Macleod of Dare Part 47

It was after a long period of thus lying in dead calm--with the occasional appearance of a diver on the surface of the shining blue sea--that Macleod's sharply observant eye was attracted by an odd thing that appeared far away at the horizon.

"What do you think is that now?" said he, with a smile.

They looked steadfastly, and saw only a thin line of silver light, almost like the back of a knife, in the distant dark blue.

"The track of a seal swimming under water," Mr. White suggested.

"Or a shoal of fish," his daughter said.

"Watch!"

The sharp line of light slowly spread; a trembling silver-gray took the place of the dark blue; it looked as if invisible fingers were rushing out and over the gla.s.sy surface. Then they felt a cool freshness in the hot air; the red ensign swayed a bit; then the great mainsail flapped idly; and finally the breeze came gently blowing over the sea, and on again they went through the now rippling water. And as the slow time pa.s.sed in the glare of the sunlight, Staffa lay on the still water a dense ma.s.s of shadow; and they went by Lunga; and they drew near to the point of Gometra, where the black skarts were sitting on the exposed rocks. It was like a dream of sunlight, and fair colors, and summer quiet.

"I cannot believe," said she to him, "that those fierce murders and revenges took place in such beautiful scenes as these. How could they?"

And then, in the broad and still waters of Loch Tua, with the lonely rocks of Ulva close by them, they were again becalmed; and now it was decided that they should leave the yacht there at certain moorings, and should get into the gig and be pulled through the shallow channel between Ulva and Mull that connects Loch Tua with Loch-na-Keal. Macleod had been greatly favored by the day chosen at haphazard for this water promenade: at the end of it he was gladdened to hear Miss White say that she had never seen anything so lovely on the face of the earth.

And yet it was merely a question of weather. To-morrow they might come back and find the water a ruffled leaden color; the waves washing over the rocks; Ben More invisible behind driving clouds. But now, as those three sat in the stern of the gig, and were gently pulled by the sweep of the oars, it seemed to one at least of them that she must have got into fairyland. The rocky sh.o.r.es of Ulva lay on one side of this broad and winding channel, the flatter sh.o.r.es of Mull on the other, and between lay a perfect mirror of water, in which everything was so accurately reflected that it was quite impossible to define the line at which the water and the land met. In fact, so vivid was the reflection of the blue and white sky on the surface of the water that it appeared to her as if the boat was suspended in mid-air--a sky below, a sky above. And then the beauty of the landscape that enclosed this wonderful mirror--the soft green foliage above the Ulva rocks; the brilliant yellow-brown of the sea-weed, with here there a gray heron standing solitary and silent as a ghost over the pools; ahead of them, towering above this flat and shining and beautiful landscape, the awful majesty of the mountains around Loch-na-Keal--the monarch of them, Ben More, showing a cone of dark and thunderous purple under a long and heavy swathe of cloud. Far away, too, on their right, stretched the splendid rampart of the Gribun cliffs, a soft sunlight on the gra.s.sy greens of their summits; a pale and brilliant blue in the shadows of the huge and yawning caves. And so still it was, and the air so fine and sweet: it was a day for the idling of happy lovers.

What jarred, then? Not the silent appearance of the head of a seal in that shining plain of blue and white; for the poor old fellow only regarded the boat for a second or two with his large and pathetic eyes, and then quietly disappeared. Perhaps it was this--that Miss White was leaning over the side of the boat, and admiring very much the wonderful hues of groups of sea-weed below, that were all distinctly visible in the marvellously clear water. There were beautiful green plants that spread their flat fingers over the silver-white sands; and huge rolls of purple and sombre brown; and long strings that came up to the surface--the traceries and decorations of these haunts of the mermaid.

"It is like a pantomime," she said. "You would expect to see a burst of lime-light, and Neptune appearing with a silver trident and crown. Well, it only shows that the scene-painters are nearer nature than most people imagine. I should never have thought there was anything so beautiful in the sea."

And then again she said, when they had rounded Ulva, and got a glimpse of the open Atlantic again,

"Where is it, Keith, you proposed to sink all the theatres in England for the benefit of the dolphins and the lobsters?"

