THE WEARY SANDS.
But the morning, rising cold and bright, though still misty, found
me on the rebound once more. The day, after all, is what we make it,
and I _would_ not think evil of so smiling a one. Mr. Sant was back,
even if we could not see him yet, and his mere neighbourhood was a
splint to a weak-knee’d conscience.
Uncle Jenico, though still oppressed with some odd premonition, some
formless concern about me, permitted himself to be reassured so far by
my high spirits as to let me go presently, with nothing more than an
earnest entreaty that I would take care of myself. I had told him
nothing about our proposed trip to the Weary Sands. It would have
served no purpose but to trouble him all day with anxiety as to our
return. I was glad to think, later, that I had not done so; that I had
sat content with him for an hour or two after breakfast; had kept him
chatting genially, and made him laugh; had taken a genuine bright
interest in the “Colossal Wrench,” an invention (which he was engaged
in perfecting at the time) somewhat on the principle of the Spanish
garrotte, for applying tremendous haulage to an object--the most
gratifyingly practical of all his inspirations, as you shall see. And
I was glad to think that when at last I had left him, well on in the
morning, in a sudden access of emotion he had kissed me, and then
driven me away with his stick, and a laugh, and the tears in his eyes.
I had been half shamefaced, it is true, at the moment; but presently
was to sentimentalize more over the memory than he had over the fact.
We were engaged, Harry and I, by arrangement for this day to the
convoying of Mr. Pilbrow about the place, in order to his making
acquaintance with its objects of interest. It was nothing, in fact,
but an excuse for a ramble; only, to give it a holiday complexion, we
had arranged to bring our lunch with us, and our visitor back to high
tea at the end of the jaunt.
I set forth about eleven o’clock for the Flask, where we were to meet.
The shadows of the previous night were dispelled. A still, shining
mist half hid and half revealed, like a bridal veil, the pretty face
of nature. There was a smile and a sparkle of gems through it all, and
I whistled, as happy as a blackbird, as I went. It was within three
mornings of Christmas, a time of peace and good-will, and I was
determined to let the day be sufficient for itself in evil without
troubling to force its hand.
On the wall of the inn I found a wonderful notice posted. It was
written crooked, in great black letters and without any stops, and ran
as follows:--
“Nekt Thrusday 26t Desrember there will be on Plaistoo Jingling
matches for Hats grinning thro coler Catching of a pig with the Tail
greazed climing of a pole of wemen Running For Snuff old Men for
tobakker there will be also a place receved for dancing and seats Will
be also receved for the Leadies there will be a band including marrow
bons and clever to conclude with a grand Exbitrition of Fire wax and
Cullerd bumps by J.F.”
Harry joined me while I was spluttering over this, and read the
exciting legend across my shoulder.
“I say,” he said, “Mr. Pilbrow’s in luck. He’ll think we’re a game
lot. I only hope the reaction won’t be too severe. But what does
‘bumps’ mean? Is Sant getting up a sparring match?”
“Bombs, you gaby,” I said, sniggering.
“Mighty!” said he. “Old Fleming’s going it. But won’t it be fun!”
Then he fell to a little gravity.
“By the way,” he said, “Sant hasn’t come home yet, and they don’t
expect him at the rectory till this afternoon.”
It was the first little damper on my serenity.
“O, well!” I said, with a sigh; “we shall be out for the day anyhow;
and it don’t make much difference if we can only get hold of him this
evening. You saw Rampick last night?”
“Yes,” he answered. “Bother Rampick for this day at least!”
We ran up in good spirits to Joshua, and in a little while were
launched upon our explorations. Our odd dry old companion was quite
excited, too, in his way. It was the most novel, most wonderful
experience to him, I think, thus to chaperon a couple of lively lads,
and be their favoured charge and mentor in one. He kept himself acrid
and reserved--it was the habit of his life; but a certain glistening
in his pale eyes, a spot of colour that established itself in his lean
cheek, spoke of some spark reawakening in those long-chilled ashes of
his soul underneath. There was even some glow of self-marvelling
enthusiasm in that haunting gaze of his, of which I found myself from
time to time the cynosure. It was like the glare of a remorseful ghost
coveting recognition in heaven’s nursery by its own child’s happy
spirit. “What human sympathy have I foregone and realized too late!”
it seemed to express.
