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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/37954-8.txt b/37954-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0198612 --- /dev/null +++ b/37954-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12252 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Maid of the Mist, by John Oxenham + +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: Maid of the Mist + +Author: John Oxenham + +Release Date: November 19, 2011 [EBook #37954] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAID OF THE MIST *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: map of Sable Island] + + + + + + +MAID OF THE MIST + + +BY + +JOHN OXENHAM + + + + +HODDER AND STOUGHTON + +PUBLISHERS LONDON + + + + +_Printed in 1917_ + + + + +TO + +MY FRIEND + +FREDERICK CÆSAR de SUMICHRAST + +Professor Emeritus of French Literature + +at + +Harvard University + +in + +HIGHEST ESTEEM + +and + +MOST AFFECTIONATE REGARD. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +BOOK I + +For a Woman's Sake + + +BOOK II + +No Man's Land + + +BOOK III + +Bone of Contention + + +BOOK IV + +Love in a Mist + + +BOOK V + +Garden of Eden + + + + +BOOK I + +FOR A WOMAN'S SAKE + + + + +I + +At sight of where the chase was leading, most of the riders reined in +their panting horses and sat watching those in front with anxious faces. + +The Old Roman Road--so called, though with possibly somewhat doubtful +claim to antiquity so remote--had an evil reputation. At best of times +it was dangerous. More than one of them had sacrificed a horse to it +at some time or other. Some had come near to sacrificing more. + +After several hours in the field, wound up by a fast five-and-twenty +minutes' run which had led round Endsley Wood and the coppices almost +to Wynn Hall, and then back through Dursel Bottom, and up Whin Hill, it +was too much to ask of any horse. Besides, it meant the end of the run +in any case, for that old fox, if he failed to shake them off +elsewhere, always made for the Roman Road and always managed it there. + +The hedge on this side was as thick and matted a quickset as ever grew. +The sunk road had no doubt originally been a covered way from the old +fort up above. It was indeed more of a trench than a road, with a +sheer descent from the quickset of ten good feet, a width of about as +much, and a grass slope on the other side at a somewhat lower level. + +The leap was therefore by no means impossible if your horse could rise +to the hedge and cover the distance and the extra bit for a footing. + +But what was the good? The bottom of the old road was always a muddy +dribble from the fields above, and up and down it went several flocks +of sheep whenever they changed pasture. And the wily old fox knew the +effect of these things on scent as well as any hound or huntsman. So, +when it was his day, and he had had enough of them, he made for the Old +Roman Road, and then went home with a curl in his lip and a laugh in +his eye. + +But there were riders among them to whom a ride was nothing without a +risk in it, and the Roman Road a standing test and temptation. It was +two such that the rest who had got that length stood watching, some +with tightened faces, none without anxiety. For a leap that is good +sport when one's horse is fresh may mean disaster at the end of the +run. Even old Job, the huntsman, and young Job, his son, who acted as +whipper-in, watched with pinched faces and panted oaths between their +teeth. Pasley Carew, the Master, lifted his foam-flecked black to the +hedge, and the dull crash of his fall came up to them, horribly clear +on the still autumn air. + +Wulfrey Dale, the Doctor, on his big bay, cleared hedge and road with +feet to spare, flung himself off as soon as he could pull up, and ran +back to help. + +It was as bad as it could be. Carew lay in the road, smothered in mud +and obviously damaged. His horse had just rolled off him, and the +Doctor saw at a glance that one of its forelegs was broken. It was +kicking out wildly with its heels, flailing clods out of the steep bank +and floundering in vain attempts to rise. + +Carew, on one elbow, was cursing it with every oath he could lay tongue +to, and with the pointed bone handle of his crop in the other hand was +hammering the poor brute's head to pulp. + +"Stop it, Carew!" shouted Wulfrey, sickened at the sight, as he jumped +down the bank. "Damn it, man, it wasn't her fault!" + +"---- her! She's broken my back." + +"You shouldn't have tried it. I told you you were too heavy for her. +Stop it, I say!" and he wrenched the crop, all dripping with hair and +blood, out of the other's hand, and with difficulty bit off the hot +words that surged in his throat. For the man was broken and hardly +responsible. + +It was a hard age and given to forceful language. But never in any age +are there lacking some to whom brutality to the dumb beast appeals as +keenly as ill-treatment of their fellows. + +Wulfrey Dale was of these, and a great lover of horses besides, and +Carew's maltreatment of his broken beast cut him to the quick. + +With another quick look at the useless leg, and a bitter word which he +could not keep in, at the horror of the mauled head, he drew from his +pocket a long knife, which had seen service on many a field, opened it, +pressed down the blinded tumbling head with one hand, and with the +other deftly inserted the blade at the base of the skull behind the +ears and drove it home with all his force, severing the spinal cord. + +"Poor old girl!" he said, as, with a quick sigh of relief, the great +black body lay still. + +Then he turned to Carew and knelt down to examine into his injuries. + +"No need," said the broken man. "Curse it all! Get a gate. My back's +gone. I've no legs,"--and the others, having found their roundabout +ways, came flocking up, while the dogs still nosed eagerly up and down +the road but got no satisfaction. + +Young Job plied his whip and his tongue and carried them away. His +father looked at Carew, then at the Doctor, who nodded, and the old man +turned and hurried away to get what long experience of such matters +told him was needed. + +"Take a pull at this, Carew," said the Doctor, handing him a flask. +And as he drank deeply, as though to deaden the pain or the thought of +it, Dale beckoned to one of the group which stood a little aloof lest +the broken man should take their anxiety for morbid curiosity. + +"Barclay, will you ride on and break it to Mrs. Carew?" + +"Is it bad?" + +"Yes, his back's broken." + +"Good God!" and he stumbled off to his horse, and with a word to the +rest, mounted and rode away. + +Old Job came back in a minute or two with a hurdle he had rooted up +from the sheep-fold, and they lifted the Master on to it and carried +him slowly and heavily home. + + + + +II + +Carew was on the front door steps as they came up the drive. The +Doctor went on in advance to speak to her. + +"Dead?" she jerked breathlessly, as he strode up. + +"Not dead. Badly broken. He may live," and her tightened lips pinched +a trifle tighter. + +She was a slight, extremely pretty woman of three and twenty, +white-faced at the moment with the sudden shock; in her blue eyes a +curious startled look--anxiety?--expectancy? Even Dale, who had known +her all his life, could not have said. All he knew was that it was not +quite the look one found in some wives' faces in similar circumstances, +and this was not the first he had seen. + +She looked scarcely more than a girl, though she had been married five +years. That was due largely to the slim grace of her figure. Her face +was thinner than he had known it, less eloquent of her feelings, +somewhat tense and repressed, and her eyes seemed larger; and all that, +he knew, was due to the fact that it was to Pasley Carew to whom she +had been married for five years, for he had seen these changes come +upon her gradually. + +They had played together as boy and girl, when he was just little Wulf +Dale, the Doctor's son, and she Elinor Baynard, living with her mother +at Glynne. As youth and maiden they had flirted and even sweet-hearted +for a time. But Mrs Baynard of Glynne had no intention of letting her +pretty girl throw herself away on a mere country doctor's son, however +highly she might esteem both father and son personally. + +Wulf had at that time still to prove himself, and even if he did so, +and eventually succeeded his father in the practice, it meant no more +than a good living at the cost of constant hard work. + +Elinor, she was sure, had been gifted by Nature with that face and +figure for some better portion in life than that of a country doctor's +wife, and so she saw to it that the feelings of the young people should +not get too deeply entangled before it was too late. + +As for Elinor herself she was very fond of Wulf. She liked him indeed +almost well enough to sacrifice everything for him. But not quite. If +he had only been in the position and possessions of Pasley Carew of the +Hall, now, she would have married him without a moment's hesitation, +and she would undoubtedly have had much greater chance of happiness +than was vouchsafed her. + +If, indeed, Wulf had ardently pushed his suit he might possibly have +prevailed on her to marry him in spite of her mother, though whether +Wulf without the possessions would have satisfied her eventually may be +doubted. But Wulf, two years older than herself, had no intention of +marrying at twenty, even if his father would have heard of it. + +He was a gay, good-looking fellow, with the cheerfullest of humours, +and on the best of terms with every man, woman and child, over all the +country-side. Moreover he was an excellent shot, a fearless rider, +good company at table, an acceptable and much-sought-after +guest,--whenever circumstances and cases permitted of temporary release +from duties with which no social engagements were ever allowed to +interfere. Marrying and settling down were for the years to come. + +As his father's assistant he had proved his capabilities. And when the +old man died, Wulf stepped up into the vacant saddle and filled it with +perfect acceptation to all concerned. + +His ready sympathy, and his particular interest in and devotion to +everyone who claimed his services, endeared him to his patients. They +vowed that the sight of him did them as much good as his medicines, but +he made them take the medicines all the same. + +He had also lately been appointed Deputy-Coroner for the district, in +order, in case of need, to relieve Dr Tamplin--old Tom Tamplin who +lived at Aldersley, ten miles away. So that matters were prospering +with him all round. All men spoke well of him, and the women still +better. + +A practitioner from the outside, with a London degree and much +assurance, had indeed hung out his large new brass plate in the village +about a year before, and lived on there in hope which showed no sign of +fulfilment. For everyone knew and liked Wulf Dale, and Dr Newman, +M.B., clever though he might be and full worthy of his London degree, +was still an outsider and an unknown quantity, and the way of the +medical outsider in a country district is apt to be as hard as the way +of the transgressor. + +So Elinor Baynard, for the sake of her bodily comfort and her own and +her mother's worldly ambitions, married Pasley Carew and became +Mistress of Croome, and learned all too soon that it is possible to pay +too high a price even for bodily comfort and the realisation of worldly +ambition. + +Worldly ambition may, indeed, be made to appear successfully attained, +to the outside world; but bodily comfort, being dependent more or less +on peace of mind, is not to be secured when heart and mind are sorely +exercised and bruised. + +Jealous Jade Rumour even went the length of whispering that it was not +heart and mind alone that had on occasion suffered bruising in this +case. For Carew was notoriously quick-tempered and easily upset--and +notoriously many other things also. His grooms and boys knew the feel +of his hunting-crop better than his reasons for using it at +times--though doubtless occasion was not lacking. As to his +language!--it was said that the very horses in his stables lashed out +when he began, as though they believed that, by much kicking, curses +might be pulverised in mid-air and rendered innocuous. + +Now a wife cannot--Elinor at all events could not--kick even to that +extent under the application of sulphur or riding-whip. Nor can she +legally, except in the extremest case, throw up her situation, as the +stable-boys could, but did not. For the pay in both cases was good, +and for the sake of it the one and the other put up with the +discomforts appertaining to their positions. + +Pasley Carew's redeeming characteristics were a large estate and +rent-roll, sporting instincts, and extreme openhandedness in everything +that ministered to his own pleasures. + +He ran the hounds and was a fine rider, though over-hard on his horses, +with whom he was never on terms of intimate friendship. He esteemed +them solely for their carrying capacities. He preserved, was a good +shot, and free with his invitations to the less-happily situated. He +was a jovial host and a hard drinker as was the fashion. He enjoyed +seeing his friends at his table and under it. He was not a hard +landlord, and this, and his generosity in the matter of compensation +for hunt-damage, secured him the good-will of the country-side and +palliated all else. + +Morals were slack in those days, and no one would have thought for a +moment of affronting Carew by calling him a moral man. + +On the whole, Elinor paid a somewhat high price for the bodily comfort +from which--according to the Jealous Jade--sulphurous language and an +occasional blow were not lacking, and for the satisfaction of a worldly +ambition which, if the gradual shadowing of her pretty face was +anything to go by, had not brought her any great peace of mind. + + + + +III + +Wulfrey Dale was a very general favourite. With men and women alike, +quite irrespective of their station in life, his manner was +irresistibly frank and charming. With the women it might be said to be +almost unfortunately so. + +He was so absolutely and unaffectedly sympathetic, so exclusively and +devotedly interested in every woman he met, that it is hardly matter +for wonder that in many quarters impressionable hearts beat high at his +coming, and thought tenderly and hopefully of him when he had gone. +That, too, in spite of the fact that their owners knew perfectly well +that it was simply Wulf's way, as it had been his father's before him, +and that neither of them could change his nature any more than he could +change his skin or the colour of his eyes. + +He took a deep and genuine human interest in every man, woman and child +with whom he came into contact, and showed it. With men and children +it made for good-fellowship and extraordinary confidence. The older +folk all trusted young Wulfrey as they had all their lives trusted the +old Doctor. The children would talk to him as between man and man, and +with an artlessness and candour which as a rule obtained only among +themselves. With the women it led in some cases to little affections +of the heart--flutterings and burnings and barely-self-confessed +disappointments, for which their owners, if honest in their searchings +after truth, had to acknowledge that the blame lay entirely with +themselves. + +It was a time of hard drinking, hard riding, and quite superfluously +strong language, but none the less, among the women-folk, of a +sentiment which in these days of wider outlook and opportunity we +should denominate as sickly. The blame was not all theirs. + +So far Wulf had shown exceptional interest or favour in no direction, +that is to say in all, and so none could claim to say with any +certainty in which way the wind blew, or even if it blew at all. + +Not a few held that Elinor Baynard's marriage with Pasley Carew had so +wounded his affections that it was probable he would never marry, +unless----. And therein lay strictly private grounds for hope in many +a heart. + +For a heart-broken man, however, Wulfrey managed to maintain an +extremely cheerful face, and his manner to Elinor, whenever they met, +was just the same as to other women. + +If it had in fact been somewhat different it would not have been very +surprising. For it needed no professional acumen to recognise that her +marriage with Pasley had not fulfilled her expectations. + +She was, indeed, Mrs Carew of Croome, mistress of the Hall and all such +amenities--and otherwise--and luxuries of living as appertained to so +exalted a position, winner of the prize so many had coveted, and--wife +of Pasley Carew. And sometimes it is possible she wished she were none +of these things because of the last. + +For Carew made no pretence of perfection, or even of modest +impeccability, never had done so since the day he was born, never would +till the day he must die, would have scorned the very idea. Was he not +a man,--rich and hot-blooded, able and accustomed all his life to have +his own way in all things, easy enough to get on with when he got it, +otherwise when thwarted? + +And Wulfrey Dale had seen the freshness of the maiden-bloom fade out of +Elinor's pretty face, in these five years of her attainment, had seen +it stiffen in self-repression, and even harden somewhat. Her eyes had +seemed to grow larger, and there were sometimes dark shadows under +them. Without doubt she had not found any too large measure of the +comfort and happiness she had looked for. At times, mind acting on +body, her health was not of the best, and then she sent for Wulfrey to +minister to her bodily necessities, and found that he could do it best +by allowing her to relieve her mind of some of its burdens. + +They had always been on such friendly terms that she could, and did, +talk to him as to no other. Her mother was worse than useless as a +burden-sharer. Her only counsel was not to be too thin-skinned, and +above all to present a placid face to the world. Which, as medicine to +a sorely-tried soul, was easier to give than to take, and proved quite +ineffective. + +Wulfrey, on the other hand, gave her tonics, and, to the fullest limits +of his duty to Carew, his deepest sympathy in her troubles and +vexations, and his friendly advice towards encouragement and hope of +better times, when Pasley's hot blood would begin to cool and he would +settle down to less objectionable courses. + +At times, under stress and suffering from some more than usually +immoderate outbreak on her husband's part, she would let herself go in +a way that pained and surprised him, both as friend and doctor. He +doubted if she always told him all, even at such times. More than once +she had seemed on the point of still wilder outbreak, and it was all he +could do to soothe her and bring her back to a more reasonable frame of +mind. + +On one occasion she openly threatened to take her life, since it was no +longer worth living, and it took Wulfrey a good hour to wring from her +a solemn promise not to do so without first consulting him. So +over-wrought and alternately excited and depressed was she that there +were times when, in spite of her promise, he would not have been +greatly surprised by a sudden summons to the Hall with the news that +its mistress had made a summary end of her troubles. + +His mind was sorely exercised on her account, but it was only the +effects that came within his province. The root of the trouble was +beyond his tackling. He did, indeed, after much debate within himself, +bring himself to the point of discussing the matter, in strictest +confidence, with the parson, one night. But he, jovial sportsman and +recipient of many bounties from Pasley, including the privilege of +subsiding under his table whenever invitation offered, genially but +flatly refused to interfere between man and wife. + +"No good ever comes of it, Doctor. You know that as well as any man. +It's only the intruder suffers. They both turn and rend him like boars +of the wood and wild beasts of the field. Take my advice and leave 'em +alone. These things always straighten themselves out in time--one way +or the other. Deuce take the women! They're not blind kittens when +they marry. They've got to take the rough with the smooth. Another +glass of punch before you go!"--was the irreverent Reverend's final +word on the matter. And Wulfrey could do no more in that direction. + + + + +IV + +It was under such circumstances that they carried Pasley Carew home to +Croome on the hurdle; under such circumstances that Elinor met them on +the steps and asked Wulfrey, with that curious, startled look in her +eyes which might be anxiety and might be expectancy.-- + +"Dead?" + +And Wulfrey, subconsciously wondering whether she really had got the +length of hoping for her husband's death, and subconsciously feeling +that if it were so it was not much to be wondered at, though +undoubtedly greatly to be deplored, had answered her, somewhat sternly, +"Not dead. Badly broken. He may live,"--for the shock of the whole +matter, and the extreme discomfort of having had to sever that poor +Blackbird's spinal cord, were still heavy on him. + +Elinor shot one sharp, searching glance at his face, and turned and +went on before the bearers to show them the way. + +The staircase at Croome was a somewhat notable one, wide enough to +accommodate hurdle and bearers with room to spare, so they carried the +Master right up to his own bedroom and as gently as possible +transferred him to his bed. + +The explosive fury of his outbreak against Fate and Blackbird, in the +first shock of his fall, had been simply a case of vehement passion +disregarding, and momentarily overcoming, the frailty of the flesh. +Exhaustion and collapse followed, and as they carried him home he lay +still and barely conscious. + +He came to himself again as they placed him on the bed, and after lying +for a moment, as though recalling what had happened, murmured in a +bitter whisper, "Damnation! Damnation! Damnation!" and his eyes +screwed up tightly, and his face warped and pinched in agony of mind or +body, or both. + +As Wulfrey bent over him, and with gentle hands assured himself of the +damage, Carew looked up at him out of the depths; horror, desperation, +furious revolt, hopelessness, all mingled in the wild gleam that +detected and scorched the pity in Wulfrey's own eyes, and gave him +warning of dangers to come. + +"---- it all! It's no good, Dale," he growled hoarsely. "I'm done. +---- that horse! Give me something that'll end it quick!" + +"Don't talk that way, man! You know I can't do that. We'll pull you +through." + +"To lie like a log for the rest of my life! I won't, I tell you. ---- +it, man, can't you understand I'd liefer go at once?" + +"I'll bring you up a draught and you'll get some rest," said Dale +soothingly. + +"Rest! Rest! A dose of poison is all I want, ---- you! Don't look at +me like that, ---- _you_!" to his wife, who stood watching with her +hands tightly clasped as though to hold in her emotions. She walked +away to the window and stood looking out. + +"Carew, you--must--be--quiet. You're doing yourself harm," said the +Doctor authoritatively. + +"Man, I'm in hell. Poison me, and make an end!" + +"Not till tomorrow, anyway. I'll run down and get that draught. We'll +see about the other in the morning." + +Mrs Carew turned as he left the room, and followed him out, and the +sick man sank back with a groan and a curse. + +"Will he die?" she asked quickly, as she closed the door behind them. + +"Not necessarily. But if he lives he'll be crippled for life." + +"He would sooner die than live like that." + +"We can't help that. It's my business to keep him alive. I'll run +down and mix him a draught which may give him some rest. You'll need +assistance. He may go off his head. He's a bad patient. I'll send +you someone up----" + +"Not Jane Pinniger then. I won't have her." + +He knitted his brows at her. "It was Jane I was thinking of. She's an +excellent nurse, both brains and brawn, and he may get violent in the +night." + +"I won't have her here," said Elinor obstinately, and he remembered +that gossip had, not so very long ago, been busy with the names of +Pasley and Jane, as she had at other times occupied herself with Pasley +and many another. Undoubtedly Elinor had had much to bear. + +"All right! If I can find anyone else----" he began. + +"I won't have Jane Pinniger here,"--and he went off at speed to get the +draught and find a substitute for Jane if that were possible. + +His doubts on that head were justified. He sent his boy up with the +draught, and started on the search for a nurse who should combine a +modicum of intelligence with the necessary strength of mind and body. + +But his choice was very limited. Old crones there were, satisfactory +enough in their own special line and in a labourer's cottage, but +useless for a job such as this. There was nothing for it at last but +to go back to the Hall and tell Mrs Carew that it was Jane or nobody. + +"Nobody then," said she decisively. "I will manage with one of the +girls from downstairs, and young Job to help." + +"Young Job is all very well with the dogs----" + +"He will do very well for this too. We may not require him, but he can +be at hand in case of need," and he had to leave it at that. + + + + +V + +Carew suffered much, more in mind even than in body. The thought of +lying there like a damned log, as he put it, for the rest of his days +filled him with most passionate resentment, and drove him into +paroxysms of raging fury. He cursed everything under the sun and +everyone who came near him, with a completeness and finality of +invective which, if it had taken effect or come home to roost, would +have blighted himself and all his surroundings off the face of the +earth. + +Even his wife, and the maid who took turns with her to sit within call, +accustomed as they were to his outbreaks, quailed before the storm. +Young Job alone suffered it without turning a hair, and paid no more +heed to it all, even when directed against himself, than he would to +the yelping of his dogs. + +Wulfrey Dale came in for his share, chiefly by reason of his quiet +inattention to the sufferer's impossible demands for extinction. + +But he found his visits to the sick-room trying even to his seasoned +nerves. What it must all mean to the tortured wife he hardly dared to +imagine. + +Once when he was there, Carew hurled a tumbler at her which missed her +head by a hair's-breadth. Dale got her out of the room, and turned and +gave his patient a sound verbal drubbing, and Carew cursed him high and +low till his breath gave out. + +"Has he done that before?" the Doctor asked the white-faced wife, when +he had followed her downstairs. + +"Oh, yes. But I'm generally on the look-out. I was off my guard +because you were there. Oh, I wish he would die and leave us in peace." + +"He'll kill himself if he goes on like this." + +"He'll kill some of us first. He's wanting to die. It would be the +best thing for him--and for us. Can't you let him die?" and a tiny +spark shot through the shadowy suffering of her eyes as she glanced up +at him. + +"You know I can't. Don't talk like that!" he said brusquely, and then, +to atone for the brusqueness, "I am sorely distressed for you, but +there is nothing to be done but bear it as bravely as you can. What +about your mother? Couldn't you----" + +"It would only make him worse still, if that is possible. Pasley +detests her. Oh, I wish I were dead myself. I cannot bear it," and +she broke into hysterical weeping, and swayed blindly, and would have +fallen if he had not caught her. + +A woman's grief and tears always drew the whole of Wulf's sympathy. +And he and she had been almost as brother and sister all their +lives--till she married Carew. + +"Don't, Elinor! Don't!" he said soothingly, as with her shaking head +against his breast she sobbed as though her heart were broken. + +Mollie, the maid, came hastily in, without so much as a knock, her red +face mottled with white fear. + +"He's going on that awful, Ma'am, I vow I daresn't stop in there alone +with him. It's as much as one's life's worth when he's in his +tantrums." + +"Get your mistress a glass of wine, Mollie, and then find young Job and +send him up. I'll go up and wait with Mr Carew till he comes." + +He led Mrs Carew to the couch and made her lie down there, and +explained matters to the girl by asking her, + +"Does he throw things at you too?" + +"La, yes, Doctor, at all of us, if we don't keep 'em out of his reach. +He do boil up so at nothing at all," and she went off in search of +young Job, who was passing a peaceful holiday hour in the company of +thirty couple of yelping hounds. + + + + +VI + +Dale was confronted with the problem with which every medical man comes +face to face during his career. + +Here was a man who, both for his own sake and still more for the sake +of those about him, would be very much better dead than living; who +wanted to die, and, as he believed, make an end; who begged constantly +for the relief of death;--and yet, against his own equally strong +feeling of what would be best for all concerned, his doctor must do his +very utmost to keep his patient alive and all about him in torment. + +Wulfrey wished, as devoutly as the more immediate sufferers, that he +would die. He wished it more ardently each time he saw Mrs Carew, and +wholly and entirely on her account. + +Her white face, which grew more deathly white each day, and her woful +eyes, which grew ever more despairing in their shadowy rings, were sure +indexes of what she was passing through. Dale wondered how much longer +she would be able to stand it. + +He gave her tonics, and his most helpful sympathy and encouragement. +And at the same time, by the irony of circumstance and the claims of +his profession, he must do everything in his power to perpetuate the +burden under which she was breaking. + +But the whole matter came to a sudden and unlooked for end, on the +seventh day after the accident. + +Wulfrey was hastening up to the Hall to clear this, the unpleasantest +item, out of his day's work, when he met young Job coming down the +drive with a straw in his mouth and three couples of young hounds at +his heels. + +"Wur comen fur you, Doctor," said young Job. "He's dead." + +"Dead?" jerked the Doctor in very great surprise, for his patient had +been more venomously alive than ever the night before. + +"Ay--dead. An' a good thing too, say I, and so too says everyone +that's heard it." + +"But what took him, Job? He was going on all right last night." + +"'Twere the Devil I expecs, Doctor, if you ask me straight. He were +getten too strampageous to live. Th' air were so full o' fire and +brimstone with his curses, it weren't safe. 'Twere like bein' under a +tree wi' th' leeghtnin' playin' all round." + +"And Mrs Carew? ... Who was with him when he died? Tell me all you +know about it," as they hurried along. + +"I come up at ten o'clock as ushal, an' the missus met me at door wi' +her finger to her lips. 'He's sleeping, Job,' she says, an' glad I was +to hear it. 'I'll go an' lie down, Job, for I'm very tired,' she says, +and she looked it, poor thing. 'Knock on my door if you need me, Job,' +she says, and she went away. He were lying quiet and all tucked up, +an' I sat down an' waited for him to wake up and start again. But he +never woke, and when the missus came in this morning she went and +looked at him, and she says, 'Why, Job, I do believe he's dead,' and I +went and looked at him, and, God's truth, he looked as if he might be. +But I couldn't be sure, not liking to touch him, and I says, 'No such +luck, ma'am, _I_'m afraid,'--polite like, for we all knows the time +she's had wi' him, and she says, 'Go and fetch Dr Dale.' So I just +loosed these three couple o' young uns--they're all achin' for a +run,--an' I'm wondering who'll work th' pack now he's gone, if so be as +he's really gone, which I'm none too sure of. Th' Hunt were best thing +he ever did, but he were terrible hard on his horses." + +Dale hurried into the house and up the stair, and into the sick-room, +the windows of which were opened to their widest, as though to cleanse +the room of the fire and brimstone which had seemed over-strong even to +such a pachyderm as young Job. + +Carew lay there on the bed, at rest at last, as far as this world was +concerned, startlingly quiet after the storm-furies of the last seven +days and nights. + +Dale was still standing looking down at him, full of that +ever-recurring wonder at the quiet dignity which Death sometimes +imparts even to those whose lives have not been dignified; full too of +anxious desire to learn how it had come about. + +The tightly-clenched hands and livid rigidity of the body suggested a +startling possibility. He was bending down to the dead man to +investigate more closely when a sound behind him caused him to look +round, and he found Mrs Carew standing there. Her face was whiter, her +eyes heavier and more shadowy, than he had ever seen them. + +"He is dead," she said quietly. + +"One can only look upon it as a merciful release--for all of you. How +was it?" + +"He wanted to die," she began, in the dull level tone of a child +repeating an obnoxious lesson. Then the self-repression she had +prescribed for herself gave way somewhat. Her hands gripped one +another fiercely and she hurried on with a touch of rising hysteria, +but still speaking in little more than a whisper. "You know how he +wanted to die. He was asking you all the time to give him something to +end it. But you could not. I know--I quite understand--being a +doctor, of course you could not. But there was something he kept--for +the rats, you know, in the stables. And he told me where it was and +told me to get some. So I got it and gave it him in his +sleeping-draught, and----" + +"Good God! Elinor!..." he gasped. "... You never did that!" + +"Yes, I did. Why not? He wished it. We all wished it. It is much +better so," and she pointed at the dead man on the bed. "It is better +for him ... and for all of us. I only did what he told me." + +He stood staring at her in blankest amazement, and found himself +unconsciously searching her face and eyes for signs of aberration. Her +face was wan-white still, but had lost the broken, beaten look it had +worn of late. The shadow-ringed eyes were perfectly steady and had in +them a curious wistful look, like that of a child expecting and +deprecating a scolding. + +"Do you know what it means?" he asked at last, in a hoarse whisper. + +"It means release for us all," she said quickly, and then more quickly +still, "Oh, Wulfrey, I couldn't help thinking--hoping +that--sometime--not for a long time, of course,--but sometime--when we +have forgotten all this--you might--you and I might----" + +"Stop!" he said sternly. "Were you thinking that when you did this?" +and he pointed to the bed. + +"Not then--at least--no, I think not. I just did what he told me to +do. But when I saw he was really dead----" + +He stopped her again with a gesture, and broke out with brusque +vehemence, "Is it possible you don't understand what you have done? Do +you know what the law will call it?"---- + +"The law? No one needs to know anything about it but you and me----" + +"The law will want to know how this man died----" + +"But you can tell them all that is necessary. It was Blackbird falling +at the old road that killed him. If he hadn't broken his back he +wouldn't have been lying here, and if he hadn't----" + +"He might have lived for twenty years," he said, breaking her off short +again with an abrupt gesture. "The law requires of me the exact truth. +Do you understand you are asking me to swear to a lie? I would not do +it to save my own life." + +"He took it himself----" + +"He could not get it himself, and the law will hold you responsible for +supplying it." + +"Oh--Wulfrey! ... You won't let them hang me?"--and he saw that at last +she understood clearly enough the peril in which she stood if the whole +truth of the matter became known. + +Hang her they most certainly would if the facts got out, or coop her +for life in a mad-house, which would be infinitely worse than hanging. +And the thought of either dreadful ending to her spoiled life was very +terrible to him. + +She stood before him, little more than a girl still, woful, wistful, +with terror now in her white face and shadowy eyes, and he remembered +their bygone days together. + +"Go back to your room, and rest, if you can. And say nothing of all +this to anyone. You understand?--not a word to anyone. I must think +what can be done," he said, and she turned and went without a word. + + + + +VII + +Wulfrey Dale thought hard and deep. + +He must save her if he could. + +How? + +For a moment--inevitably--he weighed in his mind the question of his +own honour versus this woman's life. + +With a few strokes of the pen he could probably bury the whole matter +safely out of sight along with Carew's dead body. But those few +strokes of the pen, certifying that this man died as the result of his +accident, were as impossible to him as would have been the +administration of the poisoned draught itself. + +Moreover--though that weighed nothing with him compared with the +other--there was in them always the possibility of disaster, should +rumour or tittle-tattle cast the shadow of doubt upon his statement; +and an idle word from Mollie or young Job might easily do that. The +neighbours also had made constant enquiry after Pasley since his +accident, and had been given to understand that he was progressing as +well as could be expected. His sudden death might well cause comment. +Indeed, it would be strange if it did not. That might lead to +investigation, and that must inevitably disclose the fact that he died +from strychnine poisoning. + +The Dales had never been wealthy, but their standards had been high, +and Wulfrey had never done anything to lower them. He could not sell +his honour even for this woman's life. + +He pitied her profoundly. He understood her better probably than any +other. He knew how terribly she had suffered, and could comprehend, +quite clearly, just how she had fallen into this horrible pit. But +cast his honour to the dogs for her, he could not. + +Then how? + +And, pondering heavily all possibilities, he saw the only feasible way +out. + +It meant almost certain ruin to himself and his prospects, but, if it +came, it would be clean ruin and he would feel no smirch. + +It involved a false statement of fact, it is true, but of a very +different cast and calibre from the other, and one that he himself felt +to be no stain upon his honour. + +As a matter of pure ethics a lie is a lie, and of course indefensible. +I simply tell you what this man did and felt himself untarnished in the +doing. + +And the very first thing he did was to go straight home to the little +dispensary which opened off his consulting-room, and alter the +positions of some of the bottles on the shelves; and from one of them +he withdrew a measured dose which he tossed out of the window into the +garden. + +Then he sat down at his desk and quietly wrote out a certificate of the +death of Pasley Carew, of Croome Hall, Gentleman, through the +administration of a dose of strychnine in mistake for distilled water, +in a sleeping-draught compounded by Dr Wulfrey Dale. And he thought, +as he wrote the word, of the awful pandemonium Pasley Carew, Gentleman, +had created in his own household these last seven days. + +He enclosed this in a covering letter to Dr Tamplin, the coroner, in +which he explained more fully how the mistake had occurred. The +bottles containing the strychnine and the distilled water stood side by +side on his shelf. He had come in tired from a long country round. +Had remembered the draught to be sent up to the Hall. As to the rest, +he could not tell how he came to make such a mistake. But there it +was, and he only was to blame. He could only express his profound +regret and accept the consequences. + +Then, having completed his documents, instead of galloping off to see +his waiting patients, he sat down before the fire and let his thoughts +play gloomily over the whole matter. His man was off delivering +medicines, and would not be back till midday. Time enough if Tamplin +got his letter during the afternoon. As to his own patients, he had +run rapidly over them in his own mind, and saw that there was no one +vitally demanding his attention. He could not go his rounds and say +nothing, and the thought of carrying the news of his own default was +too much for him. As soon as the matter got bruited about, he thought +grimly, there would probably be a run on Dr Newman's services, which +would greatly astonish and delight that gentleman and would compensate +him for all his months of weary waiting. + +It was a good thing for Elinor, he thought, as he sat staring into the +fire, that he was not married. If he had had a wife and children, they +must have gone into the scale against her, and she must certainly have +been hanged. + +Quite impossible to bring it in as an accident on her part. That he +had seen at a glance. The jury would be composed of neighbours, and in +spite of the placid face she had turned to the world, it was well +enough known that she and Pasley had not lived happily together. And +though the fault of that was not imputed to her, every man's thought +would inevitably jump to the worst, and condemn her even before she did +it out of her own mouth, which she most certainly would do the moment +she opened it to explain matters. + +No, this was the only possible way. If the cost was heavy, he was more +capable of bearing it than she. In any case he could not hand her over +to the hangman. That was out of the question. + +He could pretty well forecast the consequences. His practice would be +ruined, for who would trust a doctor capable of so fatal a mistake? He +would have to go away and start life afresh elsewhere. It would have +to be somewhere where he was quite unknown, or this thing would dog him +all his life. Some new country perhaps,--say Canada or the States. +Gad, it was a heavy price to pay for a foolish woman's lapse! + +He would not be penniless, of course. His father had laid by a +considerable sum in the course of his long and busy life. If necessary +he could live in quiet comfort, without working, for the rest of his +days. But it was hard to break away like this from all that had so far +constituted his life. A heavy price to pay for mere sentiment--but not +too heavy for a woman's life! + +There was no doubt of his having to go. The question was whether he +should go at once, or wait till there was nothing left to wait for. + +It would be dismal and weary work waiting. But going would feel like +bolting, and he had never run from trouble in his life. As a matter of +fact he had never until now had any serious trouble to face, but now +that it had come he found himself in anything but a running humour. + +If there had been anything to fight he would have rejoiced in the mêlée +and plunged into it with ardour. But here was nothing to be fought. +By his own deliberate act he was labelling himself untrustworthy, and +no uttermost striving on his part could rehabilitate him. For the +essence of healing is faith, and a doctor who has forfeited one's +confidence is worse than no doctor at all. + + + + +VIII + +In the afternoon he sent off his man on horseback with the letter to Dr +Tamplin, and towards evening he came galloping back with this very +characteristic reply: + + +"MY DEAR WULFREY, + +Shocking business and I'm sorely grieved about whole matter. Humanum +est errare, but a doctor's not supposed to. Good thing for us we're +not always found out. Could you not bring yourself to certify death as +result of the accident? I consider it a mistake to admit the +possibility of such a thing, so d--d damaging to the profession. And +have you considered the matter from your own point of view? Cannot +fail to have bad effect. Perhaps give that new fellow just the chance +he's been waiting for. ---- him! + +Think it over again, my boy, from all points, and be wise. I return +certificate. Your man will tell you all about my fall. My cob +stumbled over a stone last night and broke me a leg and two ribs. I'm +too heavy for that kind of thing and he's a ---- fool! But it was very +dark and we're neither of us as young as we were. For all our sakes I +hope you'll come through this all right. We can't spare you. And it +might come to that. Remember what silly sheep folks are. + +Yours truly, + THOMAS TAMPLIN." + + +Just like the dear, easy-going old boy, fall and all, thought Wulfrey, +and the advice tendered and the course suggested did not greatly +surprise him. But he had to make allowances for the old man's age and +easy-goingness, and his lack of detailed knowledge of all the +circumstances of the case,--how almost impossible it would be to +ascribe Carew's death to the accident, even if he could have brought +himself to do so. + +The old man's own shelving would add greatly to the unpleasantness of +the situation, for, as deputy-coroner, he would have to call a jury +himself, and submit the matter to their consideration and himself to +their verdict. + +However, there was no way out of that, so he set to work at once and +sent out his summonses, calling the inquest for ten o'clock the next +morning, at the Hall; and to relieve Elinor as much as possible, he +gave orders to the undertaker at Brentham to do all that was necessary, +and sent her word that he had done so. + +Early next morning, before he was up, young Job was knocking on his +front door, with half the pack yelping and leaping outside the gate. + +"Well, Job? What's it now?" he asked, from his bedroom window. + +"That gal Mollie says you better come up and see th' missus----" + +"Why? What's wrong with her?" + +"_I_ d'n know, n' more don't Mollie. _She_ thinks she's had a stroke." + +"Wait five minutes and I'll go back with you," and in five minutes they +were crunching through the lanes, all hard underfoot with frost that +lay like snow, and white and gay with hedge-row lacery of spiders' webs +in feathery festoons, and, up above, a crimson sun rising slowly +through the mist-banks over the bare black trees. + +"What makes Mollie think your mistress has had a stroke?" asked the +Doctor. "What does Mollie know about strokes?" + +"I d'n know. 'Sims to me she've had a stroke,' was her very words. +She've just laid on her bed all day an' all night without speakin' a +word, Mollie says,--eatin' noth'n, and drinkin' noth'n, which is +onnat'ral; an' sayin' noth'n, which in a woman is onnat'ral too." + +"She was quite worn out with nursing Mr Carew." + +"Like enough. He _wur_ a handful an' no mistake. Th' house is a deal +quieter wi'out him. But who's goin' to run th' pack?--that's what +bothers me." + +"Don't you worry, Job. Someone will turn up to run the pack all right." + +"Mebbe, but it depends on who 'tis. Why not yourself now, Doctor?" + +"That's a great compliment, Job, and I appreciate it. But," with a +shake of the head, "I'll have other work to do," and he wondered grimly +where that work might lie. + +Mollie took him straight up to Mrs Carew's room, where she lay just as +she had sunk down on the bed when he sent her away the previous morning. + +"She's nivver spoke nor moved since she dropped down there yes'day," +whispered Mollie impressively. "I covered her up, but she took no +notice. An' I brought her up her dinner and her supper but she's never +ate a bite." + +"Get me a cup of hot milk with an egg and a glass of sherry beaten up +in it, Mollie," he whispered back. "And I'll see if I can induce her +to take it. You did quite right to send for me," and Mollie hurried +away with a more hopeful face. + +Elinor lay there with her eyes closed and a rigid, stricken look on her +white face, a picture of hopeless despair. But Wulfrey's quick glance +had caught the flutter of her heavy lids, and the gleam of terrified +enquiry that had shot through them, as they came into the room, and he +understood. + +He bent over her and whispered, "I have made it all right, Elinor. You +need have no further fears----" + +"They will not hang me?" she whispered, and looked up into his face +with all the terrors of the night still in her woful eyes. + +"No one will know anything about it unless you tell them yourself. You +will eat something now, and then you had better lie still. Get some +sleep if you can or you will make yourself ill. If you fell ill you +might say things you should not, you know." + +She struggled up on to one elbow. "You are quite sure they will not +hang me?" she whispered again. + +"Quite sure, unless you are so foolish as to tell them all about it." + +"I have felt the rope round my neck all night. Oh, it was terrible in +the dark. It was terrible ... terrible----" and she felt about her +pretty white neck with her trembling hands. + +"Forget all about it now. I have made all the necessary arrangements. +There will have to be an inquest. It will be held here---" + +"Here?" she shivered. + +"At ten o'clock this morning. You are too ill to be present, so you +will just lie still. It will not take long. And I have done +everything else that had to be done." + +"It is very good of you," she murmured, with a forlorn shake of the +head. + +She did not ask by what means he had saved her from the consequences of +what she had done. Perhaps she dared not. Perhaps she believed he +had, after all, forsworn himself for her sake, and refrained from +questioning him lest it should only add to his discomfort. Anyway she +was satisfied with the fact. She was not going to be hanged. That was +enough. + +Mollie came in with her deftly-compounded cup. + +"Drink it up," said the Doctor. "I will look in again later on," and +he went away to prepare the household for the coming meeting in the big +dining-room. + + + + +IX + +The sixteen jurymen, whom Wulfrey had summoned in order to make quite +sure of a legal panel, came riding up in ones and twos, with faces +tuned to the occasion, disguising, as well as they could, the vast +curiosity this sudden call had excited in themselves and all their +various households. + +That there was something gravely unusual behind it they could not but +feel. They were all friends and neighbours; many of them had witnessed +Carew's accident and had been constant in their enquiries as to his +progress. The news of his death had come as a surprise and a shock, +and such of them as happened to join company on the road discussed the +matter by fits and starts, and surreptitiously as it were, but did not +venture below the surface. Their women-folk at home had done all that +was necessary in that respect for the fullest ventilation of the +subject, without in any degree rendering it more savoury or +comprehensible. + +Every man had felt it his bounden duty to be there, and so it was +sixteen keenly interested faces that confronted Wulfrey when he took +the chair at the head of the table and stood up to speak to them. + +His face was very grave, his manner noticeably quiet and restrained and +very different from its usual jovial frankness. + +"This painful duty, doubly painful under the circumstances, as you will +understand in a moment, has fallen to me in consequence of Dr Tamplin +being laid up through the fall of his horse yesterday. I am sure you +will not make it any more painful for me than it is. I shall not +trouble you long. The matter is unfortunately clear and simple. Our +friend, Mr Pasley Carew, died the night before last from the effects of +a dose of strychnine, administered in a sleeping-draught in mistake for +distilled water which was in the bottle alongside it on the shelf in my +dispensary." + +His eyes ranged keenly over the startled faces round the table at which +they had all of them so often sat,--under which some of them had not +infrequently lain. + +Every face was alight with startled surprise. Not one of them showed +the remotest sign of questioning his statement. + +Indeed, why should they? A man does not as a rule confess to so grave +a lapse unless it is absolutely unavoidable, unless the truth must out +and there is no possible loophole of escape. + +Not many men would fling away their life's prospects from simple pity +for a woman. For love--yes, without a doubt, and count the cost small. +But from simple pity, in remembrance of the time when the greater love +had been possible? ... + +But no such idea found place in any of their minds. His eyes searched +theirs for smallest flicker of doubt, but found none. Whatever the +women at home might have suggested as extreme possibilities, these men +accepted his word without a moment's hesitation. Elinor was perfectly +safe. + +"He was in great pain and could only get rest and relief by means of +opiates. How the mistake occurred I cannot explain, except that the +bottles of distilled water and of strychnine stand alongside one +another on my shelf, and that I had come in very tired that night and +the sleeping-draught was prepared hurriedly. I deplore the results +more than any of you possibly can, and of course I must accept the +consequences. I have not judged it necessary to make any post-mortem +examination. I was called by young Job early yesterday morning, and +when I got here Carew was dead and the symptoms were those of poisoning +by strychnine. I was amazed and horrified, but when I hurried back +home I saw at once how the mistake might have been made, +and--and--well, there the matter is and you must bring in such verdict +as you deem right. You can see the body if you wish. You can examine +the servants. Mrs Carew, I am sorry to say, is quite broken down with +the shock. She has been, I am told, practically unconscious for nearly +twenty-four hours and has only just come to herself. But if you would +like to see her----" + +"No, no." "No need whatever," said the jurymen deprecatingly. + +Dr Wulfrey sat down and dropped his head into his hands, then got up +again heavily and said, "You will discuss this matter better without +me. I will leave you----" + +"Couldn't you possibly say he died as result of the accident, Wulf?" +asked one--Jim Barclay of Breme. + +They all liked the Doctor. With some he had been on terms of very +close friendship. Some of them had known him all his life and his +father before him. + +"Ay, couldn't you?" chorussed some of the others. + +"If I could I should have done so," he said quietly. "But it wasn't so +and I couldn't say it was." + +"Say it now, Wulf," urged his friend. "And I swear none of us will let +it out. Isn't that so, gentlemen?" + +"Ay, ay!"--but somewhat dubiously from the older members, who saw that +after this revelation of the actual facts to themselves their relations +with the Doctor could never be quite the same again, however they might +succeed in hoodwinking the world outside. + +They knew him, they liked him, but--well, at the back of their minds +was the thought that if Dr Wulf could make a mistake in one case, there +was no knowing but what he might in another,--that he might at any time +come in tired and pick up the wrong bottle,--that, whatever risks one +might accept on one's own account for old friendship's sake, one's wife +and daughters should hardly be put into such a position all unknown to +themselves. And more than one of them wondered what he would do if he +should happen to be taken ill that night--send for Dr Wulf or the new +man down in the village? + +Dale diagnosed their symptoms with the sensitiveness born of the +equivocal nature of the new relationship in which his confession placed +him towards them. + +"It is like your good-heartedness to suggest it, Barclay," he said to +his impetuous friend, "but it cannot be. I can only do what seems to +me right," and he left them to talk over their verdict. + +"Gad! but I'm mighty sorry this has happened," said one old squire who +had known Wulf from the year one. "Many's the time I've sat at this +table----" + +"And under it," interjected one. + +"Ay, and under it, and I never expected to sit round it on Pasley +Carew. I'd give a year's rents to have him back, even if he was all in +pieces and raging like the Devil." + +"Same here. Whatever we decide it'll get out, and it's bound to tell +against Dr Wulf." + +"He's bound to suffer,--can't help it,--it's human nature. Suppose you +took ill tonight now, Barclay. What would you do?" + +"What would I do? I'd send for Wulf Dale of course, and I'd have same +faith in him as I've always had." + +"Of course, of course,"--but even those who said it had more the air of +wishing to placate Barclay, who had a temper, rather than of any deep +conviction as to their own course should the unfortunate necessity +arise. + +"Well," said Barclay, with the manner of a volcano on the point of +eruption. "All I can say is that if any man I know goes ill and does +not send for Wulf Dale, he'll have me to reckon with if the other man +doesn't kill him." + +"Hear, hear!" from various points about the table. + +"Well, we've got to decide something and make an end of the matter," +said one. "Barclay, you write out what you think and I've no doubt +we'll all agree to it." + +"I'm going to write nothing," said Barclay, whose strong brown hand was +more accustomed to the hunting-crop than the pen. "I say 'Accidental +Death,' and keep your mouths shut." + +They all said 'Accidental Death' and promised to keep their mouths +shut; and Wulfrey, when he was called in, thanked theta soberly for +their good intentions, but added to their verdict,--"as the result of +strychnine poison administered in mistake for distilled water in a +sleeping-draught prepared by Dr Wulfrey Dale." + + + + +X + +Jim Barclay, who was a bachelor, kept his bed next morning with an +alleged bad cold,---a thing he had never been troubled with in all his +born days, and ostentatiously sent his man galloping for Dr Wulfrey as +though his master's life depended on it. + +Wulfrey smiled at the message, understanding the staunch friendliness +which lay behind it, and went. + +"Well, what's wrong with you?" he enquired of the burly patient, when +he was shown up to his bedroom. + +"Just you, my boy. Haven't slept a wink all night for thinking of the +whole ---- mess. Wulf, my lad, I'm afraid you'll have a deuce an' all +of a time of it. Thought I'd show 'em there was one man thought none +the worse of you. ----! ----! ----! Can't any man make a little +mistake like that? Trouble is, most of those other fools have got a +pack of yelping women-folk about 'em, and they're all on the quee-vee +and as keen on the scent as any old----," and he launched into +comparisons drawn from the kennels into which we need not enter. "They +all promised not to blab, and they'll none of 'em tell any but their +wives under promise of secrecy, and it'll be all over the country-side +in a week." + +"I know it, old man. I've just got to stand it," said Dale soberly. + +"What's in your mind then?" + +"I'll just wait quietly and see what comes. I can't expect things to +be as they were before." + +"And if things go badly? ---- ---- ---- it all!" + +"Then I'm thinking I'll go too." + +"Where?" + +"Oh, right away. America maybe, or Canada. It's a big country they +say and just beginning to open up. I shan't starve anyway, wherever I +go." + +"But,--to leave us all and all this? ---- ---- ---- it all, man! The +place won't be like itself without you. ---- Pasley Carew!" + +"It wasn't his fault, you know----" + +"It was his ---- fault putting Blackbird at that ---- Old Road after +the run we'd had, wasn't it? I told him he was two stone too heavy for +her. But he always was a fool." + +"He was to blame there undoubtedly. But the rest I take to myself. If +folks go to the other man I can't blame them. I shall go nowhere +unless I'm sent for." + +"You'll have a ---- long holiday," growled Barclay. + +"Well, I can do with one." + +"I've half a mind to have a smash-up just to keep your hand in." + +"If you do I'll--I'll turn the other man on to you." + +"If he puts his nose in here he'll go out faster than he came, I wager +you." + +It was comforting to have so whole-hearted a supporter; but one +patient, and a sham one at that, does not make a practice, and Dale +very soon felt the effects of the course he had chosen. + +He adhered resolutely to the decision he had come to to visit none of +his patients unless he were sent for. It would be neither fair to them +nor agreeable to himself. It might do more harm than good. + +As to Mrs Carew,--he had visited her immediately after the inquest, and +told her briefly that all was right and she need have no further fears. +There was nothing wrong with her which a few days' rest and the relief +of her mind would not set right. All the same he rather feared she +might send for him, and he debated in his own mind whether, if she did +so, he should go or send her messenger on to Dr Newman. It appeared to +him hardly seemly that the man who had accepted the responsibility for +the death of the husband should continue his attendance on his widow. + +She did not of course as yet know the facts of the case as outsiders +did. He was somewhat doubtful of the effect upon her when she came to +a clear understanding of the matter. On the whole, he decided it would +be better if possible not to see her again. What he had done for her +had been done out of pity, but it was not the pity that sometimes leads +to warmer feeling. All that had died a natural death when she married +Carew. + +He attended the funeral with the rest. It would only have made comment +if he had not. And Jim Barclay and most of the others were at pains to +manifest their continued friendliness and confidence. + +Whether the full facts had got out he could not tell, but, rightly or +wrongly, imagined so, and for the second time in his life he found +himself ill at ease among his neighbours. + +The day after the funeral, young Job and a bunch of lively dogs came +down again with an urgent message from Mrs Carew requesting him to call. + +"Is your mistress worse, Job?" he said. + +"She be main bad, Doctor, 'cording to that gal Mollie, but what 'tis I +dunnot know. Mebbe she's just down wi' it all. Have ye heard ony talk +yet as t' who's going to tek on th' pack?" + +"Mr Barclay will, I believe. He's a good man for it." + +"Ay, he may do. Bit heavy, mebbe, an' he's got a temper 'bout as bad +as Pasley's." + +"Bit hot perhaps at times, but he's an excellent fellow at bottom." + +"All that, and his cussin' ain't to compare wi' Pasley's, which is a +good thing. I c'n stand a reasonable amount o' cussin' myself and no +offence taken, but Pasley did go past th' mark at times. Th' very +hosses kicked when he let out. An' Jim Barclay he is good to his +hosses, an' he only cusses when he must or bust. Ay, he'll do, seein' +you won't tek it on yourself, Doctor." + +"It's not for me, Job. A doctor's time is not entirely his own, you +know." + +"Ah!" said Job, and picked a twig from the hedge, and stuck it in his +mouth, and trudged on in solemn silence. + +"We wus rather hopin', feyther an' me," he grunted after a time, "you'd +mebbe have more time now fur th' pack an' would tek it on." + +"Why that, Job?" + +"Well, y' see, it'll mek a difference this. It's bound to mek a +difference. Folks is such silly fools 'bout such things----" + +"What things?" + +"Why, that there strychnine. 'S if anyone couldn't mek a li'l mistake +like that. Might have sense to know ye'd never let it happen again. +Even th' leeghtnin', they say, never strikes twice i' same place. +Though sure 'nuff it did hit th' old mill one side one day and t'other +side next day. But even then 'twere opposite sides. But folks is +fools." + +"So you know all about it." + +"Ay, sure! 'Twere that gal Mollie told me, an' it were Mrs Thelstane's +gal Bet told her. None o' us think a bit the worse o' you, Doctor, you +b'lieve me. But some folks is fools--most folks, if it comes to +that.... An' as to Pasley--well, he were a terror now'n again. Th' +Hall's like Heaven wi'out him." + +They went on again in silence for a time. But there was that in young +Job's mind which had to come out. + +"If 'twere me, Doctor, askin' your pardon in advance for bein' so bold, +what I'd do would be this. I'd just sit quiet till they done yelpin' +and yappin' 'bout it all, then I'd marry th' missus,--we all knows you +was sweet on her once,--and settle down comfortable at th' Hall and tek +over th' pack an' mek us all happy." + +"That's out of the question, Job." + +"Is it now? ... Well, I'm sorry. Wus hopin' mebbe a word of advice +from a man what's old enough to be your feyther, an's known you since +day you was born, might be o' some use to ye. We'd like you fain well +for Master, both o' th' Hall an' th' Hunt." + +"You're a good old chap, Job, and so's your father, but you'll both be +doing me a favour if you'll stop any talk of that kind." + +"No manner o' use?" + +"No use at all." + +"Well, I'm main sorry. An' so's feyther, I can tell ye." + +Mrs Carew was sitting in a large chintz-covered armchair before the +fire in her bedroom, when he was taken up to her by Mollie, who +favoured him with her own diagnosis as they mounted the stairs. + +"She's that bad again. Can't sleep and off her food. Ain't had hardly +anything all day or yes'day. Just sits 'fore th' fire and mopes from +morn'n till night. 'Taint natural for sure, for him 'at's gone weren't +one to cry for, that's cert'n.... No, she don't complain of any pain +or anything. Just sits and mopes and cries on the quiet 's if her +heart was broke. Sure she'd more cause to cry before he was took than +what she has now." + +When he entered the room he did not at first see her, so sunk down was +she in the depths of the great ear-flapped chair. + +She made no attempt to rise and greet him. When he stood beside her +and quietly expressed his regret at finding her no better, she covered +her face with her hands and sobbed convulsively. + +She looked little more than a girl, slight and frail and forlorn, as +she crouched there with hidden face, and he was truly sorry for her. +It was impossible for him to keep the sympathy he felt entirely out of +his voice. + +"What can I do for you, Mrs Carew?" he asked quietly, and the forlorn +figure shook again but made no response. + +"You are doing yourself harm with all this," he said gently again. +"And there is really no occasion for it, that I can see." + +Her silent extremity of grief--her utter discomfiture was pitiful to +look upon. It touched him profoundly, for he penetrated the meaning of +it. She was overwhelmed with the knowledge of the sacrifice he had +made for her--and with pity for herself. + +All he could do was to wait quietly till the feeling, roused afresh by +his presence, had spent itself. + +"Oh, I did not know," she whispered at last, through the shielding +hands. "I did not know you would do that.... You have ruined +yourself.... You should have let them hang me." + +And there and then, on the spur of the moment, he leaped up a height +which he had not even sighted a second before. + +He had, by the sacrifice of his prospects, saved her from the legal +consequences of her act. That was irrevocably past and done with, and +he must pay the price. But she was paying a double due--remorse for +what she herself had done, bitter sorrow at the ruinous price he had +paid for her safety. + +He had saved her life. Why not save her the rest?--her peace of mind, +all her possibilities of future happiness. + +In any case it would make no difference to him. For her it might mean +all the difference between darkness and light for the rest of her life. +And she looked pitifully helpless and hopeless as she lay there sobbing +convulsively in the big chair. + +He saw the possibility in a flash and gripped it. + +"Hang you? Why on earth should anyone want to hang you?" he asked, +with all the natural surprise he could put into it. + +"You know,"--in a scared whisper. "Because I got him the poison----" + +"Come, come now! Let us have no more of that. I was hoping a good +night's rest would have ridded you of that bad dream." + +"Dream?" and she looked up at him wildly. "Ah, if I could only believe +it was a dream!" and she shook her head forlornly. + +"Why, of course it was a dream. You were over-wrought with it all, and +your mind took the bit in its teeth and ran away with you. What you've +got to do now is to try to forget all about it." + +"Forget!" + +"How I came to make such a mistake I cannot imagine, but when I got +home I saw at once that there was an extra dose gone out of my +strychnine bottle instead of out of the distilled water, and that +explained it at once." + +"_You_? ... _You_ made the mistake?" she looked up at him again, +eagerly, with warped face and knitted brows, and a wavering flutter of +hope in her eyes.... "You are only saying it to comfort me." + +"I'm trying to show you how foolish it is to allow yourself to be +ridden by this strange notion you've got into your head." + +"Strange notion? ... Did he not beg me to get him that stuff he used +for the rats? And did I not get it for him? And he took it. And +then----" she shivered at the remembrance of what followed when her +husband took the draught. + +"All in that horrible dream when your mind was running away with +you----" + +"And did you not come and tell me they would hang me unless I kept my +mouth shut? And I lay all that dreadful night with the rope round my +neck----" + +"All in your dream. I'm sorry. It must have been terribly real to +you." + +"A dream?" and she stared wistfully into the fire, hex hands clasping +and unclasping nervously. "If I could believe it!" + +"You must believe what I tell you, and forget all about it and recover +yourself." + +"And you?" she said after a pause. + +"I shall be all right. Don't trouble your head about me." + +"If I did not do it," she said, after another long silent gazing into +the fire, "then there would be no need for you to hate me----" + +"No need whatever,--all part of that stupid dream." + +"And ... sometime perhaps ... you would think better of me ... as you +used to do. Oh,--Wulfrey! ..." + +If it had all happened as he had almost persuaded her to believe, he +might have fallen into his own pit. + +For, under the stress of her emotions,--the wild hope of the +possibility of relief from the horror that had been weighing her +down,--the letting in of this thread of sunshine into the blackness of +her despair,--the sudden joy of the thought that it was not she who +needed Wulfrey's forgiveness, but he hers;--the shadows and the years +fell from her, and she was more like the Elinor Baynard he had once +been in love with than he had seen her since the day she married Pasley +Carew. + +"We must not think of any such things," he said quickly, but not +unkindly. He was very sorry for her, but he was no longer in love with +her. "At present all we've got to think about is getting you quite +yourself again. I will send you up some medicine,--if you won't be +afraid to take it----" + +"Oh, Wulfrey! ..." with all the reproach she could put into it, and +anxiously, "You will come again soon?" + +"If you get on well perhaps. If you don't I shall turn you over to Dr +Newman," and he left her. + +"She ain't agoing to die, Doctor?" asked Mollie, as she waylaid him. + +"No, Mollie. She's going to get better." + +"Ah, I knew it'd do her good if you came to see her," said the astute +handmaid with an approving look. + +"Get her to eat and feed her up. She's been letting herself run down." + +"Ah, she'll eat now maybe, if so be 's you've given her a bit of an +appetite," said Mollie hopefully; and Dr Wulfrey went away home. + + + + +XI + +But even two patients hardly make a practice, and though from the +stolid commoner folk calls still came for 'th' Doctor's' services, upon +the better classes a sudden blessing of unusual health appeared to have +fallen, or else---- + +Dr Newman bought a horse about this time, and, though he did not as yet +cut much of a figure on horseback, it enabled him to get about as he +had never had occasion to do since he settled in the village, and it +seemed as though, in his case as in others, practice would in time make +him passable. + +Wulfrey watched the course of events quietly and with a certain +equanimity. His mind was quite made up to go abroad, but he would not +go till he was satisfied that that was the only course left to him. + +Everybody he met was as friendly as ever, the men especially, but +sickness was a rare thing with them at any time, and their women-folk +seemed to be getting along very well, for the time being without +medical assistance, so far at all events as Dr Wulfrey Dale was +concerned. + +Mrs Carew was better. Whatever she really believed as to the actual +facts of her husband's death, she apparently accepted Dale's statement, +to the great relief of her mind and consequent benefit to her health. +She sent for the Doctor as often as she reasonably could, and sometimes +without any better reason than her desire to see him. Until at last he +told her she was perfectly well and he would come no more unless there +were actual need. + +"But there is actual need, Wulfrey. It does me good to see you. If +you don't come I shall fall into a low state again." + +"If you do I shall know it is simple perversity and I'll send Dr Newman +to you." + +"Mollie would never let him in." + +Which was likely enough, for Mollie's mind was quite made up as to the +only right and proper course for matters to take under all the present +circumstances. + +The March winds brought on a mild epidemic of influenza. + +Dr Newman and his new horse were ostentatiously busy. Wulfrey saw that +he had waited long enough, and that now it was time to go. No one +could accuse him of running away. It was his practice that had found +its legs and walked over to Dr Newman. + +He made his arrangements at once and by no means downcastly. The +hanging-on had been trying. It was new life to be up and doing, with a +new world somewhere in front to be discovered and conquered. + +He packed his trunks, gave Mr Truscott, the lawyer, instructions to +dispose of his house and everything in it except certain specified +articles and pictures, arranged with his bankers at Chester to collect +and re-invest his dividends, drew out a couple of hundred pounds to go +on with, told them he was going abroad and they might not hear from him +for some time to come, and went round to say good-bye to Jim Barclay +and Elinor Carew. + +"Where are you going?" asked Barclay, when he heard he was off. + +"Wherever the chase may lead," said Wulfrey, in better spirits than he +had been for many a day. "I shall go first to the States and Canada +and have a good look round. If any place lays hold of me I may settle +down there." + +"For good and all?" + +"Possibly. Can't say till I see what it's like. I want you to take +Graylock and Billyboy till I come back. You know all about them. +There's no one else I'd care to leave 'em with and I don't care to sell +them." + +"They'll miss you, same as the rest of us." + +"For a week or two, maybe. Dr Newman is getting into things nicely, +but you might give him a lesson or two in riding, Jim." + +"---- him, I'd liefer break his back!" was Barclay's terse comment. +"You'll let me know where you get to, Wulf, and maybe I'll take a run +over to see you, if you really find it in your heart to settle out +there. I'll bring the horses with me if you like." + +"I'll let you know. Fine sporting country, I believe,--bears, wolves, +buffaloes, game of sorts." + +"Well, good-bye and God bless you, my boy! Remember there'll always be +one man in the old country that wants you. I'd sooner die than have +that new man poking round me. I'll send for old Tom Tamplin, hanged if +I don't." + +Wulfrey rode on to the Hall. + +"Going away, Wulf? Where to and for how long?" asked Elinor, anxious +and troubled. + +"That depends. I've not been up to the mark lately and a good long +change will set me up." + +"But you will come back?" + +"I have really no plans made, except to get away for a time and see a +bit of the outside world." + +"I was hoping ... you would stop and ... sometime, perhaps..." and the +small white hands clasped and unclasped nervously, as was her way when +her mind was upset. + +"The change I am sure will be good for me. And you are quite all right +again. You are looking better than I've seen you for a long time past." + +"I'm all right," she said drearily, "except that I have bad dreams now +and again. I cannot be quite sure in my own mind----" + +"Now, now!"--shaking a peremptory finger at her. "That is all past and +done with. Bad dreams are forbidden, remember!" + +"I can't help their coming. They come in spite of all my trying at +times. And they are always the same. I see Pasley lying on the bed, +raging and cursing, and ordering me to go and get him----" + +"It's only a dream of a dream. I was hoping you had quite got the +better of it. You must fight against it. Now I must run. Got a lot +of things to do yet, and I'm off first thing in the morning. Good-bye, +Elinor,--and all happiness to you!" + + + + +BOOK II + +NO MAN'S LAND + + + + +XII + +Wulfrey Dale, as he strolled about the Liverpool docks and basins, felt +very much like a schoolboy who had run away from home in search of the +wide free life of the Rover of the Seas. + +He had, however, one vast advantage over the runaway, in that he had +money in his pocket and could pick and choose, and there was no angry +master or troubled parent on his track to haul him back to bondage. + +He had no slightest regrets in the matter. Under all the circumstances +of the case, he said to himself, he could have done nothing else. +Elinor, left to herself, would undoubtedly have paid with her life, +either on the gallows or in a mad-house, and that was unthinkable. The +inexorable Law would have taken no account of the true inwardness of +the case. He had saved her because he understood, and because the +alternatives had been too dreadful to think of. + +As to the cost to himself,--the long blue-green heave of the sea, out +there beyond the point, made little of that, changed it indeed from one +side of the account to the other, and presented it, not as a loss, but +as very substantial gain. + +Out beyond there lay the world, the vast unknown, the larger life; and +the windy blue sky streaked with long-drawn wisps of feathery white +cloud, and the tumbling green waves with their crisp white caps, and +the screaming gulls in their glorious free flight, all tugged at his +heart and called him to the quest. + +And these cumbered quays, with their heaps of merchandise, and the +jerking ropes and squeaking pulley-blocks that piled them higher and +higher every moment,--the swaying masts up above and busy decks down +below,--the strange foreign smells and flavour of it all,--the rough +tarry-breeks hanging about and spitting jovially in the intervals of +uncouth talk,--all these were but a foretaste of the great change, and +he savoured them all with vastest enjoyment. + +He inspected, from a distance, the great clippers that did the voyage +to New York in twenty to twenty-five days, stately and disciplined, in +the very look of them, as ships of the line almost. + +There were ships loading and unloading for and from nearly every port +in the world. It was like being at the centre of a mighty spider's web +whose arms and filaments reached out to the extremest ends of the +earth. He had never felt so free in his life before. + +He was in no pressing hurry to settle on either his port or his ship, +but in any case it would not be on one of those great packet-boats he +would go. His fancy ran rather to something smaller, something more +intimate in itself and less likely to be crowded with passengers whose +acquaintance he had no desire to make. + +He wandered further among the smaller craft, with a relish in the +search that was essentially a part of the new life. He developed quite +a discriminating taste in ships, though it was only by chatting with +the old salts who lounged about the quay-walls that he learned to +distinguish a ship from a barque and a brig from a schooner. His +preferences were based purely on appearances. The sea-faring qualities +of the various craft were beyond him. + +But here and there, one and another would attract him by reason of its +looks, and he would return again and again to compare them with still +later discoveries, saying to himself, "Yes, that would do first-rate +now, if she should happen to be going my way. We'll see presently." + +He came, in time, upon a brig loading in one of these outer basins, and +even to his untutored eye she was a picture,--so graceful her lines, so +tapering her masts, so trim and taut the whole look of her. + +"Where does she go to?" he asked of an old sailor-man, who was sitting +on a cask, chewing his quid like an old cow and spitting meditatively +at intervals. + +"Bawst'n, 'Merica, 's where she's bound this v'y'ge, Mister, an' ef she +did it in twenty days I shouldn' be a bit s'prised, not a bit, I +shouldn'." + +"Good-looking boat! What does she carry?" + +"Miskellaneous cargo. Bit o' everything, as you might say." + +"And when does she sail?"' + +"Fust tide, I reck'n, ef so be's her crew a'n't been ganged. Finished +loading not ha'f an hour ago she did." + +"Does she take any passengers?" + +"Couldn' say. Passenger boats is mostly down yonder." + +"I know, but I like the look of this one better than the big ones." + +"Well, you c'n ask aboard." + +"Yes? How can I get on board?" + +"Why, down that there ladder," and Wulfrey, following the direction of +a ponderous roll of the old fellow's head and a squirt of +tobacco-juice, came upon some iron rungs let into a straight +up-and-down groove in the face of the quay-wall. By going down on his +hands and knees, and making careful play with his feet, he managed at +last to get on to this apology for a ladder and succeeded in climbing +down it, over the side of the ship on to its deck. + +The deck, dirty as it was with the work of loading, felt springy to his +unaccustomed feet. It was the first ship's deck he had ever trodden. +The very feel of it was exhilarating. It was like setting foot on the +bridge that led to the new life. + +As he looked about him,--at the neatly-coiled ropes, the rope-handled +buckets, the blue water-casks lashed to the deck below one of the +masts, the masts themselves, massive below but tapering up into the sky +like fishing-rods, the mazy network of rigging, four little brass +carronades and the ship's bell, all polished to the nines and shining +like gold,--the worries and troubles of the last few months fell from +him like a ragged garment. Elinor Carew, and Croome, and Jim Barclay, +and even Graylock and Billyboy, the parting with whom had been as sore +a wrench as any, all seemed very far away, things of the past, shadowy +in presence of these stimulating realities of the new life. + +He walked aft along the deck towards a door under the raised poop, and +at the sound of his coming a man came out of the door and said, +"Hello!" and stood and stared at him out of a pair of very deep-set, +sombre black eyes. + +He was a tall, well-built fellow of about Wulfrey's own age, +black-haired, black-bearded and moustached, and of a somewhat saturnine +countenance. His face and neck were the colour of dark mahogany with +much sun and weather. He wore small gold rings in his ears, and +Wulfrey set him down for a foreigner,--a Spaniard, he thought, or +perhaps an Italian. + +"I was told you were sailing tomorrow for Boston," said Wulfrey. "I +came to ask if you take passengers." + +The man's black brows lifted a trifle and he took stock of Wulfrey +while he considered the question. Then he said, "Ay? well, we do and +we don't," and Wulfrey rearranged his ideas as to his nationality and +decided that he was either Scotch or North of Ireland, though he did +not look either one or the Other. + +"That perhaps means that you might." + +"Et's for the auld man to say----" + +"The Captain?" + +"Ay, Cap'n Bain." + +"Where could I see him?" + +"He's up in the toon." + +"If you'll tell me where to find him I'll go after him." + +The other seemed to turn this over in his mind, and then said, "Ye'd +best see him here. He'll mebbe no be long." + +"Then I'll wait. What time do you expect to clear out?" + +"We'll know when the old man comes." + +"Perhaps you would let me see the rooms, while I'm waiting." + +The dark man turned slowly and went down three steps into the small +main cabin. His leisurely manner suggested no more than a willingness +not to be disobliging. + +It was a fair-sized room, with a grated skylight overhead, portholes at +the sides, seats and lockers below them, and a table with wooden forms +to sit on. At the far end were two more doors. + +"Cap'n's bunk and mine," said his guide, with a roll of the head +towards the left-hand door, and opened the other for Wulfrey to look in +at the narrow passage off which opened two small sleeping-rooms. + +"You are then----?" asked Wulfrey. + +"Mate." + +"You're Scotch, aren't you? I took you at first sight for a foreigner." + +"I'm frae the Islands.... Some folks hold there's mixed blood in some +of us since the times when the Spaniards were wrecked there. Mebbe! I +d'n know." + +"And Captain Bain? He's Scotch too, I judge, by his name." + +"Ay, he's Scotch--Glesca." + +"If he'll take me as passenger I'll be glad. This would suit me +uncommonly well." + +"Ay, well. He'll say when he comes," and whenever his black eyes +rested on Wulfrey they seemed to be questioning what it could be that +made him wish to travel on a trading-brig rather than on a +passenger-liner. + +However, he asked no questions but pulled out a black clay pipe, and +Wulfrey pulled out his own and anticipated the other's search for +tobacco by handing him his pouch. They had sat silently smoking for +but a few minutes when a heavy foot was heard on the deck outside, and +there came a gruff call for "Macro!" + +"Ay, ay, sir!" and the doorway darkened with the short burly figure of +a man whose words preceded him, "Tom Crimp'll have 'em all here by ten +o'clock an' we'll---- Wha the deevil's this?" + +"Wants to go passenger to Boston," explained the mate, and left Wulfrey +to his own negotiations. + +"If you're open to take a passenger, Captain Bain, I've fallen in love +with the looks of your ship." + +"What for d'ye no want to go in a passenger-ship? We're no a +passenger-ship," and the Captain eyed him suspiciously. + +"Just that I dislike travelling with a crowd, I've been looking round +for some days and your ship pleases me better than any I've seen." + +"Where are you from, and what's your name and rating!" + +"I'm from Cheshire. Name, Wulfrey Dale. Rating, Doctor." + +"An' what for are ye wanting to go to Boston!" + +"I'm going out to look round. I may settle out there if I find any +place I like." + +"Are ye in trouble? Poisoned ony one? Resurrectionist, mebbe?" + +"Neither one nor the other. I've no work here. I'm going to look for +some over there." + +"Can ye pay?" + +"Of course. I'm not asking you to take me out of charity." + +"That's a guid thing." + +"How much shall we say? And when do you sail?" + +"Et'll be twenty guineas, ped in advance, an' ef ye want ony victuals +beyant what the ship provides, which is or'nary ship's fare same as me +and the mate eats, ye'll provide 'em yourself." + +"Understood! And you sail----" + +"To-night's flood, ef the men get aboard all safe. They're promised me +for ten o'clock." + +"I'll pay you now and go up for my things." + +"An' whaur may they be?" + +"At Cotton's, in Castle Street." + +"Aweel! Juist keep a quiet tongue in your heid, Doctor, as to the ship +ye're sailing on. The 'Grassadoo' doesna tak passengers, ye ken, an' I +dinna want it talked aboot." + +"I understand. I've only got a box and a bag, but I'll have to get a +man to carry them." + +"Ay--weel!" and after a moment's consideration, "You wait at Cotton's +an' we'll send Jock Steele, the carpenter, up for them at eight +o'clock. Ye can coach or truck 'em as far as he says and carry 'em +between you the rest." + +So Wulfrey paid down his twenty guineas, and Captain Bain stowed them +away in his trouser pocket, and buttoned it up carefully, with a dry, +"Donal' Bain's word's his only recip_ee_. You be here before ten +o'clock and the 'Grassadoo' 'll be waiting for you." + +"That's all right, Captain," said Wulfrey. "And I'm much obliged to +you for stretching a point and taking me." + +"It's me that's doing it, ye understand, not the owners. That's why." + + + + +XIII + +The 'Grace-à-Dieu' justified Wulfrey's inexperienced choice. She was +an excellent sea-boat, fast, and as dry as could be expected, seeing +that she was chock full to the hatches, as Jock Steele informed him, +while they carried down his baggage. + +But after his first four hours on board his personal interest in her +character and performance lapsed for three full days. He had stood +leaning over the side watching the lights of Liverpool as they dropped +away astern, and then those of the Cheshire and North Welsh coasts, and +felt that now indeed he had cut loose from the past and was in for a +great adventure. + +It gave, him a curious, mixed feeling of depression and elation. He +felt at once homeless and endowed with the freedom of the universe. He +had burned his boats, he said confidently to himself, and was going +forth to begin a new life, to conquer a new world. And he set his +teeth and hung on to the heaving bulwark with grim determination. + +But the sense of elation and width of outlook dwindled with the sinking +lights. The feeling of homelessness and helplessness grew steadily +upon him. He had taken the precaution of stowing away a good meal +before he set foot on board, and he lived on it for three days. + +He had never been bodily sick in his life before, but sick as he now +was he was not too far gone to note the wretched peculiarity of his +sensations, and to muse upon them and the ridiculousness of the +provision he had made, at the Captain's suggestion, to supplement the +usual cabin fare. + +He could not imagine himself ever eating again, as he lay there in his +heaving bunk, with nothing to distract his mind from the unhappy +vacuums above and below but the heavy tread of feet overhead at times, +and the ceaseless rush and thrash of the waves a few inches from his +ear, and the grinning face of the cabin-boy who came in at intervals to +ask if he would like anything yet. + +But by degrees his head ceased to swim if he lifted it an inch off the +pillow. By further degrees he found himself crouching up and clinging +like a cat while he gazed unsteadily out of the tiny round porthole at +the tumbling green and white water outside. Still further +determination got him somehow into his clothes, and he dared to feel +hungry and empty without nausea. Then he crawled out to the deck, +feeling like a soiled rag. But the brisk south-west wind cleaned and +braced him, and presently he nibbled a biscuit and found himself as +hungry as a starving dog. + +After that he very soon found his sea-legs, and by the fourth day he +was a new man, eating ravenously to make up for lost time, and keenly +interested in all about him. + +So far they had had favourable weather and made good way. But Captain +Bain was a fervent believer in the inevitability of equinoctials, and +prophesied gales ahead, and the worse for being overdue. + +Wulfrey learned, from one and another, chatting at meals with the +Captain or Sheumaish Macro, one or other of whom was generally on deck, +or with Jock Steele the carpenter, who also acted as boatswain, that +the 'Grace-à-Dieu' was French-built which, according to Steele, +accounted for the fineness of her lines. + +"We build stouter but we cannot touch them for cut. She's as pretty a +little ship as ever I set eyes on and floats like a gull," was the +character Steele gave her. And he should know, as he'd made four +voyages in her since their owners in Glasgow bought her out of the +Prize Court, and she'd never given them any undue trouble even in the +very worst of weather. + +The crew, again according to Steele, were a very mixed lot, a few good +seamen, the rest just lubbers out of the crimp house. + +With Captain Bain and Sheumaish Macro, the mate, he got on well enough, +but found both by nature very self-contained and manifesting no +inclination for more than the necessary civilities of the situation. + +"And why should they?" he said to himself. "I'm an outsider and they +know nothing more about me than I've told them myself. Another fifteen +or twenty days and we part and are not likely ever to meet again." + +He made one discovery about them, however, which disquieted him +somewhat. They were both heavy drinkers, but they usually so arranged +matters, by taking their full bouts at different times, as not to bring +the ship into serious peril. + +Wulfrey's eyes were opened to it by the fact of his not being able to +sleep one night. After tossing and tumbling in his bunk for a couple +of hours, and finding sleep as far off as ever, he dressed again +sufficiently to go on deck for a blow. As he passed through the cabin +he found Captain Bain there with his head sunk on his arms on the +table, and, fearing he might be ill, he went up to him. But he needed +no medical skill to tell him what was the matter. The old man was as +drunk as a lord and breathing like an apoplectic hog. So he eased his +neck gear and left him to sleep it off. + +Macro was on deck in charge of the ship. Wulfrey simply told him he +had been unable to sleep, but made no mention of the Captain's +condition. And the mate said, + +"Ay, we're just getting into thick of Gulf Stream and it tells on one." + +Another night he found Steele in charge, and on the growl at the length +of his watch, and gathered from him that both Captain and mate had on +this occasion been indulging in a bit drink and were snoring in their +bunks. + +He could only hope that Captain Bain's prognosticated equinoctials, +which were now considerably overdue, would not come upon them when both +their chiefs were incapacitated. And his only consolation was the +thought that this was not an exceptional occurrence but probably their +usual habit when well afloat, and that so far no disaster had befallen +them. + +So, day after day, they sped along west-south-west, making good way and +sighting none but an occasional distant sail. Then they ran into mists +and clammy weather, and sometimes had a wind and drove along with the +swirling fog or across it, and sometimes lay rocking idly and making no +way at all. + +Wulfrey gathered, from occasional words they let fall between +themselves, and from their answers to his own questions, that this was +all usual and to be expected. They were getting towards Newfoundland +where the Northern currents met the Southern, hence the fog, and it was +too early for icebergs, so there was no danger in pressing on whenever +the wind permitted. + +Their seventeenth day out was the dullest they had had, heavy and +windless, with a shrouded sky and a close gray horizon and, to +Wulfrey's thinking, a sense of something impending. It was as though +Nature had gone into the sulks and was brooding gloomily over some +grievance. + +Captain Bain stripped the ship of her canvas, and sent down the +topmasts and yards, and made all snug for anything that might turn up. +All day and all night they lay wallowing in vast discomfort, and +Wulfrey lost all relish for his food again. + +"What do you make of it, Bo's'un?" he asked, as he clawed his way up to +Steele on the after deck, where he was temporarily in charge again. + +"Someth'n's comin', sir," said Steele portentously, "but what it is +beats me, unless it's one o' them e-quy-noctials the skipper's bin +looking for." + +In the night the fog closed down on them as thick as cotton wool; and, +without a breath of wind, the long seas came rolling in upon them out +of the thick white bank on one side and out into the thick white bank +on the other, till their scuppers dipped deep and worked backwards, +shooting up long hissing white jets over the deck, and making +everything wet and uncomfortable. Every single joint and timber in the +ship seemed to creak and groan as if in pain, and Wulfrey, as he +listened in the dark to the strident jerkings and grindings and general +complainings of the gear, and pictured the wild sweeps and swoops of +the masts away up in the fog there, wondered how long it could all +stand the strain, and how soon it would come clattering down on top of +them. Once, when a bigger roll than usual flung him against the +mainmast and he clung to it for a moment's safety, the rending groans +that came up through it from the depths below sent a creepy chill down +his spine. It sounded so terribly as though the very heart of the ship +were coming up by the roots. + +Sleep was out of the question. His cabin was unbearable. Its dolorous +creakings seemed to threaten collapse and burial at any moment. If +they had to go down he would sooner be drowned in the open than like a +rat in its hole. And so he had crawled up on deck to see what was +towards. + +The only comfort he found--and that of a very mixed character--was in +the sight of Captain Bain and the mate, sitting one on each side of the +cabin table with their legs curled knowingly round its stout wooden +supports, which were bolted to the floor, and which they used +alternately as fender and anchor to the rolling of the ship. + +They had made all possible provision against contingencies. They could +do no more, and it was no good worrying, so now they sat smoking +philosophically and drinking now and again from a bottle of rum which +hung by the neck between them from a string attached to the beam above +their heads. + +Wulfrey stood the discomforts of the deck till he was chilled to the +marrow, then he tumbled into the cabin, and annexed a third leg of the +table and sat with the philosophers and waited events. + +"It's hard on the ship, Captain," he said, by way of being +companionable. But the Captain only grunted and deftly tipped some rum +into his tin pannikin as the bottle swung towards him on its way +towards the roof. And the mate looked at him wearily as much as to +say, "Man! don't bother us with your babytalk," and it seemed to him +that they had both got a fairly full cargo aboard. + +However, he decided it was not for him to judge or condemn. They knew +their own business better than he did. There was no wind, no way on +the ship, and all they could do was to lie and wallow and wait for +better times. And the fact that they took it so calmly reassured him +somewhat. + +The cabin was so full of fog and tobacco-smoke that the light from the +swinging oil-lamp could barely penetrate beyond the table. It made a +dull ghastly smudge of yellow light through which the bottle swung to +and fro like an uncouth pendulum, and he sat and watched it. Now it +was up above his head between him and the mate; now it was sweeping +gracefully over the table; now it was up above the Captain, who reached +out and tipped some more rum into his pannikin. + +He watched it till it began to exert a mesmeric influence on, him and +his head began to feel light and swimmy. He knew something about +Mesmer and his experiments from his reading at home. He experienced a +detached interest in his own condition and wondered vaguely if the +bottle would succeed in putting him to sleep. He tried to keep his +eyes on it, but they kept wandering off to the Captain, on whom it had +already done its business, though in a different way. + +He was dead tired. It was, he reckoned, quite six-and-thirty hours +since he had had any sleep. What time of night or morning it was he +had no idea. This awful rolling and groaning and creaking seemed to +have been going on for an incalculable time. + +What with the heavy unwholesomeness of the atmosphere, and the +monotonous swing of the bottle, and the lethargic impassivity of his +companions, he fell at last into a condition of dull stupidity, which +might have ended in sleep but for the necessity of alternately hanging +on to and fending off the table, as the roll of the ship flung him away +from it or at it. And how long this went on he never knew. + +He was jerked back to life by a sudden clatter of feet overhead and a +shout. Then he was flung bodily on to the table, and found himself +lying over it and looking down at Captain Bain, who had tumbled +backwards in a heap into a corner. The rum-bottle banged against the +roof and rained its fragments down on him. The lamp leaned up at a +preposterous angle and stopped there. + +"We're done," thought Wulfrey dazedly, and became aware of fearsome +sounds outside,--a wild howling shriek as of all the fiends out of the +pit,--thunderous blows as of mighty hammers under which the little ship +reeled and staggered,--then grisly crackings and rendings and crashes +on deck, mingled with the feeble shouts of men. + +Then, shuddering and trembling, the ship slowly righted herself and +Wulfrey breathed again. Outside, the howling shriek was as loud as +ever, the banging and buffeting worse than before. + +Macro unhooked his long legs from the table and made for the door. The +Captain gathered himself up dazedly and rolled after him, and Wulfrey +followed as best he could. + +But he could see very little. The fog was gone. The fierce rush of +the gale drove the breath back into his throat and came near to choking +him. Huge green seas topped with snarling white came leaping up over +the side of the ship near him. A man with an axe was chopping +furiously at the shrouds of the fallen main-mast amid a wild tangle of +ropes and spars. As they parted, the ship swung free and went +labouring off before the gale under somewhat easier conditions, and +Wulfrey hung tight in the cabin doorway and breathed still more +hopefully. He had thought the end was come, but they were still +afloat, though sadly shorn and battered. What their chances of +ultimate safety might be was beyond him, but while there was life there +was hope. + + + + +XIV + +For three days life to Wulfrey was a grim experience made up of damp +discomfort, lack of food and rest, and growing hopelessness. + +Both their masts had gone like carrots, leaving only their ragged +stumps sticking up out of the deck. "An' if they hadn't we'd bin gone +ourselves," growled the carpenter to him one day. Where they fell the +sides of the ship were smashed and torn, and the hungry waves came +yapping up through the gaps, most horribly close and threatening. + +Three men had been washed overboard in that first fierce onrush. The +rest crouched miserably in the forecastle, and no man on board could +remember what it felt like to be dry and warm and full. + +Meals there were none. When any man's hunger forced him to eat, he +wolfed sodden biscuit and a chunk of raw pork, and washed it down with +rum. + +So ghastly did the discomfort become, as the wretched days succeeded +the still more miserable nights, that at last Wulfrey, for one, was +prepared to welcome even the end as a change for the better. + +Observations were out of the question. In these four days they never +once saw sun or moon or star, nothing but a close black sky, gray with +flying spume. The great seas came roaring out of it behind them and +rushed roaring into it in front of them, and where they were getting +to, beyond the fact that they were driving continuously more or less +west-by-north, no man knew. + +Captain Bain and the mate and the carpenter had done all that could be +done since the catastrophe, but that was very little. An attempt was +made to rig a jury mast on the stump of the foremast, but the gale +ripped it away with a jeering howl and would have none of it. With +some planking torn from the inside of the ship they barricaded the seas +out of the forecastle as well as they could. It was the carpenter's +idea to fix these planks upright, so that their ends stood up somewhat +above the top of the forecastle, and so great was the grip of the gale +that that slight projection sufficed to keep their head straight before +it and afforded them slight steerage way. + +So they staggered along, dismantled and discomfited, and waited for the +gale to blow itself out or them to perdition, and were worn so low at +last that they did not much care which, so only an end to their misery. + +And the end came as unexpectedly as the beginning. From sheer +weariness they slept at times, in chill discomfort and dankest +wretchedness, just where they sat or lay. And Wulfrey was lying so, in +a stupor of misery, caring neither for life nor death, when the final +catastrophe came. + +Without any warning the ship struck something with a horrible shock +that flung everything inside it ajee. Then she heeled over on her +starboard side, baring her breast to the enemy. + +The great green waves leaped at her like wolves on a foundered deer. +They had been chasing her for three days past and now they had got her. +She was down and they proceeded to worry her to pieces. No ship ever +built could stand against their fury. The 'Grace-à-Dieu' melted into +fragments as though she had been built of cardboard. + +Wulfrey, jerked violently out of the corner where he had been lying, +rolled down towards the door of the cabin as the ship heeled over. As +he clawed himself up to look out, a green mountain of water caught him +up and carried him high over the port bulwarks which towered like a +house above him, and swept him along on its broken crest. + +He could swim, but no swimmer could hope to save himself by swimming in +such a sea, and he was weak and worn with the miseries of the last +three days. + +He had no hope of deliverance, but yet struck out mechanically to keep +his head above water, and his thrashing arm struck wood. He gripped it +with the grip of a drowning man and clung for dear life. + +It was a large square structure, planking braced with cross-pieces, +almost a raft. He hung to the edge while the water ran out of his +mouth and wits, and then, inch by inch, hauled himself cautiously +further aboard, and, lying flat, looked anxiously about for signs of +his shipmates, but with little hope. + +He could see but a yard or two on either side, and then only the +threatening welter of the monstrous green seas, terrifyingly close and +swelling with menace. + +Nothing? ... Stay!--a white gleam under the green, like a scrap of +paper in a whirlpool, and a desperate face emerged a yard or so away +and a wildly-seeking hand. + +The anguished eyes besought him, and, not knowing what else to do, he +gripped two of the cross-pieces of his raft and launched his legs out +towards the drowning man. They were seized as in a vice, and +presently, inch by inch, the gripping hands crept up his body till the +other could lay hold of the raft for himself. And Wulfrey, turning, +saw that it was the mate, Sheumaish Macro, whose life he had saved. + +They drew themselves cautiously up into such further safety as the +frail ark offered and lay there spent. And Wulfrey, for one, wondered +if the quicker end had not been the greater gain. + + + + +XV + +Sleeping and eating anyhow and at any time, they had lost all count of +time this last day or two. It was, however, daylight of a kind, but so +gray and murky and mixed with flying spume that they could see but +little. + +Neither man had spoken since they crawled up on to the raft. Death was +so close that speech seemed futile. They both lay flat on their +stomachs, gripping tight, and peering hopelessly through nearly closed +eyes, expectant of nothing, doubting the wisdom of their choice of the +longer death. + +"God!" cried Macro of a sudden, as they swung up the back of a wave. +"Where in ---- ha' we got to?" + +And Wulfrey got a glimpse of most amazing surroundings. + +Right ahead of them the sea was all abristle with what, to his quick +amazed glance, looked like the bones and ribs of multitudinous ships, +the ruins of a veritable Armada. + +Now it was all hidden, as they sank into a weltering green valley with +tumbling green walls all about them. Then the solid green bottom of +their valley was ripped into furious white foam, and stark black baulks +of timber came lunging up through it, all crusted with barnacles, +festooned with hanging weeds, and laced with streaming white. They +looked like grisly arms of deep-sea monsters reaching up out of the +depths to lay hold of them. They seemed intent on impaling the frail +raft. They seemed to change places, to dart hither and thither as +though to head it off, to lie in wait for it, to spring up in its +course. It was frightful and unnerving. Wulfrey shut his eyes tight +and set his teeth, and waited for the inevitable crash and the end. + +A great wave lifted them high above the venomous black timbers and, +swinging on its course, dropped them as deftly as a crane could have +done it, into the inside of a mighty cage. + +Wave after wave did its best to lift them out and speed them on. Their +raft rose and fell and banged rudely against the ribs of their prison. +Up and down they swung, and round and round, bumping and grinding till +they feared the raft would go to pieces. But the tide had passed its +highest and the storm was blowing itself out, and they had come to the +end of the voyage. + +"We're in hell," gasped the mate, as he clung to the jerking +cross-pieces to keep himself from being flung off, and to Wulfrey's +storm-broken senses it seemed that he was right. + + + + +XVI + +All that night they swung and bumped inside their cage, with somewhat +less of bodily discomfort as the wind fell and the sea went down, but +with only such small relief to their minds as postponement of immediate +death might offer. + +Wulfrey lay prone on the raft, grimping to it mechanically, utterly +worn out with all he had gone through these last four days. He sank +into a stupor again and lay heedless of everything. + +The tide fell to its lowest and was rising again when dawn came, and +though the huge green waves still rolled through their cage, and swung +them to and fro, and sent them rasping against its massive bars, they +were as nothing compared with the waves of yesterday. + +It was the sound of Macro cracking shell-fish and eating them that +roused Wulfrey. He raised his heavy head and looked round. The mate +hacked off a bunch of huge blue-black mussels from the post they were +grinding against at the moment, opened several of them and put them +under his nose. Without a word he began eating and felt the better for +them. + +Presently he sat up and looked about him in amazement, and rubbed the +salt out of his smarting eyes and looked again. + +"Where in heaven's name are we?" he gasped. + +And well he might, for stranger sight no man ever set eyes on. + +"Last night I thocht we were in hell," said Macro grimly. "An' seems +to me we're not far from it. We're in the belly of a dead ship an' +there's nought but dead ships round us." + +Their immediate harbourage, into which the friendly wave had dropped +them, was composed of huge baulks of timber like those that had tried +to end them the night before, sea-sodden and crusted thick with +shell-fish, and as Wulfrey's eyes wandered along them he saw that the +mate was right. They were undoubtedly the mighty weather-worn ribs of +some great ship, canting up naked and forlorn out of the depths and +reaching far above their heads. There in front was the great curving +stem-piece, and yon stiff straight piece behind was the stern-post. + +But when his eyes travelled out beyond these things his jaw dropped +with sheer amazement. + +Everywhere about them, wherever he looked, and as far as his sight +could reach, lay dead ships and parts of ships. Some, like their own, +entire gaunt skeletons, but more still in grisly fragments. Close +alongside them a great once-white, now weather-gray and ghostly +figurehead representing an angel gazed forlornly at them out of +sightless eyes. From the position of its broken arms and the round +fragment of wood still in its mouth, it had probably once blown a +trumpet, but the storm-fiends would have no music but their own and had +long since made an end of that. + +Close beside it jutted up a piece of a huge mast, with part of the +square top still on and ragged ropes trailing from it. Alongside it a +bowsprit stuck straight up to heaven, defiant of fate, and more +forlornly, a smaller ship's whole mast with yards and broken gear still +hanging to it all tangled and askew. And beyond, whichever way he +looked--always the same, dead ships and the limbs and fragments of them. + +"It's a graveyard," he gasped. + +"Juist that," said the mate dourly, "an' we're the only living things +in it." + +And presently, brooding upon it, he said, "There'll be sand down below +an' they're bedded in it. When tide goes down again maybe we can get +out." + +"Where to?" + +"Deil kens! ... But it cann't be worse than stopping here." + +The slow tide lifted them higher and higher within their cage, hiding +some of the baleful sights but giving them wider view over the whole +grim field. They sat, and by way of change stood and lay, on their +cramped platform. They knocked off shell-fish and ate them. So far, +so water-sodden had they been of late, they had not suffered from +thirst, but the dread of it was with them. + +Then, slowly, the waters sank, and all the bristling bones of ships +came up again. + +"Can you swim?" asked Macro abruptly at last. + +"I can. But I feel very weak. I can't go far I'm afraid." + +"We can't stop on here." + +"Where shall we go?" + +"Over yonder. They're thickest there and they stand out more. Mebbe +it's shallower that way." + +"I'll do my best to follow you. If I can't, you go on." + +"Nay. You gave me a hand last night. We'll stick together, and sooner +we start the better.... Stay ... mebbe we can----" and he began +pounding at the end planks of their raft with his foot to start them +from the cross-pieces. + +"'Twas the roof of the galley," he explained, "and none too well made. +It got stove in last voyage and we rigged this one up ourselves. My +wonder is it held together in the night." + +He managed at last with much stamping to loosen four boards. + +"One under each arm will help," he said, "An' we can paddle along an' +not get tired." + +He let himself down into the water, shipped a board under each arm, and +struck out between two of the gaunt ribs, and Wulfrey followed him, +somewhat doubtful as to what might come of it. + +But the mate had taken his bearings and was following a reasoned +course. Over yonder the wrecks lay thick. There might be one on which +they could find shelter--even food. But that he hardly dared to hope +for. As far as he had been able to judge, at that distance, they were +all wrecks of long ago and mostly only bare ribs and stumps. + +To Wulfrey, from water-level, the sea ahead seemed all abristle with +shipping, as thick, he thought to himself, as the docks at Liverpool. +But there all was life and bustling activity, and here was only +death,---dead ships and pieces of ships, and maybe dead men. The +feeling of it was upon them both, and they splashed slowly along with +as little noise as possible, as though they feared to rouse the +sleepers who had once peopled all these gruesome ruins. + +"See yon!" whispered Macro hoarsely, as he slowed up and waited for +Wulfrey to come alongside, and following the jerk of his head Wulf saw +the figure of a man grotesquely spread-eagled in a vast tangle of +cordage that hung like a net from a broken mast. + +"We had better see," said Wulfrey, and kicked along towards it, the +mate following with visible reluctance. + +It was the body of Jock Steele, the carpenter, livid and sodden, and +many hours dead. + +"I would we hadna seen him," growled Macro. + +"He'll do us no harm. He was a decent man. I'm sorry he's gone. Is +there any chance of any of the others being alive?" + +"Deil a chance!" + +"Still, we are----" + +"You had the deil's own luck and it's only by you I'm here. Let's get +on," and they splashed on again. + +Past wreck after wreck, grim and gaunt and grisly, mostly of very +ancient date, all swept bare to the bone by the fury of the seas, all +with the water washing coldly through them. Now and again Macro +growled terse comments,-- + +"A warship,--from the size of her. See those ribs, they'll last +another hundred years. And yon's a Dutchman. They build stout too. +Mostly British though, bound to be, hereabouts." + +"Have you any idea where we are, then?" + +"An idea--ay! I've heard tell o' this place, but I never met anyone +had been here. They mostly never come back. They call it what you +called it a while ago--'The Graveyard.'" + +"And where is it?" + +"Sable Island, if I'm right,--'bout one hundred miles off Nova Scotia." + +"And is there any island?" + +"Ay,--on the chart, but I never met any man had been there. We're +looking for it. There's no depth here or all them ribs wouldn't be +sticking up like that. They're stuck in the sand below. Must be over +yonder where they lie so thick.... An' a fearsome place when we get +there, with the spirits of all them dead men all about it--hundreds of +'em,--thousands, mebbe." + +"Do ships ever call there?" + +"Not if they can help it, I trow. It's Death brings 'em and he holds +'em tight.... Hearken to that now!"--and he stopped as though in doubt +about going further. + +And Wulfrey, listening intently, caught a faint thin sound of wailing +far away in the distance. It rose and fell, shrill and piercing and +very discomforting, though very far away. + +"What is it?" he jerked. + +"Spirits," breathed Macro, and his face was more scared and haggard +even than before. + +"Nonsense!" said Wulfrey, with an assumption of brusqueness for his own +reassurance, for this dismal progress through the graveyard was telling +sorely on him also, and the sounds that came wavering across the water +were as like the shrieking of souls in torment as anything he could +imagine. "There are no such things. Don't be a fool, man!" + +"Man alive!--no spirits? The Islands are full o' them, an' this place +fuller still. Yes, indeed!" + +But it was obviously impossible to float about there for ever. The +water was not nearly so cold as Wulfrey had expected, but the strain of +the night and of the preceding days of semi-starvation had told on him, +and he was feeling that he could not stand much more. He set off +doggedly again towards the thickest agglomeration of dead shipping in +front, and the mate followed him with a face full of foreboding. + +They went in silence, paying no heed now to the things they passed on +the way, though the apparently endless succession of dead ships and the +parts of them was not without its effect on their already broken +spirits. + +"Gosh!" cried Macro of a sudden. "I touched ground or I'm a Dutchman! +Ay--sand it is," and Wulfrey sinking his feet found firm bottom. + +"Better keep the floats," suggested the mate. "Mebbe it's only the +side of a bank we're on." + +They waded on, breast-deep, and presently were out of their depth +again. But the feel of something below them, and the certainty that it +was still not very far away, were cheering. In a few minutes they were +walking again, having evidently crossed a channel between two banks. +And so, alternately walking and swimming, they drew at last towards the +jungle of wreckage; and all the time, from somewhere beyond it, rose +those piercing, wailing screams which Macro in his heart was certain +came from the spirits of the dead. + +Here the water was no more than up to their knees and shoaling still, +and they came now upon more than the bones of ships,--chaotic masses of +masts and spars and rigging piled high and wide in fantastic confusion, +and in among them, tangled beyond even the power of the seas to chase +them further, barrels and boxes and crates, some still whole, mostly +broken; rotting bales, and pitiful and ridiculous fragments of their +contents worked in among them as if by impish hands. + +"Gosh, what wastry!" said Macro at the sight. "There's many a thousand +pounds of goods piled here,--ay, hunderds of thousands, webbe." + +"I'd give it all for a crust of bread," said Wulfrey hungrily. + +"An' mebbe there's that too. If any o' them casks has flour in 'em we +needn' starve. It cakes round the sides wi' the wet, but the core's +all right." + +Then, beyond the gigantic barrier of wastry, rose again that shrill +screaming and shrieking, louder than ever, and Macro said "Gosh!" and +looked like bolting back into the sea. + +Wulfrey, determined to fathom it, hauled himself painfully up a tangle +of ropes and clambered to the top of the pile and saw, about a mile +away, a narrow yellow spit of sand, and all about it a dense cloud of +sea-birds, myriads of them, circling, diving, swooping, quarrelling. + +One moment the vast gray cloud of them drooped to the sea and seemed to +settle there, the next it was whirling aloft like a writhing +water-spout, every component drop of which was a venomous bundle of +feathers shrieking and screaming its hardest in the bitter fight for +food. And the harsh and raucous clamour of them, each intent on its +own, had in it something fiendishly inhuman and chilling to the blood. + +"It's only sea-birds, man," he cried to Macro. "Come up and see for +yourself," and the mate, with new life at the word, hauled himself up +alongside and stood staring. + +"My Gosh! ... I never saw the like o' that before," he said at last. +"There's millions of 'em. They're fighting ... over our shipmates +mebbe.... We needn' starve if we can get at 'em," a sentiment which +somehow, in all the circumstances of the case, did not greatly appeal +to Wulfrey, hungry as he was. + +"If they all set on a man he wouldn't have much chance," he said, with +a shiver. "They could pick him clean before he knew where he was." + +"It's only dead men they feed on," said Macro, quite himself again, +since it was only birds they had to deal with and not disembodied +spirits. "There's land. Let's get ashore," and they crawled +precariously along over the wreckage, which sagged and dipped beneath +them in places, and in places towered high and had to be scaled as best +they could, and at times they had to wade or swim from pile to pile. + +Amazing things they chanced upon in their course, but were too intent +on reaching land to give them more than a passing glance or a shudder. +More than once they came on bones of men, jammed in tight among the +raffle, and slowly picked by the sea and the things that lived in it +till they gleamed white and polished and clean. And their grinning +teeth, set in the awful fixed smile of the fleshless, seemed to welcome +them as future recruits to their company. + +"Ah--ah! So you've come at last!" they seemed to say, as they laughed +up at them out of holes and corners. "We've been waiting for you all +these years and here you are at last." + +There were, too, bales and boxes of what had been rich cloths and silks +and satins and coarser stuffs, worried open by the fret of the sea and +reduced to sodden slimy punk, and casks and barrels beyond the counting. + +"Wastry! Wastry!" panted Macro. "We'll come back sometime, mebbe." + +But, for the moment, their only craving was for dry land, to savour the +solid safety of it, and get something to eat if they could, and a long +long rest. + +With desperate determination they dragged their sodden and weary bodies +through the shallows beyond, and blind fury filled them with spasmodic +vigour as they saw what the sea-birds were feeding on. + +Over each poor body the carrion crew settled like flies, and tore and +screamed and quarrelled. The two living men dashed at them with angry +shouts, and the birds rose in a shrieking host amazed at their +interference. But only for a moment. They came swooping down again in +a gray-white cloud, with raucous cries and eyes like fiery beads, and +beat at them with their wings, and menaced them with already reddened +beaks. And they looked so murderously intentioned that the men were +fain to bow their heads and run, with flailing arms to keep them off. + +And so at last to dry land, and grateful they were for the feel of it, +even though it seemed no more than a waste of sand but a few feet above +tide-level. That last tussle with the birds had drained their strength +completely. They dropped spent on the beach and lay panting. + +Their flight had set their chilled blood coursing again, a merciful sun +had come up above the clouds that lay along the horizon, and in spite +of their hunger and the fact that their very bones felt soaked with +salt water, they both fell asleep where they lay. + + + + +XVII + +Wulfrey was wakened by a sharp stab in the neck, and when he sat up +with a start a huge cormorant squawked affrightedly at the dead man +coming to life again, and flapped away, gibbering curses and leaving a +most atrocious stink behind him. + +The mate was still sleeping soundly, and Wulfrey, for the time being +more painfully cognisant of the gnawing emptiness within than of the +miracle that permitted him any sensation whatever, sat gazing anxiously +about and revolving the primary problem of food. + +Out there among all that mass of wreckage it would be strange if they +could not find something eatable,--cores of flour barrels, perhaps +pickled pork, rum almost certainly; and the clammy void inside him +craved these things most ardently. But he could not, as yet, imagine +himself venturing out there again to get them. Later on perhaps, but +for the present the land, such as it was, must provide, for him at all +events. He felt that he simply had not the heart or the strength to +make the attempt. + +Let me say at once that the trying of these men, which came upon them +presently, was not in the matter of ways and means. It was of the +spirit, not of the flesh. But yet it is necessary to show you how they +came through these lesser trials of the flesh only to meet the greater +trials of the spirit later on. And even these smaller matters are not +entirely devoid of interest. + +Many birds came circling round expectantly, and swooped down towards +the dark figures lying in the sand, and went off in shrill amazement +when they were denied. And Macro at last stretched and yawned and sat +up, staring dazedly at Wulfrey. + +"Gosh, but I'm hungered," he said at last, as that paramount claim +emphasised itself. "Anything to eat?" + +"I'm wondering. Plenty of birds, and very bad they smell. I've seen +nothing else." + +The mate got up heavily and found himself sore and stiff. He stood +looking thoughtfully about him. + +"What about all that stuff?" and he jerked his head towards the +graveyard wreckage. + +"I couldn't go again yet." + +"Nor me either.... Ground's higher over yonder," he said. "Let's go +and see," and they set off slowly over the sand. + +The level of high water was thickly strewn with seaweed and small +wreckage. The slope of the shore was so long and gentle that no large +object could come in unless it were first broken into fragments outside. + +The mate kicked over the sea-weed and found some which he put into his +mouth. + +"Any good?" asked Wulfrey anxiously, hungrier than ever at sight of the +other's working jaws. + +"Better'n nothing," and he rooted up another piece and handed it over. +Wulfrey found it tough and pungent of the sea and, after much chewing, +capable of being swallowed, but the most he also could say for it was +that it was just that much better than nothing. + +They each picked up a piece of wood with which to root in the tangle, +and, bending and picking and munching, made their way slowly towards +the hummocks in front. + +These were a low range of sandhills, some of them as much as thirty +feet high, and on the seaward side, which they climbed, they were +sparsely clothed with coarse slate-green wire-grass about a foot in +height, which bristled up like porcupines' quills and helped to keep +the loose soft sand together. They pulled some up to see if the roots +looked edible, and found them spreading far and wide below ground in a +matted tangle of white succulent-looking tendrils, which proved as +tough and unsatisfying as the sea-weed, but had the advantage of a +different flavour. + +Grubbing along, they climbed heavily through the yielding sand to the +top of the nearest hummock. Macro, arriving there first, jerked a +gratified "Gosh!" and floundered down the other side whirling his +stick, and Wulfrey was just in time to catch the amazing sight of the +whole surface of the little valley beyond in violent motion. + +He thought at first that something had gone wrong with his eyes, for +everywhere he looked the sand seemed to be jumping and skipping and +burying itself in itself. And then from the innumerable little flecks +of white, bobbing spasmodically all over the place, he perceived that +these were rabbits, and the mate was in among them, knocking them on +the head as fast as his stick could whirl. By the time Wulfrey reached +him he was sitting in the sand, skinning one with his knife, and half a +dozen more lay round him. + +"Better than roots and seaweed," he said, as he hacked the first in +pieces and stuffed some into his mouth and handed some to Wulfrey. +"There's millions of 'em. We won't starve," and he started skinning +another. + +Raw meat was a novelty, to Wulfrey at all events but baby-rabbit flesh +is eatable, even raw, and it put new life into them both. + +The little valley in which they sat was like an oasis in the sandy +desert outside. For here, among the wire-grass grew innumerable small +creeping-plants and that so sturdily though so modestly that, in spite +of the vast horde of rabbits, the whole place was carpeted with green, +and right in the centre, where the ground was lowest and the +undergrowth thickest and darkest, was a considerable pool of rainwater, +which they found brackish but drinkable. + +"All we want now is shelter and fire, and we'll live like kings and +fighting-cocks," said Macro, when he had time for anything but +rabbit-flesh, and lay back comfortably distent. + +"And where shall we find shelter and fire in this place?" + +"Man! There's more'n we'll ever need in all our lives, over yonder. +But it'll keep.... I'm not for going back there this day anyway. +To-morrow, mebbe,----" he said drowsily, and presently they were both +fast asleep again. And the rabbits came out at sunset and hopped about +them, and sniffed them with quivering noses and disrelish, and the +heavy dew fell on them, but they never woke. For Nature had now got +all she needed for the reparation of the previous waste, and she was +busily at work making good while they slept. + + + + +XVIII + +Morning broke dull, and heavy. The air was mild but full of moisture, +and they were chilled with their long sleep in the open. + +"Gosh! but I'd like to feel dry again," said Macro, as they sat +munching raw rabbit for breakfast. "D'you feel like going out yonder?" + +"I feel three times the man I was yesterday. But should we not go on +further first? There may be someone living on the island." + +"Not a soul but us two, I warrant you." + +"But since we're here there might be others." + +"That's so. There might be, but not likely. It's just luck, deil's +own luck, 'at those screeching deevils out yonder aren't picking us to +pieces like the rest." + +"Say Providence, and I'll agree with you," said Wulfrey, who saw no +need to ascribe to the devil so obviously good a work as far as they +were concerned. + +"Ca' it what you like, not one man in a thousand comes alive through +what we came through. And I'm not forgetting that but for you I'd no +be here myself. We can take a bit look round, but I'm sore set on a +covering of some kind and a fire, and some rum would be cheerful. It's +in my bones that we'll find all we want out there, and more besides." + +So, after breakfast, they set off, carrying a couple of rabbits for +provision by the way. + +Looking round from the top of the highest hummock, they saw the great +twisting cloud of sea-birds hovering over the distant wreckage, and the +shrill clamour of their screaming came faintly to them on the still +air. They had cleaned up what the sea had stranded on the spit and had +had to go further afield. + +From this vantage point they could to some extent make out the lie of +the island. It ran nearly west and east and the narrow sand-spit on +which they had landed was the extreme western point. Where they stood, +the land was about a quarter of a mile in width and it stretched away +in front further than they could see, in vast stretches of sand with a +line of hummocks all along the northern side. It seemed very narrow, +just a long thin wedge of sand, with illimitable gray sea on each side, +as far as their eyes could reach. Right ahead, and about a mile away, +was a great sheet of water, whether lake or inlet they could not tell. +The hummocks ran along its northern side, and a narrow strip of sand +divided it from the sea on the south. + +"We'd best keep to the ridges," said Macro. "Yon spit on the other +side may only end in the sea," so they tramped on along the firm beach +on the seaward slope of the line of hummocks, and every now and again +climbed up to see what was on the other side. When they found +themselves abreast of the sheet of water they went down and found it +salt and very shallow. It stretched away in front as far as they could +see, but Macro thought he could see more sand hummocks at the far end. + +Every here and there, when they climbed the ridge to look over, they +came on little basins like their own, comparatively green and populous +with rabbits. But never a sign of human life or habitation, not a tree +or a shrub, not an animal except the rabbits. + +"A God-forsaken hole," was the mate's comment, as they stood, after a +couple of hours' trudging, looking out over the interminable ridges in +front, and the great unruffled sheet of water below, and the gray +slow-heaving sea beyond on both sides, and the gray sky enclosing all. + +"There's nought here and never has been. Let's go back and get to +work." + +"That lake, or inlet, or whatever it is, seems to narrow over there. +Suppose we see where it goes to," suggested Wulfrey. + +"Only back into sea, I reckon." + +However, they tramped on along the beach, and next time they looked +over the ridge the land below had broadened out. The water had shrunk +to a mere channel which ran, they saw, not into the sea but into a +still larger lake beyond, unless it in turn should prove to be a long +arm of the sea running all through the middle of the island. They +could follow the low sand-spit which divided it from the sea on the +south side, and the long line of hummocks on the north, till they faded +out of sight in the distance. + +Right in front of them spread the largest valley they had yet come +across, and the coast ridges ran down into the middle of it and ended +in the highest hill they had seen, and between the hill and the lake +lay a number of large ponds. + +"We must get up there," said Wulfrey. + +"No manner o' use," growled the mate, who found tramping through the +sand very tiring, and was eager to get back and attack the wreckage for +shelter and fire and food and rum. + +"Stop you here then, Macro, and I'll go on. If there's anything to see +I'll wave my arms. You might skin those rabbits too. I'm beginning to +feel empty again." + +He struck straight across the valley to the ponds, and was delighted to +find them fresh and much better to the taste than their own little +pool. Then he climbed the hill, which was not far short of a hundred +feet in height. And then Macro, who had been watching him +intermittently as he hacked at the rabbits, saw him wave his arms in so +excited a fashion that he picked up the rabbits and ran, wondering what +new thing he'd found now that set him dancing in that fashion. + +And when at last he panted heavily up the yielding side of the hill and +saw, he gasped "Gosh!" with all the breath he had left, and sat down +open-mouthed and stared as if he could not believe his eyes. + +Beyond the end of the valley, the great lake stretched away further +than they could see, and in a deep bend on the north side of it lay two +ships. + +"Schooners, b' Gosh!" jerked Macro, as soon as he could speak; and eyed +them intently. "How in name of sin did they get there?" and his eye +travelled quickly along the sand-spit that shut out the sea, in search +of the break in it through which the schooners must have entered. But +no break was visible. Still it might well be that this great inland +lake joined the outer sea somewhere over there, beyond their range of +sight, and that this was a harbour of refuge, though he had certainly +never heard of it before. + +"We must find out about 'em," he said at last, and they set off at +speed towards the ships to which his eyes seemed glued. + +"Not a sign of a man aboard either of 'em," he jerked one time, as he +lurched up out of a rabbit-hole. "Nor ashore either." + +And to Wulfrey also there was something strange and uncanny in the look +of them. The absence of any slightest sign of life anywhere about +imparted to them something of a lifeless look also. And their masts +were bare of sails, spars, or even cordage, just bare poles sticking up +out of the hulls like blighted pine trees. The sea outside had a long +slow heave in it, but the water of the lake was smooth as a pond, not a +pulse in it, not a ripple on it, and the two little ships lay as +motionless as toy boats on a looking-glass sea. + +Macro was evidently much exercised in his mind. He never took his eyes +off the ships. So intent was he on them that he stumbled in and out of +rabbit holes without noticing them, and the "Gosh!" that jerked out of +him now and again was provoked entirely by the puzzle of the ships. + +So they came at last round the curve of the land and stood opposite the +nearer of the two, which lay about a hundred yards out from the shore +of bare sand, and neither on ship nor shore nor water had they +discovered any sign of life. + +"Schooner a-hoy!" bellowed the mate through his funnelled hands. And +again. "Schooner a-hoy!" + +But no sudden head bobbed up at the hail, and but that they were whole +and afloat the ships looked as dead as those others out past the point. + +"Gosh, but it's odd!" and he looked quickly both ways along the shore +and over his shoulders, as though he feared some odd thing might start +up suddenly and take him unawares. "What's it mean?" + +"There's no one there. They're deserted." + +"Deserted? Man alive! Who'd desert ships afloat like that? What in +---- does it mean?" his native fears of the unnatural and inexplicable +getting the better of him. + +"We'd better go and see," said Wulfrey. + +"Swim?" + +"I suppose so. I don't expect we can wade." + +The mate shook his head. He had evidently no liking for the job, keen +as was his desire to get to the bottom of it. + +"Let's feed first anyway," he said, and produced the rabbits, which he +had held on to in spite of his surprise and many stumblings. So they +sat in the sand and ate raw rabbit, with their eyes on the ships all +the time. + +"They're dead ships like all the rest," was the sum of Macro's +conclusions. "But how they got there beats me flat." + +"They're afloat anyway and they'll be better to sleep in than the +sandhills." + +"Ay--mebbe,--if so be's there's no dead men aboard--or ghosts." + +"There's no ghosts anyway. If there are any dead men we'll bury them +decently and occupy their bunks." + +At which the mate gave a shiver of distaste and chewed on in silence. + +"Isn't it possible there's an opening to the sea over yonder?" asked +Wulfrey, with an eastward jerk of the head. + +"Mebbe, but I don't think it. There's no seaweed here, and no move in +the water, and no tide-mark. It's dead level. But what if there is?" + +"Why, then they might have got in that way, and then some storm blocked +the opening and they couldn't get out." + +"Mebbe. We can find out by travelling along yon spit till we get to +the end of it. I'd liefer do that than go aboard." + +"We'll sleep better on board than on the sand." + +"Man, ye don't know what ill things may be aboard yon ships! There's a +wrong look about 'em," which was undeniable, but still not enough to +commend the chill sand to Wulfrey as a resting-place when shelter and +possibly bunks might be had on board. + +"It seems to me," he said, as they finished their meal, "that it +doesn't matter much how they got there. We can perhaps find that out +later. There they are, and if they're habitable we want to make use of +them. I'm going to swim out to this nearest one and find out what's +the matter." + +"If you go I go," grumbled the mate uncheerfully. + +"It's evident there's no one aboard or anywhere about, and it's absurd +to sit here looking at them," said Wulf, and began to peel off his +clothes, which had got almost dry with walking. "No good getting them +wet again," he explained. "I've been all of a chill for the last five +days. I'll fasten them on to my head." + +"We'll be coming back." + +"We might decide to stop there all night. Better take what's left of +the meat." + +"Gosh!" with a perceptible shiver of distaste again. + +However, he peeled also, and by careful contrivance with belt and +braces they bound their bundles on to their heads and stepped into the +water. + +"Phew! It's cold,--colder than the sea," said Wulfrey through +tight-set teeth, as they struck out. + +"'Tis that," and the mate's teeth chittered visibly, between the chill +of the water and distaste of the adventure. + +"Temperature ought to be same ... if sea comes in," sputtered Wulfrey. + +"'Tisn't, all same. It's cauld as death." + +They ploughed along till they reached the nearer ship, and swam round +it in search of entrance, and failing other means laid hold of the +rusty anchor-chain, which peeled in ruddy flakes at their touch. By +the time Wulf tumbled in over the bows he was streaked from head to +foot with iron-mould, and presented so ghastly an appearance that +Macro's jaw fell as he came up the side, and he looked half inclined to +drop back into the water. + +"Man! You look awful. I tuk you for a ghost," he gasped in a whisper. + +"You're nearly as bad yourself, but I took the cream of it. Now let us +see what's what." + +The mate's experienced eye showed him at once that the condition of the +ship was not due to storm or accident. She had been deliberately +stripped of everything that could be turned to account elsewhere. She +was bare as a board,--not a rope nor a spar was left. The hatches were +closed and looked as though they had not been touched for years. + +They came to the fore-hatch leading down to the fo'c's'le, and he +hauled it up with some difficulty and looked suspiciously down into the +darkness within. + +"Below there!" he cried, in a repressed hollow voice. But only the +echoes answered him. + +They passed the main-hatch leading to the hold, and went along, past a +grated skylight thick with green mould, to the covered gangway leading +to the officers' quarters. The doors were closed and bolted with rusty +bolts. There could not by any possibility be anyone below, not anyone +alive, that is. + +Macro wasted no breath here, when they had managed to undo the bolts, +but he visibly hesitated. Wulf stepped down into the cabin, and he +followed. + +Just bare walls, nothing more. Table, stools, lamps, everything +movable or unscrewable had been carried away. In the four small rooms +adjacent there were just four empty bunks and not a thing besides. + +"Gosh, but it's queer!" whispered Macro. "Mebbe they're all lying dead +in the hold." + +"We'll make sure," and they went up on deck again, and with some +labour, for the wood had swelled and stuck, got up the main hatch and +dropped down into the hold. + +But that was bare like the rest. The ship was as empty as a drum. + +"Not so much as a rat, b' Gosh!" said the mate, with recovered spirits, +seeing no sign of dead men or ghosts. + +"What do you make of it?" asked Wulf. + +"She's been stripped bare, that's plain. But why, beats me." + +"Anyway, there's no objection to our stopping here now, I suppose. +Bare bunks will be drier than the sand over there." + +"That's so.... And I'm thinking that if we can bring over some of the +stuff from that big pile out yonder we can make ourselves mighty +comfortable here." + +"We can start on that tomorrow. We've done enough for one day." + +"We'll make a raft, like old Robinson Crusoe, and bring the stuff right +down to the spit yonder," said Macro, waxing quite cheerful at the +prospect. "Then we'll make a smaller raft to bring it aboard here." + +"We'd better walk along that spit tomorrow and see if there's any +opening to the sea." + +"We can do that, but I doubt there's not, else this water wouldn't be +so cold, and there'd be some movement in it. It's all dead like +everything else." + +They spent the rest of the daylight poking into every corner of the +ship, and in the dark fo'c's'le Macro made a find of surpassing worth. + +He had rooted everywhere, with a natural enjoyment in the process, and +come on nothing but bare boards. "But you never know," he said, and +went on rooting. And in the blackest corner his foot struck something +loose which slid away and eluded him. He went down on his hands and +knees and groped till he found it, and then gave a triumphant shout +which brought up Wulfrey in haste. + +It was a small round metal box such as was used for carrying flint and +steel and tinder, well-worn and battered, but tightly closed, and the +mate's fingers trembled with anxiety as he opened it with his knife. + +"Thanks be!" he breathed deeply, for there in the little battered box +lay all the possibilities of fire,--warmth, cooked food, life--all +complete. + +And--"Thank God!" said Wulfrey also. "That's the best find yet." + +"If it'll work it's worth its weight in Guinea gold. But it's old, +old," and he poked the tinder doubtfully with his finger, "as old as +the ship, and that's older than you or me, I'm thinking. It's dropped +out of some old pocket and rolled out of sight. We do have the deil's +own luck." + +"Providence!" said Wulfrey. "Can't we make a fire and roast some +rabbit? I'm sick of raw meat." + +"Where'd we make it? Galley-stove's gone with all the rest, and galley +too for that matter.... Wouldn't do to set the ship afire.... There's +only one safe way. Soon as we've got a bit of a raft together we'll +bring over sand enough to make a fire-bed in the hold. Then we can +roast all the rabbits in the island." + +"What about the cover of the big hatchway there? Wouldn't that carry +one of us and sand enough." + +"Might. And there's wood enough and to spare in the skin of her down +below. But it'll be dark in an hour." + +"Come on. Let's get it overboard. I'll go. Can you rip up a board +for a paddle?" + +The hatch-cover was slightly domed and had four-inch coamings all +round, and when let upside down on to the water made a sufficiently +effective raft for light freight. Macro dropped down into the hold and +ripped up a board and jumped it into pieces, and Wulfrey lowered +himself gingerly down on to his frail craft and set off for the shore, +with roast rabbit in his face. + +"Ye'll have to look smart or ye'll be in the dark," Macro called after +him, as he leaned over the side watching his clumsy progression. + +"Ay, ay! I'll shout if I get lost," and the mate went down to break up +firewood and shred filmy shavings in default of sulphur sticks. + +Wulfrey, wafting slowly ashore, lighted on a colony of rabbits intent +on supper, and was able to capture a couple in their panic rush for +their holes. Then he hastily loaded his float with all the sand it +could safely carry and set off again for the ship in great content of +mind. + +The transfer of his cargo to the deck of the ship was a much more +difficult and precarious job than getting it alongside. He tried +throwing it up in handfuls, but that proved slow work and more than +once came near to spilling him overboard. And finally, as the night +was upon them, he took off his coat and sent up larger parcels in it; +and so at last Macro cried enough, and having shown him how to wedge +his float in between the rusty anchor-chain and the bows, so that the +wind should not drift it away in the night, he helped him up over the +side. + +It was an anxious moment when the first sparks shredded down into the +ancient tinder. But they caught and glowed, and with tenderest coaxing +lighted the mate's carefully-prepared matches, and these the chips, and +these the faggots, and the mighty cheer and joy of fire were theirs. + +They slept that night in great comfort, replete with roasted meat, +roofed from winds and dew, and grateful both, each in his own way, for +the marvellous encouragement of this first day on the island. + +Though their beds were but bare boards, they had no fault to find with +them, but slept like tops. And Macro's black head was so full of the +wonderful possibilities of that vast pile of wastry out beyond the +point, in conjunction with this amazing find of the ships, that there +was no room left in it for any thought of ghosts or evil spirits. + + + + +XIX + +Over their last night's fire they had made provision of roast meat for +breakfast, and after it they paddled precariously across to the other +schooner, a couple of hundred yards away, and explored it thoroughly. +But it was in exactly the same condition as their own, so they closed +all the hatches again and then, after a short discussion, decided to +leave the solution of the puzzle of the ships for the present and +devote the day to the salvage of any necessaries they could discover +among the wreckage. + +They paddled across to the southern spit which divided the lake from +the sea, and found it a bare hundred yards in width, and at its highest +point not more than ten feet above high-water level. They walked +briskly along the side of the narrow channel that joined the two lakes, +on past the first one, and in a couple of hours reached the sandy point +where they had landed two days before. Out above the piles of wreckage +the gray cloud of sea-birds swung and whirled, and their shrill +screamings rose and fell with the varied fortunes of their quest. + +"Screeching deevils!" was the mate's comment on them, and presently, +"It'll be a long pull back with a log of a raft. It must be six or +seven miles, I reckon." + +"Perhaps we'll strike a boat among the wreckage." + +"Ah--p'r'aps. We do have the deil's own luck." + +It was almost dead low water. The storm of the previous days seemed to +have exhausted the elements for the time being. The sea was smooth, +with no more movement than the long slow heave which curled, as it +neared the shore, into great green and white combers of exquisite +beauty, rushing up the beaches in a dapple of marbled foam, and back +into the bosom of the next comer with a long-drawn sibilant hiss. + +There was a soft south-west wind and even a cheering touch of the sun, +and as their work was like to be of the wettest, and dry clothes were a +luxury, they left them above tide-level and went out stripped to the +fight, their only weapon the mate's sailor's-knife in the belt which he +buckled round his waist. But, in view of the screeching deevils +already in possession, they forethoughtfully armed themselves with the +weightiest clubs they could pick out of the raffle of the beach. For +in that countless predatory host, although its components were but +birds, there was menace passing words. It made them feel bare and +vulnerable, and Macro cursed them heartily as he went. + +They reached the pile without any difficulty, and the mate's keen eye +raked round for the likeliest stuff for a raft. It was no good +acquiring cargo till they had a craft to carry it. + +There was no lack of timber, however, and cordage was to be had for the +cutting, and with these the skilled hands of the seaman soon +constructed a raft large enough for their utmost probable requirements. +Then he turned with gusto to the more satisfying joys of plunder, and +developed new and startling sides to his character. + +Wulf laughed, but found him surprising, as the cateran spirit of his +forebears came uppermost with this tremendous opportunity. + +He climbed up and down and in and out of the high-piled wreckage like a +hungry tiger, bashed in boxes and cases with a huge club of mahogany +which had once adorned the cabin-staircase of a ship, and raked over +their contents with the avidious claws of a wrecker of the evil coasts. +Now and again strange ejaculations broke from him. More than once, in +the wild glee of pillage and unexpected booty, he shouted snatches of +weird runes and chanties which Wulf supposed were Gaelic. At times he +stood and shook his fist at the screaming birds that swooped about him, +and cursed them volubly. And once, Wulfrey, on the raft below, knitted +his brows and watched him with doubtful perplexity as, in the +disappointment of his hopes respecting one great case which had +resisted his efforts and finally yielded nothing of consequence, he +attacked another with shouts of fury and a Berserk madness that +scattered chips and splinters far and wide. An incautious cormorant +swooped by him. With a stroke he sent it spinning, a bruised and +broken bundle of feathers, and it fell with a dull flop into the sea. + +The man seemed demented, drunk with a rage for plunder and the +destruction of everything that stood between him and it. His great +club whirled, and the blows flailed here and there without any apparent +regard to direction. The lust of slaughter and demolishment burst from +him in volcanic fire and fury. For the moment he had reverted to his +elemental type. + +To the cooler head below he looked dangerous. Wulfrey's amused +amazement gave place to doubt and a touch of anxiety. He could only +hope that his companion was not often subject to fits such as this. + +But the Berserk madness was not wholly without method, and presently +plunder of all kinds came raining down on the raft. + +Heralded by a sharp "Below there!" came a roll of linen and one of +woollen cloth, a bale of blankets, more rolls,--this time of silk and +satin and velvet, all more or less damaged by the sea, though they were +the pick and cream of his salvaging, and all no doubt dryable. + +"Good heavens! What does he want with these?" thought Wulfrey, but +piled them up obediently. + +Then, following the unmistakable course of the marauder up above, and +clawing the raft along to keep in touch with him, down came on his head +a bulging little sack, which felt like beans but proved to be coffee, +and presently, after a pause, necessitated by packing arrangements up +above, a series of soft bundles made up in crimson silk and tied with +slimy rope. + +Then, after another pause punctuated by shouts and crashes, down came a +rattling heap of rusty cooking utensils all slung together with more +slimy rope, a rusty axe, four broken oars. Till at last the raft +became so crowded that there was barely standing room left on it. + +"Steady, above there! We're full up. I can't take another pound, and +I doubt if we can get this all home safely." + +"Just this, man!" and Macro appeared up above with a small keg in his +arms, and let himself and it carefully down on to the raft, with every +appearance of a return to sanity. + +"Man!" he said, with the afterglow of it all still in his face. "That +was fine. We'll come again." + +"We've got to get all these things home first." + +"Easy that. This wind'll carry us fine," and he set to work with a +couple of the broken oars and a blanket, and contrived a sail of sorts. +Then, taking another oar and thrusting one into Wulfrey's hands, he +propelled the clumsy raft along the side of the wreckage till it got +clear, and the wind caught their sail and wafted them slowly towards +the island. + +"A grand grand place, yon!" he broke out again. + +"There's stuff enough there to load a hundred ships.... Gosh, I've +forgotten the pork!" and he uprooted the sail and began paddling back +to the wreckage. "I stove in the head of a barrel and was smelling at +it when I spied the wee keg." + +"Was it eatable?" + +"I've eaten worse." + +"Couldn't we get it next trip?" + +"Man, my stomach's been crying for it ever since I set eyes on it. +'Sides, those deevils of birds will finish it in no time. See them! +They're at it now. Och, ye greedy deevils!" + +He clambered up the pile with his oar and laid about him lustily, The +birds rose up from the meat like a dense cloud of flies, and screamed +and raved at him, and swooped at him with vicious eyes and beaks and +claws, so that in a moment he became the centre of a writhing, +fluttering, shrieking mass which threatened to annihilate him +completely. + +He flailed blindly at them with his oar, smashing them by dozens. But +they were too many for him. He shouted for help, and when Wulfrey +scrambled up he found him in very sore case, fighting blindly and +streaming with blood. + +"Come away, man!" shouted Wulfrey, and thrashed away at the nightmare +of whirling birds. "Come away before they end us!" and in a moment he +found himself the centre of a similar shrieking mass, dazed and blinded +with their numbers and their fury. The terrified glimpse he got of +their cold glittering eyes and gnashing beaks, and the compressed venom +of their overwhelming assault, were too much for him. It was like +fighting single-handed against all the fiends out of the pit. + +He hurled his oar overboard, put up his arms to protect his eyes, and +staggered to the edge of the pile, acutely conscious of jags and pecks +and rips innumerable on his bare arms and shoulders. As he flung +himself down into the water and dived under, a plunge alongside told +him that Macro had done the same. A raucous swarm of birds followed +them, but on their disappearance fluttered off to more visible chances +above. + +"Man! but that was awful!" gasped the mate hoarsely. "They nigh ate me +alive." + +"Let's get aboard or they'll be at us again. There's my oar," and he +swam quietly to it and they climbed back on to the raft. + +"An' never ae piece o' pork," lamented Macro. "The poaching deevils!" + +"Be thankful you're alive, man! It was a close touch that." + +"'Twas that. I'm bit all over. I'd like to end 'em all with one +crack." + +Fortunately the birds were too busy quarrelling up above to give them +more than cursory attention. A few came whirling and swooping after +them with greedy eyes and ravening beaks. But it was only in their +multitudes that they were formidable and they soon gave up a chase that +offered no easy prey. + +The men, shaken and trembling, clawed along the pile till they caught +the wind again, when Macro readjusted his masts and sail, and they +drifted slowly back towards the island. + +"Ye deevils! Ye scratching, scrawming, skelloching deevils!" breathed +Macro deeply, every now and again, and shook his fist at the twisting +column of birds behind. "I wish ye had ae neck and me ma hond on it." + +Their weighty progress was of the slowest. When they drew alongside +the yellow spit Macro plunged overboard and waded ashore for their +clothes, and they drifted on along the low southern beach. But it was +well after mid-day before they came abreast of the stark little ships +which stood to them for home. + +Then they made busy traffic transporting their salvage to the shore and +carrying it across the bank to the edge of the lake. And when that was +all done Macro unlashed the raft and they carried it over piece by +piece, and roughly put it together there and loaded up again. + +"It'll all come in for firing," said the mate. "We can't go on burning +our own inside all the time." + +It was no easy work propelling their rough craft with broken oars. +Moreover Macro insisted on taking the hatch-cover in tow. But the +spirit of accomplishment was upon them and the weight they dragged was +a comforting one. + +All the way, as they joggled slowly along, the mate never ceased +enlarging on the wonders of the wreckage, nor forgot his one +disappointment, which evoked resentful curses each time he thought of +it. + +"Man, but we're doing fine! A roof we've got, and fire, and things to +eat.--There's flour in yon bundles,--just the cores of half a dozen +casks. And yon bag's coffee, but we'll need to roast it and grind it. +And the wee keg's rum, unless I've mistook it. An' there's enough +stuff out yonder to last us for a thousand years. But, +blankety-blank-blank-blank!--my stomach's crying after yon pork that +them screeching deevils took out of our mouths, as you might say. +Blankety-blank-blank 'em all--every red-eyed son o' the pit among 'em! +But we'll try again, and next time I'll not broach the barr'l an' +they'll know noth'n about it." + +"Maybe they'll attack us all the same. It was the most horrible +situation I was ever in. One felt so utterly helpless." + +"Ay, blank 'em! There was no end to 'em.... They'd have ate me alive +if you hadn't come and helped me tumble overboard. Blank 'em! Blank +'em! Blank 'em!" + +"What on earth are all these things for?" asked Wulfrey one time, +kicking a roll of crimson silk with his heel. + +"Blankets to sleep on,--better than boards. The others for their gay +gaudery,--the bonny reid and blue o' them. They mek me feel good and +warm just to look at 'em. I just couldna leave them. Man, they're +grand!" + +They hoisted all their stuff on board, and found themselves hungry and +thirsty with the heavy day's work. There were but the scantiest +remnants of their breakfast left, and Macro undertook to chop wood and +make a fire, scour some of the rusty cooking-utensils, and make +flour-and-water cakes as soon as he had some water, if Wulfrey would go +across for it and some fresh meat. + +So he set off on the hatch-cover with a good-sized kettle, and was back +inside an hour with water from the ponds by the hill and a couple of +young rabbits, and found that the mate had not been idle. He had +transferred a sufficiency of sand to the cabin to make a hearth at the +foot of the steps, and had broken up wood enough to last for a week. +He had spread out all the blankets, scoured most of the rust off a +frying-pan and a small kettle and a couple of tin pannikins, and had +opened the keg and sampled its contents and found it French cognac of +excellent quality. + +In the best of spirits he skinned the rabbits and set them roasting, +with an incidental commination of thae screeching deevils that had +robbed them of the pork which would have been such a welcome +accompaniment. Then he compounded cakes of flour and water and fried +them deftly, and set a kettle to boil wherewith to make hot grog, and +boastfully promised coffee for the morrow when he had time to roast and +grind it. + +They both ate ravenously, and found great content in the taste of hot +food and drink once more, after all these days of clammy starvation, +and then they slept. And Wulfrey dreamed horribly all night of +fighting helplessly with legions of screeching birds, and several times +fought himself awake, and each time found Macro actively engaged in the +same unprofitable business. + + + + +XX + +In spite of his torn shoulders and unrestful night, Macro was for +setting off again first thing next morning for more plunder. That huge +pile of wastry drew him like a magnet. He hungered and thirsted to be +at it again. + +But Wulfrey flatly refused. They had enough to go on with, and he +claimed at least a day to recover from the effects of the last +excursion. And as Macro declined to tackle the job single-handed he +was fain to agree, though with none too good a grace. + +"This weather mayn't last. We'd best get all we can while we can," he +urged. + +"The stuff will be there tomorrow. Most of it's been there for years, +you said." + +"Ay, but man, there's mebbe things out of the 'Grassadoo,' that'll be +spoiling for want of finding." + +"They'll not spoil much more in one day. You're more used to this kind +of work than I am, you see. I must have a rest." + +Macro consigned rest to the bottomless pit, but after relieving his +feelings in that way, consented at last to an easy-going exploration of +the southern spit, to see if their lake opened into the sea, though he +expressed himself satisfied, from his observations, that it did not. + +First, however, out of the larger raft he constructed a smaller one, +which bore them better than the hatch-cover and was more manageable, +and the hatch they hauled on board again and fitted into its place, so +as to keep the ship dry in case of bad weather. Then they paddled +across to the spit and set off along it, both scrutinising the lie of +the land carefully. + +For a good hour they trudged through heavy sand, the sea swirling with +long soft hisses up the yellow beach on their right hand, and on their +left the placid water of the lake without a pulse in it. The dividing +bank was nowhere in all its length more than a hundred yards wide, nor +more than ten feet high at its crown. + +More than once Macro stood and studied it in places, and when in time +they came to long ridges of hummocks which stretched as far in front as +they could see, he stood again, looking back from the top of the first +they climbed, and said, "I'm thinking there's no opening this end. +Mebbe it was on the level there. But this stuff shifts so in a gale +you never know where you are." + +Presently they came on the shallow rounded end of the lake, with higher +sandhills beyond it, which ran along both sides of the island further +than they could see. In between lay a vast unbroken stretch of level +sand, and when they climbed to the top of the highest hill, they saw +this sandy desert dwindle in the far distance to a point, with the sea +on each side of it, like the one at the other end of the island. + +"There's not a sign of anybody else," said Wulfrey. + +"If there'd been anyone they'd bin living on them ships. We've got it +all to ourselves, that's certain. And what's more, we'll have it all +to ourselves till Kingdom come. No one else'll ever come, 'cept dead +men." + +"Those two ships came." + +"Twenty, thirty years ago,--mebbe more. Must have bin an opening then +and it's got silted up. They couldn't have got washed over the spit." + +There were several more large fresh-water ponds close to these larger +hills, and rabbits everywhere. They secured a couple and tramped back +the way they had come. + +Macro seemed to accept the whole situation and outlook with the utmost +equanimity. They had very much more than they had had any right to +expect; more was always to be had for the fetching from that wonderful +pile out yonder; what that pile might yield in the way of richer +plunder remained to be seen, and he was the man to see to it. + +But Wulfrey had been cherishing a hope that the great lake would prove +an inlet from the sea, a harbour of refuge into which other ships might +be expected to run at times. And the fact that it was not, that no +relief was to be looked for in that direction and that this desolate +sandbank, bristling with wrecks, must necessarily be shunned by all who +knew of it, weighed more and more heavily on him as he thought about it. + +They were alive, where all their shipmates had perished. They were +provided for beyond their utmost expectation. For all that he was most +deeply grateful. But the prospect of passing the rest of his life on +this bare bank troubled him profoundly and reduced him to silence and +the lowest of spirits. + + + + +XXI + +They woke next morning into a dense white fog, so thick that they could +not see across the deck. Macro, intent on plunder, hailed it as an +excellent screen from possible attack by the other pillagers of the +wreck-pile, and though Wulfrey had his doubts, he would not counter him +again. + +His knowledge of human nature suggested to him the almost impossibility +of two men living alone, in intimacy so close and exclusive, and with +so little outlet for their thoughts and energies, without coming to +loggerheads at times. He determined that, so far as in him lay, the +provocation thereto should not come from him. + +So far he had not only had nothing to complain of in his companion's +presence, but, on the contrary, had found himself distinctly the gainer +by it in every material way. But the strange wild outbursts, to which +he had given vent when they were at the wreckage before, warned him of +hidden fires below, and suggested the advisability of non-provocation +of the under-man, if it were possible to avoid it. + +So they paddled across to the spit, which they could not well miss, and +set off on foot for the point, steering by the sullen lap and hiss of +the waves as they stole softly up out of the fog on their left hand. +There was a clamminess in the air which commended the idea of clothes +to them while they worked on the pile. So they made their things into +tight bundles, and carried them above their heads as they waded out +neck-deep to their store-house. The shrill cries of the birds came +dull and thin through the fog, more ghostly than ever from their +invisibility. Now and again an inquisitive straggler fluttered down at +them out of the close white curtain, and whirled back into it with a +terrified squawk when it found they were alive. + +They climbed the pile cautiously, but the birds seemed mostly at a +distance; and when they had flung down sufficient timber Macro +proceeded to construct another raft, while Wulfrey poked about up above +on his own account. + +And as he climbed about among the chaotic mass of barrels, boxes, +cases, bales, he came to understand the wild craving to get at them, to +bash them open and learn what they contained, which had possessed the +mate that other day. There might be anything hidden there--goods of +all kinds for the easement of their present situation. There might +even be treasure of gold and jewels. It was impossible to say what +there might not be. And though gold and jewels were absolutely useless +to them, placed as they were, and with no prospect, according to Macro, +of rescue or relief, the possibility of such things lying hidden in +untold quantity all about him stirred him strangely. + +He recognised feelings so abnormal to himself with no little surprise. +He felt as a penniless small boy might feel if he were given the +freedom of a great shop full of boxed-up toys and told to help himself. +He wanted to smash open very closed case he came to, to see what was +inside it. + +The water lapped and clunked dismally in the hollows below, and at +times he had to climb almost down to it, and then up the further side, +to get across faults in the pile. In one such black gully, on what was +usually the leeward side of the pile, he had stepped cautiously from +ledge to ledge, and laid hold of a projecting spar and was hauling +himself up the other side, when he came face up against a dark little +cranny between two great cases. And in the niche sat the skeleton of a +man, all huddled up and jammed together, but grinning at him in so +ferociously jovial a manner, as though he had been expecting him and +was rejoiced at the sight of him, that Wulfrey came near to loosing his +hold and falling into the water. He scrambled hastily past, and saw +grinning faces in every dark corner for the rest of the day, and some +of them were fact and some were only fancy. For the tumbled pile of +wreckage was like a huge trap for the catching of anything the sweeping +gales might bring it. + +He heard Macro's voice, dulled by the mist, calling to him, and he +answered but knew not which way to go to get to him. It was only by +constant shouting and long and precarious scrambling that they came +together again. + +"We'd best keep close in this fog," said the mate, "or one of us'll be +stopping the night here. Found anything?" + +"A dead man----" + +"Any of ours?" + +"No, he was only bones." + +"It's full of 'em. They're no canny, but they'll not harm us. +Where'll we begin?" + +"One place is as good as another. Here, I should say, and quietly, or +those fiends of birds will be at us again." + +"Bear a hand with this, then," laying hold of a newly-stranded barrel. +"That's pork out of the 'Grassadoo,' so it'll be all right," and +heaving and hauling, they managed to get the barrel down on to the raft. + +As they poked about the pile in the mist, it was evident they had +struck a spot where a good portion of the contents of the +'Grace-à-Dieu' had lodged. Macro, having superintended the loading, +recognised many of the marks and in some instances could recall their +contents. + +"Women's fallals," he said, with a scornful crack at one large case. +"If they'd been men's, now, they'd have come in handy.... Boots and +shoes, if I remember rightly,"--nodding at another case. "We'll soon +see," and with a chunk of wood he stove in one side and hauled out a +handful of its contents.--"Women's troke again! Mebbe we'll find some +men's stuff in time.... I've seen yon chest before.... Old Will +Taggart's, I think," and he stove it open, and went down on his knees +and raked over the contents. "Seaman's slops, not much account.... A +new pipe and a tin of tobacco! Thanks be! We'll take that ... and +another flint and steel. Always useful! ... Clothes not much good, but +we might be glad of 'em later on.... Yon's a box of tea and it'll be +lead-lined inside. Should be more about. We had two hunderd +aboard.... Glory! yon barrels are hard-tack. These ones are flour. +If we work hard and get 'em ashore before the weather breaks again +we'll live in clover.... What's this now? ... 'Duke of Kent'"--and he +hauled up a stout wooden box by one handle out of a raffle of cordage +and ragged sail-cloth. "Name of a ship--or name of a man? That's no a +ship's box." + +A deft blow under the lock and the box lay open, displaying a number of +uniforms, richly decorated with gold braid and lacing, all more or less +damaged by water, but otherwise in good condition. + +"Duds enough to keep us going for a couple of years if so be as they +fit," said the mate exuberantly, and Wulfrey laughed out at the idea of +their peacocking about their sandbank rigged out in court costumes. + +"He was Governor-General of Canada," he said. "I remember hearing he +lost his baggage on the journey." + +"We'll be Governor-Generals here when we're needing a change.... +Nothing but his clothes," as he ran his hands all over the box. "Mebbe +we'll find more of 'em lying about. Man! what a place it is! It'd +take a man a lifetime to work through all the stuff there is here." + +They worked hard and carried home a huge load, but as there was no wind +they had to paddle all the way, and even Macro acknowledged to being a +bit tired before they got all their plunder across the spit and on +board, the transit across the lake on the smaller raft necessitating +three separate journeys. He was in the highest of spirits however, and +keen to be back at the pile next day. As for Wulfrey, hardening though +he was with all these unusual labours, he found himself almost too +weary to eat. + +The fog lay on them like a white pall for six days. Macro predicted +that it would go in a storm, and was urgent on salvaging all they could +before it came. + +So, day after day, they went out to the pile, and came back loaded at +night till they had stuff enough in their hold to keep them in comfort +for many months to come. + +They had meat and drink, clothes and firing, and comfortable quarters. +What more could any man want, unless it were to get away from it all? +And that, the mate asserted, time after time, was the unlikeliest thing +that could happen. + +"We're here till Kingdom come," was the burden of his tune. "So we may +as well be comfortable. And we've had the deil's own luck. We might +ha' been living on rabbits and roots, and sleeping on the sand. Man! +be thankful at being tired to such good purpose!" + +"I'm thankful enough and tired enough, and we've got stuff enough for a +year. I'm going to take a rest." + +"I'm for the pile again tomorrow. If you won't come I'll e'en make +shift alone," and Wulfrey let him go alone. + + + + +XXII + +The smothering white fog lay thick on them for six days and then +disappeared in the night. The morning broke dull and heavy, with a +gusty wind from the south-west, and they could hear the waves breaking +on the spit with a sound like the low growl of a menacing beast. + +"I'm off to the pile," said the mate. + +"Better take a day off. You've been working too hard." + +"Not me. I cannot sit here while all yon stuff's crying aloud to be +picked up." + +"Well, I'll be on the look-out, and come across to give you a hand from +the spit when you get there." + +"I'll lash you up a bit float that'll bring you over, before I go. And +you'll mebbe have some food ready against I get back. It's hungry work +out there." + +"I'll be ready for you. If you load up too heavily you'll not get back +at all." + +"I'll see to that. Wind's fair, it'll bring me home all right." + +So Wulfrey had the day to himself, and had time, which the labours of +the previous days had not permitted him, to consider the situation in +all its aspects. + +So far they had been marvellously favoured, without doubt. Ten days +ago they were swinging up and down on the galley-roof inside the cage +of the dead ship's ribs, possessed of nothing but their bare lives, and +those but doubtfully. And here they were, provided for in every +respect, with comforts which shipwrecked men had no right to expect, +and with unlimited further stores to draw upon. They could live +without fear.... + +But what a life, after all. Eating, drinking, sleeping,--raking over +the wreckage for possible plunder that was useless to them,--rambling +among the rabbits and the sandhills. Quarrelling in time, maybe. +Perhaps it was a good thing there was a ship for each of them. + +He was not himself of a quarrelsome disposition. The mate, he thought, +might be difficult to put up with if he took a crooked turn. But it +would be the height of folly for two men, bound together by +ill-fortune, and to this bare bank for all time, to fall out. Every +circumspection within his power he resolved to exercise, and so far, +indeed, his companion had given him no cause to mistrust or doubt him. + +But he had a somewhat discomforting feeling that he knew very little of +the real man that lay beneath that saturnine exterior, that there might +be elemental depths there which would surprise him if they came to be +revealed. This Macro that he knew was to him something in the nature +of a sleeping volcano, outwardly quiet but full of hidden fires. + +He could imagine no likely grounds for dispute between them. Each +worked for the common good, and so far they had shared all things +equally and without question. But how would it be as the weeks dragged +into months, and the months into years? + +So far the rifling of the wreckage had afforded the mate all the outlet +he needed for his activities. In ministering to the cravings of the +riever spirit that was strong in him it had also supplied their wants +in overwhelming abundance. The longer it kept him busy the better, and +if it yielded him plunder of value he was entirely welcome to it. + +Wulfrey could not imagine his discovering anything out there which +could by any possibility lead to any serious difference between them. +And yet, in spite of all that, from little glimpses he had caught at +times of the strange wild, hidden nature of the man, he was not without +doubts as to his absolute congeniality as a sole companion for the rest +of his days. + +In short he had a vague feeling that, if by any chance they came to +loggerheads, Macro might prove an extremely unpleasant person to be +shut up with, within bounds so limited as this great bank of sand. + +He recognised such feelings, however, as unnecessarily morbid, and +ascribed them to the general murkiness of the outlook and +over-weariness from the exertions of the last few days. So he tumbled +overboard on to the new raft and paddled to the nearer shore, and set +off for a brisk walk over the sandhills and along the beach, in search +of a more hopeful frame of mind. + +Why could they not build a boat? Macro said the coast of Nova Scotia +was but a hundred miles or so away. A hundred miles was no great +affair, and there was wood among that pile enough to build a thousand +boats. So far, indeed, they had not come upon any tools except the +rusty axe, for tool-chests probably sank at once on the outer banks +where the ships went to pieces. + +Still, he would suggest it to Macro. It might prove a further outlet +for his energies. If he should by chance find plunder of value out +there he might, when he was satiated, favour the idea of an attempt at +escape. In fact, plunder without any attempt to utilise it would be +absurd. + +The opportunity of making his own position clear, and thereby obviating +any cause for dispute, occurred that same day. + +When, in the afternoon, he saw the mate coming slowly along before the +wind, he paddled over to the spit to meet him and found him in great +spirits. + +"Man! it's been a great day, and if ye'd been there ye'd have had your +chance. I lit on some graand things. Wait while I show you----" + +"Let's get 'em all aboard first. They'll keep, and I'll be bound +you're tired and hungry." + +"Hungert as a wolf, but finding siccan things takes the tired out o' +one," and his black eyes sparkled over his finds, and he must go on +telling about them as they worked. + +"It was down under where we found yon Duke o' Kent box. I spied +another, and then more, mebbe there's, more yet down below." + +"More fancy coats?" + +"Ah!--and some with jewelled stars on 'em and swords with fancy hilts. +I'll show you when we get aboard." + +"You didn't come across any tools, I suppose?" + +"Tools? No. What would we want tools for?" + +"I was wondering if it might not be possible to build some kind of a +boat and get across to Nova Scotia." + +"We're safer here than trying that, I'm thinking." + +"When you've got all there is to be got out there you'll want to get +home and enjoy it----" + +"Man! It'd take a hunderd years to go through it all. It's bin piling +up there since ever this bank silted up." + +"Oh well, we don't want to stop here a hundred years, that's certain. +What's the good of it all if you can't make any use of it?" + +"It's graand to handle anyway." + +And when they had eaten, he opened some of his bundles and displayed +his treasures,--a jewelled 'George,' roughly cut from some +Garter-knight's court-coat, several smaller decorations, all more or +less ornamented with precious stones, three dress-swords with +mountings, in ivory and gold, a small wooden box lined with sodden blue +velvet in which were half a dozen rings, some of which from the size of +the stones and the massiveness of their setting, seemed to Wulfrey of +considerable value. + +"They're worth something, all those," said Macro, as he handled them +with loving exultation. + +"Ay, if you could get them home and turn them into money. I don't see +what use they're going to be to you here," said Wulfrey, fiddling his +own string again. + +"They're fine to have anyway." + +"I'd sooner have another pipe and some more tobacco than the whole of +them." + +"Ye can have that too," and he rooted in another bundle and produced +both. "They're oot a dead man's chest and they're wet. But he's no +use for 'em and they'll dry. So there ye are. Ye dinnot care for +jewels?" and he looked at Wulfrey wonderingly. + +"As to that, I don't say I wouldn't pick them up if I came across them, +but I've no hankering for them." + +"Ye've plenty money of your own, mebbe." + +"As much as I need--if ever I get ashore." + +"Ah! It meks a difference, ye see. I never had any to speak of, and +these bonny sparklers pluck at the heart o' me." + +"You're welcome to all you can get, as far as I'm concerned----" + +"Ay, man, they're mine, for I found 'em." + +"But they're no use to you unless we can get away from here. Get +ashore and you can turn them to account. Now why couldn't we build +some kind of a boat and get across to Nova Scotia? There's wood enough +and to spare out yonder----" + +"Ay, there's wood, but ef we had the tools 'twould still be no easy +matter. An' then ye've got to reckon wi' the weather. 'Twould be a +bad move to spend our time building a boat only to go to the bottom in +her with all the gear we'd gathered. We're safe here, anyway. Mebbe +some day a boat'll come ashore not so broke but we can patch her up.... +How'd ye like to be afloat in a home-made boat a night like this?" + +For while they sat, eating and talking, the day had darkened, and now +and again there came a menacing whuffle down the open hatch, and the +little ship was filled with a tremulous humming as the rising wind +played on their bare masts, and the growl of the spit had deepened into +a long hoarse roar. + +"It'll be a bitter bad night I'm thinking. I saw it coming away out +yonder. Mebbe it'll add some to our pile of stuff. Mebbe it'll bring +us a boat." + +"We will not hope for either," said Wulfrey soberly, "for that means +more deaths out yonder----" + +A long shrill scream outside sent a creepy chill down his spine for a +moment. He glanced apprehensively across at Macro in the flickering +light of the fire, and saw his face livid, his eyes like great black +wells, his jaw dropped. + +"The spirits o' the dead!" jerked the mate. "There's a hantle o' them +out there.... They're mebbe after me for these things...." and he +rocked himself to and fro, where he sat on the floor, and muttered +strange words,--"An ainm au Athar, 's an Mhic, 's an Spioraid +Naoimh,"--in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy +Ghost. + +The weird shrieking waxed louder and shriller. Wulfrey got up and +climbed the steps, and found the stormy twilight gray with that vast +cloud of birds, all fleeing blindly before the gale and each one +screaming its loudest. + +It was a fearsome, blood-curdling clamour, an ear-splitting +pandemonium, a whirling Sabbat, as if all the demons of the pit had +broken loose and clothed themselves in wings and shrieks and deadly +fear. + +"It's only those damnable birds," he bent and shouted gruffly down to +Macro, vexed with himself at his own momentary fright. + +But the mate was not for accepting any such simple explanation as that. + +"Man!" he said hoarsely. "Birds ye may think 'em, but I know better. +It is spirits they are,--spirits of all the dead that ever died in this +dread place,--a great multitude--their bones are white out there, but +the spirits of them cannot rest. A Mhoire ghradhach! 'Twas under the +Dark Star we were born, and here we'll die and leave our bones to +whiten in the sand, and the spirits of us will go screeching and +scrauchling wi' the rest. Come away, man, and shut the doors tight or +they'll be in on us!" + +Wulfrey had never seen anything like it. Those myriads of fluttering +wings looked as though the whole gray sky had come tumbling down in +fragments. It was like a snowstorm on a gigantic scale, every whirling +flake a bundle of wildly screaming feathers. + +He stood watching for a time and listening to the growing thunder of +the rollers on the spit. He imagined their crashing in white foam-fury +among the stark ribs of the dead ships out there on the banks. + +He shivered as he recalled the chill horrors of their own undoing and +deliverance. It was wonderful beyond words, with that in his mind, to +be standing there, safe and warm, and well provided, and his heart was +full of gratitude. + +"God help any who are out there this night!" he said to himself, and +closed the doors on the storm-fiends, and squatted on the floor over +against the mate, who sat rocking slowly to and fro in great discomfort +and muttered Gaelic seuns as a protection against the unholy things +that wandered outside. + +All night long their little ship was filled with the hum of the +shuddering masts, broken now and again with the creaking and jerking of +their rusty cable. And whenever Wulfrey, warm in his bunk with many +blankets, woke up for a moment, he heard the deep thunder of the waves +on the spit, and the howl of the wind, outside, and the thrashing of +the rain on deck; and he thanked God for warmth and shelter, and lay +listening for a moment, and then rolled over and went to sleep again. + +The storm lasted three full days, during which they never once left the +ship. They had all they needed, and fresh water was obtainable in any +quantity by slinging an empty keg outside one of the scupper-holes +through which the rain drained off the deck. + +Macro's gloomy humour lasted, off and on, as long as the storm. The +birds had mostly hidden themselves in sheltered nooks among the +sandhills. But every now and again the evil in them, or maybe it was +hunger, would stir them up and set them whirling and shrieking round +the ship, and sometimes lighting on it in prodigious numbers, and the +mate would curse them long and deep and fall once more to his spells +and invocations. The fury of the storm did not trouble him, but the +screaming of the birds seemed to touch the superstitious spot in his +nature and set all his nerves jangling. + +It was during one of the lull times that he astonished Wulfrey by +hauling out his rolls of silks and velvets, and with an elemental, +almost barbaric, delight in their rich colourings, he cut them into +long strips, which he fixed neatly to the walls of the cabin by means +of wooden pegs. The gorgeous results afforded him the greatest +satisfaction, which nothing but the wailing of the birds could damp. +Whenever their shrill clamour broke out the darkness fell on him again. +He hurled uncouth curses at them and no arguments availed against his +humour. + +To Wulfrey, on the other hand, the birds and their dismal shriekings +were but an incident, the fury of the storm a wonder and a revelation. + +All through that former time of stress, which had ended in their +undoing, his powers of observation and appreciation had been dulled by +his fears of disaster. Then, the howl of the gale and the onslaught of +the seas had been like hungry deaths close at his heels. But here, in +the perfect security of the land-locked lake, he was free to watch and +to wonder. + +At times, indeed, it seemed to him that the terrible force of the wind +might lift them bodily, ship and all, and hurl them into the turmoil +beyond. Then he remembered that many such storms must have swept the +island and still the ships were there. + +The waves that broke on the spit seemed to him higher than tall houses, +and the weight of them, as they curled and crashed on the sand, made +the whole island tremble, he was certain. The uproar was deafening, +and at times great lashes of white spray came hurtling over into the +lake, and scourging it into sizable waves of its own. + +When Wulfrey woke on the fourth morning he was conscious of a change, +and running up on deck he found the sun shining in a pale-blue, +storm-washed sky, and nothing left of the gale but the great green +waves breaking sullenly on the beach beyond the spit. + +He stripped and plunged overboard, and climbed up again full of the joy +of life and physical fitness. + + + + +XXIII + +The days crept into weeks, the weeks into months, with nothing to break +the monotony of their life but visits to the wreckage, an occasional +skirmish with the birds, rabbit-hunts, rude attempts at fishing, which +met with so little success from lack of anything approaching proper +material that they gave it up in disgust, and rambles among the +sandhills. + +They got along companionably enough; the mate's only complaint,--and +that not untinged with satisfaction, and obviously prompted more by a +desire for his help than from any wish to halve his spoils--that +Wulfrey showed so poor a spirit in the matter of plunder, and so +shamefully neglected the opportunities of a lifetime. + +For himself, if he could have found safe lodging out there, he would +have lived on the wreck-pile, to save the time and trouble of going to +and fro. The riever spirit of his forefathers was kept at +boiling-point by the possibilities of fortune which lurked there. The +search in itself at once satisfied and stimulated the natural craving +for booty which rioted in his Highland-Spanish blood, and he never +tired of it. + +He came back laden every time with things for the common good, and +rarer pickings for his private hoard, over which he exulted like a +chieftain returned from a successful foray. + +Wulfrey was on the whole not ungrateful to the pile for affording him +such distraction. He discussed the latest additions to his +treasure-trove with him, as they sat by the fire of a night, and +speculated with him on their probable origin and value, and the higher +he assessed this the more the mate's black eyes glowed. + +He would sit watching Wulfrey as he turned the latest find over and +over, and weighed it in his hand, and polished a bit of it to get at +its basic metal, and mused on its shape and endeavoured to arrive at +its history. And at such times there was in the sombre black eyes +something of the look of an uncertain-tempered dog whose lawful bone is +in jeopardy. + +Once or twice, Wulfrey, glancing up as he passed an opinion, caught +that curious suspicious look bent on him, and was amused and annoyed at +it, and also somewhat discomfited. Did the man think he coveted his +useless little gauds?