"I can not promise," he said, in a voice like a cry.
At that answer Dan drew Davy back from the cliff edge, and loosed his hold of him. He was abashed and ashamed. He felt himself a little man by the side of this half-daft fisher-lad.
All this time Ewan had stood aside looking on while Dan demanded the promise, and saying nothing. Now he went up to Davy, and said, in a quiet voice:
"Davy, if you should ever tell any one what you have seen, Dan will be a lost man all his life hereafter."
"Then let him pitch me over the cliff," said Davy, in a smothered cry.
"Listen to me, Davy," Ewan went on; "you're a brave lad, and I know what's in your head, but—"
"Then what for do you want to fight him?" Davy broke out. The lad's throat was dry and husky, and his eyes were growing dim.
Ewan paused. Half his passion was spent. Davy's poor dense head had found him a question that he could not answer.
"Davy, if you don't promise, you will ruin Dan—yes, it will be you who will ruin him, you, remember that. He will be a lost man, and my sister, my good sister Mona, she will be a broken-hearted woman."
Then Davy broke down utterly, and big tears filled his eyes, and ran down his cheeks.
"I promise," he sobbed.
"Good lad—now go."
Davy turned about and went away, at first running, and then dragging slowly, then running again, and then again lingering.
What followed was a very pitiful conflict of emotion. Nature, who looks down pitilessly on man and his big, little passions, that clamor so loud but never touch her at all—even Nature played her part in this tragedy.
When Davy Fayle was gone, Dan and Ewan stood face to face as before, Dan with his back to the cliff, Ewan with his face to the sea. Then, without a word, each turned aside and picked up his militia belt.
The snowflakes had thickened during the last few moments, but now they seemed to cease and the sky to lighten. Suddenly in the west the sky was cloven as though by the sweep of a sword, and under a black bar of cloud and above a silvered water-line the sun came through very red and hazy in its setting, and with its ragged streamers around it.
Ewan was buckling the belt about his waist when the setting sun rose upon them, and all at once there came to him the Scripture that says, "Let not the sun go down on your wrath." If God's hand had appeared in the heavens, the effect on Ewan could not have been greater. Already his passion was more than half gone, and now it melted entirely away.
"Dan," he cried, and his voice was a sob, "Dan, I can not fight—right or wrong I can not," and he flung himself down, and the tears filled his eyes.
Then Dan, whose face was afire, laughed loud and bitterly. "Coward," he said, "coward and poltroon!"
At that word all the evil passion came back to Ewan and he leapt to his feet.
"That is enough," he said; "the belts—buckle them together."
Dan understood Ewan's purpose. At the next breath the belt about Dan's waist was buckled to the belt about the waist of Ewan, and the two men stood strapped together. Then they drew the daggers, and an awful struggle followed.
With breast to breast until their flesh all but touched, and with thighs entwined, they reeled and swayed, the right hand of each held up for thrust, the left for guard and parry. What Dan gained in strength Ewan made up in rage, and the fight was fierce and terrible, Dan still with his back to the cliff, Ewan still with his face to the sea.
At one instant Dan, by his great stature, had reached over Ewan's shoulder to thrust from behind, and at the next instant Ewan had wrenched his lithe body backward and had taken the blow in his lifted arm, which forthwith spouted blood above the wrist. In that encounter they reeled about, changing places, and Ewan's back was henceforward toward the cliff, and Dan fought with his face toward the sea.
It was a hideous and savage fight. The sun had gone down, the cleft in the heavens had closed again, once more the thin flakes of snow were falling, and the world had dropped back to its dark mood. A stormy petrel came up from the cliff and swirled above the men as they fought, and made its direful scream over them.
Up and down, to and fro, embracing closely, clutching, guarding, and meantime panting hoarsely, and drawing hard breath, the two men fought in their deadly hate. At last they had backed and swayed to within three yards of the cliff, and then Ewan, with the gasp of a drowning man, flung his weapon into the air, and Dan ripped his dagger's edge across the belts that bound them together, and at the next breath the belts were cut, and the two were divided, and Ewan, separated from Dan, and leaning heavily backward, was reeling, by force of his own weight, toward the cliff.
Then Dan stood as one transfixed with uplifted hand, and a deep groan came from his throat. Passion and pain were gone from him in that awful moment, and the world itself seemed to be blotted out. When he came to himself, he was standing on the cliff head alone.
The clock in the old church was striking. How the bell echoed on that lonely height! One—two—three—four—five. Five o'clock! Everything else was silent as death. The day was gone. The snow began to fall in thick, large flakes. It fell heavily on Dan's hot cheeks and bare neck. His heart seemed to stand still, and the very silence itself was awful. His terror stupefied him. "What have I done?" he asked himself. He could not think. He covered his eyes with his hands, and strode up and down the cliff head, up and down, up and down. Then in a bewildered state of semi-consciousness he looked out to sea, and there far off, a league away, he saw a black thing looming large against the darkening sky. He recognized that it was a sail, and then perceived that it was a lugger, and quite mechanically he tried to divide the mainmast and mizzen, the mainsail and yawlsail, and to note if the boat were fetching to leeward or beating down the Channel.
All at once sea and sky were blotted out, and he could not stand on his legs, but dropped to his knees, and great beads of perspiration rolled down his face and neck. He tried to call "Ewan! Ewan!" but he could not utter the least cry. His throat was parched; his tongue swelled and filled his mouth. His lips moved, but no words came from him. Then he rose to his feet, and the world flowed back upon him; the sea-fowl crying over his head, the shrillness of the wind in the snow-capped gorse, and the sea's hoarse voice swelling upward through the air, while its heavy, monotonous blow on the beach shook the earth beneath him. If anything else had appeared to Dan at that moment, he must have screamed with terror.
Quaking in every limb, he picked up his clothes and turned back toward the shore. He was so feeble that he could scarcely walk through the snow that now lay thick on the short grass. When he reached the mouth of the gully he did not turn into the shed, but went on over the pebbles of the creek. His bloodshot eyes, which almost started from their sockets, glanced eagerly from side to side. At last he saw the thing he sought, and now that it was under him, within reach of his hand, he dare hardly look upon it.
At the foot of a jagged crag that hung heavily over from the cliff the body of Ewan Mylrea lay dead and cold. There was no mark of violence upon it save a gash on the wrist of the left hand, and over the wound there was a clot of blood. The white face lay deep in the breast, as if the neck had been dislocated. There were no other outward marks of injury from the fall. The body was outstretched on its back, with one arm—the left arm—lying half over the forehead, and the other, the right arm, with the hand open and the listless fingers apart, thrown loosely aside.
Dan knelt beside the body, and his heart was benumbed like ice. He tried to pray, but no prayer would come, and he could not weep.
"Ewan! Ewan!" he cried at length, and his voice of agony rolled round the corpse like the soughing of the wind.
"Ewan! Ewan!" he cried again; but only the sea's voice broke the silence that followed. Then his head fell on the cold breast, and his arms covered the lifeless body, and he cried upon God to have mercy on him, and to lift up His hand against him and cut him off.
