A Maid of the Silver Sea Part 49

A trip, I a.s.sure you, that not many men would have been capable of. For it did not by any means end with the Coupee. When he got to bed of a night, and fell asleep at last, he was still crossing the Coupee with his joggling lantern all night long, and suffered things in dreams compared with which even his actual experiences were but holiday jaunts.

And at times these grisly imaginings came back upon him as he actually walked the narrow path next night, and it was all he could do to keep his head and not fling the lantern into the depths of the pit and follow it.

They were all getting exceedingly weary of the whole business; indeed, it was getting on all their nerves in a way which threatened consequences, when, mercifully, the end came--suddenly, not at all as they had looked for it, quite outside all their expectation.

It was one of the shrouded nights. The Doctor and the Senechal, flat in the heather, saw the lantern issue from the Sark cutting and come joggling towards them. They heard a snort of surprise behind them, but gave it no special heed. The Senechal grinned briefly at remembrance of his fright when the beast snuffled down his neck that other night.

Then, this is what happened.

Gard--his lantern in his left hand, and the Senechal's father's "dunderbush" in his right--his eyes pinching spooks out of every inch of the black wall about him, and every string at its tightest--had reached the crumbly bit of path near the Little Sark side, when, like a clap of thunder out of a blue sky, the black silence of the cutting vomited uproar--the wild clang and beat of what sounded, in that hollow s.p.a.ce, like the trampling of a thousand dancing hoofs--shrill neighings and whinnyings and screamings, all blended into an indescribable and blood-curdling clamour that gashed the night like an outrage.

And then, before even he had time to wonder, the great white stallion was upon him--dancing on its hind legs on that narrow path like an acrobat, towering above him to twice his own height, striking savagely down at him with its great front feet, screaming like a fiend.

He had no time to think. His left arm and the lantern went up with the natural instinct of defence. Just one glimpse he got--and never forgot it--of vicious white eyes and teeth, flapping red nostrils, wild-flying hair, and huge pawing feet descending on him, with the dirty white hair splaying out all round them as they came down. Then his right hand went up also, and he fired full into all these things. The lantern and the blunderbuss went spinning into the gulf, the great feet beat him to the ground, and rose and jabbed down at him with all the vicious might that lay behind them--the savage white muzzle shrilling its blood-curdling screams of triumph all the while--and all this in the s.p.a.ce of a second.

"Good G.o.d!" cried the Doctor, craning over the eastern bank of the cutting, but fearful of firing into the turmoil lest he should hit Gard, so dropped himself bodily over on to the path.

Then the Senechal's Sark eyes saw the great white head, with its flying veil of hair, as it towered up for another vicious jab at the fallen man, and he emptied both barrels of his gun into it.

A wild scream that shrilled along the night and woke Plaisance and Clos Bourel and Vauroque, and the great white devil reared to his fullest with wildly beating forefeet, toppled over backwards, and disappeared with one hideous thud and a final crash on the shingle of Coupee Bay.

It was worse than they had ever dreamed--as bad almost as some of Gard's own nightmares.

"Good G.o.d! Good G.o.d! Good G.o.d!" babbled the Doctor, as he groped in the dark for what might be left of their unfortunate decoy.

"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!" gasped the Senechal, with catching breath and shaking legs, as he ran round to join him in the search.

But there was no sign of Gard.

"Run, man!--Plaisance--a light!" jerked the Senechal.

"I can't see," groaned the Doctor.

"I'll go!" and he set off at the best pace his years and his shaking legs could compa.s.s.

Plaisance was standing at its doors, trembling still at that fearsome cry, and wondering if it was, perchance, the last trump.

At sight of the panting figure coming up from the Coupee, it scuttled and banged the doors tight. "Open! Open, you fools!" cried the Senechal, and flung himself against the first door, while those inside, under the sure belief that they were keeping out the devil, heaped themselves against it to prevent him.

"Dolts! Idiots! Fools!" he cried. "It's me--the Senechal. I want your help!" and at that a man peeped out from the next door to make sure this was not just another wile of the devil.

"A lantern! Quick!" ordered the Senechal. "And a blanket and a rope--and get ready a bed for a wounded man. Come you with me and help!"

"Mais, mon Gyu----!" began the man.

"We've killed the devil, and the Doctor's down there with him----"

"But we don't want him here, M. le Senechal," quavered a woman's voice, in terror.

"Fools! It's Mr. Gard that is hurt. The devil's down in Coupee Bay, and we've killed him for you."

"Ah then, Gyu marchi! Here's a blanket--and the lantern--rope's in barn.

You get a bed ready," to the woman, and they went off towards the Coupee.

And mighty glad the Doctor was to see them coming. He had begun to fear the Senechal had lost his head and made a bolt for home.

He had been sitting under the bank of the cutting as the surest way of keeping out of one or other of the black gulfs. But the interval had given him time to recover himself, and he jumped up at once, all ready for business, and hailed them.

"Down this side, I think," he said, and they swung the lantern over the Grande Greve slope below the bit of crumbly pathway.

"Le velas!" said Thomas Carre, and handed the lantern to the Senechal, and let himself heavily over the side, and groped his way down to the motionless form among the bramble bushes.

"Pardie, he is dead, I do think!" as he bent over it.

"Let's see!" said the Doctor's quick voice at his elbow. "Hand down the light;" and the Senechal waited above in grievous anxiety.

"Not dead," said the Doctor at last. "Stunned and badly knocked about.

He'll come round. Now, how are we to get him up?"

"Here's a blanket--and a rope."

"Good! The blanket!... So!... Now--gently, my man!... Got it, Senechal?

Right! Ease him down on to the path. That's right! Give me a hand, will you? My legs aren't as limber as they used to be. Now we'll get him on to a bed and see what the damage is;" and they set off slowly for Plaisance.

"My G.o.d, Senechal! That pa.s.sed belief! To think of our never thinking of that infernal brute!" said the Doctor, as they stumbled slowly along in the joggling light.

"He was possessed of the devil, without a doubt. That last scream of his when he got my two bullets--"

"'T woke us," said Carre. "And we wondered what was up. What was it, then, monsieur?"

"That devil of a white stallion of Le Pelley's. It was him killed Tom Hamon and Peter Mauger, and he tried to kill Mr. Gard. We've been on this job for weeks past, while you were all sleeping in your beds."

"Mon Gyu! and we none of us knew anything about it till we heard yon scream! And he's dead----"

"He's dead--unless he's the devil," said the Senechal sententiously.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

HOW THEY THANKED G.o.d FOR HIS MERCIES

Vast was the wonder of the Sark folk when they heard next day of that night's doings, and learned who the murderer of the Coupee was, and how and by whom he had been laid by the heels.

The whole Island breathed freely once more, and was outspokenly grateful to the courage and pertinacity which had lifted from it the cloud and the reproach.

Some of them even had the grace to be not a little ashamed of their previous doings, but ascribed the greater part of the blame to Tom's widow and Peter Mauger.