STRONG KNOTS OF LOVE
At six o'clock the night had closed in. It was as black as ink. Not a star had appeared, but a sharp southwest wind was blowing, and the night might lighten later on. In the cottage on the "brew" a bright turf-fire was burning, and it filled the kitchen with a ruddy glow. Little Ruby was playing on a sheep-skin before the hearth. Old Mrs. Cregeen sat knitting in an armchair at one side of the ingle. Her grave face, always touching to look at, seemed more than ever drawn down with lines of pain. Every few minutes she stopped to listen for footsteps that did not come, or to gaze vacantly into the fire. Mona was standing at a table cutting slices of bread-and-butter. At some moments her lips quivered with agitation, but she held the knife with the steady grasp of a man's hand. Pale and quiet, with the courage and resolution on every feature, this was the woman for a great emergency. And her hour was at hand. Heaven grant that her fortitude may not desert her to-night. She needs it all.
A white face, with eyes full of fear, looked in at the dark window. It was Danny Fayle. "Come in," said Mona; but he would not come. He must speak with her outside. She went out to him. He was trembling with excitement. He told her that Kerruish Kinvig had returned, and brought with him the men from Castle Rushen. There were eight of them. They had been across to the old castle and had opened a vault in St. Patrick's chapel. There they had found rolls of thread lace, casks of wines and spirits, and boxes of tea. This was not important, but Danny had one fact to communicate which made Mona's excitement almost equal to his own. In a single particular the arrangement suggested by herself and agreed upon with Mylrea, the magistrate, had been altered. Instead of the whole eight men going over to the castle, four only, with Kinvig as guide, were to be stationed there. The other four were to be placed on the hill-side above Bill Kisseck's house to watch it.
This change was an unexpected and almost fatal blow to the scheme which Mona had all day been concocting for the relief ofthe men on the "Ben-my-Chree" from the meshes in which she herself had imprisoned them.
Mona's anxiety was greatest now that her hope seemed least. Rescue the men—Christian being one of them—she must, God helping her. Like a sorceress, whose charm has worked only too fatally, Mona's whole soul was engaged to break her own deadly spell. She conceived a means of escape, but she could not without help bring her design to bear. Would this lad help her? Danny? She had seen the agony of his despair wither up the last gleam of sunshine on his poor, helpless face.
"Did you say that Mr. Kinvig is to be with the men in the castle?"
"Yes," said Danny.
"Is Mr. Mylrea to be with others above your uncle's house?"
"No. They wanted him, but he was too old, he was sayin', and went off to find Christian and send him to be a guide to the strangers."
"That is very good," said Mona, "and we can manage it yet. Danny, do you go off to the castle—the tide is down; you can ford it, can't you?"
"If I'm quick. It's on the turn."
"Go at once. The men are not there now, are they?"
"No, they came across half an hour ago."
"Good. They'll return to the castle just before nine. Go you at this moment. Ford it, and they'll see no boat. Hide yourself among the ruins—in the guard-room—in the long passage—in the cell under the cathedral—in the sally-port—among the rocks outside—anywhere—and wait until the Castle Rushen men arrive. As soon as they are landed and out of sight, get you down to where they have moored their boat, jump into it and pull away. That will cut off five of the nine, and keep them prisoners on the Castle Rock until to-morrow morning's ebb tide."
"But where am I to go in the boat?" asked Danny.
Mona came closer. "Isn't it true," she whispered, "that Kisseck and the rest of them go frequently to the creek that they call the Lockjaw?"
"How did you know it, Mona?"
"Never mind, now, Danny. Do you pull down to the Lockjaw; run ashore there; climb the brow above, and wait."
"Wait?—why—until when?"
"Danny, from the head of the Lockjaw you can see the light on the end of the pier. I've been there myself and know you can. Keep your eye fixed on that light."
"Yes, yes; well, well?"
"The moment you see the light go down on the pier—no matter when—no matter what else has happened—do you that instant set fire to the gorse about you. Fire it here, there, everywhere, as if it were the night of May-day."
"Yes; what then?"
"Then creep down to the shore and wait again."
"What will happen, Mona?"
"This—Kisseck and the men with him will see your light over the Lockjaw, and guess that it is a signal of danger. If they have half wit they'll know that it must be meant for them. Then they'll jump into their boat and pull down to you."
"When they come, what am I to say?"
"Say that the police from Castle Rushen are after them; that four are cut off in the castle, and four more are on the Horse Hill above Contrary. Tell them to get back, every man of them, to Kisseck's house as fast as their legs will carry them."
Danny's intelligence might be sluggish at ordinary moments, but to-night it was suddenly charged with a ready man's swiftness and insight. "But the Castle Rushen men on the Horse Hill will see the burning gorse," he said.
"True—ah, yes, Danny, that's tr—. I have it! I have it!" exclaimed the girl. "There are two paths from the Lockjaw to Kisseck's house. I walked both of them with Ruby, yesterday. One goes above the open shaft of the old lead mine, the other below it. Tell the men to take the low road—thelowroad; besureyou say the low road—and if the police see your fire I'll send them along the high road, and so they will pass with a cliff between them. That's it, thank God. You understand me, Danny? Are you quite sure you understand everything—every little thing?"
"Yes, I do," said the lad, with the energy of a man.
"When they get to Kisseck's cottage let them smoke, drink, gamble, swear—anything—to make believe they have never been out to-night. You know what I mean?"
"I do," repeated the lad.
He was a new being. His former self seemed in that hour to drop from him like a garment.
Mona looked at him in the dim light shot through the window from the fire, and for an instant her heart smote her. What was she doing with this lad? What was he doing for her? Love was her pole-star. What was his? Only the blank self-abandonment of despair. For love of Christian she was risking all this. But the wild force that inspired the heart of this simple lad was lovefor her who loved another. Whose was the nobler part, hers who hoped all, or his who hoped nothing? In the darkness she felt her face flush deep. Oh, what a great little heart was here—here, in this outcast boy; this neglected, down-trodden, despised, and rejected, poor, pitiful waif of humanity.
"Danny," she murmured, with plaintive tenderness, "it is wrong of me to ask you to do this for me—very, very wrong."
