I walked that day into Rockbere, and taking the advice of the innkeeper with whom I lodged, I hired a hack and a guide from him the next morning and struck across country for the sea; for he assured me that I should most likely find a fishing smack at Topsham whose master would put me over to the Scillies, and that if the wind did but favour me I should reach the islands sooner that way than if I had the quickest horse under me that was ever foaled. It was of the greatest urgency that I should set foot on Tresco before Cullen Mayle. I had to risk something to achieve that object, and I risked the wind. It was in the northeast when I started from Rockbere and suited my purpose finely if it did but hold; so that I much regretted I was not already on the sea, and rode in a perpetual fear lest it should change its quarter. I came to Honiton Clyst that night, and to Topsham the next day, where I was fortunate enough to find a boat of some thirty tons and to come to an agreement with its master. He had his crew ready to his hand; he occupied the morning in provisioning the smack; and we stood out of the harbour in the evening, and with a steady wind on our quarter made a good run to the Start Point. Shortly after we passed the Start the wind veered round into the north, which did us no great harm, since these boats sail their best on a reach. We reached then with a soldier's breeze, as the saying is, out to the Eddystone Rock and the Lizard Point.
It was directly after we had sighted the Lizard that the wind began to fall light, and when we were just off the Point it failed us altogether. I remember that night as well as any other period in the course of these incidents. I was running a race with Cullen Mayle, and I was beginning to think that it was not after all only on account of his peril that it was needful for me to reach Tresco before he did. These last two days I had been entirely occupied with the stimulation of that race and the inspiriting companionship of the sea. The waves foaming away from the bows and bubbling and hissing under the lee of the boat, the flaws of wind blistering the surface of the water as they came off the land towards us, making visible their invisible approach; the responsive spring of the boat, like a horse under the touch of a spur--these mere commonplaces to my companions had for me an engrossing enchantment. But on that evening at the Lizard Point the sea lay under the sunset a smooth, heaving prism of colours; we could hear nothing but the groaning of the blocks, the creaking of the boom's collars against the masts; and the night came out from behind the land very peaceful and solemn, and solemnly the stars shone out in the sky. All the excitement of the last days died out of me. We swung up and down with the tide. Now the lights of Falmouth were visible to us at the bottom of the bay, now the Lizard obscured them from us. I was brought somehow to think of those last years of mine in London. They seemed very distant and strange to me in this clean air, and the pavement of St. James's Street, which I had daily trodden, became an unacceptable thing.
About two o'clock of the morning a broad moon rose out of the sea, and towards daybreak a little ruffing breeze sprang up, and we made a gentle progress across the bay towards Land's End; but the breeze sank as the sun came up, and all that day we loitered, gaining a little ground now and then and losing it again with the turn of the tide. It was not until the fifth evening that we dropped anchor in the road between St. Mary's Island and Tresco.
I waited until it was quite dark, and was then quietly rowed ashore with my valise in the ship's dinghy. I landed on Tresco near to the harbour of New Grimsby. It was at New Grimsby that Dick Parmiter lived, Clutterbuck had told me, and the first thing I had to do was to find Dick Parmiter without arousing any attention.
Now on an island like Tresco, sparsely inhabited and with no commerce, the mere presence of a stranger would assuredly provoke comment. I walked, therefore, very warily towards the village. One house I saw with great windows all lighted up, and that I took to be the Palace Inn, where Adam Mayle and Cullen used to sit side by side on the settle and surprise the visitors by their unlikeness to one another. There was a small cluster of cottages about the inn with a lane straggling between, and further away, round the curve of the little bay, were two huts close to the sea.
It would be in one of these that Dick Parmiter lived, and I crept towards them. There was no light whatever in the first of them, but the door stood open, and a woman and a man stood talking in the doorway. I lay down in the grass and crawled towards them, if by any chance I might hear what they said. For a while I could distinguish nothing of what they said, but at last the man cried in a clear voice, "Good-night, Mrs. Grudge," and walked off to the inn. The woman went in and closed the door. I was sure then that the next cottage was the one for which I searched. I walked to it; there was a light in the window and the sound of voices talking.
I hesitated whether to go in boldly and ask for Dick. But it would be known the next morning that a stranger had come for Dick; no doubt, too, Dick's journey to London was known, and the five men watching the house on Merchant's Point would be straightway upon the alert. Besides Dick might not have reached home. I walked round the hut unable to decide what I should do, and as I came to the back of it a light suddenly glowed in a tiny window there. I cautiously approached the window and looked through. Dick Parmiter was stripping off his jersey, and was alone.
I tapped on the window. Dick raised his head, and then put out the light, so that I could no longer see into the room; but in a moment the window was slowly lifted, and the boy's voice whispered:
"Is that you, Mr. Mayle?"
I drew a breath of relief. I was ahead of Cullen Mayle, though he had stolen my horse.