--useless in their present extremity, though some +of them doubtless valuable enough if they could be sold. Why, he +esteemed a dryable twist of tobacco infinitely more highly than any +silver candlestick or shapely silver cup that the other could fish up +from the depths. It seemed to him just as well that the plunder-fever +had attacked only one of them, for he doubted if his companion would +willingly have shared with another. For the fever grew with his finds. + +Once they came within an ace of a quarrel, and though it blew over, the +seeds remained. + +Where the mate hid his spoil, Wulfrey neither knew nor cared nor ever +troubled his head about. He would no more have occupied his thoughts +with it than he would have taken more than his proper share of the food +or tobacco. + +But increase breeds suspicion, and suspicion clouds the outlook. Among +other things, Macro one day brought home a small crucifix and some +strings of beads, which he believed to be of gold, while Wulfrey, from +their hardness to the touch of the knife, pronounced them only brass. +They were all curiously carved or cast, however, and, whatever the +metal of which they were made, he expressed his admiration of the +workmanship. + +A night or two later, to his amazement, Macro came out of his own cabin +more black-a-vised than he had ever seen him, and asked abruptly, +"Where's that cross?" + +"What cross?" + +"You know what cross. Yon gold cross I showed you two nights ago. +Where is it?" and he lowered at Wulfrey like a full-charged +thunder-cloud. + +"I know nothing of your cross, man. I suppose you put it with the rest +of your things." + +"I did that, and it's gone. Where is it?" + +"Don't speak to me like that, Macro. I won't have it. I know nothing +about your cross or any of your plunder. I've told you before, it is +nothing to me. If I wanted it I'd go and get it for myself." + +"It was there with the rest and it's no there now. And----" + +"---- ---- ----!" cried Wulfrey, springing up ablaze with indignation. +"Do you dare to think I would touch your dirty pilferings?" and it +looked as though the next instant would find them at grips. + +But the mate had broken out in the sudden discovery of his loss. Wulf +stood full as tall as himself. He looked very fit and capable, and +looked, moreover, as the mate's common sense told him, as soon as it +got the chance, the last person in the world to tamper with another +man's goods--even though he might be the only one circumstantially able +to have done so. + +"It's gone anyway," he growled. "But it's no good fighting about it." + +"That's not enough. Your greed for gain has blinded you. Till you +come to your senses I've nothing more to do with you," and for two days +not a word passed between them. + +Each prepared his own food as and when he chose, and ate it apart from +the other. The mate hung about as though loth to leave Wulfrey in sole +charge at home, and the atmosphere of the little cabin was murky and +charged with lightning. + +On the third day Wulfrey ostentatiously set off for the wreck-pile by +himself. He was running out of tobacco and would not have accepted any +from the mate if it had been offered. + +He waded out, made a rough raft on Macro's lines, and smashed open such +seamen's chests as he could discover, for it was always in them that +they found tobacco. + +He got several small lots, and a couple of new pipes, and a flint and +steel, charged his raft with a keg of rum and a case of hard-tack, and +managed to get it all back to the spit and to the ship single-handed. + +As he came up the side, the mate met him, with the missing crucifix in +his hand. + +"The little deevil of a thing," he said, with quite unconscious +incongruity, "had slipped down a crack, back o' the locker, and I were +wrong to think ye could have taken it." + +"Well, don't play the fool again," said Wulfrey shortly. "If your +greed for other folk's goods hadn't blinded you, you would understand +that a gentleman does not stoop to stealing." + +"I've seen some I wouldn't trust further'n I could see 'em, and then +only if their hands were up over their heads. But ye're not that kind, +an' I was wrong. So there 'tis, an' no more to be said. What have ye +found?" + +"Pipes and tobacco. That is all I went for." + +After his two days of enforced silence Macro was inclined to expand, +but found his advances coldly received. Wulfrey's pride was in arms +and the insult rankled. + +By degrees, however, the storm-cloud drifted by, and matters between +them became again much as they had been, with somewhat of added +knowledge, on each side, of the character of the other. + +The mate had learned that the Doctor, quiet as he might appear, was not +a man to suffer injustice or to be meddled with. And Wulfrey had got a +further warning of the possibilities of trouble should he and the mate +come to serious differences. + +It seemed absurd that two men, stranded, perhaps for life, on this bare +sandbank, should be unable to live together in amity. Yet, his +experience of men told him that it was just such enforced close +intimacy--the constant rubbing together of very divergent natures, with +nothing in common between them but the necessities entailed by their +common misfortune--that might, nay almost certainly must, come to +explosion at times, unless they both set themselves sedulously to the +keeping of the peace. + +If any actual rupture took place between them, he foresaw that the mate +might develop phases of character which would be exceedingly awkward +and difficult to deal with. Freedom from all the ordinary restraints +which civilisation imposed upon the natural inner man might easily run +to wildest licence. + +At bottom this man was just a wild Highland cateran with a dash of +Spanish buccaneer, hot-blooded, avid of gain under circumstances so +propitious, insatiable. The chance of a lifetime had come to him and +he was exultantly set on making the most of it. He was like a +cage-bred wolf set down suddenly into the midst of an unprotected flock +of sheep. There was his natural prey in profusion and there was none +to stay him. To be dropped unexpectedly on to this enormous pile of +plunder was like the realisation of a fairy tale. No wonder he was +inclined to lose his head. + +It was fortunate, thought Wulfrey, that they were built on different +lines, and that the plunder-pile made absolutely no appeal to himself +beyond the necessaries of life. + +He determined, as far as in him lay, to walk warily and to avoid, as +far as possible, any just cause of offence on his side. + + + + +BOOK III + +BONE OF CONTENTION + + + + +XXIV + +They had been three months on the island, and in all that time had +never sighted a living ship, though the remains of newly-dead ones were +never wanting after bad weather. + +It was evident that the men of the sea avoided Sable Island as if it +were a pestilence, and came there only when it no longer mattered to +them whether they came there or not. + +Macro was, by degrees and with never-lessening enjoyment, amassing a +very considerable treasure. If ever the chance of getting back to land +arrived, and he could get his plunder home, he would have no need to +follow the sea for the rest of his life. But, whether or not that +crowning good fortune should ever be his, this gathering of spoil was a +huge satisfaction to the very soul of him, and he desired no better. + +The only flies in his big honey-pot were those rival depredators the +birds. He had many a battle royal with them, and came home at times +scratched and clawed and furiously comminative, consigning birds of all +shapes and sizes to everlasting perdition. Spirits or no spirits, in +the day time, and in the prosecution of his work, he would fight them +valiantly or trick them cleverly. + +But in the black storms that swept over them at times, when the great +waves crashed like thunder on the spit, and the sandhills and hummocks +melted away under Wulfrey's wondering eyes and built themselves afresh +in new places, when the shrieking hosts came whirling round the ship +and the sky was full of their raucous clamour, then the darkness came +on Macro and he fell again to his seuns, and knew them, beyond all +doubt, for things of evil. + +When the odds out there on the wreck-pile were too much for him, he +learned by experience how to fool them. He would smash furiously at +them with his club, shouting in wild exultation as the bashed bodies +went tumbling into the sea. If that did not discourage them, and their +venom persisted, he would drop quietly into some adjacent hole amid the +wreckage where they could not get at him, and wait there till they +whirled away after easier prey. + +So keen was he on adding to his store that, when their commissariat +needed replenishing, Wulfrey found it necessary to accompany him and to +insist on his attending strictly to this more important business, or at +times they would have gone short. For the rest, Wulfrey left him to +the satisfaction of his cravings and interfered with him not at all. + +One memorable morning, which broke sweet and clear after two days of +stress and storm, the mate set off as usual to find what the gods had +sent him; and Wulf, leaning over the side, watched him paddle across to +the spit, and land there, and stride away towards the western point +from which they always waded out to the wreckage. + +But on this occasion, before he disappeared in the distance, he stopped +and stood looking out over the sea, and the next moment Wulfrey saw him +wading out towards something which only caught his eye when thus +directed to it,--something which bobbed up and down among the waves +with a glint of white at times. + +He saw Macro reach it and lift his arms in a gesture of amazement. +Then he bent over it and presently came staggering back up the shore +bearing a white burden over his shoulder. It looked at that distance +so very like a body that Wulfrey tumbled over on to his raft, and +paddled across to the spit, and ran along the shore to where the mate +was kneeling now alongside his find. + +It was the body of a woman, pallid and sodden, with her long dark hair +all astream, her white face pinched and shrunken and blue-veined, with +dark hollows round the closed eyes, and colourless lips slightly +retracted showing even, white teeth. She was clothed only in a long +white nightdress, which the water had so moulded to her shapely figure +that it looked like a piece of fair white marble sculpture. In life +she must have been beautiful, Wulfrey thought, as he stood panting, and +gazed down upon her. + +"Dead?" he jerked. + +"Ay, sure! She were lashed to yonder spar and I couldna leave her +there.... The pity of it! She's been a fine bit." + +Wulfrey knelt down, and slipped his hand to the quiet heart, +instinctively but without hope, bent closer, gently raised one of the +closed eyelids, and said hastily, "There may be a chance. Help me back +home with her! Quick! You take her feet...." and he taking her under +the arms they hurried back along the spit. + +"She is not dead from drowning anyway," he jerked as they went. "The +exposure may have killed her.... She must have suffered dreadfully." + +It was no easy task to get her on board, but they managed it somehow, +and laid her gently among the blankets in Wulfrey's bunk. + +"Now.... Bags of hot sand, as quick as you can and as many.... Then +mix some hot rum and water--not too strong,"--and Macro found himself +springing to his orders with an alacrity which would have surprised him +if he had had time to think about it. + +Wulfrey, his professional instincts at highest pressure, drew off the +clinging garment, muffled the sea-bitten white body in the blankets, +and through them set to gentle vigorous rubbing, to start the chilled +blood flowing again. + +Macro came hurrying in with hot sand from the hearth, wrapped in linen +and tied with strands of untwisted rope. + +"Good! ... As many more as you can," said the Doctor, and placed them +against the cold, blue-white feet, and rubbed away for dear life. + +By degrees he packed her all round with hot sand-bags, Macro heating +them as fast as they cooled, in a frying-pan over the fire. He placed +them under her arms and between her shoulders, and never ceased his +vigorous friction except to renew the bags. + +Each time the mate came in, his face asked news, and each time Wulfrey +shook his head and said, "Not yet," and went on with his rubbing. His +own blood was at fever-heat with his exertions in that confined space. +But that was all the better. His superfluous warmth might transmit +itself in time to the chill white body of his patient. + +Macro came in with hot rum and water, and Wulfrey poured a few careful +drops between the still-livid lips, watched the result anxiously, and +followed them up with more, and then resumed his patient rubbing. + +For over an hour they worked incessantly, and then Macro was for giving +it up as hopeless. + +"'S no good. She's gone, sure," he said. + +"I don't think so.... Too soon to give up anyway," and the Doctor +worked on tirelessly. "If she should come round----" + +"She won't." + +"--She'll be starving. You might break up some hard-tack very small +and warm it up in some weak rum and water," and he went on with his +rubbing. + +And at last, when he had almost given up hope himself, he had his +reward. The mate, poking in a head deprecatory of further waste of +time and energy on so hopeless a job, stood staring amazedly. For the +pinched dead look of the pitiful white face had given place to a faint +presage of life, like the first flutter of dawn on the pallid darkness +of the night. Death had visibly relaxed his chill grip. There was a +tinge of colour in the parted lips, and the white teeth inside had come +together. + +"She lives," said Wulfrey softly. "Her heart is at work again. Warm +up that rum and water," and when it came he administered it cautiously +in drops again, and this time they were visibly swallowed. + +"Have the warm mash ready," he said; and even as he spoke the +blue-veined lids fluttered, but so feebly as hardly to lift the long +dark lashes from the white cheeks. And through that narrowed window +the recovered soul looked mistily out on life once more. + +He gave her still a little more hot rum and water, and when the warm +mashed biscuit came fed her slowly with that, and she swallowed it +hungrily if unconsciously. + +Then, well satisfied with his work, he piled more blankets on her and +left her to herself. + +He had had many a fight with death, but none closer than this. The +snatching of a life from the cold hand that was closing on it was +always a cause for rejoicing with him. And this life, by reason of its +comely tenement, had appealed to him in quite an unusual way. + +Who she was, and what manner of woman, was still to be learned. For +the moment it was enough that she had been within an ace of death and +was alive again, and that she was unusually good to look upon. + + + + +XXV + +When the Doctor had had a plunge overboard to restore the vitality he +had expended on his patient, they sat down to eat, and the mate was +inclined to enlarge somewhat exuberantly on the morning's work,--upon +his own share in it especially. + +"A wonderful fine piece of goods for any man to drag out of the water. +I'm doubting if you'd have seen her if you'd bin there, Doctor. Just +happened to lift my eye that way, and the white of her caught it, and +in I went. Not that I thought she could be living, you understand. +She felt like Death itself when I carried her ashore in my arms----" + +"She'll be distressed for lack of clothes when she's ready to get up. +But that won't be to-day anyway. Do you think you can light on any out +yonder?" + +"Lit on some last time I was there, but left 'em 'cause they were no +use to us. That lot'll mebbe be gone, but there's plenty more for the +finding. I'll see to it to-morrow." + +"She will be grateful to you, I'm sure." + +"She should, for if it hadn't bin for me she'd be tumbling about on yon +spar still, and dead by this time, I'm thinking." + +"She couldn't have stood much more, that's certain. I was near losing +hope myself at times." + +"Wouldn't have believed she'd ever come back if I hadn't seen it. It's +being a doctor made ye keep on so." + +"One feels bound to keep on while there's a possible chance left. In +this case one couldn't but feel that there was a chance, if only a +small one. We've done a good day's work to-day." + +"Ay," said the mate, and presently, "I'm thinking I'll go out there +today to get her some clothes. They'll need a lot of drying, you see." + +"Can you do it before dark?" + +"I'll do it. Ye'll see to her." + +"I'll see to her all right. A little more food and then the longer she +sleeps the better. If she'd lie where she is for a couple of days it +would be all to the good." + +"Then I'll go," but he came back to bend down into the little +companion-way and say, "If she's asking, ye'll tell her it was me +pulled her out the water." + +"I'll tell her." + +When, presently, Wulfrey went to see how she was going on, he found her +sleeping quietly the sleep of utter exhaustion, and as he stood looking +at her it seemed to him that she grew more beautiful each time he saw +her. + +The long wet tresses, whose clamminess he had carefully disposed behind +the rolled-up blankets which served as a pillow, were drying to a deep +warm brown. As they carried her in he had thought her hair was black. +It was very thick and long. The texture of her skin, now that the +coursing blood had obliterated to some extent the pinch and the bite of +the sea, was fine and delicate, he could see, though suffering still +from the salt. + +The pink fingers of one hand had pulled down the blankets round her +neck as though she had craved more air, and the soft white neck was +smooth and white as marble. The one ear turned towards him was like a +delicate little pink shell. + +All these things he noted before his gaze settled on the quiet sleeping +face, and lingered there with a strange new sense of joyous discovery +and unexpected increase, as one might feel who suddenly unearths a +hidden treasure. + +He wondered again who she was and whence she came. Of gentle birth, he +was sure. It showed in every feature of the placid face,--in the +strong sweet curves of a not too small mouth,--in the delicately-turned +nostrils,--in the soft level brows,--in the long fringing lashes which, +with the shadows left by her sharp encounter with Death, cast about her +closed eyes a misty enchantment full of witchery and allurement. He +wondered what colour her eyes would be when they opened. + +A wide white forehead, somewhat high cheek-bones, and a round +well-moulded chin, added a fine dignity to the sleeping face. He stood +so long gazing at its all-unconscious fascination that he feared at +last lest the very earnestness of his look might disturb her. + +So he picked up her only earthly possession, and leaving her, sleeping +soundly, in sole charge of the ship, paddled across to the nearer +shore, washed the salt out of her dainty single garment in a +fresh-water pool, and spread it in the sun to dry, and then went after +rabbits for her benefit when she should waken ravenous. + +Returned on board, after a glance at his still-sleeping patient,--who +lay so motionless that, but for the slight, slow rise and fall of the +blankets over her bosom, one might have deemed her dead,--he set to the +making of as tempting a soup as rabbit and rice could furnish, and +regretted, more sorely than ever before, his lack of salt and seasoning. + +Then he sat waiting for her to awake and for Macro to come home. If +she did not wake of her own accord before sunset he decided to wake her +himself. Sleep was without doubt the best of all restoratives, but +Nature craves sustenance, and she was almost certainly starving. She +would recover strength more quickly still if her system had something +to draw upon. + +Then, too, they had no light but that of the fire. If she woke up in +the dark she would be sorely exercised in her mind to know where she +had got to. It would be better to satisfy her, mentally and bodily, +while still there was daylight to see by. + +So, when the sun shone level through the western portholes, he went +softly to where she lay, still sleeping soundly, and after watching her +again for a moment, he placed his hand gently on her forehead. + +She frowned at the touch and moved uneasily among her blankets. Then +the heavy eyes opened and she lay staring wonderingly up at him, +evidently trying to piece past and present together, and to make out +where she was. + +"Where am I? ... Who are you?" she jerked, in a voice that would have +been rich and full if it had not been a little hoarse and husky. And +the pink fingers grasped the blanket and drew it up under the rounded +white chin. + +"You are quite safe on a ship. I am a doctor. I want you to eat some +warm soup and then you shall sleep again as long as you can. Here is +your night-rail, washed and dried; perhaps you would like to put it on. +I will go and fetch the soup." + +When he came back presently she was visibly more at ease with her +frills about her neck. She raised herself on her left elbow, and he +placed the tin pannikin of soup in front of her, together with some +broken biscuit. + +"Can you feed yourself?" he asked. + +"Oh, yes--if I had a spoon." + +"I am sorry to say we have no spoons." + +"No spoons?" and she stared at him in vast surprise. + +"Perhaps you can make shift to drink it out of the pannikin. You +see----" + +"What a very odd ship--to have no spoons!" she took a sip of the soup +and screwed up her lips. "Would you get me some salt, if you please? +This soup----" + +"I'm sorry, but we have no salt either. You see----" + +"No salt?" and she shot another quick amazed look at him. "Mon Dieu, +mon Dieu!" at which Wulfrey pricked up his ears. "Whatever kind of a +ship--you did say a ship, did you not? Where is it going to?" + +"It's not going anywhere. You see, it's practically a stranded ship +though it's really afloat----" + +She put her hand to her forehead and rubbed it gently, and then clasped +it tightly, with her thumb at one temple and her fingers at the other. +"I think my head is swimming yet," she said simply. "I cannot follow +what you say." + +"You'll understand as soon as you get on deck. This ship is bottled up +inside a lake on an island. It has been here for probably thirty or +forty years----" + +"And you--have you been here all that time?" + +"No, we were wrecked as you were, I suppose, on the banks out there. +We managed to get ashore and found this ship to live on." + +"Who are 'we'?" + +"The mate of the ship and myself. We were the only ones saved. It was +he saw you in the water and went in after you and brought you ashore." + +"It was good of him. I will thank him. Where is he?" + +"He's out at the wreckage trying to find you some clothes." + +"He is a good man.... How long have you been here?" + +"About three months." + +"And no one has come to you in all that time?" + +"You are the first. Now"--as she finished the soup--"take a good drink +of this,"--some weak rum and water warmed up in another pannikin, over +which she choked and coughed and wrinkled up her pretty nose +distastefully. "Then you will go to sleep again, and in the morning I +hope you will be all right." + +"But there is so much I would like to know----" + +"When you have had another long sleep. Are you quite warm?" + +"Quite. That horrid stuff was like fire." + +"You were cold enough when we found you. In fact we believed you were +dead." + +She shivered and nestled down among the blankets with a wave of colour +in her face. + +"I will sleep," she said quietly, and the Doctor left her to herself. + + + + +XXVI + +It was almost dark before the mate pitched his cargo up on to the deck +and came groping up the side after it. + +"What luck?" asked Wulfrey, as he came up to help him. + +"Brought all I could lay hands on, but I wouldn't like to say they're +right kind of things." + +"She'll be glad of them whatever they are." + +"Has she come round?" + +"I wakened her to take some soup and biscuit. Now I hope she will +sleep till morning." + +"And you told her it was me brought her ashore?" + +"Yes, I told her that. She will thank you herself." + +"Did you find out who she is and where she hails from?" + +"Not yet. There'll be time enough to learn all that. My only desire +was to get some nourishment inside her. She'll be building up now all +the time she's sleeping." + +"An' she's a good-looking bit of goods, eh?" asked the mate, as they +sat eating. + +"Very good-looking, I should say, and pulling round quickly. A +gentlewoman without doubt." + +"And how can ye tell that now? There's many a good-looking hussy +that's not gentle-born." + +"Undoubtedly," said Wulfrey, looking across the fire at him. "But this +isn't one of that kind. She's a lady to the finger-tips." + +"Ah--too fine a lady to live on a ship with the likes o' you and me, +mebbe," growled the mate. "All same, if't 'adn't bin for me her +leddyship ud be no more'n a little white corp tumbling about out yonder +in its little white shift." + +"Quite so," said Wulfrey, on whom this insistence on his sole claim to +the salvaging of her was beginning to pall. "And if it hadn't been for +me your bringing her ashore wouldn't have been of much service to her. +So suppose we say no more about it. We'll divide the honours." + +"If I hadn't brought her ashore ye couldn't have brought her round," +growled the mate. + +"Six of one and half a dozen of the other." + +"No six of anything. Ye can't deny I brought her ashore." + +Wulfrey lit his pipe and went up on deck, wondering what was working in +the curious fellow's brain now. + +When he went down again he found that Macro had opened his bundles and +spread their contents out to dry, and had turned in. He just glanced +at the varied assortment, and then, not to disturb his patient by going +anywhere near her, spread some blankets in the room next to the mate's, +and turned in himself. But he lay awake for a long time, wondering if +the introduction of this new element into the limited circle of their +lives was like to make for peace or otherwise. + + + + +XXVII + +Wulfrey was up early, after a restless night, anxious to see how his +patient fared. It was such a morning as usually followed their +storms--clear and bright and sunny, with a pale-blue wind-swept sky, +and a crisp breeze that tipped the green of the waves outside with +white. + +The first time he went softly in she was still sleeping, and with much +satisfaction he noted the improvement the food and rest had wrought in +her. Her face had filled out, the cheek-bones were less prominent, the +dark circles round her eyes were not nearly so pronounced as before, +though he imagined the long dark lashes and level brows would always +lend a sense of depth and witchery to the great dark eyes themselves. +The slight salting and roughening of the skin would speedily cure +itself under the application of fresh water. She was almost herself +again. + +Their fire, on its bed of sand, was never allowed to go out. The +supply of wood was unlimited and always, in the depths of the heap of +white ashes, was a golden core of heat only waiting to be fed. So he +set to and prepared coffee for her, and some flour-and-water biscuits, +and when he went in again she was awake. She turned her head and +looked at him, and his heart beat quicker than was its wont. + +Her eyes, he perceived, were very dark blue, almost black, and looked +the darker for the dark fringing lashes. They were very beautiful +eyes, he decided, and very eloquent,--there was something of +apprehension in them when first they met his, but it vanished when he +spoke. + +"You are better, I can see. You slept well?" + +"I have only just wakened. You are the doctor." + +"Yes, I am the doctor. I have got some coffee for you and some +biscuits. I will get them." + +"You are very good," as he came in with them and she raised herself on +to her elbow again. "Did your friend get me any clothes? I feel quite +well, and I would get up." + +"He brought a whole heap of things. They have been spread out all +night, but I'm afraid they'll never dry properly till they are washed +in fresh water." + +"And have you fresh water?" + +"Oh, plenty,--Ashore there, in pools. If you can select a few things I +will go across and steep them. They will soon dry in the sun." + +"You are very good," she said again, and sipped the coffee and glanced +up at him with a somewhat wry face. "No, you have no sugar on this +strange ship--nor milk. Nor a brush, nor a comb, I'll be bound. +Nothing but----" + +"A brush and a comb we can provide at all events, and of exceptional +quality. They belonged, I believe, to His Royal Highness the Duke of +Kent." + +"Edward of Kent?" she asked quickly. "Why--how...." + +"Some ship, bringing home his belongings from Canada, must have been +wrecked here. We have found quite a number of his things." + +"Well, he would not mind my using them," she said quietly. "He is of a +pleasant temper, quite the nicest of them all"; and as she finished the +coffee and biscuits, "If you could find me ... a brooch--no, you will +not have a brooch! ... a large pin or two,--but no, you will not have +any pins! ... Let me see, then,--a sharp splinter of wood----" + +"I can get you all the splinters you want. Might I ask----" + +"To pin some of these blankets about me, do you see,--so that I may get +up. And if you would get me that royal brush and comb----" + +He trimmed up half a dozen sharp little skewers and left them with her, +together with the brush and comb, and plunged overboard for his morning +swim. + +The mate was sitting by the fire at his breakfast when he went down +again. + +"Well?--how is my lady this morning?" he asked. + +"So well that she is getting up." + +"Them clothes all right?" + +"She will pick out what she wants. But they'll never dry with the salt +in them. I'll rinse them in one of the pools as soon as she says +which." + +"There's more mebbe for the finding----" and then they heard the door +of her little room open and she came into the cabin to them. + +The mate jumped up and stood staring as if she were a ghost; and even +Wulfrey, who had already made her acquaintance, eyed her with surprise, +and was confirmed in the idea that had been growing in him that there +was foreign blood in her. He doubted if any Englishwoman could have +made so brave a showing out of such poverty of material. + +Fastened simply with her wooden skewers, she had one blanket draped +about her as a skirt, and another covered her shoulders, with a high +peak behind her neck, like a monkish cloak. And inside this rough +calyx the fair white column of her neck rose out of its surrounding +frillery like the stamen of a flower from its nest of petals. Her +abundant hair, combed and brushed, but still lacking somewhat of its +natural lustre, was coiled about her head in heavy plaits. + +Though her garments were only rough blankets they were so disposed +about her person that she stood before them tall and slim and graceful. +Her eyes and face were all aglow at the novelty of her situation. Her +feet were bare. + +She sailed up to the mate with outstretched hand. + +"It was you who brought me ashore out of that terrible sea," she said, +and her voice was no longer hoarse and husky. "I thank you with all my +heart." + +Macro ducked his head but never took his eyes off her. + +"Gosh! Ye looked very different then, miss," he jerked. "We scarce +expected ye'd ever come round like this." + +"I am the more grateful. But--what a wonderful room you have!"--as she +looked round at the mate's barbaric hangings. "Silks and satins!--and +such gorgeous colours!" + +"There's bales of them about, miss, and you're very welcome to them. +They'd look better on you than them blankets." + +"But the blankets are warm, and the dreadful chill of the sea is still +in my thoughts all the time. Now I would go on deck and understand +about this strange ship of yours," and Macro hastened to lead the way +and Wulfrey followed. + +"But it is truly amazing," she said, as she gazed round at the +sandhills and the spit, at the tumbling waves beyond, and the unruffled +waters of the lake. + +"And another ship! Who lives there?" + +"No one. There is not another soul on the whole island but we three," +said Wulfrey. + +"It sounds dreadfully lonely." + +"It is not so lonely as the sea." + +"No, it is not so lonely as the sea. The sea is dreadful, and oh, +so-o-o cold when you are dying in it slowly, an inch at a time," and +she shivered again at the recollection. + +"You must try to forget all about it." + +"I shall never forget it. That is not possible. The memory of it is +frozen into my soul. What noise is that?" she asked, listening +intently with her hand uplifted. + +"It's a great cloud of sea-birds that haunts the island. All the +wrecks come ashore at that end, and they live there most of the time." + +"It is like the wailing of lost souls." + +"Right, miss!" broke in Macro. "That's what it is. They're only +birds, mebbe, but there's the souls of the dead inside 'em, an' +sometimes they're fair deevils when they come screaming round in a +storm." + +"I could believe that,--the souls of the dead without a doubt." + +"Suppose we turn to something pleasanter," suggested Wulfrey. "Perhaps +you will choose out the things you think most suitable from all that +the mate brought over from the wrecks?" + +"From the wrecks?" ... and she glanced at him doubtfully with a little +shiver. "It does not sound too nice." + +"We will bring them up. You will see them better here," and they +spread the deck with Macro's latest importations. + +"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" murmured she, as she turned them over with +curious fingers, and held them up to adjudge their style and make. +"But they are things of the days before the flood! ... They are too +amazing! ... They are wonderful beyond words!" + +"Could ye no alter them to your needs, mebbe?" suggested Macro +hopefully. + +"Perhaps--with needle and thread and scissors. But have you these?" + +"Mebbe I can find 'em for ye. There's the cargoes of hunderds o' ships +out there. Ye can find a'most anything if ye look long enough. And +mebbe there's newer things if I can light on 'em." + +"And some shoes and stockings, think you? I would be very glad of +them. It feels strange to go with bare feet." + +"I'll find 'em if there's any there." + +"It is very good of you. I thank you. Could I perhaps come too?" + +The idea evidently appealed strongly to him. He looked at her eagerly, +and hesitated, but finally said, "It's no easy getting there. There's +over six miles' walk through the sand, then near a mile of wading up to +your neck in the water, and sometimes a bit of a swim, all according to +the tide. Some day, mebbe, I'll mek a bit raft to tek ye across from +the point there--just to see what it's like. But ye want these things +and I'll get along quicker alone." + +"I thank you all the same. It will be for some other time then," and +Macro let himself down on to his raft and paddled away to the spit. +She stood watching him till he landed and set off at speed towards the +point. + +"He is truly good-hearted," she said, as he disappeared. "He is not +all English?" + +"He is from the islands off the west coast of Scotland, but he +confesses to a strain of Spanish blood also." + +"And why confesses? It is not, I suppose, his own doing. One +confesses to a fault. Is a strain of foreign blood a sin in your eyes +then, Monsieur le Docteur?" she asked, with pointed emphasis. + +"By no means. I should have said he rejoices in it." + +"We English--British, I should say,"--with a fleeting gleam of a +smile--"are too apt to look upon all foreigners as of lower breed than +ourselves, which is quite a mistake and leads to much misunderstanding. +Every nation has distinctive qualities of its own, is it not so?" + +"Undoubtedly. And unless one knows them by personal experience one +should not pass judgment. I must confess to being nothing of a +traveller." + +"How came you here?" she asked abruptly. + +"I was bound for America--or Canada, with the intention of settling out +there. It looks now, according to the mate, as though this strip of +sand has got to suffice us for the rest of our lives." + +"Really?" ... with a startled look. "Is there no getting away then? +Does no one ever come here?" + +"None but dead men, if they can help it, apparently. You were an +exception to the rule. So were we. We have none of us any right to be +here alive." + +"If I had some shoes and stockings, and some proper clothes, I believe +I could be quite happy here," she said. "That is if one has not also +to starve." + +"There is no need to starve. The island is over-run with rabbits. +There are fish in the lake here if only we could catch them, and out +there among the wreckage are all kinds of things--casks of pork and +beef, and coffee, and rum, and flour--enough to last us for hundreds of +years." + +"It is a most excellent retreat." + +"If one were sick of the world. But you surely are too young to have +arrived at that stage." + +"One may be young and yet be sick of one's world.... Sometime I will +tell you.... Now, if you please, I will take a few of these things and +you will show me your pool and I will wash them----" + +"Oh, I'll do all that for you----" + +"Not at all. Besides, with your permission and if you will leave me +quite alone, I would like also to wash in fresh water. I too shall +never feel quite dry until I have done so." + +He assisted her down to the other raft, through a break they had long +since made in the side for that purpose, and paddled ashore. There he +showed her the pool they had set apart for washing, and told her he +would come back for her at whatever time she chose. + +"In two hours, please," and he went off into the sand-hills. + +But his mind stubbornly refused to interest itself in rabbits. He +dropped down on the sunny side of a hummock and let his thoughts run on +this most surprising addition to their company. What could possibly +explain her,--young, beautiful, of undoubted birth and breeding, yet +ready to renounce the world, of which her twenty years or so had +apparently given her a surfeit, and to welcome the chance of a hermit +life? + +It was a puzzle beyond any man's understanding. All his thinking led +him only towards shadowy possibilities. And these the thought of her +sweet face and clear frank outlook rejected instantly as libels on her +fair fame, which he, with no more knowledge than he now had, yet felt +himself prepared to defend with all his might against the whole world. +If that girl was not all that she seemed and that he believed her to +be, he would never trust his own judgment again. + +All the same, it was very amazing, and she filled his thoughts to such +an extent that the rabbits hopped fearlessly about him as he sat +thinking of her; and it was long after the two hours before he came to +himself, and rewarded their temerity by knocking a couple on the head +and striding away back to find her. + +She was sitting waiting for him, with a fresh-water brightness in her +face, her hair coiled loosely round her head, and her washing still +drying in the sun. She hastily bundled up her things at sight of him +and came along to meet him. + +"I began to fear you had forgotten me," she said. + +"Very much to the contrary. It was our dinner I came near forgetting," +and he dangled the rabbits before her. "You feel better for the fresh +water?" + +"Oh, very much better. And now I am hungry. When does your friend +come back?" + +"Not till evening as a rule. If he can lay hands on what you want he +may come sooner to-day." + +"And you--do you never go out there with him?" + +"Oh, sometimes. But it doesn't attract me as it does him." + +"Why then?" + +"We are differently made, I suppose;--which is perhaps a good thing. +He delights in finding things out there. I go out only for +necessaries." + +"What does he find--besides strange old clothes?" + +"Oh, heaps of things--treasure. There are the cargoes of very many +ships out there. They have been accumulating for hundreds of years, I +suppose." + +"And it does not attract you?" + +"Not in the slightest." + +"You are, perhaps, rich." + +"I have enough, and I have my profession,--and little chance apparently +of making any use of either." + +"Ah..." and presently, "As to that, am I wrong then in thinking that if +you had not been here I would most likely not have been here either?" +and the wind and the sun had whipped a fine colour into her face. + +"You would, perhaps, not be very far wrong." + +"I remember it dimly, and in broken bits, like a horrible dream,--the +crash, the terrible noise of the waves, the shouting and the screaming. +It was the Captain himself who tied me to that mast when everything was +going to pieces. And when the waves washed over me, and I felt myself +slowly dying, I would have loosed myself if I could, to make an end. +It was terrible to be so long of dying. And the cold of the sea!--oh, +it was a horror," and she shivered again at the remembrance... "Then I +died.... And then--long long afterwards--I found myself coming slowly +back to life, and beginning to get warm again, with prickly pains like +pins and needles all over me----" + +"That was your blood beginning to flow again." + +"----I felt warm hands rubbing me--rubbing, rubbing, rubbing. They +must have rubbed for years, and, all the time, I was slowly coming +back. They were very warm and soothing. And at last they rubbed me +back to life." + +"What was the name of your ship?" + +"The 'Ben Lomond,' from Glasgow to New York, and the Captain was John +MacDonald. It was a large ship and full of passengers. It is terrible +to think of them all gone but me.--Oh, terrible!--terrible!" + +"Might I ask your name--since we are like to be neighbours for the rest +of our lives?" + +"I am Avice Drummond," she said, with a quick glance at him. "And you?" + +"Wulfrey Dale." + +"And the mate?" + +"Sheumaish Macro,--or Hamish, I'm not sure which." + +"It is the same. He is a good man?--to be trusted?" + +"I have no reason to think otherwise, but I have only known him since +we landed here. He is chock full of superstition----" + +"That is the Highlander in him." + +"A bit hot-blooded too, and apt to boil over." + +"That is the Spaniard." + +"And he's crazy after the spoil out yonder." + +"The Highlander again. It is, as you say, perhaps just as well you do +not care for it, or you might have quarrelled." + +"He is welcome to it all as far as I am concerned." + +"I am of his country. I can understand how he feels. It is the old +riever spirit in him finding its opportunity." + + + + +XXVIII + +He was vitally conscious of her proximity to him as they paced through +the soft sand towards the raft. The sight of her pink toes popping in +and out from under her blanket-skirt quickened his blood. He knew +without looking when she glanced round at him now and again, as when he +had asked her name. + +He had not thought that the feeling of a woman's eyes upon him could +stir him to such an extent, no matter how wonderful they might be in +their depths of eloquent darkness. He knew all about +women,--physically, organically, professionally, and still held woman +in reverence. Experience had taught him also that in reality he and +his fellows knew very little about them beyond merest surface +indications,--that there were in most women, perhaps in all, deeps +beyond man's sounding, heights beyond his attainment,--a general +elusiveness mysteriously comprehensive of feelings, instincts, +passions, emotions, nerves, moods, humours, vapours, which a wise man +accepted without expecting ever fully to understand. + +That this shapely girl in her swathed blankets should affect him to +such an extent that he was actually conscious of a superb new joy in +living, of an absolute rejuvenescence, of a vitalising of all his +energies, was a very great surprise to him. He could feel the blood +running redder in his veins. His heart beat more briskly than it had +done since he landed on the island. + +But after three months of nothing but Macro and rabbits and screaming +birds, it was not to be wondered at after all, he reasoned to himself. +Life had been running on a low level. There had been nothing to lift +them above the mere satisfaction of their bodily necessities. Eating, +sleeping, getting through the days had sufficed them. + +And here, into that rough husk of a life, had suddenly come a soul, to +animate them both to higher things, even though it were no more than +the ministering to her more delicate necessities. + +Even Macro was feeling it, and was toiling out yonder, not for himself +but for her. Without doubt life was immensely more worth living than +it had been two days ago. + +It was a joy even to cook for her, though he had always detested the +preparation of food. To know beforehand what one was going to eat was +sufficient to reduce one's appetite. To superintend a meal through all +its stages, from raw to ready, put anything beyond the mere filling of +an internal void out of the question. + +But cooking for himself and cooking for her were matters of very +different complexion, and he found himself considering culinary +enterprises which surprised him greatly. + +"You will let me help," she said, when they had climbed on board, and +she saw him setting to work on the rabbits. + +"Can you make biscuit?" + +"If there is anything to make it with," so he provided her with flour +and water and a frying-pan, and tackled his own repulsive job, looking +forward to the best-made biscuit they had had since they came ashore. + +"You have no butter--lard--dripping--fat--nothing?" she asked. + +"There is some fat pork. We stew it with the rabbit as a rule." + +"Get me some and I will render it down and we shall have much better +cakes. Men never know how to cook unless they are trained to it. You +have no seasonings of any kind--no? Nor salt?" + +"Not a scrap." + +"We might find something on shore there. I saw many little plants. We +will search next time we go." + +Yes, indeed, even the repellent cooking took on quite a new aspect and +became a joyous pastime in her company, and they presently sat down to +such a meal as he had not tasted since he left Liverpool. Many a more +abundant one he had had, but none with such a flavour to it, and that +was due entirely to the deft white hands that had helped to prepare it. + +Meals hitherto had been in the nature of necessary nuisances. He and +the mate had often sat eating without a word between them, and with +perhaps less enjoyment in it than the rabbits out there among the +sandhills. But, henceforth, meals would be feasts full of delight +because of this stranger girl, whose presence would be salt and savour +and seasoning to the poorest of fare. + +"And he--the mate,--when does he eat?" she asked suddenly, after they +had begun. + +"Not till he gets back,--at night-fall as a rule. It's a good long +way, you see, and he likes to spend all his time working." + +"I hope he will find me some shoes,--and some needles and thread. Then +I shall feel much happier.... And you really think we shall never get +away from here?" she asked, quite cheerfully. + +"If we could prevail on Macro to think of building a boat, instead of +amassing treasure-trove, we might at all events try it. Nova Scotia is +but a hundred miles away, he says,----" + +"So close?" + +"But he seems to think it a risky voyage, and so far we have come +across no tools with which to build. You see, they are not things +likely to come ashore." + +"For myself, I believe I could be quite content to live here," she said +again. + +"For ever?--Never to get back to the larger life of the world as long +as you lived?" + +"Ah--that! ... I do not know.... It is a very hollow life after all, +that larger life of the world." + +"To grow old here," he said thoughtfully, emphasising his points with +slowly nodding head. "To be the last one left alive perhaps.... To be +all alone, sick, starving, dying slowly in the dark, unable to lift a +finger...." + +"I would drown myself if it came to that. It sounds horrible.... +Perhaps, after all, we had better build the boat and get away." + +"But I don't know that we can. I know nothing about boat-building even +if I had the tools, and Macro won't turn to it till he has raked +through the wreckage, and that will take him about a hundred years. It +grows with every storm, you see." + +"We must make him." + +"And the tools?" + +"We must find them." + +"Two difficult jobs, perhaps impossible ones. You might perhaps +prevail on Macro, but even he can do nothing without tools.... But, if +I may venture to say so--it is surely early days for you to have +discovered the hollowness of life, and to feel ready to spend the rest +of it on a sandbank. Life should hold more in it than that for you." + +She looked meditatively across at him for a moment, then seemed to make +up her mind. "It is natural you should wish to know.... I will tell +you.... It is a somewhat sorry story, but I think you will +understand.... My name told you nothing?" + +"Nothing--except that it was a very pretty name." + +"I feared it would. It is natural, I suppose, to imagine that the +whole world knows of one's misfortunes. Have you ever heard of the +Countess d'Ormont?" + +"The name is familiar to me in some way," he said, staring at her in +surprise at the trend this was taxing. + +"But I cannot recall----" + +"And the Comte d'Artois----" + +"Of course!" he nodded. "Now I remember----" + +"The Countess d'Ormont was Margaret Drummond, my mother. My father is +Charles Philippe, Comte d'Artois, brother of the poor King, Louis, +whose head they cut off; and I hate and detest him for his treatment of +her.... She is dead, my poor dear one! ... She believed at first that +she was properly married to him, and I have no doubt she was--in +London. He is a poor thing, but he was very fond of her, for a +time.... I was born at Chantilly. It was before his quarrel with the +Duc de Bourbon, and we lived in Paris and elsewhere according to his +caprice. When my mother learned all the truth, and that in Paris she +was not legally his wife, it broke her heart, I think. I never +remembered her but as sad and troubled. Except on my account she was +not sorry to die, I know. I was in Paris all through the Red times, +and saw--oh, mon Dieu,--the horrors of it all!--things I could never +forget if I lived to be a thousand.... In London we were all very +badly off.... But he liked to have me with him, and poor Mme de +Polastron was very good to me, but she was a strange, strange woman.... +Her death was a great blow to him ... and a great loss to me. He was +really very badly off there, and I did not like the people he had about +him,--de Vaudreuil, de Roll, du Theil, and the rest, and I made up my +mind to seek my own life elsewhere. And that is about all." + +"And you have friends in America--relatives perhaps?" + +"My mother's people, in Virginia. They have prospered there.... The +new life out there, where all men are equal, appeals to me. Now you +understand why I would not have cared very much if Mr Macro had not +brought me ashore and if you had not rubbed me back to life. I seem to +have no place in the world. I hate the aristocrats for what my mother +suffered at their hands, and I hate the others for the terrible scenes +I passed through as a child. These things are stamped into my heart +and brain for ever. And that is why this lonely island, far away from +it all, seems better to me than any place I know." + +"You would grow tired of it." + +"I could never grow as sick of it as I did of what I have left. It is +not perhaps a very full life, but neither is it hollow and heartless. +You I can trust, and Mr Macro also. It is lonely, but it is sweet and +peaceful----" + +"Wait till you see it in a storm." + +"Storms are nothing when you have seen Paris drunk with blood. +Ach!--the horror of it!" and she flung out her hands in a gesture +full-charged with terrible memories, and then pressed them over her +eyes as though to blot it all out. + +"Well, we will do all in our power to make things comfortable for you, +for as long as we have to stop here.... For your sake I hope it will +not be long. Life should hold more for you than this," said Wulfrey, +and mused much on the beautiful stranger and her strange history, and +wondered what the future held for them all. + +The mate came back when it was growing dark, very tired and in none too +good a humour at the poverty of his finds. The results of a hard day's +work, so far as he disclosed them, were a number of rusty sail-maker's +needles which he had found in a chest, and half a dozen pairs of shoes, +sodden almost out of semblance to leather. + +Miss Drummond, however, was delighted and thanked him heartily. + +"You will lend me a knife, and out of some of your beautiful silks I +will make a new dress. I shall like that better than wearing any of +those ancient ones which belonged to the dead." + +"You're very welcome, miss. I broke into more'n a score of chests and +boxes and not a blessed stocking among the lot. And them shoes are +pretty bad, but they were best I could find." + +"I will rub them with fat and they will return all right, and the +needles will come bright with sand. I shall do very well now. Thread +I can get from a piece of your linen. I thank you very much. Now you +will eat some of my cakes." + +"Best cakes ever I tasted," he said with a full mouth. "Takes a woman +to cook properly. And best day's work I done since I got here, fishing +you out the water." + +"Perhaps--I am not yet sure, but I thank you all the same. When will +you begin to build a boat for us to get away in?" + +"Ah! ... Building a boat needs tools. What for do you want to get away +so quick? You're but just got here." + +"At present I am content. But--for always? I am not sure." + +"Doctor, there, is always wanting to get away. But he knows we can't +build a boat without tools. An' I put it to him--has he so much as set +eyes on a tool out yonder since we come ashore?" + +"I can't say I have, but then I haven't seen as much of the wreckage as +you have. There may be any amount of----" + +"Oh, ay, there mebbe! But so far we haven't struck 'em, an' it's no +good talking o' boats till we got the tools." + +"We will look for them," said The Girl confidently. + +"Oh, ay, ye can look for 'em, and mebbe sometime a boat'll come ashore +ready-made, or one that we can make shift to patch up. Meantime we've +got all we want here and there's plenty more for the getting out +yonder. So be content, say I, miss, for by rights the Doctor and me +ought to be two clean-picked white skeletons out there on the pile, an' +you ought to be a little white corp tumbling about on yon spar for the +birds to peck at." + +"Are there skeletons out there?" she asked with a shiver. + +"Heaps." + +"I think I will not go. I have seen so much of Death. I would forget +it for a time." + +"Ye'll meet him sure if ye try to get across from here in any boat we +could build," growled the mate, and filled his pipe and his pannikin. + + + + +XXIX + +Next morning Macro went off as usual to the wreck-pile, and Miss +Drummond set to work on her dressmaking. Wulfrey hoisted up out of the +hold for her such pieces of silk and linen as she required, and scoured +a couple of the smallest needles with sand till they were usable. +Then, with the sharpest knife he could find among their stock, he cut +out on the deck, under her direction, various lengths and designs which +to him were meaningless, but replete with possibilities from her point +of view. + +But when, presently, she saw him preparing to go ashore for water and +rabbits, she threw down her needle and said, "I will go also. You will +not mind?" + +"On the contrary, I shall mind very much. I shall feel honoured by +your company. It is a pleasure to have someone to talk to again," and +he helped her down on to the raft, and thought how much less +interesting shoes were than little naked feet. + +"Do you not then talk much with Mr Macro?" + +"Sometimes, and sometimes we hardly spoke all day." + +"You quarrelled?" + +"Hardly that, but ... well, we had not very much in common, you see. +His mind was always full of his discoveries out there, and one got +rather tired of it at times." + +"I do not think I shall like him as much as I thought." + +"Why that? I'm sorry if I have said anything that seems to reflect on +him in any way." + +"I am used to judging for myself. It is a look that comes into his +eyes at times,--like a horse when it is going to bite. No,"--with a +decided little nod,--"I shall not like him as much as I hoped; and I am +sorry, for I ought to feel grateful to him for pulling me out of the +water." + +"I'm glad you are feeling grateful for being alive, anyway," he said, +with a smile. "That is better than being doubtful about it." + +"It is better to be alive than dead. And if we have to live here all +our lives--very well, we must put up with it. And if you and he die, +and I am left all alone, and get old and sick, as you said yesterday, I +will make an end of myself. I was thinking about it all night except +when I was sleeping." + +"I'm sorry to have troubled you so. We will hope for better things. +Anyway I have no intention of dying for some time to come, if I can +help it." + +"You must not," she said, with sudden deep earnestness. "I count it +God's good mercy that you are here, for I can trust you." + +"I am used to being trusted," he said quietly. + +"I know. I can see it.... If I had been all alone ... with nobody but +him ... But, no! I could not..." + +"I don't know that there is any harm in him." + +She sat nodding her pretty head meaningly.... "You have not seen men +loosed from all restraints as I have. I was but a child and did not +fully understand. But I see their faces and their eyes still, fierce +and wild and hungry for other than bread. When men are answerable to +none but themselves they become wild beasts and devils." + +"It is a hard saying." + +"But it is true. I have seen it." + +"And women?" + +"They are as bad, but in a different way. Oh, they are terrible." + +"And you and I and Macro here? To whom are we answerable?" he asked, +to sound her to the depths. + +"He is answerable to you," she said quickly. "You and I are answerable +to one another, and to God, and to ourselves--to all that has made us +what we are. I do not think you could trespass outside all that, any +more than I could." + +"I do not think I could. I am honoured by your confidence in me." + +He helped her ashore, and they filled the buckets at the pools, and +then she expressed a wish to see something more of this sandbank where +they might have to pass the rest of their lives. + +So they threaded their way among the hummocks to the northern shore, +and, at the first green valley they came to, she went down on her knees +and examined carefully the nestling growths on which the rabbits fed, +and found among them certain pungent little plants which she thought +might serve for flavouring, and they gathered enough to experiment with. + +The firm smooth tidal beach, with the ripples creaming up it in +sibilant whispers tempted her to bare feet, and she handed him her +shoes and splashed along as joyously as a child. + +"It is a most delightful island," she said. "I do not think I would +ever tire of it." + +"Oh, yes, you would. It is all just the same, you see. You can walk +on and on like this and round the other side for forty or fifty miles, +and every bit of it is just like the rest." + +"I think it is beautiful." + +"It gets monotonous in time. The only diversion is the pile of +wreckage down yonder. That is constantly changing and growing." + +"And discovering more skeletons! It feels odd to think that I should +have been one myself if you two had not happened to be here." + +"I'm sure it feels very much nicer to be comfortably clothed with +flesh," and glancing at her supple grace and entrancing bare feet and +ankles, he found himself profoundly grateful for the facts of the case. +The thought of her as a skeleton was eminently distasteful to him. + +"Yes, it is better. Dead bodies and bones have always had a horror for +me; but not the simple fact of being dead, I think.... I do not think +I would be afraid to die--if it were not very painful. But ... well, +the thought of my dead body is horrid to me. I would not like to see +it." + +"You're not likely to be troubled to that extent anyway." + +"No, one is at all events spared that. But why do you talk of such +unpleasant things when the sun is shining and the waves are sparkling? +Tell me about yourself. All you have told me so far is that you are a +doctor, and that your name is Wulfrey Dale. I never heard the name +Wulfrey before. And that you were going out to Canada when you were +wrecked here. Why were you going out?" + +He would have liked to be as frank with her as she had been with him. +But that was impossible. Another woman's good name was too intricately +interwoven with his story, and the whole matter was so open to +misjudgment. If he tried to explain he must either label that other +woman as murderess or himself as an incapable doctor, and he chose to +do neither. He wished she had not asked, but found it only natural +that she should desire to know all about him. + +"I have nothing much to tell," he said. "I come from Hazelford, in +Cheshire. My father had the practice there and when he died I +succeeded to it. But the wander-spirit seized me. I wanted a larger +sphere. The new world called, and I came,--as it turns out to a still +smaller place----" + +"But we are not going to stop here all our lives. We must build that +boat and get away." + +"We will live in hope, anyway, but for that we are dependent on Macro, +and he's not an easy man to drive." + +"We will see," she said confidently. "How do you catch your rabbits?" + +"Every one of these little valleys is full of them. As soon as you +appear they all bolt for their holes and in the panic they tumble over +one another and you pick them up." + +"I am always sorry to kill things, and they are so pretty," she said, +as they crept cautiously up the side of the nearest hummock. "But they +are very good and I suppose one must eat." + +"Or starve. Now--see!" and he jumped down into the hollow, which +scurried into life under his feet, and came back in a moment with a +couple of rabbits which he had already knocked on the head. + +"Poor little things!" she said, stroking the soft fur. + +"They were dead before they knew it.... Our lake ends there," he said, +pointing it out to her from where they stood on top of the hummock. +"But the island goes on and on, all just the same as this as far as you +can see." + +"It looks very lonely ... but I like it," and she sat long, with her +hands clasped round her knees, gazing out over the wandering yellow +line of sandhills, and the slow-heaving seas which broke in +white-fringed ripples along the beach. + +"And you left no ties behind you there in England?" she asked suddenly, +showing where her thoughts had been. + +"No ties whatever. Friends in plenty, but nothing more. When my +father died I was quite alone in the world." + +She nodded fellow-feelingly, and they sauntered back in a somewhat +closer intimacy of understanding and liking for one another. + + + + +XXX + +Macro had had a good day out there, and returned in the best of humours +with himself and as hungry as usual. + +As he ate he enlarged on his finds, and when he had finished his supper +he piled the fire with light sticks to make a blaze, and spread them +out for Miss Drummond's inspection. + +He had evidently lighted on the personal baggage of some person of +quality. There were rings and brooches and pins and bracelets, of gold +and silver, set with coloured stones, a couple of small watches +beautifully chased and studded with gems, a small silver-mounted mirror +all blackened with sea-water, two gold snuff-boxes with enamelled +miniatures on the lids--quite a rich haul and very satisfactory to the +craving of his spirit. + +The Girl examined them all carefully, and Wulfrey, watching her quietly +through the smoke of his pipe, thought she handled them somewhat +gingerly and distastefully, and understood her feeling in the matter. +And now and again he caught also a glimpse in the mate's black eyes, as +they rested on her, of that which she herself had felt and resented. + +It might be only the unconscious continuation of the gloating +proprietorial look with which he regarded his treasures, which still +gleamed in his eyes when they rested on her as though she herself were +but one more of them. But whatever it was it was not a pleasant look, +and Wulfrey was not surprised at her discomfort under it. He was as +devoutly glad that he was there as she could be. Alone with this wild +riever, in whom the cross-strain of his wilder forebears was running to +licence in its sudden emancipation from all life's ordinary +shackles.... It would not bear thinking of. Yes, he was truly glad he +was there. And then he remembered, with another grateful throb, that +if he had not been there, neither would she have been. For the mate +most assuredly would never have brought her back to life. + +"Some of these are of value," she was saying. "But they are rather +pitiful to me.... Some dead woman has treasured them and she is gone. +Perhaps you came upon her skeleton out there.... But they are not all +real stones----" + +"And how can ye tell that now?" asked Macro gruffly. + +"I can tell at once by the feel of them. That now"--pointing to a +heavily-gemmed bracelet--"the emeralds are real, the rubies are real, +but they are all small. The white stones are not diamonds, but very +good imitations. They look almost as well, but they are not diamonds. +If they were that bracelet alone would be worth some hundreds of +pounds." + +"Deil take 'em! And you can tell that by feeling at 'em?" + +"I can tell in a moment. You see I have handled many jewels--some of +the finest in the world, and I have seen very many imitations of them." + +"The deil ye have! How that?" + +"I have lived among those to whom they belonged, and I am very fond of +precious stones." + +He went away to his own cabin and came back presently with a good-sized +bundle done up in blue velvet, and opened it before her. Wulfrey was +surprised at the extent of his treasure-trove. For these were only his +most precious possessions. He knew that he had in addition +considerable store of silver articles which he had been allowed to +examine from time to time. + +If Macro's idea had been to dazzle her with his riches he must have +been disappointed. For she greeted the display with a depreciatory +"T't--t't!"--and said presently, as she picked out a piece here and +there for examination, "It looks like a peddler's pack.... And it +makes me sad to think of those to whom they belonged...." + +"They've no further use for them. And there's no telling who they +belonged to. They're for any man's getting now," said Macro +defensively. + +"I suppose so. All the same ... For me--no!" with a most decided shake +of the head. + +"Are they good, or is there false ones among them too?" + +"Many are good," she said, passing them rapidly and somewhat +distastefully under her delicate fingers, "but not by any means all.... +You have laboured hard to accumulate so much." + +"Harder than ever I worked in my life before, but it suits me fine." + +"But what good is it all unless you can get away from here and turn it +to some good use?" + +"We'll talk of that when I've got all I want, mebbe." + +"You are like a miser then, ever accumulating and loth to spend." + +"Just that! Ye see I never had siccan a chance before,--nor many +others either. Ye wouldna care for a ring or two, or mebbe a bracelet +or a brooch?" + +"Oh, I could not. It is good of you to offer, but ... no, I thank you. +They would always make me think of the skeletons out there. Poor +things!" + +"They don't hurt, and they're aye laughing as if 'twas all a rare +joke," which made her shiver with discomfort and draw her blanket +closer round her neck at the back. + +"Well, well!" said he, with a hoarse laugh, as he made up his bundle +again. "Folks has queer notions. Ef 't 'adn't been for me----" + +"And the Doctor," she interposed quickly. + +"Ay--and the Doctor there----" + +"I know," she cut him short, "and it is very much nicer to be sitting +here by a warm fire than tumbling about on a mast out there. I +appreciate it, I assure you." + +Perhaps it was to restore the balance of his spirits, which had +suffered somewhat from the discovery that his treasure was not all he +had thought it, that made him apply himself more heartily than usual to +the rum cask that night. By the Doctor's advice any water they drank +from the brackish pools was mixed with a few drops of rum. Macro +always saw to it that a cask was at hand, and he himself took but small +risks as far as the water was concerned. But he could stand a heavy +load, and as a rule it only made him sluggish and uncompanionable. + +This night, however, as he sat dourly smoking, and taking every now and +again a long pull at his handy pannikin, it seemed to set him brooding +over things and at times he grew disputatious. + +Miss Drummond had turned with obvious relief to the Doctor and said, +"These things do not interest you?" + +"As curiosities only, not intrinsically. I never had any craving for +jewelry!" + +"It is a feminine weakness, I suppose, though I have known men who +outvied even the women in their display." + +"We have simpler ways in the country, and more robust." + +"Mebbe you're right, and mebbe you're wrong," growled Macro, as the +result of his cogitations. "I d'n know, an' you d'n know, an' Doctor, +he d'n know, an' none of us knows.... They're mebbe all right... What +the deil wud folks want mixing bad stuff wi' good like that?" + +"It is done sometimes to make a larger show, and sometimes as a matter +of precaution," said Miss Drummond quietly. "Those who have valuable +jewels are always in fear of having them stolen. They have imitations +made, and wear them, and people believe they are the real ones. It is +commonly done." + +"An' is it a thief you wud call me for taking these?" + +"These are dead men's goods and dead women's, and you do not know whose +they were, so it is not stealing. But, for me, I do not like them." + +"An', for me, I do. An' more I can get, better I'm pleased." + +"Each to his taste, and you are very welcome to them all. Now, if you +please, we will forget all about them, and speak of pleasanter things," +and she turned to Wulfrey and began questioning him as to his knowledge +of London, which was not nearly so extensive as her own. + +The mate smoked and drank and glowered across at them. More than once +Wulfrey caught his glance resting balefully on The Girl. More than +ever was he thankful that he was there to look after her. + + + + +XXXI + +"No," said The Girl to Wulfrey, as she sat busily sewing at her new +dress on deck next morning, "I do not like your mate as much even as I +thought. Do you know what I would do if you were not here?" + +"What would you do?" + +"I would go and live on that other ship, or else among the sandhills." + +"Either would be very uncomfortable. I am glad I am here." + +"He looks at me as though I were another piece of his treasure-trove, +especially when he is getting drunk. If he had tried to wrap me up +with the rest in that blue bundle of his I should not have been very +much surprised." + +"He brought you ashore, you see." + +"Well? What use would that have been if you hadn't brought me back to +life?" + +"Not much, I'm bound to say. But I imagine he considers it gives him +first claim on you." + +"First claim?--for what?" she asked quickly. + +"Oh, on your regard, your gratitude,----" + +"My gratitude, if you like. My regard--that goes only where I can +respect and esteem. And for him--neither. If he were never to come +back again from over there I would not in the least regret it." + +It was as inevitable that these two should instinctively draw closer to +one another, as that their doing so should create something of a breach +between them and the mate, and that he should feel and resent it. + +Except the untoward circumstances of their lot there was practically +nothing in common between him and them. His outlook and aims were as +different from theirs as were his habits and upbringing. Yet it did +seem preposterous to them that three persons, situated as they were, +should not be able to live together in peace and good-fellowship. + +To the ancients, without doubt, the gods would have been apparent +behind the slow-drifting white-piled clouds, and behind the storm-wrack +and the mists, laughing at the perverse little ways of men, and +watching with interest the inevitable tangle produced among them by the +advent of a woman. + +Since the year one, two have found themselves good company and the +coming of a third has led to mischief. And yet even that depends on +the spirit that is in them. More than once, since he landed on the +island, Wulfrey had found himself wishing Providence had sent him +honest Jock Steele for company, and that it was the mate's bones that +were whitening out there in place of the carpenter's. + +Whether he himself would have fared so well, if he had not stuck out +his leg at risk of his life and helped the mate on to his raft, and so +had come ashore alone, he was not sure. And again, whether, if he had +been alone, he would ever have sighted The Girl on her mast, was +doubtful. If they had much to put up with in Macro, they had also much +to thank him for. And so--to bear with him as well as they might and +give no occasion for offence if that were possible. + +But it was no easy matter. They were having a spell of fine weather +which enabled him to go out to the wreckage every day. And every night +he came home ravenous, and ate and drank and afterwards sat smoking +with scarce a word. + +If they enquired how he had fared he growled the curtest of answers, +and showed plainly that their polite interest in his doings was not +desired by him. He showed them none of his finds, but sat smoking +doggedly, and occasionally gazing through his smoke at The Girl in a +way that distressed and discomforted her. + +But there was nothing in it that Wulfrey could openly take exception +to. Even a cat may look at a queen. The look in the mate's black eyes +was akin to that with which the cat favours the canary, when he licks +his lips below its cage;--if he only dared! + +Still, they were free of him during the day, and the discomfort of him +at other times but drew them closer together. But Wulfrey, watching +the man cautiously, saw in him signs and symptoms that he did not like, +which bade him be prepared for a possible change for the worse in their +relationship. + +For one thing, he was drinking more heavily than he had ever done since +they landed, and the drink and the brooding of his black thoughts might +well hatch out unexpected evil to one or other of them. As he lay +there of a night, smoking and drinking, with a face of gloom and +smouldering fires in his eyes, he was more than ever like a sleeping +volcano which might burst forth in flame and fury at any moment. + +But for the lurking possibilities of trouble, the cool way in which he +devoted himself to his own private concerns, and left them to attend to +all the irksome little details of the common life, would have had in it +something of the humorous. + +Miss Drummond was indignant and was for leaving him supperless when he +came home of a night. + +But Wulfrey rigorously repressed his strong fellow-feeling therewith, +and determined that no provocation should come from their side. So +they continued to make ample provision for all, and the mate helped +himself as if by right. If, however, good-feeling on the part of the +maker has anything to do with the compounding of cakes, as The Girl +averred, those she made for the mate must surely have lacked flavour, +for her views on the matter were most uncompromisingly expressed, both +by hands and tongue, as she made them. + +"Does he look upon us as his servants, then?"--with a contemptuous slap +at the innocent dough.--"To do all his work without so much as a 'Thank +you'?"--another vicious slap. "--And to be glowered at as if one were +a rabbit that he wanted to devour!"--cakes pitched disdainfully into a +corner till the time came to cook them.--"No!--for me, I wish he would +stop out there among his skeletons and trouble us no more." + +Her little tantrums at thought of Macro gave Wulfrey no little +amusement. The vivacity of her manner as she delivered herself, +blended as it was of Scottish frankness and French sparkle, made her +altogether charming. He soothed her ruffled feelings, however, by his +own eulogistic appreciation of the cakes she provided for their own +use, and it was then that she explained to him how intimately the +character of a cake is associated with the feelings of its maker. + +Matters came to a head a few days later, when the commissariat +department began to run low in certain essentials. + +"We're almost out of flour and pork, Macro," Wulfrey said to him, as +the mate was preparing to set off as usual one morning. "Will you +bring some back with you?" + +The black-faced one hesitated one moment, and then cast the die for +trouble. + +"Well, you know where to get 'em," he growled. + +"Yes, I know where to get them," and Wulfrey braced himself for the +tussle. "But----" + +"Well, then--get 'em, and be ---- to you!" and he leaped down on to his +raft and set off for the shore. + + + + +XXXII + +Wulfrey watched the mate's retreating figure for a minute or two and +then turned quietly to The Girl. + +"Are you prepared to trust me completely, Miss Drummond?" he asked. + +"Absolutely. What is it you want me to do?" + +"We cannot go on this way. He is becoming insufferable. Unless you +have anything to say against it, we will take possession of the other +ship--you and I, and leave him here to himself." + +"Yes--let us go. When shall we go? Now?" + +"We must make it habitable first. It is as empty as a drum, you know." + +"All the better, since we are overcrowded here with that man. It is to +get away from unpleasantness that we go." + +"We shall need fire,--that means sand for a hearth; and wood--we have +heaps here; and cooking things--we will take our fair share, and our +blankets. Everything else I can get out yonder." + +"Allons! Let us go at once and get them." + +He looked carefully round the horizon. "The weather will hold for a +day or two still, I think. Today we had better lay our +foundations--sand, wood and so on. Then tomorrow we will go out to the +pile and take our cargo straight to the other ship." + +"What do we do first?" she asked, abrim with excitement. + +"We will take a load of wood across at once and then go for sand. We +will leave the cabin open to air it and light a fire." + +She was as eager as a child going to a new house, and when presently he +helped her up over the side of the other schooner, she tripped to and +fro delightedly, and could hardly wait till he forced back the rusty +bolts of the cabin hatch with a piece of wood, so impatient was she to +inspect the new home. + +"I like it better than the other," she said, as they stood in the +little cabin. + +"Why? It seems to me just about the same." + +"The man of gloom is not here. It makes all the difference." + +They got their wood on board, and he tumbled it down the fore-hatch, +which was easier to handle than the main. Then they went ashore, +filled a bucket with fresh water, got half a dozen rabbits and a supply +of the pungent herbs.... "Why so many?" she asked, and he said +quietly, "I don't want to hit him below the belt,"--at which she +laughed--"We can afford to be generous. The breach will be wide enough +as it is." + +Then they loaded the raft with sand, and getting back to the ship, +arranged their hearth, and with his flint and steel succeeded at last +between them in lighting a thin chip, which he ceremoniously handed to +her and begged her to start their fire. + +And as she knelt and applied it, and coaxed and blew till the cheerful +flames shot up with a crackling shower of sparks, and the thin blue +smoke streamed up the companion-way, still kneeling she waved her hands +above it and said, "Light and warmth and comfort and peace! God bless +the fire!" and he endorsed it with a hearty "Amen!" and thought he had +never seen a fairer sight. + +When the mate got home that night, he was somewhat surprised to find a +supply of food and no objections made to his helping himself. He +chuckled grimly, and showed by his face and manner that he considered +the matter settled on eminently satisfactory lines. + +They made no enquiries as to his doings and he volunteered no +information. Wulfrey and Miss Drummond talked together as if he were +not there. He lay and smoked, and drank, and glowered at them. + +In the morning he set off as usual, and when they had taken their +blankets and their fair share of cooking-utensils across to the +'Martha,' and got them all stowed away, Wulfrey turned to The Girl and +said, "Now I will go out to the store-house yonder and get all I can +lay hands on." + +"I will come too. Perhaps I can help. I am very strong, and I would +rather go with you than wait here alone. But I do not wish to see any +skeletons if you can manage it." + +"We will try to keep clear of them,--if you are quite sure----" + +"Have we got to swim, as that man said?" + +"I may have to. You need not. I will go out to the pile and make a +raft, and take you across on it. And all that will take time, so the +sooner we're off the better." + +They paddled across to the spit and hurried along to the point, as +nondescript a pair as could well be imagined in disrespect of clothing, +but in all else that mattered--in all the great essentials that make +for vigorous life--in health, good looks, and high and cheerful +spirit--pre-eminently good to look upon. + +For work on the wreck-pile the less one wore the better; and so he was +clad in one simple but sufficient garment, which consisted of a long +strip of linen wound many times round his waist and falling to the +knees like a South Sea Island kilt. And she wore one of the +prehistoric woman's sarks which Macro had brought over from the pile, +and a similar, but slightly longer, kilt which swung gracefully a foot +or so above her ankles as she walked. + +He carried an axe in his hand, and had a knife at his back, in a +seaman's belt which he had unhooked from its owner's body out there on +the pile one day; and his face was somewhat grave and intent, since he +was considering the possibilities of Macro's violent rejection of the +situation he had himself created, and the consequences that would then +ensue. But her bright face was all alive with the spirit of adventure +and the novelty of this new departure. + +"We look like Adam and Eve turned out of Paradise, and setting out to +conquer the world," she laughed excitedly. "What would _your_ friends +think if they saw you so?" + +"What they thought wouldn't trouble me in the slightest. If they +understood they would understand. If they didn't it would not matter. +We are doing what has to be done in the only way to do it. See the +birds out there!" + +"Are those really all birds? I thought it was a cloud whirling about," +and she stood and stared in amazement. + +"Listen and you'll hear them,"--and every now and again the south-west +breeze brought them the thin strident wailing of the hungry myriads as +they swooped and fought for their living. + +"They sound horrid," said The Girl, with a sudden shadow on her face. +"It is like the wailing of lost souls, as he said. Do they never +attack you?" + +"We have had more than one fight with them. But you can always escape +by slipping down into a crack or jumping into the sea. Where did you +learn to swim?" + +"We had a cottage in the Isle of Wight for a year, when first we came +from France, and I grew very fond of the water." + +"Do you see Macro over there?" as they came to the end of the point. +"He's hard at work. We'll tackle a different part. If you will sit +down here and rest, I will get across and be back as soon as I can." + +"Could I not come with you?" + +"I don't know how deep the channels may be. Sometimes we can wade +across, sometimes we have to swim." + +"I don't mind. It can't make me any wetter than if I have to jump in +because of the birds. And I have been wetter still." + +"Very well. It will save much time," and they waded out alongside one +another,--The Girl catching her breath at times with spasmodic little +jerks of laughter, as she stepped into unexpected depths or a wave came +higher than usual;--and he, intent as he was on the business in hand, +yet mightily cognisant of her proximity and the penetrating and +intoxicating charm of it. + +When, at one sudden plunge, she gasped and clutched wildly at his bare +arm, her touch sent the blood whirling through his veins. He took her +soft wet hand, which was all of a tremble with excitement, in his +strong and steady one, and she gripped it tightly and drew new strength +from it. + +Out on the great pile of wreckage in front, but somewhat towards their +right, they caught glimpses now and again of Macro--a wild dark figure +silhouetted against the pale-blue sky behind--as he climbed to and fro, +and stood at times, and swung up his arms and his club and smashed his +way through to the desire of his heart. + +Wulfrey worked round to the left, and so came upon a channel which they +had to swim. He fastened his axe into his belt at the back and they +struck out together. He watched her anxiously at first, but was +satisfied. She swam well and knowingly; they soon touched ground +again, and another wade and another short swim brought them to the pile. + +The Girl had been regarding it with curious eyes and ejaculations of +wonder. + +"But it is amazing!" she jerked, when at last they clung to a ledge of +the chaotic jumble of flotsam and jetsam. "I never saw anything like +it in my life." + +"That's just as well. Now we'll climb up here, and you will rest while +I gather wood and rope and make a raft. Then we'll see what fortune +sends us." + +"Whatever are all those?" she asked, when they had worked their way to +the top, and stood looking round. + +"Those are the bones of the ships that have perished here. There are +hundreds of them half-buried in the sand." + +"It is the most amazing sight I ever set eyes on," she said again, and +sat and gazed at it all while he worked busily at the raft. + +"Now," he said, climbing up to her again at last, "We will look for +necessaries first and take anything else we come upon that may be +useful. Those barrels are pork, but they are too heavy for us to +handle----" + +"Couldn't you break one open?" + +"Then the birds would be on us like a shot. Some of them have got +their eyes on us already," and he pointed to them swooping watchfully +round. "We did that once and had to fight and run for it. Maybe we'll +come across some smaller ones before we're done. Here's a small cask +of rum. We'll make sure of that," and he rolled and carried it to +their landing-place, and they scrambled on. + +"These barrels are biscuits. Some of it may be good. We'll bring the +raft round for it. Those small casks are flour. It's only good in the +middle. We'll come round for one of them presently. We want some +coffee. We're sure to come across some sooner or later." + +"What is it like?" + +"Small square cases about so big." + +"Oh, I wonder what's in this great case." + +"We'll soon see," and he smashed at it with his axe. "Hardware. We'll +add to our stock since it's here." + +"And this? Oh, I wish I had an axe too. I want to break open every +box we come to," and he laughed out at her quick surrender to the +riever spirit. + +"Why do you laugh at me then? It would surely be helping you." + +"I know just how you feel, and now you know just how Macro feels." + +"I know just how he feels. It must grow upon one. I don't want any of +the things, but still I would like to break open and find." + +"We'd better stick to business. When we've got all we come across that +will be of service I'll hand you the axe and you can smash away at +anything you like, except your toes.... No doubt what's in that box +anyway,"--for the ends of rolls of silk were sticking out of it. "I +expect Macro has been over this ground already. Shall we take some?" + +She picked out several rolls, saying, "They may come in useful, even if +it's only to make our cabin as fine as his," and he stacked up the silk +along with a raffle of rope, which was always to the good. + +They scrambled to and fro, so busily smashing open cases and discussing +their contents that they took no note of the birds gathering above them +in ever-increasing numbers. Their ears had grown accustomed to their +raucous clamour, and the fact that it had grown louder had not troubled +them. But suddenly--they were delving into the side of a huge crate of +blankets at the moment--the sky was darkened as by a cloud, and +Wulfrey, glancing up in fear of a change in the weather, jerked out a +sudden exclamation which made her jump. Then he crushed her roughly +down into a narrow black chasm between the blanket-crate and another, +and dropped in after her, just as the cloud, grown bold by its +increase, came swooping down upon them. + +Never in her life had she imagined such a nightmare experience. The +bristling confusion of the wreckage, the shimmering blue sea beyond, +the very light and peace of day itself, all were blotted out in an +instant, and in their place was nothing but a prodigious whirling and +swooping of vari-coloured feathered bodies, snaking necks, cold beady +eyes, pitilessly craving them as food, cruel curved beaks keen to rend +and tear, and a hideous clamour of wild wailings. The flutter and beat +of myriad wings set the whole atmosphere throbbing, till the blood +drummed furiously in The Girl's ears and her head felt like to burst. + +She shrank down on something that crackled and subsided under her, +feeling herself terribly bare to their assault. Wulfrey reached out an +arm and groped for a loose blanket and dragged it over them and so hid +the nightmare from her. His arm was bleeding when he drew it in. + +"They will go presently when they find there is nothing to eat," he +said into her ear. + +"They looked as if they would tear one to pieces," and he could feel +the shudder that shook her. + +"They would try if they got the chance." + +"They are awful.... Oh, listen!"--as the rest of the cloud, sure that +such a clamour portended food, whirled round their shelter, brushed it +with wings and feet, shrilled their needs and their disgust more loudly +than ever, and swept away to seek more satisfying fare elsewhere. + +The sound of them drifted away at last, occasional stragglers still +swooped down to make quite sure there was not a scrap left, but +presently these followed the rest and Wulfrey climbed up and looked +about him. + +"All right," he said, and reached down a hand to her. "I think they've +gone after Macro," and he hauled her up into the light. + +"Your arm!" she cried. + +"Only scratches. No harm done.... What is it?" for she was staring +with tragic face into the hole out of which she had just come. + +And looking down into it he saw that he had flung her bodily on to what +had been a skeleton, but was now only a confused heap of brittle bones. + +"I'm sorry," he said, "but there was no time to pick and choose." + +"It's a horrible place. Let us go home!" + +"We'll go at once as soon as we've found some coffee ... and I would +like another knife or two.... Look in that chest. Macro has opened it +for us.... And if you find any tobacco, I'll thank you," and he rooted +rapidly through one broken-open seaman's box, while she did the same by +another. + +"Tobacco--I think," she announced presently, ... "and a knife and a +tinder-box." + +"Another knife" was his find. "And we'll take these two coats----" + +"Whatever for?" + +"Well--if any of those screaming deevils, as the mate calls them, +should come after us as we go back, you feel them less through a coat +than on your bare skin." + +"I don't think I'll come again." + +"Oh, it's quite easy to avoid them, you see. And they soon go if they +find nothing eatable." + +"Hideous things! ... Will those cases be coffee?" + +"I think so.... We'll chance one anyway.... And those small casks are +rice. We're doing famously. Is there anything else you would like?" + +"Heaps of things--spoons, forks, plates, stockings----" + +"Here are stockings----" and he delved into his chest again. + +"Truly--but twenty sizes too large. These boxes all seem to have +belonged to men. Let us get home before those awful birds come back." + +So they returned to the raft and pushed it slowly along the pile, from +place to place, where the various portions of their cargo stood +awaiting them, and Wulfrey wrestled manfully with casks and barrels and +boxes in a way that would have astonished himself mightily three months +before. And The Girl, eager to help as far as she could--brushing +shoulders with him as they hauled and lifted, their hands overlapping +at times, their bare arms in closest contact as they struggled with the +insensate obstinacy of dead weights,--was very conscious of the play of +the corded muscles in his arms and back, and the energy and +determination of the quiet resolute face. And she was at once grateful +and exultant in the knowledge that all the powers this man possessed +were at her service, and that, if occasion should arise, they would be +expended for her to the uttermost and without hesitation. + +She experienced sensations entirely new to her. She found them good. +They quickened her blood and stimulated her mind. She had seen much of +men, more perhaps than most for her years, but men of a very different +type,--unmuscular, powdered and peruked and befrilled, with airs and +graces and velvet coats which hid the lack of virility within, and did +duty for it to the world at large; men of wealth and highest culture +and too often of meanest heart, self-seeking, intent only on their +personal satisfactions, self-forgetful only in the pursuit of ignoble +ends. + +In every particular so different from this man. She had met but very +few men whom she felt she could trust implicitly. Some of the most +apparently sincere had proved the least worthy. And they were the most +dangerous. They drew your trust, and so disarmed and then most +treacherously betrayed you. Oh, she had seen it, time and again, and +so her mind had come to look on men in general as beasts of prey, to be +dreaded, and avoided except in the most open and superficial fashion. + +But this was a man of another world. She had met none like him. He +roused her and soothed her as none of those others ever had done, as no +man before had ever done. + +She had seen men as good-looking, perhaps, but in a very different way. +Would they have looked as well, stripped of their trappings? She +doubted it. And never a man among them could or would, she was sure, +have handled these obdurate barrels and boxes as this man did. Truly +they seemed to object to removal from their lodging-places as though +they were endowed with minds of their own. + +And she had trusted him implicitly, from the first moment she had +looked into his eyes, and recognised that it must be he who had drawn +her back out of the closing hand of death. + +"Better put that on," said Wulfrey, dropping one of the coats over her +shoulders, when they had got everything aboard. + +"Why? I am quite warm." + +"We have done our work now till we get to the spit. No good chilling +in the wind. We're going to sail home," and he slipped on the other +jacket, and proceeded to rig up a sail and a steering plank as he had +seen the mate do. + +The Girl broke into a laugh at the change for the worse produced in +their appearance by the jackets. + +"You looked like a Greek or a Roman before," she said. "Now we both +look like gipsy tinkers." + +"Fine feathers--fine birds?" he smiled, as they hauled out past the end +of the pile and began lumbering slowly homewards. + +"Those awful birds!" and she glanced anxiously round for them, but they +were busy a mile away and troubled them no more. + + + + +XXXIII + +The Girl was glad enough of her old coat before they reached the spit, +in spite of its demoralising effect on her appearance,--glad even to +snuggle down among the blankets, for, after the hard work of loading, +even the south-west wind began presently to feel cool. + +Then came the discharging, and the transporting of their heavy weights +to the smaller raft on the lake, which could not take more than half +their cargo at a time. So he took her and a portion across to the +'Martha,' and she undertook to have supper ready by the time he got +back with the rest. + +And surely she wrought pleasanter thoughts even than usual into her +cooking that day, for it seemed to him, when in due course he sat +opposite to her on the other side of their fire, that he had never +enjoyed a meal so much in his life, deficient as it was in many things +that he had always regarded as needful. + +"We have done a good day's work," he said, as he lit his pipe at her +request. + +"I wonder what he will say about it." + +"We will not let it trouble us. He has only himself to blame." + +"I wonder if you and he would have quarrelled if I had never come." + +"We certainly would if he had taken the line he has done. As long as +he did his fair share of the providing I did not mind. But the +position he took up was an impossible one." + +They fell into reminiscent talk of that great outer world which seemed +so remote, and from which, for all they knew, they were now for ever +cut off. She had many strange recollections of her earlier life in +France, some very terrible ones of the times of the Red Deluge, very +mixed ones of the later times in England. + +It was amazing to him to sit in that bare cabin of a deserted ship, on +an island shunned by all, listening to her familiar talk of men and +women who had been but names to him, until her intimate knowledge of +them made them into actual living personages. + +Her outlook on life had been very much wider than his own. She had +lived among the scenes and people of whom he had only read in the +news-sheets. He was immensely interested, both in the things she +talked about and the way she talked about them. His questionings +towards a clearer understanding on points which were to her matters of +simplest elementary knowledge amused her not a little. And he got many +a self-revealing glimpse into that strange past life of hers, from +which she was so contented to escape, but which was yet so full of +colour and contrast and vivid actuality that, in spite of all its +discrepancies and disillusionments, it had assumed for her a certain +glamour which she averred it had never worn at the time. + +"Wait a moment," he would say, breaking into her flow of reminiscence, +"'Monsieur' is----?" + +"The Comte de Provence, the late King's brother, my uncle. My father, +the King's next brother, the Comte d'Artois, is 'Monseigneur.' He has +become terribly devout since Mme de Polastron died. The abbè Latil is +his heart and mind and conscience. In his way he was fond of me, I +believe, but since I came to understand the wrong he did my mother, I +have detested him. And I have no doubt he was not sorry when I broke +away. I was a perpetual reminder, you see----" + +"And there is another Countess d'Artois?" + +"Oh, yes,--Marie Thérèse of Savoy, but she is too awful,--a quite +impossible woman, one must say that much for him. If ever a man had +good excuse for seeking his pleasures elsewhere, he had. She was +terrible. She had no more moral feeling than a cat." + +"And Madame Adélaide----? Let me see--who was she?" + +"My great-aunt--poor old thing! Those atrocious Narbonnes lived on her +and turned her round their fingers." + +"And Madame Elizabeth? It is terribly confusing." + +"Not at all. It is all as simple as can be. Madame Elizabeth was my +aunt, my father's sister. She was very sweet. Poor dear! They cut +off her head, though she never harmed a soul since the day she was +born. She was very good to me. If she had lived I do not think I +would be here. She was not like the rest. I could have lived happily +with her." + +And so she chattered away,--about the late King--her uncle also,--and +of the Duc d'Orleans,--"always a self-seeker, and intriguer, with a +very sharp eye on the way things might turn to his own benefit. Oh, I +am glad they took his head off. It was righteous retribution."--And of +the Queen---- "She did foolish things at times, but she meant no harm, +and, mon Dieu, how she suffered!"--And of Lafayette, and Talleyrand, +and many and many another. + +And it was indeed passing strange to lie there listening to it all--she +clad in her blankets, for the night air had a chill in it, and he in +the sea-damaged coat and small clothes of a gentleman of the Duke of +Kent's suite, while between them the thin blue reek of the drift-wood +fire on its hearth of sand stole up through the half-closed +companion-hatch to the lonely night outside. + + + + +XXXIV + +"We shall have a visit from our next-door neighbour presently, I +expect," said Wulfrey, when The Girl came out of her cabin next +morning. "Will you mind stopping below while I dispose of him?" + +"But why?" + +"He puts things coarsely at times, and he will probably be in a very +bad humour at having to get his own meals ready." + +"I don't mind him." + +"Nor do I, except on your account. But I shall feel happier if you are +out of sight and hearing." + +"Oh, very well. But nothing he could say would trouble me in the +slightest." + +So, after breakfast, she sat down on the cabin floor to her sewing, and +he lit his pipe and went up on deck carrying his axe. He closed the +companion-doors and hatch very quietly--but she heard him--and went +forward into the bows, which, since the usual wind blew from the +south-west, was the nearest point to the 'Jane and Mary.' + +It was a long time before the mate showed any signs, beyond an extra +rush of smoke when he made up his fire to cook his breakfast. But he +came up at last, caught sight of Wulfrey, and stood scowling across at +him for a time. Then he dropped down on to his raft and came wobbling, +with quick angry strokes, across to the 'Martha.' + +"So that's it, is it?" he growled, with a grim look on his dark face. + +"That's it," said Wulfrey coolly. + +"And you think you've got her all to yourself?--what you've been +plotting for ever since I hauled her ashore." + +"Are you speaking of Miss Drummond?" + +"I'm speaking of that girl. 'Twas me hauled her ashore an' she's my +right if she's anybody's." + +"There it is, you see. She is nobody's right but her own. And neither +she nor I are your servants, to prepare your food and see to your +comfort while you dig treasure out of the wreckage. So we have decided +to fend for ourselves and you can fend for yourself." + +"Ah! You think so, do you? We'll see about that." + +"We undertake not to go aboard your ship if you give your word not to +come aboard ours." + +"See you ---- first!" + +"Thank you! Then now we know how we stand, and will act accordingly." + +"Ay, now you know." + +"And will act accordingly," emphasised Wulfrey once more. "I must ask +you to keep off," as the mate paddled alongside and reached up a rough +hairy hand to the side. "I'm sorry it's come to this, but I won't have +you on board." + +"Won't, eh?" and as he reached up the other hand and prepared to mount, +Wulfrey picked up his axe and held it threateningly above the clinging +hands, which straightway loosed their hold amid a volley of curses. + +"---- ---- ---- ---- you! You'd maim me! ---- ---- ---- ---- me, if I +don't pay you for this! The girl's mine. I found her. I'll get her +over your dead body if needs be." + +"Ah! And who found you? And where would you be if I hadn't helped you +on to the raft yon first night? Tell me that, will you? By the same +rule you're mine, and all you've got is mine." + +"---- ---- ---- ---- you for a ---- ---- ---- sea-lawyer!" foamed the +mate, his dark face and eyes all ablaze, his shaking fists hurling +curses beyond the compass of his tongue. + +Wulfrey, eyeing him professionally, said to himself, "Too much rum. +He'll have D.T. if he doesn't slack off--or a fit if he does much of +this kind of thing." + +The mate thrashed back to his own ship with furious strokes and climbed +aboard, and Wulfrey, having watched him safely up the side, went down +to The Girl. + +"He is very angry," he said quietly. + +"He did not whisper. I couldn't help hearing him. What will he do +next?" + +"We can only wait and see. We shall have to be on our guard, but we +won't let him trouble us. He is drinking too much." + +They saw nothing more of him all that day, not even his head above the +bulwarks. Wulfrey surmised that he was probably treating his wrath +with rum, and plotting mischief, or maybe he was lying dead drunk in +his cabin. They themselves were well provided in all respects, but he +had good reason to know that stocks across there were running low, and +that before long the man of wrath would have to go abroad to make up +his deficiencies, and that would give them the opportunity of getting +in fresh water and rabbit-meat. + +He could only hope the mate would not postpone his journey too long, +for the weather seemed like changing. There was no sun visible, not a +speck of blue sky, but in their place a wan-white opaqueness which +looked portentous and might mean anything. + +Wulf spent most of the day on the alert, leaving the deck only for +meals, and popping up even in the middle of them to make sure that all +was right. But Macro made no sign. + +There was no knowing, however, what a furious, rum-fuddled man might +attempt. His crazy jealousy and anger might stick at nothing, and +Wulfrey looked forward to a watchful night as a necessity. + +And, as he paced the deck, he ruminated on the handicap imposed by +virtue on an honest man when fighting roguery. Here was Macro at +liberty to sleep without fear of assault, to go ashore for water and +fresh meat, and to the wreckage for everything he wanted, assured in +his own mind that no one would rifle his stores, or fire his ship, or +play any other dastardly trick, in his absence. While they, if they +left their stronghold unguarded for an hour, must be exposed to all +these things, and constant watchfulness would be necessary to prevent +them. + +It was not a pleasant prospect and he did not see how it was going to +end. At the same time he did not see what other course had been left +to them, and he was determined to go through with this, cost what it +might. + +The thought of striking down this man with whom he had lived in +fellowship, even in fair fight, was abhorrent to him. The thought of +being struck down himself made his blood run cold on The Girl's +account. Both possibilities must be avoided if possible. The latter +at all hazards. If it came to the mate suffering or The Girl, the mate +would have to go without compunction. + + + + +XXXV + +The night passed without disturbance, the morning found them swathed in +dense white mist which hid one side of the ship from the other. + +"He did not come again?" asked The Girl when they met. "I am ashamed +to have slept so soundly. I intended to take my fair share of the +watching." + +"There was no need. I bolted the doors and slept at the foot of the +stairs. It's all cotton-wool outside. You can't see a couple of feet. +He won't venture out in that, if I know him. But we need water. I'll +go across after breakfast and get some." + +"I shall come too. I wouldn't stop here alone for anything." + +"All right. Our only difficulty will be in finding the shore and +getting back to the ship. Fog is terribly bewildering." + +"If you can find the shore we can get back all right," she said, after +thinking it over. + +"How?" + +"We have that heap of rope you brought over. Could we not untwist some +and make a cord? Then if we tied one end to the ship and carried the +other ashore we could feel our way back by it." + +"It will take a lot of untwisting. We're quite two hundred yards from +the shore. But it's worth trying." + +So they untwisted rope till their fingers were sore, and tied the +pieces together till he judged they had enough, and presently they +embarked noiselessly on their raft and paddled in the direction in +which he believed the shore lay, The Girl paying out the string as they +went. + +This weird envelopment of dense white mist was a new experience for +her. She could barely see the water a foot or two away. The string +slipped through her fingers and vanished into the fog-wall. Dale, +sweeping the water with his oar, loomed dim and large just above her. + +They went on and on, but found no shore. + +"The string is nearly all done," she said at last. + +"Then we're going wrong," he whispered. "Don't speak loud, we don't +know how near we may be to----" and, as if to confirm his fears, a +great black bulk appeared in the clammy white above them, and Wulfrey +hurriedly checked their way and backed off into the fog again. + +"'The Jane and Mary,'" he whispered, when they had put a space between +them and it. "We've been circling round. The shore must be this way, +I think----" and the cord slacked in The Girl's fingers as he struck +off to the right, and in due course they made the beach with cord to +spare. + +They tied the precious guiding-line to the raft and set off with their +buckets, Wulfrey trailing his oar behind him so that by its mark in the +sand they might grope their way back. In his belt he carried the only +weapon he possessed, his axe, which, as matters stood with the mate, he +deemed it advisable always to have at hand. + +Keeping along the edge of the lake till he judged they were opposite +the ponds, they struck inland, and managing to keep a straighter course +than on the water, came at last to their goal. + +They filled their buckets and were returning on their trail, bending +every now and again to make sure they were right, when, with an +abruptness that startled the buckets out of their hands, a dark figure +loomed up on them out of the fog and they found themselves face to face +with the mate. + +He had heard them coming and was ready. Wulfrey had barely time to +drop his oar and pluck out his axe when the other sprang at him with +his weapon swung up for the blow. + +It was very grim. Of all fighting-tools the axe is the most +brutal--after, perhaps, the spiked club and the scythe-blade tied on a +pole, which are only fit for savages. It is cumbersome and ungainly. +It admits of little skill either in attack or defence. Its arguments +are final and convincing, and its wounds are very ghastly. + +The Girl could barely make out which was which, so thick was the +veiling fog. But that did not matter. She sprang in between the two +dark figures with arms outspread, at imminent risk of receiving both +their blows, crying, "No!--You shall not! You shall not!" + +The mate hurled oaths at her. She thought he was going to strike her +down. And past her, at Wulfrey,--"---- ye! It's like ye. Steal her +first, then hide behind her!" + +With one big black hand he gripped her blanket cloak and whirled her +away into the mist, and came plunging at Wulfrey, who stood with poised +axe and eyes that watched his every movement. + +The mate played round him for an opening. Out of the corner of his eye +he saw The Girl groping about for the oar. He rushed in to end it with +one crushing blow. + +But Wulf was ready for him and he was the cooler man. As the mate's +axe came swooshing down straight for his shoulder and neck, his own +swung round, caught the other full in the blade with its own stout +back, and with a ringing click sent it flying, with such a shock to the +arm that had held it that the mate believed it was broken. He ducked +with an oath and disappeared into the fog. + +The Girl came panting up, her face all sanded with her fall, her eyes +ablaze. "Did it reach you?" + +"Not at all. I'm all right." + +"The brute! I feared he would kill you." + +"He did his worst.... What were you going to do with that?"--the oar +she had picked up. + +"I was going to smash him on the head with it, but I couldn't find it +at first." + +"Two to one!" + +"I don't care. I'd have killed him if I could." + +"What about our water?" + +"It's all spilled." + +"We'll go back for more. He won't come back. I doubt if he'll find +his axe in this fog. Which way now?" and he stood puzzling, for force +of circumstance and much trampling of the sand had lost them their +clue. "You cast round that way for the mark of the oar, but don't go +far. I'll try this side. Call if you find." + +"Here!" she cried, almost at once, and he followed her voice into the +fog and found her standing on the line. + +But so confused were they that even then they had not an idea which way +to follow it. + +"Which way?" she asked, staring down at the groove under her feet. + +"This, I think.... I don't know," and he stood perplexed, "There is +nothing for it but following it up and seeing where we come to." + +So they picked up their buckets, and he took the oar, and they set off +again,--and came out at last, not on the green undergrowth which +flourished round the ponds, but on the bare shore of the lake. + +"Now we know where we are at all events. Dare you stop here while I go +back?" + +"No," she said with a shiver. + +"Come along, then!" and they turned and went back, and he discoursed of +fogs as they went. "Nothing like a fog for absolutely confusing one's +sense of direction. I've known people wander for hours on a common, +round and round, quite unable to get anywhere. And one soon gets into +a panic and common sense goes overboard." + +She had not had much experience of fogs, but expressed herself +vehemently on the subject, and so they came to the ponds, and back, in +time, to their raft. And Wulfrey was mightily glad to see it again, +for the idea had been troubling him that Macro might have found it, and +set it adrift, or gone off to their ship to find solace there for his +discomfiture ashore. + +"I wonder where he's got to?" he said anxiously. + +"I don't care. I wish he'd get lost in the fog and never come back." + +"You feel strongly," he said, with a smile at her vehemence. + +"Yes, I like or I dislike, and both to the full." + +The guiding-line led them safely home, and glad they were to get there, +for the chill of the fog and the treacheries it held were enough to +weigh down the staunchest of spirits. + + + + +XXXVI + +Their experiences in the fog had occupied many hours, and the unusual +strain had left them both somewhat lax and weary. By the time they had +prepared and eaten their much-delayed meal, and were enjoying the +after-rest, the thick whiteness outside had turned to chiller gray, and +the comfort of a blazing fire was eminently agreeable. + +Wulfrey closed the companion-doors and hatch, all except the narrowest +crack through which the smoke could escape, lit his pipe, and lay at +ease, watching the many-coloured tongues of the dancing flames and The +Girl who sat gazing dreamily into them on the other side, and wondered +how it would have been with them all if Macro's vicious blow had got +home on his neck. + +She was very good to look upon as she sat there in the flickering +half-darkness. The gracious curves of her supple young figure +transformed the bare little cabin into a Temple of Youth and Beauty. + +The dusky glamour of her hair, the shadowy beauty of her dark soft +eyes, the level brows and wide white forehead which gave such strength +and dignity to her face--they all held for him an arrest and an appeal +such as he had never before experienced. + +She had made herself a robe out of a piece of the crimson silk they had +brought over from the pile. It was hardly a dress, for it swathed +about her in flowing folds rather than fitted to her. But he thought +he had never seen so becoming a garment. It was sheer delight to lie +and look at her. + +But it was a sufficiently difficult problem that faced him. In his +present state of mind, the mate seemed determined to make an end of him +the first chance that offered. Was there any reasonable hope of a +change for the better in him? Were they to live in a perpetual state +of defence till one of them went under?--all the advantages of +unscrupulous attack being left to the enemy. Was it reasonable? If +not, what was to be done, and how? + +The man had suddenly become a deadly menace. He was no better, in his +unprincipled cravings, than a wild beast. If that girl fell helpless +into his coarse hands.... And she knew it and looked to him for +protection. + +And protection to the utmost of his powers she should have.... Was he +justified in slaying the man? ... In view of the deadly intent of this +latest attack he thought he was. But whether he could bring himself to +it, if the chance offered, he was not by any means sure.... The +deliberate killing of one's fellow was a serious matter.... In +self-defence of course one was justified.... As to the law--it seemed +as though the mate was right in his belief that they were destined to +spend the rest of their lives--some of them at all events--on this bare +bank of sand, where none ever came who could help it, and where no law +but that of Nature obtained.... But there was a higher law. "Thou +shalt not kill." ... Yes, it would be very much against the grain of +his life and conscience, but it might have to be.... + +He sat up suddenly, listening intently. + +"What is it?" asked The Girl, startled out of her own reverie. + +He raised his hand for silence. + +"I thought I heard a cry," and he got up, and went up the steps, and +opened the door and stood there straining his ears into the clammy +darkness. The fog lay thicker than ever. It was like listening into +the side of a bale of raw cotton. The faint glow of the fire below +died against the opaque wall in front. It could not have been seen a +yard away. + +The Girl stood on the stairs close behind him. + +"I must have been mistaken," he murmured, "or perhaps it was a +seagull,"--when, just below and almost alongside them, there came the +violent sweep of an oar used as a paddle, and a wild spate of curses +like the furious outburst of a panic-stricken brain. + +Wulf slipped noiselessly down for his axe and stepped up on deck. If +he went past, well and good. If he ran into them---- + +There came a sudden bump against the side of their ship and the sound +of a fall on the raft. + +"---- ---- ---- ---- ye, ye ---- ---- rotten old coffin! I've got ye +at last, ---- ---- ----!" and right up out of the fog under Wulfrey's +nose came two clammy black hands clawing nervously at the bulwark. + +"You can't come aboard here, Macro," he said quietly. The grimy hands +loosed with a startled oath and the mate dropped back on to his raft. + +"----! That you again? ---- ---- ---- ---- you! I thought.... Then +my ---- craft must be over there. ---- ---- ----! I'll do for you +yet, my cully!" and the oar dashed into the water again and he cursed +himself off into the darkness. + +"You could have killed him," gasped The Girl at his side, through her +chattering teeth. + +"I could--but I couldn't." + +"We shall have no peace while he lives." + +"I fear not. Still--I couldn't cut him down in cold blood like that. +What would you have thought of me if I had done so?" + +"I should have said you had done well." + +"I know you better." + +At which she shook her head. "You don't know what horrid thoughts +whirl about in my mind. No man really knows what a woman thinks," and +the frank dark eyes regarded him solemnly. + +"I know you better than you do yourself." + +"I doubt it," with another shake of the head. "But, even then, it +might have been best,"--with a shiver--"It sounds horrible--but----" + +He could understand all her feeling in the matter. In her place he +would have felt just the same. The man was a hideous menace--to her +especially--and there would be no security for them while he lived. +But all the same.... + +"Let us get back to the fire," he said quietly. "He won't come back +tonight. Poor wretch, he's probably been paddling about all day +looking for his ship and he's half crazed with it." + +"I don't think I am bloodthirsty by nature," she said, with her hands +pressed tight to her eyes, when she had sunk down before the fire +again. "But I fear that man with all my soul, both for myself and you. +He will kill you if he gets the chance. If he kills you I shall kill +myself. It is better that one should die than two." + +"I agree, but I don't want to have the killing of him if I can help it." + +"Killing is horrible," and she shivered again, "But being killed is +worse ... and to fall into the hands of a man like that would be even +worse still. What will be the end of it all?" + +But that was beyond him, and their hearts were heavy over it. + + + + +XXXVII + +"Is it often like this?" asked The Girl depressedly, on the third day +of mist. + +"I'm afraid there's a good deal of it. We've had it three or four +times since we came. It may be worse in the winter." + +"I wish we could get away." + +"I wish so too, but I don't see how we're to manage it ... unless, +sometime, a boat washes ashore among the wreckage. And even then ... +without Macro to manage it..." and he shook his head unhopefully. "... +In the meantime I count it marvellous gain that you should have +come----" + +And at that it was her turn to shake her head. "I don't know. I seem +to have brought more harm than good." + +"It has made all the difference in the world." + +"Yes, it has set you two by the ears and put you in peril of your life. +That is not a good work." + +"Your company more than compensates. Besides, we should probably have +got to loggerheads in any case, and without anything like so good a +reason." + +"It would have been better, I think, if you had let me go when I was so +nearly gone, and not rubbed me back to life." + +"I thank God that you came," he said weightily. "Without you we might +have sunk into savages, caring only for the lower things. You lift me +without knowing it." + +"You couldn't sink into a savage. He is one naturally. And I am +becoming one, for I am all the time wishing he were dead." + +"He must be having a bad time, unless he brought over provisions that +last time, and I doubt if he did. He's probably living chiefly on rum. +And that won't bring him to any better frame of mind, I'm afraid." + +"To think," she mused, "that three people cannot live on an island big +enough to hold thousands, without quarrelling to the death!" + +"The trouble is not of our making, so we need not blame ourselves." + +"Yes, it is. I began it by coming ashore. You ought to have let me +stop out there----" + +"You are very much better here." + +"----And you continued it by bringing me back to life. You ought to +have let me die." + +"Very well. I accept all the blame and rejoice in it," he said, with a +smile. "It is just the fog getting into you. You'll feel differently +about it when the sun comes out again." + +"Sun? I don't believe we are going to see it again. I don't believe +it ever shines here or ever has done since the world began. It is an +island of mist ... and we are just vapours----" + +"Macro's not anyway. I wish he were. He wouldn't trouble me in the +slightest then. He's a solid strong mixture of Spanish buccaneer and +Highland robber, with a touch of volcano to keep the mixture boiling." + +But the chill of the mist was upon her and nothing he could say availed +to cheer her. So he hauled out the rolls of silk they had brought +over, and set to work decorating the cabin with them, and interested +her out of her depression by the purposed mistakes he made. + +It was the ravelling off of a long thread from one of the pieces of +silk he was cutting, that showed him the way to a new employment for +her and the possibilities of a welcome addition to their meagre larder. + +"Do you think you could twist two or three of these into a +fishing-line?" he asked her. "I've seen heaps of fish in the lake. We +might try for some." + +"And hooks?" + +"If you could spare me one of your big needles I think I could make +something that might do." + +She went at once and got him one, and then set to work on the line, and +he could hardly get on with his own job for watching her. + +She was so eminently graceful in all her movements. Her tall slender +figure, supple, shapely, and all softly rounded curves without a +discoverable abruptness or angularity anywhere about it, lent itself +with singular charm to her present occupation. After thoughtful +consideration of the matter, she unrolled one of the pieces of silk the +whole width of the cabin, then picking out a thread, she fastened the +end of it to the woodwork and travelled along the side of the piece, +bending and releasing it as she went. The same with two more threads. + +"Three ply will be strong enough?" she asked, straightening up and +looking across at him. + +"Let me see what three ply feel like," and he went across and watched +her while she twisted the threads tightly together with deft soft +fingers. + +"I should think that would do," he said, running it between his finger +and thumb. Their hands met, and the touch of hers sent a quite +unexpected thrill of physical delight tingling through his veins. He +did not dare to look full at her for the moment, lest she should see it +in his eyes. But he was conscious to the point of pain of her close +proximity,--somehow conscious too--and that quite unconsciously and +without any reasoning on the matter--that, in the twinkling of an eye, +she was no longer simply a beautiful and charming girl, but had become +for him the most beautiful and charming girl in all the world. + +His heart felt suddenly too big for his body. He could have taken her +in his arms then and there, and crushed her to him, and smothered her +with hot kisses. And he could no more have done it than he could have +brained her with his axe. For she trusted him implicitly, and he was +himself. + +He took a deep breath to give his heart more room, and bent to examine +her twist. + +"It will do splendidly," he said, and she glanced quickly at him and +wondered what had made that curious change in his voice. "How will you +keep it rolled tight like that?" + +"I've been thinking. If I greased my fingers with some of that pork +fat as I roll it, and roll it very tight, it will probably keep so. +How long will you want it?" + +"As long as you can make it without too much trouble." + +"I can make it the full length of that silk as far as I see." + +"That will do admirably.... If I can make as good a hook as you have +made a line we will have fish for dinner," and he went back to the +fire, where, with his axe and his knife and two rusty nails lashed +together at the top to act as tweezers, he was endeavouring to bend a +portion of her needle into a hook. + +At the cost of some burns and cuts he managed at last to make something +distantly resembling one. + +"It looks horrid," said The Girl when he showed it to her. "I shall be +sorry for the fishes if they get that into them." + +"So shall I. But we'll not let them suffer long if they give us the +chance." + +She was as eager as a child with a new toy to put their work to the +test. So he cut some small pieces of pork and embedded his hook in +one, and dropped it into the bed of mist over the side. + +And she leaned over, with her shoulder unconsciously against his,--but +he felt it, and rejoiced in the feel as keenly as ever Macro did in his +treasure-trove--and peered anxiously down at the line, of which she +could see but a couple of feet, and waited impatiently for results. + +He put it into her hand, saying, + +"If anything comes of it you shall have the honour of catching our +first fish," but he held on to the slack behind. + +"It's jerking," she whispered breathlessly, "Oh, I'm sure there's +something on it..." and as she let go the line he gave it a jerk on his +own account, then drew it quickly in and a plump astonished fish lay +jumping and twisting on the deck. It was over a foot in length, very +prettily coloured, dark blue with many cross-streaks and silvery below. + +"Mackerel, I think," he said, and promptly knocked it on the head, to +end its troubles and allow him the further use of his hook. + +"The poor little thing! I'm so sorry," she said, looking mournfully +down at the iridescent beauty. "I don't think I like fishing." + +"You'll think better of it when it's fried." + +"I couldn't touch it," with a vigorous shake of the head. + +So he asked her to go down and make some cakes, and then caught another +fish of a different kind the moment the bait reached the water, and a +couple more for breakfast next day, and was thereby much reassured as +to the future of their larder. He cleaned two of his fish and fried +them with some pork fat as soon as she had made her cakes, and +proceeded to reason her out of her prejudice. + +"You have eaten fish all your life, haven't you?" he asked. + +"Ye-es." + +"Well, every fish has had to be caught before you could eat it. They +generally leave them to die. But even that is probably only similar to +our drowning, which is said to be about as pleasant a way as there is +of going." + +"It's horribly cold if you're lashed to a mast,"--with a reminiscent +shiver. "And being rubbed back to life is just as bad." + +"And we are more merciful, because we kill them at once." + +"It's horrible to think that everything we eat, except things that grow +of course, has got to suffer death for us." + +"But you have always eaten these things without being troubled about +it." + +"The killing has never been brought home to me so closely before." + +"It's Nature's law, you see. Everything feeds on something else. +These fishes feed on smaller things. And how do you know that when you +cut a cabbage or a potato----" + +"How I wish I had the chance!" + +"So do I, most heartily. But how do you know they don't feel it just +as much, in their own dull way, as the pig did from which we get our +pork?" + +She shook her head and sighed. "We can't get away from it, I suppose," +and tasted the fish and found it good, and ate quite heartily though +with an appearance of protest. + +"You see," he said. "Some fishes lay millions of eggs at a time. If +they all grew up the sea would be choked with them, as the earth would +be with animals if they weren't killed off. Besides, unless I am +mistaken in my recollection of our old parson's reading, all these +things were expressly provided for man's sustenance, so we are only +doing our duty in eating them." + +"All the same, I think I will let you do all the catching and killing." + +"Of course. That is the man's proper part in the family economy. He +is the bread-and-meat winner. And the wife's--the woman's, I mean--is +to see to the cooking," and he occupied himself busily with fish-bones, +and felt like biting his tongue off for its involuntary slip. + +"If you had lived on pork and rabbits for months you would find this +fish delicious," he said presently, to break the odd little silence +that had fallen on them. + +"It is very good. I wonder you never caught any before." + +"I did try, but my tackle was too rough. The fish would have none of +it. It is your clever line that has done the trick." + +"I am glad to be of some use, though I can't help being sorry for the +fish." + +And if he had dared he would have delighted to tell her of what +infinitely greater use she was to him in other and higher ways. + + + + +XXXVIII + +Wulfrey was awakened in the night by the sounds he had come to +recognise as the accompaniments of bad weather. The ship was humming +in the wind and straining and jerking restively at the rusty cable +which he was always expecting to give way. He wondered sleepily what +would happen to them if it did. Wondered also if The Girl was +frightened at the changed conditions, or whether she would understand. +He slipped on some clothes and went into the cabin, to reassure her if +necessary. + +The fire was a bed of white ashes and a rose-gold core in the centre. +He piled on some chips and the flames broke out with a cheerful +crackle. The door of The Girl's little passage way opened an inch or +two, and he caught a glimpse of her startled eyes shining in the +fire-light. + +"I was afraid you might be disturbed by the storm," he said. + +She went back for a moment, and then came out with her blanket skirt +and cloak swathed about her, and sat down by the fire. + +"It woke me, and I cannot get to sleep again. Oh ... what is +that?"--as a shrill scream pealed out just above the opening in the +companion-hatch. + +"It's only those infernal birds. They always come screeching round us +in bad weather." + +"I had just been dreaming that that horrid man came across in the night +and murdered us both. It was such a relief to see you alive again." + +"No fear of his venturing out in this weather. Those screaming birds +get on his nerves. He'll be sitting drinking, and cursing them in the +most awful Gaelic he can twist his tongue to. This weather will +probably last a couple of days. Then it will slack up, and just when +you're thinking it's all gone it will come back worse than ever. +Fortunately we've got---- By Jove!"--and he ran hastily up the +companion, unbolted the door and ran out on deck. The gale came +whuffling down on the fire and scattered the white ashes in a cloud, +and set the silken drapery of the walls rustling wildly. The shrill +clamour of the birds sounded very close, and The Girl sat anxiously +wondering. + +He came back in a minute, empty-handed and disconsolate. "I just +remembered my fish. I left two up there for breakfast, but the birds +have had them. They're as thick on the deck as bees on a comb, hoping +for more." + +"Is that all? I was afraid that man was coming and you'd heard him." + +"It means living on pork till the storm passes." + +"That is nothing. We shall enjoy the other things all the more later +on." + +"I'm wondering all the time how Macro is getting on----" he said, +pulling out his pipe and filling it. + +"Why trouble about him? He would not trouble about us if we were +starving." + +"I don't suppose he would.... I suppose it comes of my being so in the +habit of helping people through their bodily troubles." + +"It is wasted on him. He would not let you help him if you could." + +"I don't believe he would, unless he were helpless.... I wish he'd +never come ashore." + +"But in that case I would not be here either, and you would have been +all alone for the rest of your life." + +"Then, after all, I'm glad he came ashore." + +"I wonder if you would have gone mad in time with the loneliness of +it," she said musingly. + +"It would be horrible to be all alone for all the rest of one's life, +but I don't think I would have gone mad. I've no doubt there are books +to be found among the wreckage out there. Still ... for the rest of +one's life!"--and he shook his head doubtfully. "As things are, +however...." + +"As things are?" she queried, after waiting for him to finish. + +"As things are, I am quite content to stop here for the rest of my +life, if that has to be. But that won't stop my doing my best to get +away if the chance offers.... And you?" + +"If we were delivered from that man I could be content here also.... +But I do not say for all my life. That sounds terribly long.... But +for that man it would be a welcome retreat from a world of which I had +had a surfeit." + +He wondered much if she were heart-whole. It seemed almost incredible +to him that she could have lived that strange life of hers without some +man wanting and touching it. So fair a prize, to go wholly unclaimed +and undesired! But never, in all her talk, had she said one word that +pointed to anything of the kind. Rather had she held up the men she +had met to derogation and contempt. Surely, if there had been anyone +to whom her heart turned and clung, some evidence of it would have +shown itself. + +From all she had said, from all her little unconscious +self-revelations, and the wholesome judgment he had formed of her in +his own mind, he could well believe that, in that whirlpool of a world +in which she had lived, she had come to hold most men in doubt and all +at arm's length. And the thought was agreeable to him. + +When the slow day broke, dim and clangorous with the gale, they dallied +over a meal, talking of many things to pass the time, and then went up +on deck, and with a brandished stick he ridded the ship of the +clustering birds. They shrieked threateningly and came swooping at him +on the wings of the wind, with hungry beaks and merciless eyes. But +here he was at home and would not suffer their invasion, and finally +they gave it up and fled to the sandhills, cursing him shrilly as they +went. + +"Oh, there's one gone downstairs," cried The Girl; and running down +after it, he found a great black cormorant squawking fearfully round +the cabin and dashing itself against the walls in its wild attempts at +escape. At sight of him it grew frantic, but finally found its way out +of the hatch again, almost upsetting The Girl in its passage, and then +tore away to tell its fellows of the awful place it had been in, which +smelt so good but was so much easier to get into than out of. Wulfrey +had to open one of the lee ports and let the gale blow through to get +rid of the smell of it, and then he went up again to The Girl. + +They watched the great rollers thundering on the beach beyond the spit, +rocketing their white spume high into the grim black sky, and lashing +over at times into the lake. And when he called to her to look the +other way she watched with amazement sandhills of size melt away before +her eyes and re-form themselves in quite different places. + +"But it is past words!" she cried into his ear. + +They stared long too at the 'Jane and Mary' of Boston, but saw no sign +of life aboard of her except the birds that clustered there unmolested. + +"It is a most amazing place," she said, when they went down again, as +she dusted the saltness out of her hair with her hand. "Is it often +like this?" + +"Very often in the winter, I should fear. We've had our best weather +since you came." + +"I don't think I want to live all my life here," she said dejectedly. +"I love the sun." + +And he would dearly have liked to tell her that he did the same, but +that for him she made more sunshine even than the sun itself. + +Instead, he prosaically set her to the making of more fishing-lines, in +case of accident to the one they had, and he himself hammered away at +more hooks, burning and ragging his fingers out of knowledge, but +producing hooks of a kind somehow. + + + + +XXXIX + +The gale slackened on the third day, and Wulfrey was actually relieved +in his mind at the sight of Macro hurrying ashore on his raft, after +fresh meat, and, from the fact of his buckets, water, which he had +probably been too careless, or too drunk, to secure during the storm. +For the thought of his possibly lying there alone and foodless had not +been a pleasant one, good reason as he had for disliking the man. + +For themselves, he baited and cast his hooks, and landed half a dozen +fish as fast as he could haul them out. Their fresh meat supply would +have to wait until Macro went out to the wreckage and their minds could +be at ease as to the safety of their headquarters. The sea outside was +still too high for any possibility of his going that day, and +fortunately, thanks to their new source of supply, they could wait with +equanimity. Water they had caught in plenty in the buckets slung under +the scuppers. + +"He's alive at any rate," said Wulfrey, when he went down to breakfast. + +"So much the worse for us," said The Girl. + +"He's been fasting, I should say, by the way he has gone off after +rabbits. We ate our first ones raw, I remember." + +"Savages!" + +"Savage with hunger. We had had nothing to eat but shell-fish and +sea-weed for days." + +"Horrible!--raw rabbit and sea-weed!" + +"We had no means of making fire, no shelter. We slept out on the +sands, and were glad to be simply alive." + +"I'm truly thankful you had risen to a higher state before I came." + +"So am I. We were not good to look at. We were as men who had died +out there among the dead ships' bones and been born again on this +sandbank, lacking everything. Fortunately for us the years that had +gone before had been unconsciously making provision for us, and here +were houses ready-made and waiting, and out there more than we could +use in a lifetime." + +They saw the mate return after a time with his supplies, and he never +showed head again all day. Wulfrey let The Girl keep a look-out, and +tried himself to get some sleep, in anticipation of the night-watch +which he saw would be necessary. + +"He will probably go out to the pile tomorrow," he said. "He must be +out of flour and probably of rum. Then we can take a run ashore +ourselves. When he gets back he will probably be too tired to be up to +any mischief." + +"I wish he would tame down and let us have peace, or else go and get +himself killed," she said anxiously. "We can't go on like this for +ever." + +"I'm afraid he won't oblige us either way. We can only hang on and +hope for the best, and keep our eyes open." + +His watch that night passed undisturbed. In the morning, as he +expected, Macro set off for the wreckage; and, taking some food with +them, they went ashore for a long day's ramble. + +"It is good to feel the width of land under one again," said The Girl, +fairly dancing with delight. "I am very grateful for the ship, but +truly it is small and cramping." + +"Sandhills are good for play-time, but you'd miss the ship when +bed-time came. It's cold work sleeping on the sand." + +"Almost as bad as sleeping on a broken mast. Which way shall we go? +You are quite sure he has gone to the wreckage?" + +"Quite sure. I watched him out of sight. Besides, I am sure he had to +go." + +"Then let us go the opposite way, as far as we can, and we'll stop out +all day long and behave like children. I'm going to walk in the +water," and she kicked off her shoes and lifted her blanket skirt and +tripped along in the lip of the tide, and he did the same, enjoying her +enjoyment. + +A watery sun shone feebly through a thin gray sky, the air was still +heavy with moisture, the water in which they were walking was warmer +than that of the lake. On that side, the island curved like the +concave side of a great half-moon. The pale yellow sand stretched on +and on as far as their eyes could reach. + +"I would like to bathe," said she exuberantly. + +"Wait till we get beyond the end of our lake, then you can take this +side and I'll go across to the other. You won't go out too far? There +may be under-currents that would carry you out." + +"I'll be very careful. And you must not come back for an hour... Oh, +what are those? ... Dead men?" + +In a tiny dent in the long sweep of the curve, made by the sandhills +running almost down to the water, were half a dozen dark objects lying +on the dry sand and looking for all the world like dead bodies. He had +never seen any jetsam of size on that side. The drive of the storms +and drift of the currents landed everything on the western spits and +banks. Still there was no knowing. + +"Wait here!" he said, and set off towards them. And she followed close +at his heels. + +But before they had gone many paces, one of the bodies set itself +suddenly in motion and began to shuffle towards the water. + +"Seals," said Wulf, who had never set eyes on a live one in his life, +but had a general idea of what they were like. + +Before they could reach them, all had flopped away except one, which, +when they drew near, raised its head and eyed them piteously and made +an effort to rise. + +"It is sick or wounded," said Wulf. "Poor beast! Its eyes are like a +woman's in----" He bethought himself and bit it off short. He had +seen just such a look in many a woman's eyes. + +"We won't disturb her," he said, and led the way round to give her wide +berth. + +"Oh--look! Oh, the little darling! How I would love to cuddle it!" +whispered The Girl, for there, on the other side of Mrs Seal, with her +front fins clasping it protectingly, was a late-born baby sucking away +for dear life. + +The Girl's face was transfigured,--ablaze with intensest sympathy and +the wonderful light of mother-love. The mother's eyes followed them +anxiously, the fear in them died out as they backed slowly away, and +she bent her head to her baby and seemed to say, "Thank you so much! +You understand, and I am very grateful to you." + +"I _am_ so glad we saw them. I like the island better than ever I did +before," said The Girl. "What a dear little thing it was! And she was +just delightful," and all day long she kept referring to them and to +her joy at the sight of them. + +They went on again, mile after mile, and whenever he glanced at her, +her face was still alight with happiness, and unconscious smiles +rippled over it in tune with her thoughts. So inborn and unfailing is +the mother-feeling in all true women. + +"Now, if you wish to bathe, here is a good place. I will strike across +to the other shore and will come back in about an hour. Don't go too +far out!" and he strode away across the hummocks. + +Under cover of the nearest sandhill she loosed her slender garments, +and sped like a sunbeam across the beach and into the water; and her +face, as it came up from the kiss of the sea, was like a sweet +blush-rose all beaded with morning dew, than which no fairer thing will +you find. And as she swam and dived and splashed in the lucent green +water, like a lovely white seal, her bodily enjoyment and her mental +exhilaration flung wide her arms at times, as though she would clasp +all Nature's joys to her white breast, and her eyes shone with a +brighter light than had the mother-seal's, and a seal's eyes are +deeply, beautifully tender and bright. + +She laughed aloud at times, though none but herself could hear it, in +the pure physical joy of living and being so very much alive. She was +happier than she had ever been in all her life before. And one time, +as she lay afloat with her arms outspread, she looked up at the pale +sun in the thin gray sky, and all inconsequently said, "Yes--he is +good. He is good. He is good," and her face was golden-rosier than +ever when she was conscious that she had said it aloud. + +She was sitting in the side of the sandhill, combing her hair with her +fingers, when she heard his distant hail. And she climbed the hill and +waved to him that he might come. + +"I don't need to ask if you enjoyed your bathe," he said, as he came +up. "I can see it in your face." + +"It was delightful. I would like to bathe every day." + +"Two days ago?" he laughed. + +"No, days like this. Oh, it _was_ so good! And now I am hungry. Let +us eat." + +So they sat in the wire grass of the hill-top and ate their frugal +meal, she with her wonderful hair all astream, the ends spread wide to +dry on the sand; and he, clean, and strong, and brown, as fine a figure +of a man as she had ever met, though his raiment was nothing to boast +of. And he said to himself, "She is the most wonderful girl I have +ever seen. I would like to kiss her hair, her hands, her feet." + +And she, to herself,--"He is good. He is good. He is good." + +And, buried deep in both their minds, yet fully alive, was the thought +that it might be that all their lives would have to be passed on that +lean bank of sand--together. + + + + +XL + +On their way back, Wulf lingered behind for a moment or two and came +along presently with rabbits enough for their requirements, but did not +obtrude them on her notice. + +"It has been a day of delight," she said, as they drew to their ship. +"Let us do it again.... I wonder if that man has got home." + +"Not yet. I can see his raft on the spit. Just as well we're here +before him." + +"If only he were not here at all----" + +"Even the original Paradise had its serpent." + +"This one cannot beguile this woman at all events." + +It was almost dark when they saw Macro's laden raft lumbering slowly +across to the 'Jane and Mary.' + +"He won't starve," commented The Girl. + +"Nor go dry. I see at least half a dozen kegs there. He's making +provision for bad weather. The gale may blow up again during the +night. See the birds whirling about over there." + +"Will you have to watch again?" + +"Safer so, though the chances are the kegs will keep him quiet for a +time. He's probably been on short allowance the last day or two." + +"It is monstrous that you should have to. I wish----" and the petulant +stamp of her stout little brogue conveyed no suggestion of a blessing. + +"Time may work for us," he said quietly. "He is our thorn in the +flesh----" + +"He's a whole axe if you give him the chance." + +"I won't, I promise you. I cannot afford to give him any chances," and +she knew that in that his thought was wholly for her. + +Wulf dutifully patrolled his deck when it grew dark, though he +acknowledged to himself that the precaution was probably unnecessary, +for this night at all events. Still, he was there to protect The Girl +and he would suffer no risks. + +It was possibly the distant sight of him, tramping doggedly to and fro +in the wan moonlight, that set Macro's rum-heated passions on fire. +Wulf heard him spating curses as he tumbled over on to his raft and +came splashing across. He went quietly to the companion-way and closed +the door, then picked up his axe and stood waiting, with a somewhat +quickened heart at the thought that the next few minutes might end the +matter one way or the other. + +"---- ---- ---- ---- you, you white-livered skunk! Come out and fight +for her like a man if you want her," was the mate's rough challenge, +supplemented by a broadside of oaths, as he drew near. + +Wulf stood looking quietly down at him. Words were sheer waste. + +"D'ye hear me? Come down an' fight it out like a' man, an' best man +takes her, ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- you!" + +He bumped roughly against the side and picked up his axe. Curses +foamed out of him in a ceaseless torrent, and he made as though he +would come swarming over. + +"Keep off," said Wulf. "If you try to come aboard I'll cut you down." + +"Come down then and fight it out if you're half a man, ---- ---- ---- +---- you! What right have you to her, I'd like to know, ---- ---- ---- +---- ----!"--he picked up his oar and whirled it round at Wulf's head +and it splintered on the hard-wood rail. + +"Get back to your ship, man, and don't make a fool of yourself," said +Wulf. "I won't fight you. If you try to come on board here I'll make +an end of you." + +"Ye skunk, ye! Ye ---- ---- ---- white-livered cowardly skunk!"--etc. +etc. etc.--to all of which Wulf made no reply, which provoked the +furious one more than any words he could have flung at him. + +He remained there, hurling abuse and invective at the steady-faced man +up above, till the night air cooled the boiling in his brain. Then he +seized his splintered oar and thrashed away home. Wulf quietly resumed +his sentry-go, watched till all was quiet on the 'Jane and Mary,' and +then went down. + +To his surprise The Girl was sitting by the fire. He had supposed her +in bed, had hoped she was fast asleep and had heard nothing of the +bombardment. + +"He has gone?" she asked. + +"Yes, he has gone home to bed. I was hoping you were asleep." + +"Asleep! ... And you did not kill him?" + +"He gave me no chance. He invited me on to his raft for a fight----" + +"I heard it all." + +"I'm sorry. He is hardly suitable for a lady's ears." + +"I feel myself a terrible burden to you." + +"But you are not. Very much the reverse. You are----" he began +impulsively, and stopped short. It was too soon to tell all that she +was to him. + +"I am a bone of contention. I bring you in peril of your life----" + +"And I thank God I am here to protect you. Now, take my advice and go +to bed. I will bring my blankets and lie at the foot of the stairs +here." + + + + +XLI + +The next day passed without any sign of the mate, beyond the thin blue +smoke that floated up from his hatchway. + +Wulf surmised that he was making up his leeway in the matter of food +and drink, and would probably not be over-eager for battle for the time +being. Nevertheless he relaxed no whit of his vigilance, and after +watching on deck for half the night slept the rest at the foot of the +companion-way as before. + +Contrary to his expectations, the gale did not work itself up again, +but the sky was still low and dark and full of thin smoky clouds +hurrying along towards the north-east, and he was not at all sure that +they had done with it yet. + +On the following day, to their great satisfaction, Macro set off early +for the wreckage, and when they had watched him out of sight they went +ashore for a ramble, and to get water and fresh meat. + +The Girl must of course make straight for the place where they had met +Mrs Seal and her baby, but, to her great disappointment, there was not +a sign of them. + +"And I did so want to see them again," said she. "She would have known +us by this time and not been afraid. Perhaps she would even have let +me touch it." + +"They are much happier in the water," he said, with a smile, for her +face made him think of a child who had lost its toy. + +She would not be satisfied till they had searched far along the shore, +but nothing came of it, and she was disconsolate. The day was not +cheerful and she would not bathe. They filled their buckets, and he +caught some rabbits and they returned early to the ship. + +Her humours appealed to him, even though he could not possibly +understand them completely. Everything she did, and the way she did +it, and indeed everything connected with her, was coming to have a +vital interest for him. + +He could not know how the anguished fear in that mother-seal's eyes had +touched her heart, how she had yearned to pick up that sleek little +baby and fondle it in her arms, how she had been hoping and longing to +see them again, how great her disappointment had been. She felt bereft +and went off early to bed. + +Wulf lay smoking and thinking till night fell, and then went up to do +sentry. He paced the deck till midnight, saw no sign of movement +aboard the 'Jane and Mary,' and went below and was soon sound asleep. + +He woke once with a start, believing he had heard a footstep. Then a +ripple clop-clopped against the side of the ship and he lay down again +satisfied. + +He was awakened again by a hand gripping his shoulder, and, starting +up, found a ghostly white figure bending over him, and The Girl's voice +in his ear, + +"There is something wrong. Can you not smell it?" + +For a moment he imagined her dreaming. Then his nose warned him that +she was right. There was something unusual in the atmosphere. + +Even when their fire was no more than a heap of gray ashes with a +golden core, and one of their lee ports was open, the faint, not +unpleasant smell of wood smoke hung about the cabin. But this was +quite different,--an acrid, pungent smell as of burning fat. He +glanced at the fire and raked his mind for an explanation of it. + +"It is worse in my room," she said, and he went quietly to the sacred +little passage off which her sleeping-apartment opened. + +Yes, it was worse there, and what it meant he could not imagine. + +"You have not been burning anything?" he asked. + +"Nothing. The horrid smell wakened me." + +He turned and ran up the companion-steps, with a vague idea that +something in the hold might have caught fire, though how that could be +was beyond him. There was nothing there but their reserve stores, and +certainly nothing that could take fire of its own accord. Besides, it +was two days since he had been down there, and he never took a light, +as the hatch, when shoved askew, gave all that was needed. + +He fumbled the bolts of the little doors open, but the doors seemed +jammed. He pushed. They remained firm. He made sure of the bolts +again and put his shoulder to the doors. They resisted all his efforts. + +"Good Lord!" he said, in something of a panic. "What's all this?" + +He brushed hastily down past The Girl again, groped for his boots by +the side of his blankets, pulled them on, and picked up his axe, with +the certainty in his mind that something wrong was toward and it was as +well to be fully armed. + +Then he smashed away at the woodwork till it was in fragments, and he +could climb up through the bristling splinters and over an unexpected +plank that had somehow got across the doors and prevented their opening. + +The first thing he saw when he got on deck was a faint glow about the +main-hatch opening, and smoke pouring out of it. Running to it, a +glance showed him a fierce fire roaring somewhere down below. A cry of +dismay at his side told him that The Girl had scrambled up after him. + +"The buckets," he jerked, and she sped back, tearing skin and garment +on the splintered doors, while he sought and found a length of rope. + +His voice was steady again, though his hands shook with agitation, as +he slipped one end of the rope through the handle of the bucket and +held the two ends, while the bucket hung in the bight and so could be +released instantly by loosing one end of the rope. He filled both +buckets and with a hasty, "Hand them down to me and fill again as I +throw them up," lowered himself into the hold. + +The fire was burning fiercely against the after starboard bulkhead, +which, as it happened, was the one nearest The Girl's sleeping-cabin. +Their lighter stores had been moved from their usual places and heaped +about it and were blazing furiously. The bulkhead itself was on fire, +but had apparently only just caught. + +Wulf flung his first bucketful at it, and it answered with a hiss like +a snarling curse, and showed a red-starred black blotch amid the +crawling yellow flames. + +He tossed the empty bucket up on deck, and gave the bulkhead another +dose with his second, and as he tossed that one up the first came +dangling down filled again. + +"Good girl!" he shouted exultantly, to reassure her. "Plenty more! We +shall do it all right," and the full buckets came dangling down as fast +as he could empty them. + +A score or so of bucketfuls ended it, and he climbed up, black with +smoke and streaked with steam and sweat, and very grateful to be in +fresh air again. + +The night was just thinning towards the dawn. The Girl was sitting on +the coaming of the hatch in a state of collapse, her wet garment +clinging clammily about her, her head in her hands, her slender figure +shaken with convulsive sobs. His anger boiled furiously at thought of +the malice that had planned her suffering--her possible death. Love +and pity swelled his heart for her. She looked so utterly forlorn and +broken with the fight. + +"It is all right, dear!"--he could not help it, it slipped out in spite +of him. "Come away down to the cabin. You are shivering. You are wet +through and torn to pieces. You have done splendidly, but it was an +upsetting piece of business all round. Come!" and he put his arm under +hers and drew her up. + +She was so limp, however, that he had almost to carry her, and the feel +of her unconscious sobs under his enfolding arm quickened his blood +again. + +At the companion-doors he had to release her and go back for his axe. +A stout plank had been cunningly bound against the doors by a rope tied +round the companion. His lips tightened sternly as he chopped the rope +through and the plank fell to the deck. + +He carried her gently down and laid her on his blankets, put some +sticks on the fire and blew them into flame, and set on the kettle, +which was fortunately full. By the time he had made some coffee and +dashed it with rum, she had recovered herself and was sitting up in the +blankets with one drawn closely about her. + +"That was an unnerving business," he said, as he handed her her cup. +"I'm afraid you had the worst of it. You have a lot of scratches--and +your hands! Oh, I am truly sorry----" + +"It was the rope," she said quietly, looking at the rasped rawness of +them. "It was all horrible. How did it get on fire?" + +"It was a deliberate attempt on the part of that wretch to make an end +of us." + +"No!"--and she gazed at him in blankest amazement. + +"Without doubt. He blocked our doors here with a plank and a rope, and +then started the fire down in the hold." + +"Is such wickedness possible?" + +"To a madman living chiefly on rum anything is possible." + +"He deserves to die." + +"Richly. He deserves no mercy. The thought of cutting him down with +an axe was horrible. But after this----" + +"There is no safety for us while he lives." + +"I'm afraid there isn't." + +Sleep, he knew, would brace her unstrung nerves better than any thing +else, so, after bathing her hands in luke-warm water and anointing them +with some of the rendered pork fat she kept for her cooking, he induced +her to go and lie down in her bunk. Her other scratches she said she +would attend to when she could see them properly. + +Then he went on deck and drew up a bucket of water and washed off his +own stains, and afterwards smoked many pipes as he pondered the +unpleasantly weighty subject of Macro. For that matters could go on +like this was out of the question. + + + + +XLII + +He had cakes made and breakfast all ready long before she came out of +her room, still visibly feeling the effects of the night's proceedings. + +"I am stiff and sore all over," she said, lowering herself carefully to +her seat on the floor. "And you?" + +"Sorer in mind than in body." + +"What will you do?" + +"I shall go over presently and tell him that now he must look out for +himself. I will end him, the first chance I get, as I would a wild +beast." + +"He will try to kill you on the spot." + +"He won't get the chance. I'll see to that." + +"I shall go with you." + +"No." + +"Yes, indeed. My heart would thump itself to pieces, waiting here all +alone." + +"He is dangerous, and he has a vile tongue when it runs away with +him----" + +"I do not care. It is no more dangerous for me than for you. +No--no--no!"--as he was about to argue the matter,--"I cannot be left +behind," and nothing he could say could move her. + +They saw no sign of life on the 'Jane and Mary,' not so much as a whiff +of smoke from the companion-hatch. + +"Perhaps he fled when he saw his horrid scheme had failed," suggested +The Girl hopefully. + +"Not very likely, I'm afraid, but we can go across and see. Won't you +be good now and take my advice----" + +"I'll be good, but I won't stop here alone." + +So perforce he took her with him on the raft, and paddled quietly +across to the other ship. + +But before they reached it she lifted a warning finger for him to stop +paddling and listen. And on their anxious ears there broke the +strangest medley of sounds conceivable, and chilled them in the +hearing. Wild bursts of laughter, cut short by yells of rage or sudden +screams, as of one in mortal fear,--hoarse shouts, torrents of oaths, +dull flailing blows which sounded like fists on wood, and, through it +all, the never-ceasing yells and screams. + +"He has gone mad," panted The Girl, very white in the face, and looked +at him with wide anxious eyes. + +"Delirium tremens,"--with an understanding nod. "He could stand more +than most, but a man cannot live on rum alone," and he paddled slowly +towards the ship, his face knitted with doubts as to what he should do. + +He was in two minds. If he left the man to himself he would inevitably +die in the end, for he had unlimited liquor on board and would turn to +it at once, like a hog to its mire, as soon as this bout ran its +course. On the other hand, every fragment of professional instinct in +him impelled him to the rescue. + +Never in his life had he withheld aid from one in extremity. And yet +it seemed monstrously absurd--to drag a man back from death solely for +the purpose of letting him do his best to kill you, the first chance +that offered. + +And he had more than himself to think for. Suppose he saved this +wretched man, and was worsted by him later on, what of The Girl? She +would have reason enough to blame his pusillanimity, and he himself +would curse it with his last breath. + +But was it fair fighting--to see your enemy in a hole and make no +effort to save him? Old-time Chivalry would never even have argued the +matter. It would have helped the enemy out, handed him his weapons, +and courteously awaited the renewal of the combat. Ah--times were +changed.... And this man was compound of treachery and malice. + +Thoughts such as these whirled through his brain before he had covered +the short space to the other ship. + +"Wait here!" he said to The Girl, and climbed through the well-known +hole in the side,--and she followed him close in spite of his frowning +objection. She had not come thus far to be out of the critical moment. + +He ran down to the cabin, and went straight to the mate's door. The +dreadful sounds,--the shouts and yells and cries of fear, the furious +oaths, the wild thumping blows--filled the cabin with horrors. Even in +that anxious moment The Girl was cognisant of a dreary, dirty, +repulsive look about it which had not been there before. It was more +like the den of a wild beast than a living-room. Some of the silken +hangings were torn down, the one or two that were left hung by single +pegs. It looked as though a maniac had chased his mad fancies round +the room and sought them behind the draperies. + +Wulf, gripping his axe, opened the door into the passage, looked in, +then went in. And The Girl drew near, to be at hand in case of need, +and stood shuddering. + +"Keep off! Keep off, ye blank-eyed deevils! ---- ---- ----! Wi' your +bloody beaks and tearing claws.... Keep off! Keep off ---- ---- ---- +ye!" and the black fists, all bruised and bleeding, whirled and struck +at the roof and sides of the bunk as he fought the birds the rum had +bred in his brain. Then, as they beat him down in a pestiferous crowd, +he gave a shrill scream and doubled himself over in a heap in his bunk, +with his hands clasped over his head to save it from their attacks. +Then up again, shouting and fighting for dear life, and down flat again +with a scream, cowering in uttermost extremity of terror, while oaths +dribbled out of him like water out of a spout. + +Wulf came out and closed the door, and pushed her brusquely up the +stairs to the deck. + +"You should not have come down," he said sternly. "This is no place +for you," and then, seeing how white her face was, he added more +gently, "There is no danger--except to him. He is fighting for his +life with the birds. I can do nothing for him--except get rid of all +his rum. He would turn to it the moment he comes round, and it is +poison in his present state." + +He went down again and rooted about everywhere, found two kegs in the +cabin under the torn hangings, and another in Macro's room, with a +spigot in it. He carried them up on deck, staved in the heads with his +axe, and emptied them overboard. In the main-hold he found three more +and did the same with them. + +"When he gets through, his throat will be like a lime-kiln. There is a +bucket of water down there. I will put in it the coffee we left from +breakfast and leave it in his cabin. It will be the best thing for him +if he will drink it. But he'll be crazy for rum---- I'll take you +back and get the coffee. I'm sorry you came." + +There was strong disapproval in his tone, but she did not resent it. +After all, his thought was entirely for her in the matter. + +"You're sure he won't fly at you?" she asked anxiously. + +"He's much too busy with the birds. Besides, I shall not touch him or +speak to him. It is best to leave him to himself. We will leave some +food by him also," and she obediently let herself down before him on to +the raft. + +"It does seem absurd----" she began impulsively, as they joggled along. + +"To keep him alive so that he may try again to kill us,"--he nodded. +"I know. But there it is, as the country-folk say. However, he won't +live long if he keeps on at the rum. As soon as he gets better he'll +go straight out to the pile to get more, unless he's too weak. It's +terribly wasteful work, what he's at, and no food to work on." + +"Whether it's wrong or not, I cannot help wishing he would die," she +said passionately. "It is too dreadful." + +"I don't want his blood on my hands if I can help it," he said briefly. +But he felt as she did. + + + + +XLIII + +After carrying supplies to the mate, he came back for her, and they +went ashore for fresh water, and he providently secured a couple more +rabbits. + +The Girl was very quiet, depressed, and very unlike her usual bright +self. But he was not surprised. Her anxiety for the future was enough +to account for it, and there was, besides, the reaction from the +strenuous upsetting through which they had just passed. + +Each morning he went across to see how the sick man was getting on, and +she let him go alone, but followed him with anxious eyes, and stood in +the bows watching till she saw him safely on his way back. + +On the third day they took advantage of the enemy's enforced inactivity +to go out to the pile and make good the losses caused by the fire. And +all the time they were away The Girl was in a state of dire anxiety +lest he should have discovered their absence and got across and fired +their ship. But to her great relief it was there all right when they +got back, and showed no signs of visitation. + +On the fourth morning Wulf found his patient sufficiently recovered to +be spoken to plainly as to the future, and he did not mince matters. +While he spoke, the mate lay watching him through almost closed eyes, +just one narrow line between the heavy lids catching the light from the +port and imparting a singularly sinister look to the haggard face. The +veiled eyes watched him cautiously, charged with what?--suspicion? +hatred? treachery? All these, Wulf imagined. But they gave no sign. +They were like the eyes of a snake, of a caged beast being rated by its +keeper. + +"Your dastardly attempt on us failed," said Wulf, to the steely glint +of the black soul behind the narrowed lids. "And now,--understand! +You are outside the pale. Leave us alone and we leave you alone. +Interfere further with us and I will kill you as I would a dangerous +beast. Now you are warned, and your blood be on your own head." + +The other made no sign. The narrow gleam of the dark eyes out of the +rigid impassivity of the dark face was more bodeful than a torrent of +curses. + +As he left the ship, Wulf picked up and took with him the only two axes +he could find. Magnanimity had its limits, but it was wasted here. + +"Well?" asked The Girl anxiously, when he returned. + +"He is almost himself again, but very much weakened of course. I have +given him final warning that if he molests us further I shall kill him." + +"It would have been simpler to let him die." + +"Simpler--yes, but I could not bring myself to it. We'll fight him +fair if fight we must." + +The weather still kept dull and gray and heavy, with a reserve of +menace and malice in it akin to that of the mate. The sky was veiled +with ever-hurrying clouds. The sea was smooth, with something of +treachery in its sullen quietude, as though it were only biding its +time to break out again and do its worst. + +The following morning, to their surprise, they saw Macro start out +early for the wreckage. And Wulf, watching him grimly, said, "He's +after his poison. And now he'll probably drink himself to death. It's +amazing the hold it takes on a man. He won't trouble us much longer." + +They spent the day ashore, but the vivacity and enjoyment of that other +day were awanting. Perhaps it was the cheerless weather,--the physical +and mental strain of these later days,--the thought that their devil +was loosed again,--anyhow, a subtle sense of foreboding. Whatever it +was it weighed upon their spirits, and a long tramp up the beach, in +forlorn hope of meeting Mistress Seal again, did not succeed in raising +them. + +"What is it, I wonder?" said The Girl. "Something is going to happen, +I know. I have felt like this before, and always something dreadful +has followed." + +"But you never knew what, beforehand? Perhaps you have the gift of +prevision,--the second sight." + +"I may have, but it doesn't go so far as to explain things. I just +feel anxious for it to be over and done with." + +"What?" + +"What's coming, whatever it is." + +"We must be extra careful for a time, till you are sure the trouble is +past," he said, with a smile, but he felt the weight on his spirits as +she did. + +Physically, however, their long tramp did them good, and they returned +home with famous appetites. + +"I wonder if he's back yet," said The Girl, as they were paddling to +the ship. There was no doubt as to where her fears centred. + +"I don't see the raft. We'll see better from the deck," and when they +had climbed aboard they looked at once towards the spit and saw the +mate's raft still lying there. He was not back yet. + +They ate, and rested, and until the darkness swallowed the spit, the +raft still lay there. + +"He's staying late," said Wulf. "Maybe he's broached a keg and taken +too much. It would be what I would expect from him under the +circumstances." + +He patrolled the deck, after she had gone to bed, listening for the +sound of the mate's oar. But he heard nothing, and at last made up his +mind that the fellow had probably waited too late and had made himself +snug out there for the night, though, for himself, the idea would not +have commended itself. There was little danger, however, of his coming +across in the dark, so he went down and slept soundly at the foot of +the companion-steps. + +All the next day they were on the look-out for him, but he did not come. + +Wulf had told her of his idea that he had probably found means of +passing the night out there, in which case he would no doubt put in +another long day rooting for treasure. So that it was not until night +had fallen again, and the raft still lay waiting on the spit, that he +decided in his own mind that something was wrong. + +"I shall go across to the pile in the morning to find out," he said, as +they sat by the fire. + +"I shall go with you." + +"I would very much sooner you stopped here." + +"And suppose it was all a trick on his part. He may be hiding in the +sandhills. He would watch you go and then come out on me. No," with a +very decided shake of the head, "I go with you." + +So, in the morning, they set off, walked along the spit to the western +point and waded and swam to the wreckage, keeping a keen look-out for +first sight of the mate. + +"Those hideous birds!" panted The Girl, as the skirling, squabbling +crew swooped and hovered over the far end of the pile. + +"We'll keep as far away from them as possible," and they crept up at a +distance, and he proceeded to make a raft, since a supply of further +stores was needed to make good their losses by the fire. + +So far they had come upon no signs of Macro. From the top of the pile +they looked carefully all round, but beyond the usual smashed boxes and +cases there was nothing to show that he had ever been there. + +"Where on earth can he have got to?" said Wulf. + +"Perhaps he's fallen into the sea, or down into some crack," said The +Girl, not unhopefully. + +"It is always possible. He might not recognise how the fever had +pulled him down." + +They loaded their raft without any interference from the birds, beyond +the blood-curdling clamour of their angry disputations. They were +quite ready to go, but still the whereabouts of the mate was a mystery, +and Wulf was loth to leave it at that. He might be lying broken in +some crack. If he had come to some sudden end it would be best to know +it, if that were possible, so that their fears--on their own account as +well as his--might be at rest. On the other hand it was quite +impossible to rake over the whole pile. That would be a good month's +work. + +A grim idea shot suddenly into Wulf's mind, as he stood looking keenly +round from the highest point he could clamber up to. It came at sight +of the birds whirling and clamouring round the end of the pile. +Suppose ... oh,--horrible! ... yet it might very well be. + +"What is it?" asked The Girl anxiously, for his lips and face had +tightened ominously at his thought. + +"Nothing, maybe. I'm going over there to see...." + +"Can you see anything of him?" + +"No." + +He poled the raft along the edge of the pile towards the hovering cloud +of birds. + +"Now, I'm going to swim along here and climb up. I want to see what +they're at. You will be quite safe here." + +She glanced at him with a startled look, fathoming his grim thought +instantly, and it blanched her face for a moment. + +"They may turn on you," she jerked. + +"They seem too busy." + +He let himself down into the water and swam noiselessly along the side +of the pile, and she stood watching anxiously. + +When he reached the outskirts of the whirling cloud he found a sodden +crack, and drew himself in, and disappeared from her sight. Her heart +kicked till it felt like choking her. Her face was strained, her eyes +wide and fearful. She felt horribly alone. + +Inside his niche, Wulf climbed cautiously, the curdling clamour very +close. Now and again a feathery fiend with eyes like glass and +reddened beak swooped past his hiding-place, with a shrill cry of +warning to the rest at sight of him, or it might be of invitation. + +He got his eyes above the top at last, in spite of pointed attentions +from angry outsiders, scanned the spot where the shrieking crew centred +most thickly, and dreamed of what he got a glimpse of there for weeks +afterwards. + +---- The remnants of what had been a man, all pecked and scratched and +torn to shreds,--white, clean-picked bones showing through fragments of +his clothing, myriads of squawking birds, of all shapes and sizes, +clustered on it like bees on a comb, hustling and fighting one another +with shrill screams and thrashing wings and red beaks. It was only +when, through some unusually bitter struggle, the mass writhed and rose +for a moment, only to settle more closely the next, that he could see. +Not far from the body was a broached keg which the birds had overturned +in their strife. It explained everything to him. + +He dropped back down his cleft, sick at the sight, grateful for the +clean feel of the water. He plunged his head under and spat out the +feeling of it all. Then he made his way quietly back to The Girl, and +she had no need to ask what he had found. He nodded, and climbed up on +to the raft and pushed quickly away. + +"You are sure he is dead?" she asked, after a time. + +"Horribly dead," and told her no more till later, and then not very +much. "It is strange to think of it all," he said, in conclusion. "He +always feared the birds. In his delirium it was the birds he was +fighting. And the birds got him at last." + +The manner of his death shocked and horrified them. But the knowledge +that the menace of him had passed out of their lives was untellable +relief. + + + + +BOOK IV + +LOVE IN A MIST + + + + +XLIV + +The effect of the mate's death on The Girl's spirits was visible at +once. The cloud had lifted from her face before they got fairly home. +Her eyes shone untroubled, though a look of horror and disgust came +into them whenever they rested on the swirling gray cloud behind them. +In her very movements Wulf noticed a new and gracious freedom. + +And his judgment did her no injustice in the matter, nor imputed it, in +any slightest degree, to mere exultation over a fallen enemy. For he +knew to the full in what terror of the dead man she had lived, and how +the fear of him, both for herself and himself, had lain like a weight +on her soul and darkened all her outlook. + +He felt as she did about it. He could not regret the fact of the man's +death, but the manner of it gave him poignant distress. + +In spite of their hard work they had neither of them much appetite for +food that night. They turned in early and slept as they had not slept +for long, without fear and without strain. The darkness was no longer +pregnant with ungaugeable terrors. The dawn was like the beginning of +a new life to them. + +Wulf, indeed, saw again that night, and many a night thereafter, the +horror of the clustering birds and that over which they bristled and +fought. But he woke each time to the immeasurable relief of the man's +death. That had been essential to their own safety, but he thanked God +with his whole heart that it had not been by his hand that he had had +to die. For that he never could be sufficiently grateful. He had +played him fair and more than fair. He was dead, and their consciences +and their hearts were alike at rest. + +They woke next morning to the close folding of the mist, and he had to +set to work at once making good the broken companion-doors to keep it +out of the cabin as much as possible. + +Being but a poor carpenter, the only way he could do this was by +nailing a blanket to the top of the hatch and pegging it down tightly +to the top step. But he foresaw that the next gale would blow his +stop-gap to pieces and destroy their comfort below. So did the dead +man's deeds live after him, and it was not the only one. + +They were sitting at their mid-day meal, when the thick silence of the +mist outside was rent by a shrill frightened scream right above their +heads, and almost simultaneous with it a heavy thump, and then, on the +deck above them, blows and screams and the sound of some large body +tumbling to and fro. + +The Girl sprang up with a white face and scared eyes and a word of +dismay. Wulf picked up his axe and burst through his carefully +adjusted blanket at the top of the companion. Then she heard the +chop-chop of his axe on the deck, and the fall of something into the +water, and he came down laughing at the start it had given him also. + +"It was the biggest bird I ever saw," he said. "It had banged itself +against the mast, I think, and was flopping all over the place. I +chopped its head off and pitched it overboard. It must have measured +six feet at least from tip to tip of its wings. It gave you a start." + +"I was just thinking of that man and how different everything was now +he is gone, and then that horrid scream----" + +"Yes, it was enough to make anyone jump." + +"It seemed to me for a moment that it was his spirit come back to +trouble us still, as he had done while he lived." + +"It won't come. Unless it's got inside a bird, as he always said. You +must try to forget all about him." + +"It is not easy. But, whether it is wicked of me or not, I thank God +he is dead." + +"And I thank God that he did not die by my hand. I shall never cease +to be thankful for that." + +"We shall never be able to build a boat now," she said presently, +following out the natural train of her thought. + +"I'm afraid not,"--with a doleful shake of the head. "Unless you have +had any experience in such things." + +"And so we may have to pass the rest of our lives here." + +"It is better to consider how very much worse off we might be. For +myself.... Besides, one never knows. Some unexpected chance may turn +up." + +"And you can bear to think of living on and on and on here till--the +end?" + +"I can bear to think of it very much better than I could a short time +ago.... No cloud is black on both sides. Look on the bright side. +Either of us might have been here alone. That would have been +terrible----" + +"I should have been dead." + +"But instead of that we are two, we have comfortable shelter, the +mighty blessing of fire, food enough to last us as long as we live---- + +"It sounds like that man in the Bible--the man who had his barns full, +all he wanted to eat and drink, and so he made merry. And that night +he died, if I remember rightly." + +"We are not boasting. We arrived here lacking everything, and +everything has been provided for us. We have reason to be grateful. +Even Macro was necessary. He showed us how to turn the wreck-pile to +account. If I had come ashore alone I doubt if I would ever have gone +out to it again. It did not attract me.... And--he found you and +brought you ashore." + +"And that was the beginning of the end." + +"No--the beginning of better things. We will hope the end is a long +way off yet." + +"I wonder ... and what it will be," said she thoughtfully. + +And he wondered if in her heart there was any sweet white seed of hope +akin to that which was striking its roots so deeply in his own,--and if +not, if it might be possible to plant it there. + + + + +XLV + +This new life, free from the shadow of perpetual menace, was full of +rare and delicate charm for both of them, differing only in quality and +degree according to that wherewith Nature had endowed them. + +One root-thought was inevitable to both their minds--that here were +they two, cut off from the rest of the world, probably for the term of +their natural lives. Here, as far as they could foresee, they two must +live, alone,--together; and here, in the end, they must die; their +living and their dying alike unseen and unknown except by their Maker. + +In his heart the white seed of the greater hope was striking deep and +strong, filling his whole being with a new and exquisite delight before +even it had had time to shoot and flower. + +Exile for life on that barren strip of sand, which with Macro as sole +fellow-sufferer would have been barely tolerable, assumed a very +different aspect with Avice Drummond as his companion; and with her as +sole companion, an aspect of supremest joy and expectation. It was no +longer a thing to look forward to with foreboding, or at best with dull +and hopeless acquiescence in the inevitable. The shadow had suddenly +lifted. The desert had suddenly blossomed like the rose. The future +smiled shyly as does the dawn with promise of the day. + +But this new great hope, and the sense of it all in him, were of so +fine and delicate a nature that he hardly dared to whisper it even in +his inmost heart, lest she should see some sign of it and take fright, +and all his hope vanish like smoke in a gale. + +She was so fair and sweet, so charming and gracious, so pre-eminently +and perfectly desirable. It was highest and keenest delight--delight +so keen that at times it had in it the elements of pain--simply to +watch the play of her face, so eloquently responsive to the quick +emotional soul within,--the large dark eyes so clear and frank, so +unreservedly trustful of him. + +He would sooner die than forfeit one iota of the honour her faith +conferred on him. And that great springing hope of his must be +carefully covered and concealed, until such time as he should discover +in her eyes the outlook of a hope responsive. + +It would come. It would come, he said to himself--in time--when she +should have come to know him still better and to trust him still more +fully--to the uttermost. + +For the ultimate goal of his desire was, in the manner of its possible +attainment at all events, somewhat nebulous to him, though it set the +whole distant future ablaze with rosy fires. In the nature of things, +circumstanced as they were, such ultimate attainment, if ever it were +reached, could be reached only by the treading of unusual ways. And to +require that of any girl--and especially of a girl such as this, +high-born, intelligent beyond most, and deeply versed in the great +world's ways--was asking of her more than any true man, truly loving, +could bring himself to ask,--unless to both their hearts no other thing +were possible,--unless the barrier of Circumstance left no other +possible hope or way. + +And for the proving of that, Time held the keys and must have his say. + +He wondered often, and with keenest anxiety, if her heart could +possibly have come through all the strange experiences of her previous +life unchallenged, unassailed, unwon. Seeing that she was what she was +it seemed to him almost impossible. + +She was to him so compact of goodness and beauty, so fashioned to +bewitch, that he could not imagine any man impervious to her grace and +charm. What manner of men could they be who, consorting with her daily +and on terms of equality, had failed to capture a heart so made for +loving? + +He recalled in minutest detail all she had told him of her past life +and friends and acquaintances, figured them all in his mind, weighed +them jealously in the scales of his own devotion, and could not +discover one trace of emotion towards one or another, but rather of +aversion towards all. + +Again and again she had expressed the joy she had felt at the prospect +of her escape to a freer and larger life. It was, of course, not +impossible that that feeling might but hide some heart-breaking +disappointment of the earlier times. But he did not think so. She was +to him truth personified, though still a woman. He believed in her +absolutely, as a man should in the woman who holds his heart. So far +as assurance could go,--without the definite question which he longed +to put but did not yet dare, lest the hopeful anxiety of his present +state should be turned to hopeless regret,--he felt fairly safe in +building on a rosy future. + +How she regarded himself he could not surely say. But she trusted him +and that was a good foundation for his building. + +And she? Well, that is our story! + + + + +XLVI + +That thick white bank of mist clung to them for the best part of a +week. But, freed from all fear of treacherous assault, it troubled +them little. + +Once they had to go ashore for water, but got back safely by means of +their guiding-line, and as they pushed through the fog they recalled +that former time, when the mate's grim figure fashioned itself suddenly +out of the clammy whiteness and brought them near to a disastrous end. + +For the rest they had no scarcity. The fish bit as well in the fog as +in the clear, and they had pork and flour for weeks to come. + +In their narrow confinement to the ship, their intimacy and knowledge +of one another grew with the days. She talked well, and he was an +excellent listener, and led her on and on to tell him of the past and +all that had interested her in it, and mused on all she said, and +sought in it enlightenment as to her heart's freedom or otherwise. + +Once, when she had been roving at length through her earlier days, she +broke off suddenly with, "But, mon Dieu, I am doing all the talking! +Now, tell me of yourself!" + +"I have so little to tell compared with you. Shall I tell you of +school-days--of college--of the hospitals--of my patients and their +ailments?" + +"Tell me why you left it all to seek the new life." + +"For very much the same reason as you did, I imagine. I was living in +a groove and I wanted something wider and larger." + +"And now you are sorry." + +"So very sorry that if I had the chance again, and knew beforehand all +that was to come, I would jump at it like the fish to our hooks," as he +hauled one aboard and knocked it an the head. "And you?" + +"Ye--es, I think I would have come also. Not perhaps if I had known I +would have to float about on that mast. It was so terribly +cold,"--with a shiver. "For the rest, I have no regrets, but it is +perhaps too soon to say. In ten years hence I may have come to be +sorry." + +"Ay--ten years hence!" he said musingly. "Many things may happen in +ten years. There's a fish on your hook," and she hauled it in and let +him dispose of it. + +As they sat at supper that night the blanket which supplied the place +of companion-doors began to flap, and, going up to look, he found the +mist whirling away before a gusty breeze. + +"It's going to blow," he told her, "and when it's blown itself out we +may have a spell of fine weather again," and he proceeded to block the +opening with some planks he had chipped to size as well as he could +with his axe. + +The wind was rising rapidly, and before they turned in for the night +the birds had all come in and were whirling and screaming round the +ship, and lighting on it as was their custom in bad weather. But they +had grown accustomed to their clamour and both slept soundly. + +Wulf was shaken back to life in the dead of the early morning by a +restive jerk of the ship at her rusty anchor-chain, followed by a +momentary sense of the unusual. And while he lay sleepily considering +the matter, his bunk heeled slowly over--over--over, and rolled him +right against the side of the ship. The sound of a heavy fall, +somewhere beyond, made him scramble out very wide awake, full of +wonder, but dimly perceptive of what must have happened. The rusty +chain had evidently parted, the ship had drifted ashore broadside on, +and the force of the wind had caused her to heel over. The sound he +had heard was, he feared, of Miss Drummond's falling out of her bunk. + +He flung on some clothes and clawed his way out to the cabin. The +floor of it was tilted up at such an angle that he had to claw his way +up by the side wall as best he could. + +"Are you hurt?" he cried, outside The Girl's door. + +"Bruised a bit. Whatever has happened?" + +"The cable has parted and we're ashore on our beam-ends. No danger, I +think." + +"I'll be out in a minute." + +Then he became aware of a smell of burning, and found that the sand +hearth with its core of fire had slid downhill and was smouldering +among the silken draperies, which were beginning to break into flame. + +He crawled back and tore them down and bunched them tightly together, +then scooped up handfuls of sand and smothered every cinder he could +see. + +Miss Drummond's door opened just as he had finished. + +"Stop where you are," he cried. "I'll come up for you. Everything's +on the slope. I think we'd better sit on the floor and let ourselves +down by degrees." + +Outside, the wild screaming of the birds mingled eerily with the rush +and howl of the gale. It was still quite dark. He could not see her, +but groped about till he felt her blankets, then found her hand and +eased her carefully down the slope, and they crouched side by side in +the angle made by the floor and the side of the ship. + +"Will she go down?" she asked quietly. + +"Oh, no. No fear of that. We're aground. But whether she'll ever +come straight again I don't know. Did it pitch you out of your bunk?" + +"Yes. I woke with a crash on the floor, and could not imagine what had +happened." + +"I hope you didn't break yourself." + +She was silent for a moment and then said, "I'm afraid I did break +something, but I couldn't----" + +"Broke something? What?" he asked hastily. + +"My arm feels numb and queer. I fell on it." + +"Let me feel it," and, kneeling in front of her, he groped till he +found it, and felt it with anxious gentle fingers. + +"Good Lord, it's broken!" + +"I'm sorry, but I couldn't help it. You see"---- + +"Your right arm too! Don't move it!" + +He groped about for another length of the silken hangings, tore it +down, and wound it tightly round her arm. "That will keep it in +place," he said. "The moment it is light I will make splints and set +it properly. I am truly sorry you should have suffered so." + +"Better me than you. It might have been worse. What made that chain +break, I wonder? We've had worse storms than this." + +"It was bound to give sooner or later. It was very old and rusted. +Its time came, I suppose, and it went. Sure you have no other damages?" + +"Only bumps and bruises. I felt as if the side of my face were crushed +in, but I don't think it is." + +"Were you in the top bunk?" + +"Yes. I liked to look out of the window in the mornings." + +"That's a good big fall to take unawares." + +"Yes, I fell out like a sack and woke on the floor. What shall we do +if she doesn't come right side up again? We can't live all upside down +like this." + +"There's always the other ship to fall back on ... unless her chain's +broken too." + +"I like our own much the best." + +"But not if she stops like this.... And even if she straightened up +she would heel over again in the next gale. I'm afraid we'll have to +move." + +"I shall always see that man's black face about the cabin, glaring at +me as he used to do as if he wanted to eat me." + +"If we have to go we'll give it a good cleaning, and fresh hangings, +and make it to your taste." + +So they chatted quietly, while the gale and the birds shrieked in +chorus outside, and the waves of the lake thumped scornfully on the +exposed bottom of the ship. + +As soon as he could see, he rooted about for axe and knife, and chopped +up a board and made a set of splints for her arm. And, though he +grieved for the pain she must have suffered, he could not but feel a +huge enjoyment in ministering to her. + +The mere touch of her firm white flesh was a rare delight and made his +fingers tingle. He did his best to think of her only as a patient, but +found it impossible. She was so very much more to him than any +ordinary patient ever had been or could be. + +But for her suffering, he felt inclined to bless the breaking of the +rusty cable. It brought them closer than ever before. It threw her +more than ever on to his care. With her right arm prisoner she would +be able to do but little for herself. She had not been able to dress +herself properly, but had simply swathed a blanket about her night +attire, leaving the broken arm free. But even so, her natural taste +and capability had so arranged it, even in the darkness and moment of +danger, that she looked like a Greek goddess, he said to himself, with +one arm in a sling. One can make allowances for him. + +As the light grew stronger he saw, to his distress, that her face had +also suffered sorely in her fall. The whole right side was badly +bruised and discoloured. + +"Is it very bad?" she asked, as she saw him looking at it. "It feels +sore and my head hums like a bee-hive." + +"You got a bad bump there. I will get some salt water and bathe it. +Our fresh will all be gone in the upset, but I'll sling a bucket under +the scupper-hole and we'll have enough for some coffee presently. When +you've had some breakfast you will go and lie down in my bunk. If you +could get a good sleep it would be the very best thing for you. Does +the arm hurt much?" + +"Not so much as it did, but I don't think I can sleep." + +"You will when you lie down. You've had a bad shaking up. I'm truly +sorry that all the penalties have fallen on you." + +"It's a good thing you didn't break yourself too. Suppose we'd broken +all our arms!" and she laughed a wry little laugh. + +He crawled up the slope, and wormed himself through his barricade, and +came back presently with a bucketful of water, found a piece of soft +linen and insisted on bathing her face, under plea that she would +joggle the broken arm if she tried to do it herself. + +Then he scraped together at the foot of the slope sand enough for a +small hearth, split some wood and kindled a fire, but found it +necessary to open one of the ports to leeward to let out the smoke. +When he did so he found the water within a foot of it and could only +hope they would heel over no more. He proceeded to make cakes and +coffee, and then fried some salt pork, and anointed the bruised face +with the fat of it, and she found it soothing. + +When he had cut up her meat for her, and she had managed to eat a +little, he helped her into his bunk, the upper one because it was +airier and allowed more head-room, and covered her with blankets and +told her to go to sleep. And then, since there was nothing more to be +done, he crawled up the slope and got her blankets off the floor of her +room, and made up a bed for himself in the angle at the foot of the +slope. He lay for a time listening to the gale, and pondering the +possibility of its doing them any further damage, and fell asleep with +the matter still unsettled. + + + + +XLVII + +When he awoke it was close on mid-day, unless his appetite misled him. +He prepared another meal and then tapped gently on The Girl's door. +Receiving no answer he peeped into the dim little room and found her +still sleeping soundly, her head in the crook of her left arm, from +which the wide sleeve of her night-dress had slipped down,--as fair a +picture as man could wish to look upon, in spite of her bruised face +and broken arm. + +He stood watching her for a moment with bated breath, and recalled that +first morning when she came ashore and he had doubted if he could +recover her; and he thanked God again for the dogged obstinacy which +would not let him accept defeat so long as smallest hope remained. + +She moved, opened her heavy eyes, and lay quietly looking at him, just +as she had done that other time, and for a brief space there was no +more recognition in them than there had been then. + +"What is it? Who are you?" she asked, and he suffered a momentary +shock. But for reply he laid his cool strong hand--rougher than it +used to be, but vitally sensitive to the feel of her--on the broad +white forehead, and found it hot and throbbing. That did not greatly +surprise him. There was sure to be a certain feverishness after such +an experience. And he would have given much for five minutes' root +round his old dispensary. + +He had nothing,--nothing but common sense, and his professional +knowledge, and Nature's simplest remedies. He went out quietly and got +cold water and soft linen, and bathed the throbbing forehead and then +laid the wet bandage on it. + +"That is nice," she said softly. "What a trouble I am to you!" + +"Oh, frightful!" he smiled, as he changed the cloth for a fresh one. +"You see how I resent it. Has the arm been hurting?" + +"It hurts at times, but my head is the worst, and I feel bruised all +over." + +"But no more breakages?" he asked anxiously. + +"I don't think so, just bruised and stiff and sore." + +He hesitated for a second. She was so very much more to him than +simply a patient. + +"Will you let me remind you that I am a doctor? The very best cure for +all that is gentle rubbing. If you will allow me I will undertake to +reduce the pains by one half." + +"Then please do, Doctor, for I ache in every bone." + +And he drew off all her blankets but one, and through it proceeded to +massage the aching limbs, and had never in his life found greater +enjoyment in his work. He even ventured to treat the throbbing head in +the same way, drawing his fingers soothingly over the white forehead +and up into the masses of her hair. + +"There is virtue in your fingers," she murmured drowsily, and before he +had done she was sleeping soundly again. Then he laid another wet +cloth on her forehead and left Nature to do her share in the good work. + +It was fortunate that she had little appetite for the next few days. +The cakes he made for her, and water, scrupulously boiled and cooled +and flavoured with coffee, amply satisfied her; and he, himself lived +on pork, fish and fresh meat being unobtainable. + +For four days the gale bellowed round them, but being to leeward, and +protected somewhat by the heeling of the ship, they felt it less than +if they had been on an even keel, and it never kept The Girl from +sleeping. + +Much of that time Wulf spent in an endeavour to obtain salt from sea +water, the lack of it being one of their greatest deprivations. As the +result of many boilings and the careful scraping up of the slight +encrustations on his pans, he managed to get a little, and exultantly +let The Girl taste it as a great treat; but it was a long and slow +process. + +The default of her right arm made her very dependent on him in many +little ways, but never was service more tactfully rendered or more +delighted in by the servitor. And every service, so rendered and +accepted, made for increased knowledge on both sides, and so for closer +intimacy. + +Never, in all her contact with the greater world, had she met any man +in whom she felt such implicit confidence as in this man. Never, since +that first time her wondering eyes met his, when his strenuous +exertions had dragged her back from the dead, had he by word or deed or +look, raised one shadow of fear or mistrust in her mind. In +everything, to the extremest point of death itself, he had proved +himself a simple, brave, and honest gentleman. + +And as she lay there helpless, with the gale howling outside and the +broken waves of the lake clop-clopping in the strakes under her ear, +she had much time to think of him and all he had done and was doing for +her, and all her thought was warm and grateful. + +"I am a dreadful burden to you," she would say. "And you are very very +good to me." + +And he would answer her, with the smile she liked to provoke, "But for +your suffering in the matter I would tell you how grateful I am to that +rotten chain for giving me the opportunity. I count it a privilege as +well as a pleasure." + +And when he had left her, she would think at times how it might have +been with her if it were not this man but the other with whom she had +been left alone. And she would shiver at the thought, and then +remember that if the other had been alone she would not have been +there, for he could never have drawn her back from the dead as this one +had done. + +And she thought also at times of their fight with the other in the fog, +and followed that idea up and shivered still more. For if the mate had +killed this man it would indeed have gone hard with her. Ay, she had +much to be thankful for, and thankful she was. + +And as to the future.... It was all vague and dim, as the future +always must be, but she had no fear of it, because she trusted this man +so perfectly. + +Vague and dim it might be, but it was shot with rosy gleams. + +Whatever he might ask of her she would hold it right because he asked +it. She had found him worthy. She would trust him completely, ask +what he might. Yes, ... ask ... what ... he ... might. + + + + +XLVIII + +"The sun's coming out," was his cheerful announcement, one morning when +he came in with her breakfast. "And here's some fish for you at last." + +"The sight of it makes me hungry." + +"That's the best news you've given me for four days. There's some salt +for you in payment," he said, with full pride of accomplishment. + +"Salt is a great treat. Have you left any for yourself?" + +"Oh, I've got some. I'm going to set up a regular salt factory as soon +as you're about again." + +"I would like to get up and go on deck when I've had breakfast. Surely +the ship is not so tilted as it was." + +"Not quite so bad, but I'm afraid it will never come quite right side +up again. It's hard and fast on the shore at present. I could wade +across." + +"I must see it. I will get up as soon as I have had my breakfast." + +"Can you manage?" he asked doubtfully. "You must keep that arm quiet, +you know." + +"I'll try anyway. If I get stuck I will call," and in due course she +called, and he found that she had managed to get her blankets round +her, and that as gracefully as ever in some marvellous fashion, but she +had doubted her power of getting out of the bunk in its lopsided state +without his help. + +He stepped up on to the lower bunk, and worked his arms under her. + +"Now, if you wouldn't mind steadying yourself with your usable hand on +my shoulder--so! There you are!" and he lifted her gently to her feet +on the floor. "Now, hang on to my arm.... But your shoes?--you had +better have them on. In your own room of course. Wait and I'll get +them," and he climbed up and got them, and put them on and tied them +for her. "I've pegged some slats across the slope for better +foot-hold. You can't slip," and he got her safely out on to the deck. + +"It is delightful to be in fresh air again," she said, as she drank it +in. "I wish the good weather would last for ever." + +"We'll hope for a good long spell anyhow. Doesn't it feel odd to be so +close to the shore? We'll have rabbit for dinner. You must almost +have forgotten what it tastes like." + +"I can still just remember," she laughed. + +"I'll get up some blankets and tuck you into this corner, and then I'll +go and get some and some fresh water. Our raft's blown ashore and the +other one also. I shall have to wade." + +He made her comfortable in the corner, got his buckets and a stick, and +dropped over the side. + +She lay watching him as he waded ashore, saw him stop for a moment to +examine the raft, and then, with a wave of the hand, he set off for the +pools, swinging his buckets jauntily. + +Were there many such men in the world, she wondered, and why had she +never met any of them before? The men she had met were so very +different. They were as a rule so elusive and evasive that you never +quite knew what they were driving at ... except that it was certain to +be for their own satisfaction and advantage ... and that unless you +were always on your guard it was likely to turn out ill for you ... a +queer world, and life was a puzzle past comprehending..... + +She was glad to be out of it ... even on this sandbank.... Life was +sweeter here, and certainly very much simpler.... Well, perhaps a +little too severely simple in some respects.... But one could not have +everything.... Thank God, again, that it was this man who was with her +and not that other!... + +She saw him coming at last with his full buckets, and presently made +out a couple of rabbits hanging round his neck. + +"The birds are having a great time out yonder," he called to her. +"Lots of new wreckage, I expect, and they've been fasting. I must get +across as soon as I can and see if the storm has brought anything for +us. One never knows,"--he had come alongside, and lifted the buckets +and tossed the rabbits on to the deck. "I'll fasten the raft to the +chain there"--and he hauled himself along on it to the bows. + +She heard a smothered exclamation, and presently he climbed up and came +along the deck with something in his hand. + +"What is it?" she asked. + +"What do you make of that?" and he handed her the link of the rusty +cable which had given way and let them drift ashore. + +She turned it over in her fingers. Just where it had opened, the metal +glinted in the sunshine, and just above that there was a patch that +looked like grease. She shook her head. + +"Don't you see?