We betook ourselves in the first place--by Joshua’s rather insistent
wish, but, secretly, against our own--to the ruins, and for an hour
poked about among them wearily, loitering after our guest, and
supplying, scarcely volunteering, all that of their history with which
we were acquainted--impersonally, that is to say. The truth is, the
place had become odious to us--as full of sordid significances as is a
house in which a murder has been committed, when we know ourselves
subpoena’d to give evidence on the crime. But naturally our companion
felt none of this, and was only absorbed and interested, so far as
appeared, in the archaeological testimony. Once, at the end, he
paused, as fatality would have it, close by the plinth and the
encumbered thicket. I glanced at Harry. _A second time, patiently and
scrupulously, had the hole been stopped, and the traces of our visit
effaced._
What did the man mean? Did he, in his diseased imagination, think thus
to convince us in the face of our actual experience? It was like
enough. His unnerving dreams are so real to the drunkard, he cannot
but think that others must see what he sees and be blind to what he
has successfully hidden from himself. He is like the ostrich in his
amazing digestion of both facts and fables, Whether he puts fire in
his stomach or his head in the sand, he is equally the confident and
incurable dupe of his own imagination.
Suddenly Joshua, after a prolonged reverie, half turned to us.
“Are there any legends of crypts, underground vaults, anything that we
have not seen about here?” he demanded.
I was startled; I could not order my thoughts. I mumbled out
involuntarily--
“I--there used to be a talk of smugglers.”
He turned upon me like a snapping dog.
“Smugglers! What about them?”
Harry glanced at me warningly.
“O!” I said, recovering myself with a flush, “it was an old tale when
we came, Mr. Pilbrow; and, since, the weather and the coastguard have
been knocking it to pieces between them.”
He stood thoughtfully rubbing his chin.
“So?” he murmured. “Knocking what to pieces?”
“Why, the tale,” said I; for I did not wish to be more particular.
I don’t know if he understood my reluctance. He did not persist in his
questions, anyhow, but lapsed into a brown study. He seemed to have
forgotten our presence.
“So it ever vanishes,” he muttered, with a stark and melancholy frown.
“From Dungeness to Spurn Head it is always the same. The past breaks
away and falls into the sea as I approach. The ghosts lead, the mirage
beckons me; and, behold! the precipice and the boom of waters where I
had thought a treasure house!”
He gave a sigh that was nothing less than heart-rending. A certain awe
and discomfort kept us mute. Here was some tragedy beyond our
guessing, but to which we were guiltily conscious that our
secretiveness contributed. Then in a moment he turned upon us with a
laugh in which there was not even a tinge of mirth.
“If there is any land too much in the world,” said he, “put me to walk
upon its shore, and it will vanish before me yard by yard. My breath
is blasting powder; my feet are earthquakes. I must drown if I live
long enough.”
He walked off towards the cliff, and paused at its edge, looking down
gloomily on the leaning shaft of the well.
“He is thinking of Abel and his book,” I whispered to Harry as we
followed.
Suddenly he turned to me, and put his arm through mine with an air
emotional and apologetic.
“Dear lad,” he said, “you mustn’t consider my moods. I talk to myself,
Richard--the bad habit of a lonely man. What is that thing, now? I
have wondered before this.”
I told him.
“Ah!” he said, with a bleak jocosity: “let well be. It should have
confronted me six years ago; and I see it only now, the moral of all
my wanderings. Yet in a good hour is it spoken, Richard, since chance
has brought me to your company again. Or is it destiny, which leading
me to neglect this scrap of shore hitherto, points its lesson at the
end with the broken shaft yonder? Let well be. I am hungry.”
So we sat down then and there and got out our provisions. They put
astonishing comfort into us, and we two boys, at least, grew
hilarious. Sound-livered and hardened, we took no thought of chill;
and indeed the weather for the time of year was balm. A light
glistening fog still slept over everything; there was no breath of
wind, and the whisper of the surf came up to us drowsily.
“Now, this wreck,” said Joshua presently: “where will it be?”
Harry jumped to his feet.
“Mighty!” he exclaimed. “We must be thinking of moving if we want to
pull out to it. Tide’s at ebb, Dicky, and near the turn. Thereabouts
it lies, Mr. Pilbrow, on the Weary Sands; but we can’t just make it
out in this haze.”
