WAS THE SEA KIND?
He lost consciousness in the attempt to drag himself and his companion
farther up the beach. His arms and legs refused to move in response to
his efforts, and the last he remembered was that his body was stiff and
he was absolutely powerless. When he again opened his eyes he was lying
on a grassy sward with spreading green branches above him. For some
minutes he lay perfectly still, dimly sensible that he was alive, but
utterly unable to fix his whereabouts. Through his brain there still
roared the awful waves; in his eyes there still lingered the vision of
the sea as it was when dawn first developed the picture.
Fearing that he could not lift his head, he rose to his trembling elbow.
His wide eyes swept the view before him. There was the sea not two
hundred yards down the slope, rushing and booming upon the stretch of
sand which reached within fifty feet of his grassy bed. Behind him grew
a forest of queer, tropical trees, the like of which he never had seen
before. His jacket had been rolled up as a pillow for his head; his
shoes and stockings were off, his shirt bosom unbuttoned. Two soggy life
preservers lay near by.
At last he caught sight of a woman, alone, forlorn, the picture of
despondency. Far down the beach to his right there rose a rugged, stony
formation, extending into the sea and rising several hundred feet in the
air. At the base of this rocky promontory a multitude of great boulders
lay scattered, some quite large and jagged, others insignificant
in size.
Upon one of the smaller stones, well up the slope, sat the figure of the
woman he had drugged from the sea and whom he had hated with his last
conscious breath. Her head was lying against the sheer wall that ran up
alongside, and he could tell that she was staring out toward the sea,
which roared against the rocks so close by that the spray must have
reached her feet. The distance to this rock was fully three hundred
yards. There was a fascination about her loneliness that held him
immovable for a long time. Finally he struggled to a sitting posture,
faint and dizzy. At the same moment she slowly turned her head and
looked in his direction. Half rising, she made a movement as if to come
toward him, first peering intently. Then she sank back upon the rock and
sent her gaze out to the sea again.
With all the haste he could command he scrambled eagerly toward the
rocks, carrying the crumpled jacket in his hand. Not once did she take
her eyes from the breakers. Tired and faint, he at last came to the edge
of the rocky pile. Here his strength failed him and he sank trembling
with exhaustion upon the first friendly stone, still a hundred feet from
where she sat. In his bitter rage against her he strove to shout, but
the effort was little more than a hoarse whisper. Lying there
impotently, he studied her attitude as the minutes crept by, and there
came at last into his heart a touch of pity that swelled with the
sight of her.
Pain-racked but determined, he again started toward the elevation,
crawling over and around the boulders that intervened. He was within
five feet of her before he spoke, and then not until he had studied her
face for some moments, steadying himself against a large rock. She was
more beautiful than ever with her black hair awry and matted, brushed
away from the pure white face and fastened recklessly with the shell
combs she had worn on board the _Tempest Queen_. Her blue eyes looked
mournfully from beneath their long lashes. The slender white hands lay
listlessly in the lap of the once white dress, now water-stained,
wrinkled and shapeless. In spite of all that dreadful buffeting by the
wind and water she was still the beautiful creation of nature he had
found so charming in a realm where nature seldom presents herself.
"Lady Tennys," he called hoarsely. "You do not know how I thank God you
are alive."
She turned slowly, as if she had known all along of his tortuous
approach. Her voice was low and thrilling.
[Illustration: "'LADY TENNYS, ... YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW I THANK GOD YOU
ARE ALIVE'"]
"I prayed for hours, it seemed, after we were dashed upon this shore,
that you might live and that I might die. The knowledge that you saved
me through mistake, that you were battling so long and so bravely all
through the night for the one you cherished more than all in the world,
made me pray from the first that I could be dead before you discovered
the horrid error. You picked me up when the crash came and I was too
terrified to even think of crying aloud in protest. Then we were in that
awful, awful water. It was not until hours afterward that I felt we
might escape find that I should have to face your grief." He reached up
and clasped her hand.
"Don't--don't talk like that now," he groaned. "I hated you this
morning, but--God, it is a relief to have you here to share all this
with me. God threw us into the sea and He has saved us. I would to God I
could have gone down with--with her, but--but--" and he broke down, his
head falling upon his outstretched arms at her feet. A deep sob from
Lady Tennys caused him to lift his haggard eyes to hers. "It would have
been so much better than to live without her," he cried.
