'Too late. Wait till the tide go down. What was there?'
Hearts quailed at the sound that drove in, for it was not the last voice
of a spent mortal, but shrill, but fierce, but like the first voice of
his indignant ghost. Four only did not recoil; the rest, half-hearted
brought to the rescue, urged again: 'Wait till the tide go down,' pulling
back the two women from insane wading. But Giles was forward, staggering
in the tide, floundering impotent against it; and his Reverence turned
upon them as intolerable a countenance as when through his black flock he
drove, threatening the curse of Heaven. Therefore two, though loath, swam
out to fetch in the boy's body. They cut the ropes from him, and lifted
him along with the waves to hard land.
Rhoda shrieked at sight of the deathly inertness and the rent flesh, and
hopeless, fell to an anguish of weeping; but Giles and Lois, tearless,
mute, with hand and ear over his heart, sought and sought for sign of
life, finding none. Pitiless aid brought a torch, and held it to dispel
all hope of a flicker of life. Could any look on the sad, serene face and
still pronounce him worthy of death, worthy the burial of a dog? They
did, even those whom kindness to the parents had constrained far, for
among themselves they said: 'Persuade them away, and his Reverence. Best
to serve the body with its grave quick and meet, in the sea, lest they
want it laid in holy ground.' But Lois, who would not believe her son yet
dead, and Giles, who could not believe him still alive, would have and
hold him, living or dead, and none with heart of flesh could withstand
them. So the limp, lifeless burden was taken up along the weary shore,
past the doors of the street, close shut every one, and delivered to the
weak shelter of home for the nonce.
Against life and decent burial had Christian's last desire been: these to
impose was all the service great love for him could conceive, though the
broken body, dreadful to see, dreadful to handle, made silent appeal
against a common valuation of life. Through tireless effort to provoke
breath despair hovered, hour-long, till response came in a faintest
flutter of life at lips and heart; and chafed with cordials and wrapped
about with warmth, the shadow of pain drew over his face and weak spasms
flexed his hands as tyrannous vitality haled back the reluctant spirit
into bondage. His eyes opened upon them with sense and recognition, a
feeble effort to move fetched a groan, and again he relapsed deathlike.
So and again all through the long night watches the desperate debate of
life and death lasted.
Through close window and door the sigh of the night and the moan of the
far sea spoke continually, and covered to dull and finite ears the sound
of the sunrise coming over the distant hills.
Not dead, and not dead, and yet again not dead! With that recurrent
stroke of sense was welded again the mortal unit half gone to
dissolution. Day came filtering in on wan faces brightened to fearful
hope, for Christian assuredly lived and would live: consciousness held,
and his eyes waked and asked. The four knelt together, and thanked their
God aloud for his life, tears running free; he turned his head away in
great despair, knowing that he was condemned.
Whose prayers should prevail, theirs or his? He must die: he would die.
But every hour brought firmer denial to his pitiful desire for death.
What had he done, his anguish cried up to heaven, that his God should
withhold an honest due? For death and its blessed ease and safety had he
renounced the glorious sea-life, not for this intolerable infliction of a
life miserable, degraded, branded for ever with memory of one disgraceful
hour.
Fever declared that always still he stood within a circle of fire; his
skin was hot with the heat of men's eyes; the stroke of his blood was
pain and shame that he had to bear; always, always so it would be.
Healing came to close the wounds of his body, but the incurable wounds of
a proud spirit gaped and bled hot and fresh, and even under the pitying
eyes of love quivered and shrank. A sound from the outer world, of
footstep or voice, crushed him intolerably under fresh weights of
degradation.
The sound of footstep and voice would start hasty barring of shutter and
door, hinting to him that his doom of life was yet remittant.
With infinite caution, and despite his great weakness and pain, he got
his knife into his own secret keeping. Out of sight it lay bare for a
fond hand to kiss its sweet keen line: life held some blisses it could
promise him yet.
Indefinite revenge was not enough: the thought of actual elaborate murder
grew so dear, he would not for any price forgo it. Himself would be
satisfied, his hands, his eyes, his ears, with the circumstances of a
bloody despatch from life of him, and him, and him, each witness of his
torture and shame, beneath whose remembered eye his spirit now shrieked
and writhed. Let him so doing perish body and soul. So low in the dust
lay he, the dear hope of Lois, because the heart of his pride was broken.
Imperfectly he heard a young voice passionately urging for vengeance,
retribution, redress, asking after the law of the land against a brutal
custom carried to unaccustomed extreme.
Redress! His eyes he shut when his lips bade the girl believe that he had
no desire to invoke any earthly powers to avenge his wrongs. On his hand
her tears fell like rain; she bowed her head at his knees, with wonder
within at the christian saint of so perfect a heart. Back to bare steel
crept his hand, tear-wet.
