SATAN SPIES OUT PARADISE
As he had expected, Wat found the boat safely anchored in its rocky
haven, where the water lay dead and still as in a tank. He drew himself
on board, dripping salt-water all over the inside from his lithe body
and scanty clothing. He was busying himself loosening the oars and
mast, which had been tied along the side, when he heard, faintly but
unmistakably, the sound of a human voice speaking.
At first Wat, busy with his work, paid no heed. He supposed it must be
Scarlett talking to Wise Jan, and idly wondered why he spoke so loud.
But in a moment he remembered that the rocks of Fiara and the deep
Sound lay between him and his companions.
Yet quite clearly and continuously some one was certainly speaking, and
at no great distance either. As before, the cave was not quite dark,
for the moon had risen, and the boat lay close by the entrance which
gave upon the Sound. Wat hastened to climb up on one of the rocky walls
which formed the edge of the tiny haven in which the vessel floated.
The water-way which constituted the floor of the cave slept black
beneath, a long, almost invisible heave passing up from without, which
was just the great Atlantic Sea breathing in its sleep. But so smooth
were these undulations that hardly a swish on the projections of the
walls told of their passage. Outward from where Wat stood the great
lane of water gradually brightened to the huge square of the sea-door.
Inward it grew blacker and more gloomy, till the young man's eye could
not trace it farther into the solemn bosom of the rock. It was out of
this inner gloom that the voice was proceeding.
Presently the single voice became two, and Wat could hear the words
of one speaker, who spoke low and almost delicately, and then of
another who more gruffly and briefly replied. From the darkness of the
inner cavern a new sound was borne to Wat's ear--the panting of men
in exertion, and the little splash made by the swimmer as he changes
position, or when a wavelet, running diagonally, laps against his
breast. It is an unmistakable sound, and yet it is no louder than the
plunge of a leaping fish that falls back again into the water.
Wat lay motionless on his ledge. He had lifted the moorings from the
stern of the boat in the rock basin behind him, and he could hear
that she had swung round and that her timbers were rasping gently
against the stone pier. Wat prayed that the swimmers might not hear the
noise. The uneasy water pavement of the cavern swayed beneath him with
measured undulations, glimmering with that pale phosphorescence which
is the deceiving ghost of true illumination. Yet it was light enough
for Wat to observe the heads of the men who swam, as they emerged into
its glow out of the perfect darkness of the inner cave.
There was one who led, swimming a good half-dozen strokes in advance of
the others.
"We cannot be far from the north gate now, surely," said a voice, which
Wat instantly recognized as that of Barra, "if the _cailleach_ hath
told the truth and her man did really find his way to the island of
Fiara by this passage."
The man who swam in the middle of the three who followed Barra only
grunted in reply. Wat could see the shapeless round of his head but
dimly; nevertheless, he knew that it was the featureless, scarred
visage of Haxo the Bull which glared like a death's-head above the
water in the wake of his arch-enemy. And he had no doubt that on either
side of him swam the Calf and the Killer, the other members of that
noble trinity.
The heads on the water grew smaller and blacker as they passed him, and
the men swam on towards the outer entrance of the cave. Presently they
came underneath the great span of the arch. Wat could see Barra drag
himself out of the water and clamber on a rocky point which jutted out
into the Sound. The three followers lifted themselves after him, and
sank on the rocks in attitudes of fatigue. But Barra stood erect, his
slim figure so black against the dim moonlight without that he might
have been wearing his court suit of sable velvet, although actually he
was naked to the waist.
So there on the pinnacle he stood, gazing silently on the sleeping isle
of Fiara, even as Satan might have gazed (so Wat Gordon thought) on the
garden--close to that first delicious Paradise in which all unconscious
Adam wandered with his Eve.
Long he stood thus, fixed in contemplation, revolving evilest thoughts
and intents, his three attendant fiends crouched behind him in a
shapeless mass upon the dark rocks, none of them daring to interrupt
his musings.
Then quite abruptly Barra descended and plunged once more into the
water. Lochinvar in his turn stood erect and made ready to follow him,
for he feared that his enemies were about to cross the Sound and attack
on the instant the little company waiting his own return under the
cliffs of the northern shore.
But he heard Barra say, "It is enough for to-night. Let us return to
the harbor. The _cailleach_ spoke the truth."
Then without further speech between them, the four men swam past him
and disappeared, faint wreathings and smears of phosphorescence
trailing after them out of the gloom into which they had vanished.
Wat drew a long breath as they were lost to sight. He knew that he had
been assisting at one of the last scenes in Barra's complete and minute
exploration of the isle--every cave and passage, every entrance to
and outgate from it. It was just such an undertaking as he might have
expected from a man so resolute as Barra, with a retinue as desperate
as Haxo the Bull, his Calf, and his Killer.
Now, indeed, he was aware that there was no time to be lost in getting
away from this isle of Fiara, which had brought him so many happy
hours. Adam knew that the spoiler had looked upon his demi-Paradise,
and that Eve herself was in danger.
Wat waited a while before he dared to bring out the boat and row across
the Sound to the place where Scarlett and Kate were waiting for him. He
found Scarlett philosophically seated with his back against a rock, but
Kate moved uneasily about upon the shore, clasping her hands in great
anxiety.
