THE SNOWSTORM
Now through the bursting heart of that great storm the
American prisoners struggled on their way. None spoke;
for all believed that death strode beside them and came closer
with each savage thrust of the northern wind. About them the
snow already lay in a heavy carpet and upon the Moor, in gorges
and old, deep ravines, an icy dust was piling into drifts that
would only vanish with the suns of April. The gale blew with
gigantic but irregular outbursts, so that it seemed as if fingers
invisible on cruel hands stretched out of the night to tear their
garments off them. The spirit of the storm escaped from its icy
chambers, swept chill around them, and each breath they drew
cut sharp to their lungs as the men panted onward.
South of Prince Town roll high and open heaths, whereon,
under the tremendous impetus of the tempest, the snow was
swept horizontally. It fell, only to be gathered up again and
launched forward in writhing wisps and veils. Along these level
heights Commodore Miller, Stark, and Knapps made their way;
then when each heart sank low and every sanguine pulse was
nearly frozen, they touched the skirts of the young plantations
at Tor Royal and hoped again. Half a mile distant the hospitality
of Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt had been at their command, and
the knight had gladly closed stout doors between the wanderers
and death; but of the establishment within these snow-bound
young forests they knew nothing. Their thought was the cabin
of Lovey Lee, concerning the position of which she had made
them clear; and now they held on to the end of the wood, then
turned a compass-point southward and faced the Moor again.
Cecil Stark at length spoke, and shouted into the Commodore's
ear.
"We're on the right road. We may pull through after all."
"Save your breath and keep together," answered the older
man. "I have some fight in me yet."
"And you, Jimmy?"
"I wish I was ter prison."
"Blame yourself that you're not," panted Stark.
"I duz," answered the sailor. "I s'pose there's no grizzly
bars snooking around these parts? I thought I squinted
something back away."
"No; but there are stone crosses; and one stands nigh Lovey
Lee's. Hit that and we're saved."
"Miss it and--but no use to wherrit. 'Tis a very good end. I
knew a chap as slept hisself out of life very comfortable on such
a night. Narry a pang; and I found him in the morning froze
to the marrow, and smiling about it, like he was a statue in
church. Better than a bagonet in your belly, anyhow."
"Drop that talk, bo'sun. We'll win yet!"
They fought on silently, but the pace became slower as their
force abated and the snow increased. Now they felt the full
strength of the wind, and nature instinctively made them turn
and edge away from it.
"Hold to your left, lads, or we are done for!" cried Miller.
"Keep the wind on the port bow."
"Be damned if I kin suffer it against my cheek any more,"
answered Knapps. "My ear and jaw are just frozen and my left
eye's bunged up with ice."
Twice more Stark addressed the sailor, but received no answer.
Then, turning again, he found one shadow beside him instead of
two.
"Is that you, Stark?"
"Ay, sir."
"Where's Knapps?"
"I'm afraid he's lost, sir. He would hold off a point. Had
I sought him, I must have lost you."
"Shout--shout with all your might. We may save him yet."
They lifted their voices, but the piping of them was gulfed in
the roar of the wind. The ice poured out of the darkness, and,
despite the snow-blink, an awful circumambient gloom hid all
things from their eyes. Only the wan upthrown illumination at
their feet told of the snow beneath.
"I implore you to be moving, sir. Right or wrong, we must
hold on now," cried Stark, for he saw that his companion seemed
to hesitate.
"Knapps may be right. Can we have got too far east? However,
'tis all one. Blessed sleep's ahead, my poor boy. 'Tis good
to die in the great Hand of God and not behind stone walls."
"Don't speak of dying, Commodore. Get closer; take my
arm and husband your strength as you may."
Stark closed up on the other's left hand between his friend
and the weather; but Miller appreciated the action and fought
against it.
"You shall not do this for me. I'm tougher, older, better
seasoned!"
"For love of life, speak no more," Stark answered. "Hold
close. We may save each other."
