HOW LOVE FOUGHT DEATH IN THE DARK
I woke from a very sound sleep with a start, and lay with a creeping of the
back and half asleep still, wondering what I had heard.
It was dark, with a blackness of darkness to be felt, and all was very
still, which meant that the tide was out, so it was probably early morning.
But it seemed to me that a sound unusual to the place lingered in my ear,
and I lay with straining senses.
It was not such a sound, it seemed to me, as Carette might have made in her
sleep or in wakening, but something altogether foreign and discordant.
Whether, in my sudden wakening, I had made some sound, I do not know, but
there had been heavy silence since. And in that thick silence and darkness
I became aware of another presence in the place besides our own,--by what
faculty I know not, but something told me that we were not alone. My very
hair bristled, but I had the sense to lie still, and there was in me a
great agony of fear lest Carette should move and draw upon herself I knew
not what.
Safety seemed to lie in silence, for I knew that other, whatever it was,
was listening as I was.
I held my breath, but my heart was thumping so that it seemed impossible
that it should not be heard. From the place where Carette lay I could not
hear a sound, not even the sound of her breathing.
I think I must have burst soon if that state of matters had continued.
Every drop of blood in my body seemed throbbing in my head just back of my
ears, and all the rest of me was cold and tense with the strain. It was
like waiting on a fearsome black day of thunder for the storm to break.
Then I heard a movement close to me where I lay on the ground, and, like
the lightning out of the thundercloud, there came the click of steel on
flint and I breathed soundlessly. It was, at all events, human.
And then my breath caught again. For the tiny lightning flash that came out
of the flint lit, with one brief gleam, the face of the man to whom my
death was as necessary as the breath of life,--whose presence there held
most dreadful menace for us both,--Torode of Herm.
For one moment life stood still with me. For here, in this close darkness,
were we three within arm's length of one another;--the man I had reason to
fear and hate above any other on earth, and the price of whose life was my
own, a price I would not pay; the woman whose life was dearer to me than my
own, for whom I would gladly pay any price, even the utmost; and myself, by
force of circumstances, the unwilling link that had brought them both
there, and the menace to both their lives, for Torode came for me and
Carette came with me.
The wheels of life began to turn for me again, and my hand felt stealthily
along the ledge at my side, where George Hamon's pistol had lain ever since
he gave it to me.
Thoughts surged in my brain like the long western waves in the Boutiques,
all in a wild confusion. This man had spared my life. He had come to take
it. Carette was at stake.
I knew what I had to do--if I could do it.
He struck again with the steel, and as he bent to blow the tinder into
flame his eye caught the gleam of it on Aunt Jeanne's polished milk-can. I
know not what he thought it. Possibly his nerves were overstrung with what
he had been going through. With an oath he dropped the tinder, and snatched
out a pistol, and fired in the direction of the can. And as the blaze lit
up the great black bulk of him I stood up quickly and fired also,--and,
before God, I think I was justified, for it was his life or ours.
The place bellowed with the shots, and the air was thick with smoke and the
sharp smell of powder. No sound came from the floor, and I stood holding
the pistol by the muzzle to strike him down again if he should rise. But he
did not move, and my fears were not for him.
"Carette!" I cried. "Carette!"
And my love rose suddenly with a cry and fell sobbing into my arms.
"Oh, Phil! Phil! What is it? I thought you were dead."
"Dieu merci, it is he who is dead, I think. We will see," and I managed a
light with my flint and steel and knelt down by the fallen man.
"Who is it?" asked Carette, breathless still.
"It is Monsieur Torode."
"Torode!" she gasped, and bent with me to make sure. "Bon Dieu, how came
he here?"
"That I don't know. This seems not the hiding-place Uncle George supposed.
I was wakened by his trying to strike a light, and I thought he was a
ghost."
I hoped he was dead, and so an end to all our fears from him. But I found
him still breathing, though but faintly, and he had not his senses. I
dragged him across to my bed and sought for his wound, and found it at last
in the head. Either the old pistol had cast high, or my sudden up-jump, or
his down-bending, had upset my aim. For the shot had entered the side of
his head at the back, just above the ear, and as I could find no hole
whence it had issued it was probably in his head still. The wound had bled
very little, but beyond his slow, heavy breathing he gave no sign of life.
On the floor, where he had fallen, I found a seaman's torch, which had been
lighted but was now sodden with water. He had probably dropped it or
dragged it in some pool as he made his way into the cave.
And, now that the hot anger and the fear of the man were out of me, and he
lay under my hand helpless to do us further harm, I found myself ready to
do what I could for him, since, unfortunately, he was not dead.
