"Is there absolutely no way of getting on to St. Gingolph, Mr Fordham?"
said the eldest Miss Ottley, ruefully.
"You may put it in that way," was the tranquil reply. "Unless we walk."
The party, gathered round Fordham on the wooden pier, were not a little
disappointed. They had reckoned on changing steamers and going straight
on without delay, for the _Mont Blanc_ went no further than Bouveret.
Now they discovered that there was no steamer to change on to.
"That's what comes of missing the early boat," resumed Fordham,
mercilessly. "You will kindly remember that I warned you I doubted the
accuracy of my _horaire_, and that we should probably not find any
steamer on this side, when you elected to come on by the _Mont Blanc_."
This was undeniable, but it didn't seem to mend matters.
"And now two courses lie open to us," he went on. "We can either walk
to St. Gingolph along the high road, or take a short cut round the base
of the Grammont for Novel. I should recommend the latter. What do you
say, General?"
"Oh, I'm entirely in your hands. What do the ladies think?"
But the ladies voting unanimously for this plan it was carried
forthwith. Then suddenly it occurred to them that nobody knew the way.
But they reckoned without Fordham. He had never been over that
identical ground, but he undertook to act as guide, and fulfilled his
undertaking with admirable accuracy. But they were not to reach their
original destination, and it came about in this wise.
The day was hot, and the path winding upward round the mountain-side,
though charming as it led through beech and oakwoods, affording many a
glimpse of the blue lake below, was both steep and rugged. After about
an hour the Miss Ottleys suggested a halt--and lunch.
"This is a very tiring way, Mr Fordham," said one of them, "and it
seems a very long one. Are you quite sure we are going right?"
"I see," was the short reply. "You want me to say I am not quite sure.
Well, what do you want to _do_--that's the point?"
They looked at each other.
"I think we had almost better have our picnic here," said the one who
had first spoken.
"I believe we had," said the other sister. "This is a lovely spot."
"If we stop here now we sha'n't get on to Novel at all," said Fordham.
"Oh, hang Novel!" cut in Scott. "I'm for stopping here. What do _you_
say, Miss Wyatt?"
"I am perfectly ready to do what every one else wishes," answered Alma.
"Fordham, old man, I believe we none of us want to go any further," said
Philip. "It's awfully hot, you know, and it'll be no end of a grind.
It's a mistake, too, to make a toil of a pleasure. I propose that we
bivouac here, feed, and poke a smipe, and drop down quietly on St.
Jingo--or whatever you call it--afterwards. Let's put it to the vote."
"All right," said Fordham, serenely. "It's all one to me."
Philip was right, the fact being that every one had had enough of it.
So they ate their luncheon in the cool shade, and took their ease and
were happy; and after a couple of hours or so started downward for the
village, where they were to embark for the return voyage across the
lake.
"We might have had some difficulty in getting a boat," remarked Fordham.
"As it happens, though, I saw my commissionaire, Francois Berthod, in
Montreux, and he has a brother at St. Gingolph who owns one. So I made
him wire him to look out for us."
But when they reached St. Gingolph a fresh deadlock seemed likely to
arise. There was not much demand for boatmen at the out-of-the-way,
seldom-visited little village. Accordingly those amphibious worthies
were, one and all, absent, following their other avocations, and among
them Jules Berthod. To the whereabouts of the latter nobody seemed able
to furnish a clue. The woman who managed the wineshop opined that he
had gone over to Bouveret, and would not return till late; but in any
case it didn't matter, she being perfectly certain that neither Jules
nor any other boat-owner would cross the lake that afternoon--an opinion
abundantly backed up in unintelligible _patois_ by more than one
blue-bloused boozer lounging on the wooden seats.
But Fordham knew better, and he was right. For, as luck would have it,
who should arrive at that very moment but the missing Jules--a cheery,
copper-faced athlete, who, recognising Fordham, made no great difficulty
about the undertaking. He glanced at the party, then at his boat;
remarked dubiously that it was rather late in the day for crossing, and
he should hardly get back that night; then shrugged his shoulders,
ejaculated "_Enfin_," and straightway set off to haul in his craft.
The latter, though roomy, was somewhat narrow of beam, and not so heavy
as it looked. There were seats for three rowers, each pulling a pair of
sculls.
"I'll take stroke, if it's all the same to everybody," said Philip.
Fordham was about to demur, Philip being the heaviest man of the party,
except perhaps the boatman, and there was abundance of weight in the
stem; but remembering that Alma had been voted coxswain, he refrained.