Presently he got on his feet, and scarcely knowing what he was doing, he lifted the body in his arms, with the head lying backward on his shoulder, and the white face looking up in its stony stare to the darkening heavens. As he did so his eyes were raised to the cliff, and there, clearly outlined over the black crags and against the somewhat lighter sky, he saw the figure of a man.
He toiled along toward the shed. He was so weak that he could scarce keep on his legs, and when he reached the little place at the mouth of the creek he was more dead than alive. He put the body to lie on the bed of straw on which he had himself slept and dreamed an hour before. Then all at once he felt a low sort of cunning coming over him, and he went back to the door and shut it, and drew the long wooden bolt into its iron hoop on the jamb.
He had hardly done so when he heard an impatient footstep on the shingle outside. In another instant the latch was lifted and the door pushed heavily. Then there was a knock. Dan made no answer, but stood very still and held his breath. There was another knock, and another. Then, in a low tremulous murmur there came the words:
"Where is he? God A'mighty! where is he?" It was Davy Fayle. Another knock, louder, and still no reply.
"Mastha Dan, Mastha Dan, they're coming; Mastha Dan, God A'mighty!—"
Davy was now tramping restlessly to and fro. Dan was trying to consider what it was best to do, whether to open to Davy and hear what he had to say, or to carry it off as if he were not within, when another foot sounded on the shingle and cut short his meditations.
"Have you seen Mr. Ewan—Parson Ewan?"
Dan recognized the voice. It was the voice of Jarvis Kerruish.
Davy did not answer immediately.
"Have you seen him, eh?"
"No, sir," Davy faltered.
"Then why didn't you say so at once? It is very strange. The people said he was walking toward the creek. There's no way out in this direction, is there?"
"Way out—this direction? Yes, sir," Davy stammered.
"How? show me the way."
"By the sea, sir."
"The sea! Simpleton, what are you doing here?"
"Waiting for the boat, sir."
"What shed is this?"
Dan could hear that at this question Davy was in a fever of excitement.
"Only a place for bits of net and cable, and all to that," said Davy, eagerly.
Dan could feel that Jarvis had stepped up to the shed, and that he was trying to look in through the little window.
"Do you keep a fire to warm your nets and cables?" he asked in a suspicious tone.
At the next moment he was trying to force the door. Dan stood behind. The bolt creaked in the hasp. If the hasp should give way, he and Jarvis would stand face to face.
"Strange—there's something strange about all this," said the man outside. "I heard a scream as I came over the Head. Did you hear anything?"
"I tell you I heard nothing," said Davy, sullenly.
Dan grew dizzy, and groping for something to cling to, his hand scraped across the door.
"Wait! I could have sworn I heard something move inside. Who keeps the key of this shed?"
"Kay? There's never a kay at the like of it."
"Then how is it fastened? From within? Wait—let me see."
There was a sound like the brushing of a hand over the outside face of the door.
"Has the snow stopped up the keyhole, or is there no such thing? Or is the door fastened by a padlock?"
Dan had regained his self-possession by this time. He felt an impulse to throw the door open. He groped at his waist for the dagger, but belt and dagger were both gone.
"All this is very strange," said Jarvis, and then he seemed to turn from the door and move away.
"Stop. Where is the man Dan—the captain?" he asked, from a little distance.
"I dunno," said Davy, stoutly.
"That's a lie, my lad."
Then the man's footsteps went off in dull beats on the snow-clotted pebbles.
After a moment's silence there was a soft knocking; Davy had crept up to the door.
"Mastha Dan," he whispered, amid panting breath.
Dan did not stir. The latch was lifted in vain.
"Mastha Dan, Mastha Dan." The soft knocking continued.
Dan found his voice at last.
"Go away, Davy—go away," he said, hoarsely.
There was a short pause, and then there came from without an answer like a sob.
"I'm going, Mastha Dan."
After that all was silent as death. Half an hour later, Dan Mylrea was walking through the darkness toward Ballamona. In his blind misery he was going to Mona. The snow was not falling now, and in the lift of the storm the sky was lighter than it had been. As Dan passed the old church, he could just descry the clock. The snow lay thick on the face, and clogged the hands. The clock had stopped. It stood at five exactly.
The blind leading that is here of passion by accident is everywhere that great tragedies are done. It is not the evil in man's heart more than the deep perfidy of circumstance that brings him to crime.
However bleak the night, however dark the mood of the world might be, there was a room in Ballamona that was bright with one beautiful human flower in bloom. Mona was there—Mona of the quiet eyes and the silent ways and the little elfish head. It was Christmas Eve with her as with other people, and she was dressing the house in hibbin and hollin from a great mountain of both that Hommy-beg had piled up in the hall. She was looking very smart and happy that night in her short body of homespun turned in from neck to waist, showing a white habit-shirt and a white handkercheif crossed upon it; a quilted overskirt and linen apron that did not fall so low as to hide the open-work stockings and the sandal-shoes. Her room, too, was bright and sweet, with its glowing fire of peat and logs on the wide hearth, its lamp on the square oak table, and the oak settle drawn up between them.
In one corner of the settle, bubbling and babbling and spluttering and cooing amid a very crater of red baize cushions, was Mona's foster-child, Ewan's motherless daughter, lying on her back and fighting the air with clinched fists.
While Mona picked out the hibbin from the hollin, dissected both, made arches and crosses and crowns and rosettes, and then sprinkled flour to resemble snow on the red berries and the green leaves, she sung an old Manx ballad in snatches, or prattled to the little one in that half-articulate tongue that comes with the instinct of motherhood to every good woman that God ever makes.
I rede ye beware of the Carrasdoo menAs ye come up the wold;I rede ye beware of the haunted glen—
I rede ye beware of the Carrasdoo menAs ye come up the wold;I rede ye beware of the haunted glen—
But a fretful whimper would interrupt the singer.
"Hush, hush, Ailee darling—hush."
The whimper would be hushed, and again there would be a snatch of the ballad:
In Jorby curragh they dwell aloneBy dark peat bogs, where the willows moan,Down in a gloomy and lonely glen—
In Jorby curragh they dwell aloneBy dark peat bogs, where the willows moan,Down in a gloomy and lonely glen—
Once again the whimper would stop the song.
"Hush, darling; papa is coming to Ailee, yes; and Ailee will see papa, yes, and papa will see Ailee, yes, and Ailee—"
Then a long, low gurgle, a lovely head leaning over the back of the settle and dropping to the middle of the pillow like a lark to its nest in the grass, a long liquid kiss on the soft round baby legs, and then a perfect fit of baby laughter.
It was as pretty a picture as the world had in it on that bleak Christmas Eve. Whatever tumult might reign without, there within was a nest of peace.
Mona was expecting Ewan at Ballamona that night, and now she was waiting for his coming. It was true that when he was there three hours ago it was in something like anger that they had parted, but Mona recked nothing of that. She knew Ewan's impetuous temper no better than his conciliatory spirit. He would come to-night, as he had promised yesterday, and if there had been anger between them it would then be gone.
