Jack, when presently he had seen the little affair at Salamis to a satisfactory conclusion, missed Jim and went out in search of him. He poked about the courtyard without finding him, and only when he got outside, and saw that theGraciewas gone, did it occur to him that Jim had gone with her. Then in the distance he saw young Seth Rimmer coming heavily over the sands with something over his shoulder, and he ran to meet him.
From his windows Sir Denzil had watched the sand-boat go racing wildly up the flats, and had wondered at its solitary occupant. He could see by the size of him that it was one of the boys, but could not tell which.
No matter which: if the thing would only come to grief and make an end of either of them, what an ending of trouble! What a mighty relief! Then his way would be clear.
And as he mused upon it, he saw the distant boat go over, and his bitter old heart quickened a beat or two with grim hope. Then he saw the runner on the sands, and knew that something serious was amiss, and his hopes grew. And when, after what seemed a long, long time, one came running heavily towards Carne, with a load upon his shoulder, he believed his wish was realised.
He went down the stairs and into the kitchen, and spoke to old Mrs. Lee for the first time in ten years.
"One of the boys is drowned. Young Rimmer is bringing home his body." And he eyed the old woman like a hawk, with an evil light of hope in his eye.
"Naay!" said she, not to be trapped.
"Old fool!" he said to himself, but kept an unmoved face and opened his snuff-box.
Young Seth came labouring into the courtyard, with Jim on his shoulder and Jack at his heels.
Sir Denzil never looked at them. He had eyes for nothing but old Mrs. Lee's face, which was hard-set and the colour of gray stone.
"What's happen't, Seth Rimmer?" she croaked as he came, peering through half-closed eyes at him and his burden.
"Sand-boat ran i' stick-sand. Nigh got 'im."
"Is hoo gone?"--as Seth laid the limp body on the table.
"Nay, I dunno' think hoo con be dead; but it wur sore wark getting' 'im out--nigh pooed 'im i' two--an' hoo swallowed a lot o' stuff."
"Hoo'll do," she said, after a quick examination. "Yo' leave 'im to me." And she "shooed" them all out of the kitchen and proceeded to maltreat Jim tenderly back to life.
"H'm!" said Sir Denzil disappointedly, as he climbed the stairs again--"a good chance missed! D--d fools all! . . . I wonder if Lady Susan's mother would have kept as quiet a face! . . . Well . . . The deuce take one of them! . . . Which doesn't matter."
Young Seth waited till the tide washed up over the quicksand, and then with assistance from the village dragged theGracieback to life and trundled her forlornly home. And Sir Denzil sent him out a guinea by Mr. Kennet--not for saving Jim's life, but for bringing back the means whereby one or other of his grandsons might still possibly come to a sudden end.
Jim, for the first time since he began to remember things, lay in bed for three whole days, but, thanks to Mrs. Lee's anointings and rubbings, suffered no further ill-effects from his adventure--except, indeed, many a horrible nightmare, in which he was perpetually sinking down into the clinging sands, with his hands and feet fast bound and the scum running into his mouth; from which he would awake with a howl which always woke Jack with a start, and the ensuing scrimmage had in it all the joy of new life.
Eager, when he hurried up to see Jim and hear all about it, exacted a promise from them both never to sail theGraciesingle-handed again, and was satisfied the promise would be kept.
Sir Denzil, hearing he was there, sent for him, and received him as usual.
"Well, Mr. Eager, you came near to solving the puzzle for us."
"I can't tell you how sorry I am, sir----"
"Yes, 'twas a good chance missed. If that fool Rimmer had only let Providence work out its own ends----"
"Thank God, he was on the spot, or I'd never have forgiven myself. Providence will see to the matter in its own time and in its own way, Sir Denzil, and neither you nor I can help or thwart it."
"I'm not so sure of that. If I had my way now----"
"Providence always wins," said Eager, with a shake of the head and a cheerful smile. "If we blind bats had our own way, what a muddle we would make of things. You would surely regret it in the end, sir."
During that winter two events happened, much alike in their general features, apparently quite disconnected, and yet not at all improbably resulting the one from the other. Either happening might well have solved the problem of Carne.
Jack, as we have seen, had developed a certain taste for information. He could lose himself completely in the doings of Hannibal or Alexander, and found the mighty realities of history--or what were accounted as such--more to his taste than the most thrilling imaginings of the story-tellers. Jim found them good also--as retailed to him by Jack--and would sit by the hour, with open mouth and eyes and ears, taking them all in at second-hand. But sit down to one of the big books, and worry them all out for himself, he would not.
And so it came that more than once when Jack was over head and ears in some delightfully bloody action of long ago, Jim would ramble off by himself in search of amusement more to his taste, until such time as the sponge, having filled itself full, should be ready to be squeezed.
