WHEN the fishing boats came within half a cable’s length of the cutter,
Lord Innisfail gave up the tiller to Brian, who was well qualified to be
the organizer of the expedition, having the reputation of being familiar
with the haunts and habits of the seals that may be found--by such as
know as much about them as Brian--among the great caves that pierce for
several miles the steep cliffs of the coast.
The responsibility of steering a boat under the headlands, either North
or South, was not sought by Lord Innisfail. For perhaps three hundred
and fifty days in every year it would be impossible to approach the
cliffs in any craft; but as Brian took the tiller he gave a knowing
glance around the coast and assured his lordship that it was a jewel of
a day for a seal-hunt, and added that it was well that he had brought
only the largest of the fishing boats, for anything smaller would sink
with the weight of the catch of seals.
He took in the slack of the main sheet and sent the cutter flying direct
to the Northern headland, the luggers following in her wake, though
scarcely preserving stations or distances with that rigorous naval
precision which occasionally sends an ironclad to the bottom.
The man-of-war may run upon a reef, and the country may be called on
to pay half a million for the damage; but it can never be said that she
fails to maintain her station prescribed by the etiquette of the Royal
Navy in following the flagship, which shows that the British sailor,
wearing epaulettes, is as true as the steel that his ship is made of,
and a good deal truer than that of some of the guns which he is asked to
fire.
In a short time the boats had cleared the headland, and it seemed to
some of the cutter’s company as if they were given an opportunity of
looking along the whole west coast of Ireland in a moment. Northward
and southward, like a study in perspective, the lines of indented cliffs
stretched until they dwindled away into the gray sky. The foam line that
was curved as it curled around the enormous rocks close at hand, was
straightened out in the distance and never quite disappeared.
“Talk of the Great Wall of China,” said Lord Innisfail, pointing proudly
to the splendid chain of cliffs. “Talk of the Great Wall of China
indeed! What is it compared with that?”
He spoke as proudly as if he owned everything within that line of
cliffs, though he thanked heaven every night that he only owned a few
thousand acres in Ireland.
“What indeed--what indeed?” said Mr. Durdan.
One of the men thought the moment opportune for airing a theory that
he had to the effect that the Great Wall of China was not built by the
Chinese to keep the surrounding nations out, but by the surrounding
nations to keep the Chinese in.
It was a feasible theory, suggesting that the Chinese immigration
question existed among the Thibetans some thousands of years ago, to
quite as great an extent as it does in some other directions to-day.
But it requires to be a very strong theory to stand the strain of the
Atlantic waves and a practically unlimited view of the coast of Ireland.
So no discussion arose.
Already upon some of the flat rocks at the entrance to the great caves
the black head of a seal might be seen. It did not remain long in
view, however. Brian had scarcely pointed it out with a whisper to such
persons as were near him, when it disappeared.
“It’s the wary boys they are, to be sure!” he remarked confidentially.
His boldness in steering among the rocks made some persons more than
usually thoughtful. Fortunately the majority of those aboard the cutter
knew nothing of his display of skill. They remained quite unaware of the
jagged rocks that the boat just cleared; and when he brought the craft
to the lee of a cliff, which formed a natural breakwater and a harbour
of ripples, none of these people seemed surprised.
Lord Innisfail and a few yachtsmen who knew something of sailing, drew
long breaths. They knew what they had escaped.
One of the hands got into the punt and took a line to the cliff to moor
the yacht when the sails had been lowered, and by the time that
the mooring was effected, the other boats had come into the natural
harbour--it would have given protection--that is, natural protection,
to a couple of ironclads--no power can protect them from their own
commanders.
“Now, my lard,” said Brian, who seemed at last to realize his
responsibilities, “all we’ve got to do is to grab the craythurs; but
that same’s a caution. We’ll be at least an hour-and-a-half in the
caves, and as it will be cold work, and maybe wet work, maybe some of
their honours wouldn’t mind standing by the cutter.”
