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diff --git a/20863.txt b/20863.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..71ad0dd --- /dev/null +++ b/20863.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10982 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Major Vigoureux, by A. T. Quiller-Couch + +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: Major Vigoureux + +Author: A. T. Quiller-Couch + +Release Date: March 20, 2007 [EBook #20863] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAJOR VIGOUREUX *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +MAJOR VIGOUREUX + +NOVELS AND STORIES BY "Q" + +Published by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + +Major Vigoureux $1.50 +Poison Island $1.50 +Sir John Constantine $1.50 +The Mayor of Troy $1.50 +Shining Ferry $1.50 +The Adventures of Harry Revel $1.50 +The White Wolf and Other Tales $1.50 +The Laird's Luck and Other Tales $1.50 +Fort Amity $1.50 +Two Sides of the Face: Midwinter Tales $1.50 +Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts $1.50 +The Ship of Stars $1.50 +Historical Tales from Shakespeare $1.50 + + + + + +MAJOR VIGOUREUX + + + +BY + + +A. T. QUILLER-COUCH + +("Q") + + + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +NEW YORK 1907 + +Copyright, 1907, by +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + +Published September, 1907 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. IN THE GARRISON GARDEN 1 + + II. SERGEANT ARCHELAUS IS RE-FITTED 12 + + III. THE COMMANDANT FINESSES A KNAVE 28 + + IV. THE GUN IN THE GREAT FOG 44 + + V. THE S.S. MILO 56 + + VI. HOW VASHTI CAME TO THE ISLANDS 71 + + VII. TRIBULATIONS OF MRS. POPE AND MISS GABRIEL 84 + + VIII. A BRIEF REVENGE 97 + + IX. THE SALVING OF S.S. MILO 106 + + X. THE ADVENTURES OF FOUR SHILLINGS 125 + + XI. PLAN OF CAMPAIGN 142 + + XII. SAARON ISLAND 158 + + XIII. THE LADY FROM THE SEA 174 + + XIV. AFTER SERVICE 190 + + XV. BREFAR CHURCH 205 + + XVI. THE LORD PROPRIETOR'S AUDIENCE 221 + + XVII. THE LORD PROPRIETOR RECEIVES A DOUBLE SHOCK 232 + + XVIII. VASHTI PLEADS FOR SAARON 243 + + XIX. THE COMMANDANT'S CONSCIENCE 262 + + XX. THE GUITAR AND THE CASEMENT 277 + + XXI. SUSPICIONS 293 + + XXII. PIPER'S HOLE 306 + + XXIII. THE LORD PROPRIETOR HEARS A SIREN SONG 320 + + XXIV. LINNET SEES A MERMAID 337 + + XXV. MISSING! 344 + + XXVI. THE SEARCH 356 + + XXVII. ENTER THE COMMISSIONER 373 + +XXVIII. THE FINDING 387 + + XXIX. CONCLUSION 399 + + + + +MAJOR VIGOUREUX + + + + +CHAPTER I + +IN THE GARRISON GARDEN + + +"Archelaus," said the Commandant, "where did you get those trousers?" +Sergeant Archelaus, who, as he dug in the neglected garden, had been +exposing a great quantity of back-view (for he was a long man), +straightened himself up, faced about, and, grounding his long-handled +spade as it were a musket, stood with palms crossed over the top of it. + +"Off the Lord Proprietor," he answered. + +The Commandant, seated on a bench under the veronica hedge, a few yards +higher up the slope, laid down his book, took off his spectacles, wiped +them, and replaced them very deliberately. + +"The Lord Proprietor? I do not understand--" His face had reddened a +little, as it usually did at mention of the Lord Proprietor. + +"Made me a present of 'em," explained Sergeant Archelaus, curtly. "You +don't mean to say you haven't noticed 'em till this minute?" + +The Commandant put the question aside. "The Lord Proprietor has no +right to be offering presents to my men--least of all, presents of +clothes." + +"If the Government won't send over stores, nor you write for any, I +don't see how the man can help himself. 'Tisn't regulation pattern for +the R'yal Artillery, I'll grant you: not the sort of things you'd wear +on the right of the line. In fact, he told me 'tis an old pair he used +to carry when he went deer-stalkin'." + +"They are hideous, Archelaus; not to mention that they don't fit you in +the least." + +"They don't look so bad when I'm sitting down," said Archelaus, after a +moment's thought, and with an air of forced cheerfulness. + +"If that's all you can say in extenuation!----" + +"Well, 'twas kindly meant, any way; for the old ones were a +scandal--yes, be sure. What with sea-water and scrambling after gulls' +eggs, they was becoming a byword all over the Islands." + +The Commandant winced, not for the first time in this conversation. + +"Treacher makes his clothes last," he objected. + +"Sam Treacher's a married man, and gets his bad luck different." + +"But--but couldn't you ask Mrs. Treacher to take your old ones in hand +and put in a patch or two? That might carry you on for a few months, +and if you grudge the expense, I don't mind subscribing a shilling or +so." + +Sergeant Archelaus shook his head. "What's the use?" he asked. "'Tis +but puttin' off the evil day. If Her Majesty won't send us clothes, we +must fall back on Providence. Besides which, I've taken the edge off +these things, and don't want to begin over again. Last Wednesday I wore +'em over to the Off Islands, to practise 'em on the sea-birds; and last +evening after dusk I walked through the town with 'em--yes, sir, right +out past the church and back again, my blood being up, and came home +and cut a square out of the old ones to wrap round the bung of the +water-butt." + +The Commandant eyed the sergeant's legs in silence, choking down +half-a-dozen angry criticisms. No; he could not trust himself to speak; +and, after a minute, cramming his clenched fists into the pockets of +his frayed fatigue-jacket, he swung about on his heel and walked out of +the garden with angry strides. + +Was the Lord Proprietor making sport of him?--purposely making him and +his garrison the laughing-stock of the Islands? + +The Commandant walked up the road with a hot heart: past the Barracks +and beyond them to the down, where a ruined windmill overlooked the +sea. He wanted to be alone, and up here he could count upon solitude. +He wanted to walk off his ill-humour. But the ascent was steep, and he, +alas! no longer a young man; and at the windmill he was forced to stand +still and draw breath. + +At his feet lay the Islands, bathed in the light of a fast-reddening +October sunset. Against such a sunset, if the air be very clear, you +may see them from the cliffs of the mainland--a low, dark cloud out in +the Atlantic; and in old days the Commandant had repined often enough +at the few leagues which then had cut him off from the world, from +active service, from promotion. + +Gradually, as time went on, he had grown resigned, and with resignation +he had learnt to be proud of his kingdom--for his kingdom _de facto_ +it was. The Islanders had used to speak of him sometimes as The +Commandant, but oftener as The Governor. (They never called him The +Governor nowadays.) His military establishment, to be sure--consisting +of a master-gunner, four other gunners, and two or three aged +sergeants--scarcely accorded with his rank of major; but by way of +compensation he was, as President of the Council of Twelve, the chief +civil magistrate of the Islands. + +This requires a word or two of explanation. The Reigning Sovereign of +England retained, as he yet retains, military authority over the +Islands, and from him, through the Commander-in-chief, our friend held +his appointment as military governor. But His Majesty King William III +and his successors, by a lease two or three times renewed, had granted +"all those His Majesty's territories and rocks"--so the wording ran--to +a great and unknown person of whom the Islanders spoke reverentially as +The Duke, "together with all sounds, harbours, and sands within the +circuit of the said Isles; and all lands, tenements, meadows, pastures, +grounds, feedings, fishing places, mines of tin, lead, and coals, and +all profits of the same, and full power to dig, work, and mine in the +premises; and also all the marshes, void grounds, woods, under-woods, +rents, reservoirs, services, and all other profits, rights, +commodities, advantages, and emoluments within the said Isles; and a +moiety of all shipwreck, the other moiety to be received by the Lord +High Admiral; as also all His Majesty's Liberties, Franchises, +Authorities, and Jurisdictions, as had before been used in the said +Islands; with full power to hear, examine, and finally determine all +plaints, suits, matters, actions, controversies, contentions, and +demands whatever, moved and depending between party and party +inhabiting the said Isle (all business, treason, matters touching life +or member of man, or title of land; and also all controversies and +causes touching ships, and other things belonging to the High Court of +Admiralty always excepted)"--all this for an annual rent of Forty +Pounds. + +The Duke, in short, was by his lease made Lord Proprietor, with all +civil jurisdiction. But, being far too great a man to reside in the +Islands, or even to visit them, he entrusted his business to a resident +Agent, and deputed his magistracy to an elective Council of Twelve, +over which the Commandant for the time being invariably presided. But +this custom (it should be explained) rested on courtesy and not upon +right. Based upon compromise--for the boundaries between the civil and +military jurisdictions were at some points not precisely determined--it +had been found to work smoothly enough in practice, it had stood the +test of a hundred and fifty years when, in the year after Sevastopol, +Major Narcisse Vigoureux arrived in the Islands to take over the +military command, and the Duke nominated him for the Presidency quite +as a matter of course. + +As President, he had power, with the assent of the Court, to inflict +fines, whippings, and imprisonment--this last with the limitation that +he could not commit to any prison on the mainland, but only to the +Island lock-up; and also, if he chose, to prescribe the ducking-stool +for refractory or scolding women. The office carried no salary; but as +Governor under the Lord Proprietor he enjoyed a valuable perquisite in +the harbour dues collected from the shipping. Every vessel visiting the +port or hoisting the Queen's colours was liable, on coming to anchor or +grounding, to pay the sum of two shillings and two pence. All +foreigners paid double. And since, in addition to ships putting in from +abroad, it sometimes happened that two hundred sail of coasters would +be driven by easterly gales to shelter in St. Lide's Harbour, or +roadstead, or in Cromwell's Sound, you may guess that this made a very +pleasant addition to the Commandant's military pay. + +In short, for a dozen years Major Narcisse Vigoureux had been, for an +unmarried man, an exceedingly happy one. If you ask me how an officer +bearing such a name happened in command of a British garrison, I answer +that he was not a Frenchman, but a Channel Islander of good Jersey +descent; and this again helped him to understand the folk over whom he +ruled. The wrong-doers feared him; but they were few. By the rest of +the population, including his soldiers, he was beloved, respected, not +a little envied. For a bachelor he mingled with zest in the small +social amusements of Garland Town, the capital of the Islands. He shone +at picnics and water-parties. He played a fair hand at whist. His +manner towards ladies was deferential; towards men, dignified without a +trace of patronage or self-conceit. All voted him a good fellow. At +first, indeed--for he practised small economies, and his linen, though +clean, was frayed--they suspected him of stinginess, until by accident +the Vicar discovered that a great part of his pay went to support his +dead brother's family--a widow and two girls who lived at Notting Hill, +London, in far from affluent circumstances. + +In spite of this the Commandant's lot might fairly have been called +enviable until the day which terminated the ninety-nine years' lease +upon which the Duke held the Islands. Everyone took it for granted that +he would apply, as his predecessors had twice applied, for a renewal. +But, no; like a bolt from the blue came news that the Duke, an old man, +had waived his application in favour of an unknown purchaser--unknown, +that is to say, in the Islands--a London banker, recently created a +baronet, by name Sir Caesar Hutchins. + +In general, all Garland Town relied for information about persons of +rank and title upon Miss Elizabeth Gabriel, a well-to-do spinster lady, +daughter of a former agent of the Duke's. But Miss Gabriel's copy of +"The Peerage and Baronetage of Great Britain and Ireland" dated from +1845, and Sir Caesar's title being of more recent--or, as she put it, of +mushroom--creation, the curious had to wait until a newer volume +arrived from the mainland. Meanwhile, at their whist parties twice a +week, the gentry of Garland Town indulged in a hundred brisk surmises, +but without alarm--"unconscious of their doom, the little victims +played." It was agreed, of course, that the new Lord Proprietor would +not take up his abode in the Islands. For where was a suitable +residence? On the whole the Commandant had little doubt that things +would go on as before, but he felt some uneasiness for Mr. Pope, the +Duke's agent. + +Within a fortnight, however, came two fresh announcements, of which the +first--a letter from Sir Caesar, continuing Mr. Pope in his +office--gratified everyone. But the second was terrible indeed. The War +Office had decided to disband the garrison and remove its guns! + +Major Vigoureux' face had whitened as he read that letter, five years +ago. It whitened yet at the remembrance of it. As for his hair, it had +been whitening ever since. + +For dreadful things had happened in those five years. To begin with, +the new Lord Proprietor had upset prophecy by coming into residence, +and had reared himself a handsome house on the near island of +Inniscaw.... But here for a while let us forbear to retrace those five +years with their humiliating memories. It is enough that the Commandant +now walked with a stoop; that he wore not only his linen frayed but a +frayed coat also; and that he who of old had so often wished that +England would take note of his Islands against the western sun, now +prayed rather that the fogs would cover them and cut them off from +sight forever. He had practical reasons, too, for such a prayer; but of +these he was not thinking as he turned there by the windmill, and spied +Sergeant Treacher approaching along the ridge, and trundling a +wheel-barrow full of manure. The level sun-rays, painting the turf to a +green almost unnaturally vivid, and gilding the straw of the manure, +passed on to flame upon Sergeant Treacher's breast as though beneath +his unbuttoned tunic he wore a corslet of burnished brass. The +Commandant blinked, again removed his glasses, and, having repolished, +resumed them. + +"Treacher, what are you wearing?" + +"Meanin' the weskit, sir?" asked Treacher. + +"Is it a waistcoat?" + +"Well, sir, it used to be an antimacassar; but Miss Gabriel had it made +up for me, all the shirts in store bein' used up, so to speak." + +Too well the Commandant recognised it; an abomination of crochet work +in stripes, four inches wide, of scarlet, green, orange-yellow, and +violet. For years--in fact ever since he remembered Miss Gabriel's +front parlour--it had decorated the back of Miss Gabriel's sofa. + +"She said, sir, that with the autumn drawing on, and the winter coming, +it would cut up nicely for a weskit," Treacher explained. + +"Miss Gabriel," began the Commandant, "Miss Gabriel has no business----" + +"No, sir?" suggested Treacher, after a pause. + +"You will take it off. You will take it off this instant, and hand it +to me." + +"Yes, sir." Treacher obediently slipped off his tunic. "I don't like +the thing myself; it's too noticeable, though warming. Miss Gabriel +called it a Chesterfield." + +"It's a conspiracy!" said the Commandant. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +SERGEANT ARCHELAUS IS RE-FITTED + + +The Commandant, still with a hot heart, walked for a little way beside +Sergeant Treacher. He carried the offending waistcoat slung across his +arm, and once or twice hesitated on the verge of indignant speech; but +by-and-by seemed to recollect himself, halted, turned, and, parting +from Treacher without more words, marched off for his customary evening +walk around the fortifications. + +Let us follow him. + +The garrison occupied the heights of a peninsula connected with St. +Lide's by a low sandy isthmus, across which it looked towards the +"country side" of the island, though this country side was in fact +concealed by rising ground, for the most part uncultivated, where +sheets of mesembryanthemum draped the outcropping ledges of granite. At +the foot of the hill, around the pier and harbour to the north and +east, clustered St. Hugh's town, and climbed by one devious street to +the garrison gate. From where he stood the Commandant could almost look +down its chimneys. Along the isthmus straggled a few houses in double +line, known as New Town, and beyond, where the isthmus widened, lay the +Old Town around its Parish Church. These three together made Garland +Town, the capital of the Islands; and the population of St. +Lide's--town, garrison, and country side--numbered a little over +fourteen hundred. Garrison Hill, rising (as we have seen) with a pretty +steep acclivity, attains the height of a hundred and ten feet above sea +level. It measures about three-quarters of a mile in length and a +quarter of a mile in breadth, and the lines of fortification extended +around the whole hill (except upon the north-west side, which happened +to be the most important); a circuit of one mile and a quarter. + +[Illustration] + +You entered them beneath a massive but ruinous gateway, surmounted by a +bell, which Sergeant Treacher rang regularly at six, nine, and twelve +o'clock in the morning, and at three, six, and nine p.m., and struck to +announce the intervening hours: for the Islands had no public clock. To +the left of this gateway the Commandant always began his round, +starting from King George's Battery, to which in old days the Islanders +had looked for warning of the enemy's approach. Then it had mounted +seven long eighteen-pounders: now--The Commandant sighed and moved +on; past the Duke's Battery (four eighteen-pounders), the Vixen (one +eighteen and one nine-pounder), and along by a breastwork pierced with +embrasures to the important battery on Day Point, at the extreme +south-east. Here five thirty-two pounders--and, three hundred yards +away to the west, in the great Windlass Battery, no fewer than eleven +guns of the same calibre--had grinned defiance at the ships of France. +To-day the grass grew on their empty platforms, the nettles sprouted +from their angles ... and the Commandant--what was he doing here? + +I fear the answer may provoke a smile. He was drawing his pay. + +The guns, the garrison, were gone these five years; but by some +oversight of the War Office neither the Commandant nor his two +sergeants had been retired. Regularly, month by month, his pay-sheet +had been accepted; regularly the full amount had been handed to him by +Mr. Fossell, agent at Garland Town for Messrs. Curtis' Bank on the +mainland. Clearly there was a mistake somewhere, and often enough his +conscience smote him, urging that he ought, in honour, to call +attention to it. He was defrauding the Government, and, through the +Government, the taxpayer. + +Yes; conscience put this plainly enough, and he felt it to be +unanswerable. But if he obeyed conscience and published the +mistake--good Heavens! what would happen to him? Already, three years +ago, the Lord Proprietor had resumed the shipping dues which had made +so welcome an addition to his income. On the strength of them he had +made a too liberal allowance to his brother's widow; and now to +maintain it he was driven to deny himself all but the barest necessary +expenses. Yet how could he cut it down? The two girls were growing up. +Their mother had sent them to a costly school. As it was, her letters +burdened him with complaints of her poverty: for she was a peevish, +grasping woman--poor soul! + +Again, if he published the mistake, he impoverished not himself only +but his two sergeants: and Treacher was a married man. He often drugged +his conscience with this. But his conscience, being healthy, was soon +awake and tormenting him. + +It humiliated him, too. Government, which sent him his full pay, never +sent him stores, ammunition, or clothing for his men. He wanted no +ammunition; but his men needed clothing--and he dared not ask for it. +Their uniforms were (as Miss Gabriel had more than once pointedly +asserted in his hearing) a scandal to the Islands. Moreover, the price +of hens' eggs ruling high in Garland Town, he had discovered that +gulls' eggs made a tolerable substitute. It was in scrambling after +gulls' eggs for his Commanding Officer that Sergeant Archelaus had +ruined his small-clothes.... And now you know why in the course of his +discussion with Sergeant Archelaus the Commandant had winced more than +once. + +Worst of all, the fatal secret tied his tongue under all the many +slights (as he reckoned them) which the Lord Proprietor put on him. No; +worst of all was the self-reproach he carried about in his own breast. +But none the less the Commandant, as a sensitive man, chafed under the +Lord Proprietor's tyranny, which was the harder to bear for being +slightly contemptuous. He felt that all his old friends pitied him +while they turned to worship the rising sun; while, as for Miss Gabriel +(who had never been his friend), he feared her caustic tongue worse +than the devil. + +But to attack him thus through his men! Had Miss Gabriel and the Lord +Proprietor conspired to inflict this indignity? + +The Commandant was a sincere Christian: ever willing to believe the +best of his kind, incapable of harbouring malice, or, except in the +brief heat of temper, of imputing it to others. In the short three +hundred yards between the Day Point and Windlass Batteries he repented +his worst thoughts. He acquitted his enemies--if enemies they were--of +conspiracy. The coincidence of the two gifts was fortuitous: they had +been offered without guile, if also without sufficient care for his +feelings. But this kind of thing must not happen again, and obviously +the most tactful way to prevent it was, not to remonstrate with Miss +Gabriel or with the Lord Proprietor, but to provide (somehow) his two +sergeants with a re-fit. + +The Commandant had arrived at this conclusion and at the Sand Pit +Battery (five thirty-two pounders) almost simultaneously, when, across +the breastwork, he was aware of Mr. Rogers, Lieutenant R. N., and +Inspecting Commander of the Coast-guard, standing at the head of the +slope just outside the fortifications, and conning the sea through a +telescope. + +"Hullo!" said Mr. Rogers--a short man with a jolly smile--lowering his +glass and facing suddenly about at the sound of the Commandant's +footfall. "Hullo! and good evening!" + +"Good evening!" responded Major Vigoureux. + +"Queer-looking sky out yonder." + +"So it is, now you come to mention it." The Commandant, shaken out of +his brown study, slowly concentrated his gaze on the western horizon. + +"See that bank of fog? I don't know what to make of it. No wind at all; +the glass steady as a rock; and a heavy swell rolling up from westward. +Take hold of my glass and bring it to bear on the Monk"--this was the +lighthouse guarding the westernmost reef of the Off Islands. "Every now +and then a sea'll hide half the column." + +"For my part," said the Commandant, "I've been out of all calculation +with the weather for a week past. It's uncanny for the time of year." + +"There's the devil of a rumpus going on somewhere, to account for the +sea that's running," said Mr. Rogers, and checked himself in the act of +handing the telescope across the breastwork, as he caught sight of +Sergeant Treacher's waistcoat, which the Commandant was nervously +shifting from his right arm to his left. + +"Hullo!" said Mr. Rogers, again. + +"It's--it's a sort of waistcoat," explained the Commandant. + +"It may be," said Mr. Rogers. "But unless I'm a Dutchman, it used to be +The Gabriel's antimacassar"--and with that Mr. Rogers winked, for he +had (as the other knew to his cost) an artless, primitive sense of +pleasantry. "A _gage d'amour_, I'll bet any man a sovereign. Come now!" + +"I assure you----" + +"And you two pretending before everyone that you're at daggers drawn! +Trust an old one for slyness!" + +(Once again this afternoon the Commandant winced.) + +"Oh, but this is too rich!" Mr. Rogers continued, and the Commandant +felt that only the intervening breastwork protected him from a nudge +under the ribs. "I must take a rise out of the old lady to-night, when +we meet at old Fossell's." + +"I--I beg you will do nothing of the sort." The Commandant's voice +shook with apprehension. + +Mr. Rogers, mistaking the tremor in the appeal, recoiled suddenly from +the extremely gay to the extremely grave. "My good fellow! Of course, +if it's serious!----" + +"'Serious!'" The Commandant stared at him for a moment. "Oh, damn the +woman!" he broke out in sudden wrath, and went his way with long +strides, while the Inspecting Commander looked after him with a broad +grin. + +The next battery, the Keg of Butter--so called from a barrel-shaped +rock which it overlooked--was built of sods, and had mounted a single +eighteen-pounder, on a traversing platform. Here, on the north-west +side of the hill, the fortifications broke off, or were continued only +by a low wall along the edge of the cliff; and here the path, or _via +militaris_, turned off at a sharp angle and led back towards the +Castle, under the walls of which the Commandant passed, as a rule, to +complete his inspection by visiting the three batteries on the northern +cliffs. But to-day he broke his custom, and returned to the Garrison +Garden. + +As he opened the gate, five o'clock sounded from the garrison bell, and +at the first stroke of it he saw Sergeant Archelaus drive his spade +into the soil, draw the back of his wrist across his forehead, and walk +towards the veronica hedge for his tunic. + +"Archelaus!" + +"Sir!" + +"I have been thinking over those trousers--" began the Commandant, +picking his way between the briers that threatened to choke the path. + +"And so have I," said Sergeant Archelaus; "and the upshot is, Do you +spell 'em with a 'u' or a 'w'?" + +"Now you mention it, I don't feel able to answer you off-hand; not +without writing it down," said the Commandant. "But what on earth does +it matter?" + +"Nothin'--except that I was thinkin' to write him a letter, to thank +him." + +"For Heaven's sake--" the Commandant began, and checked himself. "I +wouldn't do that, if I were you. In fact, I've been thinking the matter +over, and it occurs to me that I have an old pair of dress trousers +that might serve your turn; that is to say, if you could manage to +unpick the red stripe off your old ones and get someone to sew it on. +They are black, to be sure; but the difference between black and dark +blue is not so very noticeable. And the cut of them inclines to the +peg-top, that being the fashionable shape when I bought them--let me +see--in fifty-seven, I think it was." + +"I know 'em," said Sergeant Archelaus. "They were sound enough two +months back, when I sprinkled 'em over with camphor, against the moth." + +"I think they will do excellently." + +"They'll do, fast enough," Sergeant Archelaus asserted; "though it +seems like deprivin' you." + +"Not at all, Archelaus; not in the least. Why, I haven't put on evening +dress half a dozen times since I came to the Islands." + +"And that's a long time, to be sure, sir. But one never knows. The Lord +Proprietor might take it into his head, one o' these days, to invite +you to dinner." + +"Few things are less likely. And even if he did, and the worst came to +the worst, I might borrow Mr. Rogers', you know," added the +Commandant--and with a smile; for he stood six feet, and Mr. Rogers a +bare five feet five, in their respective socks. + +"He might ask you both together. 'Twould be just of a piece with his +damned thoughtlessness." + +"Hush, Archelaus!" his master commanded sternly, and reproached himself +afterwards for having felt not altogether ill-pleased. + +"Well, sir, I thank you kindly; and I won't deny 'twill be a comfort to +go about with the lower half of me looking a bit less like a pen-wiper. +But what be I to do with the pesky things? Return 'em?" + +"On no account. You might even thank him--by word of mouth--if you have +not already done so." + +"I haven't. To tell the truth, the pattern took me so aback at first +going off.... But when you came in by the gate, there, I was turning it +over in my mind that the garrison oughtn't to be beholden to a +civilian----" + +"Quite right, Archelaus." + +"And, that bein' so, it might be dignified-like to return gift for +gift. Now, the Lord Proprietor's terrible fond of bulbs; 'tis a new +craze with him; and in spading over the border here I'd a-turned up a +dozen or so of those queer-looking Lent-lilies you set such store +by----" Sergeant Archelaus pointed towards a little heap of daffodil +bulbs carelessly strewn on the up-turned soil. + +These bulbs had a history. + +Close on thirty years before, a certain Dutch skipper--his name is +forgotten--happened to be sailing for Bordeaux with a general cargo, +which included some thousands of tulips, and a few almost priceless +ones, for a rich purchaser who wished to introduce tulip-culture into +the Gironde. The Dutchman's vessel was a flat-bottomed galliot, fitted +with lee-boards, but liable to fall away from the wind; and, +encountering a strong southerly gale as he attempted to round Ushant, +he was blown northward into the fogs, and, through the fogs, upon the +Islands. + +Against what followed, the chances were at least a thousand to one. His +vessel, blind as to her whereabouts, and helpless among the tide-races, +missed rock after rock, blundered her way past every sunken peril--to +be sure, she was flat-bottomed, but the soundings varied so from moment +to moment that the crew, after running a dozen times to the boats in +the certainty of striking, fully believed themselves bewitched; until, +in St. Lide's Pool, as they made seven fathoms and hoped for open +water, the fog lifted suddenly, and they saw Garrison Hill right above +them. + +This befell them a short hour before sunset. The skipper rounded up to +the wind, dropped anchor, got out a boat, and groped his way +shoreward--for the fog had descended again, even more speedily than it +had lifted. + +Groping his way, and still attended by his amazing good luck, the +Dutchman, where he had expected rocks, came plump on a pier of hewn +masonry. At the pier-head, which loomed high above them, a man struck a +light and displayed a lantern; and, looking up, the crew were aware of +many people standing there and chattering in the dusk--chattering in +the low soft tone peculiar to the Islanders. The skipper hailed them in +Dutch, and again in French, these being the only languages he spoke. +The Islanders, helping him ashore, made signs that they could not +answer, but took him and his men up the hill to the Garrison, then +commanded by a Colonel Bartlemy. + +Colonel Bartlemy could speak French after a fashion, and so could his +excellent wife. Between them they entertained the wanderers hospitably +for the space of five days, at the end of which the Dutchman went his +way before a clear north wind, and in charge of an Island pilot. But +before departing he presented his hosts--it was all that either he +could give or they would permit themselves to accept--with a quantity +of remarkably fine bulbs from his cargo. + +Now, possibly, being a Dutchman, he took it for granted that anyone +could recognise these bulbs for what they were. But Mrs. Bartlemy did +not; for she had spent the most of her life in various garrisons, which +afford few opportunities for gardening. None the less, she was, for a +soldier's wife, a first-rate housekeeper; and, supposing these bulbs to +be onions of peculiar rarity, she forthwith issued invitations to the +_elite_ of the Island, and ordered over a leg of Welsh mutton from the +mainland. I will not attempt to tell of the dinner that ensued: for +Miss Gabriel made the story her own, and everyone who heard her relate +it after one of Garland Town's _petits soupers_--as she frequently did +by special request--declared it to be inimitable. Suffice it to say +that the tulips were boiled, but not eaten. + +A few bulbs, of smaller size, escaped the pot, and Mrs. Bartlemy, in +her mortification, ordered the cook to throw them away, or (in the +language of the Islands) to "heave them to cliff." The cook cast them +out upon a bed of rubbish in a corner of the garrison garden, where +by-and-by they were covered with fresh rubbish, under which they +sprouted; and, next spring, lo! the midden heap had become a mound of +glorious trumpet daffodils! + +So they were left to blossom, refreshing the eyes of successive +Commandants year after year as March came round and the March +nor'-westers set their yellow bells waving against the blue sea. Major +Vigoureux delighted in them--were they not his name-flower? But no one +took pains to cultivate them, as no one suspected their great destiny. +They bloomed year by year, and waited. Their hour was not yet. + +"By all means, Archelaus, let us do it tactfully," agreed the +Commandant. "We must suppress those trousers of his at all costs. Yet I +would avoid anything in the nature of a rebuff, and if you think the +Lord Proprietor would be gratified, you are welcome to take him as many +of the bulbs as you please. Only leave me a few; for God knows our +garden has few ornaments to spare." + +"I'll take 'em over to Inniscaw and thank him by word o' mouth," said +Sergeant Archelaus, hopefully. "It'll save me the trouble of spelling +'trousers,' anyway." + +"It would be easier, as well as more accurate," said the Commandant, +pensively regarding the Sergeant's legs, "to call them trews. Not," he +went on inconsequently, "that I have anything to say against the +Highland Regiments. I was brigaded once for three months with the +Forth-Second, and capital fellows I found them." + +With a mind relieved, the Commandant walked off towards the Barracks, +pausing on his way to pick up Miss Gabriel's antimacassar-waistcoat, +which he had taken the precaution to leave outside the gate. + +Three-quarters of an hour later he emerged in clean shirt and +threadbare, but well-brushed, uniform, arrayed for Mr. and Mrs. +Fossell's whist-party. As he passed the Garrison gate, Mrs. Treacher, +who sometimes acted deputy for her husband, began to ring the six +o'clock bell. He halted and waited for her to finish. + +"Mrs. Treacher," he said, "can you tell me the price of flannel?" + +"Flannel," answered Mrs. Treacher, "is all prices, according to +quality." + +"But I am talking of good ordinary flannel, fit to make up into a man's +shirt." + +"Then you couldn't say less than one-three-farthings, or +one-and-a-ha'penny at the lowest." + +"And how much would be required?" + +"Good Lord!" said Mrs. Treacher. "As if that didn't all depend on the +man!" + +"I was thinking, Mrs. Treacher, to present your husband with one: that +is to say, with the material, if you will not mind making it up." + +Mrs. Treacher curtsied. "And I thank you kindly, sir, for 'tis not +before he needs one, which, being under average size and the width just +a yard, as you may reckon, he oughtn't to take more than +three-and-a-half yards at the outside." + +"Three-and-a-half at one-three-farthings--that makes--Oh, confound +these fractions!" said the Commandant. "We'll make it four shillings, +and you had best step down to Tregaskis' shop to-morrow and choose the +stuff yourself." He counted out the money into Mrs. Treacher's hand, +and left her curtseying. As he went, he jingled the few coins remaining +in his breeches pocket. They amounted to two-and-seven-pence in +all--and almost a week stood between him and pay-day. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE COMMANDANT FINESSES A KNAVE + + +"I remember the Bartlemys perfectly," said Miss Gabriel, addressing the +company as they sat around Mr. and Mrs. Fossell's dining-table and +trifled with a light collation of cordial waters and ratafia +biscuits--prelude to serious whist. "I carry them both in my mind's +eye, though I must have been but a tiny child when he succumbed to +apoplexy, and she left the Islands to reside with a married sister at +Scarborough. Very poorly-off he left her. Somehow, our Commanding +Officers have never contrived to save money--even in the old days, when +the post was worth having." + +Miss Gabriel said it lightly but pointedly, with a glance at the +Commandant. The company stared at their plates and glasses. It was +well-known that (as Mr. Rogers put it) Miss Gabriel "had her knife +into" the patient man, and there were tongues that attributed her +spitefulness to disappointment. Fifteen years ago, when Major Narcisse +Vigoureux--no longer in his first youth, but still a man of handsome +presence--had first arrived in the Islands to take over his command, +Miss Gabriel was a not uncomely woman of thirty. _Partis_ in the +Islands are few, as you may suppose. He was a bachelor, she a spinster; +she had money, and he position. What wonder, then, if the Islanders +expected them to make a match of it? + +For some reason, the match had never come off, and although she might +convince herself that the simplest reason--incompatibility--was the +true one, Miss Gabriel could hardly have been unaware that the women +looked upon her as one who had missed her chance, and even blamed her a +little--as women always will in such cases--in a conspiracy of sex +acknowledging its weakness. Perhaps this made her defiant. + +She was handling the Commandant truculently to-night. + +"Of course," she continued, "even in those days the post--don't they +say the same in England of a Deanery?--was looked upon as finishing a +man's career. I don't know, for my part, the principle upon which the +Horse Guards--it used to be the Horse Guards--sent Colonel Bartlemy +down to us." + +"By selection, ma'am," said the Commandant, still patiently, as she +paused; "by selection among a number of applicants." + +"I didn't want to be told that," snapped Miss Gabriel. "What I meant +was, the Commander-in-Chief probably knew something of the man--had +informed himself of something in his record--before sending him down to +this exile." + +"And a jolly good exile, too!" put in Mr. Rogers, heartily. + +"It used to be," said Miss Gabriel. "This Colonel Bartlemy, for +instance, was a coward. I've heard it told of him that once, during his +command, a sort of mutiny broke out in the Barracks. It happened at a +time when the newspapers were full of nonsense about France invading us +by a sudden descent; and the noise, reaching him in the quarters where +he lodged with his wife and one general maid-servant, put him in a +terrible fright. He had fenced off these quarters of his for privacy, +because Mrs. Bartlemy thought it would be a good deal better for the +maid-servant; and they communicated with the Barracks by a staircase +with a door of which he kept the key. On the first alarm he ran to this +door and called through the key-hole for his orderly; but the orderly, +who himself was taking part in the disturbance, did not hear. So the +Colonel called up his wife and the servant, and joined them at the head +of the stairs after he had slipped on his belt and sword. By this time +the noise below was deafening. The Colonel, putting a brave face on it, +managed to get the key into the lock and turn it. Then, as he flung the +door open, he turned with a bow to his wife and said very politely, in +French--for they were in the habit of talking French before the +girl--'_Passez devant, madame!_'" + +"How did it end?" asked Mr. Rogers, after a guffaw. + +"Oh, it turned out to be just a barrack brawl. The soldiers were always +the worst-behaved lot in the Islands, and perpetually grumbling--though +in those days," added Miss Gabriel, "I always understood that they were +fed and clothed sufficiently." + +The Commandant whitened. Mrs. Fossell, a nervous body in a cap with +lilac ribbon, rose in some little fluster, and opined that it was +almost time to cut for partners. + +A few minutes later the Commandant found himself seated opposite Mr. +Fossell, with Miss Gabriel and Mr. Rogers for opponents--Miss Gabriel +on his left. He prepared to enjoy himself, for whist meant silence, and +he could have chosen no better partner than Mr. Fossell, who played a +sound game, and with a perfectly inscrutable face. + +"Dear me!" said Miss Gabriel, in the act of picking up her cards, "it +seems as if this had happened a great many times before! What do you +say, Mr. Fossell, to staking half-a-crown on the rubber, just to +enliven the game? You don't object on principle, I know, to playing for +money." + +"No, indeed, ma'am," answered Mr. Fossell. "I am content if the others +are willing--not that for me the pleasure of playing against you needs +any such--er--adventitious stimulus." + +Miss Gabriel appealed to Mr. Rogers. + +Mr. Rogers thought it would be great fun. "Come along, Vigoureux," he +almost shouted, "you can't refuse a lady's challenge!" + +What could the poor Commandant do? Almost before he knew he had nodded, +though with a set face, and by the nod committed himself. He felt his +few coins burning in his breeches' pocket against his thigh, as if they +warned him. + +But, after all, Fossell was an excellent player. With the smallest +luck, he and Fossell ought to be more than a match for a pair of whom, +if one (Miss Gabriel) was wily, the other played a game not usually +distinguishable from bumble-puppy. + +They won the first game easily. + +They had almost won the second when a devastating seven trumps in Mr. +Rogers's hand (which he played atrociously) saw their opponents almost +level--the score eight-seven. In the next hand, Miss Gabriel--for this +was old-fashioned long whist--held all four honours, and took the game. + +The Commandant looked at Mr. Fossell. But a financier is not disturbed +by the risk of half-a-crown. + +Only half-a-crown!--but for the Commandant a week between this +half-a-crown and another. + +He wondered what Fossell would say--Fossell, sitting there, so +imperturbable, with his shiny bald head--if he knew. + +"Game _and_!" announced Mr. Rogers. + +By this time the players at the second table, aware of the half-a-crown +at stake, were listening in a state of suppressed excitement--suppressed +because the Vicar, being deaf, had not overheard Miss Gabriel's +challenge, and the others feared that he might disapprove of playing +for money. + +The Vicar, who played against Mr. and Mrs. Pope, with Mrs. Fossell for +partner, had a habit of soliloquising over his hand on any subject that +occurred to him. The rest of the table deferred to this habit, out of +respect or because by experience they knew it to be incurable, since +only by conscious effort could he hear any voice but his own. + +By such an effort, holding his hand to his ear, he had listened to Miss +Gabriel's anecdote about Colonel Bartlemy; smiling the while because he +had heard it many times before and knew it to be a good one; innocently +unaware that it covered any caustic subintention. It had started him on +a train of reminiscence which he pursued at the card-table (good man) +for twenty-five minutes, recalling himself to the cards with a faint +shock of surprise whenever it became his turn to play, as one who would +protest--"What, again? And so soon?" + +"Yes, indeed," the Vicar's voice struck in across the strained silence, +"there is an old story that Oliver Cromwell left behind him, in +garrison here, a company of the Bedfordshire Regiment, and that in time +they were completely forgotten. (Let me see. Spades are trumps, I +believe.... 'Clubs'? Your pardon Mrs. Fossell, but I remember it was a +black suit.) Yes, and seeing no prospect of recall they married in time +with our Island women, and that"--here the Vicar gathered up a trick +which belonged to his opponents--"is, by some, alleged to be the reason +why the Islanders use a purer English than is spoken on the mainland. +Ah, quite so; yes, I played the ten--then it was your ace, Mrs. Pope? I +congratulate you, ma'am." + +The Commandant, overhearing, could not forbear a glance at Miss +Gabriel. It conveyed no resentment, scarcely even a reproach; it turned +rather, as by dumb instinct, upon the author of the wound, and asked +perplexedly:--"What have I done to you, that you treat me thus?" I have +no doubt that Miss Gabriel caught the glance. She did not answer it; +but her grey eyes glinted beneath their lids as she bent them upon the +cards Mr. Fossell was dealing in his usual deliberate way--glinted as +though with a spark of flint struck out by steel. + +"The story may be apocryphal," pursued the Vicar, addressing deaf ears +around the other table; "though, for my part, I incline to think there +may be a substratum----" + +Mr. Fossell turned up the queen of hearts. The Commandant held ace, +ten, and two small trumps, with a strong hand in diamonds, which Mr. +Rogers, by a blundering lead, enabled him to establish early. Actual +honours were "easy"; but by exhausting trumps at the first opportunity, +he scored three by tricks. The next hand gave their opponents three +points--two by honours, and the trick. Three all. + +The Vicar was heard to observe that, on the whole, intermarriage among +the Islanders had not produced the disastrous effects usually predicted +of it; and that, therefore, an infusion of fresh blood, at some date +more or less remote, might reasonably be conjectured, even though +incapable of proof. + +The Vicar, as he said this, looked across at Mrs. Fossell +interrogatively. He was really expecting her to lead trumps, but she +mistook him to be asking her assent to his theory. To keep the ball +rolling, she opined that what had happened once need not necessarily +happen again, especially in these days when locomotion was making such +strides. She hazarded this in the lowest key; but it happened in just +that momentary hush upon which the faintest remark falls resonantly. +The Commandant heard it across the room as he waited for Mr. Rogers to +cut the cards; and the Vicar, by a freak of hearing, picked it up at +once. + +"My dear lady," he demanded, "are you talking of progenitiveness!" + +"N-no," stammered Mrs. Fossell, in confusion. "Nothing of the sort. I +was referring to the garrison here being left out of mind--like the +regiment you spoke of----" + +Miss Gabriel tapped the table impatiently. "Mr. Rogers," she said, "I +think we had better attend to the game. Major Vigoureux is waiting for +you to cut." She said it with her eyes upon the Commandant's hand, +which was trembling. He wondered, as he dealt, if she had observed that +it was trembling. If so, had she guessed the true reason? + +The score mounted to nine-eight. The Commandant lifted a hand to his +brow as Mr. Fossell, whose turn it was, took up the cards and began to +deal methodically, without a trace of discomposure. + +"Half a crown! and if he lost, one penny left to last him to next pay +day!" A terrible thought seized him. "And what if, when he presented +himself at Mr. Fossell's bank on pay-day, the money was not +forthcoming?" Nonsense! He was unhinged.... The money had always +arrived punctually ... but the whole world seemed to be in conspiracy +against him to-night, and his luck along with it. + +Mr. Rogers, who had a trick of sorting out his suits between his +fingers, hesitated for a few moments, put his cards together, and with +an air of fierce determination, led a small heart. + +Again the Commandant's right hand went up to his brow. The room was +very close and still. But the Vicar remained unaware of the general +excitement, and across the silence the Vicar was heard to say +confidentially:-- + +"Between you and me there was a time when I hoped our friend the +Commandant might make a match of it." + +The poor Commandant!... With his gaze fixed on the cards, he felt that +every ear was listening, every eye turned upon him. He must do +something desperate to break the horrible spell, to turn the luck.... +He held ace, king, knave of hearts, and knew well enough that, in sound +whist he ought to play the king. But why had Mr. Rogers led hearts? Mr. +Rogers did not often lead even from a strong suit unless it contained +at least one honour. + +The Commandant risked it and finessed his knave. Miss Gabriel had been +waiting, watching him intently. Her mouth shut almost with a snap of +triumph as she put down the queen. + +It was, as it happened, the one heart in her hand. She closed her +triumph, a few rounds later, by trumping the Commandant's ace and king. +Mr. Fossell looked at his partner, in sorrow rather than in anger. Mr. +Rogers laughed uproariously as he counted up the tricks. + +"Double or quits, I suppose?" he suggested. + +But the Commandant rose. "Your pardon, Miss Gabriel," he said, laying +his half-crown on the table, "if I play no more for money to-night. +Indeed, I was going to ask Mrs. Fossell to forgive me if I spoil one of +her quartettes by withdrawing. To tell the truth, I am not myself--a +slight dizziness----" + +"A glass of hot brandy-and-water?" suggested Mr. Fossell. "Nay, then, a +thimbleful--I insist!" + +The Commandant made his excuses as politely as he could, and found +himself in the street. The night was pitch-dark and the road full of +sea-fog--a fog so thick that it completely shut off the rays of the +many lighthouses twinkling around the Islands, and obscured the few +street lamps that illuminated Garland Town. A slight breeze blew up +from the west and damped his brow; for his dizziness had been something +more than a pretence, and he walked with his hat in his hand. + +On such a night a stranger might well have lost his way; but the +Commandant steered for Garrison Hill without a mistake, and up the hill +towards the Barracks. Garland Town is early a-bed. He passed no one in +the streets. But in St. Hugh's, as he went by the closed door of a +cottage, half-way up the ascent, he recalled the night, years ago, of +his first arrival in the Islands. He had come a week before the +garrison expected him, and there had been no one to meet him on the +quay when he arrived in the dusk of an October evening. Darkness had +descended on the Islands before he started from the quay to climb to +his new home; and here--just here, at this doorway--he had paused to +ask his way. The door had stood open then, with a panel of warm +firelight lying across the roadway, and as he halted and peered into +the room--it was a kitchen, and the light from the open hearth glinted +on rows of china plates ranged along the dresser--he saw two girls +beside the fire; the one seated and reading from a book in her lap, the +other on the hearth-mat half reclined against her sister's knee, over +which she had flung an arm to prop her chin as she listened.... He +remembered the sand strewn on the slate floor, the fresh sea-smell in +this room so confidingly open to the night--the scene so intimate, so +homely, that the traveller standing in the doorway with the sea-spray +on his cloak could scarcely believe in the tide-races across which he +had been voyaging for hours. He stood, the hum of them in his ears, a +doubtful intruder; and while he stood, the girl in the chair had risen +and bade him good evening in purest English. + +"You have come by the boat? You will be from the mainland?" she said, +and he wondered a little, not being used as yet to hear his country +spoken of as the mainland. "And I am going to England to-morrow," she +added. "The boat which brought you will take me over on its return +journey." + +"You know England well, I expect?" He found himself saying this for +lack of anything better. + +"She has never been outside the Islands," said her sister, who also had +risen. "And it is the same with me. But to-morrow she is going--" the +girl paused here, not it (seemed) in pain, but wistfully, as in a kind +of solemn awe at the prospect. "We left the door open for father. He +has a fancy to see the light across the road as he comes up the hill. +But he is late to-night at the fishing." + +The Commandant, glancing around the room, divined--he could not tell +why--that these girls were motherless. His eyes fell on the open book +which the elder sister laid on the chair as she rose. The firelight +enabled him to read its page-heading, printed in thick, blunt +type--"King Lear"! These girls, the one of them about to visit unknown +England, were reading Shakespeare together. + +"_Urbem quam dicunt Romam_"--he felt a wild inclination to question +them, to ask what they expected to learn of England from Shakespeare, +and from that play of all others. But being a shy man, then as ever, he +forbore, and contented himself with asking the way to the Barracks. + +They went with him to the door to direct him; and so, wishing them +good-night, he had gone up the hill. That was all. He had never seen +the elder sister again; did not know to this day what business had +taken her away to the mainland, not to return. The younger had married +a pilot, and was now the mother of a growing family in Saaron Island, +which lies next to Brefar, which faces Inniscaw. Her farmstead there +(the solitary one on the island), stood a short way above the landing +quay; and once or twice, catching sight of her in her doorway and +lifting his hat as he went by (for the Commandant was ever polite), he +had found it in his mind to stop and inquire after her sister. + +He had never translated this resolve into action. The Commandant--as +everyone knew on the Islands--was "desperate shy," or "that shy you'd +never believe." But the scene had bitten itself upon his memory, and he +recalled it almost as often as he passed the door. He recalled it +to-night, as he stumbled by it in the fog and uphill to his cheerless +lodgings. + +What a blind thing was life! blind even as this fog--and his home in it +these cheerless Barracks; to which nevertheless he must cling, in spite +of his honour, an old man, good for nothing, afraid to be found out! He +groped his way to the front door, opened it with his latchkey, lit the +candle which Sergeant Archelaus had considerately placed at the foot of +the stairs, and, climbing them to his bedroom, flung himself on his +knees by the bed. + +Now the architect of the Barracks had designed them upon a singular +plan, of which the peculiar inconvenience was that almost every room +led to some other; which saved corridor space, but was fatal to +privacy. + +Beyond the Commandant's bedroom, which opened upon the first floor +landing of the main staircase, lay a room in which he kept his fishing +clothes, and in which Sergeant Archelaus sometimes lit a fire to dry +them by. + +It was a small room, well shielded from the draughts which raged +through the building in winter; and here Sergeant Archelaus had lit a +fire to-night and sat before it, sewing an artilleryman's stripe upon +the Commandant's cast dress trousers. + +Hearing a noise in the outer room, and not expecting his master's +return for at least a couple of hours, he hurried out in some +perturbation, with the trousers flung across his arm--to find the +Commandant kneeling at his devotions. + +"I beg your pardon, sir!" + +"It's of no consequence," said the Commandant, looking up (but he was +desperately confused). "I--I always say my prayers, you know." + +"What? Before undressing?" said Sergeant Archelaus. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE GUN IN THE GREAT FOG + + +Politely though he had contrived his departure, the Commandant left +Mrs. Fossell's whist-party to something like dismay. A passing +indisposition--no excuse could be more reasonable. Still, nothing of +the kind had ever interrupted these gatherings within Mrs. Fossell's +recollection, and she could not help taking a serious view of it. + +"A passing indisposition," was Mr. Fossell's phrase, and he kept +repeating it--with an occasional "Nonsense, my dear"--in answer to his +wife's gloomy forebodings. + +"But I shall send round, the first thing in the morning, to inquire," +she insisted. + +"Do so, my dear." + +"It can't be serious, ma'am," Mr. Rogers assured her jollily. "You +heard him decline my arm when I offered to see him home." + +"In my opinion," said Miss Gabriel, "the man is breaking up." She +touched her forehead lightly with the tip of her forefinger. + +"Breaking up?" echoed her host and Mrs. Pope, incredulous. "My dear +Elizabeth!" began Mrs. Fossell. + +"Breaking up," Miss Gabriel repeated with a very positive nod of her +head. "He has not been the same man since the Lord Proprietor took over +the presidency of the Court and he refused, upon pique, to be elected +an ordinary member. Say what you like, a man cannot be virtual Governor +of the Islands one day and the next a mere nobody without its preying +upon him." + +"He made light of it at the time," observed Mr. Fossell, who (it goes +without saying) was councillor; "although I ventured to remonstrate +with him." + +"And I," said Mr. Pope, who (it also goes without saying) was another. +"In the friendliest possible way you understand. I pointed out that the +Lord Proprietor was, after all, the Lord Proprietor, and, as such, did +not understand being thwarted. Very naturally, as you will all admit." + +"It's human nature, when you come to think of it," put in the Steward's +wife (she preferred the title of Steward to that of agent, and was +gradually accustoming society to the sound, even as in earlier years, +when a young married woman, she had taught it to substitute "agent" for +"factor"). If, during the interval when her husband's dismissal seemed +inevitable, she had lost no opportunity of prophesying evil of the new +Lord Proprietor, she made up for it now by justifying his every action. + +"If that's the ground you're going on," spoke up Mr. Rogers, who, with +all his faults was nothing of a snob, "it's human nature for Vigoureux +to feel sore. As for the magistracy, he's not the man to value it one +pin. It's the neglect; and to meet the old fellow mooning around his +batteries as I did this very afternoon--I tell you it makes a man +sorry." + +If this speech did Mr. Rogers credit he cancelled it presently by his +atrocious behaviour at cards. The symmetry of the party being broken, +Miss Gabriel announced that she had enjoyed enough whist for the +evening, and that nothing in the world would give her greater pleasure +than half-an-hour's quiet talk, with the Vicar--that was, if Mrs. +Fossell and he would not mind cutting out and surrendering their seats +to Mr. Fossell and Mr. Rogers. In saying this she outrageously +flattered the Vicar, with whom it was impossible to hold conversation +in any tone below that of shouting. She meant that she was prepared to +listen; and she knew that no flattery was too outrageous for him to +swallow. She knew also that Mrs. Fossell in her heart of hearts +abhorred cards, and would be only too grateful for release, to look +after the preparations for supper and scold the parlour-maid outside. +So the Vicar and Mrs. Fossell cut out, and Mr. Fossell and Mr. Rogers +replaced them as partners against Mr. and Mrs. Pope. + +Mr. and Mrs. Pope always played together. No one knew why, but it had +come to be an understood thing. Of "calls" and "echoes" the play of Mr. +and Mrs. Pope was innocent; but when Mrs. Pope, being second hand, +hesitated whether to trump her opponent's card or pass it, Mr. Pope had +an unconscious habit of saying, "Now dearest," when he desired her to +trump; and another unconscious habit, when Mrs. Pope had the lead and +he wanted trumps, of murmuring, "Your turn, darling." These two habits +Mr. Rogers had noted; and being in merry pin to-night over winning his +half-crown, at a moment when Mr. Fossell, having the lead, appeared to +hesitate (but the hesitation was only a part of Mr. Fossell's +deliberate play), he leaned over and playfully suggested, "Your turn, +darling!" + +Mr. Fossell stared in the act of putting down a trump. For a moment he +appeared to think that Mr. Rogers had gone mad; then, in spite of +himself, the lines of his mouth relaxed. + +"I do not think," said Mr. Pope, heavily--and the lines of Mr. +Fossell's mouth at once grew rigid again--"I do not think you two ought +to signal for trumps in that fashion." + +His partner looked up innocently. In the slow pause Mr. Rogers was +growing purple in the face, when again the Vicar's voice broke across +the silence. "The Lord Proprietor's power in former days--I speak only +of former days--may well have warranted the Government in stationing a +military officer here to keep some check on him. For instance, he +shared all ordinary wrecks with the Lord High Admiral, but a wreck +became his sole property by law, if none of the crew remained alive; a +dangerous reservation, ma'am, in times when justice travelled slowly, +and much might happen in the Islands and never a word of it reach +London." + +Miss Gabriel put up both hands--they were encased in mittens, and the +mittens decorated with steel beads--as if to close her ears. + +"We must be thankful, indeed," she began, and paused in dismay as the +floor of Mrs. Fossell's drawing-room trembled under her, and at the +same moment the window sashes rattled violently throughout the house. + +"Good Heavens!" + +"What was that?" + +The players dropped their cards. All listened. + +"Upon my word," suggested the Vicar, who had heard nothing, but felt +the concussion, "if it weren't positively known to be empty one would +say the powder magazine at the Garrison----" + +"Oh, Richard! Richard!"--here Mrs. Fossell came running in from the +dining-room with a dish of trifle in her hands--"Is it an earthquake?" + +"I--I rather think not, my dear!" + +"At any rate it can't be the end of the world?" She turned and appealed +to the Vicar, and from the Vicar again to her husband. "And if it is +not, I wish you would come to Selina, for she has dropped the cold +shape all over the floor and is having hysterics in the better of the +two armchairs!" + +Indeed, Selina's hysterics could be heard. + +"Earthquake? Fiddlesticks, ma'am!" said Mr. Rogers, buttoning his +pea-jacket and turning up its collar. "What you heard was a gun. There +is a vessel in distress somewhere, and we shall have my men here in a +moment with news of her." + +"But there was no sound," objected Mrs. Pope. + +"Fog, ma'am--fog; sound don't travel in a fog, and ships oughtn't to. +There has been a nasty bank of it to the south'ard ever since morning, +and you may bet that's the mischief." + +He went into the hall for his lantern, brought it back, lit it, and +carried it out to the front door. + +"Whe--ew!" he whistled, as he opened the door and stood, with lantern +lifted high, staring into the night. + +The guests behind him wondered; for all was quiet outside--too quiet, +to ears accustomed to the wind which forever sings across the islands, +even on summer days, mingling its whispers and soft murmurings with the +hum of the distant tide-races. But while they wondered, Mr. Rogers's +figure grew vague and amorphous in a cloud of fog that drifted past him +into the passage. The light in his lantern had turned to a weak flame +of yellow, and seemed on the point of dying out. + +"Ahoy, there! Is that Mr. Rogers?" called a thin voice out of the +night. + +"Ahoy! Mr. Rogers, it is. What's wrong?" + +"Thank God I've found you!" The voice sounded suddenly quite close at +hand, and a man blundered against the doorstep. + +"Eh?"