So Berthod was constituted bow, and Scott, eager to distinguish himself,
took the remaining pair.
It was five o'clock when they pushed off. From St. Gingolph to Vevey
the distance is about eight miles; therefore they reckoned upon barely
two hours of easy pulling. Another two hours' walk in the cool of the
evening would bring them back to Les Avants almost before it was dark.
"I don't think much of this sort of rowing," grumbled Scott, for about
the third time as, with a final effort to scrape down some of the stars
of heaven, he violently fouled Philip's oar. "They don't seem to know
what it is in this country. Fancy having your oars hitched on to an
iron peg, instead of running free in rowlocks. Why, you can't even
feather."
"I suppose you went in for boating a good deal when you were at the
'Varsity, Mr Scott?" remarked Fordham, innocently. It was rather
cruel, Scott being one of that rapidly increasing class of parson who
has never kept terms at any university.
"Er--not a very great deal--a little, that is," was the somewhat
confused reply.
"Didn't aspire to your college boat, eh?" said Philip, who ever since
they started had been mentally anathematising this cockney 'Arry, whose
alternate star-scraping and crab-catching efforts had kept him in a
lively state of irritation and bad time.
"Won't some of you young ladies favour us with a song?" suggested the
General. "Nothing like melody on the water."
"Rather," said Philip. "It'll send us along at twice the pace--inspire
us, don't you know. Make us keep time--if anything will," he added,
significantly.
There was some little demur among the girls, who were shy of singing
without accompaniment. Then they started the Canadian boat-song, and
the effect of the clear voices floating out over the mirror-like water
was pretty enough, for the said voices certainly did "keep tune," even
though the oars--thanks to the star-scraping proclivities of the
maladroit Scott--failed with exasperating frequency to "keep time." And
the scene was a lovely and a peaceful one, inspiring, too, if you came
to contrast the utter insignificance of that cockleshell boat floating
there on the blue expanse of lake, with the sombre grandeur of the great
mountains--many a jagged and fantastic peak starting into view above and
behind the abrupt forest-clad slopes sheering up from the water's edge
as the distance widened between them and the Savoy shore. Then,
dominating the flat Rhone Valley, the towering Dent de Morcles, and
further in the background the snowy head of the Mont Velan peeping round
the volcano-like crest of the pyramid-shaped Mont Catogne, and above the
green slopes around Les Avants, the rocky hump of the Naye shone red in
the beams of the westering sun.
But in spite of the calm and peaceful stillness lying alike upon the
water and the encircling mountains, Jules Berthod seemed not altogether
at ease. There was a heavy loom of cloud over the purple Jura, which to
the mind of the experienced boatman had no business to be there. At the
same time a kind of lurid opacity crept over the hitherto radiant sun.
"_Crr-rre nom! Si on allait nous flanquer un coup de vent, par
exemple_!" he muttered between his teeth as he sent more than one uneasy
glance to the westward.
There was one upon whom that glance was not lost--who had also begun to
read the face of the sky. That one was Fordham.
"What do you say to my taking your place, Mr Scott?" he said. "We must
be nearly half-way across by now. If anything, rather more."
Scott, who had had enough of it, jumped at this proposal, and sank down
with a sigh of relief into the cushioned seat among the ladies.
"When are we to take our turn?" asked the youngest Miss Ottley.
"Better wait until we have broken the back of the work," answered
Fordham, who knew, however, that no feminine hand was destined to handle
the oar that day.
"Bless my soul, but how chilly it has turned," said General Wyatt.
It had--and more. The boat no longer slid smoothly over the glassy
water. Something of a swell had arisen.
"By Jove! If only we had a sail we should slip along sweetly. There's
quite a little breeze getting up," said Philip, resting a moment on his
oars. "Well, we haven't, so it's of no use wishing. But how about
another song? We want invigorating. Does any one know the Eton fourth
of June song?"
It happened that nobody did, and Philip remarking that that inspiriting
chorus was a thin affair if rendered as a solo, was urgently assured
that he never was more mistaken in his life and as urgently pressed to
give practical proof of the same. Then the disputants abruptly paused.
For Jules Berthod was resting on his oars, and seemed deep in a hurried
consultation with Fordham, who, it will be remembered, now occupied the
middle seat.
"_Nom de nom_!" he growled. "_Ca arrive--ca arrive. Je l'attendais
bien--allez_!"
