A Maid of the Silver Sea Part 43

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

HOW JULIE'S SCHEMES FELL FLAT

Nance found the return journey still more trying to her strength, but she struggled through, and was devoutly thankful when the slack water under Breniere was reached.

She waded ash.o.r.e almost too weary to stand, and had to cling to the rough rocks till she recovered her breath. Then, slowly and heavily, she dragged herself up the lower ledges to the little plateau where her clothes were.

Julie had sat revolving grim schemes in that black head of hers.

She hated the girl. She hated Gard. She hated Sark and every one in it.

Why had she ever come into these outer wilds? She would have done with it all and get away back to the life that was more to her taste.

But first--yes, mon Dieu, she would leave them something to remember her by.

She had not a doubt that Gard was still on L'Etat. Nothing else would take this girl across there. The shameless hussy!--to go swimming across to see her man with nothing but a white shift on!

She could wound Gard through Nance. She could wound Nance through Gard.

She could wait for the girl as she came up the side of the Head, and push her down again or crush her with a lump of rock.

But that might mean reprisals on the part of the Islanders. She had had experience of the way in which they resented any ill done to one of their number by an outsider. She had no wish to join Gard on his rock.

It would be better to hold the girl up to the scorn and contempt of the neighbours; that would punish her. And by setting the men on Gard's track again, that would punish him and her too.

And so she restrained the natural violence of her temper, which would have run to rocks and bodily injury, and waited in the bracken till Nance came stumbling along in the half-light. Then up she sprang, with an unexpectedness that for the moment took Nance's breath and set her heart pounding with dreadful certainties of ghosts.

"So this is how you go to visit your fancy monsieur on the rock, is it, little Nance? And with nothing on but that! Oh shame! What will the neighbours say when they hear how you swim across to him, and you will not dare deny it?"

But Nance, relieved in her mind on the score of ghosts, and regaining her composure with her breath, simply turned her back on her and proceeded as if she were not there.

"And he is there still!" screamed Julie, dancing round with rage to keep face to face with her. "I was sure of it, though those fools could not find him. I'll see that he's found or starved out, b'en sur! Yes, if I have to go myself and see to it. As for you--shameless one!--it's the last time you'll swim across there, yes indeed!"--and she raved on and on, as only an angry woman with a grievance can.

Nance slipped her dress over her head and, under cover of it, dropped off her wet undergarment, coolly wrung it out, put on her cloak and walked away, Julie raging alongside with wild words that tumbled over one another in their haste.

Nance walked to the highest point behind Breniere, and waved her white garment a dozen times to let Gard know she was safe, and then turned and set off home through the waist-high bracken and the great cushions of gorse. And close alongside her went Julie, raging and raving the worse for her silence; for there is nothing so galling to an angry soul as to find its most venomous shafts fall harmless from the triple mail of quiet self-possession.

So they came through the other cottages to La Closerie, but the neighbours were all asleep, and those who woke at the sound of her violence, turned over and said, "It's only that mad Frenchwoman in one of her tantrums. Why, in Heaven's name, can't she go to sleep, like other folks?"

Nance went into her own house and quietly closed the door. Julie hammered on it with her fists, as she would dearly have liked to hammer on Nance's face, and then cursed herself off into her own place, slamming the door with such violence as to waken all the fowls and set all the pigs grunting in their sleep.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

HOW AN ANGEL CAME BRINGING THE TRUTH

Gard's eyes, straining into the dimness of the coming dawn through what seemed to him a most terrible long time, so packed was it with anxious fears, caught at last the white flicker of Nance's signal, and he dropped down just where he stood, among the rough stones of the ridge, with a grateful sigh.

The strain was telling on him. He felt physically weak and worn. Nance's devoted love and courage made his heart beat high, indeed, but his fears on her account strung his laxed cords to breaking point, and then left them looser than before.

He must get away somehow, if only to prevent this constant and terrible risking of her life on his behalf.

He hardly dared to hope that his strategy with the dead man would be of any permanent benefit to him, though there was no knowing. Examination of the body would show that it had been dead for very many years, but his knowledge of the Island superst.i.tions made him doubt if any Sark man would willingly spend a night on L'Etat for a very long time to come.

On the other hand, if the result of their discussions confirmed them in the belief that he was still there, and if, as he constantly feared, they should learn of Nance's comings, and visit upon her the venom they harboured for him, they might so invest the rock that escape would be impossible.

Meagre living, starvation even, he would suffer rather than live more amply at risk of Nance's life, but if the hope of ultimate escape was taken from him then he might as well give in at once and have done with it.

So he lay there, in the broken rocks of the ridge, and looked grimly on life. And the sun rose in a red ball over France, and cleft a shining track across the grey face of the waters, and drew up the mists and thinned away the clouds, till the great plain of the sea and the great dome above were all deep flawless blue, and he saw a thin white curl of smoke rise from the miners' cottages on Sark.

He lay there listless, nerveless, careless of life almost, an Ishmael with every man's hand against him--worse off than Ishmael, he thought, since Ishmael had a desert in which to wander, and he was tied to this bare rock.

But there was Nance! There was always Nance. And at thought of her, his bruised soul found somewhat of comfort and courage once more.

He felt her quivering in his arms again as he pressed her close. He felt again the willing surrender of her sweet wet face. And the thought of it thrilled his cold blood and set it coursing through his veins like new life. Yes, truly, while there was Nance there was hope.

Perhaps the Senechal and the Vicar would prevail upon them. Perhaps they would give it up and leave him alone, and then Nance would find him a boat and they would get across to Guernsey. Perhaps, as she kept insisting, something would happen to discover the truth.

So he lay, while the sun mounted high and baked him on the bare stones, but he did not find it hot.

And then, of a sudden, he stiffened and lay watching anxiously. For there, from out the Creux had come a boat--and another, and another, and another--four boat-loads of them again!

So they were coming, after all, and his hopes died sudden death.

Well--let them come and take him and have their will. He was not the first who had paid the price for what he had not done, and human nature must fall to pieces if hung too long on tenterhooks.

He watched them listlessly. He could crawl into his innermost cavern, of course, and could hold it against them all till the end of time, which in this case would be but a trifling span, for a man must eat to live.

But what was the use? As well die quick as slow, since there could be but one end to it. And then, to his very great surprise, the boats crept slowly out of sight round the corner of Coupee Bay, and he lay wondering.

What could be the meaning of that? Why had they put in there? Why couldn't they come on and finish the matter?

The sea was all deserted again. If he had not just happened to catch sight of them stealing across there, he would have felt sure they were not coming to-day.

Perhaps they were going to wait there till night, though why on earth they should wait there instead of at the Creux, was past his comprehension.

And then, after a time, to his amazement, he saw them all go crawling back the way they had come. One, two, three, four--yes, they were all there, and they crept slowly round Laches point and disappeared, and left him gaping.

It was past believing. It was altogether beyond him. He lay, with his eyes glued to the point round which they had gone, stupid with the wonder of it.

They had actually given it up--for to-day, at least, and gone back! He cudgelled his brains for the meaning of it all, till they grew dull and weary with futile thinking.

Perhaps Nance and the Vicar and the Senechal had prevailed after all!

Perhaps something had turned up at last to prove to the Sark men their misjudgment! Perhaps--well, any way, it was good to be left alone.