--the others saw Mr. Rogers give back in astonishment--"The Lord +Proprietor?" + +"Safe and sound, too, by Heaven's mercy," said the Lord Proprietor, +plucking off his peaked cap and shaking the water from it. He carried a +lantern, and his jacket and loose trousers of yellow oilskin shone with +the wet like a suit of mail. "All the way from Inniscaw I've come, in +the gig. Peter Hicks and old Abe pulled me, and the Lord knows where we +made land or what has become of them. Man, there's a vessel ashore--a +liner, they say! Didn't you hear the gun a minute since?" + +"Yes, yes; but where is she?" + +"That's more than I know. Somewhere among the Off Islands; on the +Terrier, maybe, or the Hell-meadows. All I can tell you is that old Abe +brought the news to the Priory, almost three hours ago: his son-in-law, +young Ashbran, had seen her in a lift of the fog--a powerful steamship +with two funnels and a broad white band upon each. She hadn't struck +when he saw her; but she was nosing into an infernal mess of rocks, and +the light closing down fast. I didn't see Ashbran himself; Abe believed +he had put across to warn your men. But as the old man couldn't swear +to it I told him to get out the gig and fetch Peter Hicks, and so we +started." + +"I'm wondering why those men of mine haven't brought me warning. +Ashbran can't have reached them." + +"He started late, belike, and lost his way in the fog; or it's even +possible--though you won't believe it--that your men started to find +you and have lost themselves. My good sir, you never knew such a fog!" + +"Yet I left word with the chief boatman," mused Mr. Rogers. "He knows +perfectly well where I am." + +"Does he?" said the Lord Proprietor. "Then it's more than I do. What +house is this?" + +"Why, Fossell's. Good Lord! didn't you know?" + +"My dear Sir Caesar--" Mr. Fossel stepped forward solicitously. + +"Eh? So it is.... Good evening, Mr. Fossell! That picture of the +Waterloo Banquet seemed familiar, somehow." The Lord Proprietor nodded +towards a framed engraving on the wall. "Yes, to be sure--and +Landseer's 'Twa Dogs.' But this is worse than the Arabian Nights! We +must have missed the harbour by miles!" + +"You came ashore at Cam Point, most probably," Mr. Fossell suggested. +"The tide sets that way, and from Cam Point it is but a step." + +"A step, is it? Man, I've been wandering in blank darkness for a full +hour. Twice I've found myself on the edge of a cliff. I've followed +walls only to be led into open fields. I've struck across open fields, +only to tumble against troughs, midden heaps, pig-styes. I walked +straight up against this house, supposing myself somewhere near the +batteries on Garrison Hill--though how I had managed to miss the town +was more than I could explain." + +"The wonder is you ever fetched across from Inniscaw." + +"It's my belief we had never done it, but for the tide. The night was +black as your hat when we started, but fairly clear. We kept sight of +the lamp on the pier-head until half-way across. Then the fog came +down; and then----!" + +"Well, it's good hard causeway between this and St. Hugh's," said Mr. +Rogers. "We can't miss it. Afterwards.... However, you'll step along +with me to the Guard-house, Sir Caesar, and as soon as the weather lifts +at all one of my men shall put you back to Inniscaw." + +"On the contrary, my good sir, I go with you." + +Mr. Rogers looked at him, as he buttoned up his pea-jacket. + +"We won't argue it here," he said. "You don't guess what it means, +though, searching for a wreck among the Off Islands on a night like +this. Not to mention that there's a sea running...." + +And yet, apart from the fog, there was nothing in the weather to +suggest shipwreck and horrors. For a fortnight the Islands had lain +steeped in the sunshine of Indian summer; a fortnight of still starry +nights and days almost without a cloud. As a rule, such weather breaks +up in a gale, of which the glass gives timely warning. But the mercury +in Mr. Fossell's barometer indicated no depression--or the merest +trifle. The drenched night air was warm: to Miss Gabriel, inhaling it +in the passage by the drawing-room door, it seemed to be laden with the +scents of summer, and Miss Gabriel had not lived all her life in +Garland Town without learning the subtle aromas of the wind, to +distinguish those that were harmless or beneficent from those that +warned, those that threatened, those that were morose, savage, +malignant, those that piped a note of madness and meant a hurricane. +Nor did the fog in itself appear to her very formidable. To be sure, +she had never known a thicker one; but the Lord Proprietor (saving his +presence) had probably exaggerated its terror. He was--let this excuse +be made for him--a landsman, comparatively new to the Islands. + +Probably Mr. Fossell and Mr. Pope and the Vicar took the same view. The +news of the wreck had excited them, and they were offering to accompany +Sir Caesar and Mr. Rogers to St. Hugh's Town, on the chance of some +information. + +"And we had best go with them, my dear," suggested Miss Gabriel to Mrs. +Pope. (Their houses stood side by side and contiguous, on a gentle rise +at the foot of Garrison Hill, where the peninsular of New Town broadens +out and New Town itself melts into St. Hugh's.) + +Mrs. Fossel begged them to wait and keep her company until the +gentlemen returned. "It is impossible," she urged as an inducement, +"that Selina can go on making this noise forever." + +But Miss Gabriel had taken her decision, and from a decision Miss +Gabriel was not easily turned. + +"My dear," said she, reaching for her cloak, "the gentlemen may not +return until goodness knows when, and I have a prejudice against late +hours." + +They started in a body. The fog, to be sure, was a deal worse than ever +Miss Gabriel could have credited. Still, the gentlemen using their +lanterns and tapping to right and left with their sticks, they found +the hard causeway, and blundered along it towards St. Hugh's, the +ladies with their shawls drawn over their heads and their heads held +down against the drifting wall of moisture. + +They had made their way thus for about four hundred yards--that is to +say, about a third of the length of the causeway--when suddenly the fog +ahead of them became luminous, and they perceived torches waving. + +"Mr. Rogers! Is that Mr. Rogers?" called a voice. + +"Ay, ay, men!" Mr. Rogers hailed in answer, recognising his coastguard. +"I am coming--fast as I can," he added, having at that moment run into +a wall. + +"A wreck, sir!" + +"Ay! Where is it?" + +"Somewhere beyond St. Ann's, sir, as we make it--out towards the Monk. +There was a gun fired, and Dick, here, thinks as he saw the lighthouse +send up a signal; but lights there's none that the rest of us can make +out----" + +"Hark!" + +Again the fog shook with the concussion of a gun. + +"Due west, as I make it out," said Mr. Rogers. "Are the boats ready?" + +"Aye, sir; the jolly-boat manned and off, and the gig launched and +lying by the slip." + +"Then run, men!" + +"Why, they've left us!" gasped Mrs. Pope, as the glare of the torches +melted into the fog. + +"It doesn't matter," Miss Gabriel assured her bravely. "We have only to +keep straight on." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE S.S. MILO + + +Major Vigoureux fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched the +pillow. He owed this habit originally to a clear conscience, and +although (as the reader knows) his conscience was no longer quite +clear, the habit had not forsaken him. + +He dreamed that he was presenting himself at Mr. Fossell's bank, and +giving Mr. Fossell across the counter a number of plausible reasons why +his pay should be handed to him as usual. He knew all the while that +his arguments were sophistical and radically unsound; but he trusted +that he was making them cogent. (Why is it that in dreams we feel no +remorse for our sins, but only a terror lest we be found out? I cannot +tell; but the best men and women of my acquaintance agree that it is +so.) Mr. Fossell preserved an impassive, inscrutable face; but every +time the Commandant ventured a new argument Mr. Fossell's high, bald +head twinkled and suddenly changed colour like a chameleon. It was +green, it was violet, it was bathed in a soft roseate glow like an +Alpine peak at sunset; and still while he argued the Commandant was +forced to dodge his body about lest Mr. Fossell should catch sight of a +mirror fixed in the opposite wall, and perceive how strangely his scalp +was behaving. Finally, Mr. Fossell turned as if convinced, walked away +to an inner room, and came back bearing a bag of money, round and +distended--so tightly distended, indeed, that the Commandant called out +to him to be careful of the contents. But the cry came a moment too +late; for the bag, as it touched the counter, exploded with a dull +report, collapsed, and flattened itself out into a playing-card--the +queen of hearts! + +At this point the Commandant excusably found himself awake, and sat up +blinking at Sergeant Archelaus, who stood in a haze of fog by his +bedside with a lighted candle. + +"You heard it?" asked Sergeant Archelaus. + +"Heard it?" echoed the Commandant, trembling, not yet in full +possession of his senses. "Of course, I heard it. The Bank--." Here he +checked himself and rubbed his eyes. + +"You're dreaming; that's what's the matter with you," said Sergeant +Archelaus, using the familiarity of an old servant. "There's a ship on +the rocks." + +"A ship? Where?" + +The Sergeant, candle in hand, stepped to the casement, which the +Commandant, following his custom, had opened a little way before +getting into bed. + +"Lord knows where she be by this time, if St. Ann's pilots ha'n't found +her. The gun sounded from west'ard, down by the Monk." + +"Fog, is it?" asked the Commandant, staring about him and remembering. + +"Fog it is," answered Sergeant Archelaus, and added, "Poor souls!" + +"Thick?" By this time the Commandant had flung back the bed-clothes and +was thrusting his feet into his worn slippers. + +"I never seen a thicker in my born days." + +"If we had a gun----" + +"Ah--if," agreed Sergeant Archelaus, curtly, and turning, let his voice +rise in a sudden passion. "Why did I wake ye? Set it down to habit. +I've known the time when the sound of a gun would have fetched forty +men out of the Barracks to save life or to take it; and a gun within +thirty seconds to alarm all the Islands. But we! What's the use of us?" + +"Get on your coat," said the Commandant, sharply, putting on his +trousers. "Get on your coat and run to the bell--that is, if +Treacher----" + +But at this moment the muffled note of a bell began to sound through +the fog, vindicating Treacher's vigilance. Treacher, however, was not +the ringer. The Commandant had scarcely slipped on his fatigue jacket, +and begun to search in the wardrobe for his overcoat, when Treacher's +voice sounded up the staircase, demanding to know if the garrison was +awake. + +"Awake?" called back Archelaus. "Of course we be, and coming before you +can sound th' alarm. Reach down the bugle, man--from the rock behind +th' door, there--and sound it." + +Treacher sounded. He was out of breath, and the two high notes quavered +broken-windedly; but the Commandant's chest swelled with something of +old pride. The alarm would reach the town, and the town would know that +the garrison had not been caught napping. He snatched at the candle +from the candlestick in Sergeant Archelaus' hand and rammed it into the +socket of a horn lantern he had unhooked from the cupboard. + +"Come along, men! Keep sounding, Treacher--keep sounding!" + +Even so he had called once--a many years ago--in the trenches under the +Redan. Treacher sounded obediently, and down the hill all three +staggered--past the garrison gates, with a call to Mrs. Treacher to +pull for all she was worth--and still forward among the ruts and loose +stones, all so familiar that relying on tread alone (as in fact they +did) they could not miss their way. Below them, along the quay, and on +the causeway at the head of it--voices were calling and lights moving; +but the fog reduced the shouts to a twitter, as of birds, and the +torches and lantern to mere glow-worm sparks. The coastguards were +embarking and the Lord Proprietor, just arrived upon the scene, was +running about--as Sergeant Archelaus put it afterwards, "like a paper +man in a cyclone"--calling out the names of volunteers for the +lifeboat. + +If Sergeant Archelaus ever afterwards spoke disparagingly of the Lord +Proprietor's activities that night, something may be forgiven him; as +something may be forgiven the Lord Proprietor--for on such occasions +men blurt out what rises to their lips. + +The fog had found its way into Treacher's bugle before our three heroes +reached the quay; but he continued to blow his best; and there, at the +end of the causeway, Sir Caesar ran into them--ran straight into the +Commandant, almost knocking out his breath--calling, as he ran, for +someone to take bow oar in the lifeboat. + +"Will I do?" asked Sergeant Archelaus, coolly, as became a soldier. + +"You?" The Lord Proprietor thrust his torch close. "Oh, get out of my +way--this is work to-night, work for men! And you"--catching sight of +the Commandant--"how much do you think you are helping us with this +tom-fool noise?" + +The Commandant drew himself erect, but before he could answer, the Lord +Proprietor had gone his way, waving his torch and still shouting for +someone to man the bow thwart. + +There was a slow pause. + +"Can you get to our boat, Archelaus?" asked the Commandant. The two +sergeants heard his voice drag on the question. They could not see his +face. + +"She's afloat, sir," answered Sergeant Archelaus. + +"Find the frap then, and pull her in." + +"Is it our boat you're meaning, sir?" asked Archelaus, hesitating. + +"Certainly." + +"There's a certain amount of sea running, sir, out beyond the point." + +"I observed as much this evening." + +"Very good, sir." Something in the Commandant's voice forbade further +argument. + +They were afloat almost as soon as the coastguard, and a full five +minutes before the life-boat. Sergeant Archelaus pulled stroke, and +Sergeant Treacher bow. The Commandant steered, his lantern and pocket +compass beside him in the stern sheets. + +The boat--she had once been a yacht's cutter--measured sixteen feet +over all. She was fitted with a small centre-plate, and carried a lug +sail (but this they left behind; it was in store, and would have been +worse than useless). They pulled out into a fog so thick that only by +intervals could the Commandant catch sight of Sergeant Treacher's face, +and Sergeant Treacher's eyebrows and sandy moustache glistering with +beads of mist. + +They had left the pier but a short two hundred strokes behind them when +the little tug belonging to the Islands came panting out of the harbour +with the lifeboat in tow, and passed on, blowing her whistle, to +overtake and pick up the coastguard galley. So unexpectedly her lights +sprang upon them, and so close astern that Treacher, with a sharp cry +of warning--for the Commandant's gaze was fastened forward--had barely +time to jerk the boat's head round and avoid being cut down. Then, +dropping his paddle, he made a grab at the painter and flung it, +calling out to the lifeboat's crew to catch and make fast. But either +he was a moment too late in flinging, or the lifeboatmen, themselves +bawling instructions to the tug's crew, were preoccupied and did not +hear. The rope struck against something--the lifeboat's gunwale +doubtless--but no one caught it, and next moment the tug had slipped +away into darkness and into a silence which swallowed up the shouts and +the throb of her engines as though she had dropped into a pit. + +"Darn your skin, Sam Treacher!" swore Sergeant Archelaus. "There goes a +couple of hours' pulling you might have saved us!" + +"Then why couldn't you have given warning?" retorted Treacher. "Pretty +pair of eyes you keep in that old head of yours!" + +"Be quiet, you two!" the Commandant ordered. "They'd have caught the +painter if they wanted us." + +He fell silent, bending his head to study the compass in the lantern's +ray. "Not wanted"--"not wanted"--the paddles took up the burden and +beat it into a sort of tune to the creak of the thole-pins. As a young +officer he had started with high notions of duty; nor, looking back on +the wasted years could he tax himself that he had ever declined its +call; only the call which in youth had always carried a promise with +it, definitely clear and shining, of enterprise and reward, of +adventure, achievement, fame, had sunk by degrees to a dull repetition +calling him from sleep to perform the spiritless daily round. He did +not sigh that the definite vision had faded; it happened so, may be, to +most men, though not to all. To most men, it might be, their fate +played the crimp; they followed the marsh-fires out into just such a +blind waste as this through which he and his men were groping--darkness +above and below; darkness before, behind, to right, to left; darkness +of birth, of death, and only the palpable fog between. He did not sigh +for this. What irked him was the thought that while he had followed the +mill-round of duty, strength had been ebbing away and had left him +useless. + +Yes, there lay the sting. Twenty years ago how like a schoolboy he +would have dashed into this fog, careless of consequence, eager only to +find where men needed his help! He might have found, or missed; but +twenty years ago men would have hailed his will to help. Now he was +useless, negligible. In an ordinary way these neighbours of his might +disguise their knowledge, through politeness or pity; but at a crisis +like this the truth came out. The Lord Proprietor had treated him as a +pantaloon, and these lifeboatmen--so little they valued him--could not +be at the pains of catching a rope. + +He steered, as nearly as he could calculate, west-by-south, allowing at +a guess for the set of the tide. The wall of fog, which let pass no +true sound, itself seemed full of voices--hissing of spent waves, +sucking of water under weed-covered ledges, little puffs and moanings +of the wind. He had reckoned that he was bending around shore to the +south of the roadstead, heading gradually for St. Lide's Sound and +giving the rocks on his port hand a wide berth; when of a sudden +Archelaus called out, and he spied a grey line of breaking +water--luckily the sea was full of briming to-night--at the base of the +fog, quite close at hand. It scared them so that they headed off almost +at right angles. This adventure not only proved his reckoning to be +wrong, but complicated it hopelessly. + +They were in open water again, still making--or at any rate the boat so +pointed--west-by-south. The short scare had shaken him out of his +brooding thoughts. He saw now, minute after minute, but the sea beyond +the edge of the boat's gunwale, heaving up and sliding astern as it +caught the shine of the lantern. The lantern shone also against the +knees of Archelaus, and lit up the check-board pattern of the +eleemosynary trousers. It was a provocative pattern, but the Commandant +heeded it not.... + +He looked up from Sergeant Archelaus' knees to Sergeant Archelaus' +face, and past it to the face of Sergeant Treacher, now a little more +distinct. The two men had been pulling for an hour, and the Commandant +saw that they were tired--tired and very old. He recognised it at first +with a touch of anger. He felt an instant's impulse to curse and bid +them row harder. But on the instant came gentle understanding, and +restrained him. + +"Archelaus," he said, "you are the older; take the tiller here and give +me the oar for a spell." + +Archelaus was not unwilling. Besides, was it not his commanding officer +who gave the order? He relinquished his paddle with a grunt of +exhaustion, and the Commandant stood up to take it, laying both hands +on it while Archelaus stumbled past to the stern-sheets.... And at that +moment a miracle befell. + +The fog must have been thinning. The Commandant, standing with both +hands on the paddle and his face to the bows, saw or felt it part +suddenly, and through the parting lights shone and voices sounded, with +the heavy throb of a vessel's screw. + +Clank! clank! and it was on them, almost before Sergeant Archelaus +could let out a cry--the stem, the grey-painted bows of a vast +steamship, ghostly, towering up into night. A bell rang. High on the +bridge--but the bridge soared into heaven--a pilot's voice called out +in the Island tongue. As the great bows glided by, missing the boat by +a few yards, the three men stared aloft until they had almost cricked +their necks; and aloft there, as Archelaus raised his lantern, the +Commandant read the vessel's name--"Milo"--glimmering in tall gilt +letters. + +Faces looked down from her rail, faces from the shadow of the +hurricane' deck; a line of faces and all looking down upon the little +Island tug that had fallen alongside and drifted close under the +liner's flank, a short way abaft her red port-light. A murmur of talk +went with the faces, as it were a stream rippling by, and mingled with +the splash of water pouring over-side from the pumps. It sounded +cheerfully, and from the voices on board the tug and in the lifeboat +and galley towing astern our Commandant gathered that the danger was +over. Again Sergeant Treacher hailed and flung a rope; this time the +lifeboat's crew caught it and made fast. + +"Reub Hicks is aboard," said a voice, naming one of the St. Ann's +pilots. "He picked her up not twenty furlongs from Hell-deeps after she +had missed the Little Meadows by the skin of her teeth." + +"How in the name of good Providence she got near enough to miss it, +being where she was, is the marvel to me," said another. + +"She did, anyway," said the coxswain; "for Reub himself called down the +news to me in so many words." + +The Commandant gazed up at the gray shadow reaching aloft into +darkness. He knew those outer reefs of which the men spoke. A touch of +them would have split the plates of this tall fabric like a house of +cards. He and Archelaus had witnessed one such wreck, eight years ago; +had waited in broad daylight, helpless, resting on their oars, unable +to approach within a cable's length of the rocks, upon which in ten +minutes a steel-built five-master, of 1,200 tons, had melted to nothing +before their eyes--"the rivets," as Archelaus put it, "flying out of +her like shirt buttons." But that had happened on one of the outermost +reefs, beyond the Off Islands, far down by the Monk Light. How the +_Milo_, no matter from what quarter approaching, had threaded her way +by the Hell-deeps was to him a mystery of mysteries. She was groping it +yet, her engines working dead slow; but the fog during the past hour +had sensibly lightened and Reub Hicks held open water between him and +the Roads, though he still kept the lead going. At the entrance of the +Roads he sent the tug forward to help the steerage, and so brought her +in and rounded her up as accurately as though she had been a little +schooner of two hundred tons. + +As the great anchor dropped, and amid the deafening rattle of its chain +in the hawse-pipe, the crew astern cast off and drew their boats +alongside, eager to swarm aboard and hear news of the miracle. From his +galley Mr. Rogers shouted up to the captain to lower his ladder. He and +his chief boatman mounted first, with a little man named Pengelly, a +custom's official, who happened to make one of the lifeboat's crew--for +the _Milo_ had come from foreign, and thus a show was made of complying +with the Queen's regulations. But the whole crowd trooped up close at +their heels, and with the crowd clambered Sergeant Archelaus and +Sergeant Treacher. + +The Commandant had given them permission. He would remain below, he +said, and look after the boat, awaiting their report. + +The crowd passed up and dispersed itself about the deck, congratulating +all comers, and excitedly plying them with questions. The Islanders are +a child-like race, and from his post at the foot of the deserted +accommodation ladder the Commandant could hear them laughing, +exclaiming, chattering with the passengers in high-pitched voices. + +He stood with his boat-hook, holding on by the grating of the ladder's +lowest step, and stared at the gray wall-sides of the liner. Yes, the +ship was solid, and yet he could not believe but that she belonged to a +dream; so mysteriously, against all chances, was she here, out of the +deep and the night. + +Someone had lashed a lantern at the head of the ladder. Lifting his +eyes to it in the foggy darkness, the Commandant saw a solitary figure +standing there in the gangway and looking down on him--a woman. + +She lifted a hand as if to enjoin silence, and came swiftly down a step +or two in the shadow of the vessel's side. + +"You are Major Vigoureux?" she asked in a quick whisper, leaning +forward over him. + +"At your service, madam," he stammered, taken fairly aback. + +"Ah! I am glad of that!" She ran down the remaining steps and set her +foot lightly on the boat's gunwale. "You will row me ashore?" + +"If you wish it, madam." He was more puzzled than ever. He saw that she +wore a dark cloak of fur and was bare-headed. She spoke in a sort of +musical whisper. Her face he could not see. "In a minute or two my +men----" + +"We will not wait for your men," she said, quietly, seating herself in +the stern sheets. "They can easily be put ashore--can they not?--in one +of the other boats." + +From under her fur cloak she reached out an arm--a bare arm with two +jewelled bracelets--and took the tiller. "I can steer you to the quay," +she said, and leaning forward in the light of Sergeant Archelaus' +lantern, she lifted her eyes to the Commandant. + +The Commandant pushed off, shipped the paddles into the thole pins, and +began to row, as in a dream. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HOW VASHTI CAME TO THE ISLANDS + + +"You do not remember me, Major Vigoureux?" + +The Commandant looked at her, across the lantern's ray. Something in +her voice, vibrating like the rich, full note of a bell, touched his +memory ... but only to elude it. + +The face that challenged him was not girlish; the face, rather, of a +beautiful woman of thirty; its shape a short oval, with a slight +squareness at the point of the jaw to balance the broad forehead over +which her hair (damp now, but rippled with a natural wave, defying the +fog) lay parted in two heavy bands--the brow of a goddess. Her eyes, +too, would have become a goddess, though just now they condescended to +be merry. + +Tall she was, for certain, and commanding. Her cloak hid the lines of +her body, whether they were thin or ample; but, where the collar +opened, her throat showed like a pillar, carrying her chin upon a truly +noble poise. It was inconceivable (the Commandant said to himself) that +he had met this woman before and forgotten her. + +He came back to her eyes. They challenged him fearlessly. He could not +have described their colour; but he saw amusement lurking deep in their +glooms while she waited. + +"I am sorry. It is unpardonable in me, of course----" + +"And I, on the contrary, am glad," she interrupted, with a laugh that +reminded him of the liquid chuckle in a thrush's song, or of water +swirling down a deep pool; "for it tells me I have grown out of +recognition, and that is just what I wanted." + +This puzzled him, and he frowned a little. + +"You know the Islands?" he asked. "This is not your first visit?" + +"You shall judge if in this darkness I steer you straight for St. +Lide's Quay; and I take you to witness--look over your shoulder--there +is no lamp on the quay-head to guide me, or at least none visible." She +laughed again, but on the instant grew serious. "Yes," she added, "I +can find my way among the Islands, I thank God." And this puzzled him +yet more. + +"You know the Islands; you are glad to return to them?" + +She nodded. + +"Yet you do not wish to be recognised?" + +She nodded again. "I came, you see, sooner than I intended. The _Milo_ +was clean out of her course." + +"That goes without saying," said he, gravely. + +"She was bound for Plymouth. So, you see, this little misadventure has +shortened my journey by days." She paused. "No; I ought not to speak of +it flippantly. I shall be very thankful in my prayers to-night ... all +those women and children...." + +Again she paused. + +"Is my hand trembling?" she asked, lifting it and laying it again on +the tiller, where it rested firm as a rock. Only the jewels quivered on +her rings and bracelets, and their beauty, arresting the Commandant's +gaze, held him silent. + +"To be frank with you," she went on, "I left the ship in a hurry, +because I was afraid of being thanked. I don't like publicity--much; +and just now it would have spoiled everything." This explanation +enlightened the Commandant not at all. "Besides," she added with a +practical air, "I left a note with my maid, to be given to the captain; +so he won't imagine that I've tumbled overboard; and she can send my +boxes ashore to-morrow, if you will be kind enough to fetch them before +the _Milo_ weighs." + +"But, meanwhile?" he hazarded. + +"Oh, meanwhile, I must manage somehow for the night. I slipped a few +things into my hand-bag here." She drew her fur cloak a little aside, +and displayed it--a small satchel hanging from her waist by a silver +chain. The Commandant had a glimpse at the same moment of a skirt of +rose-coloured silk, brocaded in a pattern of silver. + +"And when we land," he asked, "where am I to take you?" + +"I am in your hands." + +He stared at her, dismayed. "But you have friends?" + +"None who would remember me; not a soul, at least, in St. Lide's." + +"There is the Plume of Feathers Inn, to be sure----" + +"If you recommend it," she said, demurely, as he hesitated. + +He almost lost his temper. "Recommend it? Of course I don't." + +"Well, from what I remember of the Plume of Feathers--unless it has +altered----" + +"Wouldn't it be wiser to turn back?" he suggested, desperately, staring +into the fog, in which the lights of the _Milo_ had long since +disappeared. + +"What? When we have this moment opened the quay-light? There!... didn't +I promise you that I knew my way among the Islands?" + +In the basin of the harbour the fog lay thicker than in the roads, and +they had scarcely made sure that this was indeed the quay-light before +their boat grated against the landing-steps of the quay itself. The +Commandant, after he had shipped his oars and checked the way on her, +pressing both hands against the dripping wall, put up one of them and +passed the back of it slowly across his forehead. He was considering; +and, while he considered, his companion stepped lightly ashore. +"Forgive me," he pleaded, recollecting himself. "At least, I should +have offered you my hand." + +"Thank you, I did not need it." + +"But listen, please," he protested, scrambling out upon the steps, +painter in hand, and groping for a ring-bolt. "You cannot possibly stay +the night at the Plume of Feathers----" + +He heard her laugh, as he stooped, having found the ring, to make fast +the rope. + +"Commandant, have you ever travelled across Wyoming--in winter, in a +waggon? Very well, then; I have." + +"Surely not in the clothes you are wearing?" The Commandant, as any one +in the Council of Twelve could tell you, was no debater; yet sometimes +he had been known to triumph even in debate, by sheer simplicity. "The +only course that I can see," he continued, "is to seek some private +house, and throw ourselves upon the--er--" + +"Front door?" she suggested, mischievously. + +"--hospitality--upon the hospitality of the inmates. To them, of +course, I can explain the situation----" + +"Can you?" + +The Commandant stood for a moment peering at her, and rubbing the back +of his head--a trick of his in perplexity. "Upon my word, now you come +to mention it," he confessed, "I don't know that I can." + +"Whom shall we try first? Miss Gabriel?" ("Now, how in the world," +wondered the Commandant, "does she know anything of Miss Gabriel?") +"Very well; we go together to Alma Cottage--she still lives at Alma +Cottage?--and knock. The hour is two in the morning, or thereabouts. +Miss Gabriel, overcoming her first fear of robbery or murder, will +parley with us from her bedroom window. To her you introduce me, by the +light of your lantern; a strange female in an evening frock; a female +grossly overladen with jewels (that, I think, would be Miss Gabriel's +way of putting it), but without a portmanteau." + +"We might try the Popes, next door," suggested the Commandant +flinching. "Mr. Pope is a man of the world." + +"Is he?" she asked, after a pause, in which he felt that she struggled +with some inward mirth. "But we cannot so describe Mrs. Pope, can we? +Also we cannot knock up Mr. and Mrs. Pope without disturbing Miss +Gabriel next door." + +"Nor, for that matter, can we knock up Miss Gabriel without disturbing +Mr. and Mrs. Pope." + +"Quite so; we may reckon that all three will be listening. Therefore, +when Mr. Pope or Miss Gabriel (as the case may be) begins by demanding +my name--which, by an oversight, you have forgotten to ask----" + +"Pardon me," said the Commandant, simply, "I did not forget. I waited, +supposing that if you wished me to know it, you would tell me." + +"Ah!" she drew close to him, with a happy exclamation. "Then I was not +mistaken: You are the man I have counted to find.... And you are a +brave man, too. But we will not push bravery too far and disturb Miss +Gabriel." + +"If you can suggest a better plan----" + +"A far better plan. I suggest that you offer me a room to-night at the +garrison." + +"My dear madam!" the Commandant gasped. + +"It will be far better in every way," she went on composedly; that is, +if you are willing. To begin with, you have rooms and to spare. Next, +there will be no bother in introducing me, except to Mrs. Treacher." + +"Ah, to be sure, there is Mrs. Treacher!" the Commandant murmured. +"But, madam, all the rooms in the Castle are unfurnished, ruinous, and +have been ruinous for fifty years. The Treachers occupy the only two in +which it were possible to swing a cat." + +"Then we must borrow Mrs. Treacher and take her along to the Barracks +for chaperon. You may leave it to me to persuade her." + +Without waiting for his answer she ran lightly up the steps, the heels +of her rose-coloured satin shoes twinkling in the light of the +Commandant's lantern as he blundered after her. + +The pavement of the quay had not been laid for satin shoes. Much +traffic had worn the surface into depressions, and these depressions +were fast collecting water from the drenched air. But although the fog +lay almost as thick here as at the foot of the steps, she picked her +way among these pitfalls, avoiding them as though by instinct. Beyond +the quay came a cobbled causeway; and beyond the causeway a narrow +street wound up towards the garrison gate. Past rains, pouring down the +hill, had worn a deep rut along this street, ploughing it here and +there to the native rock, zig-zagging from centre to side of the +roadway and back again obedient to the trend of the slope. But over the +causeway, and up the channelled street she found her footing with the +same confidence, steering far more cleverly than the Commandant, who +followed as in a dream, amazed, oppressed with forebodings. It was all +very well for her to talk lightly of persuading Mrs. Treacher. If she +could, why then she must be possessed of a secret as yet unrevealed to +Mrs. Treacher's husband after thirty-odd years of married life. The +Commandant, too, knew something of Mrs. Treacher ... an obstinate +woman, not to say pig-headed. + +Was she a witch--this stranger in silk and jewels who walked in +darkness so confidently up the tortuous unpaved street?--this +apparition who, coming out of the seas and the dumb fog, talked of the +Islands and the Islanders as though she had known them all her life? + +As if to prove she was a witch, she paused before the very cottage +which once already to-night had given pause to his steps and to his +thoughts. The fog had been thinning little by little as they mounted +the hill, and at a few paces' distance he recognized the closed door, +daubed over with that same staring paint which your true Islander uses +for choice upon his boat. + +"You remember this door?" she asked, pointing to it as he overtook her. + +Witch she might be, but why should he give away to her this innocent +small secret? + +"Of course I remember it," he answered; "passing it as I do, +half-a-dozen times a day." + +"Yes," she said, almost as if speaking to herself; but her voice, for +the first time since their meeting, seemed to be touched with a faint +shade of dejection. "Naturally you would not remember it for any other +reason." + +He was silent. + +"Yet," she went on, "you really ought to remember that door, Major +Vigoureux, if only for old sake's sake; for it was, I believe, the +first you entered when you came to the Islands. That was in the +year----" + +"Never mind the year," interrupted the Commandant, hastily. "I remember +it well. I almost never pass the door without remembering it." + +"Ah!" she cried, putting her jewelled hands together, and the +Commandant took it for an exclamation of triumph at her cleverness. +"But other tenants have the house. The man who was master of it is +dead." + +"You know everything, it seems to me. Yes; he was a widower, and late +that evening at the fishing. It was an evening when he should not have +been late; for the door stood open for him, and his daughters--he had +two daughters--sat expecting him. It was the open door that drew me to +ask my way." Here he paused. + +"Go on, please." + +"One of the girls was to leave the Islands next morning for the +mainland, which she had never seen. She told me this. And she sat +reading aloud to her sister, there by the fire." + +"Go on." + +"That is all. Yes, that is all--except that the book was Shakespeare, +and the girl--" He paused again, staring at her between sudden +enlightenment and stark incredulity. "You--you don't mean to tell me +_you_ were that girl!" + +She nodded; and as, forgetting politeness, he held the lantern close to +her face, he saw two large tears brim up, tremble, and hang for a +second before they fell. + +"You?" he murmured. + +She nodded again. "I am Vashti--Vazzy Cara, they called me, Philip +Cara's daughter. I daresay, though, you never heard my name? No, there +is no reason why you should. And my sister, Ruth----" + +"She is married and lives on Saaron Island. But you know this, of +course? You who seem to know everything about us." + +"My sister writes me all the news.... So now," she added smiling, "it +is all explained, and there is no mystery about me after all. Are you +so very much disappointed?" + +But the Commandant continued to stare. No mystery? That the fisherman's +daughter with the Island lilt in her voice--well he recalled +it!--should have turned into this apparition of furs and jewels?... And +yet the metamorphosis lay not in the furs and jewels, but in her +careless air of command, of reliance upon her power, beauty, +charm--whatever her woman's secret might be; an air of one accustomed +to move in courts, maybe, or to control great audiences, or to live +habitually with lofty thoughts; an air of one, above all, sure of +herself. The poor Commandant had lived the better part of his life in +exile, but by instinct of breeding he recognised this air at once. +Vashti, however, seemed to mistake his astonishment, for she frowned. + +"Well?" she asked, a trifle impatiently. + +"Your sister never told us," he stammered. "At least--that is to +say----" + +"Do you suppose she was ashamed of me?" + +"Ashamed?" he echoed, for indeed no such thought had occurred to him. +If ever a man could have taken _honi soit qui mal y pense_ for his +motto, it was our Commandant. + +"Ah, to be sure!" she said slowly, but less in indignation (it seemed) +than in disappointment with him. "Naturally that would be the +explanation to occur to you, living so long in such a place." + +She turned on her heel, half contemptuously, and resumed her way, +walking with a yet quicker step than before. The Commandant, aware that +he had offended, but not in the least understanding how, toiled after +her up the steep incline to the garrison gate. + +They reached the door of the Barracks. To his surprise it was standing +open, and from behind the ragged blind of his sitting-room--to the left +of the entrance hall--a light shone feebly out upon the fog. He could +not remember that he had lit the lamp there, nor that he had left the +front door open. + +Vashti paused upon the doorstep and turned to him: + +"My good sir," she said curtly, "run and fetch Mrs. Treacher to me, for +goodness' sake." + +He hesitated, on the point of stepping past her to open the door of the +lighted room. Her manner forbade him, and he stood still, there by the +doorstep, gazing after her a moment as she disappeared into the dark +hall. Then, as he heard the door latch rattle gently, he turned to +hurry in search of Mrs. Treacher. + +He had taken but a dozen steps, however, when her light footfall +sounded again close behind him. She, too, had turned and was following +him almost at a run. + +"Why didn't you tell me?" she gasped. + +He swung up his lantern. Her eyes were wide with a kind of horror; and +yet she seemed to be laughing, or ready to laugh. + +"Tell you?" he echoed. + +"Oh, but it was unkind!" + +"But--but, excuse me--what on earth----" + +"Why, that you were entertaining ladies!" + +"Ladies!" + +She nodded, still round-eyed, reproachful. "Two of them--sitting on +your sofa! And, I think--I rather think--one of them is Miss Gabriel!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +TRIBULATIONS OF MRS. POPE AND MISS GABRIEL + + +"We have only to keep straight on," said Miss Gabriel. + +"Ye-es," said Mrs. Pope, less hardily. "I really think the gentlemen +might have waited for us." + +"For aught they know," said Miss Gabriel, "it's a matter of life and +death. And we cannot be more than two hundred yards from our own +gates." + +"In my opinion," persisted Mrs. Pope, who was apt to turn peevish when +frightened, "a man's first duty is to look after his own." + +"Is it?" snapped Miss Gabriel, herself no coward. "Well, you must argue +that out with Mr. Pope, if you haven't made up your minds about it by +this time. For my part, I never wanted a man to look after me, I thank +the Lord." + +"It would have been more gallant, and that you must allow." Mrs. Pope +stuck to her point (which is a capital thing to do in a fog), but only +to let it go abruptly a moment later. "Besides," she added, "my new cap +is no better than a pulp already. I can feel it. Sopping isn't the +word." + +"Fiddlestick!" said Miss Gabriel. "You and your cap!" She, herself, was +not frightened, only a little nervous. "If you ask me, it's better you +were thinking of those poor souls out on the rocks yonder. Little +enough they'll be thinking, just now, of such things as caps!" + +"Of course," hazarded Mrs. Pope, after they had groped their way +forward for twenty paces or so, "if you are quite certain where we +are----" + +"We are among the Islands," said Miss Gabriel, tartly, feeling the +roadway with the edge of her shoe, for her sole had just encountered +turf; "and this is one. My dear Charlotte, if you could refrain from +bumping into me at the precise moment when I am standing on one +leg----" + +"How can I help it, in this darkness?" whimpered Mrs. Pope. +"Besides"--with sudden spirit--"if you want to stand on one leg, I +shouldn't have thought this the time or the place." + +"T'cht!" said Miss Gabriel, striding forward with gathering confidence; +but at the seventh stride or so a sharp exclamation escaped her, as she +stood groping with both hands into the night. + +"What's the matter?" + +"It's a wall, I think.... I had almost run against it.... Yes, this +must be the wall of Buttershall's garden." + +"Are you sure?" + +"Certain. We have been bearing away to the right; people always do in a +fog." + +"Then if this really is Buttershall's garden--and I only hope and trust +you are not mistaken--we can bear away from it to the left, on purpose, +and then as likely as not we shall find ourselves going straight," +reasoned Mrs. Pope, lucidly. + +"My dear Charlotte"--Miss Gabriel was within an ace of calling her a +fool--"if this is Buttershall's garden----" + +"But a moment ago you were sure of it!" + +"And so I am. Very well then; since this is Buttershall's garden, we +have only to hold on by the wall and go forward, and that will take +us----" + +But here the wall ended, and the sentence with it. + +"Ai-ee!" + +"Are you hurt?... I said," asserted Mrs. Pope, desperately, and with +conviction, "that one of us would break a limb before we finished." + +"It seems to be--yes, it certainly is--a pump." Miss Gabriel's voice +had begun to shake by this time, but she steadied it. "For the moment +I--I half thought it might be a man." + +"I would to heaven it were!" said Mrs. Pope, fervently. + +"My dear Charlotte!" + +"My dear Elizabeth, I mean it. And, what's more, I wouldn't care who he +was. A pump? What earthly use is a pump? It must be Mumford's then, if +it is a pump." + +"It can't be." + +"Why not?" + +"For the simple reason that Mumford's is on the other side of the +road." + +"Then we _are_ on the other side of the road, as I have been +maintaining all along." + +"Would you mind walking round it?... Yes, you are right. It is +Mumford's pump, for I have just bruised my wrist against the handle. +Can you find the trough?" + +"The astonishing thing to me," announced Mrs. Pope, groping her way +with trepidation, "is that nobody shows a light. I don't like to call +people unfeeling; but really, with folks in distress out at sea, and +the guns firing, I wouldn't have believed such callousness." + +They made the circuit of Mumford's pump, and assured themselves--for +what the knowledge was worth--that it really was a pump, and Mumford's. +But this cost them dear, for at the end of the circuit, or rather of a +circuit and a half, they had lost all sense of their compass bearings. + +"And after all," Mrs. Pope began afresh, her mind working +sympathetically in a circle, "I don't understand what Mumford's pump is +doing on the wrong side of the road." + +"Don't be a ninny, Charlotte! Of course, it's not on the wrong side of +the road." + +"But you said it was." (Pause.) "You really did say so, Elizabeth, for +I remember it distinctly." (Another pause, and a sigh.) "For my part, I +never pretended to have what they call the bump of locality." + +The poor lady prattled on, more and more querulously, and to the +increasing exasperation of Miss Gabriel, who on the whole believed that +they were making for home, yet could not shake off a haunting suspicion +that they were moving in a direction precisely opposite. Moreover, the +behaviour of Mumford's pump troubled her more than she cared to +confess, even to herself. It stood on the right of the road as you went +towards St. Hugh's; but they had encountered it upon the left. +Therefore, either they had been walking off the road, though in the +right direction, or--terrible thought!--somewhere or somehow they had +turned right about-face, and were walking away from St. Hugh's.... + +As a matter of fact, they were bending away from the road in a line +which would lead them past the rear of their own back gardens. Their +feet no longer trod the causeway. They were on turf, and, so far as +they could feel it in the darkness, the turf seemed to be mounting in a +fairly stiff slope. Miss Gabriel stooped to feel the grass with the +palm of her hand, and just at that moment her ears caught the faint +note of a bell, some way ahead. + +She stood erect, with a little cry of dismay. + +"That settles it. We have turned round!" + +"Why, what makes you think so?" + +"Listen to that bell! Can't you hear it?" + +"Of course, I hear it?" Mrs. Pope apparently was nettled by the +question. "But I don't see----" + +"The church bell--we are walking straight towards Old Town." + +"It don't sound to me like the church bell." + +"That's because of the fog. Nothing sounds natural in a fog.... The +Vicar is having it rung to alarm the people in Old Town. I heard him +say this very night that it used to be the custom when a wreck went +ashore.... Besides, what other bell could it be? There is no other +bell." + +Mrs. Pope was silent, though unconvinced. She did not suggest the +garrison bell, for even to her scattered intelligence it was a thing +incredible that they should at this moment be rounding the slope of +Garrison Hill, at the back of St. Hugh's. + +"Anything might happen in a fog like this; and if I don't wake up to +find myself over the cliffs, it's no thanks"--bitterly--"to them we +might have relied on. But I don't believe it's the church bell, not if +you went on your bended knees." + +"Then, what do you say to this?" announced Miss Gabriel, triumphantly. + +Mrs. Pope would reserve her opinion until she saw what Miss Gabriel had +hold of. + +"Railings," said Miss Gabriel. "We are at the corner of Church Lane, +and here's the railing close alongside of us. Now we have only to keep +by the railing and feel our way--if you'll follow me--and we must find +the churchyard gate. The man ringing the bell will certainly have a +lantern, and will take us home." + +"I don't fancy churchyards at this time of night," said Mrs. Pope; "and +what's more, I never did." + +"You must make up your mind to one, then; that is, unless you prefer to +wait here till morning." + +They advanced, feeling their way by the rails, Mrs. Pope close behind +Miss Gabriel's heels. The bell continued tolling, not far away; yet +somehow after three minute's progress they appeared to be no nearer to +it. + +"Church Lane was never so long as all this," asserted Mrs. Pope, coming +to a desperate halt; "and you needn't try to persuade me." + +"It does seem a long way," Miss Gabriel conceded; "but no doubt the fog +magnifies things." + +"You had the same tale just now, about the church bell. For my part, I +don't believe in your church bell, and--listen!" + +"Eh?" + +"It has stopped ringing!" + +So it had. It was too much, perhaps, to say that Miss Gabriel's blood +ran cold, there in the darkness, as Mrs. Pope clutched and clung to +her; but certainly her heart sunk. + +"All the better," she said, bravely, clenching her jaw that her teeth +might not be heard to chatter. "Whoever was ringing the bell will be +returning this way presently, and we can ask his help." + +But here inspiration came to Mrs. Pope. + +"It's my belief," she said, "we are not in Church Lane at all, but in +the churchyard; and these rails don't belong to Church Lane, but to old +Bonaday's grave." + +"My dear Charlotte! When we've been following them for at least two +hundred yards!" + +"My dear Elizabeth, that's just it. We've been following round and +round them, and at this rate there's no reason why ever we should stop, +in this world." + +"You don't say.... But, after all, there's an easy way of proving if +you are right. You walk to the left, feeling round them, and I'll walk +to the right, and then, if it really is Bonaday's grave, we shall +meet." + +"Oh, but I couldn't! Elizabeth, if you leave me--if once I lose hold of +you--I shall die next moment." + +"Then there's only one thing to be done. We must stay here and cry out +at the top of our voices, and both together." + +"Yes, yes.... Why didn't we think of it before?" + +"For," argued Miss Gabriel, "a bell doesn't ring of itself; and if we +can hear the bell, very likely the man who was ringing it can hear us." + +"Will you begin, Elizabeth? I declare to you my whole cage of teeth is +loose----" + +"Help!" called Miss Gabriel. Her voice, despite herself, quavered a +little at first. "Help! Help!" + +"Help--help--help!" chirupped Mrs. Pope, much as an extremely nervous +person seeks to attract the attention of a waiter. + +"Louder ... much louder. He-lp!" + +"Help--help--he-lp! Oh, Elizabeth, and in a churchyard, too!" + +"Louder still.... He-el-lp!" + +"Help!... It's like waking the dead...." + +"He-el-lp!" + +"Hi, there! Who is it, and whatever on earth's the matter?" answered a +voice from somewhere on their right. + +"Oh, listen, Elizabeth! Heaven be praised!..." + +"Who is it?" sounded the voice again, and a dot of light shone through +the wall of fog. + +"Answer him, Elizabeth!" + +"Him? It isn't a man's voice, but a woman's ... unless the fog.... Hi, +there! Help! Here are two ladies.... Why, it's--it's Mrs. Treacher!" + +For the fog had parted suddenly, and through it, as through a breach in +a wall, stepped Mrs. Treacher with a lantern, which she held up close +to their faces. + +"Eh? Mrs. Pope and Miss Gabriel? Well, I declare!" + +"Bless you, Mrs. Treacher! But, however came you here?" + +"Why not?" asked Mrs. Treacher, after a pause. + +"Here, in the churchyard!... You don't tell me you've lost your way, +too?" + +"No, I don't," answered Mrs. Treacher, shortly, lifting her lantern. +"Churchyard? What churchyard?" + +"We thought.... We were under the impression...." Miss Gabriel's voice +rocked a little before she recovered her self-command. "Would you mind +telling us where we are, and what railings are these?" + +"You're on Garrison Hill," said Mrs. Treacher, who disliked Miss +Gabriel. "And you have hold of the rails round the old powder magazine. +But what you're tryin' to do with 'em, and at this hour of night, I'll +leave you to explain." + +But here, for the first time since their troubles began, Mrs. Pope came +to her companion's help. She did so by leaning back limply against the +railings and declaring that she, for her part, was going to faint. + +Mrs. Treacher caught her as she dropped, and with Miss Gabriel's help +supported her up the slope to the Barracks, less than fifty yards +above. + +"The Barracks?" exclaimed Miss Gabriel, halting as Mrs. Treacher's +lantern revealed to her through the fast-thinning fog a portion of the +whitewashed facade. "Oh, but I couldn't--on any account whatever!" + +"You'll have to," answered Mrs. Treacher, shortly, "that is, unless +you'd rather have her laid outside on the bare road, and in a dead +faint, too." + +Indeed, Mrs. Pope was in a state of collapse that silenced all +scruples. Mrs. Treacher--a powerfully-built woman--caught up the all +but inanimate lady in both arms, and bore her into the passage, nodding +to Miss Gabriel to unhitch from its nail a lamp which hung, backed by a +tin reflector, just within the doorway. + +"Unhasp the door to the left, please. We'll rest her down in the +Commandant's parlour. There's a sofa--though he do mostly use to keep +his books and papers upon it." She laid down her burden. "Oh, you +needn't fear to look about you! The men folk be all off to the wreck, +and won't be back till Lord knows when." + +Miss Gabriel, however, was not looking about her. Her gaze, following +the ray of the lamp as she held it aloft, travelled across the stooping +shoulders of Mrs. Treacher and fastened itself upon a garment of +gaudily-striped woolwork--her antimacassar--lying across the arm of the +sofa where the Commandant had tossed it impatiently. + +"Terribly messy a man always is when left to himself," said Mrs. +Treacher, rising and stepping to a corner cupboard. "If he keeps such a +thing as a drop of brandy on the premises, it'll be here, I reckon." + +But the cupboard was empty. For the sternest of reasons the Commandant +had, for two or three years past, denied himself the taste of strong +waters. + +Mrs. Treacher passed the back of her hand across the bridge of her +nose. "I'll step over to the Castle," she announced, "for a drop of gin +I keep against Treacher's attacks." (Let not Mrs. Treacher's idiom +frighten the reader. She meant only that her husband suffered from an +internal trouble which need not be specified, and that she kept the gin +by her as a precaution.) + +"And there's a quill pen of the Commandant's on the writing-table," she +added; "if you'll burn the feather of it under her nose." + +She bustled off. Miss Gabriel stepped to the table, picked up the +quill, and held it over the lamp's flame; but her eyes still questioned +the antimacassar. She was bending close to it when Mrs. Pope emitted a +fluttering sigh and lifted her eyelids feebly. + +"You are feeling better, dear?" asked Miss Gabriel, solicitously. + +At this moment the latch of the door rattled gently. She looked up in +surprise, for Mrs. Treacher could scarcely have gone and returned in so +short a while. + +The door opened. On the threshold stood a vision--a woman clad in +furs--a woman with diamonds flashing on her white throat where the furs +parted. + +Miss Gabriel gasped. + +The apparition stood for a moment, looked her in the eyes, and was +gone, closing the door softly. + +Miss Gabriel tottered, and sank back against the sofa's edge. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A BRIEF REVENGE + + +"Ladies?" ejaculated the Commandant. "In my quarters?" + +Vashti nodded demurely. "I think you might have told me," she said in a +tone of mild reproach. + +"But--my dear young lady----" + +"Thank you--" + +"Hey?" + +"--for calling me young." She reached out a hand, and, taking the +lantern from him, held it high so that the beams fell on her face. "It +is many years since our first meeting, and unhappily we have the date +of it fixed. Give me credit that I reminded you; for I don't mind +confessing that, though it hasn't come to a quarrel yet, my +looking-glass and I are not the friends we were." + +Here, had the Commandant been a readier man, he might have answered +with a compliment, and a truthful one. For indeed it was a very +beautiful face that the lantern showed him, and--here was the strange +part of the business--it had been growing younger since she stepped off +the ship, and somehow it must have contrived, in spite of the darkness, +to convey a hint of its rejuvenescence, for the word "young" had +slipped from him quite involuntarily. + +But, after all, there is nothing so subtle as simplicity, and, after +all, the Commandant managed to imply that she must be a witch. + +"Then, my dear young lady," he replied, "since you have spirited these +females into my quarters, I can only ask you to go and spirit them away +again." + +She shook her head. + +"What! You won't?... Very well, then, I must deal with them, while you +go off with the lantern and search for Mrs. Treacher." + +"You are a brave man," said she; "and--and I think--by the look of +them--you are going to have great fun." + +The Commandant stood for a moment rubbing his chin and staring after +the lantern, as it vanished in the fog. With a shake of the shoulders +he pulled himself together, marched into the Barracks, and boldly +opened the door. + +"Miss Gabriel!" + +"Major Vigoureux!" + +"Certainly, ma'am--these being my own quarters, unless--" He paused and +gazed around, as if to make sure that his eyes were not deceiving him. + +"Yes, yes--and at this time of night. As I was just saying to Charlotte +here, 'Think what a terrible construction one might put on it!'" + +The Commandant lifted his eyebrows. ("I behaved like a brute," he +confessed afterwards, "but the woman, a few hours before, had shown no +mercy to me.") "Indeed, ma'am?" said he. "A construction? Then you must +invent one for me, please, since I can think of none." + +"We have had the most terrible experience, sir--the most terrible +fright! You have seen Mrs. Treacher?" + +"Has anything happened to Mrs. Treacher?" + +"No--but it all came about through the fog----" + +"--and my husband deserting me," put in Mrs. Pope. + +The Commandant passed a hand across his brow. The gesture seemed to +express perplexity; in truth it covered amusement and a kind of fearful +joy in his newly-found talent for dissimulation. + +"My dear Mrs. Pope," he answered, his voice faltering a little, "You +don't mean to tell me that your excellent husband----" + +"Of course she doesn't," snapped Miss Gabriel. "She means to say that +the gentlemen were escorting us home, but, meeting the coastguard with +the news of this terrible wreck----" + +"A wreck, ma'am?" + +"Why, God bless the man! Don't you know? Haven't you heard the guns +going?... But of course you have. Mrs. Treacher told me you were down +helping with the boats--you and her husband and Archelaus, though what +help you three supposed yourselves capable of giving," wound up Miss +Gabriel, reverting for a moment to her customary manner, "I don't +pretend to guess." + +"As for that," the Commandant answered gravely, "I am happy to tell you +there has been no wreck. True, a vessel in distress--a large liner--had +found herself among the Hell-deeps, of all abominably awkward places. +But by the mercy of Heaven she managed to extricate herself, and has +dropped anchor, not half an hour ago, in the Roads." + +Miss Gabriel stared. "The Hell-deeps ... and at anchor in the Roads?" +she repeated stupidly. "Oh, will someone kindly tell me whether I am +standing on my head or my heels! A large liner?--the thing's +impossible! And in a fog that thick you couldn't see your hand before +your face!" + +"Are you quite sure, ladies," asked the Commandant, still gravely, +"that you are not exaggerating the thickness of the fog, somewhat?" + +"What?" Miss Gabriel took him up, like an echo. "When we started for +home and found we were half-way up Garrison Hill, and all the time +convinced we were at Old Town, in the churchyard!" + +The Commandant shook his head; and it must be conceded that he had some +excuse. + +"But why in the churchyard?" he asked, gently. + +"Because of the bell. If it comes to that"--Miss Gabriel threw herself +desperately on the offensive--"how do you account for the woman we saw +here, just now?" + +"I beg your pardon? A--a woman, did you say?" (Oh, Major Vigoureux!) + +"Yes, sir--a woman; a bedizened woman." + +"My dear Elizabeth," pleaded Mrs. Pope feebly, "are we quite sure that +we saw her?