The Light of Scarthey Part 39

Such was also Sir Adrian's thought. But he walked on for a time in silence; and, having reached Scarthey, rapidly made his way into the peel.

Captain Jack was still pacing the room much as Rene had described when Sir Adrian entered upon him. The young man turned with a transient look of surprise to the new-comer, then waved away the proffered hand with a bitter smile.

"You do not know," he said, "who it is you would shake hands with--an outlaw--a criminal. Ah, you have heard? Then Renny, I suppose, has told you."

"Yes," groaned the other, holding his friend by both shoulders and gazing sorrowfully into the haggard face, "the man may die--oh, Jack, Jack, how could you be so rash?"

"I can't say how it all happened," answered Captain Jack, falling to his walk to and fro again in the extremity of his distress, and ever and anon mopping his brow. "I felt such security in this place. All was loaded but the last barrel, when, all of a sudden, from G.o.d knows where, the man sprang on me and thrust his dark lantern in my face.

'It is Smith,' I heard him say. I do believe now that he only wanted to identify me. No man in his senses could have dared to try and arrest me surrounded by my six men. But I had no time to think then, Adrian. I imagined the fellow was leading a general attack.... If that last barrel was seized the whole secret was out; and that meant ruin.

Wholesale failure seemed to menace me suddenly in the midst of my success. I had a handspike in my hand with which I had been helping to roll the kegs. I struck with it, on the spur of the moment; the man went down on the spot, with a groan. As he fell I leaped back, ready for the next. I called out, 'Stretchers, lads; they want to take your captain?' My lads gathered round me at once. But there was silence; not another creature to be seen or heard. They set to work to get that last blessed bit of cargo, the cause of all the misery, on board with the rest; while I stood in the growing dawn, looking down at the motionless figure and at the blood trickling into the sand, trying to think, to settle what to do, and only conscious of one thing: the intense wish that I could change places with my victim. Can you wonder, Adrian, that my brain was reeling? You who know all, all this means to me, can you wonder that I could not leave this sh.o.r.e--even though my life depended on it--without seeing her again! Curwen, my mate, came up to me at last, and I woke up to some sort of reason at the idea that they, the crew and the ship, must be removed from the immediate danger. But the orders I gave must have seemed those of a madman: I told him to sail right away but to double back in time to have the schooner round again at twelve noon to-day, and then to send the gig's crew to pick me up on Pulwick sand. 'Life and death,' said I to him, and he, brave fellow, 'Ay, ay, sir,' as if it was the most simple thing in the world, and off with him without another word."

"What imprudence, what imprudence!" murmured Sir Adrian.

"Who knows? None will believe that I have not seized the opportunity of making my escape with the others. The height of imprudence may become the height of security. I have as yet no plan--but it will come. My luck shall not fail me now! who knows: nothing perhaps is damaged but an excise man's crown. Thank heaven, the wind cannot fail us to-day."

"But, meanwhile," urged Sir Adrian, quite unconvinced, highly disturbed, "that treasure on board.... I know what has been your motive, Jack, but indeed it is all nothing short of insanity, positive insanity. Can you trust your men?"

"I would trust them with my own secrets, willingly enough; but not with those of other people. So they do not know what I have in those barrels. Four thousand golden guineas in each...! No, the temptation would be too terrible for the poor lads. Not a soul knows that, beyond you and me. Curwen has charge of the cargo, such as it is. But I can answer for it none of them will dream of tampering with the casks.

They are picked men, sober, trusty; who have fought side by side with me. I am their best friend. They are mine, body and soul, I believe.

They do know there is some risk in the business, but they trust me.

They are sure of treble pay, and besides, are not troubled with squeamishness. As for Curwen, he would go to h.e.l.l for me, and never ask a question. No, Adrian, the scheme was perfect, but for this cursed blow of mine this morning. And now it is a terrible responsibility," continued the young man, again wiping his forehead; "every ounce of it weighs on my shoulders. But it is not that that distracts me. Oh, Adrian ... Madeleine!"

The elder man felt his heart contract at the utter despairing of that cry.

"When my handspike crashed on that d.a.m.ned interferer's skull," the sailor went on, "I felt as if the blow had opened an unfathomable chasm between her and me. Now I am felon--yes, in law, a felon! And yet I am the same man as yesterday. I shall have to fly to-night, and may never be able to return openly to England again. All my golden dreams of happiness, of honour, vanished at the sound of that cursed blow. But I must see her, Adrian, I _must_ see her before I go. I am going to meet her at noon, in the ruins of Pulwick."