"Why did you not let me go when you found who I was?" she cried almost
fiercely. "I wanted to drown, I was hungry to go to the bottom, to be
washed away to the end of the ocean, anywhere but here with you when you
thought you were saving her. You had forgotten that I existed until that
awful moment in the breakers. I heard her cry out to you as we went
overboard. All through the night I heard that cry of 'Hugh! Hugh!' It
was worse than the worst of deaths!"
At the mention of Grace's piteous cry, even though heard in
imagination, Hugh sank limply to the rock, his mouth falling open and
his eyes bulging forth in agony. Every drop of blood in his veins seemed
frozen with the realization that he had deserted her in that hour when
she had most needed him, that he had left her to go down to death
without being by her side, that she had cried out to him for help,--had
reached out to him in agony. Crazed by a sudden impulse, he sprang to
his feet and glared out over the tumbling waves,--ever moving mountains
that reached as far as the eye could see. She arose also, trembling
and alarmed.
"Where is she? Where is she?" he cried fiercely. "My God! Look at that
water! Grace, Grace! My darling, how could I have left you alone to die
in that hell of water! Let me come to you now, dearest. I will save you.
I will come! Hugh is coming, dearest! Look! She must be out there
somewhere. I can reach her if I try. I must go!"
Insane with despair, he leaped to his feet and would have dashed down
the steep into the death-dealing breakers had not his companion, with a
sharp cry, clutched his arm. He turned fiercely, ready to strike her in
his frenzy. His glaring eyes met hers, sweet, wide, and imploring, and
their influence told at once upon him. A rush of quiet almost benumbed
him, so immediate was the reaction from violence to submission.
"You must not do that!" she cried in horror.
"Let me save her, for God's sake. I cannot leave her to the sea."
"Be calm!" she wailed. "Hours ago I would have leaped into the sea
myself, but the thought came to me that she may not be lost after all.
There is something for you to live for."
"There is nothing. She is lost," he cried.
"As I stood here, I wondered if she might not have been saved as
miraculously as we. Wonder grew into hope and hope took the shape of
possibility. Hugh, she may be alive and as safe as we!"
His eyes brightened like a flash; his breath came quickly; he tried to
speak, but could not for the joy of hope.
"The hope that she may have been saved and may yet be given back to you
kept me from ending the life that did not belong to me, but to her. Hugh
Ridgeway, I have spent a thousand years on these rocks, trying to find
courage to live. But for me she would be standing here with you. You
would have saved her had I not been in the way last night," she
whispered. He could see that she suffered, but he was again blind to
everything but his own great despair.
"Yes," he cried savagely, "but for you I would have saved her. Oh, I
could curse you--curse you!" She shrank back with a low moan, covering
her eyes with her hands.
"Don't say that!" she murmured piteously. "I would to God I could have
gone down with the ship." His eyes softened and a wave of remorse
swept over him.
"Forgive me," he groaned, "I am mad or I could not have said that to
you. I did not mean it." He placed his hand on hers, clasping the
fingers firmly. "Forget that I spoke so cruelly. I devoutly thank God
that your life was spared. We both loved the one who was left behind."
She glanced down at his face doubtingly, unbelievingly, at first. Then a
gleam of joy flooded her tired eyes, illumined her face. Sinking down
beside him, she placed her head upon his shoulder and wept softly. He
did not move from his position on the rock below. His heart was full of
tenderness for the living and grief for the dead. His eyes stared out
over the sea wistfully.
"I cannot look at that water!" he suddenly shrieked, drawing back in
abject terror. "It is horrible! Horrible!"
He left her side and dashed madly away, strength having come with sudden
abhorrence. She looked after him in alarm, her eyes wide with the fear
that he was bereft of reason. Down the rocks and up the beach he fled,
disappearing among the strangely shaped trees and underbrush that marked
the outskirts of the jungle. Again she leaned back against the rock and
looked at the unfriendly billows beyond, a feeling that she sat deserted
forever on that barren shore plunging her soul into the very lowest pits
of wretchedness.
Hours afterward he crept painfully from the cool, lonely jungle into
the bright glare of the beach,--calmer, more rational, cursing no more.
A shudder swept over him, a chill penetrated to the marrow of his bones
as he looked again upon the sea. His eyes sought the rocks upon which he
had left her; his heart was full of an eagerness to comfort her and be
comforted in return.
She still sat upon the rock and he hurried toward her. As on his first
approach, she did not move. When he drew quite close, he discovered that
she was lying limply back against the supporting boulder. The fear that
she was dead and that he was left alone almost struck him to the ground.
He reached her side, pale and panting, and then breathed a prayer of
rejoicing.
Lady Tennys, her dark lashes resting tranquilly upon her cheek, was
lying easily against the staunch old rock, fast asleep.