The heart of the alien swelled and shrank. He said very low: 'So I have no friends!'
'Well,' Giles admitted, 'you would be better liked but for a way you have sometimes of holding your head and shutting your mouth.'
He mimicked till Christian went red.
'Do I so? Well,' he said, with a vexed laugh, 'here's a penance ready against conceit. The Tortoises! I indeed! and I must go humble and dumb.'
'Such tomfoolery!' cried Giles, exasperated. 'And why? why? There's something behind; you've let out as much. I don't ask—there, keep your mystery if you will; but set yourself right on one point—you will—for my sake you will.'
Christian looked at the old man, bent, shrunken, halt, and smiled out of bland confidence.
'The burden shall not light on you, Dad.And has no one told you what I have done single-handed? just for display of her excellent parts, worked the boat and the nets too, and hauled abreast of any. Not a boat that watched but cheered the pair of us.'
'I heard, I heard,' said Giles ungraciously. 'A show off for an hour or two. What's that to work week in, week out?'
Christian was looking aside. He saw the head of Lois leaning out, attentive to all.
He took a heavy heart out of her sight. 'She does not trust me,' he said of her face.
Scattered far and wide over the fishing-grounds lay the coral fleet. There, a solitary, went Christian to a far station. Yet not as an outcast. He had tried his strength against his world, and the victory inclined to him. For a week he had been baited hard and cut off, as Giles had forewarned; and through it all he had kept his own counsel, and his temper, and his place with the fleet, defiant, confident, independent. And luck attended his nets. Therefore another week saw unsubstantial suspicion waning; scoffs had their day and died of inanition; and the boy's high-hearted flouting of a hard imposition annulled its rigour. Not a few now would be fain to take their chance with him. For Giles's consolation he had not rejected all advances, yet as often as not he still went alone, declining another hand. Thrift and honest glorying in his strength so inclined him, though a perverse parade may not be disclaimed. Yet none of these accounted for adistinct gladness for solitude that grew unawares.
What colour were her eyes? The moonlight had withheld certainty, and he had not given his mind to it then. Dark, he knew, to match her hair: rare eyes, like pansies dewy in shade?
Down swung with their swags of netting the leaded cross-beams from his hands into the shadowed water, and its dark, lucid green was faced with eddies. Down, deeper than the fathoming of his eyes, plunged his spirit, and walked the sea's mysteries in vain imaginings. Mechanically he set the boat crawling while he handled the guys. A trail of weed swam dim below; it entangled. His wits said weed, nothing but weed, but his pulse leapt. Day after day, not to be schooled, it had quickened so to half-expectancy of a glimpse at some unguessed secret of the deeps. He was glad to be alone.
Body and mind he bent to the draught, till the cross-beams rose, came out dripping up to the gunwale, and neatly to rest. A ruddy tangle hung among the meshes. He paused before out-sorting to resolve an importunate doubt: was this more than mere luck to his nets? It was not the first time he had had occasion to debate an unanswerable question. The blank westwardseas, near or far, returned no intelligence to his eager survey, nothing to signify he was not quit of obligation.
A witch she was, of an evil breed, one to be avoided, pitied, and abhorred. No conscious impulse moved Christian to seek her again, though her beauty was a wonder not to be forgotten, and she had dealt with him so kindly. Yet of the contrary elements of that strange encounter the foul stood unchanged, but the fair had suffered blight, because from the small return demanded of him his mother's heart had taken hurt. A full confession would indeed but change the current of distrust. He sighed, yet smiled a little; he would have to own that a wish persisted to know the colour of those eyes.
From the sweat and ache of toil he paused a moment to see where he lay. Under a faint breath from the south he had been drifting; the fleet also had drifted to leeward.
Within a grand enclosure, satisfying coolness and peace, and splendid shade reigned, for no man's solace and reward.
The sun rode high, and the west breathed in turn, bringing a film of haze. A delicate blue veil, that no eye could distinguish from the melting blue of sea and heaven, an evanescent illusion of distance, hung, displacing the real.
Above the boy's head a seagull dipped and sailed. It swooped low with a wild note, 'Diadyomene, Diadyomene,' and flew west.
Christian upturned a startled face. The drifting fleet had vanished; he was alone with the gracious elements.
Too loyal of heart to dream of excuse, he rendered instant obedience to the unwelcome summons, headed round, hoisted every stitch, and slanted away after the white wings. Yet he chafed, angry and indignant against so unwarrantable an imposition on his good faith. Go he must, but for a fair understanding, but to end an intolerable assumption that to a witch creature he owed payment indefinitely deferred at her pleasure.
He owed her his life; no less than that she might exact.
He found he was smiling despite a loath mind and anxious. Now he would see of what colour were her eyes.
The young witch Diadyomene leaned forward from a rock, and smiled at the white body's beauty lying in the pool below. She was happy, quivering to the finger-tips with live malice; and the image at her feet, of all things under heaven, gave her dearest encouragement. Her boulder shelved into a hollow good for enthronement, draped and cushioned with ashag of weed. There she leant sunning in the ardent rays; there she drew coolness about her, with the yet wet dark ribbons of seaweed from throat to ankle tempering her flesh anew. No man could have spied her then.
By a flight of startled sea-birds, he nears. She casts off that drapery. Through the gorge comes Christian, dripping, and stands at gaze.
With half-shut eyes, with mirth at heart, she lay motionless for him to discern and approach. She noted afresh, well pleased, his stature and comely proportions; and as he neared, his ruddy tan, his singular fair hair and eyes, she marked with no distaste. The finer the make of this creature, the finer her triumph in its ruin.
He came straight opposite, till only the breadth of water at her feet was between.
'Why has "Diadyomene, Diadyomene" summoned me?' he said.
Against the dark setting of olive weed her moist skin glistened marvellously white in the sun. A gaze grave and direct meeting his could not reconcile him to the sight of such beauty bare and unshrinking. He dropped self-conscious eyes; they fell upon the same nude limbs mirrored in the water below. There he saw her lips making answer.
'I sent you no summons.'
Christian looked up astonished, and an 'Oh' of unmistakable satisfaction escaped him that surprised and stung the young witch. He stood at fault and stammered, discountenanced, an intruder requiring excuse.
'A seagull cried your name, and winged me through the reefs to shore, and led me here.'
'I sent you no summons,' she repeated.
A black surmise flashed that the white bird was her familiar, doing her bidding once, this time compassing independent mischief. Then his face burned as the sense of the reiteration reached his wits: she meant to tell him that he lied. Confounded, he knew not how to justify himself to her. There, below his downcast eyes, her reflected face waited, quite emotionless. Suddenly her eyes met his: she had looked by way of his reflection to encounter them. Down to the mirror she dipped one foot, and sent ripples to blot out her image from his inspection. It was a mordant touch of rebuke.