But his fierce hate betrayed him. A gust of fever and madness lifted him
up, enraged at the body unready, the burnt right arm unready; his left
hand and the devil in him snatched out the knife, and drove it at the
planks on his level in one instant of exuberant capacity. In and out
again it went; he sobbed a great laugh for the cost and its sufficiency,
and with spent force fell back a-sweat. Swift in trod Lois, and he was
still, with the blade out of sight, not knowing that clean through the
inches of wood the bright blade had looked in a line of sunlight straight
to his mother's eye.
She was not gentle then, nor cared for his hurts; with quick mastery of
him while he cowered and winced in nerveless collapse, she discovered and
plucked away his naked paramour. Dumb-struck she stood in accomplished
dismay. Into the impotent wretch defiance entered; with insolent
assertion his eyes affronted hers; unmasked, from his face looked the
very truth of hatred and lust of blood, shameless at exposure.
Mother and son drew breath for battle.
'What name shall I call you by?' she cried. 'You have borne that name of
Christ all your life, and now do renounce His cross.'
'Diadyomenos' sang to him out of the past.
'Your face is the face of Cain already, not the face of my son, my dear
son given me by the mercy of God. It is like the curse of God!'
She fell on her knees and grasped him hard. Her prayers came upon him
like terrible strokes; heaviest to reach him were prayers to her God. He
would not answer nor say amen; his own one passionate prayer had been
unregarded, and he hardened his heart.
'I took you from the death of the sea, and loved you and cared for you as
more to me than the child of my body. And when with manhood and freewill
came trial by sorrow and pain--hard, oh! hard indeed--then I saw my
blessing in you and touched reward. My son, my son, the son that never
was, was brave and patient and long-suffering and meek, because he lay at
the feet of the Lord Christ a faithful follower and servant; he never
complained, nor cherished an evil hate; he forgave, and asked that none
should avenge him. Who then, among mothers, could rejoice as I, and so
glory in her son? Ah! ah! like a serpent tongue it flickered in the
sunlight! Christian, the wretchedest of mothers asks you to have mercy
upon her. Ah, you will--must. I will not rise from my knees, nor take my
hands from you, except you promise to put vengeance out of your heart.
Your hate blasts me, me first before all others. Your blade threatens my
heart, will pierce it through if it strike for another's.' She was
moaning for woe of that hurt. He turned his face away, obdurate still,
though the reproach of undeserved esteem had gone deep as any of
undeserved shame.
The moaning fell into low prayer. The guilty soul heard that it was not
for him she prayed; the old weary penitence for an unredeemed
transgression was all her burden now: a sign she asked, one little sign
that her poor effort at atonement was not rejected of Heaven. He would
not give it; no, he could not. Yet he dreaded that her strenuous
supplication must win response, in his great ignorance half believing
that some power from above would, against his will, force him to
concession.
He looked again at the dear grey head abased in his unworthy presence out
of endless remorse for one error. Her God did not answer. Himself was
weary of her importunity, weary of the pain of her hands: and he loved
her so! And her God did not answer: and he loved her so!
Silently he laid his hand upon hers. His eyes were full of tears, as he
said, 'Kiss me, mother.' She had conquered: he promised.
'Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God!' she said; and he repeated,
'Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God.'
'Mother, mother, pray that I may die!' and then he broke down utterly and
wept like a child, and was not even ashamed.
Ah, poor mother! Soon she came to know that when her son gave up his will
to her he shut up his heart the faster. His misery never spoke, but
silent tears would flow unchecked and unconcealed, and she could give him
no comfort.
Helpless need like his is a shadow of the Almighty by which men believe;
but he could not with a right heart pray because, though he had renounced
vengeance, forgiveness was a thing apart and impossible.
How to bear the world and its eyes was the prospect that filled his sky.
All his waking hours his heart gazed and gazed thereat, and stayed
unacquainted, still, and appalled.
Now that in sleep blood was out of his dreams a vision cruelly sweet
came in place, and he was in the presence of Diadyomene, following her,
reaching to her, close to her, yet never quite winning the perfect
pressure of her lips, nor her gracious surrender to the worship of his
hand; and waking was to unrighteous regret that he had turned from that
splendid offer and lost it.
Too swift and few ran the suns, and the inevitable time was at hand for
bearing the world and its eyes under the hard bond of his promise. The
youth and vigour of his body set him on his feet oversoon, while all the
soundness his spirit had gained was trembling for its weakness, fear for
its cowardice, shame for its shame.
'Where shall he go?'
'Christian,' said Lois, 'where will you go?'
He wondered what she said. Open talk had passed over him unregarded; he
had lost the knack of understanding except he tried hard.