“Well, for the boat,” I said, scrambling up; and we all made for the
Gap together. It was then half an hour past midday.
“A bad time,” said I. “What fools we were not to think of it before!
There won’t be a soul about.”
There was one soul, however, it appeared--a gaunt solitary figure,
which, as we neared the head of the sandy slope, we could see
silhouetted against the sky--a figure, too, which, from its restless
craning attitude, one might have thought was expecting us.
Harry edged up to me, and was on the point of whispering, when he
caught Joshua’s eyes fixed upon him. He giggled, and looked silly.
“I was thinking, sir,” began he, “that that man there----” and then he
stopped.
“Well, what about him?” said the other.
“Why,” said Harry, so confused as to forget himself--“if--if you want
to know about smugglers, he’s the chap to tell you, that’s all.”
I nudged my friend.
“Well,” he muttered peevishly; “I’ve not said anything, have I?
Rampick can look after himself.”
Joshua did not answer, and we went on--and in the same moment Rampick
was gone.
But we saw him again when we came into view of the beach. He was down
by the water, ostentatious with a boat, which lay stern on to the
surf--the only man and the only craft handy in all the waste prospect.
Joshua stopped in admiration.
“A providence, it seems to me!” said he.
“We can’t go with _him_!” I muttered.
Our visitor looked at me in wonder.
“Why not?” he said.
How could I answer? That this seeming opportuneness was nothing more,
as I was convinced, than a deliberate self-appropriation by this man
of a scheme which he had overheard us discussing in the hall last
night? And what then, save a confession on his part of a good trading
instinct? I must find something better than that.
“He’s a drunkard,” I said, flushing. “He isn’t to be trusted, in my
opinion.”
“Why?” said Joshua. “Isn’t it his own boat?”
“O yes!” I answered; for it was, indeed--the single sound piece of
goods which Rampick had saved and clung to out of the wreck of his
past.
“Isn’t it big enough?” insisted the visitor.
“Quite big enough.”
“Why,” said Joshua, “a seaman never loses his legs but ashore. And we
are three to one, gentlemen. I’m small; but I’ll back myself for a rat
to grip. If it’s me you’re thinking of----”
Harry hung his head. I was ashamed to say more. It did seem ridiculous
that three vigorous bodies should be timorous of this one crazy oaf.
The half-truth made us out cravens, and the whole was impossible.
Nevertheless, the prospect of such a boatman for the trip quite took
off the edge of its pleasure. We followed Joshua hangdog, as he strode
down the Gap and across the beach.
“You’ve whetted my curiosity,” he said over his shoulder. “A drunken
smuggler should be good company.”
I scowled at Harry, dropping behind.
“Well, why didn’t you take upon yourself to answer him?” he muttered
viciously. “We’re in for a nice thing, it seems, knowing what we know.
It’ll be pleasant to have to hob-nob with the fellow, and a warrant
for his hanging like in our pockets!”
“He’s brought it on himself,” I answered. “He heard us last night; and
I’ll swear he’s been ready and waiting for us all the morning.”
“Well, look out for squalls, that’s all I can say,” said my friend;
and, as he spoke, we reached the boat.
Rampick, busy over it, never even looked up as we came. But I could
see his great hands trembling on the thwarts, as he leaned down.
“We want to pull out to the wreck, Mr. Rampick,” I faltered. “Can you
let us have your boat?”
I essayed to exclude him, as a last resource. He did not raise his
head, but answered in a heavy shaking voice from where he bent.
“Which it’s well known _to_ you, sir, that my boat and me don’t part
company.”
“It’s a special occasion, Mr. Rampick.”
He came up, with a sudden heaving together of all his bulk, and
subsiding rigidly backwards against the gunwale, stood breathing
softly, and staring with intense unblinking eyes, _not at us, but at
our companion_.
So a cat stares at bay, crouching before a watchful snuffing dog. I
don’t think he ever once looked at Harry or me. From that moment he
seemed to focus all the panic of his haunted soul on the stranger who
had come in our train. It was inexplicable, though in its way a relief
to us for the time being--the sort of relief one feels when some
deriding gutter urchin attracts from one to himself the unwelcome
notice of the town drunkard.
“_Which_, it’s well known,” he whispered breathless.
