The Unknown Sea Part 29

She said 'Yes,' though foreboding ordeal. It was a minute before he spoke.

'Will you pray for us?'

Poor heart, how could she? Anything but that.

'What worth are the prayers of such an one as I? Desire rather your mother's prayers.'

'She for another cause will be praying the night through. Will you do as much for us?'

He stopped her, for she did not speak, and held her by the shoulders, trying to see her face to get answered.

'O Rhoda, will you not pray for us?'

She made her answer singular. 'I will pray for thee'; but his greater want overcame her into ending: 'and--for Diadyomene.'

He stood stock-still and gripped her hard when that name came, but he asked nothing. 'I will, I will,' she whispered; and then he kissed her brow and said: 'G.o.d bless you.' She flung her arms round his neck without reserve; her cheek lay against his bare breast, and because she felt a cross there she dared to turn her lips and kiss. He gathered her to close embrace, so that swept from her feet she lay in his arms rapt for one precious instant from all the world.

When he had set her on her feet, when he had blessed her many times, she clung to him still, heaving great sobs, till he had to pluck away her hands.

'Yes, go,' she said. 'I will pray for you both,' and down she knelt straightway.

'G.o.d be with you.'

'G.o.d be with you.'

He pa.s.sed from her into the darkness, away from sorrows she knew to some unknown. Rhoda, flung prostrate, wept bitterly, rending her heart for the getting of very prayer for that unknown woman, her bane.

Too little thought Christian, though he loved her well, of her who so faithfully went on his bidding, trudging wearily on to make good his word, kneeling afterwards through the long hours in prayer that was martyrdom. If the value of prayer lie in the cost, hers that night greatly should avail.

CHAPTER XV

Late knocking came importunate to the House Monitory. One went to the wicket and looked out. Her light, convulsed, for an instant abetted a delusion that he who stood knocking outside was Christ Himself with the signs of His Pa.s.sion: unclothed was the man she saw, bloodstained, both head and hands. Then she noted fair hair, and had to believe that this haggard man was one with the brave-faced boy of earliest summer. He clung to the ledge for support; so spent was he that a word was hard to compa.s.s.

'For the love of G.o.d,' he said, 'you who are watchers to-night pray for a human soul in sore need.'

She would vouch for that; she would summon one with authority to vouch for more.

When she carried word within: ''Tis the same,' said one, 'who twice has left fish at the gate, who slept once at the feet of St. Margaret.'

To the wicket went the head monitress, and, moved to compa.s.sion by the sight of his great distress, she gave him good a.s.surance that not the five watchers only, but one and all, should watch and pray for him that night, and she asked his name for the ordering of prayer.

'Not mine!' he said. 'I ask your prayers for another whose need is mine.

Pray for her by the name Diadyomene.'

He unfastened the cross from his neck and gave it.

'This is a pledge,' he said, 'I would lay out of my weak keeping for St.

Mary, St. Margaret, and St. Faith to hold for me, lest to-night I should desire I had it, to be rid of it finally according to promise.'

He had not made himself intelligible; clearer utterance was beyond him.

'No matter!' he said. 'Take it--keep it--till I come again.'

He knotted the empty string again to his neck, and, commended to G.o.d, went his way.

Now when these two, little later, asked of each other, 'What was the strange name he gave?' neither could remember it. But they said 'G.o.d knows,' and prayed for that nameless soul.

Somehow Christian got down the cliffs to the sh.o.r.e, as somehow he had come all the way. Little wonder head and hands showed b.l.o.o.d.y: every member was bruised and torn, for he had stumbled and gone headlong a score of times in his desperate speed over craggy tracks, where daylight goings needed to be wary. Scarcely could hoofed creatures have come whole-foot, and he, though of hardy unshod practice, brought from that way not an inch sound under tread. An uncertain moon had favoured him at worst pa.s.ses, else had he fallen to certain destruction.

He stood at the sea's edge and paused to get breath and courage. To his shame, he was deficient in fort.i.tude: the salt of the wet shingle bit his feet so cruelly, that he shrank at the prospect of intensified pain through all the innumerable wounds he bore. He saw exposed a pitiful, unstable wretch, with a body drained of strength and nerve, and a spirit servile to base instances. In desperate spite he plunged and swam.