His eyes were dilated. The face, hitherto unutterably mournful to see, was alive with a strange fire. But he said nothing. He turned his head toward the lonely sea, whose low moan came up through the dark night.
She caught both his hands with a passionate grasp. "Danny," she murmured again, "if there was another name for love that is not—"
She stopped, but her eyes were close to his.
He turned. "Don't look like that," he cried, in a voice that went to the girl's heart like an arrow.
She dropped his hands. She trembled and glowed. "Oh, my own heart will break," she said; "to love and not be loved, to be loved and not to love—"
* * * * * * * * * * * *
["I think at whiles I'd like to die in a big sea like that."]
Mona started. What had recalled Danny's strange words? Had he spoken them afresh? No.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"Danny," she murmured once more, in tones of endearment, and again she grasped his hands. Their eyes met. The longing, yearning look in hers answered to the wild glare in his.
"Don't look at me like that," he repeated, with the same low moan.
Mona felt as if that were the last she was ever to see of the lad in this weary world. He loved her with all his great, broken, bleeding heart. Her lips quivered. Then the brave, fearless, stainless girl put her quivering lips to his.
To Danny that touch was as fire. With a passionate cry he flung his arms about her. For an instant her head lay on his breast. "Now go," she whispered, and broke from his embrace.
THE FLIGHT AND PURSUIT
Danny tore himself away with heart and brain aflame. Were they to meet again? Yes. For one terrible and perilous moment they were yet to stand face to face. As he ran down the road toward the town, Danny encountered a gang of men with lanterns, whooping, laughing, singing carols, and beating the bushes. It was the night before Christmas-eve, and they were "hunting the wren." Tommy Tear and Davy Cain were among them. Danny heard their loud voices, and knew they had trapped the harbor-master. The first act in to-night's tragedy had begun.
Two hours and a half later Mona passed the same troop of men. They were now standing in the Market-place. Tommy Tear and Davy Cain had a long pole from shoulder to shoulder, and from this huge bracket a tiny bird—a wren—was suspended. It was one of their Christmas customs. Their companions came up at intervals and plucked a feather from the wren's breast. Tommy-Bill-beg was singing a carol. A boy held a lantern to a crumpled paper, from which the unlettered coxcomb pretended to sing.
Mona hurried on. Her immediate destination was the net factory. There she found the company of nine or ten men. She was taken into the midst of them. "This is the young woman," shouted Kerruish Kinvig; "and when some of you fellows," he added, "have been police for fifty years, and are grown gray in the service, you may do worse than come here and go to school to this girl of two-and-twenty."
There was some superior and depreciatory laughter, and then Mona was required to repeat what she knew. When she had done so she did not wait for official instructions. She quietly and resolutely announced her intention of going on to the cliff-head above Contrary with a lantern in hand. When the light on the pier was run down by the fishing-boat, she would light her lantern and turn it toward the castle as a sign to the men in hiding there. The determination and decision of this girl brooked no question. The police agreed to her scheme. And had she not been the rootand origin of all their movements, and the sole cause that they were there at all?
But Mona had yet another proposal, and to herself this last was the most vital of all. The four men who were to watch Bill Kisseck's house must have a guide, or by their lumbering movements they would awaken suspicion, and the birds would be frightened and not snared. Christian had not been found. "He's off to Ramsey, no doubt," suggested Kinvig. "I'll be guide to you myself," said Mona. "I'll take you to the Head, place you there, and then go off to my own station." And so it was agreed. It is not usually a man's shrewdness that can match a woman's wit at an emergency like this. And then the men in this case were police—a palliating circumstance!
Half an hour passed, and Mona was on the cliff-head. She had so placed the four men that they could not see her own position or know whether she duly and promptly lit her lantern or not. The night was still very dark. Not a star was shining; no moon appeared. Yet, standing where she stood, with the black hill behind her, she could at least descry something of the sea in front. The water, lighter than the land, showed faintly below. Mona could trace the line of white breakers around the Castle Isle. If a boat's sail came close to the coast, she could see that also. The darkness of the night might aid her. There was light enough for her movements, but too little for the movements of the four strangers behind her.
Mona saw the boat leave the shore that carried Kinvig and his four assistants across the strait to the castle. In a moment she lost it in the black shadow. Then she heard the grating of its keel on the shingle, and the clank of the little chain that moored it.
Now everything depended on Danny. Had the lad wit enough to comprehend all her meaning? Even if so, was it in human nature to do so much as she expected him to do from no motive, but such as sprang from hopeless love? God brighten the lad's dense intellect for this night at least! Heaven ennoble our poor, selfish, uncertain human nature for one brief hour!
Mona strained her ear for the splash of an oar. Danny ought to be stirring now. But no; Mona could hear nothing but the murmur of the waters on the pebbles and their distant boom in the bay.
Look! coming up to the west coast of the castle were the sails of a fishing-boat silhouetted against the leaden sky. It was a lugger. Mona could see both mainmast and mizzen with mainsail and yawl. It was the "Ben-my-Chree." Christian was there, andhe was in deadly peril. She herself had endangered his liberty and life. The girl was almost beside herself with terror.
But look again! Though no sound of oars could reach her, she could now see the clear outline of a boat scudding through the lighter patch of water just inside the castle's shadow. It was Danny! God bless and keep him on earth and in heaven! How the lad rowed! Light as the dip of a feather, and swift as the eagle flies! Bravely, Danny, bravely!
The clock in the tower of the old church in the Market-place was striking. How the bell echoed on this lonely height!—six, seven, eight, nine! Nine o'clock? Then the merchantman ought to be near at hand. Mona strained her eyes into the darkness. She could see nothing. Perhaps the ship would not come. Perhaps Heaven itself had ordered that the man she loved should be guiltless of this crime. Merciful Heaven, let it be so! let it be so!
The fishing-boat had disappeared. Yes, her sails were gone. But out at sea, far out, half a league away—what black thing was there? Oh, it must be a cloud; that was all. No doubt a storm was brewing. What was the funny sailor's saying that Ruby laughed at when Danny repeated it? No, no! it was looming larger and larger, and it was nearer than she had thought. It was—yes, it was a sail. There could be no doubt of it now. The merchantman was outside, and she was less than half a mile away.
