Outside the rain had lessened, and the stars shone more securely. Without
a word she hurried down the cross street and on to the Parade by her
companion's side, but her feet no longer lagged. Hope had sprung anew in
her heart, and as they turned the corner she looked up at him smiling.
"I only know you as 'the father of the twins,'" she said, "and it is a
long address."
"My name is Amherst." Then a moment later, as they picked their way
across the muddy road to the top of the steps, "I have been trying all
this time to find a reason, and I can only frame an excuse--_they have no
mother_!"
"Oh, poor twins!" she said.
The tide was distinctly lower, and the wind had died down. The long waves
rolled in with almost oily smoothness, and showed no ridge of foam when
they broke upon the beach. Patches of seaweed caught and reflected the
moonlight.
The old sailor was baling out the boat, and half a dozen hands held her
to the shore. An air of excitement pervaded every one, and one or two men
offered their services rather sheepishly; but the Royal Navy did not need
assistance.
He settled Mrs. Beauchamp in the bow, with the rugs for a cushion; then
he pushed off with his oar, and in another minute they were gliding out
from under the shadow of the cliff, making straight for the island in
front of them.
Mr. Amherst had taken the other oar, and was rowing bow. On their left
little crests of half-submerged rocks showed black against the sea, and
on the far horizon the false dawn made a silver line between sky and sea.
Mrs. Beauchamp held the lines mechanically and leant forward, straining
her eyes to steer for a possible landing-place; but the beating of her
heart had quieted down, and she had a curious feeling that she was
drifting, drifting, in this solemn silence, out of a region of torturing
fear into the peaceful harbour of a dream.
The twist of the oars in the rowlocks, the rhythmical dip, and the ripple
of water against the boat were restful in their monotony. She felt her
eyes closing as something slipped through her fingers--Susie's boot, with
its long damp laces! She looked at her lap in horror, and tried to push
the dreadful object away; but there was nothing there, excepting the wet
lines that had fallen from her fingers. Some one put out a rough, kind
hand to steady her, and she straightened herself with a start, meeting
the old sailor's keen eyes.
"Carry on, ma'am, carry on." Then, a moment later, "Way enough!"
In a minute Mr. Amherst had caught at the crags and drawn the boat
alongside, and Ben had sent his voice pealing up against the cliff in a
volume of sound that was absolutely terrifying.
"Hulloo! Hulloo--oo!"
A few frightened sea-birds flew out of the crevices in the cliff and
wheeled about their heads, but there was no other sound. Mrs. Beauchamp's
eyes filled with agonized tears, but the sailor's cheeriness was
infectious.
"I'll wake them," he said.
Again his voice went up into the night, as if he defied the poor defences
of the dark.
"Hulloo! Hulloo--oo!"
"Susie!" cried Mrs. Beauchamp, in her thinner treble.
And this time there _was_ an answer--a cry small and faint; not at all
like Susie's boisterous everyday voice, but human. Ben was out of the
boat in a minute, scrambling from peak to peak, and shouting as he went.
Mrs. Beauchamp sat down with an uncertain movement, and covered her face
with her hands; whilst Mr. Amherst, clinging to the rock for fear the
ebbing tide should carry them out to sea, spoke to her with whimsical
entreaty. "Mrs. Beauchamp, please don't faint until Nelson comes back!
Pull yourself together--he _expects_ us to do our duty; and, besides, you
will frighten the children."
The last suggestion had an instantaneous effect. From that calm region
where love and despair were alike forgotten she came back with a
conscious effort to the unsteady boat, and Mr. Amherst's alarmed eyes,
and the lapping water against the bow.
"That's right," said Mr. Amherst, with great relief in his voice. "I
really didn't know how to get to you. Listen!"
"Safe!" The great voice came pealing down the cliff, waking the echoes on
the shore, and with a sort of incredulous joy Mrs. Beauchamp listened to
the sturdy steps coming slowly, surely, carefully down, with a little
ripple of shale following them.
She clutched at the gunwale of the boat until she hurt her hands, and
strained her eyes for the sight she longed to see. First there came the
stalwart figure of the sailor with a bundle in his arms, and behind him a
slim, bare-footed, bareheaded, stumbling little creature, who almost fell
into the expectant arms waiting for her.
"He's quite warm, mother." It was Susie's voice, faint, eager, appealing,
caught by deep sobs. "He has never coughed once--he has never _moved_. He
is quite warm; feel him."
"O Susie! And you?"
"Me! Oh, I'm all right," said Susie, wondering. "I did take care of him;
I tried my very best."
"But where are your clothes, Susie? And it rained so."
"They are round Dick," said Susie. "Mother, they kept him beautifully
warm."
The men jumped into the boat and pushed off. The little bundle of flannel
and serge that held Dickie rolled quite comfortably to the bottom of the
boat; but Susie's mother held two frozen feet in her warm hands and said
nothing. Words did not come easily.
Presently Susie spoke again in that strained whisper. "Mother, when I
went to sleep I dreamt a ferryman came for us, and his boat was close to
the shore, and we were stepping in when you called me back. I knew your
voice, and you said 'Susie' quite plainly. I wouldn't go, and I wouldn't
let him take Dick! I screamed and held him tight, and the ferryman said
we must pay him, all the same; and then you gave him two pennies, and he
went away."
"Susie, I _did_ call. In my heart I have called all night."
"Yes, I know," said Susie. "When I woke and saw the sailor, I thought it
was the ferryman."
"I _had_ paid," said Mrs. Beauchamp.
"Oh, I knew you would," said Susie.
Mrs. Beauchamp took the rug that Mr. Amherst threw to her, and folded it
close and warm about Susie's wet locks and damp body; and presently the
difficult, sobbing breaths grew quieter, but her mother knew that she was
not asleep by the fierce pressure of her fingers.
The day was breaking as the boat was beached, and a dozen willing hands
pulled her high and dry. The sea-birds were awake, fluttering about the
head of the island; the ebbing tide had left the rocks very black and
bare.
When they set Susie on her feet she was too stiff to stand alone, and
never for one moment did she loose her hold of her mother's dress. It was
the Royal Navy that finally took her into wonderfully tender keeping, and
carried her up the steps and along the Parade, and laid her, still
wrapped in the rug, on her own white bed, that nurse had made comfortably
ready.
Dickie woke flushed and warm from his rosy sleep when they brought him
in, and looked at the old sailor with round, bewildered eyes.
"Is it Father Neptune?" he asked.
"No, darling, no."
"Oh, I see he hasn't got his three-pronged fork. Is it Nelson then?"
"I am sure I don't know," said Mrs. Beauchamp, and her laugh was very
near tears.--"You will tell the twins at once, please," she said to Mr.
Amherst as she said good-bye. "I cannot bear to feel that they may be
awake and waiting."
But Dot and Dash had not passed a sleepless night of misery. Long ago,
tired out with sorrow, they had fallen asleep on the nursery window-sill,
and dreamt that they were sailing on unknown seas in fairy boats!