"O Sir Keith, you will pay no heed to that! It is very common; I have
heard them say it is very common. Why, to hear a brass-band, to be sure!
There is nothing more common than that. And you will not think you are
unwell merely because you think you can hear a brass-band playing!"
"I want you to tell me, Hamish," said he, in the same jesting way,
"whether my eyes have followed the example of my ears, and are playing
tricks. Do you think they are bloodshot, with my lying on deck in the
cold? Hamish, what do you see all around?"
The old man looked at the sky, and the shore, and the sea. It was a
marvelous thing. The world was all enshrouded in a salmon-colored mist:
there was no line of horizon visible between, the sea and the sky.
"It is red, Sir Keith," said Hamish.
"Ah! Am I in my senses this time? And what do you think of a red day,
Hamish? That is not a usual thing."
"Oh, Sir Keith, it will be a wild night this night! And we cannot stay
here, with this bad anchorage!"
"And where would you go, Hamish--in a dead calm?" Macleod asked, still
with a smile on the wan face.
"Where would I go?" said the old man, excitedly. "I--I will take care of
the yacht. But you, Sir Keith; oh! you--you will go ashore now. Do you
know, sir, the sheiling that the shepherd had? It is a poor place--oh
yes; but Duncan Cameron and I will take some things ashore. And do you
not think we can look after the yacht? She has met the equinoctials
before, if it is the equinoctials that are beginning. She has met them
before; and cannot she meet them now? But you, Sir Keith, you will
go ashore!"
Macleod burst out laughing, in an odd sort of fashion.
"Do you think I am good at running away when there is any kind of
danger, Hamish? Have you got into the English way? Would you call me a
coward too? Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense, Hamish! I--why, I am going to
drink a glass of the coal-black wine, and have done with it. I will
drink it to the health of my sweetheart, Hamish!"
"Sir Keith," said the old man, beginning to tremble, though he but half
understood the meaning of the scornful mirth, "I have had charge of you
since you were a young lad."
"Very well!"
"And Lady Macleod will ask of me, 'Such and such a thing happened: what
did you do for my son?' Then I will say, 'Your ladyship, we were afraid
of the equinoctials; and we got Sir Keith to go ashore; and the next day
we went ashore for him; and now we have brought him back to
Castle Dare!'"
"Hamish, Hamish, you are laughing at me! Or you want to call me a
coward? Don't you know I should be afraid of the ghost of the shepherd
who killed himself? Don't you know that the English people call me
a coward?"
"May their souls dwell in the downmost hall of perdition!" said Hamish,
with his cheeks becoming a gray white; "and every woman that ever came
of the accursed race!"
He looked at the old man for a second, and he gripped his hand.
"Do not say that, Hamish--that is folly. But you have been my friend. My
mother will not forget you--it is not the way of a Macleod to
forget--whatever happens to me."
"Sir Keith!" Hamish cried, "I do not know what you mean! But you will go
ashore before the night?"
"Go ashore?" Macleod answered, with a return to this wild bantering
tone, "when I am going to see my sweetheart? Oh no! Tell Christina, now!
Tell Christina to ask the young English lady to come into the saloon,
for I have something to say to her. Be quick, Hamish!"
Hamish went away; and before long he returned with the answer that the
young English lady was in the saloon. And now he was no longer haggard
and piteous, but joyful, and there was a strange light in his eyes.
"Sweetheart," said he, "are you waiting for me at last? I have brought
you a long way. Shall we drink a glass now at the end of the voyage?"
"Do you wish to insult me?" said she; but there was no anger in her
voice: there was more of fear in her eyes as she regarded him.
"You have no other message for me than the one you gave me last night,
Gerty?" said he, almost cheerfully. "It is all over, then? You would go
away from me forever? But we will drink a glass before we go!"
He sprang forward, and caught both her hands in his with the grip of a
vise.
