Christian's misdoing was not to pass unregarded.
A woman turned upon Rhoda passing with a mutter so like a curse that the
girl's surprise struck her to a pause. It was Philip's mother who faced
her, glowering hate.
'What have you done with my boy?'
'I?' said Rhoda, with widening eyes, though she blushed.
'You--smooth-faced chit--yes, you! Oh, keep those fine eyes and that
colour to take in men, for me they will not! I can see through you! I
know you, and the games you are playing!'
'What then?' flashed Rhoda. 'You accuse me? Of what? and by what right?'
'Right! The right of a mother whose son you have driven away.'
'He is nothing to me--never will be--never--nothing!'
'I know it. I know it well, and I told him so: nothing! 'Tis only your
vanity to have at your heels the properest lad and the bravest of the
place.'
'He!' cried Rhoda, in disdain.
'Ay, I know how your fancy has run, against natural liking for the
dark-haired and dark-eyed of your own race; your vagary goes after fair
hair and grey eyes. Well, see for all your sly offers that great blond
dolt gapes and gapes over your bait, never closing to it. That northern
blood is half brine.'
Rhoda stood speechless; her anger, shame, and pain transcended blushes,
and she changed to dead white.
'And you pick out one who can love like a man, who fires at a word or a
look, and him you delight to stab and torment with your cruel tongue,
while you use him for your ends. Shameless! You have dropped yourself
into his arms even, so to heat the Alien from his fishes' blood. May I
live to see you put to shame of some man!'
'He said--oh, vile--of me! Cur, cur!'
''Tis I that can read between the lines, not he, poor blind fool! Miscall
him! ay, you have got the trick. You may bring up faults against
him--some do; but I tell you no man will do greatly amiss who still goes
to his old mother and opens his heart to her.'
Rhoda's breath caught like a sob at that, for there unknowingly went a
stroke at Christian. She gathered herself together for bitter onslaught,
for outraged pride and indignation drove out compunction, drove out any
mercy. Out it all shrivelled at a blasting thought that stopped her very
heart. Mute she stood, white, shuddering, staring. Then she got out a
whisper.
'When did he go--tell me? Since--my uncle died--or--before?'
'Well enough you know 'twas before----'
Rhoda turned and fled homeward, fleet as terror, though her knees went
slack and her brain reeled. She drew bolts before her dreadful incoherent
whispers welled out to Lois.
'Where he went she did not know, did not guess, never thought it was on a
planned venture. None would think of that, or think that two alone would
suffice, or dream of Christian--I had thought that strange--you too. And
we know Christian went on a venture, by the three gold pieces we know:
and that could not have been alone, and he is not of the League. And I
thought it had been with Philip; and I thought Philip meant
kindness--perhaps for my sake, which vexed me. Oh, perhaps it was for my
sake, and I was vexed! Yet see, none others guess it nor do conceive that
any, in any cause, would go hand in hand with our Christian. And none
would greatly mark his goings and comings--Christian's--for unreason has
so chartered his ways. Then, though both were away that same day, not
even his mother had noted it. And oh! think of Christian in these days!
Has sorrow only been heavy at his heart? And a hurt on his throat he
would not show. And oh!' she said, 'and oh!' she said, and failed and
tried again, 'oh! his knife--_he has not his knife_.'
The love and faith of Lois sprang up against belief.
'Child, child! what do you dare to say--to think? Would you hint that
Christian--my boy Christian--has done murder?
'No, no, never! No, never, never! I would stake my life--my soul--that it
was fair fight!'
Lois looked at her and said a cruel thing: 'You are no helpmeet for him.
Thank God! you are not his wife!'
Rhoda quivered at that, and found it a saying hard to forgive. Her heart
swelled to refute it, and might not for maidenhood. Long ago she would
have had Christian rise up to avenge himself terribly; her pride had
suffered from the poor temper she saw in his. Now, though he had
exceeded the measure of her vague desire, he stood fair and high in her
estimation, illuminated, not blackened by the crime she imputed. Against
all the world, against his mother, she was at one with him. Was there any
other who desired and deserved the nearest and dearest claim, that she
had renounced.
A wedge of silence drove between them. The character of the mother's
stern virtue dawned upon Rhoda, appalling her: for the salvation of her
son's soul she might bid him accept the full penalty of his crime--even
that. A horror of such monstrous righteousness took the girl. She stole
to unbolt the door and away to warn Christian, when a whisper stayed her.
'I failed him. I thought then only of my man, and I had no prayers for my
boy. Ah, Christian, Christian!'
Doubt had entered. Lois knelt and prayed.
Rhoda wavered. Her estimate or the world's, the partial or the
vindictive, shrank to their due proportions, as Lois thus set Christian's
crime before the eye of Heaven. She wavered, turned, and fell kneeling,
clinging and weeping, convicted of the vain presumption that would keep
Christian from the hands of his God.