"No," said I; "but I have come on Cullen Mayle's business."
The boy leaned out of the window and peered into my face. But voices were raised in the room beyond this cupboard, and a woman's voice cried out, "Dick, Dick!"
"That's mother," said Dick to me. "Wait! I will come out to you."
He closed the window, and I lay down again in the grass, and waited there for perhaps an hour. A mist was coming up from the sea and thickening about the island; the starlight was obscured; wreaths of smoke, it seemed, came in puffs between myself and the house, and at last I heard the rustling of feet in the grass.
"Dick," said I in a whisper, and the lad came to me.
"I remember you," he said. "You were at Lieutenant Clutterbuck's. Why have you come?"
"Upon my word," said I, "I should find it difficult to tell you."
Indeed, it would have taken me half the night to explain the motives which had conjoined to this end.
"And now that you are come, what is it you mean to do?"
"Dick," I returned, "you ask the most disconcerting questions. You tramp up to London with a wild story of a house watched----"
"You come as a friend, then," he broke in eagerly.
"As your friend, yes."
Dick sat silent for a moment.
"I think so," he said at length.
"And here's a trifle to assure you," I said. "Cullen Mayle is not very far behind me. You may expect him upon Tresco any morning."
Dick started to his feet.
"Are you sure of that? You do not know him. How are you sure?"
"Clutterbuck described him to me. I overtook him on the road, and stayed the same night with him at an inn. He robbed me and robbed the landlord. There was a trick at the cards, too. Not a doubt of it, Cullen Mayle is close on my heels. Are those five men still watching the house?"
"Yes. They are still upon Tresco. They lodge here and there with the fishermen, and make a pretence to burn kelp or to fish for their living; but their business is to watch the house, as you will see to-night. There are six of them now, not five."
He led me as he spoke towards the "Palace Inn," where a light still burned in the kitchen. The cottages about the inn, however, were by this time dark, and we could advance without risk of being seen. Dick stopped me under the shadow of a wall not ten yards from the inn. A red blind covered the lower part of the window, but above it I could see quite clearly into the kitchen.
"Give me a back," whispered Dick, who reached no higher than my shoulder. I bent down and Dick climbed on to my shoulders, whence he too could see the interior of the kitchen.
"That will go," said he in a little, and slid to the ground. "Can you see a picture on the wall?"
"Yes."
"And a man sitting under the picture--a squat, squabby man with white hair and small eyes very bright?"
"Yes."
"That is the sixth man. He came to Tresco while I was in London. I found him here when I came back two days ago. But I had seen him before. He had come to Tresco before. His name is George Glen."
"George Glen!" said I. "Wait a bit," and I took another look at the man in the kitchen. "He was quartermaster with Adam Mayle at Whydah, eh? He is the stranger you brought over to St. Mary's Church on the day when Cullen Mayle sat in the stocks."
"Yes," said Dick, and he asked me how I knew.
"Clutterbuck told me," I replied.
From the inn we walked some few yards along a lane until we were free of the cottages, and then leaving the path, mounted inland up a hill of gorse. Dick gave me on the way an account of his journey homewards and the difficulties he had surmounted. I paid only an indifferent attention to his story, for I was wholly occupied with George Glen's presence upon the island. Glen had come first of all to visit Adam Mayle, and was now watching for Cullen. What link was there between his two visits? I was inclined to think that George Glen was the clue to the whole mystery. In spite of my inattention, I gathered this much however from Dick. That tramp of his to London was well known throughout the islands. His mother had given him up for dead when he went away, and had thrashed him soundly when he returned, but the next day had made him out a great hero in her talk. She did not know why he went to London, for Dick had the discretion to hold his tongue upon that point.
So much Parmiter had told me when he suddenly stopped and listened. I could hear nothing, however much I strained my ears, and in a moment or two Dick began to move on. The mist was very thick about us--I could not see a yard beyond my nose; but we were now going down hill, so that I knew we had crossed the ridge of the island and were descending towards the harbour of New Grimsby and the house under Merchant's Rock.
We had descended for perhaps a couple of hundred yards; then Dick stopped again. He laid a hand upon my arm and dragged me down among the gorse, which was drenched with the fog.
"What is it?" said I.
"Hush," he whispered; and even as he whispered I saw a sort of brown radiance through the fog a long way to my left. The next instant a speck of clear light shone out in the heart of this radiance: it was the flame of a lantern, and it seemed miles away. I raised myself upon my elbows to watch it. Dick pulled my elbow from beneath me, and pressed me down flat in the grass; and it was fortunate that he did, for immediately the lantern loomed out of the fog not a dozen yards away. I heard it rattle as it swung, and the man who carried it tramped by so near to me that if I had stretched out my hand I could have caught him by the ankle and jerked him off his feet. It was the purest good fortune that he did not detect us, and we lay very still until the rustle of the footsteps had altogether died away.