Bill Kisseck and the three men who were to go ashore on the west of the Castle Isle must now have landed. Christian was one of them. Within fifty yards five men lay in wait to capture them. See, the "Ben-my-Chree" was fetching away to leeward. She was doubling the island rock and coming into harbor. How awkwardly the man at the tiller was tacking. That was a ruse, lest he was watched. To Mona the suspense of the moment was terrible. The very silence was awful. She felt an impulse to scream.
What about Danny? Had he reached the Lockjaw?
He must have rowed like a man possessed, to be there already. The "Ben-my-Chree" would sweep into harbor at the next tack. Could Danny get up onto the pier in time to see the lamp on the pier go down?
Mona could see the black outline of the Lockjaw headland from where she was stationed. Her heart seemed to stand still. She turned her eyes first to the pier, then to the Lockjaw, and then to the cloud of black sail outside that grew larger every instant.
Look again—the fishing-boat is coming in; she is almost covering the lamp on the pier; she has swept it down; it is gone, andall is blank, palpable darkness. Mona covers her eyes with her hands.
Is Danny ready? Quick, quick, Danny; one minute lost and all is lost! No light yet on the Lockjaw.
Bravo! Mona's heart leaps to her mouth. Thereisa light on the Lockjaw Head! Thank God and poor dear Danny forever and ever.
And now, the lamp down, the gorse burning, the merchantman drawing nearer and nearer, what must Mona herself do? She had promised to give the sign to the men in the castle the instant the light on the pier was run down. Then they would know that it was not too soon to pounce down on Kisseck and his men, with part of their plot—the least dangerous part, but still a punishable part—carried into effect. But Mona did not light her lantern. She never meant to do it so soon. She must first see some reason to believe that Christian and his companions had taken Danny's warning.
She waited one minute—two, three. No sign yet. Meantime the black cloud of sail in the bay was drawing closer. There were living men aboard of that ship, and they were running on to the rocks. This suspense was agony. Mona felt that she must do something. But what?
If she were to light her lantern now, she might save the merchantman; but then Christian would be pounced upon and taken. If she were not to light her lantern soon, the ship would be gored to pieces on the Castle Isle, and perhaps all hands would be lost. What was Mona to do? The tension was terrible.
She strode up and down the hillside—up and down, up and down.
Three minutes gone—a fourth minute going. Not a sound from the west coast of the castle. Perhaps Christian, Kisseck, and the rest had not landed. She must not let the merchantman be wrecked. Her lantern must be lighted for the crew's sake. Yes; they were men, living men—men with wives who loved them, and children who climbed to their knees. Mona thought of Christian and of Ruby. It was a fierce moment of conflicting passion.
Four minutes at least had gone. Mona had decided to light her lantern, come what would or could. She was in the act of doing so, when she heard footsteps on the cliff behind her. The four strangers had seen the light on the pier go down. They thought it must be time for them to be moving. Either Kinvig and the other four in the castle had taken their men, or they had missed them. In either case their own time for action had gone.
Mona, in a fever of excitement, affected certain knowledge that Kisseck's men must be captured. She recommended the police to go down to the shore and wait quietly for their friends. But at that moment they caught sight of Danny's fire on the Lockjaw Head. They suspected mischief, and declared their intention of going off to it.
At the same moment Mona's quicker eyes, now preternaturally quick, caught sight of a boat clearing the west coast of the Castle Rock, and sailing fast toward the Lockjaw. It was Christian's boat. Again Mona felt an impulse to scream.
And now there came loud shouts from the castle. At the sign of Mona's lantern, Kinvig and his followers had leaped out of their ambush, only to find their men gone. Then they had run off to the creek in which they had left their boat, meaning to give chase—only to find that the boat had disappeared. There had been treachery somewhere. They were imprisoned on the Castle Rock, and so they shouted, loud and long, to their comrades on the cliff.
Mona thought she would have laughed yet louder and longer had she dared. But the police were still with her, and the desire to laugh was quickly swallowed up in fresh fear. She took the strangers to the high path that led to the Lockjaw. "Follow this," she said, "and take no other, as you value your limbs and necks." She told them to be very careful as they passed the open shaft of the old lead mine. It would lie three yards on their right. Away they went.
What had happened to the merchantman? She had seen danger, and was already beating down the bay. She and her crew were safe. Putting down the lantern on the hillside, Mona ran with all speed to Kisseck's cottage. In the darkness she almost stumbled down the little precipice on to the back of the roof. Running round the path, she pushed her way into the house. Bridget Kisseck was there. In breathless haste Mona told the woman that the police were after Kisseck and his friends; urged her to get pipes, tobacco, cards, ale, spirits, and the like on the table. The men would be here in three minutes. They must make pretense that they had never been out.
Then Mona ran back to the angle of the two mountain paths, the high path and the low one.
Bridget, who had not comprehended Mona's instructions, took fright at her intelligence, put on her shawl and bonnet, and, without waiting for her husband, hurried away to the town.
"BILL IS GONE TO BED"
What was happening to Danny at the Lockjaw Creek?
Throughout two hours and a half he had lain in the cold, motionless and silent, among the rocks outside the castle. When the time came he had leaped into the boat which the police brought with them, and pulled away. He had strained every muscle to reach the Poolvash, knowing full well that if he gained it one minute late it might be indeed the bay of death. Before he had crossed that point at which the two streams meet midway in the strait he could see the "Ben-my-Chree" tacking into the harbor. Then, indeed, he sculled with all his strength. He ran ashore. He mounted to the cliff-head. With the matches in his hand he peered through the darkness to where the lamp still burned on the end of the pier. Yes, he was in time. But what was the red riot that was now rising in his heart?
It was then, and not till then, that the thought came to him, "What am I here for?" What for? Who for? Why? It was a moment of blank bewilderment. Then in an instant, as if by a flash of lightning, everything became plain. Mona, Christian, Ruby—these three, linked together for the first time in the lad's mind, flashed the truth, the fact, the secret upon him. Danny had at length stumbled into the hidden grave. He saw it all now. What had lain concealed from other and wiser heads, vainer heads, heads lifted above his in lofty pride, was revealed to his simple intelligence and great yearning heart.