Twenty times she glanced at the little clock with the lion face and the pendulum like a dog's head that swung above the ingle. Many a time, with head aslant, with parted lips, and eyes alight, she cried "Hark!" to the little one when a footstep would sound in the hall But Ewan did not come, and meantime the child grew more and more fretful as her bedtime approached. At length Mona undressed her and carried her off to her crib in the room adjoining, and sang softly to her while she struggled hard with sleep under the oak hood with the ugly beasts carved on it, until sleep had conquered and all was silence and peace. Then, leaving a tallow dip burning on the table between the crib and the bed, lest perchance the little one should awake and cry from fear of the darkness, Mona went back to her sitting-room to finish off the last bunch of the hibbin and hollin.
The last bunch was a bit of prickly green, with a cluster of the reddest berries, and Mona hung it over a portrait of her brother, which was painted by a great artist from England when Ewan was a child. The Deemster had turned the portrait out of the dining-room after the painful interview at Bishop's Court about the loan and surety, and Mona had found it, face to the wall, in a lumber-room. She looked at it now with a new interest. When she hung the hollin over it she recognized for the first time a resemblance to the little Aileen whom she had just put to bed. How strange it seemed that Ewan had once been a child like Aileen!
Then she began to feel that Ewan was late in coming, and to make conjectures as to the cause of his delay. Her father's house was fast becoming a cheerless place to her. More than ever the Deemster was lost to her. Jarvis Kerruish, her stranger-brother, was her father's companion; and this seemed to draw her closer to Ewan for solace and cheer.
Then she sat on the settle to thread some loose berries that had fallen, and to think of Dan—the high-spirited, reckless, rollicking, headstrong, tender-hearted, thoughtless, brave, stubborn, daring, dear, dear Dan—Dan, who was very, very much to her in her great loneliness. Let other people rail at Dan if they would; he was wrapped up with too many of her fondest memories to allow of disloyalty like that. Dan would yet justify her belief in him. Oh, yes, he would yet be a great man, all the world would say it was so, and she would be very proud that he was her cousin—yes, her cousin, or perhaps, perhaps—. And then, without quite daring to follow up that delicious train of thought, even in her secret heart, though none might look there and say if it was unmaidenly, Mona came back to the old Manx ballad, and sang to herself another verse of it:
"Who has not heard of Adair, the youth?Who does not know that his soul was truth?Woe is me! how smoothly they speak,And Adair was brave, and a man, but weak."
"Who has not heard of Adair, the youth?Who does not know that his soul was truth?Woe is me! how smoothly they speak,And Adair was brave, and a man, but weak."
All at once her hand went up to her forehead, and the words of the old song seemed to have a new significance. Hardly had her voice stopped and her last soft note ceased to ring in the quiet room, when she thought she heard her own name called twice—"Mona! Mona!"
The voice was Ewan's voice, and it seemed to come from her bedroom. She rose from the settle, and went into her room. There was no one there save the child. The little one was disturbed in her sleep at the moment, and was twisting restlessly, making a faint cry. It was very strange. The voice had been Ewan's voice, and it had been deep and tremulous, as the voice of one in trouble.
Presently the child settled itself to sleep, all was silent as before, and Mona went back to the sitting-room. Scarcely was she seated afresh when she heard the voice again, and it again called her twice by name, "Mona! Mona!" in the same tremulous tone, but very clear and distinct.
Then tremblingly Mona rose once more and went into her room, for thence the voice seemed to come. No one was there. The candle burned fitfully, and suddenly the child cried in its sleep—that strange night-cry that freezes the blood of one who is awake to hear it. It was very, very strange.
Feeling faint, hardly able to keep on her feet, Mona went back to the sitting-room and opened the door that led into the hall. No one seemed to be stirring. The door of her father's study opposite was closed, and there was talking—the animated talking of two persons—within.
Mona turned back, closed her door quietly, and then, summoning all her courage, she walked to the window and drew the heavy curtains aside. The hoops from which they hung rattled noisily over the pole. Putting her face close to the glass, and shading her eyes from the light of the lamp behind her, she looked out. She saw that the snow had fallen since the lamp had been lit at dusk. There was snow on the ground, and thin snow on the leafless boughs of the trees. She could see nothing else. She even pushed up the sash, and called:
"Who is there?"
But there came no answer. The wind moaned about the house, and the sea rumbled in the distance. She pulled the sash down again.
Then, leaving the curtain back, she turned again into the room, and partly to divert her mind from the mysterious apprehensions that had seized it, she sat down at the little harpsichord that stood on the farther side of the ingle against the wall that ran at right angles from the window.
At first her fingers ran nervously over the keys, but they gained force as she went on, and the volume of sound seemed to dissipate her fears.
"It is nothing," she thought. "I have been troubled about what Ewan said to-day, and I'm nervous—that is all."
And as she played her eyes looked not at the finger-board, but across her shoulder toward the bare window. Then suddenly there came to her a sensation that made her flesh creep. It was as if from the darkness outside there were eyes which she could not see looking steadily in upon her where she sat.
Her blood rushed to her head, she felt dizzy, the playing ceased, and she clung by one hand to the candle-rest of the harpsichord. Then once more she distinctly heard the same deep, tremulous voice call her by her name—"Mona! Mona!"
Faint and all but reeling, she rose again, and again made her way to the bedroom. As before, the child was restless in her sleep. It seemed as if all the air were charged. Mona had almost fallen from fright, when all at once she heard a sound that she could not mistake, and instantly she recovered some self-possession.
It was the sound of the window of her sitting-room being thrown open from without. She ran back, and saw Dan Mylrea climbing into the room.
"Dan!" she cried.
"Mona."
"Did you call?"
"When?"
"Now—a little while ago?"
"No."
A great trembling shook Dan's whole frame. Mona perceived it, and a sensation of disaster not yet attained to the clearness of an idea took hold of her.
"Where is Ewan?" she said.
He tried to avoid her gaze. "Why do you ask for him?" said Dan, in a faltering voice.
"Where is he?" she asked again.
He grew dizzy, and laid hold of the settle for support. The question she asked was that which he had come to answer, but his tongue clave to his mouth.
Very pale and almost rigid from the heaviness of a great fear which she felt but could not understand, she watched him when he reeled like a drunken man.
"He has called me three times. Where is he? He was to be here to-night," she said.
"Ewan will not come to-night," he answered, scarcely audibly; "not to-night, Mona, or to-morrow—or ever—no, he will never come again."
The horrible apprehension that had taken hold of her leaped to the significance of his words, and, almost before he had spoken, a cry burst from her.
"Ewan is dead—he is dead; Mona, our Ewan, he is dead," he faltered.
She dropped to the settle, and cried, in the excess of her first despair, "Ewan, Ewan! to think that I shall see him no more!" and then she wept. All the time Dan stood over her, leaning heavily to bear himself up, trembling visibly, and with a look of great agony fixed upon her, as if he had not the strength to turn his eyes away.
