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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/20084-8.txt b/20084-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..89151d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/20084-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8597 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beach of Dreams, by H. De Vere Stacpoole + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Beach of Dreams + +Author: H. De Vere Stacpoole + +Release Date: December 10, 2006 [EBook #20084] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEACH OF DREAMS *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + + THE + BEACH OF DREAMS + + A ROMANCE + + BY + H. DE VERE STACPOOLE + AUTHOR OF "THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF," "THE GHOST GIRL," + "THE GOLD TRAIL," "THE BLUE LAGOON," ETC. + + THE NATIONAL BOOK CO. + PUBLISHERS + 28 WEST 44TH ST., NEW YORK + +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + + COPYRIGHT, 1919 BY STREET & SMITH + COPYRIGHT, 1919 BY JOHN LANE COMPANY + + Printed in the United States of America + +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + + CONTENTS + + + PART I + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. THE ALBATROSS 9 + II. NORTH-WEST 14 + III. THE GASTON DE PARIS 22 + IV. DISASTER 41 + V. VOICES IN THE NIGHT 48 + VI. DAWN 53 + VII. THE COAST 66 + + + PART II + + VIII. THE AWAKENING 73 + IX. THE WOOLEY 80 + X. THE CROSS 94 + XI. THE CACHE 103 + XII. THE QUARREL 117 + XIII. WHERE IS BOMPARD? 124 + XIV. THE DEATH TRAPS 132 + XV. THE STROKE 143 + XVI. ALONE 146 + XVII. FRIENDS IN DESOLATION 153 + + + PART III + + XVIII. GOD MADE FRIENDSHIP 159 + XIX. THE BIRDS 167 + XX. VÆ VICTIS 171 + + + PART IV + + XXI. TIME PASSES 181 + XXII. A NEWCOMER 185 + XXIII. RAFT 194 + XXIV. A DREAM 203 + XXV. STORIES ON THE BEACH 211 + XXVI. THE GREAT WIND 225 + + + PART V + + XXVII. THE CORRIDOR 233 + XXVIII. NIGHT 248 + XXIX. THE SUMMIT 253 + XXX. THE BAY 259 + XXXI. THE SHIP 264 + XXXII. THE OPIUM SMOKERS 272 + XXXIII. MAINSAIL HAUL 277 + XXXIV. THE CARCASSONNE 281 + + + PART VI + + XXXV. MARSEILLES 289 + XXXVI. THE LEPER 301 + XXXVII. A NEW HOME 313 + +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + + + + +THE BEACH OF DREAMS + +CHAPTER I + +THE ALBATROSS + + +The fo'c'sle, lit by a teapot lamp, shewed the port watch in their +bunks, snoring, all but Harbutt and Raft seated on a chest, Harbutt +patching a pair of trousers, Raft smoking. + +Raft was a big red-headed man with eyes that seemed always roving over +great distances as though in search of something. He was thirty-two +years of age and he had used the sea since twelve--twenty years. His +past was a long succession of fo'c'sles, bar-rooms, blazing suns, storms +and sea happenings so run together that all sequence was lost. Beyond +them lay a dismal blotch, his childhood. He had entered the world and +literally and figuratively had been laid at the door of a workhouse; of +his childhood he remembered little, of his parentage he knew nothing. In +drink he was quiet, but most dangerous under certain provocations. + +It was as though deep in his being lay a blazing hatred born of +injustice through ages and only coming to light when upborne by +balloon-juice. On these occasions a saloon bar with its glitter and +phantom show of mirth and prosperity sometimes called on him to dispense +and destroy it, the passion to fight the crowd seized him, a passion +that has its origin, perhaps, in sources other than alcohol. + +He was talking now to Harbutt, scarcely lowering his voice on account of +the fellows in the bunks. Snoring and drugged with ozone a kick would +only have made them curse and turn on the other side, and as he talked +his voice made part of that procession of noises inseparable from the +fo'c'sle of a ship under sail against a head sea. He had been holding +forth on the food and general conditions of this ship compared with the +food and conditions of his last, when Harbutt cut in. + +"There's not a pin to choose between owners, and ships is owners as far +as a sailorman's concerned.--Blast them." + +"I was in a hooker once," said Raft, "and the Old Man came across a lot +of cheap sugar, served it out to save the m'lasses. It was lead, most of +it, and the chaps that swallowed it their teeth came out." + +"What happened to them then?" + +"They croaked. I joined at Bombay, after the business, or I'd have +croaked too." + +"What ship was that?" asked Harbutt. + +"I've forgot her name, it was a good bit back--but it's the truth." + +"Of course it's the truth," replied the other, "who's doubtin' you, any +dog's trick played on a sailorman's the truth, you can lay to that. +I've had four years of sea and I oughta know." + +"What's this you were?" asked Raft. + +"Oh, I was a lot o' things," replied Harbutt. "Wished I'd never left +them to join this b--y business, but it's the same ashore, owners all +the time stuffin' themselves and gettin' rich, workers starvin'." + +Raft belonged to the old time labour world dating from Pelagon, he +grumbled, but had no grudge against owners in general, it was only in +drink that Pelagon rose in him. Harbutt was an atom of the new voice +that is heard everywhere now, even in fo'c'sles. He had failed in +everything on land and a'board ship he was a slacker. You cannot be a +voice and an A.B. at the same time. + +"What was your last job ashore?" went on Raft with the persistence of a +child, always wanting to know. + +"Cleanin' out pig sties," said Harbutt viciously. "Drove to it. I tell +you when a chap's down he's down, the chaps that has money tramples on +the chaps that hasn't. I've been through it and I know. It's the rich +man does it." + +"Well," said Raft, "I don't even remember seeing one." + +"Haven't you ever been in no cities?" + +"I've been in cities right enough, but most by the water-side." + +"Well, you've seen chaps in plug hats and chaps drivin' in carriages, +that's the sort that keeps us down, that's the sort we've got to make +an end of." + +Raft did not quite see. He had a respect for Harbutt mixed with a +contempt for him as a sailor. Harbutt knew a lot--but he could not see +how the chaps in plug hats kept other people down; the few he had seen +had always seemed to him away and beyond his world, soft folk, and +always busy about their own affairs--and how were they to be made an end +of? + +"Do you mean killing them?" he asked. + +"Oh, there's other ways than killin'," replied Harbutt. "It's not them, +it's their money does the trick." + +He finished his patch and turned in. Raft finished his pipe and turned +in also and the fo'c'sle was given over to the noises of the sea and the +straining timbers of the ship. + +Now that the figures of the two sailors had vanished its personality +took fuller life, grim, dark, close, like the interior of a grimy hand +clutching the lives of all those sleepers. The beams shewed like the +curved fingers, and the heel of the bowsprit like the point of the +in-turned thumb, a faint soul-killing rock of kerosene filled it, +intensifying, after the fashion of ambergris, all the other perfumes, +without losing in power. Bilge, tobacco and humanity, you cannot know +what these things are till they are married with the reek of kerosene, +with the grunts and snores of weary men, with lamplight dimmed with +smoke haze; with the heave and fall of the sea; the groaning of timbers +and the boom of the waves. This is the fo'c'sle whose great, great, +great grandmother was the lower deck of the trireme where slaves chained +to benches laboured till they died, just as they labour to-day. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +NORTH-WEST + + +The _Albatross_, bound from Cape Town to Melbourne, had been blown out +of her course and south of the Crozet Islands; she was now steering +north-west, making towards Kerguelen, across an ice-blue sea, vast, like +a country of broken crystal strewn with snow. The sky, against which the +top-gallant stay-sails shewed gull-white in the sun, had the cold blue +of the sea and was hung round at the horizon by clouds like the white +clouds that hang round the Pacific Trades. + +Raft was at the wheel and Captain Pound the master was pacing the deck +with Mason the first officer, up and down, pausing now and then for a +glance away to windward, now with an eye aloft at the steadfast canvas, +talking all the time of subjects half a world away. + +It was a sociable ship as far as the afterguard was concerned. Pound +being a rough and capable man of the old school with no false dignity +and an open manner of speech. He had been talking of his little house at +Twickenham, of Mrs. Pound and the children, of servants and neighbours +that were unsociable and now he was talking of dreams. He had been +dreaming the night before of Pembroke docks, the port he had started +from as a boy. Pembroke docks was a bad dream for Pound, and he said so. +It always heralded some disaster when it appeared before him in +dreamland. + +"I've always dreamt before that I was starting from there," said he, +"but last night I was getting the old _Albatross_ in, and the tow rope +went, and the tug knocked herself to bits, and then the old hooker swung +round and there was Mrs. P. on the quayside in her night attire shouting +to me to put the helm down--under hare sticks in the docks, mind you!" + +"Dreams are crazy things," said Mason. "I don't believe there's anything +in them." + +"Well, maybe not," said Pound. He glanced at the binnacle card and then +went below. + +Nothing is more impressive to the unaccustomed mind than the spars and +canvas of a ship under full sail seen from the deck, nothing more +suggestive of power and the daring of man than the sight of those +leviathan spars and vast sail spaces rising dizzily from main and +foresail in pyramids to where the truck works like a pencil point +writing on the sky. Nothing more arresting than the power of the +steersman. A turn of the wheel in the hands of Raft would set all that +canvas shuddering or thundering, spilling the wind as the water is +spilled from a reservoir, a moment's indecision or slackness might lose +the ship a mile on her course. But Raft steered as he breathed, +automatically, almost unconsciously, almost without effort. He, who +ashore was hopelessly adrift and without guidance, at the helm was all +wisdom, direction and intuition. + +The wake of the _Albatross_ lay as if drawn with a ruler. + +His trick was nearly up, and when he was relieved he went forward; +pausing at the fo'c'sle head to light a pipe he fell in talk with some +of the hands, leaning with his back against the bulwarks and blown upon +by the spill of the wind from the head sails. + +An old shell-back by name of Ponting was holding the floor. + +"We're comin' up to Kerguelen," he was saying. "Should think I did know +it. Put in there in a sealer out of New Bedford in '82. I wasn't more'n +a boy then. The Yanks used to use that place a lot in those days. The +blackest blastedest hole I ever struck. Christmas Island was where we +lay mostly, for two months, the chaps huntin' the wal'uses and killin' +more than they could carry. The blastedest hole I ever struck." + +"I was there in a Dane once," began another of the crew. "It was time of +year the sea cows was matin' and you could hear the roarin' of them ten +mile off." + +"Dane," said Ponting, "what made you ship a'board a Dane--I've heard +tell of Danes. Knew a chap signed on in one of them Leith boots out of +Copenhagen runnin' north, one of them old North Sea cattle trucks turned +into a passenger tramp, passengers and ponies with a hundred ton of hay +stowed forward and the passengers lyin' on their backs on it smokin' +their pipes, and the bridge crawled over with passengers, girls and +children, and the chap at the wheel havin' to push 'em out of the way, +kept hittin' reefs all the run from Leith to God knows where, and the +Old Man playin' the fiddle most of the time." + +"That chap said the Danes was a d----d lot too sociable for him." + +Raft listened without entirely comprehending. He had always been a +fore-mast hand. He knew practically nothing of steam and he would just +as soon have fancied himself a railway porter as a hand on a passenger +ship. He was one of the old school of merchant seamen and the idea of a +cargo of girls and children and general passengers, not to speak of +ponies, was beyond him. + +The girls he had mostly known were of the wharf-side. He finished his +pipe and went down below--and turned in. + +He was rousted out by the voice of the Bo'sw'n calling for all hands on +deck and slipping into his oilskins he came up, receiving a smack of sea +in his face as he emerged from the fo'c'sle hatch. The wind had shifted +and a black squall coming up from astern had hit the ship. More was +coming and through the sheeting rain and spindrift the voice of the +Bo'sw'n was roaring to let go the fore top-gallant halyards. + +Next moment Raft was in the rigging followed by others. The sail had to +be stowed. The wind tried to tear him loose and the sheeting rain to +drown him, but he went on clinging to the top-gallant mast-stays and +looking down he could see the faces of the others following him, faces +sheeted over with rain and working blindly upwards. + +Ponting was the man immediately below him, and taking breath for a +moment and against the wind, Ponting was now yelling out that they had +their work cut out for them. + +They had. + +The top-gallant sail had taken charge of itself, and Raft and Ponting as +they lay out on the yard seemed battling with a thing alive, +intelligent, and desperately wicked. + +The sail snored and trembled and sang, standing out in great hoods and +folds, hard as steel; now it would yield, owing to a slackening of the +wind, and then, like a brute that had only been waiting to take them by +surprise, it would burst out again, releasing itself, whilst the yard +buckled and sprang, almost casting them from it. + +Then began a battle fought without a sound or cry except the bubbling +and snoring of the great sail struggling for its wicked liberty, it +shrank and they flung themselves on it, it bellied and flung them back, +clinging to the lift they saved themselves, attacking it again with the +dumb fury of dogs or wolves on a fighting prey. Twenty times it tried to +destroy them and twenty times they all but had it under. + +The fight died out of the monster for a moment and Raft had nearly an +armful of it in when it stiffened, fighting free of him, owing to +Ponting and the other fellow not having made good. They clung for a +moment without moving, resting, and Raft glancing down saw far away +below the narrow deck driving wedge-like through the foam-capped seas. + +Then the struggle began again. The sail, like its would-be captors, +seemed also to have taken breath, it held firm, relaxed, banged out +again in thunder, developed new hoods and folds as a struggling monster +might develop new heads and kinks, and then, all of a sudden when it +seemed that no effort was of avail the end came. + +The wind paused for a moment, as if gathering up all its strength +against the dogged persistency which is man, and in that moment the +three on the yard had the sail under their chests beating and crushing +the life out of it. Then the gaskets were passed round it and they clung +for a moment to rest and breathe. + +It was nothing, or they thought nothing of it, this battle for life with +a monster, just the stowing of a top-gallant sail in dirty weather, and +most likely when they got down the Bo'sw'n would call them farmers for +being such a time over it. Meanwhile they clung idly for a moment, +partly to rest and partly to look at something worth seeing. + +The squall was blowing out, there was nothing behind it and away on the +port quarter the almost setting sun had broken through the smother and +was lighting the sea. + +There, set in a thousand square acres of snowcapped tourmaline, white as +a gull and beautiful as grace itself, was running a vessel under bare +poles. The two yellow funnels, the cut of the hull, told Ponting what +she was. He had seen her twice before and no sailor who had once set +eyes on her could forget her. + +"See that blighter," he yelled across to Raft. "Know her?" + +"Should think I did, she's the _Gaston de Paree_--a yacht--seen her in +T'lon." + +Then they came down, crawling like weary men, and on deck no one abused +them for their slackness or the time they'd been over their job. The +_Albatross_ was running easy and the Bo'sw'n with others was taken up +with a momentary curiosity over the great white yacht. + +No one knew her but Ponting, who had for several years acted as deck +hand on some of the Mediterranean boats. + +"I know her," said he ranging up beside the others. "She's the _Gaston +de Paree_, a yot--seen her in T'lon harbour and seen her again at Suez, +she's a thousand tonner, y'can't mistake them funnels nor the width of +them, she's a twenty knotter and the chap that owns her is a king or +somethin'; last time I saw her she was off to the China seas, they say +she's all cluttered up with dredges and dipsy gear, and she mostly +spends her time takin' soundin's and scrabblin' up shell fish and +such--that's his way of amusin' himself." + +"Then he must be crazy," said the Bo'sw'n, "but b'God he's got a beauty +under him--what's he doin' down here away?" + +"Ax me another," said Ponting. Raft stood with the others, watching the +_Gaston de Paris_ from whose funnels now the smoke was coming festooned +on the wind, then he went below to shed his oilskins and smoke. + +She had ceased to interest him. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE GASTON DE PARIS + + +Old Ponting was right in all his particulars, except one. The owner of +the _Gaston de Paris_ was not a king, only a prince. + +Prince Selm, a gentleman like his Highness of Monaco with a passion for +the deep sea and its exploration. The Holy Roman Empire had given his +great grandfather the title of prince, and estates in Thuringia gave him +money enough to do what he pleased, an unfortunate marriage gave him a +distaste for High Civilization, and his scientific bent and passion for +the sea--inherited with a strain of old Norse blood--did the rest. + +He had chosen well. Cards, women and wine, pleasure and the glittering +things of life, all these betray one, but the sea, though she may kill, +never leaves a man broken, never destroys his soul. + +But Eugene Henry William of Selm for all this sea passion might have +remained a landsman, for the simple reason that he was one of those +thorough souls for whom Life and an Object are synonymous terms. In +other words he would never have made a yachtsman, a creature shifting +from Keil to Cowes and Cowes to Naples according to season, a cup +gatherer and club-house haunter. + +But Exploration gave him the incentive and the Musée Océanographique of +Monaco his inspiration, limitless wealth supplied the means. + +The _Gaston de Paris_ built by Viguard of Toulon was an ocean going +steam yacht of twelve hundred and fifty tons with engines by Conturier +of Nantes and everything of the latest from Conturier's twin-action +centrifugal bilge pumps to the last thing in sea valves. She was +reckoned by those who knew her the finest sea-going yacht in the world +and she was certainly the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of Lafiette, Viguard's chief +designer. Lafiette was more than a designer, he was a creator, the sea +was in his blood giving him that touch of genius or madness, that +something eccentric which made him at times cast rules and formulae +aside. + +The decks of the _Gaston de Paris_ ran flush, with little encumbrance +save a deck-house forward given over to electrical and deep sea +instruments. + +Forward of the engine room and right to the bulkheads of the fo'c'sle +ran a lower deck reached by a hatch aft of the instrument room. Here +were stowed the dredges and buoys and all the gear belonging to them, +trawl nets and deep sea traps, cable and spare rope and sounding-wire, +harpoons and grancs and a hundred odds and ends, all in order and spick +and span as the gear of a warship. + +Aft of the engine-room the yacht was a little palace. Prince Selm would +labour like any of his crew over a net coming in or in an emergency, but +he ate off silver and slept between sheets of exceedingly fine linen. +Though a sailor, almost one might say a fisherman, he was always +Monsieur le Prince and though his hobby lay in the depths of the sea his +intellect did not lie there too. Politics, Literature and Art travelled +with him as mind companions, whilst in the flesh he often managed to +bring off with him on his "outlandish expeditions" more or less pleasant +people from the great world where Civilisation sits in cities, feeding +Art and Philosophy, Science and Literature with the hearts and souls of +men. + +The main saloon of the _Gaston de Paris_ fought in all its details +against the idea of shipboard life, the gilt and scrolls of the yacht +decorator, the mirrors, and all the rest of his abominations were not to +be found here, panels by Chardin painted for Madame de Pompadour +occupied the walls, the main lamp, a flying dragon by Benvenuto Cellini, +clutching in its claws a globe of fire, had, for satellites, four torch +bearers of bronze by Claus, a library, writing and smoking room, +combined, opened from the main saloon, and there was a boudoir decorated +in purple and pearl with flower pictures by Lactropius unfaded despite +their date of 1685. + +Nothing could be stranger to the mind than the contrast between the +fo'c'sle of the _Albatross_ and the after cabins of the _Gaston_, +nothing, except, maybe, the contrast between a garret in Montmartre or +Stepney and a drawing-room in the Avenue du Trocadéro or Mayfair. + +Dinner was served on board the _Gaston de Paris_ at seven, and to-night +the Prince and his four guests, seated beneath the flying dragon of +Cellini and enjoying their soup, held converse together light-heartedly +and with a spirit that had been somewhat lacking of late. Every sea +voyage has its periods of depression due to monotony; they had not +sighted a ship for over ten days, and this evening the glimpse of the +_Albatross_ revealed through the break in the weather had in some +curious way shattered the sense of isolation and broken the monotony. +The four guests of the Prince were: Madame la Comtesse de Warens, an old +lady with a passion for travel, a free thinker, whose mother was a +friend of Voltaire in her youth and whose father had been a member of +the Jacobin club; she was eighty-four years of age, declared herself +indestructible by time, and her one last ambition to be a burial at sea. +She was also a Socialistic-Anarchist, possessed an income of some forty +thousand pounds a year derived from speculations of her late husband +conducted during the war with Germany in 1870, yet was never known to +give a sou to charity; her hands were all but the hands of a skeleton +and covered with jewels, she smoked cigarettes incessantly. She was one +of those old women whose energy seems to increase with age, tireless as +a gnat she was always the last in bed and the first on deck, though +lying in her bunk half the night reading French novels of which she had +a trunkful and smoking her eternal cigarettes. + +Beside her sat her niece, Cléo de Bromsart, English on the mother's side +and educated in England, a girl of twenty, unmarried, dark-haired, +fragile and beautiful as a dream. She was one of the old nobility, +without dilution, yet strangely enough with money, for the Bromsarts, +without marrying into trade, had adapted themselves to the new times so +cleverly that Eugène de Bromsart the last of his race had retired from +life leaving his only daughter and the last of her race wealthy, even by +the standard of wealth set in Paris. She was a sportswoman and, despite +her lack of frailty, had led an outdoor life and possessed a nerve of +steel. + +Madame de Warens had brought the girl up after she left school, had +laboured over her and found her labour in vain. Cléo had no leanings +towards the People and the opinions of her aunt seemed to her a sort of +disreputable madness bred on hypocrisy. Cléo looked on the lower classes +just as she looked on animals, beings with rights of their own but +belonging to an entirely different order of creation, and one thing +certainly could be said for her--she was honest in her outlook on life. + +Beside her sat Doctor Epinard, the ship's doctor, a serious young man +who spoke little, and the fifth at table was Lagross, the sea painter, +who had come for the sake of his health and to absorb the colours of the +ocean. The vision of the _Albatross_ with towering canvas breasting the +blue-green seas in an atmosphere of sunset and storm was with him still +as he sat listening to the chatter of the others and occasionally +joining in. He intended to paint that picture. + +It had come to him as a surprise. They had been playing cards when a +quarter-master called them on deck saying that the weather had moderated +and that there was a ship in sight, and there, away across the tumbling +seas, the _Albatross_ had struck his vision, remote, storm surrounded, +and sunlit, almost a vision of the past in these days of mechanism. + +"Now tell me, Prince," Madame de Warens was saying, "how long do you +propose staying at this Kerguelen Land of yours?" + +"Not more than a week," replied the Prince. "I want to take some +soundings off the Smoky Islands and I shall put in for a day on the +mainland where you can go ashore if you like, but I shan't stay here +long. It is like putting one's head into a wolf's mouth." + +"How is that?" + +"Weather. You saw that sudden squall we passed through this evening, or +rather you heard it, no doubt, well that's the sort of thing Kerguelen +brews." + +"Suppose," said the astute old lady, "it brewed one of those things, +only much worse, and we were blown ashore?" + +"Impossible." + +"Why?" + +"Our engines can fight anything." + +"Are there any natives in this place?" + +"Only penguins and rabbits." + +"Tell me," said Lagross, "that three-master we saw just now, would she +be making for Kerguelen?" + +"Oh, no, she must be out of her course and beating up north. She's not a +whaler, and ships like that would keep north of the Crozets. Probably +she was driven down by that big storm we had a week ago. We wouldn't be +where we are only that I took those soundings south of Marion Island." + +"And, after Kerguelen, what land shall we see next?" asked the old lady. + +"New Amsterdam, madame," replied the Prince, "and after that the Sunda +Islands and beautiful Java with its sun and palm trees." + +Mademoiselle de Bromsart shivered slightly. She had been silent up to +this, and she spoke now with eyes fixed far away as if viewing the +picture of Java with its palms and sapphire skies. + +"Could we not go there now?" asked she. + +"In what way?" asked the Prince. + +"Turn the ship round and leave this place behind," she replied. + +"But why?" + +"I don't know," said she, "perhaps it is what you say about Kerguelen, +or perhaps it was the sight of that big ship all alone out there, but I +feel--" she stopped short. + +"Yes--" + +"That ship frightened me." + +"Frightened you," cried Madame de Warens, "why, Cléo, what is the matter +with you to-night? You who are never frightened. I'm not easily +frightened, but I admit I almost said my prayers in that storm, and you, +you were doing embroidery." + +"Oh, I am not frightened of storms or things in the ordinary way," said +the girl half laughing. "Physical things have no power over me, an ugly +face can frighten me more than the threat of a blow. It is a question of +psychology. That ship produced on my mind a feeling as though I had seen +desolation itself, and something worse." + +"Something worse!" cried Madame de Warens, "what can be worse than +desolation?" + +"I don't know," said Cléo, "It also made me feel that I wanted to be far +away from it and from here. Then, Monsieur le Prince, with his story of +desolate Kerguelen, completed the feeling. It is strong upon me now." + +"You do not wish to go to Kerguelen then?" said the Prince smiling as he +helped himself to the entrée that was being passed round. + +"Oh, monsieur, it is not a question of my wishes at all," replied the +girl. + +"But, excuse me," replied the owner of the _Gaston de Paris_, "it is +entirely a question of your wishes. We are not a cargo boat, Captain +Lepine is on the bridge, he has only to go into his chart house, set his +course for New Amsterdam, and a turn of the wheel will put our stern to +the south." He touched an electric bell push, attached to the table, as +he spoke. + +"And your soundings?" asked she. + +"They can wait for some other time or some other man, sea depths are +pretty constant." + +A quarter-master appeared at the saloon door, came forward and saluted. + +"Ask Captain Lepine to come aft," said the Prince. "I wish to speak to +him." + +"Wait," said Mademoiselle Bromsart. Then to her host. "No. I will not +have the course altered for me. I am quite clear upon that point. What I +said was foolish and it would pain me more than I can tell to have it +acted upon. I really mean what I say." + +He looked at her for a moment and seemed to glimpse something of the +iron will that lay at the heart of her beauty and fragility. + +"That will do," said he to the quarter-master. "You need not give my +message." + +Madame de Warens laughed. "That is what it is to be young," said she, +"if an old woman like me had spoken of changing our course I doubt if +your quarter-master would have been called, Monsieur. But I have no fads +and fancies, thank heaven, I leave all that to the young women of +to-day." + +"Pardon me, madame," said Doctor Epinard speaking for almost the first +time, "but in impressions produced by objects upon the mind there is no +room for the term fancy. I speak of course of the normal mind free of +disease. Furthermore, we talk of objects as things of secondary +importance and the mind as everything. Now I am firmly convinced that +the mind of man, so far from being a thing apart from the objects that +form its environment, is, in fact, nothing else but a mirror or focus +upon which objects register their impressions and that all the thinking +in the world is done not really by the mind but by the objects that form +our thoughts and the reasons, utterly divorced from what we call human +reason, that connect together the objects that form our environment." + +"Is this a theory of your own, Epinard?" asked the Prince. + +"It is, monsieur, and it may be bad or good but I adhere to it." + +"You mean to say that man is composed entirely of environment, past and +present?" + +"Yes, monsieur, you have caught my meaning exactly. Past and present. +Man is nothing more than a concretion formed from emanations of all the +objects whose emanations have impinged upon living tissue since, at the +beginning of the world, living tissue was formed. He is the sunset he +saw a million years ago, the water he swam in when he was a fish, the +knight in armour he fought with when he was an ancestor, or rather he is +a concretion of the light, touch and sound vibrations from these and a +million other things. I have written the matter fully out in a thesis, +which I hope to publish some day." + +"Well, you may put my name down for a dozen copies," said the Prince, +"for certainly the theory is less mad than some of the theories I have +come across explaining the origin of mind." + +"But what has all that to do with the ship?" asked Madame de Warens. + +"Simply, madame, that the ship which one looked at as a structure of +canvas and wood, once seen by Mademoiselle de Bromsart, has become part +of her mind, just as it has become part of yours and mine, a logical and +definite part of our minds; now, mark me, there was also the sunset and +the storm clouds, those objects also became part of the mind of +Mademoiselle de Bromsart, and the reasons interlying between all these +objects produced in her a definite and painful impression. They were, in +fact, all thinking something which she interpreted." + +"It seemed to me," said the girl, "that I saw Loneliness itself, and for +the first time, and I felt just now that it was following me. It was to +escape from that absurd phantom that I suggested to Monsieur le Prince +that we should alter our course." + +"Well," said Madame de Warens, "your will has conquered the Phantom. Let +us talk of something more cheerful." + +"Listen!" said Mademoiselle de Bromsart. "It seems to me that the +engines are going slower." + +"You have a quick ear, mademoiselle," said the Prince, "they undoubtedly +are. The Captain has reduced speed. Kerguelen is before us, or rather +on our starboard bow, and daybreak will, no doubt, give us a view of it. +We do not want to be too close to it in the dark hours, that is why +speed has been reduced." + +Coffee was served at table and presently, amidst the fumes of cigarette +smoke, the conversation turned to politics, the works of Anatole France, +and other absorbing subjects. One might have fancied oneself in Paris +but for the vibrations of the propeller, the heave of the sea, and the +hundred little noises that mark the passage of a ship under way. + +Later Mademoiselle de Bromsart found herself in the smoking-room alone +with her host, Madame de Warens having retired to her state-room and the +others gone on deck. + +The girl was doing some embroidery work which she had fetched from her +cabin and the Prince was glancing at the pages of the Revue des Deux +Mondes. Presently he laid the book down. + +"I was in earnest," said he. + +"How?" she asked, glancing up from her work. + +"When I proposed altering the course. Nothing would please me more than +to spoil a plan of my own to please you." + +"It is good of you to say that," she replied, "all the same I am glad I +did not spoil your plan, not so much for your sake as my own." + +"How?" + +"I would rather die than run away from danger." + +"So you feared danger?" + +"No, I did not fear it, but I felt it. I felt a premonition of danger. I +did not say so at dinner. I did not want to alarm the others." + +He looked at her curiously for a moment, contrasting her fragility and +beauty with the something unbendable that was her spirit, her soul--call +it what you will. + +"Well," said he, "your slightest wish is my law. I have been going to +speak to you for the last few days. I will say what I want to say now. +It is only four words. Will you marry me?" + +She looked up at him, meeting his eyes full and straight. + +"No," said she, "it is impossible." + +"Why?" + +"I have a very great regard for you--but--" + +"You do not love me?" + +She said nothing, going on with her work calmly as though the +conversation was about some ordinary topic. + +"I don't see why you should," he went on, "but look around you--how many +people marry for love now-a-days--and those who do, are they any the +happier? I have seen a very great deal of the world and I know for a +fact that happiness in marriage has little to do with what the poets +call love and everything to do with companionship. If a man and woman +are good companions then they are happy together, if not they are +miserable, no matter how much they may love one another at the start." + +"Have you seen much of the world?" she raised her eyes again as she +asked the question. "Have you seen anything really of the world? I do +not mean to be rude, but this world of ours, this world of society that +holds us all, is there anything real about it, since nearly everything +in it is a sham? Look at the lives we lead, look at Paris and London and +Berlin. Why the very language of society is framed to say things we do +not mean." + +"It is civilization. How else would you have it?" + +"I don't know," she replied, "but I do know it is not life. It is +dishonesty. You say that the only happy married people are those that +are good companions, that love does not count in the long run, and you +are right, perhaps, as far as what you call the World is concerned. I +only repeat that the thing you call the World is not the real world, for +love is real, and love is not merely a question of good companionship. +It is an immortal bond between two spirits and death cannot break it." + +"You speak as though you were very certain of a thing which, of all +things, is most hidden from us." + +"I speak by instinct." + +"Well," said the Prince, "perhaps you are right. We have left behind us +the simplicity of the old world, we have become artificial, our life is +a sham--but what would you have and how are we to alter it? We are all +like passengers in a train travelling to heaven knows where; the seats +are well cushioned and the dining-car leaves nothing to be desired, but +I admit the atmosphere is stuffy and the long journey has developed all +sorts of unpleasant traits among the passengers--well, what would you +do? We cannot get out." + +"I suppose not," said she. + +He rose up and stood for a moment turning over some magazines lying on +the table. He had received his answer and he knew instinctively that it +was useless to pursue the business further. + +Then after a few more words he went on deck. The wind had fallen to a +steady blow but the sky was still overcast and the atmosphere was heavy +and clammy and not consistent. It was as though the low lying clouds +dipped here and there to touch the sea. Every now and then the _Gaston +de Paris_ would run into a wreath of fog and pass through it into the +clear darkness of the night beyond. + +In the darkness aft of the bridge nothing could be seen but the pale +hint of the bridge canvas and a trace of spars and funnels now wiped out +with mist, now visible again against the night. + +The Prince leaned on the weather rail and looked over at the tumble and +sud of the water lit here and there with the gleam of a port light. + +Cléo de Bromsart had fascinated him, grown upon him, compelled him in +some mysterious way to ask her to marry him. He had sworn after his +disastrous first experience never to marry again. He had attempted to +break his oath. Was he in love with her? He could scarcely answer that +question himself. But this he knew, that her refusal of him and the +words she had said were filling his mind with quite new ideas. + +Was she right after all in her statement that he who fancied himself a +man of the world knew nothing of the world except its shams? Was she +right in her statement that love was a bond between two spirits, a bond +unbreakable by death? That old idea was not new to him, he had played +with it as a toy of the mind constructed for the mind to play with by +the poets. + +The new thing was to find this idea in the mind of a young girl and to +hear it expressed with such conviction. + +After a while he came forward and went up the steps to the bridge. +Captain Lepine was in the chart room, the first officer was on the +bridge and Bouvalot, an old navy quarter-master, had the wheel. + +"We have slowed down," said the Prince. + +"Yes, monsieur," replied the first officer, "we are getting close to +land. We ought to sight Kerguelen at dawn." + +"What do you think of the weather?" + +"I don't think the weather will bother us much, monsieur, that blow had +nothing behind it, and were it not for these fog patches I would ask +nothing better; but then it's Kerguelen--what can one expect!" + +"True," said the other, "it's a vile place, by all accounts, as far as +weather is concerned." + +He tapped at the door of the chart room and entered. + +The chart room of the _Gaston de Paris_ was a pleasant change from the +dark and damp of the bridge. A couch upholstered in red velvet ran along +one side of it and on the couch with one leg up and a pipe in his mouth +the captain was resting himself, a big man of the Southern French navy +type, with a beard of burnt-up black that reached nearly to his eyes. + +The Prince, telling him not to move, sat down and lit a cigar. Then they +fell into talk. + +Lepine was a sailor and nothing else. Had his character been cut out of +cardboard the line of division between the sailor and the rest of the +world could not have been more sharply marked. That was perhaps why the +two men, though divided by a vast social gulf, were friends, almost +chums. + +They talked for half an hour or so on all sorts of subjects connected +with the ship. + +"By the way, Lepine," said the Prince suddenly, "It has been the toss up +of a sou that we are not now steering a course for New Amsterdam." + +"And how is that, monsieur?" + +"Well, Mademoiselle de Bromsart proposed to me at dinner that we should +alter our course, the idea came to her that some misfortune might happen +to us off Kerguelen and, as you know, I am always anxious to please my +guests--well, I called a quarter-master down. I was going to have sent +for you." + +"To alter our course?" + +"Yes, but Mademoiselle de Bromsart altered her mind. She refused to let +me send for you." + +"But what gave the young lady that idea?" asked the Captain. + +"That big ship we sighted before dinner." + +"The three-master?" + +"Yes, there was something about it she did not like." + +"Monsieur, what an idea--and what was wrong with it?" + +"Oh, it was just a fancy. The sea breeds fancies and superstitions, you +know that, Lepine, for I believe you are superstitious yourself." + +"Perhaps, monsieur; all sailors are, and I have had experiences. There +are bad and good ships, just as there are bad and good men, of that I am +sure. Perhaps that three-master was a bad ship." Lepine laughed as +though at his own words. "All the same," he went on, "I don't like +warnings, especially off Kerguelen." + +They left the chart house and came out on the bridge. + +The wind was still steady but the clouds had consolidated and the night +was pitch black. On the bridge the _Gaston de Paris_ seemed driving into +a solid wall of ebony. + +The Prince after a glance into the binnacle was preparing to go down the +bridge steps when a cry from the Look-out made him wheel round. +Suddenly, and as if evolved by magic from the blackness, the vague +spectre of a vast ship shewed up ahead on the port bow making to cross +their course. Thundering along under full canvas without lights and +seemingly blind, she seemed only a pistol shot away. + +Then the owner of the _Gaston de Paris_ did what no owner ought ever to +do: seeing Destruction and judging that by a bold stroke it might be +out-leaped, he sprang to the engine room telegraph and flung the lever +to full speed ahead. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +DISASTER + + +Left alone, Mademoiselle de Bromsart finished the all but completed +piece of embroidery in her lap. It did not take her five minutes. Then +she held up the work and reviewed it with lips slightly pursed, then she +rolled it up, rose, and went off to the state-room of Madame de Warens +to bid her good-night. + +Madame was sitting up in her bunk reading Maurice Barres' "Greco." The +air of the place was stifling with the fume of cigarettes, and the girl +nearly choked as she closed the door and stood facing the old lady in +the bunk. + +"Why don't you smoke, then you wouldn't mind it," cried the latter, +putting her book down and taking off her glasses. "No, I won't have a +port opened, d'you want me to be blown out of my bunk? Sit down." + +"No, I won't stay," replied the other, "I just came to say +good-night--and tell you something--He asked me to marry him." + +"Who--Selm?" + +"Yes." + +"And what did you say?" + +"I said 'No.'" + +"Oh, you did?--and what's the matter with him--I mean what's the matter +with you?" + +"How?" + +"How! The best match in Europe and you say 'no' to him--a man who could +marry where he pleases and whom he pleased and you say 'no.' +Good-looking, without vices, richer than many a crowned head, second +only to the reigning families--and you say 'no.'" + +The old lady was working herself up. This admirer of Anarchasis Clootz +and dilletanti of Anarchism had lately possessed one supreme desire, the +desire to have for niece the Princess Selm. + +"I thought you didn't believe in all that," said the girl. + +"All what?" + +"Titles, wealth and so forth." + +"I believe in seeing you happy and well-placed. I was not thinking of +myself--well, there, it's done. There is no use in talking any more, for +I know your disposition. You are hard, mademoiselle, that is your +failing--without real heart. It is the modern disease. Well, that is all +I have to say. I wish you good-night." + +She put on her spectacles again. + +"Good-night," said the other. + +She went out, closed the door, and entered her state-room. + +It was the same as Madame de Warens' only larger, a place to fill the +mind of the old-time seafarers with the wildest surprise, for here was +everything that a mortal could demand in the way of comfort and nothing +of the stuffy upholstery that the word "state-rooms" suggests to the +mind of the ordinary traveller. + +The crimson velvet, so dear to the heart of the ship furnisher, was +supplanted by ribbed silk, Persian rugs covered the floor, the metal +fittings were of bronze, and worked, where possible, into sea designs: +dolphins, sea-horses, and fucus. There was a writing-table that could be +closed up into the wall so cunningly that no trace was left of where it +had been, a tiny library of slim volumes uniformly bound in amber +leather, a miracle of binding, the work of Grossart of Tours, a map-rack +containing large scale maps of the world, and a tell-tale compass +shewing the course of the _Gaston de Paris_ to whomever cared to read +it. A long mirror let into the bulkhead aft increased the apparent size +of the place. A bath-room and dressing-room lay forward. + +Having closed the door she stood for a moment glancing at her reflection +in the mirror. The picture seemed to fascinate her as though it were the +reflection of some stranger. Then, turning from the mirror, she sat down +for a moment on the couch by the door. + +She felt disturbed. The words of Madame de Warens had angered her, +producing the effect of a false accusation to which one is too proud to +reply, but the momentary anger had passed, giving place to a craving for +freedom and fresh air. The atmosphere of the state-room felt stifling, +she would go on deck. Then she remembered that she was in a thin evening +dress and that she would have to change. + +The two women shared a maid, and she was in the act of stretching out +her hand to the electric bell by the couch to summon the maid, when the +craving to get on deck without delay became so strong that she rose, +went into the dressing-room and, without assistance, changed her gown +for a tweed coat and skirt and her thin evening shoes for a pair of +serviceable boots. Then she slipped on her oilskin and sou'wester and +coming back into the state-room caught a momentary glimpse of herself in +the mirror, a strange contrast to the elegant and black-gowned figure +that had glanced at its reflection only ten minutes before. + +She was coming up the saloon companion-way when the engines, easily +heard from here, suddenly began a thunderous pow-wow; the ship lurched +forward, and from the blackness of the open hatch above came a voice +like the sudden clamour of sea-gulls. Then she was flung backwards and +stretched, half-stunned, on the mat at the companion-way foot. + +For a moment she did not know in the least what had happened. She +fancied she had slipped and fallen, then, as she scrambled on to her +hands and knees, someone passed her, nearly treading on her, and rushed +up the companion-way to the deck. It was the chief steward. Rising and +holding on to the rail she followed him. + +The deck was aslant, and in the windy blackness of the night nothing was +to be seen for a moment; but the darkness was terrific with voices, +voices from forward of the bridge and voices from alongside as though a +hundred drunken sailors were yelling and blaspheming from a quay. + +For the tenth of a second the idea of being alongside a quay came to her +with nightmare effect, heightened by a ruffling and booming from the sky +above, a rippling and flapping and thundering like the sound of vast and +tangled wings. + +Then a blaze of light shot out, making day. + +The arc lamp of the fore-mast, always ready to be used for night work, +had been run up and switched on. + +To starboard and stern of the _Gaston de Paris_, a great ship, within +pistol shot of the deck, and with her canvas spilling the wind and +thrashing and thundering, was dipping her bows in the sea. Men were +fighting for the boats, and the stern was so high that more than half of +the rudder shewed like a great door swinging on its hinges. On the +counter in pale letters the word + + "_Albatross_" + +shewed, and to the mind of the gazer all the horror seemed focussed in +that calm statement, those commonplace letters written upon destruction. + +Clinging to the hatch combing she saw, now, as a person sees in a dream, +sailors rushing and struggling aft along the slanting main deck. The +engines had ceased working but the dynamos were running on steam from +the main boilers, and through the noises that filled the night the +sewing machine sound of them threshed like a pulse. What had happened, +what was happening, she did not know. The great ship to port seemed +sinking but the _Gaston de Paris_ seemed safe, but for the horrible +slant of the decks; she called out to the sailors, now clustered here +and there by the boat davits, but her voice blew away on the wind, she +saw Prince Selm, he was struggling aft along the slippery sloping deck, +clutching at the bulwarks as he came, he seemed like a man engaged in +some fantastic game--an unreal figure, now he was on the deck on all +fours, now up again, clutching men by the shoulders, shaking them, +shouting. She could hear his voice. The starboard boats were unworkable +owing to the list to port. She did not know that, she only knew, and now +for the first time, that the _Gaston de Paris_ was in fearful danger. +And instantly the thought came to her of the old woman below in her bunk +and, on the thought, the mad instinct to rush below and save her. + +Holding on to the woodwork of the hatch she was crawling towards the +opening when blackness hit her like a blow between the eyes. The arc +lamp had gone out, the dynamos had ceased running. + +On the stroke of the darkness the _Gaston de Paris_ heeled slightly +deeper, flinging her to her knees, and as she hung, clutching the +woodwork, she heard her name. + +It was the Prince's voice. She answered, and at once on her answer a +hand seized her cruelly as a vice. It caught her by the shoulder. She +felt herself dragged along, buffeted, lifted, cast down--then nothing +more. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +VOICES IN THE NIGHT + + +The boat tackle of the _Gaston de Paris_ was the latest patent +arrangement for lowering boats in a hurry; every boat was provisioned, +and the water casks left nothing to be desired, there were frequent +inspections and boat drills. Yet when the _Gaston de Paris_ foundered +only three souls were saved. + +The starboard boats, owing to the list, could not be lowered at all; +every boat had its canvas cover on, which did not expedite matters. The +patent tackle developed defects in practise, and, to crown all, the men +panicked owing to the sudden darkness that fell on them like a clap on +the extinction of the electric light. The port quarter-boat into which +the girl had been flung had two men in her and was lowered away by +Prince Selm, the doctor and the first officer; panic had herded the rest +of the hands towards the pinnace and forward boats, and the pinnace, +over-crowded, was stoved by the sea as soon as she was water-bourne. The +other boats never left their davits, they went with the ship when the +decks opened and the boilers saluted the night with a column of coloured +steam and a clap of thunder that resounded for miles. + +The whole tragedy from impact to explosion lasted only seven minutes. + +The two men in the boat with the girl had shoved off like demons and +taken to the oars as soon as the falls were released. If they had not, +being so short-handed for the size of the boat, they would have been +stoved; as it was they were nearly wrecked by a balk of timber from the +explosion. It missed them by a short two fathoms, drenching them with +spray, and then the night shut down pierced by voices, voices of men +swimming and crying for help. + +The rowers did not know each other. The bow oar shouted to the stern. +"Is that you Larsen?" + +"No, Bompard, and you?" + +"La Touche--Row--God! Listen, there's a chap ahead." + +The cries ahead ceased, and the boat bumped on something that duddered +away under it and sank. + +"He's gone, whoever he is," cried Bompard. "No use hunting for him. +Listen, there's more." Voices shrill and voices bubbling came through +the blackness from here and from there. The men tried to locate them and +rowed now in this direction, now in that--always wrong. Once a voice +sudden and shrill and close to the boat cried "A moi," and at the same +instant Bompard's oar struck something, but they found nothing, the +voice had ceased. + +They could see, now, the waves like spectres evolving themselves from +the night, a vision touching the very limit of dimness, and now as they +entered a mist patch--nothing. The voices to port and starboard were +ceasing, one by one--being blotted out. Then silence fell, broken only +by the sound of the oars. La Touche shouted and shouted again, but there +came no response. Then came Bompard's voice. "Is that hooker gone, too?" + +"Curse her, yes. I was the lookout. Sailing without lights." + +"This woman seems dead." + +"It's the girl. I heard her squeal out as they hove her in. Let her lie. +Well, this is a start." + +"A black job, but we're out of it, so far." + +"Ay, as far as we've got--as far as we've got. Well, there's no use +rowing, there's no sea to hurt her, let her toss." + +The oars came in and the fellows slithered from their seats on to the +bottom boards. Ballasted so the boat rode easy. They lay like shivering +dogs, grumbling and cursing and then, as they lay, the talk went on. + +"Mon Dieu! What a thing--but we've grub and water all right." + +"Ay, the boats are all right for that." + +There was a long silence and then La Touche began in a high complaining +voice: + +"I was lookout, but it was not my fault, that I swear. I saw nothing +till a big three-master broke out of the smother making to cross our +bows, no lights shewing, snoring along asleep. Then I shouted. The +bridge had seen her too and put the engines full speed ahead. They'd +mistaken the distance, thought to clear her. I got aft. Hadn't reached +the port alley way when the smash came. It was all the fault of those +fools on the bridge." + +"Who knows," came Bompard's voice. "Things happen and what is to be must +be. Well, they're all gone a hundred fathoms deep and here we are +drifting about with a dead woman. I'd sooner have any other cargo if I +was given my choice." + +"Sure she's dead?" + +"Ay, she's dead sure enough by the way she's lying, not a breath in +her." + +Neither man suggested that she should be cast over. She ballasted the +boat, and for Bompard she was something to lean against. + +The French mercantile marine is divided into two great classes, the +northerners and southerners. The man from the north is a Ponantaise, the +man from the south a Moco. + +Bompard was a Moco, La Touche a Ponantaise. They talked and talked, +repeating themselves, cursing the "hooker," the Bridge and the +steersman. Once La Touche, grown hysterical, seemed choking against +tears. + +Then after a while, conversation died out. They had nothing more to talk +about. The boat rode easy. There was nothing to do, and these men blunt +to life and sea-hardened so that to them all things came in the hour's +work, nodded off, La Touche curled up in the bow, Bompard with his +grizzled head on the breast of Mademoiselle de Bromsart. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +DAWN + + +The girl was not dead as Bompard imagined, she had been stunned and had +passed from that condition into the pseudo-sleep that follows profound +excitement. + +She was awakened by a flick of spray on her face, a touch from the great +sea that had claimed her for its own. + +Lying as she was she could see nothing but the ribbed sides of the boat, +the grey sky above, and a gull with domed wings and down-curved head, +poised, as though suspended on the end of a string. It screamed at her, +shifted its position, and then passed, as though blown away on the wind. +She sat up. Bompard had drawn away from her and was lying curled up on +his side. La Touche on his back, forward, shewed nothing but his knees; +across the gunnel lay the sea, desolate in the dawn, turbulent, yet +hard and mournful as a view of slated roofs after rain. + +She had never seen the sea so close before, she had never smelt its +heart and the savour of its soul; bitter, fresh, new and ever renewed by +the blowing wind. + +The whole tragedy of the night was alive in her mind as a picture, but +it seemed the picture of what another person had seen. Her past life, +her own personality, seemed vague and unconnected with her as the past +life and personality of another person. This was reality. Reality new, +terrific, pungent as that which the soul may experience on awakening +after death. + +She knew, as though the desolate sea had told her, that the great yacht +was gone and everyone on board of her; yet the fact, perhaps from its +very enormity, failed to realize itself fully in her mind. Then, in a +flash and horribly clearly, came the picture of her immediate +environment on board the _Gaston de Paris_, quite little things and +things more important: the silver-plated taps of the bath in the +bath-room, adjoining her cabin, the silk curtains of her bunk, the +hundred and one trifles that made for comfort and ease. She saw the +cabin servants and the face of the chief steward, a fat pale-faced man, +a typical _maître d'hôtel_; the dinner of the night before, when the +people seemed to her phantoms and the food, table equipage, knives, +forks and spoons, realities. + +All these things stood forth against the blankness and desolation of the +sea, the sea she could touch by dipping her hand over the gunnel, the +sea that had stripped her of everything but life and body, the dress and +boots she wore and the yellow oilskin coat that covered her. Her hand +resting on the gunnel shewed her that she still wore her rings, +exquisite rings of emerald, ruby and diamonds, fresh washed with spray. +They held her eyes as her mind, swaying just as the boat swayed to the +swell, tried to re-construct yesterday and to feel. + +Horror, pity for the fate of the others, the sense of the great disaster +that had happened to the _Gaston de Paris_, of these only the latter +possessed any vitality in her mind. The feeling of unreality destroyed +her grip upon all else. + +Her mind was subdued to her own condition. The hard angles of the +woodwork against which she leaned and the spray upon her face, the boat +and the men in it, the sharp cut wave tops--these were real, with an +appalling reality. + +It was as though she had never come across a real thing before, and +across her mind came a vague, vague recognition of that great truth that +real things bruise one, eat at one, try to make one their own, once they +manage to break down the barrier of custom that separates the false from +the true; that quite common things have a power greater than the power +of mind, that only amidst the falsity of civilised life and the stage +are the properties subordinate to the persons and emotions of the +actors. + +At this moment Bompard, suddenly moving in his sleep, roused himself and +sat up. His rough, weather beaten face was expressionless for a moment, +then his eyes fell on the girl and recognition seemed to come to him. + +"Mon Dieu," cried the old fellow as if addressing some unseen person. +"'Tis all true then--" Then, as though remembering something--"but how +is mademoiselle alive?" + +"I don't know," said the girl, unconscious as to what he was referring +to. "I know you, I have seen you often on deck--who is the other man? +Oh, is it possible that we are the only people left?" + +Bompard, without replying, swung his head round, then he rose and came +over the thwarts. He caught La Touche by the leg. + +"Gaston--rouse up--the lady is alive. It's me. Bompard." + +La Touche sat up, his hair towsled, his face creased, he seemed furious +about something and pushing Bompard away stared round and round at sea +and sky as if in search of someone. + +"Bon Dieu," cried La Touche. "The cursed boat." He spat as though +something bitter were in his mouth and wiped his lips with the back of +his hand. He did not seem to care a button whether the lady were alive +or not. He had been dreaming that he was in a tavern, just raising a +glass to his mouth, and Bompard had awakened him to this. + +The girl could not repeat the question to which there seemed no answer, +she crawled into the stern sheets and sitting there, half bent, watched +the two men. An observer perched in the sky above might have noticed the +curious fact that on board the forsaken boat quarter deck and fo'c'sle +still held sway, that the lady was the lady and the hands the hands, +that Bompard was talking in an undertone, saying to La Touche: "Come, +get alive, get alive," and that La Touche, after his first outburst, was +holding himself in. They were old yachtsmen, no disaster could shake +that fact. + +La Touche, rising and taking his seat on a thwart and looking everywhere +but in the direction of the girl, as though ashamed of something, began +cutting up some tobacco in a mechanical way, whilst Bompard, on his +knees, was exploring the contents of the forward locker. La Touche was a +fair-haired man, younger than Bompard, a melancholy looking individual +who always seemed gazing at the worst of things. He spoke now as the +girl drew his attention to something far away in the east, something +sketched vaguely in the sky as though a picture lay there beyond the +haze. + +"Ay, that's Kerguelen," said La Touche. + +Bompard, on his knees, and with a maconochie tin in his left hand, +raised his head and looked. + +"Ay, that's Kerguelen," said Bompard. + +"And look," said the girl, pointing towards Kerguelen. "Is not that the +sail of a boat, away ever so far--or is it a gull? Now it's gone. Look, +there it is again." + +Bompard looked. + +"I see nothing," said he, "gull, most like--there wouldn't be any boat +from us, they're all gone, unless it was a boat from that hooker we +struck." + +"Boat," said La Touche with a dismal laugh. "She got no boat away, she +went down by the bows with the fellows like flies on her, this is the +only boat of the lot that got away." + +The girl with her hand shading her eyes was still looking. + +"It's gone, whatever it may have been," said she, "can we reach the +land?" + +"Why, yes, mademoiselle," said Bompard, "the wind is setting towards +there and we have a sail, I am going to step the mast now when I've +taken stock--well, we won't starve. The tube is provisioned for a full +crew for a fortnight, water too, we won't starve, that's a fact. La +Touche, get a move on and help me with the sail." + +"I'm coming," grumbled La Touche. + +It seemed to the girl that the minds and the tongues and the movements +of the two men were part of some slow-acting, wooden, automatic +mechanism. Whether they reached the land or not seemed a matter almost +of indifference to them. Accustomed to people who talked much and had +much to talk about she could not understand. All this was part of the +new world in which she found herself, part of the boat itself, of the +mast, now stepped against the grey sky, the waves, the gulls, and that +tremendous outline of mountains now more visible to the east--Kerguelen. +A world of things without thought, or all but thoughtless, things that, +yet, dominated mind more profoundly than the power of mind itself. + +Bompard was munching a biscuit he had taken from one of the bread bags +as he worked. She noticed the bag, its texture, and the words +"Traversal--Toulon" stamped on it. The maconochie tin which he had +placed on a seat and a tin of beef with a Libby label held her eyes as +though they were things new and extraordinary. They were. They were +food. She had never seen food before, food as it really is, the barrier +between life and death, food naked and stripped of all pretence. + +Bompard coming aft with the sheet shipped the tiller, and, taking his +seat by the girl, put the boat before the wind. La Touche, who had taken +his seat on the after thwart, was engaged in opening the tin of beef. +The girl scarcely noticed him. She was experiencing a new sensation, the +sensation of sailing with the wind and the run of the swell. The boat, +from a dead thing tossing on the waves, had suddenly become a thing +alive, buoyant, eager and full of purpose, silent, too, for the slapping +and buffeting of the water against the planking had ceased. Running thus +with the wind and swell there was no opposition, everything was with +her. + +"Well, it's beef," said La Touche who had managed to open the Libby tin, +"it might be worse." + +He dug out a piece with his knife and presented it to the girl with a +biscuit, then he helped Bompard and himself, then he scrambled forward, +leaving his beef and biscuit on the thwart, and reappeared with a +pannikin of water; it was handed to the lady first. + +The food seemed to loose their tongues. It was as though the caste +difference had been broken by the act of eating together. + +"I'd never thought to set tooth in a biscuit again when that smash came +last night," said Bompard addressing no one in particular. + +"I wasn't thinking of biscuits," said La Touche, "I was bowled over in +the alley-way. You see, I was running, so it took me harder. What set me +running I don't know, my legs took care of themselves--I was just +leaning like this, see, on the look out and between two blinks there was +the hooker crossing our course or making that way. She'll clear us, +maybe, said I to myself, then the engines went full speed and I knew we +were done. Then I cleared aft, running, with no thought in my mind but +to get out of the way, dark, too, but I didn't barge against nothing, +till the smash came, and I went truck over keel in the alley-way." + +"I was coming up the cabin stairs," said Cléo, "and something seemed to +knock me down. Then when I got on deck the light was put on and I saw a +great ship on the right hand side; she seemed sinking, but I read her +name, she was quite close. Then the light went out and someone caught me +and threw me--I don't know where, but it must have been into this boat." + +"That was it," said Bompard, talking and eating at the same time, "us +two was in the boat." + +"I thought it was Larsen," cut in La Touche. "Larsen helped me to get +the canvas off her, that was when the electric was on--what became of +Larsen?" + +"Lord knows," said Bompard. "I scrambled into her just as the light was +shut off, then the chaps on deck chucked the lady in. Next thing we were +fending her off from the ship. I was shouting to the chaps on deck to +jump and we'd pick them up, we'd got the oars out then. I tell you I was +fuddled up for I'd got it in my head that the hooker was to port of us +though I'd seen her with my own eyes to starboard. I was thinking we'd +be taken down with the suck of her and I was bent on getting ahead of +her." + +"I didn't hear you shouting to the fellows on deck," said La Touche, +"but I heard you shouting to me to row. Then when we'd got her away a +bit the _Gaston_ blew up." + +"Blew up," said the girl. + +"The boilers," said Bompard, "they lifted the decks off her. She must +have gone like a stone." + +"So you think no one at all escaped but us?" + +Neither of the men replied for a moment, then La Touche said: "There +wasn't another boat could have got away." + +The sun was well risen now, the clouds were high and breaking and the +far away land shewed up, vast in the distance, with a white line of +snow-covered peaks against the sky, desolate as when Kerguelen first +sighted them. + +Cléo with her eyes fixed across the leagues of tumbling tourmaline +tinted sea almost forgot the others. That was the place where the wind +was bearing them to, a place where there was nothing. Neither hotels nor +houses nor huts, nor men nor women, a place where no landing-stage would +receive them, no voice welcome them. Her throat worked for a second +convulsively as she battled with the quite new things that the far off +mountains were telling her. + +It was now and not till now that she recognised fully what Fate had done +to her. It was now and not till now that she saw Time before her as a +thing from which all the known features had been deleted. + +"Mademoiselle's bath is quite ready." + +"Mademoiselle, the first gong has sounded." + +Oh, the day--the day with its hundred phases and divisions, the +breakfast hour, the luncheon hour, the hour that brought afternoon tea, +the dresses that went with each phase, the emotions and interests, and +changing forms of being, the day which made a person change to its light +and the person of ten o'clock in the morning quite different from the +person of noon--this thing which we talk of as the day appeared before +her now as what it really is, life itself, as civilized men know life, a +thing outside ourselves yet of ourselves and without which the circling +of the sun is as the circling of a pointer on a blank dial--. This thing +was gone. + +La Touche had got more forward and was smoking and, though the wind was +with them, a faint scent of tobacco smoke came on the spill of the wind +from the sail. Bompard was chewing, spitting occasionally to starboard +and wiping his mouth with the back of his bronzed tattooed hand. + +The vague scent of the tobacco threaded up all sorts of things in the +girl's mind: Madame de Warens, the streets of Paris, the deck of the +yacht. She remembered the piece of embroidery work she had been engaged +on last night, and then a scrap of conversation she had overheard +between the doctor and the artist towards the end of dinner, they were +talking of the passéistes and futurists, of the work of Pablo Picasso, +of Sunyer, of Boccioni and Durio, arguing with extraordinary passion +about the work of these people. + +"There's weather or something over there," said La Touche who had +slipped down and was seated on the bottom boards with his back to a +thwart; he nodded his head towards Kerguelen. + +Around one of the highest peaks a lead-coloured cloud had wrapped itself +turban-wise, and even as they looked the cloud turban increased in +volume and height, mournful and monstrous as some djin-born vision of +the Arabian story-tellers. + +"That's snow," said Bompard, "and by the twist of it it's in a +whirlwind." + +"Bon Dieu, what a place," said La Touche. + +"You may say that," said Bompard, "but that's nothing, it's when we come +to make a landing we'll find what we are against." + +"Oh, we've got so far we'll finish it," said La Touche. + +Then began a dismal argument, full of words and repetitions but with few +ideas, and from the trend of it the curious fact appeared that La +Touche, the ship's grouser and dismal James, was taking the optimistical +side, whilst Bompard, generally cheerful, was the pessimist. + +La Touche's optimism was, perhaps, the outcome of fear. What they had +gone through was nothing to the prospect of having to make a landing on +that tremendous coast, simply because what they had gone through had +come on them suddenly. This thing had to be faced in cold blood. The +coward in La Touche refused to face it fully, refused to face the fact +that with this swell and with all the chances of uncharted and unknown +reefs and rocks the risk was appalling. He grew angry. + +"Don't be a coward over it," said he. That set Bompard off, and for a +moment the girl thought they would have come to blows. Then it passed +and they were as friendly as before, just as though nothing had +happened. + +Their talk and the whole business had been conducted as though the girl +were not there. In the few hours since daybreak, quarter deck and +fo'c'sle had vanished. They had become welded into one community, all +equal, and the lady was no longer the lady. There was no hint of +disrespect, no hint of respect. They were all equal, equal sharers in +the chances of the sea. + +More, the sex standard seemed to have vanished with the social. Nothing +remained but the human, for that is the rule with the open boat at sea. + +When they lowered the sail for screening purposes, when they raised it +again, it was all the same, for the human level is above all little +things. + +Towards noon and with the coast now closer and well-defined, La Touche +sighted something ahead. It was a rock, high and pointed like a black +spire protruding from the sea and standing there like an outpost of the +land. + +"Had we better give it a wide berth?" asked La Touche. "Maybe there's +more near it." + +"The sea is running smooth enough by it," said Bompard. "I don't see +breakers, and we don't draw anything to speak of." He held on. + +The sun was shewing through breaks in the high clouds and its light fell +on the water and the rock, pied with roosting guillemots. As the boat +drew near the guillemots gave tongue. The sound came against the wind +fierce and complaining, antagonistic like the voice of loneliness crying +out against them and telling them to be gone--be gone--be gone! + +Cléo, as they passed, saw the green water sliding up and falling from +the polished black rock surface. The sight seemed to bring the hostile +coast leagues nearer and the bagpipe crying of the guillemots as it died +away behind them seemed a barrier passed, never to be re-crossed. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE COAST + + +And now, away at sea and leagues from the coast they were approaching, +vast islands disclosed themselves suddenly through the sea haze, +standing like giants waist deep in the ocean, whilst the coast itself +with its cliffs and rocks of black basalt and dolerite shewed clear, +extraordinarily clear, with every detail defined in the sunlight, from +the rifts in the basalt to the gulls blowing about in legions and the +great sea-geese hovering and fishing. + +The coast was ferocious, and the whole country from the sea foam to the +foothills looked tumbled and new, with the newness of infinite +antiquity. The last thunders of creation seemed scarcely to have died +away, the last throe scarcely to have ceased, leaving million-ton rock +cast on rock and the new, shear-cut cliffs spitting back their first +taste of the bitter sea. + +"There is nowhere to land," said the girl. She was shuddering as a dog +shudders when overstrung. + +"Ay, it's a brute beast of a place," said Bompard, "well, we must nose +along on the lookout. There's no coast but hasn't some landing-place +where a boat can push in. Y'see it's not like a ship. A boat can go +where a ship can't." + +He shifted the helm a bit, keeping the coast parallel to them on the +starboard side. + +"Might those islands be better to go to?" asked she, "they couldn't be +worse than that." + +La Touche suddenly grew excited. "Bon Dieu," cried he, "what a thing to +be saying! Those islands, nothing but rocks--nothing but rocks. Here +there is land, at all events, good land one can put one's foot on; out +there there's nothing but rocks. Rather than go out there I would swim +ashore--I would--" + +"Oh, close up," said Bompard, "don't talk about swimming--maybe you'll +have to." + +"One can always drown," said La Touche. + +It was Bompard who next broke the silence. + +"I've been over cliffs worse than those, for gulls eggs," said he, "take +one coast with another, coasts are pretty much the same, you get bad +bits and easy bits, that is all." + +La Touche said nothing. + +As they drew on the great islands out at sea ranged themselves more +definitely and the tremendous coast to starboard shewed more clearly its +deep cut canons, its sea arches and absolute desolation. + +The sea had fallen, though the wind still held steady, and this surface +calmness, under-run by a gentle swell, served only to emphasize the +vastness of the view. The island seemed immensely remote and immense in +size, the far snow-covered mountains the mountains of a land where +giants had lived and from which they had departed countless ages ago. + +Oyster catches passed the boat with their melancholy cry, but the +fishing gannets and the swimming puffins seemed scarcely to heed the +intruders. Puffins swimming a biscuit toss away as though they had never +learned the fear of man. + +They had drawn nearer shore so that the boom of the swell in the caves +and on the rocks came to them with the crying of the shore birds; +passing a headland like a vast lizard they opened a beach curved like +the new moon and seven miles from horn to horn. + +"There's our landing-place," cried Bompard, "big enough to pick and +choose from." + +"Lord!" shouted La Touche. "Look over there--moving rocks!" + +He pointed half a mile away to seaward. + +Bompard looked. + +"Those crest rocks, they're whales," said he. + +A pair of whales shewed, standing up, coupling in the chill blue grey +water, a miraculous sight, as though they had entered a world where the +original things of life still moved and had their being untroubled by +man and untouched by Time. + +Bompard shifted the helm, and the boat, heading for the shore and no +longer running before the wind, moved less easily, shipping an +occasional dash of spray. + +The change of movement, the dash of spray, the altered course were to +the girl like the turning of a corner. Running with the wind and with a +parallel shore the boat was the world and the coast and island a +panorama. With the twist of the helm Reality made the coast a +destination. Up to this moment the uncertainty of whether they could +land had held her mind, up to this moment all sorts of vague +possibilities, the chance of meeting a ship, the chance of being blown +out to sea, the chance of this or that had come between her and the +realisation of the fact that this prison was hers. + +The monstrosity of the idea stood fully revealed only now on that beach +where there was nothing but sand, nothing but rocks, nothing but gulls. +Close in now Bompard let go the sheet and they unstepped the mast, the +boat rocking in the trough of the swell. Then they got the oars out. + +As they bent to their work and over the creak of the leather in the +rowlocks the rumble and fume of the seven mile beach came mixed with the +yelping and mewing of the gulls. The boat made slow progress, then a few +yards from the surf line it hung for a moment till the rowers suddenly +gave way and moving like a relieved arrow she came on the crest of a +wave, then the oars came in with a crash and the two men tumbling out +dragged her nose high and dry. They helped the girl out and as they +pulled the boat higher she stood, the wind flicking her oilskin coat +about her and the spindrift blowing in her face. + + + + +PART II + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE AWAKENING + + +The great beach of Kerguelen shews above tide mark long stretches where +no sand is, only rock. Basalt planed and smoothed by the seas of +countless ages, level as a ball-room floor and broken by rifts and pot +holes, between tide marks these pot holes serve as traps for all sorts +of sea creatures. Once the waves must have beaten right up to the low +and broken basalt cliffs full of caves floored with sand, but volcanic +action raising the beach has pushed the tide mark out leaving a shore +varying in width from half a mile to a few hundred yards. + +This is the breeding place of the sea elephant. Half way between the +lizard point and the point further to the east a river comes down +disembarging through three months; on the banks of this river is the +seal nursery where in summer the young sea elephants tumble and play and +take their swimming lessons, whilst the mothers lie on rocks and the +fathers fish and hunt and fight in battles, the roaring of which +resounds for miles. Here the penguins drill and hold councils and law +courts and marry and get divorced and hold political meetings, here the +rabbits play and the terns foregather, and here the winds that blow +from everywhere but the east, hunt and yell and pile in winter a twenty +foot sea that breaks in seven miles of thunder under seven miles of +spray thick as the smoke of battle. + +Duck and teal haunt the place and gulls of nearly every known kind snow +it and flick it with movement. Yet above the thunder of the waves and +the cries of the birds and the shouting of the winds when they blow, +there hangs a silence--the silence of the remote and prehistoric. The +living world of men seems cut off from here by far away doors and +forever. + +After supper they had explored the cave mouths in the cliff opposite to +where the boat had beached. There were three caves just here. One was +impracticable owing to water dripping from the roof, but the other two, +floored with hard sand, were good enough for shelter. The men had stowed +the provisions and themselves in the western mast giving the girl the +other and the boat sail for a pillow. + +It was old Bompard who thought of the latter. La Touche seemed to have +no thought for any one or anything but himself. He grumbled all the time +during supper, grumbled at the fact that there was no stuff to make a +fire with, that they had nothing warm to drink, that some time soon +their tobacco must run out. It seemed to Cléo as she lay with her head +on the hard sailcloth and her body on the hard sand, covered with the +oilskin coat which she had taken off to use as a blanket, that through +the league long rumble of the surf she could hear him grumbling still. +She did not care. Hard though the floor was she did not mind, she was +chloroformed. Chloroformed by the air of Kerguelen. The air that fills +the lungs with life, keeps a man going all day with an energy and +buoyancy unknown elsewhere and then fells him with sleep. + +She awoke when the whale birds had ceased crying, just after dawn, awoke +fresh and new and full of life. She felt none of that troubled surprise +which comes when the mind has to adjust itself to the new situation on +awakening for the first time after a great disaster. It was as though +her mind had already adjusted itself and discounted everything. + +She rose up and leaving the oilskin coat and sou'wester on the floor of +the cave came out on to the beach. + +The fine weather still held and the day was strong, now lighting the +beach, the sea, and the distant islands through a sky of high, grey +eastward drifting clouds. The boat lay where it had been pulled up, the +tide now coming in and legions of birds were flitting and blowing about +and stalking on the sands as far as eye could reach. + +She came to the cave where the men were. Bompard and La Touche lying on +their backs might have been dead but for the sound of their snoring. +Bompard was lying with his wrist across his eyes, La Touche with both +hands beside him, clenched. The tins of beef and the bread bags shewed +vaguely in the gloom behind them. + +She stood for a moment watching them and then, turning, she came down to +the boat lying high and dry on the sand. She was trying to realize, that +on the morning of the day before yesterday at this hour she had been +lying in her bunk on board the _Gaston de Paris_, to realize this and +also the fact that her present position seemed scarcely strange. + +She ought, so she told herself, to be astonished at what had happened +and to be bewailing her fate, yet, looking back now over yesterday and +the day before, everything seemed part of a level and logical sequence, +almost like the events of a stormy day on board ship. The tragedy of the +destruction of the _Gaston_ only partly experienced could not be fully +felt. + +Standing by the boat she tried to realize it and failed, tried to grasp +what she knew to be the horror and pity of it, and failed. She was +neither hard nor insensible, she simply could not grasp it. + +And her position here with two rough men, very little food and little +chance of escape, how she would have pitied herself a few days ago could +she have foreseen! Yet here, with the firm sands under her feet and the +wind blowing in her face, reality, instead of hurting her as it had done +in the boat on awakening yesterday morning, soothed her and reassured +her. Everything seemed firm again and the fear that the ugly coast had +raised in her mind had vanished. + +She came along the beach looking at the gulls, turned over huge +star-fish and picked up kelp ribbons to examine them. Half a mile or so +from the cave she was about to turn back when her eye caught a strange +appearance on the sea, hundreds and hundreds of moving points drawing in +to the shore, white and black points like a shoal of fish only half +submerged. It was a fleet of swimming birds. + +She sat down on the sand to watch as they took the shore with a rush +through the foam. Then, safely beached, the fleet became an army of +penguins. She had seen pictures of penguins so she knew what they were +and she had read Anatole France's "Penquin Island"--these, then, were +the real things and she watched them fascinated as one who sees +storyland taking visible and concrete form. + +The penguins formed line, broke into companies, drilled a bit and then +began to move up the beach. + +The figure of the girl did not seem to disturb them in the least. + +One company passed to the left, one to the right, whilst that +immediately fronting her halted a few feet away and saluted her, bowing +like little old-fashioned men in black swallow-tail coats and immaculate +shirt fronts, little old-fashioned men with sharp quizzical eyes, +polished, humorous, polite and entirely friendly. + +The company on the right wheeled to examine her as did the company on +the left, so that she found herself almost in a hollow square. Wherever +she turned there were birds bowing to her or things in the semblance of +birds, absolutely fearless, so close that she could have touched them +had she carried a walking-stick. + +She rose up to allow them to pass and they went on like mechanical +things wound up and released, forming line again and seeming to forget +her. + +She remembered the guillemots and their rudeness and the way they had +stormed and jeered at the boat--did all that mean more than the +politeness and friendliness of the penguins? If she were lying dead +would not the guillemots pass her without enmity and the penguins +without friendliness, as indifferent to her fate as the wave of the sea +on the blowing wind? + +They would--as indifferent as the great islands standing out there in +the distance, mauve and slate grey against the morning. As she came back +along the beach her mind was battling with a problem that had suddenly +risen. She had neither brush nor comb nor glass. Her hair was beautiful +and she loved it. Her face was beautiful but she did not love it, it was +herself, she could not view it from an independent standpoint, but she +could view her hair almost as impartially as a dress and she loved it +with the strange passion that women have for things of texture. + +The hair of Cléo de Bromsart had been waited upon like a divinity by +many a priestess in the form of a maid. It had been dressed and +shampooed and treated by artists and adepts, the hours of brushing alone +if put together would have made a terrific total. The result was +perfection, and even now, after all she had gone through, it shewed +scarcely disarrangement, lustrous and beautiful, dressed with artful +simplicity in the Greek style and outlining the perfect curves of her +head. + +The wind was blowing now in gusto from the sea, but she scarcely noticed +it as she walked, facing the problem that shipwreck had put before her, +a problem the first of a long queue ranging from soap to a change of +garments. + +She was fighting it and at the same time battling with the strengthening +wind when suddenly something sprang on her with the yell of a tiger and +flung her on the sand, pinning her there. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE WOOLEY + + +It was the wind. The Wooley, which is the fist of Kerguelen suddenly +clenched and hitting out from the shoulder of the great islands now +suddenly stormed about with foam and veiled in spray. + +Half stunned, she twisted round, still lying but fronting it now with +her arm protecting her face. The beach had loudened up in thunder from +end to end but the yelling Wooley as it met the cliffs and howled inland +almost drowned the thunder of the waves. Then it died down as suddenly +as it had come, and the boom of the surf rose high, as the girl, +gathering herself together, got up and struggled on. + +She was no longer thinking of her hair. It was the first lesson of the +school of Kerguelen. "Here you shall think of nothing but the moment, of +the ground beneath your feet, of the bite you put in your mouth, of the +rock that stands before you." + +When she reached the cave with her petticoats thrusting about her she +was met by the two men and as she came up to them La Touche was cursing +the wind. The Wooley had all but blown him down too. He had got up +sooner than Bompard and had received the full face of it "in the pit of +the stomach." He seemed to look on it as a personal matter affecting him +alone. + +Even as he spoke a sudden calm fell, lasted for a moment, and was +followed by a howl from inland. + +At a stroke the wind had changed right round and was blowing now from +the mountains. Here in the shelter of the cliffs they scarcely felt it +but the shift had raised an appalling cross sea. Right away to the +islands there was nothing but tumbling foam, waves standing up and +fighting waves in a battle that spread for leagues. + +"It's well for us we didn't fall in with this yesterday," said Bompard +"a ship couldn't stand it." + +"And what ship will ever poke her nose in here to take us off do you +think?" asked La Touche. "This is what you get every day of the week, if +all accounts are true--this, and worse. I tell you we've come to the +wrong place. There's no getting over it. We've come to the wrong place." + +"Well, right or wrong, here we are," said Bompard "Mon Dieu! to hear you +talk you'd think we'd come here on purpose--come, get a move on and +let's have some grub." + +He turned into the cave and they fetched out the can of beef they had +opened yesterday, some biscuits, and a water breaker, and sitting at the +cave mouth they ate just as the men of the Stone Age ate, with the palms +of their hands for plates and their fingers for forks. They spoke +scarcely at all. The ill-humor of La Touche seemed like a contagious +disease, even Bompard, the imperturbable, seemed glum. + +It was the girl who broke the strain. + +Suddenly she began to speak as if giving voice to carefully thought out +ideas. Yet what she said was absolutely spontaneous, the result of a +quick, educated mind suddenly grasping the essentials of their position, +suggestion breeding suggestion. + +"There's no use in grumbling," said she. "That wind knocked me down as I +was coming along the beach. I didn't grumble, and there is no use in +thinking. I was thinking as I walked along that I had no brush and comb +to do my hair with, you two have short hair and you can't imagine what +it is to a person with long hair when they find themselves without a +brush and comb. I was grumbling to myself about it when the wind knocked +me down. I want just to tell you what is in my mind: we will die or go +mad if we do not forget everything as much as we can and not think of +to-morrow or yesterday or ships coming to take us off. We have to fight +all sorts of things that don't care in the least for us and we have to +work. Everything here is at work in its own way. Well, we must do as +everything else does or die." + +"It's easy to say work," said La Touche munching a biscuit, "but what is +one to work at?" + +"We want food for one thing, our provisions won't last forever." + +"There's rabbits enough," said Bompard. "Remember those rabbits we saw +running out on the beach last evening?" + +"I can snare rabbits all right," said La Touche, "but where's the wire +to make snares with--see--we're caught everywhere." + +"Wait," said Bompard. + +He got up and went down to the boat, hunted in one of the lockers and +returned with a spool of wire. + +He flung it at La Touche. + +"There's your wire," said he. + +Cléo's eyes brightened. The spool of wire seemed to her a fruit suddenly +born from her words; she had accomplished something, it was perhaps the +first real accomplishment in her life. + +"Where did you get it from?" asked La Touche. + +"The forward locker," replied Bompard. + +"Are there any other things in the locker?" asked the girl. + +"Oh, Mon Dieu, yes," replied the old fellow. "There's a lot of truck, +but it's no use to us." + +"Let's go and see," said Cléo. She rose up and came down the beach +followed by the others. The wind from the mountains died away but the +sea torment remained and, though the tide was beginning to ebb, the +spray of the waves almost reached the boat. + +It had been listed to one side by the Wooley but was undamaged and the +forward locker was still open as it had been left by the careless +Bompard. + +It was one of the boats used for fishing and deep sea work, hence the +contents of the locker. + +The steel head of a two pronged fish spear, a fisherman's knife in its +sheath with belt, a paternoster, invaluable for the fathoms of fishing +line attached, a small American axe with the head vaselined, a canvas +housewife with sail-needles, a few darning needles and some pack thread, +and a number of odds and ends including some extra heavy lead sinkers. + +Bompard looked on apathetically and La Touche stood with his hands in +his pockets as the girl fished the things out one by one, placing them, +some on the sands and some on the thwarts of the boat. + +The things seemed to have no interest for the men. Accustomed all their +lives to being looked after as far as shelter and food were concerned +they seemed absolutely helpless in front of new conditions. Men are like +that, especially men of the people, and when you read of Crusoes and +their wonderful doings on desert islands you read Romance. + +The quick, trained mind of the girl seemed to see clearly where they +could scarcely see at all, she had imagination and she was a woman--that +is to say a being more gifted than man, with prevision in affairs purely +material. + +Bompard did not see any use in the axe and said so. The girl, with her +hand resting on the gunnel of the boat, stood like a housekeeper trying +to explain to a mere male creature the use of some household implement. + +"We will want a fire and an axe will chop wood," said she. + +"Ay, and where are you to get the wood?" asked La Touche. "There's not a +tree on this blasted place, nor the sign of one." + +"Well, we'll have to look--there may be trees inland--there's sure to be +bushes of some sort--anyhow we will take these things up to the cave, +they will be safer there." + +The baling tin of the boat caught her eye, she included it amongst her +prizes. + +This baling tin, like a psychological instrument, exhibited the mind of +Bompard as though that said mind had been scooped out and placed in it. + +To him it was a baling tin; here there were no boats to be baled +out--where was the use of it? + +To the woman it was a possible pot to boil things in if they could get a +fire and things to boil. + +She explained and Bompard saw the light. La Touche saw it, too, but +promptly pointed out that they had no fire and nothing to boil. He +seemed to find an odious satisfaction in the fact, a satisfaction which +Bompard faintly reflected, and for a moment the girl seemed to glimpse +in the two men a lethargy of mind almost unthinkable. A lethargy and +laziness, mulish, and kicking at anything that disturbed it, that +actually fought against betterment because betterment meant exercise of +intellect and action. + +She felt angry with them, just as a grown person feels angry with lazy +children, and putting the belt with the knife round her waist and +picking up some of her treasures she ordered the others to follow with +the rest. + +When they had been placed in the cave with the provisions, Bompard, +after his great labours, cut himself some tobacco and La Touche lit his +pipe. Then they sat down at their cave opening to smoke and rest +themselves whilst the girl, who could not keep still, went back to the +boat to explore the other lockers and see if by chance anything else of +a useful nature might be found. The two men seated smoking at the cave +mouth watched her as she went. She felt their eyes upon her and guessed +that they were discussing her, but she did not mind. + +The ceaseless activity of old Madame de Warens seemed to have descended +on her through the air of Kerguelen. The will that Prince Selm had +divined in her had been aroused; the surroundings seemed to call her to +action from every side; the past and the future seemed phantoms before +the tremendous and insistent present. Fate could perhaps have broken her +spirit only in one way, by casting her upon the sordid. If she had been +socially shipwrecked and thrown onto a Paris slum she might have gone +under. Here where everything was clean, where the air was life, where +nothing was sordid, she swam; here she was miraculously filled with a +new energy and an extraordinary new interest as though she were peeping +at things for the very first time. + +The forward locker was now empty, she hunted in the others and +discovered two more Maconochie tins that Bompard had overlooked, some +cotton waste, a roll of thick copper wire and a bradawl. + +She collected the lot and brought them up to the cave before which her +companions were seated. + +She handed them to La Touche, who, without getting up, leaned back and +pushed them as far into the cave as he could reach, then he resumed his +pipe whilst Cléo standing and shading her eyes looked away up and down +the beach as though measuring its possibilities. + +"I found a lot of things down there this morning before the tide was +high," said she. "There were star-fish, big ones like what I have seen +on the beach at Bordighera; the Italian people eat them. I'm sure there +must be lots of food to be found here on the beach. Then there is a big +break in the cliffs lower down that seems to lead inland. I think the +best thing we can do is to start now and hunt about and see what we can +find. You two can go inland, and I will go along the beach. It's +absolutely necessary to find any sort of food, and wood to make a fire." + +The smokers were disposed to argue. + +Yes, it was quite true, one must look round, but there was grub enough +for a month and there was plenty of time before them. Then La Touche +began to argue about star-fish. He had never heard of people eating +star-fish. If they were to be condemned to eat stuff like that it would +be better to quit. One might have fancied from his tone that it was +Cléo's fault that such a suggestion should be made. + +Cléo listened patiently and Bompard sat evidently approving. It was +almost as though the two were in league against her, just as children +get in league against an adult who insists on unpleasant duties or +uncongenial food. + +But a will was at work stronger than theirs and presently, tapping out +their pipes, they rose up. La Touche, at her direction, placed the new +found Maconochie tins, the cotton waste, the bradawl and wire with the +rest of the stores, far back in the cave, and then, following her, they +lumbered along down the beach in the direction of the cliff break like +two schoolboys after a governess. + +The cliff break was a narrow gully piercing the basalt and bending upon +itself; here they parted, the men striking up the gulley and the girl +continuing her way along the beach. + +"And be sure to look out for some wood," she cried after them, "any sort +of wood." + +"Ay, ay," said Bompard, "we'll be on the look out right enough." + +Then they vanished and she pursued her way alone, picking up things as +she went, turning over shells and thinking of her companions. + +The wind had fanned up again to a strong breeze but the sound of the +surf had fallen with the receding tide and the stretch of wet sand +below high tide mark was strewn with huge kelp ribbons, masses of +seaweed, shells, all empty, cuttle fish bones and the star-fish +despised of La Touche. + +Then she came upon something that gave her a grue, it seemed at first +like a white rock, it was a skull. The skull of some enormous creature +half-bedded in the sand just above the tide mark, possibly cast up in +some storm. She thought it might be the skull of a whale and as she +stood looking at it, suddenly, the desolation around came in upon her +with the fact that she was absolutely alone. + +Suppose the men lost their way--suppose that they never came back? The +thought clutched her heart like a hand. To be here, alone, absolutely +alone, forever! + +For a moment panic seized her and the wild impulse came upon her to turn +and run back to the cave. Then she mastered herself, fighting down the +surging in her throat, and continuing her way steadily and with renewed +strength. She had not cast the thought away, she had mastered it and as +she went she contemplated it as a victor contemplates the dead body of +an assailant. + +Then she saw the penguins, she had not noticed them before, they were +drawn up in long lines at the base of the cliff and the sight of them +destroyed the desolation just as the skull had crystallized it around +her. + +A great pow-wow was going on amongst the penguins. Three birds, +separate from the others, were standing, two facing one another bowing +and discussing something, the third standing by, putting in a word now +and then and now and then coming right between the disputants. + +She watched them for awhile and then went on. She had no time to waste. +The thought of coming back empty handed after all her talk to the men +pursued her. She was looking for food and had found none--nothing but +the star-fish. + +The gulls evidently found plenty of food. But for a human being there +seemed nothing, and as she went on and on the thought of what would +happen when those tins in the cave were empty came at her just as the +terror of finding herself alone had come, and this thought was not to be +combated by an effort of will simply because it was born of Reason. + +Her clear and practical mind saw starvation, over-leaped the slender +food barrier that held hunger only a month away from them and wandered +in a wilderness where nothing was. + +She had reached the rock surface now that stretched away level and +smooth, broken by cracks and pot holes and strewn here and there with +weed. The cliffs had fallen away, giving a view of the broken country +and the mountains with their snow-covered tops, immense, wrapped in +distance under the dull grey day, remote, yet clearly defined in that +air, crystal clear as the air of Iceland. + +It was like looking at Silence herself, silence set off and explained +by the beach noises, the sound of the surf, the calling of the terns, +the mewing of the great white gulls. + +She saw Kerguelen as it is, as it was, as it ever will be. Standing +there alone she saw it for the first time in all its utter nakedness. If +no food were to be found on the busy beach, what food could be found in +that carved, silent, cruel land where not a single tree shewed in all +the miles of desolation? + +A stealthy scraping sound behind her made her wheel round. + +Up from a rock pond which she had passed without examining had risen a +crab, its body was not bigger than the two fists of a man put together, +yet it moved standing high up like a spider on slender stilts that if +stretched out would have measured four feet or more. She watched it with +dilated eyes as it scrambled and hurried along, vanishing at last like a +spectre in some cleft of the rock. There was something of a skeleton +about it as well as something of a spider, it was like a caricature of +food drawn by Famine. It made the whole beach hideous for a moment and +it made the food hunter almost afraid to go on. She crushed the fear and +went on, reaching a place where the rocks ceased and a broad level of +sand stretched to where the rocks began again and further on the river +ran down. + +Where the sand met the further rocks a huge conical stone stood with a +gull roosting on its top, and just as a person fixes on some object as +the limit of his walk she determined to go as far as this stone and then +turn back. + +As she drew close to it the gull flapped its wings and flew away and she +saw that the thing was not a stone but the figure-head of a ship, the +form of a woman with ample breasts, broken and scarred by years of +weather and stained with the droppings of gulls. The arms were gone, but +the great face remained almost in its entirety staring away across the +sands and the sea. + +It had once worn a crown, but the crown was broken away all but a little +bit on the left side of the head and it had an appearance of life that +almost daunted the girl as she stood looking, watching it, and listening +to the singing sound of the beach echoes and the mewing and crying of +the gulls. + +Then as she moved closer her foot struck on something half buried in the +sand, it was a balk of timber, ships timber was all about, sanded over, +and in places half uncovered. Here was firewood enough for twenty years. +In the figure-head alone there was enough to supply their wants for a +long time to come. + +She sat down to rest on a projecting piece of this timber near the +figure. Close up to it like this it lost its touch of life and became +simply a block of wood, and from this point she could see the beach over +which she had travelled stretching away and away to the Lizard Point +with the foam breaking around it and flown about by the never-resting +gulls. + +She had come nearly three miles and she had found something worth +finding by just keeping on. + +She remembered the spectre crab. It had nearly turned her back +empty-handed, but she had kept on and she registered that fact deeply in +her mind, dwelling on it with a pleasure she had never felt before. + +Then she fell to thinking of the ship that all this belonged to and the +storm that must have driven it here. The weeds of the high tide mark did +not come within ten feet of the wreckage, so the waves must have come a +hundred feet or more beyond where she was sitting. Perhaps it was at +night with all this coast roaring in the darkness and the wind yelling +above the shouting of the waves. And all that must have happened years +ago, to judge by the work of the weather on the once gaily painted woman +and the depth the timbers had sunk in the sand. + +She rose up, and before starting back she glanced inland towards the +mountains across the broken country. + +Then she shaded her eyes. + +Beyond the fringe of the beach and amongst the high broken rocks stood a +cross. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE CROSS + + +The thing itself startled her less than the fact that she had not seen +it before. It was as though it had been put up whilst she sat to rest. + +It was so striking, so palpably evident that anyone coming along towards +the figure-head as she had done must have been attracted by it. To +verify this she walked a few yards away and even as she did so the cross +vanished, shut out from sight by the rock to the left of it. Only from +the point of view of the figure-head could it be seen. + +It was as though the beach had tried to frighten her again. + +She came towards it, noticing as she came the shortness of the arms. It +was less a cross than a sign-post, a sign-post raised on a mound of +small rocks; it was tarred to preserve it from the weather. From the +left limb close to the post a metal box was hanging by a wire, and on +the post itself, a few feet from the base, there was a plate of +galvanised iron nailed to the wood. On the plate were stamped some +words. + +She stepped upon the mound and read: "Kestrel Expedition. Cache I. Don't +disturb 19--" + +The date was three years back. + +The cache, whatever it might be, was under the mound. Also, this thing +had evidently nothing to do with the wreck, for the embossed metal plate +must have been prepared in some civilized country for the purpose to +which it had been put. + +She reached up and tried to detach the box and pulling on it brought +down the slat of wood that formed the arms of the cross, the nails that +had held it having rusted away. + +Then, having detached the box, she examined it. It was an ordinary +sailor's tobacco box, she pressed the spring, opened it, and found a +piece of paper folded in four and inscribed as follows, the writing done +with a purple indelible pencil: + + Opened the cach. + Took nuthing out. + Stuck in som extry goods + Put the ship about. + To any one that finds it in this blasted hole + Sam Slacum, + Master Mariner. Thresler 19-- + +Then as an after thought: + + "Keep up your spirits." + +The date was a year after the date on the post. The cache had not been +visited evidently since then. For three years it had lain here, and for +three years, evidently, only one ship had put in. This dismal thought +took all the pleasure away from the find, she sat down on the rocks +forming the mound and holding the paper in her fingers gave way for a +moment to a depression that came against her like a black, surging sea. +Then she remembered that the cross had been only visible from one point, +that vessels might have been here and not have seen it, that men might +even have landed and found it without leaving the fact behind them, +after the manner of the writer of this paper. + +And then, suddenly, and as if from the sky came the thought of +Providence, the feeling that she had been led along the beach to find +the wood and to find this. The remembrance of how she had been saved +from the _Gaston de Paris_ rose up in her mind also--saved almost by a +miracle. + +To a person torn from civilization and flung into the arms of Nature the +most terrible thing is the sense of the amorphous, the feeling that +there is no structure in this world where houses are not and laws are +not and streets are not, no power to intervene between oneself and +injury, no thread to cling to. The idea of a Providence to such a person +is like brandy. + +The girl remembered the words she had spoken that morning to her +companions when she said that one must not think here but work. There +was no use in thinking of the past or the future, of ships coming or +not, they had been taken care of so far and the feeling came to her that +this would be so to the end. + +She rose up, put the paper back in the box and the box in her pocket, +then she turned to the cache. + +She walked round the mound to a spot where the covering rocks had fallen +away a bit and going down on her knees began pulling them apart and +carrying them off one by one, dumping them a few yards away. Her rings +hindered her and taking them off she put them in the tobacco box and the +box in her pocket. Under the rocks lay a covering of sand, she fetched +the arm of the cross and scraping away at the sand came upon something +hard, it was the end of a barrel. Then she stood up, flushed with her +work and satisfied. + +The stores were there, whatever they might be, and with the help of the +two men they would easily be uncovered. The question whether they would +be of any use after all the years they had lain there recurred to her, +but she put it aside. They would soon see. + +Then she started back for the caves taking the slat of wood with her as +a trophy. As she went the recollection of the find followed her +agreeably, she did not know which to congratulate herself most upon, the +wood of the wreck or the cache. Then came the dismal thought of winter, +begotten of the idea of fires. It was the middle of August. Winter lay +ahead. If no ship came to take them off what would their life be like +during the winter months? Imagine this place at Christmas, covered +perhaps with snow! The gloom of this idea pursued her for a mile or more +till all of a sudden she stopped and laughed aloud at her own +stupidity. It was not autumn, it was spring. They were south of the line +and summer lay before them, not winter. That gloomy ghost, fear of the +Future, which spoils so many men's lives in Civilization, had tricked +her and made her miserable and as she cast it from her and pursued her +way she said to herself again: "I will not think, here the person who +thinks and broods is lost." + +When she reached the caves the men had not yet returned; leaving the +slat of wood leaning against the cliff she came down to the boat and +stood for a moment looking at the sea. The tide was far out now and +coming in again, the sea had fallen to a gentle glassy swell and the +treacherous wind had died away to a faint breeze. Out there where the +waves were coming in and at the limit of the sands rocks were uncovered, +shaggy, black rocks that seemed covered with fur. She came down to them +and found that the fur was a coating of mussels. Here was another find. +She began to pick them and then, running back to the cave for the baling +tin, filled it to the brim, and placed it in the boat. Having done this +she sat down with her back to the boat to rest and wait for the men. + +They ought to have returned by this. The thought that some disaster had +happened to them came to her and tried to creep into her mind, but she +drove it out promptly, stamped on it and began to think of how they +would cook the mussles. They would make a fire with the slat she had +brought back, it was tarred and would burn finely, with that and some +of the bottom boards of the boat, unless Bompard could be persuaded to +go and cut some wood from the wreckage three miles away. Then she +thought how fortunate it was that men smoked. La Touche had a Swedish +match box nearly full of matches and Bompard had a tinder box, one of +the sort that makes a spark by the striking of a wheel against a flint. + +Then she yawned. + +She had been in the open air since early dawn and it was now noon. She +was not tired, but she was filled with a craving for something, yet she +could not tell what this something was that she wanted and without which +she felt somehow lost. Then she knew--it was a roof. + +A person accustomed to live under a roof and suddenly condemned to live +in the open suffers nothing for the first few hours. Then there +gradually comes upon him a weariness and distress almost unimaginable to +those who have not experienced it. He craves not only for a roof but for +walls around him to protect him from the great open spaces that seem +sucking away his individuality. A man living absolutely in the open +without tent or cave or house wherein to concentrate himself would +surely and without doubt either become mad or descend to the level of +the beasts. + +She came up the beach to the cave where she had slept, went into it, and +sat down, her mind finding instant relief from the craving that had +filled it. Her hands went up to her hair and began to arrange it as best +they could. Had she been alone on the beach she would have taken the +pins out and left it loose for the winds to comb and blow about, but the +thought of the men prevented her. She did not like the idea of their +seeing her going about with her hair down; after her experiences in the +boat it seemed absurd to quibble over a thing like this and she tried to +argue with herself without avail. It seemed to her that if she went +about in _negligé_ like that she would lower herself. How? There was +nothing unwomanly in flowing hair, there was nothing indelicate. No, but +women of her class never appeared before men in that fashion, she would +lower herself socially. + +A fool would have laughed at her, holding that amidst castaways there +was no such thing as social position, and, though fools are not +inevitably wrong in their opinions, he would have been wrong. + +Though Bompard and La Touche had dropped the "mademoiselle" in +addressing her, they treated her since landing with a certain respect +which would have been wanting had she been a woman of their own class. + +The class difference held and was a greater protection to her than +anything else. In their eyes she was not a woman, but a lady, a fact +that chilled familiarity, or worse, and, with the aid of her superior +intelligence, gave her authority. + +She felt this instinctively and determined that at no time and in no +manner would she allow her position to degrade. + +Then, having done what she could to her hair she took the rings from the +tobacco box and put them on. She would have much preferred not to have +worn them, they irritated her, but they were part of her insignia and +she put them on. + +As she was putting the tobacco box back in her pocket something looked +in at her. It was a rabbit, a grey fat rabbit that had lopped right to +the cave mouth; it sat up for a moment on its hind legs, looked in, and +then lopped off without any hurry, as though a girl seated in a cave +were an accustomed object and a human being something not to be afraid +of. + +This fearlessness of the rabbit would have started her on a long and +dismal train of thought had she not checked herself in time and like the +man in the haunted house who kept the fear of ghosts away by thinking of +plum puddings, she started to work, re-folding the sail that had served +her for a pillow the night before; then she took the oilskin coat out +and shook it, and folding it, placed it by the left wall of the cave +with the sou'wester on top of it. She was tidying her house. + +Then she went into the men's cave and did a bit of tidying there, +stacking the tins more neatly and putting the odds and ends together. +The sight of the cotton waste gave her an idea and going down to the +boat she emptied the mussels from the baling tin on to the sand, filled +the tin with sea water and bathed her face and hands, drying them on +the cotton. She had finished this operation and had got the mussels back +in the tin when a shout caused her to turn. + +It was the men, they were coming along the beach from the break in the +cliffs. Bompard leading, La Touche lagging behind. + +Bompard was carrying something under his arm, it was a Kerguelen +cabbage. La Touche carried nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE CACHE + + +When she lay down that night on the hard sand, with the sailcloth +beneath her head, she could not sleep. The wretchedness of having to lie +down fully dressed, of being unable to change her clothes, fell on her +like a blight. + +She lay fighting the problem. It was impossible to go on like this. One +might live with little food, but to live always without undressing and +changing one's things was impossible. This problem was insoluble, or +seemed so. Then she found a half solution. She would discard her +stockings and under garments, make a bundle of them and put them under +the sailcloth, she would not wear them again, she would suffer from +cold, no matter, anything was better than that feeling of being fully +dressed always. The weather, besides, was fairly warm. She would learn +to do without shoes as well as without stockings. She would have to go +about without shoes or stockings. She thought of the men. Strangely +enough the thought of going about without shoes or stockings seemed less +repulsive to her than the thought of going about with her hair loose. + +As she lay revolving this business in her mind the whale birds flitting +about in the darkness outside suddenly ceased their crying and through +the silence came a vague mysterious sound that deepened into a humming +like the drone of a gigantic top; the humming became a roar, the roar of +rain. Rain falling in solid sheets, coming across the land like a moving +Niagara, now taking the beach and now the sea. Never had she heard such +rain as this, falling in the black and utter darkness. The shelve of the +beach saved the cave from being flooded and the beetling of the cliff +kept it dry and within a couple of feet of the entrance but it could not +keep out the rain smell, the raw smell of Kerguelen carried from inland, +the smell of bog patches and new washed dolerite and bitter vegetation, +keen, like the smell of the Stone Age. Then after a bit the first great +onslaught slackened. + +The girl raised herself on her elbow, then she rose and cast off the +oilskin coat that had served for a blanket. She undressed in the +darkness, made a bundle of her stockings and her Jaeger underclothes and +placed them beneath the sailcloth, then removing the comb from her hair +and letting it fall she came out into the blackness and stood in the +torrential rain. + +It beat on her head and shoulders and breast, it cascaded down her +limbs, soothing as the hand of mesmerism, refreshing, delightful beyond +words, then she came back into the cave and, finding the cotton waste, +dried herself as well as she could, dried her hair and twisted it into +a knot, put on her blouse, coat and skirt and covered herself with the +oilskin. + +She had solved the question of a bath and change of clothes, at least +for the moment. The discomfort of the rough tweed of the skirt against +her unprotected limbs, of the hard bed, of the sailcloth pillow with +its vague smell of canvas and jute, all these were nothing to that other +discomfort. These were physical, that was psychical. + +She fell asleep and slept till long after dawn. When she came out the +rain had ceased and through air fresh as though from the hand of +Creation vast clouds were rolling away towards the islands over a +blue-green sea. + +They had made a fire on the night before and had cooked some of the +mussels in the baling tin, the rest had been put by to cook for +breakfast; hot food of any sort is a revelation if you have been +condemned to live on cold stuff for any time, but this morning there was +to be nothing hot. The firewood, one of the bottom boards of the boat +chopped up, had been left out in the rain. The sight of it, all soaked, +made the girl forget her bare feet and her hair roughly tied up in a +knot. The housekeeper that lives in every woman rose up in revolt, all +the more so as the guilty ones tried to defend themselves. + +"As for me," said La Touche, "I was listening to the rain, it drove +everything else out of my head." + +"That is so," said Bompard, "I thought every moment we would be flooded +out. It was no time for a man to be thinking of firewood." + +"Well, you will have no fire and nothing hot," said Cléo, "and those +mussels will be wasted--they won't keep, but there's no use in saying +any more about it--only you must learn to think of things. It's not +pleasant, I know, to have to look ahead but one has to do it. You see I +am not wearing my boots and stockings, boots wear out and stockings wear +out quicker, so I just looked ahead last night and said to myself--'your +stockings will soon be worn into holes, so you must begin now to learn +to do without them.' It's not pleasant, but it has to be done. If that +ship we ran into had looked ahead we would not have been wrecked." + +"That is true," said Bompard, anxious to get off the main subject. "If +those chaps had eyes in their heads they wouldn't be feeding the +fishes." + +"It wasn't all their fault," put in La Touche. "If those chaps on the +bridge hadn't put the engines on we wouldn't have rammed her as we did." + +"Well," said Cléo, "there is no use in going back over things. We have +to get breakfast and then go and open the cache." + +She had told them of the cache overnight and, to her wonder, the thing +had interested them, so this morning when they had finished their +biscuits and beef she found not the slightest difficulty in making them +start. + +She put on her boots for the journey and then they reeled along the +beach in the usual order, Cléo first, the two others following; the +great skull made them halt and discuss it for a moment but the +figure-head when they reached it held them entirely in its spell. + +She could scarcely tear them away, they discussed it from every point of +view, argued over it, pondered over it and were only brought to their +senses by a hint that it would have to be chopped up for firewood. + +Then, when they reached the cache, there was another long pause for +discussion, the two sitting down to smoke whilst they talked it over. + +It was not till she set to work pulling more stones away that they began +to get busy; then when once started they laboured like negroes. The +glimpse of the barrel end seemed to inflame them, but indeed they did +not want even that, for the business they had set their hands to had all +the fascination of treasure hunting mixed with the thrills of +house-breaking. Here was "stuff," plunder of some sort, who could tell +what? + +An hour and a half of labour brought them sweating to the end of the +business and the presiding gulls saw exposed to the light of day two big +barrels, two long cases and an amount of canned meat and vegetables +enough to stock a small shop, also a harpoon of the old type and two +shovels placed by the long cases. Then after a rest of half an hour the +barrels were sampled. One contained flour, the other blankets and mens' +clothes, sweaters and coats and trousers. One of the long cases +contained kitchen utensils and tin cups and plates, also knives and +forks and spoons. + +The other contained "comforts," tea and coffee and sugar in sealed tins, +some rolls of tobacco, drugs and a few surgical instruments. All the +equipment, in fact, necessary for an expedition of a dozen men for six +months. Not a drop of liquor. + +Perhaps that was why the girl was more overjoyed by the details of the +find than the mariners. + +Bompard openly expressed his mind. + +"Not a bottle of wine or a drop of rum, swabs." + +"Well, you've got some tobacco," said Cléo, "and there's tea and coffee +and cups and saucers, and a teapot--no coffeepot--well one can make +coffee in anything--" She was running over the stores in her mind, +standing, reviewing them with no thought of anything else and her soul +filled with a joy and satisfaction absolutely new. + +Blankets! Tea! Coffee! and clothes--even mens' clothes if it came to the +worst. One might have fancied her to have fixed definitely in her mind +that she was to spend a very long time on the shores of Kerguelen and to +have accepted the terrible prospect with equanimity. It was not so. She +was living in the moment, so entirely in the moment that these things +were tremendous and vivid and compared with them Art, Music, Religion, +Ambition, and the gauds of Civilization were as nothing. + +This power to live in the moment is the form of strength that brings +men through battles and women through adversity. It fells cities and +builds them. On Kerguelen it is salvation. For, here to think of the +future, unless in terms of material necessities, to dream, to brood, +means death or madness. + +But Bompard and La Touche, resting themselves after their labours, were +not living in the moment nor in the past nor in the present, they were +living in that strange sad land called the Might-Have-Been. They might +have been in the way to a jolly booze by now if that fool who +provisioned the cache had not forgotten the drink. They were thankful +for nothing. They had food, they had clothes, they had tobacco. They +were glad enough of the blankets, but even the thought of the blankets +could not relieve their depression. + +They were not drunkards, but the cache had given them hopes of drinks. +These hopes shattered they sat like discontented children who had been +promised sweets and disappointed. + +But this did not last long, the Hopeless is its own antidote and after +half a pipe of tobacco their cheerfulness, such as it was, returned and +they fell to discussing with the girl the best way of treating the +stores. + +Bompard, considering the difficulty of transporting the stuff to the +caves, proposed that they should move their abode right up to the cache. + +Cléo pointed out that there were no caves here, so, unless they moved +the caves as well as their belongings, they would have nowhere to sleep +in. + +"I think the best thing we can do," said she, "is to take what we want +and then cover up the rest till we want some more." + +"Put the stuff under the rocks again?" asked Bompard. + +"Yes." + +"Mon Dieu!" said La Touche. + +It was not what he said but the way he said it that angered the girl. + +La Touche was a problem in her mind. She could understand Bompard but +she could not quite understand La Touche. It seemed to her that he was +one of those people who without much intelligence, yet, or perhaps +because of that fact, make fine centres of rebellion. She could fancy +him leading a mob to tear down something that vexed him, and everything +seemed to vex him, at times. + +But though she was not clear about La Touche she was quite clear about +herself and she was determined to be his master. She felt instinctively +that he was the leader of Bompard and that Bompard alone would have been +a much better individual, in many respects. + +"There is no use in saying 'Mon Dieu,'" said she, "the thing has to be +done. The gulls and the rabbits will ruin everything if we leave things +about. Come, Bompard." + +Bompard rose up at the order and began to assist in sorting out the +things they were to take back with them. Then La Touche, not to be out +of the business and perhaps ashamed of himself, or of his position as an +idler, joined in. + +Had she given the order direct to him he might have revolted; she had +conquered him for the moment none the less. + +First they began to sort out the things to be kept for immediate use. A +saucepan, three tin cups, three tin plates, knives and forks, the teapot +and kettle, a canister of tea, sugar and salt. The canned stuff, +including thirty cans of vegetables, Cléo left untouched. She determined +to keep it in reserve and depend upon the cabbage plants, one of which +Bompard had brought back yesterday. + +Then came the question of the flour, that too must be kept in reserve +and the opening they had made in the top of the barrel closed up +properly. This operation took time and was conducted with a good deal of +grumbling which fell on deaf ears. The thing was done and that was the +main thing. Four blankets were taken from the other barrel and that too +was closed. Then with the shovels the whole lot was sanded over and the +rocks replaced, the girl helping in the work as well as directing. + +When everything was finished they made three bundles, using the blankets +as holdalls, and started back. + +It was now noon and the breeze that had been blowing ever since dawn had +died away, but great clouds were banking up over the islands, vast, +solemn, leaden-coloured clouds rolling up from the far sea and piling +one on the other like alps on alps. + +They had nearly reached the caves when a roll of thunder like the ruffle +of muffled drums came over the water, but they got under shelter before +the rain began to fall, just a few heavy drops, at first, and then in a +moment a cataract. + +The islands vanished, the sea vanished to within a few hundred yards of +the beach, the voices of the gulls and the breaking of the waves became +merged and vague in the hiss of the sheeting rain. + +"The chaps that left the truck in that cask forgot to shove in some +oilskins," said La Touche as he undid his load. + +Cléo had come into the men's cave to help to unpack. Half-way back she +had taken her boots off. Owing to the absence of stockings her right +heel had become chafed and she had taken them off determining not to +wear them any more. She was kneeling now, bare-footed, taking the things +from Bompard's bundle and La Touche's remark made her look up. It was +the tone rather than the words that irritated her. The recollection of +an oilskin coat which she had used when fishing in Norway the year +before rose in her mind. It had been put away for a long time and when +taken out had been found all stuck up and quite ruined. + +"You can't be much of a sailor," said she, "not to know that oilskin +doesn't stand packing. The men who buried these things did. If they had +known that you were so particular about rain they might have put in an +umbrella." + +Dead silence followed this thrust of the tongue which she instantly +regretted, not because of hurting La Touche's feelings, but because she +instantly felt that it had helped to widen the division between her and +her mates. The extraordinary fact was that she, having assumed the +responsibility of office, was, seemingly, held responsible by the others +for all unpleasant happenings; she felt that the rain of Kerguelen was +now, in a way, being laid at her door. + +Then, again, she had singled out La Touche as a direct opponent. She +felt that he and she were already matching each other and there was +likely to be a struggle between them for dominance. + +Women have been gifted above men with an instinctive knowledge of +character. She divined in La Touche a character weak yet capable of +violence, incapable of leading yet jealous of being led, and especially +of being led by a woman. That was the danger point. + +However, there was no use in trying to say anything smooth and she went +on with her work, helping to stow the things and, when that was +finished, taking off two of the blankets to her own cave. + +A fire was impossible owing to the rain so they dined off biscuits and +canned stuff, cold. + +Bompard and La Touche on this little expedition had discovered a water +source only a quarter of a mile inland, a deep pond cut in the rocks +and fed by the rains. Bompard referred to it as he ate. + +"But as long as the boat holds together," said he, "we don't want to +bother about water; she'll catch and hold all we want. I've heard tell +it rains here months on end." + +"When it's not blowing," said La Touche. Cléo said nothing. It came to +her almost as a new impression that conversation as we know it was +almost impossible with her companions. They had no outlook over anything +but the material and they seemed to see nothing but the black side of +things. She felt also that any attempt to rally them and cheer them +would be dumbly resented and would only help to widen even more the +division between her and them. + +When the meal was finished she put the plates out in the rain to wash +them. Then a bright idea came to her and getting the roll of wire she +asked La Touche to shew her how to make rabbit snares. + +La Touche took the roll of wire and held it in his hands for a moment. + +"This is all very well," said he, "but where is your wire cutters?" + +They had nothing to cut the wire with, and he seemed to look on the fact +as a triumph of his own cleverness over Cléo's, till Bompard intervened +and shewed how, by knotting the wire and pulling hard, a break might be +made. This accomplished, and three lengths of wire having been +procured, the surly one proceeded to make a snare and to demonstrate how +it might be set. + +At the end of the business the girl regretted that she had ever started +it. She had put herself under the tuition of La Touche and allowed the +intimacy of master and pupil, allowed even in this slight way that he +was her superior. + +A yelling wind from the mountains arose that afternoon and drove the +rain away across the islands. It held for half an hour and then of a +sudden ceased and a howling wind from the islands rose and drove the +rain back again towards the mountains. + +The sea suddenly seemed to go mad, with cross currents meeting. Waves +seemed fighting waves and the gulls seemed filled with the general +torment, clanging and blowing about hither and thither like leaves in +autumn. + +Cléo went to her cave and wrapping herself in one of the blankets, with +the other folded double to lie upon, took her place upon the floor with +her head on the sailcloth. + +It was her first really bad moment. Her first moment of real depression. +The rain and the fact that their position as regarded food was secure, +so that there was nothing to fight against at the moment, conspired to +overthrow her. + +Hitherto she had fought bravely and the struggle had kept her up; the +sudden easing of the situation had brought new forces against her. Time +suddenly appeared before her eyes asking: "How are you to kill me? You +can't, you have no weapons. Would you like a book? Would you like +embroidery work to do, companions to talk with, music to listen to? +Fate, under the name of civilization, gave you all these and more, they +have been taken from you and now you see me as I am, the great terror." + +She fought this Bogey by thinking of La Touche. She had raised La Touche +against herself. She knew that something in herself had risen against La +Touche. + +She felt that his respect for a woman of the higher classes was, as +regarded herself, wearing thin, owing to propinquity. That he resented +being "bossed" by a woman, that her superior quickness of mind and +energy vexed him and that one day he would try to master her. He was of +the type that is too mean to rule, yet hates to be ruled. There was also +the jealousy of the male at the superiority of the female. She was +physically weaker than he, a fact that means little in civilized life +where power is in the hands of Order, but which means everything in +primitive life. And they were steadily drifting to the primitive. + +These thoughts, troublesome enough, were still excellent in their way. +They gave her occupation for her mind. + +Then she fell asleep, awaking towards evening to find Bompard at the +cave mouth telling her that supper was ready. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE QUARREL + + +Next morning broke fine. She was awakened by voices quarrelling and came +out to find a breezy and absolutely cloudless day, with the sea running +smooth and the sunlight on the far islands. + +The two men, who had fallen out over some trifle, were wrangling like +fish-women, Bompard having the worst of it, as his ineffectual southern +oaths were no match for the language of the other. + +The girl stood looking at La Touche, but he seemed not to mind in the +least. + +Then she turned away and walked down to the boat. + +She heard Bompard say: "There, you have sent her off, talking like +that," and what La Touche replied she could not hear, but she guessed it +was something not complimentary to Bompard or herself. + +The boat was half full of rain-water. She rinsed her hands in it, then, +standing with the warm sun upon her, she almost forgot the men, looking +at the purple islands and the gulls like new minted gold and the great +arch of the bay lined out with a thread of creamy foam. + +After a while, turning round, she saw that Bompard was lighting a fire +with the remains of the wood and, coming up, she helped in the business. + +He had arranged the little fire between pieces of rock so as to make a +stand for the kettle, and La Touche was opening the hermetically sealed +canister of tea with his knife; neither man was speaking and the meal +passed off almost in silence. + +She felt that any moment the quarrel might break out again and her +instinct was to get away from them. + +She had left the fisherman's knife and belt in her cave; she went to the +cave and strapped the belt around her waist. The boat hook was lying on +the sand; she picked it up and, carrying it, walked away down the beach +in the direction of the cache. + +The boat hook was a weapon of sorts and it was better out of the men's +way; the knife was different. It had come to her that in this place it +was better to be armed and she determined always to wear it. + +But no sounds of quarrelling followed her, only the quarrelling of the +gulls, and half a mile away, looking back, she saw that the men had +separated. La Touche was standing by the boat and Bompard was walking +towards the Lizard point. She sat down to rest for a moment and she +watched the figure of Bompard. It grew smaller and smaller till it +reached the point, then it vanished over the rocks. + +She saw La Touche walk away towards the caves; he disappeared, and the +beach, now destitute of life, lay sung to by the sea and flown over by +the gulls. Nothing speaking of man lay there but the boat that looked +like a toy cast there by a child. It held her eyes, focussed her +thoughts, and became the centre of a sudden longing, a desire soul +searching as the desire for water--the desire for civilization, for the +things and people that she knew. + +Her companions had become horrible to her. To go on living with them +seemed appalling. The rocks, the sea, the gulls, even the rain, all +these fitted with her mind--they seemed in some way familiar, but with +the men she had nothing in common. + +It is worse to be wrecked on a social state than on a desert shore. She +was wrecked on both. + +She recognised surely that at the rate things were going she would soon, +so far from being above her companions, be below them on account of her +weakness. She recognised that superiority of mind would count little +after a while with these minds, incapable of distinguishing grades, or +values, beyond money value and the distinction of master from man, and +that sex so far from being a protection would be a danger. + +Her brave mind allowed itself to be borne along for a while on these +currents of thought, then it reacted against them, repeating again the +old formula that to think, here, on other things than the moment and +the material was to die or go distraught. + +She got up and shifted her position, sitting with her back towards the +boat. + +She could see the penguins, now, drilling beneath the cliff and beyond +the penguins the figure-head of the ship and beyond that the fuming beach +with its snow storm of gulls. She was soon to see something that many +would travel a thousand miles to witness, but unconscious of what was +coming she sat watching the penguins, then with the boat hook point she +began scratching figures on the sand, but with difficulty, on account of +the length of the staff. + +Sitting like this her eyes were suddenly attracted seaward to a point in +the water beyond the line of the figure-head. Things were moving out +there, moving rapidly and drawing in-shore and now, riding an incoming +wave, like a half submerged canoe, she saw a dark elongated form. It +came shooting through the foam just like a beaching canoe and as it +dragged itself up the sand a sound like the far off roar of a lion came +echoing along the cliffs. + +She knew at once what it was, a sea elephant. Prince Selm had described +them and how they came ashore at Kerguelen to breed, journeying there +through thousands of miles of ocean and arriving in hundreds and +thousands at different points of the coast. + +This was the first of the great herd and, as she watched, more were +coming, breasting the waves and breaking from the foam and coming up the +beach like vast, rapidly-moving slugs. + +The sight held her fascinated. Every newcomer saluted the land with a +roar. They were the males; the females of the herd, still far out at sea +beyond the islands, would not land to give birth to their young for +another fortnight. + +She watched till perhaps two hundred had beached, then the invasion +ceased; there was no more roaring, and over the army of invaders, +lumping along hither and thither on the flat rocks, the sea-gulls flew +and screamed in anger or in welcome, who could say? + +Prince Selm had spoken of how the sea elephants fought together on +landing. He was wrong. The great, far-distant brutes instead of fighting +seemed resting and sunning themselves and the girl, rising up, came +along in their direction. She had forgotten Bompard and La Touche. + +She reached the river which was spating from the recent rains, but great +flat-topped rocks made it always possible to cross; she crossed it. + +The sea elephants were close to her now and seemed not in the least +disturbed by her presence, they lay here and there, vast brutes, twenty +feet in height, weighing tons, raising themselves occasionally on their +flippers and then sinking back to rest with a sigh of contentment. + +She measured them with her eye, noted the short trunks that seemed so +useless, the tusks, the old scar marks got in battle and the splendour +of their strength and mass and muscle. Like the land elephants there was +something about them terrible yet benign. + +She drew closer. As regarded animals of any good sort she had the +fearlessness of a child, the instinct that would have been terrified by +a reptile or anything truly ferocious however masked by fur or feather. +These things she felt to be absolutely harmless, as regarded herself, +and they were a million years closer to her than the penguins. + +The penguins had amused her, but for all their quaintness and politeness +they seemed as far apart from her as mechanical toys. Her heart had not +gone out to them with that love of living things which lies in the heart +of children, of women and most men. + +She drew closer still. The great brutes were now watching her +steadfastly, but seemingly without fear. She had left the boat hook +behind a mile away, dropping it because of its weight, and with the +exception of the knife in her belt she was unarmed. Perhaps they knew +this. Vague in their brains must have lain memories of great hurts when +they were the hunted and men the hunters; but this vision evidently +stored up no antagonistic feelings. Possibly they knew her sex and +possibly the instinct which never failed them told them that she was +friendly. + +Less than ten yards away from the nearest bull she sat down on a piece +of rock, and no sooner had she taken her seat than they seemed +immensely closer and her own position one of absolute helplessness. With +a sudden rush, moving with that swiftness with which she had seen them +moving on first landing, the bull could have reached her, but the bull +did not move, his lordship from the sea, filled with the absolute and +complete contentment of the male at rest, moved only his trunk, he +seemed sniffing her and the momentary fear that had seized her passed +utterly away. + +She could sniff him too. Just as cows fill the air with the fragrance of +milk the herd filled the place with the scent of fish and fur and a tang +of deep sea like the smell of beach, only sharper and fresher. + +Then, just as people talk to horses and dogs, leaning forward a bit she +began to talk to him. + +The effect of the sweet soothing voice was magical, and for a moment not +in the least soothing. The near bulls moved, evidently deeply disturbed +in their minds. The majority, including the biggest and nearest bull, +turned half away as if to get off, then turned again as if to renew +their astonishment. + +The girl laughed, the timidity of this vast force seemed to her less +timidity than masculine awkwardness, as though a number of heavy old +gentlemen, taking their ease in their club, were suddenly put to +confusion and flight by a female charmer appearing before them. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +WHERE IS BOMPARD? + + +When they had re-settled themselves she rose to go, nodded to them and +turned away towards the river. Then she looked back. The big bull was +following her and the rest of the herd were moving slightly in the same +direction. The bull paused when she turned, then, when she went on, he +continued following her, lazily and as if drawn by some gentle magnetic +attraction. + +Across the river she turned and waved her hand to them. Then she went +on. + +In some extraordinary way the creatures had made the place less lonely +and the wonder of them pursued her as she walked, keeping to the sand +patches where the rocks were and then striking along the great levels of +pure sand. + +Her feet did not hurt her and she was beginning to recognise that touch +with the world which comes to those who walk without boots, something +that humanity has all but forgotten, all but ceased to remember. + +As she drew near the caves she looked for the men, but the beach was +deserted. Then, looking into the men's cave, she saw La Touche lying on +his back asleep, his pipe beside him and his arm flung across his eyes. + +Where was Bompard? + +He ought to have been back by this, and as she turned and looked up and +down the beach a vague uneasiness came upon her. + +It was as if for the first time she had recognized the value of Bompard +in their small society. Bompard with his age and heaviness and patent +honesty, despite his stupidity, was a presence not to be despised. + +If La Touche had been another man she might have awakened him to make +enquiries. As it was, she preferred to let him lie. + +Bompard she had last seen crossing the rocks of the Lizard point. It was +there that she must look for him. + +She went to the cave where she had left her boots and put them on for +the climb. When she reached the point she found the work easier than she +had suspected. The rocks were not strewn at random, they were in reality +breaks off and tables of the basalt; the whole point was like a great +lizard that, creeping stealthily towards the sea, had been stricken into +rock. + +She climbed, and in five minutes was on the highest point with a new +view of the coast before her. It was like looking at Ferocity. Here the +rocks were broken and tumbled about, indeed, rocks, huge and spired like +churches, cliffs black and polished with the washing of the waves, +monoliths standing out in the blue-green water and all ringing and +singing to the chime of the sea. Inland, cañons of night and shoulders +of dolerite and plains where nothing grew leading to great level +bastions, fortifications that seemed built by rule and plumb line, with +the markings of the basalt visible through the clear air. Basalt has +that terrible peculiarity. It seems the work of a hand, it makes castles +and fortifications whose ruled markings bear the inevitable suggestions +of masonry. + +And across all that not a sign of life save the wings of the tireless +birds, teal and duck, cormorants, and beyond the seaward rocks the great +sea geese fishing and the guillemots flighting and the white tern +darting like dragon-flies. + +Where was Bompard? + +Had he, by any chance, come back and taken some other road off the +beach? There was only one way: the break in the cliffs, beyond the +caves. She thought it highly improbable that he would have come back +only to leave the beach by another way, the descent from where she stood +and towards the bed country was quite easy, alluringly easy. No, he +would have gone on. + +She sat down to rest and watch. + +At any moment he might appear in the distance. From where she sat the +sea lay straight before her and the far off islands, to the left the +rock strewn coast, to the right the great curving beach. + +Behind her the country stormed away, stern, grey-grim and treeless, to +the foothills whose misty mauve lay stretched before the mountains. + +Every now and then she would turn towards the left searching the country +and cliffs with her eyes, but no form appeared. + +She remembered now that he had talked about sea birds' eggs and how to +get them. Might he have gone hunting for eggs over those cliffs and +fallen? + +She remembered also when the two men had come back from their expedition +inland they had brought an alarming story of a bog like a quick sand. La +Touche had blundered into it and he would have gone down only for his +companion. They had also said something about pot holes like shafts in +the basalt. She turned her mind away from these thoughts and passing her +fingers through her hair removed the comb which held it in a rough knot, +shaking it free to the sun and wind. She combed it with her fingers and +rearranged it and then looked again--nothing. + +It came to her suddenly that though she were to sit there forever the +vigil would be useless, that Bompard had gone--never to return. + +She reasoned with this feeling, and reason only increased her fears. It +was now noon, Bompard was not the man to go on a long expedition by +himself; he was too inactive and easy-going. No, something had happened +to him and he might at that moment be lying dead at the foot of some +cliff or he might have broken a leg and be lying at the foot of some +rock unable to move. + +She rose up and came swiftly down to the beach. Reaching the caves she +found La Touche opening a tin. It was dinner-time. + +"What has become of Bompard?" she asked. "Have you seen him since he +went off this morning over those rocks?" + +"Bompard," replied the other, "Mon Dieu! How do I know? No, I have not +seen him, he is big enough to take care of himself." + +"That may be," she replied, "but accidents happen no matter how big a +man may be. He has not returned--" + +"So it would seem," said La Touche, who had now got the tin open and was +turning the contents on to a plate. "But he will return when he +remembers that it is dinner-time." + +Her lips were dry with anger, there was a contained insolence in the +manner and voice of the other that roused her as much as his +callousness. His mind seemed as cold as his pale blue eyes. All her +mixed feelings towards him focussed suddenly into a point--she loathed +him; but she held herself in. + +"If he has not returned when we have finished dinner," said she, "we +will have to look for him." She took a plate and some of the beef he had +turned from the tin and with a couple of biscuits drew off and taking +her place outside in the sun began her wretched meal. A rabbit that had +run out on the sands sat up and looked at her as she ate, then it ran +off and as she followed it with her eyes she contrasted the little +friendly form with the form of La Touche, the dark innocent eyes with +those eyes of washed-out blue, without depth, or, perhaps, veiling +depth. + +When she had finished eating she put the plate by her side and sat +waiting for La Touche to make a movement. + +Bompard that morning had left his tinder box behind him in the cave, she +heard the strike of flint on steel. La Touche was lighting his pipe. She +waited ten minutes or more, then she came to the cave mouth. + +"Are you not coming to look for Bompard?" asked she. + +"I'll go when I choose," said he, "I don't want orders." + +"I gave you no orders," she replied, "I asked you, are you not coming to +look for Bompard who may be in difficulties, or lying perhaps with a +broken limb--and you sit there smoking your pipe. But I give you orders +now; get up and come and help to look for him. Get up at once." + +He sprang to his feet and came right out. It seemed to her that she had +never seen him before. This was the real La Touche. + +"One word more from you," he shouted, "and I'll show you who's master. +You! Talk to me, would you! A--woman more trouble than you're worth. Off +with you, get down the beach--clear!" + +He took a step forward with his right fist ready to strike, +open-handed. Then he drew back. She had whipped the knife from its +sheath. + +The boat hook, which she had brought back with her, was propped against +the cliff behind her and out of his reach, he had no weapon. + +She did not add a word to the threat of the knife. He stood like a fool, +unable to sustain her gaze, venomous, yet held, as a snake is held by a +man's grip. + +"Now," she said, "get on. Go search for your companion and if you dare +to speak to me again like that I will make you repent it. You thought I +was weak being a woman and alone. You were going to strike. Coward!--Get +on, go and search for your companion." + +He turned suddenly and walked off towards the Lizard rocks. "I'll go +where I choose," said he. + +It was a lame and impotent end of his rebellion, but she held no +delusions. This was only the beginning--if Bompard did not return. + +She put the knife in its sheath and then she put the boat hook away, +hiding it behind the sailcloth in her cave, then she went into the +men's cave. La Touche's clasp knife lay there on the sand, it was not +much of a weapon but she took it. She examined the dinner knives again. +They were almost useless as weapons. Then she came out. La Touche had +disappeared beyond the rocks and she came to the boat. There was nothing +here in the way of a weapon that he might use, unless the oars. They +were heavy, but he was strong. She determined to leave nothing to +chance and, carrying the oars down the beach to the break in the cliffs, +she hid them amongst some scrub bushes. Then she remembered the axe, +sought for it and hid it. + +Then she came back and sat down to reconsider matters. + +The position was as bad as could be. + +As bad as La Touche. Once let this man get the upper hand and she was +lost. She would be his slave and worse. She had measured him finely. +Instinct, never at fault, told her that to pull down anything above him +would be meat and drink to La Touche's true nature and that his hatred +of her superiority was deepened by the fact that she was a woman. + +Were she weak he would beat her and make her cook for him, trample on +her, make her his woman to fetch and carry, and, if Bompard did not come +back, she was here alone with him and would have to fight this thing +out. + +Well, she could not fight it by brooding over it, and she was not +helping to look for Bompard. + +She drew the knife from its sheath and held the eight inches of razor +sharp steel balanced in her hand for a moment as though admiring it. +Then she replaced it in the sheath and started towards the Lizard +Point. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE DEATH TRAPS + + +From the highest shoulder of the point she could see La Touche +clambering over the seaward rocks. + +He seemed more in search of shells and seaweed than of Bompard. Then, +climbing down, she reached the lower ground and struck off inland. If +she did not succeed in finding Bompard she would at least succeed in +avoiding La Touche. + +Right from the Lizard Point the plain stretched to higher ground which +marked the beginning of the sea cliffs, great rocks strewed the way and +the ground was torn by the beds of small water courses, depressions that +would suddenly become little rivers in the deluging rains; stunted +bushes huddled as if for shelter at the rock bases and the voice of the +sea came here, broken and mixing with the whisper of the bushes to the +wind. + +This place had once been a glacier bed, rounded boulders standing in +pools of water told that. + +A gull flying in from the sea and carrying a fish in its beak drew her +attention; it was being pursued by a larger gull. They were both of the +Burgomaster type, but the fish carrier was noticeable on account of the +intense blackness of its tail plumage. + +As they passed the fish dropped, fell on a patch of yellow ground just +in front of the girl, sank, and vanished. + +She stopped dead and drew back with a chill at her heart. Then she +picked up a stone and cast it on the patch of ground. It vanished even +more swiftly than the fish. + +It was one of the bogs the men had spoken of. They had described the +treacherous ground as white, this was yellowish and not very noticeable, +it was also death and another dozen steps would have led her into it. + +She advanced cautiously, reached the border line and kneeling down +pushed her hand into the yellow mud. It was like pushing it into a cold +slimy mouth. She could scarcely draw it out again, when she did the mud +was clinging to her hand like a yellow glove. + +She came back to one of the rock ponds and washed her hand, it was like +trying to get rid of treacle and, as she washed, she tried to fancy what +would have happened but for the gull, tried to picture herself being +slowly pulled down into that cold darkness and entombed there forever. + +Then, skirting the place of danger, she went on, cautiously, examining +carefully the ground before her. She had not gone ten yards when it +seemed to her that a patch right in front of her was ever so slightly +darker and moister looking than the ground she was treading. + +She picked up a stone and cast it on the patch. It vanished. Then she +knew the feeling of the man who finds himself ambuscaded. + +This place was a death trap, or, rather, a series of death traps, there +might be pits lying in wait for her quite unnoticeable. She turned and +began to retrace her steps, so shaken that she would not trust even the +ground that she had already covered but kept testing it by casting +stones before her. + +From a little distance an observer might have fancied her engaged in +some new sort of game. + +Near the safety of the Lizard rocks her eyes, closely scanning the +ground before her, caught sight of something. It was a half-burned +match. No one else but Bompard could have dropped that match. He had +started without his tinder-box, had evidently found that match in his +pocket, lit his pipe and walked on. There was only one direction in +which he would have walked unless he had struck inland, which was +improbable. He would have made as she had made to cross to the higher +ground. + +Even if he had walked inland he would not have escaped, for, casting her +eyes in that direction she could see yellow patches spreading between +the rocks. + +She knew now what had become of Bompard, and with lips dry as pumice +stone she began to climb till she reached the point where she had sat +that morning. If the mud had taken Bompard, had he cried out? If so, La +Touche would have heard his cries, for the caves were not so far from +the Lizard rocks. + +La Touche was nowhere to be seen, but she had no fear about him, or only +the fear that he would come back. Bompard was gone. Bompard was dead, +she knew it as though she had seen him engulfed, and she was here alone, +in this place, with La Touche. + +She put her hand to her side automatically to make sure that the knife +was there. Then she sat with her eyes fixed on the distant islands, +haze-purple in the light of the westering sun. + +The thought of the boat on the beach came to her with the idea that she +might launch it and escape, make for the islands and put all that sea +between herself and the man she hated. But she could not launch the boat +single-handed and, if she could, it would have been impossible to work +it single-handed with those big oars. + +She could see the boat from where she sat and the line of the beach +leading away past the seal-nursery and the sea elephant strand to the +rocks that formed the north-eastern horn of the bay. In stormy weather +those rocks would be invisible in the smoke of the breakers, to-day they +were clearly defined. She could see the great seals as they moved slowly +hither and thither and the ship's figure-head as it stood to this side +of them and, like a pin point of white the great white skull on the +sands, a desolate scene, but almost benign when compared to the savagery +of rocks and cliffs visible on her other side and that sinister plain, +where the death traps were set and waiting with the patience of +malignity for what might come to feed them. + +She had fought the human failing that makes men brood and trouble about +the future, a failing that is mostly born of houses and artificial life; +already the struggle against it was less. She was coming more and more +under that which has dominion over all things that live in the open and +have to fight for life--the moment. If she had examined her own mind she +would have found that the death of Bompard, of which she felt certain, +affected her far less than it would have done some days ago, that her +desire to escape to the islands was caused by the hatred of La Touche +more than by fear of the future with him. + +She would have found that her capacity for hatred had increased and also +her dangerous qualities, and she would have found all this because God +had so ordered life that it is adaptable, making the defensive and +offensive qualities of the being capable of increase or decrease in +answer to environment or need. + +She came back to the beach. It wanted, still, a couple of hours of +sun-down. There was no sign yet of La Touche, but, just as she knew in +her heart that Bompard was dead she knew that La Touche was all right. +He had been keeping to the rocks by the sea, leaving that aside; she +knew that he would come back. He was of the sort that remains unscathed +when the better man is taken. + +She had one dread; that La Touche might get the knife from her, throw it +away, and be master by his superior strength. + +She had his clasp knife in her pocket, but it was a thing of little +account in a struggle. Well, she must be on her guard. Then came the +thought: "But how can I be on my guard when I am asleep?" + +Nothing would be easier, if he were really in earnest, than for him to +creep upon her whilst she slept, and disarm her. + +She tried to dismiss this idea. La Touche was not crafty enough for that +and, besides, would he go to the lengths of a physical struggle? He had +been on the point of hitting her, it was true, but that was in a moment +of excitement. Was she not painting him in too desperate colours? + +Argue as she would on the question, reason, instinctive reason, always +came back with the same answer: "Be on your guard, that knife is the +only barrier between you and heaven knows what. Without it you would be +at the mercy of a superior force. La Touche is no melodramatic villain; +he is, what is perhaps worse for you, a creature of low instincts, +stronger than you. Beware of being at his mercy." + +With her mind filled by these thoughts she set to work getting supper +ready. La Touche had taken the tinder box with him, so a fire was out of +the question and she contented herself by laying out the beef that had +served for dinner, and some biscuits. + +Then she saw that she had only laid two plates. Working +half-unconsciously she had ruled Bompard out. She looked at the things +lying there on the sand, then she turned away from them. La Touche had +crossed the rocks and was coming along the beach. He was trailing a long +ribband of seaweed he had picked up and as he drew closer she saw that +he had left his ill-humor behind him. + +"There was no sight of Bompard," said he, "he has not come back, then?" + +"Bompard will not come back," replied the girl, "we will never see him +again." + +Then she told of the death traps beyond the rocks and of the match. + +La Touche listened, standing, and still holding the ribband of seaweed +in his fingers. + +She could see that he believed what she said and yet his words gave the +lie to what was in his face. + +"Oh, Bompard will come back all right," said he. "He's not such a fool +as to get into any of those bogs; he's sulking, that's all." + +He shaded his eyes, looking back towards the rocks as though on the +chance of seeing the missing one; then he sat down before his plate and +helped himself to food and the girl, loathing him and the food as well, +sat down and made a pretence of eating. + +She noticed that he was cheerful, for a wonder. He ate with good +appetite and shewed in his movements and manner and voice when he spoke +a restrained vivacity new to him. + +His blondness, the washed-out blue of his eyes, his features, his voice, +she considered all these anew as she sat opposite to him. It seemed to +her that anything truly manly about him had come from the sea; that +essentially he was a product of Mont Martre or the Banlieu of old Paris. +She loathed him now as only a woman can loathe a man and, woman-like, +her loathing focussed itself upon his blondness and the colour of his +eyes. + +Then, when she had done with the pretence of eating she rose up and, +leaving him to remove the things, walked down to the water's edge and +along towards the break in the cliffs. + +The tide was nearly out and the sea scarcely broke on the rocks; she had +never seen it calmer nor the islands closer. They seemed to have drawn +in shore during the last half hour and as she looked she saw a great +flock of gulls coming landward, and, as she turned to watch them, she +noticed the far-off mountain tops visible through the cliff break. They +were fuming. One might have fancied that fires had been lit all along +their tops and round the highest peak a turban of cloud was winding +itself, coil on coil. + +Then as she stood watching, and from away over, there came a rumble, +deep and cavernous, as if a gargantuan dray were being driven over +subterranean roads. It died out in echoes amongst the foothills and +the silence returned broken only by the wash of the sea on the beach. + +She turned towards the sea. It had altered suddenly in colour and from +away beyond the islands the wind was coming. She could see it, raking +the sea like a comb. Then it struck the beach and yelled away up the +break in the cliffs like a hunter in a hurry to get to the wild work +going on amidst the hills. + +She turned back towards the caves. + +La Touche had left the tin plates lying on the sand and the wind, which +seemed to possess a hundred fingers, was chasing them about. He was +trying to recapture them and as he brought them back he laughed. It was +the first time she had seen him laugh. Then as he stowed them away he +shewed a disposition towards intimacy and talkativeness. + +"That's what the winds are in this place," said he, "no wonder ships +steer clear of it." + +"I'm not thinking of the wind," said she, "I'm thinking of Bompard." + +"Oh, Bompard will come back all right," said he, "the grub's here and +that will bring him. Bompard will come back all right." + +"No," said she, "he will never come back and you know it." + +She turned away from him. Dusk was now falling and as she entered her +cave the wind from the sea suddenly fell dead. Almost immediately it +began to blow again, but now from the land and as though this land wind +were spreading a pall over the sky darkness fell suddenly and with the +darkness she could hear the rain coming with the sound she had heard +once before like the murmuring of a great top spun by a giant. + +Then the rain burst on the beach with a roar through which came the hiss +of the rain-swept sea. + +The sound was almost welcome. As she lay in the darkness it seemed like +a protecting wall between herself and La Touche. La Touche's ill-temper +would have disturbed her less than his cheerfulness and amiability, born +so suddenly and from no apparent reasons. She had determined not to +sleep and she had lain down fully dressed; even to the oilskin coat and +with her boots on; to-morrow she would go off and hide amongst the +bushes beyond the cliff break and get some sleep, but to-night she would +not close her eyes; so she told herself. + +She had taken the knife from its sheath and placed it beside her, her +hand rested on it. An hour passed, and now, as she lay listening to the +pouring of the rain her fingers felt the pattern of the hilt. The hilt +was striated cross-ways to give a better grip, and as her fingers +wandered up and down the strictions the cross bars of a ladder were +suggested to her. The steady pouring of the rain seemed to work on this +idea and make it more real. Then she was climbing a ladder set against +the cliffs. La Touche was holding it at the foot and Bompard was waiting +for her at the cliff top. He helped her up and then the dream changed +to something else, and to something else, till she woke suddenly to the +recognition that she had been asleep for a long time and that fear, +deadly fear, was clutching her by the throat. + +She sat up, leaning on her elbow. The rain was still falling, though the +sound of it was much less, and the blackness was so intense that it +seemed moulded round her. She felt for the knife and found it. Then she +lay down again, listening. + +The tide was coming in and she recognised, and not for the first time, a +curious singing, chanting echo that always accompanied the waves of the +incoming tide. + +Fear is reasonless, it is also Protean, and this sea voice coming +through the night turned the fear of La Touche to the fear of Bompard. +What if he were to return, cold and wet, from that terrible grave-yard +beyond the rocks? + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE STROKE + + +As she lay, listening, through the black darkness and the singing of the +sea came a faint sound as of something dragging itself along the sand at +the cave entrance. She clutched the knife and sat up. A waft of wind +brought with it a tang of stale tobacco and rain-wet clothes. It was La +Touche. + +She drew up her feet and sat crouched against the sailcloth, the knife +half-held in her lap, her fingers nerveless, her mind paralysed with the +knowledge that now, immediately, she would _have_ to fight, that the +Beast was all but upon her. She knew. + +She could hear him breathing now and the faint sound of his hands +feeling gently over the floor of the cave. He was searching for her, the +fume of him filled the place, he was almost in touch with her, yet still +she sat helpless as a little child, paralysed in the blackness, as a +bird before a crawling cat. Yet her right hand as though endowed with a +volition of its own was tightening its grasp upon the hilt of the knife. + +She had no longer reasoning power. Reasoning power and energy seemed +now in the possession of the knife. + +Then something touched her left boot and at the touch her hand struck +out into the darkness, blindly and furiously, driving the knife home to +the hilt in something that fell with a choking sound across her feet. +She forced her feet from the thing that had suddenly fallen on them, +rose, sprang across it and passed through the cave entrance with the +surety of a person moving in broad daylight. + +Then the pouring rain on her face brought her to her full senses and +recognition of what had happened. + +The knife was still in her hand and her hand was sticky and damp. + +She said to herself: "That is his blood." The thought that perhaps she +had killed him did not occur to her. The fear of him was still so +intense, that it made him alive, alive somewhere in the surrounding +darkness, and waiting to seize her. Then she began to steal off towards +the sound of the sea. Twice as she went she stopped and turned, ready to +strike again, then when the water was washing round her feet she came up +the beach a few paces and crouched down. + +The sea was at her back and the haunting dread of being followed +vanished. + +It was now that she asked herself the question: "Have I killed him?" +Meaning:--"Have I freed myself of him,"--hoping this was so. + +The terror behind her having vanished she was now brave. It seemed to +her that the sound of the sea had become sharper; then she realized that +the sound of the rain had ceased. Her mind seemed working in a dual +manner and she had not fully recognized the cessation of the rain till +the sound of the sea clinched the fact. + +Through the clear night now came the melancholy crying of the whale +birds, and through the broken clouds a ray of the moon shewed a faint +light in which the cliffs began to stand out. + +The incoming tide washed round her so that she had to move, it seemed +determined to drive her up to the caves. She could see now the whole +beach desolate of life and before her, vaguely sketched in the cliff +wall, the cave openings. + +She came along the sea edge till she reached the break in the cliffs, +then, looking behind her again to make sure, she took refuge in the +bushes. + +For the last few yards before reaching them she seemed wading through +tides of nothingness. In the shelter of the bushes she forgot +everything. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +ALONE + + +She was awakened by the light of day. Kerguelen had cleared its face of +clouds and the new risen sun was on sea and mountains and land. + +A whole family of rabbits were disporting themselves close to her in a +clear space between the bushes and as she sat up they darted off, a +glimpse of their cotton white tails shewing for a moment in the sun. + +She was stiff from the damp, her clothes were wet despite the oilskin +coat which she had left open, and her throat was sore, every bone ached +as though she had been beaten. Her soul felt sick. It was as though the +crawling beast of the night before had crawled over it like a slug, +poisoning it. The knife lay beside her; she picked it up and looked at +it; there were red traces upon the hilt and the lines in the palm of her +right hand were red. She rubbed it clean with the damp leaves of the +bushes, then she stood up, shaking and weak, heedless of everything but +the friendly touch of the sun. Her fear was gone, but the effect of it +remained in a sense of bruising and injury. + +Out on the beach there was nothing, nothing but the breaking sea and the +flying gulls and lines of long legged gulls stalking or standing on the +sands, the 'get-away--get-away' of the kittiwakes came across the water +and the barking of brent geese from beyond the rocks of the Lizard +Point. The boat lay there on its side, everything was the same. + +She drew towards the caves. Nothing stirred there. Then she halted and, +changing her course, came right down to the water's edge. From here she +could see the three cave mouths dark cut in the cliff. She watched them +for a moment as though expecting something to appear, then she came up +towards them, walking more cautiously as she drew near, just as she had +walked on the plain where the death traps were. + +The light shone into the cave where she had slept. She saw a naked foot +with toes dug into the sand and beyond the foot a form lying on its +side. + +Then she drew back with a cry; something was moving there. A rabbit +dashed out of the cave and scuttered away along the cliff base. Then she +knew. + +La Touche was dead, he would never crawl again. She had killed him. She +cast the knife on the sand and wiped the palm of her hand on her dress +half unconsciously, gazing at the foot. + +The terror of him had burned away anything in her mind that might have +fed remorse. She had not killed him consciously. Searching her memory +she could vaguely recollect having struck out against something +appalling in the darkness. Now she knew and guessed all, and she could +have hated him only that death kills hatred. + +She came to the mouth of the men's cave and sat down in the sun, the +soreness of her throat, the weariness of her very bones, the feel of her +horrible wet clothes, all these filled her with a craving for the sun +and its warmth and light, fierce as the craving for drink. She spread +out her hands to it, then, with shaking fingers she began to take off +her clothes. They clung to her like evil things. Had this been a day of +pouring rain she might just have lain down and died. + +Without getting up, and leaning on her elbow, she spread out the skirt +and coat and other things on the sand beside her, then she stretched her +aching limbs to the warmth. + +The wind had fallen to almost a dead calm, and as she lay she saw little +rabbits stealing out to play in the sunshine on the sands. She watched +them running in circles like things on wheels and moving by clockwork. +Then she closed her eyes, but still she saw them circling, circling, +circling. + +Then she was in the toy department of the Magazin du Louvre and a +shop-woman was shewing her toy rabbits that ran in circles, five francs +each. + +She awoke at noon; the sore throat was gone, her bones no longer ached +and the great beach lay under the heat of noon, humming like a +stretched string to the touch of the sea. + +Her left arm and side and thigh were scorched by the sun, but that was +nothing; the sense of illness was gone, and her mind, quite clear and +renewed, had regained its balance. + +She remembered everything. La Touche was lying there in the cave, dead. +The knife that had killed him she could see lying on the sand where she +had dropped it; she had killed him. All these monstrous facts seemed +old, settled and done with and of little more interest than the things +and events of a year ago. + +What seemed new was the beach and its desolation--its emptiness. It was +as though a crowd of people had suddenly vanished from it; a crowd that +any moment might return. The place seemed waiting and watching. + +She cast her eyes towards the rocks of the Lizard Point and then towards +the cave mouth; then hurriedly she began to put on her clothes, now dry +and warm, and having dressed she stood for a moment again looking about +her. + +She could see the penguins in the distance going through their endless +evolutions, and the rhythmical sound of the sea came from near and far +mixed with the chanting and crying of the gulls. At any moment Bompard +might appear labouring over those rocks, at any moment La Touche might +step from the cave where he lay. That is what the beach told her, though +she knew that the forms of the two men would appear no more; that she +was here alone, utterly alone. + +She took shelter from the sun in the men's cave. Bompard's tinder box +was lying on the sand and half a box of Swedish matches. The men's +blankets were tossed in a corner and the provisions and utensils were in +their proper place. On a plate by the bags of biscuits lay the remains +of the beef from last night's supper; she took it and ate it with a +biscuit, sitting on the floor of the cave and staring before her out at +the strip of beach where the boat lay on its side with the sea breaking +beyond. + +On the day the men had gone off inland on their expedition she had +terrified herself with fancies of what it would be like were she to find +herself here alone. Her imagination had gone far from the reality. + +The thing had happened; the men were gone, gone forever, yet she was not +alone. They filled the place by their absence far more than they had +filled it by their presence. + +The louder cry of a gull outside seemed hailing Bompard, the rustle of a +rabbit on the sands seemed the coming of La Touche, the sound of the sea +spoke of them, the boat seemed only waiting for them to launch it. They, +whom a million years would not bring back. + +She felt neither regret for the fate of La Touche nor sorrow for the +fate of Bompard, all that seemed unreal, just as the darkness and terror +of the night before seemed unreal. The real thing that touched her +through everything was Expectancy. Expectancy, ghostly and attenuated, +yet ubiquitous. + +It brought her to the cave mouth before she had finished her meal. The +beach seemed to say to her: "Come out and look!" and she came out and +looked, and the line of foam and the wheeling or stalking gulls held her +for a moment as though saying--a moment, a moment more and you will see +something. They will come. Any moment now you may see Bompard crossing +the rocks. La Touche is not in that cave, he is here, everywhere. + +She came back into the cave and sat down and finished her meal, the food +had renewed her strength and with renewed strength her indifference to +all that had happened began to pass. + +She had killed La Touche. The reality of that fact was coming home to +her now; she did not reason in the least on the matter saying he +deserved to be killed, that had all been settled long ago in her mind, +but the fact that she had killed him was standing strongly out before +her, also the facts that he was dead and lying quite close to her and +that though she did not mind his dead body she was beginning to dread +something else. + +Dead, he was beginning to frighten her just as he had frightened her +when living. Then she found that it was just the same with Bompard. He +was frightening her too. + +Suppose one or the other were to peep in at her, and nod at her--she +pictured it and then crushed the picture in her mind and got up and came +out again and stood in the sun. + +Then she came down to the boat and stood with her hand on the gunnel, +and, for a moment as she stood thus, the terror of utter loneliness came +to her in a hundred tongues and ways, and always with reference to the +men who had vanished. + +It was impossible to stay here alone--alone--absolutely alone; like a +frightened child her mind appealed against this terror; it climbed the +vacant skies and passed over the desolate hills in search of comfort. +Was there a God? To whom could she run for comfort, for escape--? + +As if in answer to her wild but unspoken question came a far-off roar +brought on the wind from the great seal beach. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +FRIENDS IN DESOLATION + + +She turned her face that way and stood for a moment with the faint +breeze blowing her hair. Then she came running up the beach to the +caves. In the men's cave she stood glancing rapidly about her like a +person in a burning house seeking what he may save. + +She picked up the tinder box and the box of matches and put them in her +pocket. Then she began to remove everything from the cave. Making a sack +of one of the blankets, she filled it with as much as she could drag +along and brought it to the break in the cliffs where she dumped the +contents. + +It took her three journeys. Then, having collected everything in a big +pile, she sat down for a moment to rest. The things would be safe here +till she could fetch them to her new home, and the weather would not +hurt them, except, maybe, the biscuits. + +The thought of the biscuits troubled her, and the picture of them lying +exposed in one of the torrential rains. Then she caught sight of a cleft +in the basalt. It was dry and big enough to contain the bags and she +placed them there having taken out some of their contents. + +These and a couple of tins of meat she placed in one of the blankets, +making a sack of it. Then she remembered the knife she had left lying on +the sand before the cave where the dead man lay. + +She fought against the idea of returning for it. Then her will made her +go. + +As she picked up the knife she glanced once again into the cave and once +again caught a glimpse of the naked foot with the toe dug into the sand; +then, placing the knife in its sheath and running like a frightened +child she reached the break, caught up the sack, the extra blanket and +the axe, which she had hidden among the bushes, and started. + +It was not a heavy load, fortunately. Had it been heavy she would have +dropped it, for, once moving, she had to run. The idea that she was +deserting people who did not want to be deserted pursued her; now and +again she stopped and turned for a moment--nothing; the Lizard rocks lay +just the same and the beach and the forsaken boat, just the same, and +the jeering gulls; yet, when she turned again to go on she had to run. + +Near the great skull her right bootlace, getting loose, nearly tripped +her. She sat down and tied it and then went on, walking now, but +swiftly, till, nearing the river and in full sight of her new +companions, she found herself suddenly free. + +The hounds of Fear had given up the chase. The great sea elephants had +driven them away. Here was no longer loneliness. + +The great beasts sunning themselves on the flat rocks seemed more +numerous and, as she crossed the river, a monster coming in from the sea +in a thunder of foam saluted the land with a roar. + +She recognized, or thought she recognized, the great bull that had +followed her, he was lying, to-day, half-tilted to one side, he looked +drunk with sun and laziness and as she came amongst them and sat down, +as she had sat that day, she found that though a hundred pairs of eyes +were watching her, scarcely a burly figure moved. + +They had grown used to her, perhaps, or perhaps they recognized that she +did not fear them now in the least, or that she had come for refuge and +friendship. + +Then she rose up and passing amongst them as a friend amongst friends +came towards the caves in the basalt cliffs. They were smaller than the +caves to the west but they were dry and free from water drip. She chose +one and put her bundle down with the axe beside it. + + + + +PART III + +CHAPTER XVIII + +GOD MADE FRIENDSHIP + + +The place was as populous as a town. That was the soul-satisfying fact +which she absorbed as she sat with the bundle and axe beside her. To be +lonely here one would have to be deaf and blind and without the sense of +smell. Now that their attention was no longer strained by watching her +the great brutes filled the place with all sorts of sounds, grunts and +grumbles, puffs and snorts like the escape of steam from a locomotive +and now and then the flop of a great body changing position. There was +another sound she got to know and recognize, after a while, the +grumbling and rumbling of their interiors. Infested with sea-lice they +were always scratching. Quite close to the cave mouth three great bulls +were lying and every now and then one of them would turn and twist round +and scratch himself with his flippers, the nearest bull had lost an eye +in some past battle and they were all scarred about the necks, and seen +close like this, in their natural state and as one of their company, the +marvel of them, was beyond speaking. + +She took off the oilskin coat and laid it on the sand of the cave, took +the things from the blanket and spread the two blankets out and folded +them. As she moved about she saw that the bulls had turned slightly, +attracted by her movements, but they shewed not the slightest sign of +mind disturbance. Then, having placed the things in order, she came out +and walked down to the water's edge, making a detour now and then to +avoid treading on the flippers or the tail of a monster. On coming +amongst them a few minutes ago she had felt not the slightest fear, but +this walk in cold blood from the cliff to the sea edge made her hold her +breath. She felt as she had felt that first day when she sat down close +to them. Angry, and with a sudden movement, one of these creatures could +have destroyed her as a man destroys a fly; but she held on, and was +rewarded. + +Not one of them shewed any wish to destroy her, or anger, or uneasiness. +They had accepted her into their company by not attacking or ejecting +her, she ran counter to none of their desires or needs and evidently her +form called up no recollections of the beast Man in their dim brains. + +Then she was a female. Sex is more than a physical difference between +one being and another, one can fancy it as one of the outstanding signs +of the Wild to be read by instinct, as instinct reads the weather or +season signs, or the sea mile posts that lead the seals and sea +elephants thousands of leagues to strike some particular beach as an +arrow strikes the bull's eye of a target. + +The female, unless with young, is not dangerous to the male. One may +fancy that amongst the few but burningly important warnings and +directions in the book of Instinct. + +Here, at the sea edge and within a few feet of the breaking waves, she +sat down on a projecting rock and tried to measure with her eye the vast +herd. The whole beach from where she sat to where the flat rocks ceased +a mile and a half away on her right was spotted with them and she +noticed that here and there they were always putting out to sea and +coming ashore again. + +Making for a spot on the right, a hundred yards from her she saw one +coming ashore, swift as an arrow, steering with straight steadfast eyes +and landing with the water cascading from his huge shoulders, whilst on +the left one was putting out to sea in a burst of foam. + +Then, of a sudden, all the shore edge bulls got in commotion slithering +about, raising themselves on their flippers and blowing off steam. + +A sea elephant was coming towards the beach, moving with a speed thrice +that of any of the others, his head was raised and she could see the +eyes that seemed blazing with wrath or challenge. + +Then, as he came thundering on to the rocks, he lifted the echoes with a +roar that resounded for miles along the beach. + +All the others had landed in silence. + +She did not know that this was a newcomer, a belated bull, held days +behind the arrival of the others by some chance of the sea. Maybe he +had hung fishing off the South Shetlands or the Horn, or beached for +repairs after some sea fight off the Falklands; whatever had held him he +was late. + +He came swiftly up the rocks, casting his head from side to side but +unchallenged. There were no females there yet to fight for and they +evidently recognized him as one of the herd and not a stranger. The herd +instinct, without which a nation would be a mob, ruled here and gave the +belated one his place, and after a while of squattering about and +sniffing and blowing he settled down with quieted eyes to rest. He had +reached one of the stopping stages of his life, with the surety with +which he would reach the last, on some desolate beach or reef of the +sea. + +The girl watched him. Not only did these new-found companions chase away +loneliness and ghostly fears, but they brought her comfort. They seemed +so sure, sure of food and life and the right to live, so undisturbed; it +was as though she felt the presence of the ghostly shepherd who looks +after the flocks of sea and land and who counts even the sparrows. She +cast her eyes towards the islands and the sea-line; some day a ship would +come and all this would be a dream of the past. She knew it. Her mind +went back over all that she had been saved from--the wreck, the +deathtraps and worst of all--La Touche. It was strange to think that a +man should be worse than the others. + +If that fisherman's knife had not been included in the gear of the boat! + +It was now, as she sat thinking this and watching the huge harmless +things around her, that a hatred of La Touche came into her mind, a +hatred that seemed to have been waiting to enter until her mind was at +rest. He seemed to her evil itself. He seemed to her connected with all +the disasters that had happened and part of them. He had been the +lookout on the _Gaston de Paris_, his quarrel had sent Bompard to his +death, he had nearly unhinged her mind with terror. Had he possessed the +evil eye? Then, for the first time, she recalled her premonition of +disaster, yet, how she had refused to let the yacht be put off its +course. They might now have been at New Amsterdam only for that. Yet it +was not her fault. She had refused to alter the course, not for any +selfish reason, quite the reverse, she had refused because she did not +wish to spoil the plans of her host. It was Fate, not blind Fate, +because the premonition was full sighted, it was Fate obeying some +order. And it seemed to her that she could read in the order that she +was to be saved. Why? God only knew, but so she read the facts, and she +would be saved to the end and go back to the life she knew, or had known +and die, perhaps, at last an old, old woman. + +It seemed to her that this coming on to the sea elephant beach was a +stage in her great journey that had brought her definitely nearer to the +end of her loneliness. And whether all this were true knowledge or +whether it was only the fancy of the ego its effect was to give her +peace. + +Then, as she sat there the strangest lonely figure on earth, she +explored the pocket of her skirt and took the things from it. La +Touche's knife, her rings knotted up in her handkerchief, the tobacco +box of Captain Slocum, the tinder-box and box of matches. Then she +opened the tobacco box and re-read the purple writing with the tag "keep +up your spirits." She could not visualize the old slab-sided whaling +captain who had scrawled that, inspired no doubt by practical knowledge +of disaster and the horrors of Kerguelen, but the message came now as an +additional comfort, it seemed to her written by a hand other than that +of man. She put the paper back in the box and, then, everything back in +her pocket. + +Then, like a stroke of humour, an incident occurred to lighten the whole +beach. + +A big platoon of penguins had crossed the river and marched up to the +sacred precincts of the seal beach. Turning her head to see what the +disturbance was about she sighted the penguins just at the end of their +march and three bulls fronting them. The penguins wished to pass, either +from impudence or a real desire to cross the beach, but the bulls barred +the way, heading them off, turning and twisting, snorting as if to blow +the feathered ones away. + +The penguins bowed and scraped and explained, but the bulls, blind to +politeness and deaf to argument only presented their heads, then they +raised their rumps and made a half charge. The girl watched the penguins +going at the double with heads slewed round as though fearful of their +tails. Then she laughed. + +The sea elephants had not only made her able to laugh, they had given +her something to laugh over. Then came the thought: why had they refused +the penguins and accepted her? + +She did not know that the penguins were rival fishermen, she fancied +that the sea elephants were somehow friendly to her, divining her +friendship for them, and maybe she was right, though not perhaps in the +way she fancied, for when God made friendship He made it out of queer +and sometimes negative materials. + +That night as she lay in her cave with a rolled-up blanket for pillow +and the other blanket for covering, neither Ghosts nor Loneliness came +to trouble her. + +Two great bulls a few yards from the cave's mouth kept her warm and +comfortable of mind. + +She could hear their puffs and grunts and the occasional wobble-wobble +of their digestive organs as they slept, dreaming maybe in their sleep, +for sometimes they tossed and moved, and once one of them gave a "woof" +as though trying to roar under the blanket of sleep. + +She thought of dogs lying asleep; dogs dreamed and hunted in their +dreams, why should not these? + +Then suddenly the rain came down as though someone had pulled the +string of a shower bath, but she knew that would not drive them away, +guessing that rain to sea elephants was no more disturbing than sun to +peaches. + +Then she was chasing penguins along the beach, riding on a sea elephant +towards that absolute oblivion which is the brand of sleep they serve at +Kerguelen. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE BIRDS + + +It rained off and on for three days, but rain in Kerguelen is not the +same as rain in England, just as rain at Windmere is not the same as +rain at Birmingham. It does not depress, especially when you are busy. +In those three days she made three journeys to the break in the cliffs +to recover the things she had left there and she made her journeys, not +to put too fine a point on it, with nothing on but the oilskin coat, the +blanket she used for a sack got hopelessly soaked and her head was +exposed to the rain owing to the fact that the sou'wester was in the +cave where the dead man lay, but she got used to it, especially as +neuralgia and colds are unknown in Kerguelen. + +The loss of her only towel, the lump of cotton waste, was far worse than +the loss of the sou'wester and would have been worse still only that she +had other things to think about, especially on these journeys. They were +terrible and required all her fortitude to make them, and they were +terrible for a new reason. The birds had got at La Touche. Great +predatory birds like cormorants thronged the beach opposite the cave, +she could see them going in and out of the cave and she could hear them +quarrelling in there in the darkness. + +Then, on her last journey, as she was preparing to come back, happening +to glance that way she saw a gull like a Burgomaster coming out of the +cave mouth and pulling after it something long like a rope upon which +the other gulls flung themselves. She turned and ran. + +She had saved everything but one full bag of biscuits; she determined to +leave them. If worst came to the worst there was bread stuff in the +cache. + +That night the memory of what she had seen haunted her sleep. It was as +though La Touche, unable to get at her in the material world was +determined to torment her in the imaginary. + +She lay awake listening to the whale birds crying and the divers mewing +and quarrelling like cats, then, dropping asleep, she was awakened at +dawn by a new sound. Outside on the beach she heard a moaning like the +voice of someone in pain. + +She raised herself on her elbow. It was a human voice without any manner +of doubt. It ceased, and springing to her feet she came out. But there +was no human being on the beach, nothing but the bulky forms of the +great sea bulls, and quite close to the cave a smaller form, a female +that had landed during the night and had just given birth to a baby, a +thing like a slug which she was fondling with her flippers. + +Then in the strengthening light the girl could make out here and there +on the beach the forms of other females, and by noon that day there were +hundreds and hundreds, and on the next day the beach was one vast +nursery. It was the first great act in the life history of these sea +people towards which the girl's heart was going out more and more, and +as she sat that day watching the mothers and their babies, and the great +old bulls shuffling about like heavy fathers, sometimes she would smile +and sometimes, sitting and watching, her mind would wander away lost and +trying to grapple with the great mystery of which all this was only a +part. + +They were so human, so warm to the heart, and yet only a few days ago +there was nothing here but the rocks and the cold and trackless sea. +Then she noticed that to-day the bulls were not sunning themselves +lazily, although the sun was out. They seemed disturbed, moving about +aimlessly, lifting themselves on their flippers and now and then raising +their short trunks. + +Sometimes a female would make as if to get back to the sea but she was +always headed off by a bull. + +When dusk fell it seemed that the sentries were doubled, to judge by the +noise of the flopping and moving about. The girl came to the cave +entrance and looked, and lo and behold! every bull had cleared down +towards the sea edge. She could see them stretching away into the dim +distance, a hedge of vast forms broken and moving here and there, but +always restored. + +She thought that this line of defence was to keep the females back from +the water, yet there seemed more than mere precaution at the bottom of +the general disturbance that filled the beach. Then as she lay awake she +could hear now and then a distant roar and once a big bull only a few +hundred yards from the cave took it into his head to give tongue with a +blast like the first deep "woof" of a siren, then came another sound +quite close to the cave entrance, a sound like the broken lapping of +ripples, interrupted by movements and little snorts and sighs. It was a +baby seal sucking away at the teats of its mother. The pair was just +outside the cave. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +VÆ VICTIS + + +A Howling wind that rose at midnight carrying niagaras of rain oversea +from the mountains sank at dawn leaving a clear sky and a falling sea. + +As she came out into the early morning light she could see boosts of +spray all along the rocks, but by the time she had tidied things up and +finished her breakfast these had vanished and the water was coming in, +rolling lazily, and the sounds of the breakers came sleepy and evenly +spaced as though ruled by a metronome. + +The bulls no longer lined the shore, though keeping close to the water +they had broken up into groups, yet still the sense of disturbance was +there pervading the beach like an atmosphere. + +The tide was just turning back from the flood, and as she stood watching +she noticed the curious fact that not a single bull was taking to the +water; ordinarily, here and there along the rocks, there was always some +monster taking a header, some vast bulk beaching in a potter of foam. +This morning there was nothing of this sort. + +Picking her way between the mothers and their babies she came down to +the sea edge, choosing a broad space left vacant because of the bad +landing conditions. The rocks here were higher, forming a miniature +cliff some four or five feet in height and from this point looking +seaward something caught her eye. + +Three black objects moving in a line were making a long ripple on the +swell. They were the heads of three sea elephants moving like one. Then +the line became the segment of a circle bending in shore. But the +swimmers were not going to land; they kept parallel to the rocks and a +few hundred yards out, and as they passed she could see clearly the +great heads and sometimes the massive shoulders rising and washing away +the water and the eyes, as the heads swung now and then shorewards, +wicked eyes that seemed to blaze with the light of anger or battle. + +She was not alone in observing them. They had been spotted by a +trumpet-voiced sentry and instantly the whole place was in commotion. +The air split with a roar that passed along from section to section of +the beach whilst the cliffs resounded and a thousand sea-gulls rose as +if from nowhere, crying, cat-calling and making a snowstorm in the +sunlight. + +On the roar and as if destroyed by it the three heads vanished. + +Then, far out, they reappeared, only to dive again, leaving the sea +blank, but for a school of porpoises passing along on their quiet +business a mile away towards the east. + +The girl sat watching. There was something in all this of greater import +than the appearance of three swimming sea elephants. The beach told her +that. Not a bull in all that vast herd but was in motion, either helping +to crowd the females back towards the cliffs or patrolling the rocks. +She could see them here and there rising up on their hind-quarters as +though to get a better view of the sea. They reminded her of dogs +begging for biscuits. Then, turning her eyes seaward again she saw a +black spot; it was a moving head. Then another broke the surface and +another, till in a moment, and for a mile-long stretch, hundreds of +heads appeared, all driving shorewards and then dipping and vanishing +only to reappear still closer in and closing on the beach with the +swiftness of destroyers. + +Then she knew, and, springing up, turned to run; but her retreat was cut +off towards the caves by the females herded up and, before she could +collect her thoughts, the army of invasion was flinging itself from the +water, and the whole sea beach from end to end was filled with the +thunder of battle. + +For days the lone bulls had been cruising at sea waiting and watching +till all the females were on shore under guard of their husbands. So it +happened every year as now, ending in a battle for the possession of +wives, a battle waged without quarter and with a fury whose sound +reached the echoes of the hills. + +Safe on the little rock plateau she watched the thunderous onslaught, +frightened and then terrified and crying out. + +The invaders drove in from the sea like the sweep of a curved sword. +They struck the beach first a mile away and the battle ran towards her +like fire along tinder, boomed towards her ever loudening till it broke +to right and left where the sea bulls flung themselves on the rocks and +the land bulls charged the on-comers like battering rams. Some were +hurled back, only to return again, others held their ground. Then the +real business began whilst the ground trembled and the air shook and the +rocks poured blood. + +Round her, and for a mile away, they fought like rams and they fought +like dogs and they fought like tigers, and over the roaring siren sounds +of the fight the gulls flew like the fume of it, screaming and swooping +and circling in spirals, and through everything like the continuous +thud-thud of a propeller came the dunch of tons of flesh meeting tons of +flesh head on, shoulder on, or side on. + +She saw bulls ripped beyond belief, with shoulders slashed as if by the +down strokes of a sword, yet still fighting as though untouched, with +rumps raised and tails up and teeth in the necks of their enemies, one +had his eye torn out, yet tremendous and victorious he was literally +punching his antagonist back into the sea. + +The foam broke red and suddy; she saw that, just as she had seen the +name of the _Albatross_ in the tremendous moment of the great ship's +eclipse, and, just as the name, the red breaking foam seemed to +concentrate in itself the whole terror of the business. + +Then, standing like a person helpless in a dream during the full hour +that the battle raged, she saw the females break bounds and spread over +the rocks carrying or pushing their young as if to get closer to the +fight, and then she saw the battle beginning to break. Here and there +bulls beaten and done for were taking to the sea and over all the beach +the fight had spread inwards towards the cliffs. The sea bulls were +beating the land bulls as a whole, interpenetrating them, getting closer +to the females, herding the vanquished out. + +And she saw, now, as though a curtain had been raised, that the whole +great battle was between individuals. + +The bulls fresh from the sea though attacking _en masse_ were under the +dominion of no enmity in common, each had come to find a rival and +having found him had no eyes for anything else. Nor having once +conquered did he pursue. + +Another, and a wonderful thing, shewed up: the females had grouped +themselves as if to be taken, and now on the clearing beach could be +seen family parties, some under the dominion of their new lords and +masters, some still being fought for. + +So it hung, dwindling little by little till at last only two warriors +were left like the last-blazing point of the fight. + +They were the biggest of the two herds; they looked as though they had +been rolled in gore and they seemed equally furious and equally +exhausted. All their rage was in their eyes. Too beaten to bite they +could only boost one against another like two schoolboys trying to push +one another off a form. + +It seemed a miserable and tame ending of their tremendous struggle and +she recognized, or thought she recognized, that the biggest of them was +the bull who had followed her that day like a dog towards the river. + +This shouldering and pushing was his last effort to hold to his wife and +family. In war it is the last step that counts, could he make it? Then a +strange thing happened. The two monsters paused in their pushing, +relaxed, and seemed for a moment to forget the existence of one another. +That tremendous weariness lasted for a minute and then they woke up and +the biggest bull began to shuffle off to the sea. + +His heart or his mind had failed him. The closer he got to the water's +edge the swifter he moved and the plunge of his body into the water was +the last sound of that battle. + +Not a corpse lay on the beach, nothing but the victorious lords and +their ladies, and the lords seemed to pay as little attention to their +ghastly wounds as they did to their old or newly got wives, who, now +that peace was restored, were busy suckling their young. + +A queer people, humorous and terrifying, making the girl feel that she +had placed her hand on something likeable, almost lovable, that had yet, +of a sudden, nearly frightened her to death. + +She sat recovering herself and helped by the regiment of penguins who +marched up to the seal beach and, knowing better than to attempt to +cross it, stood bowing to the world in general and talking one to the +other perhaps on the horrors of war. + + + + +PART IV + +CHAPTER XXI + +TIME PASSES + + +It is not good to be alone. As the weeks passed she began to lose and +forget the feeling of surety in rescue and at times, now, she found +herself talking out loud, putting what was in her mind into speech as +though a companion were by, and sometimes she would hear a voice +hallooing to her and start and cast her eyes over the desolate beach +only to see the gulls. + +The beach was always haunted by queer noises; the chanting sound of the +waves coming in, a faint sound like the beating of a drum at very low +tide, to say nothing of the booming of bitterns and the barking of brent +geese and the hundred voices of the wind. She would listen and listen, +her mind wandering aimlessly, and in the great rains, when the whole sea +was shut out by the downpour, the noise would lull her like opium. + +The baby sea elephants lost their long black coats and put on their +suits of fine yellow fur and took themselves to the nursery by the +river, where all day long they played and tumbled and swam, and then she +would sit and watch them like a mother watching her children. + +The great battle of the bulls seemed like something far away beyond +which other things were becoming vague. Something that was not meant to +be seen so close by human eyes, something that had pushed her still +further from man. + +It was full summer now, the season of tremendous sunsets and when the +sky was clear, vast conflagrations lit themselves beyond the Lizard +Point painting the islands and purpling the skies, and one evening as +she sat in the western blaze watching the moving beach and listening to +the playing and quarrelling of the nursery a voice said to her: + +"Some day all these will take to the sea and leave you. There will be +nothing here but the rocks and the sea." + +It was as though the sunset had spoken. + +The thought aroused her as a knock on the door arouses a sleeper. +Fighting against it her mind became more fully awake. She said to +herself: "If they go I will go too." + +For a long time now she had lived without hot food or drink. On coming +here first she had cut some wood from the figure-head to make a fire, +but it was damp, just damp enough to prevent it from kindling, so she +had let things go as women do in the matter of food when they have not +any one else to feed; she had burrowed into the cache and got at some of +the tins of vegetables and on these and biscuits and tinned meat she +made out, eating less and less as time went on. + +It is bad to be alone, even with sea elephants to ward off fears, even +with provisions enough for a year and a cave to shelter one. + +She had never given in. She had fought the future and refused to be +frightened by it, she had worked for life and taken refuge in the +moment, and now the moment was taking its revenge for being too much +lived in. + +To eat was almost too much trouble and presently the seal nursery became +too long a walk and the little sea elephants at play had lost their +power to interest her. Sleep began to take the place of food and +sometimes, and for no reason, she would weep like a child. + +The food she ate sometimes seemed to poison her, bringing on vomiting +and dysentery, and it poisoned her because her stomach failed to digest +it. + +She was being poisoned, poisoned by loneliness. Had her stomach not +failed her mind would have given, as it was the weakness of malnutrition +saved her reason as it slowly destroyed her hold on life. + +Her dreams became sometimes more vivid than reality and they always held +her to the beach where she watched without terror battles between +monstrous sea elephants and processions of penguins infinite in length, +penguins that passed her bowing, bowing, bowing till she woke in the +dark with the palms of her hands dry and burning and her lips like +pumice stone and her tongue feeling hard like the tongue of a parrot, +but the worst experience of all was a shock that came nearly every time +she lay down at night and just before sleep took her. + +It seemed like the blow of a fist, a fist that hit her everywhere, +making her start and draw up her legs and cry out. + +All this, perhaps, was what she had foreseen when long ago she had +watched a great ship that had told her of Desolation--and something +worse. + +This was what no one had ever imagined in connection with Desolation. +Its power to kill with its own hand. To gently destroy, sucking the +vitality like a vampire and fanning the victim to dullness with its +wings. + +The sea elephants might have noticed that the female creature to whom +they had grown so accustomed appeared little now, a shrinking vision +that every day shortened its wanderings; that it walked differently, +that it seemed more bent. But the sea elephants knew nothing of +Loneliness or its works, nor did they notice, one morning, that though +the sun was shining the figure did not appear at all. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +A NEWCOMER + + +One morning, brilliant, with the deceptive brilliancy of Kerguelen, a +big man, rough and red-bearded and carrying a bundle slung over his +shoulder, stood on the rocks that formed the eastern point of the great +beach; the sun was at his back and before him lay the seven mile stretch +of sand and rock leading to the far-off Lizard Point. + +He was over six feet in height but so strongly built that he scarcely +looked his inches. He was a sailor. The gulls might have told that by +the way he stood, and his eyes, accustomed to roving over vast spaces, +swept the beach before him from end to end, took in the sea elephants +moving like slugs and the seal-nursery and the river and the sands +beyond and the Lizard Point crawling out to sea beyond the sands. + +Then he cast his eyes inland. + +He wanted to get to the west and he had to choose between seven miles of +broken country or seven miles of easy beach. + +The sea elephants were a bar across the beach. He could gauge their size +from where he stood, they looked formidable, but they were less so than +the rocks strewing that broken country. He had climbed over rocks and +gone round rocks and nearly fallen from rocks till rocks had become in +his mind enemies bitter, brutal, callous, and far more formidable than +live things. He chose the beach and came down to it, taking his way +along the sea edge as a person takes his way along a pavement edge, +giving possibly turbulent people the wall. + +As he closed up towards the seal beach he kept his eyes fixed on the +great bulls and their families, and the bulls, as he drew closer, +shifted their position to watch him, beyond that they shewed no sign. +Then as he began to pass them he recognised that he had nothing to fear, +the females alone, here and there, shewed any sign of disturbance, +shuffling towards him with wicked eyes, rising on their flippers, but +always sinking down and shuffling back as he went on. + +Further along, though followed and met by a hundred pairs of eyes, even +the females began to treat him with indifference. It was as though the +whole herd were under the dominion of one brain that recognized him as +harmless and passed him along. He would pause now and then to look at +them with the admiration of strength for strength. He was of their type, +a bull man, rough from the sea as themselves. + +Then he saw the caves and would have passed them only for something that +caught his eye. A red labelled Libby tin was lying on the dark sand +close to the mouth of one of the caves, and if you wish to know how an +old tomato tin or an old beef tin can shout, you must go alone to the +great beach of Kerguelen and find one there--which you will not. + +The sight of the tin made him start and catch in his breath. The tin was +everything he knew of ships and men focussed in a point, a knight in +armour riding along the beach would have astonished him no more, would +have heated his blood far less. + +He struck up towards it, took it in his hand, examined it inside and out +and then cast his eye at the cave before which it had lain. He saw +something in the cave, it was a woman; a woman lying on the sand with a +rolled-up blanket under her head. She was lying on her back and he saw a +thin white hand, so small, so thin, so strange that he drew slightly +back, glanced over his shoulder, as if to make sure that everything was +all right with the world, and then glanced again, drawing closer. + +Then he called out and the woman moved. He could see her face now, +white, and thin and drawn, and great eyes, terrible eyes, fixed on him. + +Away out at sea, terribly near the coast of Death she saw him, a living +being, as the castaway sees a ship on the far horizon. + +He saw her hold out her arms to him and then, throwing his bundle aside, +he was down on his knees beside her, holding the hands that sought his +and with those terrible eyes holding him too. + +He saw her lips moving, saw that they were dry and parched. Then he +knew. She wanted water. + +An empty baling tin was lying near her. The sight of the river close by +was in his mind, he released the hands, picked up the tin and scrambled +out of the cave. As he ran to the river heedless of sea elephants or +anything else he kept crying out: "Oh, the poor woman. Oh, the poor +woman." He seemed like a huge thing demented. The baby sea elephants +scuttered out of his way and as he came running back he spilt half the +contents of the tin. Then he was down beside her again, dipping his +finger in the water and moistening her lips. + +She sucked his finger as a baby sucks and the feel of that made him +curse with the tears running down into his beard. The size of the baling +tin seemed horrible beyond words; he couldn't get it to her lips. Still +he went on, not knowing that it was his finger that was giving her back +life; the blessed touch of a human being that had come almost too late. + +He was sitting on his heels, and now, casting his great head from side +to side, he saw things stacked behind her, tins and a bag and metal +things that shone dimly. Putting out his hand he caught a corner of the +bag. It was a bread bag, sure enough, and as he pulled it towards him +the other things came clattering down almost hitting her, and amongst +them, God-sent, a little tin spoon. + +He seized it and filled it and brought the tip to her lips and she +swallowed the water making movements with her throat muscles as though +it were half a cupful. He did this a dozen times and then rested, spoon +in hand, watching her. She made a couple of slight movements with her +head as if nodding to him and her eyes never left him for a moment, they +seemed holding on to life through him. He offered a spoonful of water +again, she moved her head slightly as though she had had enough, but her +eyes never left him. + +He knew. If the whole thing had been carefully explained to him he could +not have known better how she was clinging to him, as a child to a +mother, as a creature to life. And all the time his rough mind in a +tumble of confusion and trouble was trying to think how she came like +this, with a bread bag close to her and a river within reach. + +A tin cup had come down with the other things, it gave him an idea, and +getting a biscuit out of the bag he broke it up, put the pieces in the +cup with some water and let them soak. It took a long time and all the +while, now and then, he kept talking to her. + +"There. Y'aren't so bad after all--keep up till I get you something +more. There's no use in troubling--you'll be on your pins soon." + +He would pause to swear at the biscuit for not softening quicker, +helping it to crumble with his mighty thumb thrust in the cup. To "get +food into her" was his main idea, it didn't matter about thumbs. He was +not without experience of starvation and thirst and what they can do to +people, and, as he worked away talking to her, pictures from the past +came to him of people he had seen like this, nearly "done in" by the +sea. + +Then he began to feed her with the noxious pap. He managed to get six +spoonfuls "into her" and then he saw she would stand no more; still, +that was something, and as he brooded on his heels watching her he saw +that she was making a struggle to keep it down, and he knew that if she +brought it up she was done for. And all the time she kept holding him +with her eyes as though he were helping her in the struggle. + +He was. The sight of him gave her just the strength necessary to tide +over the danger point; then she lay still and the food, such as it was, +began to do its work. + +One may say that the stomach thinks; every mood of the mind can touch it +and it can influence every mood of the mind. + +Then the terrible fixed eyes began to grow more human, then to close +slightly. She was still far at sea, but no longer adrift; like a little +boat taken in tow she was heading now back for the shore. She fell +asleep holding his thumb. + +The bits of wood she had chipped from the figure-head were lying in a +little heap near the cave mouth and the axe lay beside them. He noted +them as he sat motionless as a carved figure till the grip on his thumb +relaxed, and the dry claw-like hand, now growing moist and human, gave +up its hold. + +Then, crawling out, stealthily and side-ways like a crab, he seized the +axe and, rising up outside, axe in hand, stood looking in at the woman. +He stood watching her, making sure that she was well asleep, then he +turned towards the seal nursery swinging the axe. There he murdered a +little girl sea elephant after a short, sharp chase over the rocks. +Then, close to the caves and with his sailor's knife, he stripped her of +fur and blubber. He placed the blubber on one side, cut up the meat and +retaining the heart and kidneys wrapped the head and the remainders in +the pelt and dumped them in a crack in the rocks. + +Having done this he went to the river and washed his hands free of the +blood and grease. + +In his bundle there was a box with half a dozen matches, they would have +been gone long ago only that long ago his tobacco had given out. They +were useful now. + +He knelt down and undid the bundle. There was in it beside the match-box +a shirt rolled up, two sailors' knives, two tobacco boxes, a couple of +huge biscuits, a piece of sail cloth and a pair of men's boots, one +might have fancied from the knives and tobacco boxes that he was the +only survivor of a party of three cast on the coast and that he had kept +these things as relics. That was the fact. + +When he had secured the matches his next thought was of the firewood and +the baling tin. There was a saucepan away at the back of the cave under +the other things but he could not see it. He could see the tin but he +dreaded going in to get it lest he should wake the woman and she should +clutch his thumb again. + +That was a bad experience and he told himself that if she had not +relaxed her hold he would have been sitting there still tied hand and +foot and not daring to move--strength in the clutch of weakness, to whom +God has given a power greater that that of strength. + +He crawled in and secured the tin without wakening her and as much +firewood as he wanted. It was fairly dry and with the help of the +blubber he soon had it burning between two big stones, then he put the +tin on, half filled with water, and dropped in the seal meat cut fine. +He was making soup for himself as well as for her. He had been without +hot food for ages and the smell of the stuff as it began to cook made +him sometimes forget her entirely. + +Predatory gulls had found the pelt and the head in the rock crevice and +their quarrelling filled the beach. He turned his head sometimes to look +at them as he sat squatting like a gipsy before the little fire, tilting +the tin by the handle and stirring the contents with his knife. He was a +man of resource for, before filling the tin with fresh water, he had +dipped it in the sea so as to get some salt into the mess. + +Then when the stuff was cooked, having no spoon, he had to wait until it +cooled a bit before tasting it. He went to the cave mouth to have a +look at the woman. The quarrelling of the great gulls had evidently +awakened her, for her eyes were open, and as his figure cut the light at +the cave entrance her head moved. He ran back for the precious tin and, +carrying it carefully, and half carried away by the entrancing smell of +it, knelt down beside her, then picking up the spoon began to feed her +before feeding himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +RAFT + + +It took him three days to bring her back safe to life. It poured with +rain during those three days but he managed to light little fires in one +of the caves with seal blubber and routing out the things in her cave he +found everything she had so carefully salved, the cups and plates, the +tin of coffee, half empty now--everything, even to the tobacco the men +had taken from the cache, he found Bompard's tinder-box and the Swedish +match box belonging to La Touche. He had given the woman life and she +had given him tobacco and sometimes, sitting in the adjoining cave and +smoking between nursing times, he would bring his big fist down on his +thigh, just that. + +Here was a woman starving to death and dying of thirst with food enough +for a ship's company at her elbow. And the tobacco! Where was the +explanation? She was able to speak a little now. She had spoken at first +in French, which he could not understand, then she spoke in English as +good as his; another mystery. A woman all gone to pieces that spoke two +tongues and was different somehow from any woman he had ever known. + +Then the things she had said: "Who are you? I am not dreaming this? Are +you really, really, truly--Oh, _don't_ leave me." Crazy talk like that. +And it was always "Oh, don't leave me." Then he would lay his pipe down +carefully on the sand of the cave and pass through the sheeting rain to +have a look at her. Sometimes she would have dozed off and he could get +back to his pipe, sometimes she was awake and then he would have to sit +down beside her and hold her hand and stroke it or play with her fingers +just as one plays with the fingers of a child. At these moments he was +transformed, he was no longer a man, he was a mother, and the hand that +could break down the resistance of a bellying sail was the hand of a +child. He no longer thought of her as the "poor woman," an infant is +sexless, so did she seem, or so would she have seemed had he thought of +the matter. He didn't. As a matter of fact thought was not his strong +suit in the game of life. He was a man from the world of Things. That +was why, perhaps, he made such a good sick nurse. He did not fuss, nor +talk, his touch was firm, firm as his determination to "get food into +her" and his hand, big as a ham, was delicate because it was the hand of +a perfect steersman. It was used to handling women in the form of three +thousand ton ships, coaxing them, humouring them--up to a point. + +He fed her now from one of the tin cups. Every two hours of the day, +unless she was asleep, half a cupful of food went into her whether she +liked it or not; "hot stuff," for though the firewood was done he found +that the blubber alone was the best fuel in the world. + +On the second day she was able to raise herself up, and once when he +came in he found that she had been moving about the cave and that she +had rearranged the blanket that did for a pillow. + +Then on the morning when the blessed sun shone she was able to come out +and sit on a patch of sand with one of the blankets for a rug. + +She looked old and worn, but no longer terrible, and as she sat with her +thin hands folded in her lap watching the great sea bulls and the cows, +as if contemplating them for the first time, the man who had helped her +out and placed her there was at a loss--she was a sight to inspire pity +in a savage. He took his seat beside her on a piece of rock and rolling +some tobacco in his hand stuffed his pipe. + +"You're all right now," said he. + +She nodded her head and smiled. + +"Yes," she said, "this is good." + +"Lucky I came along," he said, "wouldn't have seen you only an old tin +hit my eye." + +He put the pipe in his pocket, got up, went to the cave where he did the +cooking and came back with a cup half full of coffee and half a biscuit. + +"Dip it in," said he. + +She did as she was bid. It was the first time he had given her coffee +and the stimulant brought a flush to her cheeks and cheered her heart +so that she began to talk. + +"There are more biscuits in a place down the beach," she said, "and down +there," she nodded to the left, "there are a lot of things hidden under +a heap of stones. It's beyond the river on the left." + +Then the empty cup began to shake in her hand and he took it from her. + +"You're not over strong yet," said he, "but you'll be better in a bit +with this sun. Y'aren't afraid of the sea cows, are you?" + +She shook her head. + +"Thought you wouldn't be," said he, "there's no harm in them. Well, I'll +be moving about. I'll go and have a look down the beach and see what's +to be found." + +He hung for a moment with the cup in his hand shading his eyes and +looking seaward, then he turned towards the cave to put the cup back. + +"What is your name?" she said, suddenly, bringing him to a halt. + +"Raft," said he. + +"Raft," she repeated the name several times in a low voice as if +committing it to memory or turning it over in her mind. + +"How long might you have been here?" he asked, standing in a doubtful +manner, as though debating in his mind the wisdom of allowing her to +strain her strength answering questions. + +"I don't know," said she, "a long while. I was wrecked with two men from +a yacht. The _Gaston de Paris_. We came here in a boat. They are both +dead." + +At the name _Gaston de Paris_ Raft nodded his head. Already a suspicion +that she might be one of the yacht's crowd had come into his mind, so +the news came scarcely as a surprise. + +"It was us you hit," said he, "I'm one of the chaps from the old +hooker." + +"The _Albatross_?" + +"That's her." + +She said nothing for a moment, looking away over at the islands. She +could see the name, still, written as if on the night. Then she +remembered the boat sail she had seen when adrift with Bompard and La +Touche. + +"There were four of us got off," said he, "we struck them islands over +there and put in but there was nothing but rocks in that part. Next day +we put out, but got blown down the coast; we got smashed landing; all +but a chap named Ponting and me went under, but one chap's body was hove +up and we stripped him. I've got his boots and his knife in that bundle +over there in the cave, and Ponting's. We saved a bag of bread." + +He took his seat again on the rock and, placing the cup beside him, took +the pipe from his pocket, but he did not light it. He held it, rubbing +the bowl reflectively. He seemed to have come to an end of his story. + +"Did the other man die?" she asked. + +"He went getting gulls' eggs one day," said Raft, "and slipped over the +cliff. They're big, the cliffs, down there. I found him all broke up on +the rocks. He didn't live more than a minute when I got to him and I had +to leave him; the tide was coming up." + +"Poor man," said she. + +He rose up and, taking the cup, stood for a moment again looking +seaward. + +"Well, I'll be off down the beach," said he, "you won't be frightened to +be here by yourself?" + +"No," she replied, "but don't go very far." + +"I'll keep in sight," said Raft. + +He put the cup in the cave and off he went whilst she sat watching him; +everything, life itself, seemed centred in him. A terrible feeling came +over her at moments that he might vanish, that, looking away for a +moment and turning again she might find him gone and nothing but the +beach and the gulls. + +Beyond the river he turned and saw her watching him and waved his hand +as if to reassure her. She waved in reply and then sat watching till he +reached the figure-head and stood to examine it. + +He seemed very small from here. She saw him standing and looking inland, +he had seen the cache, no doubt, and he would want to go to it; if he +did that he would disappear from sight. But he did not go to it, he kept +on always in view, exploring the rocks and the sands and stopping now +and then as if to look back. + +It seemed to her that he could read her mind and feel her terror of +being left alone. Then her mind went back over the last few days. + +She had been very near death. She had drunk the last of the water in the +tin and had been too feeble to go for more. What had brought her to that +pass? It seemed to her that the rocks, the sea and the sky had slowly +sucked her vitality away from her till at last she could not eat, could +not walk, could not think. All that time her mind had never thought of +loneliness, the thing that was killing her had veiled itself by numbing +her brain and weakening her body. But near death her mind had cleared +and the great grief of desolation stood before her. Then God-sent, a +form had pushed the grief aside and a hand had taken her lonely hand and +a finger had moistened her lips. But it was the knowledge that the hand +was a real hand that gave her the first lead back to life. + +Then the last three days. The feeling of extreme helplessness and +sickness and the knowledge that she was watched over and cared for and +thought for--there was no word to express what all that meant. It turned +the great rough figure to a spirit, great and tender and benign. + +He was coming along back now carrying something he had picked up amongst +the rocks. It was a crab. + +A great satisfactory two pound crab bound up in kelp ribbon so craftily +that it could neither bite nor escape. He put it on the sand for her to +look at before taking it off to boil. + +The sun was hot and as he stood whilst she admired his prize: "Don't you +feel the sun to your head?" asked he. + +"No," she replied, "I like it. I had a hat--a sou'wester but it's in a +cave away down the beach. There's a dead man there." + +"A dead man?" said Raft. + +"Yes. I killed him." + +"Killed him?" + +"It was partly accident. He was one of the sailors. He was a bad man. +The other sailor got lost and never came back and I was left alone with +this man. He nearly frightened me to death." + +"Swab," said Raft. + +"Then one night he crawled into my cave in the dark and I struck out +with the knife and it killed him--he's lying there now. I didn't mean to +kill him, but he frightened me." + +"Swab," said Raft, two tones deeper. Then he laughed as if to himself. +"Well, that's a go," said he. He took a pull at his beard as he +contemplated this slayer of men seated on her blankets at his feet. She +glanced up and saw that he was laughing and a wan smile came around her +eyes, it seemed to him like a glimmer of sunshine from inside of her. +Then bending down he pulled up the blanket that had slipped from her +left shoulder and settled it in its place. + +"I'll tell you all about it some time," said she, "when I feel +stronger." + +"Ay, ay," said Raft. Then he went off with the crab to boil it. + +As he attended to this business in the cave, half-sitting, half-kneeling +before the little fire, he chuckled to himself now and then, and now and +then he would bring his great hand down on his thigh with a slap. + +The idea of her killing a man seemed to him the height of humour. He +didn't put much store on men's lives in general, and none at all on the +life of an unknown swab who deserved his gruel. Then he was of the type +that admires a fighting thing much more than a peaceful and placid +thing, and he felt the pleasure of a man who has rescued a seemingly +weak and inoffensive creature only to find that it has pluck and teeth +of its own. + +She had gone up a lot in his estimation. Besides, her feebleness and +forlorn condition had wounded him in a great soft part of his nature +where the hurt felt queer. This new knowledge somehow eased the hurt. He +could think of her now apart from her condition and think more kindly of +her, for the strange fact remains that the very weakness and forlornness +that had wakened his boundless compassion had antagonized him. When he +had found the crab the idea had come to him that here was some different +sort of food to "put into her;" he was thinking that same thought now +but with more enthusiasm. Yes, she had gone up a lot in his estimation. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +A DREAM + + +This same Raft whom the fo'c'sle could subdue to the surroundings, +making him as faithful a part of the picture as the kerosene lamp, on +the beach stood immense both in size and significance. + +It was as though the fo'c'sle had the power to dwindle him, the beach, +to expand him. + +The girl had never seen him in the fo'c'sle so she could not appreciate +the difference that environment made in him, and perhaps she saw him +ever so slightly magnified, but it seemed to her that he was big enough +to form part of the landscape, that he was one with the seven mile beach +and the Lizard Point and the great islands and the sea elephants. + +Not only had she been crushed down by loneliness; size had helped. Raft +seemed to reduce the size of things, so that the seven mile strand and +the vast islands and sea spaces no longer burdened her, and in some +magical way whilst he reduced the proportions of his surroundings they +increased his potency and significance. He was in his true setting, part +of a vast picture without a frame. + +It was not alone his physical dimensions. Bompard had been a big man, +but Bompard could not fill that beach. No, it was something else--what +we call, for want of a better expression, "the man himself." + +Then there was another thing about him, he found food of all sorts where +Bompard and La Touche had found nothing; he brought in crabs and +cray-fish and penguins eggs, he brought down rabbits with stones. That +was his great art. A stone in the hand of Raft was a terrible missile +and his aim was deadly. + +At the end of a week the girl was able to accompany him along the beach +to the cache where he unearthed some stores and came upon the harpoon +which he carried back with them. + +Then one day he suddenly appeared before her carrying her lost +sou'wester. He had gone off down the beach in the direction of the +Lizard Point and he came back carrying the hat in his hand. He must have +been into the cave where the remains of La Touche lay, but he said +nothing about that. + +It was nearly a fortnight since she had told him of how she had lost it +and he must have treasured the fact up in his mind all that time. + +The weather had cleared again, after a tremendous blow from the south, +and as they sat that evening in the sunset blaze before the caves, Raft, +who had been staring steadfastly out to sea as if watching something, +began to talk. + +"That chap Ponting told me this side of the coast is no use for ships," +said he. "They keep beyond them islands for fear of the reefs. I reckon +the old sea cows know that or there wouldn't be so many on this beach. +He said there was a bay round to the westward where ships put in." + +"How far?" asked the girl. + +"A goodish bit," replied Raft. "I was making for that bay when I struck +you. I was thinking," he finished, "that when you were stronger on your +pins we might make for there." + +"Leave here?" + +"Ay," said Raft, "there's not much use sticking here." + +She said nothing for a moment, she felt disturbed. + +Since her recovery she had fallen into a state of quietude. She who had +been the leader of Bompard and La Touche, she who had fought and worked +so determinedly for existence had now no ambition, no desire for +anything but rest. The strength of this man who had given her back her +life seemed a shield against everything, just as a wall is a shield +against the wind; she was content to sit in its shelter and rest. The +idea of new exertions and unknown places terrified her. + +"But how are you to know the bay?" asked she, "there may be a good many +bays along the coast." + +"No," said Raft, "Ponting told me there wasn't a decent anchorage but +this. He said this bay wasn't to be mistook, looks as if it was cut out +with a spade and the cliffs run high and black, there's a seal beach +that way and it's after seals the ships come. Well, there's time enough +to think of it seeing you are not fit to move yet." + +"Oh, I'll soon be all right," said she. "I'm getting stronger every +day." + +"What gets me," said Raft, "is how you fell to pieces like that, with +all that stuff at your elbow and a river close by." + +"It was being alone," replied she, "I did not know it at the time, but I +got so that I did not care to eat and then at last I believe I didn't +eat anything at all. I couldn't have imagined that just being alone +would make a person like that. You see I had food and water. If I had +been compelled to hunt about for food I expect I would have been all +right, as it was I had nothing to do and was just driven in on myself." + +Raft said nothing for a moment, he was turning this over in his mind. He +could not understand it. The idea of a person with plenty of food and a +good set of teeth dying of starvation just because she was lonely seemed +to him outrageous, yet he knew she was speaking the truth. It was +another strange thing about this strange woman. She was altogether +strange, different from any human being he had ever met and growing more +different every day now that she was "filling out," and getting her +voice back. + +That voice, soft and musical and refined, had disturbed the sea +elephants when she first talked to them as people talk to horses and +dogs, it was something they had never heard before in the language of +tone, and so it was with this sea animal with a red beard. He could not +tell whether he liked it or not, never asked himself the question, it +was part of her general strangeness and to be considered along with her +clinging, man killing and double-tongued qualities, also with the fact +that she had starved almost to death because she was alone; also with +her eyes and new face, for she was growing younger looking every day and +better looking, and her eyes, naturally lovely, were growing natural +again. + +As he looked at her now sitting in the sunset this return of beauty +struck him as it almost might have struck the sea elephants. It pleased +him. Had he put his thoughts into words he would have said that she was +filling out and getting more pleasant looking. At her very best he would +never have tacked the word beauty on to her; a buxom, rotund, beady-eyed +young female would have made the word beauty spring to his lips--Cléo +de Bromsart, never. But she was getting more pleasant looking and her +eyes were getting over their "stiffness"--which was something, and he +felt pleased. + +Presently, alone in his cave, he would bring his fist down on his thigh +with a bang and chuckle over her contrarieties, reviewing her against +that terrific picture he had seen in the cave when he had gone to fetch +the sou'wester; the picture of a man who had been torn to pieces by +Burgomasters and cormorants. It had been necessary to wash the +sou'wester for a long time in sea water before bringing it back. + +She had done that chap in proper; the work of the gulls and the work of +the girl were hardly dissociated in his mind--there was the Result. Just +as though a baby had smashed a rock with its fist. Hence the chuckles, +heightened by her clinging ways, her fragility, her musical voice, her +starvation due to loneliness, her double tongue, her unaccountable +tricks of manner. + +And she, as she sat in the sunset not knowing his thoughts, had you +asked her how she felt about him would have answered with steadfast eyes +that she loved him. Meaning that she loved him as she had learned to +love the sea-elephants, or as she would have loved a great carthorse +that had stood between her and danger, or a huge dog. She scarcely +thought of him as a man--just as a great benign thing, human, but nearer +to the heart than any human being life had brought her in contact with +till now. + +Her almost passionate gratitude had little to do with this measure of +him; any kindly man might have done what he had done. It was perhaps the +feeling of his great strength, of his possible fierceness that gave the +touch of benignity to him. + +"Weren't you afraid of them sea cows?" said he at last, "you must have +come clean through them to get to that cave." + +"No," she replied, "I didn't mind them, quite the reverse. I came here +because of them." + +"Because of them!" + +"Yes. They were company." + +"Meaning--" + +"Friends." + +"Y'mean to say--friends did you call them? Well, I don't know, there's +no accountin'." + +He hung in irons. So she had been keeping company with the sea cows--and +she talked of them as "friends." + +Now Raft, for all his limitless power of compassion for a female in +distress would have slaughtered those same "sea-cows" to the last bull, +and without a shred of compunction or compassion, had he possessed +kettles to boil down the blubber and a vessel to carry the oil. He had +already done in two of the babies for food when she was not looking. The +idea of talking about them as friends tickled his mind in a new place. +Then, as he glanced at the great bulls taking headers in the sunset +light and snorting in from the sea and squatting over the beach, he came +as near as anything to bursting into a roar of laughter. + +Then he suddenly remembered supper and went off to prepare it. + +The girl, left to herself, smiled. He had given her back that power and, +like the sea elephants when they repulsed the penguins, he had given her +something to smile over. She saw that he could not understand her in the +least in a lot of little things, whilst she understood him through and +through--or so she thought. She had thought the same about the sea +elephants till the great battle, and--she had never seen Raft with +murder in his eyes making the elements of beef tea. + +He had made a stew for supper out of mussels, canned vegetables, seal +meat and a piece of rabbit and when supper was over she went to bed in +the bed he had made for her, for he had stripped the cache of all its +wearing apparel and the remaining blankets, reserving the blankets for +her use. + +Then as she lay awake before dropping off to sleep she heard a sudden +burst of noise from the night outside. It sounded as though one of the +bulls had suddenly perceived a joke and were giving vent to his +feelings. + +She knew what it was, and she guessed the joke, and then, lying there in +the dark, she began to laugh softly to herself with laughter that seemed +to ease her mind of some old incubus clinging to it--less laughter than +a sort of inverted form of crying and ending up almost in the latter +with a few sniffs. + +Then she fell asleep and dreamed that Raft had turned into something +that seemed like a sea lion. She had never seen a sea lion, but this +dream--one looked something like a lion and something like a sea +elephant and something like Raft--with a touch of a carthorse. It had +flippers, then it had wings, and the setting was the Place de la +Concorde which bordered quite naturally the great beach of Kerguelen. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +STORIES ON THE BEACH + + +For a week after that day not a word was said about their departure for +that problematical bay to the westward where ships put in, or where they +might put in should they find themselves in the region of Kerguelen. The +idea seemed to the girl like one of those nightmare ideas, those +terrific tasks which fever or indigestion sets to one in dreams. + +It blew during that week as it had never blown before; blew from the +north and the south and the west Atlantic oceans of rain driving +seawards from the hills and passing off towards the islands, followed by +breaks of clear weather and blue sparkling skies filled with the tearing +screaming wind. + +They talked a good deal during these days and at odd times, and the girl +began to get some true glimpses of the mind of her companion, a mind +that had never grown up, yet had in no wise deteriorated from remaining +ungrown. Raft, who had been round the world a dozen times and more, knew +less of the world than a modern child. Fights and roaring drunks and the +smoke haze of bar rooms, wharf Messalinas and sailors' lodging houses +had done him no harm at all. His innocence was vast and indestructible +as his ignorance. + +Bompard and La Touche were old men of the world compared to Raft; they +were of different stuff, and being yachtsmen they had been long rubbed +against the ways of high civilization. + +To the girl, born and bred amongst all the intricacies of modern life +and thought, and with a sense of mind-values as delicate as a jeweller's +scales, Raft was a revelation. + +She tried to sound his past. He had no past beyond the _Albatross_. He +could tell all about the _Albatross_ and his shipmates and the Old Man +and so forth, but beyond that lay only a ship called the _Pathfinder_, +and beyond that a muddle of ships and ports, a forest of masts +stretching to a grey time an infinite distance away, the time of his +childhood. He had no professed religion and he could neither read nor +write. + +Yet he had remembered her sou'wester, this man without a memory and he +was always astonishing her by remembering little things she had said or +things she had wished for. + +Of social distinction, beyond the division of afterguard from fo'c'sle, +he seemed to possess little idea, save for a vague echo, caught from the +man Harbutt, about the Rich People; and as to sex, beyond a queer +instinctive delicacy and a tenderness due to her weakness and the memory +of how he had found her, she might just as well have been a man, or a +child like himself. + +Another thing that struck her forcibly was the sense of his good humour. +His mind seemed to possess an equable warm temperature, a temperature +that it seemed impossible to lower or raise. She could not fancy him +getting angry about anything. Had she seen him as in the past during one +of his rare sprees, fighting the crowd and tossing men about like +ninepins, she would have said: 'This is not the same man'--and maybe she +would have been right. + +"Where did you come from," said he one day to her as they sat rain-bound +watching the gulls dashing about over the crests of the incoming seas. + +"I came from Paris--you have never been to Paris?" + +No, he had never been to Paris. He knew of the place, it was in France. +Then she thought that she would interest him by trying to describe it. +She spoke of the busy streets and the great Boulevards, then she tried +to describe the people and what they were doing and then, as she talked, +it was just as though Kerguelen had become the big end of a telescope +and the doings of civilisation, as exemplified by Paris, a panorama seen +at the little end. + +What _were_ they all doing, those crowds that she could visualize so +plainly?--deputies, lawyers, military men, shop-keepers, pleasure +seekers--towards what end were they going? + +Then, with a strange little shock, it came to her that they were going, +as a mass, nowhere except from dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn; that they +were exactly like the crowd of sea gulls, each individual rotating in +its own little orbit, and that the wonderful coloured and spangled crust +called Civilization was nothing more than the excretion of individual +ambitions, desires and energies. + +Then, when she had finished her talk about the wonderful city of Paris, +she found that Raft, comfortably propped against the cave wall, was +asleep. + +One of the disconcerting things about this huge creature was his +capacity for sleep. He would drop asleep like a dog at the shortest +notice and lie with his face in the crook of his arm like a dead man. +She would watch him sometimes for half an hour together as he lay like +this, and at first the vague fear used to come to her that he had been +stricken by some malady in the form of sleeping sickness that made him +act like this. She did not know that he had kept awake all those nights +he had looked after her and that the same brain that could sleep and +sleep and sleep could put sleep entirely away, just as the great body +that lolled about like the sea elephants, could, like the sea-elephants, +become a thing, tireless, and capable of infinite endurance. + +Then again, he would smoke in silence for ages as though oblivious of +her existence. She had observed the same thing in Bompard and La Touche +who would sit cheek by jowl without a word, as though they had +quarrelled. This trait pleased her, and she fell in with it +unconsciously as though his mind had moulded hers and were teaching it +the taciturnity of the sea. + +One day, during a brief spell of calm when they were seated in the sun, +dinner over and nothing to do, she tried the effect of literature upon +him. She told him the story of Jack and the Bean Stalk and was delighted +to find him interested when he had got his bearings and knew that a +"giant" was a man fifty feet high; the cutting open of the giant--it +occurred in her version--pleased him immensely. Then when she had +finished she was alarmed to find, from words dropped by him, that he +considered the story to be true, or at least to be taken seriously. She +did not disillusion him; to do so she would have had to tell him that +she had lied. That was the funny part of the thing. He would have said +to himself "what made her lie to me about that chap?" By no possible +means could he have imagined a person sitting down to invent in cold +blood for the amusement of others a yarn about what never happened; no, +it would have struck him as one of those lying personal yarns heard in +the fo'c'sle sometimes and likely to produce a boot aimed at the +teller's head. He had seen men reading books in the fo'c'sle +occasionally and old newspapers, but of literature, fictional or +otherwise, he had no more idea than the bull sea elephants of astronomy. + +This she intuitively felt and so held her tongue. But she had interested +him, and she went on, producing from her memory the story of the Forty +Thieves. + +Now he had accepted the bean stalk explanation, for he had never to his +knowledge seen a bean stalk, but the jars in the Forty Thieves he +revolted at, for a jar to him was a demijohn, or a thing of that size. A +man could not get into that. + +However, on explanation, he passed the jars, and the boiling oil repaid +him. He seemed to delight in torture and blood. + +"Where did you get that yarn from?" asked he. + +"Out of a book," said she. + +"Got any more?" he asked. + +"Plenty," she replied casting round in her mind, and wondering how it +happens that children's stories run so frequently to blood and ferocity. + +She remembered Anatole France's story of the juggler who juggled before +the shrine of Our Lady, having no better offering to make to her, and +Raft sat spellbound, after having made out that Our Lady was the Virgin +Mary, the patron of Catholic shipmates. She told it so well and so +simply, with unobtrusive foot notes as to monasteries and their +contents, that he could not but see the point, the poor man having +nothing to offer but his stock in trade of tricks, offered it. + +Well, what of that? It was the best he had, and, if she could see the +other chaps doing things for her, she could see him. The story, whose +whole point lies in the supposed non-existence of the virgin as a +discerning being, ought to cast its gentle ridicule not on the ignorant +juggler but on the more learned brethren of the monastery. To Raft they +were all in the same boat, and as to whether she could see them or not +he didn't know. + +The story fell flat, horribly flat, told to the absolutely simple +hearted, and to the Teller, after explanations were over, it seemed that +the Listener had in some way cut open modern genius and exposed a little +tricky mechanism working on a view point of chilled steel. + +That Raft, in fact, was so big in a formless way that he was much above +the story. + +She remedied her blunder on the next storytelling occasion with Blue +Beard. + +Then the weather broke fair and the islands drew away and the clouds +rose high and the white terns, always flitting like dragon-flies amidst +the other birds, rose like the clouds, they always flew higher in fine +weather, and with the smooth seas a new thing shewed like a sign: the +little sea elephants were no longer confining themselves to the river +and near shore. Some of them were taking boldly to the sea. Their small +heads could be seen sometimes quite a long way out. + +This fact gave the girl food for thought. The summer was getting on. + +It almost seemed that Ponting was right, that no ships would venture +into that sea between the islands and the shore, and that their only +hope of rescue lay in that bay away to the west, heaven knew how far. + +Then an idea came to her. Two ships had already been here for certain: +the wreck and the ship of Captain Slocum, then there was the cache, some +ship must have left that. + +She told Raft what was in her mind but got little consolation from him. +He opined that the wreck wouldn't have been a wreck if she had kept +clear of this dangerous water, that the cache might have been left by +people who had landed somewhere else, and as for Captain Slocum's ship +she might have been a whaler. Whalers according to Raft were always off +the beaten track and poking their noses into places where honest deep +sea ships would not dare to go. + +"Well, then," said she, "how about that bay you spoke of?" + +"Oh, that place," said Raft. + +"Yes." + +He hung silent for a moment as if revolving the question in his mind. + +"But you were set against it," said he at last. + +"Yes, I know, but I am stronger now, and it seems useless staying here +till perhaps the winter comes." + +She paused and looked towards the islands. She hated the idea of that +journey which she pictured over rocks and across plains, where? In +search of a place that might not exist, and where, if it did exist, no +ship might perhaps be found. An almost hopeless journey involving +unknown hardships. + +"You ain't strong enough," suddenly said Raft. + +It was as though he had touched some spring in her character that set +the machinery of determination working. + +"I am strong enough," she replied. Then after a moment's pause something +in her began speaking, something that seemed allied to conscience, +rather than thought, something that spoke almost against her will. + +"We ought to go, we ought not to lose any chance. It seems almost +hopeless, but it is the right thing to do. To stay here is not fighting, +and in this place one has to fight if one wants to live or to get away. +I feel that. To sit here with one's hands folded is wicked." + +"Well, I believe in making a fight," said the other, "question is, will +we be any the better." + +"There's always the chance." + +"Ay, there's always a chance." + +Then an idea came to her. + +"How about the boat?" she asked. + +"That old boat along the beach?" + +"Yes, suppose we took her and rowed down the coast." + +"There aren't no oars in her." + +"There are oars. I hid them amongst the bushes and I can find them +again." + +Raft considered the proposition for a moment, then he shook his head and +tapped the dottle out of his pipe. + +"Not with them winds that get you here," said he, "they let out when +you're least expecting it and we'd be on to the rocks and done for. I'm +not saying if we had a boat crew we mightn't try, but we're +under-handed. No, we'll have to hoof it if we go." + +"Hoof it--what is that?" asked she. + +"Walk it," replied Raft, "and I'm thinking it's beyond you, you aren't +fit for travelling rough, like me." + +"Aren't I?--I suppose I don't look strong, but I am, of course I'm not +as strong as you, but I can keep on once I begin, and I have been +through a good deal ever since that night we were wrecked, I don't think +any journey we could make would be worse than that. And I was not +prepared for all that as I am now for anything that may happen. Think of +it, we had all been sitting at dinner, it was only a little while after +dinner and I had my evening frock on." + +"Your evening which?" + +"Dress. They were all rich people on board the yacht and they put on +different clothes always for dinner. It seems stupid--well, I was down +below and I suddenly felt that I must get on deck, so I put on these +clothes and my oilskin and sou'wester, then, as I was coming upstairs +the collision happened. I got on deck and it was quite dark until the +electric light was put on, then I saw the stern of your ship with the +name on it." + +She paused with a little shudder and seemed visualizing the terrible +picture again. + +"Heave ahead," said Raft interestedly. + +"Then I was thrown into a boat and forgot everything until I woke in the +early morning alone with those two men. It was all just like that. I +wasn't prepared for hardship as I am now, and I hadn't a companion like +you. Those two men were no use." + +"How's that?" asked he. + +"Well, they were always grumbling." + +"Swabs." + +"I didn't mind that so much, but they were no use, they wouldn't do +things. I had to make them go and hunt for firewood, they might just as +well have had no hands. Bompard, the oldest one wasn't so bad--" + +"It was the other chap you done in," said Raft. "Well, I reckon you've +been through it. Rum thing I saw you first when I was handling a topsail +in that blow. The weather broke and I was holdin' on to the yard when I +sighted you away to starboard with the sun on you. Old Ponting was close +to me and he yelled out he'd seen you before and give you your name, the +_Gaston de Paree_." + +"And we sighted you," said she, "I was down below when the steward came +with a message that there was a ship in sight, I came up and there you +were with the sun on you and the storm clouds behind, and do you know +you frightened me." + +"How so?" asked Raft. + +"I don't know. I felt there was going to be a disaster of some sort--it +was almost like a warning." + +"Well, there's no saying," said Raft. "I've known a chap warned he was +going to be drowned, and drowned he was sure enough. I was down below +asleep and shot out of my bunk by the smash; then I was on the main +deck, the chaps all round shouting for boats, and if you ask me how I +got off I couldn't tell you. One minute a big light was blazing, then it +was black as thunder. My mind seemed to go when the black came on, I'd +no more thought than a blind puppy. Something saved me. That's all I +know." + +"God saved you," said the girl. + +"Well, maybe He did," said Raft; "but what made Him let all the other +chaps drown?" + +"I don't know," she replied, "but He saved you just as He saved me. I +know He looks after things. Look at those sea elephants and the gulls; +He leads them about by instinct." + +"What's that?" asked Raft. + +"Instinct," said she, suddenly formulating the idea, "is God's mind, it +tells the birds and elephants where to get food and where to go and how +to avoid danger; you and I have minds of our own, but our minds are +nothing to the minds of the birds and animals. They are never wrong. +Look out there at those porpoises." + +"Them black fish," said Raft, shading his eyes. + +"Yes, well, look at the way they are going along, they are on a journey, +going somewhere, led by instinct, and I think when human beings find +themselves having to fight for life they fall back on instinct, the +mind of God comes to help them. Look at me. I believe I found that cache +led by instinct and I would never have pulled through only instinct told +me I would, somehow. God's mind told me." + +"Well, there's no saying," said Raft. + +"I don't want to leave here," she went on, "but I feel we ought to go. +The chances seem small, even if we find that bay; still, I feel we ought +to go." + +"I'm feelin' the same way myself," said Raft. + +"Then we will go and the sooner we start the better." + +"I'm thinking of them porpoises," said Raft. + +"What about them?" + +"Well, there's a saying they hug the shore pretty close if bad weather +is coming. It's fine to-day, but I've a feeling there's going to be +another blow soon and maybe we'd better wait till it's over--maybe it's +instinc'," he finished, looking round shyly. + +The girl laughed. "If you feel like that," said she, "we had certainly +better wait. Maybe the porpoises were sent to tell us." + +"There's no saying," replied he. They were seated on the rocks just +where she had watched the great battle and far and near the "sea cows" +were sunning themselves on the rocks whilst beyond the seal beach the +penguins were drilling in long lines. Scarcely a breath of wind stirred +and the sea lay calm like a sheet of dim blue glass to where the islands +sat beneath the sky of summer. + +But the islands had drawn closer since morning and the birds seemed +busier than usual and more clamorous. To the eastward where the cliffs +rose higher, guillemots had their home on the ledges of basalt and the +wheezy bagpipe-like cry of them came in bursts every now and then as +though they were angry about something, whilst the cry of the razorbills +and the "get-away, get-away" of the kittiwakes had a sharper note. The +puffins alone were calm, swimming in coveys on the glassy water and +leaving long ripples in their wake. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE GREAT WIND + + +The sun sank, broadened out and banded with mist beyond the Lizard +Point, and before his upper limb had been swallowed by the rocks the +business began with a blow from the hills. + +Most winds come in gusts and pauses, this wind from the Infernal Regions +came at first steady and warm, never ceasing, steadily growing like the +thrust of an infinite sword driven with a rapidly increasing momentum +and a murmur like the voice of Speed herself. + +Raft and the girl saw that the sea elephants were herding up into the +shelter of the cliffs and that the gulls had vanished as though they had +never been. + +And still the wind increased, its voice now a long monotonous cry, +steadily sharpening, yet deepening, stern as the Voice of Wrath. + +"It's blowing up," said Raft, "and there's more coming." + +Then over the cliff and undershot by the last rays of sunset came the +clouds chased and harried by the wind, tearing before and torn by the +teeth of the gale. + +Raft and the girl stood watching till pebbles and rocks the size of +coconuts began to fall on the beach blown over the cliff edge, till the +sea, flat and milk-white, seemed to bend under the stress, till it would +seem that the very islands would be blown away. + +The girl felt light-headed and giddy as though the rush above had +rarefied the air under the cliffs. Not a drop of rain fell, the wind +held the sky and the whole world. It seemed loosed from some mysterious +keeping never to be recaptured until it had blown the sea away and +flattened the earth. + +And still it increased. + +Raft, taking the girl by the arm, drew her back into the cave; she was +trembling. It seemed to her that this was no storm, that something had +gone wrong with the scheme of things, that this Voice steadily being +keyed up was the voice of some string keeping everything together, +stretched to its utmost and sure to snap. + +Then it snapped. + +The whole of Kerguelen seemed to burst like a bomb-shell with a blaze of +light shewing islands and sea. + +Then again it seemed to burst with a light struggling through a deluge. + +The boom of the rain on the sea came between the thunder crashes whilst +a giant on the hills seemed to stand steadily working a flashlight, a +light so intense that now and again through broken walls of rain the +islands could be seen like far white ghosts wreathed in mist. + +They sat down on the floor of the cave and the man put his arm about the +girl as if to protect her; then something came sniffing at them, it was +a little sea elephant that had got astray and scared by the work outside +had crept in for shelter and company. The girl rested her hand on it and +it lay still. + +It seemed to her now that she could hear the gods of the storm as they +battled, hear their cries and breathing and trampling, whilst every +moment a thousand foot giant in full armour would come crashing to +earth, knee, shoulder and helmet hitting the rocks in succession. + +"It's a big blow," came Raft's voice, "no call to be scared." + +He was holding her to him like a child whilst she held to her the little +sea elephant, and so they remained, the three of them until the big +blow, failing to tear Kerguelen from its foundations, began to pause +like a spent madman. + +The flashlight man on the hills began to work his apparatus more slowly +and now the thunder seemed doing its vast work away out at sea and all +sounds became gradually merged in the enormous, continuous sound of the +rain. + +The little sea elephant seemed suddenly to take fright at the strange +company it found itself in and went tumbling and sniffing out to find +its mates, whilst through the night came the occasional "woof" of a bull +as if giving praise that the worst was over. + +"The old sea cows know it's done," said Raft, "now you'd better get +under your blankets,--you aren't afraid to be alone?" + +"I'm not afraid a bit now," said she. She patted his hand as a child +might and he crawled out and she heard him swearing at the rain as he +made for his hole in the cliff. + +She remembered the porpoises and fell to thinking of what would have +happened had she and Raft started on their expedition yesterday or the +day before. That wind, which sent rocks flying on to the beach, would +have blown them away. + +She said this next morning as they stood watching the sea. The sea was +worth watching. The due-south wind had stirred the heart of the ocean +from west of Enderby land, and, like a trumpeter, was leading a vast +flood that split on Heard Island only to re-form and burst on the +southern shores of Kerguelen. + +They could hear the vague far-off roar of it all those leagues away +beyond the mountains, mixed with the cry of the wind still blowing a +full gale, and beyond the shelter of the land they could see the islands +getting it, bombarded by the waves and up to their shoulders in +sea-smoke and foam. + +Then as they stood, suddenly and like a thing shot dead, the wind +ceased, and in the silence the roar of the beaches far and near arose +like a fume of sound. Then, as suddenly, the wind came shouting out of +the west, piling up a cross sea that leapt like the water in a boiling +pot. + +"I'm thinking when this blow is over we may have a spell of fine +weather," said Raft, "and it will be just as well for us to be making +our plans and getting things ready so's we won't be behind hand when the +fine spell comes." + +"I think so too," said she, "we will have to take food with us--how +much?" + +"Enough for a month," said he, "who knows, we may have to come back, and +there's not much to be had elsewhere." Then he fell into thought for a +moment, "maybe stuff for a fortnight will be enough for there's birds +and rabbits to be got, and gulls' eggs. Them old penguins let you screw +their necks as if it come natural to them, we don't want to take too big +a load." + +Then they found themselves at a loss, it was quite easy to arrange to +take a fortnight's food, but how much did that mean? + +They determined to use two blankets for sacks and then made a rough +calculation, based on imagination, and collected together tins of meat +and vegetables and the remaining biscuits, the result was a burden that +two people might have carried but not very far. + +"We've overshot it," said Raft. + +"We'll never be able to carry all that," said the girl, "or if we did we +would have to go so slowly that the journey would be much longer--it +cuts both ways." + +They reduced the load by nearly a half. + +"There's one thing," said he, "there's no call to take water with us, +there's holes full of water everywhere, seems to me in this place." + +Then he turned to look at the weather. + +The wind was less and the clouds were thinning and the air had the feel +of a break coming. Then, just before sunset the clouds parted in the west +and the sun went down in a sky red as blood. + +"We'll start tomorrow," said Raft. + + + + +PART V + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE CORRIDOR + + +The next morning broke grey and fair. + +When the girl came out she found that Raft had collected the things to +be taken in one bundle tied up in a blanket. He had also set out +breakfast. The remainder of the stores he had stacked at the back of the +cave where he slept. + +These stores, with what was still in the cache, would be useful if they +had to come back to the beach. + +"But what am I to carry?" asked she. + +"Oh, there's no call for you to trouble," answered he, "you've got your +oilskins. I reckon that'll be enough for you to bother with. Them things +in the bundle is no weight for a man." + +She tried to argue the question. It seemed to her impossible that any +single person could carry that load for long, but she might just as well +have argued with the gentle wind blowing now shorewards from the +islands. He lifted the bundle with one great hand to demonstrate its +lightness; he was also going to take the harpoon as a sort of walking +stick. + +It seemed to her that she had never realized his strength before, nor +his placid determination that seemed more like an elemental force than +the will of a man. + +She gave in and sat down to the meal, biscuits and the remains of a +stew, and as she ate she watched the great sea bulls and the cows and +the young ones that now were able to land, boosting through the foam +like their elders, and as she watched she wondered whether she would +ever see these things again, there, against the setting of the sea and +the great islands. + +She had put on her boots for the journey and a pair of men's soft +woollen socks from the store in the cache. They were small men's socks +and the wool was so fine and soft that the size did not trouble her. In +her pocket she still carried the few odds and ends including the tobacco +box in which she had placed her rings. She wore the sou'wester, and the +oilskin lay beside her folded and ready to be carried on her arm. + +Then, when the meal was finished, Raft washed the plates and stored them +in the cave. He stood looking at the stored things for a moment as if to +make sure they would be all right, then he kicked an old tin away into a +cleft of the rocks as though to tidy the place, then he took up the +harpoon and slung the bundle on his shoulder. + +The girl rose and looked around her. This place where she had suffered +and nearly died was still warm with memories, and the sea creatures were +like friends, she had grown to love them just as people love trees or +familiar inanimate things. + +To associate the idea of home with that desolate beach, those moving +monsters, those caves, would seem absurd. Well, it was like leaving +home, and as she stood looking around her a tightness came in her throat +and her eyes grew misty. But Raft was moving now and she followed him, +glancing back now and then until they crossed the river where she looked +back for the last time. The river was almost deserted now by the young +sea elephants, except at its mouth. A few little girl seals lay about, +delicate or unadventurous creatures whose lives would doubtless be short +in a world that is only for the strong. These little girl seals had +attracted her attention before, they had almost the ways of fine ladies. +It was as though some germ of civilization in the herd had become +concentrated in them and she had wondered whether they would ever pull +through the rough and tumble of life, recognising vaguely that nature is +opposed to civilization at heart. They seemed allied to herself and +their future seemed as doubtful as her own here where nothing helped, +where everything opposed. + +She caressed them with her eyes for the last time; then as she turned +and followed Raft she forgot them. Her brave mind, that nothing could +daunt but loneliness, faced the great adventure ahead not only undaunted +but uplifted. The way was terrific, the chances were small, so small, so +remote, that they could scarcely be called chances, and the penalty of +failure was return and a winter here when the beach would be deserted by +all but the gulls. The very desperation of the business made it great, +and from the greatness came the uplift. + +They passed the figure-head with its sphinx-like face staring over the +sea, and the great skull half sanded over by the recent blow. Then they +drew near the caves and the boat. + +The boat had been blown over on its other side by the wind and lay with +one gunnel deep buried in the sand and its keel presented to the cliffs; +she glanced only once at the caves, deserted now by the birds who had no +doubt picked the last fragments of the dead man. + +Then they climbed the Lizard rocks and at the highest point sat down to +rest for a moment. + +Raft, with the bundle beside him and the harpoon held between his knees, +swung his head from the great beach on his right to the broken country +on his left. + +He said nothing, not wishing perhaps to dishearten his companion. It was +she who spoke. + +"That's the plain I told you of," said she, "we mustn't cross it, you +can see from here some of the dangerous patches, those yellow ones, but +there are others just as bad that you can't tell till you are trapped in +them. I would have gone down, only a bird flying overhead dropped a fish +on the ground right in front of me and the fish disappeared." + +"We'd better get along the sea-shore rocks, seems to me," said Raft, +"the tide's going out, all them rocks between tide marks is pretty +flat." + +"Suppose the tide comes in," said she, "and we can't get up the cliffs?" + +"Oh, we'll have lots of time to make a good way before it comes back," +replied he, "and we've got to trust a bit to chance, we've got to strike +bold. I reckon we'd better trust to instinc'." He laughed in his beard. +"The same sort of instinc' that made that bird drop the fish to give you +soundin's of that mud hole." + +"Providence," said she, "yes--you are right." + +"I believe in strikin' bold," said he, almost as though he were talking +to himself. "It's like fighting with a chap, the fellow that does the +hittin' without bothering about bein' hit. He's the chap. Well, if +you're restored, we'll be gettin' along." + +He heaved up and led the way, striking right down to the sea and pausing +now and then to help her. Once he lifted her as though she were a +feather from one rock to the other. Then, all of a sudden they came to a +ten foot drop. There was no getting round that drop, it was a basalt +step that circled the whole Lizard Point on its seaward side. It did not +disconcert Raft. He threw the harpoon down, then he lowered himself, +clutching the edge and let himself fall. Following his directions she +threw him the bundle. It would have felled an ordinary landsman, but he +caught it, placed it beside him and then ordered her to jump, just as +she stood, without lowering herself. + +"Jump with your arms up," said he, laughing, "no call to lower yourself. +I'll catch you." + +It was like an order to commit suicide. It seemed to her impossible, she +thought that he only spoke in fun, then she knew that he was in earnest, +that he was ordering her. But it was impossible--absolutely. Then she +jumped with arms raised, jumped into two great hands that clipped her +round the waist and brought her, feet to ground, with scarcely a jar. + +"I didn't think you'd have done it," said he. "You ain't wanting in +pluck." + +"I knew it would be all right if you told me," said she, "but I didn't +want to do it until the very last moment." + +After that she would have jumped over a cliff if he had told her. It +seemed to her that he was invincible--infallible. + +A climb of a couple of minutes brought them down to the tide mark rocks, +the tide was a quarter out and the sea comparatively calm and the rocks +flat-topped like those of the seal beach and free from seaweed except +where, here and there, were piled masses of giant kelp torn up from its +deep sea attachments and cast here by the waves. It lay in ridges that +had to be climbed over sometimes and seemed entirely confined to the +Lizard Point and the rocks beyond, for when they reached where the +cliffs began it ceased to occur. + +Where the cliffs began they first experienced the true meaning of a +journey along that coast. + +She had seen these cliffs from the boat, but that view, though +forbidding enough, had told her little of the reality. + +They rose from two to four hundred feet in height, these cliffs, and +looking up was like looking up a wall of polished ebony. + +Here and there they were streaked with long lines of white where the +guillemots in their thousands sat on ledges, and here and there they +were faced by seaward rocks standing out in the water and carved by the +waves into all sorts of fantastic shapes, but waves and rocks and sea +and sky, all these were nothing, here the cliffs were everything, +dominating the mind and soul, sinister, and tinging every sound from the +wave echoes to the gull voices with tragedy. + +And high tide mark was the cliff base in fine weather, in foul, the +waves would lash and dash and beat fifty feet up, there was not a +guillemot ledge lower than eighty feet, puffins, razorbills and +kittiwakes, who always build above the guillemots did not seem to come +here at all, keeping to the seaward rocks and the coast line where the +cliffs drew further away from the sea. + +With the sea so close on the right and the cliffs on the left the girl +felt like a mouse in a trap designed for an elephant. Alone she would +never have dared this road, even with Raft leading her she felt timid +and oppressed. The place did not seem to affect Raft. Plodding ahead as +indifferently as though he were on some civilized country road, he +talked to her now and then over his shoulder, calling attention to queer +shaped crabs or dead kelp fish, and ever as they went their road grew +broader as the tide drew out. + +It was now about an hour and a half after high water, that is to say, +quarter ebb; in a little more than ten hours it would be high water +again, before that they must find a way from the beach or be drowned. +Raft knew this and the girl knew it too. It seemed almost impossible +that, with so much time before them, they could not find a break in the +cliffs towards safe ground, yet the cliffs seemed to stretch endlessly +before them and their pace was slow, not more than three miles an hour. +They rested sometimes for a moment watching the out-going sea and the +gulls; unused to exercise the girl was tired, and the man knew it. Alone +he could have travelled swiftly and without resting, but he said +nothing, and though he knew the necessity of speed, it was he who made +the halts for the sake of his companion. Three hours after noon he took +some food out of the bundle and made her eat. They had already drunk +from a little torrent rushing out of a crack in the cliff wall, but even +so the food seemed dry and she could scarcely swallow it. Anxiety had +her in its grip, the cliffs stretching on and on interminably seemed +like misfortune itself made visible. + +Said Raft: "The tide's near the turn and them cliffs don't shew no sign +of a cut in them, but then there's only two miles or so to be seen from +here. Round that bend there's no knowing, they may break away beyond +there. What I'm thinkin' is this. We've time to get back along the road +we've come by before it's high water again." + +"Go back?" + +"We've time to do it; if we keep on our course it will take us maybe +near an hour to get to that shoulder and from there we won't have much +time to get back before high water again. We've cut it too fine and if +the tide comes back and catches us before we get to a break we're done." + +She looked forward then she looked back. They were in a veritable +corridor. The sea formed the right hand wall of this corridor, the +cliffs varying from two hundred to three hundred feet high formed the +left hand wall, cliffs black as ebony, polished by sea washing, +unclimbable and tremendous as a dream of Dante. + +She saw their full position. There was time to get back from where they +stood, but if they went on to the cape of cliff before them there would +be no time to get back, they would have to go on, and the unseen cliffs +beyond that cape might stretch for twenty miles unclimbable as here. + +Yet the idea of going back was horrible, heartbreaking. + +She saw that Raft was between two moods. Then she said to him. + +"If you were alone would you go back or go on?" + +"Me?" said Raft. He paused for a moment as if in thought--"Oh, I reckon +I'd go on." + +"Then we will go on." + +"I was thinkin' of you," said he. + +"I know--but I could not bear to go back. If we fail now like that we +will fail altogether. Imagine going all that way back. No, I couldn't. +We must risk it." + +"I'm thinking that way," said he. + +He picked up the bundle and harpoon and they started, and no sooner had +she taken the first step than Fear laid his hand on her heart and a wild +craving to return seized her so that she could have cried out. + +She had once said that she feared an ugly face more than a blow, and the +fear that seized her now was less the fear of death than the fear of the +cliffs and their conspiracy with the murmuring sea that would soon be an +inclosing wall. + +She fought it down. + +The cliff shoulder was further away than they thought; it took them an +hour to reach it and, when they turned it, there, before them lay cliffs +higher, more monstrous and running in a curve to another shoulder seven +miles away, if a yard. But towards the middle of the curve the cliff +face seemed ridged and broken near the base. Raft shading his eyes, +pointed out this broken surface. + +"It looks as if there was foothold there beyond tide mark," said he, +"we've got to go on anyhow--Lord, but you're tired!" + +He made her sit down. The sight of that gargantuan sweep of cliff coming +on top of the weariness of the journey had crushed her. To go forward +seemed impossible, to fight against that immensity impossible. She could +have wept but she had neither tears nor energy. The gods seemed to have +built those bastions to shut out all hope and the voice of the returning +sea seemed like a tide turning over her broken thoughts like pebbles. + +Raft standing over her like a tower said not a word. + +Mixed with the voice of the sea came the voices of the gulls and all +sorts of sea echoes from the cliffs. + +Then as she sat she made a supreme effort of mind. She must rise and go +on. She struggled to rise, but her limbs had left her, deserted her, +stricken as if by paralysis. + +Raft took off his cap and put it in his pocket, then he went to the +cliff side and rested the harpoon against it, standing up. She watched +him, vaguely wondering what he was about, then he returned to her and +bent down and she found herself lifted suddenly and seated on his left +shoulder. + +"Hold on to my hair," cried he. Then he bent and picked up the bundle, +went to the cliff side and picked up the harpoon and started. The giant +strength that had caught her when she jumped from the Lizard Point ledge +was carrying her now like a feather, the crook of his left arm round her +legs to steady her, the harpoon clutched in his left hand, the bundle +swung over his right shoulder. + +And she held on to his hair as a child might, without a word, and as she +held the strength of him seemed to permeate her through her fingers +casting fear and misery out. + +She felt as a tiny tired child feels when caught up and carried by its +mother, and carrying her so he strode on, cursing himself for not having +carried her before. + +It was a three-mile journey to that roughness on the cliff and as he +drew near he saw that they were saved, at least for the time. + +The rock broke here in ledges like steps and twenty feet up and well +beyond tide mark ran a little plateau some ten or twelve feet broad. + +She saw it as well as he and filled with new strength she cried out to +be set down. + +"Stay easy," said Raft. "It's easier to carry the bundle with you on my +shoulder, you ain't no weight." + +Then when he reached the steps: + +"Done it b'God," said he. + +He dropped the bundle and harpoon, and, lifting her, set her feet on the +basalt steps. + +"Can you climb it?" asked he. + +Without a word she climbed and sitting on the little plateau looked down +on him. + +Then he followed with the things and took his seat beside her. They sat +for a while without a word, the bare rocks and the grey sea before +them. + +A great rock out at sea, pierced and arched like the frame work of a +door, shewed through its opening the sea beyond. Gulls flew round it and +their eternal complaint came on the wind blowing, still lightly, from +the north. + +Raft seemed absorbed in thought. + +Then he said: "It won't be high water until gettin' on for dark. We'd +better stick here the night anyhow and get the low tide to-morrow. But +there's time for me now to get to that next shoulder and see what's +beyond, it's a matter of four miles there maybe and four miles back." + +"I'll go with you," said she, "I'm stronger now." + +"No, you stick here," said he. "There's no call for two to go. You'll +want your strength for the morning." + +"Only for you I wouldn't be here," said she. + +"Well, maybe you wouldn't," said Raft. "It's as well I was along with +you, but you ain't no weight--no more than a kitten. I never thought you +were as bad as that or I'd have lifted you miles back." + +"Aren't you tired?" she asked. + +"Me--oh, no, not more than a bit stiff in the arm." He stretched his +left arm out. Then he looked at the bundle. + +"You don't want nothing to eat just yet?" asked he. + +"Not till you come back," she answered. "I'll watch you from here." + +He scrambled down, picked up the harpoon which he had left on the rocks +and then looked up and nodded to her. + +"I'll keep in sight," said he. Then he started. + +She watched his great figure as it went, harpoon in hand, growing +smaller and smaller, till, now, she could have covered it with her thumb +nail. As the distance increased it seemed to go slower and the great +black cliffs to grow higher. + +At a dizzy height above her cormorants had their nests, they seemed +angry about something as they clanged and flew, shooting out into the +sky and wheeling back again in an aimless manner. Before her the grey +sea crawled, coming, now, steadily shoreward. + +The tide seemed coming in faster than usual. She knew that this could +not be so and that Raft was too wise to allow himself to be cut off, all +the same a smouldering anxiety fed on her heart as she watched the tiny +figure now approaching the out-jutting shoulder of cliff. Then it +disappeared. + +He had promised to keep in sight. + +Evidently that was impossible if he wanted to get a view of what lay +beyond. + +A minute passed, two, three--then the figure reappeared and her heart +that had lain still sprang to life again. + +As he drew closer she saw him stoop and pick up something, then he came +right up to the cliff face, paused a minute and continued his way +towards her, walking more slowly now and carrying the thing in his +hands. + +It was a big shell shaped like an abalone. He had filled it with water +from a little torrent running from the cliff and when he reached her he +held it up to show. + +"We're all right," cried he, "there's only four or five miles of cliff +beyond the point, then it breaks away down to the beach. We'll be able +to get clear of this to-morrow." + +She came down the basalt steps and took the shell from him. He had +washed it in the torrent so that the water had no taint of salt. Then, +carrying it carefully she got it to the plateau where he followed her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +NIGHT + + +Towards dark the incoming tide began to hit the cliff base. Raft had +taken the things from the bundle and had made her wrap herself in the +blanket. "You ain't used to the weather like me," said he, "and this is +nothing to bother about. Lucky it's not blowing. Lucky we made this +shelf. Hark at that!" + +The first full blow of a wave hit the basalt below them with a +heart-sickening thud; then miles of stricken cliff began to boom. The +terrific corridor was no more, and between them and the Lizard point so +many miles away to the east and the point of safety miles away to the +west, there was nothing but cliff washed by sea. + +"A rotten coast," said Raft as they listened. "Only for this shelf we'd +be down there." + +"We'd have been flung against the cliff and beaten to pieces," said she. + +"That's so," said Raft. + +"When we get free from this," she said, "let us keep inland. I don't +mind climbing over rocks, anything is better than the coast, under these +cliffs." + +"We've got to keep pretty close to the cliffs, all the same, to strike +that bay," he replied, "hope it's there." + +"It is there," said she. "I feel--I know it is there and that we will +find a ship. We are being looked after." + +"Which way?" + +"We are being led. You remember when you saved me from dying in that +cave, well, you were making for the bay then. If you had not found me +you would have kept on and you would have crossed that plain where the +bog places are, it looked the easiest way." + +"That's so," said Raft. + +"Bompard was swallowed up there. You would have been swallowed up too; +you were led to find me for both our sakes. Then, to-day, I could have +gone no further only for you, and you remember how we thought of going +back? This ledge was here waiting for us. It tells us we have to go on +and be brave and everything will come right." + +"Well, maybe, you aren't far wrong," replied the other, "we've scraped +through so far and maybe we'll scrape through to the end. My main wish +is to have a plank under foot again, there ain't no give and take in +land, I'm never surefooted on land, there's no lift in it. I reckon I'm +like one of them sea chickens not used to solid stuff underfoot. D'you +know what one of them gulls does first thing he lands on board a ship by +chance?" + +"No." + +"He gets sick as a dog." + +The cliff had an echo which, when it was not answering some loud boost +of the sea managed to return words, and between the smack of two waves +the girl heard it remark something about a dog. But the echo of the +cliff soon had its mouth too full to hold words. The sea now nearly at +full flood was bringing big waves along with it. In the gloom they could +see the racing grey ghosts, and here, on account of the curve, there was +little rhythm in the sound of it that came like the continuous thunder +of big drums. At their feet, like the licking vicious tongue of the +roaring monster, came the continuous gash-gash of waves washing up and +falling back. + +The girl sat with the blanket around her leaning close up against the +man. She felt as a person feels standing before the cage of a tiger +uncertain as to the strength of the bars, sometimes a puff of wind +brought a touch of spray on her face, whilst the continuous muffled +thunder of the coast leagues seemed like the bastions of the whole world +at war with the sea. + +"There's no call to be afraid," said Raft. He seemed, by some special +faculty, to be able to divine her feelings. + +"I'm not exactly afraid," she replied. "It's just that everything seems +so big--and those cliffs, now, even when they are hidden, they make one +know they are there, they seem wicked and alive, yet not able to move." + +"You've hit it," said he, "they're for all the world as if they were +looking at a chap. It's a rotten coast, but it's near high water now and +the tide will soon be drawing out." + +This cheered her. + +Then the whale birds began to cry and flit about. The whale birds are +blind by daylight and their voices scarcely ever heard, they are the +owls of the sea. + +The girl talked about them for something to say, then she fell to +wondering why on a beach like this there were no sea elephants. Raft +explained "sea cows" would never come to a washed beach like this, there +were no dry rocks for them to "hang about" on. + +He had lit his pipe with the tinder box and the smell of the tobacco +came good and comforting, the slap and dash of the waves sounded less +vicious, too, as though the sea had done its worst to get at them and +was foiled. + +Then she said, apropos of nothing but the last of her wandering +thoughts: "Have you ever seen a man killed?" + +He laughed as though over some pleasant reminiscence. "Dozens." Then he +began to recall chaps he had seen killed, falling from aloft and +otherwise. He had seen one hit the sea such a smack it split him open, +and he had seen a chap under water being pulled to pieces by sharks just +as terriers pull an old shoe. + +Then he wandered off to a bar scene where a dago--it was at +Nagasaki--had been drinking rice rum and knifed a man, a regular prosy +old sailor's yarn, with "I says to him," and "he says to me" at every +turn. + +Then he found that she was leaning more heavily against him and was +asleep. He put his pipe beside him and slipped an arm round her. Then, +as though sleep were infectious, down he sank still holding her and +there they lay. He snoring gently and she with her head pillowed on his +chest. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE SUMMIT + + +"I will break thee." Across Kerguelen those words are written to be read +by the soul of man. The rock, the rain, the wind and the sea, these, as +instruments, would surely be sufficient for the carrying out of the +threat; but the soul of man is strong, hence the spirit of Kerguelen has +called to its assistance Fog. + +Since landing on the great beach the girl had seen the islands +fog-wreathed several times but the beach itself had only once been +attacked. + +When she awoke on the rock plateau the first word of Raft to her was +"fog." + +They had slept as the dead sleep for nine hours and Raft had awoken with +the girl's head still on his chest and feeling as though he were packed +in damp cotton wool. It was after sun up and the fog was so dense that +the edge of the plateau was only just visible. Through the fog came the +breaking of the waves; the tide was coming in again. + +Raft had lit his pipe and the girl, stiff from lying, rose up and +stamped about to warm herself. Neither of them spoke a word in the way +of grumbling. + +The plateau was about twenty yards in length and by drawing off five +yards or so one could have a dressing-room screened with a fog veil, so +the fog was not an unmixed evil. + +Then they breakfasted, listening to the slashing of the water just below +and counting the time till the out-going sea would let them loose. + +"It's a good job I went to the point last night," said Raft, "else we +wouldn't be able to start in this smother, not knowing what was beyond +there." + +"Will we be able to start in this?" she asked. + +"Lord, yes," replied he, "the cliffs will give us a lead, it'll be slow +going but we'll do it all right, it's not more than six miles or so to +the break from the point there." + +"When can we start?" + +Raft listened to the water below, it was breaking now against the near +rocks but not yet against the cliff base. + +"In another three hours or maybe a bit more," said he. + +An hour later, as though the Fog spirit had been listening and watching, +and as though it despaired of its attack on the heart of the prisoners, +the smother began to thin; by the time the tide reluctantly began to +free them it had broken up and patches of the blessed blue sky shewed +overhead. + +By the time they reached the point and had a view of the great cliff +break-down that would give them release it was fine weather, with a +gently heaving sea breaking in beneath a sky of summer. + +It was as though their troubles were ended. At noon they reached the +great break-down and a new form of country. + +Stretching inland almost to the foothills lay a broad valley, boulder +strewn, and looking like the bed of some vanished river. Before them to +the west the ground rose from the valley, gently, unbroken, desolate, +like nothing so much as the desolate country that borders the Riff coast +of Morocco. But it was ease itself compared to the tumble of rocks +around and beyond the Lizard Point. + +Down the middle of the valley came a little wimpling rivulet like the +remains of the river that had once been. They drank from it and rested +and had some food, then they started with light hearts, taking the easy +ascent to the high ground, treading a moss dark and springy like the +moss that covers the old lava beds of Iceland. + +"Look!" said the girl. + +They had reached the highest point and before them, away to the west, +stretched the same rolling dark-smooth country, making low cliffs at the +sea edge and then, as if weary of little things, springing gigantic and +bold towards the sky. + +"It's over there the bay would be," said Raft. "Ponting said it was a +black brute of a bay between two cliffs rising higher than a ship's top +masts. Well, there's our chance before us--if you call it a chance. It's +a long way, taking it how you will." + +Chance! Despite her optimism and belief in being led, as she stood now +with the wind blowing in her face it seemed to her that she stood +before absolute hopelessness. + +Nothing, not even the sea corridor, had balked her like that terrible +distance, calm, sunlit, yet gloomy like a recumbent giant. + +The monstrosity of the whole adventure unmasked itself of a sudden; +travelling to find a bay they had heard of on the chance of finding a +ship--a ship on a coast where ships were scarcely to be found. + +And even if they found the bay they could not wait for a ship. Here +there was no food, with the exception of rabbits and gulls. The ship +would have to be there, waiting for them. + +Raft must have been mad! mad! mad! She herself must have been mad to +dream of such a thing. + +Her lips felt dry as pumice stone and she glanced at her companion as he +stood with the bundle at his feet and the harpoon in his hand, looking +about him, far and near, as unconcerned as though beyond that great hump +on the skyline lay a sure town with a railway station. + +No, Raft was not mad. He was unconcerned. He knew, even better than she, +the hopelessness of their position, yet he was calm and unmoved, never +from the first moment she had seen him had he been otherwise; before +everything, like a rock, he continued. + +Yet it was only now, as he quietly stood there surveying their "chance," +that he came home to her truly as he was, unbreakable; simple, vast, +forged by the sea. She swallowed down the devil of doubt and despair as +she stood looking at him standing so, and she was about to speak when, +catching sight of something along the high ground to the right he +pointed it out to her. She saw a white point on the ground a couple of +hundred yards away. + +As they drew close to it it enlarged and other things shewed. It was the +top of a skull belonging to a skeleton tucked away in a little hollow as +though it were sheltering from the wind. + +Rags of clothing still hung to it and the boots were there still that +had once belonged to it. + +"Wonder what did that poor chap in?" said Raft as he stood looking at +it. "Wrecked, most likely and lost himself--well, it's a sign folk have +been here, anyhow." + +He gauged the measure of the desolation around by his words. Here a +skeleton did not make the desolation more desolate; on the contrary, it +proved that folk had been here. + +So the girl felt. + +"He'd have been blown away by this only for that hollow he's in," said +Raft, "well, he's out of his troubles whoever he was and whatever ship +he hailed from." + +"We can't bury him," said she. + +"He's buried," said Raft. + +He had summed up Kerguelen in two words and there was almost a trace of +bitterness in his voice. Beyond the remark that it was a brute of a +coast he had never grumbled against the place or abused it or the +Almighty for making it, as many a man has done; and now at the summit of +things two words sufficed him. + +Then, leaving the skeleton to the wind and the sky and the countless +ages, they turned and went on their way west. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE BAY + + +It took them till dusk to reach the foot of the western rise of ground; +here they slept under a rock, continuing their way next morning, +climbing till they reached the summit of the rise and keeping their +course along the edge of a cliff that fell a sheer three hundred feet to +the shore below. + +Sometimes Raft peeped over the cliff edge and once the girl drew close +and looked, too, dizzy with the height, made more dreadful by the gulls +flying far below. + +At noon, far ahead of them, they saw something that made them pause; a +little mound. As they drew closer they knew. It was another cache, a +cache made of heaped earth and loose stones with about a foot of sign +post protruding from it. The post had been broken off in some storm and +blown away. + +"There'll be stuff under there," said Raft, "and if we have to go back +it'll come in handy. It's a pointer to the bay anyhow; there must be +some landin' place near here, we've only got to keep on." + +They sat down and rested and had some food, eating as much as they +wanted now that they had a store to depend on. They had drunk twice +that morning from pot holes still half-filled with the rain of a few +days ago and they had no need of water--it is the one thing a man never +needs in Kerguelen. They were in good spirits; the haunting fear that +their provisions might not be enough to last them for the return journey +was gone; also, if the bay were near, they could remain now some time, +even take up their quarters here to wait on the chance of a ship. + +The idea came to them to make a burrow into the cache, now, working with +the harpoon and their hands, and for the purpose of verifying the +contents; but they put it away, the desire to get on drove them like a +whip and they went on, halting towards dusk and sleeping in a hollow +that gave them shelter from the wind that was blowing from the south. + +Towards dawn the wind changed to the west and at the first rays of light +Raft awoke, sat up and sniffed. Then he laid his hand on the girl's +shoulder. + +"Smell that!" cried he. + +She sat up, her eyes half-blind with sleep. + +"Smell the wind!" said Raft. + +She turned her face to the west. On the wind was coming the ghost of a +smell, faint and horrible and soul-searching. + +"That's a ship," said Raft. + +"A ship!" + +"Boiling down blubber. I struck that smell once, seven years ago; it's +blubber. I reckon we're all right." He heaved himself on to his feet +and the girl half-rose, kneeling, and looked at him. + +"Are you sure?" + +"Sure as sure; smell it." + +Then, as she sniffed again, she knew. That was not a nature smell; +horrible though it was it was not the tragic smell of corruption. It had +something, almost one might say, low down about it, little, mean, +business-like--it was her first sniff of returning Civilization, the +first impression on an olfactory sense cleared and cleaned by the winds +of Kerguelen. + +She looked at Raft. He was standing, shading his eyes as though staring +at the smell. The dawn was at his back, and across the dawn a flight of +wild duck was making in from the sea. + +Imagine a person walking in a garret from absolute penury to find +himself a millionaire. Such a person, were he normal, would feel what +the girl felt as the message of that noxious odour struck home to her +mind. + +Her teeth chattered a little as she rose to her feet. She could not +speak and she had to hold her lower jaw with her hand to still it. Then +the muscles of her throat did all sorts of queer things on their own +account and a violent feeling of sickness seized her that would have +ended in an attack of vomiting had it not passed as quickly as it came. +Raft, who had ceased staring to the west, saw how she was taken and put +his hand on her shoulder. + +"You'll be all right in a bit," said he, "it comes hard at first. I've +seen chaps go clean off their heads sniffin' land after three months of +hell and weather. We'll start in a bit, there's no call to hurry, and +I'll just take a walk to get the stiffness out of my legs." + +Off he went, away and away, disappearing beyond a dip in the ground. + +She knew that he would be away at least half an hour. Thoughtful as a +mother for her comfort, yet almost as outspoken, sometimes, as a nurse, +he was wonderful. + +The dawn broke broader and stronger, peaceful and grey, promising a +continuance of the fine weather that had now lasted for three days, +three days without wind or rain or threat from the mountains that sat +this morning far away and clear cut against the sky. + +Then as they went on their way the sun broke over the edge of the high +lands and gulls rising above the cliff edge flitted like birds born of +snow and fire. + +They stopped for ten minutes to breakfast, then they went on, and now +suddenly came something new. On the wind they could hear the sound of +gulls quarrelling, a sound quite distinct from the ordinary mewing and +wheezing of the gulls at peace. + +"We're near there," said Raft. "Hark at the gulls, they're fighting over +the scraps. Them chaps, whoever they are, have been killing seals and +boiling the blubber. The bay's there." + +He pointed to a higher rise in the ground just before them and to the +fact that the land from there sloped down inland at a terrific rate. + +He was right. + +Ten minutes walking brought them to the end of their journey and to the +edge of a cliff two hundred feet high. It was as though a giant had +taken a gouge and cut a bay right through the sea cliffs. Far across the +water of the bay before them the land rose again in a precipice steep as +the one on whose edge they stood. + +The ripples of the bay washed in on a beach of black pebbles easily +reached by the declivity of the land and on the beach, stewing like +witches' cauldrons, queer looking try-pots were sending up their smoke. +Near the pots carcases of sea-bulls lay ripped and gory and being +cleared of their blubber by small men, strange-looking, stripped to the +waist and with arms and chests splashed by blood. + +But the clove in this devil's mixture was the ship moored in the cliff +shadows, a small ship like a withered kernel in the shell of the bay, +barque-rigged, antiquated, high pooped, almost with the lines of a junk. +One might have fancied her designer to have taken for his model some old +picture of the ships of Drake. + +The try-pots, carcases and busy men left Raft unmoved. The ship held his +whole mind. + +"Lord! Look at her," said he. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +THE SHIP + + +She had been built on the Chu Kiang in the great Junk building yards +that lie just below Canton and her bones had been put together by yellow +men. Built to a European design China had come out in her lines just as +the curve of the Tartar tent tops still lingers in the roof of the +pagoda. + +She might have been a hundred and fifty tons, not more, maybe less, and +the junk pattern had been eliminated and European sticks and decent +canvas substituted for lateen sails by the direction of the man who +ordered her and who was a smuggler. + +She had been built for swiftness as well as cargo and, her builders +having been junk builders since the time of Tiberius, she was a failure, +sailing like a dough dish; and the yard that built her, having seen her +float off, went on building junks. + +Then she passed from hand to hand, and dirty hands they were, from the +Chu Kiang to the Hoang Ho, and through the Korea Channel into the Japan +sea, trading sometimes, smuggling sometimes, and once, as far as the +Kuriles, sealing in forbidden waters. She was caught by the Russians +and her crew clubbed to death or sent to the quicksilver mines and then +she came back to China, somehow, by way of Vladivostok and was sold and +sold again till she fell into the hands of one, Chang, a sea scraper to +whom everything came in handy from bêche de mer to barratry and murder. + +Chang was modern in some of his ideas, he carried a Swenfoyn-harpoon gun +and, having luck down by the Sundas, he collected half a cargo of oil +which he sold at Perth; from Perth he had dough-dished along down to +Kerguelen after the "big seals." He had struck this bay by chance and he +had struck oil, for all to westward of it lay a stretch of unwashed +rock, as good a sea elephant ground as that on the long beach. + +The girl standing beside Raft viewed the scene below her with a catch at +the heart. The carcases, the little blood-stained busy men, the try-pots +like witches' cauldrons and that strange-looking ship which even to her +eyes seemed not as other ships were, all these had a tinge of nightmare. +Amongst the men she noted one, big almost as Raft. He seemed their +leader. + +"Chinks," said Raft, "Chinee--they've got their pigtails rolled up, +well, they're better than nothing." + +He picked up the bundle that he had laid down and led the way to the +slope that gave on the beach. + +As they came on to the upper part of the beach the "Chinks" noticed +them, paused for a second in their labours and then, finding that it +was only a solitary man and woman, went on with their work as though the +intruders had been a couple of penguins. + +"Cool lot," said Raft. + +The girl paused. The sight of the carcases and the blood at close +quarters, the absolute indifference of the blubber strippers at the +sight of an obvious pair of castaways, the whole scene and circumstance +turned her soul and chilled her heart. + +"I don't like this," said she. "Those men make me afraid, they don't +seem human--they are _horrible_." + +"Wait you here," said Raft. + +He advanced alone across the black shingle and she stood watching him +and listening to the stones crunching beneath his feet. + +His advance did not disturb the workers. + +They seemed working against time. Without any manner of doubt they were +anxious to be done with the business and be out of that bay before the +next blow came, for the place was fully exposed to the west-nor'west and +a storm out of there might easily break their ship from its moorings and +send her broadside on to the shingle. + +Undersized, agile, with weary-old faces that seemed covered with drawn +parchment, they seemed less like men than automata; all save the leader, +a gigantic, imperious-looking Mongolian with a thin cat-like moustache, +a man of the true river pirate type with a dash of the Mandarin. This +man held in his hand a long thong of leather. Captain or leader, or +whatever he might be, he was most evidently the serang of that labour +party. + +On the shingle where the ripples washed in lay a boat, half-beached. + +The big man was Chang, and as Raft approached harpoon in hand, she saw +Chang draw himself up to his full height and stand waiting. Then she +heard Raft's voice and saw him pointing at her and inland and then at +the ship. + +Chang stood dumb. Then all at once he exploded, shouting and +gesticulating. She could not make out what he said, but she knew. He was +ordering them off. He seemed to be ordering them off the earth as well +as the beach. And Raft stood there patient and dumb like a chidden +child. + +Then she saw Raft nod his head and turn away. + +He came back crunching up the shingle. "Sit down," said he. + +She sat down and he took his seat beside her. He had dropped the bundle +just there, and as he sat for a moment before speaking he noticed that +the fish line securing the mouth of the sack was loose, he carefully +retied it. + +"You saw how that chap carried on," said he, "I had to put a stopper on +myself. He's the chap; them little yellow bellies don't count. He's the +chap, and I've got to get him aside from the others." He spoke rapidly +and she saw that his eyes were injected with blood. + +A new fear seized upon her, a fear akin to the dread she had felt that +dark night in the cave when she had caught the sound of La Touche +dragging himself close to her, the dread of imminently impending action. + +"Let us go away," said she, "another ship may come; anything is better +than having a fight with those men." + +"Have you got that knife safe?" asked Raft. She still wore the +fisherman's knife round her waist. She put her hand on it. + +"Yes, the knife is safe." + +"If that chap downs me for good," said Raft, "stick that knife through +yourself. If he doesn't you take my orders and take them sharp." + +He had risen to his feet and without a word more he came down the +shingle again towards the workers, walking in a leisurely way and +trailing the harpoon along. + +He approached Chang who turned on him again with the anger of a busy man +importuned by a beggar. The most heart-sickening thing to the girl was +the way in which, after the first driving off of Raft, the great +Chinaman and his crew had gone on with their work as though they were +alone on the beach. Pity and humanity seemed as remote from that crowd +as from the carcases they were handling. Active hostility would have +been less horrible, somehow, than this absolute indifference to the +condition of others. + +Chang did not wait for Raft to speak, this time; he began the speaking, +or, rather, the shouting, advancing on the other who began to retreat. +Chang, as if wishing to have done with this matter for good, followed +him up and at every step the devil in him seemed to rise higher whilst +his voice filled the beach. + +What a voice that was! Half-singing, half-booming, the +"whant-whong-goom-along" of the running coolie chanting as he runs +seemed mixed with it, till, his anger breaking bounds, he let fly with +the strap in his hand, catching the other across the shoulder of the arm +that held the harpoon. + +Then Raft killed him. + +The girl who saw the killing was less appalled for the moment by the +deed than the doer of it. The blow of the harpoon that sent Chang's +brains flying like the contents of a smashed custard apple was like a +flash of lightning, it was the thunder that terrified. + +Roaring like a sea bull he sprang from the body of Chang towards the +crowd who faced him for a moment with their flensing knives like a herd +of jackals. The girl, who had sprung to her feet, plucked the knife from +her belt and came running, terror gone and a wind seeming to carry her +over the shingle; zoned in steel blue light she saw the harpoon flying +from right to left destroying everything in its way, knives flying into +the air as if tossed by jugglers, a yellow greasy back into which she +struck with her knife, a yellow Chinese face falling backwards with eyes +wide on her, as if the Chinese soul of the creature she had stabbed to +the heart were trying to cling to her. + +Then she was sitting on the shingle very ill and Raft was coming back to +her, running. + +The fight was over and the beasts had flown, left and right, she could +see them crawling like ants away up on the higher ground. They had +dropped their knives and the knives were lying here and there on the +shingle where also lay four dead bodies including the body of Chang. + +Ten minutes ago there had been fifteen live Chinamen on that beach. + +Raft was bleeding from a cut on the arm, his face was gashed above the +beard, a knife had ripped his coat and the back of his left hand shewed +another wound. + +He was laughing and carrying on like a man in drink and now that her +stomach was relieved an extraordinary light-headedness seized her. Like +Raft, she seemed drunk. + +She had been snatched for a moment into a world where to kill was the +only alternative to death or worse than death. For a moment she had +lived in the Stone Age, she had fought like a savage animal and with the +fury of the female, more terrific than the rage of the male. She had +been pushed to the edge of things, and it was she who had turned the +fight. The man she had killed was in the act of knifing Raft in the +back. + +"The boat!" cried Raft. + +She struggled to her feet, steadied herself, and came to the boat. They +pushed it out till it was nearly water borne; she scrambled in, he +followed, and pushed off. Out in the bay the high black cliffs rose +above them as if pushed by a scene shifter, the light-headed laughing +raving feeling left her, and as they came alongside of the barque to +starboard and tied up to the channel plates she was clear headed and +calm and able to get on board by the channel without assistance. + +On the deck she tottered and fell in the dead swoon of exhaustion. + +It is a long journey to the Stone Age and back and the man or woman who +makes it is never quite, quite the same again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE OPIUM SMOKERS + + +Raft had never seen a female swoon before. He thought for a moment that +she had dropped dead and the shock of the business pulled him together +like a douche of cold water. Then he saw that she was breathing and took +heart, rubbing her hands and poking her in the ribs and calling on her +to pull herself together. He would have been more frightened only that +he put her condition down to her general unaccountableness in some ways. + +In less than five minutes she had come to and was leaning on her elbow +and declaring herself to be all right. Then she got on her feet and, +taking her seat on the side of the open hatch, looked about her at the +dingy deck cumbered with a whale boat and all sorts of raffle. The +slight swell of the bay rocked the barque to the creaking tune of block +and cordage, whilst overhead the sea-gulls flitted mewing against the +vast black cliff that rose three hundred feet sheer from the licking +sea. + +"You're all right now?" said Raft dubiously. + +"Yes, I feel quite right and strong again--just a little dizzy, that's +all." + +"Mind and don't tumble back down that hatch," said he, "I'll drop below +and see what's to be found if you keep your eye out for them Larrikens. +Give me a call if you sight them." + +The Larrikens were nowhere to be seen; they were in the high ground +hidden, and no doubt holding a council of war, but sight or sound of +them there was none. + +She nodded and he dropped below into the cabin. + +The cabin of Chang was clean, almost dainty. Two smaller cabins opened +from it, one evidently for Chang and the other for his second in +command. Raft in his hurried look round saw a lot of things including a +rack containing six rifles and two heavy revolvers resting on an +ammunition box filled with hundreds of cartridges. He opened the +lazarette beneath the cabin flooring; it seemed well-stored, and on a +shelf in the main cabin there were some provisions including a tin of +biscuits. + +He brought up the biscuits, the two revolvers and a pocketful of +ammunition and, taking his seat on the hatch edge beside the girl, +opened the tin; then he went forward and hunted for water, found the +water cask and, getting a tin pannikin from the galley, brought her a +drink. + +He had never loaded or fired a revolver; the girl had, and she shewed +him how, the echoes of the cliffs answering to the ear splitting reports +as he made a few practice shots, and the guillemots squalling and rising +in clouds from their perches on the rock. + +"We're fixed all right now," said he, "and we can have those chaps on +board when they're ready to come." + +"On board!" + +"Oh, they'll come right enough, they've got no grub on land." + +"Come--but do you mean to say you will let them?" + +"Who's to work the hooker out of the bay?" he answered, "Not you and me. +We've got to get them aboard. There's no harm in them now they're +licked." + +He spoke with a knowledge of men absorbed from the whole world over. The +Chinese were licked and like dogs they would come to heel. He knew it, +for he knew men. He had put the fear of God into them, he and the girl; +the thing was over. Give the "Chinks" time to lick their wounds and +swallow their gruel and they would be right as pie. He had seen a whole +ship's company licked by a little man of great will, and in hundreds of +experiences and fights he had found that a beaten man, be he strong as +ten, is to be led like a child. He was right. Next morning--they slept +on deck that night keeping watch alternately--the "Chinks," hungry and +starving for a suck at their opium pipes appeared, the whole eleven of +them, and coming down the beach like a troop of children stood in a +line; then they began to wail. + +Wail and wag their heads and wave their hands. Kerguelen, coming on top +of the licking, had broken them to pieces. Then the whole lot kow-towed +like one man, knees and forehead on the shingle. + +Raft got into the boat and rowed off for the beach bringing them aboard +four at a time and as each lot reached the deck they kow-towed to the +girl and then trotted forward to the fo'c'sle, disappearing like rats, +their teeth chattering from exposure during the night, stripped to the +waist as they were, and never could one have imagined these little +cringing harmless looking men the jackals of the day before. + +When the whole lot were in the fo'c'sle Raft gave them time to settle, +then he went down amongst them revolver in pocket. They had lit a lamp, +some had lit opium pipes and some were lighting them, and they lay about +like creatures broken with cold and weariness. He nodded to them and +left them to the opium that would drive the chill from their bones, then +coming on deck stood beside the girl. + +"They'll be able to work the ship to-morrow," said he, "told you they'd +be all right; reckon they won't mind changing that big chap I knocked +out for us." + +"They don't seem to be able to speak a word of English," said she. + +"Oh, I reckon I'll do the steering till we get clear of this place," +said he, "they'll handle the sails without knowing English and once +we're clear we have only to make north till we strike a Christian +ship." + +"They seem so harmless," she said, "and when I think of that fight--and +of what I did--" + +"You fought fine--damned fine," said Raft, "damned fine." He put his arm +round her, not as a man puts his arm round a woman, but as a shipmate +puts his arm round a shipmate. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +MAINSAIL HAUL + + +That night Raft and the girl took it in turns again to keep watch on +deck. They might just as well have gone below for all the trouble the +crew could have given them. These gentry had fought bitterly because +they had been attacked. Raft had frightened them. There is a form of +bravery which one might liken to inverted terror. Rats shew it when they +are cornered, and so do men. They had seen their boss killed with a blow +and the destroyer hurling himself on them and, though they were +peaceable men, they fought. These same peaceable men, be it understood, +would, all the same, have murdered a human being for profit could they +have done so with reasonable safety. + +When the girl came on deck in the morning, after her watch below, she +found the deck busy and Raft with his hands in his pockets leaning +against the port bulwarks and watching the busy ones. + +"They're in a thundering hurry to get out," said Raft. "That chap," +pointing to a "chink" that seemed a cut above the others and was +evidently the mate, "has been pointing to the sky and out there beyond +the bay. They seem to smell bad weather coming. I nodded my head to him +and he's working the hands now for all they're worth." + +"The wind is blowing from the land," said the girl. + +"Yes," said Raft, "it'll take us out without towing, unless it changes." + +The hatch cover had been put on and the boat brought to the davits, some +of the crew were up aloft scrambling about like monkeys, others were +making ready to haul on the halyards and a fellow was unlashing the +wheel. There was not a face in all the crowd that did not bear the +signature of Anxiety writ on parchment. + +The fear of weather, the fear of Kerguelen, and the fear of that bay, +which was evidently haunted by evil spirits, drove them like a whip. + +The mainsail was set to a chorus like the crying of sea fowl and the +foresail and jib. The tide coming in held the barque to a taut anchor +chain with her stern to the beach and the wind ready to take her. The +mate was at the wheel and now from forward ought to have come the sound +of the windlass pawls and the rasp of the rising anchor chain. It +didn't. From the group of Chinese collected there came, instead, a clang +followed by a splash. + +"Why, the beggars have knocked the shackle off the chain," cried Raft. +"Lord bless _my_ soul, never waited to raise the mud hook?" + +"Does it matter?" she asked. + +"Sure to have a spare one," answered he, "but it gets me, that's Chinee +all over, they're rattled." + +"Look!" she cried, "we're moving!" + +The cliff's were beginning to glide landward and the bay's mouth to +widen, sea-gulls flew with them screaming a challenge, and the +guillemots lining the cliff ledges broke into voice, echoes and +guillemots storming at them as they went. + +Then the sea opened wide under the grey breezy day and the great islands +shewed themselves away to the east. To the west and the north all was +clear water. + +Raft and the girl walked to the after-rail and looked at the coast they +were leaving; it seemed horribly near and the great black cliffs only a +gunshot away. If the infernal wind of Kerguelen were to arise and blow +from the north even now they might be seized and dashed back on those +rocks, but the south-east wind held steady and the cliffs drew away and +the coast lengthened and new cliffs and bays disclosed themselves, till +they almost fancied they could see, away to the east, the great seal +beach where the remains of the dead man lay in the cave and where the +great sea-bulls were without doubt taking their ease on the rocks. + +And now came the last call of Kerguelen, the voice of the kittiwakes: + +"Get-away--get-away--get-away." + +Raft, as they stood and watched, put his arm over the shoulder of the +girl and as she held the great hand that had saved her and brought her +so far towards safety her mind, miles away, kept travelling the long +road from the caves. + +"I'm thinking of the bundle and all the poor things in it," said she, +"it will lie there forever on the beach, waiting to be picked up--it's +strange." + +"I was thinkin' the same thing myself," said Raft, "and the old harpoon +I licked that chap across the head with." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +THE CARCASSONNE + + +Raft had found other things than arms and ammunition in the cabin, he +had found a box containing nearly three thousand five hundred dollars, +partly in American money and partly in English gold coin. Chang had +stowed it in his chest, a big cedar-wood affair containing all sorts of +oddments, including a can of blue label Canton opium, cigars, a couple +of suits of fine silk and a woman's gold bracelet. + +Chang had evidently been well-to-do in his way and a man of refinement. +His bunk bedding was of the finest quality and on a shelf near the bunk +lay piled new-washed sheets and pillow cases. The girl took his cabin +and slept in his bunk. Long ago, in the world that was slowly coming +back to her, the idea of sleeping in the bunk of a Chinaman she had seen +killed would have revolted her, now, it did not trouble her at all. She +only knew that a mattress and clean sheets were heaven, even if she had +to sleep with a revolver under her pillow. Then in a day or two she only +put the revolver there as a matter of routine. The "Chinks" gave +evidence that so far from making trouble they were extremely anxious to +propitiate and please, and the man who had evidently served Chang +appeared in the cabin tidying things and laying out the food, whilst the +man who had evidently been mate worked the ship in his own weird way +seeming scarcely ever to sleep. He had laid the course almost due north, +taking the sun with a back-stick that might have come out of the Ark, +working out his calculations in the fo'c'sle in his own head. Raft did +not know, he knew nothing of navigation as a science, nor did he care, +they were going north and day by day drawing into the track of ships, +that was enough for him. + +One day the girl said to him: "Suppose these men make trouble over that +man you killed--and those others." + +"Let them," said Raft, "I'll tell my yarn--it's plain enough--I'm not +going to tell no lies. The chap tried to drive us off, and we lost and +near done for, and he hit me a welt on top of all. He got his gruel." + +She had played with the idea of making up a story for the sake of Raft; +she felt ashamed of the idea when she heard his words. + +"I'm thinking of that money down below," said he, "it belonged by rights +to that big chap. If a ship takes us off we'd better hand it over to the +mate or just leave it there for him to take." + +"Yes, we don't want the money," she replied, "I have plenty." + +"You! Where have you got it?" asked he, looking her over. + +"In France," she replied. Then she laughed. It was the first time she +had laughed since that day when the sea-bulls had driven the penguins +off, and Raft, as though her mirth were infectious, laughed also. + +It seemed a joke to him, somehow, the idea of her having money in +France. + +The idea of her being one of the Rich People had never worked its way +into his head. She was just herself, different it is true in some +indefinable way from anyone he had ever met, speaking differently, +acting differently, but made used to his mind by struggle and adversity. +He scarcely thought of her as a woman, yet he was hugely fond of her, a +fondness that had begun in pity and had been strengthened and made to +grow by her pluck. He liked to have her near him and when she was out of +sight he felt a bit astray. He never bothered about the future, so the +idea of parting with her had not come to him. + +And she? When Raft was out of her sight she felt astray. Her mind had +spun between them a tie, of a new sort in a world grown cynical and old +and cold; an affection permanent as the hills, warm as summer. +Everything good in her loved Raft, it was the affection of a mother for +a child, of a child for a mother. + +He had nursed her back to life, he had brought her life, and never once +since that day had he chilled her with a littleness or broken a thread +of what was spinning in her heart. He was illiterate, he was rough, but +he was Raft. He was the great beach of Kerguelen and the sea-bulls and +the distant islands, he was the hand that had destroyed Loneliness and +driven away Death, the child who had listened to Jack and the Bean +Stalk, the Lion that had destroyed Chang, the companion in a loneliness +ringed with despair. + +One morning beyond the 40th parallel, and some two hundred miles to the +nor'west of St. Paul, the Chinese mate plucked Raft by the sleeve and +pointed into the west. + +The day was clear with a wind just enough to fill the sails of the +barque and a long blue leisurely swell running from the south. Away in +the east was a trace of smoke as though a grimy finger had stained the +sky just above the sea-line. + +"Ship," said the mate. + +It was the one word of English that he knew. Raft was about to shout and +run to the cabin hatch to call the girl. Then he held himself back. It +might be a false hope. Yet if he had thought he might have known that a +ship in the east meant a ship right across their course, here, where +there were no trade tracks north and south. + +Then above the sea-line and clear of smoke he saw her hull. + +He pointed to the halyards and the mate understood. The mate was +evidently desperately anxious to be quit for good of his self-invited +passengers, for when Raft came on deck again with the girl they found +the barque under bare poles rolling to the swell and a Chinese flag +half-masted flicking in the wind. + +Also, away across the sea, sheering towards them and making to cross +their bows a mile away a two funnelled steamer whose funnels closed to +one as she shifted her helm to get within speaking distance of them. + +She was the _Carcassonne_, a seven thousand ton freighter carrying +passengers, a French boat, bound from Sydney to Cape Town and +Marseilles. + +Raft, the day before, had taken the Chinese mate down to the cabin and +shewed him Chang's money and had presented it to him and the crew in +pantomime. + +It was honesty. It was also a good stroke. There was no trouble when the +_Carcassonne_, her huge bulk rolling gently to the swell, dropped a +boat, though indeed had the companions of Chang wished to raise trouble +they would have found themselves seriously handicapped, dumb as they +were in every language but their own. + +Chang had been their linguist as well as their leader. They had +literally lost their tongue. + + + + +PART VI + +CHAPTER XXXV + +MARSEILLES + + +On board the _Carcassonne_ the girl had broken down as though all the +exhaustion she had defied had waited for that moment to fall upon her. + +But the energy that had held her above defeat and had given her hope +when things seemed hopeless was there, undestroyed, and when the turning +point came she rallied swiftly. She came on deck one morning where +Bathurst lay a point invisible beyond the blue sea to starboard and +sitting in a deck chair made friends with the other passengers. + +It seemed to her almost impossible that the same world should hold +Kerguelen and at the same time this paradise of azure blue sky and tepid +wind. + +Raft had told her story before reaching Cape Town and the loss of the +_Gaston de Paris_ was now old news in Europe, and the fact that of all +the _Gaston's_ crowd only the beautiful Cléo de Bromsart had been saved. + +Raft had joined the crew of the _Carcassonne_, sleeping in the foc's'le, +where there were several English speaking sailors, and as much out of +his element as a man used only to masts and spars can be on a +steamboat. However, he swabbed decks and did odd jobs without a grumble +and he was swabbing the deck on the morning she came up; he dropped the +business for a moment to take the two hands she held out to him. + +All through that time below she had been wanting Raft and his big hand +to pull her through. Satisfied, knowing he was on board and all right, +but wanting him all the same. + +On the old barque once or twice had come the stray thought of how Raft's +figure would accommodate itself against the background of the world she +knew. + +Well, here was the world she knew, or part of it; a deck, clean as a +ball-room floor and as spacious, passengers in deck chairs, reading +novels, and a manicured French surgeon ready to talk art or philosophy +to her, polished, but rather narrow of shoulder. + +And against all that stood Raft, rough and in the clothes he had worn on +the beach, for there was not a man on board whose clothes would have +fitted him comfortably. + +Well, he was not incongruous with this background, simply because he +destroyed it. In a ball-room it would have been the same. He carried +with him his background of high black cliffs and miles of beach and +flying gulls and breaking sea, and in a flash came to her the fact that +he dwarfed and belittled the other people around just as nature dwarfs +and belittles art. + +She held both his hands for a moment, managing to pat them, somehow, as +she held them, asking him what on earth he was doing with the swab he +had just dropped. She had an idea that the ship people had put him to +work, but before the idea had risen to indignation heat he reassured +her. + +"I must be doing," said Raft. "Not that there's much to be at in this +old kettle. You've got your legs back, well, that's good. I had it out +with that doctor chap and he told me how you were going from day to day, +but I've been wanting the sight of you." + +He put his hand on her shoulder as he might on a pal's, then he crossed +his arms. "And well you look," said he. + +"Doctor Petit," said the girl, speaking in French, "this is Raft, the +bravest and best man in the world as you will know when I tell you all. +Shake hands with him." + +The doctor shook hands. + +The passengers, and the first officer, across the bridge canvas, watched +all this with curiosity. They knew something but they did not know all. +They did that night when she had told them as best she could. + +After that she met him often on deck, giving him a word or stopping for +a chat, and it was now that she began to think and make plans as to the +future. + +Raft had become part of herself, they were bound together as perhaps no +two such contrary beings had ever been bound. The idea of Love, the idea +of Marriage, all conventional ideas as between grown-ups of opposite sex +were as absurd in relation to them as they would have been in relation +to two children who had grown attached one to the other. + +As regarded one another they were in fact two children, for Raft had +never been anything but a child and Kerguelen and Raft combined had +awakened the primitive and the child in her, giving her the power of +affection that makes a little child throw its arm round the neck of a +dog. + +But the world could not understand that, and Raft to the world was a +rough sailor man, and she, to the world, was Cléo de Bromsart. + +She would lie awake at night listening to the pounding of the screws and +thinking of this--contrasting the figure of Raft with the world she knew +and the world she knew with the figure of Raft. + +Madame de Brie, her nearest relation, would pass before her mind's eye +with her gold eye glasses, and the Comtesse de Mirandole and a host of +others; and the queer thing was that the vaguest feeling of antagonism +tinged her mind towards these estimable people. They seemed forgeries, +impudent forgeries of the handwriting that had first written the word +Man on the earth. She had seen the original writing. + +She felt also towards them the antagonism of the child to the grown up, +and of the person who can't explain to the person who stands waiting +for an explanation. + +Then she would laugh quietly to herself, for no woman, surely, was ever +in a similar position. Then, casting her mind back, she would sometimes +choke a little with tears in her throat, tears for herself, dying of +loneliness, and for the hand that had brought her back from death. + +They passed the entrance of the straits and Gibraltar, and one bright +blue winter's morning they entered the harbour of Marseilles, with +Marseilles before them blazing in the sun and the bugles of Fort St. +Jean answering the crying of the gulls and the drums of Fort St. +Nicholas. + +Cléo was dressed in the same clothes she had worn on her escape from the +_Gaston de Paris_. She had borrowed a hat from one of the ladies on +board and stockings and other things from another lady; but she still +wore round her waist the leather belt with the empty knife sheath. + +As she stood on deck, now, waiting whilst the _Carcassonne_ berthed at +the wharf alongside a great Messagerie steamer, she carried over her arm +the oilskin coat and, by its elastic band, the sou'wester. They were old +friends. + +Then when the hawsers had been passed and the gang plank was being run +out she saw amongst the crowd on the wharf Monsieur de Brie and Madame +de Brie, also a number of well-dressed people, Parisians some of them. + +Then she was being embraced by Madame de Brie and trying at the same +time to acknowledge the salute of Monsieur Bonvalot, her lawyer and man +of affairs, a stout pale man with long Dundreary whiskers who had come +from Paris to receive her. + +All this crowd had not come purely on account of Cléo. Beside the people +interested in her there were several friends and relations of Prince +Selm, also his lawyer. + +"I have taken rooms at the Hotel Noailles," said Madame de Brie, "and I +have brought you some clothes. Oh, my poor child, what you must have +suffered. But why did the people on board not lend you some better +things?" + +"Oh, my clothes are all right," said Cléo, "people wanted to lend me +things, but I am quite comfortable in these." + +She was looking about in search of Raft who was nowhere to be seen. + +Then she was seized by the rest, by the Comtesse de Mirandole, by Madame +de Florey, and several others who had stopped at Marseilles--on their +way to Monte Carlo--to meet the _Carcassonne_ and greet the girl who had +alone survived the wreck of the _Gaston de Paris_, some of these people +knew her only slightly, but once a person becomes famous or notorious it +is astonishing how slight acquaintanceship blossoms into full +friendship. + +Several photographers from the illustrated papers were amongst the crowd +and a Pathé operator was on the quay. + +Cléo was already recovering that sixth sense, which one might call the +social sense, and, as she talked almost to half a dozen people at once, +answering questions and receiving felicitations, this sixth sense told +her quite plainly that she was being criticised by her felicitators, +that in their eyes she was a guy. That the old velour hat she had +borrowed, the hair that shewed beneath it, her face, which had still +upon it a reflection of Kerguelen, her old skirt and coat--all these +things, singly and taken together, were exciting in the minds of these +Parisians a pity which was not unrelated to humour. She did not mind, +she was looking for Raft. + +It seemed to her that all these people, excellent in their way, had a +tinge of unreality about them. On the voyage she had sometimes vaguely +dreaded that Raft might be pushed away from her, despite herself, by the +contrast between him and her own order. It had come to her that the +difference between the beach of Kerguelen and the Avenue Malakoff might +take her like a giant of mind and divorce her from her allegiance to +him. That the good companion, the true friend, the person she loved +might alter completely under the touch of social alchemy. + +Raft was impossible. She knew that. More impossible even than a sea +elephant from that far beach where life was real and Paris a dream. +Impossible in Paris where life was false and the far beach a dream. + +Raft at a dinner party! Raft at one of those elegant afternoons where +the talk would run on the politics of the moment, on symbolism, on +Bergson, or Iturrino or the works of Othon Friesz--! He could not be her +companion in that place, in that atmosphere, within leagues of those +people. + +She was not thinking that now. "These people" around her seemed +strangers; they had in fact always been strangers, strangers who had +kissed her, conversed with her, dined with her, but strangers; the one, +true, living, warm friend, the only one she had ever known, was Raft. It +was the penguins and sea-bulls over again, the polite, bowing, +absolutely correct penguins, the warm lumping, living sea-bulls. + +Her heart, chilled by stephanotis-scented kisses, words of felicitation +and the fat smiles of men in tall hats and tight-buttoned overcoats, +chilled by Monsieur de Brie's gold rimmed eye glasses, chilled by a +social state that had never warmed her, cried out for Raft. Kerguelen +and that beach, where, even now, the sea-bulls might be lingering, +seemed a warm and blissful vision, real, alive, a place where life meant +living. + +Ah, here he came. He had been helping to fix a hawser at the bows. She +ran towards him. + +"Ah, there you are. Now, you are coming with me. I have told the captain +and he said this morning it would be all right as you were not signed +on." + +"Right," said Raft, "but where are you going?" + +"To an hotel." + +He looked about him. He saw the crowd on deck but he did not connect it +with her. He was out of his reckoning. He had never thought of what +would happen in port as regarded her, or where he would go or what he +would do; making plans was not in his way. In the ordinary course of +things he would have gone to the British consulate and the Shipwrecked +Mariners' people would have returned him, carriage paid, to England. He +had always been in the hands of others and of chance. + +She--he had always called her She, and here, be it said, he did not know +her name, never having asked--She had now taken him into her hands and +he felt vaguely that she was a power on this new beach where he was +stranded. + +Had you told him that she was a woman of society and very wealthy his +idea of her power would not have been increased; he knew nothing of +wealth or society. She was She in her old dress that he knew so well, +and still carrying the sou'wester he had fetched from the cave where she +had done that chap in, and as for any idea of being under an obligation +to her for food or housing he had none. He would have done the same for +her. + +Yet, to tell the truth, the docks, with no money in his pocket and the +cold prospect of brilliant Marseilles, had made him feel adrift like a +lost child. Civilisation had affected him as it had affected her, so +that something, now, made him put his hand on her shoulder to get the +touch of her, and she, knowing that every eye in all that party behind +her was upon them, took the great hand and held it and patted it. + +It was as well to take her stand at once, though she was scarcely +bothering about that. Then, still holding his hand, she came along that +white deck towards the gang-plank. The officers knew and, as they bade +her good-bye, they nodded to Raft, but the Parisians knew nothing but +that Cléo had gone clearly mad--and that that awful sailor had placed +his hand on her shoulder, familiarly! + +There were several automobiles waiting by the wharf and Madame de Brie, +half-dumb and slightly agitated, having pointed out the car she had +reserved for Cléo, the girl introduced Raft. + +"This is Raft who saved my life," said Cléo. + +Then she took Raft by the arm and pushed him into the seat beside the +chauffeur; having done that, she got into the car, following Madame de +Brie. The Comtesse de Mirandole got in, also, followed by Monsieur de +Brie and his gold eye glasses. + +The mistral was blowing so that the windows of the car had to be kept +closed. + +Used to fresh air, the girl nearly choked at first with the stuffiness +of the car. The olfactory nerve is really a prolongation of the brain, +as though the brain, distrusting the other senses, had pushed out a +trustworthy scout to see what the world and its contents were really +like. The sense of smell never lies; it is of all senses the truest and +it handed along without comment to the brain of Cléo the faint perfume +of the stephanotis affected by Madame de Brie and of the Yoya-yoya +affected by the Comtesse de Mirandole, also traces from the varnish and +upholstery of the car. + +"Who, my dear, is that man," asked Madame de Brie. She had almost said +"that dreadful man" but she had checked herself. + +"Man--Oh, that is Raft. He saved my life." + +"How delightful," said the Countess, "and he seems quite a character." + +"Quite," said Madame de Brie half-heartedly, "but my dear Cléo, you will +excuse an old woman for suggesting it, your generosity must be on its +guard, he placed his hand on your shoulder, quite familiarly it seemed +to me." + +"Well," said the choking Cléo, "why should he not? I have slept with my +head on his chest on a rock and I have stabbed a man who was trying to +kill him. Between us we fought a whole crowd of Chinamen. He had a +harpoon and I had a knife and we beat them and took their ship. Do you +mind having the window a wee bit open? I feel rather faint." + +"That's better," said she to the speechless other ones, "I'm so used to +fresh air that I can't bear to be closed in." + +"But my dear Cléo," suddenly broke out the old lady, "what do you intend +to do with him?" + +"Do with him? Nothing. He's my friend, that's all. Ah, here we are." + +The car had drawn up in the courtyard of the Hotel. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +THE LEPER + + +Déjeuner had been prepared for the party in a private room, a big room, +for there were twelve guests all told, including not only Cléo's friends +but the business men, and the friends of Prince Selm. + +But before thinking of déjeuner or anything else she had to see about +Raft. + +She left him standing in the hall whilst she interviewed the manager. + +Actually, the business would have been easier for her had she brought +with her an animal, even of the largest pattern. The manager, when he +had caught a glimpse of the intended guest, revolted; not openly, it is +true, but with genuflexions and outstretching of hands. + +Where could this man be put, what could be done with him? The valets and +ladies' maids would certainly not eat with him, the visitors would +object to his presence in the lounge, the servants in the servants' +quarters. He was a common sailor man. Heavens! What a problem that +manager had to face, something quite new, quite illogical, yet quite +logical. He had heard of the wreck of the _Gaston_ and he was as +interested in Clêo as a hotel manager could be. He understood the whole +case when she told him that Raft had saved her life; he was a man of +broad mind, but he knew intimately the mental make up of his servants, +his visitors and their servants. He discussed the matter with Cléo quite +openly and she saw the reason of all he said. Raft was "impossible" in +that hotel. His heroism did not count a bit; it did with the manager who +would not have to sit at table with him, it did not with the waiters and +valets and ladies' maids who would have to associate with him, or the +guests whose eyes would be offended by his presence. + +"He belongs to a ship," said the manager. Then he solved the question +with a burst. + +"I will look after him myself." He ran into the hall and called Raft to +come with him; then, followed by Cléo, he led the way to a sitting-room, +a most elegant sitting-room upholstered in blue silk. + +"Here," said he to the sea lion, "will you take your seat and déjeuner +will be served to you." + +"I have to leave you for a bit," said Cléo, putting her hand on his arm, +"I won't be long." + +"I'll wait for you," said Raft. He was a bit amazed at all the new +things around him and blissfully unconscious of trouble. He threw his +cap on a chair and took his pipe from his pocket, the same old pipe he +had lit that night on the ledge of the sea-corridor, then he produced a +plug of tobacco, the same tobacco whose pungent fume had comforted her +there, with the sound of the hungry sea coming through the dark. + +Then he sat down on a silk covered chair and the manager and the girl +went out. + +"I will serve him myself," said the manager. "I understand; he is a +brave man but very rough; the servants do not understand these things. +It is a difficulty, but after--? Mademoiselle--after?" + +"After what?" + +"After he has had his meal?" + +She understood. After he had been fed he was to go. He could go, say, to +a sailors' lodging house; she had heard of such things. Or, he would +walk about the streets; the thing was quite simple. It was only right to +give him a good meal and some money, a good round sum, seeing all he had +done for her. + +She was scarcely heeding the manager. She was viewing, full face, the +truth that the manager had demonstrated to her clearly. Raft was +impossible. She had had vague ideas of bringing him to Paris and giving +him a room for himself in her house on the Avenue Malakoff. She had +never thought of the servants, she had thought of her friends and that +they would think her conduct queer. But she saw everything now quite +straight and in a dry light. Raft was shipwrecked on a social state; to +keep company with him she would have to renounce everything and live on +his level; she could not treat him as a servant; even if she could, +servants would resent him. He was not of their type, much lower, a +labouring man from the sea. Not to lose him as he was to her she would +have to enter the absolutely impossible and absurd, she would have to +give up social life and make a world of her own with Raft. With a man +whose setting was the sea, the wilderness, whose life was action, who +was ignorant of art, philosophy, the convenances, who was a figure of +scorn to every educated eye when caught against the background of +Civilisation. + +In three beats of a pendulum all this passed through her mind. + +Then she said to the manager: + +"Quite so. I understand. I must thank you very much for your real +kindness. I shall give this man a sum of money, and this afternoon you +will be free of him. He can find shelter at a sailors' home--I have +heard of such places." + +"Oh, Mon Dieu! Yes," said the manager, vastly relieved, "and either I or +Fritz, my head waiter, will serve him with his food. Fritz is a man of +temperament and knowledge and I will explain to him." + +He hurried off and she was left alone in the corridor. + +She opened the door of the little sitting-room. The leper was seated +hunched on his chair just as she had seen him sitting often on a rock; +he was surrounded with a cloud of tobacco smoke. + +She had seen the loneliness of Kerguelen but that was nothing to this. + +Poor Raft. The very chairs and tables shouted at him; he looked +ridiculous. How in her wildest dreams could she have entertained the +idea of holding him to her, here? + +He would have looked more ridiculous only that he looked, what he felt, +forlorn. The place was beginning to tell on him, used to the rough and +the open; the smooth and the closed were getting at him. + +When he saw her he took the pipe from his mouth and pressed the burning +tobacco down with his finger nervously, the same finger she had sucked +once when parched with thirst. + +She saw, as a matter of fact, that he was nervous, if the term could +apply to such a huge and powerful organism, and the fear came to her +that if left alone he might bolt before she could conduct him in person +to the Sailors' Home. + +Standing with the door held half open she nodded to him. + +"I want you to stay here," said she, "till I come back. I have to talk +to all those people you saw and I may be a couple of hours. That man +will bring you something to eat--you don't mind my leaving you here?" + +"Oh, I don't mind," said Raft "but you'll be wanting something to eat +yourself." + +"I'll get it." + +"You'll come back, sure?" + +"Sure." + +She laughed, nodded to him, and closed the door. Her cheeks were +flushed and her eyes bright, she was strangely worked up; a touch might +have sent her into a storm of anger or a burst of tears. + +In the corridor she met Madame de Brie who had been hunting for her. + +"Cléo, they are waiting déjeuner for you--but, my dear child, you have +not changed, has no one shewn you to your room?" + +The old lady had not only brought along Cléo's maid who, with the rest +of the servants, had been on board wages during her mistress's absence, +but a trunk full of clothes. + +"I am not going to change," said Cléo, "I am too busy--and too hungry--" + +A reporter from the _Gaulois_ stopped her as she was turning towards the +room, indicated by Madame de Brie, where déjeuner was to be served. + +"Mademoiselle," said the reporter, "I did not like to trouble you +sooner, may I crave the honour of a short interview with you on account +of the _Gaulois_?" + +"Certainly, monsieur," replied the girl. "Pray come to déjeuner as my +guest, I hope to tell my friends something of my experiences and what I +say you can repeat; that will be better than a formal interview +tête-à-téte, which, after all, is rather a depressing affair." + +The déjeuner was not a depressing affair. Cléo struck the note. She was +in radiant good humour. Madame de Brie sat on her right, Monsieur de +Brie on her left. Monsieur Bonvalot, her man of affairs, with his long +Dundreary whiskers, opposite to her; the rest were scattered on either +side of the long table. + +At first the conversation was general, then, after a while, Cléo was +talking and the rest listening. + +"As I shall be very busy for a long time," said Cléo, "I would like now +to give all the information I can about the loss of the yacht. A +gentleman is present on behalf of the _Gaulois_, and as all details I +can give relative to the disaster are of world wide interest, +considering the position of the late Prince Selm, I take this +opportunity of making them known. Unfortunately they are few." + +She told briefly but clearly the story of the disaster, of her escape +and landing on Kerguelen, of the caves and the cache and the death of +the two men. She did not tell how La Touche met his end, that business +had to do with no one but herself and La Touche. She gave it to be +understood that he, like Bompard, had met his fate in the quicksands. + +She told of her loneliness, and how she had been dying simply from +loneliness, how she had been saved by Raft and how he had nursed her +like a mother. + +It was then that she really began to talk and shew them pictures. They +saw the beach and that terrible journey along under the cliffs, cliffs +that seemed cut out of night and never ending, the sea, like an +obsession, crawling shoreward, and Raft carrying her on his shoulder. + +They saw the summit where she had stood looking towards the west and the +hopeless prospect of finding a bay that might not be there and an +anchorage where there might be a ship, on a coast where few ships ever +came. + +Fascinated and warmed by Perrier Jouet, they followed her to the place +where the wind had brought her the smell of the try pots and to the +cliff edge where Derision shew her the Chinese whaler and the terrible +little man, blood-stained, and busy with butchery. + +She shewed them the great serang--Captain of the Chinese--driving them +off the beach and telling them to begone back into the wilderness, and, +vaguely, the fight where Raft had saved her from death or worse---- + +"Ah, Mon Dieu, what a man," cried a female voice down the table. + +Cléo stopped. + +"Yes, Madame la Comtesse," said she, "but a man beyond the pale, a man +to be ashamed of, a man who, were he to sit in the lounge of this hotel +and smoke his pipe, would drive all the other guests away. A common +sailor. A man rough from the sea and illiterate." + +There was a dead silence. + +Monsieur Bonvalot, a socialist, though a business man, nodded his head. +He broke the silence. + +"A man," said Monsieur Bonvalot, "is, after all, a man." + +"Oh, no, monsieur, he is not," said Cléo, "not in Marseilles. But do +not think I am quarrelling with social conditions. There must, I +believe, always be hewers of wood and drawers of water. I am just +talking of Raft and my own position as regards him. I am not thinking of +the fact that he saved my life time and again, or that he nursed me with +his great rough hands as tenderly as a mother. I am thinking of the fact +that I have discovered something quite new and genuine, a human heart +that is warm and real and true and simple, simple as the heart of a +child, a mind that has no crookedness, a man who, in Paris or here in +Marseilles, is absurd, not because he is rough and uncouth, but because +he is like Monsieur Gulliver amongst the little people. I have seen the +great, I have seen the wind and the sun and the sea and the mountains as +they really are, and life as it really is, for those who really live. I +have seen death, none of you here have ever seen or imagined death, none +of you here have ever seen life, none of you here have seen the world. +You all have been protected from the truth of things, and fortunately, +for the truth of things would break you as it would have broken me but +for Raft, who sits in a room at the end of that corridor and whom the +manager of this hotel is serving with food with his own hands because +the hotel servants would consider it an insult were they asked to carry +him his food. + +"I am not grumbling. I quite recognise the logic of the whole thing, but +I feel as though I were looking at everything through the large end of a +pair of opera glasses, just as when as a child I used to do so and +amuse myself by watching human beings reduced to the size of dolls. + +"Well, now you have all my story and I have put before you a new view of +things and I hope I have not shocked you all. My poor Raft must now go +to the Sailors' Home where I am going with him. I want some money, +Monsieur Bonvalot." + +"Mademoiselle," said Bonvalot, awaking like a person from hypnotism and +delighted to find himself on a business footing again, "certainly, I +have here your cheque book which I have brought with me." + +"Then we will go to another room and discuss business matters," said the +girl rising. "Now all you people please enjoy yourselves. You are my +guests whilst you stay in this hotel. Madame de Brie will see that you +have everything." + +She led the way from the room, Monsieur Bonvalot following. A suite had +been engaged for her and here in the sitting-room she started to talk +business with her man of affairs. + +A large fortune is like a delicate animal, always in need of nursing and +attention, it is always changing colour in spots from rosy to dark, a +depreciation in Peruvian bonds means that your capital has shrunk just +there and the question comes will it go on shrinking; a big rise in +P.L.M. shares suggests taking the profit and re-investing should they +fall again. + +Monsieur Bonvalot had problems of this sort to set before the girl--she +swept them away. "I have no time to attend to all that now," said she, +"some other day will do. I want twenty thousand francs, have you got +them?" + +"Twenty thousand francs," said Bonvalot. "No, Mademoiselle. I brought +five thousand francs in notes thinking you would want them for your +expenses here, but you can write a cheque on the Crédit Lyonnais and I +will get it cashed for you at once." + +He produced from a wallet a bundle of pink and blue bank notes and +counted out five thousand francs, then she wrote a cheque for fifteen +thousand payable to him. He endorsed it, went off and returned in ten +minutes with the money. She put the notes in a big envelope and the +envelope in her pocket. That same pocket still contained the old tobacco +box of Captain Slocum and the other odds and ends which she treasured +more than gold. + +"That will do for the present," said she, "to-morrow I will open an +account at the Marseilles branch of the Crédit Lyonnais, or rather you +can do it for me to-day. Give them this specimen of my signature and +they can telegraph to the Paris branch. I would like two hundred +thousand francs put to my credit here. + +"But are you not coming back to Paris?" asked Bonvalot. + +"No, Monsieur Bonvalot, not at present!" He pulled his whiskers. + +The idea had suddenly come to him, and come to him strongly, that she +was about to do "something foolish." + +He had seen women do very foolish things in the course of his business +life and all that talk of hers at the luncheon table came back to him +now. + +He remembered the beautiful Mademoiselle de Lacy who had run off and +married a groom; could it be possible that Cléo contemplated any such +mad act with that terrific sailor man? The idea chilled his heart. + +Equality and Fraternity were parts of his motto and he was an honest +socialist; he believed honestly that all men were equals and that the +waiters who served him at table were as good as himself, with a +difference of course due to the accidents of life, but he believed, with +Daudet, that there is no greater abyss than class difference. + +His theory was confounded by this practice. But he could say nothing, +for the matter was too delicate to be touched upon. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +A NEW HOME + + +Raft was still in the room where she had left him. As they passed +through the hall where a number of people were seated about in basket +chairs she felt every eye fixed upon her and her companion. Then out in +the sunlit Cannabier Prolongué she drew a deep breath just as a person +draws a deep breath after a dive. + +She also felt free. + +She had always been free in theory; possessed of her own money she could +have done absolutely as she liked, in theory. In practice she had always +been a slave. The slave of a thousand and one things and circumstances, +things and circumstances many of them troublesome, many of them +wearisome, all of them not to be denied. + +"Mademoiselle, your bath is ready." + +"Mademoiselle, the first gong has sounded." + +"What dress will Mademoiselle wear this afternoon?" + +Oh, the day, the day with its hundred phases and divisions, the dresses +that went with each phase, the lukewarm emotions and interests and +boredom and suppressed hatreds, this thing called the day, which she had +first reviewed in the open boat after the wreck of the _Gaston de +Paris_ terrified to find it torn from her--this thing had been returned +to her that morning in all its futility. It seemed to her, as she cast +it away, a horrible gaud, a thing made of tinsel, yet a thing that could +destroy the soul and blind the eyes and numb the heart. + +She had never been free, she had always been the veriest slave, the +slave of things, of people, of convenances, and of circumstances. + +Doctor Epinard had spoken something of the truth. + +Man may not be an automaton worked by environment, all the same he is +the slave of environment, and never such a slave as when his environment +is that of high Civilisation. + +For there the pure motives of the mind have ever to be regulated and +falsified, the heart crushed, the face veiled. + +To break with all that falsity means shipwreck. + +"Which way does the sea lie?" asked the girl. Raft turned to the left as +though the smell of the sea were leading him. + +"I'm glad to be out of there," said he, "I was near smothered in that +place." + +"So was I," said she, "did that man bring you your food all right?" + +"Another chap brought it," said Raft, "a Dutchman." + +She laughed. + +"Do you know what I was thinking?" said she. + +"I was thinking of the time you brought me food when I was nearly dying. +You didn't tell a Dutchman to bring it. I'd have brought you your food +myself and we would have had it together only I had to talk to those +people. Well, I've got rid of them. How would you like to live always in +a place like that hotel?" + +Raft mentally reviewed the room done in blue silk, Fritz, and the rest +of it. + +"I'd rather be out in the open," said Raft. "Not that I have anything to +say against it--but I'd rather be out in the open." + +They walked along. + +Companionship with Raft had for her one delightful thing about it, it +was companionship without restraint. In a way it was like companionship +with a dog, or a child. Like two old sailors they would hang silent, +sometimes, for a long time, not bothering to speak, content with being +together. + +She had never imagined the possibility of a man and a woman of +absolutely different social position in such a relationship, never drawn +the ghost of such an idea from all the books she had read, all the plays +she had seen. Never could she have imagined a common sailor man striking +Art for her to pieces, as he had struck the story of Anatole France, and +creating above a world he had taught her to despise, a nest for her mind +rough as himself, but in air pure and living. + +Raft, the common man, had made her social world seem vulgar as well as +small, chill as well as vulgar. + +She was thinking just now as she walked beside him how when she had told +him that the hotel manager would bring him something to eat, he had +said, "but you will want something to eat yourself." That was the sort +of thing constantly recurring in all sorts of ways that had brought her +to know him truly, occurring in little ways as well as in that great and +heroic moment when he had told her to destroy herself with the knife if +he were killed. + +As they passed along the Cannabier they saw a drunken sailor reeling +along towards them through the crowd, and Raft drew her by the arm off +the sidewalk to avoid him. + +The sight in other times would have made him laugh, or more likely it +would have been scarcely noticed, but She, in some manner or another, +made drink discreditable, and the sight of it to be avoided. It would +have been the same, most likely, had he been taking a child for a walk. +Down near the docks they passed a birdshop before which Raft cast anchor +almost forgetful of his companion. There were all sorts of birds here, +those tiny birds from the African coast one sees in the shops of the +Riviera, canaries and parrots. + +There was one parrot, enormous and coloured like a tropical sunset, +drowsy-eyed and insolent looking. When he saw the sailor man he seemed +to rouse up. He looked at Raft and Raft at him. + +"I'd like that chap," said Raft, "he beats the lot of them." + +"And you shall have him," said she. + +He laughed. + +"Much good he'd be to a chap like me. Where'd I keep him?" + +Her eyes softened as she looked at the bird and from the bird to the +man. Where, indeed, could he keep him? He who had no home--nothing. Then +it was that Money seemed to her what it really is, a god, beautiful and +benign. + +It had often seemed to her as a demon, but Raft, who unconsciously had +cast ridicule on her world, was now, unconsciously, shewing her the +great truth she had never seen before, the truth that Money is more +beautiful than Apollo, more etherial than Psyche, more powerful than +Jove. + +"You will soon have somewhere to keep him," said she, "we will get him +to-morrow. Come on. I want now to find the place where the fishing boats +put in. I saw it the last time I was here in Marseilles, years ago, but +I am not sure of the direction." + +She asked a man who was passing and he pointed the way; it was a long +distance, but it seemed short, so full was her mind with the plan she +had formulated before leaving the hotel. She talked as she went. Talked +just as though they were on the Kerguelen beach hunting for a cave. + +"We will find a place to put the parrot. I want a great big boat, not a +yacht. I've had enough of those. I want a good sea boat and the +fisher-boats I have seen here seemed to me good, and the men are the +right sort of men. I am going to buy one--or hire one--well, we shall +see. I want you to help to get it ready for us. How good the smell of +this place is," she paused to sniff the tar-sea scents brought by the +afternoon wind. It was like the smell of Freedom. + +Then they came on to the fisher wharf and right into the arms of Captain +Jean Bontemps. + +Captain Jean was about five feet in height and he seemed five feet in +thickness. He was propped against a bollard and he was in his +shore-going clothes. The girl's eye told her at once that here was a +useful man, a man of authority and knowledge. She approached him, and as +he took his pipe from his mouth and removed his cap, she opened her +business without parley or hesitation. + +She wanted to buy or hire a fishing boat, price no object. + +He did not understand her at first. He seemed suffering from some form +of deafness. Then when she repeated the statement he shewed no surprise. + +He himself was a fishing boat owner, Captain Bontemps of the +_Arlesienne_, and he was quite willing to sell his boat, for a sum--two +thousand pounds he asked, and she did not know that he was speaking in +jest, just as one might speak to a child. + +"If your boat suits me, I will pay what you ask," said she, "let me see +it." + +Then it came upon Captain Jean that he was either talking to a lunatic +or some wealthy woman with a craze. His sails were taken aback and he +was left wallowing in a heavy ground sea of the mind with a smell of +spice islands tinging the air. + +_La Belle Arlesienne_, his old boat, was not worth a thousand pounds. +Under the hammer heaven knows what she would have fetched, but she was +his wife, or the only female thing that stood in that relationship to +him. He tapped the dottle out of his pipe, then he took a pouch from his +pocket and began to refill and the girl, seeing his condition, drew him +aside, asking Raft to wait for her. + +They went to another bollard and there, the mariner anchoring himself, +she began to talk. She introduced herself. He knew all about the _Gaston +de Paris_ and Mademoiselle de Bromsart. He put his pipe in his pocket, +finding himself in such famous company. She went on. In ten minutes she +told him her whole story, told him just what Raft was and just how they +stood related, and just how he had been treated in the hotel. + +"It's as though they had turned out my father or my brother," said she, +"we two who have fought and faced everything together have grown into +companions. Friends who cannot be parted, Captain Bontemps. If he were a +woman or I a man it would be easier. As it is things are difficult. +Well, I do not care. I will do exactly as I like. I feel you will be my +friend, too; you understand me. And I want you to look after him +to-night, for in the whole of Marseilles I do not know where he could go +unless to some wretched Sailors' Home or worse. Ah, it is wicked. Of +what use is it to be brave, to be honest, to be true in this world?" + +"Mon Dieu," said the Captain, "I will look after him, if for no other +reason than that he is what you say, mademoiselle; but _La Belle +Arlesienne_ is rough, should you use her as a yacht, you would not find +her a yacht. She smells of fish--" + +"I am used to rough things," said the girl. "I dread the smooth. Captain +Bontemps, for one who has done for me everything should I dread +anything? And a little roughness, what is that to freedom and the life I +have learned to love with the man I love? For I love Raft, Captain +Bontemps, just as I know he loves me. Oh, do not mistake me, it is not +the sort of thing they call love here amongst houses and streets, it is +not a woman that is speaking to you but a human being." + +He understood her. To his broad and simple mind the thing was simple; +she did not want to part with the man who had saved her and fought for +her and who had been "chucked out" of a hotel because he was a rough +sailor, and marvellously well he understood that when she said she loved +Raft she did not mean the thing that the dock side called Love. No Paris +poet could have understood her. The old fisher captain did. + +But he was a practical man. He struck himself a blow on the head. + +"I have what you want," said he, "_La Belle Arlesienne_, no, it is no +use, I have something better, a good cruising boat--you say money is no +object." + +"None." + +"Then come with me, you two." + +He led the way followed by Raft and the girl to a wharf where a tug lay +moored and by the tug a fifty ton yawl. + +"There's your boat," said Bontemps, "built by Pinoli of Genoa for an +American. She has even a bath-room--a main cabin with two cabins off it, +your man could berth in the fo'c'sle which is big enough for twenty like +him. Follow me." + +He led the way on to the deck of the yawl. + +The girl went over it down below into the main cabin with two little +sleeping cabins off it. She peeped into the tiny bath-room, examined the +pantry well-stored with crockeryware, there was everything even to the +bunk bedding, sheets and towels, she went to the fo'c'sle; compared with +the fo'c'sle of the _Albatross_ it was a little palace. + +Then she turned to Raft. + +"This is your new home," said she, "there is room for your parrot here." +Then turning to Captain Bontemps. "Well, that is settled and now I only +want a crew and a captain--fishermen. I will have no yachtsmen on my +boat. I have had to do with yachtsmen, Captain Bontemps." + +"Oh, my faith," said the old fellow, "you will easily find a crew." + +"Yes, but I won't easily find a captain. I want you." + +The Captain laughed. + +"And how about _La Belle Arlesienne_?" asked he. + +"You must leave her behind you to be sold. In my service money is no +object. Now as to this boat, who is the agent from whom I can buy her?" + +"Latour and Company," replied the old fellow, for the first time in his +life in the powerful grip of wealth and not knowing exactly whether the +great golden hand was holding him heels or head up. + +"How far is Latour's from here?" + +"Not far." + +The girl stood for a moment looking round her at the white deck, the +masts, the rigging, and as she looked some hand seemed to draw aside a +veil revealing the stupid immovable houses of the land filled with +stupid immovable people bound and tied up by soul-killing +conventions--and on the other hand the old mystery of ships, those homes +of Freedom on the road that has no boundaries. + +Then she turned to Bontemps. + +"Come," said she, "let us go to Latour's." + + * * * * * + +"Cléo," said the distracted Madame de Brie, writing to a friend, "Cléo +must always have been as mad as her aunt De Warens. Fishermen, it +seems, are the only honest people, and she and her cargo of fishermen, +with an old man named Bontemps, are now heaven knows where since I met +them at Portofino. + +"She calls them her children and when I last saw her she was coming +along the little quay at Portofino helping that big red bearded man to +carry provisions. + +"The times are revolutionary, that's the truth, and women are not what +they were, and I am old, I suppose, and cannot see things as I ought to +see them--and the grief is she might have married any one, she might +have married Royalty itself, and I told her so and she laughed in my +face. She said she never intended to marry any one, that she already had +a family of 'children' and that the great bearded man Raft was the +smallest of them all, that she was teaching him to read and write and to +talk French so that he could converse with the rest of her family. + +"She has made Portofino her headquarters, it seems, and she is the lady +bountiful of the fishing folk there, sits in their cottages and talks to +them, taking up her quarters at the little _auberge_ and sometimes +living on board her boat. + +"A strange life, and yet she seems happy, like that poor Mademoiselle La +Fontaine, whom I last saw at the Maison de Santé of Doctor +Schwanthaller, seated with a straw crown on her head and imagining +herself a queen." + +There ended the letter of Madame de Brie, and here ends the story of +Cléo de Bromsart, a woman of energy and mind who learned from Kerguelen +that Life is an endless striving, not a peaceful drifting, and that of +all things high the highest is the soul of a child. + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Beach of Dreams, by H. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/20084-8.zip b/20084-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1e72efc --- /dev/null +++ b/20084-8.zip diff --git a/20084-h.zip b/20084-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..98fc1d6 --- /dev/null +++ b/20084-h.zip diff --git a/20084-h/20084-h.htm b/20084-h/20084-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a22b345 --- /dev/null +++ b/20084-h/20084-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8791 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Beach of Dreams, by H. De Vere Stacpoole. + </title> + <link rel='coverpage' href='images/cover.jpg' /> + <meta name='cover' content='images/cover.jpg' /> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ + <!-- + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + p.titleblock {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent: 0; text-align: center;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + h1 {font-size: 24px;} + h2 {font-size: 20px;} + h3 {font-size: 18px;} + a {text-decoration: none;} + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {right: 1%; font-size: x-small; background-color: inherit; color: gray; text-indent: 0em; text-align: right; position: absolute; border: 1px solid silver; padding: 1px 3px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;} + .blockquot {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + td.pr {padding-right: 10px;} + hr.full {width: 100%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + hr.major {width: 75%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + hr.minor {width: 30%; margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beach of Dreams, by H. De Vere Stacpoole + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Beach of Dreams + +Author: H. De Vere Stacpoole + +Release Date: December 10, 2006 [EBook #20084] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEACH OF DREAMS *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<table width='400' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='' border='1'><tr><td> +<p class='titleblock' style='font-size: 170%; margin-top: 1.2em;'>THE</p> +<p class='titleblock' style='font-size: 200%; margin-bottom: .5em;'>BEACH OF DREAMS</p> +<p class='titleblock' style='font-size: 130%; margin-bottom: 4em;'>A ROMANCE</p> +<p class='titleblock' style='font-size: 100%; margin-bottom: .5em;'>BY</p> +<p class='titleblock' style='font-size: 130%; margin-bottom: .5em;'>H. DE VERE STACPOOLE</p> +<p class='titleblock' style='font-size: 70%;'>AUTHOR OF “THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF,” “THE GHOST GIRL,”</p> +<p class='titleblock' style='font-size: 70%; margin-bottom: 12em;'> “THE GOLD TRAIL,” “THE BLUE LAGOON,” ETC.</p> +<p class='titleblock' style='font-size: 120%;'>THE NATIONAL BOOK CO.</p> +<p class='titleblock' style='font-size: 100%;'>PUBLISHERS</p> +<p class='titleblock' style='font-size: 80%; margin-bottom: 2em;'>28 WEST 44TH ST., NEW YORK</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<hr class='major' /> + +<div style='font-size:80%;'> +<p class='center'>COPYRIGHT, 1919<br />BY STREET & SMITH</p> +<p class='center'>COPYRIGHT, 1919<br />BY JOHN LANE COMPANY</p> +<p class='center' style='margin-top:2em;'>Printed in the United States of America</p> +</div> + +<hr class='major' /> + +<div class='smcap'> +<table border='0' width='500' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Contents'> +<col style='width:20%;' /> +<col style='width:70%;' /> +<col style='width:10%;' /> + +<tr><td colspan='3' align='center'><span style='font-size: 130%;'>CONTENTS</span></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr> +<tr><td colspan='3' align='center'>PART I</td></tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'><span style='font-size: x-small;'>CHAPTER</span></td> + <td></td> + <td align='right'><span style='font-size: x-small;'>PAGE</span></td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>I</td> + <td align='left'>The Albatross</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_I'>9</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>II</td> + <td align='left'>North-West</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_II'>14</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>III</td> + <td align='left'>The Gaston De Paris</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_III'>22</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>IV</td> + <td align='left'>Disaster</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_IV'>41</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>V</td> + <td align='left'>Voices In The Night</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_V'>48</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>VI</td> + <td align='left'>Dawn</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_VI'>53</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>VII</td> + <td align='left'>The Coast</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_VII'>66</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr> +<tr><td colspan='3' align='center'>PART II</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>VIII</td> + <td align='left'>The Awakening</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_VIII'>73</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>IX</td> + <td align='left'>The Wooley</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_IX'>80</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>X</td> + <td align='left'>The Cross</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_X'>94</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XI</td> + <td align='left'>The Cache</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XI'>103</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XII</td> + <td align='left'>The Quarrel</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XII'>117</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XIII</td> + <td align='left'>Where Is Bompard?</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIII'>124</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XIV</td> + <td align='left'>The Death Traps</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIV'>132</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XV</td> + <td align='left'>The Stroke</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XV'>143</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XVI</td> + <td align='left'>Alone</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVI'>146</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XVII</td> + <td align='left'>Friends in Desolation</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVII'>153</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr> +<tr><td colspan='3' align='center'>PART III</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XVIII</td> + <td align='left'>God Made Friendship</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVIII'>159</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XIX</td> + <td align='left'>The Birds</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIX'>167</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XX</td> + <td align='left'>V<small>Æ</small> Victis</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XX'>171</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr> +<tr><td colspan='3' align='center'>PART IV</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XXI</td> + <td align='left'>Time Passes</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXI'>181</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XXII</td> + <td align='left'>A Newcomer</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXII'>185</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XXIII</td> + <td align='left'>Raft</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXIII'>194</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XXIV</td> + <td align='left'>A Dream</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXIV'>203</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XXV</td> + <td align='left'>Stories on the Beach</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXV'>211</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XXVI</td> + <td align='left'>The Great Wind</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXVI'>225</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr> +<tr><td colspan='3' align='center'>PART V</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XXVII</td> + <td align='left'>The Corridor</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXVII'>233</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XXVIII</td> + <td align='left'>Night</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXVIII'>248</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XXIX</td> + <td align='left'>The Summit</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXIX'>253</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XXX</td> + <td align='left'>The Bay</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXX'>259</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XXXI</td> + <td align='left'>The Ship</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXXI'>264</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XXXII</td> + <td align='left'>The Opium Smokers</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXXII'>272</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XXXIII</td> + <td align='left'>Mainsail Haul</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXXIII'>277</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XXXIV</td> + <td align='left'>The Carcassonne</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXXIV'>281</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr> +<tr><td colspan='3' align='center'>PART VI</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XXXV</td> + <td align='left'>Marseilles</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXXV'>289</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XXXVI</td> + <td align='left'>The Leper</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXXVI'>301</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='pr' align='right'>XXXVII</td> + <td align='left'>A New Home</td> + <td align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXXVII'>313</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<hr class='major' /> + +<h1>THE BEACH OF DREAMS</h1> + +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_I' id='CHAPTER_I'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_9' id='Page_9'>9</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2><h3>THE ALBATROSS</h3> +</div> + +<p>The fo’c’sle, lit by a teapot lamp, shewed the port watch in their +bunks, snoring, all but Harbutt and Raft seated on a chest, Harbutt +patching a pair of trousers, Raft smoking.</p> + +<p>Raft was a big red-headed man with eyes that seemed always roving over +great distances as though in search of something. He was thirty-two +years of age and he had used the sea since twelve—twenty years. His +past was a long succession of fo’c’sles, bar-rooms, blazing suns, storms +and sea happenings so run together that all sequence was lost. Beyond +them lay a dismal blotch, his childhood. He had entered the world and +literally and figuratively had been laid at the door of a workhouse; of +his childhood he remembered little, of his parentage he knew nothing. In +drink he was quiet, but most dangerous under certain provocations.</p> + +<p>It was as though deep in his being lay a blazing hatred born of +injustice through ages and only coming to light when upborne by +balloon-juice. On these occasions a saloon bar with its glitter and<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_10' id='Page_10'>10</a></span> +phantom show of mirth and prosperity sometimes called on him to dispense +and destroy it, the passion to fight the crowd seized him, a passion +that has its origin, perhaps, in sources other than alcohol.</p> + +<p>He was talking now to Harbutt, scarcely lowering his voice on account of +the fellows in the bunks. Snoring and drugged with ozone a kick would +only have made them curse and turn on the other side, and as he talked +his voice made part of that procession of noises inseparable from the +fo’c’sle of a ship under sail against a head sea. He had been holding +forth on the food and general conditions of this ship compared with the +food and conditions of his last, when Harbutt cut in.</p> + +<p>“There’s not a pin to choose between owners, and ships is owners as far +as a sailorman’s concerned.—Blast them.”</p> + +<p>“I was in a hooker once,” said Raft, “and the Old Man came across a lot +of cheap sugar, served it out to save the m’lasses. It was lead, most of +it, and the chaps that swallowed it their teeth came out.”</p> + +<p>“What happened to them then?”</p> + +<p>“They croaked. I joined at Bombay, after the business, or I’d have +croaked too.”</p> + +<p>“What ship was that?” asked Harbutt.</p> + +<p>“I’ve forgot her name, it was a good bit back—but it’s the truth.”</p> + +<p>“Of course it’s the truth,” replied the other, “who’s doubtin’ you, any +dog’s trick played on a<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_11' id='Page_11'>11</a></span> sailorman’s the truth, you can lay to that. +I’ve had four years of sea and I oughta know.”</p> + +<p>“What’s this you were?” asked Raft.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I was a lot o’ things,” replied Harbutt. “Wished I’d never left +them to join this b—y business, but it’s the same ashore, owners all +the time stuffin’ themselves and gettin’ rich, workers starvin’.”</p> + +<p>Raft belonged to the old time labour world dating from Pelagon, he +grumbled, but had no grudge against owners in general, it was only in +drink that Pelagon rose in him. Harbutt was an atom of the new voice +that is heard everywhere now, even in fo’c’sles. He had failed in +everything on land and a’board ship he was a slacker. You cannot be a +voice and an A.B. at the same time.</p> + +<p>“What was your last job ashore?” went on Raft with the persistence of a +child, always wanting to know.</p> + +<p>“Cleanin’ out pig sties,” said Harbutt viciously. “Drove to it. I tell +you when a chap’s down he’s down, the chaps that has money tramples on +the chaps that hasn’t. I’ve been through it and I know. It’s the rich +man does it.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Raft, “I don’t even remember seeing one.”</p> + +<p>“Haven’t you ever been in no cities?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve been in cities right enough, but most by the water-side.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you’ve seen chaps in plug hats and chaps drivin’ in carriages, +that’s the sort that keeps us<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_12' id='Page_12'>12</a></span> down, that’s the sort we’ve got to make +an end of.”</p> + +<p>Raft did not quite see. He had a respect for Harbutt mixed with a +contempt for him as a sailor. Harbutt knew a lot—but he could not see +how the chaps in plug hats kept other people down; the few he had seen +had always seemed to him away and beyond his world, soft folk, and +always busy about their own affairs—and how were they to be made an end +of?</p> + +<p>“Do you mean killing them?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, there’s other ways than killin’,” replied Harbutt. “It’s not them, +it’s their money does the trick.”</p> + +<p>He finished his patch and turned in. Raft finished his pipe and turned +in also and the fo’c’sle was given over to the noises of the sea and the +straining timbers of the ship.</p> + +<p>Now that the figures of the two sailors had vanished its personality +took fuller life, grim, dark, close, like the interior of a grimy hand +clutching the lives of all those sleepers. The beams shewed like the +curved fingers, and the heel of the bowsprit like the point of the +in-turned thumb, a faint soul-killing rock of kerosene filled it, +intensifying, after the fashion of ambergris, all the other perfumes, +without losing in power. Bilge, tobacco and humanity, you cannot know +what these things are till they are married with the reek of kerosene, +with the grunts and snores of weary men, with lamplight dimmed with +smoke haze; with the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_13' id='Page_13'>13</a></span> heave and fall of the sea; the groaning of timbers +and the boom of the waves. This is the fo’c’sle whose great, great, +great grandmother was the lower deck of the trireme where slaves chained +to benches laboured till they died, just as they labour to-day.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_II' id='CHAPTER_II'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_14' id='Page_14'>14</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2><h3>NORTH-WEST</h3> +</div> + +<p>The <i>Albatross</i>, bound from Cape Town to Melbourne, had been blown out +of her course and south of the Crozet Islands; she was now steering +north-west, making towards Kerguelen, across an ice-blue sea, vast, like +a country of broken crystal strewn with snow. The sky, against which the +top-gallant stay-sails shewed gull-white in the sun, had the cold blue +of the sea and was hung round at the horizon by clouds like the white +clouds that hang round the Pacific Trades.</p> + +<p>Raft was at the wheel and Captain Pound the master was pacing the deck +with Mason the first officer, up and down, pausing now and then for a +glance away to windward, now with an eye aloft at the steadfast canvas, +talking all the time of subjects half a world away.</p> + +<p>It was a sociable ship as far as the afterguard was concerned. Pound +being a rough and capable man of the old school with no false dignity +and an open manner of speech. He had been talking of his little house at +Twickenham, of Mrs. Pound and the children, of servants and neighbours +that were unsociable and now he was talking of dreams. He had been +dreaming the night before<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_15' id='Page_15'>15</a></span> of Pembroke docks, the port he had started +from as a boy. Pembroke docks was a bad dream for Pound, and he said so. +It always heralded some disaster when it appeared before him in +dreamland.</p> + +<p>“I’ve always dreamt before that I was starting from there,” said he, +“but last night I was getting the old <i>Albatross</i> in, and the tow rope +went, and the tug knocked herself to bits, and then the old hooker swung +round and there was Mrs. P. on the quayside in her night attire shouting +to me to put the helm down—under hare sticks in the docks, mind you!”</p> + +<p>“Dreams are crazy things,” said Mason. “I don’t believe there’s anything +in them.”</p> + +<p>“Well, maybe not,” said Pound. He glanced at the binnacle card and then +went below.</p> + +<p>Nothing is more impressive to the unaccustomed mind than the spars and +canvas of a ship under full sail seen from the deck, nothing more +suggestive of power and the daring of man than the sight of those +leviathan spars and vast sail spaces rising dizzily from main and +foresail in pyramids to where the truck works like a pencil point +writing on the sky. Nothing more arresting than the power of the +steersman. A turn of the wheel in the hands of Raft would set all that +canvas shuddering or thundering, spilling the wind as the water is +spilled from a reservoir, a moment’s indecision or slackness might lose +the ship a mile on her course. But Raft steered as he breathed, +automatically, almost unconsciously, almost without effort. He, who<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_16' id='Page_16'>16</a></span> +ashore was hopelessly adrift and without guidance, at the helm was all +wisdom, direction and intuition.</p> + +<p>The wake of the <i>Albatross</i> lay as if drawn with a ruler.</p> + +<p>His trick was nearly up, and when he was relieved he went forward; +pausing at the fo’c’sle head to light a pipe he fell in talk with some +of the hands, leaning with his back against the bulwarks and blown upon +by the spill of the wind from the head sails.</p> + +<p>An old shell-back by name of Ponting was holding the floor.</p> + +<p>“We’re comin’ up to Kerguelen,” he was saying. “Should think I did know +it. Put in there in a sealer out of New Bedford in ’82. I wasn’t more’n +a boy then. The Yanks used to use that place a lot in those days. The +blackest blastedest hole I ever struck. Christmas Island was where we +lay mostly, for two months, the chaps huntin’ the wal’uses and killin’ +more than they could carry. The blastedest hole I ever struck.”</p> + +<p>“I was there in a Dane once,” began another of the crew. “It was time of +year the sea cows was matin’ and you could hear the roarin’ of them ten +mile off.”</p> + +<p>“Dane,” said Ponting, “what made you ship a’board a Dane—I’ve heard +tell of Danes. Knew a chap signed on in one of them Leith boots out of +Copenhagen runnin’ north, one of them old North Sea cattle trucks turned +into a passenger tramp,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_17' id='Page_17'>17</a></span> passengers and ponies with a hundred ton of hay +stowed forward and the passengers lyin’ on their backs on it smokin’ +their pipes, and the bridge crawled over with passengers, girls and +children, and the chap at the wheel havin’ to push ’em out of the way, +kept hittin’ reefs all the run from Leith to God knows where, and the +Old Man playin’ the fiddle most of the time.”</p> + +<p>“That chap said the Danes was a d——d lot too sociable for him.”</p> + +<p>Raft listened without entirely comprehending. He had always been a +fore-mast hand. He knew practically nothing of steam and he would just +as soon have fancied himself a railway porter as a hand on a passenger +ship. He was one of the old school of merchant seamen and the idea of a +cargo of girls and children and general passengers, not to speak of +ponies, was beyond him.</p> + +<p>The girls he had mostly known were of the wharf-side. He finished his +pipe and went down below—and turned in.</p> + +<p>He was rousted out by the voice of the Bo’sw’n calling for all hands on +deck and slipping into his oilskins he came up, receiving a smack of sea +in his face as he emerged from the fo’c’sle hatch. The wind had shifted +and a black squall coming up from astern had hit the ship. More was +coming and through the sheeting rain and spindrift the voice of the +Bo’sw’n was roaring to let go the fore top-gallant halyards.</p> + +<p>Next moment Raft was in the rigging followed<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_18' id='Page_18'>18</a></span> by others. The sail had to +be stowed. The wind tried to tear him loose and the sheeting rain to +drown him, but he went on clinging to the top-gallant mast-stays and +looking down he could see the faces of the others following him, faces +sheeted over with rain and working blindly upwards.</p> + +<p>Ponting was the man immediately below him, and taking breath for a +moment and against the wind, Ponting was now yelling out that they had +their work cut out for them.</p> + +<p>They had.</p> + +<p>The top-gallant sail had taken charge of itself, and Raft and Ponting as +they lay out on the yard seemed battling with a thing alive, +intelligent, and desperately wicked.</p> + +<p>The sail snored and trembled and sang, standing out in great hoods and +folds, hard as steel; now it would yield, owing to a slackening of the +wind, and then, like a brute that had only been waiting to take them by +surprise, it would burst out again, releasing itself, whilst the yard +buckled and sprang, almost casting them from it.</p> + +<p>Then began a battle fought without a sound or cry except the bubbling +and snoring of the great sail struggling for its wicked liberty, it +shrank and they flung themselves on it, it bellied and flung them back, +clinging to the lift they saved themselves, attacking it again with the +dumb fury of dogs or wolves on a fighting prey. Twenty times it tried to +destroy them and twenty times they all but had it under.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_19' id='Page_19'>19</a></span></p> + +<p>The fight died out of the monster for a moment and Raft had nearly an +armful of it in when it stiffened, fighting free of him, owing to +Ponting and the other fellow not having made good. They clung for a +moment without moving, resting, and Raft glancing down saw far away +below the narrow deck driving wedge-like through the foam-capped seas.</p> + +<p>Then the struggle began again. The sail, like its would-be captors, +seemed also to have taken breath, it held firm, relaxed, banged out +again in thunder, developed new hoods and folds as a struggling monster +might develop new heads and kinks, and then, all of a sudden when it +seemed that no effort was of avail the end came.</p> + +<p>The wind paused for a moment, as if gathering up all its strength +against the dogged persistency which is man, and in that moment the +three on the yard had the sail under their chests beating and crushing +the life out of it. Then the gaskets were passed round it and they clung +for a moment to rest and breathe.</p> + +<p>It was nothing, or they thought nothing of it, this battle for life with +a monster, just the stowing of a top-gallant sail in dirty weather, and +most likely when they got down the Bo’sw’n would call them farmers for +being such a time over it. Meanwhile they clung idly for a moment, +partly to rest and partly to look at something worth seeing.</p> + +<p>The squall was blowing out, there was nothing behind it and away on the +port quarter the almost<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_20' id='Page_20'>20</a></span> setting sun had broken through the smother and +was lighting the sea.</p> + +<p>There, set in a thousand square acres of snowcapped tourmaline, white as +a gull and beautiful as grace itself, was running a vessel under bare +poles. The two yellow funnels, the cut of the hull, told Ponting what +she was. He had seen her twice before and no sailor who had once set +eyes on her could forget her.</p> + +<p>“See that blighter,” he yelled across to Raft. “Know her?”</p> + +<p>“Should think I did, she’s the <i>Gaston de Paree</i>—a yacht—seen her in +T’lon.”</p> + +<p>Then they came down, crawling like weary men, and on deck no one abused +them for their slackness or the time they’d been over their job. The +<i>Albatross</i> was running easy and the Bo’sw’n with others was taken up +with a momentary curiosity over the great white yacht.</p> + +<p>No one knew her but Ponting, who had for several years acted as deck +hand on some of the Mediterranean boats.</p> + +<p>“I know her,” said he ranging up beside the others. “She’s the <i>Gaston +de Paree</i>, a yot—seen her in T’lon harbour and seen her again at Suez, +she’s a thousand tonner, y’can’t mistake them funnels nor the width of +them, she’s a twenty knotter and the chap that owns her is a king or +somethin’; last time I saw her she was off to the China seas, they say +she’s all cluttered up with dredges and dipsy gear, and she mostly +spends her time takin’<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_21' id='Page_21'>21</a></span> soundin’s and scrabblin’ up shell fish and +such—that’s his way of amusin’ himself.”</p> + +<p>“Then he must be crazy,” said the Bo’sw’n, “but b’God he’s got a beauty +under him—what’s he doin’ down here away?”</p> + +<p>“Ax me another,” said Ponting. Raft stood with the others, watching the +<i>Gaston de Paris</i> from whose funnels now the smoke was coming festooned +on the wind, then he went below to shed his oilskins and smoke.</p> + +<p>She had ceased to interest him.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_III' id='CHAPTER_III'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_22' id='Page_22'>22</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2><h3>THE GASTON DE PARIS</h3> +</div> + +<p>Old Ponting was right in all his particulars, except one. The owner of +the <i>Gaston de Paris</i> was not a king, only a prince.</p> + +<p>Prince Selm, a gentleman like his Highness of Monaco with a passion for +the deep sea and its exploration. The Holy Roman Empire had given his +great grandfather the title of prince, and estates in Thuringia gave him +money enough to do what he pleased, an unfortunate marriage gave him a +distaste for High Civilization, and his scientific bent and passion for +the sea—inherited with a strain of old Norse blood—did the rest.</p> + +<p>He had chosen well. Cards, women and wine, pleasure and the glittering +things of life, all these betray one, but the sea, though she may kill, +never leaves a man broken, never destroys his soul.</p> + +<p>But Eugene Henry William of Selm for all this sea passion might have +remained a landsman, for the simple reason that he was one of those +thorough souls for whom Life and an Object are synonymous terms. In +other words he would never have made a yachtsman, a creature shifting +from Keil to Cowes and Cowes to Naples according to season, a cup +gatherer and club-house haunter.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_23' id='Page_23'>23</a></span></p> + +<p>But Exploration gave him the incentive and the Musée Océanographique of +Monaco his inspiration, limitless wealth supplied the means.</p> + +<p>The <i>Gaston de Paris</i> built by Viguard of Toulon was an ocean going +steam yacht of twelve hundred and fifty tons with engines by Conturier +of Nantes and everything of the latest from Conturier’s twin-action +centrifugal bilge pumps to the last thing in sea valves. She was +reckoned by those who knew her the finest sea-going yacht in the world +and she was certainly the <i>chef-d’œuvre</i> of Lafiette, Viguard’s chief +designer. Lafiette was more than a designer, he was a creator, the sea +was in his blood giving him that touch of genius or madness, that +something eccentric which made him at times cast rules and formulae +aside.</p> + +<p>The decks of the <i>Gaston de Paris</i> ran flush, with little encumbrance +save a deck-house forward given over to electrical and deep sea +instruments.</p> + +<p>Forward of the engine room and right to the bulkheads of the fo’c’sle +ran a lower deck reached by a hatch aft of the instrument room. Here +were stowed the dredges and buoys and all the gear belonging to them, +trawl nets and deep sea traps, cable and spare rope and sounding-wire, +harpoons and grancs and a hundred odds and ends, all in order and spick +and span as the gear of a warship.</p> + +<p>Aft of the engine-room the yacht was a little palace. Prince Selm would +labour like any of his crew over a net coming in or in an emergency, but +he ate off silver and slept between sheets of exceedingly<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_24' id='Page_24'>24</a></span> fine linen. +Though a sailor, almost one might say a fisherman, he was always +Monsieur le Prince and though his hobby lay in the depths of the sea his +intellect did not lie there too. Politics, Literature and Art travelled +with him as mind companions, whilst in the flesh he often managed to +bring off with him on his “outlandish expeditions” more or less pleasant +people from the great world where Civilisation sits in cities, feeding +Art and Philosophy, Science and Literature with the hearts and souls of +men.</p> + +<p>The main saloon of the <i>Gaston de Paris</i> fought in all its details +against the idea of shipboard life, the gilt and scrolls of the yacht +decorator, the mirrors, and all the rest of his abominations were not to +be found here, panels by Chardin painted for Madame de Pompadour +occupied the walls, the main lamp, a flying dragon by Benvenuto Cellini, +clutching in its claws a globe of fire, had, for satellites, four torch +bearers of bronze by Claus, a library, writing and smoking room, +combined, opened from the main saloon, and there was a boudoir decorated +in purple and pearl with flower pictures by Lactropius unfaded despite +their date of 1685.</p> + +<p>Nothing could be stranger to the mind than the contrast between the +fo’c’sle of the <i>Albatross</i> and the after cabins of the <i>Gaston</i>, +nothing, except, maybe, the contrast between a garret in Montmartre or +Stepney and a drawing-room in the Avenue du Trocadéro or Mayfair.</p> + +<p>Dinner was served on board the <i>Gaston de Paris</i><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_25' id='Page_25'>25</a></span> at seven, and to-night +the Prince and his four guests, seated beneath the flying dragon of +Cellini and enjoying their soup, held converse together light-heartedly +and with a spirit that had been somewhat lacking of late. Every sea +voyage has its periods of depression due to monotony; they had not +sighted a ship for over ten days, and this evening the glimpse of the +<i>Albatross</i> revealed through the break in the weather had in some +curious way shattered the sense of isolation and broken the monotony. +The four guests of the Prince were: Madame la Comtesse de Warens, an old +lady with a passion for travel, a free thinker, whose mother was a +friend of Voltaire in her youth and whose father had been a member of +the Jacobin club; she was eighty-four years of age, declared herself +indestructible by time, and her one last ambition to be a burial at sea. +She was also a Socialistic-Anarchist, possessed an income of some forty +thousand pounds a year derived from speculations of her late husband +conducted during the war with Germany in 1870, yet was never known to +give a sou to charity; her hands were all but the hands of a skeleton +and covered with jewels, she smoked cigarettes incessantly. She was one +of those old women whose energy seems to increase with age, tireless as +a gnat she was always the last in bed and the first on deck, though +lying in her bunk half the night reading French novels of which she had +a trunkful and smoking her eternal cigarettes.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_26' id='Page_26'>26</a></span></p> + +<p>Beside her sat her niece, Cléo de Bromsart, English on the mother’s side +and educated in England, a girl of twenty, unmarried, dark-haired, +fragile and beautiful as a dream. She was one of the old nobility, +without dilution, yet strangely enough with money, for the Bromsarts, +without marrying into trade, had adapted themselves to the new times so +cleverly that Eugène de Bromsart the last of his race had retired from +life leaving his only daughter and the last of her race wealthy, even by +the standard of wealth set in Paris. She was a sportswoman and, despite +her lack of frailty, had led an outdoor life and possessed a nerve of +steel.</p> + +<p>Madame de Warens had brought the girl up after she left school, had +laboured over her and found her labour in vain. Cléo had no leanings +towards the People and the opinions of her aunt seemed to her a sort of +disreputable madness bred on hypocrisy. Cléo looked on the lower classes +just as she looked on animals, beings with rights of their own but +belonging to an entirely different order of creation, and one thing +certainly could be said for her—she was honest in her outlook on life.</p> + +<p>Beside her sat Doctor Epinard, the ship’s doctor, a serious young man +who spoke little, and the fifth at table was Lagross, the sea painter, +who had come for the sake of his health and to absorb the colours of the +ocean. The vision of the <i>Albatross</i> with towering canvas breasting the +blue-green seas in an atmosphere of sunset and storm was with<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_27' id='Page_27'>27</a></span> him still +as he sat listening to the chatter of the others and occasionally +joining in. He intended to paint that picture.</p> + +<p>It had come to him as a surprise. They had been playing cards when a +quarter-master called them on deck saying that the weather had moderated +and that there was a ship in sight, and there, away across the tumbling +seas, the <i>Albatross</i> had struck his vision, remote, storm surrounded, +and sunlit, almost a vision of the past in these days of mechanism.</p> + +<p>“Now tell me, Prince,” Madame de Warens was saying, “how long do you +propose staying at this Kerguelen Land of yours?”</p> + +<p>“Not more than a week,” replied the Prince. “I want to take some +soundings off the Smoky Islands and I shall put in for a day on the +mainland where you can go ashore if you like, but I shan’t stay here +long. It is like putting one’s head into a wolf’s mouth.”</p> + +<p>“How is that?”</p> + +<p>“Weather. You saw that sudden squall we passed through this evening, or +rather you heard it, no doubt, well that’s the sort of thing Kerguelen +brews.”</p> + +<p>“Suppose,” said the astute old lady, “it brewed one of those things, +only much worse, and we were blown ashore?”</p> + +<p>“Impossible.”</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Our engines can fight anything.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_28' id='Page_28'>28</a></span></p> + +<p>“Are there any natives in this place?”</p> + +<p>“Only penguins and rabbits.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me,” said Lagross, “that three-master we saw just now, would she +be making for Kerguelen?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, she must be out of her course and beating up north. She’s not a +whaler, and ships like that would keep north of the Crozets. Probably +she was driven down by that big storm we had a week ago. We wouldn’t be +where we are only that I took those soundings south of Marion Island.”</p> + +<p>“And, after Kerguelen, what land shall we see next?” asked the old lady.</p> + +<p>“New Amsterdam, madame,” replied the Prince, “and after that the Sunda +Islands and beautiful Java with its sun and palm trees.”</p> + +<p>Mademoiselle de Bromsart shivered slightly. She had been silent up to +this, and she spoke now with eyes fixed far away as if viewing the +picture of Java with its palms and sapphire skies.</p> + +<p>“Could we not go there now?” asked she.</p> + +<p>“In what way?” asked the Prince.</p> + +<p>“Turn the ship round and leave this place behind,” she replied.</p> + +<p>“But why?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said she, “perhaps it is what you say about Kerguelen, +or perhaps it was the sight of that big ship all alone out there, but I +feel—” she stopped short.</p> + +<p>“Yes—”</p> + +<p>“That ship frightened me.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_29' id='Page_29'>29</a></span></p> + +<p>“Frightened you,” cried Madame de Warens, “why, Cléo, what is the matter +with you to-night? You who are never frightened. I’m not easily +frightened, but I admit I almost said my prayers in that storm, and you, +you were doing embroidery.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I am not frightened of storms or things in the ordinary way,” said +the girl half laughing. “Physical things have no power over me, an ugly +face can frighten me more than the threat of a blow. It is a question of +psychology. That ship produced on my mind a feeling as though I had seen +desolation itself, and something worse.”</p> + +<p>“Something worse!” cried Madame de Warens, “what can be worse than +desolation?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Cléo, “It also made me feel that I wanted to be far +away from it and from here. Then, Monsieur le Prince, with his story of +desolate Kerguelen, completed the feeling. It is strong upon me now.”</p> + +<p>“You do not wish to go to Kerguelen then?” said the Prince smiling as he +helped himself to the entrée that was being passed round.</p> + +<p>“Oh, monsieur, it is not a question of my wishes at all,” replied the +girl.</p> + +<p>“But, excuse me,” replied the owner of the <i>Gaston de Paris</i>, “it is +entirely a question of your wishes. We are not a cargo boat, Captain +Lepine is on the bridge, he has only to go into his chart house, set his +course for New Amsterdam, and a turn of the wheel will put our stern to +the south.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_30' id='Page_30'>30</a></span> He touched an electric bell push, attached to the table, as +he spoke.</p> + +<p>“And your soundings?” asked she.</p> + +<p>“They can wait for some other time or some other man, sea depths are +pretty constant.”</p> + +<p>A quarter-master appeared at the saloon door, came forward and saluted.</p> + +<p>“Ask Captain Lepine to come aft,” said the Prince. “I wish to speak to +him.”</p> + +<p>“Wait,” said Mademoiselle Bromsart. Then to her host. “No. I will not +have the course altered for me. I am quite clear upon that point. What I +said was foolish and it would pain me more than I can tell to have it +acted upon. I really mean what I say.”</p> + +<p>He looked at her for a moment and seemed to glimpse something of the +iron will that lay at the heart of her beauty and fragility.</p> + +<p>“That will do,” said he to the quarter-master. “You need not give my +message.”</p> + +<p>Madame de Warens laughed. “That is what it is to be young,” said she, +“if an old woman like me had spoken of changing our course I doubt if +your quarter-master would have been called, Monsieur. But I have no fads +and fancies, thank heaven, I leave all that to the young women of +to-day.”</p> + +<p>“Pardon me, madame,” said Doctor Epinard speaking for almost the first +time, “but in impressions produced by objects upon the mind there is no +room for the term fancy. I speak of course<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_31' id='Page_31'>31</a></span> of the normal mind free of +disease. Furthermore, we talk of objects as things of secondary +importance and the mind as everything. Now I am firmly convinced that +the mind of man, so far from being a thing apart from the objects that +form its environment, is, in fact, nothing else but a mirror or focus +upon which objects register their impressions and that all the thinking +in the world is done not really by the mind but by the objects that form +our thoughts and the reasons, utterly divorced from what we call human +reason, that connect together the objects that form our environment.”</p> + +<p>“Is this a theory of your own, Epinard?” asked the Prince.</p> + +<p>“It is, monsieur, and it may be bad or good but I adhere to it.”</p> + +<p>“You mean to say that man is composed entirely of environment, past and +present?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, monsieur, you have caught my meaning exactly. Past and present. +Man is nothing more than a concretion formed from emanations of all the +objects whose emanations have impinged upon living tissue since, at the +beginning of the world, living tissue was formed. He is the sunset he +saw a million years ago, the water he swam in when he was a fish, the +knight in armour he fought with when he was an ancestor, or rather he is +a concretion of the light, touch and sound vibrations from these and a +million other things. I have written the matter fully out in a thesis, +which I hope to publish some day.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_32' id='Page_32'>32</a></span></p> + +<p>“Well, you may put my name down for a dozen copies,” said the Prince, +“for certainly the theory is less mad than some of the theories I have +come across explaining the origin of mind.”</p> + +<p>“But what has all that to do with the ship?” asked Madame de Warens.</p> + +<p>“Simply, madame, that the ship which one looked at as a structure of +canvas and wood, once seen by Mademoiselle de Bromsart, has become part +of her mind, just as it has become part of yours and mine, a logical and +definite part of our minds; now, mark me, there was also the sunset and +the storm clouds, those objects also became part of the mind of +Mademoiselle de Bromsart, and the reasons interlying between all these +objects produced in her a definite and painful impression. They were, in +fact, all thinking something which she interpreted.”</p> + +<p>“It seemed to me,” said the girl, “that I saw Loneliness itself, and for +the first time, and I felt just now that it was following me. It was to +escape from that absurd phantom that I suggested to Monsieur le Prince +that we should alter our course.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Madame de Warens, “your will has conquered the Phantom. Let +us talk of something more cheerful.”</p> + +<p>“Listen!” said Mademoiselle de Bromsart. “It seems to me that the +engines are going slower.”</p> + +<p>“You have a quick ear, mademoiselle,” said the Prince, “they undoubtedly +are. The Captain has reduced speed. Kerguelen is before us,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_33' id='Page_33'>33</a></span> or rather +on our starboard bow, and daybreak will, no doubt, give us a view of it. +We do not want to be too close to it in the dark hours, that is why +speed has been reduced.”</p> + +<p>Coffee was served at table and presently, amidst the fumes of cigarette +smoke, the conversation turned to politics, the works of Anatole France, +and other absorbing subjects. One might have fancied oneself in Paris +but for the vibrations of the propeller, the heave of the sea, and the +hundred little noises that mark the passage of a ship under way.</p> + +<p>Later Mademoiselle de Bromsart found herself in the smoking-room alone +with her host, Madame de Warens having retired to her state-room and the +others gone on deck.</p> + +<p>The girl was doing some embroidery work which she had fetched from her +cabin and the Prince was glancing at the pages of the Revue des Deux +Mondes. Presently he laid the book down.</p> + +<p>“I was in earnest,” said he.</p> + +<p>“How?” she asked, glancing up from her work.</p> + +<p>“When I proposed altering the course. Nothing would please me more than +to spoil a plan of my own to please you.”</p> + +<p>“It is good of you to say that,” she replied, “all the same I am glad I +did not spoil your plan, not so much for your sake as my own.”</p> + +<p>“How?”</p> + +<p>“I would rather die than run away from danger.”</p> + +<p>“So you feared danger?”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_34' id='Page_34'>34</a></span></p> + +<p>“No, I did not fear it, but I felt it. I felt a premonition of danger. I +did not say so at dinner. I did not want to alarm the others.”</p> + +<p>He looked at her curiously for a moment, contrasting her fragility and +beauty with the something unbendable that was her spirit, her soul—call +it what you will.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said he, “your slightest wish is my law. I have been going to +speak to you for the last few days. I will say what I want to say now. +It is only four words. Will you marry me?”</p> + +<p>She looked up at him, meeting his eyes full and straight.</p> + +<p>“No,” said she, “it is impossible.”</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“I have a very great regard for you—but—”</p> + +<p>“You do not love me?”</p> + +<p>She said nothing, going on with her work calmly as though the +conversation was about some ordinary topic.</p> + +<p>“I don’t see why you should,” he went on, “but look around you—how many +people marry for love now-a-days—and those who do, are they any the +happier? I have seen a very great deal of the world and I know for a +fact that happiness in marriage has little to do with what the poets +call love and everything to do with companionship. If a man and woman +are good companions then they are happy together, if not they are +miserable, no matter how much they may love one another at the start.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_35' id='Page_35'>35</a></span></p> + +<p>“Have you seen much of the world?” she raised her eyes again as she +asked the question. “Have you seen anything really of the world? I do +not mean to be rude, but this world of ours, this world of society that +holds us all, is there anything real about it, since nearly everything +in it is a sham? Look at the lives we lead, look at Paris and London and +Berlin. Why the very language of society is framed to say things we do +not mean.”</p> + +<p>“It is civilization. How else would you have it?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” she replied, “but I do know it is not life. It is +dishonesty. You say that the only happy married people are those that +are good companions, that love does not count in the long run, and you +are right, perhaps, as far as what you call the World is concerned. I +only repeat that the thing you call the World is not the real world, for +love is real, and love is not merely a question of good companionship. +It is an immortal bond between two spirits and death cannot break it.”</p> + +<p>“You speak as though you were very certain of a thing which, of all +things, is most hidden from us.”</p> + +<p>“I speak by instinct.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said the Prince, “perhaps you are right. We have left behind us +the simplicity of the old world, we have become artificial, our life is +a sham—but what would you have and how are we to alter it? We are all +like passengers in a train travelling to heaven knows where; the seats +are well cushioned and the dining-car leaves nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_36' id='Page_36'>36</a></span> to be desired, but +I admit the atmosphere is stuffy and the long journey has developed all +sorts of unpleasant traits among the passengers—well, what would you +do? We cannot get out.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose not,” said she.</p> + +<p>He rose up and stood for a moment turning over some magazines lying on +the table. He had received his answer and he knew instinctively that it +was useless to pursue the business further.</p> + +<p>Then after a few more words he went on deck. The wind had fallen to a +steady blow but the sky was still overcast and the atmosphere was heavy +and clammy and not consistent. It was as though the low lying clouds +dipped here and there to touch the sea. Every now and then the <i>Gaston +de Paris</i> would run into a wreath of fog and pass through it into the +clear darkness of the night beyond.</p> + +<p>In the darkness aft of the bridge nothing could be seen but the pale +hint of the bridge canvas and a trace of spars and funnels now wiped out +with mist, now visible again against the night.</p> + +<p>The Prince leaned on the weather rail and looked over at the tumble and +sud of the water lit here and there with the gleam of a port light.</p> + +<p>Cléo de Bromsart had fascinated him, grown upon him, compelled him in +some mysterious way to ask her to marry him. He had sworn after his +disastrous first experience never to marry again. He had attempted to +break his oath. Was he in love with her? He could scarcely answer that +question himself. But this he knew, that her refusal<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_37' id='Page_37'>37</a></span> of him and the +words she had said were filling his mind with quite new ideas.</p> + +<p>Was she right after all in her statement that he who fancied himself a +man of the world knew nothing of the world except its shams? Was she +right in her statement that love was a bond between two spirits, a bond +unbreakable by death? That old idea was not new to him, he had played +with it as a toy of the mind constructed for the mind to play with by +the poets.</p> + +<p>The new thing was to find this idea in the mind of a young girl and to +hear it expressed with such conviction.</p> + +<p>After a while he came forward and went up the steps to the bridge. +Captain Lepine was in the chart room, the first officer was on the +bridge and Bouvalot, an old navy quarter-master, had the wheel.</p> + +<p>“We have slowed down,” said the Prince.</p> + +<p>“Yes, monsieur,” replied the first officer, “we are getting close to +land. We ought to sight Kerguelen at dawn.”</p> + +<p>“What do you think of the weather?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think the weather will bother us much, monsieur, that blow had +nothing behind it, and were it not for these fog patches I would ask +nothing better; but then it’s Kerguelen—what can one expect!”</p> + +<p>“True,” said the other, “it’s a vile place, by all accounts, as far as +weather is concerned.”</p> + +<p>He tapped at the door of the chart room and entered.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_38' id='Page_38'>38</a></span></p> + +<p>The chart room of the <i>Gaston de Paris</i> was a pleasant change from the +dark and damp of the bridge. A couch upholstered in red velvet ran along +one side of it and on the couch with one leg up and a pipe in his mouth +the captain was resting himself, a big man of the Southern French navy +type, with a beard of burnt-up black that reached nearly to his eyes.</p> + +<p>The Prince, telling him not to move, sat down and lit a cigar. Then they +fell into talk.</p> + +<p>Lepine was a sailor and nothing else. Had his character been cut out of +cardboard the line of division between the sailor and the rest of the +world could not have been more sharply marked. That was perhaps why the +two men, though divided by a vast social gulf, were friends, almost +chums.</p> + +<p>They talked for half an hour or so on all sorts of subjects connected +with the ship.</p> + +<p>“By the way, Lepine,” said the Prince suddenly, “It has been the toss up +of a sou that we are not now steering a course for New Amsterdam.”</p> + +<p>“And how is that, monsieur?”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mademoiselle de Bromsart proposed to me at dinner that we should +alter our course, the idea came to her that some misfortune might happen +to us off Kerguelen and, as you know, I am always anxious to please my +guests—well, I called a quarter-master down. I was going to have sent +for you.”</p> + +<p>“To alter our course?”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_39' id='Page_39'>39</a></span></p> + +<p>“Yes, but Mademoiselle de Bromsart altered her mind. She refused to let +me send for you.”</p> + +<p>“But what gave the young lady that idea?” asked the Captain.</p> + +<p>“That big ship we sighted before dinner.”</p> + +<p>“The three-master?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, there was something about it she did not like.”</p> + +<p>“Monsieur, what an idea—and what was wrong with it?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it was just a fancy. The sea breeds fancies and superstitions, you +know that, Lepine, for I believe you are superstitious yourself.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps, monsieur; all sailors are, and I have had experiences. There +are bad and good ships, just as there are bad and good men, of that I am +sure. Perhaps that three-master was a bad ship.” Lepine laughed as +though at his own words. “All the same,” he went on, “I don’t like +warnings, especially off Kerguelen.”</p> + +<p>They left the chart house and came out on the bridge.</p> + +<p>The wind was still steady but the clouds had consolidated and the night +was pitch black. On the bridge the <i>Gaston de Paris</i> seemed driving into +a solid wall of ebony.</p> + +<p>The Prince after a glance into the binnacle was preparing to go down the +bridge steps when a cry from the Look-out made him wheel round. +Suddenly, and as if evolved by magic from the blackness, the vague +spectre of a vast ship shewed up<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_40' id='Page_40'>40</a></span> ahead on the port bow making to cross +their course. Thundering along under full canvas without lights and +seemingly blind, she seemed only a pistol shot away.</p> + +<p>Then the owner of the <i>Gaston de Paris</i> did what no owner ought ever to +do: seeing Destruction and judging that by a bold stroke it might be +out-leaped, he sprang to the engine room telegraph and flung the lever +to full speed ahead.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_IV' id='CHAPTER_IV'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_41' id='Page_41'>41</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2><h3>DISASTER</h3> +</div> + +<p>Left alone, Mademoiselle de Bromsart finished the all but completed +piece of embroidery in her lap. It did not take her five minutes. Then +she held up the work and reviewed it with lips slightly pursed, then she +rolled it up, rose, and went off to the state-room of Madame de Warens +to bid her good-night.</p> + +<p>Madame was sitting up in her bunk reading Maurice Barres’ “Greco.” The +air of the place was stifling with the fume of cigarettes, and the girl +nearly choked as she closed the door and stood facing the old lady in +the bunk.</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you smoke, then you wouldn’t mind it,” cried the latter, +putting her book down and taking off her glasses. “No, I won’t have a +port opened, d’you want me to be blown out of my bunk? Sit down.”</p> + +<p>“No, I won’t stay,” replied the other, “I just came to say +good-night—and tell you something—He asked me to marry him.”</p> + +<p>“Who—Selm?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“And what did you say?”</p> + +<p>“I said ‘No.’”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_42' id='Page_42'>42</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, you did?—and what’s the matter with him—I mean what’s the matter +with you?”</p> + +<p>“How?”</p> + +<p>“How! The best match in Europe and you say ‘no’ to him—a man who could +marry where he pleases and whom he pleased and you say ‘no.’ +Good-looking, without vices, richer than many a crowned head, second +only to the reigning families—and you say ‘no.’”</p> + +<p>The old lady was working herself up. This admirer of Anarchasis Clootz +and dilletanti of Anarchism had lately possessed one supreme desire, the +desire to have for niece the Princess Selm.</p> + +<p>“I thought you didn’t believe in all that,” said the girl.</p> + +<p>“All what?”</p> + +<p>“Titles, wealth and so forth.”</p> + +<p>“I believe in seeing you happy and well-placed. I was not thinking of +myself—well, there, it’s done. There is no use in talking any more, for +I know your disposition. You are hard, mademoiselle, that is your +failing—without real heart. It is the modern disease. Well, that is all +I have to say. I wish you good-night.”</p> + +<p>She put on her spectacles again.</p> + +<p>“Good-night,” said the other.</p> + +<p>She went out, closed the door, and entered her state-room.</p> + +<p>It was the same as Madame de Warens’ only larger, a place to fill the +mind of the old-time seafarers with the wildest surprise, for here was +everything<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_43' id='Page_43'>43</a></span> that a mortal could demand in the way of comfort and nothing +of the stuffy upholstery that the word “state-rooms” suggests to the +mind of the ordinary traveller.</p> + +<p>The crimson velvet, so dear to the heart of the ship furnisher, was +supplanted by ribbed silk, Persian rugs covered the floor, the metal +fittings were of bronze, and worked, where possible, into sea designs: +dolphins, sea-horses, and fucus. There was a writing-table that could be +closed up into the wall so cunningly that no trace was left of where it +had been, a tiny library of slim volumes uniformly bound in amber +leather, a miracle of binding, the work of Grossart of Tours, a map-rack +containing large scale maps of the world, and a tell-tale compass +shewing the course of the <i>Gaston de Paris</i> to whomever cared to read +it. A long mirror let into the bulkhead aft increased the apparent size +of the place. A bath-room and dressing-room lay forward.</p> + +<p>Having closed the door she stood for a moment glancing at her reflection +in the mirror. The picture seemed to fascinate her as though it were the +reflection of some stranger. Then, turning from the mirror, she sat down +for a moment on the couch by the door.</p> + +<p>She felt disturbed. The words of Madame de Warens had angered her, +producing the effect of a false accusation to which one is too proud to +reply, but the momentary anger had passed, giving place to a craving for +freedom and fresh air. The atmosphere<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_44' id='Page_44'>44</a></span> of the state-room felt stifling, +she would go on deck. Then she remembered that she was in a thin evening +dress and that she would have to change.</p> + +<p>The two women shared a maid, and she was in the act of stretching out +her hand to the electric bell by the couch to summon the maid, when the +craving to get on deck without delay became so strong that she rose, +went into the dressing-room and, without assistance, changed her gown +for a tweed coat and skirt and her thin evening shoes for a pair of +serviceable boots. Then she slipped on her oilskin and sou’wester and +coming back into the state-room caught a momentary glimpse of herself in +the mirror, a strange contrast to the elegant and black-gowned figure +that had glanced at its reflection only ten minutes before.</p> + +<p>She was coming up the saloon companion-way when the engines, easily +heard from here, suddenly began a thunderous pow-wow; the ship lurched +forward, and from the blackness of the open hatch above came a voice +like the sudden clamour of sea-gulls. Then she was flung backwards and +stretched, half-stunned, on the mat at the companion-way foot.</p> + +<p>For a moment she did not know in the least what had happened. She +fancied she had slipped and fallen, then, as she scrambled on to her +hands and knees, someone passed her, nearly treading on her, and rushed +up the companion-way to the deck. It was the chief steward. Rising and +holding on to the rail she followed him.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_45' id='Page_45'>45</a></span></p> + +<p>The deck was aslant, and in the windy blackness of the night nothing was +to be seen for a moment; but the darkness was terrific with voices, +voices from forward of the bridge and voices from alongside as though a +hundred drunken sailors were yelling and blaspheming from a quay.</p> + +<p>For the tenth of a second the idea of being alongside a quay came to her +with nightmare effect, heightened by a ruffling and booming from the sky +above, a rippling and flapping and thundering like the sound of vast and +tangled wings.</p> + +<p>Then a blaze of light shot out, making day.</p> + +<p>The arc lamp of the fore-mast, always ready to be used for night work, +had been run up and switched on.</p> + +<p>To starboard and stern of the <i>Gaston de Paris</i>, a great ship, within +pistol shot of the deck, and with her canvas spilling the wind and +thrashing and thundering, was dipping her bows in the sea. Men were +fighting for the boats, and the stern was so high that more than half of +the rudder shewed like a great door swinging on its hinges. On the +counter in pale letters the word</p> + +<div class='blockquot'><p>“<i>ALBATROSS</i>”</p></div> + +<p>shewed, and to the mind of the gazer all the horror seemed focussed in +that calm statement, those commonplace letters written upon destruction.</p> + +<p>Clinging to the hatch combing she saw, now, as a person sees in a dream, +sailors rushing and struggling aft along the slanting main deck. The +engines<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_46' id='Page_46'>46</a></span> had ceased working but the dynamos were running on steam from +the main boilers, and through the noises that filled the night the +sewing machine sound of them threshed like a pulse. What had happened, +what was happening, she did not know. The great ship to port seemed +sinking but the <i>Gaston de Paris</i> seemed safe, but for the horrible +slant of the decks; she called out to the sailors, now clustered here +and there by the boat davits, but her voice blew away on the wind, she +saw Prince Selm, he was struggling aft along the slippery sloping deck, +clutching at the bulwarks as he came, he seemed like a man engaged in +some fantastic game—an unreal figure, now he was on the deck on all +fours, now up again, clutching men by the shoulders, shaking them, +shouting. She could hear his voice. The starboard boats were unworkable +owing to the list to port. She did not know that, she only knew, and now +for the first time, that the <i>Gaston de Paris</i> was in fearful danger. +And instantly the thought came to her of the old woman below in her bunk +and, on the thought, the mad instinct to rush below and save her.</p> + +<p>Holding on to the woodwork of the hatch she was crawling towards the +opening when blackness hit her like a blow between the eyes. The arc +lamp had gone out, the dynamos had ceased running.</p> + +<p>On the stroke of the darkness the <i>Gaston de Paris</i> heeled slightly +deeper, flinging her to her knees, and as she hung, clutching the +woodwork, she heard her name.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_47' id='Page_47'>47</a></span></p> + +<p>It was the Prince’s voice. She answered, and at once on her answer a +hand seized her cruelly as a vice. It caught her by the shoulder. She +felt herself dragged along, buffeted, lifted, cast down—then nothing +more.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_V' id='CHAPTER_V'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_48' id='Page_48'>48</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2><h3>VOICES IN THE NIGHT</h3> +</div> + +<p>The boat tackle of the <i>Gaston de Paris</i> was the latest patent +arrangement for lowering boats in a hurry; every boat was provisioned, +and the water casks left nothing to be desired, there were frequent +inspections and boat drills. Yet when the <i>Gaston de Paris</i> foundered +only three souls were saved.</p> + +<p>The starboard boats, owing to the list, could not be lowered at all; +every boat had its canvas cover on, which did not expedite matters. The +patent tackle developed defects in practise, and, to crown all, the men +panicked owing to the sudden darkness that fell on them like a clap on +the extinction of the electric light. The port quarter-boat into which +the girl had been flung had two men in her and was lowered away by +Prince Selm, the doctor and the first officer; panic had herded the rest +of the hands towards the pinnace and forward boats, and the pinnace, +over-crowded, was stoved by the sea as soon as she was water-bourne. The +other boats never left their davits, they went with the ship when the +decks opened and the boilers saluted the night with a column of coloured +steam and a clap of thunder that resounded for miles.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_49' id='Page_49'>49</a></span></p> + +<p>The whole tragedy from impact to explosion lasted only seven minutes.</p> + +<p>The two men in the boat with the girl had shoved off like demons and +taken to the oars as soon as the falls were released. If they had not, +being so short-handed for the size of the boat, they would have been +stoved; as it was they were nearly wrecked by a balk of timber from the +explosion. It missed them by a short two fathoms, drenching them with +spray, and then the night shut down pierced by voices, voices of men +swimming and crying for help.</p> + +<p>The rowers did not know each other. The bow oar shouted to the stern. +“Is that you Larsen?”</p> + +<p>“No, Bompard, and you?”</p> + +<p>“La Touche—Row—God! Listen, there’s a chap ahead.”</p> + +<p>The cries ahead ceased, and the boat bumped on something that duddered +away under it and sank.</p> + +<p>“He’s gone, whoever he is,” cried Bompard. “No use hunting for him. +Listen, there’s more.” Voices shrill and voices bubbling came through +the blackness from here and from there. The men tried to locate them and +rowed now in this direction, now in that—always wrong. Once a voice +sudden and shrill and close to the boat cried “A moi,” and at the same +instant Bompard’s oar struck something, but they found nothing, the +voice had ceased.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_50' id='Page_50'>50</a></span></p> + +<p>They could see, now, the waves like spectres evolving themselves from +the night, a vision touching the very limit of dimness, and now as they +entered a mist patch—nothing. The voices to port and starboard were +ceasing, one by one—being blotted out. Then silence fell, broken only +by the sound of the oars. La Touche shouted and shouted again, but there +came no response. Then came Bompard’s voice. “Is that hooker gone, too?”