The Beach of Dreams Part 24

"Not with them winds that get you here," said he, "they let out when you're least expecting it and we'd be on to the rocks and done for. I'm not saying if we had a boat crew we mightn't try, but we're under-handed. No, we'll have to hoof it if we go."

"Hoof it--what is that?" asked she.

"Walk it," replied Raft, "and I'm thinking it's beyond you, you aren't fit for travelling rough, like me."

"Aren't I?--I suppose I don't look strong, but I am, of course I'm not as strong as you, but I can keep on once I begin, and I have been through a good deal ever since that night we were wrecked, I don't think any journey we could make would be worse than that. And I was not prepared for all that as I am now for anything that may happen. Think of it, we had all been sitting at dinner, it was only a little while after dinner and I had my evening frock on."

"Your evening which?"

"Dress. They were all rich people on board the yacht and they put on different clothes always for dinner. It seems stupid--well, I was down below and I suddenly felt that I must get on deck, so I put on these clothes and my oilskin and sou'wester, then, as I was coming upstairs the collision happened. I got on deck and it was quite dark until the electric light was put on, then I saw the stern of your ship with the name on it."

She paused with a little shudder and seemed visualizing the terrible picture again.

"Heave ahead," said Raft interestedly.

"Then I was thrown into a boat and forgot everything until I woke in the early morning alone with those two men. It was all just like that. I wasn't prepared for hardship as I am now, and I hadn't a companion like you. Those two men were no use."

"How's that?" asked he.

"Well, they were always grumbling."

"Swabs."

"I didn't mind that so much, but they were no use, they wouldn't do things. I had to make them go and hunt for firewood, they might just as well have had no hands. Bompard, the oldest one wasn't so bad--"

"It was the other chap you done in," said Raft. "Well, I reckon you've been through it. Rum thing I saw you first when I was handling a topsail in that blow. The weather broke and I was holdin' on to the yard when I sighted you away to starboard with the sun on you. Old Ponting was close to me and he yelled out he'd seen you before and give you your name, the _Gaston de Paree_."

"And we sighted you," said she, "I was down below when the steward came with a message that there was a ship in sight, I came up and there you were with the sun on you and the storm clouds behind, and do you know you frightened me."

"How so?" asked Raft.

"I don't know. I felt there was going to be a disaster of some sort--it was almost like a warning."

"Well, there's no saying," said Raft. "I've known a chap warned he was going to be drowned, and drowned he was sure enough. I was down below asleep and shot out of my bunk by the smash; then I was on the main deck, the chaps all round shouting for boats, and if you ask me how I got off I couldn't tell you. One minute a big light was blazing, then it was black as thunder. My mind seemed to go when the black came on, I'd no more thought than a blind puppy. Something saved me. That's all I know."

"G.o.d saved you," said the girl.

"Well, maybe He did," said Raft; "but what made Him let all the other chaps drown?"

"I don't know," she replied, "but He saved you just as He saved me. I know He looks after things. Look at those sea elephants and the gulls; He leads them about by instinct."

"What's that?" asked Raft.

"Instinct," said she, suddenly formulating the idea, "is G.o.d's mind, it tells the birds and elephants where to get food and where to go and how to avoid danger; you and I have minds of our own, but our minds are nothing to the minds of the birds and animals. They are never wrong.

Look out there at those porpoises."

"Them black fish," said Raft, shading his eyes.

"Yes, well, look at the way they are going along, they are on a journey, going somewhere, led by instinct, and I think when human beings find themselves having to fight for life they fall back on instinct, the mind of G.o.d comes to help them. Look at me. I believe I found that cache led by instinct and I would never have pulled through only instinct told me I would, somehow. G.o.d's mind told me."

"Well, there's no saying," said Raft.

"I don't want to leave here," she went on, "but I feel we ought to go.

The chances seem small, even if we find that bay; still, I feel we ought to go."

"I'm feelin' the same way myself," said Raft.

"Then we will go and the sooner we start the better."

"I'm thinking of them porpoises," said Raft.

"What about them?"

"Well, there's a saying they hug the sh.o.r.e pretty close if bad weather is coming. It's fine to-day, but I've a feeling there's going to be another blow soon and maybe we'd better wait till it's over--maybe it's instinc'," he finished, looking round shyly.

The girl laughed. "If you feel like that," said she, "we had certainly better wait. Maybe the porpoises were sent to tell us."

"There's no saying," replied he. They were seated on the rocks just where she had watched the great battle and far and near the "sea cows"

were sunning themselves on the rocks whilst beyond the seal beach the penguins were drilling in long lines. Scarcely a breath of wind stirred and the sea lay calm like a sheet of dim blue gla.s.s to where the islands sat beneath the sky of summer.

But the islands had drawn closer since morning and the birds seemed busier than usual and more clamorous. To the eastward where the cliffs rose higher, guillemots had their home on the ledges of basalt and the wheezy bagpipe-like cry of them came in bursts every now and then as though they were angry about something, whilst the cry of the razorbills and the "get-away, get-away" of the kittiwakes had a sharper note. The puffins alone were calm, swimming in coveys on the gla.s.sy water and leaving long ripples in their wake.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE GREAT WIND

The sun sank, broadened out and banded with mist beyond the Lizard Point, and before his upper limb had been swallowed by the rocks the business began with a blow from the hills.

Most winds come in gusts and pauses, this wind from the Infernal Regions came at first steady and warm, never ceasing, steadily growing like the thrust of an infinite sword driven with a rapidly increasing momentum and a murmur like the voice of Speed herself.

Raft and the girl saw that the sea elephants were herding up into the shelter of the cliffs and that the gulls had vanished as though they had never been.

And still the wind increased, its voice now a long monotonous cry, steadily sharpening, yet deepening, stern as the Voice of Wrath.

"It's blowing up," said Raft, "and there's more coming."

Then over the cliff and undershot by the last rays of sunset came the clouds chased and harried by the wind, tearing before and torn by the teeth of the gale.

Raft and the girl stood watching till pebbles and rocks the size of coconuts began to fall on the beach blown over the cliff edge, till the sea, flat and milk-white, seemed to bend under the stress, till it would seem that the very islands would be blown away.

The girl felt light-headed and giddy as though the rush above had rarefied the air under the cliffs. Not a drop of rain fell, the wind held the sky and the whole world. It seemed loosed from some mysterious keeping never to be recaptured until it had blown the sea away and flattened the earth.

And still it increased.