At its nearest lay the Isle Sinister under noon. The Adventurer sighed
for the land as, cold and uneasy, he couched for needful sleep. Philip
lay stretched beside him, Christian, according to his own preference,
taking the first watch. Out of new bravado, Philip passed on to Christian
a muttered question: Could he now carry them in and land them on the very
Isle?
Like a bolt came Christian's answer: 'Drowned and damned both shall you
be before I will.'
Philip rose up, startled by the answer and the unexpected intimacy it
acknowledged. But the voice had been of level quiet, and the Alien's face
showed no anger. The Adventurer watched with a sardonic smile; and
Philip, forcing a show of unconcern that he did not feel, muttered a word
of madness and dropped back. For a while resurgent terrors thwarted
sleep; but the quiet breathing of his neighbour, the quiet outlook of
the Alien, told on his shaken nerves, and slumber overtook him. Christian
stayed waking alone.
Ah! the relief. He stood up to take free, deep breath, and stretched his
great limbs. Long, intently, with shaded eyes, he stared towards the Isle
Sinister. Ah! nothing, and well nothing. Could she trust that he
meditated no trespass? that he would allow none? Could she deem that he
offered no insane resentment against her severity? A sea-gull flapped
close past his head, but was mute.
He turned and looked down on the sleepers, and his face, illegible for
many a day, showed bitter resentment and scorn. Shamefully had he been
beguiled, trapped, bound by a promise; and wanton goading had not lacked,
all but intolerable. Fools! their lives were in his hand; and he was
awake. Awake, as for months he had not been; his pulses were leaping to
full heart-beats, there was stir in his brain; and therewith, dislike and
contempt exciting, the keen human passion of hate lay torpid no longer;
it moved, it threatened to run riot.
Who dare claim loyal service from him? Philip! One boat had been familiar
with these reefs: somewhere in the past murder rested unavenged. Philip!
In the deep water that the boat shadowed a darkness slid, catching his
eye. He peered, but it was gone. Before, and not once only, had an
impression seized him, by deliberate sight not verified, that a sinister
attendance lurked below. Now unconstrained he could watch.
Great dread possessed him. Storm and chase were light perils, not to be
compared with her displeasure, her mere displeasure, irrespective of how
she might exert it. With heavy grief had he borne late estrangement, and
her severe chastisement of offence. Were his limbs but for his own
service, lightly, so soon as they were able, had he risked them again to
worship his love and seek grace. Alas! she could not know that loyal, and
strong, and tender his devotion held; she would but see an insolent and
base return, meriting final condemnation. Helpless rages of grief urged
him to break from all bonds, and plunge headlong to engage her wrath or
her mercy. He cast on the sleepers then a thought, with ugly mirth,
mocking the control of his old enemy in his heart.
How would she take the forfeit! With her rocks and waves she had broken
him once, and the surrender of all his bones to them in despair he had
firmly contemplated; but human flesh and spirit shrank from horrors
unknown, that she might summon for vengeance. Could he but see what
lurked below.
Spite of the ripe mutiny in him he minded his watch, and swept the
horizon momently with due attention. The day altered as the slow hours
dragged: a thin film travelled up the clear sky; the sun took a faint
double halo, while the sea darkened to a heavy purple. He knew the signs:
small chance was there now of a stormless night. Not two hours of full
daylight were left when below the sun rose a sail. His hopes and fears
took little hold on it, for as yet it was but a speck; and he knew that
before it could close darkness would be upon them, and belike storm also.
With a desperate remedy before his eyes a devil's word was in his ears:
the League makes good all loss. Foul play? Nay, but had not the League by
Philip played him foul first, with injury not to be made good. And those
for whose sake he had owed regard for his wretched life would be bettered
by his loss.
When Philip rose up from sleep a blackness stood upon the distant sea,
threatening the sun; the chill wind had dropped, but a heavy, sullen
swell insisted of a far-off tyranny advancing. To him no sail showed, but
Christian flung him word of it, and his sinking heart caught at high
hope.
Then, since their vigil was soon to pass, Philip dared greatly; for he
bade Christian sleep, set hand himself to sail and tiller, glided in past
the buoys, and rocked at trespass.