"Do you know what you have done, Gerty?" said he, in a low voice. "Oh,
you have soft, smooth, English ways; and you are like a rose-leaf; and
you are like a queen, whom all people are glad to serve. But do you know
that you have killed a man's life? And there is no penalty for that in
the South, perhaps; but you are no longer in the South. And if you have
this very night to drink a glass with me, you will not refuse it? It is
only a glass of the coal-black wine!"
She struggled back from him, for there was a look in his face that
frightened her. But she had a wonderful self-command.
"Is that the message I was to hear?" said she, coldly.
"Why, sweetheart, are you not glad? Is not that the only gladness left
for you and for me, that we should drink one glass together, and clasp
hands, and say good-by? What else is there left? What else could come to
you and to me? And it may not be this night, or to-morrow night; but one
night I think it will come; and then, sweetheart, we will have one more
glass together, before the end."
He went on deck. He called Hamish.
"Hamish," said he, in a grave, matter-of-fact way, "I don't like the
look of this evening. Did you say the sheiling was still on the island?"
"Oh yes, Sir Keith," said Hamish, with great joy; for he thought his
advice was going to be taken, after all.
"Well, now, you know the gales, when they begin, sometimes last for two
or three or four days; and I will ask you to see that Christina takes a
good store of things to the sheiling before the darkness comes on. Take
plenty of things now, Hamish, and put them in the sheiling, for I am
afraid this is going to be a wild night."
Now indeed all the red light had gone away; and as the sun went down
there was nothing but a spectral whiteness over the sea and the sky; and
the atmosphere was so close and sultry that it seemed to suffocate one.
Moreover, there was a dead calm; if they had wanted to get away from
this exposed place, how could they? They could not get into the gig and
pull this great yacht over to Loch Tua.
It was with a light heart that Hamish set about this thing; and
Christina forthwith filled a hamper with tinned meats, and bread, and
whisky, and what not. And fuel was taken ashore, too; and candles, and a
store of matches. If the gales were coming on, as appeared likely from
this ominous-looking evening, who could tell how many days and nights
the young master--and the English lady, too, if he desired her
company--might not have to stay ashore, while the men took the chance of
the sea with this yacht, or perhaps seized the occasion of some lull to
make for some place of shelter? There was Loch Tua, and there was the
bay at Bunessan, and there was the little channel called Polterriv,
behind the rocks opposite Iona. Any shelter at all was better than this
exposed place, with the treacherous anchorage.
Hamish and Duncan Cameron returned to the yacht.
"Will you go ashore now, Sir Keith?" the old man said.
"Oh no; I am not going ashore yet. It is not yet time to run away,
Hamish."
He spoke in a friendly and pleasant fashion, though Hamish, in his
increasing alarm, thought it no proper time for jesting. They hauled the
gig up to the davits, however, and again the yacht lay in dead silence
in this little bay.
The evening grew to dusk; the only change visible in the spectral world
of pale yellow-white mist was the appearance in the sky of a number of
small, detached bulbous-looking clouds of a dusky blue-gray. They had
not drifted hither, for there was no wind. They had only appeared. They
were absolutely motionless. But the heat and the suffocation in this
atmosphere became almost insupportable. The men, with bare heads, and
jerseys unbuttoned at the neck, were continually going to the cask of
fresh water beside the windlass. Nor was there any change when the night
came on. If anything, the night was hotter than the evening had been.
They waited in silence what might come of this ominous calm.
Hamish came aft.
"I beg your pardon, Sir Keith," said he, "but I am thinking we will have
an anchor-watch to-night."
"You will have no anchor-watch to-night," Macleod answered slowly, from
out of the darkness. "I will be all the anchor-watch you will need,
Hamish, until the morning."
"You, sir!" Hamish cried. "I have been waiting to take you ashore; and
surely it is ashore that you are going!"
Just as he had spoken, there was a sound that all the world seemed to
stand still to hear. It was a low, murmuring sound of thunder; but it
was so remote as almost to be inaudible. The next moment an awful thing
occurred. The two men standing face to face in the dark suddenly found
themselves in a blaze of blinding steel-blue light, and at the very same
instant the thunder-roar crackled and shook all around them like the
firing of a thousand cannon. How the wild echoes went booming over
the sea!