--it's been filed enough to weaken it, and there was +grease on the file." + +"And you think----" with a shocked look. + +"Undoubtedly. No one else could have done it. But what his idea was, +I can't make out. Just to make trouble, I suppose. Of course if the +wind had come the other way, as it has done once or twice, we might +have blown right down the lake. It was a mean trick. I wonder when he +did it." + +"I am more thankful than ever that he's gone." + +"So am I.... I've been thinking we'd better move across there as soon +as possible." + +"Must we? I have grown so fond of this old ship." + +"But we can't live on the slope like this. Besides, if a gale did come +the opposite way we might have trouble. I'll go over presently and +begin cleaning. When I've finished you'll find it much more +comfortable than this." + +"I shall always like this the best." + +"I was thinking as I went over to the pools that it might not be a bad +idea to build some kind of a house on shore. I can get timber enough +for a hundred. You see, we don't quite know what winter may be like in +this place, but it's pretty sure to be a time of storms." + +"Can you build a house?" + +"One never knows what one can do till one tries. This is a great place +for bringing out one's unknown faculties. I've done a good many things +I never expected to do, since I came here." + +"It might be a good plan. Can't it wait till I can help?" + +"We'll see. We must do like the ants and squirrels--work hard while +it's fine and get in our supplies for the winter. We are mighty +fortunate to have such a store to draw upon." + +He spent all the rest of the day slaving like a charwoman on the 'Jane +and Mary,' and The Girl lay in her nest watching him, as he went up and +down, now flinging rubbish overboard, then hauling up buckets of water, +and sluicing and mopping, with every now and again a cheery wave of +hand or mop in her direction, and long periods below devoted, she did +not doubt, to the doing of more of those things which he had never +done, or expected to do, until he came there. And her heart was very +warm to him, knowing that it was not for his own comfort but for hers +that all these great labours were toward. + +She saw him busy on deck, bending and bobbing up and down, and once she +caught the gleam of vivid colours, and wondered what he was at. He was +a long time below after that, and then he went ashore for a load of +sand, and when it was getting dark she suddenly caught glimpse of his +head in the water as he wound up the day's work with a very necessary +swim. + +He came across on the raft all aglow, but visibly tired and hungry, and +greeted her with a cheery, "I think you'll find it all to your liking. +I've swabbed away every trace of the former tenants and everything is +fresh and new." + +"I wish I could have helped." + +"Oh, but you did, by sitting quietly here and getting better, to say +nothing of a wave of the hand now and then." + +"That was not doing much when you were working like a----" + +"Like a nigger. I looked like one too till I'd had that swim. Now +I'll get supper ready, and tomorrow we'll flit, and you'll be able to +walk about on an even keel without any danger of falling." + +He helped her down to the cabin and their very close quarters at the +bottom of the slope, and set to work preparing their evening meal. And +the more incongruous his occupations and the more menial his tasks, the +more The Girl's heart warmed towards him. + + + + +XLIX + +In the morning, as soon as they had eaten, he got the raft round to the +lower side of the ship, ruthlessly hacked out a section of the bulwarks +so that she could step down with the smallest possible exertion, and +took her across to the new house. + +Getting her on board without shock to the broken arm was not so easy. +He moored the raft, stem and stern, and braced it tight so that it +could not move. Then he built on it a pyramid of three empty boxes, +forming steps up which she could climb high enough to grip his strong +hand teaching down through the gap in the side and so be drawn safely +up on to the deck, which he had swabbed with sand and water till it was +cleaner than it had been for years. + +"It is nice to be able to walk on the flat of one's feet again," she +said, and he led her down below to a cabin gorgeous as an Eastern room +with drapings of amber silk and blue, and every bit of woodwork scoured +as clean as elbow-grease could make it. + +"It is delightful," she said fervidly. "How you must have slaved at +it!" + +"And how I enjoyed doing it!" + +There was a new sand hearth, nicely banked up between planks pegged +upright on the floor, and a pile of wood on it ready for lighting. He +lit a match with his flint and steel, and handed it to her as before, +so that she might start the first fire in the new home. + +"You will take your old room," he said. "Then if we should topple over +again you won't be able to fall out of your bunk. Now I'll go back and +bring over all our belongings. I made a complete clearance here, +except some of the stores which we can use," and before mid-day he had +everything transferred and stowed away. + +He spent most of the afternoon weaving in and out of their rusty cable +lengths of the least-rotten rope he could lay hands on, in order to +strengthen it and stop its chafing as much as possible. But below +water he could not go beyond a foot or two, and the lower links he had +to leave to Providence. + +As he worked, The Girl paced the deck, rejoicing in its horizontality, +and came each time to lean over the bows and watch him and say a lively +word or two. And, if any had been there to see, it would have been +difficult to believe that two such cheerful people were, to the very +best of their belief, condemned by an inscrutable fate to imprisonment +for life on this lonely sandbank,--to a confinement as solitary in some +respects, and in the prospect of escape as hopeless, as that of the +Bastille itself. + +But--they were together; and Adam and Eve, cast out of the Garden, +could still make a home in the wilderness and turn the joys that were +left them to fullest account. + + + + +L + +He was up betimes next morning, and had fish for their breakfast before +she came out of her room, and, moreover, had made cakes and full +provision for all her needs during the day. + +"I shall go out there at once," he said. "You will not mind being +left? I want to get in everything we shall need for the winter as soon +as possible." + +"I am sorry not to be able to help, but I shall be quite all right +here. You will..." she began, with a quite novel access of timidity, +and finished with a rush,--"you will be very careful. I am rather +fearful of that horrid wreckage. If you never came back----" + +"I will be very careful, and I will certainly come back--laden, I hope, +with good things," and he went off on the raft, and she stood watching +and waving her hand at times when he turned, until he disappeared along +the spit. And as he went his heart beat high, for he did not believe +that her fears were chiefly for herself, although she had made it +appear so. + +He found the wreckage considerably altered. The gale had swept it bare +of all traces of their previous peckings and nibblings, and had piled +and stuffed it with tempting-looking new plunder. And with things less +attractive. Whatever had been left of the mate had disappeared, hurled +down probably into some black crack. But, during the day, in various +crannies he came on no less than three drowned men, partly dressed in +what appeared to him naval uniform, anyway not in the usual slops of +the merchant service. And they set him thinking how narrow, yet how +sharp, was the dividing line between themselves and the outer world. + +He built his raft as usual and toiled all day, smashing his way through +scores of boxes, cases, seamen's chests, and rooting in them as eagerly +as ever did the mate, but with a different spirit within him. + +First he gathered indispensable stores, and practice had by this time +so perfected his eye that he could tell almost at a glance what a cask +or box contained, how long it had been afloat, and what damage its +contents were likely to have suffered. + +Many odd, and some extraordinary and incomprehensible, things his hasty +search brought to light. It was indeed an absorbing inquisition into, +an endless revelation of, the ruling passions and frailties of the +human heart. + +Little hoards of money and jewelry were his commonest finds, pitiful +now in view of their uselessness to those who had gathered them. But +he would take from the pile nothing but what it rightly owed them, +means of life and the tempering of its hard conditions, and he left all +these untouched. Tobacco and pipes, and flints and steel, were lawful +plunder. + +One brass-bound chest he broke open and found great store of women's +clothing, rich with lace and finely wrought even to the eyes of a man. +The Girl might find that useful and he began to make a selection, with +the eyes of her delight dancing before him as he did so. Then with a +start, and a sharp breath of amazement, he straightened up for a +moment, crammed everything back into the chest, and hauled it to the +edge of the pile and hurled it into the sea. For there, at the bottom, +wedged tight among all these delicate draperies was the body of a +new-born child, strangled at its birth, as he knew by the look of it. + +Bundles of letters, papers which might be of highest import to waiting +friends, anxious heirs, business houses, he found in places, but left +them as they were. + +He came on another box containing women's clothes, of plainer material +and simpler make, and rooted carefully after the character of its owner +before deciding to take some back for The Girl. It seemed above +suspicion, and he rejoiced to be able to supply some of her more +pressing needs. Clothes for himself the wreckage had always been +generous of, but to come upon two chests of women's things in one day +was extraordinary. They had at times searched far and wide and +anxiously, and never lighted on one. + +He got back with his load, and in two journeys from the spit got it all +on board, before it was too dark for his reward in The Girl's exuberant +joy at the things he had brought for her. + +"Shoes! ... stockings! ... Some proper needles and thread! ... and oh, +but I am glad to see these other things! ... I was washing some of my +things while you were away, but it was not easy with one hand ... And +another brush and comb! ... and scissors! If we can clean them I can +cut your hair for you." + +"I shall be grateful. I feel like a savage. I'll clean them all +right." + +"And did you make any strange discoveries?" she asked, while they sat +at supper, as one asks news of the outer world from a traveller. + +"Oh, heaps. Jewels and money, and papers, letters and so on----" + +"They might be interesting,--in winter days." + +"I had not thought of that. I'll bring you an armful tomorrow." + +"You will go again tomorrow?" + +"I must go till I think we have enough for the winter's siege. There +may be weeks when I can't get out there. This storm brought in a +mighty pile of stuff and it's best to get it while it's in good +condition. Do you want more clothes if I can find them?" + +"A woman never has too many," she laughed. "But don't waste time +searching for them. I can manage very well, especially now that I have +needles and thread." + +"I just smash open each box as I come to it. One never knows what one +may come upon. Their contents are as different as their owners. I +have been trying to imagine them from their belongings." + +He wrought at the pile for many days, and she filled in the time at +home by evaporating endless pans of water over the fire to get the +salt, and managed to accumulate quite a fair supply. + +He brought over for her amusement a great bundle of written papers +which she was too busy to delve into at the moment, all her time being +given to salt-making. And then one day he returned exultant with some +great lumps of rock salt, such as cattle love to lick, and her little +efforts were like to be put in the shade. But he averred that her salt +was infinitely the finer to a cultivated taste and they would use it +only on very special occasions. + +He brought her too a quantity of oatmeal in cases, and--treasure-trove +indeed--a dozen cans of the oil used for ships' lights. He searched in +vain for a lantern, but felt sure he could turn that oil to account in +some way during the long winter nights. From the marks on the cases in +the neighbourhood of these discoveries, and the superior quality of +some of their contents, he thought a warship must have gone down not +very far away. + +His belief was confirmed by finding other unusual supplies in the same +place, and he worked at it for days until there was hardly a case or +box or barrel which he had not tapped. + +One of his greatest finds was a handful of spare tools, in a chest that +had probably belonged to a ship's carpenter--an auger, a gimlet, a +chisel, a screwdriver, and a small piece of sharpening hone. And that +same day he lighted on an unpretentious little box, stoutly made of +deal, which had swelled with the water to the partial protection of its +contents. A glance inside showed him how great was this treasure, and +he carried it at once to his raft and bestowed it with care. + +When he opened the little deal case on deck that evening The Girl gave +a joyful cry, "Books! Oh, but I am glad, and the winter nights will +not be long! Let me see them all quickly.--"Poems," by Robert Burns. +"Life of Samuel Johnson," by James Boswell. The Book of Common Prayer. +"Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," by Edward Gibbon, Vol 1. "The +Vicar of Wakefield," by Oliver Goldsmith. "Tristram Shandy," by +Laurence Sterne. "The Castle of Otranto," by Horace Walpole. The +Annual Register--one, two, three volumes. "Tom Jones," by Henry +Fielding. "Clarissa Harlowe," by Samuel Richardson. Cruden's +Concordance. Hymns by Rev. Isaac Watts, D.D. A Bible. One, two, +three volumes of sermons. John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" and "Holy +War," and Foxe's "Book of Martyrs"! Oh, we shall do famously. Now +what do you make of the owner of this fine thing?" she challenged him +merrily. + +"A parson, I should say. They are the greatest readers. But that is +easily seen," and he turned to the fly-leaves of several of the volumes +and found them all inscribed with the same name, 'James Elwes, Esq. +M.A. Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford.' + +"Good Mr Elwes! I am sorry he is drowned, but I am grateful to him for +taking his books with him when he travelled, and leaving them behind +him when he went. That is the greatest find yet," said she. + +"We won't despise the lower things. All the same I'm glad to have the +books." + +"They will be a wonderful help. Let us dry them at once. They are +more precious than jewels," and he got her soft cloths, and they +carefully mopped up and wiped over every volume and promised them they +should be set in the sun to complete their cure on the morrow. + +"And those horrid birds?" she asked, as they worked. "You had no +trouble from them?" + +"They were all too busy elsewhere. There is grain enough floating +about there to feed a city. They will be plump and happy birds for +some time to come. They were too busy even to quarrel and they never +so much as looked my way." + + + + +LI + +As though exhausted by its late violence, or needing rest before +renewing it, the weather continued mild and open except for occasional +mists. + +Thanks to her own caution and Wulfrey's assiduous attention, The Girl's +arm was going on well, and she was looking forward eagerly to being an +active member of society again. + +"You see, I have never been laid up in my life before," she said, "and +it is unnatural to me. A dozen times a day I have to stop that +wretched arm when it wants to do something." + +"A very little longer and it shall do what it wants, within reason. +Let me rub it again for you." + +"You are a great believer in rubbing," she said, with reminiscent +smiles, as she surrendered the arm to him, and he rubbed it gently and +tirelessly to keep the sinews and muscles from stiffening. + +"I have found great virtue in it, and great reward," he smiled back. + +He took her ashore almost every day, and they rambled far along the +northern beach and enjoyed the soft autumnal days to the full. But all +the time his thoughts were on the coming winter whose rigours he had no +means of forecasting. And so, like a wise man, he made such provision +as was possible for the worst. + +He set her to gathering and drying every herb she deemed suitable for +seasoning purposes. And he himself caught very many fish and split +them open and dried them in the sun as he had read was done elsewhere. +He tried some rabbits in the same way, but they did not take to it and +had to be used for bait. + +And, after a few days' rest from his exertions at the wreckage, he set +to work on building a house on shore, in case anything should happen to +the 'Jane and Mary,' or they should find solid ground preferable to +water during the winter gales. + +He had for a long time past secured every nail he could knock out of +the old timbers, and regarded them as most precious possessions. The +finding of the auger and gimlet opened up wider possibilities. Where +nails are scarce, a hole and a peg may take their place. Wood he had +in superfluity, for the remains of every raft that had brought cargo +from the pile lay strewn about the spit, in some cases hurled half-way +across it by the waves that broke there in the storm times. + +Where best to build was a matter not easily decided. They would need +all the sunshine obtainable. But all the heaviest gales came from the +south and west and from these they wanted shelter. And they must be +within easy reach of the fresh-water pools and not too far from the +ship, where their supplies would be mostly stored. + +After much discussion they fixed on an odd little hollow--a mere cup in +the centre of three sandhills of size, which stood close together and +moreover were well matted with wire-grass and looked too solid to whirl +away in a gale as the smaller hills constantly did. + +To the south-west of these stood the largest hill in the neighbourhood, +and this would break the force of the gales in that direction. The +water-pools lay out in the sandy plain just beyond this hill. + +Wulf entered on the building of this first house he had ever attempted, +with the gusto of a schoolboy. + +"I feel about fourteen," he laughed, as he detailed his ideas to her. + +"So do I,--except this wretched arm, which is one hundred and five." + +"We'll soon have it back to fourteen. You see, if I can carve out the +sides of those three smaller hills, and back our house into each of +them, it will make immensely for solidity and warmth. No gale can blow +through a sand-hill, though they do waltz about now and again. But +these seem fairly well set and fixed. I'll start on it tomorrow. I +wish I had a spade and a saw. I can chop out some kind of a spade from +a plank, maybe, but, lacking a saw, the house will be a bit rough, I'm +afraid." + +"That doesn't matter as long as it stands up and keeps us warm." + +"Oh, I'll guarantee it will stand up and keep you warm." + +"Can you make a chimney?" + +"I've been thinking of that. I will run four boards up through a hole +in the roof, and we must try to induce the smoke to go up. There is no +clay here, you see, nor stone,--nothing but sand." + +The site settled, he set to work at once rafting his timber across the +lake from the spit, and then hauling it across the sandy plain past the +fresh-water pools, and this gave him a full week's hard labour. Some +of the lighter planks he let The Girl drag across, since she insisted +on having at all events one hand in the work. The heavier ones were as +much as he could handle himself. In his rest times, and after supper +of a night, he whittled pegs till he had an ample supply, and sharpened +his axes with the bit of hone he had found in the carpenter's chest. + +With his axe he hacked out a rude spade from a plank, and trimmed the +handle and the point with his knife; and then he set to work on his +three sandhills, cutting down the side of each where it rounded down +into the cup-like hollow, and flinging the sand into the cup itself to +make a level floor. + +The building of such a house was entirely new to him, but he had brains +and he bent them all to every problem that presented itself, and never +failed to find the way out. For instance,--the space he wished his +house to occupy between the sandhills was quite twelve feet in width, +and his planks ran mostly to six or eight feet only. There must +therefore be a row of posts in the middle, with one or more beams on +top as a ridge-pole, from which he could carry side pieces to the walls +six feet away on either side, and he had foreseen some difficulty in +fixing these posts absolutely rigid in the yielding sand. If they +wobbled or gave in any direction his roof would be in danger. + +But before he began carving down his sand-slopes he had settled that +point. He selected his uprights, the longest and strongest in his +stock, chopped them to size, and to the end of each pegged stout flat +cross-pieces, boring the holes with his auger and driving home the pegs +with the back of his axe. These he set up in a line in the middle of +the hollow, standing upright on their cross-piece feet. Then, as he +carved down his slope, every spadeful of sand buried the cross-pieces +deeper, till, when he had finished, they were under two feet of +well-trampled sand and he looked upon their rigidity as a personal +triumph. + +That was surely as extraordinary a house as was ever built by a man who +knew nothing whatever about building. It took him five full weeks and +he enjoyed every minute of it. And so did The Girl, for she sat in the +sun, watching all his cheerful activities with envious eyes because she +was so unable to share them, discussing points with him as they arose, +giving suggestions and advice which he always adopted when they chimed +with his own, and approving heartily of all he did. + +"I wish I could help,"--how many times she said it, and thought it very +many more. "It is disgusting to have to sit and watch while you work +like a--like a galley-slave." + +"Galley-slaves don't build houses--not such houses as this anyway. +There never was such a house before," he laughed. "Besides, you help +more than you know by simply sitting there and approving of it. 'They +also serve,' you know, 'who only sit and watch.'" + +"Who says that?" + +"One John Milton,--not quite in those words, but the meaning is the +same. As a matter of fact, he had, I believe, just gone blind when he +said it and was feeling rather out of it. Your arm will soon be all +right again. It's doing famously." + +Truly a wonderful house, not so much because of the quaint way in which +its difficulties were surmounted or evaded--which alone might have +given an ordinary builder nightmares for the rest of his life, but more +especially by reason of the rose-golden thoughts which swept at times +like flame through hearts and minds of both watcher and builder as they +wrought. If all those glowing thoughts could have transmuted +themselves into visible adornment of that rough little home no fairy +palace could have vied with it. + +For ever and again--and mostly ever--in his heart--helping the auger as +it bored and the axe as it hammered the pegs well home--was the thought +that was radiant enough and mighty enough to transform that desolate +bank of sand into a veritable Garden of Eden;--"If no rescue comes, +here we shall live--she and I--together,--one in heart and soul and +body, and here, maybe, we shall die. But death is a long way off, and +Love lives on forever. I would not exchange my Kingdom for all the +Kingdoms of the earth." + +And perhaps he would permit himself a foretaste from the cup of that +intoxicating happiness, in a quick caressing glance at her as she sat +in the sand nursing her arm; and at times she caught those stolen +glances, for her eyes found great satisfaction in his tireless energy +and visible enjoyment in his work. + +And she knew as well as if he had told her in words,--nay better, for, +without a word, the heart speaks louder than all the words in the world +when it shines through honest eyes,--she knew all that possessed him +concerning her, and she was not discomforted thereby. + +She trusted him completely. She had never felt towards any man as she +did to this man. Whatever he willed for her would be right. Her whole +heart and soul rejoiced that he should find such hope and joy in her. +She was wholly his for the asking, but she knew he would not ask it all +until he was satisfied in his own mind that he was right in asking and +she in giving. + +She felt like a wounded bird, sitting below there, while her mate built +their nest up above. But not, she said to herself, like their island +birds, for they were harsh and cruel, with cold hard eyes, and +ever-craving hunger in place of hearts. + +That wonderful house, when at last it was finished, would have given no +satisfaction to the soul of any ordinary builder, but to these two it +was a monument of hard work and difficulties overcome. + +It contained one room twelve feet square in front, with two smaller +rooms opening out of it at the back. The roof sloped slightly from +ridge-pole to side-walls and was made in four layers--boards side by +side below, then thick sheets of crimson velvet, an outer shield of +overlapping planks, and a thick coat of sand and growing wire-grass +over all. He was hopeful that it would withstand the heaviest gales +and rains the winter might bring. The walls were of stout boards +backed up against the sandhills, with new sandhills thrown up in the +intervening spaces, and inside they were draped with more crimson +velvet, of which they had a large supply. The floor was of planks. +The door had been a troublesome problem, and, lacking hinges, had to be +lifted bodily in and out of its place. The bay-window alongside it was +the cabin skylight from the 'Martha' and this, and the square +smoke-shaft of four stout boards above the sand hearth, they regarded +as crowning achievements. + +Emboldened by success, and finding enjoyment in the development of a +craft of which he had never suspected himself until now,--experiencing +too, to the very fullest, the primal blessing of work, he evolved an +arm-chair for The Girl, out of a barrel that had once held salt pork, +and when its asperities were softened and hidden under voluminous folds +of red velvet she assured him it was the most comfortable chair she had +ever sat in. + +And, for his part, he knew that no girl ever sat in any chair that ever +was made who could compare with her. + +Beds too he made with some old sail-cloth fitted to rough frames, and a +table, and their furnishing sufficed, though he promised to add to it +during the winter. + +The Girl's arm was well again, though he still urged caution in the use +of it, and kept a watchful eye on it and her; and never had he felt +himself so full of the joy and strength of life. When the house was +finished, they brought over a supply of stores and lived in it for a +time, and turned the waning autumn days to account by long ramblings +all over the island, in anticipation of the days when ill weather might +coop them strictly within narrower bounds. + +There were no discoveries to make in land or sea or sky, scarcely any +in themselves. He felt assured in his own mind that she was not +unaware of all that he felt for her. The fact, the great undeniable +fact, that she did not seem to resent it, was a deep joy to him. + +Their good-comradeship had known no cloud. She was as charmingly frank +and gracious as ever. She talked away without reserve or constraint of +that strange past life of hers, which, in every smallest particular, +was so absolutely the opposite of this one. And never once did she +display any hankering after Egypt, rather seemed to regard this as the +Promised Land, or at all events the doorway to it. + +Ever and again the possibilities of rescue or escape came to the front +in their discussions, but grew less and less as the weeks went by. He +had been seven months on the island, and she four, and save herself, in +all that time no other living soul had come to it,--unless, as the mate +had so strenuously held, the bodies of those discomforting sea-birds +were occupied by the souls of drowned sailor men. + +"And you, you know, were a miracle," he would remind her. "The chances +against you were about a thousand to one----" + +"And you were that one." + +"It was not that I was thinking of----" + +"I never forget it." + +"This place is undoubtedly shunned, as Macro said. It is known as a +death-trap. No ship comes here except in pieces. No man comes until +he is dead. And so, our prospects of rescue or escape are very small, +I fear. For your sake I wish it were otherwise." + +"Have I shown signs of discontent, then? I assure you I have never +been so ... so content to wait and hope. It is the most delightful +holiday from the world I have ever had.... Sometime perhaps we shall +look back upon it as the wide dividing line between the old world and +the new ... and between the old life and the new." + +"A line is black as a rule." + +"It may be light," she said, and waved her hand expressively towards +the shimmering golden spear which the setting sun sent quivering over +the water right up to their feet, as they stood watching it on the +beach. + +"If we could only walk on it!" she said softly, as the red disc swelled +and sank and disappeared amid a glory of tender lucent greens and blues +and glowing orange, with a line of crimson fire on the edge of every +hovering cloud, and a heavenful of crimson flakes and splashes +smouldering slowly into gray above their heads. + +"It points the road, but we cannot take it," he said quietly, and they +turned and went back to the house. + +There were times when she thought he was about to tell her all that was +in his heart concerning her. She could see it in his face and eyes and +restless manner. And she was ready to respond. + +There were times when it was almost more than he could do to keep it +all in. He believed she knew. He hardly doubted her response. + +But he said to himself, with set jaw and a firmer grip of his +manhood,--"She has known me just four months. She is here helpless in +my hands. I may not press her unduly, for she might feel that she +could hardly say me nay. Her very helplessness must make me the more +careful and considerate." + +And more than once, when the desire of his heart was leaping to his +lips, he jumped up abruptly and went out into the night and strode away +along the beach. And there he would pace to and fro under the quiet +stars, with the black waves swirling up the shore in long slow gleams +of shimmering silver, till the peace of it all passed into his blood, +and presently he would go quietly in again, with face and heart toned +down to reasonableness. + +And when he went out so, The Girl would smile to herself at times, as +one who understood. And again, at times the smile would slowly fade +and she would sit thoughtful. But, if she wondered somewhat, and found +him beyond her complete understanding, she liked him none the less for +his restraint. + +She was quite happy in their present fellowship, but she knew it could +not continue so, indefinitely. A man always wants more. The woman +gives. + +She felt towards this man as she had never felt towards any man before. +Without a word spoken, she was satisfied as to the integrity of his +intentions, as she had never been of any of those who had approached +her in that old life, and she had been approached by many. But the +coinage of love about the Court had grown as debased as did the paper +money of the Republic later on. Whispers of love had become but fair +cloaks for foul deeds. This man had whispered nothing, but she +understood him and held him in honour. + +And she was in no hurry. His love would not burn out, or she was much +mistaken in him. The flame repressed burns brightest in the end. + +And then ... and then.... Well, she sometimes laid hold of the future +by the ears, as it were, and held its changing face while she peered +intently into it, and endeavoured to read there all that it might mean +for her. + +Sooner or later he would open his heart to her--and that would be the +first change. Their relationship would of necessity become closer and +warmer. She would welcome that. It would bring great happiness to +them both. + +And then--later on--sometime--when all hope of rescue or escape had +left them ... he would ask still more of her.... That was +inevitable.... And in her heart, hiding behind a thinning cloud of +doubt, which had, when first it came upon her, been tinged with dismay, +she knew he would be right, and that in consenting, she would do no +wrong, although it must run counter to all her normal views of right +and wrong. + +She faced it all squarely and honestly,--Courtship properly ends in +Marriage. If by this accident of their strange fate the regular +marriage rites prescribed by the law of the land could not take place, +they would have to content themselves without them. It was inevitable. + +Elemental views of right and wrong were indeed tap-rooted in her heart +and safe from bruising. But she recognised that circumstances alter +cases and that normal views were out of place here. + +And as to the law of the land--what country claimed this bank of sand +she did not know. It was a No Man's Land, outside the pale of all laws +save God's and Nature's. + +With no man she had ever met, except this man, could she have imagined +herself considering possibilities such as these. But with him she +would feel as safe and happy as if all the archbishops and bishops in +the land had performed the ceremony. For, after all, it was only man's +law and man's ceremony; and God's law and Nature's were mightier than +these. + +With such thoughts in her--deep thoughts and long--she could wait +quietly, and she veiled her feelings for him lest he should deem her of +light mind and too easily to be won. + +Now and again, induced perhaps by some adverse humour of body or +atmosphere, a plaguy little fear would leap at her heart and nibble it +with sharp teeth,--could it be that he had ties in the old life of +which he had never dared to hint,--some other woman--to whom he was +bound by honour or by law? + +He had told her much, and yet not very much. Had he told her all? Did +men ever tell all? He had told her much, but there was room in what he +had not told for anything--for everything. + +But surely he had one time said that he had left no ties behind +him,--that he was alone. + +If there should be anything of the kind it would explain his +self-restraint, his quiet service, the looks he could not wholly check, +the words he did not speak. + +That his heart had gone out to herself she could not mistake. But that +was not incompatible with ties elsewhere that might keep them apart. + +But fears such as that could not hold her long. They had sprung up, in +spite of her, once or twice when he had jumped up and left her alone, +and gone out into the night to pace the beach. But when he returned, +quieted and all himself again, they disappeared at once, and her heart +was at rest. Wrong and this man had nothing in common, she said to +herself. She felt as sure of his honour as of her own. + + + + +LII + +"This weather cannot last much longer," he said, one night as they sat +talking after supper; he with his pipe, which she never would permit +him to sacrifice on her account, pronouncing the smell of it homely and +comfortable, in spite of his apologies for the varied qualities of his +tobacco. "We must be somewhere near the end of October." + +"It is either the 21st or 22nd or 23rd," she said very definitely. + +"You have kept count?" + +"Except the time I was on the mast and before I came to life again." + +"Two days probably." + +"I imagined so. In that case it is the 21st." + +"And we must be ready for November and bad weather. Would you sooner +stop here or go back to the 'Jane and Mary'?" + +"We could not be more comfortable than we are here. But I will do +whatever you wish." + +He glanced at her through the wreathing smoke of fire and pipe, for +nothing they could do would make it all go up the chimney. + +Would she say as much if he asked her more? he wondered. + +Was she ready to be asked? Or was it still too soon? + +If he told her all that was in his heart, would he startle her out of +this most pleasant companionship? + +She sat gazing quietly into the fire of scraps of old ship's timber. +Those leaping tongues of blue and green and yellow and crimson flame +were a never-failing joy to her. Many a curious thing had she seen in +them, and thought many strange thoughts to the tune of their merry +dance. + +She was winsome beyond words when she sat so, with the lights and +shadows playing over her face, and about the misty dark eyes in which +her clear soul dwelt and shone without disguisements. + +Suppose he said to her--here and now,--"Avice, dearest, do you know +what you are to me? I cannot possibly tell you in words, but--do you +know?..." And she said "I know,"--and said again, "I will do whatever +you wish...." + +Ah--God! ... If that could be he would ask no more of life.... One +word from her and this bare bank would be swept with golden fires; in +the twinkling of an eye it would become a Paradise for him and her to +dwell in.... + +If he sat there looking at her it must out. He could not keep it in. +And why should he? Why not tell her, here and now? ... + +He got up quietly and strode out into the night. A smile hovered in +the corners of her lips, as, without looking, she caught sight of his +face. Then she rose also and stole out after him. + +She was causing him pain when she wished him only joy. His thought, +she knew, was all for her. She would think and act for them both. If +he had sat there like a pent-up volcano for another second the hot lava +would have come rushing out. She had felt it all in the air. Her +heart too was so full of expectant joy that the tension was akin to +pain. + +It was very dark, with only throbbing stars in a velvet sky and the +white gleam of the foam along the beach. She did not know which way he +had gone, but he would come back presently, all himself again. She +sank down into the side of a hummock and waited. + +He came at last, slowly, heavily, with bent head. + +He stopped quite close to her, where the way led to the house, and +stood looking out over the darkness of the sea. Then he heaved a great +sigh and turned to go back to the house. + +"God!" she heard him mutter. "If I dared but tell her!" + +She rose swiftly out of her form and caught him by the arm, with +something between a laugh and a cry, "Tell me, then!"--and the mighty +arms of his love were round her, gripping her to him till she was +squeezed almost breathless. + +"Avice! Avice!--and you knew! Oh, thank God for you!" + +"Of course I knew," she gasped. "And I want you as much as you want +me." + +"Thank God for you, dearest!" he said deeply. "We will thank Him all +our lives. He has given us with a full hand.... I have nothing left +to ask Him ... except your fullest happiness, now and always." + +"And I yours. You are my happiness. You give me Heaven." + +"God requite me ten times over if ever you rue this day. I have longed +for you till my heart was sick with the pain of longing----" + +"Foolish! Why did you not tell me before?" + +"I could not. Until I knew.... Placed as we are, you see, it felt +like forcing you.... You might not have felt free to say no.... It +might have put an end to all our comradeship...." + +"You don't know me. I'd have said no quickly enough if I hadn't wanted +you. But I do, and you make me very happy." + +He led her into the house and held her there at arm's length in the +firelight, as though he could hardly believe it all true, and looked +deep into the dark eyes and rosy face and kissed it rosier still. + +And the blue and yellow and green and crimson flames danced their +merriest, as these two sat hand in hand watching them, and talking +softly by snatches with long sweet silences in between. + + + + +LIII + +"I was so afraid there might be some other to whom you were bound," she +said, as she lay there in the firelight, with her head against his arm +and his right hand smoothing her hair, that wonderful hair which had +been to him as the aureole of a saint and was more to him now than all +the gold in all the world. + +"There is no other, my dear one. Not a soul on earth has any claim on +me except that of friendship.... It was inevitable that we should both +have that fear. Four months ago we did not know of one another's +existence----" + +"Isn't it wonderful?" she murmured. "I wonder if we had never met if +you would have found someone else----" + +"Never anyone to fill my heart as you do. I cannot even imagine it." + +"And if I should have found someone else?" + +"That is possible, but no one who could feel for you all that I do, or +could want you as much as I do. You are to me the one supreme good," +and the clasp of his arm told her even more than his words. + +"You do not ask me if I had any ties in the old life," she began. + +"You would not be lying in my arm like this if there were. I know you +too well." + +"That is true and I thank you. It is good to be taken on trust. But +indeed there were none. The men one met there--faugh!--they were +masquers, puppets, dandies;--some had brains, but few had hearts, and +they were most dreadful liars. Such talents as they possessed were +devoted to finesse and intrigue, and the turning of everything to their +own satisfaction and advantage." + +"Thank God you are out of it all." + +"Yes, I do thank God,--for the shipwreck and everything else, but +chiefly that He sent you here to meet me and took that other one away." + +The weather held still for a few days, and he spent them in providing +for her future comfort in every way he could think of. + +He chopped logs enough to last them through the winter, and piled them +in stacks about the house. He got over from the ship supplies in +abundance. As the result of much labour and many failures he +constructed a primitive lamp out of the silver mug from which Macro +used to swill his rum. He distorted a beak out of one side of it, and +contrived a wick which passed through a hole in a piece of beaten +copper, and if the light was not brilliant it was at all events +steadier to read by than the dancing flames. + +He had lighted quite by accident on Macro's hidden hoard in the hold of +the 'Jane and Mary.' He was rooting in a corner there for his knife, +which had worked out of its sheath at his back as he hoisted out +provisions, and found it sticking point downwards in a plank. As he +pulled it out, the plank gave slightly, and lifting it he found, +underneath, the useless treasure. + +He wanted none of it, was indeed loth to touch it, but, on +consideration, took out two more silver mugs for their daily service +and half a dozen gold pins and brooches for Avice's use, since she was +always needing such things and regretting her lack of them. + +The long spell of mild soft weather--which had come at last to have in +it a sense of sickness and decay--broke up in the wildest storm they +had yet seen. + +The birds came whirling in in a shrieking cloud, but the wind +out-shrieked them. It shrilled above their heads in a ceaseless +strident scream like the yelling of souls in torment. It shook their +protecting sandhills and made their house shiver right down to the +buried cross-pieces of its pillars. It picked up the smaller hummocks +outside and set them waltzing along the shore. It heaped a foot of new +sand on their roof and sent a cartload of it down the chimney. + +But their position had been well chosen. The more the sand piled on +their house and against it, the tighter it became. Then the rain came +down in sheets and torrents, but no drop came through, except down the +chimney, and that Wulf presently plugged with a blanket and let the +smoke find its way out through an inch of opened door, which he had +purposely placed to leeward, as all their great storms came from the +south and south-west. + +But the change of atmosphere was bracing, and with solid sand under +their feet, and assured of the safety of their house, they welcomed it +and felt the better for it. + +After the first day's confinement he must out to see, and she would not +stay behind. So they rigged themselves in oldest garments and fewest +possible and started out. + +They were drenched to the skin in a second and whirled away like leaves +the instant they forsook the cover of their hollow. + +Avice was being carried bodily towards their nearest shore. He feared +she would go headlong into the sea and started wildly after her. He +saw her throw herself flat and grip at the sand, but she was broadside +on to the merciless wind and it bowled her over and over, and rolled +her along like a ball. It carried him along in ten-feet leaps. He +flung himself down beside her, put his arm round her, wrenched her head +to the gale, and they lay there breathless, she choking hysterically +with paroxysms of laughter. + +It took them an hour, crawling like moles, to get back to the shelter +of the hills. He would have had her go in, but she would not hear of +it. They could hear the booming thunder of the great waves on the spit +even above the wind, and she must see them. + +So they set off once more, flat to the sand, and worked round in time +to the breast of the great hill near the fresh-water pools, and lay in +it, safe from dislodgment unless the hill went too. + +They could only peer through pinched eyes, and then only with their +hands over them, into the teeth of that wind, but, even so, the sight +was magnificent and appalling. The grim gray sky and the grim gray sea +met just beyond the spit, and out of that close sky the huge gray waves +burst, high as houses,--whole streets of houses rushing headlong to +destruction. They curved gloriously to their fall with a glint of +muddy green below and all their crests abristle with white foam-fury. +Right out of the sky they came, right up to the sky they seemed to +reach, flinging up at it great white spouts of spray like flouting +curses, towering high above the land, crashing down upon it with a +thunderous roar which thinned the voice of the wind to no more than a +shrill piping. + +Their own land-locked lake was lashed into fury also. The flying +crests of the outer waves came rocketing over in wild white splashes. +He was not sure that some of the waves themselves did not cover the +spit and come roaring into it. The 'Jane and Mary' danced wildly to +her cable. He wondered if it would hold. The 'Martha,' more than ever +on her beam-ends, was being pounded like a drum. + +"Did you feel that?" he shouted in her ear, and she nodded, with a +touch of fear in her wind-blown face. For, under the impact of one +vast mountainous avalanche, the very ground on which they lay seemed to +shake like a jelly, and the whole island shuddered. + +"It cannot wash it all away, can it?" she gasped, when they had wormed +their way back to shelter. + +"It never has done yet anyway," he said cheerfully, as he squeezed +windy tears out of his smarting eyes. "Now, dear, change all your +things at once. We are wet through to the bone." + +"It was very wonderful. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. But +I'm glad we're ashore," and she slipped away into her own room. + +That was the first of the winter storms, and there were many like it. +But they bore them equably. They were in splendid health, the weather +at its worst was never very cold, indeed the gales were more to their +taste than the smothering chill of the frequent fogs. They had all +they needed,--food and fire, and light and books, a weather-tight +house, and one another. + +If they lacked much of what their former life had taught them to +consider necessary, they had more than all that former life had given +them, and they were happy. + + + + +LIV + +Between the storms and fog-spells, they tramped to and fro discovering +the changes wrought in their island, and many a strange thing their +wanderings showed them. + +One great gale which lasted a full week strewed the south-west Point +with wreckage as thickly almost as the great pile beyond. Their hearts +ached at thought of the still greater loss it represented, of which the +proofs were never lacking. The chaotic bristle was studded with the +bodies of the drowned, and the sight sent them home sorrowfully, yet +marvelling the more at their own deliverance, and still more grateful +for it. + +"We are miracles, without a doubt," said Wulf gravely, as they went +back home. "No one else gets here alive, you see.... I was the first +miracle. Macro was the second," and he told her what she had not known +before, how he had contrived to save the mate, and of his regret that +it had not been old Jock Steele the carpenter, who would have been a +blessing to them instead of a curse. "And you are the third and best +miracle of all," he said, clasping her arm more tightly under his own. +"God! what a difference it has made!" he said fervently. "Alone here +one might go mad. In time one most certainly would. See how good a +work you are accomplishing by simply remaining alive. Instead of being +a melancholy madman you make me the happiest man on earth. Oh, the +God-given wonder of a woman! Truly you are the greatest miracle of +all, and He has been good to me." + +"And to me. If you had not been here I should have been dead and we +would never have met. Perhaps He sent us to one another." + +"I'm sure He did, and all our lives we'll thank Him for it," and so the +sight of the dead but put a keener edge on their gratitude for life and +their joy in one another. + +The next big storm washed the point clean again. All had gone, +wreckage, bodies, everything, and the great pile beyond bristled higher +than ever. + +"Do you notice anything strange?" he asked her, as they stood looking +out at it. + +"There seems more of it." + +"And not a bird to be seen. They've all gone for the winter, I expect. +We shall not see them again till next year." + +"I am glad. They are evil things. Our Paradise is sweeter without +them," and he kissed her for the word. + +The weird forces of the gales, however, afforded them many surprises. + +Tramping round the further end of their lake one day, they saw changes +in the great stretch of sand that ran out of sight towards the eastern +point. What had been a level plain was scored and furrowed as by a +mighty ploughshare. It was like a rough sea whose tumbling waves had +in an instant been turned into sand--league-long grooves with +high-piled ridges between, and in the hollows the watery sun glinted +briefly here and there on shining white objects sticking out of the +sand. + +"Bones!" said Wulf in surprise, as they stood looking into the first +hollow, and he jumped down and picked up a human skull. + +"Horrid!" said Avice. "And there's another, and another over there. +It's a regular grave-yard." + +"A battle-field, I should say," as he examined them one after another. +"This is very curious. This fellow was killed by a bullet through the +head. Here's the hole. And this one's skull was split with an axe or +a sword. This one also. I wonder what it all means...." + +"Pirates and murderers. That's what they look like." + +"I shouldn't wonder.... Here's an ancient cutlass." + +"And what's this?"--rooting at something with her foot.... "An old +pistol! ... and the hilt of another sword! ... I wonder if they were +the men who lived on our ships." + +"Maybe. But I think these things are older than the ships.... +Why--the place is thick with them," as they wandered on. "There must +be scores of them, and more still underneath the ridges, no doubt.... +There was no lack of life here at one time evidently----" + +"And death!" + +"Yes, and death without a doubt. A good thing for us, perhaps, that +customers such as these don't frequent it now." + +"I'm glad we live at the other end. You haven't found any bones there, +have you?" + +"Not a bone! They're not very cheerful company. Let us hope the next +gale will cover them up again." + +Further on, in another trench, they found one side of a boat, mouldered +almost into the similitude of the sand in which it had been embedded +for very many years. And, further along still, Wulf thought he could +make out the stark ribs of ships like those on the outer banks at their +own end of the island. But they were very far away and held out no +inducement to closer investigation, and Avice had had enough of such +things for the time being. + +There were spells of bad weather, when, for days at a time, they +scarcely ventured out except to get in wood or fetch water from the +pools, which always meant a thorough soaking. + +But they were completely happy in one another's company, and ever more +grateful for the Providence that had cast their lot together. + +The days slipped by without one weary hour. Shrewder and subtler +proving of hearts and temperaments could hardly be conceived. But they +stood the test perfectly, never thought of it as such, found in their +present estate nothing but cause for joy and deepest thankfulness. + +The depth and warmth of his love for her expressed itself in most +devoted service and tenderest care, and hers for him in so frank and +implicit a confidence that he felt it an uplifting honour to be so +favoured. Indeed the man who could have betrayed so great a trust must +have been lowest of the low and basest of his kind. + +"I can't help wondering sometimes whether we would have felt like this +to one another if we had met in an ordinary way, outside there," she +said musingly, one night, as she lay in the hollow of his arm, watching +the coloured flames. + +"Yes," he said emphatically. "For you laid hold of my heart as soon as +I set eyes on you. It got tangled first in the meshes of your hair, +and in your long eyelashes, and the thing I wanted most was to see what +your eyes were like. They were wells of mystery." + +"And--they were right?" she laughed softly. + +"They were exactly right and just what I had hoped. Large and dark and +eloquent and tender and true and----" + +"Dear! dear! If I had known such an inquisition was going I should +have been afraid to open them." + +"Ah, you didn't know me, you see." + +"I didn't know you, but I knew I was all right as soon as I saw you. I +knew I could trust you.... How strange and wonderful it all was!" + + + + +LV + +One strange and terrible experience they had when the winter was almost +over, and it came within measurable distance of making an end of them +both. + +Depending on their reserve stock of flour on board the 'Jane and Mary,' +they had used freely what they had on shore. When he opened the other +he found to his dismay that it must have been more damaged at first +than he imagined. It was nearly all mouldy and smelt badly. He had +run short of tobacco also, and so decided to go over to the pile for +supplies on the first possible day. + +The worst of the storms seemed over. They had occasional brisk +gleaming days in between times, and on one such, after seeing that +Avice had all she would need in his absence, they set off along the +northern shore. + +She wanted to go out with him, but he dissuaded her from that. The +crossing would be very different from what it was in the summer and he +would not have her exposed to it. Besides, he intended to make only a +short job of it, just get what he wanted, and be back almost before she +knew he had gone. She was so loth to be parted from him, however, even +for that short time, that she insisted on walking with him to the point +and said she would sit there and wait till she saw him on his way back. + +So she sat down in the sand and drew her blanket cloak about her, and +watched him wade and swim and at last scramble up on to the pile. He +waved his hand to her and then set to work constructing a raft as usual. + +She saw him climbing to and fro among the wreckage, smashing away at +casks and cases, and then, to her dismay, he and the pile and the gaunt +wrecks beyond disappeared completely, wiped out by a bank of mist that +had come sweeping in from the sea. The sun still shone up above, but +intermittently. Dark clouds came rushing up out of the south and +presently it too was hidden. The wind blew gustily and increased in +violence every minute. + +She wished he had not gone. She could do no good by stopping there, +but she did not care to go home. Behind her, on the southern shore, +the waves were beginning to break with the short harsh sounds that +portended storm. + +Perhaps he would leave his work and swim across. He would know she was +waiting for him. She must wait till he came. She drew her blanket +over her head and sat there, huddled up with her back to the wind, and +hoped and prayed. For, if this sudden storm should work up into a gale +and last, she would be full of fears for his safety. + +Suppose he should be drowned! What that awful pile would be like in +bad weather she dared not think. + +She prayed wildly for his life,--"Oh God, spare him to me! He is all I +have! Spare him! Have pity on us both! Spare him! Spare him!"--over +and over again the same ultimate cry, for her mind was closed to every +other thought but this, that the man she loved more than anything on +earth was out there in peril of his life. + +She stayed there, drenched by the rain and flailed by the wind, till it +began to grow dark, and then she crept wearily home like a broken bird. + +Grim fear gripped her heart like an icy hand, but she would not despair +entirely. He was so strong and capable. He might have tried and found +it impossible to get back. He might come in at any minute. + +If he were here the first thing he would have told her was to change +into dry clothes. She changed, and made up the fire and put on the +kettle. He would be cold and hungry when he came. She must be ready +for him. + + +Out there on the wreckage, Wulf had been so hard at work that he +noticed no sign of change in the weather, till the clammy mist swept +over him and blotted out everything but the box he was delving into. + +The winter storms had wrought great changes in the pile. It seemed +thicker and higher and more chaotic than ever, bristling with new stuff +which he would have liked to investigate, in case it should contain +anything that would add to Avice's comfort. + +But first, to find some decent flour, and, as it happened, there seemed +fewer barrels about than usual, and most of them had suffered in their +rough transit. The search for a good one took time. Such as he found +were gaping and he did not trouble to open them. However, he +discovered one at last, opened it to make sure of the goodness of its +heart and then turned to seek tobacco. + +It was then that the fog swept down on him and chained him to three +square feet or so of precarious foothold. Trespass beyond that limit +might mean a broken limb or neck, for the surface of the pile was +seamed with ragged rifts and chasms, in which the tide whuffled and +growled like a wild beast anticipating food. + +So he rooted away in the chest he had just smashed open, lighted on a +supply of tobacco to his great satisfaction, and then sat down where he +was, to wait till the fog cleared. But this, he perceived, was not one +of their usual clinging fogs which enveloped one like a pall of +cotton-wool. It drove on a rising wind and sped past him in dense +whirling coils that made his head spin. He thought briefly of mighty +spirits of the air trailing ghostly garments in rapid flight. Down +below him, in the black rifts and along the sides of the pile, the +water was yapping savagely, as if the wild beast would wait no longer. + +When the last of the fog tore past him in tattered fragments, he found +to his dismay that the sea between him and home was beyond any man's +swimming,--every channel raging and foaming, and the banks between +boiling furiously in the rising tide and the rush of the south-west +wind. The raft he had made had already broken loose and started +northwards on its own account. It went to pieces on the nearest bank, +as he watched, and swept away in fragments. + +There was nothing for it but waiting. So sudden a storm might pass as +quickly as it had come. + +For himself he had no great fears. The pile had stood a thousand +storms, and worse ones than this. But he was filled with anxiety on +Avice's account. She would imagine the worst when he did not come, and +her suffering would be great. Thought of her troubled him infinitely +more than fear for himself. + +He tried hard to make her out on the beach, though how to reassure her +he did not know. But the sky was overcast and the atmosphere murky +with sweeping showers, and he could not even see the point. + +He was wet through with his swim, and the wind, though not cold in +itself, was so strong that it chilled him. He searched about for +shelter, and coming on a huge case which presented a solid back to the +weather, he stove in the front and found it contained fine lace +curtains. He hauled out a sufficiency, which the wind whisked +playfully away. Then he crept into their place, grateful for so much, +and lay and watched the strange writhings and contortions of the pile +under the impact of the gale and the rising tide. + +The wind would go down with the tide probably, and then he would make +another raft and get home as quickly as he could with his flour. For, +great as Avice's anxiety would certainly be, they were still short of +flour, and it would be better to take it with him than to have to come +back for it. The wreck-pile in a gale was a decidedly unpleasant +experience, and its behaviour most extraordinary. He had never +imagined a dead conglomeration such as that capable of such antics. +When the tide was at its height the whole mass writhed and shuddered +through all its length and breadth like some great monster in its death +agonies. The rifts and chasms gaped and closed like grim black wounds +or hungry mouths. Strange and awesome sounds broke out all about, +groanings and creakings, ragged rendings and grindings, as the +component pieces lifted and settled regardless of their neighbours. +When the tide went down it was more at ease, and the only sounds were +the waves snapping at the sides and gurgling and rushing in the depths +below. + +He did not find it very cold. Sheltered from the wind, the heat of his +body in time made a warm nook round him in the heart of the curtains. +But he was never dry. And before it got too dark, when he saw it would +be impossible to get away that night, he crept out and crawled +precariously to and fro till he lighted on a small cask of rum. He +carried it to his shelter, knocking in the head with his axe, and it +kept his blood warm through the night. But it was a terribly long +night, chiefly because he was thinking all through it of Avice, and her +fears for him, and her suffering. + +To his bitter disappointment, morning showed no signs of abatement or +relief. It brought another wild gray day without a glimmer of hope in +the sky. + +He had eaten nothing for more than twenty hours and was feeling empty +and ravenous. The tide had risen and gone down again in the night. +Before the pile began its writhings and contortions again he must eat. +So he crept out and foraged till he found a barrel of pork, and bashed +it open and carried back to his nest a big chunk which he ate raw and +washed down with rum. + +All that day the gale held. He hardly dared to think of Avice and yet +could think of nothing else. At times, under the impulse of his fears +for her, he was tempted to leap into the sea and try to battle through +to the point. But when he studied the chances of it, common sense +prevailed. Adventure into those boiling currents meant death as surely +as if he cut his throat on the pile. + +If he could only let her know that he was alive.... If he had had his +flint and steel he would have tried to set something on fire--even if +it were his nest--on the chance of her seeing the smoke and +understanding it. He searched eagerly for another tinder-box, but +could not light on one. + +It was an anxious and gloomy man that crept into the heart of the +curtain-case that night; but he slept, in a way and brokenly, in spite +of it all, for Nature knows man's limits, and when he goes beyond them +she steps in at times and takes command. + + + + +LVI + +To Avice, also, that first night was one long horror. + +She made up the fire and sat waiting for him to come. He would know in +what a state of despair she would be and he would certainly come. She +was sure he would come--if he could. If he did not it was because he +could not. And ... if he could not.... + +The wind shrilled eerily outside. It sounded cold and heartless ... +pitiless ... like messages from the dead ... warnings of evil. It got +on her nerves and set her shivering. She crept to her room at last and +dropped hopelessly on to her bed, and lay there sorely stricken. + +In the gray of the morning she ate mechanically, and hurried away to +the point for sign or sight of him. But it was all she could do to +make out the pile itself, like a bristling rampart in the dull dim +distance. As to distinguishing anything on it, that was out of the +question. + +She wandered about there all day long, with her eyes strained on the +pile like one bereft, and only crept back when night shut it out and +drove her home. + +She was satisfied in her own mind now that he was dead. If he had been +alive he would certainly have come. Well, she would not be long in +following him.... Without him she had no desire to live ... even if +she could struggle on alone, which was very doubtful ... better to join +him quickly than to drag on miserably all by herself on that lonely +bank, and go crazy in the end. + +She sobbed herself asleep, her last wish that she might never waken. +She had eaten nothing since the morning, and then only a hasty scrap +that had no taste in it. The fire had gone out.... It did not matter. +She would go out herself as soon as might be.... A woful end to all +their golden hopes and happiness. + +Morning found her still lying spent and hopeless on her bed, comatose, +neither asleep nor awake, simply careless of life and even of the fact +that the wind had fallen at midnight and that the new day had broken +soft and clear. + +Then, in her dream-weariness, she heard a voice in the outer room--or +thought she did--but all her senses were dulled except the sense of +loss and heartache. People, she knew, heard voices when they were +going to die. + +"Avice!"--the voice of God calling her--the sweet voice of death. She +was ready to go. + +"Avice! Where are you?"--and a tapping on the wall of her room. + +How like Wulfrey's voice! Perhaps he was permitted to be the +messenger,--a gracious thought--a joyful thought. + +She rose painfully, stiff with weakness and long lying, stumbled to the +doorway, stood leaning her hands against the sides, and peered, +white-faced and awe-stricken, through the curtains into the room. +Then, with a broken cry, she threw up her hands and fell forward into +Wulf's arms. + +When she came to herself she was lying on a blanket outside the house +and he was bathing her forehead and kissing her. She lay looking up at +him in wonder, out of eyes almost lost in the mists and darkness of her +suffering. She raised a hand and touched his face. + +"Are you real? Are you alive?" she whispered doubtfully. + +He proved it with hot kisses. His eyes swam with pity for her +sufferings. Her face and eyes told him all the story. + +"By God's mercy we are both alive, dear. It might have been +otherwise.... You have suffered sorely." + +"I thought you were sent for me ... the angel of Death. And it was so +good of them to send you and not a stranger.... But it is better to +have you alive," and happy tears welled weakly out of her eyes and +rolled down the white cheeks. + +"I believe you have eaten nothing since I went. Lie still and I will +get you something," and he jumped up and went inside, lighted the fire +quickly, and presently was sitting by her side, feeding her with warm +rum and water, for she was icy cold, and some bits of the cakes she had +made three days before. + +"You ought not to have starved yourself like that," he remonstrated. + +"I was sure you were dead and I had no wish to live.... You will never +go out there again...." + +"Not in the break of a storm anyway. We must go to the storehouse +sometimes, but we'll make sure of our weather in future." + +"I wouldn't have minded if I'd been with you." + +"I would. It was ghastly out there in the night," and he told her how +he had lived in the big case of curtains, and how the pile heaved and +writhed like a wounded sea-serpent under the tide and the gale. And +how he had brought back some flour after all, though it had been no +easy job as there was no wind to help him. + +"It is dear flour," she said. "It nearly cost us our lives. I would +sooner live on raw meat another time." + + + + +LVII + +That was their sorest trial of the winter. Often, over the fire of a +night, they talked of it and told one another all there was to tell of +their feelings and their fears, and their love burned the brighter for +its tempering. + +But Avice was soon herself again, and as the Spring quickened all about +and in them, the bitterness of the experience gradually faded out of +their recollection and only the brightness was left. + +And then there was so much to interest one everywhere that the days +were hardly long enough for all there was to see and do. + +First, seals--mothers and babies galore. Those sandy beaches of the +northern coast seemed a favourite basking place and nursery, and Avice +could creep along behind the sandhills, and crawl up among the +wire-grass, and peep over, and she never tired of watching them. There +was something so human in the way the babies snuggled up to their +mothers when they were hungry, and still more in the way the mothers +looked down at their nurslings. + +And the baby-rabbits. They were almost as entrancing as the seals, but +far shyer and more difficult to spy upon. + +For the simple lifting of a head among the sparse tufts of grass set +the hollow below alive with tiny bobbing white scuts, whose terrified +owners tumbled over one another in their anxiety to get below ground. +Avice would not hear of rabbit-meat in those days. She said the very +thought of it made her feel like a cannibal. + +And lastly,--birds. They were coming back in flights. The eastern +point seemed their chosen ground, but closer at hand stray families +were found, and importunate babies were being fed by the cold-eyed +mothers with whom, a few months later, they would be waging the fierce +battle for food. But Avice never took to the birds as she did to the +seals and rabbits. She could never forget what they would grow +into--brigands and fighters and cold-blooded raucous screamers at all +times. + +Now and again they lived on the 'Jane and Mary' for a week by way of a +change, and fish was always obtainable whether they were afloat or +ashore. + +The clear fire of their love waxed ever stronger, devoured the days and +weeks and months, and refined and fused them all into golden memories +without one smallest speck of alloy. More devoted lover never woman +had, nor man a sweeter mistress. Never was princess of the +blood--without a bar across her scutcheon--held in loftier esteem or +shown it more gallantly. Never, in word or act, did he offend her +sense of right in the smallest degree; yet she could set his heart +leaping and his blood racing by a touch--and she knew it. + +Sometime,--when he believed it right--she knew he would ask more of +her. It was inevitable. She had known it from the beginning. And she +had no fear of it. Love such as theirs knows nothing of fear. + +They were not playing at love. They loved with all the white fire of +passionate devotion which loses sight of self in the one beloved. For +better, for worse; in life, in death, she was wholly his. With the +ardour of the Spring in her blood, and the love-light in her eyes, she +waited for him to speak. + + + + +LVIII + +Time came when, according to her calendar, he had been there full +twelve months and she just about nine. And as to prospect of escape, +or further addition to their company, they were in exactly the same +position as when they came. + +Whenever they discussed that matter, she said, "Still, I came ashore +alive." + +And he always said, "You were the miracle. Besides you were +nine-tenths dead." + +She wondered when he would ask the next step of her, and how he would +do it. Her answer was ready--herself. Still, something of extra +fragrance--something ineffably sweet and delicate--would cling to it +for ever, or be for ever just that much lacking, according to the +manner of his asking. + +But she believed his great love would choose the proper chord and +strike it with strong and gentle fingers. + +And it did. + +They were sitting in the firelight one night, when a more than usually +pregnant silence fell on them. The depth of their feeling for one +another expressed itself not infrequently in these long delicious +pauses in their talk, when that which was in them was all too sacred +for words. Her Northern blood, of which she was proud, prevailed as a +rule over the Gallic strain, which she held in light esteem, and made +for undemonstrativeness in any outward display of feeling. But she +felt to the depths, and when she did permit the brakes to slip, the +wheels struck sparks. + +He also was more doer than talker. Hence those long sweet silences, +when she lay with her head in his arm in the coloured firelight, and +the gentle play of his hand on her hair was more to them both than all +the words in the world. + +But this night there was more in the silences that fell on them. In +both their hearts the high-charged thoughts and feelings of many months +were converging to a point. The quickening of the Spring was in their +blood. + +His hand slipped suddenly down from her hair and clasped on both of +hers where they lay in her lap. His voice as he spoke was deep with +emotion. It thrilled her to the depths. She felt the hot pulses in +his hand leaping and throbbing. His words were very simple, as became +a matter so vital. Deepest feeling needs no garnishment. + +"Dearest, you have honoured me with your trust and love"---- Her hands +turned and clasped his fervently. + +"Every hair of your head is precious to me. I would not knowingly +offend your feelings in any smallest thing.... We are here, cut off +from our kind, it may be, for ever.... We are as alone here with God, +as Adam and Eve were in The Garden.... You make my Paradise. You can +perfect it.... Will you?..." + +And for answer she put up her arms, and drew down his face, and kissed +him passionately, and clung to him as if she would never let him go. + +"I thank God for so precious a gift," he said, clasping her to him so +that she felt his heart pounding inside as furiously as her own. + +"Heart ... soul ... body ... all yours!" she whispered, and he kissed +her hair, because her face was hidden, and clasped her closer still. + +"It is the ordained crown of our love," he said presently, when their +first blinding whirl of emotion was over. "I cannot see that we offend +any law of man's, for here we are beyond the law. God's law we are +surely keeping.... And, so as not to act on simple impulse I have +thought that we would let another month go by before..." and he kissed +her rosy face again. + +"But why?" + +"Perhaps you have not thought it all out as I have----" + +"But I have ... I knew it must be so...." and the joy in him was very +great. + +"All the same, dear, we will not enter into that high estate without +your very fullest consideration.... And if you should find any reason +or instinct against it I shall abide by your decision." + +"I am all yours. I shall not change." + +"From what the mate said I imagine this island may pertain to Nova +Scotia. It is possible that Scottish law runs there.... We can take +one another for man and wife and place it on record...." + +"How?" + +"We have books with fly-leaves. Among the sand-hills you will find all +the quills you want. The birds are some use after all.... Anyone can +make a pen ... and ink we can always get even though it is red.... All +we need for a good Scots marriage is a pair of witnesses." + +"Seals, rabbits, birds...." + +"They cannot testify.... All we can do," he said thoughtfully, "if, by +God's mercy, we ever leave this place is to regularise ourselves by +proper marriage ashore as soon as we land. But the prospects of +getting away seem very small, I'm afraid." + +"We have been very happy here. We can still be very happy here," she +said contentedly. + +So amazing is this great power of Love in covering all deficiencies of +outward circumstance. + + + + +LIX + +The days slipped past, and each day he watched her quietly for +slightest sign of compunction, or retraction. And if such had come to +her, sore though he might have felt, and bereaved of the perfect +unfolding of the fair flower of their love, he would have choked the +feeling down, trampled on it, buried it so that she would have seen no +sign of it in him. For he recognised to the fullest what a mighty +thing this was that he was asking of her. + +But she understood him perfectly, fathomed his fears, was on the +look-out for his quietly-questioning looks, and met them with clear +full-eyed serenity and a face rosy at times with anticipation. + +"You need not fear for me," she laughed softly, one night as she lay in +his arm before the fire. "I shall not change." + +He clasped her closer. "I could not blame you if you did. From every +worldly point of view you would be right----" + +"What have we to do with worldly points of view? We are out of it all. +We are here alone, and like to be. And we are doing right in our own +eyes." + +"I would risk my soul on what seems right to these pure eyes," and he +bent and kissed them warmly. + +"Ten more days!" she murmured, and nestled closer, with her head on his +breast so that she could feel the strong beating of his heart. + +"It says 'Avice!--Avice!--Avice!'" he said quietly. "It is full of +Avice," and she pressed still closer. + + +So the great day came, the greatest day either of their lives had known. + +Wulf had found sleep impossible. His heart, full-charged, felt like to +burst its mortal bounds. He rose quietly in the dark and went out into +the soft twilight of the dawn--to greet the coming of the perfect day. +And she, as impossible of sleep as he, heard him in spite of all his +caution, and laughed softly to herself for very happiness in him and in +herself. And when he had gone, she thanked God for this great gift of +a true man's love, and for that in herself which responded to it so +fully. + +She had not a doubt nor a fear. The smallest of either would have +barred her from him. But there was not the smallest shadow between +them. Their hearts were one. It was meet and good that their lives +should be one also. Wulfrey paced the beach out there and found the +silent darkness soothing to his bounding senses. + +It was late April. The air was sweet and fresh. The sea just breathed +in its sleep and no more. The water rippled silently up the hard sand +with scarce a murmur. The darkness of the eastern sky thinned as he +paced and watched. There came a soft suffusion of light there. It +throbbed and grew. A faint touch of carmine outlined a cloud above it. +The darkness seemed to fade and melt out of the sky. All the tiny +clouds above him turned their faces to the east and flushed rose-red +with the joy of the new day. + +He climbed a hill and caught the first golden gleam of the rising sun. +His eyes shone, and his face. In his eyes two suns were reflected. +But there was only one sun. And they were two and now were to become +one. The Perfect Day had dawned. + +And just as she, lying in her bed with her face in her hands, had +thanked God for His goodness, so he. He flung his right hand up +towards the sun in the brightening sky and said deeply, "My God, I +thank Thee for this day and most of all for her!" + +And, down below, he saw her coming out of the house towards him. + +He sprang down to meet her, caught her hands, and looked right down +through her eyes into her heart, and was satisfied. + + + + +LX + +Arm in arm they paced the beach till the sun was well up, and their +bank of sand shone in the flood of golden light as it had never shone +before,--fresh and sweet as if but new-created. + +A light wind had come with the sun. The small waves came hurrying in +as though they were invited guests. At sight of the wedding-party they +broke into crisp white laughter, curled themselves over in league-long +sickles of tenderest lucent green, and raced up the sands to their feet +in long soft swirls of liquid amber, laced with bubbles and edged with +creamy foam. + +"They haste to the wedding, to pay their tribute to the only bride they +have ever set eyes on," said Wulf, as they stopped to watch them. "And +each one is glad to give his life for a single peep at her." + +"Foolish little waves," laughed she. "I am going to make their very +close acquaintance presently. How beautiful the sea is this +morning!"--as her eyes travelled out to the wide blue sweep beyond, +with its dapple of purple shadows. + +"The most beautiful sea and the most wonderful morning that ever was," +he asserted heartily. "But it is only a beginning. There will be many +more like it. And still better." + +"I am so glad it is so sweet a day. A dull one would have troubled me." + +"But it could not possibly have been anything else." + +"Oh, but it could." + +"In mere outward accident perhaps. But I've got the sun inside me. I +wonder it doesn't show through." + +"It does," she laughed joyously. "You are all aglow." + +"And never man had better reason. I would not change places with all +the kings of all the earth rolled into one." + +"Nor I with all the queens. We are happier here by far with nothing +but ourselves." + +"Ourselves, and our Love, and infinite Hope. Now let us go and eat. +My bride must not starve. That would be a bad beginning. Did you +sleep?" + +"Not a wink. I heard you go out." + +"And I was pluming myself on not having made a sound." + +While she was making cakes he busied himself making a pen out of a +quill he had picked up on the beach, and she smiled when she saw what +he was at. + +"And the ink?" she asked. + +"I've got it all ready. I always carry some with me in case of need," +at which she knitted her brows prettily and looked puzzled. + +After breakfast she said, "Now you must leave me for a couple of hours. +I am going to thank the waves for their good wishes and then I shall go +to the fresh-water pool." + +"You will be very careful.. You won't get yourself drowned." + +"I will be very careful. And you!" + +"I will go across to the spit. But when we are wed----" + +"Yes--then!" she nodded rosily, and he kissed her and went off past the +fresh-water pools, and splashed through the narrows that joined their +lake to the smaller one, and so to the shore and into the sea, for the +last time alone. + +He waited till he was sure she had done with their bathing-pool, and +then ran across and plunged into it, for the salt water braces, but +sticks and never makes one feel so clean as fresh. + +She was still busy with the princely brush and comb when he came on +her, and his heart leaped again at her fresh and radiant beauty. + +She had clothed herself all in spotless linen, swathed about her in +that marvellous fashion of which she held the secret to perfection. To +his rejoicing eyes she appeared half angel, half Vestal Virgin, yet all +bewitching human girl, and, best of all, his bride. + +"Be thankful you're a man, and delivered from this," she said, her eyes +shining through the glorious veil at his visible joy in her. + +"I'm thankful I'm a man, but I wouldn't have you relieved of that for +half the world. I glory in it," and he bent and kissed it. "For a +moment I thought you were an angel." + +"Perhaps I am." + +"I know you are. But, thank God, you're human too! Men don't wed with +angels.... I must go and dress myself also," and he disappeared into +the house. + +When, in due course, he came out, gallantly clad in a long blue coat +with flap-pockets, and figured vest, and white silk knee-breeches, and +stockings to suit, she first stared and then laughed. + +"My faith, but we are fine!" said she. "But, in truth, I like you best +as I have known you best. Do you marry in a dead man's clothes?" + +"Not if I know it. Sooner in my rags. But, to the best of my belief, +these belonged to your friend the Duke of Kent. Macro would have them, +but little he dreamed of the high use to which they would be put. I +borrow them for the occasion. His Highness would make no objection I +am sure." + +"I am sure he would not, and they become you well. But still I like +you best as I have known you best." + +"I will doff them presently. But you are so like a queen that I did +not like to come to you like a beggar." + +In his hand he had brought the Prayer-book, with the quill in a certain +place. + +He stepped up to her and lifted her hand to his lips. + +"You do not repent you of this we are about to do?" + +"I shall never repent it," she said, with dancing eyes. + +"Please God, and as far as in me lies, you shall never have cause to +repent it.... We are here, our two selves, with none to witness this +that we do but God.... We are doing what we believe to be right for +our own great happiness and well-being.... It would suffice, I +believe, for a Scots wedding, simply to declare ourselves man and wife. +But I have thought it would please us both to do something more. We +are not entering upon this new estate lightly or without due +thought.... It will, I know, be to both our minds and comforting to +both our hearts, to think that in our loneliness here we have done all +we could to supply the deficiencies for which we are not to blame." + +He spoke with very great emotion. She rejoiced in this fresh evidence +of the heights and depths of his nature and his essential goodness of +heart, though indeed she had not needed it. + +Her great dark eyes, fixed on his, were abrim with happy tears. + +"So," he continued, "We will read together the Form for the +Solemnization of Matrimony in this Prayer-book, and then we will +inscribe on the front leaf of it the fact that this day we have become +man and wife. We will sign our names to it, and we can do no more to +comply with man's law.... Is that your will, my dear?" + +"Yes." + +"Then here we will kneel and wed," and down they knelt in the sand, +with a clear sky and bright sun above, and the blue sea that held them +captive dancing and laughing in front; and holding the book between +them he read the Service aloud in a deep and reverent voice. + +Parts of it were of course somewhat incongruous to their situation, but +he would not slur or miss a word. The statement that they were +gathered together in the face of this congregation almost provoked her +to an explosion. For out of the corner of her eye, as she followed his +reading, a slight movement on the side of an adjacent sandhill showed +her a rabbit, sitting up and watching them with critical attention, and +it looked to her just like the frowsy old female in black she had seen +hovering about the skirts of a wedding in a London church. + +And there were parts that brought the colour to her face, though she +was familiar with them. Applied to oneself they seemed to hold new +point and meaning. + +However, he read bravely on. No one interfered to show any just cause +why they should not lawfully be joined together, nor had either of them +any confession of impediment to make. + +At the "Wilt thou----?" he answered heartily, "I will." And waited for +her to do the same when her turn came. + +When it came to--"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?"--he +answered boldly,--"God." + +Then they took hands and plighted their troth, reciting the words in +the book. + +But when it came to the putting on of the ring there came an interlude +not provided for in the Marriage Service. + +He had duly provided a plain gold wedding ring. + +"Where did you get it?" she asked with a look of surprise. + +"I found it among Macro's treasures." + +"It must be some dead woman's, then. I would sooner not. Can we not +leave that out? Will it make any difference?" + +"No, dear. It will make no difference to our being truly wed." + +"Then please go on without it." + +So they left the ring out and read on to the end together. + +He closed the book and drew her to him as they knelt, and kissed her as +his wife. + +"Now," he said, lifting her up. "We will put on record the most +wonderful thing that has ever happened on this island, and then we will +go home and prepare the marriage-feast.... I wonder now if James +Elwes, M.A., late of Brasenose College, Oxford, is aware of the high +use to which his Prayer-book is being put,"--as he pointed to the name +inscribed on the fly-leaf, and turned over to the blank on the other +side. + +"Do you think they know?" + +"I do not see why not. But as we never knew him, nor he us, it is +possible he is not present." + +And suddenly those words at the beginning of the Marriage Service +assumed a new and mighty significance for her. "In the face of this +congregation" might mean more than she had ever dreamed of. Perhaps +her mother had been there---- If she had, if she should be here +now--it, was somewhat startling to think of--she would be glad, for she +would know how good and true a man this was. + +But he was busily writing, and at the sight she cried, "Oh!"--for the +writing was red and the ink was drawn from a little jag he had made in +his arm. + +"In blood," she said, with a touch of dismay. + +"It could not be put to better use," he laughed. "It is all at your +service ... to the very last drop.... How begin better than by setting +down here that we are one till death?" + +"What you said made me think that perhaps my mother had been with +us----" + +"I am sure she was, and mine too.... They will both approve, you may +be sure.... Here is what I have written-- + +"'I, Wulfrey Dale, do hereby declare that I have this day taken Avice +Drummond to be my lawful wedded wife.' And for you, 'I, Avice +Drummond, do hereby declare that I have this day taken Wulfrey Dale to +be my lawful wedded husband.' Now I will sign.... And you will sign +there ... and I will add the date as far as we know it ... and our +present place of abode--Sable Island." + +He held the book till the writing was dry, then kissed her signature. +"It is the first time I have set eyes on your handwriting," he said. +"It is like yourself--clear and strong and true ... Mistress +Dale,"--with a smiling bow, as he handed her the book,--"your +marriage-lines! You will like to keep them." + +"And the pen, please," she said, holding out her hand for it, and +wrapping it and the book in a fold of her white robe. "These will be +more to me than all the treasures of the world." + +He put his arm round her and they went slowly home--man and wife. + + + + +BOOK V + +GARDEN OF EDEN + + + + +LXI + +Happy? If all newly-married folk could find such happiness as was +theirs, what a wonderful world it would be! + +From every worldly point of view they had nothing. They were outcasts, +paupers, dependent for the food they ate and the clothes they wore, on +Nature and the caprice of the sea. Yet, having nothing, they had +everything, since they had one another. + +If he had rejoiced in her before, and loved her with a love akin to +pain in the repression he subjected it to, he loved her now a thousand +times more, and she filled him with a joy that knew no bounds. Time, +he said to himself, would not suffice for all their love, it would fill +eternity. + +The days were never long enough for them. In this new joy of life and +perfected fellowship they forgot their years at times, and were like a +pair of children, endowed with the freedom of time and space and hearts +attuned to the most perfect enjoyment of these new attributes. + +They made long journeys and explored every inch of their +territory--sleeping out at times in the side of a sandhill under the +soft summer night. And those were wondrous times. + +--To lie there flat on their blanket, side by side, chin in hand like +children, his arm about her, and watch the red sun sink into the water +at the end of his fiery trail, while all the sky above burned crimson +right into the east behind them.--To watch, with bated breath, the +rabbits creeping out to feed and frolic about them, all unconscious of +their presence.--To lie and watch the colours fade slowly in the +darkening sky, and the stars come out till the whole dark dome was a +never-failing marvel of delight.--Or, on the other shore, to lie and +watch the moonbeams dancing on the sleeping bosom of the sea.--To feel +oneself oneself in the midst of it all--a part of it all--the height +and the width and the immensity and wonder of it all.--To feel his arm +enfolding her, and all that that meant to them both.--To feel the +warmth of life, and all the mighty joy of it, throbbing in her slender +body as he drew her closer.--To know, as he knew, that God lived and +had given her to him, and that she loved him with every fibre of her +being, as he loved her.... + +Happy? At times, so full was her heart that she wondered if such +happiness was right for mortals to enjoy, and so, if it could last. + +And when she shared that with him, as they shared everything in common, +he reasoned her back to comfort. + +"Happiness and health are life's proper conditions," he asserted, with +such hearty conviction that her doubts hid their heads. "Sorrow and +sickness come of trespass, somehow, somewhere, somewhen, though it is +not always easy to trace them back to first causes. But, without +doubt, people were meant to be as healthy and happy as it is possible +for them to be." + +"But I have known people suffer who, I am sure, never did any +wrong--none, that is, deserving of suffering such as they had. In +fact," she mused, "it seems to me that the good people suffer most and +the wicked prosper." + +"That is as we judge. But we see only the outsides of things and we +are purblind at best. Nature has certain laws, and God has certain +laws--though a parson could tell you more about these than I can. And +if those laws are broken the results have to be borne, and sometimes +they run on and on and fall on innocent people." + +"It doesn't seem very fair." + +"The laws cannot be altered for individuals or exceptional cases. +Fathers sin and the children suffer. But the blame is the fathers'." + +"Yes," she nodded, and perhaps she was thinking of her own case. + +"So you've no need to fear being as happy as you can," he added +quickly. "God meant you for happiness, and truly, I think we have more +certainty of it here than we might have had elsewhere." + +"I am sure of it and I am happy," and she nestled still closer under +his folding arm. + +But they had their strenuous working times as well, and enjoyed them +equally. He developed his new-found capacity for carpentering. Made +her more chairs and a table, added to the comfort of their house in +many ways. And she kept it all in perfect order, and attended to the +cooking, and proved herself a most admirable housewife and helpmate. + +They were down almost to fundamentals. Their life--partaking as it did +of the development of the ages, and so of the wider freedom of thought +and feeling, was the life of the ancients and not far from idyllic. + +The hunter went forth to the chase--though it was only rabbits--and the +fisherman to the lake, and brought home his spoils to his waiting mate, +and they ate of them and were content. + +They enjoyed the most perfect health, and for society they had one +another and desired no more--at all events, no outsiders. + +They had storms and mists and spells of dull weather, but their house +was proof against all assault from without, and warm and bright with +their abounding love. They had fire and light and books and +themselves, and always in time the sun shone out again, and they +enjoyed it the more perhaps for its frequent defaults. + +They had their trying times too. Stores had to be replenished from the +pile, and, after that dreadful experience before they were married, she +would not be left behind. + +"I do not care what happens if we are together," she said. "The worst +that could happen would be nothing compared with that other time," and +he could not gainsay her. + +So whenever he had to go she went also, and they chose their day with +care and made a picnic of it, and came home laden with spoils. + +Only once they got caught by one of those swift-travelling mists which +seemed to spring from nowhere. It swept over them just as they were +preparing to leave, and in the twinkling of an eye they were prisoners, +bound clammily to the pile till it should pass. For in that +close-clinging bank, as thick as wet cotton-wool, all sense of +direction was gone in a moment. They could not see a foot before them, +the pile was pitted with death-traps, a step might be fatal. + +They had both come lightly clad, for the day had been warm and the +wreckage claimed unhampered limbs. + +Fortunately they had come upon a case of blankets during their +operations. + +"Sit you down here," he said, as he felt her shivering under his arm, +"And I'll get you some blankets." + +"You won't get yourself lost?" she asked anxiously. + +"Not if you will keep calling to me," and he crawled away in search of +the case, while she sat calling, "Wulf ... Wulf ... Wulf," and he +answered her, "Avice ... Avice ... Avice," and at last a shout, "I've +got it." + +And presently his muffled "Avice ... Avice ... Avice," drew near again, +and he loomed through the fog like a creeping ghost, and taking her arm +they crept together from blanket to blanket, which he had spread as a +guide, till they came to the case itself. He hauled out more of its +contents till there was room inside for both of them, and they crawled +into their nest and in time got warm and comfortable. + +The fog showed no sign of lifting, so before it got quite dark he +crawled out again, she calling to him as before, and found a cask of +rum, of which there was always plenty about, and one of pork, and on +these they supped as best they could. + +The writhing and creaking of the pile, as the tide rose and fell, +caused her some alarm. But he explained it all to her, and after a +time she fell asleep with his arm about her, and they were wakened to a +clear bright morning by the shrieking and squabbling of the birds over +the barrel of pork, which he had left standing open. + +The barrel itself and all the pile adjacent seemed suddenly to have +sprouted feathers. It was alive with fiercely-beating wings and +jerking feathered necks and squirming feathered bodies, and cold hard +little glassy eyes, and cruel rending beaks, and shrill angry cries. + +"How hideous they are!" she said, shrinking back into the case. + +"It is the great fight for life. They seem always hungry." + +The barrel stood on end. The fortunate ones among the feathered +pirates wormed themselves in, and tore and rent at the food, regardless +of the shrill expostulations of their fellows and the beaks and claws +that tore and rent at them in turn, till the barrel itself was lost +under a seething mass of shrieking, fiercely-struggling birds. They +pecked at one another's glassy eyes, they struck wildly with their +wings, they clawed with somewhat futile feet, and all the time screamed +at the tops of their voices as though they were trying who could scream +the loudest. + +"I wish they'd empty it and go," said she, and he wrenched down a slat +of wood and leaned out with a blanket over his head and arm, and +succeeded at last in tipping the barrel over, and pork and pirates +rolled out together. + +It was all cleaned up in five minutes and the cloud drifted away after +other prey. The disappointed ones swooped round the empty barrel for a +time, and some of the bolder, or more hungry, or least intelligent, +came fluttering at the opening in the blanket-box as though set on +fresh meat at any cost, and he had to beat them back with his slat. It +was only when a score or more were flopping brokenly about the pile in +front of the box that the rest grew tired of so losing a game and sped +away to join the main body. As soon as the way was clear, he helped +her out of her nest and they got to their raft, and eventually safely +home. + +But that was only an incident, though it confirmed her dislike and +dread of the pile. She still always insisted on going with him when he +had to go, and at such times they laboured long and hard, and got in +supplies enough for many weeks, and so went out there as seldom as +possible. + + + + +LXII + +So, working, wandering, bathing, reading, hunting, fishing, eating, +sleeping, with hearts and minds stripped bare to one another and every +thought in common, they lived that first golden year of their married +life, and grew into still closer fellowship and communion, into still +clearer understanding of one another, into still greater +love,--although, at the beginning, all this would have seemed to them +impossible. But there are always heights and depths beyond, and will +be, until the final heights are scaled--and doubtless even then also. + +And now, to one such depth and height they were drawing near, with a +touch of not unnatural fear on her part, as to an experience unknown +and invested with all the possibilities of life and death, and new life. + +He cheered her with his own great confidence; and her reliance on his +professional knowledge, and the love he bore her, comforted her +mightily. But they both knew full well that, given all the knowledge +and love in the world, the certain issue of this great matter still lay +beyond the utmost power of man; and it sent them to their knees and +brought them nigher heaven than ever in their lives before. + +It also set her very busily to work on tiny garments, which she had to +contrive as best she could from her very scant materials. And it set +him to the making of a cradle out of a very carefully-cleaned and +sand-scrubbed pork-barrel, which turned out an immense success and +filled him with great pride of accomplishment. + +She was in the very best of health, without a trouble on her mind, and +rejoicing more than ever in his joy and pride in her. And these and +the free open-air life they led all made for good. He would not permit +her a despondent thought, though as the time drew near she not seldom, +for his sake, assumed a braver and more cheerful aspect than her heart +actually warranted. + +But all went well, and within a day or two of the anniversary of their +wedding-day, their son, Wulfrey, was born and proved himself at once a +true Islander, lusty both of lung and limb. + +Prouder and happier father and mother, and more wonderful baby, it is +safe to say that island never saw. And if their days had been full of +delight before, the coming of Little Wulf filled them quite three times +as full. For there was Little Wulf's own happiness, which was patent +to all,--and his mother's rapture in him, and his father's,--and his +father's mighty joy in them both,--and her joy in his joy,--and so on +all round the compass;--and deep below and high above and all through +it all, their unbounded thankfulness for safe deliverance from peril. + +If he had admired and loved her as a maid, and loved and rejoiced in +her as a wife,--as mother of his child he found himself at times dumb +with excess of delight. He could only sit and watch, with worshipful +eyes, and newer and deeper thoughts of that other Mother, and of The +Child whose coming had transformed the world. + +She got out the treasured old Prayer-book, and they read over him as +much as seemed applicable to his case of the Ministration of Private +Baptism of Infants, and then inscribed on the fly-leaf, under the +record of their marriage, his name, Wulfrey Drummond Dale, and the date +of his birth as nearly as they knew it--with the same pen as before, in +the same red ink, and from the same glad source. + +And now indeed their days were full, and their nights, for Master +Wulfrey had an appetite that brooked no waiting, and he ruled that +household with a lusty pair of lungs against which even equinoctial +gales strove in vain. + +But it was all part of the price of their joy in him, and they paid it +joyfully; and he repaid them tenfold by simply being alive and +permitting them to watch his vigorous kickings as he lay naked on a +blanket at their feet in the sunshine. + +Avice was speedily herself again, herself and so very much more. In +his rejoicing eyes all her beauty was clarified, dignified, emphasised +manifold, in a way that he would not have believed possible. + +It was his turn now, in spite of all his philosophy,--and at times hers +again also--to marvel at all that had been vouchsafed them, and to +wonder, with a fleeting touch of fear, if happiness so great could +possibly last. + +The sense of the mighty responsibility their love entailed was upon +them. Suppose, by any dire misfortune, he were to be taken away,--what +would happen to them? He believed her capable of rising to the +occasion for the boy's sake and doing man's work in his place, but it +would be a desperately hard fight for her. Suppose they should be +taken from him--either, both. God!--he could spare the boy best, but +it would be terrible to lose either. + +And suppose, thought she in turn, either of themselves should be taken! +Suppose they should both be taken!--Well, in that case the poor little +fellow would linger behind but a very short time. They would soon all +be together again. + +But such black thoughts, natural as they were, inevitable almost, still +partook, to both their minds, of basest ingratitude and lack of trust. +And yet they did high service, for, when they came upon them their +souls went down on their knees, and there they found strength and +joyousness again. + +Little Wulf--but they very early began to call him Cubbie, it seemed so +appropriate--fulfilled all the promise of his advent. He was a +marvellous child. He crawled vigorously at nine months, and headed +straight across the soft yellow sand for the water, like a true +Islander, born of freedom and the open air and the sunshine, the moment +he discovered this new power. And they followed him, foot by foot, +with beaming faces, as he wallowed along like a well-developed white +frog, digging his little snub nose into the sand at times, but gurgling +and laughing all the same, and struggling on without a look to right or +left, intent only on the water in front. + +At the lip of the tide, where it came creaming up the beach in long +soft swirls of amber, laced with bubbles and edged with filmy foam, she +was for snatching him up. But Wulf stayed her. He wanted to see what +the boy would do. + +He was no stranger to cold water, but he had so far met it only in a +tub, never in such quantity as this. He crawled on along the wet sand +and the soft swirl came rushing up to welcome him. It was quite two +inches deep. It filled him with astonishment and took away his breath. +Everything under him seemed on the move. He stiffened for a second on +his front paws, gave a huge bellow of amazement, tried to grab the +back-streaming water with both hands as a cat pounces on a mouse, and +then set off after it at top speed, and was swung up into the air by +his delighted father, and held there, kicking and crowing, and striving +still after the enchanted water below. + +"He'll do," laughed Wulf. "He'll swim as soon as he can walk. The +first native! And a credit to the Island!" + +Golden days! If the first year of their married life was all pure +gold, this second was gold overlaid with jewels of rare delight. Every +moment of it was happiness unalloyed. The boy throve mightily. Avice +was in the best of health and spirits, and to the eyes of her lover +grew more beautiful with every day that passed. + +What more could the soul of man desire? + + + + +LXIII + +Their Wulf Cub was fifteen months old, and could swim like a fish, and +run like a free-born savage, and talk in a jargon of his own which was +yet quite understandable to his parents, when his sister Avice came on +the scene. She took after her mother, and her father vowed there never +had been such a lovely child born into this world before. + +Their patriarchal life flowed on, deepening and widening, as it went, +and so far without any break in its smooth-swelling current. The great +gales, to which they had grown accustomed, piled up ever-increasing +supplies for them. Within certain narrow bounds they knew no lack, nor +would they though they lived there for a hundred years. On great +occasions the wreckage even yielded them luxuries of the commonplace +which in the former life they had looked upon as ordinary adjuncts to a +meal and accepted perfunctorily, without a thought of special +thankfulness. But here they were rarities, priceless delicacies to be +held in esteem and made the most of. Apples for example. Once their +western point was strewn thick with what seemed a whole ship-load of +delicious red apples. They had probably been packed in frail barrels +or cases which the waves made short work of, and the birds were +fortunately away. They spent days carrying them up above tide-level +and then transporting them home, and revelled in apples for weeks till +their stock went bad. Another time it was potatoes, which they had not +tasted for over three years. Wulf declared it was almost worth while +to have been denied them so long, to find such new relish in them now. +Avice regretted, for the children's sakes, that they could not have +them all the time. + +And that set him to planting a quantity in some of the damp bottoms by +the water-pools. They came up all right, but the rabbits cleared the +green shoots as fast as they appeared. Upon that he fenced off a patch +with some of his superfluous raft timber and planted more, and +succeeded in raising a small crop, but they were a degenerate race, +lacking the good soil which had gone to the making of their ancestors. + +Curiously enough, that fact started into expression trains of thought +that had been latent in both their minds. + +He had come in exultantly with his first fruits of the potato-patch, +Cubbie at his heels proudly bearing one in each hand, and Avice cooked +them rejoicingly and pronounced them excellent. + +"It will be so delightful to have potatoes again," said she. + +But he was critical of his own production, as the author of a +work--even though it be but a potato--may be allowed to be. "They have +neither the texture nor the flavour of the original stock," he said. +"I suppose they need better soil than our old sandbank can afford +them,"--and his eyes happened to fall on Cubbie munching away at a +potato, and hers lighted on the dark little head in her arm. The same +thought pricked both their hearts and their eyes met with understanding. + +As with potatoes--so with children. He and she, growths of the larger +world, had found unlooked-for happiness through the accident of their +transplantation to this outer isle. But they brought with them the +strength of heart and mind that had come to them through contact with +that other world. In many respects it was a vain and hollow world. +The change had made entirely for their good and happiness. + +But--these little ones! ... Were they to be condemned for ever to the +sweet narrow groove of this island life, which to their father and +mother, by reason of the wonder of their love, had been like Paradise? + +To the children no such transformation, no such veritable +transfiguration of life as had been theirs would be possible. + +They could, indeed, teach them all they knew themselves--all the +essentials at all events. They could train their hearts and brains to +highest things. But in time the children would feel what the island +life entailed and denied them--what their lives were missing. The +higher their development the keener would be their regrets. + +"Dear," he said, clasping her closer, as she lay in the hollow of his +arm before the fire that night, "I know what you are thinking. It came +on me, and it came to you, when I was criticising those degenerate +potatoes." + +"I suppose it must have been lurking somewhere in my heart," she said +quietly. "But it all came on me with a rush as you spoke. You and I +desire no better. It has been wonderful ... perfect happiness. But +for them...." + +"Yes," he said soberly. "For them it would be different. For them we +desire the very best. And here they cannot get it." + +And so they were face to face with the mighty problem which thenceforth +must of necessity be constantly in their minds and hearts. + +For themselves, all that the outside world could give them could add no +whit to their perfect content and happiness. + +But for the children's sakes ... how to cross that treacherous hundred +miles of sea which barred the way to the wider--in some respects +wider,--to the larger--in some respects larger,--to the questionably +happier life, which yet these newcomers must prove for themselves, as +was their right? + +They discussed it quietly and at great length that night, but could see +no way out, and for the moment he could find no further comfort for her +than this--and yet it was much,--"Providence, which has done so much +for us," said he, "may in time do this also. Meanwhile the Island life +is all to the good for them. They are splendid little specimens, and +if they run wild and free for some years they will reap the benefit all +their lives. We will hope and pray, and puzzle our brains for them." + +Hope they did. And pray they did. But no amount of brain-puzzling +afforded them any solution of their difficulty. + +Nothing in the shape of a boat had ever come ashore, and he had neither +the tools nor the skill to build one. And if he had done he would not +have dared to risk his wife and children in it for so doubtful a voyage. + +Wild ideas came upon him of constructing a raft stout enough for such a +journey and venturing on it himself, leaving Avice and the children, +fully provided for, to await his return with succour. But he knew she +would never hear of such madness, so sent it to limbo with the rest. + +He took to lighting huge fires of timber from the pile, as he had done +more than once before, but the wood burned brightly, with splendid +crackings and spittings which set Master Cubbie dancing with delight, +and the volume of smoke was trifling. It occurred to Wulf also that no +matter how dense a smoke he could raise it would, if seen at all, be +probably taken only for the cloud of sea-birds which were doubtless +known to mariners and avoided like death itself--when avoidance was +possible to them. + +That every ship that could do so kept well away from their notorious +bank was evident, for they had never set eyes on a single sail since +they landed. Of course their ordinary range from the level could not +be more than four or five miles, he supposed; and even from their +highest hill, which he reckoned to be sixty to eighty feet, they would +see but twice as far;--and nothing came so close to Sable Island as +that if it could help it. + +Still wilder ideas he had,--of tying messages to some of the birds' +legs--but they were such a vicious set that he knew they would get rid +of them at once,--of nailing messages to boards, to empty casks, to +anything that would float--but he knew they might float for a score of +years and never be found, even if the seas did not strip them within a +week. + +He was reduced at last to that certainty of knowledge which it is +always of highest benefit to man to attain,--that in this matter he was +as helpless as a child in arms. He could do absolutely nothing that +was of the slightest avail. And so he was thrown back upon, and led +and lifted up to, that complete and perfect trust in a Higher Power +which is the measure of a man's understanding of the great lesson of +life. + + + + +LXIV + +They had been five years on the Island. Little Wulf was three, Avice +two,--as healthy and handsome youngsters as the world could show. + +Life had been all joyous to them. All the year round, except just now +and again when unusual drift of ice came rustling and grinding about +their island, they trotted about with almost nothing on. They swam +before they could walk, and now were in and out of the water a dozen +times a day, and so they regarded clothing of any kind as a hindrance +to pure enjoyment and freedom of action, and their mother judged it +well to insist on no more than the most reasonable minimum. + +They never lacked friends or company, though truly the friendship was +mostly on their side and provokingly lacking in mutuality. Rabbits and +seals, especially baby-rabbits and baby-seals, were the chiefest +objects of their young affections, and they were sorely disappointed at +the small response their proffered friendship evoked. On crabs this +could be enforced by capture and imprisonment, but they found them +cold-blooded, impassive playfellows, of altogether too-retiring +dispositions, and only to be stirred into display of their natural +abilities by provocation. Sea-birds were just as bad in a different +way, and fishes were altogether too elusive until you wanted to eat +them, when a baited hook did the trick in a moment. + +That wonderful father of theirs, however, managed to capture a pair of +baby-rabbits, whose mother he had unfortunately knocked on the head for +dinner before he perceived the mischief he was doing. The babies were +welcomed with shrieks of delight and were like to be killed with the +expression of it. The youngsters spent hours flat on their stomachs +watching them in their boarded enclosure alongside the house, and more +hours foraging for them the sweetest and tenderest herbs the hollows +could yield. And presently the captives became friends, and were so +comfortable in their narrow estate that they had no desire for a wider, +but galloped about after their owners wherever they went, and sat +anxiously twisting their noses on the beach when the irrepressibles +found it necessary to wallow and frolic in the water. + +At times, for a change, they lived aboard the 'Jane and Mary' for a +week or two, but Mistress Avice always had a very reasonable fear of +one or other or both of the children tumbling overboard, and so the +greater part of their life was passed ashore, with the sand-house as +headquarters and all the rest of the island as playground. + +That a life so circumscribed should never have grown monotonous tells +its own pleasant story. But the youngsters had known no other life +with which to compare it, and their elders, who had, found it fuller +and sweeter in its pastoral simplicity than any the great world had +ever offered them. + +Every moment of their day was occupied, if not with work, then with +enjoyments. The elders had to provide for the youngsters, and these +again for theirs; and when every single thing must be drawn from Nature +or from an accommodating but distant wreck-pile, such provision takes +time and forethought. + +When the day's work was completed they all bathed and rambled far and +wide, and it was on one such ramble, when they had gone as far along +towards the eastern end of the Island as small legs could carry, that +the end came--as suddenly as had come the beginning. + +They were sitting on the sunny side of a great sand-hill, eating and +resting after their journey,--resting, that is, so far as the elders +were concerned. The youngsters, who had found walking tiring, or +perhaps tiresome, found no fatigue in scrambling to the tops of +sandhills and sliding down the smooth soft sides with shouts and +shrieks of laughter. + +A cessation in the sport drew their father's and mother's eyes to them. +They were both standing on the hill-top gazing eagerly out to sea and +chattering to one another. + +"Seals probably," said their mother. From where they sat they could +not see the shore for an intervening ridge. And seals were always a +mighty attraction to the children. + +But when they began dancing excitedly on their hill-top their father +called, "What is it you see, Cubbie?" + +"Somefing, dad! Somefing funny." + +"Somefing funny!" repeated little Avice eagerly, and the elders got up +lazily and slowly climbed the hillside to see what it was. + +"My God!" said Wulfrey, as his eyes cleared the top first, and he +turned and kissed his wife joyously. + +"Thank God!" she breathed deeply, as her eyes also lighted on that +which was coming. + +For there, not half a mile away, was a white boat manned by blue +sailors, leaping towards the shore as fast as eight lusty oars could +drive her, and out beyond her, probably three miles away, was a +white-sailed ship of size. + +Wulfrey shouted and waved his arms. The children immediately did the +same, and the regular rise and fall of the oars stopped suddenly as +every eye in the boat turned on them. There were men in the stern with +gilt on their hats. Then the oars fell-to again and the boat came +bounding on. Wulfrey and Avice picked up each their namesakes, and +plunged down the hill and ran round the ridge to the shore. + +With a final lunge the boat came up the beach, and a tall man rose in +the stern and asked, "Who, in heaven's name, are you, and what are you +doing here?"--while nine pairs of eager eyes raked over the little +party. + +"I am Dr Wulfrey Dale, of Hazelford in Cheshire. This is my wife--and +our children. We have been here five years." + +"Good God! Five years!"--he was ashore by this time, and the rest +tumbled hastily out and stood about them, the burly sailors listening +with one ear and trying to make up to the children, who gazed with +wondering awe at the only men they had ever seen except their father. +"How on earth have you lived? ... Five years! ... Not all of you," he +said with a smile. + +"Not all of us. The children were born here. We were afraid we would +all have to live and die here. I thank God you are come. What brought +you?" + +"We've been sent to prospect with a view to a lighthouse here. There +has been an outcry about the number of wrecks----" + +"Ay, there are hundreds over yonder," said Wulfrey, pointing westward. +"They have kept us alive, but the cost to others has been heavy." + +"And where do you live?" + +"Come and I'll show you--or will you take us along in the boat? It's +good four miles over that way." + +"Boat'll be easiest. Sand's heavy walking. How long can we count on +this weather?" + +"Oh, for a week at least. It's our best time of year." + +"You will take us home?" asked Avice eagerly, when they had climbed +into the boat and were swinging along parallel to the shore, the +children staring in a vast silence and with rounded eyes at the bearded +sailor-men and their amazing ways. + +"As far as our service permits, madame, we will do anything and +everything you wish. We return to Halifax in Nova Scotia, but once +there you will have no difficulties." + +"That is where we want to go," said Wulfrey.... "Better keep out a bit +here. There are ridges below there.... Now if you will turn in." + +"What's that? A ship?" asked the tall man, and all eyes shot round to +the bare poles of the 'Jane and Mary' snowing over the sandhills. + +"A schooner, land-locked in a lagoon. That was our first home. Now we +live ashore." + +"And you've been all alone all that time?" + +"We had one companion, the mate of the ship.... He died four years +ago. Since then none have come but the dead.... We can get in here, I +think." + +The boat ran softly up the beach again, the sailors carried out Avice +and the children, and they all struck up through the sandhills to the +house. + + + + +THE END + + + + +PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. + +PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND. + +1917. + + + + + WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + GOD'S PRISONER + RISING FORTUNES + OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE + A PRINCESS OF VASCOVY + JOHN OF GERISAU + UNDER THE IRON FLAIL + BONDMAN FREE + MR. JOSEPH SCORER + BARBE OF GRAND BAYOU + A WEAVER OF WEBS + HEARTS IN EXILE + THE GATE OF THE DESERT + WHITE FIRE + GIANT CIRCUMSTANCE + PROFIT AND LOSS + THE LONG ROAD + CARETTE OF SARK + PEARL OF PEARL ISLAND + THE SONG OF HYACINTH + MY LADY OF SHADOWS + GREAT-HEART GILLIAN + A MAID OF THE SILVER SEA + LAURISTONS + THE COIL OF CARNE + THEIR HIGH ADVENTURE + QUEEN OF THE GUARDED MOUNTS + MR. CHERRY + THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN ROSE + MARY ALL-ALONE + RED WRATH + BEES IN AMBER (VERSE). 10th edition. + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Maid of the Mist, by John Oxenham + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAID OF THE MIST *** + +***** This file should be named 37954-8.txt or 37954-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/9/5/37954/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +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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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: Maid of the Mist + +Author: John Oxenham + +Release Date: November 19, 2011 [EBook #37954] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAID OF THE MIST *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="map of Sable Island" BORDER="2"> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t1"> +MAID OF THE MIST +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +BY +</P> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +JOHN OXENHAM +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +HODDER AND STOUGHTON +<BR> +PUBLISHERS LONDON +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +<I>Printed in 1917</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +TO +<BR> +MY FRIEND +<BR> +FREDERICK CÆSAR de SUMICHRAST +<BR> +Professor Emeritus of French Literature +<BR> +at +<BR> +Harvard University +<BR> +in +<BR> +HIGHEST ESTEEM +<BR> +and +<BR> +MOST AFFECTIONATE REGARD. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +CONTENTS +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +<A HREF="#chap01">BOOK I</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 15%"> +For a Woman's Sake +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +<A HREF="#chap02">BOOK II</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 15%"> +No Man's Land +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +<A HREF="#chap03">BOOK III</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 15%"> +Bone of Contention +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +<A HREF="#chap04">BOOK IV</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 15%"> +Love in a Mist +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +<A HREF="#chap05">BOOK V</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 15%"> +Garden of Eden +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +BOOK I +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +FOR A WOMAN'S SAKE +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +At sight of where the chase was leading, most of the riders reined in +their panting horses and sat watching those in front with anxious faces. +</P> + +<P> +The Old Roman Road—so called, though with possibly somewhat doubtful +claim to antiquity so remote—had an evil reputation. At best of times +it was dangerous. More than one of them had sacrificed a horse to it +at some time or other. Some had come near to sacrificing more. +</P> + +<P> +After several hours in the field, wound up by a fast five-and-twenty +minutes' run which had led round Endsley Wood and the coppices almost +to Wynn Hall, and then back through Dursel Bottom, and up Whin Hill, it +was too much to ask of any horse. Besides, it meant the end of the run +in any case, for that old fox, if he failed to shake them off +elsewhere, always made for the Roman Road and always managed it there. +</P> + +<P> +The hedge on this side was as thick and matted a quickset as ever grew. +The sunk road had no doubt originally been a covered way from the old +fort up above. It was indeed more of a trench than a road, with a +sheer descent from the quickset of ten good feet, a width of about as +much, and a grass slope on the other side at a somewhat lower level. +</P> + +<P> +The leap was therefore by no means impossible if your horse could rise +to the hedge and cover the distance and the extra bit for a footing. +</P> + +<P> +But what was the good? The bottom of the old road was always a muddy +dribble from the fields above, and up and down it went several flocks +of sheep whenever they changed pasture. And the wily old fox knew the +effect of these things on scent as well as any hound or huntsman. So, +when it was his day, and he had had enough of them, he made for the Old +Roman Road, and then went home with a curl in his lip and a laugh in +his eye. +</P> + +<P> +But there were riders among them to whom a ride was nothing without a +risk in it, and the Roman Road a standing test and temptation. It was +two such that the rest who had got that length stood watching, some +with tightened faces, none without anxiety. For a leap that is good +sport when one's horse is fresh may mean disaster at the end of the +run. Even old Job, the huntsman, and young Job, his son, who acted as +whipper-in, watched with pinched faces and panted oaths between their +teeth. Pasley Carew, the Master, lifted his foam-flecked black to the +hedge, and the dull crash of his fall came up to them, horribly clear +on the still autumn air. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey Dale, the Doctor, on his big bay, cleared hedge and road with +feet to spare, flung himself off as soon as he could pull up, and ran +back to help. +</P> + +<P> +It was as bad as it could be. Carew lay in the road, smothered in mud +and obviously damaged. His horse had just rolled off him, and the +Doctor saw at a glance that one of its forelegs was broken. It was +kicking out wildly with its heels, flailing clods out of the steep bank +and floundering in vain attempts to rise. +</P> + +<P> +Carew, on one elbow, was cursing it with every oath he could lay tongue +to, and with the pointed bone handle of his crop in the other hand was +hammering the poor brute's head to pulp. +</P> + +<P> +"Stop it, Carew!" shouted Wulfrey, sickened at the sight, as he jumped +down the bank. "Damn it, man, it wasn't her fault!" +</P> + +<P> +"—— her! She's broken my back." +</P> + +<P> +"You shouldn't have tried it. I told you you were too heavy for her. +Stop it, I say!" and he wrenched the crop, all dripping with hair and +blood, out of the other's hand, and with difficulty bit off the hot +words that surged in his throat. For the man was broken and hardly +responsible. +</P> + +<P> +It was a hard age and given to forceful language. But never in any age +are there lacking some to whom brutality to the dumb beast appeals as +keenly as ill-treatment of their fellows. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey Dale was of these, and a great lover of horses besides, and +Carew's maltreatment of his broken beast cut him to the quick. +</P> + +<P> +With another quick look at the useless leg, and a bitter word which he +could not keep in, at the horror of the mauled head, he drew from his +pocket a long knife, which had seen service on many a field, opened it, +pressed down the blinded tumbling head with one hand, and with the +other deftly inserted the blade at the base of the skull behind the +ears and drove it home with all his force, severing the spinal cord. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor old girl!" he said, as, with a quick sigh of relief, the great +black body lay still. +</P> + +<P> +Then he turned to Carew and knelt down to examine into his injuries. +</P> + +<P> +"No need," said the broken man. "Curse it all! Get a gate. My back's +gone. I've no legs,"—and the others, having found their roundabout +ways, came flocking up, while the dogs still nosed eagerly up and down +the road but got no satisfaction. +</P> + +<P> +Young Job plied his whip and his tongue and carried them away. His +father looked at Carew, then at the Doctor, who nodded, and the old man +turned and hurried away to get what long experience of such matters +told him was needed. +</P> + +<P> +"Take a pull at this, Carew," said the Doctor, handing him a flask. +And as he drank deeply, as though to deaden the pain or the thought of +it, Dale beckoned to one of the group which stood a little aloof lest +the broken man should take their anxiety for morbid curiosity. +</P> + +<P> +"Barclay, will you ride on and break it to Mrs. Carew?" +</P> + +<P> +"Is it bad?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, his back's broken." +</P> + +<P> +"Good God!" and he stumbled off to his horse, and with a word to the +rest, mounted and rode away. +</P> + +<P> +Old Job came back in a minute or two with a hurdle he had rooted up +from the sheep-fold, and they lifted the Master on to it and carried +him slowly and heavily home. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Carew was on the front door steps as they came up the drive. The +Doctor went on in advance to speak to her. +</P> + +<P> +"Dead?" she jerked breathlessly, as he strode up. +</P> + +<P> +"Not dead. Badly broken. He may live," and her tightened lips pinched +a trifle tighter. +</P> + +<P> +She was a slight, extremely pretty woman of three and twenty, +white-faced at the moment with the sudden shock; in her blue eyes a +curious startled look—anxiety?—expectancy? Even Dale, who had known +her all his life, could not have said. All he knew was that it was not +quite the look one found in some wives' faces in similar circumstances, +and this was not the first he had seen. +</P> + +<P> +She looked scarcely more than a girl, though she had been married five +years. That was due largely to the slim grace of her figure. Her face +was thinner than he had known it, less eloquent of her feelings, +somewhat tense and repressed, and her eyes seemed larger; and all that, +he knew, was due to the fact that it was to Pasley Carew to whom she +had been married for five years, for he had seen these changes come +upon her gradually. +</P> + +<P> +They had played together as boy and girl, when he was just little Wulf +Dale, the Doctor's son, and she Elinor Baynard, living with her mother +at Glynne. As youth and maiden they had flirted and even sweet-hearted +for a time. But Mrs Baynard of Glynne had no intention of letting her +pretty girl throw herself away on a mere country doctor's son, however +highly she might esteem both father and son personally. +</P> + +<P> +Wulf had at that time still to prove himself, and even if he did so, +and eventually succeeded his father in the practice, it meant no more +than a good living at the cost of constant hard work. +</P> + +<P> +Elinor, she was sure, had been gifted by Nature with that face and +figure for some better portion in life than that of a country doctor's +wife, and so she saw to it that the feelings of the young people should +not get too deeply entangled before it was too late. +</P> + +<P> +As for Elinor herself she was very fond of Wulf. She liked him indeed +almost well enough to sacrifice everything for him. But not quite. If +he had only been in the position and possessions of Pasley Carew of the +Hall, now, she would have married him without a moment's hesitation, +and she would undoubtedly have had much greater chance of happiness +than was vouchsafed her. +</P> + +<P> +If, indeed, Wulf had ardently pushed his suit he might possibly have +prevailed on her to marry him in spite of her mother, though whether +Wulf without the possessions would have satisfied her eventually may be +doubted. But Wulf, two years older than herself, had no intention of +marrying at twenty, even if his father would have heard of it. +</P> + +<P> +He was a gay, good-looking fellow, with the cheerfullest of humours, +and on the best of terms with every man, woman and child, over all the +country-side. Moreover he was an excellent shot, a fearless rider, +good company at table, an acceptable and much-sought-after +guest,—whenever circumstances and cases permitted of temporary release +from duties with which no social engagements were ever allowed to +interfere. Marrying and settling down were for the years to come. +</P> + +<P> +As his father's assistant he had proved his capabilities. And when the +old man died, Wulf stepped up into the vacant saddle and filled it with +perfect acceptation to all concerned. +</P> + +<P> +His ready sympathy, and his particular interest in and devotion to +everyone who claimed his services, endeared him to his patients. They +vowed that the sight of him did them as much good as his medicines, but +he made them take the medicines all the same. +</P> + +<P> +He had also lately been appointed Deputy-Coroner for the district, in +order, in case of need, to relieve Dr Tamplin—old Tom Tamplin who +lived at Aldersley, ten miles away. So that matters were prospering +with him all round. All men spoke well of him, and the women still +better. +</P> + +<P> +A practitioner from the outside, with a London degree and much +assurance, had indeed hung out his large new brass plate in the village +about a year before, and lived on there in hope which showed no sign of +fulfilment. For everyone knew and liked Wulf Dale, and Dr Newman, +M.B., clever though he might be and full worthy of his London degree, +was still an outsider and an unknown quantity, and the way of the +medical outsider in a country district is apt to be as hard as the way +of the transgressor. +</P> + +<P> +So Elinor Baynard, for the sake of her bodily comfort and her own and +her mother's worldly ambitions, married Pasley Carew and became +Mistress of Croome, and learned all too soon that it is possible to pay +too high a price even for bodily comfort and the realisation of worldly +ambition. +</P> + +<P> +Worldly ambition may, indeed, be made to appear successfully attained, +to the outside world; but bodily comfort, being dependent more or less +on peace of mind, is not to be secured when heart and mind are sorely +exercised and bruised. +</P> + +<P> +Jealous Jade Rumour even went the length of whispering that it was not +heart and mind alone that had on occasion suffered bruising in this +case. For Carew was notoriously quick-tempered and easily upset—and +notoriously many other things also. His grooms and boys knew the feel +of his hunting-crop better than his reasons for using it at +times—though doubtless occasion was not lacking. As to his +language!—it was said that the very horses in his stables lashed out +when he began, as though they believed that, by much kicking, curses +might be pulverised in mid-air and rendered innocuous. +</P> + +<P> +Now a wife cannot—Elinor at all events could not—kick even to that +extent under the application of sulphur or riding-whip. Nor can she +legally, except in the extremest case, throw up her situation, as the +stable-boys could, but did not. For the pay in both cases was good, +and for the sake of it the one and the other put up with the +discomforts appertaining to their positions. +</P> + +<P> +Pasley Carew's redeeming characteristics were a large estate and +rent-roll, sporting instincts, and extreme openhandedness in everything +that ministered to his own pleasures. +</P> + +<P> +He ran the hounds and was a fine rider, though over-hard on his horses, +with whom he was never on terms of intimate friendship. He esteemed +them solely for their carrying capacities. He preserved, was a good +shot, and free with his invitations to the less-happily situated. He +was a jovial host and a hard drinker as was the fashion. He enjoyed +seeing his friends at his table and under it. He was not a hard +landlord, and this, and his generosity in the matter of compensation +for hunt-damage, secured him the good-will of the country-side and +palliated all else. +</P> + +<P> +Morals were slack in those days, and no one would have thought for a +moment of affronting Carew by calling him a moral man. +</P> + +<P> +On the whole, Elinor paid a somewhat high price for the bodily comfort +from which—according to the Jealous Jade—sulphurous language and an +occasional blow were not lacking, and for the satisfaction of a worldly +ambition which, if the gradual shadowing of her pretty face was +anything to go by, had not brought her any great peace of mind. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey Dale was a very general favourite. With men and women alike, +quite irrespective of their station in life, his manner was +irresistibly frank and charming. With the women it might be said to be +almost unfortunately so. +</P> + +<P> +He was so absolutely and unaffectedly sympathetic, so exclusively and +devotedly interested in every woman he met, that it is hardly matter +for wonder that in many quarters impressionable hearts beat high at his +coming, and thought tenderly and hopefully of him when he had gone. +That, too, in spite of the fact that their owners knew perfectly well +that it was simply Wulf's way, as it had been his father's before him, +and that neither of them could change his nature any more than he could +change his skin or the colour of his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +He took a deep and genuine human interest in every man, woman and child +with whom he came into contact, and showed it. With men and children +it made for good-fellowship and extraordinary confidence. The older +folk all trusted young Wulfrey as they had all their lives trusted the +old Doctor. The children would talk to him as between man and man, and +with an artlessness and candour which as a rule obtained only among +themselves. With the women it led in some cases to little affections +of the heart—flutterings and burnings and barely-self-confessed +disappointments, for which their owners, if honest in their searchings +after truth, had to acknowledge that the blame lay entirely with +themselves. +</P> + +<P> +It was a time of hard drinking, hard riding, and quite superfluously +strong language, but none the less, among the women-folk, of a +sentiment which in these days of wider outlook and opportunity we +should denominate as sickly. The blame was not all theirs. +</P> + +<P> +So far Wulf had shown exceptional interest or favour in no direction, +that is to say in all, and so none could claim to say with any +certainty in which way the wind blew, or even if it blew at all. +</P> + +<P> +Not a few held that Elinor Baynard's marriage with Pasley Carew had so +wounded his affections that it was probable he would never marry, +unless——. And therein lay strictly private grounds for hope in many +a heart. +</P> + +<P> +For a heart-broken man, however, Wulfrey managed to maintain an +extremely cheerful face, and his manner to Elinor, whenever they met, +was just the same as to other women. +</P> + +<P> +If it had in fact been somewhat different it would not have been very +surprising. For it needed no professional acumen to recognise that her +marriage with Pasley had not fulfilled her expectations. +</P> + +<P> +She was, indeed, Mrs Carew of Croome, mistress of the Hall and all such +amenities—and otherwise—and luxuries of living as appertained to so +exalted a position, winner of the prize so many had coveted, and—wife +of Pasley Carew. And sometimes it is possible she wished she were none +of these things because of the last. +</P> + +<P> +For Carew made no pretence of perfection, or even of modest +impeccability, never had done so since the day he was born, never would +till the day he must die, would have scorned the very idea. Was he not +a man,—rich and hot-blooded, able and accustomed all his life to have +his own way in all things, easy enough to get on with when he got it, +otherwise when thwarted? +</P> + +<P> +And Wulfrey Dale had seen the freshness of the maiden-bloom fade out of +Elinor's pretty face, in these five years of her attainment, had seen +it stiffen in self-repression, and even harden somewhat. Her eyes had +seemed to grow larger, and there were sometimes dark shadows under +them. Without doubt she had not found any too large measure of the +comfort and happiness she had looked for. At times, mind acting on +body, her health was not of the best, and then she sent for Wulfrey to +minister to her bodily necessities, and found that he could do it best +by allowing her to relieve her mind of some of its burdens. +</P> + +<P> +They had always been on such friendly terms that she could, and did, +talk to him as to no other. Her mother was worse than useless as a +burden-sharer. Her only counsel was not to be too thin-skinned, and +above all to present a placid face to the world. Which, as medicine to +a sorely-tried soul, was easier to give than to take, and proved quite +ineffective. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey, on the other hand, gave her tonics, and, to the fullest limits +of his duty to Carew, his deepest sympathy in her troubles and +vexations, and his friendly advice towards encouragement and hope of +better times, when Pasley's hot blood would begin to cool and he would +settle down to less objectionable courses. +</P> + +<P> +At times, under stress and suffering from some more than usually +immoderate outbreak on her husband's part, she would let herself go in +a way that pained and surprised him, both as friend and doctor. He +doubted if she always told him all, even at such times. More than once +she had seemed on the point of still wilder outbreak, and it was all he +could do to soothe her and bring her back to a more reasonable frame of +mind. +</P> + +<P> +On one occasion she openly threatened to take her life, since it was no +longer worth living, and it took Wulfrey a good hour to wring from her +a solemn promise not to do so without first consulting him. So +over-wrought and alternately excited and depressed was she that there +were times when, in spite of her promise, he would not have been +greatly surprised by a sudden summons to the Hall with the news that +its mistress had made a summary end of her troubles. +</P> + +<P> +His mind was sorely exercised on her account, but it was only the +effects that came within his province. The root of the trouble was +beyond his tackling. He did, indeed, after much debate within himself, +bring himself to the point of discussing the matter, in strictest +confidence, with the parson, one night. But he, jovial sportsman and +recipient of many bounties from Pasley, including the privilege of +subsiding under his table whenever invitation offered, genially but +flatly refused to interfere between man and wife. +</P> + +<P> +"No good ever comes of it, Doctor. You know that as well as any man. +It's only the intruder suffers. They both turn and rend him like boars +of the wood and wild beasts of the field. Take my advice and leave 'em +alone. These things always straighten themselves out in time—one way +or the other. Deuce take the women! They're not blind kittens when +they marry. They've got to take the rough with the smooth. Another +glass of punch before you go!"—was the irreverent Reverend's final +word on the matter. And Wulfrey could do no more in that direction. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +It was under such circumstances that they carried Pasley Carew home to +Croome on the hurdle; under such circumstances that Elinor met them on +the steps and asked Wulfrey, with that curious, startled look in her +eyes which might be anxiety and might be expectancy.— +</P> + +<P> +"Dead?" +</P> + +<P> +And Wulfrey, subconsciously wondering whether she really had got the +length of hoping for her husband's death, and subconsciously feeling +that if it were so it was not much to be wondered at, though +undoubtedly greatly to be deplored, had answered her, somewhat sternly, +"Not dead. Badly broken. He may live,"—for the shock of the whole +matter, and the extreme discomfort of having had to sever that poor +Blackbird's spinal cord, were still heavy on him. +</P> + +<P> +Elinor shot one sharp, searching glance at his face, and turned and +went on before the bearers to show them the way. +</P> + +<P> +The staircase at Croome was a somewhat notable one, wide enough to +accommodate hurdle and bearers with room to spare, so they carried the +Master right up to his own bedroom and as gently as possible +transferred him to his bed. +</P> + +<P> +The explosive fury of his outbreak against Fate and Blackbird, in the +first shock of his fall, had been simply a case of vehement passion +disregarding, and momentarily overcoming, the frailty of the flesh. +Exhaustion and collapse followed, and as they carried him home he lay +still and barely conscious. +</P> + +<P> +He came to himself again as they placed him on the bed, and after lying +for a moment, as though recalling what had happened, murmured in a +bitter whisper, "Damnation! Damnation! Damnation!" and his eyes +screwed up tightly, and his face warped and pinched in agony of mind or +body, or both. +</P> + +<P> +As Wulfrey bent over him, and with gentle hands assured himself of the +damage, Carew looked up at him out of the depths; horror, desperation, +furious revolt, hopelessness, all mingled in the wild gleam that +detected and scorched the pity in Wulfrey's own eyes, and gave him +warning of dangers to come. +</P> + +<P> +"—— it all! It's no good, Dale," he growled hoarsely. "I'm done. +—— that horse! Give me something that'll end it quick!" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't talk that way, man! You know I can't do that. We'll pull you +through." +</P> + +<P> +"To lie like a log for the rest of my life! I won't, I tell you. —— +it, man, can't you understand I'd liefer go at once?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll bring you up a draught and you'll get some rest," said Dale +soothingly. +</P> + +<P> +"Rest! Rest! A dose of poison is all I want, —— you! Don't look at +me like that, —— <I>you</I>!" to his wife, who stood watching with her +hands tightly clasped as though to hold in her emotions. She walked +away to the window and stood looking out. +</P> + +<P> +"Carew, you—must—be—quiet. You're doing yourself harm," said the +Doctor authoritatively. +</P> + +<P> +"Man, I'm in hell. Poison me, and make an end!" +</P> + +<P> +"Not till tomorrow, anyway. I'll run down and get that draught. We'll +see about the other in the morning." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Carew turned as he left the room, and followed him out, and the +sick man sank back with a groan and a curse. +</P> + +<P> +"Will he die?" she asked quickly, as she closed the door behind them. +</P> + +<P> +"Not necessarily. But if he lives he'll be crippled for life." +</P> + +<P> +"He would sooner die than live like that." +</P> + +<P> +"We can't help that. It's my business to keep him alive. I'll run +down and mix him a draught which may give him some rest. You'll need +assistance. He may go off his head. He's a bad patient. I'll send +you someone up——" +</P> + +<P> +"Not Jane Pinniger then. I won't have her." +</P> + +<P> +He knitted his brows at her. "It was Jane I was thinking of. She's an +excellent nurse, both brains and brawn, and he may get violent in the +night." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't have her here," said Elinor obstinately, and he remembered +that gossip had, not so very long ago, been busy with the names of +Pasley and Jane, as she had at other times occupied herself with Pasley +and many another. Undoubtedly Elinor had had much to bear. +</P> + +<P> +"All right! If I can find anyone else——" he began. +</P> + +<P> +"I won't have Jane Pinniger here,"—and he went off at speed to get the +draught and find a substitute for Jane if that were possible. +</P> + +<P> +His doubts on that head were justified. He sent his boy up with the +draught, and started on the search for a nurse who should combine a +modicum of intelligence with the necessary strength of mind and body. +</P> + +<P> +But his choice was very limited. Old crones there were, satisfactory +enough in their own special line and in a labourer's cottage, but +useless for a job such as this. There was nothing for it at last but +to go back to the Hall and tell Mrs Carew that it was Jane or nobody. +</P> + +<P> +"Nobody then," said she decisively. "I will manage with one of the +girls from downstairs, and young Job to help." +</P> + +<P> +"Young Job is all very well with the dogs——" +</P> + +<P> +"He will do very well for this too. We may not require him, but he can +be at hand in case of need," and he had to leave it at that. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +V +</P> + +<P> +Carew suffered much, more in mind even than in body. The thought of +lying there like a damned log, as he put it, for the rest of his days +filled him with most passionate resentment, and drove him into +paroxysms of raging fury. He cursed everything under the sun and +everyone who came near him, with a completeness and finality of +invective which, if it had taken effect or come home to roost, would +have blighted himself and all his surroundings off the face of the +earth. +</P> + +<P> +Even his wife, and the maid who took turns with her to sit within call, +accustomed as they were to his outbreaks, quailed before the storm. +Young Job alone suffered it without turning a hair, and paid no more +heed to it all, even when directed against himself, than he would to +the yelping of his dogs. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey Dale came in for his share, chiefly by reason of his quiet +inattention to the sufferer's impossible demands for extinction. +</P> + +<P> +But he found his visits to the sick-room trying even to his seasoned +nerves. What it must all mean to the tortured wife he hardly dared to +imagine. +</P> + +<P> +Once when he was there, Carew hurled a tumbler at her which missed her +head by a hair's-breadth. Dale got her out of the room, and turned and +gave his patient a sound verbal drubbing, and Carew cursed him high and +low till his breath gave out. +</P> + +<P> +"Has he done that before?" the Doctor asked the white-faced wife, when +he had followed her downstairs. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes. But I'm generally on the look-out. I was off my guard +because you were there. Oh, I wish he would die and leave us in peace." +</P> + +<P> +"He'll kill himself if he goes on like this." +</P> + +<P> +"He'll kill some of us first. He's wanting to die. It would be the +best thing for him—and for us. Can't you let him die?" and a tiny +spark shot through the shadowy suffering of her eyes as she glanced up +at him. +</P> + +<P> +"You know I can't. Don't talk like that!" he said brusquely, and then, +to atone for the brusqueness, "I am sorely distressed for you, but +there is nothing to be done but bear it as bravely as you can. What +about your mother? Couldn't you——" +</P> + +<P> +"It would only make him worse still, if that is possible. Pasley +detests her. Oh, I wish I were dead myself. I cannot bear it," and +she broke into hysterical weeping, and swayed blindly, and would have +fallen if he had not caught her. +</P> + +<P> +A woman's grief and tears always drew the whole of Wulf's sympathy. +And he and she had been almost as brother and sister all their +lives—till she married Carew. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't, Elinor! Don't!" he said soothingly, as with her shaking head +against his breast she sobbed as though her heart were broken. +</P> + +<P> +Mollie, the maid, came hastily in, without so much as a knock, her red +face mottled with white fear. +</P> + +<P> +"He's going on that awful, Ma'am, I vow I daresn't stop in there alone +with him. It's as much as one's life's worth when he's in his +tantrums." +</P> + +<P> +"Get your mistress a glass of wine, Mollie, and then find young Job and +send him up. I'll go up and wait with Mr Carew till he comes." +</P> + +<P> +He led Mrs Carew to the couch and made her lie down there, and +explained matters to the girl by asking her, +</P> + +<P> +"Does he throw things at you too?" +</P> + +<P> +"La, yes, Doctor, at all of us, if we don't keep 'em out of his reach. +He do boil up so at nothing at all," and she went off in search of +young Job, who was passing a peaceful holiday hour in the company of +thirty couple of yelping hounds. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +VI +</P> + +<P> +Dale was confronted with the problem with which every medical man comes +face to face during his career. +</P> + +<P> +Here was a man who, both for his own sake and still more for the sake +of those about him, would be very much better dead than living; who +wanted to die, and, as he believed, make an end; who begged constantly +for the relief of death;—and yet, against his own equally strong +feeling of what would be best for all concerned, his doctor must do his +very utmost to keep his patient alive and all about him in torment. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey wished, as devoutly as the more immediate sufferers, that he +would die. He wished it more ardently each time he saw Mrs Carew, and +wholly and entirely on her account. +</P> + +<P> +Her white face, which grew more deathly white each day, and her woful +eyes, which grew ever more despairing in their shadowy rings, were sure +indexes of what she was passing through. Dale wondered how much longer +she would be able to stand it. +</P> + +<P> +He gave her tonics, and his most helpful sympathy and encouragement. +And at the same time, by the irony of circumstance and the claims of +his profession, he must do everything in his power to perpetuate the +burden under which she was breaking. +</P> + +<P> +But the whole matter came to a sudden and unlooked for end, on the +seventh day after the accident. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey was hastening up to the Hall to clear this, the unpleasantest +item, out of his day's work, when he met young Job coming down the +drive with a straw in his mouth and three couples of young hounds at +his heels. +</P> + +<P> +"Wur comen fur you, Doctor," said young Job. "He's dead." +</P> + +<P> +"Dead?" jerked the Doctor in very great surprise, for his patient had +been more venomously alive than ever the night before. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay—dead. An' a good thing too, say I, and so too says everyone +that's heard it." +</P> + +<P> +"But what took him, Job? He was going on all right last night." +</P> + +<P> +"'Twere the Devil I expecs, Doctor, if you ask me straight. He were +getten too strampageous to live. Th' air were so full o' fire and +brimstone with his curses, it weren't safe. 'Twere like bein' under a +tree wi' th' leeghtnin' playin' all round." +</P> + +<P> +"And Mrs Carew? ... Who was with him when he died? Tell me all you +know about it," as they hurried along. +</P> + +<P> +"I come up at ten o'clock as ushal, an' the missus met me at door wi' +her finger to her lips. 'He's sleeping, Job,' she says, an' glad I was +to hear it. 'I'll go an' lie down, Job, for I'm very tired,' she says, +and she looked it, poor thing. 'Knock on my door if you need me, Job,' +she says, and she went away. He were lying quiet and all tucked up, +an' I sat down an' waited for him to wake up and start again. But he +never woke, and when the missus came in this morning she went and +looked at him, and she says, 'Why, Job, I do believe he's dead,' and I +went and looked at him, and, God's truth, he looked as if he might be. +But I couldn't be sure, not liking to touch him, and I says, 'No such +luck, ma'am, <I>I</I>'m afraid,'—polite like, for we all knows the time +she's had wi' him, and she says, 'Go and fetch Dr Dale.' So I just +loosed these three couple o' young uns—they're all achin' for a +run,—an' I'm wondering who'll work th' pack now he's gone, if so be as +he's really gone, which I'm none too sure of. Th' Hunt were best thing +he ever did, but he were terrible hard on his horses." +</P> + +<P> +Dale hurried into the house and up the stair, and into the sick-room, +the windows of which were opened to their widest, as though to cleanse +the room of the fire and brimstone which had seemed over-strong even to +such a pachyderm as young Job. +</P> + +<P> +Carew lay there on the bed, at rest at last, as far as this world was +concerned, startlingly quiet after the storm-furies of the last seven +days and nights. +</P> + +<P> +Dale was still standing looking down at him, full of that +ever-recurring wonder at the quiet dignity which Death sometimes +imparts even to those whose lives have not been dignified; full too of +anxious desire to learn how it had come about. +</P> + +<P> +The tightly-clenched hands and livid rigidity of the body suggested a +startling possibility. He was bending down to the dead man to +investigate more closely when a sound behind him caused him to look +round, and he found Mrs Carew standing there. Her face was whiter, her +eyes heavier and more shadowy, than he had ever seen them. +</P> + +<P> +"He is dead," she said quietly. +</P> + +<P> +"One can only look upon it as a merciful release—for all of you. How +was it?" +</P> + +<P> +"He wanted to die," she began, in the dull level tone of a child +repeating an obnoxious lesson. Then the self-repression she had +prescribed for herself gave way somewhat. Her hands gripped one +another fiercely and she hurried on with a touch of rising hysteria, +but still speaking in little more than a whisper. "You know how he +wanted to die. He was asking you all the time to give him something to +end it. But you could not. I know—I quite understand—being a +doctor, of course you could not. But there was something he kept—for +the rats, you know, in the stables. And he told me where it was and +told me to get some. So I got it and gave it him in his +sleeping-draught, and——" +</P> + +<P> +"Good God! Elinor!..." he gasped. "... You never did that!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I did. Why not? He wished it. We all wished it. It is much +better so," and she pointed at the dead man on the bed. "It is better +for him ... and for all of us. I only did what he told me." +</P> + +<P> +He stood staring at her in blankest amazement, and found himself +unconsciously searching her face and eyes for signs of aberration. Her +face was wan-white still, but had lost the broken, beaten look it had +worn of late. The shadow-ringed eyes were perfectly steady and had in +them a curious wistful look, like that of a child expecting and +deprecating a scolding. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know what it means?" he asked at last, in a hoarse whisper. +</P> + +<P> +"It means release for us all," she said quickly, and then more quickly +still, "Oh, Wulfrey, I couldn't help thinking—hoping +that—sometime—not for a long time, of course,—but sometime—when we +have forgotten all this—you might—you and I might——" +</P> + +<P> +"Stop!" he said sternly. "Were you thinking that when you did this?" +and he pointed to the bed. +</P> + +<P> +"Not then—at least—no, I think not. I just did what he told me to +do. But when I saw he was really dead——" +</P> + +<P> +He stopped her again with a gesture, and broke out with brusque +vehemence, "Is it possible you don't understand what you have done? Do +you know what the law will call it?"—— +</P> + +<P> +"The law? No one needs to know anything about it but you and me——" +</P> + +<P> +"The law will want to know how this man died——" +</P> + +<P> +"But you can tell them all that is necessary. It was Blackbird falling +at the old road that killed him. If he hadn't broken his back he +wouldn't have been lying here, and if he hadn't——" +</P> + +<P> +"He might have lived for twenty years," he said, breaking her off short +again with an abrupt gesture. "The law requires of me the exact truth. +Do you understand you are asking me to swear to a lie? I would not do +it to save my own life." +</P> + +<P> +"He took it himself——" +</P> + +<P> +"He could not get it himself, and the law will hold you responsible for +supplying it." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh—Wulfrey! ... You won't let them hang me?"—and he saw that at last +she understood clearly enough the peril in which she stood if the whole +truth of the matter became known. +</P> + +<P> +Hang her they most certainly would if the facts got out, or coop her +for life in a mad-house, which would be infinitely worse than hanging. +And the thought of either dreadful ending to her spoiled life was very +terrible to him. +</P> + +<P> +She stood before him, little more than a girl still, woful, wistful, +with terror now in her white face and shadowy eyes, and he remembered +their bygone days together. +</P> + +<P> +"Go back to your room, and rest, if you can. And say nothing of all +this to anyone. You understand?—not a word to anyone. I must think +what can be done," he said, and she turned and went without a word. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +VII +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey Dale thought hard and deep. +</P> + +<P> +He must save her if he could. +</P> + +<P> +How? +</P> + +<P> +For a moment—inevitably—he weighed in his mind the question of his +own honour versus this woman's life. +</P> + +<P> +With a few strokes of the pen he could probably bury the whole matter +safely out of sight along with Carew's dead body. But those few +strokes of the pen, certifying that this man died as the result of his +accident, were as impossible to him as would have been the +administration of the poisoned draught itself. +</P> + +<P> +Moreover—though that weighed nothing with him compared with the +other—there was in them always the possibility of disaster, should +rumour or tittle-tattle cast the shadow of doubt upon his statement; +and an idle word from Mollie or young Job might easily do that. The +neighbours also had made constant enquiry after Pasley since his +accident, and had been given to understand that he was progressing as +well as could be expected. His sudden death might well cause comment. +Indeed, it would be strange if it did not. That might lead to +investigation, and that must inevitably disclose the fact that he died +from strychnine poisoning. +</P> + +<P> +The Dales had never been wealthy, but their standards had been high, +and Wulfrey had never done anything to lower them. He could not sell +his honour even for this woman's life. +</P> + +<P> +He pitied her profoundly. He understood her better probably than any +other. He knew how terribly she had suffered, and could comprehend, +quite clearly, just how she had fallen into this horrible pit. But +cast his honour to the dogs for her, he could not. +</P> + +<P> +Then how? +</P> + +<P> +And, pondering heavily all possibilities, he saw the only feasible way +out. +</P> + +<P> +It meant almost certain ruin to himself and his prospects, but, if it +came, it would be clean ruin and he would feel no smirch. +</P> + +<P> +It involved a false statement of fact, it is true, but of a very +different cast and calibre from the other, and one that he himself felt +to be no stain upon his honour. +</P> + +<P> +As a matter of pure ethics a lie is a lie, and of course indefensible. +I simply tell you what this man did and felt himself untarnished in the +doing. +</P> + +<P> +And the very first thing he did was to go straight home to the little +dispensary which opened off his consulting-room, and alter the +positions of some of the bottles on the shelves; and from one of them +he withdrew a measured dose which he tossed out of the window into the +garden. +</P> + +<P> +Then he sat down at his desk and quietly wrote out a certificate of the +death of Pasley Carew, of Croome Hall, Gentleman, through the +administration of a dose of strychnine in mistake for distilled water, +in a sleeping-draught compounded by Dr Wulfrey Dale. And he thought, +as he wrote the word, of the awful pandemonium Pasley Carew, Gentleman, +had created in his own household these last seven days. +</P> + +<P> +He enclosed this in a covering letter to Dr Tamplin, the coroner, in +which he explained more fully how the mistake had occurred. The +bottles containing the strychnine and the distilled water stood side by +side on his shelf. He had come in tired from a long country round. +Had remembered the draught to be sent up to the Hall. As to the rest, +he could not tell how he came to make such a mistake. But there it +was, and he only was to blame. He could only express his profound +regret and accept the consequences. +</P> + +<P> +Then, having completed his documents, instead of galloping off to see +his waiting patients, he sat down before the fire and let his thoughts +play gloomily over the whole matter. His man was off delivering +medicines, and would not be back till midday. Time enough if Tamplin +got his letter during the afternoon. As to his own patients, he had +run rapidly over them in his own mind, and saw that there was no one +vitally demanding his attention. He could not go his rounds and say +nothing, and the thought of carrying the news of his own default was +too much for him. As soon as the matter got bruited about, he thought +grimly, there would probably be a run on Dr Newman's services, which +would greatly astonish and delight that gentleman and would compensate +him for all his months of weary waiting. +</P> + +<P> +It was a good thing for Elinor, he thought, as he sat staring into the +fire, that he was not married. If he had had a wife and children, they +must have gone into the scale against her, and she must certainly have +been hanged. +</P> + +<P> +Quite impossible to bring it in as an accident on her part. That he +had seen at a glance. The jury would be composed of neighbours, and in +spite of the placid face she had turned to the world, it was well +enough known that she and Pasley had not lived happily together. And +though the fault of that was not imputed to her, every man's thought +would inevitably jump to the worst, and condemn her even before she did +it out of her own mouth, which she most certainly would do the moment +she opened it to explain matters. +</P> + +<P> +No, this was the only possible way. If the cost was heavy, he was more +capable of bearing it than she. In any case he could not hand her over +to the hangman. That was out of the question. +</P> + +<P> +He could pretty well forecast the consequences. His practice would be +ruined, for who would trust a doctor capable of so fatal a mistake? He +would have to go away and start life afresh elsewhere. It would have +to be somewhere where he was quite unknown, or this thing would dog him +all his life. Some new country perhaps,—say Canada or the States. +Gad, it was a heavy price to pay for a foolish woman's lapse! +</P> + +<P> +He would not be penniless, of course. His father had laid by a +considerable sum in the course of his long and busy life. If necessary +he could live in quiet comfort, without working, for the rest of his +days. But it was hard to break away like this from all that had so far +constituted his life. A heavy price to pay for mere sentiment—but not +too heavy for a woman's life! +</P> + +<P> +There was no doubt of his having to go. The question was whether he +should go at once, or wait till there was nothing left to wait for. +</P> + +<P> +It would be dismal and weary work waiting. But going would feel like +bolting, and he had never run from trouble in his life. As a matter of +fact he had never until now had any serious trouble to face, but now +that it had come he found himself in anything but a running humour. +</P> + +<P> +If there had been anything to fight he would have rejoiced in the mêlée +and plunged into it with ardour. But here was nothing to be fought. +By his own deliberate act he was labelling himself untrustworthy, and +no uttermost striving on his part could rehabilitate him. For the +essence of healing is faith, and a doctor who has forfeited one's +confidence is worse than no doctor at all. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +VIII +</P> + +<P> +In the afternoon he sent off his man on horseback with the letter to Dr +Tamplin, and towards evening he came galloping back with this very +characteristic reply: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +"MY DEAR WULFREY, +</P> + +<P> +Shocking business and I'm sorely grieved about whole matter. Humanum +est errare, but a doctor's not supposed to. Good thing for us we're +not always found out. Could you not bring yourself to certify death as +result of the accident? I consider it a mistake to admit the +possibility of such a thing, so d—d damaging to the profession. And +have you considered the matter from your own point of view? Cannot +fail to have bad effect. Perhaps give that new fellow just the chance +he's been waiting for. —— him! +</P> + +<P> +Think it over again, my boy, from all points, and be wise. I return +certificate. Your man will tell you all about my fall. My cob +stumbled over a stone last night and broke me a leg and two ribs. I'm +too heavy for that kind of thing and he's a —— fool! But it was very +dark and we're neither of us as young as we were. For all our sakes I +hope you'll come through this all right. We can't spare you. And it +might come to that. Remember what silly sheep folks are. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Yours truly,<BR> + THOMAS TAMPLIN."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Just like the dear, easy-going old boy, fall and all, thought Wulfrey, +and the advice tendered and the course suggested did not greatly +surprise him. But he had to make allowances for the old man's age and +easy-goingness, and his lack of detailed knowledge of all the +circumstances of the case,—how almost impossible it would be to +ascribe Carew's death to the accident, even if he could have brought +himself to do so. +</P> + +<P> +The old man's own shelving would add greatly to the unpleasantness of +the situation, for, as deputy-coroner, he would have to call a jury +himself, and submit the matter to their consideration and himself to +their verdict. +</P> + +<P> +However, there was no way out of that, so he set to work at once and +sent out his summonses, calling the inquest for ten o'clock the next +morning, at the Hall; and to relieve Elinor as much as possible, he +gave orders to the undertaker at Brentham to do all that was necessary, +and sent her word that he had done so. +</P> + +<P> +Early next morning, before he was up, young Job was knocking on his +front door, with half the pack yelping and leaping outside the gate. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Job? What's it now?" he asked, from his bedroom window. +</P> + +<P> +"That gal Mollie says you better come up and see th' missus——" +</P> + +<P> +"Why? What's wrong with her?" +</P> + +<P> +"<I>I</I> d'n know, n' more don't Mollie. <I>She</I> thinks she's had a stroke." +</P> + +<P> +"Wait five minutes and I'll go back with you," and in five minutes they +were crunching through the lanes, all hard underfoot with frost that +lay like snow, and white and gay with hedge-row lacery of spiders' webs +in feathery festoons, and, up above, a crimson sun rising slowly +through the mist-banks over the bare black trees. +</P> + +<P> +"What makes Mollie think your mistress has had a stroke?" asked the +Doctor. "What does Mollie know about strokes?" +</P> + +<P> +"I d'n know. 'Sims to me she've had a stroke,' was her very words. +She've just laid on her bed all day an' all night without speakin' a +word, Mollie says,—eatin' noth'n, and drinkin' noth'n, which is +onnat'ral; an' sayin' noth'n, which in a woman is onnat'ral too." +</P> + +<P> +"She was quite worn out with nursing Mr Carew." +</P> + +<P> +"Like enough. He <I>wur</I> a handful an' no mistake. Th' house is a deal +quieter wi'out him. But who's goin' to run th' pack?—that's what +bothers me." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you worry, Job. Someone will turn up to run the pack all right." +</P> + +<P> +"Mebbe, but it depends on who 'tis. Why not yourself now, Doctor?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's a great compliment, Job, and I appreciate it. But," with a +shake of the head, "I'll have other work to do," and he wondered grimly +where that work might lie. +</P> + +<P> +Mollie took him straight up to Mrs Carew's room, where she lay just as +she had sunk down on the bed when he sent her away the previous morning. +</P> + +<P> +"She's nivver spoke nor moved since she dropped down there yes'day," +whispered Mollie impressively. "I covered her up, but she took no +notice. An' I brought her up her dinner and her supper but she's never +ate a bite." +</P> + +<P> +"Get me a cup of hot milk with an egg and a glass of sherry beaten up +in it, Mollie," he whispered back. "And I'll see if I can induce her +to take it. You did quite right to send for me," and Mollie hurried +away with a more hopeful face. +</P> + +<P> +Elinor lay there with her eyes closed and a rigid, stricken look on her +white face, a picture of hopeless despair. But Wulfrey's quick glance +had caught the flutter of her heavy lids, and the gleam of terrified +enquiry that had shot through them, as they came into the room, and he +understood. +</P> + +<P> +He bent over her and whispered, "I have made it all right, Elinor. You +need have no further fears——" +</P> + +<P> +"They will not hang me?" she whispered, and looked up into his face +with all the terrors of the night still in her woful eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"No one will know anything about it unless you tell them yourself. You +will eat something now, and then you had better lie still. Get some +sleep if you can or you will make yourself ill. If you fell ill you +might say things you should not, you know." +</P> + +<P> +She struggled up on to one elbow. "You are quite sure they will not +hang me?" she whispered again. +</P> + +<P> +"Quite sure, unless you are so foolish as to tell them all about it." +</P> + +<P> +"I have felt the rope round my neck all night. Oh, it was terrible in +the dark. It was terrible ... terrible——" and she felt about her +pretty white neck with her trembling hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Forget all about it now. I have made all the necessary arrangements. +There will have to be an inquest. It will be held here—-" +</P> + +<P> +"Here?" she shivered. +</P> + +<P> +"At ten o'clock this morning. You are too ill to be present, so you +will just lie still. It will not take long. And I have done +everything else that had to be done." +</P> + +<P> +"It is very good of you," she murmured, with a forlorn shake of the +head. +</P> + +<P> +She did not ask by what means he had saved her from the consequences of +what she had done. Perhaps she dared not. Perhaps she believed he +had, after all, forsworn himself for her sake, and refrained from +questioning him lest it should only add to his discomfort. Anyway she +was satisfied with the fact. She was not going to be hanged. That was +enough. +</P> + +<P> +Mollie came in with her deftly-compounded cup. +</P> + +<P> +"Drink it up," said the Doctor. "I will look in again later on," and +he went away to prepare the household for the coming meeting in the big +dining-room. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IX +</P> + +<P> +The sixteen jurymen, whom Wulfrey had summoned in order to make quite +sure of a legal panel, came riding up in ones and twos, with faces +tuned to the occasion, disguising, as well as they could, the vast +curiosity this sudden call had excited in themselves and all their +various households. +</P> + +<P> +That there was something gravely unusual behind it they could not but +feel. They were all friends and neighbours; many of them had witnessed +Carew's accident and had been constant in their enquiries as to his +progress. The news of his death had come as a surprise and a shock, +and such of them as happened to join company on the road discussed the +matter by fits and starts, and surreptitiously as it were, but did not +venture below the surface. Their women-folk at home had done all that +was necessary in that respect for the fullest ventilation of the +subject, without in any degree rendering it more savoury or +comprehensible. +</P> + +<P> +Every man had felt it his bounden duty to be there, and so it was +sixteen keenly interested faces that confronted Wulfrey when he took +the chair at the head of the table and stood up to speak to them. +</P> + +<P> +His face was very grave, his manner noticeably quiet and restrained and +very different from its usual jovial frankness. +</P> + +<P> +"This painful duty, doubly painful under the circumstances, as you will +understand in a moment, has fallen to me in consequence of Dr Tamplin +being laid up through the fall of his horse yesterday. I am sure you +will not make it any more painful for me than it is. I shall not +trouble you long. The matter is unfortunately clear and simple. Our +friend, Mr Pasley Carew, died the night before last from the effects of +a dose of strychnine, administered in a sleeping-draught in mistake for +distilled water which was in the bottle alongside it on the shelf in my +dispensary." +</P> + +<P> +His eyes ranged keenly over the startled faces round the table at which +they had all of them so often sat,—under which some of them had not +infrequently lain. +</P> + +<P> +Every face was alight with startled surprise. Not one of them showed +the remotest sign of questioning his statement. +</P> + +<P> +Indeed, why should they? A man does not as a rule confess to so grave +a lapse unless it is absolutely unavoidable, unless the truth must out +and there is no possible loophole of escape. +</P> + +<P> +Not many men would fling away their life's prospects from simple pity +for a woman. For love—yes, without a doubt, and count the cost small. +But from simple pity, in remembrance of the time when the greater love +had been possible? ... +</P> + +<P> +But no such idea found place in any of their minds. His eyes searched +theirs for smallest flicker of doubt, but found none. Whatever the +women at home might have suggested as extreme possibilities, these men +accepted his word without a moment's hesitation. Elinor was perfectly +safe. +</P> + +<P> +"He was in great pain and could only get rest and relief by means of +opiates. How the mistake occurred I cannot explain, except that the +bottles of distilled water and of strychnine stand alongside one +another on my shelf, and that I had come in very tired that night and +the sleeping-draught was prepared hurriedly. I deplore the results +more than any of you possibly can, and of course I must accept the +consequences. I have not judged it necessary to make any post-mortem +examination. I was called by young Job early yesterday morning, and +when I got here Carew was dead and the symptoms were those of poisoning +by strychnine. I was amazed and horrified, but when I hurried back +home I saw at once how the mistake might have been made, +and—and—well, there the matter is and you must bring in such verdict +as you deem right. You can see the body if you wish. You can examine +the servants. Mrs Carew, I am sorry to say, is quite broken down with +the shock. She has been, I am told, practically unconscious for nearly +twenty-four hours and has only just come to herself. But if you would +like to see her——" +</P> + +<P> +"No, no." "No need whatever," said the jurymen deprecatingly. +</P> + +<P> +Dr Wulfrey sat down and dropped his head into his hands, then got up +again heavily and said, "You will discuss this matter better without +me. I will leave you——" +</P> + +<P> +"Couldn't you possibly say he died as result of the accident, Wulf?" +asked one—Jim Barclay of Breme. +</P> + +<P> +They all liked the Doctor. With some he had been on terms of very +close friendship. Some of them had known him all his life and his +father before him. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, couldn't you?" chorussed some of the others. +</P> + +<P> +"If I could I should have done so," he said quietly. "But it wasn't so +and I couldn't say it was." +</P> + +<P> +"Say it now, Wulf," urged his friend. "And I swear none of us will let +it out. Isn't that so, gentlemen?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, ay!"—but somewhat dubiously from the older members, who saw that +after this revelation of the actual facts to themselves their relations +with the Doctor could never be quite the same again, however they might +succeed in hoodwinking the world outside. +</P> + +<P> +They knew him, they liked him, but—well, at the back of their minds +was the thought that if Dr Wulf could make a mistake in one case, there +was no knowing but what he might in another,—that he might at any time +come in tired and pick up the wrong bottle,—that, whatever risks one +might accept on one's own account for old friendship's sake, one's wife +and daughters should hardly be put into such a position all unknown to +themselves. And more than one of them wondered what he would do if he +should happen to be taken ill that night—send for Dr Wulf or the new +man down in the village? +</P> + +<P> +Dale diagnosed their symptoms with the sensitiveness born of the +equivocal nature of the new relationship in which his confession placed +him towards them. +</P> + +<P> +"It is like your good-heartedness to suggest it, Barclay," he said to +his impetuous friend, "but it cannot be. I can only do what seems to +me right," and he left them to talk over their verdict. +</P> + +<P> +"Gad! but I'm mighty sorry this has happened," said one old squire who +had known Wulf from the year one. "Many's the time I've sat at this +table——" +</P> + +<P> +"And under it," interjected one. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, and under it, and I never expected to sit round it on Pasley +Carew. I'd give a year's rents to have him back, even if he was all in +pieces and raging like the Devil." +</P> + +<P> +"Same here. Whatever we decide it'll get out, and it's bound to tell +against Dr Wulf." +</P> + +<P> +"He's bound to suffer,—can't help it,—it's human nature. Suppose you +took ill tonight now, Barclay. What would you do?" +</P> + +<P> +"What would I do? I'd send for Wulf Dale of course, and I'd have same +faith in him as I've always had." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course, of course,"—but even those who said it had more the air of +wishing to placate Barclay, who had a temper, rather than of any deep +conviction as to their own course should the unfortunate necessity +arise. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Barclay, with the manner of a volcano on the point of +eruption. "All I can say is that if any man I know goes ill and does +not send for Wulf Dale, he'll have me to reckon with if the other man +doesn't kill him." +</P> + +<P> +"Hear, hear!" from various points about the table. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we've got to decide something and make an end of the matter," +said one. "Barclay, you write out what you think and I've no doubt +we'll all agree to it." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to write nothing," said Barclay, whose strong brown hand was +more accustomed to the hunting-crop than the pen. "I say 'Accidental +Death,' and keep your mouths shut." +</P> + +<P> +They all said 'Accidental Death' and promised to keep their mouths +shut; and Wulfrey, when he was called in, thanked theta soberly for +their good intentions, but added to their verdict,—"as the result of +strychnine poison administered in mistake for distilled water in a +sleeping-draught prepared by Dr Wulfrey Dale." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +X +</P> + +<P> +Jim Barclay, who was a bachelor, kept his bed next morning with an +alleged bad cold,—-a thing he had never been troubled with in all his +born days, and ostentatiously sent his man galloping for Dr Wulfrey as +though his master's life depended on it. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey smiled at the message, understanding the staunch friendliness +which lay behind it, and went. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, what's wrong with you?" he enquired of the burly patient, when +he was shown up to his bedroom. +</P> + +<P> +"Just you, my boy. Haven't slept a wink all night for thinking of the +whole —— mess. Wulf, my lad, I'm afraid you'll have a deuce an' all +of a time of it. Thought I'd show 'em there was one man thought none +the worse of you. ——! ——! ——! Can't any man make a little +mistake like that? Trouble is, most of those other fools have got a +pack of yelping women-folk about 'em, and they're all on the quee-vee +and as keen on the scent as any old——," and he launched into +comparisons drawn from the kennels into which we need not enter. "They +all promised not to blab, and they'll none of 'em tell any but their +wives under promise of secrecy, and it'll be all over the country-side +in a week." +</P> + +<P> +"I know it, old man. I've just got to stand it," said Dale soberly. +</P> + +<P> +"What's in your mind then?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll just wait quietly and see what comes. I can't expect things to +be as they were before." +</P> + +<P> +"And if things go badly? —— —— —— it all!" +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'm thinking I'll go too." +</P> + +<P> +"Where?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, right away. America maybe, or Canada. It's a big country they +say and just beginning to open up. I shan't starve anyway, wherever I +go." +</P> + +<P> +"But,—to leave us all and all this? —— —— —— it all, man! The +place won't be like itself without you. —— Pasley Carew!" +</P> + +<P> +"It wasn't his fault, you know——" +</P> + +<P> +"It was his —— fault putting Blackbird at that —— Old Road after +the run we'd had, wasn't it? I told him he was two stone too heavy for +her. But he always was a fool." +</P> + +<P> +"He was to blame there undoubtedly. But the rest I take to myself. If +folks go to the other man I can't blame them. I shall go nowhere +unless I'm sent for." +</P> + +<P> +"You'll have a —— long holiday," growled Barclay. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I can do with one." +</P> + +<P> +"I've half a mind to have a smash-up just to keep your hand in." +</P> + +<P> +"If you do I'll—I'll turn the other man on to you." +</P> + +<P> +"If he puts his nose in here he'll go out faster than he came, I wager +you." +</P> + +<P> +It was comforting to have so whole-hearted a supporter; but one +patient, and a sham one at that, does not make a practice, and Dale +very soon felt the effects of the course he had chosen. +</P> + +<P> +He adhered resolutely to the decision he had come to to visit none of +his patients unless he were sent for. It would be neither fair to them +nor agreeable to himself. It might do more harm than good. +</P> + +<P> +As to Mrs Carew,—he had visited her immediately after the inquest, and +told her briefly that all was right and she need have no further fears. +There was nothing wrong with her which a few days' rest and the relief +of her mind would not set right. All the same he rather feared she +might send for him, and he debated in his own mind whether, if she did +so, he should go or send her messenger on to Dr Newman. It appeared to +him hardly seemly that the man who had accepted the responsibility for +the death of the husband should continue his attendance on his widow. +</P> + +<P> +She did not of course as yet know the facts of the case as outsiders +did. He was somewhat doubtful of the effect upon her when she came to +a clear understanding of the matter. On the whole, he decided it would +be better if possible not to see her again. What he had done for her +had been done out of pity, but it was not the pity that sometimes leads +to warmer feeling. All that had died a natural death when she married +Carew. +</P> + +<P> +He attended the funeral with the rest. It would only have made comment +if he had not. And Jim Barclay and most of the others were at pains to +manifest their continued friendliness and confidence. +</P> + +<P> +Whether the full facts had got out he could not tell, but, rightly or +wrongly, imagined so, and for the second time in his life he found +himself ill at ease among his neighbours. +</P> + +<P> +The day after the funeral, young Job and a bunch of lively dogs came +down again with an urgent message from Mrs Carew requesting him to call. +</P> + +<P> +"Is your mistress worse, Job?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"She be main bad, Doctor, 'cording to that gal Mollie, but what 'tis I +dunnot know. Mebbe she's just down wi' it all. Have ye heard ony talk +yet as t' who's going to tek on th' pack?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mr Barclay will, I believe. He's a good man for it." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, he may do. Bit heavy, mebbe, an' he's got a temper 'bout as bad +as Pasley's." +</P> + +<P> +"Bit hot perhaps at times, but he's an excellent fellow at bottom." +</P> + +<P> +"All that, and his cussin' ain't to compare wi' Pasley's, which is a +good thing. I c'n stand a reasonable amount o' cussin' myself and no +offence taken, but Pasley did go past th' mark at times. Th' very +hosses kicked when he let out. An' Jim Barclay he is good to his +hosses, an' he only cusses when he must or bust. Ay, he'll do, seein' +you won't tek it on yourself, Doctor." +</P> + +<P> +"It's not for me, Job. A doctor's time is not entirely his own, you +know." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" said Job, and picked a twig from the hedge, and stuck it in his +mouth, and trudged on in solemn silence. +</P> + +<P> +"We wus rather hopin', feyther an' me," he grunted after a time, "you'd +mebbe have more time now fur th' pack an' would tek it on." +</P> + +<P> +"Why that, Job?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, y' see, it'll mek a difference this. It's bound to mek a +difference. Folks is such silly fools 'bout such things——" +</P> + +<P> +"What things?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, that there strychnine. 'S if anyone couldn't mek a li'l mistake +like that. Might have sense to know ye'd never let it happen again. +Even th' leeghtnin', they say, never strikes twice i' same place. +Though sure 'nuff it did hit th' old mill one side one day and t'other +side next day. But even then 'twere opposite sides. But folks is +fools." +</P> + +<P> +"So you know all about it." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, sure! 'Twere that gal Mollie told me, an' it were Mrs Thelstane's +gal Bet told her. None o' us think a bit the worse o' you, Doctor, you +b'lieve me. But some folks is fools—most folks, if it comes to +that.... An' as to Pasley—well, he were a terror now'n again. Th' +Hall's like Heaven wi'out him." +</P> + +<P> +They went on again in silence for a time. But there was that in young +Job's mind which had to come out. +</P> + +<P> +"If 'twere me, Doctor, askin' your pardon in advance for bein' so bold, +what I'd do would be this. I'd just sit quiet till they done yelpin' +and yappin' 'bout it all, then I'd marry th' missus,—we all knows you +was sweet on her once,—and settle down comfortable at th' Hall and tek +over th' pack an' mek us all happy." +</P> + +<P> +"That's out of the question, Job." +</P> + +<P> +"Is it now? ... Well, I'm sorry. Wus hopin' mebbe a word of advice +from a man what's old enough to be your feyther, an's known you since +day you was born, might be o' some use to ye. We'd like you fain well +for Master, both o' th' Hall an' th' Hunt." +</P> + +<P> +"You're a good old chap, Job, and so's your father, but you'll both be +doing me a favour if you'll stop any talk of that kind." +</P> + +<P> +"No manner o' use?" +</P> + +<P> +"No use at all." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm main sorry. An' so's feyther, I can tell ye." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Carew was sitting in a large chintz-covered armchair before the +fire in her bedroom, when he was taken up to her by Mollie, who +favoured him with her own diagnosis as they mounted the stairs. +</P> + +<P> +"She's that bad again. Can't sleep and off her food. Ain't had hardly +anything all day or yes'day. Just sits 'fore th' fire and mopes from +morn'n till night. 'Taint natural for sure, for him 'at's gone weren't +one to cry for, that's cert'n.... No, she don't complain of any pain +or anything. Just sits and mopes and cries on the quiet 's if her +heart was broke. Sure she'd more cause to cry before he was took than +what she has now." +</P> + +<P> +When he entered the room he did not at first see her, so sunk down was +she in the depths of the great ear-flapped chair. +</P> + +<P> +She made no attempt to rise and greet him. When he stood beside her +and quietly expressed his regret at finding her no better, she covered +her face with her hands and sobbed convulsively. +</P> + +<P> +She looked little more than a girl, slight and frail and forlorn, as +she crouched there with hidden face, and he was truly sorry for her. +It was impossible for him to keep the sympathy he felt entirely out of +his voice. +</P> + +<P> +"What can I do for you, Mrs Carew?" he asked quietly, and the forlorn +figure shook again but made no response. +</P> + +<P> +"You are doing yourself harm with all this," he said gently again. +"And there is really no occasion for it, that I can see." +</P> + +<P> +Her silent extremity of grief—her utter discomfiture was pitiful to +look upon. It touched him profoundly, for he penetrated the meaning of +it. She was overwhelmed with the knowledge of the sacrifice he had +made for her—and with pity for herself. +</P> + +<P> +All he could do was to wait quietly till the feeling, roused afresh by +his presence, had spent itself. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I did not know," she whispered at last, through the shielding +hands. "I did not know you would do that.... You have ruined +yourself.... You should have let them hang me." +</P> + +<P> +And there and then, on the spur of the moment, he leaped up a height +which he had not even sighted a second before. +</P> + +<P> +He had, by the sacrifice of his prospects, saved her from the legal +consequences of her act. That was irrevocably past and done with, and +he must pay the price. But she was paying a double due—remorse for +what she herself had done, bitter sorrow at the ruinous price he had +paid for her safety. +</P> + +<P> +He had saved her life. Why not save her the rest?—her peace of mind, +all her possibilities of future happiness. +</P> + +<P> +In any case it would make no difference to him. For her it might mean +all the difference between darkness and light for the rest of her life. +And she looked pitifully helpless and hopeless as she lay there sobbing +convulsively in the big chair. +</P> + +<P> +He saw the possibility in a flash and gripped it. +</P> + +<P> +"Hang you? Why on earth should anyone want to hang you?" he asked, +with all the natural surprise he could put into it. +</P> + +<P> +"You know,"—in a scared whisper. "Because I got him the poison——" +</P> + +<P> +"Come, come now! Let us have no more of that. I was hoping a good +night's rest would have ridded you of that bad dream." +</P> + +<P> +"Dream?" and she looked up at him wildly. "Ah, if I could only believe +it was a dream!" and she shook her head forlornly. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, of course it was a dream. You were over-wrought with it all, and +your mind took the bit in its teeth and ran away with you. What you've +got to do now is to try to forget all about it." +</P> + +<P> +"Forget!" +</P> + +<P> +"How I came to make such a mistake I cannot imagine, but when I got +home I saw at once that there was an extra dose gone out of my +strychnine bottle instead of out of the distilled water, and that +explained it at once." +</P> + +<P> +"<I>You</I>? ... <I>You</I> made the mistake?" she looked up at him again, +eagerly, with warped face and knitted brows, and a wavering flutter of +hope in her eyes.... "You are only saying it to comfort me." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm trying to show you how foolish it is to allow yourself to be +ridden by this strange notion you've got into your head." +</P> + +<P> +"Strange notion? ... Did he not beg me to get him that stuff he used +for the rats? And did I not get it for him? And he took it. And +then——" she shivered at the remembrance of what followed when her +husband took the draught. +</P> + +<P> +"All in that horrible dream when your mind was running away with +you——" +</P> + +<P> +"And did you not come and tell me they would hang me unless I kept my +mouth shut? And I lay all that dreadful night with the rope round my +neck——" +</P> + +<P> +"All in your dream. I'm sorry. It must have been terribly real to +you." +</P> + +<P> +"A dream?" and she stared wistfully into the fire, hex hands clasping +and unclasping nervously. "If I could believe it!" +</P> + +<P> +"You must believe what I tell you, and forget all about it and recover +yourself." +</P> + +<P> +"And you?" she said after a pause. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall be all right. Don't trouble your head about me." +</P> + +<P> +"If I did not do it," she said, after another long silent gazing into +the fire, "then there would be no need for you to hate me——" +</P> + +<P> +"No need whatever,—all part of that stupid dream." +</P> + +<P> +"And ... sometime perhaps ... you would think better of me ... as you +used to do. Oh,—Wulfrey! ..." +</P> + +<P> +If it had all happened as he had almost persuaded her to believe, he +might have fallen into his own pit. +</P> + +<P> +For, under the stress of her emotions,—the wild hope of the +possibility of relief from the horror that had been weighing her +down,—the letting in of this thread of sunshine into the blackness of +her despair,—the sudden joy of the thought that it was not she who +needed Wulfrey's forgiveness, but he hers;—the shadows and the years +fell from her, and she was more like the Elinor Baynard he had once +been in love with than he had seen her since the day she married Pasley +Carew. +</P> + +<P> +"We must not think of any such things," he said quickly, but not +unkindly. He was very sorry for her, but he was no longer in love with +her. "At present all we've got to think about is getting you quite +yourself again. I will send you up some medicine,—if you won't be +afraid to take it——" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Wulfrey! ..." with all the reproach she could put into it, and +anxiously, "You will come again soon?" +</P> + +<P> +"If you get on well perhaps. If you don't I shall turn you over to Dr +Newman," and he left her. +</P> + +<P> +"She ain't agoing to die, Doctor?" asked Mollie, as she waylaid him. +</P> + +<P> +"No, Mollie. She's going to get better." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, I knew it'd do her good if you came to see her," said the astute +handmaid with an approving look. +</P> + +<P> +"Get her to eat and feed her up. She's been letting herself run down." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, she'll eat now maybe, if so be 's you've given her a bit of an +appetite," said Mollie hopefully; and Dr Wulfrey went away home. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XI +</P> + +<P> +But even two patients hardly make a practice, and though from the +stolid commoner folk calls still came for 'th' Doctor's' services, upon +the better classes a sudden blessing of unusual health appeared to have +fallen, or else—— +</P> + +<P> +Dr Newman bought a horse about this time, and, though he did not as yet +cut much of a figure on horseback, it enabled him to get about as he +had never had occasion to do since he settled in the village, and it +seemed as though, in his case as in others, practice would in time make +him passable. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey watched the course of events quietly and with a certain +equanimity. His mind was quite made up to go abroad, but he would not +go till he was satisfied that that was the only course left to him. +</P> + +<P> +Everybody he met was as friendly as ever, the men especially, but +sickness was a rare thing with them at any time, and their women-folk +seemed to be getting along very well, for the time being without +medical assistance, so far at all events as Dr Wulfrey Dale was +concerned. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Carew was better. Whatever she really believed as to the actual +facts of her husband's death, she apparently accepted Dale's statement, +to the great relief of her mind and consequent benefit to her health. +She sent for the Doctor as often as she reasonably could, and sometimes +without any better reason than her desire to see him. Until at last he +told her she was perfectly well and he would come no more unless there +were actual need. +</P> + +<P> +"But there is actual need, Wulfrey. It does me good to see you. If +you don't come I shall fall into a low state again." +</P> + +<P> +"If you do I shall know it is simple perversity and I'll send Dr Newman +to you." +</P> + +<P> +"Mollie would never let him in." +</P> + +<P> +Which was likely enough, for Mollie's mind was quite made up as to the +only right and proper course for matters to take under all the present +circumstances. +</P> + +<P> +The March winds brought on a mild epidemic of influenza. +</P> + +<P> +Dr Newman and his new horse were ostentatiously busy. Wulfrey saw that +he had waited long enough, and that now it was time to go. No one +could accuse him of running away. It was his practice that had found +its legs and walked over to Dr Newman. +</P> + +<P> +He made his arrangements at once and by no means downcastly. The +hanging-on had been trying. It was new life to be up and doing, with a +new world somewhere in front to be discovered and conquered. +</P> + +<P> +He packed his trunks, gave Mr Truscott, the lawyer, instructions to +dispose of his house and everything in it except certain specified +articles and pictures, arranged with his bankers at Chester to collect +and re-invest his dividends, drew out a couple of hundred pounds to go +on with, told them he was going abroad and they might not hear from him +for some time to come, and went round to say good-bye to Jim Barclay +and Elinor Carew. +</P> + +<P> +"Where are you going?" asked Barclay, when he heard he was off. +</P> + +<P> +"Wherever the chase may lead," said Wulfrey, in better spirits than he +had been for many a day. "I shall go first to the States and Canada +and have a good look round. If any place lays hold of me I may settle +down there." +</P> + +<P> +"For good and all?" +</P> + +<P> +"Possibly. Can't say till I see what it's like. I want you to take +Graylock and Billyboy till I come back. You know all about them. +There's no one else I'd care to leave 'em with and I don't care to sell +them." +</P> + +<P> +"They'll miss you, same as the rest of us." +</P> + +<P> +"For a week or two, maybe. Dr Newman is getting into things nicely, +but you might give him a lesson or two in riding, Jim." +</P> + +<P> +"—— him, I'd liefer break his back!" was Barclay's terse comment. +"You'll let me know where you get to, Wulf, and maybe I'll take a run +over to see you, if you really find it in your heart to settle out +there. I'll bring the horses with me if you like." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll let you know. Fine sporting country, I believe,—bears, wolves, +buffaloes, game of sorts." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, good-bye and God bless you, my boy! Remember there'll always be +one man in the old country that wants you. I'd sooner die than have +that new man poking round me. I'll send for old Tom Tamplin, hanged if +I don't." +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey rode on to the Hall. +</P> + +<P> +"Going away, Wulf? Where to and for how long?" asked Elinor, anxious +and troubled. +</P> + +<P> +"That depends. I've not been up to the mark lately and a good long +change will set me up." +</P> + +<P> +"But you will come back?