'It is safer so, should the haze part,' he said, but his voice shook.
The Alien said never a word; each looked the other hard in the eyes,
paling.
'The League makes good all loss,' said Philip, low. 'And if so be that
only some forgery of a loss can cover a fair claim, you may count on
my--what you will--as you please.'
Christian refused hearing. Flung down for unattainable sleep he lay
stretched, covering his head to inspect by the light of darkness his
wrongs, and Philip's treason, that left to him nothing but a choice of
transgression.
The blackness stood higher and crept on. The sun was captured, shorn,
disgraced, and sent bald on his way; a narrow streak of red bleeding
upon the waters died slowly; all else was slate-black. Above the gloom of
the cliffs the sky showed blanched, clear and pale. Ghostly white the
sea-birds rose and fell. The tide was rising, deepening the note of the
surf; between the warders white columns leapt up with great gasps.
It was Rhoda's name that Philip whispered over, to strengthen his heart
at the perilous outlook. The make of his love had a certain pride in
overbearing such weak scruples as a tough conscience permitted. Half he
feared that the Alien's poor wits had yet not recognised the only path
left open by a skilful provision; for there he lay motionless, with the
slow breath of untroubled sleep. He would not fear him; with Rhoda's
name, with hope on the unseen sail, he fortified his heart.
In the deep water unshadowed by the boat a darkness slid, catching his
eye. He peered, but it was gone. His heart stood in his throat; a palsy
of terror shook him. Oh speak, speak, St. Mary, St. Margaret, St. Faith,
help a poor body--a poor soul!
When he could stir he headed about, and slunk away for the open, out of
the accursed region. A draught of wine steadied him somewhat, and softly
overstepping Christian he roused the Adventurer, to get comfort of human
speech. He told of the coming storm, he told of the coming sail, but of
that other thing he said nothing. Yet presently the Adventurer asked why
he shook. 'It is for cold,' and he drank again. And presently asked, what
did he look for over the side? 'A shark's fin,' he said, 'that I thought
I saw,' and he drank again.
At their feet Christian lay motionless, heeding nothing outside his
darkness. Yet presently the Adventurer said further: 'He sleeps. From
what disquiet should you eye him so?'
'If you list you shall know of his past,' muttered Philip. His speech was
a little thick.
From the coming from the sea of the alien child he started, and rambled
on, with fact and fiction very inextricably mingled; but the hearer could
make out the main truth of the blasting of a proud young life, and
pitied, and was minded now to make large allowance for any misdemeanour.
From their feet Christian rose, and without a look removed to the bows.
They were stricken to silence.
Suddenly Philip clutched the other, staring down. Both saw and blanched,
though what they glimpsed gave to them no shape for a name. It was gone.
'What is it?'
'No rowan! not a leaf.'
At that the old man mastered his nerves and laughed scorn in his beard.
Philip cast a scared look towards Christian.
'Last night,' he whispered, 'he looked over the side. I saw
him--twice--it was for this.'
'What is it?'
'You saw. That was his familiar.'
'Now look you,' returned the other with grave sarcasm, 'that is a
creature I have seen never, and would gladly. You, if you be skilled as a
fisher, catch me that familiar, and I will pay you in gold; or in broad
silver if you win me but a fair sight.'
Philip, ashy white, crossed himself. 'Heaven keep us! The one bait were a
human soul.'
Not with all his art and wisdom could the Adventurer now reinstate the
earlier hardihood of his companion. Against a supplement by wine he
protested.
'Sir,' said Philip, sullen, 'I have braved enough for you and my
conscience, and more. Longer here I will not bide; no, not for any
price. We go to meet our fortune yonder of friend or foe.'
The Adventurer looked at him and smiled. 'You miscount. Should I and he
yonder, the Alien, be of another mind, your course may be ordered
otherwise.'
Taken in his own toils, Philip glared in wrath and fear, sundered from a
common cause, an adversary.