She was bidden away when Lois caught a sound of Christian.
His mother held him by the window for the first word.
'Christian, where is Philip?'
His startled eyes were a stab to her soul; the tide that crimsoned his
very brow checked hers at her heart. He failed of answering, and guilt
weighed down his head. She rallied on an inspiration that greatest crimes
blanch, never redden, and 'You have not killed him?' was a question of
little doubt.
'No, thank God! no!' he said, and she saw that he shook.
Then he tried to out with the whole worst truth, but he needed to labour
for breath before he could say with a catch: 'I meant to--for one
moment.'
To see a dear face stricken so! Do the damned fare worse? More dreadful
than any reproach was her turning away with wrung hands. She returned to
question.
'Then where is he?'
'I cannot tell. He left me. He would not--he was afraid.'
'What had you done? You had harmed him?'
'Yes,' he said, and told how.
'What had he done to anger you? Had he struck first?'
'No.'
'You had quarrelled?'
'No.'
'Had you no excuse?' she said.
He hesitated. Could she know and understand all, there might be some pity
with her condemnation, there would be some tempering of her distress.
'I can make none,' he had to answer.
When next she spoke: 'Then it was old hate,' she said, and after a minute
he answered 'Yes' to that.
So she had to realise that for months, according to her gospel, he had
been a murderer at heart; and her assurance of a merciful blank of mind
and memory tottered, threatening a downfall that would prove the dear son
of her hope of a rotten build. She tested his memory.
'I asked a promise of you once, and you gave it.'
'Yes,' he said, and, do what he would, 'I have broken it' got mangled
wretchedly in his throat.
'Your promise! Is it believable? You could--you!'
'O mother! If God forgot me!'
Her heart smote her because her prayers had deserted him then.
'Oh, peace!' she said, 'and do not add blasphemy, nor seek to juggle with
God.'
She did not spare him, and deeply she searched his conscience.
Self-convicted already he was, yet his guilt looked freshly hideous
worded by her, as look wounds, known to the senses of night, discovered
by the eye of day.
For a whole dreadful hour Rhoda listened to the murmur of voices. Then
they ceased, and Lois came. 'Thank God, child!' was all she needed to
say.
'Heaven forgive me! Can you? can he? Let me go to him--I must. Ah
me!--can he forgive me?'
Lois held the door and turned her. 'He has nothing to forgive,' she said,
and her face frightened questions.
From among some poor hoards Lois drew out a tiny cross of gold. It was
Christian's, sole relic left of his young unknown life. As a little lad
he had played with it and lost it, and Lois finding it had taken it into
keeping. Now she took it to him.
'I will ask no renewal of a broken promise--no. I want no hard thing of
you, only this: when temptation to deadly sin is overbearing, before you
yield, unfasten this and fling it from you into the sea. You will?
Christian, answer--say, "I will."'
'What worth has any word of mine?' he said in his despair; but her arms
were round his neck fixing the knot, and stayed to clasp, but her rare
terrible sobs rose as she cried, 'Oh, God help you, my son!' and 'I will,
I will!' flew strong to assure her that that word would never have to be
fulfilled.
Near was the time that would put him to the test, and he knew it. A day
passed and a day passed, out of eternity into eternity, and the moon
filled up to Diadyomene's account.
'Rhoda,' he said, 'do you know what day this is?'
'Christmas Eve.'
'Yes--but to my mother--her child was born----'
'Yes,' said Rhoda hurriedly, and bent her head: she for the first time
knew her own birthday.
'Listen, Rhoda! She has aged and weakened so; the day and night of prayer
and fasting she has now begun I fear may outdo her strength. Will you
keep ever at hand to listen and be careful of her?'
'And you?' asked Rhoda.
'I may not stay. I cannot.'
She flashed a look of amazed indignation, for instinctively she knew that
he would be leaving his mother to seek the strange-named woman, and such
filial misconduct in him was hardly credible. No kind word or look would
Rhoda grant him. He never felt the lack: his mother's blessing he did
greatly desire, but he dared not intrude on the day of her mourning to
ask it.
Short was the day and long the way, but over soon by some hours was he
footing it. The singular incidence of the day encouraged belief that a
special mercy of Heaven was ordering his goings for the comforting of a
long sorrow. Ah! God grant her a soul from the sea, and ah! God grant it
by me for a token. All his steps were taken to prayer, and the least
thing he asked of his God was that, though his sins were so heavy, he
might not die till he had seen that salvation. His head and his heart
told him that if he failed in his high endeavour he must surely perish.
Over the wold came a harsh call, and again till he answered and stayed.