"Is that one of them?" I asked.
"Yes; William Blads. He lodges with Mrs. Crudge next to our cottage."
We continued to descend through the gorse for another quarter of an hour or so until an extraordinary sound at our feet brought us both to an halt. It was the strangest melancholy screeching sound that ever I had heard: it was so harsh it pierced the ears; it was so wild and eerie that I could hardly believe a voice uttered it. It was like a shrill cry of pain uttered by some live thing that was hardly human. It startled me beyond words, and the more so because it rose out of the fog directly at our feet. Dick Parmiter trembled at my side.
"Quick," he whispered in a shaking voice; "let us go! Oh, let us go!"
But he could not move for all his moaning. His limbs shook as though he had the fever; terror chained him there to the ground. Had I not known the boy under other circumstances, I should have set him down for a coward.
I took a step forward. Dick caught hold of my arm and muttered something, but his voice so wavered and gasped I could not distinguish what he said. I shook his arm off, and again stepped forward for one, two, three paces. As I took the third pace the ground suddenly sloped, my feet slipped on the wet grass; I let go of my valise, and I fell to my full length upon my back, and slid. And the moment I began to slide my feet touched nothing. I caught at the grass, and the roots of it came away in my hands. I turned over on my face. Half my body was now hanging over the edge. I hung for a second by my waist, and as I felt my waist slipping, I struck out wildly upon each side with my arms. My right arm struck against a bush of gorse; I seized hold of it, and it bent, but it did not break. I lifted a knee carefully, set it on the edge, and so crawled up the slope again.
Dick was lying on his face peering down towards me.
"My God," said he, "I thought you had fallen;" and reaching out his hands, he caught both my arms as though he was afraid I should slip again. "Oh, quick," he said, "let us go!"
And again I heard the shrill screech rise up from that hollow into which I had so nearly fallen. It was repeated and repeated with a regular interval between--an interval long enough for Dick to reiterate his eager prayer.
"It has begun again," said I.
"It has never ceased since we first heard it," said Dick, and no doubt he spoke the truth; only I had been deaf to it from the moment my foot slipped until now. "Let us go," and picking up my valise he hurried me away, turning his head as he went, shuddering whenever he heard that cry.
"But it may be some one in distress--some one who needs help."
"No, no," he cried; "it is no one. I will tell you to-morrow."
We skirted the top of the hollow, and once more descended. The fog showed no sign of clearing, but Parmiter walked with an assured tread, and in a little time he began to recover his spirits.
"We are close to the house," said he.
"Dick, you are afraid of ghosts," said I; and while I spoke he uttered a cry and clung to my arm. A second later something brushed past my hand very quickly. I just saw it for an instant as it flitted past, and then the darkness swallowed it up.
Dick blurted out this fable: the souls of dead drowned sailormen kept nightly tryst on Castle Down.
"That was no spirit," said I. "Play the man, Dick. Did you ever meet a spirit that trod with the weight of a body?"
I could hear the sound of feet rustling the grass beneath us. Dick listened with his hand to his ear.
"The tread is very light," said he.
"That is because it is a woman who treads."
"No woman would be abroad here in this fog at this time," he protested.
"Nevertheless, it was a woman; for I saw her, and her dress brushed against my hand. It was a woman, and you cried out at her; so that if there is any one else upon the watch to-night, it is very likely we shall have him upon our heels."
That argument sobered him, and we went forward again without speaking to each other, and only halting now and again to listen. In a very short while we heard the sea booming upon the beach, and then Dick stepped forward yet more warily, feeling about with his hands.
"There should be a fence hereabouts," said he, and the next moment I fell over it with a great clatter. A loud whistle sounded from the beach--another whistle answered behind us, and I heard the sound of a man running up from the sand. We both crouched in the grass close by the palisade, and again the fog saved us. I heard some one beating about in the grass with a stick, but he did not come near us, and at last he turned back to the sea.
"You see," said Dick, "I told Lieutenant Clutterbuck the truth. The house is watched."
"Devil a doubt of it," said I. "Do you go forward and see if you can get in."
He came back to me in a little space of time, saying that the door was barred, and that he could see no light through any chink. He had stolen all round the house; he had rapped gently here and there at a window, but there was no one waking.
"And what are we to do now?" said he. "If I make a clatter and rouse the house, we shall rouse Cullen's enemies, too."
"It would not be wise to put them on the alert, the more particularly since Cullen Mayle may be here to-morrow. I will go back to the 'Palace' Inn, sleep the night there, and come over here boldly in the morning." And I got up and shouldered my valise again. But Dick stopped me.
"I have a better plan than that," said he, "for George Glen is staying at the 'Palace' Inn. What if you slept in the house here to-night! I can come over early to-morrow and tell Miss Helen who you are, and why you have come."