"Yes, yes, our Ewan is dead," he repeated in a murmur that came up from his heart. "The truest friend, the fondest brother, the whitest soul, the dearest, bravest, purest, noblest—O God! O God! dead, dead! Worse, a hundredfold worse—Mona, he is murdered."
At that she raised herself up, and a bewildered look was in her eyes.
"Murdered? No, that is not possible. He was beloved by all. There is no one who would kill him—there is no one alive with a heart so black."
"Yes, Mona, but there is," he said; "there is one man with a heart so black."
"Who is he?"
"Who! He is the foulest creature on God's earth. Oh, God in heaven! why was he born?"
"Who is he?"
He bowed his head where he stood before her and beads of sweat started from his brow.
"Cursed be the hour when that man was born!" he said in an awful whisper.
Then Mona's despair came upon her like a torrent, and she wept long. In the bitterness of her heart she cried:
"Cursed indeed, cursed forever! Dan, Dan, you must kill him—you must kill that man!"
But at the sound of that word from her own lips the spirit of revenge left her on the instant, and she cried, "No, no, not that." Then she went down on her knees and made a short and piteous prayer for forgiveness for her thought. "O Father," she prayed, "forgive me. I did not know what I said. But Ewan is dead! O Father, our dear Ewan is murdered. Some black-hearted man has killed him. Vengeance is Thine. Yes, I know that. O Father, forgive me. But to think that Ewan is gone forever, and that base soul lives on. Vengeance is Thine; but, O Father, let thy vengeance fall upon him. If it is Thy will, let Thy hand be on him. Follow him, Father; follow him with Thy vengeance—"
She had flung herself on her knees by the settle, her upturned eyes wide open, and her two trembling hands held above her head. Dan stood beside her, and as she prayed a deep groan came up from his heart, his breast swelled, and his throat seemed to choke. At last he clutched her by the shoulders and interrupted her prayer, and cried, "Mona, Mona, what are you saying—what are you saying? Stop, stop!"
She rose to her feet. "I have done wrong," she said, more quietly. "He is in God's hands. Yes, it is for God to punish him."
Then Dan said, in a heart-rending voice:
"Mona, he did not mean to kill Ewan—they fought—it was all in the heat of blood."
Once more he tried to avoid her gaze, and once more, pale and immovable, she watched his face.
"Who is he?" she asked, with an awful calmness.
"Mona, turn your face away from me, and I will tell you," he said.
Then everything swam about her, and her pale lips grew ashy.
"Don't you know?" he asked in a whisper.
She did not turn her face, and he was compelled to look at her now. His glaring eyes were fixed upon her.
"Don't you know?" he whispered again, and then, in a scarcely audible voice, he said, "It was I, Mona."
At that she grew cold with horror. Her features became changed beyond recognition. She recoiled from him, stretched her trembling hands before her as if to keep him off.
"Oh, horror! Do not touch me!" she cried, faintly, through the breath that came so hard.
"Do not spare me, Mona," he said in a great sob. "Do not spare me. You do right not to spare me. I have stained my hands with your blood."
Then she sank to the settle, and held her head, while he stood by her and told her all—all the bitter, blundering truth—and bit by bit she grasped the tangled tale, and realized the blind passion and pain that had brought them to such a pass, and saw her own unwitting share in it.
And he on his part saw the product of his headstrong wrath, and the pitiful grounds for it, so small and so absurd as such grounds oftenest are. And together these shipwrecked voyagers on the waters of life sat and wept, and wondered what evil could be in hell itself if man in his blindness could find the world so full of it.
And Dan cursed himself and said:
"Oh, the madness of thinking that if either were gone the other could ever again know one hour's happiness with you, Mona. Ay, though the crime lay hidden, yet would it wither and blast every hour. And now, behold, at the first moment, I am bringing my burden of sin, too heavy for myself, to you. I am a coward—yes, I am a coward. You will turn your back upon me, Mona, and then I shall be alone."
She looked at him with infinite compassion, and her heart surged within her as she listened to his voice of great agony.
"Ah me! and I asked God to curse you," she said. "Oh, how wicked that prayer was! Will God hear it? Merciful Father, do not hear it. I did not know what I said. I am a blind, ignorant creature, but Thou seest and knowest best. Pity him, and forgive him. Oh, no, God will not hear my wicked prayer."
Thus in fitful outbursts she talked and prayed. It was as if a tempest had torn up every tie of her soul. Dan listened, and he looked at her with swimming eyes.
"And do you pray for me, Mona?" he said.
"Who will pray for you if I do not? In all the world there will not be one left to speak kindly of you if I speak ill. Oh, Dan, it will become known, and every one will be against you."
"And can you think well of him who killed your brother?"
"But you are in such sorrow; you are so miserable."
Then Dan's great frame shook wofully, and he cried in his pain—"Mercy, mercy, have mercy! What have I lost? What love have I lost?"
At that Mona's weeping ceased; she looked at Dan through her lashes, still wet, and said in another tone:
"Dan, do not think me unmaidenly. If you had done well, if you had realized my hopes of you, if you had grown to be the good and great man I longed to see you, then, though I might have yearned for you, I would rather have died with my secret than speak of it. But now, now that all this is not so, now that it is a lost faith, now that by God's will you are to be abased before the whole world—oh, do not think me unmaidenly, now I tell you, Dan, that I love you, and have always loved you."
"Mona!" he cried, in a low, passionate tone, and took one step toward her and held out his hands. There was an unspeakable language in her face.
"Yes; and that where you go I must go also, though it were to disgrace and shame—"
She had turned toward him lovingly, yearningly, with heaving breast. With a great cry he flung his arms about her, and the world of pain and sorrow was for that instant blotted out.
But all the bitter flood came rushing back upon them. He put her from him with a strong shudder.
"We are clasping hands over a tomb, Mona. Our love is known too late. We are mariners cast on a rock within a cable's length of harbor, but cut off from it by a cruel sea that may never be passed. We are hopeless within sight of hope. Our love is known in vain. It is a vision of what might have been in the days that are lost forever. We can never clasp hands, for, O God! a cold hand is between us, and lies in the hand of both."
Then again she fell to weeping, but suddenly she arose as if struck by a sudden idea.
"You will be taken," she said; "how can I have forgotten it so long? You must fly from the island. You must get away to-night. To-morrow all will be discovered."
"I will not leave the island," said Dan, firmly. "Can you drive me from you?" he said, with a suppliant look. "Yes, you do well to drive me away."
"My love, I do not drive you from me. I would have you here forever. But you will be taken. Quick, the world is wide."
"There is no world for me save here, Mona. To go from you now is to go forever, and I would rather die by my own hand than face such banishment."
"No, no, not that; never, never that. That would imperil your soul, and then we should be divided forever."
"It is so already, Mona," said Dan, with solemnity. "We are divided forever—as the blessed are divided from the damned."
"Don't say that, don't say that."
"Yes, Mona," he said, with a fearful calmness, "we have thought of my crime as against Ewan, as against you, myself, the world, and its law. But it is a crime against God also, and surely it is the unpardonable sin."
"Don't say that, Dan. There is one great anchor of hope."
"What is that, Mona?"