He was making for waste stretches, gashed athwart by long gullies
preventing any fair paths. Already, though but half a league forward,
tracks had grown rough and uncertain. The voice came from a mudded
hollow, where a loaded cart stuck fast, an old horse and an old man
striving with it in vain. Though loath to be hindered, Christian turned
aside to give help.
He was not graciously welcomed. The old man scowled, and swore under his
breath. 'The Alien, deuce take it, he will not serve!'
But he stared, and words failed when Christian promptly laid hand on the
load, saying, 'Here's bad balancing, Gaffer; we had best uncord first and
set it right.'
'Ay, it shifted. Have it that way, if so you can and will. My two boys
did the cording, and two fools they be.'
He sidled away, muttering wonderful oaths as curiously he watched the
Alien's tackling. The load was a tree brought down by the recent gale;
protruding roots clawed the mud behind; piled branches nodded to the
fore, orange-red berries bright as coral dangling there. Christian's
great strength made light of the work, and soon the cart went crawling
out of the mire. He snapped off a twig to scrape the mud from his shins,
and the gaffer's mutter then caught his ear.
'He's done it--sure! Be danged if I reckoned he could. Well, well, some
be liars!'
'In your best days, Gaffer, you might have done as much.'
The old face wrinkled with a sour grin.
''Twas said you couldn't abide the rowan.'
'Why?'
'Well, I never asked. May be they lie who swear that never a twig of the
rowan goes in your boat. Some have taken to say so.'
'None, true enough. What then?' said Christian, and he noticed that the
man had thrust a bunch of berries into his belt.
'Well, there, 'tis not I that can give the reason.'
'Can you think mine the only boat that goes without that garnish?'
'I swear the only one.'
Christian did not know how on his very account a prevalent custom had
gained ground. He brought out a string of names.
'Why, most of those from this very tree have had takings. 'Tis an ill
wind that blows nowhere; for I reckon now to get a good price off this
timber--ay, to the last scrap, and 'tis you I owe some thanks for that.
So, look you, I have a mind, after I have made my profit, to open out of
your doing here with me and take the laugh. Hey? Ah! it seems to me that
some of your wits are left, so may be all I heard tell of was lies, when
'twas said you had had games with the Evil One, and had lost to him both
wits and soul.'
Christian said slowly, 'You thought I had no soul?'
'Never thought at all; why should I? Let fools think; I see. You, I see,
but now handle the rowan freely, and pass it to and fro, as never could
you have done had your soul known unholy tampering.'
Christian stood stock-still, with an unseeing stare, till the old man
called back to him, 'Come on, just to lend a hand up this pitch.' Then he
ran after, and so eagerly bore, that one spoke he broke.
On the level he said, strangely breathless, 'Now I want payment.'
'What! A great hulking fellow can't go two steps out of his way and lift
a hand for one with old age in his bones but he asks payment!'
'Yes,' said Christian, 'and for the love of God, give me the payment I
shall ask.'
'No promise, but what's your asking?'
'Give me berries of the rowan.'
With his sour grin the old fellow muttered, 'Well, well, no wits after
all!' as he plucked some bunches and chucked them across.
'More! more! and oh! quick; I lose time. See, fill up my cap.'
'All you can't have. My brats have been promised their handfuls, and want
you may.'
When all that entreaty could get he had, Christian parted at a run, and
the way he took was home.
Rhoda wondered, seeing him pass the window. Presently, laying aside
resentment, she went out to seek him in the linhay. The door resisted her
hand.
'Christian,' she called, and after his answer, 'Come in. What are you
about? Bring in your work; there is fire still.'
He said 'No' so forcibly, that she went away aggrieved, and a little
curious.
All was very quiet; of Lois she heard and saw nothing, and Christian made
no noise at all. She wondered if he too were engaged in prayer; she
wondered if she ought also to be so devoted.
From the window she saw two figures on the road, and watched them idly.
They neared, and from the opposite approach came two others. All four
were known to her by sight, though hailing from some distance; they were
kin to Philip; two were father and son, two were brothers. At the gate
they stood, and turned in.
Rhoda's heart dropped as she guessed their errand. To her a word from
Christian were enough; but what solemnest oath, what evidence short of
Philip's self, would convince these?
They were knocking, while still her countenance was out of command; and
when they asked for Christian, her wits were so troubled, that she said
lamely, 'It is Christmas Eve; can you want him now?
'Wait then--I will go--wait here, and he will come.'
When she passed out and turned the wall, she knew by the sound of feet
that two had started to go about the contrary way to make against any
escape. At the linhay door she knocked, again getting an impatient
answer.
'Christian, come out, or let me in. You must.'
He came out and closed the door, keeping his hand upon it while she told.