</p> + +<p>“Curse her, yes. I was the lookout. Sailing without lights.”</p> + +<p>“This woman seems dead.”</p> + +<p>“It’s the girl. I heard her squeal out as they hove her in. Let her lie. +Well, this is a start.”</p> + +<p>“A black job, but we’re out of it, so far.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, as far as we’ve got—as far as we’ve got. Well, there’s no use +rowing, there’s no sea to hurt her, let her toss.”</p> + +<p>The oars came in and the fellows slithered from their seats on to the +bottom boards. Ballasted so the boat rode easy. They lay like shivering +dogs, grumbling and cursing and then, as they lay, the talk went on.</p> + +<p>“Mon Dieu! What a thing—but we’ve grub and water all right.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, the boats are all right for that.”</p> + +<p>There was a long silence and then La Touche began in a high complaining +voice:</p> + +<p>“I was lookout, but it was not my fault, that I swear. I saw nothing +till a big three-master<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_51' id='Page_51'>51</a></span> broke out of the smother making to cross our +bows, no lights shewing, snoring along asleep. Then I shouted. The +bridge had seen her too and put the engines full speed ahead. They’d +mistaken the distance, thought to clear her. I got aft. Hadn’t reached +the port alley way when the smash came. It was all the fault of those +fools on the bridge.”</p> + +<p>“Who knows,” came Bompard’s voice. “Things happen and what is to be must +be. Well, they’re all gone a hundred fathoms deep and here we are +drifting about with a dead woman. I’d sooner have any other cargo if I +was given my choice.”</p> + +<p>“Sure she’s dead?”</p> + +<p>“Ay, she’s dead sure enough by the way she’s lying, not a breath in +her.”</p> + +<p>Neither man suggested that she should be cast over. She ballasted the +boat, and for Bompard she was something to lean against.</p> + +<p>The French mercantile marine is divided into two great classes, the +northerners and southerners. The man from the north is a Ponantaise, the +man from the south a Moco.</p> + +<p>Bompard was a Moco, La Touche a Ponantaise. They talked and talked, +repeating themselves, cursing the “hooker,” the Bridge and the +steersman. Once La Touche, grown hysterical, seemed choking against +tears.</p> + +<p>Then after a while, conversation died out. They had nothing more to talk +about. The boat rode easy. There was nothing to do, and these men<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_52' id='Page_52'>52</a></span> blunt +to life and sea-hardened so that to them all things came in the hour’s +work, nodded off, La Touche curled up in the bow, Bompard with his +grizzled head on the breast of Mademoiselle de Bromsart.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_VI' id='CHAPTER_VI'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_53' id='Page_53'>53</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2><h3>DAWN</h3> +</div> + +<p>The girl was not dead as Bompard imagined, she had been stunned and had +passed from that condition into the pseudo-sleep that follows profound +excitement.</p> + +<p>She was awakened by a flick of spray on her face, a touch from the great +sea that had claimed her for its own.</p> + +<p>Lying as she was she could see nothing but the ribbed sides of the boat, +the grey sky above, and a gull with domed wings and down-curved head, +poised, as though suspended on the end of a string. It screamed at her, +shifted its position, and then passed, as though blown away on the wind. +She sat up. Bompard had drawn away from her and was lying curled up on +his side. La Touche on his back, forward, shewed nothing but his knees; +across the gunnel lay the sea, desolate in the dawn, turbulent, yet +hard and mournful as a view of slated roofs after rain.</p> + +<p>She had never seen the sea so close before, she had never smelt its +heart and the savour of its soul; bitter, fresh, new and ever renewed by +the blowing wind.</p> + +<p>The whole tragedy of the night was alive in her<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_54' id='Page_54'>54</a></span> mind as a picture, but +it seemed the picture of what another person had seen. Her past life, +her own personality, seemed vague and unconnected with her as the past +life and personality of another person. This was reality. Reality new, +terrific, pungent as that which the soul may experience on awakening +after death.</p> + +<p>She knew, as though the desolate sea had told her, that the great yacht +was gone and everyone on board of her; yet the fact, perhaps from its +very enormity, failed to realize itself fully in her mind. Then, in a +flash and horribly clearly, came the picture of her immediate +environment on board the <i>Gaston de Paris</i>, quite little things and +things more important: the silver-plated taps of the bath in the +bath-room, adjoining her cabin, the silk curtains of her bunk, the +hundred and one trifles that made for comfort and ease. She saw the +cabin servants and the face of the chief steward, a fat pale-faced man, +a typical <i>maître d’hôtel</i>; the dinner of the night before, when the +people seemed to her phantoms and the food, table equipage, knives, +forks and spoons, realities.</p> + +<p>All these things stood forth against the blankness and desolation of the +sea, the sea she could touch by dipping her hand over the gunnel, the +sea that had stripped her of everything but life and body, the dress and +boots she wore and the yellow oilskin coat that covered her. Her hand +resting on the gunnel shewed her that she still wore her rings, +exquisite rings of emerald, ruby and<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_55' id='Page_55'>55</a></span> diamonds, fresh washed with spray. +They held her eyes as her mind, swaying just as the boat swayed to the +swell, tried to re-construct yesterday and to feel.</p> + +<p>Horror, pity for the fate of the others, the sense of the great disaster +that had happened to the <i>Gaston de Paris</i>, of these only the latter +possessed any vitality in her mind. The feeling of unreality destroyed +her grip upon all else.</p> + +<p>Her mind was subdued to her own condition. The hard angles of the +woodwork against which she leaned and the spray upon her face, the boat +and the men in it, the sharp cut wave tops—these were real, with an +appalling reality.</p> + +<p>It was as though she had never come across a real thing before, and +across her mind came a vague, vague recognition of that great truth that +real things bruise one, eat at one, try to make one their own, once they +manage to break down the barrier of custom that separates the false from +the true; that quite common things have a power greater than the power +of mind, that only amidst the falsity of civilised life and the stage +are the properties subordinate to the persons and emotions of the +actors.</p> + +<p>At this moment Bompard, suddenly moving in his sleep, roused himself and +sat up. His rough, weather beaten face was expressionless for a moment, +then his eyes fell on the girl and recognition seemed to come to him.</p> + +<p>“Mon Dieu,” cried the old fellow as if addressing<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_56' id='Page_56'>56</a></span> some unseen person. +“’Tis all true then—” Then, as though remembering something—“but how +is mademoiselle alive?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said the girl, unconscious as to what he was referring +to. “I know you, I have seen you often on deck—who is the other man? +Oh, is it possible that we are the only people left?”</p> + +<p>Bompard, without replying, swung his head round, then he rose and came +over the thwarts. He caught La Touche by the leg.</p> + +<p>“Gaston—rouse up—the lady is alive. It’s me. Bompard.”</p> + +<p>La Touche sat up, his hair towsled, his face creased, he seemed furious +about something and pushing Bompard away stared round and round at sea +and sky as if in search of someone.</p> + +<p>“Bon Dieu,” cried La Touche. “The cursed boat.” He spat as though +something bitter were in his mouth and wiped his lips with the back of +his hand. He did not seem to care a button whether the lady were alive +or not. He had been dreaming that he was in a tavern, just raising a +glass to his mouth, and Bompard had awakened him to this.</p> + +<p>The girl could not repeat the question to which there seemed no answer, +she crawled into the stern sheets and sitting there, half bent, watched +the two men. An observer perched in the sky above might have noticed the +curious fact that on board the forsaken boat quarter deck and fo’c’sle +still held sway, that the lady was the lady and the hands<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_57' id='Page_57'>57</a></span> the hands, +that Bompard was talking in an undertone, saying to La Touche: “Come, +get alive, get alive,” and that La Touche, after his first outburst, was +holding himself in. They were old yachtsmen, no disaster could shake +that fact.</p> + +<p>La Touche, rising and taking his seat on a thwart and looking everywhere +but in the direction of the girl, as though ashamed of something, began +cutting up some tobacco in a mechanical way, whilst Bompard, on his +knees, was exploring the contents of the forward locker. La Touche was a +fair-haired man, younger than Bompard, a melancholy looking individual +who always seemed gazing at the worst of things. He spoke now as the +girl drew his attention to something far away in the east, something +sketched vaguely in the sky as though a picture lay there beyond the +haze.</p> + +<p>“Ay, that’s Kerguelen,” said La Touche.</p> + +<p>Bompard, on his knees, and with a maconochie tin in his left hand, +raised his head and looked.</p> + +<p>“Ay, that’s Kerguelen,” said Bompard.</p> + +<p>“And look,” said the girl, pointing towards Kerguelen. “Is not that the +sail of a boat, away ever so far—or is it a gull? Now it’s gone. Look, +there it is again.”</p> + +<p>Bompard looked.</p> + +<p>“I see nothing,” said he, “gull, most like—there wouldn’t be any boat +from us, they’re all gone, unless it was a boat from that hooker we +struck.”</p> + +<p>“Boat,” said La Touche with a dismal laugh. “She got no boat away, she +went down by the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_58' id='Page_58'>58</a></span> bows with the fellows like flies on her, this is the +only boat of the lot that got away.”</p> + +<p>The girl with her hand shading her eyes was still looking.</p> + +<p>“It’s gone, whatever it may have been,” said she, “can we reach the +land?”</p> + +<p>“Why, yes, mademoiselle,” said Bompard, “the wind is setting towards +there and we have a sail, I am going to step the mast now when I’ve +taken stock—well, we won’t starve. The tube is provisioned for a full +crew for a fortnight, water too, we won’t starve, that’s a fact. La +Touche, get a move on and help me with the sail.”</p> + +<p>“I’m coming,” grumbled La Touche.</p> + +<p>It seemed to the girl that the minds and the tongues and the movements +of the two men were part of some slow-acting, wooden, automatic +mechanism. Whether they reached the land or not seemed a matter almost +of indifference to them. Accustomed to people who talked much and had +much to talk about she could not understand. All this was part of the +new world in which she found herself, part of the boat itself, of the +mast, now stepped against the grey sky, the waves, the gulls, and that +tremendous outline of mountains now more visible to the east—Kerguelen. +A world of things without thought, or all but thoughtless, things that, +yet, dominated mind more profoundly than the power of mind itself.</p> + +<p>Bompard was munching a biscuit he had taken from one of the bread bags +as he worked. She<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_59' id='Page_59'>59</a></span> noticed the bag, its texture, and the words +“Traversal—Toulon” stamped on it. The maconochie tin which he had +placed on a seat and a tin of beef with a Libby label held her eyes as +though they were things new and extraordinary. They were. They were +food. She had never seen food before, food as it really is, the barrier +between life and death, food naked and stripped of all pretence.</p> + +<p>Bompard coming aft with the sheet shipped the tiller, and, taking his +seat by the girl, put the boat before the wind. La Touche, who had taken +his seat on the after thwart, was engaged in opening the tin of beef. +The girl scarcely noticed him. She was experiencing a new sensation, the +sensation of sailing with the wind and the run of the swell. The boat, +from a dead thing tossing on the waves, had suddenly become a thing +alive, buoyant, eager and full of purpose, silent, too, for the slapping +and buffeting of the water against the planking had ceased. Running thus +with the wind and swell there was no opposition, everything was with +her.</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s beef,” said La Touche who had managed to open the Libby tin, +“it might be worse.”</p> + +<p>He dug out a piece with his knife and presented it to the girl with a +biscuit, then he helped Bompard and himself, then he scrambled forward, +leaving his beef and biscuit on the thwart, and reappeared with a +pannikin of water; it was handed to the lady first.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_60' id='Page_60'>60</a></span></p> + +<p>The food seemed to loose their tongues. It was as though the caste +difference had been broken by the act of eating together.</p> + +<p>“I’d never thought to set tooth in a biscuit again when that smash came +last night,” said Bompard addressing no one in particular.</p> + +<p>“I wasn’t thinking of biscuits,” said La Touche, “I was bowled over in +the alley-way. You see, I was running, so it took me harder. What set me +running I don’t know, my legs took care of themselves—I was just +leaning like this, see, on the look out and between two blinks there was +the hooker crossing our course or making that way. She’ll clear us, +maybe, said I to myself, then the engines went full speed and I knew we +were done. Then I cleared aft, running, with no thought in my mind but +to get out of the way, dark, too, but I didn’t barge against nothing, +till the smash came, and I went truck over keel in the alley-way.”</p> + +<p>“I was coming up the cabin stairs,” said Cléo, “and something seemed to +knock me down. Then when I got on deck the light was put on and I saw a +great ship on the right hand side; she seemed sinking, but I read her +name, she was quite close. Then the light went out and someone caught me +and threw me—I don’t know where, but it must have been into this boat.”</p> + +<p>“That was it,” said Bompard, talking and eating at the same time, “us +two was in the boat.”</p> + +<p>“I thought it was Larsen,” cut in La Touche. “Larsen helped me to get +the canvas off her, that<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_61' id='Page_61'>61</a></span> was when the electric was on—what became of +Larsen?”</p> + +<p>“Lord knows,” said Bompard. “I scrambled into her just as the light was +shut off, then the chaps on deck chucked the lady in. Next thing we were +fending her off from the ship. I was shouting to the chaps on deck to +jump and we’d pick them up, we’d got the oars out then. I tell you I was +fuddled up for I’d got it in my head that the hooker was to port of us +though I’d seen her with my own eyes to starboard. I was thinking we’d +be taken down with the suck of her and I was bent on getting ahead of +her.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t hear you shouting to the fellows on deck,” said La Touche, +“but I heard you shouting to me to row. Then when we’d got her away a +bit the <i>Gaston</i> blew up.”</p> + +<p>“Blew up,” said the girl.</p> + +<p>“The boilers,” said Bompard, “they lifted the decks off her. She must +have gone like a stone.”</p> + +<p>“So you think no one at all escaped but us?”</p> + +<p>Neither of the men replied for a moment, then La Touche said: “There +wasn’t another boat could have got away.”</p> + +<p>The sun was well risen now, the clouds were high and breaking and the +far away land shewed up, vast in the distance, with a white line of +snow-covered peaks against the sky, desolate as when Kerguelen first +sighted them.</p> + +<p>Cléo with her eyes fixed across the leagues of tumbling tourmaline +tinted sea almost forgot the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_62' id='Page_62'>62</a></span> others. That was the place where the wind +was bearing them to, a place where there was nothing. Neither hotels nor +houses nor huts, nor men nor women, a place where no landing-stage would +receive them, no voice welcome them. Her throat worked for a second +convulsively as she battled with the quite new things that the far off +mountains were telling her.</p> + +<p>It was now and not till now that she recognised fully what Fate had done +to her. It was now and not till now that she saw Time before her as a +thing from which all the known features had been deleted.</p> + +<p>“Mademoiselle’s bath is quite ready.”</p> + +<p>“Mademoiselle, the first gong has sounded.”</p> + +<p>Oh, the day—the day with its hundred phases and divisions, the +breakfast hour, the luncheon hour, the hour that brought afternoon tea, +the dresses that went with each phase, the emotions and interests, and +changing forms of being, the day which made a person change to its light +and the person of ten o’clock in the morning quite different from the +person of noon—this thing which we talk of as the day appeared before +her now as what it really is, life itself, as civilized men know life, a +thing outside ourselves yet of ourselves and without which the circling +of the sun is as the circling of a pointer on a blank dial—. This thing +was gone.</p> + +<p>La Touche had got more forward and was smoking and, though the wind was +with them, a faint<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_63' id='Page_63'>63</a></span> scent of tobacco smoke came on the spill of the wind +from the sail. Bompard was chewing, spitting occasionally to starboard +and wiping his mouth with the back of his bronzed tattooed hand.</p> + +<p>The vague scent of the tobacco threaded up all sorts of things in the +girl’s mind: Madame de Warens, the streets of Paris, the deck of the +yacht. She remembered the piece of embroidery work she had been engaged +on last night, and then a scrap of conversation she had overheard +between the doctor and the artist towards the end of dinner, they were +talking of the passéistes and futurists, of the work of Pablo Picasso, +of Sunyer, of Boccioni and Durio, arguing with extraordinary passion +about the work of these people.</p> + +<p>“There’s weather or something over there,” said La Touche who had +slipped down and was seated on the bottom boards with his back to a +thwart; he nodded his head towards Kerguelen.</p> + +<p>Around one of the highest peaks a lead-coloured cloud had wrapped itself +turban-wise, and even as they looked the cloud turban increased in +volume and height, mournful and monstrous as some djin-born vision of +the Arabian story-tellers.</p> + +<p>“That’s snow,” said Bompard, “and by the twist of it it’s in a +whirlwind.”</p> + +<p>“Bon Dieu, what a place,” said La Touche.</p> + +<p>“You may say that,” said Bompard, “but that’s nothing, it’s when we come +to make a landing we’ll find what we are against.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_64' id='Page_64'>64</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, we’ve got so far we’ll finish it,” said La Touche.</p> + +<p>Then began a dismal argument, full of words and repetitions but with few +ideas, and from the trend of it the curious fact appeared that La +Touche, the ship’s grouser and dismal James, was taking the optimistical +side, whilst Bompard, generally cheerful, was the pessimist.</p> + +<p>La Touche’s optimism was, perhaps, the outcome of fear. What they had +gone through was nothing to the prospect of having to make a landing on +that tremendous coast, simply because what they had gone through had +come on them suddenly. This thing had to be faced in cold blood. The +coward in La Touche refused to face it fully, refused to face the fact +that with this swell and with all the chances of uncharted and unknown +reefs and rocks the risk was appalling. He grew angry.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be a coward over it,” said he. That set Bompard off, and for a +moment the girl thought they would have come to blows. Then it passed +and they were as friendly as before, just as though nothing had +happened.</p> + +<p>Their talk and the whole business had been conducted as though the girl +were not there. In the few hours since daybreak, quarter deck and +fo’c’sle had vanished. They had become welded into one community, all +equal, and the lady was no longer the lady. There was no hint of +disrespect, no hint of respect. They were all equal, equal sharers in +the chances of the sea.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_65' id='Page_65'>65</a></span></p> + +<p>More, the sex standard seemed to have vanished with the social. Nothing +remained but the human, for that is the rule with the open boat at sea.</p> + +<p>When they lowered the sail for screening purposes, when they raised it +again, it was all the same, for the human level is above all little +things.</p> + +<p>Towards noon and with the coast now closer and well-defined, La Touche +sighted something ahead. It was a rock, high and pointed like a black +spire protruding from the sea and standing there like an outpost of the +land.</p> + +<p>“Had we better give it a wide berth?” asked La Touche. “Maybe there’s +more near it.”</p> + +<p>“The sea is running smooth enough by it,” said Bompard. “I don’t see +breakers, and we don’t draw anything to speak of.” He held on.</p> + +<p>The sun was shewing through breaks in the high clouds and its light fell +on the water and the rock, pied with roosting guillemots. As the boat +drew near the guillemots gave tongue. The sound came against the wind +fierce and complaining, antagonistic like the voice of loneliness crying +out against them and telling them to be gone—be gone—be gone!</p> + +<p>Cléo, as they passed, saw the green water sliding up and falling from +the polished black rock surface. The sight seemed to bring the hostile +coast leagues nearer and the bagpipe crying of the guillemots as it died +away behind them seemed a barrier passed, never to be re-crossed.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_VII' id='CHAPTER_VII'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_66' id='Page_66'>66</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2><h3>THE COAST</h3> +</div> + +<p>And now, away at sea and leagues from the coast they were approaching, +vast islands disclosed themselves suddenly through the sea haze, +standing like giants waist deep in the ocean, whilst the coast itself +with its cliffs and rocks of black basalt and dolerite shewed clear, +extraordinarily clear, with every detail defined in the sunlight, from +the rifts in the basalt to the gulls blowing about in legions and the +great sea-geese hovering and fishing.</p> + +<p>The coast was ferocious, and the whole country from the sea foam to the +foothills looked tumbled and new, with the newness of infinite +antiquity. The last thunders of creation seemed scarcely to have died +away, the last throe scarcely to have ceased, leaving million-ton rock +cast on rock and the new, shear-cut cliffs spitting back their first +taste of the bitter sea.</p> + +<p>“There is nowhere to land,” said the girl. She was shuddering as a dog +shudders when overstrung.</p> + +<p>“Ay, it’s a brute beast of a place,” said Bompard, “well, we must nose +along on the lookout. There’s no coast but hasn’t some landing-place<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_67' id='Page_67'>67</a></span> +where a boat can push in. Y’See it’s not like a ship. A boat can go +where a ship can’t.”</p> + +<p>He shifted the helm a bit, keeping the coast parallel to them on the +starboard side.</p> + +<p>“Might those islands be better to go to?” asked she, “they couldn’t be +worse than that.”</p> + +<p>La Touche suddenly grew excited. “Bon Dieu,” cried he, “what a thing to +be saying! Those islands, nothing but rocks—nothing but rocks. Here +there is land, at all events, good land one can put one’s foot on; out +there there’s nothing but rocks. Rather than go out there I would swim +ashore—I would—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, close up,” said Bompard, “don’t talk about swimming—maybe you’ll +have to.”</p> + +<p>“One can always drown,” said La Touche.</p> + +<p>It was Bompard who next broke the silence.</p> + +<p>“I’ve been over cliffs worse than those, for gulls eggs,” said he, “take +one coast with another, coasts are pretty much the same, you get bad +bits and easy bits, that is all.”</p> + +<p>La Touche said nothing.</p> + +<p>As they drew on the great islands out at sea ranged themselves more +definitely and the tremendous coast to starboard shewed more clearly its +deep cut canons, its sea arches and absolute desolation.</p> + +<p>The sea had fallen, though the wind still held steady, and this surface +calmness, under-run by a gentle swell, served only to emphasize the +vastness of the view. The island seemed immensely remote and immense in +size, the far snow-covered mountains<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_68' id='Page_68'>68</a></span> the mountains of a land where +giants had lived and from which they had departed countless ages ago.</p> + +<p>Oyster catches passed the boat with their melancholy cry, but the +fishing gannets and the swimming puffins seemed scarcely to heed the +intruders. Puffins swimming a biscuit toss away as though they had never +learned the fear of man.</p> + +<p>They had drawn nearer shore so that the boom of the swell in the caves +and on the rocks came to them with the crying of the shore birds; +passing a headland like a vast lizard they opened a beach curved like +the new moon and seven miles from horn to horn.</p> + +<p>“There’s our landing-place,” cried Bompard, “big enough to pick and +choose from.”</p> + +<p>“Lord!” shouted La Touche. “Look over there—moving rocks!”</p> + +<p>He pointed half a mile away to seaward.</p> + +<p>Bompard looked.</p> + +<p>“Those crest rocks, they’re whales,” said he.</p> + +<p>A pair of whales shewed, standing up, coupling in the chill blue grey +water, a miraculous sight, as though they had entered a world where the +original things of life still moved and had their being untroubled by +man and untouched by Time.</p> + +<p>Bompard shifted the helm, and the boat, heading for the shore and no +longer running before the wind, moved less easily, shipping an +occasional dash of spray.</p> + +<p>The change of movement, the dash of spray,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_69' id='Page_69'>69</a></span> the altered course were to +the girl like the turning of a corner. Running with the wind and with a +parallel shore the boat was the world and the coast and island a +panorama. With the twist of the helm Reality made the coast a +destination. Up to this moment the uncertainty of whether they could +land had held her mind, up to this moment all sorts of vague +possibilities, the chance of meeting a ship, the chance of being blown +out to sea, the chance of this or that had come between her and the +realisation of the fact that this prison was hers.</p> + +<p>The monstrosity of the idea stood fully revealed only now on that beach +where there was nothing but sand, nothing but rocks, nothing but gulls. +Close in now Bompard let go the sheet and they unstepped the mast, the +boat rocking in the trough of the swell. Then they got the oars out.</p> + +<p>As they bent to their work and over the creak of the leather in the +rowlocks the rumble and fume of the seven mile beach came mixed with the +yelping and mewing of the gulls. The boat made slow progress, then a few +yards from the surf line it hung for a moment till the rowers suddenly +gave way and moving like a relieved arrow she came on the crest of a +wave, then the oars came in with a crash and the two men tumbling out +dragged her nose high and dry. They helped the girl out and as they +pulled the boat higher she stood, the wind flicking her oilskin coat +about her and the spindrift blowing in her face.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_70' id='Page_70'>70</a></span></p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_72' id='Page_72'>72</a></span></p> +<h2>PART II</h2> + +<hr class='minor' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_VIII' id='CHAPTER_VIII'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_73' id='Page_73'>73</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2><h3>THE AWAKENING</h3> +</div> + +<p>The great beach of Kerguelen shews above tide mark long stretches where +no sand is, only rock. Basalt planed and smoothed by the seas of +countless ages, level as a ball-room floor and broken by rifts and pot +holes, between tide marks these pot holes serve as traps for all sorts +of sea creatures. Once the waves must have beaten right up to the low +and broken basalt cliffs full of caves floored with sand, but volcanic +action raising the beach has pushed the tide mark out leaving a shore +varying in width from half a mile to a few hundred yards.</p> + +<p>This is the breeding place of the sea elephant. Half way between the +lizard point and the point further to the east a river comes down +disembarging through three months; on the banks of this river is the +seal nursery where in summer the young sea elephants tumble and play and +take their swimming lessons, whilst the mothers lie on rocks and the +fathers fish and hunt and fight in battles, the roaring of which +resounds for miles. Here the penguins drill and hold councils and law +courts and marry and get divorced and hold political meetings, here the +rabbits play and the terns foregather,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_74' id='Page_74'>74</a></span> and here the winds that blow +from everywhere but the east, hunt and yell and pile in winter a twenty +foot sea that breaks in seven miles of thunder under seven miles of +spray thick as the smoke of battle.</p> + +<p>Duck and teal haunt the place and gulls of nearly every known kind snow +it and flick it with movement. Yet above the thunder of the waves and +the cries of the birds and the shouting of the winds when they blow, +there hangs a silence—the silence of the remote and prehistoric. The +living world of men seems cut off from here by far away doors and +forever.</p> + +<p>After supper they had explored the cave mouths in the cliff opposite to +where the boat had beached. There were three caves just here. One was +impracticable owing to water dripping from the roof, but the other two, +floored with hard sand, were good enough for shelter. The men had stowed +the provisions and themselves in the western mast giving the girl the +other and the boat sail for a pillow.</p> + +<p>It was old Bompard who thought of the latter. La Touche seemed to have +no thought for any one or anything but himself. He grumbled all the time +during supper, grumbled at the fact that there was no stuff to make a +fire with, that they had nothing warm to drink, that some time soon +their tobacco must run out. It seemed to Cléo as she lay with her head +on the hard sailcloth and her body on the hard sand, covered with the +oilskin<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_75' id='Page_75'>75</a></span> coat which she had taken off to use as a blanket, that through +the league long rumble of the surf she could hear him grumbling still. +She did not care. Hard though the floor was she did not mind, she was +chloroformed. Chloroformed by the air of Kerguelen. The air that fills +the lungs with life, keeps a man going all day with an energy and +buoyancy unknown elsewhere and then fells him with sleep.</p> + +<p>She awoke when the whale birds had ceased crying, just after dawn, awoke +fresh and new and full of life. She felt none of that troubled surprise +which comes when the mind has to adjust itself to the new situation on +awakening for the first time after a great disaster. It was as though +her mind had already adjusted itself and discounted everything.</p> + +<p>She rose up and leaving the oilskin coat and sou’wester on the floor of +the cave came out on to the beach.</p> + +<p>The fine weather still held and the day was strong, now lighting the +beach, the sea, and the distant islands through a sky of high, grey +eastward drifting clouds. The boat lay where it had been pulled up, the +tide now coming in and legions of birds were flitting and blowing about +and stalking on the sands as far as eye could reach.</p> + +<p>She came to the cave where the men were. Bompard and La Touche lying on +their backs might have been dead but for the sound of their snoring. +Bompard was lying with his wrist across his eyes,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_76' id='Page_76'>76</a></span> La Touche with both +hands beside him, clenched. The tins of beef and the bread bags shewed +vaguely in the gloom behind them.</p> + +<p>She stood for a moment watching them and then, turning, she came down to +the boat lying high and dry on the sand. She was trying to realize, that +on the morning of the day before yesterday at this hour she had been +lying in her bunk on board the <i>Gaston de Paris</i>, to realize this and +also the fact that her present position seemed scarcely strange.</p> + +<p>She ought, so she told herself, to be astonished at what had happened +and to be bewailing her fate, yet, looking back now over yesterday and +the day before, everything seemed part of a level and logical sequence, +almost like the events of a stormy day on board ship. The tragedy of the +destruction of the <i>Gaston</i> only partly experienced could not be fully +felt.</p> + +<p>Standing by the boat she tried to realize it and failed, tried to grasp +what she knew to be the horror and pity of it, and failed. She was +neither hard nor insensible, she simply could not grasp it.</p> + +<p>And her position here with two rough men, very little food and little +chance of escape, how she would have pitied herself a few days ago could +she have foreseen! Yet here, with the firm sands under her feet and the +wind blowing in her face, reality, instead of hurting her as it had done +in the boat on awakening yesterday morning, soothed her and reassured +her. Everything seemed firm<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_77' id='Page_77'>77</a></span> again and the fear that the ugly coast had +raised in her mind had vanished.</p> + +<p>She came along the beach looking at the gulls, turned over huge +star-fish and picked up kelp ribbons to examine them. Half a mile or so +from the cave she was about to turn back when her eye caught a strange +appearance on the sea, hundreds and hundreds of moving points drawing in +to the shore, white and black points like a shoal of fish only half +submerged. It was a fleet of swimming birds.</p> + +<p>She sat down on the sand to watch as they took the shore with a rush +through the foam. Then, safely beached, the fleet became an army of +penguins. She had seen pictures of penguins so she knew what they were +and she had read Anatole France’s “Penquin Island”—these, then, were +the real things and she watched them fascinated as one who sees +storyland taking visible and concrete form.</p> + +<p>The penguins formed line, broke into companies, drilled a bit and then +began to move up the beach.</p> + +<p>The figure of the girl did not seem to disturb them in the least.</p> + +<p>One company passed to the left, one to the right, whilst that +immediately fronting her halted a few feet away and saluted her, bowing +like little old-fashioned men in black swallow-tail coats and immaculate +shirt fronts, little old-fashioned men with sharp quizzical eyes, +polished, humorous, polite and entirely friendly.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_78' id='Page_78'>78</a></span></p> + +<p>The company on the right wheeled to examine her as did the company on +the left, so that she found herself almost in a hollow square. Wherever +she turned there were birds bowing to her or things in the semblance of +birds, absolutely fearless, so close that she could have touched them +had she carried a walking-stick.</p> + +<p>She rose up to allow them to pass and they went on like mechanical +things wound up and released, forming line again and seeming to forget +her.</p> + +<p>She remembered the guillemots and their rudeness and the way they had +stormed and jeered at the boat—did all that mean more than the +politeness and friendliness of the penguins? If she were lying dead +would not the guillemots pass her without enmity and the penguins +without friendliness, as indifferent to her fate as the wave of the sea +on the blowing wind?</p> + +<p>They would—as indifferent as the great islands standing out there in +the distance, mauve and slate grey against the morning. As she came back +along the beach her mind was battling with a problem that had suddenly +risen. She had neither brush nor comb nor glass. Her hair was beautiful +and she loved it. Her face was beautiful but she did not love it, it was +herself, she could not view it from an independent standpoint, but she +could view her hair almost as impartially as a dress and she loved it +with the strange passion that women have for things of texture.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_79' id='Page_79'>79</a></span></p> + +<p>The hair of Cléo de Bromsart had been waited upon like a divinity by +many a priestess in the form of a maid. It had been dressed and +shampooed and treated by artists and adepts, the hours of brushing alone +if put together would have made a terrific total. The result was +perfection, and even now, after all she had gone through, it shewed +scarcely disarrangement, lustrous and beautiful, dressed with artful +simplicity in the Greek style and outlining the perfect curves of her +head.</p> + +<p>The wind was blowing now in gusto from the sea, but she scarcely noticed +it as she walked, facing the problem that shipwreck had put before her, +a problem the first of a long queue ranging from soap to a change of +garments.</p> + +<p>She was fighting it and at the same time battling with the strengthening +wind when suddenly something sprang on her with the yell of a tiger and +flung her on the sand, pinning her there.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_IX' id='CHAPTER_IX'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_80' id='Page_80'>80</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2><h3>THE WOOLEY</h3> +</div> + +<p>It was the wind. The Wooley, which is the fist of Kerguelen suddenly +clenched and hitting out from the shoulder of the great islands now +suddenly stormed about with foam and veiled in spray.</p> + +<p>Half stunned, she twisted round, still lying but fronting it now with +her arm protecting her face. The beach had loudened up in thunder from +end to end but the yelling Wooley as it met the cliffs and howled inland +almost drowned the thunder of the waves. Then it died down as suddenly +as it had come, and the boom of the surf rose high, as the girl, +gathering herself together, got up and struggled on.</p> + +<p>She was no longer thinking of her hair. It was the first lesson of the +school of Kerguelen. “Here you shall think of nothing but the moment, of +the ground beneath your feet, of the bite you put in your mouth, of the +rock that stands before you.”</p> + +<p>When she reached the cave with her petticoats thrusting about her she +was met by the two men and as she came up to them La Touche was cursing +the wind. The Wooley had all but blown him down too. He had got up +sooner than Bompard<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_81' id='Page_81'>81</a></span> and had received the full face of it “in the pit of +the stomach.” He seemed to look on it as a personal matter affecting him +alone.</p> + +<p>Even as he spoke a sudden calm fell, lasted for a moment, and was +followed by a howl from inland.</p> + +<p>At a stroke the wind had changed right round and was blowing now from +the mountains. Here in the shelter of the cliffs they scarcely felt it +but the shift had raised an appalling cross sea. Right away to the +islands there was nothing but tumbling foam, waves standing up and +fighting waves in a battle that spread for leagues.</p> + +<p>“It’s well for us we didn’t fall in with this yesterday,” said Bompard +“a ship couldn’t stand it.”</p> + +<p>“And what ship will ever poke her nose in here to take us off do you +think?” asked La Touche. “This is what you get every day of the week, if +all accounts are true—this, and worse. I tell you we’ve come to the +wrong place. There’s no getting over it. We’ve come to the wrong place.”</p> + +<p>“Well, right or wrong, here we are,” said Bompard “Mon Dieu! to hear you +talk you’d think we’d come here on purpose—come, get a move on and +let’s have some grub.”</p> + +<p>He turned into the cave and they fetched out the can of beef they had +opened yesterday, some biscuits, and a water breaker, and sitting at the +cave mouth they ate just as the men of the Stone Age ate, with the palms +of their hands for plates and their fingers for forks. They spoke +scarcely<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_82' id='Page_82'>82</a></span> at all. The ill-humor of La Touche seemed like a contagious +disease, even Bompard, the imperturbable, seemed glum.</p> + +<p>It was the girl who broke the strain.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she began to speak as if giving voice to carefully thought out +ideas. Yet what she said was absolutely spontaneous, the result of a +quick, educated mind suddenly grasping the essentials of their position, +suggestion breeding suggestion.</p> + +<p>“There’s no use in grumbling,” said she. “That wind knocked me down as I +was coming along the beach. I didn’t grumble, and there is no use in +thinking. I was thinking as I walked along that I had no brush and comb +to do my hair with, you two have short hair and you can’t imagine what +it is to a person with long hair when they find themselves without a +brush and comb. I was grumbling to myself about it when the wind knocked +me down. I want just to tell you what is in my mind: we will die or go +mad if we do not forget everything as much as we can and not think of +to-morrow or yesterday or ships coming to take us off. We have to fight +all sorts of things that don’t care in the least for us and we have to +work. Everything here is at work in its own way. Well, we must do as +everything else does or die.”</p> + +<p>“It’s easy to say work,” said La Touche munching a biscuit, “but what is +one to work at?”</p> + +<p>“We want food for one thing, our provisions won’t last forever.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_83' id='Page_83'>83</a></span></p> + +<p>“There’s rabbits enough,” said Bompard. “Remember those rabbits we saw +running out on the beach last evening?”</p> + +<p>“I can snare rabbits all right,” said La Touche, “but where’s the wire +to make snares with—see—we’re caught everywhere.”</p> + +<p>“Wait,” said Bompard.</p> + +<p>He got up and went down to the boat, hunted in one of the lockers and +returned with a spool of wire.</p> + +<p>He flung it at La Touche.</p> + +<p>“There’s your wire,” said he.</p> + +<p>Cléo’s eyes brightened. The spool of wire seemed to her a fruit suddenly +born from her words; she had accomplished something, it was perhaps the +first real accomplishment in her life.</p> + +<p>“Where did you get it from?” asked La Touche.</p> + +<p>“The forward locker,” replied Bompard.</p> + +<p>“Are there any other things in the locker?” asked the girl.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mon Dieu, yes,” replied the old fellow. “There’s a lot of truck, +but it’s no use to us.”</p> + +<p>“Let’s go and see,” said Cléo. She rose up and came down the beach +followed by the others. The wind from the mountains died away but the +sea torment remained and, though the tide was beginning to ebb, the +spray of the waves almost reached the boat.</p> + +<p>It had been listed to one side by the Wooley but was undamaged and the +forward locker was still open as it had been left by the careless +Bompard.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_84' id='Page_84'>84</a></span></p> + +<p>It was one of the boats used for fishing and deep sea work, hence the +contents of the locker.</p> + +<p>The steel head of a two pronged fish spear, a fisherman’s knife in its +sheath with belt, a paternoster, invaluable for the fathoms of fishing +line attached, a small American axe with the head vaselined, a canvas +housewife with sail-needles, a few darning needles and some pack thread, +and a number of odds and ends including some extra heavy lead sinkers.</p> + +<p>Bompard looked on apathetically and La Touche stood with his hands in +his pockets as the girl fished the things out one by one, placing them, +some on the sands and some on the thwarts of the boat.</p> + +<p>The things seemed to have no interest for the men. Accustomed all their +lives to being looked after as far as shelter and food were concerned +they seemed absolutely helpless in front of new conditions. Men are like +that, especially men of the people, and when you read of Crusoes and +their wonderful doings on desert islands you read Romance.</p> + +<p>The quick, trained mind of the girl seemed to see clearly where they +could scarcely see at all, she had imagination and she was a woman—that +is to say a being more gifted than man, with prevision in affairs purely +material.</p> + +<p>Bompard did not see any use in the axe and said so. The girl, with her +hand resting on the gunnel of the boat, stood like a housekeeper trying +to explain<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_85' id='Page_85'>85</a></span> to a mere male creature the use of some household implement.</p> + +<p>“We will want a fire and an axe will chop wood,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Ay, and where are you to get the wood?” asked La Touche. “There’s not a +tree on this blasted place, nor the sign of one.”</p> + +<p>“Well, we’ll have to look—there may be trees inland—there’s sure to be +bushes of some sort—anyhow we will take these things up to the cave, +they will be safer there.”</p> + +<p>The baling tin of the boat caught her eye, she included it amongst her +prizes.</p> + +<p>This baling tin, like a psychological instrument, exhibited the mind of +Bompard as though that said mind had been scooped out and placed in it.</p> + +<p>To him it was a baling tin; here there were no boats to be baled +out—where was the use of it?</p> + +<p>To the woman it was a possible pot to boil things in if they could get a +fire and things to boil.</p> + +<p>She explained and Bompard saw the light. La Touche saw it, too, but +promptly pointed out that they had no fire and nothing to boil. He +seemed to find an odious satisfaction in the fact, a satisfaction which +Bompard faintly reflected, and for a moment the girl seemed to glimpse +in the two men a lethargy of mind almost unthinkable. A lethargy and +laziness, mulish, and kicking at anything that disturbed it, that +actually fought against betterment because betterment meant exercise of +intellect and action.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_86' id='Page_86'>86</a></span></p> + +<p>She felt angry with them, just as a grown person feels angry with lazy +children, and putting the belt with the knife round her waist and +picking up some of her treasures she ordered the others to follow with +the rest.</p> + +<p>When they had been placed in the cave with the provisions, Bompard, +after his great labours, cut himself some tobacco and La Touche lit his +pipe. Then they sat down at their cave opening to smoke and rest +themselves whilst the girl, who could not keep still, went back to the +boat to explore the other lockers and see if by chance anything else of +a useful nature might be found. The two men seated smoking at the cave +mouth watched her as she went. She felt their eyes upon her and guessed +that they were discussing her, but she did not mind.</p> + +<p>The ceaseless activity of old Madame de Warens seemed to have descended +on her through the air of Kerguelen. The will that Prince Selm had +divined in her had been aroused; the surroundings seemed to call her to +action from every side; the past and the future seemed phantoms before +the tremendous and insistent present. Fate could perhaps have broken her +spirit only in one way, by casting her upon the sordid. If she had been +socially shipwrecked and thrown onto a Paris slum she might have gone +under. Here where everything was clean, where the air was life, where +nothing was sordid, she swam; here she was miraculously filled with a +new energy and an extraordinary new interest as<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_87' id='Page_87'>87</a></span> though she were peeping +at things for the very first time.</p> + +<p>The forward locker was now empty, she hunted in the others and +discovered two more Maconochie tins that Bompard had overlooked, some +cotton waste, a roll of thick copper wire and a bradawl.</p> + +<p>She collected the lot and brought them up to the cave before which her +companions were seated.</p> + +<p>She handed them to La Touche, who, without getting up, leaned back and +pushed them as far into the cave as he could reach, then he resumed his +pipe whilst Cléo standing and shading her eyes looked away up and down +the beach as though measuring its possibilities.</p> + +<p>“I found a lot of things down there this morning before the tide was +high,” said she. “There were star-fish, big ones like what I have seen +on the beach at Bordighera; the Italian people eat them. I’m sure there +must be lots of food to be found here on the beach. Then there is a big +break in the cliffs lower down that seems to lead inland. I think the +best thing we can do is to start now and hunt about and see what we can +find. You two can go inland, and I will go along the beach. It’s +absolutely necessary to find any sort of food, and wood to make a fire.”</p> + +<p>The smokers were disposed to argue.</p> + +<p>Yes, it was quite true, one must look round, but there was grub enough +for a month and there was plenty of time before them. Then La Touche +began to argue about star-fish. He had never<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_88' id='Page_88'>88</a></span> heard of people eating +star-fish. If they were to be condemned to eat stuff like that it would +be better to quit. One might have fancied from his tone that it was +Cléo’s fault that such a suggestion should be made.</p> + +<p>Cléo listened patiently and Bompard sat evidently approving. It was +almost as though the two were in league against her, just as children +get in league against an adult who insists on unpleasant duties or +uncongenial food.</p> + +<p>But a will was at work stronger than theirs and presently, tapping out +their pipes, they rose up. La Touche, at her direction, placed the new +found Maconochie tins, the cotton waste, the bradawl and wire with the +rest of the stores, far back in the cave, and then, following her, they +lumbered along down the beach in the direction of the cliff break like +two schoolboys after a governess.</p> + +<p>The cliff break was a narrow gully piercing the basalt and bending upon +itself; here they parted, the men striking up the gulley and the girl +continuing her way along the beach.</p> + +<p>“And be sure to look out for some wood,” she cried after them, “any sort +of wood.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, ay,” said Bompard, “we’ll be on the look out right enough.”</p> + +<p>Then they vanished and she pursued her way alone, picking up things as +she went, turning over shells and thinking of her companions.</p> + +<p>The wind had fanned up again to a strong breeze but the sound of the +surf had fallen with the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_89' id='Page_89'>89</a></span> receding tide and the stretch of wet sand +below high tide mark was strewn with huge kelp ribbons, masses of +seaweed, shells, all empty, cuttle fish bones and the star-fish +despised of La Touche.</p> + +<p>Then she came upon something that gave her a grue, it seemed at first +like a white rock, it was a skull. The skull of some enormous creature +half-bedded in the sand just above the tide mark, possibly cast up in +some storm. She thought it might be the skull of a whale and as she +stood looking at it, suddenly, the desolation around came in upon her +with the fact that she was absolutely alone.</p> + +<p>Suppose the men lost their way—suppose that they never came back? The +thought clutched her heart like a hand. To be here, alone, absolutely +alone, forever!</p> + +<p>For a moment panic seized her and the wild impulse came upon her to turn +and run back to the cave. Then she mastered herself, fighting down the +surging in her throat, and continuing her way steadily and with renewed +strength. She had not cast the thought away, she had mastered it and as +she went she contemplated it as a victor contemplates the dead body of +an assailant.</p> + +<p>Then she saw the penguins, she had not noticed them before, they were +drawn up in long lines at the base of the cliff and the sight of them +destroyed the desolation just as the skull had crystallized it around +her.</p> + +<p>A great pow-wow was going on amongst the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_90' id='Page_90'>90</a></span> penguins. Three birds, +separate from the others, were standing, two facing one another bowing +and discussing something, the third standing by, putting in a word now +and then and now and then coming right between the disputants.</p> + +<p>She watched them for awhile and then went on. She had no time to waste. +The thought of coming back empty handed after all her talk to the men +pursued her. She was looking for food and had found none—nothing but +the star-fish.</p> + +<p>The gulls evidently found plenty of food. But for a human being there +seemed nothing, and as she went on and on the thought of what would +happen when those tins in the cave were empty came at her just as the +terror of finding herself alone had come, and this thought was not to be +combated by an effort of will simply because it was born of Reason.</p> + +<p>Her clear and practical mind saw starvation, over-leaped the slender +food barrier that held hunger only a month away from them and wandered +in a wilderness where nothing was.</p> + +<p>She had reached the rock surface now that stretched away level and +smooth, broken by cracks and pot holes and strewn here and there with +weed. The cliffs had fallen away, giving a view of the broken country +and the mountains with their snow-covered tops, immense, wrapped in +distance under the dull grey day, remote, yet clearly defined in that +air, crystal clear as the air of Iceland.</p> + +<p>It was like looking at Silence herself, silence<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_91' id='Page_91'>91</a></span> set off and explained +by the beach noises, the sound of the surf, the calling of the terns, +the mewing of the great white gulls.</p> + +<p>She saw Kerguelen as it is, as it was, as it ever will be. Standing +there alone she saw it for the first time in all its utter nakedness. If +no food were to be found on the busy beach, what food could be found in +that carved, silent, cruel land where not a single tree shewed in all +the miles of desolation?</p> + +<p>A stealthy scraping sound behind her made her wheel round.</p> + +<p>Up from a rock pond which she had passed without examining had risen a +crab, its body was not bigger than the two fists of a man put together, +yet it moved standing high up like a spider on slender stilts that if +stretched out would have measured four feet or more. She watched it with +dilated eyes as it scrambled and hurried along, vanishing at last like a +spectre in some cleft of the rock. There was something of a skeleton +about it as well as something of a spider, it was like a caricature of +food drawn by Famine. It made the whole beach hideous for a moment and +it made the food hunter almost afraid to go on. She crushed the fear and +went on, reaching a place where the rocks ceased and a broad level of +sand stretched to where the rocks began again and further on the river +ran down.</p> + +<p>Where the sand met the further rocks a huge conical stone stood with a +gull roosting on its top,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_92' id='Page_92'>92</a></span> and just as a person fixes on some object as +the limit of his walk she determined to go as far as this stone and then +turn back.</p> + +<p>As she drew close to it the gull flapped its wings and flew away and she +saw that the thing was not a stone but the figure-head of a ship, the +form of a woman with ample breasts, broken and scarred by years of +weather and stained with the droppings of gulls. The arms were gone, but +the great face remained almost in its entirety staring away across the +sands and the sea.</p> + +<p>It had once worn a crown, but the crown was broken away all but a little +bit on the left side of the head and it had an appearance of life that +almost daunted the girl as she stood looking, watching it, and listening +to the singing sound of the beach echoes and the mewing and crying of +the gulls.</p> + +<p>Then as she moved closer her foot struck on something half buried in the +sand, it was a balk of timber, ships timber was all about, sanded over, +and in places half uncovered. Here was firewood enough for twenty years. +In the figure-head alone there was enough to supply their wants for a +long time to come.</p> + +<p>She sat down to rest on a projecting piece of this timber near the +figure. Close up to it like this it lost its touch of life and became +simply a block of wood, and from this point she could see the beach over +which she had travelled stretching away and away to the Lizard Point +with the foam breaking<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_93' id='Page_93'>93</a></span> around it and flown about by the never-resting +gulls.</p> + +<p>She had come nearly three miles and she had found something worth +finding by just keeping on.</p> + +<p>She remembered the spectre crab. It had nearly turned her back +empty-handed, but she had kept on and she registered that fact deeply in +her mind, dwelling on it with a pleasure she had never felt before.</p> + +<p>Then she fell to thinking of the ship that all this belonged to and the +storm that must have driven it here. The weeds of the high tide mark did +not come within ten feet of the wreckage, so the waves must have come a +hundred feet or more beyond where she was sitting. Perhaps it was at +night with all this coast roaring in the darkness and the wind yelling +above the shouting of the waves. And all that must have happened years +ago, to judge by the work of the weather on the once gaily painted woman +and the depth the timbers had sunk in the sand.</p> + +<p>She rose up, and before starting back she glanced inland towards the +mountains across the broken country.</p> + +<p>Then she shaded her eyes.</p> + +<p>Beyond the fringe of the beach and amongst the high broken rocks stood a +cross.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_X' id='CHAPTER_X'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_94' id='Page_94'>94</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2><h3>THE CROSS</h3> +</div> + +<p>The thing itself startled her less than the fact that she had not seen +it before. It was as though it had been put up whilst she sat to rest.</p> + +<p>It was so striking, so palpably evident that anyone coming along towards +the figure-head as she had done must have been attracted by it. To +verify this she walked a few yards away and even as she did so the cross +vanished, shut out from sight by the rock to the left of it. Only from +the point of view of the figure-head could it be seen.</p> + +<p>It was as though the beach had tried to frighten her again.</p> + +<p>She came towards it, noticing as she came the shortness of the arms. It +was less a cross than a sign-post, a sign-post raised on a mound of +small rocks; it was tarred to preserve it from the weather. From the +left limb close to the post a metal box was hanging by a wire, and on +the post itself, a few feet from the base, there was a plate of +galvanised iron nailed to the wood. On the plate were stamped some +words.</p> + +<p>She stepped upon the mound and read: “Kestrel Expedition. Cache I. Don’t +disturb 19—”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_95' id='Page_95'>95</a></span></p> + +<p>The date was three years back.</p> + +<p>The cache, whatever it might be, was under the mound. Also, this thing +had evidently nothing to do with the wreck, for the embossed metal plate +must have been prepared in some civilized country for the purpose to +which it had been put.</p> + +<p>She reached up and tried to detach the box and pulling on it brought +down the slat of wood that formed the arms of the cross, the nails that +had held it having rusted away.</p> + +<p>Then, having detached the box, she examined it. It was an ordinary +sailor’s tobacco box, she pressed the spring, opened it, and found a +piece of paper folded in four and inscribed as follows, the writing done +with a purple indelible pencil:</p> + +<p> +<i>Opened the cach.<br /> +Took nuthing out.<br /> +Stuck in som extry goods<br /> +Put the ship about</i>.<br /> +<i>To any one that finds it in this blasted hole<br /> +Sam Slacum</i>,<br /> +<i>Master Mariner. Thresler</i> 19—<br /> +</p> + +<p>Then as an after thought:</p> + +<p> +“<i>Keep up your spirits</i>.”<br /> +</p> + +<p>The date was a year after the date on the post. The cache had not been +visited evidently since then. For three years it had lain here, and for +three years, evidently, only one ship had put in. This dismal thought +took all the pleasure away<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_96' id='Page_96'>96</a></span> from the find, she sat down on the rocks +forming the mound and holding the paper in her fingers gave way for a +moment to a depression that came against her like a black, surging sea. +Then she remembered that the cross had been only visible from one point, +that vessels might have been here and not have seen it, that men might +even have landed and found it without leaving the fact behind them, +after the manner of the writer of this paper.</p> + +<p>And then, suddenly, and as if from the sky came the thought of +Providence, the feeling that she had been led along the beach to find +the wood and to find this. The remembrance of how she had been saved +from the <i>Gaston de Paris</i> rose up in her mind also—saved almost by a +miracle.</p> + +<p>To a person torn from civilization and flung into the arms of Nature the +most terrible thing is the sense of the amorphous, the feeling that +there is no structure in this world where houses are not and laws are +not and streets are not, no power to intervene between oneself and +injury, no thread to cling to. The idea of a Providence to such a person +is like brandy.</p> + +<p>The girl remembered the words she had spoken that morning to her +companions when she said that one must not think here but work. There +was no use in thinking of the past or the future, of ships coming or +not, they had been taken care of so far and the feeling came to her that +this would be so to the end.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_97' id='Page_97'>97</a></span></p> + +<p>She rose up, put the paper back in the box and the box in her pocket, +then she turned to the cache.</p> + +<p>She walked round the mound to a spot where the covering rocks had fallen +away a bit and going down on her knees began pulling them apart and +carrying them off one by one, dumping them a few yards away. Her rings +hindered her and taking them off she put them in the tobacco box and the +box in her pocket. Under the rocks lay a covering of sand, she fetched +the arm of the cross and scraping away at the sand came upon something +hard, it was the end of a barrel. Then she stood up, flushed with her +work and satisfied.</p> + +<p>The stores were there, whatever they might be, and with the help of the +two men they would easily be uncovered. The question whether they would +be of any use after all the years they had lain there recurred to her, +but she put it aside. They would soon see.</p> + +<p>Then she started back for the caves taking the slat of wood with her as +a trophy. As she went the recollection of the find followed her +agreeably, she did not know which to congratulate herself most upon, the +wood of the wreck or the cache. Then came the dismal thought of winter, +begotten of the idea of fires. It was the middle of August. Winter lay +ahead. If no ship came to take them off what would their life be like +during the winter months? Imagine this place at Christmas, covered +perhaps with snow! The gloom of this idea pursued her for a mile or more +till all of a sudden<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_98' id='Page_98'>98</a></span> she stopped and laughed aloud at her own +stupidity. It was not autumn, it was spring. They were south of the line +and summer lay before them, not winter. That gloomy ghost, fear of the +Future, which spoils so many men’s lives in Civilization, had tricked +her and made her miserable and as she cast it from her and pursued her +way she said to herself again: “I will not think, here the person who +thinks and broods is lost.”</p> + +<p>When she reached the caves the men had not yet returned; leaving the +slat of wood leaning against the cliff she came down to the boat and +stood for a moment looking at the sea. The tide was far out now and +coming in again, the sea had fallen to a gentle glassy swell and the +treacherous wind had died away to a faint breeze. Out there where the +waves were coming in and at the limit of the sands rocks were uncovered, +shaggy, black rocks that seemed covered with fur. She came down to them +and found that the fur was a coating of mussels. Here was another find. +She began to pick them and then, running back to the cave for the baling +tin, filled it to the brim, and placed it in the boat. Having done this +she sat down with her back to the boat to rest and wait for the men.</p> + +<p>They ought to have returned by this. The thought that some disaster had +happened to them came to her and tried to creep into her mind, but she +drove it out promptly, stamped on it and began to think of how they +would cook the mussles. They would make a fire with the slat she had +brought<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_99' id='Page_99'>99</a></span> back, it was tarred and would burn finely, with that and some +of the bottom boards of the boat, unless Bompard could be persuaded to +go and cut some wood from the wreckage three miles away. Then she +thought how fortunate it was that men smoked. La Touche had a Swedish +match box nearly full of matches and Bompard had a tinder box, one of +the sort that makes a spark by the striking of a wheel against a flint.</p> + +<p>Then she yawned.</p> + +<p>She had been in the open air since early dawn and it was now noon. She +was not tired, but she was filled with a craving for something, yet she +could not tell what this something was that she wanted and without which +she felt somehow lost. Then she knew—it was a roof.</p> + +<p>A person accustomed to live under a roof and suddenly condemned to live +in the open suffers nothing for the first few hours. Then there +gradually comes upon him a weariness and distress almost unimaginable to +those who have not experienced it. He craves not only for a roof but for +walls around him to protect him from the great open spaces that seem +sucking away his individuality. A man living absolutely in the open +without tent or cave or house wherein to concentrate himself would +surely and without doubt either become mad or descend to the level of +the beasts.</p> + +<p>She came up the beach to the cave where she had slept, went into it, and +sat down, her mind finding instant relief from the craving that had<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_100' id='Page_100'>100</a></span> +filled it. Her hands went up to her hair and began to arrange it as best +they could. Had she been alone on the beach she would have taken the +pins out and left it loose for the winds to comb and blow about, but the +thought of the men prevented her. She did not like the idea of their +seeing her going about with her hair down; after her experiences in the +boat it seemed absurd to quibble over a thing like this and she tried to +argue with herself without avail. It seemed to her that if she went +about in <i>negligé</i> like that she would lower herself. How? There was +nothing unwomanly in flowing hair, there was nothing indelicate. No, but +women of her class never appeared before men in that fashion, she would +lower herself socially.</p> + +<p>A fool would have laughed at her, holding that amidst castaways there +was no such thing as social position, and, though fools are not +inevitably wrong in their opinions, he would have been wrong.</p> + +<p>Though Bompard and La Touche had dropped the “mademoiselle” in +addressing her, they treated her since landing with a certain respect +which would have been wanting had she been a woman of their own class.</p> + +<p>The class difference held and was a greater protection to her than +anything else. In their eyes she was not a woman, but a lady, a fact +that chilled familiarity, or worse, and, with the aid of her superior +intelligence, gave her authority.</p> + +<p>She felt this instinctively and determined that<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_101' id='Page_101'>101</a></span> at no time and in no +manner would she allow her position to degrade.</p> + +<p>Then, having done what she could to her hair she took the rings from the +tobacco box and put them on. She would have much preferred not to have +worn them, they irritated her, but they were part of her insignia and +she put them on.</p> + +<p>As she was putting the tobacco box back in her pocket something looked +in at her. It was a rabbit, a grey fat rabbit that had lopped right to +the cave mouth; it sat up for a moment on its hind legs, looked in, and +then lopped off without any hurry, as though a girl seated in a cave +were an accustomed object and a human being something not to be afraid +of.</p> + +<p>This fearlessness of the rabbit would have started her on a long and +dismal train of thought had she not checked herself in time and like the +man in the haunted house who kept the fear of ghosts away by thinking of +plum puddings, she started to work, re-folding the sail that had served +her for a pillow the night before; then she took the oilskin coat out +and shook it, and folding it, placed it by the left wall of the cave +with the sou’wester on top of it. She was tidying her house.</p> + +<p>Then she went into the men’s cave and did a bit of tidying there, +stacking the tins more neatly and putting the odds and ends together. +The sight of the cotton waste gave her an idea and going down to the +boat she emptied the mussels from the baling tin on to the sand, filled +the tin with sea<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_102' id='Page_102'>102</a></span> water and bathed her face and hands, drying them on +the cotton. She had finished this operation and had got the mussels back +in the tin when a shout caused her to turn.</p> + +<p>It was the men, they were coming along the beach from the break in the +cliffs. Bompard leading, La Touche lagging behind.</p> + +<p>Bompard was carrying something under his arm, it was a Kerguelen +cabbage. La Touche carried nothing.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XI' id='CHAPTER_XI'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_103' id='Page_103'>103</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2><h3>THE CACHE</h3> +</div> + +<p>When she lay down that night on the hard sand, with the sailcloth +beneath her head, she could not sleep. The wretchedness of having to lie +down fully dressed, of being unable to change her clothes, fell on her +like a blight.</p> + +<p>She lay fighting the problem. It was impossible to go on like this. One +might live with little food, but to live always without undressing and +changing one’s things was impossible. This problem was insoluble, or +seemed so. Then she found a half solution. She would discard her +stockings and under garments, make a bundle of them and put them under +the sailcloth, she would not wear them again, she would suffer from +cold, no matter, anything was better than that feeling of being fully +dressed always. The weather, besides, was fairly warm. She would learn +to do without shoes as well as without stockings. She would have to go +about without shoes or stockings. She thought of the men. Strangely +enough the thought of going about without shoes or stockings seemed less +repulsive to her than the thought of going about with her hair loose.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_104' id='Page_104'>104</a></span></p> + +<p>As she lay revolving this business in her mind the whale birds flitting +about in the darkness outside suddenly ceased their crying and through +the silence came a vague mysterious sound that deepened into a humming +like the drone of a gigantic top; the humming became a roar, the roar of +rain. Rain falling in solid sheets, coming across the land like a moving +Niagara, now taking the beach and now the sea. Never had she heard such +rain as this, falling in the black and utter darkness. The shelve of the +beach saved the cave from being flooded and the beetling of the cliff +kept it dry and within a couple of feet of the entrance but it could not +keep out the rain smell, the raw smell of Kerguelen carried from inland, +the smell of bog patches and new washed dolerite and bitter vegetation, +keen, like the smell of the Stone Age. Then after a bit the first great +onslaught slackened.</p> + +<p>The girl raised herself on her elbow, then she rose and cast off the +oilskin coat that had served for a blanket. She undressed in the +darkness, made a bundle of her stockings and her Jaeger underclothes and +placed them beneath the sailcloth, then removing the comb from her hair +and letting it fall she came out into the blackness and stood in the +torrential rain.</p> + +<p>It beat on her head and shoulders and breast, it cascaded down her +limbs, soothing as the hand of mesmerism, refreshing, delightful beyond +words, then she came back into the cave and, finding the cotton waste, +dried herself as well as she could,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_105' id='Page_105'>105</a></span> dried her hair and twisted it into +a knot, put on her blouse, coat and skirt and covered herself with the +oilskin.</p> + +<p>She had solved the question of a bath and change of clothes, at least +for the moment. The discomfort of the rough tweed of the skirt against +her unprotected limbs, of the hard bed, of the sailcloth pillow with +its vague smell of canvas and jute, all these were nothing to that other +discomfort. These were physical, that was psychical.</p> + +<p>She fell asleep and slept till long after dawn. When she came out the +rain had ceased and through air fresh as though from the hand of +Creation vast clouds were rolling away towards the islands over a +blue-green sea.</p> + +<p>They had made a fire on the night before and had cooked some of the +mussels in the baling tin, the rest had been put by to cook for +breakfast; hot food of any sort is a revelation if you have been +condemned to live on cold stuff for any time, but this morning there was +to be nothing hot. The firewood, one of the bottom boards of the boat +chopped up, had been left out in the rain. The sight of it, all soaked, +made the girl forget her bare feet and her hair roughly tied up in a +knot. The housekeeper that lives in every woman rose up in revolt, all +the more so as the guilty ones tried to defend themselves.</p> + +<p>“As for me,” said La Touche, “I was listening to the rain, it drove +everything else out of my head.”</p> + +<p>“That is so,” said Bompard, “I thought every<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_106' id='Page_106'>106</a></span> moment we would be flooded +out. It was no time for a man to be thinking of firewood.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you will have no fire and nothing hot,” said Cléo, “and those +mussels will be wasted—they won’t keep, but there’s no use in saying +any more about it—only you must learn to think of things. It’s not +pleasant, I know, to have to look ahead but one has to do it. You see I +am not wearing my boots and stockings, boots wear out and stockings wear +out quicker, so I just looked ahead last night and said to myself—‘your +stockings will soon be worn into holes, so you must begin now to learn +to do without them.’ It’s not pleasant, but it has to be done. If that +ship we ran into had looked ahead we would not have been wrecked.”</p> + +<p>“That is true,” said Bompard, anxious to get off the main subject. “If +those chaps had eyes in their heads they wouldn’t be feeding the +fishes.”</p> + +<p>“It wasn’t all their fault,” put in La Touche. “If those chaps on the +bridge hadn’t put the engines on we wouldn’t have rammed her as we did.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Cléo, “there is no use in going back over things. We have +to get breakfast and then go and open the cache.”</p> + +<p>She had told them of the cache overnight and, to her wonder, the thing +had interested them, so this morning when they had finished their +biscuits and beef she found not the slightest difficulty in making them +start.</p> + +<p>She put on her boots for the journey and then<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_107' id='Page_107'>107</a></span> they reeled along the +beach in the usual order, Cléo first, the two others following; the +great skull made them halt and discuss it for a moment but the +figure-head when they reached it held them entirely in its spell.</p> + +<p>She could scarcely tear them away, they discussed it from every point of +view, argued over it, pondered over it and were only brought to their +senses by a hint that it would have to be chopped up for firewood.</p> + +<p>Then, when they reached the cache, there was another long pause for +discussion, the two sitting down to smoke whilst they talked it over.</p> + +<p>It was not till she set to work pulling more stones away that they began +to get busy; then when once started they laboured like negroes. The +glimpse of the barrel end seemed to inflame them, but indeed they did +not want even that, for the business they had set their hands to had all +the fascination of treasure hunting mixed with the thrills of +house-breaking. Here was “stuff,” plunder of some sort, who could tell +what?</p> + +<p>An hour and a half of labour brought them sweating to the end of the +business and the presiding gulls saw exposed to the light of day two big +barrels, two long cases and an amount of canned meat and vegetables +enough to stock a small shop, also a harpoon of the old type and two +shovels placed by the long cases. Then after a rest of half an hour the +barrels were sampled. One contained flour, the other blankets and mens’ +clothes,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_108' id='Page_108'>108</a></span> sweaters and coats and trousers. One of the long cases +contained kitchen utensils and tin cups and plates, also knives and +forks and spoons.</p> + +<p>The other contained “comforts,” tea and coffee and sugar in sealed tins, +some rolls of tobacco, drugs and a few surgical instruments. All the +equipment, in fact, necessary for an expedition of a dozen men for six +months. Not a drop of liquor.</p> + +<p>Perhaps that was why the girl was more overjoyed by the details of the +find than the mariners.</p> + +<p>Bompard openly expressed his mind.</p> + +<p>“Not a bottle of wine or a drop of rum, swabs.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you’ve got some tobacco,” said Cléo, “and there’s tea and coffee +and cups and saucers, and a teapot—no coffeepot—well one can make +coffee in anything—” She was running over the stores in her mind, +standing, reviewing them with no thought of anything else and her soul +filled with a joy and satisfaction absolutely new.</p> + +<p>Blankets! Tea! Coffee! and clothes—even mens’ clothes if it came to the +worst. One might have fancied her to have fixed definitely in her mind +that she was to spend a very long time on the shores of Kerguelen and to +have accepted the terrible prospect with equanimity. It was not so. She +was living in the moment, so entirely in the moment that these things +were tremendous and vivid and compared with them Art, Music, Religion, +Ambition, and the gauds of Civilization were as nothing.</p> + +<p>This power to live in the moment is the form of<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_109' id='Page_109'>109</a></span> strength that brings +men through battles and women through adversity. It fells cities and +builds them. On Kerguelen it is salvation. For, here to think of the +future, unless in terms of material necessities, to dream, to brood, +means death or madness.</p> + +<p>But Bompard and La Touche, resting themselves after their labours, were +not living in the moment nor in the past nor in the present, they were +living in that strange sad land called the Might-Have-Been. They might +have been in the way to a jolly booze by now if that fool who +provisioned the cache had not forgotten the drink. They were thankful +for nothing. They had food, they had clothes, they had tobacco. They +were glad enough of the blankets, but even the thought of the blankets +could not relieve their depression.</p> + +<p>They were not drunkards, but the cache had given them hopes of drinks. +These hopes shattered they sat like discontented children who had been +promised sweets and disappointed.</p> + +<p>But this did not last long, the Hopeless is its own antidote and after +half a pipe of tobacco their cheerfulness, such as it was, returned and +they fell to discussing with the girl the best way of treating the +stores.</p> + +<p>Bompard, considering the difficulty of transporting the stuff to the +caves, proposed that they should move their abode right up to the cache.</p> + +<p>Cléo pointed out that there were no caves here, so, unless they moved +the caves as well<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_110' id='Page_110'>110</a></span> as their belongings, they would have nowhere to sleep +in.</p> + +<p>“I think the best thing we can do,” said she, “is to take what we want +and then cover up the rest till we want some more.”</p> + +<p>“Put the stuff under the rocks again?” asked Bompard.</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Mon Dieu!” said La Touche.</p> + +<p>It was not what he said but the way he said it that angered the girl.</p> + +<p>La Touche was a problem in her mind. She could understand Bompard but +she could not quite understand La Touche. It seemed to her that he was +one of those people who without much intelligence, yet, or perhaps +because of that fact, make fine centres of rebellion. She could fancy +him leading a mob to tear down something that vexed him, and everything +seemed to vex him, at times.</p> + +<p>But though she was not clear about La Touche she was quite clear about +herself and she was determined to be his master. She felt instinctively +that he was the leader of Bompard and that Bompard alone would have been +a much better individual, in many respects.</p> + +<p>“There is no use in saying ‘Mon Dieu,’” said she, “the thing has to be +done. The gulls and the rabbits will ruin everything if we leave things +about. Come, Bompard.”</p> + +<p>Bompard rose up at the order and began to assist<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_111' id='Page_111'>111</a></span> in sorting out the +things they were to take back with them. Then La Touche, not to be out +of the business and perhaps ashamed of himself, or of his position as an +idler, joined in.</p> + +<p>Had she given the order direct to him he might have revolted; she had +conquered him for the moment none the less.</p> + +<p>First they began to sort out the things to be kept for immediate use. A +saucepan, three tin cups, three tin plates, knives and forks, the teapot +and kettle, a canister of tea, sugar and salt. The canned stuff, +including thirty cans of vegetables, Cléo left untouched. She determined +to keep it in reserve and depend upon the cabbage plants, one of which +Bompard had brought back yesterday.</p> + +<p>Then came the question of the flour, that too must be kept in reserve +and the opening they had made in the top of the barrel closed up +properly. This operation took time and was conducted with a good deal of +grumbling which fell on deaf ears. The thing was done and that was the +main thing. Four blankets were taken from the other barrel and that too +was closed. Then with the shovels the whole lot was sanded over and the +rocks replaced, the girl helping in the work as well as directing.</p> + +<p>When everything was finished they made three bundles, using the blankets +as holdalls, and started back.</p> + +<p>It was now noon and the breeze that had been blowing ever since dawn had +died away, but great<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_112' id='Page_112'>112</a></span> clouds were banking up over the islands, vast, +solemn, leaden-coloured clouds rolling up from the far sea and piling +one on the other like alps on alps.</p> + +<p>They had nearly reached the caves when a roll of thunder like the ruffle +of muffled drums came over the water, but they got under shelter before +the rain began to fall, just a few heavy drops, at first, and then in a +moment a cataract.</p> + +<p>The islands vanished, the sea vanished to within a few hundred yards of +the beach, the voices of the gulls and the breaking of the waves became +merged and vague in the hiss of the sheeting rain.</p> + +<p>“The chaps that left the truck in that cask forgot to shove in some +oilskins,” said La Touche as he undid his load.</p> + +<p>Cléo had come into the men’s cave to help to unpack. Half-way back she +had taken her boots off. Owing to the absence of stockings her right +heel had become chafed and she had taken them off determining not to +wear them any more. She was kneeling now, bare-footed, taking the things +from Bompard’s bundle and La Touche’s remark made her look up. It was +the tone rather than the words that irritated her. The recollection of +an oilskin coat which she had used when fishing in Norway the year +before rose in her mind. It had been put away for a long time and when +taken out had been found all stuck up and quite ruined.</p> + +<p>“You can’t be much of a sailor,” said she, “not to know that oilskin +doesn’t stand packing. The men who buried these things did. If they had<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_113' id='Page_113'>113</a></span> +known that you were so particular about rain they might have put in an +umbrella.”</p> + +<p>Dead silence followed this thrust of the tongue which she instantly +regretted, not because of hurting La Touche’s feelings, but because she +instantly felt that it had helped to widen the division between her and +her mates. The extraordinary fact was that she, having assumed the +responsibility of office, was, seemingly, held responsible by the others +for all unpleasant happenings; she felt that the rain of Kerguelen was +now, in a way, being laid at her door.</p> + +<p>Then, again, she had singled out La Touche as a direct opponent. She +felt that he and she were already matching each other and there was +likely to be a struggle between them for dominance.</p> + +<p>Women have been gifted above men with an instinctive knowledge of +character. She divined in La Touche a character weak yet capable of +violence, incapable of leading yet jealous of being led, and especially +of being led by a woman. That was the danger point.</p> + +<p>However, there was no use in trying to say anything smooth and she went +on with her work, helping to stow the things and, when that was +finished, taking off two of the blankets to her own cave.</p> + +<p>A fire was impossible owing to the rain so they dined off biscuits and +canned stuff, cold.</p> + +<p>Bompard and La Touche on this little expedition had discovered a water +source only a quarter<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_114' id='Page_114'>114</a></span> of a mile inland, a deep pond cut in the rocks +and fed by the rains. Bompard referred to it as he ate.</p> + +<p>“But as long as the boat holds together,” said he, “we don’t want to +bother about water; she’ll catch and hold all we want. I’ve heard tell +it rains here months on end.”</p> + +<p>“When it’s not blowing,” said La Touche. Cléo said nothing. It came to +her almost as a new impression that conversation as we know it was +almost impossible with her companions. They had no outlook over anything +but the material and they seemed to see nothing but the black side of +things. She felt also that any attempt to rally them and cheer them +would be dumbly resented and would only help to widen even more the +division between her and them.</p> + +<p>When the meal was finished she put the plates out in the rain to wash +them. Then a bright idea came to her and getting the roll of wire she +asked La Touche to shew her how to make rabbit snares.</p> + +<p>La Touche took the roll of wire and held it in his hands for a moment.</p> + +<p>“This is all very well,” said he, “but where is your wire cutters?”</p> + +<p>They had nothing to cut the wire with, and he seemed to look on the fact +as a triumph of his own cleverness over Cléo’s, till Bompard intervened +and shewed how, by knotting the wire and pulling hard, a break might be +made. This accomplished,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_115' id='Page_115'>115</a></span> and three lengths of wire having been +procured, the surly one proceeded to make a snare and to demonstrate how +it might be set.</p> + +<p>At the end of the business the girl regretted that she had ever started +it. She had put herself under the tuition of La Touche and allowed the +intimacy of master and pupil, allowed even in this slight way that he +was her superior.</p> + +<p>A yelling wind from the mountains arose that afternoon and drove the +rain away across the islands. It held for half an hour and then of a +sudden ceased and a howling wind from the islands rose and drove the +rain back again towards the mountains.</p> + +<p>The sea suddenly seemed to go mad, with cross currents meeting. Waves +seemed fighting waves and the gulls seemed filled with the general +torment, clanging and blowing about hither and thither like leaves in +autumn.</p> + +<p>Cléo went to her cave and wrapping herself in one of the blankets, with +the other folded double to lie upon, took her place upon the floor with +her head on the sailcloth.</p> + +<p>It was her first really bad moment. Her first moment of real depression. +The rain and the fact that their position as regarded food was secure, +so that there was nothing to fight against at the moment, conspired to +overthrow her.</p> + +<p>Hitherto she had fought bravely and the struggle had kept her up; the +sudden easing of the situation had brought new forces against her.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_116' id='Page_116'>116</a></span> Time +suddenly appeared before her eyes asking: “How are you to kill me? You +can’t, you have no weapons. Would you like a book? Would you like +embroidery work to do, companions to talk with, music to listen to? +Fate, under the name of civilization, gave you all these and more, they +have been taken from you and now you see me as I am, the great terror.”</p> + +<p>She fought this Bogey by thinking of La Touche. She had raised La Touche +against herself. She knew that something in herself had risen against La +Touche.</p> + +<p>She felt that his respect for a woman of the higher classes was, as +regarded herself, wearing thin, owing to propinquity. That he resented +being “bossed” by a woman, that her superior quickness of mind and +energy vexed him and that one day he would try to master her. He was of +the type that is too mean to rule, yet hates to be ruled. There was also +the jealousy of the male at the superiority of the female. She was +physically weaker than he, a fact that means little in civilized life +where power is in the hands of Order, but which means everything in +primitive life. And they were steadily drifting to the primitive.</p> + +<p>These thoughts, troublesome enough, were still excellent in their way. +They gave her occupation for her mind.</p> + +<p>Then she fell asleep, awaking towards evening to find Bompard at the +cave mouth telling her that supper was ready.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XII' id='CHAPTER_XII'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_117' id='Page_117'>117</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2><h3>THE QUARREL</h3> +</div> + +<p>Next morning broke fine. She was awakened by voices quarrelling and came +out to find a breezy and absolutely cloudless day, with the sea running +smooth and the sunlight on the far islands.</p> + +<p>The two men, who had fallen out over some trifle, were wrangling like +fish-women, Bompard having the worst of it, as his ineffectual southern +oaths were no match for the language of the other.</p> + +<p>The girl stood looking at La Touche, but he seemed not to mind in the +least.</p> + +<p>Then she turned away and walked down to the boat.</p> + +<p>She heard Bompard say: “There, you have sent her off, talking like +that,” and what La Touche replied she could not hear, but she guessed it +was something not complimentary to Bompard or herself.</p> + +<p>The boat was half full of rain-water. She rinsed her hands in it, then, +standing with the warm sun upon her, she almost forgot the men, looking +at the purple islands and the gulls like new minted gold and the great +arch of the bay lined out with a thread of creamy foam.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_118' id='Page_118'>118</a></span></p> + +<p>After a while, turning round, she saw that Bompard was lighting a fire +with the remains of the wood and, coming up, she helped in the business.</p> + +<p>He had arranged the little fire between pieces of rock so as to make a +stand for the kettle, and La Touche was opening the hermetically sealed +canister of tea with his knife; neither man was speaking and the meal +passed off almost in silence.</p> + +<p>She felt that any moment the quarrel might break out again and her +instinct was to get away from them.</p> + +<p>She had left the fisherman’s knife and belt in her cave; she went to the +cave and strapped the belt around her waist. The boat hook was lying on +the sand; she picked it up and, carrying it, walked away down the beach +in the direction of the cache.</p> + +<p>The boat hook was a weapon of sorts and it was better out of the men’s +way; the knife was different. It had come to her that in this place it +was better to be armed and she determined always to wear it.</p> + +<p>But no sounds of quarrelling followed her, only the quarrelling of the +gulls, and half a mile away, looking back, she saw that the men had +separated. La Touche was standing by the boat and Bompard was walking +towards the Lizard point. She sat down to rest for a moment and she +watched the figure of Bompard. It grew smaller and smaller till it +reached the point, then it vanished over the rocks.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_119' id='Page_119'>119</a></span></p> + +<p>She saw La Touche walk away towards the caves; he disappeared, and the +beach, now destitute of life, lay sung to by the sea and flown over by +the gulls. Nothing speaking of man lay there but the boat that looked +like a toy cast there by a child. It held her eyes, focussed her +thoughts, and became the centre of a sudden longing, a desire soul +searching as the desire for water—the desire for civilization, for the +things and people that she knew.</p> + +<p>Her companions had become horrible to her. To go on living with them +seemed appalling. The rocks, the sea, the gulls, even the rain, all +these fitted with her mind—they seemed in some way familiar, but with +the men she had nothing in common.</p> + +<p>It is worse to be wrecked on a social state than on a desert shore. She +was wrecked on both.</p> + +<p>She recognised surely that at the rate things were going she would soon, +so far from being above her companions, be below them on account of her +weakness. She recognised that superiority of mind would count little +after a while with these minds, incapable of distinguishing grades, or +values, beyond money value and the distinction of master from man, and +that sex so far from being a protection would be a danger.</p> + +<p>Her brave mind allowed itself to be borne along for a while on these +currents of thought, then it reacted against them, repeating again the +old formula that to think, here, on other things than<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_120' id='Page_120'>120</a></span> the moment and +the material was to die or go distraught.</p> + +<p>She got up and shifted her position, sitting with her back towards the +boat.</p> + +<p>She could see the penguins, now, drilling beneath the cliff and beyond +the penguins the figure-head of the ship and beyond that the fuming beach +with its snow storm of gulls. She was soon to see something that many +would travel a thousand miles to witness, but unconscious of what was +coming she sat watching the penguins, then with the boat hook point she +began scratching figures on the sand, but with difficulty, on account of +the length of the staff.</p> + +<p>Sitting like this her eyes were suddenly attracted seaward to a point in +the water beyond the line of the figure-head. Things were moving out +there, moving rapidly and drawing in-shore and now, riding an incoming +wave, like a half submerged canoe, she saw a dark elongated form. It +came shooting through the foam just like a beaching canoe and as it +dragged itself up the sand a sound like the far off roar of a lion came +echoing along the cliffs.</p> + +<p>She knew at once what it was, a sea elephant. Prince Selm had described +them and how they came ashore at Kerguelen to breed, journeying there +through thousands of miles of ocean and arriving in hundreds and +thousands at different points of the coast.</p> + +<p>This was the first of the great herd and, as she<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_121' id='Page_121'>121</a></span> watched, more were +coming, breasting the waves and breaking from the foam and coming up the +beach like vast, rapidly-moving slugs.</p> + +<p>The sight held her fascinated. Every newcomer saluted the land with a +roar. They were the males; the females of the herd, still far out at sea +beyond the islands, would not land to give birth to their young for +another fortnight.</p> + +<p>She watched till perhaps two hundred had beached, then the invasion +ceased; there was no more roaring, and over the army of invaders, +lumping along hither and thither on the flat rocks, the sea-gulls flew +and screamed in anger or in welcome, who could say?</p> + +<p>Prince Selm had spoken of how the sea elephants fought together on +landing. He was wrong. The great, far-distant brutes instead of fighting +seemed resting and sunning themselves and the girl, rising up, came +along in their direction. She had forgotten Bompard and La Touche.</p> + +<p>She reached the river which was spating from the recent rains, but great +flat-topped rocks made it always possible to cross; she crossed it.</p> + +<p>The sea elephants were close to her now and seemed not in the least +disturbed by her presence, they lay here and there, vast brutes, twenty +feet in height, weighing tons, raising themselves occasionally on their +flippers and then sinking back to rest with a sigh of contentment.</p> + +<p>She measured them with her eye, noted the short trunks that seemed so +useless, the tusks,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_122' id='Page_122'>122</a></span> the old scar marks got in battle and the splendour +of their strength and mass and muscle. Like the land elephants there was +something about them terrible yet benign.</p> + +<p>She drew closer. As regarded animals of any good sort she had the +fearlessness of a child, the instinct that would have been terrified by +a reptile or anything truly ferocious however masked by fur or feather. +These things she felt to be absolutely harmless, as regarded herself, +and they were a million years closer to her than the penguins.</p> + +<p>The penguins had amused her, but for all their quaintness and politeness +they seemed as far apart from her as mechanical toys. Her heart had not +gone out to them with that love of living things which lies in the heart +of children, of women and most men.</p> + +<p>She drew closer still. The great brutes were now watching her +steadfastly, but seemingly without fear. She had left the boat hook +behind a mile away, dropping it because of its weight, and with the +exception of the knife in her belt she was unarmed. Perhaps they knew +this. Vague in their brains must have lain memories of great hurts when +they were the hunted and men the hunters; but this vision evidently +stored up no antagonistic feelings. Possibly they knew her sex and +possibly the instinct which never failed them told them that she was +friendly.</p> + +<p>Less than ten yards away from the nearest bull she sat down on a piece +of rock, and no sooner had<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_123' id='Page_123'>123</a></span> she taken her seat than they seemed +immensely closer and her own position one of absolute helplessness. With +a sudden rush, moving with that swiftness with which she had seen them +moving on first landing, the bull could have reached her, but the bull +did not move, his lordship from the sea, filled with the absolute and +complete contentment of the male at rest, moved only his trunk, he +seemed sniffing her and the momentary fear that had seized her passed +utterly away.</p> + +<p>She could sniff him too. Just as cows fill the air with the fragrance of +milk the herd filled the place with the scent of fish and fur and a tang +of deep sea like the smell of beach, only sharper and fresher.</p> + +<p>Then, just as people talk to horses and dogs, leaning forward a bit she +began to talk to him.</p> + +<p>The effect of the sweet soothing voice was magical, and for a moment not +in the least soothing. The near bulls moved, evidently deeply disturbed +in their minds. The majority, including the biggest and nearest bull, +turned half away as if to get off, then turned again as if to renew +their astonishment.</p> + +<p>The girl laughed, the timidity of this vast force seemed to her less +timidity than masculine awkwardness, as though a number of heavy old +gentlemen, taking their ease in their club, were suddenly put to +confusion and flight by a female charmer appearing before them.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XIII' id='CHAPTER_XIII'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_124' id='Page_124'>124</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2><h3>WHERE IS BOMPARD?</h3> +</div> + +<p>When they had re-settled themselves she rose to go, nodded to them and +turned away towards the river. Then she looked back. The big bull was +following her and the rest of the herd were moving slightly in the same +direction. The bull paused when she turned, then, when she went on, he +continued following her, lazily and as if drawn by some gentle magnetic +attraction.</p> + +<p>Across the river she turned and waved her hand to them. Then she went +on.</p> + +<p>In some extraordinary way the creatures had made the place less lonely +and the wonder of them pursued her as she walked, keeping to the sand +patches where the rocks were and then striking along the great levels of +pure sand.</p> + +<p>Her feet did not hurt her and she was beginning to recognise that touch +with the world which comes to those who walk without boots, something +that humanity has all but forgotten, all but ceased to remember.</p> + +<p>As she drew near the caves she looked for the men, but the beach was +deserted. Then, looking into the men’s cave, she saw La Touche lying<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_125' id='Page_125'>125</a></span> on +his back asleep, his pipe beside him and his arm flung across his eyes.</p> + +<p>Where was Bompard?</p> + +<p>He ought to have been back by this, and as she turned and looked up and +down the beach a vague uneasiness came upon her.</p> + +<p>It was as if for the first time she had recognized the value of Bompard +in their small society. Bompard with his age and heaviness and patent +honesty, despite his stupidity, was a presence not to be despised.</p> + +<p>If La Touche had been another man she might have awakened him to make +enquiries. As it was, she preferred to let him lie.</p> + +<p>Bompard she had last seen crossing the rocks of the Lizard point. It was +there that she must look for him.</p> + +<p>She went to the cave where she had left her boots and put them on for +the climb. When she reached the point she found the work easier than she +had suspected. The rocks were not strewn at random, they were in reality +breaks off and tables of the basalt; the whole point was like a great +lizard that, creeping stealthily towards the sea, had been stricken into +rock.</p> + +<p>She climbed, and in five minutes was on the highest point with a new +view of the coast before her. It was like looking at Ferocity. Here the +rocks were broken and tumbled about, indeed, rocks, huge and spired like +churches, cliffs black and polished with the washing of the waves, +monoliths<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_126' id='Page_126'>126</a></span> standing out in the blue-green water and all ringing and +singing to the chime of the sea. Inland, cañons of night and shoulders +of dolerite and plains where nothing grew leading to great level +bastions, fortifications that seemed built by rule and plumb line, with +the markings of the basalt visible through the clear air. Basalt has +that terrible peculiarity. It seems the work of a hand, it makes castles +and fortifications whose ruled markings bear the inevitable suggestions +of masonry.</p> + +<p>And across all that not a sign of life save the wings of the tireless +birds, teal and duck, cormorants, and beyond the seaward rocks the great +sea geese fishing and the guillemots flighting and the white tern +darting like dragon-flies.</p> + +<p>Where was Bompard?</p> + +<p>Had he, by any chance, come back and taken some other road off the +beach? There was only one way: the break in the cliffs, beyond the +caves. She thought it highly improbable that he would have come back +only to leave the beach by another way, the descent from where she stood +and towards the bed country was quite easy, alluringly easy. No, he +would have gone on.</p> + +<p>She sat down to rest and watch.</p> + +<p>At any moment he might appear in the distance. From where she sat the +sea lay straight before her and the far off islands, to the left the +rock strewn coast, to the right the great curving beach.</p> + +<p>Behind her the country stormed away, stern,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_127' id='Page_127'>127</a></span> grey-grim and treeless, to +the foothills whose misty mauve lay stretched before the mountains.</p> + +<p>Every now and then she would turn towards the left searching the country +and cliffs with her eyes, but no form appeared.</p> + +<p>She remembered now that he had talked about sea birds’ eggs and how to +get them. Might he have gone hunting for eggs over those cliffs and +fallen?</p> + +<p>She remembered also when the two men had come back from their expedition +inland they had brought an alarming story of a bog like a quick sand. La +Touche had blundered into it and he would have gone down only for his +companion. They had also said something about pot holes like shafts in +the basalt. She turned her mind away from these thoughts and passing her +fingers through her hair removed the comb which held it in a rough knot, +shaking it free to the sun and wind. She combed it with her fingers and +rearranged it and then looked again—nothing.</p> + +<p>It came to her suddenly that though she were to sit there forever the +vigil would be useless, that Bompard had gone—never to return.</p> + +<p>She reasoned with this feeling, and reason only increased her fears. It +was now noon, Bompard was not the man to go on a long expedition by +himself; he was too inactive and easy-going. No, something had happened +to him and he might at that moment be lying dead at the foot of some +cliff or he might have broken a leg and be lying at the foot of some +rock unable to move.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_128' id='Page_128'>128</a></span></p> + +<p>She rose up and came swiftly down to the beach. Reaching the caves she +found La Touche opening a tin. It was dinner-time.</p> + +<p>“What has become of Bompard?” she asked. “Have you seen him since he +went off this morning over those rocks?”</p> + +<p>“Bompard,” replied the other, “Mon Dieu! How do I know? No, I have not +seen him, he is big enough to take care of himself.”</p> + +<p>“That may be,” she replied, “but accidents happen no matter how big a +man may be. He has not returned—”</p> + +<p>“So it would seem,” said La Touche, who had now got the tin open and was +turning the contents on to a plate. “But he will return when he +remembers that it is dinner-time.”</p> + +<p>Her lips were dry with anger, there was a contained insolence in the +manner and voice of the other that roused her as much as his +callousness. His mind seemed as cold as his pale blue eyes. All her +mixed feelings towards him focussed suddenly into a point—she loathed +him; but she held herself in.</p> + +<p>“If he has not returned when we have finished dinner,” said she, “we +will have to look for him.” She took a plate and some of the beef he had +turned from the tin and with a couple of biscuits drew off and taking +her place outside in the sun began her wretched meal. A rabbit that had +run out on the sands sat up and looked at her as she ate, then it ran +off and as she followed it with her<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_129' id='Page_129'>129</a></span> eyes she contrasted the little +friendly form with the form of La Touche, the dark innocent eyes with +those eyes of washed-out blue, without depth, or, perhaps, veiling +depth.</p> + +<p>When she had finished eating she put the plate by her side and sat +waiting for La Touche to make a movement.</p> + +<p>Bompard that morning had left his tinder box behind him in the cave, she +heard the strike of flint on steel. La Touche was lighting his pipe. She +waited ten minutes or more, then she came to the cave mouth.</p> + +<p>“Are you not coming to look for Bompard?” asked she.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go when I choose,” said he, “I don’t want orders.”</p> + +<p>“I gave you no orders,” she replied, “I asked you, are you not coming to +look for Bompard who may be in difficulties, or lying perhaps with a +broken limb—and you sit there smoking your pipe. But I give you orders +now; get up and come and help to look for him. Get up at once.”</p> + +<p>He sprang to his feet and came right out. It seemed to her that she had +never seen him before. This was the real La Touche.</p> + +<p>“One word more from you,” he shouted, “and I’ll show you who’s master. +You! Talk to me, would you! A—woman more trouble than you’re worth. Off +with you, get down the beach—clear!”</p> + +<p>He took a step forward with his right fist ready to<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_130' id='Page_130'>130</a></span> strike, +open-handed. Then he drew back. She had whipped the knife from its +sheath.</p> + +<p>The boat hook, which she had brought back with her, was propped against +the cliff behind her and out of his reach, he had no weapon.</p> + +<p>She did not add a word to the threat of the knife. He stood like a fool, +unable to sustain her gaze, venomous, yet held, as a snake is held by a +man’s grip.</p> + +<p>“Now,” she said, “get on. Go search for your companion and if you dare +to speak to me again like that I will make you repent it. You thought I +was weak being a woman and alone. You were going to strike. Coward!—Get +on, go and search for your companion.”</p> + +<p>He turned suddenly and walked off towards the Lizard rocks. “I’ll go +where I choose,” said he.</p> + +<p>It was a lame and impotent end of his rebellion, but she held no +delusions. This was only the beginning—if Bompard did not return.</p> + +<p>She put the knife in its sheath and then she put the boat hook away, +hiding it behind the sailcloth in her cave, then she went into the +men’s cave. La Touche’s clasp knife lay there on the sand, it was not +much of a weapon but she took it. She examined the dinner knives again. +They were almost useless as weapons. Then she came out. La Touche had +disappeared beyond the rocks and she came to the boat. There was nothing +here in the way of a weapon that he might use, unless the oars. They +were heavy, but he was strong.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_131' id='Page_131'>131</a></span> She determined to leave nothing to +chance and, carrying the oars down the beach to the break in the cliffs, +she hid them amongst some scrub bushes. Then she remembered the axe, +sought for it and hid it.</p> + +<p>Then she came back and sat down to reconsider matters.</p> + +<p>The position was as bad as could be.</p> + +<p>As bad as La Touche. Once let this man get the upper hand and she was +lost. She would be his slave and worse. She had measured him finely. +Instinct, never at fault, told her that to pull down anything above him +would be meat and drink to La Touche’s true nature and that his hatred +of her superiority was deepened by the fact that she was a woman.</p> + +<p>Were she weak he would beat her and make her cook for him, trample on +her, make her his woman to fetch and carry, and, if Bompard did not come +back, she was here alone with him and would have to fight this thing +out.</p> + +<p>Well, she could not fight it by brooding over it, and she was not +helping to look for Bompard.</p> + +<p>She drew the knife from its sheath and held the eight inches of razor +sharp steel balanced in her hand for a moment as though admiring it. +Then she replaced it in the sheath and started towards the Lizard +Point.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XIV' id='CHAPTER_XIV'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_132' id='Page_132'>132</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2><h3>THE DEATH TRAPS</h3> +</div> + +<p>From the highest shoulder of the point she could see La Touche +clambering over the seaward rocks.</p> + +<p>He seemed more in search of shells and seaweed than of Bompard. Then, +climbing down, she reached the lower ground and struck off inland. If +she did not succeed in finding Bompard she would at least succeed in +avoiding La Touche.</p> + +<p>Right from the Lizard Point the plain stretched to higher ground which +marked the beginning of the sea cliffs, great rocks strewed the way and +the ground was torn by the beds of small water courses, depressions that +would suddenly become little rivers in the deluging rains; stunted +bushes huddled as if for shelter at the rock bases and the voice of the +sea came here, broken and mixing with the whisper of the bushes to the +wind.</p> + +<p>This place had once been a glacier bed, rounded boulders standing in +pools of water told that.</p> + +<p>A gull flying in from the sea and carrying a fish in its beak drew her +attention; it was being pursued by a larger gull. They were both of the +Burgomaster type, but the fish carrier was noticeable on account of the +intense blackness of its tail plumage.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_133' id='Page_133'>133</a></span></p> + +<p>As they passed the fish dropped, fell on a patch of yellow ground just +in front of the girl, sank, and vanished.</p> + +<p>She stopped dead and drew back with a chill at her heart. Then she +picked up a stone and cast it on the patch of ground. It vanished even +more swiftly than the fish.</p> + +<p>It was one of the bogs the men had spoken of. They had described the +treacherous ground as white, this was yellowish and not very noticeable, +it was also death and another dozen steps would have led her into it.</p> + +<p>She advanced cautiously, reached the border line and kneeling down +pushed her hand into the yellow mud. It was like pushing it into a cold +slimy mouth. She could scarcely draw it out again, when she did the mud +was clinging to her hand like a yellow glove.</p> + +<p>She came back to one of the rock ponds and washed her hand, it was like +trying to get rid of treacle and, as she washed, she tried to fancy what +would have happened but for the gull, tried to picture herself being +slowly pulled down into that cold darkness and entombed there forever.</p> + +<p>Then, skirting the place of danger, she went on, cautiously, examining +carefully the ground before her. She had not gone ten yards when it +seemed to her that a patch right in front of her was ever so slightly +darker and moister looking than the ground she was treading.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_134' id='Page_134'>134</a></span></p> + +<p>She picked up a stone and cast it on the patch. It vanished. Then she +knew the feeling of the man who finds himself ambuscaded.</p> + +<p>This place was a death trap, or, rather, a series of death traps, there +might be pits lying in wait for her quite unnoticeable. She turned and +began to retrace her steps, so shaken that she would not trust even the +ground that she had already covered but kept testing it by casting +stones before her.</p> + +<p>From a little distance an observer might have fancied her engaged in +some new sort of game.</p> + +<p>Near the safety of the Lizard rocks her eyes, closely scanning the +ground before her, caught sight of something. It was a half-burned +match. No one else but Bompard could have dropped that match. He had +started without his tinder-box, had evidently found that match in his +pocket, lit his pipe and walked on. There was only one direction in +which he would have walked unless he had struck inland, which was +improbable. He would have made as she had made to cross to the higher +ground.</p> + +<p>Even if he had walked inland he would not have escaped, for, casting her +eyes in that direction she could see yellow patches spreading between +the rocks.</p> + +<p>She knew now what had become of Bompard, and with lips dry as pumice +stone she began to climb till she reached the point where she had sat +that morning. If the mud had taken Bompard, had he cried out? If so, La +Touche would have<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_135' id='Page_135'>135</a></span> heard his cries, for the caves were not so far from +the Lizard rocks.</p> + +<p>La Touche was nowhere to be seen, but she had no fear about him, or only +the fear that he would come back. Bompard was gone. Bompard was dead, +she knew it as though she had seen him engulfed, and she was here alone, +in this place, with La Touche.</p> + +<p>She put her hand to her side automatically to make sure that the knife +was there. Then she sat with her eyes fixed on the distant islands, +haze-purple in the light of the westering sun.</p> + +<p>The thought of the boat on the beach came to her with the idea that she +might launch it and escape, make for the islands and put all that sea +between herself and the man she hated. But she could not launch the boat +single-handed and, if she could, it would have been impossible to work +it single-handed with those big oars.</p> + +<p>She could see the boat from where she sat and the line of the beach +leading away past the seal-nursery and the sea elephant strand to the +rocks that formed the north-eastern horn of the bay. In stormy weather +those rocks would be invisible in the smoke of the breakers, to-day they +were clearly defined. She could see the great seals as they moved slowly +hither and thither and the ship’s figure-head as it stood to this side +of them and, like a pin point of white the great white skull on the +sands, a desolate scene, but almost benign when compared to the savagery +of rocks and cliffs<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_136' id='Page_136'>136</a></span> visible on her other side and that sinister plain, +where the death traps were set and waiting with the patience of +malignity for what might come to feed them.</p> + +<p>She had fought the human failing that makes men brood and trouble about +the future, a failing that is mostly born of houses and artificial life; +already the struggle against it was less. She was coming more and more +under that which has dominion over all things that live in the open and +have to fight for life—the moment. If she had examined her own mind she +would have found that the death of Bompard, of which she felt certain, +affected her far less than it would have done some days ago, that her +desire to escape to the islands was caused by the hatred of La Touche +more than by fear of the future with him.</p> + +<p>She would have found that her capacity for hatred had increased and also +her dangerous qualities, and she would have found all this because God +had so ordered life that it is adaptable, making the defensive and +offensive qualities of the being capable of increase or decrease in +answer to environment or need.</p> + +<p>She came back to the beach. It wanted, still, a couple of hours of +sun-down. There was no sign yet of La Touche, but, just as she knew in +her heart that Bompard was dead she knew that La Touche was all right. +He had been keeping to the rocks by the sea, leaving that aside; she +knew that he would come back. He was of the sort<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_137' id='Page_137'>137</a></span> that remains unscathed +when the better man is taken.</p> + +<p>She had one dread; that La Touche might get the knife from her, throw it +away, and be master by his superior strength.</p> + +<p>She had his clasp knife in her pocket, but it was a thing of little +account in a struggle. Well, she must be on her guard. Then came the +thought: “But how can I be on my guard when I am asleep?”</p> + +<p>Nothing would be easier, if he were really in earnest, than for him to +creep upon her whilst she slept, and disarm her.</p> + +<p>She tried to dismiss this idea. La Touche was not crafty enough for that +and, besides, would he go to the lengths of a physical struggle? He had +been on the point of hitting her, it was true, but that was in a moment +of excitement. Was she not painting him in too desperate colours?</p> + +<p>Argue as she would on the question, reason, instinctive reason, always +came back with the same answer: “Be on your guard, that knife is the +only barrier between you and heaven knows what. Without it you would be +at the mercy of a superior force. La Touche is no melodramatic villain; +he is, what is perhaps worse for you, a creature of low instincts, +stronger than you. Beware of being at his mercy.”</p> + +<p>With her mind filled by these thoughts she set to work getting supper +ready. La Touche had taken the tinder box with him, so a fire was out of +the question and she contented herself by laying<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_138' id='Page_138'>138</a></span> out the beef that had +served for dinner, and some biscuits.</p> + +<p>Then she saw that she had only laid two plates. Working +half-unconsciously she had ruled Bompard out. She looked at the things +lying there on the sand, then she turned away from them. La Touche had +crossed the rocks and was coming along the beach. He was trailing a long +ribband of seaweed he had picked up and as he drew closer she saw that +he had left his ill-humor behind him.</p> + +<p>“There was no sight of Bompard,” said he, “he has not come back, then?”</p> + +<p>“Bompard will not come back,” replied the girl, “we will never see him +again.”</p> + +<p>Then she told of the death traps beyond the rocks and of the match.</p> + +<p>La Touche listened, standing, and still holding the ribband of seaweed +in his fingers.</p> + +<p>She could see that he believed what she said and yet his words gave the +lie to what was in his face.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Bompard will come back all right,” said he. “He’s not such a fool +as to get into any of those bogs; he’s sulking, that’s all.”</p> + +<p>He shaded his eyes, looking back towards the rocks as though on the +chance of seeing the missing one; then he sat down before his plate and +helped himself to food and the girl, loathing him and the food as well, +sat down and made a pretence of eating.</p> + +<p>She noticed that he was cheerful, for a wonder.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_139' id='Page_139'>139</a></span> He ate with good +appetite and shewed in his movements and manner and voice when he spoke +a restrained vivacity new to him.</p> + +<p>His blondness, the washed-out blue of his eyes, his features, his voice, +she considered all these anew as she sat opposite to him. It seemed to +her that anything truly manly about him had come from the sea; that +essentially he was a product of Mont Martre or the Banlieu of old Paris. +She loathed him now as only a woman can loathe a man and, woman-like, +her loathing focussed itself upon his blondness and the colour of his +eyes.</p> + +<p>Then, when she had done with the pretence of eating she rose up and, +leaving him to remove the things, walked down to the water’s edge and +along towards the break in the cliffs.</p> + +<p>The tide was nearly out and the sea scarcely broke on the rocks; she had +never seen it calmer nor the islands closer. They seemed to have drawn +in shore during the last half hour and as she looked she saw a great +flock of gulls coming landward, and, as she turned to watch them, she +noticed the far-off mountain tops visible through the cliff break. They +were fuming. One might have fancied that fires had been lit all along +their tops and round the highest peak a turban of cloud was winding +itself, coil on coil.</p> + +<p>Then as she stood watching, and from away over, there came a rumble, +deep and cavernous, as if a gargantuan dray were being driven over +subterranean roads. It died out in echoes amongst<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_140' id='Page_140'>140</a></span> the foothills and +the silence returned broken only by the wash of the sea on the beach.</p> + +<p>She turned towards the sea. It had altered suddenly in colour and from +away beyond the islands the wind was coming. She could see it, raking +the sea like a comb. Then it struck the beach and yelled away up the +break in the cliffs like a hunter in a hurry to get to the wild work +going on amidst the hills.</p> + +<p>She turned back towards the caves.</p> + +<p>La Touche had left the tin plates lying on the sand and the wind, which +seemed to possess a hundred fingers, was chasing them about. He was +trying to recapture them and as he brought them back he laughed. It was +the first time she had seen him laugh. Then as he stowed them away he +shewed a disposition towards intimacy and talkativeness.</p> + +<p>“That’s what the winds are in this place,” said he, “no wonder ships +steer clear of it.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not thinking of the wind,” said she, “I’m thinking of Bompard.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Bompard will come back all right,” said he, “the grub’s here and +that will bring him. Bompard will come back all right.”</p> + +<p>“No,” said she, “he will never come back and you know it.”</p> + +<p>She turned away from him. Dusk was now falling and as she entered her +cave the wind from the sea suddenly fell dead. Almost immediately it +began to blow again, but now from the land and<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_141' id='Page_141'>141</a></span> as though this land wind +were spreading a pall over the sky darkness fell suddenly and with the +darkness she could hear the rain coming with the sound she had heard +once before like the murmuring of a great top spun by a giant.</p> + +<p>Then the rain burst on the beach with a roar through which came the hiss +of the rain-swept sea.</p> + +<p>The sound was almost welcome. As she lay in the darkness it seemed like +a protecting wall between herself and La Touche. La Touche’s ill-temper +would have disturbed her less than his cheerfulness and amiability, born +so suddenly and from no apparent reasons. She had determined not to +sleep and she had lain down fully dressed; even to the oilskin coat and +with her boots on; to-morrow she would go off and hide amongst the +bushes beyond the cliff break and get some sleep, but to-night she would +not close her eyes; so she told herself.</p> + +<p>She had taken the knife from its sheath and placed it beside her, her +hand rested on it. An hour passed, and now, as she lay listening to the +pouring of the rain her fingers felt the pattern of the hilt. The hilt +was striated cross-ways to give a better grip, and as her fingers +wandered up and down the strictions the cross bars of a ladder were +suggested to her. The steady pouring of the rain seemed to work on this +idea and make it more real. Then she was climbing a ladder set against +the cliffs. La Touche was holding it at the foot and Bompard was waiting +for her at the cliff top. He<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_142' id='Page_142'>142</a></span> helped her up and then the dream changed +to something else, and to something else, till she woke suddenly to the +recognition that she had been asleep for a long time and that fear, +deadly fear, was clutching her by the throat.</p> + +<p>She sat up, leaning on her elbow. The rain was still falling, though the +sound of it was much less, and the blackness was so intense that it +seemed moulded round her. She felt for the knife and found it. Then she +lay down again, listening.</p> + +<p>The tide was coming in and she recognised, and not for the first time, a +curious singing, chanting echo that always accompanied the waves of the +incoming tide.</p> + +<p>Fear is reasonless, it is also Protean, and this sea voice coming +through the night turned the fear of La Touche to the fear of Bompard. +What if he were to return, cold and wet, from that terrible grave-yard +beyond the rocks?</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XV' id='CHAPTER_XV'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_143' id='Page_143'>143</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2><h3>THE STROKE</h3> +</div> + +<p>As she lay, listening, through the black darkness and the singing of the +sea came a faint sound as of something dragging itself along the sand at +the cave entrance. She clutched the knife and sat up. A waft of wind +brought with it a tang of stale tobacco and rain-wet clothes. It was La +Touche.</p> + +<p>She drew up her feet and sat crouched against the sailcloth, the knife +half-held in her lap, her fingers nerveless, her mind paralysed with the +knowledge that now, immediately, she would <i>have</i> to fight, that the +Beast was all but upon her. She knew.</p> + +<p>She could hear him breathing now and the faint sound of his hands +feeling gently over the floor of the cave. He was searching for her, the +fume of him filled the place, he was almost in touch with her, yet still +she sat helpless as a little child, paralysed in the blackness, as a +bird before a crawling cat. Yet her right hand as though endowed with a +volition of its own was tightening its grasp upon the hilt of the knife.</p> + +<p>She had no longer reasoning power. Reasoning<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_144' id='Page_144'>144</a></span> power and energy seemed +now in the possession of the knife.</p> + +<p>Then something touched her left boot and at the touch her hand struck +out into the darkness, blindly and furiously, driving the knife home to +the hilt in something that fell with a choking sound across her feet. +She forced her feet from the thing that had suddenly fallen on them, +rose, sprang across it and passed through the cave entrance with the +surety of a person moving in broad daylight.</p> + +<p>Then the pouring rain on her face brought her to her full senses and +recognition of what had happened.</p> + +<p>The knife was still in her hand and her hand was sticky and damp.</p> + +<p>She said to herself: “That is his blood.” The thought that perhaps she +had killed him did not occur to her. The fear of him was still so +intense, that it made him alive, alive somewhere in the surrounding +darkness, and waiting to seize her. Then she began to steal off towards +the sound of the sea. Twice as she went she stopped and turned, ready to +strike again, then when the water was washing round her feet she came up +the beach a few paces and crouched down.</p> + +<p>The sea was at her back and the haunting dread of being followed +vanished.</p> + +<p>It was now that she asked herself the question: “Have I killed him?” +Meaning:—“Have I freed myself of him,”—hoping this was so.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_145' id='Page_145'>145</a></span></p> + +<p>The terror behind her having vanished she was now brave. It seemed to +her that the sound of the sea had become sharper; then she realized that +the sound of the rain had ceased. Her mind seemed working in a dual +manner and she had not fully recognized the cessation of the rain till +the sound of the sea clinched the fact.</p> + +<p>Through the clear night now came the melancholy crying of the whale +birds, and through the broken clouds a ray of the moon shewed a faint +light in which the cliffs began to stand out.</p> + +<p>The incoming tide washed round her so that she had to move, it seemed +determined to drive her up to the caves. She could see now the whole +beach desolate of life and before her, vaguely sketched in the cliff +wall, the cave openings.</p> + +<p>She came along the sea edge till she reached the break in the cliffs, +then, looking behind her again to make sure, she took refuge in the +bushes.</p> + +<p>For the last few yards before reaching them she seemed wading through +tides of nothingness. In the shelter of the bushes she forgot +everything.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XVI' id='CHAPTER_XVI'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_146' id='Page_146'>146</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2><h3>ALONE</h3> +</div> + +<p>She was awakened by the light of day. Kerguelen had cleared its face of +clouds and the new risen sun was on sea and mountains and land.</p> + +<p>A whole family of rabbits were disporting themselves close to her in a +clear space between the bushes and as she sat up they darted off, a +glimpse of their cotton white tails shewing for a moment in the sun.</p> + +<p>She was stiff from the damp, her clothes were wet despite the oilskin +coat which she had left open, and her throat was sore, every bone ached +as though she had been beaten. Her soul felt sick. It was as though the +crawling beast of the night before had crawled over it like a slug, +poisoning it. The knife lay beside her; she picked it up and looked at +it; there were red traces upon the hilt and the lines in the palm of her +right hand were red. She rubbed it clean with the damp leaves of the +bushes, then she stood up, shaking and weak, heedless of everything but +the friendly touch of the sun. Her fear was gone, but the effect of it +remained in a sense of bruising and injury.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_147' id='Page_147'>147</a></span></p> + +<p>Out on the beach there was nothing, nothing but the breaking sea and the +flying gulls and lines of long legged gulls stalking or standing on the +sands, the ‘get-away—get-away’ of the kittiwakes came across the water +and the barking of brent geese from beyond the rocks of the Lizard +Point. The boat lay there on its side, everything was the same.</p> + +<p>She drew towards the caves. Nothing stirred there. Then she halted and, +changing her course, came right down to the water’s edge. From here she +could see the three cave mouths dark cut in the cliff. She watched them +for a moment as though expecting something to appear, then she came up +towards them, walking more cautiously as she drew near, just as she had +walked on the plain where the death traps were.</p> + +<p>The light shone into the cave where she had slept. She saw a naked foot +with toes dug into the sand and beyond the foot a form lying on its +side.</p> + +<p>Then she drew back with a cry; something was moving there. A rabbit +dashed out of the cave and scuttered away along the cliff base. Then she +knew.</p> + +<p>La Touche was dead, he would never crawl again. She had killed him. She +cast the knife on the sand and wiped the palm of her hand on her dress +half unconsciously, gazing at the foot.</p> + +<p>The terror of him had burned away anything in her mind that might have +fed remorse. She<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_148' id='Page_148'>148</a></span> had not killed him consciously. Searching her memory +she could vaguely recollect having struck out against something +appalling in the darkness. Now she knew and guessed all, and she could +have hated him only that death kills hatred.</p> + +<p>She came to the mouth of the men’s cave and sat down in the sun, the +soreness of her throat, the weariness of her very bones, the feel of her +horrible wet clothes, all these filled her with a craving for the sun +and its warmth and light, fierce as the craving for drink. She spread +out her hands to it, then, with shaking fingers she began to take off +her clothes. They clung to her like evil things. Had this been a day of +pouring rain she might just have lain down and died.</p> + +<p>Without getting up, and leaning on her elbow, she spread out the skirt +and coat and other things on the sand beside her, then she stretched her +aching limbs to the warmth.</p> + +<p>The wind had fallen to almost a dead calm, and as she lay she saw little +rabbits stealing out to play in the sunshine on the sands. She watched +them running in circles like things on wheels and moving by clockwork. +Then she closed her eyes, but still she saw them circling, circling, +circling.</p> + +<p>Then she was in the toy department of the Magazin du Louvre and a +shop-woman was shewing her toy rabbits that ran in circles, five francs +each.</p> + +<p>She awoke at noon; the sore throat was gone, her bones no longer ached +and the great beach lay<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_149' id='Page_149'>149</a></span> under the heat of noon, humming like a +stretched string to the touch of the sea.</p> + +<p>Her left arm and side and thigh were scorched by the sun, but that was +nothing; the sense of illness was gone, and her mind, quite clear and +renewed, had regained its balance.</p> + +<p>She remembered everything. La Touche was lying there in the cave, dead. +The knife that had killed him she could see lying on the sand where she +had dropped it; she had killed him. All these monstrous facts seemed +old, settled and done with and of little more interest than the things +and events of a year ago.</p> + +<p>What seemed new was the beach and its desolation—its emptiness. It was +as though a crowd of people had suddenly vanished from it; a crowd that +any moment might return. The place seemed waiting and watching.</p> + +<p>She cast her eyes towards the rocks of the Lizard Point and then towards +the cave mouth; then hurriedly she began to put on her clothes, now dry +and warm, and having dressed she stood for a moment again looking about +her.</p> + +<p>She could see the penguins in the distance going through their endless +evolutions, and the rhythmical sound of the sea came from near and far +mixed with the chanting and crying of the gulls. At any moment Bompard +might appear labouring over those rocks, at any moment La Touche might +step from the cave where he lay. That is what the beach told her, though +she knew that the forms<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_150' id='Page_150'>150</a></span> of the two men would appear no more; that she +was here alone, utterly alone.</p> + +<p>She took shelter from the sun in the men’s cave. Bompard’s tinder box +was lying on the sand and half a box of Swedish matches. The men’s +blankets were tossed in a corner and the provisions and utensils were in +their proper place. On a plate by the bags of biscuits lay the remains +of the beef from last night’s supper; she took it and ate it with a +biscuit, sitting on the floor of the cave and staring before her out at +the strip of beach where the boat lay on its side with the sea breaking +beyond.</p> + +<p>On the day the men had gone off inland on their expedition she had +terrified herself with fancies of what it would be like were she to find +herself here alone. Her imagination had gone far from the reality.</p> + +<p>The thing had happened; the men were gone, gone forever, yet she was not +alone. They filled the place by their absence far more than they had +filled it by their presence.</p> + +<p>The louder cry of a gull outside seemed hailing Bompard, the rustle of a +rabbit on the sands seemed the coming of La Touche, the sound of the sea +spoke of them, the boat seemed only waiting for them to launch it. They, +whom a million years would not bring back.</p> + +<p>She felt neither regret for the fate of La Touche nor sorrow for the +fate of Bompard, all that seemed unreal, just as the darkness and terror +of the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_151' id='Page_151'>151</a></span> night before seemed unreal. The real thing that touched her +through everything was Expectancy. Expectancy, ghostly and attenuated, +yet ubiquitous.</p> + +<p>It brought her to the cave mouth before she had finished her meal. The +beach seemed to say to her: “Come out and look!” and she came out and +looked, and the line of foam and the wheeling or stalking gulls held her +for a moment as though saying—a moment, a moment more and you will see +something. They will come. Any moment now you may see Bompard crossing +the rocks. La Touche is not in that cave, he is here, everywhere.</p> + +<p>She came back into the cave and sat down and finished her meal, the food +had renewed her strength and with renewed strength her indifference to +all that had happened began to pass.</p> + +<p>She had killed La Touche. The reality of that fact was coming home to +her now; she did not reason in the least on the matter saying he +deserved to be killed, that had all been settled long ago in her mind, +but the fact that she had killed him was standing strongly out before +her, also the facts that he was dead and lying quite close to her and +that though she did not mind his dead body she was beginning to dread +something else.</p> + +<p>Dead, he was beginning to frighten her just as he had frightened her +when living. Then she found that it was just the same with Bompard. He +was frightening her too.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_152' id='Page_152'>152</a></span></p> + +<p>Suppose one or the other were to peep in at her, and nod at her—she +pictured it and then crushed the picture in her mind and got up and came +out again and stood in the sun.</p> + +<p>Then she came down to the boat and stood with her hand on the gunnel, +and, for a moment as she stood thus, the terror of utter loneliness came +to her in a hundred tongues and ways, and always with reference to the +men who had vanished.</p> + +<p>It was impossible to stay here alone—alone—absolutely alone; like a +frightened child her mind appealed against this terror; it climbed the +vacant skies and passed over the desolate hills in search of comfort. +Was there a God? To whom could she run for comfort, for escape—?</p> + +<p>As if in answer to her wild but unspoken question came a far-off roar +brought on the wind from the great seal beach.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XVII' id='CHAPTER_XVII'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_153' id='Page_153'>153</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2><h3>FRIENDS IN DESOLATION</h3> +</div> + +<p>She turned her face that way and stood for a moment with the faint +breeze blowing her hair. Then she came running up the beach to the +caves. In the men’s cave she stood glancing rapidly about her like a +person in a burning house seeking what he may save.</p> + +<p>She picked up the tinder box and the box of matches and put them in her +pocket. Then she began to remove everything from the cave. Making a sack +of one of the blankets, she filled it with as much as she could drag +along and brought it to the break in the cliffs where she dumped the +contents.</p> + +<p>It took her three journeys. Then, having collected everything in a big +pile, she sat down for a moment to rest. The things would be safe here +till she could fetch them to her new home, and the weather would not +hurt them, except, maybe, the biscuits.</p> + +<p>The thought of the biscuits troubled her, and the picture of them lying +exposed in one of the torrential rains. Then she caught sight of a cleft +in the basalt. It was dry and big enough to contain<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_154' id='Page_154'>154</a></span> the bags and she +placed them there having taken out some of their contents.</p> + +<p>These and a couple of tins of meat she placed in one of the blankets, +making a sack of it. Then she remembered the knife she had left lying on +the sand before the cave where the dead man lay.</p> + +<p>She fought against the idea of returning for it. Then her will made her +go.</p> + +<p>As she picked up the knife she glanced once again into the cave and once +again caught a glimpse of the naked foot with the toe dug into the sand; +then, placing the knife in its sheath and running like a frightened +child she reached the break, caught up the sack, the extra blanket and +the axe, which she had hidden among the bushes, and started.</p> + +<p>It was not a heavy load, fortunately. Had it been heavy she would have +dropped it, for, once moving, she had to run. The idea that she was +deserting people who did not want to be deserted pursued her; now and +again she stopped and turned for a moment—nothing; the Lizard rocks lay +just the same and the beach and the forsaken boat, just the same, and +the jeering gulls; yet, when she turned again to go on she had to run.</p> + +<p>Near the great skull her right bootlace, getting loose, nearly tripped +her. She sat down and tied it and then went on, walking now, but +swiftly, till, nearing the river and in full sight of her new +companions, she found herself suddenly free.</p> + +<p>The hounds of Fear had given up the chase.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_155' id='Page_155'>155</a></span> The great sea elephants had +driven them away. Here was no longer loneliness.</p> + +<p>The great beasts sunning themselves on the flat rocks seemed more +numerous and, as she crossed the river, a monster coming in from the sea +in a thunder of foam saluted the land with a roar.</p> + +<p>She recognized, or thought she recognized, the great bull that had +followed her, he was lying, to-day, half-tilted to one side, he looked +drunk with sun and laziness and as she came amongst them and sat down, +as she had sat that day, she found that though a hundred pairs of eyes +were watching her, scarcely a burly figure moved.</p> + +<p>They had grown used to her, perhaps, or perhaps they recognized that she +did not fear them now in the least, or that she had come for refuge and +friendship.</p> + +<p>Then she rose up and passing amongst them as a friend amongst friends +came towards the caves in the basalt cliffs. They were smaller than the +caves to the west but they were dry and free from water drip. She chose +one and put her bundle down with the axe beside it.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_156' id='Page_156'>156</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_157' id='Page_157'>157</a></span></p> + +<hr class='major' /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_158' id='Page_158'>158</a></span></p> +<h2>PART III</h2> + +<hr class='minor' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XVIII' id='CHAPTER_XVIII'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_159' id='Page_159'>159</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2><h3>GOD MADE FRIENDSHIP</h3> +</div> + +<p>The place was as populous as a town. That was the soul-satisfying fact +which she absorbed as she sat with the bundle and axe beside her. To be +lonely here one would have to be deaf and blind and without the sense of +smell. Now that their attention was no longer strained by watching her +the great brutes filled the place with all sorts of sounds, grunts and +grumbles, puffs and snorts like the escape of steam from a locomotive +and now and then the flop of a great body changing position. There was +another sound she got to know and recognize, after a while, the +grumbling and rumbling of their interiors. Infested with sea-lice they +were always scratching. Quite close to the cave mouth three great bulls +were lying and every now and then one of them would turn and twist round +and scratch himself with his flippers, the nearest bull had lost an eye +in some past battle and they were all scarred about the necks, and seen +close like this, in their natural state and as one of their company, the +marvel of them, was beyond speaking.</p> + +<p>She took off the oilskin coat and laid it on the sand of the cave, took +the things from the blanket<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_160' id='Page_160'>160</a></span> and spread the two blankets out and folded +them. As she moved about she saw that the bulls had turned slightly, +attracted by her movements, but they shewed not the slightest sign of +mind disturbance. Then, having placed the things in order, she came out +and walked down to the water’s edge, making a detour now and then to +avoid treading on the flippers or the tail of a monster. On coming +amongst them a few minutes ago she had felt not the slightest fear, but +this walk in cold blood from the cliff to the sea edge made her hold her +breath. She felt as she had felt that first day when she sat down close +to them. Angry, and with a sudden movement, one of these creatures could +have destroyed her as a man destroys a fly; but she held on, and was +rewarded.