"O Wat," she said, "my dear, my dear, I thought some ill chance had
befallen you. Wellnigh had I come to seek you, but for your command to
bide with Scarlett."
"And it is indeed well, Kate," he answered, smiling a little, "that you
were thus mindful of my words."
Then Wat told them all that he had seen and heard, till even Scarlett
was impressed by the imminence of their needs. So without delaying a
moment the three took such burdens as they could carry, and set out to
cross the ridge of Fiara to the place where Wise Jan Pettigrew waited
beside their first boat with everything ready to push off. But before
they left the boat which Wat had brought out of the water-cavern, Wat
bade Scarlett help him to load her with stones from the beach.
With a mallet he knocked out the plug under the stern seat, and, as
before, sunk her in mid-channel. Then he swam ashore, and followed Kate
and Scarlett over to the northern side of the island.
The moon was just dipping below the horizon when, with Kate in the
stern and Wise Jan handling the boat to a marvel, they left the
beautiful island behind them.
Kate drew in a long breath, and her hand rested a moment on Wat's in
the darkness. It was the isle of her first assurance and her dawning
happiness. No place could ever be quite the same to her. There it
lay, Fiara, the Isle of Bliss, looming gray against the dark, solemn,
bird-haunted front of Lianacraig. Should she ever see it more? There
was the dear rowan-tree at the angle of the wall where they had so
often sat, and there was the sweet sickle-sweep of white sand by which
they had so often walked. A little farther over the dusk and sleeping
Sound was Suliscanna, on which stood Bess Landsborough's house, and
that smoky inner room where her love had first taken her to his heart,
coming to her like a vision out of the night.
But to all Kate's questionings there came back no answer save the
hoarse threatening growl of the Suck of Suliscanna arching itself
angrily to the right, the gentle flap of the small sheet above, and the
talking clatter of the wavelets below the stem as they glided away out
into the night.
Behind them the surf was roaring on the rocks which, like the black
fins of sharks, jutted, toothed and threatening, from the tail-end of
the Suck of Suliscanna. There came also a chill sough of wind from
the west, and with it, rising as it were from the ocean depths, the
dead sea-mist, which swelled and eddied about the boat of our four
travellers. Presently the bright reflection of the stars on the crest
of each coming wave, as Wat lay in the stern and watched, dimmed
itself. The twinkling rays were shorn. Their diffused sparkling first
dulled to a point, and then became extinguished altogether as the
voyagers were enveloped in the gray uncanny smother.
It was their first touch of ill-luck. Since Wat and Scarlett had left
Holland on their quest, save for their shipwreck all had gone well
with them. But now, on the verge of success, they were caught by the
sea-mist, and in that place of dangerous currents and deadly rocks
they had to submit to be carried they knew not where, nor yet into
what unseen dangers of the deep. Wise Jan set his hand high over the
side, and the sea-fog ran visibly through his fingers like water in a
mill-race. Evidently they were moving fast in some direction, and the
current was carrying them swiftly and strongly onward without their
being able to alter or amend their destination.
Wat went astern and sat beside Kate. Wise Jan had taken down the sail.
It was useless to them till they could see in what direction they were
being carried. Scarlett grumbled steadily and inarticulately amidships;
but Wat and Kate sat with their hands locked in each other's, silent
all through the night.
The morn came slowly. The salt, steamy vapor rolled and swirled
about them, brightening and darkening with alternate threat and
promise--both, however, equally illusive.
It was broad day when the lift of heaven suddenly cleared. The sun
looked slantways in upon them, opening a way into the heart of the
mist, like a rapier thrust by a master's wrist. The clouds dispersed
before the clear shining, as though it needed but that single stab
to prick the airy bladder of their pretension. The wreaths of vapor
trailed themselves away, breaking into steamy garlands and flat patches
with scalloped edges as they went. The blue sky stooped over on either
side and hooked itself permanently on to the blue sea-floor.
And lo! there they were at the south end of Suliscanna, and there was
the schooner _Sea Unicorn_ just coming out from her anchorage under
full sail within two hundred yards of them.
It was no use to row or to set the sail. Our three were so taken with
deadly apprehension that they sat quite still as the vessel approached.
The captain hailed them from his station by the helm, but neither Wat
nor Scarlett had the heart to reply. A boat was lowered, and in a few
moments Wat and Kate were being received on board the _Sea Unicorn_, of
Poole, by Captain Smith, her owner and master.
And there before them, as they looked across the deck from the side
up which they had come, were seated three people--a man of stately
presence, gray-headed and erect, a lady of doubtful years and charms
not wholly departed--and Barra.
The old man rose and came forward towards Kate with a strange
expression of apology and appeal on his face.
"Kate, my lass!" said he.
"My father!" cried the girl, taking, however, no step towards him, but
keeping her hold of Wat Gordon's hand.
But Wat was staring at the lady who sat beside Barra.
"My Lady Wellwood!" he said, in utter astonishment.
Barra smiled his thin, acrid, unmoved smile.
"You mistake, sir," he said; "not now my Lady Wellwood, but the fair
bride of Roger McGhie and the very charming mistress of his mansion of
Balmaghie."