--that it wasn't a--a sort of mistake? It certainly +seemed--for a moment---- But really, you know, there is no one in the +Islands----" + +"My dear Charlotte, didn't we see her with our own eyes?" + +Mrs. Pope sighed. "It seems to me I have seen such a number of +things--of incredible things--to-night." + +"You are sure it wasn't Mrs. Treacher?" suggested the Commandant, +wickedly. + +"Mrs. Treacher! Mrs. Trea---- Does Mrs. Treacher go about in silks and +furs and low bodices with a thousand pounds' worth of diamonds on her +abandoned neck?" + +"Certainly not to my knowledge. But," said the Commandant, turning, as +the door opened, "you had better ask her for yourself." + +Now, it may be that Mrs. Treacher had also allowed Vashti to bewitch +her. At any rate, she cordially hated Miss Gabriel, and she took, then +and there, what she herself called afterwards, a strong line. + +"What are they wanting to know now?" she demanded, addressing the +Commandant. + +"Miss Gabriel wants to know"--he answered, in a husky voice, while he +pretended to trim the lamp--"if you go about in silks and furs." + +"No, I don't," replied Mrs. Treacher, setting down the bottle of gin. +"And what's more, I don't go a-sheevoing it around Garrison Hill in the +small hours, and a-holding on to railings, and a-clammering for strong +drink." + +"That will do, Mrs. Treacher," interposed her master, suddenly reduced +to contrition at the sight of Miss Gabriel, who stood speechless, +opening and shutting her mouth like a fish. "The ladies have lost their +way in the fog, and were, on the whole, extremely fortunate to reach +here without accident. They will agree, I daresay, that the sooner I +escort them home the better. Fetch me a lantern, if you please." + +"It--it is extremely good of you," stammered Miss Gabriel. + +"My dear madam!" he protested, with a good-natured smile. + +Miss Gabriel did not respond to it. But, though bitterly angry, for the +moment she was cowed, and she made no further reference to the +mysterious lady. + +She declined the Commandant's arm. Mrs. Pope, however, took it almost +eagerly, and on the way down the hill he obtained from her a voluble if +somewhat incoherent account of the night's adventures. He did his best +now to make light of them. Accidents even more extraordinary had +happened in fogs before now. He related how two companies of the Naval +Brigade, under Sevastopol, had come within an ace of firing on each +other.... He told of the _Milo_, and her wonderful escape, but said +nothing of Vashti. In the midst of his narrative he found himself +wondering what answer he could make if they questioned him again upon +the apparition. + +But neither Mrs. Pope nor Miss Gabriel made further allusion to it. +Their silence, for which at first he was merely thankful, began to +puzzle him after a while. + +Could it be possible that he, too, had been cheated by an apparition? + +He took leave of the ladies at their respective gates, retiring +delicately as soon as, waiting in the road, he had assured himself that +they were within doors. Miss Gabriel admitted herself with a latch-key. +Mrs. Pope's timid knock was answered by her astonished husband, who, +having just returned from the harbour, and assuming his spouse to be +long since in bed and asleep, had lit a candle to explore the +dining-room cellaret. + +The front door was shut on their reciprocal surprise, and the +Commandant withdrew. He had sighed, before now, as he had shut Mr. and +Mrs. Pope's front gate after an evening's whist. Doubtless they were a +stupid couple. + + * * * * * + +A light shone from the Barracks--from the office window to the right of +the door. Within the office Vashti had dragged the sofa across the room +and sat, with her fur cloak thrown back, toasting her shoes before a +warm fire. In the dancing flame of it her diamonds sparkled as she +turned to him. + +"Mrs. Treacher is upstairs," she said, "hunting out sheets to air for +me. Now fill your pipe, please, and sit down and tell me all about it." + +Major Vigoureux found an old pipe on the mantel-shelf, dived in the +tobacco jar for a few dry crumbs, filled, and lit and stamped out a +spark that had dropped on the hearth-rug. + +"It isn't a creditable story," said he, puffing slowly, and blinking at +the flash of jewels below her white throat. "In fact, I behaved like a +brute." + +"Tell me about it," she repeated. + +So he told her; and found himself smoking and watching her, while she +laughed softly, leaning forward to the fire, and gazing into the heart +of it. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE SALVING OF S.S. MILO + + +Major Vigoreux awoke at daybreak with a vague sense that something +important had happened or was going to happen--a feeling he had not +known for years. It was so strange that he sat up wondering, rubbing +the back of his head. + +Then he remembered, and called out to Sergeant Archelaus. + +Sergeant Archelaus appeared, a moment later, ready dressed, and on more +than usually good terms with himself. He had indued his master's +trousers, and, save for an unfashionable bagginess at the hips, they +fitted him surprisingly well. + +"Good morning, Archelaus. Did you happen to hear, last night, at what +time the _Milo_ weighs anchor?" + +"I heard the captain, sir, tell the pilots to be aboard at +half-after-seven. But with a vessel of her size you may count on their +waiting till high-water or thereabouts." + +"In any case"--the Commandant consulted his watch--"we have not too +much time. Where is Treacher?" + +"Downstairs, sir, along with his missus, stoking the kitchen fire, with +mattresses built up before it like a sandbag battery. Seems to me the +woman's been spending half the night airing one thing and another. She +says the place is like a vault. Not," added Archelaus, magnanimously, +"that I mind her talk." + +"Quite right, Archelaus. I particularly hope you won't quarrel with +Mrs. Treacher while she is here waiting on Miss--er--on the lady." + +"If," said Archelaus, darkly, "as how I wanted to quarrel with a +female, I should have taken and married one long ago. As 'tis, when the +woman's tongue becomes afflicting, I turns round and pities Treacher. +There's more ways of doing that than in so many words, and you'd be +astonished how they both dislikes it." + +"At any rate," said the Commandant, mildly, "they have saved you the +trouble of being late with the fire this morning. So you may fetch me +my shaving-water at once, please." + +He sprang out of bed and reached for his dressing-gown, astonished at +his own good spirits. "It does make a difference," said he aloud, +though the remark was addressed to himself. + +"It do," said Archelaus, turning in the doorway. + +"I--I beg your pardon?" The Commandant turned about, a trifle confused. + +"It may seem a little thing; but it gives a man self-respect, and I'm +glad you noticed 'em." Archelaus looked down at his legs, complacently. +"Always supposin'," he added, "they don't take me for a Frenchman, +owing to the fulness hereabouts." + +Yes, certainly, it made a difference--to rise in the morning with a +sense of something waiting to be done. So the Commandant put it to +himself while he shaved, standing at his dressing-table under the +barrack window. The window was set high in the wall: too high to afford +him a view of the Islands, even though he stood on tip-toe. But through +it and above the open pane he caught a glimpse of blue sky and +lilac-coloured cloud, touched with gold by the risen sun. He could +guess the rest. A perfect morning!--clean and crisp, with the sea a +translucent blue, and sunlight glittering on the Island beaches; the +air still, yet bracing, and withal ineffably pure--a morning mysterious +with the sense of autumn, but of autumn rarified by its passage over +the salt strait, deodorised, made pure of marsh fog and the rotting +leaf. + +The Commandant hummed to himself in the intervals of his shaving, which +nevertheless he performed meticulously by force of habit. It was his +custom to shave, and very carefully, before taking his bath. For years +he had made a ritual of his morning toilet: so many passes of his razor +across the strop (to be precise, one hundred and fifty, neither more +nor less), so many douches with the sponge, so many petitions +afterwards on his knees. Yes, it is to be feared that his prayers, no +less than his shaving, had become a drill, though one may plead for him +that he always went through it conscientiously. A stroke too few across +the strop--a petition to the Almighty missed--either would have worried +him with a feeling that the day had been begun amiss. He was poor, but +with the never-failing well on Garrison Hill he could come clean as the +richest to his prayers. Even Miss Gabriel had to admit that the poor +man (as she put it) knew how to take care of his person. + +"We shall be in good time, Archelaus," said the Commandant, with a side +glance at his watch; "that is, if you'll step down the hill and get the +boat ready." + +Archelaus, whose hearing had not improved of late, checked himself in +the act of filling his master's tub. + +"I didn't clearly catch what you said, for the splashing.... Boat? If +you want the boat, I put her off to the moorings last night. Found her +tied up and bumping against the quay steps, quite as if money was no +object to any of us." + +"Thank you. Yes, I relied on your finding and mooring her properly. +Well, now, when you are ready I want you to unmoor her again. We are +going off to the liner to fetch Miss--that is to say--the lady's +boxes." + +Sergeant Archelaus faced about slowly, cap in hand. + +"Oh--oh!" said he slowly. "Relative of yours, sir?--making so bold." + +"Dear me, no; nothing of the sort." + +"Paying lodger, perhaps.... Or else we've come into a fortune all of a +sudden, an' that accounts for Treacher's playing ad lib. with the +coals--begging your pardon again." + +The Commandant winced, and came within an ace of gashing himself +severely. He had forgotten the penny in his pocket, the gulf between +this and pay-day ... and Vashti, no doubt, was used to fare daintily, +luxuriously! + +"I really think"--he turned on Archelaus in sudden anger--"you might +know better than to stare into the glass when I am shaving. Moreover, +you forget your place, and inexcusably, even for an old servant." + +Archelaus resumed his filling of the bath, and, having filled it, +withdrew without another word. + +Yes; but while the manner of Archelaus' speech had deserved rebuke, in +the matter of it Archelaus was right. The matter of it was urgent, too, +and not to be played with. In an hour or so Vashti would be awake.... +She must delay dressing until her boxes arrived; but, once dressed, she +would expect breakfast. The larder, to his knowledge, contained but the +rusty end of a flitch of green bacon--that, and perhaps a couple of +rusty eggs, a loaf, and some salt butter. Fool that he was! And a +minute ago he had greeted the day so light-heartedly! + +What was to be done? In the pauses of sponging and towelling himself, +the Commandant asked the question again and again. Could he go to Mrs. +Treacher and borrow back the four shillings he had given her last +night? Fish, new-laid eggs, fresh butter, marmalade, the best tea +procurable in the Islands.... Yes, undoubtedly four shillings would go +a long way towards providing breakfast. But after breakfast would come +luncheon, and after luncheon-- + +There was Mr. Tregaskis, of the Shop. Mr. Tregaskis sold almost +everything "advantageous to life"--as Shakespeare's exiles said upon +another island: everything from bacon and pickles to boots, +iron-mongery, and sun-bonnets. For twelve years the Commandant had +dealt with Mr. Tregaskis, paying whatever Mr. Tregaskis charged him, +and always in ready money. He knew, moreover, that Mr. Tregaskis gave +credit: and yet, after twelve years of ready-money dealing, he winced +as he saw himself entering the shop and proposing to open an account. +He foresaw himself inexorably driven to it. But he foresaw himself also +stammering out the suggestion with every sign of conscious rascality. +And, after all, was it honest to enter a shop and open an account with +one penny in pocket? Suppose that, next pay-day, no pay were +forthcoming! + +He must approach Mr. Tregaskis: there was no help for it. Yet the +prospect pleased him so little that, as he walked down the hill to the +quay, he decided to put off the interview, and was almost running past +the shop (which had just been unshuttered) when Mr. Tregaskis himself +appeared, framed of a sudden in the upper and open half of his shop +doorway. + +"Eh? Is it you, sir? Good morning!" he called. + +"Good morning! And a fine morning, too, Mr. Tregaskis." + +"After a night of marvels. You've heard about the liner, sir, out in +the Roads?... 'Tis all a mystery to me how she ever found her way in." + +"I am putting off to learn the particulars. And, by the way, Mr. +Tregaskis"--the Commandant paused--"I intended to call in upon you on +my way back." + +"Anything I can do for you, sir, and at any time," responded Mr. +Tregaskis. "I suppose, now," he added, "you'd take it as a liberty if I +was to ask for a seat in your boat?" + +"Not in the least. There she is, waiting off the quay steps: so if you +have business on board, put on your hat, come along with me, and +welcome!" + +"Thanking you kindly, sir. Which I was reckoning that--she being from +foreign parts and the Islands the first place she've touched at, I +might pick up a bravish order in the way of fresh milk and eggs, not to +mention that Job Clemow sold me half-a-hundredweight of plaice, with a +cod or two, that he took on the spiller yesterday." + +"Come along, by all means," repeated the Commandant, moving off towards +the quay steps; and Tregaskis, having tucked his shop-apron around his +waist and run into the back passage for his billy-cock hat, hurried in +his wake. + +Reuben Tregaskis--known throughout the Islands as The Bester--was a +genial ruffian of familiar accost, red-faced, round in the stomach, +utterly unscrupulous at a bargain. The Commandant did not like him, and +particularly disliked the prospect of asking him a favour. Most of all +he regretted, as they pushed off, that chance this morning had forced +him to put such a man under a small obligation. He feared that, when it +came to asking leave to open an account, he might seem to be using this +advantage. (Such a fear, it scarcely needs saying, was groundless. In +his business dealings, The Bester was superior alike to gratitude and +rancour, and would bargain with his own mother as with his worst +enemy.) + +The Commandant, oppressed with his own thoughts, bent his attention +upon the steering, and punctuated with monosyllables only the exuberant +flow of Mr. Tregaskis' conversation, which, bye-and-bye, as they neared +the roadstead, resolved itself into offers of wagers on the length, +tonnage, and actual carrying capacity of the liner. + +She lay very nearly in the middle of the roadstead, broadside-on to the +morning sunshine, and the more the Commandant studied her the more he +wondered at last night's miracle. She had not yet begun to weigh, +though he discerned a couple of St. Ann's pilots talking with an +officer on the bridge. Presently the officer left them, and descended +to the deck, where he stood in the gangway awaiting the boat. + +"Major Vigoureux?" he asked, lifting the peak of his cap, as she fell +alongside. + +The Commandant, not a little astonished, returned the salutation. "That +is my name, sir." + +"I have been expecting you," said the officer. "I am Captain Whitaker, +at your service--the skipper of this vessel, in fact, and thankful +enough, I can tell you, to be alive this morning and in command of her. +Madame's boxes are on deck here, if you do me the favour to climb on +board.... Ah, and here is Madame's maid, to give account of them!" + +The Commandant, drawing breath at the head of the ladder, and glancing +down the _Milo's_ majestic length of deck, was aware of four large +trunks, and beside them a neat, foreign-looking woman, who curtsied in +foreign fashion as she came forward. + +"M'sieur will take my duty to Madame, and tell her that I have done my +best to pack to her orders. The rest I am to report from Plymouth, when +we arrive." + +"And I daresay," put in Captain Whitaker, with an amused turn of the +eye towards the trunks, then back at the Commandant, "Madame would call +these 'just a few necessaries.' Though I say to you, sir," he went on +gravely, "that all the _Milo's_ hold--and the _Milo_ will carry close +on four thousand tons--hasn't room enough to stow what Madame deserves, +be it in clothes or jewels." + +"I--I beg your pardon?" + +"She hasn't told you? No; I bet she wouldn't," said Captain Whitaker. +"Come down to my cabin, sir, and let me offer you a brandy-and-soda? +No? Then, perhaps, you'll do me the honour to join me at +breakfast--which must be ready at this moment," he added, as eight +strokes sounded on the ship's bell forward. "Never mind the size of the +trunks, sir; one of my men shall help you ashore with 'em." + +In the Captain's cabin, which had a floor of parquet and panels of teak +set in mahogany, stood a table with a white cloth upon it, and a +breakfast array of blue-and-white china. A steward, in a blue suit with +brass buttons, brought the meats in dishes of polished electro-plate, +and on a small sideboard stood other dishes with small spirit lamps +burning beneath. The Commandant seated himself; ate, drank, and +marvelled. + +"You know Madame?" asked Captain Whitaker, helping himself to a dish of +kidneys and bacon. He nodded, intercepting the Commandant's gaze. "We +keep them in ice, if you're not above trying our fare. You'll find they +are not bad. My other meals I take with the passengers, but I breakfast +alone, as a rule." + +The Commandant's mind ran on the breakfast yet to be extracted from Mr. +Tregaskis' shop. + +"You know her?" asked Captain Whitaker. + +"I once had the pleasure--years ago----" + +"If that's so"--Captain Whitaker nodded--"we'll take her praises for +granted. She's great; you can sum it up at that. By the way, did she +happen to tell you why she is leaving the ship here?" + +"Yes; she went ashore in a hurry, she said, to avoid being thanked----" + +"Then I guessed right." + +"--though," confessed the Commandant, "I haven't a notion what she +meant." + +Captain Whitaker set down his breakfast-cup and buttered himself a +piece of toast, gazing the while long and earnestly at his companion. + +"No? Then I'll tell you. The passengers don't know it as yet, though +I've caught a guess or two flying around; but the truth is sure to come +out, sooner or later. Man, it was she that saved the _Milo_ last night, +in that ghastly twenty minutes before we picked up the pilot.... Oh, I +see by your face you don't believe me!--but you must take it or leave +it. Shall I go on?" + +"Go on," said the Commandant. + +"We were due out of New York on the 27th, but missed our tide in +clearing and didn't pass the bar till early next morning. We carried +fifty-nine saloon passengers, seventy-five second, and a hundred and +twenty-five steerage, with a crew of a hundred exactly. Besides these +we had the mails--two hundred and twenty bags--and a fair amount of +dollars in specie (I needn't tell how much.) The weather was thick from +the first with a heavy sea running on the other side. We met it full +just outside Sandy Hook, and for three days I pitied the passengers. +The third night out the mischief happened. I had left the bridge soon +after four bells and was just turning in for my beauty-sleep when I +heard an unholy racket below in the engine-room, and felt the ship slow +down of a sudden. One of the rods had kicked loose from its gib and +started to flail around death and destruction. Thanks to Crosbie, our +first engineer, she was brought up before kicking our insides out, and +we hove to; but the repairs cost us close on eighteen hours. By +daybreak the weather was thickening worse than ever, though with no +great amount of wind, and we started again in a fog so thick that from +the bridge you could see her bows, and only just. Well, that's how it +was with us, all the way across. We seemed to carry the fog; and though +it lifted a bit, off and on, it never looked like giving us a chance of +an observation. All yesterday afternoon I was worried by the thought +that we'd overrun our reckoning and must be somewhere near the Islands, +and about two o'clock--though the soundings were good--I ordered the +engines to be reduced below the half-speed at which she was running. + +"To ease the passengers' minds I had arranged for a concert in the +saloon after dinner, and Madame--she had booked with us under a name +that wasn't her own to dodge the New York newspaper men, but the +passengers recognized her--had promised me to sing to them. (You have +heard her, eh?--it makes you cry, and not mind, either, who sees you.) +I remember now that she looked at me pretty straight when she gave the +promise, but seeing me not minded to speak, she asked no questions. + +"Well, the concert came off. At any other time I'd have given pounds to +be sitting there and listening; but the worry on my mind kept me to the +bridge, and from there I heard her, the notes lifting up through the +saloon sky-light as if heaven and earth had somehow got capsized or +else an angel had come aboard to sing us clear of the fog. There were +three of us on the bridge--myself, and the third officer, Mr. +Francillon, and a seaman called Petersen; and when the song ended--it +was a little Italian something-or-other, very bright and gay--and the +clapping began and the calls for an encore, I couldn't stand it any +longer, and I was afraid she'd be starting on 'Home, Sweet Home,' or +something of that sort, and I didn't want Mr. Francillon to see my +face. So I made up an excuse and sent him off to the chart-house for a +pair of dividers (which I didn't want), and away he went. + +"When he was gone I stood by the wheel for a bit listening as the +clapping died down. It stopped at last, and I braced myself up and +waited to have my feelings wrung, when just behind me I heard a step on +the ladder. Of course, I took it for Mr. Francillon returning, and I +wheeled about, short-tempered like, to tell him he needn't be +tip-toeing--we weren't on the bridge to listen to grand opera--when +what do I see but Madame! 'You needn't look so cross, Captain,' she +says; 'for I know well enough I'm breaking all rules, and I'll go away +quietly and sing to them again. But we're somewhere near the Islands, +and the call came on me to warn you!' 'Why, truly, ma'am,' I answered, +'I believe we're not far off them.' 'We're close to them,' she answered +me, nodding her head. 'I'm Island-born, Captain, and I feel 'em in my +blood.' I put this down to craziness--hysterics--or whatever you choose +to call it; but just to soothe her mind and get her down quietly off +the bridge I sang out to the leadsman to know if he had found +soundings. I was bending over the rail when I felt a touch on my arm, +and heard her cry out 'Starboard! Hard a-starboard--hard!'--just like +that." Captain Whitaker dropped his voice to a low, fierce whisper as +he imitated her. "It took the helmsman sharp and sudden, so that he had +begun to put the wheel down before he realised that the order didn't +come from me; and the next moment Madame had flung herself upon it and +was helping with both hands. 'Hullo!' says I, stepping after her +smartly, and as good as asking if she or I commanded the _Milo_. The +passengers below had started to sing 'D'ye ken John Peel?' and were +yelling out a lot of silly hunting-cries with the chorus. I could hear +nothing above the racket. But, sure enough, looking to port over my +shoulder as I laid hand on the wheel to check it, I saw a whitish smear +that meant breakers; and the smear no sooner showed than above it a +great black cliff stood out as if 'twere a moving thing and meant to +carve into us right amidships--a great cliff with a rock on it like the +Duke of Wellington's nose. A man from the top of it could have jumped +onto our bulwarks, and I shut my eyes as it overhung, waiting for the +crash; but it slid by and was gone like a slide you pass through a +magic lantern. + +"'Port now! Port for your life!' she called out; and I saw first of all +her hand go out to push Petersen off, and then the little sparks +flickering on her rings as she gripped the spokes, and checking 'em, +dragged the wheel back hand over hand. A man's strength she must have +had. 'Help me,' was all she said, in a kind of panting voice, and as I +caught hold to help it over, 'That was the Head! Hard up, now! and ring +down for full speed!' 'Full speed!' I grunted, yet pressing on the +wheel all the time--'It's stop her you mean, and anchor.' 'What, here? +with Hell-deeps on your starboard bow and a five-knot tide running! +Full speed ahead--there's no room to swing--no, nor half.' She stopped +my hand on the bell and rang down herself, 'full speed ahead'; and the +passengers whooping away at 'John Peel!' all the while. + +"Then, as the engines began to run, she looked at me, still holding on +by the wheel. 'They may do it,' she said, 'they may do it. At half +speed she'd never point off, against a five-knot tide.' 'God have mercy +on us!' was all I could say. 'If you know--?' 'Know?' she caught me up. +'I was brought up to know. But she'll never do it if she don't pick up +way.... Ah, that's better!' she said with a kind of sigh staring over +the starboard bow into the fog. 'Now!'--and we held our breath, all of +us; for Mr. Francillon was back on the bridge standing close behind her +and wondering what the devil was up. She let thirty seconds pass, and +then turned to him as if he'd been there all the while and she knew it. + +"'Look astern,' she said, 'and maybe, if you're clever, you can see the +Monk.' + +"'The Monk!' We cried this out together; for that we had passed the +Monk without sighting her or catching sound of her fog-horns was a +thing incredible. + +"'But so it is,' said she. 'We have passed the Monk; passed it close. +Don't I know the Pope's Head on Lesser Teague? Now hard-a-port +still--for we've the Gunnel Dogs somewhere there to leeward, and +they're worse almost than Hell-deeps.' + +"We were racing by this time. There was nothing in the world to +see--only the fog, which had turned, within the last minute, to dusk; +and nothing to feel except that we were racing down between the walls +of it like a stick caught in a mill heat. Worse it was; we were driving +down full tilt with a five-knot tide under us. If we struck there was +one consolation; the end would come soon. As 'John Peel' ended we could +hear the tide race take up the tune and hum it on the wind of our +passage; and above it I heard the third officer call out that he had +glimpsed a light astern. + +"'The Monk!' said Madame, nodding her head to me to help her in easing +off the wheel. + +"And I don't know, sir, if you have ever been through a gale at sea; a +really tight gale, I mean; with a while in it--maybe an hour only, +maybe twenty-four--when the odds are slowly turning against you. Then +there comes a point when, with nothing to show for it, you feel that +you are holding your own; and another point when you feel that, bar +accidents, the worst is over. The sea seems to break just as savage as +ever, and you can't swear that the wind has lessened. You have nothing +to point to, but, all the same, you know, and can thank the Lord. + +"That's how it was with the _Milo_. I couldn't say when the danger +ceased; but I found myself looking at Madame across the binnacle lamp +and she was looking at me. My hand went out and I rang down for +half-speed, then for dead slow. We stood there and listened while the +engines changed their beat from one to the other. In the saloon they +had started a comic song with a chorus. Said she, after a bit, 'You can +bring up now and wait for morning. North of the Gunnel here there's an +eddy slack where the tides meet, and you may count on thirty fathoms.' + +"I called down to know what the lead reported. I felt my voice shaking +and the leadsman's voice shook a bit too as he called back that he had +found the bottom with the red seventeen fathom mark. Half a minute +later he sang out that his line had lost it. I was just about calling +to let go anchor when away on our starboard bow we heard the pilots +hailing. We sent up a flare, and at sight of it the lighthousemen, away +on the Monk, began banging, and small blame to them!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE ADVENTURES OF FOUR SHILLINGS + + +As he finished his story Captain Whitaker stood up and reached out a +hand to open a glass-fronted cupboard in which he kept his books and +papers. The Commandant, mistaking his movement, rose also. + +"No, no, sir," the Captain corrected him. "Sit down and finish your +breakfast. The fact is, when her maid, last night, handed me the letter +telling me she had gone ashore, I sat down and wrote an answer. Here it +is, and I was going to ask you to deliver it for me." + +The Commandant took it, and placed it carefully in his breast pocket. +"I thank you," he answered, "but I have breakfasted. If you don't +mind--it occurs to me that, if I delay, some of your passengers will +soon be about the decks, and will see the luggage going overside, and +ask questions." + +"And that's well thought of," interrupted Captain Whitaker, "though I +expect the luggage is all in your boat before this. How far lies your +house from the quay, by the way?" + +The Commandant answered that his house--the Barracks--stood at the very +top of the hill. + +"Why, then," said the Captain, leading the way up the companionway, +"the least I can do is to send a couple of my men along with you to +help. Your fellows--you'll excuse me--don't look equal to it. +Pensioners, eh?" + +The Commandant winced. "One of them," he answered stiffly, "is on the +active list. His strength would surprise you, sir." + +"H'm!" said the Captain, with a glance at Sergeant Archelaus. + +"The other--but where is Tregaskis?" + +"Gone off, sir, to do business with the steward," explained Archelaus, +saluting. + +"The other is a Mr. Tregaskis, a respectable man, and our principal +tradesman in Garland Town. He has a design, I believe, to sell you +whatever you may want in the way of fresh provisions." + +"Certainly. The steward can go ashore, too, and do business with him, +and his boat will bring the others back. Here--Hoskings! Arnott!" +Captain Whitaker called to a couple of seamen, and sent a third off to +summon the steward. + +Five minutes later the Commandant found himself back in his boat, +seated besides the _Milo's_ steward, and confronting a tall pile of +luggage. The two seamen had already put off with Mr. Tregaskis in the +steward's boat. + +"And you will present my duty to Madame?" said Madame's maid, looking +down from the ship's side. "And tell her that I charge myself to see +the rest of her luggage safe to the hotel, where I will report myself +and wait for Madame's orders." + +Captain Whitaker waved good-bye. Archelaus pushed off and fell to the +oars. The Commandant took the tiller. As the boat pointed for shore the +garrison bell on the hill rang out nine o'clock. + +Nine o'clock! The notes of the bell struck apprehension upon the +Commandant's heart. His guest would certainly be awake by this time, +and as certainly hungry. To be sure, she could not attire herself until +her boxes arrived--at any rate, would not appear. And yet, with such a +strong-willed person, he could not be certain. A lady capable of +landing on a foggy night in an evening gown and diamonds, and of +walking up the street of St. Hugh's in shoes of rose-coloured satin, +might well be capable of descending to breakfast in those garments. + +To breakfast!--and as yet that breakfast had to be bought, and on +credit! + +He wished now that he had offered to convey Mr. Tregaskis back in his +own boat. He might (he told himself) have broached his proposition on +the way. + +The _Milo's_ steward, affably inclined, let fall a remark or two upon +the Islands. He opined that they were quaint. The poor man meant well, +but was a person slightly above his station, and clipped his words. +This gave him a patronising tone, which the Commandant, in his +impatience, found offensive. He answered in curt monosyllables, which +in turn caused the steward to mistake him for a stand-offish gentleman. + +The steward was a very resplendent figure indeed. The morning sunlight, +which drew sparkles from the brass-buttoned suit and brass-bound cap +beside him, exposed pitilessly the threadbare woof of the Commandant's +uniform coat. There had been nothing amiss with the coat, yesterday; +nothing to observe, at least--- And, "Confound the fellow!" thought +the Commandant, "how am I to get rid of him and have a word with +Tregaskis?" + +For desperate ills, desperate remedies. Drawing alongside the quay, +where Mr. Tregaskis and the two seamen had landed and stood waiting, +the Commandant called upon his best service voice, concealing the shake +in it: + +"Mr. Tregaskis!" + +"Sir?" + +"I desire a word with you." + +"Yes, sir." + +"And in private," went on the Commandant, stepping ashore and marching +straight up the steps. + +"Certainly, sir." After all, and not so long ago, Major Vigoureux had +been Governor and Chief Magistrate of the Islands, with power to +inflict fine and imprisonment. Mr. Tregaskis (conscious, perhaps, of +some close dealings in the not remote past) turned obediently and led +the way to his shop door at the corner of the hill, thence through the +shop, and thence to the threshold of a dark parlour behind it, into +which he was passing when the Commandant's voice brought him to a +stand. + +"We will talk here, if you please," said the Commandant. + +"Certainly, sir," Mr. Tregaskis turned about. + +"I want," said the Commandant, "half a pound of your best tea, half a +dozen new laid eggs, an amount of bacon which I leave to you, and a pot +of marmalade." + +"With pleasure, sir. Anything I can do----" + +"And on credit." + +"As I said sir--to be sure--and hoping that I have given satisfaction +hitherto--" Mr. Tregaskis, still a trifle flurried, fell to rubbing his +hands together, thus producing an appearance of haste before he +actually collected himself and hurried to execute the order. + +"Good God!" thought the Commandant to himself. "Am I browbeating this +man?" + +He watched as Mr. Tregaskis cut and weighed out the butter and bacon +and tied them up into parcels, with the help of a small boy summoned +from the back premises; or rather, the small boy (Melk by name, which +was short for Melchisedek) did the weighing and tying while Mr. +Tregaskis stood over him and exhorted him to look sharp, or he'd never +make a grocer. The steward watched from the doorway, puffing a +cigarette, and expressed a hope that he was not excluding the light. +The Commandant wished him a thousand miles away. Sergeant Archelaus had +borrowed a light trolley from the quay; the two seamen had loaded it; +and already Madame's luggage was half-way up the hill, and must +infallibly reach the Barracks before Madame's breakfast could overtake +it. + +"And when would you like it sent, sir?" asked Mr. Tregaskis, nodding at +the piles on the counter. + +"Sent?" echoed the Commandant. "I beg your pardon," he went on hastily. +"I had meant to ask you for the loan of a basket. I will carry the +things myself." + +"Indeed, sir?" Mr. Tregaskis hesitated. "You are welcome to a basket, +of course, if you think it wise." + +"I am not ashamed to be seen carrying a basket, Mr. Tregaskis." + +"No, indeed, sir! But the hill being steep--and a little exercise would +do Melk, here, all the good in the world." + +"I prefer to carry the goods myself, I thank you." (Was everybody in a +conspiracy to take the Commandant for a very old man?) + +He waited impatiently until the basket was filled, slung it on his arm, +and hurried out of the shop with such impetuosity that the steward, +still lounging in the doorway, had scarcely time to skip into the +roadway and give passage. + +"They must be going in for some kind of feast, up to Barracks," said +the boy Melk meditatively, after a pause. + +"Why?" asked Mr. Tregaskis, looking up from the counter. + +"Because," said the boy, "Old Mother Treacher was here, not ten minutes +ago, and the way she spent her money was a caution. There's the best +part of four shillin' in the till, if only you'll look." + +"What did she buy?" + +"Eggs mostly--and bacon--and marmalade." + +Mr. Tregaskis walked to his shop door, and stared up the hill after the +Commandant. + +"Must be going off their heads," he decided, and shook his own +doubtfully. "It can't be a merry-makin' either; for, when you come to +think of it, folks don't feast off such things as streaky bacon." + +"Not off this sort, any'ow," airily agreed the steward, who had been +examining a piece on the counter. + + * * * * * + +The Commandant had started fiercely enough to climb the hill, but by +the time he reached the bend of the hill where stood the cottage which +had been Vashti's home he was drawing difficult breath. Indeed, he was +on the point of setting down his load and resting when, as he turned +the corner, he came full upon Mrs. Banfield, the good wife of the +present occupier, in conversation with Mrs. Medlin, her neighbour +across the road. The two women were staring up the hill, each from her +doorway, but at the sound of the Commandant's footsteps they turned and +stared at him instead: whereat he blushed and hung on his heel for a +moment before charging through the cross-fire of gossip. + +"Good morning, ladies!" + +"Aw, good morning to you, sir," answered Mrs. Banfield, with a curtsey, +and gazed hard at his basket. "Nothing wrong up to the garrison, I +hope?" + +"So far as I know, ma'am, nothing at all." + +"Seein' that great stack of luggage go up the hill," explained Mrs. +Medlin, "why naturally it made a person anxious. And when you put a +civil question, as I did to Sergeant Archelaus, and he turns round and +as good as snaps your head off, why a person can't help putting two and +two together." + +"Indeed, ma'am, and what did you make the result?" asked the +Commandant, politely. + +"Why, sir, Mrs. Banfield here was reckoning that the Government had +sent stores for you at last, and says I, 'You may be right, Sarah, and +glad enough we shall a-be to hear of it, for it do make my heart bleed +to remember old days and see what the garrison is reduced to in vittles +and small-clothes. But,' says I, 'the luggage comes from the great +steamship, and the great steamship comes from America, and that +Government would be sending stores from America, even in these days of +tinned meats, is what, beggin' your pardon, no person could believe +that wasn't born a fool.'" + +"Which I answered to Mrs. Medlin," said Mrs. Banfield, "'Granted, +ma'am,' I said, 'but, food or no food, I'd sooner swallow it than +believe what you were tellin' just now.'" + +"And what was that?" asked the Commandant, turning on Mrs. Medlin. + +"Why, sir, knowing the Lord Proprietor to be no friend of yours----" + +"Hush, Mrs. Medlin--hush, if you please!" + +"Of course, sir, if you don't want to hear----" + +"I certainly cannot listen to any talk against Sir Caesar. It would be +exceedingly improper." + +"I warn' going to say anything improper," Mrs. Medlin protested +stoutly. "And I wonder, sir, at your thinking it, after the years +you've given good-day to me." + +"Why, bless the woman!" interjected Mrs. Banfield, "you might talk as +improper as you pleased and the Governor wouldn't understand your +drift--he's that innocent-minded. But what she meant, sir, was that the +Lord Proprietor had turned you out, belike--as everyone knows he has a +mind to--and that a new Governor might be coming in your place." + +The Commandant flushed. "My dear Mrs. Banfield, the Lord Proprietor has +nothing to do with the military command here, either to appoint or to +dismiss. I cannot forbid your gossipping; but it may help you to know +that every soldier on the Islands holds his post directly under the +Crown." + +Mrs. Banfield gazed at the basket with the air of one who, seeming to +yield, yet abides by her convictions. "The Crown's a long way off, +seemin' to me," she objected; "and contrariwise I do know that when the +Lord Proprietor wants his way on the Islands he gets it. Though it were +ten times a week, he'd get it, and no one nowadays strong enough to +stand up to him." + +"My dear Mrs. Banfield!" + +But Mrs. Banfield was not to be checked. "He's a tyrant," she declared, +her voice rising shrilly; "and I'd say it a hundred times, though I went +to the lock-up for it. He's a tyrant: and you, sir, are too simple-minded +to cope with 'em. Yes, yes--'a Christian gentleman'--everyone grants it +of you, and--saving your presence--everyone is sorry enough for it. You +wouldn't hurt a fly, for your part. Man, woman, or child, you'd have +every soul in the Islands to live neighbourly and go their ways in +peace. No doubt 'tis good Gospel teaching, too, and well enough it +worked till this rumping little tyrant came along and pushed you aside. +Goodness comes easy to you, sir, I reckon; but it bears hard upon us +poor folk that want someone to stand up for us against injustice." + +"The Lord Proprietor, Mrs. Banfield, has a strong will of his own; but +I certainly never heard that he was unjust." + +"Then you haven't heard, sir, what's happening over on Saaron?" + +"On Saaron, ma'am?" + +"On Saaron, sir.... Eh? No, to be sure.... Folks may suffer on the +Islands in these days, but what use to tell the Governor? He was good +to us in his time, but now he has cut himself off from us with his own +troubles.... Did anyone tell you, sir, the text that old Seth Hicks +preached from, over to St. Ann's, at the last service before the Lord +Proprietor closed the Meeting House? 'I will lift up mine eyes,' said +he, 'to the hills, from whence cometh my help,' and then, having given +it out, the old fellow turned solemn-like t'ards the window that looks +across here to Garrison Hill. 'Amen,' said some person in the +congregation; 'but 'tis no use, brother Seth, your seeking in that +quarter.'" + +The Commandant, who had set down his basket, lifted it again wearily. +"Mrs. Banfield," said he, "won't you at least put it down to my credit +that, having (as you say) my own troubles, I don't bother my neighbours +with 'em?" + +"Why, bless your heart, sir--that ever I should say it--that's what +hurts us sorest! We can fit and fend along somehow, never you mind; but +when for years you shared our little tribylations and taught us, +forrigner, tho' you were, to be open with 'ee as daylight, it do seem +cruel that you can't enjoy a bit of trouble on your own account but you +must take it away and hide it." + +The Commandant's eyes moistened suddenly. "Is that how the Islanders +look at it, Mrs. Banfield?" + +"It is, sir." + +"Well, well," said the Major. "I never guessed.... I am a blind old +fool, it seems. But"--and here, blinking away the moisture, he smiled +at Mrs. Banfield almost gaily--"I can begin at once to make amends. The +luggage that went up the hill, just now, belongs to--to a friend of +mine--a visitor who will be my guest for a short while at the Barracks. +And this"--he tapped the basket--"is for my friend's breakfast. In +exchange for this information you shall tell me now what is the matter +over at Saaron." + +"The matter is, the Lord Proprietor has given the Tregarthens notice." + +The Commandant's eyes grew round in his head as he stared at Mrs. +Banfield, who answered by nodding her head briskly, as though each nod +was the tap of a hammer driving home a nail. + +"What? Eli Tregarthen--that married Cara's younger daughter--that used +to live--" The Commandant recited this much in the fashion of a child +repeating "The House that Jack Built." His gaze wandered past Mrs. +Banfield to the blue-painted doorway behind her. + +"It don't matter, that I can see, where the woman used to live," said +Mrs. Banfield; "but it do matter to my mind that a Tregarthen has +farmed Saaron for six generations, and now 'tis pack-and-go for 'em." + +"But why?" + +"Why?" echoed Mrs. Banfield, fiercely. "Because, as you was tellin' +just now, sir, my lord has a strong will. Because my lord wants Saaron +for his own. Because he wants to shoot rabbits. Because rabbits be of +more account to him than men--and I don't blame him for it, seein' that +all the men on the Islands be turned to mice in these days. Oh, 'tis an +old tale! But there! You never heard of it. You never heard--not +you--that the man was even unjust!" + +"But, my dear Mrs. Banfield----" + +"Go'st thy ways, good Governor. You was the poor man's friend--one +time; but now there's too much Christianity in you.... And no more will +I answer until you tells me who your guest is, that eats two breakfasts +in one morning." + +The Commandant gazed at her in mild surprise. Doubtless he would have +asked the meaning of this cryptic utterance; but at this moment the two +seamen from the _Milo_ issued forth from the gateway up the road; and, +descending a few paces, turned to call back farewell to Mrs. Treacher, +who, having escorted them so far, halted under the arch and stood, with +hands on hips, to watch them out of sight. + +"Wish 'ee well, I'm sure!" said Mrs. Treacher. "You understand we be +poor people in these parts." + +"Don't mention that, ma'am," said one of the seamen, politely. + +"There's no talk of favours, as between us and Madame," called out the +other. + +They passed the Commandant and saluted. On a sudden it struck him that +these men would expect a small monetary acknowledgment for their +trouble; and hastily nodding good-morning to Mrs. Banfield and Mrs. +Medlin, he ran staggering up the slope to the gateway. + +"Mrs. Treacher!" he panted, dumping down his burden, "I--er--it so +happens that I have no small change about me." + +"Me either," said Mrs. Treacher, idiomatically, and bent over the +basket. "What's this?" + +"You will forgive my mentioning it, Mrs. Treacher; but these good +fellows very likely expected a sixpence or so for their trouble. If you +wouldn't mind lending me back--for a short time only, a couple of +shillings out of the four that--that I----" + +"Very sorry, sir," said Mrs. Treacher, "but I spent 'em." + +"What! Already?" + +"Which I didn't like," pursued Mrs. Treacher, stonily, "to insult the +lady's stomach with the kind of eatables I found in the larder. So +while you was away, sir, I took the liberty to slip down to +Tregaskisses and lay out three shillings. Which, finding no one in +charge but that half-baked boy of his, I got good value for the money; +and a sight better bacon than this, I don't mind saying--for all you +have been so lavish." + +She peered into the basket and looked up sharply. It was a +cross-examining look, and seemed to ask where he had found the money +for all this extravagance. The Commandant, evading it, turned and +stared down the road, where already the two seamen had passed out of +sight. + +"You needn't mind them, sir," said Mrs. Treacher, reassuringly. "It's +light come and light go with sailors." + +Nevertheless, when the Commandant turned to accept the assurance, half +eagerly and yet less than half convinced, she would not meet his eye; +but picked up the basket and staggered along with it to the Barrack +door. "There's a saying," said Mrs. Treacher, eagerly, halting there, +"that sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. I've found it +comforting before now. But it don't seem to allow for three meals per +diem; and how to make bacon and eggs for dinner look different from +bacon and eggs for breakfast is a question that'll take thought. You +didn't happen to think upon cheese, now?" + +"I did," said the Commandant, triumphantly. "There's half a pound of +cheese--the very best Cheddar--or, so Tregaskis assured me." + +"Tregaskis!" Mrs. Treacher put down her nose and sniffed the basket. +"Tregaskis never sold better than third-class American in all his +life." + +"She comes from America," the Commandant hazarded. + +"I shouldn't advise you to build on that," said Mrs. Treacher, +dubiously; "but we'll hope for the best; and with beer in the place of +tea it mayn't look altogether like breakfast over again." + +He was stepping into the passage when she touched his sleeve in sudden +contrition. + +"I didn't mention it before, sir; but hearing as the sailors had +brought up her boxes, she outs with this and asks me to give it to them +for their trouble." + +Mrs. Treacher held out a golden sovereign. The Commandant stared at it. + +"You kept it back?" he gasped. + +"I had to, sir. A couple of ignorant seamen--that didn't want it, +either!" + +"Give it to me!" + +"There's one blessing--you can't possibly overtake 'em," said Mrs. +Treacher, as the Commandant snatched the coin. + +He gazed down the hill, and decided that to this extent she was right. +With one hand gripping the sovereign, and the other lifted to his +distraught brow, the Commandant strode to the room where Vashti sat at +breakfast. She looked up and welcomed him with a gay smile. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +PLAN OF CAMPAIGN + + +Vashti sat on the low stone wall beyond the Keg of Butter Battery and +gazed out over the twinkling Sound and the Islands. The wall ran along +the edge of the cliff and moreover was ruinous, as the Commandant had +cautioned her when she chose her perch. + +For a while she did not appear to have heard him, but sat with lips +half-parted as though they drank in their native air, and with eyes +half-closed--but whether in mere delight or because through the present +they were looking into the past, the Commandant could not determine. +She had invited him after breakfast to conduct her round the old +fortifications, and he had done so in some dread of her questions and +comments. But she had asked scarcely a question and made no comment at +all. She was thinking less of the change in his batteries and defences +than of the change in him, as with a deeper knowledge of women he might +have divined. In the inanimate work of man's hands woman takes no real +interest, whatever she may feign, but of man himself she is insatiably +curious and critical. So while the Commandant, moving with her from one +battery to another, had halted and stared down on the grass-grown +platforms, ashamed and half-afraid lest by lifting his eyes he should +challenge her pity, he missed to perceive and missed altogether to +guess that hers were occupied in taking note of him, of his thread-bare +coat, of the stoop of his shoulders, of the whitened hair brushed back +from his temples. + +They had made the round of the batteries in almost complete silence; +and coming to the wall above the Keg of Butter she had perched herself +there and bent her eyes seaward. + +She may or may not have been aware that this gave him opportunity to +take stock of her in his turn, and that he was using it very +deliberately, letting his gaze travel over her profile, or so much of +it as she presented to him, and so from point to point of her attire +down to her well-made walking shoes--all with a kind of grave wonder. +Once only he glanced up and to the northward, where low on the horizon +a faint line of smoke lingered in the wake of the _Milo_, already +hull-down on her way; and his glance seemed to ask for assurance that +he was not dreaming, that the steamship had really come and gone and +left him this unaccountable guest. + +It was just at this moment that she answered him. + +"Yes, I can easily understand that you feel it," she said in a musing +tone. + +"Eh?" The Commandant had almost forgotten his warning about the ruinous +state of the wall. His eyes had wandered back from the horizon to the +close coils of hair above her neck and to the lobe of her small ear +which (as he found himself noting) had never been pierced to admit an +earring. She turned, and as she caught his gaze he blushed in no little +confusion. + +With the point of her sunshade she indicated the deserted battery on +his left. + +"Though I suppose," she went on, still musing, "all these +fortifications were really out of date for years before Government +dismantled them." + +"If that were true," he replied, "it would date my uselessness further +back than ever." + +"Your uselessness?" she echoed, and now it was her eyes that expressed +a grave wonder. "But you were Governor of the Islands; and you are +Governor still, are you not?" + +"These batteries," he went on hastily, "though antiquated, were never +out of date, never useless; and there will be reason enough to regret +them if ever an enemy's squadron makes a pounce on the Islands." + +"Poor little Islands!" Vashti looked across the Sound with a smile. "It +seems almost comic somehow that anyone should dream of attacking them!" + +"Ah!" said he, almost bitterly, "you have been living in great cities +and enlarging your mind." + +"And in great cities, you imply, it is easy to despise, to forget?" She +laughed softly. "Brefar--Saaron--Inniscaw!" she murmured, addressing +the Islands by name, "here is one who tells me I forget you! Sir, we +will take a boat this very day, and I will sail you out to the Off +Islands and prove to you if I forget." + +"There is no need, Miss Vashti"--he hesitated over the "Miss," but she +did not correct him, and he went on more boldly. "I had a talk this +morning with Captain Whitaker, of the _Milo_." + +Vashti looked up with a quick smile. "He told you?... I am so glad! +Yes, yes: I did not in the least want to have all those passengers +crowding around me and paying me ridiculous compliments. But false +modesty is another thing altogether, and I don't mind telling you I am +quite inordinately proud of myself." + +"You have a right to be." + +"--as I don't mind confessing that I was horribly afraid at the time. +But I am glad again, that Captain Whitaker told you. It was pretty +good--eh?--after fifteen years." + +She asked it frankly; not archly at all, but with a sudden earnest look +that seemed to hold some sadness; and before the Commandant could reply +this sadness grew and became so real that he wondered at his having +doubted it at first glance. + +"Fifteen years!" she went on. "We all have a quarrel against time, we +men and women, but on grounds so different that a man scarcely +understands a woman's grievance nor a woman a man's. With you it all +rests in your work. Fifteen years knock holes in your fortifications, +tumble your guns into the sea, send along a new generation of men to +pull down what you have built, to rebuild in a flurry of haste, and see +their work in its turn criticised and condemned by yet a new company of +builders. At this we women only look on and marvel. Why all this fuss, +we ask, over what you do? Why all this hopeful, hopeless craving to +leave something permanent? The Islands, here, will outlast anything you +can build. I come back after fifteen years, and they are unchanged; +they would be unchanged were I to come back after a hundred. The same +rocks, the same bracken, the same hum of the tides; the same flowers; +the same blue here, below us, the same outline of a spear-head there, +beyond St. Ann's, where the tide forces through the slack water; the +same streak of yellow yonder on the south cliffs of Saaron.... Our +grievance is more personal, more real ... and so should yours be, if +you could only see it. It is to ourselves--to you and me, to any man +and woman--that time makes the difference. You worry over your +fortifications. Why? It is in ourselves that the tragedy lies. To lose +our looks, our voice--to grow old and mumble--" She broke off with a +shiver. + +The Commandant smiled sadly. He had too much sense to pay an idle +compliment. "If that be the tragedy, Miss Vashti," said he, "then we +are wise in our folly, which bids us rest our hopes in our work though +its permanence be all an illusion. We cannot cheat ourselves with a +tale that we shall not grow old, but we are able to believe, however +vainly, that our work will live." + +"Yes," she admitted, "you are wise in your vanity--or would be, were it +wisdom to shut one's eyes to fate. Let us grant that men are happier +than women--than childless women at any rate. You do not know what it +is to be a singer, for instance; to wake up each morning to a fear 'Has +my voice gone? One of these days it will certainly go, but--Lord, not +yet!' We must build on what we have. We must cling to our youth, +knowing that after our youth comes darkness. No, sir, I do not blame +men for setting up their rest upon what they do rather than upon +ourselves; but for setting it upon that part of their work which, being +the more visible, the more visibly decays." + +The Commandant pondered while his eyes studied the grass-grown +platform. He shook his head. "You puzzle me, Miss Vashti," he +confessed. + +"Why, sir, you have been mooning around these fortifications quite as +though they had made up your life and their ruins stood for your broken +purposes; whereas for fifteen years you have been Governor of the +Islands and my sister tells me you are a good man. Surely, then, your +real life has lain in the justice you have done, the wrongs you have +righted, the trust you have built up in the people's hearts, and not in +these decaying walls which no enemy ever threatened in your time nor +for a hundred years before you came." + +But again the Commandant shook his head. + +"I say nothing of the first few years," he answered slowly. "I liked +the people and I tried to do justice. But all that has passed out of my +control. The Lord Proprietor takes everything into his own hands." + +"Still on the Council--" she urged. + +"I am no longer a member of the Council." + +"You resigned? Why?" + +"Because I saw that Sir Caesar was bent on humiliating me; and he had +the power." + +Vashti prised at a loose stone from the wall with the point of her +sunshade. + +"I have read somewhere," she said, after a pause, "that no wise man +should avoid being a magistrate, because it is wrong to refuse help to +those who need it, and equally wrong to stand aside and let worse men +govern ill." + +"The Lord Proprietor does not govern ill. He likes his own way; but he +is a just man--" The Commandant hesitated and paused. + +"A just man until you happen to thwart him. Is that what you were going +to say?" + +"No," he answered, smiling. "I was about to say that once or twice I +have found him something less than fair to me. To others--" But here he +paused again, remembering that morning's conversation on the hill. + +"I do not much believe," persisted Vashti, "in men who act justly so +long as they are not thwarted.... But you would remind me no doubt +that, if questions are to be asked and answered this morning, it is I +who should be giving an account of myself. Well, then, I have come to +the Islands with a little plan of campaign in my mind, and last night +it occurred to me suddenly that you were the very person to help. I +am--you will excuse my telling you this, but it is necessary--a +passably rich woman; that is to say, I have more money than I want to +spend on myself, after putting by enough for a rainy day; and I can +earn more again if I want more. I have no 'encumbrances,' as foolish +people put it; no relatives in the world but my sister Ruth and her +children. No two sisters ever loved one another better than did Ruth +and I. We lost our mother early, when Ruth was just three years old, +and from then until she was a grown woman I had the mothering of her, +being by five years the elder. You have seen something like it, I dare +say, in other poor families where the mother has been taken; but I tell +you again that never were pair more absolutely wrapped up in one +another than were Ruth and I. We shared each other's thoughts by day, +we slept together and shared each other's dreams. Oh!"