"You needn't," said Eve; "I'll take care of you!"
The hasty dressing completed, the two candles were extinguished. Jack
had fallen asleep again. Cicely held him herself; she would not let Eve
take him. They opened the door softly, and stood together outside in the
dark hall. The seconds passed and turned into minutes; the minutes
became three, then five; but the space of time seemed a half-hour. Eve,
standing still in the darkness, recovered her coolness; she stepped
noiselessly back into her room for a moment or two; then she returned
and resumed the watch. Cicely's little figure standing beside her looked
very small.
By-and-by the door at the far end of the hall opened, and for the first
time in her life Eve saw a vision: Ferdie, half dressed and carrying a
lighted candle, appeared, his eyes fierce and fixed, his cheeks flushed.
At that moment his beauty was terrible; but he saw nothing, heard
nothing; he was like a man listening to something afar off.
"Come," whispered Cicely.
Swiftly and noiselessly she went round the angle of the corridor, opened
a door, and, closing it behind them, led the way to the north wing; Eve
followed, or rather she kept by her side. After a breathless winding
transit through the labyrinth of halls and chambers, they reached the
ballroom.
"Now we can run," Cicely whispered. Silently they ran.
Before they had quite reached the door at the far end, they heard a
sound behind them, and saw a gleam across the floor: he had not waited
in Eve's room, then; he had divined their flight, and was following.
Cicely's hand swiftly found and lifted the latch; she opened the door,
and they passed through. Eve gave one glance over her shoulder; he was
advancing, but he was not running; his eyes had the same stare.
Cicely threw up a window, gave Jack to Eve, climbed by the aid of a
chair to the sill and jumped out; then she put up her arms for Jack, and
Eve followed her; they drew down the window behind them from the
outside. There was a moon, but dark clouds obscured its light; the air
was still. Cicely led the way to the thicket; pushing her way within,
she sank down, the bushes crackling loudly as she did so. "Hurry!" she
said to Eve.
Eve crouched beside her beneath the dense foliage. They could see
nothing, but they could hear. They remained motionless.
After several minutes of suspense they heard a step on the plank floor
of the veranda; he had made his way out. Then followed silence; the
silence was worse than the sound of his steps; they had the sense that
he was close upon them.
After some time without another sound, suddenly his candle gleamed
directly over them; he had approached them unheard by the road, Eve not
knowing and Cicely having forgotten that it was so near. For an instant
Eve's heart stopped beating, she thought that they were discovered;
escape was cut off, for the thorns and spiny leaves held their skirts
like so many hands. But the fixed eyes did not see them; after a moment
the beautiful, cruel face, lit by the yellow gleam of the candle,
disappeared from above; the light moved farther away. He was going down
the road; every now and then they could see that he threw a ray to the
right and the left, as if still searching.
"He will go through the whole thicket, now that he has the idea," Cicely
whispered. They crept into the road, Eve carrying Jack. But, once
outside, Cicely took him again. They stood erect, they looked back; he
and his candle were still going on towards the sea.
Cicely turned; she took a path which led to the north point. "There's no
thicket there. And if he comes, there's a boat."
The distance to the point was nearly a mile. The white sand of the track
guided them through the dark woods.
"Shouldn't you be safer, after all, in the house?" Eve asked.
"No, for this time he is determined to kill us; he thinks that I am some
one else, a woman who is going to attack his wife; and he thinks that
Jack is some other child, who has injured _his_ Jack."
"He shall never touch Jack! Give him to me, Cicely; he is too heavy for
you."
"I will not give him to any one--any one," Cicely answered, panting.
As they approached the north point, the moon shone through a rift in the
clouds; suddenly it was as light as day; their faces and hands were
ivory white in the radiance.
"What is that on your throat, and down the front of your dress?" said
Eve. "It's wet. Why, it's blood!"
"Yes; I am cut here a little," Cicely answered, making a gesture with
her chin towards her left shoulder; "I suppose it has begun to bleed
again. He has a knife to-night. That is what makes me so afraid."
The Sound now came into view. At the same instant Eve, looking back,
perceived a point of yellow light behind them; the path was straight for
a long distance, and the light was far away; but it was advancing in
their direction. Little Jack, fully awakened by their rapid flight, had
lifted his head, trying to see his mother's face; as no one paid any
attention to him, he began to cry. His voice seemed to make Cicely
frantic; clasping him close, pressing his head down against her breast,
she broke into a run.
"Get into the boat and push off, don't wait for me; _I'm_ in no danger,"
Eve called after her. She stood there watching.