That was how he came to be strolling along the beach one lowering windy afternoon, seeking desultorily in the lip of the tide for anything the waves might have thrown up.
It was always an interesting pursuit, for you never knew what you might light on. In former times Jack had been as keen a treasure-hunter as himself, but now he was digging it out elsewhere and otherwise.
They had never found anything of value, though many a thing of mighty interest was brought ashore by the waves. A girl's wooden doll, and a boy's wooden horse, for instance, had nothing very remarkable about them; but found within a dozen yards of each other on the beach after a storm, they set even boys not used to very deep thinking, thinking deeply. Coco-nuts and oranges, and a dead sheep, and an oar, and a ship's grating--that was about as much as they ever came across, except once, when it was the awful body of a dead black man, and then they ran home, with their heads twisting fearfully over their shoulders, as fast as their legs could carry them; and saw the hideous thick white lips of him for many a night afterwards.
But though you sought in vain for years, there was always the chance of coming upon a casket of jewels sooner or later; and if you never actually found it, the possibility of it was delightfully attractive.
Jim ambled on, kicking asunder lumps of seaweed which might conceal treasure, stooping now and again to pick up and examine some find more closely, and so came to the bend in the coast out of sight of Carne.
And there he stopped suddenly, like a pointing dog.
Away along the shore, and as close in as the long shoal of the sands would permit, was a large fishing-smack. Between her and the beach a boat was plying, and when it grounded a string of men was rapidly passing its contents up into the sand-hills.
Jim guessed what that might mean. His ephemeral reading in books of adventure told him these must be smugglers, and he had unconsciously gathered from unknown sources the fact that out beyond there lay the isle of Man, a place given up to freebooters and such-like gentry, though he had never happened to come across any so near home before. A matter therefore to be cautiously inquired into on the most approved Fenimore Cooper lines.
So he slipped in among the sand-hills and threaded a devious path parallel with the sea, now and again crawling like a snake up a hummock, and peering through the wire-grass to ascertain his position and make sure that the boat had not gone off.. That was his only anxiety, that she would get away before he had the chance of a nearer view.
He was delighted with his adventure. Here was treasure-trove better than all the tantalising possibilities of the beach. Here was something real and new to set against Jack's musty, but still exciting, stories of old Greeks and Romans. He felt rich.
The short day was drawing in. The gray of the dusk was in his favour. He wriggled up a soft bank on his stomach, and found himself with a fair view of what was going on. He sank flat among the wire-grass and watched, and was Robinson Crusoe, and Deerslayer; and Chingachgook, and many others, all in one.
A growl of rough voices down below, the "slaithe" of spades in the soft sand, and he saw little barrels and neat little corded packages being rapidly buried, each in a little hole by itself, and evidently according to some recognised plan.
The boat had probably made another trip to the smack, for barrels and packages came pouring in and were deftly put out of sight. The light was so dim that he could not recognise any of the busy workers, and their occasional growls gave him no clue.
He was wondering vaguely who they might be, when a heavy hand descended on the back of his neck and lifted him up like a kicking rabbit.
"Dom yo' I What d' yo' want a-spyin' here for?"
His captor dragged him down into the centre of operations, and Jim found himself inside a wall of scowling, hairy faces. "Now then, who are yo', and what'n yo' want here?"
The long rough fingers reached well round his throat, and he was almost black in the face, and sparks and things were beginning to dance before his eyes. He clutched at the big hand and tried to pull it away.
"I'm Jim Carron," he gasped.
"Yo' wunnot be Jim Carron long, then. Dig a hole there big enow to take him," he ordered--and Jim saw himself lying in it, alongside the little barrels and packages.
"I meant no harm. I only wanted to see," he urged sturdily.
"Yo' seen too much. I' th' sand yo'll see nowt an' yo'll talk none."
"I won't in any case. I promise you."
"We'se see to that, my lad. Yo'll be safest i' th' sand, and so 'ill we." And Jim, glancing scare-eyed up at the wall of rough face; would have been mightily glad to be back in the warm kitchen at Carne with Jack and his old Greeks and Romans.
He looked very small and helpless among them. Some of them had little lads at home, no doubt; but there was much at stake, and it would never do to leave him free to talk. On the other hand, running goods free of duty was one thing, and killing a boy was another, and there arose a growling controversy among them as to what they should do with him.
It was ended suddenly by one wresting him masterfully from his original captor, and dragging him by the scruff of the neck towards the boat. It was emptied of its last load and ready to return for another. His new keeper tossed him in, tumbled in after him with three others, and pulled out to the smack.
Jack, having lived through an unusually exciting time in the neighbourhood of Carthage, came back to himself in the kitchen at Carne and the first thought of Jim he had had for over an hour.
"Hello! Where's old Jim?" he asked.