He did not like these references to the theatre.

"It was only a piece of nonsense," said he, abruptly.

But then she begged him so prettily to get the men to sing the boat-song, that he good-humoredly took out a sheet of paper and a pencil, and said to her,--

"If I write it down for you, I must write it as it is p.r.o.nounced. For how would you know that _Fhir a bhata, na horo eile_ is p.r.o.nounced _Feer a vahta na horo ailya?_"

"And perhaps, then," said she, with a charming smile, "writing it down would spoil it altogether? But you will ask them to sing it for me."

He said a word or two in the Gaelic to Sandy, who was rowing stroke; and Sandy answered with a short, quick laugh of a.s.sent.

"I have asked them if they would drink your health," Macleod said, "and they have not refused. It would be a great compliment to them if you would fill out the whiskey yourself; here is my flask."

She took that formidable vessel in her small hands, and the men rested on their oars; and then the metal cup was pa.s.sed along. Whether it was the dram, or whether it was the old familiar chorus they struck up--

"Fhir a bhata (na horo eile) Fhir a bhata (na horo eile) Fhir a bhata (na horo eile) Chead soire slann leid ge thobh a' theid u,"

certain it is that the boat swung forward with a new strength, and erelong they beheld in the distance the walls of Castle Dare. And here was Janet at the small quay, greatly distressed because of the discomfort to which Miss White must have been subjected.

"But I have been telling Sir Keith," she said, with a sweet smile, "that I have come through the most beautiful place I have ever seen in the world."

This was not, however, what she was saying to herself when she reached the privacy of her own room. Her thoughts took a different turn.

"And if it does seem impossible"--this was her inward speech to herself--"that those wild murders should have been committed in so beautiful a place, at least there will be a fair chance of one occurring when I tell him that I have signed an engagement that will last till Christmas. But what good could come of being in a hurry?"

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

A CAVE IN MULL.

Of love not a single word had so far been said between these two. It was a high sense of courtesy that on his part had driven him to exercise this severe self-restraint; he would not invite her to be his guest, and then take advantage of the various opportunities offered to plague her with the vehemence and pa.s.sionate yearning of his heart. For during all those long winter months he had gradually learned, from the correspondence which he so carefully studied, that she rather disliked protestation; and when he hinted that he thought her letters to him were somewhat cold, she only answered with a playful humor; and when he tried to press her to some declaration about her leaving the stage or about the time of their marriage, she evaded the point with an extreme cleverness which was so good-natured and friendly that he could scarcely complain. Occasionally there were references in these letters that awakened in his breast a tumult of jealous suspicions and fears; but then again he consoled himself by looking forward to the time when she should be released from all those environments that he hated and dreaded. He would have no more fear when he could take her hand and look into her eyes.

And now that Miss Gertrude White was actually in Castle Dare--now that he could walk with her along the lonely mountain-slopes and show her the wonders of the Western seas and the islands--what was it that still occasioned that vague unrest? His nervous anxiety that she should be pleased with all she saw? or a certain critical coldness in her glance?

or the consciousness that he was only entertaining a pa.s.sing visitor--a beautiful bird that had alighted on his hand, and that the next moment would be winging its flight away into the silvery South?

"You are becoming a capital sailor," he said to her one day, with a proud light on his face. "You have no fear at all of the sea now."

He and she and the cousin Janet--Mr. White had some letters to answer, and had stayed at home--were in the stern of the gig, and they were being rowed along the coast below the giant cliffs of Gribun. Certainly if Miss White had confessed to being a little nervous, she might have been excused. It was a beautiful, fresh, breezy, summer day; but the heavy Atlantic swell, that slowly raised and lowered the boat as the men rowed along, pa.s.sed gently and smoothly on, and then went booming and roaring and crashing over the sharp black rocks that were quite close at hand.

"I think I would soon get over my fear of the sea," she said, gently.