"What is the matter?" exclaimed Marian Ottley, with a shade of alarm.
"Is it going to be rough, or what?"
A heavy lumping swell was now running, into which the boat rose and fell
with a plash and an angry hiss, as each well-timed, powerful stroke
forced her through. But a marvellous and magical change had come over
the whole scene. The great curtain of cloud seemed now to spread over
half the lake, and was gliding on, on. It stole up over the Savoy
mountains, and each hitherto shining summit now reared itself dark and
threatening against the inky veil. It had thrown out an advance guard
of flying scud, which already partially enshrouded the peaks and ridges
dominating the Rhone Valley to the eastward, and still it crept on. The
air was stirred in fitful puffs, moaning and chill, and the sun had
disappeared. The sudden metamorphosis from golden unclouded afternoon
to the brooding lurid gloom of half day was inexpressibly awesome--
almost appalling.
"Do you mind taking a `trick at the wheel,' General Wyatt?" said
Fordham. "We shall want some masterly steering directly."
"No, uncle. I can do it better than you," objected Alma, firmly.
"That's one advantage my riverside dwelling has left me--handiness with
the tiller ropes."
"But you'll have to keep us head to a tolerably heavy sea," said
Fordham. "That is, not straight at it, but as nearly so as possible.
You must not let her fall away on any account."
"I thoroughly understand boats--in smooth water or rough," answered the
girl, calmly.
"Hurrah!" cried Phil. "Three cheers for our coxswain!"
She spoke no more than the truth. There was strength in those supple
young wrists and judgment within that well-shaped head, and all there
realised that the General at his age would make the more indifferent
helmsman of the two.
A whirring vibrating hum seemed to fill the air. Over the water not
half a mile distant stretched a dark line. Nearer, nearer it came, and
as it swept steadily on, those in the boat had no difficulty in making
out a jagged, serrated ridge of leaping wave crests, banked up white and
gleaming against the inky scud which seemed urging it on. On, on--
nearer, nearer. It was a critical moment. Most of those in the boat
held their breath. Could that cockleshell live a moment against that
creaming surging wall of water rolling on to engulf it?
Nearer--nearer! The fearful roar of the advancing waves became
stunning, deafening. It was a terrible moment, and to those awaiting
the shock it seemed as hours. Philip, grasping his oars rigidly in the
intensity of the crisis, cast one look over his shoulder at the
advancing terror, then at the group in the stern-sheets. The two Ottley
girls had buried their faces in their hands. Scott was livid, his eyes
starting from his head. Even the old General's face looked rigidly
nerved for a desperate emergency. But she who sat holding the tiller
ropes--not a quiver was in her countenance. There was the keenness of
steel in her grey eyes, and the little hands seemed to conceal the
strength of a vice, as the boat's head swept round to meet the advancing
shock.
It came. With a mighty roar the huge wall of water struck them. The
little craft seemed literally flung into the air, then plashed down
again, and those within her thought she had buried herself in the waves
for good and all. She reeled and rocked, and but for those firm hands
that held the tiller ropes would have spun round and sunk headlong.
Several great seas swept beneath her, leaving her half full of water,
and the terrified shrieks of the two thoroughly frightened girls, the
million bellowing voices of the gale, the roaring, hissing tongues of
the leaping billows, the weird darkness of the lowering scud out of
which leapt each succession of towering curling seas thundering down
upon the tiny craft like ravenous monsters sure of their prey,
constituted a scene and surroundings well calculated to try the boldest
nerves.
For awhile nobody spoke. Those in charge of the boat knew exactly what
to do, and did it--fortunately so, or the fate of every soul there was
sealed. In the teeth of the fierce tornado it was all the three strong
men could do to keep steerage way on her, and well they knew that should
she fall away for one instant the next would witness her capsize. And
ever the huge waves flung her from crest to crest, drenching her
occupants, while the air was filled with clouds of spray torn from the
breaking summits and hurled away high overhead.
"Oh, my God!" shrieked Scott, his eyes starting from his wet and livid
countenance, as a sudden volume of water struck him full on the neck,
nearly knocking him overboard. "Oh, my God! We shall never see land
again?"
"Shut your mouth, you snivelling sneak?" said Philip, exasperated beyond
all patience. "Look at Miss Wyatt there and then heave your pitiful
cowardly carcase overboard." At which remark Fordham laughed aloud, his
short, dry guffaw more sardonic than ever.