"I d'n know. Yo'd better seek him or he'll be into some mischief. I nivver did see sich lads." And Jack strolled out to look for Jim.
He was in none of his usual places, and Jack stood gazing vaguely along the shore, wondering where he could have got to. He might have gone to Mr. Eager's. It was not usual with them of an afternoon, for then Mr. Eager was busy with his parish affairs. But Gracie was always an attraction--the warmest bit of colour in their lives--and she made them welcome no matter when they came.
As he turned to trot away inland, with a last look along the shore, a fishing-smack beat out from behind the distant bend and went thrashing out to sea with the waves flying white over her bows.
"Glad I'm not there, anyway," said Jack, and galloped away among the hummocks towards Wyvveloe.
"Oh, Jack, Iamso glad to see you. I've got so tired of myself. Mrs. Jex has been showing me how to make crumpets, and you shall have one as soon as Charles comes in. If they're not very good you mustn't say so, because they're the first I've made, you see. What? Jim? No, he's not been here. What a troublesome boy he is!--always getting himself drowned or lost. Dear, dear, dear! What with you two, and Charles, and the vicar falling ill again--my hair will go quite white, I expect! And there's that Margaret never been near me all day, and if it hadn't been for Mrs. Jex and the crumpets I don't know what I would have done. . . . Thank you, Mrs. Jex, I'll come at once; but we must keep them hot for Charles, they do lie so heavy on your stomach when they're cold. He can't be long, Jack. You sit down there and look at that book." And the Little Lady went off to butter her crumpets, while Jack, at the end of his tether as regards Jim and his possible whereabouts, lay down contentedly on the hearthrug and lost himself in the book.
When Eager came in at last, tired with a long round among outlying parishioners, he was surprised to find the boy there and still more surprised to learn why he had come.
"Jim's a jimsa! He's always getting himself lost," was Gracie's contribution to the discussion, but it did not help much.
"Where can he have got to, Jack?" asked Eager, with a touch of anxiety. "When did you see him last?"
"I was reading in the kitchen, and when I looked up he'd gone. I looked in all the places I could think of, and then I came here." And that did not help much, either.
"Well, I must have a bite. I'm famished. And then we'll have another look. Maybe he's at home by this time. He wouldn't be likely to go to Knoyle, would he?"
Jack shook his head very decidedly.
"He wouldn't go alone."
"Seth Rimmer's?"
"I d'n know. He might."
"We'll call at Carne and then go along to Rimmer's. Oh-ho! hot buttered crumpets and coffee! And the crumpets made by a master-hand, unless I'm very much mistaken!" For Gracie had dumped them down before him herself with an air of triumphant achievement, and now stood waiting his first bite with visible anxiety.
"Excellent!" said the Rev. Charles, smacking his lips. "If there's one thing Mrs. Jex does better than another, where all is well done, it's hot buttered crumpets."
"They're not at all a bit heavy?"
"Heavy? Light as snowflakes--hot buttered snowflakes! That's what they are. How do you find them, Jack?"
"Fine!"
"Iamglad. I was afraid they'd turn out a bit----"
"You don't mean to tell me you made them!"
"Yes, I did. All myself--with Mrs. Jex just looking on, you know!"
"Well! Two more, please, just like the last! Best crumpets I ever tasted in my life!"
And so they were--because Gracie made them; and the Rev. Charles would have pledged himself to that though they had choked him and given him indigestion for life. He had a pretty bad night of it--but that might have been the coffee,--but most likely it was Jim.
For presently they all set off in the riotous wind, Gracie skipping joyfully in the pride of accomplishment, and went first to Carne, hopeful of finding Jim there. But Mrs. Lee greeted their inquiry with a tart:
"'Oo's none here. Havena set eyes on him sin'---- Didn' yo' go out tegither?"--to Jack.
"No, I d'n know when he went."
"Where can th' lad ha' gotten to now? 'Oo's aye gett'n' i' mischief o' some kind."
"We'll go along to Seth Rimmer's, Mrs. Lee. He may have gone down there," said Eager.
"'Oo mowt," she admitted unhopefully. And they set off in the windy darkness, with the roar of the sea and the long white gleam of the surf on one side, and on the other the fantastic hummocks of the sand-hills, which looked strangely desolate by night and capable of holding any mystery or worse.
Eager had wanted the children to wait at Carne till he returned, but they would not hear of it. Gracie was enjoying the spice of adventure. Jack wanted to find Jim. Eager himself was beginning to feel anxious, though he would not let the others see it.
"If he is not here--where?" he asked himself, as they ploughed through the sand and the crackling seaweed. And he had to confess that he did not know where to look next. The grim desolation of the sand-hills made him shiver to think of. Suppose the boy had damaged himself in some way and was lying there waiting for help. A thousand boys might lie there unfound till help was useless.