</p> + +<p>Not one of them shewed any wish to destroy her, or anger, or uneasiness. +They had accepted her into their company by not attacking or ejecting +her, she ran counter to none of their desires or needs and evidently her +form called up no recollections of the beast Man in their dim brains.</p> + +<p>Then she was a female. Sex is more than a physical difference between +one being and another, one can fancy it as one of the outstanding signs +of the Wild to be read by instinct, as instinct reads the weather or +season signs, or the sea mile posts that lead the seals and sea +elephants thousands of leagues to strike some particular beach as an +arrow strikes the bull’s eye of a target.</p> + +<p>The female, unless with young, is not dangerous<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_161' id='Page_161'>161</a></span> to the male. One may +fancy that amongst the few but burningly important warnings and +directions in the book of Instinct.</p> + +<p>Here, at the sea edge and within a few feet of the breaking waves, she +sat down on a projecting rock and tried to measure with her eye the vast +herd. The whole beach from where she sat to where the flat rocks ceased +a mile and a half away on her right was spotted with them and she +noticed that here and there they were always putting out to sea and +coming ashore again.</p> + +<p>Making for a spot on the right, a hundred yards from her she saw one +coming ashore, swift as an arrow, steering with straight steadfast eyes +and landing with the water cascading from his huge shoulders, whilst on +the left one was putting out to sea in a burst of foam.</p> + +<p>Then, of a sudden, all the shore edge bulls got in commotion slithering +about, raising themselves on their flippers and blowing off steam.</p> + +<p>A sea elephant was coming towards the beach, moving with a speed thrice +that of any of the others, his head was raised and she could see the +eyes that seemed blazing with wrath or challenge.</p> + +<p>Then, as he came thundering on to the rocks, he lifted the echoes with a +roar that resounded for miles along the beach.</p> + +<p>All the others had landed in silence.</p> + +<p>She did not know that this was a newcomer, a belated bull, held days +behind the arrival of the others by some chance of the sea. Maybe he +had<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_162' id='Page_162'>162</a></span> hung fishing off the South Shetlands or the Horn, or beached for +repairs after some sea fight off the Falklands; whatever had held him he +was late.</p> + +<p>He came swiftly up the rocks, casting his head from side to side but +unchallenged. There were no females there yet to fight for and they +evidently recognized him as one of the herd and not a stranger. The herd +instinct, without which a nation would be a mob, ruled here and gave the +belated one his place, and after a while of squattering about and +sniffing and blowing he settled down with quieted eyes to rest. He had +reached one of the stopping stages of his life, with the surety with +which he would reach the last, on some desolate beach or reef of the +sea.</p> + +<p>The girl watched him. Not only did these new-found companions chase away +loneliness and ghostly fears, but they brought her comfort. They seemed +so sure, sure of food and life and the right to live, so undisturbed; it +was as though she felt the presence of the ghostly shepherd who looks +after the flocks of sea and land and who counts even the sparrows. She +cast her eyes towards the islands and the sea-line; some day a ship would +come and all this would be a dream of the past. She knew it. Her mind +went back over all that she had been saved from—the wreck, the +deathtraps and worst of all—La Touche. It was strange to think that a +man should be worse than the others.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_163' id='Page_163'>163</a></span></p> + +<p>If that fisherman’s knife had not been included in the gear of the boat!</p> + +<p>It was now, as she sat thinking this and watching the huge harmless +things around her, that a hatred of La Touche came into her mind, a +hatred that seemed to have been waiting to enter until her mind was at +rest. He seemed to her evil itself. He seemed to her connected with all +the disasters that had happened and part of them. He had been the +lookout on the <i>Gaston de Paris</i>, his quarrel had sent Bompard to his +death, he had nearly unhinged her mind with terror. Had he possessed the +evil eye? Then, for the first time, she recalled her premonition of +disaster, yet, how she had refused to let the yacht be put off its +course. They might now have been at New Amsterdam only for that. Yet it +was not her fault. She had refused to alter the course, not for any +selfish reason, quite the reverse, she had refused because she did not +wish to spoil the plans of her host. It was Fate, not blind Fate, +because the premonition was full sighted, it was Fate obeying some +order. And it seemed to her that she could read in the order that she +was to be saved. Why? God only knew, but so she read the facts, and she +would be saved to the end and go back to the life she knew, or had known +and die, perhaps, at last an old, old woman.</p> + +<p>It seemed to her that this coming on to the sea elephant beach was a +stage in her great journey that had brought her definitely nearer to the +end of her loneliness. And whether all this were true<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_164' id='Page_164'>164</a></span> knowledge or +whether it was only the fancy of the ego its effect was to give her +peace.</p> + +<p>Then, as she sat there the strangest lonely figure on earth, she +explored the pocket of her skirt and took the things from it. La +Touche’s knife, her rings knotted up in her handkerchief, the tobacco +box of Captain Slocum, the tinder-box and box of matches. Then she +opened the tobacco box and re-read the purple writing with the tag “keep +up your spirits.” She could not visualize the old slab-sided whaling +captain who had scrawled that, inspired no doubt by practical knowledge +of disaster and the horrors of Kerguelen, but the message came now as an +additional comfort, it seemed to her written by a hand other than that +of man. She put the paper back in the box and, then, everything back in +her pocket.</p> + +<p>Then, like a stroke of humour, an incident occurred to lighten the whole +beach.</p> + +<p>A big platoon of penguins had crossed the river and marched up to the +sacred precincts of the seal beach. Turning her head to see what the +disturbance was about she sighted the penguins just at the end of their +march and three bulls fronting them. The penguins wished to pass, either +from impudence or a real desire to cross the beach, but the bulls barred +the way, heading them off, turning and twisting, snorting as if to blow +the feathered ones away.</p> + +<p>The penguins bowed and scraped and explained, but the bulls, blind to +politeness and deaf to argument<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_165' id='Page_165'>165</a></span> only presented their heads, then they +raised their rumps and made a half charge. The girl watched the penguins +going at the double with heads slewed round as though fearful of their +tails. Then she laughed.</p> + +<p>The sea elephants had not only made her able to laugh, they had given +her something to laugh over. Then came the thought: why had they refused +the penguins and accepted her?</p> + +<p>She did not know that the penguins were rival fishermen, she fancied +that the sea elephants were somehow friendly to her, divining her +friendship for them, and maybe she was right, though not perhaps in the +way she fancied, for when God made friendship He made it out of queer +and sometimes negative materials.</p> + +<p>That night as she lay in her cave with a rolled-up blanket for pillow +and the other blanket for covering, neither Ghosts nor Loneliness came +to trouble her.</p> + +<p>Two great bulls a few yards from the cave’s mouth kept her warm and +comfortable of mind.</p> + +<p>She could hear their puffs and grunts and the occasional wobble-wobble +of their digestive organs as they slept, dreaming maybe in their sleep, +for sometimes they tossed and moved, and once one of them gave a “woof” +as though trying to roar under the blanket of sleep.</p> + +<p>She thought of dogs lying asleep; dogs dreamed and hunted in their +dreams, why should not these?</p> + +<p>Then suddenly the rain came down as though<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_166' id='Page_166'>166</a></span> someone had pulled the +string of a shower bath, but she knew that would not drive them away, +guessing that rain to sea elephants was no more disturbing than sun to +peaches.</p> + +<p>Then she was chasing penguins along the beach, riding on a sea elephant +towards that absolute oblivion which is the brand of sleep they serve at +Kerguelen.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XIX' id='CHAPTER_XIX'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_167' id='Page_167'>167</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2><h3>THE BIRDS</h3> +</div> + +<p>It rained off and on for three days, but rain in Kerguelen is not the +same as rain in England, just as rain at Windmere is not the same as +rain at Birmingham. It does not depress, especially when you are busy. +In those three days she made three journeys to the break in the cliffs +to recover the things she had left there and she made her journeys, not +to put too fine a point on it, with nothing on but the oilskin coat, the +blanket she used for a sack got hopelessly soaked and her head was +exposed to the rain owing to the fact that the sou’wester was in the +cave where the dead man lay, but she got used to it, especially as +neuralgia and colds are unknown in Kerguelen.</p> + +<p>The loss of her only towel, the lump of cotton waste, was far worse than +the loss of the sou’wester and would have been worse still only that she +had other things to think about, especially on these journeys. They were +terrible and required all her fortitude to make them, and they were +terrible for a new reason. The birds had got at La Touche. Great +predatory birds like cormorants thronged the beach opposite the cave, +she could see them going in and out of the cave and<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_168' id='Page_168'>168</a></span> she could hear them +quarrelling in there in the darkness.</p> + +<p>Then, on her last journey, as she was preparing to come back, happening +to glance that way she saw a gull like a Burgomaster coming out of the +cave mouth and pulling after it something long like a rope upon which +the other gulls flung themselves. She turned and ran.</p> + +<p>She had saved everything but one full bag of biscuits; she determined to +leave them. If worst came to the worst there was bread stuff in the +cache.</p> + +<p>That night the memory of what she had seen haunted her sleep. It was as +though La Touche, unable to get at her in the material world was +determined to torment her in the imaginary.</p> + +<p>She lay awake listening to the whale birds crying and the divers mewing +and quarrelling like cats, then, dropping asleep, she was awakened at +dawn by a new sound. Outside on the beach she heard a moaning like the +voice of someone in pain.</p> + +<p>She raised herself on her elbow. It was a human voice without any manner +of doubt. It ceased, and springing to her feet she came out. But there +was no human being on the beach, nothing but the bulky forms of the +great sea bulls, and quite close to the cave a smaller form, a female +that had landed during the night and had just given birth to a baby, a +thing like a slug which she was fondling with her flippers.</p> + +<p>Then in the strengthening light the girl could<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_169' id='Page_169'>169</a></span> make out here and there +on the beach the forms of other females, and by noon that day there were +hundreds and hundreds, and on the next day the beach was one vast +nursery. It was the first great act in the life history of these sea +people towards which the girl’s heart was going out more and more, and +as she sat that day watching the mothers and their babies, and the great +old bulls shuffling about like heavy fathers, sometimes she would smile +and sometimes, sitting and watching, her mind would wander away lost and +trying to grapple with the great mystery of which all this was only a +part.</p> + +<p>They were so human, so warm to the heart, and yet only a few days ago +there was nothing here but the rocks and the cold and trackless sea. +Then she noticed that to-day the bulls were not sunning themselves +lazily, although the sun was out. They seemed disturbed, moving about +aimlessly, lifting themselves on their flippers and now and then raising +their short trunks.</p> + +<p>Sometimes a female would make as if to get back to the sea but she was +always headed off by a bull.</p> + +<p>When dusk fell it seemed that the sentries were doubled, to judge by the +noise of the flopping and moving about. The girl came to the cave +entrance and looked, and lo and behold! every bull had cleared down +towards the sea edge. She could see them stretching away into the dim +distance, a hedge of vast forms broken and moving here and there, but +always restored.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_170' id='Page_170'>170</a></span></p> + +<p>She thought that this line of defence was to keep the females back from +the water, yet there seemed more than mere precaution at the bottom of +the general disturbance that filled the beach. Then as she lay awake she +could hear now and then a distant roar and once a big bull only a few +hundred yards from the cave took it into his head to give tongue with a +blast like the first deep “woof” of a siren, then came another sound +quite close to the cave entrance, a sound like the broken lapping of +ripples, interrupted by movements and little snorts and sighs. It was a +baby seal sucking away at the teats of its mother. The pair was just +outside the cave.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XX' id='CHAPTER_XX'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_171' id='Page_171'>171</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2><h3>VÆ VICTIS</h3> +</div> + +<p>A Howling wind that rose at midnight carrying niagaras of rain oversea +from the mountains sank at dawn leaving a clear sky and a falling sea.</p> + +<p>As she came out into the early morning light she could see boosts of +spray all along the rocks, but by the time she had tidied things up and +finished her breakfast these had vanished and the water was coming in, +rolling lazily, and the sounds of the breakers came sleepy and evenly +spaced as though ruled by a metronome.</p> + +<p>The bulls no longer lined the shore, though keeping close to the water +they had broken up into groups, yet still the sense of disturbance was +there pervading the beach like an atmosphere.</p> + +<p>The tide was just turning back from the flood, and as she stood watching +she noticed the curious fact that not a single bull was taking to the +water; ordinarily, here and there along the rocks, there was always some +monster taking a header, some vast bulk beaching in a potter of foam. +This morning there was nothing of this sort.</p> + +<p>Picking her way between the mothers and their babies she came down to +the sea edge, choosing a<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_172' id='Page_172'>172</a></span> broad space left vacant because of the bad +landing conditions. The rocks here were higher, forming a miniature +cliff some four or five feet in height and from this point looking +seaward something caught her eye.</p> + +<p>Three black objects moving in a line were making a long ripple on the +swell. They were the heads of three sea elephants moving like one. Then +the line became the segment of a circle bending in shore. But the +swimmers were not going to land; they kept parallel to the rocks and a +few hundred yards out, and as they passed she could see clearly the +great heads and sometimes the massive shoulders rising and washing away +the water and the eyes, as the heads swung now and then shorewards, +wicked eyes that seemed to blaze with the light of anger or battle.</p> + +<p>She was not alone in observing them. They had been spotted by a +trumpet-voiced sentry and instantly the whole place was in commotion. +The air split with a roar that passed along from section to section of +the beach whilst the cliffs resounded and a thousand sea-gulls rose as +if from nowhere, crying, cat-calling and making a snowstorm in the +sunlight.</p> + +<p>On the roar and as if destroyed by it the three heads vanished.</p> + +<p>Then, far out, they reappeared, only to dive again, leaving the sea +blank, but for a school of porpoises passing along on their quiet +business a mile away towards the east.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_173' id='Page_173'>173</a></span></p> + +<p>The girl sat watching. There was something in all this of greater import +than the appearance of three swimming sea elephants. The beach told her +that. Not a bull in all that vast herd but was in motion, either helping +to crowd the females back towards the cliffs or patrolling the rocks. +She could see them here and there rising up on their hind-quarters as +though to get a better view of the sea. They reminded her of dogs +begging for biscuits. Then, turning her eyes seaward again she saw a +black spot; it was a moving head. Then another broke the surface and +another, till in a moment, and for a mile-long stretch, hundreds of +heads appeared, all driving shorewards and then dipping and vanishing +only to reappear still closer in and closing on the beach with the +swiftness of destroyers.</p> + +<p>Then she knew, and, springing up, turned to run; but her retreat was cut +off towards the caves by the females herded up and, before she could +collect her thoughts, the army of invasion was flinging itself from the +water, and the whole sea beach from end to end was filled with the +thunder of battle.</p> + +<p>For days the lone bulls had been cruising at sea waiting and watching +till all the females were on shore under guard of their husbands. So it +happened every year as now, ending in a battle for the possession of +wives, a battle waged without quarter and with a fury whose sound +reached the echoes of the hills.</p> + +<p>Safe on the little rock plateau she watched the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_174' id='Page_174'>174</a></span> thunderous onslaught, +frightened and then terrified and crying out.</p> + +<p>The invaders drove in from the sea like the sweep of a curved sword. +They struck the beach first a mile away and the battle ran towards her +like fire along tinder, boomed towards her ever loudening till it broke +to right and left where the sea bulls flung themselves on the rocks and +the land bulls charged the on-comers like battering rams. Some were +hurled back, only to return again, others held their ground. Then the +real business began whilst the ground trembled and the air shook and the +rocks poured blood.</p> + +<p>Round her, and for a mile away, they fought like rams and they fought +like dogs and they fought like tigers, and over the roaring siren sounds +of the fight the gulls flew like the fume of it, screaming and swooping +and circling in spirals, and through everything like the continuous +thud-thud of a propeller came the dunch of tons of flesh meeting tons of +flesh head on, shoulder on, or side on.</p> + +<p>She saw bulls ripped beyond belief, with shoulders slashed as if by the +down strokes of a sword, yet still fighting as though untouched, with +rumps raised and tails up and teeth in the necks of their enemies, one +had his eye torn out, yet tremendous and victorious he was literally +punching his antagonist back into the sea.</p> + +<p>The foam broke red and suddy; she saw that, just as she had seen the +name of the <i>Albatross</i> in<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_175' id='Page_175'>175</a></span> the tremendous moment of the great ship’s +eclipse, and, just as the name, the red breaking foam seemed to +concentrate in itself the whole terror of the business.</p> + +<p>Then, standing like a person helpless in a dream during the full hour +that the battle raged, she saw the females break bounds and spread over +the rocks carrying or pushing their young as if to get closer to the +fight, and then she saw the battle beginning to break. Here and there +bulls beaten and done for were taking to the sea and over all the beach +the fight had spread inwards towards the cliffs. The sea bulls were +beating the land bulls as a whole, interpenetrating them, getting closer +to the females, herding the vanquished out.</p> + +<p>And she saw, now, as though a curtain had been raised, that the whole +great battle was between individuals.</p> + +<p>The bulls fresh from the sea though attacking <i>en masse</i> were under the +dominion of no enmity in common, each had come to find a rival and +having found him had no eyes for anything else. Nor having once +conquered did he pursue.</p> + +<p>Another, and a wonderful thing, shewed up: the females had grouped +themselves as if to be taken, and now on the clearing beach could be +seen family parties, some under the dominion of their new lords and +masters, some still being fought for.</p> + +<p>So it hung, dwindling little by little till at last only two warriors +were left like the last-blazing point of the fight.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_176' id='Page_176'>176</a></span></p> + +<p>They were the biggest of the two herds; they looked as though they had +been rolled in gore and they seemed equally furious and equally +exhausted. All their rage was in their eyes. Too beaten to bite they +could only boost one against another like two schoolboys trying to push +one another off a form.</p> + +<p>It seemed a miserable and tame ending of their tremendous struggle and +she recognized, or thought she recognized, that the biggest of them was +the bull who had followed her that day like a dog towards the river.</p> + +<p>This shouldering and pushing was his last effort to hold to his wife and +family. In war it is the last step that counts, could he make it? Then a +strange thing happened. The two monsters paused in their pushing, +relaxed, and seemed for a moment to forget the existence of one another. +That tremendous weariness lasted for a minute and then they woke up and +the biggest bull began to shuffle off to the sea.</p> + +<p>His heart or his mind had failed him. The closer he got to the water’s +edge the swifter he moved and the plunge of his body into the water was +the last sound of that battle.</p> + +<p>Not a corpse lay on the beach, nothing but the victorious lords and +their ladies, and the lords seemed to pay as little attention to their +ghastly wounds as they did to their old or newly got wives, who, now +that peace was restored, were busy suckling their young.</p> + +<p>A queer people, humorous and terrifying, making<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_177' id='Page_177'>177</a></span> the girl feel that she +had placed her hand on something likeable, almost lovable, that had yet, +of a sudden, nearly frightened her to death.</p> + +<p>She sat recovering herself and helped by the regiment of penguins who +marched up to the seal beach and, knowing better than to attempt to +cross it, stood bowing to the world in general and talking one to the +other perhaps on the horrors of war.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_178' id='Page_178'>178</a></span></p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_180' id='Page_180'>180</a></span></p> +<h2>PART IV</h2> + +<hr class='minor' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXI' id='CHAPTER_XXI'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_181' id='Page_181'>181</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2><h3>TIME PASSES</h3> +</div> + +<p>It is not good to be alone. As the weeks passed she began to lose and +forget the feeling of surety in rescue and at times, now, she found +herself talking out loud, putting what was in her mind into speech as +though a companion were by, and sometimes she would hear a voice +hallooing to her and start and cast her eyes over the desolate beach +only to see the gulls.</p> + +<p>The beach was always haunted by queer noises; the chanting sound of the +waves coming in, a faint sound like the beating of a drum at very low +tide, to say nothing of the booming of bitterns and the barking of brent +geese and the hundred voices of the wind. She would listen and listen, +her mind wandering aimlessly, and in the great rains, when the whole sea +was shut out by the downpour, the noise would lull her like opium.</p> + +<p>The baby sea elephants lost their long black coats and put on their +suits of fine yellow fur and took themselves to the nursery by the +river, where all day long they played and tumbled and swam, and then she +would sit and watch them like a mother watching her children.</p> + +<p>The great battle of the bulls seemed like something<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_182' id='Page_182'>182</a></span> far away beyond +which other things were becoming vague. Something that was not meant to +be seen so close by human eyes, something that had pushed her still +further from man.</p> + +<p>It was full summer now, the season of tremendous sunsets and when the +sky was clear, vast conflagrations lit themselves beyond the Lizard +Point painting the islands and purpling the skies, and one evening as +she sat in the western blaze watching the moving beach and listening to +the playing and quarrelling of the nursery a voice said to her:</p> + +<p>“Some day all these will take to the sea and leave you. There will be +nothing here but the rocks and the sea.”</p> + +<p>It was as though the sunset had spoken.</p> + +<p>The thought aroused her as a knock on the door arouses a sleeper. +Fighting against it her mind became more fully awake. She said to +herself: “If they go I will go too.”</p> + +<p>For a long time now she had lived without hot food or drink. On coming +here first she had cut some wood from the figure-head to make a fire, +but it was damp, just damp enough to prevent it from kindling, so she +had let things go as women do in the matter of food when they have not +any one else to feed; she had burrowed into the cache and got at some of +the tins of vegetables and on these and biscuits and tinned meat she +made out, eating less and less as time went on.</p> + +<p>It is bad to be alone, even with sea elephants to<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_183' id='Page_183'>183</a></span> ward off fears, even +with provisions enough for a year and a cave to shelter one.</p> + +<p>She had never given in. She had fought the future and refused to be +frightened by it, she had worked for life and taken refuge in the +moment, and now the moment was taking its revenge for being too much +lived in.</p> + +<p>To eat was almost too much trouble and presently the seal nursery became +too long a walk and the little sea elephants at play had lost their +power to interest her. Sleep began to take the place of food and +sometimes, and for no reason, she would weep like a child.</p> + +<p>The food she ate sometimes seemed to poison her, bringing on vomiting +and dysentery, and it poisoned her because her stomach failed to digest +it.</p> + +<p>She was being poisoned, poisoned by loneliness. Had her stomach not +failed her mind would have given, as it was the weakness of malnutrition +saved her reason as it slowly destroyed her hold on life.</p> + +<p>Her dreams became sometimes more vivid than reality and they always held +her to the beach where she watched without terror battles between +monstrous sea elephants and processions of penguins infinite in length, +penguins that passed her bowing, bowing, bowing till she woke in the +dark with the palms of her hands dry and burning and her lips like +pumice stone and her tongue feeling hard like the tongue of a parrot, +but the worst experience of all was a shock that came nearly every time<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_184' id='Page_184'>184</a></span> +she lay down at night and just before sleep took her.</p> + +<p>It seemed like the blow of a fist, a fist that hit her everywhere, +making her start and draw up her legs and cry out.</p> + +<p>All this, perhaps, was what she had foreseen when long ago she had +watched a great ship that had told her of Desolation—and something +worse.</p> + +<p>This was what no one had ever imagined in connection with Desolation. +Its power to kill with its own hand. To gently destroy, sucking the +vitality like a vampire and fanning the victim to dullness with its +wings.</p> + +<p>The sea elephants might have noticed that the female creature to whom +they had grown so accustomed appeared little now, a shrinking vision +that every day shortened its wanderings; that it walked differently, +that it seemed more bent. But the sea elephants knew nothing of +Loneliness or its works, nor did they notice, one morning, that though +the sun was shining the figure did not appear at all.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXII' id='CHAPTER_XXII'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_185' id='Page_185'>185</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2><h3>A NEWCOMER</h3> +</div> + +<p>One morning, brilliant, with the deceptive brilliancy of Kerguelen, a +big man, rough and red-bearded and carrying a bundle slung over his +shoulder, stood on the rocks that formed the eastern point of the great +beach; the sun was at his back and before him lay the seven mile stretch +of sand and rock leading to the far-off Lizard Point.</p> + +<p>He was over six feet in height but so strongly built that he scarcely +looked his inches. He was a sailor. The gulls might have told that by +the way he stood, and his eyes, accustomed to roving over vast spaces, +swept the beach before him from end to end, took in the sea elephants +moving like slugs and the seal-nursery and the river and the sands +beyond and the Lizard Point crawling out to sea beyond the sands.</p> + +<p>Then he cast his eyes inland.</p> + +<p>He wanted to get to the west and he had to choose between seven miles of +broken country or seven miles of easy beach.</p> + +<p>The sea elephants were a bar across the beach. He could gauge their size +from where he stood, they looked formidable, but they were less so than +the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_186' id='Page_186'>186</a></span> rocks strewing that broken country. He had climbed over rocks and +gone round rocks and nearly fallen from rocks till rocks had become in +his mind enemies bitter, brutal, callous, and far more formidable than +live things. He chose the beach and came down to it, taking his way +along the sea edge as a person takes his way along a pavement edge, +giving possibly turbulent people the wall.</p> + +<p>As he closed up towards the seal beach he kept his eyes fixed on the +great bulls and their families, and the bulls, as he drew closer, +shifted their position to watch him, beyond that they shewed no sign. +Then as he began to pass them he recognised that he had nothing to fear, +the females alone, here and there, shewed any sign of disturbance, +shuffling towards him with wicked eyes, rising on their flippers, but +always sinking down and shuffling back as he went on.</p> + +<p>Further along, though followed and met by a hundred pairs of eyes, even +the females began to treat him with indifference. It was as though the +whole herd were under the dominion of one brain that recognized him as +harmless and passed him along. He would pause now and then to look at +them with the admiration of strength for strength. He was of their type, +a bull man, rough from the sea as themselves.</p> + +<p>Then he saw the caves and would have passed them only for something that +caught his eye. A red labelled Libby tin was lying on the dark sand +close to the mouth of one of the caves, and<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_187' id='Page_187'>187</a></span> if you wish to know how an +old tomato tin or an old beef tin can shout, you must go alone to the +great beach of Kerguelen and find one there—which you will not.</p> + +<p>The sight of the tin made him start and catch in his breath. The tin was +everything he knew of ships and men focussed in a point, a knight in +armour riding along the beach would have astonished him no more, would +have heated his blood far less.</p> + +<p>He struck up towards it, took it in his hand, examined it inside and out +and then cast his eye at the cave before which it had lain. He saw +something in the cave, it was a woman; a woman lying on the sand with a +rolled-up blanket under her head. She was lying on her back and he saw a +thin white hand, so small, so thin, so strange that he drew slightly +back, glanced over his shoulder, as if to make sure that everything was +all right with the world, and then glanced again, drawing closer.</p> + +<p>Then he called out and the woman moved. He could see her face now, +white, and thin and drawn, and great eyes, terrible eyes, fixed on him.</p> + +<p>Away out at sea, terribly near the coast of Death she saw him, a living +being, as the castaway sees a ship on the far horizon.</p> + +<p>He saw her hold out her arms to him and then, throwing his bundle aside, +he was down on his knees beside her, holding the hands that sought his +and with those terrible eyes holding him too.</p> + +<p>He saw her lips moving, saw that they were<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_188' id='Page_188'>188</a></span> dry and parched. Then he +knew. She wanted water.</p> + +<p>An empty baling tin was lying near her. The sight of the river close by +was in his mind, he released the hands, picked up the tin and scrambled +out of the cave. As he ran to the river heedless of sea elephants or +anything else he kept crying out: “Oh, the poor woman. Oh, the poor +woman.” He seemed like a huge thing demented. The baby sea elephants +scuttered out of his way and as he came running back he spilt half the +contents of the tin. Then he was down beside her again, dipping his +finger in the water and moistening her lips.</p> + +<p>She sucked his finger as a baby sucks and the feel of that made him +curse with the tears running down into his beard. The size of the baling +tin seemed horrible beyond words; he couldn’t get it to her lips. Still +he went on, not knowing that it was his finger that was giving her back +life; the blessed touch of a human being that had come almost too late.</p> + +<p>He was sitting on his heels, and now, casting his great head from side +to side, he saw things stacked behind her, tins and a bag and metal +things that shone dimly. Putting out his hand he caught a corner of the +bag. It was a bread bag, sure enough, and as he pulled it towards him +the other things came clattering down almost hitting her, and amongst +them, God-sent, a little tin spoon.</p> + +<p>He seized it and filled it and brought the tip to her lips and she +swallowed the water making<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_189' id='Page_189'>189</a></span> movements with her throat muscles as though +it were half a cupful. He did this a dozen times and then rested, spoon +in hand, watching her. She made a couple of slight movements with her +head as if nodding to him and her eyes never left him for a moment, they +seemed holding on to life through him. He offered a spoonful of water +again, she moved her head slightly as though she had had enough, but her +eyes never left him.</p> + +<p>He knew. If the whole thing had been carefully explained to him he could +not have known better how she was clinging to him, as a child to a +mother, as a creature to life. And all the time his rough mind in a +tumble of confusion and trouble was trying to think how she came like +this, with a bread bag close to her and a river within reach.</p> + +<p>A tin cup had come down with the other things, it gave him an idea, and +getting a biscuit out of the bag he broke it up, put the pieces in the +cup with some water and let them soak. It took a long time and all the +while, now and then, he kept talking to her.</p> + +<p>“There. Y’aren’t so bad after all—keep up till I get you something +more. There’s no use in troubling—you’ll be on your pins soon.”</p> + +<p>He would pause to swear at the biscuit for not softening quicker, +helping it to crumble with his mighty thumb thrust in the cup. To “get +food into her” was his main idea, it didn’t matter about thumbs. He was +not without experience of starvation<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_190' id='Page_190'>190</a></span> and thirst and what they can do to +people, and, as he worked away talking to her, pictures from the past +came to him of people he had seen like this, nearly “done in” by the +sea.</p> + +<p>Then he began to feed her with the noxious pap. He managed to get six +spoonfuls “into her” and then he saw she would stand no more; still, +that was something, and as he brooded on his heels watching her he saw +that she was making a struggle to keep it down, and he knew that if she +brought it up she was done for. And all the time she kept holding him +with her eyes as though he were helping her in the struggle.</p> + +<p>He was. The sight of him gave her just the strength necessary to tide +over the danger point; then she lay still and the food, such as it was, +began to do its work.</p> + +<p>One may say that the stomach thinks; every mood of the mind can touch it +and it can influence every mood of the mind.</p> + +<p>Then the terrible fixed eyes began to grow more human, then to close +slightly. She was still far at sea, but no longer adrift; like a little +boat taken in tow she was heading now back for the shore. She fell +asleep holding his thumb.</p> + +<p>The bits of wood she had chipped from the figure-head were lying in a +little heap near the cave mouth and the axe lay beside them. He noted +them as he sat motionless as a carved figure till the grip on his thumb +relaxed, and the dry claw-like hand, now growing moist and human, gave +up its hold.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_191' id='Page_191'>191</a></span></p> + +<p>Then, crawling out, stealthily and side-ways like a crab, he seized the +axe and, rising up outside, axe in hand, stood looking in at the woman. +He stood watching her, making sure that she was well asleep, then he +turned towards the seal nursery swinging the axe. There he murdered a +little girl sea elephant after a short, sharp chase over the rocks. +Then, close to the caves and with his sailor’s knife, he stripped her of +fur and blubber. He placed the blubber on one side, cut up the meat and +retaining the heart and kidneys wrapped the head and the remainders in +the pelt and dumped them in a crack in the rocks.</p> + +<p>Having done this he went to the river and washed his hands free of the +blood and grease.</p> + +<p>In his bundle there was a box with half a dozen matches, they would have +been gone long ago only that long ago his tobacco had given out. They +were useful now.</p> + +<p>He knelt down and undid the bundle. There was in it beside the match-box +a shirt rolled up, two sailors’ knives, two tobacco boxes, a couple of +huge biscuits, a piece of sail cloth and a pair of men’s boots, one +might have fancied from the knives and tobacco boxes that he was the +only survivor of a party of three cast on the coast and that he had kept +these things as relics. That was the fact.</p> + +<p>When he had secured the matches his next thought was of the firewood and +the baling tin. There was a saucepan away at the back of the cave<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_192' id='Page_192'>192</a></span> under +the other things but he could not see it. He could see the tin but he +dreaded going in to get it lest he should wake the woman and she should +clutch his thumb again.</p> + +<p>That was a bad experience and he told himself that if she had not +relaxed her hold he would have been sitting there still tied hand and +foot and not daring to move—strength in the clutch of weakness, to whom +God has given a power greater that that of strength.</p> + +<p>He crawled in and secured the tin without wakening her and as much +firewood as he wanted. It was fairly dry and with the help of the +blubber he soon had it burning between two big stones, then he put the +tin on, half filled with water, and dropped in the seal meat cut fine. +He was making soup for himself as well as for her. He had been without +hot food for ages and the smell of the stuff as it began to cook made +him sometimes forget her entirely.</p> + +<p>Predatory gulls had found the pelt and the head in the rock crevice and +their quarrelling filled the beach. He turned his head sometimes to look +at them as he sat squatting like a gipsy before the little fire, tilting +the tin by the handle and stirring the contents with his knife. He was a +man of resource for, before filling the tin with fresh water, he had +dipped it in the sea so as to get some salt into the mess.</p> + +<p>Then when the stuff was cooked, having no spoon, he had to wait until it +cooled a bit before tasting<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_193' id='Page_193'>193</a></span> it. He went to the cave mouth to have a +look at the woman. The quarrelling of the great gulls had evidently +awakened her, for her eyes were open, and as his figure cut the light at +the cave entrance her head moved. He ran back for the precious tin and, +carrying it carefully, and half carried away by the entrancing smell of +it, knelt down beside her, then picking up the spoon began to feed her +before feeding himself.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXIII' id='CHAPTER_XXIII'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_194' id='Page_194'>194</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2><h3>RAFT</h3> +</div> + +<p>It took him three days to bring her back safe to life. It poured with +rain during those three days but he managed to light little fires in one +of the caves with seal blubber and routing out the things in her cave he +found everything she had so carefully salved, the cups and plates, the +tin of coffee, half empty now—everything, even to the tobacco the men +had taken from the cache, he found Bompard’s tinder-box and the Swedish +match box belonging to La Touche. He had given the woman life and she +had given him tobacco and sometimes, sitting in the adjoining cave and +smoking between nursing times, he would bring his big fist down on his +thigh, just that.</p> + +<p>Here was a woman starving to death and dying of thirst with food enough +for a ship’s company at her elbow. And the tobacco! Where was the +explanation? She was able to speak a little now. She had spoken at first +in French, which he could not understand, then she spoke in English as +good as his; another mystery. A woman all gone to pieces that spoke two +tongues and was different somehow from any woman he had ever known.</p> + +<p>Then the things she had said: “Who are you?<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_195' id='Page_195'>195</a></span> I am not dreaming this? Are +you really, really, truly—Oh, <i>don’t</i> leave me.” Crazy talk like that. +And it was always “Oh, don’t leave me.” Then he would lay his pipe down +carefully on the sand of the cave and pass through the sheeting rain to +have a look at her. Sometimes she would have dozed off and he could get +back to his pipe, sometimes she was awake and then he would have to sit +down beside her and hold her hand and stroke it or play with her fingers +just as one plays with the fingers of a child. At these moments he was +transformed, he was no longer a man, he was a mother, and the hand that +could break down the resistance of a bellying sail was the hand of a +child. He no longer thought of her as the “poor woman,” an infant is +sexless, so did she seem, or so would she have seemed had he thought of +the matter. He didn’t. As a matter of fact thought was not his strong +suit in the game of life. He was a man from the world of Things. That +was why, perhaps, he made such a good sick nurse. He did not fuss, nor +talk, his touch was firm, firm as his determination to “get food into +her” and his hand, big as a ham, was delicate because it was the hand of +a perfect steersman. It was used to handling women in the form of three +thousand ton ships, coaxing them, humouring them—up to a point.</p> + +<p>He fed her now from one of the tin cups. Every two hours of the day, +unless she was asleep, half a cupful of food went into her whether she +liked it or<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_196' id='Page_196'>196</a></span> not; “hot stuff,” for though the firewood was done he found +that the blubber alone was the best fuel in the world.</p> + +<p>On the second day she was able to raise herself up, and once when he +came in he found that she had been moving about the cave and that she +had rearranged the blanket that did for a pillow.</p> + +<p>Then on the morning when the blessed sun shone she was able to come out +and sit on a patch of sand with one of the blankets for a rug.</p> + +<p>She looked old and worn, but no longer terrible, and as she sat with her +thin hands folded in her lap watching the great sea bulls and the cows, +as if contemplating them for the first time, the man who had helped her +out and placed her there was at a loss—she was a sight to inspire pity +in a savage. He took his seat beside her on a piece of rock and rolling +some tobacco in his hand stuffed his pipe.</p> + +<p>“You’re all right now,” said he.</p> + +<p>She nodded her head and smiled.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said, “this is good.”</p> + +<p>“Lucky I came along,” he said, “wouldn’t have seen you only an old tin +hit my eye.”</p> + +<p>He put the pipe in his pocket, got up, went to the cave where he did the +cooking and came back with a cup half full of coffee and half a biscuit.</p> + +<p>“Dip it in,” said he.</p> + +<p>She did as she was bid. It was the first time he had given her coffee +and the stimulant brought<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_197' id='Page_197'>197</a></span> a flush to her cheeks and cheered her heart +so that she began to talk.</p> + +<p>“There are more biscuits in a place down the beach,” she said, “and down +there,” she nodded to the left, “there are a lot of things hidden under +a heap of stones. It’s beyond the river on the left.”</p> + +<p>Then the empty cup began to shake in her hand and he took it from her.</p> + +<p>“You’re not over strong yet,” said he, “but you’ll be better in a bit +with this sun. Y’aren’t afraid of the sea cows, are you?”</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>“Thought you wouldn’t be,” said he, “there’s no harm in them. Well, I’ll +be moving about. I’ll go and have a look down the beach and see what’s +to be found.”</p> + +<p>He hung for a moment with the cup in his hand shading his eyes and +looking seaward, then he turned towards the cave to put the cup back.</p> + +<p>“What is your name?” she said, suddenly, bringing him to a halt.</p> + +<p>“Raft,” said he.</p> + +<p>“Raft,” she repeated the name several times in a low voice as if +committing it to memory or turning it over in her mind.</p> + +<p>“How long might you have been here?” he asked, standing in a doubtful +manner, as though debating in his mind the wisdom of allowing her to +strain her strength answering questions.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said she, “a long while. I was wrecked with two men from +a yacht. The <i>Gaston de Paris</i>. We<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_198' id='Page_198'>198</a></span> came here in a boat. They are both +dead.”</p> + +<p>At the name <i>Gaston de Paris</i> Raft nodded his head. Already a suspicion +that she might be one of the yacht’s crowd had come into his mind, so +the news came scarcely as a surprise.</p> + +<p>“It was us you hit,” said he, “I’m one of the chaps from the old +hooker.”</p> + +<p>“The <i>Albatross</i>?”</p> + +<p>“That’s her.”</p> + +<p>She said nothing for a moment, looking away over at the islands. She +could see the name, still, written as if on the night. Then she +remembered the boat sail she had seen when adrift with Bompard and La +Touche.</p> + +<p>“There were four of us got off,” said he, “we struck them islands over +there and put in but there was nothing but rocks in that part. Next day +we put out, but got blown down the coast; we got smashed landing; all +but a chap named Ponting and me went under, but one chap’s body was hove +up and we stripped him. I’ve got his boots and his knife in that bundle +over there in the cave, and Ponting’s. We saved a bag of bread.”</p> + +<p>He took his seat again on the rock and, placing the cup beside him, took +the pipe from his pocket, but he did not light it. He held it, rubbing +the bowl reflectively. He seemed to have come to an end of his story.</p> + +<p>“Did the other man die?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“He went getting gulls’ eggs one day,” said<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_199' id='Page_199'>199</a></span> Raft, “and slipped over the +cliff. They’re big, the cliffs, down there. I found him all broke up on +the rocks. He didn’t live more than a minute when I got to him and I had +to leave him; the tide was coming up.”</p> + +<p>“Poor man,” said she.</p> + +<p>He rose up and, taking the cup, stood for a moment again looking +seaward.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll be off down the beach,” said he, “you won’t be frightened to +be here by yourself?”</p> + +<p>“No,” she replied, “but don’t go very far.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll keep in sight,” said Raft.</p> + +<p>He put the cup in the cave and off he went whilst she sat watching him; +everything, life itself, seemed centred in him. A terrible feeling came +over her at moments that he might vanish, that, looking away for a +moment and turning again she might find him gone and nothing but the +beach and the gulls.</p> + +<p>Beyond the river he turned and saw her watching him and waved his hand +as if to reassure her. She waved in reply and then sat watching till he +reached the figure-head and stood to examine it.</p> + +<p>He seemed very small from here. She saw him standing and looking inland, +he had seen the cache, no doubt, and he would want to go to it; if he +did that he would disappear from sight. But he did not go to it, he kept +on always in view, exploring the rocks and the sands and stopping now +and then as if to look back.</p> + +<p>It seemed to her that he could read her mind and<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_200' id='Page_200'>200</a></span> feel her terror of +being left alone. Then her mind went back over the last few days.</p> + +<p>She had been very near death. She had drunk the last of the water in the +tin and had been too feeble to go for more. What had brought her to that +pass? It seemed to her that the rocks, the sea and the sky had slowly +sucked her vitality away from her till at last she could not eat, could +not walk, could not think. All that time her mind had never thought of +loneliness, the thing that was killing her had veiled itself by numbing +her brain and weakening her body. But near death her mind had cleared +and the great grief of desolation stood before her. Then God-sent, a +form had pushed the grief aside and a hand had taken her lonely hand and +a finger had moistened her lips. But it was the knowledge that the hand +was a real hand that gave her the first lead back to life.</p> + +<p>Then the last three days. The feeling of extreme helplessness and +sickness and the knowledge that she was watched over and cared for and +thought for—there was no word to express what all that meant. It turned +the great rough figure to a spirit, great and tender and benign.</p> + +<p>He was coming along back now carrying something he had picked up amongst +the rocks. It was a crab.</p> + +<p>A great satisfactory two pound crab bound up in kelp ribbon so craftily +that it could neither bite nor escape. He put it on the sand for her to +look at before taking it off to boil.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_201' id='Page_201'>201</a></span></p> + +<p>The sun was hot and as he stood whilst she admired his prize: “Don’t you +feel the sun to your head?” asked he.</p> + +<p>“No,” she replied, “I like it. I had a hat—a sou’wester but it’s in a +cave away down the beach. There’s a dead man there.”</p> + +<p>“A dead man?” said Raft.</p> + +<p>“Yes. I killed him.”</p> + +<p>“Killed him?”</p> + +<p>“It was partly accident. He was one of the sailors. He was a bad man. +The other sailor got lost and never came back and I was left alone with +this man. He nearly frightened me to death.”</p> + +<p>“Swab,” said Raft.</p> + +<p>“Then one night he crawled into my cave in the dark and I struck out +with the knife and it killed him—he’s lying there now. I didn’t mean to +kill him, but he frightened me.”</p> + +<p>“Swab,” said Raft, two tones deeper. Then he laughed as if to himself. +“Well, that’s a go,” said he. He took a pull at his beard as he +contemplated this slayer of men seated on her blankets at his feet. She +glanced up and saw that he was laughing and a wan smile came around her +eyes, it seemed to him like a glimmer of sunshine from inside of her. +Then bending down he pulled up the blanket that had slipped from her +left shoulder and settled it in its place.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you all about it some time,” said she, “when I feel +stronger.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_202' id='Page_202'>202</a></span></p> + +<p>“Ay, ay,” said Raft. Then he went off with the crab to boil it.</p> + +<p>As he attended to this business in the cave, half-sitting, half-kneeling +before the little fire, he chuckled to himself now and then, and now and +then he would bring his great hand down on his thigh with a slap.</p> + +<p>The idea of her killing a man seemed to him the height of humour. He +didn’t put much store on men’s lives in general, and none at all on the +life of an unknown swab who deserved his gruel. Then he was of the type +that admires a fighting thing much more than a peaceful and placid +thing, and he felt the pleasure of a man who has rescued a seemingly +weak and inoffensive creature only to find that it has pluck and teeth +of its own.</p> + +<p>She had gone up a lot in his estimation. Besides, her feebleness and +forlorn condition had wounded him in a great soft part of his nature +where the hurt felt queer. This new knowledge somehow eased the hurt. He +could think of her now apart from her condition and think more kindly of +her, for the strange fact remains that the very weakness and forlornness +that had wakened his boundless compassion had antagonized him. When he +had found the crab the idea had come to him that here was some different +sort of food to “put into her;” he was thinking that same thought now +but with more enthusiasm. Yes, she had gone up a lot in his estimation.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXIV' id='CHAPTER_XXIV'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_203' id='Page_203'>203</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2><h3>A DREAM</h3> +</div> + +<p>This same Raft whom the fo’c’sle could subdue to the surroundings, +making him as faithful a part of the picture as the kerosene lamp, on +the beach stood immense both in size and significance.</p> + +<p>It was as though the fo’c’sle had the power to dwindle him, the beach, +to expand him.</p> + +<p>The girl had never seen him in the fo’c’sle so she could not appreciate +the difference that environment made in him, and perhaps she saw him +ever so slightly magnified, but it seemed to her that he was big enough +to form part of the landscape, that he was one with the seven mile beach +and the Lizard Point and the great islands and the sea elephants.</p> + +<p>Not only had she been crushed down by loneliness; size had helped. Raft +seemed to reduce the size of things, so that the seven mile strand and +the vast islands and sea spaces no longer burdened her, and in some +magical way whilst he reduced the proportions of his surroundings they +increased his potency and significance. He was in his true setting, part +of a vast picture without a frame.</p> + +<p>It was not alone his physical dimensions. Bompard<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_204' id='Page_204'>204</a></span> had been a big man, +but Bompard could not fill that beach. No, it was something else—what +we call, for want of a better expression, “the man himself.”</p> + +<p>Then there was another thing about him, he found food of all sorts where +Bompard and La Touche had found nothing; he brought in crabs and +cray-fish and penguins eggs, he brought down rabbits with stones. That +was his great art. A stone in the hand of Raft was a terrible missile +and his aim was deadly.</p> + +<p>At the end of a week the girl was able to accompany him along the beach +to the cache where he unearthed some stores and came upon the harpoon +which he carried back with them.</p> + +<p>Then one day he suddenly appeared before her carrying her lost +sou’wester. He had gone off down the beach in the direction of the +Lizard Point and he came back carrying the hat in his hand. He must have +been into the cave where the remains of La Touche lay, but he said +nothing about that.</p> + +<p>It was nearly a fortnight since she had told him of how she had lost it +and he must have treasured the fact up in his mind all that time.</p> + +<p>The weather had cleared again, after a tremendous blow from the south, +and as they sat that evening in the sunset blaze before the caves, Raft, +who had been staring steadfastly out to sea as if watching something, +began to talk.</p> + +<p>“That chap Ponting told me this side of the coast is no use for ships,” +said he. “They keep beyond<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_205' id='Page_205'>205</a></span> them islands for fear of the reefs. I reckon +the old sea cows know that or there wouldn’t be so many on this beach. +He said there was a bay round to the westward where ships put in.”</p> + +<p>“How far?” asked the girl.</p> + +<p>“A goodish bit,” replied Raft. “I was making for that bay when I struck +you. I was thinking,” he finished, “that when you were stronger on your +pins we might make for there.”</p> + +<p>“Leave here?”</p> + +<p>“Ay,” said Raft, “there’s not much use sticking here.”</p> + +<p>She said nothing for a moment, she felt disturbed.</p> + +<p>Since her recovery she had fallen into a state of quietude. She who had +been the leader of Bompard and La Touche, she who had fought and worked +so determinedly for existence had now no ambition, no desire for +anything but rest. The strength of this man who had given her back her +life seemed a shield against everything, just as a wall is a shield +against the wind; she was content to sit in its shelter and rest. The +idea of new exertions and unknown places terrified her.</p> + +<p>“But how are you to know the bay?” asked she, “there may be a good many +bays along the coast.”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Raft, “Ponting told me there wasn’t a decent anchorage but +this. He said this bay wasn’t to be mistook, looks as if it was cut out +with a spade and the cliffs run high and black, there’s a seal beach +that way and it’s after seals the ships<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_206' id='Page_206'>206</a></span> come. Well, there’s time enough +to think of it seeing you are not fit to move yet.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’ll soon be all right,” said she. “I’m getting stronger every +day.”</p> + +<p>“What gets me,” said Raft, “is how you fell to pieces like that, with +all that stuff at your elbow and a river close by.”</p> + +<p>“It was being alone,” replied she, “I did not know it at the time, but I +got so that I did not care to eat and then at last I believe I didn’t +eat anything at all. I couldn’t have imagined that just being alone +would make a person like that. You see I had food and water. If I had +been compelled to hunt about for food I expect I would have been all +right, as it was I had nothing to do and was just driven in on myself.”</p> + +<p>Raft said nothing for a moment, he was turning this over in his mind. He +could not understand it. The idea of a person with plenty of food and a +good set of teeth dying of starvation just because she was lonely seemed +to him outrageous, yet he knew she was speaking the truth. It was +another strange thing about this strange woman. She was altogether +strange, different from any human being he had ever met and growing more +different every day now that she was “filling out,” and getting her +voice back.</p> + +<p>That voice, soft and musical and refined, had disturbed the sea +elephants when she first talked to them as people talk to horses and +dogs, it was something they had never heard before in the language<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_207' id='Page_207'>207</a></span> of +tone, and so it was with this sea animal with a red beard. He could not +tell whether he liked it or not, never asked himself the question, it +was part of her general strangeness and to be considered along with her +clinging, man killing and double-tongued qualities, also with the fact +that she had starved almost to death because she was alone; also with +her eyes and new face, for she was growing younger looking every day and +better looking, and her eyes, naturally lovely, were growing natural +again.</p> + +<p>As he looked at her now sitting in the sunset this return of beauty +struck him as it almost might have struck the sea elephants. It pleased +him. Had he put his thoughts into words he would have said that she was +filling out and getting more pleasant looking. At her very best he would +never have tacked the word beauty on to her; a buxom, rotund, beady-eyed +young female would have made the word beauty spring to his lips—Cléo +de Bromsart, never. But she was getting more pleasant looking and her +eyes were getting over their “stiffness”—which was something, and he +felt pleased.</p> + +<p>Presently, alone in his cave, he would bring his fist down on his thigh +with a bang and chuckle over her contrarieties, reviewing her against +that terrific picture he had seen in the cave when he had gone to fetch +the sou’wester; the picture of a man who had been torn to pieces by +Burgomasters and cormorants. It had been necessary to wash the +sou’wester<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_208' id='Page_208'>208</a></span> for a long time in sea water before bringing it back.</p> + +<p>She had done that chap in proper; the work of the gulls and the work of +the girl were hardly dissociated in his mind—there was the Result. Just +as though a baby had smashed a rock with its fist. Hence the chuckles, +heightened by her clinging ways, her fragility, her musical voice, her +starvation due to loneliness, her double tongue, her unaccountable +tricks of manner.</p> + +<p>And she, as she sat in the sunset not knowing his thoughts, had you +asked her how she felt about him would have answered with steadfast eyes +that she loved him. Meaning that she loved him as she had learned to +love the sea-elephants, or as she would have loved a great carthorse +that had stood between her and danger, or a huge dog. She scarcely +thought of him as a man—just as a great benign thing, human, but nearer +to the heart than any human being life had brought her in contact with +till now.</p> + +<p>Her almost passionate gratitude had little to do with this measure of +him; any kindly man might have done what he had done. It was perhaps the +feeling of his great strength, of his possible fierceness that gave the +touch of benignity to him.</p> + +<p>“Weren’t you afraid of them sea cows?” said he at last, “you must have +come clean through them to get to that cave.”</p> + +<p>“No,” she replied, “I didn’t mind them, quite the reverse. I came here +because of them.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_209' id='Page_209'>209</a></span></p> + +<p>“Because of them!”</p> + +<p>“Yes. They were company.”</p> + +<p>“Meaning—”</p> + +<p>“Friends.”</p> + +<p>“Y’mean to say—friends did you call them? Well, I don’t know, there’s +no accountin’.”</p> + +<p>He hung in irons. So she had been keeping company with the sea cows—and +she talked of them as “friends.”</p> + +<p>Now Raft, for all his limitless power of compassion for a female in +distress would have slaughtered those same “sea-cows” to the last bull, +and without a shred of compunction or compassion, had he possessed +kettles to boil down the blubber and a vessel to carry the oil. He had +already done in two of the babies for food when she was not looking. The +idea of talking about them as friends tickled his mind in a new place. +Then, as he glanced at the great bulls taking headers in the sunset +light and snorting in from the sea and squatting over the beach, he came +as near as anything to bursting into a roar of laughter.</p> + +<p>Then he suddenly remembered supper and went off to prepare it.</p> + +<p>The girl, left to herself, smiled. He had given her back that power and, +like the sea elephants when they repulsed the penguins, he had given her +something to smile over. She saw that he could not understand her in the +least in a lot of little things, whilst she understood him through and +through—or so she thought. She had thought<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_210' id='Page_210'>210</a></span> the same about the sea +elephants till the great battle, and—she had never seen Raft with +murder in his eyes making the elements of beef tea.</p> + +<p>He had made a stew for supper out of mussels, canned vegetables, seal +meat and a piece of rabbit and when supper was over she went to bed in +the bed he had made for her, for he had stripped the cache of all its +wearing apparel and the remaining blankets, reserving the blankets for +her use.</p> + +<p>Then as she lay awake before dropping off to sleep she heard a sudden +burst of noise from the night outside. It sounded as though one of the +bulls had suddenly perceived a joke and were giving vent to his +feelings.</p> + +<p>She knew what it was, and she guessed the joke, and then, lying there in +the dark, she began to laugh softly to herself with laughter that seemed +to ease her mind of some old incubus clinging to it—less laughter than +a sort of inverted form of crying and ending up almost in the latter +with a few sniffs.</p> + +<p>Then she fell asleep and dreamed that Raft had turned into something +that seemed like a sea lion. She had never seen a sea lion, but this +dream—one looked something like a lion and something like a sea +elephant and something like Raft—with a touch of a carthorse. It had +flippers, then it had wings, and the setting was the Place de la +Concorde which bordered quite naturally the great beach of Kerguelen.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXV' id='CHAPTER_XXV'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_211' id='Page_211'>211</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2><h3>STORIES ON THE BEACH</h3> +</div> + +<p>For a week after that day not a word was said about their departure for +that problematical bay to the westward where ships put in, or where they +might put in should they find themselves in the region of Kerguelen. The +idea seemed to the girl like one of those nightmare ideas, those +terrific tasks which fever or indigestion sets to one in dreams.</p> + +<p>It blew during that week as it had never blown before; blew from the +north and the south and the west Atlantic oceans of rain driving +seawards from the hills and passing off towards the islands, followed by +breaks of clear weather and blue sparkling skies filled with the tearing +screaming wind.</p> + +<p>They talked a good deal during these days and at odd times, and the girl +began to get some true glimpses of the mind of her companion, a mind +that had never grown up, yet had in no wise deteriorated from remaining +ungrown. Raft, who had been round the world a dozen times and more, knew +less of the world than a modern child. Fights and roaring drunks and the +smoke haze of bar rooms, wharf Messalinas and sailors’ lodging houses +had<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_212' id='Page_212'>212</a></span> done him no harm at all. His innocence was vast and indestructible +as his ignorance.</p> + +<p>Bompard and La Touche were old men of the world compared to Raft; they +were of different stuff, and being yachtsmen they had been long rubbed +against the ways of high civilization.</p> + +<p>To the girl, born and bred amongst all the intricacies of modern life +and thought, and with a sense of mind-values as delicate as a jeweller’s +scales, Raft was a revelation.</p> + +<p>She tried to sound his past. He had no past beyond the <i>Albatross</i>. He +could tell all about the <i>Albatross</i> and his shipmates and the Old Man +and so forth, but beyond that lay only a ship called the <i>Pathfinder</i>, +and beyond that a muddle of ships and ports, a forest of masts +stretching to a grey time an infinite distance away, the time of his +childhood. He had no professed religion and he could neither read nor +write.</p> + +<p>Yet he had remembered her sou’wester, this man without a memory and he +was always astonishing her by remembering little things she had said or +things she had wished for.</p> + +<p>Of social distinction, beyond the division of afterguard from fo’c’sle, +he seemed to possess little idea, save for a vague echo, caught from the +man Harbutt, about the Rich People; and as to sex, beyond a queer +instinctive delicacy and a tenderness due to her weakness and the memory +of how he had found her, she might just as well have been a man, or a +child like himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_213' id='Page_213'>213</a></span></p> + +<p>Another thing that struck her forcibly was the sense of his good humour. +His mind seemed to possess an equable warm temperature, a temperature +that it seemed impossible to lower or raise. She could not fancy him +getting angry about anything. Had she seen him as in the past during one +of his rare sprees, fighting the crowd and tossing men about like +ninepins, she would have said: ‘This is not the same man’—and maybe she +would have been right.</p> + +<p>“Where did you come from,” said he one day to her as they sat rain-bound +watching the gulls dashing about over the crests of the incoming seas.</p> + +<p>“I came from Paris—you have never been to Paris?”</p> + +<p>No, he had never been to Paris. He knew of the place, it was in France. +Then she thought that she would interest him by trying to describe it. +She spoke of the busy streets and the great Boulevards, then she tried +to describe the people and what they were doing and then, as she talked, +it was just as though Kerguelen had become the big end of a telescope +and the doings of civilisation, as exemplified by Paris, a panorama seen +at the little end.</p> + +<p>What <i>were</i> they all doing, those crowds that she could visualize so +plainly?—deputies, lawyers, military men, shop-keepers, pleasure +seekers—towards what end were they going?</p> + +<p>Then, with a strange little shock, it came to her<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_214' id='Page_214'>214</a></span> that they were going, +as a mass, nowhere except from dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn; that they +were exactly like the crowd of sea gulls, each individual rotating in +its own little orbit, and that the wonderful coloured and spangled crust +called Civilization was nothing more than the excretion of individual +ambitions, desires and energies.</p> + +<p>Then, when she had finished her talk about the wonderful city of Paris, +she found that Raft, comfortably propped against the cave wall, was +asleep.</p> + +<p>One of the disconcerting things about this huge creature was his +capacity for sleep. He would drop asleep like a dog at the shortest +notice and lie with his face in the crook of his arm like a dead man. +She would watch him sometimes for half an hour together as he lay like +this, and at first the vague fear used to come to her that he had been +stricken by some malady in the form of sleeping sickness that made him +act like this. She did not know that he had kept awake all those nights +he had looked after her and that the same brain that could sleep and +sleep and sleep could put sleep entirely away, just as the great body +that lolled about like the sea elephants, could, like the sea-elephants, +become a thing, tireless, and capable of infinite endurance.</p> + +<p>Then again, he would smoke in silence for ages as though oblivious of +her existence. She had observed the same thing in Bompard and La Touche +who would sit cheek by jowl without a word, as though they had +quarrelled. This trait<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_215' id='Page_215'>215</a></span> pleased her, and she fell in with it +unconsciously as though his mind had moulded hers and were teaching it +the taciturnity of the sea.</p> + +<p>One day, during a brief spell of calm when they were seated in the sun, +dinner over and nothing to do, she tried the effect of literature upon +him. She told him the story of Jack and the Bean Stalk and was delighted +to find him interested when he had got his bearings and knew that a +“giant” was a man fifty feet high; the cutting open of the giant—it +occurred in her version—pleased him immensely. Then when she had +finished she was alarmed to find, from words dropped by him, that he +considered the story to be true, or at least to be taken seriously. She +did not disillusion him; to do so she would have had to tell him that +she had lied. That was the funny part of the thing. He would have said +to himself “what made her lie to me about that chap?” By no possible +means could he have imagined a person sitting down to invent in cold +blood for the amusement of others a yarn about what never happened; no, +it would have struck him as one of those lying personal yarns heard in +the fo’c’sle sometimes and likely to produce a boot aimed at the +teller’s head. He had seen men reading books in the fo’c’sle +occasionally and old newspapers, but of literature, fictional or +otherwise, he had no more idea than the bull sea elephants of astronomy.</p> + +<p>This she intuitively felt and so held her tongue. But she had interested +him, and she went on, producing<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_216' id='Page_216'>216</a></span> from her memory the story of the Forty +Thieves.</p> + +<p>Now he had accepted the bean stalk explanation, for he had never to his +knowledge seen a bean stalk, but the jars in the Forty Thieves he +revolted at, for a jar to him was a demijohn, or a thing of that size. A +man could not get into that.</p> + +<p>However, on explanation, he passed the jars, and the boiling oil repaid +him. He seemed to delight in torture and blood.</p> + +<p>“Where did you get that yarn from?” asked he.</p> + +<p>“Out of a book,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Got any more?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Plenty,” she replied casting round in her mind, and wondering how it +happens that children’s stories run so frequently to blood and ferocity.</p> + +<p>She remembered Anatole France’s story of the juggler who juggled before +the shrine of Our Lady, having no better offering to make to her, and +Raft sat spellbound, after having made out that Our Lady was the Virgin +Mary, the patron of Catholic shipmates. She told it so well and so +simply, with unobtrusive foot notes as to monasteries and their +contents, that he could not but see the point, the poor man having +nothing to offer but his stock in trade of tricks, offered it.</p> + +<p>Well, what of that? It was the best he had, and, if she could see the +other chaps doing things for her, she could see him. The story, whose +whole point lies in the supposed non-existence of the virgin as a +discerning being, ought to cast its gentle<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_217' id='Page_217'>217</a></span> ridicule not on the ignorant +juggler but on the more learned brethren of the monastery. To Raft they +were all in the same boat, and as to whether she could see them or not +he didn’t know.</p> + +<p>The story fell flat, horribly flat, told to the absolutely simple +hearted, and to the Teller, after explanations were over, it seemed that +the Listener had in some way cut open modern genius and exposed a little +tricky mechanism working on a view point of chilled steel.</p> + +<p>That Raft, in fact, was so big in a formless way that he was much above +the story.</p> + +<p>She remedied her blunder on the next storytelling occasion with Blue +Beard.</p> + +<p>Then the weather broke fair and the islands drew away and the clouds +rose high and the white terns, always flitting like dragon-flies amidst +the other birds, rose like the clouds, they always flew higher in fine +weather, and with the smooth seas a new thing shewed like a sign: the +little sea elephants were no longer confining themselves to the river +and near shore. Some of them were taking boldly to the sea. Their small +heads could be seen sometimes quite a long way out.</p> + +<p>This fact gave the girl food for thought. The summer was getting on.</p> + +<p>It almost seemed that Ponting was right, that no ships would venture +into that sea between the islands and the shore, and that their only +hope of rescue lay in that bay away to the west, heaven knew how far.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_218' id='Page_218'>218</a></span></p> + +<p>Then an idea came to her. Two ships had already been here for certain: +the wreck and the ship of Captain Slocum, then there was the cache, some +ship must have left that.</p> + +<p>She told Raft what was in her mind but got little consolation from him. +He opined that the wreck wouldn’t have been a wreck if she had kept +clear of this dangerous water, that the cache might have been left by +people who had landed somewhere else, and as for Captain Slocum’s ship +she might have been a whaler. Whalers according to Raft were always off +the beaten track and poking their noses into places where honest deep +sea ships would not dare to go.</p> + +<p>“Well, then,” said she, “how about that bay you spoke of?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that place,” said Raft.</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>He hung silent for a moment as if revolving the question in his mind.</p> + +<p>“But you were set against it,” said he at last.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know, but I am stronger now, and it seems useless staying here +till perhaps the winter comes.”</p> + +<p>She paused and looked towards the islands. She hated the idea of that +journey which she pictured over rocks and across plains, where? In +search of a place that might not exist, and where, if it did exist, no +ship might perhaps be found. An almost hopeless journey involving +unknown hardships.</p> + +<p>“You ain’t strong enough,” suddenly said Raft.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_219' id='Page_219'>219</a></span></p> + +<p>It was as though he had touched some spring in her character that set +the machinery of determination working.</p> + +<p>“I am strong enough,” she replied. Then after a moment’s pause something +in her began speaking, something that seemed allied to conscience, +rather than thought, something that spoke almost against her will.</p> + +<p>“We ought to go, we ought not to lose any chance. It seems almost +hopeless, but it is the right thing to do. To stay here is not fighting, +and in this place one has to fight if one wants to live or to get away. +I feel that. To sit here with one’s hands folded is wicked.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I believe in making a fight,” said the other, “question is, will +we be any the better.”</p> + +<p>“There’s always the chance.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, there’s always a chance.”</p> + +<p>Then an idea came to her.</p> + +<p>“How about the boat?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“That old boat along the beach?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, suppose we took her and rowed down the coast.”</p> + +<p>“There aren’t no oars in her.”</p> + +<p>“There are oars. I hid them amongst the bushes and I can find them +again.”</p> + +<p>Raft considered the proposition for a moment, then he shook his head and +tapped the dottle out of his pipe.</p> + +<p>“Not with them winds that get you here,” said he, “they let out when +you’re least expecting it<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_220' id='Page_220'>220</a></span> and we’d be on to the rocks and done for. I’m +not saying if we had a boat crew we mightn’t try, but we’re +under-handed. No, we’ll have to hoof it if we go.”</p> + +<p>“Hoof it—what is that?” asked she.</p> + +<p>“Walk it,” replied Raft, “and I’m thinking it’s beyond you, you aren’t +fit for travelling rough, like me.”</p> + +<p>“Aren’t I?—I suppose I don’t look strong, but I am, of course I’m not +as strong as you, but I can keep on once I begin, and I have been +through a good deal ever since that night we were wrecked, I don’t think +any journey we could make would be worse than that. And I was not +prepared for all that as I am now for anything that may happen. Think of +it, we had all been sitting at dinner, it was only a little while after +dinner and I had my evening frock on.”</p> + +<p>“Your evening which?”</p> + +<p>“Dress. They were all rich people on board the yacht and they put on +different clothes always for dinner. It seems stupid—well, I was down +below and I suddenly felt that I must get on deck, so I put on these +clothes and my oilskin and sou’wester, then, as I was coming upstairs +the collision happened. I got on deck and it was quite dark until the +electric light was put on, then I saw the stern of your ship with the +name on it.”</p> + +<p>She paused with a little shudder and seemed visualizing the terrible +picture again.</p> + +<p>“Heave ahead,” said Raft interestedly.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_221' id='Page_221'>221</a></span></p> + +<p>“Then I was thrown into a boat and forgot everything until I woke in the +early morning alone with those two men. It was all just like that. I +wasn’t prepared for hardship as I am now, and I hadn’t a companion like +you. Those two men were no use.”</p> + +<p>“How’s that?” asked he.</p> + +<p>“Well, they were always grumbling.”</p> + +<p>“Swabs.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t mind that so much, but they were no use, they wouldn’t do +things. I had to make them go and hunt for firewood, they might just as +well have had no hands. Bompard, the oldest one wasn’t so bad—”</p> + +<p>“It was the other chap you done in,” said Raft. “Well, I reckon you’ve +been through it. Rum thing I saw you first when I was handling a topsail +in that blow. The weather broke and I was holdin’ on to the yard when I +sighted you away to starboard with the sun on you. Old Ponting was close +to me and he yelled out he’d seen you before and give you your name, the +<i>Gaston de Paree</i>.”</p> + +<p>“And we sighted you,” said she, “I was down below when the steward came +with a message that there was a ship in sight, I came up and there you +were with the sun on you and the storm clouds behind, and do you know +you frightened me.”</p> + +<p>“How so?” asked Raft.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. I felt there was going to be a disaster of some sort—it +was almost like a warning.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_222' id='Page_222'>222</a></span></p> + +<p>“Well, there’s no saying,” said Raft. “I’ve known a chap warned he was +going to be drowned, and drowned he was sure enough. I was down below +asleep and shot out of my bunk by the smash; then I was on the main +deck, the chaps all round shouting for boats, and if you ask me how I +got off I couldn’t tell you. One minute a big light was blazing, then it +was black as thunder. My mind seemed to go when the black came on, I’d +no more thought than a blind puppy. Something saved me. That’s all I +know.”</p> + +<p>“God saved you,” said the girl.</p> + +<p>“Well, maybe He did,” said Raft; “but what made Him let all the other +chaps drown?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” she replied, “but He saved you just as He saved me. I +know He looks after things. Look at those sea elephants and the gulls; +He leads them about by instinct.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that?” asked Raft.</p> + +<p>“Instinct,” said she, suddenly formulating the idea, “is God’s mind, it +tells the birds and elephants where to get food and where to go and how +to avoid danger; you and I have minds of our own, but our minds are +nothing to the minds of the birds and animals. They are never wrong. +Look out there at those porpoises.”</p> + +<p>“Them black fish,” said Raft, shading his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Yes, well, look at the way they are going along, they are on a journey, +going somewhere, led by instinct, and I think when human beings find +themselves having to fight for life they fall back on instinct,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_223' id='Page_223'>223</a></span> the +mind of God comes to help them. Look at me. I believe I found that cache +led by instinct and I would never have pulled through only instinct told +me I would, somehow. God’s mind told me.”</p> + +<p>“Well, there’s no saying,” said Raft.</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to leave here,” she went on, “but I feel we ought to go. +The chances seem small, even if we find that bay; still, I feel we ought +to go.”</p> + +<p>“I’m feelin’ the same way myself,” said Raft.</p> + +<p>“Then we will go and the sooner we start the better.”</p> + +<p>“I’m thinking of them porpoises,” said Raft.</p> + +<p>“What about them?”</p> + +<p>“Well, there’s a saying they hug the shore pretty close if bad weather +is coming. It’s fine to-day, but I’ve a feeling there’s going to be +another blow soon and maybe we’d better wait till it’s over—maybe it’s +instinc’,” he finished, looking round shyly.</p> + +<p>The girl laughed. “If you feel like that,” said she, “we had certainly +better wait. Maybe the porpoises were sent to tell us.”</p> + +<p>“There’s no saying,” replied he. They were seated on the rocks just +where she had watched the great battle and far and near the “sea cows” +were sunning themselves on the rocks whilst beyond the seal beach the +penguins were drilling in long lines. Scarcely a breath of wind stirred +and the sea lay calm like a sheet of dim blue glass to where the islands +sat beneath the sky of summer.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_224' id='Page_224'>224</a></span></p> + +<p>But the islands had drawn closer since morning and the birds seemed +busier than usual and more clamorous. To the eastward where the cliffs +rose higher, guillemots had their home on the ledges of basalt and the +wheezy bagpipe-like cry of them came in bursts every now and then as +though they were angry about something, whilst the cry of the razorbills +and the “get-away, get-away” of the kittiwakes had a sharper note. The +puffins alone were calm, swimming in coveys on the glassy water and +leaving long ripples in their wake.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXVI' id='CHAPTER_XXVI'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_225' id='Page_225'>225</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2><h3>THE GREAT WIND</h3> +</div> + +<p>The sun sank, broadened out and banded with mist beyond the Lizard +Point, and before his upper limb had been swallowed by the rocks the +business began with a blow from the hills.</p> + +<p>Most winds come in gusts and pauses, this wind from the Infernal Regions +came at first steady and warm, never ceasing, steadily growing like the +thrust of an infinite sword driven with a rapidly increasing momentum +and a murmur like the voice of Speed herself.</p> + +<p>Raft and the girl saw that the sea elephants were herding up into the +shelter of the cliffs and that the gulls had vanished as though they had +never been.</p> + +<p>And still the wind increased, its voice now a long monotonous cry, +steadily sharpening, yet deepening, stern as the Voice of Wrath.</p> + +<p>“It’s blowing up,” said Raft, “and there’s more coming.”</p> + +<p>Then over the cliff and undershot by the last rays of sunset came the +clouds chased and harried by the wind, tearing before and torn by the +teeth of the gale.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_226' id='Page_226'>226</a></span></p> + +<p>Raft and the girl stood watching till pebbles and rocks the size of +coconuts began to fall on the beach blown over the cliff edge, till the +sea, flat and milk-white, seemed to bend under the stress, till it would +seem that the very islands would be blown away.</p> + +<p>The girl felt light-headed and giddy as though the rush above had +rarefied the air under the cliffs. Not a drop of rain fell, the wind +held the sky and the whole world. It seemed loosed from some mysterious +keeping never to be recaptured until it had blown the sea away and +flattened the earth.</p> + +<p>And still it increased.</p> + +<p>Raft, taking the girl by the arm, drew her back into the cave; she was +trembling. It seemed to her that this was no storm, that something had +gone wrong with the scheme of things, that this Voice steadily being +keyed up was the voice of some string keeping everything together, +stretched to its utmost and sure to snap.</p> + +<p>Then it snapped.</p> + +<p>The whole of Kerguelen seemed to burst like a bomb-shell with a blaze of +light shewing islands and sea.</p> + +<p>Then again it seemed to burst with a light struggling through a deluge.</p> + +<p>The boom of the rain on the sea came between the thunder crashes whilst +a giant on the hills seemed to stand steadily working a flashlight, a +light so intense that now and again through broken walls of rain the +islands could be seen like far white ghosts wreathed in mist.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_227' id='Page_227'>227</a></span></p> + +<p>They sat down on the floor of the cave and the man put his arm about the +girl as if to protect her; then something came sniffing at them, it was +a little sea elephant that had got astray and scared by the work outside +had crept in for shelter and company. The girl rested her hand on it and +it lay still.</p> + +<p>It seemed to her now that she could hear the gods of the storm as they +battled, hear their cries and breathing and trampling, whilst every +moment a thousand foot giant in full armour would come crashing to +earth, knee, shoulder and helmet hitting the rocks in succession.</p> + +<p>“It’s a big blow,” came Raft’s voice, “no call to be scared.”</p> + +<p>He was holding her to him like a child whilst she held to her the little +sea elephant, and so they remained, the three of them until the big +blow, failing to tear Kerguelen from its foundations, began to pause +like a spent madman.</p> + +<p>The flashlight man on the hills began to work his apparatus more slowly +and now the thunder seemed doing its vast work away out at sea and all +sounds became gradually merged in the enormous, continuous sound of the +rain.</p> + +<p>The little sea elephant seemed suddenly to take fright at the strange +company it found itself in and went tumbling and sniffing out to find +its mates, whilst through the night came the occasional “woof” of a bull +as if giving praise that the worst was over.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_228' id='Page_228'>228</a></span></p> + +<p>“The old sea cows know it’s done,” said Raft, “now you’d better get +under your blankets,—you aren’t afraid to be alone?”</p> + +<p>“I’m not afraid a bit now,” said she. She patted his hand as a child +might and he crawled out and she heard him swearing at the rain as he +made for his hole in the cliff.</p> + +<p>She remembered the porpoises and fell to thinking of what would have +happened had she and Raft started on their expedition yesterday or the +day before. That wind, which sent rocks flying on to the beach, would +have blown them away.</p> + +<p>She said this next morning as they stood watching the sea. The sea was +worth watching. The due-south wind had stirred the heart of the ocean +from west of Enderby land, and, like a trumpeter, was leading a vast +flood that split on Heard Island only to re-form and burst on the +southern shores of Kerguelen.</p> + +<p>They could hear the vague far-off roar of it all those leagues away +beyond the mountains, mixed with the cry of the wind still blowing a +full gale, and beyond the shelter of the land they could see the islands +getting it, bombarded by the waves and up to their shoulders in +sea-smoke and foam.</p> + +<p>Then as they stood, suddenly and like a thing shot dead, the wind +ceased, and in the silence the roar of the beaches far and near arose +like a fume of sound. Then, as suddenly, the wind came shouting out of +the west, piling up a cross sea that leapt like the water in a boiling +pot.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_229' id='Page_229'>229</a></span></p> + +<p>“I’m thinking when this blow is over we may have a spell of fine +weather,” said Raft, “and it will be just as well for us to be making +our plans and getting things ready so’s we won’t be behind hand when the +fine spell comes.”</p> + +<p>“I think so too,” said she, “we will have to take food with us—how +much?”</p> + +<p>“Enough for a month,” said he, “who knows, we may have to come back, and +there’s not much to be had elsewhere.” Then he fell into thought for a +moment, “maybe stuff for a fortnight will be enough for there’s birds +and rabbits to be got, and gulls’ eggs. Them old penguins let you screw +their necks as if it come natural to them, we don’t want to take too big +a load.”</p> + +<p>Then they found themselves at a loss, it was quite easy to arrange to +take a fortnight’s food, but how much did that mean?</p> + +<p>They determined to use two blankets for sacks and then made a rough +calculation, based on imagination, and collected together tins of meat +and vegetables and the remaining biscuits, the result was a burden that +two people might have carried but not very far.</p> + +<p>“We’ve overshot it,” said Raft.</p> + +<p>“We’ll never be able to carry all that,” said the girl, “or if we did we +would have to go so slowly that the journey would be much longer—it +cuts both ways.”</p> + +<p>They reduced the load by nearly a half.</p> + +<p>“There’s one thing,” said he, “there’s no call<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_230' id='Page_230'>230</a></span> to take water with us, +there’s holes full of water everywhere, seems to me in this place.”</p> + +<p>Then he turned to look at the weather.</p> + +<p>The wind was less and the clouds were thinning and the air had the feel +of a break coming. Then, just before sunset the clouds parted in the west +and the sun went down in a sky red as blood.</p> + +<p>“We’ll start tomorrow,” said Raft.</p> + +<hr class='full' /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_232' id='Page_232'>232</a></span></p> +<h2>PART V</h2> + +<hr class='minor' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXVII' id='CHAPTER_XXVII'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_233' id='Page_233'>233</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2><h3>THE CORRIDOR</h3> +</div> + +<p>The next morning broke grey and fair.</p> + +<p>When the girl came out she found that Raft had collected the things to +be taken in one bundle tied up in a blanket. He had also set out +breakfast. The remainder of the stores he had stacked at the back of the +cave where he slept.</p> + +<p>These stores, with what was still in the cache, would be useful if they +had to come back to the beach.</p> + +<p>“But what am I to carry?” asked she.</p> + +<p>“Oh, there’s no call for you to trouble,” answered he, “you’ve got your +oilskins. I reckon that’ll be enough for you to bother with. Them things +in the bundle is no weight for a man.”</p> + +<p>She tried to argue the question. It seemed to her impossible that any +single person could carry that load for long, but she might just as well +have argued with the gentle wind blowing now shorewards from the +islands. He lifted the bundle with one great hand to demonstrate its +lightness; he was also going to take the harpoon as a sort of walking +stick.</p> + +<p>It seemed to her that she had never realized his<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_234' id='Page_234'>234</a></span> strength before, nor +his placid determination that seemed more like an elemental force than +the will of a man.</p> + +<p>She gave in and sat down to the meal, biscuits and the remains of a +stew, and as she ate she watched the great sea bulls and the cows and +the young ones that now were able to land, boosting through the foam +like their elders, and as she watched she wondered whether she would +ever see these things again, there, against the setting of the sea and +the great islands.</p> + +<p>She had put on her boots for the journey and a pair of men’s soft +woollen socks from the store in the cache. They were small men’s socks +and the wool was so fine and soft that the size did not trouble her. In +her pocket she still carried the few odds and ends including the tobacco +box in which she had placed her rings. She wore the sou’wester, and the +oilskin lay beside her folded and ready to be carried on her arm.</p> + +<p>Then, when the meal was finished, Raft washed the plates and stored them +in the cave. He stood looking at the stored things for a moment as if to +make sure they would be all right, then he kicked an old tin away into a +cleft of the rocks as though to tidy the place, then he took up the +harpoon and slung the bundle on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>The girl rose and looked around her. This place where she had suffered +and nearly died was still warm with memories, and the sea creatures were +like friends, she had grown to love them just<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_235' id='Page_235'>235</a></span> as people love trees or +familiar inanimate things.</p> + +<p>To associate the idea of home with that desolate beach, those moving +monsters, those caves, would seem absurd. Well, it was like leaving +home, and as she stood looking around her a tightness came in her throat +and her eyes grew misty. But Raft was moving now and she followed him, +glancing back now and then until they crossed the river where she looked +back for the last time. The river was almost deserted now by the young +sea elephants, except at its mouth. A few little girl seals lay about, +delicate or unadventurous creatures whose lives would doubtless be short +in a world that is only for the strong. These little girl seals had +attracted her attention before, they had almost the ways of fine ladies. +It was as though some germ of civilization in the herd had become +concentrated in them and she had wondered whether they would ever pull +through the rough and tumble of life, recognising vaguely that nature is +opposed to civilization at heart. They seemed allied to herself and +their future seemed as doubtful as her own here where nothing helped, +where everything opposed.</p> + +<p>She caressed them with her eyes for the last time; then as she turned +and followed Raft she forgot them. Her brave mind, that nothing could +daunt but loneliness, faced the great adventure ahead not only undaunted +but uplifted. The way was terrific, the chances were small, so small, so +remote, that they could scarcely be called chances,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_236' id='Page_236'>236</a></span> and the penalty of +failure was return and a winter here when the beach would be deserted by +all but the gulls. The very desperation of the business made it great, +and from the greatness came the uplift.</p> + +<p>They passed the figure-head with its sphinx-like face staring over the +sea, and the great skull half sanded over by the recent blow. Then they +drew near the caves and the boat.</p> + +<p>The boat had been blown over on its other side by the wind and lay with +one gunnel deep buried in the sand and its keel presented to the cliffs; +she glanced only once at the caves, deserted now by the birds who had no +doubt picked the last fragments of the dead man.</p> + +<p>Then they climbed the Lizard rocks and at the highest point sat down to +rest for a moment.</p> + +<p>Raft, with the bundle beside him and the harpoon held between his knees, +swung his head from the great beach on his right to the broken country +on his left.</p> + +<p>He said nothing, not wishing perhaps to dishearten his companion. It was +she who spoke.</p> + +<p>“That’s the plain I told you of,” said she, “we mustn’t cross it, you +can see from here some of the dangerous patches, those yellow ones, but +there are others just as bad that you can’t tell till you are trapped in +them. I would have gone down, only a bird flying overhead dropped a fish +on the ground right in front of me and the fish disappeared.”</p> + +<p>“We’d better get along the sea-shore rocks,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_237' id='Page_237'>237</a></span> seems to me,” said Raft, +“the tide’s going out, all them rocks between tide marks is pretty +flat.”</p> + +<p>“Suppose the tide comes in,” said she, “and we can’t get up the cliffs?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, we’ll have lots of time to make a good way before it comes back,” +replied he, “and we’ve got to trust a bit to chance, we’ve got to strike +bold. I reckon we’d better trust to instinc’.” He laughed in his beard. +“The same sort of instinc’ that made that bird drop the fish to give you +soundin’s of that mud hole.”</p> + +<p>“Providence,” said she, “yes—you are right.”</p> + +<p>“I believe in strikin’ bold,” said he, almost as though he were talking +to himself. “It’s like fighting with a chap, the fellow that does the +hittin’ without bothering about bein’ hit. He’s the chap. Well, if +you’re restored, we’ll be gettin’ along.”</p> + +<p>He heaved up and led the way, striking right down to the sea and pausing +now and then to help her. Once he lifted her as though she were a +feather from one rock to the other. Then, all of a sudden they came to a +ten foot drop. There was no getting round that drop, it was a basalt +step that circled the whole Lizard Point on its seaward side. It did not +disconcert Raft. He threw the harpoon down, then he lowered himself, +clutching the edge and let himself fall. Following his directions she +threw him the bundle. It would have felled an ordinary landsman, but he +caught it, placed it<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_238' id='Page_238'>238</a></span> beside him and then ordered her to jump, just as +she stood, without lowering herself.</p> + +<p>“Jump with your arms up,” said he, laughing, “no call to lower yourself. +I’ll catch you.”</p> + +<p>It was like an order to commit suicide. It seemed to her impossible, she +thought that he only spoke in fun, then she knew that he was in earnest, +that he was ordering her. But it was impossible—absolutely. Then she +jumped with arms raised, jumped into two great hands that clipped her +round the waist and brought her, feet to ground, with scarcely a jar.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t think you’d have done it,” said he. “You ain’t wanting in +pluck.”</p> + +<p>“I knew it would be all right if you told me,” said she, “but I didn’t +want to do it until the very last moment.”</p> + +<p>After that she would have jumped over a cliff if he had told her. It +seemed to her that he was invincible—infallible.</p> + +<p>A climb of a couple of minutes brought them down to the tide mark rocks, +the tide was a quarter out and the sea comparatively calm and the rocks +flat-topped like those of the seal beach and free from seaweed except +where, here and there, were piled masses of giant kelp torn up from its +deep sea attachments and cast here by the waves. It lay in ridges that +had to be climbed over sometimes and seemed entirely confined to the +Lizard Point and the rocks beyond, for when they reached where the +cliffs began it ceased to occur.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_239' id='Page_239'>239</a></span></p> + +<p>Where the cliffs began they first experienced the true meaning of a +journey along that coast.</p> + +<p>She had seen these cliffs from the boat, but that view, though +forbidding enough, had told her little of the reality.</p> + +<p>They rose from two to four hundred feet in height, these cliffs, and +looking up was like looking up a wall of polished ebony.</p> + +<p>Here and there they were streaked with long lines of white where the +guillemots in their thousands sat on ledges, and here and there they +were faced by seaward rocks standing out in the water and carved by the +waves into all sorts of fantastic shapes, but waves and rocks and sea +and sky, all these were nothing, here the cliffs were everything, +dominating the mind and soul, sinister, and tinging every sound from the +wave echoes to the gull voices with tragedy.</p> + +<p>And high tide mark was the cliff base in fine weather, in foul, the +waves would lash and dash and beat fifty feet up, there was not a +guillemot ledge lower than eighty feet, puffins, razorbills and +kittiwakes, who always build above the guillemots did not seem to come +here at all, keeping to the seaward rocks and the coast line where the +cliffs drew further away from the sea.</p> + +<p>With the sea so close on the right and the cliffs on the left the girl +felt like a mouse in a trap designed for an elephant. Alone she would +never have dared this road, even with Raft leading her she felt timid +and oppressed. The place did not<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_240' id='Page_240'>240</a></span> seem to affect Raft. Plodding ahead as +indifferently as though he were on some civilized country road, he +talked to her now and then over his shoulder, calling attention to queer +shaped crabs or dead kelp fish, and ever as they went their road grew +broader as the tide drew out.</p> + +<p>It was now about an hour and a half after high water, that is to say, +quarter ebb; in a little more than ten hours it would be high water +again, before that they must find a way from the beach or be drowned. +Raft knew this and the girl knew it too. It seemed almost impossible +that, with so much time before them, they could not find a break in the +cliffs towards safe ground, yet the cliffs seemed to stretch endlessly +before them and their pace was slow, not more than three miles an hour. +They rested sometimes for a moment watching the out-going sea and the +gulls; unused to exercise the girl was tired, and the man knew it. Alone +he could have travelled swiftly and without resting, but he said +nothing, and though he knew the necessity of speed, it was he who made +the halts for the sake of his companion. Three hours after noon he took +some food out of the bundle and made her eat. They had already drunk +from a little torrent rushing out of a crack in the cliff wall, but even +so the food seemed dry and she could scarcely swallow it. Anxiety had +her in its grip, the cliffs stretching on and on interminably seemed +like misfortune itself made visible.</p> + +<p>Said Raft: “The tide’s near the turn and them<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_241' id='Page_241'>241</a></span> cliffs don’t shew no sign +of a cut in them, but then there’s only two miles or so to be seen from +here. Round that bend there’s no knowing, they may break away beyond +there. What I’m thinkin’ is this. We’ve time to get back along the road +we’ve come by before it’s high water again.”</p> + +<p>“Go back?”</p> + +<p>“We’ve time to do it; if we keep on our course it will take us maybe +near an hour to get to that shoulder and from there we won’t have much +time to get back before high water again. We’ve cut it too fine and if +the tide comes back and catches us before we get to a break we’re done.”</p> + +<p>She looked forward then she looked back. They were in a veritable +corridor. The sea formed the right hand wall of this corridor, the +cliffs varying from two hundred to three hundred feet high formed the +left hand wall, cliffs black as ebony, polished by sea washing, +unclimbable and tremendous as a dream of Dante.</p> + +<p>She saw their full position. There was time to get back from where they +stood, but if they went on to the cape of cliff before them there would +be no time to get back, they would have to go on, and the unseen cliffs +beyond that cape might stretch for twenty miles unclimbable as here.</p> + +<p>Yet the idea of going back was horrible, heartbreaking.</p> + +<p>She saw that Raft was between two moods. Then she said to him.</p> + +<p>“If you were alone would you go back or go on?”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_242' id='Page_242'>242</a></span></p> + +<p>“Me?” said Raft. He paused for a moment as if in thought—“Oh, I reckon +I’d go on.”</p> + +<p>“Then we will go on.”</p> + +<p>“I was thinkin’ of you,” said he.</p> + +<p>“I know—but I could not bear to go back. If we fail now like that we +will fail altogether. Imagine going all that way back. No, I couldn’t. +We must risk it.”</p> + +<p>“I’m thinking that way,” said he.</p> + +<p>He picked up the bundle and harpoon and they started, and no sooner had +she taken the first step than Fear laid his hand on her heart and a wild +craving to return seized her so that she could have cried out.</p> + +<p>She had once said that she feared an ugly face more than a blow, and the +fear that seized her now was less the fear of death than the fear of the +cliffs and their conspiracy with the murmuring sea that would soon be an +inclosing wall.</p> + +<p>She fought it down.</p> + +<p>The cliff shoulder was further away than they thought; it took them an +hour to reach it and, when they turned it, there, before them lay cliffs +higher, more monstrous and running in a curve to another shoulder seven +miles away, if a yard. But towards the middle of the curve the cliff +face seemed ridged and broken near the base. Raft shading his eyes, +pointed out this broken surface.</p> + +<p>“It looks as if there was foothold there beyond tide mark,” said he, +“we’ve got to go on anyhow—Lord, but you’re tired!”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_243' id='Page_243'>243</a></span></p> + +<p>He made her sit down. The sight of that gargantuan sweep of cliff coming +on top of the weariness of the journey had crushed her. To go forward +seemed impossible, to fight against that immensity impossible. She could +have wept but she had neither tears nor energy. The gods seemed to have +built those bastions to shut out all hope and the voice of the returning +sea seemed like a tide turning over her broken thoughts like pebbles.</p> + +<p>Raft standing over her like a tower said not a word.</p> + +<p>Mixed with the voice of the sea came the voices of the gulls and all +sorts of sea echoes from the cliffs.</p> + +<p>Then as she sat she made a supreme effort of mind. She must rise and go +on. She struggled to rise, but her limbs had left her, deserted her, +stricken as if by paralysis.</p> + +<p>Raft took off his cap and put it in his pocket, then he went to the +cliff side and rested the harpoon against it, standing up. She watched +him, vaguely wondering what he was about, then he returned to her and +bent down and she found herself lifted suddenly and seated on his left +shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Hold on to my hair,” cried he. Then he bent and picked up the bundle, +went to the cliff side and picked up the harpoon and started. The giant +strength that had caught her when she jumped from the Lizard Point ledge +was carrying her now like a feather, the crook of his left arm round her +legs to steady her, the harpoon clutched<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_244' id='Page_244'>244</a></span> in his left hand, the bundle +swung over his right shoulder.</p> + +<p>And she held on to his hair as a child might, without a word, and as she +held the strength of him seemed to permeate her through her fingers +casting fear and misery out.</p> + +<p>She felt as a tiny tired child feels when caught up and carried by its +mother, and carrying her so he strode on, cursing himself for not having +carried her before.</p> + +<p>It was a three-mile journey to that roughness on the cliff and as he +drew near he saw that they were saved, at least for the time.</p> + +<p>The rock broke here in ledges like steps and twenty feet up and well +beyond tide mark ran a little plateau some ten or twelve feet broad.</p> + +<p>She saw it as well as he and filled with new strength she cried out to +be set down.</p> + +<p>“Stay easy,” said Raft. “It’s easier to carry the bundle with you on my +shoulder, you ain’t no weight.”</p> + +<p>Then when he reached the steps:</p> + +<p>“Done it b’God,” said he.</p> + +<p>He dropped the bundle and harpoon, and, lifting her, set her feet on the +basalt steps.</p> + +<p>“Can you climb it?” asked he.</p> + +<p>Without a word she climbed and sitting on the little plateau looked down +on him.</p> + +<p>Then he followed with the things and took his seat beside her. They sat +for a while without a word, the bare rocks and the grey sea before +them.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_245' id='Page_245'>245</a></span></p> + +<p>A great rock out at sea, pierced and arched like the frame work of a +door, shewed through its opening the sea beyond. Gulls flew round it and +their eternal complaint came on the wind blowing, still lightly, from +the north.</p> + +<p>Raft seemed absorbed in thought.</p> + +<p>Then he said: “It won’t be high water until gettin’ on for dark. We’d +better stick here the night anyhow and get the low tide to-morrow. But +there’s time for me now to get to that next shoulder and see what’s +beyond, it’s a matter of four miles there maybe and four miles back.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll go with you,” said she, “I’m stronger now.”</p> + +<p>“No, you stick here,” said he. “There’s no call for two to go. You’ll +want your strength for the morning.”</p> + +<p>“Only for you I wouldn’t be here,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Well, maybe you wouldn’t,” said Raft. “It’s as well I was along with +you, but you ain’t no weight—no more than a kitten. I never thought you +were as bad as that or I’d have lifted you miles back.”</p> + +<p>“Aren’t you tired?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Me—oh, no, not more than a bit stiff in the arm.” He stretched his +left arm out. Then he looked at the bundle.</p> + +<p>“You don’t want nothing to eat just yet?” asked he.</p> + +<p>“Not till you come back,” she answered. “I’ll watch you from here.”</p> + +<p>He scrambled down, picked up the harpoon<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_246' id='Page_246'>246</a></span> which he had left on the rocks +and then looked up and nodded to her.</p> + +<p>“I’ll keep in sight,” said he. Then he started.</p> + +<p>She watched his great figure as it went, harpoon in hand, growing +smaller and smaller, till, now, she could have covered it with her thumb +nail. As the distance increased it seemed to go slower and the great +black cliffs to grow higher.</p> + +<p>At a dizzy height above her cormorants had their nests, they seemed +angry about something as they clanged and flew, shooting out into the +sky and wheeling back again in an aimless manner. Before her the grey +sea crawled, coming, now, steadily shoreward.</p> + +<p>The tide seemed coming in faster than usual. She knew that this could +not be so and that Raft was too wise to allow himself to be cut off, all +the same a smouldering anxiety fed on her heart as she watched the tiny +figure now approaching the out-jutting shoulder of cliff. Then it +disappeared.</p> + +<p>He had promised to keep in sight.</p> + +<p>Evidently that was impossible if he wanted to get a view of what lay +beyond.</p> + +<p>A minute passed, two, three—then the figure reappeared and her heart +that had lain still sprang to life again.</p> + +<p>As he drew closer she saw him stoop and pick up something, then he came +right up to the cliff face, paused a minute and continued his way +towards her, walking more slowly now and carrying the thing in his +hands.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_247' id='Page_247'>247</a></span></p> + +<p>It was a big shell shaped like an abalone. He had filled it with water +from a little torrent running from the cliff and when he reached her he +held it up to show.</p> + +<p>“We’re all right,” cried he, “there’s only four or five miles of cliff +beyond the point, then it breaks away down to the beach. We’ll be able +to get clear of this to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>She came down the basalt steps and took the shell from him. He had +washed it in the torrent so that the water had no taint of salt. Then, +carrying it carefully she got it to the plateau where he followed her.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXVIII' id='CHAPTER_XXVIII'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_248' id='Page_248'>248</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2><h3>NIGHT</h3> +</div> + +<p>Towards dark the incoming tide began to hit the cliff base. Raft had +taken the things from the bundle and had made her wrap herself in the +blanket. “You ain’t used to the weather like me,” said he, “and this is +nothing to bother about. Lucky it’s not blowing. Lucky we made this +shelf. Hark at that!”</p> + +<p>The first full blow of a wave hit the basalt below them with a +heart-sickening thud; then miles of stricken cliff began to boom. The +terrific corridor was no more, and between them and the Lizard point so +many miles away to the east and the point of safety miles away to the +west, there was nothing but cliff washed by sea.</p> + +<p>“A rotten coast,” said Raft as they listened. “Only for this shelf we’d +be down there.”</p> + +<p>“We’d have been flung against the cliff and beaten to pieces,” said she.</p> + +<p>“That’s so,” said Raft.</p> + +<p>“When we get free from this,” she said, “let us keep inland. I don’t +mind climbing over rocks, anything is better than the coast, under these +cliffs.”</p> + +<p>“We’ve got to keep pretty close to the cliffs,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_249' id='Page_249'>249</a></span> all the same, to strike +that bay,” he replied, “hope it’s there.”</p> + +<p>“It is there,” said she. “I feel—I know it is there and that we will +find a ship. We are being looked after.”</p> + +<p>“Which way?”</p> + +<p>“We are being led. You remember when you saved me from dying in that +cave, well, you were making for the bay then. If you had not found me +you would have kept on and you would have crossed that plain where the +bog places are, it looked the easiest way.”</p> + +<p>“That’s so,” said Raft.</p> + +<p>“Bompard was swallowed up there. You would have been swallowed up too; +you were led to find me for both our sakes. Then, to-day, I could have +gone no further only for you, and you remember how we thought of going +back? This ledge was here waiting for us. It tells us we have to go on +and be brave and everything will come right.”</p> + +<p>“Well, maybe, you aren’t far wrong,” replied the other, “we’ve scraped +through so far and maybe we’ll scrape through to the end. My main wish +is to have a plank under foot again, there ain’t no give and take in +land, I’m never surefooted on land, there’s no lift in it. I reckon I’m +like one of them sea chickens not used to solid stuff underfoot. D’you +know what one of them gulls does first thing he lands on board a ship by +chance?”</p> + +<p>“No.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_250' id='Page_250'>250</a></span></p> + +<p>“He gets sick as a dog.”</p> + +<p>The cliff had an echo which, when it was not answering some loud boost +of the sea managed to return words, and between the smack of two waves +the girl heard it remark something about a dog. But the echo of the +cliff soon had its mouth too full to hold words. The sea now nearly at +full flood was bringing big waves along with it. In the gloom they could +see the racing grey ghosts, and here, on account of the curve, there was +little rhythm in the sound of it that came like the continuous thunder +of big drums. At their feet, like the licking vicious tongue of the +roaring monster, came the continuous gash-gash of waves washing up and +falling back.</p> + +<p>The girl sat with the blanket around her leaning close up against the +man. She felt as a person feels standing before the cage of a tiger +uncertain as to the strength of the bars, sometimes a puff of wind +brought a touch of spray on her face, whilst the continuous muffled +thunder of the coast leagues seemed like the bastions of the whole world +at war with the sea.</p> + +<p>“There’s no call to be afraid,” said Raft. He seemed, by some special +faculty, to be able to divine her feelings.</p> + +<p>“I’m not exactly afraid,” she replied. “It’s just that everything seems +so big—and those cliffs, now, even when they are hidden, they make one +know they are there, they seem wicked and alive, yet not able to move.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_251' id='Page_251'>251</a></span></p> + +<p>“You’ve hit it,” said he, “they’re for all the world as if they were +looking at a chap. It’s a rotten coast, but it’s near high water now and +the tide will soon be drawing out.”</p> + +<p>This cheered her.</p> + +<p>Then the whale birds began to cry and flit about. The whale birds are +blind by daylight and their voices scarcely ever heard, they are the +owls of the sea.</p> + +<p>The girl talked about them for something to say, then she fell to +wondering why on a beach like this there were no sea elephants. Raft +explained “sea cows” would never come to a washed beach like this, there +were no dry rocks for them to “hang about” on.</p> + +<p>He had lit his pipe with the tinder box and the smell of the tobacco +came good and comforting, the slap and dash of the waves sounded less +vicious, too, as though the sea had done its worst to get at them and +was foiled.</p> + +<p>Then she said, apropos of nothing but the last of her wandering +thoughts: “Have you ever seen a man killed?”</p> + +<p>He laughed as though over some pleasant reminiscence. “Dozens.” Then he +began to recall chaps he had seen killed, falling from aloft and +otherwise. He had seen one hit the sea such a smack it split him open, +and he had seen a chap under water being pulled to pieces by sharks just +as terriers pull an old shoe.</p> + +<p>Then he wandered off to a bar scene where a<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_252' id='Page_252'>252</a></span> dago—it was at +Nagasaki—had been drinking rice rum and knifed a man, a regular prosy +old sailor’s yarn, with “I says to him,” and “he says to me” at every +turn.</p> + +<p>Then he found that she was leaning more heavily against him and was +asleep. He put his pipe beside him and slipped an arm round her. Then, +as though sleep were infectious, down he sank still holding her and +there they lay. He snoring gently and she with her head pillowed on his +chest.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXIX' id='CHAPTER_XXIX'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_253' id='Page_253'>253</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIX</h2><h3>THE SUMMIT</h3> +</div> + +<p>“I will break thee.” Across Kerguelen those words are written to be read +by the soul of man. The rock, the rain, the wind and the sea, these, as +instruments, would surely be sufficient for the carrying out of the +threat; but the soul of man is strong, hence the spirit of Kerguelen has +called to its assistance Fog.</p> + +<p>Since landing on the great beach the girl had seen the islands +fog-wreathed several times but the beach itself had only once been +attacked.</p> + +<p>When she awoke on the rock plateau the first word of Raft to her was +“fog.”</p> + +<p>They had slept as the dead sleep for nine hours and Raft had awoken with +the girl’s head still on his chest and feeling as though he were packed +in damp cotton wool. It was after sun up and the fog was so dense that +the edge of the plateau was only just visible. Through the fog came the +breaking of the waves; the tide was coming in again.</p> + +<p>Raft had lit his pipe and the girl, stiff from lying, rose up and +stamped about to warm herself. Neither of them spoke a word in the way +of grumbling.</p> + +<p>The plateau was about twenty yards in length<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_254' id='Page_254'>254</a></span> and by drawing off five +yards or so one could have a dressing-room screened with a fog veil, so +the fog was not an unmixed evil.</p> + +<p>Then they breakfasted, listening to the slashing of the water just below +and counting the time till the out-going sea would let them loose.</p> + +<p>“It’s a good job I went to the point last night,” said Raft, “else we +wouldn’t be able to start in this smother, not knowing what was beyond +there.”</p> + +<p>“Will we be able to start in this?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Lord, yes,” replied he, “the cliffs will give us a lead, it’ll be slow +going but we’ll do it all right, it’s not more than six miles or so to +the break from the point there.”</p> + +<p>“When can we start?”</p> + +<p>Raft listened to the water below, it was breaking now against the near +rocks but not yet against the cliff base.</p> + +<p>“In another three hours or maybe a bit more,” said he.</p> + +<p>An hour later, as though the Fog spirit had been listening and watching, +and as though it despaired of its attack on the heart of the prisoners, +the smother began to thin; by the time the tide reluctantly began to +free them it had broken up and patches of the blessed blue sky shewed +overhead.</p> + +<p>By the time they reached the point and had a view of the great cliff +break-down that would give them release it was fine weather, with a +gently heaving sea breaking in beneath a sky of summer.</p> + +<p>It was as though their troubles were ended. At<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_255' id='Page_255'>255</a></span> noon they reached the +great break-down and a new form of country.</p> + +<p>Stretching inland almost to the foothills lay a broad valley, boulder +strewn, and looking like the bed of some vanished river. Before them to +the west the ground rose from the valley, gently, unbroken, desolate, +like nothing so much as the desolate country that borders the Riff coast +of Morocco. But it was ease itself compared to the tumble of rocks +around and beyond the Lizard Point.</p> + +<p>Down the middle of the valley came a little wimpling rivulet like the +remains of the river that had once been. They drank from it and rested +and had some food, then they started with light hearts, taking the easy +ascent to the high ground, treading a moss dark and springy like the +moss that covers the old lava beds of Iceland.</p> + +<p>“Look!” said the girl.</p> + +<p>They had reached the highest point and before them, away to the west, +stretched the same rolling dark-smooth country, making low cliffs at the +sea edge and then, as if weary of little things, springing gigantic and +bold towards the sky.</p> + +<p>“It’s over there the bay would be,” said Raft. “Ponting said it was a +black brute of a bay between two cliffs rising higher than a ship’s top +masts. Well, there’s our chance before us—if you call it a chance. It’s +a long way, taking it how you will.”</p> + +<p>Chance! Despite her optimism and belief in being led, as she stood now +with the wind blowing<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_256' id='Page_256'>256</a></span> in her face it seemed to her that she stood +before absolute hopelessness.</p> + +<p>Nothing, not even the sea corridor, had balked her like that terrible +distance, calm, sunlit, yet gloomy like a recumbent giant.</p> + +<p>The monstrosity of the whole adventure unmasked itself of a sudden; +travelling to find a bay they had heard of on the chance of finding a +ship—a ship on a coast where ships were scarcely to be found.</p> + +<p>And even if they found the bay they could not wait for a ship. Here +there was no food, with the exception of rabbits and gulls. The ship +would have to be there, waiting for them.</p> + +<p>Raft must have been mad! mad! mad! She herself must have been mad to +dream of such a thing.</p> + +<p>Her lips felt dry as pumice stone and she glanced at her companion as he +stood with the bundle at his feet and the harpoon in his hand, looking +about him, far and near, as unconcerned as though beyond that great hump +on the skyline lay a sure town with a railway station.</p> + +<p>No, Raft was not mad. He was unconcerned. He knew, even better than she, +the hopelessness of their position, yet he was calm and unmoved, never +from the first moment she had seen him had he been otherwise; before +everything, like a rock, he continued.</p> + +<p>Yet it was only now, as he quietly stood there surveying their “chance,” +that he came home to<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_257' id='Page_257'>257</a></span> her truly as he was, unbreakable; simple, vast, +forged by the sea. She swallowed down the devil of doubt and despair as +she stood looking at him standing so, and she was about to speak when, +catching sight of something along the high ground to the right he +pointed it out to her. She saw a white point on the ground a couple of +hundred yards away.</p> + +<p>As they drew close to it it enlarged and other things shewed. It was the +top of a skull belonging to a skeleton tucked away in a little hollow as +though it were sheltering from the wind.</p> + +<p>Rags of clothing still hung to it and the boots were there still that +had once belonged to it.</p> + +<p>“Wonder what did that poor chap in?” said Raft as he stood looking at +it. “Wrecked, most likely and lost himself—well, it’s a sign folk have +been here, anyhow.”</p> + +<p>He gauged the measure of the desolation around by his words. Here a +skeleton did not make the desolation more desolate; on the contrary, it +proved that folk had been here.</p> + +<p>So the girl felt.</p> + +<p>“He’d have been blown away by this only for that hollow he’s in,” said +Raft, “well, he’s out of his troubles whoever he was and whatever ship +he hailed from.”</p> + +<p>“We can’t bury him,” said she.</p> + +<p>“He’s buried,” said Raft.</p> + +<p>He had summed up Kerguelen in two words and there was almost a trace of +bitterness in his voice.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_258' id='Page_258'>258</a></span> Beyond the remark that it was a brute of a +coast he had never grumbled against the place or abused it or the +Almighty for making it, as many a man has done; and now at the summit of +things two words sufficed him.</p> + +<p>Then, leaving the skeleton to the wind and the sky and the countless +ages, they turned and went on their way west.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXX' id='CHAPTER_XXX'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_259' id='Page_259'>259</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2><h3>THE BAY</h3> +</div> + +<p>It took them till dusk to reach the foot of the western rise of ground; +here they slept under a rock, continuing their way next morning, +climbing till they reached the summit of the rise and keeping their +course along the edge of a cliff that fell a sheer three hundred feet to +the shore below.</p> + +<p>Sometimes Raft peeped over the cliff edge and once the girl drew close +and looked, too, dizzy with the height, made more dreadful by the gulls +flying far below.</p> + +<p>At noon, far ahead of them, they saw something that made them pause; a +little mound. As they drew closer they knew. It was another cache, a +cache made of heaped earth and loose stones with about a foot of sign +post protruding from it. The post had been broken off in some storm and +blown away.</p> + +<p>“There’ll be stuff under there,” said Raft, “and if we have to go back +it’ll come in handy. It’s a pointer to the bay anyhow; there must be +some landin’ place near here, we’ve only got to keep on.”</p> + +<p>They sat down and rested and had some food, eating as much as they +wanted now that they had<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_260' id='Page_260'>260</a></span> a store to depend on. They had drunk twice +that morning from pot holes still half-filled with the rain of a few +days ago and they had no need of water—it is the one thing a man never +needs in Kerguelen. They were in good spirits; the haunting fear that +their provisions might not be enough to last them for the return journey +was gone; also, if the bay were near, they could remain now some time, +even take up their quarters here to wait on the chance of a ship.</p> + +<p>The idea came to them to make a burrow into the cache, now, working with +the harpoon and their hands, and for the purpose of verifying the +contents; but they put it away, the desire to get on drove them like a +whip and they went on, halting towards dusk and sleeping in a hollow +that gave them shelter from the wind that was blowing from the south.</p> + +<p>Towards dawn the wind changed to the west and at the first rays of light +Raft awoke, sat up and sniffed. Then he laid his hand on the girl’s +shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Smell that!” cried he.</p> + +<p>She sat up, her eyes half-blind with sleep.</p> + +<p>“Smell the wind!” said Raft.</p> + +<p>She turned her face to the west. On the wind was coming the ghost of a +smell, faint and horrible and soul-searching.</p> + +<p>“That’s a ship,” said Raft.</p> + +<p>“A ship!”</p> + +<p>“Boiling down blubber. I struck that smell once, seven years ago; it’s +blubber. I reckon we’re<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_261' id='Page_261'>261</a></span> all right.” He heaved himself on to his feet +and the girl half-rose, kneeling, and looked at him.</p> + +<p>“Are you sure?”</p> + +<p>“Sure as sure; smell it.”</p> + +<p>Then, as she sniffed again, she knew. That was not a nature smell; +horrible though it was it was not the tragic smell of corruption. It had +something, almost one might say, low down about it, little, mean, +business-like—it was her first sniff of returning Civilization, the +first impression on an olfactory sense cleared and cleaned by the winds +of Kerguelen.</p> + +<p>She looked at Raft. He was standing, shading his eyes as though staring +at the smell. The dawn was at his back, and across the dawn a flight of +wild duck was making in from the sea.</p> + +<p>Imagine a person walking in a garret from absolute penury to find +himself a millionaire. Such a person, were he normal, would feel what +the girl felt as the message of that noxious odour struck home to her +mind.</p> + +<p>Her teeth chattered a little as she rose to her feet. She could not +speak and she had to hold her lower jaw with her hand to still it. Then +the muscles of her throat did all sorts of queer things on their own +account and a violent feeling of sickness seized her that would have +ended in an attack of vomiting had it not passed as quickly as it came. +Raft, who had ceased staring to the west, saw how she was taken and put +his hand on her shoulder.</p> + +<p>“You’ll be all right in a bit,” said he, “it comes<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_262' id='Page_262'>262</a></span> hard at first. I’ve +seen chaps go clean off their heads sniffin’ land after three months of +hell and weather. We’ll start in a bit, there’s no call to hurry, and +I’ll just take a walk to get the stiffness out of my legs.”</p> + +<p>Off he went, away and away, disappearing beyond a dip in the ground.</p> + +<p>She knew that he would be away at least half an hour. Thoughtful as a +mother for her comfort, yet almost as outspoken, sometimes, as a nurse, +he was wonderful.</p> + +<p>The dawn broke broader and stronger, peaceful and grey, promising a +continuance of the fine weather that had now lasted for three days, +three days without wind or rain or threat from the mountains that sat +this morning far away and clear cut against the sky.</p> + +<p>Then as they went on their way the sun broke over the edge of the high +lands and gulls rising above the cliff edge flitted like birds born of +snow and fire.</p> + +<p>They stopped for ten minutes to breakfast, then they went on, and now +suddenly came something new. On the wind they could hear the sound of +gulls quarrelling, a sound quite distinct from the ordinary mewing and +wheezing of the gulls at peace.</p> + +<p>“We’re near there,” said Raft. “Hark at the gulls, they’re fighting over +the scraps. Them chaps, whoever they are, have been killing seals and +boiling the blubber. The bay’s there.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_263' id='Page_263'>263</a></span></p> + +<p>He pointed to a higher rise in the ground just before them and to the +fact that the land from there sloped down inland at a terrific rate.</p> + +<p>He was right.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes walking brought them to the end of their journey and to the +edge of a cliff two hundred feet high. It was as though a giant had +taken a gouge and cut a bay right through the sea cliffs. Far across the +water of the bay before them the land rose again in a precipice steep as +the one on whose edge they stood.</p> + +<p>The ripples of the bay washed in on a beach of black pebbles easily +reached by the declivity of the land and on the beach, stewing like +witches’ cauldrons, queer looking try-pots were sending up their smoke. +Near the pots carcases of sea-bulls lay ripped and gory and being +cleared of their blubber by small men, strange-looking, stripped to the +waist and with arms and chests splashed by blood.</p> + +<p>But the clove in this devil’s mixture was the ship moored in the cliff +shadows, a small ship like a withered kernel in the shell of the bay, +barque-rigged, antiquated, high pooped, almost with the lines of a junk. +One might have fancied her designer to have taken for his model some old +picture of the ships of Drake.</p> + +<p>The try-pots, carcases and busy men left Raft unmoved. The ship held his +whole mind.</p> + +<p>“Lord! Look at her,” said he.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXXI' id='CHAPTER_XXXI'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_264' id='Page_264'>264</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXI</h2><h3>THE SHIP</h3> +</div> + +<p>She had been built on the Chu Kiang in the great Junk building yards +that lie just below Canton and her bones had been put together by yellow +men. Built to a European design China had come out in her lines just as +the curve of the Tartar tent tops still lingers in the roof of the +pagoda.</p> + +<p>She might have been a hundred and fifty tons, not more, maybe less, and +the junk pattern had been eliminated and European sticks and decent +canvas substituted for lateen sails by the direction of the man who +ordered her and who was a smuggler.</p> + +<p>She had been built for swiftness as well as cargo and, her builders +having been junk builders since the time of Tiberius, she was a failure, +sailing like a dough dish; and the yard that built her, having seen her +float off, went on building junks.</p> + +<p>Then she passed from hand to hand, and dirty hands they were, from the +Chu Kiang to the Hoang Ho, and through the Korea Channel into the Japan +sea, trading sometimes, smuggling sometimes, and once, as far as the +Kuriles, sealing in forbidden waters. She was caught by the Russians<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_265' id='Page_265'>265</a></span> +and her crew clubbed to death or sent to the quicksilver mines and then +she came back to China, somehow, by way of Vladivostok and was sold and +sold again till she fell into the hands of one, Chang, a sea scraper to +whom everything came in handy from bêche de mer to barratry and murder.</p> + +<p>Chang was modern in some of his ideas, he carried a Swenfoyn-harpoon gun +and, having luck down by the Sundas, he collected half a cargo of oil +which he sold at Perth; from Perth he had dough-dished along down to +Kerguelen after the “big seals.” He had struck this bay by chance and he +had struck oil, for all to westward of it lay a stretch of unwashed +rock, as good a sea elephant ground as that on the long beach.</p> + +<p>The girl standing beside Raft viewed the scene below her with a catch at +the heart. The carcases, the little blood-stained busy men, the try-pots +like witches’ cauldrons and that strange-looking ship which even to her +eyes seemed not as other ships were, all these had a tinge of nightmare. +Amongst the men she noted one, big almost as Raft. He seemed their +leader.</p> + +<p>“Chinks,” said Raft, “Chinee—they’ve got their pigtails rolled up, +well, they’re better than nothing.”</p> + +<p>He picked up the bundle that he had laid down and led the way to the +slope that gave on the beach.</p> + +<p>As they came on to the upper part of the beach the “Chinks” noticed +them, paused for a second<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_266' id='Page_266'>266</a></span> in their labours and then, finding that it +was only a solitary man and woman, went on with their work as though the +intruders had been a couple of penguins.</p> + +<p>“Cool lot,” said Raft.</p> + +<p>The girl paused. The sight of the carcases and the blood at close +quarters, the absolute indifference of the blubber strippers at the +sight of an obvious pair of castaways, the whole scene and circumstance +turned her soul and chilled her heart.</p> + +<p>“I don’t like this,” said she. “Those men make me afraid, they don’t +seem human—they are <i>horrible</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Wait you here,” said Raft.</p> + +<p>He advanced alone across the black shingle and she stood watching him +and listening to the stones crunching beneath his feet.</p> + +<p>His advance did not disturb the workers.</p> + +<p>They seemed working against time. Without any manner of doubt they were +anxious to be done with the business and be out of that bay before the +next blow came, for the place was fully exposed to the west-nor’west and +a storm out of there might easily break their ship from its moorings and +send her broadside on to the shingle.</p> + +<p>Undersized, agile, with weary-old faces that seemed covered with drawn +parchment, they seemed less like men than automata; all save the leader, +a gigantic, imperious-looking Mongolian with a thin cat-like moustache, +a man of the true river pirate type with a dash of the Mandarin. This +man held<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_267' id='Page_267'>267</a></span> in his hand a long thong of leather. Captain or leader, or +whatever he might be, he was most evidently the serang of that labour +party.</p> + +<p>On the shingle where the ripples washed in lay a boat, half-beached.</p> + +<p>The big man was Chang, and as Raft approached harpoon in hand, she saw +Chang draw himself up to his full height and stand waiting. Then she +heard Raft’s voice and saw him pointing at her and inland and then at +the ship.</p> + +<p>Chang stood dumb. Then all at once he exploded, shouting and +gesticulating. She could not make out what he said, but she knew. He was +ordering them off. He seemed to be ordering them off the earth as well +as the beach. And Raft stood there patient and dumb like a chidden +child.</p> + +<p>Then she saw Raft nod his head and turn away.</p> + +<p>He came back crunching up the shingle. “Sit down,” said he.</p> + +<p>She sat down and he took his seat beside her. He had dropped the bundle +just there, and as he sat for a moment before speaking he noticed that +the fish line securing the mouth of the sack was loose, he carefully +retied it.</p> + +<p>“You saw how that chap carried on,” said he, “I had to put a stopper on +myself. He’s the chap; them little yellow bellies don’t count. He’s the +chap, and I’ve got to get him aside from the others.” He spoke rapidly +and she saw that his eyes were injected with blood.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_268' id='Page_268'>268</a></span></p> + +<p>A new fear seized upon her, a fear akin to the dread she had felt that +dark night in the cave when she had caught the sound of La Touche +dragging himself close to her, the dread of imminently impending action.</p> + +<p>“Let us go away,” said she, “another ship may come; anything is better +than having a fight with those men.”</p> + +<p>“Have you got that knife safe?” asked Raft. She still wore the +fisherman’s knife round her waist. She put her hand on it.</p> + +<p>“Yes, the knife is safe.”</p> + +<p>“If that chap downs me for good,” said Raft, “stick that knife through +yourself. If he doesn’t you take my orders and take them sharp.”</p> + +<p>He had risen to his feet and without a word more he came down the +shingle again towards the workers, walking in a leisurely way and +trailing the harpoon along.</p> + +<p>He approached Chang who turned on him again with the anger of a busy man +importuned by a beggar. The most heart-sickening thing to the girl was +the way in which, after the first driving off of Raft, the great +Chinaman and his crew had gone on with their work as though they were +alone on the beach. Pity and humanity seemed as remote from that crowd +as from the carcases they were handling. Active hostility would have +been less horrible, somehow, than this absolute indifference to the +condition of others.</p> + +<p>Chang did not wait for Raft to speak, this time;<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_269' id='Page_269'>269</a></span> he began the speaking, +or, rather, the shouting, advancing on the other who began to retreat. +Chang, as if wishing to have done with this matter for good, followed +him up and at every step the devil in him seemed to rise higher whilst +his voice filled the beach.</p> + +<p>What a voice that was! Half-singing, half-booming, the +“whant-whong-goom-along” of the running coolie chanting as he runs +seemed mixed with it, till, his anger breaking bounds, he let fly with +the strap in his hand, catching the other across the shoulder of the arm +that held the harpoon.</p> + +<p>Then Raft killed him.</p> + +<p>The girl who saw the killing was less appalled for the moment by the +deed than the doer of it. The blow of the harpoon that sent Chang’s +brains flying like the contents of a smashed custard apple was like a +flash of lightning, it was the thunder that terrified.</p> + +<p>Roaring like a sea bull he sprang from the body of Chang towards the +crowd who faced him for a moment with their flensing knives like a herd +of jackals. The girl, who had sprung to her feet, plucked the knife from +her belt and came running, terror gone and a wind seeming to carry her +over the shingle; zoned in steel blue light she saw the harpoon flying +from right to left destroying everything in its way, knives flying into +the air as if tossed by jugglers, a yellow greasy back into which she +struck with her knife, a yellow Chinese face falling backwards with eyes +wide on her, as if the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_270' id='Page_270'>270</a></span> Chinese soul of the creature she had stabbed to +the heart were trying to cling to her.</p> + +<p>Then she was sitting on the shingle very ill and Raft was coming back to +her, running.</p> + +<p>The fight was over and the beasts had flown, left and right, she could +see them crawling like ants away up on the higher ground. They had +dropped their knives and the knives were lying here and there on the +shingle where also lay four dead bodies including the body of Chang.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes ago there had been fifteen live Chinamen on that beach.</p> + +<p>Raft was bleeding from a cut on the arm, his face was gashed above the +beard, a knife had ripped his coat and the back of his left hand shewed +another wound.</p> + +<p>He was laughing and carrying on like a man in drink and now that her +stomach was relieved an extraordinary light-headedness seized her. Like +Raft, she seemed drunk.</p> + +<p>She had been snatched for a moment into a world where to kill was the +only alternative to death or worse than death. For a moment she had +lived in the Stone Age, she had fought like a savage animal and with the +fury of the female, more terrific than the rage of the male. She had +been pushed to the edge of things, and it was she who had turned the +fight. The man she had killed was in the act of knifing Raft in the +back.</p> + +<p>“The boat!” cried Raft.</p> + +<p>She struggled to her feet, steadied herself, and<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_271' id='Page_271'>271</a></span> came to the boat. They +pushed it out till it was nearly water borne; she scrambled in, he +followed, and pushed off. Out in the bay the high black cliffs rose +above them as if pushed by a scene shifter, the light-headed laughing +raving feeling left her, and as they came alongside of the barque to +starboard and tied up to the channel plates she was clear headed and +calm and able to get on board by the channel without assistance.</p> + +<p>On the deck she tottered and fell in the dead swoon of exhaustion.</p> + +<p>It is a long journey to the Stone Age and back and the man or woman who +makes it is never quite, quite the same again.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXXII' id='CHAPTER_XXXII'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_272' id='Page_272'>272</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXII</h2><h3>THE OPIUM SMOKERS</h3> +</div> + +<p>Raft had never seen a female swoon before. He thought for a moment that +she had dropped dead and the shock of the business pulled him together +like a douche of cold water. Then he saw that she was breathing and took +heart, rubbing her hands and poking her in the ribs and calling on her +to pull herself together. He would have been more frightened only that +he put her condition down to her general unaccountableness in some ways.</p> + +<p>In less than five minutes she had come to and was leaning on her elbow +and declaring herself to be all right. Then she got on her feet and, +taking her seat on the side of the open hatch, looked about her at the +dingy deck cumbered with a whale boat and all sorts of raffle. The +slight swell of the bay rocked the barque to the creaking tune of block +and cordage, whilst overhead the sea-gulls flitted mewing against the +vast black cliff that rose three hundred feet sheer from the licking +sea.