'Because I pardoned one trespass, you presume on another.'
'I presume nothing. I came, unhappily, only as I believed at your expressed desire.'
'How? I desire you?' She added: 'You would say now you were loath to come.'
'I was,' he admitted, ashamed for his lack of gratitude.
'Go—go!' she said, with a show of proud indifference, 'and see if the gull that guided you here without my consent will guide you hencewithout my consent.'
Insult and threat he recognised, and answered to the former first.
'Whatever you lay to my charge, I may hardly say a word in defence without earning further disgrace for bare truth.'
'You did not of yourself return here? For far from you was any desire ever to set eyes on me again?'
So well did she mask her mortal resentment, that the faint vibration in her voice conveyed to him suspicion of laughter.
'On you—I think I had none—but for one thing,' he said, with honest exactitude.
'And that?'
Reluctantly he gave the truth in naked simplicity.
'I did desire to see the colour of your eyes.'
She hid them, and broke into charming, genuine laughter.
'Do you know yet?' she said.
'No, for they are set overdeep for a woman, and the lashes shadow so.'
'Come nearer, then, and look.'
He stepped straight into the pool knee-deep and deeper, and with three strides stood below. She bent her head towards him with her arms upon her knee, propping it that a hand might cover irrepressible smiles. Her beautiful eyes she opened wide for the frank grey eyes to consider. Many a breath rose and fell, and neither offered to relinquish the intimate close.
Beautiful eyes indeed! with that dark, indescribable vert iris that has the transparent depth of shadowed sea-water. They were bright with happy mirth; they were sweetly serious; they were intent on a deep inquiry into his; they were brimming wells not to be fathomed; oh, what more? what haunted their vague, sad, gracious mystery?
'Are you satisfied yet of their colour?' she asked quietly, bringing him to a sense of the licence he indulged.
'Of their colour—yes.'
'How, then, are you not satisfied?'
'I do not know.'
'Bare truth!'
'What thoughts, then, lay behind while you looked down so?'
She kept her mouth concealed, and after apause said low as a whisper: 'Looking at your eyes, I wondered if they would alter greatly when your time came—to die.'
'Ah, no, no,' he said, startled; 'how could you!' His mind only caught the suggestion to reflect upon her transparent eyes stricken with the tragedy of death. From so gentle a tone he could not gather a sinister hint; moreover, she smiled to effect a blind.
'Now that your quest is over, I in turn desire certain knowledge. Gratify me, and so shall your rash footing here to-day stand redeemed.'
She signed for him to follow, and led the way by rock and pool to the entrance of the cave. There upon a boulder she leaned, and pointed him up to the rock above, where the rough inscription he had set there remained unimpaired.
'That is your handiwork?'
'Yes.'
'What does it mean?'
His heart thumped. To her he had addressed that legend, not knowing what she was.
'I do not know that you are fit to hear.'
Her just indignation refrained from him, and his heart smote him.
'Ah! I should not judge. Hear then!' and he read.
For an instant her face fell, troubled, and she moved restlessly.
'And who are They? Who is the Father?'
'God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.'
'He did not make me.'
'But He did.'
'Say that He made you if so you please: I speak for myself. Pass on now. Who is the Son?'
'Jesus Christ His Son, our Lord, who suffered and died to save us from our sins.'
'Suffered and died!' she exclaimed, and then added, 'I have no sins.'
'Ah, you have!' said Christian, aghast.
'You may have, may be, but not I. Pass on. Who is the other one?'
'The Holy Ghost the Comforter.'
'Whose comforter? Theirs? yours? not mine—I need no comfort.'
When he said, 'O poor, lost soul, God have mercy!' she rose to passion.
'You shall not say so; I will not endure it. And why should you look at me so? and why should you speak it low? Am I to be pitied—and pitied of you, who but for my pity wouldby now be a shredded and decayed patch sunk deep?'
'My body.'
Diadyomene recovered herself instantly, recalled to the larger conquest she designed.
'Yet pass on again: there is more—"At your service!" Whose?'
'Yours.'
'Mine! That is not possible,' she said coldly; 'nor of the whole can I make sense.'
'It means that I offered to serve her whose footprints I had seen—yours,—and pledged myself by the sacred names that she should have no fears.'
'Fears!'
Christian flushed painfully. It was not possible to intimate to her how he had considered that a woman unclothed would surely shrink from a man's presence.
'You make for a simple end by strange means!'
'How is it,' she resumed, 'that since quite freely you pledged yourself so sacredly to my service, you came most unwillingly when you thought I had need of you?'
Before her penetrating gaze shame entered.
'For your need I would have come gladly;yes—I think so—in spite of incurring worse; but for your pleasure——'
'Not, for instance, had I wished to see the colour of your eyes?'
It was but poor sport to put him out of countenance. Quite kindly she asked, 'What now have you incurred that worse should be to dread?'
He began of the name 'Sinister,' and of all it implied. She laughed, asking him why he should expound that. He went on to the definite ills that had beset him, because the injury to his boat betrayed him to inquisition.
'But how?' she asked; 'you admitted nothing, else you failed in your promise to me.'
'No, but challenged, I could not deny I had dared here.'
'Why not?'
'It would not have been true,' he said, puzzled.
Diadyomene opened her eyes wide and laughed.
'And do you use your powers of speech only to say what is true?'
'Yes,' he said, indignant. 'How else?'
'Now I,' she said, 'use speech to disguise truth, with foul or with fair, or sometimes to slay and bury it out of sight.'
'Then, when you declared you had not summoned me, was that untrue?'
'If I now answered "Yes" or "No," you could be no nearer satisfaction; for you have not the wit to weigh my word with mood, disposition, circumstance, to strike a balance for truth.'
Christian pondered, perplexed and amazed at that perverse argument.
'I would another were here to unreeve this tangle you are in. There is one, wise, tender, a saint.'
Diadyomene levelled her brows.
'A woman! And you love her!' she said, and astonished the inexperienced boy.
'Above all! She is mother to me.'
He said timidly: 'Of all evils incurred by my presumption here, the worst is that between her and me your secret stands a bar to perfect confidence. I did not guess it would gall her so. I may not tell you how.'
'Yes, tell me.'
'I cannot.'
'A secret.'
'Not strictly; some day I might, but not now.'
She shot a keen glance, suspicious by that heedless reservation that, after all, he was shrewdly playing his own game. He went on.