--Vashti clasped +her hands and looked up with brimming eyes--"I can see now how +beautiful it all was." + +The Commandant bowed his head gravely. "I can believe it," he said; and +as if he had stepped back fifteen years he found himself standing again +on the hill and looking in upon the fire-lit room--only now the picture +and the two figures in it shone with divine meaning. + +"I know what you would ask," she went on. "Why, then, you would ask, +did I ever leave the Islands?... But this had always been understood +between us. I cannot tell you how. For years we never talked about it, +yet we always talked as if, some day, it must happen. The fate was on +us to be separated; and the strange part of it was," continued Vashti, +throwing out her hands involuntarily, and with this action changing as +it were from a confident woman back to a child helpless before its +destiny, "we understood from the first that I, who loved the Islands, +must be the one to go, while Ruth would find a husband here and settle +down, nor perhaps ever wish to cross over to the mainland. You see, of +the two I was the reader; and sometimes when I read Shakespeare to +her--for we possessed but a few books, and some of these, like 'The +Pilgrim's Progress,' had no real scenery in them to take hold +of--sometimes when I read Shakespeare, or 'The Arabian Nights,' or +'Mungo Park's Travels,' and the real world would open to me, with +cities like London, or Venice, or Bagdad, and with woods like the +Forest of Arden, and ports with shipping and great empty deserts, then +Ruth would catch hold and cling to me, as if I was slipping away and +leaving her before the time.... Yet we both knew that the time must +come, in the end. Do you understand at all?" she broke off to ask. + +"Yes," he answered. "I cannot tell how, but as you put it I seem to see +it all." + +She glanced at him with a quick, grateful smile. "Well, that is just +how it happened, and if I were to explain and explain I couldn't make +it any clearer. You understand, too, there was never any question of my +leaving Ruth until she was grown a woman and could see with a woman's +eyes. Then I knew she was safe. She had more common-sense even than I. +She was born to marry--I never doubted that; but when I saw also that +she was a woman to choose for herself and choose wisely--why, then I +saw also, and all of a sudden, that the time had come and I was better +out of the way; better, because a teacher has to know when to stop and +trust the teaching to prove itself. Else by lingering on, he may easily +do dreadful mischief, and all with the best will in the world. Do you +understand this, too?" + +Again the Commandant bent his head; for again, without knowing how or +why, he understood. + +"Well, I left the Islands, and there is no need to trouble you with my +own story--though some day I will tell it if you care to hear. It +contains a great deal of hard work, much good fortune, some suffering, +too; and on the whole I am a very grateful woman, as I ought to be.... +But we were talking of Ruth. She married, as she was born to marry, and +her husband is a good man. She has children, and her letters are full +of their sayings and doings, as a happy mother's should be. So, you +see, our instinct was wise, and I did well to depart." + +The Commandant considered this for a moment before answering: for her +tone conveyed a question, almost a challenge. + +"You were wise, perhaps, to go. But why in all these years have you +never come back?" + +She looked at him earnestly, and nodded. "Yes," she said, "I was afraid +you would ask that; and yet I am glad, for it forces me to make +confession, and I shall feel better to get it over.... Ruth loves me +still, you see; but, of course, her husband comes first, and after her +husband--if not sometimes before him--her children. That is as it +should be, of course." + +"Of course," the Commandant echoed. + +"And of course I foresaw it. Remember, please, that I foresaw it before +ever there was a question of young Tregarthen; so that my jealousy, if +you are going to laugh at it, had nothing to do----" + +"I am not in the least inclined to laugh." + +"Thank you. We were not as ordinary sisters, you see, and ... and there +is another thing I must tell you," she went on with a brisk change of +tone. "Though Ruth and I have always written regularly, there is one +thing I have always kept hidden from her--I mean my success, as you +will call it. At first this wasn't deliberate at all.... A great chance +came to me, a chance so good that I could hardly believe--yes, so +incredible even to me, that I dared not talk of it, but walked humbly, +and taught myself to think of it as a dream from which I must awake, +and awake to find people laughing at my hopes. I hid it even from +Ruth.... Afterwards, when the dream had become a certainty, it seemed +yet harder to tell her. I had concealed so much, and to tell her now +seemed like triumphing over her--so full her letters were of simple +things and of her happiness in them. I was afraid my news would overawe +her, would change her in some way; that she would think me some grand +person, and not the sister to whom she had told all her mind--not, you +must understand, that Ruth could be envious if she tried. But have you +never seen how, when a man grows rich or powerful suddenly, his old +friends, the best of them, draw away from him, not in envy at all, but +just because they feel he has been taken from them?" + +"Yes," said the Commandant, "I have seen such cases." + +"And I wanted still to be Vazzy to her--even though I must come after +husband and children." + +"She knows, then, as little about your--your success--or almost as +little, as I do?" asked the Commandant, quaintly. + +Vashti broke into a gay little laugh. "But I am going to tell her now," +she answered, rising--"and that is where I want you to help me. She has +no idea at all that I am here, and I want--that is my little plan--to +look in upon her before I make myself known. I want to see Ruth--my own +Ruth--moving about her house; to feed my eyes on her good face, and +learn if it has changed as I have tried to picture it changing; to know +her as she has been during these years, not as she will be when we have +kissed and I have told her.... I would steal upon her children, too, +and watch them.... It is wonderful to think of Ruth's children!" + +She sprang on to the crumbling wall, and stood erect there, shading her +eyes, gazing towards Saaron Island, where the forenoon sun flashed upon +the beaches and upon the roof of one small farm, half hidden in a fold +of the hills. The Commandant put out a hand to steady her, for her +perch was rickety and almost overhung the sea. + +"Ruth is there!... To think of her so happy there--to see her, almost! +Oh, sir--but if you could understand that the nearer I have travelled +back, the more foolish my jealousy has seemed to grow, with every fear, +every doubt!" + +"Miss Vashti"--the Commandant spoke seriously, still with his arm +stretched out ready to grip her by the skirt if she should over-balance +herself or the treacherous wall give way--"I am glad, for your sister's +sake, you have come; but I must warn you that all is not right on +Saaron Island." + +She turned slowly, and looked down upon him there from her altitude. + +"What is not right?" she asked; and, while he hesitated, "You are not +telling me that her letters have hidden anything?" + +"No." + +"Is it illness, then? Has anything happened to the children?" + +"No," he answered again, and without more ado he told her the news he +had heard from Mrs. Banfield. + +"But"--she still looked down on him wondering--"but you told me just +now that the Lord Proprietor was a just man?" + +"I have not looked at the rights and wrongs of the case," he said +hastily, conscious that he was incurring her scorn. "The Lord +Proprietor may have much to say on his side." + +"You have not inquired, then?" + +"The news came to me only this morning, quite by chance." + +"By chance?" she caught him up, and, springing off the wall, stood on +the firm turf facing him. "But you are, or were, Governor of the +Islands." + +Again he bent his head. "I have told you that I no longer serve the +Council even. The Lord Proprietor does not consult me." + +Vashti gazed around her, on the broken roof of the ammunition shed, the +dismantled platform, the unkempt glacis below it. "For what work, then, +do they pay you?" she asked, bitterly. + +"For none," he answered, but without resentment. "And--excuse me--" he +went on, fumbling in his pocket, and producing a sovereign, which he +tendered to her, "but your mention of pay reminds me to return you +this, which Mrs. Treacher has handed to me. It appears--I must +apologize for her--that she received it from you to give to the men who +carried up your box from the steamer; but that, being a little +frightened at the amount, she withheld it, thinking that possibly you +had made a mistake." + +Vashti took the coin. Her face was yet flushed a little--as he read it, +with anger. + +"It is true," said she pensively, "that I am fifteen years a stranger +here." + +His face brightened. "Ah," said he, "if you will make allowance for +that, we may yet put everything right!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +SAARON ISLAND + + +Saaron Island lies about due north of Brefar, which looks eastward upon +Inniscaw across the narrow gut of Cromwell's Sound. There was a time +(the tale goes) when these three Islands made one. At low-water springs +you may cross afoot between Saaron and Brefar, and from either of them, +with a little more danger, to Inniscaw, picking your way between the +pools and along the sandy flats that curve about the southern end of +the Sound and divide it from the great roadstead. Also there are +legends of stone walls and foundations of houses laid bare as the +waters have sunk after a gale, and by the next tides covered again with +sand. + +But of the past history of Saaron next to nothing could be told, even +by Ruth's husband, young Farmer Tregarthen, who rented the Island and +the one habitable house upon it. He could not even have explained how +so bleak a spot as Saaron had come to possess this farmhouse, which was +one of the roomiest on the Islands. He only knew that it had been built +for one of his forefathers, and that this forgotten Tregarthen, or the +Lord Proprietor who had chosen him for tenant, must have held ambitious +views of the amount of farming possible on Saaron. So much might be +guessed from the size and extent of the out-buildings. The "chall" or +byre, for instance, had stalls for no less than twelve cows, whereas +to-day all the Island's hundred-and-twenty acres barely afforded +pasturage for two. Considering this, he was divided between two +opinions; the first, that his ancestors had pastured their cattle upon +Brefar, driving them to and fro across the flats at low water; the +second, that in the old days the soil had been fertile, and that either +the sand, which drove across it in the prevailing westerly winds, +devastating every green herb, had started its invasion within the last +hundred years or so, or that his forerunners had possessed and lost +some art of coping with it. He had trenched the sand in many places on +the southern and easterly slopes of the two hills into which the Island +was divided, and along the valley between them, and everywhere, at the +depth of two feet or less, the spade found a fine, strong clay, capable +of carrying any crop. + +Young Farmer Tregarthen in his slow way pondered a deal over this and +similar problems. Indeed, you might say that in one sense the Island +was never out of his thoughts. He had been born on it. At the age of +sixteen he had succeeded to the farm (though it was nominally leased to +his mother), and to the fight which his father had begun--the warfare +which his enemy, the sand, never allowed him to relax. He could almost +remember his father resuming it and repairing the stone hedges which +enclosed the old fields. In those days Saaron had supported, or failed +to support, five families; but of these all but Tregarthen had lost +their clutch on the barren rock and drifted away to other islands. He +could remember their going. He passed their roofless cottages half a +dozen times a day. + +They had subsisted mainly by kelp-making and piloting, helped out (it +is to be feared) by more than a little smuggling. There were +conclusions to be drawn from the cellars in the farmhouse, too ample +for the needs of a small farmer. Tregarthen had a shrewd notion that +most of the guineas which his mother had hoarded in a stocking had come +at one time or another from the contraband trade; also he had a notion +that his father's renewed activities in digging and hedging must have +coincided pretty accurately with the building of the coastguard station +upon St. Lide's and the arrival of a Divisional Officer. But if +smuggling flourished once, it had fallen on evil days, and its secrets +had been hidden from his childhood. Also about that time the pilotage +had decayed in competition with the licensed pilots on St. Ann's, and +but a few hovelling jobs in and about Cromwell's Sound fell to the +share of the men of Saaron. (He could recall discussions and injurious +words, half-understood at the time, faint echoes of that old quarrel +between the two islands.) + +But the kelp-making had been in full swing; and the business had a +plenty of mystery and picturesqueness to bite it upon a child's memory. +All the summer through, day after day, at low water, the Islanders +would be out upon the beaches cutting the ore-weed and dragging it in +sledges up the foreshore, where they strewed it above high-water mark, +to dry in the sun. On sunny days they scattered and turned it, on wet +days they banked it into heaps almost as tall as arrish-mows. From +morning until evening they laboured, and towards midsummer, as the near +beaches became denuded, would tail away, in twos and threes, and whole +families, to camp among the Off Islands and raid them; until, when +August came and the kelping season drew to an end, boat after boat +would arrive at high-water and discharge its burden. + +These operations filled the summer days; but it was towards nightfall +that the real fun began. For then the men, women, and children would +gather and build the kilns--pits scooped in the sand, measuring about +seven feet across and three feet deep in the centre. While the men +finished lining the sides of the kiln with stones, the women and girls +would leap into it with armfuls of furze; which they lighted and so, +strewing the dried ore-weed upon it, built little by little into a +blazing pile. The great sea-lights which ring the Islands now make a +brave show; but (say the older inhabitants) it will not compare with +the illuminations of bygone summer nights, when as many as forty kilns +would be burning together, and island signalling to island with +bonfire-lights that flickered across the roadsteads and danced on the +wild tide-races. From four to five hours the kilns would be kept +burning, and the critical moment came when the mass of kelp began to +liquefy, and word was given to "strike." Then a dozen or fourteen men +would leap down with pitchforks and heave the red molten mass from side +to side of the kiln, toiling like madmen, while the sweat ran shining +down their half-naked bodies; and sometimes--and always on Midsummer +Eve, which is Baal-fire night--while they laboured the women and girls +would join hands and dance round the pit. In ten minutes or so all this +excitement would die out, the dancers unlock their hands the men climb +out of the pit and throw themselves panting on the sand, leaving the +kelp to settle, cool, and vitrify. But while it lasted the boy knew of +no excitement comparable with it. Little wonder that he remembered +those fiery pits with the dark figures dancing around their brims! But +yet more unforgettable was the smell of the burning kelp had been more +than enough--that acrid, all-permeating, unforgettable odour. His +mother had never been able to endure it. When the wind drove the smoke +from the beach, she would shut every door and window, and build up +every crevice with a barricade of sandbags; all in vain. It crept into +the house, choking the besieged, causing their eyes to smart and their +heads to ache, and scenting clothes, linen, furniture. Even the food +tasted of it. + +The kelp-making, however, was but a memory now, though a pungent one. A +night's work at the kiln produced from two to three hundred-weight, and +the price in the good seasons ranged from L4 to L5 a ton; so many +shared the labour that a family had much ado to earn L10 in a whole +season. Under such conditions, too, the work was roughly done. Too +often the sides of the kiln would fall in and the sand--always the +curse of Saaron--would mingle with the kelp and spoil it. And when some +wiser folk in Scotland learned to prepare it under cover, in ovens with +paved floors, the Islanders lost their market, almost in a single +season. + +Tregarthen could recall the kelp-making, but neither the circumstances +of the collapse nor the sufferings that followed it. Children observe +the toil, but are usually quite blind to the troubles of their elders. +He only knew that the poorer families almost of a sudden drifted away +from Saaron, that he and his father and mother were left alone on the +island, that his father had begun to busy himself with farming and +required his help, and that in consequence he was released from +lessons. His mother, a farmer's daughter from Holy Vale in St. +Lide's--the one nook in the Islands where you lost sight and almost +sound of the sea, and could look out of window upon green trees--was a +better-most person and something of a scholar. (The Tregarthens had +always gone to the main island for their wives.) She taught the boy to +read, to write a little, and even to cipher up sums in addition and +subtraction. Also she took him over to Brefar to church on every fine +Sunday and taught him his catechism, on the chance (often rumoured) +that the Bishop would come across from the mainland to hold a +Confirmation. But the Bishop of those days had a weak stomach, and, on +the advice of his doctor, kept postponing the voyage. + +Thus the boy grew up into a strong, slow man, gentle of manners, shy of +the sound of his own voice, but tenacious of purpose and stubborn when +his will was crossed. Except for the few months when he went wooing +after Ruth Cara--in the year after his mother's death--his life, hopes, +purposes, dreams and waking thoughts concentrated themselves upon +Saaron, and from the day he brought his bride home to it the island +became more than ever his sufficing world. He knew a thousand small +things concerning it--secrets of the soil, of the tides, of the sand +drift--voices of the wind, varying colours of the sea, and what weather +they foretold--where this moss grew, that bird nested--in what week the +wild duck arrived, on what wind the geese might be looked for, and what +feeling in the spring air announced that the guillemots were due. He +had learnt these things unconsciously, and was quite unaware of his +knowledge, having never an occasion to review it or put it into words. +Moreover, it was strangely limited. To his ancestors, to the folk who +had lived here before him, he never gave a thought, except to wonder +what their tillage had been or why they had rounded off a hedge at such +and such a corner. Of the history of his own farm-house he could tell +you next to nothing, and nothing at all of the small ruined church he +passed at least twice a day--though this testified that Saaron had been +populous once on a time. How long had the Tregarthens lived on the +Island? How far back beyond the five or six generations attested by the +signatures on old leases hidden away in his strong-box? One might as +well ask how long the sandpipers and oyster-catchers had bred on their +separate grounds under the north slope of the cliffs towards Brefar. On +the summit of the hill stood eleven mounds, and in each mound (so +tradition said) lay the burnt bones of royalty. Was he, perhaps, +descended from these Island kings? Tregarthen would not have given +sixpence to discover. They were dead, and less than names: the place of +their burial belonged to him, and he had to wring a livelihood from it +to support his wife and family. Sometimes, when he thought of his three +youngsters--of the boy especially--the man felt a vague longing which +puzzled him as well by its foolishness as by its strength; a longing to +pass, when his time came, into these barren acres and watch (though +helplessly) while his heir improved what he had painfully won. It was +absurd, of course, to desire any such perpetuity; wicked, perhaps. It +could not be reconciled with heaven and the future life promised by the +Bible. Yet it haunted him, though at rare intervals, and not +importunately. To the past he gave never a thought. + +Ruth Tregarthen, his wife, was one of those women who find their +happiness within their own doors. The farm-house stood some way up the +slope of the southern hill, facing eastward over the valley which +curved a little at its feet and spread into a line of small flat +meadows around the East Bay, where the farmer kept his two boats; and +the site had been chosen here to avoid the seas which, with a gale +falling on top of the equinoctial springs, are driven up the valley +from east and west, and meet to form an isthmus, cutting the Island in +two. + +The state-rooms of the farm-house--parlour, hall, and best +bedrooms--looked eastward upon Cromwell's Sound; but the waters of the +Sound were hidden from the lower windows by a stout hedge of tamarisk. +The kitchen window at the back--by far the largest in the house, as the +kitchen itself, where the family took its meals on every day but +Christmas Day and Good Friday, was the true focus of the +household--looked across the town-place, or farm-yard, upon another +tall hedge of tamarisk, above which climbed the hill, steep, strewn +with small white stones, shutting out the Atlantic. + +The kitchen table stood close beside this window, just beyond the edge +of the bacon-rack; and directly opposite, across the wide paved floor, +was a wide open hearth, fitted with crooks and brandises, where all the +day long something or other would be cooking, and where the night +through the logs smouldered and fell in soft grey ash, to be fed and +stirred to flame again in the early morning. Yes, and as though this +was not enough, the hearth had beside it an iron door which, being +opened, disclosed to the children a long narrow hole filled with fire; +vision to them of a passage leading straight to hell, though their own +mother (and she so gentle) stoked it with bunches of furze, and drew +from it loaves and saffron cakes, hot and detectable. + +To the children it seemed that their parents seldom or never talked, +and never by any chance took a rest. + +Their names were Annet, Linnet and Matthew Henry, and this was the +order of their ages--Annet nine, Linnet seven, and Matthew Henry rising +five. On fine days they attended school at Inniscaw, being rowed to and +fro across the Sound by John Nanjulian (Old Jan), the hind, or Stevy, +the farm-boy. These, with Melia Mundy, the house-girl, whose parents +lived on Brefar, made up Farmer Tregarthen's employ, and took their +meals at table with the family. + +The school which Annet, Linnet, and Matthew Henry attended had been +built by the Lord Proprietor on Inniscaw shore, to serve the three +islands of Inniscaw, Brefar, and Saaron. The children brought their +school-pence weekly, on Friday mornings; but, of course, their pence +did not pay--scarcely even began to pay--for the cost. Also there were +days, and sometimes many days together, when no boat could be put +across; and, considering this, the Lord Proprietor (who was a +philanthropist in his way, but his way happened to be a despotic one) +had commanded his architect to prepare plans for a smaller school on +Brefar. This, to be sure, would not help the three children on Saaron; +but it gave him yet another reason to feel indignant with that fellow +Tregarthen for clinging so obstinately to his solitude and barren +acres. + +The children themselves did not regret living so far from school; for +they were ordinary healthy youngsters though brighter-witted than most, +and felt as other youngsters feel towards that wise and elderly +beneficence which boxes them up in a room for instruction. To be sure +they missed the games in the play-ground before and after school; but +this was no such loss as the reader, remembering his own childhood, +might be disposed to think. For, sad to tell, only a few of the +hundreds of thousands of children attending schools really understand +games, or can be said to have learnt to play, and the Island children +were in this respect some way behind their brothers and sisters on the +mainland. If at whiles the small trio looked back wistfully as old Jan +rowed them homeward, or if the shouts that followed across the water +from the playground now and again reproached them, on the whole they +would not have changed places with their school-fellows even at a +price. After all, no island in the world could compare with Saaron. +Their father had never said this, but they were sure that he thought +it; and their father knew everything. As he walked along he would say +suddenly, "Go there"--but without lifting his eyes, just waving his +hand towards the spot--"and there you will find a bunting's nest, or a +stone-chat's"; nor once in a dozen times would he be mistaken. + +There were compensations, too, in living on an island where on any +morning you might wake and find a gale of wind blowing, forbidding you +to go to school. But even in fine weather one could always look forward +to Saturday and Sunday, each a whole holiday. + +It was Saturday. The three had opened their eyes soon after daybreak +and lay in their cots "chirruping," as their mother called it--talking, +planning out a campaign of adventures for the long two days before +them. The sun shone through their nursery window, which faced the East. +They had curled themselves to sleep before the great fog came up and +covered the Islands, and the sound of guns had neither awakened them +nor reached their dreams. They awoke to a clear morning sky, and while +they chatted, waiting the order to tumble out and dress, their father +looked in at the nursery door and astonished and excited them with news +of a great steamer which had entered the Roads in the night and was +already lifting anchor to pursue her voyage. + +From the hill above the farmhouse they watched her, after breakfast, as +she steamed past the southern point of the island, nosed her way slowly +through Chough Sound, between Inniscaw and St. Lide's, and so headed +away to the northward until her smoke lay in a low trail on the +horizon. They had never before seen a steamer of her size. + +Thus strangely began a day which the three had still stranger cause to +remember. They had planned to take their dinner wrapped in their +handkerchiefs and climb to the old tombs on the hill overlooking +Brefar, then to play at being Aztecs, from hints which Annet had dug +out of an old History of Mexico on her mother's bookshelf, and at +hiding treasure from the Spaniards, whose ships were to come sailing +through the Off Islands. Having concealed their hoard, they were either +to descend upon the Western Bay, which they called The Porth, and there +offer a bloody resistance to the invaders, or (this was Annet's notion, +which for the present she kept to herself) to wait until the north +channel dried and make a desperate escape across the sands to Brefar. +The trouble was, she could not be sure of low water being early enough +to let them dash across and back before dusk again. She was a brave +girl--a great deal braver, at least in these adventures, than her +sister Linnet; but she had to bear in mind that Matthew Henry was but +five years old and easily tired, and also that if they arrived home +after dusk her mother would be anxious and her father angry. So she +nursed the project in her own heart, and when the three had taken +seizin of the northern hill, eaten their manchets of saffron cake, and +shared their canful of milk, she took up a post from which, while the +others scanned the offing for Spaniards, she could watch and time the +ebb of the tide on the flats. + +The afternoon was sunny; the flat rock on which they were perched lay +out of the wind's reach; and to beguile the interval of waiting Annet +drew out a book which she had brought with her--a much-worn copy of +Hans Andersen which had arrived at Christmas, three years ago, as a +gift from that mysterious Aunt Vazzy of whom their mother talked so +often. Linnet stoutly maintained that this aunt of theirs, whom they +had never set eyes on, must be a fairy herself--neither more nor less; +and Annet had her doubts on this point. But the book, at any rate, was +real, with a real inscription on the fly-leaf; and the children (though +some of the stories puzzled them) believed it to be the most beautiful +book in the world. + +Each child had a favourite story. Matthew Henry's was "The Tinder-Box," +and he would wake in the night from dreams, deliciously terrible, of +the three dogs "with eyes as big as coach wheels." Linnet, who had a +practical mind, preferred such as dealt with rolling-pins, flat-irons, +and shirt-collars, because these were familiar objects, and their +histories usually ended cheerfully--(she liked "The Ugly Duckling" +because he was a duckling, but objected to much of the tale as being +too sad). Annet declared for "The Little Mermaid," which is perhaps the +saddest of all; and this was the one she chose to-day, though +half-penitently, because she felt pretty certain that it would make +Linnet cry. + +But to-day Linnet no sooner recognized the opening of the story than +she set her face defiantly; and when Annet reached that most pathetic +passage where the little mermaid glances down sorrowfully at her fish's +tail, and "Let us be merry," says the grandmother, "let us dance and +play for the three hundred years we have to live," Linnet lifted her +chin, stared hard at the horizon and said resolutely--albeit in a voice +that trembled a little-- + +"I don't believe there are any such things as mermaids!" + +Young Matthew Henry opened his mouth and stared, round-eyed at such +dreadful scepticism. + +Annet, too, gazed up from her book. + +"But the story says there are," she answered, simply and gravely. + +"Who ever saw one?" persisted doubting Linnet. + +"Hundreds of people--" Annet began, and with that, as a shadow fell on +the rock, she lifted her eyes and uttered a little cry. + +Just above, on the flat tombstone that jutted over the ridge, stood a +beautiful lady, and looked down on them. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE LADY FROM THE SEA + + +How it happened the children never precisely knew. When they came to +compare notes that evening their recollections varied on several +important particulars. But this was certain, that before they could +rise and run--and Matthew Henry protested that, for his part, he had +never an idea of running--the apparition had stepped down from her +pedestal and seated herself among them in the friendliest way. + +"Good day!" she nodded. "Now let me see ... this is Annet, and this is +Linnet, and that is Matthew Henry, and I hope you're all uncommonly +well." + +Annet gasped that they were quite well, thank you. Who and what could +she be, this lady out of nowhere?... Not a witch, for no witch could +smile with such a beautiful face or wear such beautiful clothes. On the +other hand, Annet had not supposed that fairies were ever so tall. Yet +something of the sort she must be, for she knew their names.... + +"You want to know where I come from? But that is easy." The stranger +reached out a white hand with a diamond upon it, and Annet yielded the +book to her without resisting. "I come from here"--and she tapped the +pages mysteriously. + +"But how can that be?" demanded Linnet, who was always the +matter-of-fact one. "Out of a book! Such things do not happen." + +Vashti laughed merrily. "I assure you," she answered, with a glance at +the fly-leaf, "I have been in the book all the while you were reading; +and," she added, her eyes softening as they rested on the child, "of +you three it is Linnet who is most like her mother." + +They had not thought of this before, but she had no sooner said it than +they knew it to be the truth; and the discovery made her more +marvellous than ever. + +"Yes," she went on, "I have lived inside this book; and, what is more, +I know the man who wrote it." + +She looked around on the three faces; and--so strange are children--for +the first time in his life Matthew Henry at once asserted himself as a +person entirely different from his sisters. For Annet and Linnet merely +looked puzzled; to them the book was a book, just as the hill upon +which they sat was a hill, and they had never troubled their heads +about such a thing as an author. But Matthew Henry opened his infantine +eyes still wider. + +"Tell us about him," he demanded. + +Vashti eyed the child curiously for a moment before answering. "He +lives in the north," she said, "in a city where the sea is sometimes +frozen for weeks in the winter, and where night after night you may see +the Northern Lights over the roofs. That is why he writes so much of +snow and fir-trees and cold winters." + +Annet nodded. "I have seen the Northern Lights--once--from Saaron +here," she announced proudly. "Father took me out of my bed and held me +up to the window to look at them; Linnet, too--but she was too young to +remember, and Matthew Henry was not even born at the time." + +"But tell us," persisted Matthew Henry, "about the man who wrote the +book." + +"Well, the Northern Lights were shining in the streets on the night +when I met him. I drove to his house in a sleigh from the theatre--if +you know what a theatre is?" Vashti paused dubiously; but Annet nodded +and assured her-- + +"That's all right. We don't know about these things, but they are all +in the book." + +"And so," said Vashti, "is the man himself, or most of him. He was a +queer, shy old man, with oddly-shaped hands and feet, but oh, such +timid eyes! And he lived in a fine house all by himself, for he had no +wife. In the days when he wanted a wife he had been an Ugly Duckling, +and now, when he had turned into a swan, it was too late to marry. He +was very old indeed; but this was his birthday, and he had lit up all +his rooms for us and made a great feast, and at the feast he made me +sit on his right hand.... There were princesses to do him honour, but +he chose me out because I had sung to him; and the princesses were not +angry because he was an old man. Out in the streets the people were +letting off fireworks, and while he talked to me I could hear the whole +sky banging with rockets and crackers. It put me in mind of his story +of 'The Flying Trunk.' But he talked of Italy and the South, because I +had come from there; and of the Mediterranean and of beautiful inland +lakes which he had known, but would never see again; for he was over +seventy. And he told me that, in spite of the snow and frost outside, +he could feel the spring coming northward again with the storks. It was +the last time (he said) that he should ever see it, but he filled his +glass and drank to me because, as he put it, I had sung the South back +to him for this last time. So now you know why I was proud to come to +you out of his book." + +"But," said Linnet, gravely, "we were reading about mermaids; and you +can't be one of _them_, because there aren't any." + +Matthew Henry would by no means allow this. "But Jan's father caught +one," he objected, "in a pool just inside Piper's Hole, where she was +left by the tide. He has told us about her, dozens of times. And +besides," he added, getting in a home-thrust, "if there isn't any such +thing, why were you crying over the story, just now?" + +"I wasn't," contended Linnet, very red in the face. But she shifted her +ground. "Why," pointing to Vashti's skirts--"her clothes aren't even +wet, to say nothing of a tail!" + +Vashti laughed. "My dears, you are both right and both wrong. As for +the mermaids, Linnet, they were friends of mine before I reached your +age, and you must let me introduce you to one by-and-by, to cure you of +disbelieving. But you are right about me. I am not a mermaid; and yet I +have come from the sea ... like the Queen Zenobia." + +"Who was she?" asked Annet, speaking for the others. + +"She was a Queen in Carthage, more than two thousand years ago. She +came to the Islands in a ship, to visit the tin-mines which used to lie +between them and the mainland before the sea covered them, and from +which she drew her great wealth. Her ship arrived in the middle of the +Great Storm; and before she came to land, here on Saaron, the waters +were rolling over the richest part of all her dependencies. Little she +cared; for in the first place she had never seen it, and could not +realise her loss, and moreover her ship had been tossing for three days +and nights, past all hope, so that she was glad enough to reach a +shore, however barren. She reached it, holding on to the shoulders of a +brown man, a Moor, who swam for land as the ship began to break up; and +the story goes that when his feet touched the sand he fell forward and +died, for the swimming had burst his heart. But have you never heard +the song about it?" Vashti sank her voice and began to chant, and low +though the strain was, and monotonous, the children had never heard +such wonderful singing-- + + It was the Queen Zenobia + With her gold crown, + That sailed away from Africa + With a down-derry-down! + + --To westward and to northward + From Carthage town, + Beyond the strait of Cadiz + The sky began to frown. + + "Well-a-mercy!" cried her ladies, + All of high renown; + "I think the sea is troublesome + And we shall all drown." + + The seas came white aboard + And wetted her gown; + "Would I were back in Carthage + A-walking up and down! + + That I were back in Carthage + Which is dry ground, + I would give my jewels + And a thousand pound." + + Then round went the good ship, + And thrice she went round, + The third time she brast herself + With a down-derry-down! + + Some cried misericordia, + And others did swoun; + But up there stood a guardsman + A naked man and brown-- + + "You are the Queen of Carthage + And gey young to drown; + But hold you to my girdle + That goes me around; + And swim with me to Saaron, + As I will be bound." + + "Your girdle it is breaking + That goeth you around." + "Nay, hold you to the girdle + That is strong yet and sound; + My heart you felt a-breaking, + But here is dry ground." + + With white sand and shingle + The shore did abound; + With white sand she covered him + And built him a mound. + + With flotsam and with wreckage + The shore was all strown; + She built of it a cottage, + And there she sat down. + + "Though this be not Africa, + Nor yet Carthage town, + Deo-gracey," said Zenobia, + "That I did not drown!" + +"That's where the tune changes," interrupted Matthew Henry, clapping +his small sunburnt hands together. + +"You know the song then?" asked Vashti, looking from one to the other. + +All three nodded. "We know a verse or two," Annet answered. "Mother was +always singing it when she rocked Matthew Henry to sleep, and sometimes +we get her to sing as much as she can remember for a treat." + +"But she can only remember five or six verses," said Linnet; "and her +voice is not beautiful like yours." + +Annet and Matthew Henry protested. Their mother's was a beautiful +voice; one of the most beautiful in the world. + +"But not beautiful like hers," Linnet persisted. "I mean that it's +quite different." + +They admitted this--so much their loyalty allowed them. "And I like the +end of the song best," Linnet went on, "because it's cheerfuller. It +goes on 'At daybreak she dressed her....'" + +But for a moment or two, though she felt the children's eyes fastened +on her expectantly, Vashti did not resume the song. Those same +expectant eyes were open windows through which she looked into the +past, as into a house tenanted by ghosts. Through Annet's, through +Linnet's, she saw familiarly, recognising the dim children that played +within and beyond the shadow of the blinds. But the child Matthew +Henry's frightened her. She and Ruth had lost a brother once. He had +died in infancy, a scrap of childhood, almost forgotten.... Yes, +Matthew Henry's eyes too had a playroom behind them; and there too a +shadowy child played at hide and seek. + +Her voice shook a little as she picked up the old song-- + + At daybreak she dressed her, + Her wet hair she wound, + When she saw a lithe shepherd, + Stood under the mound. + + He stood among the wreckage + With crook and with hound, + Alone in the morning, + That most did astound. + + "O tell to me, lithe shepherd, + What king owns this ground?" + "No king, ma'am, but Zenobia, + A Queen of renown." + + "Lithe lad, she is shipwrecked; + Myself saw her drown." + "Then 'tis you are Queen of Saaron + If you will step down. + + "I have sheep, goat, and cattle + And a clear three pound, + If you'll mate with me and settle + In goods we will abound." + + "Well-a-way!" sighed Zenobia, + "I have lost Carthage town, + But I like this lithe shepherd + So handsome and brown. + + "If I marry you," said Zenobia, + "Farewell to renown! + If I marry you," said Zenobia, + "I mate with a clown. + But I'll marry you for all that, + With a down-derry-down!" + +"And," said Linnet, as the song concluded, "they married and had twelve +children--six boys and six girls. Mother told me about it." + +But Matthew Henry turned to the singer gravely. "Is it true?" he asked. +"And are you really Queen Zenobia?" + +"Come and see," said Vashti, rising. "The sands are bare between us and +Brefar, and if Linnet is brave enough we will take a boat and she shall +be shown the cave where Jan's father caught the mermaid." + +"But we must get back again," objected Annet. + +"I will see that you get back again." + +"The sands may not be safe." + +"When you told us yourself that they were quite safe!" protested +Matthew Henry. "And you said you would lead us over and back without +any danger at all." + +"The fact is," said Vashti, quietly, "Annet feels herself responsible +for you, and thinks that very likely I am a witch." + +The child faced her bravely, biting her lip upon the inward struggle. + +"You are not a witch," she said. "Your eyes are too good. And, besides, +there are people in Brefar who will take care of us if we miss our way +back." + +Vashti smiled, and again half sadly, for out of her own past this child +confronted her. "That is brave, Annet; brave enough for the moment, +though by and by we shall have to be braver. See how the sands shine +below us! Shall we race for them and see who wins?" + +She took Matthew Henry's small, unresisting hand, and the four pelted +down the slope. Something in Vashti's eyes--it could not have been in +the words of her last answer, for they were mysterious enough--had +apparently reassured Annet, who cast away care and called back in +triumph as she won the race down to the golden sands. + +They were damp yet in patches, and these patches shone like metal +reflecting the greenish-blue spaces that showed between the clouds in +the heart of the gathering sunset. But along the fairway the sand lay +firm to the tread, yet soft to the look as a stretch of amber-coloured +velvet laid for their feet. Beyond rose Brefar, with its lower cliffs +in twilight, its rounded upper slopes one shining green. Vashti had +kilted her gown higher and helped the two girls to pin up their short +skirts. All had taken off their shoes and stockings, for here and there +a shallow channel must be waded. + +They crossed without mishap, and, having shod themselves again, mounted +the turfy slope where the larks flew up from their hiding-places among +the stones. Vashti's talk was of the birds, for in all Brefar the spot +best worth visiting is Merriman's Head, where the birds congregate in +their thousands--cormorants, curlews, whimbrels, gulls and kittiwakes, +oyster-catchers, sandpipers--these all the year round--and in early +summer the razorbills and sea parrots. Zenobia, it appeared, knew not +only Merriman's Head, but every rock, down to the smallest and farthest +in the Off Islands, where these creatures nested. She spoke to them of +the island from which Annet took her name--a low-lying ridge to the +west of St. Ann's, curved like a snake, in nesting-time sheeted with +pink thrift. There the sea-parrots breed, and so thickly that you can +scarcely set foot ashore without plunging into their houses; but there +is a mound near the western end where no sea-parrot may come, for the +herring-gulls and the black-backs claim it for their own. She spoke of +Great Rose, still further westward, where the gulls encamp among the +ruined huts once used by the builders of the Monk Lighthouse; of Little +Rose, where the great cormorant is at home; of Melligan and Carregan, +the one favoured by shags, the other by razor-bills and guillemots. And +so talking, while they wondered, she brought them across the hill to +the great headland. + +Merriman's Head, in truth, is itself an islet, being cut off from +Brefar by a channel, scarcely eight feet wide, through which the seas +rush darkly with horrible gurglings. The cleft goes down sheer, and was +cut, they say, with one stroke of a giant's sword. Beyond it the +headland rises grim and stark--a very Gibraltar of the birds, that +roost in regiments on its giddy ledges. + +As the children came down to the brink a flock of white gulls seemed to +drop from the rock, hung in the air for a moment, and began wheeling +overhead in wide circles, uttering their strange cries. A score of +little oyster-catchers, too, tucked up their scarlet legs and skimmed +off in flight. But the majority kept their posts and looked down almost +disdainfully. + +"They know we can't get to them," said Matthew Henry. "But wait till I +am grown up! Then I'll come over to Brefar and build a bridge." + +"You will not need a bridge when you are grown up," said Vashti. "See!" +She stepped back a pace or two, and the children, before they guessed +her purpose, saw her flash past them and leap. She cleared the chasm, +easily alighted, and stood smiling back at them, while the birds poured +out from their ledges, cloud upon cloud of them. Their wings darkened +the air. Their uproar beat from cliff to cliff, and back again in +broken echoes, like waves caught in a narrow cave and rebounding. +Vashti looked up and laughed. Like a witch she stood, waving her arms +to them. + +"It is easy," she called back to the children; "easy enough, if you +don't let the water frighten you. Why, Annet could jump it if she +dared. Annet ... but no, child! go back!" + +But Annet, with a quick glance at her, and another at the water +swirling below, had set her teeth and stepped back half-a-dozen paces. +She would follow this woman, witch or no witch. + +Linnet cried, too, and Matthew Henry. Vashti, stretching out both hands +to wave back the child, opened them suddenly to catch her--and not too +soon, for Annet alighted on a rock that sloped back towards the gulf, +and had measured her powers against the leap so narrowly that her heels +overhung the water and her body was bending backward when Vashti +gripped, and, dragging her up to firm ground, took her in both arms. + +"But why? Why, Annet?" + +"I don't know," Annet answered, almost stupidly. The danger past, she +felt faint of a sudden and dazed; nor could she understand what the +strange lady meant by embracing her again, almost with a sob, and +murmuring: + +"The little water, and so hard to cross! But we had the courage, +Annet--you and I!" + +She turned and lifted her voice in a long, full-throated cry, that sent +the birds flying in fresh circles from the eyries over which they were +poising; and before its echoes died between the cliffs a boat came +round the point--a boat with one man in it, and that man Major +Vigoureux. + +At another time they might have wondered how a boat came here, and why +the Governor himself--whom they had seldom seen, but regarded from afar +with awe--should be in charge of it. But the afternoon had fed them +full with marvels. Here the great man was, and in a boat, and the +strange lady stood apparently in no awe of his greatness. + +"The little ones are tired," said Vashti. "We will sail them home and +land them on Saaron." + +The Commandant backed his boat skilfully into the passage between the +walls of rock, lifted the two younger ones on board, and then stretched +out a hand to the other shore to help Vashti and Annet. When all were +stowed, he pushed out for an offing, and hoisted his small lug-sail, +while Vashti took the tiller. + +The breeze blew off the shore. The little boat heeled, flinging the +spray merrily from her bows. Beyond and under the slack of the sail a +golden sea stretched away to the dying sunset. + +It was an enchanted hour, and it held the children silent. In silence +they were landed on the beach of West Porth, and climbed over the hill +to their house. From its summit they looked down upon a small sail +dancing through the sunken reefs towards the Roads, away into the +twilight where the sea lights already shone from the South Islands. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AFTER SERVICE + + +"They are good children," said Vashti, as she and the Commandant sat at +breakfast together next morning, which was Sunday. + +The Commandant did not answer for a moment. He was stirring his tea, in +a brown study, nor did he note that Vashti's eyes were resting on him +with an amused smile. She supposed these fits of abstraction to be +habitual with him, due to living and taking his meals alone; but in +fact his thoughts were wrestling with two or three very urgent +problems. To begin with, he had plunged yet deeper in debt to Mr. +Tregaskis. The total, to be sure, amounted to something under +twenty-five shillings; but to a man with just one penny in his pocket +this left no choice but between recklessness and panic, and the +Commandant's spirits swung from one to the other like a pendulum. Panic +asserted itself in the small hours, when he awoke in his bed and +wondered what would happen when pay-day came, should it bring no pay +with it ... and to a man lying sleepless in the small hours, the worst +seems not only possible but likely. Then, as daylight waxed and he +awoke again from a short doze, to his surprise he found himself +absolutely reckless. As well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb! The +ordeal lay three days off, and in three days anything might happen; but +meanwhile this was certainly happening--a woman accomplished and +beautiful had stepped into his life and was changing all the colour of +it. He guessed the danger, put purposely averted his thoughts from it +and from the certainty of scandal. Archelaus, Treacher, Mrs. +Treacher--all three had been sworn to secrecy, and all three could be +trusted. These folks read no harm, nothing beyond an amusing mystery, +in Vashti's sojourn, and in particular she had made Mrs. Treacher her +obedient slave. Yet the secret must come out, and in spite of +Archelaus, who had brought his master's boat round and moored her +cunningly under the lee of the rocks overhung by the Keg of Butter +Battery. There, while the weather held, the Commandant and his guest +could slip away without fear of prying eyes and sail off among the +islands--as they had sailed off yesterday, Vashti sitting low and +covering herself with a spare-sail, until beyond sight of St. Lide's +quay and the houses on the slope. To be sure they had to reckon with +Mr. Rogers' telescope, or rather to leave it out of account. If Mr. +Rogers' telescope should prove indiscreet, Mr. Rogers must be let into +the secret, and might be relied on to join the conspiracy. + +The Commandant, however, was in no hurry to share his happiness. Since +his youth he had made few friends, and in all his life had never known +comradeship with a woman. Suddenly, and as a well-spring in the desert, +Vashti had come into the dull round of his duty--his purposeless, +monotonous duty--to refresh it; nor perhaps were the waters less sweet +for the feeling that they were stolen. So he lived in the day, and put +off thinking of the inevitable end. + +One thing only troubled his happiness. He foresaw that the end, when it +came, would mean for him something more serious than parting. He could +not have told why, but from the moment when Vashti had turned on him +and asked, "For what work do they pay you?" he had known that +henceforward his conscience would not sleep until he had made a clean +breast to the War Office and resigned his commission. It was not that +her question told him anything new; only that he saw himself judged in +her eyes, and in their light discovered that his conscience had been +tolerating what was really intolerable. Her departure, then, would mean +the end of all things; for on the very next day he would send in his +papers and face the world alone--the very next day, and not until then. +So much respite he gave himself; and this respite, and not the prospect +of parting, cast the only shade upon his happiness. For he felt that he +held her friendship on a false pretence; that if she knew the truth, +she would despise him. That is why the Commandant sat in a brown study. + +"They are good children," repeated Vashti, "but like all other children +they know nothing of their elders' troubles. I remember that I was nine +or ten before ever it occurred to me that my father could have any +troubles.... Now from the top of the hill where those three youngsters +sat talking their fairy-tales, I looked over Cromwell's Sound and saw +their father, Eli Tregarthen, pulling across from Inniscaw. By the very +stoop of his shoulders over the paddles I seemed to read that the world +had gone wrong with the man, and when he beached his boat and walked up +the hill towards Saaron Farm, I felt sure of it. Of course you may +laugh and set it down to fancy, for the man was a good three-quarters +of a mile away." + +The Commandant, however, did not laugh. "I think, very likely, you are +right," said he; "and the man had been over to Inniscaw to make a last +appeal to the Lord Proprietor." + +"I wonder," mused Vashti, "if he is the sort of man to tell his wife?" + +The Commandant pondered this and shook his head, meaning that he found +it hard to answer. "I know very little of Tregarthen. In manner, though +polite enough, he always struck me as reserved to the last degree." + +"Men of that manner are often the frankest with their wives," said +Vashti; "though again, if you ask me how I know it, I must answer that +I can't tell you." She sat for a moment, her brows puckered with +thought; then, leaning forward, rested her elbows on the table, while +with eyes fixed seriously upon him she checked off the pros and cons on +her fingers. "On the one hand Eli Tregarthen, being a reserved man, and +brought up on Saaron, probably loves the island after a fashion that +Ruth understands very dimly if at all. I love my sister----" + +The Commandant nodded. + +"--But all the same I know where she is weak as well as where she is +strong. She never had that feeling for the Islands which helps me to +guess how her husband feels about Saaron. I can't explain it"--here +Vashti opened her palms and lowered them till her arms from the elbows +rested flat upon the table. "Perhaps I can't make you, who were not +born here, understand why it would be grief to me to think of being +buried in any other earth. But I expect that Eli Tregarthen feels it, +and feels that, if they uproot him from Saaron, his life will from that +moment become a different thing, in which he has not learnt--perhaps +never will learn--to take much interest. It's queer that, with just +this difference between us, Ruth should have been the one to stay +behind and I the one to go. But fate is queer.... Ruth is like her +namesake in the Bible; home for her is the roof covering those she +loves, and would be though she changed the Islands for the other end of +the world. Therefore," said Vashti, sagely, "if she feels for her +husband's trouble at all, it would be not as for a trouble that +afflicted them both equally; she would be sorry for him as she would be +if he were hurt or diseased. And you know that silent men, like +Tregarthen, when they are struck by disease, will sometimes hide it +from their wives to the last possible moment--will tell no one, but +least of all their wives." + +"Yes, that is true," the Commandant agreed. + +"On the other hand"--here Vashti resumed her checking--"Ruth has a +wonderful gift of coaxing people to confide in her even those things +they very much doubt her understanding. She used to get me to tell my +woes for the mere consolation of feeling her cheek against mine. She +had a wonderful knack, too, of obliging me to be open with her, without +ever asking it; and unless those children's faces and talk misled me +quite, they were formed in a house where the parents keep no secrets +from one another.... You can always tell." + +This was news to the Commandant; and he admitted that, as an old +bachelor, he had never observed it. + +"Always!" insisted Vashti, nodding. "They spoke of their father quite +as if he were one of themselves; which is not only rare, and not only +proves that Eli Tregarthen is a good man, but persuades me that, being +in trouble, he has told his wife." + +"You are reasoning beyond my depths," said the Commandant. "But it all +sounds admirably wise, and I grant it. What next?" + +"Why, if Eli has told her, she will be in trouble to-day and I must go +to her." + +"To Saaron? This morning?" + +"To Saaron, certainly; but not this morning, if you are engaged." + +"To tell the truth I had meant to go to church; that is, if you can +spare me." + +Simple man that he was, he had meant--having a load to lift presently +off his conscience--to receive and be confirmed by the Sacrament. "Ye +that do truly and earnestly repent"--the words had been in his ears at +the moment when he took his resolve. Hopeless though the prospect might +be, he steadfastly intended to lead a new life. + +"My friend," said Vashti. "I am contrite enough already for the amount +of your time I have wasted. We will put off our voyage until the +evening." + +He smiled wryly, remembering how she had asked, "For what work do they +pay you?" + +But Vashti having decided upon an evening expedition, would not listen +to his offer to sacrifice his church-going; and so to church he went, +and confirmed himself, and remained to take the Sacrament on his new +resolution. + +Now whether or not he would have remained could he have divined what +was happening on Garrison Hill I have no wish--as it would be +indecent--to inquire. + +But let us go back to Miss Gabriel. + + * * * * * + +Miss Gabriel, all the previous day, had been suffering from a sense of +defeat, and at the hands of an enemy she had fallen into the habit of +despising. A woman (or a man, for that matter) of Miss Gabriel's temper +sees the world peopled with antagonists, and (perhaps fortunately for +her _amour propre_) cannot see that her occasional victor is not only +quite indifferent to his victory but has very possibly succeeded on the +mere strength of not caring two pins about it, or even on the mere +strength of not knowing that there was any fight going on. Such +insouciance would have galled Miss Gabriel past endurance had it not, +mercifully, lain outside her range of apprehension. As it was, she felt +that the Commandant had taken her easily, at a disadvantage, and routed +her--horse, foot, artillery, baggage. + +And at the moment she had collapsed without a struggle. There lay the +sting. She had meekly thrown up her hand, though it held one +exceedingly strong trump. That woman in furs and diamonds.... Why had +she not insisted on the existence of her own eyes and held her ground, +demanding whence that woman came and what she did on Garrison Hill at +such an hour? + +The longer Miss Gabriel thought of it--and she thought of it all the +next day--the more firmly she refused to believe herself the victim of +an hallucination. She lived frugally; her nerves and digestion were +alike in excellent order; in all her life she had never suffered from +faintness, and but once or twice from a headache. The keenness of her +eyesight was notorious, and she had a healthy contempt for anyone who +believed in ghosts.... Moreover, Charlotte Pope, though inclined now to +hedge about it, had undoubtedly seen the apparition. + +"I wish, Elizabeth, you could find something else to talk about," +pleaded Mrs. Pope, with a shiver. "You and I know everyone on the +Islands and there's no one in the least like--like what we saw; while +as for her jewels, they must have cost hundreds, if they were real." + +"Ha!" exclaimed Miss Gabriel, with a decided sniff. + +"I don't mean 'real' in that sense, Elizabeth; and I put it to you, +Where could she have come from?" + +Miss Gabriel could not answer this, nor did she try. "Then you _did_ +see her?" she was content to say. + +"I--I thought I did." + +"And I, Charlotte, am positive you did. Have you told your husband +about it?" + +"Not yet." + +"Don't, then. Between ourselves, my dear Charlotte, an idea has +occurred to me, and I fancy that if Major Vigoureux thinks he can +delude me with his painted hussies he will find himself mistaken!" + +More, for the moment, Miss Gabriel would not disclose. But it is to be +feared that her design occupied her thoughts in church next morning to +the detriment of her spiritual benefit. The good folk of Garland Town +had--and still have--a pleasant custom of lingering outside the church +porch for a few minutes after service to exchange greetings and a +little mild gossip with their neighbours; and to Mr. and Mrs. Pope, +thus lingering, Miss Gabriel attached herself with an air that meant +business. + +"Fine morning," said Miss Gabriel. + +"The weather," assented Mr. Pope, clearing his throat, "is quite +remarkable for the time of year. As I was observing to Mrs. Fossell, a +moment ago, we might be in August month. Whether we attribute it or not +to the influence of the Gulf Stream, in the matter of temperature we +are wonderfully favoured." + +"Quite so," said Miss Gabriel; "and I was about to propose our taking +advantage of it for a short stroll on Garrison Hill, to whet our +appetite." She heard Mrs. Pope gasp and went on hardily, "You and I, +Mr. Pope, can remember the time when all the rank and fashion of +Garland Town trooped up regularly after divine service to Garrison +Hill. 'Church parade,' we used to call it." + +"Indeed yes, Miss Gabriel--and with the Garrison band playing before +us. Those were brave old days; and now I daresay that except for a +stray pair of lovers no one promenades on Garrison Hill from year's end +to year's end." + +"It shocked me, the other night, to discover how completely I had +forgotten it." + +"You had indeed, ha-ha!" laughed Mr. Pope, with a roguish glance at his +wife. + +Miss Gabriel, too, glanced at her, and even more expressively. "Admire +my boldness," it seemed to say, "and oblige me by imitating it as well +as you can." Mrs. Pope began to tremble in her shoes. + +"Oh, it was ridiculous! And I have a fancy to go over the ground again +and prove to you, and to ourselves, how ridiculous it was. Shall we?" + +"With pleasure." Mr. Pope bowed and offered his arm. In Garland Town, +if you walked with two ladies it was _de rigueur_ to offer an arm to +each. + +The stars in their courses seemed to be helping Miss Gabriel's design. +Her one anticipated difficulty--for she sought an interview with Mrs. +Treacher, to pump her in the presence and hearing of the Lord +Proprietor's agent--had been a possible interruption by the Commandant. +To her glee she had noted that the Commandant kept his seat after +service. For another thirty minutes at least the coast would be clear. + +She had never a doubt of bribing Mrs. Treacher--or, to put it more +delicately, of inducing her to talk. Mrs. Treacher's manner had been +brusque the night before last; but Miss Gabriel's own manner was +brusque, whether to friend or to foe, and nice shades of address +escaped her. Mrs. Treacher was certainly poor, and with a poverty to +which a shilling meant a great deal. And Miss Gabriel had a shilling +ready in her pocket, as well as half-a-crown as a heroic resource in +case of unlooked-for obstinacy. But the shilling would almost certainly +suffice. Had not the donative antimacassar already established a claim +upon the Treachers' gratitude? + +Again, the stars in their courses seemed to be fighting for Miss +Gabriel's design. For as the two ladies climbed the hill on Mr. Pope's +arm, and when they were almost abreast of the barrack door, who should +appear at the garden gate, on the opposite side of the road, but Mrs. +Treacher herself? Catching sight of the visitors she halted in startled +fashion, with her hand on the hasp of the gate. + +"So few ever walk this way in these times," said Miss Gabriel, "I +declare we have frightened the poor woman. Mrs. Treacher!"--she lifted +her voice as she advanced. + +"Ma'am." + +"Mrs. Pope and I have been feeling not a little ashamed of ourselves +that at the time we did not--er--recognise your--your kindness to us +the other evening." + +"Night, to be accyrate," said Mrs. Treacher, still interposing her +ample body between them and the entrance to the garden. "Didn't you?" + +"You put yourself to some inconvenience on our account," pursued Miss +Gabriel; "and--and if you won't mind accepting--" Miss Gabriel held out +the smaller coin by way of finishing the sentence. + +"What's that for?" asked Mrs. Treacher. + +"The circumstances were so unusual, and in a way--ha, ha!