Yes, Danny knew now why he was there. It was to save the life of the man who was beloved by the woman whom he loved.
The world seemed in that moment to crumble beneath his feet. He dropped his eyes in deep self-abasement, but he raised them again in self-sacrifice and unselfish love. There was no doubt as to what he should do. No, not even now, with the life of Christian in the palm of his hand. Some power above himself controlled him.
"For her sake," he whispered. "Oh, for her sake, for all," he murmured, and at that moment the light on the pier went down.
He struck his matches and lighted the gorse. It was damp, and at first it would not burn. It dried at last and burst into flame. Then the lad crept down to the water's edge and waited.
The water lay black as the raven outside, but the light of the burning gorse overhead gilded the rolling wavelets at his feet.
In five minutes the dingey of the "Ben-my-Chree" shot into the creek, and four men leaped ashore. One was Kisseck, another Christian, and the other two were Paul Corteen and Luke Killip. All were violently agitated.
"What for is all this, you young devil?" cried Kisseck. "What does it all mean?—out with it, quick!—what tricks have you been playing? Damn his fool's face, why doesn't he speak?"
And Kisseck struck the lad, and he fell. Danny got up strangely quiet, strangely calm, with great wide eyes, and a face that no man could look on without fear. Kisseck trembled before it, but—from dread alone and without waiting for a word of explanation—he raised his hand once more.
Christian interposed. Danny told his story; how the police were on the cliff-head as well as the island; how they would certainly make for this spot; how Mona Cregeen would send them along the high path; and how they—Kisseck, Christian, and the others—were to take the low path, get back with all haste to the cottage, and make pretense that they had never been out.
Christian started away. He had climbed the precipitous cliff-head in a minute, the others following. When they reached the top, Danny was side by side with his uncle, staring with wild eyes into his face. Kisseck stopped.
"——, what for do you look at me?" he cried. Then again he lifted his hand and struck the lad and threw him. When Danny rose to his feet after this second blow he laughed aloud. It was a laugh to freeze the blood. Christian turned back. He took Kisseck by the shoulder. "By ——," he said, between gusts of breath, "touch him again and I'll pitch you into the sea."
Kisseck was silent and cowed. There was no time to stand quarreling there. "Come on," cried Christian, and he set off to run. He speedily outran the rest, and they lost sight of him.
The two paths that led to the Lockjaw came together within a hundred yards at the end. In the darkness, in the confusion, in the turmoil of soul, Christian missed the lower path and followed the higher one. He did not realize his mistake. Running at his utmost speed, however, he heard footsteps in front of him. They were coming toward him. They were the footsteps of the police.Christian was uncertain what to do. For himself he cared little. But he thought of his father, of Mona, of little Ruby, and then life and fame were dear.
The cliff was on the right of him, as he supposed, the sea on the left. He reckoned that he must be near to Kisseck's cottage now. Perhaps he could reach it before the men came up to it. They were drawing very close. Along the higher path Christian ran at his utmost speed.
Ah! here is the cottage, nearer than he had expected. He must have run faster than he supposed. In the uncertain light Christian sees what he takes to be the old quarry. There is no time to go round by the road and in at the front. He must leap down the back of the shallow quarry, light on the thatch, and lie there for a minute until the men have passed.
He runs, he leaps, but—he has jumped down the open shaft of the old disused lead mine.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Meantime Kisseck and Danny Fayle, with Corteen and Killip, found the low path and followed it. They heard the strangers pass on the high path, but they were themselves running softly on the thin grass, and a cliff was between the police and them. When they got to the angle of the roads and turned down the footpath in front of the house they passed Mona. As they entered, "Who was that woman?" said Kisseck.
"Mona," answered Danny.
"Damn her, I'll lay my soul that craythur is at the bottom of it all."
Danny's dilated eyes flashed fire. But he was otherwise outwardly quiet and calm.
"Where's that other fellow—Christian?" said Kisseck. "Hehas led me into all this cursed mess."
"That's a lie," said Danny, with the color gone from his cheeks.
Kisseck walked across to him with uplifted arm. Never flinching, the lad waited for the blow. Kisseck dropped his hand. Curling his lip in biting mockery, he said, "What for is that she-devil sthrowling around here?"
One bright spot of blood came into the lad's face, and as he drew in his breath it went through his teeth. But he was silent still.
"She has the imperience of sin," said Kisseck. "If she comes here she'll suffer for it."
Danny walked to the door and pushed the bolt. Kisseck laughed bitterly.
"I knew it," he said. "I knew she was in it. But I'll punish her. Out of the way, you idiot waistrel."
There was a hurried step on the road outside.
Danny put his back to the door. His eyes melted, and he cried beseechingly:
"You'll not do that, Uncle Bill?"
"Out of the road, you young pauper," cried Kisseck; and he took hold of Danny and thrust him aside.
"Youshall notdo it," screamed the lad, running to the hearth and snatching up a poker.
All Danny's unnatural quiet had forsaken him.
There was a knock at the door, and an impatient footstep to and fro.
Kisseck walked into an inner room, and came back with a pistol in his hand.
"Men, don't you see it plain? That woman is at the bottom of it all," he said, turning to Corteen and Killip, and pointing, as he spoke, to the door. "She brought us here to trap us, and now she has come to see if we are at home. She has the men from Castle Rushen behind her; but she shall pay for it with her life. Out of the way, I say. Out—of—the—way."
Danny was standing again with his back to the door. He had the poker in his hand. Kisseck put the pistol on a table, and closed with Danny to push him aside. There was a terrible struggle. Amid curses from Kisseck and shouts from Corteen and Killip, the poker was wrenched from Danny's grasp and thrown on the floor. The lad himself was dragged away from the door, and the bolt was drawn.
Then in an instant Danny rushed to the table and picked up the pistol. There was a flash, a deafening explosion, a shriek, a heavy fall, and Kisseck rolled on the floor dead.
Danny staggered back to the door, the hot pistol still in his hand. He was petrified. His great eyes seemed to leap out of his head. When the smoke cleared he saw what he had done. His lips moved, but no words came from him. The other men were speechless. There was a moment of awful silence. Then, once more, there came a knock at the door against which Danny leaned.
Another knock. No answer. Another—louder. Still no reply.
