THE OLD MILL COVE
He had known the mill all his life; at least he believed he had. He had
gazed upon that awesome black ruin, keeping watch and ward over the
wicked little cove below it, like some sentinel on guard over a
dangerous criminal, with wide, childish eyes, and a mind full of
terrified speculation. He had known it later, when, with boyish
bravado, he had flouted the horrific stories of a superstitious
countryside, and explored its barren, ruined recesses. He had known it
still later, when, with manhood's eyes opening to a dim appreciation of
all those things which have gone before in the great effort of life, he
had seen in it a picturesque example of the endless struggle which has
gone on since the dawn of life.
So he thought he knew it all.
Now the limitations of his knowledge were forcing themselves upon him.
Now he was realizing that there were secrets by the score in those
every-day things which a lifetime of contact may never reveal. The
strangeness of it all set him marvelling. The limitations of human
understanding seemed extraordinarily narrow.
He gazed down into the gaping cavity beneath his feet, and, by the dim
rays of a lighted lantern, counted the worn stone steps until the
darkness below swallowed up their outline.
Ruxton Farlow straightened himself up and glanced about him at the bare
stone walls, from the joints of which the cement had long since fallen.
He looked up at the worm-eaten, oaken rafters which had stood the wear
of centuries. The flooring which they supported had long since fallen
into decay, and he only wondered how much longer those sturdy oaken
beams would continue to support the colossal weight of the millstones
now resting from their grinding labors.
Through the rents which time and weather had wrought he saw the warm
glow of daylight above, for all was ruin in the great old mill, ruin
within and without. As it was with the walls of stone, and the great
tower of woodwork above them, so it was with the outbuildings beyond
the doorway, within which he stood. The walls remained, heavily
buttressed by the hardy hands of a race of men who had understood so
well the necessity for fortifying their homes against all
eventualities, but the timbers of the roofs had long since fallen
victims to the inclemencies of the seasons and the ruthless
"North-easters" which, probably, since the time when the iron shores of
Britain first emerged from beneath the waters, had beaten their
relentless wings against the barrier which held up their freedom.
Ruxton set his lantern on the ground and moved away to the wide
doorway, which no longer possessed the remotest sign of the old wooden
doors which had probably been at one time heavy enough to resist a
siege. Here he drew a letter from his pocket and read it carefully over
by the light of the sunset.
"Dear Mr. Farlow:
"I never knew your wonderful coast could be so interesting, even
absorbing. I feel I owe you personal thanks for a delightful time,
simply because you live--where you live. I have discovered a most
wonderful spot. I say discovered, but probably you have known it from
the days when you were first able to toddle about by yourself. However,
I must tell you of it. It is an old, old, ruined mill, regarded by the
folks on your coast as an evil place which is haunted by the spirits of
the smugglers who once upon a time used it as the headquarters for
their nefarious trade. But the incredible part of it is we unearthed a
secret in it which has remained hidden for generations, possibly
centuries. Now listen carefully and I will tell you of this secret. In
the middle of the stone chamber under the mill there is the entrance to
a passage which communicates with that villainous cove over which the
evil eye of the old mill forever gazes. Six inches beneath the surface
of the debris on the floor there is a slate slab, and, on raising this,
you will discover a stone staircase which goes down, down,--follow it,
and you shall see what you shall see. I have since discovered that this
is the _only means of reaching the beach of the cove--unless you
possess wings_. But I began this note with the intention of only
telling you how much I am looking forward to seeing you again on
Thursday evening at eight o'clock. I do hope you are taking full
advantage of your vacation from parliamentary work, and are storing up
plenty of good health upon your wonderful, wonderful moors.
"Yours very sincerely,
"Vita Vladimir."
Ruxton refolded the letter and put it away. He understood it was the
final summons to that great adventure which was to tell him of the
threat overshadowing his beloved country.
He had obeyed it readily, eagerly, and now that the reality of the
whole thing was developing he paused to consider the motives urging him.
He was going to witness things first hand. He was glad. His
understanding of duty assured him that it was the only means by which
he could hope to convince others, when the time came. But was this his
sole motive? Was this the motive which had inspired that feeling of
exaltation when he first read the perfumed note, so carefully written
lest it should fall into wrong hands? He knew it was not.