'I cannot come. Go, say I cannot come; I will not!' and desperately
impatient his hand beat upon the door.
'You must,' she said, and her white face and shaking voice went far to
convince him. 'I think you must. O Christian, don't you know why they
come?'
He looked at her blankly.
'To ask after Philip.'
His face burned red, and he stood dumfoundered.
'You know? From my mother?'
'Yes,' she said. 'No,' she said. 'I thought that first, and told her. Oh!
why did she not tell you all when she would not let me confess? Yes, I
thought that, and O wretch that I was! I thought no blame either. Now
hate me, and never forgive me.'
He also said, 'I have nothing to forgive'; and half audibly he groaned,
'Ah, Christ! is there no forgiveness of sins?'
Footsteps made them turn to see two rounding the linhay; and again,
footsteps behind brought two after Rhoda, impatient of delay. None of the
four from that moment judged Christian to be innocent, nor Rhoda wholly
ignorant: their looks so bespoke guilt and apprehension.
Some touch of resentment at the intolerant intrusion set Christian's head
high, and his eyes were not to be daunted as he measured each for
strength of will and strength of body. He knew them for the pick of
Philip's kin; all were of the League.
'Say why you come,' said Christian.
'Bid me stay,' whispered Rhoda, though she saw that her presence hindered
a ready answer; but Christian bade her go, and reluctantly she withdrew.
Out of earshot she went, but no further than to the gate. There she
leaned, and tried to keep her face averted, but against resolution now
and then her head would turn to better her heart. Uncloaked, in the cold
she shivered, and from apprehension.
'Concerning our kinsman Philip,' began the eldest.
His colour went and came for witness against him.
'Speak low,' he said, glancing at a near window, 'lest my mother hear,'
and at that a second score went down against his innocence.
'You put to sea with him; you came back alone. Where is he?'
In his haste Christian answered to more than was asked.
'Alive he was when I saw him last. Where he now is I know little as you.'
The youngest put in a word. 'Alive! But was any plank under him? Will you
take your oath that he was alive and safe, and unhurt by you?'
At that red guilt flew over his face, for he could not.
Another turn of words might give him a chance, but he had no skill to
play for it. The imposition of an oath he might not resent with his old
high claim: a promise had been broken, though they knew not, and his head
sank for shame. That, with his brief pause, sealed conviction.
One muttered, 'Now I would not believe him though he swore'; but the
other three frowned silence upon him, the spokesman saying, 'We do
require an oath before we ask further.'
No protest did he offer to hinder a quick despatch. He uttered the form
prescribed, though conscience and pride alike took deep wounds of it.
Afterwards it was told against him how his countenance worked, as for the
first time an oath had been forced upon him.
'Now be speedy,' said Christian, 'for I have little leisure or list to
bide.'
At that crass speech something of grim smiling hardly kept to
concealment.
'Is Philip alive?'
'Yes,' he said, 'if he be not dead,' an answer that angered them. 'God
knows'; then he said, 'I have no cause to think him dead.'
'You saw him last alive and like to live?'
'More like to live than I.'
'Where, then, did you leave him?'
'I may not say. I am pledged to silence.'
'How pledged? To whom?'
'To Philip.'
'Ay, we know; but we all are of the League.'
'None were excepted; "not to a soul," he said.'
'He, speaking for the League, meant to not a soul beside.'
'I mean to the League no less. So I think did he.'
A poor satisfaction was in standing to his word against those who
compelled him to an oath.
'Crack-brained devil----'
'Lower!' Christian said, glancing anxiously up at the window.
'This is no case for foolery or brag. Out of you we must have the whole
truth, lief or loath.'
His stubborn face said no. To no man on earth could he tell the whole
truth, nor, were that possible, would it be believed; less than the
whole doomsday truth could scarce make his own outrageous act
comprehensible.
'Philip may tell you, but not I,' he said witlessly. And as he spoke and
looked at these four, it came upon him that he might not long outlive
Philip's telling of the tale, if only by reason of that lurking thing
uncertainly seen. He clapped his hand upon the hidden cross, as a
perilous flash told how less cause had set down a record that might not
bear the light. So close was he ever to the mouth of hell.
Live temper faded from his face, and it settled to the old blank mildness
that had been lifting somewhat of late days.
'Is he so mad?'
'No, he shams.'
'Leave fooling, and speak straight in a matter of life and death.'
'Oh! more--more than life and death. For the love of God, make an end,
and take a final answer. I will tell no more; nor would the most I know
further you to Philip.'
The comment of a vigorous curse checked him there.
'Hear me out. If you need but to know how a venture went, I can tell you:
well. If you have other need of him that does not brook delay, I can but
offer to serve you to my best, for following and bringing him again;
whatever be the risk, I owe that to him and you. Only this day I must
have to myself. I must, though I pay for it with the rest of my life.'