</p> + +<p>“You’re all right now?” said Raft dubiously.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I feel quite right and strong again—just a little dizzy, that’s +all.”</p> + +<p>“Mind and don’t tumble back down that hatch,”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_273' id='Page_273'>273</a></span> said he, “I’ll drop below +and see what’s to be found if you keep your eye out for them Larrikens. +Give me a call if you sight them.”</p> + +<p>The Larrikens were nowhere to be seen; they were in the high ground +hidden, and no doubt holding a council of war, but sight or sound of +them there was none.</p> + +<p>She nodded and he dropped below into the cabin.</p> + +<p>The cabin of Chang was clean, almost dainty. Two smaller cabins opened +from it, one evidently for Chang and the other for his second in +command. Raft in his hurried look round saw a lot of things including a +rack containing six rifles and two heavy revolvers resting on an +ammunition box filled with hundreds of cartridges. He opened the +lazarette beneath the cabin flooring; it seemed well-stored, and on a +shelf in the main cabin there were some provisions including a tin of +biscuits.</p> + +<p>He brought up the biscuits, the two revolvers and a pocketful of +ammunition and, taking his seat on the hatch edge beside the girl, +opened the tin; then he went forward and hunted for water, found the +water cask and, getting a tin pannikin from the galley, brought her a +drink.</p> + +<p>He had never loaded or fired a revolver; the girl had, and she shewed +him how, the echoes of the cliffs answering to the ear splitting reports +as he made a few practice shots, and the guillemots squalling and rising +in clouds from their perches on the rock.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_274' id='Page_274'>274</a></span></p> + +<p>“We’re fixed all right now,” said he, “and we can have those chaps on +board when they’re ready to come.”</p> + +<p>“On board!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, they’ll come right enough, they’ve got no grub on land.”</p> + +<p>“Come—but do you mean to say you will let them?”</p> + +<p>“Who’s to work the hooker out of the bay?” he answered, “Not you and me. +We’ve got to get them aboard. There’s no harm in them now they’re +licked.”</p> + +<p>He spoke with a knowledge of men absorbed from the whole world over. The +Chinese were licked and like dogs they would come to heel. He knew it, +for he knew men. He had put the fear of God into them, he and the girl; +the thing was over. Give the “Chinks” time to lick their wounds and +swallow their gruel and they would be right as pie. He had seen a whole +ship’s company licked by a little man of great will, and in hundreds of +experiences and fights he had found that a beaten man, be he strong as +ten, is to be led like a child. He was right. Next morning—they slept +on deck that night keeping watch alternately—the “Chinks,” hungry and +starving for a suck at their opium pipes appeared, the whole eleven of +them, and coming down the beach like a troop of children stood in a +line; then they began to wail.</p> + +<p>Wail and wag their heads and wave their hands.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_275' id='Page_275'>275</a></span> Kerguelen, coming on top +of the licking, had broken them to pieces. Then the whole lot kow-towed +like one man, knees and forehead on the shingle.</p> + +<p>Raft got into the boat and rowed off for the beach bringing them aboard +four at a time and as each lot reached the deck they kow-towed to the +girl and then trotted forward to the fo’c’sle, disappearing like rats, +their teeth chattering from exposure during the night, stripped to the +waist as they were, and never could one have imagined these little +cringing harmless looking men the jackals of the day before.</p> + +<p>When the whole lot were in the fo’c’sle Raft gave them time to settle, +then he went down amongst them revolver in pocket. They had lit a lamp, +some had lit opium pipes and some were lighting them, and they lay about +like creatures broken with cold and weariness. He nodded to them and +left them to the opium that would drive the chill from their bones, then +coming on deck stood beside the girl.</p> + +<p>“They’ll be able to work the ship to-morrow,” said he, “told you they’d +be all right; reckon they won’t mind changing that big chap I knocked +out for us.”</p> + +<p>“They don’t seem to be able to speak a word of English,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I reckon I’ll do the steering till we get clear of this place,” +said he, “they’ll handle the sails without knowing English and once +we’re clear<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_276' id='Page_276'>276</a></span> we have only to make north till we strike a Christian +ship.”</p> + +<p>“They seem so harmless,” she said, “and when I think of that fight—and +of what I did—”</p> + +<p>“You fought fine—damned fine,” said Raft, “damned fine.” He put his arm +round her, not as a man puts his arm round a woman, but as a shipmate +puts his arm round a shipmate.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXXIII' id='CHAPTER_XXXIII'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_277' id='Page_277'>277</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2><h3>MAINSAIL HAUL</h3> +</div> + +<p>That night Raft and the girl took it in turns again to keep watch on +deck. They might just as well have gone below for all the trouble the +crew could have given them. These gentry had fought bitterly because +they had been attacked. Raft had frightened them. There is a form of +bravery which one might liken to inverted terror. Rats shew it when they +are cornered, and so do men. They had seen their boss killed with a blow +and the destroyer hurling himself on them and, though they were +peaceable men, they fought. These same peaceable men, be it understood, +would, all the same, have murdered a human being for profit could they +have done so with reasonable safety.</p> + +<p>When the girl came on deck in the morning, after her watch below, she +found the deck busy and Raft with his hands in his pockets leaning +against the port bulwarks and watching the busy ones.</p> + +<p>“They’re in a thundering hurry to get out,” said Raft. “That chap,” +pointing to a “chink” that seemed a cut above the others and was +evidently the mate, “has been pointing to the sky and out there beyond +the bay. They seem to<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_278' id='Page_278'>278</a></span> smell bad weather coming. I nodded my head to him +and he’s working the hands now for all they’re worth.”</p> + +<p>“The wind is blowing from the land,” said the girl.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Raft, “it’ll take us out without towing, unless it changes.”</p> + +<p>The hatch cover had been put on and the boat brought to the davits, some +of the crew were up aloft scrambling about like monkeys, others were +making ready to haul on the halyards and a fellow was unlashing the +wheel. There was not a face in all the crowd that did not bear the +signature of Anxiety writ on parchment.</p> + +<p>The fear of weather, the fear of Kerguelen, and the fear of that bay, +which was evidently haunted by evil spirits, drove them like a whip.</p> + +<p>The mainsail was set to a chorus like the crying of sea fowl and the +foresail and jib. The tide coming in held the barque to a taut anchor +chain with her stern to the beach and the wind ready to take her. The +mate was at the wheel and now from forward ought to have come the sound +of the windlass pawls and the rasp of the rising anchor chain. It +didn’t. From the group of Chinese collected there came, instead, a clang +followed by a splash.</p> + +<p>“Why, the beggars have knocked the shackle off the chain,” cried Raft. +“Lord bless <i>my</i> soul, never waited to raise the mud hook?”</p> + +<p>“Does it matter?” she asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_279' id='Page_279'>279</a></span></p> + +<p>“Sure to have a spare one,” answered he, “but it gets me, that’s Chinee +all over, they’re rattled.”</p> + +<p>“Look!” she cried, “we’re moving!”</p> + +<p>The cliff’s were beginning to glide landward and the bay’s mouth to +widen, sea-gulls flew with them screaming a challenge, and the +guillemots lining the cliff ledges broke into voice, echoes and +guillemots storming at them as they went.</p> + +<p>Then the sea opened wide under the grey breezy day and the great islands +shewed themselves away to the east. To the west and the north all was +clear water.</p> + +<p>Raft and the girl walked to the after-rail and looked at the coast they +were leaving; it seemed horribly near and the great black cliffs only a +gunshot away. If the infernal wind of Kerguelen were to arise and blow +from the north even now they might be seized and dashed back on those +rocks, but the south-east wind held steady and the cliffs drew away and +the coast lengthened and new cliffs and bays disclosed themselves, till +they almost fancied they could see, away to the east, the great seal +beach where the remains of the dead man lay in the cave and where the +great sea-bulls were without doubt taking their ease on the rocks.</p> + +<p>And now came the last call of Kerguelen, the voice of the kittiwakes:</p> + +<p>“Get-away—get-away—get-away.”</p> + +<p>Raft, as they stood and watched, put his arm over the shoulder of the +girl and as she held the great hand that had saved her and brought her +so<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_280' id='Page_280'>280</a></span> far towards safety her mind, miles away, kept travelling the long +road from the caves.</p> + +<p>“I’m thinking of the bundle and all the poor things in it,” said she, +“it will lie there forever on the beach, waiting to be picked up—it’s +strange.”</p> + +<p>“I was thinkin’ the same thing myself,” said Raft, “and the old harpoon +I licked that chap across the head with.”</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXXIV' id='CHAPTER_XXXIV'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_281' id='Page_281'>281</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2><h3>THE CARCASSONNE</h3> +</div> + +<p>Raft had found other things than arms and ammunition in the cabin, he +had found a box containing nearly three thousand five hundred dollars, +partly in American money and partly in English gold coin. Chang had +stowed it in his chest, a big cedar-wood affair containing all sorts of +oddments, including a can of blue label Canton opium, cigars, a couple +of suits of fine silk and a woman’s gold bracelet.</p> + +<p>Chang had evidently been well-to-do in his way and a man of refinement. +His bunk bedding was of the finest quality and on a shelf near the bunk +lay piled new-washed sheets and pillow cases. The girl took his cabin +and slept in his bunk. Long ago, in the world that was slowly coming +back to her, the idea of sleeping in the bunk of a Chinaman she had seen +killed would have revolted her, now, it did not trouble her at all. She +only knew that a mattress and clean sheets were heaven, even if she had +to sleep with a revolver under her pillow. Then in a day or two she only +put the revolver there as a matter of routine. The “Chinks” gave +evidence that so far from making trouble they were extremely anxious to +propitiate<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_282' id='Page_282'>282</a></span> and please, and the man who had evidently served Chang +appeared in the cabin tidying things and laying out the food, whilst the +man who had evidently been mate worked the ship in his own weird way +seeming scarcely ever to sleep. He had laid the course almost due north, +taking the sun with a back-stick that might have come out of the Ark, +working out his calculations in the fo’c’sle in his own head. Raft did +not know, he knew nothing of navigation as a science, nor did he care, +they were going north and day by day drawing into the track of ships, +that was enough for him.</p> + +<p>One day the girl said to him: “Suppose these men make trouble over that +man you killed—and those others.”</p> + +<p>“Let them,” said Raft, “I’ll tell my yarn—it’s plain enough—I’m not +going to tell no lies. The chap tried to drive us off, and we lost and +near done for, and he hit me a welt on top of all. He got his gruel.”</p> + +<p>She had played with the idea of making up a story for the sake of Raft; +she felt ashamed of the idea when she heard his words.</p> + +<p>“I’m thinking of that money down below,” said he, “it belonged by rights +to that big chap. If a ship takes us off we’d better hand it over to the +mate or just leave it there for him to take.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, we don’t want the money,” she replied, “I have plenty.”</p> + +<p>“You! Where have you got it?” asked he, looking her over.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_283' id='Page_283'>283</a></span></p> + +<p>“In France,” she replied. Then she laughed. It was the first time she +had laughed since that day when the sea-bulls had driven the penguins +off, and Raft, as though her mirth were infectious, laughed also.</p> + +<p>It seemed a joke to him, somehow, the idea of her having money in +France.</p> + +<p>The idea of her being one of the Rich People had never worked its way +into his head. She was just herself, different it is true in some +indefinable way from anyone he had ever met, speaking differently, +acting differently, but made used to his mind by struggle and adversity. +He scarcely thought of her as a woman, yet he was hugely fond of her, a +fondness that had begun in pity and had been strengthened and made to +grow by her pluck. He liked to have her near him and when she was out of +sight he felt a bit astray. He never bothered about the future, so the +idea of parting with her had not come to him.</p> + +<p>And she? When Raft was out of her sight she felt astray. Her mind had +spun between them a tie, of a new sort in a world grown cynical and old +and cold; an affection permanent as the hills, warm as summer. +Everything good in her loved Raft, it was the affection of a mother for +a child, of a child for a mother.</p> + +<p>He had nursed her back to life, he had brought her life, and never once +since that day had he chilled her with a littleness or broken a thread +of what was spinning in her heart. He was illiterate,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_284' id='Page_284'>284</a></span> he was rough, but +he was Raft. He was the great beach of Kerguelen and the sea-bulls and +the distant islands, he was the hand that had destroyed Loneliness and +driven away Death, the child who had listened to Jack and the Bean +Stalk, the Lion that had destroyed Chang, the companion in a loneliness +ringed with despair.</p> + +<p>One morning beyond the 40th parallel, and some two hundred miles to the +nor’west of St. Paul, the Chinese mate plucked Raft by the sleeve and +pointed into the west.</p> + +<p>The day was clear with a wind just enough to fill the sails of the +barque and a long blue leisurely swell running from the south. Away in +the east was a trace of smoke as though a grimy finger had stained the +sky just above the sea-line.</p> + +<p>“Ship,” said the mate.</p> + +<p>It was the one word of English that he knew. Raft was about to shout and +run to the cabin hatch to call the girl. Then he held himself back. It +might be a false hope. Yet if he had thought he might have known that a +ship in the east meant a ship right across their course, here, where +there were no trade tracks north and south.</p> + +<p>Then above the sea-line and clear of smoke he saw her hull.</p> + +<p>He pointed to the halyards and the mate understood. The mate was +evidently desperately anxious to be quit for good of his self-invited +passengers, for when Raft came on deck again with the girl they found +the barque under bare poles rolling to<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_285' id='Page_285'>285</a></span> the swell and a Chinese flag +half-masted flicking in the wind.</p> + +<p>Also, away across the sea, sheering towards them and making to cross +their bows a mile away a two funnelled steamer whose funnels closed to +one as she shifted her helm to get within speaking distance of them.</p> + +<p>She was the <i>Carcassonne</i>, a seven thousand ton freighter carrying +passengers, a French boat, bound from Sydney to Cape Town and +Marseilles.</p> + +<p>Raft, the day before, had taken the Chinese mate down to the cabin and +shewed him Chang’s money and had presented it to him and the crew in +pantomime.</p> + +<p>It was honesty. It was also a good stroke. There was no trouble when the +<i>Carcassonne</i>, her huge bulk rolling gently to the swell, dropped a +boat, though indeed had the companions of Chang wished to raise trouble +they would have found themselves seriously handicapped, dumb as they +were in every language but their own.</p> + +<p>Chang had been their linguist as well as their leader. They had +literally lost their tongue.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_286' id='Page_286'>286</a></span></p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_288' id='Page_288'>288</a></span></p> +<h2>PART VI</h2> + +<hr class='minor' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXXV' id='CHAPTER_XXXV'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_289' id='Page_289'>289</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXV</h2><h3>MARSEILLES</h3> +</div> + +<p>On board the <i>Carcassonne</i> the girl had broken down as though all the +exhaustion she had defied had waited for that moment to fall upon her.</p> + +<p>But the energy that had held her above defeat and had given her hope +when things seemed hopeless was there, undestroyed, and when the turning +point came she rallied swiftly. She came on deck one morning where +Bathurst lay a point invisible beyond the blue sea to starboard and +sitting in a deck chair made friends with the other passengers.</p> + +<p>It seemed to her almost impossible that the same world should hold +Kerguelen and at the same time this paradise of azure blue sky and tepid +wind.</p> + +<p>Raft had told her story before reaching Cape Town and the loss of the +<i>Gaston de Paris</i> was now old news in Europe, and the fact that of all +the <i>Gaston’s</i> crowd only the beautiful Cléo de Bromsart had been saved.</p> + +<p>Raft had joined the crew of the <i>Carcassonne</i>, sleeping in the foc’s’le, +where there were several English speaking sailors, and as much out of +his element as a man used only to masts and spars can<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_290' id='Page_290'>290</a></span> be on a +steamboat. However, he swabbed decks and did odd jobs without a grumble +and he was swabbing the deck on the morning she came up; he dropped the +business for a moment to take the two hands she held out to him.</p> + +<p>All through that time below she had been wanting Raft and his big hand +to pull her through. Satisfied, knowing he was on board and all right, +but wanting him all the same.</p> + +<p>On the old barque once or twice had come the stray thought of how Raft’s +figure would accommodate itself against the background of the world she +knew.</p> + +<p>Well, here was the world she knew, or part of it; a deck, clean as a +ball-room floor and as spacious, passengers in deck chairs, reading +novels, and a manicured French surgeon ready to talk art or philosophy +to her, polished, but rather narrow of shoulder.</p> + +<p>And against all that stood Raft, rough and in the clothes he had worn on +the beach, for there was not a man on board whose clothes would have +fitted him comfortably.</p> + +<p>Well, he was not incongruous with this background, simply because he +destroyed it. In a ball-room it would have been the same. He carried +with him his background of high black cliffs and miles of beach and +flying gulls and breaking sea, and in a flash came to her the fact that +he dwarfed and belittled the other people around just as nature dwarfs +and belittles art.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_291' id='Page_291'>291</a></span></p> + +<p>She held both his hands for a moment, managing to pat them, somehow, as +she held them, asking him what on earth he was doing with the swab he +had just dropped. She had an idea that the ship people had put him to +work, but before the idea had risen to indignation heat he reassured +her.</p> + +<p>“I must be doing,” said Raft. “Not that there’s much to be at in this +old kettle. You’ve got your legs back, well, that’s good. I had it out +with that doctor chap and he told me how you were going from day to day, +but I’ve been wanting the sight of you.”</p> + +<p>He put his hand on her shoulder as he might on a pal’s, then he crossed +his arms. “And well you look,” said he.</p> + +<p>“Doctor Petit,” said the girl, speaking in French, “this is Raft, the +bravest and best man in the world as you will know when I tell you all. +Shake hands with him.”</p> + +<p>The doctor shook hands.</p> + +<p>The passengers, and the first officer, across the bridge canvas, watched +all this with curiosity. They knew something but they did not know all. +They did that night when she had told them as best she could.</p> + +<p>After that she met him often on deck, giving him a word or stopping for +a chat, and it was now that she began to think and make plans as to the +future.</p> + +<p>Raft had become part of herself, they were<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_292' id='Page_292'>292</a></span> bound together as perhaps no +two such contrary beings had ever been bound. The idea of Love, the idea +of Marriage, all conventional ideas as between grown-ups of opposite sex +were as absurd in relation to them as they would have been in relation +to two children who had grown attached one to the other.</p> + +<p>As regarded one another they were in fact two children, for Raft had +never been anything but a child and Kerguelen and Raft combined had +awakened the primitive and the child in her, giving her the power of +affection that makes a little child throw its arm round the neck of a +dog.</p> + +<p>But the world could not understand that, and Raft to the world was a +rough sailor man, and she, to the world, was Cléo de Bromsart.</p> + +<p>She would lie awake at night listening to the pounding of the screws and +thinking of this—contrasting the figure of Raft with the world she knew +and the world she knew with the figure of Raft.</p> + +<p>Madame de Brie, her nearest relation, would pass before her mind’s eye +with her gold eye glasses, and the Comtesse de Mirandole and a host of +others; and the queer thing was that the vaguest feeling of antagonism +tinged her mind towards these estimable people. They seemed forgeries, +impudent forgeries of the handwriting that had first written the word +Man on the earth. She had seen the original writing.</p> + +<p>She felt also towards them the antagonism of the child to the grown up, +and of the person who<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_293' id='Page_293'>293</a></span> can’t explain to the person who stands waiting +for an explanation.</p> + +<p>Then she would laugh quietly to herself, for no woman, surely, was ever +in a similar position. Then, casting her mind back, she would sometimes +choke a little with tears in her throat, tears for herself, dying of +loneliness, and for the hand that had brought her back from death.</p> + +<p>They passed the entrance of the straits and Gibraltar, and one bright +blue winter’s morning they entered the harbour of Marseilles, with +Marseilles before them blazing in the sun and the bugles of Fort St. +Jean answering the crying of the gulls and the drums of Fort St. +Nicholas.</p> + +<p>Cléo was dressed in the same clothes she had worn on her escape from the +<i>Gaston de Paris</i>. She had borrowed a hat from one of the ladies on +board and stockings and other things from another lady; but she still +wore round her waist the leather belt with the empty knife sheath.</p> + +<p>As she stood on deck, now, waiting whilst the <i>Carcassonne</i> berthed at +the wharf alongside a great Messagerie steamer, she carried over her arm +the oilskin coat and, by its elastic band, the sou’wester. They were old +friends.</p> + +<p>Then when the hawsers had been passed and the gang plank was being run +out she saw amongst the crowd on the wharf Monsieur de Brie and Madame +de Brie, also a number of well-dressed people, Parisians some of them.</p> + +<p>Then she was being embraced by Madame de<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_294' id='Page_294'>294</a></span> Brie and trying at the same +time to acknowledge the salute of Monsieur Bonvalot, her lawyer and man +of affairs, a stout pale man with long Dundreary whiskers who had come +from Paris to receive her.</p> + +<p>All this crowd had not come purely on account of Cléo. Beside the people +interested in her there were several friends and relations of Prince +Selm, also his lawyer.</p> + +<p>“I have taken rooms at the Hotel Noailles,” said Madame de Brie, “and I +have brought you some clothes. Oh, my poor child, what you must have +suffered. But why did the people on board not lend you some better +things?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, my clothes are all right,” said Cléo, “people wanted to lend me +things, but I am quite comfortable in these.”</p> + +<p>She was looking about in search of Raft who was nowhere to be seen.</p> + +<p>Then she was seized by the rest, by the Comtesse de Mirandole, by Madame +de Florey, and several others who had stopped at Marseilles—on their +way to Monte Carlo—to meet the <i>Carcassonne</i> and greet the girl who had +alone survived the wreck of the <i>Gaston de Paris</i>, some of these people +knew her only slightly, but once a person becomes famous or notorious it +is astonishing how slight acquaintanceship blossoms into full +friendship.</p> + +<p>Several photographers from the illustrated papers were amongst the crowd +and a Pathé operator was on the quay.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_295' id='Page_295'>295</a></span></p> + +<p>Cléo was already recovering that sixth sense, which one might call the +social sense, and, as she talked almost to half a dozen people at once, +answering questions and receiving felicitations, this sixth sense told +her quite plainly that she was being criticised by her felicitators, +that in their eyes she was a guy. That the old velour hat she had +borrowed, the hair that shewed beneath it, her face, which had still +upon it a reflection of Kerguelen, her old skirt and coat—all these +things, singly and taken together, were exciting in the minds of these +Parisians a pity which was not unrelated to humour. She did not mind, +she was looking for Raft.</p> + +<p>It seemed to her that all these people, excellent in their way, had a +tinge of unreality about them. On the voyage she had sometimes vaguely +dreaded that Raft might be pushed away from her, despite herself, by the +contrast between him and her own order. It had come to her that the +difference between the beach of Kerguelen and the Avenue Malakoff might +take her like a giant of mind and divorce her from her allegiance to +him. That the good companion, the true friend, the person she loved +might alter completely under the touch of social alchemy.</p> + +<p>Raft was impossible. She knew that. More impossible even than a sea +elephant from that far beach where life was real and Paris a dream. +Impossible in Paris where life was false and the far beach a dream.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_296' id='Page_296'>296</a></span></p> + +<p>Raft at a dinner party! Raft at one of those elegant afternoons where +the talk would run on the politics of the moment, on symbolism, on +Bergson, or Iturrino or the works of Othon Friesz—! He could not be her +companion in that place, in that atmosphere, within leagues of those +people.</p> + +<p>She was not thinking that now. “These people” around her seemed +strangers; they had in fact always been strangers, strangers who had +kissed her, conversed with her, dined with her, but strangers; the one, +true, living, warm friend, the only one she had ever known, was Raft. It +was the penguins and sea-bulls over again, the polite, bowing, +absolutely correct penguins, the warm lumping, living sea-bulls.</p> + +<p>Her heart, chilled by stephanotis-scented kisses, words of felicitation +and the fat smiles of men in tall hats and tight-buttoned overcoats, +chilled by Monsieur de Brie’s gold rimmed eye glasses, chilled by a +social state that had never warmed her, cried out for Raft. Kerguelen +and that beach, where, even now, the sea-bulls might be lingering, +seemed a warm and blissful vision, real, alive, a place where life meant +living.</p> + +<p>Ah, here he came. He had been helping to fix a hawser at the bows. She +ran towards him.</p> + +<p>“Ah, there you are. Now, you are coming with me. I have told the captain +and he said this morning it would be all right as you were not signed +on.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_297' id='Page_297'>297</a></span></p> + +<p>“Right,” said Raft, “but where are you going?”</p> + +<p>“To an hotel.”</p> + +<p>He looked about him. He saw the crowd on deck but he did not connect it +with her. He was out of his reckoning. He had never thought of what +would happen in port as regarded her, or where he would go or what he +would do; making plans was not in his way. In the ordinary course of +things he would have gone to the British consulate and the Shipwrecked +Mariners’ people would have returned him, carriage paid, to England. He +had always been in the hands of others and of chance.</p> + +<p>She—he had always called her She, and here, be it said, he did not know +her name, never having asked—She had now taken him into her hands and +he felt vaguely that she was a power on this new beach where he was +stranded.</p> + +<p>Had you told him that she was a woman of society and very wealthy his +idea of her power would not have been increased; he knew nothing of +wealth or society. She was She in her old dress that he knew so well, +and still carrying the sou’wester he had fetched from the cave where she +had done that chap in, and as for any idea of being under an obligation +to her for food or housing he had none. He would have done the same for +her.</p> + +<p>Yet, to tell the truth, the docks, with no money in his pocket and the +cold prospect of brilliant Marseilles, had made him feel adrift like a +lost child. Civilisation had affected him as it had<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_298' id='Page_298'>298</a></span> affected her, so +that something, now, made him put his hand on her shoulder to get the +touch of her, and she, knowing that every eye in all that party behind +her was upon them, took the great hand and held it and patted it.</p> + +<p>It was as well to take her stand at once, though she was scarcely +bothering about that. Then, still holding his hand, she came along that +white deck towards the gang-plank. The officers knew and, as they bade +her good-bye, they nodded to Raft, but the Parisians knew nothing but +that Cléo had gone clearly mad—and that that awful sailor had placed +his hand on her shoulder, familiarly!</p> + +<p>There were several automobiles waiting by the wharf and Madame de Brie, +half-dumb and slightly agitated, having pointed out the car she had +reserved for Cléo, the girl introduced Raft.</p> + +<p>“This is Raft who saved my life,” said Cléo.</p> + +<p>Then she took Raft by the arm and pushed him into the seat beside the +chauffeur; having done that, she got into the car, following Madame de +Brie. The Comtesse de Mirandole got in, also, followed by Monsieur de +Brie and his gold eye glasses.</p> + +<p>The mistral was blowing so that the windows of the car had to be kept +closed.</p> + +<p>Used to fresh air, the girl nearly choked at first with the stuffiness +of the car. The olfactory nerve is really a prolongation of the brain, +as though the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_299' id='Page_299'>299</a></span> brain, distrusting the other senses, had pushed out a +trustworthy scout to see what the world and its contents were really +like. The sense of smell never lies; it is of all senses the truest and +it handed along without comment to the brain of Cléo the faint perfume +of the stephanotis affected by Madame de Brie and of the Yoya-yoya +affected by the Comtesse de Mirandole, also traces from the varnish and +upholstery of the car.</p> + +<p>“Who, my dear, is that man,” asked Madame de Brie. She had almost said +“that dreadful man” but she had checked herself.</p> + +<p>“Man—Oh, that is Raft. He saved my life.”</p> + +<p>“How delightful,” said the Countess, “and he seems quite a character.”</p> + +<p>“Quite,” said Madame de Brie half-heartedly, “but my dear Cléo, you will +excuse an old woman for suggesting it, your generosity must be on its +guard, he placed his hand on your shoulder, quite familiarly it seemed +to me.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said the choking Cléo, “why should he not? I have slept with my +head on his chest on a rock and I have stabbed a man who was trying to +kill him. Between us we fought a whole crowd of Chinamen. He had a +harpoon and I had a knife and we beat them and took their ship. Do you +mind having the window a wee bit open? I feel rather faint.”</p> + +<p>“That’s better,” said she to the speechless other ones, “I’m so used to +fresh air that I can’t bear to be closed in.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_300' id='Page_300'>300</a></span></p> + +<p>“But my dear Cléo,” suddenly broke out the old lady, “what do you intend +to do with him?”</p> + +<p>“Do with him? Nothing. He’s my friend, that’s all. Ah, here we are.”</p> + +<p>The car had drawn up in the courtyard of the Hotel.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXXVI' id='CHAPTER_XXXVI'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_301' id='Page_301'>301</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2><h3>THE LEPER</h3> +</div> + +<p>Déjeuner had been prepared for the party in a private room, a big room, +for there were twelve guests all told, including not only Cléo’s friends +but the business men, and the friends of Prince Selm.</p> + +<p>But before thinking of déjeuner or anything else she had to see about +Raft.</p> + +<p>She left him standing in the hall whilst she interviewed the manager.</p> + +<p>Actually, the business would have been easier for her had she brought +with her an animal, even of the largest pattern. The manager, when he +had caught a glimpse of the intended guest, revolted; not openly, it is +true, but with genuflexions and outstretching of hands.</p> + +<p>Where could this man be put, what could be done with him? The valets and +ladies’ maids would certainly not eat with him, the visitors would +object to his presence in the lounge, the servants in the servants’ +quarters. He was a common sailor man. Heavens! What a problem that +manager had to face, something quite new, quite illogical, yet quite +logical. He had heard of the wreck of the <i>Gaston</i> and he was as +interested in Clêo as a<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_302' id='Page_302'>302</a></span> hotel manager could be. He understood the whole +case when she told him that Raft had saved her life; he was a man of +broad mind, but he knew intimately the mental make up of his servants, +his visitors and their servants. He discussed the matter with Cléo quite +openly and she saw the reason of all he said. Raft was “impossible” in +that hotel. His heroism did not count a bit; it did with the manager who +would not have to sit at table with him, it did not with the waiters and +valets and ladies’ maids who would have to associate with him, or the +guests whose eyes would be offended by his presence.</p> + +<p>“He belongs to a ship,” said the manager. Then he solved the question +with a burst.</p> + +<p>“I will look after him myself.” He ran into the hall and called Raft to +come with him; then, followed by Cléo, he led the way to a sitting-room, +a most elegant sitting-room upholstered in blue silk.</p> + +<p>“Here,” said he to the sea lion, “will you take your seat and déjeuner +will be served to you.”</p> + +<p>“I have to leave you for a bit,” said Cléo, putting her hand on his arm, +“I won’t be long.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll wait for you,” said Raft. He was a bit amazed at all the new +things around him and blissfully unconscious of trouble. He threw his +cap on a chair and took his pipe from his pocket, the same old pipe he +had lit that night on the ledge of the sea-corridor, then he produced a +plug of tobacco, the same tobacco whose pungent fume<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_303' id='Page_303'>303</a></span> had comforted her +there, with the sound of the hungry sea coming through the dark.</p> + +<p>Then he sat down on a silk covered chair and the manager and the girl +went out.</p> + +<p>“I will serve him myself,” said the manager. “I understand; he is a +brave man but very rough; the servants do not understand these things. +It is a difficulty, but after—? Mademoiselle—after?”</p> + +<p>“After what?”</p> + +<p>“After he has had his meal?”</p> + +<p>She understood. After he had been fed he was to go. He could go, say, to +a sailors’ lodging house; she had heard of such things. Or, he would +walk about the streets; the thing was quite simple. It was only right to +give him a good meal and some money, a good round sum, seeing all he had +done for her.</p> + +<p>She was scarcely heeding the manager. She was viewing, full face, the +truth that the manager had demonstrated to her clearly. Raft was +impossible. She had had vague ideas of bringing him to Paris and giving +him a room for himself in her house on the Avenue Malakoff. She had +never thought of the servants, she had thought of her friends and that +they would think her conduct queer. But she saw everything now quite +straight and in a dry light. Raft was shipwrecked on a social state; to +keep company with him she would have to renounce everything and live on +his level; she could not treat him as a servant; even if she could, +servants would resent him. He was<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_304' id='Page_304'>304</a></span> not of their type, much lower, a +labouring man from the sea. Not to lose him as he was to her she would +have to enter the absolutely impossible and absurd, she would have to +give up social life and make a world of her own with Raft. With a man +whose setting was the sea, the wilderness, whose life was action, who +was ignorant of art, philosophy, the convenances, who was a figure of +scorn to every educated eye when caught against the background of +Civilisation.</p> + +<p>In three beats of a pendulum all this passed through her mind.</p> + +<p>Then she said to the manager:</p> + +<p>“Quite so. I understand. I must thank you very much for your real +kindness. I shall give this man a sum of money, and this afternoon you +will be free of him. He can find shelter at a sailors’ home—I have +heard of such places.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mon Dieu! Yes,” said the manager, vastly relieved, “and either I or +Fritz, my head waiter, will serve him with his food. Fritz is a man of +temperament and knowledge and I will explain to him.”</p> + +<p>He hurried off and she was left alone in the corridor.</p> + +<p>She opened the door of the little sitting-room. The leper was seated +hunched on his chair just as she had seen him sitting often on a rock; +he was surrounded with a cloud of tobacco smoke.</p> + +<p>She had seen the loneliness of Kerguelen but that was nothing to this.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_305' id='Page_305'>305</a></span></p> + +<p>Poor Raft. The very chairs and tables shouted at him; he looked +ridiculous. How in her wildest dreams could she have entertained the +idea of holding him to her, here?</p> + +<p>He would have looked more ridiculous only that he looked, what he felt, +forlorn. The place was beginning to tell on him, used to the rough and +the open; the smooth and the closed were getting at him.</p> + +<p>When he saw her he took the pipe from his mouth and pressed the burning +tobacco down with his finger nervously, the same finger she had sucked +once when parched with thirst.</p> + +<p>She saw, as a matter of fact, that he was nervous, if the term could +apply to such a huge and powerful organism, and the fear came to her +that if left alone he might bolt before she could conduct him in person +to the Sailors’ Home.</p> + +<p>Standing with the door held half open she nodded to him.</p> + +<p>“I want you to stay here,” said she, “till I come back. I have to talk +to all those people you saw and I may be a couple of hours. That man +will bring you something to eat—you don’t mind my leaving you here?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Raft “but you’ll be wanting something to eat +yourself.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll get it.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll come back, sure?”</p> + +<p>“Sure.”</p> + +<p>She laughed, nodded to him, and closed the door.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_306' id='Page_306'>306</a></span> Her cheeks were +flushed and her eyes bright, she was strangely worked up; a touch might +have sent her into a storm of anger or a burst of tears.</p> + +<p>In the corridor she met Madame de Brie who had been hunting for her.</p> + +<p>“Cléo, they are waiting déjeuner for you—but, my dear child, you have +not changed, has no one shewn you to your room?”</p> + +<p>The old lady had not only brought along Cléo’s maid who, with the rest +of the servants, had been on board wages during her mistress’s absence, +but a trunk full of clothes.</p> + +<p>“I am not going to change,” said Cléo, “I am too busy—and too hungry—”</p> + +<p>A reporter from the <i>Gaulois</i> stopped her as she was turning towards the +room, indicated by Madame de Brie, where déjeuner was to be served.</p> + +<p>“Mademoiselle,” said the reporter, “I did not like to trouble you +sooner, may I crave the honour of a short interview with you on account +of the <i>Gaulois</i>?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly, monsieur,” replied the girl. “Pray come to déjeuner as my +guest, I hope to tell my friends something of my experiences and what I +say you can repeat; that will be better than a formal interview +tête-à-téte, which, after all, is rather a depressing affair.”</p> + +<p>The déjeuner was not a depressing affair. Cléo struck the note. She was +in radiant good humour. Madame de Brie sat on her right, Monsieur de +Brie on her left. Monsieur Bonvalot, her man of<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_307' id='Page_307'>307</a></span> affairs, with his long +Dundreary whiskers, opposite to her; the rest were scattered on either +side of the long table.</p> + +<p>At first the conversation was general, then, after a while, Cléo was +talking and the rest listening.</p> + +<p>“As I shall be very busy for a long time,” said Cléo, “I would like now +to give all the information I can about the loss of the yacht. A +gentleman is present on behalf of the <i>Gaulois</i>, and as all details I +can give relative to the disaster are of world wide interest, +considering the position of the late Prince Selm, I take this +opportunity of making them known. Unfortunately they are few.”</p> + +<p>She told briefly but clearly the story of the disaster, of her escape +and landing on Kerguelen, of the caves and the cache and the death of +the two men. She did not tell how La Touche met his end, that business +had to do with no one but herself and La Touche. She gave it to be +understood that he, like Bompard, had met his fate in the quicksands.</p> + +<p>She told of her loneliness, and how she had been dying simply from +loneliness, how she had been saved by Raft and how he had nursed her +like a mother.</p> + +<p>It was then that she really began to talk and shew them pictures. They +saw the beach and that terrible journey along under the cliffs, cliffs +that seemed cut out of night and never ending, the sea, like an +obsession, crawling shoreward, and Raft carrying her on his shoulder.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_308' id='Page_308'>308</a></span></p> + +<p>They saw the summit where she had stood looking towards the west and the +hopeless prospect of finding a bay that might not be there and an +anchorage where there might be a ship, on a coast where few ships ever +came.</p> + +<p>Fascinated and warmed by Perrier Jouet, they followed her to the place +where the wind had brought her the smell of the try pots and to the +cliff edge where Derision shew her the Chinese whaler and the terrible +little man, blood-stained, and busy with butchery.</p> + +<p>She shewed them the great serang—Captain of the Chinese—driving them +off the beach and telling them to begone back into the wilderness, and, +vaguely, the fight where Raft had saved her from death or worse——</p> + +<p>“Ah, Mon Dieu, what a man,” cried a female voice down the table.</p> + +<p>Cléo stopped.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Madame la Comtesse,” said she, “but a man beyond the pale, a man +to be ashamed of, a man who, were he to sit in the lounge of this hotel +and smoke his pipe, would drive all the other guests away. A common +sailor. A man rough from the sea and illiterate.”</p> + +<p>There was a dead silence.</p> + +<p>Monsieur Bonvalot, a socialist, though a business man, nodded his head. +He broke the silence.</p> + +<p>“A man,” said Monsieur Bonvalot, “is, after all, a man.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, monsieur, he is not,” said Cléo, “not<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_309' id='Page_309'>309</a></span> in Marseilles. But do +not think I am quarrelling with social conditions. There must, I +believe, always be hewers of wood and drawers of water. I am just +talking of Raft and my own position as regards him. I am not thinking of +the fact that he saved my life time and again, or that he nursed me with +his great rough hands as tenderly as a mother. I am thinking of the fact +that I have discovered something quite new and genuine, a human heart +that is warm and real and true and simple, simple as the heart of a +child, a mind that has no crookedness, a man who, in Paris or here in +Marseilles, is absurd, not because he is rough and uncouth, but because +he is like Monsieur Gulliver amongst the little people. I have seen the +great, I have seen the wind and the sun and the sea and the mountains as +they really are, and life as it really is, for those who really live. I +have seen death, none of you here have ever seen or imagined death, none +of you here have ever seen life, none of you here have seen the world. +You all have been protected from the truth of things, and fortunately, +for the truth of things would break you as it would have broken me but +for Raft, who sits in a room at the end of that corridor and whom the +manager of this hotel is serving with food with his own hands because +the hotel servants would consider it an insult were they asked to carry +him his food.</p> + +<p>“I am not grumbling. I quite recognise the logic of the whole thing, but +I feel as though I were looking at everything through the large end of a +pair of<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_310' id='Page_310'>310</a></span> opera glasses, just as when as a child I used to do so and +amuse myself by watching human beings reduced to the size of dolls.</p> + +<p>“Well, now you have all my story and I have put before you a new view of +things and I hope I have not shocked you all. My poor Raft must now go +to the Sailors’ Home where I am going with him. I want some money, +Monsieur Bonvalot.”</p> + +<p>“Mademoiselle,” said Bonvalot, awaking like a person from hypnotism and +delighted to find himself on a business footing again, “certainly, I +have here your cheque book which I have brought with me.”</p> + +<p>“Then we will go to another room and discuss business matters,” said the +girl rising. “Now all you people please enjoy yourselves. You are my +guests whilst you stay in this hotel. Madame de Brie will see that you +have everything.”</p> + +<p>She led the way from the room, Monsieur Bonvalot following. A suite had +been engaged for her and here in the sitting-room she started to talk +business with her man of affairs.</p> + +<p>A large fortune is like a delicate animal, always in need of nursing and +attention, it is always changing colour in spots from rosy to dark, a +depreciation in Peruvian bonds means that your capital has shrunk just +there and the question comes will it go on shrinking; a big rise in +P.L.M. shares suggests taking the profit and re-investing should they +fall again.</p> + +<p>Monsieur Bonvalot had problems of this sort to<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_311' id='Page_311'>311</a></span> set before the girl—she +swept them away. “I have no time to attend to all that now,” said she, +“some other day will do. I want twenty thousand francs, have you got +them?”</p> + +<p>“Twenty thousand francs,” said Bonvalot. “No, Mademoiselle. I brought +five thousand francs in notes thinking you would want them for your +expenses here, but you can write a cheque on the Crédit Lyonnais and I +will get it cashed for you at once.”</p> + +<p>He produced from a wallet a bundle of pink and blue bank notes and +counted out five thousand francs, then she wrote a cheque for fifteen +thousand payable to him. He endorsed it, went off and returned in ten +minutes with the money. She put the notes in a big envelope and the +envelope in her pocket. That same pocket still contained the old tobacco +box of Captain Slocum and the other odds and ends which she treasured +more than gold.</p> + +<p>“That will do for the present,” said she, “to-morrow I will open an +account at the Marseilles branch of the Crédit Lyonnais, or rather you +can do it for me to-day. Give them this specimen of my signature and +they can telegraph to the Paris branch. I would like two hundred +thousand francs put to my credit here.”</p> + +<p>“But are you not coming back to Paris?” asked Bonvalot.</p> + +<p>“No, Monsieur Bonvalot, not at present!” He pulled his whiskers.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_312' id='Page_312'>312</a></span></p> + +<p>The idea had suddenly come to him, and come to him strongly, that she +was about to do “something foolish.”</p> + +<p>He had seen women do very foolish things in the course of his business +life and all that talk of hers at the luncheon table came back to him +now.</p> + +<p>He remembered the beautiful Mademoiselle de Lacy who had run off and +married a groom; could it be possible that Cléo contemplated any such +mad act with that terrific sailor man? The idea chilled his heart.</p> + +<p>Equality and Fraternity were parts of his motto and he was an honest +socialist; he believed honestly that all men were equals and that the +waiters who served him at table were as good as himself, with a +difference of course due to the accidents of life, but he believed, with +Daudet, that there is no greater abyss than class difference.</p> + +<p>His theory was confounded by this practice. But he could say nothing, +for the matter was too delicate to be touched upon.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXXVII' id='CHAPTER_XXXVII'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_313' id='Page_313'>313</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2><h3>A NEW HOME</h3> +</div> + +<p>Raft was still in the room where she had left him. As they passed +through the hall where a number of people were seated about in basket +chairs she felt every eye fixed upon her and her companion. Then out in +the sunlit Cannabier Prolongué she drew a deep breath just as a person +draws a deep breath after a dive.</p> + +<p>She also felt free.</p> + +<p>She had always been free in theory; possessed of her own money she could +have done absolutely as she liked, in theory. In practice she had always +been a slave. The slave of a thousand and one things and circumstances, +things and circumstances many of them troublesome, many of them +wearisome, all of them not to be denied.</p> + +<p>“Mademoiselle, your bath is ready.”</p> + +<p>“Mademoiselle, the first gong has sounded.”</p> + +<p>“What dress will Mademoiselle wear this afternoon?”</p> + +<p>Oh, the day, the day with its hundred phases and divisions, the dresses +that went with each phase, the lukewarm emotions and interests and +boredom and suppressed hatreds, this thing called the day, which she had +first reviewed in the open<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_314' id='Page_314'>314</a></span> boat after the wreck of the <i>Gaston de +Paris</i> terrified to find it torn from her—this thing had been returned +to her that morning in all its futility. It seemed to her, as she cast +it away, a horrible gaud, a thing made of tinsel, yet a thing that could +destroy the soul and blind the eyes and numb the heart.</p> + +<p>She had never been free, she had always been the veriest slave, the +slave of things, of people, of convenances, and of circumstances.</p> + +<p>Doctor Epinard had spoken something of the truth.</p> + +<p>Man may not be an automaton worked by environment, all the same he is +the slave of environment, and never such a slave as when his environment +is that of high Civilisation.</p> + +<p>For there the pure motives of the mind have ever to be regulated and +falsified, the heart crushed, the face veiled.</p> + +<p>To break with all that falsity means shipwreck.</p> + +<p>“Which way does the sea lie?” asked the girl. Raft turned to the left as +though the smell of the sea were leading him.</p> + +<p>“I’m glad to be out of there,” said he, “I was near smothered in that +place.”</p> + +<p>“So was I,” said she, “did that man bring you your food all right?”</p> + +<p>“Another chap brought it,” said Raft, “a Dutchman.”</p> + +<p>She laughed.</p> + +<p>“Do you know what I was thinking?” said she.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_315' id='Page_315'>315</a></span></p> + +<p>“I was thinking of the time you brought me food when I was nearly dying. +You didn’t tell a Dutchman to bring it. I’d have brought you your food +myself and we would have had it together only I had to talk to those +people. Well, I’ve got rid of them. How would you like to live always in +a place like that hotel?”</p> + +<p>Raft mentally reviewed the room done in blue silk, Fritz, and the rest +of it.</p> + +<p>“I’d rather be out in the open,” said Raft. “Not that I have anything to +say against it—but I’d rather be out in the open.”</p> + +<p>They walked along.</p> + +<p>Companionship with Raft had for her one delightful thing about it, it +was companionship without restraint. In a way it was like companionship +with a dog, or a child. Like two old sailors they would hang silent, +sometimes, for a long time, not bothering to speak, content with being +together.</p> + +<p>She had never imagined the possibility of a man and a woman of +absolutely different social position in such a relationship, never drawn +the ghost of such an idea from all the books she had read, all the plays +she had seen. Never could she have imagined a common sailor man striking +Art for her to pieces, as he had struck the story of Anatole France, and +creating above a world he had taught her to despise, a nest for her mind +rough as himself, but in air pure and living.</p> + +<p>Raft, the common man, had made her social<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_316' id='Page_316'>316</a></span> world seem vulgar as well as +small, chill as well as vulgar.</p> + +<p>She was thinking just now as she walked beside him how when she had told +him that the hotel manager would bring him something to eat, he had +said, “but you will want something to eat yourself.” That was the sort +of thing constantly recurring in all sorts of ways that had brought her +to know him truly, occurring in little ways as well as in that great and +heroic moment when he had told her to destroy herself with the knife if +he were killed.</p> + +<p>As they passed along the Cannabier they saw a drunken sailor reeling +along towards them through the crowd, and Raft drew her by the arm off +the sidewalk to avoid him.</p> + +<p>The sight in other times would have made him laugh, or more likely it +would have been scarcely noticed, but She, in some manner or another, +made drink discreditable, and the sight of it to be avoided. It would +have been the same, most likely, had he been taking a child for a walk. +Down near the docks they passed a birdshop before which Raft cast anchor +almost forgetful of his companion. There were all sorts of birds here, +those tiny birds from the African coast one sees in the shops of the +Riviera, canaries and parrots.</p> + +<p>There was one parrot, enormous and coloured like a tropical sunset, +drowsy-eyed and insolent looking. When he saw the sailor man he seemed +to rouse up. He looked at Raft and Raft at him.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_317' id='Page_317'>317</a></span></p> + +<p>“I’d like that chap,” said Raft, “he beats the lot of them.”</p> + +<p>“And you shall have him,” said she.</p> + +<p>He laughed.</p> + +<p>“Much good he’d be to a chap like me. Where’d I keep him?”</p> + +<p>Her eyes softened as she looked at the bird and from the bird to the +man. Where, indeed, could he keep him? He who had no home—nothing. Then +it was that Money seemed to her what it really is, a god, beautiful and +benign.</p> + +<p>It had often seemed to her as a demon, but Raft, who unconsciously had +cast ridicule on her world, was now, unconsciously, shewing her the +great truth she had never seen before, the truth that Money is more +beautiful than Apollo, more etherial than Psyche, more powerful than +Jove.</p> + +<p>“You will soon have somewhere to keep him,” said she, “we will get him +to-morrow. Come on. I want now to find the place where the fishing boats +put in. I saw it the last time I was here in Marseilles, years ago, but +I am not sure of the direction.”</p> + +<p>She asked a man who was passing and he pointed the way; it was a long +distance, but it seemed short, so full was her mind with the plan she +had formulated before leaving the hotel. She talked as she went. Talked +just as though they were on the Kerguelen beach hunting for a cave.</p> + +<p>“We will find a place to put the parrot. I want a great big boat, not a +yacht. I’ve had enough of<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_318' id='Page_318'>318</a></span> those. I want a good sea boat and the +fisher-boats I have seen here seemed to me good, and the men are the +right sort of men. I am going to buy one—or hire one—well, we shall +see. I want you to help to get it ready for us. How good the smell of +this place is,” she paused to sniff the tar-sea scents brought by the +afternoon wind. It was like the smell of Freedom.</p> + +<p>Then they came on to the fisher wharf and right into the arms of Captain +Jean Bontemps.</p> + +<p>Captain Jean was about five feet in height and he seemed five feet in +thickness. He was propped against a bollard and he was in his +shore-going clothes. The girl’s eye told her at once that here was a +useful man, a man of authority and knowledge. She approached him, and as +he took his pipe from his mouth and removed his cap, she opened her +business without parley or hesitation.</p> + +<p>She wanted to buy or hire a fishing boat, price no object.</p> + +<p>He did not understand her at first. He seemed suffering from some form +of deafness. Then when she repeated the statement he shewed no surprise.</p> + +<p>He himself was a fishing boat owner, Captain Bontemps of the +<i>Arlesienne</i>, and he was quite willing to sell his boat, for a sum—two +thousand pounds he asked, and she did not know that he was speaking in +jest, just as one might speak to a child.</p> + +<p>“If your boat suits me, I will pay what you ask,” said she, “let me see +it.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_319' id='Page_319'>319</a></span></p> + +<p>Then it came upon Captain Jean that he was either talking to a lunatic +or some wealthy woman with a craze. His sails were taken aback and he +was left wallowing in a heavy ground sea of the mind with a smell of +spice islands tinging the air.</p> + +<p><i>La Belle Arlesienne</i>, his old boat, was not worth a thousand pounds. +Under the hammer heaven knows what she would have fetched, but she was +his wife, or the only female thing that stood in that relationship to +him. He tapped the dottle out of his pipe, then he took a pouch from his +pocket and began to refill and the girl, seeing his condition, drew him +aside, asking Raft to wait for her.</p> + +<p>They went to another bollard and there, the mariner anchoring himself, +she began to talk. She introduced herself. He knew all about the <i>Gaston +de Paris</i> and Mademoiselle de Bromsart. He put his pipe in his pocket, +finding himself in such famous company. She went on. In ten minutes she +told him her whole story, told him just what Raft was and just how they +stood related, and just how he had been treated in the hotel.</p> + +<p>“It’s as though they had turned out my father or my brother,” said she, +“we two who have fought and faced everything together have grown into +companions. Friends who cannot be parted, Captain Bontemps. If he were a +woman or I a man it would be easier. As it is things are difficult.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_320' id='Page_320'>320</a></span> +Well, I do not care. I will do exactly as I like. I feel you will be my +friend, too; you understand me. And I want you to look after him +to-night, for in the whole of Marseilles I do not know where he could go +unless to some wretched Sailors’ Home or worse. Ah, it is wicked. Of +what use is it to be brave, to be honest, to be true in this world?”</p> + +<p>“Mon Dieu,” said the Captain, “I will look after him, if for no other +reason than that he is what you say, mademoiselle; but <i>La Belle +Arlesienne</i> is rough, should you use her as a yacht, you would not find +her a yacht. She smells of fish—”</p> + +<p>“I am used to rough things,” said the girl. “I dread the smooth. Captain +Bontemps, for one who has done for me everything should I dread +anything? And a little roughness, what is that to freedom and the life I +have learned to love with the man I love? For I love Raft, Captain +Bontemps, just as I know he loves me. Oh, do not mistake me, it is not +the sort of thing they call love here amongst houses and streets, it is +not a woman that is speaking to you but a human being.”</p> + +<p>He understood her. To his broad and simple mind the thing was simple; +she did not want to part with the man who had saved her and fought for +her and who had been “chucked out” of a hotel because he was a rough +sailor, and marvellously well he understood that when she said she loved +Raft she did not mean the thing that the dock side called Love. No Paris +poet could have understood her. The old fisher captain did.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_321' id='Page_321'>321</a></span></p> + +<p>But he was a practical man. He struck himself a blow on the head.</p> + +<p>“I have what you want,” said he, “<i>La Belle Arlesienne</i>, no, it is no +use, I have something better, a good cruising boat—you say money is no +object.”</p> + +<p>“None.”</p> + +<p>“Then come with me, you two.”</p> + +<p>He led the way followed by Raft and the girl to a wharf where a tug lay +moored and by the tug a fifty ton yawl.</p> + +<p>“There’s your boat,” said Bontemps, “built by Pinoli of Genoa for an +American. She has even a bath-room—a main cabin with two cabins off it, +your man could berth in the fo’c’sle which is big enough for twenty like +him. Follow me.”</p> + +<p>He led the way on to the deck of the yawl.</p> + +<p>The girl went over it down below into the main cabin with two little +sleeping cabins off it. She peeped into the tiny bath-room, examined the +pantry well-stored with crockeryware, there was everything even to the +bunk bedding, sheets and towels, she went to the fo’c’sle; compared with +the fo’c’sle of the <i>Albatross</i> it was a little palace.</p> + +<p>Then she turned to Raft.</p> + +<p>“This is your new home,” said she, “there is room for your parrot here.” +Then turning to Captain Bontemps. “Well, that is settled and now I only +want a crew and a captain—fishermen. I will have no yachtsmen on my +boat. I have had to do with yachtsmen, Captain Bontemps.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_322' id='Page_322'>322</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, my faith,” said the old fellow, “you will easily find a crew.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but I won’t easily find a captain. I want you.”</p> + +<p>The Captain laughed.</p> + +<p>“And how about <i>La Belle Arlesienne</i>?” asked he.</p> + +<p>“You must leave her behind you to be sold. In my service money is no +object. Now as to this boat, who is the agent from whom I can buy her?”</p> + +<p>“Latour and Company,” replied the old fellow, for the first time in his +life in the powerful grip of wealth and not knowing exactly whether the +great golden hand was holding him heels or head up.</p> + +<p>“How far is Latour’s from here?”</p> + +<p>“Not far.”</p> + +<p>The girl stood for a moment looking round her at the white deck, the +masts, the rigging, and as she looked some hand seemed to draw aside a +veil revealing the stupid immovable houses of the land filled with +stupid immovable people bound and tied up by soul-killing +conventions—and on the other hand the old mystery of ships, those homes +of Freedom on the road that has no boundaries.</p> + +<p>Then she turned to Bontemps.</p> + +<p>“Come,” said she, “let us go to Latour’s.”</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>“Cléo,” said the distracted Madame de Brie, writing to a friend, “Cléo +must always have been<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_323' id='Page_323'>323</a></span> as mad as her aunt De Warens. Fishermen, it +seems, are the only honest people, and she and her cargo of fishermen, +with an old man named Bontemps, are now heaven knows where since I met +them at Portofino.</p> + +<p>“She calls them her children and when I last saw her she was coming +along the little quay at Portofino helping that big red bearded man to +carry provisions.</p> + +<p>“The times are revolutionary, that’s the truth, and women are not what +they were, and I am old, I suppose, and cannot see things as I ought to +see them—and the grief is she might have married any one, she might +have married Royalty itself, and I told her so and she laughed in my +face. She said she never intended to marry any one, that she already had +a family of ‘children’ and that the great bearded man Raft was the +smallest of them all, that she was teaching him to read and write and to +talk French so that he could converse with the rest of her family.</p> + +<p>“She has made Portofino her headquarters, it seems, and she is the lady +bountiful of the fishing folk there, sits in their cottages and talks to +them, taking up her quarters at the little <i>auberge</i> and sometimes +living on board her boat.</p> + +<p>“A strange life, and yet she seems happy, like that poor Mademoiselle La +Fontaine, whom I last saw at the Maison de Santé of Doctor +Schwanthaller, seated with a straw crown on her head and imagining +herself a queen.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_324' id='Page_324'>324</a></span></p> + +<p>There ended the letter of Madame de Brie, and here ends the story of +Cléo de Bromsart, a woman of energy and mind who learned from Kerguelen +that Life is an endless striving, not a peaceful drifting, and that of +all things high the highest is the soul of a child.</p> + +<p style='text-align:center; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 3em;'>THE END</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Beach of Dreams, by H. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Beach of Dreams + +Author: H. De Vere Stacpoole + +Release Date: December 10, 2006 [EBook #20084] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEACH OF DREAMS *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + + THE + BEACH OF DREAMS + + A ROMANCE + + BY + H. DE VERE STACPOOLE + AUTHOR OF "THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF," "THE GHOST GIRL," + "THE GOLD TRAIL," "THE BLUE LAGOON," ETC. + + THE NATIONAL BOOK CO. + PUBLISHERS + 28 WEST 44TH ST., NEW YORK + +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + + COPYRIGHT, 1919 BY STREET & SMITH + COPYRIGHT, 1919 BY JOHN LANE COMPANY + + Printed in the United States of America + +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + + CONTENTS + + + PART I + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. THE ALBATROSS 9 + II. NORTH-WEST 14 + III. THE GASTON DE PARIS 22 + IV. DISASTER 41 + V. VOICES IN THE NIGHT 48 + VI. DAWN 53 + VII. THE COAST 66 + + + PART II + + VIII. THE AWAKENING 73 + IX. THE WOOLEY 80 + X. THE CROSS 94 + XI. THE CACHE 103 + XII. THE QUARREL 117 + XIII. WHERE IS BOMPARD? 124 + XIV. THE DEATH TRAPS 132 + XV. THE STROKE 143 + XVI. ALONE 146 + XVII. FRIENDS IN DESOLATION 153 + + + PART III + + XVIII. GOD MADE FRIENDSHIP 159 + XIX. THE BIRDS 167 + XX. VAE VICTIS 171 + + + PART IV + + XXI. TIME PASSES 181 + XXII. A NEWCOMER 185 + XXIII. RAFT 194 + XXIV. A DREAM 203 + XXV. STORIES ON THE BEACH 211 + XXVI. THE GREAT WIND 225 + + + PART V + + XXVII. THE CORRIDOR 233 + XXVIII. NIGHT 248 + XXIX. THE SUMMIT 253 + XXX. THE BAY 259 + XXXI. THE SHIP 264 + XXXII. THE OPIUM SMOKERS 272 + XXXIII. MAINSAIL HAUL 277 + XXXIV. THE CARCASSONNE 281 + + + PART VI + + XXXV. MARSEILLES 289 + XXXVI. THE LEPER 301 + XXXVII. A NEW HOME 313 + +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + + + + +THE BEACH OF DREAMS + +CHAPTER I + +THE ALBATROSS + + +The fo'c'sle, lit by a teapot lamp, shewed the port watch in their +bunks, snoring, all but Harbutt and Raft seated on a chest, Harbutt +patching a pair of trousers, Raft smoking. + +Raft was a big red-headed man with eyes that seemed always roving over +great distances as though in search of something. He was thirty-two +years of age and he had used the sea since twelve--twenty years. His +past was a long succession of fo'c'sles, bar-rooms, blazing suns, storms +and sea happenings so run together that all sequence was lost. Beyond +them lay a dismal blotch, his childhood. He had entered the world and +literally and figuratively had been laid at the door of a workhouse; of +his childhood he remembered little, of his parentage he knew nothing. In +drink he was quiet, but most dangerous under certain provocations. + +It was as though deep in his being lay a blazing hatred born of +injustice through ages and only coming to light when upborne by +balloon-juice. On these occasions a saloon bar with its glitter and +phantom show of mirth and prosperity sometimes called on him to dispense +and destroy it, the passion to fight the crowd seized him, a passion +that has its origin, perhaps, in sources other than alcohol. + +He was talking now to Harbutt, scarcely lowering his voice on account of +the fellows in the bunks. Snoring and drugged with ozone a kick would +only have made them curse and turn on the other side, and as he talked +his voice made part of that procession of noises inseparable from the +fo'c'sle of a ship under sail against a head sea. He had been holding +forth on the food and general conditions of this ship compared with the +food and conditions of his last, when Harbutt cut in. + +"There's not a pin to choose between owners, and ships is owners as far +as a sailorman's concerned.--Blast them." + +"I was in a hooker once," said Raft, "and the Old Man came across a lot +of cheap sugar, served it out to save the m'lasses. It was lead, most of +it, and the chaps that swallowed it their teeth came out." + +"What happened to them then?" + +"They croaked. I joined at Bombay, after the business, or I'd have +croaked too." + +"What ship was that?" asked Harbutt. + +"I've forgot her name, it was a good bit back--but it's the truth." + +"Of course it's the truth," replied the other, "who's doubtin' you, any +dog's trick played on a sailorman's the truth, you can lay to that. +I've had four years of sea and I oughta know." + +"What's this you were?" asked Raft. + +"Oh, I was a lot o' things," replied Harbutt. "Wished I'd never left +them to join this b--y business, but it's the same ashore, owners all +the time stuffin' themselves and gettin' rich, workers starvin'." + +Raft belonged to the old time labour world dating from Pelagon, he +grumbled, but had no grudge against owners in general, it was only in +drink that Pelagon rose in him. Harbutt was an atom of the new voice +that is heard everywhere now, even in fo'c'sles. He had failed in +everything on land and a'board ship he was a slacker. You cannot be a +voice and an A.B. at the same time. + +"What was your last job ashore?" went on Raft with the persistence of a +child, always wanting to know. + +"Cleanin' out pig sties," said Harbutt viciously. "Drove to it. I tell +you when a chap's down he's down, the chaps that has money tramples on +the chaps that hasn't. I've been through it and I know. It's the rich +man does it." + +"Well," said Raft, "I don't even remember seeing one." + +"Haven't you ever been in no cities?" + +"I've been in cities right enough, but most by the water-side." + +"Well, you've seen chaps in plug hats and chaps drivin' in carriages, +that's the sort that keeps us down, that's the sort we've got to make +an end of." + +Raft did not quite see. He had a respect for Harbutt mixed with a +contempt for him as a sailor. Harbutt knew a lot--but he could not see +how the chaps in plug hats kept other people down; the few he had seen +had always seemed to him away and beyond his world, soft folk, and +always busy about their own affairs--and how were they to be made an end +of? + +"Do you mean killing them?" he asked. + +"Oh, there's other ways than killin'," replied Harbutt. "It's not them, +it's their money does the trick." + +He finished his patch and turned in. Raft finished his pipe and turned +in also and the fo'c'sle was given over to the noises of the sea and the +straining timbers of the ship. + +Now that the figures of the two sailors had vanished its personality +took fuller life, grim, dark, close, like the interior of a grimy hand +clutching the lives of all those sleepers. The beams shewed like the +curved fingers, and the heel of the bowsprit like the point of the +in-turned thumb, a faint soul-killing rock of kerosene filled it, +intensifying, after the fashion of ambergris, all the other perfumes, +without losing in power. Bilge, tobacco and humanity, you cannot know +what these things are till they are married with the reek of kerosene, +with the grunts and snores of weary men, with lamplight dimmed with +smoke haze; with the heave and fall of the sea; the groaning of timbers +and the boom of the waves. This is the fo'c'sle whose great, great, +great grandmother was the lower deck of the trireme where slaves chained +to benches laboured till they died, just as they labour to-day. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +NORTH-WEST + + +The _Albatross_, bound from Cape Town to Melbourne, had been blown out +of her course and south of the Crozet Islands; she was now steering +north-west, making towards Kerguelen, across an ice-blue sea, vast, like +a country of broken crystal strewn with snow. The sky, against which the +top-gallant stay-sails shewed gull-white in the sun, had the cold blue +of the sea and was hung round at the horizon by clouds like the white +clouds that hang round the Pacific Trades. + +Raft was at the wheel and Captain Pound the master was pacing the deck +with Mason the first officer, up and down, pausing now and then for a +glance away to windward, now with an eye aloft at the steadfast canvas, +talking all the time of subjects half a world away. + +It was a sociable ship as far as the afterguard was concerned. Pound +being a rough and capable man of the old school with no false dignity +and an open manner of speech. He had been talking of his little house at +Twickenham, of Mrs. Pound and the children, of servants and neighbours +that were unsociable and now he was talking of dreams. He had been +dreaming the night before of Pembroke docks, the port he had started +from as a boy. Pembroke docks was a bad dream for Pound, and he said so. +It always heralded some disaster when it appeared before him in +dreamland. + +"I've always dreamt before that I was starting from there," said he, +"but last night I was getting the old _Albatross_ in, and the tow rope +went, and the tug knocked herself to bits, and then the old hooker swung +round and there was Mrs. P. on the quayside in her night attire shouting +to me to put the helm down--under hare sticks in the docks, mind you!" + +"Dreams are crazy things," said Mason. "I don't believe there's anything +in them." + +"Well, maybe not," said Pound. He glanced at the binnacle card and then +went below. + +Nothing is more impressive to the unaccustomed mind than the spars and +canvas of a ship under full sail seen from the deck, nothing more +suggestive of power and the daring of man than the sight of those +leviathan spars and vast sail spaces rising dizzily from main and +foresail in pyramids to where the truck works like a pencil point +writing on the sky. Nothing more arresting than the power of the +steersman. A turn of the wheel in the hands of Raft would set all that +canvas shuddering or thundering, spilling the wind as the water is +spilled from a reservoir, a moment's indecision or slackness might lose +the ship a mile on her course. But Raft steered as he breathed, +automatically, almost unconsciously, almost without effort. He, who +ashore was hopelessly adrift and without guidance, at the helm was all +wisdom, direction and intuition. + +The wake of the _Albatross_ lay as if drawn with a ruler. + +His trick was nearly up, and when he was relieved he went forward; +pausing at the fo'c'sle head to light a pipe he fell in talk with some +of the hands, leaning with his back against the bulwarks and blown upon +by the spill of the wind from the head sails. + +An old shell-back by name of Ponting was holding the floor. + +"We're comin' up to Kerguelen," he was saying. "Should think I did know +it. Put in there in a sealer out of New Bedford in '82. I wasn't more'n +a boy then. The Yanks used to use that place a lot in those days. The +blackest blastedest hole I ever struck. Christmas Island was where we +lay mostly, for two months, the chaps huntin' the wal'uses and killin' +more than they could carry. The blastedest hole I ever struck." + +"I was there in a Dane once," began another of the crew. "It was time of +year the sea cows was matin' and you could hear the roarin' of them ten +mile off." + +"Dane," said Ponting, "what made you ship a'board a Dane--I've heard +tell of Danes. Knew a chap signed on in one of them Leith boots out of +Copenhagen runnin' north, one of them old North Sea cattle trucks turned +into a passenger tramp, passengers and ponies with a hundred ton of hay +stowed forward and the passengers lyin' on their backs on it smokin' +their pipes, and the bridge crawled over with passengers, girls and +children, and the chap at the wheel havin' to push 'em out of the way, +kept hittin' reefs all the run from Leith to God knows where, and the +Old Man playin' the fiddle most of the time." + +"That chap said the Danes was a d----d lot too sociable for him." + +Raft listened without entirely comprehending. He had always been a +fore-mast hand. He knew practically nothing of steam and he would just +as soon have fancied himself a railway porter as a hand on a passenger +ship. He was one of the old school of merchant seamen and the idea of a +cargo of girls and children and general passengers, not to speak of +ponies, was beyond him. + +The girls he had mostly known were of the wharf-side. He finished his +pipe and went down below--and turned in. + +He was rousted out by the voice of the Bo'sw'n calling for all hands on +deck and slipping into his oilskins he came up, receiving a smack of sea +in his face as he emerged from the fo'c'sle hatch. The wind had shifted +and a black squall coming up from astern had hit the ship. More was +coming and through the sheeting rain and spindrift the voice of the +Bo'sw'n was roaring to let go the fore top-gallant halyards. + +Next moment Raft was in the rigging followed by others. The sail had to +be stowed. The wind tried to tear him loose and the sheeting rain to +drown him, but he went on clinging to the top-gallant mast-stays and +looking down he could see the faces of the others following him, faces +sheeted over with rain and working blindly upwards. + +Ponting was the man immediately below him, and taking breath for a +moment and against the wind, Ponting was now yelling out that they had +their work cut out for them. + +They had. + +The top-gallant sail had taken charge of itself, and Raft and Ponting as +they lay out on the yard seemed battling with a thing alive, +intelligent, and desperately wicked. + +The sail snored and trembled and sang, standing out in great hoods and +folds, hard as steel; now it would yield, owing to a slackening of the +wind, and then, like a brute that had only been waiting to take them by +surprise, it would burst out again, releasing itself, whilst the yard +buckled and sprang, almost casting them from it. + +Then began a battle fought without a sound or cry except the bubbling +and snoring of the great sail struggling for its wicked liberty, it +shrank and they flung themselves on it, it bellied and flung them back, +clinging to the lift they saved themselves, attacking it again with the +dumb fury of dogs or wolves on a fighting prey. Twenty times it tried to +destroy them and twenty times they all but had it under. + +The fight died out of the monster for a moment and Raft had nearly an +armful of it in when it stiffened, fighting free of him, owing to +Ponting and the other fellow not having made good. They clung for a +moment without moving, resting, and Raft glancing down saw far away +below the narrow deck driving wedge-like through the foam-capped seas. + +Then the struggle began again. The sail, like its would-be captors, +seemed also to have taken breath, it held firm, relaxed, banged out +again in thunder, developed new hoods and folds as a struggling monster +might develop new heads and kinks, and then, all of a sudden when it +seemed that no effort was of avail the end came. + +The wind paused for a moment, as if gathering up all its strength +against the dogged persistency which is man, and in that moment the +three on the yard had the sail under their chests beating and crushing +the life out of it. Then the gaskets were passed round it and they clung +for a moment to rest and breathe. + +It was nothing, or they thought nothing of it, this battle for life with +a monster, just the stowing of a top-gallant sail in dirty weather, and +most likely when they got down the Bo'sw'n would call them farmers for +being such a time over it. Meanwhile they clung idly for a moment, +partly to rest and partly to look at something worth seeing. + +The squall was blowing out, there was nothing behind it and away on the +port quarter the almost setting sun had broken through the smother and +was lighting the sea. + +There, set in a thousand square acres of snowcapped tourmaline, white as +a gull and beautiful as grace itself, was running a vessel under bare +poles. The two yellow funnels, the cut of the hull, told Ponting what +she was. He had seen her twice before and no sailor who had once set +eyes on her could forget her. + +"See that blighter," he yelled across to Raft. "Know her?" + +"Should think I did, she's the _Gaston de Paree_--a yacht--seen her in +T'lon." + +Then they came down, crawling like weary men, and on deck no one abused +them for their slackness or the time they'd been over their job. The +_Albatross_ was running easy and the Bo'sw'n with others was taken up +with a momentary curiosity over the great white yacht. + +No one knew her but Ponting, who had for several years acted as deck +hand on some of the Mediterranean boats. + +"I know her," said he ranging up beside the others. "She's the _Gaston +de Paree_, a yot--seen her in T'lon harbour and seen her again at Suez, +she's a thousand tonner, y'can't mistake them funnels nor the width of +them, she's a twenty knotter and the chap that owns her is a king or +somethin'; last time I saw her she was off to the China seas, they say +she's all cluttered up with dredges and dipsy gear, and she mostly +spends her time takin' soundin's and scrabblin' up shell fish and +such--that's his way of amusin' himself." + +"Then he must be crazy," said the Bo'sw'n, "but b'God he's got a beauty +under him--what's he doin' down here away?" + +"Ax me another," said Ponting. Raft stood with the others, watching the +_Gaston de Paris_ from whose funnels now the smoke was coming festooned +on the wind, then he went below to shed his oilskins and smoke. + +She had ceased to interest him. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE GASTON DE PARIS + + +Old Ponting was right in all his particulars, except one. The owner of +the _Gaston de Paris_ was not a king, only a prince. + +Prince Selm, a gentleman like his Highness of Monaco with a passion for +the deep sea and its exploration. The Holy Roman Empire had given his +great grandfather the title of prince, and estates in Thuringia gave him +money enough to do what he pleased, an unfortunate marriage gave him a +distaste for High Civilization, and his scientific bent and passion for +the sea--inherited with a strain of old Norse blood--did the rest. + +He had chosen well. Cards, women and wine, pleasure and the glittering +things of life, all these betray one, but the sea, though she may kill, +never leaves a man broken, never destroys his soul. + +But Eugene Henry William of Selm for all this sea passion might have +remained a landsman, for the simple reason that he was one of those +thorough souls for whom Life and an Object are synonymous terms. In +other words he would never have made a yachtsman, a creature shifting +from Keil to Cowes and Cowes to Naples according to season, a cup +gatherer and club-house haunter. + +But Exploration gave him the incentive and the Musee Oceanographique of +Monaco his inspiration, limitless wealth supplied the means. + +The _Gaston de Paris_ built by Viguard of Toulon was an ocean going +steam yacht of twelve hundred and fifty tons with engines by Conturier +of Nantes and everything of the latest from Conturier's twin-action +centrifugal bilge pumps to the last thing in sea valves. She was +reckoned by those who knew her the finest sea-going yacht in the world +and she was certainly the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of Lafiette, Viguard's chief +designer. Lafiette was more than a designer, he was a creator, the sea +was in his blood giving him that touch of genius or madness, that +something eccentric which made him at times cast rules and formulae +aside. + +The decks of the _Gaston de Paris_ ran flush, with little encumbrance +save a deck-house forward given over to electrical and deep sea +instruments. + +Forward of the engine room and right to the bulkheads of the fo'c'sle +ran a lower deck reached by a hatch aft of the instrument room. Here +were stowed the dredges and buoys and all the gear belonging to them, +trawl nets and deep sea traps, cable and spare rope and sounding-wire, +harpoons and grancs and a hundred odds and ends, all in order and spick +and span as the gear of a warship. + +Aft of the engine-room the yacht was a little palace. Prince Selm would +labour like any of his crew over a net coming in or in an emergency, but +he ate off silver and slept between sheets of exceedingly fine linen. +Though a sailor, almost one might say a fisherman, he was always +Monsieur le Prince and though his hobby lay in the depths of the sea his +intellect did not lie there too. Politics, Literature and Art travelled +with him as mind companions, whilst in the flesh he often managed to +bring off with him on his "outlandish expeditions" more or less pleasant +people from the great world where Civilisation sits in cities, feeding +Art and Philosophy, Science and Literature with the hearts and souls of +men. + +The main saloon of the _Gaston de Paris_ fought in all its details +against the idea of shipboard life, the gilt and scrolls of the yacht +decorator, the mirrors, and all the rest of his abominations were not to +be found here, panels by Chardin painted for Madame de Pompadour +occupied the walls, the main lamp, a flying dragon by Benvenuto Cellini, +clutching in its claws a globe of fire, had, for satellites, four torch +bearers of bronze by Claus, a library, writing and smoking room, +combined, opened from the main saloon, and there was a boudoir decorated +in purple and pearl with flower pictures by Lactropius unfaded despite +their date of 1685. + +Nothing could be stranger to the mind than the contrast between the +fo'c'sle of the _Albatross_ and the after cabins of the _Gaston_, +nothing, except, maybe, the contrast between a garret in Montmartre or +Stepney and a drawing-room in the Avenue du Trocadero or Mayfair. + +Dinner was served on board the _Gaston de Paris_ at seven, and to-night +the Prince and his four guests, seated beneath the flying dragon of +Cellini and enjoying their soup, held converse together light-heartedly +and with a spirit that had been somewhat lacking of late. Every sea +voyage has its periods of depression due to monotony; they had not +sighted a ship for over ten days, and this evening the glimpse of the +_Albatross_ revealed through the break in the weather had in some +curious way shattered the sense of isolation and broken the monotony. +The four guests of the Prince were: Madame la Comtesse de Warens, an old +lady with a passion for travel, a free thinker, whose mother was a +friend of Voltaire in her youth and whose father had been a member of +the Jacobin club; she was eighty-four years of age, declared herself +indestructible by time, and her one last ambition to be a burial at sea. +She was also a Socialistic-Anarchist, possessed an income of some forty +thousand pounds a year derived from speculations of her late husband +conducted during the war with Germany in 1870, yet was never known to +give a sou to charity; her hands were all but the hands of a skeleton +and covered with jewels, she smoked cigarettes incessantly. She was one +of those old women whose energy seems to increase with age, tireless as +a gnat she was always the last in bed and the first on deck, though +lying in her bunk half the night reading French novels of which she had +a trunkful and smoking her eternal cigarettes. + +Beside her sat her niece, Cleo de Bromsart, English on the mother's side +and educated in England, a girl of twenty, unmarried, dark-haired, +fragile and beautiful as a dream. She was one of the old nobility, +without dilution, yet strangely enough with money, for the Bromsarts, +without marrying into trade, had adapted themselves to the new times so +cleverly that Eugene de Bromsart the last of his race had retired from +life leaving his only daughter and the last of her race wealthy, even by +the standard of wealth set in Paris. She was a sportswoman and, despite +her lack of frailty, had led an outdoor life and possessed a nerve of +steel. + +Madame de Warens had brought the girl up after she left school, had +laboured over her and found her labour in vain. Cleo had no leanings +towards the People and the opinions of her aunt seemed to her a sort of +disreputable madness bred on hypocrisy. Cleo looked on the lower classes +just as she looked on animals, beings with rights of their own but +belonging to an entirely different order of creation, and one thing +certainly could be said for her--she was honest in her outlook on life. + +Beside her sat Doctor Epinard, the ship's doctor, a serious young man +who spoke little, and the fifth at table was Lagross, the sea painter, +who had come for the sake of his health and to absorb the colours of the +ocean. The vision of the _Albatross_ with towering canvas breasting the +blue-green seas in an atmosphere of sunset and storm was with him still +as he sat listening to the chatter of the others and occasionally +joining in. He intended to paint that picture. + +It had come to him as a surprise. They had been playing cards when a +quarter-master called them on deck saying that the weather had moderated +and that there was a ship in sight, and there, away across the tumbling +seas, the _Albatross_ had struck his vision, remote, storm surrounded, +and sunlit, almost a vision of the past in these days of mechanism. + +"Now tell me, Prince," Madame de Warens was saying, "how long do you +propose staying at this Kerguelen Land of yours?" + +"Not more than a week," replied the Prince. "I want to take some +soundings off the Smoky Islands and I shall put in for a day on the +mainland where you can go ashore if you like, but I shan't stay here +long. It is like putting one's head into a wolf's mouth." + +"How is that?" + +"Weather. You saw that sudden squall we passed through this evening, or +rather you heard it, no doubt, well that's the sort of thing Kerguelen +brews." + +"Suppose," said the astute old lady, "it brewed one of those things, +only much worse, and we were blown ashore?" + +"Impossible." + +"Why?" + +"Our engines can fight anything." + +"Are there any natives in this place?" + +"Only penguins and rabbits." + +"Tell me," said Lagross, "that three-master we saw just now, would she +be making for Kerguelen?" + +"Oh, no, she must be out of her course and beating up north. She's not a +whaler, and ships like that would keep north of the Crozets. Probably +she was driven down by that big storm we had a week ago. We wouldn't be +where we are only that I took those soundings south of Marion Island." + +"And, after Kerguelen, what land shall we see next?" asked the old lady. + +"New Amsterdam, madame," replied the Prince, "and after that the Sunda +Islands and beautiful Java with its sun and palm trees." + +Mademoiselle de Bromsart shivered slightly. She had been silent up to +this, and she spoke now with eyes fixed far away as if viewing the +picture of Java with its palms and sapphire skies. + +"Could we not go there now?" asked she. + +"In what way?" asked the Prince. + +"Turn the ship round and leave this place behind," she replied. + +"But why?" + +"I don't know," said she, "perhaps it is what you say about Kerguelen, +or perhaps it was the sight of that big ship all alone out there, but I +feel--" she stopped short. + +"Yes--" + +"That ship frightened me." + +"Frightened you," cried Madame de Warens, "why, Cleo, what is the matter +with you to-night? You who are never frightened. I'm not easily +frightened, but I admit I almost said my prayers in that storm, and you, +you were doing embroidery." + +"Oh, I am not frightened of storms or things in the ordinary way," said +the girl half laughing. "Physical things have no power over me, an ugly +face can frighten me more than the threat of a blow. It is a question of +psychology. That ship produced on my mind a feeling as though I had seen +desolation itself, and something worse." + +"Something worse!" cried Madame de Warens, "what can be worse than +desolation?" + +"I don't know," said Cleo, "It also made me feel that I wanted to be far +away from it and from here. Then, Monsieur le Prince, with his story of +desolate Kerguelen, completed the feeling. It is strong upon me now." + +"You do not wish to go to Kerguelen then?" said the Prince smiling as he +helped himself to the entree that was being passed round. + +"Oh, monsieur, it is not a question of my wishes at all," replied the +girl. + +"But, excuse me," replied the owner of the _Gaston de Paris_, "it is +entirely a question of your wishes. We are not a cargo boat, Captain +Lepine is on the bridge, he has only to go into his chart house, set his +course for New Amsterdam, and a turn of the wheel will put our stern to +the south." He touched an electric bell push, attached to the table, as +he spoke. + +"And your soundings?" asked she. + +"They can wait for some other time or some other man, sea depths are +pretty constant." + +A quarter-master appeared at the saloon door, came forward and saluted. + +"Ask Captain Lepine to come aft," said the Prince. "I wish to speak to +him." + +"Wait," said Mademoiselle Bromsart. Then to her host. "No. I will not +have the course altered for me. I am quite clear upon that point. What I +said was foolish and it would pain me more than I can tell to have it +acted upon. I really mean what I say." + +He looked at her for a moment and seemed to glimpse something of the +iron will that lay at the heart of her beauty and fragility. + +"That will do," said he to the quarter-master. "You need not give my +message." + +Madame de Warens laughed. "That is what it is to be young," said she, +"if an old woman like me had spoken of changing our course I doubt if +your quarter-master would have been called, Monsieur. But I have no fads +and fancies, thank heaven, I leave all that to the young women of +to-day." + +"Pardon me, madame," said Doctor Epinard speaking for almost the first +time, "but in impressions produced by objects upon the mind there is no +room for the term fancy. I speak of course of the normal mind free of +disease. Furthermore, we talk of objects as things of secondary +importance and the mind as everything. Now I am firmly convinced that +the mind of man, so far from being a thing apart from the objects that +form its environment, is, in fact, nothing else but a mirror or focus +upon which objects register their impressions and that all the thinking +in the world is done not really by the mind but by the objects that form +our thoughts and the reasons, utterly divorced from what we call human +reason, that connect together the objects that form our environment." + +"Is this a theory of your own, Epinard?" asked the Prince. + +"It is, monsieur, and it may be bad or good but I adhere to it." + +"You mean to say that man is composed entirely of environment, past and +present?" + +"Yes, monsieur, you have caught my meaning exactly. Past and present. +Man is nothing more than a concretion formed from emanations of all the +objects whose emanations have impinged upon living tissue since, at the +beginning of the world, living tissue was formed. He is the sunset he +saw a million years ago, the water he swam in when he was a fish, the +knight in armour he fought with when he was an ancestor, or rather he is +a concretion of the light, touch and sound vibrations from these and a +million other things. I have written the matter fully out in a thesis, +which I hope to publish some day." + +"Well, you may put my name down for a dozen copies," said the Prince, +"for certainly the theory is less mad than some of the theories I have +come across explaining the origin of mind." + +"But what has all that to do with the ship?" asked Madame de Warens. + +"Simply, madame, that the ship which one looked at as a structure of +canvas and wood, once seen by Mademoiselle de Bromsart, has become part +of her mind, just as it has become part of yours and mine, a logical and +definite part of our minds; now, mark me, there was also the sunset and +the storm clouds, those objects also became part of the mind of +Mademoiselle de Bromsart, and the reasons interlying between all these +objects produced in her a definite and painful impression. They were, in +fact, all thinking something which she interpreted." + +"It seemed to me," said the girl, "that I saw Loneliness itself, and for +the first time, and I felt just now that it was following me. It was to +escape from that absurd phantom that I suggested to Monsieur le Prince +that we should alter our course." + +"Well," said Madame de Warens, "your will has conquered the Phantom. Let +us talk of something more cheerful." + +"Listen!" said Mademoiselle de Bromsart. "It seems to me that the +engines are going slower." + +"You have a quick ear, mademoiselle," said the Prince, "they undoubtedly +are. The Captain has reduced speed. Kerguelen is before us, or rather +on our starboard bow, and daybreak will, no doubt, give us a view of it. +We do not want to be too close to it in the dark hours, that is why +speed has been reduced." + +Coffee was served at table and presently, amidst the fumes of cigarette +smoke, the conversation turned to politics, the works of Anatole France, +and other absorbing subjects. One might have fancied oneself in Paris +but for the vibrations of the propeller, the heave of the sea, and the +hundred little noises that mark the passage of a ship under way. + +Later Mademoiselle de Bromsart found herself in the smoking-room alone +with her host, Madame de Warens having retired to her state-room and the +others gone on deck. + +The girl was doing some embroidery work which she had fetched from her +cabin and the Prince was glancing at the pages of the Revue des Deux +Mondes. Presently he laid the book down. + +"I was in earnest," said he. + +"How?" she asked, glancing up from her work. + +"When I proposed altering the course. Nothing would please me more than +to spoil a plan of my own to please you." + +"It is good of you to say that," she replied, "all the same I am glad I +did not spoil your plan, not so much for your sake as my own." + +"How?" + +"I would rather die than run away from danger." + +"So you feared danger?" + +"No, I did not fear it, but I felt it. I felt a premonition of danger. I +did not say so at dinner. I did not want to alarm the others." + +He looked at her curiously for a moment, contrasting her fragility and +beauty with the something unbendable that was her spirit, her soul--call +it what you will. + +"Well," said he, "your slightest wish is my law. I have been going to +speak to you for the last few days. I will say what I want to say now. +It is only four words. Will you marry me?" + +She looked up at him, meeting his eyes full and straight. + +"No," said she, "it is impossible." + +"Why?" + +"I have a very great regard for you--but--" + +"You do not love me?" + +She said nothing, going on with her work calmly as though the +conversation was about some ordinary topic. + +"I don't see why you should," he went on, "but look around you--how many +people marry for love now-a-days--and those who do, are they any the +happier? I have seen a very great deal of the world and I know for a +fact that happiness in marriage has little to do with what the poets +call love and everything to do with companionship. If a man and woman +are good companions then they are happy together, if not they are +miserable, no matter how much they may love one another at the start." + +"Have you seen much of the world?" she raised her eyes again as she +asked the question. "Have you seen anything really of the world? I do +not mean to be rude, but this world of ours, this world of society that +holds us all, is there anything real about it, since nearly everything +in it is a sham? Look at the lives we lead, look at Paris and London and +Berlin. Why the very language of society is framed to say things we do +not mean." + +"It is civilization. How else would you have it?" + +"I don't know," she replied, "but I do know it is not life. It is +dishonesty. You say that the only happy married people are those that +are good companions, that love does not count in the long run, and you +are right, perhaps, as far as what you call the World is concerned. I +only repeat that the thing you call the World is not the real world, for +love is real, and love is not merely a question of good companionship. +It is an immortal bond between two spirits and death cannot break it." + +"You speak as though you were very certain of a thing which, of all +things, is most hidden from us." + +"I speak by instinct." + +"Well," said the Prince, "perhaps you are right. We have left behind us +the simplicity of the old world, we have become artificial, our life is +a sham--but what would you have and how are we to alter it? We are all +like passengers in a train travelling to heaven knows where; the seats +are well cushioned and the dining-car leaves nothing to be desired, but +I admit the atmosphere is stuffy and the long journey has developed all +sorts of unpleasant traits among the passengers--well, what would you +do? We cannot get out." + +"I suppose not," said she. + +He rose up and stood for a moment turning over some magazines lying on +the table. He had received his answer and he knew instinctively that it +was useless to pursue the business further. + +Then after a few more words he went on deck. The wind had fallen to a +steady blow but the sky was still overcast and the atmosphere was heavy +and clammy and not consistent. It was as though the low lying clouds +dipped here and there to touch the sea. Every now and then the _Gaston +de Paris_ would run into a wreath of fog and pass through it into the +clear darkness of the night beyond. + +In the darkness aft of the bridge nothing could be seen but the pale +hint of the bridge canvas and a trace of spars and funnels now wiped out +with mist, now visible again against the night. + +The Prince leaned on the weather rail and looked over at the tumble and +sud of the water lit here and there with the gleam of a port light. + +Cleo de Bromsart had fascinated him, grown upon him, compelled him in +some mysterious way to ask her to marry him. He had sworn after his +disastrous first experience never to marry again. He had attempted to +break his oath. Was he in love with her? He could scarcely answer that +question himself. But this he knew, that her refusal of him and the +words she had said were filling his mind with quite new ideas. + +Was she right after all in her statement that he who fancied himself a +man of the world knew nothing of the world except its shams? Was she +right in her statement that love was a bond between two spirits, a bond +unbreakable by death? That old idea was not new to him, he had played +with it as a toy of the mind constructed for the mind to play with by +the poets. + +The new thing was to find this idea in the mind of a young girl and to +hear it expressed with such conviction. + +After a while he came forward and went up the steps to the bridge. +Captain Lepine was in the chart room, the first officer was on the +bridge and Bouvalot, an old navy quarter-master, had the wheel. + +"We have slowed down," said the Prince. + +"Yes, monsieur," replied the first officer, "we are getting close to +land. We ought to sight Kerguelen at dawn." + +"What do you think of the weather?" + +"I don't think the weather will bother us much, monsieur, that blow had +nothing behind it, and were it not for these fog patches I would ask +nothing better; but then it's Kerguelen--what can one expect!" + +"True," said the other, "it's a vile place, by all accounts, as far as +weather is concerned." + +He tapped at the door of the chart room and entered. + +The chart room of the _Gaston de Paris_ was a pleasant change from the +dark and damp of the bridge. A couch upholstered in red velvet ran along +one side of it and on the couch with one leg up and a pipe in his mouth +the captain was resting himself, a big man of the Southern French navy +type, with a beard of burnt-up black that reached nearly to his eyes. + +The Prince, telling him not to move, sat down and lit a cigar. Then they +fell into talk. + +Lepine was a sailor and nothing else. Had his character been cut out of +cardboard the line of division between the sailor and the rest of the +world could not have been more sharply marked. That was perhaps why the +two men, though divided by a vast social gulf, were friends, almost +chums. + +They talked for half an hour or so on all sorts of subjects connected +with the ship. + +"By the way, Lepine," said the Prince suddenly, "It has been the toss up +of a sou that we are not now steering a course for New Amsterdam." + +"And how is that, monsieur?" + +"Well, Mademoiselle de Bromsart proposed to me at dinner that we should +alter our course, the idea came to her that some misfortune might happen +to us off Kerguelen and, as you know, I am always anxious to please my +guests--well, I called a quarter-master down. I was going to have sent +for you." + +"To alter our course?" + +"Yes, but Mademoiselle de Bromsart altered her mind. She refused to let +me send for you." + +"But what gave the young lady that idea?" asked the Captain. + +"That big ship we sighted before dinner." + +"The three-master?" + +"Yes, there was something about it she did not like." + +"Monsieur, what an idea--and what was wrong with it?" + +"Oh, it was just a fancy. The sea breeds fancies and superstitions, you +know that, Lepine, for I believe you are superstitious yourself." + +"Perhaps, monsieur; all sailors are, and I have had experiences. There +are bad and good ships, just as there are bad and good men, of that I am +sure. Perhaps that three-master was a bad ship." Lepine laughed as +though at his own words. "All the same," he went on, "I don't like +warnings, especially off Kerguelen." + +They left the chart house and came out on the bridge. + +The wind was still steady but the clouds had consolidated and the night +was pitch black. On the bridge the _Gaston de Paris_ seemed driving into +a solid wall of ebony. + +The Prince after a glance into the binnacle was preparing to go down the +bridge steps when a cry from the Look-out made him wheel round. +Suddenly, and as if evolved by magic from the blackness, the vague +spectre of a vast ship shewed up ahead on the port bow making to cross +their course. Thundering along under full canvas without lights and +seemingly blind, she seemed only a pistol shot away. + +Then the owner of the _Gaston de Paris_ did what no owner ought ever to +do: seeing Destruction and judging that by a bold stroke it might be +out-leaped, he sprang to the engine room telegraph and flung the lever +to full speed ahead. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +DISASTER + + +Left alone, Mademoiselle de Bromsart finished the all but completed +piece of embroidery in her lap. It did not take her five minutes. Then +she held up the work and reviewed it with lips slightly pursed, then she +rolled it up, rose, and went off to the state-room of Madame de Warens +to bid her good-night. + +Madame was sitting up in her bunk reading Maurice Barres' "Greco." The +air of the place was stifling with the fume of cigarettes, and the girl +nearly choked as she closed the door and stood facing the old lady in +the bunk. + +"Why don't you smoke, then you wouldn't mind it," cried the latter, +putting her book down and taking off her glasses. "No, I won't have a +port opened, d'you want me to be blown out of my bunk? Sit down." + +"No, I won't stay," replied the other, "I just came to say +good-night--and tell you something--He asked me to marry him." + +"Who--Selm?" + +"Yes." + +"And what did you say?" + +"I said 'No.'" + +"Oh, you did?--and what's the matter with him--I mean what's the matter +with you?" + +"How?" + +"How! The best match in Europe and you say 'no' to him--a man who could +marry where he pleases and whom he pleased and you say 'no.' +Good-looking, without vices, richer than many a crowned head, second +only to the reigning families--and you say 'no.'" + +The old lady was working herself up. This admirer of Anarchasis Clootz +and dilletanti of Anarchism had lately possessed one supreme desire, the +desire to have for niece the Princess Selm. + +"I thought you didn't believe in all that," said the girl. + +"All what?" + +"Titles, wealth and so forth." + +"I believe in seeing you happy and well-placed. I was not thinking of +myself--well, there, it's done. There is no use in talking any more, for +I know your disposition. You are hard, mademoiselle, that is your +failing--without real heart. It is the modern disease. Well, that is all +I have to say. I wish you good-night." + +She put on her spectacles again. + +"Good-night," said the other. + +She went out, closed the door, and entered her state-room. + +It was the same as Madame de Warens' only larger, a place to fill the +mind of the old-time seafarers with the wildest surprise, for here was +everything that a mortal could demand in the way of comfort and nothing +of the stuffy upholstery that the word "state-rooms" suggests to the +mind of the ordinary traveller. + +The crimson velvet, so dear to the heart of the ship furnisher, was +supplanted by ribbed silk, Persian rugs covered the floor, the metal +fittings were of bronze, and worked, where possible, into sea designs: +dolphins, sea-horses, and fucus. There was a writing-table that could be +closed up into the wall so cunningly that no trace was left of where it +had been, a tiny library of slim volumes uniformly bound in amber +leather, a miracle of binding, the work of Grossart of Tours, a map-rack +containing large scale maps of the world, and a tell-tale compass +shewing the course of the _Gaston de Paris_ to whomever cared to read +it. A long mirror let into the bulkhead aft increased the apparent size +of the place. A bath-room and dressing-room lay forward. + +Having closed the door she stood for a moment glancing at her reflection +in the mirror. The picture seemed to fascinate her as though it were the +reflection of some stranger. Then, turning from the mirror, she sat down +for a moment on the couch by the door. + +She felt disturbed. The words of Madame de Warens had angered her, +producing the effect of a false accusation to which one is too proud to +reply, but the momentary anger had passed, giving place to a craving for +freedom and fresh air. The atmosphere of the state-room felt stifling, +she would go on deck. Then she remembered that she was in a thin evening +dress and that she would have to change. + +The two women shared a maid, and she was in the act of stretching out +her hand to the electric bell by the couch to summon the maid, when the +craving to get on deck without delay became so strong that she rose, +went into the dressing-room and, without assistance, changed her gown +for a tweed coat and skirt and her thin evening shoes for a pair of +serviceable boots. Then she slipped on her oilskin and sou'wester and +coming back into the state-room caught a momentary glimpse of herself in +the mirror, a strange contrast to the elegant and black-gowned figure +that had glanced at its reflection only ten minutes before. + +She was coming up the saloon companion-way when the engines, easily +heard from here, suddenly began a thunderous pow-wow; the ship lurched +forward, and from the blackness of the open hatch above came a voice +like the sudden clamour of sea-gulls. Then she was flung backwards and +stretched, half-stunned, on the mat at the companion-way foot. + +For a moment she did not know in the least what had happened. She +fancied she had slipped and fallen, then, as she scrambled on to her +hands and knees, someone passed her, nearly treading on her, and rushed +up the companion-way to the deck. It was the chief steward. Rising and +holding on to the rail she followed him. + +The deck was aslant, and in the windy blackness of the night nothing was +to be seen for a moment; but the darkness was terrific with voices, +voices from forward of the bridge and voices from alongside as though a +hundred drunken sailors were yelling and blaspheming from a quay. + +For the tenth of a second the idea of being alongside a quay came to her +with nightmare effect, heightened by a ruffling and booming from the sky +above, a rippling and flapping and thundering like the sound of vast and +tangled wings. + +Then a blaze of light shot out, making day. + +The arc lamp of the fore-mast, always ready to be used for night work, +had been run up and switched on. + +To starboard and stern of the _Gaston de Paris_, a great ship, within +pistol shot of the deck, and with her canvas spilling the wind and +thrashing and thundering, was dipping her bows in the sea. Men were +fighting for the boats, and the stern was so high that more than half of +the rudder shewed like a great door swinging on its hinges. On the +counter in pale letters the word + + "_Albatross_" + +shewed, and to the mind of the gazer all the horror seemed focussed in +that calm statement, those commonplace letters written upon destruction. + +Clinging to the hatch combing she saw, now, as a person sees in a dream, +sailors rushing and struggling aft along the slanting main deck. The +engines had ceased working but the dynamos were running on steam from +the main boilers, and through the noises that filled the night the +sewing machine sound of them threshed like a pulse. What had happened, +what was happening, she did not know. The great ship to port seemed +sinking but the _Gaston de Paris_ seemed safe, but for the horrible +slant of the decks; she called out to the sailors, now clustered here +and there by the boat davits, but her voice blew away on the wind, she +saw Prince Selm, he was struggling aft along the slippery sloping deck, +clutching at the bulwarks as he came, he seemed like a man engaged in +some fantastic game--an unreal figure, now he was on the deck on all +fours, now up again, clutching men by the shoulders, shaking them, +shouting. She could hear his voice. The starboard boats were unworkable +owing to the list to port. She did not know that, she only knew, and now +for the first time, that the _Gaston de Paris_ was in fearful danger. +And instantly the thought came to her of the old woman below in her bunk +and, on the thought, the mad instinct to rush below and save her. + +Holding on to the woodwork of the hatch she was crawling towards the +opening when blackness hit her like a blow between the eyes. The arc +lamp had gone out, the dynamos had ceased running. + +On the stroke of the darkness the _Gaston de Paris_ heeled slightly +deeper, flinging her to her knees, and as she hung, clutching the +woodwork, she heard her name. + +It was the Prince's voice. She answered, and at once on her answer a +hand seized her cruelly as a vice. It caught her by the shoulder. She +felt herself dragged along, buffeted, lifted, cast down--then nothing +more. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +VOICES IN THE NIGHT + + +The boat tackle of the _Gaston de Paris_ was the latest patent +arrangement for lowering boats in a hurry; every boat was provisioned, +and the water casks left nothing to be desired, there were frequent +inspections and boat drills. Yet when the _Gaston de Paris_ foundered +only three souls were saved. + +The starboard boats, owing to the list, could not be lowered at all; +every boat had its canvas cover on, which did not expedite matters. The +patent tackle developed defects in practise, and, to crown all, the men +panicked owing to the sudden darkness that fell on them like a clap on +the extinction of the electric light. The port quarter-boat into which +the girl had been flung had two men in her and was lowered away by +Prince Selm, the doctor and the first officer; panic had herded the rest +of the hands towards the pinnace and forward boats, and the pinnace, +over-crowded, was stoved by the sea as soon as she was water-bourne. The +other boats never left their davits, they went with the ship when the +decks opened and the boilers saluted the night with a column of coloured +steam and a clap of thunder that resounded for miles. + +The whole tragedy from impact to explosion lasted only seven minutes. + +The two men in the boat with the girl had shoved off like demons and +taken to the oars as soon as the falls were released. If they had not, +being so short-handed for the size of the boat, they would have been +stoved; as it was they were nearly wrecked by a balk of timber from the +explosion. It missed them by a short two fathoms, drenching them with +spray, and then the night shut down pierced by voices, voices of men +swimming and crying for help. + +The rowers did not know each other. The bow oar shouted to the stern. +"Is that you Larsen?" + +"No, Bompard, and you?" + +"La Touche--Row--God! Listen, there's a chap ahead." + +The cries ahead ceased, and the boat bumped on something that duddered +away under it and sank. + +"He's gone, whoever he is," cried Bompard. "No use hunting for him. +Listen, there's more." Voices shrill and voices bubbling came through +the blackness from here and from there. The men tried to locate them and +rowed now in this direction, now in that--always wrong. Once a voice +sudden and shrill and close to the boat cried "A moi," and at the same +instant Bompard's oar struck something, but they found nothing, the +voice had ceased. + +They could see, now, the waves like spectres evolving themselves from +the night, a vision touching the very limit of dimness, and now as they +entered a mist patch--nothing. The voices to port and starboard were +ceasing, one by one--being blotted out. Then silence fell, broken only +by the sound of the oars. La Touche shouted and shouted again, but there +came no response. Then came Bompard's voice. "Is that hooker gone, too?" + +"Curse her, yes. I was the lookout. Sailing without lights." + +"This woman seems dead." + +"It's the girl. I heard her squeal out as they hove her in. Let her lie. +Well, this is a start." + +"A black job, but we're out of it, so far." + +"Ay, as far as we've got--as far as we've got. Well, there's no use +rowing, there's no sea to hurt her, let her toss." + +The oars came in and the fellows slithered from their seats on to the +bottom boards. Ballasted so the boat rode easy. They lay like shivering +dogs, grumbling and cursing and then, as they lay, the talk went on. + +"Mon Dieu! What a thing--but we've grub and water all right." + +"Ay, the boats are all right for that." + +There was a long silence and then La Touche began in a high complaining +voice: + +"I was lookout, but it was not my fault, that I swear. I saw nothing +till a big three-master broke out of the smother making to cross our +bows, no lights shewing, snoring along asleep. Then I shouted. The +bridge had seen her too and put the engines full speed ahead. They'd +mistaken the distance, thought to clear her. I got aft. Hadn't reached +the port alley way when the smash came. It was all the fault of those +fools on the bridge." + +"Who knows," came Bompard's voice. "Things happen and what is to be must +be. Well, they're all gone a hundred fathoms deep and here we are +drifting about with a dead woman. I'd sooner have any other cargo if I +was given my choice." + +"Sure she's dead?" + +"Ay, she's dead sure enough by the way she's lying, not a breath in +her." + +Neither man suggested that she should be cast over. She ballasted the +boat, and for Bompard she was something to lean against. + +The French mercantile marine is divided into two great classes, the +northerners and southerners. The man from the north is a Ponantaise, the +man from the south a Moco. + +Bompard was a Moco, La Touche a Ponantaise. They talked and talked, +repeating themselves, cursing the "hooker," the Bridge and the +steersman. Once La Touche, grown hysterical, seemed choking against +tears. + +Then after a while, conversation died out. They had nothing more to talk +about. The boat rode easy. There was nothing to do, and these men blunt +to life and sea-hardened so that to them all things came in the hour's +work, nodded off, La Touche curled up in the bow, Bompard with his +grizzled head on the breast of Mademoiselle de Bromsart. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +DAWN + + +The girl was not dead as Bompard imagined, she had been stunned and had +passed from that condition into the pseudo-sleep that follows profound +excitement. + +She was awakened by a flick of spray on her face, a touch from the great +sea that had claimed her for its own. + +Lying as she was she could see nothing but the ribbed sides of the boat, +the grey sky above, and a gull with domed wings and down-curved head, +poised, as though suspended on the end of a string. It screamed at her, +shifted its position, and then passed, as though blown away on the wind. +She sat up. Bompard had drawn away from her and was lying curled up on +his side. La Touche on his back, forward, shewed nothing but his knees; +across the gunnel lay the sea, desolate in the dawn, turbulent, yet +hard and mournful as a view of slated roofs after rain. + +She had never seen the sea so close before, she had never smelt its +heart and the savour of its soul; bitter, fresh, new and ever renewed by +the blowing wind. + +The whole tragedy of the night was alive in her mind as a picture, but +it seemed the picture of what another person had seen. Her past life, +her own personality, seemed vague and unconnected with her as the past +life and personality of another person. This was reality. Reality new, +terrific, pungent as that which the soul may experience on awakening +after death. + +She knew, as though the desolate sea had told her, that the great yacht +was gone and everyone on board of her; yet the fact, perhaps from its +very enormity, failed to realize itself fully in her mind. Then, in a +flash and horribly clearly, came the picture of her immediate +environment on board the _Gaston de Paris_, quite little things and +things more important: the silver-plated taps of the bath in the +bath-room, adjoining her cabin, the silk curtains of her bunk, the +hundred and one trifles that made for comfort and ease. She saw the +cabin servants and the face of the chief steward, a fat pale-faced man, +a typical _maitre d'hotel_; the dinner of the night before, when the +people seemed to her phantoms and the food, table equipage, knives, +forks and spoons, realities. + +All these things stood forth against the blankness and desolation of the +sea, the sea she could touch by dipping her hand over the gunnel, the +sea that had stripped her of everything but life and body, the dress and +boots she wore and the yellow oilskin coat that covered her. Her hand +resting on the gunnel shewed her that she still wore her rings, +exquisite rings of emerald, ruby and diamonds, fresh washed with spray. +They held her eyes as her mind, swaying just as the boat swayed to the +swell, tried to re-construct yesterday and to feel. + +Horror, pity for the fate of the others, the sense of the great disaster +that had happened to the _Gaston de Paris_, of these only the latter +possessed any vitality in her mind. The feeling of unreality destroyed +her grip upon all else. + +Her mind was subdued to her own condition. The hard angles of the +woodwork against which she leaned and the spray upon her face, the boat +and the men in it, the sharp cut wave tops--these were real, with an +appalling reality. + +It was as though she had never come across a real thing before, and +across her mind came a vague, vague recognition of that great truth that +real things bruise one, eat at one, try to make one their own, once they +manage to break down the barrier of custom that separates the false from +the true; that quite common things have a power greater than the power +of mind, that only amidst the falsity of civilised life and the stage +are the properties subordinate to the persons and emotions of the +actors. + +At this moment Bompard, suddenly moving in his sleep, roused himself and +sat up. His rough, weather beaten face was expressionless for a moment, +then his eyes fell on the girl and recognition seemed to come to him. + +"Mon Dieu," cried the old fellow as if addressing some unseen person. +"'Tis all true then--" Then, as though remembering something--"but how +is mademoiselle alive?" + +"I don't know," said the girl, unconscious as to what he was referring +to. "I know you, I have seen you often on deck--who is the other man? +Oh, is it possible that we are the only people left?" + +Bompard, without replying, swung his head round, then he rose and came +over the thwarts. He caught La Touche by the leg. + +"Gaston--rouse up--the lady is alive. It's me. Bompard." + +La Touche sat up, his hair towsled, his face creased, he seemed furious +about something and pushing Bompard away stared round and round at sea +and sky as if in search of someone. + +"Bon Dieu," cried La Touche. "The cursed boat." He spat as though +something bitter were in his mouth and wiped his lips with the back of +his hand. He did not seem to care a button whether the lady were alive +or not. He had been dreaming that he was in a tavern, just raising a +glass to his mouth, and Bompard had awakened him to this. + +The girl could not repeat the question to which there seemed no answer, +she crawled into the stern sheets and sitting there, half bent, watched +the two men. An observer perched in the sky above might have noticed the +curious fact that on board the forsaken boat quarter deck and fo'c'sle +still held sway, that the lady was the lady and the hands the hands, +that Bompard was talking in an undertone, saying to La Touche: "Come, +get alive, get alive," and that La Touche, after his first outburst, was +holding himself in. They were old yachtsmen, no disaster could shake +that fact. + +La Touche, rising and taking his seat on a thwart and looking everywhere +but in the direction of the girl, as though ashamed of something, began +cutting up some tobacco in a mechanical way, whilst Bompard, on his +knees, was exploring the contents of the forward locker. La Touche was a +fair-haired man, younger than Bompard, a melancholy looking individual +who always seemed gazing at the worst of things. He spoke now as the +girl drew his attention to something far away in the east, something +sketched vaguely in the sky as though a picture lay there beyond the +haze. + +"Ay, that's Kerguelen," said La Touche. + +Bompard, on his knees, and with a maconochie tin in his left hand, +raised his head and looked. + +"Ay, that's Kerguelen," said Bompard. + +"And look," said the girl, pointing towards Kerguelen. "Is not that the +sail of a boat, away ever so far--or is it a gull? Now it's gone. Look, +there it is again." + +Bompard looked. + +"I see nothing," said he, "gull, most like--there wouldn't be any boat +from us, they're all gone, unless it was a boat from that hooker we +struck." + +"Boat," said La Touche with a dismal laugh. "She got no boat away, she +went down by the bows with the fellows like flies on her, this is the +only boat of the lot that got away." + +The girl with her hand shading her eyes was still looking. + +"It's gone, whatever it may have been," said she, "can we reach the +land?" + +"Why, yes, mademoiselle," said Bompard, "the wind is setting towards +there and we have a sail, I am going to step the mast now when I've +taken stock--well, we won't starve. The tube is provisioned for a full +crew for a fortnight, water too, we won't starve, that's a fact. La +Touche, get a move on and help me with the sail." + +"I'm coming," grumbled La Touche. + +It seemed to the girl that the minds and the tongues and the movements +of the two men were part of some slow-acting, wooden, automatic +mechanism. Whether they reached the land or not seemed a matter almost +of indifference to them. Accustomed to people who talked much and had +much to talk about she could not understand. All this was part of the +new world in which she found herself, part of the boat itself, of the +mast, now stepped against the grey sky, the waves, the gulls, and that +tremendous outline of mountains now more visible to the east--Kerguelen. +A world of things without thought, or all but thoughtless, things that, +yet, dominated mind more profoundly than the power of mind itself. + +Bompard was munching a biscuit he had taken from one of the bread bags +as he worked. She noticed the bag, its texture, and the words +"Traversal--Toulon" stamped on it. The maconochie tin which he had +placed on a seat and a tin of beef with a Libby label held her eyes as +though they were things new and extraordinary. They were. They were +food. She had never seen food before, food as it really is, the barrier +between life and death, food naked and stripped of all pretence. + +Bompard coming aft with the sheet shipped the tiller, and, taking his +seat by the girl, put the boat before the wind. La Touche, who had taken +his seat on the after thwart, was engaged in opening the tin of beef. +The girl scarcely noticed him. She was experiencing a new sensation, the +sensation of sailing with the wind and the run of the swell. The boat, +from a dead thing tossing on the waves, had suddenly become a thing +alive, buoyant, eager and full of purpose, silent, too, for the slapping +and buffeting of the water against the planking had ceased. Running thus +with the wind and swell there was no opposition, everything was with +her. + +"Well, it's beef," said La Touche who had managed to open the Libby tin, +"it might be worse." + +He dug out a piece with his knife and presented it to the girl with a +biscuit, then he helped Bompard and himself, then he scrambled forward, +leaving his beef and biscuit on the thwart, and reappeared with a +pannikin of water; it was handed to the lady first. + +The food seemed to loose their tongues. It was as though the caste +difference had been broken by the act of eating together. + +"I'd never thought to set tooth in a biscuit again when that smash came +last night," said Bompard addressing no one in particular. + +"I wasn't thinking of biscuits," said La Touche, "I was bowled over in +the alley-way. You see, I was running, so it took me harder. What set me +running I don't know, my legs took care of themselves--I was just +leaning like this, see, on the look out and between two blinks there was +the hooker crossing our course or making that way. She'll clear us, +maybe, said I to myself, then the engines went full speed and I knew we +were done. Then I cleared aft, running, with no thought in my mind but +to get out of the way, dark, too, but I didn't barge against nothing, +till the smash came, and I went truck over keel in the alley-way." + +"I was coming up the cabin stairs," said Cleo, "and something seemed to +knock me down. Then when I got on deck the light was put on and I saw a +great ship on the right hand side; she seemed sinking, but I read her +name, she was quite close. Then the light went out and someone caught me +and threw me--I don't know where, but it must have been into this boat." + +"That was it," said Bompard, talking and eating at the same time, "us +two was in the boat." + +"I thought it was Larsen," cut in La Touche. "Larsen helped me to get +the canvas off her, that was when the electric was on--what became of +Larsen?" + +"Lord knows," said Bompard. "I scrambled into her just as the light was +shut off, then the chaps on deck chucked the lady in. Next thing we were +fending her off from the ship. I was shouting to the chaps on deck to +jump and we'd pick them up, we'd got the oars out then. I tell you I was +fuddled up for I'd got it in my head that the hooker was to port of us +though I'd seen her with my own eyes to starboard. I was thinking we'd +be taken down with the suck of her and I was bent on getting ahead of +her." + +"I didn't hear you shouting to the fellows on deck," said La Touche, +"but I heard you shouting to me to row. Then when we'd got her away a +bit the _Gaston_ blew up." + +"Blew up," said the girl. + +"The boilers," said Bompard, "they lifted the decks off her. She must +have gone like a stone." + +"So you think no one at all escaped but us?" + +Neither of the men replied for a moment, then La Touche said: "There +wasn't another boat could have got away." + +The sun was well risen now, the clouds were high and breaking and the +far away land shewed up, vast in the distance, with a white line of +snow-covered peaks against the sky, desolate as when Kerguelen first +sighted them. + +Cleo with her eyes fixed across the leagues of tumbling tourmaline +tinted sea almost forgot the others. That was the place where the wind +was bearing them to, a place where there was nothing. Neither hotels nor +houses nor huts, nor men nor women, a place where no landing-stage would +receive them, no voice welcome them. Her throat worked for a second +convulsively as she battled with the quite new things that the far off +mountains were telling her. + +It was now and not till now that she recognised fully what Fate had done +to her. It was now and not till now that she saw Time before her as a +thing from which all the known features had been deleted. + +"Mademoiselle's bath is quite ready." + +"Mademoiselle, the first gong has sounded." + +Oh, the day--the day with its hundred phases and divisions, the +breakfast hour, the luncheon hour, the hour that brought afternoon tea, +the dresses that went with each phase, the emotions and interests, and +changing forms of being, the day which made a person change to its light +and the person of ten o'clock in the morning quite different from the +person of noon--this thing which we talk of as the day appeared before +her now as what it really is, life itself, as civilized men know life, a +thing outside ourselves yet of ourselves and without which the circling +of the sun is as the circling of a pointer on a blank dial--. This thing +was gone. + +La Touche had got more forward and was smoking and, though the wind was +with them, a faint scent of tobacco smoke came on the spill of the wind +from the sail. Bompard was chewing, spitting occasionally to starboard +and wiping his mouth with the back of his bronzed tattooed hand. + +The vague scent of the tobacco threaded up all sorts of things in the +girl's mind: Madame de Warens, the streets of Paris, the deck of the +yacht. She remembered the piece of embroidery work she had been engaged +on last night, and then a scrap of conversation she had overheard +between the doctor and the artist towards the end of dinner, they were +talking of the passeistes and futurists, of the work of Pablo Picasso, +of Sunyer, of Boccioni and Durio, arguing with extraordinary passion +about the work of these people. + +"There's weather or something over there," said La Touche who had +slipped down and was seated on the bottom boards with his back to a +thwart; he nodded his head towards Kerguelen. + +Around one of the highest peaks a lead-coloured cloud had wrapped itself +turban-wise, and even as they looked the cloud turban increased in +volume and height, mournful and monstrous as some djin-born vision of +the Arabian story-tellers. + +"That's snow," said Bompard, "and by the twist of it it's in a +whirlwind." + +"Bon Dieu, what a place," said La Touche. + +"You may say that," said Bompard, "but that's nothing, it's when we come +to make a landing we'll find what we are against." + +"Oh, we've got so far we'll finish it," said La Touche. + +Then began a dismal argument, full of words and repetitions but with few +ideas, and from the trend of it the curious fact appeared that La +Touche, the ship's grouser and dismal James, was taking the optimistical +side, whilst Bompard, generally cheerful, was the pessimist. + +La Touche's optimism was, perhaps, the outcome of fear. What they had +gone through was nothing to the prospect of having to make a landing on +that tremendous coast, simply because what they had gone through had +come on them suddenly. This thing had to be faced in cold blood. The +coward in La Touche refused to face it fully, refused to face the fact +that with this swell and with all the chances of uncharted and unknown +reefs and rocks the risk was appalling. He grew angry. + +"Don't be a coward over it," said he. That set Bompard off, and for a +moment the girl thought they would have come to blows. Then it passed +and they were as friendly as before, just as though nothing had +happened. + +Their talk and the whole business had been conducted as though the girl +were not there. In the few hours since daybreak, quarter deck and +fo'c'sle had vanished. They had become welded into one community, all +equal, and the lady was no longer the lady. There was no hint of +disrespect, no hint of respect. They were all equal, equal sharers in +the chances of the sea. + +More, the sex standard seemed to have vanished with the social. Nothing +remained but the human, for that is the rule with the open boat at sea. + +When they lowered the sail for screening purposes, when they raised it +again, it was all the same, for the human level is above all little +things. + +Towards noon and with the coast now closer and well-defined, La Touche +sighted something ahead. It was a rock, high and pointed like a black +spire protruding from the sea and standing there like an outpost of the +land. + +"Had we better give it a wide berth?" asked La Touche. "Maybe there's +more near it." + +"The sea is running smooth enough by it," said Bompard. "I don't see +breakers, and we don't draw anything to speak of." He held on. + +The sun was shewing through breaks in the high clouds and its light fell +on the water and the rock, pied with roosting guillemots. As the boat +drew near the guillemots gave tongue. The sound came against the wind +fierce and complaining, antagonistic like the voice of loneliness crying +out against them and telling them to be gone--be gone--be gone! + +Cleo, as they passed, saw the green water sliding up and falling from +the polished black rock surface. The sight seemed to bring the hostile +coast leagues nearer and the bagpipe crying of the guillemots as it died +away behind them seemed a barrier passed, never to be re-crossed. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE COAST + + +And now, away at sea and leagues from the coast they were approaching, +vast islands disclosed themselves suddenly through the sea haze, +standing like giants waist deep in the ocean, whilst the coast itself +with its cliffs and rocks of black basalt and dolerite shewed clear, +extraordinarily clear, with every detail defined in the sunlight, from +the rifts in the basalt to the gulls blowing about in legions and the +great sea-geese hovering and fishing. + +The coast was ferocious, and the whole country from the sea foam to the +foothills looked tumbled and new, with the newness of infinite +antiquity. The last thunders of creation seemed scarcely to have died +away, the last throe scarcely to have ceased, leaving million-ton rock +cast on rock and the new, shear-cut cliffs spitting back their first +taste of the bitter sea. + +"There is nowhere to land," said the girl. She was shuddering as a dog +shudders when overstrung. + +"Ay, it's a brute beast of a place," said Bompard, "well, we must nose +along on the lookout. There's no coast but hasn't some landing-place +where a boat can push in. Y'see it's not like a ship. A boat can go +where a ship can't." + +He shifted the helm a bit, keeping the coast parallel to them on the +starboard side. + +"Might those islands be better to go to?" asked she, "they couldn't be +worse than that." + +La Touche suddenly grew excited. "Bon Dieu," cried he, "what a thing to +be saying! Those islands, nothing but rocks--nothing but rocks. Here +there is land, at all events, good land one can put one's foot on; out +there there's nothing but rocks. Rather than go out there I would swim +ashore--I would--" + +"Oh, close up," said Bompard, "don't talk about swimming--maybe you'll +have to." + +"One can always drown," said La Touche. + +It was Bompard who next broke the silence. + +"I've been over cliffs worse than those, for gulls eggs," said he, "take +one coast with another, coasts are pretty much the same, you get bad +bits and easy bits, that is all." + +La Touche said nothing. + +As they drew on the great islands out at sea ranged themselves more +definitely and the tremendous coast to starboard shewed more clearly its +deep cut canons, its sea arches and absolute desolation. + +The sea had fallen, though the wind still held steady, and this surface +calmness, under-run by a gentle swell, served only to emphasize the +vastness of the view. The island seemed immensely remote and immense in +size, the far snow-covered mountains the mountains of a land where +giants had lived and from which they had departed countless ages ago. + +Oyster catches passed the boat with their melancholy cry, but the +fishing gannets and the swimming puffins seemed scarcely to heed the +intruders. Puffins swimming a biscuit toss away as though they had never +learned the fear of man. + +They had drawn nearer shore so that the boom of the swell in the caves +and on the rocks came to them with the crying of the shore birds; +passing a headland like a vast lizard they opened a beach curved like +the new moon and seven miles from horn to horn. + +"There's our landing-place," cried Bompard, "big enough to pick and +choose from." + +"Lord!" shouted La Touche. "Look over there--moving rocks!" + +He pointed half a mile away to seaward. + +Bompard looked. + +"Those crest rocks, they're whales," said he. + +A pair of whales shewed, standing up, coupling in the chill blue grey +water, a miraculous sight, as though they had entered a world where the +original things of life still moved and had their being untroubled by +man and untouched by Time. + +Bompard shifted the helm, and the boat, heading for the shore and no +longer running before the wind, moved less easily, shipping an +occasional dash of spray. + +The change of movement, the dash of spray, the altered course were to +the girl like the turning of a corner. Running with the wind and with a +parallel shore the boat was the world and the coast and island a +panorama. With the twist of the helm Reality made the coast a +destination. Up to this moment the uncertainty of whether they could +land had held her mind, up to this moment all sorts of vague +possibilities, the chance of meeting a ship, the chance of being blown +out to sea, the chance of this or that had come between her and the +realisation of the fact that this prison was hers. + +The monstrosity of the idea stood fully revealed only now on that beach +where there was nothing but sand, nothing but rocks, nothing but gulls. +Close in now Bompard let go the sheet and they unstepped the mast, the +boat rocking in the trough of the swell. Then they got the oars out. + +As they bent to their work and over the creak of the leather in the +rowlocks the rumble and fume of the seven mile beach came mixed with the +yelping and mewing of the gulls. The boat made slow progress, then a few +yards from the surf line it hung for a moment till the rowers suddenly +gave way and moving like a relieved arrow she came on the crest of a +wave, then the oars came in with a crash and the two men tumbling out +dragged her nose high and dry. They helped the girl out and as they +pulled the boat higher she stood, the wind flicking her oilskin coat +about her and the spindrift blowing in her face. + + + + +PART II + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE AWAKENING + + +The great beach of Kerguelen shews above tide mark long stretches where +no sand is, only rock. Basalt planed and smoothed by the seas of +countless ages, level as a ball-room floor and broken by rifts and pot +holes, between tide marks these pot holes serve as traps for all sorts +of sea creatures. Once the waves must have beaten right up to the low +and broken basalt cliffs full of caves floored with sand, but volcanic +action raising the beach has pushed the tide mark out leaving a shore +varying in width from half a mile to a few hundred yards. + +This is the breeding place of the sea elephant. Half way between the +lizard point and the point further to the east a river comes down +disembarging through three months; on the banks of this river is the +seal nursery where in summer the young sea elephants tumble and play and +take their swimming lessons, whilst the mothers lie on rocks and the +fathers fish and hunt and fight in battles, the roaring of which +resounds for miles. Here the penguins drill and hold councils and law +courts and marry and get divorced and hold political meetings, here the +rabbits play and the terns foregather, and here the winds that blow +from everywhere but the east, hunt and yell and pile in winter a twenty +foot sea that breaks in seven miles of thunder under seven miles of +spray thick as the smoke of battle. + +Duck and teal haunt the place and gulls of nearly every known kind snow +it and flick it with movement. Yet above the thunder of the waves and +the cries of the birds and the shouting of the winds when they blow, +there hangs a silence--the silence of the remote and prehistoric. The +living world of men seems cut off from here by far away doors and +forever. + +After supper they had explored the cave mouths in the cliff opposite to +where the boat had beached. There were three caves just here. One was +impracticable owing to water dripping from the roof, but the other two, +floored with hard sand, were good enough for shelter. The men had stowed +the provisions and themselves in the western mast giving the girl the +other and the boat sail for a pillow. + +It was old Bompard who thought of the latter. La Touche seemed to have +no thought for any one or anything but himself. He grumbled all the time +during supper, grumbled at the fact that there was no stuff to make a +fire with, that they had nothing warm to drink, that some time soon +their tobacco must run out. It seemed to Cleo as she lay with her head +on the hard sailcloth and her body on the hard sand, covered with the +oilskin coat which she had taken off to use as a blanket, that through +the league long rumble of the surf she could hear him grumbling still. +She did not care. Hard though the floor was she did not mind, she was +chloroformed. Chloroformed by the air of Kerguelen. The air that fills +the lungs with life, keeps a man going all day with an energy and +buoyancy unknown elsewhere and then fells him with sleep. + +She awoke when the whale birds had ceased crying, just after dawn, awoke +fresh and new and full of life. She felt none of that troubled surprise +which comes when the mind has to adjust itself to the new situation on +awakening for the first time after a great disaster. It was as though +her mind had already adjusted itself and discounted everything. + +She rose up and leaving the oilskin coat and sou'wester on the floor of +the cave came out on to the beach. + +The fine weather still held and the day was strong, now lighting the +beach, the sea, and the distant islands through a sky of high, grey +eastward drifting clouds. The boat lay where it had been pulled up, the +tide now coming in and legions of birds were flitting and blowing about +and stalking on the sands as far as eye could reach. + +She came to the cave where the men were. Bompard and La Touche lying on +their backs might have been dead but for the sound of their snoring. +Bompard was lying with his wrist across his eyes, La Touche with both +hands beside him, clenched. The tins of beef and the bread bags shewed +vaguely in the gloom behind them. + +She stood for a moment watching them and then, turning, she came down to +the boat lying high and dry on the sand. She was trying to realize, that +on the morning of the day before yesterday at this hour she had been +lying in her bunk on board the _Gaston de Paris_, to realize this and +also the fact that her present position seemed scarcely strange. + +She ought, so she told herself, to be astonished at what had happened +and to be bewailing her fate, yet, looking back now over yesterday and +the day before, everything seemed part of a level and logical sequence, +almost like the events of a stormy day on board ship. The tragedy of the +destruction of the _Gaston_ only partly experienced could not be fully +felt. + +Standing by the boat she tried to realize it and failed, tried to grasp +what she knew to be the horror and pity of it, and failed. She was +neither hard nor insensible, she simply could not grasp it. + +And her position here with two rough men, very little food and little +chance of escape, how she would have pitied herself a few days ago could +she have foreseen! Yet here, with the firm sands under her feet and the +wind blowing in her face, reality, instead of hurting her as it had done +in the boat on awakening yesterday morning, soothed her and reassured +her. Everything seemed firm again and the fear that the ugly coast had +raised in her mind had vanished. + +She came along the beach looking at the gulls, turned over huge +star-fish and picked up kelp ribbons to examine them. Half a mile or so +from the cave she was about to turn back when her eye caught a strange +appearance on the sea, hundreds and hundreds of moving points drawing in +to the shore, white and black points like a shoal of fish only half +submerged. It was a fleet of swimming birds. + +She sat down on the sand to watch as they took the shore with a rush +through the foam. Then, safely beached, the fleet became an army of +penguins. She had seen pictures of penguins so she knew what they were +and she had read Anatole France's "Penquin Island"--these, then, were +the real things and she watched them fascinated as one who sees +storyland taking visible and concrete form. + +The penguins formed line, broke into companies, drilled a bit and then +began to move up the beach. + +The figure of the girl did not seem to disturb them in the least. + +One company passed to the left, one to the right, whilst that +immediately fronting her halted a few feet away and saluted her, bowing +like little old-fashioned men in black swallow-tail coats and immaculate +shirt fronts, little old-fashioned men with sharp quizzical eyes, +polished, humorous, polite and entirely friendly. + +The company on the right wheeled to examine her as did the company on +the left, so that she found herself almost in a hollow square. Wherever +she turned there were birds bowing to her or things in the semblance of +birds, absolutely fearless, so close that she could have touched them +had she carried a walking-stick. + +She rose up to allow them to pass and they went on like mechanical +things wound up and released, forming line again and seeming to forget +her. + +She remembered the guillemots and their rudeness and the way they had +stormed and jeered at the boat--did all that mean more than the +politeness and friendliness of the penguins? If she were lying dead +would not the guillemots pass her without enmity and the penguins +without friendliness, as indifferent to her fate as the wave of the sea +on the blowing wind? + +They would--as indifferent as the great islands standing out there in +the distance, mauve and slate grey against the morning. As she came back +along the beach her mind was battling with a problem that had suddenly +risen. She had neither brush nor comb nor glass. Her hair was beautiful +and she loved it. Her face was beautiful but she did not love it, it was +herself, she could not view it from an independent standpoint, but she +could view her hair almost as impartially as a dress and she loved it +with the strange passion that women have for things of texture. + +The hair of Cleo de Bromsart had been waited upon like a divinity by +many a priestess in the form of a maid. It had been dressed and +shampooed and treated by artists and adepts, the hours of brushing alone +if put together would have made a terrific total. The result was +perfection, and even now, after all she had gone through, it shewed +scarcely disarrangement, lustrous and beautiful, dressed with artful +simplicity in the Greek style and outlining the perfect curves of her +head. + +The wind was blowing now in gusto from the sea, but she scarcely noticed +it as she walked, facing the problem that shipwreck had put before her, +a problem the first of a long queue ranging from soap to a change of +garments. + +She was fighting it and at the same time battling with the strengthening +wind when suddenly something sprang on her with the yell of a tiger and +flung her on the sand, pinning her there. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE WOOLEY + + +It was the wind. The Wooley, which is the fist of Kerguelen suddenly +clenched and hitting out from the shoulder of the great islands now +suddenly stormed about with foam and veiled in spray. + +Half stunned, she twisted round, still lying but fronting it now with +her arm protecting her face. The beach had loudened up in thunder from +end to end but the yelling Wooley as it met the cliffs and howled inland +almost drowned the thunder of the waves. Then it died down as suddenly +as it had come, and the boom of the surf rose high, as the girl, +gathering herself together, got up and struggled on. + +She was no longer thinking of her hair. It was the first lesson of the +school of Kerguelen. "Here you shall think of nothing but the moment, of +the ground beneath your feet, of the bite you put in your mouth, of the +rock that stands before you." + +When she reached the cave with her petticoats thrusting about her she +was met by the two men and as she came up to them La Touche was cursing +the wind. The Wooley had all but blown him down too. He had got up +sooner than Bompard and had received the full face of it "in the pit of +the stomach." He seemed to look on it as a personal matter affecting him +alone. + +Even as he spoke a sudden calm fell, lasted for a moment, and was +followed by a howl from inland. + +At a stroke the wind had changed right round and was blowing now from +the mountains. Here in the shelter of the cliffs they scarcely felt it +but the shift had raised an appalling cross sea. Right away to the +islands there was nothing but tumbling foam, waves standing up and +fighting waves in a battle that spread for leagues. + +"It's well for us we didn't fall in with this yesterday," said Bompard +"a ship couldn't stand it." + +"And what ship will ever poke her nose in here to take us off do you +think?" asked La Touche. "This is what you get every day of the week, if +all accounts are true--this, and worse. I tell you we've come to the +wrong place. There's no getting over it. We've come to the wrong place." + +"Well, right or wrong, here we are," said Bompard "Mon Dieu! to hear you +talk you'd think we'd come here on purpose--come, get a move on and +let's have some grub." + +He turned into the cave and they fetched out the can of beef they had +opened yesterday, some biscuits, and a water breaker, and sitting at the +cave mouth they ate just as the men of the Stone Age ate, with the palms +of their hands for plates and their fingers for forks. They spoke +scarcely at all. The ill-humor of La Touche seemed like a contagious +disease, even Bompard, the imperturbable, seemed glum. + +It was the girl who broke the strain. + +Suddenly she began to speak as if giving voice to carefully thought out +ideas. Yet what she said was absolutely spontaneous, the result of a +quick, educated mind suddenly grasping the essentials of their position, +suggestion breeding suggestion. + +"There's no use in grumbling," said she. "That wind knocked me down as I +was coming along the beach. I didn't grumble, and there is no use in +thinking. I was thinking as I walked along that I had no brush and comb +to do my hair with, you two have short hair and you can't imagine what +it is to a person with long hair when they find themselves without a +brush and comb. I was grumbling to myself about it when the wind knocked +me down. I want just to tell you what is in my mind: we will die or go +mad if we do not forget everything as much as we can and not think of +to-morrow or yesterday or ships coming to take us off. We have to fight +all sorts of things that don't care in the least for us and we have to +work. Everything here is at work in its own way. Well, we must do as +everything else does or die." + +"It's easy to say work," said La Touche munching a biscuit, "but what is +one to work at?" + +"We want food for one thing, our provisions won't last forever." + +"There's rabbits enough," said Bompard. "Remember those rabbits we saw +running out on the beach last evening?" + +"I can snare rabbits all right," said La Touche, "but where's the wire +to make snares with--see--we're caught everywhere." + +"Wait," said Bompard. + +He got up and went down to the boat, hunted in one of the lockers and +returned with a spool of wire. + +He flung it at La Touche. + +"There's your wire," said he. + +Cleo's eyes brightened. The spool of wire seemed to her a fruit suddenly +born from her words; she had accomplished something, it was perhaps the +first real accomplishment in her life. + +"Where did you get it from?" asked La Touche. + +"The forward locker," replied Bompard. + +"Are there any other things in the locker?" asked the girl. + +"Oh, Mon Dieu, yes," replied the old fellow. "There's a lot of truck, +but it's no use to us." + +"Let's go and see," said Cleo. She rose up and came down the beach +followed by the others. The wind from the mountains died away but the +sea torment remained and, though the tide was beginning to ebb, the +spray of the waves almost reached the boat. + +It had been listed to one side by the Wooley but was undamaged and the +forward locker was still open as it had been left by the careless +Bompard. + +It was one of the boats used for fishing and deep sea work, hence the +contents of the locker. + +The steel head of a two pronged fish spear, a fisherman's knife in its +sheath with belt, a paternoster, invaluable for the fathoms of fishing +line attached, a small American axe with the head vaselined, a canvas +housewife with sail-needles, a few darning needles and some pack thread, +and a number of odds and ends including some extra heavy lead sinkers. + +Bompard looked on apathetically and La Touche stood with his hands in +his pockets as the girl fished the things out one by one, placing them, +some on the sands and some on the thwarts of the boat. + +The things seemed to have no interest for the men. Accustomed all their +lives to being looked after as far as shelter and food were concerned +they seemed absolutely helpless in front of new conditions. Men are like +that, especially men of the people, and when you read of Crusoes and +their wonderful doings on desert islands you read Romance. + +The quick, trained mind of the girl seemed to see clearly where they +could scarcely see at all, she had imagination and she was a woman--that +is to say a being more gifted than man, with prevision in affairs purely +material. + +Bompard did not see any use in the axe and said so. The girl, with her +hand resting on the gunnel of the boat, stood like a housekeeper trying +to explain to a mere male creature the use of some household implement. + +"We will want a fire and an axe will chop wood," said she. + +"Ay, and where are you to get the wood?" asked La Touche. "There's not a +tree on this blasted place, nor the sign of one." + +"Well, we'll have to look--there may be trees inland--there's sure to be +bushes of some sort--anyhow we will take these things up to the cave, +they will be safer there." + +The baling tin of the boat caught her eye, she included it amongst her +prizes. + +This baling tin, like a psychological instrument, exhibited the mind of +Bompard as though that said mind had been scooped out and placed in it. + +To him it was a baling tin; here there were no boats to be baled +out--where was the use of it? + +To the woman it was a possible pot to boil things in if they could get a +fire and things to boil. + +She explained and Bompard saw the light. La Touche saw it, too, but +promptly pointed out that they had no fire and nothing to boil. He +seemed to find an odious satisfaction in the fact, a satisfaction which +Bompard faintly reflected, and for a moment the girl seemed to glimpse +in the two men a lethargy of mind almost unthinkable. A lethargy and +laziness, mulish, and kicking at anything that disturbed it, that +actually fought against betterment because betterment meant exercise of +intellect and action. + +She felt angry with them, just as a grown person feels angry with lazy +children, and putting the belt with the knife round her waist and +picking up some of her treasures she ordered the others to follow with +the rest. + +When they had been placed in the cave with the provisions, Bompard, +after his great labours, cut himself some tobacco and La Touche lit his +pipe. Then they sat down at their cave opening to smoke and rest +themselves whilst the girl, who could not keep still, went back to the +boat to explore the other lockers and see if by chance anything else of +a useful nature might be found. The two men seated smoking at the cave +mouth watched her as she went. She felt their eyes upon her and guessed +that they were discussing her, but she did not mind. + +The ceaseless activity of old Madame de Warens seemed to have descended +on her through the air of Kerguelen. The will that Prince Selm had +divined in her had been aroused; the surroundings seemed to call her to +action from every side; the past and the future seemed phantoms before +the tremendous and insistent present. Fate could perhaps have broken her +spirit only in one way, by casting her upon the sordid. If she had been +socially shipwrecked and thrown onto a Paris slum she might have gone +under. Here where everything was clean, where the air was life, where +nothing was sordid, she swam; here she was miraculously filled with a +new energy and an extraordinary new interest as though she were peeping +at things for the very first time. + +The forward locker was now empty, she hunted in the others and +discovered two more Maconochie tins that Bompard had overlooked, some +cotton waste, a roll of thick copper wire and a bradawl. + +She collected the lot and brought them up to the cave before which her +companions were seated. + +She handed them to La Touche, who, without getting up, leaned back and +pushed them as far into the cave as he could reach, then he resumed his +pipe whilst Cleo standing and shading her eyes looked away up and down +the beach as though measuring its possibilities. + +"I found a lot of things down there this morning before the tide was +high," said she. "There were star-fish, big ones like what I have seen +on the beach at Bordighera; the Italian people eat them. I'm sure there +must be lots of food to be found here on the beach. Then there is a big +break in the cliffs lower down that seems to lead inland. I think the +best thing we can do is to start now and hunt about and see what we can +find. You two can go inland, and I will go along the beach. It's +absolutely necessary to find any sort of food, and wood to make a fire." + +The smokers were disposed to argue. + +Yes, it was quite true, one must look round, but there was grub enough +for a month and there was plenty of time before them. Then La Touche +began to argue about star-fish. He had never heard of people eating +star-fish. If they were to be condemned to eat stuff like that it would +be better to quit. One might have fancied from his tone that it was +Cleo's fault that such a suggestion should be made. + +Cleo listened patiently and Bompard sat evidently approving. It was +almost as though the two were in league against her, just as children +get in league against an adult who insists on unpleasant duties or +uncongenial food. + +But a will was at work stronger than theirs and presently, tapping out +their pipes, they rose up. La Touche, at her direction, placed the new +found Maconochie tins, the cotton waste, the bradawl and wire with the +rest of the stores, far back in the cave, and then, following her, they +lumbered along down the beach in the direction of the cliff break like +two schoolboys after a governess. + +The cliff break was a narrow gully piercing the basalt and bending upon +itself; here they parted, the men striking up the gulley and the girl +continuing her way along the beach. + +"And be sure to look out for some wood," she cried after them, "any sort +of wood." + +"Ay, ay," said Bompard, "we'll be on the look out right enough." + +Then they vanished and she pursued her way alone, picking up things as +she went, turning over shells and thinking of her companions. + +The wind had fanned up again to a strong breeze but the sound of the +surf had fallen with the receding tide and the stretch of wet sand +below high tide mark was strewn with huge kelp ribbons, masses of +seaweed, shells, all empty, cuttle fish bones and the star-fish +despised of La Touche. + +Then she came upon something that gave her a grue, it seemed at first +like a white rock, it was a skull. The skull of some enormous creature +half-bedded in the sand just above the tide mark, possibly cast up in +some storm. She thought it might be the skull of a whale and as she +stood looking at it, suddenly, the desolation around came in upon her +with the fact that she was absolutely alone. + +Suppose the men lost their way--suppose that they never came back? The +thought clutched her heart like a hand. To be here, alone, absolutely +alone, forever! + +For a moment panic seized her and the wild impulse came upon her to turn +and run back to the cave. Then she mastered herself, fighting down the +surging in her throat, and continuing her way steadily and with renewed +strength. She had not cast the thought away, she had mastered it and as +she went she contemplated it as a victor contemplates the dead body of +an assailant. + +Then she saw the penguins, she had not noticed them before, they were +drawn up in long lines at the base of the cliff and the sight of them +destroyed the desolation just as the skull had crystallized it around +her. + +A great pow-wow was going on amongst the penguins. Three birds, +separate from the others, were standing, two facing one another bowing +and discussing something, the third standing by, putting in a word now +and then and now and then coming right between the disputants. + +She watched them for awhile and then went on. She had no time to waste. +The thought of coming back empty handed after all her talk to the men +pursued her. She was looking for food and had found none--nothing but +the star-fish. + +The gulls evidently found plenty of food. But for a human being there +seemed nothing, and as she went on and on the thought of what would +happen when those tins in the cave were empty came at her just as the +terror of finding herself alone had come, and this thought was not to be +combated by an effort of will simply because it was born of Reason. + +Her clear and practical mind saw starvation, over-leaped the slender +food barrier that held hunger only a month away from them and wandered +in a wilderness where nothing was. + +She had reached the rock surface now that stretched away level and +smooth, broken by cracks and pot holes and strewn here and there with +weed. The cliffs had fallen away, giving a view of the broken country +and the mountains with their snow-covered tops, immense, wrapped in +distance under the dull grey day, remote, yet clearly defined in that +air, crystal clear as the air of Iceland. + +It was like looking at Silence herself, silence set off and explained +by the beach noises, the sound of the surf, the calling of the terns, +the mewing of the great white gulls. + +She saw Kerguelen as it is, as it was, as it ever will be. Standing +there alone she saw it for the first time in all its utter nakedness. If +no food were to be found on the busy beach, what food could be found in +that carved, silent, cruel land where not a single tree shewed in all +the miles of desolation? + +A stealthy scraping sound behind her made her wheel round. + +Up from a rock pond which she had passed without examining had risen a +crab, its body was not bigger than the two fists of a man put together, +yet it moved standing high up like a spider on slender stilts that if +stretched out would have measured four feet or more. She watched it with +dilated eyes as it scrambled and hurried along, vanishing at last like a +spectre in some cleft of the rock. There was something of a skeleton +about it as well as something of a spider, it was like a caricature of +food drawn by Famine. It made the whole beach hideous for a moment and +it made the food hunter almost afraid to go on. She crushed the fear and +went on, reaching a place where the rocks ceased and a broad level of +sand stretched to where the rocks began again and further on the river +ran down. + +Where the sand met the further rocks a huge conical stone stood with a +gull roosting on its top, and just as a person fixes on some object as +the limit of his walk she determined to go as far as this stone and then +turn back. + +As she drew close to it the gull flapped its wings and flew away and she +saw that the thing was not a stone but the figure-head of a ship, the +form of a woman with ample breasts, broken and scarred by years of +weather and stained with the droppings of gulls. The arms were gone, but +the great face remained almost in its entirety staring away across the +sands and the sea. + +It had once worn a crown, but the crown was broken away all but a little +bit on the left side of the head and it had an appearance of life that +almost daunted the girl as she stood looking, watching it, and listening +to the singing sound of the beach echoes and the mewing and crying of +the gulls. + +Then as she moved closer her foot struck on something half buried in the +sand, it was a balk of timber, ships timber was all about, sanded over, +and in places half uncovered. Here was firewood enough for twenty years. +In the figure-head alone there was enough to supply their wants for a +long time to come. + +She sat down to rest on a projecting piece of this timber near the +figure. Close up to it like this it lost its touch of life and became +simply a block of wood, and from this point she could see the beach over +which she had travelled stretching away and away to the Lizard Point +with the foam breaking around it and flown about by the never-resting +gulls. + +She had come nearly three miles and she had found something worth +finding by just keeping on. + +She remembered the spectre crab. It had nearly turned her back +empty-handed, but she had kept on and she registered that fact deeply in +her mind, dwelling on it with a pleasure she had never felt before. + +Then she fell to thinking of the ship that all this belonged to and the +storm that must have driven it here. The weeds of the high tide mark did +not come within ten feet of the wreckage, so the waves must have come a +hundred feet or more beyond where she was sitting. Perhaps it was at +night with all this coast roaring in the darkness and the wind yelling +above the shouting of the waves. And all that must have happened years +ago, to judge by the work of the weather on the once gaily painted woman +and the depth the timbers had sunk in the sand. + +She rose up, and before starting back she glanced inland towards the +mountains across the broken country. + +Then she shaded her eyes. + +Beyond the fringe of the beach and amongst the high broken rocks stood a +cross. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE CROSS + + +The thing itself startled her less than the fact that she had not seen +it before. It was as though it had been put up whilst she sat to rest. + +It was so striking, so palpably evident that anyone coming along towards +the figure-head as she had done must have been attracted by it. To +verify this she walked a few yards away and even as she did so the cross +vanished, shut out from sight by the rock to the left of it. Only from +the point of view of the figure-head could it be seen. + +It was as though the beach had tried to frighten her again. + +She came towards it, noticing as she came the shortness of the arms. It +was less a cross than a sign-post, a sign-post raised on a mound of +small rocks; it was tarred to preserve it from the weather. From the +left limb close to the post a metal box was hanging by a wire, and on +the post itself, a few feet from the base, there was a plate of +galvanised iron nailed to the wood. On the plate were stamped some +words. + +She stepped upon the mound and read: "Kestrel Expedition. Cache I. Don't +disturb 19--" + +The date was three years back. + +The cache, whatever it might be, was under the mound. Also, this thing +had evidently nothing to do with the wreck, for the embossed metal plate +must have been prepared in some civilized country for the purpose to +which it had been put. + +She reached up and tried to detach the box and pulling on it brought +down the slat of wood that formed the arms of the cross, the nails that +had held it having rusted away. + +Then, having detached the box, she examined it. It was an ordinary +sailor's tobacco box, she pressed the spring, opened it, and found a +piece of paper folded in four and inscribed as follows, the writing done +with a purple indelible pencil: + + Opened the cach. + Took nuthing out. + Stuck in som extry goods + Put the ship about. + To any one that finds it in this blasted hole + Sam Slacum, + Master Mariner. Thresler 19-- + +Then as an after thought: + + "Keep up your spirits." + +The date was a year after the date on the post. The cache had not been +visited evidently since then. For three years it had lain here, and for +three years, evidently, only one ship had put in. This dismal thought +took all the pleasure away from the find, she sat down on the rocks +forming the mound and holding the paper in her fingers gave way for a +moment to a depression that came against her like a black, surging sea. +Then she remembered that the cross had been only visible from one point, +that vessels might have been here and not have seen it, that men might +even have landed and found it without leaving the fact behind them, +after the manner of the writer of this paper. + +And then, suddenly, and as if from the sky came the thought of +Providence, the feeling that she had been led along the beach to find +the wood and to find this. The remembrance of how she had been saved +from the _Gaston de Paris_ rose up in her mind also--saved almost by a +miracle. + +To a person torn from civilization and flung into the arms of Nature the +most terrible thing is the sense of the amorphous, the feeling that +there is no structure in this world where houses are not and laws are +not and streets are not, no power to intervene between oneself and +injury, no thread to cling to. The idea of a Providence to such a person +is like brandy. + +The girl remembered the words she had spoken that morning to her +companions when she said that one must not think here but work. There +was no use in thinking of the past or the future, of ships coming or +not, they had been taken care of so far and the feeling came to her that +this would be so to the end. + +She rose up, put the paper back in the box and the box in her pocket, +then she turned to the cache. + +She walked round the mound to a spot where the covering rocks had fallen +away a bit and going down on her knees began pulling them apart and +carrying them off one by one, dumping them a few yards away. Her rings +hindered her and taking them off she put them in the tobacco box and the +box in her pocket. Under the rocks lay a covering of sand, she fetched +the arm of the cross and scraping away at the sand came upon something +hard, it was the end of a barrel. Then she stood up, flushed with her +work and satisfied. + +The stores were there, whatever they might be, and with the help of the +two men they would easily be uncovered. The question whether they would +be of any use after all the years they had lain there recurred to her, +but she put it aside. They would soon see. + +Then she started back for the caves taking the slat of wood with her as +a trophy. As she went the recollection of the find followed her +agreeably, she did not know which to congratulate herself most upon, the +wood of the wreck or the cache. Then came the dismal thought of winter, +begotten of the idea of fires. It was the middle of August. Winter lay +ahead. If no ship came to take them off what would their life be like +during the winter months? Imagine this place at Christmas, covered +perhaps with snow! The gloom of this idea pursued her for a mile or more +till all of a sudden she stopped and laughed aloud at her own +stupidity. It was not autumn, it was spring. They were south of the line +and summer lay before them, not winter. That gloomy ghost, fear of the +Future, which spoils so many men's lives in Civilization, had tricked +her and made her miserable and as she cast it from her and pursued her +way she said to herself again: "I will not think, here the person who +thinks and broods is lost." + +When she reached the caves the men had not yet returned; leaving the +slat of wood leaning against the cliff she came down to the boat and +stood for a moment looking at the sea. The tide was far out now and +coming in again, the sea had fallen to a gentle glassy swell and the +treacherous wind had died away to a faint breeze. Out there where the +waves were coming in and at the limit of the sands rocks were uncovered, +shaggy, black rocks that seemed covered with fur. She came down to them +and found that the fur was a coating of mussels. Here was another find. +She began to pick them and then, running back to the cave for the baling +tin, filled it to the brim, and placed it in the boat. Having done this +she sat down with her back to the boat to rest and wait for the men. + +They ought to have returned by this. The thought that some disaster had +happened to them came to her and tried to creep into her mind, but she +drove it out promptly, stamped on it and began to think of how they +would cook the mussles. They would make a fire with the slat she had +brought back, it was tarred and would burn finely, with that and some +of the bottom boards of the boat, unless Bompard could be persuaded to +go and cut some wood from the wreckage three miles away. Then she +thought how fortunate it was that men smoked. La Touche had a Swedish +match box nearly full of matches and Bompard had a tinder box, one of +the sort that makes a spark by the striking of a wheel against a flint. + +Then she yawned. + +She had been in the open air since early dawn and it was now noon. She +was not tired, but she was filled with a craving for something, yet she +could not tell what this something was that she wanted and without which +she felt somehow lost. Then she knew--it was a roof. + +A person accustomed to live under a roof and suddenly condemned to live +in the open suffers nothing for the first few hours. Then there +gradually comes upon him a weariness and distress almost unimaginable to +those who have not experienced it. He craves not only for a roof but for +walls around him to protect him from the great open spaces that seem +sucking away his individuality. A man living absolutely in the open +without tent or cave or house wherein to concentrate himself would +surely and without doubt either become mad or descend to the level of +the beasts. + +She came up the beach to the cave where she had slept, went into it, and +sat down, her mind finding instant relief from the craving that had +filled it. Her hands went up to her hair and began to arrange it as best +they could. Had she been alone on the beach she would have taken the +pins out and left it loose for the winds to comb and blow about, but the +thought of the men prevented her. She did not like the idea of their +seeing her going about with her hair down; after her experiences in the +boat it seemed absurd to quibble over a thing like this and she tried to +argue with herself without avail. It seemed to her that if she went +about in _neglige_ like that she would lower herself. How? There was +nothing unwomanly in flowing hair, there was nothing indelicate. No, but +women of her class never appeared before men in that fashion, she would +lower herself socially. + +A fool would have laughed at her, holding that amidst castaways there +was no such thing as social position, and, though fools are not +inevitably wrong in their opinions, he would have been wrong. + +Though Bompard and La Touche had dropped the "mademoiselle" in +addressing her, they treated her since landing with a certain respect +which would have been wanting had she been a woman of their own class. + +The class difference held and was a greater protection to her than +anything else. In their eyes she was not a woman, but a lady, a fact +that chilled familiarity, or worse, and, with the aid of her superior +intelligence, gave her authority. + +She felt this instinctively and determined that at no time and in no +manner would she allow her position to degrade. + +Then, having done what she could to her hair she took the rings from the +tobacco box and put them on. She would have much preferred not to have +worn them, they irritated her, but they were part of her insignia and +she put them on. + +As she was putting the tobacco box back in her pocket something looked +in at her. It was a rabbit, a grey fat rabbit that had lopped right to +the cave mouth; it sat up for a moment on its hind legs, looked in, and +then lopped off without any hurry, as though a girl seated in a cave +were an accustomed object and a human being something not to be afraid +of. + +This fearlessness of the rabbit would have started her on a long and +dismal train of thought had she not checked herself in time and like the +man in the haunted house who kept the fear of ghosts away by thinking of +plum puddings, she started to work, re-folding the sail that had served +her for a pillow the night before; then she took the oilskin coat out +and shook it, and folding it, placed it by the left wall of the cave +with the sou'wester on top of it. She was tidying her house. + +Then she went into the men's cave and did a bit of tidying there, +stacking the tins more neatly and putting the odds and ends together. +The sight of the cotton waste gave her an idea and going down to the +boat she emptied the mussels from the baling tin on to the sand, filled +the tin with sea water and bathed her face and hands, drying them on +the cotton. She had finished this operation and had got the mussels back +in the tin when a shout caused her to turn. + +It was the men, they were coming along the beach from the break in the +cliffs. Bompard leading, La Touche lagging behind. + +Bompard was carrying something under his arm, it was a Kerguelen +cabbage. La Touche carried nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE CACHE + + +When she lay down that night on the hard sand, with the sailcloth +beneath her head, she could not sleep. The wretchedness of having to lie +down fully dressed, of being unable to change her clothes, fell on her +like a blight. + +She lay fighting the problem. It was impossible to go on like this. One +might live with little food, but to live always without undressing and +changing one's things was impossible. This problem was insoluble, or +seemed so. Then she found a half solution. She would discard her +stockings and under garments, make a bundle of them and put them under +the sailcloth, she would not wear them again, she would suffer from +cold, no matter, anything was better than that feeling of being fully +dressed always. The weather, besides, was fairly warm. She would learn +to do without shoes as well as without stockings. She would have to go +about without shoes or stockings. She thought of the men. Strangely +enough the thought of going about without shoes or stockings seemed less +repulsive to her than the thought of going about with her hair loose. + +As she lay revolving this business in her mind the whale birds flitting +about in the darkness outside suddenly ceased their crying and through +the silence came a vague mysterious sound that deepened into a humming +like the drone of a gigantic top; the humming became a roar, the roar of +rain. Rain falling in solid sheets, coming across the land like a moving +Niagara, now taking the beach and now the sea. Never had she heard such +rain as this, falling in the black and utter darkness. The shelve of the +beach saved the cave from being flooded and the beetling of the cliff +kept it dry and within a couple of feet of the entrance but it could not +keep out the rain smell, the raw smell of Kerguelen carried from inland, +the smell of bog patches and new washed dolerite and bitter vegetation, +keen, like the smell of the Stone Age. Then after a bit the first great +onslaught slackened. + +The girl raised herself on her elbow, then she rose and cast off the +oilskin coat that had served for a blanket. She undressed in the +darkness, made a bundle of her stockings and her Jaeger underclothes and +placed them beneath the sailcloth, then removing the comb from her hair +and letting it fall she came out into the blackness and stood in the +torrential rain. + +It beat on her head and shoulders and breast, it cascaded down her +limbs, soothing as the hand of mesmerism, refreshing, delightful beyond +words, then she came back into the cave and, finding the cotton waste, +dried herself as well as she could, dried her hair and twisted it into +a knot, put on her blouse, coat and skirt and covered herself with the +oilskin. + +She had solved the question of a bath and change of clothes, at least +for the moment. The discomfort of the rough tweed of the skirt against +her unprotected limbs, of the hard bed, of the sailcloth pillow with +its vague smell of canvas and jute, all these were nothing to that other +discomfort. These were physical, that was psychical. + +She fell asleep and slept till long after dawn. When she came out the +rain had ceased and through air fresh as though from the hand of +Creation vast clouds were rolling away towards the islands over a +blue-green sea. + +They had made a fire on the night before and had cooked some of the +mussels in the baling tin, the rest had been put by to cook for +breakfast; hot food of any sort is a revelation if you have been +condemned to live on cold stuff for any time, but this morning there was +to be nothing hot. The firewood, one of the bottom boards of the boat +chopped up, had been left out in the rain. The sight of it, all soaked, +made the girl forget her bare feet and her hair roughly tied up in a +knot. The housekeeper that lives in every woman rose up in revolt, all +the more so as the guilty ones tried to defend themselves. + +"As for me," said La Touche, "I was listening to the rain, it drove +everything else out of my head." + +"That is so," said Bompard, "I thought every moment we would be flooded +out. It was no time for a man to be thinking of firewood." + +"Well, you will have no fire and nothing hot," said Cleo, "and those +mussels will be wasted--they won't keep, but there's no use in saying +any more about it--only you must learn to think of things. It's not +pleasant, I know, to have to look ahead but one has to do it. You see I +am not wearing my boots and stockings, boots wear out and stockings wear +out quicker, so I just looked ahead last night and said to myself--'your +stockings will soon be worn into holes, so you must begin now to learn +to do without them.' It's not pleasant, but it has to be done. If that +ship we ran into had looked ahead we would not have been wrecked." + +"That is true," said Bompard, anxious to get off the main subject. "If +those chaps had eyes in their heads they wouldn't be feeding the +fishes." + +"It wasn't all their fault," put in La Touche. "If those chaps on the +bridge hadn't put the engines on we wouldn't have rammed her as we did." + +"Well," said Cleo, "there is no use in going back over things. We have +to get breakfast and then go and open the cache." + +She had told them of the cache overnight and, to her wonder, the thing +had interested them, so this morning when they had finished their +biscuits and beef she found not the slightest difficulty in making them +start. + +She put on her boots for the journey and then they reeled along the +beach in the usual order, Cleo first, the two others following; the +great skull made them halt and discuss it for a moment but the +figure-head when they reached it held them entirely in its spell. + +She could scarcely tear them away, they discussed it from every point of +view, argued over it, pondered over it and were only brought to their +senses by a hint that it would have to be chopped up for firewood. + +Then, when they reached the cache, there was another long pause for +discussion, the two sitting down to smoke whilst they talked it over. + +It was not till she set to work pulling more stones away that they began +to get busy; then when once started they laboured like negroes. The +glimpse of the barrel end seemed to inflame them, but indeed they did +not want even that, for the business they had set their hands to had all +the fascination of treasure hunting mixed with the thrills of +house-breaking. Here was "stuff," plunder of some sort, who could tell +what? + +An hour and a half of labour brought them sweating to the end of the +business and the presiding gulls saw exposed to the light of day two big +barrels, two long cases and an amount of canned meat and vegetables +enough to stock a small shop, also a harpoon of the old type and two +shovels placed by the long cases. Then after a rest of half an hour the +barrels were sampled. One contained flour, the other blankets and mens' +clothes, sweaters and coats and trousers. One of the long cases +contained kitchen utensils and tin cups and plates, also knives and +forks and spoons. + +The other contained "comforts," tea and coffee and sugar in sealed tins, +some rolls of tobacco, drugs and a few surgical instruments. All the +equipment, in fact, necessary for an expedition of a dozen men for six +months. Not a drop of liquor. + +Perhaps that was why the girl was more overjoyed by the details of the +find than the mariners. + +Bompard openly expressed his mind. + +"Not a bottle of wine or a drop of rum, swabs." + +"Well, you've got some tobacco," said Cleo, "and there's tea and coffee +and cups and saucers, and a teapot--no coffeepot--well one can make +coffee in anything--" She was running over the stores in her mind, +standing, reviewing them with no thought of anything else and her soul +filled with a joy and satisfaction absolutely new. + +Blankets! Tea! Coffee! and clothes--even mens' clothes if it came to the +worst. One might have fancied her to have fixed definitely in her mind +that she was to spend a very long time on the shores of Kerguelen and to +have accepted the terrible prospect with equanimity. It was not so. She +was living in the moment, so entirely in the moment that these things +were tremendous and vivid and compared with them Art, Music, Religion, +Ambition, and the gauds of Civilization were as nothing. + +This power to live in the moment is the form of strength that brings +men through battles and women through adversity. It fells cities and +builds them. On Kerguelen it is salvation. For, here to think of the +future, unless in terms of material necessities, to dream, to brood, +means death or madness. + +But Bompard and La Touche, resting themselves after their labours, were +not living in the moment nor in the past nor in the present, they were +living in that strange sad land called the Might-Have-Been. They might +have been in the way to a jolly booze by now if that fool who +provisioned the cache had not forgotten the drink. They were thankful +for nothing. They had food, they had clothes, they had tobacco. They +were glad enough of the blankets, but even the thought of the blankets +could not relieve their depression. + +They were not drunkards, but the cache had given them hopes of drinks. +These hopes shattered they sat like discontented children who had been +promised sweets and disappointed. + +But this did not last long, the Hopeless is its own antidote and after +half a pipe of tobacco their cheerfulness, such as it was, returned and +they fell to discussing with the girl the best way of treating the +stores. + +Bompard, considering the difficulty of transporting the stuff to the +caves, proposed that they should move their abode right up to the cache. + +Cleo pointed out that there were no caves here, so, unless they moved +the caves as well as their belongings, they would have nowhere to sleep +in. + +"I think the best thing we can do," said she, "is to take what we want +and then cover up the rest till we want some more." + +"Put the stuff under the rocks again?" asked Bompard. + +"Yes." + +"Mon Dieu!" said La Touche. + +It was not what he said but the way he said it that angered the girl. + +La Touche was a problem in her mind. She could understand Bompard but +she could not quite understand La Touche. It seemed to her that he was +one of those people who without much intelligence, yet, or perhaps +because of that fact, make fine centres of rebellion. She could fancy +him leading a mob to tear down something that vexed him, and everything +seemed to vex him, at times. + +But though she was not clear about La Touche she was quite clear about +herself and she was determined to be his master. She felt instinctively +that he was the leader of Bompard and that Bompard alone would have been +a much better individual, in many respects. + +"There is no use in saying 'Mon Dieu,'" said she, "the thing has to be +done. The gulls and the rabbits will ruin everything if we leave things +about. Come, Bompard." + +Bompard rose up at the order and began to assist in sorting out the +things they were to take back with them. Then La Touche, not to be out +of the business and perhaps ashamed of himself, or of his position as an +idler, joined in. + +Had she given the order direct to him he might have revolted; she had +conquered him for the moment none the less. + +First they began to sort out the things to be kept for immediate use. A +saucepan, three tin cups, three tin plates, knives and forks, the teapot +and kettle, a canister of tea, sugar and salt. The canned stuff, +including thirty cans of vegetables, Cleo left untouched. She determined +to keep it in reserve and depend upon the cabbage plants, one of which +Bompard had brought back yesterday. + +Then came the question of the flour, that too must be kept in reserve +and the opening they had made in the top of the barrel closed up +properly. This operation took time and was conducted with a good deal of +grumbling which fell on deaf ears. The thing was done and that was the +main thing. Four blankets were taken from the other barrel and that too +was closed. Then with the shovels the whole lot was sanded over and the +rocks replaced, the girl helping in the work as well as directing. + +When everything was finished they made three bundles, using the blankets +as holdalls, and started back. + +It was now noon and the breeze that had been blowing ever since dawn had +died away, but great clouds were banking up over the islands, vast, +solemn, leaden-coloured clouds rolling up from the far sea and piling +one on the other like alps on alps. + +They had nearly reached the caves when a roll of thunder like the ruffle +of muffled drums came over the water, but they got under shelter before +the rain began to fall, just a few heavy drops, at first, and then in a +moment a cataract. + +The islands vanished, the sea vanished to within a few hundred yards of +the beach, the voices of the gulls and the breaking of the waves became +merged and vague in the hiss of the sheeting rain. + +"The chaps that left the truck in that cask forgot to shove in some +oilskins," said La Touche as he undid his load. + +Cleo had come into the men's cave to help to unpack. Half-way back she +had taken her boots off. Owing to the absence of stockings her right +heel had become chafed and she had taken them off determining not to +wear them any more. She was kneeling now, bare-footed, taking the things +from Bompard's bundle and La Touche's remark made her look up. It was +the tone rather than the words that irritated her. The recollection of +an oilskin coat which she had used when fishing in Norway the year +before rose in her mind. It had been put away for a long time and when +taken out had been found all stuck up and quite ruined. + +"You can't be much of a sailor," said she, "not to know that oilskin +doesn't stand packing. The men who buried these things did. If they had +known that you were so particular about rain they might have put in an +umbrella." + +Dead silence followed this thrust of the tongue which she instantly +regretted, not because of hurting La Touche's feelings, but because she +instantly felt that it had helped to widen the division between her and +her mates. The extraordinary fact was that she, having assumed the +responsibility of office, was, seemingly, held responsible by the others +for all unpleasant happenings; she felt that the rain of Kerguelen was +now, in a way, being laid at her door. + +Then, again, she had singled out La Touche as a direct opponent. She +felt that he and she were already matching each other and there was +likely to be a struggle between them for dominance. + +Women have been gifted above men with an instinctive knowledge of +character. She divined in La Touche a character weak yet capable of +violence, incapable of leading yet jealous of being led, and especially +of being led by a woman. That was the danger point. + +However, there was no use in trying to say anything smooth and she went +on with her work, helping to stow the things and, when that was +finished, taking off two of the blankets to her own cave. + +A fire was impossible owing to the rain so they dined off biscuits and +canned stuff, cold. + +Bompard and La Touche on this little expedition had discovered a water +source only a quarter of a mile inland, a deep pond cut in the rocks +and fed by the rains. Bompard referred to it as he ate. + +"But as long as the boat holds together," said he, "we don't want to +bother about water; she'll catch and hold all we want. I've heard tell +it rains here months on end." + +"When it's not blowing," said La Touche. Cleo said nothing. It came to +her almost as a new impression that conversation as we know it was +almost impossible with her companions. They had no outlook over anything +but the material and they seemed to see nothing but the black side of +things. She felt also that any attempt to rally them and cheer them +would be dumbly resented and would only help to widen even more the +division between her and them. + +When the meal was finished she put the plates out in the rain to wash +them. Then a bright idea came to her and getting the roll of wire she +asked La Touche to shew her how to make rabbit snares. + +La Touche took the roll of wire and held it in his hands for a moment. + +"This is all very well," said he, "but where is your wire cutters?" + +They had nothing to cut the wire with, and he seemed to look on the fact +as a triumph of his own cleverness over Cleo's, till Bompard intervened +and shewed how, by knotting the wire and pulling hard, a break might be +made. This accomplished, and three lengths of wire having been +procured, the surly one proceeded to make a snare and to demonstrate how +it might be set. + +At the end of the business the girl regretted that she had ever started +it. She had put herself under the tuition of La Touche and allowed the +intimacy of master and pupil, allowed even in this slight way that he +was her superior. + +A yelling wind from the mountains arose that afternoon and drove the +rain away across the islands. It held for half an hour and then of a +sudden ceased and a howling wind from the islands rose and drove the +rain back again towards the mountains. + +The sea suddenly seemed to go mad, with cross currents meeting. Waves +seemed fighting waves and the gulls seemed filled with the general +torment, clanging and blowing about hither and thither like leaves in +autumn. + +Cleo went to her cave and wrapping herself in one of the blankets, with +the other folded double to lie upon, took her place upon the floor with +her head on the sailcloth. + +It was her first really bad moment. Her first moment of real depression. +The rain and the fact that their position as regarded food was secure, +so that there was nothing to fight against at the moment, conspired to +overthrow her. + +Hitherto she had fought bravely and the struggle had kept her up; the +sudden easing of the situation had brought new forces against her. Time +suddenly appeared before her eyes asking: "How are you to kill me? You +can't, you have no weapons. Would you like a book? Would you like +embroidery work to do, companions to talk with, music to listen to? +Fate, under the name of civilization, gave you all these and more, they +have been taken from you and now you see me as I am, the great terror." + +She fought this Bogey by thinking of La Touche. She had raised La Touche +against herself. She knew that something in herself had risen against La +Touche. + +She felt that his respect for a woman of the higher classes was, as +regarded herself, wearing thin, owing to propinquity. That he resented +being "bossed" by a woman, that her superior quickness of mind and +energy vexed him and that one day he would try to master her. He was of +the type that is too mean to rule, yet hates to be ruled. There was also +the jealousy of the male at the superiority of the female. She was +physically weaker than he, a fact that means little in civilized life +where power is in the hands of Order, but which means everything in +primitive life. And they were steadily drifting to the primitive. + +These thoughts, troublesome enough, were still excellent in their way. +They gave her occupation for her mind. + +Then she fell asleep, awaking towards evening to find Bompard at the +cave mouth telling her that supper was ready. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE QUARREL + + +Next morning broke fine. She was awakened by voices quarrelling and came +out to find a breezy and absolutely cloudless day, with the sea running +smooth and the sunlight on the far islands. + +The two men, who had fallen out over some trifle, were wrangling like +fish-women, Bompard having the worst of it, as his ineffectual southern +oaths were no match for the language of the other. + +The girl stood looking at La Touche, but he seemed not to mind in the +least. + +Then she turned away and walked down to the boat. + +She heard Bompard say: "There, you have sent her off, talking like +that," and what La Touche replied she could not hear, but she guessed it +was something not complimentary to Bompard or herself. + +The boat was half full of rain-water. She rinsed her hands in it, then, +standing with the warm sun upon her, she almost forgot the men, looking +at the purple islands and the gulls like new minted gold and the great +arch of the bay lined out with a thread of creamy foam. + +After a while, turning round, she saw that Bompard was lighting a fire +with the remains of the wood and, coming up, she helped in the business. + +He had arranged the little fire between pieces of rock so as to make a +stand for the kettle, and La Touche was opening the hermetically sealed +canister of tea with his knife; neither man was speaking and the meal +passed off almost in silence. + +She felt that any moment the quarrel might break out again and her +instinct was to get away from them. + +She had left the fisherman's knife and belt in her cave; she went to the +cave and strapped the belt around her waist. The boat hook was lying on +the sand; she picked it up and, carrying it, walked away down the beach +in the direction of the cache. + +The boat hook was a weapon of sorts and it was better out of the men's +way; the knife was different. It had come to her that in this place it +was better to be armed and she determined always to wear it. + +But no sounds of quarrelling followed her, only the quarrelling of the +gulls, and half a mile away, looking back, she saw that the men had +separated. La Touche was standing by the boat and Bompard was walking +towards the Lizard point. She sat down to rest for a moment and she +watched the figure of Bompard. It grew smaller and smaller till it +reached the point, then it vanished over the rocks. + +She saw La Touche walk away towards the caves; he disappeared, and the +beach, now destitute of life, lay sung to by the sea and flown over by +the gulls. Nothing speaking of man lay there but the boat that looked +like a toy cast there by a child. It held her eyes, focussed her +thoughts, and became the centre of a sudden longing, a desire soul +searching as the desire for water--the desire for civilization, for the +things and people that she knew. + +Her companions had become horrible to her. To go on living with them +seemed appalling. The rocks, the sea, the gulls, even the rain, all +these fitted with her mind--they seemed in some way familiar, but with +the men she had nothing in common. + +It is worse to be wrecked on a social state than on a desert shore. She +was wrecked on both. + +She recognised surely that at the rate things were going she would soon, +so far from being above her companions, be below them on account of her +weakness. She recognised that superiority of mind would count little +after a while with these minds, incapable of distinguishing grades, or +values, beyond money value and the distinction of master from man, and +that sex so far from being a protection would be a danger. + +Her brave mind allowed itself to be borne along for a while on these +currents of thought, then it reacted against them, repeating again the +old formula that to think, here, on other things than the moment and +the material was to die or go distraught. + +She got up and shifted her position, sitting with her back towards the +boat. + +She could see the penguins, now, drilling beneath the cliff and beyond +the penguins the figure-head of the ship and beyond that the fuming beach +with its snow storm of gulls. She was soon to see something that many +would travel a thousand miles to witness, but unconscious of what was +coming she sat watching the penguins, then with the boat hook point she +began scratching figures on the sand, but with difficulty, on account of +the length of the staff. + +Sitting like this her eyes were suddenly attracted seaward to a point in +the water beyond the line of the figure-head. Things were moving out +there, moving rapidly and drawing in-shore and now, riding an incoming +wave, like a half submerged canoe, she saw a dark elongated form. It +came shooting through the foam just like a beaching canoe and as it +dragged itself up the sand a sound like the far off roar of a lion came +echoing along the cliffs. + +She knew at once what it was, a sea elephant. Prince Selm had described +them and how they came ashore at Kerguelen to breed, journeying there +through thousands of miles of ocean and arriving in hundreds and +thousands at different points of the coast. + +This was the first of the great herd and, as she watched, more were +coming, breasting the waves and breaking from the foam and coming up the +beach like vast, rapidly-moving slugs. + +The sight held her fascinated. Every newcomer saluted the land with a +roar. They were the males; the females of the herd, still far out at sea +beyond the islands, would not land to give birth to their young for +another fortnight. + +She watched till perhaps two hundred had beached, then the invasion +ceased; there was no more roaring, and over the army of invaders, +lumping along hither and thither on the flat rocks, the sea-gulls flew +and screamed in anger or in welcome, who could say? + +Prince Selm had spoken of how the sea elephants fought together on +landing. He was wrong. The great, far-distant brutes instead of fighting +seemed resting and sunning themselves and the girl, rising up, came +along in their direction. She had forgotten Bompard and La Touche. + +She reached the river which was spating from the recent rains, but great +flat-topped rocks made it always possible to cross; she crossed it. + +The sea elephants were close to her now and seemed not in the least +disturbed by her presence, they lay here and there, vast brutes, twenty +feet in height, weighing tons, raising themselves occasionally on their +flippers and then sinking back to rest with a sigh of contentment. + +She measured them with her eye, noted the short trunks that seemed so +useless, the tusks, the old scar marks got in battle and the splendour +of their strength and mass and muscle. Like the land elephants there was +something about them terrible yet benign. + +She drew closer. As regarded animals of any good sort she had the +fearlessness of a child, the instinct that would have been terrified by +a reptile or anything truly ferocious however masked by fur or feather. +These things she felt to be absolutely harmless, as regarded herself, +and they were a million years closer to her than the penguins. + +The penguins had amused her, but for all their quaintness and politeness +they seemed as far apart from her as mechanical toys. Her heart had not +gone out to them with that love of living things which lies in the heart +of children, of women and most men. + +She drew closer still. The great brutes were now watching her +steadfastly, but seemingly without fear. She had left the boat hook +behind a mile away, dropping it because of its weight, and with the +exception of the knife in her belt she was unarmed. Perhaps they knew +this. Vague in their brains must have lain memories of great hurts when +they were the hunted and men the hunters; but this vision evidently +stored up no antagonistic feelings. Possibly they knew her sex and +possibly the instinct which never failed them told them that she was +friendly. + +Less than ten yards away from the nearest bull she sat down on a piece +of rock, and no sooner had she taken her seat than they seemed +immensely closer and her own position one of absolute helplessness. With +a sudden rush, moving with that swiftness with which she had seen them +moving on first landing, the bull could have reached her, but the bull +did not move, his lordship from the sea, filled with the absolute and +complete contentment of the male at rest, moved only his trunk, he +seemed sniffing her and the momentary fear that had seized her passed +utterly away. + +She could sniff him too. Just as cows fill the air with the fragrance of +milk the herd filled the place with the scent of fish and fur and a tang +of deep sea like the smell of beach, only sharper and fresher. + +Then, just as people talk to horses and dogs, leaning forward a bit she +began to talk to him. + +The effect of the sweet soothing voice was magical, and for a moment not +in the least soothing. The near bulls moved, evidently deeply disturbed +in their minds. The majority, including the biggest and nearest bull, +turned half away as if to get off, then turned again as if to renew +their astonishment. + +The girl laughed, the timidity of this vast force seemed to her less +timidity than masculine awkwardness, as though a number of heavy old +gentlemen, taking their ease in their club, were suddenly put to +confusion and flight by a female charmer appearing before them. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +WHERE IS BOMPARD? + + +When they had re-settled themselves she rose to go, nodded to them and +turned away towards the river. Then she looked back. The big bull was +following her and the rest of the herd were moving slightly in the same +direction. The bull paused when she turned, then, when she went on, he +continued following her, lazily and as if drawn by some gentle magnetic +attraction. + +Across the river she turned and waved her hand to them. Then she went +on. + +In some extraordinary way the creatures had made the place less lonely +and the wonder of them pursued her as she walked, keeping to the sand +patches where the rocks were and then striking along the great levels of +pure sand. + +Her feet did not hurt her and she was beginning to recognise that touch +with the world which comes to those who walk without boots, something +that humanity has all but forgotten, all but ceased to remember. + +As she drew near the caves she looked for the men, but the beach was +deserted. Then, looking into the men's cave, she saw La Touche lying on +his back asleep, his pipe beside him and his arm flung across his eyes. + +Where was Bompard? + +He ought to have been back by this, and as she turned and looked up and +down the beach a vague uneasiness came upon her. + +It was as if for the first time she had recognized the value of Bompard +in their small society. Bompard with his age and heaviness and patent +honesty, despite his stupidity, was a presence not to be despised. + +If La Touche had been another man she might have awakened him to make +enquiries. As it was, she preferred to let him lie. + +Bompard she had last seen crossing the rocks of the Lizard point. It was +there that she must look for him. + +She went to the cave where she had left her boots and put them on for +the climb. When she reached the point she found the work easier than she +had suspected. The rocks were not strewn at random, they were in reality +breaks off and tables of the basalt; the whole point was like a great +lizard that, creeping stealthily towards the sea, had been stricken into +rock. + +She climbed, and in five minutes was on the highest point with a new +view of the coast before her. It was like looking at Ferocity. Here the +rocks were broken and tumbled about, indeed, rocks, huge and spired like +churches, cliffs black and polished with the washing of the waves, +monoliths standing out in the blue-green water and all ringing and +singing to the chime of the sea. Inland, canons of night and shoulders +of dolerite and plains where nothing grew leading to great level +bastions, fortifications that seemed built by rule and plumb line, with +the markings of the basalt visible through the clear air. Basalt has +that terrible peculiarity. It seems the work of a hand, it makes castles +and fortifications whose ruled markings bear the inevitable suggestions +of masonry. + +And across all that not a sign of life save the wings of the tireless +birds, teal and duck, cormorants, and beyond the seaward rocks the great +sea geese fishing and the guillemots flighting and the white tern +darting like dragon-flies. + +Where was Bompard? + +Had he, by any chance, come back and taken some other road off the +beach? There was only one way: the break in the cliffs, beyond the +caves. She thought it highly improbable that he would have come back +only to leave the beach by another way, the descent from where she stood +and towards the bed country was quite easy, alluringly easy. No, he +would have gone on. + +She sat down to rest and watch. + +At any moment he might appear in the distance. From where she sat the +sea lay straight before her and the far off islands, to the left the +rock strewn coast, to the right the great curving beach. + +Behind her the country stormed away, stern, grey-grim and treeless, to +the foothills whose misty mauve lay stretched before the mountains. + +Every now and then she would turn towards the left searching the country +and cliffs with her eyes, but no form appeared. + +She remembered now that he had talked about sea birds' eggs and how to +get them. Might he have gone hunting for eggs over those cliffs and +fallen? + +She remembered also when the two men had come back from their expedition +inland they had brought an alarming story of a bog like a quick sand. La +Touche had blundered into it and he would have gone down only for his +companion. They had also said something about pot holes like shafts in +the basalt. She turned her mind away from these thoughts and passing her +fingers through her hair removed the comb which held it in a rough knot, +shaking it free to the sun and wind. She combed it with her fingers and +rearranged it and then looked again--nothing. + +It came to her suddenly that though she were to sit there forever the +vigil would be useless, that Bompard had gone--never to return. + +She reasoned with this feeling, and reason only increased her fears. It +was now noon, Bompard was not the man to go on a long expedition by +himself; he was too inactive and easy-going. No, something had happened +to him and he might at that moment be lying dead at the foot of some +cliff or he might have broken a leg and be lying at the foot of some +rock unable to move. + +She rose up and came swiftly down to the beach. Reaching the caves she +found La Touche opening a tin. It was dinner-time. + +"What has become of Bompard?" she asked. "Have you seen him since he +went off this morning over those rocks?" + +"Bompard," replied the other, "Mon Dieu! How do I know? No, I have not +seen him, he is big enough to take care of himself." + +"That may be," she replied, "but accidents happen no matter how big a +man may be. He has not returned--" + +"So it would seem," said La Touche, who had now got the tin open and was +turning the contents on to a plate. "But he will return when he +remembers that it is dinner-time." + +Her lips were dry with anger, there was a contained insolence in the +manner and voice of the other that roused her as much as his +callousness. His mind seemed as cold as his pale blue eyes. All her +mixed feelings towards him focussed suddenly into a point--she loathed +him; but she held herself in. + +"If he has not returned when we have finished dinner," said she, "we +will have to look for him." She took a plate and some of the beef he had +turned from the tin and with a couple of biscuits drew off and taking +her place outside in the sun began her wretched meal. A rabbit that had +run out on the sands sat up and looked at her as she ate, then it ran +off and as she followed it with her eyes she contrasted the little +friendly form with the form of La Touche, the dark innocent eyes with +those eyes of washed-out blue, without depth, or, perhaps, veiling +depth. + +When she had finished eating she put the plate by her side and sat +waiting for La Touche to make a movement. + +Bompard that morning had left his tinder box behind him in the cave, she +heard the strike of flint on steel. La Touche was lighting his pipe. She +waited ten minutes or more, then she came to the cave mouth. + +"Are you not coming to look for Bompard?" asked she. + +"I'll go when I choose," said he, "I don't want orders." + +"I gave you no orders," she replied, "I asked you, are you not coming to +look for Bompard who may be in difficulties, or lying perhaps with a +broken limb--and you sit there smoking your pipe. But I give you orders +now; get up and come and help to look for him. Get up at once." + +He sprang to his feet and came right out. It seemed to her that she had +never seen him before. This was the real La Touche. + +"One word more from you," he shouted, "and I'll show you who's master. +You! Talk to me, would you! A--woman more trouble than you're worth. Off +with you, get down the beach--clear!" + +He took a step forward with his right fist ready to strike, +open-handed. Then he drew back. She had whipped the knife from its +sheath. + +The boat hook, which she had brought back with her, was propped against +the cliff behind her and out of his reach, he had no weapon. + +She did not add a word to the threat of the knife. He stood like a fool, +unable to sustain her gaze, venomous, yet held, as a snake is held by a +man's grip. + +"Now," she said, "get on. Go search for your companion and if you dare +to speak to me again like that I will make you repent it. You thought I +was weak being a woman and alone. You were going to strike. Coward!--Get +on, go and search for your companion." + +He turned suddenly and walked off towards the Lizard rocks. "I'll go +where I choose," said he. + +It was a lame and impotent end of his rebellion, but she held no +delusions. This was only the beginning--if Bompard did not return. + +She put the knife in its sheath and then she put the boat hook away, +hiding it behind the sailcloth in her cave, then she went into the +men's cave. La Touche's clasp knife lay there on the sand, it was not +much of a weapon but she took it. She examined the dinner knives again. +They were almost useless as weapons. Then she came out. La Touche had +disappeared beyond the rocks and she came to the boat. There was nothing +here in the way of a weapon that he might use, unless the oars. They +were heavy, but he was strong. She determined to leave nothing to +chance and, carrying the oars down the beach to the break in the cliffs, +she hid them amongst some scrub bushes. Then she remembered the axe, +sought for it and hid it. + +Then she came back and sat down to reconsider matters. + +The position was as bad as could be. + +As bad as La Touche. Once let this man get the upper hand and she was +lost. She would be his slave and worse. She had measured him finely. +Instinct, never at fault, told her that to pull down anything above him +would be meat and drink to La Touche's true nature and that his hatred +of her superiority was deepened by the fact that she was a woman. + +Were she weak he would beat her and make her cook for him, trample on +her, make her his woman to fetch and carry, and, if Bompard did not come +back, she was here alone with him and would have to fight this thing +out. + +Well, she could not fight it by brooding over it, and she was not +helping to look for Bompard. + +She drew the knife from its sheath and held the eight inches of razor +sharp steel balanced in her hand for a moment as though admiring it. +Then she replaced it in the sheath and started towards the Lizard +Point. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE DEATH TRAPS + + +From the highest shoulder of the point she could see La Touche +clambering over the seaward rocks. + +He seemed more in search of shells and seaweed than of Bompard. Then, +climbing down, she reached the lower ground and struck off inland. If +she did not succeed in finding Bompard she would at least succeed in +avoiding La Touche. + +Right from the Lizard Point the plain stretched to higher ground which +marked the beginning of the sea cliffs, great rocks strewed the way and +the ground was torn by the beds of small water courses, depressions that +would suddenly become little rivers in the deluging rains; stunted +bushes huddled as if for shelter at the rock bases and the voice of the +sea came here, broken and mixing with the whisper of the bushes to the +wind. + +This place had once been a glacier bed, rounded boulders standing in +pools of water told that. + +A gull flying in from the sea and carrying a fish in its beak drew her +attention; it was being pursued by a larger gull. They were both of the +Burgomaster type, but the fish carrier was noticeable on account of the +intense blackness of its tail plumage. + +As they passed the fish dropped, fell on a patch of yellow ground just +in front of the girl, sank, and vanished. + +She stopped dead and drew back with a chill at her heart. Then she +picked up a stone and cast it on the patch of ground. It vanished even +more swiftly than the fish. + +It was one of the bogs the men had spoken of. They had described the +treacherous ground as white, this was yellowish and not very noticeable, +it was also death and another dozen steps would have led her into it. + +She advanced cautiously, reached the border line and kneeling down +pushed her hand into the yellow mud. It was like pushing it into a cold +slimy mouth. She could scarcely draw it out again, when she did the mud +was clinging to her hand like a yellow glove. + +She came back to one of the rock ponds and washed her hand, it was like +trying to get rid of treacle and, as she washed, she tried to fancy what +would have happened but for the gull, tried to picture herself being +slowly pulled down into that cold darkness and entombed there forever. + +Then, skirting the place of danger, she went on, cautiously, examining +carefully the ground before her. She had not gone ten yards when it +seemed to her that a patch right in front of her was ever so slightly +darker and moister looking than the ground she was treading. + +She picked up a stone and cast it on the patch. It vanished. Then she +knew the feeling of the man who finds himself ambuscaded. + +This place was a death trap, or, rather, a series of death traps, there +might be pits lying in wait for her quite unnoticeable. She turned and +began to retrace her steps, so shaken that she would not trust even the +ground that she had already covered but kept testing it by casting +stones before her. + +From a little distance an observer might have fancied her engaged in +some new sort of game. + +Near the safety of the Lizard rocks her eyes, closely scanning the +ground before her, caught sight of something. It was a half-burned +match. No one else but Bompard could have dropped that match. He had +started without his tinder-box, had evidently found that match in his +pocket, lit his pipe and walked on. There was only one direction in +which he would have walked unless he had struck inland, which was +improbable. He would have made as she had made to cross to the higher +ground. + +Even if he had walked inland he would not have escaped, for, casting her +eyes in that direction she could see yellow patches spreading between +the rocks. + +She knew now what had become of Bompard, and with lips dry as pumice +stone she began to climb till she reached the point where she had sat +that morning. If the mud had taken Bompard, had he cried out? If so, La +Touche would have heard his cries, for the caves were not so far from +the Lizard rocks. + +La Touche was nowhere to be seen, but she had no fear about him, or only +the fear that he would come back. Bompard was gone. Bompard was dead, +she knew it as though she had seen him engulfed, and she was here alone, +in this place, with La Touche. + +She put her hand to her side automatically to make sure that the knife +was there. Then she sat with her eyes fixed on the distant islands, +haze-purple in the light of the westering sun. + +The thought of the boat on the beach came to her with the idea that she +might launch it and escape, make for the islands and put all that sea +between herself and the man she hated. But she could not launch the boat +single-handed and, if she could, it would have been impossible to work +it single-handed with those big oars. + +She could see the boat from where she sat and the line of the beach +leading away past the seal-nursery and the sea elephant strand to the +rocks that formed the north-eastern horn of the bay. In stormy weather +those rocks would be invisible in the smoke of the breakers, to-day they +were clearly defined. She could see the great seals as they moved slowly +hither and thither and the ship's figure-head as it stood to this side +of them and, like a pin point of white the great white skull on the +sands, a desolate scene, but almost benign when compared to the savagery +of rocks and cliffs visible on her other side and that sinister plain, +where the death traps were set and waiting with the patience of +malignity for what might come to feed them. + +She had fought the human failing that makes men brood and trouble about +the future, a failing that is mostly born of houses and artificial life; +already the struggle against it was less. She was coming more and more +under that which has dominion over all things that live in the open and +have to fight for life--the moment. If she had examined her own mind she +would have found that the death of Bompard, of which she felt certain, +affected her far less than it would have done some days ago, that her +desire to escape to the islands was caused by the hatred of La Touche +more than by fear of the future with him. + +She would have found that her capacity for hatred had increased and also +her dangerous qualities, and she would have found all this because God +had so ordered life that it is adaptable, making the defensive and +offensive qualities of the being capable of increase or decrease in +answer to environment or need. + +She came back to the beach. It wanted, still, a couple of hours of +sun-down. There was no sign yet of La Touche, but, just as she knew in +her heart that Bompard was dead she knew that La Touche was all right. +He had been keeping to the rocks by the sea, leaving that aside; she +knew that he would come back. He was of the sort that remains unscathed +when the better man is taken. + +She had one dread; that La Touche might get the knife from her, throw it +away, and be master by his superior strength. + +She had his clasp knife in her pocket, but it was a thing of little +account in a struggle. Well, she must be on her guard. Then came the +thought: "But how can I be on my guard when I am asleep?" + +Nothing would be easier, if he were really in earnest, than for him to +creep upon her whilst she slept, and disarm her. + +She tried to dismiss this idea. La Touche was not crafty enough for that +and, besides, would he go to the lengths of a physical struggle? He had +been on the point of hitting her, it was true, but that was in a moment +of excitement. Was she not painting him in too desperate colours? + +Argue as she would on the question, reason, instinctive reason, always +came back with the same answer: "Be on your guard, that knife is the +only barrier between you and heaven knows what. Without it you would be +at the mercy of a superior force. La Touche is no melodramatic villain; +he is, what is perhaps worse for you, a creature of low instincts, +stronger than you. Beware of being at his mercy." + +With her mind filled by these thoughts she set to work getting supper +ready. La Touche had taken the tinder box with him, so a fire was out of +the question and she contented herself by laying out the beef that had +served for dinner, and some biscuits. + +Then she saw that she had only laid two plates. Working +half-unconsciously she had ruled Bompard out. She looked at the things +lying there on the sand, then she turned away from them. La Touche had +crossed the rocks and was coming along the beach. He was trailing a long +ribband of seaweed he had picked up and as he drew closer she saw that +he had left his ill-humor behind him. + +"There was no sight of Bompard," said he, "he has not come back, then?" + +"Bompard will not come back," replied the girl, "we will never see him +again." + +Then she told of the death traps beyond the rocks and of the match. + +La Touche listened, standing, and still holding the ribband of seaweed +in his fingers. + +She could see that he believed what she said and yet his words gave the +lie to what was in his face. + +"Oh, Bompard will come back all right," said he. "He's not such a fool +as to get into any of those bogs; he's sulking, that's all." + +He shaded his eyes, looking back towards the rocks as though on the +chance of seeing the missing one; then he sat down before his plate and +helped himself to food and the girl, loathing him and the food as well, +sat down and made a pretence of eating. + +She noticed that he was cheerful, for a wonder. He ate with good +appetite and shewed in his movements and manner and voice when he spoke +a restrained vivacity new to him. + +His blondness, the washed-out blue of his eyes, his features, his voice, +she considered all these anew as she sat opposite to him. It seemed to +her that anything truly manly about him had come from the sea; that +essentially he was a product of Mont Martre or the Banlieu of old Paris. +She loathed him now as only a woman can loathe a man and, woman-like, +her loathing focussed itself upon his blondness and the colour of his +eyes. + +Then, when she had done with the pretence of eating she rose up and, +leaving him to remove the things, walked down to the water's edge and +along towards the break in the cliffs. + +The tide was nearly out and the sea scarcely broke on the rocks; she had +never seen it calmer nor the islands closer. They seemed to have drawn +in shore during the last half hour and as she looked she saw a great +flock of gulls coming landward, and, as she turned to watch them, she +noticed the far-off mountain tops visible through the cliff break. They +were fuming. One might have fancied that fires had been lit all along +their tops and round the highest peak a turban of cloud was winding +itself, coil on coil. + +Then as she stood watching, and from away over, there came a rumble, +deep and cavernous, as if a gargantuan dray were being driven over +subterranean roads. It died out in echoes amongst the foothills and +the silence returned broken only by the wash of the sea on the beach. + +She turned towards the sea. It had altered suddenly in colour and from +away beyond the islands the wind was coming. She could see it, raking +the sea like a comb. Then it struck the beach and yelled away up the +break in the cliffs like a hunter in a hurry to get to the wild work +going on amidst the hills. + +She turned back towards the caves. + +La Touche had left the tin plates lying on the sand and the wind, which +seemed to possess a hundred fingers, was chasing them about. He was +trying to recapture them and as he brought them back he laughed. It was +the first time she had seen him laugh. Then as he stowed them away he +shewed a disposition towards intimacy and talkativeness. + +"That's what the winds are in this place," said he, "no wonder ships +steer clear of it." + +"I'm not thinking of the wind," said she, "I'm thinking of Bompard." + +"Oh, Bompard will come back all right," said he, "the grub's here and +that will bring him. Bompard will come back all right." + +"No," said she, "he will never come back and you know it." + +She turned away from him. Dusk was now falling and as she entered her +cave the wind from the sea suddenly fell dead. Almost immediately it +began to blow again, but now from the land and as though this land wind +were spreading a pall over the sky darkness fell suddenly and with the +darkness she could hear the rain coming with the sound she had heard +once before like the murmuring of a great top spun by a giant. + +Then the rain burst on the beach with a roar through which came the hiss +of the rain-swept sea. + +The sound was almost welcome. As she lay in the darkness it seemed like +a protecting wall between herself and La Touche. La Touche's ill-temper +would have disturbed her less than his cheerfulness and amiability, born +so suddenly and from no apparent reasons. She had determined not to +sleep and she had lain down fully dressed; even to the oilskin coat and +with her boots on; to-morrow she would go off and hide amongst the +bushes beyond the cliff break and get some sleep, but to-night she would +not close her eyes; so she told herself. + +She had taken the knife from its sheath and placed it beside her, her +hand rested on it. An hour passed, and now, as she lay listening to the +pouring of the rain her fingers felt the pattern of the hilt. The hilt +was striated cross-ways to give a better grip, and as her fingers +wandered up and down the strictions the cross bars of a ladder were +suggested to her. The steady pouring of the rain seemed to work on this +idea and make it more real. Then she was climbing a ladder set against +the cliffs. La Touche was holding it at the foot and Bompard was waiting +for her at the cliff top. He helped her up and then the dream changed +to something else, and to something else, till she woke suddenly to the +recognition that she had been asleep for a long time and that fear, +deadly fear, was clutching her by the throat. + +She sat up, leaning on her elbow. The rain was still falling, though the +sound of it was much less, and the blackness was so intense that it +seemed moulded round her. She felt for the knife and found it. Then she +lay down again, listening. + +The tide was coming in and she recognised, and not for the first time, a +curious singing, chanting echo that always accompanied the waves of the +incoming tide. + +Fear is reasonless, it is also Protean, and this sea voice coming +through the night turned the fear of La Touche to the fear of Bompard. +What if he were to return, cold and wet, from that terrible grave-yard +beyond the rocks? + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE STROKE + + +As she lay, listening, through the black darkness and the singing of the +sea came a faint sound as of something dragging itself along the sand at +the cave entrance. She clutched the knife and sat up. A waft of wind +brought with it a tang of stale tobacco and rain-wet clothes. It was La +Touche. + +She drew up her feet and sat crouched against the sailcloth, the knife +half-held in her lap, her fingers nerveless, her mind paralysed with the +knowledge that now, immediately, she would _have_ to fight, that the +Beast was all but upon her. She knew. + +She could hear him breathing now and the faint sound of his hands +feeling gently over the floor of the cave. He was searching for her, the +fume of him filled the place, he was almost in touch with her, yet still +she sat helpless as a little child, paralysed in the blackness, as a +bird before a crawling cat. Yet her right hand as though endowed with a +volition of its own was tightening its grasp upon the hilt of the knife. + +She had no longer reasoning power. Reasoning power and energy seemed +now in the possession of the knife. + +Then something touched her left boot and at the touch her hand struck +out into the darkness, blindly and furiously, driving the knife home to +the hilt in something that fell with a choking sound across her feet. +She forced her feet from the thing that had suddenly fallen on them, +rose, sprang across it and passed through the cave entrance with the +surety of a person moving in broad daylight. + +Then the pouring rain on her face brought her to her full senses and +recognition of what had happened. + +The knife was still in her hand and her hand was sticky and damp. + +She said to herself: "That is his blood." The thought that perhaps she +had killed him did not occur to her. The fear of him was still so +intense, that it made him alive, alive somewhere in the surrounding +darkness, and waiting to seize her. Then she began to steal off towards +the sound of the sea. Twice as she went she stopped and turned, ready to +strike again, then when the water was washing round her feet she came up +the beach a few paces and crouched down. + +The sea was at her back and the haunting dread of being followed +vanished. + +It was now that she asked herself the question: "Have I killed him?" +Meaning:--"Have I freed myself of him,"--hoping this was so. + +The terror behind her having vanished she was now brave. It seemed to +her that the sound of the sea had become sharper; then she realized that +the sound of the rain had ceased. Her mind seemed working in a dual +manner and she had not fully recognized the cessation of the rain till +the sound of the sea clinched the fact. + +Through the clear night now came the melancholy crying of the whale +birds, and through the broken clouds a ray of the moon shewed a faint +light in which the cliffs began to stand out. + +The incoming tide washed round her so that she had to move, it seemed +determined to drive her up to the caves. She could see now the whole +beach desolate of life and before her, vaguely sketched in the cliff +wall, the cave openings. + +She came along the sea edge till she reached the break in the cliffs, +then, looking behind her again to make sure, she took refuge in the +bushes. + +For the last few yards before reaching them she seemed wading through +tides of nothingness. In the shelter of the bushes she forgot +everything. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +ALONE + + +She was awakened by the light of day. Kerguelen had cleared its face of +clouds and the new risen sun was on sea and mountains and land. + +A whole family of rabbits were disporting themselves close to her in a +clear space between the bushes and as she sat up they darted off, a +glimpse of their cotton white tails shewing for a moment in the sun. + +She was stiff from the damp, her clothes were wet despite the oilskin +coat which she had left open, and her throat was sore, every bone ached +as though she had been beaten. Her soul felt sick. It was as though the +crawling beast of the night before had crawled over it like a slug, +poisoning it. The knife lay beside her; she picked it up and looked at +it; there were red traces upon the hilt and the lines in the palm of her +right hand were red. She rubbed it clean with the damp leaves of the +bushes, then she stood up, shaking and weak, heedless of everything but +the friendly touch of the sun. Her fear was gone, but the effect of it +remained in a sense of bruising and injury. + +Out on the beach there was nothing, nothing but the breaking sea and the +flying gulls and lines of long legged gulls stalking or standing on the +sands, the 'get-away--get-away' of the kittiwakes came across the water +and the barking of brent geese from beyond the rocks of the Lizard +Point. The boat lay there on its side, everything was the same. + +She drew towards the caves. Nothing stirred there. Then she halted and, +changing her course, came right down to the water's edge. From here she +could see the three cave mouths dark cut in the cliff. She watched them +for a moment as though expecting something to appear, then she came up +towards them, walking more cautiously as she drew near, just as she had +walked on the plain where the death traps were. + +The light shone into the cave where she had slept. She saw a naked foot +with toes dug into the sand and beyond the foot a form lying on its +side. + +Then she drew back with a cry; something was moving there. A rabbit +dashed out of the cave and scuttered away along the cliff base. Then she +knew. + +La Touche was dead, he would never crawl again. She had killed him. She +cast the knife on the sand and wiped the palm of her hand on her dress +half unconsciously, gazing at the foot. + +The terror of him had burned away anything in her mind that might have +fed remorse. She had not killed him consciously. Searching her memory +she could vaguely recollect having struck out against something +appalling in the darkness. Now she knew and guessed all, and she could +have hated him only that death kills hatred. + +She came to the mouth of the men's cave and sat down in the sun, the +soreness of her throat, the weariness of her very bones, the feel of her +horrible wet clothes, all these filled her with a craving for the sun +and its warmth and light, fierce as the craving for drink. She spread +out her hands to it, then, with shaking fingers she began to take off +her clothes. They clung to her like evil things. Had this been a day of +pouring rain she might just have lain down and died. + +Without getting up, and leaning on her elbow, she spread out the skirt +and coat and other things on the sand beside her, then she stretched her +aching limbs to the warmth. + +The wind had fallen to almost a dead calm, and as she lay she saw little +rabbits stealing out to play in the sunshine on the sands. She watched +them running in circles like things on wheels and moving by clockwork. +Then she closed her eyes, but still she saw them circling, circling, +circling. + +Then she was in the toy department of the Magazin du Louvre and a +shop-woman was shewing her toy rabbits that ran in circles, five francs +each. + +She awoke at noon; the sore throat was gone, her bones no longer ached +and the great beach lay under the heat of noon, humming like a +stretched string to the touch of the sea. + +Her left arm and side and thigh were scorched by the sun, but that was +nothing; the sense of illness was gone, and her mind, quite clear and +renewed, had regained its balance. + +She remembered everything. La Touche was lying there in the cave, dead. +The knife that had killed him she could see lying on the sand where she +had dropped it; she had killed him. All these monstrous facts seemed +old, settled and done with and of little more interest than the things +and events of a year ago. + +What seemed new was the beach and its desolation--its emptiness. It was +as though a crowd of people had suddenly vanished from it; a crowd that +any moment might return. The place seemed waiting and watching. + +She cast her eyes towards the rocks of the Lizard Point and then towards +the cave mouth; then hurriedly she began to put on her clothes, now dry +and warm, and having dressed she stood for a moment again looking about +her. + +She could see the penguins in the distance going through their endless +evolutions, and the rhythmical sound of the sea came from near and far +mixed with the chanting and crying of the gulls. At any moment Bompard +might appear labouring over those rocks, at any moment La Touche might +step from the cave where he lay. That is what the beach told her, though +she knew that the forms of the two men would appear no more; that she +was here alone, utterly alone. + +She took shelter from the sun in the men's cave. Bompard's tinder box +was lying on the sand and half a box of Swedish matches. The men's +blankets were tossed in a corner and the provisions and utensils were in +their proper place. On a plate by the bags of biscuits lay the remains +of the beef from last night's supper; she took it and ate it with a +biscuit, sitting on the floor of the cave and staring before her out at +the strip of beach where the boat lay on its side with the sea breaking +beyond. + +On the day the men had gone off inland on their expedition she had +terrified herself with fancies of what it would be like were she to find +herself here alone. Her imagination had gone far from the reality. + +The thing had happened; the men were gone, gone forever, yet she was not +alone. They filled the place by their absence far more than they had +filled it by their presence. + +The louder cry of a gull outside seemed hailing Bompard, the rustle of a +rabbit on the sands seemed the coming of La Touche, the sound of the sea +spoke of them, the boat seemed only waiting for them to launch it. They, +whom a million years would not bring back. + +She felt neither regret for the fate of La Touche nor sorrow for the +fate of Bompard, all that seemed unreal, just as the darkness and terror +of the night before seemed unreal. The real thing that touched her +through everything was Expectancy. Expectancy, ghostly and attenuated, +yet ubiquitous. + +It brought her to the cave mouth before she had finished her meal. The +beach seemed to say to her: "Come out and look!" and she came out and +looked, and the line of foam and the wheeling or stalking gulls held her +for a moment as though saying--a moment, a moment more and you will see +something. They will come. Any moment now you may see Bompard crossing +the rocks. La Touche is not in that cave, he is here, everywhere. + +She came back into the cave and sat down and finished her meal, the food +had renewed her strength and with renewed strength her indifference to +all that had happened began to pass. + +She had killed La Touche. The reality of that fact was coming home to +her now; she did not reason in the least on the matter saying he +deserved to be killed, that had all been settled long ago in her mind, +but the fact that she had killed him was standing strongly out before +her, also the facts that he was dead and lying quite close to her and +that though she did not mind his dead body she was beginning to dread +something else. + +Dead, he was beginning to frighten her just as he had frightened her +when living. Then she found that it was just the same with Bompard. He +was frightening her too. + +Suppose one or the other were to peep in at her, and nod at her--she +pictured it and then crushed the picture in her mind and got up and came +out again and stood in the sun. + +Then she came down to the boat and stood with her hand on the gunnel, +and, for a moment as she stood thus, the terror of utter loneliness came +to her in a hundred tongues and ways, and always with reference to the +men who had vanished. + +It was impossible to stay here alone--alone--absolutely alone; like a +frightened child her mind appealed against this terror; it climbed the +vacant skies and passed over the desolate hills in search of comfort. +Was there a God? To whom could she run for comfort, for escape--? + +As if in answer to her wild but unspoken question came a far-off roar +brought on the wind from the great seal beach. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +FRIENDS IN DESOLATION + + +She turned her face that way and stood for a moment with the faint +breeze blowing her hair. Then she came running up the beach to the +caves. In the men's cave she stood glancing rapidly about her like a +person in a burning house seeking what he may save. + +She picked up the tinder box and the box of matches and put them in her +pocket. Then she began to remove everything from the cave. Making a sack +of one of the blankets, she filled it with as much as she could drag +along and brought it to the break in the cliffs where she dumped the +contents. + +It took her three journeys. Then, having collected everything in a big +pile, she sat down for a moment to rest. The things would be safe here +till she could fetch them to her new home, and the weather would not +hurt them, except, maybe, the biscuits. + +The thought of the biscuits troubled her, and the picture of them lying +exposed in one of the torrential rains. Then she caught sight of a cleft +in the basalt. It was dry and big enough to contain the bags and she +placed them there having taken out some of their contents. + +These and a couple of tins of meat she placed in one of the blankets, +making a sack of it. Then she remembered the knife she had left lying on +the sand before the cave where the dead man lay. + +She fought against the idea of returning for it. Then her will made her +go. + +As she picked up the knife she glanced once again into the cave and once +again caught a glimpse of the naked foot with the toe dug into the sand; +then, placing the knife in its sheath and running like a frightened +child she reached the break, caught up the sack, the extra blanket and +the axe, which she had hidden among the bushes, and started. + +It was not a heavy load, fortunately. Had it been heavy she would have +dropped it, for, once moving, she had to run. The idea that she was +deserting people who did not want to be deserted pursued her; now and +again she stopped and turned for a moment--nothing; the Lizard rocks lay +just the same and the beach and the forsaken boat, just the same, and +the jeering gulls; yet, when she turned again to go on she had to run. + +Near the great skull her right bootlace, getting loose, nearly tripped +her. She sat down and tied it and then went on, walking now, but +swiftly, till, nearing the river and in full sight of her new +companions, she found herself suddenly free. + +The hounds of Fear had given up the chase. The great sea elephants had +driven them away. Here was no longer loneliness. + +The great beasts sunning themselves on the flat rocks seemed more +numerous and, as she crossed the river, a monster coming in from the sea +in a thunder of foam saluted the land with a roar. + +She recognized, or thought she recognized, the great bull that had +followed her, he was lying, to-day, half-tilted to one side, he looked +drunk with sun and laziness and as she came amongst them and sat down, +as she had sat that day, she found that though a hundred pairs of eyes +were watching her, scarcely a burly figure moved. + +They had grown used to her, perhaps, or perhaps they recognized that she +did not fear them now in the least, or that she had come for refuge and +friendship. + +Then she rose up and passing amongst them as a friend amongst friends +came towards the caves in the basalt cliffs. They were smaller than the +caves to the west but they were dry and free from water drip. She chose +one and put her bundle down with the axe beside it. + + + + +PART III + +CHAPTER XVIII + +GOD MADE FRIENDSHIP + + +The place was as populous as a town. That was the soul-satisfying fact +which she absorbed as she sat with the bundle and axe beside her. To be +lonely here one would have to be deaf and blind and without the sense of +smell. Now that their attention was no longer strained by watching her +the great brutes filled the place with all sorts of sounds, grunts and +grumbles, puffs and snorts like the escape of steam from a locomotive +and now and then the flop of a great body changing position. There was +another sound she got to know and recognize, after a while, the +grumbling and rumbling of their interiors. Infested with sea-lice they +were always scratching. Quite close to the cave mouth three great bulls +were lying and every now and then one of them would turn and twist round +and scratch himself with his flippers, the nearest bull had lost an eye +in some past battle and they were all scarred about the necks, and seen +close like this, in their natural state and as one of their company, the +marvel of them, was beyond speaking. + +She took off the oilskin coat and laid it on the sand of the cave, took +the things from the blanket and spread the two blankets out and folded +them. As she moved about she saw that the bulls had turned slightly, +attracted by her movements, but they shewed not the slightest sign of +mind disturbance. Then, having placed the things in order, she came out +and walked down to the water's edge, making a detour now and then to +avoid treading on the flippers or the tail of a monster. On coming +amongst them a few minutes ago she had felt not the slightest fear, but +this walk in cold blood from the cliff to the sea edge made her hold her +breath. She felt as she had felt that first day when she sat down close +to them. Angry, and with a sudden movement, one of these creatures could +have destroyed her as a man destroys a fly; but she held on, and was +rewarded. + +Not one of them shewed any wish to destroy her, or anger, or uneasiness. +They had accepted her into their company by not attacking or ejecting +her, she ran counter to none of their desires or needs and evidently her +form called up no recollections of the beast Man in their dim brains. + +Then she was a female. Sex is more than a physical difference between +one being and another, one can fancy it as one of the outstanding signs +of the Wild to be read by instinct, as instinct reads the weather or +season signs, or the sea mile posts that lead the seals and sea +elephants thousands of leagues to strike some particular beach as an +arrow strikes the bull's eye of a target. + +The female, unless with young, is not dangerous to the male. One may +fancy that amongst the few but burningly important warnings and +directions in the book of Instinct. + +Here, at the sea edge and within a few feet of the breaking waves, she +sat down on a projecting rock and tried to measure with her eye the vast +herd. The whole beach from where she sat to where the flat rocks ceased +a mile and a half away on her right was spotted with them and she +noticed that here and there they were always putting out to sea and +coming ashore again. + +Making for a spot on the right, a hundred yards from her she saw one +coming ashore, swift as an arrow, steering with straight steadfast eyes +and landing with the water cascading from his huge shoulders, whilst on +the left one was putting out to sea in a burst of foam. + +Then, of a sudden, all the shore edge bulls got in commotion slithering +about, raising themselves on their flippers and blowing off steam. + +A sea elephant was coming towards the beach, moving with a speed thrice +that of any of the others, his head was raised and she could see the +eyes that seemed blazing with wrath or challenge. + +Then, as he came thundering on to the rocks, he lifted the echoes with a +roar that resounded for miles along the beach. + +All the others had landed in silence. + +She did not know that this was a newcomer, a belated bull, held days +behind the arrival of the others by some chance of the sea. Maybe he +had hung fishing off the South Shetlands or the Horn, or beached for +repairs after some sea fight off the Falklands; whatever had held him he +was late. + +He came swiftly up the rocks, casting his head from side to side but +unchallenged. There were no females there yet to fight for and they +evidently recognized him as one of the herd and not a stranger. The herd +instinct, without which a nation would be a mob, ruled here and gave the +belated one his place, and after a while of squattering about and +sniffing and blowing he settled down with quieted eyes to rest. He had +reached one of the stopping stages of his life, with the surety with +which he would reach the last, on some desolate beach or reef of the +sea. + +The girl watched him. Not only did these new-found companions chase away +loneliness and ghostly fears, but they brought her comfort. They seemed +so sure, sure of food and life and the right to live, so undisturbed; it +was as though she felt the presence of the ghostly shepherd who looks +after the flocks of sea and land and who counts even the sparrows. She +cast her eyes towards the islands and the sea-line; some day a ship would +come and all this would be a dream of the past. She knew it. Her mind +went back over all that she had been saved from--the wreck, the +deathtraps and worst of all--La Touche. It was strange to think that a +man should be worse than the others. + +If that fisherman's knife had not been included in the gear of the boat! + +It was now, as she sat thinking this and watching the huge harmless +things around her, that a hatred of La Touche came into her mind, a +hatred that seemed to have been waiting to enter until her mind was at +rest. He seemed to her evil itself. He seemed to her connected with all +the disasters that had happened and part of them. He had been the +lookout on the _Gaston de Paris_, his quarrel had sent Bompard to his +death, he had nearly unhinged her mind with terror. Had he possessed the +evil eye? Then, for the first time, she recalled her premonition of +disaster, yet, how she had refused to let the yacht be put off its +course. They might now have been at New Amsterdam only for that. Yet it +was not her fault. She had refused to alter the course, not for any +selfish reason, quite the reverse, she had refused because she did not +wish to spoil the plans of her host. It was Fate, not blind Fate, +because the premonition was full sighted, it was Fate obeying some +order. And it seemed to her that she could read in the order that she +was to be saved. Why? God only knew, but so she read the facts, and she +would be saved to the end and go back to the life she knew, or had known +and die, perhaps, at last an old, old woman. + +It seemed to her that this coming on to the sea elephant beach was a +stage in her great journey that had brought her definitely nearer to the +end of her loneliness. And whether all this were true knowledge or +whether it was only the fancy of the ego its effect was to give her +peace. + +Then, as she sat there the strangest lonely figure on earth, she +explored the pocket of her skirt and took the things from it. La +Touche's knife, her rings knotted up in her handkerchief, the tobacco +box of Captain Slocum, the tinder-box and box of matches. Then she +opened the tobacco box and re-read the purple writing with the tag "keep +up your spirits." She could not visualize the old slab-sided whaling +captain who had scrawled that, inspired no doubt by practical knowledge +of disaster and the horrors of Kerguelen, but the message came now as an +additional comfort, it seemed to her written by a hand other than that +of man. She put the paper back in the box and, then, everything back in +her pocket. + +Then, like a stroke of humour, an incident occurred to lighten the whole +beach. + +A big platoon of penguins had crossed the river and marched up to the +sacred precincts of the seal beach. Turning her head to see what the +disturbance was about she sighted the penguins just at the end of their +march and three bulls fronting them. The penguins wished to pass, either +from impudence or a real desire to cross the beach, but the bulls barred +the way, heading them off, turning and twisting, snorting as if to blow +the feathered ones away. + +The penguins bowed and scraped and explained, but the bulls, blind to +politeness and deaf to argument only presented their heads, then they +raised their rumps and made a half charge. The girl watched the penguins +going at the double with heads slewed round as though fearful of their +tails. Then she laughed. + +The sea elephants had not only made her able to laugh, they had given +her something to laugh over. Then came the thought: why had they refused +the penguins and accepted her? + +She did not know that the penguins were rival fishermen, she fancied +that the sea elephants were somehow friendly to her, divining her +friendship for them, and maybe she was right, though not perhaps in the +way she fancied, for when God made friendship He made it out of queer +and sometimes negative materials. + +That night as she lay in her cave with a rolled-up blanket for pillow +and the other blanket for covering, neither Ghosts nor Loneliness came +to trouble her. + +Two great bulls a few yards from the cave's mouth kept her warm and +comfortable of mind. + +She could hear their puffs and grunts and the occasional wobble-wobble +of their digestive organs as they slept, dreaming maybe in their sleep, +for sometimes they tossed and moved, and once one of them gave a "woof" +as though trying to roar under the blanket of sleep. + +She thought of dogs lying asleep; dogs dreamed and hunted in their +dreams, why should not these? + +Then suddenly the rain came down as though someone had pulled the +string of a shower bath, but she knew that would not drive them away, +guessing that rain to sea elephants was no more disturbing than sun to +peaches. + +Then she was chasing penguins along the beach, riding on a sea elephant +towards that absolute oblivion which is the brand of sleep they serve at +Kerguelen. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE BIRDS + + +It rained off and on for three days, but rain in Kerguelen is not the +same as rain in England, just as rain at Windmere is not the same as +rain at Birmingham. It does not depress, especially when you are busy. +In those three days she made three journeys to the break in the cliffs +to recover the things she had left there and she made her journeys, not +to put too fine a point on it, with nothing on but the oilskin coat, the +blanket she used for a sack got hopelessly soaked and her head was +exposed to the rain owing to the fact that the sou'wester was in the +cave where the dead man lay, but she got used to it, especially as +neuralgia and colds are unknown in Kerguelen. + +The loss of her only towel, the lump of cotton waste, was far worse than +the loss of the sou'wester and would have been worse still only that she +had other things to think about, especially on these journeys. They were +terrible and required all her fortitude to make them, and they were +terrible for a new reason. The birds had got at La Touche. Great +predatory birds like cormorants thronged the beach opposite the cave, +she could see them going in and out of the cave and she could hear them +quarrelling in there in the darkness. + +Then, on her last journey, as she was preparing to come back, happening +to glance that way she saw a gull like a Burgomaster coming out of the +cave mouth and pulling after it something long like a rope upon which +the other gulls flung themselves. She turned and ran. + +She had saved everything but one full bag of biscuits; she determined to +leave them. If worst came to the worst there was bread stuff in the +cache. + +That night the memory of what she had seen haunted her sleep. It was as +though La Touche, unable to get at her in the material world was +determined to torment her in the imaginary. + +She lay awake listening to the whale birds crying and the divers mewing +and quarrelling like cats, then, dropping asleep, she was awakened at +dawn by a new sound. Outside on the beach she heard a moaning like the +voice of someone in pain. + +She raised herself on her elbow. It was a human voice without any manner +of doubt. It ceased, and springing to her feet she came out. But there +was no human being on the beach, nothing but the bulky forms of the +great sea bulls, and quite close to the cave a smaller form, a female +that had landed during the night and had just given birth to a baby, a +thing like a slug which she was fondling with her flippers. + +Then in the strengthening light the girl could make out here and there +on the beach the forms of other females, and by noon that day there were +hundreds and hundreds, and on the next day the beach was one vast +nursery. It was the first great act in the life history of these sea +people towards which the girl's heart was going out more and more, and +as she sat that day watching the mothers and their babies, and the great +old bulls shuffling about like heavy fathers, sometimes she would smile +and sometimes, sitting and watching, her mind would wander away lost and +trying to grapple with the great mystery of which all this was only a +part. + +They were so human, so warm to the heart, and yet only a few days ago +there was nothing here but the rocks and the cold and trackless sea. +Then she noticed that to-day the bulls were not sunning themselves +lazily, although the sun was out. They seemed disturbed, moving about +aimlessly, lifting themselves on their flippers and now and then raising +their short trunks. + +Sometimes a female would make as if to get back to the sea but she was +always headed off by a bull. + +When dusk fell it seemed that the sentries were doubled, to judge by the +noise of the flopping and moving about. The girl came to the cave +entrance and looked, and lo and behold! every bull had cleared down +towards the sea edge. She could see them stretching away into the dim +distance, a hedge of vast forms broken and moving here and there, but +always restored. + +She thought that this line of defence was to keep the females back from +the water, yet there seemed more than mere precaution at the bottom of +the general disturbance that filled the beach. Then as she lay awake she +could hear now and then a distant roar and once a big bull only a few +hundred yards from the cave took it into his head to give tongue with a +blast like the first deep "woof" of a siren, then came another sound +quite close to the cave entrance, a sound like the broken lapping of +ripples, interrupted by movements and little snorts and sighs. It was a +baby seal sucking away at the teats of its mother. The pair was just +outside the cave. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +VAE VICTIS + + +A Howling wind that rose at midnight carrying niagaras of rain oversea +from the mountains sank at dawn leaving a clear sky and a falling sea. + +As she came out into the early morning light she could see boosts of +spray all along the rocks, but by the time she had tidied things up and +finished her breakfast these had vanished and the water was coming in, +rolling lazily, and the sounds of the breakers came sleepy and evenly +spaced as though ruled by a metronome. + +The bulls no longer lined the shore, though keeping close to the water +they had broken up into groups, yet still the sense of disturbance was +there pervading the beach like an atmosphere. + +The tide was just turning back from the flood, and as she stood watching +she noticed the curious fact that not a single bull was taking to the +water; ordinarily, here and there along the rocks, there was always some +monster taking a header, some vast bulk beaching in a potter of foam. +This morning there was nothing of this sort. + +Picking her way between the mothers and their babies she came down to +the sea edge, choosing a broad space left vacant because of the bad +landing conditions. The rocks here were higher, forming a miniature +cliff some four or five feet in height and from this point looking +seaward something caught her eye. + +Three black objects moving in a line were making a long ripple on the +swell. They were the heads of three sea elephants moving like one. Then +the line became the segment of a circle bending in shore. But the +swimmers were not going to land; they kept parallel to the rocks and a +few hundred yards out, and as they passed she could see clearly the +great heads and sometimes the massive shoulders rising and washing away +the water and the eyes, as the heads swung now and then shorewards, +wicked eyes that seemed to blaze with the light of anger or battle. + +She was not alone in observing them. They had been spotted by a +trumpet-voiced sentry and instantly the whole place was in commotion. +The air split with a roar that passed along from section to section of +the beach whilst the cliffs resounded and a thousand sea-gulls rose as +if from nowhere, crying, cat-calling and making a snowstorm in the +sunlight. + +On the roar and as if destroyed by it the three heads vanished. + +Then, far out, they reappeared, only to dive again, leaving the sea +blank, but for a school of porpoises passing along on their quiet +business a mile away towards the east. + +The girl sat watching. There was something in all this of greater import +than the appearance of three swimming sea elephants. The beach told her +that. Not a bull in all that vast herd but was in motion, either helping +to crowd the females back towards the cliffs or patrolling the rocks. +She could see them here and there rising up on their hind-quarters as +though to get a better view of the sea. They reminded her of dogs +begging for biscuits. Then, turning her eyes seaward again she saw a +black spot; it was a moving head. Then another broke the surface and +another, till in a moment, and for a mile-long stretch, hundreds of +heads appeared, all driving shorewards and then dipping and vanishing +only to reappear still closer in and closing on the beach with the +swiftness of destroyers. + +Then she knew, and, springing up, turned to run; but her retreat was cut +off towards the caves by the females herded up and, before she could +collect her thoughts, the army of invasion was flinging itself from the +water, and the whole sea beach from end to end was filled with the +thunder of battle. + +For days the lone bulls had been cruising at sea waiting and watching +till all the females were on shore under guard of their husbands. So it +happened every year as now, ending in a battle for the possession of +wives, a battle waged without quarter and with a fury whose sound +reached the echoes of the hills. + +Safe on the little rock plateau she watched the thunderous onslaught, +frightened and then terrified and crying out. + +The invaders drove in from the sea like the sweep of a curved sword. +They struck the beach first a mile away and the battle ran towards her +like fire along tinder, boomed towards her ever loudening till it broke +to right and left where the sea bulls flung themselves on the rocks and +the land bulls charged the on-comers like battering rams. Some were +hurled back, only to return again, others held their ground. Then the +real business began whilst the ground trembled and the air shook and the +rocks poured blood. + +Round her, and for a mile away, they fought like rams and they fought +like dogs and they fought like tigers, and over the roaring siren sounds +of the fight the gulls flew like the fume of it, screaming and swooping +and circling in spirals, and through everything like the continuous +thud-thud of a propeller came the dunch of tons of flesh meeting tons of +flesh head on, shoulder on, or side on. + +She saw bulls ripped beyond belief, with shoulders slashed as if by the +down strokes of a sword, yet still fighting as though untouched, with +rumps raised and tails up and teeth in the necks of their enemies, one +had his eye torn out, yet tremendous and victorious he was literally +punching his antagonist back into the sea. + +The foam broke red and suddy; she saw that, just as she had seen the +name of the _Albatross_ in the tremendous moment of the great ship's +eclipse, and, just as the name, the red breaking foam seemed to +concentrate in itself the whole terror of the business. + +Then, standing like a person helpless in a dream during the full hour +that the battle raged, she saw the females break bounds and spread over +the rocks carrying or pushing their young as if to get closer to the +fight, and then she saw the battle beginning to break. Here and there +bulls beaten and done for were taking to the sea and over all the beach +the fight had spread inwards towards the cliffs. The sea bulls were +beating the land bulls as a whole, interpenetrating them, getting closer +to the females, herding the vanquished out. + +And she saw, now, as though a curtain had been raised, that the whole +great battle was between individuals. + +The bulls fresh from the sea though attacking _en masse_ were under the +dominion of no enmity in common, each had come to find a rival and +having found him had no eyes for anything else. Nor having once +conquered did he pursue. + +Another, and a wonderful thing, shewed up: the females had grouped +themselves as if to be taken, and now on the clearing beach could be +seen family parties, some under the dominion of their new lords and +masters, some still being fought for. + +So it hung, dwindling little by little till at last only two warriors +were left like the last-blazing point of the fight. + +They were the biggest of the two herds; they looked as though they had +been rolled in gore and they seemed equally furious and equally +exhausted. All their rage was in their eyes. Too beaten to bite they +could only boost one against another like two schoolboys trying to push +one another off a form. + +It seemed a miserable and tame ending of their tremendous struggle and +she recognized, or thought she recognized, that the biggest of them was +the bull who had followed her that day like a dog towards the river. + +This shouldering and pushing was his last effort to hold to his wife and +family. In war it is the last step that counts, could he make it? Then a +strange thing happened. The two monsters paused in their pushing, +relaxed, and seemed for a moment to forget the existence of one another. +That tremendous weariness lasted for a minute and then they woke up and +the biggest bull began to shuffle off to the sea. + +His heart or his mind had failed him. The closer he got to the water's +edge the swifter he moved and the plunge of his body into the water was +the last sound of that battle. + +Not a corpse lay on the beach, nothing but the victorious lords and +their ladies, and the lords seemed to pay as little attention to their +ghastly wounds as they did to their old or newly got wives, who, now +that peace was restored, were busy suckling their young. + +A queer people, humorous and terrifying, making the girl feel that she +had placed her hand on something likeable, almost lovable, that had yet, +of a sudden, nearly frightened her to death. + +She sat recovering herself and helped by the regiment of penguins who +marched up to the seal beach and, knowing better than to attempt to +cross it, stood bowing to the world in general and talking one to the +other perhaps on the horrors of war. + + + + +PART IV + +CHAPTER XXI + +TIME PASSES + + +It is not good to be alone. As the weeks passed she began to lose and +forget the feeling of surety in rescue and at times, now, she found +herself talking out loud, putting what was in her mind into speech as +though a companion were by, and sometimes she would hear a voice +hallooing to her and start and cast her eyes over the desolate beach +only to see the gulls. + +The beach was always haunted by queer noises; the chanting sound of the +waves coming in, a faint sound like the beating of a drum at very low +tide, to say nothing of the booming of bitterns and the barking of brent +geese and the hundred voices of the wind. She would listen and listen, +her mind wandering aimlessly, and in the great rains, when the whole sea +was shut out by the downpour, the noise would lull her like opium. + +The baby sea elephants lost their long black coats and put on their +suits of fine yellow fur and took themselves to the nursery by the +river, where all day long they played and tumbled and swam, and then she +would sit and watch them like a mother watching her children. + +The great battle of the bulls seemed like something far away beyond +which other things were becoming vague. Something that was not meant to +be seen so close by human eyes, something that had pushed her still +further from man. + +It was full summer now, the season of tremendous sunsets and when the +sky was clear, vast conflagrations lit themselves beyond the Lizard +Point painting the islands and purpling the skies, and one evening as +she sat in the western blaze watching the moving beach and listening to +the playing and quarrelling of the nursery a voice said to her: + +"Some day all these will take to the sea and leave you. There will be +nothing here but the rocks and the sea." + +It was as though the sunset had spoken. + +The thought aroused her as a knock on the door arouses a sleeper. +Fighting against it her mind became more fully awake. She said to +herself: "If they go I will go too." + +For a long time now she had lived without hot food or drink. On coming +here first she had cut some wood from the figure-head to make a fire, +but it was damp, just damp enough to prevent it from kindling, so she +had let things go as women do in the matter of food when they have not +any one else to feed; she had burrowed into the cache and got at some of +the tins of vegetables and on these and biscuits and tinned meat she +made out, eating less and less as time went on. + +It is bad to be alone, even with sea elephants to ward off fears, even +with provisions enough for a year and a cave to shelter one. + +She had never given in. She had fought the future and refused to be +frightened by it, she had worked for life and taken refuge in the +moment, and now the moment was taking its revenge for being too much +lived in. + +To eat was almost too much trouble and presently the seal nursery became +too long a walk and the little sea elephants at play had lost their +power to interest her. Sleep began to take the place of food and +sometimes, and for no reason, she would weep like a child. + +The food she ate sometimes seemed to poison her, bringing on vomiting +and dysentery, and it poisoned her because her stomach failed to digest +it. + +She was being poisoned, poisoned by loneliness. Had her stomach not +failed her mind would have given, as it was the weakness of malnutrition +saved her reason as it slowly destroyed her hold on life. + +Her dreams became sometimes more vivid than reality and they always held +her to the beach where she watched without terror battles between +monstrous sea elephants and processions of penguins infinite in length, +penguins that passed her bowing, bowing, bowing till she woke in the +dark with the palms of her hands dry and burning and her lips like +pumice stone and her tongue feeling hard like the tongue of a parrot, +but the worst experience of all was a shock that came nearly every time +she lay down at night and just before sleep took her. + +It seemed like the blow of a fist, a fist that hit her everywhere, +making her start and draw up her legs and cry out. + +All this, perhaps, was what she had foreseen when long ago she had +watched a great ship that had told her of Desolation--and something +worse. + +This was what no one had ever imagined in connection with Desolation. +Its power to kill with its own hand. To gently destroy, sucking the +vitality like a vampire and fanning the victim to dullness with its +wings. + +The sea elephants might have noticed that the female creature to whom +they had grown so accustomed appeared little now, a shrinking vision +that every day shortened its wanderings; that it walked differently, +that it seemed more bent. But the sea elephants knew nothing of +Loneliness or its works, nor did they notice, one morning, that though +the sun was shining the figure did not appear at all. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +A NEWCOMER + + +One morning, brilliant, with the deceptive brilliancy of Kerguelen, a +big man, rough and red-bearded and carrying a bundle slung over his +shoulder, stood on the rocks that formed the eastern point of the great +beach; the sun was at his back and before him lay the seven mile stretch +of sand and rock leading to the far-off Lizard Point. + +He was over six feet in height but so strongly built that he scarcely +looked his inches. He was a sailor. The gulls might have told that by +the way he stood, and his eyes, accustomed to roving over vast spaces, +swept the beach before him from end to end, took in the sea elephants +moving like slugs and the seal-nursery and the river and the sands +beyond and the Lizard Point crawling out to sea beyond the sands. + +Then he cast his eyes inland. + +He wanted to get to the west and he had to choose between seven miles of +broken country or seven miles of easy beach. + +The sea elephants were a bar across the beach. He could gauge their size +from where he stood, they looked formidable, but they were less so than +the rocks strewing that broken country. He had climbed over rocks and +gone round rocks and nearly fallen from rocks till rocks had become in +his mind enemies bitter, brutal, callous, and far more formidable than +live things. He chose the beach and came down to it, taking his way +along the sea edge as a person takes his way along a pavement edge, +giving possibly turbulent people the wall. + +As he closed up towards the seal beach he kept his eyes fixed on the +great bulls and their families, and the bulls, as he drew closer, +shifted their position to watch him, beyond that they shewed no sign. +Then as he began to pass them he recognised that he had nothing to fear, +the females alone, here and there, shewed any sign of disturbance, +shuffling towards him with wicked eyes, rising on their flippers, but +always sinking down and shuffling back as he went on. + +Further along, though followed and met by a hundred pairs of eyes, even +the females began to treat him with indifference. It was as though the +whole herd were under the dominion of one brain that recognized him as +harmless and passed him along. He would pause now and then to look at +them with the admiration of strength for strength. He was of their type, +a bull man, rough from the sea as themselves. + +Then he saw the caves and would have passed them only for something that +caught his eye. A red labelled Libby tin was lying on the dark sand +close to the mouth of one of the caves, and if you wish to know how an +old tomato tin or an old beef tin can shout, you must go alone to the +great beach of Kerguelen and find one there--which you will not. + +The sight of the tin made him start and catch in his breath. The tin was +everything he knew of ships and men focussed in a point, a knight in +armour riding along the beach would have astonished him no more, would +have heated his blood far less. + +He struck up towards it, took it in his hand, examined it inside and out +and then cast his eye at the cave before which it had lain. He saw +something in the cave, it was a woman; a woman lying on the sand with a +rolled-up blanket under her head. She was lying on her back and he saw a +thin white hand, so small, so thin, so strange that he drew slightly +back, glanced over his shoulder, as if to make sure that everything was +all right with the world, and then glanced again, drawing closer. + +Then he called out and the woman moved. He could see her face now, +white, and thin and drawn, and great eyes, terrible eyes, fixed on him. + +Away out at sea, terribly near the coast of Death she saw him, a living +being, as the castaway sees a ship on the far horizon. + +He saw her hold out her arms to him and then, throwing his bundle aside, +he was down on his knees beside her, holding the hands that sought his +and with those terrible eyes holding him too. + +He saw her lips moving, saw that they were dry and parched. Then he +knew. She wanted water. + +An empty baling tin was lying near her. The sight of the river close by +was in his mind, he released the hands, picked up the tin and scrambled +out of the cave. As he ran to the river heedless of sea elephants or +anything else he kept crying out: "Oh, the poor woman. Oh, the poor +woman." He seemed like a huge thing demented. The baby sea elephants +scuttered out of his way and as he came running back he spilt half the +contents of the tin. Then he was down beside her again, dipping his +finger in the water and moistening her lips. + +She sucked his finger as a baby sucks and the feel of that made him +curse with the tears running down into his beard. The size of the baling +tin seemed horrible beyond words; he couldn't get it to her lips. Still +he went on, not knowing that it was his finger that was giving her back +life; the blessed touch of a human being that had come almost too late. + +He was sitting on his heels, and now, casting his great head from side +to side, he saw things stacked behind her, tins and a bag and metal +things that shone dimly. Putting out his hand he caught a corner of the +bag. It was a bread bag, sure enough, and as he pulled it towards him +the other things came clattering down almost hitting her, and amongst +them, God-sent, a little tin spoon. + +He seized it and filled it and brought the tip to her lips and she +swallowed the water making movements with her throat muscles as though +it were half a cupful. He did this a dozen times and then rested, spoon +in hand, watching her. She made a couple of slight movements with her +head as if nodding to him and her eyes never left him for a moment, they +seemed holding on to life through him. He offered a spoonful of water +again, she moved her head slightly as though she had had enough, but her +eyes never left him. + +He knew. If the whole thing had been carefully explained to him he could +not have known better how she was clinging to him, as a child to a +mother, as a creature to life. And all the time his rough mind in a +tumble of confusion and trouble was trying to think how she came like +this, with a bread bag close to her and a river within reach. + +A tin cup had come down with the other things, it gave him an idea, and +getting a biscuit out of the bag he broke it up, put the pieces in the +cup with some water and let them soak. It took a long time and all the +while, now and then, he kept talking to her. + +"There. Y'aren't so bad after all--keep up till I get you something +more. There's no use in troubling--you'll be on your pins soon." + +He would pause to swear at the biscuit for not softening quicker, +helping it to crumble with his mighty thumb thrust in the cup. To "get +food into her" was his main idea, it didn't matter about thumbs. He was +not without experience of starvation and thirst and what they can do to +people, and, as he worked away talking to her, pictures from the past +came to him of people he had seen like this, nearly "done in" by the +sea. + +Then he began to feed her with the noxious pap. He managed to get six +spoonfuls "into her" and then he saw she would stand no more; still, +that was something, and as he brooded on his heels watching her he saw +that she was making a struggle to keep it down, and he knew that if she +brought it up she was done for. And all the time she kept holding him +with her eyes as though he were helping her in the struggle. + +He was. The sight of him gave her just the strength necessary to tide +over the danger point; then she lay still and the food, such as it was, +began to do its work. + +One may say that the stomach thinks; every mood of the mind can touch it +and it can influence every mood of the mind. + +Then the terrible fixed eyes began to grow more human, then to close +slightly. She was still far at sea, but no longer adrift; like a little +boat taken in tow she was heading now back for the shore. She fell +asleep holding his thumb. + +The bits of wood she had chipped from the figure-head were lying in a +little heap near the cave mouth and the axe lay beside them. He noted +them as he sat motionless as a carved figure till the grip on his thumb +relaxed, and the dry claw-like hand, now growing moist and human, gave +up its hold. + +Then, crawling out, stealthily and side-ways like a crab, he seized the +axe and, rising up outside, axe in hand, stood looking in at the woman. +He stood watching her, making sure that she was well asleep, then he +turned towards the seal nursery swinging the axe. There he murdered a +little girl sea elephant after a short, sharp chase over the rocks. +Then, close to the caves and with his sailor's knife, he stripped her of +fur and blubber. He placed the blubber on one side, cut up the meat and +retaining the heart and kidneys wrapped the head and the remainders in +the pelt and dumped them in a crack in the rocks. + +Having done this he went to the river and washed his hands free of the +blood and grease. + +In his bundle there was a box with half a dozen matches, they would have +been gone long ago only that long ago his tobacco had given out. They +were useful now. + +He knelt down and undid the bundle. There was in it beside the match-box +a shirt rolled up, two sailors' knives, two tobacco boxes, a couple of +huge biscuits, a piece of sail cloth and a pair of men's boots, one +might have fancied from the knives and tobacco boxes that he was the +only survivor of a party of three cast on the coast and that he had kept +these things as relics. That was the fact. + +When he had secured the matches his next thought was of the firewood and +the baling tin. There was a saucepan away at the back of the cave under +the other things but he could not see it. He could see the tin but he +dreaded going in to get it lest he should wake the woman and she should +clutch his thumb again. + +That was a bad experience and he told himself that if she had not +relaxed her hold he would have been sitting there still tied hand and +foot and not daring to move--strength in the clutch of weakness, to whom +God has given a power greater that that of strength. + +He crawled in and secured the tin without wakening her and as much +firewood as he wanted. It was fairly dry and with the help of the +blubber he soon had it burning between two big stones, then he put the +tin on, half filled with water, and dropped in the seal meat cut fine. +He was making soup for himself as well as for her. He had been without +hot food for ages and the smell of the stuff as it began to cook made +him sometimes forget her entirely. + +Predatory gulls had found the pelt and the head in the rock crevice and +their quarrelling filled the beach. He turned his head sometimes to look +at them as he sat squatting like a gipsy before the little fire, tilting +the tin by the handle and stirring the contents with his knife. He was a +man of resource for, before filling the tin with fresh water, he had +dipped it in the sea so as to get some salt into the mess. + +Then when the stuff was cooked, having no spoon, he had to wait until it +cooled a bit before tasting it. He went to the cave mouth to have a +look at the woman. The quarrelling of the great gulls had evidently +awakened her, for her eyes were open, and as his figure cut the light at +the cave entrance her head moved. He ran back for the precious tin and, +carrying it carefully, and half carried away by the entrancing smell of +it, knelt down beside her, then picking up the spoon began to feed her +before feeding himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +RAFT + + +It took him three days to bring her back safe to life. It poured with +rain during those three days but he managed to light little fires in one +of the caves with seal blubber and routing out the things in her cave he +found everything she had so carefully salved, the cups and plates, the +tin of coffee, half empty now--everything, even to the tobacco the men +had taken from the cache, he found Bompard's tinder-box and the Swedish +match box belonging to La Touche. He had given the woman life and she +had given him tobacco and sometimes, sitting in the adjoining cave and +smoking between nursing times, he would bring his big fist down on his +thigh, just that. + +Here was a woman starving to death and dying of thirst with food enough +for a ship's company at her elbow. And the tobacco! Where was the +explanation? She was able to speak a little now. She had spoken at first +in French, which he could not understand, then she spoke in English as +good as his; another mystery. A woman all gone to pieces that spoke two +tongues and was different somehow from any woman he had ever known. + +Then the things she had said: "Who are you? I am not dreaming this? Are +you really, really, truly--Oh, _don't_ leave me." Crazy talk like that. +And it was always "Oh, don't leave me." Then he would lay his pipe down +carefully on the sand of the cave and pass through the sheeting rain to +have a look at her. Sometimes she would have dozed off and he could get +back to his pipe, sometimes she was awake and then he would have to sit +down beside her and hold her hand and stroke it or play with her fingers +just as one plays with the fingers of a child. At these moments he was +transformed, he was no longer a man, he was a mother, and the hand that +could break down the resistance of a bellying sail was the hand of a +child. He no longer thought of her as the "poor woman," an infant is +sexless, so did she seem, or so would she have seemed had he thought of +the matter. He didn't. As a matter of fact thought was not his strong +suit in the game of life. He was a man from the world of Things. That +was why, perhaps, he made such a good sick nurse. He did not fuss, nor +talk, his touch was firm, firm as his determination to "get food into +her" and his hand, big as a ham, was delicate because it was the hand of +a perfect steersman. It was used to handling women in the form of three +thousand ton ships, coaxing them, humouring them--up to a point. + +He fed her now from one of the tin cups. Every two hours of the day, +unless she was asleep, half a cupful of food went into her whether she +liked it or not; "hot stuff," for though the firewood was done he found +that the blubber alone was the best fuel in the world. + +On the second day she was able to raise herself up, and once when he +came in he found that she had been moving about the cave and that she +had rearranged the blanket that did for a pillow. + +Then on the morning when the blessed sun shone she was able to come out +and sit on a patch of sand with one of the blankets for a rug. + +She looked old and worn, but no longer terrible, and as she sat with her +thin hands folded in her lap watching the great sea bulls and the cows, +as if contemplating them for the first time, the man who had helped her +out and placed her there was at a loss--she was a sight to inspire pity +in a savage. He took his seat beside her on a piece of rock and rolling +some tobacco in his hand stuffed his pipe. + +"You're all right now," said he. + +She nodded her head and smiled. + +"Yes," she said, "this is good." + +"Lucky I came along," he said, "wouldn't have seen you only an old tin +hit my eye." + +He put the pipe in his pocket, got up, went to the cave where he did the +cooking and came back with a cup half full of coffee and half a biscuit. + +"Dip it in," said he. + +She did as she was bid. It was the first time he had given her coffee +and the stimulant brought a flush to her cheeks and cheered her heart +so that she began to talk. + +"There are more biscuits in a place down the beach," she said, "and down +there," she nodded to the left, "there are a lot of things hidden under +a heap of stones. It's beyond the river on the left." + +Then the empty cup began to shake in her hand and he took it from her. + +"You're not over strong yet," said he, "but you'll be better in a bit +with this sun. Y'aren't afraid of the sea cows, are you?" + +She shook her head. + +"Thought you wouldn't be," said he, "there's no harm in them. Well, I'll +be moving about. I'll go and have a look down the beach and see what's +to be found." + +He hung for a moment with the cup in his hand shading his eyes and +looking seaward, then he turned towards the cave to put the cup back. + +"What is your name?" she said, suddenly, bringing him to a halt. + +"Raft," said he. + +"Raft," she repeated the name several times in a low voice as if +committing it to memory or turning it over in her mind. + +"How long might you have been here?" he asked, standing in a doubtful +manner, as though debating in his mind the wisdom of allowing her to +strain her strength answering questions. + +"I don't know," said she, "a long while. I was wrecked with two men from +a yacht. The _Gaston de Paris_. We came here in a boat. They are both +dead." + +At the name _Gaston de Paris_ Raft nodded his head. Already a suspicion +that she might be one of the yacht's crowd had come into his mind, so +the news came scarcely as a surprise. + +"It was us you hit," said he, "I'm one of the chaps from the old +hooker." + +"The _Albatross_?" + +"That's her." + +She said nothing for a moment, looking away over at the islands. She +could see the name, still, written as if on the night. Then she +remembered the boat sail she had seen when adrift with Bompard and La +Touche. + +"There were four of us got off," said he, "we struck them islands over +there and put in but there was nothing but rocks in that part. Next day +we put out, but got blown down the coast; we got smashed landing; all +but a chap named Ponting and me went under, but one chap's body was hove +up and we stripped him. I've got his boots and his knife in that bundle +over there in the cave, and Ponting's. We saved a bag of bread." + +He took his seat again on the rock and, placing the cup beside him, took +the pipe from his pocket, but he did not light it. He held it, rubbing +the bowl reflectively. He seemed to have come to an end of his story. + +"Did the other man die?" she asked. + +"He went getting gulls' eggs one day," said Raft, "and slipped over the +cliff. They're big, the cliffs, down there. I found him all broke up on +the rocks. He didn't live more than a minute when I got to him and I had +to leave him; the tide was coming up." + +"Poor man," said she. + +He rose up and, taking the cup, stood for a moment again looking +seaward. + +"Well, I'll be off down the beach," said he, "you won't be frightened to +be here by yourself?" + +"No," she replied, "but don't go very far." + +"I'll keep in sight," said Raft. + +He put the cup in the cave and off he went whilst she sat watching him; +everything, life itself, seemed centred in him. A terrible feeling came +over her at moments that he might vanish, that, looking away for a +moment and turning again she might find him gone and nothing but the +beach and the gulls. + +Beyond the river he turned and saw her watching him and waved his hand +as if to reassure her. She waved in reply and then sat watching till he +reached the figure-head and stood to examine it. + +He seemed very small from here. She saw him standing and looking inland, +he had seen the cache, no doubt, and he would want to go to it; if he +did that he would disappear from sight. But he did not go to it, he kept +on always in view, exploring the rocks and the sands and stopping now +and then as if to look back. + +It seemed to her that he could read her mind and feel her terror of +being left alone. Then her mind went back over the last few days. + +She had been very near death. She had drunk the last of the water in the +tin and had been too feeble to go for more. What had brought her to that +pass? It seemed to her that the rocks, the sea and the sky had slowly +sucked her vitality away from her till at last she could not eat, could +not walk, could not think. All that time her mind had never thought of +loneliness, the thing that was killing her had veiled itself by numbing +her brain and weakening her body. But near death her mind had cleared +and the great grief of desolation stood before her. Then God-sent, a +form had pushed the grief aside and a hand had taken her lonely hand and +a finger had moistened her lips. But it was the knowledge that the hand +was a real hand that gave her the first lead back to life. + +Then the last three days. The feeling of extreme helplessness and +sickness and the knowledge that she was watched over and cared for and +thought for--there was no word to express what all that meant. It turned +the great rough figure to a spirit, great and tender and benign. + +He was coming along back now carrying something he had picked up amongst +the rocks. It was a crab. + +A great satisfactory two pound crab bound up in kelp ribbon so craftily +that it could neither bite nor escape. He put it on the sand for her to +look at before taking it off to boil. + +The sun was hot and as he stood whilst she admired his prize: "Don't you +feel the sun to your head?" asked he. + +"No," she replied, "I like it. I had a hat--a sou'wester but it's in a +cave away down the beach. There's a dead man there." + +"A dead man?" said Raft. + +"Yes. I killed him." + +"Killed him?" + +"It was partly accident. He was one of the sailors. He was a bad man. +The other sailor got lost and never came back and I was left alone with +this man. He nearly frightened me to death." + +"Swab," said Raft. + +"Then one night he crawled into my cave in the dark and I struck out +with the knife and it killed him--he's lying there now. I didn't mean to +kill him, but he frightened me." + +"Swab," said Raft, two tones deeper. Then he laughed as if to himself. +"Well, that's a go," said he. He took a pull at his beard as he +contemplated this slayer of men seated on her blankets at his feet. She +glanced up and saw that he was laughing and a wan smile came around her +eyes, it seemed to him like a glimmer of sunshine from inside of her. +Then bending down he pulled up the blanket that had slipped from her +left shoulder and settled it in its place. + +"I'll tell you all about it some time," said she, "when I feel +stronger." + +"Ay, ay," said Raft. Then he went off with the crab to boil it. + +As he attended to this business in the cave, half-sitting, half-kneeling +before the little fire, he chuckled to himself now and then, and now and +then he would bring his great hand down on his thigh with a slap. + +The idea of her killing a man seemed to him the height of humour. He +didn't put much store on men's lives in general, and none at all on the +life of an unknown swab who deserved his gruel. Then he was of the type +that admires a fighting thing much more than a peaceful and placid +thing, and he felt the pleasure of a man who has rescued a seemingly +weak and inoffensive creature only to find that it has pluck and teeth +of its own. + +She had gone up a lot in his estimation. Besides, her feebleness and +forlorn condition had wounded him in a great soft part of his nature +where the hurt felt queer. This new knowledge somehow eased the hurt. He +could think of her now apart from her condition and think more kindly of +her, for the strange fact remains that the very weakness and forlornness +that had wakened his boundless compassion had antagonized him. When he +had found the crab the idea had come to him that here was some different +sort of food to "put into her;" he was thinking that same thought now +but with more enthusiasm. Yes, she had gone up a lot in his estimation. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +A DREAM + + +This same Raft whom the fo'c'sle could subdue to the surroundings, +making him as faithful a part of the picture as the kerosene lamp, on +the beach stood immense both in size and significance. + +It was as though the fo'c'sle had the power to dwindle him, the beach, +to expand him. + +The girl had never seen him in the fo'c'sle so she could not appreciate +the difference that environment made in him, and perhaps she saw him +ever so slightly magnified, but it seemed to her that he was big enough +to form part of the landscape, that he was one with the seven mile beach +and the Lizard Point and the great islands and the sea elephants. + +Not only had she been crushed down by loneliness; size had helped. Raft +seemed to reduce the size of things, so that the seven mile strand and +the vast islands and sea spaces no longer burdened her, and in some +magical way whilst he reduced the proportions of his surroundings they +increased his potency and significance. He was in his true setting, part +of a vast picture without a frame. + +It was not alone his physical dimensions. Bompard had been a big man, +but Bompard could not fill that beach. No, it was something else--what +we call, for want of a better expression, "the man himself." + +Then there was another thing about him, he found food of all sorts where +Bompard and La Touche had found nothing; he brought in crabs and +cray-fish and penguins eggs, he brought down rabbits with stones. That +was his great art. A stone in the hand of Raft was a terrible missile +and his aim was deadly. + +At the end of a week the girl was able to accompany him along the beach +to the cache where he unearthed some stores and came upon the harpoon +which he carried back with them. + +Then one day he suddenly appeared before her carrying her lost +sou'wester. He had gone off down the beach in the direction of the +Lizard Point and he came back carrying the hat in his hand. He must have +been into the cave where the remains of La Touche lay, but he said +nothing about that. + +It was nearly a fortnight since she had told him of how she had lost it +and he must have treasured the fact up in his mind all that time. + +The weather had cleared again, after a tremendous blow from the south, +and as they sat that evening in the sunset blaze before the caves, Raft, +who had been staring steadfastly out to sea as if watching something, +began to talk. + +"That chap Ponting told me this side of the coast is no use for ships," +said he. "They keep beyond them islands for fear of the reefs. I reckon +the old sea cows know that or there wouldn't be so many on this beach. +He said there was a bay round to the westward where ships put in." + +"How far?" asked the girl. + +"A goodish bit," replied Raft. "I was making for that bay when I struck +you. I was thinking," he finished, "that when you were stronger on your +pins we might make for there." + +"Leave here?" + +"Ay," said Raft, "there's not much use sticking here." + +She said nothing for a moment, she felt disturbed. + +Since her recovery she had fallen into a state of quietude. She who had +been the leader of Bompard and La Touche, she who had fought and worked +so determinedly for existence had now no ambition, no desire for +anything but rest. The strength of this man who had given her back her +life seemed a shield against everything, just as a wall is a shield +against the wind; she was content to sit in its shelter and rest. The +idea of new exertions and unknown places terrified her. + +"But how are you to know the bay?" asked she, "there may be a good many +bays along the coast." + +"No," said Raft, "Ponting told me there wasn't a decent anchorage but +this. He said this bay wasn't to be mistook, looks as if it was cut out +with a spade and the cliffs run high and black, there's a seal beach +that way and it's after seals the ships come. Well, there's time enough +to think of it seeing you are not fit to move yet." + +"Oh, I'll soon be all right," said she. "I'm getting stronger every +day." + +"What gets me," said Raft, "is how you fell to pieces like that, with +all that stuff at your elbow and a river close by." + +"It was being alone," replied she, "I did not know it at the time, but I +got so that I did not care to eat and then at last I believe I didn't +eat anything at all. I couldn't have imagined that just being alone +would make a person like that. You see I had food and water. If I had +been compelled to hunt about for food I expect I would have been all +right, as it was I had nothing to do and was just driven in on myself." + +Raft said nothing for a moment, he was turning this over in his mind. He +could not understand it. The idea of a person with plenty of food and a +good set of teeth dying of starvation just because she was lonely seemed +to him outrageous, yet he knew she was speaking the truth. It was +another strange thing about this strange woman. She was altogether +strange, different from any human being he had ever met and growing more +different every day now that she was "filling out," and getting her +voice back. + +That voice, soft and musical and refined, had disturbed the sea +elephants when she first talked to them as people talk to horses and +dogs, it was something they had never heard before in the language of +tone, and so it was with this sea animal with a red beard. He could not +tell whether he liked it or not, never asked himself the question, it +was part of her general strangeness and to be considered along with her +clinging, man killing and double-tongued qualities, also with the fact +that she had starved almost to death because she was alone; also with +her eyes and new face, for she was growing younger looking every day and +better looking, and her eyes, naturally lovely, were growing natural +again. + +As he looked at her now sitting in the sunset this return of beauty +struck him as it almost might have struck the sea elephants. It pleased +him. Had he put his thoughts into words he would have said that she was +filling out and getting more pleasant looking. At her very best he would +never have tacked the word beauty on to her; a buxom, rotund, beady-eyed +young female would have made the word beauty spring to his lips--Cleo +de Bromsart, never. But she was getting more pleasant looking and her +eyes were getting over their "stiffness"--which was something, and he +felt pleased. + +Presently, alone in his cave, he would bring his fist down on his thigh +with a bang and chuckle over her contrarieties, reviewing her against +that terrific picture he had seen in the cave when he had gone to fetch +the sou'wester; the picture of a man who had been torn to pieces by +Burgomasters and cormorants. It had been necessary to wash the +sou'wester for a long time in sea water before bringing it back. + +She had done that chap in proper; the work of the gulls and the work of +the girl were hardly dissociated in his mind--there was the Result. Just +as though a baby had smashed a rock with its fist. Hence the chuckles, +heightened by her clinging ways, her fragility, her musical voice, her +starvation due to loneliness, her double tongue, her unaccountable +tricks of manner. + +And she, as she sat in the sunset not knowing his thoughts, had you +asked her how she felt about him would have answered with steadfast eyes +that she loved him. Meaning that she loved him as she had learned to +love the sea-elephants, or as she would have loved a great carthorse +that had stood between her and danger, or a huge dog. She scarcely +thought of him as a man--just as a great benign thing, human, but nearer +to the heart than any human being life had brought her in contact with +till now. + +Her almost passionate gratitude had little to do with this measure of +him; any kindly man might have done what he had done. It was perhaps the +feeling of his great strength, of his possible fierceness that gave the +touch of benignity to him. + +"Weren't you afraid of them sea cows?" said he at last, "you must have +come clean through them to get to that cave." + +"No," she replied, "I didn't mind them, quite the reverse. I came here +because of them." + +"Because of them!" + +"Yes. They were company." + +"Meaning--" + +"Friends." + +"Y'mean to say--friends did you call them? Well, I don't know, there's +no accountin'." + +He hung in irons. So she had been keeping company with the sea cows--and +she talked of them as "friends." + +Now Raft, for all his limitless power of compassion for a female in +distress would have slaughtered those same "sea-cows" to the last bull, +and without a shred of compunction or compassion, had he possessed +kettles to boil down the blubber and a vessel to carry the oil. He had +already done in two of the babies for food when she was not looking. The +idea of talking about them as friends tickled his mind in a new place. +Then, as he glanced at the great bulls taking headers in the sunset +light and snorting in from the sea and squatting over the beach, he came +as near as anything to bursting into a roar of laughter. + +Then he suddenly remembered supper and went off to prepare it. + +The girl, left to herself, smiled. He had given her back that power and, +like the sea elephants when they repulsed the penguins, he had given her +something to smile over. She saw that he could not understand her in the +least in a lot of little things, whilst she understood him through and +through--or so she thought. She had thought the same about the sea +elephants till the great battle, and--she had never seen Raft with +murder in his eyes making the elements of beef tea. + +He had made a stew for supper out of mussels, canned vegetables, seal +meat and a piece of rabbit and when supper was over she went to bed in +the bed he had made for her, for he had stripped the cache of all its +wearing apparel and the remaining blankets, reserving the blankets for +her use. + +Then as she lay awake before dropping off to sleep she heard a sudden +burst of noise from the night outside. It sounded as though one of the +bulls had suddenly perceived a joke and were giving vent to his +feelings. + +She knew what it was, and she guessed the joke, and then, lying there in +the dark, she began to laugh softly to herself with laughter that seemed +to ease her mind of some old incubus clinging to it--less laughter than +a sort of inverted form of crying and ending up almost in the latter +with a few sniffs. + +Then she fell asleep and dreamed that Raft had turned into something +that seemed like a sea lion. She had never seen a sea lion, but this +dream--one looked something like a lion and something like a sea +elephant and something like Raft--with a touch of a carthorse. It had +flippers, then it had wings, and the setting was the Place de la +Concorde which bordered quite naturally the great beach of Kerguelen. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +STORIES ON THE BEACH + + +For a week after that day not a word was said about their departure for +that problematical bay to the westward where ships put in, or where they +might put in should they find themselves in the region of Kerguelen. The +idea seemed to the girl like one of those nightmare ideas, those +terrific tasks which fever or indigestion sets to one in dreams. + +It blew during that week as it had never blown before; blew from the +north and the south and the west Atlantic oceans of rain driving +seawards from the hills and passing off towards the islands, followed by +breaks of clear weather and blue sparkling skies filled with the tearing +screaming wind. + +They talked a good deal during these days and at odd times, and the girl +began to get some true glimpses of the mind of her companion, a mind +that had never grown up, yet had in no wise deteriorated from remaining +ungrown. Raft, who had been round the world a dozen times and more, knew +less of the world than a modern child. Fights and roaring drunks and the +smoke haze of bar rooms, wharf Messalinas and sailors' lodging houses +had done him no harm at all. His innocence was vast and indestructible +as his ignorance. + +Bompard and La Touche were old men of the world compared to Raft; they +were of different stuff, and being yachtsmen they had been long rubbed +against the ways of high civilization. + +To the girl, born and bred amongst all the intricacies of modern life +and thought, and with a sense of mind-values as delicate as a jeweller's +scales, Raft was a revelation. + +She tried to sound his past. He had no past beyond the _Albatross_. He +could tell all about the _Albatross_ and his shipmates and the Old Man +and so forth, but beyond that lay only a ship called the _Pathfinder_, +and beyond that a muddle of ships and ports, a forest of masts +stretching to a grey time an infinite distance away, the time of his +childhood. He had no professed religion and he could neither read nor +write. + +Yet he had remembered her sou'wester, this man without a memory and he +was always astonishing her by remembering little things she had said or +things she had wished for. + +Of social distinction, beyond the division of afterguard from fo'c'sle, +he seemed to possess little idea, save for a vague echo, caught from the +man Harbutt, about the Rich People; and as to sex, beyond a queer +instinctive delicacy and a tenderness due to her weakness and the memory +of how he had found her, she might just as well have been a man, or a +child like himself. + +Another thing that struck her forcibly was the sense of his good humour. +His mind seemed to possess an equable warm temperature, a temperature +that it seemed impossible to lower or raise. She could not fancy him +getting angry about anything. Had she seen him as in the past during one +of his rare sprees, fighting the crowd and tossing men about like +ninepins, she would have said: 'This is not the same man'--and maybe she +would have been right. + +"Where did you come from," said he one day to her as they sat rain-bound +watching the gulls dashing about over the crests of the incoming seas. + +"I came from Paris--you have never been to Paris?" + +No, he had never been to Paris. He knew of the place, it was in France. +Then she thought that she would interest him by trying to describe it. +She spoke of the busy streets and the great Boulevards, then she tried +to describe the people and what they were doing and then, as she talked, +it was just as though Kerguelen had become the big end of a telescope +and the doings of civilisation, as exemplified by Paris, a panorama seen +at the little end. + +What _were_ they all doing, those crowds that she could visualize so +plainly?--deputies, lawyers, military men, shop-keepers, pleasure +seekers--towards what end were they going? + +Then, with a strange little shock, it came to her that they were going, +as a mass, nowhere except from dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn; that they +were exactly like the crowd of sea gulls, each individual rotating in +its own little orbit, and that the wonderful coloured and spangled crust +called Civilization was nothing more than the excretion of individual +ambitions, desires and energies. + +Then, when she had finished her talk about the wonderful city of Paris, +she found that Raft, comfortably propped against the cave wall, was +asleep. + +One of the disconcerting things about this huge creature was his +capacity for sleep. He would drop asleep like a dog at the shortest +notice and lie with his face in the crook of his arm like a dead man. +She would watch him sometimes for half an hour together as he lay like +this, and at first the vague fear used to come to her that he had been +stricken by some malady in the form of sleeping sickness that made him +act like this. She did not know that he had kept awake all those nights +he had looked after her and that the same brain that could sleep and +sleep and sleep could put sleep entirely away, just as the great body +that lolled about like the sea elephants, could, like the sea-elephants, +become a thing, tireless, and capable of infinite endurance. + +Then again, he would smoke in silence for ages as though oblivious of +her existence. She had observed the same thing in Bompard and La Touche +who would sit cheek by jowl without a word, as though they had +quarrelled. This trait pleased her, and she fell in with it +unconsciously as though his mind had moulded hers and were teaching it +the taciturnity of the sea. + +One day, during a brief spell of calm when they were seated in the sun, +dinner over and nothing to do, she tried the effect of literature upon +him. She told him the story of Jack and the Bean Stalk and was delighted +to find him interested when he had got his bearings and knew that a +"giant" was a man fifty feet high; the cutting open of the giant--it +occurred in her version--pleased him immensely. Then when she had +finished she was alarmed to find, from words dropped by him, that he +considered the story to be true, or at least to be taken seriously. She +did not disillusion him; to do so she would have had to tell him that +she had lied. That was the funny part of the thing. He would have said +to himself "what made her lie to me about that chap?" By no possible +means could he have imagined a person sitting down to invent in cold +blood for the amusement of others a yarn about what never happened; no, +it would have struck him as one of those lying personal yarns heard in +the fo'c'sle sometimes and likely to produce a boot aimed at the +teller's head. He had seen men reading books in the fo'c'sle +occasionally and old newspapers, but of literature, fictional or +otherwise, he had no more idea than the bull sea elephants of astronomy. + +This she intuitively felt and so held her tongue. But she had interested +him, and she went on, producing from her memory the story of the Forty +Thieves. + +Now he had accepted the bean stalk explanation, for he had never to his +knowledge seen a bean stalk, but the jars in the Forty Thieves he +revolted at, for a jar to him was a demijohn, or a thing of that size. A +man could not get into that. + +However, on explanation, he passed the jars, and the boiling oil repaid +him. He seemed to delight in torture and blood. + +"Where did you get that yarn from?" asked he. + +"Out of a book," said she. + +"Got any more?" he asked. + +"Plenty," she replied casting round in her mind, and wondering how it +happens that children's stories run so frequently to blood and ferocity. + +She remembered Anatole France's story of the juggler who juggled before +the shrine of Our Lady, having no better offering to make to her, and +Raft sat spellbound, after having made out that Our Lady was the Virgin +Mary, the patron of Catholic shipmates. She told it so well and so +simply, with unobtrusive foot notes as to monasteries and their +contents, that he could not but see the point, the poor man having +nothing to offer but his stock in trade of tricks, offered it. + +Well, what of that? It was the best he had, and, if she could see the +other chaps doing things for her, she could see him. The story, whose +whole point lies in the supposed non-existence of the virgin as a +discerning being, ought to cast its gentle ridicule not on the ignorant +juggler but on the more learned brethren of the monastery. To Raft they +were all in the same boat, and as to whether she could see them or not +he didn't know. + +The story fell flat, horribly flat, told to the absolutely simple +hearted, and to the Teller, after explanations were over, it seemed that +the Listener had in some way cut open modern genius and exposed a little +tricky mechanism working on a view point of chilled steel. + +That Raft, in fact, was so big in a formless way that he was much above +the story. + +She remedied her blunder on the next storytelling occasion with Blue +Beard. + +Then the weather broke fair and the islands drew away and the clouds +rose high and the white terns, always flitting like dragon-flies amidst +the other birds, rose like the clouds, they always flew higher in fine +weather, and with the smooth seas a new thing shewed like a sign: the +little sea elephants were no longer confining themselves to the river +and near shore. Some of them were taking boldly to the sea. Their small +heads could be seen sometimes quite a long way out. + +This fact gave the girl food for thought. The summer was getting on. + +It almost seemed that Ponting was right, that no ships would venture +into that sea between the islands and the shore, and that their only +hope of rescue lay in that bay away to the west, heaven knew how far. + +Then an idea came to her. Two ships had already been here for certain: +the wreck and the ship of Captain Slocum, then there was the cache, some +ship must have left that. + +She told Raft what was in her mind but got little consolation from him. +He opined that the wreck wouldn't have been a wreck if she had kept +clear of this dangerous water, that the cache might have been left by +people who had landed somewhere else, and as for Captain Slocum's ship +she might have been a whaler. Whalers according to Raft were always off +the beaten track and poking their noses into places where honest deep +sea ships would not dare to go. + +"Well, then," said she, "how about that bay you spoke of?" + +"Oh, that place," said Raft. + +"Yes." + +He hung silent for a moment as if revolving the question in his mind. + +"But you were set against it," said he at last. + +"Yes, I know, but I am stronger now, and it seems useless staying here +till perhaps the winter comes." + +She paused and looked towards the islands. She hated the idea of that +journey which she pictured over rocks and across plains, where? In +search of a place that might not exist, and where, if it did exist, no +ship might perhaps be found. An almost hopeless journey involving +unknown hardships. + +"You ain't strong enough," suddenly said Raft. + +It was as though he had touched some spring in her character that set +the machinery of determination working. + +"I am strong enough," she replied. Then after a moment's pause something +in her began speaking, something that seemed allied to conscience, +rather than thought, something that spoke almost against her will. + +"We ought to go, we ought not to lose any chance. It seems almost +hopeless, but it is the right thing to do. To stay here is not fighting, +and in this place one has to fight if one wants to live or to get away. +I feel that. To sit here with one's hands folded is wicked." + +"Well, I believe in making a fight," said the other, "question is, will +we be any the better." + +"There's always the chance." + +"Ay, there's always a chance." + +Then an idea came to her. + +"How about the boat?" she asked. + +"That old boat along the beach?" + +"Yes, suppose we took her and rowed down the coast." + +"There aren't no oars in her." + +"There are oars. I hid them amongst the bushes and I can find them +again." + +Raft considered the proposition for a moment, then he shook his head and +tapped the dottle out of his pipe. + +"Not with them winds that get you here," said he, "they let out when +you're least expecting it and we'd be on to the rocks and done for. I'm +not saying if we had a boat crew we mightn't try, but we're +under-handed. No, we'll have to hoof it if we go." + +"Hoof it--what is that?" asked she. + +"Walk it," replied Raft, "and I'm thinking it's beyond you, you aren't +fit for travelling rough, like me." + +"Aren't I?--I suppose I don't look strong, but I am, of course I'm not +as strong as you, but I can keep on once I begin, and I have been +through a good deal ever since that night we were wrecked, I don't think +any journey we could make would be worse than that. And I was not +prepared for all that as I am now for anything that may happen. Think of +it, we had all been sitting at dinner, it was only a little while after +dinner and I had my evening frock on." + +"Your evening which?" + +"Dress. They were all rich people on board the yacht and they put on +different clothes always for dinner. It seems stupid--well, I was down +below and I suddenly felt that I must get on deck, so I put on these +clothes and my oilskin and sou'wester, then, as I was coming upstairs +the collision happened. I got on deck and it was quite dark until the +electric light was put on, then I saw the stern of your ship with the +name on it." + +She paused with a little shudder and seemed visualizing the terrible +picture again. + +"Heave ahead," said Raft interestedly. + +"Then I was thrown into a boat and forgot everything until I woke in the +early morning alone with those two men. It was all just like that. I +wasn't prepared for hardship as I am now, and I hadn't a companion like +you. Those two men were no use." + +"How's that?" asked he. + +"Well, they were always grumbling." + +"Swabs." + +"I didn't mind that so much, but they were no use, they wouldn't do +things. I had to make them go and hunt for firewood, they might just as +well have had no hands. Bompard, the oldest one wasn't so bad--" + +"It was the other chap you done in," said Raft. "Well, I reckon you've +been through it. Rum thing I saw you first when I was handling a topsail +in that blow. The weather broke and I was holdin' on to the yard when I +sighted you away to starboard with the sun on you. Old Ponting was close +to me and he yelled out he'd seen you before and give you your name, the +_Gaston de Paree_." + +"And we sighted you," said she, "I was down below when the steward came +with a message that there was a ship in sight, I came up and there you +were with the sun on you and the storm clouds behind, and do you know +you frightened me." + +"How so?" asked Raft. + +"I don't know. I felt there was going to be a disaster of some sort--it +was almost like a warning." + +"Well, there's no saying," said Raft. "I've known a chap warned he was +going to be drowned, and drowned he was sure enough. I was down below +asleep and shot out of my bunk by the smash; then I was on the main +deck, the chaps all round shouting for boats, and if you ask me how I +got off I couldn't tell you. One minute a big light was blazing, then it +was black as thunder. My mind seemed to go when the black came on, I'd +no more thought than a blind puppy. Something saved me. That's all I +know." + +"God saved you," said the girl. + +"Well, maybe He did," said Raft; "but what made Him let all the other +chaps drown?" + +"I don't know," she replied, "but He saved you just as He saved me. I +know He looks after things. Look at those sea elephants and the gulls; +He leads them about by instinct." + +"What's that?" asked Raft. + +"Instinct," said she, suddenly formulating the idea, "is God's mind, it +tells the birds and elephants where to get food and where to go and how +to avoid danger; you and I have minds of our own, but our minds are +nothing to the minds of the birds and animals. They are never wrong. +Look out there at those porpoises." + +"Them black fish," said Raft, shading his eyes. + +"Yes, well, look at the way they are going along, they are on a journey, +going somewhere, led by instinct, and I think when human beings find +themselves having to fight for life they fall back on instinct, the +mind of God comes to help them. Look at me. I believe I found that cache +led by instinct and I would never have pulled through only instinct told +me I would, somehow. God's mind told me." + +"Well, there's no saying," said Raft. + +"I don't want to leave here," she went on, "but I feel we ought to go. +The chances seem small, even if we find that bay; still, I feel we ought +to go." + +"I'm feelin' the same way myself," said Raft. + +"Then we will go and the sooner we start the better." + +"I'm thinking of them porpoises," said Raft. + +"What about them?" + +"Well, there's a saying they hug the shore pretty close if bad weather +is coming. It's fine to-day, but I've a feeling there's going to be +another blow soon and maybe we'd better wait till it's over--maybe it's +instinc'," he finished, looking round shyly. + +The girl laughed. "If you feel like that," said she, "we had certainly +better wait. Maybe the porpoises were sent to tell us." + +"There's no saying," replied he. They were seated on the rocks just +where she had watched the great battle and far and near the "sea cows" +were sunning themselves on the rocks whilst beyond the seal beach the +penguins were drilling in long lines. Scarcely a breath of wind stirred +and the sea lay calm like a sheet of dim blue glass to where the islands +sat beneath the sky of summer. + +But the islands had drawn closer since morning and the birds seemed +busier than usual and more clamorous. To the eastward where the cliffs +rose higher, guillemots had their home on the ledges of basalt and the +wheezy bagpipe-like cry of them came in bursts every now and then as +though they were angry about something, whilst the cry of the razorbills +and the "get-away, get-away" of the kittiwakes had a sharper note. The +puffins alone were calm, swimming in coveys on the glassy water and +leaving long ripples in their wake. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE GREAT WIND + + +The sun sank, broadened out and banded with mist beyond the Lizard +Point, and before his upper limb had been swallowed by the rocks the +business began with a blow from the hills. + +Most winds come in gusts and pauses, this wind from the Infernal Regions +came at first steady and warm, never ceasing, steadily growing like the +thrust of an infinite sword driven with a rapidly increasing momentum +and a murmur like the voice of Speed herself. + +Raft and the girl saw that the sea elephants were herding up into the +shelter of the cliffs and that the gulls had vanished as though they had +never been. + +And still the wind increased, its voice now a long monotonous cry, +steadily sharpening, yet deepening, stern as the Voice of Wrath. + +"It's blowing up," said Raft, "and there's more coming." + +Then over the cliff and undershot by the last rays of sunset came the +clouds chased and harried by the wind, tearing before and torn by the +teeth of the gale. + +Raft and the girl stood watching till pebbles and rocks the size of +coconuts began to fall on the beach blown over the cliff edge, till the +sea, flat and milk-white, seemed to bend under the stress, till it would +seem that the very islands would be blown away. + +The girl felt light-headed and giddy as though the rush above had +rarefied the air under the cliffs. Not a drop of rain fell, the wind +held the sky and the whole world. It seemed loosed from some mysterious +keeping never to be recaptured until it had blown the sea away and +flattened the earth. + +And still it increased. + +Raft, taking the girl by the arm, drew her back into the cave; she was +trembling. It seemed to her that this was no storm, that something had +gone wrong with the scheme of things, that this Voice steadily being +keyed up was the voice of some string keeping everything together, +stretched to its utmost and sure to snap. + +Then it snapped. + +The whole of Kerguelen seemed to burst like a bomb-shell with a blaze of +light shewing islands and sea. + +Then again it seemed to burst with a light struggling through a deluge. + +The boom of the rain on the sea came between the thunder crashes whilst +a giant on the hills seemed to stand steadily working a flashlight, a +light so intense that now and again through broken walls of rain the +islands could be seen like far white ghosts wreathed in mist. + +They sat down on the floor of the cave and the man put his arm about the +girl as if to protect her; then something came sniffing at them, it was +a little sea elephant that had got astray and scared by the work outside +had crept in for shelter and company. The girl rested her hand on it and +it lay still. + +It seemed to her now that she could hear the gods of the storm as they +battled, hear their cries and breathing and trampling, whilst every +moment a thousand foot giant in full armour would come crashing to +earth, knee, shoulder and helmet hitting the rocks in succession. + +"It's a big blow," came Raft's voice, "no call to be scared." + +He was holding her to him like a child whilst she held to her the little +sea elephant, and so they remained, the three of them until the big +blow, failing to tear Kerguelen from its foundations, began to pause +like a spent madman. + +The flashlight man on the hills began to work his apparatus more slowly +and now the thunder seemed doing its vast work away out at sea and all +sounds became gradually merged in the enormous, continuous sound of the +rain. + +The little sea elephant seemed suddenly to take fright at the strange +company it found itself in and went tumbling and sniffing out to find +its mates, whilst through the night came the occasional "woof" of a bull +as if giving praise that the worst was over. + +"The old sea cows know it's done," said Raft, "now you'd better get +under your blankets,--you aren't afraid to be alone?" + +"I'm not afraid a bit now," said she. She patted his hand as a child +might and he crawled out and she heard him swearing at the rain as he +made for his hole in the cliff. + +She remembered the porpoises and fell to thinking of what would have +happened had she and Raft started on their expedition yesterday or the +day before. That wind, which sent rocks flying on to the beach, would +have blown them away. + +She said this next morning as they stood watching the sea. The sea was +worth watching. The due-south wind had stirred the heart of the ocean +from west of Enderby land, and, like a trumpeter, was leading a vast +flood that split on Heard Island only to re-form and burst on the +southern shores of Kerguelen. + +They could hear the vague far-off roar of it all those leagues away +beyond the mountains, mixed with the cry of the wind still blowing a +full gale, and beyond the shelter of the land they could see the islands +getting it, bombarded by the waves and up to their shoulders in +sea-smoke and foam. + +Then as they stood, suddenly and like a thing shot dead, the wind +ceased, and in the silence the roar of the beaches far and near arose +like a fume of sound. Then, as suddenly, the wind came shouting out of +the west, piling up a cross sea that leapt like the water in a boiling +pot. + +"I'm thinking when this blow is over we may have a spell of fine +weather," said Raft, "and it will be just as well for us to be making +our plans and getting things ready so's we won't be behind hand when the +fine spell comes." + +"I think so too," said she, "we will have to take food with us--how +much?" + +"Enough for a month," said he, "who knows, we may have to come back, and +there's not much to be had elsewhere." Then he fell into thought for a +moment, "maybe stuff for a fortnight will be enough for there's birds +and rabbits to be got, and gulls' eggs. Them old penguins let you screw +their necks as if it come natural to them, we don't want to take too big +a load." + +Then they found themselves at a loss, it was quite easy to arrange to +take a fortnight's food, but how much did that mean? + +They determined to use two blankets for sacks and then made a rough +calculation, based on imagination, and collected together tins of meat +and vegetables and the remaining biscuits, the result was a burden that +two people might have carried but not very far. + +"We've overshot it," said Raft. + +"We'll never be able to carry all that," said the girl, "or if we did we +would have to go so slowly that the journey would be much longer--it +cuts both ways." + +They reduced the load by nearly a half. + +"There's one thing," said he, "there's no call to take water with us, +there's holes full of water everywhere, seems to me in this place." + +Then he turned to look at the weather. + +The wind was less and the clouds were thinning and the air had the feel +of a break coming. Then, just before sunset the clouds parted in the west +and the sun went down in a sky red as blood. + +"We'll start tomorrow," said Raft. + + + + +PART V + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE CORRIDOR + + +The next morning broke grey and fair. + +When the girl came out she found that Raft had collected the things to +be taken in one bundle tied up in a blanket. He had also set out +breakfast. The remainder of the stores he had stacked at the back of the +cave where he slept. + +These stores, with what was still in the cache, would be useful if they +had to come back to the beach. + +"But what am I to carry?" asked she. + +"Oh, there's no call for you to trouble," answered he, "you've got your +oilskins. I reckon that'll be enough for you to bother with. Them things +in the bundle is no weight for a man." + +She tried to argue the question. It seemed to her impossible that any +single person could carry that load for long, but she might just as well +have argued with the gentle wind blowing now shorewards from the +islands. He lifted the bundle with one great hand to demonstrate its +lightness; he was also going to take the harpoon as a sort of walking +stick. + +It seemed to her that she had never realized his strength before, nor +his placid determination that seemed more like an elemental force than +the will of a man. + +She gave in and sat down to the meal, biscuits and the remains of a +stew, and as she ate she watched the great sea bulls and the cows and +the young ones that now were able to land, boosting through the foam +like their elders, and as she watched she wondered whether she would +ever see these things again, there, against the setting of the sea and +the great islands. + +She had put on her boots for the journey and a pair of men's soft +woollen socks from the store in the cache. They were small men's socks +and the wool was so fine and soft that the size did not trouble her. In +her pocket she still carried the few odds and ends including the tobacco +box in which she had placed her rings. She wore the sou'wester, and the +oilskin lay beside her folded and ready to be carried on her arm. + +Then, when the meal was finished, Raft washed the plates and stored them +in the cave. He stood looking at the stored things for a moment as if to +make sure they would be all right, then he kicked an old tin away into a +cleft of the rocks as though to tidy the place, then he took up the +harpoon and slung the bundle on his shoulder. + +The girl rose and looked around her. This place where she had suffered +and nearly died was still warm with memories, and the sea creatures were +like friends, she had grown to love them just as people love trees or +familiar inanimate things. + +To associate the idea of home with that desolate beach, those moving +monsters, those caves, would seem absurd. Well, it was like leaving +home, and as she stood looking around her a tightness came in her throat +and her eyes grew misty. But Raft was moving now and she followed him, +glancing back now and then until they crossed the river where she looked +back for the last time. The river was almost deserted now by the young +sea elephants, except at its mouth. A few little girl seals lay about, +delicate or unadventurous creatures whose lives would doubtless be short +in a world that is only for the strong. These little girl seals had +attracted her attention before, they had almost the ways of fine ladies. +It was as though some germ of civilization in the herd had become +concentrated in them and she had wondered whether they would ever pull +through the rough and tumble of life, recognising vaguely that nature is +opposed to civilization at heart. They seemed allied to herself and +their future seemed as doubtful as her own here where nothing helped, +where everything opposed. + +She caressed them with her eyes for the last time; then as she turned +and followed Raft she forgot them. Her brave mind, that nothing could +daunt but loneliness, faced the great adventure ahead not only undaunted +but uplifted. The way was terrific, the chances were small, so small, so +remote, that they could scarcely be called chances, and the penalty of +failure was return and a winter here when the beach would be deserted by +all but the gulls. The very desperation of the business made it great, +and from the greatness came the uplift. + +They passed the figure-head with its sphinx-like face staring over the +sea, and the great skull half sanded over by the recent blow. Then they +drew near the caves and the boat. + +The boat had been blown over on its other side by the wind and lay with +one gunnel deep buried in the sand and its keel presented to the cliffs; +she glanced only once at the caves, deserted now by the birds who had no +doubt picked the last fragments of the dead man. + +Then they climbed the Lizard rocks and at the highest point sat down to +rest for a moment. + +Raft, with the bundle beside him and the harpoon held between his knees, +swung his head from the great beach on his right to the broken country +on his left. + +He said nothing, not wishing perhaps to dishearten his companion. It was +she who spoke. + +"That's the plain I told you of," said she, "we mustn't cross it, you +can see from here some of the dangerous patches, those yellow ones, but +there are others just as bad that you can't tell till you are trapped in +them. I would have gone down, only a bird flying overhead dropped a fish +on the ground right in front of me and the fish disappeared." + +"We'd better get along the sea-shore rocks, seems to me," said Raft, +"the tide's going out, all them rocks between tide marks is pretty +flat." + +"Suppose the tide comes in," said she, "and we can't get up the cliffs?" + +"Oh, we'll have lots of time to make a good way before it comes back," +replied he, "and we've got to trust a bit to chance, we've got to strike +bold. I reckon we'd better trust to instinc'." He laughed in his beard. +"The same sort of instinc' that made that bird drop the fish to give you +soundin's of that mud hole." + +"Providence," said she, "yes--you are right." + +"I believe in strikin' bold," said he, almost as though he were talking +to himself. "It's like fighting with a chap, the fellow that does the +hittin' without bothering about bein' hit. He's the chap. Well, if +you're restored, we'll be gettin' along." + +He heaved up and led the way, striking right down to the sea and pausing +now and then to help her. Once he lifted her as though she were a +feather from one rock to the other. Then, all of a sudden they came to a +ten foot drop. There was no getting round that drop, it was a basalt +step that circled the whole Lizard Point on its seaward side. It did not +disconcert Raft. He threw the harpoon down, then he lowered himself, +clutching the edge and let himself fall. Following his directions she +threw him the bundle. It would have felled an ordinary landsman, but he +caught it, placed it beside him and then ordered her to jump, just as +she stood, without lowering herself. + +"Jump with your arms up," said he, laughing, "no call to lower yourself. +I'll catch you." + +It was like an order to commit suicide. It seemed to her impossible, she +thought that he only spoke in fun, then she knew that he was in earnest, +that he was ordering her. But it was impossible--absolutely. Then she +jumped with arms raised, jumped into two great hands that clipped her +round the waist and brought her, feet to ground, with scarcely a jar. + +"I didn't think you'd have done it," said he. "You ain't wanting in +pluck." + +"I knew it would be all right if you told me," said she, "but I didn't +want to do it until the very last moment." + +After that she would have jumped over a cliff if he had told her. It +seemed to her that he was invincible--infallible. + +A climb of a couple of minutes brought them down to the tide mark rocks, +the tide was a quarter out and the sea comparatively calm and the rocks +flat-topped like those of the seal beach and free from seaweed except +where, here and there, were piled masses of giant kelp torn up from its +deep sea attachments and cast here by the waves. It lay in ridges that +had to be climbed over sometimes and seemed entirely confined to the +Lizard Point and the rocks beyond, for when they reached where the +cliffs began it ceased to occur. + +Where the cliffs began they first experienced the true meaning of a +journey along that coast. + +She had seen these cliffs from the boat, but that view, though +forbidding enough, had told her little of the reality. + +They rose from two to four hundred feet in height, these cliffs, and +looking up was like looking up a wall of polished ebony. + +Here and there they were streaked with long lines of white where the +guillemots in their thousands sat on ledges, and here and there they +were faced by seaward rocks standing out in the water and carved by the +waves into all sorts of fantastic shapes, but waves and rocks and sea +and sky, all these were nothing, here the cliffs were everything, +dominating the mind and soul, sinister, and tinging every sound from the +wave echoes to the gull voices with tragedy. + +And high tide mark was the cliff base in fine weather, in foul, the +waves would lash and dash and beat fifty feet up, there was not a +guillemot ledge lower than eighty feet, puffins, razorbills and +kittiwakes, who always build above the guillemots did not seem to come +here at all, keeping to the seaward rocks and the coast line where the +cliffs drew further away from the sea. + +With the sea so close on the right and the cliffs on the left the girl +felt like a mouse in a trap designed for an elephant. Alone she would +never have dared this road, even with Raft leading her she felt timid +and oppressed. The place did not seem to affect Raft. Plodding ahead as +indifferently as though he were on some civilized country road, he +talked to her now and then over his shoulder, calling attention to queer +shaped crabs or dead kelp fish, and ever as they went their road grew +broader as the tide drew out. + +It was now about an hour and a half after high water, that is to say, +quarter ebb; in a little more than ten hours it would be high water +again, before that they must find a way from the beach or be drowned. +Raft knew this and the girl knew it too. It seemed almost impossible +that, with so much time before them, they could not find a break in the +cliffs towards safe ground, yet the cliffs seemed to stretch endlessly +before them and their pace was slow, not more than three miles an hour. +They rested sometimes for a moment watching the out-going sea and the +gulls; unused to exercise the girl was tired, and the man knew it. Alone +he could have travelled swiftly and without resting, but he said +nothing, and though he knew the necessity of speed, it was he who made +the halts for the sake of his companion. Three hours after noon he took +some food out of the bundle and made her eat. They had already drunk +from a little torrent rushing out of a crack in the cliff wall, but even +so the food seemed dry and she could scarcely swallow it. Anxiety had +her in its grip, the cliffs stretching on and on interminably seemed +like misfortune itself made visible. + +Said Raft: "The tide's near the turn and them cliffs don't shew no sign +of a cut in them, but then there's only two miles or so to be seen from +here. Round that bend there's no knowing, they may break away beyond +there. What I'm thinkin' is this. We've time to get back along the road +we've come by before it's high water again." + +"Go back?" + +"We've time to do it; if we keep on our course it will take us maybe +near an hour to get to that shoulder and from there we won't have much +time to get back before high water again. We've cut it too fine and if +the tide comes back and catches us before we get to a break we're done." + +She looked forward then she looked back. They were in a veritable +corridor. The sea formed the right hand wall of this corridor, the +cliffs varying from two hundred to three hundred feet high formed the +left hand wall, cliffs black as ebony, polished by sea washing, +unclimbable and tremendous as a dream of Dante. + +She saw their full position. There was time to get back from where they +stood, but if they went on to the cape of cliff before them there would +be no time to get back, they would have to go on, and the unseen cliffs +beyond that cape might stretch for twenty miles unclimbable as here. + +Yet the idea of going back was horrible, heartbreaking. + +She saw that Raft was between two moods. Then she said to him. + +"If you were alone would you go back or go on?" + +"Me?" said Raft. He paused for a moment as if in thought--"Oh, I reckon +I'd go on." + +"Then we will go on." + +"I was thinkin' of you," said he. + +"I know--but I could not bear to go back. If we fail now like that we +will fail altogether. Imagine going all that way back. No, I couldn't. +We must risk it." + +"I'm thinking that way," said he. + +He picked up the bundle and harpoon and they started, and no sooner had +she taken the first step than Fear laid his hand on her heart and a wild +craving to return seized her so that she could have cried out. + +She had once said that she feared an ugly face more than a blow, and the +fear that seized her now was less the fear of death than the fear of the +cliffs and their conspiracy with the murmuring sea that would soon be an +inclosing wall. + +She fought it down. + +The cliff shoulder was further away than they thought; it took them an +hour to reach it and, when they turned it, there, before them lay cliffs +higher, more monstrous and running in a curve to another shoulder seven +miles away, if a yard. But towards the middle of the curve the cliff +face seemed ridged and broken near the base. Raft shading his eyes, +pointed out this broken surface. + +"It looks as if there was foothold there beyond tide mark," said he, +"we've got to go on anyhow--Lord, but you're tired!" + +He made her sit down. The sight of that gargantuan sweep of cliff coming +on top of the weariness of the journey had crushed her. To go forward +seemed impossible, to fight against that immensity impossible. She could +have wept but she had neither tears nor energy. The gods seemed to have +built those bastions to shut out all hope and the voice of the returning +sea seemed like a tide turning over her broken thoughts like pebbles. + +Raft standing over her like a tower said not a word. + +Mixed with the voice of the sea came the voices of the gulls and all +sorts of sea echoes from the cliffs. + +Then as she sat she made a supreme effort of mind. She must rise and go +on. She struggled to rise, but her limbs had left her, deserted her, +stricken as if by paralysis. + +Raft took off his cap and put it in his pocket, then he went to the +cliff side and rested the harpoon against it, standing up. She watched +him, vaguely wondering what he was about, then he returned to her and +bent down and she found herself lifted suddenly and seated on his left +shoulder. + +"Hold on to my hair," cried he. Then he bent and picked up the bundle, +went to the cliff side and picked up the harpoon and started. The giant +strength that had caught her when she jumped from the Lizard Point ledge +was carrying her now like a feather, the crook of his left arm round her +legs to steady her, the harpoon clutched in his left hand, the bundle +swung over his right shoulder. + +And she held on to his hair as a child might, without a word, and as she +held the strength of him seemed to permeate her through her fingers +casting fear and misery out. + +She felt as a tiny tired child feels when caught up and carried by its +mother, and carrying her so he strode on, cursing himself for not having +carried her before. + +It was a three-mile journey to that roughness on the cliff and as he +drew near he saw that they were saved, at least for the time. + +The rock broke here in ledges like steps and twenty feet up and well +beyond tide mark ran a little plateau some ten or twelve feet broad. + +She saw it as well as he and filled with new strength she cried out to +be set down. + +"Stay easy," said Raft. "It's easier to carry the bundle with you on my +shoulder, you ain't no weight." + +Then when he reached the steps: + +"Done it b'God," said he. + +He dropped the bundle and harpoon, and, lifting her, set her feet on the +basalt steps. + +"Can you climb it?" asked he. + +Without a word she climbed and sitting on the little plateau looked down +on him. + +Then he followed with the things and took his seat beside her. They sat +for a while without a word, the bare rocks and the grey sea before +them. + +A great rock out at sea, pierced and arched like the frame work of a +door, shewed through its opening the sea beyond. Gulls flew round it and +their eternal complaint came on the wind blowing, still lightly, from +the north. + +Raft seemed absorbed in thought. + +Then he said: "It won't be high water until gettin' on for dark. We'd +better stick here the night anyhow and get the low tide to-morrow. But +there's time for me now to get to that next shoulder and see what's +beyond, it's a matter of four miles there maybe and four miles back." + +"I'll go with you," said she, "I'm stronger now." + +"No, you stick here," said he. "There's no call for two to go. You'll +want your strength for the morning." + +"Only for you I wouldn't be here," said she. + +"Well, maybe you wouldn't," said Raft. "It's as well I was along with +you, but you ain't no weight--no more than a kitten. I never thought you +were as bad as that or I'd have lifted you miles back." + +"Aren't you tired?" she asked. + +"Me--oh, no, not more than a bit stiff in the arm." He stretched his +left arm out. Then he looked at the bundle. + +"You don't want nothing to eat just yet?" asked he. + +"Not till you come back," she answered. "I'll watch you from here." + +He scrambled down, picked up the harpoon which he had left on the rocks +and then looked up and nodded to her. + +"I'll keep in sight," said he. Then he started. + +She watched his great figure as it went, harpoon in hand, growing +smaller and smaller, till, now, she could have covered it with her thumb +nail. As the distance increased it seemed to go slower and the great +black cliffs to grow higher. + +At a dizzy height above her cormorants had their nests, they seemed +angry about something as they clanged and flew, shooting out into the +sky and wheeling back again in an aimless manner. Before her the grey +sea crawled, coming, now, steadily shoreward. + +The tide seemed coming in faster than usual. She knew that this could +not be so and that Raft was too wise to allow himself to be cut off, all +the same a smouldering anxiety fed on her heart as she watched the tiny +figure now approaching the out-jutting shoulder of cliff. Then it +disappeared. + +He had promised to keep in sight. + +Evidently that was impossible if he wanted to get a view of what lay +beyond. + +A minute passed, two, three--then the figure reappeared and her heart +that had lain still sprang to life again. + +As he drew closer she saw him stoop and pick up something, then he came +right up to the cliff face, paused a minute and continued his way +towards her, walking more slowly now and carrying the thing in his +hands. + +It was a big shell shaped like an abalone. He had filled it with water +from a little torrent running from the cliff and when he reached her he +held it up to show. + +"We're all right," cried he, "there's only four or five miles of cliff +beyond the point, then it breaks away down to the beach. We'll be able +to get clear of this to-morrow." + +She came down the basalt steps and took the shell from him. He had +washed it in the torrent so that the water had no taint of salt. Then, +carrying it carefully she got it to the plateau where he followed her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +NIGHT + + +Towards dark the incoming tide began to hit the cliff base. Raft had +taken the things from the bundle and had made her wrap herself in the +blanket. "You ain't used to the weather like me," said he, "and this is +nothing to bother about. Lucky it's not blowing. Lucky we made this +shelf. Hark at that!" + +The first full blow of a wave hit the basalt below them with a +heart-sickening thud; then miles of stricken cliff began to boom. The +terrific corridor was no more, and between them and the Lizard point so +many miles away to the east and the point of safety miles away to the +west, there was nothing but cliff washed by sea. + +"A rotten coast," said Raft as they listened. "Only for this shelf we'd +be down there." + +"We'd have been flung against the cliff and beaten to pieces," said she. + +"That's so," said Raft. + +"When we get free from this," she said, "let us keep inland. I don't +mind climbing over rocks, anything is better than the coast, under these +cliffs." + +"We've got to keep pretty close to the cliffs, all the same, to strike +that bay," he replied, "hope it's there." + +"It is there," said she. "I feel--I know it is there and that we will +find a ship. We are being looked after." + +"Which way?" + +"We are being led. You remember when you saved me from dying in that +cave, well, you were making for the bay then. If you had not found me +you would have kept on and you would have crossed that plain where the +bog places are, it looked the easiest way." + +"That's so," said Raft. + +"Bompard was swallowed up there. You would have been swallowed up too; +you were led to find me for both our sakes. Then, to-day, I could have +gone no further only for you, and you remember how we thought of going +back? This ledge was here waiting for us. It tells us we have to go on +and be brave and everything will come right." + +"Well, maybe, you aren't far wrong," replied the other, "we've scraped +through so far and maybe we'll scrape through to the end. My main wish +is to have a plank under foot again, there ain't no give and take in +land, I'm never surefooted on land, there's no lift in it. I reckon I'm +like one of them sea chickens not used to solid stuff underfoot. D'you +know what one of them gulls does first thing he lands on board a ship by +chance?" + +"No." + +"He gets sick as a dog." + +The cliff had an echo which, when it was not answering some loud boost +of the sea managed to return words, and between the smack of two waves +the girl heard it remark something about a dog. But the echo of the +cliff soon had its mouth too full to hold words. The sea now nearly at +full flood was bringing big waves along with it. In the gloom they could +see the racing grey ghosts, and here, on account of the curve, there was +little rhythm in the sound of it that came like the continuous thunder +of big drums. At their feet, like the licking vicious tongue of the +roaring monster, came the continuous gash-gash of waves washing up and +falling back. + +The girl sat with the blanket around her leaning close up against the +man. She felt as a person feels standing before the cage of a tiger +uncertain as to the strength of the bars, sometimes a puff of wind +brought a touch of spray on her face, whilst the continuous muffled +thunder of the coast leagues seemed like the bastions of the whole world +at war with the sea. + +"There's no call to be afraid," said Raft. He seemed, by some special +faculty, to be able to divine her feelings. + +"I'm not exactly afraid," she replied. "It's just that everything seems +so big--and those cliffs, now, even when they are hidden, they make one +know they are there, they seem wicked and alive, yet not able to move." + +"You've hit it," said he, "they're for all the world as if they were +looking at a chap. It's a rotten coast, but it's near high water now and +the tide will soon be drawing out." + +This cheered her. + +Then the whale birds began to cry and flit about. The whale birds are +blind by daylight and their voices scarcely ever heard, they are the +owls of the sea. + +The girl talked about them for something to say, then she fell to +wondering why on a beach like this there were no sea elephants. Raft +explained "sea cows" would never come to a washed beach like this, there +were no dry rocks for them to "hang about" on. + +He had lit his pipe with the tinder box and the smell of the tobacco +came good and comforting, the slap and dash of the waves sounded less +vicious, too, as though the sea had done its worst to get at them and +was foiled. + +Then she said, apropos of nothing but the last of her wandering +thoughts: "Have you ever seen a man killed?" + +He laughed as though over some pleasant reminiscence. "Dozens." Then he +began to recall chaps he had seen killed, falling from aloft and +otherwise. He had seen one hit the sea such a smack it split him open, +and he had seen a chap under water being pulled to pieces by sharks just +as terriers pull an old shoe. + +Then he wandered off to a bar scene where a dago--it was at +Nagasaki--had been drinking rice rum and knifed a man, a regular prosy +old sailor's yarn, with "I says to him," and "he says to me" at every +turn. + +Then he found that she was leaning more heavily against him and was +asleep. He put his pipe beside him and slipped an arm round her. Then, +as though sleep were infectious, down he sank still holding her and +there they lay. He snoring gently and she with her head pillowed on his +chest. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE SUMMIT + + +"I will break thee." Across Kerguelen those words are written to be read +by the soul of man. The rock, the rain, the wind and the sea, these, as +instruments, would surely be sufficient for the carrying out of the +threat; but the soul of man is strong, hence the spirit of Kerguelen has +called to its assistance Fog. + +Since landing on the great beach the girl had seen the islands +fog-wreathed several times but the beach itself had only once been +attacked. + +When she awoke on the rock plateau the first word of Raft to her was +"fog." + +They had slept as the dead sleep for nine hours and Raft had awoken with +the girl's head still on his chest and feeling as though he were packed +in damp cotton wool. It was after sun up and the fog was so dense that +the edge of the plateau was only just visible. Through the fog came the +breaking of the waves; the tide was coming in again. + +Raft had lit his pipe and the girl, stiff from lying, rose up and +stamped about to warm herself. Neither of them spoke a word in the way +of grumbling. + +The plateau was about twenty yards in length and by drawing off five +yards or so one could have a dressing-room screened with a fog veil, so +the fog was not an unmixed evil. + +Then they breakfasted, listening to the slashing of the water just below +and counting the time till the out-going sea would let them loose. + +"It's a good job I went to the point last night," said Raft, "else we +wouldn't be able to start in this smother, not knowing what was beyond +there." + +"Will we be able to start in this?" she asked. + +"Lord, yes," replied he, "the cliffs will give us a lead, it'll be slow +going but we'll do it all right, it's not more than six miles or so to +the break from the point there." + +"When can we start?" + +Raft listened to the water below, it was breaking now against the near +rocks but not yet against the cliff base. + +"In another three hours or maybe a bit more," said he. + +An hour later, as though the Fog spirit had been listening and watching, +and as though it despaired of its attack on the heart of the prisoners, +the smother began to thin; by the time the tide reluctantly began to +free them it had broken up and patches of the blessed blue sky shewed +overhead. + +By the time they reached the point and had a view of the great cliff +break-down that would give them release it was fine weather, with a +gently heaving sea breaking in beneath a sky of summer. + +It was as though their troubles were ended. At noon they reached the +great break-down and a new form of country. + +Stretching inland almost to the foothills lay a broad valley, boulder +strewn, and looking like the bed of some vanished river. Before them to +the west the ground rose from the valley, gently, unbroken, desolate, +like nothing so much as the desolate country that borders the Riff coast +of Morocco. But it was ease itself compared to the tumble of rocks +around and beyond the Lizard Point. + +Down the middle of the valley came a little wimpling rivulet like the +remains of the river that had once been. They drank from it and rested +and had some food, then they started with light hearts, taking the easy +ascent to the high ground, treading a moss dark and springy like the +moss that covers the old lava beds of Iceland. + +"Look!" said the girl. + +They had reached the highest point and before them, away to the west, +stretched the same rolling dark-smooth country, making low cliffs at the +sea edge and then, as if weary of little things, springing gigantic and +bold towards the sky. + +"It's over there the bay would be," said Raft. "Ponting said it was a +black brute of a bay between two cliffs rising higher than a ship's top +masts. Well, there's our chance before us--if you call it a chance. It's +a long way, taking it how you will." + +Chance! Despite her optimism and belief in being led, as she stood now +with the wind blowing in her face it seemed to her that she stood +before absolute hopelessness. + +Nothing, not even the sea corridor, had balked her like that terrible +distance, calm, sunlit, yet gloomy like a recumbent giant. + +The monstrosity of the whole adventure unmasked itself of a sudden; +travelling to find a bay they had heard of on the chance of finding a +ship--a ship on a coast where ships were scarcely to be found. + +And even if they found the bay they could not wait for a ship. Here +there was no food, with the exception of rabbits and gulls. The ship +would have to be there, waiting for them. + +Raft must have been mad! mad! mad! She herself must have been mad to +dream of such a thing. + +Her lips felt dry as pumice stone and she glanced at her companion as he +stood with the bundle at his feet and the harpoon in his hand, looking +about him, far and near, as unconcerned as though beyond that great hump +on the skyline lay a sure town with a railway station. + +No, Raft was not mad. He was unconcerned. He knew, even better than she, +the hopelessness of their position, yet he was calm and unmoved, never +from the first moment she had seen him had he been otherwise; before +everything, like a rock, he continued. + +Yet it was only now, as he quietly stood there surveying their "chance," +that he came home to her truly as he was, unbreakable; simple, vast, +forged by the sea. She swallowed down the devil of doubt and despair as +she stood looking at him standing so, and she was about to speak when, +catching sight of something along the high ground to the right he +pointed it out to her. She saw a white point on the ground a couple of +hundred yards away. + +As they drew close to it it enlarged and other things shewed. It was the +top of a skull belonging to a skeleton tucked away in a little hollow as +though it were sheltering from the wind. + +Rags of clothing still hung to it and the boots were there still that +had once belonged to it. + +"Wonder what did that poor chap in?" said Raft as he stood looking at +it. "Wrecked, most likely and lost himself--well, it's a sign folk have +been here, anyhow." + +He gauged the measure of the desolation around by his words. Here a +skeleton did not make the desolation more desolate; on the contrary, it +proved that folk had been here. + +So the girl felt. + +"He'd have been blown away by this only for that hollow he's in," said +Raft, "well, he's out of his troubles whoever he was and whatever ship +he hailed from." + +"We can't bury him," said she. + +"He's buried," said Raft. + +He had summed up Kerguelen in two words and there was almost a trace of +bitterness in his voice. Beyond the remark that it was a brute of a +coast he had never grumbled against the place or abused it or the +Almighty for making it, as many a man has done; and now at the summit of +things two words sufficed him. + +Then, leaving the skeleton to the wind and the sky and the countless +ages, they turned and went on their way west. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE BAY + + +It took them till dusk to reach the foot of the western rise of ground; +here they slept under a rock, continuing their way next morning, +climbing till they reached the summit of the rise and keeping their +course along the edge of a cliff that fell a sheer three hundred feet to +the shore below. + +Sometimes Raft peeped over the cliff edge and once the girl drew close +and looked, too, dizzy with the height, made more dreadful by the gulls +flying far below. + +At noon, far ahead of them, they saw something that made them pause; a +little mound. As they drew closer they knew. It was another cache, a +cache made of heaped earth and loose stones with about a foot of sign +post protruding from it. The post had been broken off in some storm and +blown away. + +"There'll be stuff under there," said Raft, "and if we have to go back +it'll come in handy. It's a pointer to the bay anyhow; there must be +some landin' place near here, we've only got to keep on." + +They sat down and rested and had some food, eating as much as they +wanted now that they had a store to depend on. They had drunk twice +that morning from pot holes still half-filled with the rain of a few +days ago and they had no need of water--it is the one thing a man never +needs in Kerguelen. They were in good spirits; the haunting fear that +their provisions might not be enough to last them for the return journey +was gone; also, if the bay were near, they could remain now some time, +even take up their quarters here to wait on the chance of a ship. + +The idea came to them to make a burrow into the cache, now, working with +the harpoon and their hands, and for the purpose of verifying the +contents; but they put it away, the desire to get on drove them like a +whip and they went on, halting towards dusk and sleeping in a hollow +that gave them shelter from the wind that was blowing from the south. + +Towards dawn the wind changed to the west and at the first rays of light +Raft awoke, sat up and sniffed. Then he laid his hand on the girl's +shoulder. + +"Smell that!" cried he. + +She sat up, her eyes half-blind with sleep. + +"Smell the wind!" said Raft. + +She turned her face to the west. On the wind was coming the ghost of a +smell, faint and horrible and soul-searching. + +"That's a ship," said Raft. + +"A ship!" + +"Boiling down blubber. I struck that smell once, seven years ago; it's +blubber. I reckon we're all right." He heaved himself on to his feet +and the girl half-rose, kneeling, and looked at him. + +"Are you sure?" + +"Sure as sure; smell it." + +Then, as she sniffed again, she knew. That was not a nature smell; +horrible though it was it was not the tragic smell of corruption. It had +something, almost one might say, low down about it, little, mean, +business-like--it was her first sniff of returning Civilization, the +first impression on an olfactory sense cleared and cleaned by the winds +of Kerguelen. + +She looked at Raft. He was standing, shading his eyes as though staring +at the smell. The dawn was at his back, and across the dawn a flight of +wild duck was making in from the sea. + +Imagine a person walking in a garret from absolute penury to find +himself a millionaire. Such a person, were he normal, would feel what +the girl felt as the message of that noxious odour struck home to her +mind. + +Her teeth chattered a little as she rose to her feet. She could not +speak and she had to hold her lower jaw with her hand to still it. Then +the muscles of her throat did all sorts of queer things on their own +account and a violent feeling of sickness seized her that would have +ended in an attack of vomiting had it not passed as quickly as it came. +Raft, who had ceased staring to the west, saw how she was taken and put +his hand on her shoulder. + +"You'll be all right in a bit," said he, "it comes hard at first. I've +seen chaps go clean off their heads sniffin' land after three months of +hell and weather. We'll start in a bit, there's no call to hurry, and +I'll just take a walk to get the stiffness out of my legs." + +Off he went, away and away, disappearing beyond a dip in the ground. + +She knew that he would be away at least half an hour. Thoughtful as a +mother for her comfort, yet almost as outspoken, sometimes, as a nurse, +he was wonderful. + +The dawn broke broader and stronger, peaceful and grey, promising a +continuance of the fine weather that had now lasted for three days, +three days without wind or rain or threat from the mountains that sat +this morning far away and clear cut against the sky. + +Then as they went on their way the sun broke over the edge of the high +lands and gulls rising above the cliff edge flitted like birds born of +snow and fire. + +They stopped for ten minutes to breakfast, then they went on, and now +suddenly came something new. On the wind they could hear the sound of +gulls quarrelling, a sound quite distinct from the ordinary mewing and +wheezing of the gulls at peace. + +"We're near there," said Raft. "Hark at the gulls, they're fighting over +the scraps. Them chaps, whoever they are, have been killing seals and +boiling the blubber. The bay's there." + +He pointed to a higher rise in the ground just before them and to the +fact that the land from there sloped down inland at a terrific rate. + +He was right. + +Ten minutes walking brought them to the end of their journey and to the +edge of a cliff two hundred feet high. It was as though a giant had +taken a gouge and cut a bay right through the sea cliffs. Far across the +water of the bay before them the land rose again in a precipice steep as +the one on whose edge they stood. + +The ripples of the bay washed in on a beach of black pebbles easily +reached by the declivity of the land and on the beach, stewing like +witches' cauldrons, queer looking try-pots were sending up their smoke. +Near the pots carcases of sea-bulls lay ripped and gory and being +cleared of their blubber by small men, strange-looking, stripped to the +waist and with arms and chests splashed by blood. + +But the clove in this devil's mixture was the ship moored in the cliff +shadows, a small ship like a withered kernel in the shell of the bay, +barque-rigged, antiquated, high pooped, almost with the lines of a junk. +One might have fancied her designer to have taken for his model some old +picture of the ships of Drake. + +The try-pots, carcases and busy men left Raft unmoved. The ship held his +whole mind. + +"Lord! Look at her," said he. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +THE SHIP + + +She had been built on the Chu Kiang in the great Junk building yards +that lie just below Canton and her bones had been put together by yellow +men. Built to a European design China had come out in her lines just as +the curve of the Tartar tent tops still lingers in the roof of the +pagoda. + +She might have been a hundred and fifty tons, not more, maybe less, and +the junk pattern had been eliminated and European sticks and decent +canvas substituted for lateen sails by the direction of the man who +ordered her and who was a smuggler. + +She had been built for swiftness as well as cargo and, her builders +having been junk builders since the time of Tiberius, she was a failure, +sailing like a dough dish; and the yard that built her, having seen her +float off, went on building junks. + +Then she passed from hand to hand, and dirty hands they were, from the +Chu Kiang to the Hoang Ho, and through the Korea Channel into the Japan +sea, trading sometimes, smuggling sometimes, and once, as far as the +Kuriles, sealing in forbidden waters. She was caught by the Russians +and her crew clubbed to death or sent to the quicksilver mines and then +she came back to China, somehow, by way of Vladivostok and was sold and +sold again till she fell into the hands of one, Chang, a sea scraper to +whom everything came in handy from beche de mer to barratry and murder. + +Chang was modern in some of his ideas, he carried a Swenfoyn-harpoon gun +and, having luck down by the Sundas, he collected half a cargo of oil +which he sold at Perth; from Perth he had dough-dished along down to +Kerguelen after the "big seals." He had struck this bay by chance and he +had struck oil, for all to westward of it lay a stretch of unwashed +rock, as good a sea elephant ground as that on the long beach. + +The girl standing beside Raft viewed the scene below her with a catch at +the heart. The carcases, the little blood-stained busy men, the try-pots +like witches' cauldrons and that strange-looking ship which even to her +eyes seemed not as other ships were, all these had a tinge of nightmare. +Amongst the men she noted one, big almost as Raft. He seemed their +leader. + +"Chinks," said Raft, "Chinee--they've got their pigtails rolled up, +well, they're better than nothing." + +He picked up the bundle that he had laid down and led the way to the +slope that gave on the beach. + +As they came on to the upper part of the beach the "Chinks" noticed +them, paused for a second in their labours and then, finding that it +was only a solitary man and woman, went on with their work as though the +intruders had been a couple of penguins. + +"Cool lot," said Raft. + +The girl paused. The sight of the carcases and the blood at close +quarters, the absolute indifference of the blubber strippers at the +sight of an obvious pair of castaways, the whole scene and circumstance +turned her soul and chilled her heart. + +"I don't like this," said she. "Those men make me afraid, they don't +seem human--they are _horrible_." + +"Wait you here," said Raft. + +He advanced alone across the black shingle and she stood watching him +and listening to the stones crunching beneath his feet. + +His advance did not disturb the workers. + +They seemed working against time. Without any manner of doubt they were +anxious to be done with the business and be out of that bay before the +next blow came, for the place was fully exposed to the west-nor'west and +a storm out of there might easily break their ship from its moorings and +send her broadside on to the shingle. + +Undersized, agile, with weary-old faces that seemed covered with drawn +parchment, they seemed less like men than automata; all save the leader, +a gigantic, imperious-looking Mongolian with a thin cat-like moustache, +a man of the true river pirate type with a dash of the Mandarin. This +man held in his hand a long thong of leather. Captain or leader, or +whatever he might be, he was most evidently the serang of that labour +party. + +On the shingle where the ripples washed in lay a boat, half-beached. + +The big man was Chang, and as Raft approached harpoon in hand, she saw +Chang draw himself up to his full height and stand waiting. Then she +heard Raft's voice and saw him pointing at her and inland and then at +the ship. + +Chang stood dumb. Then all at once he exploded, shouting and +gesticulating. She could not make out what he said, but she knew. He was +ordering them off. He seemed to be ordering them off the earth as well +as the beach. And Raft stood there patient and dumb like a chidden +child. + +Then she saw Raft nod his head and turn away. + +He came back crunching up the shingle. "Sit down," said he. + +She sat down and he took his seat beside her. He had dropped the bundle +just there, and as he sat for a moment before speaking he noticed that +the fish line securing the mouth of the sack was loose, he carefully +retied it. + +"You saw how that chap carried on," said he, "I had to put a stopper on +myself. He's the chap; them little yellow bellies don't count. He's the +chap, and I've got to get him aside from the others." He spoke rapidly +and she saw that his eyes were injected with blood. + +A new fear seized upon her, a fear akin to the dread she had felt that +dark night in the cave when she had caught the sound of La Touche +dragging himself close to her, the dread of imminently impending action. + +"Let us go away," said she, "another ship may come; anything is better +than having a fight with those men." + +"Have you got that knife safe?" asked Raft. She still wore the +fisherman's knife round her waist. She put her hand on it. + +"Yes, the knife is safe." + +"If that chap downs me for good," said Raft, "stick that knife through +yourself. If he doesn't you take my orders and take them sharp." + +He had risen to his feet and without a word more he came down the +shingle again towards the workers, walking in a leisurely way and +trailing the harpoon along. + +He approached Chang who turned on him again with the anger of a busy man +importuned by a beggar. The most heart-sickening thing to the girl was +the way in which, after the first driving off of Raft, the great +Chinaman and his crew had gone on with their work as though they were +alone on the beach. Pity and humanity seemed as remote from that crowd +as from the carcases they were handling. Active hostility would have +been less horrible, somehow, than this absolute indifference to the +condition of others. + +Chang did not wait for Raft to speak, this time; he began the speaking, +or, rather, the shouting, advancing on the other who began to retreat. +Chang, as if wishing to have done with this matter for good, followed +him up and at every step the devil in him seemed to rise higher whilst +his voice filled the beach. + +What a voice that was! Half-singing, half-booming, the +"whant-whong-goom-along" of the running coolie chanting as he runs +seemed mixed with it, till, his anger breaking bounds, he let fly with +the strap in his hand, catching the other across the shoulder of the arm +that held the harpoon. + +Then Raft killed him. + +The girl who saw the killing was less appalled for the moment by the +deed than the doer of it. The blow of the harpoon that sent Chang's +brains flying like the contents of a smashed custard apple was like a +flash of lightning, it was the thunder that terrified. + +Roaring like a sea bull he sprang from the body of Chang towards the +crowd who faced him for a moment with their flensing knives like a herd +of jackals. The girl, who had sprung to her feet, plucked the knife from +her belt and came running, terror gone and a wind seeming to carry her +over the shingle; zoned in steel blue light she saw the harpoon flying +from right to left destroying everything in its way, knives flying into +the air as if tossed by jugglers, a yellow greasy back into which she +struck with her knife, a yellow Chinese face falling backwards with eyes +wide on her, as if the Chinese soul of the creature she had stabbed to +the heart were trying to cling to her. + +Then she was sitting on the shingle very ill and Raft was coming back to +her, running. + +The fight was over and the beasts had flown, left and right, she could +see them crawling like ants away up on the higher ground. They had +dropped their knives and the knives were lying here and there on the +shingle where also lay four dead bodies including the body of Chang. + +Ten minutes ago there had been fifteen live Chinamen on that beach. + +Raft was bleeding from a cut on the arm, his face was gashed above the +beard, a knife had ripped his coat and the back of his left hand shewed +another wound. + +He was laughing and carrying on like a man in drink and now that her +stomach was relieved an extraordinary light-headedness seized her. Like +Raft, she seemed drunk. + +She had been snatched for a moment into a world where to kill was the +only alternative to death or worse than death. For a moment she had +lived in the Stone Age, she had fought like a savage animal and with the +fury of the female, more terrific than the rage of the male. She had +been pushed to the edge of things, and it was she who had turned the +fight. The man she had killed was in the act of knifing Raft in the +back. + +"The boat!" cried Raft. + +She struggled to her feet, steadied herself, and came to the boat. They +pushed it out till it was nearly water borne; she scrambled in, he +followed, and pushed off. Out in the bay the high black cliffs rose +above them as if pushed by a scene shifter, the light-headed laughing +raving feeling left her, and as they came alongside of the barque to +starboard and tied up to the channel plates she was clear headed and +calm and able to get on board by the channel without assistance. + +On the deck she tottered and fell in the dead swoon of exhaustion. + +It is a long journey to the Stone Age and back and the man or woman who +makes it is never quite, quite the same again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE OPIUM SMOKERS + + +Raft had never seen a female swoon before. He thought for a moment that +she had dropped dead and the shock of the business pulled him together +like a douche of cold water. Then he saw that she was breathing and took +heart, rubbing her hands and poking her in the ribs and calling on her +to pull herself together. He would have been more frightened only that +he put her condition down to her general unaccountableness in some ways. + +In less than five minutes she had come to and was leaning on her elbow +and declaring herself to be all right. Then she got on her feet and, +taking her seat on the side of the open hatch, looked about her at the +dingy deck cumbered with a whale boat and all sorts of raffle. The +slight swell of the bay rocked the barque to the creaking tune of block +and cordage, whilst overhead the sea-gulls flitted mewing against the +vast black cliff that rose three hundred feet sheer from the licking +sea. + +"You're all right now?" said Raft dubiously. + +"Yes, I feel quite right and strong again--just a little dizzy, that's +all." + +"Mind and don't tumble back down that hatch," said he, "I'll drop below +and see what's to be found if you keep your eye out for them Larrikens. +Give me a call if you sight them." + +The Larrikens were nowhere to be seen; they were in the high ground +hidden, and no doubt holding a council of war, but sight or sound of +them there was none. + +She nodded and he dropped below into the cabin. + +The cabin of Chang was clean, almost dainty. Two smaller cabins opened +from it, one evidently for Chang and the other for his second in +command. Raft in his hurried look round saw a lot of things including a +rack containing six rifles and two heavy revolvers resting on an +ammunition box filled with hundreds of cartridges. He opened the +lazarette beneath the cabin flooring; it seemed well-stored, and on a +shelf in the main cabin there were some provisions including a tin of +biscuits. + +He brought up the biscuits, the two revolvers and a pocketful of +ammunition and, taking his seat on the hatch edge beside the girl, +opened the tin; then he went forward and hunted for water, found the +water cask and, getting a tin pannikin from the galley, brought her a +drink. + +He had never loaded or fired a revolver; the girl had, and she shewed +him how, the echoes of the cliffs answering to the ear splitting reports +as he made a few practice shots, and the guillemots squalling and rising +in clouds from their perches on the rock. + +"We're fixed all right now," said he, "and we can have those chaps on +board when they're ready to come." + +"On board!" + +"Oh, they'll come right enough, they've got no grub on land." + +"Come--but do you mean to say you will let them?" + +"Who's to work the hooker out of the bay?" he answered, "Not you and me. +We've got to get them aboard. There's no harm in them now they're +licked." + +He spoke with a knowledge of men absorbed from the whole world over. The +Chinese were licked and like dogs they would come to heel. He knew it, +for he knew men. He had put the fear of God into them, he and the girl; +the thing was over. Give the "Chinks" time to lick their wounds and +swallow their gruel and they would be right as pie. He had seen a whole +ship's company licked by a little man of great will, and in hundreds of +experiences and fights he had found that a beaten man, be he strong as +ten, is to be led like a child. He was right. Next morning--they slept +on deck that night keeping watch alternately--the "Chinks," hungry and +starving for a suck at their opium pipes appeared, the whole eleven of +them, and coming down the beach like a troop of children stood in a +line; then they began to wail. + +Wail and wag their heads and wave their hands. Kerguelen, coming on top +of the licking, had broken them to pieces. Then the whole lot kow-towed +like one man, knees and forehead on the shingle. + +Raft got into the boat and rowed off for the beach bringing them aboard +four at a time and as each lot reached the deck they kow-towed to the +girl and then trotted forward to the fo'c'sle, disappearing like rats, +their teeth chattering from exposure during the night, stripped to the +waist as they were, and never could one have imagined these little +cringing harmless looking men the jackals of the day before. + +When the whole lot were in the fo'c'sle Raft gave them time to settle, +then he went down amongst them revolver in pocket. They had lit a lamp, +some had lit opium pipes and some were lighting them, and they lay about +like creatures broken with cold and weariness. He nodded to them and +left them to the opium that would drive the chill from their bones, then +coming on deck stood beside the girl. + +"They'll be able to work the ship to-morrow," said he, "told you they'd +be all right; reckon they won't mind changing that big chap I knocked +out for us." + +"They don't seem to be able to speak a word of English," said she. + +"Oh, I reckon I'll do the steering till we get clear of this place," +said he, "they'll handle the sails without knowing English and once +we're clear we have only to make north till we strike a Christian +ship." + +"They seem so harmless," she said, "and when I think of that fight--and +of what I did--" + +"You fought fine--damned fine," said Raft, "damned fine." He put his arm +round her, not as a man puts his arm round a woman, but as a shipmate +puts his arm round a shipmate. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +MAINSAIL HAUL + + +That night Raft and the girl took it in turns again to keep watch on +deck. They might just as well have gone below for all the trouble the +crew could have given them. These gentry had fought bitterly because +they had been attacked. Raft had frightened them. There is a form of +bravery which one might liken to inverted terror. Rats shew it when they +are cornered, and so do men. They had seen their boss killed with a blow +and the destroyer hurling himself on them and, though they were +peaceable men, they fought. These same peaceable men, be it understood, +would, all the same, have murdered a human being for profit could they +have done so with reasonable safety. + +When the girl came on deck in the morning, after her watch below, she +found the deck busy and Raft with his hands in his pockets leaning +against the port bulwarks and watching the busy ones. + +"They're in a thundering hurry to get out," said Raft. "That chap," +pointing to a "chink" that seemed a cut above the others and was +evidently the mate, "has been pointing to the sky and out there beyond +the bay. They seem to smell bad weather coming. I nodded my head to him +and he's working the hands now for all they're worth." + +"The wind is blowing from the land," said the girl. + +"Yes," said Raft, "it'll take us out without towing, unless it changes." + +The hatch cover had been put on and the boat brought to the davits, some +of the crew were up aloft scrambling about like monkeys, others were +making ready to haul on the halyards and a fellow was unlashing the +wheel. There was not a face in all the crowd that did not bear the +signature of Anxiety writ on parchment. + +The fear of weather, the fear of Kerguelen, and the fear of that bay, +which was evidently haunted by evil spirits, drove them like a whip. + +The mainsail was set to a chorus like the crying of sea fowl and the +foresail and jib. The tide coming in held the barque to a taut anchor +chain with her stern to the beach and the wind ready to take her. The +mate was at the wheel and now from forward ought to have come the sound +of the windlass pawls and the rasp of the rising anchor chain. It +didn't. From the group of Chinese collected there came, instead, a clang +followed by a splash. + +"Why, the beggars have knocked the shackle off the chain," cried Raft. +"Lord bless _my_ soul, never waited to raise the mud hook?" + +"Does it matter?" she asked. + +"Sure to have a spare one," answered he, "but it gets me, that's Chinee +all over, they're rattled." + +"Look!" she cried, "we're moving!" + +The cliff's were beginning to glide landward and the bay's mouth to +widen, sea-gulls flew with them screaming a challenge, and the +guillemots lining the cliff ledges broke into voice, echoes and +guillemots storming at them as they went. + +Then the sea opened wide under the grey breezy day and the great islands +shewed themselves away to the east. To the west and the north all was +clear water. + +Raft and the girl walked to the after-rail and looked at the coast they +were leaving; it seemed horribly near and the great black cliffs only a +gunshot away. If the infernal wind of Kerguelen were to arise and blow +from the north even now they might be seized and dashed back on those +rocks, but the south-east wind held steady and the cliffs drew away and +the coast lengthened and new cliffs and bays disclosed themselves, till +they almost fancied they could see, away to the east, the great seal +beach where the remains of the dead man lay in the cave and where the +great sea-bulls were without doubt taking their ease on the rocks. + +And now came the last call of Kerguelen, the voice of the kittiwakes: + +"Get-away--get-away--get-away." + +Raft, as they stood and watched, put his arm over the shoulder of the +girl and as she held the great hand that had saved her and brought her +so far towards safety her mind, miles away, kept travelling the long +road from the caves. + +"I'm thinking of the bundle and all the poor things in it," said she, +"it will lie there forever on the beach, waiting to be picked up--it's +strange." + +"I was thinkin' the same thing myself," said Raft, "and the old harpoon +I licked that chap across the head with." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +THE CARCASSONNE + + +Raft had found other things than arms and ammunition in the cabin, he +had found a box containing nearly three thousand five hundred dollars, +partly in American money and partly in English gold coin. Chang had +stowed it in his chest, a big cedar-wood affair containing all sorts of +oddments, including a can of blue label Canton opium, cigars, a couple +of suits of fine silk and a woman's gold bracelet. + +Chang had evidently been well-to-do in his way and a man of refinement. +His bunk bedding was of the finest quality and on a shelf near the bunk +lay piled new-washed sheets and pillow cases. The girl took his cabin +and slept in his bunk. Long ago, in the world that was slowly coming +back to her, the idea of sleeping in the bunk of a Chinaman she had seen +killed would have revolted her, now, it did not trouble her at all. She +only knew that a mattress and clean sheets were heaven, even if she had +to sleep with a revolver under her pillow. Then in a day or two she only +put the revolver there as a matter of routine. The "Chinks" gave +evidence that so far from making trouble they were extremely anxious to +propitiate and please, and the man who had evidently served Chang +appeared in the cabin tidying things and laying out the food, whilst the +man who had evidently been mate worked the ship in his own weird way +seeming scarcely ever to sleep. He had laid the course almost due north, +taking the sun with a back-stick that might have come out of the Ark, +working out his calculations in the fo'c'sle in his own head. Raft did +not know, he knew nothing of navigation as a science, nor did he care, +they were going north and day by day drawing into the track of ships, +that was enough for him. + +One day the girl said to him: "Suppose these men make trouble over that +man you killed--and those others." + +"Let them," said Raft, "I'll tell my yarn--it's plain enough--I'm not +going to tell no lies. The chap tried to drive us off, and we lost and +near done for, and he hit me a welt on top of all. He got his gruel." + +She had played with the idea of making up a story for the sake of Raft; +she felt ashamed of the idea when she heard his words. + +"I'm thinking of that money down below," said he, "it belonged by rights +to that big chap. If a ship takes us off we'd better hand it over to the +mate or just leave it there for him to take." + +"Yes, we don't want the money," she replied, "I have plenty." + +"You! Where have you got it?" asked he, looking her over. + +"In France," she replied. Then she laughed. It was the first time she +had laughed since that day when the sea-bulls had driven the penguins +off, and Raft, as though her mirth were infectious, laughed also. + +It seemed a joke to him, somehow, the idea of her having money in +France. + +The idea of her being one of the Rich People had never worked its way +into his head. She was just herself, different it is true in some +indefinable way from anyone he had ever met, speaking differently, +acting differently, but made used to his mind by struggle and adversity. +He scarcely thought of her as a woman, yet he was hugely fond of her, a +fondness that had begun in pity and had been strengthened and made to +grow by her pluck. He liked to have her near him and when she was out of +sight he felt a bit astray. He never bothered about the future, so the +idea of parting with her had not come to him. + +And she? When Raft was out of her sight she felt astray. Her mind had +spun between them a tie, of a new sort in a world grown cynical and old +and cold; an affection permanent as the hills, warm as summer. +Everything good in her loved Raft, it was the affection of a mother for +a child, of a child for a mother. + +He had nursed her back to life, he had brought her life, and never once +since that day had he chilled her with a littleness or broken a thread +of what was spinning in her heart. He was illiterate, he was rough, but +he was Raft. He was the great beach of Kerguelen and the sea-bulls and +the distant islands, he was the hand that had destroyed Loneliness and +driven away Death, the child who had listened to Jack and the Bean +Stalk, the Lion that had destroyed Chang, the companion in a loneliness +ringed with despair. + +One morning beyond the 40th parallel, and some two hundred miles to the +nor'west of St. Paul, the Chinese mate plucked Raft by the sleeve and +pointed into the west. + +The day was clear with a wind just enough to fill the sails of the +barque and a long blue leisurely swell running from the south. Away in +the east was a trace of smoke as though a grimy finger had stained the +sky just above the sea-line. + +"Ship," said the mate. + +It was the one word of English that he knew. Raft was about to shout and +run to the cabin hatch to call the girl. Then he held himself back. It +might be a false hope. Yet if he had thought he might have known that a +ship in the east meant a ship right across their course, here, where +there were no trade tracks north and south. + +Then above the sea-line and clear of smoke he saw her hull. + +He pointed to the halyards and the mate understood. The mate was +evidently desperately anxious to be quit for good of his self-invited +passengers, for when Raft came on deck again with the girl they found +the barque under bare poles rolling to the swell and a Chinese flag +half-masted flicking in the wind. + +Also, away across the sea, sheering towards them and making to cross +their bows a mile away a two funnelled steamer whose funnels closed to +one as she shifted her helm to get within speaking distance of them. + +She was the _Carcassonne_, a seven thousand ton freighter carrying +passengers, a French boat, bound from Sydney to Cape Town and +Marseilles. + +Raft, the day before, had taken the Chinese mate down to the cabin and +shewed him Chang's money and had presented it to him and the crew in +pantomime. + +It was honesty. It was also a good stroke. There was no trouble when the +_Carcassonne_, her huge bulk rolling gently to the swell, dropped a +boat, though indeed had the companions of Chang wished to raise trouble +they would have found themselves seriously handicapped, dumb as they +were in every language but their own. + +Chang had been their linguist as well as their leader. They had +literally lost their tongue. + + + + +PART VI + +CHAPTER XXXV + +MARSEILLES + + +On board the _Carcassonne_ the girl had broken down as though all the +exhaustion she had defied had waited for that moment to fall upon her. + +But the energy that had held her above defeat and had given her hope +when things seemed hopeless was there, undestroyed, and when the turning +point came she rallied swiftly. She came on deck one morning where +Bathurst lay a point invisible beyond the blue sea to starboard and +sitting in a deck chair made friends with the other passengers. + +It seemed to her almost impossible that the same world should hold +Kerguelen and at the same time this paradise of azure blue sky and tepid +wind. + +Raft had told her story before reaching Cape Town and the loss of the +_Gaston de Paris_ was now old news in Europe, and the fact that of all +the _Gaston's_ crowd only the beautiful Cleo de Bromsart had been saved. + +Raft had joined the crew of the _Carcassonne_, sleeping in the foc's'le, +where there were several English speaking sailors, and as much out of +his element as a man used only to masts and spars can be on a +steamboat. However, he swabbed decks and did odd jobs without a grumble +and he was swabbing the deck on the morning she came up; he dropped the +business for a moment to take the two hands she held out to him. + +All through that time below she had been wanting Raft and his big hand +to pull her through. Satisfied, knowing he was on board and all right, +but wanting him all the same. + +On the old barque once or twice had come the stray thought of how Raft's +figure would accommodate itself against the background of the world she +knew. + +Well, here was the world she knew, or part of it; a deck, clean as a +ball-room floor and as spacious, passengers in deck chairs, reading +novels, and a manicured French surgeon ready to talk art or philosophy +to her, polished, but rather narrow of shoulder. + +And against all that stood Raft, rough and in the clothes he had worn on +the beach, for there was not a man on board whose clothes would have +fitted him comfortably. + +Well, he was not incongruous with this background, simply because he +destroyed it. In a ball-room it would have been the same. He carried +with him his background of high black cliffs and miles of beach and +flying gulls and breaking sea, and in a flash came to her the fact that +he dwarfed and belittled the other people around just as nature dwarfs +and belittles art. + +She held both his hands for a moment, managing to pat them, somehow, as +she held them, asking him what on earth he was doing with the swab he +had just dropped. She had an idea that the ship people had put him to +work, but before the idea had risen to indignation heat he reassured +her. + +"I must be doing," said Raft. "Not that there's much to be at in this +old kettle. You've got your legs back, well, that's good. I had it out +with that doctor chap and he told me how you were going from day to day, +but I've been wanting the sight of you." + +He put his hand on her shoulder as he might on a pal's, then he crossed +his arms. "And well you look," said he. + +"Doctor Petit," said the girl, speaking in French, "this is Raft, the +bravest and best man in the world as you will know when I tell you all. +Shake hands with him." + +The doctor shook hands. + +The passengers, and the first officer, across the bridge canvas, watched +all this with curiosity. They knew something but they did not know all. +They did that night when she had told them as best she could. + +After that she met him often on deck, giving him a word or stopping for +a chat, and it was now that she began to think and make plans as to the +future. + +Raft had become part of herself, they were bound together as perhaps no +two such contrary beings had ever been bound. The idea of Love, the idea +of Marriage, all conventional ideas as between grown-ups of opposite sex +were as absurd in relation to them as they would have been in relation +to two children who had grown attached one to the other. + +As regarded one another they were in fact two children, for Raft had +never been anything but a child and Kerguelen and Raft combined had +awakened the primitive and the child in her, giving her the power of +affection that makes a little child throw its arm round the neck of a +dog. + +But the world could not understand that, and Raft to the world was a +rough sailor man, and she, to the world, was Cleo de Bromsart. + +She would lie awake at night listening to the pounding of the screws and +thinking of this--contrasting the figure of Raft with the world she knew +and the world she knew with the figure of Raft. + +Madame de Brie, her nearest relation, would pass before her mind's eye +with her gold eye glasses, and the Comtesse de Mirandole and a host of +others; and the queer thing was that the vaguest feeling of antagonism +tinged her mind towards these estimable people. They seemed forgeries, +impudent forgeries of the handwriting that had first written the word +Man on the earth. She had seen the original writing. + +She felt also towards them the antagonism of the child to the grown up, +and of the person who can't explain to the person who stands waiting +for an explanation. + +Then she would laugh quietly to herself, for no woman, surely, was ever +in a similar position. Then, casting her mind back, she would sometimes +choke a little with tears in her throat, tears for herself, dying of +loneliness, and for the hand that had brought her back from death. + +They passed the entrance of the straits and Gibraltar, and one bright +blue winter's morning they entered the harbour of Marseilles, with +Marseilles before them blazing in the sun and the bugles of Fort St. +Jean answering the crying of the gulls and the drums of Fort St. +Nicholas. + +Cleo was dressed in the same clothes she had worn on her escape from the +_Gaston de Paris_. She had borrowed a hat from one of the ladies on +board and stockings and other things from another lady; but she still +wore round her waist the leather belt with the empty knife sheath. + +As she stood on deck, now, waiting whilst the _Carcassonne_ berthed at +the wharf alongside a great Messagerie steamer, she carried over her arm +the oilskin coat and, by its elastic band, the sou'wester. They were old +friends. + +Then when the hawsers had been passed and the gang plank was being run +out she saw amongst the crowd on the wharf Monsieur de Brie and Madame +de Brie, also a number of well-dressed people, Parisians some of them. + +Then she was being embraced by Madame de Brie and trying at the same +time to acknowledge the salute of Monsieur Bonvalot, her lawyer and man +of affairs, a stout pale man with long Dundreary whiskers who had come +from Paris to receive her. + +All this crowd had not come purely on account of Cleo. Beside the people +interested in her there were several friends and relations of Prince +Selm, also his lawyer. + +"I have taken rooms at the Hotel Noailles," said Madame de Brie, "and I +have brought you some clothes. Oh, my poor child, what you must have +suffered. But why did the people on board not lend you some better +things?" + +"Oh, my clothes are all right," said Cleo, "people wanted to lend me +things, but I am quite comfortable in these." + +She was looking about in search of Raft who was nowhere to be seen. + +Then she was seized by the rest, by the Comtesse de Mirandole, by Madame +de Florey, and several others who had stopped at Marseilles--on their +way to Monte Carlo--to meet the _Carcassonne_ and greet the girl who had +alone survived the wreck of the _Gaston de Paris_, some of these people +knew her only slightly, but once a person becomes famous or notorious it +is astonishing how slight acquaintanceship blossoms into full +friendship. + +Several photographers from the illustrated papers were amongst the crowd +and a Pathe operator was on the quay. + +Cleo was already recovering that sixth sense, which one might call the +social sense, and, as she talked almost to half a dozen people at once, +answering questions and receiving felicitations, this sixth sense told +her quite plainly that she was being criticised by her felicitators, +that in their eyes she was a guy. That the old velour hat she had +borrowed, the hair that shewed beneath it, her face, which had still +upon it a reflection of Kerguelen, her old skirt and coat--all these +things, singly and taken together, were exciting in the minds of these +Parisians a pity which was not unrelated to humour. She did not mind, +she was looking for Raft. + +It seemed to her that all these people, excellent in their way, had a +tinge of unreality about them. On the voyage she had sometimes vaguely +dreaded that Raft might be pushed away from her, despite herself, by the +contrast between him and her own order. It had come to her that the +difference between the beach of Kerguelen and the Avenue Malakoff might +take her like a giant of mind and divorce her from her allegiance to +him. That the good companion, the true friend, the person she loved +might alter completely under the touch of social alchemy. + +Raft was impossible. She knew that. More impossible even than a sea +elephant from that far beach where life was real and Paris a dream. +Impossible in Paris where life was false and the far beach a dream. + +Raft at a dinner party! Raft at one of those elegant afternoons where +the talk would run on the politics of the moment, on symbolism, on +Bergson, or Iturrino or the works of Othon Friesz--! He could not be her +companion in that place, in that atmosphere, within leagues of those +people. + +She was not thinking that now. "These people" around her seemed +strangers; they had in fact always been strangers, strangers who had +kissed her, conversed with her, dined with her, but strangers; the one, +true, living, warm friend, the only one she had ever known, was Raft. It +was the penguins and sea-bulls over again, the polite, bowing, +absolutely correct penguins, the warm lumping, living sea-bulls. + +Her heart, chilled by stephanotis-scented kisses, words of felicitation +and the fat smiles of men in tall hats and tight-buttoned overcoats, +chilled by Monsieur de Brie's gold rimmed eye glasses, chilled by a +social state that had never warmed her, cried out for Raft. Kerguelen +and that beach, where, even now, the sea-bulls might be lingering, +seemed a warm and blissful vision, real, alive, a place where life meant +living. + +Ah, here he came. He had been helping to fix a hawser at the bows. She +ran towards him. + +"Ah, there you are. Now, you are coming with me. I have told the captain +and he said this morning it would be all right as you were not signed +on." + +"Right," said Raft, "but where are you going?" + +"To an hotel." + +He looked about him. He saw the crowd on deck but he did not connect it +with her. He was out of his reckoning. He had never thought of what +would happen in port as regarded her, or where he would go or what he +would do; making plans was not in his way. In the ordinary course of +things he would have gone to the British consulate and the Shipwrecked +Mariners' people would have returned him, carriage paid, to England. He +had always been in the hands of others and of chance. + +She--he had always called her She, and here, be it said, he did not know +her name, never having asked--She had now taken him into her hands and +he felt vaguely that she was a power on this new beach where he was +stranded. + +Had you told him that she was a woman of society and very wealthy his +idea of her power would not have been increased; he knew nothing of +wealth or society. She was She in her old dress that he knew so well, +and still carrying the sou'wester he had fetched from the cave where she +had done that chap in, and as for any idea of being under an obligation +to her for food or housing he had none. He would have done the same for +her. + +Yet, to tell the truth, the docks, with no money in his pocket and the +cold prospect of brilliant Marseilles, had made him feel adrift like a +lost child. Civilisation had affected him as it had affected her, so +that something, now, made him put his hand on her shoulder to get the +touch of her, and she, knowing that every eye in all that party behind +her was upon them, took the great hand and held it and patted it. + +It was as well to take her stand at once, though she was scarcely +bothering about that. Then, still holding his hand, she came along that +white deck towards the gang-plank. The officers knew and, as they bade +her good-bye, they nodded to Raft, but the Parisians knew nothing but +that Cleo had gone clearly mad--and that that awful sailor had placed +his hand on her shoulder, familiarly! + +There were several automobiles waiting by the wharf and Madame de Brie, +half-dumb and slightly agitated, having pointed out the car she had +reserved for Cleo, the girl introduced Raft. + +"This is Raft who saved my life," said Cleo. + +Then she took Raft by the arm and pushed him into the seat beside the +chauffeur; having done that, she got into the car, following Madame de +Brie. The Comtesse de Mirandole got in, also, followed by Monsieur de +Brie and his gold eye glasses. + +The mistral was blowing so that the windows of the car had to be kept +closed. + +Used to fresh air, the girl nearly choked at first with the stuffiness +of the car. The olfactory nerve is really a prolongation of the brain, +as though the brain, distrusting the other senses, had pushed out a +trustworthy scout to see what the world and its contents were really +like. The sense of smell never lies; it is of all senses the truest and +it handed along without comment to the brain of Cleo the faint perfume +of the stephanotis affected by Madame de Brie and of the Yoya-yoya +affected by the Comtesse de Mirandole, also traces from the varnish and +upholstery of the car. + +"Who, my dear, is that man," asked Madame de Brie. She had almost said +"that dreadful man" but she had checked herself. + +"Man--Oh, that is Raft. He saved my life." + +"How delightful," said the Countess, "and he seems quite a character." + +"Quite," said Madame de Brie half-heartedly, "but my dear Cleo, you will +excuse an old woman for suggesting it, your generosity must be on its +guard, he placed his hand on your shoulder, quite familiarly it seemed +to me." + +"Well," said the choking Cleo, "why should he not? I have slept with my +head on his chest on a rock and I have stabbed a man who was trying to +kill him. Between us we fought a whole crowd of Chinamen. He had a +harpoon and I had a knife and we beat them and took their ship. Do you +mind having the window a wee bit open? I feel rather faint." + +"That's better," said she to the speechless other ones, "I'm so used to +fresh air that I can't bear to be closed in." + +"But my dear Cleo," suddenly broke out the old lady, "what do you intend +to do with him?" + +"Do with him? Nothing. He's my friend, that's all. Ah, here we are." + +The car had drawn up in the courtyard of the Hotel. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +THE LEPER + + +Dejeuner had been prepared for the party in a private room, a big room, +for there were twelve guests all told, including not only Cleo's friends +but the business men, and the friends of Prince Selm. + +But before thinking of dejeuner or anything else she had to see about +Raft. + +She left him standing in the hall whilst she interviewed the manager. + +Actually, the business would have been easier for her had she brought +with her an animal, even of the largest pattern. The manager, when he +had caught a glimpse of the intended guest, revolted; not openly, it is +true, but with genuflexions and outstretching of hands. + +Where could this man be put, what could be done with him? The valets and +ladies' maids would certainly not eat with him, the visitors would +object to his presence in the lounge, the servants in the servants' +quarters. He was a common sailor man. Heavens! What a problem that +manager had to face, something quite new, quite illogical, yet quite +logical. He had heard of the wreck of the _Gaston_ and he was as +interested in Cleo as a hotel manager could be. He understood the whole +case when she told him that Raft had saved her life; he was a man of +broad mind, but he knew intimately the mental make up of his servants, +his visitors and their servants. He discussed the matter with Cleo quite +openly and she saw the reason of all he said. Raft was "impossible" in +that hotel. His heroism did not count a bit; it did with the manager who +would not have to sit at table with him, it did not with the waiters and +valets and ladies' maids who would have to associate with him, or the +guests whose eyes would be offended by his presence. + +"He belongs to a ship," said the manager. Then he solved the question +with a burst. + +"I will look after him myself." He ran into the hall and called Raft to +come with him; then, followed by Cleo, he led the way to a sitting-room, +a most elegant sitting-room upholstered in blue silk. + +"Here," said he to the sea lion, "will you take your seat and dejeuner +will be served to you." + +"I have to leave you for a bit," said Cleo, putting her hand on his arm, +"I won't be long." + +"I'll wait for you," said Raft. He was a bit amazed at all the new +things around him and blissfully unconscious of trouble. He threw his +cap on a chair and took his pipe from his pocket, the same old pipe he +had lit that night on the ledge of the sea-corridor, then he produced a +plug of tobacco, the same tobacco whose pungent fume had comforted her +there, with the sound of the hungry sea coming through the dark. + +Then he sat down on a silk covered chair and the manager and the girl +went out. + +"I will serve him myself," said the manager. "I understand; he is a +brave man but very rough; the servants do not understand these things. +It is a difficulty, but after--? Mademoiselle--after?" + +"After what?" + +"After he has had his meal?" + +She understood. After he had been fed he was to go. He could go, say, to +a sailors' lodging house; she had heard of such things. Or, he would +walk about the streets; the thing was quite simple. It was only right to +give him a good meal and some money, a good round sum, seeing all he had +done for her. + +She was scarcely heeding the manager. She was viewing, full face, the +truth that the manager had demonstrated to her clearly. Raft was +impossible. She had had vague ideas of bringing him to Paris and giving +him a room for himself in her house on the Avenue Malakoff. She had +never thought of the servants, she had thought of her friends and that +they would think her conduct queer. But she saw everything now quite +straight and in a dry light. Raft was shipwrecked on a social state; to +keep company with him she would have to renounce everything and live on +his level; she could not treat him as a servant; even if she could, +servants would resent him. He was not of their type, much lower, a +labouring man from the sea. Not to lose him as he was to her she would +have to enter the absolutely impossible and absurd, she would have to +give up social life and make a world of her own with Raft. With a man +whose setting was the sea, the wilderness, whose life was action, who +was ignorant of art, philosophy, the convenances, who was a figure of +scorn to every educated eye when caught against the background of +Civilisation. + +In three beats of a pendulum all this passed through her mind. + +Then she said to the manager: + +"Quite so. I understand. I must thank you very much for your real +kindness. I shall give this man a sum of money, and this afternoon you +will be free of him. He can find shelter at a sailors' home--I have +heard of such places." + +"Oh, Mon Dieu! Yes," said the manager, vastly relieved, "and either I or +Fritz, my head waiter, will serve him with his food. Fritz is a man of +temperament and knowledge and I will explain to him." + +He hurried off and she was left alone in the corridor. + +She opened the door of the little sitting-room. The leper was seated +hunched on his chair just as she had seen him sitting often on a rock; +he was surrounded with a cloud of tobacco smoke. + +She had seen the loneliness of Kerguelen but that was nothing to this. + +Poor Raft. The very chairs and tables shouted at him; he looked +ridiculous. How in her wildest dreams could she have entertained the +idea of holding him to her, here? + +He would have looked more ridiculous only that he looked, what he felt, +forlorn. The place was beginning to tell on him, used to the rough and +the open; the smooth and the closed were getting at him. + +When he saw her he took the pipe from his mouth and pressed the burning +tobacco down with his finger nervously, the same finger she had sucked +once when parched with thirst. + +She saw, as a matter of fact, that he was nervous, if the term could +apply to such a huge and powerful organism, and the fear came to her +that if left alone he might bolt before she could conduct him in person +to the Sailors' Home. + +Standing with the door held half open she nodded to him. + +"I want you to stay here," said she, "till I come back. I have to talk +to all those people you saw and I may be a couple of hours. That man +will bring you something to eat--you don't mind my leaving you here?" + +"Oh, I don't mind," said Raft "but you'll be wanting something to eat +yourself." + +"I'll get it." + +"You'll come back, sure?" + +"Sure." + +She laughed, nodded to him, and closed the door. Her cheeks were +flushed and her eyes bright, she was strangely worked up; a touch might +have sent her into a storm of anger or a burst of tears. + +In the corridor she met Madame de Brie who had been hunting for her. + +"Cleo, they are waiting dejeuner for you--but, my dear child, you have +not changed, has no one shewn you to your room?" + +The old lady had not only brought along Cleo's maid who, with the rest +of the servants, had been on board wages during her mistress's absence, +but a trunk full of clothes. + +"I am not going to change," said Cleo, "I am too busy--and too hungry--" + +A reporter from the _Gaulois_ stopped her as she was turning towards the +room, indicated by Madame de Brie, where dejeuner was to be served. + +"Mademoiselle," said the reporter, "I did not like to trouble you +sooner, may I crave the honour of a short interview with you on account +of the _Gaulois_?" + +"Certainly, monsieur," replied the girl. "Pray come to dejeuner as my +guest, I hope to tell my friends something of my experiences and what I +say you can repeat; that will be better than a formal interview +tete-a-tete, which, after all, is rather a depressing affair." + +The dejeuner was not a depressing affair. Cleo struck the note. She was +in radiant good humour. Madame de Brie sat on her right, Monsieur de +Brie on her left. Monsieur Bonvalot, her man of affairs, with his long +Dundreary whiskers, opposite to her; the rest were scattered on either +side of the long table. + +At first the conversation was general, then, after a while, Cleo was +talking and the rest listening. + +"As I shall be very busy for a long time," said Cleo, "I would like now +to give all the information I can about the loss of the yacht. A +gentleman is present on behalf of the _Gaulois_, and as all details I +can give relative to the disaster are of world wide interest, +considering the position of the late Prince Selm, I take this +opportunity of making them known. Unfortunately they are few." + +She told briefly but clearly the story of the disaster, of her escape +and landing on Kerguelen, of the caves and the cache and the death of +the two men. She did not tell how La Touche met his end, that business +had to do with no one but herself and La Touche. She gave it to be +understood that he, like Bompard, had met his fate in the quicksands. + +She told of her loneliness, and how she had been dying simply from +loneliness, how she had been saved by Raft and how he had nursed her +like a mother. + +It was then that she really began to talk and shew them pictures. They +saw the beach and that terrible journey along under the cliffs, cliffs +that seemed cut out of night and never ending, the sea, like an +obsession, crawling shoreward, and Raft carrying her on his shoulder. + +They saw the summit where she had stood looking towards the west and the +hopeless prospect of finding a bay that might not be there and an +anchorage where there might be a ship, on a coast where few ships ever +came. + +Fascinated and warmed by Perrier Jouet, they followed her to the place +where the wind had brought her the smell of the try pots and to the +cliff edge where Derision shew her the Chinese whaler and the terrible +little man, blood-stained, and busy with butchery. + +She shewed them the great serang--Captain of the Chinese--driving them +off the beach and telling them to begone back into the wilderness, and, +vaguely, the fight where Raft had saved her from death or worse---- + +"Ah, Mon Dieu, what a man," cried a female voice down the table. + +Cleo stopped. + +"Yes, Madame la Comtesse," said she, "but a man beyond the pale, a man +to be ashamed of, a man who, were he to sit in the lounge of this hotel +and smoke his pipe, would drive all the other guests away. A common +sailor. A man rough from the sea and illiterate." + +There was a dead silence. + +Monsieur Bonvalot, a socialist, though a business man, nodded his head. +He broke the silence. + +"A man," said Monsieur Bonvalot, "is, after all, a man." + +"Oh, no, monsieur, he is not," said Cleo, "not in Marseilles. But do +not think I am quarrelling with social conditions. There must, I +believe, always be hewers of wood and drawers of water. I am just +talking of Raft and my own position as regards him. I am not thinking of +the fact that he saved my life time and again, or that he nursed me with +his great rough hands as tenderly as a mother. I am thinking of the fact +that I have discovered something quite new and genuine, a human heart +that is warm and real and true and simple, simple as the heart of a +child, a mind that has no crookedness, a man who, in Paris or here in +Marseilles, is absurd, not because he is rough and uncouth, but because +he is like Monsieur Gulliver amongst the little people. I have seen the +great, I have seen the wind and the sun and the sea and the mountains as +they really are, and life as it really is, for those who really live. I +have seen death, none of you here have ever seen or imagined death, none +of you here have ever seen life, none of you here have seen the world. +You all have been protected from the truth of things, and fortunately, +for the truth of things would break you as it would have broken me but +for Raft, who sits in a room at the end of that corridor and whom the +manager of this hotel is serving with food with his own hands because +the hotel servants would consider it an insult were they asked to carry +him his food. + +"I am not grumbling. I quite recognise the logic of the whole thing, but +I feel as though I were looking at everything through the large end of a +pair of opera glasses, just as when as a child I used to do so and +amuse myself by watching human beings reduced to the size of dolls. + +"Well, now you have all my story and I have put before you a new view of +things and I hope I have not shocked you all. My poor Raft must now go +to the Sailors' Home where I am going with him. I want some money, +Monsieur Bonvalot." + +"Mademoiselle," said Bonvalot, awaking like a person from hypnotism and +delighted to find himself on a business footing again, "certainly, I +have here your cheque book which I have brought with me." + +"Then we will go to another room and discuss business matters," said the +girl rising. "Now all you people please enjoy yourselves. You are my +guests whilst you stay in this hotel. Madame de Brie will see that you +have everything." + +She led the way from the room, Monsieur Bonvalot following. A suite had +been engaged for her and here in the sitting-room she started to talk +business with her man of affairs. + +A large fortune is like a delicate animal, always in need of nursing and +attention, it is always changing colour in spots from rosy to dark, a +depreciation in Peruvian bonds means that your capital has shrunk just +there and the question comes will it go on shrinking; a big rise in +P.L.M. shares suggests taking the profit and re-investing should they +fall again. + +Monsieur Bonvalot had problems of this sort to set before the girl--she +swept them away. "I have no time to attend to all that now," said she, +"some other day will do. I want twenty thousand francs, have you got +them?" + +"Twenty thousand francs," said Bonvalot. "No, Mademoiselle. I brought +five thousand francs in notes thinking you would want them for your +expenses here, but you can write a cheque on the Credit Lyonnais and I +will get it cashed for you at once." + +He produced from a wallet a bundle of pink and blue bank notes and +counted out five thousand francs, then she wrote a cheque for fifteen +thousand payable to him. He endorsed it, went off and returned in ten +minutes with the money. She put the notes in a big envelope and the +envelope in her pocket. That same pocket still contained the old tobacco +box of Captain Slocum and the other odds and ends which she treasured +more than gold. + +"That will do for the present," said she, "to-morrow I will open an +account at the Marseilles branch of the Credit Lyonnais, or rather you +can do it for me to-day. Give them this specimen of my signature and +they can telegraph to the Paris branch. I would like two hundred +thousand francs put to my credit here. + +"But are you not coming back to Paris?" asked Bonvalot. + +"No, Monsieur Bonvalot, not at present!" He pulled his whiskers. + +The idea had suddenly come to him, and come to him strongly, that she +was about to do "something foolish." + +He had seen women do very foolish things in the course of his business +life and all that talk of hers at the luncheon table came back to him +now. + +He remembered the beautiful Mademoiselle de Lacy who had run off and +married a groom; could it be possible that Cleo contemplated any such +mad act with that terrific sailor man? The idea chilled his heart. + +Equality and Fraternity were parts of his motto and he was an honest +socialist; he believed honestly that all men were equals and that the +waiters who served him at table were as good as himself, with a +difference of course due to the accidents of life, but he believed, with +Daudet, that there is no greater abyss than class difference. + +His theory was confounded by this practice. But he could say nothing, +for the matter was too delicate to be touched upon. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +A NEW HOME + + +Raft was still in the room where she had left him. As they passed +through the hall where a number of people were seated about in basket +chairs she felt every eye fixed upon her and her companion. Then out in +the sunlit Cannabier Prolongue she drew a deep breath just as a person +draws a deep breath after a dive. + +She also felt free. + +She had always been free in theory; possessed of her own money she could +have done absolutely as she liked, in theory. In practice she had always +been a slave. The slave of a thousand and one things and circumstances, +things and circumstances many of them troublesome, many of them +wearisome, all of them not to be denied. + +"Mademoiselle, your bath is ready." + +"Mademoiselle, the first gong has sounded." + +"What dress will Mademoiselle wear this afternoon?" + +Oh, the day, the day with its hundred phases and divisions, the dresses +that went with each phase, the lukewarm emotions and interests and +boredom and suppressed hatreds, this thing called the day, which she had +first reviewed in the open boat after the wreck of the _Gaston de +Paris_ terrified to find it torn from her--this thing had been returned +to her that morning in all its futility. It seemed to her, as she cast +it away, a horrible gaud, a thing made of tinsel, yet a thing that could +destroy the soul and blind the eyes and numb the heart. + +She had never been free, she had always been the veriest slave, the +slave of things, of people, of convenances, and of circumstances. + +Doctor Epinard had spoken something of the truth. + +Man may not be an automaton worked by environment, all the same he is +the slave of environment, and never such a slave as when his environment +is that of high Civilisation. + +For there the pure motives of the mind have ever to be regulated and +falsified, the heart crushed, the face veiled. + +To break with all that falsity means shipwreck. + +"Which way does the sea lie?" asked the girl. Raft turned to the left as +though the smell of the sea were leading him. + +"I'm glad to be out of there," said he, "I was near smothered in that +place." + +"So was I," said she, "did that man bring you your food all right?" + +"Another chap brought it," said Raft, "a Dutchman." + +She laughed. + +"Do you know what I was thinking?" said she. + +"I was thinking of the time you brought me food when I was nearly dying. +You didn't tell a Dutchman to bring it. I'd have brought you your food +myself and we would have had it together only I had to talk to those +people. Well, I've got rid of them. How would you like to live always in +a place like that hotel?" + +Raft mentally reviewed the room done in blue silk, Fritz, and the rest +of it. + +"I'd rather be out in the open," said Raft. "Not that I have anything to +say against it--but I'd rather be out in the open." + +They walked along. + +Companionship with Raft had for her one delightful thing about it, it +was companionship without restraint. In a way it was like companionship +with a dog, or a child. Like two old sailors they would hang silent, +sometimes, for a long time, not bothering to speak, content with being +together. + +She had never imagined the possibility of a man and a woman of +absolutely different social position in such a relationship, never drawn +the ghost of such an idea from all the books she had read, all the plays +she had seen. Never could she have imagined a common sailor man striking +Art for her to pieces, as he had struck the story of Anatole France, and +creating above a world he had taught her to despise, a nest for her mind +rough as himself, but in air pure and living. + +Raft, the common man, had made her social world seem vulgar as well as +small, chill as well as vulgar. + +She was thinking just now as she walked beside him how when she had told +him that the hotel manager would bring him something to eat, he had +said, "but you will want something to eat yourself." That was the sort +of thing constantly recurring in all sorts of ways that had brought her +to know him truly, occurring in little ways as well as in that great and +heroic moment when he had told her to destroy herself with the knife if +he were killed. + +As they passed along the Cannabier they saw a drunken sailor reeling +along towards them through the crowd, and Raft drew her by the arm off +the sidewalk to avoid him. + +The sight in other times would have made him laugh, or more likely it +would have been scarcely noticed, but She, in some manner or another, +made drink discreditable, and the sight of it to be avoided. It would +have been the same, most likely, had he been taking a child for a walk. +Down near the docks they passed a birdshop before which Raft cast anchor +almost forgetful of his companion. There were all sorts of birds here, +those tiny birds from the African coast one sees in the shops of the +Riviera, canaries and parrots. + +There was one parrot, enormous and coloured like a tropical sunset, +drowsy-eyed and insolent looking. When he saw the sailor man he seemed +to rouse up. He looked at Raft and Raft at him. + +"I'd like that chap," said Raft, "he beats the lot of them." + +"And you shall have him," said she. + +He laughed. + +"Much good he'd be to a chap like me. Where'd I keep him?" + +Her eyes softened as she looked at the bird and from the bird to the +man. Where, indeed, could he keep him? He who had no home--nothing. Then +it was that Money seemed to her what it really is, a god, beautiful and +benign. + +It had often seemed to her as a demon, but Raft, who unconsciously had +cast ridicule on her world, was now, unconsciously, shewing her the +great truth she had never seen before, the truth that Money is more +beautiful than Apollo, more etherial than Psyche, more powerful than +Jove. + +"You will soon have somewhere to keep him," said she, "we will get him +to-morrow. Come on. I want now to find the place where the fishing boats +put in. I saw it the last time I was here in Marseilles, years ago, but +I am not sure of the direction." + +She asked a man who was passing and he pointed the way; it was a long +distance, but it seemed short, so full was her mind with the plan she +had formulated before leaving the hotel. She talked as she went. Talked +just as though they were on the Kerguelen beach hunting for a cave. + +"We will find a place to put the parrot. I want a great big boat, not a +yacht. I've had enough of those. I want a good sea boat and the +fisher-boats I have seen here seemed to me good, and the men are the +right sort of men. I am going to buy one--or hire one--well, we shall +see. I want you to help to get it ready for us. How good the smell of +this place is," she paused to sniff the tar-sea scents brought by the +afternoon wind. It was like the smell of Freedom. + +Then they came on to the fisher wharf and right into the arms of Captain +Jean Bontemps. + +Captain Jean was about five feet in height and he seemed five feet in +thickness. He was propped against a bollard and he was in his +shore-going clothes. The girl's eye told her at once that here was a +useful man, a man of authority and knowledge. She approached him, and as +he took his pipe from his mouth and removed his cap, she opened her +business without parley or hesitation. + +She wanted to buy or hire a fishing boat, price no object. + +He did not understand her at first. He seemed suffering from some form +of deafness. Then when she repeated the statement he shewed no surprise. + +He himself was a fishing boat owner, Captain Bontemps of the +_Arlesienne_, and he was quite willing to sell his boat, for a sum--two +thousand pounds he asked, and she did not know that he was speaking in +jest, just as one might speak to a child. + +"If your boat suits me, I will pay what you ask," said she, "let me see +it." + +Then it came upon Captain Jean that he was either talking to a lunatic +or some wealthy woman with a craze. His sails were taken aback and he +was left wallowing in a heavy ground sea of the mind with a smell of +spice islands tinging the air. + +_La Belle Arlesienne_, his old boat, was not worth a thousand pounds. +Under the hammer heaven knows what she would have fetched, but she was +his wife, or the only female thing that stood in that relationship to +him. He tapped the dottle out of his pipe, then he took a pouch from his +pocket and began to refill and the girl, seeing his condition, drew him +aside, asking Raft to wait for her. + +They went to another bollard and there, the mariner anchoring himself, +she began to talk. She introduced herself. He knew all about the _Gaston +de Paris_ and Mademoiselle de Bromsart. He put his pipe in his pocket, +finding himself in such famous company. She went on. In ten minutes she +told him her whole story, told him just what Raft was and just how they +stood related, and just how he had been treated in the hotel. + +"It's as though they had turned out my father or my brother," said she, +"we two who have fought and faced everything together have grown into +companions. Friends who cannot be parted, Captain Bontemps. If he were a +woman or I a man it would be easier. As it is things are difficult. +Well, I do not care. I will do exactly as I like. I feel you will be my +friend, too; you understand me. And I want you to look after him +to-night, for in the whole of Marseilles I do not know where he could go +unless to some wretched Sailors' Home or worse. Ah, it is wicked. Of +what use is it to be brave, to be honest, to be true in this world?" + +"Mon Dieu," said the Captain, "I will look after him, if for no other +reason than that he is what you say, mademoiselle; but _La Belle +Arlesienne_ is rough, should you use her as a yacht, you would not find +her a yacht. She smells of fish--" + +"I am used to rough things," said the girl. "I dread the smooth. Captain +Bontemps, for one who has done for me everything should I dread +anything? And a little roughness, what is that to freedom and the life I +have learned to love with the man I love? For I love Raft, Captain +Bontemps, just as I know he loves me. Oh, do not mistake me, it is not +the sort of thing they call love here amongst houses and streets, it is +not a woman that is speaking to you but a human being." + +He understood her. To his broad and simple mind the thing was simple; +she did not want to part with the man who had saved her and fought for +her and who had been "chucked out" of a hotel because he was a rough +sailor, and marvellously well he understood that when she said she loved +Raft she did not mean the thing that the dock side called Love. No Paris +poet could have understood her. The old fisher captain did. + +But he was a practical man. He struck himself a blow on the head. + +"I have what you want," said he, "_La Belle Arlesienne_, no, it is no +use, I have something better, a good cruising boat--you say money is no +object." + +"None." + +"Then come with me, you two." + +He led the way followed by Raft and the girl to a wharf where a tug lay +moored and by the tug a fifty ton yawl. + +"There's your boat," said Bontemps, "built by Pinoli of Genoa for an +American. She has even a bath-room--a main cabin with two cabins off it, +your man could berth in the fo'c'sle which is big enough for twenty like +him. Follow me." + +He led the way on to the deck of the yawl. + +The girl went over it down below into the main cabin with two little +sleeping cabins off it. She peeped into the tiny bath-room, examined the +pantry well-stored with crockeryware, there was everything even to the +bunk bedding, sheets and towels, she went to the fo'c'sle; compared with +the fo'c'sle of the _Albatross_ it was a little palace. + +Then she turned to Raft. + +"This is your new home," said she, "there is room for your parrot here." +Then turning to Captain Bontemps. "Well, that is settled and now I only +want a crew and a captain--fishermen. I will have no yachtsmen on my +boat. I have had to do with yachtsmen, Captain Bontemps." + +"Oh, my faith," said the old fellow, "you will easily find a crew." + +"Yes, but I won't easily find a captain. I want you." + +The Captain laughed. + +"And how about _La Belle Arlesienne_?" asked he. + +"You must leave her behind you to be sold. In my service money is no +object. Now as to this boat, who is the agent from whom I can buy her?" + +"Latour and Company," replied the old fellow, for the first time in his +life in the powerful grip of wealth and not knowing exactly whether the +great golden hand was holding him heels or head up. + +"How far is Latour's from here?" + +"Not far." + +The girl stood for a moment looking round her at the white deck, the +masts, the rigging, and as she looked some hand seemed to draw aside a +veil revealing the stupid immovable houses of the land filled with +stupid immovable people bound and tied up by soul-killing +conventions--and on the other hand the old mystery of ships, those homes +of Freedom on the road that has no boundaries. + +Then she turned to Bontemps. + +"Come," said she, "let us go to Latour's." + + * * * * * + +"Cleo," said the distracted Madame de Brie, writing to a friend, "Cleo +must always have been as mad as her aunt De Warens. Fishermen, it +seems, are the only honest people, and she and her cargo of fishermen, +with an old man named Bontemps, are now heaven knows where since I met +them at Portofino. + +"She calls them her children and when I last saw her she was coming +along the little quay at Portofino helping that big red bearded man to +carry provisions. + +"The times are revolutionary, that's the truth, and women are not what +they were, and I am old, I suppose, and cannot see things as I ought to +see them--and the grief is she might have married any one, she might +have married Royalty itself, and I told her so and she laughed in my +face. She said she never intended to marry any one, that she already had +a family of 'children' and that the great bearded man Raft was the +smallest of them all, that she was teaching him to read and write and to +talk French so that he could converse with the rest of her family. + +"She has made Portofino her headquarters, it seems, and she is the lady +bountiful of the fishing folk there, sits in their cottages and talks to +them, taking up her quarters at the little _auberge_ and sometimes +living on board her boat. + +"A strange life, and yet she seems happy, like that poor Mademoiselle La +Fontaine, whom I last saw at the Maison de Sante of Doctor +Schwanthaller, seated with a straw crown on her head and imagining +herself a queen." + +There ended the letter of Madame de Brie, and here ends the story of +Cleo de Bromsart, a woman of energy and mind who learned from Kerguelen +that Life is an endless striving, not a peaceful drifting, and that of +all things high the highest is the soul of a child. + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Beach of Dreams, by H. 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