The Battle of the Strong Part 46

"You must help Sebastian Alixandre up," she said.

"Sebastian Alixandre--is he there? Why does he want to come?"

"That is no matter," she called softly. "He is coming. He has the rope round his waist. Pull away!" It was better, Ranulph thought to himself, that he should be on Perch Rock alone, but the terrible strain had bewildered him, and he could make no protest now.

"Don't start yet," he called down; "I'll pull when all's ready."

He fell back from the edge to a place in the gra.s.s where, tying the rope round his body, and seating himself, he could brace his feet against a ledge of rock. Then he pulled on the rope. It was round Carterette's waist!

Carterette had told her falsehood without shame, for she was of those to whom the end is more than the means. She began climbing, and Ranulph pulled steadily. Twice he felt the rope suddenly jerk when she lost her footing, but it came in evenly still, and he used a nose of rock as a sort of winch.

The climber was nearly two-thirds of the way up when a cannon-shot boomed out over the water, frightening again the vast covey of birds which shrieked and honked till the air was a maelstrom of cries. Then came another cannon-shot.

Ranulph's desertion was discovered. The fight was begun between a single Jersey shipwright and a French war-ship.

His strength, however, could not last much longer. Every muscle of his body had been strained and tortured, and even this lighter task tried him beyond endurance. His legs stiffened against the ledge of rock, the tension numbed his arms. He wondered how near Alixandre was to the top.

Suddenly there was a pause, then a heavy jerk. Love of G.o.d--the rope was shooting through his fingers, his legs were giving way! He gathered himself together, and then with teeth, hands, and body rigid with enormous effort, he pulled and pulled. Now he could not see. A mist swam before his eyes. Everything grew black, but he pulled on and on.

He never knew how the climber reached the top. But when the mist cleared away from his eyes, Carterette was bending over him, putting rum to his lips.

"Carterette-garcon Carterette!" he murmured, amazed. Then as the truth burst upon him he shook his head in a troubled sort of way.

"What a cat I was!" said Carterette. "What a wild cat I was to make you haul me up! It was bad for me with the rope round me, it must have been awful for you, my poor esma.n.u.s--poor scarecrow Ranulph."

Scarecrow indeed he looked. His clothes were nearly gone, his hair was tossed and matted, his eyes bloodshot, his big hands like pieces of raw meat, his feet covered with blood.

"My poor scarecrow!" she repeated, and she tenderly wiped the blood from his face where his hands had touched it. Meanwhile bugle-calls and cries of command came up to them, and in the first light of morning they could see French officers and sailors, Mattingley, Alixandre, and others, hurrying to and fro.

When day came clear and bright, it was known that Carterette as well as Ranulph had vanished. Mattingley shook his head stoically, but Richambeau on the Victoire was as keen to hunt down one Jersey-Englishman as he had ever been to attack an English fleet. More so, perhaps.

Meanwhile the birds kept up a wild turmoil and shrieking. Never before had any one heard them so clamorous. More than once Mattingley had looked at Perch Rock curiously, but whenever the thought of it as a refuge came to him, he put it away. No, it was impossible.

Yet, what was that? Mattingley's heart thumped. There were two people on the lofty island wall--a man and a woman. He caught' the arm of a French officer near him. "Look, look!" he said. The officer raised his gla.s.s.

"It's the gunner," he cried and handed the gla.s.s to the old man.

"It's Carterette," said Mattingley in a hoa.r.s.e voice. "But it's not possible. It's not possible," he added helplessly. "n.o.body was ever there. My G.o.d, look at it--look at it!"

It was a picture indeed. A man and a woman were outlined against the clear air, putting up a tent as calmly as though on a lawn, thousands of birds wheeling over their heads, with querulous cries.

A few moments later, Elie Mattingley was being rowed swiftly to the Victoire, where Richambeau was swearing viciously as he looked through his telescope. He also had recognised the gunner.

He was prepared to wipe out the fishing-post if Mattingley did not produce Ranulph--well, "here was Ranulph duly produced and insultingly setting up a tent on this sheer rock, with some snippet of the devil,"

said Richambeau, and defying a great French war-ship. He would set his gunners to work. If he only had as good a marksman as Ranulph himself, the deserter should drop at the first shot "death and the devil take his impudent face!"

He was just about to give the order when Mattingley was brought to him.

The old man's story amazed him beyond measure.

"It is no man, then!" said Richambeau, when Mattingley had done. "He must be a d.a.m.ned fly to do it. And the girl--sacre moi! he drew her up after him. I'll have him down out of that though, or throw up my flag,"

he added, and turning fiercely, gave his orders.

For hours the Victoire bombarded the lonely rock from the north. The white tent was carried away, but the cannon-b.a.l.l.s flew over or merely battered the solid rock, the sh.e.l.ls were thrown beyond, and no harm was done. But now and again the figure of Ranulph appeared, and a half-dozen times he took aim with his musket at the French soldiers on the sh.o.r.e.