That preposterous offer took away breath. Then an oath yelping high with
derision above anger brought Christian to entreat for his mother's quiet.
'Let us in here, then,' said one, and reached to the latch behind him.
Christian struck up his arm. 'No!' he said, and barred the way.
Instantly, moved by a prompt suspicion, the four sprang out ready steel
and swung one way, ringing him in. At that, Christian realised his
desperate case. He blanched, and sweat started. 'For life and death!' he
said hoarsely. 'O my God, my God!'
Rhoda shot in between, and, voiceless from fear and speed, clung to
Christian, presuming her weakness to turn offence.
'Cowards!' she panted, 'four against one, and he empty-handed. What--why?
Christian?'
'You would do well to counsel your madman to give way and let us pass, if
he care greatly for the quiet of any there within.'
Christian yielded. He lifted the latch and thrust the door open, standing
aside that they might pass him by; but two linked arm with him, walked
him in, and held him a prisoner. He did not offer to resist. Rhoda
pressed after him close; the last to enter closed and bolted the door.
Puzzled silence fell. Not a corner of the bare place could harbour
suspicion. Some tools were ranged against the walls; twine and canvas and
common oddments lay there, a small enough show of garden store, and of
fuel a pile pitifully low. A stool overthrown told of Christian's last
hasty rising; on a bench lay his cap, half filled with scarlet berries,
and strung berries were spread beside. Four blank countenances were
turned upon him, whose looks were sullen and guilty like a criminal's
taken in the act. Rhoda, bewildered, owned to her sinking heart that here
showed such vagary of his wits as passed her reckoning.
'You were best away, Rhoda.'
'I will not go,' she said, 'except I be thrust out.'
None urged for that rough kindness now, having gone so far; her presence
might even turn to account, for it must lie with the Alien to spare her
distress.
The prisoner took up question.
'The League has charged you to be judges?'
'Yes.'
'To give sentence?'
'Yes.'
'To execute it?'
'Yes.'
Christian grew as white as a coward; he went on steadily nevertheless.
'You are charged to do murder.'
'To do justice.'
'Without any proof that Philip is dead.'
'Lack of proof that he is alive comes to the same as the case stands.'
No lie would now avail of Philip lost overboard. In the stress of clear
thinking for his life he felt relief that he could not be so tempted to
damn his fair cause before Heaven.
'He will return,' he muttered, 'but too late, for me too late.'
'Christian, they dare not,' gasped Rhoda; 'no, you dare not, for Philip
will return to confound you. Should he return--too late--then may God
have no mercy on your souls.'
Christian said 'Amen' to that.
The spokesman turned to Rhoda.
'You speak positively: can you bear witness in his favour?'
'I know nothing--nothing.'
'Yet have you shown singular quickness of apprehension.'
She looked piteously at Christian, galled by remorse.
'Oh me! Must I say?'
'Why not? None here will blame you. I cannot.'
So Rhoda faltered out how she too had entertained a wicked suspicion.
'What evidence then routed it?'
'His.'
'His evidence?'
'His denial.'
Her sincerity was beyond question; her simplicity commanded respect; no
ingenuity could have spoken better to his credit. Yet all was vain.
'Bare denial may not suffice for us, when furthermore without valid cause
he has refused any clear statement to satisfy a reasonable demand, and
quibbled and defied.'
'Give me a moment's grace,' pleaded Christian, 'to make sure if I can go
no further.'
He might take his time; but little he needed to gain conviction for
despair; for he saw how inevitably answer would beget question point by
point, till, again at bay, having traversed ground bristling with hostile
indications, he must stand at yet worse disadvantage.
Before his eyes, one, fingering in mere impatience, took hold of the
strung berries; at a rough twitch some scattered. Christian, exasperated,
plucked for a free hand, and a tightened grip set him struggling for one
instant with the natural indignation of young blood at rude constraint.
So well dreaded was his strength, that on a misconstruction of his aim,
every tool that might serve as a weapon was caught up and thrust hastily
from the window, while more of the rowan danced down. Balked the Alien
seemed, resisting no longer, and sweating, shaking, choking, with eyes
miserably wet with rage. But Rhoda, who had watched his face, turned, and
gathering all the berries loose and strung, laid them safe from handling.
'God bless you, dear!' he said; and so she knew that she had guessed
right, and so she could not doubt but his wits had fallen again to their
old infirmity.
He had ended patience and grace when a gleam of hope came.
'It must be within your knowledge,' he said, 'who last saw him with me.'
'Yes.'
'Then this I may say--he and Philip went together when we parted
company.'
'That too we had thought to be possible.'
Christian recognised an ominous note, and the hostile faces he saw more
dark and grim.
