A Maid of the Silver Sea Part 48

"What about one of your men, Gard?"

"It's a dangerous game for any man to play, Doctor.... I don't quite see how one could ask it of them,"--and after a pause of concentrated thought and many slow smoke-puffs--"What would you say to me?" and all their eyes settled on him--the Doctor's professionally.

"Surely you have suffered enough in this matter, Mr. Gard," suggested the Vicar.

"I would give a good deal, and do a good deal, to get to the bottom of it all. Things will never settle down properly till this matter is disposed of."

That, of course, was obvious to them all, but all had the same feeling that he had already suffered enough in the matter.

But consideration of the Doctor's suggestion in all its aspects only served to convince them that, if any such scheme was to be carried out, it could only be done among themselves, and its dangers were obvious.

It was not a matter to be lightly undertaken by any man. For whoever undertook the role of decoy, undoubtedly took his life in his hands; and they spent many evenings over it.

The Vicar was absolutely against the idea, but had no alternative to suggest.

"It is simply playing with death," said he, "and no man has a right to do that."

"It means a good deal for the Island if we can clear it up," said the Senechal.

But, by degrees, they got to discussion of how it might be done, and from that to the actual doing was only a heroic step.

The decoy's head must be well padded, of course, for the heads of both victims had been the points of attack.

He must be well armed also, and being forewarned and more, he ought to be able to give a certain account of himself.

And then the Doctor and the Senechal would be close at hand and on the keen look-out for emergencies.

The Doctor undertook to pad his head with something in the nature of a turban under his hat, which, he vowed, would resist the impact of iron blows better than metal itself.

"Leave my ears loose, anyway," said Gard. "I'd like at all events to be able to hear it coming."

The Senechal had a weapon, part pistol and the rest blunderbuss, which had belonged to his father, who had always referred to it affectionately as his "dunderbush." It had seen strange doings in its time, but had been so long retired from the active list, that he undertook to load and fire it himself before he said any more about it.

And he did it next day, with a full charge, in his meadow, with the a.s.sistance of a gate-post and a long cord, and reported it at night as in excellent order, and calculated to blow into smithereens anything blowable that stood up before it within the short limit of its range.

At this stage in its proceedings the Vicar reluctantly retired from the Committee of Public Safety. He acknowledged the sore need of ending the suspicious and superst.i.tious fears which were beginning to affect the life of the community in various ways. But he could not see his way to any partic.i.p.ation in means so dangerous to the life of one of their number as those suggested.

He did his best to dissuade Gard from it. He even reminded him of the duty he owed to Nance. She had undoubtedly saved his life, and she had a premier claim upon his consideration--and so on.

To all of which Gard fully a.s.sented.

"But," he said gravely, "we are at a deadlock in this other matter, and it is just barely possible that this plan may clear it all up. I can't say I'm very sanguine that it will. On the other hand, I really don't see that any great harm can come to me. The others probably suffered because they were taken unawares. I shall go in the hope of meeting it, and shall be ready for it. Unless, Vicar, you really think it is the devil or something of that sort?"

"I don't know what to think," said the Vicar solemnly. "I cannot bring myself to believe any of our Sark men would do such dreadful things. I look at each man I meet and say to myself, 'Now, can it be possible it is you?--or you?--or you?'--and it does not seem possible; and yet--"

"And yet some one did it, Vicar," said the Doctor, brusquely, "and that's just the trouble. Until we find out _who_ did it, any man may have done it, and we all look at everybody else, just as you do, and say to ourselves, 'Is it you?--or you?--or you?' Though I'm bound to say I've not got the length yet of doubting either you or the Senechal, or Gard, and I don't think it's myself. It might quite conceivably be any one of us, however, prowling about in our sleep and utterly unconscious afterwards of evil-doing."

"A most awful possibility," said the Vicar. "G.o.d grant it may turn out differently from that."

"You never know what this inexplicable machine may do," said the Doctor, tapping his head. "However, we'll hope for the best, and I think the Senechal and I ought to be able to see Gard through without any very disastrous results. If we succeed, he will deserve better of this Island than any man I know--and a sight more than this Island deserves of him.

