The Bronze Bell Part 4

"Rim-jammed cartridge," explained Quain between his teeth. The lock just then yielding to his awkward manipulation, stock and barrel came apart in his hands. "Just my beastly luck!" he added gratuitously. "It wouldn't've been me if--! How many'd you pot, Davy?"

"Only two," said Amber, lowering his weapon, extracting the spent sh.e.l.ls, and reloading.

"Only _two!_" The information roused in Quain a demon of sarcasm.

Fumbling in his various pockets for a sh.e.l.l-extractor, he grunted his disgust. "Here, lend us your thingumbob; I've lost mine. Thanky....

Only two! How many'd you expect to drop, on a snapshot like that?"

"Two," returned Amber so patiently that Quain requested him, explosively, to go to the devil. "If you don't mind," he said, "I'll go after my ducks instead. You'll follow? They're over there, on our way."

And accepting Quain's snort for an affirmative he strolled off in the direction indicated, hugging his gun in the crook of his arm.

Fifty yards or so away he found the ducks, side by side in a little hollow. "Fine fat birds," he adjudged them sagely, weighing each in his hand ere dropping it into his lean game-bag. "This makes up for a lot of cold and waiting."

Satisfaction glimmering in his grave dark eyes, he lingered in the hollow, while the frosty air, whipping madly through the sand-hills, stung his face till it glowed beneath the brown. But presently, like the ghost of a forgotten kiss, something moist and chill touched gently his cheek, and was gone. Startled, he glanced skywards, then extended an arm, watching it curiously while the rough fabric of his sleeve was salted generously with fine white flakes. Though to some extent apprehended (they had been blind indeed to have ignored the menace of the dour day just then dying) snow had figured in their calculations as little as the scarcity of game. Amber wondered dimly if it would work a change in their plans, prove an obstacle to their safe return across the bay.

The flurry thickening in the air, a shade of anxiety colored his mood.

"This'll never do!" he declared, and set himself to ascend a nearby dune. For a moment he slipped and slid vainly, the dry sand treacherous to his feet, the brittle gra.s.ses he clutched snapping off or coming away altogether with their roots; but in time he found himself upon the rounded summit, and stood erect, straining the bitter air into panting lungs as he cast about for bearings.

Behind him a meagre strip of sand held back a grim and angry sea; before him lay an eighth of a mile of sand-locked desolation, and then the weltering bay--a wide two miles of leaping, shouting waves, slate-coloured but white of crests. Beyond, seen dimly as a wall through driving sheets of snow, were the darkly wooded rises of the mainland. In the west, to his left, the blank, impersonal eye of the light-house, its pillar invisible, winked red, went out, and flashed up white. Over all, beneath a low and l.u.s.treless sky as flat as a plate, violet evening shadows were closing in like spectral skirts of the imminent night. But, in the gloom, their little cat-boat lay occult to his searching gaze.

Quain's voice recalling him, he turned to discover his host stumbling through a neighbouring vale, and obeying a peremptory wave of the elder man's hand, descended, accompanied by an avalanche in miniature.

"Better hurry," shouted Amber, as soon as he could make himself heard above the screaming of the gale. "Wind's freshening; it looks like mean weather."

"Really?" Quain fell into step at his side. "You 'stonish me. But the good Lord knows I'm willin'. Whereabout's the boat?"

"Blessed if I know: over yonder somewhere," Amber told him, waving toward the bay-sh.o.r.e an arm as vaguely helpful as his information.

"Thank you so much. Guess I can find her all right. Hump yo'self, Davy."

They plodded on heavily, making fair progress in spite of the hindering sand. Nevertheless it had grown sensibly darker ere they debouched upon the frozen flats that bordered the bay; and now the wind bore down upon them in full-winged fury, shrieking in their ears, searing their eyes, tearing greedily at the very breath of their nostrils, and searching out with impish ingenuity the more penetrable portions of their clothing.