A glimmer in the distant darkness, and presently they were at Rimmer's cottage.
Kattie opened to them--both the door and her big blue eyes--and stood staring.
"Hello, Kattie! Is Jim here?" asked Eager cheerfully.
"Jim? No, Mr. Eager."
"Who's it, 'Kattie?" asked her mother anxiously, from her bed; for over the lonely cottage hung the perpetual fear of ill-tidings.
"It's only us, Mrs. Rimmer." And they stepped inside.
"Ech! Mr. Eager, and the little lady, and----"
"We're looking for Jim, and were hoping he might have come along here."
"Jim?" said Mrs. Rimmer, looking steadfastly at Jack. "I nivver con tell one from t'other; but none o' them's been here to-day."
"No? I wonder where the boy can have got to. Is Seth about? Maybe he could help us."
"Seth's away," said Mrs. Rimmer briefly; and Eager did not ask her where. For "Seth's away" was an understood formula, and meant that young Seth was off on one of his expeditions, and the less said about it the better.
"I don't quite know where to look next," said Eager anxiously. "Can you suggest anything, Kattie?"
But Kattie shook her mane of hair and stared back at them nonplussed, and presently said:
"Jim knows his way; he couldn' get lost."
"I'm just afraid he may have got hurt somewhere--twisted his ankle, or something of that kind, and be lying out in the sand-hills; and it's as black as pitch outside, and going to be a bad night."
"Puir lad, I hope not," said Mrs. Rimmer, with added concern in her face. "'Twill be a bad night for them that's on th' sea." Her face, in its setting of puckered white nightcap, looked very frail and anxious. "But they're aw in His hands, passon."
"And they couldn't be in better, Mrs. Rimmer," he said, more cheerfully than he felt.
"Ay, I know; but I wish my man were home. Whene'er th' wind howls like that, I aye think of them that's gone and them that has yet to go."
"Not one of them goes without His knowing. Your thoughts are prayers, and the prayers of a good woman avail much." And he pressed the thin white hand, and Gracie kissed her and Kattie, and they went out into the night.
The wind hummed across the flats till their heads hummed in unison. More than once the drive of it carried them off their course, and brought them up against the ghostly hummocks, where the long, thin wire-grass swirled and swished with the sound of scythes. The grim desolation beyond struck a chill to Eager's heart, as he imagined Jim lying out there, calling in vain for help against the strident howl of the gale.
There was just the possibility that he had got home during their absence, however; so, in anxious silence, they made for Carne.
"No, I hanna seen nowt of him," said Mrs. Lee, and stood glowering at them with set, pinched face.
"I had better see Sir Denzil. Shall I go up? You wait here with Jack, Gracie." And he went off along the stone-flagged passage, and climbed the big staircase, and knocked on the door leading to Sir Denzil's rooms.
Mr. Kennet opened to him at last, with so much surprise that he was, for the moment, unable to recognise the unexpected visitor, and stood staring blankly at him.
"I want to see Sir Denzil, Kennet--Mr. Eager. One of the boys is missing----"
"Eh?--Ah!--Missing?--Tell him. Will you wait a moment, sir?" And Eager concluded from his manner that Mr. Kennet had been enjoying himself, and hoped that it might not be, in this case, like man like master.
Sir Denzil, however, received him with most formal politeness.
"You bring me good news, Mr. Eager?" he asked, snuffing very elegantly. "Who is it is a-missing?"
"We can't find Jim, Sir Denzil."
"Ah--Jim! Let me see--Jim! Now, which is Jim?"
"Jim is the hero of the sand-boat----"
"Ah--and is the boat gone again?"
"No, sir. They both pledged themselves not to go out in her alone again."
"Ah--pity! Great pity! I rather counted upon that monstrosity to solve our difficulty. However, Jim is missing!" And he tapped his snuff-box thoughtfully. "And what do you infer from that, Mr. Eager?"
"I'm afraid he may have gone off into the sand-hills and possibly got hurt. We've been down to Seth Rimmer's----"
"Ah--Rimmer! That was, if I remember rightly, the young dolt who bungled the matter so sadly last time. Well?"
"He has not been there. Jack was reading in the kitchen----"
"Jack? Ah--yes. That's the other one."
"And Jim was with him. Jim wandered out, and we cannot find any trace of him."
"Hm! . . . Ah! . . ." And the grim old head nodded thoughtfully over another pinch of snuff. "Well, I don't really see what we can do to-night, Mr. Eager. If, as you suggest, he is lying hurt somewhere in the sand-hills, it would take an army to find him, even in the daytime. We must wait and see. If we don't find him"--hopefully--"if he is gone for good, I shall feel myself under deepest obligation to him or to whoever is concerned in the matter. It leaves us only one boy to deal with--the wrong one, of course--but still, only one."