"Ewan is with God. At this moment, while we stand here together, Ewan sees God."
"Ah!"
Dan dropped to his knees with awe at that thought, and drew off the cap which he had worn until then, and bent his head.
"Yes, he died in anger and in strife," said Mona; "but God is merciful. He knows the feebleness of His creatures, and has pity. Yes, our dear Ewan is with God; now he knows what you suffer, my poor Dan; and he is taking blame to himself and pleading for you."
"No, no; I did it all, Mona. He would not have fought. He would have made peace at the last, but I drove him on. 'I can not fight, Dan,' he said. I can see him saying it, and the sun was setting. No, it was not fight, it was murder. And God will punish me, my poor girl. Death is my just punishment—everlasting death."
"Wait. I know what is to be done."
"What, Mona?"
"You must make atonement."
"How?"
"You must give yourself up to justice and take the punishment of the law. And so you will be redeemed, and God will forgive you."
He listened, and then said:
"And such is to be the end of our love, Mona, born in the hour of its death. You, even you, give me up to justice."
"Don't say that. You will be redeemed by atonement. When Ewan was killed it was woe enough, but that you are under God's wrath is worse than if we were all, all slain."
"Then we must bid farewell. The penalty of my crime is death."
"No, no; not that."
"I must die, Mona. This, then, is to be our last parting."
"And even if so, it is best. You must make your peace with God."
"And you, my last refuge, even you send me to my death. Well, it is right, it is just, it is well. Farewell, my poor girl; this is a sad parting."
"Farewell."
"You will remember me, Mona?"
"Remember you? When the tears I shed for Ewan are dry, I shall still weep for you."
There was a faint cry at that moment.
"Hush!" said Mona, and she lifted one hand.
"It is the child," she added. "Come, look at it."
She turned, and walked toward the bedroom. Dan followed her with drooping head. The little one had again been restless in her sleep, but now, with a long breath, she settled herself in sweet repose.
At sight of the child the great trembling shook Dan's frame again. "Mona, Mona, why did you bring me here?" he said.
The sense of his crime came with a yet keener agony when he looked down at the child's unconscious face. The thought flashed upon him that he had made this innocent babe fatherless, and that all the unprotected years were before her wherein she must realize her loss.
He fell to his knees beside the cot, and his tears rained down upon it.
Mona had lifted the candle from the table, and she held it above the kneeling man and the sleeping child.
It was the blind woman's vision realized.
When Dan rose to his feet he was a stronger man.
"Mona," he said, resolutely, "you are right. This sin must be wiped out."
She had put down the candle and was now trying to take his hand.
"Don't touch me," he said, "don't touch me."
He returned to the other room, and threw open the window. His face was turned toward the distant sea, whose low moan came up through the dark night.
"Dan," she murmured, "do you think we shall meet again?"
"Perhaps we are speaking for the last time, Mona," he answered.
"Oh, my heart will break!" she said. "Dan," she murmured again, and tried to grasp his hand.
"Don't touch me. Not until later—not until—untilthen."
Their eyes met. The longing, yearning look in hers answered to the wild light in his. She felt as if this were the last she was ever to see of Dan in this weary world. He loved her with all his great, broken, bleeding heart. He had sinned for her sake. She caught both his hands with a passionate grasp. Her lips quivered, and the brave, fearless, stainless girl put her quivering lips to his.
To Dan 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. Dan tore himself away, with heart and brain aflame. Were they ever to meet again? Yes. At one great moment they were yet to stand face to face.
The night was dark, but Dan felt the darkness not at all, for the night was heavier within him. He went down toward the creek. To-morrow he would give himself up to the Deemster; but to-night was for himself—himself andit.
He went by the church. A noisy company were just then trooping out of the porch into the churchyard. There they gathered in little knots, lit lanterns, laughed, and drank healths from bottles that were brought out of their pockets.
It was the breaking up of the Oiel Verree.
When Dan got down to the creek the little shed was full of the fisher-fellows. There were Quilleash, Teare, Crennell, and the lad Davy. The men wore their oilskins, as if they had just stepped out of the dingey on the beach, and on the floor were three baskets of cod and ray, as if they had just set them down. The fire of gorse was crackling on the hearth, and Davy sat beside it, looking pale and ill. He had watched Dan away from the shed, and then, trembling with fear, but girding up his young heart to conquer it, he had crept back and kept guard by the body.
"I couldn't give myself liberty to lave it," he said, half fearfully, lifting his eyes to Dan's as Dan entered. Then the men, who in the first moment of horror had asked Davy fifty questions, and got never an answer to any of them, seemed to understand everything at once. They made way for Dan, and he strode through them, and looked down at the body, for it was still lying where he had left it. He said not a word.
When the men had time to comprehend in its awful fulness what had occurred, they stood together and whispered, cast side looks at Dan, and then long, searching looks at the body. The certainty that Ewan was dead did not at first take hold of them. There was no mark of violence on the body except the wound above the wrist, and suddenly, while the men stood and looked down, the wound bled afresh. Then old Quilleash, who was reputed to possess a charm to stop blood, knelt beside Ewan, and while all looked on and none spoke, he whispered his spell in the deaf ear.
"A few good words can do no harm," said Crennell, the cook, who was a Quaker.
Old Quilleash whispered again in the dead ear, and then he made 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.
There was a minute of silence, and the blood seemed to stop. The men trembled; Davy, the lad, grew more pale than before, and Dan stood as if in a stupor, looking down and seeing all, yet seeing nothing.
Then the old man lifted his tawny face. "Cha marroo as clagh," he said, in another hoarse whisper. "He is dead as a stone."
There was a deep groan from the throats of the men; they dropped aside, and awe fell upon them. None of them spoke to Dan, and none questioned the lad again; but all seemed to understand everything in some vague way. Billy Quilleash sat on a block of a tree-trunk that stood at one side, and there was silence for a space. Then the old man turned his face to his mates and said, "I'm for a man sticking up for a frien', I am."
At that there was an uneasy movement among the others.
"Aw, yes, though, a man should stick to his frien', he should, alow or aloft, up or down," continued Billy; and after some twisting and muttering among the other fisher-fellows he went on: "You have to summer and winter a man before you know him, and lave it to us to know Mastha Dan. We've shared meat, shared work with him, and d—— me sowl! nothing will hould me, but I'll stand up for him now, sink or swim."
Then one of the fellows said "Ay," and another said "Ay," and a third—it was Crennell—said, "A friend in need was more preciouser nor goold;" and then old Billy half twisted his head toward Dan, but never once lifted his eyes to Dan's face, and speaking at him but not to him, said they were rough chaps maybe, and couldn't put out no talk at all, never being used of it, but if there was somethin' wrong, as was plain to see, and keepin' a quiet tongue in your head was the way it was goin', and buckin' up for them as was afther buckin' up for his chums, why, a frien' was a frien', and they meant to stand by it.
At that, these rough sea-dogs, with the big hearts in their broad breasts, took hold of each other's hard hands in a circle about the body of Ewan, whose white face looked up at them in its stony stare, and there in the little lonely shed by the sea they made their mutual pledge.