From the shrouded sea grew a roar; Christian sprang up; the darkness
swayed forward, broke, and flew shredded; a line of racing waves leapt
upon them as with icy stroke the squall passed. Through the broken
vapours a rim of sun showed on the horizon; and there full west beat a
tall three-master; a second was standing nearer; of a third a sway of
mist withheld certainty. Here rose hope wellnigh clear of doubt.
But the mists spread down again with twilight adding. The House Monitory
woke and spoke far behind as they went to windward. Now Christian
steered.
Again was he aware of a stealthy threat moving below, and again looking
he could nothing define. He was seen of both: the Adventurer came boldly
to his side, and Philip dare not bide aloof. They peered, and he would
not.
For an intolerable moment he forbore them, gripping the tiller hard.
'There is it!' said the old man. 'What say you is the creature? Your mate
has named it--your familiar,' and he laughed.
Even then Christian forbore still, though the stress of long hours of
repressed passion culminated in a weight of frantic anger and loathing,
cruel to bear.
Then Philip lied, denying his words, and Christian knew that he lied; his
crafty wits disturbed by wine, reverse, and fear, he blundered,
protesting overmuch.
Said the Adventurer grimly: 'Now my offer holds good for silver or gold;
be you man enough to back your words, you who would give me the lie?'
Without tackle men take fish by flamelight, spearing; and thus fell the
wording of Philip's menace, as, reeling between fear and resentment on
either hand, he cried wildly:
'I care not--though, by heavens! a famous take may come of it. We have
but to try fire.'
Christian gripped him, very death in his face and in his strength; swayed
him from his feet; gripped the harder for his struggles, till the ribs
of the poor wretch gave, and cracked within his arms; with a great heave
had him shoulder high; with another could have flung him overboard. And
did not.
On the finest verge of overpoise he held, swung round with a slackening
hold, and dropped him like a cast bale to the bottom of the boat. Then he
caught the tiller and clung to it with the strength of a drowning man.
Philip lay groaning, broken and wrung in body and mind. He realised a
dreadful truth: for one brief second he had seen in Christian's eyes
fierce, eager hatred; clear, reasonable, for informed by most
comprehensive memory; mad he was, but out of no deficiency; mad, with
never a blank of mind to disallow vengeance; as cunning and as strong he
was as ever madness could make a man; unmasked, a human devil.
The Adventurer lifted him and felt his bones, himself half stunned and
bleeding, for he had been flung heavily from unpractised balance, as
suddenly the boat lurched and careened in the wallop of the sea.
The menace of an extreme peril closed their difference, compelling
fellowship. They counselled and agreed together with a grasp and a nod
and few words. Philip fumbled for his knife, unclasped, and showed it.
'Our lives or his. Have you?' 'Better,' returned the other, and had out a
long dagger-knife sheathed, that he loosened to lie free for instant use.
'It has done service before. Can you stand? are you able?' It was
darkening so that sight could inform them but little concerning the
Alien.
Christian was regarding them not at all. From head to foot he was
trembling, so that he had ado to stand upright and keep the boat
straight. Not from restraint his lips were bitten and his breath laboured
hard: quick revulsion had cast him down, so passion-spent,
conscience-stricken, and ashamed, that scarcely had he virtue left for
the face of a man.
Their advance strung him, for he saw the significant reserve of each
right hand. That his misdeed justified any extreme he knew, not conscious
in his sore compunction of any right to resist even for his life. He
waited without protest, but neither offered to strike.
Reason bade for quick despatch--very little would have provoked it; but
not Philip at his worst could conduct a brutal butchery, when conviction
dawned that a human creature stood at their mercy by his own mere
resolute submission. With names of coward and devil he struck him first,
but they did not stir him to affording warrant. The Adventurer took up
the word.
'Brutal coward, or madman, which you be, answer for your deed; confess
you are a traitor paid and approved.'
He shook his head.
'Why else have you now half murdered your fellow? Verily are you an alien
through and through, for no man born on these shores would so basely
betray a trust.'
'Nor I,' he got out, and rather wished they would strike with their
hands.
'You lie!' said his accuser; 'or robbery, or murder, or treachery you
intend--or all. Own your worst; try it; this time openly, fairly: your
brute strength upon two who are not your match: on your mate damaged from
your foul handling: on an old man, whose gold you have taken, the trust
of whose life you have accepted.'