I quite understand," he said, as Gard looked quickly up. "And it does you credit, my boy; but there are not very many men would do it."

"Well, I'm afraid I must leave you to it," said the Vicar, and did so.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

HOW THEY LAID THE DEVIL BY THE HEELS

When it began to be noised abroad that Gard was going to and fro across the Coupee, even by night, as if nothing had ever happened there, the Sark men shrugged their shoulders and said, "Pardie!--sooner him than me--oui-gia!"

It was obviously necessary, however, that this should be known. Even the cormorant does not fish where fish are never found.

But when he went to and fro by night, he went mailed--according to the Doctor's ideas--and armed--according to the Senechal's; and each night the Doctor and the Senechal went quietly down, some time in advance, and lay hidden on the headlands with their guns, and never took their eyes off him and all his surroundings, while he was in sight.

And Gard, in nearing the Little Sark cutting, always kept carefully to the right-hand side of the path, though it was somewhat crumbly there and had fallen away down the slope towards Grande Greve. For he had gone cautiously over the ground beforehand, and decided that if there was any possibility of being knocked overboard unawares, he would prefer to go over the much gentler slope on the right, where one might even at a pinch find lodgment among the rubble and bushes, than over the sheer fall into Coupee Bay, where you could drop a stone almost to the shingle below.

Nance knew nothing whatever of the matter, or she would undoubtedly and most reasonably have had something to say about it. But knowledge of it could only upset her, and so perhaps himself, and he had carefully kept it from her. Little Sark, moreover, was more isolated than ever by reason of the Coupee mystery, and word of his goings and comings--save such as had La Closerie for their object in the day-time--never reached her.

They were in grievous sorrow down there over Bernel. Gard still preached hope, but each day's delay in its realisation seemed to them to make it the more unlikely, and their hearts were very sore.

Julie had gone about her work for days after Gard's return like a bereft tigress. Then one morning she locked the door of her house, put the key in her pocket, and took the cutter for Guernsey; and none regretted her going.

And, as it turned out, though that had not been her intention at the time, it was the last Sark was to see of her. Rumours reached them later of her marriage to a fellow-countryman, with whom she had gone to France. The one thing they knew for certain was that she never came back to La Closerie, and after due interval, and consequent on other matters, they broke open the door and resumed possession of the house.

Night after night Gard slowly crossed the Coupee, lingered in its shadows, went on into Little Sark, and came lingering back.

And night after night the Doctor and the Senechal lay in the heather of the headlands, guns in hand, waiting for something that never came, and then going stiffly home to one or other of their houses, to lubricate their joints and console their disappointment with hot punch and much tobacco.

"I'm afraid it's no go," was the Doctor's grudging verdict at last, on the fourteenth blank night.

"Let's keep on," said Gard. "Things generally happen just when you don't expect them."

"That's so," grunted the Senechal. And they decided to keep on.

Fortunately, the nights were warm and mostly fine. When neither moon nor stars afforded him light enough for a safe crossing, he took a lantern, so that no one who desired to knock him on the head need miss the chance for lack of seeing him.

And when, after their lonely waiting, the watchers in the heather saw the lantern come joggling down the steep cutting from Sark, they braced themselves for eventualities, and hefted their guns, and p.r.i.c.ked up their ears and made ready.

And when it had wavered slowly along the path between the great pits of darkness on either hand, and had gone joggling on into Little Sark, they sank back into their formes with each his own particular exclamation, and lay waiting till the light came back.

Times of tension and endurance which told upon them all, but bore most heavily on Gard, since the onslaught, when it came, must fall upon him, and the absolute ignorance as to how and when and whence it might come, kept every nerve within him strung like a fiddle-string.

It was the eeriest experience he had ever had, that nightly trip across the Coupee;--bad enough when moon or stars afforded him vague and distorted glimpses of his ghostly surroundings:--ten times worse when the flicker of his lantern barely kept him to the path, and the broken gleams ran over the rugged edges and tumbled into the black gulfs at the sides;--when every starting shadow might be a murderer leaping out upon him, every foot of the walling darkness the murderer's cover, and every step he took a step towards death.