A man and a woman looking seawards from Grada point. To the north, the
long curve of sands hidden by the flood-tide. A curve ending in the
low line of Eilean-a-fa-ash, which, viewed from here, seemed as if it
were joined to the mainland. Beyond, the northern headland, whence
Roederay Lodge stood out against the sky. To the south, a coast broken
into little points and bays, with the slender masts of a yacht
standing above a near promontory.
To the west, a spit of rocks running out into the Atlantic, which once
more lay like a golden garment stretching far as the eye could reach
on either hand. At their feet, a little boat swaying gently against a
bare ledge of rock; for the tide was at the full.
"Do come," said the man; "you haven't really seen the yacht, and we
can't possibly miss the returning wagonette. I'll send a man to watch,
if you like; then there can be no mistake."
He did not look at her, but his voice was instinct with passionate
entreaty.
"But the men may not be here till late." Lady Maud did not look at him
either, yet the same repressed emotion rang in her tone.
"I can row you. We have only to paddle round those rocks, and the
current will take us right on to the yacht."
"But the men?"
"Lazy beggars! let them swim. Besides, they should have been here long
ago; it is past five."
"Half-past. They have been here and put the stores in the boat."
"It is we who are late."
He moved a step closer, impatiently. "What have the men to do with it,
Maud? Don't--don't be childish! What are you afraid of--not of me,
surely?"
There was a pause.
"I am afraid of nothing," she said lightly. "Come, it will be pleasant
out on that sunny sea at any rate."
He steadied the boat for her, and she stepped in.
"Where to?" he asked, half in jest, when a stroke or two had taken
them from the shadow of the rock into the glitter of the sinking sun,
where they lay bathed in light, the water dripping from the lifted
oars like drops of molten gold. "Why shouldn't we leave everything
behind and set sail for nowhere--anywhere?"
With his arms resting on the oars, he leant forwards, fixing his dark
eyes on her face. They were full of pity and a great tenderness.
"You look so nice there, Maud. Take off your hat, dear, and let the
sun shine on your hair as it used to do when you were a girl. If I had
my will, Maud, you should always be in the sunlight; you know that,
don't you?"
The oars fell into the water softly as he rowed on, whilst she sate
silent, trailing one hand in the water and watching the great big
medusae come pulsating past.
"How pleasant it must be to drift--like that!" she said half to
herself, and once again the drip, drip, drip, of those golden tears
filled up the silence as the boat swayed idly on the breathing of the
sea.
"Why shouldn't we drift? There is plenty of time, and God knows ties
enough, as a rule. Grapnels fore and aft and a mud bank under all to
stick upon."
"Don't talk of that now, Eustace," she broke in hurriedly. "Let
us forget it for this last half hour. Isn't it enough to be
here--together?"
"Enough for now--" he replied unsteadily; "but for afterwards?"
"There may be no afterwards."
He shook his head. "A man never thinks of that. He can't live on
moonshine; or sunshine either. He wants something real; and so do you.
Maud! what will you do when you go back to him?"
She put out her hand in entreaty with a little cry. "Oh, Eustace! can
you not let me be happy for one short half hour?"
"Happy, when we are going to part? Happy, when I know what your future
will be? when I know it will be torture to you? Why did you send him
away if it was not because the strain was too great for you to bear?"
"I--I did not send him away," she faltered.
"Pshaw! Hooper told me about it--the fool was afraid. Then the wire
came, of course, and there was no need for the other. But you meant
it, Maud. Ah, my darling! don't think I am blaming you--Blame! How
could I blame you save for too much patience?
"Maud, let us cut the knot! We have made a mistake, both of us; for
you are miserable, and I--I will not bear it. Come--the yacht is
there. Let us go into the sunshine. Come, my darling--see how fate
points the way. We are drifting, drifting--a little more and the
current will take us. Why should you go back to the empty house? the
empty life? Maud! Maud!"
What does a man say to a woman when he has forgotten everything in the
world save his mad desire to keep her for his own? All that could be
said, in all its tenderness, its passion, and its selfishness, was
hers as the boat drifted and drifted.
"I am cold!" she said suddenly, giving a little shudder, yet drawing
closer to him. "We shall be too late."
"Too late to return," he answered joyously. "Oh, Maud, trust me this
once--See, the yacht is close." He turned and gave a quick exclamation
of surprise. Where were they? Not, as he expected, within a stone's
throw of the coast, drifting surely southwards. Here was nothing save
sea, and rising slowly from it on all sides a thin mist, golden in the
sunlight through which, in the far distance, a shadow or two loomed
faint, unrecognized.
Above them the sky, clear as ever; below them the sea, bright,
pellucid; but between them a gathering curtain which even as he looked
faded from gold to white, from white to grey, as the unseen sun sank
beneath the unseen horizon.