All that time Dan had stood and looked on in silence, and Davy, sitting by the spluttering fire, sobbed audibly while Uncle Billy spoke.
"We must put it away," said old Billy, in a low tone, with his eyes on the body.
"Ay," said Ned Teare.
"What's o'clock?"
"A piece past twelve."
"Half-flood. It will be near the turn of the ebb at three," said Quilleash.
Not another word of explanation was needed, all understanding that they must take the body of Ewan out to sea, and bury it there after three o'clock next morning, so that, if it stirred after it was sent down to its long home, it must be swept away over the Channel.
"Heise," said one, as he put his hand down to lift the body.
"Shoo!"
Dan himself stepped aside to let them pass out. He had watched their movements with wide eyes. They went by him without a word. When they were gone, he followed them mechanically, scarcely knowing what he did. Davy went after him.
The fishermen stepped out into the night. In silence they carried the body of Ewan to the dingey that lay on the beach. All got into the boat and pushed off. It was very dark now, but soon they came athwart the hawse of the "Ben-my-Chree," which was lying at anchor below low-water. They pulled up, lifted the body over the gunwale, and followed it into the fishing-boat.
"There's a good taste of a breeze," said old Quilleash.
In five minutes more they were standing out to sea, with their dread freight of horror and crime. They had put the body to lie by the hatchways, and again and again they turned their heads toward it in the darkness. It was as though it 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 wind was fresh outside. It was on their larboard quarter as they made in long tacks for the north. When they were well away the men gathered about the cockpit and began to mourn over Ewan, and to recount their memories concerning him.
"Well, the young pazon's cruise is up, and a rael good man anyway."
"Aw, yes, there's odds of pazons, but the like of him isn't in."
"Poor Pazon Ewan," said Quilleash, "I remember him since he was a wee skute in his mother's arms—and a fine lady too. And him that quiet, but thinking a dale maybe, with his head a piece to starboard and his eyes fixed like a figure-head, but more natheral, and tender uncommon. And game too. Aw, dear, you should 'a seen him buck up to young Dan at whiles."
"Game? A hot temper at him for all, and I wouldn't trust but it's been the death of him."
"Well, man, lave it at that; lave it, man. Which of us doesn't lie ever in a bit of a breeze aither to port or starboard? God won't be hard on him for the temper. No, no, God'll never be hard on a warm heart because it keeps company with a hot head."
"Aw, but the tender he was!" said Crennell, the Quaker. "And the voice like an urgan when it's like a flute, soft and low, and all a-tremblin'! D'ye mind the day ould Betty Kelly lost her little gel by the faver, the one with the slander little stalk of a body, and the head like a flower, and the eyes like a pair of bumbees playing in it? You mind her, the millish? Well, young Pazon Ewan up and went to Ballig-beg immadietly, and ould Betty scraming and crying morthal, and 'she'd die!' so she would, and 'what for should you live?' but och, boy, the way the pazon put out the talk at him, and the bit of a spell at the prayin'—aw, man alive, he calked the seams of the ould body wonderful."
"The man was free, as free as free," said old Quilleash. "When he grew up it was, 'How are you, Billy Quilleash?' And when he came straight from the college at Bishop's Court, and all the larning at him, and the fine English tongue, and all to that, it was 'And how are you to-day, Billy?' 'I'm middlin' to-day, Mastha Ewan.' Aw, yes, yes, though, a tender heart at him anyway, and no pride at all, at all."
The old man's memories were not thrilling to relate, but they brought the tears to his eyes, and he wiped them away with his sleeve.
"Still a quick temper for all, and when his blood was up it was batten down your hatches, my boys—a storm's coming," said Ned Teare.
All at once they turned their faces in the darkness to where Dan sat on the battened hatches, his elbows on his knees, his head on his hands, and a sort of shame took hold of them at all this praise of Ewan. It was as if every word must enter into Dan's soul like iron. Then, hardly knowing what they did, they began to beat about to undo the mischief. They talked of the Deemster in his relation to his son.
"Deed on Ewan—there was not much truck atween them—the Deemster and him. It wasn't natheral. It's like as if a sarpent crawled in his ould sowl, the craythur, and spat out at the young pazon."
Then they talked of Jarvis Kerruish.
"Och, schemin' and plannin' reg'lar, and stirrin' and stirrin' and stirrin' at the devil's own gruel."
"Aw, the Deemster's made many a man toe the mark, but I'm thinking he'll have to stand to it when the big day comes. I'll go bail the ould polecat's got summat to answer for in this consarn."
Dan said nothing. Alone, and giving no sign, he still sat on the hatches near where the body lay, and, a little to aft of him, Davy Fayle was stretched out on the deck. The lad's head rested on one hand, and his eyes were fixed with a dog's yearning look on the dark outlines of Dan's figure.
They were doubling the Point of Ayre, when suddenly the wind fell to a dead calm. The darkness seemed to grow almost palpable.
"More snow comin'—let the boat driff," said old Billy Quilleash, and the men turned into the cabin, only Dan and the body, with Davy, the lad, remaining on deck.
Then, through the silence and the blank darkness, there was the sound of large drops of rain falling on the deck. Presently there came a torrent which lasted about ten minutes. When the rain ceased the darkness lifted away, and the stars came out. This was toward two o'clock, and soon afterward the moon rose, but before long it was concealed again by a dense black turret-cloud that reared itself upward from the horizon.
When Dan stepped aboard a dull, dense aching at his heart was all the consciousness he had. The world was dead to him. He had then no clear purpose of concealing his crime, and none of carrying out the atonement that Mona had urged him to attempt. He was stunned. His spirit seemed to be dead. It was as though it could awake to life again only in another world. He had watched old Billy when he whispered into Ewan's deaf ear the words of the mystic charm. Without will or intention he had followed the men when they came to the boat. Later on a fluttering within him preceded the return of the agonizing sense. Had he not damned his own soul forever? That he had taken a warm human life; that Ewan, who had been alive, lay dead a few feet away from him—this was nothing to the horrible thought that he himself was going, hot and unprepared, to an everlasting hell. "Oh, can this thing have happened?" his bewildered mind asked itself a thousand times as it awoke as often from the half-dream of a paralyzed consciousness. Yes, it was true that such a thing had occurred. No, it was not a nightmare. He would 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 Ewan stood once more face to face, and the awful voice would cry aloud, "Go, get thee hence."
Then Dan thought of Mona, and his heart was nigh to breaking. With a dumb longing his eyes turned through the darkness toward the land, and while the boat was sailing before the wind it seemed to be carrying him away from Mona forever. The water that lay between them was as the river that for all eternity would divide the blessed and the damned.
And while behind him the men talked, and their voices fell on his ear like a dull buzz, the last ray of his hope was flying away. When Mona had prompted him to the idea of atonement, it had come to him like a gleam of sunlight that, though he might never, never clasp her hands on earth, in heaven she would yet be his, to love for ever and ever. But no, no, no; between them now the great gulf was fixed.