"But how am I to get into the house, without you rouse the household?"
"There is a window. It is the window of Cullen Mayle's room. You could get through it with my help."
It seemed in many ways the best plan that could be thought of, but certain words of Clutterbuck's that my meddling at all in the matter would be nothing but an impertinence came back very forcibly to me. But I heard Dick Parmiter speaking, and the thought slipped instantly from my mind.
"I helped Cullen Mayle through the window, the night his father drove him from the house," said he, "and----"
"What's that you say?" I asked eagerly. "The night that Cullen Mayle was driven from the house, he climbed back into his room!"
"Yes!"
"Tell me about it, and be quick!" said I. I had my own reason for urging him, and I listened with all my attention to every word he spoke. He told me the sequel of the story which Clutterbuck had related in my lodging at St. James's Street.
"I was waiting for him outside here on the beach," said he; "and when the door was closed behind him, he came straight towards me. 'And where am I to sleep to-night, Dick?' said he. I told him that he could have my bed over at New Grimsby, but he refused it. 'I'm damned if I sleep in a rat-hole,' he said, 'when by putting my pride in my pocket I can sleep in my own bed; and with my help he clambered on to an outhouse, and so back into his own room."
"When did he leave the island, then?" I asked. "The next morning? But no one saw him go?"
"No," answered Dick. "I sailed him across the same night. About three o'clock of the morning he came and tapped softly upon my window, just as you did to-night. It was that which made me think you were Cullen come back. He bade me slip out to him without any noise, and together we carried my father's skiff down to the water. I sailed him across to St. Mary's. He made me swear never to tell a word of his climbing back into his room."
"Oh, he made you swear that?"
"Yes, he said he would rip my heart out if I broke my oath. Well, I've kept it till to-night. No one knows but you. I got back to Tresco before my father had stirred."
"And Cullen?"
"A barque put out from St. Mary's to Cornwall with the first of the ebb in the morning. I suppose he persuaded the captain to take him."
Parmiter's story set me thinking, and I climbed over the palisade after him without further objection. He came to a wall of planks; Dick set himself firmly against it and bent his shoulders.
"This is an outhouse," said he. "From my shoulders you can reach the roof. From the roof you can reach the window. You can force the catch of the window with a knife."
"It will be an awkward business," said I doubtfully, "if I wake the house."
"There is no fear of that," answered Dick. "With any other window I would not say no. The other rooms are separated only by a thin panelling of wood, and at one end of the house you can almost hear a mouse scamper at the other. Mr. Cullen's room, however, is a room built on, its inner wall is the outer wall of the house, it is the one room where you could talk secrets and run no risk of being overheard."
"Very well," said I slowly, for this speech too set me thinking. "I will risk it. Come over early to-morrow, Dick. I shall cut an awkward figure without you do," and getting on to his shoulder, I clambered up on to the roof of the outhouse. He handed my valise to me; I pushed back the catch of the window with the blade of my knife, lifted it, threw my leg over the sill and silently drew myself into the room. The room was very dark, but my eyes were now accustomed to the gloom. I could dimly discern a great four-poster bed. I shut the window without noise, set my valise in a corner, drew off my boots and lay down upon the bed.
I was very tired, but in spite of my fatigue it was some while before I fell asleep. Parmiter had thrown a new light upon the business tonight, and by the help of that light I arrayed afresh my scanty knowledge. The strangeness of my position, besides, kept me in some excitement. Here was I quietly abed in a house where I knew no one; Clutterbuck might well talk about impertinence, and I could not but wonder what in the world I should find to say if Dick was late in the morning. Finally, there was the adventure of that night. I felt myself again slipping down the wet grass and dangling over the precipice. I heard again that unearthly screeching which had so frightened Dick and perplexed me, It perplexed me still. I could not for a moment entertain Dick's supposition of a spirit. This was the middle of the eighteenth century, you will understand, and I had come fresh from London. Ghosts and bogies might do very well for the island of Tresco, but Mr. Berkeley was not to be terrified with any such old-wives' stories, and so Mr. Berkeley fell asleep.
At what precise hour the thing happened I do not know. The room was so dark that I could not have read my watch, even if I had looked at it, which I did not think to do. But at some time during that night I woke up quite suddenly with a clear sense that I had been waked up.