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have really no plans made, except to get away for a time and see a +bit of the outside world." +</P> + +<P> +"I was hoping ... you would stop and ... sometime, perhaps..." and the +small white hands clasped and unclasped nervously, as was her way when +her mind was upset. +</P> + +<P> +"The change I am sure will be good for me. And you are quite all right +again. You are looking better than I've seen you for a long time past." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm all right," she said drearily, "except that I have bad dreams now +and again. I cannot be quite sure in my own mind——" +</P> + +<P> +"Now, now!"—shaking a peremptory finger at her. "That is all past and +done with. Bad dreams are forbidden, remember!" +</P> + +<P> +"I can't help their coming. They come in spite of all my trying at +times. And they are always the same. I see Pasley lying on the bed, +raging and cursing, and ordering me to go and get him——" +</P> + +<P> +"It's only a dream of a dream. I was hoping you had quite got the +better of it. You must fight against it. Now I must run. Got a lot +of things to do yet, and I'm off first thing in the morning. Good-bye, +Elinor,—and all happiness to you!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +BOOK II +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +NO MAN'S LAND +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XII +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey Dale, as he strolled about the Liverpool docks and basins, felt +very much like a schoolboy who had run away from home in search of the +wide free life of the Rover of the Seas. +</P> + +<P> +He had, however, one vast advantage over the runaway, in that he had +money in his pocket and could pick and choose, and there was no angry +master or troubled parent on his track to haul him back to bondage. +</P> + +<P> +He had no slightest regrets in the matter. Under all the circumstances +of the case, he said to himself, he could have done nothing else. +Elinor, left to herself, would undoubtedly have paid with her life, +either on the gallows or in a mad-house, and that was unthinkable. The +inexorable Law would have taken no account of the true inwardness of +the case. He had saved her because he understood, and because the +alternatives had been too dreadful to think of. +</P> + +<P> +As to the cost to himself,—the long blue-green heave of the sea, out +there beyond the point, made little of that, changed it indeed from one +side of the account to the other, and presented it, not as a loss, but +as very substantial gain. +</P> + +<P> +Out beyond there lay the world, the vast unknown, the larger life; and +the windy blue sky streaked with long-drawn wisps of feathery white +cloud, and the tumbling green waves with their crisp white caps, and +the screaming gulls in their glorious free flight, all tugged at his +heart and called him to the quest. +</P> + +<P> +And these cumbered quays, with their heaps of merchandise, and the +jerking ropes and squeaking pulley-blocks that piled them higher and +higher every moment,—the swaying masts up above and busy decks down +below,—the strange foreign smells and flavour of it all,—the rough +tarry-breeks hanging about and spitting jovially in the intervals of +uncouth talk,—all these were but a foretaste of the great change, and +he savoured them all with vastest enjoyment. +</P> + +<P> +He inspected, from a distance, the great clippers that did the voyage +to New York in twenty to twenty-five days, stately and disciplined, in +the very look of them, as ships of the line almost. +</P> + +<P> +There were ships loading and unloading for and from nearly every port +in the world. It was like being at the centre of a mighty spider's web +whose arms and filaments reached out to the extremest ends of the +earth. He had never felt so free in his life before. +</P> + +<P> +He was in no pressing hurry to settle on either his port or his ship, +but in any case it would not be on one of those great packet-boats he +would go. His fancy ran rather to something smaller, something more +intimate in itself and less likely to be crowded with passengers whose +acquaintance he had no desire to make. +</P> + +<P> +He wandered further among the smaller craft, with a relish in the +search that was essentially a part of the new life. He developed quite +a discriminating taste in ships, though it was only by chatting with +the old salts who lounged about the quay-walls that he learned to +distinguish a ship from a barque and a brig from a schooner. His +preferences were based purely on appearances. The sea-faring qualities +of the various craft were beyond him. +</P> + +<P> +But here and there, one and another would attract him by reason of its +looks, and he would return again and again to compare them with still +later discoveries, saying to himself, "Yes, that would do first-rate +now, if she should happen to be going my way. We'll see presently." +</P> + +<P> +He came, in time, upon a brig loading in one of these outer basins, and +even to his untutored eye she was a picture,—so graceful her lines, so +tapering her masts, so trim and taut the whole look of her. +</P> + +<P> +"Where does she go to?" he asked of an old sailor-man, who was sitting +on a cask, chewing his quid like an old cow and spitting meditatively +at intervals. +</P> + +<P> +"Bawst'n, 'Merica, 's where she's bound this v'y'ge, Mister, an' ef she +did it in twenty days I shouldn' be a bit s'prised, not a bit, I +shouldn'." +</P> + +<P> +"Good-looking boat! What does she carry?" +</P> + +<P> +"Miskellaneous cargo. Bit o' everything, as you might say." +</P> + +<P> +"And when does she sail?"' +</P> + +<P> +"Fust tide, I reck'n, ef so be's her crew a'n't been ganged. Finished +loading not ha'f an hour ago she did." +</P> + +<P> +"Does she take any passengers?" +</P> + +<P> +"Couldn' say. Passenger boats is mostly down yonder." +</P> + +<P> +"I know, but I like the look of this one better than the big ones." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you c'n ask aboard." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes? How can I get on board?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, down that there ladder," and Wulfrey, following the direction of +a ponderous roll of the old fellow's head and a squirt of +tobacco-juice, came upon some iron rungs let into a straight +up-and-down groove in the face of the quay-wall. By going down on his +hands and knees, and making careful play with his feet, he managed at +last to get on to this apology for a ladder and succeeded in climbing +down it, over the side of the ship on to its deck. +</P> + +<P> +The deck, dirty as it was with the work of loading, felt springy to his +unaccustomed feet. It was the first ship's deck he had ever trodden. +The very feel of it was exhilarating. It was like setting foot on the +bridge that led to the new life. +</P> + +<P> +As he looked about him,—at the neatly-coiled ropes, the rope-handled +buckets, the blue water-casks lashed to the deck below one of the +masts, the masts themselves, massive below but tapering up into the sky +like fishing-rods, the mazy network of rigging, four little brass +carronades and the ship's bell, all polished to the nines and shining +like gold,—the worries and troubles of the last few months fell from +him like a ragged garment. Elinor Carew, and Croome, and Jim Barclay, +and even Graylock and Billyboy, the parting with whom had been as sore +a wrench as any, all seemed very far away, things of the past, shadowy +in presence of these stimulating realities of the new life. +</P> + +<P> +He walked aft along the deck towards a door under the raised poop, and +at the sound of his coming a man came out of the door and said, +"Hello!" and stood and stared at him out of a pair of very deep-set, +sombre black eyes. +</P> + +<P> +He was a tall, well-built fellow of about Wulfrey's own age, +black-haired, black-bearded and moustached, and of a somewhat saturnine +countenance. His face and neck were the colour of dark mahogany with +much sun and weather. He wore small gold rings in his ears, and +Wulfrey set him down for a foreigner,—a Spaniard, he thought, or +perhaps an Italian. +</P> + +<P> +"I was told you were sailing tomorrow for Boston," said Wulfrey. "I +came to ask if you take passengers." +</P> + +<P> +The man's black brows lifted a trifle and he took stock of Wulfrey +while he considered the question. Then he said, "Ay? well, we do and +we don't," and Wulfrey rearranged his ideas as to his nationality and +decided that he was either Scotch or North of Ireland, though he did +not look either one or the Other. +</P> + +<P> +"That perhaps means that you might." +</P> + +<P> +"Et's for the auld man to say——" +</P> + +<P> +"The Captain?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, Cap'n Bain." +</P> + +<P> +"Where could I see him?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's up in the toon." +</P> + +<P> +"If you'll tell me where to find him I'll go after him." +</P> + +<P> +The other seemed to turn this over in his mind, and then said, "Ye'd +best see him here. He'll mebbe no be long." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'll wait. What time do you expect to clear out?" +</P> + +<P> +"We'll know when the old man comes." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps you would let me see the rooms, while I'm waiting." +</P> + +<P> +The dark man turned slowly and went down three steps into the small +main cabin. His leisurely manner suggested no more than a willingness +not to be disobliging. +</P> + +<P> +It was a fair-sized room, with a grated skylight overhead, portholes at +the sides, seats and lockers below them, and a table with wooden forms +to sit on. At the far end were two more doors. +</P> + +<P> +"Cap'n's bunk and mine," said his guide, with a roll of the head +towards the left-hand door, and opened the other for Wulfrey to look in +at the narrow passage off which opened two small sleeping-rooms. +</P> + +<P> +"You are then——?" asked Wulfrey. +</P> + +<P> +"Mate." +</P> + +<P> +"You're Scotch, aren't you? I took you at first sight for a foreigner." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm frae the Islands.... Some folks hold there's mixed blood in some +of us since the times when the Spaniards were wrecked there. Mebbe! I +d'n know." +</P> + +<P> +"And Captain Bain? He's Scotch too, I judge, by his name." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, he's Scotch—Glesca." +</P> + +<P> +"If he'll take me as passenger I'll be glad. This would suit me +uncommonly well." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, well. He'll say when he comes," and whenever his black eyes +rested on Wulfrey they seemed to be questioning what it could be that +made him wish to travel on a trading-brig rather than on a +passenger-liner. +</P> + +<P> +However, he asked no questions but pulled out a black clay pipe, and +Wulfrey pulled out his own and anticipated the other's search for +tobacco by handing him his pouch. They had sat silently smoking for +but a few minutes when a heavy foot was heard on the deck outside, and +there came a gruff call for "Macro!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, ay, sir!" and the doorway darkened with the short burly figure of +a man whose words preceded him, "Tom Crimp'll have 'em all here by ten +o'clock an' we'll—— Wha the deevil's this?" +</P> + +<P> +"Wants to go passenger to Boston," explained the mate, and left Wulfrey +to his own negotiations. +</P> + +<P> +"If you're open to take a passenger, Captain Bain, I've fallen in love +with the looks of your ship." +</P> + +<P> +"What for d'ye no want to go in a passenger-ship? We're no a +passenger-ship," and the Captain eyed him suspiciously. +</P> + +<P> +"Just that I dislike travelling with a crowd, I've been looking round +for some days and your ship pleases me better than any I've seen." +</P> + +<P> +"Where are you from, and what's your name and rating!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm from Cheshire. Name, Wulfrey Dale. Rating, Doctor." +</P> + +<P> +"An' what for are ye wanting to go to Boston!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going out to look round. I may settle out there if I find any +place I like." +</P> + +<P> +"Are ye in trouble? Poisoned ony one? Resurrectionist, mebbe?" +</P> + +<P> +"Neither one nor the other. I've no work here. I'm going to look for +some over there." +</P> + +<P> +"Can ye pay?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course. I'm not asking you to take me out of charity." +</P> + +<P> +"That's a guid thing." +</P> + +<P> +"How much shall we say? And when do you sail?" +</P> + +<P> +"Et'll be twenty guineas, ped in advance, an' ef ye want ony victuals +beyant what the ship provides, which is or'nary ship's fare same as me +and the mate eats, ye'll provide 'em yourself." +</P> + +<P> +"Understood! And you sail——" +</P> + +<P> +"To-night's flood, ef the men get aboard all safe. They're promised me +for ten o'clock." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll pay you now and go up for my things." +</P> + +<P> +"An' whaur may they be?" +</P> + +<P> +"At Cotton's, in Castle Street." +</P> + +<P> +"Aweel! Juist keep a quiet tongue in your heid, Doctor, as to the ship +ye're sailing on. The 'Grassadoo' doesna tak passengers, ye ken, an' I +dinna want it talked aboot." +</P> + +<P> +"I understand. I've only got a box and a bag, but I'll have to get a +man to carry them." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay—weel!" and after a moment's consideration, "You wait at Cotton's +an' we'll send Jock Steele, the carpenter, up for them at eight +o'clock. Ye can coach or truck 'em as far as he says and carry 'em +between you the rest." +</P> + +<P> +So Wulfrey paid down his twenty guineas, and Captain Bain stowed them +away in his trouser pocket, and buttoned it up carefully, with a dry, +"Donal' Bain's word's his only recip<I>ee</I>. You be here before ten +o'clock and the 'Grassadoo' 'll be waiting for you." +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right, Captain," said Wulfrey. "And I'm much obliged to +you for stretching a point and taking me." +</P> + +<P> +"It's me that's doing it, ye understand, not the owners. That's why." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XIII +</P> + +<P> +The 'Grace-à-Dieu' justified Wulfrey's inexperienced choice. She was +an excellent sea-boat, fast, and as dry as could be expected, seeing +that she was chock full to the hatches, as Jock Steele informed him, +while they carried down his baggage. +</P> + +<P> +But after his first four hours on board his personal interest in her +character and performance lapsed for three full days. He had stood +leaning over the side watching the lights of Liverpool as they dropped +away astern, and then those of the Cheshire and North Welsh coasts, and +felt that now indeed he had cut loose from the past and was in for a +great adventure. +</P> + +<P> +It gave, him a curious, mixed feeling of depression and elation. He +felt at once homeless and endowed with the freedom of the universe. He +had burned his boats, he said confidently to himself, and was going +forth to begin a new life, to conquer a new world. And he set his +teeth and hung on to the heaving bulwark with grim determination. +</P> + +<P> +But the sense of elation and width of outlook dwindled with the sinking +lights. The feeling of homelessness and helplessness grew steadily +upon him. He had taken the precaution of stowing away a good meal +before he set foot on board, and he lived on it for three days. +</P> + +<P> +He had never been bodily sick in his life before, but sick as he now +was he was not too far gone to note the wretched peculiarity of his +sensations, and to muse upon them and the ridiculousness of the +provision he had made, at the Captain's suggestion, to supplement the +usual cabin fare. +</P> + +<P> +He could not imagine himself ever eating again, as he lay there in his +heaving bunk, with nothing to distract his mind from the unhappy +vacuums above and below but the heavy tread of feet overhead at times, +and the ceaseless rush and thrash of the waves a few inches from his +ear, and the grinning face of the cabin-boy who came in at intervals to +ask if he would like anything yet. +</P> + +<P> +But by degrees his head ceased to swim if he lifted it an inch off the +pillow. By further degrees he found himself crouching up and clinging +like a cat while he gazed unsteadily out of the tiny round porthole at +the tumbling green and white water outside. Still further +determination got him somehow into his clothes, and he dared to feel +hungry and empty without nausea. Then he crawled out to the deck, +feeling like a soiled rag. But the brisk south-west wind cleaned and +braced him, and presently he nibbled a biscuit and found himself as +hungry as a starving dog. +</P> + +<P> +After that he very soon found his sea-legs, and by the fourth day he +was a new man, eating ravenously to make up for lost time, and keenly +interested in all about him. +</P> + +<P> +So far they had had favourable weather and made good way. But Captain +Bain was a fervent believer in the inevitability of equinoctials, and +prophesied gales ahead, and the worse for being overdue. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey learned, from one and another, chatting at meals with the +Captain or Sheumaish Macro, one or other of whom was generally on deck, +or with Jock Steele the carpenter, who also acted as boatswain, that +the 'Grace-à-Dieu' was French-built which, according to Steele, +accounted for the fineness of her lines. +</P> + +<P> +"We build stouter but we cannot touch them for cut. She's as pretty a +little ship as ever I set eyes on and floats like a gull," was the +character Steele gave her. And he should know, as he'd made four +voyages in her since their owners in Glasgow bought her out of the +Prize Court, and she'd never given them any undue trouble even in the +very worst of weather. +</P> + +<P> +The crew, again according to Steele, were a very mixed lot, a few good +seamen, the rest just lubbers out of the crimp house. +</P> + +<P> +With Captain Bain and Sheumaish Macro, the mate, he got on well enough, +but found both by nature very self-contained and manifesting no +inclination for more than the necessary civilities of the situation. +</P> + +<P> +"And why should they?" he said to himself. "I'm an outsider and they +know nothing more about me than I've told them myself. Another fifteen +or twenty days and we part and are not likely ever to meet again." +</P> + +<P> +He made one discovery about them, however, which disquieted him +somewhat. They were both heavy drinkers, but they usually so arranged +matters, by taking their full bouts at different times, as not to bring +the ship into serious peril. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey's eyes were opened to it by the fact of his not being able to +sleep one night. After tossing and tumbling in his bunk for a couple +of hours, and finding sleep as far off as ever, he dressed again +sufficiently to go on deck for a blow. As he passed through the cabin +he found Captain Bain there with his head sunk on his arms on the +table, and, fearing he might be ill, he went up to him. But he needed +no medical skill to tell him what was the matter. The old man was as +drunk as a lord and breathing like an apoplectic hog. So he eased his +neck gear and left him to sleep it off. +</P> + +<P> +Macro was on deck in charge of the ship. Wulfrey simply told him he +had been unable to sleep, but made no mention of the Captain's +condition. And the mate said, +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, we're just getting into thick of Gulf Stream and it tells on one." +</P> + +<P> +Another night he found Steele in charge, and on the growl at the length +of his watch, and gathered from him that both Captain and mate had on +this occasion been indulging in a bit drink and were snoring in their +bunks. +</P> + +<P> +He could only hope that Captain Bain's prognosticated equinoctials, +which were now considerably overdue, would not come upon them when both +their chiefs were incapacitated. And his only consolation was the +thought that this was not an exceptional occurrence but probably their +usual habit when well afloat, and that so far no disaster had befallen +them. +</P> + +<P> +So, day after day, they sped along west-south-west, making good way and +sighting none but an occasional distant sail. Then they ran into mists +and clammy weather, and sometimes had a wind and drove along with the +swirling fog or across it, and sometimes lay rocking idly and making no +way at all. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey gathered, from occasional words they let fall between +themselves, and from their answers to his own questions, that this was +all usual and to be expected. They were getting towards Newfoundland +where the Northern currents met the Southern, hence the fog, and it was +too early for icebergs, so there was no danger in pressing on whenever +the wind permitted. +</P> + +<P> +Their seventeenth day out was the dullest they had had, heavy and +windless, with a shrouded sky and a close gray horizon and, to +Wulfrey's thinking, a sense of something impending. It was as though +Nature had gone into the sulks and was brooding gloomily over some +grievance. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Bain stripped the ship of her canvas, and sent down the +topmasts and yards, and made all snug for anything that might turn up. +All day and all night they lay wallowing in vast discomfort, and +Wulfrey lost all relish for his food again. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you make of it, Bo's'un?" he asked, as he clawed his way up to +Steele on the after deck, where he was temporarily in charge again. +</P> + +<P> +"Someth'n's comin', sir," said Steele portentously, "but what it is +beats me, unless it's one o' them e-quy-noctials the skipper's bin +looking for." +</P> + +<P> +In the night the fog closed down on them as thick as cotton wool; and, +without a breath of wind, the long seas came rolling in upon them out +of the thick white bank on one side and out into the thick white bank +on the other, till their scuppers dipped deep and worked backwards, +shooting up long hissing white jets over the deck, and making +everything wet and uncomfortable. Every single joint and timber in the +ship seemed to creak and groan as if in pain, and Wulfrey, as he +listened in the dark to the strident jerkings and grindings and general +complainings of the gear, and pictured the wild sweeps and swoops of +the masts away up in the fog there, wondered how long it could all +stand the strain, and how soon it would come clattering down on top of +them. Once, when a bigger roll than usual flung him against the +mainmast and he clung to it for a moment's safety, the rending groans +that came up through it from the depths below sent a creepy chill down +his spine. It sounded so terribly as though the very heart of the ship +were coming up by the roots. +</P> + +<P> +Sleep was out of the question. His cabin was unbearable. Its dolorous +creakings seemed to threaten collapse and burial at any moment. If +they had to go down he would sooner be drowned in the open than like a +rat in its hole. And so he had crawled up on deck to see what was +towards. +</P> + +<P> +The only comfort he found—and that of a very mixed character—was in +the sight of Captain Bain and the mate, sitting one on each side of the +cabin table with their legs curled knowingly round its stout wooden +supports, which were bolted to the floor, and which they used +alternately as fender and anchor to the rolling of the ship. +</P> + +<P> +They had made all possible provision against contingencies. They could +do no more, and it was no good worrying, so now they sat smoking +philosophically and drinking now and again from a bottle of rum which +hung by the neck between them from a string attached to the beam above +their heads. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey stood the discomforts of the deck till he was chilled to the +marrow, then he tumbled into the cabin, and annexed a third leg of the +table and sat with the philosophers and waited events. +</P> + +<P> +"It's hard on the ship, Captain," he said, by way of being +companionable. But the Captain only grunted and deftly tipped some rum +into his tin pannikin as the bottle swung towards him on its way +towards the roof. And the mate looked at him wearily as much as to +say, "Man! don't bother us with your babytalk," and it seemed to him +that they had both got a fairly full cargo aboard. +</P> + +<P> +However, he decided it was not for him to judge or condemn. They knew +their own business better than he did. There was no wind, no way on +the ship, and all they could do was to lie and wallow and wait for +better times. And the fact that they took it so calmly reassured him +somewhat. +</P> + +<P> +The cabin was so full of fog and tobacco-smoke that the light from the +swinging oil-lamp could barely penetrate beyond the table. It made a +dull ghastly smudge of yellow light through which the bottle swung to +and fro like an uncouth pendulum, and he sat and watched it. Now it +was up above his head between him and the mate; now it was sweeping +gracefully over the table; now it was up above the Captain, who reached +out and tipped some more rum into his pannikin. +</P> + +<P> +He watched it till it began to exert a mesmeric influence on, him and +his head began to feel light and swimmy. He knew something about +Mesmer and his experiments from his reading at home. He experienced a +detached interest in his own condition and wondered vaguely if the +bottle would succeed in putting him to sleep. He tried to keep his +eyes on it, but they kept wandering off to the Captain, on whom it had +already done its business, though in a different way. +</P> + +<P> +He was dead tired. It was, he reckoned, quite six-and-thirty hours +since he had had any sleep. What time of night or morning it was he +had no idea. This awful rolling and groaning and creaking seemed to +have been going on for an incalculable time. +</P> + +<P> +What with the heavy unwholesomeness of the atmosphere, and the +monotonous swing of the bottle, and the lethargic impassivity of his +companions, he fell at last into a condition of dull stupidity, which +might have ended in sleep but for the necessity of alternately hanging +on to and fending off the table, as the roll of the ship flung him away +from it or at it. And how long this went on he never knew. +</P> + +<P> +He was jerked back to life by a sudden clatter of feet overhead and a +shout. Then he was flung bodily on to the table, and found himself +lying over it and looking down at Captain Bain, who had tumbled +backwards in a heap into a corner. The rum-bottle banged against the +roof and rained its fragments down on him. The lamp leaned up at a +preposterous angle and stopped there. +</P> + +<P> +"We're done," thought Wulfrey dazedly, and became aware of fearsome +sounds outside,—a wild howling shriek as of all the fiends out of the +pit,—thunderous blows as of mighty hammers under which the little ship +reeled and staggered,—then grisly crackings and rendings and crashes +on deck, mingled with the feeble shouts of men. +</P> + +<P> +Then, shuddering and trembling, the ship slowly righted herself and +Wulfrey breathed again. Outside, the howling shriek was as loud as +ever, the banging and buffeting worse than before. +</P> + +<P> +Macro unhooked his long legs from the table and made for the door. The +Captain gathered himself up dazedly and rolled after him, and Wulfrey +followed as best he could. +</P> + +<P> +But he could see very little. The fog was gone. The fierce rush of +the gale drove the breath back into his throat and came near to choking +him. Huge green seas topped with snarling white came leaping up over +the side of the ship near him. A man with an axe was chopping +furiously at the shrouds of the fallen main-mast amid a wild tangle of +ropes and spars. As they parted, the ship swung free and went +labouring off before the gale under somewhat easier conditions, and +Wulfrey hung tight in the cabin doorway and breathed still more +hopefully. He had thought the end was come, but they were still +afloat, though sadly shorn and battered. What their chances of +ultimate safety might be was beyond him, but while there was life there +was hope. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XIV +</P> + +<P> +For three days life to Wulfrey was a grim experience made up of damp +discomfort, lack of food and rest, and growing hopelessness. +</P> + +<P> +Both their masts had gone like carrots, leaving only their ragged +stumps sticking up out of the deck. "An' if they hadn't we'd bin gone +ourselves," growled the carpenter to him one day. Where they fell the +sides of the ship were smashed and torn, and the hungry waves came +yapping up through the gaps, most horribly close and threatening. +</P> + +<P> +Three men had been washed overboard in that first fierce onrush. The +rest crouched miserably in the forecastle, and no man on board could +remember what it felt like to be dry and warm and full. +</P> + +<P> +Meals there were none. When any man's hunger forced him to eat, he +wolfed sodden biscuit and a chunk of raw pork, and washed it down with +rum. +</P> + +<P> +So ghastly did the discomfort become, as the wretched days succeeded +the still more miserable nights, that at last Wulfrey, for one, was +prepared to welcome even the end as a change for the better. +</P> + +<P> +Observations were out of the question. In these four days they never +once saw sun or moon or star, nothing but a close black sky, gray with +flying spume. The great seas came roaring out of it behind them and +rushed roaring into it in front of them, and where they were getting +to, beyond the fact that they were driving continuously more or less +west-by-north, no man knew. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Bain and the mate and the carpenter had done all that could be +done since the catastrophe, but that was very little. An attempt was +made to rig a jury mast on the stump of the foremast, but the gale +ripped it away with a jeering howl and would have none of it. With +some planking torn from the inside of the ship they barricaded the seas +out of the forecastle as well as they could. It was the carpenter's +idea to fix these planks upright, so that their ends stood up somewhat +above the top of the forecastle, and so great was the grip of the gale +that that slight projection sufficed to keep their head straight before +it and afforded them slight steerage way. +</P> + +<P> +So they staggered along, dismantled and discomfited, and waited for the +gale to blow itself out or them to perdition, and were worn so low at +last that they did not much care which, so only an end to their misery. +</P> + +<P> +And the end came as unexpectedly as the beginning. From sheer +weariness they slept at times, in chill discomfort and dankest +wretchedness, just where they sat or lay. And Wulfrey was lying so, in +a stupor of misery, caring neither for life nor death, when the final +catastrophe came. +</P> + +<P> +Without any warning the ship struck something with a horrible shock +that flung everything inside it ajee. Then she heeled over on her +starboard side, baring her breast to the enemy. +</P> + +<P> +The great green waves leaped at her like wolves on a foundered deer. +They had been chasing her for three days past and now they had got her. +She was down and they proceeded to worry her to pieces. No ship ever +built could stand against their fury. The 'Grace-à-Dieu' melted into +fragments as though she had been built of cardboard. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey, jerked violently out of the corner where he had been lying, +rolled down towards the door of the cabin as the ship heeled over. As +he clawed himself up to look out, a green mountain of water caught him +up and carried him high over the port bulwarks which towered like a +house above him, and swept him along on its broken crest. +</P> + +<P> +He could swim, but no swimmer could hope to save himself by swimming in +such a sea, and he was weak and worn with the miseries of the last +three days. +</P> + +<P> +He had no hope of deliverance, but yet struck out mechanically to keep +his head above water, and his thrashing arm struck wood. He gripped it +with the grip of a drowning man and clung for dear life. +</P> + +<P> +It was a large square structure, planking braced with cross-pieces, +almost a raft. He hung to the edge while the water ran out of his +mouth and wits, and then, inch by inch, hauled himself cautiously +further aboard, and, lying flat, looked anxiously about for signs of +his shipmates, but with little hope. +</P> + +<P> +He could see but a yard or two on either side, and then only the +threatening welter of the monstrous green seas, terrifyingly close and +swelling with menace. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing? ... Stay!—a white gleam under the green, like a scrap of +paper in a whirlpool, and a desperate face emerged a yard or so away +and a wildly-seeking hand. +</P> + +<P> +The anguished eyes besought him, and, not knowing what else to do, he +gripped two of the cross-pieces of his raft and launched his legs out +towards the drowning man. They were seized as in a vice, and +presently, inch by inch, the gripping hands crept up his body till the +other could lay hold of the raft for himself. And Wulfrey, turning, +saw that it was the mate, Sheumaish Macro, whose life he had saved. +</P> + +<P> +They drew themselves cautiously up into such further safety as the +frail ark offered and lay there spent. And Wulfrey, for one, wondered +if the quicker end had not been the greater gain. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XV +</P> + +<P> +Sleeping and eating anyhow and at any time, they had lost all count of +time this last day or two. It was, however, daylight of a kind, but so +gray and murky and mixed with flying spume that they could see but +little. +</P> + +<P> +Neither man had spoken since they crawled up on to the raft. Death was +so close that speech seemed futile. They both lay flat on their +stomachs, gripping tight, and peering hopelessly through nearly closed +eyes, expectant of nothing, doubting the wisdom of their choice of the +longer death. +</P> + +<P> +"God!" cried Macro of a sudden, as they swung up the back of a wave. +"Where in —— ha' we got to?" +</P> + +<P> +And Wulfrey got a glimpse of most amazing surroundings. +</P> + +<P> +Right ahead of them the sea was all abristle with what, to his quick +amazed glance, looked like the bones and ribs of multitudinous ships, +the ruins of a veritable Armada. +</P> + +<P> +Now it was all hidden, as they sank into a weltering green valley with +tumbling green walls all about them. Then the solid green bottom of +their valley was ripped into furious white foam, and stark black baulks +of timber came lunging up through it, all crusted with barnacles, +festooned with hanging weeds, and laced with streaming white. They +looked like grisly arms of deep-sea monsters reaching up out of the +depths to lay hold of them. They seemed intent on impaling the frail +raft. They seemed to change places, to dart hither and thither as +though to head it off, to lie in wait for it, to spring up in its +course. It was frightful and unnerving. Wulfrey shut his eyes tight +and set his teeth, and waited for the inevitable crash and the end. +</P> + +<P> +A great wave lifted them high above the venomous black timbers and, +swinging on its course, dropped them as deftly as a crane could have +done it, into the inside of a mighty cage. +</P> + +<P> +Wave after wave did its best to lift them out and speed them on. Their +raft rose and fell and banged rudely against the ribs of their prison. +Up and down they swung, and round and round, bumping and grinding till +they feared the raft would go to pieces. But the tide had passed its +highest and the storm was blowing itself out, and they had come to the +end of the voyage. +</P> + +<P> +"We're in hell," gasped the mate, as he clung to the jerking +cross-pieces to keep himself from being flung off, and to Wulfrey's +storm-broken senses it seemed that he was right. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XVI +</P> + +<P> +All that night they swung and bumped inside their cage, with somewhat +less of bodily discomfort as the wind fell and the sea went down, but +with only such small relief to their minds as postponement of immediate +death might offer. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey lay prone on the raft, grimping to it mechanically, utterly +worn out with all he had gone through these last four days. He sank +into a stupor again and lay heedless of everything. +</P> + +<P> +The tide fell to its lowest and was rising again when dawn came, and +though the huge green waves still rolled through their cage, and swung +them to and fro, and sent them rasping against its massive bars, they +were as nothing compared with the waves of yesterday. +</P> + +<P> +It was the sound of Macro cracking shell-fish and eating them that +roused Wulfrey. He raised his heavy head and looked round. The mate +hacked off a bunch of huge blue-black mussels from the post they were +grinding against at the moment, opened several of them and put them +under his nose. Without a word he began eating and felt the better for +them. +</P> + +<P> +Presently he sat up and looked about him in amazement, and rubbed the +salt out of his smarting eyes and looked again. +</P> + +<P> +"Where in heaven's name are we?" he gasped. +</P> + +<P> +And well he might, for stranger sight no man ever set eyes on. +</P> + +<P> +"Last night I thocht we were in hell," said Macro grimly. "An' seems +to me we're not far from it. We're in the belly of a dead ship an' +there's nought but dead ships round us." +</P> + +<P> +Their immediate harbourage, into which the friendly wave had dropped +them, was composed of huge baulks of timber like those that had tried +to end them the night before, sea-sodden and crusted thick with +shell-fish, and as Wulfrey's eyes wandered along them he saw that the +mate was right. They were undoubtedly the mighty weather-worn ribs of +some great ship, canting up naked and forlorn out of the depths and +reaching far above their heads. There in front was the great curving +stem-piece, and yon stiff straight piece behind was the stern-post. +</P> + +<P> +But when his eyes travelled out beyond these things his jaw dropped +with sheer amazement. +</P> + +<P> +Everywhere about them, wherever he looked, and as far as his sight +could reach, lay dead ships and parts of ships. Some, like their own, +entire gaunt skeletons, but more still in grisly fragments. Close +alongside them a great once-white, now weather-gray and ghostly +figurehead representing an angel gazed forlornly at them out of +sightless eyes. From the position of its broken arms and the round +fragment of wood still in its mouth, it had probably once blown a +trumpet, but the storm-fiends would have no music but their own and had +long since made an end of that. +</P> + +<P> +Close beside it jutted up a piece of a huge mast, with part of the +square top still on and ragged ropes trailing from it. Alongside it a +bowsprit stuck straight up to heaven, defiant of fate, and more +forlornly, a smaller ship's whole mast with yards and broken gear still +hanging to it all tangled and askew. And beyond, whichever way he +looked—always the same, dead ships and the limbs and fragments of them. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a graveyard," he gasped. +</P> + +<P> +"Juist that," said the mate dourly, "an' we're the only living things +in it." +</P> + +<P> +And presently, brooding upon it, he said, "There'll be sand down below +an' they're bedded in it. When tide goes down again maybe we can get +out." +</P> + +<P> +"Where to?" +</P> + +<P> +"Deil kens! ... But it cann't be worse than stopping here." +</P> + +<P> +The slow tide lifted them higher and higher within their cage, hiding +some of the baleful sights but giving them wider view over the whole +grim field. They sat, and by way of change stood and lay, on their +cramped platform. They knocked off shell-fish and ate them. So far, +so water-sodden had they been of late, they had not suffered from +thirst, but the dread of it was with them. +</P> + +<P> +Then, slowly, the waters sank, and all the bristling bones of ships +came up again. +</P> + +<P> +"Can you swim?" asked Macro abruptly at last. +</P> + +<P> +"I can. But I feel very weak. I can't go far I'm afraid." +</P> + +<P> +"We can't stop on here." +</P> + +<P> +"Where shall we go?" +</P> + +<P> +"Over yonder. They're thickest there and they stand out more. Mebbe +it's shallower that way." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll do my best to follow you. If I can't, you go on." +</P> + +<P> +"Nay. You gave me a hand last night. We'll stick together, and sooner +we start the better.... Stay ... mebbe we can——" and he began +pounding at the end planks of their raft with his foot to start them +from the cross-pieces. +</P> + +<P> +"'Twas the roof of the galley," he explained, "and none too well made. +It got stove in last voyage and we rigged this one up ourselves. My +wonder is it held together in the night." +</P> + +<P> +He managed at last with much stamping to loosen four boards. +</P> + +<P> +"One under each arm will help," he said, "An' we can paddle along an' +not get tired." +</P> + +<P> +He let himself down into the water, shipped a board under each arm, and +struck out between two of the gaunt ribs, and Wulfrey followed him, +somewhat doubtful as to what might come of it. +</P> + +<P> +But the mate had taken his bearings and was following a reasoned +course. Over yonder the wrecks lay thick. There might be one on which +they could find shelter—even food. But that he hardly dared to hope +for. As far as he had been able to judge, at that distance, they were +all wrecks of long ago and mostly only bare ribs and stumps. +</P> + +<P> +To Wulfrey, from water-level, the sea ahead seemed all abristle with +shipping, as thick, he thought to himself, as the docks at Liverpool. +But there all was life and bustling activity, and here was only +death,—-dead ships and pieces of ships, and maybe dead men. The +feeling of it was upon them both, and they splashed slowly along with +as little noise as possible, as though they feared to rouse the +sleepers who had once peopled all these gruesome ruins. +</P> + +<P> +"See yon!" whispered Macro hoarsely, as he slowed up and waited for +Wulfrey to come alongside, and following the jerk of his head Wulf saw +the figure of a man grotesquely spread-eagled in a vast tangle of +cordage that hung like a net from a broken mast. +</P> + +<P> +"We had better see," said Wulfrey, and kicked along towards it, the +mate following with visible reluctance. +</P> + +<P> +It was the body of Jock Steele, the carpenter, livid and sodden, and +many hours dead. +</P> + +<P> +"I would we hadna seen him," growled Macro. +</P> + +<P> +"He'll do us no harm. He was a decent man. I'm sorry he's gone. Is +there any chance of any of the others being alive?" +</P> + +<P> +"Deil a chance!" +</P> + +<P> +"Still, we are——" +</P> + +<P> +"You had the deil's own luck and it's only by you I'm here. Let's get +on," and they splashed on again. +</P> + +<P> +Past wreck after wreck, grim and gaunt and grisly, mostly of very +ancient date, all swept bare to the bone by the fury of the seas, all +with the water washing coldly through them. Now and again Macro +growled terse comments,— +</P> + +<P> +"A warship,—from the size of her. See those ribs, they'll last +another hundred years. And yon's a Dutchman. They build stout too. +Mostly British though, bound to be, hereabouts." +</P> + +<P> +"Have you any idea where we are, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"An idea—ay! I've heard tell o' this place, but I never met anyone +had been here. They mostly never come back. They call it what you +called it a while ago—'The Graveyard.'" +</P> + +<P> +"And where is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sable Island, if I'm right,—'bout one hundred miles off Nova Scotia." +</P> + +<P> +"And is there any island?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ay,—on the chart, but I never met any man had been there. We're +looking for it. There's no depth here or all them ribs wouldn't be +sticking up like that. They're stuck in the sand below. Must be over +yonder where they lie so thick.... An' a fearsome place when we get +there, with the spirits of all them dead men all about it—hundreds of +'em,—thousands, mebbe." +</P> + +<P> +"Do ships ever call there?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not if they can help it, I trow. It's Death brings 'em and he holds +'em tight.... Hearken to that now!"—and he stopped as though in doubt +about going further. +</P> + +<P> +And Wulfrey, listening intently, caught a faint thin sound of wailing +far away in the distance. It rose and fell, shrill and piercing and +very discomforting, though very far away. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" he jerked. +</P> + +<P> +"Spirits," breathed Macro, and his face was more scared and haggard +even than before. +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense!" said Wulfrey, with an assumption of brusqueness for his own +reassurance, for this dismal progress through the graveyard was telling +sorely on him also, and the sounds that came wavering across the water +were as like the shrieking of souls in torment as anything he could +imagine. "There are no such things. Don't be a fool, man!" +</P> + +<P> +"Man alive!—no spirits? The Islands are full o' them, an' this place +fuller still. Yes, indeed!" +</P> + +<P> +But it was obviously impossible to float about there for ever. The +water was not nearly so cold as Wulfrey had expected, but the strain of +the night and of the preceding days of semi-starvation had told on him, +and he was feeling that he could not stand much more. He set off +doggedly again towards the thickest agglomeration of dead shipping in +front, and the mate followed him with a face full of foreboding. +</P> + +<P> +They went in silence, paying no heed now to the things they passed on +the way, though the apparently endless succession of dead ships and the +parts of them was not without its effect on their already broken +spirits. +</P> + +<P> +"Gosh!" cried Macro of a sudden. "I touched ground or I'm a Dutchman! +Ay—sand it is," and Wulfrey sinking his feet found firm bottom. +</P> + +<P> +"Better keep the floats," suggested the mate. "Mebbe it's only the +side of a bank we're on." +</P> + +<P> +They waded on, breast-deep, and presently were out of their depth +again. But the feel of something below them, and the certainty that it +was still not very far away, were cheering. In a few minutes they were +walking again, having evidently crossed a channel between two banks. +And so, alternately walking and swimming, they drew at last towards the +jungle of wreckage; and all the time, from somewhere beyond it, rose +those piercing, wailing screams which Macro in his heart was certain +came from the spirits of the dead. +</P> + +<P> +Here the water was no more than up to their knees and shoaling still, +and they came now upon more than the bones of ships,—chaotic masses of +masts and spars and rigging piled high and wide in fantastic confusion, +and in among them, tangled beyond even the power of the seas to chase +them further, barrels and boxes and crates, some still whole, mostly +broken; rotting bales, and pitiful and ridiculous fragments of their +contents worked in among them as if by impish hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Gosh, what wastry!" said Macro at the sight. "There's many a thousand +pounds of goods piled here,—ay, hunderds of thousands, webbe." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd give it all for a crust of bread," said Wulfrey hungrily. +</P> + +<P> +"An' mebbe there's that too. If any o' them casks has flour in 'em we +needn' starve. It cakes round the sides wi' the wet, but the core's +all right." +</P> + +<P> +Then, beyond the gigantic barrier of wastry, rose again that shrill +screaming and shrieking, louder than ever, and Macro said "Gosh!" and +looked like bolting back into the sea. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey, determined to fathom it, hauled himself painfully up a tangle +of ropes and clambered to the top of the pile and saw, about a mile +away, a narrow yellow spit of sand, and all about it a dense cloud of +sea-birds, myriads of them, circling, diving, swooping, quarrelling. +</P> + +<P> +One moment the vast gray cloud of them drooped to the sea and seemed to +settle there, the next it was whirling aloft like a writhing +water-spout, every component drop of which was a venomous bundle of +feathers shrieking and screaming its hardest in the bitter fight for +food. And the harsh and raucous clamour of them, each intent on its +own, had in it something fiendishly inhuman and chilling to the blood. +</P> + +<P> +"It's only sea-birds, man," he cried to Macro. "Come up and see for +yourself," and the mate, with new life at the word, hauled himself up +alongside and stood staring. +</P> + +<P> +"My Gosh! ... I never saw the like o' that before," he said at last. +"There's millions of 'em. They're fighting ... over our shipmates +mebbe.... We needn' starve if we can get at 'em," a sentiment which +somehow, in all the circumstances of the case, did not greatly appeal +to Wulfrey, hungry as he was. +</P> + +<P> +"If they all set on a man he wouldn't have much chance," he said, with +a shiver. "They could pick him clean before he knew where he was." +</P> + +<P> +"It's only dead men they feed on," said Macro, quite himself again, +since it was only birds they had to deal with and not disembodied +spirits. "There's land. Let's get ashore," and they crawled +precariously along over the wreckage, which sagged and dipped beneath +them in places, and in places towered high and had to be scaled as best +they could, and at times they had to wade or swim from pile to pile. +</P> + +<P> +Amazing things they chanced upon in their course, but were too intent +on reaching land to give them more than a passing glance or a shudder. +More than once they came on bones of men, jammed in tight among the +raffle, and slowly picked by the sea and the things that lived in it +till they gleamed white and polished and clean. And their grinning +teeth, set in the awful fixed smile of the fleshless, seemed to welcome +them as future recruits to their company. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah—ah! So you've come at last!" they seemed to say, as they laughed +up at them out of holes and corners. "We've been waiting for you all +these years and here you are at last." +</P> + +<P> +There were, too, bales and boxes of what had been rich cloths and silks +and satins and coarser stuffs, worried open by the fret of the sea and +reduced to sodden slimy punk, and casks and barrels beyond the counting. +</P> + +<P> +"Wastry! Wastry!" panted Macro. "We'll come back sometime, mebbe." +</P> + +<P> +But, for the moment, their only craving was for dry land, to savour the +solid safety of it, and get something to eat if they could, and a long +long rest. +</P> + +<P> +With desperate determination they dragged their sodden and weary bodies +through the shallows beyond, and blind fury filled them with spasmodic +vigour as they saw what the sea-birds were feeding on. +</P> + +<P> +Over each poor body the carrion crew settled like flies, and tore and +screamed and quarrelled. The two living men dashed at them with angry +shouts, and the birds rose in a shrieking host amazed at their +interference. But only for a moment. They came swooping down again in +a gray-white cloud, with raucous cries and eyes like fiery beads, and +beat at them with their wings, and menaced them with already reddened +beaks. And they looked so murderously intentioned that the men were +fain to bow their heads and run, with flailing arms to keep them off. +</P> + +<P> +And so at last to dry land, and grateful they were for the feel of it, +even though it seemed no more than a waste of sand but a few feet above +tide-level. That last tussle with the birds had drained their strength +completely. They dropped spent on the beach and lay panting. +</P> + +<P> +Their flight had set their chilled blood coursing again, a merciful sun +had come up above the clouds that lay along the horizon, and in spite +of their hunger and the fact that their very bones felt soaked with +salt water, they both fell asleep where they lay. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XVII +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey was wakened by a sharp stab in the neck, and when he sat up +with a start a huge cormorant squawked affrightedly at the dead man +coming to life again, and flapped away, gibbering curses and leaving a +most atrocious stink behind him. +</P> + +<P> +The mate was still sleeping soundly, and Wulfrey, for the time being +more painfully cognisant of the gnawing emptiness within than of the +miracle that permitted him any sensation whatever, sat gazing anxiously +about and revolving the primary problem of food. +</P> + +<P> +Out there among all that mass of wreckage it would be strange if they +could not find something eatable,—cores of flour barrels, perhaps +pickled pork, rum almost certainly; and the clammy void inside him +craved these things most ardently. But he could not, as yet, imagine +himself venturing out there again to get them. Later on perhaps, but +for the present the land, such as it was, must provide, for him at all +events. He felt that he simply had not the heart or the strength to +make the attempt. +</P> + +<P> +Let me say at once that the trying of these men, which came upon them +presently, was not in the matter of ways and means. It was of the +spirit, not of the flesh. But yet it is necessary to show you how they +came through these lesser trials of the flesh only to meet the greater +trials of the spirit later on. And even these smaller matters are not +entirely devoid of interest. +</P> + +<P> +Many birds came circling round expectantly, and swooped down towards +the dark figures lying in the sand, and went off in shrill amazement +when they were denied. And Macro at last stretched and yawned and sat +up, staring dazedly at Wulfrey. +</P> + +<P> +"Gosh, but I'm hungered," he said at last, as that paramount claim +emphasised itself. "Anything to eat?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm wondering. Plenty of birds, and very bad they smell. I've seen +nothing else." +</P> + +<P> +The mate got up heavily and found himself sore and stiff. He stood +looking thoughtfully about him. +</P> + +<P> +"What about all that stuff?" and he jerked his head towards the +graveyard wreckage. +</P> + +<P> +"I couldn't go again yet." +</P> + +<P> +"Nor me either.... Ground's higher over yonder," he said. "Let's go +and see," and they set off slowly over the sand. +</P> + +<P> +The level of high water was thickly strewn with seaweed and small +wreckage. The slope of the shore was so long and gentle that no large +object could come in unless it were first broken into fragments outside. +</P> + +<P> +The mate kicked over the sea-weed and found some which he put into his +mouth. +</P> + +<P> +"Any good?" asked Wulfrey anxiously, hungrier than ever at sight of the +other's working jaws. +</P> + +<P> +"Better'n nothing," and he rooted up another piece and handed it over. +Wulfrey found it tough and pungent of the sea and, after much chewing, +capable of being swallowed, but the most he also could say for it was +that it was just that much better than nothing. +</P> + +<P> +They each picked up a piece of wood with which to root in the tangle, +and, bending and picking and munching, made their way slowly towards +the hummocks in front. +</P> + +<P> +These were a low range of sandhills, some of them as much as thirty +feet high, and on the seaward side, which they climbed, they were +sparsely clothed with coarse slate-green wire-grass about a foot in +height, which bristled up like porcupines' quills and helped to keep +the loose soft sand together. They pulled some up to see if the roots +looked edible, and found them spreading far and wide below ground in a +matted tangle of white succulent-looking tendrils, which proved as +tough and unsatisfying as the sea-weed, but had the advantage of a +different flavour. +</P> + +<P> +Grubbing along, they climbed heavily through the yielding sand to the +top of the nearest hummock. Macro, arriving there first, jerked a +gratified "Gosh!" and floundered down the other side whirling his +stick, and Wulfrey was just in time to catch the amazing sight of the +whole surface of the little valley beyond in violent motion. +</P> + +<P> +He thought at first that something had gone wrong with his eyes, for +everywhere he looked the sand seemed to be jumping and skipping and +burying itself in itself. And then from the innumerable little flecks +of white, bobbing spasmodically all over the place, he perceived that +these were rabbits, and the mate was in among them, knocking them on +the head as fast as his stick could whirl. By the time Wulfrey reached +him he was sitting in the sand, skinning one with his knife, and half a +dozen more lay round him. +</P> + +<P> +"Better than roots and seaweed," he said, as he hacked the first in +pieces and stuffed some into his mouth and handed some to Wulfrey. +"There's millions of 'em. We won't starve," and he started skinning +another. +</P> + +<P> +Raw meat was a novelty, to Wulfrey at all events but baby-rabbit flesh +is eatable, even raw, and it put new life into them both. +</P> + +<P> +The little valley in which they sat was like an oasis in the sandy +desert outside. For here, among the wire-grass grew innumerable small +creeping-plants and that so sturdily though so modestly that, in spite +of the vast horde of rabbits, the whole place was carpeted with green, +and right in the centre, where the ground was lowest and the +undergrowth thickest and darkest, was a considerable pool of rainwater, +which they found brackish but drinkable. +</P> + +<P> +"All we want now is shelter and fire, and we'll live like kings and +fighting-cocks," said Macro, when he had time for anything but +rabbit-flesh, and lay back comfortably distent. +</P> + +<P> +"And where shall we find shelter and fire in this place?" +</P> + +<P> +"Man! There's more'n we'll ever need in all our lives, over yonder. +But it'll keep.... I'm not for going back there this day anyway. +To-morrow, mebbe,——" he said drowsily, and presently they were both +fast asleep again. And the rabbits came out at sunset and hopped about +them, and sniffed them with quivering noses and disrelish, and the +heavy dew fell on them, but they never woke. For Nature had now got +all she needed for the reparation of the previous waste, and she was +busily at work making good while they slept. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XVIII +</P> + +<P> +Morning broke dull, and heavy. The air was mild but full of moisture, +and they were chilled with their long sleep in the open. +</P> + +<P> +"Gosh! but I'd like to feel dry again," said Macro, as they sat +munching raw rabbit for breakfast. "D'you feel like going out yonder?" +</P> + +<P> +"I feel three times the man I was yesterday. But should we not go on +further first? There may be someone living on the island." +</P> + +<P> +"Not a soul but us two, I warrant you." +</P> + +<P> +"But since we're here there might be others." +</P> + +<P> +"That's so. There might be, but not likely. It's just luck, deil's +own luck, 'at those screeching deevils out yonder aren't picking us to +pieces like the rest." +</P> + +<P> +"Say Providence, and I'll agree with you," said Wulfrey, who saw no +need to ascribe to the devil so obviously good a work as far as they +were concerned. +</P> + +<P> +"Ca' it what you like, not one man in a thousand comes alive through +what we came through. And I'm not forgetting that but for you I'd no +be here myself. We can take a bit look round, but I'm sore set on a +covering of some kind and a fire, and some rum would be cheerful. It's +in my bones that we'll find all we want out there, and more besides." +</P> + +<P> +So, after breakfast, they set off, carrying a couple of rabbits for +provision by the way. +</P> + +<P> +Looking round from the top of the highest hummock, they saw the great +twisting cloud of sea-birds hovering over the distant wreckage, and the +shrill clamour of their screaming came faintly to them on the still +air. They had cleaned up what the sea had stranded on the spit and had +had to go further afield. +</P> + +<P> +From this vantage point they could to some extent make out the lie of +the island. It ran nearly west and east and the narrow sand-spit on +which they had landed was the extreme western point. Where they stood, +the land was about a quarter of a mile in width and it stretched away +in front further than they could see, in vast stretches of sand with a +line of hummocks all along the northern side. It seemed very narrow, +just a long thin wedge of sand, with illimitable gray sea on each side, +as far as their eyes could reach. Right ahead, and about a mile away, +was a great sheet of water, whether lake or inlet they could not tell. +The hummocks ran along its northern side, and a narrow strip of sand +divided it from the sea on the south. +</P> + +<P> +"We'd best keep to the ridges," said Macro. "Yon spit on the other +side may only end in the sea," so they tramped on along the firm beach +on the seaward slope of the line of hummocks, and every now and again +climbed up to see what was on the other side. When they found +themselves abreast of the sheet of water they went down and found it +salt and very shallow. It stretched away in front as far as they could +see, but Macro thought he could see more sand hummocks at the far end. +</P> + +<P> +Every here and there, when they climbed the ridge to look over, they +came on little basins like their own, comparatively green and populous +with rabbits. But never a sign of human life or habitation, not a tree +or a shrub, not an animal except the rabbits. +</P> + +<P> +"A God-forsaken hole," was the mate's comment, as they stood, after a +couple of hours' trudging, looking out over the interminable ridges in +front, and the great unruffled sheet of water below, and the gray +slow-heaving sea beyond on both sides, and the gray sky enclosing all. +</P> + +<P> +"There's nought here and never has been. Let's go back and get to +work." +</P> + +<P> +"That lake, or inlet, or whatever it is, seems to narrow over there. +Suppose we see where it goes to," suggested Wulfrey. +</P> + +<P> +"Only back into sea, I reckon." +</P> + +<P> +However, they tramped on along the beach, and next time they looked +over the ridge the land below had broadened out. The water had shrunk +to a mere channel which ran, they saw, not into the sea but into a +still larger lake beyond, unless it in turn should prove to be a long +arm of the sea running all through the middle of the island. They +could follow the low sand-spit which divided it from the sea on the +south side, and the long line of hummocks on the north, till they faded +out of sight in the distance. +</P> + +<P> +Right in front of them spread the largest valley they had yet come +across, and the coast ridges ran down into the middle of it and ended +in the highest hill they had seen, and between the hill and the lake +lay a number of large ponds. +</P> + +<P> +"We must get up there," said Wulfrey. +</P> + +<P> +"No manner o' use," growled the mate, who found tramping through the +sand very tiring, and was eager to get back and attack the wreckage for +shelter and fire and food and rum. +</P> + +<P> +"Stop you here then, Macro, and I'll go on. If there's anything to see +I'll wave my arms. You might skin those rabbits too. I'm beginning to +feel empty again." +</P> + +<P> +He struck straight across the valley to the ponds, and was delighted to +find them fresh and much better to the taste than their own little +pool. Then he climbed the hill, which was not far short of a hundred +feet in height. And then Macro, who had been watching him +intermittently as he hacked at the rabbits, saw him wave his arms in so +excited a fashion that he picked up the rabbits and ran, wondering what +new thing he'd found now that set him dancing in that fashion. +</P> + +<P> +And when at last he panted heavily up the yielding side of the hill and +saw, he gasped "Gosh!" with all the breath he had left, and sat down +open-mouthed and stared as if he could not believe his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Beyond the end of the valley, the great lake stretched away further +than they could see, and in a deep bend on the north side of it lay two +ships. +</P> + +<P> +"Schooners, b' Gosh!" jerked Macro, as soon as he could speak; and eyed +them intently. "How in name of sin did they get there?" and his eye +travelled quickly along the sand-spit that shut out the sea, in search +of the break in it through which the schooners must have entered. But +no break was visible. Still it might well be that this great inland +lake joined the outer sea somewhere over there, beyond their range of +sight, and that this was a harbour of refuge, though he had certainly +never heard of it before. +</P> + +<P> +"We must find out about 'em," he said at last, and they set off at +speed towards the ships to which his eyes seemed glued. +</P> + +<P> +"Not a sign of a man aboard either of 'em," he jerked one time, as he +lurched up out of a rabbit-hole. "Nor ashore either." +</P> + +<P> +And to Wulfrey also there was something strange and uncanny in the look +of them. The absence of any slightest sign of life anywhere about +imparted to them something of a lifeless look also. And their masts +were bare of sails, spars, or even cordage, just bare poles sticking up +out of the hulls like blighted pine trees. The sea outside had a long +slow heave in it, but the water of the lake was smooth as a pond, not a +pulse in it, not a ripple on it, and the two little ships lay as +motionless as toy boats on a looking-glass sea. +</P> + +<P> +Macro was evidently much exercised in his mind. He never took his eyes +off the ships. So intent was he on them that he stumbled in and out of +rabbit holes without noticing them, and the "Gosh!" that jerked out of +him now and again was provoked entirely by the puzzle of the ships. +</P> + +<P> +So they came at last round the curve of the land and stood opposite the +nearer of the two, which lay about a hundred yards out from the shore +of bare sand, and neither on ship nor shore nor water had they +discovered any sign of life. +</P> + +<P> +"Schooner a-hoy!" bellowed the mate through his funnelled hands. And +again. "Schooner a-hoy!" +</P> + +<P> +But no sudden head bobbed up at the hail, and but that they were whole +and afloat the ships looked as dead as those others out past the point. +</P> + +<P> +"Gosh, but it's odd!" and he looked quickly both ways along the shore +and over his shoulders, as though he feared some odd thing might start +up suddenly and take him unawares. "What's it mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"There's no one there. They're deserted." +</P> + +<P> +"Deserted? Man alive! Who'd desert ships afloat like that? What in +—— does it mean?" his native fears of the unnatural and inexplicable +getting the better of him. +</P> + +<P> +"We'd better go and see," said Wulfrey. +</P> + +<P> +"Swim?" +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose so. I don't expect we can wade." +</P> + +<P> +The mate shook his head. He had evidently no liking for the job, keen +as was his desire to get to the bottom of it. +</P> + +<P> +"Let's feed first anyway," he said, and produced the rabbits, which he +had held on to in spite of his surprise and many stumblings. So they +sat in the sand and ate raw rabbit, with their eyes on the ships all +the time. +</P> + +<P> +"They're dead ships like all the rest," was the sum of Macro's +conclusions. "But how they got there beats me flat." +</P> + +<P> +"They're afloat anyway and they'll be better to sleep in than the +sandhills." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay—mebbe,—if so be's there's no dead men aboard—or ghosts." +</P> + +<P> +"There's no ghosts anyway. If there are any dead men we'll bury them +decently and occupy their bunks." +</P> + +<P> +At which the mate gave a shiver of distaste and chewed on in silence. +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't it possible there's an opening to the sea over yonder?" asked +Wulfrey, with an eastward jerk of the head. +</P> + +<P> +"Mebbe, but I don't think it. There's no seaweed here, and no move in +the water, and no tide-mark. It's dead level. But what if there is?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, then they might have got in that way, and then some storm blocked +the opening and they couldn't get out." +</P> + +<P> +"Mebbe. We can find out by travelling along yon spit till we get to +the end of it. I'd liefer do that than go aboard." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll sleep better on board than on the sand." +</P> + +<P> +"Man, ye don't know what ill things may be aboard yon ships! There's a +wrong look about 'em," which was undeniable, but still not enough to +commend the chill sand to Wulfrey as a resting-place when shelter and +possibly bunks might be had on board. +</P> + +<P> +"It seems to me," he said, as they finished their meal, "that it +doesn't matter much how they got there. We can perhaps find that out +later. There they are, and if they're habitable we want to make use of +them. I'm going to swim out to this nearest one and find out what's +the matter." +</P> + +<P> +"If you go I go," grumbled the mate uncheerfully. +</P> + +<P> +"It's evident there's no one aboard or anywhere about, and it's absurd +to sit here looking at them," said Wulf, and began to peel off his +clothes, which had got almost dry with walking. "No good getting them +wet again," he explained. "I've been all of a chill for the last five +days. I'll fasten them on to my head." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll be coming back." +</P> + +<P> +"We might decide to stop there all night. Better take what's left of +the meat." +</P> + +<P> +"Gosh!" with a perceptible shiver of distaste again. +</P> + +<P> +However, he peeled also, and by careful contrivance with belt and +braces they bound their bundles on to their heads and stepped into the +water. +</P> + +<P> +"Phew! It's cold,—colder than the sea," said Wulfrey through +tight-set teeth, as they struck out. +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis that," and the mate's teeth chittered visibly, between the chill +of the water and distaste of the adventure. +</P> + +<P> +"Temperature ought to be same ... if sea comes in," sputtered Wulfrey. +</P> + +<P> +"'Tisn't, all same. It's cauld as death." +</P> + +<P> +They ploughed along till they reached the nearer ship, and swam round +it in search of entrance, and failing other means laid hold of the +rusty anchor-chain, which peeled in ruddy flakes at their touch. By +the time Wulf tumbled in over the bows he was streaked from head to +foot with iron-mould, and presented so ghastly an appearance that +Macro's jaw fell as he came up the side, and he looked half inclined to +drop back into the water. +</P> + +<P> +"Man! You look awful. I tuk you for a ghost," he gasped in a whisper. +</P> + +<P> +"You're nearly as bad yourself, but I took the cream of it. Now let us +see what's what." +</P> + +<P> +The mate's experienced eye showed him at once that the condition of the +ship was not due to storm or accident. She had been deliberately +stripped of everything that could be turned to account elsewhere. She +was bare as a board,—not a rope nor a spar was left. The hatches were +closed and looked as though they had not been touched for years. +</P> + +<P> +They came to the fore-hatch leading down to the fo'c's'le, and he +hauled it up with some difficulty and looked suspiciously down into the +darkness within. +</P> + +<P> +"Below there!" he cried, in a repressed hollow voice. But only the +echoes answered him. +</P> + +<P> +They passed the main-hatch leading to the hold, and went along, past a +grated skylight thick with green mould, to the covered gangway leading +to the officers' quarters. The doors were closed and bolted with rusty +bolts. There could not by any possibility be anyone below, not anyone +alive, that is. +</P> + +<P> +Macro wasted no breath here, when they had managed to undo the bolts, +but he visibly hesitated. Wulf stepped down into the cabin, and he +followed. +</P> + +<P> +Just bare walls, nothing more. Table, stools, lamps, everything +movable or unscrewable had been carried away. In the four small rooms +adjacent there were just four empty bunks and not a thing besides. +</P> + +<P> +"Gosh, but it's queer!" whispered Macro. "Mebbe they're all lying dead +in the hold." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll make sure," and they went up on deck again, and with some +labour, for the wood had swelled and stuck, got up the main hatch and +dropped down into the hold. +</P> + +<P> +But that was bare like the rest. The ship was as empty as a drum. +</P> + +<P> +"Not so much as a rat, b' Gosh!" said the mate, with recovered spirits, +seeing no sign of dead men or ghosts. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you make of it?" asked Wulf. +</P> + +<P> +"She's been stripped bare, that's plain. But why, beats me." +</P> + +<P> +"Anyway, there's no objection to our stopping here now, I suppose. +Bare bunks will be drier than the sand over there." +</P> + +<P> +"That's so.... And I'm thinking that if we can bring over some of the +stuff from that big pile out yonder we can make ourselves mighty +comfortable here." +</P> + +<P> +"We can start on that tomorrow. We've done enough for one day." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll make a raft, like old Robinson Crusoe, and bring the stuff right +down to the spit yonder," said Macro, waxing quite cheerful at the +prospect. "Then we'll make a smaller raft to bring it aboard here." +</P> + +<P> +"We'd better walk along that spit tomorrow and see if there's any +opening to the sea." +</P> + +<P> +"We can do that, but I doubt there's not, else this water wouldn't be +so cold, and there'd be some movement in it. It's all dead like +everything else." +</P> + +<P> +They spent the rest of the daylight poking into every corner of the +ship, and in the dark fo'c's'le Macro made a find of surpassing worth. +</P> + +<P> +He had rooted everywhere, with a natural enjoyment in the process, and +come on nothing but bare boards. "But you never know," he said, and +went on rooting. And in the blackest corner his foot struck something +loose which slid away and eluded him. He went down on his hands and +knees and groped till he found it, and then gave a triumphant shout +which brought up Wulfrey in haste. +</P> + +<P> +It was a small round metal box such as was used for carrying flint and +steel and tinder, well-worn and battered, but tightly closed, and the +mate's fingers trembled with anxiety as he opened it with his knife. +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks be!" he breathed deeply, for there in the little battered box +lay all the possibilities of fire,—warmth, cooked food, life—all +complete. +</P> + +<P> +And—"Thank God!" said Wulfrey also. "That's the best find yet." +</P> + +<P> +"If it'll work it's worth its weight in Guinea gold. But it's old, +old," and he poked the tinder doubtfully with his finger, "as old as +the ship, and that's older than you or me, I'm thinking. It's dropped +out of some old pocket and rolled out of sight. We do have the deil's +own luck." +</P> + +<P> +"Providence!" said Wulfrey. "Can't we make a fire and roast some +rabbit? I'm sick of raw meat." +</P> + +<P> +"Where'd we make it? Galley-stove's gone with all the rest, and galley +too for that matter.... Wouldn't do to set the ship afire.... There's +only one safe way. Soon as we've got a bit of a raft together we'll +bring over sand enough to make a fire-bed in the hold. Then we can +roast all the rabbits in the island." +</P> + +<P> +"What about the cover of the big hatchway there? Wouldn't that carry +one of us and sand enough." +</P> + +<P> +"Might. And there's wood enough and to spare in the skin of her down +below. But it'll be dark in an hour." +</P> + +<P> +"Come on. Let's get it overboard. I'll go. Can you rip up a board +for a paddle?" +</P> + +<P> +The hatch-cover was slightly domed and had four-inch coamings all +round, and when let upside down on to the water made a sufficiently +effective raft for light freight. Macro dropped down into the hold and +ripped up a board and jumped it into pieces, and Wulfrey lowered +himself gingerly down on to his frail craft and set off for the shore, +with roast rabbit in his face. +</P> + +<P> +"Ye'll have to look smart or ye'll be in the dark," Macro called after +him, as he leaned over the side watching his clumsy progression. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, ay! I'll shout if I get lost," and the mate went down to break up +firewood and shred filmy shavings in default of sulphur sticks. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey, wafting slowly ashore, lighted on a colony of rabbits intent +on supper, and was able to capture a couple in their panic rush for +their holes. Then he hastily loaded his float with all the sand it +could safely carry and set off again for the ship in great content of +mind. +</P> + +<P> +The transfer of his cargo to the deck of the ship was a much more +difficult and precarious job than getting it alongside. He tried +throwing it up in handfuls, but that proved slow work and more than +once came near to spilling him overboard. And finally, as the night +was upon them, he took off his coat and sent up larger parcels in it; +and so at last Macro cried enough, and having shown him how to wedge +his float in between the rusty anchor-chain and the bows, so that the +wind should not drift it away in the night, he helped him up over the +side. +</P> + +<P> +It was an anxious moment when the first sparks shredded down into the +ancient tinder. But they caught and glowed, and with tenderest coaxing +lighted the mate's carefully-prepared matches, and these the chips, and +these the faggots, and the mighty cheer and joy of fire were theirs. +</P> + +<P> +They slept that night in great comfort, replete with roasted meat, +roofed from winds and dew, and grateful both, each in his own way, for +the marvellous encouragement of this first day on the island. +</P> + +<P> +Though their beds were but bare boards, they had no fault to find with +them, but slept like tops. And Macro's black head was so full of the +wonderful possibilities of that vast pile of wastry out beyond the +point, in conjunction with this amazing find of the ships, that there +was no room left in it for any thought of ghosts or evil spirits. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XIX +</P> + +<P> +Over their last night's fire they had made provision of roast meat for +breakfast, and after it they paddled precariously across to the other +schooner, a couple of hundred yards away, and explored it thoroughly. +But it was in exactly the same condition as their own, so they closed +all the hatches again and then, after a short discussion, decided to +leave the solution of the puzzle of the ships for the present and +devote the day to the salvage of any necessaries they could discover +among the wreckage. +</P> + +<P> +They paddled across to the southern spit which divided the lake from +the sea, and found it a bare hundred yards in width, and at its highest +point not more than ten feet above high-water level. They walked +briskly along the side of the narrow channel that joined the two lakes, +on past the first one, and in a couple of hours reached the sandy point +where they had landed two days before. Out above the piles of wreckage +the gray cloud of sea-birds swung and whirled, and their shrill +screamings rose and fell with the varied fortunes of their quest. +</P> + +<P> +"Screeching deevils!" was the mate's comment on them, and presently, +"It'll be a long pull back with a log of a raft. It must be six or +seven miles, I reckon." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps we'll strike a boat among the wreckage." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah—p'r'aps. We do have the deil's own luck." +</P> + +<P> +It was almost dead low water. The storm of the previous days seemed to +have exhausted the elements for the time being. The sea was smooth, +with no more movement than the long slow heave which curled, as it +neared the shore, into great green and white combers of exquisite +beauty, rushing up the beaches in a dapple of marbled foam, and back +into the bosom of the next comer with a long-drawn sibilant hiss. +</P> + +<P> +There was a soft south-west wind and even a cheering touch of the sun, +and as their work was like to be of the wettest, and dry clothes were a +luxury, they left them above tide-level and went out stripped to the +fight, their only weapon the mate's sailor's-knife in the belt which he +buckled round his waist. But, in view of the screeching deevils +already in possession, they forethoughtfully armed themselves with the +weightiest clubs they could pick out of the raffle of the beach. For +in that countless predatory host, although its components were but +birds, there was menace passing words. It made them feel bare and +vulnerable, and Macro cursed them heartily as he went. +</P> + +<P> +They reached the pile without any difficulty, and the mate's keen eye +raked round for the likeliest stuff for a raft. It was no good +acquiring cargo till they had a craft to carry it. +</P> + +<P> +There was no lack of timber, however, and cordage was to be had for the +cutting, and with these the skilled hands of the seaman soon +constructed a raft large enough for their utmost probable requirements. +Then he turned with gusto to the more satisfying joys of plunder, and +developed new and startling sides to his character. +</P> + +<P> +Wulf laughed, but found him surprising, as the cateran spirit of his +forebears came uppermost with this tremendous opportunity. +</P> + +<P> +He climbed up and down and in and out of the high-piled wreckage like a +hungry tiger, bashed in boxes and cases with a huge club of mahogany +which had once adorned the cabin-staircase of a ship, and raked over +their contents with the avidious claws of a wrecker of the evil coasts. +Now and again strange ejaculations broke from him. More than once, in +the wild glee of pillage and unexpected booty, he shouted snatches of +weird runes and chanties which Wulf supposed were Gaelic. At times he +stood and shook his fist at the screaming birds that swooped about him, +and cursed them volubly. And once, Wulfrey, on the raft below, knitted +his brows and watched him with doubtful perplexity as, in the +disappointment of his hopes respecting one great case which had +resisted his efforts and finally yielded nothing of consequence, he +attacked another with shouts of fury and a Berserk madness that +scattered chips and splinters far and wide. An incautious cormorant +swooped by him. With a stroke he sent it spinning, a bruised and +broken bundle of feathers, and it fell with a dull flop into the sea. +</P> + +<P> +The man seemed demented, drunk with a rage for plunder and the +destruction of everything that stood between him and it. His great +club whirled, and the blows flailed here and there without any apparent +regard to direction. The lust of slaughter and demolishment burst from +him in volcanic fire and fury. For the moment he had reverted to his +elemental type. +</P> + +<P> +To the cooler head below he looked dangerous. Wulfrey's amused +amazement gave place to doubt and a touch of anxiety. He could only +hope that his companion was not often subject to fits such as this. +</P> + +<P> +But the Berserk madness was not wholly without method, and presently +plunder of all kinds came raining down on the raft. +</P> + +<P> +Heralded by a sharp "Below there!" came a roll of linen and one of +woollen cloth, a bale of blankets, more rolls,—this time of silk and +satin and velvet, all more or less damaged by the sea, though they were +the pick and cream of his salvaging, and all no doubt dryable. +</P> + +<P> +"Good heavens! What does he want with these?" thought Wulfrey, but +piled them up obediently. +</P> + +<P> +Then, following the unmistakable course of the marauder up above, and +clawing the raft along to keep in touch with him, down came on his head +a bulging little sack, which felt like beans but proved to be coffee, +and presently, after a pause, necessitated by packing arrangements up +above, a series of soft bundles made up in crimson silk and tied with +slimy rope. +</P> + +<P> +Then, after another pause punctuated by shouts and crashes, down came a +rattling heap of rusty cooking utensils all slung together with more +slimy rope, a rusty axe, four broken oars. Till at last the raft +became so crowded that there was barely standing room left on it. +</P> + +<P> +"Steady, above there! We're full up. I can't take another pound, and +I doubt if we can get this all home safely." +</P> + +<P> +"Just this, man!" and Macro appeared up above with a small keg in his +arms, and let himself and it carefully down on to the raft, with every +appearance of a return to sanity. +</P> + +<P> +"Man!" he said, with the afterglow of it all still in his face. "That +was fine. We'll come again." +</P> + +<P> +"We've got to get all these things home first." +</P> + +<P> +"Easy that. This wind'll carry us fine," and he set to work with a +couple of the broken oars and a blanket, and contrived a sail of sorts. +Then, taking another oar and thrusting one into Wulfrey's hands, he +propelled the clumsy raft along the side of the wreckage till it got +clear, and the wind caught their sail and wafted them slowly towards +the island. +</P> + +<P> +"A grand grand place, yon!" he broke out again. +</P> + +<P> +"There's stuff enough there to load a hundred ships.... Gosh, I've +forgotten the pork!" and he uprooted the sail and began paddling back +to the wreckage. "I stove in the head of a barrel and was smelling at +it when I spied the wee keg." +</P> + +<P> +"Was it eatable?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've eaten worse." +</P> + +<P> +"Couldn't we get it next trip?" +</P> + +<P> +"Man, my stomach's been crying for it ever since I set eyes on it. +'Sides, those deevils of birds will finish it in no time. See them! +They're at it now. Och, ye greedy deevils!" +</P> + +<P> +He clambered up the pile with his oar and laid about him lustily, The +birds rose up from the meat like a dense cloud of flies, and screamed +and raved at him, and swooped at him with vicious eyes and beaks and +claws, so that in a moment he became the centre of a writhing, +fluttering, shrieking mass which threatened to annihilate him +completely. +</P> + +<P> +He flailed blindly at them with his oar, smashing them by dozens. But +they were too many for him. He shouted for help, and when Wulfrey +scrambled up he found him in very sore case, fighting blindly and +streaming with blood. +</P> + +<P> +"Come away, man!" shouted Wulfrey, and thrashed away at the nightmare +of whirling birds. "Come away before they end us!" and in a moment he +found himself the centre of a similar shrieking mass, dazed and blinded +with their numbers and their fury. The terrified glimpse he got of +their cold glittering eyes and gnashing beaks, and the compressed venom +of their overwhelming assault, were too much for him. It was like +fighting single-handed against all the fiends out of the pit. +</P> + +<P> +He hurled his oar overboard, put up his arms to protect his eyes, and +staggered to the edge of the pile, acutely conscious of jags and pecks +and rips innumerable on his bare arms and shoulders. As he flung +himself down into the water and dived under, a plunge alongside told +him that Macro had done the same. A raucous swarm of birds followed +them, but on their disappearance fluttered off to more visible chances +above. +</P> + +<P> +"Man! but that was awful!" gasped the mate hoarsely. "They nigh ate me +alive." +</P> + +<P> +"Let's get aboard or they'll be at us again. There's my oar," and he +swam quietly to it and they climbed back on to the raft. +</P> + +<P> +"An' never ae piece o' pork," lamented Macro. "The poaching deevils!" +</P> + +<P> +"Be thankful you're alive, man! It was a close touch that." +</P> + +<P> +"'Twas that. I'm bit all over. I'd like to end 'em all with one +crack." +</P> + +<P> +Fortunately the birds were too busy quarrelling up above to give them +more than cursory attention. A few came whirling and swooping after +them with greedy eyes and ravening beaks. But it was only in their +multitudes that they were formidable and they soon gave up a chase that +offered no easy prey. +</P> + +<P> +The men, shaken and trembling, clawed along the pile till they caught +the wind again, when Macro readjusted his masts and sail, and they +drifted slowly back towards the island. +</P> + +<P> +"Ye deevils! Ye scratching, scrawming, skelloching deevils!" breathed +Macro deeply, every now and again, and shook his fist at the twisting +column of birds behind. "I wish ye had ae neck and me ma hond on it." +</P> + +<P> +Their weighty progress was of the slowest. When they drew alongside +the yellow spit Macro plunged overboard and waded ashore for their +clothes, and they drifted on along the low southern beach. But it was +well after mid-day before they came abreast of the stark little ships +which stood to them for home. +</P> + +<P> +Then they made busy traffic transporting their salvage to the shore and +carrying it across the bank to the edge of the lake. And when that was +all done Macro unlashed the raft and they carried it over piece by +piece, and roughly put it together there and loaded up again. +</P> + +<P> +"It'll all come in for firing," said the mate. "We can't go on burning +our own inside all the time." +</P> + +<P> +It was no easy work propelling their rough craft with broken oars. +Moreover Macro insisted on taking the hatch-cover in tow. But the +spirit of accomplishment was upon them and the weight they dragged was +a comforting one. +</P> + +<P> +All the way, as they joggled slowly along, the mate never ceased +enlarging on the wonders of the wreckage, nor forgot his one +disappointment, which evoked resentful curses each time he thought of +it. +</P> + +<P> +"Man, but we're doing fine! A roof we've got, and fire, and things to +eat.—There's flour in yon bundles,—just the cores of half a dozen +casks. And yon bag's coffee, but we'll need to roast it and grind it. +And the wee keg's rum, unless I've mistook it. An' there's enough +stuff out yonder to last us for a thousand years. But, +blankety-blank-blank-blank!—my stomach's crying after yon pork that +them screeching deevils took out of our mouths, as you might say. +Blankety-blank-blank 'em all—every red-eyed son o' the pit among 'em! +But we'll try again, and next time I'll not broach the barr'l an' +they'll know noth'n about it." +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe they'll attack us all the same. It was the most horrible +situation I was ever in. One felt so utterly helpless." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, blank 'em! There was no end to 'em.... They'd have ate me alive +if you hadn't come and helped me tumble overboard. Blank 'em! Blank +'em! Blank 'em!" +</P> + +<P> +"What on earth are all these things for?" asked Wulfrey one time, +kicking a roll of crimson silk with his heel. +</P> + +<P> +"Blankets to sleep on,—better than boards. The others for their gay +gaudery,—the bonny reid and blue o' them. They mek me feel good and +warm just to look at 'em. I just couldna leave them. Man, they're +grand!" +</P> + +<P> +They hoisted all their stuff on board, and found themselves hungry and +thirsty with the heavy day's work. There were but the scantiest +remnants of their breakfast left, and Macro undertook to chop wood and +make a fire, scour some of the rusty cooking-utensils, and make +flour-and-water cakes as soon as he had some water, if Wulfrey would go +across for it and some fresh meat. +</P> + +<P> +So he set off on the hatch-cover with a good-sized kettle, and was back +inside an hour with water from the ponds by the hill and a couple of +young rabbits, and found that the mate had not been idle. He had +transferred a sufficiency of sand to the cabin to make a hearth at the +foot of the steps, and had broken up wood enough to last for a week. +He had spread out all the blankets, scoured most of the rust off a +frying-pan and a small kettle and a couple of tin pannikins, and had +opened the keg and sampled its contents and found it French cognac of +excellent quality. +</P> + +<P> +In the best of spirits he skinned the rabbits and set them roasting, +with an incidental commination of thae screeching deevils that had +robbed them of the pork which would have been such a welcome +accompaniment. Then he compounded cakes of flour and water and fried +them deftly, and set a kettle to boil wherewith to make hot grog, and +boastfully promised coffee for the morrow when he had time to roast and +grind it. +</P> + +<P> +They both ate ravenously, and found great content in the taste of hot +food and drink once more, after all these days of clammy starvation, +and then they slept. And Wulfrey dreamed horribly all night of +fighting helplessly with legions of screeching birds, and several times +fought himself awake, and each time found Macro actively engaged in the +same unprofitable business. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XX +</P> + +<P> +In spite of his torn shoulders and unrestful night, Macro was for +setting off again first thing next morning for more plunder. That huge +pile of wastry drew him like a magnet. He hungered and thirsted to be +at it again. +</P> + +<P> +But Wulfrey flatly refused. They had enough to go on with, and he +claimed at least a day to recover from the effects of the last +excursion. And as Macro declined to tackle the job single-handed he +was fain to agree, though with none too good a grace. +</P> + +<P> +"This weather mayn't last. We'd best get all we can while we can," he +urged. +</P> + +<P> +"The stuff will be there tomorrow. Most of it's been there for years, +you said." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, but man, there's mebbe things out of the 'Grassadoo,' that'll be +spoiling for want of finding." +</P> + +<P> +"They'll not spoil much more in one day. You're more used to this kind +of work than I am, you see. I must have a rest." +</P> + +<P> +Macro consigned rest to the bottomless pit, but after relieving his +feelings in that way, consented at last to an easy-going exploration of +the southern spit, to see if their lake opened into the sea, though he +expressed himself satisfied, from his observations, that it did not. +</P> + +<P> +First, however, out of the larger raft he constructed a smaller one, +which bore them better than the hatch-cover and was more manageable, +and the hatch they hauled on board again and fitted into its place, so +as to keep the ship dry in case of bad weather. Then they paddled +across to the spit and set off along it, both scrutinising the lie of +the land carefully. +</P> + +<P> +For a good hour they trudged through heavy sand, the sea swirling with +long soft hisses up the yellow beach on their right hand, and on their +left the placid water of the lake without a pulse in it. The dividing +bank was nowhere in all its length more than a hundred yards wide, nor +more than ten feet high at its crown. +</P> + +<P> +More than once Macro stood and studied it in places, and when in time +they came to long ridges of hummocks which stretched as far in front as +they could see, he stood again, looking back from the top of the first +they climbed, and said, "I'm thinking there's no opening this end. +Mebbe it was on the level there. But this stuff shifts so in a gale +you never know where you are." +</P> + +<P> +Presently they came on the shallow rounded end of the lake, with higher +sandhills beyond it, which ran along both sides of the island further +than they could see. In between lay a vast unbroken stretch of level +sand, and when they climbed to the top of the highest hill, they saw +this sandy desert dwindle in the far distance to a point, with the sea +on each side of it, like the one at the other end of the island. +</P> + +<P> +"There's not a sign of anybody else," said Wulfrey. +</P> + +<P> +"If there'd been anyone they'd bin living on them ships. We've got it +all to ourselves, that's certain. And what's more, we'll have it all +to ourselves till Kingdom come. No one else'll ever come, 'cept dead +men." +</P> + +<P> +"Those two ships came." +</P> + +<P> +"Twenty, thirty years ago,—mebbe more. Must have bin an opening then +and it's got silted up. They couldn't have got washed over the spit." +</P> + +<P> +There were several more large fresh-water ponds close to these larger +hills, and rabbits everywhere. They secured a couple and tramped back +the way they had come. +</P> + +<P> +Macro seemed to accept the whole situation and outlook with the utmost +equanimity. They had very much more than they had had any right to +expect; more was always to be had for the fetching from that wonderful +pile out yonder; what that pile might yield in the way of richer +plunder remained to be seen, and he was the man to see to it. +</P> + +<P> +But Wulfrey had been cherishing a hope that the great lake would prove +an inlet from the sea, a harbour of refuge into which other ships might +be expected to run at times. And the fact that it was not, that no +relief was to be looked for in that direction and that this desolate +sandbank, bristling with wrecks, must necessarily be shunned by all who +knew of it, weighed more and more heavily on him as he thought about it. +</P> + +<P> +They were alive, where all their shipmates had perished. They were +provided for beyond their utmost expectation. For all that he was most +deeply grateful. But the prospect of passing the rest of his life on +this bare bank troubled him profoundly and reduced him to silence and +the lowest of spirits. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXI +</P> + +<P> +They woke next morning into a dense white fog, so thick that they could +not see across the deck. Macro, intent on plunder, hailed it as an +excellent screen from possible attack by the other pillagers of the +wreck-pile, and though Wulfrey had his doubts, he would not counter him +again. +</P> + +<P> +His knowledge of human nature suggested to him the almost impossibility +of two men living alone, in intimacy so close and exclusive, and with +so little outlet for their thoughts and energies, without coming to +loggerheads at times. He determined that, so far as in him lay, the +provocation thereto should not come from him. +</P> + +<P> +So far he had not only had nothing to complain of in his companion's +presence, but, on the contrary, had found himself distinctly the gainer +by it in every material way. But the strange wild outbursts, to which +he had given vent when they were at the wreckage before, warned him of +hidden fires below, and suggested the advisability of non-provocation +of the under-man, if it were possible to avoid it. +</P> + +<P> +So they paddled across to the spit, which they could not well miss, and +set off on foot for the point, steering by the sullen lap and hiss of +the waves as they stole softly up out of the fog on their left hand. +There was a clamminess in the air which commended the idea of clothes +to them while they worked on the pile. So they made their things into +tight bundles, and carried them above their heads as they waded out +neck-deep to their store-house. The shrill cries of the birds came +dull and thin through the fog, more ghostly than ever from their +invisibility. Now and again an inquisitive straggler fluttered down at +them out of the close white curtain, and whirled back into it with a +terrified squawk when it found they were alive. +</P> + +<P> +They climbed the pile cautiously, but the birds seemed mostly at a +distance; and when they had flung down sufficient timber Macro +proceeded to construct another raft, while Wulfrey poked about up above +on his own account. +</P> + +<P> +And as he climbed about among the chaotic mass of barrels, boxes, +cases, bales, he came to understand the wild craving to get at them, to +bash them open and learn what they contained, which had possessed the +mate that other day. There might be anything hidden there—goods of +all kinds for the easement of their present situation. There might +even be treasure of gold and jewels. It was impossible to say what +there might not be. And though gold and jewels were absolutely useless +to them, placed as they were, and with no prospect, according to Macro, +of rescue or relief, the possibility of such things lying hidden in +untold quantity all about him stirred him strangely. +</P> + +<P> +He recognised feelings so abnormal to himself with no little surprise. +He felt as a penniless small boy might feel if he were given the +freedom of a great shop full of boxed-up toys and told to help himself. +He wanted to smash open very closed case he came to, to see what was +inside it. +</P> + +<P> +The water lapped and clunked dismally in the hollows below, and at +times he had to climb almost down to it, and then up the further side, +to get across faults in the pile. In one such black gully, on what was +usually the leeward side of the pile, he had stepped cautiously from +ledge to ledge, and laid hold of a projecting spar and was hauling +himself up the other side, when he came face up against a dark little +cranny between two great cases. And in the niche sat the skeleton of a +man, all huddled up and jammed together, but grinning at him in so +ferociously jovial a manner, as though he had been expecting him and +was rejoiced at the sight of him, that Wulfrey came near to loosing his +hold and falling into the water. He scrambled hastily past, and saw +grinning faces in every dark corner for the rest of the day, and some +of them were fact and some were only fancy. For the tumbled pile of +wreckage was like a huge trap for the catching of anything the sweeping +gales might bring it. +</P> + +<P> +He heard Macro's voice, dulled by the mist, calling to him, and he +answered but knew not which way to go to get to him. It was only by +constant shouting and long and precarious scrambling that they came +together again. +</P> + +<P> +"We'd best keep close in this fog," said the mate, "or one of us'll be +stopping the night here. Found anything?" +</P> + +<P> +"A dead man——" +</P> + +<P> +"Any of ours?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, he was only bones." +</P> + +<P> +"It's full of 'em. They're no canny, but they'll not harm us. +Where'll we begin?" +</P> + +<P> +"One place is as good as another. Here, I should say, and quietly, or +those fiends of birds will be at us again." +</P> + +<P> +"Bear a hand with this, then," laying hold of a newly-stranded barrel. +"That's pork out of the 'Grassadoo,' so it'll be all right," and +heaving and hauling, they managed to get the barrel down on to the raft. +</P> + +<P> +As they poked about the pile in the mist, it was evident they had +struck a spot where a good portion of the contents of the +'Grace-à-Dieu' had lodged. Macro, having superintended the loading, +recognised many of the marks and in some instances could recall their +contents. +</P> + +<P> +"Women's fallals," he said, with a scornful crack at one large case. +"If they'd been men's, now, they'd have come in handy.... Boots and +shoes, if I remember rightly,"—nodding at another case. "We'll soon +see," and with a chunk of wood he stove in one side and hauled out a +handful of its contents.—"Women's troke again! Mebbe we'll find some +men's stuff in time.... I've seen yon chest before.... Old Will +Taggart's, I think," and he stove it open, and went down on his knees +and raked over the contents. "Seaman's slops, not much account.... A +new pipe and a tin of tobacco! Thanks be! We'll take that ... and +another flint and steel. Always useful! ... Clothes not much good, but +we might be glad of 'em later on.... Yon's a box of tea and it'll be +lead-lined inside. Should be more about. We had two hunderd +aboard.... Glory! yon barrels are hard-tack. These ones are flour. +If we work hard and get 'em ashore before the weather breaks again +we'll live in clover.... What's this now? ... 'Duke of Kent'"—and he +hauled up a stout wooden box by one handle out of a raffle of cordage +and ragged sail-cloth. "Name of a ship—or name of a man? That's no a +ship's box." +</P> + +<P> +A deft blow under the lock and the box lay open, displaying a number of +uniforms, richly decorated with gold braid and lacing, all more or less +damaged by water, but otherwise in good condition. +</P> + +<P> +"Duds enough to keep us going for a couple of years if so be as they +fit," said the mate exuberantly, and Wulfrey laughed out at the idea of +their peacocking about their sandbank rigged out in court costumes. +</P> + +<P> +"He was Governor-General of Canada," he said. "I remember hearing he +lost his baggage on the journey." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll be Governor-Generals here when we're needing a change.... +Nothing but his clothes," as he ran his hands all over the box. "Mebbe +we'll find more of 'em lying about. Man! what a place it is! It'd +take a man a lifetime to work through all the stuff there is here." +</P> + +<P> +They worked hard and carried home a huge load, but as there was no wind +they had to paddle all the way, and even Macro acknowledged to being a +bit tired before they got all their plunder across the spit and on +board, the transit across the lake on the smaller raft necessitating +three separate journeys. He was in the highest of spirits however, and +keen to be back at the pile next day. As for Wulfrey, hardening though +he was with all these unusual labours, he found himself almost too +weary to eat. +</P> + +<P> +The fog lay on them like a white pall for six days. Macro predicted +that it would go in a storm, and was urgent on salvaging all they could +before it came. +</P> + +<P> +So, day after day, they went out to the pile, and came back loaded at +night till they had stuff enough in their hold to keep them in comfort +for many months to come. +</P> + +<P> +They had meat and drink, clothes and firing, and comfortable quarters. +What more could any man want, unless it were to get away from it all? +And that, the mate asserted, time after time, was the unlikeliest thing +that could happen. +</P> + +<P> +"We're here till Kingdom come," was the burden of his tune. "So we may +as well be comfortable. And we've had the deil's own luck. We might +ha' been living on rabbits and roots, and sleeping on the sand. Man! +be thankful at being tired to such good purpose!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm thankful enough and tired enough, and we've got stuff enough for a +year. I'm going to take a rest." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm for the pile again tomorrow. If you won't come I'll e'en make +shift alone," and Wulfrey let him go alone. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXII +</P> + +<P> +The smothering white fog lay thick on them for six days and then +disappeared in the night. The morning broke dull and heavy, with a +gusty wind from the south-west, and they could hear the waves breaking +on the spit with a sound like the low growl of a menacing beast. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm off to the pile," said the mate. +</P> + +<P> +"Better take a day off. You've been working too hard." +</P> + +<P> +"Not me. I cannot sit here while all yon stuff's crying aloud to be +picked up." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'll be on the look-out, and come across to give you a hand from +the spit when you get there." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll lash you up a bit float that'll bring you over, before I go. And +you'll mebbe have some food ready against I get back. It's hungry work +out there." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll be ready for you. If you load up too heavily you'll not get back +at all." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll see to that. Wind's fair, it'll bring me home all right." +</P> + +<P> +So Wulfrey had the day to himself, and had time, which the labours of +the previous days had not permitted him, to consider the situation in +all its aspects. +</P> + +<P> +So far they had been marvellously favoured, without doubt. Ten days +ago they were swinging up and down on the galley-roof inside the cage +of the dead ship's ribs, possessed of nothing but their bare lives, and +those but doubtfully. And here they were, provided for in every +respect, with comforts which shipwrecked men had no right to expect, +and with unlimited further stores to draw upon. They could live +without fear.... +</P> + +<P> +But what a life, after all. Eating, drinking, sleeping,—raking over +the wreckage for possible plunder that was useless to them,—rambling +among the rabbits and the sandhills. Quarrelling in time, maybe. +Perhaps it was a good thing there was a ship for each of them. +</P> + +<P> +He was not himself of a quarrelsome disposition. The mate, he thought, +might be difficult to put up with if he took a crooked turn. But it +would be the height of folly for two men, bound together by +ill-fortune, and to this bare bank for all time, to fall out. Every +circumspection within his power he resolved to exercise, and so far, +indeed, his companion had given him no cause to mistrust or doubt him. +</P> + +<P> +But he had a somewhat discomforting feeling that he knew very little of +the real man that lay beneath that saturnine exterior, that there might +be elemental depths there which would surprise him if they came to be +revealed. This Macro that he knew was to him something in the nature +of a sleeping volcano, outwardly quiet but full of hidden fires. +</P> + +<P> +He could imagine no likely grounds for dispute between them. Each +worked for the common good, and so far they had shared all things +equally and without question. But how would it be as the weeks dragged +into months, and the months into years? +</P> + +<P> +So far the rifling of the wreckage had afforded the mate all the outlet +he needed for his activities. In ministering to the cravings of the +riever spirit that was strong in him it had also supplied their wants +in overwhelming abundance. The longer it kept him busy the better, and +if it yielded him plunder of value he was entirely welcome to it. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey could not imagine his discovering anything out there which +could by any possibility lead to any serious difference between them. +And yet, in spite of all that, from little glimpses he had caught at +times of the strange wild, hidden nature of the man, he was not without +doubts as to his absolute congeniality as a sole companion for the rest +of his days. +</P> + +<P> +In short he had a vague feeling that, if by any chance they came to +loggerheads, Macro might prove an extremely unpleasant person to be +shut up with, within bounds so limited as this great bank of sand. +</P> + +<P> +He recognised such feelings, however, as unnecessarily morbid, and +ascribed them to the general murkiness of the outlook and +over-weariness from the exertions of the last few days. So he tumbled +overboard on to the new raft and paddled to the nearer shore, and set +off for a brisk walk over the sandhills and along the beach, in search +of a more hopeful frame of mind. +</P> + +<P> +Why could they not build a boat? Macro said the coast of Nova Scotia +was but a hundred miles or so away. A hundred miles was no great +affair, and there was wood among that pile enough to build a thousand +boats. So far, indeed, they had not come upon any tools except the +rusty axe, for tool-chests probably sank at once on the outer banks +where the ships went to pieces. +</P> + +<P> +Still, he would suggest it to Macro. It might prove a further outlet +for his energies. If he should by chance find plunder of value out +there he might, when he was satiated, favour the idea of an attempt at +escape. In fact, plunder without any attempt to utilise it would be +absurd. +</P> + +<P> +The opportunity of making his own position clear, and thereby obviating +any cause for dispute, occurred that same day. +</P> + +<P> +When, in the afternoon, he saw the mate coming slowly along before the +wind, he paddled over to the spit to meet him and found him in great +spirits. +</P> + +<P> +"Man! it's been a great day, and if ye'd been there ye'd have had your +chance. I lit on some graand things. Wait while I show you——" +</P> + +<P> +"Let's get 'em all aboard first. They'll keep, and I'll be bound +you're tired and hungry." +</P> + +<P> +"Hungert as a wolf, but finding siccan things takes the tired out o' +one," and his black eyes sparkled over his finds, and he must go on +telling about them as they worked. +</P> + +<P> +"It was down under where we found yon Duke o' Kent box. I spied +another, and then more, mebbe there's, more yet down below." +</P> + +<P> +"More fancy coats?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!—and some with jewelled stars on 'em and swords with fancy hilts. +I'll show you when we get aboard." +</P> + +<P> +"You didn't come across any tools, I suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +"Tools? No. What would we want tools for?" +</P> + +<P> +"I was wondering if it might not be possible to build some kind of a +boat and get across to Nova Scotia." +</P> + +<P> +"We're safer here than trying that, I'm thinking." +</P> + +<P> +"When you've got all there is to be got out there you'll want to get +home and enjoy it——" +</P> + +<P> +"Man! It'd take a hunderd years to go through it all. It's bin piling +up there since ever this bank silted up." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh well, we don't want to stop here a hundred years, that's certain. +What's the good of it all if you can't make any use of it?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's graand to handle anyway." +</P> + +<P> +And when they had eaten, he opened some of his bundles and displayed +his treasures,—a jewelled 'George,' roughly cut from some +Garter-knight's court-coat, several smaller decorations, all more or +less ornamented with precious stones, three dress-swords with +mountings, in ivory and gold, a small wooden box lined with sodden blue +velvet in which were half a dozen rings, some of which from the size of +the stones and the massiveness of their setting, seemed to Wulfrey of +considerable value. +</P> + +<P> +"They're worth something, all those," said Macro, as he handled them +with loving exultation. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, if you could get them home and turn them into money. I don't see +what use they're going to be to you here," said Wulfrey, fiddling his +own string again. +</P> + +<P> +"They're fine to have anyway." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd sooner have another pipe and some more tobacco than the whole of +them." +</P> + +<P> +"Ye can have that too," and he rooted in another bundle and produced +both. "They're oot a dead man's chest and they're wet. But he's no +use for 'em and they'll dry. So there ye are. Ye dinnot care for +jewels?" and he looked at Wulfrey wonderingly. +</P> + +<P> +"As to that, I don't say I wouldn't pick them up if I came across them, +but I've no hankering for them." +</P> + +<P> +"Ye've plenty money of your own, mebbe." +</P> + +<P> +"As much as I need—if ever I get ashore." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! It meks a difference, ye see. I never had any to speak of, and +these bonny sparklers pluck at the heart o' me." +</P> + +<P> +"You're welcome to all you can get, as far as I'm concerned——" +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, man, they're mine, for I found 'em." +</P> + +<P> +"But they're no use to you unless we can get away from here. Get +ashore and you can turn them to account. Now why couldn't we build +some kind of a boat and get across to Nova Scotia? There's wood enough +and to spare out yonder——" +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, there's wood, but ef we had the tools 'twould still be no easy +matter. An' then ye've got to reckon wi' the weather. 'Twould be a +bad move to spend our time building a boat only to go to the bottom in +her with all the gear we'd gathered. We're safe here, anyway. Mebbe +some day a boat'll come ashore not so broke but we can patch her up.... +How'd ye like to be afloat in a home-made boat a night like this?" +</P> + +<P> +For while they sat, eating and talking, the day had darkened, and now +and again there came a menacing whuffle down the open hatch, and the +little ship was filled with a tremulous humming as the rising wind +played on their bare masts, and the growl of the spit had deepened into +a long hoarse roar. +</P> + +<P> +"It'll be a bitter bad night I'm thinking. I saw it coming away out +yonder. Mebbe it'll add some to our pile of stuff. Mebbe it'll bring +us a boat." +</P> + +<P> +"We will not hope for either," said Wulfrey soberly, "for that means +more deaths out yonder——" +</P> + +<P> +A long shrill scream outside sent a creepy chill down his spine for a +moment. He glanced apprehensively across at Macro in the flickering +light of the fire, and saw his face livid, his eyes like great black +wells, his jaw dropped. +</P> + +<P> +"The spirits o' the dead!" jerked the mate. "There's a hantle o' them +out there.... They're mebbe after me for these things...." and he +rocked himself to and fro, where he sat on the floor, and muttered +strange words,—"An ainm au Athar, 's an Mhic, 's an Spioraid +Naoimh,"—in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy +Ghost. +</P> + +<P> +The weird shrieking waxed louder and shriller. Wulfrey got up and +climbed the steps, and found the stormy twilight gray with that vast +cloud of birds, all fleeing blindly before the gale and each one +screaming its loudest. +</P> + +<P> +It was a fearsome, blood-curdling clamour, an ear-splitting +pandemonium, a whirling Sabbat, as if all the demons of the pit had +broken loose and clothed themselves in wings and shrieks and deadly +fear. +</P> + +<P> +"It's only those damnable birds," he bent and shouted gruffly down to +Macro, vexed with himself at his own momentary fright. +</P> + +<P> +But the mate was not for accepting any such simple explanation as that. +</P> + +<P> +"Man!" he said hoarsely. "Birds ye may think 'em, but I know better. +It is spirits they are,—spirits of all the dead that ever died in this +dread place,—a great multitude—their bones are white out there, but +the spirits of them cannot rest. A Mhoire ghradhach! 'Twas under the +Dark Star we were born, and here we'll die and leave our bones to +whiten in the sand, and the spirits of us will go screeching and +scrauchling wi' the rest. Come away, man, and shut the doors tight or +they'll be in on us!" +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey had never seen anything like it. Those myriads of fluttering +wings looked as though the whole gray sky had come tumbling down in +fragments. It was like a snowstorm on a gigantic scale, every whirling +flake a bundle of wildly screaming feathers. +</P> + +<P> +He stood watching for a time and listening to the growing thunder of +the rollers on the spit. He imagined their crashing in white foam-fury +among the stark ribs of the dead ships out there on the banks. +</P> + +<P> +He shivered as he recalled the chill horrors of their own undoing and +deliverance. It was wonderful beyond words, with that in his mind, to +be standing there, safe and warm, and well provided, and his heart was +full of gratitude. +</P> + +<P> +"God help any who are out there this night!" he said to himself, and +closed the doors on the storm-fiends, and squatted on the floor over +against the mate, who sat rocking slowly to and fro in great discomfort +and muttered Gaelic seuns as a protection against the unholy things +that wandered outside. +</P> + +<P> +All night long their little ship was filled with the hum of the +shuddering masts, broken now and again with the creaking and jerking of +their rusty cable. And whenever Wulfrey, warm in his bunk with many +blankets, woke up for a moment, he heard the deep thunder of the waves +on the spit, and the howl of the wind, outside, and the thrashing of +the rain on deck; and he thanked God for warmth and shelter, and lay +listening for a moment, and then rolled over and went to sleep again. +</P> + +<P> +The storm lasted three full days, during which they never once left the +ship. They had all they needed, and fresh water was obtainable in any +quantity by slinging an empty keg outside one of the scupper-holes +through which the rain drained off the deck. +</P> + +<P> +Macro's gloomy humour lasted, off and on, as long as the storm. The +birds had mostly hidden themselves in sheltered nooks among the +sandhills. But every now and again the evil in them, or maybe it was +hunger, would stir them up and set them whirling and shrieking round +the ship, and sometimes lighting on it in prodigious numbers, and the +mate would curse them long and deep and fall once more to his spells +and invocations. The fury of the storm did not trouble him, but the +screaming of the birds seemed to touch the superstitious spot in his +nature and set all his nerves jangling. +</P> + +<P> +It was during one of the lull times that he astonished Wulfrey by +hauling out his rolls of silks and velvets, and with an elemental, +almost barbaric, delight in their rich colourings, he cut them into +long strips, which he fixed neatly to the walls of the cabin by means +of wooden pegs. The gorgeous results afforded him the greatest +satisfaction, which nothing but the wailing of the birds could damp. +Whenever their shrill clamour broke out the darkness fell on him again. +He hurled uncouth curses at them and no arguments availed against his +humour. +</P> + +<P> +To Wulfrey, on the other hand, the birds and their dismal shriekings +were but an incident, the fury of the storm a wonder and a revelation. +</P> + +<P> +All through that former time of stress, which had ended in their +undoing, his powers of observation and appreciation had been dulled by +his fears of disaster. Then, the howl of the gale and the onslaught of +the seas had been like hungry deaths close at his heels. But here, in +the perfect security of the land-locked lake, he was free to watch and +to wonder. +</P> + +<P> +At times, indeed, it seemed to him that the terrible force of the wind +might lift them bodily, ship and all, and hurl them into the turmoil +beyond. Then he remembered that many such storms must have swept the +island and still the ships were there. +</P> + +<P> +The waves that broke on the spit seemed to him higher than tall houses, +and the weight of them, as they curled and crashed on the sand, made +the whole island tremble, he was certain. The uproar was deafening, +and at times great lashes of white spray came hurtling over into the +lake, and scourging it into sizable waves of its own. +</P> + +<P> +When Wulfrey woke on the fourth morning he was conscious of a change, +and running up on deck he found the sun shining in a pale-blue, +storm-washed sky, and nothing left of the gale but the great green +waves breaking sullenly on the beach beyond the spit. +</P> + +<P> +He stripped and plunged overboard, and climbed up again full of the joy +of life and physical fitness. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXIII +</P> + +<P> +The days crept into weeks, the weeks into months, with nothing to break +the monotony of their life but visits to the wreckage, an occasional +skirmish with the birds, rabbit-hunts, rude attempts at fishing, which +met with so little success from lack of anything approaching proper +material that they gave it up in disgust, and rambles among the +sandhills. +</P> + +<P> +They got along companionably enough; the mate's only complaint,—and +that not untinged with satisfaction, and obviously prompted more by a +desire for his help than from any wish to halve his spoils—that +Wulfrey showed so poor a spirit in the matter of plunder, and so +shamefully neglected the opportunities of a lifetime. +</P> + +<P> +For himself, if he could have found safe lodging out there, he would +have lived on the wreck-pile, to save the time and trouble of going to +and fro. The riever spirit of his forefathers was kept at +boiling-point by the possibilities of fortune which lurked there. The +search in itself at once satisfied and stimulated the natural craving +for booty which rioted in his Highland-Spanish blood, and he never +tired of it. +</P> + +<P> +He came back laden every time with things for the common good, and +rarer pickings for his private hoard, over which he exulted like a +chieftain returned from a successful foray. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey was on the whole not ungrateful to the pile for affording him +such distraction. He discussed the latest additions to his +treasure-trove with him, as they sat by the fire of a night, and +speculated with him on their probable origin and value, and the higher +he assessed this the more the mate's black eyes glowed. +</P> + +<P> +He would sit watching Wulfrey as he turned the latest find over and +over, and weighed it in his hand, and polished a bit of it to get at +its basic metal, and mused on its shape and endeavoured to arrive at +its history. And at such times there was in the sombre black eyes +something of the look of an uncertain-tempered dog whose lawful bone is +in jeopardy. +</P> + +<P> +Once or twice, Wulfrey, glancing up as he passed an opinion, caught +that curious suspicious look bent on him, and was amused and annoyed at +it, and also somewhat discomfited. Did the man think he coveted his +useless little gauds?—useless in their present extremity, though some +of them doubtless valuable enough if they could be sold. Why, he +esteemed a dryable twist of tobacco infinitely more highly than any +silver candlestick or shapely silver cup that the other could fish up +from the depths. It seemed to him just as well that the plunder-fever +had attacked only one of them, for he doubted if his companion would +willingly have shared with another. For the fever grew with his finds. +</P> + +<P> +Once they came within an ace of a quarrel, and though it blew over, the +seeds remained. +</P> + +<P> +Where the mate hid his spoil, Wulfrey neither knew nor cared nor ever +troubled his head about. He would no more have occupied his thoughts +with it than he would have taken more than his proper share of the food +or tobacco. +</P> + +<P> +But increase breeds suspicion, and suspicion clouds the outlook. Among +other things, Macro one day brought home a small crucifix and some +strings of beads, which he believed to be of gold, while Wulfrey, from +their hardness to the touch of the knife, pronounced them only brass. +They were all curiously carved or cast, however, and, whatever the +metal of which they were made, he expressed his admiration of the +workmanship. +</P> + +<P> +A night or two later, to his amazement, Macro came out of his own cabin +more black-a-vised than he had ever seen him, and asked abruptly, +"Where's that cross?" +</P> + +<P> +"What cross?" +</P> + +<P> +"You know what cross. Yon gold cross I showed you two nights ago. +Where is it?" and he lowered at Wulfrey like a full-charged +thunder-cloud. +</P> + +<P> +"I know nothing of your cross, man. I suppose you put it with the rest +of your things." +</P> + +<P> +"I did that, and it's gone. Where is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't speak to me like that, Macro. I won't have it. I know nothing +about your cross or any of your plunder. I've told you before, it is +nothing to me. If I wanted it I'd go and get it for myself." +</P> + +<P> +"It was there with the rest and it's no there now. And——" +</P> + +<P> +"—— —— ——!" cried Wulfrey, springing up ablaze with indignation. +"Do you dare to think I would touch your dirty pilferings?" and it +looked as though the next instant would find them at grips. +</P> + +<P> +But the mate had broken out in the sudden discovery of his loss. Wulf +stood full as tall as himself. He looked very fit and capable, and +looked, moreover, as the mate's common sense told him, as soon as it +got the chance, the last person in the world to tamper with another +man's goods—even though he might be the only one circumstantially able +to have done so. +</P> + +<P> +"It's gone anyway," he growled. "But it's no good fighting about it." +</P> + +<P> +"That's not enough. Your greed for gain has blinded you. Till you +come to your senses I've nothing more to do with you," and for two days +not a word passed between them. +</P> + +<P> +Each prepared his own food as and when he chose, and ate it apart from +the other. The mate hung about as though loth to leave Wulfrey in sole +charge at home, and the atmosphere of the little cabin was murky and +charged with lightning. +</P> + +<P> +On the third day Wulfrey ostentatiously set off for the wreck-pile by +himself. He was running out of tobacco and would not have accepted any +from the mate if it had been offered. +</P> + +<P> +He waded out, made a rough raft on Macro's lines, and smashed open such +seamen's chests as he could discover, for it was always in them that +they found tobacco. +</P> + +<P> +He got several small lots, and a couple of new pipes, and a flint and +steel, charged his raft with a keg of rum and a case of hard-tack, and +managed to get it all back to the spit and to the ship single-handed. +</P> + +<P> +As he came up the side, the mate met him, with the missing crucifix in +his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"The little deevil of a thing," he said, with quite unconscious +incongruity, "had slipped down a crack, back o' the locker, and I were +wrong to think ye could have taken it." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, don't play the fool again," said Wulfrey shortly. "If your +greed for other folk's goods hadn't blinded you, you would understand +that a gentleman does not stoop to stealing." +</P> + +<P> +"I've seen some I wouldn't trust further'n I could see 'em, and then +only if their hands were up over their heads. But ye're not that kind, +an' I was wrong. So there 'tis, an' no more to be said. What have ye +found?" +</P> + +<P> +"Pipes and tobacco. That is all I went for." +</P> + +<P> +After his two days of enforced silence Macro was inclined to expand, +but found his advances coldly received. Wulfrey's pride was in arms +and the insult rankled. +</P> + +<P> +By degrees, however, the storm-cloud drifted by, and matters between +them became again much as they had been, with somewhat of added +knowledge, on each side, of the character of the other. +</P> + +<P> +The mate had learned that the Doctor, quiet as he might appear, was not +a man to suffer injustice or to be meddled with. And Wulfrey had got a +further warning of the possibilities of trouble should he and the mate +come to serious differences. +</P> + +<P> +It seemed absurd that two men, stranded, perhaps for life, on this bare +sandbank, should be unable to live together in amity. Yet, his +experience of men told him that it was just such enforced close +intimacy—the constant rubbing together of very divergent natures, with +nothing in common between them but the necessities entailed by their +common misfortune—that might, nay almost certainly must, come to +explosion at times, unless they both set themselves sedulously to the +keeping of the peace. +</P> + +<P> +If any actual rupture took place between them, he foresaw that the mate +might develop phases of character which would be exceedingly awkward +and difficult to deal with. Freedom from all the ordinary restraints +which civilisation imposed upon the natural inner man might easily run +to wildest licence. +</P> + +<P> +At bottom this man was just a wild Highland cateran with a dash of +Spanish buccaneer, hot-blooded, avid of gain under circumstances so +propitious, insatiable. The chance of a lifetime had come to him and +he was exultantly set on making the most of it. He was like a +cage-bred wolf set down suddenly into the midst of an unprotected flock +of sheep. There was his natural prey in profusion and there was none +to stay him. To be dropped unexpectedly on to this enormous pile of +plunder was like the realisation of a fairy tale. No wonder he was +inclined to lose his head. +</P> + +<P> +It was fortunate, thought Wulfrey, that they were built on different +lines, and that the plunder-pile made absolutely no appeal to himself +beyond the necessaries of life. +</P> + +<P> +He determined, as far as in him lay, to walk warily and to avoid, as +far as possible, any just cause of offence on his side. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +BOOK III +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +BONE OF CONTENTION +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXIV +</P> + +<P> +They had been three months on the island, and in all that time had +never sighted a living ship, though the remains of newly-dead ones were +never wanting after bad weather. +</P> + +<P> +It was evident that the men of the sea avoided Sable Island as if it +were a pestilence, and came there only when it no longer mattered to +them whether they came there or not. +</P> + +<P> +Macro was, by degrees and with never-lessening enjoyment, amassing a +very considerable treasure. If ever the chance of getting back to land +arrived, and he could get his plunder home, he would have no need to +follow the sea for the rest of his life. But, whether or not that +crowning good fortune should ever be his, this gathering of spoil was a +huge satisfaction to the very soul of him, and he desired no better. +</P> + +<P> +The only flies in his big honey-pot were those rival depredators the +birds. He had many a battle royal with them, and came home at times +scratched and clawed and furiously comminative, consigning birds of all +shapes and sizes to everlasting perdition. Spirits or no spirits, in +the day time, and in the prosecution of his work, he would fight them +valiantly or trick them cleverly. +</P> + +<P> +But in the black storms that swept over them at times, when the great +waves crashed like thunder on the spit, and the sandhills and hummocks +melted away under Wulfrey's wondering eyes and built themselves afresh +in new places, when the shrieking hosts came whirling round the ship +and the sky was full of their raucous clamour, then the darkness came +on Macro and he fell again to his seuns, and knew them, beyond all +doubt, for things of evil. +</P> + +<P> +When the odds out there on the wreck-pile were too much for him, he +learned by experience how to fool them. He would smash furiously at +them with his club, shouting in wild exultation as the bashed bodies +went tumbling into the sea. If that did not discourage them, and their +venom persisted, he would drop quietly into some adjacent hole amid the +wreckage where they could not get at him, and wait there till they +whirled away after easier prey. +</P> + +<P> +So keen was he on adding to his store that, when their commissariat +needed replenishing, Wulfrey found it necessary to accompany him and to +insist on his attending strictly to this more important business, or at +times they would have gone short. For the rest, Wulfrey left him to +the satisfaction of his cravings and interfered with him not at all. +</P> + +<P> +One memorable morning, which broke sweet and clear after two days of +stress and storm, the mate set off as usual to find what the gods had +sent him; and Wulf, leaning over the side, watched him paddle across to +the spit, and land there, and stride away towards the western point +from which they always waded out to the wreckage. +</P> + +<P> +But on this occasion, before he disappeared in the distance, he stopped +and stood looking out over the sea, and the next moment Wulfrey saw him +wading out towards something which only caught his eye when thus +directed to it,—something which bobbed up and down among the waves +with a glint of white at times. +</P> + +<P> +He saw Macro reach it and lift his arms in a gesture of amazement. +Then he bent over it and presently came staggering back up the shore +bearing a white burden over his shoulder. It looked at that distance +so very like a body that Wulfrey tumbled over on to his raft, and +paddled across to the spit, and ran along the shore to where the mate +was kneeling now alongside his find. +</P> + +<P> +It was the body of a woman, pallid and sodden, with her long dark hair +all astream, her white face pinched and shrunken and blue-veined, with +dark hollows round the closed eyes, and colourless lips slightly +retracted showing even, white teeth. She was clothed only in a long +white nightdress, which the water had so moulded to her shapely figure +that it looked like a piece of fair white marble sculpture. In life +she must have been beautiful, Wulfrey thought, as he stood panting, and +gazed down upon her. +</P> + +<P> +"Dead?" he jerked. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, sure! She were lashed to yonder spar and I couldna leave her +there.... The pity of it! She's been a fine bit." +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey knelt down, and slipped his hand to the quiet heart, +instinctively but without hope, bent closer, gently raised one of the +closed eyelids, and said hastily, "There may be a chance. Help me back +home with her! Quick! You take her feet...." and he taking her under +the arms they hurried back along the spit. +</P> + +<P> +"She is not dead from drowning anyway," he jerked as they went. "The +exposure may have killed her.... She must have suffered dreadfully." +</P> + +<P> +It was no easy task to get her on board, but they managed it somehow, +and laid her gently among the blankets in Wulfrey's bunk. +</P> + +<P> +"Now.... Bags of hot sand, as quick as you can and as many.... Then +mix some hot rum and water—not too strong,"—and Macro found himself +springing to his orders with an alacrity which would have surprised him +if he had had time to think about it. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey, his professional instincts at highest pressure, drew off the +clinging garment, muffled the sea-bitten white body in the blankets, +and through them set to gentle vigorous rubbing, to start the chilled +blood flowing again. +</P> + +<P> +Macro came hurrying in with hot sand from the hearth, wrapped in linen +and tied with strands of untwisted rope. +</P> + +<P> +"Good! ... As many more as you can," said the Doctor, and placed them +against the cold, blue-white feet, and rubbed away for dear life. +</P> + +<P> +By degrees he packed her all round with hot sand-bags, Macro heating +them as fast as they cooled, in a frying-pan over the fire. He placed +them under her arms and between her shoulders, and never ceased his +vigorous friction except to renew the bags. +</P> + +<P> +Each time the mate came in, his face asked news, and each time Wulfrey +shook his head and said, "Not yet," and went on with his rubbing. His +own blood was at fever-heat with his exertions in that confined space. +But that was all the better. His superfluous warmth might transmit +itself in time to the chill white body of his patient. +</P> + +<P> +Macro came in with hot rum and water, and Wulfrey poured a few careful +drops between the still-livid lips, watched the result anxiously, and +followed them up with more, and then resumed his patient rubbing. +</P> + +<P> +For over an hour they worked incessantly, and then Macro was for giving +it up as hopeless. +</P> + +<P> +"'S no good. She's gone, sure," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think so.... Too soon to give up anyway," and the Doctor +worked on tirelessly. "If she should come round——" +</P> + +<P> +"She won't." +</P> + +<P> +"—She'll be starving. You might break up some hard-tack very small +and warm it up in some weak rum and water," and he went on with his +rubbing. +</P> + +<P> +And at last, when he had almost given up hope himself, he had his +reward. The mate, poking in a head deprecatory of further waste of +time and energy on so hopeless a job, stood staring amazedly. For the +pinched dead look of the pitiful white face had given place to a faint +presage of life, like the first flutter of dawn on the pallid darkness +of the night. Death had visibly relaxed his chill grip. There was a +tinge of colour in the parted lips, and the white teeth inside had come +together. +</P> + +<P> +"She lives," said Wulfrey softly. "Her heart is at work again. Warm +up that rum and water," and when it came he administered it cautiously +in drops again, and this time they were visibly swallowed. +</P> + +<P> +"Have the warm mash ready," he said; and even as he spoke the +blue-veined lids fluttered, but so feebly as hardly to lift the long +dark lashes from the white cheeks. And through that narrowed window +the recovered soul looked mistily out on life once more. +</P> + +<P> +He gave her still a little more hot rum and water, and when the warm +mashed biscuit came fed her slowly with that, and she swallowed it +hungrily if unconsciously. +</P> + +<P> +Then, well satisfied with his work, he piled more blankets on her and +left her to herself. +</P> + +<P> +He had had many a fight with death, but none closer than this. The +snatching of a life from the cold hand that was closing on it was +always a cause for rejoicing with him. And this life, by reason of its +comely tenement, had appealed to him in quite an unusual way. +</P> + +<P> +Who she was, and what manner of woman, was still to be learned. For +the moment it was enough that she had been within an ace of death and +was alive again, and that she was unusually good to look upon. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXV +</P> + +<P> +When the Doctor had had a plunge overboard to restore the vitality he +had expended on his patient, they sat down to eat, and the mate was +inclined to enlarge somewhat exuberantly on the morning's work,—upon +his own share in it especially. +</P> + +<P> +"A wonderful fine piece of goods for any man to drag out of the water. +I'm doubting if you'd have seen her if you'd bin there, Doctor. Just +happened to lift my eye that way, and the white of her caught it, and +in I went. Not that I thought she could be living, you understand. +She felt like Death itself when I carried her ashore in my arms——" +</P> + +<P> +"She'll be distressed for lack of clothes when she's ready to get up. +But that won't be to-day anyway. Do you think you can light on any out +yonder?" +</P> + +<P> +"Lit on some last time I was there, but left 'em 'cause they were no +use to us. That lot'll mebbe be gone, but there's plenty more for the +finding. I'll see to it to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"She will be grateful to you, I'm sure." +</P> + +<P> +"She should, for if it hadn't bin for me she'd be tumbling about on yon +spar still, and dead by this time, I'm thinking." +</P> + +<P> +"She couldn't have stood much more, that's certain. I was near losing +hope myself at times." +</P> + +<P> +"Wouldn't have believed she'd ever come back if I hadn't seen it. It's +being a doctor made ye keep on so." +</P> + +<P> +"One feels bound to keep on while there's a possible chance left. In +this case one couldn't but feel that there was a chance, if only a +small one. We've done a good day's work to-day." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay," said the mate, and presently, "I'm thinking I'll go out there +today to get her some clothes. They'll need a lot of drying, you see." +</P> + +<P> +"Can you do it before dark?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll do it. Ye'll see to her." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll see to her all right. A little more food and then the longer she +sleeps the better. If she'd lie where she is for a couple of days it +would be all to the good." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'll go," but he came back to bend down into the little +companion-way and say, "If she's asking, ye'll tell her it was me +pulled her out the water." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll tell her." +</P> + +<P> +When, presently, Wulfrey went to see how she was going on, he found her +sleeping quietly the sleep of utter exhaustion, and as he stood looking +at her it seemed to him that she grew more beautiful each time he saw +her. +</P> + +<P> +The long wet tresses, whose clamminess he had carefully disposed behind +the rolled-up blankets which served as a pillow, were drying to a deep +warm brown. As they carried her in he had thought her hair was black. +It was very thick and long. The texture of her skin, now that the +coursing blood had obliterated to some extent the pinch and the bite of +the sea, was fine and delicate, he could see, though suffering still +from the salt. +</P> + +<P> +The pink fingers of one hand had pulled down the blankets round her +neck as though she had craved more air, and the soft white neck was +smooth and white as marble. The one ear turned towards him was like a +delicate little pink shell. +</P> + +<P> +All these things he noted before his gaze settled on the quiet sleeping +face, and lingered there with a strange new sense of joyous discovery +and unexpected increase, as one might feel who suddenly unearths a +hidden treasure. +</P> + +<P> +He wondered again who she was and whence she came. Of gentle birth, he +was sure. It showed in every feature of the placid face,—in the +strong sweet curves of a not too small mouth,—in the delicately-turned +nostrils,—in the soft level brows,—in the long fringing lashes which, +with the shadows left by her sharp encounter with Death, cast about her +closed eyes a misty enchantment full of witchery and allurement. He +wondered what colour her eyes would be when they opened. +</P> + +<P> +A wide white forehead, somewhat high cheek-bones, and a round +well-moulded chin, added a fine dignity to the sleeping face. He stood +so long gazing at its all-unconscious fascination that he feared at +last lest the very earnestness of his look might disturb her. +</P> + +<P> +So he picked up her only earthly possession, and leaving her, sleeping +soundly, in sole charge of the ship, paddled across to the nearer +shore, washed the salt out of her dainty single garment in a +fresh-water pool, and spread it in the sun to dry, and then went after +rabbits for her benefit when she should waken ravenous. +</P> + +<P> +Returned on board, after a glance at his still-sleeping patient,—who +lay so motionless that, but for the slight, slow rise and fall of the +blankets over her bosom, one might have deemed her dead,—he set to the +making of as tempting a soup as rabbit and rice could furnish, and +regretted, more sorely than ever before, his lack of salt and seasoning. +</P> + +<P> +Then he sat waiting for her to awake and for Macro to come home. If +she did not wake of her own accord before sunset he decided to wake her +himself. Sleep was without doubt the best of all restoratives, but +Nature craves sustenance, and she was almost certainly starving. She +would recover strength more quickly still if her system had something +to draw upon. +</P> + +<P> +Then, too, they had no light but that of the fire. If she woke up in +the dark she would be sorely exercised in her mind to know where she +had got to. It would be better to satisfy her, mentally and bodily, +while still there was daylight to see by. +</P> + +<P> +So, when the sun shone level through the western portholes, he went +softly to where she lay, still sleeping soundly, and after watching her +again for a moment, he placed his hand gently on her forehead. +</P> + +<P> +She frowned at the touch and moved uneasily among her blankets. Then +the heavy eyes opened and she lay staring wonderingly up at him, +evidently trying to piece past and present together, and to make out +where she was. +</P> + +<P> +"Where am I? ... Who are you?" she jerked, in a voice that would have +been rich and full if it had not been a little hoarse and husky. And +the pink fingers grasped the blanket and drew it up under the rounded +white chin. +</P> + +<P> +"You are quite safe on a ship. I am a doctor. I want you to eat some +warm soup and then you shall sleep again as long as you can. Here is +your night-rail, washed and dried; perhaps you would like to put it on. +I will go and fetch the soup." +</P> + +<P> +When he came back presently she was visibly more at ease with her +frills about her neck. She raised herself on her left elbow, and he +placed the tin pannikin of soup in front of her, together with some +broken biscuit. +</P> + +<P> +"Can you feed yourself?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes—if I had a spoon." +</P> + +<P> +"I am sorry to say we have no spoons." +</P> + +<P> +"No spoons?" and she stared at him in vast surprise. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps you can make shift to drink it out of the pannikin. You +see——" +</P> + +<P> +"What a very odd ship—to have no spoons!" she took a sip of the soup +and screwed up her lips. "Would you get me some salt, if you please? +This soup——" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry, but we have no salt either. You see——" +</P> + +<P> +"No salt?" and she shot another quick amazed look at him. "Mon Dieu, +mon Dieu!" at which Wulfrey pricked up his ears. "Whatever kind of a +ship—you did say a ship, did you not? Where is it going to?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's not going anywhere. You see, it's practically a stranded ship +though it's really afloat——" +</P> + +<P> +She put her hand to her forehead and rubbed it gently, and then clasped +it tightly, with her thumb at one temple and her fingers at the other. +"I think my head is swimming yet," she said simply. "I cannot follow +what you say." +</P> + +<P> +"You'll understand as soon as you get on deck. This ship is bottled up +inside a lake on an island. It has been here for probably thirty or +forty years——" +</P> + +<P> +"And you—have you been here all that time?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, we were wrecked as you were, I suppose, on the banks out there. +We managed to get ashore and found this ship to live on." +</P> + +<P> +"Who are 'we'?" +</P> + +<P> +"The mate of the ship and myself. We were the only ones saved. It was +he saw you in the water and went in after you and brought you ashore." +</P> + +<P> +"It was good of him. I will thank him. Where is he?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's out at the wreckage trying to find you some clothes." +</P> + +<P> +"He is a good man.... How long have you been here?" +</P> + +<P> +"About three months." +</P> + +<P> +"And no one has come to you in all that time?" +</P> + +<P> +"You are the first. Now"—as she finished the soup—"take a good drink +of this,"—some weak rum and water warmed up in another pannikin, over +which she choked and coughed and wrinkled up her pretty nose +distastefully. "Then you will go to sleep again, and in the morning I +hope you will be all right." +</P> + +<P> +"But there is so much I would like to know——" +</P> + +<P> +"When you have had another long sleep. Are you quite warm?" +</P> + +<P> +"Quite. That horrid stuff was like fire." +</P> + +<P> +"You were cold enough when we found you. In fact we believed you were +dead." +</P> + +<P> +She shivered and nestled down among the blankets with a wave of colour +in her face. +</P> + +<P> +"I will sleep," she said quietly, and the Doctor left her to herself. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXVI +</P> + +<P> +It was almost dark before the mate pitched his cargo up on to the deck +and came groping up the side after it. +</P> + +<P> +"What luck?" asked Wulfrey, as he came up to help him. +</P> + +<P> +"Brought all I could lay hands on, but I wouldn't like to say they're +right kind of things." +</P> + +<P> +"She'll be glad of them whatever they are." +</P> + +<P> +"Has she come round?" +</P> + +<P> +"I wakened her to take some soup and biscuit. Now I hope she will +sleep till morning." +</P> + +<P> +"And you told her it was me brought her ashore?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I told her that. She will thank you herself." +</P> + +<P> +"Did you find out who she is and where she hails from?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not yet. There'll be time enough to learn all that. My only desire +was to get some nourishment inside her. She'll be building up now all +the time she's sleeping." +</P> + +<P> +"An' she's a good-looking bit of goods, eh?" asked the mate, as they +sat eating. +</P> + +<P> +"Very good-looking, I should say, and pulling round quickly. A +gentlewoman without doubt." +</P> + +<P> +"And how can ye tell that now? There's many a good-looking hussy +that's not gentle-born." +</P> + +<P> +"Undoubtedly," said Wulfrey, looking across the fire at him. "But this +isn't one of that kind. She's a lady to the finger-tips." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah—too fine a lady to live on a ship with the likes o' you and me, +mebbe," growled the mate. "All same, if't 'adn't bin for me her +leddyship ud be no more'n a little white corp tumbling about out yonder +in its little white shift." +</P> + +<P> +"Quite so," said Wulfrey, on whom this insistence on his sole claim to +the salvaging of her was beginning to pall. "And if it hadn't been for +me your bringing her ashore wouldn't have been of much service to her. +So suppose we say no more about it. We'll divide the honours." +</P> + +<P> +"If I hadn't brought her ashore ye couldn't have brought her round," +growled the mate. +</P> + +<P> +"Six of one and half a dozen of the other." +</P> + +<P> +"No six of anything. Ye can't deny I brought her ashore." +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey lit his pipe and went up on deck, wondering what was working in +the curious fellow's brain now. +</P> + +<P> +When he went down again he found that Macro had opened his bundles and +spread their contents out to dry, and had turned in. He just glanced +at the varied assortment, and then, not to disturb his patient by going +anywhere near her, spread some blankets in the room next to the mate's, +and turned in himself. But he lay awake for a long time, wondering if +the introduction of this new element into the limited circle of their +lives was like to make for peace or otherwise. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXVII +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey was up early, after a restless night, anxious to see how his +patient fared. It was such a morning as usually followed their +storms—clear and bright and sunny, with a pale-blue wind-swept sky, +and a crisp breeze that tipped the green of the waves outside with +white. +</P> + +<P> +The first time he went softly in she was still sleeping, and with much +satisfaction he noted the improvement the food and rest had wrought in +her. Her face had filled out, the cheek-bones were less prominent, the +dark circles round her eyes were not nearly so pronounced as before, +though he imagined the long dark lashes and level brows would always +lend a sense of depth and witchery to the great dark eyes themselves. +The slight salting and roughening of the skin would speedily cure +itself under the application of fresh water. She was almost herself +again. +</P> + +<P> +Their fire, on its bed of sand, was never allowed to go out. The +supply of wood was unlimited and always, in the depths of the heap of +white ashes, was a golden core of heat only waiting to be fed. So he +set to and prepared coffee for her, and some flour-and-water biscuits, +and when he went in again she was awake. She turned her head and +looked at him, and his heart beat quicker than was its wont. +</P> + +<P> +Her eyes, he perceived, were very dark blue, almost black, and looked +the darker for the dark fringing lashes. They were very beautiful +eyes, he decided, and very eloquent,—there was something of +apprehension in them when first they met his, but it vanished when he +spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"You are better, I can see. You slept well?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have only just wakened. You are the doctor." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I am the doctor. I have got some coffee for you and some +biscuits. I will get them." +</P> + +<P> +"You are very good," as he came in with them and she raised herself on +to her elbow again. "Did your friend get me any clothes? I feel quite +well, and I would get up." +</P> + +<P> +"He brought a whole heap of things. They have been spread out all +night, but I'm afraid they'll never dry properly till they are washed +in fresh water." +</P> + +<P> +"And have you fresh water?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, plenty,—Ashore there, in pools. If you can select a few things I +will go across and steep them. They will soon dry in the sun." +</P> + +<P> +"You are very good," she said again, and sipped the coffee and glanced +up at him with a somewhat wry face. "No, you have no sugar on this +strange ship—nor milk. Nor a brush, nor a comb, I'll be bound. +Nothing but——" +</P> + +<P> +"A brush and a comb we can provide at all events, and of exceptional +quality. They belonged, I believe, to His Royal Highness the Duke of +Kent." +</P> + +<P> +"Edward of Kent?" she asked quickly. "Why—how...." +</P> + +<P> +"Some ship, bringing home his belongings from Canada, must have been +wrecked here. We have found quite a number of his things." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, he would not mind my using them," she said quietly. "He is of a +pleasant temper, quite the nicest of them all"; and as she finished the +coffee and biscuits, "If you could find me ... a brooch—no, you will +not have a brooch! ... a large pin or two,—but no, you will not have +any pins! ... Let me see, then,—a sharp splinter of wood——" +</P> + +<P> +"I can get you all the splinters you want. Might I ask——" +</P> + +<P> +"To pin some of these blankets about me, do you see,—so that I may get +up. And if you would get me that royal brush and comb——" +</P> + +<P> +He trimmed up half a dozen sharp little skewers and left them with her, +together with the brush and comb, and plunged overboard for his morning +swim. +</P> + +<P> +The mate was sitting by the fire at his breakfast when he went down +again. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?—how is my lady this morning?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"So well that she is getting up." +</P> + +<P> +"Them clothes all right?" +</P> + +<P> +"She will pick out what she wants. But they'll never dry with the salt +in them. I'll rinse them in one of the pools as soon as she says +which." +</P> + +<P> +"There's more mebbe for the finding——" and then they heard the door +of her little room open and she came into the cabin to them. +</P> + +<P> +The mate jumped up and stood staring as if she were a ghost; and even +Wulfrey, who had already made her acquaintance, eyed her with surprise, +and was confirmed in the idea that had been growing in him that there +was foreign blood in her. He doubted if any Englishwoman could have +made so brave a showing out of such poverty of material. +</P> + +<P> +Fastened simply with her wooden skewers, she had one blanket draped +about her as a skirt, and another covered her shoulders, with a high +peak behind her neck, like a monkish cloak. And inside this rough +calyx the fair white column of her neck rose out of its surrounding +frillery like the stamen of a flower from its nest of petals. Her +abundant hair, combed and brushed, but still lacking somewhat of its +natural lustre, was coiled about her head in heavy plaits. +</P> + +<P> +Though her garments were only rough blankets they were so disposed +about her person that she stood before them tall and slim and graceful. +Her eyes and face were all aglow at the novelty of her situation. Her +feet were bare. +</P> + +<P> +She sailed up to the mate with outstretched hand. +</P> + +<P> +"It was you who brought me ashore out of that terrible sea," she said, +and her voice was no longer hoarse and husky. "I thank you with all my +heart." +</P> + +<P> +Macro ducked his head but never took his eyes off her. +</P> + +<P> +"Gosh! Ye looked very different then, miss," he jerked. "We scarce +expected ye'd ever come round like this." +</P> + +<P> +"I am the more grateful. But—what a wonderful room you have!"—as she +looked round at the mate's barbaric hangings. "Silks and satins!—and +such gorgeous colours!" +</P> + +<P> +"There's bales of them about, miss, and you're very welcome to them. +They'd look better on you than them blankets." +</P> + +<P> +"But the blankets are warm, and the dreadful chill of the sea is still +in my thoughts all the time. Now I would go on deck and understand +about this strange ship of yours," and Macro hastened to lead the way +and Wulfrey followed. +</P> + +<P> +"But it is truly amazing," she said, as she gazed round at the +sandhills and the spit, at the tumbling waves beyond, and the unruffled +waters of the lake. +</P> + +<P> +"And another ship! Who lives there?" +</P> + +<P> +"No one. There is not another soul on the whole island but we three," +said Wulfrey. +</P> + +<P> +"It sounds dreadfully lonely." +</P> + +<P> +"It is not so lonely as the sea." +</P> + +<P> +"No, it is not so lonely as the sea. The sea is dreadful, and oh, +so-o-o cold when you are dying in it slowly, an inch at a time," and +she shivered again at the recollection. +</P> + +<P> +"You must try to forget all about it." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall never forget it. That is not possible. The memory of it is +frozen into my soul. What noise is that?" she asked, listening +intently with her hand uplifted. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a great cloud of sea-birds that haunts the island. All the +wrecks come ashore at that end, and they live there most of the time." +</P> + +<P> +"It is like the wailing of lost souls." +</P> + +<P> +"Right, miss!" broke in Macro. "That's what it is. They're only +birds, mebbe, but there's the souls of the dead inside 'em, an' +sometimes they're fair deevils when they come screaming round in a +storm." +</P> + +<P> +"I could believe that,—the souls of the dead without a doubt." +</P> + +<P> +"Suppose we turn to something pleasanter," suggested Wulfrey. "Perhaps +you will choose out the things you think most suitable from all that +the mate brought over from the wrecks?" +</P> + +<P> +"From the wrecks?" ... and she glanced at him doubtfully with a little +shiver. "It does not sound too nice." +</P> + +<P> +"We will bring them up. You will see them better here," and they +spread the deck with Macro's latest importations. +</P> + +<P> +"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" murmured she, as she turned them over with +curious fingers, and held them up to adjudge their style and make. +"But they are things of the days before the flood! ... They are too +amazing! ... They are wonderful beyond words!" +</P> + +<P> +"Could ye no alter them to your needs, mebbe?" suggested Macro +hopefully. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps—with needle and thread and scissors. But have you these?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mebbe I can find 'em for ye. There's the cargoes of hunderds o' ships +out there. Ye can find a'most anything if ye look long enough. And +mebbe there's newer things if I can light on 'em." +</P> + +<P> +"And some shoes and stockings, think you? I would be very glad of +them. It feels strange to go with bare feet." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll find 'em if there's any there." +</P> + +<P> +"It is very good of you. I thank you. Could I perhaps come too?" +</P> + +<P> +The idea evidently appealed strongly to him. He looked at her eagerly, +and hesitated, but finally said, "It's no easy getting there. There's +over six miles' walk through the sand, then near a mile of wading up to +your neck in the water, and sometimes a bit of a swim, all according to +the tide. Some day, mebbe, I'll mek a bit raft to tek ye across from +the point there—just to see what it's like. But ye want these things +and I'll get along quicker alone." +</P> + +<P> +"I thank you all the same. It will be for some other time then," and +Macro let himself down on to his raft and paddled away to the spit. +She stood watching him till he landed and set off at speed towards the +point. +</P> + +<P> +"He is truly good-hearted," she said, as he disappeared. "He is not +all English?" +</P> + +<P> +"He is from the islands off the west coast of Scotland, but he +confesses to a strain of Spanish blood also." +</P> + +<P> +"And why confesses? It is not, I suppose, his own doing. One +confesses to a fault. Is a strain of foreign blood a sin in your eyes +then, Monsieur le Docteur?" she asked, with pointed emphasis. +</P> + +<P> +"By no means. I should have said he rejoices in it." +</P> + +<P> +"We English—British, I should say,"—with a fleeting gleam of a +smile—"are too apt to look upon all foreigners as of lower breed than +ourselves, which is quite a mistake and leads to much misunderstanding. +Every nation has distinctive qualities of its own, is it not so?" +</P> + +<P> +"Undoubtedly. And unless one knows them by personal experience one +should not pass judgment. I must confess to being nothing of a +traveller." +</P> + +<P> +"How came you here?" she asked abruptly. +</P> + +<P> +"I was bound for America—or Canada, with the intention of settling out +there. It looks now, according to the mate, as though this strip of +sand has got to suffice us for the rest of our lives." +</P> + +<P> +"Really?" ... with a startled look. "Is there no getting away then? +Does no one ever come here?" +</P> + +<P> +"None but dead men, if they can help it, apparently. You were an +exception to the rule. So were we. We have none of us any right to be +here alive." +</P> + +<P> +"If I had some shoes and stockings, and some proper clothes, I believe +I could be quite happy here," she said. "That is if one has not also +to starve." +</P> + +<P> +"There is no need to starve. The island is over-run with rabbits. +There are fish in the lake here if only we could catch them, and out +there among the wreckage are all kinds of things—casks of pork and +beef, and coffee, and rum, and flour—enough to last us for hundreds of +years." +</P> + +<P> +"It is a most excellent retreat." +</P> + +<P> +"If one were sick of the world. But you surely are too young to have +arrived at that stage." +</P> + +<P> +"One may be young and yet be sick of one's world.... Sometime I will +tell you.... Now, if you please, I will take a few of these things and +you will show me your pool and I will wash them——" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I'll do all that for you——" +</P> + +<P> +"Not at all. Besides, with your permission and if you will leave me +quite alone, I would like also to wash in fresh water. I too shall +never feel quite dry until I have done so." +</P> + +<P> +He assisted her down to the other raft, through a break they had long +since made in the side for that purpose, and paddled ashore. There he +showed her the pool they had set apart for washing, and told her he +would come back for her at whatever time she chose. +</P> + +<P> +"In two hours, please," and he went off into the sand-hills. +</P> + +<P> +But his mind stubbornly refused to interest itself in rabbits. He +dropped down on the sunny side of a hummock and let his thoughts run on +this most surprising addition to their company. What could possibly +explain her,—young, beautiful, of undoubted birth and breeding, yet +ready to renounce the world, of which her twenty years or so had +apparently given her a surfeit, and to welcome the chance of a hermit +life? +</P> + +<P> +It was a puzzle beyond any man's understanding. All his thinking led +him only towards shadowy possibilities. And these the thought of her +sweet face and clear frank outlook rejected instantly as libels on her +fair fame, which he, with no more knowledge than he now had, yet felt +himself prepared to defend with all his might against the whole world. +If that girl was not all that she seemed and that he believed her to +be, he would never trust his own judgment again. +</P> + +<P> +All the same, it was very amazing, and she filled his thoughts to such +an extent that the rabbits hopped fearlessly about him as he sat +thinking of her; and it was long after the two hours before he came to +himself, and rewarded their temerity by knocking a couple on the head +and striding away back to find her. +</P> + +<P> +She was sitting waiting for him, with a fresh-water brightness in her +face, her hair coiled loosely round her head, and her washing still +drying in the sun. She hastily bundled up her things at sight of him +and came along to meet him. +</P> + +<P> +"I began to fear you had forgotten me," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Very much to the contrary. It was our dinner I came near forgetting," +and he dangled the rabbits before her. "You feel better for the fresh +water?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, very much better. And now I am hungry. When does your friend +come back?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not till evening as a rule. If he can lay hands on what you want he +may come sooner to-day." +</P> + +<P> +"And you—do you never go out there with him?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, sometimes. But it doesn't attract me as it does him." +</P> + +<P> +"Why then?" +</P> + +<P> +"We are differently made, I suppose;—which is perhaps a good thing. +He delights in finding things out there. I go out only for +necessaries." +</P> + +<P> +"What does he find—besides strange old clothes?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, heaps of things—treasure. There are the cargoes of very many +ships out there. They have been accumulating for hundreds of years, I +suppose." +</P> + +<P> +"And it does not attract you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not in the slightest." +</P> + +<P> +"You are, perhaps, rich." +</P> + +<P> +"I have enough, and I have my profession,—and little chance apparently +of making any use of either." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah..." and presently, "As to that, am I wrong then in thinking that if +you had not been here I would most likely not have been here either?" +and the wind and the sun had whipped a fine colour into her face. +</P> + +<P> +"You would, perhaps, not be very far wrong." +</P> + +<P> +"I remember it dimly, and in broken bits, like a horrible dream,—the +crash, the terrible noise of the waves, the shouting and the screaming. +It was the Captain himself who tied me to that mast when everything was +going to pieces. And when the waves washed over me, and I felt myself +slowly dying, I would have loosed myself if I could, to make an end. +It was terrible to be so long of dying. And the cold of the sea!—oh, +it was a horror," and she shivered again at the remembrance... "Then I +died.... And then—long long afterwards—I found myself coming slowly +back to life, and beginning to get warm again, with prickly pains like +pins and needles all over me——" +</P> + +<P> +"That was your blood beginning to flow again." +</P> + +<P> +"——I felt warm hands rubbing me—rubbing, rubbing, rubbing. They +must have rubbed for years, and, all the time, I was slowly coming +back. They were very warm and soothing. And at last they rubbed me +back to life." +</P> + +<P> +"What was the name of your ship?" +</P> + +<P> +"The 'Ben Lomond,' from Glasgow to New York, and the Captain was John +MacDonald. It was a large ship and full of passengers. It is terrible +to think of them all gone but me.—Oh, terrible!—terrible!" +</P> + +<P> +"Might I ask your name—since we are like to be neighbours for the rest +of our lives?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am Avice Drummond," she said, with a quick glance at him. "And you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Wulfrey Dale." +</P> + +<P> +"And the mate?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sheumaish Macro,—or Hamish, I'm not sure which." +</P> + +<P> +"It is the same. He is a good man?—to be trusted?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have no reason to think otherwise, but I have only known him since +we landed here. He is chock full of superstition——" +</P> + +<P> +"That is the Highlander in him." +</P> + +<P> +"A bit hot-blooded too, and apt to boil over." +</P> + +<P> +"That is the Spaniard." +</P> + +<P> +"And he's crazy after the spoil out yonder." +</P> + +<P> +"The Highlander again. It is, as you say, perhaps just as well you do +not care for it, or you might have quarrelled." +</P> + +<P> +"He is welcome to it all as far as I am concerned." +</P> + +<P> +"I am of his country. I can understand how he feels. It is the old +riever spirit in him finding its opportunity." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXVIII +</P> + +<P> +He was vitally conscious of her proximity to him as they paced through +the soft sand towards the raft. The sight of her pink toes popping in +and out from under her blanket-skirt quickened his blood. He knew +without looking when she glanced round at him now and again, as when he +had asked her name. +</P> + +<P> +He had not thought that the feeling of a woman's eyes upon him could +stir him to such an extent, no matter how wonderful they might be in +their depths of eloquent darkness. He knew all about +women,—physically, organically, professionally, and still held woman +in reverence. Experience had taught him also that in reality he and +his fellows knew very little about them beyond merest surface +indications,—that there were in most women, perhaps in all, deeps +beyond man's sounding, heights beyond his attainment,—a general +elusiveness mysteriously comprehensive of feelings, instincts, +passions, emotions, nerves, moods, humours, vapours, which a wise man +accepted without expecting ever fully to understand. +</P> + +<P> +That this shapely girl in her swathed blankets should affect him to +such an extent that he was actually conscious of a superb new joy in +living, of an absolute rejuvenescence, of a vitalising of all his +energies, was a very great surprise to him. He could feel the blood +running redder in his veins. His heart beat more briskly than it had +done since he landed on the island. +</P> + +<P> +But after three months of nothing but Macro and rabbits and screaming +birds, it was not to be wondered at after all, he reasoned to himself. +Life had been running on a low level. There had been nothing to lift +them above the mere satisfaction of their bodily necessities. Eating, +sleeping, getting through the days had sufficed them. +</P> + +<P> +And here, into that rough husk of a life, had suddenly come a soul, to +animate them both to higher things, even though it were no more than +the ministering to her more delicate necessities. +</P> + +<P> +Even Macro was feeling it, and was toiling out yonder, not for himself +but for her. Without doubt life was immensely more worth living than +it had been two days ago. +</P> + +<P> +It was a joy even to cook for her, though he had always detested the +preparation of food. To know beforehand what one was going to eat was +sufficient to reduce one's appetite. To superintend a meal through all +its stages, from raw to ready, put anything beyond the mere filling of +an internal void out of the question. +</P> + +<P> +But cooking for himself and cooking for her were matters of very +different complexion, and he found himself considering culinary +enterprises which surprised him greatly. +</P> + +<P> +"You will let me help," she said, when they had climbed on board, and +she saw him setting to work on the rabbits. +</P> + +<P> +"Can you make biscuit?" +</P> + +<P> +"If there is anything to make it with," so he provided her with flour +and water and a frying-pan, and tackled his own repulsive job, looking +forward to the best-made biscuit they had had since they came ashore. +</P> + +<P> +"You have no butter—lard—dripping—fat—nothing?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"There is some fat pork. We stew it with the rabbit as a rule." +</P> + +<P> +"Get me some and I will render it down and we shall have much better +cakes. Men never know how to cook unless they are trained to it. You +have no seasonings of any kind—no? Nor salt?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not a scrap." +</P> + +<P> +"We might find something on shore there. I saw many little plants. We +will search next time we go." +</P> + +<P> +Yes, indeed, even the repellent cooking took on quite a new aspect and +became a joyous pastime in her company, and they presently sat down to +such a meal as he had not tasted since he left Liverpool. Many a more +abundant one he had had, but none with such a flavour to it, and that +was due entirely to the deft white hands that had helped to prepare it. +</P> + +<P> +Meals hitherto had been in the nature of necessary nuisances. He and +the mate had often sat eating without a word between them, and with +perhaps less enjoyment in it than the rabbits out there among the +sandhills. But, henceforth, meals would be feasts full of delight +because of this stranger girl, whose presence would be salt and savour +and seasoning to the poorest of fare. +</P> + +<P> +"And he—the mate,—when does he eat?" she asked suddenly, after they +had begun. +</P> + +<P> +"Not till he gets back,—at night-fall as a rule. It's a good long +way, you see, and he likes to spend all his time working." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope he will find me some shoes,—and some needles and thread. Then +I shall feel much happier.... And you really think we shall never get +away from here?" she asked, quite cheerfully. +</P> + +<P> +"If we could prevail on Macro to think of building a boat, instead of +amassing treasure-trove, we might at all events try it. Nova Scotia is +but a hundred miles away, he says,——" +</P> + +<P> +"So close?" +</P> + +<P> +"But he seems to think it a risky voyage, and so far we have come +across no tools with which to build. You see, they are not things +likely to come ashore." +</P> + +<P> +"For myself, I believe I could be quite content to live here," she said +again. +</P> + +<P> +"For ever?—Never to get back to the larger life of the world as long +as you lived?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah—that! ... I do not know.... It is a very hollow life after all, +that larger life of the world." +</P> + +<P> +"To grow old here," he said thoughtfully, emphasising his points with +slowly nodding head. "To be the last one left alive perhaps.... To be +all alone, sick, starving, dying slowly in the dark, unable to lift a +finger...." +</P> + +<P> +"I would drown myself if it came to that. It sounds horrible.... +Perhaps, after all, we had better build the boat and get away." +</P> + +<P> +"But I don't know that we can. I know nothing about boat-building even +if I had the tools, and Macro won't turn to it till he has raked +through the wreckage, and that will take him about a hundred years. It +grows with every storm, you see." +</P> + +<P> +"We must make him." +</P> + +<P> +"And the tools?" +</P> + +<P> +"We must find them." +</P> + +<P> +"Two difficult jobs, perhaps impossible ones. You might perhaps +prevail on Macro, but even he can do nothing without tools.... But, if +I may venture to say so—it is surely early days for you to have +discovered the hollowness of life, and to feel ready to spend the rest +of it on a sandbank. Life should hold more in it than that for you." +</P> + +<P> +She looked meditatively across at him for a moment, then seemed to make +up her mind. "It is natural you should wish to know.... I will tell +you.... It is a somewhat sorry story, but I think you will +understand.... My name told you nothing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing—except that it was a very pretty name." +</P> + +<P> +"I feared it would. It is natural, I suppose, to imagine that the +whole world knows of one's misfortunes. Have you ever heard of the +Countess d'Ormont?" +</P> + +<P> +"The name is familiar to me in some way," he said, staring at her in +surprise at the trend this was taxing. +</P> + +<P> +"But I cannot recall——" +</P> + +<P> +"And the Comte d'Artois——" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course!" he nodded. "Now I remember——" +</P> + +<P> +"The Countess d'Ormont was Margaret Drummond, my mother. My father is +Charles Philippe, Comte d'Artois, brother of the poor King, Louis, +whose head they cut off; and I hate and detest him for his treatment of +her.... She is dead, my poor dear one! ... She believed at first that +she was properly married to him, and I have no doubt she was—in +London. He is a poor thing, but he was very fond of her, for a +time.... I was born at Chantilly. It was before his quarrel with the +Duc de Bourbon, and we lived in Paris and elsewhere according to his +caprice. When my mother learned all the truth, and that in Paris she +was not legally his wife, it broke her heart, I think. I never +remembered her but as sad and troubled. Except on my account she was +not sorry to die, I know. I was in Paris all through the Red times, +and saw—oh, mon Dieu,—the horrors of it all!—things I could never +forget if I lived to be a thousand.... In London we were all very +badly off.... But he liked to have me with him, and poor Mme de +Polastron was very good to me, but she was a strange, strange woman.... +Her death was a great blow to him ... and a great loss to me. He was +really very badly off there, and I did not like the people he had about +him,—de Vaudreuil, de Roll, du Theil, and the rest, and I made up my +mind to seek my own life elsewhere. And that is about all." +</P> + +<P> +"And you have friends in America—relatives perhaps?" +</P> + +<P> +"My mother's people, in Virginia. They have prospered there.... The +new life out there, where all men are equal, appeals to me. Now you +understand why I would not have cared very much if Mr Macro had not +brought me ashore and if you had not rubbed me back to life. I seem to +have no place in the world. I hate the aristocrats for what my mother +suffered at their hands, and I hate the others for the terrible scenes +I passed through as a child. These things are stamped into my heart +and brain for ever. And that is why this lonely island, far away from +it all, seems better to me than any place I know." +</P> + +<P> +"You would grow tired of it." +</P> + +<P> +"I could never grow as sick of it as I did of what I have left. It is +not perhaps a very full life, but neither is it hollow and heartless. +You I can trust, and Mr Macro also. It is lonely, but it is sweet and +peaceful——" +</P> + +<P> +"Wait till you see it in a storm." +</P> + +<P> +"Storms are nothing when you have seen Paris drunk with blood. +Ach!—the horror of it!" and she flung out her hands in a gesture +full-charged with terrible memories, and then pressed them over her +eyes as though to blot it all out. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we will do all in our power to make things comfortable for you, +for as long as we have to stop here.... For your sake I hope it will +not be long. Life should hold more for you than this," said Wulfrey, +and mused much on the beautiful stranger and her strange history, and +wondered what the future held for them all. +</P> + +<P> +The mate came back when it was growing dark, very tired and in none too +good a humour at the poverty of his finds. The results of a hard day's +work, so far as he disclosed them, were a number of rusty sail-maker's +needles which he had found in a chest, and half a dozen pairs of shoes, +sodden almost out of semblance to leather. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Drummond, however, was delighted and thanked him heartily. +</P> + +<P> +"You will lend me a knife, and out of some of your beautiful silks I +will make a new dress. I shall like that better than wearing any of +those ancient ones which belonged to the dead." +</P> + +<P> +"You're very welcome, miss. I broke into more'n a score of chests and +boxes and not a blessed stocking among the lot. And them shoes are +pretty bad, but they were best I could find." +</P> + +<P> +"I will rub them with fat and they will return all right, and the +needles will come bright with sand. I shall do very well now. Thread +I can get from a piece of your linen. I thank you very much. Now you +will eat some of my cakes." +</P> + +<P> +"Best cakes ever I tasted," he said with a full mouth. "Takes a woman +to cook properly. And best day's work I done since I got here, fishing +you out the water." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps—I am not yet sure, but I thank you all the same. When will +you begin to build a boat for us to get away in?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! ... Building a boat needs tools. What for do you want to get away +so quick? You're but just got here." +</P> + +<P> +"At present I am content. But—for always? I am not sure." +</P> + +<P> +"Doctor, there, is always wanting to get away. But he knows we can't +build a boat without tools. An' I put it to him—has he so much as set +eyes on a tool out yonder since we come ashore?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can't say I have, but then I haven't seen as much of the wreckage as +you have. There may be any amount of——" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, ay, there mebbe! But so far we haven't struck 'em, an' it's no +good talking o' boats till we got the tools." +</P> + +<P> +"We will look for them," said The Girl confidently. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, ay, ye can look for 'em, and mebbe sometime a boat'll come ashore +ready-made, or one that we can make shift to patch up. Meantime we've +got all we want here and there's plenty more for the getting out +yonder. So be content, say I, miss, for by rights the Doctor and me +ought to be two clean-picked white skeletons out there on the pile, an' +you ought to be a little white corp tumbling about on yon spar for the +birds to peck at." +</P> + +<P> +"Are there skeletons out there?" she asked with a shiver. +</P> + +<P> +"Heaps." +</P> + +<P> +"I think I will not go. I have seen so much of Death. I would forget +it for a time." +</P> + +<P> +"Ye'll meet him sure if ye try to get across from here in any boat we +could build," growled the mate, and filled his pipe and his pannikin. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXIX +</P> + +<P> +Next morning Macro went off as usual to the wreck-pile, and Miss +Drummond set to work on her dressmaking. Wulfrey hoisted up out of the +hold for her such pieces of silk and linen as she required, and scoured +a couple of the smallest needles with sand till they were usable. +Then, with the sharpest knife he could find among their stock, he cut +out on the deck, under her direction, various lengths and designs which +to him were meaningless, but replete with possibilities from her point +of view. +</P> + +<P> +But when, presently, she saw him preparing to go ashore for water and +rabbits, she threw down her needle and said, "I will go also. You will +not mind?" +</P> + +<P> +"On the contrary, I shall mind very much. I shall feel honoured by +your company. It is a pleasure to have someone to talk to again," and +he helped her down on to the raft, and thought how much less +interesting shoes were than little naked feet. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you not then talk much with Mr Macro?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sometimes, and sometimes we hardly spoke all day." +</P> + +<P> +"You quarrelled?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hardly that, but ... well, we had not very much in common, you see. +His mind was always full of his discoveries out there, and one got +rather tired of it at times." +</P> + +<P> +"I do not think I shall like him as much as I thought." +</P> + +<P> +"Why that? I'm sorry if I have said anything that seems to reflect on +him in any way." +</P> + +<P> +"I am used to judging for myself. It is a look that comes into his +eyes at times,—like a horse when it is going to bite. No,"—with a +decided little nod,—"I shall not like him as much as I hoped; and I am +sorry, for I ought to feel grateful to him for pulling me out of the +water." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm glad you are feeling grateful for being alive, anyway," he said, +with a smile. "That is better than being doubtful about it." +</P> + +<P> +"It is better to be alive than dead. And if we have to live here all +our lives—very well, we must put up with it. And if you and he die, +and I am left all alone, and get old and sick, as you said yesterday, I +will make an end of myself. I was thinking about it all night except +when I was sleeping." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry to have troubled you so. We will hope for better things. +Anyway I have no intention of dying for some time to come, if I can +help it." +</P> + +<P> +"You must not," she said, with sudden deep earnestness. "I count it +God's good mercy that you are here, for I can trust you." +</P> + +<P> +"I am used to being trusted," he said quietly. +</P> + +<P> +"I know. I can see it.... If I had been all alone ... with nobody but +him ... But, no! I could not..." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know that there is any harm in him." +</P> + +<P> +She sat nodding her pretty head meaningly.... "You have not seen men +loosed from all restraints as I have. I was but a child and did not +fully understand. But I see their faces and their eyes still, fierce +and wild and hungry for other than bread. When men are answerable to +none but themselves they become wild beasts and devils." +</P> + +<P> +"It is a hard saying." +</P> + +<P> +"But it is true. I have seen it." +</P> + +<P> +"And women?" +</P> + +<P> +"They are as bad, but in a different way. Oh, they are terrible." +</P> + +<P> +"And you and I and Macro here? To whom are we answerable?" he asked, +to sound her to the depths. +</P> + +<P> +"He is answerable to you," she said quickly. "You and I are answerable +to one another, and to God, and to ourselves—to all that has made us +what we are. I do not think you could trespass outside all that, any +more than I could." +</P> + +<P> +"I do not think I could. I am honoured by your confidence in me." +</P> + +<P> +He helped her ashore, and they filled the buckets at the pools, and +then she expressed a wish to see something more of this sandbank where +they might have to pass the rest of their lives. +</P> + +<P> +So they threaded their way among the hummocks to the northern shore, +and, at the first green valley they came to, she went down on her knees +and examined carefully the nestling growths on which the rabbits fed, +and found among them certain pungent little plants which she thought +might serve for flavouring, and they gathered enough to experiment with. +</P> + +<P> +The firm smooth tidal beach, with the ripples creaming up it in +sibilant whispers tempted her to bare feet, and she handed him her +shoes and splashed along as joyously as a child. +</P> + +<P> +"It is a most delightful island," she said. "I do not think I would +ever tire of it." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, you would. It is all just the same, you see. You can walk +on and on like this and round the other side for forty or fifty miles, +and every bit of it is just like the rest." +</P> + +<P> +"I think it is beautiful." +</P> + +<P> +"It gets monotonous in time. The only diversion is the pile of +wreckage down yonder. That is constantly changing and growing." +</P> + +<P> +"And discovering more skeletons! It feels odd to think that I should +have been one myself if you two had not happened to be here." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure it feels very much nicer to be comfortably clothed with +flesh," and glancing at her supple grace and entrancing bare feet and +ankles, he found himself profoundly grateful for the facts of the case. +The thought of her as a skeleton was eminently distasteful to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, it is better. Dead bodies and bones have always had a horror for +me; but not the simple fact of being dead, I think.... I do not think +I would be afraid to die—if it were not very painful. But ... well, +the thought of my dead body is horrid to me. I would not like to see +it." +</P> + +<P> +"You're not likely to be troubled to that extent anyway." +</P> + +<P> +"No, one is at all events spared that. But why do you talk of such +unpleasant things when the sun is shining and the waves are sparkling? +Tell me about yourself. All you have told me so far is that you are a +doctor, and that your name is Wulfrey Dale. I never heard the name +Wulfrey before. And that you were going out to Canada when you were +wrecked here. Why were you going out?" +</P> + +<P> +He would have liked to be as frank with her as she had been with him. +But that was impossible. Another woman's good name was too intricately +interwoven with his story, and the whole matter was so open to +misjudgment. If he tried to explain he must either label that other +woman as murderess or himself as an incapable doctor, and he chose to +do neither. He wished she had not asked, but found it only natural +that she should desire to know all about him. +</P> + +<P> +"I have nothing much to tell," he said. "I come from Hazelford, in +Cheshire. My father had the practice there and when he died I +succeeded to it. But the wander-spirit seized me. I wanted a larger +sphere. The new world called, and I came,—as it turns out to a still +smaller place——" +</P> + +<P> +"But we are not going to stop here all our lives. We must build that +boat and get away." +</P> + +<P> +"We will live in hope, anyway, but for that we are dependent on Macro, +and he's not an easy man to drive." +</P> + +<P> +"We will see," she said confidently. "How do you catch your rabbits?" +</P> + +<P> +"Every one of these little valleys is full of them. As soon as you +appear they all bolt for their holes and in the panic they tumble over +one another and you pick them up." +</P> + +<P> +"I am always sorry to kill things, and they are so pretty," she said, +as they crept cautiously up the side of the nearest hummock. "But they +are very good and I suppose one must eat." +</P> + +<P> +"Or starve. Now—see!" and he jumped down into the hollow, which +scurried into life under his feet, and came back in a moment with a +couple of rabbits which he had already knocked on the head. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor little things!" she said, stroking the soft fur. +</P> + +<P> +"They were dead before they knew it.... Our lake ends there," he said, +pointing it out to her from where they stood on top of the hummock. +"But the island goes on and on, all just the same as this as far as you +can see." +</P> + +<P> +"It looks very lonely ... but I like it," and she sat long, with her +hands clasped round her knees, gazing out over the wandering yellow +line of sandhills, and the slow-heaving seas which broke in +white-fringed ripples along the beach. +</P> + +<P> +"And you left no ties behind you there in England?" she asked suddenly, +showing where her thoughts had been. +</P> + +<P> +"No ties whatever. Friends in plenty, but nothing more. When my +father died I was quite alone in the world." +</P> + +<P> +She nodded fellow-feelingly, and they sauntered back in a somewhat +closer intimacy of understanding and liking for one another. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXX +</P> + +<P> +Macro had had a good day out there, and returned in the best of humours +with himself and as hungry as usual. +</P> + +<P> +As he ate he enlarged on his finds, and when he had finished his supper +he piled the fire with light sticks to make a blaze, and spread them +out for Miss Drummond's inspection. +</P> + +<P> +He had evidently lighted on the personal baggage of some person of +quality. There were rings and brooches and pins and bracelets, of gold +and silver, set with coloured stones, a couple of small watches +beautifully chased and studded with gems, a small silver-mounted mirror +all blackened with sea-water, two gold snuff-boxes with enamelled +miniatures on the lids—quite a rich haul and very satisfactory to the +craving of his spirit. +</P> + +<P> +The Girl examined them all carefully, and Wulfrey, watching her quietly +through the smoke of his pipe, thought she handled them somewhat +gingerly and distastefully, and understood her feeling in the matter. +And now and again he caught also a glimpse in the mate's black eyes, as +they rested on her, of that which she herself had felt and resented. +</P> + +<P> +It might be only the unconscious continuation of the gloating +proprietorial look with which he regarded his treasures, which still +gleamed in his eyes when they rested on her as though she herself were +but one more of them. But whatever it was it was not a pleasant look, +and Wulfrey was not surprised at her discomfort under it. He was as +devoutly glad that he was there as she could be. Alone with this wild +riever, in whom the cross-strain of his wilder forebears was running to +licence in its sudden emancipation from all life's ordinary +shackles.... It would not bear thinking of. Yes, he was truly glad he +was there. And then he remembered, with another grateful throb, that +if he had not been there, neither would she have been. For the mate +most assuredly would never have brought her back to life. +</P> + +<P> +"Some of these are of value," she was saying. "But they are rather +pitiful to me.... Some dead woman has treasured them and she is gone. +Perhaps you came upon her skeleton out there.... But they are not all +real stones——" +</P> + +<P> +"And how can ye tell that now?" asked Macro gruffly. +</P> + +<P> +"I can tell at once by the feel of them. That now"—pointing to a +heavily-gemmed bracelet—"the emeralds are real, the rubies are real, +but they are all small. The white stones are not diamonds, but very +good imitations. They look almost as well, but they are not diamonds. +If they were that bracelet alone would be worth some hundreds of +pounds." +</P> + +<P> +"Deil take 'em! And you can tell that by feeling at 'em?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can tell in a moment. You see I have handled many jewels—some of +the finest in the world, and I have seen very many imitations of them." +</P> + +<P> +"The deil ye have! How that?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have lived among those to whom they belonged, and I am very fond of +precious stones." +</P> + +<P> +He went away to his own cabin and came back presently with a good-sized +bundle done up in blue velvet, and opened it before her. Wulfrey was +surprised at the extent of his treasure-trove. For these were only his +most precious possessions. He knew that he had in addition +considerable store of silver articles which he had been allowed to +examine from time to time. +</P> + +<P> +If Macro's idea had been to dazzle her with his riches he must have +been disappointed. For she greeted the display with a depreciatory +"T't—t't!"—and said presently, as she picked out a piece here and +there for examination, "It looks like a peddler's pack.... And it +makes me sad to think of those to whom they belonged...." +</P> + +<P> +"They've no further use for them. And there's no telling who they +belonged to. They're for any man's getting now," said Macro +defensively. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose so. All the same ... For me—no!" with a most decided shake +of the head. +</P> + +<P> +"Are they good, or is there false ones among them too?" +</P> + +<P> +"Many are good," she said, passing them rapidly and somewhat +distastefully under her delicate fingers, "but not by any means all.... +You have laboured hard to accumulate so much." +</P> + +<P> +"Harder than ever I worked in my life before, but it suits me fine." +</P> + +<P> +"But what good is it all unless you can get away from here and turn it +to some good use?" +</P> + +<P> +"We'll talk of that when I've got all I want, mebbe." +</P> + +<P> +"You are like a miser then, ever accumulating and loth to spend." +</P> + +<P> +"Just that! Ye see I never had siccan a chance before,—nor many +others either. Ye wouldna care for a ring or two, or mebbe a bracelet +or a brooch?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I could not. It is good of you to offer, but ... no, I thank you. +They would always make me think of the skeletons out there. Poor +things!" +</P> + +<P> +"They don't hurt, and they're aye laughing as if 'twas all a rare +joke," which made her shiver with discomfort and draw her blanket +closer round her neck at the back. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, well!" said he, with a hoarse laugh, as he made up his bundle +again. "Folks has queer notions. Ef 't 'adn't been for me——" +</P> + +<P> +"And the Doctor," she interposed quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay—and the Doctor there——" +</P> + +<P> +"I know," she cut him short, "and it is very much nicer to be sitting +here by a warm fire than tumbling about on a mast out there. I +appreciate it, I assure you." +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps it was to restore the balance of his spirits, which had +suffered somewhat from the discovery that his treasure was not all he +had thought it, that made him apply himself more heartily than usual to +the rum cask that night. By the Doctor's advice any water they drank +from the brackish pools was mixed with a few drops of rum. Macro +always saw to it that a cask was at hand, and he himself took but small +risks as far as the water was concerned. But he could stand a heavy +load, and as a rule it only made him sluggish and uncompanionable. +</P> + +<P> +This night, however, as he sat dourly smoking, and taking every now and +again a long pull at his handy pannikin, it seemed to set him brooding +over things and at times he grew disputatious. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Drummond had turned with obvious relief to the Doctor and said, +"These things do not interest you?" +</P> + +<P> +"As curiosities only, not intrinsically. I never had any craving for +jewelry!" +</P> + +<P> +"It is a feminine weakness, I suppose, though I have known men who +outvied even the women in their display." +</P> + +<P> +"We have simpler ways in the country, and more robust." +</P> + +<P> +"Mebbe you're right, and mebbe you're wrong," growled Macro, as the +result of his cogitations. "I d'n know, an' you d'n know, an' Doctor, +he d'n know, an' none of us knows.... They're mebbe all right... What +the deil wud folks want mixing bad stuff wi' good like that?