Si finis bonus est, totum bonum erit.
There were notices, of varying dates, posted in prominent places
about the cliffs to warn the public not to go near them—unless,
indeed, it were to read the notices themselves, which were printed in
a very unobtrusive type. Of late, however, this Dogberrian _caveat_
had been supplemented by a statement in the local gazette that the
cliffs, owing to the recent rains succeeding prolonged frost, were in
so ill a constitution that to approach them at all, even to decipher
the warnings not to, was—well, to take your life out of the municipal
into your own hands.
Now, had the Regius Professor a bee in his bonnet? Absurd. He knew the
risks of foolhardiness as well as any pickpocket could have told him.
Yet, neither general nor particular caution availed to abate his
determination to examine, as soon as we had lunched, the interior
formation of a cave or two, out of those black and innumerable, with
which the undercliff was punctured like a warren.
I did not remonstrate, after having once discovered, folded down under
his nose on the table, the printed admonition, and heard the little
dry, professorial click of tongue on palate which was wont to dismiss,
declining discussion of it, any idle or superfluous proposition. I
knew my man—or automaton. He inclined to the Providence of the
unimaginative; his only fetish was science. He was one of those who,
if unfortunately buried alive, would turn what opportunity remained to
them to a study of geological deposits. My “nerves,” when we were on
a jaunt (fond word!) together, were always a subject of sardonic
amusement with him.
Now, utterly unmoved by the prospect before him, he ate an enormous
lunch (confiding it, incidentally, to an unerring digestion), rose,
brushed some crumbs out of his beard, and said, “Well, shall we be
off?”
In twenty minutes we had reached the caves. They lay in a very
secluded little bay—just a crescent of sombre sand, littered along
all its inner edge with débris from the towering cliffs which
contained it.
“Are you coming with me?” said the Regius Professor.
Judged by his anxious eyes, the question might have been an
invitation, almost a shamefaced entreaty. But the anxiety, never more
than apparent, was delusive product of the preposterous
magnifying-glasses which he wore. Did he ever remove those glasses,
one was startled to discover, in the seemingly aghast orbs which they
misinterpreted, quite mean little attic windows to an unemotional
soul.
“Not by any means,” I said. “I will sit here, and think out your
epitaph.”
He stared at me a moment with a puzzled expression, grinned slightly,
turned, strode off towards the cliffs, and disappeared, without a
moment’s hesitation, into the first accessible burrow. I was moved on
the instant to observe that it was the most sinister-looking of them
all. The tilted stratification, under which it yawned oblique, seemed
on the very poise to close down upon it.
Now I set to pacing to and fro, essaying a sort of mechanical
preoccupation in default of the philosophy I lacked. I was really in a
state of clammy anxiety about the Professor. I poked in stony pools
for little crabs, as if his life depended on my success. I made it a
point of honour with myself not to leave off until I had found one. I
tried, like a very amateur pickpocket, to abstract my mind from the
atmosphere which contained it, only to find that I had brought mind
and atmosphere away together. I bent down, with my back to the sea,
and looking between my legs sought to regard life from a new point of
view. Yet, even in that position, my eyes and ears were conscious,
only in less degree, of the spectres which were always moving and
rustling in the melancholy little bay.
_Tekel upharsin._ The hand never left off writing upon the rocks, nor
the dust of its scoring to fall and whisper. That came away in flakes,
or slid down in tiny avalanches—here, there, in so many places at
once, that the whole face of the cliffs seemed to crawl like a maggoty
cheese. The sound was like a vast conspiracy of voices—busy,
ominous—aloft on the seats of an amphitheatre. They were talking of
the Regius Professor, and his consideration in making them a Roman
holiday.
Here, on no warrant but that of my senses, I knew the gazette’s
warning to be something more than justified. It made no difference
that my nerves were at the stretch. One could not hear a silence thus
sown with grain of horror, and believe it barren of significance.
Then, all in a moment, as it seemed to me, the resolution was taken,
the voices hushed, and the whole bay poised on tiptoe of a suspense
which preluded something terrific.
I stood staring at the black mouth which had engulfed the Regius
Professor. I felt that a disaster was imminent; but to rush to warn
him would be to embarrass the issues of his Providence—that only. For
the instant a fierce resentment of his foolhardiness fired me—and was
as immediately gone. I turned sick and half blind. I thought I saw the
rock-face shrug and wrinkle; a blot of gall was expelled from it—and
the blot was the Professor himself issued forth, and coming composedly
towards me.
As he advanced, I turned my back on him. By the time he reached me I
had made some small success of a struggle for self-mastery.
“Well,” he said. “I left myself none too much of a margin, did I?”
With an effort I faced about again. The base of the cliff was yet
scarred with holes, many and irregular; but now some of those which
had stared at me like dilated eyes were, I could have sworn it,
over-lidded—the eyes of drowsing reptiles. _And the Professor’s
particular cave was gone._
I gave quite an absurd little giggle. This man was soulless—a
monstrosity.
“Look here,” he said, conning my face with a certain concern, “it’s no
good tormenting yourself with what might have happened. Here I am, you
know. Supposing we go and sit down yonder, against that drift, till
you’re better.”
He led the way, and, dropping upon the sand, lolled easily, talking to
himself, by way of me, for some minutes. It was the kindest thing he
could have done. His confident voice made scorn of the never-ceasing
rustling and falling sounds to our rear. The gulls skated before my
eyes, drawing wide arcs and figures of freedom in the air. Presently I
topped the crisis, and drew a deep breath.
“Tell me,” I said—“have you ever in all your life known fear?”
The Regius Professor sat to consider.
“Well,” he answered presently, rubbing his chin, “I was certainly once
near losing hold of my will, if that’s what you mean. Of course, if I
_had_ let go——”
“But you didn’t.”
“No,” he said thoughtfully. “No—luckily.”
“You’re not taking credit for it?”
“Credit!” he exclaimed, surprised. “Why should I take credit for my
freedom from a constitutional infirmity? In one way, indeed, I am only
regretful that I am debarred that side of self-analysis.”