Then they were in the black night again. There was a period of awed
silence.
"Hamish," Macleod said, quickly, "do as I tell you now! Lower the gig;
take the men with you, and Christina, and go ashore and remain in the
sheiling till the morning."
"I will not!" Hamish cried. "O Sir Keith, would you have me do that?"
Macleod had anticipated his refusal. Instantly he went forward and
called up Christina. He ordered Duncan Cameron and John Cameron to lower
away the gig. He got them all in but Hamish.
"Hamish," said he, "you are a smaller man than I. Is it on such a night
that you would have me quarrel with you? Must I throw you into
the boat?"
The old man clasped his trembling hands together as if in prayer; and he
said, with an agonized and broken voice:--
"O Sir Keith, you are my master, and there is nothing I will not do for
you; but only this one night you will let me remain with the yacht? I
will give you the rest of my life; but only this one night--"
"Into the gig with you!" Macleod cried, angrily. "Why, man, don't you
think I can keep anchor-watch?" But then he added very gently, "Hamish,
shake hands with me now. You were my friend, and you must get ashore
before the sea rises."
"I will stay in the dingy, then?" the old man entreated.
"You will go ashore, Hamish; and this very instant, too. If the gale
begins, how will you get ashore? Good-by, Hamish--_good-night!_"
Another white sheet of flame quivered all around them, just as this
black figure was descending into the gig; and then the fierce hell of
sounds broke loose once more. Sea and sky together seemed to shudder at
the wild uproar, and far away the sounds went thundering through the
hollow night. How could one hear if there was any sobbing in that
departing boat, or any last cry of farewell? It was Ulva calling now,
and Fladda answering from over the black water; and the Dutchman is
surely awake at last!
There came a stirring of wind from the east, and the sea began to moan.
Surely the poor fugitives must have reached the shore now. And then
there was a strange noise in the distance: in the awful silence between
the peals of thunder it would be heard; it came nearer and nearer--a low
murmuring noise, but full of a secret life and thrill--it came along
like the tread of a thousand armies--and then the gale struck its first
blow. The yacht reeled under the stroke, but her bows staggered up again
like a dog that has been felled, and after one or two convulsive plunges
she clung hard at the strained cables. And now the gale was growing in
fury, and the sea rising. Blinding showers of rain swept over, hissing
and roaring; the white tongues of flame were shooting this way and that
across the startled heavens; and there was a more awful thunder than
even the falling of the Atlantic surge booming into the great sea-caves.
In the abysmal darkness the spectral arms of the ocean rose white in
their angry clamor; and then another blue gleam would lay bare the great
heaving and wreathing bosom of the deep. What devil's dance is this?
Surely it cannot be Ulva--Ulva the green-shored--Ulva that the sailors,
in their love of her, call softly _Ool-a-va_--that is laughing aloud
with wild laughter on this awful night? And Colonsay, and Lunga, and
Fladda--they were beautiful and quiet in the still summer-time; but now
they have gone mad, and they are flinging back the plunging sea in white
masses of foam, and they are shrieking in their fierce joy of the
strife. And Staffa--Staffa is far away and alone; she is trembling to
her core: how long will the shuddering caves withstand the mighty hammer
of the Atlantic surge? And then again the sudden wild gleam startles the
night, and one sees, with an appalling vividness, the driven white waves
and the black islands; and then again a thousand echoes go booming,
along the iron-bound coast. What can be heard in the roar of the
hurricane, and the hissing of rain, and the thundering whirl of the
waves on the rocks? Surely not the one glad last cry: SWEETHEART! YOUR
HEALTH! YOUR HEALTH IN THE COAL-BLACK WINE!
* * * * *
The poor fugitives crouching in among the rocks--is it the blinding rain
or the driven white surf that is in their eyes? But they have sailors'
eyes; they can see through the awful storm; and their gaze is fixed on
one small green point far out there in the blackness--the starboard
light of the doomed ship. It wavers like a will-o'-the-wisp, but it does
not recede; the old Umpire still clings bravely to her chain cables.
