The Gentleman: A Romance of the Sea Part 33

Once he looked up.

He was climbing into heaven.

The cliff bluffed up into the sky. He could see the bearded crest dark against the light. Up there a pair of kestrels floated--two living cross-bows bent above him. They were almost transparent and very still: a tremble of the wings, a turn of the broad steering tail, a motion of the blunt head, a swoop and a sway and a glint of russet back.

They had wings too! Everything in the world had wings but himself, the only one who really needed them.

Once he slipped, and hung sprawling over Eternity. The gra.s.s, tough as wire, and wound about his hands, stood his friend. He recovered foothold.

On again with battering heart. The top was not far now.

Hope began to flutter in his breast. It seemed to heave him upwards.

The way grew steeper and more steep. The stream of gra.s.s, faithful so far, ended abruptly five feet below the top. Those feet were sheer, the chalk darkening to the blackness of soil, and the crest of gra.s.s making a rusty _chevaux-de-frise_ at the summit.

Cautiously he crept on, his hands feeling the blank wall. Now his fingers touched the top.

He drew himself up.

His struggling toes found some sort of foot-hold. The wind blew on his wet forehead. His eyes were on a level with the summit.

He could see over.

A man was sitting by the edge.

Kit could have stroked his back.

II

THE MAN ON THE CLIFF

CHAPTER XXV

THE GENTLEMAN BOWS

I

The man was babbling French and weeping; weeping over a dead woman.

So much was clear.

His back was against the light. He wore no hat; and here and there a hair caught the sun and flashed like the sword of a fairy.

The dead girl must be lying with her head in his lap.

Unaware of anybody by, the young man poured out his heart: the dead woman was his little one, his darling of the chestnut hair, his pet.i.te pit-a-pat.

There was something so desolate about the grief of man, perched up there between sea and sky, n.o.body near but a floating sea-gull, that Kit almost wept to hear him.

But he had his own affairs to think about.

The man was a Frenchman: therefore an enemy.

What should he do?

As often happens, the question was decided for him.

Suddenly the projection on which his feet had found resting-place gave way.

A lurch, and he was dangling at arms' length. His toes could find no foothold. To drop even an inch or two was certain death: for he would land on a slope almost sheer; and the impetus must carry him--down-- down--down....

"Sir!" he gasped.

II

A face flashed over the cliff, eagle-beaked and beautiful.

A young man knelt above him.

"Hullo!" he said in voice of quiet amus.e.m.e.nt, peering down at the boy beneath him. "May I ask what you are doing here?"

If he was a Frenchman, he spoke English without a trace of accent.

"Hanging on for dear life!" gurgled Kit, the scent-bottle between his teeth.

The young man broke into a ripple of boyish laughter.

"Flew so far: then the wings gave out, eh?"

He rose to his feet, and Kit saw he was wearing buck-skin breeches and top-boots.

Bending, he grasped the boy's wrists.

"One--two--and--h'up she comes!"

He staggered back, and fell with a gay laugh, the boy on top of him.

"Thank you," said Kit between his teeth. "Let go my wrists, please."