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is done sometimes to make a larger show, and sometimes as a matter +of precaution," said Miss Drummond quietly. "Those who have valuable +jewels are always in fear of having them stolen. They have imitations +made, and wear them, and people believe they are the real ones. It is +commonly done." +</P> + +<P> +"An' is it a thief you wud call me for taking these?" +</P> + +<P> +"These are dead men's goods and dead women's, and you do not know whose +they were, so it is not stealing. But, for me, I do not like them." +</P> + +<P> +"An', for me, I do. An' more I can get, better I'm pleased." +</P> + +<P> +"Each to his taste, and you are very welcome to them all. Now, if you +please, we will forget all about them, and speak of pleasanter things," +and she turned to Wulfrey and began questioning him as to his knowledge +of London, which was not nearly so extensive as her own. +</P> + +<P> +The mate smoked and drank and glowered across at them. More than once +Wulfrey caught his glance resting balefully on The Girl. More than +ever was he thankful that he was there to look after her. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXXI +</P> + +<P> +"No," said The Girl to Wulfrey, as she sat busily sewing at her new +dress on deck next morning, "I do not like your mate as much even as I +thought. Do you know what I would do if you were not here?" +</P> + +<P> +"What would you do?" +</P> + +<P> +"I would go and live on that other ship, or else among the sandhills." +</P> + +<P> +"Either would be very uncomfortable. I am glad I am here." +</P> + +<P> +"He looks at me as though I were another piece of his treasure-trove, +especially when he is getting drunk. If he had tried to wrap me up +with the rest in that blue bundle of his I should not have been very +much surprised." +</P> + +<P> +"He brought you ashore, you see." +</P> + +<P> +"Well? What use would that have been if you hadn't brought me back to +life?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not much, I'm bound to say. But I imagine he considers it gives him +first claim on you." +</P> + +<P> +"First claim?—for what?" she asked quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, on your regard, your gratitude,——" +</P> + +<P> +"My gratitude, if you like. My regard—that goes only where I can +respect and esteem. And for him—neither. If he were never to come +back again from over there I would not in the least regret it." +</P> + +<P> +It was as inevitable that these two should instinctively draw closer to +one another, as that their doing so should create something of a breach +between them and the mate, and that he should feel and resent it. +</P> + +<P> +Except the untoward circumstances of their lot there was practically +nothing in common between him and them. His outlook and aims were as +different from theirs as were his habits and upbringing. Yet it did +seem preposterous to them that three persons, situated as they were, +should not be able to live together in peace and good-fellowship. +</P> + +<P> +To the ancients, without doubt, the gods would have been apparent +behind the slow-drifting white-piled clouds, and behind the storm-wrack +and the mists, laughing at the perverse little ways of men, and +watching with interest the inevitable tangle produced among them by the +advent of a woman. +</P> + +<P> +Since the year one, two have found themselves good company and the +coming of a third has led to mischief. And yet even that depends on +the spirit that is in them. More than once, since he landed on the +island, Wulfrey had found himself wishing Providence had sent him +honest Jock Steele for company, and that it was the mate's bones that +were whitening out there in place of the carpenter's. +</P> + +<P> +Whether he himself would have fared so well, if he had not stuck out +his leg at risk of his life and helped the mate on to his raft, and so +had come ashore alone, he was not sure. And again, whether, if he had +been alone, he would ever have sighted The Girl on her mast, was +doubtful. If they had much to put up with in Macro, they had also much +to thank him for. And so—to bear with him as well as they might and +give no occasion for offence if that were possible. +</P> + +<P> +But it was no easy matter. They were having a spell of fine weather +which enabled him to go out to the wreckage every day. And every night +he came home ravenous, and ate and drank and afterwards sat smoking +with scarce a word. +</P> + +<P> +If they enquired how he had fared he growled the curtest of answers, +and showed plainly that their polite interest in his doings was not +desired by him. He showed them none of his finds, but sat smoking +doggedly, and occasionally gazing through his smoke at The Girl in a +way that distressed and discomforted her. +</P> + +<P> +But there was nothing in it that Wulfrey could openly take exception +to. Even a cat may look at a queen. The look in the mate's black eyes +was akin to that with which the cat favours the canary, when he licks +his lips below its cage;—if he only dared! +</P> + +<P> +Still, they were free of him during the day, and the discomfort of him +at other times but drew them closer together. But Wulfrey, watching +the man cautiously, saw in him signs and symptoms that he did not like, +which bade him be prepared for a possible change for the worse in their +relationship. +</P> + +<P> +For one thing, he was drinking more heavily than he had ever done since +they landed, and the drink and the brooding of his black thoughts might +well hatch out unexpected evil to one or other of them. As he lay +there of a night, smoking and drinking, with a face of gloom and +smouldering fires in his eyes, he was more than ever like a sleeping +volcano which might burst forth in flame and fury at any moment. +</P> + +<P> +But for the lurking possibilities of trouble, the cool way in which he +devoted himself to his own private concerns, and left them to attend to +all the irksome little details of the common life, would have had in it +something of the humorous. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Drummond was indignant and was for leaving him supperless when he +came home of a night. +</P> + +<P> +But Wulfrey rigorously repressed his strong fellow-feeling therewith, +and determined that no provocation should come from their side. So +they continued to make ample provision for all, and the mate helped +himself as if by right. If, however, good-feeling on the part of the +maker has anything to do with the compounding of cakes, as The Girl +averred, those she made for the mate must surely have lacked flavour, +for her views on the matter were most uncompromisingly expressed, both +by hands and tongue, as she made them. +</P> + +<P> +"Does he look upon us as his servants, then?"—with a contemptuous slap +at the innocent dough.—"To do all his work without so much as a 'Thank +you'?"—another vicious slap. "—And to be glowered at as if one were +a rabbit that he wanted to devour!"—cakes pitched disdainfully into a +corner till the time came to cook them.—"No!—for me, I wish he would +stop out there among his skeletons and trouble us no more." +</P> + +<P> +Her little tantrums at thought of Macro gave Wulfrey no little +amusement. The vivacity of her manner as she delivered herself, +blended as it was of Scottish frankness and French sparkle, made her +altogether charming. He soothed her ruffled feelings, however, by his +own eulogistic appreciation of the cakes she provided for their own +use, and it was then that she explained to him how intimately the +character of a cake is associated with the feelings of its maker. +</P> + +<P> +Matters came to a head a few days later, when the commissariat +department began to run low in certain essentials. +</P> + +<P> +"We're almost out of flour and pork, Macro," Wulfrey said to him, as +the mate was preparing to set off as usual one morning. "Will you +bring some back with you?" +</P> + +<P> +The black-faced one hesitated one moment, and then cast the die for +trouble. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you know where to get 'em," he growled. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I know where to get them," and Wulfrey braced himself for the +tussle. "But——" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then—get 'em, and be —— to you!" and he leaped down on to his +raft and set off for the shore. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXXII +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey watched the mate's retreating figure for a minute or two and +then turned quietly to The Girl. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you prepared to trust me completely, Miss Drummond?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Absolutely. What is it you want me to do?" +</P> + +<P> +"We cannot go on this way. He is becoming insufferable. Unless you +have anything to say against it, we will take possession of the other +ship—you and I, and leave him here to himself." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—let us go. When shall we go? Now?" +</P> + +<P> +"We must make it habitable first. It is as empty as a drum, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"All the better, since we are overcrowded here with that man. It is to +get away from unpleasantness that we go." +</P> + +<P> +"We shall need fire,—that means sand for a hearth; and wood—we have +heaps here; and cooking things—we will take our fair share, and our +blankets. Everything else I can get out yonder." +</P> + +<P> +"Allons! Let us go at once and get them." +</P> + +<P> +He looked carefully round the horizon. "The weather will hold for a +day or two still, I think. Today we had better lay our +foundations—sand, wood and so on. Then tomorrow we will go out to the +pile and take our cargo straight to the other ship." +</P> + +<P> +"What do we do first?" she asked, abrim with excitement. +</P> + +<P> +"We will take a load of wood across at once and then go for sand. We +will leave the cabin open to air it and light a fire." +</P> + +<P> +She was as eager as a child going to a new house, and when presently he +helped her up over the side of the other schooner, she tripped to and +fro delightedly, and could hardly wait till he forced back the rusty +bolts of the cabin hatch with a piece of wood, so impatient was she to +inspect the new home. +</P> + +<P> +"I like it better than the other," she said, as they stood in the +little cabin. +</P> + +<P> +"Why? It seems to me just about the same." +</P> + +<P> +"The man of gloom is not here. It makes all the difference." +</P> + +<P> +They got their wood on board, and he tumbled it down the fore-hatch, +which was easier to handle than the main. Then they went ashore, +filled a bucket with fresh water, got half a dozen rabbits and a supply +of the pungent herbs.... "Why so many?" she asked, and he said +quietly, "I don't want to hit him below the belt,"—at which she +laughed—"We can afford to be generous. The breach will be wide enough +as it is." +</P> + +<P> +Then they loaded the raft with sand, and getting back to the ship, +arranged their hearth, and with his flint and steel succeeded at last +between them in lighting a thin chip, which he ceremoniously handed to +her and begged her to start their fire. +</P> + +<P> +And as she knelt and applied it, and coaxed and blew till the cheerful +flames shot up with a crackling shower of sparks, and the thin blue +smoke streamed up the companion-way, still kneeling she waved her hands +above it and said, "Light and warmth and comfort and peace! God bless +the fire!" and he endorsed it with a hearty "Amen!" and thought he had +never seen a fairer sight. +</P> + +<P> +When the mate got home that night, he was somewhat surprised to find a +supply of food and no objections made to his helping himself. He +chuckled grimly, and showed by his face and manner that he considered +the matter settled on eminently satisfactory lines. +</P> + +<P> +They made no enquiries as to his doings and he volunteered no +information. Wulfrey and Miss Drummond talked together as if he were +not there. He lay and smoked, and drank, and glowered at them. +</P> + +<P> +In the morning he set off as usual, and when they had taken their +blankets and their fair share of cooking-utensils across to the +'Martha,' and got them all stowed away, Wulfrey turned to The Girl and +said, "Now I will go out to the store-house yonder and get all I can +lay hands on." +</P> + +<P> +"I will come too. Perhaps I can help. I am very strong, and I would +rather go with you than wait here alone. But I do not wish to see any +skeletons if you can manage it." +</P> + +<P> +"We will try to keep clear of them,—if you are quite sure——" +</P> + +<P> +"Have we got to swim, as that man said?" +</P> + +<P> +"I may have to. You need not. I will go out to the pile and make a +raft, and take you across on it. And all that will take time, so the +sooner we're off the better." +</P> + +<P> +They paddled across to the spit and hurried along to the point, as +nondescript a pair as could well be imagined in disrespect of clothing, +but in all else that mattered—in all the great essentials that make +for vigorous life—in health, good looks, and high and cheerful +spirit—pre-eminently good to look upon. +</P> + +<P> +For work on the wreck-pile the less one wore the better; and so he was +clad in one simple but sufficient garment, which consisted of a long +strip of linen wound many times round his waist and falling to the +knees like a South Sea Island kilt. And she wore one of the +prehistoric woman's sarks which Macro had brought over from the pile, +and a similar, but slightly longer, kilt which swung gracefully a foot +or so above her ankles as she walked. +</P> + +<P> +He carried an axe in his hand, and had a knife at his back, in a +seaman's belt which he had unhooked from its owner's body out there on +the pile one day; and his face was somewhat grave and intent, since he +was considering the possibilities of Macro's violent rejection of the +situation he had himself created, and the consequences that would then +ensue. But her bright face was all alive with the spirit of adventure +and the novelty of this new departure. +</P> + +<P> +"We look like Adam and Eve turned out of Paradise, and setting out to +conquer the world," she laughed excitedly. "What would <I>your</I> friends +think if they saw you so?" +</P> + +<P> +"What they thought wouldn't trouble me in the slightest. If they +understood they would understand. If they didn't it would not matter. +We are doing what has to be done in the only way to do it. See the +birds out there!" +</P> + +<P> +"Are those really all birds? I thought it was a cloud whirling about," +and she stood and stared in amazement. +</P> + +<P> +"Listen and you'll hear them,"—and every now and again the south-west +breeze brought them the thin strident wailing of the hungry myriads as +they swooped and fought for their living. +</P> + +<P> +"They sound horrid," said The Girl, with a sudden shadow on her face. +"It is like the wailing of lost souls, as he said. Do they never +attack you?" +</P> + +<P> +"We have had more than one fight with them. But you can always escape +by slipping down into a crack or jumping into the sea. Where did you +learn to swim?" +</P> + +<P> +"We had a cottage in the Isle of Wight for a year, when first we came +from France, and I grew very fond of the water." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you see Macro over there?" as they came to the end of the point. +"He's hard at work. We'll tackle a different part. If you will sit +down here and rest, I will get across and be back as soon as I can." +</P> + +<P> +"Could I not come with you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know how deep the channels may be. Sometimes we can wade +across, sometimes we have to swim." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't mind. It can't make me any wetter than if I have to jump in +because of the birds. And I have been wetter still." +</P> + +<P> +"Very well. It will save much time," and they waded out alongside one +another,—The Girl catching her breath at times with spasmodic little +jerks of laughter, as she stepped into unexpected depths or a wave came +higher than usual;—and he, intent as he was on the business in hand, +yet mightily cognisant of her proximity and the penetrating and +intoxicating charm of it. +</P> + +<P> +When, at one sudden plunge, she gasped and clutched wildly at his bare +arm, her touch sent the blood whirling through his veins. He took her +soft wet hand, which was all of a tremble with excitement, in his +strong and steady one, and she gripped it tightly and drew new strength +from it. +</P> + +<P> +Out on the great pile of wreckage in front, but somewhat towards their +right, they caught glimpses now and again of Macro—a wild dark figure +silhouetted against the pale-blue sky behind—as he climbed to and fro, +and stood at times, and swung up his arms and his club and smashed his +way through to the desire of his heart. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey worked round to the left, and so came upon a channel which they +had to swim. He fastened his axe into his belt at the back and they +struck out together. He watched her anxiously at first, but was +satisfied. She swam well and knowingly; they soon touched ground +again, and another wade and another short swim brought them to the pile. +</P> + +<P> +The Girl had been regarding it with curious eyes and ejaculations of +wonder. +</P> + +<P> +"But it is amazing!" she jerked, when at last they clung to a ledge of +the chaotic jumble of flotsam and jetsam. "I never saw anything like +it in my life." +</P> + +<P> +"That's just as well. Now we'll climb up here, and you will rest while +I gather wood and rope and make a raft. Then we'll see what fortune +sends us." +</P> + +<P> +"Whatever are all those?" she asked, when they had worked their way to +the top, and stood looking round. +</P> + +<P> +"Those are the bones of the ships that have perished here. There are +hundreds of them half-buried in the sand." +</P> + +<P> +"It is the most amazing sight I ever set eyes on," she said again, and +sat and gazed at it all while he worked busily at the raft. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," he said, climbing up to her again at last, "We will look for +necessaries first and take anything else we come upon that may be +useful. Those barrels are pork, but they are too heavy for us to +handle——" +</P> + +<P> +"Couldn't you break one open?" +</P> + +<P> +"Then the birds would be on us like a shot. Some of them have got +their eyes on us already," and he pointed to them swooping watchfully +round. "We did that once and had to fight and run for it. Maybe we'll +come across some smaller ones before we're done. Here's a small cask +of rum. We'll make sure of that," and he rolled and carried it to +their landing-place, and they scrambled on. +</P> + +<P> +"These barrels are biscuits. Some of it may be good. We'll bring the +raft round for it. Those small casks are flour. It's only good in the +middle. We'll come round for one of them presently. We want some +coffee. We're sure to come across some sooner or later." +</P> + +<P> +"What is it like?" +</P> + +<P> +"Small square cases about so big." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I wonder what's in this great case." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll soon see," and he smashed at it with his axe. "Hardware. We'll +add to our stock since it's here." +</P> + +<P> +"And this? Oh, I wish I had an axe too. I want to break open every +box we come to," and he laughed out at her quick surrender to the +riever spirit. +</P> + +<P> +"Why do you laugh at me then? It would surely be helping you." +</P> + +<P> +"I know just how you feel, and now you know just how Macro feels." +</P> + +<P> +"I know just how he feels. It must grow upon one. I don't want any of +the things, but still I would like to break open and find." +</P> + +<P> +"We'd better stick to business. When we've got all we come across that +will be of service I'll hand you the axe and you can smash away at +anything you like, except your toes.... No doubt what's in that box +anyway,"—for the ends of rolls of silk were sticking out of it. "I +expect Macro has been over this ground already. Shall we take some?" +</P> + +<P> +She picked out several rolls, saying, "They may come in useful, even if +it's only to make our cabin as fine as his," and he stacked up the silk +along with a raffle of rope, which was always to the good. +</P> + +<P> +They scrambled to and fro, so busily smashing open cases and discussing +their contents that they took no note of the birds gathering above them +in ever-increasing numbers. Their ears had grown accustomed to their +raucous clamour, and the fact that it had grown louder had not troubled +them. But suddenly—they were delving into the side of a huge crate of +blankets at the moment—the sky was darkened as by a cloud, and +Wulfrey, glancing up in fear of a change in the weather, jerked out a +sudden exclamation which made her jump. Then he crushed her roughly +down into a narrow black chasm between the blanket-crate and another, +and dropped in after her, just as the cloud, grown bold by its +increase, came swooping down upon them. +</P> + +<P> +Never in her life had she imagined such a nightmare experience. The +bristling confusion of the wreckage, the shimmering blue sea beyond, +the very light and peace of day itself, all were blotted out in an +instant, and in their place was nothing but a prodigious whirling and +swooping of vari-coloured feathered bodies, snaking necks, cold beady +eyes, pitilessly craving them as food, cruel curved beaks keen to rend +and tear, and a hideous clamour of wild wailings. The flutter and beat +of myriad wings set the whole atmosphere throbbing, till the blood +drummed furiously in The Girl's ears and her head felt like to burst. +</P> + +<P> +She shrank down on something that crackled and subsided under her, +feeling herself terribly bare to their assault. Wulfrey reached out an +arm and groped for a loose blanket and dragged it over them and so hid +the nightmare from her. His arm was bleeding when he drew it in. +</P> + +<P> +"They will go presently when they find there is nothing to eat," he +said into her ear. +</P> + +<P> +"They looked as if they would tear one to pieces," and he could feel +the shudder that shook her. +</P> + +<P> +"They would try if they got the chance." +</P> + +<P> +"They are awful.... Oh, listen!"—as the rest of the cloud, sure that +such a clamour portended food, whirled round their shelter, brushed it +with wings and feet, shrilled their needs and their disgust more loudly +than ever, and swept away to seek more satisfying fare elsewhere. +</P> + +<P> +The sound of them drifted away at last, occasional stragglers still +swooped down to make quite sure there was not a scrap left, but +presently these followed the rest and Wulfrey climbed up and looked +about him. +</P> + +<P> +"All right," he said, and reached down a hand to her. "I think they've +gone after Macro," and he hauled her up into the light. +</P> + +<P> +"Your arm!" she cried. +</P> + +<P> +"Only scratches. No harm done.... What is it?" for she was staring +with tragic face into the hole out of which she had just come. +</P> + +<P> +And looking down into it he saw that he had flung her bodily on to what +had been a skeleton, but was now only a confused heap of brittle bones. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry," he said, "but there was no time to pick and choose." +</P> + +<P> +"It's a horrible place. Let us go home!" +</P> + +<P> +"We'll go at once as soon as we've found some coffee ... and I would +like another knife or two.... Look in that chest. Macro has opened it +for us.... And if you find any tobacco, I'll thank you," and he rooted +rapidly through one broken-open seaman's box, while she did the same by +another. +</P> + +<P> +"Tobacco—I think," she announced presently, ... "and a knife and a +tinder-box." +</P> + +<P> +"Another knife" was his find. "And we'll take these two coats——" +</P> + +<P> +"Whatever for?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well—if any of those screaming deevils, as the mate calls them, +should come after us as we go back, you feel them less through a coat +than on your bare skin." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think I'll come again." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it's quite easy to avoid them, you see. And they soon go if they +find nothing eatable." +</P> + +<P> +"Hideous things! ... Will those cases be coffee?" +</P> + +<P> +"I think so.... We'll chance one anyway.... And those small casks are +rice. We're doing famously. Is there anything else you would like?" +</P> + +<P> +"Heaps of things—spoons, forks, plates, stockings——" +</P> + +<P> +"Here are stockings——" and he delved into his chest again. +</P> + +<P> +"Truly—but twenty sizes too large. These boxes all seem to have +belonged to men. Let us get home before those awful birds come back." +</P> + +<P> +So they returned to the raft and pushed it slowly along the pile, from +place to place, where the various portions of their cargo stood +awaiting them, and Wulfrey wrestled manfully with casks and barrels and +boxes in a way that would have astonished himself mightily three months +before. And The Girl, eager to help as far as she could—brushing +shoulders with him as they hauled and lifted, their hands overlapping +at times, their bare arms in closest contact as they struggled with the +insensate obstinacy of dead weights,—was very conscious of the play of +the corded muscles in his arms and back, and the energy and +determination of the quiet resolute face. And she was at once grateful +and exultant in the knowledge that all the powers this man possessed +were at her service, and that, if occasion should arise, they would be +expended for her to the uttermost and without hesitation. +</P> + +<P> +She experienced sensations entirely new to her. She found them good. +They quickened her blood and stimulated her mind. She had seen much of +men, more perhaps than most for her years, but men of a very different +type,—unmuscular, powdered and peruked and befrilled, with airs and +graces and velvet coats which hid the lack of virility within, and did +duty for it to the world at large; men of wealth and highest culture +and too often of meanest heart, self-seeking, intent only on their +personal satisfactions, self-forgetful only in the pursuit of ignoble +ends. +</P> + +<P> +In every particular so different from this man. She had met but very +few men whom she felt she could trust implicitly. Some of the most +apparently sincere had proved the least worthy. And they were the most +dangerous. They drew your trust, and so disarmed and then most +treacherously betrayed you. Oh, she had seen it, time and again, and +so her mind had come to look on men in general as beasts of prey, to be +dreaded, and avoided except in the most open and superficial fashion. +</P> + +<P> +But this was a man of another world. She had met none like him. He +roused her and soothed her as none of those others ever had done, as no +man before had ever done. +</P> + +<P> +She had seen men as good-looking, perhaps, but in a very different way. +Would they have looked as well, stripped of their trappings? She +doubted it. And never a man among them could or would, she was sure, +have handled these obdurate barrels and boxes as this man did. Truly +they seemed to object to removal from their lodging-places as though +they were endowed with minds of their own. +</P> + +<P> +And she had trusted him implicitly, from the first moment she had +looked into his eyes, and recognised that it must be he who had drawn +her back out of the closing hand of death. +</P> + +<P> +"Better put that on," said Wulfrey, dropping one of the coats over her +shoulders, when they had got everything aboard. +</P> + +<P> +"Why? I am quite warm." +</P> + +<P> +"We have done our work now till we get to the spit. No good chilling +in the wind. We're going to sail home," and he slipped on the other +jacket, and proceeded to rig up a sail and a steering plank as he had +seen the mate do. +</P> + +<P> +The Girl broke into a laugh at the change for the worse produced in +their appearance by the jackets. +</P> + +<P> +"You looked like a Greek or a Roman before," she said. "Now we both +look like gipsy tinkers." +</P> + +<P> +"Fine feathers—fine birds?" he smiled, as they hauled out past the end +of the pile and began lumbering slowly homewards. +</P> + +<P> +"Those awful birds!" and she glanced anxiously round for them, but they +were busy a mile away and troubled them no more. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXXIII +</P> + +<P> +The Girl was glad enough of her old coat before they reached the spit, +in spite of its demoralising effect on her appearance,—glad even to +snuggle down among the blankets, for, after the hard work of loading, +even the south-west wind began presently to feel cool. +</P> + +<P> +Then came the discharging, and the transporting of their heavy weights +to the smaller raft on the lake, which could not take more than half +their cargo at a time. So he took her and a portion across to the +'Martha,' and she undertook to have supper ready by the time he got +back with the rest. +</P> + +<P> +And surely she wrought pleasanter thoughts even than usual into her +cooking that day, for it seemed to him, when in due course he sat +opposite to her on the other side of their fire, that he had never +enjoyed a meal so much in his life, deficient as it was in many things +that he had always regarded as needful. +</P> + +<P> +"We have done a good day's work," he said, as he lit his pipe at her +request. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder what he will say about it." +</P> + +<P> +"We will not let it trouble us. He has only himself to blame." +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder if you and he would have quarrelled if I had never come." +</P> + +<P> +"We certainly would if he had taken the line he has done. As long as +he did his fair share of the providing I did not mind. But the +position he took up was an impossible one." +</P> + +<P> +They fell into reminiscent talk of that great outer world which seemed +so remote, and from which, for all they knew, they were now for ever +cut off. She had many strange recollections of her earlier life in +France, some very terrible ones of the times of the Red Deluge, very +mixed ones of the later times in England. +</P> + +<P> +It was amazing to him to sit in that bare cabin of a deserted ship, on +an island shunned by all, listening to her familiar talk of men and +women who had been but names to him, until her intimate knowledge of +them made them into actual living personages. +</P> + +<P> +Her outlook on life had been very much wider than his own. She had +lived among the scenes and people of whom he had only read in the +news-sheets. He was immensely interested, both in the things she +talked about and the way she talked about them. His questionings +towards a clearer understanding on points which were to her matters of +simplest elementary knowledge amused her not a little. And he got many +a self-revealing glimpse into that strange past life of hers, from +which she was so contented to escape, but which was yet so full of +colour and contrast and vivid actuality that, in spite of all its +discrepancies and disillusionments, it had assumed for her a certain +glamour which she averred it had never worn at the time. +</P> + +<P> +"Wait a moment," he would say, breaking into her flow of reminiscence, +"'Monsieur' is——?" +</P> + +<P> +"The Comte de Provence, the late King's brother, my uncle. My father, +the King's next brother, the Comte d'Artois, is 'Monseigneur.' He has +become terribly devout since Mme de Polastron died. The abbè Latil is +his heart and mind and conscience. In his way he was fond of me, I +believe, but since I came to understand the wrong he did my mother, I +have detested him. And I have no doubt he was not sorry when I broke +away. I was a perpetual reminder, you see——" +</P> + +<P> +"And there is another Countess d'Artois?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes,—Marie Thérèse of Savoy, but she is too awful,—a quite +impossible woman, one must say that much for him. If ever a man had +good excuse for seeking his pleasures elsewhere, he had. She was +terrible. She had no more moral feeling than a cat." +</P> + +<P> +"And Madame Adélaide——? Let me see—who was she?" +</P> + +<P> +"My great-aunt—poor old thing! Those atrocious Narbonnes lived on her +and turned her round their fingers." +</P> + +<P> +"And Madame Elizabeth? It is terribly confusing." +</P> + +<P> +"Not at all. It is all as simple as can be. Madame Elizabeth was my +aunt, my father's sister. She was very sweet. Poor dear! They cut +off her head, though she never harmed a soul since the day she was +born. She was very good to me. If she had lived I do not think I +would be here. She was not like the rest. I could have lived happily +with her." +</P> + +<P> +And so she chattered away,—about the late King—her uncle also,—and +of the Duc d'Orleans,—"always a self-seeker, and intriguer, with a +very sharp eye on the way things might turn to his own benefit. Oh, I +am glad they took his head off. It was righteous retribution."—And of +the Queen—— "She did foolish things at times, but she meant no harm, +and, mon Dieu, how she suffered!"—And of Lafayette, and Talleyrand, +and many and many another. +</P> + +<P> +And it was indeed passing strange to lie there listening to it all—she +clad in her blankets, for the night air had a chill in it, and he in +the sea-damaged coat and small clothes of a gentleman of the Duke of +Kent's suite, while between them the thin blue reek of the drift-wood +fire on its hearth of sand stole up through the half-closed +companion-hatch to the lonely night outside. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXXIV +</P> + +<P> +"We shall have a visit from our next-door neighbour presently, I +expect," said Wulfrey, when The Girl came out of her cabin next +morning. "Will you mind stopping below while I dispose of him?" +</P> + +<P> +"But why?" +</P> + +<P> +"He puts things coarsely at times, and he will probably be in a very +bad humour at having to get his own meals ready." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't mind him." +</P> + +<P> +"Nor do I, except on your account. But I shall feel happier if you are +out of sight and hearing." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, very well. But nothing he could say would trouble me in the +slightest." +</P> + +<P> +So, after breakfast, she sat down on the cabin floor to her sewing, and +he lit his pipe and went up on deck carrying his axe. He closed the +companion-doors and hatch very quietly—but she heard him—and went +forward into the bows, which, since the usual wind blew from the +south-west, was the nearest point to the 'Jane and Mary.' +</P> + +<P> +It was a long time before the mate showed any signs, beyond an extra +rush of smoke when he made up his fire to cook his breakfast. But he +came up at last, caught sight of Wulfrey, and stood scowling across at +him for a time. Then he dropped down on to his raft and came wobbling, +with quick angry strokes, across to the 'Martha.' +</P> + +<P> +"So that's it, is it?" he growled, with a grim look on his dark face. +</P> + +<P> +"That's it," said Wulfrey coolly. +</P> + +<P> +"And you think you've got her all to yourself?—what you've been +plotting for ever since I hauled her ashore." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you speaking of Miss Drummond?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm speaking of that girl. 'Twas me hauled her ashore an' she's my +right if she's anybody's." +</P> + +<P> +"There it is, you see. She is nobody's right but her own. And neither +she nor I are your servants, to prepare your food and see to your +comfort while you dig treasure out of the wreckage. So we have decided +to fend for ourselves and you can fend for yourself." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! You think so, do you? We'll see about that." +</P> + +<P> +"We undertake not to go aboard your ship if you give your word not to +come aboard ours." +</P> + +<P> +"See you —— first!" +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you! Then now we know how we stand, and will act accordingly." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, now you know." +</P> + +<P> +"And will act accordingly," emphasised Wulfrey once more. "I must ask +you to keep off," as the mate paddled alongside and reached up a rough +hairy hand to the side. "I'm sorry it's come to this, but I won't have +you on board." +</P> + +<P> +"Won't, eh?" and as he reached up the other hand and prepared to mount, +Wulfrey picked up his axe and held it threateningly above the clinging +hands, which straightway loosed their hold amid a volley of curses. +</P> + +<P> +"—— —— —— —— you! You'd maim me! —— —— —— —— me, if I +don't pay you for this! The girl's mine. I found her. I'll get her +over your dead body if needs be." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! And who found you? And where would you be if I hadn't helped you +on to the raft yon first night? Tell me that, will you? By the same +rule you're mine, and all you've got is mine." +</P> + +<P> +"—— —— —— —— you for a —— —— —— sea-lawyer!" foamed the +mate, his dark face and eyes all ablaze, his shaking fists hurling +curses beyond the compass of his tongue. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey, eyeing him professionally, said to himself, "Too much rum. +He'll have D.T. if he doesn't slack off—or a fit if he does much of +this kind of thing." +</P> + +<P> +The mate thrashed back to his own ship with furious strokes and climbed +aboard, and Wulfrey, having watched him safely up the side, went down +to The Girl. +</P> + +<P> +"He is very angry," he said quietly. +</P> + +<P> +"He did not whisper. I couldn't help hearing him. What will he do +next?" +</P> + +<P> +"We can only wait and see. We shall have to be on our guard, but we +won't let him trouble us. He is drinking too much." +</P> + +<P> +They saw nothing more of him all that day, not even his head above the +bulwarks. Wulfrey surmised that he was probably treating his wrath +with rum, and plotting mischief, or maybe he was lying dead drunk in +his cabin. They themselves were well provided in all respects, but he +had good reason to know that stocks across there were running low, and +that before long the man of wrath would have to go abroad to make up +his deficiencies, and that would give them the opportunity of getting +in fresh water and rabbit-meat. +</P> + +<P> +He could only hope the mate would not postpone his journey too long, +for the weather seemed like changing. There was no sun visible, not a +speck of blue sky, but in their place a wan-white opaqueness which +looked portentous and might mean anything. +</P> + +<P> +Wulf spent most of the day on the alert, leaving the deck only for +meals, and popping up even in the middle of them to make sure that all +was right. But Macro made no sign. +</P> + +<P> +There was no knowing, however, what a furious, rum-fuddled man might +attempt. His crazy jealousy and anger might stick at nothing, and +Wulfrey looked forward to a watchful night as a necessity. +</P> + +<P> +And, as he paced the deck, he ruminated on the handicap imposed by +virtue on an honest man when fighting roguery. Here was Macro at +liberty to sleep without fear of assault, to go ashore for water and +fresh meat, and to the wreckage for everything he wanted, assured in +his own mind that no one would rifle his stores, or fire his ship, or +play any other dastardly trick, in his absence. While they, if they +left their stronghold unguarded for an hour, must be exposed to all +these things, and constant watchfulness would be necessary to prevent +them. +</P> + +<P> +It was not a pleasant prospect and he did not see how it was going to +end. At the same time he did not see what other course had been left +to them, and he was determined to go through with this, cost what it +might. +</P> + +<P> +The thought of striking down this man with whom he had lived in +fellowship, even in fair fight, was abhorrent to him. The thought of +being struck down himself made his blood run cold on The Girl's +account. Both possibilities must be avoided if possible. The latter +at all hazards. If it came to the mate suffering or The Girl, the mate +would have to go without compunction. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXXV +</P> + +<P> +The night passed without disturbance, the morning found them swathed in +dense white mist which hid one side of the ship from the other. +</P> + +<P> +"He did not come again?" asked The Girl when they met. "I am ashamed +to have slept so soundly. I intended to take my fair share of the +watching." +</P> + +<P> +"There was no need. I bolted the doors and slept at the foot of the +stairs. It's all cotton-wool outside. You can't see a couple of feet. +He won't venture out in that, if I know him. But we need water. I'll +go across after breakfast and get some." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall come too. I wouldn't stop here alone for anything." +</P> + +<P> +"All right. Our only difficulty will be in finding the shore and +getting back to the ship. Fog is terribly bewildering." +</P> + +<P> +"If you can find the shore we can get back all right," she said, after +thinking it over. +</P> + +<P> +"How?" +</P> + +<P> +"We have that heap of rope you brought over. Could we not untwist some +and make a cord? Then if we tied one end to the ship and carried the +other ashore we could feel our way back by it." +</P> + +<P> +"It will take a lot of untwisting. We're quite two hundred yards from +the shore. But it's worth trying." +</P> + +<P> +So they untwisted rope till their fingers were sore, and tied the +pieces together till he judged they had enough, and presently they +embarked noiselessly on their raft and paddled in the direction in +which he believed the shore lay, The Girl paying out the string as they +went. +</P> + +<P> +This weird envelopment of dense white mist was a new experience for +her. She could barely see the water a foot or two away. The string +slipped through her fingers and vanished into the fog-wall. Dale, +sweeping the water with his oar, loomed dim and large just above her. +</P> + +<P> +They went on and on, but found no shore. +</P> + +<P> +"The string is nearly all done," she said at last. +</P> + +<P> +"Then we're going wrong," he whispered. "Don't speak loud, we don't +know how near we may be to——" and, as if to confirm his fears, a +great black bulk appeared in the clammy white above them, and Wulfrey +hurriedly checked their way and backed off into the fog again. +</P> + +<P> +"'The Jane and Mary,'" he whispered, when they had put a space between +them and it. "We've been circling round. The shore must be this way, +I think——" and the cord slacked in The Girl's fingers as he struck +off to the right, and in due course they made the beach with cord to +spare. +</P> + +<P> +They tied the precious guiding-line to the raft and set off with their +buckets, Wulfrey trailing his oar behind him so that by its mark in the +sand they might grope their way back. In his belt he carried the only +weapon he possessed, his axe, which, as matters stood with the mate, he +deemed it advisable always to have at hand. +</P> + +<P> +Keeping along the edge of the lake till he judged they were opposite +the ponds, they struck inland, and managing to keep a straighter course +than on the water, came at last to their goal. +</P> + +<P> +They filled their buckets and were returning on their trail, bending +every now and again to make sure they were right, when, with an +abruptness that startled the buckets out of their hands, a dark figure +loomed up on them out of the fog and they found themselves face to face +with the mate. +</P> + +<P> +He had heard them coming and was ready. Wulfrey had barely time to +drop his oar and pluck out his axe when the other sprang at him with +his weapon swung up for the blow. +</P> + +<P> +It was very grim. Of all fighting-tools the axe is the most +brutal—after, perhaps, the spiked club and the scythe-blade tied on a +pole, which are only fit for savages. It is cumbersome and ungainly. +It admits of little skill either in attack or defence. Its arguments +are final and convincing, and its wounds are very ghastly. +</P> + +<P> +The Girl could barely make out which was which, so thick was the +veiling fog. But that did not matter. She sprang in between the two +dark figures with arms outspread, at imminent risk of receiving both +their blows, crying, "No!—You shall not! You shall not!" +</P> + +<P> +The mate hurled oaths at her. She thought he was going to strike her +down. And past her, at Wulfrey,—"—— ye! It's like ye. Steal her +first, then hide behind her!" +</P> + +<P> +With one big black hand he gripped her blanket cloak and whirled her +away into the mist, and came plunging at Wulfrey, who stood with poised +axe and eyes that watched his every movement. +</P> + +<P> +The mate played round him for an opening. Out of the corner of his eye +he saw The Girl groping about for the oar. He rushed in to end it with +one crushing blow. +</P> + +<P> +But Wulf was ready for him and he was the cooler man. As the mate's +axe came swooshing down straight for his shoulder and neck, his own +swung round, caught the other full in the blade with its own stout +back, and with a ringing click sent it flying, with such a shock to the +arm that had held it that the mate believed it was broken. He ducked +with an oath and disappeared into the fog. +</P> + +<P> +The Girl came panting up, her face all sanded with her fall, her eyes +ablaze. "Did it reach you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not at all. I'm all right." +</P> + +<P> +"The brute! I feared he would kill you." +</P> + +<P> +"He did his worst.... What were you going to do with that?"—the oar +she had picked up. +</P> + +<P> +"I was going to smash him on the head with it, but I couldn't find it +at first." +</P> + +<P> +"Two to one!" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care. I'd have killed him if I could." +</P> + +<P> +"What about our water?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's all spilled." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll go back for more. He won't come back. I doubt if he'll find +his axe in this fog. Which way now?" and he stood puzzling, for force +of circumstance and much trampling of the sand had lost them their +clue. "You cast round that way for the mark of the oar, but don't go +far. I'll try this side. Call if you find." +</P> + +<P> +"Here!" she cried, almost at once, and he followed her voice into the +fog and found her standing on the line. +</P> + +<P> +But so confused were they that even then they had not an idea which way +to follow it. +</P> + +<P> +"Which way?" she asked, staring down at the groove under her feet. +</P> + +<P> +"This, I think.... I don't know," and he stood perplexed, "There is +nothing for it but following it up and seeing where we come to." +</P> + +<P> +So they picked up their buckets, and he took the oar, and they set off +again,—and came out at last, not on the green undergrowth which +flourished round the ponds, but on the bare shore of the lake. +</P> + +<P> +"Now we know where we are at all events. Dare you stop here while I go +back?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said with a shiver. +</P> + +<P> +"Come along, then!" and they turned and went back, and he discoursed of +fogs as they went. "Nothing like a fog for absolutely confusing one's +sense of direction. I've known people wander for hours on a common, +round and round, quite unable to get anywhere. And one soon gets into +a panic and common sense goes overboard." +</P> + +<P> +She had not had much experience of fogs, but expressed herself +vehemently on the subject, and so they came to the ponds, and back, in +time, to their raft. And Wulfrey was mightily glad to see it again, +for the idea had been troubling him that Macro might have found it, and +set it adrift, or gone off to their ship to find solace there for his +discomfiture ashore. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder where he's got to?" he said anxiously. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care. I wish he'd get lost in the fog and never come back." +</P> + +<P> +"You feel strongly," he said, with a smile at her vehemence. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I like or I dislike, and both to the full." +</P> + +<P> +The guiding-line led them safely home, and glad they were to get there, +for the chill of the fog and the treacheries it held were enough to +weigh down the staunchest of spirits. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXXVI +</P> + +<P> +Their experiences in the fog had occupied many hours, and the unusual +strain had left them both somewhat lax and weary. By the time they had +prepared and eaten their much-delayed meal, and were enjoying the +after-rest, the thick whiteness outside had turned to chiller gray, and +the comfort of a blazing fire was eminently agreeable. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey closed the companion-doors and hatch, all except the narrowest +crack through which the smoke could escape, lit his pipe, and lay at +ease, watching the many-coloured tongues of the dancing flames and The +Girl who sat gazing dreamily into them on the other side, and wondered +how it would have been with them all if Macro's vicious blow had got +home on his neck. +</P> + +<P> +She was very good to look upon as she sat there in the flickering +half-darkness. The gracious curves of her supple young figure +transformed the bare little cabin into a Temple of Youth and Beauty. +</P> + +<P> +The dusky glamour of her hair, the shadowy beauty of her dark soft +eyes, the level brows and wide white forehead which gave such strength +and dignity to her face—they all held for him an arrest and an appeal +such as he had never before experienced. +</P> + +<P> +She had made herself a robe out of a piece of the crimson silk they had +brought over from the pile. It was hardly a dress, for it swathed +about her in flowing folds rather than fitted to her. But he thought +he had never seen so becoming a garment. It was sheer delight to lie +and look at her. +</P> + +<P> +But it was a sufficiently difficult problem that faced him. In his +present state of mind, the mate seemed determined to make an end of him +the first chance that offered. Was there any reasonable hope of a +change for the better in him? Were they to live in a perpetual state +of defence till one of them went under?—all the advantages of +unscrupulous attack being left to the enemy. Was it reasonable? If +not, what was to be done, and how? +</P> + +<P> +The man had suddenly become a deadly menace. He was no better, in his +unprincipled cravings, than a wild beast. If that girl fell helpless +into his coarse hands.... And she knew it and looked to him for +protection. +</P> + +<P> +And protection to the utmost of his powers she should have.... Was he +justified in slaying the man? ... In view of the deadly intent of this +latest attack he thought he was. But whether he could bring himself to +it, if the chance offered, he was not by any means sure.... The +deliberate killing of one's fellow was a serious matter.... In +self-defence of course one was justified.... As to the law—it seemed +as though the mate was right in his belief that they were destined to +spend the rest of their lives—some of them at all events—on this bare +bank of sand, where none ever came who could help it, and where no law +but that of Nature obtained.... But there was a higher law. "Thou +shalt not kill." ... Yes, it would be very much against the grain of +his life and conscience, but it might have to be.... +</P> + +<P> +He sat up suddenly, listening intently. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" asked The Girl, startled out of her own reverie. +</P> + +<P> +He raised his hand for silence. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought I heard a cry," and he got up, and went up the steps, and +opened the door and stood there straining his ears into the clammy +darkness. The fog lay thicker than ever. It was like listening into +the side of a bale of raw cotton. The faint glow of the fire below +died against the opaque wall in front. It could not have been seen a +yard away. +</P> + +<P> +The Girl stood on the stairs close behind him. +</P> + +<P> +"I must have been mistaken," he murmured, "or perhaps it was a +seagull,"—when, just below and almost alongside them, there came the +violent sweep of an oar used as a paddle, and a wild spate of curses +like the furious outburst of a panic-stricken brain. +</P> + +<P> +Wulf slipped noiselessly down for his axe and stepped up on deck. If +he went past, well and good. If he ran into them—— +</P> + +<P> +There came a sudden bump against the side of their ship and the sound +of a fall on the raft. +</P> + +<P> +"—— —— —— —— ye, ye —— —— rotten old coffin! I've got ye +at last, —— —— ——!" and right up out of the fog under Wulfrey's +nose came two clammy black hands clawing nervously at the bulwark. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't come aboard here, Macro," he said quietly. The grimy hands +loosed with a startled oath and the mate dropped back on to his raft. +</P> + +<P> +"——! That you again? —— —— —— —— you! I thought.... Then +my —— craft must be over there. —— —— ——! I'll do for you +yet, my cully!" and the oar dashed into the water again and he cursed +himself off into the darkness. +</P> + +<P> +"You could have killed him," gasped The Girl at his side, through her +chattering teeth. +</P> + +<P> +"I could—but I couldn't." +</P> + +<P> +"We shall have no peace while he lives." +</P> + +<P> +"I fear not. Still—I couldn't cut him down in cold blood like that. +What would you have thought of me if I had done so?" +</P> + +<P> +"I should have said you had done well." +</P> + +<P> +"I know you better." +</P> + +<P> +At which she shook her head. "You don't know what horrid thoughts +whirl about in my mind. No man really knows what a woman thinks," and +the frank dark eyes regarded him solemnly. +</P> + +<P> +"I know you better than you do yourself." +</P> + +<P> +"I doubt it," with another shake of the head. "But, even then, it +might have been best,"—with a shiver—"It sounds horrible—but——" +</P> + +<P> +He could understand all her feeling in the matter. In her place he +would have felt just the same. The man was a hideous menace—to her +especially—and there would be no security for them while he lived. +But all the same.... +</P> + +<P> +"Let us get back to the fire," he said quietly. "He won't come back +tonight. Poor wretch, he's probably been paddling about all day +looking for his ship and he's half crazed with it." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think I am bloodthirsty by nature," she said, with her hands +pressed tight to her eyes, when she had sunk down before the fire +again. "But I fear that man with all my soul, both for myself and you. +He will kill you if he gets the chance. If he kills you I shall kill +myself. It is better that one should die than two." +</P> + +<P> +"I agree, but I don't want to have the killing of him if I can help it." +</P> + +<P> +"Killing is horrible," and she shivered again, "But being killed is +worse ... and to fall into the hands of a man like that would be even +worse still. What will be the end of it all?" +</P> + +<P> +But that was beyond him, and their hearts were heavy over it. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXXVII +</P> + +<P> +"Is it often like this?" asked The Girl depressedly, on the third day +of mist. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid there's a good deal of it. We've had it three or four +times since we came. It may be worse in the winter." +</P> + +<P> +"I wish we could get away." +</P> + +<P> +"I wish so too, but I don't see how we're to manage it ... unless, +sometime, a boat washes ashore among the wreckage. And even then ... +without Macro to manage it..." and he shook his head unhopefully. "... +In the meantime I count it marvellous gain that you should have +come——" +</P> + +<P> +And at that it was her turn to shake her head. "I don't know. I seem +to have brought more harm than good." +</P> + +<P> +"It has made all the difference in the world." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, it has set you two by the ears and put you in peril of your life. +That is not a good work." +</P> + +<P> +"Your company more than compensates. Besides, we should probably have +got to loggerheads in any case, and without anything like so good a +reason." +</P> + +<P> +"It would have been better, I think, if you had let me go when I was so +nearly gone, and not rubbed me back to life." +</P> + +<P> +"I thank God that you came," he said weightily. "Without you we might +have sunk into savages, caring only for the lower things. You lift me +without knowing it." +</P> + +<P> +"You couldn't sink into a savage. He is one naturally. And I am +becoming one, for I am all the time wishing he were dead." +</P> + +<P> +"He must be having a bad time, unless he brought over provisions that +last time, and I doubt if he did. He's probably living chiefly on rum. +And that won't bring him to any better frame of mind, I'm afraid." +</P> + +<P> +"To think," she mused, "that three people cannot live on an island big +enough to hold thousands, without quarrelling to the death!" +</P> + +<P> +"The trouble is not of our making, so we need not blame ourselves." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, it is. I began it by coming ashore. You ought to have let me +stop out there——" +</P> + +<P> +"You are very much better here." +</P> + +<P> +"——And you continued it by bringing me back to life. You ought to +have let me die." +</P> + +<P> +"Very well. I accept all the blame and rejoice in it," he said, with a +smile. "It is just the fog getting into you. You'll feel differently +about it when the sun comes out again." +</P> + +<P> +"Sun? I don't believe we are going to see it again. I don't believe +it ever shines here or ever has done since the world began. It is an +island of mist ... and we are just vapours——" +</P> + +<P> +"Macro's not anyway. I wish he were. He wouldn't trouble me in the +slightest then. He's a solid strong mixture of Spanish buccaneer and +Highland robber, with a touch of volcano to keep the mixture boiling." +</P> + +<P> +But the chill of the mist was upon her and nothing he could say availed +to cheer her. So he hauled out the rolls of silk they had brought +over, and set to work decorating the cabin with them, and interested +her out of her depression by the purposed mistakes he made. +</P> + +<P> +It was the ravelling off of a long thread from one of the pieces of +silk he was cutting, that showed him the way to a new employment for +her and the possibilities of a welcome addition to their meagre larder. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think you could twist two or three of these into a +fishing-line?" he asked her. "I've seen heaps of fish in the lake. We +might try for some." +</P> + +<P> +"And hooks?" +</P> + +<P> +"If you could spare me one of your big needles I think I could make +something that might do." +</P> + +<P> +She went at once and got him one, and then set to work on the line, and +he could hardly get on with his own job for watching her. +</P> + +<P> +She was so eminently graceful in all her movements. Her tall slender +figure, supple, shapely, and all softly rounded curves without a +discoverable abruptness or angularity anywhere about it, lent itself +with singular charm to her present occupation. After thoughtful +consideration of the matter, she unrolled one of the pieces of silk the +whole width of the cabin, then picking out a thread, she fastened the +end of it to the woodwork and travelled along the side of the piece, +bending and releasing it as she went. The same with two more threads. +</P> + +<P> +"Three ply will be strong enough?" she asked, straightening up and +looking across at him. +</P> + +<P> +"Let me see what three ply feel like," and he went across and watched +her while she twisted the threads tightly together with deft soft +fingers. +</P> + +<P> +"I should think that would do," he said, running it between his finger +and thumb. Their hands met, and the touch of hers sent a quite +unexpected thrill of physical delight tingling through his veins. He +did not dare to look full at her for the moment, lest she should see it +in his eyes. But he was conscious to the point of pain of her close +proximity,—somehow conscious too—and that quite unconsciously and +without any reasoning on the matter—that, in the twinkling of an eye, +she was no longer simply a beautiful and charming girl, but had become +for him the most beautiful and charming girl in all the world. +</P> + +<P> +His heart felt suddenly too big for his body. He could have taken her +in his arms then and there, and crushed her to him, and smothered her +with hot kisses. And he could no more have done it than he could have +brained her with his axe. For she trusted him implicitly, and he was +himself. +</P> + +<P> +He took a deep breath to give his heart more room, and bent to examine +her twist. +</P> + +<P> +"It will do splendidly," he said, and she glanced quickly at him and +wondered what had made that curious change in his voice. "How will you +keep it rolled tight like that?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've been thinking. If I greased my fingers with some of that pork +fat as I roll it, and roll it very tight, it will probably keep so. +How long will you want it?" +</P> + +<P> +"As long as you can make it without too much trouble." +</P> + +<P> +"I can make it the full length of that silk as far as I see." +</P> + +<P> +"That will do admirably.... If I can make as good a hook as you have +made a line we will have fish for dinner," and he went back to the +fire, where, with his axe and his knife and two rusty nails lashed +together at the top to act as tweezers, he was endeavouring to bend a +portion of her needle into a hook. +</P> + +<P> +At the cost of some burns and cuts he managed at last to make something +distantly resembling one. +</P> + +<P> +"It looks horrid," said The Girl when he showed it to her. "I shall be +sorry for the fishes if they get that into them." +</P> + +<P> +"So shall I. But we'll not let them suffer long if they give us the +chance." +</P> + +<P> +She was as eager as a child with a new toy to put their work to the +test. So he cut some small pieces of pork and embedded his hook in +one, and dropped it into the bed of mist over the side. +</P> + +<P> +And she leaned over, with her shoulder unconsciously against his,—but +he felt it, and rejoiced in the feel as keenly as ever Macro did in his +treasure-trove—and peered anxiously down at the line, of which she +could see but a couple of feet, and waited impatiently for results. +</P> + +<P> +He put it into her hand, saying, +</P> + +<P> +"If anything comes of it you shall have the honour of catching our +first fish," but he held on to the slack behind. +</P> + +<P> +"It's jerking," she whispered breathlessly, "Oh, I'm sure there's +something on it..." and as she let go the line he gave it a jerk on his +own account, then drew it quickly in and a plump astonished fish lay +jumping and twisting on the deck. It was over a foot in length, very +prettily coloured, dark blue with many cross-streaks and silvery below. +</P> + +<P> +"Mackerel, I think," he said, and promptly knocked it on the head, to +end its troubles and allow him the further use of his hook. +</P> + +<P> +"The poor little thing! I'm so sorry," she said, looking mournfully +down at the iridescent beauty. "I don't think I like fishing." +</P> + +<P> +"You'll think better of it when it's fried." +</P> + +<P> +"I couldn't touch it," with a vigorous shake of the head. +</P> + +<P> +So he asked her to go down and make some cakes, and then caught another +fish of a different kind the moment the bait reached the water, and a +couple more for breakfast next day, and was thereby much reassured as +to the future of their larder. He cleaned two of his fish and fried +them with some pork fat as soon as she had made her cakes, and +proceeded to reason her out of her prejudice. +</P> + +<P> +"You have eaten fish all your life, haven't you?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Ye-es." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, every fish has had to be caught before you could eat it. They +generally leave them to die. But even that is probably only similar to +our drowning, which is said to be about as pleasant a way as there is +of going." +</P> + +<P> +"It's horribly cold if you're lashed to a mast,"—with a reminiscent +shiver. "And being rubbed back to life is just as bad." +</P> + +<P> +"And we are more merciful, because we kill them at once." +</P> + +<P> +"It's horrible to think that everything we eat, except things that grow +of course, has got to suffer death for us." +</P> + +<P> +"But you have always eaten these things without being troubled about +it." +</P> + +<P> +"The killing has never been brought home to me so closely before." +</P> + +<P> +"It's Nature's law, you see. Everything feeds on something else. +These fishes feed on smaller things. And how do you know that when you +cut a cabbage or a potato——" +</P> + +<P> +"How I wish I had the chance!" +</P> + +<P> +"So do I, most heartily. But how do you know they don't feel it just +as much, in their own dull way, as the pig did from which we get our +pork?" +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head and sighed. "We can't get away from it, I suppose," +and tasted the fish and found it good, and ate quite heartily though +with an appearance of protest. +</P> + +<P> +"You see," he said. "Some fishes lay millions of eggs at a time. If +they all grew up the sea would be choked with them, as the earth would +be with animals if they weren't killed off. Besides, unless I am +mistaken in my recollection of our old parson's reading, all these +things were expressly provided for man's sustenance, so we are only +doing our duty in eating them." +</P> + +<P> +"All the same, I think I will let you do all the catching and killing." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course. That is the man's proper part in the family economy. He +is the bread-and-meat winner. And the wife's—the woman's, I mean—is +to see to the cooking," and he occupied himself busily with fish-bones, +and felt like biting his tongue off for its involuntary slip. +</P> + +<P> +"If you had lived on pork and rabbits for months you would find this +fish delicious," he said presently, to break the odd little silence +that had fallen on them. +</P> + +<P> +"It is very good. I wonder you never caught any before." +</P> + +<P> +"I did try, but my tackle was too rough. The fish would have none of +it. It is your clever line that has done the trick." +</P> + +<P> +"I am glad to be of some use, though I can't help being sorry for the +fish." +</P> + +<P> +And if he had dared he would have delighted to tell her of what +infinitely greater use she was to him in other and higher ways. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXXVIII +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey was awakened in the night by the sounds he had come to +recognise as the accompaniments of bad weather. The ship was humming +in the wind and straining and jerking restively at the rusty cable +which he was always expecting to give way. He wondered sleepily what +would happen to them if it did. Wondered also if The Girl was +frightened at the changed conditions, or whether she would understand. +He slipped on some clothes and went into the cabin, to reassure her if +necessary. +</P> + +<P> +The fire was a bed of white ashes and a rose-gold core in the centre. +He piled on some chips and the flames broke out with a cheerful +crackle. The door of The Girl's little passage way opened an inch or +two, and he caught a glimpse of her startled eyes shining in the +fire-light. +</P> + +<P> +"I was afraid you might be disturbed by the storm," he said. +</P> + +<P> +She went back for a moment, and then came out with her blanket skirt +and cloak swathed about her, and sat down by the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"It woke me, and I cannot get to sleep again. Oh ... what is +that?"—as a shrill scream pealed out just above the opening in the +companion-hatch. +</P> + +<P> +"It's only those infernal birds. They always come screeching round us +in bad weather." +</P> + +<P> +"I had just been dreaming that that horrid man came across in the night +and murdered us both. It was such a relief to see you alive again." +</P> + +<P> +"No fear of his venturing out in this weather. Those screaming birds +get on his nerves. He'll be sitting drinking, and cursing them in the +most awful Gaelic he can twist his tongue to. This weather will +probably last a couple of days. Then it will slack up, and just when +you're thinking it's all gone it will come back worse than ever. +Fortunately we've got—— By Jove!"—and he ran hastily up the +companion, unbolted the door and ran out on deck. The gale came +whuffling down on the fire and scattered the white ashes in a cloud, +and set the silken drapery of the walls rustling wildly. The shrill +clamour of the birds sounded very close, and The Girl sat anxiously +wondering. +</P> + +<P> +He came back in a minute, empty-handed and disconsolate. "I just +remembered my fish. I left two up there for breakfast, but the birds +have had them. They're as thick on the deck as bees on a comb, hoping +for more." +</P> + +<P> +"Is that all? I was afraid that man was coming and you'd heard him." +</P> + +<P> +"It means living on pork till the storm passes." +</P> + +<P> +"That is nothing. We shall enjoy the other things all the more later +on." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm wondering all the time how Macro is getting on——" he said, +pulling out his pipe and filling it. +</P> + +<P> +"Why trouble about him? He would not trouble about us if we were +starving." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't suppose he would.... I suppose it comes of my being so in the +habit of helping people through their bodily troubles." +</P> + +<P> +"It is wasted on him. He would not let you help him if you could." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't believe he would, unless he were helpless.... I wish he'd +never come ashore." +</P> + +<P> +"But in that case I would not be here either, and you would have been +all alone for the rest of your life." +</P> + +<P> +"Then, after all, I'm glad he came ashore." +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder if you would have gone mad in time with the loneliness of +it," she said musingly. +</P> + +<P> +"It would be horrible to be all alone for all the rest of one's life, +but I don't think I would have gone mad. I've no doubt there are books +to be found among the wreckage out there. Still ... for the rest of +one's life!"—and he shook his head doubtfully. "As things are, +however...." +</P> + +<P> +"As things are?" she queried, after waiting for him to finish. +</P> + +<P> +"As things are, I am quite content to stop here for the rest of my +life, if that has to be. But that won't stop my doing my best to get +away if the chance offers.... And you?" +</P> + +<P> +"If we were delivered from that man I could be content here also.... +But I do not say for all my life. That sounds terribly long.... But +for that man it would be a welcome retreat from a world of which I had +had a surfeit." +</P> + +<P> +He wondered much if she were heart-whole. It seemed almost incredible +to him that she could have lived that strange life of hers without some +man wanting and touching it. So fair a prize, to go wholly unclaimed +and undesired! But never, in all her talk, had she said one word that +pointed to anything of the kind. Rather had she held up the men she +had met to derogation and contempt. Surely, if there had been anyone +to whom her heart turned and clung, some evidence of it would have +shown itself. +</P> + +<P> +From all she had said, from all her little unconscious +self-revelations, and the wholesome judgment he had formed of her in +his own mind, he could well believe that, in that whirlpool of a world +in which she had lived, she had come to hold most men in doubt and all +at arm's length. And the thought was agreeable to him. +</P> + +<P> +When the slow day broke, dim and clangorous with the gale, they dallied +over a meal, talking of many things to pass the time, and then went up +on deck, and with a brandished stick he ridded the ship of the +clustering birds. They shrieked threateningly and came swooping at him +on the wings of the wind, with hungry beaks and merciless eyes. But +here he was at home and would not suffer their invasion, and finally +they gave it up and fled to the sandhills, cursing him shrilly as they +went. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, there's one gone downstairs," cried The Girl; and running down +after it, he found a great black cormorant squawking fearfully round +the cabin and dashing itself against the walls in its wild attempts at +escape. At sight of him it grew frantic, but finally found its way out +of the hatch again, almost upsetting The Girl in its passage, and then +tore away to tell its fellows of the awful place it had been in, which +smelt so good but was so much easier to get into than out of. Wulfrey +had to open one of the lee ports and let the gale blow through to get +rid of the smell of it, and then he went up again to The Girl. +</P> + +<P> +They watched the great rollers thundering on the beach beyond the spit, +rocketing their white spume high into the grim black sky, and lashing +over at times into the lake. And when he called to her to look the +other way she watched with amazement sandhills of size melt away before +her eyes and re-form themselves in quite different places. +</P> + +<P> +"But it is past words!" she cried into his ear. +</P> + +<P> +They stared long too at the 'Jane and Mary' of Boston, but saw no sign +of life aboard of her except the birds that clustered there unmolested. +</P> + +<P> +"It is a most amazing place," she said, when they went down again, as +she dusted the saltness out of her hair with her hand. "Is it often +like this?" +</P> + +<P> +"Very often in the winter, I should fear. We've had our best weather +since you came." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think I want to live all my life here," she said dejectedly. +"I love the sun." +</P> + +<P> +And he would dearly have liked to tell her that he did the same, but +that for him she made more sunshine even than the sun itself. +</P> + +<P> +Instead, he prosaically set her to the making of more fishing-lines, in +case of accident to the one they had, and he himself hammered away at +more hooks, burning and ragging his fingers out of knowledge, but +producing hooks of a kind somehow. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XXXIX +</P> + +<P> +The gale slackened on the third day, and Wulfrey was actually relieved +in his mind at the sight of Macro hurrying ashore on his raft, after +fresh meat, and, from the fact of his buckets, water, which he had +probably been too careless, or too drunk, to secure during the storm. +For the thought of his possibly lying there alone and foodless had not +been a pleasant one, good reason as he had for disliking the man. +</P> + +<P> +For themselves, he baited and cast his hooks, and landed half a dozen +fish as fast as he could haul them out. Their fresh meat supply would +have to wait until Macro went out to the wreckage and their minds could +be at ease as to the safety of their headquarters. The sea outside was +still too high for any possibility of his going that day, and +fortunately, thanks to their new source of supply, they could wait with +equanimity. Water they had caught in plenty in the buckets slung under +the scuppers. +</P> + +<P> +"He's alive at any rate," said Wulfrey, when he went down to breakfast. +</P> + +<P> +"So much the worse for us," said The Girl. +</P> + +<P> +"He's been fasting, I should say, by the way he has gone off after +rabbits. We ate our first ones raw, I remember." +</P> + +<P> +"Savages!" +</P> + +<P> +"Savage with hunger. We had had nothing to eat but shell-fish and +sea-weed for days." +</P> + +<P> +"Horrible!—raw rabbit and sea-weed!" +</P> + +<P> +"We had no means of making fire, no shelter. We slept out on the +sands, and were glad to be simply alive." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm truly thankful you had risen to a higher state before I came." +</P> + +<P> +"So am I. We were not good to look at. We were as men who had died +out there among the dead ships' bones and been born again on this +sandbank, lacking everything. Fortunately for us the years that had +gone before had been unconsciously making provision for us, and here +were houses ready-made and waiting, and out there more than we could +use in a lifetime." +</P> + +<P> +They saw the mate return after a time with his supplies, and he never +showed head again all day. Wulfrey let The Girl keep a look-out, and +tried himself to get some sleep, in anticipation of the night-watch +which he saw would be necessary. +</P> + +<P> +"He will probably go out to the pile tomorrow," he said. "He must be +out of flour and probably of rum. Then we can take a run ashore +ourselves. When he gets back he will probably be too tired to be up to +any mischief." +</P> + +<P> +"I wish he would tame down and let us have peace, or else go and get +himself killed," she said anxiously. "We can't go on like this for +ever." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid he won't oblige us either way. We can only hang on and +hope for the best, and keep our eyes open." +</P> + +<P> +His watch that night passed undisturbed. In the morning, as he +expected, Macro set off for the wreckage; and, taking some food with +them, they went ashore for a long day's ramble. +</P> + +<P> +"It is good to feel the width of land under one again," said The Girl, +fairly dancing with delight. "I am very grateful for the ship, but +truly it is small and cramping." +</P> + +<P> +"Sandhills are good for play-time, but you'd miss the ship when +bed-time came. It's cold work sleeping on the sand." +</P> + +<P> +"Almost as bad as sleeping on a broken mast. Which way shall we go? +You are quite sure he has gone to the wreckage?" +</P> + +<P> +"Quite sure. I watched him out of sight. Besides, I am sure he had to +go." +</P> + +<P> +"Then let us go the opposite way, as far as we can, and we'll stop out +all day long and behave like children. I'm going to walk in the +water," and she kicked off her shoes and lifted her blanket skirt and +tripped along in the lip of the tide, and he did the same, enjoying her +enjoyment. +</P> + +<P> +A watery sun shone feebly through a thin gray sky, the air was still +heavy with moisture, the water in which they were walking was warmer +than that of the lake. On that side, the island curved like the +concave side of a great half-moon. The pale yellow sand stretched on +and on as far as their eyes could reach. +</P> + +<P> +"I would like to bathe," said she exuberantly. +</P> + +<P> +"Wait till we get beyond the end of our lake, then you can take this +side and I'll go across to the other. You won't go out too far? There +may be under-currents that would carry you out." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll be very careful. And you must not come back for an hour... Oh, +what are those? ... Dead men?" +</P> + +<P> +In a tiny dent in the long sweep of the curve, made by the sandhills +running almost down to the water, were half a dozen dark objects lying +on the dry sand and looking for all the world like dead bodies. He had +never seen any jetsam of size on that side. The drive of the storms +and drift of the currents landed everything on the western spits and +banks. Still there was no knowing. +</P> + +<P> +"Wait here!" he said, and set off towards them. And she followed close +at his heels. +</P> + +<P> +But before they had gone many paces, one of the bodies set itself +suddenly in motion and began to shuffle towards the water. +</P> + +<P> +"Seals," said Wulf, who had never set eyes on a live one in his life, +but had a general idea of what they were like. +</P> + +<P> +Before they could reach them, all had flopped away except one, which, +when they drew near, raised its head and eyed them piteously and made +an effort to rise. +</P> + +<P> +"It is sick or wounded," said Wulf. "Poor beast! Its eyes are like a +woman's in——" He bethought himself and bit it off short. He had +seen just such a look in many a woman's eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"We won't disturb her," he said, and led the way round to give her wide +berth. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh—look! Oh, the little darling! How I would love to cuddle it!" +whispered The Girl, for there, on the other side of Mrs Seal, with her +front fins clasping it protectingly, was a late-born baby sucking away +for dear life. +</P> + +<P> +The Girl's face was transfigured,—ablaze with intensest sympathy and +the wonderful light of mother-love. The mother's eyes followed them +anxiously, the fear in them died out as they backed slowly away, and +she bent her head to her baby and seemed to say, "Thank you so much! +You understand, and I am very grateful to you." +</P> + +<P> +"I <I>am</I> so glad we saw them. I like the island better than ever I did +before," said The Girl. "What a dear little thing it was! And she was +just delightful," and all day long she kept referring to them and to +her joy at the sight of them. +</P> + +<P> +They went on again, mile after mile, and whenever he glanced at her, +her face was still alight with happiness, and unconscious smiles +rippled over it in tune with her thoughts. So inborn and unfailing is +the mother-feeling in all true women. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, if you wish to bathe, here is a good place. I will strike across +to the other shore and will come back in about an hour. Don't go too +far out!" and he strode away across the hummocks. +</P> + +<P> +Under cover of the nearest sandhill she loosed her slender garments, +and sped like a sunbeam across the beach and into the water; and her +face, as it came up from the kiss of the sea, was like a sweet +blush-rose all beaded with morning dew, than which no fairer thing will +you find. And as she swam and dived and splashed in the lucent green +water, like a lovely white seal, her bodily enjoyment and her mental +exhilaration flung wide her arms at times, as though she would clasp +all Nature's joys to her white breast, and her eyes shone with a +brighter light than had the mother-seal's, and a seal's eyes are +deeply, beautifully tender and bright. +</P> + +<P> +She laughed aloud at times, though none but herself could hear it, in +the pure physical joy of living and being so very much alive. She was +happier than she had ever been in all her life before. And one time, +as she lay afloat with her arms outspread, she looked up at the pale +sun in the thin gray sky, and all inconsequently said, "Yes—he is +good. He is good. He is good," and her face was golden-rosier than +ever when she was conscious that she had said it aloud. +</P> + +<P> +She was sitting in the side of the sandhill, combing her hair with her +fingers, when she heard his distant hail. And she climbed the hill and +waved to him that he might come. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't need to ask if you enjoyed your bathe," he said, as he came +up. "I can see it in your face." +</P> + +<P> +"It was delightful. I would like to bathe every day." +</P> + +<P> +"Two days ago?" he laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"No, days like this. Oh, it <I>was</I> so good! And now I am hungry. Let us +eat." +</P> + +<P> +So they sat in the wire grass of the hill-top and ate their frugal +meal, she with her wonderful hair all astream, the ends spread wide to +dry on the sand; and he, clean, and strong, and brown, as fine a figure +of a man as she had ever met, though his raiment was nothing to boast +of. And he said to himself, "She is the most wonderful girl I have +ever seen. I would like to kiss her hair, her hands, her feet." +</P> + +<P> +And she, to herself,—"He is good. He is good. He is good." +</P> + +<P> +And, buried deep in both their minds, yet fully alive, was the thought +that it might be that all their lives would have to be passed on that +lean bank of sand—together. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XL +</P> + +<P> +On their way back, Wulf lingered behind for a moment or two and came +along presently with rabbits enough for their requirements, but did not +obtrude them on her notice. +</P> + +<P> +"It has been a day of delight," she said, as they drew to their ship. +"Let us do it again.... I wonder if that man has got home." +</P> + +<P> +"Not yet. I can see his raft on the spit. Just as well we're here +before him." +</P> + +<P> +"If only he were not here at all——" +</P> + +<P> +"Even the original Paradise had its serpent." +</P> + +<P> +"This one cannot beguile this woman at all events." +</P> + +<P> +It was almost dark when they saw Macro's laden raft lumbering slowly +across to the 'Jane and Mary.' +</P> + +<P> +"He won't starve," commented The Girl. +</P> + +<P> +"Nor go dry. I see at least half a dozen kegs there. He's making +provision for bad weather. The gale may blow up again during the +night. See the birds whirling about over there." +</P> + +<P> +"Will you have to watch again?" +</P> + +<P> +"Safer so, though the chances are the kegs will keep him quiet for a +time. He's probably been on short allowance the last day or two." +</P> + +<P> +"It is monstrous that you should have to. I wish——" and the petulant +stamp of her stout little brogue conveyed no suggestion of a blessing. +</P> + +<P> +"Time may work for us," he said quietly. "He is our thorn in the +flesh——" +</P> + +<P> +"He's a whole axe if you give him the chance." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't, I promise you. I cannot afford to give him any chances," and +she knew that in that his thought was wholly for her. +</P> + +<P> +Wulf dutifully patrolled his deck when it grew dark, though he +acknowledged to himself that the precaution was probably unnecessary, +for this night at all events. Still, he was there to protect The Girl +and he would suffer no risks. +</P> + +<P> +It was possibly the distant sight of him, tramping doggedly to and fro +in the wan moonlight, that set Macro's rum-heated passions on fire. +Wulf heard him spating curses as he tumbled over on to his raft and +came splashing across. He went quietly to the companion-way and closed +the door, then picked up his axe and stood waiting, with a somewhat +quickened heart at the thought that the next few minutes might end the +matter one way or the other. +</P> + +<P> +"—— —— —— —— you, you white-livered skunk! Come out and fight +for her like a man if you want her," was the mate's rough challenge, +supplemented by a broadside of oaths, as he drew near. +</P> + +<P> +Wulf stood looking quietly down at him. Words were sheer waste. +</P> + +<P> +"D'ye hear me? Come down an' fight it out like a' man, an' best man +takes her, —— —— —— —— —— you!" +</P> + +<P> +He bumped roughly against the side and picked up his axe. Curses +foamed out of him in a ceaseless torrent, and he made as though he +would come swarming over. +</P> + +<P> +"Keep off," said Wulf. "If you try to come aboard I'll cut you down." +</P> + +<P> +"Come down then and fight it out if you're half a man, —— —— —— +—— you! What right have you to her, I'd like to know, —— —— —— +—— ——!"—he picked up his oar and whirled it round at Wulf's head +and it splintered on the hard-wood rail. +</P> + +<P> +"Get back to your ship, man, and don't make a fool of yourself," said +Wulf. "I won't fight you. If you try to come on board here I'll make +an end of you." +</P> + +<P> +"Ye skunk, ye! Ye —— —— —— white-livered cowardly skunk!"—etc. +etc. etc.—to all of which Wulf made no reply, which provoked the +furious one more than any words he could have flung at him. +</P> + +<P> +He remained there, hurling abuse and invective at the steady-faced man +up above, till the night air cooled the boiling in his brain. Then he +seized his splintered oar and thrashed away home. Wulf quietly resumed +his sentry-go, watched till all was quiet on the 'Jane and Mary,' and +then went down. +</P> + +<P> +To his surprise The Girl was sitting by the fire. He had supposed her +in bed, had hoped she was fast asleep and had heard nothing of the +bombardment. +</P> + +<P> +"He has gone?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, he has gone home to bed. I was hoping you were asleep." +</P> + +<P> +"Asleep! ... And you did not kill him?" +</P> + +<P> +"He gave me no chance. He invited me on to his raft for a fight——" +</P> + +<P> +"I heard it all." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry. He is hardly suitable for a lady's ears." +</P> + +<P> +"I feel myself a terrible burden to you." +</P> + +<P> +"But you are not. Very much the reverse. You are——" he began +impulsively, and stopped short. It was too soon to tell all that she +was to him. +</P> + +<P> +"I am a bone of contention. I bring you in peril of your life——" +</P> + +<P> +"And I thank God I am here to protect you. Now, take my advice and go +to bed. I will bring my blankets and lie at the foot of the stairs +here." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XLI +</P> + +<P> +The next day passed without any sign of the mate, beyond the thin blue +smoke that floated up from his hatchway. +</P> + +<P> +Wulf surmised that he was making up his leeway in the matter of food +and drink, and would probably not be over-eager for battle for the time +being. Nevertheless he relaxed no whit of his vigilance, and after +watching on deck for half the night slept the rest at the foot of the +companion-way as before. +</P> + +<P> +Contrary to his expectations, the gale did not work itself up again, +but the sky was still low and dark and full of thin smoky clouds +hurrying along towards the north-east, and he was not at all sure that +they had done with it yet. +</P> + +<P> +On the following day, to their great satisfaction, Macro set off early +for the wreckage, and when they had watched him out of sight they went +ashore for a ramble, and to get water and fresh meat. +</P> + +<P> +The Girl must of course make straight for the place where they had met +Mrs Seal and her baby, but, to her great disappointment, there was not +a sign of them. +</P> + +<P> +"And I did so want to see them again," said she. "She would have known +us by this time and not been afraid. Perhaps she would even have let +me touch it." +</P> + +<P> +"They are much happier in the water," he said, with a smile, for her +face made him think of a child who had lost its toy. +</P> + +<P> +She would not be satisfied till they had searched far along the shore, +but nothing came of it, and she was disconsolate. The day was not +cheerful and she would not bathe. They filled their buckets, and he +caught some rabbits and they returned early to the ship. +</P> + +<P> +Her humours appealed to him, even though he could not possibly +understand them completely. Everything she did, and the way she did +it, and indeed everything connected with her, was coming to have a +vital interest for him. +</P> + +<P> +He could not know how the anguished fear in that mother-seal's eyes had +touched her heart, how she had yearned to pick up that sleek little +baby and fondle it in her arms, how she had been hoping and longing to +see them again, how great her disappointment had been. She felt bereft +and went off early to bed. +</P> + +<P> +Wulf lay smoking and thinking till night fell, and then went up to do +sentry. He paced the deck till midnight, saw no sign of movement +aboard the 'Jane and Mary,' and went below and was soon sound asleep. +</P> + +<P> +He woke once with a start, believing he had heard a footstep. Then a +ripple clop-clopped against the side of the ship and he lay down again +satisfied. +</P> + +<P> +He was awakened again by a hand gripping his shoulder, and, starting +up, found a ghostly white figure bending over him, and The Girl's voice +in his ear, +</P> + +<P> +"There is something wrong. Can you not smell it?" +</P> + +<P> +For a moment he imagined her dreaming. Then his nose warned him that +she was right. There was something unusual in the atmosphere. +</P> + +<P> +Even when their fire was no more than a heap of gray ashes with a +golden core, and one of their lee ports was open, the faint, not +unpleasant smell of wood smoke hung about the cabin. But this was +quite different,—an acrid, pungent smell as of burning fat. He +glanced at the fire and raked his mind for an explanation of it. +</P> + +<P> +"It is worse in my room," she said, and he went quietly to the sacred +little passage off which her sleeping-apartment opened. +</P> + +<P> +Yes, it was worse there, and what it meant he could not imagine. +</P> + +<P> +"You have not been burning anything?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing. The horrid smell wakened me." +</P> + +<P> +He turned and ran up the companion-steps, with a vague idea that +something in the hold might have caught fire, though how that could be +was beyond him. There was nothing there but their reserve stores, and +certainly nothing that could take fire of its own accord. Besides, it +was two days since he had been down there, and he never took a light, +as the hatch, when shoved askew, gave all that was needed. +</P> + +<P> +He fumbled the bolts of the little doors open, but the doors seemed +jammed. He pushed. They remained firm. He made sure of the bolts +again and put his shoulder to the doors. They resisted all his efforts. +</P> + +<P> +"Good Lord!" he said, in something of a panic. "What's all this?" +</P> + +<P> +He brushed hastily down past The Girl again, groped for his boots by +the side of his blankets, pulled them on, and picked up his axe, with +the certainty in his mind that something wrong was toward and it was as +well to be fully armed. +</P> + +<P> +Then he smashed away at the woodwork till it was in fragments, and he +could climb up through the bristling splinters and over an unexpected +plank that had somehow got across the doors and prevented their opening. +</P> + +<P> +The first thing he saw when he got on deck was a faint glow about the +main-hatch opening, and smoke pouring out of it. Running to it, a +glance showed him a fierce fire roaring somewhere down below. A cry of +dismay at his side told him that The Girl had scrambled up after him. +</P> + +<P> +"The buckets," he jerked, and she sped back, tearing skin and garment +on the splintered doors, while he sought and found a length of rope. +</P> + +<P> +His voice was steady again, though his hands shook with agitation, as +he slipped one end of the rope through the handle of the bucket and +held the two ends, while the bucket hung in the bight and so could be +released instantly by loosing one end of the rope. He filled both +buckets and with a hasty, "Hand them down to me and fill again as I +throw them up," lowered himself into the hold. +</P> + +<P> +The fire was burning fiercely against the after starboard bulkhead, +which, as it happened, was the one nearest The Girl's sleeping-cabin. +Their lighter stores had been moved from their usual places and heaped +about it and were blazing furiously. The bulkhead itself was on fire, +but had apparently only just caught. +</P> + +<P> +Wulf flung his first bucketful at it, and it answered with a hiss like +a snarling curse, and showed a red-starred black blotch amid the +crawling yellow flames. +</P> + +<P> +He tossed the empty bucket up on deck, and gave the bulkhead another +dose with his second, and as he tossed that one up the first came +dangling down filled again. +</P> + +<P> +"Good girl!" he shouted exultantly, to reassure her. "Plenty more! We +shall do it all right," and the full buckets came dangling down as fast +as he could empty them. +</P> + +<P> +A score or so of bucketfuls ended it, and he climbed up, black with +smoke and streaked with steam and sweat, and very grateful to be in +fresh air again. +</P> + +<P> +The night was just thinning towards the dawn. The Girl was sitting on +the coaming of the hatch in a state of collapse, her wet garment +clinging clammily about her, her head in her hands, her slender figure +shaken with convulsive sobs. His anger boiled furiously at thought of +the malice that had planned her suffering—her possible death. Love +and pity swelled his heart for her. She looked so utterly forlorn and +broken with the fight. +</P> + +<P> +"It is all right, dear!"—he could not help it, it slipped out in spite +of him. "Come away down to the cabin. You are shivering. You are wet +through and torn to pieces. You have done splendidly, but it was an +upsetting piece of business all round. Come!" and he put his arm under +hers and drew her up. +</P> + +<P> +She was so limp, however, that he had almost to carry her, and the feel +of her unconscious sobs under his enfolding arm quickened his blood +again. +</P> + +<P> +At the companion-doors he had to release her and go back for his axe. +A stout plank had been cunningly bound against the doors by a rope tied +round the companion. His lips tightened sternly as he chopped the rope +through and the plank fell to the deck. +</P> + +<P> +He carried her gently down and laid her on his blankets, put some +sticks on the fire and blew them into flame, and set on the kettle, +which was fortunately full. By the time he had made some coffee and +dashed it with rum, she had recovered herself and was sitting up in the +blankets with one drawn closely about her. +</P> + +<P> +"That was an unnerving business," he said, as he handed her her cup. +"I'm afraid you had the worst of it. You have a lot of scratches—and +your hands! Oh, I am truly sorry——" +</P> + +<P> +"It was the rope," she said quietly, looking at the rasped rawness of +them. "It was all horrible. How did it get on fire?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was a deliberate attempt on the part of that wretch to make an end +of us." +</P> + +<P> +"No!"—and she gazed at him in blankest amazement. +</P> + +<P> +"Without doubt. He blocked our doors here with a plank and a rope, and +then started the fire down in the hold." +</P> + +<P> +"Is such wickedness possible?" +</P> + +<P> +"To a madman living chiefly on rum anything is possible." +</P> + +<P> +"He deserves to die." +</P> + +<P> +"Richly. He deserves no mercy. The thought of cutting him down with +an axe was horrible. But after this——" +</P> + +<P> +"There is no safety for us while he lives." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid there isn't." +</P> + +<P> +Sleep, he knew, would brace her unstrung nerves better than any thing +else, so, after bathing her hands in luke-warm water and anointing them +with some of the rendered pork fat she kept for her cooking, he induced +her to go and lie down in her bunk. Her other scratches she said she +would attend to when she could see them properly. +</P> + +<P> +Then he went on deck and drew up a bucket of water and washed off his +own stains, and afterwards smoked many pipes as he pondered the +unpleasantly weighty subject of Macro. For that matters could go on +like this was out of the question. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XLII +</P> + +<P> +He had cakes made and breakfast all ready long before she came out of +her room, still visibly feeling the effects of the night's proceedings. +</P> + +<P> +"I am stiff and sore all over," she said, lowering herself carefully to +her seat on the floor. "And you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sorer in mind than in body." +</P> + +<P> +"What will you do?" +</P> + +<P> +"I shall go over presently and tell him that now he must look out for +himself. I will end him, the first chance I get, as I would a wild +beast." +</P> + +<P> +"He will try to kill you on the spot." +</P> + +<P> +"He won't get the chance. I'll see to that." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall go with you." +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, indeed. My heart would thump itself to pieces, waiting here all +alone." +</P> + +<P> +"He is dangerous, and he has a vile tongue when it runs away with +him——" +</P> + +<P> +"I do not care. It is no more dangerous for me than for you. +No—no—no!"—as he was about to argue the matter,—"I cannot be left +behind," and nothing he could say could move her. +</P> + +<P> +They saw no sign of life on the 'Jane and Mary,' not so much as a whiff +of smoke from the companion-hatch. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps he fled when he saw his horrid scheme had failed," suggested +The Girl hopefully. +</P> + +<P> +"Not very likely, I'm afraid, but we can go across and see. Won't you +be good now and take my advice——" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll be good, but I won't stop here alone." +</P> + +<P> +So perforce he took her with him on the raft, and paddled quietly +across to the other ship. +</P> + +<P> +But before they reached it she lifted a warning finger for him to stop +paddling and listen. And on their anxious ears there broke the +strangest medley of sounds conceivable, and chilled them in the +hearing. Wild bursts of laughter, cut short by yells of rage or sudden +screams, as of one in mortal fear,—hoarse shouts, torrents of oaths, +dull flailing blows which sounded like fists on wood, and, through it +all, the never-ceasing yells and screams. +</P> + +<P> +"He has gone mad," panted The Girl, very white in the face, and looked +at him with wide anxious eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Delirium tremens,"—with an understanding nod. "He could stand more +than most, but a man cannot live on rum alone," and he paddled slowly +towards the ship, his face knitted with doubts as to what he should do. +</P> + +<P> +He was in two minds. If he left the man to himself he would inevitably +die in the end, for he had unlimited liquor on board and would turn to +it at once, like a hog to its mire, as soon as this bout ran its +course. On the other hand, every fragment of professional instinct in +him impelled him to the rescue. +</P> + +<P> +Never in his life had he withheld aid from one in extremity. And yet +it seemed monstrously absurd—to drag a man back from death solely for +the purpose of letting him do his best to kill you, the first chance +that offered. +</P> + +<P> +And he had more than himself to think for. Suppose he saved this +wretched man, and was worsted by him later on, what of The Girl? She +would have reason enough to blame his pusillanimity, and he himself +would curse it with his last breath. +</P> + +<P> +But was it fair fighting—to see your enemy in a hole and make no +effort to save him? Old-time Chivalry would never even have argued the +matter. It would have helped the enemy out, handed him his weapons, +and courteously awaited the renewal of the combat. Ah—times were +changed.... And this man was compound of treachery and malice. +</P> + +<P> +Thoughts such as these whirled through his brain before he had covered +the short space to the other ship. +</P> + +<P> +"Wait here!" he said to The Girl, and climbed through the well-known +hole in the side,—and she followed him close in spite of his frowning +objection. She had not come thus far to be out of the critical moment. +</P> + +<P> +He ran down to the cabin, and went straight to the mate's door. The +dreadful sounds,—the shouts and yells and cries of fear, the furious +oaths, the wild thumping blows—filled the cabin with horrors. Even in +that anxious moment The Girl was cognisant of a dreary, dirty, +repulsive look about it which had not been there before. It was more +like the den of a wild beast than a living-room. Some of the silken +hangings were torn down, the one or two that were left hung by single +pegs. It looked as though a maniac had chased his mad fancies round +the room and sought them behind the draperies. +</P> + +<P> +Wulf, gripping his axe, opened the door into the passage, looked in, +then went in. And The Girl drew near, to be at hand in case of need, +and stood shuddering. +</P> + +<P> +"Keep off! Keep off, ye blank-eyed deevils! —— —— ——! Wi' your +bloody beaks and tearing claws.... Keep off! Keep off —— —— —— +ye!" and the black fists, all bruised and bleeding, whirled and struck +at the roof and sides of the bunk as he fought the birds the rum had +bred in his brain. Then, as they beat him down in a pestiferous crowd, +he gave a shrill scream and doubled himself over in a heap in his bunk, +with his hands clasped over his head to save it from their attacks. +Then up again, shouting and fighting for dear life, and down flat again +with a scream, cowering in uttermost extremity of terror, while oaths +dribbled out of him like water out of a spout. +</P> + +<P> +Wulf came out and closed the door, and pushed her brusquely up the +stairs to the deck. +</P> + +<P> +"You should not have come down," he said sternly. "This is no place +for you," and then, seeing how white her face was, he added more +gently, "There is no danger—except to him. He is fighting for his +life with the birds. I can do nothing for him—except get rid of all +his rum. He would turn to it the moment he comes round, and it is +poison in his present state." +</P> + +<P> +He went down again and rooted about everywhere, found two kegs in the +cabin under the torn hangings, and another in Macro's room, with a +spigot in it. He carried them up on deck, staved in the heads with his +axe, and emptied them overboard. In the main-hold he found three more +and did the same with them. +</P> + +<P> +"When he gets through, his throat will be like a lime-kiln. There is a +bucket of water down there. I will put in it the coffee we left from +breakfast and leave it in his cabin. It will be the best thing for him +if he will drink it. But he'll be crazy for rum—— I'll take you +back and get the coffee. I'm sorry you came." +</P> + +<P> +There was strong disapproval in his tone, but she did not resent it. +After all, his thought was entirely for her in the matter. +</P> + +<P> +"You're sure he won't fly at you?" she asked anxiously. +</P> + +<P> +"He's much too busy with the birds. Besides, I shall not touch him or +speak to him. It is best to leave him to himself. We will leave some +food by him also," and she obediently let herself down before him on to +the raft. +</P> + +<P> +"It does seem absurd——" she began impulsively, as they joggled along. +</P> + +<P> +"To keep him alive so that he may try again to kill us,"—he nodded. +"I know. But there it is, as the country-folk say. However, he won't +live long if he keeps on at the rum. As soon as he gets better he'll +go straight out to the pile to get more, unless he's too weak. It's +terribly wasteful work, what he's at, and no food to work on." +</P> + +<P> +"Whether it's wrong or not, I cannot help wishing he would die," she +said passionately. "It is too dreadful." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want his blood on my hands if I can help it," he said briefly. +But he felt as she did. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XLIII +</P> + +<P> +After carrying supplies to the mate, he came back for her, and they +went ashore for fresh water, and he providently secured a couple more +rabbits. +</P> + +<P> +The Girl was very quiet, depressed, and very unlike her usual bright +self. But he was not surprised. Her anxiety for the future was enough +to account for it, and there was, besides, the reaction from the +strenuous upsetting through which they had just passed. +</P> + +<P> +Each morning he went across to see how the sick man was getting on, and +she let him go alone, but followed him with anxious eyes, and stood in +the bows watching till she saw him safely on his way back. +</P> + +<P> +On the third day they took advantage of the enemy's enforced inactivity +to go out to the pile and make good the losses caused by the fire. And +all the time they were away The Girl was in a state of dire anxiety +lest he should have discovered their absence and got across and fired +their ship. But to her great relief it was there all right when they +got back, and showed no signs of visitation. +</P> + +<P> +On the fourth morning Wulf found his patient sufficiently recovered to +be spoken to plainly as to the future, and he did not mince matters. +While he spoke, the mate lay watching him through almost closed eyes, +just one narrow line between the heavy lids catching the light from the +port and imparting a singularly sinister look to the haggard face. The +veiled eyes watched him cautiously, charged with what?—suspicion? +hatred? treachery? All these, Wulf imagined. But they gave no sign. +They were like the eyes of a snake, of a caged beast being rated by its +keeper. +</P> + +<P> +"Your dastardly attempt on us failed," said Wulf, to the steely glint +of the black soul behind the narrowed lids. "And now,—understand! +You are outside the pale. Leave us alone and we leave you alone. +Interfere further with us and I will kill you as I would a dangerous +beast. Now you are warned, and your blood be on your own head." +</P> + +<P> +The other made no sign. The narrow gleam of the dark eyes out of the +rigid impassivity of the dark face was more bodeful than a torrent of +curses. +</P> + +<P> +As he left the ship, Wulf picked up and took with him the only two axes +he could find. Magnanimity had its limits, but it was wasted here. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" asked The Girl anxiously, when he returned. +</P> + +<P> +"He is almost himself again, but very much weakened of course. I have +given him final warning that if he molests us further I shall kill him." +</P> + +<P> +"It would have been simpler to let him die." +</P> + +<P> +"Simpler—yes, but I could not bring myself to it. We'll fight him +fair if fight we must." +</P> + +<P> +The weather still kept dull and gray and heavy, with a reserve of +menace and malice in it akin to that of the mate. The sky was veiled +with ever-hurrying clouds. The sea was smooth, with something of +treachery in its sullen quietude, as though it were only biding its +time to break out again and do its worst. +</P> + +<P> +The following morning, to their surprise, they saw Macro start out +early for the wreckage. And Wulf, watching him grimly, said, "He's +after his poison. And now he'll probably drink himself to death. It's +amazing the hold it takes on a man. He won't trouble us much longer." +</P> + +<P> +They spent the day ashore, but the vivacity and enjoyment of that other +day were awanting. Perhaps it was the cheerless weather,—the physical +and mental strain of these later days,—the thought that their devil +was loosed again,—anyhow, a subtle sense of foreboding. Whatever it +was it weighed upon their spirits, and a long tramp up the beach, in +forlorn hope of meeting Mistress Seal again, did not succeed in raising +them. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, I wonder?" said The Girl. "Something is going to happen, +I know. I have felt like this before, and always something dreadful +has followed." +</P> + +<P> +"But you never knew what, beforehand? Perhaps you have the gift of +prevision,—the second sight." +</P> + +<P> +"I may have, but it doesn't go so far as to explain things. I just +feel anxious for it to be over and done with." +</P> + +<P> +"What?" +</P> + +<P> +"What's coming, whatever it is." +</P> + +<P> +"We must be extra careful for a time, till you are sure the trouble is +past," he said, with a smile, but he felt the weight on his spirits as +she did. +</P> + +<P> +Physically, however, their long tramp did them good, and they returned +home with famous appetites. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder if he's back yet," said The Girl, as they were paddling to +the ship. There was no doubt as to where her fears centred. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't see the raft. We'll see better from the deck," and when they +had climbed aboard they looked at once towards the spit and saw the +mate's raft still lying there. He was not back yet. +</P> + +<P> +They ate, and rested, and until the darkness swallowed the spit, the +raft still lay there. +</P> + +<P> +"He's staying late," said Wulf. "Maybe he's broached a keg and taken +too much. It would be what I would expect from him under the +circumstances." +</P> + +<P> +He patrolled the deck, after she had gone to bed, listening for the +sound of the mate's oar. But he heard nothing, and at last made up his +mind that the fellow had probably waited too late and had made himself +snug out there for the night, though, for himself, the idea would not +have commended itself. There was little danger, however, of his coming +across in the dark, so he went down and slept soundly at the foot of +the companion-steps. +</P> + +<P> +All the next day they were on the look-out for him, but he did not come. +</P> + +<P> +Wulf had told her of his idea that he had probably found means of +passing the night out there, in which case he would no doubt put in +another long day rooting for treasure. So that it was not until night +had fallen again, and the raft still lay waiting on the spit, that he +decided in his own mind that something was wrong. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall go across to the pile in the morning to find out," he said, as +they sat by the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall go with you." +</P> + +<P> +"I would very much sooner you stopped here." +</P> + +<P> +"And suppose it was all a trick on his part. He may be hiding in the +sandhills. He would watch you go and then come out on me. No," with a +very decided shake of the head, "I go with you." +</P> + +<P> +So, in the morning, they set off, walked along the spit to the western +point and waded and swam to the wreckage, keeping a keen look-out for +first sight of the mate. +</P> + +<P> +"Those hideous birds!" panted The Girl, as the skirling, squabbling +crew swooped and hovered over the far end of the pile. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll keep as far away from them as possible," and they crept up at a +distance, and he proceeded to make a raft, since a supply of further +stores was needed to make good their losses by the fire. +</P> + +<P> +So far they had come upon no signs of Macro. From the top of the pile +they looked carefully all round, but beyond the usual smashed boxes and +cases there was nothing to show that he had ever been there. +</P> + +<P> +"Where on earth can he have got to?" said Wulf. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps he's fallen into the sea, or down into some crack," said The +Girl, not unhopefully. +</P> + +<P> +"It is always possible. He might not recognise how the fever had +pulled him down." +</P> + +<P> +They loaded their raft without any interference from the birds, beyond +the blood-curdling clamour of their angry disputations. They were +quite ready to go, but still the whereabouts of the mate was a mystery, +and Wulf was loth to leave it at that. He might be lying broken in +some crack. If he had come to some sudden end it would be best to know +it, if that were possible, so that their fears—on their own account as +well as his—might be at rest. On the other hand it was quite +impossible to rake over the whole pile. That would be a good month's +work. +</P> + +<P> +A grim idea shot suddenly into Wulf's mind, as he stood looking keenly +round from the highest point he could clamber up to. It came at sight +of the birds whirling and clamouring round the end of the pile. +Suppose ... oh,—horrible! ... yet it might very well be. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" asked The Girl anxiously, for his lips and face had +tightened ominously at his thought. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing, maybe. I'm going over there to see...." +</P> + +<P> +"Can you see anything of him?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +He poled the raft along the edge of the pile towards the hovering cloud +of birds. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, I'm going to swim along here and climb up. I want to see what +they're at. You will be quite safe here." +</P> + +<P> +She glanced at him with a startled look, fathoming his grim thought +instantly, and it blanched her face for a moment. +</P> + +<P> +"They may turn on you," she jerked. +</P> + +<P> +"They seem too busy." +</P> + +<P> +He let himself down into the water and swam noiselessly along the side +of the pile, and she stood watching anxiously. +</P> + +<P> +When he reached the outskirts of the whirling cloud he found a sodden +crack, and drew himself in, and disappeared from her sight. Her heart +kicked till it felt like choking her. Her face was strained, her eyes +wide and fearful. She felt horribly alone. +</P> + +<P> +Inside his niche, Wulf climbed cautiously, the curdling clamour very +close. Now and again a feathery fiend with eyes like glass and +reddened beak swooped past his hiding-place, with a shrill cry of +warning to the rest at sight of him, or it might be of invitation. +</P> + +<P> +He got his eyes above the top at last, in spite of pointed attentions +from angry outsiders, scanned the spot where the shrieking crew centred +most thickly, and dreamed of what he got a glimpse of there for weeks +afterwards. +</P> + +<P> +—— The remnants of what had been a man, all pecked and scratched and +torn to shreds,—white, clean-picked bones showing through fragments of +his clothing, myriads of squawking birds, of all shapes and sizes, +clustered on it like bees on a comb, hustling and fighting one another +with shrill screams and thrashing wings and red beaks. It was only +when, through some unusually bitter struggle, the mass writhed and rose +for a moment, only to settle more closely the next, that he could see. +Not far from the body was a broached keg which the birds had overturned +in their strife. It explained everything to him. +</P> + +<P> +He dropped back down his cleft, sick at the sight, grateful for the +clean feel of the water. He plunged his head under and spat out the +feeling of it all. Then he made his way quietly back to The Girl, and +she had no need to ask what he had found. He nodded, and climbed up on +to the raft and pushed quickly away. +</P> + +<P> +"You are sure he is dead?" she asked, after a time. +</P> + +<P> +"Horribly dead," and told her no more till later, and then not very +much. "It is strange to think of it all," he said, in conclusion. "He +always feared the birds. In his delirium it was the birds he was +fighting. And the birds got him at last." +</P> + +<P> +The manner of his death shocked and horrified them. But the knowledge +that the menace of him had passed out of their lives was untellable +relief. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +BOOK IV +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +LOVE IN A MIST +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XLIV +</P> + +<P> +The effect of the mate's death on The Girl's spirits was visible at +once. The cloud had lifted from her face before they got fairly home. +Her eyes shone untroubled, though a look of horror and disgust came +into them whenever they rested on the swirling gray cloud behind them. +In her very movements Wulf noticed a new and gracious freedom. +</P> + +<P> +And his judgment did her no injustice in the matter, nor imputed it, in +any slightest degree, to mere exultation over a fallen enemy. For he +knew to the full in what terror of the dead man she had lived, and how +the fear of him, both for herself and himself, had lain like a weight +on her soul and darkened all her outlook. +</P> + +<P> +He felt as she did about it. He could not regret the fact of the man's +death, but the manner of it gave him poignant distress. +</P> + +<P> +In spite of their hard work they had neither of them much appetite for +food that night. They turned in early and slept as they had not slept +for long, without fear and without strain. The darkness was no longer +pregnant with ungaugeable terrors. The dawn was like the beginning of +a new life to them. +</P> + +<P> +Wulf, indeed, saw again that night, and many a night thereafter, the +horror of the clustering birds and that over which they bristled and +fought. But he woke each time to the immeasurable relief of the man's +death. That had been essential to their own safety, but he thanked God +with his whole heart that it had not been by his hand that he had had +to die. For that he never could be sufficiently grateful. He had +played him fair and more than fair. He was dead, and their consciences +and their hearts were alike at rest. +</P> + +<P> +They woke next morning to the close folding of the mist, and he had to +set to work at once making good the broken companion-doors to keep it +out of the cabin as much as possible. +</P> + +<P> +Being but a poor carpenter, the only way he could do this was by +nailing a blanket to the top of the hatch and pegging it down tightly +to the top step. But he foresaw that the next gale would blow his +stop-gap to pieces and destroy their comfort below. So did the dead +man's deeds live after him, and it was not the only one. +</P> + +<P> +They were sitting at their mid-day meal, when the thick silence of the +mist outside was rent by a shrill frightened scream right above their +heads, and almost simultaneous with it a heavy thump, and then, on the +deck above them, blows and screams and the sound of some large body +tumbling to and fro. +</P> + +<P> +The Girl sprang up with a white face and scared eyes and a word of +dismay. Wulf picked up his axe and burst through his carefully +adjusted blanket at the top of the companion. Then she heard the +chop-chop of his axe on the deck, and the fall of something into the +water, and he came down laughing at the start it had given him also. +</P> + +<P> +"It was the biggest bird I ever saw," he said. "It had banged itself +against the mast, I think, and was flopping all over the place. I +chopped its head off and pitched it overboard. It must have measured +six feet at least from tip to tip of its wings. It gave you a start." +</P> + +<P> +"I was just thinking of that man and how different everything was now +he is gone, and then that horrid scream——" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, it was enough to make anyone jump." +</P> + +<P> +"It seemed to me for a moment that it was his spirit come back to +trouble us still, as he had done while he lived." +</P> + +<P> +"It won't come. Unless it's got inside a bird, as he always said. You +must try to forget all about him." +</P> + +<P> +"It is not easy. But, whether it is wicked of me or not, I thank God +he is dead." +</P> + +<P> +"And I thank God that he did not die by my hand. I shall never cease +to be thankful for that." +</P> + +<P> +"We shall never be able to build a boat now," she said presently, +following out the natural train of her thought. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid not,"—with a doleful shake of the head. "Unless you have +had any experience in such things." +</P> + +<P> +"And so we may have to pass the rest of our lives here." +</P> + +<P> +"It is better to consider how very much worse off we might be. For +myself.... Besides, one never knows. Some unexpected chance may turn +up." +</P> + +<P> +"And you can bear to think of living on and on and on here till—the +end?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can bear to think of it very much better than I could a short time +ago.... No cloud is black on both sides. Look on the bright side. +Either of us might have been here alone. That would have been +terrible——" +</P> + +<P> +"I should have been dead." +</P> + +<P> +"But instead of that we are two, we have comfortable shelter, the +mighty blessing of fire, food enough to last us as long as we live—— +</P> + +<P> +"It sounds like that man in the Bible—the man who had his barns full, +all he wanted to eat and drink, and so he made merry. And that night +he died, if I remember rightly." +</P> + +<P> +"We are not boasting. We arrived here lacking everything, and +everything has been provided for us. We have reason to be grateful. +Even Macro was necessary. He showed us how to turn the wreck-pile to +account. If I had come ashore alone I doubt if I would ever have gone +out to it again. It did not attract me.... And—he found you and +brought you ashore." +</P> + +<P> +"And that was the beginning of the end." +</P> + +<P> +"No—the beginning of better things. We will hope the end is a long +way off yet." +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder ... and what it will be," said she thoughtfully. +</P> + +<P> +And he wondered if in her heart there was any sweet white seed of hope +akin to that which was striking its roots so deeply in his own,—and if +not, if it might be possible to plant it there. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XLV +</P> + +<P> +This new life, free from the shadow of perpetual menace, was full of +rare and delicate charm for both of them, differing only in quality and +degree according to that wherewith Nature had endowed them. +</P> + +<P> +One root-thought was inevitable to both their minds—that here were +they two, cut off from the rest of the world, probably for the term of +their natural lives. Here, as far as they could foresee, they two must +live, alone,—together; and here, in the end, they must die; their +living and their dying alike unseen and unknown except by their Maker. +</P> + +<P> +In his heart the white seed of the greater hope was striking deep and +strong, filling his whole being with a new and exquisite delight before +even it had had time to shoot and flower. +</P> + +<P> +Exile for life on that barren strip of sand, which with Macro as sole +fellow-sufferer would have been barely tolerable, assumed a very +different aspect with Avice Drummond as his companion; and with her as +sole companion, an aspect of supremest joy and expectation. It was no +longer a thing to look forward to with foreboding, or at best with dull +and hopeless acquiescence in the inevitable. The shadow had suddenly +lifted. The desert had suddenly blossomed like the rose. The future +smiled shyly as does the dawn with promise of the day. +</P> + +<P> +But this new great hope, and the sense of it all in him, were of so +fine and delicate a nature that he hardly dared to whisper it even in +his inmost heart, lest she should see some sign of it and take fright, +and all his hope vanish like smoke in a gale. +</P> + +<P> +She was so fair and sweet, so charming and gracious, so pre-eminently +and perfectly desirable. It was highest and keenest delight—delight +so keen that at times it had in it the elements of pain—simply to +watch the play of her face, so eloquently responsive to the quick +emotional soul within,—the large dark eyes so clear and frank, so +unreservedly trustful of him. +</P> + +<P> +He would sooner die than forfeit one iota of the honour her faith +conferred on him. And that great springing hope of his must be +carefully covered and concealed, until such time as he should discover +in her eyes the outlook of a hope responsive. +</P> + +<P> +It would come. It would come, he said to himself—in time—when she +should have come to know him still better and to trust him still more +fully—to the uttermost. +</P> + +<P> +For the ultimate goal of his desire was, in the manner of its possible +attainment at all events, somewhat nebulous to him, though it set the +whole distant future ablaze with rosy fires. In the nature of things, +circumstanced as they were, such ultimate attainment, if ever it were +reached, could be reached only by the treading of unusual ways. And to +require that of any girl—and especially of a girl such as this, +high-born, intelligent beyond most, and deeply versed in the great +world's ways—was asking of her more than any true man, truly loving, +could bring himself to ask,—unless to both their hearts no other thing +were possible,—unless the barrier of Circumstance left no other +possible hope or way. +</P> + +<P> +And for the proving of that, Time held the keys and must have his say. +</P> + +<P> +He wondered often, and with keenest anxiety, if her heart could +possibly have come through all the strange experiences of her previous +life unchallenged, unassailed, unwon. Seeing that she was what she was +it seemed to him almost impossible. +</P> + +<P> +She was to him so compact of goodness and beauty, so fashioned to +bewitch, that he could not imagine any man impervious to her grace and +charm. What manner of men could they be who, consorting with her daily +and on terms of equality, had failed to capture a heart so made for +loving? +</P> + +<P> +He recalled in minutest detail all she had told him of her past life +and friends and acquaintances, figured them all in his mind, weighed +them jealously in the scales of his own devotion, and could not +discover one trace of emotion towards one or another, but rather of +aversion towards all. +</P> + +<P> +Again and again she had expressed the joy she had felt at the prospect +of her escape to a freer and larger life. It was, of course, not +impossible that that feeling might but hide some heart-breaking +disappointment of the earlier times. But he did not think so. She was +to him truth personified, though still a woman. He believed in her +absolutely, as a man should in the woman who holds his heart. So far +as assurance could go,—without the definite question which he longed +to put but did not yet dare, lest the hopeful anxiety of his present +state should be turned to hopeless regret,—he felt fairly safe in +building on a rosy future. +</P> + +<P> +How she regarded himself he could not surely say. But she trusted him +and that was a good foundation for his building. +</P> + +<P> +And she? Well, that is our story! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XLVI +</P> + +<P> +That thick white bank of mist clung to them for the best part of a +week. But, freed from all fear of treacherous assault, it troubled +them little. +</P> + +<P> +Once they had to go ashore for water, but got back safely by means of +their guiding-line, and as they pushed through the fog they recalled +that former time, when the mate's grim figure fashioned itself suddenly +out of the clammy whiteness and brought them near to a disastrous end. +</P> + +<P> +For the rest they had no scarcity. The fish bit as well in the fog as +in the clear, and they had pork and flour for weeks to come. +</P> + +<P> +In their narrow confinement to the ship, their intimacy and knowledge +of one another grew with the days. She talked well, and he was an +excellent listener, and led her on and on to tell him of the past and +all that had interested her in it, and mused on all she said, and +sought in it enlightenment as to her heart's freedom or otherwise. +</P> + +<P> +Once, when she had been roving at length through her earlier days, she +broke off suddenly with, "But, mon Dieu, I am doing all the talking! +Now, tell me of yourself!" +</P> + +<P> +"I have so little to tell compared with you. Shall I tell you of +school-days—of college—of the hospitals—of my patients and their +ailments?" +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me why you left it all to seek the new life." +</P> + +<P> +"For very much the same reason as you did, I imagine. I was living in +a groove and I wanted something wider and larger." +</P> + +<P> +"And now you are sorry." +</P> + +<P> +"So very sorry that if I had the chance again, and knew beforehand all +that was to come, I would jump at it like the fish to our hooks," as he +hauled one aboard and knocked it an the head. "And you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ye—es, I think I would have come also. Not perhaps if I had known I +would have to float about on that mast. It was so terribly +cold,"—with a shiver. "For the rest, I have no regrets, but it is +perhaps too soon to say. In ten years hence I may have come to be +sorry." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay—ten years hence!" he said musingly. "Many things may happen in +ten years. There's a fish on your hook," and she hauled it in and let +him dispose of it. +</P> + +<P> +As they sat at supper that night the blanket which supplied the place +of companion-doors began to flap, and, going up to look, he found the +mist whirling away before a gusty breeze. +</P> + +<P> +"It's going to blow," he told her, "and when it's blown itself out we +may have a spell of fine weather again," and he proceeded to block the +opening with some planks he had chipped to size as well as he could +with his axe. +</P> + +<P> +The wind was rising rapidly, and before they turned in for the night +the birds had all come in and were whirling and screaming round the +ship, and lighting on it as was their custom in bad weather. But they +had grown accustomed to their clamour and both slept soundly. +</P> + +<P> +Wulf was shaken back to life in the dead of the early morning by a +restive jerk of the ship at her rusty anchor-chain, followed by a +momentary sense of the unusual. And while he lay sleepily considering +the matter, his bunk heeled slowly over—over—over, and rolled him +right against the side of the ship. The sound of a heavy fall, +somewhere beyond, made him scramble out very wide awake, full of +wonder, but dimly perceptive of what must have happened. The rusty +chain had evidently parted, the ship had drifted ashore broadside on, +and the force of the wind had caused her to heel over. The sound he +had heard was, he feared, of Miss Drummond's falling out of her bunk. +</P> + +<P> +He flung on some clothes and clawed his way out to the cabin. The +floor of it was tilted up at such an angle that he had to claw his way +up by the side wall as best he could. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you hurt?" he cried, outside The Girl's door. +</P> + +<P> +"Bruised a bit. Whatever has happened?" +</P> + +<P> +"The cable has parted and we're ashore on our beam-ends. No danger, I +think." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll be out in a minute." +</P> + +<P> +Then he became aware of a smell of burning, and found that the sand +hearth with its core of fire had slid downhill and was smouldering +among the silken draperies, which were beginning to break into flame. +</P> + +<P> +He crawled back and tore them down and bunched them tightly together, +then scooped up handfuls of sand and smothered every cinder he could +see. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Drummond's door opened just as he had finished. +</P> + +<P> +"Stop where you are," he cried. "I'll come up for you. Everything's +on the slope. I think we'd better sit on the floor and let ourselves +down by degrees." +</P> + +<P> +Outside, the wild screaming of the birds mingled eerily with the rush +and howl of the gale. It was still quite dark. He could not see her, +but groped about till he felt her blankets, then found her hand and +eased her carefully down the slope, and they crouched side by side in +the angle made by the floor and the side of the ship. +</P> + +<P> +"Will she go down?" she asked quietly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no. No fear of that. We're aground. But whether she'll ever +come straight again I don't know. Did it pitch you out of your bunk?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. I woke with a crash on the floor, and could not imagine what had +happened." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope you didn't break yourself." +</P> + +<P> +She was silent for a moment and then said, "I'm afraid I did break +something, but I couldn't——" +</P> + +<P> +"Broke something? What?" he asked hastily. +</P> + +<P> +"My arm feels numb and queer. I fell on it." +</P> + +<P> +"Let me feel it," and, kneeling in front of her, he groped till he +found it, and felt it with anxious gentle fingers. +</P> + +<P> +"Good Lord, it's broken!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry, but I couldn't help it. You see"—— +</P> + +<P> +"Your right arm too! Don't move it!" +</P> + +<P> +He groped about for another length of the silken hangings, tore it +down, and wound it tightly round her arm. "That will keep it in +place," he said. "The moment it is light I will make splints and set +it properly. I am truly sorry you should have suffered so." +</P> + +<P> +"Better me than you. It might have been worse. What made that chain +break, I wonder? We've had worse storms than this." +</P> + +<P> +"It was bound to give sooner or later. It was very old and rusted. +Its time came, I suppose, and it went. Sure you have no other damages?" +</P> + +<P> +"Only bumps and bruises. I felt as if the side of my face were crushed +in, but I don't think it is." +</P> + +<P> +"Were you in the top bunk?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. I liked to look out of the window in the mornings." +</P> + +<P> +"That's a good big fall to take unawares." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I fell out like a sack and woke on the floor. What shall we do +if she doesn't come right side up again? We can't live all upside down +like this." +</P> + +<P> +"There's always the other ship to fall back on ... unless her chain's +broken too." +</P> + +<P> +"I like our own much the best." +</P> + +<P> +"But not if she stops like this.... And even if she straightened up +she would heel over again in the next gale. I'm afraid we'll have to +move." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall always see that man's black face about the cabin, glaring at +me as he used to do as if he wanted to eat me." +</P> + +<P> +"If we have to go we'll give it a good cleaning, and fresh hangings, +and make it to your taste." +</P> + +<P> +So they chatted quietly, while the gale and the birds shrieked in +chorus outside, and the waves of the lake thumped scornfully on the +exposed bottom of the ship. +</P> + +<P> +As soon as he could see, he rooted about for axe and knife, and chopped +up a board and made a set of splints for her arm. And, though he +grieved for the pain she must have suffered, he could not but feel a +huge enjoyment in ministering to her. +</P> + +<P> +The mere touch of her firm white flesh was a rare delight and made his +fingers tingle. He did his best to think of her only as a patient, but +found it impossible. She was so very much more to him than any +ordinary patient ever had been or could be. +</P> + +<P> +But for her suffering, he felt inclined to bless the breaking of the +rusty cable. It brought them closer than ever before. It threw her +more than ever on to his care. With her right arm prisoner she would +be able to do but little for herself. She had not been able to dress +herself properly, but had simply swathed a blanket about her night +attire, leaving the broken arm free. But even so, her natural taste +and capability had so arranged it, even in the darkness and moment of +danger, that she looked like a Greek goddess, he said to himself, with +one arm in a sling. One can make allowances for him. +</P> + +<P> +As the light grew stronger he saw, to his distress, that her face had +also suffered sorely in her fall. The whole right side was badly +bruised and discoloured. +</P> + +<P> +"Is it very bad?" she asked, as she saw him looking at it. "It feels +sore and my head hums like a bee-hive." +</P> + +<P> +"You got a bad bump there. I will get some salt water and bathe it. +Our fresh will all be gone in the upset, but I'll sling a bucket under +the scupper-hole and we'll have enough for some coffee presently. When +you've had some breakfast you will go and lie down in my bunk. If you +could get a good sleep it would be the very best thing for you. Does +the arm hurt much?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not so much as it did, but I don't think I can sleep." +</P> + +<P> +"You will when you lie down. You've had a bad shaking up. I'm truly +sorry that all the penalties have fallen on you." +</P> + +<P> +"It's a good thing you didn't break yourself too. Suppose we'd broken +all our arms!" and she laughed a wry little laugh. +</P> + +<P> +He crawled up the slope, and wormed himself through his barricade, and +came back presently with a bucketful of water, found a piece of soft +linen and insisted on bathing her face, under plea that she would +joggle the broken arm if she tried to do it herself. +</P> + +<P> +Then he scraped together at the foot of the slope sand enough for a +small hearth, split some wood and kindled a fire, but found it +necessary to open one of the ports to leeward to let out the smoke. +When he did so he found the water within a foot of it and could only +hope they would heel over no more. He proceeded to make cakes and +coffee, and then fried some salt pork, and anointed the bruised face +with the fat of it, and she found it soothing. +</P> + +<P> +When he had cut up her meat for her, and she had managed to eat a +little, he helped her into his bunk, the upper one because it was +airier and allowed more head-room, and covered her with blankets and +told her to go to sleep. And then, since there was nothing more to be +done, he crawled up the slope and got her blankets off the floor of her +room, and made up a bed for himself in the angle at the foot of the +slope. He lay for a time listening to the gale, and pondering the +possibility of its doing them any further damage, and fell asleep with +the matter still unsettled. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XLVII +</P> + +<P> +When he awoke it was close on mid-day, unless his appetite misled him. +He prepared another meal and then tapped gently on The Girl's door. +Receiving no answer he peeped into the dim little room and found her +still sleeping soundly, her head in the crook of her left arm, from +which the wide sleeve of her night-dress had slipped down,—as fair a +picture as man could wish to look upon, in spite of her bruised face +and broken arm. +</P> + +<P> +He stood watching her for a moment with bated breath, and recalled that +first morning when she came ashore and he had doubted if he could +recover her; and he thanked God again for the dogged obstinacy which +would not let him accept defeat so long as smallest hope remained. +</P> + +<P> +She moved, opened her heavy eyes, and lay quietly looking at him, just +as she had done that other time, and for a brief space there was no +more recognition in them than there had been then. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it? Who are you?" she asked, and he suffered a momentary +shock. But for reply he laid his cool strong hand—rougher than it +used to be, but vitally sensitive to the feel of her—on the broad +white forehead, and found it hot and throbbing. That did not greatly +surprise him. There was sure to be a certain feverishness after such +an experience. And he would have given much for five minutes' root +round his old dispensary. +</P> + +<P> +He had nothing,—nothing but common sense, and his professional +knowledge, and Nature's simplest remedies. He went out quietly and got +cold water and soft linen, and bathed the throbbing forehead and then +laid the wet bandage on it. +</P> + +<P> +"That is nice," she said softly. "What a trouble I am to you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, frightful!" he smiled, as he changed the cloth for a fresh one. +"You see how I resent it. Has the arm been hurting?" +</P> + +<P> +"It hurts at times, but my head is the worst, and I feel bruised all +over." +</P> + +<P> +"But no more breakages?" he asked anxiously. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think so, just bruised and stiff and sore." +</P> + +<P> +He hesitated for a second. She was so very much more to him than +simply a patient. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you let me remind you that I am a doctor? The very best cure for +all that is gentle rubbing. If you will allow me I will undertake to +reduce the pains by one half." +</P> + +<P> +"Then please do, Doctor, for I ache in every bone." +</P> + +<P> +And he drew off all her blankets but one, and through it proceeded to +massage the aching limbs, and had never in his life found greater +enjoyment in his work. He even ventured to treat the throbbing head in +the same way, drawing his fingers soothingly over the white forehead +and up into the masses of her hair. +</P> + +<P> +"There is virtue in your fingers," she murmured drowsily, and before he +had done she was sleeping soundly again. Then he laid another wet +cloth on her forehead and left Nature to do her share in the good work. +</P> + +<P> +It was fortunate that she had little appetite for the next few days. +The cakes he made for her, and water, scrupulously boiled and cooled +and flavoured with coffee, amply satisfied her; and he, himself lived +on pork, fish and fresh meat being unobtainable. +</P> + +<P> +For four days the gale bellowed round them, but being to leeward, and +protected somewhat by the heeling of the ship, they felt it less than +if they had been on an even keel, and it never kept The Girl from +sleeping. +</P> + +<P> +Much of that time Wulf spent in an endeavour to obtain salt from sea +water, the lack of it being one of their greatest deprivations. As the +result of many boilings and the careful scraping up of the slight +encrustations on his pans, he managed to get a little, and exultantly +let The Girl taste it as a great treat; but it was a long and slow +process. +</P> + +<P> +The default of her right arm made her very dependent on him in many +little ways, but never was service more tactfully rendered or more +delighted in by the servitor. And every service, so rendered and +accepted, made for increased knowledge on both sides, and so for closer +intimacy. +</P> + +<P> +Never, in all her contact with the greater world, had she met any man +in whom she felt such implicit confidence as in this man. Never, since +that first time her wondering eyes met his, when his strenuous +exertions had dragged her back from the dead, had he by word or deed or +look, raised one shadow of fear or mistrust in her mind. In +everything, to the extremest point of death itself, he had proved +himself a simple, brave, and honest gentleman. +</P> + +<P> +And as she lay there helpless, with the gale howling outside and the +broken waves of the lake clop-clopping in the strakes under her ear, +she had much time to think of him and all he had done and was doing for +her, and all her thought was warm and grateful. +</P> + +<P> +"I am a dreadful burden to you," she would say. "And you are very very +good to me." +</P> + +<P> +And he would answer her, with the smile she liked to provoke, "But for +your suffering in the matter I would tell you how grateful I am to that +rotten chain for giving me the opportunity. I count it a privilege as +well as a pleasure." +</P> + +<P> +And when he had left her, she would think at times how it might have +been with her if it were not this man but the other with whom she had +been left alone. And she would shiver at the thought, and then +remember that if the other had been alone she would not have been +there, for he could never have drawn her back from the dead as this one +had done. +</P> + +<P> +And she thought also at times of their fight with the other in the fog, +and followed that idea up and shivered still more. For if the mate had +killed this man it would indeed have gone hard with her. Ay, she had +much to be thankful for, and thankful she was. +</P> + +<P> +And as to the future.... It was all vague and dim, as the future +always must be, but she had no fear of it, because she trusted this man +so perfectly. +</P> + +<P> +Vague and dim it might be, but it was shot with rosy gleams. +</P> + +<P> +Whatever he might ask of her she would hold it right because he asked +it. She had found him worthy. She would trust him completely, ask +what he might. Yes, ... ask ... what ... he ... might. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XLVIII +</P> + +<P> +"The sun's coming out," was his cheerful announcement, one morning when +he came in with her breakfast. "And here's some fish for you at last." +</P> + +<P> +"The sight of it makes me hungry." +</P> + +<P> +"That's the best news you've given me for four days. There's some salt +for you in payment," he said, with full pride of accomplishment. +</P> + +<P> +"Salt is a great treat. Have you left any for yourself?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I've got some. I'm going to set up a regular salt factory as soon +as you're about again." +</P> + +<P> +"I would like to get up and go on deck when I've had breakfast. Surely +the ship is not so tilted as it was." +</P> + +<P> +"Not quite so bad, but I'm afraid it will never come quite right side +up again. It's hard and fast on the shore at present. I could wade +across." +</P> + +<P> +"I must see it. I will get up as soon as I have had my breakfast." +</P> + +<P> +"Can you manage?" he asked doubtfully. "You must keep that arm quiet, +you know." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll try anyway. If I get stuck I will call," and in due course she +called, and he found that she had managed to get her blankets round +her, and that as gracefully as ever in some marvellous fashion, but she +had doubted her power of getting out of the bunk in its lopsided state +without his help. +</P> + +<P> +He stepped up on to the lower bunk, and worked his arms under her. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, if you wouldn't mind steadying yourself with your usable hand on +my shoulder—so! There you are!" and he lifted her gently to her feet +on the floor. "Now, hang on to my arm.... But your shoes?—you had +better have them on. In your own room of course. Wait and I'll get +them," and he climbed up and got them, and put them on and tied them +for her. "I've pegged some slats across the slope for better +foot-hold. You can't slip," and he got her safely out on to the deck. +</P> + +<P> +"It is delightful to be in fresh air again," she said, as she drank it +in. "I wish the good weather would last for ever." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll hope for a good long spell anyhow. Doesn't it feel odd to be so +close to the shore? We'll have rabbit for dinner. You must almost +have forgotten what it tastes like." +</P> + +<P> +"I can still just remember," she laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll get up some blankets and tuck you into this corner, and then I'll +go and get some and some fresh water. Our raft's blown ashore and the +other one also. I shall have to wade." +</P> + +<P> +He made her comfortable in the corner, got his buckets and a stick, and +dropped over the side. +</P> + +<P> +She lay watching him as he waded ashore, saw him stop for a moment to +examine the raft, and then, with a wave of the hand, he set off for the +pools, swinging his buckets jauntily. +</P> + +<P> +Were there many such men in the world, she wondered, and why had she +never met any of them before? The men she had met were so very +different. They were as a rule so elusive and evasive that you never +quite knew what they were driving at ... except that it was certain to +be for their own satisfaction and advantage ... and that unless you +were always on your guard it was likely to turn out ill for you ... a +queer world, and life was a puzzle past comprehending..... +</P> + +<P> +She was glad to be out of it ... even on this sandbank.... Life was +sweeter here, and certainly very much simpler.... Well, perhaps a +little too severely simple in some respects.... But one could not have +everything.... Thank God, again, that it was this man who was with her +and not that other!... +</P> + +<P> +She saw him coming at last with his full buckets, and presently made +out a couple of rabbits hanging round his neck. +</P> + +<P> +"The birds are having a great time out yonder," he called to her. +"Lots of new wreckage, I expect, and they've been fasting. I must get +across as soon as I can and see if the storm has brought anything for +us. One never knows,"—he had come alongside, and lifted the buckets +and tossed the rabbits on to the deck. "I'll fasten the raft to the +chain there"—and he hauled himself along on it to the bows. +</P> + +<P> +She heard a smothered exclamation, and presently he climbed up and came +along the deck with something in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you make of that?" and he handed her the link of the rusty +cable which had given way and let them drift ashore. +</P> + +<P> +She turned it over in her fingers. Just where it had opened, the metal +glinted in the sunshine, and just above that there was a patch that +looked like grease. She shook her head. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you see?—it's been filed enough to weaken it, and there was +grease on the file." +</P> + +<P> +"And you think——" with a shocked look. +</P> + +<P> +"Undoubtedly. No one else could have done it. But what his idea was, +I can't make out. Just to make trouble, I suppose. Of course if the +wind had come the other way, as it has done once or twice, we might +have blown right down the lake. It was a mean trick. I wonder when he +did it." +</P> + +<P> +"I am more thankful than ever that he's gone." +</P> + +<P> +"So am I.... I've been thinking we'd better move across there as soon +as possible." +</P> + +<P> +"Must we? I have grown so fond of this old ship." +</P> + +<P> +"But we can't live on the slope like this. Besides, if a gale did come +the opposite way we might have trouble. I'll go over presently and +begin cleaning. When I've finished you'll find it much more +comfortable than this." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall always like this the best." +</P> + +<P> +"I was thinking as I went over to the pools that it might not be a bad +idea to build some kind of a house on shore. I can get timber enough +for a hundred. You see, we don't quite know what winter may be like in +this place, but it's pretty sure to be a time of storms." +</P> + +<P> +"Can you build a house?" +</P> + +<P> +"One never knows what one can do till one tries. This is a great place +for bringing out one's unknown faculties. I've done a good many things +I never expected to do, since I came here." +</P> + +<P> +"It might be a good plan. Can't it wait till I can help?" +</P> + +<P> +"We'll see. We must do like the ants and squirrels—work hard while +it's fine and get in our supplies for the winter. We are mighty +fortunate to have such a store to draw upon." +</P> + +<P> +He spent all the rest of the day slaving like a charwoman on the 'Jane +and Mary,' and The Girl lay in her nest watching him, as he went up and +down, now flinging rubbish overboard, then hauling up buckets of water, +and sluicing and mopping, with every now and again a cheery wave of +hand or mop in her direction, and long periods below devoted, she did +not doubt, to the doing of more of those things which he had never +done, or expected to do, until he came there. And her heart was very +warm to him, knowing that it was not for his own comfort but for hers +that all these great labours were toward. +</P> + +<P> +She saw him busy on deck, bending and bobbing up and down, and once she +caught the gleam of vivid colours, and wondered what he was at. He was +a long time below after that, and then he went ashore for a load of +sand, and when it was getting dark she suddenly caught glimpse of his +head in the water as he wound up the day's work with a very necessary +swim. +</P> + +<P> +He came across on the raft all aglow, but visibly tired and hungry, and +greeted her with a cheery, "I think you'll find it all to your liking. +I've swabbed away every trace of the former tenants and everything is +fresh and new." +</P> + +<P> +"I wish I could have helped." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but you did, by sitting quietly here and getting better, to say +nothing of a wave of the hand now and then." +</P> + +<P> +"That was not doing much when you were working like a——" +</P> + +<P> +"Like a nigger. I looked like one too till I'd had that swim. Now +I'll get supper ready, and tomorrow we'll flit, and you'll be able to +walk about on an even keel without any danger of falling." +</P> + +<P> +He helped her down to the cabin and their very close quarters at the +bottom of the slope, and set to work preparing their evening meal. And +the more incongruous his occupations and the more menial his tasks, the +more The Girl's heart warmed towards him. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +XLIX +</P> + +<P> +In the morning, as soon as they had eaten, he got the raft round to the +lower side of the ship, ruthlessly hacked out a section of the bulwarks +so that she could step down with the smallest possible exertion, and +took her across to the new house. +</P> + +<P> +Getting her on board without shock to the broken arm was not so easy. +He moored the raft, stem and stern, and braced it tight so that it +could not move. Then he built on it a pyramid of three empty boxes, +forming steps up which she could climb high enough to grip his strong +hand teaching down through the gap in the side and so be drawn safely +up on to the deck, which he had swabbed with sand and water till it was +cleaner than it had been for years. +</P> + +<P> +"It is nice to be able to walk on the flat of one's feet again," she +said, and he led her down below to a cabin gorgeous as an Eastern room +with drapings of amber silk and blue, and every bit of woodwork scoured +as clean as elbow-grease could make it. +</P> + +<P> +"It is delightful," she said fervidly. "How you must have slaved at +it!" +</P> + +<P> +"And how I enjoyed doing it!" +</P> + +<P> +There was a new sand hearth, nicely banked up between planks pegged +upright on the floor, and a pile of wood on it ready for lighting. He +lit a match with his flint and steel, and handed it to her as before, +so that she might start the first fire in the new home. +</P> + +<P> +"You will take your old room," he said. "Then if we should topple over +again you won't be able to fall out of your bunk. Now I'll go back and +bring over all our belongings. I made a complete clearance here, +except some of the stores which we can use," and before mid-day he had +everything transferred and stowed away. +</P> + +<P> +He spent most of the afternoon weaving in and out of their rusty cable +lengths of the least-rotten rope he could lay hands on, in order to +strengthen it and stop its chafing as much as possible. But below +water he could not go beyond a foot or two, and the lower links he had +to leave to Providence. +</P> + +<P> +As he worked, The Girl paced the deck, rejoicing in its horizontality, +and came each time to lean over the bows and watch him and say a lively +word or two. And, if any had been there to see, it would have been +difficult to believe that two such cheerful people were, to the very +best of their belief, condemned by an inscrutable fate to imprisonment +for life on this lonely sandbank,—to a confinement as solitary in some +respects, and in the prospect of escape as hopeless, as that of the +Bastille itself. +</P> + +<P> +But—they were together; and Adam and Eve, cast out of the Garden, +could still make a home in the wilderness and turn the joys that were +left them to fullest account. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +L +</P> + +<P> +He was up betimes next morning, and had fish for their breakfast before +she came out of her room, and, moreover, had made cakes and full +provision for all her needs during the day. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall go out there at once," he said. "You will not mind being +left? I want to get in everything we shall need for the winter as soon +as possible." +</P> + +<P> +"I am sorry not to be able to help, but I shall be quite all right +here. You will..." she began, with a quite novel access of timidity, +and finished with a rush,—"you will be very careful. I am rather +fearful of that horrid wreckage. If you never came back——" +</P> + +<P> +"I will be very careful, and I will certainly come back—laden, I hope, +with good things," and he went off on the raft, and she stood watching +and waving her hand at times when he turned, until he disappeared along +the spit. And as he went his heart beat high, for he did not believe +that her fears were chiefly for herself, although she had made it +appear so. +</P> + +<P> +He found the wreckage considerably altered. The gale had swept it bare +of all traces of their previous peckings and nibblings, and had piled +and stuffed it with tempting-looking new plunder. And with things less +attractive. Whatever had been left of the mate had disappeared, hurled +down probably into some black crack. But, during the day, in various +crannies he came on no less than three drowned men, partly dressed in +what appeared to him naval uniform, anyway not in the usual slops of +the merchant service. And they set him thinking how narrow, yet how +sharp, was the dividing line between themselves and the outer world. +</P> + +<P> +He built his raft as usual and toiled all day, smashing his way through +scores of boxes, cases, seamen's chests, and rooting in them as eagerly +as ever did the mate, but with a different spirit within him. +</P> + +<P> +First he gathered indispensable stores, and practice had by this time +so perfected his eye that he could tell almost at a glance what a cask +or box contained, how long it had been afloat, and what damage its +contents were likely to have suffered. +</P> + +<P> +Many odd, and some extraordinary and incomprehensible, things his hasty +search brought to light. It was indeed an absorbing inquisition into, +an endless revelation of, the ruling passions and frailties of the +human heart. +</P> + +<P> +Little hoards of money and jewelry were his commonest finds, pitiful +now in view of their uselessness to those who had gathered them. But +he would take from the pile nothing but what it rightly owed them, +means of life and the tempering of its hard conditions, and he left all +these untouched. Tobacco and pipes, and flints and steel, were lawful +plunder. +</P> + +<P> +One brass-bound chest he broke open and found great store of women's +clothing, rich with lace and finely wrought even to the eyes of a man. +The Girl might find that useful and he began to make a selection, with +the eyes of her delight dancing before him as he did so. Then with a +start, and a sharp breath of amazement, he straightened up for a +moment, crammed everything back into the chest, and hauled it to the +edge of the pile and hurled it into the sea. For there, at the bottom, +wedged tight among all these delicate draperies was the body of a +new-born child, strangled at its birth, as he knew by the look of it. +</P> + +<P> +Bundles of letters, papers which might be of highest import to waiting +friends, anxious heirs, business houses, he found in places, but left +them as they were. +</P> + +<P> +He came on another box containing women's clothes, of plainer material +and simpler make, and rooted carefully after the character of its owner +before deciding to take some back for The Girl. It seemed above +suspicion, and he rejoiced to be able to supply some of her more +pressing needs. Clothes for himself the wreckage had always been +generous of, but to come upon two chests of women's things in one day +was extraordinary. They had at times searched far and wide and +anxiously, and never lighted on one. +</P> + +<P> +He got back with his load, and in two journeys from the spit got it all +on board, before it was too dark for his reward in The Girl's exuberant +joy at the things he had brought for her. +</P> + +<P> +"Shoes! ... stockings! ... Some proper needles and thread! ... and oh, +but I am glad to see these other things! ... I was washing some of my +things while you were away, but it was not easy with one hand ... And +another brush and comb! ... and scissors! If we can clean them I can +cut your hair for you." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall be grateful. I feel like a savage. I'll clean them all +right." +</P> + +<P> +"And did you make any strange discoveries?" she asked, while they sat +at supper, as one asks news of the outer world from a traveller. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, heaps. Jewels and money, and papers, letters and so on——" +</P> + +<P> +"They might be interesting,—in winter days." +</P> + +<P> +"I had not thought of that. I'll bring you an armful tomorrow." +</P> + +<P> +"You will go again tomorrow?" +</P> + +<P> +"I must go till I think we have enough for the winter's siege. There +may be weeks when I can't get out there. This storm brought in a +mighty pile of stuff and it's best to get it while it's in good +condition. Do you want more clothes if I can find them?" +</P> + +<P> +"A woman never has too many," she laughed. "But don't waste time +searching for them. I can manage very well, especially now that I have +needles and thread." +</P> + +<P> +"I just smash open each box as I come to it. One never knows what one +may come upon. Their contents are as different as their owners. I +have been trying to imagine them from their belongings." +</P> + +<P> +He wrought at the pile for many days, and she filled in the time at +home by evaporating endless pans of water over the fire to get the +salt, and managed to accumulate quite a fair supply. +</P> + +<P> +He brought over for her amusement a great bundle of written papers +which she was too busy to delve into at the moment, all her time being +given to salt-making. And then one day he returned exultant with some +great lumps of rock salt, such as cattle love to lick, and her little +efforts were like to be put in the shade. But he averred that her salt +was infinitely the finer to a cultivated taste and they would use it +only on very special occasions. +</P> + +<P> +He brought her too a quantity of oatmeal in cases, and—treasure-trove +indeed—a dozen cans of the oil used for ships' lights. He searched in +vain for a lantern, but felt sure he could turn that oil to account in +some way during the long winter nights. From the marks on the cases in +the neighbourhood of these discoveries, and the superior quality of +some of their contents, he thought a warship must have gone down not +very far away. +</P> + +<P> +His belief was confirmed by finding other unusual supplies in the same +place, and he worked at it for days until there was hardly a case or +box or barrel which he had not tapped. +</P> + +<P> +One of his greatest finds was a handful of spare tools, in a chest that +had probably belonged to a ship's carpenter—an auger, a gimlet, a +chisel, a screwdriver, and a small piece of sharpening hone. And that +same day he lighted on an unpretentious little box, stoutly made of +deal, which had swelled with the water to the partial protection of its +contents. A glance inside showed him how great was this treasure, and +he carried it at once to his raft and bestowed it with care. +</P> + +<P> +When he opened the little deal case on deck that evening The Girl gave +a joyful cry, "Books! Oh, but I am glad, and the winter nights will +not be long! Let me see them all quickly.—"Poems," by Robert Burns. +"Life of Samuel Johnson," by James Boswell. The Book of Common Prayer. +"Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," by Edward Gibbon, Vol 1. "The +Vicar of Wakefield," by Oliver Goldsmith. "Tristram Shandy," by +Laurence Sterne. "The Castle of Otranto," by Horace Walpole. The +Annual Register—one, two, three volumes. "Tom Jones," by Henry +Fielding. "Clarissa Harlowe," by Samuel Richardson. Cruden's +Concordance. Hymns by Rev. Isaac Watts, D.D. A Bible. One, two, +three volumes of sermons. John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" and "Holy +War," and Foxe's "Book of Martyrs"! Oh, we shall do famously. Now +what do you make of the owner of this fine thing?" she challenged him +merrily. +</P> + +<P> +"A parson, I should say. They are the greatest readers. But that is +easily seen," and he turned to the fly-leaves of several of the volumes +and found them all inscribed with the same name, 'James Elwes, Esq. +M.A. Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford.' +</P> + +<P> +"Good Mr Elwes! I am sorry he is drowned, but I am grateful to him for +taking his books with him when he travelled, and leaving them behind +him when he went. That is the greatest find yet," said she. +</P> + +<P> +"We won't despise the lower things. All the same I'm glad to have the +books." +</P> + +<P> +"They will be a wonderful help. Let us dry them at once. They are +more precious than jewels," and he got her soft cloths, and they +carefully mopped up and wiped over every volume and promised them they +should be set in the sun to complete their cure on the morrow. +</P> + +<P> +"And those horrid birds?" she asked, as they worked. "You had no +trouble from them?" +</P> + +<P> +"They were all too busy elsewhere. There is grain enough floating +about there to feed a city. They will be plump and happy birds for +some time to come. They were too busy even to quarrel and they never +so much as looked my way." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +LI +</P> + +<P> +As though exhausted by its late violence, or needing rest before +renewing it, the weather continued mild and open except for occasional +mists. +</P> + +<P> +Thanks to her own caution and Wulfrey's assiduous attention, The Girl's +arm was going on well, and she was looking forward eagerly to being an +active member of society again. +</P> + +<P> +"You see, I have never been laid up in my life before," she said, "and +it is unnatural to me. A dozen times a day I have to stop that +wretched arm when it wants to do something." +</P> + +<P> +"A very little longer and it shall do what it wants, within reason. +Let me rub it again for you." +</P> + +<P> +"You are a great believer in rubbing," she said, with reminiscent +smiles, as she surrendered the arm to him, and he rubbed it gently and +tirelessly to keep the sinews and muscles from stiffening. +</P> + +<P> +"I have found great virtue in it, and great reward," he smiled back. +</P> + +<P> +He took her ashore almost every day, and they rambled far along the +northern beach and enjoyed the soft autumnal days to the full. But all +the time his thoughts were on the coming winter whose rigours he had no +means of forecasting. And so, like a wise man, he made such provision +as was possible for the worst. +</P> + +<P> +He set her to gathering and drying every herb she deemed suitable for +seasoning purposes. And he himself caught very many fish and split +them open and dried them in the sun as he had read was done elsewhere. +He tried some rabbits in the same way, but they did not take to it and +had to be used for bait. +</P> + +<P> +And, after a few days' rest from his exertions at the wreckage, he set +to work on building a house on shore, in case anything should happen to +the 'Jane and Mary,' or they should find solid ground preferable to +water during the winter gales. +</P> + +<P> +He had for a long time past secured every nail he could knock out of +the old timbers, and regarded them as most precious possessions. The +finding of the auger and gimlet opened up wider possibilities. Where +nails are scarce, a hole and a peg may take their place. Wood he had +in superfluity, for the remains of every raft that had brought cargo +from the pile lay strewn about the spit, in some cases hurled half-way +across it by the waves that broke there in the storm times. +</P> + +<P> +Where best to build was a matter not easily decided. They would need +all the sunshine obtainable. But all the heaviest gales came from the +south and west and from these they wanted shelter. And they must be +within easy reach of the fresh-water pools and not too far from the +ship, where their supplies would be mostly stored. +</P> + +<P> +After much discussion they fixed on an odd little hollow—a mere cup in +the centre of three sandhills of size, which stood close together and +moreover were well matted with wire-grass and looked too solid to whirl +away in a gale as the smaller hills constantly did. +</P> + +<P> +To the south-west of these stood the largest hill in the neighbourhood, +and this would break the force of the gales in that direction. The +water-pools lay out in the sandy plain just beyond this hill. +</P> + +<P> +Wulf entered on the building of this first house he had ever attempted, +with the gusto of a schoolboy. +</P> + +<P> +"I feel about fourteen," he laughed, as he detailed his ideas to her. +</P> + +<P> +"So do I,—except this wretched arm, which is one hundred and five." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll soon have it back to fourteen. You see, if I can carve out the +sides of those three smaller hills, and back our house into each of +them, it will make immensely for solidity and warmth. No gale can blow +through a sand-hill, though they do waltz about now and again. But +these seem fairly well set and fixed. I'll start on it tomorrow. I +wish I had a spade and a saw. I can chop out some kind of a spade from +a plank, maybe, but, lacking a saw, the house will be a bit rough, I'm +afraid." +</P> + +<P> +"That doesn't matter as long as it stands up and keeps us warm." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I'll guarantee it will stand up and keep you warm." +</P> + +<P> +"Can you make a chimney?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've been thinking of that. I will run four boards up through a hole +in the roof, and we must try to induce the smoke to go up. There is no +clay here, you see, nor stone,—nothing but sand." +</P> + +<P> +The site settled, he set to work at once rafting his timber across the +lake from the spit, and then hauling it across the sandy plain past the +fresh-water pools, and this gave him a full week's hard labour. Some +of the lighter planks he let The Girl drag across, since she insisted +on having at all events one hand in the work. The heavier ones were as +much as he could handle himself. In his rest times, and after supper +of a night, he whittled pegs till he had an ample supply, and sharpened +his axes with the bit of hone he had found in the carpenter's chest. +</P> + +<P> +With his axe he hacked out a rude spade from a plank, and trimmed the +handle and the point with his knife; and then he set to work on his +three sandhills, cutting down the side of each where it rounded down +into the cup-like hollow, and flinging the sand into the cup itself to +make a level floor. +</P> + +<P> +The building of such a house was entirely new to him, but he had brains +and he bent them all to every problem that presented itself, and never +failed to find the way out. For instance,—the space he wished his +house to occupy between the sandhills was quite twelve feet in width, +and his planks ran mostly to six or eight feet only. There must +therefore be a row of posts in the middle, with one or more beams on +top as a ridge-pole, from which he could carry side pieces to the walls +six feet away on either side, and he had foreseen some difficulty in +fixing these posts absolutely rigid in the yielding sand. If they +wobbled or gave in any direction his roof would be in danger. +</P> + +<P> +But before he began carving down his sand-slopes he had settled that +point. He selected his uprights, the longest and strongest in his +stock, chopped them to size, and to the end of each pegged stout flat +cross-pieces, boring the holes with his auger and driving home the pegs +with the back of his axe. These he set up in a line in the middle of +the hollow, standing upright on their cross-piece feet. Then, as he +carved down his slope, every spadeful of sand buried the cross-pieces +deeper, till, when he had finished, they were under two feet of +well-trampled sand and he looked upon their rigidity as a personal +triumph. +</P> + +<P> +That was surely as extraordinary a house as was ever built by a man who +knew nothing whatever about building. It took him five full weeks and +he enjoyed every minute of it. And so did The Girl, for she sat in the +sun, watching all his cheerful activities with envious eyes because she +was so unable to share them, discussing points with him as they arose, +giving suggestions and advice which he always adopted when they chimed +with his own, and approving heartily of all he did. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish I could help,"—how many times she said it, and thought it very +many more. "It is disgusting to have to sit and watch while you work +like a—like a galley-slave." +</P> + +<P> +"Galley-slaves don't build houses—not such houses as this anyway. +There never was such a house before," he laughed. "Besides, you help +more than you know by simply sitting there and approving of it. 'They +also serve,' you know, 'who only sit and watch.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Who says that?" +</P> + +<P> +"One John Milton,—not quite in those words, but the meaning is the +same. As a matter of fact, he had, I believe, just gone blind when he +said it and was feeling rather out of it. Your arm will soon be all +right again. It's doing famously." +</P> + +<P> +Truly a wonderful house, not so much because of the quaint way in which +its difficulties were surmounted or evaded—which alone might have +given an ordinary builder nightmares for the rest of his life, but more +especially by reason of the rose-golden thoughts which swept at times +like flame through hearts and minds of both watcher and builder as they +wrought. If all those glowing thoughts could have transmuted +themselves into visible adornment of that rough little home no fairy +palace could have vied with it. +</P> + +<P> +For ever and again—and mostly ever—in his heart—helping the auger as +it bored and the axe as it hammered the pegs well home—was the thought +that was radiant enough and mighty enough to transform that desolate +bank of sand into a veritable Garden of Eden;—"If no rescue comes, +here we shall live—she and I—together,—one in heart and soul and +body, and here, maybe, we shall die. But death is a long way off, and +Love lives on forever. I would not exchange my Kingdom for all the +Kingdoms of the earth." +</P> + +<P> +And perhaps he would permit himself a foretaste from the cup of that +intoxicating happiness, in a quick caressing glance at her as she sat +in the sand nursing her arm; and at times she caught those stolen +glances, for her eyes found great satisfaction in his tireless energy +and visible enjoyment in his work. +</P> + +<P> +And she knew as well as if he had told her in words,—nay better, for, +without a word, the heart speaks louder than all the words in the world +when it shines through honest eyes,—she knew all that possessed him +concerning her, and she was not discomforted thereby. +</P> + +<P> +She trusted him completely. She had never felt towards any man as she +did to this man. Whatever he willed for her would be right. Her whole +heart and soul rejoiced that he should find such hope and joy in her. +She was wholly his for the asking, but she knew he would not ask it all +until he was satisfied in his own mind that he was right in asking and +she in giving. +</P> + +<P> +She felt like a wounded bird, sitting below there, while her mate built +their nest up above. But not, she said to herself, like their island +birds, for they were harsh and cruel, with cold hard eyes, and +ever-craving hunger in place of hearts. +</P> + +<P> +That wonderful house, when at last it was finished, would have given no +satisfaction to the soul of any ordinary builder, but to these two it +was a monument of hard work and difficulties overcome. +</P> + +<P> +It contained one room twelve feet square in front, with two smaller +rooms opening out of it at the back. The roof sloped slightly from +ridge-pole to side-walls and was made in four layers—boards side by +side below, then thick sheets of crimson velvet, an outer shield of +overlapping planks, and a thick coat of sand and growing wire-grass +over all. He was hopeful that it would withstand the heaviest gales +and rains the winter might bring. The walls were of stout boards +backed up against the sandhills, with new sandhills thrown up in the +intervening spaces, and inside they were draped with more crimson +velvet, of which they had a large supply. The floor was of planks. +The door had been a troublesome problem, and, lacking hinges, had to be +lifted bodily in and out of its place. The bay-window alongside it was +the cabin skylight from the 'Martha' and this, and the square +smoke-shaft of four stout boards above the sand hearth, they regarded +as crowning achievements. +</P> + +<P> +Emboldened by success, and finding enjoyment in the development of a +craft of which he had never suspected himself until now,—experiencing +too, to the very fullest, the primal blessing of work, he evolved an +arm-chair for The Girl, out of a barrel that had once held salt pork, +and when its asperities were softened and hidden under voluminous folds +of red velvet she assured him it was the most comfortable chair she had +ever sat in. +</P> + +<P> +And, for his part, he knew that no girl ever sat in any chair that ever +was made who could compare with her. +</P> + +<P> +Beds too he made with some old sail-cloth fitted to rough frames, and a +table, and their furnishing sufficed, though he promised to add to it +during the winter. +</P> + +<P> +The Girl's arm was well again, though he still urged caution in the use +of it, and kept a watchful eye on it and her; and never had he felt +himself so full of the joy and strength of life. When the house was +finished, they brought over a supply of stores and lived in it for a +time, and turned the waning autumn days to account by long ramblings +all over the island, in anticipation of the days when ill weather might +coop them strictly within narrower bounds. +</P> + +<P> +There were no discoveries to make in land or sea or sky, scarcely any +in themselves. He felt assured in his own mind that she was not +unaware of all that he felt for her. The fact, the great undeniable +fact, that she did not seem to resent it, was a deep joy to him. +</P> + +<P> +Their good-comradeship had known no cloud. She was as charmingly frank +and gracious as ever. She talked away without reserve or constraint of +that strange past life of hers, which, in every smallest particular, +was so absolutely the opposite of this one. And never once did she +display any hankering after Egypt, rather seemed to regard this as the +Promised Land, or at all events the doorway to it. +</P> + +<P> +Ever and again the possibilities of rescue or escape came to the front +in their discussions, but grew less and less as the weeks went by. He +had been seven months on the island, and she four, and save herself, in +all that time no other living soul had come to it,—unless, as the mate +had so strenuously held, the bodies of those discomforting sea-birds +were occupied by the souls of drowned sailor men. +</P> + +<P> +"And you, you know, were a miracle," he would remind her. "The chances +against you were about a thousand to one——" +</P> + +<P> +"And you were that one." +</P> + +<P> +"It was not that I was thinking of——" +</P> + +<P> +"I never forget it." +</P> + +<P> +"This place is undoubtedly shunned, as Macro said. It is known as a +death-trap. No ship comes here except in pieces. No man comes until +he is dead. And so, our prospects of rescue or escape are very small, +I fear. For your sake I wish it were otherwise." +</P> + +<P> +"Have I shown signs of discontent, then? I assure you I have never +been so ... so content to wait and hope. It is the most delightful +holiday from the world I have ever had.... Sometime perhaps we shall +look back upon it as the wide dividing line between the old world and +the new ... and between the old life and the new." +</P> + +<P> +"A line is black as a rule." +</P> + +<P> +"It may be light," she said, and waved her hand expressively towards +the shimmering golden spear which the setting sun sent quivering over +the water right up to their feet, as they stood watching it on the +beach. +</P> + +<P> +"If we could only walk on it!" she said softly, as the red disc swelled +and sank and disappeared amid a glory of tender lucent greens and blues +and glowing orange, with a line of crimson fire on the edge of every +hovering cloud, and a heavenful of crimson flakes and splashes +smouldering slowly into gray above their heads. +</P> + +<P> +"It points the road, but we cannot take it," he said quietly, and they +turned and went back to the house. +</P> + +<P> +There were times when she thought he was about to tell her all that was +in his heart concerning her. She could see it in his face and eyes and +restless manner. And she was ready to respond. +</P> + +<P> +There were times when it was almost more than he could do to keep it +all in. He believed she knew. He hardly doubted her response. +</P> + +<P> +But he said to himself, with set jaw and a firmer grip of his +manhood,—"She has known me just four months. She is here helpless in +my hands. I may not press her unduly, for she might feel that she +could hardly say me nay. Her very helplessness must make me the more +careful and considerate." +</P> + +<P> +And more than once, when the desire of his heart was leaping to his +lips, he jumped up abruptly and went out into the night and strode away +along the beach. And there he would pace to and fro under the quiet +stars, with the black waves swirling up the shore in long slow gleams +of shimmering silver, till the peace of it all passed into his blood, +and presently he would go quietly in again, with face and heart toned +down to reasonableness. +</P> + +<P> +And when he went out so, The Girl would smile to herself at times, as +one who understood. And again, at times the smile would slowly fade +and she would sit thoughtful. But, if she wondered somewhat, and found +him beyond her complete understanding, she liked him none the less for +his restraint. +</P> + +<P> +She was quite happy in their present fellowship, but she knew it could +not continue so, indefinitely. A man always wants more. The woman +gives. +</P> + +<P> +She felt towards this man as she had never felt towards any man before. +Without a word spoken, she was satisfied as to the integrity of his +intentions, as she had never been of any of those who had approached +her in that old life, and she had been approached by many. But the +coinage of love about the Court had grown as debased as did the paper +money of the Republic later on. Whispers of love had become but fair +cloaks for foul deeds. This man had whispered nothing, but she +understood him and held him in honour. +</P> + +<P> +And she was in no hurry. His love would not burn out, or she was much +mistaken in him. The flame repressed burns brightest in the end. +</P> + +<P> +And then ... and then.... Well, she sometimes laid hold of the future +by the ears, as it were, and held its changing face while she peered +intently into it, and endeavoured to read there all that it might mean +for her. +</P> + +<P> +Sooner or later he would open his heart to her—and that would be the +first change. Their relationship would of necessity become closer and +warmer. She would welcome that. It would bring great happiness to +them both. +</P> + +<P> +And then—later on—sometime—when all hope of rescue or escape had +left them ... he would ask still more of her.... That was +inevitable.... And in her heart, hiding behind a thinning cloud of +doubt, which had, when first it came upon her, been tinged with dismay, +she knew he would be right, and that in consenting, she would do no +wrong, although it must run counter to all her normal views of right +and wrong. +</P> + +<P> +She faced it all squarely and honestly,—Courtship properly ends in +Marriage. If by this accident of their strange fate the regular +marriage rites prescribed by the law of the land could not take place, +they would have to content themselves without them. It was inevitable. +</P> + +<P> +Elemental views of right and wrong were indeed tap-rooted in her heart +and safe from bruising. But she recognised that circumstances alter +cases and that normal views were out of place here. +</P> + +<P> +And as to the law of the land—what country claimed this bank of sand +she did not know. It was a No Man's Land, outside the pale of all laws +save God's and Nature's. +</P> + +<P> +With no man she had ever met, except this man, could she have imagined +herself considering possibilities such as these. But with him she +would feel as safe and happy as if all the archbishops and bishops in +the land had performed the ceremony. For, after all, it was only man's +law and man's ceremony; and God's law and Nature's were mightier than +these. +</P> + +<P> +With such thoughts in her—deep thoughts and long—she could wait +quietly, and she veiled her feelings for him lest he should deem her of +light mind and too easily to be won. +</P> + +<P> +Now and again, induced perhaps by some adverse humour of body or +atmosphere, a plaguy little fear would leap at her heart and nibble it +with sharp teeth,—could it be that he had ties in the old life of +which he had never dared to hint,—some other woman—to whom he was +bound by honour or by law? +</P> + +<P> +He had told her much, and yet not very much. Had he told her all? Did +men ever tell all? He had told her much, but there was room in what he +had not told for anything—for everything. +</P> + +<P> +But surely he had one time said that he had left no ties behind +him,—that he was alone. +</P> + +<P> +If there should be anything of the kind it would explain his +self-restraint, his quiet service, the looks he could not wholly check, +the words he did not speak. +</P> + +<P> +That his heart had gone out to herself she could not mistake. But that +was not incompatible with ties elsewhere that might keep them apart. +</P> + +<P> +But fears such as that could not hold her long. They had sprung up, in +spite of her, once or twice when he had jumped up and left her alone, +and gone out into the night to pace the beach. But when he returned, +quieted and all himself again, they disappeared at once, and her heart +was at rest. Wrong and this man had nothing in common, she said to +herself. She felt as sure of his honour as of her own. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +LII +</P> + +<P> +"This weather cannot last much longer," he said, one night as they sat +talking after supper; he with his pipe, which she never would permit +him to sacrifice on her account, pronouncing the smell of it homely and +comfortable, in spite of his apologies for the varied qualities of his +tobacco. "We must be somewhere near the end of October." +</P> + +<P> +"It is either the 21st or 22nd or 23rd," she said very definitely. +</P> + +<P> +"You have kept count?" +</P> + +<P> +"Except the time I was on the mast and before I came to life again." +</P> + +<P> +"Two days probably." +</P> + +<P> +"I imagined so. In that case it is the 21st." +</P> + +<P> +"And we must be ready for November and bad weather. Would you sooner +stop here or go back to the 'Jane and Mary'?" +</P> + +<P> +"We could not be more comfortable than we are here. But I will do +whatever you wish." +</P> + +<P> +He glanced at her through the wreathing smoke of fire and pipe, for +nothing they could do would make it all go up the chimney. +</P> + +<P> +Would she say as much if he asked her more? he wondered. +</P> + +<P> +Was she ready to be asked? Or was it still too soon? +</P> + +<P> +If he told her all that was in his heart, would he startle her out of +this most pleasant companionship? +</P> + +<P> +She sat gazing quietly into the fire of scraps of old ship's timber. +Those leaping tongues of blue and green and yellow and crimson flame +were a never-failing joy to her. Many a curious thing had she seen in +them, and thought many strange thoughts to the tune of their merry +dance. +</P> + +<P> +She was winsome beyond words when she sat so, with the lights and +shadows playing over her face, and about the misty dark eyes in which +her clear soul dwelt and shone without disguisements. +</P> + +<P> +Suppose he said to her—here and now,—"Avice, dearest, do you know +what you are to me? I cannot possibly tell you in words, but—do you +know?..." And she said "I know,"—and said again, "I will do whatever +you wish...." +</P> + +<P> +Ah—God! ... If that could be he would ask no more of life.... One +word from her and this bare bank would be swept with golden fires; in +the twinkling of an eye it would become a Paradise for him and her to +dwell in.... +</P> + +<P> +If he sat there looking at her it must out. He could not keep it in. +And why should he? Why not tell her, here and now? ... +</P> + +<P> +He got up quietly and strode out into the night. A smile hovered in +the corners of her lips, as, without looking, she caught sight of his +face. Then she rose also and stole out after him. +</P> + +<P> +She was causing him pain when she wished him only joy. His thought, +she knew, was all for her. She would think and act for them both. If +he had sat there like a pent-up volcano for another second the hot lava +would have come rushing out. She had felt it all in the air. Her +heart too was so full of expectant joy that the tension was akin to +pain. +</P> + +<P> +It was very dark, with only throbbing stars in a velvet sky and the +white gleam of the foam along the beach. She did not know which way he +had gone, but he would come back presently, all himself again. She +sank down into the side of a hummock and waited. +</P> + +<P> +He came at last, slowly, heavily, with bent head. +</P> + +<P> +He stopped quite close to her, where the way led to the house, and +stood looking out over the darkness of the sea. Then he heaved a great +sigh and turned to go back to the house. +</P> + +<P> +"God!" she heard him mutter. "If I dared but tell her!" +</P> + +<P> +She rose swiftly out of her form and caught him by the arm, with +something between a laugh and a cry, "Tell me, then!"—and the mighty +arms of his love were round her, gripping her to him till she was +squeezed almost breathless. +</P> + +<P> +"Avice! Avice!—and you knew! Oh, thank God for you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course I knew," she gasped. "And I want you as much as you want +me." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank God for you, dearest!" he said deeply. "We will thank Him all +our lives. He has given us with a full hand.... I have nothing left +to ask Him ... except your fullest happiness, now and always." +</P> + +<P> +"And I yours. You are my happiness. You give me Heaven." +</P> + +<P> +"God requite me ten times over if ever you rue this day. I have longed +for you till my heart was sick with the pain of longing——" +</P> + +<P> +"Foolish! Why did you not tell me before?" +</P> + +<P> +"I could not. Until I knew.... Placed as we are, you see, it felt +like forcing you.... You might not have felt free to say no.... It +might have put an end to all our comradeship...." +</P> + +<P> +"You don't know me. I'd have said no quickly enough if I hadn't wanted +you. But I do, and you make me very happy." +</P> + +<P> +He led her into the house and held her there at arm's length in the +firelight, as though he could hardly believe it all true, and looked +deep into the dark eyes and rosy face and kissed it rosier still. +</P> + +<P> +And the blue and yellow and green and crimson flames danced their +merriest, as these two sat hand in hand watching them, and talking +softly by snatches with long sweet silences in between. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +LIII +</P> + +<P> +"I was so afraid there might be some other to whom you were bound," she +said, as she lay there in the firelight, with her head against his arm +and his right hand smoothing her hair, that wonderful hair which had +been to him as the aureole of a saint and was more to him now than all +the gold in all the world. +</P> + +<P> +"There is no other, my dear one. Not a soul on earth has any claim on +me except that of friendship.... It was inevitable that we should both +have that fear. Four months ago we did not know of one another's +existence——" +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't it wonderful?" she murmured. "I wonder if we had never met if +you would have found someone else——" +</P> + +<P> +"Never anyone to fill my heart as you do. I cannot even imagine it." +</P> + +<P> +"And if I should have found someone else?" +</P> + +<P> +"That is possible, but no one who could feel for you all that I do, or +could want you as much as I do. You are to me the one supreme good," +and the clasp of his arm told her even more than his words. +</P> + +<P> +"You do not ask me if I had any ties in the old life," she began. +</P> + +<P> +"You would not be lying in my arm like this if there were. I know you +too well." +</P> + +<P> +"That is true and I thank you. It is good to be taken on trust. But +indeed there were none. The men one met there—faugh!—they were +masquers, puppets, dandies;—some had brains, but few had hearts, and +they were most dreadful liars. Such talents as they possessed were +devoted to finesse and intrigue, and the turning of everything to their +own satisfaction and advantage." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank God you are out of it all." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I do thank God,—for the shipwreck and everything else, but +chiefly that He sent you here to meet me and took that other one away." +</P> + +<P> +The weather held still for a few days, and he spent them in providing +for her future comfort in every way he could think of. +</P> + +<P> +He chopped logs enough to last them through the winter, and piled them +in stacks about the house. He got over from the ship supplies in +abundance. As the result of much labour and many failures he +constructed a primitive lamp out of the silver mug from which Macro +used to swill his rum. He distorted a beak out of one side of it, and +contrived a wick which passed through a hole in a piece of beaten +copper, and if the light was not brilliant it was at all events +steadier to read by than the dancing flames. +</P> + +<P> +He had lighted quite by accident on Macro's hidden hoard in the hold of +the 'Jane and Mary.' He was rooting in a corner there for his knife, +which had worked out of its sheath at his back as he hoisted out +provisions, and found it sticking point downwards in a plank. As he +pulled it out, the plank gave slightly, and lifting it he found, +underneath, the useless treasure. +</P> + +<P> +He wanted none of it, was indeed loth to touch it, but, on +consideration, took out two more silver mugs for their daily service +and half a dozen gold pins and brooches for Avice's use, since she was +always needing such things and regretting her lack of them. +</P> + +<P> +The long spell of mild soft weather—which had come at last to have in +it a sense of sickness and decay—broke up in the wildest storm they +had yet seen. +</P> + +<P> +The birds came whirling in in a shrieking cloud, but the wind +out-shrieked them. It shrilled above their heads in a ceaseless +strident scream like the yelling of souls in torment. It shook their +protecting sandhills and made their house shiver right down to the +buried cross-pieces of its pillars. It picked up the smaller hummocks +outside and set them waltzing along the shore. It heaped a foot of new +sand on their roof and sent a cartload of it down the chimney. +</P> + +<P> +But their position had been well chosen. The more the sand piled on +their house and against it, the tighter it became. Then the rain came +down in sheets and torrents, but no drop came through, except down the +chimney, and that Wulf presently plugged with a blanket and let the +smoke find its way out through an inch of opened door, which he had +purposely placed to leeward, as all their great storms came from the +south and south-west. +</P> + +<P> +But the change of atmosphere was bracing, and with solid sand under +their feet, and assured of the safety of their house, they welcomed it +and felt the better for it. +</P> + +<P> +After the first day's confinement he must out to see, and she would not +stay behind. So they rigged themselves in oldest garments and fewest +possible and started out. +</P> + +<P> +They were drenched to the skin in a second and whirled away like leaves +the instant they forsook the cover of their hollow. +</P> + +<P> +Avice was being carried bodily towards their nearest shore. He feared +she would go headlong into the sea and started wildly after her. He +saw her throw herself flat and grip at the sand, but she was broadside +on to the merciless wind and it bowled her over and over, and rolled +her along like a ball. It carried him along in ten-feet leaps. He +flung himself down beside her, put his arm round her, wrenched her head +to the gale, and they lay there breathless, she choking hysterically +with paroxysms of laughter. +</P> + +<P> +It took them an hour, crawling like moles, to get back to the shelter +of the hills. He would have had her go in, but she would not hear of +it. They could hear the booming thunder of the great waves on the spit +even above the wind, and she must see them. +</P> + +<P> +So they set off once more, flat to the sand, and worked round in time +to the breast of the great hill near the fresh-water pools, and lay in +it, safe from dislodgment unless the hill went too. +</P> + +<P> +They could only peer through pinched eyes, and then only with their +hands over them, into the teeth of that wind, but, even so, the sight +was magnificent and appalling. The grim gray sky and the grim gray sea +met just beyond the spit, and out of that close sky the huge gray waves +burst, high as houses,—whole streets of houses rushing headlong to +destruction. They curved gloriously to their fall with a glint of +muddy green below and all their crests abristle with white foam-fury. +Right out of the sky they came, right up to the sky they seemed to +reach, flinging up at it great white spouts of spray like flouting +curses, towering high above the land, crashing down upon it with a +thunderous roar which thinned the voice of the wind to no more than a +shrill piping. +</P> + +<P> +Their own land-locked lake was lashed into fury also. The flying +crests of the outer waves came rocketing over in wild white splashes. +He was not sure that some of the waves themselves did not cover the +spit and come roaring into it. The 'Jane and Mary' danced wildly to +her cable. He wondered if it would hold. The 'Martha,' more than ever +on her beam-ends, was being pounded like a drum. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you feel that?" he shouted in her ear, and she nodded, with a +touch of fear in her wind-blown face. For, under the impact of one +vast mountainous avalanche, the very ground on which they lay seemed to +shake like a jelly, and the whole island shuddered. +</P> + +<P> +"It cannot wash it all away, can it?" she gasped, when they had wormed +their way back to shelter. +</P> + +<P> +"It never has done yet anyway," he said cheerfully, as he squeezed +windy tears out of his smarting eyes. "Now, dear, change all your +things at once. We are wet through to the bone." +</P> + +<P> +"It was very wonderful. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. But +I'm glad we're ashore," and she slipped away into her own room. +</P> + +<P> +That was the first of the winter storms, and there were many like it. +But they bore them equably. They were in splendid health, the weather +at its worst was never very cold, indeed the gales were more to their +taste than the smothering chill of the frequent fogs. They had all +they needed,—food and fire, and light and books, a weather-tight +house, and one another. +</P> + +<P> +If they lacked much of what their former life had taught them to +consider necessary, they had more than all that former life had given +them, and they were happy. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +LIV +</P> + +<P> +Between the storms and fog-spells, they tramped to and fro discovering +the changes wrought in their island, and many a strange thing their +wanderings showed them. +</P> + +<P> +One great gale which lasted a full week strewed the south-west Point +with wreckage as thickly almost as the great pile beyond. Their hearts +ached at thought of the still greater loss it represented, of which the +proofs were never lacking. The chaotic bristle was studded with the +bodies of the drowned, and the sight sent them home sorrowfully, yet +marvelling the more at their own deliverance, and still more grateful +for it. +</P> + +<P> +"We are miracles, without a doubt," said Wulf gravely, as they went +back home. "No one else gets here alive, you see.... I was the first +miracle. Macro was the second," and he told her what she had not known +before, how he had contrived to save the mate, and of his regret that +it had not been old Jock Steele the carpenter, who would have been a +blessing to them instead of a curse. "And you are the third and best +miracle of all," he said, clasping her arm more tightly under his own. +"God! what a difference it has made!" he said fervently. "Alone here +one might go mad. In time one most certainly would. See how good a +work you are accomplishing by simply remaining alive. Instead of being +a melancholy madman you make me the happiest man on earth. Oh, the +God-given wonder of a woman! Truly you are the greatest miracle of +all, and He has been good to me." +</P> + +<P> +"And to me. If you had not been here I should have been dead and we +would never have met. Perhaps He sent us to one another." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure He did, and all our lives we'll thank Him for it," and so the +sight of the dead but put a keener edge on their gratitude for life and +their joy in one another. +</P> + +<P> +The next big storm washed the point clean again. All had gone, +wreckage, bodies, everything, and the great pile beyond bristled higher +than ever. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you notice anything strange?" he asked her, as they stood looking +out at it. +</P> + +<P> +"There seems more of it." +</P> + +<P> +"And not a bird to be seen. They've all gone for the winter, I expect. +We shall not see them again till next year." +</P> + +<P> +"I am glad. They are evil things. Our Paradise is sweeter without +them," and he kissed her for the word. +</P> + +<P> +The weird forces of the gales, however, afforded them many surprises. +</P> + +<P> +Tramping round the further end of their lake one day, they saw changes +in the great stretch of sand that ran out of sight towards the eastern +point. What had been a level plain was scored and furrowed as by a +mighty ploughshare. It was like a rough sea whose tumbling waves had +in an instant been turned into sand—league-long grooves with +high-piled ridges between, and in the hollows the watery sun glinted +briefly here and there on shining white objects sticking out of the +sand. +</P> + +<P> +"Bones!" said Wulf in surprise, as they stood looking into the first +hollow, and he jumped down and picked up a human skull. +</P> + +<P> +"Horrid!" said Avice. "And there's another, and another over there. +It's a regular grave-yard." +</P> + +<P> +"A battle-field, I should say," as he examined them one after another. +"This is very curious. This fellow was killed by a bullet through the +head. Here's the hole. And this one's skull was split with an axe or +a sword. This one also. I wonder what it all means...." +</P> + +<P> +"Pirates and murderers. That's what they look like." +</P> + +<P> +"I shouldn't wonder.... Here's an ancient cutlass." +</P> + +<P> +"And what's this?"—rooting at something with her foot.... "An old +pistol! ... and the hilt of another sword! ... I wonder if they were +the men who lived on our ships." +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe. But I think these things are older than the ships.... +Why—the place is thick with them," as they wandered on. "There must +be scores of them, and more still underneath the ridges, no doubt.... +There was no lack of life here at one time evidently——" +</P> + +<P> +"And death!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and death without a doubt. A good thing for us, perhaps, that +customers such as these don't frequent it now." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm glad we live at the other end. You haven't found any bones there, +have you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not a bone! They're not very cheerful company. Let us hope the next +gale will cover them up again." +</P> + +<P> +Further on, in another trench, they found one side of a boat, mouldered +almost into the similitude of the sand in which it had been embedded +for very many years. And, further along still, Wulf thought he could +make out the stark ribs of ships like those on the outer banks at their +own end of the island. But they were very far away and held out no +inducement to closer investigation, and Avice had had enough of such +things for the time being. +</P> + +<P> +There were spells of bad weather, when, for days at a time, they +scarcely ventured out except to get in wood or fetch water from the +pools, which always meant a thorough soaking. +</P> + +<P> +But they were completely happy in one another's company, and ever more +grateful for the Providence that had cast their lot together. +</P> + +<P> +The days slipped by without one weary hour. Shrewder and subtler +proving of hearts and temperaments could hardly be conceived. But they +stood the test perfectly, never thought of it as such, found in their +present estate nothing but cause for joy and deepest thankfulness. +</P> + +<P> +The depth and warmth of his love for her expressed itself in most +devoted service and tenderest care, and hers for him in so frank and +implicit a confidence that he felt it an uplifting honour to be so +favoured. Indeed the man who could have betrayed so great a trust must +have been lowest of the low and basest of his kind. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't help wondering sometimes whether we would have felt like this +to one another if we had met in an ordinary way, outside there," she +said musingly, one night, as she lay in the hollow of his arm, watching +the coloured flames. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he said emphatically. "For you laid hold of my heart as soon as +I set eyes on you. It got tangled first in the meshes of your hair, +and in your long eyelashes, and the thing I wanted most was to see what +your eyes were like. They were wells of mystery." +</P> + +<P> +"And—they were right?" she laughed softly. +</P> + +<P> +"They were exactly right and just what I had hoped. Large and dark and +eloquent and tender and true and——" +</P> + +<P> +"Dear! dear! If I had known such an inquisition was going I should +have been afraid to open them." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, you didn't know me, you see." +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't know you, but I knew I was all right as soon as I saw you. I +knew I could trust you.... How strange and wonderful it all was!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +LV +</P> + +<P> +One strange and terrible experience they had when the winter was almost +over, and it came within measurable distance of making an end of them +both. +</P> + +<P> +Depending on their reserve stock of flour on board the 'Jane and Mary,' +they had used freely what they had on shore. When he opened the other +he found to his dismay that it must have been more damaged at first +than he imagined. It was nearly all mouldy and smelt badly. He had +run short of tobacco also, and so decided to go over to the pile for +supplies on the first possible day. +</P> + +<P> +The worst of the storms seemed over. They had occasional brisk +gleaming days in between times, and on one such, after seeing that +Avice had all she would need in his absence, they set off along the +northern shore. +</P> + +<P> +She wanted to go out with him, but he dissuaded her from that. The +crossing would be very different from what it was in the summer and he +would not have her exposed to it. Besides, he intended to make only a +short job of it, just get what he wanted, and be back almost before she +knew he had gone. She was so loth to be parted from him, however, even +for that short time, that she insisted on walking with him to the point +and said she would sit there and wait till she saw him on his way back. +</P> + +<P> +So she sat down in the sand and drew her blanket cloak about her, and +watched him wade and swim and at last scramble up on to the pile. He +waved his hand to her and then set to work constructing a raft as usual. +</P> + +<P> +She saw him climbing to and fro among the wreckage, smashing away at +casks and cases, and then, to her dismay, he and the pile and the gaunt +wrecks beyond disappeared completely, wiped out by a bank of mist that +had come sweeping in from the sea. The sun still shone up above, but +intermittently. Dark clouds came rushing up out of the south and +presently it too was hidden. The wind blew gustily and increased in +violence every minute. +</P> + +<P> +She wished he had not gone. She could do no good by stopping there, +but she did not care to go home. Behind her, on the southern shore, +the waves were beginning to break with the short harsh sounds that +portended storm. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps he would leave his work and swim across. He would know she was +waiting for him. She must wait till he came. She drew her blanket +over her head and sat there, huddled up with her back to the wind, and +hoped and prayed. For, if this sudden storm should work up into a gale +and last, she would be full of fears for his safety. +</P> + +<P> +Suppose he should be drowned! What that awful pile would be like in +bad weather she dared not think. +</P> + +<P> +She prayed wildly for his life,—"Oh God, spare him to me! He is all I +have! Spare him! Have pity on us both! Spare him! Spare him!"—over +and over again the same ultimate cry, for her mind was closed to every +other thought but this, that the man she loved more than anything on +earth was out there in peril of his life. +</P> + +<P> +She stayed there, drenched by the rain and flailed by the wind, till it +began to grow dark, and then she crept wearily home like a broken bird. +</P> + +<P> +Grim fear gripped her heart like an icy hand, but she would not despair +entirely. He was so strong and capable. He might have tried and found +it impossible to get back. He might come in at any minute. +</P> + +<P> +If he were here the first thing he would have told her was to change +into dry clothes. She changed, and made up the fire and put on the +kettle. He would be cold and hungry when he came. She must be ready +for him. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Out there on the wreckage, Wulf had been so hard at work that he +noticed no sign of change in the weather, till the clammy mist swept +over him and blotted out everything but the box he was delving into. +</P> + +<P> +The winter storms had wrought great changes in the pile. It seemed +thicker and higher and more chaotic than ever, bristling with new stuff +which he would have liked to investigate, in case it should contain +anything that would add to Avice's comfort. +</P> + +<P> +But first, to find some decent flour, and, as it happened, there seemed +fewer barrels about than usual, and most of them had suffered in their +rough transit. The search for a good one took time. Such as he found +were gaping and he did not trouble to open them. However, he +discovered one at last, opened it to make sure of the goodness of its +heart and then turned to seek tobacco. +</P> + +<P> +It was then that the fog swept down on him and chained him to three +square feet or so of precarious foothold. Trespass beyond that limit +might mean a broken limb or neck, for the surface of the pile was +seamed with ragged rifts and chasms, in which the tide whuffled and +growled like a wild beast anticipating food. +</P> + +<P> +So he rooted away in the chest he had just smashed open, lighted on a +supply of tobacco to his great satisfaction, and then sat down where he +was, to wait till the fog cleared. But this, he perceived, was not one +of their usual clinging fogs which enveloped one like a pall of +cotton-wool. It drove on a rising wind and sped past him in dense +whirling coils that made his head spin. He thought briefly of mighty +spirits of the air trailing ghostly garments in rapid flight. Down +below him, in the black rifts and along the sides of the pile, the +water was yapping savagely, as if the wild beast would wait no longer. +</P> + +<P> +When the last of the fog tore past him in tattered fragments, he found +to his dismay that the sea between him and home was beyond any man's +swimming,—every channel raging and foaming, and the banks between +boiling furiously in the rising tide and the rush of the south-west +wind. The raft he had made had already broken loose and started +northwards on its own account. It went to pieces on the nearest bank, +as he watched, and swept away in fragments. +</P> + +<P> +There was nothing for it but waiting. So sudden a storm might pass as +quickly as it had come. +</P> + +<P> +For himself he had no great fears. The pile had stood a thousand +storms, and worse ones than this. But he was filled with anxiety on +Avice's account. She would imagine the worst when he did not come, and +her suffering would be great. Thought of her troubled him infinitely +more than fear for himself. +</P> + +<P> +He tried hard to make her out on the beach, though how to reassure her +he did not know. But the sky was overcast and the atmosphere murky +with sweeping showers, and he could not even see the point. +</P> + +<P> +He was wet through with his swim, and the wind, though not cold in +itself, was so strong that it chilled him. He searched about for +shelter, and coming on a huge case which presented a solid back to the +weather, he stove in the front and found it contained fine lace +curtains. He hauled out a sufficiency, which the wind whisked +playfully away. Then he crept into their place, grateful for so much, +and lay and watched the strange writhings and contortions of the pile +under the impact of the gale and the rising tide. +</P> + +<P> +The wind would go down with the tide probably, and then he would make +another raft and get home as quickly as he could with his flour. For, +great as Avice's anxiety would certainly be, they were still short of +flour, and it would be better to take it with him than to have to come +back for it. The wreck-pile in a gale was a decidedly unpleasant +experience, and its behaviour most extraordinary. He had never +imagined a dead conglomeration such as that capable of such antics. +When the tide was at its height the whole mass writhed and shuddered +through all its length and breadth like some great monster in its death +agonies. The rifts and chasms gaped and closed like grim black wounds +or hungry mouths. Strange and awesome sounds broke out all about, +groanings and creakings, ragged rendings and grindings, as the +component pieces lifted and settled regardless of their neighbours. +When the tide went down it was more at ease, and the only sounds were +the waves snapping at the sides and gurgling and rushing in the depths +below. +</P> + +<P> +He did not find it very cold. Sheltered from the wind, the heat of his +body in time made a warm nook round him in the heart of the curtains. +But he was never dry. And before it got too dark, when he saw it would +be impossible to get away that night, he crept out and crawled +precariously to and fro till he lighted on a small cask of rum. He +carried it to his shelter, knocking in the head with his axe, and it +kept his blood warm through the night. But it was a terribly long +night, chiefly because he was thinking all through it of Avice, and her +fears for him, and her suffering. +</P> + +<P> +To his bitter disappointment, morning showed no signs of abatement or +relief. It brought another wild gray day without a glimmer of hope in +the sky. +</P> + +<P> +He had eaten nothing for more than twenty hours and was feeling empty +and ravenous. The tide had risen and gone down again in the night. +Before the pile began its writhings and contortions again he must eat. +So he crept out and foraged till he found a barrel of pork, and bashed +it open and carried back to his nest a big chunk which he ate raw and +washed down with rum. +</P> + +<P> +All that day the gale held. He hardly dared to think of Avice and yet +could think of nothing else. At times, under the impulse of his fears +for her, he was tempted to leap into the sea and try to battle through +to the point. But when he studied the chances of it, common sense +prevailed. Adventure into those boiling currents meant death as surely +as if he cut his throat on the pile. +</P> + +<P> +If he could only let her know that he was alive.... If he had had his +flint and steel he would have tried to set something on fire—even if +it were his nest—on the chance of her seeing the smoke and +understanding it. He searched eagerly for another tinder-box, but +could not light on one. +</P> + +<P> +It was an anxious and gloomy man that crept into the heart of the +curtain-case that night; but he slept, in a way and brokenly, in spite +of it all, for Nature knows man's limits, and when he goes beyond them +she steps in at times and takes command. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +LVI +</P> + +<P> +To Avice, also, that first night was one long horror. +</P> + +<P> +She made up the fire and sat waiting for him to come. He would know in +what a state of despair she would be and he would certainly come. She +was sure he would come—if he could. If he did not it was because he +could not. And ... if he could not.... +</P> + +<P> +The wind shrilled eerily outside. It sounded cold and heartless ... +pitiless ... like messages from the dead ... warnings of evil. It got +on her nerves and set her shivering. She crept to her room at last and +dropped hopelessly on to her bed, and lay there sorely stricken. +</P> + +<P> +In the gray of the morning she ate mechanically, and hurried away to +the point for sign or sight of him. But it was all she could do to +make out the pile itself, like a bristling rampart in the dull dim +distance. As to distinguishing anything on it, that was out of the +question. +</P> + +<P> +She wandered about there all day long, with her eyes strained on the +pile like one bereft, and only crept back when night shut it out and +drove her home. +</P> + +<P> +She was satisfied in her own mind now that he was dead. If he had been +alive he would certainly have come. Well, she would not be long in +following him.... Without him she had no desire to live ... even if +she could struggle on alone, which was very doubtful ... better to join +him quickly than to drag on miserably all by herself on that lonely +bank, and go crazy in the end. +</P> + +<P> +She sobbed herself asleep, her last wish that she might never waken. +She had eaten nothing since the morning, and then only a hasty scrap +that had no taste in it. The fire had gone out.... It did not matter. +She would go out herself as soon as might be.... A woful end to all +their golden hopes and happiness. +</P> + +<P> +Morning found her still lying spent and hopeless on her bed, comatose, +neither asleep nor awake, simply careless of life and even of the fact +that the wind had fallen at midnight and that the new day had broken +soft and clear. +</P> + +<P> +Then, in her dream-weariness, she heard a voice in the outer room—or +thought she did—but all her senses were dulled except the sense of +loss and heartache. People, she knew, heard voices when they were +going to die. +</P> + +<P> +"Avice!"—the voice of God calling her—the sweet voice of death. She +was ready to go. +</P> + +<P> +"Avice! Where are you?"—and a tapping on the wall of her room. +</P> + +<P> +How like Wulfrey's voice! Perhaps he was permitted to be the +messenger,—a gracious thought—a joyful thought. +</P> + +<P> +She rose painfully, stiff with weakness and long lying, stumbled to the +doorway, stood leaning her hands against the sides, and peered, +white-faced and awe-stricken, through the curtains into the room. +Then, with a broken cry, she threw up her hands and fell forward into +Wulf's arms. +</P> + +<P> +When she came to herself she was lying on a blanket outside the house +and he was bathing her forehead and kissing her. She lay looking up at +him in wonder, out of eyes almost lost in the mists and darkness of her +suffering. She raised a hand and touched his face. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you real? Are you alive?" she whispered doubtfully. +</P> + +<P> +He proved it with hot kisses. His eyes swam with pity for her +sufferings. Her face and eyes told him all the story. +</P> + +<P> +"By God's mercy we are both alive, dear. It might have been +otherwise.... You have suffered sorely." +</P> + +<P> +"I thought you were sent for me ... the angel of Death. And it was so +good of them to send you and not a stranger.... But it is better to +have you alive," and happy tears welled weakly out of her eyes and +rolled down the white cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe you have eaten nothing since I went. Lie still and I will +get you something," and he jumped up and went inside, lighted the fire +quickly, and presently was sitting by her side, feeding her with warm +rum and water, for she was icy cold, and some bits of the cakes she had +made three days before. +</P> + +<P> +"You ought not to have starved yourself like that," he remonstrated. +</P> + +<P> +"I was sure you were dead and I had no wish to live.... You will never +go out there again...." +</P> + +<P> +"Not in the break of a storm anyway. We must go to the storehouse +sometimes, but we'll make sure of our weather in future." +</P> + +<P> +"I wouldn't have minded if I'd been with you." +</P> + +<P> +"I would. It was ghastly out there in the night," and he told her how +he had lived in the big case of curtains, and how the pile heaved and +writhed like a wounded sea-serpent under the tide and the gale. And +how he had brought back some flour after all, though it had been no +easy job as there was no wind to help him. +</P> + +<P> +"It is dear flour," she said. "It nearly cost us our lives. I would +sooner live on raw meat another time." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +LVII +</P> + +<P> +That was their sorest trial of the winter. Often, over the fire of a +night, they talked of it and told one another all there was to tell of +their feelings and their fears, and their love burned the brighter for +its tempering. +</P> + +<P> +But Avice was soon herself again, and as the Spring quickened all about +and in them, the bitterness of the experience gradually faded out of +their recollection and only the brightness was left. +</P> + +<P> +And then there was so much to interest one everywhere that the days +were hardly long enough for all there was to see and do. +</P> + +<P> +First, seals—mothers and babies galore. Those sandy beaches of the +northern coast seemed a favourite basking place and nursery, and Avice +could creep along behind the sandhills, and crawl up among the +wire-grass, and peep over, and she never tired of watching them. There +was something so human in the way the babies snuggled up to their +mothers when they were hungry, and still more in the way the mothers +looked down at their nurslings. +</P> + +<P> +And the baby-rabbits. They were almost as entrancing as the seals, but +far shyer and more difficult to spy upon. +</P> + +<P> +For the simple lifting of a head among the sparse tufts of grass set +the hollow below alive with tiny bobbing white scuts, whose terrified +owners tumbled over one another in their anxiety to get below ground. +Avice would not hear of rabbit-meat in those days. She said the very +thought of it made her feel like a cannibal. +</P> + +<P> +And lastly,—birds. They were coming back in flights. The eastern +point seemed their chosen ground, but closer at hand stray families +were found, and importunate babies were being fed by the cold-eyed +mothers with whom, a few months later, they would be waging the fierce +battle for food. But Avice never took to the birds as she did to the +seals and rabbits. She could never forget what they would grow +into—brigands and fighters and cold-blooded raucous screamers at all +times. +</P> + +<P> +Now and again they lived on the 'Jane and Mary' for a week by way of a +change, and fish was always obtainable whether they were afloat or +ashore. +</P> + +<P> +The clear fire of their love waxed ever stronger, devoured the days and +weeks and months, and refined and fused them all into golden memories +without one smallest speck of alloy. More devoted lover never woman +had, nor man a sweeter mistress. Never was princess of the +blood—without a bar across her scutcheon—held in loftier esteem or +shown it more gallantly. Never, in word or act, did he offend her +sense of right in the smallest degree; yet she could set his heart +leaping and his blood racing by a touch—and she knew it. +</P> + +<P> +Sometime,—when he believed it right—she knew he would ask more of +her. It was inevitable. She had known it from the beginning. And she +had no fear of it. Love such as theirs knows nothing of fear. +</P> + +<P> +They were not playing at love. They loved with all the white fire of +passionate devotion which loses sight of self in the one beloved. For +better, for worse; in life, in death, she was wholly his. With the +ardour of the Spring in her blood, and the love-light in her eyes, she +waited for him to speak. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +LVIII +</P> + +<P> +Time came when, according to her calendar, he had been there full +twelve months and she just about nine. And as to prospect of escape, +or further addition to their company, they were in exactly the same +position as when they came. +</P> + +<P> +Whenever they discussed that matter, she said, "Still, I came ashore +alive." +</P> + +<P> +And he always said, "You were the miracle. Besides you were +nine-tenths dead." +</P> + +<P> +She wondered when he would ask the next step of her, and how he would +do it. Her answer was ready—herself. Still, something of extra +fragrance—something ineffably sweet and delicate—would cling to it +for ever, or be for ever just that much lacking, according to the +manner of his asking. +</P> + +<P> +But she believed his great love would choose the proper chord and +strike it with strong and gentle fingers. +</P> + +<P> +And it did. +</P> + +<P> +They were sitting in the firelight one night, when a more than usually +pregnant silence fell on them. The depth of their feeling for one +another expressed itself not infrequently in these long delicious +pauses in their talk, when that which was in them was all too sacred +for words. Her Northern blood, of which she was proud, prevailed as a +rule over the Gallic strain, which she held in light esteem, and made +for undemonstrativeness in any outward display of feeling. But she +felt to the depths, and when she did permit the brakes to slip, the +wheels struck sparks. +</P> + +<P> +He also was more doer than talker. Hence those long sweet silences, +when she lay with her head in his arm in the coloured firelight, and +the gentle play of his hand on her hair was more to them both than all +the words in the world. +</P> + +<P> +But this night there was more in the silences that fell on them. In +both their hearts the high-charged thoughts and feelings of many months +were converging to a point. The quickening of the Spring was in their +blood. +</P> + +<P> +His hand slipped suddenly down from her hair and clasped on both of +hers where they lay in her lap. His voice as he spoke was deep with +emotion. It thrilled her to the depths. She felt the hot pulses in +his hand leaping and throbbing. His words were very simple, as became +a matter so vital. Deepest feeling needs no garnishment. +</P> + +<P> +"Dearest, you have honoured me with your trust and love"—— Her hands +turned and clasped his fervently. +</P> + +<P> +"Every hair of your head is precious to me. I would not knowingly +offend your feelings in any smallest thing.... We are here, cut off +from our kind, it may be, for ever.... We are as alone here with God, +as Adam and Eve were in The Garden.... You make my Paradise. You can +perfect it.... Will you?..." +</P> + +<P> +And for answer she put up her arms, and drew down his face, and kissed +him passionately, and clung to him as if she would never let him go. +</P> + +<P> +"I thank God for so precious a gift," he said, clasping her to him so +that she felt his heart pounding inside as furiously as her own. +</P> + +<P> +"Heart ... soul ... body ... all yours!" she whispered, and he kissed +her hair, because her face was hidden, and clasped her closer still. +</P> + +<P> +"It is the ordained crown of our love," he said presently, when their +first blinding whirl of emotion was over. "I cannot see that we offend +any law of man's, for here we are beyond the law. God's law we are +surely keeping.... And, so as not to act on simple impulse I have +thought that we would let another month go by before..." and he kissed +her rosy face again. +</P> + +<P> +"But why?" +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps you have not thought it all out as I have——" +</P> + +<P> +"But I have ... I knew it must be so...." and the joy in him was very +great. +</P> + +<P> +"All the same, dear, we will not enter into that high estate without +your very fullest consideration.... And if you should find any reason +or instinct against it I shall abide by your decision." +</P> + +<P> +"I am all yours. I shall not change." +</P> + +<P> +"From what the mate said I imagine this island may pertain to Nova +Scotia. It is possible that Scottish law runs there.... We can take +one another for man and wife and place it on record...." +</P> + +<P> +"How?" +</P> + +<P> +"We have books with fly-leaves. Among the sand-hills you will find all +the quills you want. The birds are some use after all.... Anyone can +make a pen ... and ink we can always get even though it is red.... All +we need for a good Scots marriage is a pair of witnesses." +</P> + +<P> +"Seals, rabbits, birds...." +</P> + +<P> +"They cannot testify.... All we can do," he said thoughtfully, "if, by +God's mercy, we ever leave this place is to regularise ourselves by +proper marriage ashore as soon as we land. But the prospects of +getting away seem very small, I'm afraid." +</P> + +<P> +"We have been very happy here. We can still be very happy here," she +said contentedly. +</P> + +<P> +So amazing is this great power of Love in covering all deficiencies of +outward circumstance. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +LIX +</P> + +<P> +The days slipped past, and each day he watched her quietly for +slightest sign of compunction, or retraction. And if such had come to +her, sore though he might have felt, and bereaved of the perfect +unfolding of the fair flower of their love, he would have choked the +feeling down, trampled on it, buried it so that she would have seen no +sign of it in him. For he recognised to the fullest what a mighty +thing this was that he was asking of her. +</P> + +<P> +But she understood him perfectly, fathomed his fears, was on the +look-out for his quietly-questioning looks, and met them with clear +full-eyed serenity and a face rosy at times with anticipation. +</P> + +<P> +"You need not fear for me," she laughed softly, one night as she lay in +his arm before the fire. "I shall not change." +</P> + +<P> +He clasped her closer. "I could not blame you if you did. From every +worldly point of view you would be right——" +</P> + +<P> +"What have we to do with worldly points of view? We are out of it all. +We are here alone, and like to be. And we are doing right in our own +eyes." +</P> + +<P> +"I would risk my soul on what seems right to these pure eyes," and he +bent and kissed them warmly. +</P> + +<P> +"Ten more days!" she murmured, and nestled closer, with her head on his +breast so that she could feel the strong beating of his heart. +</P> + +<P> +"It says 'Avice!—Avice!—Avice!'" he said quietly. "It is full of +Avice," and she pressed still closer. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +So the great day came, the greatest day either of their lives had known. +</P> + +<P> +Wulf had found sleep impossible. His heart, full-charged, felt like to +burst its mortal bounds. He rose quietly in the dark and went out into +the soft twilight of the dawn—to greet the coming of the perfect day. +And she, as impossible of sleep as he, heard him in spite of all his +caution, and laughed softly to herself for very happiness in him and in +herself. And when he had gone, she thanked God for this great gift of +a true man's love, and for that in herself which responded to it so +fully. +</P> + +<P> +She had not a doubt nor a fear. The smallest of either would have +barred her from him. But there was not the smallest shadow between +them. Their hearts were one. It was meet and good that their lives +should be one also. Wulfrey paced the beach out there and found the +silent darkness soothing to his bounding senses. +</P> + +<P> +It was late April. The air was sweet and fresh. The sea just breathed +in its sleep and no more. The water rippled silently up the hard sand +with scarce a murmur. The darkness of the eastern sky thinned as he +paced and watched. There came a soft suffusion of light there. It +throbbed and grew. A faint touch of carmine outlined a cloud above it. +The darkness seemed to fade and melt out of the sky. All the tiny +clouds above him turned their faces to the east and flushed rose-red +with the joy of the new day. +</P> + +<P> +He climbed a hill and caught the first golden gleam of the rising sun. +His eyes shone, and his face. In his eyes two suns were reflected. +But there was only one sun. And they were two and now were to become +one. The Perfect Day had dawned. +</P> + +<P> +And just as she, lying in her bed with her face in her hands, had +thanked God for His goodness, so he. He flung his right hand up +towards the sun in the brightening sky and said deeply, "My God, I +thank Thee for this day and most of all for her!" +</P> + +<P> +And, down below, he saw her coming out of the house towards him. +</P> + +<P> +He sprang down to meet her, caught her hands, and looked right down +through her eyes into her heart, and was satisfied. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +LX +</P> + +<P> +Arm in arm they paced the beach till the sun was well up, and their +bank of sand shone in the flood of golden light as it had never shone +before,—fresh and sweet as if but new-created. +</P> + +<P> +A light wind had come with the sun. The small waves came hurrying in +as though they were invited guests. At sight of the wedding-party they +broke into crisp white laughter, curled themselves over in league-long +sickles of tenderest lucent green, and raced up the sands to their feet +in long soft swirls of liquid amber, laced with bubbles and edged with +creamy foam. +</P> + +<P> +"They haste to the wedding, to pay their tribute to the only bride they +have ever set eyes on," said Wulf, as they stopped to watch them. "And +each one is glad to give his life for a single peep at her." +</P> + +<P> +"Foolish little waves," laughed she. "I am going to make their very +close acquaintance presently. How beautiful the sea is this +morning!"—as her eyes travelled out to the wide blue sweep beyond, +with its dapple of purple shadows. +</P> + +<P> +"The most beautiful sea and the most wonderful morning that ever was," +he asserted heartily. "But it is only a beginning. There will be many +more like it. And still better." +</P> + +<P> +"I am so glad it is so sweet a day. A dull one would have troubled me." +</P> + +<P> +"But it could not possibly have been anything else." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but it could." +</P> + +<P> +"In mere outward accident perhaps. But I've got the sun inside me. I +wonder it doesn't show through." +</P> + +<P> +"It does," she laughed joyously. "You are all aglow." +</P> + +<P> +"And never man had better reason. I would not change places with all +the kings of all the earth rolled into one." +</P> + +<P> +"Nor I with all the queens. We are happier here by far with nothing +but ourselves." +</P> + +<P> +"Ourselves, and our Love, and infinite Hope. Now let us go and eat. +My bride must not starve. That would be a bad beginning. Did you +sleep?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not a wink. I heard you go out." +</P> + +<P> +"And I was pluming myself on not having made a sound." +</P> + +<P> +While she was making cakes he busied himself making a pen out of a +quill he had picked up on the beach, and she smiled when she saw what +he was at. +</P> + +<P> +"And the ink?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"I've got it all ready. I always carry some with me in case of need," +at which she knitted her brows prettily and looked puzzled. +</P> + +<P> +After breakfast she said, "Now you must leave me for a couple of hours. +I am going to thank the waves for their good wishes and then I shall go +to the fresh-water pool." +</P> + +<P> +"You will be very careful.. You won't get yourself drowned." +</P> + +<P> +"I will be very careful. And you!" +</P> + +<P> +"I will go across to the spit. But when we are wed——" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—then!" she nodded rosily, and he kissed her and went off past the +fresh-water pools, and splashed through the narrows that joined their +lake to the smaller one, and so to the shore and into the sea, for the +last time alone. +</P> + +<P> +He waited till he was sure she had done with their bathing-pool, and +then ran across and plunged into it, for the salt water braces, but +sticks and never makes one feel so clean as fresh. +</P> + +<P> +She was still busy with the princely brush and comb when he came on +her, and his heart leaped again at her fresh and radiant beauty. +</P> + +<P> +She had clothed herself all in spotless linen, swathed about her in +that marvellous fashion of which she held the secret to perfection. To +his rejoicing eyes she appeared half angel, half Vestal Virgin, yet all +bewitching human girl, and, best of all, his bride. +</P> + +<P> +"Be thankful you're a man, and delivered from this," she said, her eyes +shining through the glorious veil at his visible joy in her. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm thankful I'm a man, but I wouldn't have you relieved of that for +half the world. I glory in it," and he bent and kissed it. "For a +moment I thought you were an angel." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps I am." +</P> + +<P> +"I know you are. But, thank God, you're human too! Men don't wed with +angels.... I must go and dress myself also," and he disappeared into +the house. +</P> + +<P> +When, in due course, he came out, gallantly clad in a long blue coat +with flap-pockets, and figured vest, and white silk knee-breeches, and +stockings to suit, she first stared and then laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"My faith, but we are fine!" said she. "But, in truth, I like you best +as I have known you best. Do you marry in a dead man's clothes?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not if I know it. Sooner in my rags. But, to the best of my belief, +these belonged to your friend the Duke of Kent. Macro would have them, +but little he dreamed of the high use to which they would be put. I +borrow them for the occasion. His Highness would make no objection I +am sure." +</P> + +<P> +"I am sure he would not, and they become you well. But still I like +you best as I have known you best." +</P> + +<P> +"I will doff them presently. But you are so like a queen that I did +not like to come to you like a beggar." +</P> + +<P> +In his hand he had brought the Prayer-book, with the quill in a certain +place. +</P> + +<P> +He stepped up to her and lifted her hand to his lips. +</P> + +<P> +"You do not repent you of this we are about to do?" +</P> + +<P> +"I shall never repent it," she said, with dancing eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Please God, and as far as in me lies, you shall never have cause to +repent it.... We are here, our two selves, with none to witness this +that we do but God.... We are doing what we believe to be right for +our own great happiness and well-being.... It would suffice, I +believe, for a Scots wedding, simply to declare ourselves man and wife. +But I have thought it would please us both to do something more. We +are not entering upon this new estate lightly or without due +thought.... It will, I know, be to both our minds and comforting to +both our hearts, to think that in our loneliness here we have done all +we could to supply the deficiencies for which we are not to blame." +</P> + +<P> +He spoke with very great emotion. She rejoiced in this fresh evidence +of the heights and depths of his nature and his essential goodness of +heart, though indeed she had not needed it. +</P> + +<P> +Her great dark eyes, fixed on his, were abrim with happy tears. +</P> + +<P> +"So," he continued, "We will read together the Form for the +Solemnization of Matrimony in this Prayer-book, and then we will +inscribe on the front leaf of it the fact that this day we have become +man and wife. We will sign our names to it, and we can do no more to +comply with man's law.... Is that your will, my dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Then here we will kneel and wed," and down they knelt in the sand, +with a clear sky and bright sun above, and the blue sea that held them +captive dancing and laughing in front; and holding the book between +them he read the Service aloud in a deep and reverent voice. +</P> + +<P> +Parts of it were of course somewhat incongruous to their situation, but +he would not slur or miss a word. The statement that they were +gathered together in the face of this congregation almost provoked her +to an explosion. For out of the corner of her eye, as she followed his +reading, a slight movement on the side of an adjacent sandhill showed +her a rabbit, sitting up and watching them with critical attention, and +it looked to her just like the frowsy old female in black she had seen +hovering about the skirts of a wedding in a London church. +</P> + +<P> +And there were parts that brought the colour to her face, though she +was familiar with them. Applied to oneself they seemed to hold new +point and meaning. +</P> + +<P> +However, he read bravely on. No one interfered to show any just cause +why they should not lawfully be joined together, nor had either of them +any confession of impediment to make. +</P> + +<P> +At the "Wilt thou——?" he answered heartily, "I will." And waited for +her to do the same when her turn came. +</P> + +<P> +When it came to—"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?"—he +answered boldly,—"God." +</P> + +<P> +Then they took hands and plighted their troth, reciting the words in +the book. +</P> + +<P> +But when it came to the putting on of the ring there came an interlude +not provided for in the Marriage Service. +</P> + +<P> +He had duly provided a plain gold wedding ring. +</P> + +<P> +"Where did you get it?" she asked with a look of surprise. +</P> + +<P> +"I found it among Macro's treasures." +</P> + +<P> +"It must be some dead woman's, then. I would sooner not. Can we not +leave that out? Will it make any difference?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, dear. It will make no difference to our being truly wed." +</P> + +<P> +"Then please go on without it." +</P> + +<P> +So they left the ring out and read on to the end together. +</P> + +<P> +He closed the book and drew her to him as they knelt, and kissed her as +his wife. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," he said, lifting her up. "We will put on record the most +wonderful thing that has ever happened on this island, and then we will +go home and prepare the marriage-feast.... I wonder now if James +Elwes, M.A., late of Brasenose College, Oxford, is aware of the high +use to which his Prayer-book is being put,"—as he pointed to the name +inscribed on the fly-leaf, and turned over to the blank on the other +side. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think they know?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do not see why not. But as we never knew him, nor he us, it is +possible he is not present." +</P> + +<P> +And suddenly those words at the beginning of the Marriage Service +assumed a new and mighty significance for her. "In the face of this +congregation" might mean more than she had ever dreamed of. Perhaps +her mother had been there—— If she had, if she should be here +now—it, was somewhat startling to think of—she would be glad, for she +would know how good and true a man this was. +</P> + +<P> +But he was busily writing, and at the sight she cried, "Oh!"—for the +writing was red and the ink was drawn from a little jag he had made in +his arm. +</P> + +<P> +"In blood," she said, with a touch of dismay. +</P> + +<P> +"It could not be put to better use," he laughed. "It is all at your +service ... to the very last drop.... How begin better than by setting +down here that we are one till death?" +</P> + +<P> +"What you said made me think that perhaps my mother had been with +us——" +</P> + +<P> +"I am sure she was, and mine too.... They will both approve, you may +be sure.... Here is what I have written— +</P> + +<P> +"'I, Wulfrey Dale, do hereby declare that I have this day taken Avice +Drummond to be my lawful wedded wife.' And for you, 'I, Avice +Drummond, do hereby declare that I have this day taken Wulfrey Dale to +be my lawful wedded husband.' Now I will sign.... And you will sign +there ... and I will add the date as far as we know it ... and our +present place of abode—Sable Island." +</P> + +<P> +He held the book till the writing was dry, then kissed her signature. +"It is the first time I have set eyes on your handwriting," he said. +"It is like yourself—clear and strong and true ... Mistress +Dale,"—with a smiling bow, as he handed her the book,—"your +marriage-lines! You will like to keep them." +</P> + +<P> +"And the pen, please," she said, holding out her hand for it, and +wrapping it and the book in a fold of her white robe. "These will be +more to me than all the treasures of the world." +</P> + +<P> +He put his arm round her and they went slowly home—man and wife. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +BOOK V +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +GARDEN OF EDEN +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +LXI +</P> + +<P> +Happy? If all newly-married folk could find such happiness as was +theirs, what a wonderful world it would be! +</P> + +<P> +From every worldly point of view they had nothing. They were outcasts, +paupers, dependent for the food they ate and the clothes they wore, on +Nature and the caprice of the sea. Yet, having nothing, they had +everything, since they had one another. +</P> + +<P> +If he had rejoiced in her before, and loved her with a love akin to +pain in the repression he subjected it to, he loved her now a thousand +times more, and she filled him with a joy that knew no bounds. Time, +he said to himself, would not suffice for all their love, it would fill +eternity. +</P> + +<P> +The days were never long enough for them. In this new joy of life and +perfected fellowship they forgot their years at times, and were like a +pair of children, endowed with the freedom of time and space and hearts +attuned to the most perfect enjoyment of these new attributes. +</P> + +<P> +They made long journeys and explored every inch of their +territory—sleeping out at times in the side of a sandhill under the +soft summer night. And those were wondrous times. +</P> + +<P> +—To lie there flat on their blanket, side by side, chin in hand like +children, his arm about her, and watch the red sun sink into the water +at the end of his fiery trail, while all the sky above burned crimson +right into the east behind them.—To watch, with bated breath, the +rabbits creeping out to feed and frolic about them, all unconscious of +their presence.—To lie and watch the colours fade slowly in the +darkening sky, and the stars come out till the whole dark dome was a +never-failing marvel of delight.—Or, on the other shore, to lie and +watch the moonbeams dancing on the sleeping bosom of the sea.—To feel +oneself oneself in the midst of it all—a part of it all—the height +and the width and the immensity and wonder of it all.—To feel his arm +enfolding her, and all that that meant to them both.—To feel the +warmth of life, and all the mighty joy of it, throbbing in her slender +body as he drew her closer.—To know, as he knew, that God lived and +had given her to him, and that she loved him with every fibre of her +being, as he loved her.... +</P> + +<P> +Happy? At times, so full was her heart that she wondered if such +happiness was right for mortals to enjoy, and so, if it could last. +</P> + +<P> +And when she shared that with him, as they shared everything in common, +he reasoned her back to comfort. +</P> + +<P> +"Happiness and health are life's proper conditions," he asserted, with +such hearty conviction that her doubts hid their heads. "Sorrow and +sickness come of trespass, somehow, somewhere, somewhen, though it is +not always easy to trace them back to first causes. But, without +doubt, people were meant to be as healthy and happy as it is possible +for them to be." +</P> + +<P> +"But I have known people suffer who, I am sure, never did any +wrong—none, that is, deserving of suffering such as they had. In +fact," she mused, "it seems to me that the good people suffer most and +the wicked prosper." +</P> + +<P> +"That is as we judge. But we see only the outsides of things and we +are purblind at best. Nature has certain laws, and God has certain +laws—though a parson could tell you more about these than I can. And +if those laws are broken the results have to be borne, and sometimes +they run on and on and fall on innocent people." +</P> + +<P> +"It doesn't seem very fair." +</P> + +<P> +"The laws cannot be altered for individuals or exceptional cases. +Fathers sin and the children suffer. But the blame is the fathers'." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she nodded, and perhaps she was thinking of her own case. +</P> + +<P> +"So you've no need to fear being as happy as you can," he added +quickly. "God meant you for happiness, and truly, I think we have more +certainty of it here than we might have had elsewhere." +</P> + +<P> +"I am sure of it and I am happy," and she nestled still closer under +his folding arm. +</P> + +<P> +But they had their strenuous working times as well, and enjoyed them +equally. He developed his new-found capacity for carpentering. Made +her more chairs and a table, added to the comfort of their house in +many ways. And she kept it all in perfect order, and attended to the +cooking, and proved herself a most admirable housewife and helpmate. +</P> + +<P> +They were down almost to fundamentals. Their life—partaking as it did +of the development of the ages, and so of the wider freedom of thought +and feeling, was the life of the ancients and not far from idyllic. +</P> + +<P> +The hunter went forth to the chase—though it was only rabbits—and the +fisherman to the lake, and brought home his spoils to his waiting mate, +and they ate of them and were content. +</P> + +<P> +They enjoyed the most perfect health, and for society they had one +another and desired no more—at all events, no outsiders. +</P> + +<P> +They had storms and mists and spells of dull weather, but their house +was proof against all assault from without, and warm and bright with +their abounding love. They had fire and light and books and +themselves, and always in time the sun shone out again, and they +enjoyed it the more perhaps for its frequent defaults. +</P> + +<P> +They had their trying times too. Stores had to be replenished from the +pile, and, after that dreadful experience before they were married, she +would not be left behind. +</P> + +<P> +"I do not care what happens if we are together," she said. "The worst +that could happen would be nothing compared with that other time," and +he could not gainsay her. +</P> + +<P> +So whenever he had to go she went also, and they chose their day with +care and made a picnic of it, and came home laden with spoils. +</P> + +<P> +Only once they got caught by one of those swift-travelling mists which +seemed to spring from nowhere. It swept over them just as they were +preparing to leave, and in the twinkling of an eye they were prisoners, +bound clammily to the pile till it should pass. For in that +close-clinging bank, as thick as wet cotton-wool, all sense of +direction was gone in a moment. They could not see a foot before them, +the pile was pitted with death-traps, a step might be fatal. +</P> + +<P> +They had both come lightly clad, for the day had been warm and the +wreckage claimed unhampered limbs. +</P> + +<P> +Fortunately they had come upon a case of blankets during their +operations. +</P> + +<P> +"Sit you down here," he said, as he felt her shivering under his arm, +"And I'll get you some blankets." +</P> + +<P> +"You won't get yourself lost?" she asked anxiously. +</P> + +<P> +"Not if you will keep calling to me," and he crawled away in search of +the case, while she sat calling, "Wulf ... Wulf ... Wulf," and he +answered her, "Avice ... Avice ... Avice," and at last a shout, "I've +got it." +</P> + +<P> +And presently his muffled "Avice ... Avice ... Avice," drew near again, +and he loomed through the fog like a creeping ghost, and taking her arm +they crept together from blanket to blanket, which he had spread as a +guide, till they came to the case itself. He hauled out more of its +contents till there was room inside for both of them, and they crawled +into their nest and in time got warm and comfortable. +</P> + +<P> +The fog showed no sign of lifting, so before it got quite dark he +crawled out again, she calling to him as before, and found a cask of +rum, of which there was always plenty about, and one of pork, and on +these they supped as best they could. +</P> + +<P> +The writhing and creaking of the pile, as the tide rose and fell, +caused her some alarm. But he explained it all to her, and after a +time she fell asleep with his arm about her, and they were wakened to a +clear bright morning by the shrieking and squabbling of the birds over +the barrel of pork, which he had left standing open. +</P> + +<P> +The barrel itself and all the pile adjacent seemed suddenly to have +sprouted feathers. It was alive with fiercely-beating wings and +jerking feathered necks and squirming feathered bodies, and cold hard +little glassy eyes, and cruel rending beaks, and shrill angry cries. +</P> + +<P> +"How hideous they are!" she said, shrinking back into the case. +</P> + +<P> +"It is the great fight for life. They seem always hungry." +</P> + +<P> +The barrel stood on end. The fortunate ones among the feathered +pirates wormed themselves in, and tore and rent at the food, regardless +of the shrill expostulations of their fellows and the beaks and claws +that tore and rent at them in turn, till the barrel itself was lost +under a seething mass of shrieking, fiercely-struggling birds. They +pecked at one another's glassy eyes, they struck wildly with their +wings, they clawed with somewhat futile feet, and all the time screamed +at the tops of their voices as though they were trying who could scream +the loudest. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish they'd empty it and go," said she, and he wrenched down a slat +of wood and leaned out with a blanket over his head and arm, and +succeeded at last in tipping the barrel over, and pork and pirates +rolled out together. +</P> + +<P> +It was all cleaned up in five minutes and the cloud drifted away after +other prey. The disappointed ones swooped round the empty barrel for a +time, and some of the bolder, or more hungry, or least intelligent, +came fluttering at the opening in the blanket-box as though set on +fresh meat at any cost, and he had to beat them back with his slat. It +was only when a score or more were flopping brokenly about the pile in +front of the box that the rest grew tired of so losing a game and sped +away to join the main body. As soon as the way was clear, he helped +her out of her nest and they got to their raft, and eventually safely +home. +</P> + +<P> +But that was only an incident, though it confirmed her dislike and +dread of the pile. She still always insisted on going with him when he +had to go, and at such times they laboured long and hard, and got in +supplies enough for many weeks, and so went out there as seldom as +possible. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +LXII +</P> + +<P> +So, working, wandering, bathing, reading, hunting, fishing, eating, +sleeping, with hearts and minds stripped bare to one another and every +thought in common, they lived that first golden year of their married +life, and grew into still closer fellowship and communion, into still +clearer understanding of one another, into still greater +love,—although, at the beginning, all this would have seemed to them +impossible. But there are always heights and depths beyond, and will +be, until the final heights are scaled—and doubtless even then also. +</P> + +<P> +And now, to one such depth and height they were drawing near, with a +touch of not unnatural fear on her part, as to an experience unknown +and invested with all the possibilities of life and death, and new life. +</P> + +<P> +He cheered her with his own great confidence; and her reliance on his +professional knowledge, and the love he bore her, comforted her +mightily. But they both knew full well that, given all the knowledge +and love in the world, the certain issue of this great matter still lay +beyond the utmost power of man; and it sent them to their knees and +brought them nigher heaven than ever in their lives before. +</P> + +<P> +It also set her very busily to work on tiny garments, which she had to +contrive as best she could from her very scant materials. And it set +him to the making of a cradle out of a very carefully-cleaned and +sand-scrubbed pork-barrel, which turned out an immense success and +filled him with great pride of accomplishment. +</P> + +<P> +She was in the very best of health, without a trouble on her mind, and +rejoicing more than ever in his joy and pride in her. And these and +the free open-air life they led all made for good. He would not permit +her a despondent thought, though as the time drew near she not seldom, +for his sake, assumed a braver and more cheerful aspect than her heart +actually warranted. +</P> + +<P> +But all went well, and within a day or two of the anniversary of their +wedding-day, their son, Wulfrey, was born and proved himself at once a +true Islander, lusty both of lung and limb. +</P> + +<P> +Prouder and happier father and mother, and more wonderful baby, it is +safe to say that island never saw. And if their days had been full of +delight before, the coming of Little Wulf filled them quite three times +as full. For there was Little Wulf's own happiness, which was patent +to all,—and his mother's rapture in him, and his father's,—and his +father's mighty joy in them both,—and her joy in his joy,—and so on +all round the compass;—and deep below and high above and all through +it all, their unbounded thankfulness for safe deliverance from peril. +</P> + +<P> +If he had admired and loved her as a maid, and loved and rejoiced in +her as a wife,—as mother of his child he found himself at times dumb +with excess of delight. He could only sit and watch, with worshipful +eyes, and newer and deeper thoughts of that other Mother, and of The +Child whose coming had transformed the world. +</P> + +<P> +She got out the treasured old Prayer-book, and they read over him as +much as seemed applicable to his case of the Ministration of Private +Baptism of Infants, and then inscribed on the fly-leaf, under the +record of their marriage, his name, Wulfrey Drummond Dale, and the date +of his birth as nearly as they knew it—with the same pen as before, in +the same red ink, and from the same glad source. +</P> + +<P> +And now indeed their days were full, and their nights, for Master +Wulfrey had an appetite that brooked no waiting, and he ruled that +household with a lusty pair of lungs against which even equinoctial +gales strove in vain. +</P> + +<P> +But it was all part of the price of their joy in him, and they paid it +joyfully; and he repaid them tenfold by simply being alive and +permitting them to watch his vigorous kickings as he lay naked on a +blanket at their feet in the sunshine. +</P> + +<P> +Avice was speedily herself again, herself and so very much more. In +his rejoicing eyes all her beauty was clarified, dignified, emphasised +manifold, in a way that he would not have believed possible. +</P> + +<P> +It was his turn now, in spite of all his philosophy,—and at times hers +again also—to marvel at all that had been vouchsafed them, and to +wonder, with a fleeting touch of fear, if happiness so great could +possibly last. +</P> + +<P> +The sense of the mighty responsibility their love entailed was upon +them. Suppose, by any dire misfortune, he were to be taken away,—what +would happen to them? He believed her capable of rising to the +occasion for the boy's sake and doing man's work in his place, but it +would be a desperately hard fight for her. Suppose they should be +taken from him—either, both. God!—he could spare the boy best, but +it would be terrible to lose either. +</P> + +<P> +And suppose, thought she in turn, either of themselves should be taken! +Suppose they should both be taken!—Well, in that case the poor little +fellow would linger behind but a very short time. They would soon all +be together again. +</P> + +<P> +But such black thoughts, natural as they were, inevitable almost, still +partook, to both their minds, of basest ingratitude and lack of trust. +And yet they did high service, for, when they came upon them their +souls went down on their knees, and there they found strength and +joyousness again. +</P> + +<P> +Little Wulf—but they very early began to call him Cubbie, it seemed so +appropriate—fulfilled all the promise of his advent. He was a +marvellous child. He crawled vigorously at nine months, and headed +straight across the soft yellow sand for the water, like a true +Islander, born of freedom and the open air and the sunshine, the moment +he discovered this new power. And they followed him, foot by foot, +with beaming faces, as he wallowed along like a well-developed white +frog, digging his little snub nose into the sand at times, but gurgling +and laughing all the same, and struggling on without a look to right or +left, intent only on the water in front. +</P> + +<P> +At the lip of the tide, where it came creaming up the beach in long +soft swirls of amber, laced with bubbles and edged with filmy foam, she +was for snatching him up. But Wulf stayed her. He wanted to see what +the boy would do. +</P> + +<P> +He was no stranger to cold water, but he had so far met it only in a +tub, never in such quantity as this. He crawled on along the wet sand +and the soft swirl came rushing up to welcome him. It was quite two +inches deep. It filled him with astonishment and took away his breath. +Everything under him seemed on the move. He stiffened for a second on +his front paws, gave a huge bellow of amazement, tried to grab the +back-streaming water with both hands as a cat pounces on a mouse, and +then set off after it at top speed, and was swung up into the air by +his delighted father, and held there, kicking and crowing, and striving +still after the enchanted water below. +</P> + +<P> +"He'll do," laughed Wulf. "He'll swim as soon as he can walk. The +first native! And a credit to the Island!" +</P> + +<P> +Golden days! If the first year of their married life was all pure +gold, this second was gold overlaid with jewels of rare delight. Every +moment of it was happiness unalloyed. The boy throve mightily. Avice +was in the best of health and spirits, and to the eyes of her lover +grew more beautiful with every day that passed. +</P> + +<P> +What more could the soul of man desire? +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +LXIII +</P> + +<P> +Their Wulf Cub was fifteen months old, and could swim like a fish, and +run like a free-born savage, and talk in a jargon of his own which was +yet quite understandable to his parents, when his sister Avice came on +the scene. She took after her mother, and her father vowed there never +had been such a lovely child born into this world before. +</P> + +<P> +Their patriarchal life flowed on, deepening and widening, as it went, +and so far without any break in its smooth-swelling current. The great +gales, to which they had grown accustomed, piled up ever-increasing +supplies for them. Within certain narrow bounds they knew no lack, nor +would they though they lived there for a hundred years. On great +occasions the wreckage even yielded them luxuries of the commonplace +which in the former life they had looked upon as ordinary adjuncts to a +meal and accepted perfunctorily, without a thought of special +thankfulness. But here they were rarities, priceless delicacies to be +held in esteem and made the most of. Apples for example. Once their +western point was strewn thick with what seemed a whole ship-load of +delicious red apples. They had probably been packed in frail barrels +or cases which the waves made short work of, and the birds were +fortunately away. They spent days carrying them up above tide-level +and then transporting them home, and revelled in apples for weeks till +their stock went bad. Another time it was potatoes, which they had not +tasted for over three years. Wulf declared it was almost worth while +to have been denied them so long, to find such new relish in them now. +Avice regretted, for the children's sakes, that they could not have +them all the time. +</P> + +<P> +And that set him to planting a quantity in some of the damp bottoms by +the water-pools. They came up all right, but the rabbits cleared the +green shoots as fast as they appeared. Upon that he fenced off a patch +with some of his superfluous raft timber and planted more, and +succeeded in raising a small crop, but they were a degenerate race, +lacking the good soil which had gone to the making of their ancestors. +</P> + +<P> +Curiously enough, that fact started into expression trains of thought +that had been latent in both their minds. +</P> + +<P> +He had come in exultantly with his first fruits of the potato-patch, +Cubbie at his heels proudly bearing one in each hand, and Avice cooked +them rejoicingly and pronounced them excellent. +</P> + +<P> +"It will be so delightful to have potatoes again," said she. +</P> + +<P> +But he was critical of his own production, as the author of a +work—even though it be but a potato—may be allowed to be. "They have +neither the texture nor the flavour of the original stock," he said. +"I suppose they need better soil than our old sandbank can afford +them,"—and his eyes happened to fall on Cubbie munching away at a +potato, and hers lighted on the dark little head in her arm. The same +thought pricked both their hearts and their eyes met with understanding. +</P> + +<P> +As with potatoes—so with children. He and she, growths of the larger +world, had found unlooked-for happiness through the accident of their +transplantation to this outer isle. But they brought with them the +strength of heart and mind that had come to them through contact with +that other world. In many respects it was a vain and hollow world. +The change had made entirely for their good and happiness. +</P> + +<P> +But—these little ones! ... Were they to be condemned for ever to the +sweet narrow groove of this island life, which to their father and +mother, by reason of the wonder of their love, had been like Paradise? +</P> + +<P> +To the children no such transformation, no such veritable +transfiguration of life as had been theirs would be possible. +</P> + +<P> +They could, indeed, teach them all they knew themselves—all the +essentials at all events. They could train their hearts and brains to +highest things. But in time the children would feel what the island +life entailed and denied them—what their lives were missing. The +higher their development the keener would be their regrets. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear," he said, clasping her closer, as she lay in the hollow of his +arm before the fire that night, "I know what you are thinking. It came +on me, and it came to you, when I was criticising those degenerate +potatoes." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose it must have been lurking somewhere in my heart," she said +quietly. "But it all came on me with a rush as you spoke. You and I +desire no better. It has been wonderful ... perfect happiness. But +for them...." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he said soberly. "For them it would be different. For them we +desire the very best. And here they cannot get it." +</P> + +<P> +And so they were face to face with the mighty problem which thenceforth +must of necessity be constantly in their minds and hearts. +</P> + +<P> +For themselves, all that the outside world could give them could add no +whit to their perfect content and happiness. +</P> + +<P> +But for the children's sakes ... how to cross that treacherous hundred +miles of sea which barred the way to the wider—in some respects +wider,—to the larger—in some respects larger,—to the questionably +happier life, which yet these newcomers must prove for themselves, as +was their right? +</P> + +<P> +They discussed it quietly and at great length that night, but could see +no way out, and for the moment he could find no further comfort for her +than this—and yet it was much,—"Providence, which has done so much +for us," said he, "may in time do this also. Meanwhile the Island life +is all to the good for them. They are splendid little specimens, and +if they run wild and free for some years they will reap the benefit all +their lives. We will hope and pray, and puzzle our brains for them." +</P> + +<P> +Hope they did. And pray they did. But no amount of brain-puzzling +afforded them any solution of their difficulty. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing in the shape of a boat had ever come ashore, and he had neither +the tools nor the skill to build one. And if he had done he would not +have dared to risk his wife and children in it for so doubtful a voyage. +</P> + +<P> +Wild ideas came upon him of constructing a raft stout enough for such a +journey and venturing on it himself, leaving Avice and the children, +fully provided for, to await his return with succour. But he knew she +would never hear of such madness, so sent it to limbo with the rest. +</P> + +<P> +He took to lighting huge fires of timber from the pile, as he had done +more than once before, but the wood burned brightly, with splendid +crackings and spittings which set Master Cubbie dancing with delight, +and the volume of smoke was trifling. It occurred to Wulf also that no +matter how dense a smoke he could raise it would, if seen at all, be +probably taken only for the cloud of sea-birds which were doubtless +known to mariners and avoided like death itself—when avoidance was +possible to them. +</P> + +<P> +That every ship that could do so kept well away from their notorious +bank was evident, for they had never set eyes on a single sail since +they landed. Of course their ordinary range from the level could not +be more than four or five miles, he supposed; and even from their +highest hill, which he reckoned to be sixty to eighty feet, they would +see but twice as far;—and nothing came so close to Sable Island as +that if it could help it. +</P> + +<P> +Still wilder ideas he had,—of tying messages to some of the birds' +legs—but they were such a vicious set that he knew they would get rid +of them at once,—of nailing messages to boards, to empty casks, to +anything that would float—but he knew they might float for a score of +years and never be found, even if the seas did not strip them within a +week. +</P> + +<P> +He was reduced at last to that certainty of knowledge which it is +always of highest benefit to man to attain,—that in this matter he was +as helpless as a child in arms. He could do absolutely nothing that +was of the slightest avail. And so he was thrown back upon, and led +and lifted up to, that complete and perfect trust in a Higher Power +which is the measure of a man's understanding of the great lesson of +life. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +LXIV +</P> + +<P> +They had been five years on the Island. Little Wulf was three, Avice +two,—as healthy and handsome youngsters as the world could show. +</P> + +<P> +Life had been all joyous to them. All the year round, except just now +and again when unusual drift of ice came rustling and grinding about +their island, they trotted about with almost nothing on. They swam +before they could walk, and now were in and out of the water a dozen +times a day, and so they regarded clothing of any kind as a hindrance +to pure enjoyment and freedom of action, and their mother judged it +well to insist on no more than the most reasonable minimum. +</P> + +<P> +They never lacked friends or company, though truly the friendship was +mostly on their side and provokingly lacking in mutuality. Rabbits and +seals, especially baby-rabbits and baby-seals, were the chiefest +objects of their young affections, and they were sorely disappointed at +the small response their proffered friendship evoked. On crabs this +could be enforced by capture and imprisonment, but they found them +cold-blooded, impassive playfellows, of altogether too-retiring +dispositions, and only to be stirred into display of their natural +abilities by provocation. Sea-birds were just as bad in a different +way, and fishes were altogether too elusive until you wanted to eat +them, when a baited hook did the trick in a moment. +</P> + +<P> +That wonderful father of theirs, however, managed to capture a pair of +baby-rabbits, whose mother he had unfortunately knocked on the head for +dinner before he perceived the mischief he was doing. The babies were +welcomed with shrieks of delight and were like to be killed with the +expression of it. The youngsters spent hours flat on their stomachs +watching them in their boarded enclosure alongside the house, and more +hours foraging for them the sweetest and tenderest herbs the hollows +could yield. And presently the captives became friends, and were so +comfortable in their narrow estate that they had no desire for a wider, +but galloped about after their owners wherever they went, and sat +anxiously twisting their noses on the beach when the irrepressibles +found it necessary to wallow and frolic in the water. +</P> + +<P> +At times, for a change, they lived aboard the 'Jane and Mary' for a +week or two, but Mistress Avice always had a very reasonable fear of +one or other or both of the children tumbling overboard, and so the +greater part of their life was passed ashore, with the sand-house as +headquarters and all the rest of the island as playground. +</P> + +<P> +That a life so circumscribed should never have grown monotonous tells +its own pleasant story. But the youngsters had known no other life +with which to compare it, and their elders, who had, found it fuller +and sweeter in its pastoral simplicity than any the great world had +ever offered them. +</P> + +<P> +Every moment of their day was occupied, if not with work, then with +enjoyments. The elders had to provide for the youngsters, and these +again for theirs; and when every single thing must be drawn from Nature +or from an accommodating but distant wreck-pile, such provision takes +time and forethought. +</P> + +<P> +When the day's work was completed they all bathed and rambled far and +wide, and it was on one such ramble, when they had gone as far along +towards the eastern end of the Island as small legs could carry, that +the end came—as suddenly as had come the beginning. +</P> + +<P> +They were sitting on the sunny side of a great sand-hill, eating and +resting after their journey,—resting, that is, so far as the elders +were concerned. The youngsters, who had found walking tiring, or +perhaps tiresome, found no fatigue in scrambling to the tops of +sandhills and sliding down the smooth soft sides with shouts and +shrieks of laughter. +</P> + +<P> +A cessation in the sport drew their father's and mother's eyes to them. +They were both standing on the hill-top gazing eagerly out to sea and +chattering to one another. +</P> + +<P> +"Seals probably," said their mother. From where they sat they could +not see the shore for an intervening ridge. And seals were always a +mighty attraction to the children. +</P> + +<P> +But when they began dancing excitedly on their hill-top their father +called, "What is it you see, Cubbie?" +</P> + +<P> +"Somefing, dad! Somefing funny." +</P> + +<P> +"Somefing funny!" repeated little Avice eagerly, and the elders got up +lazily and slowly climbed the hillside to see what it was. +</P> + +<P> +"My God!" said Wulfrey, as his eyes cleared the top first, and he +turned and kissed his wife joyously. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank God!" she breathed deeply, as her eyes also lighted on that +which was coming. +</P> + +<P> +For there, not half a mile away, was a white boat manned by blue +sailors, leaping towards the shore as fast as eight lusty oars could +drive her, and out beyond her, probably three miles away, was a +white-sailed ship of size. +</P> + +<P> +Wulfrey shouted and waved his arms. The children immediately did the +same, and the regular rise and fall of the oars stopped suddenly as +every eye in the boat turned on them. There were men in the stern with +gilt on their hats. Then the oars fell-to again and the boat came +bounding on. Wulfrey and Avice picked up each their namesakes, and +plunged down the hill and ran round the ridge to the shore. +</P> + +<P> +With a final lunge the boat came up the beach, and a tall man rose in +the stern and asked, "Who, in heaven's name, are you, and what are you +doing here?"—while nine pairs of eager eyes raked over the little +party. +</P> + +<P> +"I am Dr Wulfrey Dale, of Hazelford in Cheshire. This is my wife—and +our children. We have been here five years." +</P> + +<P> +"Good God! Five years!"—he was ashore by this time, and the rest +tumbled hastily out and stood about them, the burly sailors listening +with one ear and trying to make up to the children, who gazed with +wondering awe at the only men they had ever seen except their father. +"How on earth have you lived? ... Five years! ... Not all of you," he +said with a smile. +</P> + +<P> +"Not all of us. The children were born here. We were afraid we would +all have to live and die here. I thank God you are come. What brought +you?" +</P> + +<P> +"We've been sent to prospect with a view to a lighthouse here. There +has been an outcry about the number of wrecks——" +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, there are hundreds over yonder," said Wulfrey, pointing westward. +"They have kept us alive, but the cost to others has been heavy." +</P> + +<P> +"And where do you live?" +</P> + +<P> +"Come and I'll show you—or will you take us along in the boat? It's +good four miles over that way." +</P> + +<P> +"Boat'll be easiest. Sand's heavy walking. How long can we count on +this weather?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, for a week at least. It's our best time of year." +</P> + +<P> +"You will take us home?" asked Avice eagerly, when they had climbed +into the boat and were swinging along parallel to the shore, the +children staring in a vast silence and with rounded eyes at the bearded +sailor-men and their amazing ways. +</P> + +<P> +"As far as our service permits, madame, we will do anything and +everything you wish. We return to Halifax in Nova Scotia, but once +there you will have no difficulties." +</P> + +<P> +"That is where we want to go," said Wulfrey.... "Better keep out a bit +here. There are ridges below there.... Now if you will turn in." +</P> + +<P> +"What's that? A ship?" asked the tall man, and all eyes shot round to +the bare poles of the 'Jane and Mary' snowing over the sandhills. +</P> + +<P> +"A schooner, land-locked in a lagoon. That was our first home. Now we +live ashore." +</P> + +<P> +"And you've been all alone all that time?" +</P> + +<P> +"We had one companion, the mate of the ship.... He died four years +ago. Since then none have come but the dead.... We can get in here, I +think." +</P> + +<P> +The boat ran softly up the beach again, the sailors carried out Avice +and the children, and they all struck up through the sandhills to the +house. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="finis"> +THE END +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. +<BR> +PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND. +<BR> +1917. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<HR> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> + WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%"> +GOD'S PRISONER<BR> +RISING FORTUNES<BR> +OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE<BR> +A PRINCESS OF VASCOVY<BR> +JOHN OF GERISAU<BR> +UNDER THE IRON FLAIL<BR> +BONDMAN FREE<BR> +MR. JOSEPH SCORER<BR> +BARBE OF GRAND BAYOU<BR> +A WEAVER OF WEBS<BR> +HEARTS IN EXILE<BR> +THE GATE OF THE DESERT<BR> +WHITE FIRE<BR> +GIANT CIRCUMSTANCE<BR> +PROFIT AND LOSS<BR> +THE LONG ROAD<BR> +CARETTE OF SARK<BR> +PEARL OF PEARL ISLAND<BR> +THE SONG OF HYACINTH<BR> +MY LADY OF SHADOWS<BR> +GREAT-HEART GILLIAN<BR> +A MAID OF THE SILVER SEA<BR> +LAURISTONS<BR> +THE COIL OF CARNE<BR> +THEIR HIGH ADVENTURE<BR> +QUEEN OF THE GUARDED MOUNTS<BR> +MR. CHERRY<BR> +THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN ROSE<BR> +MARY ALL-ALONE<BR> +RED WRATH<BR> +BEES IN AMBER (VERSE). 10th edition.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Maid of the Mist, by John Oxenham + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAID OF THE MIST *** + +***** This file should be named 37954-h.htm or 37954-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/9/5/37954/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +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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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: Maid of the Mist + +Author: John Oxenham + +Release Date: November 19, 2011 [EBook #37954] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAID OF THE MIST *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: map of Sable Island] + + + + + + +MAID OF THE MIST + + +BY + +JOHN OXENHAM + + + + +HODDER AND STOUGHTON + +PUBLISHERS LONDON + + + + +_Printed in 1917_ + + + + +TO + +MY FRIEND + +FREDERICK CAESAR de SUMICHRAST + +Professor Emeritus of French Literature + +at + +Harvard University + +in + +HIGHEST ESTEEM + +and + +MOST AFFECTIONATE REGARD. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +BOOK I + +For a Woman's Sake + + +BOOK II + +No Man's Land + + +BOOK III + +Bone of Contention + + +BOOK IV + +Love in a Mist + + +BOOK V + +Garden of Eden + + + + +BOOK I + +FOR A WOMAN'S SAKE + + + + +I + +At sight of where the chase was leading, most of the riders reined in +their panting horses and sat watching those in front with anxious faces. + +The Old Roman Road--so called, though with possibly somewhat doubtful +claim to antiquity so remote--had an evil reputation. At best of times +it was dangerous. More than one of them had sacrificed a horse to it +at some time or other. Some had come near to sacrificing more. + +After several hours in the field, wound up by a fast five-and-twenty +minutes' run which had led round Endsley Wood and the coppices almost +to Wynn Hall, and then back through Dursel Bottom, and up Whin Hill, it +was too much to ask of any horse. Besides, it meant the end of the run +in any case, for that old fox, if he failed to shake them off +elsewhere, always made for the Roman Road and always managed it there. + +The hedge on this side was as thick and matted a quickset as ever grew. +The sunk road had no doubt originally been a covered way from the old +fort up above. It was indeed more of a trench than a road, with a +sheer descent from the quickset of ten good feet, a width of about as +much, and a grass slope on the other side at a somewhat lower level. + +The leap was therefore by no means impossible if your horse could rise +to the hedge and cover the distance and the extra bit for a footing. + +But what was the good? The bottom of the old road was always a muddy +dribble from the fields above, and up and down it went several flocks +of sheep whenever they changed pasture. And the wily old fox knew the +effect of these things on scent as well as any hound or huntsman. So, +when it was his day, and he had had enough of them, he made for the Old +Roman Road, and then went home with a curl in his lip and a laugh in +his eye. + +But there were riders among them to whom a ride was nothing without a +risk in it, and the Roman Road a standing test and temptation. It was +two such that the rest who had got that length stood watching, some +with tightened faces, none without anxiety. For a leap that is good +sport when one's horse is fresh may mean disaster at the end of the +run. Even old Job, the huntsman, and young Job, his son, who acted as +whipper-in, watched with pinched faces and panted oaths between their +teeth. Pasley Carew, the Master, lifted his foam-flecked black to the +hedge, and the dull crash of his fall came up to them, horribly clear +on the still autumn air. + +Wulfrey Dale, the Doctor, on his big bay, cleared hedge and road with +feet to spare, flung himself off as soon as he could pull up, and ran +back to help. + +It was as bad as it could be. Carew lay in the road, smothered in mud +and obviously damaged. His horse had just rolled off him, and the +Doctor saw at a glance that one of its forelegs was broken. It was +kicking out wildly with its heels, flailing clods out of the steep bank +and floundering in vain attempts to rise. + +Carew, on one elbow, was cursing it with every oath he could lay tongue +to, and with the pointed bone handle of his crop in the other hand was +hammering the poor brute's head to pulp. + +"Stop it, Carew!" shouted Wulfrey, sickened at the sight, as he jumped +down the bank. "Damn it, man, it wasn't her fault!" + +"---- her! She's broken my back." + +"You shouldn't have tried it. I told you you were too heavy for her. +Stop it, I say!" and he wrenched the crop, all dripping with hair and +blood, out of the other's hand, and with difficulty bit off the hot +words that surged in his throat. For the man was broken and hardly +responsible. + +It was a hard age and given to forceful language. But never in any age +are there lacking some to whom brutality to the dumb beast appeals as +keenly as ill-treatment of their fellows. + +Wulfrey Dale was of these, and a great lover of horses besides, and +Carew's maltreatment of his broken beast cut him to the quick. + +With another quick look at the useless leg, and a bitter word which he +could not keep in, at the horror of the mauled head, he drew from his +pocket a long knife, which had seen service on many a field, opened it, +pressed down the blinded tumbling head with one hand, and with the +other deftly inserted the blade at the base of the skull behind the +ears and drove it home with all his force, severing the spinal cord. + +"Poor old girl!" he said, as, with a quick sigh of relief, the great +black body lay still. + +Then he turned to Carew and knelt down to examine into his injuries. + +"No need," said the broken man. "Curse it all! Get a gate. My back's +gone. I've no legs,"--and the others, having found their roundabout +ways, came flocking up, while the dogs still nosed eagerly up and down +the road but got no satisfaction. + +Young Job plied his whip and his tongue and carried them away. His +father looked at Carew, then at the Doctor, who nodded, and the old man +turned and hurried away to get what long experience of such matters +told him was needed. + +"Take a pull at this, Carew," said the Doctor, handing him a flask. +And as he drank deeply, as though to deaden the pain or the thought of +it, Dale beckoned to one of the group which stood a little aloof lest +the broken man should take their anxiety for morbid curiosity. + +"Barclay, will you ride on and break it to Mrs. Carew?" + +"Is it bad?" + +"Yes, his back's broken." + +"Good God!" and he stumbled off to his horse, and with a word to the +rest, mounted and rode away. + +Old Job came back in a minute or two with a hurdle he had rooted up +from the sheep-fold, and they lifted the Master on to it and carried +him slowly and heavily home. + + + + +II + +Carew was on the front door steps as they came up the drive. The +Doctor went on in advance to speak to her. + +"Dead?" she jerked breathlessly, as he strode up. + +"Not dead. Badly broken. He may live," and her tightened lips pinched +a trifle tighter. + +She was a slight, extremely pretty woman of three and twenty, +white-faced at the moment with the sudden shock; in her blue eyes a +curious startled look--anxiety?--expectancy? Even Dale, who had known +her all his life, could not have said. All he knew was that it was not +quite the look one found in some wives' faces in similar circumstances, +and this was not the first he had seen. + +She looked scarcely more than a girl, though she had been married five +years. That was due largely to the slim grace of her figure. Her face +was thinner than he had known it, less eloquent of her feelings, +somewhat tense and repressed, and her eyes seemed larger; and all that, +he knew, was due to the fact that it was to Pasley Carew to whom she +had been married for five years, for he had seen these changes come +upon her gradually. + +They had played together as boy and girl, when he was just little Wulf +Dale, the Doctor's son, and she Elinor Baynard, living with her mother +at Glynne. As youth and maiden they had flirted and even sweet-hearted +for a time. But Mrs Baynard of Glynne had no intention of letting her +pretty girl throw herself away on a mere country doctor's son, however +highly she might esteem both father and son personally. + +Wulf had at that time still to prove himself, and even if he did so, +and eventually succeeded his father in the practice, it meant no more +than a good living at the cost of constant hard work. + +Elinor, she was sure, had been gifted by Nature with that face and +figure for some better portion in life than that of a country doctor's +wife, and so she saw to it that the feelings of the young people should +not get too deeply entangled before it was too late. + +As for Elinor herself she was very fond of Wulf. She liked him indeed +almost well enough to sacrifice everything for him. But not quite. If +he had only been in the position and possessions of Pasley Carew of the +Hall, now, she would have married him without a moment's hesitation, +and she would undoubtedly have had much greater chance of happiness +than was vouchsafed her. + +If, indeed, Wulf had ardently pushed his suit he might possibly have +prevailed on her to marry him in spite of her mother, though whether +Wulf without the possessions would have satisfied her eventually may be +doubted. But Wulf, two years older than herself, had no intention of +marrying at twenty, even if his father would have heard of it. + +He was a gay, good-looking fellow, with the cheerfullest of humours, +and on the best of terms with every man, woman and child, over all the +country-side. Moreover he was an excellent shot, a fearless rider, +good company at table, an acceptable and much-sought-after +guest,--whenever circumstances and cases permitted of temporary release +from duties with which no social engagements were ever allowed to +interfere. Marrying and settling down were for the years to come. + +As his father's assistant he had proved his capabilities. And when the +old man died, Wulf stepped up into the vacant saddle and filled it with +perfect acceptation to all concerned. + +His ready sympathy, and his particular interest in and devotion to +everyone who claimed his services, endeared him to his patients. They +vowed that the sight of him did them as much good as his medicines, but +he made them take the medicines all the same. + +He had also lately been appointed Deputy-Coroner for the district, in +order, in case of need, to relieve Dr Tamplin--old Tom Tamplin who +lived at Aldersley, ten miles away. So that matters were prospering +with him all round. All men spoke well of him, and the women still +better. + +A practitioner from the outside, with a London degree and much +assurance, had indeed hung out his large new brass plate in the village +about a year before, and lived on there in hope which showed no sign of +fulfilment. For everyone knew and liked Wulf Dale, and Dr Newman, +M.B., clever though he might be and full worthy of his London degree, +was still an outsider and an unknown quantity, and the way of the +medical outsider in a country district is apt to be as hard as the way +of the transgressor. + +So Elinor Baynard, for the sake of her bodily comfort and her own and +her mother's worldly ambitions, married Pasley Carew and became +Mistress of Croome, and learned all too soon that it is possible to pay +too high a price even for bodily comfort and the realisation of worldly +ambition. + +Worldly ambition may, indeed, be made to appear successfully attained, +to the outside world; but bodily comfort, being dependent more or less +on peace of mind, is not to be secured when heart and mind are sorely +exercised and bruised. + +Jealous Jade Rumour even went the length of whispering that it was not +heart and mind alone that had on occasion suffered bruising in this +case. For Carew was notoriously quick-tempered and easily upset--and +notoriously many other things also. His grooms and boys knew the feel +of his hunting-crop better than his reasons for using it at +times--though doubtless occasion was not lacking. As to his +language!--it was said that the very horses in his stables lashed out +when he began, as though they believed that, by much kicking, curses +might be pulverised in mid-air and rendered innocuous. + +Now a wife cannot--Elinor at all events could not--kick even to that +extent under the application of sulphur or riding-whip. Nor can she +legally, except in the extremest case, throw up her situation, as the +stable-boys could, but did not. For the pay in both cases was good, +and for the sake of it the one and the other put up with the +discomforts appertaining to their positions. + +Pasley Carew's redeeming characteristics were a large estate and +rent-roll, sporting instincts, and extreme openhandedness in everything +that ministered to his own pleasures. + +He ran the hounds and was a fine rider, though over-hard on his horses, +with whom he was never on terms of intimate friendship. He esteemed +them solely for their carrying capacities. He preserved, was a good +shot, and free with his invitations to the less-happily situated. He +was a jovial host and a hard drinker as was the fashion. He enjoyed +seeing his friends at his table and under it. He was not a hard +landlord, and this, and his generosity in the matter of compensation +for hunt-damage, secured him the good-will of the country-side and +palliated all else. + +Morals were slack in those days, and no one would have thought for a +moment of affronting Carew by calling him a moral man. + +On the whole, Elinor paid a somewhat high price for the bodily comfort +from which--according to the Jealous Jade--sulphurous language and an +occasional blow were not lacking, and for the satisfaction of a worldly +ambition which, if the gradual shadowing of her pretty face was +anything to go by, had not brought her any great peace of mind. + + + + +III + +Wulfrey Dale was a very general favourite. With men and women alike, +quite irrespective of their station in life, his manner was +irresistibly frank and charming. With the women it might be said to be +almost unfortunately so. + +He was so absolutely and unaffectedly sympathetic, so exclusively and +devotedly interested in every woman he met, that it is hardly matter +for wonder that in many quarters impressionable hearts beat high at his +coming, and thought tenderly and hopefully of him when he had gone. +That, too, in spite of the fact that their owners knew perfectly well +that it was simply Wulf's way, as it had been his father's before him, +and that neither of them could change his nature any more than he could +change his skin or the colour of his eyes. + +He took a deep and genuine human interest in every man, woman and child +with whom he came into contact, and showed it. With men and children +it made for good-fellowship and extraordinary confidence. The older +folk all trusted young Wulfrey as they had all their lives trusted the +old Doctor. The children would talk to him as between man and man, and +with an artlessness and candour which as a rule obtained only among +themselves. With the women it led in some cases to little affections +of the heart--flutterings and burnings and barely-self-confessed +disappointments, for which their owners, if honest in their searchings +after truth, had to acknowledge that the blame lay entirely with +themselves. + +It was a time of hard drinking, hard riding, and quite superfluously +strong language, but none the less, among the women-folk, of a +sentiment which in these days of wider outlook and opportunity we +should denominate as sickly. The blame was not all theirs. + +So far Wulf had shown exceptional interest or favour in no direction, +that is to say in all, and so none could claim to say with any +certainty in which way the wind blew, or even if it blew at all. + +Not a few held that Elinor Baynard's marriage with Pasley Carew had so +wounded his affections that it was probable he would never marry, +unless----. And therein lay strictly private grounds for hope in many +a heart. + +For a heart-broken man, however, Wulfrey managed to maintain an +extremely cheerful face, and his manner to Elinor, whenever they met, +was just the same as to other women. + +If it had in fact been somewhat different it would not have been very +surprising. For it needed no professional acumen to recognise that her +marriage with Pasley had not fulfilled her expectations. + +She was, indeed, Mrs Carew of Croome, mistress of the Hall and all such +amenities--and otherwise--and luxuries of living as appertained to so +exalted a position, winner of the prize so many had coveted, and--wife +of Pasley Carew. And sometimes it is possible she wished she were none +of these things because of the last. + +For Carew made no pretence of perfection, or even of modest +impeccability, never had done so since the day he was born, never would +till the day he must die, would have scorned the very idea. Was he not +a man,--rich and hot-blooded, able and accustomed all his life to have +his own way in all things, easy enough to get on with when he got it, +otherwise when thwarted? + +And Wulfrey Dale had seen the freshness of the maiden-bloom fade out of +Elinor's pretty face, in these five years of her attainment, had seen +it stiffen in self-repression, and even harden somewhat. Her eyes had +seemed to grow larger, and there were sometimes dark shadows under +them. Without doubt she had not found any too large measure of the +comfort and happiness she had looked for. At times, mind acting on +body, her health was not of the best, and then she sent for Wulfrey to +minister to her bodily necessities, and found that he could do it best +by allowing her to relieve her mind of some of its burdens. + +They had always been on such friendly terms that she could, and did, +talk to him as to no other. Her mother was worse than useless as a +burden-sharer. Her only counsel was not to be too thin-skinned, and +above all to present a placid face to the world. Which, as medicine to +a sorely-tried soul, was easier to give than to take, and proved quite +ineffective. + +Wulfrey, on the other hand, gave her tonics, and, to the fullest limits +of his duty to Carew, his deepest sympathy in her troubles and +vexations, and his friendly advice towards encouragement and hope of +better times, when Pasley's hot blood would begin to cool and he would +settle down to less objectionable courses. + +At times, under stress and suffering from some more than usually +immoderate outbreak on her husband's part, she would let herself go in +a way that pained and surprised him, both as friend and doctor. He +doubted if she always told him all, even at such times. More than once +she had seemed on the point of still wilder outbreak, and it was all he +could do to soothe her and bring her back to a more reasonable frame of +mind. + +On one occasion she openly threatened to take her life, since it was no +longer worth living, and it took Wulfrey a good hour to wring from her +a solemn promise not to do so without first consulting him. So +over-wrought and alternately excited and depressed was she that there +were times when, in spite of her promise, he would not have been +greatly surprised by a sudden summons to the Hall with the news that +its mistress had made a summary end of her troubles. + +His mind was sorely exercised on her account, but it was only the +effects that came within his province. The root of the trouble was +beyond his tackling. He did, indeed, after much debate within himself, +bring himself to the point of discussing the matter, in strictest +confidence, with the parson, one night. But he, jovial sportsman and +recipient of many bounties from Pasley, including the privilege of +subsiding under his table whenever invitation offered, genially but +flatly refused to interfere between man and wife. + +"No good ever comes of it, Doctor. You know that as well as any man. +It's only the intruder suffers. They both turn and rend him like boars +of the wood and wild beasts of the field. Take my advice and leave 'em +alone. These things always straighten themselves out in time--one way +or the other. Deuce take the women! They're not blind kittens when +they marry. They've got to take the rough with the smooth. Another +glass of punch before you go!"--was the irreverent Reverend's final +word on the matter. And Wulfrey could do no more in that direction. + + + + +IV + +It was under such circumstances that they carried Pasley Carew home to +Croome on the hurdle; under such circumstances that Elinor met them on +the steps and asked Wulfrey, with that curious, startled look in her +eyes which might be anxiety and might be expectancy.-- + +"Dead?" + +And Wulfrey, subconsciously wondering whether she really had got the +length of hoping for her husband's death, and subconsciously feeling +that if it were so it was not much to be wondered at, though +undoubtedly greatly to be deplored, had answered her, somewhat sternly, +"Not dead. Badly broken. He may live,"--for the shock of the whole +matter, and the extreme discomfort of having had to sever that poor +Blackbird's spinal cord, were still heavy on him. + +Elinor shot one sharp, searching glance at his face, and turned and +went on before the bearers to show them the way. + +The staircase at Croome was a somewhat notable one, wide enough to +accommodate hurdle and bearers with room to spare, so they carried the +Master right up to his own bedroom and as gently as possible +transferred him to his bed. + +The explosive fury of his outbreak against Fate and Blackbird, in the +first shock of his fall, had been simply a case of vehement passion +disregarding, and momentarily overcoming, the frailty of the flesh. +Exhaustion and collapse followed, and as they carried him home he lay +still and barely conscious. + +He came to himself again as they placed him on the bed, and after lying +for a moment, as though recalling what had happened, murmured in a +bitter whisper, "Damnation! Damnation! Damnation!" and his eyes +screwed up tightly, and his face warped and pinched in agony of mind or +body, or both. + +As Wulfrey bent over him, and with gentle hands assured himself of the +damage, Carew looked up at him out of the depths; horror, desperation, +furious revolt, hopelessness, all mingled in the wild gleam that +detected and scorched the pity in Wulfrey's own eyes, and gave him +warning of dangers to come. + +"---- it all! It's no good, Dale," he growled hoarsely. "I'm done. +---- that horse! Give me something that'll end it quick!" + +"Don't talk that way, man! You know I can't do that. We'll pull you +through." + +"To lie like a log for the rest of my life! I won't, I tell you. ---- +it, man, can't you understand I'd liefer go at once?" + +"I'll bring you up a draught and you'll get some rest," said Dale +soothingly. + +"Rest! Rest! A dose of poison is all I want, ---- you! Don't look at +me like that, ---- _you_!" to his wife, who stood watching with her +hands tightly clasped as though to hold in her emotions. She walked +away to the window and stood looking out. + +"Carew, you--must--be--quiet. You're doing yourself harm," said the +Doctor authoritatively. + +"Man, I'm in hell. Poison me, and make an end!" + +"Not till tomorrow, anyway. I'll run down and get that draught. We'll +see about the other in the morning." + +Mrs Carew turned as he left the room, and followed him out, and the +sick man sank back with a groan and a curse. + +"Will he die?" she asked quickly, as she closed the door behind them. + +"Not necessarily. But if he lives he'll be crippled for life." + +"He would sooner die than live like that." + +"We can't help that. It's my business to keep him alive. I'll run +down and mix him a draught which may give him some rest. You'll need +assistance. He may go off his head. He's a bad patient. I'll send +you someone up----" + +"Not Jane Pinniger then. I won't have her." + +He knitted his brows at her. "It was Jane I was thinking of. She's an +excellent nurse, both brains and brawn, and he may get violent in the +night." + +"I won't have her here," said Elinor obstinately, and he remembered +that gossip had, not so very long ago, been busy with the names of +Pasley and Jane, as she had at other times occupied herself with Pasley +and many another. Undoubtedly Elinor had had much to bear. + +"All right! If I can find anyone else----" he began. + +"I won't have Jane Pinniger here,"--and he went off at speed to get the +draught and find a substitute for Jane if that were possible. + +His doubts on that head were justified. He sent his boy up with the +draught, and started on the search for a nurse who should combine a +modicum of intelligence with the necessary strength of mind and body. + +But his choice was very limited. Old crones there were, satisfactory +enough in their own special line and in a labourer's cottage, but +useless for a job such as this. There was nothing for it at last but +to go back to the Hall and tell Mrs Carew that it was Jane or nobody. + +"Nobody then," said she decisively. "I will manage with one of the +girls from downstairs, and young Job to help." + +"Young Job is all very well with the dogs----" + +"He will do very well for this too. We may not require him, but he can +be at hand in case of need," and he had to leave it at that. + + + + +V + +Carew suffered much, more in mind even than in body. The thought of +lying there like a damned log, as he put it, for the rest of his days +filled him with most passionate resentment, and drove him into +paroxysms of raging fury. He cursed everything under the sun and +everyone who came near him, with a completeness and finality of +invective which, if it had taken effect or come home to roost, would +have blighted himself and all his surroundings off the face of the +earth. + +Even his wife, and the maid who took turns with her to sit within call, +accustomed as they were to his outbreaks, quailed before the storm. +Young Job alone suffered it without turning a hair, and paid no more +heed to it all, even when directed against himself, than he would to +the yelping of his dogs. + +Wulfrey Dale came in for his share, chiefly by reason of his quiet +inattention to the sufferer's impossible demands for extinction. + +But he found his visits to the sick-room trying even to his seasoned +nerves. What it must all mean to the tortured wife he hardly dared to +imagine. + +Once when he was there, Carew hurled a tumbler at her which missed her +head by a hair's-breadth. Dale got her out of the room, and turned and +gave his patient a sound verbal drubbing, and Carew cursed him high and +low till his breath gave out. + +"Has he done that before?" the Doctor asked the white-faced wife, when +he had followed her downstairs. + +"Oh, yes. But I'm generally on the look-out. I was off my guard +because you were there. Oh, I wish he would die and leave us in peace." + +"He'll kill himself if he goes on like this." + +"He'll kill some of us first. He's wanting to die. It would be the +best thing for him--and for us. Can't you let him die?" and a tiny +spark shot through the shadowy suffering of her eyes as she glanced up +at him. + +"You know I can't. Don't talk like that!" he said brusquely, and then, +to atone for the brusqueness, "I am sorely distressed for you, but +there is nothing to be done but bear it as bravely as you can. What +about your mother? Couldn't you----" + +"It would only make him worse still, if that is possible. Pasley +detests her. Oh, I wish I were dead myself. I cannot bear it," and +she broke into hysterical weeping, and swayed blindly, and would have +fallen if he had not caught her. + +A woman's grief and tears always drew the whole of Wulf's sympathy. +And he and she had been almost as brother and sister all their +lives--till she married Carew. + +"Don't, Elinor! Don't!" he said soothingly, as with her shaking head +against his breast she sobbed as though her heart were broken. + +Mollie, the maid, came hastily in, without so much as a knock, her red +face mottled with white fear. + +"He's going on that awful, Ma'am, I vow I daresn't stop in there alone +with him. It's as much as one's life's worth when he's in his +tantrums." + +"Get your mistress a glass of wine, Mollie, and then find young Job and +send him up. I'll go up and wait with Mr Carew till he comes." + +He led Mrs Carew to the couch and made her lie down there, and +explained matters to the girl by asking her, + +"Does he throw things at you too?" + +"La, yes, Doctor, at all of us, if we don't keep 'em out of his reach. +He do boil up so at nothing at all," and she went off in search of +young Job, who was passing a peaceful holiday hour in the company of +thirty couple of yelping hounds. + + + + +VI + +Dale was confronted with the problem with which every medical man comes +face to face during his career. + +Here was a man who, both for his own sake and still more for the sake +of those about him, would be very much better dead than living; who +wanted to die, and, as he believed, make an end; who begged constantly +for the relief of death;--and yet, against his own equally strong +feeling of what would be best for all concerned, his doctor must do his +very utmost to keep his patient alive and all about him in torment. + +Wulfrey wished, as devoutly as the more immediate sufferers, that he +would die. He wished it more ardently each time he saw Mrs Carew, and +wholly and entirely on her account. + +Her white face, which grew more deathly white each day, and her woful +eyes, which grew ever more despairing in their shadowy rings, were sure +indexes of what she was passing through. Dale wondered how much longer +she would be able to stand it. + +He gave her tonics, and his most helpful sympathy and encouragement. +And at the same time, by the irony of circumstance and the claims of +his profession, he must do everything in his power to perpetuate the +burden under which she was breaking. + +But the whole matter came to a sudden and unlooked for end, on the +seventh day after the accident. + +Wulfrey was hastening up to the Hall to clear this, the unpleasantest +item, out of his day's work, when he met young Job coming down the +drive with a straw in his mouth and three couples of young hounds at +his heels. + +"Wur comen fur you, Doctor," said young Job. "He's dead." + +"Dead?" jerked the Doctor in very great surprise, for his patient had +been more venomously alive than ever the night before. + +"Ay--dead. An' a good thing too, say I, and so too says everyone +that's heard it." + +"But what took him, Job? He was going on all right last night." + +"'Twere the Devil I expecs, Doctor, if you ask me straight. He were +getten too strampageous to live. Th' air were so full o' fire and +brimstone with his curses, it weren't safe. 'Twere like bein' under a +tree wi' th' leeghtnin' playin' all round." + +"And Mrs Carew? ... Who was with him when he died? Tell me all you +know about it," as they hurried along. + +"I come up at ten o'clock as ushal, an' the missus met me at door wi' +her finger to her lips. 'He's sleeping, Job,' she says, an' glad I was +to hear it. 'I'll go an' lie down, Job, for I'm very tired,' she says, +and she looked it, poor thing. 'Knock on my door if you need me, Job,' +she says, and she went away. He were lying quiet and all tucked up, +an' I sat down an' waited for him to wake up and start again. But he +never woke, and when the missus came in this morning she went and +looked at him, and she says, 'Why, Job, I do believe he's dead,' and I +went and looked at him, and, God's truth, he looked as if he might be. +But I couldn't be sure, not liking to touch him, and I says, 'No such +luck, ma'am, _I_'m afraid,'--polite like, for we all knows the time +she's had wi' him, and she says, 'Go and fetch Dr Dale.' So I just +loosed these three couple o' young uns--they're all achin' for a +run,--an' I'm wondering who'll work th' pack now he's gone, if so be as +he's really gone, which I'm none too sure of. Th' Hunt were best thing +he ever did, but he were terrible hard on his horses." + +Dale hurried into the house and up the stair, and into the sick-room, +the windows of which were opened to their widest, as though to cleanse +the room of the fire and brimstone which had seemed over-strong even to +such a pachyderm as young Job. + +Carew lay there on the bed, at rest at last, as far as this world was +concerned, startlingly quiet after the storm-furies of the last seven +days and nights. + +Dale was still standing looking down at him, full of that +ever-recurring wonder at the quiet dignity which Death sometimes +imparts even to those whose lives have not been dignified; full too of +anxious desire to learn how it had come about. + +The tightly-clenched hands and livid rigidity of the body suggested a +startling possibility. He was bending down to the dead man to +investigate more closely when a sound behind him caused him to look +round, and he found Mrs Carew standing there. Her face was whiter, her +eyes heavier and more shadowy, than he had ever seen them. + +"He is dead," she said quietly. + +"One can only look upon it as a merciful release--for all of you. How +was it?" + +"He wanted to die," she began, in the dull level tone of a child +repeating an obnoxious lesson. Then the self-repression she had +prescribed for herself gave way somewhat. Her hands gripped one +another fiercely and she hurried on with a touch of rising hysteria, +but still speaking in little more than a whisper. "You know how he +wanted to die. He was asking you all the time to give him something to +end it. But you could not. I know--I quite understand--being a +doctor, of course you could not. But there was something he kept--for +the rats, you know, in the stables. And he told me where it was and +told me to get some. So I got it and gave it him in his +sleeping-draught, and----" + +"Good God! Elinor!..." he gasped. "... You never did that!" + +"Yes, I did. Why not? He wished it. We all wished it. It is much +better so," and she pointed at the dead man on the bed. "It is better +for him ... and for all of us. I only did what he told me." + +He stood staring at her in blankest amazement, and found himself +unconsciously searching her face and eyes for signs of aberration. Her +face was wan-white still, but had lost the broken, beaten look it had +worn of late. The shadow-ringed eyes were perfectly steady and had in +them a curious wistful look, like that of a child expecting and +deprecating a scolding. + +"Do you know what it means?" he asked at last, in a hoarse whisper. + +"It means release for us all," she said quickly, and then more quickly +still, "Oh, Wulfrey, I couldn't help thinking--hoping +that--sometime--not for a long time, of course,--but sometime--when we +have forgotten all this--you might--you and I might----" + +"Stop!" he said sternly. "Were you thinking that when you did this?" +and he pointed to the bed. + +"Not then--at least--no, I think not. I just did what he told me to +do. But when I saw he was really dead----" + +He stopped her again with a gesture, and broke out with brusque +vehemence, "Is it possible you don't understand what you have done? Do +you know what the law will call it?"---- + +"The law? No one needs to know anything about it but you and me----" + +"The law will want to know how this man died----" + +"But you can tell them all that is necessary. It was Blackbird falling +at the old road that killed him. If he hadn't broken his back he +wouldn't have been lying here, and if he hadn't----" + +"He might have lived for twenty years," he said, breaking her off short +again with an abrupt gesture. "The law requires of me the exact truth. +Do you understand you are asking me to swear to a lie? I would not do +it to save my own life." + +"He took it himself----" + +"He could not get it himself, and the law will hold you responsible for +supplying it." + +"Oh--Wulfrey! ... You won't let them hang me?"--and he saw that at last +she understood clearly enough the peril in which she stood if the whole +truth of the matter became known. + +Hang her they most certainly would if the facts got out, or coop her +for life in a mad-house, which would be infinitely worse than hanging. +And the thought of either dreadful ending to her spoiled life was very +terrible to him. + +She stood before him, little more than a girl still, woful, wistful, +with terror now in her white face and shadowy eyes, and he remembered +their bygone days together. + +"Go back to your room, and rest, if you can. And say nothing of all +this to anyone. You understand?--not a word to anyone. I must think +what can be done," he said, and she turned and went without a word. + + + + +VII + +Wulfrey Dale thought hard and deep. + +He must save her if he could. + +How? + +For a moment--inevitably--he weighed in his mind the question of his +own honour versus this woman's life. + +With a few strokes of the pen he could probably bury the whole matter +safely out of sight along with Carew's dead body. But those few +strokes of the pen, certifying that this man died as the result of his +accident, were as impossible to him as would have been the +administration of the poisoned draught itself. + +Moreover--though that weighed nothing with him compared with the +other--there was in them always the possibility of disaster, should +rumour or tittle-tattle cast the shadow of doubt upon his statement; +and an idle word from Mollie or young Job might easily do that. The +neighbours also had made constant enquiry after Pasley since his +accident, and had been given to understand that he was progressing as +well as could be expected. His sudden death might well cause comment. +Indeed, it would be strange if it did not. That might lead to +investigation, and that must inevitably disclose the fact that he died +from strychnine poisoning. + +The Dales had never been wealthy, but their standards had been high, +and Wulfrey had never done anything to lower them. He could not sell +his honour even for this woman's life. + +He pitied her profoundly. He understood her better probably than any +other. He knew how terribly she had suffered, and could comprehend, +quite clearly, just how she had fallen into this horrible pit. But +cast his honour to the dogs for her, he could not. + +Then how? + +And, pondering heavily all possibilities, he saw the only feasible way +out. + +It meant almost certain ruin to himself and his prospects, but, if it +came, it would be clean ruin and he would feel no smirch. + +It involved a false statement of fact, it is true, but of a very +different cast and calibre from the other, and one that he himself felt +to be no stain upon his honour. + +As a matter of pure ethics a lie is a lie, and of course indefensible. +I simply tell you what this man did and felt himself untarnished in the +doing. + +And the very first thing he did was to go straight home to the little +dispensary which opened off his consulting-room, and alter the +positions of some of the bottles on the shelves; and from one of them +he withdrew a measured dose which he tossed out of the window into the +garden. + +Then he sat down at his desk and quietly wrote out a certificate of the +death of Pasley Carew, of Croome Hall, Gentleman, through the +administration of a dose of strychnine in mistake for distilled water, +in a sleeping-draught compounded by Dr Wulfrey Dale. And he thought, +as he wrote the word, of the awful pandemonium Pasley Carew, Gentleman, +had created in his own household these last seven days. + +He enclosed this in a covering letter to Dr Tamplin, the coroner, in +which he explained more fully how the mistake had occurred. The +bottles containing the strychnine and the distilled water stood side by +side on his shelf. He had come in tired from a long country round. +Had remembered the draught to be sent up to the Hall. As to the rest, +he could not tell how he came to make such a mistake. But there it +was, and he only was to blame. He could only express his profound +regret and accept the consequences. + +Then, having completed his documents, instead of galloping off to see +his waiting patients, he sat down before the fire and let his thoughts +play gloomily over the whole matter. His man was off delivering +medicines, and would not be back till midday. Time enough if Tamplin +got his letter during the afternoon. As to his own patients, he had +run rapidly over them in his own mind, and saw that there was no one +vitally demanding his attention. He could not go his rounds and say +nothing, and the thought of carrying the news of his own default was +too much for him. As soon as the matter got bruited about, he thought +grimly, there would probably be a run on Dr Newman's services, which +would greatly astonish and delight that gentleman and would compensate +him for all his months of weary waiting. + +It was a good thing for Elinor, he thought, as he sat staring into the +fire, that he was not married. If he had had a wife and children, they +must have gone into the scale against her, and she must certainly have +been hanged. + +Quite impossible to bring it in as an accident on her part. That he +had seen at a glance. The jury would be composed of neighbours, and in +spite of the placid face she had turned to the world, it was well +enough known that she and Pasley had not lived happily together. And +though the fault of that was not imputed to her, every man's thought +would inevitably jump to the worst, and condemn her even before she did +it out of her own mouth, which she most certainly would do the moment +she opened it to explain matters. + +No, this was the only possible way. If the cost was heavy, he was more +capable of bearing it than she. In any case he could not hand her over +to the hangman. That was out of the question. + +He could pretty well forecast the consequences. His practice would be +ruined, for who would trust a doctor capable of so fatal a mistake? He +would have to go away and start life afresh elsewhere. It would have +to be somewhere where he was quite unknown, or this thing would dog him +all his life. Some new country perhaps,--say Canada or the States. +Gad, it was a heavy price to pay for a foolish woman's lapse! + +He would not be penniless, of course. His father had laid by a +considerable sum in the course of his long and busy life. If necessary +he could live in quiet comfort, without working, for the rest of his +days. But it was hard to break away like this from all that had so far +constituted his life. A heavy price to pay for mere sentiment--but not +too heavy for a woman's life! + +There was no doubt of his having to go. The question was whether he +should go at once, or wait till there was nothing left to wait for. + +It would be dismal and weary work waiting. But going would feel like +bolting, and he had never run from trouble in his life. As a matter of +fact he had never until now had any serious trouble to face, but now +that it had come he found himself in anything but a running humour. + +If there had been anything to fight he would have rejoiced in the melee +and plunged into it with ardour. But here was nothing to be fought. +By his own deliberate act he was labelling himself untrustworthy, and +no uttermost striving on his part could rehabilitate him. For the +essence of healing is faith, and a doctor who has forfeited one's +confidence is worse than no doctor at all. + + + + +VIII + +In the afternoon he sent off his man on horseback with the letter to Dr +Tamplin, and towards evening he came galloping back with this very +characteristic reply: + + +"MY DEAR WULFREY, + +Shocking business and I'm sorely grieved about whole matter. Humanum +est errare, but a doctor's not supposed to. Good thing for us we're +not always found out. Could you not bring yourself to certify death as +result of the accident? I consider it a mistake to admit the +possibility of such a thing, so d--d damaging to the profession. And +have you considered the matter from your own point of view? Cannot +fail to have bad effect. Perhaps give that new fellow just the chance +he's been waiting for. ---- him! + +Think it over again, my boy, from all points, and be wise. I return +certificate. Your man will tell you all about my fall. My cob +stumbled over a stone last night and broke me a leg and two ribs. I'm +too heavy for that kind of thing and he's a ---- fool! But it was very +dark and we're neither of us as young as we were. For all our sakes I +hope you'll come through this all right. We can't spare you. And it +might come to that. Remember what silly sheep folks are. + +Yours truly, + THOMAS TAMPLIN." + + +Just like the dear, easy-going old boy, fall and all, thought Wulfrey, +and the advice tendered and the course suggested did not greatly +surprise him. But he had to make allowances for the old man's age and +easy-goingness, and his lack of detailed knowledge of all the +circumstances of the case,--how almost impossible it would be to +ascribe Carew's death to the accident, even if he could have brought +himself to do so. + +The old man's own shelving would add greatly to the unpleasantness of +the situation, for, as deputy-coroner, he would have to call a jury +himself, and submit the matter to their consideration and himself to +their verdict. + +However, there was no way out of that, so he set to work at once and +sent out his summonses, calling the inquest for ten o'clock the next +morning, at the Hall; and to relieve Elinor as much as possible, he +gave orders to the undertaker at Brentham to do all that was necessary, +and sent her word that he had done so. + +Early next morning, before he was up, young Job was knocking on his +front door, with half the pack yelping and leaping outside the gate. + +"Well, Job? What's it now?" he asked, from his bedroom window. + +"That gal Mollie says you better come up and see th' missus----" + +"Why? What's wrong with her?" + +"_I_ d'n know, n' more don't Mollie. _She_ thinks she's had a stroke." + +"Wait five minutes and I'll go back with you," and in five minutes they +were crunching through the lanes, all hard underfoot with frost that +lay like snow, and white and gay with hedge-row lacery of spiders' webs +in feathery festoons, and, up above, a crimson sun rising slowly +through the mist-banks over the bare black trees. + +"What makes Mollie think your mistress has had a stroke?" asked the +Doctor. "What does Mollie know about strokes?" + +"I d'n know. 'Sims to me she've had a stroke,' was her very words. +She've just laid on her bed all day an' all night without speakin' a +word, Mollie says,--eatin' noth'n, and drinkin' noth'n, which is +onnat'ral; an' sayin' noth'n, which in a woman is onnat'ral too." + +"She was quite worn out with nursing Mr Carew." + +"Like enough. He _wur_ a handful an' no mistake. Th' house is a deal +quieter wi'out him. But who's goin' to run th' pack?--that's what +bothers me." + +"Don't you worry, Job. Someone will turn up to run the pack all right." + +"Mebbe, but it depends on who 'tis. Why not yourself now, Doctor?" + +"That's a great compliment, Job, and I appreciate it. But," with a +shake of the head, "I'll have other work to do," and he wondered grimly +where that work might lie. + +Mollie took him straight up to Mrs Carew's room, where she lay just as +she had sunk down on the bed when he sent her away the previous morning. + +"She's nivver spoke nor moved since she dropped down there yes'day," +whispered Mollie impressively. "I covered her up, but she took no +notice. An' I brought her up her dinner and her supper but she's never +ate a bite." + +"Get me a cup of hot milk with an egg and a glass of sherry beaten up +in it, Mollie," he whispered back. "And I'll see if I can induce her +to take it. You did quite right to send for me," and Mollie hurried +away with a more hopeful face. + +Elinor lay there with her eyes closed and a rigid, stricken look on her +white face, a picture of hopeless despair. But Wulfrey's quick glance +had caught the flutter of her heavy lids, and the gleam of terrified +enquiry that had shot through them, as they came into the room, and he +understood. + +He bent over her and whispered, "I have made it all right, Elinor. You +need have no further fears----" + +"They will not hang me?" she whispered, and looked up into his face +with all the terrors of the night still in her woful eyes. + +"No one will know anything about it unless you tell them yourself. You +will eat something now, and then you had better lie still. Get some +sleep if you can or you will make yourself ill. If you fell ill you +might say things you should not, you know." + +She struggled up on to one elbow. "You are quite sure they will not +hang me?" she whispered again. + +"Quite sure, unless you are so foolish as to tell them all about it." + +"I have felt the rope round my neck all night. Oh, it was terrible in +the dark. It was terrible ... terrible----" and she felt about her +pretty white neck with her trembling hands. + +"Forget all about it now. I have made all the necessary arrangements. +There will have to be an inquest. It will be held here---" + +"Here?" she shivered. + +"At ten o'clock this morning. You are too ill to be present, so you +will just lie still. It will not take long. And I have done +everything else that had to be done." + +"It is very good of you," she murmured, with a forlorn shake of the +head. + +She did not ask by what means he had saved her from the consequences of +what she had done. Perhaps she dared not. Perhaps she believed he +had, after all, forsworn himself for her sake, and refrained from +questioning him lest it should only add to his discomfort. Anyway she +was satisfied with the fact. She was not going to be hanged. That was +enough. + +Mollie came in with her deftly-compounded cup. + +"Drink it up," said the Doctor. "I will look in again later on," and +he went away to prepare the household for the coming meeting in the big +dining-room. + + + + +IX + +The sixteen jurymen, whom Wulfrey had summoned in order to make quite +sure of a legal panel, came riding up in ones and twos, with faces +tuned to the occasion, disguising, as well as they could, the vast +curiosity this sudden call had excited in themselves and all their +various households. + +That there was something gravely unusual behind it they could not but +feel. They were all friends and neighbours; many of them had witnessed +Carew's accident and had been constant in their enquiries as to his +progress. The news of his death had come as a surprise and a shock, +and such of them as happened to join company on the road discussed the +matter by fits and starts, and surreptitiously as it were, but did not +venture below the surface. Their women-folk at home had done all that +was necessary in that respect for the fullest ventilation of the +subject, without in any degree rendering it more savoury or +comprehensible. + +Every man had felt it his bounden duty to be there, and so it was +sixteen keenly interested faces that confronted Wulfrey when he took +the chair at the head of the table and stood up to speak to them. + +His face was very grave, his manner noticeably quiet and restrained and +very different from its usual jovial frankness. + +"This painful duty, doubly painful under the circumstances, as you will +understand in a moment, has fallen to me in consequence of Dr Tamplin +being laid up through the fall of his horse yesterday. I am sure you +will not make it any more painful for me than it is. I shall not +trouble you long. The matter is unfortunately clear and simple. Our +friend, Mr Pasley Carew, died the night before last from the effects of +a dose of strychnine, administered in a sleeping-draught in mistake for +distilled water which was in the bottle alongside it on the shelf in my +dispensary." + +His eyes ranged keenly over the startled faces round the table at which +they had all of them so often sat,--under which some of them had not +infrequently lain. + +Every face was alight with startled surprise. Not one of them showed +the remotest sign of questioning his statement. + +Indeed, why should they? A man does not as a rule confess to so grave +a lapse unless it is absolutely unavoidable, unless the truth must out +and there is no possible loophole of escape. + +Not many men would fling away their life's prospects from simple pity +for a woman. For love--yes, without a doubt, and count the cost small. +But from simple pity, in remembrance of the time when the greater love +had been possible? ... + +But no such idea found place in any of their minds. His eyes searched +theirs for smallest flicker of doubt, but found none. Whatever the +women at home might have suggested as extreme possibilities, these men +accepted his word without a moment's hesitation. Elinor was perfectly +safe. + +"He was in great pain and could only get rest and relief by means of +opiates. How the mistake occurred I cannot explain, except that the +bottles of distilled water and of strychnine stand alongside one +another on my shelf, and that I had come in very tired that night and +the sleeping-draught was prepared hurriedly. I deplore the results +more than any of you possibly can, and of course I must accept the +consequences. I have not judged it necessary to make any post-mortem +examination. I was called by young Job early yesterday morning, and +when I got here Carew was dead and the symptoms were those of poisoning +by strychnine. I was amazed and horrified, but when I hurried back +home I saw at once how the mistake might have been made, +and--and--well, there the matter is and you must bring in such verdict +as you deem right. You can see the body if you wish. You can examine +the servants. Mrs Carew, I am sorry to say, is quite broken down with +the shock. She has been, I am told, practically unconscious for nearly +twenty-four hours and has only just come to herself. But if you would +like to see her----" + +"No, no." "No need whatever," said the jurymen deprecatingly. + +Dr Wulfrey sat down and dropped his head into his hands, then got up +again heavily and said, "You will discuss this matter better without +me. I will leave you----" + +"Couldn't you possibly say he died as result of the accident, Wulf?" +asked one--Jim Barclay of Breme. + +They all liked the Doctor. With some he had been on terms of very +close friendship. Some of them had known him all his life and his +father before him. + +"Ay, couldn't you?" chorussed some of the others. + +"If I could I should have done so," he said quietly. "But it wasn't so +and I couldn't say it was." + +"Say it now, Wulf," urged his friend. "And I swear none of us will let +it out. Isn't that so, gentlemen?" + +"Ay, ay!"--but somewhat dubiously from the older members, who saw that +after this revelation of the actual facts to themselves their relations +with the Doctor could never be quite the same again, however they might +succeed in hoodwinking the world outside. + +They knew him, they liked him, but--well, at the back of their minds +was the thought that if Dr Wulf could make a mistake in one case, there +was no knowing but what he might in another,--that he might at any time +come in tired and pick up the wrong bottle,--that, whatever risks one +might accept on one's own account for old friendship's sake, one's wife +and daughters should hardly be put into such a position all unknown to +themselves. And more than one of them wondered what he would do if he +should happen to be taken ill that night--send for Dr Wulf or the new +man down in the village? + +Dale diagnosed their symptoms with the sensitiveness born of the +equivocal nature of the new relationship in which his confession placed +him towards them. + +"It is like your good-heartedness to suggest it, Barclay," he said to +his impetuous friend, "but it cannot be. I can only do what seems to +me right," and he left them to talk over their verdict. + +"Gad! but I'm mighty sorry this has happened," said one old squire who +had known Wulf from the year one. "Many's the time I've sat at this +table----" + +"And under it," interjected one. + +"Ay, and under it, and I never expected to sit round it on Pasley +Carew. I'd give a year's rents to have him back, even if he was all in +pieces and raging like the Devil." + +"Same here. Whatever we decide it'll get out, and it's bound to tell +against Dr Wulf." + +"He's bound to suffer,--can't help it,--it's human nature. Suppose you +took ill tonight now, Barclay. What would you do?" + +"What would I do? I'd send for Wulf Dale of course, and I'd have same +faith in him as I've always had." + +"Of course, of course,"--but even those who said it had more the air of +wishing to placate Barclay, who had a temper, rather than of any deep +conviction as to their own course should the unfortunate necessity +arise. + +"Well," said Barclay, with the manner of a volcano on the point of +eruption. "All I can say is that if any man I know goes ill and does +not send for Wulf Dale, he'll have me to reckon with if the other man +doesn't kill him." + +"Hear, hear!" from various points about the table. + +"Well, we've got to decide something and make an end of the matter," +said one. "Barclay, you write out what you think and I've no doubt +we'll all agree to it." + +"I'm going to write nothing," said Barclay, whose strong brown hand was +more accustomed to the hunting-crop than the pen. "I say 'Accidental +Death,' and keep your mouths shut." + +They all said 'Accidental Death' and promised to keep their mouths +shut; and Wulfrey, when he was called in, thanked theta soberly for +their good intentions, but added to their verdict,--"as the result of +strychnine poison administered in mistake for distilled water in a +sleeping-draught prepared by Dr Wulfrey Dale." + + + + +X + +Jim Barclay, who was a bachelor, kept his bed next morning with an +alleged bad cold,---a thing he had never been troubled with in all his +born days, and ostentatiously sent his man galloping for Dr Wulfrey as +though his master's life depended on it. + +Wulfrey smiled at the message, understanding the staunch friendliness +which lay behind it, and went. + +"Well, what's wrong with you?" he enquired of the burly patient, when +he was shown up to his bedroom. + +"Just you, my boy. Haven't slept a wink all night for thinking of the +whole ---- mess. Wulf, my lad, I'm afraid you'll have a deuce an' all +of a time of it. Thought I'd show 'em there was one man thought none +the worse of you. ----! ----! ----! Can't any man make a little +mistake like that? Trouble is, most of those other fools have got a +pack of yelping women-folk about 'em, and they're all on the quee-vee +and as keen on the scent as any old----," and he launched into +comparisons drawn from the kennels into which we need not enter. "They +all promised not to blab, and they'll none of 'em tell any but their +wives under promise of secrecy, and it'll be all over the country-side +in a week." + +"I know it, old man. I've just got to stand it," said Dale soberly. + +"What's in your mind then?" + +"I'll just wait quietly and see what comes. I can't expect things to +be as they were before." + +"And if things go badly? ---- ---- ---- it all!" + +"Then I'm thinking I'll go too." + +"Where?" + +"Oh, right away. America maybe, or Canada. It's a big country they +say and just beginning to open up. I shan't starve anyway, wherever I +go." + +"But,--to leave us all and all this? ---- ---- ---- it all, man! The +place won't be like itself without you. ---- Pasley Carew!" + +"It wasn't his fault, you know----" + +"It was his ---- fault putting Blackbird at that ---- Old Road after +the run we'd had, wasn't it? I told him he was two stone too heavy for +her. But he always was a fool." + +"He was to blame there undoubtedly. But the rest I take to myself. If +folks go to the other man I can't blame them. I shall go nowhere +unless I'm sent for." + +"You'll have a ---- long holiday," growled Barclay. + +"Well, I can do with one." + +"I've half a mind to have a smash-up just to keep your hand in." + +"If you do I'll--I'll turn the other man on to you." + +"If he puts his nose in here he'll go out faster than he came, I wager +you." + +It was comforting to have so whole-hearted a supporter; but one +patient, and a sham one at that, does not make a practice, and Dale +very soon felt the effects of the course he had chosen. + +He adhered resolutely to the decision he had come to to visit none of +his patients unless he were sent for. It would be neither fair to them +nor agreeable to himself. It might do more harm than good. + +As to Mrs Carew,--he had visited her immediately after the inquest, and +told her briefly that all was right and she need have no further fears. +There was nothing wrong with her which a few days' rest and the relief +of her mind would not set right. All the same he rather feared she +might send for him, and he debated in his own mind whether, if she did +so, he should go or send her messenger on to Dr Newman. It appeared to +him hardly seemly that the man who had accepted the responsibility for +the death of the husband should continue his attendance on his widow. + +She did not of course as yet know the facts of the case as outsiders +did. He was somewhat doubtful of the effect upon her when she came to +a clear understanding of the matter. On the whole, he decided it would +be better if possible not to see her again. What he had done for her +had been done out of pity, but it was not the pity that sometimes leads +to warmer feeling. All that had died a natural death when she married +Carew. + +He attended the funeral with the rest. It would only have made comment +if he had not. And Jim Barclay and most of the others were at pains to +manifest their continued friendliness and confidence. + +Whether the full facts had got out he could not tell, but, rightly or +wrongly, imagined so, and for the second time in his life he found +himself ill at ease among his neighbours. + +The day after the funeral, young Job and a bunch of lively dogs came +down again with an urgent message from Mrs Carew requesting him to call. + +"Is your mistress worse, Job?" he said. + +"She be main bad, Doctor, 'cording to that gal Mollie, but what 'tis I +dunnot know. Mebbe she's just down wi' it all. Have ye heard ony talk +yet as t' who's going to tek on th' pack?" + +"Mr Barclay will, I believe. He's a good man for it." + +"Ay, he may do. Bit heavy, mebbe, an' he's got a temper 'bout as bad +as Pasley's." + +"Bit hot perhaps at times, but he's an excellent fellow at bottom." + +"All that, and his cussin' ain't to compare wi' Pasley's, which is a +good thing. I c'n stand a reasonable amount o' cussin' myself and no +offence taken, but Pasley did go past th' mark at times. Th' very +hosses kicked when he let out. An' Jim Barclay he is good to his +hosses, an' he only cusses when he must or bust. Ay, he'll do, seein' +you won't tek it on yourself, Doctor." + +"It's not for me, Job. A doctor's time is not entirely his own, you +know." + +"Ah!" said Job, and picked a twig from the hedge, and stuck it in his +mouth, and trudged on in solemn silence. + +"We wus rather hopin', feyther an' me," he grunted after a time, "you'd +mebbe have more time now fur th' pack an' would tek it on." + +"Why that, Job?" + +"Well, y' see, it'll mek a difference this. It's bound to mek a +difference. Folks is such silly fools 'bout such things----" + +"What things?" + +"Why, that there strychnine. 'S if anyone couldn't mek a li'l mistake +like that. Might have sense to know ye'd never let it happen again. +Even th' leeghtnin', they say, never strikes twice i' same place. +Though sure 'nuff it did hit th' old mill one side one day and t'other +side next day. But even then 'twere opposite sides. But folks is +fools." + +"So you know all about it." + +"Ay, sure! 'Twere that gal Mollie told me, an' it were Mrs Thelstane's +gal Bet told her. None o' us think a bit the worse o' you, Doctor, you +b'lieve me. But some folks is fools--most folks, if it comes to +that.... An' as to Pasley--well, he were a terror now'n again. Th' +Hall's like Heaven wi'out him." + +They went on again in silence for a time. But there was that in young +Job's mind which had to come out. + +"If 'twere me, Doctor, askin' your pardon in advance for bein' so bold, +what I'd do would be this. I'd just sit quiet till they done yelpin' +and yappin' 'bout it all, then I'd marry th' missus,--we all knows you +was sweet on her once,--and settle down comfortable at th' Hall and tek +over th' pack an' mek us all happy." + +"That's out of the question, Job." + +"Is it now? ... Well, I'm sorry. Wus hopin' mebbe a word of advice +from a man what's old enough to be your feyther, an's known you since +day you was born, might be o' some use to ye. We'd like you fain well +for Master, both o' th' Hall an' th' Hunt." + +"You're a good old chap, Job, and so's your father, but you'll both be +doing me a favour if you'll stop any talk of that kind." + +"No manner o' use?" + +"No use at all." + +"Well, I'm main sorry. An' so's feyther, I can tell ye." + +Mrs Carew was sitting in a large chintz-covered armchair before the +fire in her bedroom, when he was taken up to her by Mollie, who +favoured him with her own diagnosis as they mounted the stairs. + +"She's that bad again. Can't sleep and off her food. Ain't had hardly +anything all day or yes'day. Just sits 'fore th' fire and mopes from +morn'n till night. 'Taint natural for sure, for him 'at's gone weren't +one to cry for, that's cert'n.... No, she don't complain of any pain +or anything. Just sits and mopes and cries on the quiet 's if her +heart was broke. Sure she'd more cause to cry before he was took than +what she has now." + +When he entered the room he did not at first see her, so sunk down was +she in the depths of the great ear-flapped chair. + +She made no attempt to rise and greet him. When he stood beside her +and quietly expressed his regret at finding her no better, she covered +her face with her hands and sobbed convulsively. + +She looked little more than a girl, slight and frail and forlorn, as +she crouched there with hidden face, and he was truly sorry for her. +It was impossible for him to keep the sympathy he felt entirely out of +his voice. + +"What can I do for you, Mrs Carew?" he asked quietly, and the forlorn +figure shook again but made no response. + +"You are doing yourself harm with all this," he said gently again. +"And there is really no occasion for it, that I can see." + +Her silent extremity of grief--her utter discomfiture was pitiful to +look upon. It touched him profoundly, for he penetrated the meaning of +it. She was overwhelmed with the knowledge of the sacrifice he had +made for her--and with pity for herself. + +All he could do was to wait quietly till the feeling, roused afresh by +his presence, had spent itself. + +"Oh, I did not know," she whispered at last, through the shielding +hands. "I did not know you would do that.... You have ruined +yourself.... You should have let them hang me." + +And there and then, on the spur of the moment, he leaped up a height +which he had not even sighted a second before. + +He had, by the sacrifice of his prospects, saved her from the legal +consequences of her act. That was irrevocably past and done with, and +he must pay the price. But she was paying a double due--remorse for +what she herself had done, bitter sorrow at the ruinous price he had +paid for her safety. + +He had saved her life. Why not save her the rest?--her peace of mind, +all her possibilities of future happiness. + +In any case it would make no difference to him. For her it might mean +all the difference between darkness and light for the rest of her life. +And she looked pitifully helpless and hopeless as she lay there sobbing +convulsively in the big chair. + +He saw the possibility in a flash and gripped it. + +"Hang you? Why on earth should anyone want to hang you?" he asked, +with all the natural surprise he could put into it. + +"You know,"--in a scared whisper. "Because I got him the poison----" + +"Come, come now! Let us have no more of that. I was hoping a good +night's rest would have ridded you of that bad dream." + +"Dream?" and she looked up at him wildly. "Ah, if I could only believe +it was a dream!" and she shook her head forlornly. + +"Why, of course it was a dream. You were over-wrought with it all, and +your mind took the bit in its teeth and ran away with you. What you've +got to do now is to try to forget all about it." + +"Forget!" + +"How I came to make such a mistake I cannot imagine, but when I got +home I saw at once that there was an extra dose gone out of my +strychnine bottle instead of out of the distilled water, and that +explained it at once." + +"_You_? ... _You_ made the mistake?" she looked up at him again, +eagerly, with warped face and knitted brows, and a wavering flutter of +hope in her eyes.... "You are only saying it to comfort me." + +"I'm trying to show you how foolish it is to allow yourself to be +ridden by this strange notion you've got into your head." + +"Strange notion? ... Did he not beg me to get him that stuff he used +for the rats? And did I not get it for him? And he took it. And +then----" she shivered at the remembrance of what followed when her +husband took the draught. + +"All in that horrible dream when your mind was running away with +you----" + +"And did you not come and tell me they would hang me unless I kept my +mouth shut? And I lay all that dreadful night with the rope round my +neck----" + +"All in your dream. I'm sorry. It must have been terribly real to +you." + +"A dream?" and she stared wistfully into the fire, hex hands clasping +and unclasping nervously. "If I could believe it!" + +"You must believe what I tell you, and forget all about it and recover +yourself." + +"And you?" she said after a pause. + +"I shall be all right. Don't trouble your head about me." + +"If I did not do it," she said, after another long silent gazing into +the fire, "then there would be no need for you to hate me----" + +"No need whatever,--all part of that stupid dream." + +"And ... sometime perhaps ... you would think better of me ... as you +used to do. Oh,--Wulfrey! ..." + +If it had all happened as he had almost persuaded her to believe, he +might have fallen into his own pit. + +For, under the stress of her emotions,--the wild hope of the +possibility of relief from the horror that had been weighing her +down,--the letting in of this thread of sunshine into the blackness of +her despair,--the sudden joy of the thought that it was not she who +needed Wulfrey's forgiveness, but he hers;--the shadows and the years +fell from her, and she was more like the Elinor Baynard he had once +been in love with than he had seen her since the day she married Pasley +Carew. + +"We must not think of any such things," he said quickly, but not +unkindly. He was very sorry for her, but he was no longer in love with +her. "At present all we've got to think about is getting you quite +yourself again. I will send you up some medicine,--if you won't be +afraid to take it----" + +"Oh, Wulfrey! ..." with all the reproach she could put into it, and +anxiously, "You will come again soon?" + +"If you get on well perhaps. If you don't I shall turn you over to Dr +Newman," and he left her. + +"She ain't agoing to die, Doctor?" asked Mollie, as she waylaid him. + +"No, Mollie. She's going to get better." + +"Ah, I knew it'd do her good if you came to see her," said the astute +handmaid with an approving look. + +"Get her to eat and feed her up. She's been letting herself run down." + +"Ah, she'll eat now maybe, if so be 's you've given her a bit of an +appetite," said Mollie hopefully; and Dr Wulfrey went away home. + + + + +XI + +But even two patients hardly make a practice, and though from the +stolid commoner folk calls still came for 'th' Doctor's' services, upon +the better classes a sudden blessing of unusual health appeared to have +fallen, or else---- + +Dr Newman bought a horse about this time, and, though he did not as yet +cut much of a figure on horseback, it enabled him to get about as he +had never had occasion to do since he settled in the village, and it +seemed as though, in his case as in others, practice would in time make +him passable. + +Wulfrey watched the course of events quietly and with a certain +equanimity. His mind was quite made up to go abroad, but he would not +go till he was satisfied that that was the only course left to him. + +Everybody he met was as friendly as ever, the men especially, but +sickness was a rare thing with them at any time, and their women-folk +seemed to be getting along very well, for the time being without +medical assistance, so far at all events as Dr Wulfrey Dale was +concerned. + +Mrs Carew was better. Whatever she really believed as to the actual +facts of her husband's death, she apparently accepted Dale's statement, +to the great relief of her mind and consequent benefit to her health. +She sent for the Doctor as often as she reasonably could, and sometimes +without any better reason than her desire to see him. Until at last he +told her she was perfectly well and he would come no more unless there +were actual need. + +"But there is actual need, Wulfrey. It does me good to see you. If +you don't come I shall fall into a low state again." + +"If you do I shall know it is simple perversity and I'll send Dr Newman +to you." + +"Mollie would never let him in." + +Which was likely enough, for Mollie's mind was quite made up as to the +only right and proper course for matters to take under all the present +circumstances. + +The March winds brought on a mild epidemic of influenza. + +Dr Newman and his new horse were ostentatiously busy. Wulfrey saw that +he had waited long enough, and that now it was time to go. No one +could accuse him of running away. It was his practice that had found +its legs and walked over to Dr Newman. + +He made his arrangements at once and by no means downcastly. The +hanging-on had been trying. It was new life to be up and doing, with a +new world somewhere in front to be discovered and conquered. + +He packed his trunks, gave Mr Truscott, the lawyer, instructions to +dispose of his house and everything in it except certain specified +articles and pictures, arranged with his bankers at Chester to collect +and re-invest his dividends, drew out a couple of hundred pounds to go +on with, told them he was going abroad and they might not hear from him +for some time to come, and went round to say good-bye to Jim Barclay +and Elinor Carew. + +"Where are you going?" asked Barclay, when he heard he was off. + +"Wherever the chase may lead," said Wulfrey, in better spirits than he +had been for many a day. "I shall go first to the States and Canada +and have a good look round. If any place lays hold of me I may settle +down there." + +"For good and all?" + +"Possibly. Can't say till I see what it's like. I want you to take +Graylock and Billyboy till I come back. You know all about them. +There's no one else I'd care to leave 'em with and I don't care to sell +them." + +"They'll miss you, same as the rest of us." + +"For a week or two, maybe. Dr Newman is getting into things nicely, +but you might give him a lesson or two in riding, Jim." + +"---- him, I'd liefer break his back!" was Barclay's terse comment. +"You'll let me know where you get to, Wulf, and maybe I'll take a run +over to see you, if you really find it in your heart to settle out +there. I'll bring the horses with me if you like." + +"I'll let you know. Fine sporting country, I believe,--bears, wolves, +buffaloes, game of sorts." + +"Well, good-bye and God bless you, my boy! Remember there'll always be +one man in the old country that wants you. I'd sooner die than have +that new man poking round me. I'll send for old Tom Tamplin, hanged if +I don't." + +Wulfrey rode on to the Hall. + +"Going away, Wulf? Where to and for how long?" asked Elinor, anxious +and troubled. + +"That depends. I've not been up to the mark lately and a good long +change will set me up." + +"But you will come back?" + +"I have really no plans made, except to get away for a time and see a +bit of the outside world." + +"I was hoping ... you would stop and ... sometime, perhaps..." and the +small white hands clasped and unclasped nervously, as was her way when +her mind was upset. + +"The change I am sure will be good for me. And you are quite all right +again. You are looking better than I've seen you for a long time past." + +"I'm all right," she said drearily, "except that I have bad dreams now +and again. I cannot be quite sure in my own mind----" + +"Now, now!"--shaking a peremptory finger at her. "That is all past and +done with. Bad dreams are forbidden, remember!" + +"I can't help their coming. They come in spite of all my trying at +times. And they are always the same. I see Pasley lying on the bed, +raging and cursing, and ordering me to go and get him----" + +"It's only a dream of a dream. I was hoping you had quite got the +better of it. You must fight against it. Now I must run. Got a lot +of things to do yet, and I'm off first thing in the morning. Good-bye, +Elinor,--and all happiness to you!" + + + + +BOOK II + +NO MAN'S LAND + + + + +XII + +Wulfrey Dale, as he strolled about the Liverpool docks and basins, felt +very much like a schoolboy who had run away from home in search of the +wide free life of the Rover of the Seas. + +He had, however, one vast advantage over the runaway, in that he had +money in his pocket and could pick and choose, and there was no angry +master or troubled parent on his track to haul him back to bondage. + +He had no slightest regrets in the matter. Under all the circumstances +of the case, he said to himself, he could have done nothing else. +Elinor, left to herself, would undoubtedly have paid with her life, +either on the gallows or in a mad-house, and that was unthinkable. The +inexorable Law would have taken no account of the true inwardness of +the case. He had saved her because he understood, and because the +alternatives had been too dreadful to think of. + +As to the cost to himself,--the long blue-green heave of the sea, out +there beyond the point, made little of that, changed it indeed from one +side of the account to the other, and presented it, not as a loss, but +as very substantial gain. + +Out beyond there lay the world, the vast unknown, the larger life; and +the windy blue sky streaked with long-drawn wisps of feathery white +cloud, and the tumbling green waves with their crisp white caps, and +the screaming gulls in their glorious free flight, all tugged at his +heart and called him to the quest. + +And these cumbered quays, with their heaps of merchandise, and the +jerking ropes and squeaking pulley-blocks that piled them higher and +higher every moment,--the swaying masts up above and busy decks down +below,--the strange foreign smells and flavour of it all,--the rough +tarry-breeks hanging about and spitting jovially in the intervals of +uncouth talk,--all these were but a foretaste of the great change, and +he savoured them all with vastest enjoyment. + +He inspected, from a distance, the great clippers that did the voyage +to New York in twenty to twenty-five days, stately and disciplined, in +the very look of them, as ships of the line almost. + +There were ships loading and unloading for and from nearly every port +in the world. It was like being at the centre of a mighty spider's web +whose arms and filaments reached out to the extremest ends of the +earth. He had never felt so free in his life before. + +He was in no pressing hurry to settle on either his port or his ship, +but in any case it would not be on one of those great packet-boats he +would go. His fancy ran rather to something smaller, something more +intimate in itself and less likely to be crowded with passengers whose +acquaintance he had no desire to make. + +He wandered further among the smaller craft, with a relish in the +search that was essentially a part of the new life. He developed quite +a discriminating taste in ships, though it was only by chatting with +the old salts who lounged about the quay-walls that he learned to +distinguish a ship from a barque and a brig from a schooner. His +preferences were based purely on appearances. The sea-faring qualities +of the various craft were beyond him. + +But here and there, one and another would attract him by reason of its +looks, and he would return again and again to compare them with still +later discoveries, saying to himself, "Yes, that would do first-rate +now, if she should happen to be going my way. We'll see presently." + +He came, in time, upon a brig loading in one of these outer basins, and +even to his untutored eye she was a picture,--so graceful her lines, so +tapering her masts, so trim and taut the whole look of her. + +"Where does she go to?" he asked of an old sailor-man, who was sitting +on a cask, chewing his quid like an old cow and spitting meditatively +at intervals. + +"Bawst'n, 'Merica, 's where she's bound this v'y'ge, Mister, an' ef she +did it in twenty days I shouldn' be a bit s'prised, not a bit, I +shouldn'." + +"Good-looking boat! What does she carry?" + +"Miskellaneous cargo. Bit o' everything, as you might say." + +"And when does she sail?"' + +"Fust tide, I reck'n, ef so be's her crew a'n't been ganged. Finished +loading not ha'f an hour ago she did." + +"Does she take any passengers?" + +"Couldn' say. Passenger boats is mostly down yonder." + +"I know, but I like the look of this one better than the big ones." + +"Well, you c'n ask aboard." + +"Yes? How can I get on board?" + +"Why, down that there ladder," and Wulfrey, following the direction of +a ponderous roll of the old fellow's head and a squirt of +tobacco-juice, came upon some iron rungs let into a straight +up-and-down groove in the face of the quay-wall. By going down on his +hands and knees, and making careful play with his feet, he managed at +last to get on to this apology for a ladder and succeeded in climbing +down it, over the side of the ship on to its deck. + +The deck, dirty as it was with the work of loading, felt springy to his +unaccustomed feet. It was the first ship's deck he had ever trodden. +The very feel of it was exhilarating. It was like setting foot on the +bridge that led to the new life. + +As he looked about him,--at the neatly-coiled ropes, the rope-handled +buckets, the blue water-casks lashed to the deck below one of the +masts, the masts themselves, massive below but tapering up into the sky +like fishing-rods, the mazy network of rigging, four little brass +carronades and the ship's bell, all polished to the nines and shining +like gold,--the worries and troubles of the last few months fell from +him like a ragged garment. Elinor Carew, and Croome, and Jim Barclay, +and even Graylock and Billyboy, the parting with whom had been as sore +a wrench as any, all seemed very far away, things of the past, shadowy +in presence of these stimulating realities of the new life. + +He walked aft along the deck towards a door under the raised poop, and +at the sound of his coming a man came out of the door and said, +"Hello!" and stood and stared at him out of a pair of very deep-set, +sombre black eyes. + +He was a tall, well-built fellow of about Wulfrey's own age, +black-haired, black-bearded and moustached, and of a somewhat saturnine +countenance. His face and neck were the colour of dark mahogany with +much sun and weather. He wore small gold rings in his ears, and +Wulfrey set him down for a foreigner,--a Spaniard, he thought, or +perhaps an Italian. + +"I was told you were sailing tomorrow for Boston," said Wulfrey. "I +came to ask if you take passengers." + +The man's black brows lifted a trifle and he took stock of Wulfrey +while he considered the question. Then he said, "Ay? well, we do and +we don't," and Wulfrey rearranged his ideas as to his nationality and +decided that he was either Scotch or North of Ireland, though he did +not look either one or the Other. + +"That perhaps means that you might." + +"Et's for the auld man to say----" + +"The Captain?" + +"Ay, Cap'n Bain." + +"Where could I see him?" + +"He's up in the toon." + +"If you'll tell me where to find him I'll go after him." + +The other seemed to turn this over in his mind, and then said, "Ye'd +best see him here. He'll mebbe no be long." + +"Then I'll wait. What time do you expect to clear out?" + +"We'll know when the old man comes." + +"Perhaps you would let me see the rooms, while I'm waiting." + +The dark man turned slowly and went down three steps into the small +main cabin. His leisurely manner suggested no more than a willingness +not to be disobliging. + +It was a fair-sized room, with a grated skylight overhead, portholes at +the sides, seats and lockers below them, and a table with wooden forms +to sit on. At the far end were two more doors. + +"Cap'n's bunk and mine," said his guide, with a roll of the head +towards the left-hand door, and opened the other for Wulfrey to look in +at the narrow passage off which opened two small sleeping-rooms. + +"You are then----?" asked Wulfrey. + +"Mate." + +"You're Scotch, aren't you? I took you at first sight for a foreigner." + +"I'm frae the Islands.... Some folks hold there's mixed blood in some +of us since the times when the Spaniards were wrecked there. Mebbe! I +d'n know." + +"And Captain Bain? He's Scotch too, I judge, by his name." + +"Ay, he's Scotch--Glesca." + +"If he'll take me as passenger I'll be glad. This would suit me +uncommonly well." + +"Ay, well. He'll say when he comes," and whenever his black eyes +rested on Wulfrey they seemed to be questioning what it could be that +made him wish to travel on a trading-brig rather than on a +passenger-liner. + +However, he asked no questions but pulled out a black clay pipe, and +Wulfrey pulled out his own and anticipated the other's search for +tobacco by handing him his pouch. They had sat silently smoking for +but a few minutes when a heavy foot was heard on the deck outside, and +there came a gruff call for "Macro!" + +"Ay, ay, sir!" and the doorway darkened with the short burly figure of +a man whose words preceded him, "Tom Crimp'll have 'em all here by ten +o'clock an' we'll---- Wha the deevil's this?" + +"Wants to go passenger to Boston," explained the mate, and left Wulfrey +to his own negotiations. + +"If you're open to take a passenger, Captain Bain, I've fallen in love +with the looks of your ship." + +"What for d'ye no want to go in a passenger-ship? We're no a +passenger-ship," and the Captain eyed him suspiciously. + +"Just that I dislike travelling with a crowd, I've been looking round +for some days and your ship pleases me better than any I've seen." + +"Where are you from, and what's your name and rating!" + +"I'm from Cheshire. Name, Wulfrey Dale. Rating, Doctor." + +"An' what for are ye wanting to go to Boston!" + +"I'm going out to look round. I may settle out there if I find any +place I like." + +"Are ye in trouble? Poisoned ony one? Resurrectionist, mebbe?" + +"Neither one nor the other. I've no work here. I'm going to look for +some over there." + +"Can ye pay?" + +"Of course. I'm not asking you to take me out of charity." + +"That's a guid thing." + +"How much shall we say? And when do you sail?" + +"Et'll be twenty guineas, ped in advance, an' ef ye want ony victuals +beyant what the ship provides, which is or'nary ship's fare same as me +and the mate eats, ye'll provide 'em yourself." + +"Understood! And you sail----" + +"To-night's flood, ef the men get aboard all safe. They're promised me +for ten o'clock." + +"I'll pay you now and go up for my things." + +"An' whaur may they be?" + +"At Cotton's, in Castle Street." + +"Aweel! Juist keep a quiet tongue in your heid, Doctor, as to the ship +ye're sailing on. The 'Grassadoo' doesna tak passengers, ye ken, an' I +dinna want it talked aboot." + +"I understand. I've only got a box and a bag, but I'll have to get a +man to carry them." + +"Ay--weel!" and after a moment's consideration, "You wait at Cotton's +an' we'll send Jock Steele, the carpenter, up for them at eight +o'clock. Ye can coach or truck 'em as far as he says and carry 'em +between you the rest." + +So Wulfrey paid down his twenty guineas, and Captain Bain stowed them +away in his trouser pocket, and buttoned it up carefully, with a dry, +"Donal' Bain's word's his only recip_ee_. You be here before ten +o'clock and the 'Grassadoo' 'll be waiting for you." + +"That's all right, Captain," said Wulfrey. "And I'm much obliged to +you for stretching a point and taking me." + +"It's me that's doing it, ye understand, not the owners. That's why." + + + + +XIII + +The 'Grace-a-Dieu' justified Wulfrey's inexperienced choice. She was +an excellent sea-boat, fast, and as dry as could be expected, seeing +that she was chock full to the hatches, as Jock Steele informed him, +while they carried down his baggage. + +But after his first four hours on board his personal interest in her +character and performance lapsed for three full days. He had stood +leaning over the side watching the lights of Liverpool as they dropped +away astern, and then those of the Cheshire and North Welsh coasts, and +felt that now indeed he had cut loose from the past and was in for a +great adventure. + +It gave, him a curious, mixed feeling of depression and elation. He +felt at once homeless and endowed with the freedom of the universe. He +had burned his boats, he said confidently to himself, and was going +forth to begin a new life, to conquer a new world. And he set his +teeth and hung on to the heaving bulwark with grim determination. + +But the sense of elation and width of outlook dwindled with the sinking +lights. The feeling of homelessness and helplessness grew steadily +upon him. He had taken the precaution of stowing away a good meal +before he set foot on board, and he lived on it for three days. + +He had never been bodily sick in his life before, but sick as he now +was he was not too far gone to note the wretched peculiarity of his +sensations, and to muse upon them and the ridiculousness of the +provision he had made, at the Captain's suggestion, to supplement the +usual cabin fare. + +He could not imagine himself ever eating again, as he lay there in his +heaving bunk, with nothing to distract his mind from the unhappy +vacuums above and below but the heavy tread of feet overhead at times, +and the ceaseless rush and thrash of the waves a few inches from his +ear, and the grinning face of the cabin-boy who came in at intervals to +ask if he would like anything yet. + +But by degrees his head ceased to swim if he lifted it an inch off the +pillow. By further degrees he found himself crouching up and clinging +like a cat while he gazed unsteadily out of the tiny round porthole at +the tumbling green and white water outside. Still further +determination got him somehow into his clothes, and he dared to feel +hungry and empty without nausea. Then he crawled out to the deck, +feeling like a soiled rag. But the brisk south-west wind cleaned and +braced him, and presently he nibbled a biscuit and found himself as +hungry as a starving dog. + +After that he very soon found his sea-legs, and by the fourth day he +was a new man, eating ravenously to make up for lost time, and keenly +interested in all about him. + +So far they had had favourable weather and made good way. But Captain +Bain was a fervent believer in the inevitability of equinoctials, and +prophesied gales ahead, and the worse for being overdue. + +Wulfrey learned, from one and another, chatting at meals with the +Captain or Sheumaish Macro, one or other of whom was generally on deck, +or with Jock Steele the carpenter, who also acted as boatswain, that +the 'Grace-a-Dieu' was French-built which, according to Steele, +accounted for the fineness of her lines. + +"We build stouter but we cannot touch them for cut. She's as pretty a +little ship as ever I set eyes on and floats like a gull," was the +character Steele gave her. And he should know, as he'd made four +voyages in her since their owners in Glasgow bought her out of the +Prize Court, and she'd never given them any undue trouble even in the +very worst of weather. + +The crew, again according to Steele, were a very mixed lot, a few good +seamen, the rest just lubbers out of the crimp house. + +With Captain Bain and Sheumaish Macro, the mate, he got on well enough, +but found both by nature very self-contained and manifesting no +inclination for more than the necessary civilities of the situation. + +"And why should they?" he said to himself. "I'm an outsider and they +know nothing more about me than I've told them myself. Another fifteen +or twenty days and we part and are not likely ever to meet again." + +He made one discovery about them, however, which disquieted him +somewhat. They were both heavy drinkers, but they usually so arranged +matters, by taking their full bouts at different times, as not to bring +the ship into serious peril. + +Wulfrey's eyes were opened to it by the fact of his not being able to +sleep one night. After tossing and tumbling in his bunk for a couple +of hours, and finding sleep as far off as ever, he dressed again +sufficiently to go on deck for a blow. As he passed through the cabin +he found Captain Bain there with his head sunk on his arms on the +table, and, fearing he might be ill, he went up to him. But he needed +no medical skill to tell him what was the matter. The old man was as +drunk as a lord and breathing like an apoplectic hog. So he eased his +neck gear and left him to sleep it off. + +Macro was on deck in charge of the ship. Wulfrey simply told him he +had been unable to sleep, but made no mention of the Captain's +condition. And the mate said, + +"Ay, we're just getting into thick of Gulf Stream and it tells on one." + +Another night he found Steele in charge, and on the growl at the length +of his watch, and gathered from him that both Captain and mate had on +this occasion been indulging in a bit drink and were snoring in their +bunks. + +He could only hope that Captain Bain's prognosticated equinoctials, +which were now considerably overdue, would not come upon them when both +their chiefs were incapacitated. And his only consolation was the +thought that this was not an exceptional occurrence but probably their +usual habit when well afloat, and that so far no disaster had befallen +them. + +So, day after day, they sped along west-south-west, making good way and +sighting none but an occasional distant sail. Then they ran into mists +and clammy weather, and sometimes had a wind and drove along with the +swirling fog or across it, and sometimes lay rocking idly and making no +way at all. + +Wulfrey gathered, from occasional words they let fall between +themselves, and from their answers to his own questions, that this was +all usual and to be expected. They were getting towards Newfoundland +where the Northern currents met the Southern, hence the fog, and it was +too early for icebergs, so there was no danger in pressing on whenever +the wind permitted. + +Their seventeenth day out was the dullest they had had, heavy and +windless, with a shrouded sky and a close gray horizon and, to +Wulfrey's thinking, a sense of something impending. It was as though +Nature had gone into the sulks and was brooding gloomily over some +grievance. + +Captain Bain stripped the ship of her canvas, and sent down the +topmasts and yards, and made all snug for anything that might turn up. +All day and all night they lay wallowing in vast discomfort, and +Wulfrey lost all relish for his food again. + +"What do you make of it, Bo's'un?" he asked, as he clawed his way up to +Steele on the after deck, where he was temporarily in charge again. + +"Someth'n's comin', sir," said Steele portentously, "but what it is +beats me, unless it's one o' them e-quy-noctials the skipper's bin +looking for." + +In the night the fog closed down on them as thick as cotton wool; and, +without a breath of wind, the long seas came rolling in upon them out +of the thick white bank on one side and out into the thick white bank +on the other, till their scuppers dipped deep and worked backwards, +shooting up long hissing white jets over the deck, and making +everything wet and uncomfortable. Every single joint and timber in the +ship seemed to creak and groan as if in pain, and Wulfrey, as he +listened in the dark to the strident jerkings and grindings and general +complainings of the gear, and pictured the wild sweeps and swoops of +the masts away up in the fog there, wondered how long it could all +stand the strain, and how soon it would come clattering down on top of +them. Once, when a bigger roll than usual flung him against the +mainmast and he clung to it for a moment's safety, the rending groans +that came up through it from the depths below sent a creepy chill down +his spine. It sounded so terribly as though the very heart of the ship +were coming up by the roots. + +Sleep was out of the question. His cabin was unbearable. Its dolorous +creakings seemed to threaten collapse and burial at any moment. If +they had to go down he would sooner be drowned in the open than like a +rat in its hole. And so he had crawled up on deck to see what was +towards. + +The only comfort he found--and that of a very mixed character--was in +the sight of Captain Bain and the mate, sitting one on each side of the +cabin table with their legs curled knowingly round its stout wooden +supports, which were bolted to the floor, and which they used +alternately as fender and anchor to the rolling of the ship. + +They had made all possible provision against contingencies. They could +do no more, and it was no good worrying, so now they sat smoking +philosophically and drinking now and again from a bottle of rum which +hung by the neck between them from a string attached to the beam above +their heads. + +Wulfrey stood the discomforts of the deck till he was chilled to the +marrow, then he tumbled into the cabin, and annexed a third leg of the +table and sat with the philosophers and waited events. + +"It's hard on the ship, Captain," he said, by way of being +companionable. But the Captain only grunted and deftly tipped some rum +into his tin pannikin as the bottle swung towards him on its way +towards the roof. And the mate looked at him wearily as much as to +say, "Man! don't bother us with your babytalk," and it seemed to him +that they had both got a fairly full cargo aboard. + +However, he decided it was not for him to judge or condemn. They knew +their own business better than he did. There was no wind, no way on +the ship, and all they could do was to lie and wallow and wait for +better times. And the fact that they took it so calmly reassured him +somewhat. + +The cabin was so full of fog and tobacco-smoke that the light from the +swinging oil-lamp could barely penetrate beyond the table. It made a +dull ghastly smudge of yellow light through which the bottle swung to +and fro like an uncouth pendulum, and he sat and watched it. Now it +was up above his head between him and the mate; now it was sweeping +gracefully over the table; now it was up above the Captain, who reached +out and tipped some more rum into his pannikin. + +He watched it till it began to exert a mesmeric influence on, him and +his head began to feel light and swimmy. He knew something about +Mesmer and his experiments from his reading at home. He experienced a +detached interest in his own condition and wondered vaguely if the +bottle would succeed in putting him to sleep. He tried to keep his +eyes on it, but they kept wandering off to the Captain, on whom it had +already done its business, though in a different way. + +He was dead tired. It was, he reckoned, quite six-and-thirty hours +since he had had any sleep. What time of night or morning it was he +had no idea. This awful rolling and groaning and creaking seemed to +have been going on for an incalculable time. + +What with the heavy unwholesomeness of the atmosphere, and the +monotonous swing of the bottle, and the lethargic impassivity of his +companions, he fell at last into a condition of dull stupidity, which +might have ended in sleep but for the necessity of alternately hanging +on to and fending off the table, as the roll of the ship flung him away +from it or at it. And how long this went on he never knew. + +He was jerked back to life by a sudden clatter of feet overhead and a +shout. Then he was flung bodily on to the table, and found himself +lying over it and looking down at Captain Bain, who had tumbled +backwards in a heap into a corner. The rum-bottle banged against the +roof and rained its fragments down on him. The lamp leaned up at a +preposterous angle and stopped there. + +"We're done," thought Wulfrey dazedly, and became aware of fearsome +sounds outside,--a wild howling shriek as of all the fiends out of the +pit,--thunderous blows as of mighty hammers under which the little ship +reeled and staggered,--then grisly crackings and rendings and crashes +on deck, mingled with the feeble shouts of men. + +Then, shuddering and trembling, the ship slowly righted herself and +Wulfrey breathed again. Outside, the howling shriek was as loud as +ever, the banging and buffeting worse than before. + +Macro unhooked his long legs from the table and made for the door. The +Captain gathered himself up dazedly and rolled after him, and Wulfrey +followed as best he could. + +But he could see very little. The fog was gone. The fierce rush of +the gale drove the breath back into his throat and came near to choking +him. Huge green seas topped with snarling white came leaping up over +the side of the ship near him. A man with an axe was chopping +furiously at the shrouds of the fallen main-mast amid a wild tangle of +ropes and spars. As they parted, the ship swung free and went +labouring off before the gale under somewhat easier conditions, and +Wulfrey hung tight in the cabin doorway and breathed still more +hopefully. He had thought the end was come, but they were still +afloat, though sadly shorn and battered. What their chances of +ultimate safety might be was beyond him, but while there was life there +was hope. + + + + +XIV + +For three days life to Wulfrey was a grim experience made up of damp +discomfort, lack of food and rest, and growing hopelessness. + +Both their masts had gone like carrots, leaving only their ragged +stumps sticking up out of the deck. "An' if they hadn't we'd bin gone +ourselves," growled the carpenter to him one day. Where they fell the +sides of the ship were smashed and torn, and the hungry waves came +yapping up through the gaps, most horribly close and threatening. + +Three men had been washed overboard in that first fierce onrush. The +rest crouched miserably in the forecastle, and no man on board could +remember what it felt like to be dry and warm and full. + +Meals there were none. When any man's hunger forced him to eat, he +wolfed sodden biscuit and a chunk of raw pork, and washed it down with +rum. + +So ghastly did the discomfort become, as the wretched days succeeded +the still more miserable nights, that at last Wulfrey, for one, was +prepared to welcome even the end as a change for the better. + +Observations were out of the question. In these four days they never +once saw sun or moon or star, nothing but a close black sky, gray with +flying spume. The great seas came roaring out of it behind them and +rushed roaring into it in front of them, and where they were getting +to, beyond the fact that they were driving continuously more or less +west-by-north, no man knew. + +Captain Bain and the mate and the carpenter had done all that could be +done since the catastrophe, but that was very little. An attempt was +made to rig a jury mast on the stump of the foremast, but the gale +ripped it away with a jeering howl and would have none of it. With +some planking torn from the inside of the ship they barricaded the seas +out of the forecastle as well as they could. It was the carpenter's +idea to fix these planks upright, so that their ends stood up somewhat +above the top of the forecastle, and so great was the grip of the gale +that that slight projection sufficed to keep their head straight before +it and afforded them slight steerage way. + +So they staggered along, dismantled and discomfited, and waited for the +gale to blow itself out or them to perdition, and were worn so low at +last that they did not much care which, so only an end to their misery. + +And the end came as unexpectedly as the beginning. From sheer +weariness they slept at times, in chill discomfort and dankest +wretchedness, just where they sat or lay. And Wulfrey was lying so, in +a stupor of misery, caring neither for life nor death, when the final +catastrophe came. + +Without any warning the ship struck something with a horrible shock +that flung everything inside it ajee. Then she heeled over on her +starboard side, baring her breast to the enemy. + +The great green waves leaped at her like wolves on a foundered deer. +They had been chasing her for three days past and now they had got her. +She was down and they proceeded to worry her to pieces. No ship ever +built could stand against their fury. The 'Grace-a-Dieu' melted into +fragments as though she had been built of cardboard. + +Wulfrey, jerked violently out of the corner where he had been lying, +rolled down towards the door of the cabin as the ship heeled over. As +he clawed himself up to look out, a green mountain of water caught him +up and carried him high over the port bulwarks which towered like a +house above him, and swept him along on its broken crest. + +He could swim, but no swimmer could hope to save himself by swimming in +such a sea, and he was weak and worn with the miseries of the last +three days. + +He had no hope of deliverance, but yet struck out mechanically to keep +his head above water, and his thrashing arm struck wood. He gripped it +with the grip of a drowning man and clung for dear life. + +It was a large square structure, planking braced with cross-pieces, +almost a raft. He hung to the edge while the water ran out of his +mouth and wits, and then, inch by inch, hauled himself cautiously +further aboard, and, lying flat, looked anxiously about for signs of +his shipmates, but with little hope. + +He could see but a yard or two on either side, and then only the +threatening welter of the monstrous green seas, terrifyingly close and +swelling with menace. + +Nothing? ... Stay!--a white gleam under the green, like a scrap of +paper in a whirlpool, and a desperate face emerged a yard or so away +and a wildly-seeking hand. + +The anguished eyes besought him, and, not knowing what else to do, he +gripped two of the cross-pieces of his raft and launched his legs out +towards the drowning man. They were seized as in a vice, and +presently, inch by inch, the gripping hands crept up his body till the +other could lay hold of the raft for himself. And Wulfrey, turning, +saw that it was the mate, Sheumaish Macro, whose life he had saved. + +They drew themselves cautiously up into such further safety as the +frail ark offered and lay there spent. And Wulfrey, for one, wondered +if the quicker end had not been the greater gain. + + + + +XV + +Sleeping and eating anyhow and at any time, they had lost all count of +time this last day or two. It was, however, daylight of a kind, but so +gray and murky and mixed with flying spume that they could see but +little. + +Neither man had spoken since they crawled up on to the raft. Death was +so close that speech seemed futile. They both lay flat on their +stomachs, gripping tight, and peering hopelessly through nearly closed +eyes, expectant of nothing, doubting the wisdom of their choice of the +longer death. + +"God!" cried Macro of a sudden, as they swung up the back of a wave. +"Where in ---- ha' we got to?" + +And Wulfrey got a glimpse of most amazing surroundings. + +Right ahead of them the sea was all abristle with what, to his quick +amazed glance, looked like the bones and ribs of multitudinous ships, +the ruins of a veritable Armada. + +Now it was all hidden, as they sank into a weltering green valley with +tumbling green walls all about them. Then the solid green bottom of +their valley was ripped into furious white foam, and stark black baulks +of timber came lunging up through it, all crusted with barnacles, +festooned with hanging weeds, and laced with streaming white. They +looked like grisly arms of deep-sea monsters reaching up out of the +depths to lay hold of them. They seemed intent on impaling the frail +raft. They seemed to change places, to dart hither and thither as +though to head it off, to lie in wait for it, to spring up in its +course. It was frightful and unnerving. Wulfrey shut his eyes tight +and set his teeth, and waited for the inevitable crash and the end. + +A great wave lifted them high above the venomous black timbers and, +swinging on its course, dropped them as deftly as a crane could have +done it, into the inside of a mighty cage. + +Wave after wave did its best to lift them out and speed them on. Their +raft rose and fell and banged rudely against the ribs of their prison. +Up and down they swung, and round and round, bumping and grinding till +they feared the raft would go to pieces. But the tide had passed its +highest and the storm was blowing itself out, and they had come to the +end of the voyage. + +"We're in hell," gasped the mate, as he clung to the jerking +cross-pieces to keep himself from being flung off, and to Wulfrey's +storm-broken senses it seemed that he was right. + + + + +XVI + +All that night they swung and bumped inside their cage, with somewhat +less of bodily discomfort as the wind fell and the sea went down, but +with only such small relief to their minds as postponement of immediate +death might offer. + +Wulfrey lay prone on the raft, grimping to it mechanically, utterly +worn out with all he had gone through these last four days. He sank +into a stupor again and lay heedless of everything. + +The tide fell to its lowest and was rising again when dawn came, and +though the huge green waves still rolled through their cage, and swung +them to and fro, and sent them rasping against its massive bars, they +were as nothing compared with the waves of yesterday. + +It was the sound of Macro cracking shell-fish and eating them that +roused Wulfrey. He raised his heavy head and looked round. The mate +hacked off a bunch of huge blue-black mussels from the post they were +grinding against at the moment, opened several of them and put them +under his nose. Without a word he began eating and felt the better for +them. + +Presently he sat up and looked about him in amazement, and rubbed the +salt out of his smarting eyes and looked again. + +"Where in heaven's name are we?" he gasped. + +And well he might, for stranger sight no man ever set eyes on. + +"Last night I thocht we were in hell," said Macro grimly. "An' seems +to me we're not far from it. We're in the belly of a dead ship an' +there's nought but dead ships round us." + +Their immediate harbourage, into which the friendly wave had dropped +them, was composed of huge baulks of timber like those that had tried +to end them the night before, sea-sodden and crusted thick with +shell-fish, and as Wulfrey's eyes wandered along them he saw that the +mate was right. They were undoubtedly the mighty weather-worn ribs of +some great ship, canting up naked and forlorn out of the depths and +reaching far above their heads. There in front was the great curving +stem-piece, and yon stiff straight piece behind was the stern-post. + +But when his eyes travelled out beyond these things his jaw dropped +with sheer amazement. + +Everywhere about them, wherever he looked, and as far as his sight +could reach, lay dead ships and parts of ships. Some, like their own, +entire gaunt skeletons, but more still in grisly fragments. Close +alongside them a great once-white, now weather-gray and ghostly +figurehead representing an angel gazed forlornly at them out of +sightless eyes. From the position of its broken arms and the round +fragment of wood still in its mouth, it had probably once blown a +trumpet, but the storm-fiends would have no music but their own and had +long since made an end of that. + +Close beside it jutted up a piece of a huge mast, with part of the +square top still on and ragged ropes trailing from it. Alongside it a +bowsprit stuck straight up to heaven, defiant of fate, and more +forlornly, a smaller ship's whole mast with yards and broken gear still +hanging to it all tangled and askew. And beyond, whichever way he +looked--always the same, dead ships and the limbs and fragments of them. + +"It's a graveyard," he gasped. + +"Juist that," said the mate dourly, "an' we're the only living things +in it." + +And presently, brooding upon it, he said, "There'll be sand down below +an' they're bedded in it. When tide goes down again maybe we can get +out." + +"Where to?" + +"Deil kens! ... But it cann't be worse than stopping here." + +The slow tide lifted them higher and higher within their cage, hiding +some of the baleful sights but giving them wider view over the whole +grim field. They sat, and by way of change stood and lay, on their +cramped platform. They knocked off shell-fish and ate them. So far, +so water-sodden had they been of late, they had not suffered from +thirst, but the dread of it was with them. + +Then, slowly, the waters sank, and all the bristling bones of ships +came up again. + +"Can you swim?" asked Macro abruptly at last. + +"I can. But I feel very weak. I can't go far I'm afraid." + +"We can't stop on here." + +"Where shall we go?" + +"Over yonder. They're thickest there and they stand out more. Mebbe +it's shallower that way." + +"I'll do my best to follow you. If I can't, you go on." + +"Nay. You gave me a hand last night. We'll stick together, and sooner +we start the better.... Stay ... mebbe we can----" and he began +pounding at the end planks of their raft with his foot to start them +from the cross-pieces. + +"'Twas the roof of the galley," he explained, "and none too well made. +It got stove in last voyage and we rigged this one up ourselves. My +wonder is it held together in the night." + +He managed at last with much stamping to loosen four boards. + +"One under each arm will help," he said, "An' we can paddle along an' +not get tired." + +He let himself down into the water, shipped a board under each arm, and +struck out between two of the gaunt ribs, and Wulfrey followed him, +somewhat doubtful as to what might come of it. + +But the mate had taken his bearings and was following a reasoned +course. Over yonder the wrecks lay thick. There might be one on which +they could find shelter--even food. But that he hardly dared to hope +for. As far as he had been able to judge, at that distance, they were +all wrecks of long ago and mostly only bare ribs and stumps. + +To Wulfrey, from water-level, the sea ahead seemed all abristle with +shipping, as thick, he thought to himself, as the docks at Liverpool. +But there all was life and bustling activity, and here was only +death,---dead ships and pieces of ships, and maybe dead men. The +feeling of it was upon them both, and they splashed slowly along with +as little noise as possible, as though they feared to rouse the +sleepers who had once peopled all these gruesome ruins. + +"See yon!" whispered Macro hoarsely, as he slowed up and waited for +Wulfrey to come alongside, and following the jerk of his head Wulf saw +the figure of a man grotesquely spread-eagled in a vast tangle of +cordage that hung like a net from a broken mast. + +"We had better see," said Wulfrey, and kicked along towards it, the +mate following with visible reluctance. + +It was the body of Jock Steele, the carpenter, livid and sodden, and +many hours dead. + +"I would we hadna seen him," growled Macro. + +"He'll do us no harm. He was a decent man. I'm sorry he's gone. Is +there any chance of any of the others being alive?" + +"Deil a chance!" + +"Still, we are----" + +"You had the deil's own luck and it's only by you I'm here. Let's get +on," and they splashed on again. + +Past wreck after wreck, grim and gaunt and grisly, mostly of very +ancient date, all swept bare to the bone by the fury of the seas, all +with the water washing coldly through them. Now and again Macro +growled terse comments,-- + +"A warship,--from the size of her. See those ribs, they'll last +another hundred years. And yon's a Dutchman. They build stout too. +Mostly British though, bound to be, hereabouts." + +"Have you any idea where we are, then?" + +"An idea--ay! I've heard tell o' this place, but I never met anyone +had been here. They mostly never come back. They call it what you +called it a while ago--'The Graveyard.'" + +"And where is it?" + +"Sable Island, if I'm right,--'bout one hundred miles off Nova Scotia." + +"And is there any island?" + +"Ay,--on the chart, but I never met any man had been there. We're +looking for it. There's no depth here or all them ribs wouldn't be +sticking up like that. They're stuck in the sand below. Must be over +yonder where they lie so thick.... An' a fearsome place when we get +there, with the spirits of all them dead men all about it--hundreds of +'em,--thousands, mebbe." + +"Do ships ever call there?" + +"Not if they can help it, I trow. It's Death brings 'em and he holds +'em tight.... Hearken to that now!"--and he stopped as though in doubt +about going further. + +And Wulfrey, listening intently, caught a faint thin sound of wailing +far away in the distance. It rose and fell, shrill and piercing and +very discomforting, though very far away. + +"What is it?" he jerked. + +"Spirits," breathed Macro, and his face was more scared and haggard +even than before. + +"Nonsense!" said Wulfrey, with an assumption of brusqueness for his own +reassurance, for this dismal progress through the graveyard was telling +sorely on him also, and the sounds that came wavering across the water +were as like the shrieking of souls in torment as anything he could +imagine. "There are no such things. Don't be a fool, man!" + +"Man alive!