The Light of Scarthey Part 46

"Do not thank me," she exclaimed, glowing with a brilliant scorn in which the greatness of her beauty, all worn as she was, struck him into surprise, yet evoked no spark of admiration. "What I did I did, to gratify myself. Oh, aye, if I were as other women I should smile and take your compliments, and pose as the martyr and as the self-sacrificing devoted sister. But I will not. It was nothing to me how Madeleine got in or out of her love sc.r.a.pes. I would not have gone one step to help her break her promise to you, or even to save your life, but that it pleased me so to do. Madeleine has never chosen to make me her confidant. I would have let her manage her own affairs gaily, had I had better things to occupy my mind--but I had not, Captain Smith. Life at Pulwick is monotonous. I have roaming blood in my veins: the adventure tempted, amused me, fascinated me--and there you have the truth! Of course I could have given the letter to the men and sent them back to you with it--it was not because of my promise that I did not do it. Of course I could have spoken the instant I got on board, perhaps----" here a flood of colour dyed her face with a gorgeous conscious crimson, and a dimple faintly came and went at the corner of her mouth, "perhaps I would have spoken. But then, you must remember, you closed my lips!"

"My G.o.d!" said Captain Jack, and looked at her with a sort of horror.

But this she could not see for her eyes were downcast. "And now that I have come," she went on, and would have added, "I am glad I did," but that all of a sudden a new bashfulness came upon her, and she stammered instead, incoherently: "As for Adrian--Rene knew I had a message for you, and Rene will tell him--he is not stupid--you know--Rene, I mean."

"I am glad," answered the man gravely, after a pause, "if you have reasonable grounds for believing that your husband knows you to be on my s.h.i.+p. He will then be the less anxious at your disappearance: for he knows too, madam, that his wife will be as honoured and as guarded in my charge as she would be in her mother's house."

He bowed again in a stately way and then immediately left her.

Molly sank back upon her couch, and she could not have said why, burst into tears. She felt cold now, and broken, and her stiffening wound pained her. But nevertheless, as she lay upon the little velvet pillow, and wept her rare tears were strangling sobs, the very ache of her wound had a strange savour that she would not have exchanged for any past content.

Rene, having obeyed his mistress's orders, and left her alone with the sailors on the beach, withdrew within the shelter of the door, but remained waiting, near enough to be at hand in case he should be called.

It was still pitch dark and the rollers growled under a rough wind; he could catch the sound of a man's voice, now and again, between the clamour of the sea and the wuthering of the air, but could not distinguish a word. Presently, however, this ceased, and there came to him the unmistakable regular beat of oars retreating. The interview was over, and breathing a sigh of relief at the thought that, at last, his master's friend would soon be setting on his way to safety, the servant emerged to seek her ladys.h.i.+p.

A few minutes later he dashed into Sir Adrian's room with a livid face, and poured forth a confused tale:

Milady had landed without Mademoiselle; had stopped to speak to two of the _Peregrine_, whilst he waited apart. The men had departed in their boat.

"The _Peregrine_ men! But the s.h.i.+p has been out of sight these eight hours!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sir Adrian, bewildered. Then, catching fear from his servant's distraught countenance:

"My wife," he exclaimed, bounding up; and added, "you left her, Renny?"

The man struck his breast: he had searched and called.... My Lady was nowhere to be found. "As G.o.d is my witness," he repeated, "I was within call. My Lady ordered me to leave her. Your honour knows My Lady has to be obeyed."

"Get lanterns!" said Sir Adrian, the anguish of a greater dread driving the blood to his heart. Even to one who knew the ground well, the isle of Scarthey, on a black, stormy night, with the tide high, was no safe wandering ground. For a moment, the two--comrades of so many miserable hours--faced each other with white and haggard faces.

Then with the same deadly fear in their hearts, they hurried out into the soughing wind, down to the beach, baited on all sides by the swift-darting hissing surf. Running their lanterns close to the ground, they soon found, by the trampled marks upon the sand, where the conclave had been held. From thence a double row of heavy footprints led to the shelving bit of beach where it was the custom for boats to land from seawards.

"See, your honour, see," cried Rene, in deepest agitation, "the print of this little shoe, here--and there, and here again, right down to the water's edge. Thank G.o.d--thank G.o.d! My Lady has had no accident.

She has gone with the sailors to the boat. Ah! here the tide has come--we can see no farther."

"But why should she have gone with them?" came, after a moment, Sir Adrian's voice out of the darkness. "Surely that is strange--and yet ... Yes, that is indeed her foot-print in the sand."

"And if your honour will look to sea, he will perceive the s.h.i.+p's lights yonder, upon the water. That is the captain's s.h.i.+p.... Your honour, I must avow to you that I have concealed something from you--it was wrong, indeed, and now I am punished--but that poor Monsieur the Captain, I was so sorry for him, and he so enamoured. He had made a plan to lift off Mademoiselle Madeleine with him to-night, marry her in France; and that was why he came back again, at the risk of his life. He supplicated me not to tell you, for fear you would wish to prevent it, or think it your duty to. Mademoiselle had promised, it seemed, and he was mad with her joy, the poor gentleman!

and as sure of her faith as if she had been a saint in Heaven. But My Lady came alone, your honour, as I said. The courage had failed to Mademoiselle, I suppose, at the last moment, and Madame bore a message to the captain. But the captain was not able to leave his s.h.i.+p, it seems; and, my faith," cried Mr. Potter; his spirits rising, as the first ghastly dread left him, "the mystery explains itself! It is quite simple, your honour will see. As the captain did not come to the island, according to his promise to Mademoiselle--he had good reasons, no doubt--Madame went herself to his s.h.i.+p with her message. She had the spirit for it--Ah! if Mademoiselle had had but a little of it to-night, we should not be where we are!"