I sat up in my bed with my heart beating very quick; and then with as a little noise as I could I gathered myself up in the shadow of the bed-hangings, at the head. The fog was still thick about the house, so that hardly a glimmer of light came from the window. But there was some one in the room I knew, for I could hear a rustle as of stealthy movements. And then straight in front of me between the two posts of the bed-foot, I saw something white that wavered and swayed this way and that. Only an hour or so before I had been boasting to myself that I was London-bred and lived in the middle of the eighteenth century. But none the less my hair stirred upon my head, and all the moisture dried up in my throat as I stared at that dim white thing wavering and swaying between the bed-posts. It was taller than any human being that I had seen. I remembered the weird screeching sound which I had heard in the hollow; I think that in my heart I begged Dick Parmiter's pardon for laughing at his fears; I know that I crouched back among the hangings and shuddered till the bed shook and shook again. And then it made a sound, and all the blood in my veins stood still. I thought that my heart would stop or my brain burst. For the sound was neither a screech like that which rose from the hollow, nor a groan, nor any ghostly noise. It was purely human, it was a kecking sound in the throat, such as one makes who gasps for breath. The white thing was a live thing of flesh and blood.
I sprang up on the bed and jumped to the foot of it. It was very dark in the room, but through the darkness, I could see, on a level with my face, the face of a woman. Her eyes were open and they stared into mine. I could see the whites of them; our heads were so near they almost touched.
Even then I did not understand. I wondered what it was on which she stood. I noticed a streak of white which ran straight up towards the ceiling from behind her head, and I wondered what that was. And then suddenly her body swung against my legs. She was standing on nothing whatever! Again the queer gasping coughing noise broke from her lips, and at last I understood it. It was a gasp of a woman strangling to death. That white stiff streak above her head--I knew what it was too. I caught her by the waist and lifted her up till her weight rested upon my arm. With the other arm I felt about her neck. A thick soft scarf--silk it seemed to the touch--was knotted tightly round it, and the end of the scarf ran up to the cross-beam above the bed-posts. The scarf was the streak of white.
I fumbled at the knot with my fingers. It was a slip knot, and now that no weight kept it taut, it loosened easily. I slipped the noose back over her head and left it dangling. The woman I laid down upon the bed, where she lay choking and moaning.
I flung up the window and the cold fog poured into the room. I had no candle to light and nothing wherewith to light it. But I remembered that my foot had knocked against a chair to the right of the window, as I climbed into the room. I groped for the chair and set it to face the open night. Then I carried the woman to the window and placed her in the chair, and supported her so that she might not fall. Outside I could hear the surf booming upon the sand almost within arm's reach, and the air was brisk with the salt of the sea.
Such light as there was, glimmered upon the woman's face. I saw that she was young, little more than a girl indeed, with hair and eyes of an extreme blackness. She was of a slight figure as I knew from the ease with which I carried her, but tall. I could not doubt who it was, for one thing the white dress she wore was of some fine soft fabric, and even in that light it was easy to see that she was beautiful.
I held her thus with the cold salt air blowing upon her face, and in a little, she began to recover. She moved her hands upon her lap, and finally lifted one and held her throat with it.
"Very likely there will be some water in the room," said I. "If you are safe, if you will not fall, I will look for it."
"Thank you," she murmured.
My presence occasioned her no surprise and this I thought was no more than natural at the moment. I took my arm from her waist and groped about the room for the water-jug. I found it at last and a glass beside it. These I carried back to the window.
The girl was still seated on the chair, but she had changed her attitude. She had leaned her arms upon the sill and her head upon her arms. I poured out the water from the jug into the tumbler. She did not raise her head. I spoke to her. She did not answer me. A horrible fear turned me cold. I knelt down by her side, and setting down the water gently lifted her head. She did not resist but sank back with a natural movement into my arms. Her eyes were closed, but she was breathing. I could feel her breath upon my cheek and it came steadily and regular. I cannot describe my astonishment; she was in a deep sleep.
I pondered for a moment what I should do! Should I wake the household? Should I explain what had happened and my presence in the house? For Helen Mayle's sake I must not do that, since Helen Mayle it surely was whom I held in my arms.
I propped her securely in the chair, then crossed the room, opened the door and listened. The house was very still; so far no one had been disturbed. A long narrow passage stretched in front of me, with doors upon either side. Remembering what Dick Parmiter had told me, I mean that every sound reverberated through the house, I crept down the landing on tiptoe. I had only my stockings upon my feet and I crept forward so carefully that I could not hear my own footfalls.
I had taken some twenty paces when the passage opened out to my right. I put out my hand and touched a balustrade. A few yards farther on the balustrade ceased; there was an empty space which I took to be the beginning of the stairs, and beyond the empty space the passage closed in again.
I crept forward, and at last at the far end of the house and on the left hand of the passage I came to that for which I searched, and which I barely hoped to find--an open door. I held my breath and listened in the doorway, but there was no sound of any one breathing, so I stepped into the room.