--so +amusing----" + +"Oh!" Mrs. Treacher interrupted. "Unusual, was they? I'm glad to hear +it." + +"Why, of course, they were unusual," Miss Gabriel persisted, albeit a +trifle dashed; "and indeed so incredibly absurd that we have brought +Mr. Pope to hear your account of them; for, I assure you, he'll hardly +believe us." + +Mrs. Treacher looked at Mr. Pope solemnly for the space of about ten +seconds, and then as solemnly at the ladies. + +"_What_ won't he believe?" + +"Why"--Miss Gabriel plucked up her courage--"there was so much that +afterwards, when we came to compare notes, neither of us could +explain--as, for instance, who was the strange lady that walked into +the room and was evidently surprised to see us, as we were naturally +surprised to see her-----" + +Mrs. Treacher turned slowly again to Mr. Pope, whose face (since this +was the first he had heard of any strange lady) expressed no small +astonishment. + +"Poor man!" she murmured, sympathetically, "did they really go so far +as all that?" + +"I assure you--" began Mrs. Pope stammering. + +"Oh, go your ways and take 'em home!" cut in Mrs. Treacher. "I'm a +friend to my sex in most matters; but to come askin' me to back up such +a tale as that, and for a shillin'!" She turned her palm over and let +the coin drop on the soil at her feet. + +But here unhappily, at the height of Mrs. Treacher's indignation, a +sneeze sounded from a bush across the patch of garden; and the eyes of +her visitors, attracted by the sound, rested on an object which Mrs. +Treacher, by interposition of her shoulders, had been doing her best to +hide--a scarecrow standing unashamed in the midst of the garrison +potato patch--a scarecrow in a flaunting waistcoat of scarlet, green, +and yellow! + +"My antimacassar!" gasped Miss Gabriel. + +"The Lord Pro--" Mr. Pope checked the exclamation midway. "You will +excuse me, ma'am. I was referring to the lower part of the figure." + +"Was ever such ingratitude?" + +"It is worse, ma'am--ten times worse. You may call it sacrilege." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +BREFAR CHURCH + + +"It was all my fault," confessed Vashti. + +"I was thinking so," said the Commandant, drily. "It had not occurred +to me that Archelaus and the Treachers were acting on their own +initiative." + +Vashti laughed, and her laugh rippled over the waves to meet the sunset +gold. They had taken boat beneath the Keg of Butter Battery, and were +sailing for Saaron with a light breeze on their quarter. Evening and +Sabbath calm held the sky from its pale yellow verges up to the zenith +across which a few stray gulls were homing. From Garland Town, from St. +Ann's, from Brefar ahead of them, came wafted the sound of bells, far +and faint, ringing to church, and the murmuring water in the boat's +wake seemed to take up Vashti's laugh and echo it reproachfully, as she +checked herself with a glance at her companion's face, which also was +reproachful and sternly set, but with a slight twitch at the corners of +the mouth to betray it. + +"Forgive me!" she pleaded, but her voice, too, betrayed her. + +"You are not penitent in the least." + +"As you are only pretending to be angry. Remember that I belong to the +'profession,' and no amateur acting can impose on me." + +"You will admit that you have behaved abominably." The Commandant +conceded a smile. + +"Oh, abominably!" + +"And perhaps you will be good enough to indicate how I am to restore my +credit with--with those people. When I met them coming down the hill +and pulled up to salute, Miss Gabriel froze me with a stare, Mrs. Pope +looked the other way, and her husband could only muster up a furtive +sort of grin. 'Excuse me,' it seemed to say; 'things may right +themselves by and by, but for the present I cannot know you.' The three +between them knocked me all of a heap. Of course I could not guess what +had happened, but I made sure they had seen you." + +"It was the closest miss that they did not. When they hove in sight I +was actually standing in front of our masterpiece, with my back to the +road; calling orders to Archelaus and Treacher, who were at work +stuffing _them_ (so to speak) with straw. I fancy they have forgotten, +on Garrison Hill, to guard against surprises. At any rate, we should +have been taken in a highly unsoldier-like fashion if Mrs. Treacher +hadn't kept her eye lifting. She gave the alarm, and we scuttled into +the bushes like rabbits, and watched while she held the gate. What is +more, I believe she would have fended off the danger if Sergeant +Archelaus hadn't sneezed; and then--oh, then!--" Vashti paused, her +eyes brimful of laughter. + +"He broke cover?" + +"I snatched at the tail of his tunic--hastily, I will admit--but until +he had stepped past me I had no idea he meant to be so foolish. It came +away in my hand. They heard the noise it made in ripping." + +"But they did not see you?" + +"No; for seeing that the mischief was done Sergeant Treacher stepped +out too. You should have heard them explaining to Miss Gabriel! But +they were quite brave and determined. They told me afterwards that +rather than allow one of the visitors to enter and catch sight of me +they would have picked up all three and carried them outside the +garrison gate." + +"The Lord Proprietor will certainly hear of this," said the Commandant, +musing. + +Vashti, who had bent to pin the sheet closer, lifted her head and +regarded him with a puzzled frown; then, averting her eyes, let them +travel under the foot of the sail towards the sunset. + +"Decidedly the Lord Proprietor will hear of it," she said, after an +interval during which he almost forgot that he had spoken. "Indeed, if +it will help to get you, or Archelaus, or anyone out of a scrape, I +propose to call on him to-morrow and confess all. Do you think he will +be lenient?" + +There was a shade of contempt in the question, and it called a flush to +the Commandant's cheek. He was about to answer, but checked himself and +sat silent, looking down at the foam that ran by the boat's gunwale. + +"He must be worth visiting, too; that is, if one may reconstruct him +from--from them." + +The Commandant smiled. "My dear lady, you have already made one attempt +to reconstruct him from them." + +Vashti pondered awhile, her chin resting on her hand and her eyes yet +fixed upon the sunset. + +"I give you fair warning that I am here on a holiday," she murmured. + +"I don't know what you consider a fair warning; but I had guessed so +much." + +"The first for fifteen years," she pursued; "and I won't promise that I +shall not behave worse--considerably worse. Are you very angry with +me?" + +"My dear," answered the Commandant ("My dear," it should be explained, +is the commonest form of address in the Islands, and one that even a +prisoner will use to the magistrate trying him), "if you really wish to +know, I am enjoying myself recklessly; and it would be idle to call my +garrison to put you under restraint, since you have already suborned +them. I started, you see, with the imprudence of showing you my +defences, and now you have us all at your mercy." + +"You have been more than good to me," said Vashti, after a pause; "but +the fortress is already vacated." She nodded towards a valise which +rested under the thwart by the foot of the mast. "Mrs. Treacher packed +it for me," she explained, "and her husband carried it down to the +boat. If Ruth needs me--as she almost certainly does--and if her +husband will tolerate me, I shall sleep on Saaron to-night." + +"But you will come back?" he asked, dismayed. + +"Certainly not, unless the Lord Proprietor drives me to seek refuge." + +The Commandant did not answer. He had known that this happy time must +be short; he had known it from the first, and that the end would come +unexpectedly. + +The wind had fallen slightly, and the boat crept up to the entrance of +Cromwell's Sound with sail that alternately tautened its sheet and let +it fall slack. The single bell of Brefar Church yet rung to service; +but the sun had sunk beneath the horizon, and the sea-lights were +flashing around the horizon before Saaron loomed close on the port +hand; and as they crept towards the East Porth under the loom of the +Island, a row-boat shot out from the beach there, and headed up the +Sound towards Brefar. + +"Hush!" commanded Vashti, and peered forward. + +But a boat putting out from Saaron at this hour could only belong to +Saaron's only inhabitants, and could be bound but on one errand. And +Ruth was in her, for, presently, as the children's voices travelled +back across the still water, Vashti heard Matthew Henry's pitched to a +shrill interrogative and calling his mother by name. + +"They are rowing to church, the whole family," said Vashti. "We can +follow as slowly as we choose." + +She listened a moment, but the oars in the boat ahead continued their +regular plash. It may be that Tregarthen had failed to discern the +small sail astern of him in the gloom of the land. She lowered it +quietly, stowed it, found and inserted the thole-pins, and shipped the +paddles. Yet it seemed that she was in no hurry to row. She but dipped +a blade twice to check the boat from swinging broadside-on to the tide, +and so rested silent for minute after minute, gazing through the gloom +towards the bright sea-lights. + +And it seemed to the Commandant, seated and watching her, that he could +read some of the thoughts behind her gaze. His own went back again to +the night of his first coming to the Islands, when, as at sunset he +supposed himself to have discovered them, all of a sudden they +discovered him--reef after reef opening a great shining eye upon him; +and some of the eyes were steady, but most of them intermittent, and +all sent long gleaming rays along the floor of the sea; a dozen +sea-lights and eleven of them yellow, but the twelfth (that upon North +Island) a deep glowing crimson. Since then and for fifteen years they +had been his friends. Nightly he watched them for minutes from his +window before undressing for bed; and in fanciful moments they seemed +to draw a circle of witchcraft around the Islands. + +If they meant so much to him what must they mean to her who had left +home, dear ones, and all memories of youth?--and who, returned from +exile, stood with her hand upon the latch of the old cupboard! + +"Ruth will have changed," said Vashti, speaking aloud, but to herself. +"It is impossible that she has not changed." + +She dipped her paddles and began to pull, gently at first and almost +languidly; but by and by strength came into her arms and the boat began +to move at a pace that astonished the Commandant. + + * * * * * + +Brefar Church stands on a green knoll close by the water's edge and +only a few yards above a shingly beach where the Islanders bring their +boats to shore. Its bell had ceased ringing long before its windows +came into view with the warm lamp light shining within; and the beach +lay dark under the shadow of the tamarisks topping the graveyard wall. +Vashti, not in the least distressed by her exertions, sprang ashore and +sought about for a good mooring-stone. She had found one almost before +the Commandant, following, could offer to help her in her search. +Together they hauled the boat a few yards up from the water. + +"Are we to go inside?" the Commandant asked, looking up at the lighted +building. + +Before Vashti could answer a reedy harmonium sounded within and the +congregation broke into the "Old Hundredth" hymn-- + + "All people that on earth do dwell, + Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice----" + +The incongruity of it, sung by a handful of fisherfolk here on an islet +of the Atlantic--the real congruity (if indeed the Church be, as the +Bidding Prayer defines it, "the whole body of Christian people +dispersed throughout the world")--was probably less perceptible to the +Commandant after fifteen years' sojourn on the Islands than to Vashti, +newly returned from great continents and crowded cities. But if she +smiled the darkness did not betray her. The Commandant saw her lift a +hand beckoning him to follow, and followed her up the knoll to a +whitewashed gate glimmering between the dark masses of the tamarisks. + +She opened it and disappeared into the churchyard. He followed, +stumbling along the narrow path, and overtook her at the angle of the +south porch. She was in the act of mounting upon a flat tombstone which +lay close in the wall's shadow. A panel of light streamed from the +window directly above, and fell on Vashti's face as she drew herself +erect upon the slab and leaned forward, her fingers resting on the +granite mullions; but a light not derived from this shone in her eyes a +moment later. With a little sob of joy she pressed her forehead close +against the leaded panes. + +The Commandant heard the sound, and guessed the cause of it. The light +in her eyes he could not see. He stood among the dark nettles, looking +up at her, waiting for the hymn to conclude. + +The "Amen" came at last. He heard the shuffling of feet as the +congregation knelt to pray ... and, with that, Vashti turned and bent +to whisper to him. + +"She is there--almost abreast of us, standing by the pillar. She is +kneeling now--my own Ruth--and her face is hidden." + +He supposed that she bent to step down from the slab, and he put up a +hand to help her. A tear fell on the back of his fingers, as it were a +single raindrop out of the night.... But she turned impulsively, and +pressed her face again to the glass. + +"She is praying. She will not look up again.... She would not turn her +eyes just now, though her own sister stood so close! They were lifted +to the lights in the chancel and to the dark window." Then, as it +seemed, with sudden inconsequence, she added: "Forgive me, sir! You +have been kind to me, and it is so many years--so many years----" + +"My dear," said the Commandant, gravely, as he handed her down, "you +honour me more than I can tell. All my life I shall remember that you +have so honoured me." + +But it did not appear that she heard him. Letting go his hand, she +seated herself on the edge of the tombstone, and looked up at him with +eyes that, barely touched by the light from the window, seemed to him +strangely, almost pitifully childish--eyes of a child that had lost its +mother young. + +"Her face was not changed, or a very little; far less than I feared. +She is beautiful, my own Ruth--beautiful as she is good." + +"And happy?" he found himself asking. + +"Happy and unhappy. Happy in her good man, in her children?--oh, yes. +But unhappy, just now, because they are unhappy and in trouble. There +was a gloom upon Eli Tregarthen's face, a look of pain----" + +"Of anger, too, and of wonder mixed with it, I daresay. He has been hit +by a blow he does not understand." + +"But we will help them." + +The Commandant stared into the darkness. There was gloom, too, on his +face, had there been light enough to reveal it. + +"The Lord Proprietor is a very obstinate man." + +"Yes, yes; but I mean that we will help them to-night. I cannot bear to +think of Ruth carrying her trouble home and lying awake with it." + +"Perhaps she will not." The Commandant remembered how he himself had +carried a burden to church that morning and left it there. + +"Ah!" exclaimed Vashti, swiftly, guessing his thought, though not the +occasion of it. "That may do for you and me. For my part, I am not a +religious woman--I mean, not religious as I ought to be. Yet I +understand. Often and often when worried or out of temper I go to +church and sit there alone until peace of mind comes back to me. But I +have no husband, and you no wife; whereas with Ruth all her soul's +comfort is bound up in those she loves. While Eli Tregarthen wears that +look on his face, she can never go home happy." + +"But have we power to lift it?" + +"We will try, and to-night." + +She stood up, cast one look behind her at the lighted window, and led +the way back along the path, through the gate, and down the knoll to +the beach. While she cast off the rope from its mooring-stone he eased +the boat off and launched her. + +"Shall I take the paddles?" he asked. + +No; Vashti would pull back as she had come; and as she pulled she +talked of Ruth, out of her full heart. He listened, between joy and +pain--joy to be sitting here, honoured with her confidences, though he +had none but a listener's share in them--here, in the still, scented +evening, caressed by her marvellous voice; and pain, not because her +talk charged life full of new meanings, every one of which he felt to +be vitally true and as certainly missed by his own starved experience, +but because it took him for granted as a kindly stranger, an outsider +admitted to these mysteries, and warned him that his time on this holy +ground was short; nay, that it was drawing swiftly to a close. And how +could he go back to the old monotony, the old routine? + +He remembered that, to whatever he went back, it would not be to +these--at any rate, not for long. The future might hold degradation, +poverty of the sharpest, hard work for a pittance of daily bread; but +at least his dismissal would send him back to a life in which lay +somewhere these meanings that trembled like visions of light in the +heart of Vashti's talk. They gave him glimpses of the heaven which, by +their remembered rays, he must seek for himself. How many years had he +wasted--how many years! + +They moored the boat close under the cliff's shadow, and, climbing the +rocks, between the cove and the East Porth, sat down to wait. Vashti +sat in reverie, plucking and smelling at small tufts of the thyme; +then, rousing herself with a happy laugh, she challenged the Commandant +to name her all the islets, rock by rock, lying out yonder in the +darkness. He tried, and she corrected omission after omission, mocking +him. What did he care? It was enough to be seated here, close with her +in the starry, odorous night. + +Presently she tired of the contest, and clasping her knees began, +without warning given, to croon a little song-- + + "Over the rim of the moor, + And under a starry sky, + Two men came to my door + And rested them wearily. + + Beneath the bough and the star + In a whispering foreign tongue, + They talked of a land afar, + And the merry days so young." + +She sang it as though to herself, or as though answering the murmur of +the tide on the rocks at their feet; but at the third verse her voice +lifted: + + "Beneath the dawn and the bough + I heard them arise and go-- + But my heart, it is aching--aching now, + For the more it will never know." + +The song died away in a low wistful minor, as though it breathed its +last upon a question. "The merry days--the merry days, so young," she +echoed, after a pause, and lifted her head suddenly. + +"Hark!" + +The sound--it was the plash of oar--grew upon the darkness. A light +shot out beyond the last point of Brefar, and its ray fell waving on +the black water. It came from a lantern in the bows of the Tregarthen's +boat, and as it drew nearer the two listeners could distinguish the +children's voices. + +They shrank back there in the shadow above the ledge, as the boat took +ground and Eli Tregarthen, stepping ashore in his sea-boots, set the +lantern on the stones of the beach, lifted out the children, and lent a +hand to Ruth. The little ones scampered up the path; but Ruth waited by +her husband while he heaved the boat high and dry with his easy, +careless strength, and saw to her moorings. When all was done, and as +he stooped to pick up the lantern, she came to him, and put a hand on +his arm. So, and without speech, they went up the path together. + +The rays of the lantern danced on the furze-bushes to right and left of +the path.... Vashti leapt to her feet; her hands went up to her lips +and hollowed themselves to a low call. + +"Lul--lul--loo--ee!" + +From the brake above came a little cry, a little gasping cry; and +gruffly upon it Eli Tregarthen's voice challenged-- + +"Who goes there?" + +"Caa-ra! caa-ra!... Oh, Ruth--my sister!" + +The Commandant saw Tregarthen's lantern lifted above the gorse, and by +the light of it Ruth came down to the narrow pathway--came with the +face of a ghost, as Vashti sprang up the slope towards her. + +"Vassy! Not Vassy!-----" + +But Vashti's arms were about her for proof. The Commandant, standing +below in the shadow of the brake, heard the younger sister's sobs. + +"Vassy! And to-night!" + +"To-night, and for many nights-----" + +"Thank God! Thank God!" + +The Commandant, by the light of the lantern which Eli Tregarthen held +stupidly, saw them go up the path, their arms holding each other's +waist. They disappeared, but their questions and eager, broken answers, +as they climbed towards Saaron, came down to him where he stood alone, +forgotten. + +He stood there for half an hour almost. Then, as he felt the chill of +the night he recalled himself to action with a shiver, and shouldered +Vashti's valise. Slowly he climbed the hill with it, to Saaron Farm, +and rapped on the door. + +Tregarthen opened to him, staring. + +"I have brought your sister-in-law's luggage." + +"Is it the Governor?... But won't you step inside, sir?" + +"I thank you; no. It is late," answered the Commandant, curtly, and +turned on his heel. + +As he went by the window he saw--he could not help seeing--Ruth in her +chair, with Vashti on the hearth beside her, clasping her knees. The +children looked on in a wondering semi-circle. + +He stumbled down the hill, and as he went he heard the door softly +close behind him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE LORD PROPRIETOR'S AUDIENCE + + +Sir Caesar Hutchins, Lord Proprietor, paced the terrace of his great +house at Inniscaw, and paused ever and anon to survey the prospect with +a lordly proprietary eye. He had breakfasted, and at breakfast (to use +his own words) he always did himself justice. Indeed, throughout a +strenuous business career he had never failed to take very good care of +himself, and was now able to enjoy a clear conscience with an easy +digestion. + +The reader may ask with some surprise how such a man, accustomed all +his life to the bustle and traffic of Finsbury Pavement, E. C., could +choose, in his middle age, to turn his back on these and purchase an +exile out in the Atlantic, where no one bought or sold shares, and +where only Mr. Fossell, perhaps--and he from a week-old +newspaper--caught an echo of the world's markets, whether they rose or +fell. But, in truth, Sir Caesar had chosen carefully, deliberately. He +had always intended to enjoy in later life the wealth for which he had +worked hard in his prime; and as soon as his fortune was assured, he +had made several cautious but determined experiments to discover where +enjoyment might abide. He had, for instance, rented a grouse-moor, and +invited a large company to help him, by shooting the birds, to feel +that he was getting a return for his money. But somehow his guests, +though very good fellows in London, did not harmonize (to his mind) +with the highland wastes. He was glad when they departed; the scenery +improved at once--at any rate, he took more pleasure in it. He tried a +deer forest and found this tolerable, but he soon made the further +discovery that shooting bored him, that is to say, all shooting of +higher rank that the potting of rabbits. He was one of those enviable +persons who "know what they like." If he made trial of these expensive +recreations, it was simply because he saw men ambitious for them, and +supposed they would certainly yield some gratification to explain it; +but, having made trial for himself and missed the gratification, he +abandoned them without a sigh. Hence his wardrobe had come to include a +pair of deer-stalking breeches, very little the worse for wear. (He had +never anticipated any satisfaction in wearing a kilt). + +At another time he had owned a steam yacht; and this had taught him +that he liked the sea and suffered no inconvenience from its motion. +But from the yacht itself he derived small satisfaction after he had +shown it to his friends, and been envied by poorer men for possessing +such a toy. It might have been amusing to carry these admirers about +with him in extended cruises; but they, being poor, were busy and could +not afford the time, while his rich acquaintances owned steam yachts of +their own. Moreover, though unaccustomed to sport, he had always taken +a fair amount of exercise; his liver required it; and at yachting--that +is to say, sitting on deck in a comfortable chair--he put on flesh at +an alarming rate. Therefore, from this pastime also he retired. + +Though these experiments were in themselves uniformly unsuccessful, he +had not made them in vain; but, keeping his wits about him, had arrived +by a process of exhaustion at some of the essentials of pleasure; and +this, after all, was not so bad for a man who had started with no +knowledge concerning it and with a deal of false information. He knew +now that he required exercise, that he could be happy in solitude, and +that his landscape would be all the better if it neighboured on the +sea. (Of his immunity from sea-sickness he was honestly prouder than of +anything his money had been able, as yet, to purchase.) He had scarcely +made these discoveries when the lease of the Islands came into the +market. + +Then, as he read the advertisement in the _Times_ newspaper, in a flash +he had divined his opportunity, had seen a happy future unrolled before +him. His error hitherto had lain, not in exchanging Finsbury Pavement +for scenes where the free elements had play, but in seeking to change +himself and do violence to his own habits of mind and body. In the +Islands he could practice, as a benevolent despot, that mastery of men +which had given him power in the city; he could devote uncontradicted +to the cause of philanthropy--or with only so much contradiction as +lent a spice to triumph--those faculties which he had been sharpening +all his life in quest of money. They remained sharp as ever, though the +old appetite had been dulled. + +He was a widower. He had no ambition but his own to consult; he alone +would suffer if he made a mistake--and he felt sure he was not making a +mistake. Though not given to day-dreams (Finsbury Pavement discouraged +him), he had an ounce of imagination distributed about his brain (few, +even among money-making men, succeed with less), and it had once or +twice occurred to him that a king's must be, in spite of drawbacks, a +highly enviable lot--at any rate in countries west of Russia. Well, +here was his chance. + +He took it boldly; and to-day, had you asked him, he would have +acknowledged with a smile that he did not repent. All kings, to be +sure, have their worries. The army had not shown itself too well +affected towards the new reign. But when an army consists of three +soldiers.... + +The Lord Proprietor, gazing down from his terrace upon the twinkling +waters of the roadstead, caught sight of a row-boat coming across from +St. Lide's, and as it drew near, recognised its sole occupant for +Sergeant Archelaus. + +He felt for his cigar case, chose and lit a cigar, and rested his +elbows on the balustrade of the terrace, watching, while the old man +brought his boat to the landing-quay, landed leisurely, and crossed the +meadow to the foot of the gardens, where, at the pace he was keeping, +one might allow him a couple of minutes at least before he re-emerged +into view at the foot of the steps leading up to the terrace. But, as +it happened, a bare fifty seconds elapsed before he came darting out of +the boscage and scrambled up the stairway in a sweating hurry, two +steps at a time. + +"You shouldn't, Sergeant; you really shouldn't--at your time of life," +expostulated the Lord Proprietor, kindly, withdrawing the cigar from +his mouth. + +"Then you shouldn't keep ostriches," retorted Sergeant Archelaus, as he +gained the topmost step and, after a fearful glance behind him, sank +against a pilaster and mopped his brow. + +"Take care of that urn!" cried the Lord Proprietor, in a warning voice. +"It contains a _Phormium tenax_ that I wouldn't lose on any account." + +"A what?" + +"A New Zealand Flax.... The ostriches chased you, did they?" + +"They did--the pair of 'em. It goes against a man's stomach, too, being +chased by a bird." + +"To me," said the Lord Proprietor, "it is gratifying evidence that they +are recovering their spirits, which were hipped after the long voyage +from Cape Town. But here, in the Gulf Stream, my theory is that we can +acclimatise almost anything, animal or vegetable. Already they begin to +feel its invigorating influence." + +"Talking of vegetables, sir"--Archelaus shifted a canvas bag from his +shoulders to the ground and began to untie the string which bound its +neck. + +"Pray take breath," suggested the Lord Proprietor. "At your age--and +with the little exercise you get on Garrison Hill----" + +"We don't keep ostriches," said Archelaus, curtly. "But, talking of +vegetables, the Governor sends his compliments to you, sir, and begs +your acceptance of a few choice plants in return for the small clothes +you lent me." + +"'Lent' you, Archelaus? 'Gave,' you mean." + +"Oh, sir, but--excuse me--I couldn't--there was them ostriches to be +considered." + +"It has occurred to me," went on the Lord Proprietor, who was in the +best of moods this morning, "that those--er--breeches might be a trifle +conspicuous--a shade too highly pronounced in pattern--to be worn with +uniform." + +"As for that, sir," answered Archelaus, tactfully, "life on the Islands +isn't like active service, where a man has to be careful about exposing +himself to marksmanship." + +"In Inverness a pattern like that would excite no comment." + +"I've never been there," said Archelaus. + +"It--er--harmonises, as it were, with the natural surroundings: with +the loch, the glen, the strath. So with those curious tartans to which +the Scottish highlanders are--er--addicted. Seen by themselves, and to +a sensitive, artistic eye, they appear crude and almost violent in +their contrast of colours; but seen in conjunction with the expanse of +native moorland, the undulating stretches of the heather----" + +"'Tis but niggling scenery we have in these parts, to be sure," agreed +Archelaus. + +"I have sometimes thought that _mutatis mutandis_ the same may be true +of the bagpipes, the strains of which--'skirl,' I believe, is the +proper expression--are not altogether discordant with the moaning of +the wind over those desolate moors or the cries uttered by their wilder +denizens; though, speaking personally, I never could endure the +instrument." + +"Me either," agreed Archelaus again, shuffling a little on his feet, as +the dreadful truth began to dawn on him, that the Lord Proprietor meant +to present him with yet another pair of trousers. + +Sir Caesar, however, chose to play for a minute with his benevolent +design. + +"There is no more delicate study," he went on, "than that of +acclimatisation. None which requires a nicer union of artistic daring +with artistic judgment, patience, with decision.... I propose to go in +for it pretty extensively on Inniscaw." + +"Yes, sir?" + +"The ostriches have been a great encouragement." + +"I suppose, now, when you get accustomed to 'em----" + +"Though I have yet to prove that they will breed here. Yet, why not? +The Gulf Stream, I am assured, has a stimulating influence upon all +forms of organic life, animal as well as vegetable. It may be compared +with that inward volcanic heat which, in and around the Bay of Naples, +clothes the shore with verdure, and is not without responsibility for +the passions of the inhabitants.... But, as I was saying, a man must +use judgment. A plant may thrive when transferred across a thousand +miles of ocean, may propagate itself even more freely than in its +native habitat, and yet, to the artistic eye, be never truly at home. +Its colour, of flower or foliage, refuses to blend with our landscape, +to adapt itself to our Atlantic skies. It is my hobby, Sergeant, to +discover not only what imported plants will flourish with our soil and +climate, but what particular one is worthiest of cultivation; and, +having discovered that, I propose to bend all my best energies upon +it.... Eh? But where did you get those remarkably fine bulbs?" + +Archelaus held out three in the palm of his hand. + +"From the garrison garden, sir; with the Governor's compliments, and +understanding you to take an interest in bulbs." + +"Daffodils? Some species of narcissus, at any rate." + +The Lord Proprietor took one of the bulbs and examined it, turning it +over. "I had no idea that Major Vigoureux--er--went in for this sort of +thing, or I'd have done myself the pleasure of visiting his garden." + +"You wouldn't find much in it, sir," said Archelaus, hastily, +remembering yesterday's adventure. "At least not much to interest you. +To tell the truth, the Governor sets very little store by these, though +they look pretty enough in March month. But wanting to show his +feelings in the matter of those trousers----" + +"You shall have another pair!" + +"Oh!" said Archelaus, in spite of himself, and though he had miserably +foreseen the offer for ten minutes past. + +"And you may take back my thanks to the Commandant, and tell him that I +hope, within the next few days, to pay him a call." + +Archelaus touched his forelock, bringing up his palm at the right +military salute--in those days a complicated operation. To himself he +breathed a thanksgiving that the Fair Lady (as he and the Treachers +called Vashti) had taken her departure from Garrison Hill overnight. +Ever since breakfast he had been feeling sadly dejected about it and so +(if appearances might be trusted) had his master. There is a fearful +joy, after all, in living on a volcano. + +But, alas, for Sergeant Archelaus! He was at this moment standing on +the crust of a volcano, and that crust was momentarily wearing thinner. + +The shore beneath the great house of Inniscaw has two landing quays, of +which the eastern (Archelaus had used the western) lies hidden from +view of the terrace, and can be approached by a boat keeping close +under St. Lide's shore. Engrossed in his lecture upon acclimatisation, +the Lord Proprietor had missed to perceive a boat making for this +eastern quay; and so had Archelaus, for the simpler reason that he +stood with his back to the view. + +"Step into the house with me, and you shall make your choice between +half-a-dozen pairs," the Lord Proprietor invited him. + +"If you are sure it's not troubling you," said Archelaus. + +"My good man--" began the Lord Proprietor, leading the way; and with +that he turned about, surprised that Archelaus was not following. "Eh? +What's the matter?" + +But Archelaus, speechless, was staring along the terrace to its eastern +end, where, at the head of a flight of steps leading down among the +shrubberies, a head had suddenly uprisen into view--a head in a gray +bonnet with trimmings of subdued violet--the head of Miss Gabriel. + +"H'm!" said Miss Gabriel, and turned to Mr. and Mrs. Pope, who were +mounting the stairway at her heels. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE LORD PROPRIETOR RECEIVES A DOUBLE SHOCK + + +"H'm!" said Miss Gabriel again, as she once more surveyed the shrinking +Archelaus. "So you allowed you'd steal a march on me?" + +"I had no such thought, ma'am," stammered Archelaus. + +"You'll get no good out of it, anyway; and of that I warn you. Good +morning, sir!"--this with a curtsey to the Lord Proprietor. + +"Good morning, ma'am! How d'ye do, Pope?--and your good lady is well, I +hope? But to what do I owe this unexpected--er--honour?" + +"Him," said Miss Gabriel, nodding, and with scarcely a change of tone. + +"To Sergeant Archelaus, ma'am? Why, what has he been doing?" + +"You might better ask--" Miss Gabriel answered slowly, emphatically, +with her eye on the culprit--"what he has not." + +"Whichever you please, ma'am. Come!" + +"I find a difficulty in putting a name to it," pursued Miss Gabriel, +still in the same level tone. "But Mr. Pope will bear me out. If he +doesn't, I shall still allow no false delicacy to stand between me and +my duty." + +"Miss Gabriel means, sir," explained Mr. Pope, "that the articles in +question----" + +"What articles, man?" asked the Lord Proprietor, as Mr. Pope, in his +turn, hesitated. + +"Trousers," said Miss Gabriel, setting her face. "No, Charlotte"--she +turned upon Mrs. Pope--"this is no time for mincing language. They were +on a scarecrow, sir, in the very middle of the garrison garden, along +with my waistcoat----" + +"Your waistcoat, ma'am!" + +"That is to say, with my antimacassar, which I had converted into a +waistcoat and presented, in the innocence of my heart, to Treacher; the +clothing of these men being nothing short of a scandal. But for +scandal, sir, their clothes won't compare with their doings. Not to +mention----" + +"My dear lady, I implore you, let us take one thing at a time! You wish +to make some statement about a scarecrow--in the garrison +garden--adorned (am I right?) with a waistcoat you were once kind +enough to present to Sergeant Treacher, and (I gather) with a pair of +trousers about which you are less explicit." The Lord Proprietor +paused. His eyes grew round with sudden, terrible suspicion. "You don't +mean to tell me--" he asked slowly. + +Miss Gabriel nodded, and wagged an accusing forefinger at Archelaus. + +"That's just what I _do_ mean. And if you want a picture of guilt, look +at that man!" + +The Lord Proprietor turned and stared at him, gasping. + +"My trousers? _Mine?_" But here speech failed him, and he stood opening +and shutting his mouth like a newly-landed fish. + +Archelaus flung a wild glance about him, vainly seeking escape. + +"You're looking at it in the wrong light, all of you," he mumbled, +feebly. + +"And on the Sabbath, too!" put in Mrs. Pope. + +"This man"--the Lord Proprietor held up a hand as though calling Heaven +to witness--"On what pretence do you suppose that he came here this +morning? Why, to thank me! To thank me for those very--er--articles of +which you tell me he makes a public mock! Look at the bag in his +hand--what do you suppose that it contains?" + +"Adders," suggested Mrs. Pope. "I shouldn't be surprised." + +"You may well say so, ma'am. It might well be adders. Indeed, I'm not +sure it isn't worse." + +"Oh!" Mrs. Pope, already backing before the horrors of her own +imagination, caught at the balustrade for support. + +"Daffodils, ma'am! A present of daffodil bulbs, with the Commandant's +compliments, and in acknowledgment of my gift! Could hypocrisy go +farther?" + +"Major Vigoureux," said Miss Gabriel, "was never a friend of mine. Let +those who thought better of him defend him now, when he shows himself +in his true colours." + +But here Archelaus pulled himself together. + +"The Governor," he answered sullenly, "had nothing to do with it. The +Governor was in church at the time, as is well known to all of you." + +"Yes, yes," interposed Mrs. Pope. "Let us be just. The Commandant was +certainly in church at the time. On our homeward way we met him +returning from church; and I would add, sir--if you will forgive +me--that he is a gentleman quite incapable of suggesting or conniving +at so vulgar a trick." + +"H'm!" The Lord Proprietor accepted this with a snort, for he could not +help being aware of its truth. But his wrath still needed a vent, and +he turned upon Archelaus again. + +"The Governor?" he echoed. "Are you ignorant that Major Vigoureux is +not Governor of these Islands, nor has he been for three years?--even +if he had ever a right to the title." + +"He's _my_ Governor, anyway," answered Archelaus, turning more and more +dogged; "and he's Treacher's; and I reckon you'll find, if you try any +games, that he's Treacher's missus' Governor, too." + +"Insolent!"--This from Miss Gabriel. + +"I ain't denyin' it, ma'am. Insolent I be, and a little freedom o' +speech about it is no more than your rights. Insolent I've behaved, and +if you'll take and ask the Governor to punish me for it, 'tisn't more +than I deserve. He'll do it, be sure. As Mister Pope told you just now, +the Governor's a gentleman; he wouldn't play such a trick, not if you +was to offer him the world and the kingdoms thereof; and he'll be teasy +as fire when he hears about it. But I warn you, ladies and gentlemen, +all, don't you take the law into your own hands over this distressin' +case, but go to him meek-like an' say you want Arch'laus punished. +That's all. Leastways, that's all, unless you ask my honest opinion on +the breeches in question, which is, that I wouldn't put 'em astride a +clothes-horse and call him a son o' mine." + +The Lord Proprietor stepped back, purple in the face. + +But Miss Gabriel flew at game higher than Archelaus. + +"That is all very well," she interposed, in her coldest, most incisive +tone. "But to whom does the credit of this insult belong if not to +Major Vigoureux? You may talk till doomsday, my man, before I'll +believe that you and Treacher thought of it." She stood for a second or +two, eyeing him. "A-ah!" she said, a little above her breath. "I +thought as much!... There _was_ a woman, Charlotte, and that woman is +at the bottom of the whole business. I ask you, if you doubt it, to +look at his face." + +"She'd nothin' to do with it," affirmed Archelaus, stolidly, drawing +the back of his hand across his brow. + +"She?" mocked Miss Gabriel. "And pray who is 'she'?" + +Archelaus made a bold effort to recover himself. "Why, Treacher's +missus ... unless you mean the Ghost." + +"That Treacher's missus (as you call her) bore her hand in the sport I +have the evidence of my own eyes; and if by 'the Ghost' you allude to a +painted hussy that Mrs. Pope and I surprised, the other night, in your +master's quarters, I advise you to keep that for the Marines. +Sir,"--Miss Gabriel turned to the Lord Proprietor--"this petty insult +of the scarecrow is the smallest part of our complaint against Major +Vigoureux. We have reason to believe--we have ocular proof--that the +Major is at this moment and by stealth entertaining a most undesirable +guest at the Barracks." + +"My dear Elizabeth, we cannot be altogether sure!" objected Mrs. Pope. + +"Speak for yourself, Charlotte." Miss Gabriel folded her hands and bent +on Archelaus a gaze under which he felt himself withering. "I am quite +sure." + +"Undesirable, ma'am?" asked the Lord Proprietor, thoroughly mystified. +"In what sense undesirable?" + +"--Unless," answered Miss Gabriel, tapping her foot, and with the air +of one who curbs a virtuous impatience, "unless you can suggest a term +more appropriate to a Jezebel; in which case I shall stand corrected." + +"Jezebel? Jezebel? But, my dear Miss Gabriel, consider before you bring +such a charge: here especially in the presence of Major Vigoureux's +servant, who will doubtless report it to his master. Reflect how +serious it is. Reflect----" + +"Why, bless the man!" Miss Gabriel cut him short disdainfully. "As if I +hadn't been reflecting for three days on end! Let him sue me for +slander if he dare. I'll stick to my guns, if I kiss the book upon it; +and what's more, so will Charlotte Pope." + +"I never said so, Elizabeth," pleaded Mrs. Pope. + +"And very wisely, ma'am." Sir Caesar nodded approval. "For, as I was +about to say, reflect upon the extreme improbability--nay, the utter +impossibility--that--er--such a person could visit the Islands +unnoticed and actually spend three days on Garrison Hill undetected by +any save yourself. Nay, if we grant the miracle of her arrival, who is +to assure us that she has not by this time as mysteriously vanished? In +that case, what have we to show for our suspicions? How, setting aside +the Major's indignation, shall we find ourselves less than a laughing +stock for the whole population of the Islands?" + +"And sarve ye right!" added Archelaus, who began to perceive that this +thundercloud had its silver lining. But if he counted on daunting Miss +Gabriel, he was mistaken. + +"Turn you round, my man," snapped that indomitable lady. "Turn you +round, and give me a look at those coat-tails of yours. Ha!" she +exclaimed, as Archelaus, by habit obedient to the word of command, +faced about towards the balustrade. "There was a coat-tail missing +yesterday, if I remember, when you crept out from the bushes like a +whipped urchin, and now there's two: and you'll be telling me that +these fine stitches were put in by Jane Treacher, who is like most +soldier's wives, and sews like a cow!" + +"The Lord have mercy upon us!" said Archelaus, in a hushed voice. + +It took them two or three seconds to understand that the words were not +an answer to Miss Gabriel; that he had spoken them to himself, +staring--as he still stared--down the steps, down the green alley +leading to the terrace. + +Then, perceiving that something was amiss with the man, they too +stepped to the balustrade and looked down--as up the leafy path came +the very woman of their speculations--Vashti, faultlessly arrayed, +trailing a neat parasol and humming a song as she drew near. + +"The same!" gasped Miss Gabriel. "I call you to witness, Charlotte!" + +"But, you'll excuse me," Mr. Pope objected, "she don't appear to answer +precisely to a Jezebel." + +"You men think of nothing but outward show," snapped Miss Gabriel. + +"Well, and that's something," Archelaus put in with affability, his +spirits rising as the danger drew nearer. "Talk about Garrison Hill! +She seems to be pretty well at home on Inniscaw, too." For Vashti, +halting in the chequered sunlight beneath a trellised arch, had reached +up the hooked handle of her sunshade to draw down the spray of a late +autumnal rose, and stood for a moment inhaling its odour. + +It may be that just then she caught sight of the watchers upon the +terrace. If so, not a movement betrayed her. As though reluctantly, she +released the branch and, as it sprang upward, resumed her way up the +path, disappearing for a moment under a massed canopy of Virgin's +Bower. A few seconds, and she would emerge into view again, almost at +the foot of the terrace stairs. + +They waited. + +"But whatever has become of the woman?" asked Miss Gabriel. + +"It's confoundedly odd!" growled the Lord Proprietor. + +"She may have turned down a by-path." + +"There's no by-path within fifty yards of her. More likely she's +stopping to take a smell of the clematis.... We might step down and +see." The Lord Proprietor suited the action to the words and led the +way. + +"In my opinion, if you want it," said Archelaus, "you won't find her +there. Because why? She's a ghost." + +"A ghost?" quavered Mrs. Pope. + +"Nonsense, my dear!" Her husband offered his arm to assist her down the +steps. "Such a beautiful young person!" + +"The first time I saw her she didn't frighten me at all," agreed Mrs. +Pope; "but if she's going to bob in and out of sight in this way, I +shan't sleep in my bed to-night." + +A cry from the Lord Proprietor startled them. He had plunged down the +path beneath the overarching clematis. They ran to overtake him, and +found him staring at vacancy. Vashti had vanished, apparently into thin +air. + +"Oh, but this is midsummer moonshine!" declared Sir Caesar. "The woman +must be hiding somewhere near. Miss Gabriel, if you will kindly attend +to Mrs. Pope, her husband and I will search the thickets hereabouts." + +They searched in the thickets and along the garden paths, but without +recovering a trace of the unknown. Not so much as a glimpse of her +skirt rewarded them. + +Sergeant Archelaus abandoned the search early, dodged into the +plantations on the left, and went his way chuckling, back to his boat. + +"A terrible trying morning," he allowed, as he cast loose; "but the end +was worth it." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +VASHTI PLEADS FOR SAARON + + +For twenty minutes Sir Caesar and Mr. Pope beat the shrubberies, and +even carried their search down to the great walled garden which was one +of the wonders of Inniscaw. Tradition said that the old monks had built +it, of bricks baked upon the mainland; and that it had been their +favourite pleasance, because its walls shut out all view of the sea. +Certainly if the old monks had built this garden, they had built it +well. The Priory itself, of Caen stone, had lain in ruins for at least +two hundred years before the Lord Proprietor came to clear the site and +build his new great house on the old foundations; but these brick walls +defied the tooth of time. + +Magnificent walls they were, four feet in thickness, heavily +buttressed; the bricks set in mortar tougher than themselves. They +enclosed two acres of rich black soil at the mouth of Inniscaw's one +valley, where it widens into a marsh beside the shore. Between them and +the water's edge stood the Lord Proprietor's new schoolhouse, above a +small landing quay; and within the schoolhouse a class was singing as +Sir Caesar and Mr. Pope entered the old garden. The children's voices +came floating prettily over the old wall--so prettily that Abe Jenkins, +the septuagenarian gardener, ceased working to comment upon it, leaning +on his hoe and addressing Eli Tregarthen, who lounged by the gateway +leading to the shore. + +"Always fond of children, I was," said Abe Jenkins, "though I never +picked up courage to marry. 'Twas the women that always daunted me. And +now I've a-come to a time o' life that I'm glad of it. A married man +throws his roots too deep, an' when Death come along, 'tis always too +soon for 'en. He wants to bide and see his youngest da'rter's child, or +he wants to linger and mend a thatch on the linhay--his married son +can't be brought to see the importance o't.... What with one thing and +another, I never knowed a married man yet 'was fit to die; whereas your +cheerful bachelor comes up clean as a carrot. What brings you across +from Saaron to-day, Tregarthen? I'll wage 'tis to fetch your children +back from school." + +"Partly," assented Eli. + +"Iss; partly, that, an' to listen here to their voices soundin' so +pretty across the wall. And partly, I reckon, 'tis on the chance to get +speech with the Lord Proprietor and persuade 'em to let you bide on +Saaron. But that you'll never do. Mind, I'm not sayin' a word against +th' old curmudgeon. He's my employer, to start with, besides being what +God made 'em. But, reason? You might as well try reason on the hind leg +of a jackass. Go thy ways home, Tregarthen: go thy ways home an' teach +yourself that all this world and the kingdoms thereof be but what the +mind o' man makes 'em, and Saaron itself but a warren for rabbits." + +Tregarthen shook his head. + +"A barren rock.... Come now, bring your mind to it!" Abe suggested, +coaxing. + +"'Tis no good, Abe." + +"A cottage in a vineyard--what says holy Isaiah? A lodge in a garden of +cucumbers--a besieged city----" + +"Abe Jenkins!"--It was the Lord Proprietor's voice calling from the +upper gate. + +"Y'r honour!" Abe snatched his hoe and wheeled about sharply as the +great man came down the path with Mr. Pope at his heels. + +"How long have you been working here?" demanded Sir Caesar. "Perhaps I +had better have said 'idling,'" he added, with a frown and a curt nod +at Tregarthen in the gateway. Sir Caesar's gray eyebrows had a trick of +bristling up, like a cat's, at the first hint of unpleasantness, even +at sight of anyone who crossed his will; and they bristled now. + +"'Been workin' here the best part of the morning," answered Abe, with +an old man's freedom of tone and a complacent look backward at the +patch of turned soil. "And 'might have been workin' yet but the +children singin' their hymn yonder"--with a jerk of his thumb towards +the wall that hid the school building--"warned me 'twas time to knock +off for dinner." + +Now, the Lord Proprietor had meant his question for preface to another. +"Had Abe, while at work, caught sight of a strange lady anywhere in the +garden?" The question, if put just then, and in Tregarthen's hearing, +might have changed the whole current of this small history; for +Tregarthen was a poor hand at dissimulation--or, rather, was incapable +of it. But the sight of his back, as he turned away, caused Sir Caesar's +eyebrows to bristle up yet more pugnaciously. + +"Hi, sir?" + +Tregarthen turned slowly. + +"You are waiting here to fetch your children from school, I suppose?" + +"Yes," said Tregarthen. + +"And isn't that an instance, man, of what I tried to make you +understand two days ago? Cannot you see what time and trouble you'll be +saving yourself--let alone the children--when you're comfortably +settled on Brefar and within half-a-mile of a handy school?" + +"Yes," said Tregarthen again. His eyes met the Lord Proprietor's +without servility as without disrespect, but with a kind of patient +wonder. + +"Well, then"--Sir Caesar turned to Mr. Pope for confirmation--"here is a +man who--to give him his due, eh?--works as hard as any on the Islands; +harder, I daresay, than his own hired labourer----" + +Mr. Pope nodded. + +"--A man," continued Sir Caesar, "who never gives himself a holiday; a +man whose nature it is to grudge every hour of the day that isn't +employed in wringing money out of a desert. Come now!"--warmed by his +own eloquence to a geniality equally hearty and false, Sir Caesar swung +around again upon Mr. Pope--"I daresay we may call him, to his face, +about the best of my farmers!" + +Mr. Pope inclined, with the half of an embarrassed smile. As an agent, +he felt any such appreciation of a tenant to be, if not dangerous, at +least uncalled for, liable to be misinterpreted. He contented himself +with answering--in a murmur--that Mr. Tregarthen had given the estate +in the past every satisfaction; that it would surprise him indeed if +(at this time of day) Mr. Tregarthen were (of all men) to raise +trouble. + +But the Lord Proprietor, as a master of men, brushed this hesitancy +aside, and with jovial tact. "A first-rate fellow," he insisted. "One +of our best! Only pig-headed, as the best always are. And so, when I +offer him a choice of two farms, each better than his present one, he +must needs take it into his head that I'm doing him an injury. Such a +man"--here Sir Caesar wagged a forefinger at the accused--"needs to be +protected against himself. Such a man needs to be told--and pretty +straight--that he is injuring others besides himself, and that, as I +have authority in these Islands, so I owe it to my conscience to forbid +his letting his children grow into little savages." + +Eli Tregarthen looked up as though a stone had struck him. The colour +on his face darkened. Hitherto (though suffering from it) he had not +argued, even in his own mind, against Sir Caesar's evicting him from +Saaron. He had resented it, as one resents mere brute force; but he had +not argued with that which had never presented itself as resting upon +argument.... Though he knew himself to be a slow-witted man, Eli had a +clear sense of his wife's wisdom, and that wisdom irradiated for him +any argument which came--as this accusation of neglecting the children +surely came--within range of Ruth. + +"If you dare to say that again," said Eli, "I'll knock your head off." + +All three of them heard it--the Lord Proprietor, Mr. Pope, and old +Abe--though neither could believe his ears. For Eli had spoken quite +quietly and distinctly. Mr. Pope was the first to recover; but before +he could get in a word, Eli was following up the attack--still not +hastily, still with a slow pause on every word. + +"You? What do you know of children, that never had a child? And what do +you know of Saaron or any other island, that never took your life here +nor made your living? You fill your pockets in a London shop; you go +off to an auction, and there you bid for these Islands, that you've +never seen. But what did you buy, you little man, over and above the +power to make yourself a nuisance in your day? Was it understanding of +the Islands? Or a birthright in 'em? Or a child to leave it to?... +There, I do wrong to be angered with 'ee--you've got so little by your +bargain! But you put a strain upon a man, you do--talkin' of children +in that way. Children?" The man paused with something like a groan. An +instant before it had been in his mind to tell Sir Caesar passionately +that, so far from grudging the time spent in fetching Annet, Linnet and +Matthew Henry from school, he looked forward to it as the one bright +break in a day that began before sunrise and lasted till after sunset. +It had been on the tip of his tongue, too, to say, with equal passion, +that any man who spoke of them as savages insulted his wife's care of +them. But eloquence had come to him, now for the first time in his +life, as an inspiration. At the first check he stammered, and broke +down; and so, with a hunch of his shoulders, turned his back on his +audience and walked off heavily down the lane. + +Mr. Pope, with great tact, laid a hand lightly on the Lord Proprietor's +arm and conducted him back to the gate by which they had entered. +There, yet gasping for speech, the great man lifted his eyes, and was +aware of Mrs. Pope and Miss Gabriel distractedly advancing along the +path. + +With a gulp he pulled himself together, and walked forward to inform +them that the chase had been unsuccessful; that not a glimpse of the +fugitive had been discovered. Resuming a hold upon his gallantry, he +hoped that his visitors would remain for luncheon. "After which," he +added, with a creditable smile, "we may, if we will, resume the search +in more philosophical mood." + +But here again Mr. Pope was tactful. He divined that his patron was +suffering; that the wound needed, for the moment, solitude and silence +to ease its smart. He was sorry to deprive the ladies of such a +pleasure; but, for his part, business called him back to Garland Town. +He had, he regretted to say, an engagement at two o'clock sharp. To be +sure, if the ladies chose to stay, he could send back the boat for +them.... But this he said knowing that his wife was thoroughly +frightened, and that (as she herself put it later) wild horses would +not induce her to remain, lacking his protection. + +The Lord Proprietor escorted his visitors down to the landing quay and +there helped the ladies to embark. The search for the fair fugitive (he +promised them) should be vigorously prosecuted. She was not likely to +elude it for long, and he would at once report success. The +leave-takings over, he stood by the shore until the small boat had made +her offing, and so, with a farewell lift of the hat, turned and walked +moodily towards the house. + +He was relieved to be alone after the morning's very painful +experiences. Twice since breakfast he had been wounded in his dignity, +and nowhere does a man of his nature suffer more acutely. Nor could the +wounds be covered over and hidden, for he had taken them openly, almost +publicly. His anger swung helplessly forward and back between the two +outrages, both to him inexplicable. To be sure he had not reckoned on +any gratitude for the gift of the breeches. But what had he done that +they should be flaunted on a scarecrow?... Oh, it was monstrous! + +As little could he understand Tregarthen or Tregarthen's language. Some +gadfly must have stung the man. A few acres of the barrenest land in +the whole archipelago--and the fellow talked as though he were being +dispossessed of an Eden! Yes, and as though that were not enough, he +had used the flattest disrespect. The Lord Proprietor was not +accustomed to disrespect. From the first his Islanders had treated him +with the deference due to a king. Save and except the Commandant, no +man had ever crossed his will or disputed his authority. + +His rage swung back again upon the Commandant. It was all very well to +plead that the Commandant had been in church at the time; but, after +all, an officer must be held responsible for his men's doings. Let +Major Vigoureux beware! More than once the Lord Proprietor had been +minded to memorialise the War Office and inquire why the taxpayers' +money should be wasted to maintain three superannuated soldiers at full +pay in a deserted barracks. + +"Upon my word," said the Lord Proprietor to himself, "I've a mind to +run over to Garrison Hill and ask Vigoureux what the devil he means by +it. Either he knows of this, or he doesn't: I'll soon learn which. In +either case I'll have an apology; and, what's more, I'll teach him +who's master here, once for all." + +He had reached the terrace, and paused there for a moment to draw +breath after his climb, at the same time throwing a glance across the +blue waters of the roadstead towards Garrison Hill and the white +buildings upon it slumbrous in the autumn haze. The glance threatened +mischief to that unconscious fortress and a sharp nod of the head +confirmed the threat. + +"Yes, yes, this very afternoon! The sooner the better!" + +He swung about and stepped across the terrace to a French window that +stood open to the air and sunshine. It was the window of the morning +room, where he usually took his luncheon, and he passed in briskly, +meaning to ring the bell and give orders to have the meal served at +once. But, as he stepped across the low sill somebody rose in the +room's cool shadow and confronted him, and he fell back catching at the +jamb for support and staring. + +It was the stranger herself: the woman for whom they had all been +vainly searching! + +"Good morning!" said Vashti, with a self-possessed little bow. "Oh, but +I fear I have startled you?" + +"Ah--er--" the Lord Proprietor pulled himself together with an +effort--"Well, to tell the truth? you did take me by surprise; the more +so that----" + +"It was dreadfully uncivil of me--not to say impudent--to walk in here +unannounced. But the fact is I could find no door along the terrace; +nothing but windows. Forgive me." + +"Certainly, madam, certainly.... The front door is, so to speak, at the +rear of the building.... But I was going to say that you took me the +more by surprise because, as a matter of fact, I had just given up +hunting for you." + +Vashti laughed. She looked adorably cool and provoking; and still, as +he stared at her, the Lord Proprietor wondered more and more whence in +the world she came. He knew little of female beauty (the late Lady +Hutchins had been plain-featured) and less of clothes; but three or +four times in his life, at public functions, he had mixed with the +great ones of the land, and here patently was one of them. Her speech, +dress, bearing, all proclaimed it; her easy self-possession, too, and +air of authority. Out of what Olympus had she descended upon these +remote Atlantic isles? + +"I saw that you had company," she answered, "and I ran away. To tell +you the truth I was a little afraid of them--that is to say, of some of +them. But what was Archelaus doing here?" + +The Lord Proprietor frowned. + +"Did he come to apologise? Oh, but that is just one of the reasons that +brought me here! You must not be angry with Archelaus; no, really, it +was not his fault, at all, but mine." + +"I think, ma'am," said the Lord Proprietor, "we are talking at +cross-purposes." + +"No, no, we are not," she corrected him briskly with a little laugh. +"We are talking about that unhappy scarecrow." She paused, as though +checked by irrepressible mirth, and he flushed hotly. "And no, again!" +she went on, perceiving this; "I was laughing at Archelaus--poor +fellow!