His eyes were raised to the glistening sea away beyond the cove. He was
gazing straight out through the narrow opening of the cove where the
precipitous cliffs rose sheer out of the blue waters and marked the
entrance which the country-folk sensationally loved to call "Hell's
Gate." His mind was searching and probing the feelings which inspired
him, and he knew that the beckoning hand of the woman was exercising a
greater power than any sense of duty. He did not blind himself. He had
no desire to. Those dark Slavonic eyes of his were wide and bright, and
the half smile of them was full of an eager warmth. The idealist mind
behind them was widely open to its own imagery. He saw through those
Hell's Gates the perfect, palpitating figure which had poured out its
burden of soul to him on the edge of those very cliffs; and she
was--beckoning.
The youth of him had been engulfed in the soul of the woman. Nor, as
yet, did he realize the extent of the power she was exercising. All he
knew was that he had neither the power nor desire to resist the
summons, and herein lay the distinguishing mark of those whom Destiny
claims.
After a few moments he glanced at his watch. And at once the alertness
of the man was displayed. It was twenty minutes to eight, and shortly
after eight it would be low tide. The appointment had been made with
regard to that, and that while he approached from the land, she would
come by water. Therefore he must not delay.
Dismissing every other consideration he turned back to the mysterious
stairway he had unearthed and began its descent, aided by the light of
the lantern he had discovered secreted upon the top step, ready for his
use.
His progress was rapid and easy. The vaulted, declining passage beneath
the mill was high and wide, and constructed of masonry calculated to
withstand the erosion of ages. It was moist and slimy, and the steps
were at times slippery, but these things were no deterrents.
The stairway, however, seemed endless in the dim lantern light, and by
the time he had completed the journey he had counted upwards of one
hundred steps. At the bottom he paused and looked back up the way he
had come, but, in the blackness of the tunnel, his light revealed
little more than the first few steps.
Without further pause he turned to ascertain the nature of the place
upon which the stairway had debouched. It was a wide and lofty cavern
of Nature's fashioning, except that the walls and the natural
obstructions of the flooring had been rendered smooth and clear by the
hand of man. It was easy to estimate the purposes of this subterranean
abode. There was less imagination in the legends of the old mill than
he had supposed. If the books of his childish reading had any
foundation in their local color this was certainly the den of some
old-time smugglers.
He passed rapidly along the declining passage, and the end of it came
as he expected to find it. It was a cave which opened in the face of
the cliff overlooking the cove, but so ingeniously hidden by Nature
that its presence could never have been even guessed at by any chance
visit from the sea.
He stood at the opening and gazed out upon the already twilit cove. But
he could not see the sea from where he stood; only along the face of
the cliff to his right, down which, zigzagging and winding, a sort of
rough-hewn stairway communicated with the beach below. In front of him
a great projection of rock, as though riven from the main cliff at some
far-off time by the colossal forces of Nature, hid the entire entrance
of the cavern. And so narrow was the space intervening that he could
touch it with an outstretching of his arm. It was a remarkable
hiding-place. Nor did he marvel that he had never heard of it before.
But the rapidly deepening twilight of the cove warned him of the
approach of the hour of his appointment. So he blew out his lantern and
began the descent to the beach nearly fifty feet below.
Within five minutes he was standing in the centre of a patch of golden
sand with the still ebbing water of the cove lapping gently at his feet.
A curious change had come over him. All interest inspired by the
journey through the cavern was entirely gone. Even, for the time, he
had no longer any thought of the purpose for which he was there. His
mind was absorbed in the curious weird of the place, and the dreadful
feeling of overwhelming might bearing in and down upon him.
The appalling grey barrenness, the height of the frowning ramparts
which surrounded him on all sides, except the narrow opening to the
sea. The absolute inaccessibility of those frowning walls, and the
melancholy scream of the thousands of gulls which haunted the place. It
was tremendous. It was terrible. But added to all these things was a
discovery which he made almost upon the instant. With the instinct of
personal security his eyes sought the high-water mark upon the beach.