He could not attempt a protest, though his heart was like to break
enforced to silence. The other advanced in temerity with an order.
'You have a knife. Give it up.'
He obeyed without a word. Then the two made no reserve, but with a show
of bare steel proved his temper. He did not lift a hand.
Lois might come to hear of his transgression: she would never know how
hard it was to atone, because they dawdled so cruelly, because he knew
they would bungle so cruelly: he did not think either had force to drive
a blade home at a stroke.
The Adventurer paused. Here without madness was a guilty wretch cowed at
detection, abject as a wolf in a pit!
'We would not your blood on our hands, yet to no oath of yours may our
lives trust.'
'I would not offer it.'
'Only as the wild beast you showed yourself, look to be kept bound.'
Such putting to shame was simply just, but oh! hard.
'I may not withstand you,' he said, hardly, steadily, 'but ah, sir! ah,
Philip, suffer me! If this night I am to go to my account, I do greatly
require that, through my default, the lives of two men may not drop in
the loaded scale.'
To them the plea rang strained and false.
'We choose our risk; against treachery of the skies will we rather
provide.'
He surrendered his hands to the Adventurer. Philip took the helm, but
the miserable culprit winced to hear how the strain brought from him a
sob of distress. The old man did his best under direction for shortening
sail; but while yet this was doing, again the ominous roar sounded and
grew, and a squall caught them unready.
The light boat quivered in every plank as she reared against the heavy
charge; sheets of water flew over, blinding. Christian heard from the
helm a shriek of pain and despair, and at that, frantic, such an access
of strength swelled in him, that suddenly his bonds parted like thread,
and he caught the restive tiller out of Philip's incompetent hold. There
could be no further question of him whom by a miracle Heaven had thus
graced in strength for their service. And for their lives they needed to
bale. Christian blessed the cruel, fierce elements.
Far ahead heaved lights, revealed on the blown seas: far, so far. Right
in their teeth drove the promised gale, with intermittent bursts of sleet
and hail. Upon bodies brine-wet the icy wind cut like a knife. Twin
lights sprang, low down, giving the wanted signal; bore down, then stood
away: the appointed ship followed after her consorts, not daring, with a
gale behind, to near the cruelest coast known.
Struggling on under a mere stitch of canvas, the wind resenting even
that, clutching it, threatening to tear out the mast, they went reeling
and shuddering on to their desperate fortune. For hours the long
endeavour lasted, with gain on the double lights by such slow degrees as
mocked at final achievement.
Except that his hands were like to freeze out of use Christian cared
marvellously little for outer miseries. To him all too short was the span
of life left for retrieving one guilty minute; no future could he look
for to live it down, so certain had he become that this night death was
hard after him.
Two stars reeling, kind, bright stars, shone life for others though not
for him. Perhaps for him, he wanted to believe; some coward drop in his
blood tried to cheat reason and conscience. Why not for him? Could his
doom be so heavy as to sink that great bulk with its scores of souls? And
though now he should freely release others of his peril, who would ever
count it to him for righteousness, to soften the reproach that would lie
against his name so long as ever it were remembered?
The cold touched his brain. Surely he had died before, long ago, out of
all this pain and distress. Waves heaved gigantically; spray dashed hard
in his face; he shrank humanly, knowing he was not fit to die; she was
coming through the sea bringing life. No, ah! not now. She was lurking in
the sea holding death.
'Madness and treason are not in him.'
'He is a devil,' said Philip, 'a very devil. See! Go you now, and feign
to persuade for abandoning the boat, and shipping together.'
'That will I in all good faith,' and he went and came again.
'First he refused outright; then he said, when the moment came we should
know as well as he.'
'I knew it, I knew it,' chattered Philip, 'oh, a devil he is! Sir, you
will see me out of his hands. I know what he intends: on the instant you
quit the boat he casts off and has me at his mercy, he and that thing
below. I am no coward, and it ill becomes you to hint it; and I fear
death no more than any sinner must, no clean, straight death.