His demented gaze wandered from Joshua’s face to his knees, where it
fixed itself.
“‘And He said,’” he muttered, “‘Lazarus, come forth!’ And they found
the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. It’s come to it--a special
occasion. One _or_ the other of us. Boat, sir, yes. But I never done
it. _You_ ought to know--one, _or_ the other of us.”
“Then the other, by all means,” said Joshua, caustic but interested.
“My good man, we don’t want to separate you from your boat. If your
presence is indispensable, why, we’ll put up with it.”
Rampick, I could have thought, went a shade more livid. His dry lips
seemed to crackle under his hand as he passed the back of it over
them. Yet, strangely enough, I did not believe him drunk. He seemed
rather in that arid, aghast condition which, with such a man, bespeaks
a temporary abstinence.
Suddenly he heaved himself upright, and began heavily to busy himself
with preparations for launching his craft. We all lent a hand, and in
another minute, with a slide and a jump, were on board and slipping
easily over the shoreward swell.
Not then, when he had settled himself to his sculls, we being all
seated in the stern, did he for a moment take his eyes off our
visitor. Sympathetically, I shrunk under that concentrated stare; but
Joshua bore it unruffled. Still, there was something in the atmosphere
to freeze our loquacity. For a long time none of us spoke at all.
There had not been air enough to fill a sail; and the monotonous bump
and creak of the oars in the rowlocks beat a dreary accompaniment to
our depression.
At length Harry essayed a little weak conciliation.
“Tide’ll hold for us to land and see the wreck, won’t it, Mr.
Rampick?” he said.
His voice broke the spell, and to strange effect. The ex-smuggler did
not answer him; but he suddenly ceased rowing, and, resting on his
sculls, felt out with his foot, and kicked Joshua softly on the shins.
“What are you doing?” snapped the victim, jerking his insulted limbs
under him. “What do you mean, man?”
Rampick cowered where he sat.
“I see you walk, sir,” he said hoarsely. “I see you _with_ my own
eyes. It’s not in nature, is it? You was kep’ from it, I say--held by
the legs from rising. Who let you loose? Who patched you up to follow
me? My God, I’ll be even with ’em, I will!”
He was working himself up to a mad pitch of excitement. I half rose in
agitation, and looked behind me. We were already so far from the shore
that its line of cliffs was a mere blurred bank in the haze. But
Joshua, in the same instant, had seized the occasion to justify the
character he had given of himself.
“Silence!” he said, not loud, but in a tone like a vice. “Who speaks
of being out of nature, you crazy patch! Row on, and mind your
business, which is to take us to the wreck!”
The maniac creature shrunk, as quickly as he had flamed up, under the
bitter voice. Lowering and trembling he applied himself to his sculls
once more, and the boat sped on.
“Harry,” I whispered, pale and gulping. “Did you understand?”
“Yes. Him that lies with the pistol in the hill yonder. He thinks it’s
Mr. Pilbrow, and that we’ve set him free!”
He ended with an hysterical giggle. Here, in truth, it appeared, was
this bedlamite’s attitude towards our guest explained. The infection
of Harry’s laugh over the absurdity seized me. I struggled in vain to
control myself. In another moment we were both of us doubling and
rolling as if the devil were tickling our ribs.
Joshua expressed no surprise, but nodded intelligently as we gasped
ourselves sober again. He attributed our merriment, no doubt, to a
general sense of the ludicrous in this wretched creature’s wanderings,
of the likelihood of any significance or coherence in which he had, of
course, no idea. As for the man himself, he regarded Harry and me no
further than if we had been squeaking mice behind a wainscot; but sat
with his vision attached once more, and more cringingly than ever, to
the little wintry, venomous figure in the stern.
We recovered ourselves, half fearful, from our convulsion, feeling
rather, I think, like fugitives who had consciously betrayed their own
whereabouts. But the explosion, in fact, had relieved the air; and
thenceforth we began to talk together, moved by a common rebellion
against the moral tyranny of the depression which had held us
hitherto. But, for all that, it startled us near out of our skins,
when Joshua of a sudden turned upon Rampick, and asked him roundly if
he hadn’t any good smuggling yarns to recount to him.
“Of hidden stores, and black nights,” said he; “and the ground giving
up a sudden swarm of mushroom creatures, things squat and stealthy,
shouldering kegs?”