"Bridget," cried a voice from without. It was Mona's voice.
"Bridget, let me in. What has happened?"
No one stirred.
"Bridget, they are coming. Tell the men to go off to sea."
None spoke or moved. The latch was lifted, but in vain.
"Bridget—Christian—Christian!"—(knocking continued).
"Kisseck—Kisseck—Bill Kisseck—Bill!"
At last one of the men found his voice:
"Bill is gone to bed," he said, hoarsely.
A RESURRECTION INDEED
"The night is long that never finds the day."—Macbeth
The shaft of the old lead-mine down which Christian leaped was forty-five feet deep, yet he was not killed; he was not even hurt. At the bottom were fifteen feet of water, and this had broken his dreadful fall. On coming to the surface, one stroke in the first instant of dazed consciousness had landed him on a narrow ledge of rock that raked downward with the seam. But what was his position when he realized it? It seemed to be worse than death itself; it was a living death; it was life in the arms of death; it was burial in an open grave. He heard steps overhead, and in the agony of fear he shouted. But the steps went by like a swift breath of wind, and no one answered. Then he reflected that these must have been the footsteps of the police. Thank God they had not heard his voice. To be rescued by them must have been ruin more terrible than all. Doubtless they knew of his share in to-night's attempted crime. Knowing this they must know by what fatality he was buried here. Christian now realized that death encircled him on every side. To remain in this pit was death; to be lifted out of it was death no less surely. To escape was hopeless. He looked up at the sky. It was a small square patch of leaden gray against the impenetrable blackness of his prison walls.
Standing on the ledge of rock, and steadying himself with one hand, he lifted the other stealthily upward to feel the sides of the shaft. They were of rock and were precipitous, but had rugged projecting pieces on which it was possible to lay hold. As he grasped one of these, a sickening pang of hope shot through him and wounded him worse than despair. But it was swift; it was gone in an instant. The piece of rock gave way in his hand and tumbled into the water below him with a hollow splash! The sides of the shaft were of a crumbling stone.
Now, indeed, he knew how hopeless was his plight. He dare not cry for help. He must stand still as death in this deep tomb.To attract attention would of itself be death. To remain down the shaft would also be certain death. To climb to the surface was impossible. Christian's heart sank. His position was terrible.
This conflict of soul did not last long. The heart soon clung to the nearest hope. Cry for help he must; be dragged out of this grave he should, let the issue be what it could or would. To lie here and die was not human. To live in the living present was the first duty, the first necessity, be the price of life no less than future death.
Christian reflected that the police, when he heard their footsteps, had been running to Lockjaw Creek. It would take them five minutes to reach it. When they got there and saw the boats on the shingle they would know that their men had escaped them. Then they would hasten back. In ten minutes they would pass the mouth of the shaft again. Five of these ten minutes must have gone already. If he were to be rescued he must know nearabouts when they ought to return, so that he might shout when they were within hail. He remembered that their footsteps had gone from him like the wind. The long shaft and sixty feet of dull dead rock and earth had carried them off in an instant.
Christian began to reckon the moments. His thoughts came too fast. He knew they must deceive him as to time. Minutes in this perilous position might count with him for hours. He took out his watch, meaning to listen for the beat of its seconds. The watch had stopped. No doubt it was full of water. Christian's heart beat loud enough. Then he began to count—one, two, three. But his mind was in a whirl. He lost his reckoning. He found that he had stopped counting and forgotten the number. Whether five minutes or fifty had passed he could not be sure.
Hark! He heard something overhead. Were they footsteps, those thuds that fell on the ear like the first rumble of a distant thunder-cloud? Yes, some one was near him. Now was his time to call, but his tongue was cleaving to his mouth. Then he heard words spoken at the mouth of the shaft. They rumbled down to him like words shouted through a hollow black pillar.
"Here, men," said one, "let's tumble him into the lead mine. No harm will it do him now, poor craythur."
But another voice, laden with the note of fearful agony, cried, "No, no, no!"
"We must do something. No time to lose now. The fac's is agen us. Let's make a slant for it, anyway. Lift again—up!"
Christian shuddered at the sound of human voices. Buried, as he was, sixty feet beneath the earth, they came to him like thevoice that the wind might make on a tempestuous night if, as it reached your ear, it whispered words and fled away.
The men were gone. Christian's blood was chilled. What had happened? Was some one dead? Who was it? Christian shuddered at the thought of what might have occurred if the dead body had been tossed over him into the pit. Had the police overstepped their duty?Werethey the police? Did he not remember one of the voices—or both? Christian's entempest soul was overwhelmed with agony. He could not be sure that in very truth he was conscious of anything that occurred.
Time passed—he knew not how long or short—and again he heard voices overhead. They were not the voices that he had heard before.
"They have escaped us," said one. "Their boats are gone from the creek now."
These, then, were the police; and, with a fresh flood of agony, Christian realized that the other men had been his friends. What fatality had prevented him from crying aloud to the only persons on earth who could, in very truth, have rescued and saved him?
The voices above were dying away. "Stop!" cried Christian. Despair made him brave; fear made him fearless. But none answered. Then he was conscious that a footstep approached the top of the shaft. Had he been heard? Now he prayed to God that he had not.
"What a gulf," said one. "Lucky we didn't tumble down. The young woman warned us, you remember."
There was a short laugh at the mouth of Christian's open grave. He did not call again. The voices ceased, the footsteps died off.
He was alone once more; but death was with him. The police had gone. Kisseck and his men had gone. They were no doubt out at sea by this time if, as the police said, the boats had been taken from the creek. Christian remembered now that the voices he had heard first were those of Corteen and Danny Fayle. This recovered consciousness enabled him to recall the fearful memory of what had been said. Cold as he was, the sweat stood in big drops on Christian's forehead. One of their own men was dead; one of the companions in this night's black adventure. A bad man perhaps, or perhaps merely a weak victim, but his own associate, whatever else he had been.
Now, if he were to escape from his death in life it must be by his own unaided energies alone. It was best so; best that he should climb to the top without help, or be lost without detection.After all, it was a superior Power that had governed this dread eventuality and silenced his impotent tongue.