"It is a sea-haugh," he said lightly; "the wind must have changed to
the north, and the cold condenses the vapour. I have seen them often
after hot weather. But it is all right. We must be close to the yacht,
for we were well in the current when I stopped rowing; and it runs
inshore due south. If I whistle, they must hear and answer."
But none came, and the sound seemed to return resonant from the mist,
showing that it had not travelled far. So, whistling, shouting, and
rowing, they spent some time in vain, till fear began to invade her
courage. What if they had drifted past? What if they were drifting out
to sea, further and further from safety? He tried to scoff at her
alarm, though his own anxiety grew fast as the mist settled thicker
and thicker till he could not see a yard beyond the bows. Suddenly,
with a grating shock, the boat stopped abruptly, almost throwing them
into each other's arms. His heart seemed to stop also, as he
remembered having heard of sunken rocks in mid channel.
"We are aground--stay still, I will see."
He stepped cautiously over the side, one foot into six inches of water
and a shelving bottom, the other into three. Then on to firm dry warm
sand. His laugh of relief was genuine.
"The adventure is over, Maud. Come! let me help you out. This must be
the mainland; but where, I can't say."
A difficult question, indeed, to decide with that grey mist curtain
closing in and shutting out all, save a patch or two of bent at their
feet.
"Stay here a bit," he continued, "and I will explore. Take the
whistle. I won't go beyond its reach or be away long; the road must be
close by."
It was not, however, and he returned after a time with a clouded face.
"I don't understand it. The sea seems to surround us except in one
direction, and that is all sand and bent. I don't remember any such
point below Grada."
"Perhaps we are above it," suggested his companion.
"Quite impossible. The current runs south; a sort of back eddy from
the big stream. That is what brings all the drift to Grada Sands. The
question, however, is what we are to do. Take to the boat again and
punt along the shore till we find a landmark, I should say. Best not
to desert our ships."
But this again brought a disappointment, and half an hour's rowing,
punting, and towing resulted in nothing. By this time it was almost
dark, the mist gathered denser than ever, and with the approach of
night the north wind rose steadily.
"The sooner we settle ourselves the better, if we have to camp out,
and it looks like it," said he at last. "Still, if we light a fire,
some one may see it. Anyhow, there are stores and a sail in the boat,
so we shall manage. Cheer up, Maud; imagine we are children again. How
often haven't we pretended to be cast away on a desert island
together, and how happy we were!"
True enough; yet as she helped him to gather driftwood for the fire,
her thoughts were on the difference between those days and these. And
there was more to them in this mischance than there would have been to
others. What had she meant to do when she stepped into the boat? She
could not tell; only this she knew, that fate seemed to have decided
for her. If the fire brought some one--well and good. If not, why then
Eustace and she had gone adrift. That question was settled forever.
She sate feeding the fire, whilst he foraged for eatables in the boat,
and each stick seemed to her another doubt dispelled. How they flamed
and crackled and sparkled, as driftwood does out of sheer joy in
burning. Yet no one came--no one.
Later on, with the tenderness which was a fierce delight to her, he
found her what shelter he could on that bare waste of bent and
shingle; though it was only a nook, backed on the windy side by a
rough slab of rock half embedded in the sand. Still it was dry and
warm, and with the boat's sail wrapped round her, and her feet towards
a freshly built fire, she could lean back comfortably and defy some of
the growing cold and rising wind. She sate watching him silently as he
sate by the fire, turning every now and again to assure himself of her
comfort or tuck the sail, loosened by the wind, round her more
closely.
Suddenly, during one of these ministrations, her eye caught the
sparkle of dewdrops on his coat, and she stretched out her delicate
hand to touch his sleeve. It was quite wet.
"There is plenty of room for you here, Eustace," she said quietly,
"and the sail will cover us if we sit close together. I--I must not
begin by being selfish." Then her calm gave way. "Oh, Eustace!
Eustace! we must love each other very dearly or I shall die of shame."
Something in the almost despairing surrender to fate roused the best
part in his nature. He drew her head on to his shoulder and kissed her
gently.
"Good-night, dear. Go to sleep if you can. I'll watch the fire."
She gave a little shivering sob and clung to him. All was settled now;
she had taken her life into her own hands; the struggle was over, and
he was a haven of rest--a haven of rest. Her thoughts went no further
than that, for she was utterly wearied out; but as he sate beside her,
his mind went far afield into the afterwards which he had claimed as
his right; and more than once as she stirred in the uneasy sleep into
which she had fallen, he bent over her again and kissed her. She was
his; the past was at an end; scruples must come later if they came at
all. He had foreseen this ending from the beginning; perhaps he
had tried to escape from it; perhaps he had not. This much was
certain,--the stars had fought for him, and she was his. The wind
swept steadily round them, but, safe sheltered as she was, he
feared no harm, and when the dawn came their troubles would all be
over--forever.