Rampick’s chest had seemed to fall in at the first word. It was
painful to hear his breathing. But he made no attempt to answer.
“Come!” said Joshua. “It’s fast confidences, man. You know what you
know. These young gentlemen have given you away--but no further than
to me, mind. Come! What happened underground in those days, before the
sea took its toll of the vaults?”
“Why, you should know, sir--_as_ well as me!”
Such a funny little voice, so strained and hoarse, like a cry at a
great distance. Joshua himself was startled by it, moved, perhaps, by
its distress. He persisted no further, but shrugged his shoulders, and
turned to address us again.
In the meanwhile we were approaching the wreck, which for some time
now had been visible to us. It hung oddly in the mist--suspended, as
it seemed, in the mid-haze of sky and water, like a wreck painted on
glass. Still, seen through that illusive medium, it appeared a
phantom, far-off thing, when to our surprise, grown absorbed as we
were in contemplation of it, our boatman gave a final stroke, and
finished on it with his sculls poised.
“No further?” said I, rising all excitement now. “Can’t you take us
any further, Mr. Rampick?”
I’ll swear that not once during our approach had he turned his head to
canvass our distance or direction. Old crafty smuggler as he was, he
had hit his mark blindfold as it were. Even as I spoke, I was aware of
something stretching its endless length across our course--a great
soft, iridescent fish-shaped bulk, as it might be a vast submarine
monster floating dead and motionless on the surface. It shone sleek
and fawny, and pitted with little blue scales of water; and in the
instant of my recognizing it, our boat had floated on, and, with the
way given it, had grated its nose softly in its flank.
Following the little shock and recoil, we were all on our feet.
“The sands!” whispered Harry, with glistening eyes. “That was clever
of you, Mr. Rampick.”
We did not, he or I, demur to our enemy’s silence. It would have made
no difference if we had. His regard, his consideration, were still all
for our companion.
Across the glimmering lifts of sand, the wreck, now we were brought
stationary, seemed to draw nearer and clearer--a phantom still, yet
claiming some foothold on this unreal reality of an amphibious little
continent. Only a broken poop it was, tilted up and its mighty
entrails spilt into the drift. Another storm, any rough weather, would
scatter it for ever; yet no plundered town could have stood a symbol
of more awful and pathetic desolation. The haze blurred and magnified
it to us where we stood; so that, huge relic as it was in reality, it
looked nothing less than gigantic. Gazing on it, its ruin and
isolation in that mist of waters, I felt as one might feel in
alighting on a fallen colossus in a desert.
“Are we to land here?” said Joshua, breaking through the spell which
had overtaken me.
“Aye,” answered the smuggler, in that one terse, low monosyllable, and
with his eyes never leaving the other’s face.
“Go, you,” said Joshua, turning briskly to us two. “I will wait here,
and take my turn when you’ve finished.”
We hesitated, questioning him with a dumb glance.
“Come!” he said. “The tide, as I reckon, don’t stand on ceremony.”
“Why should we any of us go, Mr. Pilbrow?” I spoke up quickly. “We can
see all we want to see from here.”
“Nonsense!” he said sharply. “Who’ll credit our adventure if we don’t
bring back her name?”
We still hung reluctant; but he drove us good-humouredly forward, and
out over the bow. Looking back, after we had leapt to the reeking sand
and were hurrying to cross it, I saw him still standing there, taut
and resolute, to wave us on.
“I don’t like it, Harry,” I said; “I don’t like it. And no more did
he, or he wouldn’t have stayed by Rampick. Let’s hurry all we can.”
“Well, come on!” panted my friend. “The quicker we’re there, the
quicker we shall be back.”
Yard by yard, as we traversed the broad spit of sand, the looming ribs
of the wreck seemed to shrink, and materialize, and take on outline.
And then, in a moment, with an involuntary gasp, we had pulled up, and
were standing staring. For between us and our quarry had come suddenly
into view an unguessed-at channel of dim water, a hundred feet it
might be across.
Harry wheeled.
“He’s done us!” he exclaimed. “He’s meaning some mischief, I’ll swear.
Come back, Dick!”
