Carette of Sark Part 39

Here, where the heights of Herm run down in green slopes to the long flat beaches, I drew the boat well up and crept to the other side of the Island, keeping as close to the high ground as I dared.

As soon as I came out on the western side I saw that work was still going on busily in the little roadstead, and so far I was in time. The rocky heights sloped gradually on that side also. The schooner had to lie in the roads, and everything had to be conveyed to her by boat. There was much traffic between her and the sh.o.r.e, and the work was carried on by the light of many lamps.

Now where would they have stowed Carette? On the ship? In one of the cottages? In the natural prison where they had kept me? The only three possibilities I had been able to think of. To reduce them to two I would try the least hazardous first, and that was the prison in the rock.

I had been carried to and from it blindfolded, but from what I had seen from its windows I had formed a general idea as to where it lay. So I crept back half-way towards the sh.e.l.l beach and then struck cautiously up towards the tumbled ma.s.ses of rock on the eastern side of the Island.

It was chancy work at best, with a possible stumble up against death at every step. But life without Carette--worse still, life with Carette in thrall to young Torode--would be worse to me than death, and so I take no credit to myself for risking it for her. It was hers already, it did but seek its own.

In daylight I could have gone almost straight to that cleft, steering my course by the sea rocks I had noted from the window. But in the dark it was different. I could only grope along in hope, with many a stop to wonder where I had got to, and many a stumble and many a bruise. Stark darkness is akin to blindness, and blindness in a strange land, and that a land of rocks and chasms, is a vast perplexity. I wandered blindly and bruised myself sorely, but suffered most from thought of the pa.s.sing minutes, for the minutes in which I might accomplish anything were numbered, and they pa.s.sed with no result.

I was half minded to give up search for the cleft, and steal down to the houses and see what I could learn there. And yet I was drawn most strongly to that cleft in the rock.

If only I could find it and satisfy myself!

My wandering thoughts and wandering body came to sudden and violent pause at bottom of a chasm. I had stepped incautiously, and found myself a ma.s.s of bruises on the rocks below. I felt sore all over, but I could stand and I could stretch my arms, so no bones were broken.

I rubbed the sorest bruises into some approach to comfort, and wondered where I had got to. I could feel rock walls on either side, and the rocks below seemed roughly levelled. With a catch of the breath, which spelled a mighty hope, I began to grope my way along, and found that the way sloped up and down. I turned and groped up it. On, and on, and on, and at last I brought up suddenly against iron bars, and knew where I was. And never, sure, to any man was the feel of iron bars so grateful as was the touch of these to me.

I shook them gently, but the gate was locked. I strained my ears for any sound inside, strained them so that I heard the breaking of the waves on the rock below the window at the other end of the rock chamber.

Then I cried softly, "Carette!"--and listened--and thought I heard a movement.

"Carette!" I cried again.

And out of that blessed darkness, and the doubt and the bewilderment, came the sweetest voice in all the world, in a scared whisper, as one doubtful of her own senses--

"Who is it? Who calls?"

"It is I, Carette--Phil Carre;" and in a moment she was against the bars, and my hands touched her and hers touched me.

"Phil!" she cried, in vast amazement, and clung tight to my hands to make sure. "Is it possible? Oh, my dear, is it truly, truly you? I knew your voice, but--I thought I dreamed, and then I thought it the voice of the dead. You are not dead, Phil?" with a doubtful catch in her breath, as though a doubt had caught her suddenly by the throat.

"But no! I am not dead, my dear one;" and I drew the dear little hands through the bars and covered them with hot kisses.

"But how come you here, Phil? What brings you here?"

"You yourself, Carette. What else?"

"Bon Dieu, but it is good to hear you again, Phil! Can you get me out? They carried me off this morning--"

"I know. I reached Sercq this morning, and Krok brought us the word an hour later. I have been trying ever since to find where you were. I knew this place, for I was prisoner here myself for many weeks."

"You, Phil?"

"Truly yes. This Torode is a murderer and worse. He fights under both flags. He is Main Rouge in France and Torode of Herm. He slaughtered John Ozanne and all our crew before my eyes, and why my life was spared I know not."

"If he sees you he will kill you."

"Or I kill him."

"Phil, he will kill you. Oh, go!--go quick and rouse the Sercq men and Peter Port. You need not fear for me. I will never wed with young Torode--not if they kill me for it--"

And my heart was glad in spite of its heaviness and perplexity.

"When will they come to you again, Carette? And who is it comes?"

"A woman--madame, I suppose. She brought me my supper. I think they are going away."

"Yes, they are going. They are going because I have come back alive, and Torode knows the game is up if I get to Peter Port."

And that started her off again on that string, but I understood the tune of it quite well.

"That is it," she urged. "Get across to Peter Port, Phil, and rouse them there, and stop their going." But she only said it to get me away out of danger, and I knew it.

"Peter Port can wait the news, and Torode can wait his dues. I am not going till I take you with me, Carette."

"They will kill you!" she cried, and let go my hands to wring her own.

"Not if I can help it," I said stubbornly. "I want to live and I want you, and G.o.d fights on the right side. If they do get you away, Carette, remember that if I am alive I will follow you to the end of the world."

"They will kill you," she repeated.

"They are very busy loading the schooner. If the woman comes to you in the morning I shall be able to get you out. My boat waits on the sh.e.l.l beach."

"You would do better to get round to Peter Port," she persisted.

"Torode would be off before they would be ready. If it was one man to convince he would act, but where there are many time is wasted. I will see you safe first and then see to Torode;" and seeing that I was fixed on this, she urged my going no more.

She gave me her hands again through the bars and I kissed them, and kissed them again and again, and would not let them go. That which lay just close ahead of us was heavy with possibilities of separation and death, but I had never tasted happiness so complete as I did through those iron bars. The rusty bars could keep us apart, but they could not keep the pure hot love that filled us from head to foot from thrilling through by way of our clasped hands.

"Kiss me, Phil!" she said, of a sudden.

And I pressed my face into the rough bars, and could just touch her sweet lips with mine.

"We may never come closer, dear," she said. "But if they kill you I will follow soon, and--oh, it is good to feel you here!"

When the first wild joy of our uncovered hearts permitted us to speak of other things, she had much to ask and I much to tell. I told her most of my story, but said no word as yet of her brother Helier, for she had quite enough to bear.

And, through all her askings, I could catch unconscious glimpses of the faith and hope and love she had borne for me all through those weary months. She had never believed me dead, she said, though John Ozanne and all his men had long since been given up in Peter Port.

"Your mother and I hoped on, Phil, in spite of them all; for the world was not all dark to us, and if you had been dead I think it would have been."

"And it was thought of you, Carette,--of you and my mother,--that kept my heart up in the prison. It was weary work, but when I thought of you I felt strong and hopeful."

"I am glad," she said simply. "We have helped one another."

"And we will do yet. I am going to get you out of this."