'Speak out!' he cried; 'what is it you think?' Yet half he knew; yet
quite he knew. 'Speak out! Do you dare think I have betrayed them?'
'We have little doubt. Traitor, thrice over traitor, the League's account
with you is overdue.'
He laughed out savagely.
'Now, devils that you are you show, that bring a false accusation, since
well you know that once only have I been on a venture.'
'Well we know how two ventures before failed--well-planned ventures. Now
we know how you have played the fool and the spy together. Two times have
you been gone, no man knew where; over a day gone, and not at sea. Will
you say now where you went?'
He despaired, and did not answer, while Rhoda's glance wavered
consciously. At last he said:
'Though I myself can make no defence, in due time I cannot fail to be
cleared--of murder and treason. I cannot wait. This day I want; I must be
free on any terms. No terms? But hear! I claim judgment instantly, this
hour. Men, you dare not give it. Then I claim the judgment of God. I will
fight it out. Choose your place and pick your man,--nay, any two. What?
Cowards! three, all four together, but forgo your knives or lend me one.'
'Fight you may, but the place shall be here, and the odds against you, as
you see.'
The door was fast, and the six within stood close in the limited space;
he was held at disadvantage, and weaponless, against choice men prepared.
Also he cared for two women.
'Oh!' he cried, shaken and white with fury, 'I must, I must have one day.
With what but my life may I purchase? Is it cheap, think you? As you hope
for heaven by mercy, deal with me. Only one day! By this hour to-morrow,
if I breathe, I surrender. I will swear to it by any form you will. Make
harder conditions, and I take them. All my life-days after would I engage
to set this day free. What more can a man offer than his life for lending
or ending?'
His face and voice were so dreadful to Rhoda's heart, that she could not
brook the limits of reason.
'Mine! Christian, you have mine. You will not refuse; you will let him
go, for I will be his surety.'
'This is folly.'
'It is not. Is it not enough? I--life--honour, in pledge for him. O
Christian, you cannot gainsay, else you dishonour your own purpose.'
'We are plain men who are dealing for justice. An innocent girl cannot be
substitute for a traitor all but proved, whom, moreover, the League needs
for a better information.'
Still Rhoda tried protests.
'Girl, are you out of your senses too? dishonest too? Can you state any
circumstance to justify this urgency for a day's grace? Failing that,
well we can guess what he would do with it. It is somewhat barefaced.'
Christian checked her answering, and owned defeat.
'Give over now,' he said. 'An hour have I wasted fighting over losing
ground. You have gained all along, and I know it. In every way you have
the advantage. Say now, what will you do with it?'
'You surrender?'
'No. By your force, not by my will, shall liberty go. Quit words and be
doing. No: what then?'
'Consider that the odds are against your taking boat alive were a hint
out of your foul dealing with the League. Yet if you promise resistance
we have no choice but to hale you an open prisoner. Have you a mind to
face stones?'
Rhoda's scared looks drew one to assure her, that were Christian free
from guilt, his cause could not miscarry at their hands, unless by his
own intemperance; therefore should she persuade him to voluntary
submission. He groaned in miserable despair.
'I yield, but only till these stringent conditions be passed. Dispose
with me as you will, and I submit--yes, absolutely--yes; but for a time
only. A limited term; for one half-hour? More I will not, and look you
after. I cannot surrender my will to be free this day.'
Likely enough it was out of pity for the girl that his offer was taken.
Against suspicion of some reservation he was constrained to swear faith
under dictation; also the order of his going was ruled minutely, with
warning that the lifting of a hand unallowed would be instantly fatal.
'Be doing--be doing quickly,' he said, and the bolt was drawn.
Christian turned to stay Rhoda, who came following, and the four men,
with fine consideration, passed out first, letting the door swing to on
the unhappy pair. Their eyes met, poor souls, with miserable
consciousness that a barrier of reserve thwarted solace.
'Keep heart, dear,' he said; and bravely tearless she echoed him.
'But, oh!' she said, 'be patient, and not rash, for the sake of those who
love you.'
'O Rhoda, Rhoda! you do not know. I have a work this night. I think--I
know it was meant for me. By Heaven, I think. My own sins have risen up
against me now. They thwart. Hell itself striving against me has
advantage by them. There must be some way. But I cannot see it. There
must be! Oh! I cannot be condemned through turning back on an amended
hope. So Heaven-sent I blessed it. No way--no way!'
Muttering, he reached over to the rowan and absently fingered it, while
Rhoda urged on him what she knew of reason. He turned on her a musing
look.
'Rhoda, will you help me?'
'Oh, tell me to: never ask.'
'Take the rowan, and finish what I was about.'
She broke down at last, and turned away in such a passion of sobbing as
owned desertion of hope.