Sir Adrian caught at the suggestion out of the depths of his despair.

"You are right, Renny, you must be right. Yet, on this rough sea, in this black night--what madness! The boat, instantly; and let us row for those lights as we never rowed before!"

Even as the words were uttered the treble glimmer vanished. In vain they strained their eyes: save for the luminous streak cast by their own beacon lamp, the gloom was unbroken.

"His honour will see, a boat will be landing instantly with My Lady safe and sound," said Rene at last. But his voice lacked confidence, and Sir Adrian groaned aloud.

And so they stood alone in silence, forced into inaction, that most cruel addition to suspense, by the darkness and the waters which hemmed them in upon every side. The vision of twenty dangerous places where one impetuous footfall might have hurled his darling into the cruel beating waves painted themselves--a hideous phantasmagory--upon Sir Adrian's brain. Had the merciless waters of the earth that had murdered the mother, grasped at the child's life also? He raised his voice in a wild cry, it seemed as if the wind caught it from him and tore it into shreds.

"Hark!" whispered Rene, and clasped his master's icy hand. Like an echo of Sir Adrian's cry, the far-off ring of a human voice had risen from the sea.

Again it came.

"_C'est de la mer, Monseigneur!_" panted the man; even as he spoke the darkness began to lift. Above their heads, unnoticed, the clouds had been rifted apart beneath the breath of the north wind; the horizon widened, a misty wing-like shape was suddenly visible against the receding gloom.

The captain's s.h.i.+p! The _Peregrine_!

As master and man peered outward as if awaiting unconsciously some imminent solution from the gliding spectre, it seemed as if the night suddenly opened on the left to shoot forth a burst of red fire. A few seconds later, the hollow boom of cannon shook the air around them.

Sir Adrian's nails were driven into Rene's hands.

The flaming messenger had carried to both minds an instant knowledge of the new danger.

"Great Heavens!" muttered Adrian. "He will surrender; he must surrender! He could not be so base, so wicked, as to fight and endanger _her_!"

But the servant's keener sight, trained by long stormy nights of watching, was following in its dwindling, mysterious course that misty vision in which he thought to recognize the _Peregrine_.

"_Elle file, elle file joliment la goelette!_ Mother of Heaven, there goes the gun again! I never thought my blood would turn to water only to hear the sound of one like this. But your honour must not be discouraged; he can surely trust the captain. Ah, the clouds--I can see no more."

The wild blast gathering fresh droves of vapour from the huddled ma.s.ses on the horizon was now, in truth, herding them fiercely across the s.p.a.ces it had cleared a few moments before. Confused shouts, strange clamour seemed to ring out across the waves to the listeners: or it might have been only the triumphant howlings of the rising storm.

"Will not your honour come in? The rain is falling."

"No, Renny, no, give me my lantern again, friend, and let us examine anew."

Both knew it to be of no avail, but physically and mentally to move about was, at least, better than to stand still. Step by step they scanned afresh the sand, the s.h.i.+ngle, the rocks, the walls, to return once more to the trace of the slender feet, leading beside the great double track of heavy sea boots to the water's edge.

Sir Adrian knelt down and gazed at the last little imprint that seemed to mock him with the same elusive daintiness as Molly herself, as if he could draw from it the answer to the riddle.

Rene endeavouring to stand between his master and the driving blast laid down his lantern too, and strove by thumping his breast vigorously to infuse a little warmth into his numbed limbs and at the same time to relieve his overcharged feelings.

As he paused at length, out of breath, the noise of a methodical thud and splash of oars arose, above the tumult of the elements, very near to them, upon their left.

Sir Adrian sprang to his feet.

"She returns, she returns," shouted Rene, capering, in the excess of the sudden joy, and waving his lantern; then he sent forth a vigorous hail which was instantly answered close by the sh.o.r.e.

"Hold up your light, your honour--ah, your honour, did I not say it?--while I go to help Madame. Now then, you others down there,"

running to the landing spot, "make for the light!"

The keel ground upon the s.h.i.+ngle.

"My Lady first," shouted Rene.

Some one leaped up in the boat and flung him a rope with a curse.

"The lady, ay, ay, my lad, you'd better go and catch her yourself.

There she goes," pointing enigmatically behind him with his thumb.

Sir Adrian, unable to restrain his impatience, ran forward too, and threw the light of his lantern upon the dark figures now rising one by one and pressing forward. Five or six men, drenched from head to foot, swearing and grumbling; with faces pinched with cold, all lowering with the same expression of anger and resentment and s.h.i.+ning whitely at him out of the confusion. He saw the emptying seats, the s.h.i.+pped oars, the name _Peregrine_ in black letters upon the white paint of the dingey; and she?... she was not there!