In the Roar of the Sea Part 21

She cautiously slid one hand to her neck, unhasped the mantle, and it was s.n.a.t.c.hed from her shoulders and carried away. She was lighter without it, could move with greater facility; cold she was not, wet she might become, but what mattered that if she could reach the top of the cliff?

Not only on her own account was Judith alarmed. She had undertaken a commission. She had promised to bear a message to her aunt from Coppinger that concerned the safety of his men. What the signal meant she did not know, but suspected that it conveyed a message of danger.

She placed both her hands on the ledge, and felt with her knee for some point on which to rest it, to a.s.sist her in lifting herself from where she stood to the higher elevation. There was a small projection, and after a moment's hesitation she drew her foot from the shelf whereon it had rested and leaned the left knee on this hunch. Then she clung with both hands, and with them and her knee endeavored to heave herself up about four feet, that is, to the height of her shoulders. A convulsive quiver seized on her muscles. She was sustained by a knee and her hands only. If they gave way she could not trust to recover her previous lodgement place. One desperate strain, and she was on the ledge, on both knees, and was feeling with her hands to ascertain if she had found the track. Her fingers touched thrift and pa.s.sed over turf. She had not reached what she sought. She was probably farther from it than before. As all her members were quivering after the effort, she seated herself on the shelf she had reached, leaned back against the wet rock, and waited till her racing pulses had recovered evenness of flow, and her muscles had overcome the first effects of their tension.

Her position was desperate. Rain and perspiration mingled dripped from her brow, ran over and blinded her eyes. Her breath came in sobs between her parted lips. Her ears were full of the booming of the surge far below, and the scarcely less noisy throb of her blood in her pulses.

When she had started on her adventurous expedition she had seen some stars that had twinkled down on her, and had appeared to encourage her. Now, not a star was visible, only, far off on the sea, a wan light that fell through a rent in the black canopy over an angry deep.

Beyond that all was darkness, between her and that all was darkness.

As she recovered her self-possession, with the abatement of the tumult in her blood she was able to review her position, and calculate her chances of escape from it.

Up the track from the cave the smugglers would almost certainly escape, because that was the only way, unwatched, by which they could leave the beach without falling into the hands of the Preventive men.

If they came by the path--that path could not be far off, though in which direction it lay she could not guess. She would call, and then Coppinger or some of his men would come to her a.s.sistance.

By this means alone could she escape. There was nothing for her to do but to wait.

She bent forward and looked down. She might have been looking into a well; but a little way out she could see, or imagine she saw, the white fringes of surf stealing in. There was not sufficient light for her to be certain whether she really saw foam, or whether her fancy, excited by the thunder of the tide, made her suppose she saw it.

The shelf she occupied was narrow and inclined; if she slipped from it she could not trust to maintain herself on the lower shelf, certainly not if she slid down in a condition of unconsciousness. And now reaction after the strain was setting in, and she feared lest she might faint. In her pocket was the dog-chain that had caught her foot.

She extracted that now, and groping along the wall of rock behind her, caught a stout tuft of coa.r.s.e heather, wiry, well rooted; and she took the little steel chain and wound it about the branches and stem of the plant, and also about her wrist--her right wrist--so as to fasten her to the wall. That was some relief to her to know that in the event of her dropping out of consciousness there was something to hold her up, though that was only the stem of an erica, and her whole weight would rest on its rootlets. Would they suffice to sustain her? It was doubtful; but there was nothing else on which she could depend.

Suddenly a stone whizzed past, struck the ledge, and rebounded. Then came a shower of earth and pebbles. They did not touch her, but she heard them clatter down.

Surely they had been displaced by a foot, and that a foot pa.s.sing above.

Then she heard a shot--also overhead, and a cry. She looked aloft, and saw against the half-translucent vapors a black struggling figure on the edge of the cliff. She saw it but for an instant, and then was struck on the face by an open hand, and a body crashed on to the shelf at her side, rolled over the edge, and plunged into the gulf below.