But the wretched chaplain was impervious even to this humiliation, so
abject, so overmastering was his terror. He cowered in the bottom of
the boat, his face hidden in his hands, moaning.
"Get up, will you!" cried Fordham, savagely. "You're in Miss Wyatt's
way. And make yourself useful if you can. Take that hat of yours and
bale like the devil."
The peremptory tone had some effect, and the wretched man made an effort
to obey. But a fresh sea dashed the hat from his hands and carried it
away.
"This'll never do," muttered Fordham, in a tone only audible to Philip.
"Why can't those two damned women rouse themselves and bear a hand,
instead of screeching there like stuck pigs?"
The General had been baling away manfully, but it was terribly uphill
work, for every wave that struck the boat sent a pouring, hissing stream
right into her.
But if her two girl friends were cowering and trembling under the terror
of death, no weakness of the kind had impaired the calm resolution of
Alma Wyatt. With head bent slightly forward and brows knitted, she
never removed her steadfast glance from the work before her. Her eyes
full of blinding spray, her wrists stiff and aching with the terrible
strain upon them, she watched the advance of each crushing billow,
appalling, unnerving in its towering height, and the boat's head was
held true, though her whole frame would tremble with the fearful
exertion involved. Philip, tugging manfully at his oars, noted all
this. Even though they should go down he did not care greatly, in the
excitement and ecstasy of the moment. They would die together, at any
rate.
The flying wrack was so thick that they could not see fifty yards around
on either side. Already it seemed darkening as with the closing in of
twilight. To lie tossing about on the angry surging expanse all night
would be a serious matter. Still, Fordham felt sure that the waves had
somewhat abated in fierceness. But the muttered remark of Jules Berthod
behind him shattered this hope just as he was on the point of expressing
it.
"_Nom de Dieu! Cochon de veni! Voila que ca va nous accrocher de
nouveau. Cette fois on va chavirer. Oui, cette fois on coulera--nom de
nom_!"
Again that terrible vibrating hum was in the air. A fresh gust was upon
them. The boat half full of water, all hands nearly played out after
their abnormal exertions--how could they live out a fresh tornado?
"All up, Phil. Stand clear for a swim directly," he said, in an
undertone.
Philip could hardly repress a start. Well he knew the other would not
so have spoken without good reason. Besides, the hideous symptoms of
renewed tempest were now manifest even to his ear. He looked hard at
Alma, and his plans were laid. The instant the boat went over he would
seize her and drag her clear of the struggling crowd. If possible he
would secure an oar, which would help to keep them up. He was a strong
swimmer and felt that they might stand a chance. At the same time he
realised that it would be a very poor one.
On it came, the howling of the hurricane, the livid line of boiling
seas. But this time not in that mountainous wall, for the windows of
heaven were opened and a mighty rain descended with such violence as to
beat down the heads of the waves, which, flattened beneath the terrific
force of the downpour, had lost much of their power for peril. For a
quarter of an hour this continued, then a red straggling glow stole
athwart the livid scud.
"_Bon_!" muttered Jules. "_Cette fois on ne coulera pas. Mais non_!"
The red glow brightened. Suddenly as the parting of curtains, the dark
wrack opened out, revealing a patch of blue sky. Then a golden sun-ray
shot through, and lo! the whole ridge of the purple Jura, lying beyond
the great heaving, tumbling mass of blue water dotted with myriads of
white foamy crests.
"Hurrah!" roared Philip. "We've weathered it this time. Fordham, old
chap, isn't that our haven?" as a grey town about three miles distant
stood disclosed by the retreating scud.
"Yes, that's Vevey all right," was the answer. "Give way. We shall be
there in half an hour or so. I needn't tell you how to steer now, Miss
Wyatt. Hold up for a little while longer, Mr Scott. This company does
not carry a steward." For the unfortunate chaplain, relieved of his
fears as to mortal extinction, began to show symptoms of falling a prey
to the agonies of sea sickness.
There was still a pretty stiff sea running, and every now and then a
wave would strike them, sousing them from head to foot. But it was
little enough they cared for this after their recent experiences, and
soon the boat was running in under the lee of the _debarcadere_.
Quite a little crowd had collected to witness the landing of these "mad
English," as they put it. Then, directing Berthod to call later for the
very liberal remuneration awaiting him, the whole party started for the
Hotel Monnet to get their dripping clothes dried and to dine, causing
quite a sensation as they hurried through the streets of the sleepy
little town, in their capacity of shipwrecked castaways.