An hour passed. The wind began to rise. At first Christian felt nothing of it as he stood in his deep tomb. He could hear its thin hiss over the mouth of the shaft, and that was all. But presently the hiss deepened to a sough. Christian had often heard of the wind's sob. It was a reality, and no metaphor, as he listened to the wind now. The wind began to descend. With a great swoop it came down the shaft, licked the walls, gathered voice from the echoing water at the bottom, struggled for escape, roared like a caged beast and was once more sucked up to the surface with a noise like the breaking of a huge wave over a reef. The tumult of the wind in the shaft was hard to bear, but when it was gone it was the silence that seemed to be deafening.
Sometimes the gusts were laden with the smoke of burning gorse. It came from the fire that Danny had kindled on the head of the Poolvash. Would the fire reach the pit, encircle it, descend in it?
Then the rain began to fall. Christian knew this by the quick monotonous patter overhead. But no rain touched him. It was being driven aslant by the wind, and fell only against the uppermost part of the walls of the shaft. Sometimes a soft thin shower fell over him. It was like the spray from a cataract except that the volume of water from which it came was above and not beneath him.
Christian had begun to contemplate measures for escape. That unexpected softness of the rock which had at first appalled him began now to give him some painful glimmerings of hope. If the sides of the shaft had been uniformly of the gray slate rock of the district, the ledge he had laid hold of would not have crumbled in his hand. Being soft, there must be a vein of sandstone running across the shaft. Christian's bewildered memory recalled what he must have heard many times of the rift of redstone which lay under the headland south of Peel. If this vein were but deep enough, his safety was assured. He could cut niches into it with a knife, and so, perhaps, after infinite pain and labor, reach the surface. Steadying himself with one hand, Christian felt in his pockets for his knife. It was not there! Now death indeed was certain. Despair began to take hold of him.
He was icy cold and feverishly hot at intervals. His clothes were wet; the water still dripped from them, and fell at intervals into the hidden tarn beneath in hollow drops.
But not so soon is hope conquered, when it is hope of life. Notto hope now would have been not to fear. Christian remembered that he had a pair of small scissors attached to a button-hook. When searching for his knife he had felt it in his pocket, and spurned it for resembling the knife to the touch of his nervous fingers. Now it was his sole instrument. He found it again, opened it, and with this paltry help he set himself to his work of escape from this dark, deep tunnel that stood upright.
The night twas wearing on; hour after hour passed. The wind dropped; the rain ceased to patter overhead. Christian toiled on step over step; resting sometimes on the largest and firmest of the projecting ledges, he looked up at the sky. Its leaden gray had changed to a dark blue studded with stars. The moon arose and shone a little way down his prison, lighting all the rest. He knew it must be early morning. One star, a large, full globe of light, twinkled directly above him. His eye was fascinated by that star. He sat long and watched it. He turned again and again in his toilsome journey to look at it. Was it a symbol of hope? Pshaw! Christian twisted back to his work. When he looked for the star again it was gone. It had moved beyond his ken; it had passed out of range of his narrow spot of heaven. Somehow it had been a mute companion. Christian's heart sank yet lower in his cheerless solitude.
Still he toiled on. His strength was far spent. The moon died off, and the stars went out one after one. Then a deep, impenetrable cloud of darkness overspread the little sky above. Christian knew it must be the darkness that precedes the dawn. He had reached a ledge of rock wider than any that were beneath it. Clearly enough a wooden rafter had lain along it.
Christian rested and looked up. At that moment he heard the light patter of four little feet overhead, and a poor stray sheep, a lamb of last spring's flock, bleated down the shaft. The melancholy call of the lost creature in that dismal place touched Christian deeply. What was it that made the tears start to his eyes and his whole soul shake with a new agony? The outcast lamb wandering over this trackless waste in the night had touched an old scar in Christian's heart, and made the wound bleed afresh. Was it strange that in that hour his thoughts turned involuntarily to little Ruby Cregeen? The darling child, caressed by the salt breath of the sea, and with the sunlight dancing in her eyes and glistening on her ruby lips, had she then anything in common with the little wanderer that sent up her pitiful cry into the night? Too much, too much, for the man who heard it, and he was buried in a living grave, with the tombstones of dead joys rising everywhere around,with the fire that had for years been kept close burning now most of all. Oh, these dead joys, they want the deepest grave.
Christian turned again to his weary task. To live was a duty, and live he must. His fingers were chilled to the bone. His clothes still clung like damp cerements to his body. The meagre blades of the scissors were worn short. They could not last long. Christian rose to his feet on the ledge of rock and plunged the scissors into the blank wall above him. Ah! what fresh disaster was this? His hand went deep into soft earth; the vein of rock had finished, and all that was above it must be loose, uncertain mold!
He gasped at the discovery. A minute since life had looked very dear. Must he abandon his hope of it after all? He paused and reflected. As nearly as he could remember, he had made twenty niches in the rock. Hence he must be fully thirty-five feet from the water, and ten from the surface. Only ten feet, and then—freedom! Yet these ten seemed to represent an impossibility. To ascend by holes dug deep in the soft earth was a perilous enterprise. A great clod of soil might at any moment give way above or beneath him, and then he would be plunged once more into the pit. If he fell from the side of the shaft, he would be more likely than at first to strike one of the projecting ledges, and be killed before he reached the water. There was nothing left but to wait for the dawn. Perhaps the daylight would reveal some less hazardous method of escape.
Slowly the dull, dead, impenetrable blackness above him was lifted off. It was as though a spirit breathed on the night and it fled away. When the woolly hue of morning dappled his larger sky, Christian could hear the slow beat of the waves on the shore. The coast rose up before his vision then, silent, solemn, alone with the dawn. The light crept into his prison-house. He looked down at the deep black tarn.
And now hope rose in his heart again. Overhead he saw timbers running around and across the shaft. These had been used to bank up the earth and to make two grooves in which the ascending and descending cages had once worked. Christian lifted up his soul in thankfulness. The world was once more full of grace, even for him. He could climb from stay to stay, and so reach the surface.
Catching one of the stays in his uplifted hands, he swung his knees on to another. One stage was accomplished, but how stiff were his joints and how sinewless his fingers! Another and another stage was reached, and then four feet and no more were between him and the gorse that waved in the light of the risen sun across the mouth of his night-long tomb.