With the word we were running. For a moment the bulge of the drift hid
the boat from our view. The next, we had topped it, and breathed with
relief to see the figure of Joshua still standing up at the bow as we
had left him. For an instant only; and, in that instant, Rampick,
catching sight of our returning forms, rose hurriedly and stealthily,
with one of his sculls clubbed to strike. We screeched out together.
The warning was quick to save Joshua from the worst, but not from
secondary consequences. Instinctively he ducked, as the blade flashed
over his head; but the act toppled him from his balance, and he fell
from the boat prone upon the sand, from which he rolled down,
clutching, into the sea. In the same moment, Rampick, using the scull
he had swung for lever, pushed off from the bank, hurriedly seated
himself, and in a stroke or two was out at safe distance and in deep
water, where he held up, breathing stertorously as he regarded us.
By this time we were down at the edge, and, flinging ourselves flat,
had caught at Joshua’s hands, where they clawed and slipped in the
slobber of wet sand. The drift took the water at a deepish angle, but
it was firm above for knee-hold; and in a minute or two we had drawn
him up far enough to enable him to get a bite with his own nails, and
then the rest was easy. As he sat to recover himself, crowing and
spitting but not otherwise greatly discomposed, Harry jumped to his
feet, and hailed the madman furiously--
“Come back!”
Rampick, resting on his oars, chewed his dry lips for moisture, but
answered nothing.
“Come back!” screamed Harry; “or I’ll fetch you!”
He dropped, and slipped knee-deep into the water as he cried, as if to
verify his threat, insane one as he knew it to be. The sea was near
quiet as a mill-pond, and Rampick had only to pull a couple of
indifferent strokes to increase the distance between us by some
fathoms. I thought he was going to abandon us altogether and at once,
and in an agony hailed him on my own account--
“Mr. Rampick! why don’t you come back? You aren’t going to leave us to
drown here!”
He leaned forward, always watchful of us, and, groping under the
thwarts, fetched up a black bottle, which he uncorked and put to his
lips--a rejoicing swill. It gave him nerve and voice. He sagged down,
between maudlin and triumphant, and answered, with a hoarse defiant
laugh--
“I am, though!”
“Mr. Rampick!” I cried, “what have we done to you?”
He drank again. Every addition of this fuel made the devil roar in
him.
“Done!” he yelled. “See _how_ you done--_fur_ yourselves, my hearties!
You’d let him out, would you! You’d make the dead walk _to_ testify
agen me! I know you. You’ve plotted and schemed agen me from the
first, you parson’s whelps--and here’s what it come to. I was on the
way to salvation--_till_ you crossed me--once too often. The sands ’ll
keep my secret _and_ yourn. Let him out to walk, you will; but not to
swim--my God, I had you there--old Jole had you there, my bucks!”
He poured down more fire, and howled and drummed his feet in a
gloating frenzy.
“Had you there!” he shrieked. “You may quicken him out of fire--_out_
of rocks and fire; but you _fur_got as water squenches fire. Thought
old Jole crazy, did you--poor old Jole, whose fortunes went out in the
spark as him there lighted. And all the time he lay low _to_ get even
with you. _Has_ he done it? _Did_ he choose his time crafty? _Did_ any
one see us? When your drownded corpses comes in with the tide, who’ll
know the truth? Jole--and Jole can keep a secret, once all prying apes
is laid _from_ forcing his hand.”
He shook to the roaring of his own voice. The reverberating fire in
his brain deafened him to any reason, reassurance, protest. We cried
to him in our distraction to listen, only to calm himself and listen.
Our appeals could not penetrate the pandemonium in that maniac soul.
In the midst Joshua, all amazed and at sea as he was, rose to add his
entreaties to ours. The effect was disastrous. At the vision of him,
strung as if to fly, his coat-tails spread, the madman gripped his
oars convulsively.
“Lie down!” he screamed. “What’s death to you! I ain’t going to stop!
I never could abide the sight of it!”
And with the word he was pulling furiously away.
We still shrieked to him vainly. We ran up and down the sand. For the
moment I felt quite blind and delirious.
All was of no avail. Yard by yard the boat drew away into the
thickening mist; grew dim and dimmer, a phantom of itself; and, while
still the thump of its rowlocks drummed thickly into our ears,
vanished and was gone.
And then at last we came together, and, halting, looked into one
another’s pallid faces like dead souls meeting on the banks of Styx.