'With her your secret would be absolutely safe; and if her you would but include——'
'But I will not,' she said peremptorily, 'nor shall you take counsel with her, nor come back well charged for convincing me of what you may be pleased to call sin; for presently we part for ever—for ever, alive or dead.'
That struck silence for a minute. Then Christian straightened and said:
'I have then much to say first. I have a message to you.'
'To me—a message!'
'The message of the Gospel. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.'
'Ah yes,' she said; 'we were to return to that. "Suffered and died," you said of one—the Son.'
The young gospeller took up his task void of all vain conceit; but humility, simplicity, and honesty alone could not prevail over the quick-witted witch when she was bent on entangling him. A long hour he laboured with the story of the Redemption, she questioning to his bewilderment, involving him in contradiction, worsting him again and again, though he would not know it; till, weary of harassing, she heard him in silence, with anunmoved attention that was worse discouragement.
His own incompetence he had known, but he had not thought himself so unstable that the pressure of patient eyes could weigh down his clear sense; that the lifting of night-black hair in the light wind, the curve of a neck, the slow play of idle hands, could distract him. He knew he had failed utterly, that he did not deserve to succeed before ever her comment began.
'O the folly of it!' she said with wonder and scorn. 'Truly I am well quit of a soul if it bring intelligent creatures of flesh and blood to worship, as highest excellence conceivable, a joyless life, a degraded death. For others? The more foolish. And you would have me repent and be converted to that? I—I repent, who have gained this?'
She rose to her feet, flung up head and arms; her bosom heaved with a breath of ecstasy, her lips parted, her eyes shone; the glory, power, magic, of the deep flashed into visible embodiment in her. The perfect woman, possessed by the spirit of the sea, unawares took worship of the boy's heart. To seal her supremacy, a wave leaping in the gorge broke to him the unnoted advance of the tide. He thrilled asthough the sea had actually responded to her passion.
To a new, wonderful note of power and sweetness she began, with a face and gesture that alone were eloquent:
'O poor mortal! the deeps to you are abysses of death, while the storm-winds, ravening, hunt you. Oh, 'tis pitiful! Deep, deep in the heart of the sea dwells eternal peace, and fear is dead to all who dwell there. Starry sea-blossoms grow stilly, by the winnowing of broad fins stirred only. When stormy terrors fall with black night on you above, with me below is a brooding blank of light and sound, and a darkness that can be felt lulls every sense. From that deep calm I float, I rise, to feel the upper pulses of the sea; to meet strong currents that in the very hair wake vigour; to leave silence far underfoot; to taste of the glorious battle of wind and wave. Strong, foam-headed bearers take me, whirl me as I will. There is madness, rout, and drunken frenzy of the elements for honour of my presence. O the roar! O the rains! O the lightning!
'Deep, deep in the heart of the sea the broad glare of this full sunlight is softened into a mystery of amber twilight, clear and cool;and quivering cloud-shadows dim it to pearl, and sunset throbs into it a flush. There the light of the white moon is a just perceptible presence of grey silver to tell me a night is cloudless. She draws me—she draws me—to her I yearn. My heart, my love, my life, rise large and buoyant in worship of her. To her fair face you have never looked up as I, at poise, with earth far below and the air fathoms above. Ah, so large and near and gracious she lies! In the faint swell of a calm she shrinks and expands, as though she breathed with me—with the sea; a ripple of wind will comb her into quivering lines of silver; and the heave of a wave shatter her to fragments that vainly slide and dance to close back into the perfect disk. Involuntarily your hands would snatch at the near splinters of living silver. I rise through them to rarer air, and lo! my moon has fled up immeasurably, and shines remote, concentrated, placid.
'Deep, deep in the heart of the sea, within unhewn walls, are splendid courts, where marbles discover their shy translucence, and drink mellow life from widespread floors of sand, golden, perfect, unwrinkled and unstained from age to age; and drink milky fire that hangs where nebulous sea-stars cluster thatnight may never prevail. Inmost wait vacant shrines to gratify worship of sleep and dreams—pure amber one, great crystals one, and rainbow spars. One there is of moony mother-of-pearl, meetest covert of rest, when life grows a little weary of conquest and play, and greatly enamoured of dreams. Ah, dreams! You with a soul—can you dream? Nay—but I will not know.
'Deep, deep in the heart of the sea hide brine-bred monsters; living there, dying there; never touching the thin, vacant air, never facing the broad eye of heaven. Quick death by the grip of huge jaws meets the drowning there. Your might—yours—is puny: you never could cope with the fierce sea-wolves. And your limbs are heavy and slow: you could not play with the dolphin and mock at the shark. To me come all by love or fear. The frailest shape afloat, that fears a shadow, into my palms drops from the waves; and uncouth herds leave browsing to hustle their finned heads under my hands. And the terrible breeds, the restive, I catch by the mane and school, against their resistance driving sharp ivory hard between the joints of their mail. How they wrestle and course, as pride of their strength is mine, and joy oftheir speed is mine—ah! most supremely when they most dispute it. Your eyes declare wonder, since your broad limbs could match the banded strength of a score of my slight mould. I grant it here, where the touch of the earth and the touch of the air are dull, faint, weak, to flesh and blood nourished of the deeps; but life and vigour and strength transcendent evolve from the embrace of the salt, cold sea, from deep indraughts of keen brine.
'Down in the deepest lies sleeping the oldest of living creatures, placid in a valley of the sea. His vast green coil spreads out for leagues; where his great heart beats slow the waters boil; he lifts an eyelid, and the waves far, far above are lit with phosphor light. Runs a tremor because of his dreams, I sink to the weedy ears and chant peace, unaffrighted, sure that no fret can withstand my song. Shall he once roar and lash with all his spines, your coasts will crumble and be not.
'What, you—you with a soul, get quickened breath and eager eyes from a few empty words, as though even in you woke the sting of a splendid desire for entering the reserves of the sea, with intimacy and dominion like mine. No—no—stand off! content you with theearth and air. Never—never shall you lay your hand upon my breast, nor set your lips to mine, nor gain the essential word, for you count your soul as priceless, and never will let it go.'
She ceased. Christian suddenly crossed himself, turned his back, and went from her and her magic. The forward tide checked his feet; its crisp murmur and great undertones uttered a voluble, soft chorus on that strange monologue. He came to himself to know that he offered outrageous offence to virgin pride, unwarrantable, and far from his mind. Her free, bold words were too coldly proud for any thought of disrespect. He turned again hastily. She was gone.
He sprang to the brimming cave. 'Diadyomene,' he called; 'Diadyomene,' and followed up the moving water; but he had no definite sight of her, and got no answer till he came to the great cavern. No witch she looked beside the jasper mirror, but just a slender, solitary maiden. She did not lift her pensive head, nor move nor look at him as he drew to her.