Giles sighed. 'Far, indeed, far; for where is our boy not known, the best
fisher for his years, the best at sail and oar, the strongest proved in
the pick of the coast. Far, indeed, for him not to be known.'
That Christian understood, for he broke silence hoarsely.
'Say out: far indeed for him not to be known as beaten for a thief,
drowned like a dog.'
Rhoda's hand slipped to his, unseen; she drew it softly against her lips.
He did not heed.
'My boy,' said Lois, 'what will you do?'
'Mother, do you bid me go?'
His hot brain knew of a grand enclosure where satisfying coolness and
peace and splendid shade reigned, for no man's solace and award.
'You bid me go?'
'Dare you stay?' she said, 'dare I bid you?'
His voice shook. 'What sort--of killing?' he asked, daunted now.
Giles swore softly after the manner of his kind, under danger of tears.
'Where are your senses, lad? Great storms can't last. This is over, his
Reverence will tell you that. Not twice in a lifetime, I guess, can the
devil brew the like.'
'You bid me go?'
'Not now, not yet,' said Lois tremulously; 'but sin and shame were to
keep you to a trial beyond your strength.'
He said quite brokenly: 'You are looking for a broken promise.'
'Not that. Only--only, we know that 'twould be easier for you to face
stranger folk, and hard though it be to let you go, far harder were it
for you to stay, and we cannot ask it.'
Christian's head sank: they all knew that he had not strength nor courage
to stand upright under a disgraced life; he need but acquiesce for the
last spark of self-respect to be extinct.
It was long before he lifted his head; Rhoda only was there. He asked
after Lois. She had gone with his Reverence up towards the church. He
asked after Giles. He had gone down to the quay to his work of refitting
the old boat.
Tears stung his brain for the wicked destruction of his own boat, that
like a living creature he had loved, and had not saved, and could not
avenge.
Rhoda left him but for a moment; passing out to the linhay, the door she
left ajar.
Christian stood up, touched his brow once or twice with uncertain
fingers, drew sharp breath, crossed himself, and stept out into the
world.
He reeled in the sunlight. Its enmity struck at him, and he put up his
hands against an unknown trouble, for in through his eyes into his brain
flew strange little white birds and nested there and were not still.
He alone stood upright in the midst of a rocking world; under his feet
walked the path, the road, the street, bringing up an ambush of eyes, and
grey birds and fire.
In the street his coming started a scare. Only yesterday said he was long
a-dying, so that now women fell back afraid of a ghost, for with every
trace of sunburn gone his face was of a whiteness astonishing in the
south. But some harder men cursed at the stubborn devil in the boy, that
kept him alive out of all reckoning, and unsubdued. Face to face none met
him till the corner where the street beached and the quay branched. There
stood an idle group that suddenly gave before a reeling, haggard
embodiment of hatred.
These very eyes he knew again, and the one memory within them legible;
hot, red-hot, they burned him. Red birds and black flew in and sounded
shrill, and beak and claw tore at a little nook where a promise lay
shrunk and small. Again he crossed himself, and passed on, till none
stood between him and the sea.
Hot, smooth sand stretched curving round the bay with the hard, grey quay
lying callous upon it; tall masts peered, windows gleamed and glared, and
behind him lay a lifetime of steep street. But strong salt gusts spoke
to him from the blessed, lonely sea. The tide was leaping in fast and
white; short waves crested and glittered over the expanse of moving blue.
Rhoda caught his sleeve and stood beside him panting and trembling,
amazed at his strength and temerity.
Just set afloat by the tide, the old boat rocked against the quay; but
Giles was pottering afar, and did not see, and could not hear. The weak
pair made forward with one consent, till at the boat Christian halted and
stept down.
Along the quay came lounging hateful curiosity; Philip was there, with
half a score more. Rhoda faced round bravely; her fear was overborne by
intense indignation; she was half a child still, loyal, reckless, and
wild to parade before one and all her high regard for the victim of their
brutal outrage: her esteem, her honour, her love. From the quay above she
called to Christian, knelt, reached across, took him by the neck, and
kissed him there for all the world to see. Afterwards she knew that all
the child in her died on the kiss and left her full woman.
She kissed him first, and then she saw into his eyes: Christian was mad.
In terror she sprang up, looking for help vainly and too late. Giles was
far off, slow of hearing, slow of foot; and the madman was casting off,
and the boat began to rock away. In desperation she leapt across the
widening interspace, and fell headlong and bruised beside him. The boat
slanted off and went rollicking over the tumbled waves. All his mad mind
and his gathered strength were given to hoist the sail.
Far back had the quay floated when the desperate girl rose. Giles was
discernable making vehement gestures of recall. She stood up and answered
with imploring hands, and with useless cries too. Christian never heeded.