"Why the wrong one, sir?"
"If the other has been purposely removed, as is possible, it is, of course, in order to foist upon us the one who has no right to the position. There could be no other reason. You follow me?"
"I follow your reasoning, of course; but at present we have not the slightest reason to suppose he has been purposely removed. He may be lying in the sand-hills unable to get home."
"In which case he will have a very bad night," said Sir Denzil, as a fury of wind and rain broke against the windowpanes--"a very bad night."
"Is there nothing we can do?"
"There's only one thing I can think of."
"Yes?"
"Keep an eye on that old witch's face downstairs. You may learn something from it if you catch her unawares."
Eager slept little that night for thinking of the missing boy. His anxious mind travelled many roads, but never touched the right one.
Soon after daybreak he was on his way to Knoyle, but returned disappointed, and went on to Carne with a faint hope in him still that Jim might have returned during the night.
"Any news of him, Mrs. Lee?" he asked anxiously, through the kitchen door.
"Noa," said the old lady stolidly. "We none seen nowt on him." And her face was as unmoved as a gargoyle, and the gleam of her little dark eyes struck on his like the first touch of an opponent's foil.
"What on earth can have taken the boy? I've been up to Knoyle, but they know nothing of him there."
"Ay!"
"I'll turn out all the men I can get, and we'll rake over the sand-hills."
"Ay!"
As he turned to go, Jack came trotting in.
"I d'n know what's come of him," he said; "I've been everywhere I can think of."
"I'm going to get all the help I can, and we'll search through the sand-hills, Jack."
"I'll come too," said Jack. And they went away together.
Once aboard the smack, Jim was shoved into a small black dog-hole of a cabin forward and the door slid to and bolted. And there, all alone in the dark, he presently passed a very evil time.
In due course he heard the rest of the crew come aboard. Then the anchor was pulled up, and then his head began to swim in sympathy with the heaving boat.
Like most boys he had at times had visions of a seafaring life, swinging impartially between that and a military as the only two lives worth living. But the night he spent on that smack cured him for ever of the sea.
It was a black night, with a stiff west wind working round into a south-west gale. They had hoped to get under the lee of the Island before the full of it caught them, but it meant strenuous beating close-hauled, and progress was slow. Before they were half-way across, about midnight, the gale was on them, and they turned tail and ran for their lives, with the great seas roaring past them and like to come in over the stern every moment.
Jim knew nothing of it all. He was sick to death, and bruised almost to a jelly with bumping to and fro in that dirty black hole. While they beat up against the wind, the crashing of the seas against the bows, with less than an inch of wood between him and them, deafened and terrified him. It seemed impossible that any mere timber could long withstand so terrific a pounding. Each moment he feared to see the strakes rive open and let the ocean in.
But very soon he was past caring what happened. He had never been so utterly miserable in all his life.
When they turned and ran, the crash of the waves against the outside of his dog-hole lessened somewhat, but the up-and-down motion increased so that the roof and the floor alternately seemed bent on banging him to pieces. And at times they plunged down, down, down, with the water bubbling and hissing all about them till he believed they were going down for good, and felt no regret about it.
How long he spent in that awful hole he did not know. Ages of uttermost misery it seemed to him. But, of a sudden, there came an end.
The boat, racing over the great rollers with a scrap of foresail to give her steerage way, brought up abruptly on a bank. The mast snapped like a carrot, the roaring white waves leaped over her, dragged her back, flung her up again, worried her as vicious dogs a wounded rat.
The men in her clung for their lives against the thrashing of the mighty waves, and then, not knowing at all where the storm had carried them, but sure of land of some kind from the bumping of the boat, they scrambled one by one over the bows and fought their way through the tear of the surf to the shore.
All but one. He hung tight to the stump of the mast till the others had gone, each for himself and intent only on saving each his own life.
Then the last man, swinging by one arm from the stump of the mast, caught at the bolt of the dog-hole and worked it back, and reached in a groping arm and dragged out Jim, limp and senseless from his final bruising when the boat struck.
"My sakes! Be yo' dead, Mester Jim?" he asked hoarsely, holding the lad firmly with one arm and the mast with the other.
But the sharp flavour of the gale acted like a tonic. The limp body stretched and wriggled and gripped the arm that held it.
"Aw reet?" shouted the hoarse voice in his ear, and when Jim tried to reply the gale drove the words back into his throat.
The boat was still tumbling heavily in the surf. All about them was howling darkness, faintly lightened by the rushing sheets of foam. Jim felt himself dragged to the side, and then they were wrestling, waist deep, with the terrible backward rush of the surf. His feet were swept from under him, but an iron hand gripped his arm and anchored him till he felt the sand again. Then a thundering wave swirled them on, and they were able to crawl up a steep, hard bank of sand on their hands and knees.