'Diadyomene,' he supplicated, 'have out on me all that is in your mind. Call me dumb-squint, beetle-head in mind and manners.'
With a quite impassive countenance she answered gently:
'It is in my mind that the sun is low and the tide high. It is in my mind to put you in a way where both may yet serve for your safe homing.'
Out came a sovereign smile of humour, sweet raillery, and condonation blended, instant on her investigation of his eyes. Humbled and exalted at one fine touch, Christian's judgment surrendered to her. She hindered a word of it.
'I can show you an outlet that will take you to a sheltered reach behind the landward walls of this Isle. So will you evade the worst races of the tide. Furthermore, from the mainland to the open you will need aid.'
He answered unsuspiciously that of her grace he had learned the reefs fairly.
'Ah yes, and conned through but once,' she said smoothly, and eyed him.
'Conned twice—once either way.'
'I sent you no summons,' she expostulated quietly.
'Do you think that I have lied to you?'
She did not answer.
With indignant emphasis he repeated, 'Do you think I have lied?'
'Do you thinkIhave?'
Not a quiver crossed her front with the mendacious alternative; not even for laughter, when the face of Christian lent ample occasion; for, as a fish with a barb in the gullet not to be spewed out, was he impotent and spun.
While still he gasped, Diadyomene slid forward into the deep and bade haste for daylight. Fine swimmer he was, but his strokes compared ill with an effortless ease like a wing-wide bird's. Refraction gave her limbs a lovely distortion, and pearly soft they were through the beryl wash. Behind her merged head the level just rocked and quivered; cleft by his chin it rebelled in broad ripples. She turned her head, curious of his clumsy method; she could not forbear a smile; she reverted hastily beyond the blind of her floating hair.
But he could not follow where she offered to lead, for she dropped her feet, and sank, and walked the under-floor of rock, entering a deep gallery. He dived, entered after, then breath gave out, and he shot back to gasp.
She presented a face of grieved surprise. 'There is another way to the same end,' was all she said on his deficiency.
He mounted after her then, by shelf andridge, an intricate, retiring way, till she showed him a dark gulf at their feet.
'Leap!' she said, 'no hurt lies there.'
Utter blackness lay below, repugnant to his nerves; yet not therefore he stayed.
'Diadyomene,' he said, with desperate temerity, 'you do not forbid me ever to see you again.'
Daylight struggled feebly in there. Her answer was not direct, and it laboured.
'I have no—desire—ever to see you again.'
Quick for once: 'Have you a desire never to see me again?' he said, and held his breath.
He saw her step to the verge, lift her arms, and poise. She delivered an ingenious masterstroke to wound.
'Be under no such apprehension. I will convince you: for your assurance I will go first.'
'Hold back!' with a savage sob cried Christian; leapt, and dropped with straightened feet perpendicular in the gulf.
With a thin sigh and a vigorous kiss two elements received his descent. Diadyomene leaned over the dark, and called 'Farewell.' The word was echoed back by him hoarsely; and again from further distance it came, ringing sound.
Beneath her breath she said, 'Some day I will have grey eyes weeping before my face.' Then laughter possessed her, and away she sprang, to revel in the release of peals of wicked delight.
Very cold-hearted the sea-bred are, and their malice is very keen.
Lois drew forward a young creature, whose dark head did not fully uplift.
'Christian,' she said, 'this is your cousin Rhoda.'
He blurted out 'Cousin!' in astonishment. Two faces stiffened; the girl's eyes declined.
'My niece,' said Lois briefly, 'and so cousin by adoption.'
Giles kicked his heel, so he guarded his tongue duly.
Considerate of embarrassing the girl with open observation, he took note discreetly how kin was just legible on the two faces. The eyes of both were set overdeep for womankind; they were alike in the moulding of the bones; but the face of Rhoda gave promise of a richer beauty than could ever have been the portion of Lois. For a minute it bloomed in a vivid blush, for their eyes met as she, too, by stealth was observing him for his great height and breadth and alien complexion.
When afterwards his mother said, 'You know whose child she is?' he answered, 'Yes.'
'Christian, I thank God for my good man.'
Her sense he could not adjust till long afterwards, when a fuller account of Rhoda's past was given to him. Now Giles told but little.
'No, she had never set eyes on her before. I? Oh yes, I had—the pretty little piece! But when I bring her in, and have said no more than one cough, the wife goes clean past me, and has the girl in her arms, and calls her by her sister's name, and sobs hard and dry like a man. It turned me silly and rotten, it did. I knew for a minute she didn't fairly know it was not somehow her sister; no older than Rhoda she was, poor thing, when she last stood under our roof; and their last parting had not been over tender. Well, I had messed the business—I knew I should,—for there was the wife going on, saying things, and there was Rhoda getting scared and white, and putting out a hand to me. And then I go one worse, for I get hold of her, and say, "She takes you for your mother, child," that the wife may get the hang of it; and at that down she sits sudden, all of a shake. But the poor wenchsays, "Mymother!" for—well, I suppose I had lied sometime—she thought she was the truly begotten orphan of an estranged brother. Nothing would come handy but the truth—the wife being there; so I even told it all. Yes, I did, though it did seem cruel hard for a young wench to have that story from a beard. But it worked well; for when the poor child knew not how to bestow her eyes, nor to bear the red of shame, up stands the wife to her, just woman by woman, and looks fierce at me, and to her Rhoda closes all a-quiver, and in a moment the wife has kissed her, blight and all, and Rhoda is crying enough for both. That was over an hour before you came in on us, when out jumped "cousin" and "niece" to clinch the business. I knew she would never go back on them. To think that all these years—well—well.'
'Well, Dad—all these years?' said Christian, incited by Lois's words to be curious of Giles's conduct; for he was a comrade of easy imperfection, not insistent of the highest rectitudes, nor often a consistent exemplar of Lois's strict precepts. Giles drew in.
'A grape has grown from a thorn, that's all,' he said.
'But how came you——'
'And a pumpkin has overgrown too. Here—clear out, you've left a moderate body no room to turn.'
So Christian understood he was to be excluded from full confidence. Loyal every inch of him, he respected Giles's reserve and never questioned Rhoda herself. He did but listen.
Clear, colourless years, regulated under convent control, was all the past she knew; serene, not unhappy, till the lot of a portionless orphan lay provided for her in a sordid marriage, that her young instinct knew to be prostitution, though the Church and the world sanctioned it as a holy estate. To her this blessed transplantation into a very home gave a new, warm atmosphere that kindled fresh life. The blanch bud expanded and glowed, fresh, dewy, excellent as the bloom of her name. And very sweet incense her shy gratitude distilled.
