rose-leaf must fall,"—

She stopped her singing suddenly, left the veranda, and went into the house.

"Do you want anything?" said Clayton.

"Nothing," said she, hurriedly. "I'll be back in a moment."

Clayton watched, and saw her go to a closet in which the medicines and cordials were kept, and take something from a glass. He gave a start of alarm.

"You are not ill, are you?" he said, fearfully, as she returned.

"Oh, no; only a little faint. We have become so prudent, you know, that if we feel the least beginning of any disagreeable sensation, we take something at once. I have felt this faintness quite often. It isn't much."

Clayton put his arm around her, and looked at her with a vague yearning of fear and admiration.

"You look so like a spirit," he said, "that I must hold you."

"Do you think I've got a pair of hidden wings?" she said, smiling, and looking gayly in his face.

"I am afraid so!" he said. "Do you feel quite well, now?"

"Yes, I believe so. Only, perhaps, we had better sit down. I think, perhaps, it is the reaction of so much excitement makes me feel rather tired."

Clayton seated her on the settee by the door, still keeping his arm anxiously around her. In a few moments she drooped her head wearily on his shoulder.

"You are ill!" he said, in tones of alarm.

"No, no! I feel very well—only a little faint and tired. It seems to me it is getting a little cold here, isn't it?" she said, with a slight shiver.

Clayton took her up in his arms, without speaking, carried her in and laid her on the sofa, then rang for Harry and Milly.

"Get a horse, instantly," he said to Harry, as soon as he appeared, "and go for a doctor!"

"There's no use in sending," said Nina; "he is driven to death, and can't come. Besides, there's nothing the matter with me, only I am a little tired and cold. Shut the doors and windows, and cover me up. No, no, don't take me up stairs! I like to lie here; just put a shawl over me, that's all. I am thirsty,—give me some water!"

The fearful and mysterious disease, which was then in the ascendant, has many forms of approach and development. One, and the most deadly, is that which takes place when a person has so long and gradually imbibed the fatal poison of an infected atmosphere, that the resisting powers of nature have been insidiously and quietly subdued, so that the subject sinks under it, without any violent outward symptom, by a quiet and certain yielding of the vital powers, such as has been likened to the bleeding to death by an internal wound. In this case, before an hour had passed, though none of the violent and distressing symptoms of the disease appeared, it became evident that the seal of death was set on that fair young brow. A messenger had been dispatched, riding with the desperate speed which love and fear can give, but Harry remained in attendance.

"Nothing is the matter with me—nothing is the matter," she said, "except fatigue, and this change in the weather. If I only had more over me! and, perhaps, you had better give me a little brandy, or some such thing. This is water, isn't it, that you have been giving me?"

Alas! it was the strongest brandy; but there was no taste, and the hartshorn that they were holding had no smell. And there was no change in the weather; it was only the creeping deadness, affecting the whole outer and inner membrane of the system. Yet still her voice remained clear, though her mind occasionally wandered.

There is a strange impulse, which sometimes comes in the restlessness and distress of dissolving nature, to sing; and, as she lay with her eyes closed, apparently in a sort of trance, she would sing, over and over again, the verse of the song which she was singing when the blow of the unseen destroyer first struck her.

"The summer hath its heavy cloud,

The rose-leaf must fall;

But in our land joy wears no shroud,

Never doth it pall."

At last she opened her eyes, and, seeing the agony of all around, the truth seemed to come to her.

"I think I'm called!" she said. "Oh, I'm so sorry for you all! Don't grieve so; my Father loves me so well,—he cannot spare me any longer. He wants me to come to him. That's all—don't grieve so. It's home I'm going to—home! 'Twill be only a little while, and you'll come too, all of you. You are satisfied, are you not, Edward?"

And again she relapsed into the dreamy trance, and sang, in that strange, sweet voice, so low, so weak,—

"In our land joy wears no shroud,

Never doth it pall."

Clayton,—what did he? What could he do? What have any of us done, who have sat holding in our arms a dear form, from which the soul was passing—the soul for which gladly we would have given our own in exchange! When we have felt it going with inconceivable rapidity from us; and we, ignorant and blind, vainly striving, with this and that, to arrest the inevitable doom, feeling every moment that some other thing might be done to save, which is not done, and that that which we are doing may be only hastening the course of the destroyer! Oh, those awful, agonized moments, when we watch the clock, and no physician comes, and every stroke of the pendulum is like the approaching step of death! Oh, is there anything in heaven or earth for the despair of such hours?

Not a moment was lost by the three around that dying bed, chafing those cold limbs, administering the stimulants which the dead, exhausted system no longer felt.

"She doesn't suffer! Thank God, at any rate, for that!" said Clayton, as he knelt over her in anguish.

A beautiful smile passed over her face, as she opened her eyes and looked on them all, and said,—

"No, my poor friends, I don't suffer. I'm come to the land where they never suffer. I'm only so sorry for you! Edward," she said to him, "do you remember what you said to me once?—It has come now. You must bear it like a man. God calls you to some work—don't shrink from it. You are baptized with fire. It all lasts only a little while. It will be over soon, very soon! Edward, take care of my poor people. Tell Tom to be kind to them. My poor, faithful, good Harry! Oh! I'm going so fast!"

The voice sunk into a whispering sigh. Life now seemed to have retreated to the citadel of the brain. She lay apparently in the last sleep, when the footsteps of the doctor were heard on the veranda. There was a general spring to the door, and Dr. Butler entered, pale, haggard, and worn, from constant exertion and loss of rest.

He did not say in words that there was no hope, but his first dejected look said it but too plainly.

She moved her head a little, like one who is asleep uneasily upon her pillow, opened her eyes once more, and said,—

"Good by! I will arise and go to my Father!"

The gentle breath gradually became fainter and fainter,—all hope was over! The night walked on with silent and solemn footsteps—soft showers fell without, murmuring upon the leaves—within, all was still as death!

"They watched her breathing through the night,

Her breathing soft and low,

As in her breast the wave of life

Kept heaving to and fro.

"So silently they seemed to speak,

So slowly moved about,

As they had lent her half their powers

To eke her living out.

"Their very hopes belied their fears,

Their fears their hopes belied—

They thought her dying when she slept,

And sleeping when she died.

"For when the morn came dim and sad,

And chill with early showers,

Her quiet eyelids closed—she had

Another morn than ours."