"Impossible!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the other aghast. "Listen, Jack, unfortunate man! When I heard of the--the misfortune, and of your folly in remaining, I instantly planned a last meeting for you. As it fell out, my wife has a fancy to spend the night here: I have asked her to bring her sister with her. But this inconceivably desperate plan of leaving in your ship, in broad light of day, frustrates all I would have done for you. For G.o.d's sake let us contrive some way of warning the _Peregrine_ off till midnight; keep hidden, yourself; do not wilfully run your head into the noose!"

But the young man had stopped short in his tramping, and stood looking at his friend, with a light of hope flaming in his eye.

"You have done that, Adrian! You have thought of that!" he repeated, as if mechanically. A new whirlwind of schemes rushed through his mind. For a while he remained motionless, with his gaze fixed on Sir Adrian, putting order in his own thoughts with that genius of precision and swiftness which, in strong natures, rises to meet a crisis. Then advancing, and seizing him by both hands:

"Adrian," he cried, in something more like his own voice, again, "I shall yet owe my happiness to you, to this thought, this sublime thought of your heart!"

And, as Sir Adrian, astounded, unable to understand this extremity of hopefulness, following upon the previous depth of misery, stared back at him, speechless, the latter proceeded in still more surprising fashion.

"Now, you listen to me, this time. I have been selfish in running the risk of having you mixed up in my dangerous affairs. But, G.o.d is my witness, I acted under the belief that all was absolutely secure. Now, however, you must do nothing more that might implicate you. Remember, do nothing to let people suspect that you have seen me to-day. Renny, too, must keep close counsel. You know nothing of my future movements.

Remain here for a while, do not even look out of the window.... I fear we shall not meet for a long time. Meanwhile, G.o.d bless you--G.o.d bless you!"

After another wrench of the hands he held in his, the sailor released them and fairly ran out of the room, without heeding his friend's bewildered expostulations. At the door of the keep he met Rene again.

And after a brief but earnest colloquy, the man whose life was now forfeit to the community and upon whose head there would soon be a price, was quietly walking along the causeway, making for the sh.o.r.e, with the greatest apparent unconcern and deliberation.

And whilst Sir Adrian, alone in his chamber, with his head resting upon his hand, anxiously pondered upon the possible issues of this nefarious day's doings, the sailor advanced, in broad daylight towards the land to keep his appointment.

A solitary speck of life upon the great waste, with the consciousness of the precarious thread of chance upon which it hung! What wonder that, for all his daring, the traveller felt, as he deliberately regulated his pace to the most nonchalant gait, a frantic desire to run forward, or to lie down! How many approach gla.s.ses might now be laid, like so many guns, upon him from secret points of the coast until he came within range of recognition; what ambushes those clumps of gorse and juniper, those plantations of alders and young firs on the bluffs yonder, might conceal? The eye could reach far and wide upon the immense stretch of sand, along the desert coast; and his solitary figure, moving upon the yellow strand was a mark for miles around. Steadily, nevertheless did he advance; the very daring, the unpardonable foolhardiness of the deed his safety. And yet the strain was high. Were they watching the island? Among the eager crew, to each of whom the capture might mean a splendid prize and chance of promotion, was there one would have the genius of suddenly suspecting that this foolhardy wayfarer might be the man they wanted and not merely Sir Adrian returning on foot towards his home?... And then came the answer of hopeful youth and hardy courage----.

No. The preventive are a lubberly lot--It will require something better than a water-guard to track and take Lucky Jack Smith!

But for all his a.s.surance Lucky Jack Smith drew a long breath of relief when he felt the shadow of Pulwick woods closing around him at last.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE DAY: NOON

There stood two men and they did point their fingers at that house.

And on his finger one had blood; the other's finger shook.

_Luteplayer's Song._

Broken lengths of wall, a crumbling indication of the spring of once exquisite arches, windows gaping darkly like the eye sockets of a skull--this was all that was left of the old priory of Pulwick, whilom proud seat of clerical power and learning. But the image of decay was robbed of all melancholy by the luxuriance of climbing vegetation, by the living screen of n.o.ble firs and larches arranged in serried ranks upon the slopes immediately behind it, with here and there a rugged sentinel within the ruinous yards and rooms themselves; by wild bushes of juniper and gorse and brambles. And, with the bright noon sun pouring down upon the worn red sandstone, and gilding the delicate ta.s.sels of the larches' green needles; with the light of young love, spreading glamour upon every leaf and stone, in the eyes of the lovers, the scene, witness of so many sweet meetings, bore that day a beautiful and home-like aspect.

Captain Jack was standing upon the gra.s.s-grown floor of what had been the departed monks' refectory, with ears eagerly bent to listen.