'Rhoda! You desert me, Rhoda!' in so broken a voice he said, that against
all sense she cried: 'But I will! Yes, yes; trust me, I will!' and could
not after retract when she saw his face.
'I am not mad,' he said; 'look at me: I am not.' And with that she knew
not how to reconcile evidence.
'Be speedy against my return.'
'Is it possible? How?' she whispered.
'As God wills, I cannot know; but some way will show, must show.'
Again she entreated against temerity, and for answer he taught her of a
lonely spot, asking her to carry the threaded rowan there, and to wait
his coming. 'If I do not come,' he said, 'I shall be----'
'Not dead!' she breathed.
'Oh, damned and dead,' he said.
'It cannot be. No. Yet, O Christian, should any harm befall you, avenged
you shall be. Yes. No law can serve us here efficient against the
tyranny of the League; but if in all the land high places of justice be,
there will I go, and there denounce the practice of such outrage and
wrong. Those four, they shall not escape from account. For that I will
live--ay, even hazard living--I know.'
'You will not,' ordered Christian; 'for I myself freely have served the
League, and have taken payment. And these four mean to deal justly; and I
have no right to complain.'
A hint of impatience sounded against the door, and Christian, with a last
word enjoining secrecy, turned and lifted the latch. A forlorn sob
complained. He caught both her hands in his.
'Dear heart, dear hands, a farewell were misdoubt,' he said, and on brow
and hands he crossed her. 'A human soul shall bless your faithful doing.'
He loosed and left her. She saw the door's blank exchange for him; she
heard the brisk departure of feet; away fled the spurious confidence she
had caught in his presence, and desolate and despairing, blind and choked
with grief, she cursed her own folly and bewailed his.
When she took up her lunatic task the red berries like told beads
registered one by one prayer too like imprecation, for sure she was that
the strange-named woman stirred at the heart of this coil. In heats of
exasperation she longed to scatter and crush the rowan; yet the thread
crept on steadily through her hands, inch by inch, till that misery was
over.
Then it pleased her grief to bring out her own best scarf for enfolding.
'So I further him to her,' she said; 'so I fashion some love-token
between them.' As soft-foot she went for it, outside a fastened door she
stood to listen. She heard the low mutter of petition, and jealous
resentment sprang up against a monopoly by the dead of the benefit of
prayer, so wanted by the living.
As she stood, a patch of calm sea shone into her eyes through a narrow
light; and from the frame, small as a beetle, moved a boat rowing across.
Five men she counted, and she made out that the second rower was the
biggest. So had he entirely surrendered. All hopeless she turned away to
fulfil her promise.
At that moment Christian was speaking.
'I take it, the time is now up.'
By a mile of engirding sea the prospect of escape looked so vain that one
joined assent with a fleer. Placid as the sea's calm was the Alien's
countenance, and he pulled on steadily. The leader from the helm leaned
forward to regard him fixedly, finding his tranquillity consonant only
with imperfect wits.
'You think better of resistance, nevertheless?'
'Truly I do,' he answered. 'I think better of resistance now,' and in his
eyes was no reading of resentment or anxiety.
His glance turned with his thoughts to distinguish the roof that covered
his mother and Rhoda. Dear heart, cried his, do your part and I will
mine.
Rhoda by then was doing after her own thought and liking. Though fasting
herself, poor child, that on the morrow the board might be the better
spread, for Christian she was lavish. Wine she took that Giles had not
lived to drink; of griddle cakes the best she chose, and also of figs
from those she summer-time ago had gathered and dried. Then she wound the
silly rowan in brown moss, knotted it up in her scarf, and cloaked
herself, and went out on her fool's errand.
Some miles to the west, on the edge of waste, stood a landmark of three
trees, and near by, off the path, a furze-stack. Thither by devious ways
of caution came Rhoda on the first wane of daylight, and having done all,
faced the drear without heart, crouching into shelter of the furze.
Poorly clad for such a vigil, thin from days of want, fasting, exhausted
by excitement and grief, she had no strength left to bear bravely any
further trial. Though Christian's desperate emphasis stood out to bar
despair, she told herself his coming was impossible, and her spirit
quailed in utter cowardice as she realised her own outlook. She was
afraid of the night, and her engagement had taken no limit of time.
Should the dreaded ice-wind of the season rise, there were peril to life;
but her heart died under a worse terror, that increased as waste and tree
bulked large and shapeless under drawing dark. For was it not the Eve of
Christmas, when the strict limitations of nature were so relaxed that
things inanimate could quit station, and very beasts speak like men, and
naked spirits be clothed with form. Her mortal senses were averse. With
desperate desire for relief she scanned the large through the longest
hour of her life.
Night was in the valleys, but on the uplands twilight still, when against
the sky a runner came. He, dear saviour.