And amidst all the din of the storm they hear the voice of Hamish lifted
aloud in lamentation:--
"Oh, the brave lad! the brave lad! And who is to save my young master
now? and who will carry this tale back to Castle Dare? They will say to
me, 'Hamish, you had charge of the young lad; you put the first gun in
his hand; you had charge of him; he had the love of a son for you: what
is it you have done with him this night?' He is my Absalom; he is my
brave young lad: oh, do you think that I will let him drown and do
nothing to try to save him? Do you think that? Duncan Cameron, are you a
man? Will you get into the gig with me and pull out to the Umpire?"
"By God," said Duncan Cameron, solemnly, "I will do that! I have no
wife; I do not care. I will go into the gig with you, Hamish; but we
will never reach the yacht--this night or any night that is to come."
Then the old woman Christina shrieked aloud, and caught her husband by
the arm.
"Hamish! Hamish! Are you going to drown yourself before my eyes?"
He shook her hand away from him.
"My young master ordered me ashore: I have come ashore. But I myself, I
order myself back again. Duncan Cameron, they will never say that we
stood by and saw Macleod of Dare go down to his grave!"
They emerged from the shelter of this great rock; the hurricane was so
fierce that they had to cling to one bowlder after another to save
themselves from being whirled into the sea. But were these two men by
themselves? Not likely! It was a party of five men that now clambered
along the slippery rocks to the shingle up which they had hauled the
gig, and one wild lightning-flash saw them with their hands on the
gunwale, ready to drag her down to the water. There was a surf raging
there that would have swamped twenty gigs: these five men were going of
their own free will and choice to certain death--so much had they loved
the young master.
But a piercing cry from Christina arrested them. They looked out to sea.
What was this sudden and awful thing? Instead of the starboard green
light, behold! the port red light--and that moving! Oh, see! how it
recedes, wavering, flickering through the whirling vapor of the storm!
And there again is the green light! Is it a witch's dance, or are they
strange death-fires hovering over the dark ocean-grave? But Hamish knows
too well what it means; and with a wild cry of horror and despair, the
old man sinks on his knees and clasps his hands, and stretches them out
to the terrible sea.
"O, Macleod, Macleod! are you going away from me forever? and we will go
up the hills together and on the lochs together no more--no more--no
more! Oh, the brave lad that he was! and the good master! And who was
not proud of him--my handsome lad--and he the last of the Macleods
of Dare?"
Arise, Hamish, and have the gig hauled up into shelter; for will you not
want it when the gale abates, and the seas are smooth, and you have to
go away, to Dare, you and your comrades, with silent tongues and sombre
eyes? Why this wild lamentation in the darkness of the night? The
stricken heart that you loved so well has found peace at last; the
coal-black wine has been drunk: there is an end! And you, you poor,
cowering fugitives, who only see each other's terrified faces when the
wan gleam of the lightning blazes through the sky, perhaps it is well
that you should weep and wail for the young master; but that is soon
over, and the day will break. And this is what I am thinking of now:
when the light comes and the seas are smooth, then which of you--oh,
which of you all will tell this tale to the two women at Castle Dare?
* * * * *
So fair shines the morning sun on the white sands of Iona! The
three-days' gale is over. Behold how Ulva--Ulva the green-shored--the
_Ool-a-va_ that the sailors love--is laughing out again to the clear
skies! And the great skarts on the shores of Erisgeir are spreading
abroad their dusky wings to get them dried in the sun; and the seals are
basking on the rocks in Loch-na-Keal; and in Loch Scridain the white
gulls sit buoyant on the blue sea. There go the Gometra men in their
brown-sailed boat to look after the lobster traps at Staffa, and very
soon you will see the steamer come round the far Cailleach Point; over
at Erraidh they are signaling to the men at Dubh-Artach, and they are
glad to have a message from them after the heavy gale. The new, bright
day has begun; the world has awakened again to the joyous sunlight;
there is a chattering of the sea-birds all along the shores. It is a
bright, eager, glad day for all the world. But there is silence in
Castle Dare!