HABAKKUK’S LIGHT
Stars, frost, and glimmer of snow blended into a bluish, dim suffusion,
a hyperborean obscurity that was neither light nor darkness. The figure
ahead showed as a blotch of denser twilight, dissolving, rather than
moving, down the slope. Miles prowled after, straining his eyes to
detect in what quarter of the black undergrowth it was absorbed and
blotted.
No light, no sound, could either guide or betray him. His impulse had
been to stride along, to overtake and question the sailor; but so,
reflection told him, he might destroy his only chance to learn the
truth. He waded onward, accordingly, with great care; and slipping
through fir branches, gained free footing in the beaten path. No wind
stirred; and though faint aerial changes drew widely over the valley,
not a bristle whispered among all the drooping, padded layers of black
and white. With the old expectancy he came to the buried quarter-deck.
No one appeared.
He crossed, and was passing into the evergreen gap beyond, when he
ran solidly against some person emerging. With an angry start he
grappled the stranger by both arms. For an instant they wrestled
silently. Wrapped in a long rough ulster or cloak, his opponent not
only struggled at a disadvantage, but exerted neither weight nor force.
Miles felt a lithe body strain furiously to escape, and then, after
a single spasm of resistance, unexpectedly surrender. At the same
moment, as they lurched back against the yielding support of young
boughs, in a downfall of clotted snow, he felt his cheek swept at once
sharply by fir needles and softly by disordered hair. In shifting
holds, his bare hand closed tight round a bare wrist, surprisingly
frail and warm.
“Oh, you’re hurting me!” complained the captive in a fierce whisper.
“Let go!”
Whether at the voice, the contact, or the recognition, a quick thrill
ran through his fore-arm, like the instant passage of a mysterious
current.
“It’s you!” Both spoke at once, with the same manner, the same thought.
Looking for Tony, he had found his companion of the fog. This
surpassing wonder overwhelmed him. Yet in that flaming instant, in
the very rout of reason, Miles--where a wise man or a fool might
have inferred obviously and ignobly--saw the facts with the ease of
inspiration.
“We’re out on the same errand,” he whispered. “You’re looking for your
father?”
“How did--I can’t tell you!” she panted. “Let me go! Please, let go!”
“Oh, I forgot.” He released her, suddenly confused and awkward. “I
didn’t mean--I--I’m sorry.”
She started as if to pass, then stopped.
“What did you want him for?” she asked, with a strange mingling of
timidity and reproach. “Why are _you_ after him?”
“I’m not,” said Miles. “It’s your friend Florio--”
“My friend!” she whispered scornfully. “Then they _are_ together!”
Through his excitement Miles had become aware that the sound of oars
drew toward them down river, close to shore. The rowing stopped, just
below; thin ice crackled, under the feet of some one tramping down
toward the water; and the surly voice of Abram called from the stream,--
“That you, cap’n?”
From the shore Tony answered impatiently:
“Rather--with both feet in the mud. Stir your stumps, don’t keep me
freezing here!”
“Come’s fast as I could,” growled the other. “Needn’t think you--put on
airs!”
By tacit alliance, Miles and the girl found themselves leaning on
the platform rail, peering together into the darkness. All below was
invisible, but they heard the boat come grating to land, the mutter
of the voices, and the hollow, jerky beat of oars departing quickly,
straight out from shore.
“Come on,” whispered Miles. “Come along. Let’s follow and see!”
The whim was contagious and inspiring. Together they scrambled down the
snow-bank, joining hands for the steep slide. At the bottom Tony’s boat
loomed gray before them, buried like a knoll. The tarpaulin, loaded
with snow, clung heavy and obstinate; but Miles ripped it off at last,
and slid the boat gently from the chocks.
“Dragging it will sound like the mischief,” he said. “Could you manage
the bow?”
Luckily the boat was light, and as they staggered down the beach,
winding among the black open patches and avoiding the ice, he felt,
with a singular pride, that the girl held up her end gamely.
He had allowed the two men a long start, and still listened, till their
oars sounded feebly across the water.
“Ready,” he said at last.
She brushed past him into the stern. He shoved off, muffled the
rowlocks in his woolen scarf and a boat-mop of frozen jute, and rowed
slowly out, with only a faint creaking, and the steady trickle from
the blades. Astern, as the shore retreated, the twin lights drew
imperceptibly toward each other. Their glow left the water in darkness,
and, dwindling, became fixed, lustrous points, as of two erring planets
sunken low, on the wrong side of the horizon. Out here the river lay
black under the starlight, which, no longer reflected by the snow,
seemed to have raised and withdrawn aloft. Far ahead the oars were
beating regular as a pulse,--a dull throbbing that alone disturbed the
night, except when thin peals of untimely cock-crow sounded, faint as
muted horns, from indoors, across wide distances.
“Don’t they seem strange?” said the girl, half to herself. “Like
something--like a ghost story.”
“Yes--or the legend,” answered Miles. “And it _is_ drawing on to
Christmas time.”
A short silence followed, before she asked:
“What legend?”
“Oh--why, you know it.” He slowly recalled the lines, prompted by the
pale mystery of stars overhead, the swerving profundity of the tide
beneath, but more than all by the whispering, muffled figure on the
thwart, obscure as a shape of sorcery.