Much of this time Dan lay on the deck with only the dead and the lad Davy for company, and the fishing-boat lay motionless with only the lap of the waters about her. The stars died off, the darkness came again, and then, deep in the night, the first gray streaks stretching along the east foretold the dawn. Over the confines of another night the soft daylight was about to break, but more utterly lonely, more void, to Dan, was the great waste of waters now that the striding light was chasing the curling mists than when the darkness lay dead upon it. On one side no object was visible on the waters until sky and ocean met in that great half-circle far away. On the other side was the land that was once called home.
When the gray light came, and the darkness ebbed away, Dan still sat on the hatches, haggard and pale. Davy lay on the deck a pace or two aside. A gentle breeze was rising in the southwest. The boat had drifted many miles, and was now almost due west off Peeltown, and some five miles out to sea. The men came up from below. The cold white face by the hatchway looked up at them, and at heaven.
"We must put it away now," said Billy Quilleash.
"Ay, it's past the turn of the ebb," said Crennell.
Not another word was spoken. A man went below and brought up an old sail, and two heavy iron weights, used for holding down the nets, were also fetched from the hold. There was no singing out, no talking. Silently they took up what lay there cold and stiff, and wrapped it in canvas, putting one of the weights at the head and another at the feet. Then one of the men—it was old Billy himself, because he had been a rigger in his young days—sat down with a sail-maker's needle and string, and began to stitch up the body in the sail.
"Will the string hold?" asked one.
"It will last him this voyage out—it's a short one," said old Billy.
Awe and silence sat on the crew. When all was made ready, the men brought from below a bank-board used for 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. It was a solemn and awful sight. Overhead the heavy clouds of night were still rolling before the dawn.
Dan sat on the hatches with his head in his hands and his haggard face toward the deck. None spoke to him. A kind of awe had fallen on the men in their dealings with him. They left him alone. Davy Fayle had got up and was leaning against the mitch-board. All hands else gathered round the bank-board and lifted their caps. Then old Quilleash went down on one knee and laid his right hand on the body, while two men raised the other end of the board. "Dy bishee jeeah shin—God prosper you," murmured the old fisherman.
"God prosper you," echoed the others, and the body of Ewan slid down into the wide waste of waters.
And then there occurred one of those awful incidents which mariners say have been known only thrice in all the strange history of the sea. Scarcely had the water covered up the body, when there was a low rumble under the wave-circles in which it had disappeared. It was the noise of the iron weights slipping from their places at the foot and at the head. The stitching was giving away, and the weights were tearing open the canvas in which the body was wrapped. In another minute these weights had rolled out of the canvas and sunk into the sea. Then a terrible thing happened. The body, free of the weights that were to sink it, rose to the surface. The torn canvas, not yet thoroughly saturated, opened out, and spread like a sail in the breeze that had risen again. The tide was not yet strong, for the ebb had only just begun, and the body, floating on the top of the water like a boat began to drive athwart the hawse of the fishing-boat straight for the land. Nor was the marvel ended yet. Almost instantly a great luminous line arose and stretched from the boat's quarter toward the island, white as a moon's waterway, but with no moon to make it. Flashing along the sea's surface for several seconds, it seemed to be the finger of God marking the body's path on the waters. Old mariners, who can interpret aright the signs of sea and sky, will understand this phenomenon if they have marked closely what has been said of the varying weather of this fearful night.
To the crew of the "Ben-my-Chree" all that had happened bore but one awful explanation. The men stood and stared into each other's faces in speechless dismay. They strained their eyes to watch the body until—the strange light being gone—it became a speck in the twilight of the dawn and could be seen no more. It was as though an avenging angel had torn the murdered man from their grasp. But the worst thought was behind, and it was this: the body of Ewan Mylrea would wash ashore, the murder would become known, and they themselves, who had thought only to hide the crime of Dan Mylrea, would now, in the eyes of the law, become participators in that crime or accessories to it.
Dan saw it all, and in a moment he was another man. He read that incident by another light. It was God's sign to the guilty man, saying, "Blood will have blood." The body would not be buried; the crime would not be hidden. The penalty must be paid. Then in an instant Dan thrust behind him all his vague fears, and all his paralyzing terrors. Atonement! atonement! atonement! God himself demanded it. Dan leaped to his feet and cried: "Come, my lads, we must go back—heave hearty and away."
It was the first time Dan had spoken that night, and his voice was awful in the men's ears.
The wind strengthened, and the men hoisted sail and began to beat into the island. The breeze filled the canvas, and for half an hour the jib lay over the side, while the fishing-boat scudded along like a startled bird. The sun rose over the land, a thin gauze obscuring it. The red light flashed and died away, and fanned the air as if the wind itself were the sunshine. The men's haggard faces caught at moments a lurid glow from it. In the west a mass of bluish cloud rested a little while on the horizon, and then passed into a nimbus of gray rain-cloud that floated above it. Such was the dawn and sunrise of a fateful day.
Dan stood at the helm. When the speck that had glided along the waters like a spectre boat could be no more seen, he gazed in silence toward the eastern light and the green shores of morning. Then he had a sweet half-hour's blessed respite from terrible thoughts. He saw calmly what he had done, and in what a temper of blind passion he had done it. "Surely God is merciful," he thought, and his mind turned to Mona. It relieved him to think of her. She intertwined herself with his yearning hope of pardon and peace. She became part of his scheme of penitence. His love for her was to redeem him in the Father's eye. He was to take it to the foot of God's white throne, and when his guilt came up for judgment, he was to lay it meekly there, and look up into the good Father's face.
The crew had now recovered from their first consternation, and were no longer obeying Dan's orders mechanically. They had come aboard with no clear purpose before them, except that of saving their friend; but nature is nature, and a pitiful thing at the best, and now every man began to be mainly concerned about saving himself. One after one they slunk away forward and sat on the thwart, and there they took counsel together. The wind was full on their starboard beam, the mainsail and yawl were bellied out, and the boat was driving straight for home. But through the men's half-bewildered heads there ran like a cold blast of wind the thought that home could be home no longer. The voices of girls, the prattle of children, the welcome of wife, the glowing hearth—these could be theirs no more. Davy Fayle stayed aft with Dan, but the men fetched him forward and began to question him.
"'Tarprit all this mysterious trouble to us," they said.
Davy held down his head and made no answer.
"You were with him—what's it he's afther doin'?"
Still no answer from the lad.
"Out with it, you cursed young imp," said old Billy.
"Damn his fool's face, why doesn't he spake?"
"It's the mastha's saycret, and I wunnit tell it," said Davy.
"You wunnit, you idiot waistrel?"
"No, I wunnit," said Davy, stoutly.
"Look here, ye beachcomber, snappin' yer fingers at yer old uncle that's after bringin' you up, you pauper—what was it goin' doin' in the shed yander?"
"It's his saycret," repeated Davy.
Old Billy took Davy by the neck as if he had been a sack with an open mouth, and brought down his other hand with a heavy slap on the lad's shoulder.
"Gerr out, you young devil," he said.