But his footsteps made no sound; but he showed too white. Doubt of agony
that this was not he in human flesh froze her, till he came and stood,
and not seeing her close crouched, uttered his heart in a sound dreadful
to hear.
'Here, here!' cried Rhoda, and had her hands on him before her eyes had
fairly realised him. He was mostly naked.
Coatless, shirtless, unshod, his breeks and his hair clung damp, showing
by what way he had come free. She held him, and laughed and sobbed.
'You have it?' he said. 'Give it here--give it.'
'This also--this first. Drink--eat.'
'No; I cannot stay.'
'You shall--you must,' she urged. 'Do you owe me nothing? What, never a
word?'
He declined impatience to her better counsel; and when he had got the
rowan and belted it safe, to the praise of her providence he drank
eagerly and ate.
Rhoda spied a dark streak on his shoulder. 'You are hurt--oh!'
'Only skin-deep. Salt water stanched it.'
'And what of them? Christian, what have you done?' she asked with
apprehension.
'Yes; I have a charge for you. Oh, their skins are whole all. Can you
step on with me a pace? You will not be afraid?'
She looked at the wan south-west, and the sable heath, and the stark
trees; but she could answer now: 'No,' stoutly and truly, and shiver for
fear only. He withheld his pace for her, she stretched to a stride for
him.
'Well done, I know,' she said, 'but tell me how.'
He gave a meagre tale, but many a detail she heard later to fill it out.
It was easy doing according to Christian, when time and place suited, to
beat out a rib of the boat, to stand his ground for a moment while the
sea accomplished for him, then to drop overboard when blades struck too
quick and close. The boat went down, he said, near three miles from
shore.
'O Christian! are any drowned?'
'No, no. I had done my best by them. You know how the Tortoises lie. We
were well within a furlong of them. I got there first, and was doffed and
ready when they came, waiting to offer them fair. Rhoda, you will carry
word of this that some fellows may go to take them off.'
'Not I,' she said vindictively; 'let them wear the night there for due
quittance.'
'No. They might be perished. And 'twas I counselled them not to attempt
the shore, and said I could send word of their plight; and I meant it
honestly, though the fools grew so mad at that, that they took to
stoning.'
When, later, Rhoda heard the tale more fully, it showed elements of
incongruous comedy; later still, she heard it grown into monstrous
proportions, when the name of the Tortoises was put aside, and the place
was known as the Devil's Rocks thenceforward. The Alien's feats that day,
his mighty stroke staving the boat, his swimming of marvellous speed, his
confidence and temerity, were not passed on to his credit: adverse was
the interpretation, and he never lived it down.
'Tell me, Christian, where you will be, and how we are to get news of you
till you dare return.'
'Dare return! If I be not dead, that will I to-morrow.'
She cried out against such insanity.
'You must not. It is wicked with a foolhardy parade to torment us--your
mother.'
'Have no fear, dear. If I come again, it will be with joy, bearing my
sheaves.'
She could put an interpretation on his words that loaded her heart.
'Rhoda, dear sister, I owe you much this day, and now I will ask for one
thing more.'
She said 'Yes,' though foreboding ordeal. It was a minute before he
spoke.
'Will you pray for us?'
Poor heart, how could she? Anything but that.
'What worth are the prayers of such an one as I? Desire rather your
mother's prayers.'
'She for another cause will be praying the night through. Will you do as
much for us?'
He stopped her, for she did not speak, and held her by the shoulders,
trying to see her face to get answered.
'O Rhoda, will you not pray for us?'
She made her answer singular. 'I will pray for thee'; but his greater
want overcame her into ending: 'and--for Diadyomene.'
He stood stock-still and gripped her hard when that name came, but he
asked nothing. 'I will, I will,' she whispered; and then he kissed her
brow and said: 'God bless you.' She flung her arms round his neck without
reserve; her cheek lay against his bare breast, and because she felt a
cross there she dared to turn her lips and kiss. He gathered her to close
embrace, so that swept from her feet she lay in his arms rapt for one
precious instant from all the world.
When he had set her on her feet, when he had blessed her many times, she
clung to him still, heaving great sobs, till he had to pluck away her
hands.
'Yes, go,' she said. 'I will pray for you both,' and down she knelt
straightway.
'God be with you.'
'God be with you.'
He passed from her into the darkness, away from sorrows she knew to some
unknown. Rhoda, flung prostrate, wept bitterly, rending her heart for the
getting of very prayer for that unknown woman, her bane.
Too little thought Christian, though he loved her well, of her who so
faithfully went on his bidding, trudging wearily on to make good his
word, kneeling afterwards through the long hours in prayer that was
martyrdom. If the value of prayer lie in the cost, hers that night
greatly should avail.