Three ragged walls, a clump of fir trees, and a bank of brambles screened him from any chance pa.s.ser-by, and he now and again peered through a crevice on to a path through the woods, cautiously, as if fearful to venture forth. His face was pale beneath its tan, and had none of its usual brightness; his attire for him was disordered; his whole appearance that of a man under the pressure of doubt and anxiety. Yet, when the sound of a light footfall struck among the thousand whispering noises of wind and leaf that went to make up the silence of the ruins, the glory of joy that lit up eye and lip left no room for any other impression.

Madeleine stood in the old doorway: a vision of beautiful life amid emblems of decay and death.

"I come alone to-day," she said, with her half-shy smile. And then, before she could utter a further word of explanation, she was gathered into her lover's strong arms with a pa.s.sion he had never as yet shown in his chivalrous relations with her. But it was not because they met without the sympathetic rapture of Miss Landale's eye upon them; not because there was no other witnesses but the dangling ivy wreath, the stern old walls, the fine dome of spring sky faintly blue; not because of lover's audacious joy. This Madeleine, feeling the stormy throbbing of his heart against hers, knew with sure instinct. She pushed him gently from her as soon as she could, the blushes chased from her cheeks by pale misgivings, and looked at him with eyes full of troubled questioning.

Then he spoke, from his full heart:

"Madeleine, something has happened--a misfortune, as I wrote to you. I must now start upon my venture sooner than I thought--at once. I shall have to _fly_ in fact, to-day. There have been spies upon me, and my secret trust is in danger. How they have tracked me, how suspicion has been aroused, I cannot guess. But I have been tracked. A fellow came at dawn. I had to defend my secret--the secret not my own, the charge entrusted to me. The man was hurt. I cannot explain, dear love, there is no time; even now I run the risk of my life by being here, and life is so dear to me now, my Madeleine! Hush! No, do not be afraid! I am afraid of nothing, so long as you trust me. Will you trust me? I cannot leave you here behind; and now, with this cursed stroke of ill-luck, this suspicion upon me, it may be long before I can return to England. I cannot leave you behind, I cannot! Will you trust me, Madeleine, will you come with me? We shall be married in France, my darling. You should be as a queen in the guard of her most humble slave. I am half mad to think I must go. Ah, kiss me, love, and say yes! Listen! I must sail away and make believe that I have gone. My _Peregrine_ is a bird that none can overtake, but I shall come back to-night. Listen: If you will be on the island to-night--Sir Adrian is there already, and I hear your sister is coming--a freak of fancy--and he, G.o.d bless him, has told her to bring you too (it shows my luck has not deserted me yet). I shall be there, unknown to all except Renny. I cannot meet you nearer home, but you will be my own brave bride and keep your own counsel. You will not be frightened, will you, my beautiful love? All you have to do is to follow Renny's instructions.

My ship will be back, waiting, an hour after dark, ready, when you set foot on it, to spread its wings with its treasures--treasures, indeed!

And then we shall have the world before us--riches, love, such love!

And once safe, I shall be free to prove to you that it is no common blood I would mate with that dear and pure stream that courses in your veins. You shall soon know all; will you trust me?"

She hung upon his hot words, looking at him with loving, frightened eyes. Now he gathered her to his arms again, again his bursting heart throbbed its stormy pa.s.sion to her ear. She was as one carried away by a torrent against which resistance is useless. He bent his head over her face; the scent of the bunch of violets in her breast rose deliciously to his nostrils. Alas! Hubert Cochrane was not to reach that kiss of acquiescence, that kiss from which it seemed that but so small a fraction of s.p.a.ce and time divided him! Some one, who had stepped along in the shadow as silently as a cat coming upon a bird, clapped here a hand upon his shoulder.

"Who are you, sir, and what do you want?" exclaimed Captain Jack, wrenching himself free, falling back a pace and measuring the new-comer from head to foot with furious glances, while, with burning blushes Madeleine faltered:

"Rupert!"

Nothing awakens anger in hot blood sooner than an unsanctioned touch.

In certain moods the merest contact is as infuriating as a blow. Such an insult, added to the irreparable injury of interrupting their meeting at the most exquisite and crucial moment, drove Captain Jack beside himself with rage.

But Madeleine's hand was still on his arm. She felt it suddenly harden and twitch with murderous anger. But, by an effort that made the veins of his temple swell like whipcord, he refrained from striking the double offender.

Mr. Landale surveyed the pair for a moment in silence with his grave look; then coldly he answered the sailor's irate speech.

"My name, fellow, is Rupert Landale. I am here to protect my cousin from an unprincipled and criminal adventurer."