Davy took the blow quietly, but he stirred not an inch, and he turned on his uncle with great wide eyes.
"Gerr out, scollop eyes;" and old Billy lifted his hand again.
"Aisy, aisy," said Crennell, interposing; and then, while Davy went back aft, the men compared notes again.
"It's plain to see," said Ned Teare, "it's been a quarrel and maybe a fight, and he's had a piece more than the better, as is only natheral, and him a big strapping chap as strong as a black ox and as straight as the backbone of a herring, and he's been in hidlins, and now he's afther takin' a second thought, and goin' back and chance it."
This reading of the mystery commended itself to all.
"It's aisy for him to lay high like that," said Ned again. "If I was the old Bishop's son I'd hould my luff too, and no hidlins neither. But we've got ourselves in for it, so we have, and we're the common sort, so we are, and there's never no sailin' close to the wind for the like of us."
And to this view of the situation there were many gruff assents. They had come out to sea innocently enough and by a kindly impulse, but they had thereby cast in their lot with the guilty man; and the guilty man had favor in high places, but they had none. Then their tousled heads went together again.
"What for shouldn't we lay high, too?" whispered one, which, with other whispers, was as much as to say, why should they not take the high hand and mutiny, and put Dan into irons, and turn the boat's head and stand out to sea? Then it would be anywhere, anywhere, away from the crime of one, and the guilt of all.
"Hould hard," said old Billy Quilleash, "I'll spake to himself."
Dan, at the tiller, had seen when the men went forward, and he had also seen when some of them cast sidelong looks over their shoulders in his direction. He knew—he thought he knew—the thought wherewith their brave hearts were busy. They were thinking—so thought Dan—that if he meant to throw himself away they must prevent him. But they should see that he could make atonement. Atonement? Empty solace, pitiful unction for a soul in its abasement, but all that remained to him—all, all.
Old Quilleash went aft, sidled up to the helm, and began to speak in a stammering way, splicing a bit of rope while he spoke, and never lifting his eyes to Dan's face.
"What for shouldn't we gerr away to Shetlands?" he said.
"Why to Shetlands?" asked Dan.
"Aw, it's safe and well we'll be when we're there. Aw, yes, I've been there afore to-day. They're all poor men there, but right kind; and what's it sayin', 'When one poor man helps another poor man, God laughs.'"
Dan thought he saw into the heart of the old fellow. His throat grew hard and his eyes dim, and he twisted his face away, keeping one hand on the tiller. They should yet be justified of their loyalty, these stout sea-dogs—yes, God helping him.
"No, no, Billy," he said, "there's to be no running away. We're going back to see it out."
At that old Quilleash threw off some of his reserve.
"Mastha Dan," he said, "we came out to sea just to help you out of this jeel, and because we've shared work, shared meat with you, and a frien' should stand to a frien'; but now we're in for it too, so we are, and what you'll have to stand to we'll have to stand to, and it'll be unknownst to the law as we are innocent as kittens; and so it's every man for himself and God for us all."
Then Dan understood them—how had he been blind so long to their position?
"You want me to put about; is that it?" he asked.
Old Quilleash nodded his head, still keeping his eyes down.
"You think you'll be taken with me?"
Old Quilleash made an abashed mutter of assent. "Aw, yes, as 'cessories before the fac's," he added.
At that Dan's great purpose began to waver.
"Don't fear, Billy," he said, "I'll speak up for you."
"And what'll that go for? Nothin'. Haven't we been tryin' to put 'it' away?"
"That's true."
It was a fearful situation. The cold sweat rose in big beads on Dan's forehead. What had he done? He had allowed these brave fellows to cast in their lot with him. They were with him now for good or ill. He might say they were innocent, but what would his word avail? And he had no proof. They had tried to cover up his crime; they could not cover it; God had willed that the crime should not be hidden. And now, if he wished to lose his life to save his soul, what right had he to take the lives of these men also? The brave fellows had wives that waited for them, and children that claimed their knees. Atonement? Empty heroics to be bought at the price of the blood of five loyal fellows whose only crime was that they had followed him. He had dressed himself in a proud armor of self-sacrifice, but a righteous God, that sees into the heart of man and hates pride and brings it to the dust, had stripped him naked.
Dan's soul was in a turmoil. What should he do? On the one hand were love, honor, Mona, even everlasting life; and on the other were five innocent men. The agony of that moment was terrible. Atonement? God must have set his face against it.
Dan's hand rested on the tiller, but there was no strength in his arm, because there was now no resolve in his heart. The fishing-boat was about three miles west of Jurby Point, going well before the wind. In half an hour more it would run into the creek. It was now to act or never. What was he to do? What? What?
It was, then, in that moment of awful doubt, when the will of a strong man might have shriveled up, that nature herself seemed to give the answer.
All at once the wind fell again to a dead calm. Then Dan knew, or seemed to know, that God was with the men, and against him. There was to be no atonement. No, there was to be no proud self-sacrifice.
Dan's listless hand dropped from the tiller, and he flung himself down in his old seat by the hatches. The men looked into each other's faces and smiled a grisly smile. The sails flapped idly; the men furled them, and the boat drifted south.
The set of the tide was still to ebb, and every boat's length south took the boat a fathom farther out to sea. This was what the men wanted, and they gathered in the cockpit, and gave way to more cheerful spirits.
Dan lay by the hatches, helpless and hopeless, and more haggard and pale than before. An unearthly light now fired his eyes, and that was the first word of a fearful tale. A witch's Sabbath, a devil's revelry, had begun in his distracted brain. It was as though he were already a being of another world. In a state of wild hallucination he saw his own spectre, and he was dead. He lay on the deck; he was cold; his face was white, and it stared straight up at the sky. The crew were busy about him; they were bringing up the canvas and the weights. He knew what they were going to do; they were going to bury him in the sea.
Then a film overspread his sight, and when he awoke he knew that he had slept. He had seen his father and Mona in a dream. His father was very old, the white head was bent, and the calm, saintly gaze was fixed upon him. There was a happy thought in Mona's face. Everything around her spoke of peace. The dream was fresh and sweet and peaceful to Dan when he woke where he lay on the deck. It was like the sunshine and the caroling of birds and the smell of new-cut grass. Was there no dew in Heaven for parched lips, no balm for the soul of a man accursed?
Hours went by. The day wore on. A passing breath sometimes stirred the waters, and again all was dumb, dead, pulseless peace. Hearing only the faint flap of the rippling tide, they drifted, drifted, drifted.
Curious and very touching were the changes that came over the feelings of the men. They had rejoiced when they were first becalmed, but now another sense was uppermost. The day was cold to starvation. Death was before them—slow, sure, relentless death. There could be no jugglery. Then let it be death at home rather than death on this desert sea! Anything, anything but this blind end, this dumb end, this dying bit by bit on still waters. To see the darkness come again, and the sun rise afresh, and once more the sun sink and the darkness deepen, and still to lie there with nothing around but the changeless sea, and nothing above but the empty sky, and only the eye of God upon them, while the winds and the waters lay in His avenging hands—let it rather be death, swift death, just or unjust.