Cicely reached the beach, put Jack into the boat, and then tried to push
it off. It was a heavy old row-boat, kept there for the convenience of
the negroes who wished to cross to Singleton Island; to-night it was
drawn up so high on the sands that with all her effort Cicely could not
launch it. She strained every muscle to the utmost; in her ears there
was a loud rushing sound; she paused dizzily, turning her head away from
the water for a moment, and as she did so, she too saw the gleam, pale
in the moonlight, far down the path. She did not scream, there was a
tension in her throat which kept all sound from her parched mouth; she
climbed into the boat, seized Jack, and staggered forward with the vague
purpose of jumping into the water from the boat's stern; but she did not
get far, she sank suddenly down.
"She has fainted; so much the better," Eve thought. Jack, who had fallen
as his mother fell, cried loudly. "He is not hurt; at least not
seriously," she said to herself. Then, turning into the wood, she made
her way back towards the advancing point of light. After some progress
she stopped.
Ferdie was walking rapidly now; in his left hand he held his candle high
in the air; in his right, which hung by his side, there was something
that gleamed. The moonlight shone full upon his face, and Eve could see
the expression, whose slight signs she had noticed, the flattening of
the corners of the mouth; this was now so deepened that his lips wore a
slight grin. Jack's wail, which had ceased for several minutes, now
began again, and at the same instant his moving head could be seen above
the boat's side; he had disengaged himself, and was trying to climb up
higher, by the aid of one of the seats, in order to give larger vent to
his astonishment and his grief.
Ferdie saw him; his shoulders made a quick movement; an inarticulate
sound came from his flattened, grimacing mouth. Then he began to run
towards the boat. At the same moment there was the crack, not loud, of a
pistol discharged very near. The running man lunged forward and fell
heavily to his knees; then to the sand. His arms made one or two
spasmodic movements. Then they were still.
Eve's figure went swiftly through the wood towards the shore; she held
her skirts closely, as if afraid of their rustling sound. Reaching the
boat, she made a mighty effort, both hands against the bow, her body
slanting forward, her feet far behind her, deep in the sand and pressing
against it. She was very strong, and the boat moved, it slid down slowly
and gratingly; more and more of its long length entered the water, until
at last only the bow still touched the sand. Eve jumped in, pushed off
with an oar, and then, stepping over Cicely's prostrate form to reach
one of the seats, she sat down and began to row, brushing little Jack
aside with her knee (he fell down more amazed and grief-stricken than
ever), and placing her feet against the next seat as a brace. She rowed
with long strokes and with all her might; perhaps he was not much hurt,
after all; perhaps he too had a pistol, and could reach them. She
watched the beach breathlessly.
The Sound was smooth; before long a wide space of water, with the
silvery path of the moon across it, separated them from Abercrombie
Island. Still she could not stop. She looked at Cicely's motionless
figure; Jack, weary with crying, had crawled as far as one of her knees
and laid his head against it, sobbing "Aunty Eve? Aunty Eve?"
"Yes, darling," said Eve, mechanically, still watching the other shore.
At last, with her hands smarting, her arms strained, she reached
Singleton Island. After beaching the boat, she knelt down and chafed
Cicely's temples, wetting her handkerchief by dipping it over the boat's
side, and then pressing it on the dead-white little face. Cicely sighed.
Then she opened her eyes and looked up, only half consciously, at the
sky. Next she looked at Eve, who was bending over her, and memory came
back.
"We are safe," Eve said, answering the look; "we are on Singleton
Island, and no one is following us." She lifted the desperate little
Jack and put him in his mother's arms.
Cicely sat up, she kissed her child passionately. But she fell back
again, Eve supporting her.
"Let me see that--that place," Eve said. With nervous touch she turned
down the little lace ruffle, which was dark and limp with the stain of
the life-tide.
"It's nothing," murmured Cicely. The cut had missed its aim, it was low
down on the throat, near the collar-bone; it was a flesh-wound, not
dangerous.
Cicely pushed away Eve's hands and sat up. "Where is Ferdie?" she
demanded.
"He--he is on the other island," Eve answered, hesitatingly. "Don't you
remember that he followed us?--that we were trying to escape?"
"Well, we have escaped," said Cicely. "And now I want to know where he
is."
She got on her feet, stepped out of the boat to the sand, and lifted
Jack out; she muffled the child in a shawl, and made him walk with her
to the edge of the water. Here she stood looking at the home-island,
straining her eyes in the misty moonlight.
Eve followed her. "I think the farther away we go, Cicely, the better;
at least for the present. The steamer stops at Singleton Landing at
dawn; we can go on board as we are, and get what is necessary in
Savannah."
"Why don't I see him on the beach?" said Cicely. "I could see him if he
were there--I could see him walking. If he followed us, as you say, why
don't I see him!" She put a hand on each side of her mouth, making a
circle of them, and called with all her strength, "Ferdie? Fer-die?"
"Are you mad?" said Eve.
"Fer-die?" cried Cicely again.