--no spirits? The Islands are full o' them, an' this place +fuller still. Yes, indeed!" + +But it was obviously impossible to float about there for ever. The +water was not nearly so cold as Wulfrey had expected, but the strain of +the night and of the preceding days of semi-starvation had told on him, +and he was feeling that he could not stand much more. He set off +doggedly again towards the thickest agglomeration of dead shipping in +front, and the mate followed him with a face full of foreboding. + +They went in silence, paying no heed now to the things they passed on +the way, though the apparently endless succession of dead ships and the +parts of them was not without its effect on their already broken +spirits. + +"Gosh!" cried Macro of a sudden. "I touched ground or I'm a Dutchman! +Ay--sand it is," and Wulfrey sinking his feet found firm bottom. + +"Better keep the floats," suggested the mate. "Mebbe it's only the +side of a bank we're on." + +They waded on, breast-deep, and presently were out of their depth +again. But the feel of something below them, and the certainty that it +was still not very far away, were cheering. In a few minutes they were +walking again, having evidently crossed a channel between two banks. +And so, alternately walking and swimming, they drew at last towards the +jungle of wreckage; and all the time, from somewhere beyond it, rose +those piercing, wailing screams which Macro in his heart was certain +came from the spirits of the dead. + +Here the water was no more than up to their knees and shoaling still, +and they came now upon more than the bones of ships,--chaotic masses of +masts and spars and rigging piled high and wide in fantastic confusion, +and in among them, tangled beyond even the power of the seas to chase +them further, barrels and boxes and crates, some still whole, mostly +broken; rotting bales, and pitiful and ridiculous fragments of their +contents worked in among them as if by impish hands. + +"Gosh, what wastry!" said Macro at the sight. "There's many a thousand +pounds of goods piled here,--ay, hunderds of thousands, webbe." + +"I'd give it all for a crust of bread," said Wulfrey hungrily. + +"An' mebbe there's that too. If any o' them casks has flour in 'em we +needn' starve. It cakes round the sides wi' the wet, but the core's +all right." + +Then, beyond the gigantic barrier of wastry, rose again that shrill +screaming and shrieking, louder than ever, and Macro said "Gosh!" and +looked like bolting back into the sea. + +Wulfrey, determined to fathom it, hauled himself painfully up a tangle +of ropes and clambered to the top of the pile and saw, about a mile +away, a narrow yellow spit of sand, and all about it a dense cloud of +sea-birds, myriads of them, circling, diving, swooping, quarrelling. + +One moment the vast gray cloud of them drooped to the sea and seemed to +settle there, the next it was whirling aloft like a writhing +water-spout, every component drop of which was a venomous bundle of +feathers shrieking and screaming its hardest in the bitter fight for +food. And the harsh and raucous clamour of them, each intent on its +own, had in it something fiendishly inhuman and chilling to the blood. + +"It's only sea-birds, man," he cried to Macro. "Come up and see for +yourself," and the mate, with new life at the word, hauled himself up +alongside and stood staring. + +"My Gosh! ... I never saw the like o' that before," he said at last. +"There's millions of 'em. They're fighting ... over our shipmates +mebbe.... We needn' starve if we can get at 'em," a sentiment which +somehow, in all the circumstances of the case, did not greatly appeal +to Wulfrey, hungry as he was. + +"If they all set on a man he wouldn't have much chance," he said, with +a shiver. "They could pick him clean before he knew where he was." + +"It's only dead men they feed on," said Macro, quite himself again, +since it was only birds they had to deal with and not disembodied +spirits. "There's land. Let's get ashore," and they crawled +precariously along over the wreckage, which sagged and dipped beneath +them in places, and in places towered high and had to be scaled as best +they could, and at times they had to wade or swim from pile to pile. + +Amazing things they chanced upon in their course, but were too intent +on reaching land to give them more than a passing glance or a shudder. +More than once they came on bones of men, jammed in tight among the +raffle, and slowly picked by the sea and the things that lived in it +till they gleamed white and polished and clean. And their grinning +teeth, set in the awful fixed smile of the fleshless, seemed to welcome +them as future recruits to their company. + +"Ah--ah! So you've come at last!" they seemed to say, as they laughed +up at them out of holes and corners. "We've been waiting for you all +these years and here you are at last." + +There were, too, bales and boxes of what had been rich cloths and silks +and satins and coarser stuffs, worried open by the fret of the sea and +reduced to sodden slimy punk, and casks and barrels beyond the counting. + +"Wastry! Wastry!" panted Macro. "We'll come back sometime, mebbe." + +But, for the moment, their only craving was for dry land, to savour the +solid safety of it, and get something to eat if they could, and a long +long rest. + +With desperate determination they dragged their sodden and weary bodies +through the shallows beyond, and blind fury filled them with spasmodic +vigour as they saw what the sea-birds were feeding on. + +Over each poor body the carrion crew settled like flies, and tore and +screamed and quarrelled. The two living men dashed at them with angry +shouts, and the birds rose in a shrieking host amazed at their +interference. But only for a moment. They came swooping down again in +a gray-white cloud, with raucous cries and eyes like fiery beads, and +beat at them with their wings, and menaced them with already reddened +beaks. And they looked so murderously intentioned that the men were +fain to bow their heads and run, with flailing arms to keep them off. + +And so at last to dry land, and grateful they were for the feel of it, +even though it seemed no more than a waste of sand but a few feet above +tide-level. That last tussle with the birds had drained their strength +completely. They dropped spent on the beach and lay panting. + +Their flight had set their chilled blood coursing again, a merciful sun +had come up above the clouds that lay along the horizon, and in spite +of their hunger and the fact that their very bones felt soaked with +salt water, they both fell asleep where they lay. + + + + +XVII + +Wulfrey was wakened by a sharp stab in the neck, and when he sat up +with a start a huge cormorant squawked affrightedly at the dead man +coming to life again, and flapped away, gibbering curses and leaving a +most atrocious stink behind him. + +The mate was still sleeping soundly, and Wulfrey, for the time being +more painfully cognisant of the gnawing emptiness within than of the +miracle that permitted him any sensation whatever, sat gazing anxiously +about and revolving the primary problem of food. + +Out there among all that mass of wreckage it would be strange if they +could not find something eatable,--cores of flour barrels, perhaps +pickled pork, rum almost certainly; and the clammy void inside him +craved these things most ardently. But he could not, as yet, imagine +himself venturing out there again to get them. Later on perhaps, but +for the present the land, such as it was, must provide, for him at all +events. He felt that he simply had not the heart or the strength to +make the attempt. + +Let me say at once that the trying of these men, which came upon them +presently, was not in the matter of ways and means. It was of the +spirit, not of the flesh. But yet it is necessary to show you how they +came through these lesser trials of the flesh only to meet the greater +trials of the spirit later on. And even these smaller matters are not +entirely devoid of interest. + +Many birds came circling round expectantly, and swooped down towards +the dark figures lying in the sand, and went off in shrill amazement +when they were denied. And Macro at last stretched and yawned and sat +up, staring dazedly at Wulfrey. + +"Gosh, but I'm hungered," he said at last, as that paramount claim +emphasised itself. "Anything to eat?" + +"I'm wondering. Plenty of birds, and very bad they smell. I've seen +nothing else." + +The mate got up heavily and found himself sore and stiff. He stood +looking thoughtfully about him. + +"What about all that stuff?" and he jerked his head towards the +graveyard wreckage. + +"I couldn't go again yet." + +"Nor me either.... Ground's higher over yonder," he said. "Let's go +and see," and they set off slowly over the sand. + +The level of high water was thickly strewn with seaweed and small +wreckage. The slope of the shore was so long and gentle that no large +object could come in unless it were first broken into fragments outside. + +The mate kicked over the sea-weed and found some which he put into his +mouth. + +"Any good?" asked Wulfrey anxiously, hungrier than ever at sight of the +other's working jaws. + +"Better'n nothing," and he rooted up another piece and handed it over. +Wulfrey found it tough and pungent of the sea and, after much chewing, +capable of being swallowed, but the most he also could say for it was +that it was just that much better than nothing. + +They each picked up a piece of wood with which to root in the tangle, +and, bending and picking and munching, made their way slowly towards +the hummocks in front. + +These were a low range of sandhills, some of them as much as thirty +feet high, and on the seaward side, which they climbed, they were +sparsely clothed with coarse slate-green wire-grass about a foot in +height, which bristled up like porcupines' quills and helped to keep +the loose soft sand together. They pulled some up to see if the roots +looked edible, and found them spreading far and wide below ground in a +matted tangle of white succulent-looking tendrils, which proved as +tough and unsatisfying as the sea-weed, but had the advantage of a +different flavour. + +Grubbing along, they climbed heavily through the yielding sand to the +top of the nearest hummock. Macro, arriving there first, jerked a +gratified "Gosh!" and floundered down the other side whirling his +stick, and Wulfrey was just in time to catch the amazing sight of the +whole surface of the little valley beyond in violent motion. + +He thought at first that something had gone wrong with his eyes, for +everywhere he looked the sand seemed to be jumping and skipping and +burying itself in itself. And then from the innumerable little flecks +of white, bobbing spasmodically all over the place, he perceived that +these were rabbits, and the mate was in among them, knocking them on +the head as fast as his stick could whirl. By the time Wulfrey reached +him he was sitting in the sand, skinning one with his knife, and half a +dozen more lay round him. + +"Better than roots and seaweed," he said, as he hacked the first in +pieces and stuffed some into his mouth and handed some to Wulfrey. +"There's millions of 'em. We won't starve," and he started skinning +another. + +Raw meat was a novelty, to Wulfrey at all events but baby-rabbit flesh +is eatable, even raw, and it put new life into them both. + +The little valley in which they sat was like an oasis in the sandy +desert outside. For here, among the wire-grass grew innumerable small +creeping-plants and that so sturdily though so modestly that, in spite +of the vast horde of rabbits, the whole place was carpeted with green, +and right in the centre, where the ground was lowest and the +undergrowth thickest and darkest, was a considerable pool of rainwater, +which they found brackish but drinkable. + +"All we want now is shelter and fire, and we'll live like kings and +fighting-cocks," said Macro, when he had time for anything but +rabbit-flesh, and lay back comfortably distent. + +"And where shall we find shelter and fire in this place?" + +"Man! There's more'n we'll ever need in all our lives, over yonder. +But it'll keep.... I'm not for going back there this day anyway. +To-morrow, mebbe,----" he said drowsily, and presently they were both +fast asleep again. And the rabbits came out at sunset and hopped about +them, and sniffed them with quivering noses and disrelish, and the +heavy dew fell on them, but they never woke. For Nature had now got +all she needed for the reparation of the previous waste, and she was +busily at work making good while they slept. + + + + +XVIII + +Morning broke dull, and heavy. The air was mild but full of moisture, +and they were chilled with their long sleep in the open. + +"Gosh! but I'd like to feel dry again," said Macro, as they sat +munching raw rabbit for breakfast. "D'you feel like going out yonder?" + +"I feel three times the man I was yesterday. But should we not go on +further first? There may be someone living on the island." + +"Not a soul but us two, I warrant you." + +"But since we're here there might be others." + +"That's so. There might be, but not likely. It's just luck, deil's +own luck, 'at those screeching deevils out yonder aren't picking us to +pieces like the rest." + +"Say Providence, and I'll agree with you," said Wulfrey, who saw no +need to ascribe to the devil so obviously good a work as far as they +were concerned. + +"Ca' it what you like, not one man in a thousand comes alive through +what we came through. And I'm not forgetting that but for you I'd no +be here myself. We can take a bit look round, but I'm sore set on a +covering of some kind and a fire, and some rum would be cheerful. It's +in my bones that we'll find all we want out there, and more besides." + +So, after breakfast, they set off, carrying a couple of rabbits for +provision by the way. + +Looking round from the top of the highest hummock, they saw the great +twisting cloud of sea-birds hovering over the distant wreckage, and the +shrill clamour of their screaming came faintly to them on the still +air. They had cleaned up what the sea had stranded on the spit and had +had to go further afield. + +From this vantage point they could to some extent make out the lie of +the island. It ran nearly west and east and the narrow sand-spit on +which they had landed was the extreme western point. Where they stood, +the land was about a quarter of a mile in width and it stretched away +in front further than they could see, in vast stretches of sand with a +line of hummocks all along the northern side. It seemed very narrow, +just a long thin wedge of sand, with illimitable gray sea on each side, +as far as their eyes could reach. Right ahead, and about a mile away, +was a great sheet of water, whether lake or inlet they could not tell. +The hummocks ran along its northern side, and a narrow strip of sand +divided it from the sea on the south. + +"We'd best keep to the ridges," said Macro. "Yon spit on the other +side may only end in the sea," so they tramped on along the firm beach +on the seaward slope of the line of hummocks, and every now and again +climbed up to see what was on the other side. When they found +themselves abreast of the sheet of water they went down and found it +salt and very shallow. It stretched away in front as far as they could +see, but Macro thought he could see more sand hummocks at the far end. + +Every here and there, when they climbed the ridge to look over, they +came on little basins like their own, comparatively green and populous +with rabbits. But never a sign of human life or habitation, not a tree +or a shrub, not an animal except the rabbits. + +"A God-forsaken hole," was the mate's comment, as they stood, after a +couple of hours' trudging, looking out over the interminable ridges in +front, and the great unruffled sheet of water below, and the gray +slow-heaving sea beyond on both sides, and the gray sky enclosing all. + +"There's nought here and never has been. Let's go back and get to +work." + +"That lake, or inlet, or whatever it is, seems to narrow over there. +Suppose we see where it goes to," suggested Wulfrey. + +"Only back into sea, I reckon." + +However, they tramped on along the beach, and next time they looked +over the ridge the land below had broadened out. The water had shrunk +to a mere channel which ran, they saw, not into the sea but into a +still larger lake beyond, unless it in turn should prove to be a long +arm of the sea running all through the middle of the island. They +could follow the low sand-spit which divided it from the sea on the +south side, and the long line of hummocks on the north, till they faded +out of sight in the distance. + +Right in front of them spread the largest valley they had yet come +across, and the coast ridges ran down into the middle of it and ended +in the highest hill they had seen, and between the hill and the lake +lay a number of large ponds. + +"We must get up there," said Wulfrey. + +"No manner o' use," growled the mate, who found tramping through the +sand very tiring, and was eager to get back and attack the wreckage for +shelter and fire and food and rum. + +"Stop you here then, Macro, and I'll go on. If there's anything to see +I'll wave my arms. You might skin those rabbits too. I'm beginning to +feel empty again." + +He struck straight across the valley to the ponds, and was delighted to +find them fresh and much better to the taste than their own little +pool. Then he climbed the hill, which was not far short of a hundred +feet in height. And then Macro, who had been watching him +intermittently as he hacked at the rabbits, saw him wave his arms in so +excited a fashion that he picked up the rabbits and ran, wondering what +new thing he'd found now that set him dancing in that fashion. + +And when at last he panted heavily up the yielding side of the hill and +saw, he gasped "Gosh!" with all the breath he had left, and sat down +open-mouthed and stared as if he could not believe his eyes. + +Beyond the end of the valley, the great lake stretched away further +than they could see, and in a deep bend on the north side of it lay two +ships. + +"Schooners, b' Gosh!" jerked Macro, as soon as he could speak; and eyed +them intently. "How in name of sin did they get there?" and his eye +travelled quickly along the sand-spit that shut out the sea, in search +of the break in it through which the schooners must have entered. But +no break was visible. Still it might well be that this great inland +lake joined the outer sea somewhere over there, beyond their range of +sight, and that this was a harbour of refuge, though he had certainly +never heard of it before. + +"We must find out about 'em," he said at last, and they set off at +speed towards the ships to which his eyes seemed glued. + +"Not a sign of a man aboard either of 'em," he jerked one time, as he +lurched up out of a rabbit-hole. "Nor ashore either." + +And to Wulfrey also there was something strange and uncanny in the look +of them. The absence of any slightest sign of life anywhere about +imparted to them something of a lifeless look also. And their masts +were bare of sails, spars, or even cordage, just bare poles sticking up +out of the hulls like blighted pine trees. The sea outside had a long +slow heave in it, but the water of the lake was smooth as a pond, not a +pulse in it, not a ripple on it, and the two little ships lay as +motionless as toy boats on a looking-glass sea. + +Macro was evidently much exercised in his mind. He never took his eyes +off the ships. So intent was he on them that he stumbled in and out of +rabbit holes without noticing them, and the "Gosh!" that jerked out of +him now and again was provoked entirely by the puzzle of the ships. + +So they came at last round the curve of the land and stood opposite the +nearer of the two, which lay about a hundred yards out from the shore +of bare sand, and neither on ship nor shore nor water had they +discovered any sign of life. + +"Schooner a-hoy!" bellowed the mate through his funnelled hands. And +again. "Schooner a-hoy!" + +But no sudden head bobbed up at the hail, and but that they were whole +and afloat the ships looked as dead as those others out past the point. + +"Gosh, but it's odd!" and he looked quickly both ways along the shore +and over his shoulders, as though he feared some odd thing might start +up suddenly and take him unawares. "What's it mean?" + +"There's no one there. They're deserted." + +"Deserted? Man alive! Who'd desert ships afloat like that? What in +---- does it mean?" his native fears of the unnatural and inexplicable +getting the better of him. + +"We'd better go and see," said Wulfrey. + +"Swim?" + +"I suppose so. I don't expect we can wade." + +The mate shook his head. He had evidently no liking for the job, keen +as was his desire to get to the bottom of it. + +"Let's feed first anyway," he said, and produced the rabbits, which he +had held on to in spite of his surprise and many stumblings. So they +sat in the sand and ate raw rabbit, with their eyes on the ships all +the time. + +"They're dead ships like all the rest," was the sum of Macro's +conclusions. "But how they got there beats me flat." + +"They're afloat anyway and they'll be better to sleep in than the +sandhills." + +"Ay--mebbe,--if so be's there's no dead men aboard--or ghosts." + +"There's no ghosts anyway. If there are any dead men we'll bury them +decently and occupy their bunks." + +At which the mate gave a shiver of distaste and chewed on in silence. + +"Isn't it possible there's an opening to the sea over yonder?" asked +Wulfrey, with an eastward jerk of the head. + +"Mebbe, but I don't think it. There's no seaweed here, and no move in +the water, and no tide-mark. It's dead level. But what if there is?" + +"Why, then they might have got in that way, and then some storm blocked +the opening and they couldn't get out." + +"Mebbe. We can find out by travelling along yon spit till we get to +the end of it. I'd liefer do that than go aboard." + +"We'll sleep better on board than on the sand." + +"Man, ye don't know what ill things may be aboard yon ships! There's a +wrong look about 'em," which was undeniable, but still not enough to +commend the chill sand to Wulfrey as a resting-place when shelter and +possibly bunks might be had on board. + +"It seems to me," he said, as they finished their meal, "that it +doesn't matter much how they got there. We can perhaps find that out +later. There they are, and if they're habitable we want to make use of +them. I'm going to swim out to this nearest one and find out what's +the matter." + +"If you go I go," grumbled the mate uncheerfully. + +"It's evident there's no one aboard or anywhere about, and it's absurd +to sit here looking at them," said Wulf, and began to peel off his +clothes, which had got almost dry with walking. "No good getting them +wet again," he explained. "I've been all of a chill for the last five +days. I'll fasten them on to my head." + +"We'll be coming back." + +"We might decide to stop there all night. Better take what's left of +the meat." + +"Gosh!" with a perceptible shiver of distaste again. + +However, he peeled also, and by careful contrivance with belt and +braces they bound their bundles on to their heads and stepped into the +water. + +"Phew! It's cold,--colder than the sea," said Wulfrey through +tight-set teeth, as they struck out. + +"'Tis that," and the mate's teeth chittered visibly, between the chill +of the water and distaste of the adventure. + +"Temperature ought to be same ... if sea comes in," sputtered Wulfrey. + +"'Tisn't, all same. It's cauld as death." + +They ploughed along till they reached the nearer ship, and swam round +it in search of entrance, and failing other means laid hold of the +rusty anchor-chain, which peeled in ruddy flakes at their touch. By +the time Wulf tumbled in over the bows he was streaked from head to +foot with iron-mould, and presented so ghastly an appearance that +Macro's jaw fell as he came up the side, and he looked half inclined to +drop back into the water. + +"Man! You look awful. I tuk you for a ghost," he gasped in a whisper. + +"You're nearly as bad yourself, but I took the cream of it. Now let us +see what's what." + +The mate's experienced eye showed him at once that the condition of the +ship was not due to storm or accident. She had been deliberately +stripped of everything that could be turned to account elsewhere. She +was bare as a board,--not a rope nor a spar was left. The hatches were +closed and looked as though they had not been touched for years. + +They came to the fore-hatch leading down to the fo'c's'le, and he +hauled it up with some difficulty and looked suspiciously down into the +darkness within. + +"Below there!" he cried, in a repressed hollow voice. But only the +echoes answered him. + +They passed the main-hatch leading to the hold, and went along, past a +grated skylight thick with green mould, to the covered gangway leading +to the officers' quarters. The doors were closed and bolted with rusty +bolts. There could not by any possibility be anyone below, not anyone +alive, that is. + +Macro wasted no breath here, when they had managed to undo the bolts, +but he visibly hesitated. Wulf stepped down into the cabin, and he +followed. + +Just bare walls, nothing more. Table, stools, lamps, everything +movable or unscrewable had been carried away. In the four small rooms +adjacent there were just four empty bunks and not a thing besides. + +"Gosh, but it's queer!" whispered Macro. "Mebbe they're all lying dead +in the hold." + +"We'll make sure," and they went up on deck again, and with some +labour, for the wood had swelled and stuck, got up the main hatch and +dropped down into the hold. + +But that was bare like the rest. The ship was as empty as a drum. + +"Not so much as a rat, b' Gosh!" said the mate, with recovered spirits, +seeing no sign of dead men or ghosts. + +"What do you make of it?" asked Wulf. + +"She's been stripped bare, that's plain. But why, beats me." + +"Anyway, there's no objection to our stopping here now, I suppose. +Bare bunks will be drier than the sand over there." + +"That's so.... And I'm thinking that if we can bring over some of the +stuff from that big pile out yonder we can make ourselves mighty +comfortable here." + +"We can start on that tomorrow. We've done enough for one day." + +"We'll make a raft, like old Robinson Crusoe, and bring the stuff right +down to the spit yonder," said Macro, waxing quite cheerful at the +prospect. "Then we'll make a smaller raft to bring it aboard here." + +"We'd better walk along that spit tomorrow and see if there's any +opening to the sea." + +"We can do that, but I doubt there's not, else this water wouldn't be +so cold, and there'd be some movement in it. It's all dead like +everything else." + +They spent the rest of the daylight poking into every corner of the +ship, and in the dark fo'c's'le Macro made a find of surpassing worth. + +He had rooted everywhere, with a natural enjoyment in the process, and +come on nothing but bare boards. "But you never know," he said, and +went on rooting. And in the blackest corner his foot struck something +loose which slid away and eluded him. He went down on his hands and +knees and groped till he found it, and then gave a triumphant shout +which brought up Wulfrey in haste. + +It was a small round metal box such as was used for carrying flint and +steel and tinder, well-worn and battered, but tightly closed, and the +mate's fingers trembled with anxiety as he opened it with his knife. + +"Thanks be!" he breathed deeply, for there in the little battered box +lay all the possibilities of fire,--warmth, cooked food, life--all +complete. + +And--"Thank God!" said Wulfrey also. "That's the best find yet." + +"If it'll work it's worth its weight in Guinea gold. But it's old, +old," and he poked the tinder doubtfully with his finger, "as old as +the ship, and that's older than you or me, I'm thinking. It's dropped +out of some old pocket and rolled out of sight. We do have the deil's +own luck." + +"Providence!" said Wulfrey. "Can't we make a fire and roast some +rabbit? I'm sick of raw meat." + +"Where'd we make it? Galley-stove's gone with all the rest, and galley +too for that matter.... Wouldn't do to set the ship afire.... There's +only one safe way. Soon as we've got a bit of a raft together we'll +bring over sand enough to make a fire-bed in the hold. Then we can +roast all the rabbits in the island." + +"What about the cover of the big hatchway there? Wouldn't that carry +one of us and sand enough." + +"Might. And there's wood enough and to spare in the skin of her down +below. But it'll be dark in an hour." + +"Come on. Let's get it overboard. I'll go. Can you rip up a board +for a paddle?" + +The hatch-cover was slightly domed and had four-inch coamings all +round, and when let upside down on to the water made a sufficiently +effective raft for light freight. Macro dropped down into the hold and +ripped up a board and jumped it into pieces, and Wulfrey lowered +himself gingerly down on to his frail craft and set off for the shore, +with roast rabbit in his face. + +"Ye'll have to look smart or ye'll be in the dark," Macro called after +him, as he leaned over the side watching his clumsy progression. + +"Ay, ay! I'll shout if I get lost," and the mate went down to break up +firewood and shred filmy shavings in default of sulphur sticks. + +Wulfrey, wafting slowly ashore, lighted on a colony of rabbits intent +on supper, and was able to capture a couple in their panic rush for +their holes. Then he hastily loaded his float with all the sand it +could safely carry and set off again for the ship in great content of +mind. + +The transfer of his cargo to the deck of the ship was a much more +difficult and precarious job than getting it alongside. He tried +throwing it up in handfuls, but that proved slow work and more than +once came near to spilling him overboard. And finally, as the night +was upon them, he took off his coat and sent up larger parcels in it; +and so at last Macro cried enough, and having shown him how to wedge +his float in between the rusty anchor-chain and the bows, so that the +wind should not drift it away in the night, he helped him up over the +side. + +It was an anxious moment when the first sparks shredded down into the +ancient tinder. But they caught and glowed, and with tenderest coaxing +lighted the mate's carefully-prepared matches, and these the chips, and +these the faggots, and the mighty cheer and joy of fire were theirs. + +They slept that night in great comfort, replete with roasted meat, +roofed from winds and dew, and grateful both, each in his own way, for +the marvellous encouragement of this first day on the island. + +Though their beds were but bare boards, they had no fault to find with +them, but slept like tops. And Macro's black head was so full of the +wonderful possibilities of that vast pile of wastry out beyond the +point, in conjunction with this amazing find of the ships, that there +was no room left in it for any thought of ghosts or evil spirits. + + + + +XIX + +Over their last night's fire they had made provision of roast meat for +breakfast, and after it they paddled precariously across to the other +schooner, a couple of hundred yards away, and explored it thoroughly. +But it was in exactly the same condition as their own, so they closed +all the hatches again and then, after a short discussion, decided to +leave the solution of the puzzle of the ships for the present and +devote the day to the salvage of any necessaries they could discover +among the wreckage. + +They paddled across to the southern spit which divided the lake from +the sea, and found it a bare hundred yards in width, and at its highest +point not more than ten feet above high-water level. They walked +briskly along the side of the narrow channel that joined the two lakes, +on past the first one, and in a couple of hours reached the sandy point +where they had landed two days before. Out above the piles of wreckage +the gray cloud of sea-birds swung and whirled, and their shrill +screamings rose and fell with the varied fortunes of their quest. + +"Screeching deevils!" was the mate's comment on them, and presently, +"It'll be a long pull back with a log of a raft. It must be six or +seven miles, I reckon." + +"Perhaps we'll strike a boat among the wreckage." + +"Ah--p'r'aps. We do have the deil's own luck." + +It was almost dead low water. The storm of the previous days seemed to +have exhausted the elements for the time being. The sea was smooth, +with no more movement than the long slow heave which curled, as it +neared the shore, into great green and white combers of exquisite +beauty, rushing up the beaches in a dapple of marbled foam, and back +into the bosom of the next comer with a long-drawn sibilant hiss. + +There was a soft south-west wind and even a cheering touch of the sun, +and as their work was like to be of the wettest, and dry clothes were a +luxury, they left them above tide-level and went out stripped to the +fight, their only weapon the mate's sailor's-knife in the belt which he +buckled round his waist. But, in view of the screeching deevils +already in possession, they forethoughtfully armed themselves with the +weightiest clubs they could pick out of the raffle of the beach. For +in that countless predatory host, although its components were but +birds, there was menace passing words. It made them feel bare and +vulnerable, and Macro cursed them heartily as he went. + +They reached the pile without any difficulty, and the mate's keen eye +raked round for the likeliest stuff for a raft. It was no good +acquiring cargo till they had a craft to carry it. + +There was no lack of timber, however, and cordage was to be had for the +cutting, and with these the skilled hands of the seaman soon +constructed a raft large enough for their utmost probable requirements. +Then he turned with gusto to the more satisfying joys of plunder, and +developed new and startling sides to his character. + +Wulf laughed, but found him surprising, as the cateran spirit of his +forebears came uppermost with this tremendous opportunity. + +He climbed up and down and in and out of the high-piled wreckage like a +hungry tiger, bashed in boxes and cases with a huge club of mahogany +which had once adorned the cabin-staircase of a ship, and raked over +their contents with the avidious claws of a wrecker of the evil coasts. +Now and again strange ejaculations broke from him. More than once, in +the wild glee of pillage and unexpected booty, he shouted snatches of +weird runes and chanties which Wulf supposed were Gaelic. At times he +stood and shook his fist at the screaming birds that swooped about him, +and cursed them volubly. And once, Wulfrey, on the raft below, knitted +his brows and watched him with doubtful perplexity as, in the +disappointment of his hopes respecting one great case which had +resisted his efforts and finally yielded nothing of consequence, he +attacked another with shouts of fury and a Berserk madness that +scattered chips and splinters far and wide. An incautious cormorant +swooped by him. With a stroke he sent it spinning, a bruised and +broken bundle of feathers, and it fell with a dull flop into the sea. + +The man seemed demented, drunk with a rage for plunder and the +destruction of everything that stood between him and it. His great +club whirled, and the blows flailed here and there without any apparent +regard to direction. The lust of slaughter and demolishment burst from +him in volcanic fire and fury. For the moment he had reverted to his +elemental type. + +To the cooler head below he looked dangerous. Wulfrey's amused +amazement gave place to doubt and a touch of anxiety. He could only +hope that his companion was not often subject to fits such as this. + +But the Berserk madness was not wholly without method, and presently +plunder of all kinds came raining down on the raft. + +Heralded by a sharp "Below there!" came a roll of linen and one of +woollen cloth, a bale of blankets, more rolls,--this time of silk and +satin and velvet, all more or less damaged by the sea, though they were +the pick and cream of his salvaging, and all no doubt dryable. + +"Good heavens! What does he want with these?" thought Wulfrey, but +piled them up obediently. + +Then, following the unmistakable course of the marauder up above, and +clawing the raft along to keep in touch with him, down came on his head +a bulging little sack, which felt like beans but proved to be coffee, +and presently, after a pause, necessitated by packing arrangements up +above, a series of soft bundles made up in crimson silk and tied with +slimy rope. + +Then, after another pause punctuated by shouts and crashes, down came a +rattling heap of rusty cooking utensils all slung together with more +slimy rope, a rusty axe, four broken oars. Till at last the raft +became so crowded that there was barely standing room left on it. + +"Steady, above there! We're full up. I can't take another pound, and +I doubt if we can get this all home safely." + +"Just this, man!" and Macro appeared up above with a small keg in his +arms, and let himself and it carefully down on to the raft, with every +appearance of a return to sanity. + +"Man!" he said, with the afterglow of it all still in his face. "That +was fine. We'll come again." + +"We've got to get all these things home first." + +"Easy that. This wind'll carry us fine," and he set to work with a +couple of the broken oars and a blanket, and contrived a sail of sorts. +Then, taking another oar and thrusting one into Wulfrey's hands, he +propelled the clumsy raft along the side of the wreckage till it got +clear, and the wind caught their sail and wafted them slowly towards +the island. + +"A grand grand place, yon!" he broke out again. + +"There's stuff enough there to load a hundred ships.... Gosh, I've +forgotten the pork!" and he uprooted the sail and began paddling back +to the wreckage. "I stove in the head of a barrel and was smelling at +it when I spied the wee keg." + +"Was it eatable?" + +"I've eaten worse." + +"Couldn't we get it next trip?" + +"Man, my stomach's been crying for it ever since I set eyes on it. +'Sides, those deevils of birds will finish it in no time. See them! +They're at it now. Och, ye greedy deevils!" + +He clambered up the pile with his oar and laid about him lustily, The +birds rose up from the meat like a dense cloud of flies, and screamed +and raved at him, and swooped at him with vicious eyes and beaks and +claws, so that in a moment he became the centre of a writhing, +fluttering, shrieking mass which threatened to annihilate him +completely. + +He flailed blindly at them with his oar, smashing them by dozens. But +they were too many for him. He shouted for help, and when Wulfrey +scrambled up he found him in very sore case, fighting blindly and +streaming with blood. + +"Come away, man!" shouted Wulfrey, and thrashed away at the nightmare +of whirling birds. "Come away before they end us!" and in a moment he +found himself the centre of a similar shrieking mass, dazed and blinded +with their numbers and their fury. The terrified glimpse he got of +their cold glittering eyes and gnashing beaks, and the compressed venom +of their overwhelming assault, were too much for him. It was like +fighting single-handed against all the fiends out of the pit. + +He hurled his oar overboard, put up his arms to protect his eyes, and +staggered to the edge of the pile, acutely conscious of jags and pecks +and rips innumerable on his bare arms and shoulders. As he flung +himself down into the water and dived under, a plunge alongside told +him that Macro had done the same. A raucous swarm of birds followed +them, but on their disappearance fluttered off to more visible chances +above. + +"Man! but that was awful!" gasped the mate hoarsely. "They nigh ate me +alive." + +"Let's get aboard or they'll be at us again. There's my oar," and he +swam quietly to it and they climbed back on to the raft. + +"An' never ae piece o' pork," lamented Macro. "The poaching deevils!" + +"Be thankful you're alive, man! It was a close touch that." + +"'Twas that. I'm bit all over. I'd like to end 'em all with one +crack." + +Fortunately the birds were too busy quarrelling up above to give them +more than cursory attention. A few came whirling and swooping after +them with greedy eyes and ravening beaks. But it was only in their +multitudes that they were formidable and they soon gave up a chase that +offered no easy prey. + +The men, shaken and trembling, clawed along the pile till they caught +the wind again, when Macro readjusted his masts and sail, and they +drifted slowly back towards the island. + +"Ye deevils! Ye scratching, scrawming, skelloching deevils!" breathed +Macro deeply, every now and again, and shook his fist at the twisting +column of birds behind. "I wish ye had ae neck and me ma hond on it." + +Their weighty progress was of the slowest. When they drew alongside +the yellow spit Macro plunged overboard and waded ashore for their +clothes, and they drifted on along the low southern beach. But it was +well after mid-day before they came abreast of the stark little ships +which stood to them for home. + +Then they made busy traffic transporting their salvage to the shore and +carrying it across the bank to the edge of the lake. And when that was +all done Macro unlashed the raft and they carried it over piece by +piece, and roughly put it together there and loaded up again. + +"It'll all come in for firing," said the mate. "We can't go on burning +our own inside all the time." + +It was no easy work propelling their rough craft with broken oars. +Moreover Macro insisted on taking the hatch-cover in tow. But the +spirit of accomplishment was upon them and the weight they dragged was +a comforting one. + +All the way, as they joggled slowly along, the mate never ceased +enlarging on the wonders of the wreckage, nor forgot his one +disappointment, which evoked resentful curses each time he thought of +it. + +"Man, but we're doing fine! A roof we've got, and fire, and things to +eat.--There's flour in yon bundles,--just the cores of half a dozen +casks. And yon bag's coffee, but we'll need to roast it and grind it. +And the wee keg's rum, unless I've mistook it. An' there's enough +stuff out yonder to last us for a thousand years. But, +blankety-blank-blank-blank!--my stomach's crying after yon pork that +them screeching deevils took out of our mouths, as you might say. +Blankety-blank-blank 'em all--every red-eyed son o' the pit among 'em! +But we'll try again, and next time I'll not broach the barr'l an' +they'll know noth'n about it." + +"Maybe they'll attack us all the same. It was the most horrible +situation I was ever in. One felt so utterly helpless." + +"Ay, blank 'em! There was no end to 'em.... They'd have ate me alive +if you hadn't come and helped me tumble overboard. Blank 'em! Blank +'em! Blank 'em!" + +"What on earth are all these things for?" asked Wulfrey one time, +kicking a roll of crimson silk with his heel. + +"Blankets to sleep on,--better than boards. The others for their gay +gaudery,--the bonny reid and blue o' them. They mek me feel good and +warm just to look at 'em. I just couldna leave them. Man, they're +grand!" + +They hoisted all their stuff on board, and found themselves hungry and +thirsty with the heavy day's work. There were but the scantiest +remnants of their breakfast left, and Macro undertook to chop wood and +make a fire, scour some of the rusty cooking-utensils, and make +flour-and-water cakes as soon as he had some water, if Wulfrey would go +across for it and some fresh meat. + +So he set off on the hatch-cover with a good-sized kettle, and was back +inside an hour with water from the ponds by the hill and a couple of +young rabbits, and found that the mate had not been idle. He had +transferred a sufficiency of sand to the cabin to make a hearth at the +foot of the steps, and had broken up wood enough to last for a week. +He had spread out all the blankets, scoured most of the rust off a +frying-pan and a small kettle and a couple of tin pannikins, and had +opened the keg and sampled its contents and found it French cognac of +excellent quality. + +In the best of spirits he skinned the rabbits and set them roasting, +with an incidental commination of thae screeching deevils that had +robbed them of the pork which would have been such a welcome +accompaniment. Then he compounded cakes of flour and water and fried +them deftly, and set a kettle to boil wherewith to make hot grog, and +boastfully promised coffee for the morrow when he had time to roast and +grind it. + +They both ate ravenously, and found great content in the taste of hot +food and drink once more, after all these days of clammy starvation, +and then they slept. And Wulfrey dreamed horribly all night of +fighting helplessly with legions of screeching birds, and several times +fought himself awake, and each time found Macro actively engaged in the +same unprofitable business. + + + + +XX + +In spite of his torn shoulders and unrestful night, Macro was for +setting off again first thing next morning for more plunder. That huge +pile of wastry drew him like a magnet. He hungered and thirsted to be +at it again. + +But Wulfrey flatly refused. They had enough to go on with, and he +claimed at least a day to recover from the effects of the last +excursion. And as Macro declined to tackle the job single-handed he +was fain to agree, though with none too good a grace. + +"This weather mayn't last. We'd best get all we can while we can," he +urged. + +"The stuff will be there tomorrow. Most of it's been there for years, +you said." + +"Ay, but man, there's mebbe things out of the 'Grassadoo,' that'll be +spoiling for want of finding." + +"They'll not spoil much more in one day. You're more used to this kind +of work than I am, you see. I must have a rest." + +Macro consigned rest to the bottomless pit, but after relieving his +feelings in that way, consented at last to an easy-going exploration of +the southern spit, to see if their lake opened into the sea, though he +expressed himself satisfied, from his observations, that it did not. + +First, however, out of the larger raft he constructed a smaller one, +which bore them better than the hatch-cover and was more manageable, +and the hatch they hauled on board again and fitted into its place, so +as to keep the ship dry in case of bad weather. Then they paddled +across to the spit and set off along it, both scrutinising the lie of +the land carefully. + +For a good hour they trudged through heavy sand, the sea swirling with +long soft hisses up the yellow beach on their right hand, and on their +left the placid water of the lake without a pulse in it. The dividing +bank was nowhere in all its length more than a hundred yards wide, nor +more than ten feet high at its crown. + +More than once Macro stood and studied it in places, and when in time +they came to long ridges of hummocks which stretched as far in front as +they could see, he stood again, looking back from the top of the first +they climbed, and said, "I'm thinking there's no opening this end. +Mebbe it was on the level there. But this stuff shifts so in a gale +you never know where you are." + +Presently they came on the shallow rounded end of the lake, with higher +sandhills beyond it, which ran along both sides of the island further +than they could see. In between lay a vast unbroken stretch of level +sand, and when they climbed to the top of the highest hill, they saw +this sandy desert dwindle in the far distance to a point, with the sea +on each side of it, like the one at the other end of the island. + +"There's not a sign of anybody else," said Wulfrey. + +"If there'd been anyone they'd bin living on them ships. We've got it +all to ourselves, that's certain. And what's more, we'll have it all +to ourselves till Kingdom come. No one else'll ever come, 'cept dead +men." + +"Those two ships came." + +"Twenty, thirty years ago,--mebbe more. Must have bin an opening then +and it's got silted up. They couldn't have got washed over the spit." + +There were several more large fresh-water ponds close to these larger +hills, and rabbits everywhere. They secured a couple and tramped back +the way they had come. + +Macro seemed to accept the whole situation and outlook with the utmost +equanimity. They had very much more than they had had any right to +expect; more was always to be had for the fetching from that wonderful +pile out yonder; what that pile might yield in the way of richer +plunder remained to be seen, and he was the man to see to it. + +But Wulfrey had been cherishing a hope that the great lake would prove +an inlet from the sea, a harbour of refuge into which other ships might +be expected to run at times. And the fact that it was not, that no +relief was to be looked for in that direction and that this desolate +sandbank, bristling with wrecks, must necessarily be shunned by all who +knew of it, weighed more and more heavily on him as he thought about it. + +They were alive, where all their shipmates had perished. They were +provided for beyond their utmost expectation. For all that he was most +deeply grateful. But the prospect of passing the rest of his life on +this bare bank troubled him profoundly and reduced him to silence and +the lowest of spirits. + + + + +XXI + +They woke next morning into a dense white fog, so thick that they could +not see across the deck. Macro, intent on plunder, hailed it as an +excellent screen from possible attack by the other pillagers of the +wreck-pile, and though Wulfrey had his doubts, he would not counter him +again. + +His knowledge of human nature suggested to him the almost impossibility +of two men living alone, in intimacy so close and exclusive, and with +so little outlet for their thoughts and energies, without coming to +loggerheads at times. He determined that, so far as in him lay, the +provocation thereto should not come from him. + +So far he had not only had nothing to complain of in his companion's +presence, but, on the contrary, had found himself distinctly the gainer +by it in every material way. But the strange wild outbursts, to which +he had given vent when they were at the wreckage before, warned him of +hidden fires below, and suggested the advisability of non-provocation +of the under-man, if it were possible to avoid it. + +So they paddled across to the spit, which they could not well miss, and +set off on foot for the point, steering by the sullen lap and hiss of +the waves as they stole softly up out of the fog on their left hand. +There was a clamminess in the air which commended the idea of clothes +to them while they worked on the pile. So they made their things into +tight bundles, and carried them above their heads as they waded out +neck-deep to their store-house. The shrill cries of the birds came +dull and thin through the fog, more ghostly than ever from their +invisibility. Now and again an inquisitive straggler fluttered down at +them out of the close white curtain, and whirled back into it with a +terrified squawk when it found they were alive. + +They climbed the pile cautiously, but the birds seemed mostly at a +distance; and when they had flung down sufficient timber Macro +proceeded to construct another raft, while Wulfrey poked about up above +on his own account. + +And as he climbed about among the chaotic mass of barrels, boxes, +cases, bales, he came to understand the wild craving to get at them, to +bash them open and learn what they contained, which had possessed the +mate that other day. There might be anything hidden there--goods of +all kinds for the easement of their present situation. There might +even be treasure of gold and jewels. It was impossible to say what +there might not be. And though gold and jewels were absolutely useless +to them, placed as they were, and with no prospect, according to Macro, +of rescue or relief, the possibility of such things lying hidden in +untold quantity all about him stirred him strangely. + +He recognised feelings so abnormal to himself with no little surprise. +He felt as a penniless small boy might feel if he were given the +freedom of a great shop full of boxed-up toys and told to help himself. +He wanted to smash open very closed case he came to, to see what was +inside it. + +The water lapped and clunked dismally in the hollows below, and at +times he had to climb almost down to it, and then up the further side, +to get across faults in the pile. In one such black gully, on what was +usually the leeward side of the pile, he had stepped cautiously from +ledge to ledge, and laid hold of a projecting spar and was hauling +himself up the other side, when he came face up against a dark little +cranny between two great cases. And in the niche sat the skeleton of a +man, all huddled up and jammed together, but grinning at him in so +ferociously jovial a manner, as though he had been expecting him and +was rejoiced at the sight of him, that Wulfrey came near to loosing his +hold and falling into the water. He scrambled hastily past, and saw +grinning faces in every dark corner for the rest of the day, and some +of them were fact and some were only fancy. For the tumbled pile of +wreckage was like a huge trap for the catching of anything the sweeping +gales might bring it. + +He heard Macro's voice, dulled by the mist, calling to him, and he +answered but knew not which way to go to get to him. It was only by +constant shouting and long and precarious scrambling that they came +together again. + +"We'd best keep close in this fog," said the mate, "or one of us'll be +stopping the night here. Found anything?" + +"A dead man----" + +"Any of ours?" + +"No, he was only bones." + +"It's full of 'em. They're no canny, but they'll not harm us. +Where'll we begin?" + +"One place is as good as another. Here, I should say, and quietly, or +those fiends of birds will be at us again." + +"Bear a hand with this, then," laying hold of a newly-stranded barrel. +"That's pork out of the 'Grassadoo,' so it'll be all right," and +heaving and hauling, they managed to get the barrel down on to the raft. + +As they poked about the pile in the mist, it was evident they had +struck a spot where a good portion of the contents of the +'Grace-a-Dieu' had lodged. Macro, having superintended the loading, +recognised many of the marks and in some instances could recall their +contents. + +"Women's fallals," he said, with a scornful crack at one large case. +"If they'd been men's, now, they'd have come in handy.... Boots and +shoes, if I remember rightly,"--nodding at another case. "We'll soon +see," and with a chunk of wood he stove in one side and hauled out a +handful of its contents.--"Women's troke again! Mebbe we'll find some +men's stuff in time.... I've seen yon chest before.... Old Will +Taggart's, I think," and he stove it open, and went down on his knees +and raked over the contents. "Seaman's slops, not much account.... A +new pipe and a tin of tobacco! Thanks be! We'll take that ... and +another flint and steel. Always useful! ... Clothes not much good, but +we might be glad of 'em later on.... Yon's a box of tea and it'll be +lead-lined inside. Should be more about. We had two hunderd +aboard.... Glory! yon barrels are hard-tack. These ones are flour. +If we work hard and get 'em ashore before the weather breaks again +we'll live in clover.... What's this now? ... 'Duke of Kent'"--and he +hauled up a stout wooden box by one handle out of a raffle of cordage +and ragged sail-cloth. "Name of a ship--or name of a man? That's no a +ship's box." + +A deft blow under the lock and the box lay open, displaying a number of +uniforms, richly decorated with gold braid and lacing, all more or less +damaged by water, but otherwise in good condition. + +"Duds enough to keep us going for a couple of years if so be as they +fit," said the mate exuberantly, and Wulfrey laughed out at the idea of +their peacocking about their sandbank rigged out in court costumes. + +"He was Governor-General of Canada," he said. "I remember hearing he +lost his baggage on the journey." + +"We'll be Governor-Generals here when we're needing a change.... +Nothing but his clothes," as he ran his hands all over the box. "Mebbe +we'll find more of 'em lying about. Man! what a place it is! It'd +take a man a lifetime to work through all the stuff there is here." + +They worked hard and carried home a huge load, but as there was no wind +they had to paddle all the way, and even Macro acknowledged to being a +bit tired before they got all their plunder across the spit and on +board, the transit across the lake on the smaller raft necessitating +three separate journeys. He was in the highest of spirits however, and +keen to be back at the pile next day. As for Wulfrey, hardening though +he was with all these unusual labours, he found himself almost too +weary to eat. + +The fog lay on them like a white pall for six days. Macro predicted +that it would go in a storm, and was urgent on salvaging all they could +before it came. + +So, day after day, they went out to the pile, and came back loaded at +night till they had stuff enough in their hold to keep them in comfort +for many months to come. + +They had meat and drink, clothes and firing, and comfortable quarters. +What more could any man want, unless it were to get away from it all? +And that, the mate asserted, time after time, was the unlikeliest thing +that could happen. + +"We're here till Kingdom come," was the burden of his tune. "So we may +as well be comfortable. And we've had the deil's own luck. We might +ha' been living on rabbits and roots, and sleeping on the sand. Man! +be thankful at being tired to such good purpose!" + +"I'm thankful enough and tired enough, and we've got stuff enough for a +year. I'm going to take a rest." + +"I'm for the pile again tomorrow. If you won't come I'll e'en make +shift alone," and Wulfrey let him go alone. + + + + +XXII + +The smothering white fog lay thick on them for six days and then +disappeared in the night. The morning broke dull and heavy, with a +gusty wind from the south-west, and they could hear the waves breaking +on the spit with a sound like the low growl of a menacing beast. + +"I'm off to the pile," said the mate. + +"Better take a day off. You've been working too hard." + +"Not me. I cannot sit here while all yon stuff's crying aloud to be +picked up." + +"Well, I'll be on the look-out, and come across to give you a hand from +the spit when you get there." + +"I'll lash you up a bit float that'll bring you over, before I go. And +you'll mebbe have some food ready against I get back. It's hungry work +out there." + +"I'll be ready for you. If you load up too heavily you'll not get back +at all." + +"I'll see to that. Wind's fair, it'll bring me home all right." + +So Wulfrey had the day to himself, and had time, which the labours of +the previous days had not permitted him, to consider the situation in +all its aspects. + +So far they had been marvellously favoured, without doubt. Ten days +ago they were swinging up and down on the galley-roof inside the cage +of the dead ship's ribs, possessed of nothing but their bare lives, and +those but doubtfully. And here they were, provided for in every +respect, with comforts which shipwrecked men had no right to expect, +and with unlimited further stores to draw upon. They could live +without fear.... + +But what a life, after all. Eating, drinking, sleeping,--raking over +the wreckage for possible plunder that was useless to them,--rambling +among the rabbits and the sandhills. Quarrelling in time, maybe. +Perhaps it was a good thing there was a ship for each of them. + +He was not himself of a quarrelsome disposition. The mate, he thought, +might be difficult to put up with if he took a crooked turn. But it +would be the height of folly for two men, bound together by +ill-fortune, and to this bare bank for all time, to fall out. Every +circumspection within his power he resolved to exercise, and so far, +indeed, his companion had given him no cause to mistrust or doubt him. + +But he had a somewhat discomforting feeling that he knew very little of +the real man that lay beneath that saturnine exterior, that there might +be elemental depths there which would surprise him if they came to be +revealed. This Macro that he knew was to him something in the nature +of a sleeping volcano, outwardly quiet but full of hidden fires. + +He could imagine no likely grounds for dispute between them. Each +worked for the common good, and so far they had shared all things +equally and without question. But how would it be as the weeks dragged +into months, and the months into years? + +So far the rifling of the wreckage had afforded the mate all the outlet +he needed for his activities. In ministering to the cravings of the +riever spirit that was strong in him it had also supplied their wants +in overwhelming abundance. The longer it kept him busy the better, and +if it yielded him plunder of value he was entirely welcome to it. + +Wulfrey could not imagine his discovering anything out there which +could by any possibility lead to any serious difference between them. +And yet, in spite of all that, from little glimpses he had caught at +times of the strange wild, hidden nature of the man, he was not without +doubts as to his absolute congeniality as a sole companion for the rest +of his days. + +In short he had a vague feeling that, if by any chance they came to +loggerheads, Macro might prove an extremely unpleasant person to be +shut up with, within bounds so limited as this great bank of sand. + +He recognised such feelings, however, as unnecessarily morbid, and +ascribed them to the general murkiness of the outlook and +over-weariness from the exertions of the last few days. So he tumbled +overboard on to the new raft and paddled to the nearer shore, and set +off for a brisk walk over the sandhills and along the beach, in search +of a more hopeful frame of mind. + +Why could they not build a boat? Macro said the coast of Nova Scotia +was but a hundred miles or so away. A hundred miles was no great +affair, and there was wood among that pile enough to build a thousand +boats. So far, indeed, they had not come upon any tools except the +rusty axe, for tool-chests probably sank at once on the outer banks +where the ships went to pieces. + +Still, he would suggest it to Macro. It might prove a further outlet +for his energies. If he should by chance find plunder of value out +there he might, when he was satiated, favour the idea of an attempt at +escape. In fact, plunder without any attempt to utilise it would be +absurd. + +The opportunity of making his own position clear, and thereby obviating +any cause for dispute, occurred that same day. + +When, in the afternoon, he saw the mate coming slowly along before the +wind, he paddled over to the spit to meet him and found him in great +spirits. + +"Man! it's been a great day, and if ye'd been there ye'd have had your +chance. I lit on some graand things. Wait while I show you----" + +"Let's get 'em all aboard first. They'll keep, and I'll be bound +you're tired and hungry." + +"Hungert as a wolf, but finding siccan things takes the tired out o' +one," and his black eyes sparkled over his finds, and he must go on +telling about them as they worked. + +"It was down under where we found yon Duke o' Kent box. I spied +another, and then more, mebbe there's, more yet down below." + +"More fancy coats?" + +"Ah!--and some with jewelled stars on 'em and swords with fancy hilts. +I'll show you when we get aboard." + +"You didn't come across any tools, I suppose?" + +"Tools? No. What would we want tools for?" + +"I was wondering if it might not be possible to build some kind of a +boat and get across to Nova Scotia." + +"We're safer here than trying that, I'm thinking." + +"When you've got all there is to be got out there you'll want to get +home and enjoy it----" + +"Man! It'd take a hunderd years to go through it all. It's bin piling +up there since ever this bank silted up." + +"Oh well, we don't want to stop here a hundred years, that's certain. +What's the good of it all if you can't make any use of it?" + +"It's graand to handle anyway." + +And when they had eaten, he opened some of his bundles and displayed +his treasures,--a jewelled 'George,' roughly cut from some +Garter-knight's court-coat, several smaller decorations, all more or +less ornamented with precious stones, three dress-swords with +mountings, in ivory and gold, a small wooden box lined with sodden blue +velvet in which were half a dozen rings, some of which from the size of +the stones and the massiveness of their setting, seemed to Wulfrey of +considerable value. + +"They're worth something, all those," said Macro, as he handled them +with loving exultation. + +"Ay, if you could get them home and turn them into money. I don't see +what use they're going to be to you here," said Wulfrey, fiddling his +own string again. + +"They're fine to have anyway." + +"I'd sooner have another pipe and some more tobacco than the whole of +them." + +"Ye can have that too," and he rooted in another bundle and produced +both. "They're oot a dead man's chest and they're wet. But he's no +use for 'em and they'll dry. So there ye are. Ye dinnot care for +jewels?" and he looked at Wulfrey wonderingly. + +"As to that, I don't say I wouldn't pick them up if I came across them, +but I've no hankering for them." + +"Ye've plenty money of your own, mebbe." + +"As much as I need--if ever I get ashore." + +"Ah! It meks a difference, ye see. I never had any to speak of, and +these bonny sparklers pluck at the heart o' me." + +"You're welcome to all you can get, as far as I'm concerned----" + +"Ay, man, they're mine, for I found 'em." + +"But they're no use to you unless we can get away from here. Get +ashore and you can turn them to account. Now why couldn't we build +some kind of a boat and get across to Nova Scotia? There's wood enough +and to spare out yonder----" + +"Ay, there's wood, but ef we had the tools 'twould still be no easy +matter. An' then ye've got to reckon wi' the weather. 'Twould be a +bad move to spend our time building a boat only to go to the bottom in +her with all the gear we'd gathered. We're safe here, anyway. Mebbe +some day a boat'll come ashore not so broke but we can patch her up.... +How'd ye like to be afloat in a home-made boat a night like this?" + +For while they sat, eating and talking, the day had darkened, and now +and again there came a menacing whuffle down the open hatch, and the +little ship was filled with a tremulous humming as the rising wind +played on their bare masts, and the growl of the spit had deepened into +a long hoarse roar. + +"It'll be a bitter bad night I'm thinking. I saw it coming away out +yonder. Mebbe it'll add some to our pile of stuff. Mebbe it'll bring +us a boat." + +"We will not hope for either," said Wulfrey soberly, "for that means +more deaths out yonder----" + +A long shrill scream outside sent a creepy chill down his spine for a +moment. He glanced apprehensively across at Macro in the flickering +light of the fire, and saw his face livid, his eyes like great black +wells, his jaw dropped. + +"The spirits o' the dead!" jerked the mate. "There's a hantle o' them +out there.... They're mebbe after me for these things...." and he +rocked himself to and fro, where he sat on the floor, and muttered +strange words,--"An ainm au Athar, 's an Mhic, 's an Spioraid +Naoimh,"--in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy +Ghost. + +The weird shrieking waxed louder and shriller. Wulfrey got up and +climbed the steps, and found the stormy twilight gray with that vast +cloud of birds, all fleeing blindly before the gale and each one +screaming its loudest. + +It was a fearsome, blood-curdling clamour, an ear-splitting +pandemonium, a whirling Sabbat, as if all the demons of the pit had +broken loose and clothed themselves in wings and shrieks and deadly +fear. + +"It's only those damnable birds," he bent and shouted gruffly down to +Macro, vexed with himself at his own momentary fright. + +But the mate was not for accepting any such simple explanation as that. + +"Man!" he said hoarsely. "Birds ye may think 'em, but I know better. +It is spirits they are,--spirits of all the dead that ever died in this +dread place,--a great multitude--their bones are white out there, but +the spirits of them cannot rest. A Mhoire ghradhach! 'Twas under the +Dark Star we were born, and here we'll die and leave our bones to +whiten in the sand, and the spirits of us will go screeching and +scrauchling wi' the rest. Come away, man, and shut the doors tight or +they'll be in on us!" + +Wulfrey had never seen anything like it. Those myriads of fluttering +wings looked as though the whole gray sky had come tumbling down in +fragments. It was like a snowstorm on a gigantic scale, every whirling +flake a bundle of wildly screaming feathers. + +He stood watching for a time and listening to the growing thunder of +the rollers on the spit. He imagined their crashing in white foam-fury +among the stark ribs of the dead ships out there on the banks. + +He shivered as he recalled the chill horrors of their own undoing and +deliverance. It was wonderful beyond words, with that in his mind, to +be standing there, safe and warm, and well provided, and his heart was +full of gratitude. + +"God help any who are out there this night!" he said to himself, and +closed the doors on the storm-fiends, and squatted on the floor over +against the mate, who sat rocking slowly to and fro in great discomfort +and muttered Gaelic seuns as a protection against the unholy things +that wandered outside. + +All night long their little ship was filled with the hum of the +shuddering masts, broken now and again with the creaking and jerking of +their rusty cable. And whenever Wulfrey, warm in his bunk with many +blankets, woke up for a moment, he heard the deep thunder of the waves +on the spit, and the howl of the wind, outside, and the thrashing of +the rain on deck; and he thanked God for warmth and shelter, and lay +listening for a moment, and then rolled over and went to sleep again. + +The storm lasted three full days, during which they never once left the +ship. They had all they needed, and fresh water was obtainable in any +quantity by slinging an empty keg outside one of the scupper-holes +through which the rain drained off the deck. + +Macro's gloomy humour lasted, off and on, as long as the storm. The +birds had mostly hidden themselves in sheltered nooks among the +sandhills. But every now and again the evil in them, or maybe it was +hunger, would stir them up and set them whirling and shrieking round +the ship, and sometimes lighting on it in prodigious numbers, and the +mate would curse them long and deep and fall once more to his spells +and invocations. The fury of the storm did not trouble him, but the +screaming of the birds seemed to touch the superstitious spot in his +nature and set all his nerves jangling. + +It was during one of the lull times that he astonished Wulfrey by +hauling out his rolls of silks and velvets, and with an elemental, +almost barbaric, delight in their rich colourings, he cut them into +long strips, which he fixed neatly to the walls of the cabin by means +of wooden pegs. The gorgeous results afforded him the greatest +satisfaction, which nothing but the wailing of the birds could damp. +Whenever their shrill clamour broke out the darkness fell on him again. +He hurled uncouth curses at them and no arguments availed against his +humour. + +To Wulfrey, on the other hand, the birds and their dismal shriekings +were but an incident, the fury of the storm a wonder and a revelation. + +All through that former time of stress, which had ended in their +undoing, his powers of observation and appreciation had been dulled by +his fears of disaster. Then, the howl of the gale and the onslaught of +the seas had been like hungry deaths close at his heels. But here, in +the perfect security of the land-locked lake, he was free to watch and +to wonder. + +At times, indeed, it seemed to him that the terrible force of the wind +might lift them bodily, ship and all, and hurl them into the turmoil +beyond. Then he remembered that many such storms must have swept the +island and still the ships were there. + +The waves that broke on the spit seemed to him higher than tall houses, +and the weight of them, as they curled and crashed on the sand, made +the whole island tremble, he was certain. The uproar was deafening, +and at times great lashes of white spray came hurtling over into the +lake, and scourging it into sizable waves of its own. + +When Wulfrey woke on the fourth morning he was conscious of a change, +and running up on deck he found the sun shining in a pale-blue, +storm-washed sky, and nothing left of the gale but the great green +waves breaking sullenly on the beach beyond the spit. + +He stripped and plunged overboard, and climbed up again full of the joy +of life and physical fitness. + + + + +XXIII + +The days crept into weeks, the weeks into months, with nothing to break +the monotony of their life but visits to the wreckage, an occasional +skirmish with the birds, rabbit-hunts, rude attempts at fishing, which +met with so little success from lack of anything approaching proper +material that they gave it up in disgust, and rambles among the +sandhills. + +They got along companionably enough; the mate's only complaint,--and +that not untinged with satisfaction, and obviously prompted more by a +desire for his help than from any wish to halve his spoils--that +Wulfrey showed so poor a spirit in the matter of plunder, and so +shamefully neglected the opportunities of a lifetime. + +For himself, if he could have found safe lodging out there, he would +have lived on the wreck-pile, to save the time and trouble of going to +and fro. The riever spirit of his forefathers was kept at +boiling-point by the possibilities of fortune which lurked there. The +search in itself at once satisfied and stimulated the natural craving +for booty which rioted in his Highland-Spanish blood, and he never +tired of it. + +He came back laden every time with things for the common good, and +rarer pickings for his private hoard, over which he exulted like a +chieftain returned from a successful foray. + +Wulfrey was on the whole not ungrateful to the pile for affording him +such distraction. He discussed the latest additions to his +treasure-trove with him, as they sat by the fire of a night, and +speculated with him on their probable origin and value, and the higher +he assessed this the more the mate's black eyes glowed. + +He would sit watching Wulfrey as he turned the latest find over and +over, and weighed it in his hand, and polished a bit of it to get at +its basic metal, and mused on its shape and endeavoured to arrive at +its history. And at such times there was in the sombre black eyes +something of the look of an uncertain-tempered dog whose lawful bone is +in jeopardy. + +Once or twice, Wulfrey, glancing up as he passed an opinion, caught +that curious suspicious look bent on him, and was amused and annoyed at +it, and also somewhat discomfited. Did the man think he coveted his +useless little gauds?--useless in their present extremity, though some +of them doubtless valuable enough if they could be sold. Why, he +esteemed a dryable twist of tobacco infinitely more highly than any +silver candlestick or shapely silver cup that the other could fish up +from the depths. It seemed to him just as well that the plunder-fever +had attacked only one of them, for he doubted if his companion would +willingly have shared with another. For the fever grew with his finds. + +Once they came within an ace of a quarrel, and though it blew over, the +seeds remained. + +Where the mate hid his spoil, Wulfrey neither knew nor cared nor ever +troubled his head about. He would no more have occupied his thoughts +with it than he would have taken more than his proper share of the food +or tobacco. + +But increase breeds suspicion, and suspicion clouds the outlook. Among +other things, Macro one day brought home a small crucifix and some +strings of beads, which he believed to be of gold, while Wulfrey, from +their hardness to the touch of the knife, pronounced them only brass. +They were all curiously carved or cast, however, and, whatever the +metal of which they were made, he expressed his admiration of the +workmanship. + +A night or two later, to his amazement, Macro came out of his own cabin +more black-a-vised than he had ever seen him, and asked abruptly, +"Where's that cross?" + +"What cross?" + +"You know what cross. Yon gold cross I showed you two nights ago. +Where is it?" and he lowered at Wulfrey like a full-charged +thunder-cloud. + +"I know nothing of your cross, man. I suppose you put it with the rest +of your things." + +"I did that, and it's gone. Where is it?" + +"Don't speak to me like that, Macro. I won't have it. I know nothing +about your cross or any of your plunder. I've told you before, it is +nothing to me. If I wanted it I'd go and get it for myself." + +"It was there with the rest and it's no there now. And----" + +"---- ---- ----!" cried Wulfrey, springing up ablaze with indignation. +"Do you dare to think I would touch your dirty pilferings?" and it +looked as though the next instant would find them at grips. + +But the mate had broken out in the sudden discovery of his loss. Wulf +stood full as tall as himself. He looked very fit and capable, and +looked, moreover, as the mate's common sense told him, as soon as it +got the chance, the last person in the world to tamper with another +man's goods--even though he might be the only one circumstantially able +to have done so. + +"It's gone anyway," he growled. "But it's no good fighting about it." + +"That's not enough. Your greed for gain has blinded you. Till you +come to your senses I've nothing more to do with you," and for two days +not a word passed between them. + +Each prepared his own food as and when he chose, and ate it apart from +the other. The mate hung about as though loth to leave Wulfrey in sole +charge at home, and the atmosphere of the little cabin was murky and +charged with lightning. + +On the third day Wulfrey ostentatiously set off for the wreck-pile by +himself. He was running out of tobacco and would not have accepted any +from the mate if it had been offered. + +He waded out, made a rough raft on Macro's lines, and smashed open such +seamen's chests as he could discover, for it was always in them that +they found tobacco. + +He got several small lots, and a couple of new pipes, and a flint and +steel, charged his raft with a keg of rum and a case of hard-tack, and +managed to get it all back to the spit and to the ship single-handed. + +As he came up the side, the mate met him, with the missing crucifix in +his hand. + +"The little deevil of a thing," he said, with quite unconscious +incongruity, "had slipped down a crack, back o' the locker, and I were +wrong to think ye could have taken it." + +"Well, don't play the fool again," said Wulfrey shortly. "If your +greed for other folk's goods hadn't blinded you, you would understand +that a gentleman does not stoop to stealing." + +"I've seen some I wouldn't trust further'n I could see 'em, and then +only if their hands were up over their heads. But ye're not that kind, +an' I was wrong. So there 'tis, an' no more to be said. What have ye +found?" + +"Pipes and tobacco. That is all I went for." + +After his two days of enforced silence Macro was inclined to expand, +but found his advances coldly received. Wulfrey's pride was in arms +and the insult rankled. + +By degrees, however, the storm-cloud drifted by, and matters between +them became again much as they had been, with somewhat of added +knowledge, on each side, of the character of the other. + +The mate had learned that the Doctor, quiet as he might appear, was not +a man to suffer injustice or to be meddled with. And Wulfrey had got a +further warning of the possibilities of trouble should he and the mate +come to serious differences. + +It seemed absurd that two men, stranded, perhaps for life, on this bare +sandbank, should be unable to live together in amity. Yet, his +experience of men told him that it was just such enforced close +intimacy--the constant rubbing together of very divergent natures, with +nothing in common between them but the necessities entailed by their +common misfortune--that might, nay almost certainly must, come to +explosion at times, unless they both set themselves sedulously to the +keeping of the peace. + +If any actual rupture took place between them, he foresaw that the mate +might develop phases of character which would be exceedingly awkward +and difficult to deal with. Freedom from all the ordinary restraints +which civilisation imposed upon the natural inner man might easily run +to wildest licence. + +At bottom this man was just a wild Highland cateran with a dash of +Spanish buccaneer, hot-blooded, avid of gain under circumstances so +propitious, insatiable. The chance of a lifetime had come to him and +he was exultantly set on making the most of it. He was like a +cage-bred wolf set down suddenly into the midst of an unprotected flock +of sheep. There was his natural prey in profusion and there was none +to stay him. To be dropped unexpectedly on to this enormous pile of +plunder was like the realisation of a fairy tale. No wonder he was +inclined to lose his head. + +It was fortunate, thought Wulfrey, that they were built on different +lines, and that the plunder-pile made absolutely no appeal to himself +beyond the necessaries of life. + +He determined, as far as in him lay, to walk warily and to avoid, as +far as possible, any just cause of offence on his side. + + + + +BOOK III + +BONE OF CONTENTION + + + + +XXIV + +They had been three months on the island, and in all that time had +never sighted a living ship, though the remains of newly-dead ones were +never wanting after bad weather. + +It was evident that the men of the sea avoided Sable Island as if it +were a pestilence, and came there only when it no longer mattered to +them whether they came there or not. + +Macro was, by degrees and with never-lessening enjoyment, amassing a +very considerable treasure. If ever the chance of getting back to land +arrived, and he could get his plunder home, he would have no need to +follow the sea for the rest of his life. But, whether or not that +crowning good fortune should ever be his, this gathering of spoil was a +huge satisfaction to the very soul of him, and he desired no better. + +The only flies in his big honey-pot were those rival depredators the +birds. He had many a battle royal with them, and came home at times +scratched and clawed and furiously comminative, consigning birds of all +shapes and sizes to everlasting perdition. Spirits or no spirits, in +the day time, and in the prosecution of his work, he would fight them +valiantly or trick them cleverly. + +But in the black storms that swept over them at times, when the great +waves crashed like thunder on the spit, and the sandhills and hummocks +melted away under Wulfrey's wondering eyes and built themselves afresh +in new places, when the shrieking hosts came whirling round the ship +and the sky was full of their raucous clamour, then the darkness came +on Macro and he fell again to his seuns, and knew them, beyond all +doubt, for things of evil. + +When the odds out there on the wreck-pile were too much for him, he +learned by experience how to fool them. He would smash furiously at +them with his club, shouting in wild exultation as the bashed bodies +went tumbling into the sea. If that did not discourage them, and their +venom persisted, he would drop quietly into some adjacent hole amid the +wreckage where they could not get at him, and wait there till they +whirled away after easier prey. + +So keen was he on adding to his store that, when their commissariat +needed replenishing, Wulfrey found it necessary to accompany him and to +insist on his attending strictly to this more important business, or at +times they would have gone short. For the rest, Wulfrey left him to +the satisfaction of his cravings and interfered with him not at all. + +One memorable morning, which broke sweet and clear after two days of +stress and storm, the mate set off as usual to find what the gods had +sent him; and Wulf, leaning over the side, watched him paddle across to +the spit, and land there, and stride away towards the western point +from which they always waded out to the wreckage. + +But on this occasion, before he disappeared in the distance, he stopped +and stood looking out over the sea, and the next moment Wulfrey saw him +wading out towards something which only caught his eye when thus +directed to it,--something which bobbed up and down among the waves +with a glint of white at times. + +He saw Macro reach it and lift his arms in a gesture of amazement. +Then he bent over it and presently came staggering back up the shore +bearing a white burden over his shoulder. It looked at that distance +so very like a body that Wulfrey tumbled over on to his raft, and +paddled across to the spit, and ran along the shore to where the mate +was kneeling now alongside his find. + +It was the body of a woman, pallid and sodden, with her long dark hair +all astream, her white face pinched and shrunken and blue-veined, with +dark hollows round the closed eyes, and colourless lips slightly +retracted showing even, white teeth. She was clothed only in a long +white nightdress, which the water had so moulded to her shapely figure +that it looked like a piece of fair white marble sculpture. In life +she must have been beautiful, Wulfrey thought, as he stood panting, and +gazed down upon her. + +"Dead?" he jerked. + +"Ay, sure! She were lashed to yonder spar and I couldna leave her +there.... The pity of it! She's been a fine bit." + +Wulfrey knelt down, and slipped his hand to the quiet heart, +instinctively but without hope, bent closer, gently raised one of the +closed eyelids, and said hastily, "There may be a chance. Help me back +home with her! Quick! You take her feet...." and he taking her under +the arms they hurried back along the spit. + +"She is not dead from drowning anyway," he jerked as they went. "The +exposure may have killed her.... She must have suffered dreadfully." + +It was no easy task to get her on board, but they managed it somehow, +and laid her gently among the blankets in Wulfrey's bunk. + +"Now.... Bags of hot sand, as quick as you can and as many.... Then +mix some hot rum and water--not too strong,"--and Macro found himself +springing to his orders with an alacrity which would have surprised him +if he had had time to think about it. + +Wulfrey, his professional instincts at highest pressure, drew off the +clinging garment, muffled the sea-bitten white body in the blankets, +and through them set to gentle vigorous rubbing, to start the chilled +blood flowing again. + +Macro came hurrying in with hot sand from the hearth, wrapped in linen +and tied with strands of untwisted rope. + +"Good! ... As many more as you can," said the Doctor, and placed them +against the cold, blue-white feet, and rubbed away for dear life. + +By degrees he packed her all round with hot sand-bags, Macro heating +them as fast as they cooled, in a frying-pan over the fire. He placed +them under her arms and between her shoulders, and never ceased his +vigorous friction except to renew the bags. + +Each time the mate came in, his face asked news, and each time Wulfrey +shook his head and said, "Not yet," and went on with his rubbing. His +own blood was at fever-heat with his exertions in that confined space. +But that was all the better. His superfluous warmth might transmit +itself in time to the chill white body of his patient. + +Macro came in with hot rum and water, and Wulfrey poured a few careful +drops between the still-livid lips, watched the result anxiously, and +followed them up with more, and then resumed his patient rubbing. + +For over an hour they worked incessantly, and then Macro was for giving +it up as hopeless. + +"'S no good. She's gone, sure," he said. + +"I don't think so.... Too soon to give up anyway," and the Doctor +worked on tirelessly. "If she should come round----" + +"She won't." + +"--She'll be starving. You might break up some hard-tack very small +and warm it up in some weak rum and water," and he went on with his +rubbing. + +And at last, when he had almost given up hope himself, he had his +reward. The mate, poking in a head deprecatory of further waste of +time and energy on so hopeless a job, stood staring amazedly. For the +pinched dead look of the pitiful white face had given place to a faint +presage of life, like the first flutter of dawn on the pallid darkness +of the night. Death had visibly relaxed his chill grip. There was a +tinge of colour in the parted lips, and the white teeth inside had come +together. + +"She lives," said Wulfrey softly. "Her heart is at work again. Warm +up that rum and water," and when it came he administered it cautiously +in drops again, and this time they were visibly swallowed. + +"Have the warm mash ready," he said; and even as he spoke the +blue-veined lids fluttered, but so feebly as hardly to lift the long +dark lashes from the white cheeks. And through that narrowed window +the recovered soul looked mistily out on life once more. + +He gave her still a little more hot rum and water, and when the warm +mashed biscuit came fed her slowly with that, and she swallowed it +hungrily if unconsciously. + +Then, well satisfied with his work, he piled more blankets on her and +left her to herself. + +He had had many a fight with death, but none closer than this. The +snatching of a life from the cold hand that was closing on it was +always a cause for rejoicing with him. And this life, by reason of its +comely tenement, had appealed to him in quite an unusual way. + +Who she was, and what manner of woman, was still to be learned. For +the moment it was enough that she had been within an ace of death and +was alive again, and that she was unusually good to look upon. + + + + +XXV + +When the Doctor had had a plunge overboard to restore the vitality he +had expended on his patient, they sat down to eat, and the mate was +inclined to enlarge somewhat exuberantly on the morning's work,--upon +his own share in it especially. + +"A wonderful fine piece of goods for any man to drag out of the water. +I'm doubting if you'd have seen her if you'd bin there, Doctor. Just +happened to lift my eye that way, and the white of her caught it, and +in I went. Not that I thought she could be living, you understand. +She felt like Death itself when I carried her ashore in my arms----" + +"She'll be distressed for lack of clothes when she's ready to get up. +But that won't be to-day anyway. Do you think you can light on any out +yonder?" + +"Lit on some last time I was there, but left 'em 'cause they were no +use to us. That lot'll mebbe be gone, but there's plenty more for the +finding. I'll see to it to-morrow." + +"She will be grateful to you, I'm sure." + +"She should, for if it hadn't bin for me she'd be tumbling about on yon +spar still, and dead by this time, I'm thinking." + +"She couldn't have stood much more, that's certain. I was near losing +hope myself at times." + +"Wouldn't have believed she'd ever come back if I hadn't seen it. It's +being a doctor made ye keep on so." + +"One feels bound to keep on while there's a possible chance left. In +this case one couldn't but feel that there was a chance, if only a +small one. We've done a good day's work to-day." + +"Ay," said the mate, and presently, "I'm thinking I'll go out there +today to get her some clothes. They'll need a lot of drying, you see." + +"Can you do it before dark?" + +"I'll do it. Ye'll see to her." + +"I'll see to her all right. A little more food and then the longer she +sleeps the better. If she'd lie where she is for a couple of days it +would be all to the good." + +"Then I'll go," but he came back to bend down into the little +companion-way and say, "If she's asking, ye'll tell her it was me +pulled her out the water." + +"I'll tell her." + +When, presently, Wulfrey went to see how she was going on, he found her +sleeping quietly the sleep of utter exhaustion, and as he stood looking +at her it seemed to him that she grew more beautiful each time he saw +her. + +The long wet tresses, whose clamminess he had carefully disposed behind +the rolled-up blankets which served as a pillow, were drying to a deep +warm brown. As they carried her in he had thought her hair was black. +It was very thick and long. The texture of her skin, now that the +coursing blood had obliterated to some extent the pinch and the bite of +the sea, was fine and delicate, he could see, though suffering still +from the salt. + +The pink fingers of one hand had pulled down the blankets round her +neck as though she had craved more air, and the soft white neck was +smooth and white as marble. The one ear turned towards him was like a +delicate little pink shell. + +All these things he noted before his gaze settled on the quiet sleeping +face, and lingered there with a strange new sense of joyous discovery +and unexpected increase, as one might feel who suddenly unearths a +hidden treasure. + +He wondered again who she was and whence she came. Of gentle birth, he +was sure. It showed in every feature of the placid face,--in the +strong sweet curves of a not too small mouth,--in the delicately-turned +nostrils,--in the soft level brows,--in the long fringing lashes which, +with the shadows left by her sharp encounter with Death, cast about her +closed eyes a misty enchantment full of witchery and allurement. He +wondered what colour her eyes would be when they opened. + +A wide white forehead, somewhat high cheek-bones, and a round +well-moulded chin, added a fine dignity to the sleeping face. He stood +so long gazing at its all-unconscious fascination that he feared at +last lest the very earnestness of his look might disturb her. + +So he picked up her only earthly possession, and leaving her, sleeping +soundly, in sole charge of the ship, paddled across to the nearer +shore, washed the salt out of her dainty single garment in a +fresh-water pool, and spread it in the sun to dry, and then went after +rabbits for her benefit when she should waken ravenous. + +Returned on board, after a glance at his still-sleeping patient,--who +lay so motionless that, but for the slight, slow rise and fall of the +blankets over her bosom, one might have deemed her dead,--he set to the +making of as tempting a soup as rabbit and rice could furnish, and +regretted, more sorely than ever before, his lack of salt and seasoning. + +Then he sat waiting for her to awake and for Macro to come home. If +she did not wake of her own accord before sunset he decided to wake her +himself. Sleep was without doubt the best of all restoratives, but +Nature craves sustenance, and she was almost certainly starving. She +would recover strength more quickly still if her system had something +to draw upon. + +Then, too, they had no light but that of the fire. If she woke up in +the dark she would be sorely exercised in her mind to know where she +had got to. It would be better to satisfy her, mentally and bodily, +while still there was daylight to see by. + +So, when the sun shone level through the western portholes, he went +softly to where she lay, still sleeping soundly, and after watching her +again for a moment, he placed his hand gently on her forehead. + +She frowned at the touch and moved uneasily among her blankets. Then +the heavy eyes opened and she lay staring wonderingly up at him, +evidently trying to piece past and present together, and to make out +where she was. + +"Where am I? ... Who are you?" she jerked, in a voice that would have +been rich and full if it had not been a little hoarse and husky. And +the pink fingers grasped the blanket and drew it up under the rounded +white chin. + +"You are quite safe on a ship. I am a doctor. I want you to eat some +warm soup and then you shall sleep again as long as you can. Here is +your night-rail, washed and dried; perhaps you would like to put it on. +I will go and fetch the soup." + +When he came back presently she was visibly more at ease with her +frills about her neck. She raised herself on her left elbow, and he +placed the tin pannikin of soup in front of her, together with some +broken biscuit. + +"Can you feed yourself?" he asked. + +"Oh, yes--if I had a spoon." + +"I am sorry to say we have no spoons." + +"No spoons?" and she stared at him in vast surprise. + +"Perhaps you can make shift to drink it out of the pannikin. You +see----" + +"What a very odd ship--to have no spoons!" she took a sip of the soup +and screwed up her lips. "Would you get me some salt, if you please? +This soup----" + +"I'm sorry, but we have no salt either. You see----" + +"No salt?" and she shot another quick amazed look at him. "Mon Dieu, +mon Dieu!" at which Wulfrey pricked up his ears. "Whatever kind of a +ship--you did say a ship, did you not? Where is it going to?" + +"It's not going anywhere. You see, it's practically a stranded ship +though it's really afloat----" + +She put her hand to her forehead and rubbed it gently, and then clasped +it tightly, with her thumb at one temple and her fingers at the other. +"I think my head is swimming yet," she said simply. "I cannot follow +what you say." + +"You'll understand as soon as you get on deck. This ship is bottled up +inside a lake on an island. It has been here for probably thirty or +forty years----" + +"And you--have you been here all that time?" + +"No, we were wrecked as you were, I suppose, on the banks out there. +We managed to get ashore and found this ship to live on." + +"Who are 'we'?" + +"The mate of the ship and myself. We were the only ones saved. It was +he saw you in the water and went in after you and brought you ashore." + +"It was good of him. I will thank him. Where is he?" + +"He's out at the wreckage trying to find you some clothes." + +"He is a good man.... How long have you been here?" + +"About three months." + +"And no one has come to you in all that time?" + +"You are the first. Now"--as she finished the soup--"take a good drink +of this,"--some weak rum and water warmed up in another pannikin, over +which she choked and coughed and wrinkled up her pretty nose +distastefully. "Then you will go to sleep again, and in the morning I +hope you will be all right." + +"But there is so much I would like to know----" + +"When you have had another long sleep. Are you quite warm?" + +"Quite. That horrid stuff was like fire." + +"You were cold enough when we found you. In fact we believed you were +dead." + +She shivered and nestled down among the blankets with a wave of colour +in her face. + +"I will sleep," she said quietly, and the Doctor left her to herself. + + + + +XXVI + +It was almost dark before the mate pitched his cargo up on to the deck +and came groping up the side after it. + +"What luck?" asked Wulfrey, as he came up to help him. + +"Brought all I could lay hands on, but I wouldn't like to say they're +right kind of things." + +"She'll be glad of them whatever they are." + +"Has she come round?" + +"I wakened her to take some soup and biscuit. Now I hope she will +sleep till morning." + +"And you told her it was me brought her ashore?" + +"Yes, I told her that. She will thank you herself." + +"Did you find out who she is and where she hails from?" + +"Not yet. There'll be time enough to learn all that. My only desire +was to get some nourishment inside her. She'll be building up now all +the time she's sleeping." + +"An' she's a good-looking bit of goods, eh?" asked the mate, as they +sat eating. + +"Very good-looking, I should say, and pulling round quickly. A +gentlewoman without doubt." + +"And how can ye tell that now? There's many a good-looking hussy +that's not gentle-born." + +"Undoubtedly," said Wulfrey, looking across the fire at him. "But this +isn't one of that kind. She's a lady to the finger-tips." + +"Ah--too fine a lady to live on a ship with the likes o' you and me, +mebbe," growled the mate. "All same, if't 'adn't bin for me her +leddyship ud be no more'n a little white corp tumbling about out yonder +in its little white shift." + +"Quite so," said Wulfrey, on whom this insistence on his sole claim to +the salvaging of her was beginning to pall. "And if it hadn't been for +me your bringing her ashore wouldn't have been of much service to her. +So suppose we say no more about it. We'll divide the honours." + +"If I hadn't brought her ashore ye couldn't have brought her round," +growled the mate. + +"Six of one and half a dozen of the other." + +"No six of anything. Ye can't deny I brought her ashore." + +Wulfrey lit his pipe and went up on deck, wondering what was working in +the curious fellow's brain now. + +When he went down again he found that Macro had opened his bundles and +spread their contents out to dry, and had turned in. He just glanced +at the varied assortment, and then, not to disturb his patient by going +anywhere near her, spread some blankets in the room next to the mate's, +and turned in himself. But he lay awake for a long time, wondering if +the introduction of this new element into the limited circle of their +lives was like to make for peace or otherwise. + + + + +XXVII + +Wulfrey was up early, after a restless night, anxious to see how his +patient fared. It was such a morning as usually followed their +storms--clear and bright and sunny, with a pale-blue wind-swept sky, +and a crisp breeze that tipped the green of the waves outside with +white. + +The first time he went softly in she was still sleeping, and with much +satisfaction he noted the improvement the food and rest had wrought in +her. Her face had filled out, the cheek-bones were less prominent, the +dark circles round her eyes were not nearly so pronounced as before, +though he imagined the long dark lashes and level brows would always +lend a sense of depth and witchery to the great dark eyes themselves. +The slight salting and roughening of the skin would speedily cure +itself under the application of fresh water. She was almost herself +again. + +Their fire, on its bed of sand, was never allowed to go out. The +supply of wood was unlimited and always, in the depths of the heap of +white ashes, was a golden core of heat only waiting to be fed. So he +set to and prepared coffee for her, and some flour-and-water biscuits, +and when he went in again she was awake. She turned her head and +looked at him, and his heart beat quicker than was its wont. + +Her eyes, he perceived, were very dark blue, almost black, and looked +the darker for the dark fringing lashes. They were very beautiful +eyes, he decided, and very eloquent,--there was something of +apprehension in them when first they met his, but it vanished when he +spoke. + +"You are better, I can see. You slept well?" + +"I have only just wakened. You are the doctor." + +"Yes, I am the doctor. I have got some coffee for you and some +biscuits. I will get them." + +"You are very good," as he came in with them and she raised herself on +to her elbow again. "Did your friend get me any clothes? I feel quite +well, and I would get up." + +"He brought a whole heap of things. They have been spread out all +night, but I'm afraid they'll never dry properly till they are washed +in fresh water." + +"And have you fresh water?" + +"Oh, plenty,--Ashore there, in pools. If you can select a few things I +will go across and steep them. They will soon dry in the sun." + +"You are very good," she said again, and sipped the coffee and glanced +up at him with a somewhat wry face. "No, you have no sugar on this +strange ship--nor milk. Nor a brush, nor a comb, I'll be bound. +Nothing but----" + +"A brush and a comb we can provide at all events, and of exceptional +quality. They belonged, I believe, to His Royal Highness the Duke of +Kent." + +"Edward of Kent?" she asked quickly. "Why--how...." + +"Some ship, bringing home his belongings from Canada, must have been +wrecked here. We have found quite a number of his things." + +"Well, he would not mind my using them," she said quietly. "He is of a +pleasant temper, quite the nicest of them all"; and as she finished the +coffee and biscuits, "If you could find me ... a brooch--no, you will +not have a brooch! ... a large pin or two,--but no, you will not have +any pins! ... Let me see, then,--a sharp splinter of wood----" + +"I can get you all the splinters you want. Might I ask----" + +"To pin some of these blankets about me, do you see,--so that I may get +up. And if you would get me that royal brush and comb----" + +He trimmed up half a dozen sharp little skewers and left them with her, +together with the brush and comb, and plunged overboard for his morning +swim. + +The mate was sitting by the fire at his breakfast when he went down +again. + +"Well?--how is my lady this morning?" he asked. + +"So well that she is getting up." + +"Them clothes all right?" + +"She will pick out what she wants. But they'll never dry with the salt +in them. I'll rinse them in one of the pools as soon as she says +which." + +"There's more mebbe for the finding----" and then they heard the door +of her little room open and she came into the cabin to them. + +The mate jumped up and stood staring as if she were a ghost; and even +Wulfrey, who had already made her acquaintance, eyed her with surprise, +and was confirmed in the idea that had been growing in him that there +was foreign blood in her. He doubted if any Englishwoman could have +made so brave a showing out of such poverty of material. + +Fastened simply with her wooden skewers, she had one blanket draped +about her as a skirt, and another covered her shoulders, with a high +peak behind her neck, like a monkish cloak. And inside this rough +calyx the fair white column of her neck rose out of its surrounding +frillery like the stamen of a flower from its nest of petals. Her +abundant hair, combed and brushed, but still lacking somewhat of its +natural lustre, was coiled about her head in heavy plaits. + +Though her garments were only rough blankets they were so disposed +about her person that she stood before them tall and slim and graceful. +Her eyes and face were all aglow at the novelty of her situation. Her +feet were bare. + +She sailed up to the mate with outstretched hand. + +"It was you who brought me ashore out of that terrible sea," she said, +and her voice was no longer hoarse and husky. "I thank you with all my +heart." + +Macro ducked his head but never took his eyes off her. + +"Gosh! Ye looked very different then, miss," he jerked. "We scarce +expected ye'd ever come round like this." + +"I am the more grateful. But--what a wonderful room you have!"--as she +looked round at the mate's barbaric hangings. "Silks and satins!--and +such gorgeous colours!" + +"There's bales of them about, miss, and you're very welcome to them. +They'd look better on you than them blankets." + +"But the blankets are warm, and the dreadful chill of the sea is still +in my thoughts all the time. Now I would go on deck and understand +about this strange ship of yours," and Macro hastened to lead the way +and Wulfrey followed. + +"But it is truly amazing," she said, as she gazed round at the +sandhills and the spit, at the tumbling waves beyond, and the unruffled +waters of the lake. + +"And another ship! Who lives there?" + +"No one. There is not another soul on the whole island but we three," +said Wulfrey. + +"It sounds dreadfully lonely." + +"It is not so lonely as the sea." + +"No, it is not so lonely as the sea. The sea is dreadful, and oh, +so-o-o cold when you are dying in it slowly, an inch at a time," and +she shivered again at the recollection. + +"You must try to forget all about it." + +"I shall never forget it. That is not possible. The memory of it is +frozen into my soul. What noise is that?" she asked, listening +intently with her hand uplifted. + +"It's a great cloud of sea-birds that haunts the island. All the +wrecks come ashore at that end, and they live there most of the time." + +"It is like the wailing of lost souls." + +"Right, miss!" broke in Macro. "That's what it is. They're only +birds, mebbe, but there's the souls of the dead inside 'em, an' +sometimes they're fair deevils when they come screaming round in a +storm." + +"I could believe that,--the souls of the dead without a doubt." + +"Suppose we turn to something pleasanter," suggested Wulfrey. "Perhaps +you will choose out the things you think most suitable from all that +the mate brought over from the wrecks?" + +"From the wrecks?" ... and she glanced at him doubtfully with a little +shiver. "It does not sound too nice." + +"We will bring them up. You will see them better here," and they +spread the deck with Macro's latest importations. + +"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" murmured she, as she turned them over with +curious fingers, and held them up to adjudge their style and make. +"But they are things of the days before the flood! ... They are too +amazing! ... They are wonderful beyond words!" + +"Could ye no alter them to your needs, mebbe?" suggested Macro +hopefully. + +"Perhaps--with needle and thread and scissors. But have you these?" + +"Mebbe I can find 'em for ye. There's the cargoes of hunderds o' ships +out there. Ye can find a'most anything if ye look long enough. And +mebbe there's newer things if I can light on 'em." + +"And some shoes and stockings, think you? I would be very glad of +them. It feels strange to go with bare feet." + +"I'll find 'em if there's any there." + +"It is very good of you. I thank you. Could I perhaps come too?" + +The idea evidently appealed strongly to him. He looked at her eagerly, +and hesitated, but finally said, "It's no easy getting there. There's +over six miles' walk through the sand, then near a mile of wading up to +your neck in the water, and sometimes a bit of a swim, all according to +the tide. Some day, mebbe, I'll mek a bit raft to tek ye across from +the point there--just to see what it's like. But ye want these things +and I'll get along quicker alone." + +"I thank you all the same. It will be for some other time then," and +Macro let himself down on to his raft and paddled away to the spit. +She stood watching him till he landed and set off at speed towards the +point. + +"He is truly good-hearted," she said, as he disappeared. "He is not +all English?" + +"He is from the islands off the west coast of Scotland, but he +confesses to a strain of Spanish blood also." + +"And why confesses? It is not, I suppose, his own doing. One +confesses to a fault. Is a strain of foreign blood a sin in your eyes +then, Monsieur le Docteur?" she asked, with pointed emphasis. + +"By no means. I should have said he rejoices in it." + +"We English--British, I should say,"--with a fleeting gleam of a +smile--"are too apt to look upon all foreigners as of lower breed than +ourselves, which is quite a mistake and leads to much misunderstanding. +Every nation has distinctive qualities of its own, is it not so?" + +"Undoubtedly. And unless one knows them by personal experience one +should not pass judgment. I must confess to being nothing of a +traveller." + +"How came you here?" she asked abruptly. + +"I was bound for America--or Canada, with the intention of settling out +there. It looks now, according to the mate, as though this strip of +sand has got to suffice us for the rest of our lives." + +"Really?" ... with a startled look. "Is there no getting away then? +Does no one ever come here?" + +"None but dead men, if they can help it, apparently. You were an +exception to the rule. So were we. We have none of us any right to be +here alive." + +"If I had some shoes and stockings, and some proper clothes, I believe +I could be quite happy here," she said. "That is if one has not also +to starve." + +"There is no need to starve. The island is over-run with rabbits. +There are fish in the lake here if only we could catch them, and out +there among the wreckage are all kinds of things--casks of pork and +beef, and coffee, and rum, and flour--enough to last us for hundreds of +years." + +"It is a most excellent retreat." + +"If one were sick of the world. But you surely are too young to have +arrived at that stage." + +"One may be young and yet be sick of one's world.... Sometime I will +tell you.... Now, if you please, I will take a few of these things and +you will show me your pool and I will wash them----" + +"Oh, I'll do all that for you----" + +"Not at all. Besides, with your permission and if you will leave me +quite alone, I would like also to wash in fresh water. I too shall +never feel quite dry until I have done so." + +He assisted her down to the other raft, through a break they had long +since made in the side for that purpose, and paddled ashore. There he +showed her the pool they had set apart for washing, and told her he +would come back for her at whatever time she chose. + +"In two hours, please," and he went off into the sand-hills. + +But his mind stubbornly refused to interest itself in rabbits. He +dropped down on the sunny side of a hummock and let his thoughts run on +this most surprising addition to their company. What could possibly +explain her,--young, beautiful, of undoubted birth and breeding, yet +ready to renounce the world, of which her twenty years or so had +apparently given her a surfeit, and to welcome the chance of a hermit +life? + +It was a puzzle beyond any man's understanding. All his thinking led +him only towards shadowy possibilities. And these the thought of her +sweet face and clear frank outlook rejected instantly as libels on her +fair fame, which he, with no more knowledge than he now had, yet felt +himself prepared to defend with all his might against the whole world. +If that girl was not all that she seemed and that he believed her to +be, he would never trust his own judgment again. + +All the same, it was very amazing, and she filled his thoughts to such +an extent that the rabbits hopped fearlessly about him as he sat +thinking of her; and it was long after the two hours before he came to +himself, and rewarded their temerity by knocking a couple on the head +and striding away back to find her. + +She was sitting waiting for him, with a fresh-water brightness in her +face, her hair coiled loosely round her head, and her washing still +drying in the sun. She hastily bundled up her things at sight of him +and came along to meet him. + +"I began to fear you had forgotten me," she said. + +"Very much to the contrary. It was our dinner I came near forgetting," +and he dangled the rabbits before her. "You feel better for the fresh +water?" + +"Oh, very much better. And now I am hungry. When does your friend +come back?" + +"Not till evening as a rule. If he can lay hands on what you want he +may come sooner to-day." + +"And you--do you never go out there with him?" + +"Oh, sometimes. But it doesn't attract me as it does him." + +"Why then?" + +"We are differently made, I suppose;--which is perhaps a good thing. +He delights in finding things out there. I go out only for +necessaries." + +"What does he find--besides strange old clothes?" + +"Oh, heaps of things--treasure. There are the cargoes of very many +ships out there. They have been accumulating for hundreds of years, I +suppose." + +"And it does not attract you?" + +"Not in the slightest." + +"You are, perhaps, rich." + +"I have enough, and I have my profession,--and little chance apparently +of making any use of either." + +"Ah..." and presently, "As to that, am I wrong then in thinking that if +you had not been here I would most likely not have been here either?" +and the wind and the sun had whipped a fine colour into her face. + +"You would, perhaps, not be very far wrong." + +"I remember it dimly, and in broken bits, like a horrible dream,--the +crash, the terrible noise of the waves, the shouting and the screaming. +It was the Captain himself who tied me to that mast when everything was +going to pieces. And when the waves washed over me, and I felt myself +slowly dying, I would have loosed myself if I could, to make an end. +It was terrible to be so long of dying. And the cold of the sea!--oh, +it was a horror," and she shivered again at the remembrance... "Then I +died.... And then--long long afterwards--I found myself coming slowly +back to life, and beginning to get warm again, with prickly pains like +pins and needles all over me----" + +"That was your blood beginning to flow again." + +"----I felt warm hands rubbing me--rubbing, rubbing, rubbing. They +must have rubbed for years, and, all the time, I was slowly coming +back. They were very warm and soothing. And at last they rubbed me +back to life." + +"What was the name of your ship?" + +"The 'Ben Lomond,' from Glasgow to New York, and the Captain was John +MacDonald. It was a large ship and full of passengers. It is terrible +to think of them all gone but me.--Oh, terrible!--terrible!" + +"Might I ask your name--since we are like to be neighbours for the rest +of our lives?" + +"I am Avice Drummond," she said, with a quick glance at him. "And you?" + +"Wulfrey Dale." + +"And the mate?" + +"Sheumaish Macro,--or Hamish, I'm not sure which." + +"It is the same. He is a good man?--to be trusted?" + +"I have no reason to think otherwise, but I have only known him since +we landed here. He is chock full of superstition----" + +"That is the Highlander in him." + +"A bit hot-blooded too, and apt to boil over." + +"That is the Spaniard." + +"And he's crazy after the spoil out yonder." + +"The Highlander again. It is, as you say, perhaps just as well you do +not care for it, or you might have quarrelled." + +"He is welcome to it all as far as I am concerned." + +"I am of his country. I can understand how he feels. It is the old +riever spirit in him finding its opportunity." + + + + +XXVIII + +He was vitally conscious of her proximity to him as they paced through +the soft sand towards the raft. The sight of her pink toes popping in +and out from under her blanket-skirt quickened his blood. He knew +without looking when she glanced round at him now and again, as when he +had asked her name. + +He had not thought that the feeling of a woman's eyes upon him could +stir him to such an extent, no matter how wonderful they might be in +their depths of eloquent darkness. He knew all about +women,--physically, organically, professionally, and still held woman +in reverence. Experience had taught him also that in reality he and +his fellows knew very little about them beyond merest surface +indications,--that there were in most women, perhaps in all, deeps +beyond man's sounding, heights beyond his attainment,--a general +elusiveness mysteriously comprehensive of feelings, instincts, +passions, emotions, nerves, moods, humours, vapours, which a wise man +accepted without expecting ever fully to understand. + +That this shapely girl in her swathed blankets should affect him to +such an extent that he was actually conscious of a superb new joy in +living, of an absolute rejuvenescence, of a vitalising of all his +energies, was a very great surprise to him. He could feel the blood +running redder in his veins. His heart beat more briskly than it had +done since he landed on the island. + +But after three months of nothing but Macro and rabbits and screaming +birds, it was not to be wondered at after all, he reasoned to himself. +Life had been running on a low level. There had been nothing to lift +them above the mere satisfaction of their bodily necessities. Eating, +sleeping, getting through the days had sufficed them. + +And here, into that rough husk of a life, had suddenly come a soul, to +animate them both to higher things, even though it were no more than +the ministering to her more delicate necessities. + +Even Macro was feeling it, and was toiling out yonder, not for himself +but for her. Without doubt life was immensely more worth living than +it had been two days ago. + +It was a joy even to cook for her, though he had always detested the +preparation of food. To know beforehand what one was going to eat was +sufficient to reduce one's appetite. To superintend a meal through all +its stages, from raw to ready, put anything beyond the mere filling of +an internal void out of the question. + +But cooking for himself and cooking for her were matters of very +different complexion, and he found himself considering culinary +enterprises which surprised him greatly. + +"You will let me help," she said, when they had climbed on board, and +she saw him setting to work on the rabbits. + +"Can you make biscuit?" + +"If there is anything to make it with," so he provided her with flour +and water and a frying-pan, and tackled his own repulsive job, looking +forward to the best-made biscuit they had had since they came ashore. + +"You have no butter--lard--dripping--fat--nothing?" she asked. + +"There is some fat pork. We stew it with the rabbit as a rule." + +"Get me some and I will render it down and we shall have much better +cakes. Men never know how to cook unless they are trained to it. You +have no seasonings of any kind--no? Nor salt?" + +"Not a scrap." + +"We might find something on shore there. I saw many little plants. We +will search next time we go." + +Yes, indeed, even the repellent cooking took on quite a new aspect and +became a joyous pastime in her company, and they presently sat down to +such a meal as he had not tasted since he left Liverpool. Many a more +abundant one he had had, but none with such a flavour to it, and that +was due entirely to the deft white hands that had helped to prepare it. + +Meals hitherto had been in the nature of necessary nuisances. He and +the mate had often sat eating without a word between them, and with +perhaps less enjoyment in it than the rabbits out there among the +sandhills. But, henceforth, meals would be feasts full of delight +because of this stranger girl, whose presence would be salt and savour +and seasoning to the poorest of fare. + +"And he--the mate,--when does he eat?" she asked suddenly, after they +had begun. + +"Not till he gets back,--at night-fall as a rule. It's a good long +way, you see, and he likes to spend all his time working." + +"I hope he will find me some shoes,--and some needles and thread. Then +I shall feel much happier.... And you really think we shall never get +away from here?" she asked, quite cheerfully. + +"If we could prevail on Macro to think of building a boat, instead of +amassing treasure-trove, we might at all events try it. Nova Scotia is +but a hundred miles away, he says,----" + +"So close?" + +"But he seems to think it a risky voyage, and so far we have come +across no tools with which to build. You see, they are not things +likely to come ashore." + +"For myself, I believe I could be quite content to live here," she said +again. + +"For ever?--Never to get back to the larger life of the world as long +as you lived?" + +"Ah--that! ... I do not know.... It is a very hollow life after all, +that larger life of the world." + +"To grow old here," he said thoughtfully, emphasising his points with +slowly nodding head. "To be the last one left alive perhaps.... To be +all alone, sick, starving, dying slowly in the dark, unable to lift a +finger...." + +"I would drown myself if it came to that. It sounds horrible.... +Perhaps, after all, we had better build the boat and get away." + +"But I don't know that we can. I know nothing about boat-building even +if I had the tools, and Macro won't turn to it till he has raked +through the wreckage, and that will take him about a hundred years. It +grows with every storm, you see." + +"We must make him." + +"And the tools?" + +"We must find them." + +"Two difficult jobs, perhaps impossible ones. You might perhaps +prevail on Macro, but even he can do nothing without tools.... But, if +I may venture to say so--it is surely early days for you to have +discovered the hollowness of life, and to feel ready to spend the rest +of it on a sandbank. Life should hold more in it than that for you." + +She looked meditatively across at him for a moment, then seemed to make +up her mind. "It is natural you should wish to know.... I will tell +you.... It is a somewhat sorry story, but I think you will +understand.... My name told you nothing?" + +"Nothing--except that it was a very pretty name." + +"I feared it would. It is natural, I suppose, to imagine that the +whole world knows of one's misfortunes. Have you ever heard of the +Countess d'Ormont?" + +"The name is familiar to me in some way," he said, staring at her in +surprise at the trend this was taxing. + +"But I cannot recall----" + +"And the Comte d'Artois----" + +"Of course!" he nodded. "Now I remember----" + +"The Countess d'Ormont was Margaret Drummond, my mother. My father is +Charles Philippe, Comte d'Artois, brother of the poor King, Louis, +whose head they cut off; and I hate and detest him for his treatment of +her.... She is dead, my poor dear one! ... She believed at first that +she was properly married to him, and I have no doubt she was--in +London. He is a poor thing, but he was very fond of her, for a +time.... I was born at Chantilly. It was before his quarrel with the +Duc de Bourbon, and we lived in Paris and elsewhere according to his +caprice. When my mother learned all the truth, and that in Paris she +was not legally his wife, it broke her heart, I think. I never +remembered her but as sad and troubled. Except on my account she was +not sorry to die, I know. I was in Paris all through the Red times, +and saw--oh, mon Dieu,--the horrors of it all!--things I could never +forget if I lived to be a thousand.... In London we were all very +badly off.... But he liked to have me with him, and poor Mme de +Polastron was very good to me, but she was a strange, strange woman.... +Her death was a great blow to him ... and a great loss to me. He was +really very badly off there, and I did not like the people he had about +him,--de Vaudreuil, de Roll, du Theil, and the rest, and I made up my +mind to seek my own life elsewhere. And that is about all." + +"And you have friends in America--relatives perhaps?" + +"My mother's people, in Virginia. They have prospered there.... The +new life out there, where all men are equal, appeals to me. Now you +understand why I would not have cared very much if Mr Macro had not +brought me ashore and if you had not rubbed me back to life. I seem to +have no place in the world. I hate the aristocrats for what my mother +suffered at their hands, and I hate the others for the terrible scenes +I passed through as a child. These things are stamped into my heart +and brain for ever. And that is why this lonely island, far away from +it all, seems better to me than any place I know." + +"You would grow tired of it." + +"I could never grow as sick of it as I did of what I have left. It is +not perhaps a very full life, but neither is it hollow and heartless. +You I can trust, and Mr Macro also. It is lonely, but it is sweet and +peaceful----" + +"Wait till you see it in a storm." + +"Storms are nothing when you have seen Paris drunk with blood. +Ach!--the horror of it!" and she flung out her hands in a gesture +full-charged with terrible memories, and then pressed them over her +eyes as though to blot it all out. + +"Well, we will do all in our power to make things comfortable for you, +for as long as we have to stop here.... For your sake I hope it will +not be long. Life should hold more for you than this," said Wulfrey, +and mused much on the beautiful stranger and her strange history, and +wondered what the future held for them all. + +The mate came back when it was growing dark, very tired and in none too +good a humour at the poverty of his finds. The results of a hard day's +work, so far as he disclosed them, were a number of rusty sail-maker's +needles which he had found in a chest, and half a dozen pairs of shoes, +sodden almost out of semblance to leather. + +Miss Drummond, however, was delighted and thanked him heartily. + +"You will lend me a knife, and out of some of your beautiful silks I +will make a new dress. I shall like that better than wearing any of +those ancient ones which belonged to the dead." + +"You're very welcome, miss. I broke into more'n a score of chests and +boxes and not a blessed stocking among the lot. And them shoes are +pretty bad, but they were best I could find." + +"I will rub them with fat and they will return all right, and the +needles will come bright with sand. I shall do very well now. Thread +I can get from a piece of your linen. I thank you very much. Now you +will eat some of my cakes." + +"Best cakes ever I tasted," he said with a full mouth. "Takes a woman +to cook properly. And best day's work I done since I got here, fishing +you out the water." + +"Perhaps--I am not yet sure, but I thank you all the same. When will +you begin to build a boat for us to get away in?" + +"Ah! ... Building a boat needs tools. What for do you want to get away +so quick? You're but just got here." + +"At present I am content. But--for always? I am not sure." + +"Doctor, there, is always wanting to get away. But he knows we can't +build a boat without tools. An' I put it to him--has he so much as set +eyes on a tool out yonder since we come ashore?" + +"I can't say I have, but then I haven't seen as much of the wreckage as +you have. There may be any amount of----" + +"Oh, ay, there mebbe! But so far we haven't struck 'em, an' it's no +good talking o' boats till we got the tools." + +"We will look for them," said The Girl confidently. + +"Oh, ay, ye can look for 'em, and mebbe sometime a boat'll come ashore +ready-made, or one that we can make shift to patch up. Meantime we've +got all we want here and there's plenty more for the getting out +yonder. So be content, say I, miss, for by rights the Doctor and me +ought to be two clean-picked white skeletons out there on the pile, an' +you ought to be a little white corp tumbling about on yon spar for the +birds to peck at." + +"Are there skeletons out there?" she asked with a shiver. + +"Heaps." + +"I think I will not go. I have seen so much of Death. I would forget +it for a time." + +"Ye'll meet him sure if ye try to get across from here in any boat we +could build," growled the mate, and filled his pipe and his pannikin. + + + + +XXIX + +Next morning Macro went off as usual to the wreck-pile, and Miss +Drummond set to work on her dressmaking. Wulfrey hoisted up out of the +hold for her such pieces of silk and linen as she required, and scoured +a couple of the smallest needles with sand till they were usable. +Then, with the sharpest knife he could find among their stock, he cut +out on the deck, under her direction, various lengths and designs which +to him were meaningless, but replete with possibilities from her point +of view. + +But when, presently, she saw him preparing to go ashore for water and +rabbits, she threw down her needle and said, "I will go also. You will +not mind?" + +"On the contrary, I shall mind very much. I shall feel honoured by +your company. It is a pleasure to have someone to talk to again," and +he helped her down on to the raft, and thought how much less +interesting shoes were than little naked feet. + +"Do you not then talk much with Mr Macro?" + +"Sometimes, and sometimes we hardly spoke all day." + +"You quarrelled?" + +"Hardly that, but ... well, we had not very much in common, you see. +His mind was always full of his discoveries out there, and one got +rather tired of it at times." + +"I do not think I shall like him as much as I thought." + +"Why that? I'm sorry if I have said anything that seems to reflect on +him in any way." + +"I am used to judging for myself. It is a look that comes into his +eyes at times,--like a horse when it is going to bite. No,"--with a +decided little nod,--"I shall not like him as much as I hoped; and I am +sorry, for I ought to feel grateful to him for pulling me out of the +water." + +"I'm glad you are feeling grateful for being alive, anyway," he said, +with a smile. "That is better than being doubtful about it." + +"It is better to be alive than dead. And if we have to live here all +our lives--very well, we must put up with it. And if you and he die, +and I am left all alone, and get old and sick, as you said yesterday, I +will make an end of myself. I was thinking about it all night except +when I was sleeping." + +"I'm sorry to have troubled you so. We will hope for better things. +Anyway I have no intention of dying for some time to come, if I can +help it." + +"You must not," she said, with sudden deep earnestness. "I count it +God's good mercy that you are here, for I can trust you." + +"I am used to being trusted," he said quietly. + +"I know. I can see it.... If I had been all alone ... with nobody but +him ... But, no! I could not..." + +"I don't know that there is any harm in him." + +She sat nodding her pretty head meaningly.... "You have not seen men +loosed from all restraints as I have. I was but a child and did not +fully understand. But I see their faces and their eyes still, fierce +and wild and hungry for other than bread. When men are answerable to +none but themselves they become wild beasts and devils." + +"It is a hard saying." + +"But it is true. I have seen it." + +"And women?" + +"They are as bad, but in a different way. Oh, they are terrible." + +"And you and I and Macro here? To whom are we answerable?" he asked, +to sound her to the depths. + +"He is answerable to you," she said quickly. "You and I are answerable +to one another, and to God, and to ourselves--to all that has made us +what we are. I do not think you could trespass outside all that, any +more than I could." + +"I do not think I could. I am honoured by your confidence in me." + +He helped her ashore, and they filled the buckets at the pools, and +then she expressed a wish to see something more of this sandbank where +they might have to pass the rest of their lives. + +So they threaded their way among the hummocks to the northern shore, +and, at the first green valley they came to, she went down on her knees +and examined carefully the nestling growths on which the rabbits fed, +and found among them certain pungent little plants which she thought +might serve for flavouring, and they gathered enough to experiment with. + +The firm smooth tidal beach, with the ripples creaming up it in +sibilant whispers tempted her to bare feet, and she handed him her +shoes and splashed along as joyously as a child. + +"It is a most delightful island," she said. "I do not think I would +ever tire of it." + +"Oh, yes, you would. It is all just the same, you see. You can walk +on and on like this and round the other side for forty or fifty miles, +and every bit of it is just like the rest." + +"I think it is beautiful." + +"It gets monotonous in time. The only diversion is the pile of +wreckage down yonder. That is constantly changing and growing." + +"And discovering more skeletons! It feels odd to think that I should +have been one myself if you two had not happened to be here." + +"I'm sure it feels very much nicer to be comfortably clothed with +flesh," and glancing at her supple grace and entrancing bare feet and +ankles, he found himself profoundly grateful for the facts of the case. +The thought of her as a skeleton was eminently distasteful to him. + +"Yes, it is better. Dead bodies and bones have always had a horror for +me; but not the simple fact of being dead, I think.... I do not think +I would be afraid to die--if it were not very painful. But ... well, +the thought of my dead body is horrid to me. I would not like to see +it." + +"You're not likely to be troubled to that extent anyway." + +"No, one is at all events spared that. But why do you talk of such +unpleasant things when the sun is shining and the waves are sparkling? +Tell me about yourself. All you have told me so far is that you are a +doctor, and that your name is Wulfrey Dale. I never heard the name +Wulfrey before. And that you were going out to Canada when you were +wrecked here. Why were you going out?" + +He would have liked to be as frank with her as she had been with him. +But that was impossible. Another woman's good name was too intricately +interwoven with his story, and the whole matter was so open to +misjudgment. If he tried to explain he must either label that other +woman as murderess or himself as an incapable doctor, and he chose to +do neither. He wished she had not asked, but found it only natural +that she should desire to know all about him. + +"I have nothing much to tell," he said. "I come from Hazelford, in +Cheshire. My father had the practice there and when he died I +succeeded to it. But the wander-spirit seized me. I wanted a larger +sphere. The new world called, and I came,--as it turns out to a still +smaller place----" + +"But we are not going to stop here all our lives. We must build that +boat and get away." + +"We will live in hope, anyway, but for that we are dependent on Macro, +and he's not an easy man to drive." + +"We will see," she said confidently. "How do you catch your rabbits?" + +"Every one of these little valleys is full of them. As soon as you +appear they all bolt for their holes and in the panic they tumble over +one another and you pick them up." + +"I am always sorry to kill things, and they are so pretty," she said, +as they crept cautiously up the side of the nearest hummock. "But they +are very good and I suppose one must eat." + +"Or starve. Now--see!" and he jumped down into the hollow, which +scurried into life under his feet, and came back in a moment with a +couple of rabbits which he had already knocked on the head. + +"Poor little things!" she said, stroking the soft fur. + +"They were dead before they knew it.... Our lake ends there," he said, +pointing it out to her from where they stood on top of the hummock. +"But the island goes on and on, all just the same as this as far as you +can see." + +"It looks very lonely ... but I like it," and she sat long, with her +hands clasped round her knees, gazing out over the wandering yellow +line of sandhills, and the slow-heaving seas which broke in +white-fringed ripples along the beach. + +"And you left no ties behind you there in England?" she asked suddenly, +showing where her thoughts had been. + +"No ties whatever. Friends in plenty, but nothing more. When my +father died I was quite alone in the world." + +She nodded fellow-feelingly, and they sauntered back in a somewhat +closer intimacy of understanding and liking for one another. + + + + +XXX + +Macro had had a good day out there, and returned in the best of humours +with himself and as hungry as usual. + +As he ate he enlarged on his finds, and when he had finished his supper +he piled the fire with light sticks to make a blaze, and spread them +out for Miss Drummond's inspection. + +He had evidently lighted on the personal baggage of some person of +quality. There were rings and brooches and pins and bracelets, of gold +and silver, set with coloured stones, a couple of small watches +beautifully chased and studded with gems, a small silver-mounted mirror +all blackened with sea-water, two gold snuff-boxes with enamelled +miniatures on the lids--quite a rich haul and very satisfactory to the +craving of his spirit. + +The Girl examined them all carefully, and Wulfrey, watching her quietly +through the smoke of his pipe, thought she handled them somewhat +gingerly and distastefully, and understood her feeling in the matter. +And now and again he caught also a glimpse in the mate's black eyes, as +they rested on her, of that which she herself had felt and resented. + +It might be only the unconscious continuation of the gloating +proprietorial look with which he regarded his treasures, which still +gleamed in his eyes when they rested on her as though she herself were +but one more of them. But whatever it was it was not a pleasant look, +and Wulfrey was not surprised at her discomfort under it. He was as +devoutly glad that he was there as she could be. Alone with this wild +riever, in whom the cross-strain of his wilder forebears was running to +licence in its sudden emancipation from all life's ordinary +shackles.... It would not bear thinking of. Yes, he was truly glad he +was there. And then he remembered, with another grateful throb, that +if he had not been there, neither would she have been. For the mate +most assuredly would never have brought her back to life. + +"Some of these are of value," she was saying. "But they are rather +pitiful to me.... Some dead woman has treasured them and she is gone. +Perhaps you came upon her skeleton out there.... But they are not all +real stones----" + +"And how can ye tell that now?" asked Macro gruffly. + +"I can tell at once by the feel of them. That now"--pointing to a +heavily-gemmed bracelet--"the emeralds are real, the rubies are real, +but they are all small. The white stones are not diamonds, but very +good imitations. They look almost as well, but they are not diamonds. +If they were that bracelet alone would be worth some hundreds of +pounds." + +"Deil take 'em! And you can tell that by feeling at 'em?" + +"I can tell in a moment. You see I have handled many jewels--some of +the finest in the world, and I have seen very many imitations of them." + +"The deil ye have! How that?" + +"I have lived among those to whom they belonged, and I am very fond of +precious stones." + +He went away to his own cabin and came back presently with a good-sized +bundle done up in blue velvet, and opened it before her. Wulfrey was +surprised at the extent of his treasure-trove. For these were only his +most precious possessions. He knew that he had in addition +considerable store of silver articles which he had been allowed to +examine from time to time. + +If Macro's idea had been to dazzle her with his riches he must have +been disappointed. For she greeted the display with a depreciatory +"T't--t't!"--and said presently, as she picked out a piece here and +there for examination, "It looks like a peddler's pack.... And it +makes me sad to think of those to whom they belonged...." + +"They've no further use for them. And there's no telling who they +belonged to. They're for any man's getting now," said Macro +defensively. + +"I suppose so. All the same ... For me--no!" with a most decided shake +of the head. + +"Are they good, or is there false ones among them too?" + +"Many are good," she said, passing them rapidly and somewhat +distastefully under her delicate fingers, "but not by any means all.... +You have laboured hard to accumulate so much." + +"Harder than ever I worked in my life before, but it suits me fine." + +"But what good is it all unless you can get away from here and turn it +to some good use?" + +"We'll talk of that when I've got all I want, mebbe." + +"You are like a miser then, ever accumulating and loth to spend." + +"Just that! Ye see I never had siccan a chance before,--nor many +others either. Ye wouldna care for a ring or two, or mebbe a bracelet +or a brooch?" + +"Oh, I could not. It is good of you to offer, but ... no, I thank you. +They would always make me think of the skeletons out there. Poor +things!" + +"They don't hurt, and they're aye laughing as if 'twas all a rare +joke," which made her shiver with discomfort and draw her blanket +closer round her neck at the back. + +"Well, well!" said he, with a hoarse laugh, as he made up his bundle +again. "Folks has queer notions. Ef 't 'adn't been for me----" + +"And the Doctor," she interposed quickly. + +"Ay--and the Doctor there----" + +"I know," she cut him short, "and it is very much nicer to be sitting +here by a warm fire than tumbling about on a mast out there. I +appreciate it, I assure you." + +Perhaps it was to restore the balance of his spirits, which had +suffered somewhat from the discovery that his treasure was not all he +had thought it, that made him apply himself more heartily than usual to +the rum cask that night. By the Doctor's advice any water they drank +from the brackish pools was mixed with a few drops of rum. Macro +always saw to it that a cask was at hand, and he himself took but small +risks as far as the water was concerned. But he could stand a heavy +load, and as a rule it only made him sluggish and uncompanionable. + +This night, however, as he sat dourly smoking, and taking every now and +again a long pull at his handy pannikin, it seemed to set him brooding +over things and at times he grew disputatious. + +Miss Drummond had turned with obvious relief to the Doctor and said, +"These things do not interest you?" + +"As curiosities only, not intrinsically. I never had any craving for +jewelry!" + +"It is a feminine weakness, I suppose, though I have known men who +outvied even the women in their display." + +"We have simpler ways in the country, and more robust." + +"Mebbe you're right, and mebbe you're wrong," growled Macro, as the +result of his cogitations. "I d'n know, an' you d'n know, an' Doctor, +he d'n know, an' none of us knows.... They're mebbe all right... What +the deil wud folks want mixing bad stuff wi' good like that?" + +"It is done sometimes to make a larger show, and sometimes as a matter +of precaution," said Miss Drummond quietly. "Those who have valuable +jewels are always in fear of having them stolen. They have imitations +made, and wear them, and people believe they are the real ones. It is +commonly done." + +"An' is it a thief you wud call me for taking these?" + +"These are dead men's goods and dead women's, and you do not know whose +they were, so it is not stealing. But, for me, I do not like them." + +"An', for me, I do. An' more I can get, better I'm pleased." + +"Each to his taste, and you are very welcome to them all. Now, if you +please, we will forget all about them, and speak of pleasanter things," +and she turned to Wulfrey and began questioning him as to his knowledge +of London, which was not nearly so extensive as her own. + +The mate smoked and drank and glowered across at them. More than once +Wulfrey caught his glance resting balefully on The Girl. More than +ever was he thankful that he was there to look after her. + + + + +XXXI + +"No," said The Girl to Wulfrey, as she sat busily sewing at her new +dress on deck next morning, "I do not like your mate as much even as I +thought. Do you know what I would do if you were not here?" + +"What would you do?" + +"I would go and live on that other ship, or else among the sandhills." + +"Either would be very uncomfortable. I am glad I am here." + +"He looks at me as though I were another piece of his treasure-trove, +especially when he is getting drunk. If he had tried to wrap me up +with the rest in that blue bundle of his I should not have been very +much surprised." + +"He brought you ashore, you see." + +"Well? What use would that have been if you hadn't brought me back to +life?" + +"Not much, I'm bound to say. But I imagine he considers it gives him +first claim on you." + +"First claim?--for what?" she asked quickly. + +"Oh, on your regard, your gratitude,----" + +"My gratitude, if you like. My regard--that goes only where I can +respect and esteem. And for him--neither. If he were never to come +back again from over there I would not in the least regret it." + +It was as inevitable that these two should instinctively draw closer to +one another, as that their doing so should create something of a breach +between them and the mate, and that he should feel and resent it. + +Except the untoward circumstances of their lot there was practically +nothing in common between him and them. His outlook and aims were as +different from theirs as were his habits and upbringing. Yet it did +seem preposterous to them that three persons, situated as they were, +should not be able to live together in peace and good-fellowship. + +To the ancients, without doubt, the gods would have been apparent +behind the slow-drifting white-piled clouds, and behind the storm-wrack +and the mists, laughing at the perverse little ways of men, and +watching with interest the inevitable tangle produced among them by the +advent of a woman. + +Since the year one, two have found themselves good company and the +coming of a third has led to mischief. And yet even that depends on +the spirit that is in them. More than once, since he landed on the +island, Wulfrey had found himself wishing Providence had sent him +honest Jock Steele for company, and that it was the mate's bones that +were whitening out there in place of the carpenter's. + +Whether he himself would have fared so well, if he had not stuck out +his leg at risk of his life and helped the mate on to his raft, and so +had come ashore alone, he was not sure. And again, whether, if he had +been alone, he would ever have sighted The Girl on her mast, was +doubtful. If they had much to put up with in Macro, they had also much +to thank him for. And so--to bear with him as well as they might and +give no occasion for offence if that were possible. + +But it was no easy matter. They were having a spell of fine weather +which enabled him to go out to the wreckage every day. And every night +he came home ravenous, and ate and drank and afterwards sat smoking +with scarce a word. + +If they enquired how he had fared he growled the curtest of answers, +and showed plainly that their polite interest in his doings was not +desired by him. He showed them none of his finds, but sat smoking +doggedly, and occasionally gazing through his smoke at The Girl in a +way that distressed and discomforted her. + +But there was nothing in it that Wulfrey could openly take exception +to. Even a cat may look at a queen. The look in the mate's black eyes +was akin to that with which the cat favours the canary, when he licks +his lips below its cage;--if he only dared! + +Still, they were free of him during the day, and the discomfort of him +at other times but drew them closer together. But Wulfrey, watching +the man cautiously, saw in him signs and symptoms that he did not like, +which bade him be prepared for a possible change for the worse in their +relationship. + +For one thing, he was drinking more heavily than he had ever done since +they landed, and the drink and the brooding of his black thoughts might +well hatch out unexpected evil to one or other of them. As he lay +there of a night, smoking and drinking, with a face of gloom and +smouldering fires in his eyes, he was more than ever like a sleeping +volcano which might burst forth in flame and fury at any moment. + +But for the lurking possibilities of trouble, the cool way in which he +devoted himself to his own private concerns, and left them to attend to +all the irksome little details of the common life, would have had in it +something of the humorous. + +Miss Drummond was indignant and was for leaving him supperless when he +came home of a night. + +But Wulfrey rigorously repressed his strong fellow-feeling therewith, +and determined that no provocation should come from their side. So +they continued to make ample provision for all, and the mate helped +himself as if by right. If, however, good-feeling on the part of the +maker has anything to do with the compounding of cakes, as The Girl +averred, those she made for the mate must surely have lacked flavour, +for her views on the matter were most uncompromisingly expressed, both +by hands and tongue, as she made them. + +"Does he look upon us as his servants, then?"--with a contemptuous slap +at the innocent dough.--"To do all his work without so much as a 'Thank +you'?"--another vicious slap. "--And to be glowered at as if one were +a rabbit that he wanted to devour!"--cakes pitched disdainfully into a +corner till the time came to cook them.--"No!--for me, I wish he would +stop out there among his skeletons and trouble us no more." + +Her little tantrums at thought of Macro gave Wulfrey no little +amusement. The vivacity of her manner as she delivered herself, +blended as it was of Scottish frankness and French sparkle, made her +altogether charming. He soothed her ruffled feelings, however, by his +own eulogistic appreciation of the cakes she provided for their own +use, and it was then that she explained to him how intimately the +character of a cake is associated with the feelings of its maker. + +Matters came to a head a few days later, when the commissariat +department began to run low in certain essentials. + +"We're almost out of flour and pork, Macro," Wulfrey said to him, as +the mate was preparing to set off as usual one morning. "Will you +bring some back with you?" + +The black-faced one hesitated one moment, and then cast the die for +trouble. + +"Well, you know where to get 'em," he growled. + +"Yes, I know where to get them," and Wulfrey braced himself for the +tussle. "But----" + +"Well, then--get 'em, and be ---- to you!" and he leaped down on to his +raft and set off for the shore. + + + + +XXXII + +Wulfrey watched the mate's retreating figure for a minute or two and +then turned quietly to The Girl. + +"Are you prepared to trust me completely, Miss Drummond?" he asked. + +"Absolutely. What is it you want me to do?" + +"We cannot go on this way. He is becoming insufferable. Unless you +have anything to say against it, we will take possession of the other +ship--you and I, and leave him here to himself." + +"Yes--let us go. When shall we go? Now?" + +"We must make it habitable first. It is as empty as a drum, you know." + +"All the better, since we are overcrowded here with that man. It is to +get away from unpleasantness that we go." + +"We shall need fire,--that means sand for a hearth; and wood--we have +heaps here; and cooking things--we will take our fair share, and our +blankets. Everything else I can get out yonder." + +"Allons! Let us go at once and get them." + +He looked carefully round the horizon. "The weather will hold for a +day or two still, I think. Today we had better lay our +foundations--sand, wood and so on. Then tomorrow we will go out to the +pile and take our cargo straight to the other ship." + +"What do we do first?" she asked, abrim with excitement. + +"We will take a load of wood across at once and then go for sand. We +will leave the cabin open to air it and light a fire." + +She was as eager as a child going to a new house, and when presently he +helped her up over the side of the other schooner, she tripped to and +fro delightedly, and could hardly wait till he forced back the rusty +bolts of the cabin hatch with a piece of wood, so impatient was she to +inspect the new home. + +"I like it better than the other," she said, as they stood in the +little cabin. + +"Why? It seems to me just about the same." + +"The man of gloom is not here. It makes all the difference." + +They got their wood on board, and he tumbled it down the fore-hatch, +which was easier to handle than the main. Then they went ashore, +filled a bucket with fresh water, got half a dozen rabbits and a supply +of the pungent herbs.... "Why so many?" she asked, and he said +quietly, "I don't want to hit him below the belt,"--at which she +laughed--"We can afford to be generous. The breach will be wide enough +as it is." + +Then they loaded the raft with sand, and getting back to the ship, +arranged their hearth, and with his flint and steel succeeded at last +between them in lighting a thin chip, which he ceremoniously handed to +her and begged her to start their fire. + +And as she knelt and applied it, and coaxed and blew till the cheerful +flames shot up with a crackling shower of sparks, and the thin blue +smoke streamed up the companion-way, still kneeling she waved her hands +above it and said, "Light and warmth and comfort and peace! God bless +the fire!" and he endorsed it with a hearty "Amen!" and thought he had +never seen a fairer sight. + +When the mate got home that night, he was somewhat surprised to find a +supply of food and no objections made to his helping himself. He +chuckled grimly, and showed by his face and manner that he considered +the matter settled on eminently satisfactory lines. + +They made no enquiries as to his doings and he volunteered no +information. Wulfrey and Miss Drummond talked together as if he were +not there. He lay and smoked, and drank, and glowered at them. + +In the morning he set off as usual, and when they had taken their +blankets and their fair share of cooking-utensils across to the +'Martha,' and got them all stowed away, Wulfrey turned to The Girl and +said, "Now I will go out to the store-house yonder and get all I can +lay hands on." + +"I will come too. Perhaps I can help. I am very strong, and I would +rather go with you than wait here alone. But I do not wish to see any +skeletons if you can manage it." + +"We will try to keep clear of them,--if you are quite sure----" + +"Have we got to swim, as that man said?" + +"I may have to. You need not. I will go out to the pile and make a +raft, and take you across on it. And all that will take time, so the +sooner we're off the better." + +They paddled across to the spit and hurried along to the point, as +nondescript a pair as could well be imagined in disrespect of clothing, +but in all else that mattered--in all the great essentials that make +for vigorous life--in health, good looks, and high and cheerful +spirit--pre-eminently good to look upon. + +For work on the wreck-pile the less one wore the better; and so he was +clad in one simple but sufficient garment, which consisted of a long +strip of linen wound many times round his waist and falling to the +knees like a South Sea Island kilt. And she wore one of the +prehistoric woman's sarks which Macro had brought over from the pile, +and a similar, but slightly longer, kilt which swung gracefully a foot +or so above her ankles as she walked. + +He carried an axe in his hand, and had a knife at his back, in a +seaman's belt which he had unhooked from its owner's body out there on +the pile one day; and his face was somewhat grave and intent, since he +was considering the possibilities of Macro's violent rejection of the +situation he had himself created, and the consequences that would then +ensue. But her bright face was all alive with the spirit of adventure +and the novelty of this new departure. + +"We look like Adam and Eve turned out of Paradise, and setting out to +conquer the world," she laughed excitedly. "What would _your_ friends +think if they saw you so?" + +"What they thought wouldn't trouble me in the slightest. If they +understood they would understand. If they didn't it would not matter. +We are doing what has to be done in the only way to do it. See the +birds out there!" + +"Are those really all birds? I thought it was a cloud whirling about," +and she stood and stared in amazement. + +"Listen and you'll hear them,"--and every now and again the south-west +breeze brought them the thin strident wailing of the hungry myriads as +they swooped and fought for their living. + +"They sound horrid," said The Girl, with a sudden shadow on her face. +"It is like the wailing of lost souls, as he said. Do they never +attack you?" + +"We have had more than one fight with them. But you can always escape +by slipping down into a crack or jumping into the sea. Where did you +learn to swim?" + +"We had a cottage in the Isle of Wight for a year, when first we came +from France, and I grew very fond of the water." + +"Do you see Macro over there?" as they came to the end of the point. +"He's hard at work. We'll tackle a different part. If you will sit +down here and rest, I will get across and be back as soon as I can." + +"Could I not come with you?" + +"I don't know how deep the channels may be. Sometimes we can wade +across, sometimes we have to swim." + +"I don't mind. It can't make me any wetter than if I have to jump in +because of the birds. And I have been wetter still." + +"Very well. It will save much time," and they waded out alongside one +another,--The Girl catching her breath at times with spasmodic little +jerks of laughter, as she stepped into unexpected depths or a wave came +higher than usual;--and he, intent as he was on the business in hand, +yet mightily cognisant of her proximity and the penetrating and +intoxicating charm of it. + +When, at one sudden plunge, she gasped and clutched wildly at his bare +arm, her touch sent the blood whirling through his veins. He took her +soft wet hand, which was all of a tremble with excitement, in his +strong and steady one, and she gripped it tightly and drew new strength +from it. + +Out on the great pile of wreckage in front, but somewhat towards their +right, they caught glimpses now and again of Macro--a wild dark figure +silhouetted against the pale-blue sky behind--as he climbed to and fro, +and stood at times, and swung up his arms and his club and smashed his +way through to the desire of his heart. + +Wulfrey worked round to the left, and so came upon a channel which they +had to swim. He fastened his axe into his belt at the back and they +struck out together. He watched her anxiously at first, but was +satisfied. She swam well and knowingly; they soon touched ground +again, and another wade and another short swim brought them to the pile. + +The Girl had been regarding it with curious eyes and ejaculations of +wonder. + +"But it is amazing!" she jerked, when at last they clung to a ledge of +the chaotic jumble of flotsam and jetsam. "I never saw anything like +it in my life." + +"That's just as well. Now we'll climb up here, and you will rest while +I gather wood and rope and make a raft. Then we'll see what fortune +sends us." + +"Whatever are all those?" she asked, when they had worked their way to +the top, and stood looking round. + +"Those are the bones of the ships that have perished here. There are +hundreds of them half-buried in the sand." + +"It is the most amazing sight I ever set eyes on," she said again, and +sat and gazed at it all while he worked busily at the raft. + +"Now," he said, climbing up to her again at last, "We will look for +necessaries first and take anything else we come upon that may be +useful. Those barrels are pork, but they are too heavy for us to +handle----" + +"Couldn't you break one open?" + +"Then the birds would be on us like a shot. Some of them have got +their eyes on us already," and he pointed to them swooping watchfully +round. "We did that once and had to fight and run for it. Maybe we'll +come across some smaller ones before we're done. Here's a small cask +of rum. We'll make sure of that," and he rolled and carried it to +their landing-place, and they scrambled on. + +"These barrels are biscuits. Some of it may be good. We'll bring the +raft round for it. Those small casks are flour. It's only good in the +middle. We'll come round for one of them presently. We want some +coffee. We're sure to come across some sooner or later." + +"What is it like?" + +"Small square cases about so big." + +"Oh, I wonder what's in this great case." + +"We'll soon see," and he smashed at it with his axe. "Hardware. We'll +add to our stock since it's here." + +"And this? Oh, I wish I had an axe too. I want to break open every +box we come to," and he laughed out at her quick surrender to the +riever spirit. + +"Why do you laugh at me then? It would surely be helping you." + +"I know just how you feel, and now you know just how Macro feels." + +"I know just how he feels. It must grow upon one. I don't want any of +the things, but still I would like to break open and find." + +"We'd better stick to business. When we've got all we come across that +will be of service I'll hand you the axe and you can smash away at +anything you like, except your toes.... No doubt what's in that box +anyway,"--for the ends of rolls of silk were sticking out of it. "I +expect Macro has been over this ground already. Shall we take some?" + +She picked out several rolls, saying, "They may come in useful, even if +it's only to make our cabin as fine as his," and he stacked up the silk +along with a raffle of rope, which was always to the good. + +They scrambled to and fro, so busily smashing open cases and discussing +their contents that they took no note of the birds gathering above them +in ever-increasing numbers. Their ears had grown accustomed to their +raucous clamour, and the fact that it had grown louder had not troubled +them. But suddenly--they were delving into the side of a huge crate of +blankets at the moment--the sky was darkened as by a cloud, and +Wulfrey, glancing up in fear of a change in the weather, jerked out a +sudden exclamation which made her jump. Then he crushed her roughly +down into a narrow black chasm between the blanket-crate and another, +and dropped in after her, just as the cloud, grown bold by its +increase, came swooping down upon them. + +Never in her life had she imagined such a nightmare experience. The +bristling confusion of the wreckage, the shimmering blue sea beyond, +the very light and peace of day itself, all were blotted out in an +instant, and in their place was nothing but a prodigious whirling and +swooping of vari-coloured feathered bodies, snaking necks, cold beady +eyes, pitilessly craving them as food, cruel curved beaks keen to rend +and tear, and a hideous clamour of wild wailings. The flutter and beat +of myriad wings set the whole atmosphere throbbing, till the blood +drummed furiously in The Girl's ears and her head felt like to burst. + +She shrank down on something that crackled and subsided under her, +feeling herself terribly bare to their assault. Wulfrey reached out an +arm and groped for a loose blanket and dragged it over them and so hid +the nightmare from her. His arm was bleeding when he drew it in. + +"They will go presently when they find there is nothing to eat," he +said into her ear. + +"They looked as if they would tear one to pieces," and he could feel +the shudder that shook her. + +"They would try if they got the chance." + +"They are awful.... Oh, listen!"--as the rest of the cloud, sure that +such a clamour portended food, whirled round their shelter, brushed it +with wings and feet, shrilled their needs and their disgust more loudly +than ever, and swept away to seek more satisfying fare elsewhere. + +The sound of them drifted away at last, occasional stragglers still +swooped down to make quite sure there was not a scrap left, but +presently these followed the rest and Wulfrey climbed up and looked +about him. + +"All right," he said, and reached down a hand to her. "I think they've +gone after Macro," and he hauled her up into the light. + +"Your arm!" she cried. + +"Only scratches. No harm done.... What is it?" for she was staring +with tragic face into the hole out of which she had just come. + +And looking down into it he saw that he had flung her bodily on to what +had been a skeleton, but was now only a confused heap of brittle bones. + +"I'm sorry," he said, "but there was no time to pick and choose." + +"It's a horrible place. Let us go home!" + +"We'll go at once as soon as we've found some coffee ... and I would +like another knife or two.... Look in that chest. Macro has opened it +for us.... And if you find any tobacco, I'll thank you," and he rooted +rapidly through one broken-open seaman's box, while she did the same by +another. + +"Tobacco--I think," she announced presently, ... "and a knife and a +tinder-box." + +"Another knife" was his find. "And we'll take these two coats----" + +"Whatever for?" + +"Well--if any of those screaming deevils, as the mate calls them, +should come after us as we go back, you feel them less through a coat +than on your bare skin." + +"I don't think I'll come again." + +"Oh, it's quite easy to avoid them, you see. And they soon go if they +find nothing eatable." + +"Hideous things! ... Will those cases be coffee?" + +"I think so.... We'll chance one anyway.... And those small casks are +rice. We're doing famously. Is there anything else you would like?" + +"Heaps of things--spoons, forks, plates, stockings----" + +"Here are stockings----" and he delved into his chest again. + +"Truly--but twenty sizes too large. These boxes all seem to have +belonged to men. Let us get home before those awful birds come back." + +So they returned to the raft and pushed it slowly along the pile, from +place to place, where the various portions of their cargo stood +awaiting them, and Wulfrey wrestled manfully with casks and barrels and +boxes in a way that would have astonished himself mightily three months +before. And The Girl, eager to help as far as she could--brushing +shoulders with him as they hauled and lifted, their hands overlapping +at times, their bare arms in closest contact as they struggled with the +insensate obstinacy of dead weights,--was very conscious of the play of +the corded muscles in his arms and back, and the energy and +determination of the quiet resolute face. And she was at once grateful +and exultant in the knowledge that all the powers this man possessed +were at her service, and that, if occasion should arise, they would be +expended for her to the uttermost and without hesitation. + +She experienced sensations entirely new to her. She found them good. +They quickened her blood and stimulated her mind. She had seen much of +men, more perhaps than most for her years, but men of a very different +type,--unmuscular, powdered and peruked and befrilled, with airs and +graces and velvet coats which hid the lack of virility within, and did +duty for it to the world at large; men of wealth and highest culture +and too often of meanest heart, self-seeking, intent only on their +personal satisfactions, self-forgetful only in the pursuit of ignoble +ends. + +In every particular so different from this man. She had met but very +few men whom she felt she could trust implicitly. Some of the most +apparently sincere had proved the least worthy. And they were the most +dangerous. They drew your trust, and so disarmed and then most +treacherously betrayed you. Oh, she had seen it, time and again, and +so her mind had come to look on men in general as beasts of prey, to be +dreaded, and avoided except in the most open and superficial fashion. + +But this was a man of another world. She had met none like him. He +roused her and soothed her as none of those others ever had done, as no +man before had ever done. + +She had seen men as good-looking, perhaps, but in a very different way. +Would they have looked as well, stripped of their trappings? She +doubted it. And never a man among them could or would, she was sure, +have handled these obdurate barrels and boxes as this man did. Truly +they seemed to object to removal from their lodging-places as though +they were endowed with minds of their own. + +And she had trusted him implicitly, from the first moment she had +looked into his eyes, and recognised that it must be he who had drawn +her back out of the closing hand of death. + +"Better put that on," said Wulfrey, dropping one of the coats over her +shoulders, when they had got everything aboard. + +"Why? I am quite warm." + +"We have done our work now till we get to the spit. No good chilling +in the wind. We're going to sail home," and he slipped on the other +jacket, and proceeded to rig up a sail and a steering plank as he had +seen the mate do. + +The Girl broke into a laugh at the change for the worse produced in +their appearance by the jackets. + +"You looked like a Greek or a Roman before," she said. "Now we both +look like gipsy tinkers." + +"Fine feathers--fine birds?" he smiled, as they hauled out past the end +of the pile and began lumbering slowly homewards. + +"Those awful birds!" and she glanced anxiously round for them, but they +were busy a mile away and troubled them no more. + + + + +XXXIII + +The Girl was glad enough of her old coat before they reached the spit, +in spite of its demoralising effect on her appearance,--glad even to +snuggle down among the blankets, for, after the hard work of loading, +even the south-west wind began presently to feel cool. + +Then came the discharging, and the transporting of their heavy weights +to the smaller raft on the lake, which could not take more than half +their cargo at a time. So he took her and a portion across to the +'Martha,' and she undertook to have supper ready by the time he got +back with the rest. + +And surely she wrought pleasanter thoughts even than usual into her +cooking that day, for it seemed to him, when in due course he sat +opposite to her on the other side of their fire, that he had never +enjoyed a meal so much in his life, deficient as it was in many things +that he had always regarded as needful. + +"We have done a good day's work," he said, as he lit his pipe at her +request. + +"I wonder what he will say about it." + +"We will not let it trouble us. He has only himself to blame." + +"I wonder if you and he would have quarrelled if I had never come." + +"We certainly would if he had taken the line he has done. As long as +he did his fair share of the providing I did not mind. But the +position he took up was an impossible one." + +They fell into reminiscent talk of that great outer world which seemed +so remote, and from which, for all they knew, they were now for ever +cut off. She had many strange recollections of her earlier life in +France, some very terrible ones of the times of the Red Deluge, very +mixed ones of the later times in England. + +It was amazing to him to sit in that bare cabin of a deserted ship, on +an island shunned by all, listening to her familiar talk of men and +women who had been but names to him, until her intimate knowledge of +them made them into actual living personages. + +Her outlook on life had been very much wider than his own. She had +lived among the scenes and people of whom he had only read in the +news-sheets. He was immensely interested, both in the things she +talked about and the way she talked about them. His questionings +towards a clearer understanding on points which were to her matters of +simplest elementary knowledge amused her not a little. And he got many +a self-revealing glimpse into that strange past life of hers, from +which she was so contented to escape, but which was yet so full of +colour and contrast and vivid actuality that, in spite of all its +discrepancies and disillusionments, it had assumed for her a certain +glamour which she averred it had never worn at the time. + +"Wait a moment," he would say, breaking into her flow of reminiscence, +"'Monsieur' is----?" + +"The Comte de Provence, the late King's brother, my uncle. My father, +the King's next brother, the Comte d'Artois, is 'Monseigneur.' He has +become terribly devout since Mme de Polastron died. The abbe Latil is +his heart and mind and conscience. In his way he was fond of me, I +believe, but since I came to understand the wrong he did my mother, I +have detested him. And I have no doubt he was not sorry when I broke +away. I was a perpetual reminder, you see----" + +"And there is another Countess d'Artois?" + +"Oh, yes,--Marie Therese of Savoy, but she is too awful,--a quite +impossible woman, one must say that much for him. If ever a man had +good excuse for seeking his pleasures elsewhere, he had. She was +terrible. She had no more moral feeling than a cat." + +"And Madame Adelaide----? Let me see--who was she?" + +"My great-aunt--poor old thing! Those atrocious Narbonnes lived on her +and turned her round their fingers." + +"And Madame Elizabeth? It is terribly confusing." + +"Not at all. It is all as simple as can be. Madame Elizabeth was my +aunt, my father's sister. She was very sweet. Poor dear! They cut +off her head, though she never harmed a soul since the day she was +born. She was very good to me. If she had lived I do not think I +would be here. She was not like the rest. I could have lived happily +with her." + +And so she chattered away,--about the late King--her uncle also,--and +of the Duc d'Orleans,--"always a self-seeker, and intriguer, with a +very sharp eye on the way things might turn to his own benefit. Oh, I +am glad they took his head off. It was righteous retribution."--And of +the Queen---- "She did foolish things at times, but she meant no harm, +and, mon Dieu, how she suffered!"--And of Lafayette, and Talleyrand, +and many and many another. + +And it was indeed passing strange to lie there listening to it all--she +clad in her blankets, for the night air had a chill in it, and he in +the sea-damaged coat and small clothes of a gentleman of the Duke of +Kent's suite, while between them the thin blue reek of the drift-wood +fire on its hearth of sand stole up through the half-closed +companion-hatch to the lonely night outside. + + + + +XXXIV + +"We shall have a visit from our next-door neighbour presently, I +expect," said Wulfrey, when The Girl came out of her cabin next +morning. "Will you mind stopping below while I dispose of him?" + +"But why?" + +"He puts things coarsely at times, and he will probably be in a very +bad humour at having to get his own meals ready." + +"I don't mind him." + +"Nor do I, except on your account. But I shall feel happier if you are +out of sight and hearing." + +"Oh, very well. But nothing he could say would trouble me in the +slightest." + +So, after breakfast, she sat down on the cabin floor to her sewing, and +he lit his pipe and went up on deck carrying his axe. He closed the +companion-doors and hatch very quietly--but she heard him--and went +forward into the bows, which, since the usual wind blew from the +south-west, was the nearest point to the 'Jane and Mary.' + +It was a long time before the mate showed any signs, beyond an extra +rush of smoke when he made up his fire to cook his breakfast. But he +came up at last, caught sight of Wulfrey, and stood scowling across at +him for a time. Then he dropped down on to his raft and came wobbling, +with quick angry strokes, across to the 'Martha.' + +"So that's it, is it?" he growled, with a grim look on his dark face. + +"That's it," said Wulfrey coolly. + +"And you think you've got her all to yourself?--what you've been +plotting for ever since I hauled her ashore." + +"Are you speaking of Miss Drummond?" + +"I'm speaking of that girl. 'Twas me hauled her ashore an' she's my +right if she's anybody's." + +"There it is, you see. She is nobody's right but her own. And neither +she nor I are your servants, to prepare your food and see to your +comfort while you dig treasure out of the wreckage. So we have decided +to fend for ourselves and you can fend for yourself." + +"Ah! You think so, do you? We'll see about that." + +"We undertake not to go aboard your ship if you give your word not to +come aboard ours." + +"See you ---- first!" + +"Thank you! Then now we know how we stand, and will act accordingly." + +"Ay, now you know." + +"And will act accordingly," emphasised Wulfrey once more. "I must ask +you to keep off," as the mate paddled alongside and reached up a rough +hairy hand to the side. "I'm sorry it's come to this, but I won't have +you on board." + +"Won't, eh?" and as he reached up the other hand and prepared to mount, +Wulfrey picked up his axe and held it threateningly above the clinging +hands, which straightway loosed their hold amid a volley of curses. + +"---- ---- ---- ---- you! You'd maim me! ---- ---- ---- ---- me, if I +don't pay you for this! The girl's mine. I found her. I'll get her +over your dead body if needs be." + +"Ah! And who found you? And where would you be if I hadn't helped you +on to the raft yon first night? Tell me that, will you? By the same +rule you're mine, and all you've got is mine." + +"---- ---- ---- ---- you for a ---- ---- ---- sea-lawyer!" foamed the +mate, his dark face and eyes all ablaze, his shaking fists hurling +curses beyond the compass of his tongue. + +Wulfrey, eyeing him professionally, said to himself, "Too much rum. +He'll have D.T. if he doesn't slack off--or a fit if he does much of +this kind of thing." + +The mate thrashed back to his own ship with furious strokes and climbed +aboard, and Wulfrey, having watched him safely up the side, went down +to The Girl. + +"He is very angry," he said quietly. + +"He did not whisper. I couldn't help hearing him. What will he do +next?" + +"We can only wait and see. We shall have to be on our guard, but we +won't let him trouble us. He is drinking too much." + +They saw nothing more of him all that day, not even his head above the +bulwarks. Wulfrey surmised that he was probably treating his wrath +with rum, and plotting mischief, or maybe he was lying dead drunk in +his cabin. They themselves were well provided in all respects, but he +had good reason to know that stocks across there were running low, and +that before long the man of wrath would have to go abroad to make up +his deficiencies, and that would give them the opportunity of getting +in fresh water and rabbit-meat. + +He could only hope the mate would not postpone his journey too long, +for the weather seemed like changing. There was no sun visible, not a +speck of blue sky, but in their place a wan-white opaqueness which +looked portentous and might mean anything. + +Wulf spent most of the day on the alert, leaving the deck only for +meals, and popping up even in the middle of them to make sure that all +was right. But Macro made no sign. + +There was no knowing, however, what a furious, rum-fuddled man might +attempt. His crazy jealousy and anger might stick at nothing, and +Wulfrey looked forward to a watchful night as a necessity. + +And, as he paced the deck, he ruminated on the handicap imposed by +virtue on an honest man when fighting roguery. Here was Macro at +liberty to sleep without fear of assault, to go ashore for water and +fresh meat, and to the wreckage for everything he wanted, assured in +his own mind that no one would rifle his stores, or fire his ship, or +play any other dastardly trick, in his absence. While they, if they +left their stronghold unguarded for an hour, must be exposed to all +these things, and constant watchfulness would be necessary to prevent +them. + +It was not a pleasant prospect and he did not see how it was going to +end. At the same time he did not see what other course had been left +to them, and he was determined to go through with this, cost what it +might. + +The thought of striking down this man with whom he had lived in +fellowship, even in fair fight, was abhorrent to him. The thought of +being struck down himself made his blood run cold on The Girl's +account. Both possibilities must be avoided if possible. The latter +at all hazards. If it came to the mate suffering or The Girl, the mate +would have to go without compunction. + + + + +XXXV + +The night passed without disturbance, the morning found them swathed in +dense white mist which hid one side of the ship from the other. + +"He did not come again?" asked The Girl when they met. "I am ashamed +to have slept so soundly. I intended to take my fair share of the +watching." + +"There was no need. I bolted the doors and slept at the foot of the +stairs. It's all cotton-wool outside. You can't see a couple of feet. +He won't venture out in that, if I know him. But we need water. I'll +go across after breakfast and get some." + +"I shall come too. I wouldn't stop here alone for anything." + +"All right. Our only difficulty will be in finding the shore and +getting back to the ship. Fog is terribly bewildering." + +"If you can find the shore we can get back all right," she said, after +thinking it over. + +"How?" + +"We have that heap of rope you brought over. Could we not untwist some +and make a cord? Then if we tied one end to the ship and carried the +other ashore we could feel our way back by it." + +"It will take a lot of untwisting. We're quite two hundred yards from +the shore. But it's worth trying." + +So they untwisted rope till their fingers were sore, and tied the +pieces together till he judged they had enough, and presently they +embarked noiselessly on their raft and paddled in the direction in +which he believed the shore lay, The Girl paying out the string as they +went. + +This weird envelopment of dense white mist was a new experience for +her. She could barely see the water a foot or two away. The string +slipped through her fingers and vanished into the fog-wall. Dale, +sweeping the water with his oar, loomed dim and large just above her. + +They went on and on, but found no shore. + +"The string is nearly all done," she said at last. + +"Then we're going wrong," he whispered. "Don't speak loud, we don't +know how near we may be to----" and, as if to confirm his fears, a +great black bulk appeared in the clammy white above them, and Wulfrey +hurriedly checked their way and backed off into the fog again. + +"'The Jane and Mary,'" he whispered, when they had put a space between +them and it. "We've been circling round. The shore must be this way, +I think----" and the cord slacked in The Girl's fingers as he struck +off to the right, and in due course they made the beach with cord to +spare. + +They tied the precious guiding-line to the raft and set off with their +buckets, Wulfrey trailing his oar behind him so that by its mark in the +sand they might grope their way back. In his belt he carried the only +weapon he possessed, his axe, which, as matters stood with the mate, he +deemed it advisable always to have at hand. + +Keeping along the edge of the lake till he judged they were opposite +the ponds, they struck inland, and managing to keep a straighter course +than on the water, came at last to their goal. + +They filled their buckets and were returning on their trail, bending +every now and again to make sure they were right, when, with an +abruptness that startled the buckets out of their hands, a dark figure +loomed up on them out of the fog and they found themselves face to face +with the mate. + +He had heard them coming and was ready. Wulfrey had barely time to +drop his oar and pluck out his axe when the other sprang at him with +his weapon swung up for the blow. + +It was very grim. Of all fighting-tools the axe is the most +brutal--after, perhaps, the spiked club and the scythe-blade tied on a +pole, which are only fit for savages. It is cumbersome and ungainly. +It admits of little skill either in attack or defence. Its arguments +are final and convincing, and its wounds are very ghastly. + +The Girl could barely make out which was which, so thick was the +veiling fog. But that did not matter. She sprang in between the two +dark figures with arms outspread, at imminent risk of receiving both +their blows, crying, "No!--You shall not! You shall not!" + +The mate hurled oaths at her. She thought he was going to strike her +down. And past her, at Wulfrey,--"---- ye! It's like ye. Steal her +first, then hide behind her!" + +With one big black hand he gripped her blanket cloak and whirled her +away into the mist, and came plunging at Wulfrey, who stood with poised +axe and eyes that watched his every movement. + +The mate played round him for an opening. Out of the corner of his eye +he saw The Girl groping about for the oar. He rushed in to end it with +one crushing blow. + +But Wulf was ready for him and he was the cooler man. As the mate's +axe came swooshing down straight for his shoulder and neck, his own +swung round, caught the other full in the blade with its own stout +back, and with a ringing click sent it flying, with such a shock to the +arm that had held it that the mate believed it was broken. He ducked +with an oath and disappeared into the fog. + +The Girl came panting up, her face all sanded with her fall, her eyes +ablaze. "Did it reach you?" + +"Not at all. I'm all right." + +"The brute! I feared he would kill you." + +"He did his worst.... What were you going to do with that?"--the oar +she had picked up. + +"I was going to smash him on the head with it, but I couldn't find it +at first." + +"Two to one!" + +"I don't care. I'd have killed him if I could." + +"What about our water?" + +"It's all spilled." + +"We'll go back for more. He won't come back. I doubt if he'll find +his axe in this fog. Which way now?" and he stood puzzling, for force +of circumstance and much trampling of the sand had lost them their +clue. "You cast round that way for the mark of the oar, but don't go +far. I'll try this side. Call if you find." + +"Here!" she cried, almost at once, and he followed her voice into the +fog and found her standing on the line. + +But so confused were they that even then they had not an idea which way +to follow it. + +"Which way?" she asked, staring down at the groove under her feet. + +"This, I think.... I don't know," and he stood perplexed, "There is +nothing for it but following it up and seeing where we come to." + +So they picked up their buckets, and he took the oar, and they set off +again,--and came out at last, not on the green undergrowth which +flourished round the ponds, but on the bare shore of the lake. + +"Now we know where we are at all events. Dare you stop here while I go +back?" + +"No," she said with a shiver. + +"Come along, then!" and they turned and went back, and he discoursed of +fogs as they went. "Nothing like a fog for absolutely confusing one's +sense of direction. I've known people wander for hours on a common, +round and round, quite unable to get anywhere. And one soon gets into +a panic and common sense goes overboard." + +She had not had much experience of fogs, but expressed herself +vehemently on the subject, and so they came to the ponds, and back, in +time, to their raft. And Wulfrey was mightily glad to see it again, +for the idea had been troubling him that Macro might have found it, and +set it adrift, or gone off to their ship to find solace there for his +discomfiture ashore. + +"I wonder where he's got to?" he said anxiously. + +"I don't care. I wish he'd get lost in the fog and never come back." + +"You feel strongly," he said, with a smile at her vehemence. + +"Yes, I like or I dislike, and both to the full." + +The guiding-line led them safely home, and glad they were to get there, +for the chill of the fog and the treacheries it held were enough to +weigh down the staunchest of spirits. + + + + +XXXVI + +Their experiences in the fog had occupied many hours, and the unusual +strain had left them both somewhat lax and weary. By the time they had +prepared and eaten their much-delayed meal, and were enjoying the +after-rest, the thick whiteness outside had turned to chiller gray, and +the comfort of a blazing fire was eminently agreeable. + +Wulfrey closed the companion-doors and hatch, all except the narrowest +crack through which the smoke could escape, lit his pipe, and lay at +ease, watching the many-coloured tongues of the dancing flames and The +Girl who sat gazing dreamily into them on the other side, and wondered +how it would have been with them all if Macro's vicious blow had got +home on his neck. + +She was very good to look upon as she sat there in the flickering +half-darkness. The gracious curves of her supple young figure +transformed the bare little cabin into a Temple of Youth and Beauty. + +The dusky glamour of her hair, the shadowy beauty of her dark soft +eyes, the level brows and wide white forehead which gave such strength +and dignity to her face--they all held for him an arrest and an appeal +such as he had never before experienced. + +She had made herself a robe out of a piece of the crimson silk they had +brought over from the pile. It was hardly a dress, for it swathed +about her in flowing folds rather than fitted to her. But he thought +he had never seen so becoming a garment. It was sheer delight to lie +and look at her. + +But it was a sufficiently difficult problem that faced him. In his +present state of mind, the mate seemed determined to make an end of him +the first chance that offered. Was there any reasonable hope of a +change for the better in him? Were they to live in a perpetual state +of defence till one of them went under?--all the advantages of +unscrupulous attack being left to the enemy. Was it reasonable? If +not, what was to be done, and how? + +The man had suddenly become a deadly menace. He was no better, in his +unprincipled cravings, than a wild beast. If that girl fell helpless +into his coarse hands.... And she knew it and looked to him for +protection. + +And protection to the utmost of his powers she should have.... Was he +justified in slaying the man? ... In view of the deadly intent of this +latest attack he thought he was. But whether he could bring himself to +it, if the chance offered, he was not by any means sure.... The +deliberate killing of one's fellow was a serious matter.... In +self-defence of course one was justified.... As to the law--it seemed +as though the mate was right in his belief that they were destined to +spend the rest of their lives--some of them at all events--on this bare +bank of sand, where none ever came who could help it, and where no law +but that of Nature obtained.... But there was a higher law. "Thou +shalt not kill." ... Yes, it would be very much against the grain of +his life and conscience, but it might have to be.... + +He sat up suddenly, listening intently. + +"What is it?" asked The Girl, startled out of her own reverie. + +He raised his hand for silence. + +"I thought I heard a cry," and he got up, and went up the steps, and +opened the door and stood there straining his ears into the clammy +darkness. The fog lay thicker than ever. It was like listening into +the side of a bale of raw cotton. The faint glow of the fire below +died against the opaque wall in front. It could not have been seen a +yard away. + +The Girl stood on the stairs close behind him. + +"I must have been mistaken," he murmured, "or perhaps it was a +seagull,"--when, just below and almost alongside them, there came the +violent sweep of an oar used as a paddle, and a wild spate of curses +like the furious outburst of a panic-stricken brain. + +Wulf slipped noiselessly down for his axe and stepped up on deck. If +he went past, well and good. If he ran into them---- + +There came a sudden bump against the side of their ship and the sound +of a fall on the raft. + +"---- ---- ---- ---- ye, ye ---- ---- rotten old coffin! I've got ye +at last, ---- ---- ----!" and right up out of the fog under Wulfrey's +nose came two clammy black hands clawing nervously at the bulwark. + +"You can't come aboard here, Macro," he said quietly. The grimy hands +loosed with a startled oath and the mate dropped back on to his raft. + +"----! That you again? ---- ---- ---- ---- you! I thought.... Then +my ---- craft must be over there. ---- ---- ----! I'll do for you +yet, my cully!" and the oar dashed into the water again and he cursed +himself off into the darkness. + +"You could have killed him," gasped The Girl at his side, through her +chattering teeth. + +"I could--but I couldn't." + +"We shall have no peace while he lives." + +"I fear not. Still--I couldn't cut him down in cold blood like that. +What would you have thought of me if I had done so?" + +"I should have said you had done well." + +"I know you better." + +At which she shook her head. "You don't know what horrid thoughts +whirl about in my mind. No man really knows what a woman thinks," and +the frank dark eyes regarded him solemnly. + +"I know you better than you do yourself." + +"I doubt it," with another shake of the head. "But, even then, it +might have been best,"--with a shiver--"It sounds horrible--but----" + +He could understand all her feeling in the matter. In her place he +would have felt just the same. The man was a hideous menace--to her +especially--and there would be no security for them while he lived. +But all the same.... + +"Let us get back to the fire," he said quietly. "He won't come back +tonight. Poor wretch, he's probably been paddling about all day +looking for his ship and he's half crazed with it." + +"I don't think I am bloodthirsty by nature," she said, with her hands +pressed tight to her eyes, when she had sunk down before the fire +again. "But I fear that man with all my soul, both for myself and you. +He will kill you if he gets the chance. If he kills you I shall kill +myself. It is better that one should die than two." + +"I agree, but I don't want to have the killing of him if I can help it." + +"Killing is horrible," and she shivered again, "But being killed is +worse ... and to fall into the hands of a man like that would be even +worse still. What will be the end of it all?" + +But that was beyond him, and their hearts were heavy over it. + + + + +XXXVII + +"Is it often like this?" asked The Girl depressedly, on the third day +of mist. + +"I'm afraid there's a good deal of it. We've had it three or four +times since we came. It may be worse in the winter." + +"I wish we could get away." + +"I wish so too, but I don't see how we're to manage it ... unless, +sometime, a boat washes ashore among the wreckage. And even then ... +without Macro to manage it..." and he shook his head unhopefully. "... +In the meantime I count it marvellous gain that you should have +come----" + +And at that it was her turn to shake her head. "I don't know. I seem +to have brought more harm than good." + +"It has made all the difference in the world." + +"Yes, it has set you two by the ears and put you in peril of your life. +That is not a good work." + +"Your company more than compensates. Besides, we should probably have +got to loggerheads in any case, and without anything like so good a +reason." + +"It would have been better, I think, if you had let me go when I was so +nearly gone, and not rubbed me back to life." + +"I thank God that you came," he said weightily. "Without you we might +have sunk into savages, caring only for the lower things. You lift me +without knowing it." + +"You couldn't sink into a savage. He is one naturally. And I am +becoming one, for I am all the time wishing he were dead." + +"He must be having a bad time, unless he brought over provisions that +last time, and I doubt if he did. He's probably living chiefly on rum. +And that won't bring him to any better frame of mind, I'm afraid." + +"To think," she mused, "that three people cannot live on an island big +enough to hold thousands, without quarrelling to the death!" + +"The trouble is not of our making, so we need not blame ourselves." + +"Yes, it is. I began it by coming ashore. You ought to have let me +stop out there----" + +"You are very much better here." + +"----And you continued it by bringing me back to life. You ought to +have let me die." + +"Very well. I accept all the blame and rejoice in it," he said, with a +smile. "It is just the fog getting into you. You'll feel differently +about it when the sun comes out again." + +"Sun? I don't believe we are going to see it again. I don't believe +it ever shines here or ever has done since the world began. It is an +island of mist ... and we are just vapours----" + +"Macro's not anyway. I wish he were. He wouldn't trouble me in the +slightest then. He's a solid strong mixture of Spanish buccaneer and +Highland robber, with a touch of volcano to keep the mixture boiling." + +But the chill of the mist was upon her and nothing he could say availed +to cheer her. So he hauled out the rolls of silk they had brought +over, and set to work decorating the cabin with them, and interested +her out of her depression by the purposed mistakes he made. + +It was the ravelling off of a long thread from one of the pieces of +silk he was cutting, that showed him the way to a new employment for +her and the possibilities of a welcome addition to their meagre larder. + +"Do you think you could twist two or three of these into a +fishing-line?" he asked her. "I've seen heaps of fish in the lake. We +might try for some." + +"And hooks?" + +"If you could spare me one of your big needles I think I could make +something that might do." + +She went at once and got him one, and then set to work on the line, and +he could hardly get on with his own job for watching her. + +She was so eminently graceful in all her movements. Her tall slender +figure, supple, shapely, and all softly rounded curves without a +discoverable abruptness or angularity anywhere about it, lent itself +with singular charm to her present occupation. After thoughtful +consideration of the matter, she unrolled one of the pieces of silk the +whole width of the cabin, then picking out a thread, she fastened the +end of it to the woodwork and travelled along the side of the piece, +bending and releasing it as she went. The same with two more threads. + +"Three ply will be strong enough?" she asked, straightening up and +looking across at him. + +"Let me see what three ply feel like," and he went across and watched +her while she twisted the threads tightly together with deft soft +fingers. + +"I should think that would do," he said, running it between his finger +and thumb. Their hands met, and the touch of hers sent a quite +unexpected thrill of physical delight tingling through his veins. He +did not dare to look full at her for the moment, lest she should see it +in his eyes. But he was conscious to the point of pain of her close +proximity,--somehow conscious too--and that quite unconsciously and +without any reasoning on the matter--that, in the twinkling of an eye, +she was no longer simply a beautiful and charming girl, but had become +for him the most beautiful and charming girl in all the world. + +His heart felt suddenly too big for his body. He could have taken her +in his arms then and there, and crushed her to him, and smothered her +with hot kisses. And he could no more have done it than he could have +brained her with his axe. For she trusted him implicitly, and he was +himself. + +He took a deep breath to give his heart more room, and bent to examine +her twist. + +"It will do splendidly," he said, and she glanced quickly at him and +wondered what had made that curious change in his voice. "How will you +keep it rolled tight like that?" + +"I've been thinking. If I greased my fingers with some of that pork +fat as I roll it, and roll it very tight, it will probably keep so. +How long will you want it?" + +"As long as you can make it without too much trouble." + +"I can make it the full length of that silk as far as I see." + +"That will do admirably.... If I can make as good a hook as you have +made a line we will have fish for dinner," and he went back to the +fire, where, with his axe and his knife and two rusty nails lashed +together at the top to act as tweezers, he was endeavouring to bend a +portion of her needle into a hook. + +At the cost of some burns and cuts he managed at last to make something +distantly resembling one. + +"It looks horrid," said The Girl when he showed it to her. "I shall be +sorry for the fishes if they get that into them." + +"So shall I. But we'll not let them suffer long if they give us the +chance." + +She was as eager as a child with a new toy to put their work to the +test. So he cut some small pieces of pork and embedded his hook in +one, and dropped it into the bed of mist over the side. + +And she leaned over, with her shoulder unconsciously against his,--but +he felt it, and rejoiced in the feel as keenly as ever Macro did in his +treasure-trove--and peered anxiously down at the line, of which she +could see but a couple of feet, and waited impatiently for results. + +He put it into her hand, saying, + +"If anything comes of it you shall have the honour of catching our +first fish," but he held on to the slack behind. + +"It's jerking," she whispered breathlessly, "Oh, I'm sure there's +something on it..." and as she let go the line he gave it a jerk on his +own account, then drew it quickly in and a plump astonished fish lay +jumping and twisting on the deck. It was over a foot in length, very +prettily coloured, dark blue with many cross-streaks and silvery below. + +"Mackerel, I think," he said, and promptly knocked it on the head, to +end its troubles and allow him the further use of his hook. + +"The poor little thing! I'm so sorry," she said, looking mournfully +down at the iridescent beauty. "I don't think I like fishing." + +"You'll think better of it when it's fried." + +"I couldn't touch it," with a vigorous shake of the head. + +So he asked her to go down and make some cakes, and then caught another +fish of a different kind the moment the bait reached the water, and a +couple more for breakfast next day, and was thereby much reassured as +to the future of their larder. He cleaned two of his fish and fried +them with some pork fat as soon as she had made her cakes, and +proceeded to reason her out of her prejudice. + +"You have eaten fish all your life, haven't you?" he asked. + +"Ye-es." + +"Well, every fish has had to be caught before you could eat it. They +generally leave them to die. But even that is probably only similar to +our drowning, which is said to be about as pleasant a way as there is +of going." + +"It's horribly cold if you're lashed to a mast,"--with a reminiscent +shiver. "And being rubbed back to life is just as bad." + +"And we are more merciful, because we kill them at once." + +"It's horrible to think that everything we eat, except things that grow +of course, has got to suffer death for us." + +"But you have always eaten these things without being troubled about +it." + +"The killing has never been brought home to me so closely before." + +"It's Nature's law, you see. Everything feeds on something else. +These fishes feed on smaller things. And how do you know that when you +cut a cabbage or a potato----" + +"How I wish I had the chance!" + +"So do I, most heartily. But how do you know they don't feel it just +as much, in their own dull way, as the pig did from which we get our +pork?" + +She shook her head and sighed. "We can't get away from it, I suppose," +and tasted the fish and found it good, and ate quite heartily though +with an appearance of protest. + +"You see," he said. "Some fishes lay millions of eggs at a time. If +they all grew up the sea would be choked with them, as the earth would +be with animals if they weren't killed off. Besides, unless I am +mistaken in my recollection of our old parson's reading, all these +things were expressly provided for man's sustenance, so we are only +doing our duty in eating them." + +"All the same, I think I will let you do all the catching and killing." + +"Of course. That is the man's proper part in the family economy. He +is the bread-and-meat winner. And the wife's--the woman's, I mean--is +to see to the cooking," and he occupied himself busily with fish-bones, +and felt like biting his tongue off for its involuntary slip. + +"If you had lived on pork and rabbits for months you would find this +fish delicious," he said presently, to break the odd little silence +that had fallen on them. + +"It is very good. I wonder you never caught any before." + +"I did try, but my tackle was too rough. The fish would have none of +it. It is your clever line that has done the trick." + +"I am glad to be of some use, though I can't help being sorry for the +fish." + +And if he had dared he would have delighted to tell her of what +infinitely greater use she was to him in other and higher ways. + + + + +XXXVIII + +Wulfrey was awakened in the night by the sounds he had come to +recognise as the accompaniments of bad weather. The ship was humming +in the wind and straining and jerking restively at the rusty cable +which he was always expecting to give way. He wondered sleepily what +would happen to them if it did. Wondered also if The Girl was +frightened at the changed conditions, or whether she would understand. +He slipped on some clothes and went into the cabin, to reassure her if +necessary. + +The fire was a bed of white ashes and a rose-gold core in the centre. +He piled on some chips and the flames broke out with a cheerful +crackle. The door of The Girl's little passage way opened an inch or +two, and he caught a glimpse of her startled eyes shining in the +fire-light. + +"I was afraid you might be disturbed by the storm," he said. + +She went back for a moment, and then came out with her blanket skirt +and cloak swathed about her, and sat down by the fire. + +"It woke me, and I cannot get to sleep again. Oh ... what is +that?"