So sheltering her, as morning approached he, too, fell into a doze,
and the fire, deprived of fuel, sank by degrees to a heap of
smouldering ashes. Then the chill which comes before the day sought
them out even in each other's arms, and brought to both a vague,
surprised consciousness of their surroundings. Where were they? What
had happened? With eyes still full of sleep and dreams, she saw the
grey mist hanging round them--the ashes of the fire which had burnt so
bravely last night. Last night! Great God, how came she there?
"Eustace!" she cried, starting up wildly, one hand finding aid from
the slab of rock behind her. Her pretty hair was damp with dew, her
face flushed where it had rested on his shoulder.
For answer he caught her to him and covered her face with passionate
kisses. He, too, was fresh from sleep and dreams,--dreams of the
hereafter. And now the day had come, and yonder, where the mist showed
lightest, the sun was rising.
"Oh, no! no!" she panted, struggling to escape.
"Maud!"--his tone was full of surprised reproach as he fell back a
step,--"what is it? What have I done?"
"What have _I_ done?" she echoed swiftly. "I can't remember! Oh, God!
what's that?" Her voice rose to a shriek; she clung to him
convulsively with one hand while her eyes fixed themselves on the
stone slab which had sheltered her--and him.
The north wind had done work during the night, and the embedded slab
was clear now; more than clear. It formed part of a stone coffin
whence the wind had driven the sand, leaving the contents exposed to
view. Only a few bones, but, backed by the drifted sand, they still
kept the semblance of a skeleton sitting staring out into the mist.
Eustace Gordon recoiled--the best of men would have done so much in
such a situation; then memory aided him.
"It is Eilean-a-fa-ash, Maud--Eilean-a-varai--you remember. We must
have drifted north somehow. Don't look so scared, my darling. It is
only Eilean-a-fa-ash--the Island of Rest--that is all."
She did not heed him; her eyes, full of an almost insane terror,
were fastened on the fleshless hand which lay so near--oh! God in
heaven!--so near her own as it clutched the side of the coffin.
"The ring," she whispered. "Look! look--the ring, my ring, my ring."
Yes! on the dead as on the living hand he saw the ring with its
legend, "Beautiful, constant, chaste." A chill came over even his
passion; yet he turned to her with sudden petulance.
"Well! what then?--you know whence it must have come, what it must
have been from the beginning, I suppose. Come! let us leave these
horrors, let us leave the past and be sensible. Come, Maud."
She gave him one look,--a look he never forgot,--and with a cry of
"Rick's ring! Rick's ring!" broke from him and disappeared into the
mist.
"Maud! Maud! don't be silly! Maud! where are you going? For God's
sake, Maud! come back. The mist--the sea--are you mad? Maud! Maud!"
Then he, too, was blotted out, and the growing light of day found
nothing human there save the bones of a woman who had been loved.
Nothing but that and the ashes of a fire which had gone out.
"Maud! Maud!" The cry hit on the mist and came echoing back to him,
as, following her faint footsteps, he pursued her. Once looming
through the fog he thought he saw her pausing as for breath, but his
passionate entreaty for her to wait for him, his eager reminder that
he was Eustace--Eustace, her lover--brought no response. Did he
imagine a faint cry as if she started off in renewed alarm, or was it
only some sea-bird hidden in the mist, uttering its plaintive note?
He brought himself up suddenly with a gasp of horrid fears as his feet
gave way beneath him--deeper? deeper? No! that was right: firm ground
once more, but where was he? Where were those faint footmarks leading
him?
"Maud! Come back! It is not safe!" Still he went on. Not safe, indeed!
He floundered desperately for a moment, and then stood with laboured
breath and a dew of deadly fear on his face, looking round him. The
sun rising steadily had, by this time, turned the mist into a golden
haze, through which he could see that a few seaweed-hung boulders had
been gathered to a heap whence sprang a cross-shaped post. It must be
a ford--the sea ford to Eilean-a-fa-ash. That way then lay safety, for
a few hours; but which way had she gone? He stooped to see, with fear
for her and for himself fighting with his love. Then he stood up, pale
as death. "Maud! Come back. Maud! I will not hurt you." Surely, surely
there was an answering cry. The relief seemed to blind him, deafen
him.
"Here! Here! where are you? It is I!"
The next instant Rick Halmar was beside him, fiercely imperative.
"Where is she? Where is she?"
Eustace Gordon looked at the eager boyish face stupidly, and faltered,
"She was afraid--she ran away. I don't know why. Call her. She might
come to you. Call her."
Those bright blue eyes seemed to pierce him through and through,
before they sought the ground. There was not much to be seen; only the
print of a woman's foot in the sand, a foot going south; due south.
"Coward!"
The word rang out clear from the golden mist like a voice from heaven,
and Eustace Gordon was left standing alone beside the cross pointing
towards safety. Rick Halmar had gone south; due south.