He had ever waited for an outgoing tide; he had ever taken a daylight tide; now for his sins he had night and the flood against him. But still the moon blessed him. Delusions beset him that pains of his body came from the very teeth of sea-creatures, too fierce and many for him to cope with, crowding, dragging, gnawing hard at his life. For ease a pa.s.sive moment and a little painful, airless sobbing would suffice: soonest, best. And had the pale moon darkened, he had gone under as at a supreme command, to such depravity and dest.i.tution were come his vital instincts. But, her light holding him alive, by hard degrees he won his way, till, for the last time, he stood upon the Isle Sinister.

But when he had made his way through the narrow gorge, and trod sand, the moon was dark, and night fell upon his heart. He dared not call, and neither sight nor sound granted him a.s.surance of Diadyomene's presence.

Wanting her footprints to tell she had pa.s.sed in, he feared lest he should be barring her very entrance. He fell down and prayed, being without resource.

And Lois was praying, and Rhoda with bitter tears, and the House Monitory with the ring of its bells. Very faint was the moan of the sea in their ears.

Slowly, slowly, the blessed moon stepped out, and lifted him up and delivered to his sight the track of light feet set from seaward--one track only. In haste, by the wavering light of the moon, he laid out the threaded rowan and weighted one end against the rock. The whole length extended came short of the further wall by about two feet.

He rallied from the momentary shock, resolving that he himself could stand in the gap to bar pa.s.sage.

No form nor motion could he discern within his range as in slow scrutiny his eyes sought her from side to side. He lighted on despair; the entrance to the cavern had escaped his providence.

In the dark he went to the low arch, and felt about the sand inch by inch for the dint of her feet. Naught could he find. Yet what did it profit him that she had not yet pa.s.sed? To drop p.r.o.ne on the sand was his poor conclusion, abandoned to despair.

He was but cast back on the morning's portion, then of fair sufficiency, but now oh! meagre, meagre, compared to the ripe hope that had come of nourishment strange and opportune as manna from heaven. Then had he incurred to no purpose expense of blood and sweat and anguish of body and mind, nay, brought to the crucial hour such an appalling deficiency.

To contest a human soul with powers of darkness required perfect steadfastness of will and faith; lost, lost, with mere self-control lost in a useless barter that left him now a clod of effete manhood, with just life enough for groaning pain. Before conflict was he vanquished.

Diadyomene need but come with a word of anger or derision to break him into childish sobbings.

Yet driven to last extremity, such man's strength as remained to him might prevail in sanctified violence for the winning of a soul. He would hold her by the feet; his hands were b.l.o.o.d.y, but he would hold her by the feet; should he have to cling round her, he would not hurt; meek and gentle could he be, though fury should set her to such savage handling as a woman's strength may compa.s.s.

To win a human soul? O wretched piece of clay, not that! The mere thought of contact with Diadyomene, close contact with her, cool, soft, naked there in the cold dark, swept the bright delirium of sea-magic over him again, stung his blood to a burning fever, set him writhing as pain had never. At the fiery blast, in this nadir hour the place of pure love was a.s.saulted and taken by base l.u.s.t; his desire was most strong, not for the winning of a human soul, but for the wicked winning of a human body, ay, maugre her will--any way.

Yet, oh for the fair way of her favour! Had she not allowed him very gracious hints?--'lay your hand upon my breast, set your lips to mine.'

Thrice she had said it--once when a touch on her hand had brought magical vision, once at her kindest, once at her cruelest. Though her command was against him, though her anger might not be overpast, a hope kindled that dread of the dark hour of her fate might urge her to his arms, there to find such gladness and consolation as might leave no place for horror to come into possession.

'And give up your soul.' Thrice too had that been said. He was loath to give it remembrance, but it entered, whenever faint bells tolled on his ear it entered.

Very strangely, while good and evil fought equal-handed for his will, he perceived that his body had risen to hands and knees, and was going forward very fitly like a beast. All round the cold dark began to burn. A boulder lay athwart his course, and then very strangely he was aware that his arms had fastened round it with convulsive strength, and brow and breast were wounded against it. He could not take possession to end this disgraceful treason; all that was left to him was to rescue integrity at least by undoing the knot at his neck.

Then prevailed the blessed guile of Lois. The trivial exaction brought her son face to face with her, with her sorrows, with her prayers, and the mere communion of love set him praying frantically, and so brought him to himself again.