But the rain of years had eaten into these timbers. In some places they crumbled and were rotten. God! how the one on which he rested creaked under him at that instant. Another minute, and then the toilsome journey would be over. Another minute, and his dead self would be left behind him, buried forever in this grave! Then there would be a resurrection in very truth! Yes, truly, God helping him.
Christian had swimming eyes and a big heart as he raised himself on to the topmost stay that crossed the shaft, and clutched the long tussacs of the clinging gorse. Then, at the last spring, he heard a creak—another—louder—the timbers were breaking beneath his feet. At the same moment he heard a half-stifled cry—saw a face—it was Mona's face—there was a breathless instant of bewildered consciousness.
In another moment Christian was standing on the hillside, close locked in Mona's arms.
GOD'S WRITING ON THE SEA
When the knocking ceased at Kisseck's, and Mona's footsteps were heard to turn away, Corteen and Killip knelt on the floor and felt the body of the master, and knew that he was dead.
"Let's get off anyway," said one; "let's away to sea, as the gel said. The fac's is agen us all."
"Maybe the man was right," said the other. "It's like enough she's got the Castle Rushen fellows behind her, and they'll be on us quick. Come, bear a hand."
Their voices sounded hollow. They lifted Kisseck on to their shoulders. A thin red stream was flowing from his breast. Corteen picked up a cap from the floor, and stanched the blood. It was Danny's cap, and as they passed out it fell again in the porch.
Danny himself stepped away from the door to let them pass. He had watched their movements with big wide eyes. They went by him without a word. When they were gone, he followed them mechanically, scarcely knowing what he did. With bare head, and the pistol still hanging in his rigid hand, he stepped out into the night.
It was very dark now. They could see nothing save the glow of the fire burning furiously over the Poolvash. And only the sharp crackle of the kindling gorse and the deep moan of the distant sea could they hear. They took the low path back to the Lockjaw, where they had left the boats. The body was heavy, their steps were uncertain in the darkness, and their capture seemed imminent. As they passed the mouth of the old pit, Corteen proposed to throw the body into it. Killip assented; but Danny, who had not uttered word or sound until now, cried, "No, no, no." Then they hurried along.
When they reached the Lockjaw they descended to the bay, got into one of the boats, and pushed off. The other boat—the police-boat that Danny had brought from the castle—they pulled into mid-stream, and there sent it adrift. It ran ashore at the next flood tide, two miles further up the shore. When they got clearoutside of the two streams that flow round the Head, they were amazed to find the "Ben-my-Chree" bearing down on them in the uncertain light. What had happened was this:
On running down the lamp that was put up on the ruined end of the pier, the two men who had charge of the fishing-boat had lain-to and stayed aboard for some minutes. Davy Cain and Tommy Tear, having effected their purpose ashore, had stolen away from their simple companions, and were standing on the quay. The two couples of men were exchanging words in eager whispers when they heard shouts from the castle. "What's that? Kisseck's voice?" "No." "Something has gone wrong. Let us set sail and away." So they stood out again to sea, passing close by the Castle Rock. They now realized that the voice they had remembered was the voice of Kinvig. That was enough to tell them that mischief had been brewing. They rounded the island and saw the fire over the head of the Lockjaw. They filled away and kept the boat off to her course. Soon they saw the dingey athwart their hawse and pulled to. Corteen and Killip lifted the body of Kisseck into the fishing-boat, and Danny Fayle, all but as silent and rigid, was pulled up after it. As the lad was dragged over the gunwale the pistol dropped from his hand and fell with a splash into the sea. A word of explanation ensued, and once more they were standing out to sea, with their dread freight of horror and crime.
The wind was fresh outside. It was on their starboard quarter as they now made for the north. They saw the fire burning to leeward. It sent a long, red sinuous track of light across the black water that flowed between them and the land. Danny stood forward, never speaking, never spoken to, gazing fixedly at that sinuous track. To his affrighted senses it was as the serpent of guilt that kept trailing behind him.
When they were well away, and the men had time to comprehend in its awful fulness what had occurred, they stood together aft and whispered. They had placed the body of the master by the hatchways, and again and again they turned their heads toward it in the darkness. It was as though the body might even yet stand up in their midst, and any man at any moment might find it face to face with him, eye to eye. The certainty that it was dead had not taken hold of all of them. It still bled, and one of the crew, Quilleash, an old man reputed to possess a charm to stop blood, knelt down beside Kisseck, and whispered in his ear.
"A few good words can do no harm anyway," said Tear, and even Davy Cain was too much aghast to jeer at the superstition.
"Sanguis mane in te, Sicut Christus se," whispered the old man in his native tongue into the deaf ear, and then followed a wild command to the blood to cease flowing in the name of the three godly men who came to Rome—Christ, Peter, and Paul.
The blood stopped indeed. But "Chamarroo as clagh" ("As dead as a stone"), said the old man, looking up.
Danny stood and looked on in silence. His spirit seemed to be gone, as though it could awake to life again only in another world.
When death was certain the men began to mourn over Kisseck, and recount their memories concerning him.
"Well, Bill's cruise is up, poor fellow; and a rael good skipper anyway."
"Poor Bill! What's that it's sayin'?—'He who makes a ditch for another may fall into it himself.'"
None spoke to Danny. A kind of awe fell on them in their dealings with the lad. They let him alone. It was as if he had been the instrument in greater hands.
"He hadn't a lazy bone in him, hadn't Bill. Aw, well, God will be aisy on the poor chap."
"You have to summer and winter a man before you know him. And leave it to me to know Kisseck. I've shared work, shared meat with him this many a year."
"And a fine big chap, and as straight as the backbone of a herring. Aw, well, well, well."
"Still, for sure, Bill made a man toe the mark. I'm thinking, poor chap, he's got summat to answer for anyway. Well, well, every man must go to the mill with his own sack."