'Sir, his putting out of life was long and bloody: I saw it; death by
inches. And he looked at me with infernal hatred then; the very same I
saw in his eyes but now. Why should he check at sudden murder, but for a
fouler revenge. You cannot judge as I. You have not seen him day after
day. Treacherously he accepts friendship; he feigns to be witless; and
all the while this hell-fire is hidden out of sight. You do not know how
he has been denied opportunity, till rashly I offered it.
'O sir, quit of him this once, I am quit of him for ever! No, I mean no
villainy against him, but--but--it happens--there is every inducement for
him to choose that he and his boat never be seen of us again. Drown? no,
he never was born to drown. The devil sees to his own.
'It is true--true. You saw the Thing yourself. Also, did he not refuse an
oath? So has he all his life. Now know I: there are certain words he for
his contract may not utter.'
When tall masts rocked above, and voices hailed, and a rope shot across,
again the Adventurer pressed Christian hard with precious human kindness.
Men big and fair-haired were shouting, knocking at his heart strangely.
Most foolish and absurd came a longing just once before he died to be
warm and dry again, just once. He shook his head.
Philip kept off, nor by word or sign offered the forgiveness he ached
after, but hasted to pass first. Then the other followed; he loosed the
rope; it leapt away. The last face he saw gleaming above him was
Philip's, with its enmity and a ghastly drawn smile of relief: never to
be seen of him again.
How long would her vengeance delay? The vast anger of the sea leaped and
roared round him, snatching, striking. An hour passed, and he was still
afloat, though the mast was gone; and near another, and he was still
afloat, but by clinging to an upward keel. In cruel extremity, then, he
cried the name of Diadyomene, with a prayer for merciful despatch, and
again her name, and again.
Diadyomene heard. The waves ran ridged with light that flickered and
leaped like dim white flame. Phosphor fires edged the keel; a trailing
rope was revealed as a luminous streak. He got it round his body, and his
hands were eased.
Up from below surged a dark, snaky coil, streaming with pale flakes of
fire; it looped him horribly; a second length and a third flung over him;
a fourth overhung, feeling in air. A loathsome knot worked upon the
planks, spread, and rooted there. He plucked an arm free, and his neck
was circled instead. His knife he had not: barehanded he fought,
frenzied by loathing of the foul monster, the foulest the sea breeds.
Before his eyes rose the sea's fairest, towered above him on the rush of
a wave, sank to his level. Terrible was her face of anger, and cruel, for
she smiled. She flung out a gesture of condemnation and scorn, that
flashed flakes of light off shoulder and hair. She called him 'traitor,'
and bade him die; and he, frantic, tore away the throttled coil at his
throat, and got out, 'Forgive.'
Like challenge and defiance she hurled then her offer of mercy: 'Stretch,
then, your hand to me--on my lips and my breast swear, give up your soul:
then I forgive.'
She heard the death agony of a man cried then. Ceasing to struggle, his
throat was enwound again; both arms were fast: he cried to his God to
resume his soul, and to take it straight out of his body and out of hell.
Away she turned with teeth clenched and furious eyes; then, writhing, she
returned, reached out, with one finger touched, and the foul creature
shrank, relaxed, drew coil by coil away, dropped, and was gone.
Diadyomene flashed away.
When the night and the trouble of the storm were past, not a ship afloat
was scatheless. From one that crawled disabled, a boat was spied,
drifting keel upward, with the body of a man hanging across it, whose
bright hair shone in the early sun, making a swarter race wonder. Against
all conjecture life proved to be in him yet. And what unimaginable death
had been at him? What garland was this on his throat: blossoms of blood
under the skin? When he was recovered to speech he would not say. Good
christian men, what could they think? His boat was righted, and with
scant charity he was hustled back into it; none of these, suddenly eager
to be quit of him, wishing him God-speed.
Under cover of night he crawled up to his home, dreading in his guilt to
face the dear, stern eyes of his mother. Ah! no, he entered to no
questioning and little heed: the two women sat stricken with sorrow; not
for him: in the room beyond Giles lay dead.
So Christian's three gold pieces buried Giles with such decent honour as
Lois could desire.