Twice his shots took effect; one man was wounded, and one killed.

Then whole companies of marines returned a musketry fire at him, to no purpose. At his ease he hid himself in the long gra.s.s at the edge of the cliff, and picked off two more men.

Here was a ridiculous thing: one man and a slip of a girl fighting and defying a battle-ship. The smoke of battle covered miles of the great gulf. Even the seabirds shrieked in ridicule.

This went on for three days at intervals. With a fine chagrin Richambeau and his men saw a bright camp-fire lighted on the rock, and knew that Ranulph and the girl were cooking their meals in peace. A flag-staff too was set up, and a red cloth waved defiantly in the breeze. At last Richambeau, who had watched the whole business from the deck of the Victoire, burst out laughing, and sent for Elie Mattingley. "Come, I've had enough," said Richambeau.

"There never was a wilder jest, and I'll not spoil the joke. He has us on his toasting-fork. He shall have the honour of a flag of truce."

And so it was that the French battle-ship sent a flag of truce to the foot of Perch Rock, and a French officer, calling up, gave his captain's word of honour that Ranulph should suffer nothing at the hands of a court-martial, and that he should be treated as an English prisoner of war, not as a French deserter.

There was no court-martial. After Ranulph, at Richambeau's command, had told the tale of the ascent, the Frenchman said:

"No one but an Englishman could be fool enough to try such a thing, and none but a fool could have had the luck to succeed. But even a fool can get a woman to follow him, and so this flyaway followed you, and--"

Carterette made for Richambeau as though to scratch his eyes out, but Ranulph held her back. "--And you are condemned, gunner," continued Richambeau dryly, "to marry the said maid before sundown, or be carried out to sea a prisoner of war." So saying, he laughed, and bade them begone to the wedding.

Ranulph left Richambeau's ship bewildered and perturbed. For hours he paced the sh.o.r.e, and at last his thoughts began to clear. The new life he had led during the last few months had brought many revelations. He had come to realise that there are several sorts of happiness, but that all may be divided into two kinds: the happiness of doing good to ourselves, and that of doing good to others. It opened out clearly to him now as he thought of Carterette in the light of Richambeau's coa.r.s.e jest.

For years he had known in a sort of way that Carterette preferred him to any other man. He knew now that she had remained single because of him.

For him her impatience had been patience, her fiery heart had spilled itself in tenderness for his misfortunes. She who had lightly tossed lovers aside, her coquetry appeased, had to himself shown sincerity without coquetry, loyalty without selfishness. He knew well that she had been his champion in dark days, that he had received far more from her than he had ever given--even of friendship. In his own absorbing love for Guida Landresse, during long years he had been unconsciously blind to a devotion which had lived on without hope, without repining, with untiring cheerfulness.

In those three days spent on the top of the Perch Rock how blithe garcon Carterette had been! Danger had seemed nothing to her. She had the temper of a man in her real enjoyment of the desperate chances of life.

He had never seen her so buoyant; her animal spirits had never leapt so high. And yet, despite the boldness which had sent her to the top of Perch Rock with him, there had been in her whole demeanour a frank modesty free from self-consciousness. She could think for herself, she was sure of herself, and she would go to the ends of the earth for him.

Surely he had not earned such friendship, such affection.

He recalled how, the night before, as he sat by their little camp-fire, she had come and touched him on the shoulder, and, looking down at him, said:

"I feel as if I was beginning my life all over again, don't you, Maitre Ranulph?"

Her black eyes had been fixed on his, and the fire in them was as bright and full of health and truth as the fire at his feet.

And he had answered her: "I think I feel that too, garcon Carterette."

To which she had replied: "It isn't hard to forget here--not so very hard, is it?"

She did not mean Guida, nor what he had felt for Guida, but rather the misery of the past. He had nodded his head in reply, but had not spoken; and she, with a quick: "A bi'tot," had taken her blanket and gone to that portion of the rock set apart for her own. Then he had sat by the fire thinking through the long hours of night until the sun rose. That day Richambeau had sent his flag of truce, and the end of their stay on Perch Rock was come.

Yes, he would marry Carterette. Yet he was not disloyal, even in memory.

What had belonged to Guida belonged to her for ever, belonged to a past life with which henceforth he should have naught to do. What had sprung up in his heart for Carterette belonged to the new life. In this new land there was work to do--what might he not accomplish here? He realised that within one life a man may still live several lives, each loyal and honest after its kind. A fate stronger than himself had brought him here; and here he would stay with fate. It had brought him to Carterette, and who could tell what good and contentment might not yet come to him, and how much to her!

That evening he went to Carterette and asked her to be his wife. She turned pale, and, looking up into his eyes with a kind of fear, she said brokenly:

"It's not because you feel you must? It's not because you know I love you, Ranulph--is it? It's not for that alone?"

"It is because I want you, garcon Carterette," he answered tenderly, "because life will be nothing without you."