Indeed, it was not that that was most likely to impress her on this bright day--it was the awful loneliness and desolation of the scene around her. All along the summit of the great cliffs lay heavy banks of cloud that moved and wreathed themselves together, with mysterious patches of darkness here and there that suggested the entrance into far valleys in the unseen mountains behind. And if the outer surface of these precipitous cliffs was brightened by sunlight, and if there was a sprinkling of gra.s.s on the ledges, every few minutes they pa.s.sed the yawning archway of a huge cavern, around which the sea was roaring with a m.u.f.fled and thunderous noise. He thought she would be interested in the extraordinary number and variety of the sea-birds about--the solemn cormorants sitting on the ledges, the rock-pigeons shooting out from the caves, the sea-pyots whirring along the rocks like lightning-flashes of color, the lordly osprey, with his great wings outstretched and motionless, sailing slowly in the far blue overhead. And no doubt she looked at all these things with a forced interest; and she herself now could name the distant islands out in the tossing Atlantic; and she had in a great measure got accustomed to the amphibious life at Dare. But as she listened to the booming of the waves around those awful recesses; and as she saw the jagged and angry rocks suddenly appear through the liquid ma.s.s of the falling sea: and as she looked abroad on the unknown distances of that troubled ocean, and thought of the life on those remote and lonely islands, the spirit of a summer holiday forsook her altogether, and she was silent.

"And you will have no fear of the beast when you go into Mackinnon's cave," said Janet Macleod to her, with a friendly smile, "because no one has ever heard of it again. Do you know, it was a strange thing? They saw in the sand the footprint of an animal that is not known to any one about here; even Keith himself did not know what it was--"

"I think it was a wild-cat," said he.

"And the men they had nothing to do then; and they went all about the caves, but they could see nothing of it. And it has never come back again."

"And I suppose you are not anxious for its coming back?" Miss White said.

"Perhaps you will be very lucky and see it some day, and I know that Keith would like to shoot it, whatever it is."

"That is very likely," Miss White said, without any apparent sarcasm.

By and by they paused opposite the entrance to a cave that seemed even larger and blacker than the others; and then Miss White discovered that they were considering at what point they could most easily effect a landing. Already through the singularly clear water she could make out vague green ma.s.ses that told of the presence of huge blocks of yellow rock far below them; and as they cautiously went farther toward the sh.o.r.e, a man at the bow calling out to them, these blocks of rock became clearer and clearer, until it seemed as if those gla.s.sy billows that glided under the boat, and then went crashing in white foam a few yards beyond, must inevitably transfix the frail craft on one of these jagged points. But at length they managed to run the bow of the gig into a somewhat sheltered place, and two of the men, jumping knee-deep into the water, hauled the keel still farther over the grating sh.e.l.l-fish of the rock; and then Macleod, scrambling out, a.s.sisted Miss White to land.

"Do you not come with us?" Miss White called back to the boat.

"Oh, it is many a time I have been in the cave," said Janet Macleod; "and I will have the luncheon ready for you. And you will not stay long in the cave, for it is cold and damp."

He took her hand, for the scrambling over the rough rocks and stores was dangerous work for unfamiliar ankles. They drew nearer to this awful thing, that rose far above them, and seemed waiting to enclose them and shut them in forever. And whereas about the other caves there were plenty of birds flying, with their shrill screams denoting their terror or resentment, there was no sign of life at all about this black and yawning chasm, and there was an absolute silence, but for the rolling of the breakers behind them that only produced vague and wandering echoes.

As she advanced over the treacherous shingle, she became conscious of a sort of twilight appearing around her. A vast black thing--black as night and still as the grave--was ahead of her; but already the change from the blaze of sunlight outside to this partial darkness seemed strange on the eyes. The air grew colder. As she looked up at the tremendous walls, and at the mysterious blackness beyond, she grasped his hand more tightly, though the walking on the wet sand was now comparatively easy. And as they went farther and farther into this blackness, there was only a faint, strange light that made an outline of the back of his figure, leaving his face in darkness; and when he stopped to examine the sand, she turned and looked back, and behold the vast portal by which they entered had now dwindled down into a small s.p.a.ce of bewildering white.

"No," said he, and she was startled by the hollow tones of his voice; "I cannot find any traces of the boat news; they have all gone."

Then he produced a candle and lit it; and as they advanced farther into the blackness, there was visible this solitary star of red fire, that threw dull, mysterious gleams from time to time on some projecting rocks.