--as a shrill scream pealed out just above the opening in the +companion-hatch. + +"It's only those infernal birds. They always come screeching round us +in bad weather." + +"I had just been dreaming that that horrid man came across in the night +and murdered us both. It was such a relief to see you alive again." + +"No fear of his venturing out in this weather. Those screaming birds +get on his nerves. He'll be sitting drinking, and cursing them in the +most awful Gaelic he can twist his tongue to. This weather will +probably last a couple of days. Then it will slack up, and just when +you're thinking it's all gone it will come back worse than ever. +Fortunately we've got---- By Jove!"--and he ran hastily up the +companion, unbolted the door and ran out on deck. The gale came +whuffling down on the fire and scattered the white ashes in a cloud, +and set the silken drapery of the walls rustling wildly. The shrill +clamour of the birds sounded very close, and The Girl sat anxiously +wondering. + +He came back in a minute, empty-handed and disconsolate. "I just +remembered my fish. I left two up there for breakfast, but the birds +have had them. They're as thick on the deck as bees on a comb, hoping +for more." + +"Is that all? I was afraid that man was coming and you'd heard him." + +"It means living on pork till the storm passes." + +"That is nothing. We shall enjoy the other things all the more later +on." + +"I'm wondering all the time how Macro is getting on----" he said, +pulling out his pipe and filling it. + +"Why trouble about him? He would not trouble about us if we were +starving." + +"I don't suppose he would.... I suppose it comes of my being so in the +habit of helping people through their bodily troubles." + +"It is wasted on him. He would not let you help him if you could." + +"I don't believe he would, unless he were helpless.... I wish he'd +never come ashore." + +"But in that case I would not be here either, and you would have been +all alone for the rest of your life." + +"Then, after all, I'm glad he came ashore." + +"I wonder if you would have gone mad in time with the loneliness of +it," she said musingly. + +"It would be horrible to be all alone for all the rest of one's life, +but I don't think I would have gone mad. I've no doubt there are books +to be found among the wreckage out there. Still ... for the rest of +one's life!"--and he shook his head doubtfully. "As things are, +however...." + +"As things are?" she queried, after waiting for him to finish. + +"As things are, I am quite content to stop here for the rest of my +life, if that has to be. But that won't stop my doing my best to get +away if the chance offers.... And you?" + +"If we were delivered from that man I could be content here also.... +But I do not say for all my life. That sounds terribly long.... But +for that man it would be a welcome retreat from a world of which I had +had a surfeit." + +He wondered much if she were heart-whole. It seemed almost incredible +to him that she could have lived that strange life of hers without some +man wanting and touching it. So fair a prize, to go wholly unclaimed +and undesired! But never, in all her talk, had she said one word that +pointed to anything of the kind. Rather had she held up the men she +had met to derogation and contempt. Surely, if there had been anyone +to whom her heart turned and clung, some evidence of it would have +shown itself. + +From all she had said, from all her little unconscious +self-revelations, and the wholesome judgment he had formed of her in +his own mind, he could well believe that, in that whirlpool of a world +in which she had lived, she had come to hold most men in doubt and all +at arm's length. And the thought was agreeable to him. + +When the slow day broke, dim and clangorous with the gale, they dallied +over a meal, talking of many things to pass the time, and then went up +on deck, and with a brandished stick he ridded the ship of the +clustering birds. They shrieked threateningly and came swooping at him +on the wings of the wind, with hungry beaks and merciless eyes. But +here he was at home and would not suffer their invasion, and finally +they gave it up and fled to the sandhills, cursing him shrilly as they +went. + +"Oh, there's one gone downstairs," cried The Girl; and running down +after it, he found a great black cormorant squawking fearfully round +the cabin and dashing itself against the walls in its wild attempts at +escape. At sight of him it grew frantic, but finally found its way out +of the hatch again, almost upsetting The Girl in its passage, and then +tore away to tell its fellows of the awful place it had been in, which +smelt so good but was so much easier to get into than out of. Wulfrey +had to open one of the lee ports and let the gale blow through to get +rid of the smell of it, and then he went up again to The Girl. + +They watched the great rollers thundering on the beach beyond the spit, +rocketing their white spume high into the grim black sky, and lashing +over at times into the lake. And when he called to her to look the +other way she watched with amazement sandhills of size melt away before +her eyes and re-form themselves in quite different places. + +"But it is past words!" she cried into his ear. + +They stared long too at the 'Jane and Mary' of Boston, but saw no sign +of life aboard of her except the birds that clustered there unmolested. + +"It is a most amazing place," she said, when they went down again, as +she dusted the saltness out of her hair with her hand. "Is it often +like this?" + +"Very often in the winter, I should fear. We've had our best weather +since you came." + +"I don't think I want to live all my life here," she said dejectedly. +"I love the sun." + +And he would dearly have liked to tell her that he did the same, but +that for him she made more sunshine even than the sun itself. + +Instead, he prosaically set her to the making of more fishing-lines, in +case of accident to the one they had, and he himself hammered away at +more hooks, burning and ragging his fingers out of knowledge, but +producing hooks of a kind somehow. + + + + +XXXIX + +The gale slackened on the third day, and Wulfrey was actually relieved +in his mind at the sight of Macro hurrying ashore on his raft, after +fresh meat, and, from the fact of his buckets, water, which he had +probably been too careless, or too drunk, to secure during the storm. +For the thought of his possibly lying there alone and foodless had not +been a pleasant one, good reason as he had for disliking the man. + +For themselves, he baited and cast his hooks, and landed half a dozen +fish as fast as he could haul them out. Their fresh meat supply would +have to wait until Macro went out to the wreckage and their minds could +be at ease as to the safety of their headquarters. The sea outside was +still too high for any possibility of his going that day, and +fortunately, thanks to their new source of supply, they could wait with +equanimity. Water they had caught in plenty in the buckets slung under +the scuppers. + +"He's alive at any rate," said Wulfrey, when he went down to breakfast. + +"So much the worse for us," said The Girl. + +"He's been fasting, I should say, by the way he has gone off after +rabbits. We ate our first ones raw, I remember." + +"Savages!" + +"Savage with hunger. We had had nothing to eat but shell-fish and +sea-weed for days." + +"Horrible!--raw rabbit and sea-weed!" + +"We had no means of making fire, no shelter. We slept out on the +sands, and were glad to be simply alive." + +"I'm truly thankful you had risen to a higher state before I came." + +"So am I. We were not good to look at. We were as men who had died +out there among the dead ships' bones and been born again on this +sandbank, lacking everything. Fortunately for us the years that had +gone before had been unconsciously making provision for us, and here +were houses ready-made and waiting, and out there more than we could +use in a lifetime." + +They saw the mate return after a time with his supplies, and he never +showed head again all day. Wulfrey let The Girl keep a look-out, and +tried himself to get some sleep, in anticipation of the night-watch +which he saw would be necessary. + +"He will probably go out to the pile tomorrow," he said. "He must be +out of flour and probably of rum. Then we can take a run ashore +ourselves. When he gets back he will probably be too tired to be up to +any mischief." + +"I wish he would tame down and let us have peace, or else go and get +himself killed," she said anxiously. "We can't go on like this for +ever." + +"I'm afraid he won't oblige us either way. We can only hang on and +hope for the best, and keep our eyes open." + +His watch that night passed undisturbed. In the morning, as he +expected, Macro set off for the wreckage; and, taking some food with +them, they went ashore for a long day's ramble. + +"It is good to feel the width of land under one again," said The Girl, +fairly dancing with delight. "I am very grateful for the ship, but +truly it is small and cramping." + +"Sandhills are good for play-time, but you'd miss the ship when +bed-time came. It's cold work sleeping on the sand." + +"Almost as bad as sleeping on a broken mast. Which way shall we go? +You are quite sure he has gone to the wreckage?" + +"Quite sure. I watched him out of sight. Besides, I am sure he had to +go." + +"Then let us go the opposite way, as far as we can, and we'll stop out +all day long and behave like children. I'm going to walk in the +water," and she kicked off her shoes and lifted her blanket skirt and +tripped along in the lip of the tide, and he did the same, enjoying her +enjoyment. + +A watery sun shone feebly through a thin gray sky, the air was still +heavy with moisture, the water in which they were walking was warmer +than that of the lake. On that side, the island curved like the +concave side of a great half-moon. The pale yellow sand stretched on +and on as far as their eyes could reach. + +"I would like to bathe," said she exuberantly. + +"Wait till we get beyond the end of our lake, then you can take this +side and I'll go across to the other. You won't go out too far? There +may be under-currents that would carry you out." + +"I'll be very careful. And you must not come back for an hour... Oh, +what are those? ... Dead men?" + +In a tiny dent in the long sweep of the curve, made by the sandhills +running almost down to the water, were half a dozen dark objects lying +on the dry sand and looking for all the world like dead bodies. He had +never seen any jetsam of size on that side. The drive of the storms +and drift of the currents landed everything on the western spits and +banks. Still there was no knowing. + +"Wait here!" he said, and set off towards them. And she followed close +at his heels. + +But before they had gone many paces, one of the bodies set itself +suddenly in motion and began to shuffle towards the water. + +"Seals," said Wulf, who had never set eyes on a live one in his life, +but had a general idea of what they were like. + +Before they could reach them, all had flopped away except one, which, +when they drew near, raised its head and eyed them piteously and made +an effort to rise. + +"It is sick or wounded," said Wulf. "Poor beast! Its eyes are like a +woman's in----" He bethought himself and bit it off short. He had +seen just such a look in many a woman's eyes. + +"We won't disturb her," he said, and led the way round to give her wide +berth. + +"Oh--look! Oh, the little darling! How I would love to cuddle it!" +whispered The Girl, for there, on the other side of Mrs Seal, with her +front fins clasping it protectingly, was a late-born baby sucking away +for dear life. + +The Girl's face was transfigured,--ablaze with intensest sympathy and +the wonderful light of mother-love. The mother's eyes followed them +anxiously, the fear in them died out as they backed slowly away, and +she bent her head to her baby and seemed to say, "Thank you so much! +You understand, and I am very grateful to you." + +"I _am_ so glad we saw them. I like the island better than ever I did +before," said The Girl. "What a dear little thing it was! And she was +just delightful," and all day long she kept referring to them and to +her joy at the sight of them. + +They went on again, mile after mile, and whenever he glanced at her, +her face was still alight with happiness, and unconscious smiles +rippled over it in tune with her thoughts. So inborn and unfailing is +the mother-feeling in all true women. + +"Now, if you wish to bathe, here is a good place. I will strike across +to the other shore and will come back in about an hour. Don't go too +far out!" and he strode away across the hummocks. + +Under cover of the nearest sandhill she loosed her slender garments, +and sped like a sunbeam across the beach and into the water; and her +face, as it came up from the kiss of the sea, was like a sweet +blush-rose all beaded with morning dew, than which no fairer thing will +you find. And as she swam and dived and splashed in the lucent green +water, like a lovely white seal, her bodily enjoyment and her mental +exhilaration flung wide her arms at times, as though she would clasp +all Nature's joys to her white breast, and her eyes shone with a +brighter light than had the mother-seal's, and a seal's eyes are +deeply, beautifully tender and bright. + +She laughed aloud at times, though none but herself could hear it, in +the pure physical joy of living and being so very much alive. She was +happier than she had ever been in all her life before. And one time, +as she lay afloat with her arms outspread, she looked up at the pale +sun in the thin gray sky, and all inconsequently said, "Yes--he is +good. He is good. He is good," and her face was golden-rosier than +ever when she was conscious that she had said it aloud. + +She was sitting in the side of the sandhill, combing her hair with her +fingers, when she heard his distant hail. And she climbed the hill and +waved to him that he might come. + +"I don't need to ask if you enjoyed your bathe," he said, as he came +up. "I can see it in your face." + +"It was delightful. I would like to bathe every day." + +"Two days ago?" he laughed. + +"No, days like this. Oh, it _was_ so good! And now I am hungry. Let +us eat." + +So they sat in the wire grass of the hill-top and ate their frugal +meal, she with her wonderful hair all astream, the ends spread wide to +dry on the sand; and he, clean, and strong, and brown, as fine a figure +of a man as she had ever met, though his raiment was nothing to boast +of. And he said to himself, "She is the most wonderful girl I have +ever seen. I would like to kiss her hair, her hands, her feet." + +And she, to herself,--"He is good. He is good. He is good." + +And, buried deep in both their minds, yet fully alive, was the thought +that it might be that all their lives would have to be passed on that +lean bank of sand--together. + + + + +XL + +On their way back, Wulf lingered behind for a moment or two and came +along presently with rabbits enough for their requirements, but did not +obtrude them on her notice. + +"It has been a day of delight," she said, as they drew to their ship. +"Let us do it again.... I wonder if that man has got home." + +"Not yet. I can see his raft on the spit. Just as well we're here +before him." + +"If only he were not here at all----" + +"Even the original Paradise had its serpent." + +"This one cannot beguile this woman at all events." + +It was almost dark when they saw Macro's laden raft lumbering slowly +across to the 'Jane and Mary.' + +"He won't starve," commented The Girl. + +"Nor go dry. I see at least half a dozen kegs there. He's making +provision for bad weather. The gale may blow up again during the +night. See the birds whirling about over there." + +"Will you have to watch again?" + +"Safer so, though the chances are the kegs will keep him quiet for a +time. He's probably been on short allowance the last day or two." + +"It is monstrous that you should have to. I wish----" and the petulant +stamp of her stout little brogue conveyed no suggestion of a blessing. + +"Time may work for us," he said quietly. "He is our thorn in the +flesh----" + +"He's a whole axe if you give him the chance." + +"I won't, I promise you. I cannot afford to give him any chances," and +she knew that in that his thought was wholly for her. + +Wulf dutifully patrolled his deck when it grew dark, though he +acknowledged to himself that the precaution was probably unnecessary, +for this night at all events. Still, he was there to protect The Girl +and he would suffer no risks. + +It was possibly the distant sight of him, tramping doggedly to and fro +in the wan moonlight, that set Macro's rum-heated passions on fire. +Wulf heard him spating curses as he tumbled over on to his raft and +came splashing across. He went quietly to the companion-way and closed +the door, then picked up his axe and stood waiting, with a somewhat +quickened heart at the thought that the next few minutes might end the +matter one way or the other. + +"---- ---- ---- ---- you, you white-livered skunk! Come out and fight +for her like a man if you want her," was the mate's rough challenge, +supplemented by a broadside of oaths, as he drew near. + +Wulf stood looking quietly down at him. Words were sheer waste. + +"D'ye hear me? Come down an' fight it out like a' man, an' best man +takes her, ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- you!" + +He bumped roughly against the side and picked up his axe. Curses +foamed out of him in a ceaseless torrent, and he made as though he +would come swarming over. + +"Keep off," said Wulf. "If you try to come aboard I'll cut you down." + +"Come down then and fight it out if you're half a man, ---- ---- ---- +---- you! What right have you to her, I'd like to know, ---- ---- ---- +---- ----!"--he picked up his oar and whirled it round at Wulf's head +and it splintered on the hard-wood rail. + +"Get back to your ship, man, and don't make a fool of yourself," said +Wulf. "I won't fight you. If you try to come on board here I'll make +an end of you." + +"Ye skunk, ye! Ye ---- ---- ---- white-livered cowardly skunk!"--etc. +etc. etc.--to all of which Wulf made no reply, which provoked the +furious one more than any words he could have flung at him. + +He remained there, hurling abuse and invective at the steady-faced man +up above, till the night air cooled the boiling in his brain. Then he +seized his splintered oar and thrashed away home. Wulf quietly resumed +his sentry-go, watched till all was quiet on the 'Jane and Mary,' and +then went down. + +To his surprise The Girl was sitting by the fire. He had supposed her +in bed, had hoped she was fast asleep and had heard nothing of the +bombardment. + +"He has gone?" she asked. + +"Yes, he has gone home to bed. I was hoping you were asleep." + +"Asleep! ... And you did not kill him?" + +"He gave me no chance. He invited me on to his raft for a fight----" + +"I heard it all." + +"I'm sorry. He is hardly suitable for a lady's ears." + +"I feel myself a terrible burden to you." + +"But you are not. Very much the reverse. You are----" he began +impulsively, and stopped short. It was too soon to tell all that she +was to him. + +"I am a bone of contention. I bring you in peril of your life----" + +"And I thank God I am here to protect you. Now, take my advice and go +to bed. I will bring my blankets and lie at the foot of the stairs +here." + + + + +XLI + +The next day passed without any sign of the mate, beyond the thin blue +smoke that floated up from his hatchway. + +Wulf surmised that he was making up his leeway in the matter of food +and drink, and would probably not be over-eager for battle for the time +being. Nevertheless he relaxed no whit of his vigilance, and after +watching on deck for half the night slept the rest at the foot of the +companion-way as before. + +Contrary to his expectations, the gale did not work itself up again, +but the sky was still low and dark and full of thin smoky clouds +hurrying along towards the north-east, and he was not at all sure that +they had done with it yet. + +On the following day, to their great satisfaction, Macro set off early +for the wreckage, and when they had watched him out of sight they went +ashore for a ramble, and to get water and fresh meat. + +The Girl must of course make straight for the place where they had met +Mrs Seal and her baby, but, to her great disappointment, there was not +a sign of them. + +"And I did so want to see them again," said she. "She would have known +us by this time and not been afraid. Perhaps she would even have let +me touch it." + +"They are much happier in the water," he said, with a smile, for her +face made him think of a child who had lost its toy. + +She would not be satisfied till they had searched far along the shore, +but nothing came of it, and she was disconsolate. The day was not +cheerful and she would not bathe. They filled their buckets, and he +caught some rabbits and they returned early to the ship. + +Her humours appealed to him, even though he could not possibly +understand them completely. Everything she did, and the way she did +it, and indeed everything connected with her, was coming to have a +vital interest for him. + +He could not know how the anguished fear in that mother-seal's eyes had +touched her heart, how she had yearned to pick up that sleek little +baby and fondle it in her arms, how she had been hoping and longing to +see them again, how great her disappointment had been. She felt bereft +and went off early to bed. + +Wulf lay smoking and thinking till night fell, and then went up to do +sentry. He paced the deck till midnight, saw no sign of movement +aboard the 'Jane and Mary,' and went below and was soon sound asleep. + +He woke once with a start, believing he had heard a footstep. Then a +ripple clop-clopped against the side of the ship and he lay down again +satisfied. + +He was awakened again by a hand gripping his shoulder, and, starting +up, found a ghostly white figure bending over him, and The Girl's voice +in his ear, + +"There is something wrong. Can you not smell it?" + +For a moment he imagined her dreaming. Then his nose warned him that +she was right. There was something unusual in the atmosphere. + +Even when their fire was no more than a heap of gray ashes with a +golden core, and one of their lee ports was open, the faint, not +unpleasant smell of wood smoke hung about the cabin. But this was +quite different,--an acrid, pungent smell as of burning fat. He +glanced at the fire and raked his mind for an explanation of it. + +"It is worse in my room," she said, and he went quietly to the sacred +little passage off which her sleeping-apartment opened. + +Yes, it was worse there, and what it meant he could not imagine. + +"You have not been burning anything?" he asked. + +"Nothing. The horrid smell wakened me." + +He turned and ran up the companion-steps, with a vague idea that +something in the hold might have caught fire, though how that could be +was beyond him. There was nothing there but their reserve stores, and +certainly nothing that could take fire of its own accord. Besides, it +was two days since he had been down there, and he never took a light, +as the hatch, when shoved askew, gave all that was needed. + +He fumbled the bolts of the little doors open, but the doors seemed +jammed. He pushed. They remained firm. He made sure of the bolts +again and put his shoulder to the doors. They resisted all his efforts. + +"Good Lord!" he said, in something of a panic. "What's all this?" + +He brushed hastily down past The Girl again, groped for his boots by +the side of his blankets, pulled them on, and picked up his axe, with +the certainty in his mind that something wrong was toward and it was as +well to be fully armed. + +Then he smashed away at the woodwork till it was in fragments, and he +could climb up through the bristling splinters and over an unexpected +plank that had somehow got across the doors and prevented their opening. + +The first thing he saw when he got on deck was a faint glow about the +main-hatch opening, and smoke pouring out of it. Running to it, a +glance showed him a fierce fire roaring somewhere down below. A cry of +dismay at his side told him that The Girl had scrambled up after him. + +"The buckets," he jerked, and she sped back, tearing skin and garment +on the splintered doors, while he sought and found a length of rope. + +His voice was steady again, though his hands shook with agitation, as +he slipped one end of the rope through the handle of the bucket and +held the two ends, while the bucket hung in the bight and so could be +released instantly by loosing one end of the rope. He filled both +buckets and with a hasty, "Hand them down to me and fill again as I +throw them up," lowered himself into the hold. + +The fire was burning fiercely against the after starboard bulkhead, +which, as it happened, was the one nearest The Girl's sleeping-cabin. +Their lighter stores had been moved from their usual places and heaped +about it and were blazing furiously. The bulkhead itself was on fire, +but had apparently only just caught. + +Wulf flung his first bucketful at it, and it answered with a hiss like +a snarling curse, and showed a red-starred black blotch amid the +crawling yellow flames. + +He tossed the empty bucket up on deck, and gave the bulkhead another +dose with his second, and as he tossed that one up the first came +dangling down filled again. + +"Good girl!" he shouted exultantly, to reassure her. "Plenty more! We +shall do it all right," and the full buckets came dangling down as fast +as he could empty them. + +A score or so of bucketfuls ended it, and he climbed up, black with +smoke and streaked with steam and sweat, and very grateful to be in +fresh air again. + +The night was just thinning towards the dawn. The Girl was sitting on +the coaming of the hatch in a state of collapse, her wet garment +clinging clammily about her, her head in her hands, her slender figure +shaken with convulsive sobs. His anger boiled furiously at thought of +the malice that had planned her suffering--her possible death. Love +and pity swelled his heart for her. She looked so utterly forlorn and +broken with the fight. + +"It is all right, dear!"--he could not help it, it slipped out in spite +of him. "Come away down to the cabin. You are shivering. You are wet +through and torn to pieces. You have done splendidly, but it was an +upsetting piece of business all round. Come!" and he put his arm under +hers and drew her up. + +She was so limp, however, that he had almost to carry her, and the feel +of her unconscious sobs under his enfolding arm quickened his blood +again. + +At the companion-doors he had to release her and go back for his axe. +A stout plank had been cunningly bound against the doors by a rope tied +round the companion. His lips tightened sternly as he chopped the rope +through and the plank fell to the deck. + +He carried her gently down and laid her on his blankets, put some +sticks on the fire and blew them into flame, and set on the kettle, +which was fortunately full. By the time he had made some coffee and +dashed it with rum, she had recovered herself and was sitting up in the +blankets with one drawn closely about her. + +"That was an unnerving business," he said, as he handed her her cup. +"I'm afraid you had the worst of it. You have a lot of scratches--and +your hands! Oh, I am truly sorry----" + +"It was the rope," she said quietly, looking at the rasped rawness of +them. "It was all horrible. How did it get on fire?" + +"It was a deliberate attempt on the part of that wretch to make an end +of us." + +"No!"--and she gazed at him in blankest amazement. + +"Without doubt. He blocked our doors here with a plank and a rope, and +then started the fire down in the hold." + +"Is such wickedness possible?" + +"To a madman living chiefly on rum anything is possible." + +"He deserves to die." + +"Richly. He deserves no mercy. The thought of cutting him down with +an axe was horrible. But after this----" + +"There is no safety for us while he lives." + +"I'm afraid there isn't." + +Sleep, he knew, would brace her unstrung nerves better than any thing +else, so, after bathing her hands in luke-warm water and anointing them +with some of the rendered pork fat she kept for her cooking, he induced +her to go and lie down in her bunk. Her other scratches she said she +would attend to when she could see them properly. + +Then he went on deck and drew up a bucket of water and washed off his +own stains, and afterwards smoked many pipes as he pondered the +unpleasantly weighty subject of Macro. For that matters could go on +like this was out of the question. + + + + +XLII + +He had cakes made and breakfast all ready long before she came out of +her room, still visibly feeling the effects of the night's proceedings. + +"I am stiff and sore all over," she said, lowering herself carefully to +her seat on the floor. "And you?" + +"Sorer in mind than in body." + +"What will you do?" + +"I shall go over presently and tell him that now he must look out for +himself. I will end him, the first chance I get, as I would a wild +beast." + +"He will try to kill you on the spot." + +"He won't get the chance. I'll see to that." + +"I shall go with you." + +"No." + +"Yes, indeed. My heart would thump itself to pieces, waiting here all +alone." + +"He is dangerous, and he has a vile tongue when it runs away with +him----" + +"I do not care. It is no more dangerous for me than for you. +No--no--no!"--as he was about to argue the matter,--"I cannot be left +behind," and nothing he could say could move her. + +They saw no sign of life on the 'Jane and Mary,' not so much as a whiff +of smoke from the companion-hatch. + +"Perhaps he fled when he saw his horrid scheme had failed," suggested +The Girl hopefully. + +"Not very likely, I'm afraid, but we can go across and see. Won't you +be good now and take my advice----" + +"I'll be good, but I won't stop here alone." + +So perforce he took her with him on the raft, and paddled quietly +across to the other ship. + +But before they reached it she lifted a warning finger for him to stop +paddling and listen. And on their anxious ears there broke the +strangest medley of sounds conceivable, and chilled them in the +hearing. Wild bursts of laughter, cut short by yells of rage or sudden +screams, as of one in mortal fear,--hoarse shouts, torrents of oaths, +dull flailing blows which sounded like fists on wood, and, through it +all, the never-ceasing yells and screams. + +"He has gone mad," panted The Girl, very white in the face, and looked +at him with wide anxious eyes. + +"Delirium tremens,"--with an understanding nod. "He could stand more +than most, but a man cannot live on rum alone," and he paddled slowly +towards the ship, his face knitted with doubts as to what he should do. + +He was in two minds. If he left the man to himself he would inevitably +die in the end, for he had unlimited liquor on board and would turn to +it at once, like a hog to its mire, as soon as this bout ran its +course. On the other hand, every fragment of professional instinct in +him impelled him to the rescue. + +Never in his life had he withheld aid from one in extremity. And yet +it seemed monstrously absurd--to drag a man back from death solely for +the purpose of letting him do his best to kill you, the first chance +that offered. + +And he had more than himself to think for. Suppose he saved this +wretched man, and was worsted by him later on, what of The Girl? She +would have reason enough to blame his pusillanimity, and he himself +would curse it with his last breath. + +But was it fair fighting--to see your enemy in a hole and make no +effort to save him? Old-time Chivalry would never even have argued the +matter. It would have helped the enemy out, handed him his weapons, +and courteously awaited the renewal of the combat. Ah--times were +changed.... And this man was compound of treachery and malice. + +Thoughts such as these whirled through his brain before he had covered +the short space to the other ship. + +"Wait here!" he said to The Girl, and climbed through the well-known +hole in the side,--and she followed him close in spite of his frowning +objection. She had not come thus far to be out of the critical moment. + +He ran down to the cabin, and went straight to the mate's door. The +dreadful sounds,--the shouts and yells and cries of fear, the furious +oaths, the wild thumping blows--filled the cabin with horrors. Even in +that anxious moment The Girl was cognisant of a dreary, dirty, +repulsive look about it which had not been there before. It was more +like the den of a wild beast than a living-room. Some of the silken +hangings were torn down, the one or two that were left hung by single +pegs. It looked as though a maniac had chased his mad fancies round +the room and sought them behind the draperies. + +Wulf, gripping his axe, opened the door into the passage, looked in, +then went in. And The Girl drew near, to be at hand in case of need, +and stood shuddering. + +"Keep off! Keep off, ye blank-eyed deevils! ---- ---- ----! Wi' your +bloody beaks and tearing claws.... Keep off! Keep off ---- ---- ---- +ye!" and the black fists, all bruised and bleeding, whirled and struck +at the roof and sides of the bunk as he fought the birds the rum had +bred in his brain. Then, as they beat him down in a pestiferous crowd, +he gave a shrill scream and doubled himself over in a heap in his bunk, +with his hands clasped over his head to save it from their attacks. +Then up again, shouting and fighting for dear life, and down flat again +with a scream, cowering in uttermost extremity of terror, while oaths +dribbled out of him like water out of a spout. + +Wulf came out and closed the door, and pushed her brusquely up the +stairs to the deck. + +"You should not have come down," he said sternly. "This is no place +for you," and then, seeing how white her face was, he added more +gently, "There is no danger--except to him. He is fighting for his +life with the birds. I can do nothing for him--except get rid of all +his rum. He would turn to it the moment he comes round, and it is +poison in his present state." + +He went down again and rooted about everywhere, found two kegs in the +cabin under the torn hangings, and another in Macro's room, with a +spigot in it. He carried them up on deck, staved in the heads with his +axe, and emptied them overboard. In the main-hold he found three more +and did the same with them. + +"When he gets through, his throat will be like a lime-kiln. There is a +bucket of water down there. I will put in it the coffee we left from +breakfast and leave it in his cabin. It will be the best thing for him +if he will drink it. But he'll be crazy for rum---- I'll take you +back and get the coffee. I'm sorry you came." + +There was strong disapproval in his tone, but she did not resent it. +After all, his thought was entirely for her in the matter. + +"You're sure he won't fly at you?" she asked anxiously. + +"He's much too busy with the birds. Besides, I shall not touch him or +speak to him. It is best to leave him to himself. We will leave some +food by him also," and she obediently let herself down before him on to +the raft. + +"It does seem absurd----" she began impulsively, as they joggled along. + +"To keep him alive so that he may try again to kill us,"--he nodded. +"I know. But there it is, as the country-folk say. However, he won't +live long if he keeps on at the rum. As soon as he gets better he'll +go straight out to the pile to get more, unless he's too weak. It's +terribly wasteful work, what he's at, and no food to work on." + +"Whether it's wrong or not, I cannot help wishing he would die," she +said passionately. "It is too dreadful." + +"I don't want his blood on my hands if I can help it," he said briefly. +But he felt as she did. + + + + +XLIII + +After carrying supplies to the mate, he came back for her, and they +went ashore for fresh water, and he providently secured a couple more +rabbits. + +The Girl was very quiet, depressed, and very unlike her usual bright +self. But he was not surprised. Her anxiety for the future was enough +to account for it, and there was, besides, the reaction from the +strenuous upsetting through which they had just passed. + +Each morning he went across to see how the sick man was getting on, and +she let him go alone, but followed him with anxious eyes, and stood in +the bows watching till she saw him safely on his way back. + +On the third day they took advantage of the enemy's enforced inactivity +to go out to the pile and make good the losses caused by the fire. And +all the time they were away The Girl was in a state of dire anxiety +lest he should have discovered their absence and got across and fired +their ship. But to her great relief it was there all right when they +got back, and showed no signs of visitation. + +On the fourth morning Wulf found his patient sufficiently recovered to +be spoken to plainly as to the future, and he did not mince matters. +While he spoke, the mate lay watching him through almost closed eyes, +just one narrow line between the heavy lids catching the light from the +port and imparting a singularly sinister look to the haggard face. The +veiled eyes watched him cautiously, charged with what?--suspicion? +hatred? treachery? All these, Wulf imagined. But they gave no sign. +They were like the eyes of a snake, of a caged beast being rated by its +keeper. + +"Your dastardly attempt on us failed," said Wulf, to the steely glint +of the black soul behind the narrowed lids. "And now,--understand! +You are outside the pale. Leave us alone and we leave you alone. +Interfere further with us and I will kill you as I would a dangerous +beast. Now you are warned, and your blood be on your own head." + +The other made no sign. The narrow gleam of the dark eyes out of the +rigid impassivity of the dark face was more bodeful than a torrent of +curses. + +As he left the ship, Wulf picked up and took with him the only two axes +he could find. Magnanimity had its limits, but it was wasted here. + +"Well?" asked The Girl anxiously, when he returned. + +"He is almost himself again, but very much weakened of course. I have +given him final warning that if he molests us further I shall kill him." + +"It would have been simpler to let him die." + +"Simpler--yes, but I could not bring myself to it. We'll fight him +fair if fight we must." + +The weather still kept dull and gray and heavy, with a reserve of +menace and malice in it akin to that of the mate. The sky was veiled +with ever-hurrying clouds. The sea was smooth, with something of +treachery in its sullen quietude, as though it were only biding its +time to break out again and do its worst. + +The following morning, to their surprise, they saw Macro start out +early for the wreckage. And Wulf, watching him grimly, said, "He's +after his poison. And now he'll probably drink himself to death. It's +amazing the hold it takes on a man. He won't trouble us much longer." + +They spent the day ashore, but the vivacity and enjoyment of that other +day were awanting. Perhaps it was the cheerless weather,--the physical +and mental strain of these later days,--the thought that their devil +was loosed again,--anyhow, a subtle sense of foreboding. Whatever it +was it weighed upon their spirits, and a long tramp up the beach, in +forlorn hope of meeting Mistress Seal again, did not succeed in raising +them. + +"What is it, I wonder?" said The Girl. "Something is going to happen, +I know. I have felt like this before, and always something dreadful +has followed." + +"But you never knew what, beforehand? Perhaps you have the gift of +prevision,--the second sight." + +"I may have, but it doesn't go so far as to explain things. I just +feel anxious for it to be over and done with." + +"What?" + +"What's coming, whatever it is." + +"We must be extra careful for a time, till you are sure the trouble is +past," he said, with a smile, but he felt the weight on his spirits as +she did. + +Physically, however, their long tramp did them good, and they returned +home with famous appetites. + +"I wonder if he's back yet," said The Girl, as they were paddling to +the ship. There was no doubt as to where her fears centred. + +"I don't see the raft. We'll see better from the deck," and when they +had climbed aboard they looked at once towards the spit and saw the +mate's raft still lying there. He was not back yet. + +They ate, and rested, and until the darkness swallowed the spit, the +raft still lay there. + +"He's staying late," said Wulf. "Maybe he's broached a keg and taken +too much. It would be what I would expect from him under the +circumstances." + +He patrolled the deck, after she had gone to bed, listening for the +sound of the mate's oar. But he heard nothing, and at last made up his +mind that the fellow had probably waited too late and had made himself +snug out there for the night, though, for himself, the idea would not +have commended itself. There was little danger, however, of his coming +across in the dark, so he went down and slept soundly at the foot of +the companion-steps. + +All the next day they were on the look-out for him, but he did not come. + +Wulf had told her of his idea that he had probably found means of +passing the night out there, in which case he would no doubt put in +another long day rooting for treasure. So that it was not until night +had fallen again, and the raft still lay waiting on the spit, that he +decided in his own mind that something was wrong. + +"I shall go across to the pile in the morning to find out," he said, as +they sat by the fire. + +"I shall go with you." + +"I would very much sooner you stopped here." + +"And suppose it was all a trick on his part. He may be hiding in the +sandhills. He would watch you go and then come out on me. No," with a +very decided shake of the head, "I go with you." + +So, in the morning, they set off, walked along the spit to the western +point and waded and swam to the wreckage, keeping a keen look-out for +first sight of the mate. + +"Those hideous birds!" panted The Girl, as the skirling, squabbling +crew swooped and hovered over the far end of the pile. + +"We'll keep as far away from them as possible," and they crept up at a +distance, and he proceeded to make a raft, since a supply of further +stores was needed to make good their losses by the fire. + +So far they had come upon no signs of Macro. From the top of the pile +they looked carefully all round, but beyond the usual smashed boxes and +cases there was nothing to show that he had ever been there. + +"Where on earth can he have got to?" said Wulf. + +"Perhaps he's fallen into the sea, or down into some crack," said The +Girl, not unhopefully. + +"It is always possible. He might not recognise how the fever had +pulled him down." + +They loaded their raft without any interference from the birds, beyond +the blood-curdling clamour of their angry disputations. They were +quite ready to go, but still the whereabouts of the mate was a mystery, +and Wulf was loth to leave it at that. He might be lying broken in +some crack. If he had come to some sudden end it would be best to know +it, if that were possible, so that their fears--on their own account as +well as his--might be at rest. On the other hand it was quite +impossible to rake over the whole pile. That would be a good month's +work. + +A grim idea shot suddenly into Wulf's mind, as he stood looking keenly +round from the highest point he could clamber up to. It came at sight +of the birds whirling and clamouring round the end of the pile. +Suppose ... oh,--horrible! ... yet it might very well be. + +"What is it?" asked The Girl anxiously, for his lips and face had +tightened ominously at his thought. + +"Nothing, maybe. I'm going over there to see...." + +"Can you see anything of him?" + +"No." + +He poled the raft along the edge of the pile towards the hovering cloud +of birds. + +"Now, I'm going to swim along here and climb up. I want to see what +they're at. You will be quite safe here." + +She glanced at him with a startled look, fathoming his grim thought +instantly, and it blanched her face for a moment. + +"They may turn on you," she jerked. + +"They seem too busy." + +He let himself down into the water and swam noiselessly along the side +of the pile, and she stood watching anxiously. + +When he reached the outskirts of the whirling cloud he found a sodden +crack, and drew himself in, and disappeared from her sight. Her heart +kicked till it felt like choking her. Her face was strained, her eyes +wide and fearful. She felt horribly alone. + +Inside his niche, Wulf climbed cautiously, the curdling clamour very +close. Now and again a feathery fiend with eyes like glass and +reddened beak swooped past his hiding-place, with a shrill cry of +warning to the rest at sight of him, or it might be of invitation. + +He got his eyes above the top at last, in spite of pointed attentions +from angry outsiders, scanned the spot where the shrieking crew centred +most thickly, and dreamed of what he got a glimpse of there for weeks +afterwards. + +---- The remnants of what had been a man, all pecked and scratched and +torn to shreds,--white, clean-picked bones showing through fragments of +his clothing, myriads of squawking birds, of all shapes and sizes, +clustered on it like bees on a comb, hustling and fighting one another +with shrill screams and thrashing wings and red beaks. It was only +when, through some unusually bitter struggle, the mass writhed and rose +for a moment, only to settle more closely the next, that he could see. +Not far from the body was a broached keg which the birds had overturned +in their strife. It explained everything to him. + +He dropped back down his cleft, sick at the sight, grateful for the +clean feel of the water. He plunged his head under and spat out the +feeling of it all. Then he made his way quietly back to The Girl, and +she had no need to ask what he had found. He nodded, and climbed up on +to the raft and pushed quickly away. + +"You are sure he is dead?" she asked, after a time. + +"Horribly dead," and told her no more till later, and then not very +much. "It is strange to think of it all," he said, in conclusion. "He +always feared the birds. In his delirium it was the birds he was +fighting. And the birds got him at last." + +The manner of his death shocked and horrified them. But the knowledge +that the menace of him had passed out of their lives was untellable +relief. + + + + +BOOK IV + +LOVE IN A MIST + + + + +XLIV + +The effect of the mate's death on The Girl's spirits was visible at +once. The cloud had lifted from her face before they got fairly home. +Her eyes shone untroubled, though a look of horror and disgust came +into them whenever they rested on the swirling gray cloud behind them. +In her very movements Wulf noticed a new and gracious freedom. + +And his judgment did her no injustice in the matter, nor imputed it, in +any slightest degree, to mere exultation over a fallen enemy. For he +knew to the full in what terror of the dead man she had lived, and how +the fear of him, both for herself and himself, had lain like a weight +on her soul and darkened all her outlook. + +He felt as she did about it. He could not regret the fact of the man's +death, but the manner of it gave him poignant distress. + +In spite of their hard work they had neither of them much appetite for +food that night. They turned in early and slept as they had not slept +for long, without fear and without strain. The darkness was no longer +pregnant with ungaugeable terrors. The dawn was like the beginning of +a new life to them. + +Wulf, indeed, saw again that night, and many a night thereafter, the +horror of the clustering birds and that over which they bristled and +fought. But he woke each time to the immeasurable relief of the man's +death. That had been essential to their own safety, but he thanked God +with his whole heart that it had not been by his hand that he had had +to die. For that he never could be sufficiently grateful. He had +played him fair and more than fair. He was dead, and their consciences +and their hearts were alike at rest. + +They woke next morning to the close folding of the mist, and he had to +set to work at once making good the broken companion-doors to keep it +out of the cabin as much as possible. + +Being but a poor carpenter, the only way he could do this was by +nailing a blanket to the top of the hatch and pegging it down tightly +to the top step. But he foresaw that the next gale would blow his +stop-gap to pieces and destroy their comfort below. So did the dead +man's deeds live after him, and it was not the only one. + +They were sitting at their mid-day meal, when the thick silence of the +mist outside was rent by a shrill frightened scream right above their +heads, and almost simultaneous with it a heavy thump, and then, on the +deck above them, blows and screams and the sound of some large body +tumbling to and fro. + +The Girl sprang up with a white face and scared eyes and a word of +dismay. Wulf picked up his axe and burst through his carefully +adjusted blanket at the top of the companion. Then she heard the +chop-chop of his axe on the deck, and the fall of something into the +water, and he came down laughing at the start it had given him also. + +"It was the biggest bird I ever saw," he said. "It had banged itself +against the mast, I think, and was flopping all over the place. I +chopped its head off and pitched it overboard. It must have measured +six feet at least from tip to tip of its wings. It gave you a start." + +"I was just thinking of that man and how different everything was now +he is gone, and then that horrid scream----" + +"Yes, it was enough to make anyone jump." + +"It seemed to me for a moment that it was his spirit come back to +trouble us still, as he had done while he lived." + +"It won't come. Unless it's got inside a bird, as he always said. You +must try to forget all about him." + +"It is not easy. But, whether it is wicked of me or not, I thank God +he is dead." + +"And I thank God that he did not die by my hand. I shall never cease +to be thankful for that." + +"We shall never be able to build a boat now," she said presently, +following out the natural train of her thought. + +"I'm afraid not,"--with a doleful shake of the head. "Unless you have +had any experience in such things." + +"And so we may have to pass the rest of our lives here." + +"It is better to consider how very much worse off we might be. For +myself.... Besides, one never knows. Some unexpected chance may turn +up." + +"And you can bear to think of living on and on and on here till--the +end?" + +"I can bear to think of it very much better than I could a short time +ago.... No cloud is black on both sides. Look on the bright side. +Either of us might have been here alone. That would have been +terrible----" + +"I should have been dead." + +"But instead of that we are two, we have comfortable shelter, the +mighty blessing of fire, food enough to last us as long as we live---- + +"It sounds like that man in the Bible--the man who had his barns full, +all he wanted to eat and drink, and so he made merry. And that night +he died, if I remember rightly." + +"We are not boasting. We arrived here lacking everything, and +everything has been provided for us. We have reason to be grateful. +Even Macro was necessary. He showed us how to turn the wreck-pile to +account. If I had come ashore alone I doubt if I would ever have gone +out to it again. It did not attract me.... And--he found you and +brought you ashore." + +"And that was the beginning of the end." + +"No--the beginning of better things. We will hope the end is a long +way off yet." + +"I wonder ... and what it will be," said she thoughtfully. + +And he wondered if in her heart there was any sweet white seed of hope +akin to that which was striking its roots so deeply in his own,--and if +not, if it might be possible to plant it there. + + + + +XLV + +This new life, free from the shadow of perpetual menace, was full of +rare and delicate charm for both of them, differing only in quality and +degree according to that wherewith Nature had endowed them. + +One root-thought was inevitable to both their minds--that here were +they two, cut off from the rest of the world, probably for the term of +their natural lives. Here, as far as they could foresee, they two must +live, alone,--together; and here, in the end, they must die; their +living and their dying alike unseen and unknown except by their Maker. + +In his heart the white seed of the greater hope was striking deep and +strong, filling his whole being with a new and exquisite delight before +even it had had time to shoot and flower. + +Exile for life on that barren strip of sand, which with Macro as sole +fellow-sufferer would have been barely tolerable, assumed a very +different aspect with Avice Drummond as his companion; and with her as +sole companion, an aspect of supremest joy and expectation. It was no +longer a thing to look forward to with foreboding, or at best with dull +and hopeless acquiescence in the inevitable. The shadow had suddenly +lifted. The desert had suddenly blossomed like the rose. The future +smiled shyly as does the dawn with promise of the day. + +But this new great hope, and the sense of it all in him, were of so +fine and delicate a nature that he hardly dared to whisper it even in +his inmost heart, lest she should see some sign of it and take fright, +and all his hope vanish like smoke in a gale. + +She was so fair and sweet, so charming and gracious, so pre-eminently +and perfectly desirable. It was highest and keenest delight--delight +so keen that at times it had in it the elements of pain--simply to +watch the play of her face, so eloquently responsive to the quick +emotional soul within,--the large dark eyes so clear and frank, so +unreservedly trustful of him. + +He would sooner die than forfeit one iota of the honour her faith +conferred on him. And that great springing hope of his must be +carefully covered and concealed, until such time as he should discover +in her eyes the outlook of a hope responsive. + +It would come. It would come, he said to himself--in time--when she +should have come to know him still better and to trust him still more +fully--to the uttermost. + +For the ultimate goal of his desire was, in the manner of its possible +attainment at all events, somewhat nebulous to him, though it set the +whole distant future ablaze with rosy fires. In the nature of things, +circumstanced as they were, such ultimate attainment, if ever it were +reached, could be reached only by the treading of unusual ways. And to +require that of any girl--and especially of a girl such as this, +high-born, intelligent beyond most, and deeply versed in the great +world's ways--was asking of her more than any true man, truly loving, +could bring himself to ask,--unless to both their hearts no other thing +were possible,--unless the barrier of Circumstance left no other +possible hope or way. + +And for the proving of that, Time held the keys and must have his say. + +He wondered often, and with keenest anxiety, if her heart could +possibly have come through all the strange experiences of her previous +life unchallenged, unassailed, unwon. Seeing that she was what she was +it seemed to him almost impossible. + +She was to him so compact of goodness and beauty, so fashioned to +bewitch, that he could not imagine any man impervious to her grace and +charm. What manner of men could they be who, consorting with her daily +and on terms of equality, had failed to capture a heart so made for +loving? + +He recalled in minutest detail all she had told him of her past life +and friends and acquaintances, figured them all in his mind, weighed +them jealously in the scales of his own devotion, and could not +discover one trace of emotion towards one or another, but rather of +aversion towards all. + +Again and again she had expressed the joy she had felt at the prospect +of her escape to a freer and larger life. It was, of course, not +impossible that that feeling might but hide some heart-breaking +disappointment of the earlier times. But he did not think so. She was +to him truth personified, though still a woman. He believed in her +absolutely, as a man should in the woman who holds his heart. So far +as assurance could go,--without the definite question which he longed +to put but did not yet dare, lest the hopeful anxiety of his present +state should be turned to hopeless regret,--he felt fairly safe in +building on a rosy future. + +How she regarded himself he could not surely say. But she trusted him +and that was a good foundation for his building. + +And she? Well, that is our story! + + + + +XLVI + +That thick white bank of mist clung to them for the best part of a +week. But, freed from all fear of treacherous assault, it troubled +them little. + +Once they had to go ashore for water, but got back safely by means of +their guiding-line, and as they pushed through the fog they recalled +that former time, when the mate's grim figure fashioned itself suddenly +out of the clammy whiteness and brought them near to a disastrous end. + +For the rest they had no scarcity. The fish bit as well in the fog as +in the clear, and they had pork and flour for weeks to come. + +In their narrow confinement to the ship, their intimacy and knowledge +of one another grew with the days. She talked well, and he was an +excellent listener, and led her on and on to tell him of the past and +all that had interested her in it, and mused on all she said, and +sought in it enlightenment as to her heart's freedom or otherwise. + +Once, when she had been roving at length through her earlier days, she +broke off suddenly with, "But, mon Dieu, I am doing all the talking! +Now, tell me of yourself!" + +"I have so little to tell compared with you. Shall I tell you of +school-days--of college--of the hospitals--of my patients and their +ailments?" + +"Tell me why you left it all to seek the new life." + +"For very much the same reason as you did, I imagine. I was living in +a groove and I wanted something wider and larger." + +"And now you are sorry." + +"So very sorry that if I had the chance again, and knew beforehand all +that was to come, I would jump at it like the fish to our hooks," as he +hauled one aboard and knocked it an the head. "And you?" + +"Ye--es, I think I would have come also. Not perhaps if I had known I +would have to float about on that mast. It was so terribly +cold,"--with a shiver. "For the rest, I have no regrets, but it is +perhaps too soon to say. In ten years hence I may have come to be +sorry." + +"Ay--ten years hence!" he said musingly. "Many things may happen in +ten years. There's a fish on your hook," and she hauled it in and let +him dispose of it. + +As they sat at supper that night the blanket which supplied the place +of companion-doors began to flap, and, going up to look, he found the +mist whirling away before a gusty breeze. + +"It's going to blow," he told her, "and when it's blown itself out we +may have a spell of fine weather again," and he proceeded to block the +opening with some planks he had chipped to size as well as he could +with his axe. + +The wind was rising rapidly, and before they turned in for the night +the birds had all come in and were whirling and screaming round the +ship, and lighting on it as was their custom in bad weather. But they +had grown accustomed to their clamour and both slept soundly. + +Wulf was shaken back to life in the dead of the early morning by a +restive jerk of the ship at her rusty anchor-chain, followed by a +momentary sense of the unusual. And while he lay sleepily considering +the matter, his bunk heeled slowly over--over--over, and rolled him +right against the side of the ship. The sound of a heavy fall, +somewhere beyond, made him scramble out very wide awake, full of +wonder, but dimly perceptive of what must have happened. The rusty +chain had evidently parted, the ship had drifted ashore broadside on, +and the force of the wind had caused her to heel over. The sound he +had heard was, he feared, of Miss Drummond's falling out of her bunk. + +He flung on some clothes and clawed his way out to the cabin. The +floor of it was tilted up at such an angle that he had to claw his way +up by the side wall as best he could. + +"Are you hurt?" he cried, outside The Girl's door. + +"Bruised a bit. Whatever has happened?" + +"The cable has parted and we're ashore on our beam-ends. No danger, I +think." + +"I'll be out in a minute." + +Then he became aware of a smell of burning, and found that the sand +hearth with its core of fire had slid downhill and was smouldering +among the silken draperies, which were beginning to break into flame. + +He crawled back and tore them down and bunched them tightly together, +then scooped up handfuls of sand and smothered every cinder he could +see. + +Miss Drummond's door opened just as he had finished. + +"Stop where you are," he cried. "I'll come up for you. Everything's +on the slope. I think we'd better sit on the floor and let ourselves +down by degrees." + +Outside, the wild screaming of the birds mingled eerily with the rush +and howl of the gale. It was still quite dark. He could not see her, +but groped about till he felt her blankets, then found her hand and +eased her carefully down the slope, and they crouched side by side in +the angle made by the floor and the side of the ship. + +"Will she go down?" she asked quietly. + +"Oh, no. No fear of that. We're aground. But whether she'll ever +come straight again I don't know. Did it pitch you out of your bunk?" + +"Yes. I woke with a crash on the floor, and could not imagine what had +happened." + +"I hope you didn't break yourself." + +She was silent for a moment and then said, "I'm afraid I did break +something, but I couldn't----" + +"Broke something? What?" he asked hastily. + +"My arm feels numb and queer. I fell on it." + +"Let me feel it," and, kneeling in front of her, he groped till he +found it, and felt it with anxious gentle fingers. + +"Good Lord, it's broken!" + +"I'm sorry, but I couldn't help it. You see"---- + +"Your right arm too! Don't move it!" + +He groped about for another length of the silken hangings, tore it +down, and wound it tightly round her arm. "That will keep it in +place," he said. "The moment it is light I will make splints and set +it properly. I am truly sorry you should have suffered so." + +"Better me than you. It might have been worse. What made that chain +break, I wonder? We've had worse storms than this." + +"It was bound to give sooner or later. It was very old and rusted. +Its time came, I suppose, and it went. Sure you have no other damages?" + +"Only bumps and bruises. I felt as if the side of my face were crushed +in, but I don't think it is." + +"Were you in the top bunk?" + +"Yes. I liked to look out of the window in the mornings." + +"That's a good big fall to take unawares." + +"Yes, I fell out like a sack and woke on the floor. What shall we do +if she doesn't come right side up again? We can't live all upside down +like this." + +"There's always the other ship to fall back on ... unless her chain's +broken too." + +"I like our own much the best." + +"But not if she stops like this.... And even if she straightened up +she would heel over again in the next gale. I'm afraid we'll have to +move." + +"I shall always see that man's black face about the cabin, glaring at +me as he used to do as if he wanted to eat me." + +"If we have to go we'll give it a good cleaning, and fresh hangings, +and make it to your taste." + +So they chatted quietly, while the gale and the birds shrieked in +chorus outside, and the waves of the lake thumped scornfully on the +exposed bottom of the ship. + +As soon as he could see, he rooted about for axe and knife, and chopped +up a board and made a set of splints for her arm. And, though he +grieved for the pain she must have suffered, he could not but feel a +huge enjoyment in ministering to her. + +The mere touch of her firm white flesh was a rare delight and made his +fingers tingle. He did his best to think of her only as a patient, but +found it impossible. She was so very much more to him than any +ordinary patient ever had been or could be. + +But for her suffering, he felt inclined to bless the breaking of the +rusty cable. It brought them closer than ever before. It threw her +more than ever on to his care. With her right arm prisoner she would +be able to do but little for herself. She had not been able to dress +herself properly, but had simply swathed a blanket about her night +attire, leaving the broken arm free. But even so, her natural taste +and capability had so arranged it, even in the darkness and moment of +danger, that she looked like a Greek goddess, he said to himself, with +one arm in a sling. One can make allowances for him. + +As the light grew stronger he saw, to his distress, that her face had +also suffered sorely in her fall. The whole right side was badly +bruised and discoloured. + +"Is it very bad?" she asked, as she saw him looking at it. "It feels +sore and my head hums like a bee-hive." + +"You got a bad bump there. I will get some salt water and bathe it. +Our fresh will all be gone in the upset, but I'll sling a bucket under +the scupper-hole and we'll have enough for some coffee presently. When +you've had some breakfast you will go and lie down in my bunk. If you +could get a good sleep it would be the very best thing for you. Does +the arm hurt much?" + +"Not so much as it did, but I don't think I can sleep." + +"You will when you lie down. You've had a bad shaking up. I'm truly +sorry that all the penalties have fallen on you." + +"It's a good thing you didn't break yourself too. Suppose we'd broken +all our arms!" and she laughed a wry little laugh. + +He crawled up the slope, and wormed himself through his barricade, and +came back presently with a bucketful of water, found a piece of soft +linen and insisted on bathing her face, under plea that she would +joggle the broken arm if she tried to do it herself. + +Then he scraped together at the foot of the slope sand enough for a +small hearth, split some wood and kindled a fire, but found it +necessary to open one of the ports to leeward to let out the smoke. +When he did so he found the water within a foot of it and could only +hope they would heel over no more. He proceeded to make cakes and +coffee, and then fried some salt pork, and anointed the bruised face +with the fat of it, and she found it soothing. + +When he had cut up her meat for her, and she had managed to eat a +little, he helped her into his bunk, the upper one because it was +airier and allowed more head-room, and covered her with blankets and +told her to go to sleep. And then, since there was nothing more to be +done, he crawled up the slope and got her blankets off the floor of her +room, and made up a bed for himself in the angle at the foot of the +slope. He lay for a time listening to the gale, and pondering the +possibility of its doing them any further damage, and fell asleep with +the matter still unsettled. + + + + +XLVII + +When he awoke it was close on mid-day, unless his appetite misled him. +He prepared another meal and then tapped gently on The Girl's door. +Receiving no answer he peeped into the dim little room and found her +still sleeping soundly, her head in the crook of her left arm, from +which the wide sleeve of her night-dress had slipped down,--as fair a +picture as man could wish to look upon, in spite of her bruised face +and broken arm. + +He stood watching her for a moment with bated breath, and recalled that +first morning when she came ashore and he had doubted if he could +recover her; and he thanked God again for the dogged obstinacy which +would not let him accept defeat so long as smallest hope remained. + +She moved, opened her heavy eyes, and lay quietly looking at him, just +as she had done that other time, and for a brief space there was no +more recognition in them than there had been then. + +"What is it? Who are you?" she asked, and he suffered a momentary +shock. But for reply he laid his cool strong hand--rougher than it +used to be, but vitally sensitive to the feel of her--on the broad +white forehead, and found it hot and throbbing. That did not greatly +surprise him. There was sure to be a certain feverishness after such +an experience. And he would have given much for five minutes' root +round his old dispensary. + +He had nothing,--nothing but common sense, and his professional +knowledge, and Nature's simplest remedies. He went out quietly and got +cold water and soft linen, and bathed the throbbing forehead and then +laid the wet bandage on it. + +"That is nice," she said softly. "What a trouble I am to you!" + +"Oh, frightful!" he smiled, as he changed the cloth for a fresh one. +"You see how I resent it. Has the arm been hurting?" + +"It hurts at times, but my head is the worst, and I feel bruised all +over." + +"But no more breakages?" he asked anxiously. + +"I don't think so, just bruised and stiff and sore." + +He hesitated for a second. She was so very much more to him than +simply a patient. + +"Will you let me remind you that I am a doctor? The very best cure for +all that is gentle rubbing. If you will allow me I will undertake to +reduce the pains by one half." + +"Then please do, Doctor, for I ache in every bone." + +And he drew off all her blankets but one, and through it proceeded to +massage the aching limbs, and had never in his life found greater +enjoyment in his work. He even ventured to treat the throbbing head in +the same way, drawing his fingers soothingly over the white forehead +and up into the masses of her hair. + +"There is virtue in your fingers," she murmured drowsily, and before he +had done she was sleeping soundly again. Then he laid another wet +cloth on her forehead and left Nature to do her share in the good work. + +It was fortunate that she had little appetite for the next few days. +The cakes he made for her, and water, scrupulously boiled and cooled +and flavoured with coffee, amply satisfied her; and he, himself lived +on pork, fish and fresh meat being unobtainable. + +For four days the gale bellowed round them, but being to leeward, and +protected somewhat by the heeling of the ship, they felt it less than +if they had been on an even keel, and it never kept The Girl from +sleeping. + +Much of that time Wulf spent in an endeavour to obtain salt from sea +water, the lack of it being one of their greatest deprivations. As the +result of many boilings and the careful scraping up of the slight +encrustations on his pans, he managed to get a little, and exultantly +let The Girl taste it as a great treat; but it was a long and slow +process. + +The default of her right arm made her very dependent on him in many +little ways, but never was service more tactfully rendered or more +delighted in by the servitor. And every service, so rendered and +accepted, made for increased knowledge on both sides, and so for closer +intimacy. + +Never, in all her contact with the greater world, had she met any man +in whom she felt such implicit confidence as in this man. Never, since +that first time her wondering eyes met his, when his strenuous +exertions had dragged her back from the dead, had he by word or deed or +look, raised one shadow of fear or mistrust in her mind. In +everything, to the extremest point of death itself, he had proved +himself a simple, brave, and honest gentleman. + +And as she lay there helpless, with the gale howling outside and the +broken waves of the lake clop-clopping in the strakes under her ear, +she had much time to think of him and all he had done and was doing for +her, and all her thought was warm and grateful. + +"I am a dreadful burden to you," she would say. "And you are very very +good to me." + +And he would answer her, with the smile she liked to provoke, "But for +your suffering in the matter I would tell you how grateful I am to that +rotten chain for giving me the opportunity. I count it a privilege as +well as a pleasure." + +And when he had left her, she would think at times how it might have +been with her if it were not this man but the other with whom she had +been left alone. And she would shiver at the thought, and then +remember that if the other had been alone she would not have been +there, for he could never have drawn her back from the dead as this one +had done. + +And she thought also at times of their fight with the other in the fog, +and followed that idea up and shivered still more. For if the mate had +killed this man it would indeed have gone hard with her. Ay, she had +much to be thankful for, and thankful she was. + +And as to the future.... It was all vague and dim, as the future +always must be, but she had no fear of it, because she trusted this man +so perfectly. + +Vague and dim it might be, but it was shot with rosy gleams. + +Whatever he might ask of her she would hold it right because he asked +it. She had found him worthy. She would trust him completely, ask +what he might. Yes, ... ask ... what ... he ... might. + + + + +XLVIII + +"The sun's coming out," was his cheerful announcement, one morning when +he came in with her breakfast. "And here's some fish for you at last." + +"The sight of it makes me hungry." + +"That's the best news you've given me for four days. There's some salt +for you in payment," he said, with full pride of accomplishment. + +"Salt is a great treat. Have you left any for yourself?" + +"Oh, I've got some. I'm going to set up a regular salt factory as soon +as you're about again." + +"I would like to get up and go on deck when I've had breakfast. Surely +the ship is not so tilted as it was." + +"Not quite so bad, but I'm afraid it will never come quite right side +up again. It's hard and fast on the shore at present. I could wade +across." + +"I must see it. I will get up as soon as I have had my breakfast." + +"Can you manage?" he asked doubtfully. "You must keep that arm quiet, +you know." + +"I'll try anyway. If I get stuck I will call," and in due course she +called, and he found that she had managed to get her blankets round +her, and that as gracefully as ever in some marvellous fashion, but she +had doubted her power of getting out of the bunk in its lopsided state +without his help. + +He stepped up on to the lower bunk, and worked his arms under her. + +"Now, if you wouldn't mind steadying yourself with your usable hand on +my shoulder--so! There you are!" and he lifted her gently to her feet +on the floor. "Now, hang on to my arm.... But your shoes?--you had +better have them on. In your own room of course. Wait and I'll get +them," and he climbed up and got them, and put them on and tied them +for her. "I've pegged some slats across the slope for better +foot-hold. You can't slip," and he got her safely out on to the deck. + +"It is delightful to be in fresh air again," she said, as she drank it +in. "I wish the good weather would last for ever." + +"We'll hope for a good long spell anyhow. Doesn't it feel odd to be so +close to the shore? We'll have rabbit for dinner. You must almost +have forgotten what it tastes like." + +"I can still just remember," she laughed. + +"I'll get up some blankets and tuck you into this corner, and then I'll +go and get some and some fresh water. Our raft's blown ashore and the +other one also. I shall have to wade." + +He made her comfortable in the corner, got his buckets and a stick, and +dropped over the side. + +She lay watching him as he waded ashore, saw him stop for a moment to +examine the raft, and then, with a wave of the hand, he set off for the +pools, swinging his buckets jauntily. + +Were there many such men in the world, she wondered, and why had she +never met any of them before? The men she had met were so very +different. They were as a rule so elusive and evasive that you never +quite knew what they were driving at ... except that it was certain to +be for their own satisfaction and advantage ... and that unless you +were always on your guard it was likely to turn out ill for you ... a +queer world, and life was a puzzle past comprehending..... + +She was glad to be out of it ... even on this sandbank.... Life was +sweeter here, and certainly very much simpler.... Well, perhaps a +little too severely simple in some respects.... But one could not have +everything.... Thank God, again, that it was this man who was with her +and not that other!... + +She saw him coming at last with his full buckets, and presently made +out a couple of rabbits hanging round his neck. + +"The birds are having a great time out yonder," he called to her. +"Lots of new wreckage, I expect, and they've been fasting. I must get +across as soon as I can and see if the storm has brought anything for +us. One never knows,"--he had come alongside, and lifted the buckets +and tossed the rabbits on to the deck. "I'll fasten the raft to the +chain there"--and he hauled himself along on it to the bows. + +She heard a smothered exclamation, and presently he climbed up and came +along the deck with something in his hand. + +"What is it?" she asked. + +"What do you make of that?" and he handed her the link of the rusty +cable which had given way and let them drift ashore. + +She turned it over in her fingers. Just where it had opened, the metal +glinted in the sunshine, and just above that there was a patch that +looked like grease. She shook her head. + +"Don't you see?--it's been filed enough to weaken it, and there was +grease on the file." + +"And you think----" with a shocked look. + +"Undoubtedly. No one else could have done it. But what his idea was, +I can't make out. Just to make trouble, I suppose. Of course if the +wind had come the other way, as it has done once or twice, we might +have blown right down the lake. It was a mean trick. I wonder when he +did it." + +"I am more thankful than ever that he's gone." + +"So am I.... I've been thinking we'd better move across there as soon +as possible." + +"Must we? I have grown so fond of this old ship." + +"But we can't live on the slope like this. Besides, if a gale did come +the opposite way we might have trouble. I'll go over presently and +begin cleaning. When I've finished you'll find it much more +comfortable than this." + +"I shall always like this the best." + +"I was thinking as I went over to the pools that it might not be a bad +idea to build some kind of a house on shore. I can get timber enough +for a hundred. You see, we don't quite know what winter may be like in +this place, but it's pretty sure to be a time of storms." + +"Can you build a house?" + +"One never knows what one can do till one tries. This is a great place +for bringing out one's unknown faculties. I've done a good many things +I never expected to do, since I came here." + +"It might be a good plan. Can't it wait till I can help?" + +"We'll see. We must do like the ants and squirrels--work hard while +it's fine and get in our supplies for the winter. We are mighty +fortunate to have such a store to draw upon." + +He spent all the rest of the day slaving like a charwoman on the 'Jane +and Mary,' and The Girl lay in her nest watching him, as he went up and +down, now flinging rubbish overboard, then hauling up buckets of water, +and sluicing and mopping, with every now and again a cheery wave of +hand or mop in her direction, and long periods below devoted, she did +not doubt, to the doing of more of those things which he had never +done, or expected to do, until he came there. And her heart was very +warm to him, knowing that it was not for his own comfort but for hers +that all these great labours were toward. + +She saw him busy on deck, bending and bobbing up and down, and once she +caught the gleam of vivid colours, and wondered what he was at. He was +a long time below after that, and then he went ashore for a load of +sand, and when it was getting dark she suddenly caught glimpse of his +head in the water as he wound up the day's work with a very necessary +swim. + +He came across on the raft all aglow, but visibly tired and hungry, and +greeted her with a cheery, "I think you'll find it all to your liking. +I've swabbed away every trace of the former tenants and everything is +fresh and new." + +"I wish I could have helped." + +"Oh, but you did, by sitting quietly here and getting better, to say +nothing of a wave of the hand now and then." + +"That was not doing much when you were working like a----" + +"Like a nigger. I looked like one too till I'd had that swim. Now +I'll get supper ready, and tomorrow we'll flit, and you'll be able to +walk about on an even keel without any danger of falling." + +He helped her down to the cabin and their very close quarters at the +bottom of the slope, and set to work preparing their evening meal. And +the more incongruous his occupations and the more menial his tasks, the +more The Girl's heart warmed towards him. + + + + +XLIX + +In the morning, as soon as they had eaten, he got the raft round to the +lower side of the ship, ruthlessly hacked out a section of the bulwarks +so that she could step down with the smallest possible exertion, and +took her across to the new house. + +Getting her on board without shock to the broken arm was not so easy. +He moored the raft, stem and stern, and braced it tight so that it +could not move. Then he built on it a pyramid of three empty boxes, +forming steps up which she could climb high enough to grip his strong +hand teaching down through the gap in the side and so be drawn safely +up on to the deck, which he had swabbed with sand and water till it was +cleaner than it had been for years. + +"It is nice to be able to walk on the flat of one's feet again," she +said, and he led her down below to a cabin gorgeous as an Eastern room +with drapings of amber silk and blue, and every bit of woodwork scoured +as clean as elbow-grease could make it. + +"It is delightful," she said fervidly. "How you must have slaved at +it!" + +"And how I enjoyed doing it!" + +There was a new sand hearth, nicely banked up between planks pegged +upright on the floor, and a pile of wood on it ready for lighting. He +lit a match with his flint and steel, and handed it to her as before, +so that she might start the first fire in the new home. + +"You will take your old room," he said. "Then if we should topple over +again you won't be able to fall out of your bunk. Now I'll go back and +bring over all our belongings. I made a complete clearance here, +except some of the stores which we can use," and before mid-day he had +everything transferred and stowed away. + +He spent most of the afternoon weaving in and out of their rusty cable +lengths of the least-rotten rope he could lay hands on, in order to +strengthen it and stop its chafing as much as possible. But below +water he could not go beyond a foot or two, and the lower links he had +to leave to Providence. + +As he worked, The Girl paced the deck, rejoicing in its horizontality, +and came each time to lean over the bows and watch him and say a lively +word or two. And, if any had been there to see, it would have been +difficult to believe that two such cheerful people were, to the very +best of their belief, condemned by an inscrutable fate to imprisonment +for life on this lonely sandbank,--to a confinement as solitary in some +respects, and in the prospect of escape as hopeless, as that of the +Bastille itself. + +But--they were together; and Adam and Eve, cast out of the Garden, +could still make a home in the wilderness and turn the joys that were +left them to fullest account. + + + + +L + +He was up betimes next morning, and had fish for their breakfast before +she came out of her room, and, moreover, had made cakes and full +provision for all her needs during the day. + +"I shall go out there at once," he said. "You will not mind being +left? I want to get in everything we shall need for the winter as soon +as possible." + +"I am sorry not to be able to help, but I shall be quite all right +here. You will..." she began, with a quite novel access of timidity, +and finished with a rush,--"you will be very careful. I am rather +fearful of that horrid wreckage. If you never came back----" + +"I will be very careful, and I will certainly come back--laden, I hope, +with good things," and he went off on the raft, and she stood watching +and waving her hand at times when he turned, until he disappeared along +the spit. And as he went his heart beat high, for he did not believe +that her fears were chiefly for herself, although she had made it +appear so. + +He found the wreckage considerably altered. The gale had swept it bare +of all traces of their previous peckings and nibblings, and had piled +and stuffed it with tempting-looking new plunder. And with things less +attractive. Whatever had been left of the mate had disappeared, hurled +down probably into some black crack. But, during the day, in various +crannies he came on no less than three drowned men, partly dressed in +what appeared to him naval uniform, anyway not in the usual slops of +the merchant service. And they set him thinking how narrow, yet how +sharp, was the dividing line between themselves and the outer world. + +He built his raft as usual and toiled all day, smashing his way through +scores of boxes, cases, seamen's chests, and rooting in them as eagerly +as ever did the mate, but with a different spirit within him. + +First he gathered indispensable stores, and practice had by this time +so perfected his eye that he could tell almost at a glance what a cask +or box contained, how long it had been afloat, and what damage its +contents were likely to have suffered. + +Many odd, and some extraordinary and incomprehensible, things his hasty +search brought to light. It was indeed an absorbing inquisition into, +an endless revelation of, the ruling passions and frailties of the +human heart. + +Little hoards of money and jewelry were his commonest finds, pitiful +now in view of their uselessness to those who had gathered them. But +he would take from the pile nothing but what it rightly owed them, +means of life and the tempering of its hard conditions, and he left all +these untouched. Tobacco and pipes, and flints and steel, were lawful +plunder. + +One brass-bound chest he broke open and found great store of women's +clothing, rich with lace and finely wrought even to the eyes of a man. +The Girl might find that useful and he began to make a selection, with +the eyes of her delight dancing before him as he did so. Then with a +start, and a sharp breath of amazement, he straightened up for a +moment, crammed everything back into the chest, and hauled it to the +edge of the pile and hurled it into the sea. For there, at the bottom, +wedged tight among all these delicate draperies was the body of a +new-born child, strangled at its birth, as he knew by the look of it. + +Bundles of letters, papers which might be of highest import to waiting +friends, anxious heirs, business houses, he found in places, but left +them as they were. + +He came on another box containing women's clothes, of plainer material +and simpler make, and rooted carefully after the character of its owner +before deciding to take some back for The Girl. It seemed above +suspicion, and he rejoiced to be able to supply some of her more +pressing needs. Clothes for himself the wreckage had always been +generous of, but to come upon two chests of women's things in one day +was extraordinary. They had at times searched far and wide and +anxiously, and never lighted on one. + +He got back with his load, and in two journeys from the spit got it all +on board, before it was too dark for his reward in The Girl's exuberant +joy at the things he had brought for her. + +"Shoes! ... stockings! ... Some proper needles and thread! ... and oh, +but I am glad to see these other things! ... I was washing some of my +things while you were away, but it was not easy with one hand ... And +another brush and comb! ... and scissors! If we can clean them I can +cut your hair for you." + +"I shall be grateful. I feel like a savage. I'll clean them all +right." + +"And did you make any strange discoveries?" she asked, while they sat +at supper, as one asks news of the outer world from a traveller. + +"Oh, heaps. Jewels and money, and papers, letters and so on----" + +"They might be interesting,--in winter days." + +"I had not thought of that. I'll bring you an armful tomorrow." + +"You will go again tomorrow?" + +"I must go till I think we have enough for the winter's siege. There +may be weeks when I can't get out there. This storm brought in a +mighty pile of stuff and it's best to get it while it's in good +condition. Do you want more clothes if I can find them?" + +"A woman never has too many," she laughed. "But don't waste time +searching for them. I can manage very well, especially now that I have +needles and thread." + +"I just smash open each box as I come to it. One never knows what one +may come upon. Their contents are as different as their owners. I +have been trying to imagine them from their belongings." + +He wrought at the pile for many days, and she filled in the time at +home by evaporating endless pans of water over the fire to get the +salt, and managed to accumulate quite a fair supply. + +He brought over for her amusement a great bundle of written papers +which she was too busy to delve into at the moment, all her time being +given to salt-making. And then one day he returned exultant with some +great lumps of rock salt, such as cattle love to lick, and her little +efforts were like to be put in the shade. But he averred that her salt +was infinitely the finer to a cultivated taste and they would use it +only on very special occasions. + +He brought her too a quantity of oatmeal in cases, and--treasure-trove +indeed--a dozen cans of the oil used for ships' lights. He searched in +vain for a lantern, but felt sure he could turn that oil to account in +some way during the long winter nights. From the marks on the cases in +the neighbourhood of these discoveries, and the superior quality of +some of their contents, he thought a warship must have gone down not +very far away. + +His belief was confirmed by finding other unusual supplies in the same +place, and he worked at it for days until there was hardly a case or +box or barrel which he had not tapped. + +One of his greatest finds was a handful of spare tools, in a chest that +had probably belonged to a ship's carpenter--an auger, a gimlet, a +chisel, a screwdriver, and a small piece of sharpening hone. And that +same day he lighted on an unpretentious little box, stoutly made of +deal, which had swelled with the water to the partial protection of its +contents. A glance inside showed him how great was this treasure, and +he carried it at once to his raft and bestowed it with care. + +When he opened the little deal case on deck that evening The Girl gave +a joyful cry, "Books! Oh, but I am glad, and the winter nights will +not be long! Let me see them all quickly.--"Poems," by Robert Burns. +"Life of Samuel Johnson," by James Boswell. The Book of Common Prayer. +"Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," by Edward Gibbon, Vol 1. "The +Vicar of Wakefield," by Oliver Goldsmith. "Tristram Shandy," by +Laurence Sterne. "The Castle of Otranto," by Horace Walpole. The +Annual Register--one, two, three volumes. "Tom Jones," by Henry +Fielding. "Clarissa Harlowe," by Samuel Richardson. Cruden's +Concordance. Hymns by Rev. Isaac Watts, D.D. A Bible. One, two, +three volumes of sermons. John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" and "Holy +War," and Foxe's "Book of Martyrs"! Oh, we shall do famously. Now +what do you make of the owner of this fine thing?" she challenged him +merrily. + +"A parson, I should say. They are the greatest readers. But that is +easily seen," and he turned to the fly-leaves of several of the volumes +and found them all inscribed with the same name, 'James Elwes, Esq. +M.A. Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford.' + +"Good Mr Elwes! I am sorry he is drowned, but I am grateful to him for +taking his books with him when he travelled, and leaving them behind +him when he went. That is the greatest find yet," said she. + +"We won't despise the lower things. All the same I'm glad to have the +books." + +"They will be a wonderful help. Let us dry them at once. They are +more precious than jewels," and he got her soft cloths, and they +carefully mopped up and wiped over every volume and promised them they +should be set in the sun to complete their cure on the morrow. + +"And those horrid birds?" she asked, as they worked. "You had no +trouble from them?" + +"They were all too busy elsewhere. There is grain enough floating +about there to feed a city. They will be plump and happy birds for +some time to come. They were too busy even to quarrel and they never +so much as looked my way." + + + + +LI + +As though exhausted by its late violence, or needing rest before +renewing it, the weather continued mild and open except for occasional +mists. + +Thanks to her own caution and Wulfrey's assiduous attention, The Girl's +arm was going on well, and she was looking forward eagerly to being an +active member of society again. + +"You see, I have never been laid up in my life before," she said, "and +it is unnatural to me. A dozen times a day I have to stop that +wretched arm when it wants to do something." + +"A very little longer and it shall do what it wants, within reason. +Let me rub it again for you." + +"You are a great believer in rubbing," she said, with reminiscent +smiles, as she surrendered the arm to him, and he rubbed it gently and +tirelessly to keep the sinews and muscles from stiffening. + +"I have found great virtue in it, and great reward," he smiled back. + +He took her ashore almost every day, and they rambled far along the +northern beach and enjoyed the soft autumnal days to the full. But all +the time his thoughts were on the coming winter whose rigours he had no +means of forecasting. And so, like a wise man, he made such provision +as was possible for the worst. + +He set her to gathering and drying every herb she deemed suitable for +seasoning purposes. And he himself caught very many fish and split +them open and dried them in the sun as he had read was done elsewhere. +He tried some rabbits in the same way, but they did not take to it and +had to be used for bait. + +And, after a few days' rest from his exertions at the wreckage, he set +to work on building a house on shore, in case anything should happen to +the 'Jane and Mary,' or they should find solid ground preferable to +water during the winter gales. + +He had for a long time past secured every nail he could knock out of +the old timbers, and regarded them as most precious possessions. The +finding of the auger and gimlet opened up wider possibilities. Where +nails are scarce, a hole and a peg may take their place. Wood he had +in superfluity, for the remains of every raft that had brought cargo +from the pile lay strewn about the spit, in some cases hurled half-way +across it by the waves that broke there in the storm times. + +Where best to build was a matter not easily decided. They would need +all the sunshine obtainable. But all the heaviest gales came from the +south and west and from these they wanted shelter. And they must be +within easy reach of the fresh-water pools and not too far from the +ship, where their supplies would be mostly stored. + +After much discussion they fixed on an odd little hollow--a mere cup in +the centre of three sandhills of size, which stood close together and +moreover were well matted with wire-grass and looked too solid to whirl +away in a gale as the smaller hills constantly did. + +To the south-west of these stood the largest hill in the neighbourhood, +and this would break the force of the gales in that direction. The +water-pools lay out in the sandy plain just beyond this hill. + +Wulf entered on the building of this first house he had ever attempted, +with the gusto of a schoolboy. + +"I feel about fourteen," he laughed, as he detailed his ideas to her. + +"So do I,--except this wretched arm, which is one hundred and five." + +"We'll soon have it back to fourteen. You see, if I can carve out the +sides of those three smaller hills, and back our house into each of +them, it will make immensely for solidity and warmth. No gale can blow +through a sand-hill, though they do waltz about now and again. But +these seem fairly well set and fixed. I'll start on it tomorrow. I +wish I had a spade and a saw. I can chop out some kind of a spade from +a plank, maybe, but, lacking a saw, the house will be a bit rough, I'm +afraid." + +"That doesn't matter as long as it stands up and keeps us warm." + +"Oh, I'll guarantee it will stand up and keep you warm." + +"Can you make a chimney?" + +"I've been thinking of that. I will run four boards up through a hole +in the roof, and we must try to induce the smoke to go up. There is no +clay here, you see, nor stone,--nothing but sand." + +The site settled, he set to work at once rafting his timber across the +lake from the spit, and then hauling it across the sandy plain past the +fresh-water pools, and this gave him a full week's hard labour. Some +of the lighter planks he let The Girl drag across, since she insisted +on having at all events one hand in the work. The heavier ones were as +much as he could handle himself. In his rest times, and after supper +of a night, he whittled pegs till he had an ample supply, and sharpened +his axes with the bit of hone he had found in the carpenter's chest. + +With his axe he hacked out a rude spade from a plank, and trimmed the +handle and the point with his knife; and then he set to work on his +three sandhills, cutting down the side of each where it rounded down +into the cup-like hollow, and flinging the sand into the cup itself to +make a level floor. + +The building of such a house was entirely new to him, but he had brains +and he bent them all to every problem that presented itself, and never +failed to find the way out. For instance,--the space he wished his +house to occupy between the sandhills was quite twelve feet in width, +and his planks ran mostly to six or eight feet only. There must +therefore be a row of posts in the middle, with one or more beams on +top as a ridge-pole, from which he could carry side pieces to the walls +six feet away on either side, and he had foreseen some difficulty in +fixing these posts absolutely rigid in the yielding sand. If they +wobbled or gave in any direction his roof would be in danger. + +But before he began carving down his sand-slopes he had settled that +point. He selected his uprights, the longest and strongest in his +stock, chopped them to size, and to the end of each pegged stout flat +cross-pieces, boring the holes with his auger and driving home the pegs +with the back of his axe. These he set up in a line in the middle of +the hollow, standing upright on their cross-piece feet. Then, as he +carved down his slope, every spadeful of sand buried the cross-pieces +deeper, till, when he had finished, they were under two feet of +well-trampled sand and he looked upon their rigidity as a personal +triumph. + +That was surely as extraordinary a house as was ever built by a man who +knew nothing whatever about building. It took him five full weeks and +he enjoyed every minute of it. And so did The Girl, for she sat in the +sun, watching all his cheerful activities with envious eyes because she +was so unable to share them, discussing points with him as they arose, +giving suggestions and advice which he always adopted when they chimed +with his own, and approving heartily of all he did. + +"I wish I could help,"--how many times she said it, and thought it very +many more. "It is disgusting to have to sit and watch while you work +like a--like a galley-slave." + +"Galley-slaves don't build houses--not such houses as this anyway. +There never was such a house before," he laughed. "Besides, you help +more than you know by simply sitting there and approving of it. 'They +also serve,' you know, 'who only sit and watch.'" + +"Who says that?" + +"One John Milton,--not quite in those words, but the meaning is the +same. As a matter of fact, he had, I believe, just gone blind when he +said it and was feeling rather out of it. Your arm will soon be all +right again. It's doing famously." + +Truly a wonderful house, not so much because of the quaint way in which +its difficulties were surmounted or evaded--which alone might have +given an ordinary builder nightmares for the rest of his life, but more +especially by reason of the rose-golden thoughts which swept at times +like flame through hearts and minds of both watcher and builder as they +wrought. If all those glowing thoughts could have transmuted +themselves into visible adornment of that rough little home no fairy +palace could have vied with it. + +For ever and again--and mostly ever--in his heart--helping the auger as +it bored and the axe as it hammered the pegs well home--was the thought +that was radiant enough and mighty enough to transform that desolate +bank of sand into a veritable Garden of Eden;--"If no rescue comes, +here we shall live--she and I--together,--one in heart and soul and +body, and here, maybe, we shall die. But death is a long way off, and +Love lives on forever. I would not exchange my Kingdom for all the +Kingdoms of the earth." + +And perhaps he would permit himself a foretaste from the cup of that +intoxicating happiness, in a quick caressing glance at her as she sat +in the sand nursing her arm; and at times she caught those stolen +glances, for her eyes found great satisfaction in his tireless energy +and visible enjoyment in his work. + +And she knew as well as if he had told her in words,--nay better, for, +without a word, the heart speaks louder than all the words in the world +when it shines through honest eyes,--she knew all that possessed him +concerning her, and she was not discomforted thereby. + +She trusted him completely. She had never felt towards any man as she +did to this man. Whatever he willed for her would be right. Her whole +heart and soul rejoiced that he should find such hope and joy in her. +She was wholly his for the asking, but she knew he would not ask it all +until he was satisfied in his own mind that he was right in asking and +she in giving. + +She felt like a wounded bird, sitting below there, while her mate built +their nest up above. But not, she said to herself, like their island +birds, for they were harsh and cruel, with cold hard eyes, and +ever-craving hunger in place of hearts. + +That wonderful house, when at last it was finished, would have given no +satisfaction to the soul of any ordinary builder, but to these two it +was a monument of hard work and difficulties overcome. + +It contained one room twelve feet square in front, with two smaller +rooms opening out of it at the back. The roof sloped slightly from +ridge-pole to side-walls and was made in four layers--boards side by +side below, then thick sheets of crimson velvet, an outer shield of +overlapping planks, and a thick coat of sand and growing wire-grass +over all. He was hopeful that it would withstand the heaviest gales +and rains the winter might bring. The walls were of stout boards +backed up against the sandhills, with new sandhills thrown up in the +intervening spaces, and inside they were draped with more crimson +velvet, of which they had a large supply. The floor was of planks. +The door had been a troublesome problem, and, lacking hinges, had to be +lifted bodily in and out of its place. The bay-window alongside it was +the cabin skylight from the 'Martha' and this, and the square +smoke-shaft of four stout boards above the sand hearth, they regarded +as crowning achievements. + +Emboldened by success, and finding enjoyment in the development of a +craft of which he had never suspected himself until now,--experiencing +too, to the very fullest, the primal blessing of work, he evolved an +arm-chair for The Girl, out of a barrel that had once held salt pork, +and when its asperities were softened and hidden under voluminous folds +of red velvet she assured him it was the most comfortable chair she had +ever sat in. + +And, for his part, he knew that no girl ever sat in any chair that ever +was made who could compare with her. + +Beds too he made with some old sail-cloth fitted to rough frames, and a +table, and their furnishing sufficed, though he promised to add to it +during the winter. + +The Girl's arm was well again, though he still urged caution in the use +of it, and kept a watchful eye on it and her; and never had he felt +himself so full of the joy and strength of life. When the house was +finished, they brought over a supply of stores and lived in it for a +time, and turned the waning autumn days to account by long ramblings +all over the island, in anticipation of the days when ill weather might +coop them strictly within narrower bounds. + +There were no discoveries to make in land or sea or sky, scarcely any +in themselves. He felt assured in his own mind that she was not +unaware of all that he felt for her. The fact, the great undeniable +fact, that she did not seem to resent it, was a deep joy to him. + +Their good-comradeship had known no cloud. She was as charmingly frank +and gracious as ever. She talked away without reserve or constraint of +that strange past life of hers, which, in every smallest particular, +was so absolutely the opposite of this one. And never once did she +display any hankering after Egypt, rather seemed to regard this as the +Promised Land, or at all events the doorway to it. + +Ever and again the possibilities of rescue or escape came to the front +in their discussions, but grew less and less as the weeks went by. He +had been seven months on the island, and she four, and save herself, in +all that time no other living soul had come to it,--unless, as the mate +had so strenuously held, the bodies of those discomforting sea-birds +were occupied by the souls of drowned sailor men. + +"And you, you know, were a miracle," he would remind her. "The chances +against you were about a thousand to one----" + +"And you were that one." + +"It was not that I was thinking of----" + +"I never forget it." + +"This place is undoubtedly shunned, as Macro said. It is known as a +death-trap. No ship comes here except in pieces. No man comes until +he is dead. And so, our prospects of rescue or escape are very small, +I fear. For your sake I wish it were otherwise." + +"Have I shown signs of discontent, then? I assure you I have never +been so ... so content to wait and hope. It is the most delightful +holiday from the world I have ever had.... Sometime perhaps we shall +look back upon it as the wide dividing line between the old world and +the new ... and between the old life and the new." + +"A line is black as a rule." + +"It may be light," she said, and waved her hand expressively towards +the shimmering golden spear which the setting sun sent quivering over +the water right up to their feet, as they stood watching it on the +beach. + +"If we could only walk on it!" she said softly, as the red disc swelled +and sank and disappeared amid a glory of tender lucent greens and blues +and glowing orange, with a line of crimson fire on the edge of every +hovering cloud, and a heavenful of crimson flakes and splashes +smouldering slowly into gray above their heads. + +"It points the road, but we cannot take it," he said quietly, and they +turned and went back to the house. + +There were times when she thought he was about to tell her all that was +in his heart concerning her. She could see it in his face and eyes and +restless manner. And she was ready to respond. + +There were times when it was almost more than he could do to keep it +all in. He believed she knew. He hardly doubted her response. + +But he said to himself, with set jaw and a firmer grip of his +manhood,--"She has known me just four months. She is here helpless in +my hands. I may not press her unduly, for she might feel that she +could hardly say me nay. Her very helplessness must make me the more +careful and considerate." + +And more than once, when the desire of his heart was leaping to his +lips, he jumped up abruptly and went out into the night and strode away +along the beach. And there he would pace to and fro under the quiet +stars, with the black waves swirling up the shore in long slow gleams +of shimmering silver, till the peace of it all passed into his blood, +and presently he would go quietly in again, with face and heart toned +down to reasonableness. + +And when he went out so, The Girl would smile to herself at times, as +one who understood. And again, at times the smile would slowly fade +and she would sit thoughtful. But, if she wondered somewhat, and found +him beyond her complete understanding, she liked him none the less for +his restraint. + +She was quite happy in their present fellowship, but she knew it could +not continue so, indefinitely. A man always wants more. The woman +gives. + +She felt towards this man as she had never felt towards any man before. +Without a word spoken, she was satisfied as to the integrity of his +intentions, as she had never been of any of those who had approached +her in that old life, and she had been approached by many. But the +coinage of love about the Court had grown as debased as did the paper +money of the Republic later on. Whispers of love had become but fair +cloaks for foul deeds. This man had whispered nothing, but she +understood him and held him in honour. + +And she was in no hurry. His love would not burn out, or she was much +mistaken in him. The flame repressed burns brightest in the end. + +And then ... and then.... Well, she sometimes laid hold of the future +by the ears, as it were, and held its changing face while she peered +intently into it, and endeavoured to read there all that it might mean +for her. + +Sooner or later he would open his heart to her--and that would be the +first change. Their relationship would of necessity become closer and +warmer. She would welcome that. It would bring great happiness to +them both. + +And then--later on--sometime--when all hope of rescue or escape had +left them ... he would ask still more of her.... That was +inevitable.... And in her heart, hiding behind a thinning cloud of +doubt, which had, when first it came upon her, been tinged with dismay, +she knew he would be right, and that in consenting, she would do no +wrong, although it must run counter to all her normal views of right +and wrong. + +She faced it all squarely and honestly,--Courtship properly ends in +Marriage. If by this accident of their strange fate the regular +marriage rites prescribed by the law of the land could not take place, +they would have to content themselves without them. It was inevitable. + +Elemental views of right and wrong were indeed tap-rooted in her heart +and safe from bruising. But she recognised that circumstances alter +cases and that normal views were out of place here. + +And as to the law of the land--what country claimed this bank of sand +she did not know. It was a No Man's Land, outside the pale of all laws +save God's and Nature's. + +With no man she had ever met, except this man, could she have imagined +herself considering possibilities such as these. But with him she +would feel as safe and happy as if all the archbishops and bishops in +the land had performed the ceremony. For, after all, it was only man's +law and man's ceremony; and God's law and Nature's were mightier than +these. + +With such thoughts in her--deep thoughts and long--she could wait +quietly, and she veiled her feelings for him lest he should deem her of +light mind and too easily to be won. + +Now and again, induced perhaps by some adverse humour of body or +atmosphere, a plaguy little fear would leap at her heart and nibble it +with sharp teeth,--could it be that he had ties in the old life of +which he had never dared to hint,--some other woman--to whom he was +bound by honour or by law? + +He had told her much, and yet not very much. Had he told her all? Did +men ever tell all? He had told her much, but there was room in what he +had not told for anything--for everything. + +But surely he had one time said that he had left no ties behind +him,--that he was alone. + +If there should be anything of the kind it would explain his +self-restraint, his quiet service, the looks he could not wholly check, +the words he did not speak. + +That his heart had gone out to herself she could not mistake. But that +was not incompatible with ties elsewhere that might keep them apart. + +But fears such as that could not hold her long. They had sprung up, in +spite of her, once or twice when he had jumped up and left her alone, +and gone out into the night to pace the beach. But when he returned, +quieted and all himself again, they disappeared at once, and her heart +was at rest. Wrong and this man had nothing in common, she said to +herself. She felt as sure of his honour as of her own. + + + + +LII + +"This weather cannot last much longer," he said, one night as they sat +talking after supper; he with his pipe, which she never would permit +him to sacrifice on her account, pronouncing the smell of it homely and +comfortable, in spite of his apologies for the varied qualities of his +tobacco. "We must be somewhere near the end of October." + +"It is either the 21st or 22nd or 23rd," she said very definitely. + +"You have kept count?" + +"Except the time I was on the mast and before I came to life again." + +"Two days probably." + +"I imagined so. In that case it is the 21st." + +"And we must be ready for November and bad weather. Would you sooner +stop here or go back to the 'Jane and Mary'?" + +"We could not be more comfortable than we are here. But I will do +whatever you wish." + +He glanced at her through the wreathing smoke of fire and pipe, for +nothing they could do would make it all go up the chimney. + +Would she say as much if he asked her more? he wondered. + +Was she ready to be asked? Or was it still too soon? + +If he told her all that was in his heart, would he startle her out of +this most pleasant companionship? + +She sat gazing quietly into the fire of scraps of old ship's timber. +Those leaping tongues of blue and green and yellow and crimson flame +were a never-failing joy to her. Many a curious thing had she seen in +them, and thought many strange thoughts to the tune of their merry +dance. + +She was winsome beyond words when she sat so, with the lights and +shadows playing over her face, and about the misty dark eyes in which +her clear soul dwelt and shone without disguisements. + +Suppose he said to her--here and now,--"Avice, dearest, do you know +what you are to me? I cannot possibly tell you in words, but--do you +know?..." And she said "I know,"--and said again, "I will do whatever +you wish...." + +Ah--God! ... If that could be he would ask no more of life.... One +word from her and this bare bank would be swept with golden fires; in +the twinkling of an eye it would become a Paradise for him and her to +dwell in.... + +If he sat there looking at her it must out. He could not keep it in. +And why should he? Why not tell her, here and now? ... + +He got up quietly and strode out into the night. A smile hovered in +the corners of her lips, as, without looking, she caught sight of his +face. Then she rose also and stole out after him. + +She was causing him pain when she wished him only joy. His thought, +she knew, was all for her. She would think and act for them both. If +he had sat there like a pent-up volcano for another second the hot lava +would have come rushing out. She had felt it all in the air. Her +heart too was so full of expectant joy that the tension was akin to +pain. + +It was very dark, with only throbbing stars in a velvet sky and the +white gleam of the foam along the beach. She did not know which way he +had gone, but he would come back presently, all himself again. She +sank down into the side of a hummock and waited. + +He came at last, slowly, heavily, with bent head. + +He stopped quite close to her, where the way led to the house, and +stood looking out over the darkness of the sea. Then he heaved a great +sigh and turned to go back to the house. + +"God!" she heard him mutter. "If I dared but tell her!" + +She rose swiftly out of her form and caught him by the arm, with +something between a laugh and a cry, "Tell me, then!"--and the mighty +arms of his love were round her, gripping her to him till she was +squeezed almost breathless. + +"Avice! Avice!--and you knew! Oh, thank God for you!" + +"Of course I knew," she gasped. "And I want you as much as you want +me." + +"Thank God for you, dearest!" he said deeply. "We will thank Him all +our lives. He has given us with a full hand.... I have nothing left +to ask Him ... except your fullest happiness, now and always." + +"And I yours. You are my happiness. You give me Heaven." + +"God requite me ten times over if ever you rue this day. I have longed +for you till my heart was sick with the pain of longing----" + +"Foolish! Why did you not tell me before?" + +"I could not. Until I knew.... Placed as we are, you see, it felt +like forcing you.... You might not have felt free to say no.... It +might have put an end to all our comradeship...." + +"You don't know me. I'd have said no quickly enough if I hadn't wanted +you. But I do, and you make me very happy." + +He led her into the house and held her there at arm's length in the +firelight, as though he could hardly believe it all true, and looked +deep into the dark eyes and rosy face and kissed it rosier still. + +And the blue and yellow and green and crimson flames danced their +merriest, as these two sat hand in hand watching them, and talking +softly by snatches with long sweet silences in between. + + + + +LIII + +"I was so afraid there might be some other to whom you were bound," she +said, as she lay there in the firelight, with her head against his arm +and his right hand smoothing her hair, that wonderful hair which had +been to him as the aureole of a saint and was more to him now than all +the gold in all the world. + +"There is no other, my dear one. Not a soul on earth has any claim on +me except that of friendship.... It was inevitable that we should both +have that fear. Four months ago we did not know of one another's +existence----" + +"Isn't it wonderful?" she murmured. "I wonder if we had never met if +you would have found someone else----" + +"Never anyone to fill my heart as you do. I cannot even imagine it." + +"And if I should have found someone else?" + +"That is possible, but no one who could feel for you all that I do, or +could want you as much as I do. You are to me the one supreme good," +and the clasp of his arm told her even more than his words. + +"You do not ask me if I had any ties in the old life," she began. + +"You would not be lying in my arm like this if there were. I know you +too well." + +"That is true and I thank you. It is good to be taken on trust. But +indeed there were none. The men one met there--faugh!--they were +masquers, puppets, dandies;--some had brains, but few had hearts, and +they were most dreadful liars. Such talents as they possessed were +devoted to finesse and intrigue, and the turning of everything to their +own satisfaction and advantage." + +"Thank God you are out of it all." + +"Yes, I do thank God,--for the shipwreck and everything else, but +chiefly that He sent you here to meet me and took that other one away." + +The weather held still for a few days, and he spent them in providing +for her future comfort in every way he could think of. + +He chopped logs enough to last them through the winter, and piled them +in stacks about the house. He got over from the ship supplies in +abundance. As the result of much labour and many failures he +constructed a primitive lamp out of the silver mug from which Macro +used to swill his rum. He distorted a beak out of one side of it, and +contrived a wick which passed through a hole in a piece of beaten +copper, and if the light was not brilliant it was at all events +steadier to read by than the dancing flames. + +He had lighted quite by accident on Macro's hidden hoard in the hold of +the 'Jane and Mary.' He was rooting in a corner there for his knife, +which had worked out of its sheath at his back as he hoisted out +provisions, and found it sticking point downwards in a plank. As he +pulled it out, the plank gave slightly, and lifting it he found, +underneath, the useless treasure. + +He wanted none of it, was indeed loth to touch it, but, on +consideration, took out two more silver mugs for their daily service +and half a dozen gold pins and brooches for Avice's use, since she was +always needing such things and regretting her lack of them. + +The long spell of mild soft weather--which had come at last to have in +it a sense of sickness and decay--broke up in the wildest storm they +had yet seen. + +The birds came whirling in in a shrieking cloud, but the wind +out-shrieked them. It shrilled above their heads in a ceaseless +strident scream like the yelling of souls in torment. It shook their +protecting sandhills and made their house shiver right down to the +buried cross-pieces of its pillars. It picked up the smaller hummocks +outside and set them waltzing along the shore. It heaped a foot of new +sand on their roof and sent a cartload of it down the chimney. + +But their position had been well chosen. The more the sand piled on +their house and against it, the tighter it became. Then the rain came +down in sheets and torrents, but no drop came through, except down the +chimney, and that Wulf presently plugged with a blanket and let the +smoke find its way out through an inch of opened door, which he had +purposely placed to leeward, as all their great storms came from the +south and south-west. + +But the change of atmosphere was bracing, and with solid sand under +their feet, and assured of the safety of their house, they welcomed it +and felt the better for it. + +After the first day's confinement he must out to see, and she would not +stay behind. So they rigged themselves in oldest garments and fewest +possible and started out. + +They were drenched to the skin in a second and whirled away like leaves +the instant they forsook the cover of their hollow. + +Avice was being carried bodily towards their nearest shore. He feared +she would go headlong into the sea and started wildly after her. He +saw her throw herself flat and grip at the sand, but she was broadside +on to the merciless wind and it bowled her over and over, and rolled +her along like a ball. It carried him along in ten-feet leaps. He +flung himself down beside her, put his arm round her, wrenched her head +to the gale, and they lay there breathless, she choking hysterically +with paroxysms of laughter. + +It took them an hour, crawling like moles, to get back to the shelter +of the hills. He would have had her go in, but she would not hear of +it. They could hear the booming thunder of the great waves on the spit +even above the wind, and she must see them. + +So they set off once more, flat to the sand, and worked round in time +to the breast of the great hill near the fresh-water pools, and lay in +it, safe from dislodgment unless the hill went too. + +They could only peer through pinched eyes, and then only with their +hands over them, into the teeth of that wind, but, even so, the sight +was magnificent and appalling. The grim gray sky and the grim gray sea +met just beyond the spit, and out of that close sky the huge gray waves +burst, high as houses,--whole streets of houses rushing headlong to +destruction. They curved gloriously to their fall with a glint of +muddy green below and all their crests abristle with white foam-fury. +Right out of the sky they came, right up to the sky they seemed to +reach, flinging up at it great white spouts of spray like flouting +curses, towering high above the land, crashing down upon it with a +thunderous roar which thinned the voice of the wind to no more than a +shrill piping. + +Their own land-locked lake was lashed into fury also. The flying +crests of the outer waves came rocketing over in wild white splashes. +He was not sure that some of the waves themselves did not cover the +spit and come roaring into it. The 'Jane and Mary' danced wildly to +her cable. He wondered if it would hold. The 'Martha,' more than ever +on her beam-ends, was being pounded like a drum. + +"Did you feel that?" he shouted in her ear, and she nodded, with a +touch of fear in her wind-blown face. For, under the impact of one +vast mountainous avalanche, the very ground on which they lay seemed to +shake like a jelly, and the whole island shuddered. + +"It cannot wash it all away, can it?" she gasped, when they had wormed +their way back to shelter. + +"It never has done yet anyway," he said cheerfully, as he squeezed +windy tears out of his smarting eyes. "Now, dear, change all your +things at once. We are wet through to the bone." + +"It was very wonderful. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. But +I'm glad we're ashore," and she slipped away into her own room. + +That was the first of the winter storms, and there were many like it. +But they bore them equably. They were in splendid health, the weather +at its worst was never very cold, indeed the gales were more to their +taste than the smothering chill of the frequent fogs. They had all +they needed,--food and fire, and light and books, a weather-tight +house, and one another. + +If they lacked much of what their former life had taught them to +consider necessary, they had more than all that former life had given +them, and they were happy. + + + + +LIV + +Between the storms and fog-spells, they tramped to and fro discovering +the changes wrought in their island, and many a strange thing their +wanderings showed them. + +One great gale which lasted a full week strewed the south-west Point +with wreckage as thickly almost as the great pile beyond. Their hearts +ached at thought of the still greater loss it represented, of which the +proofs were never lacking. The chaotic bristle was studded with the +bodies of the drowned, and the sight sent them home sorrowfully, yet +marvelling the more at their own deliverance, and still more grateful +for it. + +"We are miracles, without a doubt," said Wulf gravely, as they went +back home. "No one else gets here alive, you see.... I was the first +miracle. Macro was the second," and he told her what she had not known +before, how he had contrived to save the mate, and of his regret that +it had not been old Jock Steele the carpenter, who would have been a +blessing to them instead of a curse. "And you are the third and best +miracle of all," he said, clasping her arm more tightly under his own. +"God! what a difference it has made!" he said fervently. "Alone here +one might go mad. In time one most certainly would. See how good a +work you are accomplishing by simply remaining alive. Instead of being +a melancholy madman you make me the happiest man on earth. Oh, the +God-given wonder of a woman! Truly you are the greatest miracle of +all, and He has been good to me." + +"And to me. If you had not been here I should have been dead and we +would never have met. Perhaps He sent us to one another." + +"I'm sure He did, and all our lives we'll thank Him for it," and so the +sight of the dead but put a keener edge on their gratitude for life and +their joy in one another. + +The next big storm washed the point clean again. All had gone, +wreckage, bodies, everything, and the great pile beyond bristled higher +than ever. + +"Do you notice anything strange?" he asked her, as they stood looking +out at it. + +"There seems more of it." + +"And not a bird to be seen. They've all gone for the winter, I expect. +We shall not see them again till next year." + +"I am glad. They are evil things. Our Paradise is sweeter without +them," and he kissed her for the word. + +The weird forces of the gales, however, afforded them many surprises. + +Tramping round the further end of their lake one day, they saw changes +in the great stretch of sand that ran out of sight towards the eastern +point. What had been a level plain was scored and furrowed as by a +mighty ploughshare. It was like a rough sea whose tumbling waves had +in an instant been turned into sand--league-long grooves with +high-piled ridges between, and in the hollows the watery sun glinted +briefly here and there on shining white objects sticking out of the +sand. + +"Bones!" said Wulf in surprise, as they stood looking into the first +hollow, and he jumped down and picked up a human skull. + +"Horrid!" said Avice. "And there's another, and another over there. +It's a regular grave-yard." + +"A battle-field, I should say," as he examined them one after another. +"This is very curious. This fellow was killed by a bullet through the +head. Here's the hole. And this one's skull was split with an axe or +a sword. This one also. I wonder what it all means...." + +"Pirates and murderers. That's what they look like." + +"I shouldn't wonder.... Here's an ancient cutlass." + +"And what's this?"--rooting at something with her foot.... "An old +pistol! ... and the hilt of another sword! ... I wonder if they were +the men who lived on our ships." + +"Maybe. But I think these things are older than the ships.... +Why--the place is thick with them," as they wandered on. "There must +be scores of them, and more still underneath the ridges, no doubt.... +There was no lack of life here at one time evidently----" + +"And death!" + +"Yes, and death without a doubt. A good thing for us, perhaps, that +customers such as these don't frequent it now." + +"I'm glad we live at the other end. You haven't found any bones there, +have you?" + +"Not a bone! They're not very cheerful company. Let us hope the next +gale will cover them up again." + +Further on, in another trench, they found one side of a boat, mouldered +almost into the similitude of the sand in which it had been embedded +for very many years. And, further along still, Wulf thought he could +make out the stark ribs of ships like those on the outer banks at their +own end of the island. But they were very far away and held out no +inducement to closer investigation, and Avice had had enough of such +things for the time being. + +There were spells of bad weather, when, for days at a time, they +scarcely ventured out except to get in wood or fetch water from the +pools, which always meant a thorough soaking. + +But they were completely happy in one another's company, and ever more +grateful for the Providence that had cast their lot together. + +The days slipped by without one weary hour. Shrewder and subtler +proving of hearts and temperaments could hardly be conceived. But they +stood the test perfectly, never thought of it as such, found in their +present estate nothing but cause for joy and deepest thankfulness. + +The depth and warmth of his love for her expressed itself in most +devoted service and tenderest care, and hers for him in so frank and +implicit a confidence that he felt it an uplifting honour to be so +favoured. Indeed the man who could have betrayed so great a trust must +have been lowest of the low and basest of his kind. + +"I can't help wondering sometimes whether we would have felt like this +to one another if we had met in an ordinary way, outside there," she +said musingly, one night, as she lay in the hollow of his arm, watching +the coloured flames. + +"Yes," he said emphatically. "For you laid hold of my heart as soon as +I set eyes on you. It got tangled first in the meshes of your hair, +and in your long eyelashes, and the thing I wanted most was to see what +your eyes were like. They were wells of mystery." + +"And--they were right?" she laughed softly. + +"They were exactly right and just what I had hoped. Large and dark and +eloquent and tender and true and----" + +"Dear! dear! If I had known such an inquisition was going I should +have been afraid to open them." + +"Ah, you didn't know me, you see." + +"I didn't know you, but I knew I was all right as soon as I saw you. I +knew I could trust you.... How strange and wonderful it all was!" + + + + +LV + +One strange and terrible experience they had when the winter was almost +over, and it came within measurable distance of making an end of them +both. + +Depending on their reserve stock of flour on board the 'Jane and Mary,' +they had used freely what they had on shore. When he opened the other +he found to his dismay that it must have been more damaged at first +than he imagined. It was nearly all mouldy and smelt badly. He had +run short of tobacco also, and so decided to go over to the pile for +supplies on the first possible day. + +The worst of the storms seemed over. They had occasional brisk +gleaming days in between times, and on one such, after seeing that +Avice had all she would need in his absence, they set off along the +northern shore. + +She wanted to go out with him, but he dissuaded her from that. The +crossing would be very different from what it was in the summer and he +would not have her exposed to it. Besides, he intended to make only a +short job of it, just get what he wanted, and be back almost before she +knew he had gone. She was so loth to be parted from him, however, even +for that short time, that she insisted on walking with him to the point +and said she would sit there and wait till she saw him on his way back. + +So she sat down in the sand and drew her blanket cloak about her, and +watched him wade and swim and at last scramble up on to the pile. He +waved his hand to her and then set to work constructing a raft as usual. + +She saw him climbing to and fro among the wreckage, smashing away at +casks and cases, and then, to her dismay, he and the pile and the gaunt +wrecks beyond disappeared completely, wiped out by a bank of mist that +had come sweeping in from the sea. The sun still shone up above, but +intermittently. Dark clouds came rushing up out of the south and +presently it too was hidden. The wind blew gustily and increased in +violence every minute. + +She wished he had not gone. She could do no good by stopping there, +but she did not care to go home. Behind her, on the southern shore, +the waves were beginning to break with the short harsh sounds that +portended storm. + +Perhaps he would leave his work and swim across. He would know she was +waiting for him. She must wait till he came. She drew her blanket +over her head and sat there, huddled up with her back to the wind, and +hoped and prayed. For, if this sudden storm should work up into a gale +and last, she would be full of fears for his safety. + +Suppose he should be drowned! What that awful pile would be like in +bad weather she dared not think. + +She prayed wildly for his life,--"Oh God, spare him to me! He is all I +have! Spare him! Have pity on us both! Spare him! Spare him!"--over +and over again the same ultimate cry, for her mind was closed to every +other thought but this, that the man she loved more than anything on +earth was out there in peril of his life. + +She stayed there, drenched by the rain and flailed by the wind, till it +began to grow dark, and then she crept wearily home like a broken bird. + +Grim fear gripped her heart like an icy hand, but she would not despair +entirely. He was so strong and capable. He might have tried and found +it impossible to get back. He might come in at any minute. + +If he were here the first thing he would have told her was to change +into dry clothes. She changed, and made up the fire and put on the +kettle. He would be cold and hungry when he came. She must be ready +for him. + + +Out there on the wreckage, Wulf had been so hard at work that he +noticed no sign of change in the weather, till the clammy mist swept +over him and blotted out everything but the box he was delving into. + +The winter storms had wrought great changes in the pile. It seemed +thicker and higher and more chaotic than ever, bristling with new stuff +which he would have liked to investigate, in case it should contain +anything that would add to Avice's comfort. + +But first, to find some decent flour, and, as it happened, there seemed +fewer barrels about than usual, and most of them had suffered in their +rough transit. The search for a good one took time. Such as he found +were gaping and he did not trouble to open them. However, he +discovered one at last, opened it to make sure of the goodness of its +heart and then turned to seek tobacco. + +It was then that the fog swept down on him and chained him to three +square feet or so of precarious foothold. Trespass beyond that limit +might mean a broken limb or neck, for the surface of the pile was +seamed with ragged rifts and chasms, in which the tide whuffled and +growled like a wild beast anticipating food. + +So he rooted away in the chest he had just smashed open, lighted on a +supply of tobacco to his great satisfaction, and then sat down where he +was, to wait till the fog cleared. But this, he perceived, was not one +of their usual clinging fogs which enveloped one like a pall of +cotton-wool. It drove on a rising wind and sped past him in dense +whirling coils that made his head spin. He thought briefly of mighty +spirits of the air trailing ghostly garments in rapid flight. Down +below him, in the black rifts and along the sides of the pile, the +water was yapping savagely, as if the wild beast would wait no longer. + +When the last of the fog tore past him in tattered fragments, he found +to his dismay that the sea between him and home was beyond any man's +swimming,--every channel raging and foaming, and the banks between +boiling furiously in the rising tide and the rush of the south-west +wind. The raft he had made had already broken loose and started +northwards on its own account. It went to pieces on the nearest bank, +as he watched, and swept away in fragments. + +There was nothing for it but waiting. So sudden a storm might pass as +quickly as it had come. + +For himself he had no great fears. The pile had stood a thousand +storms, and worse ones than this. But he was filled with anxiety on +Avice's account. She would imagine the worst when he did not come, and +her suffering would be great. Thought of her troubled him infinitely +more than fear for himself. + +He tried hard to make her out on the beach, though how to reassure her +he did not know. But the sky was overcast and the atmosphere murky +with sweeping showers, and he could not even see the point. + +He was wet through with his swim, and the wind, though not cold in +itself, was so strong that it chilled him. He searched about for +shelter, and coming on a huge case which presented a solid back to the +weather, he stove in the front and found it contained fine lace +curtains. He hauled out a sufficiency, which the wind whisked +playfully away. Then he crept into their place, grateful for so much, +and lay and watched the strange writhings and contortions of the pile +under the impact of the gale and the rising tide. + +The wind would go down with the tide probably, and then he would make +another raft and get home as quickly as he could with his flour. For, +great as Avice's anxiety would certainly be, they were still short of +flour, and it would be better to take it with him than to have to come +back for it. The wreck-pile in a gale was a decidedly unpleasant +experience, and its behaviour most extraordinary. He had never +imagined a dead conglomeration such as that capable of such antics. +When the tide was at its height the whole mass writhed and shuddered +through all its length and breadth like some great monster in its death +agonies. The rifts and chasms gaped and closed like grim black wounds +or hungry mouths. Strange and awesome sounds broke out all about, +groanings and creakings, ragged rendings and grindings, as the +component pieces lifted and settled regardless of their neighbours. +When the tide went down it was more at ease, and the only sounds were +the waves snapping at the sides and gurgling and rushing in the depths +below. + +He did not find it very cold. Sheltered from the wind, the heat of his +body in time made a warm nook round him in the heart of the curtains. +But he was never dry. And before it got too dark, when he saw it would +be impossible to get away that night, he crept out and crawled +precariously to and fro till he lighted on a small cask of rum. He +carried it to his shelter, knocking in the head with his axe, and it +kept his blood warm through the night. But it was a terribly long +night, chiefly because he was thinking all through it of Avice, and her +fears for him, and her suffering. + +To his bitter disappointment, morning showed no signs of abatement or +relief. It brought another wild gray day without a glimmer of hope in +the sky. + +He had eaten nothing for more than twenty hours and was feeling empty +and ravenous. The tide had risen and gone down again in the night. +Before the pile began its writhings and contortions again he must eat. +So he crept out and foraged till he found a barrel of pork, and bashed +it open and carried back to his nest a big chunk which he ate raw and +washed down with rum. + +All that day the gale held. He hardly dared to think of Avice and yet +could think of nothing else. At times, under the impulse of his fears +for her, he was tempted to leap into the sea and try to battle through +to the point. But when he studied the chances of it, common sense +prevailed. Adventure into those boiling currents meant death as surely +as if he cut his throat on the pile. + +If he could only let her know that he was alive.... If he had had his +flint and steel he would have tried to set something on fire--even if +it were his nest--on the chance of her seeing the smoke and +understanding it. He searched eagerly for another tinder-box, but +could not light on one. + +It was an anxious and gloomy man that crept into the heart of the +curtain-case that night; but he slept, in a way and brokenly, in spite +of it all, for Nature knows man's limits, and when he goes beyond them +she steps in at times and takes command. + + + + +LVI + +To Avice, also, that first night was one long horror. + +She made up the fire and sat waiting for him to come. He would know in +what a state of despair she would be and he would certainly come. She +was sure he would come--if he could. If he did not it was because he +could not. And ... if he could not.... + +The wind shrilled eerily outside. It sounded cold and heartless ... +pitiless ... like messages from the dead ... warnings of evil. It got +on her nerves and set her shivering. She crept to her room at last and +dropped hopelessly on to her bed, and lay there sorely stricken. + +In the gray of the morning she ate mechanically, and hurried away to +the point for sign or sight of him. But it was all she could do to +make out the pile itself, like a bristling rampart in the dull dim +distance. As to distinguishing anything on it, that was out of the +question. + +She wandered about there all day long, with her eyes strained on the +pile like one bereft, and only crept back when night shut it out and +drove her home. + +She was satisfied in her own mind now that he was dead. If he had been +alive he would certainly have come. Well, she would not be long in +following him.... Without him she had no desire to live ... even if +she could struggle on alone, which was very doubtful ... better to join +him quickly than to drag on miserably all by herself on that lonely +bank, and go crazy in the end. + +She sobbed herself asleep, her last wish that she might never waken. +She had eaten nothing since the morning, and then only a hasty scrap +that had no taste in it. The fire had gone out.... It did not matter. +She would go out herself as soon as might be.... A woful end to all +their golden hopes and happiness. + +Morning found her still lying spent and hopeless on her bed, comatose, +neither asleep nor awake, simply careless of life and even of the fact +that the wind had fallen at midnight and that the new day had broken +soft and clear. + +Then, in her dream-weariness, she heard a voice in the outer room--or +thought she did--but all her senses were dulled except the sense of +loss and heartache. People, she knew, heard voices when they were +going to die. + +"Avice!"--the voice of God calling her--the sweet voice of death. She +was ready to go. + +"Avice! Where are you?"--and a tapping on the wall of her room. + +How like Wulfrey's voice! Perhaps he was permitted to be the +messenger,--a gracious thought--a joyful thought. + +She rose painfully, stiff with weakness and long lying, stumbled to the +doorway, stood leaning her hands against the sides, and peered, +white-faced and awe-stricken, through the curtains into the room. +Then, with a broken cry, she threw up her hands and fell forward into +Wulf's arms. + +When she came to herself she was lying on a blanket outside the house +and he was bathing her forehead and kissing her. She lay looking up at +him in wonder, out of eyes almost lost in the mists and darkness of her +suffering. She raised a hand and touched his face. + +"Are you real? Are you alive?" she whispered doubtfully. + +He proved it with hot kisses. His eyes swam with pity for her +sufferings. Her face and eyes told him all the story. + +"By God's mercy we are both alive, dear. It might have been +otherwise.... You have suffered sorely." + +"I thought you were sent for me ... the angel of Death. And it was so +good of them to send you and not a stranger.... But it is better to +have you alive," and happy tears welled weakly out of her eyes and +rolled down the white cheeks. + +"I believe you have eaten nothing since I went. Lie still and I will +get you something," and he jumped up and went inside, lighted the fire +quickly, and presently was sitting by her side, feeding her with warm +rum and water, for she was icy cold, and some bits of the cakes she had +made three days before. + +"You ought not to have starved yourself like that," he remonstrated. + +"I was sure you were dead and I had no wish to live.... You will never +go out there again...." + +"Not in the break of a storm anyway. We must go to the storehouse +sometimes, but we'll make sure of our weather in future." + +"I wouldn't have minded if I'd been with you." + +"I would. It was ghastly out there in the night," and he told her how +he had lived in the big case of curtains, and how the pile heaved and +writhed like a wounded sea-serpent under the tide and the gale. And +how he had brought back some flour after all, though it had been no +easy job as there was no wind to help him. + +"It is dear flour," she said. "It nearly cost us our lives. I would +sooner live on raw meat another time." + + + + +LVII + +That was their sorest trial of the winter. Often, over the fire of a +night, they talked of it and told one another all there was to tell of +their feelings and their fears, and their love burned the brighter for +its tempering. + +But Avice was soon herself again, and as the Spring quickened all about +and in them, the bitterness of the experience gradually faded out of +their recollection and only the brightness was left. + +And then there was so much to interest one everywhere that the days +were hardly long enough for all there was to see and do. + +First, seals--mothers and babies galore. Those sandy beaches of the +northern coast seemed a favourite basking place and nursery, and Avice +could creep along behind the sandhills, and crawl up among the +wire-grass, and peep over, and she never tired of watching them. There +was something so human in the way the babies snuggled up to their +mothers when they were hungry, and still more in the way the mothers +looked down at their nurslings. + +And the baby-rabbits. They were almost as entrancing as the seals, but +far shyer and more difficult to spy upon. + +For the simple lifting of a head among the sparse tufts of grass set +the hollow below alive with tiny bobbing white scuts, whose terrified +owners tumbled over one another in their anxiety to get below ground. +Avice would not hear of rabbit-meat in those days. She said the very +thought of it made her feel like a cannibal. + +And lastly,--birds. They were coming back in flights. The eastern +point seemed their chosen ground, but closer at hand stray families +were found, and importunate babies were being fed by the cold-eyed +mothers with whom, a few months later, they would be waging the fierce +battle for food. But Avice never took to the birds as she did to the +seals and rabbits. She could never forget what they would grow +into--brigands and fighters and cold-blooded raucous screamers at all +times. + +Now and again they lived on the 'Jane and Mary' for a week by way of a +change, and fish was always obtainable whether they were afloat or +ashore. + +The clear fire of their love waxed ever stronger, devoured the days and +weeks and months, and refined and fused them all into golden memories +without one smallest speck of alloy. More devoted lover never woman +had, nor man a sweeter mistress. Never was princess of the +blood--without a bar across her scutcheon--held in loftier esteem or +shown it more gallantly. Never, in word or act, did he offend her +sense of right in the smallest degree; yet she could set his heart +leaping and his blood racing by a touch--and she knew it. + +Sometime,--when he believed it right--she knew he would ask more of +her. It was inevitable. She had known it from the beginning. And she +had no fear of it. Love such as theirs knows nothing of fear. + +They were not playing at love. They loved with all the white fire of +passionate devotion which loses sight of self in the one beloved. For +better, for worse; in life, in death, she was wholly his. With the +ardour of the Spring in her blood, and the love-light in her eyes, she +waited for him to speak. + + + + +LVIII + +Time came when, according to her calendar, he had been there full +twelve months and she just about nine. And as to prospect of escape, +or further addition to their company, they were in exactly the same +position as when they came. + +Whenever they discussed that matter, she said, "Still, I came ashore +alive." + +And he always said, "You were the miracle. Besides you were +nine-tenths dead." + +She wondered when he would ask the next step of her, and how he would +do it. Her answer was ready--herself. Still, something of extra +fragrance--something ineffably sweet and delicate--would cling to it +for ever, or be for ever just that much lacking, according to the +manner of his asking. + +But she believed his great love would choose the proper chord and +strike it with strong and gentle fingers. + +And it did. + +They were sitting in the firelight one night, when a more than usually +pregnant silence fell on them. The depth of their feeling for one +another expressed itself not infrequently in these long delicious +pauses in their talk, when that which was in them was all too sacred +for words. Her Northern blood, of which she was proud, prevailed as a +rule over the Gallic strain, which she held in light esteem, and made +for undemonstrativeness in any outward display of feeling. But she +felt to the depths, and when she did permit the brakes to slip, the +wheels struck sparks. + +He also was more doer than talker. Hence those long sweet silences, +when she lay with her head in his arm in the coloured firelight, and +the gentle play of his hand on her hair was more to them both than all +the words in the world. + +But this night there was more in the silences that fell on them. In +both their hearts the high-charged thoughts and feelings of many months +were converging to a point. The quickening of the Spring was in their +blood. + +His hand slipped suddenly down from her hair and clasped on both of +hers where they lay in her lap. His voice as he spoke was deep with +emotion. It thrilled her to the depths. She felt the hot pulses in +his hand leaping and throbbing. His words were very simple, as became +a matter so vital. Deepest feeling needs no garnishment. + +"Dearest, you have honoured me with your trust and love"---- Her hands +turned and clasped his fervently. + +"Every hair of your head is precious to me. I would not knowingly +offend your feelings in any smallest thing.... We are here, cut off +from our kind, it may be, for ever.... We are as alone here with God, +as Adam and Eve were in The Garden.... You make my Paradise. You can +perfect it.... Will you?..." + +And for answer she put up her arms, and drew down his face, and kissed +him passionately, and clung to him as if she would never let him go. + +"I thank God for so precious a gift," he said, clasping her to him so +that she felt his heart pounding inside as furiously as her own. + +"Heart ... soul ... body ... all yours!" she whispered, and he kissed +her hair, because her face was hidden, and clasped her closer still. + +"It is the ordained crown of our love," he said presently, when their +first blinding whirl of emotion was over. "I cannot see that we offend +any law of man's, for here we are beyond the law. God's law we are +surely keeping.... And, so as not to act on simple impulse I have +thought that we would let another month go by before..." and he kissed +her rosy face again. + +"But why?" + +"Perhaps you have not thought it all out as I have----" + +"But I have ... I knew it must be so...." and the joy in him was very +great. + +"All the same, dear, we will not enter into that high estate without +your very fullest consideration.... And if you should find any reason +or instinct against it I shall abide by your decision." + +"I am all yours. I shall not change." + +"From what the mate said I imagine this island may pertain to Nova +Scotia. It is possible that Scottish law runs there.... We can take +one another for man and wife and place it on record...." + +"How?" + +"We have books with fly-leaves. Among the sand-hills you will find all +the quills you want. The birds are some use after all.... Anyone can +make a pen ... and ink we can always get even though it is red.... All +we need for a good Scots marriage is a pair of witnesses." + +"Seals, rabbits, birds...." + +"They cannot testify.... All we can do," he said thoughtfully, "if, by +God's mercy, we ever leave this place is to regularise ourselves by +proper marriage ashore as soon as we land. But the prospects of +getting away seem very small, I'm afraid." + +"We have been very happy here. We can still be very happy here," she +said contentedly. + +So amazing is this great power of Love in covering all deficiencies of +outward circumstance. + + + + +LIX + +The days slipped past, and each day he watched her quietly for +slightest sign of compunction, or retraction. And if such had come to +her, sore though he might have felt, and bereaved of the perfect +unfolding of the fair flower of their love, he would have choked the +feeling down, trampled on it, buried it so that she would have seen no +sign of it in him. For he recognised to the fullest what a mighty +thing this was that he was asking of her. + +But she understood him perfectly, fathomed his fears, was on the +look-out for his quietly-questioning looks, and met them with clear +full-eyed serenity and a face rosy at times with anticipation. + +"You need not fear for me," she laughed softly, one night as she lay in +his arm before the fire. "I shall not change." + +He clasped her closer. "I could not blame you if you did. From every +worldly point of view you would be right----" + +"What have we to do with worldly points of view? We are out of it all. +We are here alone, and like to be. And we are doing right in our own +eyes." + +"I would risk my soul on what seems right to these pure eyes," and he +bent and kissed them warmly. + +"Ten more days!" she murmured, and nestled closer, with her head on his +breast so that she could feel the strong beating of his heart. + +"It says 'Avice!--Avice!--Avice!'" he said quietly. "It is full of +Avice," and she pressed still closer. + + +So the great day came, the greatest day either of their lives had known. + +Wulf had found sleep impossible. His heart, full-charged, felt like to +burst its mortal bounds. He rose quietly in the dark and went out into +the soft twilight of the dawn--to greet the coming of the perfect day. +And she, as impossible of sleep as he, heard him in spite of all his +caution, and laughed softly to herself for very happiness in him and in +herself. And when he had gone, she thanked God for this great gift of +a true man's love, and for that in herself which responded to it so +fully. + +She had not a doubt nor a fear. The smallest of either would have +barred her from him. But there was not the smallest shadow between +them. Their hearts were one. It was meet and good that their lives +should be one also. Wulfrey paced the beach out there and found the +silent darkness soothing to his bounding senses. + +It was late April. The air was sweet and fresh. The sea just breathed +in its sleep and no more. The water rippled silently up the hard sand +with scarce a murmur. The darkness of the eastern sky thinned as he +paced and watched. There came a soft suffusion of light there. It +throbbed and grew. A faint touch of carmine outlined a cloud above it. +The darkness seemed to fade and melt out of the sky. All the tiny +clouds above him turned their faces to the east and flushed rose-red +with the joy of the new day. + +He climbed a hill and caught the first golden gleam of the rising sun. +His eyes shone, and his face. In his eyes two suns were reflected. +But there was only one sun. And they were two and now were to become +one. The Perfect Day had dawned. + +And just as she, lying in her bed with her face in her hands, had +thanked God for His goodness, so he. He flung his right hand up +towards the sun in the brightening sky and said deeply, "My God, I +thank Thee for this day and most of all for her!" + +And, down below, he saw her coming out of the house towards him. + +He sprang down to meet her, caught her hands, and looked right down +through her eyes into her heart, and was satisfied. + + + + +LX + +Arm in arm they paced the beach till the sun was well up, and their +bank of sand shone in the flood of golden light as it had never shone +before,--fresh and sweet as if but new-created. + +A light wind had come with the sun. The small waves came hurrying in +as though they were invited guests. At sight of the wedding-party they +broke into crisp white laughter, curled themselves over in league-long +sickles of tenderest lucent green, and raced up the sands to their feet +in long soft swirls of liquid amber, laced with bubbles and edged with +creamy foam. + +"They haste to the wedding, to pay their tribute to the only bride they +have ever set eyes on," said Wulf, as they stopped to watch them. "And +each one is glad to give his life for a single peep at her." + +"Foolish little waves," laughed she. "I am going to make their very +close acquaintance presently. How beautiful the sea is this +morning!"--as her eyes travelled out to the wide blue sweep beyond, +with its dapple of purple shadows. + +"The most beautiful sea and the most wonderful morning that ever was," +he asserted heartily. "But it is only a beginning. There will be many +more like it. And still better." + +"I am so glad it is so sweet a day. A dull one would have troubled me." + +"But it could not possibly have been anything else." + +"Oh, but it could." + +"In mere outward accident perhaps. But I've got the sun inside me. I +wonder it doesn't show through." + +"It does," she laughed joyously. "You are all aglow." + +"And never man had better reason. I would not change places with all +the kings of all the earth rolled into one." + +"Nor I with all the queens. We are happier here by far with nothing +but ourselves." + +"Ourselves, and our Love, and infinite Hope. Now let us go and eat. +My bride must not starve. That would be a bad beginning. Did you +sleep?" + +"Not a wink. I heard you go out." + +"And I was pluming myself on not having made a sound." + +While she was making cakes he busied himself making a pen out of a +quill he had picked up on the beach, and she smiled when she saw what +he was at. + +"And the ink?" she asked. + +"I've got it all ready. I always carry some with me in case of need," +at which she knitted her brows prettily and looked puzzled. + +After breakfast she said, "Now you must leave me for a couple of hours. +I am going to thank the waves for their good wishes and then I shall go +to the fresh-water pool." + +"You will be very careful.. You won't get yourself drowned." + +"I will be very careful. And you!" + +"I will go across to the spit. But when we are wed----" + +"Yes--then!" she nodded rosily, and he kissed her and went off past the +fresh-water pools, and splashed through the narrows that joined their +lake to the smaller one, and so to the shore and into the sea, for the +last time alone. + +He waited till he was sure she had done with their bathing-pool, and +then ran across and plunged into it, for the salt water braces, but +sticks and never makes one feel so clean as fresh. + +She was still busy with the princely brush and comb when he came on +her, and his heart leaped again at her fresh and radiant beauty. + +She had clothed herself all in spotless linen, swathed about her in +that marvellous fashion of which she held the secret to perfection. To +his rejoicing eyes she appeared half angel, half Vestal Virgin, yet all +bewitching human girl, and, best of all, his bride. + +"Be thankful you're a man, and delivered from this," she said, her eyes +shining through the glorious veil at his visible joy in her. + +"I'm thankful I'm a man, but I wouldn't have you relieved of that for +half the world. I glory in it," and he bent and kissed it. "For a +moment I thought you were an angel." + +"Perhaps I am." + +"I know you are. But, thank God, you're human too! Men don't wed with +angels.... I must go and dress myself also," and he disappeared into +the house. + +When, in due course, he came out, gallantly clad in a long blue coat +with flap-pockets, and figured vest, and white silk knee-breeches, and +stockings to suit, she first stared and then laughed. + +"My faith, but we are fine!" said she. "But, in truth, I like you best +as I have known you best. Do you marry in a dead man's clothes?" + +"Not if I know it. Sooner in my rags. But, to the best of my belief, +these belonged to your friend the Duke of Kent. Macro would have them, +but little he dreamed of the high use to which they would be put. I +borrow them for the occasion. His Highness would make no objection I +am sure." + +"I am sure he would not, and they become you well. But still I like +you best as I have known you best." + +"I will doff them presently. But you are so like a queen that I did +not like to come to you like a beggar." + +In his hand he had brought the Prayer-book, with the quill in a certain +place. + +He stepped up to her and lifted her hand to his lips. + +"You do not repent you of this we are about to do?" + +"I shall never repent it," she said, with dancing eyes. + +"Please God, and as far as in me lies, you shall never have cause to +repent it.... We are here, our two selves, with none to witness this +that we do but God.... We are doing what we believe to be right for +our own great happiness and well-being.... It would suffice, I +believe, for a Scots wedding, simply to declare ourselves man and wife. +But I have thought it would please us both to do something more. We +are not entering upon this new estate lightly or without due +thought.... It will, I know, be to both our minds and comforting to +both our hearts, to think that in our loneliness here we have done all +we could to supply the deficiencies for which we are not to blame." + +He spoke with very great emotion. She rejoiced in this fresh evidence +of the heights and depths of his nature and his essential goodness of +heart, though indeed she had not needed it. + +Her great dark eyes, fixed on his, were abrim with happy tears. + +"So," he continued, "We will read together the Form for the +Solemnization of Matrimony in this Prayer-book, and then we will +inscribe on the front leaf of it the fact that this day we have become +man and wife. We will sign our names to it, and we can do no more to +comply with man's law.... Is that your will, my dear?" + +"Yes." + +"Then here we will kneel and wed," and down they knelt in the sand, +with a clear sky and bright sun above, and the blue sea that held them +captive dancing and laughing in front; and holding the book between +them he read the Service aloud in a deep and reverent voice. + +Parts of it were of course somewhat incongruous to their situation, but +he would not slur or miss a word. The statement that they were +gathered together in the face of this congregation almost provoked her +to an explosion. For out of the corner of her eye, as she followed his +reading, a slight movement on the side of an adjacent sandhill showed +her a rabbit, sitting up and watching them with critical attention, and +it looked to her just like the frowsy old female in black she had seen +hovering about the skirts of a wedding in a London church. + +And there were parts that brought the colour to her face, though she +was familiar with them. Applied to oneself they seemed to hold new +point and meaning. + +However, he read bravely on. No one interfered to show any just cause +why they should not lawfully be joined together, nor had either of them +any confession of impediment to make. + +At the "Wilt thou----?" he answered heartily, "I will." And waited for +her to do the same when her turn came. + +When it came to--"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?"--he +answered boldly,--"God." + +Then they took hands and plighted their troth, reciting the words in +the book. + +But when it came to the putting on of the ring there came an interlude +not provided for in the Marriage Service. + +He had duly provided a plain gold wedding ring. + +"Where did you get it?" she asked with a look of surprise. + +"I found it among Macro's treasures." + +"It must be some dead woman's, then. I would sooner not. Can we not +leave that out? Will it make any difference?" + +"No, dear. It will make no difference to our being truly wed." + +"Then please go on without it." + +So they left the ring out and read on to the end together. + +He closed the book and drew her to him as they knelt, and kissed her as +his wife. + +"Now," he said, lifting her up. "We will put on record the most +wonderful thing that has ever happened on this island, and then we will +go home and prepare the marriage-feast.... I wonder now if James +Elwes, M.A., late of Brasenose College, Oxford, is aware of the high +use to which his Prayer-book is being put,"--as he pointed to the name +inscribed on the fly-leaf, and turned over to the blank on the other +side. + +"Do you think they know?" + +"I do not see why not. But as we never knew him, nor he us, it is +possible he is not present." + +And suddenly those words at the beginning of the Marriage Service +assumed a new and mighty significance for her. "In the face of this +congregation" might mean more than she had ever dreamed of. Perhaps +her mother had been there---- If she had, if she should be here +now--it, was somewhat startling to think of--she would be glad, for she +would know how good and true a man this was. + +But he was busily writing, and at the sight she cried, "Oh!"--for the +writing was red and the ink was drawn from a little jag he had made in +his arm. + +"In blood," she said, with a touch of dismay. + +"It could not be put to better use," he laughed. "It is all at your +service ... to the very last drop.... How begin better than by setting +down here that we are one till death?" + +"What you said made me think that perhaps my mother had been with +us----" + +"I am sure she was, and mine too.... They will both approve, you may +be sure.... Here is what I have written-- + +"'I, Wulfrey Dale, do hereby declare that I have this day taken Avice +Drummond to be my lawful wedded wife.' And for you, 'I, Avice +Drummond, do hereby declare that I have this day taken Wulfrey Dale to +be my lawful wedded husband.' Now I will sign.... And you will sign +there ... and I will add the date as far as we know it ... and our +present place of abode--Sable Island." + +He held the book till the writing was dry, then kissed her signature. +"It is the first time I have set eyes on your handwriting," he said. +"It is like yourself--clear and strong and true ... Mistress +Dale,"--with a smiling bow, as he handed her the book,--"your +marriage-lines! You will like to keep them." + +"And the pen, please," she said, holding out her hand for it, and +wrapping it and the book in a fold of her white robe. "These will be +more to me than all the treasures of the world." + +He put his arm round her and they went slowly home--man and wife. + + + + +BOOK V + +GARDEN OF EDEN + + + + +LXI + +Happy? If all newly-married folk could find such happiness as was +theirs, what a wonderful world it would be! + +From every worldly point of view they had nothing. They were outcasts, +paupers, dependent for the food they ate and the clothes they wore, on +Nature and the caprice of the sea. Yet, having nothing, they had +everything, since they had one another. + +If he had rejoiced in her before, and loved her with a love akin to +pain in the repression he subjected it to, he loved her now a thousand +times more, and she filled him with a joy that knew no bounds. Time, +he said to himself, would not suffice for all their love, it would fill +eternity. + +The days were never long enough for them. In this new joy of life and +perfected fellowship they forgot their years at times, and were like a +pair of children, endowed with the freedom of time and space and hearts +attuned to the most perfect enjoyment of these new attributes. + +They made long journeys and explored every inch of their +territory--sleeping out at times in the side of a sandhill under the +soft summer night. And those were wondrous times. + +--To lie there flat on their blanket, side by side, chin in hand like +children, his arm about her, and watch the red sun sink into the water +at the end of his fiery trail, while all the sky above burned crimson +right into the east behind them.--To watch, with bated breath, the +rabbits creeping out to feed and frolic about them, all unconscious of +their presence.--To lie and watch the colours fade slowly in the +darkening sky, and the stars come out till the whole dark dome was a +never-failing marvel of delight.--Or, on the other shore, to lie and +watch the moonbeams dancing on the sleeping bosom of the sea.--To feel +oneself oneself in the midst of it all--a part of it all--the height +and the width and the immensity and wonder of it all.--To feel his arm +enfolding her, and all that that meant to them both.--To feel the +warmth of life, and all the mighty joy of it, throbbing in her slender +body as he drew her closer.--To know, as he knew, that God lived and +had given her to him, and that she loved him with every fibre of her +being, as he loved her.... + +Happy? At times, so full was her heart that she wondered if such +happiness was right for mortals to enjoy, and so, if it could last. + +And when she shared that with him, as they shared everything in common, +he reasoned her back to comfort. + +"Happiness and health are life's proper conditions," he asserted, with +such hearty conviction that her doubts hid their heads. "Sorrow and +sickness come of trespass, somehow, somewhere, somewhen, though it is +not always easy to trace them back to first causes. But, without +doubt, people were meant to be as healthy and happy as it is possible +for them to be." + +"But I have known people suffer who, I am sure, never did any +wrong--none, that is, deserving of suffering such as they had. In +fact," she mused, "it seems to me that the good people suffer most and +the wicked prosper." + +"That is as we judge. But we see only the outsides of things and we +are purblind at best. Nature has certain laws, and God has certain +laws--though a parson could tell you more about these than I can. And +if those laws are broken the results have to be borne, and sometimes +they run on and on and fall on innocent people." + +"It doesn't seem very fair." + +"The laws cannot be altered for individuals or exceptional cases. +Fathers sin and the children suffer. But the blame is the fathers'." + +"Yes," she nodded, and perhaps she was thinking of her own case. + +"So you've no need to fear being as happy as you can," he added +quickly. "God meant you for happiness, and truly, I think we have more +certainty of it here than we might have had elsewhere." + +"I am sure of it and I am happy," and she nestled still closer under +his folding arm. + +But they had their strenuous working times as well, and enjoyed them +equally. He developed his new-found capacity for carpentering. Made +her more chairs and a table, added to the comfort of their house in +many ways. And she kept it all in perfect order, and attended to the +cooking, and proved herself a most admirable housewife and helpmate. + +They were down almost to fundamentals. Their life--partaking as it did +of the development of the ages, and so of the wider freedom of thought +and feeling, was the life of the ancients and not far from idyllic. + +The hunter went forth to the chase--though it was only rabbits--and the +fisherman to the lake, and brought home his spoils to his waiting mate, +and they ate of them and were content. + +They enjoyed the most perfect health, and for society they had one +another and desired no more--at all events, no outsiders. + +They had storms and mists and spells of dull weather, but their house +was proof against all assault from without, and warm and bright with +their abounding love. They had fire and light and books and +themselves, and always in time the sun shone out again, and they +enjoyed it the more perhaps for its frequent defaults. + +They had their trying times too. Stores had to be replenished from the +pile, and, after that dreadful experience before they were married, she +would not be left behind. + +"I do not care what happens if we are together," she said. "The worst +that could happen would be nothing compared with that other time," and +he could not gainsay her. + +So whenever he had to go she went also, and they chose their day with +care and made a picnic of it, and came home laden with spoils. + +Only once they got caught by one of those swift-travelling mists which +seemed to spring from nowhere. It swept over them just as they were +preparing to leave, and in the twinkling of an eye they were prisoners, +bound clammily to the pile till it should pass. For in that +close-clinging bank, as thick as wet cotton-wool, all sense of +direction was gone in a moment. They could not see a foot before them, +the pile was pitted with death-traps, a step might be fatal. + +They had both come lightly clad, for the day had been warm and the +wreckage claimed unhampered limbs. + +Fortunately they had come upon a case of blankets during their +operations. + +"Sit you down here," he said, as he felt her shivering under his arm, +"And I'll get you some blankets." + +"You won't get yourself lost?" she asked anxiously. + +"Not if you will keep calling to me," and he crawled away in search of +the case, while she sat calling, "Wulf ... Wulf ... Wulf," and he +answered her, "Avice ... Avice ... Avice," and at last a shout, "I've +got it." + +And presently his muffled "Avice ... Avice ... Avice," drew near again, +and he loomed through the fog like a creeping ghost, and taking her arm +they crept together from blanket to blanket, which he had spread as a +guide, till they came to the case itself. He hauled out more of its +contents till there was room inside for both of them, and they crawled +into their nest and in time got warm and comfortable. + +The fog showed no sign of lifting, so before it got quite dark he +crawled out again, she calling to him as before, and found a cask of +rum, of which there was always plenty about, and one of pork, and on +these they supped as best they could. + +The writhing and creaking of the pile, as the tide rose and fell, +caused her some alarm. But he explained it all to her, and after a +time she fell asleep with his arm about her, and they were wakened to a +clear bright morning by the shrieking and squabbling of the birds over +the barrel of pork, which he had left standing open. + +The barrel itself and all the pile adjacent seemed suddenly to have +sprouted feathers. It was alive with fiercely-beating wings and +jerking feathered necks and squirming feathered bodies, and cold hard +little glassy eyes, and cruel rending beaks, and shrill angry cries. + +"How hideous they are!" she said, shrinking back into the case. + +"It is the great fight for life. They seem always hungry." + +The barrel stood on end. The fortunate ones among the feathered +pirates wormed themselves in, and tore and rent at the food, regardless +of the shrill expostulations of their fellows and the beaks and claws +that tore and rent at them in turn, till the barrel itself was lost +under a seething mass of shrieking, fiercely-struggling birds. They +pecked at one another's glassy eyes, they struck wildly with their +wings, they clawed with somewhat futile feet, and all the time screamed +at the tops of their voices as though they were trying who could scream +the loudest. + +"I wish they'd empty it and go," said she, and he wrenched down a slat +of wood and leaned out with a blanket over his head and arm, and +succeeded at last in tipping the barrel over, and pork and pirates +rolled out together. + +It was all cleaned up in five minutes and the cloud drifted away after +other prey. The disappointed ones swooped round the empty barrel for a +time, and some of the bolder, or more hungry, or least intelligent, +came fluttering at the opening in the blanket-box as though set on +fresh meat at any cost, and he had to beat them back with his slat. It +was only when a score or more were flopping brokenly about the pile in +front of the box that the rest grew tired of so losing a game and sped +away to join the main body. As soon as the way was clear, he helped +her out of her nest and they got to their raft, and eventually safely +home. + +But that was only an incident, though it confirmed her dislike and +dread of the pile. She still always insisted on going with him when he +had to go, and at such times they laboured long and hard, and got in +supplies enough for many weeks, and so went out there as seldom as +possible. + + + + +LXII + +So, working, wandering, bathing, reading, hunting, fishing, eating, +sleeping, with hearts and minds stripped bare to one another and every +thought in common, they lived that first golden year of their married +life, and grew into still closer fellowship and communion, into still +clearer understanding of one another, into still greater +love,--although, at the beginning, all this would have seemed to them +impossible. But there are always heights and depths beyond, and will +be, until the final heights are scaled--and doubtless even then also. + +And now, to one such depth and height they were drawing near, with a +touch of not unnatural fear on her part, as to an experience unknown +and invested with all the possibilities of life and death, and new life. + +He cheered her with his own great confidence; and her reliance on his +professional knowledge, and the love he bore her, comforted her +mightily. But they both knew full well that, given all the knowledge +and love in the world, the certain issue of this great matter still lay +beyond the utmost power of man; and it sent them to their knees and +brought them nigher heaven than ever in their lives before. + +It also set her very busily to work on tiny garments, which she had to +contrive as best she could from her very scant materials. And it set +him to the making of a cradle out of a very carefully-cleaned and +sand-scrubbed pork-barrel, which turned out an immense success and +filled him with great pride of accomplishment. + +She was in the very best of health, without a trouble on her mind, and +rejoicing more than ever in his joy and pride in her. And these and +the free open-air life they led all made for good. He would not permit +her a despondent thought, though as the time drew near she not seldom, +for his sake, assumed a braver and more cheerful aspect than her heart +actually warranted. + +But all went well, and within a day or two of the anniversary of their +wedding-day, their son, Wulfrey, was born and proved himself at once a +true Islander, lusty both of lung and limb. + +Prouder and happier father and mother, and more wonderful baby, it is +safe to say that island never saw. And if their days had been full of +delight before, the coming of Little Wulf filled them quite three times +as full. For there was Little Wulf's own happiness, which was patent +to all,--and his mother's rapture in him, and his father's,--and his +father's mighty joy in them both,--and her joy in his joy,--and so on +all round the compass;--and deep below and high above and all through +it all, their unbounded thankfulness for safe deliverance from peril. + +If he had admired and loved her as a maid, and loved and rejoiced in +her as a wife,--as mother of his child he found himself at times dumb +with excess of delight. He could only sit and watch, with worshipful +eyes, and newer and deeper thoughts of that other Mother, and of The +Child whose coming had transformed the world. + +She got out the treasured old Prayer-book, and they read over him as +much as seemed applicable to his case of the Ministration of Private +Baptism of Infants, and then inscribed on the fly-leaf, under the +record of their marriage, his name, Wulfrey Drummond Dale, and the date +of his birth as nearly as they knew it--with the same pen as before, in +the same red ink, and from the same glad source. + +And now indeed their days were full, and their nights, for Master +Wulfrey had an appetite that brooked no waiting, and he ruled that +household with a lusty pair of lungs against which even equinoctial +gales strove in vain. + +But it was all part of the price of their joy in him, and they paid it +joyfully; and he repaid them tenfold by simply being alive and +permitting them to watch his vigorous kickings as he lay naked on a +blanket at their feet in the sunshine. + +Avice was speedily herself again, herself and so very much more. In +his rejoicing eyes all her beauty was clarified, dignified, emphasised +manifold, in a way that he would not have believed possible. + +It was his turn now, in spite of all his philosophy,--and at times hers +again also--to marvel at all that had been vouchsafed them, and to +wonder, with a fleeting touch of fear, if happiness so great could +possibly last. + +The sense of the mighty responsibility their love entailed was upon +them. Suppose, by any dire misfortune, he were to be taken away,--what +would happen to them? He believed her capable of rising to the +occasion for the boy's sake and doing man's work in his place, but it +would be a desperately hard fight for her. Suppose they should be +taken from him--either, both. God!--he could spare the boy best, but +it would be terrible to lose either. + +And suppose, thought she in turn, either of themselves should be taken! +Suppose they should both be taken!--Well, in that case the poor little +fellow would linger behind but a very short time. They would soon all +be together again. + +But such black thoughts, natural as they were, inevitable almost, still +partook, to both their minds, of basest ingratitude and lack of trust. +And yet they did high service, for, when they came upon them their +souls went down on their knees, and there they found strength and +joyousness again. + +Little Wulf--but they very early began to call him Cubbie, it seemed so +appropriate--fulfilled all the promise of his advent. He was a +marvellous child. He crawled vigorously at nine months, and headed +straight across the soft yellow sand for the water, like a true +Islander, born of freedom and the open air and the sunshine, the moment +he discovered this new power. And they followed him, foot by foot, +with beaming faces, as he wallowed along like a well-developed white +frog, digging his little snub nose into the sand at times, but gurgling +and laughing all the same, and struggling on without a look to right or +left, intent only on the water in front. + +At the lip of the tide, where it came creaming up the beach in long +soft swirls of amber, laced with bubbles and edged with filmy foam, she +was for snatching him up. But Wulf stayed her. He wanted to see what +the boy would do. + +He was no stranger to cold water, but he had so far met it only in a +tub, never in such quantity as this. He crawled on along the wet sand +and the soft swirl came rushing up to welcome him. It was quite two +inches deep. It filled him with astonishment and took away his breath. +Everything under him seemed on the move. He stiffened for a second on +his front paws, gave a huge bellow of amazement, tried to grab the +back-streaming water with both hands as a cat pounces on a mouse, and +then set off after it at top speed, and was swung up into the air by +his delighted father, and held there, kicking and crowing, and striving +still after the enchanted water below. + +"He'll do," laughed Wulf. "He'll swim as soon as he can walk. The +first native! And a credit to the Island!" + +Golden days! If the first year of their married life was all pure +gold, this second was gold overlaid with jewels of rare delight. Every +moment of it was happiness unalloyed. The boy throve mightily. Avice +was in the best of health and spirits, and to the eyes of her lover +grew more beautiful with every day that passed. + +What more could the soul of man desire? + + + + +LXIII + +Their Wulf Cub was fifteen months old, and could swim like a fish, and +run like a free-born savage, and talk in a jargon of his own which was +yet quite understandable to his parents, when his sister Avice came on +the scene. She took after her mother, and her father vowed there never +had been such a lovely child born into this world before. + +Their patriarchal life flowed on, deepening and widening, as it went, +and so far without any break in its smooth-swelling current. The great +gales, to which they had grown accustomed, piled up ever-increasing +supplies for them. Within certain narrow bounds they knew no lack, nor +would they though they lived there for a hundred years. On great +occasions the wreckage even yielded them luxuries of the commonplace +which in the former life they had looked upon as ordinary adjuncts to a +meal and accepted perfunctorily, without a thought of special +thankfulness. But here they were rarities, priceless delicacies to be +held in esteem and made the most of. Apples for example. Once their +western point was strewn thick with what seemed a whole ship-load of +delicious red apples. They had probably been packed in frail barrels +or cases which the waves made short work of, and the birds were +fortunately away. They spent days carrying them up above tide-level +and then transporting them home, and revelled in apples for weeks till +their stock went bad. Another time it was potatoes, which they had not +tasted for over three years. Wulf declared it was almost worth while +to have been denied them so long, to find such new relish in them now. +Avice regretted, for the children's sakes, that they could not have +them all the time. + +And that set him to planting a quantity in some of the damp bottoms by +the water-pools. They came up all right, but the rabbits cleared the +green shoots as fast as they appeared. Upon that he fenced off a patch +with some of his superfluous raft timber and planted more, and +succeeded in raising a small crop, but they were a degenerate race, +lacking the good soil which had gone to the making of their ancestors. + +Curiously enough, that fact started into expression trains of thought +that had been latent in both their minds. + +He had come in exultantly with his first fruits of the potato-patch, +Cubbie at his heels proudly bearing one in each hand, and Avice cooked +them rejoicingly and pronounced them excellent. + +"It will be so delightful to have potatoes again," said she. + +But he was critical of his own production, as the author of a +work--even though it be but a potato--may be allowed to be. "They have +neither the texture nor the flavour of the original stock," he said. +"I suppose they need better soil than our old sandbank can afford +them,"--and his eyes happened to fall on Cubbie munching away at a +potato, and hers lighted on the dark little head in her arm. The same +thought pricked both their hearts and their eyes met with understanding. + +As with potatoes--so with children. He and she, growths of the larger +world, had found unlooked-for happiness through the accident of their +transplantation to this outer isle. But they brought with them the +strength of heart and mind that had come to them through contact with +that other world. In many respects it was a vain and hollow world. +The change had made entirely for their good and happiness. + +But--these little ones! ... Were they to be condemned for ever to the +sweet narrow groove of this island life, which to their father and +mother, by reason of the wonder of their love, had been like Paradise? + +To the children no such transformation, no such veritable +transfiguration of life as had been theirs would be possible. + +They could, indeed, teach them all they knew themselves--all the +essentials at all events. They could train their hearts and brains to +highest things. But in time the children would feel what the island +life entailed and denied them--what their lives were missing. The +higher their development the keener would be their regrets. + +"Dear," he said, clasping her closer, as she lay in the hollow of his +arm before the fire that night, "I know what you are thinking. It came +on me, and it came to you, when I was criticising those degenerate +potatoes." + +"I suppose it must have been lurking somewhere in my heart," she said +quietly. "But it all came on me with a rush as you spoke. You and I +desire no better. It has been wonderful ... perfect happiness. But +for them...." + +"Yes," he said soberly. "For them it would be different. For them we +desire the very best. And here they cannot get it." + +And so they were face to face with the mighty problem which thenceforth +must of necessity be constantly in their minds and hearts. + +For themselves, all that the outside world could give them could add no +whit to their perfect content and happiness. + +But for the children's sakes ... how to cross that treacherous hundred +miles of sea which barred the way to the wider--in some respects +wider,--to the larger--in some respects larger,--to the questionably +happier life, which yet these newcomers must prove for themselves, as +was their right? + +They discussed it quietly and at great length that night, but could see +no way out, and for the moment he could find no further comfort for her +than this--and yet it was much,--"Providence, which has done so much +for us," said he, "may in time do this also. Meanwhile the Island life +is all to the good for them. They are splendid little specimens, and +if they run wild and free for some years they will reap the benefit all +their lives. We will hope and pray, and puzzle our brains for them." + +Hope they did. And pray they did. But no amount of brain-puzzling +afforded them any solution of their difficulty. + +Nothing in the shape of a boat had ever come ashore, and he had neither +the tools nor the skill to build one. And if he had done he would not +have dared to risk his wife and children in it for so doubtful a voyage. + +Wild ideas came upon him of constructing a raft stout enough for such a +journey and venturing on it himself, leaving Avice and the children, +fully provided for, to await his return with succour. But he knew she +would never hear of such madness, so sent it to limbo with the rest. + +He took to lighting huge fires of timber from the pile, as he had done +more than once before, but the wood burned brightly, with splendid +crackings and spittings which set Master Cubbie dancing with delight, +and the volume of smoke was trifling. It occurred to Wulf also that no +matter how dense a smoke he could raise it would, if seen at all, be +probably taken only for the cloud of sea-birds which were doubtless +known to mariners and avoided like death itself--when avoidance was +possible to them. + +That every ship that could do so kept well away from their notorious +bank was evident, for they had never set eyes on a single sail since +they landed. Of course their ordinary range from the level could not +be more than four or five miles, he supposed; and even from their +highest hill, which he reckoned to be sixty to eighty feet, they would +see but twice as far;--and nothing came so close to Sable Island as +that if it could help it. + +Still wilder ideas he had,--of tying messages to some of the birds' +legs--but they were such a vicious set that he knew they would get rid +of them at once,--of nailing messages to boards, to empty casks, to +anything that would float--but he knew they might float for a score of +years and never be found, even if the seas did not strip them within a +week. + +He was reduced at last to that certainty of knowledge which it is +always of highest benefit to man to attain,--that in this matter he was +as helpless as a child in arms. He could do absolutely nothing that +was of the slightest avail. And so he was thrown back upon, and led +and lifted up to, that complete and perfect trust in a Higher Power +which is the measure of a man's understanding of the great lesson of +life. + + + + +LXIV + +They had been five years on the Island. Little Wulf was three, Avice +two,--as healthy and handsome youngsters as the world could show. + +Life had been all joyous to them. All the year round, except just now +and again when unusual drift of ice came rustling and grinding about +their island, they trotted about with almost nothing on. They swam +before they could walk, and now were in and out of the water a dozen +times a day, and so they regarded clothing of any kind as a hindrance +to pure enjoyment and freedom of action, and their mother judged it +well to insist on no more than the most reasonable minimum. + +They never lacked friends or company, though truly the friendship was +mostly on their side and provokingly lacking in mutuality. Rabbits and +seals, especially baby-rabbits and baby-seals, were the chiefest +objects of their young affections, and they were sorely disappointed at +the small response their proffered friendship evoked. On crabs this +could be enforced by capture and imprisonment, but they found them +cold-blooded, impassive playfellows, of altogether too-retiring +dispositions, and only to be stirred into display of their natural +abilities by provocation. Sea-birds were just as bad in a different +way, and fishes were altogether too elusive until you wanted to eat +them, when a baited hook did the trick in a moment. + +That wonderful father of theirs, however, managed to capture a pair of +baby-rabbits, whose mother he had unfortunately knocked on the head for +dinner before he perceived the mischief he was doing. The babies were +welcomed with shrieks of delight and were like to be killed with the +expression of it. The youngsters spent hours flat on their stomachs +watching them in their boarded enclosure alongside the house, and more +hours foraging for them the sweetest and tenderest herbs the hollows +could yield. And presently the captives became friends, and were so +comfortable in their narrow estate that they had no desire for a wider, +but galloped about after their owners wherever they went, and sat +anxiously twisting their noses on the beach when the irrepressibles +found it necessary to wallow and frolic in the water. + +At times, for a change, they lived aboard the 'Jane and Mary' for a +week or two, but Mistress Avice always had a very reasonable fear of +one or other or both of the children tumbling overboard, and so the +greater part of their life was passed ashore, with the sand-house as +headquarters and all the rest of the island as playground. + +That a life so circumscribed should never have grown monotonous tells +its own pleasant story. But the youngsters had known no other life +with which to compare it, and their elders, who had, found it fuller +and sweeter in its pastoral simplicity than any the great world had +ever offered them. + +Every moment of their day was occupied, if not with work, then with +enjoyments. The elders had to provide for the youngsters, and these +again for theirs; and when every single thing must be drawn from Nature +or from an accommodating but distant wreck-pile, such provision takes +time and forethought. + +When the day's work was completed they all bathed and rambled far and +wide, and it was on one such ramble, when they had gone as far along +towards the eastern end of the Island as small legs could carry, that +the end came--as suddenly as had come the beginning. + +They were sitting on the sunny side of a great sand-hill, eating and +resting after their journey,--resting, that is, so far as the elders +were concerned. The youngsters, who had found walking tiring, or +perhaps tiresome, found no fatigue in scrambling to the tops of +sandhills and sliding down the smooth soft sides with shouts and +shrieks of laughter. + +A cessation in the sport drew their father's and mother's eyes to them. +They were both standing on the hill-top gazing eagerly out to sea and +chattering to one another. + +"Seals probably," said their mother. From where they sat they could +not see the shore for an intervening ridge. And seals were always a +mighty attraction to the children. + +But when they began dancing excitedly on their hill-top their father +called, "What is it you see, Cubbie?" + +"Somefing, dad! Somefing funny." + +"Somefing funny!" repeated little Avice eagerly, and the elders got up +lazily and slowly climbed the hillside to see what it was. + +"My God!" said Wulfrey, as his eyes cleared the top first, and he +turned and kissed his wife joyously. + +"Thank God!" she breathed deeply, as her eyes also lighted on that +which was coming. + +For there, not half a mile away, was a white boat manned by blue +sailors, leaping towards the shore as fast as eight lusty oars could +drive her, and out beyond her, probably three miles away, was a +white-sailed ship of size. + +Wulfrey shouted and waved his arms. The children immediately did the +same, and the regular rise and fall of the oars stopped suddenly as +every eye in the boat turned on them. There were men in the stern with +gilt on their hats. Then the oars fell-to again and the boat came +bounding on. Wulfrey and Avice picked up each their namesakes, and +plunged down the hill and ran round the ridge to the shore. + +With a final lunge the boat came up the beach, and a tall man rose in +the stern and asked, "Who, in heaven's name, are you, and what are you +doing here?"--while nine pairs of eager eyes raked over the little +party. + +"I am Dr Wulfrey Dale, of Hazelford in Cheshire. This is my wife--and +our children. We have been here five years." + +"Good God! Five years!"--he was ashore by this time, and the rest +tumbled hastily out and stood about them, the burly sailors listening +with one ear and trying to make up to the children, who gazed with +wondering awe at the only men they had ever seen except their father. +"How on earth have you lived? ... Five years! ... Not all of you," he +said with a smile. + +"Not all of us. The children were born here. We were afraid we would +all have to live and die here. I thank God you are come. What brought +you?" + +"We've been sent to prospect with a view to a lighthouse here. There +has been an outcry about the number of wrecks----" + +"Ay, there are hundreds over yonder," said Wulfrey, pointing westward. +"They have kept us alive, but the cost to others has been heavy." + +"And where do you live?" + +"Come and I'll show you--or will you take us along in the boat? It's +good four miles over that way." + +"Boat'll be easiest. Sand's heavy walking. How long can we count on +this weather?" + +"Oh, for a week at least. It's our best time of year." + +"You will take us home?" asked Avice eagerly, when they had climbed +into the boat and were swinging along parallel to the shore, the +children staring in a vast silence and with rounded eyes at the bearded +sailor-men and their amazing ways. + +"As far as our service permits, madame, we will do anything and +everything you wish. We return to Halifax in Nova Scotia, but once +there you will have no difficulties." + +"That is where we want to go," said Wulfrey.... "Better keep out a bit +here. There are ridges below there.... Now if you will turn in." + +"What's that? A ship?" asked the tall man, and all eyes shot round to +the bare poles of the 'Jane and Mary' snowing over the sandhills. + +"A schooner, land-locked in a lagoon. That was our first home. Now we +live ashore." + +"And you've been all alone all that time?" + +"We had one companion, the mate of the ship.... He died four years +ago. Since then none have come but the dead.... We can get in here, I +think." + +The boat ran softly up the beach again, the sailors carried out Avice +and the children, and they all struck up through the sandhills to the +house. + + + + +THE END + + + + +PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. + +PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND. + +1917. + + + + + WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + GOD'S PRISONER + RISING FORTUNES + OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE + A PRINCESS OF VASCOVY + JOHN OF GERISAU + UNDER THE IRON FLAIL + BONDMAN FREE + MR. JOSEPH SCORER + BARBE OF GRAND BAYOU + A WEAVER OF WEBS + HEARTS IN EXILE + THE GATE OF THE DESERT + WHITE FIRE + GIANT CIRCUMSTANCE + PROFIT AND LOSS + THE LONG ROAD + CARETTE OF SARK + PEARL OF PEARL ISLAND + THE SONG OF HYACINTH + MY LADY OF SHADOWS + GREAT-HEART GILLIAN + A MAID OF THE SILVER SEA + LAURISTONS + THE COIL OF CARNE + THEIR HIGH ADVENTURE + QUEEN OF THE GUARDED MOUNTS + MR. CHERRY + THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN ROSE + MARY ALL-ALONE + RED WRATH + BEES IN AMBER (VERSE). 10th edition. + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Maid of the Mist, by John Oxenham + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAID OF THE MIST *** + +***** This file should be named 37954.txt or 37954.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/9/5/37954/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +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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