A Maid of the Silver Sea Part 35

"I will go with you," he said eagerly, "and you will lend me your bladders to get back with."

"You would never get back to L'Etat in the dark"--and he knew that that was true. "We of Sark can see, but you others--"

"I shall be in misery till I know you are all right," he said anxiously.

"I will run home. My things are in the gorse above Breniere. And I will get a lantern and come down by Breniere and wave it to you."

"Will you do that? It will be like a signal from heaven," he said eagerly, "a signal from heaven waved by an angel from heaven."

"And to-morrow I will go to the Vicar, and the Senechal, and the Seigneur, if he has come home, and I will make them stop these wicked men from coming here again."

"Can they?"

"They shall. They must. They are the law and it is not right."

"It is worth trying, at any rate," he said cheerfully, as they reached the eastern corner and struck down across his puffin-warren to the point immediately opposite Breniere. But he had not much hope that the Vicar and the Senechal and the Seigneur all combined would avail him, for the men of Sark are a law unto themselves.

"But I've found another hiding-place, Nance, where they could never find me."

"Here?--on L'Etat?"

"Yes--inside. I'll show you some time, perhaps, if--"

"Is this where you came ash.o.r.e?" he asked, as she came to a stand on a rough black shelf up which the waves hissed white and venomous.

"We--we always landed here when we swam across," she said, with a little break in her voice, as it came home to her again that Bernel would swim the Race no more.

"Nance dear, don't give up hope. He may come back yet."

"I have only you left, and they want to kill you," she said sadly.

"I wish I could come with you," as the dark waters swirled below them.

"It feels terrible to let you go into that all alone."

"It is nothing. The tide is dead slack, and I have these"--swinging the bladders in her hand--"if I get tired. Oh, if Bern had only taken them--"

"I will kneel on the ridge and pray for your safety till I see your light. Dear, G.o.d keep you, and bless you for all your goodness and courage!"

He strained her to him again, as if he could not let her go to that colder embrace that awaited her below.

"I could kiss the very rocks you have stood on," he said pa.s.sionately.

She kissed him back and dropped the cloak, waited a second till a wave had swirled by, then launched into the slack of it, and was gone.

He stood long, peering and listening into the darkness, but heard only the welter of the water under the black ledges below, and its scornful hiss as it seethed through the fringing sea-weeds.

Then at last he turned and climbed, slowly and heavily, up to the ridge; for now he felt the strain of these last full hours, coming on top of the longer strain of the storm; and this, and the lack of proper feeding, made him feel weak and empty and weary. He knelt down there in the darkness, with his face towards the Race where Nance was battling with the hungry black waters, and he prayed for her safety as he had never prayed for anything in his life before.

"_G.o.d keep her! G.o.d keep her! G.o.d keep her--and bring her safe to land!

O G.o.d, keep her, keep her, keep her, and bring her safe to land!_"

It was a monotonous little prayer, but all his heart was in it, and that is all that makes a prayer avail. And when at last, from sheer weariness, he sank down on to his heels in science, gazing earnestly out into the blackness of the night, his heart prayed on though his lips no longer moved.

Could anything have happened to her? Could the black waters have swallowed her?

Anything might have happened to her. The waters might have swallowed her, as they had Bernel.

The thoughts would surge up behind his prayer, but he prayed them down--again and again--and clung to his prayer and his hope.

It seemed hours since they parted, since his last glimpse of her as the black waters swallowed the slim white figure, and seemed to laugh scornfully at its smallness and weakness.

"_Oh, Nance! Nance! G.o.d keep you! G.o.d keep you! G.o.d keep you! Dear one, G.o.d keep you! G.o.d keep you! G.o.d keep you, and bring you safe to land_!"

He was numb with kneeling. If one had come behind him and cut off his feet above the ankles, he would have felt no pain. He felt no bodily sensation whatever. His body was there on the rock, but his heart was out upon the black waters alongside Nance, struggling with her through the belching coils, nerving her through the treacherous swirls. And his soul--all that was most really and truly him--was agonizing in prayer for her before the G.o.d to whom he had prayed at his mother's knee, and whom she had taught him to look to as a friend and helper in all times of need.

He did not even stop--as he well might have done--to think that the friend sought only in time of need might have reasonable ground for complaint of neglect at other times.

He thought of nothing but that Nance was out there battling with the black waters--that he could not lift a finger to help her--that all he could do was to pray for her safety with all his heart and soul.

Then, after an age of this numb agony of waiting, a tiny bead of light flickered on the outer darkness, as though Hope with a golden pin-point had p.r.i.c.ked the black curtain of despair, and let a gleam of her glory peep through. It swung to and fro, and he fell forward with his face in his ice-cold hands and sobbed, "Thank G.o.d! Thank G.o.d! She is safe! She is safe!"

When he tried to get up, his legs gave way under him, and he had to sit and wait till they recovered. And when at last he got under way along the ridge, he stumbled like a drunken man.

He tangled his feet in the blanket and fell in a heap. He wondered dimly where the cloak was--remembered Nance had worn it till she took to the sea--and stumbled off through the dark again to find it. Nance had worn it. To him it was sacred.

When he got back with it, he wrapped it round him and crept into his shelter and slept like a dog.

CHAPTER XXVIII

HOW THE OTHERS CAME TO MAKE AN END

He woke next morning with a start. The sun was high, by the shadow of his doorway; and by that same token the tide would be at half-ebb, if not lower, and the gates of his fortress at his enemy's mercy.

He picked up his gun, listened anxiously for sound of him, and then crept cautiously out, with a quick glance along each slope.

Nothing!--nothing but the cheerful sun and the cloudless sky, and the empty blue plain of the sea, and the birds circling and diving and squabbling as usual--and Nance's little parcel lying where she had dropped it. He had had other things to think about last night.

The composure of the birds rea.s.sured him somewhat. Still, they might have landed on the other side of the rock and be lying in wait for him.

He picked up Nance's parcel with a feeling of reverence. It might have cost her her life, in spite of her bladders. Then he climbed cautiously to the ridge and peered over.

Sark lay basking in the sunshine, peaceful and placid, as if no son of hers had ever had an ill thought of his neighbour, much less sought his blood.

Not a boat was in sight, and the birds on the north slope seemed as undisturbed as their fellows on the south.