The fog was less dense, it hung outside the window a thin white mist and behind that mist the day was breaking. I looked round the room. It was a large bedroom, and the bed had not been slept in. A glance at the toilette with its dainty knick-knacks of silver proved to me that it was a woman's bedroom. It had two big windows looking out towards the sea, and as I stood in the dim grey light, I wondered whether it was from one of those windows that Adam Mayle had looked years before, and seen the brigantine breaking up upon the Golden Ball Reef. But the light was broadening with the passage of every minute. With the same caution which I had observed before I stole back on tiptoe to Cullen Mayle's room. Helen Mayle was still asleep, and she had not moved from her posture. I raised her in my arms, and still she did not wake. I carried her down the passage, through the open door and laid her on the bed. There was a coverlet folded at the end of the bed and I spread it over her. She nestled down beneath it and her lips smiled very prettily, and she uttered a little purring murmur of content; but this she did in her sleep. She slept with the untroubled sleep of a child. Her face was pale, but that I took to be its natural complexion. Her long black eyelashes rested upon her cheeks. There was no hint of any trouble in her expression, no trace of any passionate despair. I could hardly believe that this was the girl who had sought to hang herself, whom I had seen struggling for her breath.
Yet there was no doubt possible. She had come into the empty room--empty as she thought, and empty it would have been, had not a fisher-boy burst one night into Lieutenant Clutterbuck's lodging off the Strand--when every one slept, and there she had deliberately stood upon the bed, fastened her noose to the cross-bar and sprang off. There was no doubt possible. It was her spring from the bed which had waked me up, and as I returned to Cullen's room, I saw the silk noose still hanging from the beam.
A loud rapping on the door roused me. The mist had cleared away, and out of the open window I could see a long sunlit slope of gorse all yellow and purple stretching upwards, and over the slope a great space of blue sky whereon the clouds sailed like racing boats in a strong breeze. The door was thrust open and Dick Parmiter entered.
"You keep London hours, sir," said he, standing at the foot of the bed, and he happened to raise his eyes. "What's that?" he asked.
Thatwas the silk scarf still dangling from the cross-bar, and the sight of it brought back to me in a flash my adventure of the night. With the clear sunlight filling the room and the bright wind chasing the clouds over the sky, I could hardly believe that it had really occurred. But the silk scarf hung between the posts.
"My God," I cried out. "What if I had never waked up!"
There would have been the sunlight and the wind in the sky as now, but, facing me, no longer swaying, but still, inert, horrible, I should have seen--and I clapped my hands over my face, so distinct was this unspeakable vision to me, and cried out again: "What if I had not waked up!
"You have not waked up very early," said Dick, looking at me curiously, and recovering my self-possession I hasten to explain.
"I have had dreams, Dick. The strange room! I am barely awake yet."
It appeared that I was not the only one to keep London hours that morning. It was close upon mid-day and Dick had not waked me before, because he had not before had speech with the mistress of the house. Helen Mayle had risen late. But she knew now of my presence in the house and what had brought me, and was waiting to offer me her thanks.
In spite of this news that she was waiting, I made my toilette very slowly. It would be the most awkward, embarrassing meeting imaginable. How could one bow and smile and exchange the trivial courtesies with a girl whom one had saved from that silk noose some eight hours before? With what countenance would she greet me? Would she resent my interference? Dick, however, had plainly noticed nothing unusual in her demeanour; I consoled myself with that reflection. He noticed, however, something unusual here in my room, for as I tied my cravat before the mirror I saw that he was curiously looking at the silk scarf.
"Perhaps you have seen it before," said I without turning round. Dick started, then he coloured.
"I was wondering why it hung there," said he.
"Itiscurious," said I calmly, and I stood upon the bed and with some trouble, for the knots were stiff, I took it down and thrust it into the pocket of my coat.
"It is yours?" cried Dick.
"One silk scarf is very like another," said I, and he coloured again and was silent. His silence was fortunate, since if he had asked to what end I had hung it above my bed, I should have been hard put to it for an answer.
"I am ready," said I, and we walked along the passage to the balustrade, and the head of the stairs where I had crept on tiptoe during the night.
I noticed certain marks, a few dents, a few scratches on the panels of the wall at the head of the stairs, and I was glad to notice them, for they reminded me of the business upon which I had come and of certain conjectures which Dick had suggested to my mind. It was at the head of the stairs that Adam Mayle had stood when he drove out his son. The marks no doubt were the marks of that handful of guineas which Cullen had flung to splatter and sparkle against the wall behind his father's head. I was glad to notice them, as I say, for the tragical incident in which I had borne a share that night had driven Cullen Mayle's predicament entirely from my thoughts.
I saw the flutter of a dress at the foot of the stairs, and a face looked up to mine. It was the face which I had seen on a level with mine in the black gloom of the night, and as I saw it now in the clear light of day, I stopped amazed. It wore no expression of embarrassment, no plea for silence. She met me with a grateful welcome in her eyes as for one who had come unexpectedly to do her a service, and perhaps a hint of curiosity as to why I should have come at all.