Now arm in arm, or sometimes hand in hand, but never apart,
they battled through a dread hour of agony. Often they fell and
bruised themselves upon ice and granite; often they dropped
headlong into some snow-hidden rift; then surmounting it, they
struggled on again, half blind, half strangled. Despite their
tremendous exertions, no warmth to fight the wind, no heat of
blood could either generate. They froze as they fought and their
progress became very slow. They grew conscious of sloping
land and passed where hills of stone rose to the right, while the
storm, from lower levels, leapt upwards as it seemed out of some
dark crater on the left of them. They had missed Siward's
Cross by miles and now wandered under Fox Tor above the
Mire. Each yearned to lie down and end it; and each knew
that a longing to yield was in the heart of the other. For a
moment they stood in deep snow where great rocks towered and
broke the wind. Then Commodore Miller addressed Stark, and
his dreamy, placid utterance sounded strange in the fury of the
hour. Shouts and a frenzy of fear or of energy had better,
chimed with the free and fearful forces of the air; but the
American spoke like a spirit and looked upon these material
phenomena of night and tempest as one already above their
influences and beyond their power.
"'Tis a great thought that you and I are bigger than this
weather. A man's soul can steer through the worst storm ever
loosed against earth--steer a straight course and fear no evil of
earth or sea. This dust of us will soon be ice, my lad. We shall
sink into this frozen wilderness as rain falls on a river; but we
ourselves----"
"Hope on, hope on," gasped the younger man. "We'll fight
the British weather as we've fought the British ships. There's a
shot in the locker yet!"
They crawled forward, and Stark, himself failing slowly, well
knew that the increasing weight upon his arm must soon bring
him to earth with his friend. Miller was nearly spent. He began
to speak fitfully, but rambled in his speech, and discussed men
and matters beyond his companion's knowledge. For ten minutes
they pressed on, but advanced little more than two hundred yards
in the time. Snow still fell, though less heavily, and it seemed to
Stark that the wind abated a trifle, but he could not be sure, for
sensation was almost dead. His legs felt nothing, even when he
struck them against the stones. They had followed a wide slope
of the land, and now stood in the very shadow of death where
Childe the Hunter's ruined cenotaph had risen, and where legend
pointed to the sportsman's place of passing even on such a night,
and in such an hour.
There was a sudden rent in the snow-clouds at this moment, for
out of heaven burst a blast so awful that it tore the inky curtains
of the storm, swept the air clear along its hurricane ways and
brought a fleeting glimmer of light to earth. In the black chasm
opened on high reeled suns, and the flames of bygone ages
flashed into the eyes of dying men. Then those silvery star-fires
were swallowed up again, and the tempest, shrieking like a fury,
tumbled its pall over them to lift it no more. Yet in that blast
another light than those of the indifferent universe had touched
upon Cecil Stark's fainting eyes. Dear as the smile of a friend,
as the sound of a voice, as the hand of a man stretched to save,
he had marked a ruddy flash from one little window high aloft on
the western face of Fox Tor Farm. Like a lighthouse lamp it
hung above the chaos. It flashed serene and steadfast; then the
blizzard thundered down again, and it vanished behind the snow.
"All's over, old fellow," said Jonathan Miller. "I'm done
for--fought and lost, and glad to go. My heart's stopping. Go
on--good-bye."
"Look, man, look! Right ahead! Ah! 'tis blotted again;
but I saw it clear enough--lifted above us--a light."
"I shall see it too--held out of Heaven to guide us. God is
kind. The road's always clear to Him."
"Be of good cheer yet! 'Twas an earthly light I saw--ruddy
and heart-warming! Don't--don't--give up the fight when we're
so near--one effort more--one----"
For answer the other's hand relaxed, and he fell suddenly face
downwards.
Stark instantly bent to raise his friend, but he could not.
Himself he dropped to his knees; then, with a great struggle,
stood again upon his freezing feet.
"Go, lad--go," said the fallen man. "By stopping you slay
us both. Hold on to the light if you can. Speed--speed!
Death is alongside now--ready to board----"
Stark knew the truth of this, and, striving in vain to note some
mark that should indicate where Miller lay, he turned whence the
light had shone.
"Trust me then. I'll get back in time! Don't sleep--keep
shouting--keep shouting. We'll save you yet!"
Stark spoke cheerily as though already in the company of other
men; but his hope perished as he turned and saw his friend a
silent spot in the darkness--already half obliterated by snow. A
sob rose in the man's throat, and he felt a tear like a spark of fire
upon his cheek.