“‘Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long.
And then--’”
The dripping of the oars marked the pauses, crisply and rhythmically.
“‘And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time.’”
He rowed on steadily.
“Oh, I remember where,” she said, after a time. “They read that to us
in school one winter. It’s very beautiful. But I can’t remember things
like you. I wish--” She laughed somewhat bitterly. “We don’t have books
in our house--”
Though strange, their situation seemed profoundly simple,--a sudden,
unforeseen, yet natural welding of present to past adventure. They
were afloat together, in the same wide concealment, almost as though
the same obscurity, without interval, had but changed from white to
black. So welcome was this conjoining magic that, for the moment, they
could forget its cause.
Suddenly, however, the sound which they followed came to an end.
“They heard us,” whispered the girl.
Miles, with a like thought, stopped rowing. Still, their voices had
been quiet as their oars. Surely the two men had not--yet why should
they drift in mid-stream? He pondered, listening; and then first came
the memory of Habakkuk’s light, seen from the high woods.
“The island. They’re landing.” Even as he whispered they heard, well
off their port bow, the crash of splintering beach ice. “The lower
end.”
He swung the boat’s nose up river, and, yielding to the flood-tide,
made for the head of the island. Gradually the loom of shore spread
round and above them, deepening the night. As if a shadow had
solidified, the unseen beach grated softly beneath their bow.
“Sand!” said Miles. “A piece of luck.”
With one hand on his shoulder, she vaulted lightly ashore. They lifted
the boat beyond reach of tide, climbed a shelving slant that rose to
the foot of the main ledge, and groped along an impending granite wall,
which the river had deeply gnawed and under-cut, as cattle ravage a
haystack. A cleft, however, at last gave access; and grasping each
other timorously, struggling together, they gained the upper level.
Here the north wind had swept the beak of the island clear; for scrubby
bushes--lambkill, perhaps, or sweet-fern, or blueberry--parted rustling
underfoot, with the frailest odor of dried herbs. Then evergreens
compassed all about, breast-high, in snow and darkness.
They now waded so heavily in drifts, through a grove so deeply
smothered, that their venture began to appear both difficult and
harebrained. Its impulse was rapidly cooling, when a sudden light swung
through the firs ahead, and turned the thicket into a reel of ponderous
shadows, dizzily whirling upward. This motion ceased. The snow-fronds
gleamed in swollen, billowy outlines.
Among these the two companions peered. They had struck through the
annular grove of the island, and were looking into the open centre. A
white drift, crested like a wave, shone behind a lantern set upon bare
ground. Tugging sounds and a click of metal rose close at hand, behind
a screen of boughs. A man grunted angrily.
“There, by Godfrey! Told ye so! I bust the lock!”
“What odds?” replied the cheerful voice of Tony. “Don’t need it. Rip it
off!”
“Do your own rippin’! My fingers ain’t nobody’s monkey-wrench.”
“No, they’d rather pick pockets. Stand clear, then.” Something snapped.
“There, my skulker! Almost took muscle, didn’t it?”
“Don’t you call me no names!” began Abram loudly.
“Shut your head!” cried the sailor imperiously. “By George, you make a
man sick with all your nasty blowing. Fill your sack, and shut up!”
Silence followed, broken by light thuds in quick succession. A shadow
heaved athwart the glow, in a thin white cloud of steaming breath. It
was Tony, with some shapeless burden in his arms.
“Come along,” he said.
A second shadow rose, and stooped toward the lantern, grumbling.
“I don’t tromp down them rocks no more ’thout a light.”
“Let it stay!” roared Tony. “How many times must I tell you? We can’t
go showing lights on that beach. Drop it! You can see to cross the
clearing, and that’s enough. Next time, by thunder, you’ll want me to
carry you!”
They moved off, growling, round the twisted spur of the snow-bank. The
night swallowed them.
Miles gave ample time, before venturing further; then floundered on
through gleaming undergrowth. The verge, however, rose impassable.
A gigantic drift flung one smooth, graceful whirl round the little
hollow, or bowl, in which the lantern shone. To break through would
leave a tumbling track of ruin. The ring stood therefore as good as
enchanted: he could only lean forward and look.
Close below lay scattered boughs of spruce or fir; and among these,
half uncovered, a square chest yawned enormous, with lid thrown back.
Full or empty, it showed nothing inside but darkness.
The return of angry voices sent him dodging back among the trees. In
the interval the quarrel had flamed higher, for at the gap in the snow
Tony wheeled with a savage flourish.
“Bother?” he scoffed. “You’re the only bother I see!”
They swung nearer, and even by the smoky lantern, their faces shone red
and threatening.
“And damned if I’ll have it, either!” added Florio.
“Oh, no, ’tain’t no bother,” sneered his follower. “Not a mite! Reg’lar
summer weather, ain’t it, to be rowin’ round in? No bother to git
froze, or break your laigs again’ rocks in the dark, or handle all that
pesky stuff twice over! Usin’ this island was a fool idee, from the
start. No bother! When ye could kerry it all to oncet, single lo’ds,
slap over to the furder shore!”