It was to Giles she gave her best affection, to Lois most reverence and devotion. But to Christian went a subtle tribute, spontaneous even in an innocent convent-girl, to an admirable make of manhood; some quick shivers of relief that a certain widower with yellow teeth did not possess her. And in Christian thrilled an equivalent response; though he knew nothow Rhoda's maiden charm, her winning grace, her shadow even, her passing breath, evoked unaware, with a keen, blissful sting at heart, vivid remembrance of the sea-witch Diadyomene.
'She likes the old hunks best of the lot,' said Giles with complaisance. 'My bright little bird! There's never a one of you young fellows stands to cut me out.'
He cocked an eye at Christian.
'Now Philip comes along, and will have her for seeing the caught frigate-bird. And off she is flying, when back she skims and will have me too. Oh! but he looked less than sweet, and he's a fine figure too for a maid's eye, and a lad of taste—he is.'
'He! May be, for his fancies are ever on the brew, hot or cold,' said Christian in scorn.
'She's a rare pretty wench, and a good,' said Giles, with a meditative eye.
'She is: too rare and good for any of Philip's make; an even blend of conceit and laziness is he.'
'That's so, that's so,' returned Giles coolly to this heat, 'but I don't say he would make a bad pair for just so much as the boundary walk.'
'How!' said Christian 'but she will walk with me—she's my cousin.'
'Have you asked her?'
'No.'
'Well, I think she's worth an asking. She's shy, and she's nice, and she's got a spirit too, and more than one, I wager, won't be backward. Rhoda! Rhoda! why, what's this grave face you are bringing us, my pretty?'
The girl's eyes addressed Christian's with childlike candour and wonder. 'Why is it,' she said, 'that the mother of that tall Philip doubles her thumb when you pass by?'
He flushed with knit brows, but laughed and jested: 'I guess because she does not like the colour of my hair.' But Rhoda had noted a pause, and a quick turn of the eye upon Giles.
'When the boundary is walked, Rhoda, will you pair with me?'
'Oh!' she said, 'Philip wanted to bespeak me, and I said him no, till my uncle should have had the refusal of me first.'
She curtsied before the old man in bright solicitation.
'Ah! my maid, here's a lame leg that can't manage the steep. You must take my proxy, Christian here.'
'But that's another matter,' she said; 'I doubt if I be free.'
Christian's face clouded, but he had no notion of pressing her to exchange obligation for inclination. When he was away, Rhoda asked, troubled and timid:
'I have vexed him. Is it for this? or that I was curious——'
'About that doubled thumb? Not that. He'll clear that to you himself if I know him. Well, then, I will, to spare it him.'
He set forth Christian's position and the ordeal not yet quite suspended.
Rhoda went straight after Christian. She presented both hands to him. With a glowing cheek and brave eyes, 'I will walk with you!' she said.
'I am proud, cousin! But so? What of Philip?'
With a saucy sparkle she said, 'Do not flounces become a girl's wear, then? You shall see. Or do you expect a broken head of him?'
There was more of childish mischief than of coquetry in her face.
'Stay, Rhoda, I have to tell you something.'
'No need—no need. Can you think I have not heard?' and she left him to slow enlightenment.
Thereafter brotherly solicitude and responsibilitydeveloped in Christian, and his liking for the bright young creature grew warm, in natural degree to match the shy preference and grateful glow that answered for her appreciation.
Soon, so soon, his jealousy, his honest, blameless jealousy, came to be piercingly sweet to the girl's heart. How else, when day by day Giles instructed her of his worth with tales of his champion feats, and of all his boyhood, its pranks and temerities, its promise by tender honour and fortitude of the finest quality of man; when her own observation told her that in the ranks of youth he was peerless, in strength, in outward fashion, in character, in conduct; generous, gentle, upright; of a sensitive conscience that urged extremes of pride and humility; and brave. And to her this worshipful youth condescended; nay, but it was even with deference that he honoured her and attended. One touch of saintliness that had rarefied him was dispelled to her naughty content.
'Rhoda, my child,' said Lois, 'where is the Book? Bring it.' And away the girl went.
Lois had found that the Bible, formerly left mostly to her sole use, had, since Rhoda'scoming, made unseen departures and returns. Well pleased with the girl's recluse piety, she was awhile patient of its want.
'Do you leave the Book outside, child? When it is out of hand, you should lay it back here.'
'It was in the linhay,' said Rhoda, 'and not out of hand. And do you think 'tis I who take it? 'Tis Christian.'
'Christian!' said Lois, in a voice of such surprise that Rhoda was disillusioned. 'Then do you never study the Book alone?'
'No,' confessed Rhoda, 'I but listen to your reading and the Church's.'
Lois was disquieted. She had ever secretly deplored the infirm masculine constitution of Giles and Christian, who accepted from her a spiritual ration with never a sign of genuine, eager hunger of soul. Yet this departure was little to her liking. Though fain would she have recognised the working of the Spirit, she dreaded rather that this was no healthy symptom in Christian's raw development. A cruel stroke to her was this second reserve of independence, invading the fastest hold of a mother's influence. Back came the earlier conviction that her boy's withdrawal from her must be for wrong-going, and the strain ofwatchful scrutiny and prayer returned. It had slackened when her God had shown such favour as to take out of her soul that iron that for years had corroded there, that she had vainly striven to expel.
She approached Christian with a diffidence that was painful to him to perceive; she recommended counsel in any difficulty—not her own, she said sincerely, though with a touch of bitterness. He was embarrassed by her close, tender surveillance.
'I have already taken counsel,' he admitted, 'and I think I have got understanding—at least I have got certain information by heart.'
'Of his Reverence?'
'Yes.'
'Christian, you are not of the doubters?'
'No, mother, of the ignorant.'
Her piercing eyes examined his.
'Who has told you so? You did not know it of yourself. What evil communication corrupts you?'
There was no answer but the sufficient one of the boy's conscious face. There was that in the fire of it that inspired Lois to groan in her heart: 'My boy has met a daughter of perdition.'
She did not miss her Bible again.
Lois's divination of the truth preceded Christian's, though again into the presence of Diadyomene had he made his way. There he went high-hearted on a service that sanctioned all risks—the recovery to the fair witch of her lost soul, fair too he was sure.
When he summoned her to baptism with the first breath, she laughed him off. No, no, she would have none of it. Let him tell her first that of the nature of a secret, as he said he would some day. And Christian, seeing it was indeed germane, delivered the story of the child cut off unbaptized, to the mother's undying remorse. She rewarded him.
'And she would have cared for the little dead body to kiss! Ah, poor mother!' she said softly and regretfully, so that his eyes grew moist.
