A PERILOUS TASK
Rufus reached a point at length from which he was able to look down on
the prostrate figure of Madeline Grover. She was lying almost flat on
her face, with her right hand thrust into a cleft of the rock.
For several minutes no word had passed between them. She was afraid to
ask any more questions lest she should hear from his lips that her case
was hopeless. He was afraid to buoy her up with empty words that would
end in nothing.
She could hear distinctly the sound of his footsteps as he threaded his
way in and out among the pinnacles of rock, she could even hear his
breathing at times. She knew when he stood above her without being told.
That there was peril in his enterprise she knew. He was risking his life
to save hers. He, a stranger, upon whom she had not the smallest claim.
It was a brave and generous thing to do, and she began to doubt whether
she ought to allow him to take such risk.
His life was of infinitely greater value than hers--at least, so she
told herself. He was a man and might accomplish something great for the
race. She was only a girl, and girls were plentiful, and a good many of
them useless, and she was not at all sure that she did not belong to the
latter class. At any rate, she had never done anything yet, had as a
matter of fact, never been expected to do anything, and if she lived
till she was a hundred she was not sure that she would ever be able to
do anything that would be of the least benefit to the world.
She was the first to break the silence. "Don't risk your life for my
sake," she said, and she managed to keep all trace of emotion out of her
voice.
"And why not?" he asked.
"I am not worth it," she replied. "I had no business to get into
danger."
"You did not know the risks you ran," he replied, kindly.
"I might have known; I had been warned often enough."
"We have all to learn by experience," he said, with a short laugh. "Now
let us get to work."
"What do you want me to do?" she asked.
"Get on to your feet, if possible. Don't open your eyes, and keep your
face towards the cliff. Do you understand?"
"Yes, I understand, and I will try."
"Take your time over it," he said, cheerfully. "I expect you feel pretty
stiff, don't you? Slip your right hand up the crevice. I will be eyes
for you, and tell you what to do."
She obeyed him implicitly. His firm, resolute voice gave her courage.
The nearness of his presence imparted strength and determination. If she
felt a coward she would not let him see it. He might not feel any great
admiration for her, that was not at all likely, since she had acted so
foolishly, but she hoped he would not feel contempt.
She stood at length upright with her face against the cliff.
"Now don't open your eyes," he said, "and please do what I tell you."
"I am in your hands," she replied.
"You will be directly, I hope," he answered, with a laugh, "but in the
meanwhile move slowly in this direction."
"That's right," he continued, a little later. "Come on, I will tell you
when to stop."
She sidled on steadily inch by inch, while he watched her with
fast-beating heart.
"That will do," he said at length. "Now reach out your left hand as far
as possible."
She obeyed at once, and a moment later he held it in his own firm grasp.
The colour came into her face when she felt his fingers close round
hers, and her heart beat perceptibly faster.
"So far, so good," he said, cheerily. "Now the next step is not with
your hand, but with your foot. It will be a very long stride for you,
but you've got to do it. Don't open your eyes. And in the first place
lean as far as you dare in this direction."
She obeyed him instantly. "That will do," he called. "Now just on a
level with your chin is a hole in the rock. Get your right hand into it,
if you can, and hold tight."
"That's right," he said, brightly. "Now for the long stride."
She began very slowly and carefully. Her heart was thumping as though it
would come through her side. She knew that beneath her was empty space.
"That's right," he went on, "just a little farther--another inch--a
quarter of an inch more; there you are! Don't speak and don't open your
eyes. When you are ready let me know. Push your foot a little farther on
the ledge if you can--that is it. It will be a big effort for you, but I
have you fast on this side. Bend your body forward as much as you can.
When you are ready, say so, and give a lurch in this direction, letting
go with your right hand at the same moment. Do you understand?"
"Yes." The answer came in a whisper.
It was an awful moment for both. She drew a long breath, and cried
"now." For a second she seemed poised in mid-air.
"Lean forward," he almost shrieked.
She clutched eagerly at the bare rocks in front of her, but there was
nothing she could grasp.
Rufus felt his heart stop.
"Open your eyes," he cried, "and spring." It was her last chance, the
last chance for both, in fact, for if she fell she would drag him with
her.
Her confidence in him was absolute. She did in a moment what she was
told. He pulled her towards him with a jerk that nearly dislocated her
shoulder. Then both his arms closed round her, and he sank back into a
deep and safe recess behind a large pinnacle of rock.
For several minutes she lost consciousness. Her head drooped upon his
shoulder, her cheeks became as pale as the dead.