They lay there panting, while the gale howled and the white waves gnashed at them like wild beasts ravening for their prey. And Jim felt cleaner and better than he had done since he boarded the smack.
He turned to his rescuer and laid hold of his arm.
"Who is it?" he shouted.
"Me--Seth," came the hoarse reply into his ear, and he had never in his life felt so glad of a friendly voice, though he would not have known it was young Seth's voice if he had not said so.
For their position was terrifying enough. It was still too dark to see where they were, except that they were on a bank, with the roar and shriek of the gale all about them.
Young Seth stood up to see, if he could, what had become of the others. But he was down flat again in a moment.
"I connot see nowt," he shouted.
"Are we safe here, Seth?"--as a vicious white arm came reaching up the slope at them.
"Tide's goin' down."
So they lay and waited, and it was good for Jim that night that his life on the flats had hardened him somewhat to the weather.
He was soaked to the bones, and the spindrift stung like a whip. But he was so utterly spent with his previous sickness that his heavy eyes closed, and he dozed into horrible nightmares and woke each time with a start and a sob.
And then he found himself warmer, and thought the gale had slackened; but it was young Seth's burly body lying between him and the wind, and he was drawn up close into young Seth's arms, and there he went fast asleep.
He woke at last into a sober gray light and a great stillness. The wind had dropped and the sea had fallen back behind its distant barriers. When he stretched and sat up he could see nothing but sand--endless stretches of brown sea-sand, with the dull gleam of water here and there.
He got on to his feet and felt his bones creak as if they wanted oiling, and young Seth stood up too and kicked his legs and arms about to take the kinks out.
"Where are we, Seth?" asked Jim, with a gasp.
"I dunnot know. We ran like the divvle last neet. Mebbe when th' sun comes out we'll see."
"Land's over yonder, anyway," he said presently. "But it's a divvle of a way and mos'ly stick-sands, I reck'n."
The clouded eastern sky thinned and lightened somewhat, the sands began to glimmer, and the streaks of water gleamed like bands of steel.
"We mun go," said Seth. "Sun's sick yet wi' last neet's storm. Yo' keep close to me." And they set off on the perilous journey.
For a moment, as they crossed the ridge of their own sand-bank, which stood higher than its neighbours, they caught distant glimpse of yellow sand-hills very far away. Then they were threading cautiously across a wide lower level, seamed with pools and runlets, and could see nothing but the brown sea-sand. And Seth's eyes were everywhere on the look-out for "stick-sands," of which he went in mortal terror.
Where the banks humped up with long rounded limbs as though giants were buried below, he would run at speed; but in the hollows between their progress was slow, because "You nivver knows," said Seth, and tried each foot before he trusted it.
In one wide hollow they came on a mast sticking straight up out of the sand--like a gravestone, Jim thought--and gave it wide berth. And twice they came on swiftly flowing channels which rose to Jim's waist, and it was in the neighbourhood of these that Seth exercised the greatest caution.
"They works under t' sand, here and there, you nivver knows where, an' it's that makes the stick-sands," he said, and breathed freely only when they got on to solid brown ridges again.
So, step by step, they drew nearer to the yellow sand-hills, which looked so like those he was accustomed to that Jim's spirits rose.
"Is that home, Seth?" he asked.
"Ech, lad, no. We're many a mile from home, but we'll git there sometime."
It was when that toilsome journey was over, and the sun had come out, and they were lying spent in a hollow of the yellow sand-hills, that Seth turned to Jim and said weightily:
"Yo' mun promise me, Mester Jim, to forget aw that happened last neet. I dun my best for yo'; an' yo' mun promise that."
"I'm afraid I can't ever forget it, Seth," said Jim solemnly, "and some of it I don't ever want to forget. But I'll promise you I'll never tell about the little barrels and things, or about you, never, as long as I live."
"Well," said Seth, after ruminating on this. "That'll do if yo'll stick to it."
"I'll bite my tongue out before I'll say a word."
"Aw reet. Yo' see, I wur on the boat when they brought yo' aboard, but I couldn' ha' done owt with aw that lot about. 'Twere foolish to fall into their honds."
About midday they came on a fisherman's hut, back among the sand-hills, and got some bread and fish, freely given when Seth explained matters--so far as he deemed necessary; and they lay on a pile of strong-smelling nets and slept longer than Seth had intended. Then, with vague directions towards a distant high-road, they set out again.
"'Twere Morecambe Bay we ran aground in," said Seth, "an' they wouldn' hardly believe as we'd come across th' flats. Reg'lar suckers, they say, an' swallowed a moight o' men in their time."
"And when shall we get home, Seth?"
"It's a long road, but we'll git there's soon as we can," said Seth, with the weight of the journey upon him.
For two days Eager raked over the sand-hills, from morning till night, with all the men he could press into the service, and all the ardour he could rouse in them.