'Diadyomene, if I die of the sea, would you be so far pitiful as to render to her my body again?'
'No,' she mocked; 'I myself would keep it. Did I not promise as much at the first?' Then she derided the poor limitation that would die of the sea through foolish preference of a soul.
He took up his mission with all his best powers well ordered; but to no purpose hepersisted—she fenced too well for him. She began by denying any value to her soul; before they ended she challenged him to prove his own existence; and, to his amazement, he found that he could not against her, and rude demonstration he did not dare.
He brought off with unsuccess, great joy by her least favour, sharp stings by her least resentment, yet no suspicion that the sea-witch had him in the toils.
Giles mending Rhoda's shoes clacked fondly: 'A pretty little foot she has. Such a pit-a-pat little pair I never did see.'
Away to sacred white sands flew Christian's thoughts: he wondered if slender footmarks lay there, and which way set. A little folly came into his mind: to plant his bare feet over those dints pace by pace—delicate near paces; for the soles of his feet to walk intimate with the mould of hers. The little folly in his mind extended, set also his palm to the sand, his cheek, his brow. He came to himself from foot to face tingling, and amazed.
'A sweet, pretty wench!' was Giles's refrain. 'Eh?'
Christian assented.
'One more to my taste does not tread shoe-leather. Eh?'
With a singular expression Christian gave a 'No' of sufficient emphasis. He looked at Rhoda and grew red.
Rhoda and Christian went amidst the fig-tree and trained it up to the eaves. Lois and Giles looked on from the porch; when they spoke, it was low as the rustle of the boughs. 'Young Adam and Eve' slid to Christian's ears. He looked at Giles; saw the fond, complacent smile and the shrewd eye; saw his mother's face, grave, concerned, tender; glanced down at Rhoda, and met her shy, happy eyes. He understood, and like lightning shot the revelation that with body and soul he loved Diadyomene.
He found her curved in a nest of sleep full in the sun. Her breath was gentle as childhood's, and as guileless her face. Her head was regal, for the hair dried crowned it in a dark coil wound and bound with wisps of splendid pearls.
The young lover's passion resolved itself into prayer. As never before in his life, with concentration and fervour he importuned his God for the redemption of her lost soul. The shadow of his crest edged her shoulder; a movement brought to the line of her cheek the shadow of his. At that, prayer failed for an amorous instant; eclipse dipped across her brow; sleep parted; she was looking at him.
'Ah, Grey Eyes!' she said, and smiled.
'Be gracious by one little word, Diadyomene. Why never yet will you call me by my name?'
'Your name? No, 'tis an ill-made name.Put it away and bear another that I will choose.'
'I could not. Yet what would you choose?'
'Diadyomenos, may be!' she said softly, smiling.
The honour of the consort name caught his breath.
'But I could not; not even for that could I lay aside the name I had in baptism.'
'Baptism ever!' she frowned. 'Inadvertently did I utter Diadyomenos. Asleep, I had dreamed—of you—enfranchised.'
From scorn to regret she modulated, and his blood sang to the dominant close.
She strained to dislocate sleep, on her back-thrown head planting both hands. Her fingers, with careless grip, encountered the pearls; they sprang scattering, and her dark hair drifted down. With languid indifference she loosened and fingered the length of soft splendours; another lustrous morsel flew and skipped to the boy's feet. Covetous longing fastened upon it, not for its rare beauty, its immense value. A thing that had passed through her hands and lain in her hair was to him beyond price; and yet he forbore sternly to seek after possession, because anhonest scruple would not allow that an orient pearl could come to his hands but by magic purveyance.
'If a name were to seek for me?' she was pleased to inquire, on the watch for colour which sprang when her words were gracious.
'I know,' he said, 'what most fitly would express you—oh! too well, for it is over a defect that secretions of the sea have constructed a shape of perfect beauty; the name of a pearl only—Margaret. If you—when you shall come to be baptized——'
'You dare!' she said, and froze him with her look.
'It has come into my mind that you may be a traitor.'
'No!'
'Hear now! Look me in the eyes and deny it if you can. It is for the sake of another that you seek after me; that persuading, beguiling, if you can coercing me—me—who spared you, tolerated you, inclined to you, you would extract from the sea an equivalent for her loss, and proclaim that her reproach is taken away.'
There was such venom in look and tone, that his face grew strained and lost colour.
'For your sake first and foremost.'
'By no means for your own?'
'Diadyomene, I would lay down my life for you!' he breathed passionately.
'But not give up your soul—for me?'
Ever so gently she said this. The boy quivered and panted against suspecting the words of their full worth. She directed her eyes away, to leave him to his own interpretation. The sunlight turned them to gems of emerald; the wind swept her hair about her clear throat; one hand clasped the curve of her knee. Never yet had he touched her, never felt so much as a thread of blown hair against his skin. One hand lay so near, straitly down-pressed on the rough rock, fragile, perfect; shell-pink were the finger-tips. He said 'No' painfully, while forth went his hand, broad, sunburnt, massive, and in silent entreaty gently he laid it over hers.
Cold, cold, cold, vivid, not numbing, thrills every nerve with intense vitality, possesses the brain like the fumes of wine. The magic of the sea is upon him.
Rocks, level sands, sky, sun, fade away; a misty whirl of the sea embraces him, shot with the jewelled lightnings of swift living creatures, with trains of resplendent shapes imperfectly glimpsed, with rampant bulksveiled in the foam of their strength. A roar is in his ears, in all his veins; acclaim and a great welcome of his presence swells from the deep, all life there promising to him dominion. Intangible and inarticulate the vision spins; and through it all he knows, he feels, that beneath his palm lies the cold white hand of the fairest of the sea-brood; he perceives dimly a motionless figure seated, and the hand not in his clasps her knee, and the eyes look away, and the hair drifts wide. Then to his ears through the great murmurs comes her voice, soft and low and very clear, but as though it has come from a great way off: 'Lay your hand upon my breast—set your lips to mine—give up your soul.'
'Christ! Christ! ah, Lord Christ!'
Diadyomene's hand lay free. Christian stared at his palm to find that it had not come away bleeding. His lips were grey as ashes; he shook like a reed. With haggard eyes he regarded the serene visage where a smile dreamed, where absent eyes did not acknowledge that she had verily spoken. Virtue was so gone from him that he was afraid, of her, of the sun. He dropped to his knees for escape.
When he lifted his head, it was to solitudeand long shadows. Her feet bruised his heart as he tracked the signs of her going; for they had approached him, and then retired; they had gone toward the sea, and half-way altered back by two paces; they had finished their course to the gorge and again turned; there they had worked the sand. A little folly! Enacted it was a large frenzy.