"The end of him--the cruel, bitter end of a great sailor and a
good man. God's curse on those that murdered him!"
The cry came thickly and the shrieking wind carried it away.
Stark staggered against the hill, sometimes upon his feet,
sometimes on his knees. The light gleamed fitfully and directed him
across the storm. Now it vanished behind curtains of snow;
now it broke through once more, placid of flame and mellow of
hue. Higher it towered and higher, until it seemed to the
wanderer immediately above him. But even as he looked up to
it, the sailor fell into a little rivulet and struggled with fresh
bruises on to the further bank. A steep slope still subtended the
space between himself and the shining window. The light
beckoned him forward and forces unseen denied any further
advance. He could stand no longer, but grovelled on yard by
yard. Then a wall buried in the snow, raised a barrier,
mountainous to his feebleness, and he remained motionless beneath it
for a full minute. Peace was there and delicious silence. The
snow warmed him; the coverlet crept up and up. It was pulled
over his breast, neck, head, by gentle hands. He remembered
his mother and her cradle-songs in his childhood. "'Tis the
great Mother tucking me up," he thought. For a moment, as it
seemed, the glow of health and vigour drove his blood along.
Life was kissing him and saying 'good-bye.' His eyes shut;
all present things began to sink away out of his mind. He
smiled indifferently and, turning back along the pathway of
consciousness, retraced his life's short road and passed its
memories in final review. He remembered the defeat of the
_Marblehead_ and felt the sharp grief of failure. He saw the
'Stars and Stripes' flutter down, as the dying see their last sun
sink; and that darkest emotion of his days reawakened now,
mercifully held force enough to shatter the snow-trance. He
opened his eyes, found an impulse of restored energy from his
short respite, saw the light clear and sharp above, and surmounted
the stone wall, but fell prone upon the other side. Then, with a
sort of savage thankfulness that the last stage in the long fight
was come, he rolled and crawled thirty yards more, and reached
within twenty feet of Fox Tor Farm.
Powerless to lift a finger more, he lay there, stared at the light
and blinked his eyes to keep the snow out of them, that the image
of that shining window might remain clear. Its radiance would
brighten his end, and the idea strangely comforted him. His
wits reeled again; he prayed a wild prayer: he began to long for
life with all his might, and the desire towards it poured in a frantic
torrent over him. A signal set within his eyes by man smiled
upon him, but he could not reach it. Thrice he shouted to
Miller to follow him; to shout for his own salvation did not
strike his mind; and whilst he cried aloud for the third time, the
storm, that had increased to sweep the snow clear of one bright
window, lulled, and for a moment drew a long, sobbing breath, ere
it shrieked again. In that oasis of silence the man poured out
his last cry to his friend; but only the raving voices from above
answered it, for Miller had long passed beyond sense.
And yet, behind the granite of the farm were wakeful ears.
Aloft Grace Malherb lay sleepless, while she watched a great heap
of snow gather upon her bedroom hearth. The taper that was
leading Stark to salvation beamed steadfastly to him; to Grace,
under her blankets, it staggered and reeled and guttered, and
fought strange draughts that crept through unknown chinks and
crannies. Then, the hour being eleven, there fell that awful
simultaneous suspiration of breath in the yelling throats of the
storm. A mysterious silence touched the night and in the
moment of it a human cry--wild and faint--reached the girl's
straining ear. No other heard it, for though Malherb walked
below, uneasy before the onset of this hurricane, his dwelling lay
between him and the lost man, while for the rest all that
household slept in peace.
Now did Death huddle close over Cecil Stark, hide him, muffle
his speech, and steal his senses one by one; yet with his last
throb of consciousness the sailor shouted on to Miller, and before
his voice stilled and his life was in the act to close, Grace
Malherb had reached her father where he walked and told her
news. He showed much doubt, yet lost not a moment, and the
last weak cry of the man in the snow saluted Beer and Malherb as
they crept round the southern front of the farm with a lantern.
"Miller! Miller! Mil----!"
Then they heard no more, but guided by the voice, struggled
across the snow to it and fell over a fellow-creature.
Battered, bleeding, apparently lifeless, Beer and his master
discovered Cecil Stark; and they picked him up and thanked
God and carried him into Fox Tor Farm.