He would have given all he possessed at that moment to have kissed her
lips. It was the strongest temptation that ever came to him. It was the
first time in his experience that so beautiful a face had been so close
to his own, and the impulse to claim toll was all but irresistible; but
he fought the temptation, and conquered. He felt that it would be a
cowardly thing to do.
His reverence for women was one of the strongest traits in his
character. Felix Muller had told him more than once in his cynical way
that he reverenced women because he did not know them. Rufus admitted
that it might be so; but his reverence remained. It was nearly all that
was left of his early religious faith--a remnant of a complicated creed,
but it influenced his life more profoundly than he knew.
He watched the colour come slowly back into Madeline's pale face with
infinite interest. How beautiful she was, how finely pencilled were her
eyebrows, how perfect the contour of her dimpled chin. Her hair had
become loose, and a long rich tress sported itself over the sleeve of
his coat. The slanting sunlight played upon it, and turned it to bronze,
and then to gold.
Her eyelids trembled after a while, then she opened them slowly, and
looked up into his face, with a wondering expression, then her lips
parted in a smile. A moment later she sat up, while a wave of crimson
mounted suddenly to her face.
"I am so sorry to have given you so much trouble," she said, hurriedly.
"Let us not talk about that until we get safe down from this height," he
said, with a smile.
"Oh! I was forgetting," she said, with some little confusion. "But the
rest is comparatively easy, isn't it?"
"Comparatively," he replied. "But there are several very awkward places
to be negotiated."
"It was wicked of me to put any one to so much trouble and risk. I do
hope you will forgive me," and she looked appealingly up into his face.
"I hope you will not talk any more about trouble," he answered. "To have
served you will be abundant compensation."
"It is kind of you to say nice things," she answered, looking at the
yellow sand below; "but I feel very angry with myself all the same. You
told me when we met on the top weeks and weeks ago that the cliffs were
very dangerous. I don't know what possessed me to think I could climb to
the top."
"You are not the first to make the attempt," he answered. "A visitor was
killed at this very point only last summer."
"A girl?"
"No, a young man."
"I shall never attempt to do anything so foolish again, and I shall
never forget that but for you I should have lost my life. It was surely
a kind providence that sent you; don't you think so?"
"Do you think so?" he questioned, with a smile.
"I would like to think so, anyhow," she answered, seriously. "And yet it
sounds conceited, doesn't it? If I were anybody of importance it would
be different. I don't wonder you smile at the idea of providence
interfering to save a chit of a girl after all."
"I don't know that I smiled at the idea," he answered, turning away
his head. "If there is any interference or any interposition in human
affairs, why should not you be singled out as well as anybody else?"
"Well, you see, it would presuppose, wouldn't it? that I was a person of
some value, or of some use in the world?"
"You may be of very great use in the world."
"Ah! now you flatter me. What can an ordinary girl do?"
"I do not know," he answered. "We none of us can tell what lies hidden
in the chambers of destiny. You may be----"
"What?"
"I cannot say."
"But you were going to mention something."
"Second thoughts are sometimes best," and he turned his head, and smiled
frankly in her face.
"Now you are tantalising," she said, with a laugh; "but I will not find
fault with you. I cannot forget how much you have risked for my sake."
"Had we not better try and complete the journey?" he questioned. "We are
not out of the wood yet, and the tide is coming in rapidly."
She rose slowly to her feet, and steadied herself against the cliff. She
was very stiff and cramped, and a good deal bruised.
He followed her example with a hardly suppressed groan.
"Are you hurt?" she asked, looking at him eagerly.
"Not at all," he answered, gaily. "A few scratches, but nothing to speak
of. Now let me walk in front, and you can lean on my shoulder."
Neither spoke again for a long time. Rufus picked his way with great
caution, and she was too frightened to run any more unnecessary risks.
They were within a dozen feet or so of the beach, and he with his back
to the sea was helping her down a slippery bit of rock, when suddenly a
stone gave way beneath his foot, and he was precipitated to the bottom.
Feeling himself going he let go her hand, or he would have dragged her
with him. With a little cry of alarm she sat down to save herself, while
he disappeared from sight.
She was on her feet, however, in an instant, and scrambled quickly down
to his side. He was lying on a broad slab of rock with his right leg
doubled under him.
"Are you hurt?" she asked, eagerly and excitedly.
"A little," he answered with a pitiful smile.
She came and knelt by his side, and took his hand in hers. "Cannot I
help you to get up?" she inquired.