She tried to cry, but her voice failed her. She felt her cheek stung by the blow she had received. A feeling as though all the rock were sinking under her came on, as though she were sliding--not shooting--but sliding down, down, and the sky went up higher, higher--and she knew no more.

CHAPTER XVI.

ON THE SHINGLE.

The smugglers, warned by Coppinger, had crept up the path in silence, and singly, at considerable intervals between each, and on reaching the summit of the cliffs had dispersed to their own homes, using the precaution to strike inland first, over the "new-take" wall.

As the last of the party reached the top he encountered one of the coast-guards, who, by the orders of his superior, was patrolling the down to watch that the smugglers did not leave the cove by any other path than the one known--that up and down which donkeys were driven.

This donkey-driving to the beach was not pursued solely for the sake of contraband; the beasts brought up loads of sand, which the farmers professed they found valuable as manure on their stiff soil, and also the ma.s.ses of seaweed cast on the strand after a gale, and which was considered to be possessed of rare fertilizing qualities.

No sooner did the coast-guard see a man ascend the cliff, or rather come up over the edge before him, than he fired his pistol to give the signal to his fellows, whereupon the smuggler turned, seized him by the throat, and precipitated him over the edge.

Of this Coppinger knew nothing. He had led the procession, and had made his way to Pentyre Glaze by a roundabout route, so as to evade a guard set to watch for him approaching from the cliffs, should one have been so planted.

On reaching his door, his first query was whether the signals had been made.

"What signals?" asked Miss Trevisa.

"I sent a messenger here with instructions."

"No messenger has been here."

"What, no one--not--" he hesitated, and said, "not a woman?"

"Not a soul has been here--man, woman, or child--since you left."

"No one to see you?"

"No one at all, Captain."

Coppinger did not remove his hat; he stood in the doorway biting his thumb. Was it possible that Judith had shrunk from coming to his house to bear the message? Yet she had promised to do so. Had she been intercepted by the Preventive men? Had--had she reached the top of the cliff? Had she, after reaching the top, lost her way in the dark, taken a false direction, and--Coppinger did not allow the thought to find full expression in his brain. He turned, without another word, and hastened to the cottage of Mr. Menaida. He must ascertain whether she had reached home.

Uncle Zachie had not retired to bed; Scantlebray had been gone an hour; Zachie had drunk with Scantlebray, and he had drunk after the departure of that individual to indemnify himself for the loss of his company. Consequently Mr. Menaida was confused in mind and thick in talk.

"Where is Judith?" asked Coppinger, bursting in on him.

"In bed, I suppose," answered Uncle Zachie, after a while, when he comprehended the question, and had had time to get over his surprise at seeing the Captain.

"Are you sure? When did she come in?"

"Come in?" said the old man, scratching his forehead with his pipe.

"Come in--bless you, I don't know; some time in the afternoon. Yes, to be sure it was, some time in the afternoon."

"But she has been out to-night?"

"No--no--no," said Uncle Zachie, "it was Scantlebray."

"I say she has--she has been to--" he paused, then said--"to see her aunt."

"Aunt Dunes! bless my heart, when?"

"To-night."

"Impossible!"

"But I say she has. Come, Mr. Menaida. Go up to her room, knock at the door, and ascertain if she be back. Her aunt is alarmed--there are rough folks about."

"Why, bless me!" exclaimed Mr. Menaida, "so there are. And--well, wonders'll never cease. How came you here! I thought the guard were after you. Scantlebray said so."

"Will you go at once and see if Judith Trevisa is home?"

Coppinger spoke with such vehemence, and looked so threateningly at the old man, that he staggered out of his chair, and, still holding his pipe, went to the stairs.

"Bless me!" said he, "whatever am I about? I've forgot a candle. Would you oblige me with lighting one? My hand shakes, and I might light my fingers by mistake."