In long, undulating lines, rising and falling over the hummocks like the long sea-rollers, they scoured the wastes till they were satisfied that no Jim was there.
Each night Sir Denzil met him, when he came upstairs to report, with a repressed eagerness which gave way to cynical satisfaction the moment he saw his face.
"So!" he would say, with a gratified nod, as he helped himself to snuff with studied elegance. "No result, Mr. Eager. I really begin to think we must give him up. You are simply wasting your time and that of all your--er--friends."
"Supposing, after all, the poor lad should be lying, unable to move, in some hollow----"
"Let us hope that his sufferings would be over long before this!"
"It is too horrible to think of. I cannot sleep at night for the thought of it."
"Ah, I am sorry. You should cultivate a spirit of equanimity--as I do. If he is found--well! If he is not found, I am bound to say--better! The problem that has puzzled us these ten years is then solved--in a way, of course, though, as I think I have explained myself to you before, not in the right way. Still we have got only one boy to deal with, and we must make the best of him. I have been considering the idea of a public school. You would endorse that, I presume?"
"Undoubtedly--for both of them, if we can only find Jim."
"We are considering the one we have. Now, which school would you advise--Rugby, Harrow, Eton? There's a new place just opened at Marlborough. I see----"
"Harrow," said Eager decisively. "They are both meant for the army, of course?"
"You will speak in the plural still," said Sir Denzil, with a smile.
"I cannot bring myself to think of Jim as dead and gone."
"Well, well! Let us hope you have more foundation for your higher beliefs, Mr. Eager. Meanwhile, and to lose no time, I will write to my lawyer in London to have this boy entered at Harrow. What delay will it entail?"
"None, I should say. The numbers are low there just now, but Vaughan will soon pull things round, and meanwhile they will stand the better chance."
"They--they--they!" said Sir Denzil, eyeing him quizzically. "You really still hope, then?"
"I shall hope until it is impossible to hope any longer. Have you considered the idea of his having been kidnapped, Sir Denzil?"
"It has occurred to me, of course. But why should any one kidnap him?"
"If it should be so--to leave the other in full possession, of course. But we have no grounds to go upon. I have made inquiries as to all the gipsies who have been within ten miles of us lately. They are all here yet, and know nothing of the boy."
"H'm!" said Sir Denzil thoughtfully. "If it should be that--as you say, it would prove beyond doubt that the boy we have is the wrong one. Gad!" he said presently, "I'm beginning to have a hankering after the other. However----"
Sir George Herapath had seconded all Eager's efforts to discover the missing boy. He and Margaret had ridden with the other searchers each day, and in addition had sought out every gipsy camp in the neighbourhood and made rigorous inquisition as to its doings and membership. Sir George was favourably known to the nomads as a strict but clement justice of the peace so long as they kept within the law, and they satisfied him that they had had no hand in this matter.
He and Margaret were to and fro constantly between Knoyle and Wyvveloe, eager for news, or downcastly bringing none, and when Eager himself was not there it was a very crushed and sober little lady who received them with a sadness greater even than their own.
"It is quite beyond me, Sir George," you would have heard her say, with a gloomy shake of the head. "What can have become of him I can't think. And we do miss him so dreadfully. I always liked old Jim, but I never liked him so much as I do now. It's just breaking Charles's heart."
"It's beyond me too, Gracie," said Sir George, with a worried pinch of the brows. "Wherecanthe boy be? I'm really beginning to be afraid we've seen the last of him."
"Charles says we must go on hoping for the best," said the Little Lady forlornly. "But it is not easy when you've nothing to go on."
And to them, talking so, on the afternoon of the fourth day of the search, came in Eager, very weary both of mind and body, and anything but an embodiment of the hope he enjoined on others.
"Nothing," he said dejectedly. "And I do not know what to do next. I'm beginning----"
And then the Little Lady's eyes, which had wandered past him from sheer dread of looking on his hopelessness, opened wider than ever they had done before.
"Charles! Charles!" she shrieked, pointing past him down the path. "Jim!" And she began to dance and scream in a very allowable fit of hysterics.
Eager thought it was that--that her overwrought feelings had broken down, and it was to her that he sprang.
But the others had turned at her words, and had run out of the cottage, and now they came in dragging--as though having got him they would never let him go again--a very lean and dirty and draggled, but decidedly happy, Jim.
Gracie broke from her brother and rushed at him with a whole-hearted "Oh, Jim! Jim!" and flung her arms round his neck and kissed him many times. And Jim, grinning joyously through his dirt, seemed to find it good, but presently wiped off the kisses with the back of his grimy hand.
"Dear lad, where have you been?" cried Eager, all his weariness gone in the joy of recovery. "We have been near breaking all our hearts over you. Thank God, you are back again! . . . Now, tell us!"