For a moment Quain paused, irresolute, peering right and left, then began to trudge eastwards, heavy boots crunching the thin sedge-ice. A little later they came to the water's edge and proceeded steadily along it, Quain leading confidently. Eventually he tripped over some obstacle, stumbled and lurched forward and recovered his balance with an effort, then remained with bowed head, staring down at his feet.

"Hurt yourself, old man?"

"No!" snapped Quain rudely.

"Then what in--"

"Eh?" Quain roused, but an instant longer looked him blankly in the eye. "Oh," he added brightly--"oh, she's gone."

"The boat----?"

"The boat," affirmed Quain, too discouraged for the obvious retort ungracious. He stooped and caught up a frayed end of rope, exhibiting it in witness to his statement. "Ain't it h.e.l.l?" he inquired plaintively.

Amber's gaze followed the rope, the further end of which was rove through the ring of a small grapnel anchor half buried in the spongy earth. "Gone!" he echoed dismally.

"Gone away from here," said Quain deliberately, nodding at the rope's end. "The tide floated her off, of course; but how this happened is beyond me. I could kill Antone." He named the Portuguese labourer charged with the care of the boats at Tanglewood. "It's his job to see that these cables are replaced when they show signs of wear." He cast the rope from him in disdain and wheeled to stare baywards. "There!" he cried, levelling an arm to indicate a dark and fleeting shadow upon the storm-whipped waters. "There she goes--not three hundred feet off. It can't be five minutes since she worked loose. I don't see why...! If it hadn't been for that d.a.m.ned cartridge...! It's the devil's own luck!"

A blur of snow swept between boat and sh.o.r.e; when it had pa.s.sed the former was all but indistinguishable. From a full heart Quain blasphemed fluently.... "But if she holds as she stands," he amended quickly, his indomitable spirit fostering the forlorn hope, "she'll go aground in another five minutes--and I know just where. I'll go after her."

"The deuce you will! How?"

"There's an old skimmy up the sh.o.r.e a ways." Already Quain was moving off in search of it. "Noticed her this morning. Daresay she leaks like a sieve, but at worst the water's pretty shoal insh.o.r.e, hereabouts."

"Cold comfort in that."

"Better than none, you amiable--"

"Can you swim?" Amber demanded pointedly.

"Like a fish. And you?"

"Not like a fish."

"d.a.m.n!" Quain brought up short with a shin barked against a thwart of the rowboat he had been seeking, and in recognition of the mishap liberally insulted his luck.

Amber, knowing that his hurt was as inconsiderable as his ill-temper, which was more than half-feigned to mask his anxiety, laughed quietly, meanwhile inspecting their find with a critical eye.

"You don't seriously mean to put off in this crazy hen-coop, do you?"

he asked.

"Just precisely that. It's the only way."

"It simple madness. I won't--"

"You don't want to stay here all night, do you?"

"No, but--"

"Well, then, lend us a hand and don't stand there grumbling. Be thankful for what you've got, which is me and my enterprise."

"Oh, all right."

Together they put their shoulders to the bows of the old, flat-bottomed rowboat, with incredible exertions uprooting it from its ancient bed, and at length had it afloat.

Panting, Quain mopped his forehead with a handkerchief much the worse for a day's a.s.sociation with gun-grease, and peered beneath his hand into the murk that veiled the bay.

"There she is," he declared confidently: "aground." He pointed. "I'll fetch up with her in no time."

But Amber could see nothing in the least resembling the catboat, and said so with decision.

"She's there, all right," insisted Quain. "'Tain't my fault if you're blind. Here, hold this, will you, while I find me a pole of some sort."

He thrust into Amber's hand an end of rotten painter at which the rowboat strained, and wandered off into the night, in the course of time returning with an old eel-pot stake, flotsam of some summer storm.

"Pure, bull-headed luck!" he crowed, jubilant, brandishing his trophy; and jumped into the boat. "Now sit tight till I come back?...

Huh--what?"

"I'm coming, too," Amber repeated quietly.