--overtaken here by his accusers. Did they make it very painful +for him?" + +"Even supposing him capable of shame--which I doubt--I certainly do not +think he suffered more than he deserved." + +"You are very much annoyed?" asked Vashti, suddenly serious. "Well, +then, I am sorry. It was all my suggestion--though it never entered my +head that anyone would be walking that way and catch sight of--of the +thing. I meant it to be a little surprise for the Commandant when he +came home from church; though when he returned and heard what had +happened, he scolded me terribly." + +"You will excuse me"--the Lord Proprietor drew himself up stiffly--"if +I fail to see either where the humour comes in, or why you--a stranger, +unknown to me even by name----" + +"Ah, to be sure! My name is Cara." + +"Then, as I was saying, Miss Cara, I fail to see----" + +"And you are quite right of course," Vashti made haste to agree. "I +ought not to have done it. But weren't you, too, a little bit to blame? +It wasn't very nice of you, you know." + +"I beg your pardon? What wasn't very nice of me?" + +"Why, to hurt their feelings; and especially the Commandant's. He is a +poor man; poor, and sensitive, and easily hurt." + +"You are talking to me in riddles, Miss Cara. I have done nothing at +all to hurt the Commandant's feelings." + +"Not intentionally, of course. I told him--and I told the sergeant +too--that I was sure you never meant to wound them. It would have been +too cruel." + +"But," protested the Lord Proprietor, "I have done nothing, I tell you; +nothing beyond presenting Sergeant Archelaus with--with an article of +attire of which he stood badly in need. Miss Gabriel, some weeks ago, +drew my attention to the state of the poor fellow's--er--wardrobe, and +suggested that something might be done." + +"I thought so," Vashti nodded. "I dare say now," she went on, after +seeming to muse for a moment, "you are one of those strong-minded men +who find it hard to understand how sensible people can worry over what +they put on their backs!" + +"That happens to be a constant source of wonder with me," he confessed; +"though for the life of me I can't tell how you came to guess it." + +"Never mind how I guessed it," said Vashti, smiling. "The point is, +that you take this lofty and very scornful view of clothes, and yet you +must have noticed that many men of your acquaintance--men otherwise +sensible--take quite another; that in the city, for instance, a hard +felt hat is not usually worn with a frock coat." + +"Granted," said the Lord Proprietor; "though I could never understand +why." + +"And you have noticed that soldiers are even more particular; and the +reason with them is perhaps a little more easily grasped. Their uniform +is a symbol, so to speak. It stands for the service to which a good +soldier should be devoted." + +"If you had seen that man's small-clothes!" + +"Yes, I grant that Archelaus neglects his regimentals. But to neglect +them, and to be willing to mix them up with civilian clothes, are two +very different things. Perhaps you did not think of this?" + +"Really, now," answered Sir Caesar, "I should not have supposed that it +mattered what these men wore, in such an out-of-the-world spot." + +Vashti's eyes rested on him for a second or two, in a kind of wondering +despair at his obtuseness. But she controlled herself to reply quite +patiently: + +"At any rate, it was wrong of me to encourage the men's resentment, and +I came here this morning to beg your pardon." + +He acknowledged this with a bow, but stood silent for a moment, eyeing +her. + +"You are a relative of Major Vigoureux?" he asked, after a pause. + +"No." + +"You are staying with him, I understand?" + +"No." Vashti shook her head, with a smile. "But I very much want you to +forgive me," she went on; "for I have another favour to ask you." + +Again he bowed slightly. "You give my curiosity no rest, Miss Cara, and +I perceive you mean to satisfy it only in your own way. As for +the--er--incident we have been discussing, pray consider that--so far +as you are concerned--I dismiss it." He did so with a slight wave of +the hand. "You wish to ask me a favour?" + +"I do. I came to plead with you; to say a word on behalf of Eli +Tregarthen, your tenant on Saaron Island." + +The Lord Proprietor started. "Are you at the bottom of that also?" he +asked, angrily. + +Vashti's eyes opened wide in astonishment. + +"I beg your pardon?" she murmured. "I do not understand." + +"It seems to me," he caught her up, "that for a total stranger, you are +losing remarkably little time." + +"In what, sir?" she demanded, facing him fairly, with a lift of her +handsome chin. + +"In subverting my authority, ma'am; or, rather, in prompting others to +subvert it.... Though, to be sure," he went on, in sarcastic wrath, "it +may again be an accident that I happened on Eli Tregarthen less than an +hour ago, and that he used very insolent language to me in the presence +of my agent." + +"It was not only an accident," said Vashti, slowly, and with patent +sincerity; "it was one that, since I came here to urge his suit, I +would have given a great deal to prevent." She paused, and for a moment +seemed to be musing. "Must I understand, then, that you refuse to hear +a word in his favour?" + +"The man is a fool!" Sir Caesar clasped his hands behind him under his +coat-tails, and paced the room. "His insolence to me apart, he is a +complete fool! I offer him the choice of two farms--either one of them +acre for acre, worth twice the rental of Saaron.... I simply cannot +understand!" + +"No," said Vashti, with a little sigh, "you cannot understand." + +He had reached the fireplace, and wheeled round on her, his back to the +hearth and his legs a-straddle. + +"What can I not understand?" he demanded. + +"Many things." Vashti met his eyes for a moment, then turned her own to +the window and the blue waterways beyond the terrace, beyond the massed +tree-tops of the pleasure grounds. "Many things, and the Islands in +particular. You did not understand just now that a soldier, though +condemned to stand sentry in a forgotten outpost, can still be +sensitive for the honour of his service, because the root of his life +lies there. You cannot understand that the root of Eli Tregarthen's +life goes down into the soil he has tilled from childhood as his +parents tilled it. To you Garrison Hill is a tumble-down fort, and +Saaron Island a barren rock; yet you call them yours, because you have +purchased them. And, nevertheless--to do you justice--you are not one +who rates everything by its price in money. If you were, I could beg +you to take a higher rent for Saaron and leave Eli Tregarthen +undisturbed." + +He shook his head. "The man pays me a fair rent; as much as I can +conscientiously ask. I have a conscience, Miss Cara, and a sense of +responsibility. It is not good that Tregarthen lets his children run +wild there, so far from school." + +"And if, sir," she went on, "you are doing this for the children's +sake, I could promise you that there are means to educate them better +than any children on the Islands. But the difficulty does not lie with +the children. It lies in your sense of possession, which makes Saaron +Farm there"--she waved a hand--"an eyesore in the view from this +window, and simply because Eli Tregarthen has crossed your will. You +defend an instinct of selfishness that takes about five minutes to pass +into a principle with any man who buys land. You maintain the +landlord's right to ordain the lives on your estate, and command them +to be as you think best; nor does it seem to you to affect your claim +for power that we understood and drew our nature from the Islands for +years before ever you came to hear of them." + +"Radicalism, ma'am!" + +"Yes, sir. It is for the roots I plead, against your claim that the +surface gives all." + +He thrust his hands under his coat-tails again, and took a turn up and +down the room. + +"I do not affect to agree with you, Miss Cara," said he, not looking +towards her when she stood by the French window, but stretching out his +hand to the bell. "Yet, as owner of these Islands, I desire to be just. +I desire also to understand these Islanders, of whom, it appears, you +know so much more than I. And if you do me the honour to take luncheon +with me--" Here he broke off, to ring at the bell-pull. "But I warn you +I am tenacious as well as curious, and shall demand to know a little +more of my lecturer." + +He turned and stood blinking. Vashti had disappeared. The room was +empty. + +He took a step to the open window, sprang out upon the terrace, and +glanced to right and left. + +The terrace, too, was empty. He hurried to the stairway leading down +through the shrubberies. Not so much as the glimpse of a flying skirt +rewarded him. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE COMMANDANT'S CONSCIENCE + + +"The Lord Proprietor to see you, sir!" + +Archelaus, presenting himself at the door of the Commandant's office, +with a slightly flushed but inscrutable face, drew aside and flattened +himself against the door-jamb to let Sir Caesar enter. + +The Commandant closed the book in which he had been adding up accounts +which never came right, and stood up in something of a flurry. He was +dressed with more than ordinary care. The lapels and collar of his +uniform-coat had been treated to a vigorous brushing. In fact, he was +arrayed for action: to step down the hill in an hour's time, to call +upon Mr. Fossell at the Bank and draw his pay, if any should be +forthcoming. + +"Good morning, Major!" + +"Good morning, Sir Caesar." The Commandant nodded towards a chair. + +"I thank you." Sir Caesar set down his hat upon the edge of the +writing-table, drew off his gloves, tossed them into his hat, and +seated himself. "I--er--called in the first place to speak about an +unfortunate--er--incident that happened on Garrison Hill here last +Sunday." + +"Ah," said the Commandant, "so you have heard about it? I am sorry." + +"Sorry for what, sir?" + +"Sorry that anyone should have thought it worth while to carry tales to +you; but also sorry for the incident itself." + +"It appears to me, Major Vigoureux, that the incident demands some +apology." + +"I have made it." + +Sir Caesar crossed his legs and coughed to clear his throat. "I think, +my dear sir," said he, in a tone at once slightly pompous and slightly +nervous, "I really think it's time that you and I came to an +understanding; that we--er--recognised, so to speak, the situation, and +played with the cards on the table. Do you agree with me?" + +"I might," answered the Commandant, guardedly; "that is to say, if I +understood." + +"I acquit you, of course, of any active share in the incident, and I am +assured that Archelaus and Treacher were no worse than accomplices. It +appears that the real culprit was a totally different person, and," he +went on, after a glance at the Commandant's face, which betrayed +nothing, "it may save time if I tell you that she has confessed to me." + +"Excuse me, I was not proposing to make any remark." + +"But who in the world is the young person?" + +The Commandant's eyebrows arched themselves slightly. "She is a lady," +he answered, in a dry voice. "If she omitted to tell you her name, the +omission was no doubt intentional, and she has carried her confession +just so far as she intended it to go." + +"She called herself Cara; but the name tells me nothing. Who is she? I +agree with you as to her address and appearance: she is in every +respect--er--presentable. A relative, may I inquire?" + +"No." + +"A friend, then? You will pardon me? A delicate question to put, of +course." + +Again the Commandant's eyebrows went up slightly. "She was my guest for +a day or two," he answered. + +"_Was?_ Then where in the world is she staying now?" + +"If she did not tell you--" began the Commandant, but Sir Caesar +interrupted him impatiently. + +"Tell me? Devil a bit of it, and that's partly why I'm here. Vanished +like a witch, begad, while I was turning to ring the bell! And where +she went or where she came from are mysteries alike to me." + +"Why, then," the Commandant pursued, in a steady musing voice, "it +seems to follow that, even if I knew, I have not her permission to +tell." + +The Lord Proprietor uncrossed and recrossed his legs irritably. "Come, +come, Vigoureux, this will hardly do. Will it, now? I put it to you as +a man of the world. No doubt it's all innocent enough, but folks will +talk. And, after all, I'm responsible for any--er--scandal affecting +the Islands. Hey?" + +The Commandant rose with a sudden flush on his face. + +"Scandal, Sir Caesar? Oh, to be sure, I cannot understand you." + +"Tut-tut!" The Lord Proprietor smiled. "Of course, we know there's +nothing in it. A young lady--youngish, at least--and you old enough to +be her father. But, all the same, tongues will wag." + +"And they have been wagging?" The Commandant, after a short turn across +the room and back, stood over him, his hands crossed under his coat +tails. "But yours, sir, is the only one that has dared to wag in my +presence." + +"Sir!" The Lord Proprietor jumped to his feet. + +"You have put many humiliations upon me, Sir Caesar; and because they +affected me only, I have endured them. But in this you go too far." + +The Lord Proprietor, on the verge of an angry retort, checked himself, +with a short laugh. + +"I refuse to lose my temper with you," said he. "You are unreasonable. +You misconceive me as imputing scandal when, as a matter of fact, I was +trying to assure you that I rejected the imputation. For me, the +disparity in age alone----" + +The Commandant, with a wave of his hand to the door, turned away +wearily. + +"I merely thought it right to warn you," pursued Sir Caesar, taking +heart of grace as his opponent appeared to weaken, "that others may be +less charitable. And they look to me. I think--I really think--you +might consider the delicacy of my position; that I am--er--ultimately +responsible for the good name of these Islands." + +But here he paused with a start; for the Commandant had wheeled about +suddenly, and stood over him, and the Commandant's eyes were dangerous. + +"Sir Caesar"--the Commandant controlled his voice with an effort, for it +shook a little--"in the last few minutes some things have been made +plain to me which were hitherto obscure. I have wondered sometimes, +here in these forsaken barracks, at actions of yours which seemed +deliberately calculated to annoy one who--Heaven knows--started with +every wish to be friendly. Saving my own small personal dignity, of +which from indolence I have been too careless, I have reserved nothing +of my old importance in these Islands which, before you purchased them, +I had governed. Men, even the least assuming, do not forfeit all power, +all consideration, without a wrench; and I am but human. I relinquished +them, and without the help of a single kind word from you, by which the +sacrifice might at least have been mitigated. I wondered. Later, when +you heaped one small humiliation upon another, I concluded that I must +have had the misfortune to incur your personal dislike, and told +myself, after searching for the cause and finding none, that personal +dislikes are usually inexplicable. But now I see that I have been doing +you an injustice; that your affronts were not considered; that you have +all along, likely enough, been entirely unconscious of offence; that, +in short, you are as Heaven made you, and I cannot hold a quarrel with +any man's mere defects, whether congenital or of breeding. I shall not +waste time by inquiring to which of the two classes your obtuseness +should justly be assigned. It is enough that I recognise the mistake +and apologise for it. I see now that you are obtuse--that and nothing +more. But since your obtuseness wounds more than you can possibly +divine; and since in this instance it injures a lady, I shall ask you +to pay my poor quarters the last respect you owe them, and quit them +without further discussion." + +He stepped to his writing-table and struck on a small hand-bell. +Promptly on the summons Sergeant Archelaus appeared in the doorway; so +promptly, indeed, that he might have found it hard, under +cross-examination, to rebut the charge of having stood listening +outside. + +The Lord Proprietor, however, was in no condition to put a searching +question. He arose, gasping, his eyes rolling from the Commandant to +Archelaus and back. He felt for his hat like a man groping in the dark, +clutched it, and set it on his head with an experimental air, as though +it would not have entirely surprised him to find his feet in the place +of his head. + +"I suppose," he stammered, "it has occurred to you that you may pay for +this?" + +"It occurred to me," answered the Commandant, coolly and amiably, "that +you might threaten it." + +"You shall, by God!" + +The Commandant bowed. + +"You shall certainly repent this, sir." The Lord Proprietor crammed his +hat on his head. + +"May I ask you to observe that my servant is standing in the doorway?" + +Sir Caesar turned, shot a glance at Archelaus, and for an instant +appeared to be on the point of including master and man in one +denunciation. But either he thought better of it or his rage choked +him. With a final tap on the crown of his hat, to settle it firmly on +his brows, he strode past the rigid figure by the threshold and out +into the open air. + +He had never been so outraged! For fifty or a hundred yards, as he +descended the hill, his fury almost blinded him. His face was +congested; the back of his neck swollen and purple, as though apoplexy +threatened. His ears showed red as a turkey's wattles. He stumbled on +the ill-paved path. What! To be lectured thus by a man whose continued +residence on the Islands was a public scandal--a fellow who, past all +usefulness, lived on in lazy desuetude, content to take the taxpayers' +money while doing nothing in return! And the worst--the gall, the +wormwood of it--was that this despised foe had silenced him--nay, had +silenced him almost contemptuously. "But wait a bit, my fine fellow!" +swore the Lord Proprietor, blundering down the hill. "Wait until we +hear what the War Office has to say about your precious garrison; or +until, failing satisfaction there, I get a question asked in Parliament +about you!" + +Could the Lord Proprietor have looked back at this moment into the room +where sat the victorious enemy, he might have been in some measure +consoled. + +The Commandant, having dismissed Archelaus with a wave of the hand, +waited while the door closed, and dropping into the chair before his +writing-table, bowed his head upon his hands.... Oh, it is easy to talk +lightly of riches, and of the power that riches give! But in this world +it is not so easy for a man with just one penny in his pocket to stand +up against an enemy solidly backed by a banking account. He feels that +though his cause be right and his conscience clear, his position is +precarious: that the world, if it knew the truth, would regard him +almost as an imposter. The feeling may be unreasonable, the fear +cowardly; but there it is, and it had cost the Commandant all his pluck +to face the encounter out. Moreover, his conscience was not clear. + +Sir Caesar, too, had (all unwittingly) planted an arrow and left it to +rankle. "Old enough to be her father!" The Commandant shut his lips +hard upon the pain. He could not expel it: he knew it would awake again +in the watches of the night: but for the present he must ignore it. He +had a second ordeal to face. + +As he sat there for a minute or two, his face resting on his hands, his +spirit abandoned to weakness, he heard the steady ticking of the clock +on the chimney-piece behind him. He counted the strokes, and all of a +sudden they recalled him to the present. He pulled himself together, +stood up, and, reaching down a clothes-brush from its hook beside the +door, walked over to the chimney-piece and to a small mirror that stood +behind the clock. + +"Old enough to be her father." Again, as he caught sight of his face in +the glass the smart revived; but again he expressed it, and fell to +brushing his worn tunic with extreme care. It had always been his +practice to dress punctiliously before going into action, even on dark +nights in front of Sevastopol, where all niceties of dress were lost at +once in the slush of the trenches. His forage-cap received almost as +careful a brushing as his tunic: and from his cap he turned his +attention to the knees of his trousers and to his boots, one of which +was cracked, albeit not noticeably. He had half a mind to black its +edges over with pen and ink, but refrained. Somehow it suggested +imposture, and to-day he winced sensitively away from the first hint of +imposture. He must walk down-hill delicately, like Agag. To-morrow +Harvey, the Garland Town cobbler, would repair the damage with a couple +of stitches, at the cost of one penny: and the Commandant reflected +with a melancholy smile that he possessed precisely that sum. + +His toilet complete, he took a last look in the mirror to assure +himself that his face betrayed none of the anxiety eating at his heart. +It was paler than ordinary, but calm. He drew a long breath, and walked +out to the front door. At his feet the chimneys of the small town sent +up their mid-day smoke; beyond, the Atlantic twinkled with its +innumerable smile. The hour was come. As he stepped out upon the road +he cast a glance to right and left along his deserted batteries, and +answered the smile of Ocean whimsically, ruefully. If only, as an +artilleryman, he could have summoned Mr. Fossell's Bank by a dropping +shot! This business of hand-to-hand assault belonged by rights to +another branch of the service. + +Mr. Fossell stood behind the counter in conference with a junior clerk, +and the sunshine pouring through the windows--the only plate-glass +windows in Garland Town--gilded the dome of Mr. Fossell's bald head. As +the Commandant entered, Mr. Fossell looked up and nodded pleasantly, in +a neighbourly way, albeit with a touch of ironical interrogation. He +had heard gossip from his friend Pope of the doings on Garrison Hill, +and, so far as he allowed himself to be jocose, he meant his glance to +be interpreted. "Well, you are a pretty fellow! And pray what account +are you going to give of yourself?" But very different thoughts +preoccupied the Commandant, and his fears took alarm. + +"Good morning," said the Commandant, and forced a smile. "You have been +expecting me, I hope?" + +"Dear, dear!" Mr. Fossell affected surprise. "You don't tell me that +pay-day has come round again already?" This again, was a form of +pleasantry which he repeated month after month; but to-day he slightly +over-acted it. + +"The--the money is here?" stammered the Commandant. + +"My dear Major, I hope so--I sincerely hope so," Mr. Fossell answered, +with a humorous look around him. "I do most sincerely trust we may be +able to meet your demand for--let me see, fifteen-eighteen-six, is it +not?--without being forced to put up the shutters." Mr. Fossell +chuckled quietly. + +The Commandant drew a long breath. + +"Always supposing," resumed Mr. Fossell, "that the draft is in order, +as usual; on which point, to tell you the truth, I have been too busy +to satisfy myself. But the paper arrived two days ago, and is in my +office--if you will excuse me for a moment." + +He stepped towards a door at the back, panelled with frosted glass, +opened it, and disappeared into his office. The Commandant waited. +Three minutes passed. + +"Very fine weather, sir, for the time of the year," said the clerk, +blotting an entry and looking up from his ledger. + +"Eh? Oh, certainly ... yes, very fine indeed." The Commandant recalled +himself with a painful effort. + +"And the glass steady as a rock." The clerk closed a smaller book at +his elbow and replaced it in a line of similar volumes on a shelf above +the desk behind him. "I saw you out, sir, in your boat, the day before +yesterday, to the west of Saaron--fishing for bass, or so I took the +liberty of guessing." + +"For bass?... Yes, oh, most decidedly." + +"Knowing fish, the bass!" hazarded the young man, combing his +side-locks with his pen and carefully bestowing it behind his ear. "You +found the water a bit too clear, sir, I expect?" + +"So far as I remember--" began the Commandant, and paused. (What on +earth was delaying Fossell?) + +"You will excuse me, sir, but might I ask what bait you employ as a +rule?" + +The Commandant answered that for preference he used sand-eels. The +clerk replied that sand-eels took some getting; and that, if the remark +wouldn't be taken amiss, it was all very well to talk of sand-eels when +you were in a position to employ a couple of men to spend half a day in +netting them for you; but that for a young chap in his position, +sand-eels were out of the question. + +"There's the bank-hours, to begin with," he wound up, lucidly; "and, +besides, when you've caught 'em they're the most perishable bait +going." + +The Commandant incoherently promised to reserve a portion of his next +catch, and to send Archelaus with a creelful; all this with his eyes +wandering in desperation to the glass door. The young man was profuse +in thanks. + +"You will excuse my discussing sport with you, sir? Sport, they say, +puts all men on a level--though, of course, I should not dream of +claiming----" + +But at this point the glass door opened, and Mr. Fossell emerged, +briskly, holding what appeared to be a fair-sized stone. + +"How will you take it?" he asked, depositing this upon the counter. + +"I beg your pardon?" the Commandant stammered, his eyes riveted on the +stone. + +"Notes or gold?" Mr. Fossel picked the specimen up, and rubbed it +gently with his sleeve. "Now, that's a queer thing, eh? My +brother-in-law sent it to me last week, and I've been using it for a +paper-weight, not being a scientific man. But just you look into it. He +tells me there are hundreds lying about where he lives--Ogwell, the +place is, in Devonshire, just behind Newton Abbot--and that they're +called madrepores. He's a humorous fellow, too, is my brother-in-law. +You see the joke, of course?" + +"I can't say that I do, exactly," the Commandant confessed. + +"Good gracious! Fossil--Fossell: this is a fossil, you see, and I'm +called Fossell: and so he sends it to me. He has made a good deal of +fun out of my name before now, in his humorous way. Not that I mind, of +course." + +"I dare say not. Did you say that the papers were all right?" + +"The papers?... Yes, of course, the papers are all right. Will you take +it in notes or gold?" "In gold, if you please." The Commandant caught +at the edge of the counter, while his heart leapt, and the bank +premises seemed to whirl around him. + +"Fifteen-eighteen-six ... be so good as to verify it, if you please," +said Mr. Fossell, counting out the coins--the blessed coins! "But I +want you just to take a look into the thing. Looks like a piece of +coral, eh? See the delicate lines of it? And my brother-in-law tells me +it was once alive--a kind of fish--and got itself embedded in this +piece of limestone because it was too lazy to move. A lesson in +that"--Mr. Fossell wagged his head sagely--"if we choose to take it! To +be sure, it happened thousands of years ago; but there it is--and here +are we. For my part, I don't look at things humorously like my +brother-in-law. I like to find a serious moral where I can." + +The Commandant counted the coins and dropped them into his pocket. +Their weight seemed to make a man of him again. He bent and affected to +examine the madrepore. + +Mr. Fossell bent also. He was on the point of asking--in a low voice, +that the clerk might not overhear--for an explanation of Miss Gabriel's +gossip. But at this juncture a client entered, and the Commandant +escaped. He went up the hill with a new centre of gravity: so different +is a load in the pocket from a load on the heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE GUITAR AND THE CASEMENT + + +"A parcel for you, sir!" + +Sergeant Archelaus had spied the Commandant coming up the hill, and met +him on the barrack doorstep with the news. + +"A parcel?" The Commandant had walked straight from the bank to Mr. +Tregaskis' shop, and there paid his account; but he had made no +purchases. "There must be some mistake, Archelaus; I have ordered +nothing in the town." + +"From the mainland, sir." + +"God bless my soul!" + +"Yes, sir, and marked 'Fragile'; a good-sized box, but uncommon light +to handle. The steamer brought it across this morning, and I've carried +it into the office and placed hammer and chisel handy." + +"Now what in the world can this mean?" asked the Commandant, a minute +later, after studying the box and its label. He turned to Archelaus, +who had followed him into the office in a state of suppressed +excitement. "It is certainly addressed to me; and yet--It must be +half-a-dozen years, Archelaus, since anyone sent me a parcel from the +mainland." + +"There's but one way to discover," said Archelaus, picking up the +chisel. "Shall I open it, sir?" + +"No; give it to me." The Commandant took the tools from him and easily +pried open the lid, for the scantling was light, almost flimsy. Within +lay an object in an oilskin case, by the shape of it, apparently a +violin; and yet somewhat larger than a violin. + +Yes, certainly it was a musical instrument; and the Commandant had no +sooner made sure of this than with his hand on the string that tied the +wrapper, he paused. + +"It is evident, Archelaus"--his tone betrayed some +disappointment--"that this parcel belongs to Miss Cara. Having no +address of her own that could be given with safety, she has ordered it +to be sent to me." + +"Ben't you even going to open and take a look at it?" asked Archelaus, +as his master slowly replaced it in the box. + +"I think not.... Miss Cara will call for it, no doubt, since no doubt +she has been watching for the steamer's arrival." + +Archelaus withdrew, reluctantly, not without a sense of expectation +cheated. Nor, as it proved, was his grievance altogether groundless. +The Commandant stood for a minute or so in a brown study, eyeing the +box. Then, his curiosity overmastering him, he reached out and drew the +parcel forth again; turned it over in his hands, and very slowly undid +the strings, which were of green ribbon. + +The wrapper fell apart, disclosing a guitar. + +The instrument was clearly an old one, and, as clearly of considerable +value, being inlaid with tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl in delicate +arabesques that must have cost its unknown maker many months, if not +whole years, of patient labour. Its varnish, smooth and transparent as +finest glass, belonged to the same date, and had been laid on, if not +by the same hand, by one no less careful. Something more than a +craftsman's pride had surely inspired the exquisite workmanship, the +deft and joyous pattern that chased itself in and out as though smiling +at its own intricacy. A gift for the artist's mistress, perhaps? Or a +toy for some dead and gone princess?... Yet it had been played upon, +and recently. One or two of its relaxed strings showed evidences of +fraying; and the sender had tied a small packet of new strings around +the neck. + +The Commandant, after peering into its pattern for a while, held the +guitar out at arm's length; and, holding it so, broke into a short +laugh--at the thought that this thing had been sent to him. + +Yet, here it was. Undoubtedly it belonged to Vashti, and his heart +leapt at the thought that she would be coming to fetch it. For three +days he had been missing her. It seemed that she had chosen to pass out +of his life as suddenly, as waywardly, as she had invaded it; that, +crossing the threshold of Saaron Farm, she had closed its door upon him +and upon a brief episode to be remembered by him henceforth as a dream +only--a too happy dream. + + "Ah, had we never met--or, having met, + Had I been wiser or thy heart less wild!" + +He had pulled home that Sunday night, to brood alone over a half-dead +fire; and, brooding there, had surmised what the morrow made +certain--that she had taken with her yet more than she had even +brought; that even what colour, what small interest, had formerly +cheered the daily round on Garrison Hill and made it tolerable, was now +gone out of it forever. + +Well, for good or ill, this, at all events, would need to be endured +but a little while longer. His discharge was in sight. He had posted +his letter. + +He did not tell himself that but for Vashti it had never been written. +Or, if this crossed his mind, it suggested no more than gratitude. +Quite unwittingly she had helped him play the man. He had done the +right thing, let follow what might. + +He could not force his mind upon possible consequences, to face them or +to fret over them. Between this present hour and then, one thought, +like a bright angel, stood in the way. Vashti was coming! + +Ah, but when? Would she come openly, by day, as she had invaded +Inniscaw?... He spent the afternoon in his office, sorting out useless +correspondence, clearing desks, drawers, pigeon-holes of the +accumulations of years, unconsciously preparing for the day of his +discharge. It kept his thoughts employed, and he worked hard--reading +through the dusty papers, tearing them up, consigning some to the +waste-paper basket others to the fire, which by-and-by grew sullen +under its task. Twilight fell.... She would come, then, after dusk, and +secretly--mooring her boat in the hiding-place under the Keg of Butter +Battery, away from inquisitive eyes. At half-past five Archelaus +brought him his tea. At six, having washed and refreshed himself, the +Commandant fell to work again more doggedly. Only now and again he +broke off for a few moments to listen. But Vashti did not come. + +He worked until half-past nine. He heard the clock strike the half-hour +from the chimney-piece, and looked up almost in dismay. It was certain +now that she would not come. Of a sudden, as though to hide from him +the full measure of his disappointment, as he had been hiding from +himself the full eagerness of his hopes, a loathing took him--a savage +scorn of his useless labour. He stared at his grimed hands with a +shiver of disgust, and, rising impatiently, swept together the +fragments of paper strewn about the floor, tossed them upon the dying +fire, and went off to his room for another wash. + +She would not come; and there remained yet an hour between him and his +usual bed-time. Returning to his office, he met Archelaus on the +stairs. + +"Going to bed, eh?" asked the Commandant. + +"Ay, sir," Archelaus answered, and paused for that remark on the +weather which, in the Islands, always goes with "Good morning" or "Good +night." "Glass don't vary very much, and wind don't vary, though +seemin' to me it's risin' a little. Still in the nor'west it is; and +here ends another day." + +The Commandant looked at him sharply, but passed downstairs with no +more than a "Good night." So Archelaus, too, was feeling life to be +empty?... Archelaus had bewailed the past before now, and the vanished +glories of the garrison, but never the tedium of his present lot. + +The Commandant, on re-entering his office, did a very unusual thing. It +has been said that he could no longer afford himself tobacco. But an +old briar pipe lay on the chimney-piece among a litter of notes and +memoranda that had escaped the afternoon's holocaust. He took it up +wistfully, and, searching in a jar, at the end of the shelf, found a +few crumbs of tobacco. Scraped together with care, they all but filled +the bowl. He lit the dry stuff from a spill--the last scrap of paper to +be sacrificed--and sank, puffing, into his worn arm-chair. + +It was in his mind to map out his domestic expenditure for the coming +month; for the settlement with Mr. Tregaskis had made a desperate +inroad upon his funds in hand, and he gravely doubted that even with +the severest pinching he would be able to remit the usual allowance to +his sister-in-law. The question had to be faced ... he was not afraid +of it ... and yet his thoughts shirked it and wandered away, despite +all effort to rally them. "Old enough to be her father...." He had +foreseen that these words would awake to torment him; but he was not +prepared for the insistency with which the pain stirred, now when long +toil should have deadened it--now when, as the clock told him that his +hopes for to-day were vain, he realised how fondly all the while he had +been building on them. + +"Old enough to be her father."--For distraction from the maddening +refrain he rose up, drew the guitar again from its box, unwrapped it, +and took it back to his chair for another examination. He noticed the +wrapper as he laid it aside. It was new; the material new, the +stitching new. She had sent for the instrument with a purpose, and the +oilskin case had been made with a purpose.... How went the old song?-- + + "Were I but young for thee, as I haz been, + We should have been gallopin' down in your green. + And linkin' it owre the lily-white lea; + And ah, gin I were but young for thee!" + +Of a sudden he sat up stiffly, at the sound of a tap-tap on the +window-pane behind him. + +Yes, decidedly the sound came from the window. The wind--as Archelaus +had said--was rising; but this was no wind. Someone stood outside there +in the darkness. He sprang up, stepped to the casement and threw it +open. For a moment his eyes distinguished nothing. He peered again and +drew back a little as a figure stepped close to the sill, out of the +night. + +"You!" + +"Who else?" answered Vashti, with a little laugh. "Give me your hand, +please." He stretched it out obediently, and she took it and clambered +in over the sill. + +"It is cold outside," she announced, looking around her with something +between a shiver and a deliberate shake of her cloak. It was the same +furred cloak in which she had come ashore from the _Milo_. Spray clung +to it; and there was spray, too, on her hair. It shone in the +lamplight. + +"The wind has been getting up ever since sundown," she announced. "I +have had a pretty stiff crossing; but the boat is all right, under the +Keg of Butter." Then, as he still stared at her, "You don't keep too +warm a fire, my friend." + +"I had given you up, and was getting ready for bed." + +"Then you expected me? The guitar has come?" + +Before he could answer she had caught sight of it, and picking it up +from the arm-chair where the Commandant had dropped it, settled herself +and laid the instrument across her lap. + +"Also," she went on, throwing back her cloak, while she examined and +tightened the strings, "I will confess that your guest is hungry." She +looked up with a laugh. "In fact I came not only to fetch my guitar, +but to sup with you and tell you of my doings." + +The Commandant turned to the door. His face had suddenly grown gray and +desperate. + +"Ah, yes--supper, to be sure!" he said, and strode from the room. + +As the latch fell behind him, Vashti glanced over her shoulder, put the +guitar aside, and arose to stir the fire. The poker plunged into a heap +of flaked ashes. "Paper? But the whole grate is choked with it. And, +what is more, the whole room smells of burnt paper." + +She turned about, and, with her back to the hearth, surveyed the room +suspiciously. Her gaze fell upon the waste-paper basket, heaped high +and brimming over with torn documents. This puzzled her again, and her +brow contracted in a frown. But just then she caught the sound of the +Commandant's footsteps returning along the flagged passage, and bent +anew over the fire. + +The Commandant appeared in the doorway with a plate of ship's biscuit +in his hand, and on his face a flush of extreme embarrassment. + +"Do you know, I really am ashamed of myself," he began with a stammer, +holding out the plate. "But Archelaus has gone to bed, and--and this is +all I can find." + +"Capital!" she answered gaily. "Let us break into the back premises and +forage. After my burglarious entry that will just suit my mood." + +"I'm afraid--" he began, and hesitated. "I am very much afraid--" There +was unmistakable trouble in his voice, and again he came to a halt. + +Vashti straightened herself up. Her eyes were on him as he set the +plate down on the table, but he avoided them, attempting a small forced +laugh. The laugh was a dead failure. Silence followed it, and in the +silence he felt horribly aware that she was grasping the truth--the +humiliating truth; that moment by moment the scales were falling from +her eyes that still persistently sought his. + +The silence was broken by the noise of a poker falling against the +fender. He started, met her gaze for a moment, and again averted his. + +"You don't mean to say----" + +Her voice trailed off, in pitiful surmise. Silence again; and in the +silence he heard her sink back into the arm chair--and knew no more +until, at the sound of one strangling sob, terrible to hear, he found +himself standing at the arm of her chair and bending over her. + +"My dear!" He used the familiar Island speech. "My dear, you must +not--please!" + +"And I have been living on you, ruining you!" + +"My dear ... it is all paid for. It was paid for to-day. If ever a man +was glad of his guest, I am he." + +But she bent her head over the arm of the chair, sobbing silently. He +saw the heave of her shoulders, and it afflicted him beyond words. But, +though he longed, he dared not put out a hand to comfort her. + +"You mistake--yes, you mistake.... It has been nothing.... I was only +too glad," he kept stammering weakly. + +She pulled herself together and sat upright. A moment her tear-stained +eyes met his, then turned to the fire, which had begun to dance again +on its small heap of coals. + +"Now I see," said she, resting an elbow on the arm of the chair and so +supporting her chin, while she stared resolutely into the blaze. She +had resumed command of her voice. "Ah, pardon me, now I understand many +things that puzzled me at first.... I--I am not a fool in money +matters." She hesitated. + +"I know you are not," he assured her gently. "And that, if you will +understand, increased the small difficulty." + +"Yes, I understand. But somehow--it was a long time since I had been +acquainted with--with----" + +"Want," he suggested. "Since you know the worst, do not hurt me more +than you are obliged." + +"God knows," she said, after an interval of musing, "I would hurt you +last of all living men. Will you be kind to me, and trust me?" + +"On conditions." + +"Yes?" She glanced up with a strange eagerness in her eyes. "What +conditions?" + +"That you do not pity me at all; that you believe I have suffered +nothing, or only such pain as has edged the joy of serving you." + +She looked away and into the fire. "You make me very proud," she said. +"Yes. I can easily grant your conditions. I could not pity a man who +practised so noble a courtesy." + +The Commandant shook his head with a whimsical smile. "My dear," he +answered, "it's undeniably pleasant to stand well in your opinion, but +I am not used to compliments, and you run some risk of making me a vain +fellow. You asked me to trust you. With what?" + +"With the reason why you are poor." + +"That," said he, "can be very simply told," and, briefly, in the +simplest possible style, he told her of his brother's death, and how +his sister-in-law and her family had been left in destitution. "You +see," he wound up, "it's just an ordinary sad little tale. Cases of +that kind happen daily, all the world over. One must be thankful when +they happen within reach of help." + +"Is your sister-in-law thankful?" asked Vashti, sharply. "But there!" +she added, as he stared at her obviously at a loss to find the question +relevant. "You are quite right. It really does not matter two pins +whether she is thankful or not." She turned her eyes to the fire again +and sat musing. "But I am glad to have heard the story," she went on +after a while. "It explains--oh, many things! I have been blind, +inconsiderate; but I am seeing light at last. Do you know, my friend, +that at first I found a great change in you?" + +"Why--bless me!--you had only seen me once before in your life, and +then for two minutes!" + +"Listen, please, and don't interrupt. I found a great change in you, +and the reason of it seemed to lie all on the surface. You had brought +ambitions to the Islands, but you had forgotten them. You kept your +kindness, your good nature, but you had forgotten all purpose in life. +In all, except a few personal habits, you were neglecting yourself; and +this neglect came of your being content to live purposeless in this +forgotten hole, and draw your pay without asking questions. Forgive me, +but I seemed to see all this, and it drove me half wild." + +He bowed his head. "I know it did," he answered very slowly, "and that +is how you came to save me." + +"Is--is this another story?" she asked, after eyeing him a moment or +two in bewilderment. + +"If you will listen to it." He drew his writing chair over to the +fireside, and then, facing her across the hearth he told her the second +story as simply as he had told the first, but more nervously, leaning +forward with his elbows on his knees, now and again spreading out his +hands to the fire on which he kept his eyes bent during most of the +recital. Vashti, too, leaned forward, intent on his face. One hand +gripped the arm of her chair--so tightly that its pressure drove the +blood from the finger tips, while the wonder in her eyes changed to +something like awe. "And so," the commandant concluded, "the letter has +gone. I posted it to-day." + +"What will happen?" + +"I really cannot tell." Without lifting his gaze from the fire he shook +his head dubiously. "But at the worst, the girls are grown into women +now. They have been excellently well educated--their mother saw to that +and made a great point of it from the first--and by this time they +should be able to help, if not support her entirely." + +"Man! Man! Will you drive me mad?" + +Vashti sprang from the chair. + +"I have been unjust. I have been worse than a fool!" She flung back her +cloak, and, clasping her hands behind her, man-fashion, fell to pacing +the room to and fro. The Commandant stood and stared. Something in her +voice puzzled him completely. In its tone, though she accused herself, +there vibrated a low note of triumph. She was genuinely +remorseful--why, he could not guess. Yet, when she halted before him, +he saw that her eyes were glad as well as dim. She held out a hand. + +"Forgive me, my friend!" + +"Do you know," stammered the Commandant, as he took it, "I should +esteem it a favour to be told whether I am standing on my head or my +heels!" + +How long he held her hand he was never afterwards able to tell; for at +its electric touch the room began to swim around him. But this could +not have lasted for long; because, as he looked into her eyes, still +seeking an explanation, she broke off the half-hysterical laugh that +answered him, and pulled her hand away sharply at a sound behind them. + +Someone was throwing gravel against the window. + +"Commandant!" a voice hailed from the darkness without. + +For an instant the two stood as if petrified. Then with a second glance +at the window, to make sure that the curtain was drawn, Vashti tip-toed +swiftly to the door, catching up the guitar on her way. + +"Hi! Commandant! Are you waking or sleeping in there?" + +The Commandant stepped to the curtain. Vashti opened the door and +slipped out into the passage. The door closed upon her as he pulled the +curtain aside for a second time that night and opened the casement. + +"Who's there?" + +"So you _are_ awake?" answered the voice of Mr. Rogers. "May I come +in?" And, silence being apparently taken for consent, a foot and leg +followed the voice across the window-sill. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +SUSPICIONS + + +The foot and leg were followed by Mr. Rogers' entire person, and Mr. +Rogers, having thus made good his entrance, stood blinking, with an +apologetic laugh. "You'll excuse me--but I took it for granted the door +was barred, and seeing a glimmer of light in the window here----" + +"Anything wrong?" asked the Commandant. + +"Nothing's wrong, I hope"--Mr. Rogers stepped over to the warm fire. +"But something's queer." He fished out a pipe from the pocket of his +thick pilot coat, filled it, lit up, and sank puffing into the +arm-chair from which, a minute ago, Vashti had snatched up her guitar. +"Hullo!" he exclaimed, as his eyes fell upon the empty packing-case. +"You don't mean to tell me that you've been smuggling?" + +The Commandant shook his head and laughed, albeit with some confusion. +"The steamer brought it this morning. I assure you it held nothing +contraband.... But I hope that little game is not starting afresh in +the Islands? It gave us a deal of trouble in the old days; and there +was quite an outbreak of it, as I remember, some three or four years +before you came to us. Old Penkivel"--this was Mr. Rogers' +predecessor--"used to declare that it turned his hair gray." + +"He told me something beside, on the morning he sailed for the +mainland; which was that but for the help you gave him as Governor he +could never have grappled with it. Maybe this was sticking in my head +just now when I started to walk up here and consult you." + +"Well, and what is the matter?" + +"Oh, a trifle.... Do you happen to know Tregarthen, the fellow that +farms Saaron Island?" + +The Commandant started. + +"Eli Tregarthen? Yes, certainly ... that is to say, as I know pretty +well everybody in the Islands." + +"What sort of a fellow?" + +"Quiet; steady; works on his farm like a horse, week in and week out; +never speaks out of his turn, and says little enough when his turn +comes." + +"That sort is often the deepest," observed Mr. Rogers sententiously, +and puffed. "And Saaron Island there, close by the Roads, lies very +handy for a little illicit work." + +"You are right, so far," the Commandant admitted; "and history bears +you out. In the old kelp-making days, when half-a-dozen families lived +on it, Saaron gave more trouble than any two islands of its size." + +"It's none the less handy for being deserted." Mr. Rogers drew out a +penknife and meditatively loosened the tobacco in his pipe. + +"Handier. But you are wrong in suspecting Tregarthen; that is, unless +you have good tangible evidence." + +"I don't say that it amounts to much, but it's tangible. In fact, his +boat is lying here, just now, close under the Keg of Butter." + +The Commandant turned on his heel and took a pace or two towards the +window, to hide his perturbation and give himself time to consider.... +Vashti's boat! And Vashti on the premises at this moment! What was to +be done? How on earth could he get her away? + +"You discovered this yourself?" he found himself asking. + +"No; I happened to be in the Watch House with the chief boatman +checking the store-sheets, when Beesley, whose watch it is, came in and +reported. I see what you're driving at. Your own boat is lying under +the Keg of Butter, as everybody knows, and you suggest that I am duffer +enough to mistake her in the darkness for a boat at least two-foot +longer." + +Mr. Rogers laughed good-naturedly. + +"But the answer is," he went on, "that Beesley found two boats lying +there; and Beesley, who knows every craft in the Islands, swears that +the one belongs to you no more certainly than the other to Farmer +Tregarthen. Moreover, she was moored on a shore line, and we pulled her +in and examined her. Sure enough we found name and owner's name cut on +her transom--'Two Sisters: E. Tregarthen.' Now, what d'you make of it?" + +"Very little," answered the Commandant, recovering himself; "and that +little in all likelihood quite innocent. Someone, we'll say, wishes to +cross over from Saaron to St. Lide's this evening--on any simple +errand, say to fetch a parcel from the steamer. Why shouldn't that +someone, knowing the Keg of Butter to be good shelter with plenty of +water at all tides, have landed and left the boat there?" + +Mr. Rogers shook his head. "Why there, and not at the pier? The pier +lies almost a mile nearer, and there's a fair wind--or almost a fair +one--for returning; while from the Keg of Butter no one can fetch +Saaron under a couple of tacks. That's my first point. Secondly, if Eli +Tregarthen has honest business here, whether with the steamer to fetch +a parcel (parcels must be running in your head to-night), or in the +town to fetch a doctor, the pier is obviously his landing-place. Why, +there isn't a house in the Island, barring these Barracks, that doesn't +stand half-a-mile nearer the pier; not to mention that landing at the +Keg of Butter involves a perfectly unnecessary climb up one side of +Garrison Hill and down the other. Lastly, my dear sir, look at the +time! Close on eleven o'clock, and all Garland Town in their beds. +Again, I ask what honest business can Eli Tregarthen have here at such +an hour?" + +The Commandant felt himself cornered. An insane hope crossed his mind +that, while the Lieutenant sat talking, Vashti had contrived to slip +out of the house and down to the shore. It was followed by a saner one, +that she had done nothing of the sort; for, to a certainty, the boat +would be guarded. + +"You have taken precautions?" he asked, and felt himself flushing at +the dishonesty of the question. + +"I have posted Beesley in charge, and sent the chief boatman off to the +pier-head to keep a close watch on the steamer. She sails at +seven-thirty to-morrow, and though I never heard a hint against her +skipper, it's only right to be careful. I've amused myself before now, +planning imaginary frauds on the revenue; and if anyone cares to risk +opening up that game afresh, the Islands still give him a-plenty of +openings." + +"Yes, yes," agreed the Commandant, and checked a groan. He had thought +of warning Vashti to slip down to the quay and borrow a boat there +without asking leave. Some explanation might be trumped up on the +morrow--as that the wind was foul for returning from the Keg of Butter. +No one would accuse Eli Tregarthen of borrowing a boat with intent to +steal: his taking it would be no more than a neighbourly liberty. + +But, with the chief boatman watching the pier-head, she would be +discovered to a certainty. + +The Commandant's last hope was gone. + +Just as he realised this, to his utter astonishment, he heard the voice +of Archelaus grumbling outside in the passage. And Archelaus had gone +to rest an hour ago! + +"Pretty time of night this, to come breaking a man's rest!" growled the +voice of Archelaus, audibly, and not without viciousness, as though he +meant it to be heard. + +"Good Lord!" exclaimed Mr. Rogers. "You don't tell me we've roused the +old fellow out of bed? And I reckoned I was making no more noise than a +mouse!" + +"He may have heard you throw that gravel against the pane." The +Commandant took a step towards the door, but halted irresolutely. + +"Then he's a light sleeper," commented Mr. Rogers, "and an even more +dilatory dresser. Why, good heavens!"--the Lieutenant started up from +his chair--"he's undoing the bolts! Somebody's at the front door: one +of my men to report, I'll bet a fiver!" + +He would have rushed out into the passage, but the Commandant caught +him by the arm. + +"No need to hurry, my friend! Whoever it is, Archelaus will bring +word." + +Many hasty surmises whirled together in the Commandant's brain--the +first, and hastiest, that Vashti, unable to make her escape, had +aroused Archelaus, and that Archelaus was unbarring the door for her on +the pretence of hearing a knock. Even so, she would be caught as soon +as she reached the shore. Still, occasion might be snatched to send +Archelaus after her to warn her; she might hide for the night at the +Castle under Mrs. Treacher's friendly wing. The instant need was to +hold back the Lieutenant from discovering her in the passage, and to +the Lieutenant's arm our Commandant clung. + +"My good sir," expostulated Mr. Rogers, "it _must_ be one of my men. +Who else, at this hour?" + +He fell back a step as the door opened. + +"A person to see you, sir; from Saaron!" announced Archelaus. "Shall I +show her in?" + +Before either could answer, Vashti herself stood on the threshold. + +Of the two men, the Lieutenant excusably showed the blankest +astonishment. But the Commandant had to catch at the rail of a chair. +Vashti had discarded her cloak of furs, and faced him now in such garb +as is worn by the poorest in the Islands: a short gown of hodden gray, +coarse-knitted stockings, and stout shoes. Across her shoulder, for a +"turn-over," she wore a faded shawl of Tartan pattern. (The Commandant +recognised it for a surplus one which Mrs. Treacher kept in the +Barracks kitchen, to wear "against the draughts" on occasions when she +helped Archelaus with the cooking.) But most wonderful of all was her +hair. By some swift art the heavy coil had been drawn into two flat +bands, brought low over the forehead, and carried back over the ears in +a fashion almost slatternly. By no art could Vashti conceal that she +was beautiful. She was also too wise to attempt it. But, for the rest, +she had transformed herself. + +"If you please, sir," she began timidly, with an Island curtsey, and +paused as if uncertain, at sight of Mr. Rogers, whether to hold her +ground or to flee: "If you please, sir, I be that frightened!" + +Accent, intonation--both were perfect, of the true Island speech, that +delicate incommunicable sing-song. The Commandant's eyes grew rounder +yet with amazement, and Vashti--afraid, perhaps, of meeting them--flung +a glance of mock terror behind her, as though she had caught the +footfall of a pursuer. + +"But--but who in the world--" stammered Mr. Rogers. + +"If you please, gentlemen"--she turned, with another quick curtsey--"my +name is Vazzy Cara, and I come from Saaron. I live there with my +sister, Ruth, that is wife to Eli Tregarthen----" + +Mr. Rogers gave a low whistle. + +"It's true, sir--true as I stand here! The Governor knows me, and will +bear me out--won't you, sir?... A terrible way from Saaron it is, and +at this hour of night.... But ask the Governor, sir, and he'll tell you +I am a respectable woman; sister to Mrs. Tregarthen, and lives with her +to look after the children." + +"Yes, yes," interrupted the Lieutenant, losing patience. "But the +question is, how you came here, and why?" + +Vashti stood panting. By the heave of her bosom it was plain to see +that either her fears still possessed her or that she had been running +for dear life, and must catch breath. Her hand went up to her bodice. + +"I came, sir, to see the Governor--all the way across from Saaron. +Eli--that's my sister's husband--is in terrible trouble over there, +because the Lord Proprietor means to turn him off his farm. Yes, +say!"--she drew a letter from her bodice, and went on with rising +voice. "Turn us out he will, though the Tregarthens have lived on the +Island ever since Saaron was Saaron. The Governor, here, in his time +would never have done such wickedness, nor suffered it, being a just +gentleman and merciful, as all the folk can bear witness. And so, +thinks I, he may be able to help us yet; and if able he will be +willing." + +She held out the letter towards the Commandant, who took it and turned +it over vaguely between his fingers, not opening it, nor daring to meet +her eyes. + +"And so," continued Mr. Rogers, "you took your brother-in-law's +boat--without his knowledge----" + +Vashti nodded. "Yes, sir; I took it unbeknowns. He's a very quiet man, +is my sister's husband, and don't like it that other folks, 'specially +women, should mix themselves up in his affairs." + +"Then he's a sensible fellow as well as a quiet one." + +"Yes, sir." Vashti took the correction meekly, with downcast look. + +"And still less, I'll bet," Mr. Rogers continued, "would he be pleased +to know that one of his woman-kind was straying across to St. Lide's at +this hour of the night." + +"Oh, sir," she caught him up, "but that's where I've been hindered! +For, wishing to have word with the Governor, and no one the wiser, I +brought the boat to shore down yonder, under the Keg of Butter, and +there the coastguards have found it, and are waiting by it to catch me, +and what answer to give them I can't think, nor how to account for +myself. Seemin' to me they're everywhere, and all around me in the +darkness!" + +Mr. Rogers broke into a laugh. "It appears, Commandant, that I have +found a mare's nest; always supposing that this tale is a true one. +You'll excuse me, ma'am, but service is service." + +The Commandant had turned to his writing-table, and was holding the +letter under the lamplight. + +"I can go bail for Miss Cara," he answered, but without looking up. +"Undoubtedly she comes from Saaron, and is Mrs. Tregarthen's sister. +Also this letter, though we cannot deal with it to-night, is addressed +to Eli Tregarthen in the Lord Proprietor's handwriting. It gives him +formal notice to quit and deliver up his farm. I can give no hope of +help--no hope at all." Here his voice trembled slightly. "The most I +can promise is to consider it." + +"And the best we can do for the moment is to escort Miss Cara down to +her boat and get one of my men to sail her back to her island." + +"I incline to think," said the Commandant, after a pause, "that Miss +Cara--from what I have seen of her skill--is competent to sail back +alone. If not, I would suggest that you or I escort her, towing my boat +across for the return journey. In any case, if we can get your men out +of the way, it would be wiser, perhaps, for her sake." + +"And for mine, begad!" agreed the Lieutenant! "Else I shall have every +man of them grinning behind my back for a month of Sundays. 