KIT STARTS ON HIS MISSION
The boy blew his nose, and set off along the foot of the cliff, the
scent-bottle in his hand.
Beneath the chalk boulders that strewed the bottom of the cliff, weird
in the white gloom, a band of shingle ran like a road before him. He
took it, the shingle crunching beneath his feet.
The tide was rising: he could hear its stealthy rustle beneath him. He
must reach the Head and round it before the water; and how far off the
ultimate point might be, he did not know, and could not see.
Once round it, if he had understood the old man aright, the cliffs
fell away. There he would climb them; and he hoped to be on the top of
the Downs before the mist rolled away and the frigate, were she still
lying off the wreck, could send boats to search the beach.
He was very hungry; but his heart soared. Youth, the great healer, had
done its work. Already the terrors of that fierce yesterday, the
tendernesses of that solemn night, were far away.
He laboured on as rapidly as the backward drag of the shingle would
permit; at every stride clutching the scent-bottle to make sure of it.
His was a tremendous mission.
Yet surely it was not for the first time he had set out on such an
errand? alone, journeying through perilous lands, the fate of the
world on his shoulders. No, no, no. Somewhere, somewhen.... He had
forgotten; yet somehow he remembered.
Well, he had won through then: he must have--else he would not be here
now. Yet not in this little life, these fifteen years of home-
experience. Death then, perhaps a thousand deaths, must have
intervened between him--and him. Such a strange mystery!--What was the
answer to it?--Was death a sham? was there no such thing?--did He, the
real He, go on for ever not merely in heaven, as the parsons affirmed,
but on earth? was this life of his One, One reiterated, One to
Everlasting, a tide ebbing and flowing between the night of Time and
the day of Eternity? these recurring deaths only barriers blocking off
terms of his Eternal Self?
Digging his toes into the shingle, he marched on, his heart strangely
uplifted, the sense of his immortality strong on him.
And besides, the darkness and danger lay behind. Discretion, sharp
eyes, and a nimble pair of feet should do the rest. Above all, his
experience of the last thirty-six hours had given him confidence, the
mother of success. He began to be aware of his own power. Action had
revealed him to himself. Responsibility now confirmed him. The boy was
merging in the man with extraordinary swiftness. There was in his soul
an aweful joy, the joy of dawn, the dawn of holy manhood.
Rejoicing in his newly found strength, he laboured on gallantly. With
luck, he would be in Lewes before the coach left; in London before
night; and at Merton before Nelson sat down to breakfast to-morrow
morning.
His, his, his, to save Nelson!
And O, mother? would not her heart be proud?
The mist grew thin before him, as though lace curtain after lace
curtain was being swept back by unseen hand. The sun, the colour of a
shilling, and as round, glimmered above the horizon. At his feet he
could distinguish the sea silvery-twinkling; and not a hundred yards
away the Head, bluff as a wall, loomed before him.
His heart leapt.... Hurrah!... Once round that....
He began to run with noisy feet.
A shadow stooping on the edge of the tide sprang up.
"_Hell_!" came a sudden scream.