The suggestion was heartily approved of by some of the yacht’s company.
Lady Innisfail said she was perfectly satisfied with such local colour
as was available without leaving the yacht, and it was understood that
Miss Avon would remain by her side. Mr. Airey said he thought he could
face with cheerfulness a scheme of existence that did not include
sitting with varying degrees of uneasiness in a small boat while other
men speared an inoffensive seal.
“Such explanations are not for the Atlantic Ocean,” said Harold,
getting over the side of the yacht into the punt that Brian had hauled
close--Lord Innisfail was already in the bow.
In a short time, by the skilful admiralship of Brian, the other boats,
which were brought up from the luggers, were manned, and their stations
were assigned to them, one being sent to explore a cave a short distance
off, while another was to remain at the entrance to pick up any seals
that might escape. The same plan was adopted in regard to the great
cave, the entrance to which was close to where the yacht was moored.
Brian arranged that his boat should enter the cave, while another, fully
manned, should stand by the rocks to capture the refugees.
All the boats then started for their stations--all except the punt with
Brian at the yoke lines, Harold and Mr. Durdan in the stern sheets, one
of the hands at the paddles, and Lord Innisfail in the bows; for
when this craft was about to push off, Brian gave an exclamation of
discontent.
“What’s the matter now?” asked Lord Innisfail.
“Plenty’s the matter, my lard,” said Brian. “The sorra a bit of luck
we’ll have this day if we leave the ladies behind us.”
“Then we must put up with bad luck,” said Lord Innisfail. “Go down on
your knees to her ladyship and ask her to come with us if you think that
will do any good.”
“Oh, her ladyship would come without prayers if she meant to,” said
Brian. “But it’s Miss Avon that’s open to entreaty. For the love of
heaven and the encouragement of sport, step into the boat, Sheila, and
you’ll have something to talk about for the rest of your life.”
Beatrice shook her head at the appeal, but that wouldn’t do for Brian.
“Look, my lady, look at her eyes, aren’t they just jumping out of her
head like young trout in a stream in May?” he cried to Lady Innisfail.
“Isn’t she waiting for you to say the word to let her come, an’ not a
word does any gentleman in the boat speak on her behalf.”
The gentlemen remained dumb, but Lady Innisfail declared that if Miss
Avon was not afraid of a wetting and cared to go in the boat, there was
no reason why she should not do so.
In another moment Beatrice had stepped into the punt and it had pushed
off with a cheer from Brian. The men in the other boats, now in the
distance, hearing the cheer, but without knowing why it arose, sent back
an answer that aroused the thousand echoes of the cliffs and the ten
thousand sea birds that arose in a cloud from every crevice of the
rocks. Thus it was that the approach of the boat to the great cave did
not take place in silence.
Harold had not uttered a word. He had not even looked at Edmund Airey’s
face to see what expression it wore when Beatrice stepped into the boat.
“Did you ever hear anything like Airey’s roundabout phrase about a
scheme of existence?” said Mr. Durdan.
“It is his way of putting a simple matter,” said Harold. “You heard of
the man who, in order to soften down the fact that a girl had what are
colloquially known as beetle-crushers, wrote that her feet tended to
increase the mortality among coleoptera?”
“I’m afraid that the days of the present government are numbered,” said
Mr. Durdan, who seemed to think that the remark was in logical sequence
with Harold’s story.
Beatrice looked wonderingly at the speaker; it was some moments before
she found an echo in the expression on Harold’s face to what she felt.
The man who could think of such things as the breaking up of a
government, when floating in thirty fathoms of green sea, beneath the
shadow of such cliffs as the boat was approaching, was a mystery to
the girl, though she was the daughter of one of the nineteenth century
historians, to whom nothing is a mystery.
The boat entered the great cave without a word being spoken by any one
aboard, and in a few minutes it was being poled along in semi-darkness.
The lapping of the swell from the entrance against the sides of the
cave sounded on through the distance of the interior, and from those
mysterious depths came strange sounds of splashing water, of dropping
stalactites, and now and again a mighty sob of waves choked within a
narrow vent.