I took Uncle George at his word and broached one of his little kegs, and
found it most excellent French cognac, and mixing some with water in the
lid of the can, I prevailed on Carette to drink some too. We had both been
not a little shaken by these happenings, and the fiery life in the spirit
pulled us together and braced the slackened ropes. I dropped a little into
Torode also, and it ran down his throat, but he showed no sign of
appreciation, and I doubted the fine liquor was wasted.
Then, as there was no chance of sleep, I lit my pipe and found comfort in
it, and regretted that Carette had no similar consolation of her own,
though I do not take to women smoking as I have seen many of them do
abroad. But there was not even a crust to eat, so we sat and talked in
whispers of the very strange fate, or chance, or the leading of God, that
had brought Torode to us in this remote place into which we had fled to
escape him.
"But, Phil, however did he get here?" asked Carette. "For Uncle George said
that no living man--?"
"It was that made me think him a ghost," I said, "until I heard his flint
and steel, which no ghost needs."
"Did he come in the way we did?"
"He was standing just there when I woke. I'll go and look," and I crept
away down the narrow way till I found myself against the piled stones which
blocked it, and felt certain that no one had passed that way since George
Hamon went out and closed the door behind him. I heard the in-coming tide
gurgling in the channel outside, and returned to Carette much puzzled.
"He must have come by way of the Boutiques," I said, "for those stones have
not been moved."
"And yet Uncle George seemed certain that no one besides himself knew of
this place. 'No living man'--that is what he said."
"He'll be the more surprised when he comes," I said, and we left it there.
The sight of Monsieur Torode lying there like a dead man was not a
cheerful one, so we left him and went to our usual place by the water-cave.
And, when we came to the well, Carette said, "Ugh! it looks as if it knew
all about it," and the bulging eye of the spring goggled furiously at us as
we passed.
We had nothing to eat all that day, but drinks of water, mixed now and then
with a little cognac. For myself it did not matter much, for I had my pipe,
but I felt keenly for Carette. She would not admit that she was hungry, but
during the afternoon she fell asleep leaning against me, and I sat very
still lest I should waken her to her hunger. And her face as it lay against
my arm was like the face of a saint, so sweet and pure and heedless of the
world.
It was I awoke her after all.
I was pondering whether we should not make our way out by the tunnel, for
if we stopped there much longer we should starve. And the idea had struck
me all of a heap, that if any ill had befallen George Hamon or my
grandfather we might wait in vain for their coming, when a shout came
pealing down the long and narrow cleft of the cave--
"Carré! Phil Carré!"
I thought it was George Hamon's voice, and the start I gave woke Carette,
and we set off for the rock parlour.
Before we got there the shouts had ceased, and in their place we heard a
torrent of amazed oaths and knew that Uncle George had lighted on Torode.
"Dieu-de-dieu--de-dieu-de-dieu-de-dieu!" met us as we drew near. "What in
the name of the holy St. Magloire is this?" cried he, as soon as he saw us.
He had lit his lantern, his head was bound round with a bloody cloth and
he was bending over the bed.
"We had a visitor," I said jauntily, for the sight of him was very
cheering, even though he seemed all on his beam-ends, and maybe the sight
of a basket he had dropped on the ground went no small way towards
uplifting my spirits.
"Thousand devils!" he said furiously,--and I had never in my life seen him
so before.--"A visitor!--Here! But it is not possible--"
I pointed to the wounded man. "It is Monsieur Torode from Herm. We had a
discussion, and he got hurt."
"Torode!" he said, and knelt hastily, and held his lantern so that the
light fell full on the dark face, and peered into it intently, while we
stood wondering.
His eyes gleamed like venomous pointed tools. He stared long and hard. Then
he did a strange thing. He put his hand under Torode's black moustache and
folded it back off his mouth, and drew back himself to arm's length, and
stared and stared, and we knew that some strange matter was toward.
And then of a sudden he sprang back with a cry,--great strange cry.
"My God! My God! it is he himself!--Rachel!" and he reeled sideways against
the wall.
"Who?" I asked. And he looked very strangely at me, and said--
"Your father,--Paul Martel," and I deemed him crazy.
"My poor Rachel!" he groaned. "We must hide it. She must not know. She must
never know. My God! Why did I blab it out?"
"Uncle George!" I said soothingly, and laid my hand on his shoulder, for I
made sure his wound had upset his brain.
"Give me time, Phil. I am not crazy. Give me time. Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!" and
he sat down heavily with his head in his hands.
And we, not understanding anything of the matter, but still much startled
at the strangeness of his words and bearing, nevertheless found the size of
our hunger at sight of the basket he had brought, and fell to on its
contents, and ate ravenously.