Fair Play by Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

When Britomarte awoke from that deadly state of insensibility into which the tremendous mental and physical shock had cast her, her recovery seemed like coming back to life in the grave. At first she did not know what sort of creature she was, or what state of existence she had come into. Neither memory nor thought was present with her. There was only a bodily sense of uneasiness, as the air again inflated her collapsed lungs, and the vital current resumed its flow through her damp, chilled and heavy limbs; and a mortal sense of vague despair, impossible to analyze.

Instinctively she turned over and tried to rise; faintly she perceived that the palms of her hands were deep in the moist sand, and that they went deeper as she bore her weight upon them in her efforts to get up. And thus she discovered that she was on the ground.

At length, after several fruitless attempts, she succeeded in lifting herself to a sitting position. And then she looked blindly around. But nothing was to be seen. All was dark as pitch. And nothing was to be heard except the thunder of the sea upon the coast-a sound that impressed her senses like some dimly remembered knell of doom.

She put her hands up to her head, and tried to struggle forth from this state of mental dullness and confusion. She tried to think and remember who she was, what had happened, and how she came to this hades of darkness and desolation! In vain! as well might a newborn infant try to recall the events of its pre-existence, supposing it ever to have had one. With all her striving to come forth from chaos, she could only arrive at a dim, mysterious consciousness of infinite loss and eternal despair. Was she a disembodied spirit, then? Was this really hell? Had she come to it? And for what sin? No, but such spirits had not flesh and blood, as she felt too sensibly that she had.

What then?

The ceaseless beating of the waves upon the shore was a familiar and suggestive sound, and troubled her with glimpses of memory that flitted in and out of her mind like ghosts in a graveyard.

It was a trifle that at last struck the electric chain of association, and restored her to herself. In her blind movements, she touched the inflated life-preserver that was fastened around her waist. And instantly, with a shock of returning life, the whole scene of the catastrophe flashed upon her memory. And she knew that she was cast away upon that dreary coast on which the lifeboat had been struggling all day long, and far into the night, and on which it had finally been wrecked!

But whether this coast was a part of the mainland or of an island; whether it was barren, or clothed with vegetation; whether it was uninhabited, or peopled with cannibals, she did not know and she did not care; or what deadly perils and cruel sufferings from the ruthless savages, or from protracted starvation might await her there, she did not know and did not care.

Instantly, with the flash of memory had come the knowledge of her one great sorrow, the loss of her lover and her beloved! Yes, in this awful hour of doom, Britomarte knew that she loved Justin with an earnestness that outweighed her hatred of his whole sex and her devotion to the sacred rights of her own.

And the cry of her broken heart arose wildly on the dark air, amid the profound stillness of that strange land! -a cry of bitter anguish, not for the fate of all her late companions, too probably perished in the sea; not for the feeling of her own horrible state of danger and desolation worse than death, but for despair at the loss of him whom she loved as only such souls as hers have power to love.

"Gone! gone! gone! Gone out of my way forever! Oh, this is the sorrow I dreaded worse than all others in this dark world! the only sorrow I ever really dreaded! life without him! And now he is gone forever, without one good word from me to let him know how I loved him! Ah! Heaven, how I loved him! " She wrung her hands and tore her beautiful hair, and then flung her arms on high, and cried out again, in the frenzy of longing:

"Justin! Justin! My lover! My beloved! Where are you? Where are you in all space? Are you near me? Can you hear me? Oh, is there no way of piercing the veil? of getting to you, or drawing you to me? Oh, come to me! Oh, hear me! I am telling you what no power could have ever drawn from my lips, Justin, while you were in the flesh! Justin! I am telling you how I loved you! How I loved you! I meant to have died with you on the wreck! I did, Justin! I did, though I would not confess I loved you! I meant to have died with you! Oh, why did you not let me? I cannot, cannot outlive you! Once you said, though you loved me so much, you could live without me, because you were so strong to suffer! But I! oh, now I know that I am not strong. I cannot live without you! and with the memory of my bitter unkindness to you! Justin! Justin! Oh, spirit! wherever you live in boundless space, speak to my spirit!"

She was indeed almost insane in her frenzy of grief, remorse and despair. And but for her deep religious principles, in her fierce anguish she would have run down through the darkness and cast herself headlong into the sea, that she still heard thundering upon the beach.

At last, exhausted by mental and physical trials, she sank down upon the ground and covered her face with her hands, and sat there in mute despair during the remaining dark hours of the night.

Day dawned in that strange place at last.

She lifted up her bowed head and looked around, feeling in the midst of all her misery the same sort of weird curiosity that causes a criminal on his way to the scaffold to look with attention at every object of interest in the range of his vision.