The Swindler and Other Stories Part 44

She had a letter from Jim in her hand--his answer to her appeal for freedom; and she had sought the solitude of the sh.o.r.e in which to read it.

She took shelter from the howling sea-wind behind a great boulder of rock. She dreaded his reproaches unspeakably. For the past six weeks she had lived in dread of that moment. Her fingers were shaking as she opened the envelope that bore his boyish scrawl.

An enclosure fell out before she had withdrawn his letter. She caught it up hastily before the wind could take possession. It was an unmounted photograph--actually the portrait of a girl.

Evelyn stared at the roguish, laughing face with a great amazement.

Then, with a haste that baffled its own ends, she sought his letter.

It began with astounding jauntiness:

"DEAR OLD EVE,--What a pair of superhuman idiots we have been! Many thanks for your sweet letter, which did me no end of good. I never loved you so much before, dear. Can you believe it? I am not surprised that you feel unequal to the task of keeping me in order for the rest of our natural lives. Will it surprise you to know that I had my doubts on the matter even when I wrote to suggest it? Never mind, dear old girl, I understand. And may the right man turn up soon and make you happy for the rest of your life!

"I am sending a photograph of a girl who till three weeks ago was no more than a friend to me, but has since become my _fiancee_.

Love is a wonderful thing, Eve. It comes upon you so suddenly and carries you away before you have time to realise what has happened.

At least that has been my experience. There is no mistaking the real thing when it actually comes to you.

"I am getting on awfully well, and like the life. By the way, it was through your friend, Lester Cheveril, that I got this appointment. A jolly decent chap that! I liked him from the first.

It isn't every man who will stand being told he squints without taking offence. We are hoping to get married next month.

Write--won't you?--and send me your blessing. Much love--Yours ever,

"JAMES WILLOBY."

Evelyn looked up from the letter with a deep breath of relief. It was so amazingly satisfactory. She almost forgot the emptiness of her own life for the moment in her rejoicing over Jim's happiness.

There was a little puddle of sea-water at her feet; and she climbed up to a comfortable perch on her sheltering rock and turned her face to the sea. Somehow, it did not seem so desolate as it had seemed five minutes before. This particular seat was a favourite haunt of hers in the summer. She loved to watch the tide come foaming up, and to feel the salt spray in her face.

Five minutes later, a great wave came hurling at the rock on which she sat, and, breaking in a torrent of foam, deluged her from head to foot.

She started up in swift alarm. The tide was coming in fast--much faster than she had antic.i.p.ated. The sh.o.r.e curved inwards in a deep bay just there, and the cliffs rose sheer and unscalable from it to a considerable height.

Evelyn seldom went down to the sh.o.r.e in the winter, and she was not familiar with its dangers. The sea had seemed far enough out for safety when she had rounded the point nearest to the town, barely half an hour before. It was with almost incredulous horror that she saw that the waves were already breaking at the foot of the cliffs she had skirted.

She turned with a sudden, awful fear at her heart to look towards the farther point. It was a full mile away, and she saw instantly that she could not possibly reach it in time. The waves were already foaming white among the scattered boulders at its base.

Again a great wave broke behind her with a sound like the booming of a gun; and she realised that she would be surrounded in less than thirty seconds if she remained where she was. She slipped and slid down the side of the rock with the speed of terror, and plunged recklessly into a foot of water at the bottom. Before another wave broke she was dashing and stumbling among the rocks like a frenzied creature seeking safety from the remorseless, devouring monster that roared behind her.

The next five minutes of her life held for her an agony more terrible than anything she had ever known. Sea, sky, wind, and sudden pelting rain seemed leagued against her in a monstrous array against which she battled vainly with her puny woman's strength. The horror of it was like a leaden, paralysing weight. She fought and struggled because instinct compelled her; but at her heart was the awful knowledge that the sea had claimed her and she could not possibly escape.

She made for the farther point of the bay, though she knew she could not reach it in time. The loose shingle crumbled about her feet; the seaweed trapped her everywhere. She fell a dozen times in that awful race, and each time she rose in agony and tore on. The tumult all about her was like the laughter of fiends. She felt as if h.e.l.l had opened its mouth, and she, poor soul, was its easy prey.

There came a moment at last when she tripped and fell headlong, and could not rise again. That moment was the culmination of her anguish.

Neither soul nor body could endure more. Darkness--a howling, unholy darkness--came down upon her in a thick cloud from which there was no escape. She made a futile, convulsive effort to pray, and lost consciousness in the act.

Out of the darkness at length she came.

The tumult was still audible, but it was farther away, less overwhelming. She opened her eyes in a strange, unnatural twilight, and stared vaguely upwards.

At the same instant she became aware of some one at her side, bending over her--a man whose face, revealed to her in the dim light, sent a throb of wonder through her heart.

"You!" she said, speaking with a great effort. "Is it really you?"

He was rubbing one of her hands between his own. He paused to answer.

"Yes; it's really me," he said. And she fancied his voice quivered a little. "They told me I might perhaps find you on the sh.o.r.e. Are you better?"

She tried to sit up, and he helped her, keeping his arm about her shoulders. She found herself lying on a ledge of rock high up in the slanting wall of a deep and narrow cave. She knew the place well, and had always avoided it with instinctive aversion. It was horribly eerie.

The rocky walls were wet with the ooze and slime of the ages. There was a trickle of spring-water along the ridged floor.

Evelyn closed her eyes dizzily. The marvel of the man's presence was still upon her, but the horror of death haunted her also. She would rather have been drowned outside on the howling sh.o.r.e than here.

"The sea comes in at high tide," she murmured shakily.

Lester Cheveril, crouching beside her, made undaunted reply.

"Yes, I know. But it won't touch us. Don't be afraid!"

The a.s.surance with which he spoke struck her very forcibly; but something held her back from questioning the grounds of his confidence.

"How did you get here?" she asked him instead.

"I saw you from the corner of the bay," he said. "It was before you left your rock. I climbed round the point over the boulders. I thought at the time that there must be some way up the cliff. Then I saw you start running, and I knew you were cut off. I yelled to you, but I couldn't make you hear. So I had to give chase."

His arm tightened a little about her.

"I am sorry you were scared," he said. "Are you feeling better now?"

She could not understand him. He spoke with such entire absence of anxiety. In spite of herself her own fears began to subside.

"Yes, I am better," she said. "But--tell me more. Why didn't you go back when you saw what had happened?"

"I couldn't," he said simply. "Besides, even if they launched the lifeboat, the chances were dead against their reaching you. I thought of a rope, too. But that seemed equally risky. It was a choice of odds. I chose what looked the easiest."

"And carried me here?" she said.

The light, shining weirdly in upon his face, showed her that he was smiling.

"I couldn't stop to consult you," he said. "I saw this hole, and I made for it. I climbed up with you across my shoulder."

"You are wonderfully strong," she said, in a tone of surprise.

He laughed openly.

"Notwithstanding my size," he said. "Yes; I'm fairly muscular, thank Heaven."

Evelyn's mind was still working round the problem of deliverance.

"We shall have to stay here for hours," she said, "even if--if----"