Yet he took not a single pearl away.
Heavily drove the night, heavily drove the day over Christian, comfortless, downcast, blank. Was her going with anger and scorn divided by pity? or with stately diffidence? adorable, rendering him most condemnable.
The dredge rose and swung in to great sighs of labour. Black coral!
In choice branches hard from the core, all rarity was there; delicate pink and cream, scarce green, and the incomparable black. Precious—oh! too precious for the mart—this draught was no luck, he knew, but a gift direct from Diadyomene; a goodwill token of her generous excuse sent for his solace. Fair shone love in the sky, and the taste of the day grew sweet. No scruple could hold out against this happy fortune.
When the black coral was sighted by Giles from the quay, he raised such a shout asgathered an eager knot. In a moment one flung up a hand, palm outwards, to display the doubled thumb. Every hand copied. Christian saw and went hot with anger, too plainly expressed in his dangerous eyes. Yet would he have little liked to see his treasures go from hand to hand.
'Not for present trade, I reckon?' asked Giles.
'No,' said Christian, 'my price can bide,' and he carried his prize away with him home.
Not even Rhoda could admire and handle that coral void of offence; Lois and Giles only. One little branch, shell-pink, took the girl's fancy; she turned it over, frankly covetous. Christian saw by her shy eyes and pretty, conscious smile she made sure he would presently say, 'Keep it, cousin.' He could not. A gift, fresh from the cold white hands of the sea-maid he loved, he could not give straightway into the ardent hold of one who offered, he feared, to him her young love.
So sweet and dear had Rhoda grown as cousin, as sister, he hated the suspicion that she could care for him more than he desired or deserved; he hated himself when, loving her most, forher sake he was cold and ungracious. Rhoda, wounded, resented the change with a touch of malice; she allowed the advance of the handsome idler Philip, no friend of Christian's liking, she knew, though to her his faults were not patent. That gift withheld, on the morrow began Philip's benefit. Giles and Lois looked on, and neither wholly condemned the girl's feminine practice. Then what could Christian do, harassed and miserable, but return to brotherly guardianship to keep a dear heart safe from the tampering of an arrant trifler.
Too fatally easy was it to win her away, to keep her away. She came like a bird to the lure, with her quick, warm response, making Christian wretched; he gladdened a little only when he encountered Philip's scowl.
Compared with this sore trouble, but a little evil to him seemed the sharp return of the public ban for comment on Diadyomene's gift. He was ready to flout it as before, not heeding more ominous warnings plain in bent thumbs, in black looks, in silences that greeted him, and in mutterings that followed. A day came when hootings startled him out of his obstinate indifference, when from ambush stones flew, one with bloody effect; a laterday, when a second time he had brought in too invidious a taking.
'I sent no gift!' had declared Diadyomene, with wide, steady eyes, but that time Christian did not believe her, though hardly with blame of the untruth. On the morrow her second gift rose. When the boy sought her again she disclaimed once more; and curious of his perplexity and of his gashed face, drew from him something of his plight. Her eyes were threatening when she said, 'Fling away, then, what you fear to take.' To her face then he laughed for pride and joy that she should prove him. When that same hour came round, he drew up her third gift.
He cared too little that in the interim a mischance had fallen against him; he had at last been descried fairly within the Sinister buoys, and chased by an unknown sail far west, escaping only under dark to circle for home beneath midnight stars.
'O damnation!' was Giles's exclamation on the third prize. 'This won't do—'tis too like devil's luck. Ah, lad!' He faltered, caught at Christian, and peered in his face: 'You have not—you have not—got fee-penny of them below!'
Christian reeled. 'Dad, O dad!' he gasped.
'Steady, lad, steady! Here come spies as usual. There's no stowing a scrap unseen. Ah, they gape! Here, clear off home with this confounded stuff. I'll see to the nets.'
Rhoda's eyes shone like stars, her cheeks were like angry dawn. She hovered about Christian with open devotion, at once tender and fierce, playing the child for some cover to that bold demonstration. Christian's heart shrank, for he could not understand her nor appreciate her. But Giles had a tale to unfold that brought light. Rhoda had come in flaming from a stormy passage with Philip. He had gained her ear to hint a warning against Christian, justifying it against her passion with a definite charge and instance that he had the evil eye. She, loyal in defence, carried away into attack, had rashly invaded with exasperating strokes.
'She's made bad blood, I doubt—the little hawk!' said Giles. 'He's mortal savage now, and there's mischief enough brewing without.'
'What do you know?'
'A sight more than I like, now I've gone to pry it out. It looks as if not a beast has gone and died by nature or mischance, not a bone gets out or broken, but there's a try to fix it on you with your evil eye. We've beenin the dark overlong—though an inkling I must own to.'
'I too, by token of doubled thumbs.'
'Christian,' said the old man with authority, 'never again bring in the black or the green or any rarity; you can't afford it again.'
Christian's head rose defiantly.
'Drop your airs, you young fool! Why, your inches are enough against you as it is. If you weren't so uppish at times, there would now be less of a set against you.'
'On my word,' protested Christian, 'I have borne much and been silent. I know the young cur I owe for this scar, and have I laid a finger on him? To turn the other cheek is beyond me, I own,' he added, with some honest regret.
It so fell out that on the very morrow that same toleration witnessed against him fatally. From the snap of a rabid dog a child died, under circumstances of horror that excited a frenzy against Christian, who had been seen handling the beast after the night of stoning, when the victim's brother it was who had marked him for life. So his iniquities crowned the brim, to seethe over with a final ingredient when mooting came along the coast of a trespasser off the Isle Sinister, by timing, incontestably, the alien.
When the fleet lay spread dredging, Christian, obedient to direction from Giles, stationed his boat in the midst; but one by one his neighbours edged away, till he lay isolated deliberately. This manifestation of mislike was not unexpected, but it galled that weary day when the burdens of his life were weighing heavy.
Exceeding the gross of more solid apprehensions, Rhoda's face haunted him to disquiet. By an unjust transfer, shame possessed him, even as when Diadyomene had advanced naked and unabashed before his diffident eyes. Indefinite reproach clamoured all day at his conscience, What have I done? what have I done? And a further unanswerable question, What can I do? beset him to no purpose.
Before his mind hung a vision of prompt, delicious escape, which he did not banish, only because he did not think it could seriously attempt his will. But the hours told so on the aching boy, that for once he abandoned his own strict standard of fortitude, and his distress cried aloud to solitude, 'Diadyomene! O my love, Diadyomene, Diadyomene!'