"I am not sure," he said, pulling a very wry face. "I'm very much
afraid I shall have to lie here until you can get assistance. You see it
is my turn now."
"But what is the matter?" she asked, eagerly.
"I fear my leg is broken," he said, knitting his brows, as if in pain.
"Something went with a snap, and I'm afraid to move."
"But you cannot lie here," she said, "for the tide is coming in. Oh! let
me help you to get up. Do try your best."
"I will, for your sake," he answered, and he smiled at her in a way she
never forgot.
"Oh, I shall never forgive myself," she said, chokingly, and the tears
filled her eyes, and rolled down her cheeks. "All this comes of my
stupid folly!"
"No, you must not blame yourself," he insisted. "You could not help the
stone giving way. Now give me your hand. How strong you are! There, I'm
in a perpendicular position once more," but while he spoke he became
deathly pale, and the perspiration stood in big drops on his brow.
"Lean on me," she said; "lean all your weight on me."
He smiled pitifully, but he could not trust himself to speak.
He put his right arm about her neck, and used her as a crutch. This was
no time to stand on ceremony. But the pain was too intolerable to move
more than a few steps. With a groan he fell against the sloping foot of
the cliff. "You must leave me here," he said, with a gasp.
"Leave you here?" she cried. "Why you will drown."
"We shall both drown if you stay," he answered.
"It doesn't matter about me a bit," she wailed, and she brushed away the
blinding tears with her hand. "But you--you--oh! you must be saved at
all costs."
"Perhaps, if you make haste you will be able to get help before it is
too late," he said.
"But how? Oh! I will do anything for you. Tell me what I can do for the
best."
"Make your way into town as fast as you can. Tell the first man you meet
how I am situated. Let one party come round here with a boat, and
another party come over the cliffs with a stretcher. Everything depends
on the time it takes."
"Oh! I will fly all the distance," she said, with liquid eyes; "but who
shall I say is hurt? I do not even know your name."
"Rufus Sterne," he answered. "Everybody in St. Gaved knows me."
She looked at him for a moment, pityingly, pleadingly, then rushed away
over the level sand in the direction of Penwith Cove. She forgot her
bruises and stiffness, and did not heed that every step was a stab of
pain.
Rufus Sterne was lying helpless--helpless because he had risked his life
to save her from the consequences of her folly. And all the while the
tide was coming in, and he would be watching it rising higher and
higher, and if help did not reach him before the cold salt water swept
over his face, he would be drowned, and she would be the cause of his
death.
How she climbed the zig-zag path out of Penwith Cove she never knew. She
ran and ran until she felt as though she could not go a step farther
even to save her life, and if her own life only had been at stake she
would have lain down on the cliffs and taken her chance.
But it was _his_ life that was in jeopardy, and to her excited
imagination his life seemed of more value than the lives of a hundred
ordinary people.
She had read of heroes in her girlhood days, and thrilled over the story
of their exploits, but no hero of fact or fiction had ever so touched
her heart as this lonely man who was lying helpless at the foot of the
cliffs, watching with patient and suffering eyes the inflowing of the
tide.
"Oh! he must be saved," she kept saying to herself, "for he deserves to
live. And I must be the means of saving him."
She stumbled into St. Gaved rather than ran. Her hat had disappeared,
her glorious hair fell in billows on her shoulders and down her back,
her eyes were wild and tearless, her lips wide apart, her breath came
and went in painful gasps. She nearly stumbled over one or two children,
and then she pulled up suddenly in front of a policeman.
Constable Greensplat stared at her as though she had escaped from Bodmin
lunatic asylum.
"There's--not--a--moment--to--be--lost," she began, and she brought out
the words in jerks. "Rufus Sterne is lying with a broken leg at the foot
of the cliffs half-way between here and Penwith Cove."
Then she staggered to a lamp-post and put her arm round it. A small
group of people gathered in a moment.
"How did he break his leg?" Greensplat asked, putting on an official
air.
"He slipped over a rock," she answered; "but there's no time for
explanations. The tide is coming in, and if he's not rescued quickly
he'll be drowned. He told me to ask that one party go round with a boat,
and the other go over the cliffs with a--a stret----" But she did not
finish the sentence. The light of consciousness went out like the flame
of a candle before a sudden gust of wind. She reached out her hands
blindly and appealingly, staggered toward the nearest house, and before
anyone could reach her side she fell with a thud, and lay in a dead
faint on the floor.