"Dick has told me of you," she said, as she held out her hand. "You are very kind. Until this morning I did not even know the reason of Dick's journey to London. I was not aware that he had paid a visit to Lieutenant Clutterbuck."
There was a trifle of awkwardness in her voice as she pronounced his name. I could not help feeling and no doubt expressing some awkwardness as I heard it. Lieutenant Clutterbuck had not hesitated to accuse her of duplicity; I at all events could not but acknowledge that she was excellently versed in the woman's arts of concealment. There was thus a moment's silence before I answered.
"You will accept me I hope as Lieutenant Clutterbuck's proxy."
"We had no right," she returned, "to expect any service from Lieutenant Clutterbuck, much less from----" and she hesitated and stopped abruptly.
"From a stranger you would have said," I added.
"We shall count you a stranger no longer," she said, with a frank smile, and that I might not be outdone in politeness, I said:
"If Dick had lacked discretion and told you all that he might have told, you would understand that the obligation is upon my side. For whereas I do not know that I can render you any service whatever, I do know that already you have rendered me a great one."
"That is very prettily said," she returned, as she walked into the parlour.
"Truth at times," I answered lightly as I followed her, "can be as pretty as the most ingenious lie."
So that first awkward meeting was past. I took my cue from her reticence, but without her success. I could not imitate her complete unconsciousness. It seemed she had no troubles. She sat at the table in a flow of the highest spirits. Smiles came readily to her lips, and her eyes laughed in unison. She was pale and the pallor was the more marked on account of her dark hair and eyes, but the blood came and went in her cheeks, and gave to her an infinite variety of expression. I could hardly believe that this voice which was now lively with contentment was the voice which had uttered that kecking sound in the night, or that the eyes which now sparkled and flashed were the eyes which had stared at me through the gloom. No doubt I looked at her with more curiosity than was convenient; at all events she said, with a laugh:
"I would give much to know what picture Dick painted of me, for if I may judge from your looks, Mr. Berkeley, the likeness is very unlike to the original."
I felt my cheeks grow hot, and cast about for a reason to excuse my curiosity. Her own words suggested the reason.
"Dick told me," I said, "of a woman in great distress and perplexity, whose house was watched, who dreaded why it was watched----"
"And you find a woman on the top of her spirits," she broke in, and was silent for a little, looking at the cloth. "And very likely," she continued slowly, "you are disposed to think that you have been misled and persuaded hither for no more than a trivial purpose."
"No," I protested. "No such thought occurred to me," and in my anxiety to free myself from the suspicion of this imputation I broke through that compact of silence upon which we seemed silently to have agreed. "I have no reason for pride, God knows, but indeed, Madam, I am not so utterly despicable as to regret that I came to Tresco and crept into your house last night. Already,--suppose there was nothing more for me to do but to wish you a good-morning and betake myself back to town--already I have every reason to be glad that I came, for if I had not come----" and I stopped.
Helen Mayle listened to me with some surprise of manner at the earnestness with which I spoke and when I stopped so abruptly, she blushed and her eyes again sought the table.
"Yes," she said quietly, "Mr. Berkeley, you have guessed the reason of my good spirits. If you had not come, a woman in great distress and perplexity would be wandering restlessly about the house, as she did yesterday."
Her eyes were still fixed upon the table, or she must have remarked my astonishment and the pretence would at once and for all have been torn away from between us. I leaned back in my chair; it was as much as I could do to stifle an exclamation. If I had not come, a woman's spirit might be wandering to-day restlessly from room to room, but the woman--I had the silk scarf in my coat-pocket to assure me she would not.
"The distress and perplexity," she continued, "are not done with, but to-day a hand has been stretched to me out of the dark, and I must think, to some good end. It could not be otherwise," and she lifted her eyes to mine. I did not doubt their sincerity. "And--shall I tell you?" she continued with a frank smile. "I am glad, though I hardly know why--I am glad that the man who stretched out his hand was quite unknown to me and himself knew nothing of me, and had not so much as seen my face. He helps a woman, notonewoman. I am more grateful for that, I take it to be of good augury." And she held her hand to me.
I took the hand; I was tempted to let her remain in her misapprehension. But sooner or later she would learn the truth, and it seemed to me best that she should learn something of it from me.
"Madam," I said, "I should account myself happy if I could honestly agree, but I fear it was not on a woman's account that I travelled down to Tresco. Dick I think had something to do with it, but chiefly I came to do myself a service."
"Well," she answered as she rose and crossed to the window "that may be. You are here at all events, in the house that is watched" and then she suddenly called me to her side. "Look," said she, "but keep well behind the curtain."
I looked across the water to a brown pile of rocks which was named Norwithel, and beyond Norwithel over St. Helen's Pool to the island of St. Helen's.
"Do you see?" she asked.