Then she even tried her strength against him, but at that the mad eyes
turned so fierce and dangerous that she shrank away as though he had
struck her.
None of the coral fleet was out on the rising wind and sea, and stray
sails were standing in; yet Christian, frantically blind, was making for
his old station on the fishing shoals. The old boat went eagerly over the
waves under a large allowance of sail; the swift furrow of her keel
vanished under charging crests. Low sank the shore, the dark verdure of
it faded, the white houses of it dimmed. The strong, terrible sea was
feeling his strength as a god when his pulses stir him to play.
Overhead a sea-gull dipped and sailed; it swooped low with a wild note.
Christian looked up and laughed aloud. In an instant the boat lay for the
west, and leaped and quivered with new speed.
Scudding for harbourage, under a corner of sail, two stout luggers
passed; and the men, watching their mad course, waved to warn, and
shouted unheard. Then Rhoda stood up and signalled and screamed for help.
She thought that the wind carried her cry, for both boats put about and
headed towards them. Hope rose: two well-manned boats were in pursuit.
Terror rose: in an instant Christian, to a perilous measure of sail added
more, and the boat, like a maddened, desperate thing, went hurling,
bucking, smashing, over the waves, against the waves, through the waves.
Rhoda shut her eyes and tried to pray, that when the quivering, groaning
planks should part or sink, and drop her out of life, her soul should
stand at its seemliest in her Maker's sight. But the horrible lurches
abating, again she looked. Pursuit was abandoned, soon proved vain to men
who had lives of value and a cargo of weight: they had fallen back and
were standing away.
The sun blazed on his downward stoop, with a muster of clouds rolling to
overtake him before he could touch the edge of the world. In due time
full storm would come as surely as would the night.
Christian over the gunwale stared down. He muttered to himself; whenever
a white sea-bird swooped near he looked up and laughed again. Wild and
eager, his glance turned ever to the westward sea, and never looked he to
the sky above with its threat of storm, and naught cared he for the peril
of death sweeping up with every wave.
A dark coast-line came forward, that Rhoda knew for the ominous place
that had overshadowed Christian's life. The Isle Sinister rose up, a blot
in the midst of lines of steady black and leaping white.
Over to the low sun the clouds reached, and half the sky grew splendid
with ranges of burnished copper, and under it the waves leaped into
furious gold. Rhoda's courage broke for the going down of her last sun;
she wept and prayed in miserable despair for the life, fresh and young,
and good to live, that Christian was wantonly casting away with his own.
No hope dare live with night and storm joining hands, and madness driving
on the cruelest coast known.
On they drove abreast of the Isle Sinister.
He clung swaying to the tiller, with groaning breath, gaping with a wide
smile and ravenous looks fixed intently. A terror of worse than death
swept upon Rhoda. She fell on her knees and prayed, shrieking: 'Good Lord
deliver us!'
Christian looked at her; for the only time with definite regard, he
turned a strange dazed look to her.
A violent shock flung her forward; the dash of a wave took her breath;
the boat lurched aslant, belaboured by wave on wave, too suddenly headed
for the open sea. The tiller broke from his nerveless hands, and like a
log he fell.
Rhoda's memory held after no record of what her body did then, till she
had Christian's head on her knee. Had she mastered the great peril of the
sail? had she fastened the rudder for drifting, and baled? she whose
knowledge and strength were so scanty? Her hands assured her of what her
mind could not: they were chafed by their frantic hurry over cordage.
She felt that Christian lived; yet nothing could she do for him, but
hold him in her arms, giving her body for a pillow, till so they should
presently go down together, and both be safely dead.
The buoy-bells jangled to windward, to leeward. Then spoke the blessed
voices of the three Saints, and a light showed, a single murky star in a
great cave of blackness, that leaned across the zenith to close round the
pallid west. Ah, not here, not here in the evil place! She had rather
they drown in the open.
The weak, desolate girl was yet clinging desperately to the barest chance
of life. She laid her burden down; with awkward, aching hands she
ventured to get out a corner of sail; and she tried to steer, but it was
only by mercy of a flaw of wind that she held off and went blindly
reeling away from the fatal surf. As night came on fully the light and
the voice of the House Monitory passed away, and the buoy-bells, and the
roar of breakers, and the heavy black of the coast. Past the Land's End
in the free currents of open sea, she let the boat drive.
Crouching down again, she took up the dear weight to give what shelter
she could, and to gain for herself some, for great blasts drove hard,
and furious gusts of rain came scourging. Through the great loneliness of
the dark they went, helpless, driving on to the heart of the night, the
strength of the waves still mounting, and the fierceness of the wind; the
long gathering storm, still half restrained, to outleap in full hurricane
about the time of midnight.