Prisoners of Hope Part 24

"He is not likely to do that," said Landless, with a smile. "You may rest a.s.sured that he is far from this by now."

She drew a long breath of relief. "Oh! I hope he is!" she cried fervently. "It was dreadful! No storm could frighten me as did that face!" and she shuddered again.

"Try not to think of it," he said. "It is gone now; try to forget it."

"I will try," she said doubtfully.

Landless did not answer, and the two sat in silence, watching out the dreary night. But not for long, for presently Patricia said humbly:--

"Will you talk to me? I am frightened. It is so still, and I cannot see you, nor the slaves, only that horrid, horrid face. I see it everywhere."

Landless came nearer to her, and laid one hand upon the skirt of her wet robe. "I am here, close to you, madam," he said; "there can nothing harm you."

He began to speak quietly and naturally of this and that, of what they should do when the day broke, of Regulus's wound, of the storm, of the great sea and its perils. He told her something of these latter, for he knew the sea; piteous tales of forlorn wrecks, brave tales of dangers faced and overcome, of heroic endurance and heroic rescue. He told her tales of a wild, rockbound Devons.h.i.+re coast with its scattered fisher villages; of a hidden cave, the resort of a band of desperadoes, half smugglers, half pirates, wholly villains; of how this cave had been long and vainly searched for by the authorities; of how, one night, a boy climbed down a great precipice, scaring the seafowl from their nests, and lighted upon this cavern with the smugglers in it, and in their midst a defenseless prisoner whom they were about to murder. How he had shouted and made wailing, outlandish noises, and had sent rocks hurtling down the cliffs, until the wretches thought that all the goblins of land and sea were upon them, and rushed from the cavern, leaving their work undone. Whereupon, the boy reclimbed the cliff, and hastening to the nearest village, roused the inhabitants, who hurried to their boats, and descending upon the long-sought-for cave, surprised the smugglers, cut them down to a man, and rescued the prisoner.

The man who told these things told them well. The wild tales ran like a strain of sombre music through the night. His audience of one forgot her terror and weariness, and listened with eager interest.

"Well--" she said, as he paused.

"That is all. The ruffians were all killed and the prisoner rescued."

"And the boy?"

"Oh, the boy! He went back to his books."

"Did you know him?"

"Yes, I knew him. See, madam, it has quite cleared. How the moon whitens those leaping waves!"

"Yes, it is beautiful. I am glad the prisoner escaped. Was he a fisherman?"

"No; an officer of the Excise--a gallant man, with a wife and many children. Yes, I suppose he prized life."

"And I am glad that the smugglers were all killed."

Landless smiled. "Life to them was sweet, too, perhaps."

"I do not care. They were wicked men who deserved to die. They had murdered and robbed. They were criminals--"

She stopped short, and her face turned from white to red and then to white again, and her eyes sought the ground.

"I had forgotten," she muttered.

The hot color rose to Landless's cheek, but he said quietly:--

"You had forgotten what, madam?"

She flashed a look upon him. "You know," she said icily.

"Yes, I know," he answered. "I know that the perils of this night had driven from your mind several things. For a little while you have thought of, and treated me, as an equal, have you not? You could not have been more gracious to,--let us say, to Sir Charles Carew. But now you have remembered what I am, a man degraded and enslaved, a felon,--in short, the criminal who, as you very justly say, should not be let to live."

She made no answer, and he rose to his feet.

"It is almost day, and the moon is s.h.i.+ning brightly. You no longer fear the face in the dark? I will first waken the slaves, and then will push along the sh.o.r.e, and strive to discover where we are."

She looked at him with tears in her eyes. "Wait," she said, putting out a trembling hand. "I have hurt you. I am sorry. Who am I to judge you?

And whatever you may have done, however wicked you may have been, to-night you have borne yourself towards a defenseless maiden as truly and as courteously as could have done the best gentleman in the land.

And she begs you to forget her thoughtless words."