“Slap over!” mocked the sailor. “You know, and none better, it’s not
every night Graves can take it off our hands. Meantime, what? Stow it
in our pockets? or use what sense God gives geese!”
“Keep it on our own side,” grunted Abram, “till Graves gits ready.”
“You’re a wonder!” The sailor dashed his empty sack on the ground
passionately. “A fair wonder! I was in luck when I got you! Our own
side! Where? Under the bed or up the chimney? Between that girl at your
house and young Bissant at mine, how long would it stay hid? What’s
that? Outdoors? Good Lord! did it ever cross your mind that snow leaves
tracks? Look behind you, and see the path we’ve beaten! But no one
comes out here; and that’s why, idiot!”
“Old man Bissant would ’a’ took it in,” retorted the mutineer. “Jest
give him some money, let him into cahoots, and he’d ’a’ kep’ still.”
The two men faced each other closely, scowling above the light. Raging
and voluble, Tony had spoken with more and more odd turns of voice and
gesture, as though anger stirred his blood to a southern heat. Now he
stepped forward quickly, and, half crouching, shook his raised fingers
at arm’s length, with all the intensity of a Latin.
“_Via, via!_” he cried. “You speak so of the dead! You--you scut! Never
in a thousand years you would understand such a man! Say so again, and
I knock off your head!”
The Yankee recoiled, but spat out intolerable filth.
“Ye don’t bully me!” he snarled. “You big-bugs is no better’n the rest
of us--him nor you! All knows he was a skinflint, an old--”
Both figures suddenly reeled past the lantern, a tangled silhouette,
which broke apart at the hard, quick slap of an open palm. Abram fell
staggering, but sprang back as on the rebound. Something flashed in his
hand. The two shapes joined again, struggling, with grunts and curses.
In the same instant Miles felt himself shoved aside, and recovered
barely in time to seize his companion’s cloak and thrust her back. She
would have rushed in straightway. He plunged forward himself, but as
quickly halted.
The smaller of the combatants had shot clear of the ground, and landed
with a hollow shock against the chest.
“Knives, would you?” panted the sailor. “You came to the right shop!”
He stooped, placed his foot on the blade, which he snapped in one
powerful wrench; then rising, tossed the haft away, and spoke as cool
and scornful as any Saxon.
“Next time try steel, not a piece of tin.” His breath streamed white
before him, as he added, in a voice of meditation, “I don’t see yet
what stopped me driving it into you. You’ve that girl to look out for.
Huh! Poor thing! But to tell the truth, I never thought of that. Just
luck, I suppose. Thank your stars, it’s only your nose that’s bleeding.”
The fallen man, concealed below the bank, whimpered and snuffled.
“Come, come, brace up,” advised his master. “You’re well out of a
scrape, Abe. I didn’t see you were fighting drunk.”
He bent again, this time as if to ransack the chest.
“I’ll carry what’s left, and do the rowing. You can sit still, and
think it over.”
A growl was the only answer.
“Don’t bear malice,” Tony protested lightly. “Can’t afford that. Better
stay by me. Where else would the money come from? That’s the talk, up
and doing! You’re all right. Now, then, dowse your lantern, and carry
on.”
Darkness fell. The dry crunch of moccasins on frosty snow passed away
into silence.
Miles, aching and benumbed, still waited to hear their oars, then
ploughed through into the deserted clearing. Beside him stooped the
girl, as they tossed aside the loose boughs from the cache. When at
last their mittens slid over a glossy surface, he struck a match. The
tiny flare revealed a broad lid of polished yellow wood, the corners
capped with brass, and a curious, foreign padlock hanging broken on the
staple. He saw all this, and yet, even while he threw open the chest,
saw more keenly the face above his shoulder,--the pure oval of her
cheeks, her large eyes shining from the black shelter of a hood.
The first match went out. His second and last lighted the whole depth
of the chest, and showed it empty. A faint, persuasive odor lingered
within, exotic, alien to the winter air, new to their experience.
“What is it?” she whispered.
He shook his head, and dropped the burning splinter.
“But what are they doing?”
“I’m not sure,” he answered slowly. “Nothing that need worry you. Some
secret. Come. They’re going clear across the river. We can be home
before them.”
In starlight they heaped the boughs once more, waded through the belt
of firs, and clambered down, hand in hand, toward the beach. All the
way to their own shore, and all along the evergreen path from the
quarter-deck to Alward’s, a strange silence held them apart. With few
words or none, they reached her door; only on the dark threshold she
turned to speak, and then, as it seemed, resentfully.
“It isn’t like you,” she said; and before he could frame a question,
“Why, not to tell me what you really think. That was what I liked about
you.”
He gave thought to his reply:--
“How can I tell you till I’m certain? That wouldn’t be fair--to any of
us. It’s nothing serious.”
“If you believe that--” Her manner changed. “I suppose you’re right.
But when you’re certain, will you?”
“Of course,” he promised. “The first minute I’m sure.”
She made an impulsive movement. The darkness had thinned insensibly,
yet enough to show her hand outstretched. He clasped it, both for
good-by and for the compact.
[Illustration]