The King of Diamonds Part 51

The dreamer uttered a wild beast's howl, and shrank away.

Then he awoke to find Willie standing by his bedside with soothing words.

"It is all right, father. You were disturbed in your sleep. Don't get up yet. It is only five o'clock."

At that hour a policeman left his cottage in a village on the Yorks.h.i.+re coast, and walked leisurely toward the Grange House.

He traversed four miles of rough country, and the sun was hot, so he did not hurry. About half-past six he reached the farm. There were no signs of activity such as may be expected in the country at that hour.

He examined three sides of the building carefully--the sea front was inaccessible--and waited many minutes before he knocked at the door.

There was no answer. He knocked again more loudly. The third time his summons would have aroused the Seven Sleepers, but none came.

He tried the door, and rattled it; peered in at the windows; stood back in the garden, and looked up at the bedrooms.

"A queer business," he muttered, as he turned unwillingly to leave the place.

"Ay, a very queer business," he said, again. "I must go on to Scarsdale, an' mak' inquiries aboot this Dr. Williams afore I report to t' super."

CHAPTER XXI.

_The Rescue._

When Philip's almost lifeless body was flung over the cliff it rushed down through the summer air feet foremost. Then, in obedience to the law of gravity, it spun round until, at the moment of impact with the water, the head and shoulders plunged first into the waves.

At that point the depth of the sea was sixty feet at the very base of the rock. At each half-tide, and especially in stormy weather, an irresistible current swept away all sand deposit, and sheered off projecting ma.s.ses of stone so effectually, that, in the course of time, the overhanging cliff must be undermined and fall into the sea.

High tide or low, there was always sufficient water to float a battles.h.i.+p, and the place was noted as a favorite nook for salmon, at that season preparing for their annual visit to the sylvan streams of the moorland valleys.

The lordly salmon is peculiar in his habits. Delighting, at one period of the year, to roam through the ocean wilds, at another he seeks shallow rivers, in whose murmuring fords he scarce finds room to turn his portly frame.

And the law protects him most jealously.

In the river he is guarded like a king, and when he cl.u.s.ters at its mouth, lazily making up his mind to try a change of water, as a monarch might visit Homburg for a change of air, he can only be caught under certain severe restrictions.

He must not be netted within so many yards of the seaward limit of the estuary; he may not be caught wholesale; the nets must have a maximum length of four hundred feet; they must not be set between 7 P. M. on a Friday and 7 A. M. on a Monday.

Viewed in every aspect, the salmon is given exceptional chances of longevity. His price is high as his culinary reputation, and the obvious sequel to all these precautions is that certain nefarious persons known as poachers try every artifice to defeat the law and capture him.

A favorite dodge is to run out a large quant.i.ty of nets in just such a tideway as the foot of the cliff crowned by Grange House. None can spy the operations from the land, while a close watch seaward gives many chances of escape from enterprising water bailiffs, who, moreover, can sometimes be made conveniently drunk.

When Philip hurtled into the placid sea his naked body shone white, like the plumage of some gigantic bird.

Indeed, a man who was leisurely pulling a coble in a zigzag course--while two others paid out a net so that its sweeping curves might embarra.s.s any wandering salmon who found himself within its meshes--marked the falling body in its instantaneous pa.s.sage, and thought at first that some huge sea fowl had dived after its prey.

But the loud splash startled the three men. Not so did a cormorant or a white-winged solan plunge to secure an unwary haddock.

The net attendants straightened their backs; the oarsman stood up. The disturbance was so near, so unexpected, that it alarmed them. They looked aloft, thinking that a rock had fallen; they looked to the small eddy caused by Philip's disappearance to see if any sign would be given explanatory of an unusual occurrence.

Were Philip thrown from such a height when in full possession of his senses, in all likelihood such breath as was in his lungs at the moment of his fall would have been expelled by the time he reached the water.

He must have resisted the rush of air, uttered involuntary cries, struggled wildly with his limbs.

But, as it chanced, Mason's rough handling in carrying him to the balcony made active the vital forces that were restoring him to consciousness.

He was on the very threshold of renewed life when he fell, and the downward flight helped rather than r.e.t.a.r.ded the process. Indeed, the rush of air was grateful. He drank in the vigorous draught, and inflated his lungs readily. His sensations were those of a man immersed in a warm bath, and the shock of his concussion with the surface of the sea in nowise r.e.t.a.r.ded the recuperative effect of the dive.

Of course he was fortunate, after falling from such a height, in striking the water with his right shoulder. No portion of the human body is so fitted to bear a heavy blow as the shoulders and upper part of the back. Had he dropped vertically on his head or his feet he might have sustained serious injury. As it was, after a tremendous dive, and a curve of many yards beneath the sea, he bobbed up inside the salmon net within a few feet of the boat.

Instantly the fishermen saw that it was a man, an absolutely naked man, who had thus dropped from the sky.

They were amazed, very frightened indeed, but they readily hauled at the dragging net and brought Philip nearer the boat. Even at this final stage of his adventure he incurred a terrible risk.

Unable to help himself in the least degree, and swallowing salt water rapidly now, he rolled away inertly as the net rose under the energetic efforts of his rescuers. There was grave danger that he should drop back into the depths, and then he must sink like a stone.

Wearing their heavy sea boots, none of the fishermen, though each was an expert swimmer, dared to jump into the water. But the oarsman, being a person of resource, and reasoning rapidly that not the most enthusiastic salmon bailiff in England would pursue him in such manner, grabbed a boathook and caught Philip with it beneath the arm.

He only used the slight force needful to support him until another could grasp him.

Then they lifted the half-drowned man on board, turned him on his face to permit the water to flow out of his lungs, and, instantly reversing him, began to raise his elbows and press them against his sides alternately.

Soon he breathed again, but he remained unconscious, and a restored circulation caused blood to flow freely from the back of his head.

Of course the men were voicing their surprise throughout this unparalleled experience.

"Whea is he?"

"Where did he coom frae?"

"n.o.bbut a loony wad hae jumped off yon crag."

"He's neaked as when he was born."

At last one of them noticed his broken scalp. He pointed out the wound to his companions.

"That was never dean by fallin' i' t' watter," he said.

They agreed. The thing was mysteriously serious. Philip's youth, his stature, his delicate skin, the texture of his hands, the cleanliness of his teeth and nails, were quick tokens to the fisherman that something quite beyond the common run of seaside accidents had taken place. The oarsman, a man of much intelligence, hit on an explanation.

"He was swarmin' doon t' cliff after t' birds," he cried. "Mebbe fotygraffin' 'em. I've heerd o' sike doin's."

"Man alive," cried one of his mates, "he wouldn't strip te t' skin for that job."

This was unanswerable. Not one gave a thought to the invisible Grange House.