I saw the bare rock, the purple heather of St. Helen's, to the right a wide shining beach of Tean, and to the left stretching out into the sea from the end of St. Helen's a low ridge of rocks like a paved causeway. I pointed to that causeway.
"That is the Golden Ball Reef," said I.
"Yes," she answered, "Dick told you the story. You would not see the reef, but that the tide is low. But it is not that I wanted to show you. See!" and she stretched out her hand towards the rock pile of Norwithel.
I looked there again and at last I saw a man moving on the rocks close by the sea.
"He is cutting the weed," said I.
"That is the pretence," said she. "But so long as he stays there no one can enter this house without he knows, no one can go out without he knows."
"Unless one goes in or out by the door I used."
"That door is within view of the Castle Down. There will be some man smoking his pipe, stretched on the grass of the Castle Down."
"You have never spoken to them?"
"Yes! They wanted nothing of me. They only watch. I know for whom they watch. I could learn nothing by questioning them."
"Have you asked Captain Hathaway's help?"
Helen smiled.
"No. What could he do? They do no one any hurt. They stand out of my way when I pass. And besides--I am afraid. I do not know. If these men were questioned closely by some one in authority, what story might they have to tell and what part in that story does Cullen play?"
I hesitated for a few moments whether to risk the words which were on my lips. I made an effort and spoke them.
"You will pardon the question--I have once met Cullen Mayle--and is he worth all this anxiety?"
"He had a strange upbringing in this house. There is much to excuse him in the eyes of any one. And for myself I cannot forget that all which people say is mine, is more rightly his."
She spoke very gently about Cullen, as I had indeed expected that she would, but with sufficient firmness to prove to me that it was not worth while to continue upon this strain.
"And the negro?" I asked. "He has not spoken?"
For answer she led me up the stairs, and into a room which opened upon the landing. The negro lay in bed and asleep. The flesh had shrivelled off his bones, his face was thin and peaked, and plainly his days were numbered. Helen leaned over the bed, spoke to him and pressed upon his shoulder. The negro opened his eyes. Never in my life had I seen anything so melancholy as their expression. The conviction of his helplessness was written upon them and I think too an appeal for forgiveness that he had not discharged his mission.
"Speak to him," said Helen. "Perhaps a stranger's voice may rouse him if only to speak two words."
I spoke to him as she bade me; a look of intelligence came into the negro's face; I put a question to him.
"Why does George Glen watch for Cullen Mayle?"--and before I had completed the sentence his eyelids closed languidly over his eyes and he was asleep. I looked at him as he lay there, an emaciated motionless figure, the white bedclothes against his ebony skin, and as I thought of his long travels ending so purposelessly in this captivity of sleep, I was filled with a great pity. Helen uttered a moan, she turned towards me wringing her hands.
"And there's our secret," she cried, "the secret which we must know and which this poor negro burns to tell and it's locked up within him! Bolts and bars," she burst out, "what puny things they seem! One can break bolts, one can sever bars, but a secret buried within a man, how shall one unearth it?"
It just occurred to me that she stopped with unusual abruptness, but I was looking at the negro, I was still occupied with pity.
"Heaven send my journey does not end so vainly as his," I said solemnly. I turned to Helen and I saw that she was staring at me with a great astonishment, and concern for which I could not account.
"I have a conjecture to tell you of," said I, "I do not know that it is of value."
"Let us go downstairs," she replied, "and you shall tell me," but she spoke slowly as though she was puzzled with some other matter. As we went downstairs I heard Dick Parmiter's voice and could understand the words he said. I stopped.
"Where is Dick?"
"Most likely in the kitchen."
When we were come to the foot of the stairs I asked where the kitchen was?
"At the end of that passage across the hall," she answered.
Upon that I called Dick. I heard a door open and shut, and Dick came into the hall.
"The kitchen door was closed," said I, "I do not know but what my conjecture may have some value after all."
Helen Mayle walked into the parlour, Dick followed her. As I crossed the hall my coat caught on the back of a chair. Whilst I was disengaging my coat, I noticed that an end of the white scarf was hanging from my pocket and that the initials "H. M." were embroidered upon it. I recollected then how Helen Mayle had abruptly ended her outcry concerning the bolts and bars, and how she had looked at me and how she had spoken. Had she noticed the scarf? I thrust it back into my pocket and took care that the flap of the pocket should hide it completely. Then I, too, went into the parlour. But as I entered the room I saw then Helen's eyes went at once to my pocket. She had, then, noticed the scarf. It seemed, however, that she was no longer perplexed as to how I came by it. But, on the other hand, it was my turn to be perplexed. For, as she raised her eyes from my pocket, our glances crossed. It was evident to her that I had detected her look and understood it. Yet she smiled--without any embarrassment; it was as though she thought I had stolen her scarf for a favour and she forgave the theft. And then she blushed. That, however, she was very ready to do upon all occasions.