'Rogers' +smuggling-chase'--I can hear the villains chuckling over it.... But I +say, though"--he turned on Vashti admiringly--"you'll want an escort +across, eh? You don't tell me you're man enough to handle that boat +alone?" + +"If you please, sir." + +"The Channel's none too easy on a dark night." + +Vashti smiled. "My father taught it to me, sir, before I was ten years +old. I could sail it blindfold." + +"And you have the nerve?... And yet just now, the dark frightened you, +and you ran for your life!" + +"No," said Vashti, demurely, "I just stood still." + +"Well, come along! And when you get to the Battery, you'll have to +stand still again, and wait until I report the coast clear. Commandant, +will you give Miss Cara your arm, while I run ahead." + +They stepped out together into the night. Vashti neither took the +Commandant's arm nor spoke to him, even after Mr. Rogers had passed +ahead out of earshot. Only when the pair had reached the dark battery, +and were waiting there on the dark platform above the sea, she turned +to him and asked-- + +"Shall you be busy to-morrow?" + +"I am never busy." + +"I have left my cloak and the guitar with Archelaus." + +"I will bring them to Saaron to-morrow." + +She turned away and leaned over the low parapet to the left. Some way +below a footfall sounded, on the track leading to the watch-house---the +footfall of Beesley. A stone, dislodged by his tread, trickled and fell +over the cliff into night. + + * * * * * + +"Curious!" remarked Mr. Rogers, confidentially, to the Commandant, +twenty minutes later, as they stood and peered into the darkness after +Vashti's boat. "Here I am, stuck on these Islands (so to speak) with a +telescope held to my eye. Of the folk upon 'em I see next to nothing. +Now, I don't know if you took note of it, but that's a remarkable +looking woman; a remarkably handsome woman; and I've spent these years +here without guessing that such a woman existed hereabouts. Eh?" Mr. +Rogers relapsed into mild facetiousness. "If you were a younger man, +Commandant, I could hatch up a pretty story out of to-night's +doings--and if I didn't mind a laugh against myself." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +PIPER'S HOLE + + +Annet, Linnet, and Matthew Henry sat side by side on the granite roller +by the gate and watched their friend Jan eat his mid-morning snack--or +"mungey," as it is called in the Islands. It consisted, as a rule, of a +crust of bread, but Jan had supplemented it to-day with a turnip, which +he cut into slices with his pocket-knife. He had been pulling turnips +since six o'clock. "And I reckon this'll be the last time of askin'," +he commented, letting his eyes wander over the field as he seated +himself on a shaft of the cart, which had been brought to await the +loading. + +The children knew that they would soon be quitting Saaron, and that the +prospect distressed their father and mother. They had discussed it, and +agreed together that it was a great shame to be turned out of their +home, and that the Lord Proprietor must be a hard-hearted tyrant; but +secretly they looked forward to the change with a good deal of +excitement, not being of an age to fathom the troubles of grown-up +folk. After all, Brefar lay close at hand and was familiar. Brefar was +populous, and across there they would find many playmates. Brefar, too, +held out great promise of adventure after sea-birds' eggs and +expeditions of discovery; and if ever the home-sickness came upon them +they would cross the sands at low-water and revisit the old haunts and +the deserted house. All these consolations, however, they kept to +themselves. It would never do to abandon the family grievance merely +because it presented a bright side. They felt, as older folks have been +known to feel, that a sense of injury carries with it a sense of +importance. + +"I wonder," said Linnet, severely, "that you can have the heart to talk +about it, Jan." + +"Jan has no feelings about leaving Saaron," said Annet, more in sorrow +than in anger. "Why should he--coming from the mainland?" + +"But Jan was born on the Islands," Matthew Henry objected; "and that +will be a long time ago." + +"Silly! As if you could belong to the Islands by being born here! Why, +to belong to them, your father and mother must have been Islanders, and +your grandfathers and grandmothers, and right back into the greats and +great-greats. And then you never want to go away or live anywhere else +in the world." + +Matthew Henry pursed up his small mouth dubiously. He himself had +sometimes wished to live in the wilds of America, or on a South Sea +Island; even to visit Australia and have a try at walking upside down. +There must be a flaw in Annet's argument somewhere. + +"But if Jan comes from the mainland--" he began. + +"Cornwall," said Jan, tranquilly, his mouth full of raw turnip. + +"Then you ought to want to go back to it." + +"I mean to, one of these fine days." + +"I shouldn't put it off too long, if I were you," advised Linnet, +candidly. "You're getting up in years, and the next thing you'll be +dead." + +"But didn't your father ever want to go back?" asked Matthew Henry, +sticking to his point. + +"No fear." + +"Why?" + +"Because, if he'd showed his face back in Cornwall, they'd have hanged +him; that's all." + +"Oh!" exclaimed the three, almost simultaneously, and sat for a moment +or two gazing on Jan in awed silence. + +"But why should they want to hang your father?" asked Annet. + +Jan sliced his bread with an air of noble indifference. "Eh? Why, +indeed? He used to say 'twas for being too frolicsome. He never done no +wrong--not what you might call wrong: or so he maintained, an' 'twasn't +for me to disbelieve 'en. Was it, now?" + +"You'll tell us about it, Jan dear?" coaxed Annet. + +"There's no particular story in it." (The children put this aside; it +was Jan's formula for starting a tale.) "My father, in his young days, +lived at a place in Cornwall called Luxulyan, and arned his wages as a +tinner at a stream-work----" + +"What is a stream-work?" asked Matthew Henry. + +"A stream-work is a moor beside a river, where the mud is full of ore, +washed down from the country above--sometimes from the old mines. The +streamers dig this mud up and wash it through sieves, and so they get +the tin. There was enough of it, my father said, in Luxulyan Couse to +keep a captain and twelve men in good wages and pay for a feast once a +year at the Rising Sun Public House. The supper took place some time in +the week before Christmas, and they called it Pie-crust Night, though I +can't tell you why. Well, one Pie-crust Night, after this yearly +supper--the most enjoyable he had ever known--my father left the Rising +Sun towards midnight, and started to walk to his home in Luxulyan +Churchtown. He had a fair dollop of beer inside of him, but nothing (as +he ever maintained), to excuse what followed, and he got so far as +Tregarden Down without accident. Now, this Tregarden Down, as he always +described it to me, is a lonesome place given over to brackenfern and +strewn about with great granite boulders, and on one of these boulders +my father sat down, because the night was clear and a fancy had come +into his head to count the stars. He sat there staring up and counting +till he reached twenty score, and with that he felt he was getting a +crick in the back of his neck, and brought his eyes down to earth +again. It seemed to him that, even in the dark, a change had come over +the down since he'd been sittin' there, and the whole lie of the ground +had a furrin look. Hows'ever, he hadn't much time to puzzle about this, +for lo and behold! as he stared about him, what should he see under the +lew of the next rock but a party of little people, none of 'em more +than a thumb high, dancing in a ring upon the turf! They broke off and +laughed as soon as my father caught sight of 'em; and, says one little +whipper-snapper, stepping forward and pulling off his cap with a bow, +'Good evening, my man!' 'Sir to you!' says my father. 'There's a good +liquor at the Rising Sun,' says the little man. 'None better,' says my +father. 'I know by a deal better,' says the little man. 'Would you like +to taste it?' 'Would I not?' says my father. 'Well, then,' says the +little man, 'there's a shipfull of wine gone ashore early this night on +Par Sands, and maybe the Par folk haven't had time yet to clear the +cargo. What d'ee say to _Ho! and away for Par Beach!_ Eh?' 'With all +the pleasure in life,' says my father, thinkin' it a joke; so '_Ho! and +away for Par Beach!_' he calls out, mimicking the little man. The words +weren't scarcely out of his mouth before a wind seemed to catch him up, +though gently, from his seat on the boulder, and in two twinklings he +was standin' on Par Sands. There was a strong sea running, and out +beyond the edge of the tide my father spied a ship breaking up. But if +she broke up fast, her cargo was meltin' faster, for a whole crowd of +folk had gathered on the sands, and were rolling the casks of wine up +from the water and carting them away for dear life. My father and the +little people couldn't much as ever lay hands on a solitary one, and, +what was worse they hadn't but fairly broached it before a cry went up +that the Preventive men were coming. Sure enough, my father, pricking +up his ears, could hear horses gallopin' down along the road above the +sands. 'Dear, dear!' says the little man, 'this is a most annoyin' +thing to happen! But luckily I know a place where there's better liquor +still, and no risk of bein' interrupted. So _Ho! and away for Squire +Tremayne's cellar!_' + +"'_Ho! and away for Squire Tremayne's cellar!_' called out my father; +and the next thing he knew he found himself in the cellar of Squire +Tremayne's great house at Heligan, knocking around with the small +people among casks of wine and barrels of beer galore. To do him +justice, he never pretended he didn't make use of the occasion. In +fact, he fuddled himself so that when the little gentleman called out +'_Ho! and away!_ for the next randivoo' (whatever that might ha' been), +he missed to take up the catchword, bein' asleep belike. So there the +piskies left him asleep, with his head in a waste saucer and his mouth +under the drip of a spigot; and there the butler found him the next +morning, knocking his shins among the butts and barrels in the +darkness, and calling out to know what the dickens had taken Tregarden +Down and the rocks o't, that they grew so pesky close together. The +butler haled him upstairs to the Squire, and the Squire heard his +story, and not only said he didn't believe a word o't, but (bein' a +magistrate) packed him off to Bodmin Jail for burglary. I don't blame +the man altogether," said Jan, reflectively; "for, come to think of it, +my father's account of himself lay a bit off the ordinary run, and +belike he wasn't in any condition to put it clearly. + +"At any rate, to jail he went, and from jail he was delivered up to the +Judges at Assize, and the Judges sentenced my poor father to death, +which was the punishment for burglary in those times, and, for all I +know, it may be the same on the mainland to this day. + +"The morning came when he was to be put out of the world; and, as I +needn't tell you, it gathered a great crowd together, to have a look at +the last of a man that had so little sense of wickedness as to take +liberties with a gentleman's wine and spirits. There my poor father +stood under the gallows-tree with none to befriend 'en, when all of a +sudden he heard a shouting up the street, and down along it, through +the crowd, came a strange little lady, holding up her hand and a paper +in it. The folk opened way respectful-like, seein' by the better-most +air of her that she belonged to one of the gentry, and along she came +to the scaffold. 'Good mornin', ma'am, and what can I do for you?' says +the Sheriff, steppin' forward, with a lift of his hat. He held out a +hand for the paper; but the little lady turns to my father, and pipes +out in a little voice, very clear and sweet, '_Ho! and away for the +Islands!_' Glad enough was my father to hear the sound of it. '_Ho! and +away for the Islands!_' he answers, pat; and in two twinks he and the +little lady were off in the sky like a puff of smoke, and the crowd +left miles below. The next thing he knew he was sittin' on a rock, over +yonder in Inniscaw, by the mouth of Piper's Hole, and starin' at the +sea. So he picks himself together and walks up to North Inniscaw Farm +(as 'twas called in those days), and there he took service and married +and lived steady ever after. Leastways----" + +"Leastways," said a voice at the gate, "he gave over drinking except +when his master ran a cargo of brandy, and he never gave his wife +trouble but once, when he took home a mermaid and made the good soul +jealous." + +"Aunt Vazzy!" cried the children. "Why, how long have you been standin' +there?" + +"Long enough to hear the end of the story, and how Jan's father came to +the Islands through Piper's Hole." + +"But," Linnet objected, "Jan didn't say that his father came through +Piper's Hole; only that he found himself on the rocks in front of it. +They came through the air, he and the little lady, didn't they, Jan?" + +Jan shook his head. "They started to come through the air," he answered +cautiously. + +"Everybody knows that the fairies always pass to and fro through +Piper's Hole," said Annet, in a positive voice. "The mermaids, too. The +cave there goes right through Inniscaw and under the sea, and comes up +again in the mainland. Nobody living has ever gone that way; but Farmer +Santo had an uncle once that owned a sheep-dog that wandered into +Piper's Hole and was lost, and a month later it turned up on the +mainland with all its hair off." + +"It do go in a terrible long way, to be sure," Jan admitted; "for I +made a trial of it myself, one time, at low water. First of all you +come to a pool, and, then, about fifty yards further, to another pool, +and into that I went plump, coming upon it sudden, in the darkness. I +swallowed a bellyful of it, too, and the water--if you'll believe +me--was quite fresh. I didn't try no further, because, in the first +place, the tide was rising, and because, when I pulled myself out, I +heard a sound on t'other side of the pool like as if some creature was +breathin' hard there in the darkness. It properly raised my hair, and I +turned tail." + +"Fie, Jan! Ran away from a mermaid!" said Vashti, laughing. "You should +have brought her home and married her." + +"I don't want to marry no woman with a tail like a fish, nor no woman +that makes thikky noise with her breathin'," maintained Jan. "That's to +say, if merrymaid it were, which I doubts. But you're wrong about my +father, Miss Vazzy. He see'd a merrymaid sure 'nough; but he never took +her home. No, he was too much of a gentleman, besides bein' afeard o' +my mother. If you want the story, he was down in Piper's Hole one day +warping ashore some few kegs of brandy that had been sunk thereabouts +by a Rosco trader. Mr. Pope's father, that was agent to th' old Duke, +used to employ my father regular on this business, knowing him for a +silent man, and one to be trusted; and my father had made a very pretty +catchet some way back-along in the cave, big enough to hold two score +of kegs, and well above reach of the sea-water. But, o' course, while +he was at this kind of work, Mr. Pope had to wink an eye now and then +if one o' the kegs leaked a bit. Well, my father had finished his job +that day in a sweatin' hurry, the tide bein' nearabouts on the top of +the flood, and at the end, all the kegs bein' stowed, he spiled one +'for the good of the house,' as he put it, and drew off a tot in a tin +panikin he kept handy. With this and his pipe he settled himself down +'pon a dry ledge and waited for the tide to run back. + +"Out beyond the mouth of the hole he could see a patch of blue sky, and +the little waves under it glancin' in the sunshine; and belike the +dazzle of it, or else the tot of brandy, made him feel drowsy-like. +Anyhow, he woke up to see that the tide had run out a bravish lot, +leavin' the sands high and dry. But, as you know, there's a pool o' +water close inside the entrance, and what should my father see in the +pool but a woman's head and shoulders! + +"She had raised herself out of the water with her hands restin' on a +slab of rock, and over the rock she stared at my father, like as if she +wanted help, and again like as if she felt too timid to ask. And when I +called her a woman I said wrong; for she was more like a child, and a +frightened one, with terrible pretty eyes, and her long hair shed down +over her shoulders, drippin' wet, and in colour between gold and +sea-green. 'Hullo!' said my father, 'and who might you be, makin' so +bold?' At the sound of his speech she gave a little scritch at first, +and bobbed down face-under, so that her hair lay afloat and spread +itself all over the water like sea-weed. My father walked up closer. +'Nonsense, my dear,' says he, in his coaxin' voice, 'there's nothin' to +be afeard of. I'm a respectable married man, and old enough to be your +father. So put up your face--come now!--and tell me all about it.' +After a bit she lifted her face, very pitiful, and says she in a small +voice, 'I was afeard you had been drinkin', sir.' 'A little--a very +little,' answers my father; 'we'll say no more about it.' 'And I was +afeard,' says she, 'you would want to carry me home and marry me +against my will!' 'Lord,' says my father, 'trust a woman for putting +notions into a man's head. No, no, my dear; I can get all the +temperance talk I want without committin' bigamy for it.' 'An' you +couldn' marry me,' says the merrymaid, with a kind o' sob, 'because I'm +married already, an' the mother of two as pretty children as ever you +wished to see. I can hear 'em callin' for me,' she said, 'down there, +beyond the bar,' and she went on to tell him (but the tale was all +mixed up with sobbin') how she and the children had been swimmin' along +shore that afternoon, and liftin' their heads above water to glimpse +the sea-pinks and catch a smell of the thyme on the cliffs; and how she +had left 'em to play while she swam into the cave to sit for a while +and comb out her pretty hair. But the tide had run back while she was +busy, and she couldn't crawl back to the sea over the bar, because on +dry sand all her strength left her. 'And if I wait for the flood,' she +said, 'my husband'll half murder me; for he's jealous as fire.' + +"My father listened, and, sure enough, he seemed to hear the children's +voices callin' to her out beyond the water's edge. With that, bein' +always a tender-hearted man, he knelt down and lifted her out o' the +pool. Now, if he'd had more sense at the time he'd have struck a +bargain with her; for the merrymaids, they say, can tell where gold is +hidden, and charm a man against sickness, and make all his wishes come +true. But in the tenderness of his heart he thought 'pon none o' these +things. He just let her put her arms round his neck, and lifted her +over the sands, and waded out with her, till he stood three feet deep +in water in his sea-boots; and then she gave him a kiss and slid away +with a flip of her tail. 'Twas only when he stood staring that it +crossed his mind what a fool he had been and what a chance he had +missed. Then he remembered that she had dropped her comb by the edge of +the pool--he had heard it fall when he lifted her, and back he went to +search for it: for the sayin' is that with a merrymaid's comb you can +comb out your hair in handfuls of guineas. But all he found was a +broken bit of shark's jaw, and though he combed for half-an-hour and +wished for all kind o' good luck, not a farthin' could he fetch out." + +"Is that all?" asked Matthew Henry, as Jan arose from the cart-shaft, +dusting the crumbs of bread from his breeches. + +"It's enough, I should think," said Linnet, the sceptical, "seeing that +it's nothing but a story from beginning to end." + +Vashti looked from one child to the other with a twinkle of fun. "We +will pay Piper's Hole a visit one of these days," she promised, "and +perhaps Linnet will see a real mermaid and be convinced." + +"I don't care for mermaids," announced Matthew Henry. "It's the cave I +want to explore, to see if it really does lead through to the mainland. +And I won't be afraid, like Jan here, and run away from a little +noise." + +"You wait till you get there before you boast," advised Linnet. + +But Vashti's eyes, resting on the boy, grew tender of a sudden. "The +way through to the mainland?" she said, musingly. "Matthew Henry is +right. It all depends on the heart that tries it; but there is nothing +can do him harm if he keeps up his courage; and the end of the road is +worth all the journey, for a man." + +"Why, Aunt Vazzy, you talk as if you had been there!" cried Annet. + +"And so I have, my dear; there and back again." + +The three children stared at her. "Aunt Vazzy is joking," said Linnet, +severely. Annet was not too sure, and her brow puckered with a frown as +she searched for the meaning beneath her aunt's words. But Matthew +Henry believed them literally. + +"Then," he exclaimed joyfully, "it's all nonsense about Farmer Santo's +uncle's sheep-dog. For Aunt Vazzy has beautiful hair!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE LORD PROPRIETOR HEARS A SIREN SING + + + _Sir,--In answer to your letter of the 19th ultimo, I am + directed by the Secretary of State for War to say that a + Commission, the composition of which is not finally determined, + will shortly be visiting the Islands, with a view to reporting + on the adaptability of their existing military works for Coast + Defence. Notice of the probable date of this visit shall be sent + to you, and the Commissioners will doubtless be glad to avail + themselves of any information you may be good enough to put at + their disposal. At the same time, there will be given an + opportunity of inquiring into the allegations contained in your + letter. The Commission will be presided over by Maj.-General Sir + Ommaney Ward, K.C.B., R.E., H.M. Director of Fortifications.--I + am, sir,_ + + _Your obedient servant,_ + + J. FLEETWOOD CUNNINGHAM. + +Thrice a week--on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays--the steamer +arrived at St. Lide's Quay, bringing the mainland mail, and the Lord +Proprietor's post-bag usually reached him soon after luncheon. It +carried, as a rule, a bulky correspondence, and since the steamer +weighed anchor early next morning, the Lord Proprietor set aside the +early part of these three afternoons to letter-writing. + +The passage had been smooth to-day, and the bag had been delivered to +him and opened as he took his solitary meal. Also the mail for the +great house was a light one, and out of it the Lord Proprietor, +catching sight of the official stamp on the envelope, had at once +selected the letter quoted above. He perused it, and re-perused it, to +the neglect of the rest of his correspondence, tilting it against a +bowl of Michaelmas daisies in front of his plate. + +It was satisfactory, he decided--that is to say, on the whole, and so +far as it went. He foresaw that short shrift would be given to those +idlers on Garrison Hill. On the other hand, he frowned at the +prospect--call it the chance, rather--of seeing that establishment +replaced by one more efficient. To be sure, if the necessities of Coast +Defence demanded it.... Still, for his part, he would have preferred to +be let alone. The Islands, with their many outlying reefs and poor +anchorage could never afford room to such battleships as were built in +these days; and to erect new fortifications to cover a roadstead that +would seldom if ever be used appeared the plainest waste of public +money.... He really thought that the War Office might have consulted +him before coolly proposing to plant a new garrison above St. Lide's. +He was not even sure they had a right, without his consent.... He would +confer with Mr. Pope on this point. At the very least, it would have +been courteous to start by asking his opinion; for, after all, he owned +the Islands. He was responsible, too, for the general good conduct of +the population; good conduct which the advent of a body of soldiery +would certainly affect--nay, might entirely upset. + +Nevertheless, he reflected that--however the Commissioners might decide +(and he would take care to press his opinion energetically)--his letter +to the Secretary of State for War had at least done no harm. The +Commissioner's visit had obviously been projected before the receipt of +it, and at the worst it would enable him to call quits with Vigoureux. + +He reflected further that these roving Commissions to report were often +no index of Government policy, but were simply appointed to shelve, +while professing to consider a question which the Government found +awkward. + +So, luncheon over, he sat down and wrote a letter thanking the +Secretary for his communication, and very politely offering to do all +in his power to make the Commissioners' visit "to these +out-of-the-world Islands" a pleasant one. + +Having copied the letter and read it over with no little approval, the +Lord Proprietor dealt briefly with the rest of his correspondence; +consulted his pocket-diary, looked at his watch, and, finding that he +had an hour to spare before granting an interview to Eli Tregarthen, +stepped out upon the terrace, where Abe Jenkins was cutting back the +geraniums that had well-nigh ceased to flower. + +"But is it necessary?" asked the Lord Proprietor. "Here, in the very +mouth of the Gulf Stream ... and last winter we escaped with nothing +worse than two degrees of frost." + +"Last winter and this winter be two different things, sir," protested +Abe, gently but firmly. "Last winter, sir--as you may have taken +notice--we had next to no berries 'pon the holly; and no seals, nor yet +no mermaids." + +"Seals? Mermaids?" Sir Caesar echoed. + +"Which I've always heard it said, sir," Old Abe went on, with the air +of one carefully, even elaborately, deferring to superior ignorance, +"as how than seals you can have no surer sign of hard weather. Of +mermaids I says nothing, except that with such-like creatures about you +may count 'pon something out of the common." + +"Since," said the Lord Proprietor, "there are no such things as +mermaids, we will confine ourselves to seals.... I had no idea that +seals--er--frequented our shores." + +"No more they don't, unless summat extr'ord'ny has taken the weather. +But I've heard tell of a season when, for weeks together, you could +count up two or three score together baskin' on the beaches to the +north of the Island here. Sam Leggo can tell you all about it"--Abe +jerked a thumb in the direction of North Inniscaw Farm. "He and his +father used to hunt them, one time, along with Phil Cara of St. Hugh's. +You know where the old adit goes into the cliff under Carn Coppa? Well, +they tell me that if you follow the adit for fifty yards you come to a +kind of pit that breaks straight down and through the roof of a +cave--Ogo Vean, they call it--to the west of Piper's Hole, and this +cave fairly swarmed with seals. The three men would lower themselves by +rope-ladders--I reckon old Leggo had learnt the trick of it in by-gone +days when the Free-traders used the adit--and get down upon a strip of +firm shingle at the inner end of the cave; and there Sam Leggo would +hold the lantern while his father and Phil Cara blazed away. They never +shot more than a brace at a time, because of the difficulty of getting +the bodies up the ladder, for they had to be gone before high-water, +and likewise there was always a danger that the seals might charge 'em +in a herd, bein' angered by the loss of their mates. In this way they +pretty well cleared out the cave--all but one great beauty that old +Leggo had sworn to take alive. For, instead of bein' yellow or +motley-brown like the rest, this fellow was white as milk all over, +besides bein' powerful as any other two. He seemed to know from the +first that the three men didn't mean to shoot him. The lanterns and the +firing never hurried him a bit, and he never threw himself into a rage +over the loss of his relations. He just kept out of reach, looking like +as if he despised the whole business, and refused to quit. He was +cautious, too; wouldn't trust the cave in weather when a boat could +follow him and block up the entrance. On fine nights he had a favourite +rock just outside Ogo Vean--you can see it from the top of the +cliff--and there he'd lie asleep and dare 'em; out of reach, but plain +enough to see, even in the dark, because of his white skin. + +"Now, as you may have taken notice, sir, the tide runs out dry to this +rock on the inshore side; but seaward it goes down, even at low +springs, into more'n three fathoms of water, and my gentleman always +took his forty winks on the seaward slope. Half-a-dozen times did Phil +Cara, thinkin' to catch him----" + +"I beg your pardon," interrupted Sir Caesar, "'Cara,' did you say?" + +"Yes, sir; Philip Cara, father to Eli Tregarthen's wife over to Saaron; +and likewise, o' course, to Eli Tregarthen's wife's sister, that is +lodging at Saaron Farm, having come home from service a while back." + +"Eh? From service?" the Lord Proprietor echoed, with quickened +interest. "What sort of service?" + +"Why, as to that, sir, I can't say that I can tell you for certain; but +it's somewheres on the mainland, and the young woman seems a very +respectable young woman. But whether she means to bide wi' the family +or has come to lodge while lookin' out for another place, I can't +certainly say--the Tregarthens bein' a close-tongued lot, as you know." + +"A lady's-maid?" hazarded the Lord Proprietor. + +"May be. Well, as I was tellin' you, half-a-dozen times did Phil Cara, +bidin' his time till the tide was low and the sand hard----" + +"But it's impossible," said the Lord Proprietor, pursuing his own train +of thought. + +Abe regarded his master rather in sorrow than in anger. "To be sure, +sir," said he, in a tone of delicate rebuke, "if you don't want to hear +my story----" + +"Eh? Yes, certainly, my wits were wool-gathering, Abe, and I beg your +pardon. Let me see.... You were saying that Cara used to wait till the +tide was low----" + +"Yes, sir. He'd creep along the sand, he and the two Leggos, and th' +old seal would lie there sleepin', innocent as a child, and let them +come close under the rock, and even climb it. But soon as ever they +made a pounce--c'lk!--he rolled off the slope and into deep water. +Regular as clockwork it happened; quiet and easy as a door on a greased +hinge; and every time it made the three look foolisher and foolisher. + +"After half-a-dozen tries, Cara allowed that he couldn' go on bein' +mocked by a dumb animal; so he set his brain to work, and thought out a +new plan. The two Leggos were to take a boat and drop down wi' the tide +close in the shadow of the rock 'pon the seaward side, while Cara +himself crept, as usual, hands-an'-knees, across the beach. So they +planned, an' so they did; and sure enough when Cara made a pounce for +the seal, my gentleman rolled down the ledge and slap into the boat! +'Now you've got 'en!' yells Cara. 'Darn it all!' yells back old Leggo +from the scuffle, 'Seems more like he's got WE!' For that seal, sir, +fought like ten tom-cats; and before the Leggos got in a lucky stroke +and knocked him silly with a stretcher he'd ripped one leg off th' old +man's trousers and bitten the heel clean off Sam's right boot. They +took him home and skinned him, and sold the skin that same year to a +Dutch skipper for thirty shillin'. But Sam has told me more than twice +that he don't mean to tempt Providence again by catchin' any more +seals." + +The Lord Proprietor looked at his watch. "I must get Leggo to show me +that adit this very afternoon. I've an appointment at three-thirty to +meet him and Tregarthen at the farm." + +"Indeed, sir? Then you've brought Eli Tregarthen to his senses?--if I +may make so bold." + +The Lord Proprietor flushed, remembering that Abe had witnessed the +interview in the walled garden. "I fancy the man has begun to see the +red light," he answered, carelessly. "At any rate, he has consented to +meet me and take a look over North Inniscaw." + +"Well," said Abe, "you'll find him a good farmer; none better." + +"And he'll find me a landlord, willing to let bygones be bygones. By +the way," added Sir Caesar, yet more carelessly, "I am curious to know +if I met that sister-in-law of his the other day?--a decidedly handsome +woman, and strikingly well dressed. In fact, I should say she bought +her clothes in Paris." + +Abe stared, as though his master had suddenly taken leave of his +senses. + +"I never been to Paris," he said, slowly. "When I seen her last she was +nettin' sand-eels, with her legs bare to the knee." + + * * * * * + +Sir Caesar walked indoors to fetch his hat and his gun. Though he rarely +used it, he invariably carried a gun under his arm in his walks about +the Islands. It helped his sense of being monarch of all he surveyed. + +That sense was strong in him as he took the path which led across the +middle of the Island to North Inniscaw Farm. St. Lide's lay directly +behind him, to the south, and thus no Garrison Hill obtruded upon his +view to remind him of annoyances. The sea shone, the air was pure, the +whole seascape flashed white upon blue--white gulls wheeling aloft, +white breasts of puffins congregated on the smaller islets, white caps +of tiny waves where the breeze met the tide-race, on North Island the +white shaft of a lighthouse fronting the almost level sun. With a touch +of imagination the scene had become a prospect of the Cyclades, the +lighthouse a column to Aphrodite or the twin brothers of Helen. But the +Lord Proprietor was a Briton. He halted on the hill-side to inhale the +vigorous breeze, and his heart rejoiced that all he saw belonged to +him. + +The path descended a stony hillside, crossed a marshy green hollow, and +mounted a second stony hill. Over the summit of it the low roofs of a +line of farm-buildings hove into sight. This was North Inniscaw; and +the Lord Proprietor, arriving punctually at three-thirty, found Eli +Tregarthen at the gate in converse with Sam Leggo, the hind in +temporary charge of the farm. + +If Eli had begun to see reason, his face held out no promise of it. It +was dark and gloomy; a trifle weary, too, as though he kept this +appointment rather through politeness than with any care for its +outcome. He saluted the Lord Proprietor respectfully, but at once bent +his eyes to the ground. + +"Good afternoon! Good afternoon, Tregarthen!" Sir Caesar began, in his +heartiest voice, to show that he bore no malice. "I like punctuality, +and those who practise it. Punctuality, if I may say so, is not a +wide-spread virtue in these Islands. Shall we go round and take stock?" + +"If it will give you satisfaction, sir," assented Eli. + +Sir Caesar led the way, pausing at every gate to discuss the soil, the +crop, the present price of oats, barley, roots of beef and mutton; +drainage and top-dressing; aspect and shelter; a hundred odds and ends. +He talked uncommonly good sense, too, as Eli confessed to himself. The +Lord Proprietor had taken up with agriculture late in life, but he +brought to it a trained and thoroughly practical mind. Once or twice he +submitted a point to Sam Leggo, who had worked all his life on this +very farm, and Eli was forced to admire the pertinence of his questions +and cross-questions. + +He talked with great good humour, too, although Eli gave it small +encouragement. The shadow of leaving Saaron had hung over Eli's mind +for more than two months; heavy, oppressive, but until this morning +intangible as a cloud. Vashti had remarked that the days deadened him +while they should have been nerving him to action; and Vashti, this +very morning, had forced his eyes open by asking, in a business-like +way, if he had ever thought of emigrating to the mainland. Were it not +wiser, since the wrench must come, to make it complete?--to go where +regret would not be kept aching by the daily sight of Saaron? The +children would find better schools on the mainland, and it was high +time to be thinking of Matthew Henry, who deserved a better education +than the Islands could afford. + +In arguing thus, Vashti was not entirely serious. She knew that Eli +would never cut himself loose from the Islands; but she hoped, by +forcing him to face the alternative, to shake him out of his torpor. In +this she had partly succeeded. For the first time the man opened his +eyes and saw hard facts--facts that in a few weeks' time he must +grapple with, since neither grieving nor grumbling would remove them. +But for the moment the discovery, instead of nerving him, inflamed his +wrath. + +A strong man, finding himself helpless, suffers horribly. Especially he +suffers when, with a dim sense that in the last resort all power +depends on strength, he finds himself tripped up and laid on his back +by a man physically his inferior. Had the Lord Proprietor inherited the +Islands from a line of ancestors--had his tyranny rested on any feudal +tradition--Eli was Briton enough to have acquiesced or submitted. But +this whipper-snapper had bought the Islands: money--dirty money +alone--gave him power over men who were Islanders by birth and by long +generations of breeding. While the Lord Proprietor talked, Eli felt an +impulse almost uncontrollable to lay hands on him and wring his neck. + +The three men had reached Coppa Parc, an enclosure of twelve acres +bounded along the north by the cliffs' edge, and deriving its name from +a mass of granite rock--Carn Coppa--that, rising in ledges from near +the middle of the field, ran northward until it broke away +precipitously, overhanging the sea. The slopes around the base of the +Carn showed here and there an outcrop of granite, but with pockets of +deep soil in which (or so the Lord Proprietor maintained) barley could +be grown at a profit. He appealed to Eli. + +"Come, what does Mr. Tregarthen say to it? A piece of ground like +this--hey?--oughtn't to beat a man that has grown barley on Saaron?" + +He said it intending no offence, but in a bluff, hearty way, which he +meant to be genial. After a second or two, Eli not answering, he turned +and saw to his amazement that the man was trembling from head to foot +with wrath. + +"What right have you? What right----" Eli stammered fiercely, and came +to a full stop, clenching his fists. + +The Lord Proprietor stared at him. "My good fellow, I hadn't the +smallest wish to hurt your feelings. What ails you? An innocent remark, +surely!" + +"What ails me?" echoed Eli, and stopped again, panting. "Man, have done +with this, and let me go--else I'll not promise to keep my hands off +you!" + +For a moment he stood threatening, his eyes--like the eyes of a dumb +animal at bay--travelling from the Lord Proprietor to Sam Leggo. The +blood ebbed from his face, and left it unnaturally white. But of a +sudden he appeared to collect himself; thrust both hands in his +pockets, and, turning his back, walked away resolutely down the slope. + +"Well!" said Sam Leggo, after a pause. "Well!" + +"The man has never been thwarted before," said the Lord Proprietor, as +they gazed after him together. "That's what comes of living alone in a +place like Saaron; and I'll take care his children don't learn the same +folly. Feels the curb, as you might say. Have you ever seen a horse +broken late in life?" + +"You take it very quiet, sir, I must say," protested Sam, admiringly. +"So disrespectful as he was, too--and to the likes of you! Well! I've +known Eli Tregarthen forty year, and if any man had come and told +me----" + +"The worst is, we have wasted an afternoon," said Sir Caesar, easily. +"But since we are here, with half-an-hour to spare before sunset, what +do you say to showing me the adit?" + +"The adit, sir?" + +"There's an old adit hereabouts--eh?--that leads down to a cave.... +Come, come, my good man, you don't deceive me by putting on that stupid +face! We don't allow smuggling on the Islands in these days, and I like +to know the secrets of my own property. The cave is called Ogo Vean, or +something like it; and if I must explain more precisely, it is where +you and your father used to go hunting seals." + +"Yes, yes, to be sure," Sam admitted; "an adit there is, or used to be. +But," he went on more cheerfully, "you'll find it nothing to look at. I +han't set foot inside it for years, and I doubt but the entrance is +choked." + +"Take me to it," said Sir Caesar. + +Sam, without further remonstrance, led the way. They scrambled out to +the edge of the Carn, and there, where the last great boulder thrust +itself forward over the sea, Sam scrambled off to the left, and lowered +himself down upon a turfy ledge. Warning his master to leave his gun +behind and beware of the slippery grass, he sidled out alongside the +jutting slab, and suddenly ducked under it. The Lord Proprietor, +following, crawled under the stone, and found himself staring into the +mouth of the adit--a dark hole less than four feet in height, and +overgrown with ivy. Sam had spoken the truth. The passage, +whithersoever it led, had been disused for years. + +"Cur'ous old place!" said Sam, reflectively, plucking at the ivy. "I've +a mind to try the inside of it again, one of these days." + +"I've a mind to explore it now," said the Lord Proprietor. + +Sam stared at him. "You couldn't, sir; not without a lantern. You'd be +breakin' your neck, to a certainty." + +"Then fetch a lantern. Look sharp, man! Run back to the farm and fetch +a lantern. I'll wait for you--no, not here: a few minutes on this ledge +would turn my head giddy--but on the Carn above." + +Without further words, he worked his body around carefully, and led the +way back to the summit. + +"You'd best hurry," he advised Sam, who showed no eagerness for the +job. "In another twenty minutes the dusk will be closing down fast." + +Sam slouched off at a fair pace across the field. Sir Caesar watched his +retreating figure until it reached the gate, and then, picking up his +gun, disposed himself to wait. + +Seals? They ought to give good sport--better sport, he should imagine, +than deerstalking. A pity, too, to let it die out ... if seals still +frequented the Islands.... He must consult Sam about it, and pick up a +few wrinkles. He peered over the edge of the Carn, scanning the water, +a hundred feet below him, for the rock which Abe had described. He +could see no such rock. Maybe, though, it would be covered by the tide, +now close upon high-water. + +Then he bethought him that the rock must lie a little to the west, +towards Piper's Hole--that is to say, in the next small indentation of +the shore. He strolled in that direction, following the cliff's edge, +still with eyes upon the sea. + +Of a sudden he stopped and straightened himself up with a gasp. + +What sound was that?... Surely a voice--a woman's voice--singing up to +him from the depth! + +Was he awake or dreaming?... Beyond all doubt someone was singing, down +there: a mournful, wordless song. He was no judge of music, but it +seemed to him that, let alone the mystery of the singer, he had never +heard a voice so wonderful. It rose and fell with the surge of the +tide. + +The Lord Proprietor laid down his gun. He had come to a shelving slope +that descended like a funnel or the half of a broken crater, narrowing +to a dark pit, in which the sea heaved gently, but with a sound as of a +monster sobbing; but still above this sound rose the voice of the +singer. + +He flung himself on the verge beside his gun and craned forward.... +Yes, there was the rock; yes, and there on the rock sat a figure--a +woman--and combed her long hair while she sang. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +LINNET SEES A MERMAID + + +Annet, Linnet, and Matthew Henry sat together in a niche of the cliff +to the west of Piper's Hole, and panted after their climb. + +They had raced up the hill in the gathering twilight for this (their +Aunt Vazzy had assured them) was the time, if ever, to hear the +mermaids singing in Piper's Hole, and perhaps to catch a glimpse of +them; this, and the hour of moonrise--which for them would be out of +the question. + +For some days they had been discussing the adventure--not, it scarcely +needs to be said, in their parents' hearing. But they had once or twice +consulted with Aunt Vazzy, who understood children, and had a sense +(denied to most grown-ups) of what was really interesting; and to-day, +at dinner-time, Aunt Vazzy had allowed that no time could well be more +propitious than this evening, when the hours of twilight and of low +water almost exactly coincided. But in private she warned Annet very +earnestly to look well after the two younger ones, and see to it that +they did not risk their necks--a caution seldom given to Island +children, who grow up sure-footed as young goats. + +Annet had promised. The main difficulty would be to give the slip to +Jan, who usually pulled across from Saaron in good time to fetch them +home, and smoked a pipe by the shore while waiting for school to be +dismissed. It would take them a good forty minutes to reach Piper's +Hole and return. If they gave Jan the slip and delayed him so long, he +would undoubtedly lose his temper, and probably report them. After +discussing this, they decided to take Jan into the plot. "Maybe," said +Annet, "he'll come along, too. I almost think he will if we put it to +him all of a sudden, for he's mighty curious about mermaids; but if we +give him time to think it over he'll feel ashamed, and say it's all +children's whiddles, and back out--I know Jan. So we must wait till +school is over and then coax him to come." + +Annet did not know that her father, having an appointment with the Lord +Proprietor at North Inniscaw Farm, designed himself to call at the +school on his way back, and row the children home. Had she guessed this +it would have prevented the adventure, which, in fact, it furthered; +for, coming out of school and hurrying down to the shore to catch Jan +and wheedle him, she found the boat moored there empty. Jan, no doubt, +had taken a stroll up to the Lord Proprietor's garden, to have a chat +with Old Abe. They had caught him napping; and now, if they kept him +waiting, he could not grumble. + +So off the three children set for Piper's Hole; Annet and Linnet with +long strides, Matthew Henry trotting to keep up with them. Arrived at +the cliff's edge, they deployed with great caution--that no noise might +scare the mermaids from coming forth--and searched for a nook where, +themselves hidden, they could command a view of the cove at their feet. + +Linnet, searching to the westward, found just such a spot; a rocky +ledge, well grassed, close under the topmost cornice of the cliff, and +quite easy of access. To be sure, a rock on their right cut off their +view of the cove's inmost recess, where the funnel-shaped slope broke +sheer over the mouth of the Hole. But the ledge looked full upon the +Mermaid's Rock and the heave of black water surging past it to +gurgitate between the narrowing walls of rock. + +Even the matter-of-fact Linnet could not repress a shiver as, after +panting a while, she raised herself on one elbow and looked down into +the awesome pit. For not only was the water black, but the whole +shadowed base of the cliff wall; black as though stained by the inky +wave. Black, too, showed the hither side of the Mermaid's Rock against +a gray sea, from which the last tint of sunset had faded. Now and then, +between the sobbing of Piper's Hole, the children caught the murmur of +the tide race, half-a-mile off shore, slackening its note as it neared +the time of high-water and its turning point. Out there the sea was +agitated; within the line of the race, sharply defined on the gray, it +heaved and sank on an oily swell. + +"My!" said Matthew Henry, gazing; and Annet turned on her sister and +said, "There, now!" The words may seem inadequate, but Linnet +understood them, and that they conveyed a question which she felt to be +a poser. How could she doubt the existence of mermaids in such a spot +as this? If a mermaid were to swim up to the surface under their very +eyes, would she be more wonderful than the actual scene--the black +rocks, the sobbing water? + +"Folks," said Annet, incisively, "that laugh at stories about Piper's +Hole, ought to come and see the place for themselves." + +"Yes," Matthew Henry agreed; "and after that they can begin to talk." + +"I didn't laugh," protested Linnet, flung upon her defence. "Besides," +she went on weakly, "I don't see why it must be mermaids. If anything +lives down there, why shouldn't it be a dragon---or a giant, +perhaps----" + +"Linnet's improving," put in Matthew Henry, with fine sarcasm. + +"Well, it sounds to me more like the noise a dragon would make," Linnet +persisted, finding as she went on that her argument was carrying her +through very creditably; "or a giant snoring, as they always do after +meals." + +Annet scanned the black water pensively. "I've heard tell," she said, +"of great cuttles that sit and squat under the water; and sometimes, +when they are hungry, they fling up their suckers and pull you down off +the rocks and eat you." + +Matthew Henry drew back from the brink, visibly daunted. + +"Look here," he began, "I don't mind mermaids. Mermaids, so far as they +go----" + +But here he came to a halt as a tinkling sound--the sound of a stringed +instrument, gently thrummed, rose from out of the abyss. + +It fell on their ears in a pause of the surging water. It came from the +Mermaid's Rock, and thither all three children turned their eyes, to +see, over the crest of it, from its hidden seaward side, a woman's head +and shoulders emerge into view! + +In the gathering dusk, even had she lifted her face to them, they could +not have discerned her features. But as she climbed into view her +loosened hair fell all about her; on the summit of the rock she turned +and seated herself fronting the sea; and while the three children drew +together, cowering, at her gaze, she began to sing. + +And she sang marvellously. If her song had words, they were foreign +words; but whether articulate or not it was beautiful beyond all human +compass--or so at least it seemed to the children, whose experience +rested, to be sure, on the congregational efforts of Brefar Church. + +It rose and sank upon the swell of the tide. It held such sweetness in +its mystery that, frightened though they were, the wonder of it drew +tears to their eyes. It seemed to open pathways into that world of +their desire, on the boundaries of which they were forever treading; +yet forever vainly, because they had not the passwords, and in their +ignorance could only guess that miracles lay beyond, sealed, +unimaginable. + +The children huddled together, lost their fear in wonder, as the voice +of the mermaid, growing more and more confident, pierced new roads for +them--roads upon which the twilight closed at once; rays into a glory +they felt, and trembled to feel, but could not apprehend, because the +vision was of mere beauty, and music divorced from words is the last of +arts to convey form and meaning. + +Yet though wholly indefinite, almost wholly meaningless, it spoke to +something to which the children felt all their blood thrilling, +responding. Listening, they forgot their fear altogether.... + +The singer laid down her instrument. The grey of the twilight ran over +her bare shoulders as, with a turn of the arm, she swept her tresses +back, and--still singing--drew out mirror and comb.... + +They craned to watch. + +Suddenly from the height of the cliff, close on their right, rang out +the report of a gun. The song ceased abruptly, lost in the echoes that +beat from cliff to cliff, and amid these echoes the children heard a +noise of falling stones, followed by a heavy splash. + +Annet had sprung to her feet. Linnet and Matthew Henry, too, had picked +themselves up, though more slowly.... A wisp of smoke drifted by the +rock to their right. When they turned their eyes upon the Mermaid's +Rock the singer had vanished. + +Annet caught Matthew Henry by one hand; Matthew Henry stretched out +another to Linnet. The three scrambled up to the cliff-top, and thence +raced homeward, panic-stricken, across the darkening fields. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +MISSING! + + + _"Sir,--I am directed by the Secretary of State for War to + acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 19th ultimo, the + contents of which shall receive his attention._ + + _"I am, sir,_ + + _"Your obedient servant,_ + + "J. FLEETWOOD CUNNINGHAM." + +The Commandant, from long disuse, had forgotten the formalities of +official correspondence. His hand shook as he tore open the long +envelope, expecting to read his fate, and in the revulsion, as his eyes +fell on the few lines of acknowledgment, he caught at the table's edge +and sank into his chair with a sudden feeling of faintness. + +For a few hours, then--possibly for a few days--he was respited. He put +the letter aside and walked out, to take his afternoon stroll around +the fortifications and steady his nerves. + +By the Keg of Butter Battery he halted for a long look across the Sound +and towards Saaron. Unconsciously for a week past, he had fallen into a +habit of halting just here and letting his eyes travel towards Saaron. +It was just here that Vashti had seated herself the first morning, and +had asked him the fatal question, "For what, then, do they pay you?" He +remembered the words, the inflection of scorn in her tone. Here at his +feet on a cushion of wild thyme lay the stone she had prised out +absently, while she spoke, with the point of her sunshade. Just here, +too, she had taken leave of him on the night of her escapade, the night +when (it was bliss to remember) she had recanted her scorn, had asked +his forgiveness. + +For a whole week he had not seen her. Was she careless, then, of the +answer?--of what resulted from the train she had fired?... But, after +all (the Commandant told himself), she had no need to concern herself +about it. She had but set him in the way of doing his duty; for the +rest, a man must accept his own responsibility, stand by his own +actions, abide his own fate. + +Yet he would have given a great deal, just now, for speech with her, to +tell her that, unimportant though it was, some word from the War Office +had reached him. + +Throughout his stroll his mind kept harking back to this letter, +seeking behind the few and formal words for meanings they did not +cover; and again that evening, after his frugal supper, he drew the +envelope from its pigeon-hole, spread the paper on the table before +him, and sat studying it. + +He lifted his head, at a sound in the passage. The outer door had been +burst open violently, as though by a gust of wind, and a moment later +Archelaus came running in with a face of panic. + +"The Lord behear us!" gasped Archelaus. "Oh, sir, here's awful, awful +news! The Lord Proprietor's been murdered, and his body flung over the +cliff, and Sam Leggo and Abe the gardener be running through the +streets wi' the news of it!" + +"Murdered! The Lord Proprietor!" echoed the Commandant, laying down his +glasses and rising to his feet in blankest amaze. + +"Yes, sir; shot with his own gun, and, they say, by Eli Tregarthen! The +two men have pulled across from Inniscaw for help, and to fetch the +constable.... I had the news from Sam Leggo hisself, as he raced off to +knock up Mr. Pope." + +The Commandant sank back in his chair. Dreadful though the news was, he +saw in a flash that it was not incredible. Eli Tregarthen owed the Lord +Proprietor a grudge, and a bitter one. Eli Tregarthen was a man capable +of brooding over his wrongs and exacting wild justice for them. The +Commandant's thoughts flew to Vashti. + +But even as he passed a hand over his eyes, another footstep invaded +the outer passage, and Mr. Pope himself rushed in, mopping his brow. + +"My dear friend--" Not in his life before had Mr. Pope addressed the +Commandant as "my dear friend." He glanced from one scared face to the +other. "You have heard? Oh, but it is terrible!... And what on earth +are we to do?" + +"I beg your pardon," answered the Commandant, recovering his presence +of mind. "'We,' did you say?" + +"Naturally I came first to you.... You being a magistrate, and--if this +dreadful news be true--the chief magistrate left on the Islands." + +"True," said the Commandant, yet more quietly. He had regained his +self-possession. "I had forgotten. To be sure, I had renounced the +office--as I supposed--at the Lord Proprietor's own wish; but doubtless +it reverts to me, and, in any case, this is no time to discuss +proprieties. Will you tell me what has happened and what has already +been done?" + +"Done? I have done nothing except send for the constable, with word +that he was to follow me here to the Barracks and take your orders." + +"But where is the body?" + +"The body?" Mr. Pope shivered. "God knows. That, my dear Commandant, is +the cruellest part of the mystery--at least, according to Sam Leggo. It +appears that Sir Caesar, Leggo and Eli Tregarthen were at North Inniscaw +this afternoon, taking stock of the farm, which Sir Caesar was +persuading Tregarthen to rent. Tregarthen was sullen--you may have +heard that he resents being given notice to quit his holding on Saaron. +In the end, on some chance word of Sir Caesar's he blazed up, completely +lost control of himself, and used threats of personal violence. Leggo +will swear to this; but it is immaterial, for I myself have heard him +indulge in similar threats, and so has Abe, the gardener. Well, +Tregarthen swung off in a huff, took his way down across Pare Coppa--it +was there, just under the Cam, that the outbreak occurred--apparently +for the landing-quay by the school, where his boat lay. He left Sir +Caesar and Sam Leggo standing there." + +"At what time?" + +"The time, according to Leggo, was close upon sunset. Sir Caesar--as his +habit is--carried a gun under his arm; but whether or not the gun was +loaded Leggo is unable to say. After expressing surprise at +Tregarthen's display of temper, Sir Caesar turned the conversation upon +an old adit which lies under the seaward face of the Cam, and leads (I +am assured) down to Ogo Vean. Its existence is known to very few--and +Leggo was surprised to hear him mention it; but it now appears that he +had learnt of it this very afternoon, in casual talk with old Abe. He +desired then and there to explore it, and--having examined the +entrance--either because the adit itself is dark, or as a precaution in +the gathering dusk, he sent Leggo back to the farmhouse to fetch a +lantern. Leggo declares that it took him less than fifteen minutes to +reach the farm, find the lantern, and return with it to the lower gate +of Parc Coppa; also that he used his best speed because the dusk was +gathering. As he reached the gate he heard a shot from somewhere on the +edge of the cliffs. This did not perturb him, for he supposed that the +Lord Proprietor was potting at a stray rabbit. As he climbed the field, +however, towards the Carn, on the summit of which he had left Sir Caesar +seated, he saw three small children running along the cliffs to his +left, making for the slope towards the landing-quay, and recognised +them for Tregarthen's three children. He called to them to stop, for +they seemed to be running in a panic. If they heard, they did not obey, +but ran down the hill out of sight. By this--and because he could not +see Sir Caesar on the summit of the Carn--he began to grow alarmed, lit +the candle within his lantern (for it was now nearly dark), and +shouted. He received no answer. He ran to the edge of the Carn, climbed +down thence to the mouth of the adit, and--finding no trace of his +master--began to hunt, still shouting, along the cliffs to the left, in +the direction where he had first spied the children. To cut his story +short," resumed Mr. Pope, after taking breath, "his search led him to +the edge of the cliffs over Piper's Hole, and there, in a tangle of +brambles, his lantern shone on something bright, which proved, when at +no small risk he climbed down to it, to be the barrel of Sir Caesar's +gun. Below the brambles (he says) the ground breaks away very +precipitately to a sheer fall of rock over the entrance of Piper's +Hole. He could not trust himself here, but declares that the earth +below the brambles--so much his lantern showed him--had evidently been +disturbed, and quite recently; as also that the slide was bare and +smooth, with no trace of a body between it and the last ledge over +which a falling body would plunge into the water; and the tide, as he +says--and as, indeed, we know--was almost at full flood. Having +satisfied himself of this, he ran back, down the hill and past the +school to carry the alarm to the house; and from the quay beside the +school he saw Tregarthen's boat crossing to Saaron, and Tregarthen in +it with his three children. Sam called to him, and his call brought out +the schoolmistress, who no sooner heard the story than she fell to +screaming. Tregarthen, though he must have heard the noise they made, +did not respond, but continued pulling calmly towards Saaron. + +"Leggo could not say precisely, but admits that the boat was already +nearing Saaron, and that the man, if he heard, possibly did not +understand--that is, if one can suppose him innocent." + +"We will suppose him innocent," said the Commandant, "until we have +better evidence that he is guilty. What was Leggo's next step?" + +"He ran on smoking-hot to the house, the schoolmistress after him; up +through the gardens to the terrace, where they met old Abe returning +home from work. The schoolmistress went on to alarm the servants, while +the two men made for the private landing, unmoored the Lord +Proprietor's boat, and pulled across for Garland Town to break the news +to me. But on the quay and along the streets they told it to a score of +people, and it is spreading through the town like wildfire." + +"Naturally." The Commandant had fetched and slipped on his great-coat, +and stood buttoning it. He glanced at his watch. "If the constable does +not turn up in a minute or so, we must start without him. Archelaus, +run you down and call up Mr. Rogers. Ask him, with my compliments, to +call out the coastguard----" + +"Pardon me," Mr. Pope interrupted, "but that is unnecessary. Mr. Rogers +has already started for Inniscaw in the jolly-boat, taking Leggo with +him. They are to search the shore around Piper's Hole." + +"Thank you," said the Commandant. "That was obviously the first step to +take, and I am obliged to you for having thought of it so promptly." + +Mr. Pope coughed apologetically. He had grown of a sudden very red in +the face. "In point of fact," he confessed, "Mr. Rogers was at my house +when the news came. We were--er--indulging in a quiet rubber." + +The Commandant understood. Had the occasion been less serious, he might +have smiled. Not since the night which brought Vashti to the Islands +had he received an invitation to Mrs. Pope's parties. + +"Ah, to be sure!" said he, quietly, reaching for his forage-cap; "I had +forgotten that this was your whist-evening." + +Mr. Pope coughed again awkwardly, and was about to make matters worse +by further apology, but a rat-tat on the door prevented this, and +Archelaus, hurrying out, admitted Dr. Bonaday, the physician of Garland +Town, followed by John Ward, the constable, and old Abe. + +Of these three old men you would have found it difficult at first sight +to decide which was the eldest: and you have not made Dr. Bonaday's +acquaintance until now; because it was unnecessary. As the saying went +in the Islands, "the old doctor troubled about nobody, and nobody +troubled about he"--that is, unless an Islander needed to be helped +into the world or out of it. He was a bachelor, a recluse, and (albeit +his neighbours were ignorant of this) a European authority on lichens +and mosses. A small private income allowed him to indulge a habit of +forgetting to charge for his professional services; and, on the +strength of it, the Islanders forgave one who never remembered a face, +and who, when summoned to a sick-bed, had to be guided thither by a +messenger, lest he should knock at half a dozen doors in error by the +way. There was a tradition in St. Hugh's that once, running from his +surgery with a hot poultice, he had clapped it on the harbour-master, +who was politely intercepting him to point out that another two strides +would take him over the quay's edge into deep water. In person, Dr. +Bonaday was remarkable for a completely bald head, a hooked nose, and a +pair of vague, impercipient eyes, as of an owl astray and blinking in +the sunlight. + +If Dr. Bonaday was an authority on lichens and mosses, Constable Ward +was an authority on nothing at all, even in his own house, where his +youngest grand-daughter attended to his wants. Amid a population which +seldom broke the law and never resisted it, he had sunk of late years +into a peaceful decay of all his faculties. He carried his emblem of +office, a small mace, attached to his wrist by a string, and his hand +shook pitiably as he fumbled for it, but less with excitement than from +shock at having been aroused and dragged from his bed into the night +air. + +"I see no reason for taking the constable with us," the Commandant +decided, after a compassionate glance at the old man. + +"In case of an arrest--" began Mr. Pope. + +"First let us be certain that a crime has been committed." + +"To my thinking, all the circumstances point to murder, and to nothing +else." + +"And, if they do, we can accuse no one until we have found the body.... +Constable, you can go back to bed." + +"I thank you, sir." Constable Ward, for the instant plainly relieved, +checked himself, and stood trembling, irresolute. "You mustn't think, +gentlemen, that I'd shirk doing my duty." + +"No, no, Ward: I quite understand," the Commandant assured him. + +"The Governor," said Mr. Pope, slipping back to the old form of +address, disused for years--"The Governor rather doubts that you are +equal to it." + +"For God's sake, gentlemen, don't put it in that way! This affair'll +get into the newspapers, over on the main, and if 'tis said that +Constable Ward was too old for his duty, whatever'll become of me?" + +Mr. Pope turned away with a sniff of disgust. "People of a certain +class," said he half-audibly, "can see nothing but as it affects +themselves. Of his duty this old dotard thinks nothing at all, nor of +the scandal of his continuing to draw public pay: yet, mark you, how +keenly he scents a danger of losing it!" + +The Commandant winced, and shot a glance at the aged, unheroic figure. +"And there," thought he, "but for God's grace and a woman's word, +stands Narcisse Vigoureux! Even so, a few days since, did I consent to +be incompetent and dread only to be detected." + +Aloud he said: "Mr. Pope is too hasty, Ward, in suggesting that I don't +mean to use you. To-morrow, after a night's rest, there may be work +enough for you. Come, we are to pass your door, and will see you home. +You, Doctor, will accompany us, I hope? We may need you." + +They set forth down the dark road towards the quay, Abe and Archelaus +walking ahead with lanterns, and guiding. Having restored Constable +Ward to his youngest grand-daughter, they pushed forward more briskly, +hailing the boat which (according to Mr. Pope) would be standing by for +them on Mr. Rogers' instructions. Sure enough, voices answered their +hail, and under the shadow of the quay steps they found the six-oared +Service gig, with her crew seated ready at their oars: also on the quay +itself the whole town gathered, canvassing the dreadful news. + +At their approach the confused voices dropped to silence. In silence +the town watched its men of authority as they stepped down to the boat +and took their seats. And, amid silence, the coxswain called his order, +"Give way!