First, a silver shoal close beneath his eye leapt into air and slid again; then his starediscerned a trail of weed upfloating tranquilly: no weed, two dim hands part it to the showing of a moony countenance graciously inquisitive, and pearly shoulders brightening as they rose, till glistening white to the air Diadyomene lay afloat cradled by happy waves.
'Diadyomenos!' she said softly, and her eyes invented dreams.
For an instant, so mad was Christian rendered by this consummate favour, that he clutched the gunwale on an impulse to over-leap it finally. Like hounds straining on the leash, natural passions tried the control of the human soul. He dared not speak.
Diadyomene drifted gently lower with never a word more, and lower yet imperceptibly, till her upturned face began to dim. She poised. Ah, beautiful reluctance! Unaffronted? O heart that aches, that breaks to give worthy response! He saw her lips moving; he knew what speech they framed as certainly as though he could hear: your hand upon my breast—your lips to mine—demanded of him.
Christian fell back, and crouched, and lay sobbing dry-eyed until twilight drew.
Home he came. By the way none greeted him of all he met, and a many they were for the hour; and none hooted after him, butshrilling whistles at his back made him turn to wonder what was afoot. Quick figures dodged past him and sped.
Apprehension dawned when he crossed the threshold to find two scared women, and Giles ghastly and bandaged.
'Who did this?'
'An accident, an accident,' muttered the old man, seeing the boy ablaze with wrath and pity before ever he heard a word.
Out came a tale of outrage: while the house was empty, Lois and Rhoda away bleaching, the linhay had been forced, and the coral laid there, Christian's store of precious, sacred coral, looted entire. Giles, coming on the scene, had been tripped up and left for stunned by one unaware how an unhappy blade had gashed his fall.
'And who did it?' said Christian, hoarse with his passion.
'Don't say!' ordered Giles, and the women were mute.
'I will know,' he cried, stamped out ungovernable, and beat away.
The three looked at each other, pale and fearful. Then Giles staggered to his feet. 'Help me after him, wife.'
'Rhoda,' said Lois, 'go quick for hisReverence—if he be abroad, follow him quick.'
Seething with just indignation, Christian sped reckless after vengeance. Alarm of his coming sprang up and flew before him along the shore. Thence struck the ring of axes, thence shone the flare of torches, showing a black, busy swarm. Like a wounded beast he yelled out once: the Beloved, his boat, lay there under torture and dismemberment. Then he hurled upon the throng, raging to kill.
Two went down instantly, damaged for life under his bare hands, but the rest by sheer weight of numbers overbore him. Axes rose imminent, but there was no room for a sure stroke in the close, desperate wrestle. Thrice Christian gained his feet again; then had he no need to strike any man but once; those he gripped in the downfall had broken bones of him. Cries and curses thickened, he only fought mute. Foul strokes on him were fair enough: they struck him together, they struck from behind, they caught him by the knees and toppled him down, they fell on him prostrate, they trampled and kicked. He was on his feet again, breathed and fain, when one from behind got in a stroke at his headwith a spar; then he flung up his hands and dropped among them.
When Christian came to himself he was made fast hand and foot. Torches and dark figures flashed and swayed before his giddy sight; all round they hemmed him in. He wanted sense, remembrance, and settled vision. What meant this savage, cruel hate looking out of every face? these yells, curses, and accusations dinning at his ears? He was bound upright in the midst—where? no, where! One came and wrenched off remnants of his shirt; another stood by making ready. The wretched boy understood, and strained and struggled desperately for freedom.
Such a scene was not unprecedented among the fishers. According to a rough, unwritten law, the punishment of thieves they took into their own hands, and enforced confession and restitution. Scrupulous to a fault, honourable, proud, Christian maddened at the intolerable degradation threatening. A thief's portion dealt out to him! the shame of it he could not bear.
The circle of pitiless, excited eyes watched the swell of splendid strength expended to exhaustion against stock and cord. He could not escape from bonds; he could not escapefrom life; with bleeding wrists, panting, trembling, sane, impotence confronted him with his inevitable award.
The shame of it he had to bear. And he could not even effectually hide his face.
He heard the common formula when confession was demanded concerning unlawful takings. Truly his eyes looked wicked then, and his teeth showed in a vicious grin. He heard more, charges so monstrous, that he deemed them sprung of mere insolent mockery, or else of delirium. Dead silence fell, that he might answer. He would not. Oh, frenzy was returning, revolting him against meet despair.
The pain that he had to bear broke upon his body.
Of all the watching throng, none pitied him, none questioned the just rigour of any penal extreme upon him. To the long distrust and the later developed abhorrence, the day had brought forth a new fierce lust after vengeance, exasperated now the might of his hands, superhuman, had done such terrible work. None but with pulse of satisfaction must keep time to the stroke of the subjugated boy's long torture; none but would reckon long fortitude to his last discredit.
How long? How long? As, motionless and bleeding, he gave no sign of failing endurance, resentment kindled against his indomitable obstinacy, and silence for his benefit no longer held. A mutter ran: 'The devil has cared for his own—he cannot feel.' And to make sure that he had not passed from consciousness, a torch was shifted to show his face. It was pale as death, and beaded with great sweat; but his eyes were wide and steady, so they cursed and went on.
The long-suffering northern spirit, the hardy carcass that did not give out, excelling the make of the south, outstayed the patience of animosity. High upon a clamour swelling anew one cried, 'Try fire!' snatched a torch, and tested the substance of an arm. It was Philip. When Christian's eyes struck at his he defied them with his thumb.
Yelled a confused chorus: 'There, see there! proof enough. Make an end of the creature! Send him back to the devil by the way he came!' The note of death was recognised of the victim; he blessed it, for his agony was great.
But a little way on was the stretch of sand where, fourteen years before, the sea had cast up a bright alien child. Thither was drawn the half-killed boy; and there, made fast to amooring-post, with his face set to the sea, knee-deep in the tide, he was left to die. Along the shore pickets were formed to preclude a miscarriage to justice; and there, while the sea trod forward, the flame of mob violence died down to its underglow of settled vengeance, and torches were douted and silence fell as the eyes of men began to shirk their fellows', and their ears to prickle at a word.
Christian lifted his head to comprehend immense clear spaces of sea and night, and a black triumph. Not death was before him now, but a new life. Hopeless patience departed before passions during long torture suppressed, and infernal laughter rolled in his heart at the prospect of a consummate vengeance when the powers of the sea should work with his will. He knew she would come. Undoubting the extent of her knowledge, her power, her gracious surveillance, he knew she would come, to offer a splendid exchange for death. O excellent compensation! The touch of her hand, the touch of her lips, the opening world of vast delight, and therewith power to satiate all his hates.