Silently the boat was forced onward, and soon all light from the
entrance was obscured. Through total darkness the little craft crept for
nearly half a mile.
Suddenly a blaze of light shot up with startling effect in the bows of
the boat. It only came from a candle that Brian had lit: but its
gleam was reflected in millions of stalactites into what seemed an
interminable distance--millions of stalactites on the roof and the
walls, and millions of ripples beneath gave back the gleam, until the
boat appeared to be the centre of a vast illumination.
The dark shadows of the men who were using the oars as poles, danced
about the brilliant roof and floor of the cave, adding to the fantastic
charm of the scene.
“Now,” said Brian, in a whisper, “these craythurs don’t understand
anything that’s said to them unless by a human being, so we’ll need
to be silent enough. We’ll be at the first ledge soon, and there maybe
you’ll wait with the lady, Mr. Wynne--you’re heavier than Mr. Durdan,
and every inch of water that the boat draws is worth thinking about.
I’ll leave a candle with you, but not a word must you speak.”
“All right,” said Harold. “You’re the manager of the expedition; we must
obey you; but I don’t exactly see where my share in the sport comes in.”
“I’d explain it all if I could trust myself to speak,” said Brian.
“The craythurs has ears.” The ledge referred to by him was reached in
silence. It was perhaps six inches above the water, and in an emergency
it might have afforded standing room for three persons. So much Harold
saw by the light of the candle that the boatman placed in a niche of
rock four feet above the water.
At a sign from Brian, Harold got upon the ledge and helped Beatrice out
of the boat.
The light of the candle that was in the bow of the boat gleamed upon the
figure of a man naked from the waist up, and wearing a hard round hat
with a candle fastened to the brim.
Harold knew that this was the costume of the seal-hunter of the Western
caves, for he had had a talk with Brian on the subject, and had learned
that only by swimming with a lighted candle on his forehead for a
quarter of a mile, the hunter could reach the sealing ground at the
termination of the cave.
Without a word being spoken, the boat went on, and its light soon
glimmered mysteriously in the distance.
Harold and Beatrice stood side by side on the narrow ledge of rock and
watched the dwindling of the light. The candle that was on the niche of
rock almost beside them seemed dwindling also. It had become the merest
spark. Harold saw that Brian had inadvertently placed it so that the
dripping of the water from the roof sent flecks of damp upon the wick.
He stretched out his hand to shift it to another place, but before
he could touch it, a large stalactite dropped upon it, and not only
extinguished it, but sent it into the water with a splash.
The little cry that came from the girl as the blackness of darkness
closed upon them, sounded to his ears as a reproach.
“I had not touched it,” said he. “Something dropped from the roof upon
it. You don’t mind the darkness?”
“Oh, no--no,” said she, doubtfully. “But we were commanded to be dumb.”
“That command was given on the assumption that the candle would continue
burning--now the conditions are changed,” said he, with a sophistry that
would have done credit to a cabinet minister.
“Oh,” said she.
There was a considerable pause before she asked him how long he thought
it would be before the boat would return.
He declined to bind himself to any expression of opinion on the subject.
Then there was another pause, filled up only by the splash of something
falling from the roof--by the wash of the water against the smooth rock.
“I wonder how it has come about that I am given a chance of speaking to
you at last?” said he.
“At last?” said she, repeating his words in the same tone of inquiry.
“I say at last, because I have been waiting for such an opportunity for
some time, but it did not come. I don’t suppose I was clever enough to
make my opportunity, but now it has come, thank God.”
Again there was silence. He seemed to think that he had said something
requiring a reply from her, but she did not speak.
“I wonder if you would believe me when I say that I love you,” he
remarked.
“Yes,” she replied, as naturally as though he had asked her what she
thought of the weather. “Yes, I think I would believe you. If you did
not love me--if I was not sure that you loved me, I should be the most
miserable girl in all the world.”