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE SEARCH + + +Ahead of them, across the Roads, and up the narrow length of Cromwell's +Sound, many lights twinkled: for already two-score boats had put out +from St. Lide's Quay and were hurrying to the search, with lanterns and +hurricane lamps. The windows of the Great House on Inniscaw fairly +blazed with light. The upland farmsteads, too, were awake, here and in +Brefar, and the cottages around Inniscaw schoolhouse and Brefar Church. +Only Saaron, as they passed it, showed no sign of life, no glimmering +ray from the windows of Eli Tregarthen's house, dark upon the dark +hillside. Mr. Pope called the Commandant's attention to this. + +"Patience," said the Commandant. "We will land and question him on our +way home." + +"You will admit that it looks suspicious." + +The Commandant did not answer. + +"If Leggo's story be true," said Dr. Bonaday, addressing the coxswain +abruptly, as though awakened of a sudden from a brown study, "the +accident must have happened just upon high-water; in which case Mr. +Rogers will do best to start searching to westward along the north +shore of Brefar, following the set of the ebb." + +"I reckon he'll take that line, sir, if he finds nothing at Piper's +Hole," the coxswain answered. "But his plan, as he told it to me, was +to land Leggo, with two of our men, by the schoolhouse, and send them +up the hill with ropes and lanterns, while he pulled round and searched +Piper's Hole from seaward." + +The Doctor appeared to digest this plan for a full minute. "Pope," he +said, abruptly as before, "do you happen to know if the Lord Proprietor +had made his will?" + +"Good Lord!" answered Mr. Pope, testily, "I am not his lawyer." + +"He has relatives?" + +"Some distant cousins, I believe; none nearer. Why do you ask?" + +"Because," answered the Doctor, imperturably, "it occurred to me as a +natural question under the circumstances. Then it would appear, my +friend, that Sir Caesar's decease (if we suppose it) is a very serious +affair indeed for you?" + +"Man alive!" snapped Mr. Pope. "Of what else do you suppose I have been +thinking, ever since I heard this news?" + +Dr. Bonaday did not reply in words; but the Commandant--who happened to +be gazing just then towards North Island, where the great sea-light +seemed to search the outer tides with its monstrous eye--heard, or +fancied that he heard, a sound as of a quiet chuckle. Suddenly he +remembered Mr. Pope's scornful criticism of old Constable Ward: +remembered it, and glanced at the Doctor. But the Doctor was an uncanny +fellow, and inscrutable. + +Though the coastguardsmen, pulling with a will, overtook and passed at +least a dozen boats on their way, it cost them close upon an hour to +reach the upper end of Cromwell's Sound and open the coast along the +north side of Inniscaw. They had no need to search for Mr. Rogers and +the jolly-boat. Flares were burning and torches waving in and around +the entrance to Piper's Hole, and as the gig drew closer the Commandant +discerned the figures of half-a-dozen searchers, roped and moving +cautiously with lanterns from ledge to ledge of the dizzy cliff. The +jolly-boat lay beached on a bank of fine shingle left by the receding +tide at the entrance of the cave, and beside it stood Mr. Rogers +shouting orders. + +He hailed the newcomers as soon as he caught sight of them. Leggo and +his two men had found Sir Caesar's gun, and recovered it from the bushes +overhanging the cave. But of Sir Caesar himself no trace could be found. +It was clear to his mind that the body had rolled down the cliff into +deep water, and had been carried out to sea. His fellows up yonder had +examined every foot of the descent, and were risking their necks to no +purpose. He would give them another ten minutes to make a clean job of +the search, and would then call them off and seek along shore to the +westward. + +Had the cave itself been searched? This was the Commandant's first +question as he stepped out upon the shingle. + +Yes; they had begun by searching the cave. They had followed it for +fifty yards, and come to a ridge of rock, heaped with ore-weed, beyond +which (it was certain) no ordinary tide ever penetrated. The floor of +the cave shelved pretty steeply up to this ridge, and beyond it lay a +pool of fresh water, about twenty yards long. It was impossible that a +human body could have been swept over the ridge into this pool. +Nevertheless they had explored it. But would the Commandant care to +satisfy himself? + +Mr. Rogers, without waiting for an answer, picked up a lantern and led +the way under the great arch. The Commandant followed, his feet at +every step sinking ankle-deep in the fine shingle. He found himself in +a passage nine or ten feet wide, the walls of which rose about twenty +feet above him, and vaulted themselves in darkness. At first this +passage appeared to him to end, some fifteen paces from the entrance, +in a barrier of solid rock, but Mr. Rogers, stepping forward with the +lantern, revealed a low archway to the left and a second passage, +partially choked with ore-weed. Through this they squeezed themselves, +crouching and stooping their heads--for the roof in places was less +than five feet high--and after a couple of zig-zags drew breath at the +entrance of the second chamber, at least as lofty as the first and a +full twenty feet wide. Across the entrance the floor sloped up to the +rocky ridge, of which Mr. Rogers had spoken; and beyond the ridge lay +the pool. + +"Taste it," said Mr. Rogers, and the Commandant, kneeling by the edge +of the pool, scooped up a palmful of water to his lips. It was fresh +water, undoubtedly; very cold, and not in the least brackish. + +"Look down," said Mr. Rogers, holding his lantern so that the +Commandant could peer into the depths. "You can see every stone at the +bottom, and my men have searched it all." He lifted the light above his +head and gazed into the mysterious darkness beyond the pool. "I must +explore this place to the end, one of these days. The chief boatman +waded through, and reported yet another passage beyond; but of course I +wouldn't let my men waste time in exploring it. What a place for seals, +hey?" + +"Seals?" queried the Commandant. + +"Leggo gave me a sort of description of the place on our way here. He +tells me that this cave and the next are a favourite haunt of the seals +when they visit the Islands. In fact, he used to hunt them here with +his father. But of late years, for some reason, they have given the +Islands the go-by." + +"You think it possible," suggested the Commandant, "Sir Caesar may have +seen one, and taken a shot at it?" + +"That's not likely; and anyway it doesn't help us. It won't account for +his gun being found in the bushes, half-way down the cliff, nor for his +disappearing. Among a deal that's mysterious, this much is clear: Leggo +left him on the cliff above us; within twenty minutes Sir Caesar's gun +went off, whether fired by himself or by someone else; and whether +wounded or not, he slid down the cliff and over the ledge above the +cave. His body is not in the cave; therefore, presumably, it was sucked +out to sea by the time, and presumably has been carried somewhere to +the westward. Shall we turn back?" + +The Commandant nodded. "You will have plenty of folk to help your +search," said he, "to judge from the number of boats we passed on our +way. By spreading your forces, in less than two hours you can have the +whole shore examined, from here to the west of Brefar. By the way, who +has possession of Sir Caesar's gun?" + +"It was passed up to Sam Leggo, on the cliff. But if you wish to take +charge of it----" + +"It will probably be wanted for evidence." + +"Come, then." Mr. Rogers led the way back to the entrance, and called +up an order to have the gun lowered by a shore-line; which was done, +the coast guardsmen on the cliffs fending the line clear of the bushes, +and so passing it from one to another until it dangled over the ledge +within grasp. The Commandant, as the taller, reached up for the gun, +took it, and examined it by the light of the lantern which Mr. Rogers +held for him. + +The gun was undoubtedly the Lord Proprietor's; a breechloader of +curiously fine workmanship, bearing the name of a famous St. James' +Street maker. Of the hammers, one was down, the other at half-cock; +and, pulling open the breech, the Commandant drew forth two cartridges, +the one empty, the other unused. He pocketed these and examined the +barrels. Clearly, one shot--and one only--had been fired since the gun +was last cleaned. + +He invited Mr. Rogers to verify these simple observations; and then, +turning the gun over, was aware of a trace of earth on the +trigger-guard and another on the point of the butt. These were easily +accounted for. The weapon, no doubt, had slid for some distance down +the cliff--probably from the very top--before lodging in the bushes +where Leggo had found it. + +Half an hour's exploration of the cave, the cove, the cliff-face, had +yielded no further clue. Mr. Rogers drew off his men, and, embarking +them, started to search the shore to the westward. + +By this time some thirty boats had gathered, and through the long +night, in every creek and cranny of the shore, from the extreme east of +Inniscaw to the extreme west of Brefar, the search went on. The wind, +chopping to the north-west, rose to a stiff breeze, and not only blew +bitterly cold, with squalls of rain and sleet, but raised a sea that +made it dangerous to explore the rocks closely. Nevertheless, not a +single boat put back, and not a few took incredible risks. + +Day broke--a dull smurr of gray in an interval between two sleet-laden +squalls. In the cheerless light of it the Commandant, who, albeit numb +with cold, had had not yet found time to feel fatigue, caught sight of +Dr. Bonaday's face, and was smitten with sudden compunction. The old +Doctor had sat through six distressful hours like the stoic he was; but +his face showed like that of a corpse, and the usually plump and florid +cheeks of Mr. Pope hung flaccid, blue with the pinch of the cold and +yellow for lack of sleep. The Commandant spoke to the coxswain, and, +running up the gig alongside the jolly-boat, suggested to the +indomitable Mr. Rogers that the men were almost dead-beat, to which, +indeed, the faces of all bore witness in the broadening daylight. + +"We must not exhaust ourselves utterly," suggested Mr. Pope. "It is +already day, and the Council of Twelve ought to meet before noon." + +"Indeed? Why?" asked the Commandant, absently. + +"Why, to advertise the Lord Proprietor's disappearance, with a printed +description of him!" + +"Is that necessary? Surely by this time everyone in the Islands has +heard the news; and, as for describing him----" + +"It is the proper course to pursue," insisted Mr. Pope, who was +something of a formalist; "in such--er--crises one should proceed +regularly. Doubtless the Council, when called, will proclaim a reward." + +"For what?" asked Doctor Bonaday. + +Mr. Pope turned on him impatiently; but the Doctor's eyes, like the +simpleton's in Scripture, were fixed on the ends of the earth. "Why, +for the discovery of the body," said Mr. Pope. + +"You might offer twenty rewards," said the Commandant. "You cannot make +men work harder than they have worked to-night. Still, if you desire to +summon the Council----" + +"I am suggesting that you should do so." + +"But I am no longer a member." + +"On the contrary, as Governor, you are now its President." + +The Commandant reflected for a moment. "True," he murmured, "I keep +forgetting." Pulling himself together, with a shake of the shoulders, +he turned again to Mr. Rogers. + +"Mr. Rogers," said he, "you know better than I of how much fatigue your +men are capable. For my part, I am returning to summon the Council of +the Islands to meet me in the Court House at twelve o'clock noon, to +summon volunteers and organize a general search. Your presence and +advice will be of the greatest service to us; and as I see some fresh +boats coming up the Sound, I submit that you leave them your +instructions and draw off your tired crews to take what rest they need" + +Mr. Rogers looked up sharply, surprised by the new ring of authority in +the Commandant's voice. "Very well, sir," he answered, after a pause. +"I shall be happy to attend the Council and concert measures with you. +It occurs to me that the body may just possibly have been carried +towards North Island on a back eddy, and with your leave I will tell +the new-coming boats to seek in that direction." + +"I thank you," said the Commandant, and at once gave the word to his +own crew to pull for home. "And on our way," he added, "you shall land +me for ten minutes at the East Porth, under Saaron Farm." + + * * * * * + +At the East Porth, where they found Eli Tregarthen's boat at her +moorings off the grass-grown landing-quay, the Commandant stepped +ashore. Mr. Pope offered to accompany him, but he declined, and went up +the hill alone. + +At the yard-gate he caught sight of Jan Nanjulian, faring forth with +his pails to milk the cows; and, hailing him, demanded where he might +find the farmer. Jan directed him to a line of furze-stacks at the back +of the byres, and, turning the corner of these, he came face to face +with Eli Tregarthen, who had loaded himself with a couple of faggots +for the kitchen fire. + +"Good morning!" said the Commandant. + +"Ah? Good morning to you, sir," answered Tregarthen, clearly surprised, +but showing no sign of guilt or confusion. + +"You have heard the news?" + +"No, sir." + +"The Lord Proprietor is missing." + +"Missing?" Tregarthen set down his faggots and stared at the +Commandant. + +"He has been missing since yesterday at dusk. I understand that you +were in his company shortly before then, on Carn Coppa?" + +"That is so, sir. I left him and Sam Leggo standing together there at +the top of the field." + +"A few minutes later he sent Leggo to the farmhouse to fetch a lantern. +Leggo declares that on his way back he heard a gun fired." + +Tregarthen nodded. "That's right. I heard the shot, too, and reckoned +that the man had let fly at a rabbit. He carried a gun." + +"You don't speak too respectfully of the Lord Proprietor, my friend." + +"I speak as I think," answered Tregarthen, his brow darkening. "He was +no friend to me or mine." + +"I advise you very strongly to keep that sort of talk to yourself, at +any rate for the present. To begin with, Sir Caesar is missing, and we +have grave fear he will not be found again alive: so that it is not +seemly. But, further, I must caution you that you parted from him using +threats, and your threats have been reported." + +"Turn me out of Saaron, he would--" began Tregarthen, but checked +himself at the moment when passion seemed on the point of +over-mastering him. "Well, sir, I didn't shoot him, if that's what they +are telling," he added, quietly. + +"I should be sorry, indeed, to suspect any such thing. But let me tell +you the rest. Hearing the shot, Leggo made good speed back to Carn +Coppa. His master had disappeared; but away to the left, near the edge +of the cliffs, he saw three children running down the hill, and he +declares that those children were yours." + +Tregarthen put up a hand and rubbed the side of his head. + +"_My_ children?" he repeated. "I can't make this out at all, sir. What +could my children be doing anywhere near Carn Coppa?" + +"You had best ask them." + +"No," said Tregarthen, picking up his faggots, "I never brought them up +to be afraid of the truth. Come with me to the house, sir, and they +shall tell what they know." + +He led the way, and the Commandant followed him indoors to the kitchen, +where they found Ruth stooping over the great hearth, already busy with +the morning fire. Across the planching overhead sounded the patter of +the children's bare feet. + +In a couple of minutes they came running down together, laughing on +their way, and the Commandant had to wonder again--as he had wondered +before, on the afternoon when he had sailed them home from Merryman's +Head--at their beautiful manners. They were neither shy, nor +embarrassed. Indeed, it was the Commandant who felt embarrassment (and +showed it) as he asked them to tell what had taken them to Piper's +Hole, and what they had seen there. + +"We saw a mermaid," answered Annet. "She was sitting on the rock +outside the cove; and first she was singing to a kind of harp, and +afterwards she sang as she combed her hair. And then someone fired a +gun at her from the cliffs, and she disappeared, and we were frightened +and ran away. We did not see who fired the gun, nor if she was wounded. +It was not brave of us to run away so quickly, and we have been sorry +ever since." + +"What nonsense is this?" growled their father. "Annet, my child, we +tell the truth--all of us--here on Saaron." + +"It may have been a seal," hazarded the Commandant. "I am told that +Piper's Hole used to be a famous spot for seals." + +But Annet lifted her chin and answered, her eyes steadily raised to her +father's face. "No, it was not a seal; it was a mermaid. She sang and +combed her hair just as I told you. It was beginning to grow dark, but +we could see her quite plainly." She turned for confirmation to Linnet +and Matthew Henry, and they both nodded. + +Their father growled again that this was nonsense; but the Commandant, +lifting a hand, asked what had taken them to the cliffs above Piper's +Hole. It could not (he suggested) have been that they expected to catch +sight of a mermaid. + +"Yes," answered Annet again; "that was just the reason." She was +speaking frankly, as a child can speak; but children have their own +code of honour, and it forbids them to give away a friend. "Jan was +telling us, only the other day," she explained with careful lucidity, +"how his father had once caught a mermaid in a pool there. We wanted +very much to see one, and so we planned to go. But afterwards, when +father rowed us home, we did not like to tell him about it. We were +afraid he would laugh at us; and we were frightened, too; afraid that +the mermaid had been hurt; and--and we were upset because father had +brought the boat for us instead of Jan Nanjulian----" + +"But most of all," put in Linnet, "I was upset because I had been +saying that there were no such things." + +"You silly children, of course there are no such things," said their +mother. + +But Matthew Henry, ignoring her, and more in pity than in anger, turned +on the Commandant. "Are you come," he asked, "because she is hurt?" + +"She? Who?" + +"The mermaid. We didn't mean to bring ill-luck to her. Jan said there +was no good luck ever in spying on a mermaid, but Aunt Vazzy said that +was nonsense, and of course we believed Aunt Vazzy----" + +But here the child came to a full stop, startled by a swift change in +the Commandant's look, and by a sudden sharp exclamation. + +"Your Aunt Vazzy?" The Commandant's hand went up to his forehead. It +seemed that, under the shadow of it his face grew pale and gray as he +gazed from Matthew Henry to the two girls, and from them again to their +mother. + +"Ma'am," said he, in a shaking voice, "is your sister in the house?" + +With his question, it seemed that in turn he had passed on his pallor +to Ruth, who, however, drew herself up and answered him with spirit. +"Sir," said Ruth Tregarthen, "you are asking too much. Must we be +accountable to you for my sister's doings?" + +"For God's sake," cried the Commandant, "let us waste no time in +misunderstandings! Can you not see that your children are telling only +the truth?--that she--your sister--was the mermaid? And if she did not +venture home last night----" + +"She took her own boat," quavered poor Ruth. "She started yesterday +afternoon soon after the children had left for school--and she told me +not to worry if she came home late.... My sister, sir, has queer ways +of her own.... Maybe she heard the news on her way back, and has been +searching all night with the others." + +The Commandant had fallen to pacing the room. "She was not among the +searchers," he said, impatiently. "And, moreover, she has not returned: +her boat is not at the landing-quay." + +"A moment, sir!" interposed Tregarthen. "I see what you fear, and it is +terrible. But one thing is not plain to me at all. Vashti took her own +boat, we hear. Now, suppose that the shot wounded her, or worse, still +we have the boat to account for: and the boat, you say, is not to be +found." + +"Was ever a more hopeless mystery!" cried the Commandant, flinging out +his hands. + +But Eli Tregarthen turned to his wife, who had dropped into a chair by +the fire and lay back, gripping the arms of it. + +"Courage, wife!" said he, laying a strong palm over one of her +trembling hands. "And you, sir, take my thanks; go you home, and leave +the search to me." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +ENTER THE COMMISSIONER + + +It was noon, and in the Court House all the Councillors rose as the +Commandant entered and took his seat. + +In the fewest possible words he opened the business, and leaned back in +his chair of state, waiting for the talk to begin. He scarcely knew +what he had said, and yet he had spoken well. With his restored +authority had come back the old easy habit of it. + +At such a moment the Councillors would not have allowed, even to +themselves, that they breathed more easily and fell to business almost +with a sigh of relief, under the presidency of their old chairman. Yet +so it was. The Lord Proprietor had been autocratic in council, +impatient of opinions that crossed his own, apt to treat discussion as +a tedious preliminary to enforcing his will. + +After five years, then, the Councillors enjoyed, without confessing it, +a sense of liberty regained; and it was the more to the Commandant's +credit that in spite of it he kept a firm rein on the debate, cutting +short all prolixities of speculation, and briefly ruling Mr. Pope's +theory of foul play to be, for the present, out of order. They were +met, he reminded them, for two practical purposes; in the first place, +to organise a thorough search for the Lord Proprietor, and, secondly, +to determine, as briefly as possible, how the government of the Islands +should be continued and carried on during his absence. He would take +these two questions only. + +Mr. Rogers attended, and was cross-examined at length. With a chart +before him, and with the help of Reuben Hicks, the St. Ann's pilot, he +traced and described the currents to the northward of Inniscaw, the +Chairman meanwhile, with pencil and paper, assigning the search-parties +to the various rocks and groups of islets in or around which it was +deemed possible for a floating body to be carried--so many boats to +North Island, so many to seek along Brefar to W. and S. W. of +Merryman's Head, so many to explore the difficult passage between the +Outer Dogs. A sheet of foolscap had been pinned on the outside of the +Court House door inviting volunteers; and while the Councillors +deliberated they could hear the murmur of the crowd surrounding the +notice and the scratching of pencils as one man after another painfully +wrote his name. At intervals--time being precious--Constable Ward would +step out, unpin the paper, replace it with a new one, and bring it +indoors to the Commandant who was thus enabled to form his crews with +despatch. + +It was during one of these intervals (the Court House door being open +for a moment) that Councillor Tregaskis, happening to glance out at the +crowd from his raised chair, and over the heads of the crowd at the +line of distant blue water sparkling in the afternoon sunshine, jumped +up from his seat with an exclamation: + +"A yacht, by Gorm!" + +"Eh? What?" Fully half the Councillors turned towards him, and craned +their necks for a view through the doorway. "A yacht?" The Commandant +laid down his pen and stood up, raising himself a-tip-toe on his dais +in the endeavour to gain a glimpse of the horizon from the window high +on his right. + +"A steam yacht!" + +The Councillors stared one at another, wondering if this new arrival +could have any possible connection with the Lord Proprietor's +disappearance. + +"What's her flag?" demanded Mr. Rogers. + +"She carries no ensign," reported Mr. Tregaskis; "but a +reddish-coloured square flag--a house-flag, belike. And yet, seemin' to +me, she don't look like a private-owned craft." + +"She's the Admiralty yacht from Plymouth," announced Mr. Rogers, +confidently. He had set a chair close to the window and climbed upon +it. "Yes, yes--the old _Circe_; I could tell her in a thousand.... +She's slowing down to anchor; and see, there's the gold anchor on her +flag! Listen, now ... there goes!..." Through the open doorway, across +the clear water, their ears caught the splash of a dropped anchor, and +the music of its chain running through the hawse-pipe. + +The Commandant rapped the table. + +"Gentlemen," said he, "oblige me by returning to your places and +resuming our business. We shall not advance it just now by catching at +hopes which may be baseless, though I admit the temptation. That these +visitors bring us any news of the Lord Proprietor or any that bears, +even remotely, upon his disappearance is--to say the least of +it--highly improbable. On the other hand, it is certain that by +detaining Mr. Rogers here we hinder him in the discharge of those +courtesies which, as Inspecting Commander, he will be eager to pay to +the newcomers. I suggest, then, that we briefly conclude the inquiry, +in which he has given us so much help, and allow him to put off to the +yacht, while we, restraining our curiosity, take further counsel for +the interim government of the Islands. If"--he turned to Mr. +Rogers--"if, sir, our visitors can throw any light on the mystery, I +may trust you to bring them to us with all despatch." + +Accordingly Mr. Rogers, having briefly completed his evidence, was +allowed to depart, and the councillors fell again to the business of +distributing the crews of the searchboats. + +Meanwhile, in the Court House, it was agreed that supreme control of +the executive reverted naturally to the Commandant, subject only to +such power of criticism or restraint as the Council claimed over the +action of the Lord Proprietor himself. The twelve shouted "Aye" to this +with one voice. + +The Commandant, however, reminded them that he had not yet put the +resolution, and that it was doubtful--he spoke as one who, some years +ago, had made a study of these constitutional niceties--"if the Council +of Twelve had really any say in the matter. They could, of course, +elect their own President----" + +But at this point a noise of women's voices on the quay, followed by a +knocking on the door of the Council Chamber, put a period to the +impatience of his auditors. + +The door was opened, and Mr. Rogers appeared on the threshold with a +tall officer, gaunt and white-haired, in military undress--at first +glance indisputably a person of distinction--standing close behind his +shoulder. + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. President, if we interrupt the Council," began +Mr. Rogers; "but I have brought a visitor here, Sir Ommaney Ward, who +has business with you so soon as the sitting is over." + +"--But who has no desire at all to interrupt it," added Sir Ommaney +courteously, stepping forward and bowing to the Council. "Good +afternoon, gentlemen! Good afternoon, sir!" He stepped forward to the +dais holding out his hand. "Hey? my old friend Vigoureux, have you +quite forgotten me, in all these years?" + +"Ward!" exclaimed the Commandant, his face brightening with sudden +recognition. A moment later, even more suddenly, it grew gray and +haggard, almost (you might say) with terror. But the visitor did not +perceive this. + +"My dear fellow, why not give me the name as it rose to your lips? +'Tubby' Ward it used to be in the trenches, eh? Gentlemen"--Sir Ommaney +turned to the Council--"your President and I have interrupted each +other's work before now--as gunner and sapper--under Sebastopol. But I +have no desire to interrupt yours, knowing how serious it is. Mr. +Rogers brought off the news--this disquieting, not to say dumbfounding, +news--to the yacht just now; and I hardly need to tell you that it puts +my own errand into the background. Sir,"--he turned to the Commandant +again--"I allowed Mr. Rogers to bring me here only on his surmise that +your business would be over. If you will give me, having announced +myself, your leave to withdraw----" + +"We shall have done in a very few minutes," answered the Commandant. +His lips were dry, and he marvelled at the careless sound of his own +voice. He had not a doubt of the true meaning of Sir Ommaney's visit. +Nay, the very swiftness with which it followed upon his letter of +confession proved how serious a view the War Office must take of his +case. He pulled himself together desperately. "If you will take a +chair, sir, here on my right, I promise that twenty minutes will see us +at an end." + +So the business of the Council was resumed, and the Commandant, still +wondering at his own coolness, took up the thread of his discourse. + +It was, on the whole, an admirable discourse. He had the constitutional +system of the Islands at his fingers' ends, and to-day, with despair in +his heart, but thinking nothing of them nor recking at all, he +expounded them lucidly. His words, too, had a real effect upon his +hearers; an emotional effect which Sir Ommaney, sitting and listening +seriously, could not but note. + +At the conclusion, Mr. Pope rose again, and proposed, and Mr. Fossell +again seconded, that the supreme government of the islands reverted +naturally, for the time being, to the Commandant: so that, for +practical purposes, it may be contended he had spoken superfluously. +But, to one who looked beneath the surface, this did not matter. + +The Court rose, with its ancient formalities. "Reginae et insulis ejus +sit Deus propitius," said the President, closing the Bible, which at +all meetings of the Council lay open on the table before him. "Ita et +laboribus nostris, Amen," duly responded the twelve Councillors, +standing in their places while he walked with his guest to the door. On +the threshold he faced about, and made them a bow, which they as +ceremoniously returned. + +Out of doors the afternoon sun shone with a brightness almost dazzling +after the shade of the Court House; but the tonic north-west wind, +blowing across the Roads from Cromwell's Sound, held an autumnal chill, +and the Commandant shivered as he halted a moment to con the _Circe_ in +the offing. + +"I travel in state," said Sir Ommaney, with a laugh, as he followed +this glance; "and with the cabins of half-a-dozen Sea Lords to choose +between. In point of fact, our department has no boat at Plymouth +capable of performing the passage comfortably: so, my business being +partly theirs, I applied to the Admiralty, and the Admiralty placed +their yacht at my disposal." + +The Commandant did not understand; or perhaps he had not been listening +intently. By tacit consent, the pair bent their steps towards the slope +of Garrison Hill. + +"Also," Sir Ommaney resumed, "the Admiral at Plymouth added a word of +advice, to take advantage of this spell of weather and make the passage +at once. No doubt he had a professional distrust of a soldier's +stomach. Still, he meant it kindly. And that accounts for my arriving +some days ahead of scheduled time, and dropping into the midst of this +disquieting business. What's the meaning of it, think you?" + +"The meaning of it?" echoed the Commandant. + +"You don't doubt the man fell over the cliffs and killed himself?" + +The Commandant shook his head. "I don't doubt his having met with an +accident," he answered. "But I have some hope of finding him yet, and +of finding him alive." + +"To me, that doesn't seem likely.... But I want to tell you at once +that my business can wait. I repeat, I am ahead of time. I can employ +myself on board, or get out the steam-launch and explore the Islands; +or again (if you will use me), I will gladly make one of a search +party." + +The Commandant thanked him. "But I have no particular business, at any +rate for an hour or two. The boats have gone, and I leave it to Mr. +Rogers to direct the search, now that we have laid down the plan of it. +On these occasions, one captain is always better than two." Sir Ommaney +might talk easily of postponing this or that; but the Commandant, poor +man, craved to get the worst over and learn his fate. + +"By the bye, Vigoureux--if you'll not mind my saying so--you handled +that Council of yours admirably." + +The Commandant flushed. "They are old friends of mine, Sir Ommaney." + +"Why, and so am I an old friend; at least, as I supposed. Cannot you +manage to drop the prefix?... Very well.... And now, if you have +nothing better to do, take me over the old fortifications." + +They climbed the hill together to the Garrison gate, and thence, +bearing away to the left, started to make the round of the batteries. +He flinched as they came to the first--the King George's Battery--and +stood by the deserted platform. The bitter humiliation to be here, +master of a fortress without one single gun! Almost he dreaded to hear +his guest break forth with a contemptuous laugh. + +Sir Ommaney, however, surveyed the ruin in silence, and when he spoke +it was only to ask a question concerning the trajectory of the guns +which had once furnished it. The Commandant walked by his side, a man +torn by many emotions. For the first time in fifteen years he, an +enthusiast in gunnery, had an opportunity to talk with one who really +cared for gunnery and understood it. On the other hand, and eagerly as +he jumped at every question, he could not help perceiving that these +batteries--of which he had been so proud--of which in recollection he +was yet so proud--were to Sir Ommaney but obsolete toys. This visitor +of his, this friend of his gallant youth, had moved with the times, and +the times had carried him to an infinite distance, beyond all +understanding. Thus, as he moved on from battery to battery, at times +our Commandant talked earnestly, wistfully, and at times fell to a +despondent silence; and still between his eagerness and his despondency +the personal question awoke--"He is kind, but he is here to pass +judgment on me. What can the sentence be but disgrace?" Arrived at the +Keg of Butter Battery, Sir Ommaney seated himself on the low wall, hard +by the spot where Vashti had dug at the stones with her sunshade. + +"My dear Vigoureux," said Sir Ommaney, after a long look seaward, "I +haven't a doubt you regret your guns, obsolete though you know that +they were. For that matter, your batteries--their build and their very +positions--are quite as hopelessly out of date." + +"Man," exclaimed the Commandant, with a sudden rush of blood to the +face, "do you suppose I cannot guess why you are here? Oh, for God's +sake let me hear the worst! If for five years I have been an enforced +idler here, do me at least the justice to believe that I know the range +of modern artillery and something of what a modern battleship can do. +Fifteen years ago when I came to take over the command of the Islands, +the old _Black Prince_ was the last word in ships and gunnery. Think of +it! Yet, the basis of defence, the simple principle, lies here, and has +always lain here. If you had come to discuss this----" + +Sir Ommaney lifted a hand. "But that is partly--even chiefly--what I am +come to consider." + +"Ah!" + +"And I have seen a letter about you, addressed to the War Office by the +Lord Proprietor: an unfriendly letter, I may say." + +The Commandant's cheeks were already warm with excitement, but at this +their colour deepened. + +"I beg you to believe," said he, heartily, "that if Sir Caesar has +written about me, my letter was sent without knowledge of it, and in no +desire to anticipate----" + +"My dear fellow," Sir Ommaney interrupted; "I have some little sense +left in my head, I hope. But will you put constraint upon yourself for +a moment to forget these letters, to dismiss the personal question, and +simply to resume our talk." + +"I will try," agreed the Commandant, after a painful pause. "But it +will be hard; harder perhaps than you can understand. Honours have come +to you--deservedly, I admit----" + +"And too late," Sir Ommaney again took him up. "My dear Vigoureux, when +we knew one another in the old days, honours seemed to both of us the +most desirable thing in the world. Believe me, they always come too +late." + +The Commandant looked at him for a moment. "Yes," said he at length, +"we have talked enough of ourselves. And what do we matter, after all?" + +They walked back to the Barracks together, side by side, discussing, as +one soldier with another, the problem which the one had opened, on +which the other had brooded in silence for years. + +Arrived at his quarters, the Commandant applied the poker to his fire, +motioned Sir Ommaney to the worn armchair, excused himself, and hurried +off to seek Archelaus and discuss the chances of a cup of tea. + +Sir Ommaney, left to himself, took a glance round the poverty-stricken +room, and stretched out his long legs to the blaze. The evening air +without had been chilly. The sea-coal in the grate, stirred by the +Commandant's poker, woke to a warm glow with a small dancing flame on +top. Sir Ommaney stared into the glow, lost in thought.... A tapping on +the pane awoke him out of his brown study. He sat upright, but almost +with the same motion he sprang to his feet as a hand pushed open the +window behind him. + +There was no light in the room save that afforded by the dancing, +uncertain flame. It wavered, as he turned about, upon the figure of a +woman entering confidently across the sill, and upon a face at sight of +which he drew back almost in terror. + +"Pass, friend, and all's well!" said Vashti, with a light laugh, as she +effected her entrance. Then, catching sight of the man confronting her, +she caught at the curtain, and said, simply, "O-oh!" + +"Lord, bless my soul!" exclaimed Sir Ommaney, in a low voice, but +fervently. + +"I--I thought you were the Commandant," stammered Vashti, for once in +this history taken thoroughly aback. + +"Mademoiselle Cara!... You? And here, of all places in the world!" + +But upon this they both turned, as the door opened and the Commandant +stood on the threshold. + +"Miss Vashti!" The Commandant stared from one to the other. + +Vashti broke the silence with her ready laugh. + +"Sir Ommaney Ward and I have met before. He does not know that this is +my native home; but"--she dropped them both a curtsey--"the point is +that you are both to come with me, and at once." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE FINDING + + +The two men followed her out into the darkness and across the turfed +slope towards the Keg of Butter. The Commandant, amid much that was +bewildering, guessed that her boat lay moored there, and that she meant +them to accompany her, either to Saaron or to Inniscaw. There was no +danger of meeting anyone by the way, either on the hill or down by the +shore; for the search had drawn off all the coastguard. Nevertheless, +though he carried a lantern, he did not light it. + +The moon would not be up for an hour yet, but the nor'-westerly breeze +had blown the sky clear of clouds. The stars--bright as always when the +wind sets over the Islands from that quarter--lent a pale radiance by +which Sir Ommaney managed to steer his way, and at a fair pace, beside +his more expert companion, and the Commandant, when they reached the +cliff-path, lent him a hand. + +"But you don't tell me you have come over from Saaron in that +cockleshell of yours?" asked the Commandant, peering down into the +darkness for a glimpse of the boat. + +Vashti, who was leading the way down the track, turned with a laugh. +"No, and for a very good reason. I could not take you two back in her, +for she would not carry you, and I could not borrow yours and leave her +here for the coastguard to discover; and again the wind, though it has +fallen, is against us--we shall have to pull, and there would be no +sense in towing a boat, even a little one, for we are in a hurry. So I +sailed across in Eli's. But please do not deride my poor cockleshell, +as you call it; for without her I had never such news as I bring you." + +"When are we to hear it?" + +She laughed again as she stooped and found the shore-line of +Tregarthen's boat. "Not yet. No, and you need not light the lantern. We +shall want it just before our journey's end; not until then." + +The Commandant helped her to draw in the boat, and they clambered on +board. + +"But surely you don't expect me to steer!" protested Sir Ommaney, +gazing blankly around at the darkness, as Vashti directed him to take +his seat in the stern sheets. + +"No, I have unshipped the rudder, and you will have nothing to do but +sit still and wonder." She snugged away the sail. "Now, will you take +bow oar or stroke?" she asked the Commandant. "Better perhaps leave me +the bow oar and the steering." + +"Might one ask whither?" + +"For Inniscaw, and for the landing beneath the Great House. It will +give us the farther to walk, but towards the north of the Island we +shall find ourselves in a press of boats. To be sure, no one is likely +to suspect us; it will be supposed that we are joining the search. +Still, I would rather run no risks, and the southern landing is almost +certainly deserted." + +She shipped her oar; and as the Commandant set the stroke she took it +up with a will. At the fifth or sixth stroke she began to sing--not a +set song, but little trills and snatches of melody, as though health, +happiness, the joy of living, the delight of swinging to the oar in the +cool night air--these together or something compounded of them +all--filled her being and bubbled over. + +"You are silent, you two." She said it almost reproachfully, pausing to +throw a glance over her shoulder and direct the steering. + +"And with excuse." Sir Ommaney answered. "Who is not mute when +Mademoiselle Cara sings? And who, an hour ago, could have promised me +that I should hear her sing, in this place, beneath the stars?" + +"Few will hear her any more," said Vashti, lightly. "She is tired of +the stage and thinks of marrying." + +"Indeed, mademoiselle? And whom are we to congratulate? Who is it that +selfishly appropriates what was meant for mankind?" + +"Faith, sir, I cannot tell you," she answered again, still in the same +light tone. "But I came, just now, to kidnap the Commandant!" + +Without giving a chance of reply, she broke into singing again; the +air, _Ah, fors e lui_. It gushed from her lips like a very fountain of +happiness, irrepressible, springing towards the stars in jets and +spurts of melody, falling with a ripple in which the music of the stars +themselves seemed to echo; almost in the moment of its fall rising +again, as though it panted with joy--not with weariness, for the spirit +of it called impetuously to life. The two men listened, marvelling. Nor +when the song ended was the spell broken; for still, as she pulled +towards the looming shadow of Inniscaw, sinking her voice almost to a +murmur, she took up the melody as though in echo, caressing, repeating +it, loth to let it go. + +They came to the dark landing-quay. Sir Ommaney, stepping ashore, +stretched out a hand; but she disregarded it, as she disregarded the +Commandant's, held out to take the painter and make fast. + +"Thank you"--she stooped, apparently groping among the bottom-boards. +"I will moor the boat myself. But wait: I have something for each of +you to carry." + +In the darkness she passed up a double tackle and a coil of rope. "I +fetched these from Saaron on my way to you," she explained. "We shall +need them. Have you fairly strong heads for a climb? Very well, +then"--she sprang ashore with the painter in her hand, made it fast to +a ring above the quay steps, and picked up the lantern. "Now forward! +And no talking, please, until we are well past the house and out of +hearing!" + +Sir Ommaney picked up the tackle, the Commandant the coil of rope, and +the pair followed her one behind the other. In Indian file they stole +up through the plantations, almost to the foot of the glimmering +terrace; thence, bearing to the left, along dim paths through the mazes +of the gardens, thence again through the north-west plantation, and out +upon the path which the Lord Proprietor had taken, on his way to North +Inniscaw. Here, on the uplands, the breeze met them, and at his feet +Sir Ommaney, for the first time, saw spread the wonderful circle of the +great sea lights. Smaller lights twinkled like a thread of gems along +the north and north-eastern horizon. They belonged to the boats still +prosecuting the search. + +From the first Vashti had led the way without faltering or appearing to +hesitate for a moment. Even when clear of the woods her companions +observed the prohibition she had laid upon them at the start, and +exchanged scarcely a word. + +"You have followed well," said Vashti, as they reached the foot of Pare +Coppa. She pointed to the mass of shadow ahead, and the granite blocks +on the summit faintly touched by the starlight. "I know now what it +feels like to command soldiers, and it feels good. There, by that high +rock to the left, our march ends." + +They breasted the slope and arrived at the rock panting, after seven or +eight minutes' climb. It was the same on which Sam Leggo had last seen +the Lord Proprietor sitting with his gun across his knees. But why she +had brought them to this spot the two men were as far as ever from +guessing; for almost straight beneath them lay the sea. + +After a minute's rest Vashti lowered herself over the western edge of +the rock, at the same time warning them to follow with extreme caution; +and so all three came to the ledge of the adit. But their business did +not lie here. Indeed, in the darkness neither Sir Ommaney nor the +Commandant observed the opening, and Vashti had no leisure to call +their attention to it. Clambering, still to the left, across a boulder +which fairly overhung the sea, she struck a match, lit the candle in +her lantern, and held it up before a dark hole--a second adit--pierced +in the cliff-side and running west, as the other ran south-by-east. + +"Be careful, now!" she warned them again, and ducked her head as she +entered the tunnel, which was scarcely more than five feet high. They +stooped and followed down the slope of it for about thirty yards, and +halted behind her as she waved the lantern over what appeared at first +to be a terrific chasm, opening at her feet. + +"Eli, ahoy! Ahoy, there!" she called. + +"Ahoy!" the voice came up from the depths. "Ahoy, there, Vashti!" + +"I have brought the Commandant, with a friend--and the tackle. Shall I +fix it here?" + +"That's no work for you, my dear," called up Eli. "Let them come down +if they've heads for it, and afterwards I can climb up and fix it. Or, +stay! Let the one come down, and the other bide aloft, to help me." + +"Do you dare?" Vashti asked the Commandant, pointing down to the pit, +and then with a wave of her lantern indicating the stairway by which he +must descend. It was a ladder of rope, suspended from an iron bar +driven into the solid rock about a foot above the floor-level on which +they stood. It dangled down into darkness, and the Commandant perceived +to his horror that its iron rungs lay close against the cliff. + +"Surely you are never going down that way?" he asked. + +But Vashti was already stooping to slip off her shoes. + +"You need not follow unless you choose." + +"Where you go, I go. Let me lead the way." + +But while he unlaced and kicked off his boots she had already grasped +the iron bar and swung herself out over the abyss, feeling with her +toes for a rung and a good foothold. + +"For my part," said Sir Ommaney, controlling with some difficulty the +tremor of his voice as he saw her anchored safely for the moment, "I am +content to smoke a pipe here and wait. For God's sake be careful you +two!" he added, as the Commandant also gripped the bar, then a rung, +and began to lower himself. + +Far below the Commandant could see a light glimmering, drawing faint +twinkles from the wet rock around him. Just beneath him he could hear +Vashti's hands rhythmically catching at the rungs--down, down.... Once +his feet slipped from the staves, and he hung for a moment by his +hand-grip only. Twice Vashti spoke up to him, warning him to press a +knee against the rock, and so make room for his toes to catch the +rungs.... At length they reached a point where the ladder hung clear of +the cliff; but here a hand from below caught it and held it steady. + +"Nervous work, sir!" said Eli Tregarthen, as the Commandant, with a +gasp of relief, felt his feet touch solid rock. + +"But where are we?" demanded the Commandant; for close at hand sounded +the boom of heavy waves. + +"In Piper's Hole." + +The Commandant stared aloft. Slowly the explanation dawned on him. The +adit, piercing its way from the cliff top, broke through the wall of +the cave, high up, close to the roof. He turned, and his eyes followed +Vashti, who had caught up Eli's lantern, and was picking her way across +the rocky floor. Presently she bent to a kneeling posture, as the rays +fell on what at first appeared to be a long bundle. He hurried after +her, but stopped short with a cry. + +"Sir Caesar!" + +"Even so, my friend. Alive, thanks to our friends here; and, but for a +shaking and a twisted ankle, sound as well as safe. Yes, and the ankle +is mending, thanks to Miss Cara's skill and a plenty of salt-water +bandages." + +The Lord Proprietor's face was pale as he leaned on his elbow and +stared at the Commandant across the lantern. It was scratched, too, and +scarred; but it was the face of a sound man. + +"But how in the world----?" + +"Easily enough. I was leaning over the cliff above here, with my gun +beside me, when a piece of earth gave way under my head. I went down +the slope head foremost, as I guess, and my coat must have caught in +the gun's trigger-guard. At any rate, it went off, and by the mercy of +Heaven without wounding me; but either the noise of it stunned me or +the fall must have knocked me foolish, for tumbling among the bushes +that grow in the hollow above the cave's entrance, I had not the sense +to catch hold, but slid through them, and clean over the edge into the +sea." + +"Eh? But pardon me, how can you possibly remember this?" stammered the +Commandant. + +"I saw it," said Vashti, quietly. + +"Oh!" The Commandant stared at her, and began to understand. "So you +_were_ the mermaid!" + +She nodded. "I happened to be on the rock, outside the entrance, with +my small boat lying in a low spot under its eastern shelter, and so I +put off to him at once. There was a strong run of water into the cave; +the depth was not above three feet when the waves ran back. So I +clutched hold of him--though making sure he was dead--and drew him into +the cave, above high-water mark. It was hard work, though not so hard +as dragging the boat after us." + +"Why should you want to drag the boat so far?... You don't mean to tell +me that you have been hiding here, on purpose, while the search has +been going on all around you!" + +Vashti laughed. "Why, of course we have! I heard you and Mr. Rogers +last night. You were standing together on the very spot over which I +had hauled the boat: only I had taken the precaution to smooth the sand +over the track of her keel. From the ridge of rock there I launched her +on the freshwater pool, and paddled her across with the Lord Proprietor +safe on board. I was dreadfully afraid, while I listened to your +voices, that you would cross the pool and discover her. + +"It lies close?" + +"About thirty yards from where we stand." + +"To confess the truth," put in the Lord Proprietor, "my fall seems to +have knocked some daylight into me, or else Miss Vashti is a witch. +While she bound up my hurts we had some conversation together----" + +"It was I who did the talking," interposed Vashti. + +"And that, perhaps, explains why in so short a while I learnt so much. +I learnt enough, sir, at any rate, of you and of Eli Tregarthen to make +me suspect that I had done you both some injustice. I was willing to +hear more; to prolong the adventure which"--he bowed after a fashion +towards Vashti, and not ungallantly--"had its--er--romantic side. I +decided that if Miss Cara spoke with knowledge, it would do me good to +see myself for a brief while as others in the Islands see me, even to +hear what they said of me by way of obituary criticism." + +He paused at a sound on the far side of the cave. It came from the +ladder; the sound of Eli's hobnailed boots, rung upon rung, as he +climbed aloft towards the adit, to fasten the tackle there. + +"It seems a monstrous height to be swung in air, helpless as a babe. +But Tregarthen says it can be done, and I am willing to trust him. If +at the top you can rig up some kind of litter for me, and convey me +home without noise ... I have a fancy, and it is also Miss Cara's, that +we keep the main part of this mystery to ourselves. But who is the +helper aloft there?" + +"Sir Ommaney Ward." + +"Hey?" + +"Sir Ommaney Ward." + +"The devil! And I sent for him! Forgive me, Commandant----" + +"And excuse me, Sir Caesar, but I prefer to believe he is here because +my letter brought him." + +The Lord Proprietor held out his hand. + +"Will you take it, Commandant? Miss Cara has told me of that letter. +You are a good man, and I have wronged you." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +CONCLUSION + + +Three years and a few months have passed. The date is Easter Monday +(Easter falls early this year), and from the Keg of Butter Battery the +Commandant, as he stands looking seaward, hears the school-bell ringing +in the town at the foot of Garrison Hill, though the school has been +closed a week since for the Easter holidays. + +He hears it, but for a while pays no attention to it, though it keeps +ding-dinging insistently. His eyes are bent on the sea; yet not in the +direction of Saaron, where, if they sought carefully, they might detect +a trace of smoke coiling up from the fold of the hills which hides Eli +Tregarthen's farm; but westward, towards the main, whence the steamer +will arrive before nightfall. She is not due for hours, yet the +Commandant's gaze searches the horizon. + +The Keg of Butter Battery mounts no guns as yet It is no longer the +ruined platform above which Vashti sat on the crumbling wall and poked +at the wild thyme with her sunshade. The Government contractor has +transformed it: the wall has disappeared, and a smooth glacis slopes +from the Commandant's feet over hidden chambers, constructed to house +those quick-firing guns. The chambers are ready: the guns will arrive +within a week. It is not for them, however, that the Commandant scans +the horizon so intently. + +Although it is holiday-time, the bells in the town below are ringing to +the school-house; but the school-house is filled with flowers. Two +years ago the Lord Proprietor called his Islanders together, and +explained how he hoped to bring back prosperity to the Islands by means +of daffodil culture. For an experiment, he offered to present a +thousand Dutch bulbs to every cottager who would give them soil and +cultivation, and to-day the Islanders celebrate their first daffodil +show. + +In years to come, as the trade increases, the market will keep them too +happily busy to waste time on exhibitions. We see them, and we part +with them, on the eve of prosperity. So much, at any rate, has grown of +the few bulbs carried by Archelaus for a peace-offering. + + * * * * * + +The Commandant takes out his watch, discovers that it is close upon +time for the opening ceremony, and descends the hill in a hurry. At the +school-house door he meets the Lord Proprietor, and they shake hands as +they enter the building together. But after going the round of the +stalls, the Lord Proprietor looks up. + +"She is coming this afternoon, is she not?" + +"She is coming," says the Commandant, and looks forth from the open +window over the sea. + + + + +Novels and Stories by "Q" + +Published by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + +POISON ISLAND + +"Down to the last chapter, in which an amazing adventure is brought to +an amazing end, the reader is kept in a sympathetic mood."--N. Y. +_Tribune_. + +"Well worth reading, for who does not delight in a tale of lost +treasure?"--Boston _Herald_. + +$1.50 + + * * * * * + +SIR JOHN CONSTANTINE + +"As a tale of romantic adventure we have hardly had anything since +Stevenson's time so good."--_The Outlook_. + +"A lively tale well told."--Chicago _Daily News_. + +"An English Don Quixote."--N. Y. _Tribune_. + +$1.50 + + * * * * * + +THE MAYOR OF TROY + +"If a more whimsical, delightfully written, and satisfying story could +result, it is safe to say that the public will demand that the whole +gallery of Cornwall mayors be represented by 'Q.'"--New York _Evening +Post_. + +$1.50 + + + + +NOVELS AND STORIES BY "Q" + + +SHINING FERRY + +"The humor and pathos of the narrative are so true that every page +breathes a spirit of pure humanity. It is an old-fashioned tale, +sincere and sweet."--N. Y. _Tribune_. + +$1.50 + + * * * * * + +THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY REVEL + +"The adventures are as exciting or amusing as any reader could wish. +The atmosphere is thoroughly wholesome and breezy. There is not a +slipshod sentence in the book. Boys will read it with delight and get +nothing but good out of it."--London _Athenaeum_. + +$1.50 + + * * * * * + +THE WHITE WOLF: and Other Fireside Tales + +"As a teller of short stories 'Q' is an author of infinite variety and +charm unfailing. His invention is fertile in surprises, and his +conceits are a perpetual delight."--New York _Evening Sun_. + +$1.50 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Major Vigoureux, by A. T. Quiller-Couch + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAJOR VIGOUREUX *** + +***** This file should be named 20863.txt or 20863.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/8/6/20863/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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