CHAPTER XIII

THE NEWCOMER

He could not move for a moment, then he sprang to his feet and ran

towards her. She looked pale and dazed, and she held something in her

arms; something wrapped up in her scarf. As he pressed her to him, the

something in the bundle struggled against his breast and emitted a

squall—just like the squall of a cat. He drew back, and Emmeline,

tenderly moving her scarf a bit aside, exposed a wee face. It was

brick-red and wrinkled; there were two bright eyes, and a tuft of dark

hair over the forehead. Then the eyes closed, the face screwed itself

up, and the thing sneezed twice.

“Where did you _get_ it?” he asked, absolutely lost in astonishment as

she covered the face again gently with the scarf.

“I found it in the woods,” replied Emmeline.

Dumb with amazement, he helped her along to the house, and she sat

down, resting her head against the bamboos of the wall.

“I felt so bad,” she explained; “and then I went off to sit in the

woods, and then I remembered nothing more, and when I woke up it was

there.”

“It’s a baby!” said Dick.

“I know,” replied Emmeline.

Mrs James’s baby, seen in the long ago, had risen up before their

mind’s eyes, a messenger from the past to explain what the new thing

was. Then she told him things—things that completely shattered the old

“cabbage bed” theory, supplanting it with a truth far more wonderful,

far more poetical, too, to he who can appreciate the marvel and the

mystery of life.

“It has something funny tied on to it,” she went on, as if she were

referring to a parcel she had just received.

“Let’s look,” said Dick.

“No,” she replied; “leave it alone.”

She sat rocking the thing gently, seeming oblivious to the whole world,

and quite absorbed in it, as, indeed, was Dick. A physician would have

shuddered, but, perhaps fortunately enough, there was no physician on

the island. Only Nature, and she put everything to rights in her own

time and way.

When Dick had sat marvelling long enough, he set to and lit the fire.

He had eaten nothing since the day before, and he was nearly as

exhausted as the girl. He cooked some breadfruit, there was some cold

fish left over from the day before; this, with some bananas, he served

up on two broad leaves, making Emmeline eat first.

Before they had finished, the creature in the bundle, as though it had

smelt the food, began to scream. Emmeline drew the scarf aside. It

looked hungry; its mouth would now be pinched up and now wide open, its

eyes opened and closed. The girl touched it on the lips with her

finger, and it seized upon her fingertip and sucked it. Her eyes filled

with tears, she looked appealingly at Dick, who was on his knees; he

took a banana, peeled it, broke off a bit and handed it to her. She

approached it to the baby’s mouth. It tried to suck it, failed, blew

bubbles at the sun and squalled.

“Wait a minute,” said Dick.

There were some green cocoa-nuts he had gathered the day before close

by. He took one, removed the green husk, and opened one of the eyes,

making an opening also in the opposite side of the shell. The

unfortunate infant sucked ravenously at the nut, filled its stomach

with the young cocoa-nut juice, vomited violently, and wailed. Emmeline

in despair clasped it to her naked breast, wherefrom, in a moment, it

was hanging like a leech. It knew more about babies than they did.