Landless fell upon his knee before her. "Madam!" he cried, "I have thought you the fairest piece of work in G.o.d's creation, but harder than marble towards suffering such as may you never understand! But now you are a pitying angel! If I swear to you by the honor of a gentleman, by the G.o.d above us, that I am no criminal, that I did not do the thing for which I suffer, will you believe me?"

"You mean that you are an innocent man?" she said breathlessly.

"As G.o.d lives, yes, madam."

"Then why are you here?"

"I am here, madam," he said bitterly, "because Justice is not blind. She is only painted so. Led by the gleam of gold she can see well enough--in one direction. I could not prove my innocence. I shall never be able to do so. And any one--Sir William Berkeley, your father, your kinsman--would tell you that you are now listening to one who differs from the rest of the Newgate contingent, from the coiners and cheats, the cut-throats and highway robbers in whose company he is numbered, only in being hypocrite as well as knave. And yet I ask you to believe me. I am innocent of that wrong."

The moonlight struck full upon his face as he knelt before her. She looked at him long and intently, with large, calm eyes, then said softly and sweetly:--

"I believe you, and pity you, sir. You have suffered much."

He bowed his head, and pressed the hem of her skirt to his lips.

"I thank you," he said brokenly.

"Is there nothing?" she said after a pause, "nothing that I can do?"

He shook his head. "Nothing, madam. You have given me your belief and your divine compa.s.sion. It is all that I ask, more than I dared dream of asking an hour ago. You cannot help me. I must dree my weird. I would even ask of your goodness that you say nothing of what I have told you to Colonel Verney or to any one."

"Yes," she said thoughtfully. "If I cannot help you, it were wiser not to speak. I might but make your hard lot harder."

"Again I thank you." He kissed the hem of her robe once more, and rose to his feet with a heart that sat lightly on its throne.

The day began to break. With the first faint flush Landless woke the slaves, who at length yawned and s.h.i.+vered themselves into consciousness of their surroundings. "What are we to do now?" demanded Patricia.

"We had best strike through that belt of woods until we come to some house, whence we may get conveyance for you to Verney Manor."

"Very well. But oh! do not let us enter the forest here where we saw that fearful face. Let us walk along the sh.o.r.e until the light grows stronger. It is still night within the woods."

Landless acquiesced with a smile, and the four--he and Patricia in front, the negroes straying in the rear--set out along the sh.o.r.e. The air was chill and heavy, but there was no wind, and the unclouded sky gave promise of a hot day. In the east the rosy flush spread and deepened, and a pink path stretched itself across the fast subsiding waters. The wet sand dragged at their feet, and made walking difficult; moreover Patricia was chilled and weary, so their progress was slow.

There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and her lips had a weary, downward curve; her golden hair, broken from its fastenings, hung in damp, rich ma.s.ses against her white throat and blue-veined temples, and amidst the enshrouding glory her perfect face looked very small and white and childlike. The magnificent eyes carried in their clear, brown depths an expression new to Landless. Heretofore he had seen in them scorn and dislike; now they looked at him with a grave and wondering pity.

As the sun rose, the s.h.i.+pwrecked party left the sh.o.r.e, and entered the forest. A purple light filled its vast aisles. Far overhead bits of azure gleamed through the rifts in the foliage, but around them was the constant patter and splash of rain drops, falling slow and heavy from every leaf and twig. There was a dank, rich smell of wet mould and rotting leaves, and rain-bruised fern. The denizens of the woodland were all astir. Birds sang, squirrels chattered, the insect world whirred around the yellow autumn blooms and the purpling cl.u.s.ters of the wild grape; from out the distance came the barking of a fox. The sunlight began to fall in shafts of pale gold through openings in the green and leafy world, and to warm the chilled bodies of the wayfarers.

"It is like a bad dream," said Patricia gayly, as Landless held back a great, wet branch of cedar from her path. "All the storm and darkness, and the great hungry waves and the danger of death! Ah! how happy we are to have waked!"