And Jim summed up his adventures in very few words.
"I was on the shore. Some men carried me off in a ship. We were wrecked at a place called Morecambe, and I've come home as quick as I could."
"Who were the men? Did you know them?" asked Sir George sternly.
"I can't tell you, sir." And then, looking at Eager, as though he would understand. "It was a promise, a very solemn promise"--and Eager nodded. "You see I was locked up in a little cabin when the ship was wrecked, and I should have been drowned in there----"
"And they let you out on your promising not to tell on them," said Eager.
Jim nodded.
"A promise extorted under such conditions is not binding," said Sir George brusquely. "I want those men. Come, my boy, you must tell us all you know." And Eager watched him anxiously.
"I cannot tell, sir. I promised."
And nothing would move him from this. Sir George, with much warmth, explained to him that no one was safe if such things were permitted to pass unpunished, said that it was his bounden duty to tell all he knew. But to all he simply shook his head and said, "I promised, sir."
And Eager, much as he would have liked to lay hands on the rascals, could not but rejoice in the boy's staunchness. And Sir George gave it up at last, and rode away with Margaret, baffled and outwardly very angry. But as they rode up the avenue at Knoyle, he said:
"Eager has done well with those boys. They'll turn out men."
Jim was very hungry. They fed him, and then Eager went off with him to break the news to Sir Denzil, and the villagers flocked out and cheered them as they went.
"Well, yo're back!" was Mrs. Lee's greeting when they came into the kitchen at Carne. And Jim, in the joy of his return, ran up and kissed her, but her face was like that of a graven image.
Jack jumped up with a glad shout, and "Hello, Jim! Where you been?" and circled round and round the wanderer with endless questions.
Sir Denzil's reception of him was characteristic.
"Well, I'm ----! So you've turned up again." And he eyed his grandson, over a pinch of snuff, as though he were some new and offensive reptile. "What is the meaning of this, sir?" And his hankering after the boy whom, in his innermost mind, he had come to think of as his legitimate heir, and his thwarted satisfaction at what he had hoped was in any case the cutting of his Gordian knot, and a certain anxiety in the matter, which he had very successfully concealed from every one else--all these in combination resulted in an explosion.
He listened blackly to such explanation as Jim vouchsafed, peremptorily demanded more, and the boy refused.
"You will tell me all you know," said the old man sternly--hoping through fuller knowledge to arrive, perchance, at some clue to the great problem behind.
"I promised, sir!" said Jim.
"Hang your promise, sir! I absolve you from any such promise. You will tell me all you know."
But Jim set his lips stolidly and would not say another word.
"You won't? Then, by----, I'll teach you to do what you're told." And laying hold of the boy by the neck of his blue guernsey, he caught up his ebony stick and rained savage blows on the quivering little back before Eager could attempt rescue.
"Stop, sir! Stop!" cried Eager, in great distress at this outbreak, and caught at the flailing arm.
"---- you, sir! Keep off, or I'll thrash you too!" shouted the furious old man, and turned and threatened the interrupter with the heavy silver knob.
"You are forgetting yourself, Sir Denzil," said Eager hotly. "The boy has given his solemn promise in return for his life. Would you have him break it?" And he caught the descending stick with a hand that ached for days afterwards, twisted it deftly out of the trembling old hand, and held it in safe keeping.
"Kennet!" shouted Sir Denzil, "throw this ---- parson out!" And Kennet came from an adjoining room and looked doubtfully at Eager.
"Kennet will think several times before he tries it," said Eager quietly, swinging the stick in his hand.
And then Eager, eyeing the old man keenly, saw that the fit had passed and reason had resumed her sway.
"Your stick, sir!" and he handed it to him with a bow.
"Your servant, sir!" and the stick was flung into a corner, and a shaking hand dived down into a deep-flapped pocket after its necessary snuff-box. "Kennet, leave us! You've been drinking. And you, boy--damme, but you're a good plucked one! Of the right stock, surely. Go down and get something to eat--and here's a guinea for you." And Jim, who had never seen a guinea in his life, gripped it tight in his dirty paw as a remarkable curiosity, and went out agape, with squirming shoulders.
The old white hand shook so much that the snuff went all awry, and brown-powdered the waxen face in quite a humorous fashion.
"Mr. Eager, I apologise--and that is not my habit. But you must acknowledge that the provocation was great."
"Not if you had considered the matter. Would you have a Carron break his pledged word?"
"Ay!" said the old man, following his own train of thought, "a true Carron! Surely that is our man! . . . Well, what do you advise next?"
"Send them both to Harrow, and trust the rest to Providence."
And after a brooding silence, punctuated with more than one thoughtful pinch, "We will try Harrow, anyway," said the oracle, and Eager shook hands with him and went downstairs well satisfied.