There was none. It was high up on the cliff sides at no point less that
ten feet above the highest point of the beach. Herein lay the terror of
the cove which lived in the minds of the dwellers upon the moors. Here
was its real terror. A rising tide, and the secret of the smuggler's
cavern undiscovered, and--death! He smiled as he thought of the name
given to the entrance to the cove. Hell's Gate! It was surely----
"Ahoy!"
The cry echoed about the grey walls in haunting fashion. Ruxton was
startled out of his reverie. In a moment his repulsion at what he
beheld was forgotten. He remembered only his purpose, and his searching
eyes gazed out over the water.
"Ahoy!" he replied, when the last echo of the summons had died out.
He could see no boat. He could discover no human being. And--it was a
man's voice that had hailed him.
For some moments a profound silence prevailed. Even the gulls ceased
their mournful cries at the intrusion of a human voice upon their
solitude.
Ruxton searched in every direction. Was this another surprise of this
extraordinarily mysterious place? Was this----? Quite suddenly his gaze
became riveted upon a spit of low, weed-covered rock, stretching out
into the calm water like a breakwater. There was a sound of clambering
feet, and as his acute hearing caught it, a sort of instinct thrust his
hand into his coat pocket where an automatic pistol lay. Then he
laughed at himself and withdrew his hand sharply. The figure of a man
scrambled up on to the breakwater.
They stood eyeing each other for several thoughtful moments. Then
without attempting to draw nearer the stranger called to him.
"Mr. Farlow, sir. This way, if you please."
Without hesitation Ruxton crossed over to him and scrambled on to the
rocks.
"You are from----?" he demanded.
The question was put sharply, but without suspicion.
"The lady's waiting for you out there," replied the man simply. "We
haven't much time, sir. You can't come in here on a rising tide, and
you can't get out of it either. It's hell's own place for small craft,
or any craft for that matter on a rising tide." He threw an anxious
glance at the water.
Ruxton was gazing down at the little boat lying the other side of the
natural breakwater. It was a petrol launch of some kind, but small and
light as a cockle-shell. There was another man in the stern, and he
observed that both he and the man beside him were in some sort of
uniform.
"I didn't see you come in," he went on curiously.
"We've been lying here half an hour, sir. Our orders were to wait till
just before the tide turned. We've got about half an hour, sir," the
man added significantly.
"Where's the vessel?" enquired Ruxton.
"Just outside, sir."
"I didn't see her."
"She's lying submerged."
"And Miss Vladimir is--aboard?"
"The lady is, sir," replied the man, with a shadow of a smile in his
deep-set blue eyes.
The stranger stood aside, a direct invitation to Ruxton to climb down
into the boat. But the latter made no move to do so.
Then the man pushed his peaked cap back from his forehead and displayed
a shock of sandy grey hair which matched his closely trimmed whiskers.
"You'll excuse me, sir," he said, a trifle urgently, "but we've got to
get out smart. Once the tide turns it races in here like an avalanche.
We'll never make Hell's Gates if we aren't smart, and we don't want to
get caught up in Hell itself."
The man's urgency had the desired effect. Ruxton stooped down and
lowered himself into the bow of the boat.
"That's right, sir, it'll trim the boat," the man approved, as he
dropped lightly in amidships. In a moment the clutch was let in and the
little craft backed out of its narrow harbor.
It was a moment of crisis. Ruxton Farlow had practically committed
himself to the power of these strangers. Not quite though. For he had
taken the bow seat, and his loaded automatic was in his pocket still.
However, the position was not without considerable risk. He had
expected to meet Vita. Instead he had been met by two men in uniform.
They were both in middle life, and burly specimens of the seafaring
profession.
He had calculated the chances carefully before taking his final
decision. Moreover he had closely appraised the men in charge of the
boat. They were British. Of that he was certain. Nor were they men
without education. On the whole he did not see that the balance lay
very much in their favor if any treachery were contemplated.
"You are British," he said to the man in front of him, as the boat
swung round head on to the gates of the cove and began to gather speed.
"Yes, sir. Served my time in the Navy--and had a billet elsewhere ever
since."
"Since the war?"
"No, sir. Before the war."
"Where?"
The man faced round with a smile, while his comrade drove the little
boat at a headlong pace through the racing waters.
"Where a good many of our Navy's cast-offs go, sir. In Germany."