“Great God!” he cried. “You do not mean to say that you love me,
Beatrice?”
“If you could only see my face now, you would know it,” said she. “My
eyes would tell you all--no, not all--that is in my heart.”
He caught her hands, after first grasping a few handfuls of clammy rock,
for the hands of the truest lovers do not meet mechanically.
“I see them,” he whispered--“I see your eyes through the darkness. My
love, my love!”
He did not kiss her. His soul revolted from the idea of the commonplace
kiss in the friendly secrecy of the darkness.
There are opportunities and opportunities. He believed that if he had
kissed her then she would never have forgiven him, and he was right.
“What a fool I was!” he cried. “Two nights ago, when I overheard a man
tell you, as I had told you long ago--so long ago--more than a week
ago--that he did not want you to pass out of his sight--when I heard you
make the same promise to him as you had made to me, I felt as if there
was nothing left for me in the world. I went out into the darkness, and
as I stood at the place when I first saw you, I thought that I should be
doing well if I were to throw myself headlong down those rocks into the
sea that the rain was beating upon. Beatrice, God only knows if it would
be better or worse for you if I had thrown myself down--if I were to
leave you standing alone here now.”
“Do not say those words--they are like the words I asked you before
not to say. Even then your words meant everything to me. They mean
everything to me still.”
He gave a little laugh. Triumph rang through it. He did not seem to
think that his laughter might sound incongruous to her.
“This is my hour,” he said. “Whatever fate may have in store for me it
cannot make me unlive this hour. And to think that I had got no idea
that such an hour should ever come to me--that you should ever come to
me, my beloved! But you came to me. You came to me when I had tried to
bring myself to feel that there was something worth living for in the
world apart from love.”
“And now?”
“And now--and now--now I know that there is nothing but love that is
worth living for. What is your thought, Beatrice--tell me all that is in
your heart?”
“All--all?” She now gave the same little laugh that he had given. She
felt that her turn had come.
She gave just the same laugh when his feeling of triumph had given
place to a very different feeling--when he had told her that he was a
pauper--that he had no position in the world--that he was dependent upon
his father for every penny that he had to spend, with the exception of
a few hundred pounds a year, which he inherited from his mother--that it
was an act of baseness on his part to tell her that he loved her.
He had plenty of time for telling her all this, and for explaining his
position thoroughly, for nearly an hour had passed before a gleam of
light and a hail from the furthest recesses of the cave, made them aware
of the fact that other interests than theirs existed in the world.
And yet when he had told her all that he had to tell to his
disadvantage, she gave that little laugh of triumph. He would have given
a good deal to be able to see the expression which he knew was in those
wonderful eyes of hers, as that laugh came from her.
Not being able to do so, however, he could only crush her hands against
his lips and reply to the boat’s hail.
Brian, on hearing of the mishap to the candle, delivered a torrent of
execration against himself. It took Harold some minutes to bring
himself up to the point of Lord Innisfail’s enthusiasm on the subject of
seal-fishing. Five excellent specimens were in the bottom of the boat,
and the men who had swum after them were there also. A strong odour of
whiskey was about them; and the general idea that prevailed was that
they would not suffer from a chill, though they had been in the water
for three quarters of an hour.
As the other boats only succeeded in capturing three seals among them
all, Brian had statistics to bear out his contention that the presence
of Beatrice had brought luck to his boat.
He pocketed two sovereigns which Harold handed him when the boats
returned to the mooring-place, and he was more profuse than ever in his
abuse of his own stupidity in placing the candle so as to be affected by
the damp from the roof.
His eyes twinkled all the time in a way that made Harold’s cheeks red.
The judge found Miss Avon somewhat _distraite_ after dinner that
night. He became pensive in consequence. He wondered if she thought him
elderly.
He did not mind in the least growing old, but the idea of being thought
elderly was abhorrent to him.
The next day Beatrice and her father returned to their cottage at the
other side of the lough.