Then they compared memories of how the dead man had foreseen his end. One remembered that Kisseck had said he knew he should not die in his bed. Another recalled the fact that on Good Friday morning Kisseck struck the griddle that hung in the ingle and tumbled it into the fire. This tangible warning of approaching death the witness had seen with his own eyes. A third man remembered that Kisseck had met a cat when going home onOie houiney(Hallow Eve). And if these prognostications had counted for little, there was the remaining and awful fact that on New Year's Eve Bridget Kisseck had raked the fire on going to bed, and spread the ashes on the floor with the tongs, and next morning had found that print of a foot pointing toward the door which was the certain forewarning of death in the household within a year.
They were doubling the Point of Ayre, with no clear purpose before them, and with some misgivings as to whether they had done wisely in setting out to sea at all, when the wind fell to adead calm. Then through the silence and darkness they heard large drops of rain fall on the deck. Presently there came a torrent, which lasted nearly an hour. The men turned in; only Danny and the body remained on deck. Still the lad could see the glow of the fire on the cliff, which was now miles away. When the rain ceased, the darkness, which had been all but palpable, lifted away, and the stars came out. Toward three in the morning the moon rose, but it was soon concealed by a dense black turret cloud that reared itself upward from the horizon. All this time the fishing-boat lay motionless, with only the lap of the waters heard about her.
The stars died off, the darkness came again, and then, far on in the night, the first gray streaks stretching along the east foretold the dawn. Over the confines of another night the soft daylight was breaking, but more utterly lonely, more void, more full of dread and foreboding, was the great waste of waters now that the striding light was chasing the curling mists than when the night was dead and darkness covered the sea. On one side of them no other object on the waters was visible until sky and ocean met in that great half-circle far away. On the other side was the land which they called home—from which they had fled, to which they dared not return.
Still not a breath of wind. The boat was drifting south. The men came up from below. The cold white face on the deck looked up at them, and at heaven. "We must put it away," said one, in a low murmur. "Aye," said another. Not a second word was spoken. A man went below and brought up an old sail. Two heavy iron weights, used for holding down the nets, were fetched up from the hold. There was no singing out. They took up what lay there cold and stiff, and wrapped it in the canvas, putting one of the weights at the head and another at the feet. Silently one man sat down with a sail-maker's needle and string, and began to stitch it up.
"Will the string hold?" asked another; "is it strong enough?"
"It will last him this voyage out—it's a short one, poor fellow."
Awe and silence sat on the crew.
Danny, his eyes suffused with an unearthly light, watched their movements from the bow. When he was lifted aboard last night a dull, dense aching at his heart was all the consciousness he had, and then the world was dead to him. Later on a fluttering within him preceded the return of an agonizing sense. Had he not sent his uncle to perdition? That he had taken a warm human life; that Kisseck, who had been alive, lay dead a few feet away from him—this was as nothing to the horrible thought that his uncle, a hard man, a brutal man, a sinful man, had been sent by his hand, hot and unprepared, to an everlasting hell. "Oh, can this have happened?" his bewildered mind asked itself a thousand times, as it awoke as often from the half-dream of a stunned and paralyzed consciousness. Yes, it was true that such a thing had occurred. No, it was not a nightmare. He would never, never awake in the morning sunlight and smile to know that it was not true. No, no—true, true; true it was even until the day of judgment, and he and Kisseck stood once more face to face.
Danny watched the old man when he whispered into the dead ear the words of the mystic charm. He turned his eyes to the sinuous trail of light behind him. All night long he lay on deck with only the dead for company. He saw the other men, but did not speak to them. It was as though he himself were already a being of another world, and could hold no commerce with his kind.
He thought of Mona, and then his heart was near to breaking. With a dumb longing his eyes turned through the darkness toward the land. The boat that was sailing before the wind was carrying him away from her forever. To his spiritualized sense the water that divided them was as the river that would flow for all eternity between the blessed and the damned.
The last ray of hope was flying away. It had once visited him, like a gleam of sunlight, that though he might never clasp her hand on earth, in heaven she would yet be his, to love forever and ever. But now between them the great gulf was fixed.
When the gray dawn came in the east, Danny still lay in the bow, haggard and pale. The unearthly light that now fired his eyes was the first word of a fearful tale. A witch's Sabbath, a devil's revelry, had begun in his distracted brain. In a state of wild hallucination he saw his own spectre. It had gone into the body of Kisseck, and it was no longer his uncle but himself who lay there dead. He was cold; his face was white, and it stared straight up at the sky. He watched with quick eyes the movements of the crew. He saw them bring up the canvas and the weights. He knew what they were going to do; they were going to bury him in the sea.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Silently the men brought from below the bank-board used in shooting the nets. They lifted the body on to it, and then with the scudding-pole they raised one end of the board on to the gunwale.
The boat had drifted many miles. She was now almost due west off Peel. The heavy clouds of night still rolled before the dawn. A gentle breeze was rising in the southwest.
All hands stood round and lifted their caps. Then the old man Quilleash went down on one knee, and laid his right hand on the body. Two other men raised the other end of the board.
"Dy bishee jeeah shin," murmured the old fisherman.
"God prosper you," echoed the others.
Then down into the wide waste of still water slid the body of Kisseck.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Danny saw it done. The image that had possession of him stood up so vividly before him at that instant that he shrieked. He peered into the water as if his eyes would bring back what the immemorial sea had swallowed up forever.
Forever? No! Listen!
Listen to that rumble as the waves circle over the spot where the body has disappeared! It is the noise of the iron weights shifting from their places. They are tearing open the canvas in which the body is wrapped. They have rolled out of it and sunk into the sea.
And now look!
The body, free of the weights, has come up to the surface. It is floating like a boat. The torn canvas is opening out. It is spreading like a sail in the breeze. Away it goes over the sea! It is flying across the waters, straight for the land.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The men stood and stared into each other's faces in speechless dismay. It was as though an avenging angel had torn the murdered man from their grasp and cried aloud in their ears, "Blood will have blood."
They strained their eyes to watch it until it became a speck in the twilight of the dawn, and could be seen no more.
Nor had the marvel ended yet. A great luminous line arose and stretched from their quarter toward the land, white as a moon's water-way, but with no moon to make it. Flashing along the sea's surface for several seconds, it seemed to the men like the finger of God marking the body's path on the waters.
The phenomenon will be understood by those only who have marked closely what has been said of the varying weather of this fearful night, and can interpret aright its many signs. To the crew of the "Ben-my-Chree" it had but one awful explanation.