DEVILRY.
When the cart and its little company had travelled for almost another
hour, a dark object in the midst of the line of foam caught their sight.
It was the boy who first saw it, and he suddenly leaned forward,
clutching O'Shea's arm as if in fear.
The man looked steadily.
"She's come in since we passed here before."
The boy apparently said something, although Caius could not catch the
voice.
"No," said O'Shea; "there's cargo aboard of her yit, but the men are off
of her."
It was a black ship that, sailless and with masts pitifully aslant, was
fixed on the sand among the surf, and the movement of the water made her
appear to labour forward as if in dying throes making effort to reach
the shore.
The boy seemed to scan the prospect before him now far more eagerly than
before; but the wreck, which was, as O'Shea said, deserted, seemed to be
the only external object in all that gleaming waste. They passed on,
drawing up for a minute near her at the boy's instigation, and scanning
her decks narrowly as they were washed by the waves, but there was no
sign of life. Before they had gone further Caius caught sight of the
dark outline of another wreck; but this one was evidently of some weeks'
standing, for the masts were gone and the hulk half broken through.
There was still another further out. The mere repetition of the sad
story had effect to make the scene seem more desolate. It seemed as if
the sands on which they trod must be strewed with the bleached skeletons
of sailors, and as if they embedded newly-buried corpses in their
breast. The sandhills here were higher than they had been before, and
there were openings between them as if passages led into the interior
valleys, so that Caius supposed that here in storms or in flood-tides
the waves might enter into the heart of the dune.
They had not travelled far beyond the first and nearest wreck, when the
monotony of their journey was broken by a sudden strange excitement
which seized on them all, and which Caius, although he felt it, did not
at once understand.
The pony was jerked back by the reins which O'Shea held, then turned
staggering inland, and lashed forward by the whip, used for the first
time that day. Caius, jerked against the side of the cart, lifted up a
bruised head, gazing in wonder to see nothing in the path; but he saw
that the boy had sprung lightly from the cart, and was standing higher
up on the sand, his whole attitude betraying alarm as he gazed
searchingly at the ground.
In a moment the pony reared and plunged, and then uttered a cry almost
human in its fear. Then came the sensation of sinking, sinking with the
very earth itself. O'Shea had jumped from the cart and cut the traces.
Caius was springing out, and felt his spring guided by a hand upon his
arm. He could not have believed that the boy had so much strength, yet,
with a motion too quick for explaining words, he was guided to a certain
part of the sand, pushed aside like a child to be safe, while the boy
with his next agile movement tugged at the portmanteaus that contained
the medical stores, and flung them at Caius' feet.
It was a quicksand. The pony cried again--cried to them for help. Caius
next found himself with O'Shea holding the creature's head, and aiding
its mad plunging, even while his own feet sank deeper and deeper. There
was a moment when they all three plunged forward together, and then the
pony threw itself upon its side, by some wild effort extricating its
feet, and Caius, prone upon the quivering head, rolled himself and
dragged it forward. Then he felt strong hands lifting him and the horse
together.
What seemed strangest to Caius, when he could look about and think, was
that he had now four companions--the boy, O'Shea, and two other men,
coated and muffled--and that the four were all talking together eagerly
in a language of which he did not understand a word.
He shook the wet sand from his clothes; his legs and arms were wet. The
pony stood in an entrance to a gap in the sand-hills, quivering and
gasping, but safe, albeit with one leg hurt. The cart had sunk down till
its flat bottom lay on the top of the quicksand, and there appeared to
float, for it sunk no further. A white cloud that had winged its way up
from the south-west now drifted over the moon, and became black except
at its edges. The world grew much darker, and it seemed colder, if that
were possible.
It soon occurred to Caius that the two men now added to their party had
either met O'Shea by appointment, or had been lying in wait for the
cart, knowing that the quicksand was also waiting to engulf it. It
appeared to him that their motives must be evil, and he was not slow to
suspect O'Shea of being in some plot with them. He had, of course, money
upon him, enough certainly to attract the cupidity of men who could
seldom handle money, and the medical stores were also convertible into
money. It struck him now how rash he had been to come upon this lonely
drive without any assurance of O'Shea's respectability.
These thoughts came to him because he almost immediately perceived that
he was the subject of conversation. It seemed odd to stand so near them
and not understand a word they said. He heard enough now to know the
language they were speaking was the patois that, in those parts, is the
descendant of the Jersey French. These men, then, were Acadians--the boy
also, for he gabbled freely to them. Either they had sinister designs on
him, or he was an obstruction to some purpose that they wished to
accomplish. This was evident now from their tones and gestures. They
were talking most vehemently about him, especially the boy and O'Shea,
and it was evident that these two disagreed, or at least could not for
some time agree, as to what was to be his fate.
Caius was defenceless, for so peaceful was the country to which he was
accustomed that he carried no weapon. He took his present danger little
to heart. There was a strange buoyancy--born, no doubt, of the bracing
wind--in his spirit. If they were going to kill him--well, he would die
hard; and a man can but die once. A laugh arose from the men; it
sounded to him as strange a sound, for the time and place, as the almost
human cry of the horse a few minutes before. Then O'Shea came towards
him with menacing gestures. The two men went back into the gap of the
sand-hills from whence they must have come.
"Look here," said O'Shea roughly, "do ye value your life?"
"Certainly."
Caius folded his arms, and made this answer with well-bred contempt.
"And ye shall have your life, but on one condition. Take out of your
bags what's needed for dealing with the sick this noight, for there's a
dying man ye must visit before ye sleep, and the condition is that ye
walk on to The Cloud by yourself on this beach without once looking
behoind ye. Moind what I say! Ye shall go free--yerself, yer money, and
yer midicines--if ye walk from here to the second house that is a
loighthouse without once turning yer head or looking behoind ye." He
pointed to the bags with a gesture of rude authority. "Take out what ye
need, and begone!"
"I shall do nothing of the sort," replied Caius, his arms still folded.
The boy had come near enough to hear what was said, but he did not
interfere.
"And why not?" asked O'Shea, a jeer in his tones.
"Because I would not trust one of you not to kill me as soon as my back
was turned."
"And if your back isn't turned, and that pretty quick, too, ye'll not
live many hours."
"I prefer to die looking death in the face; but it'll be hard for the
man who attempts to touch me."
"Oh! ye think ye'll foight for it, do ye?" asked O'Shea lightly; "but
ye're mistaken there--the death ye shall doie will admit of no foighting
on your part."
"There is something more in all this business than I understand." Apart
from the question whether he should die or live, Caius was puzzled to
understand why his enemies had themselves fallen foul of the quicksand,
or what connection the accident could have with the attack upon his
life. "There is more in this than I understand," he repeated loudly.
"Just so," replied O'Shea, imperturbable; "there is more than ye can
understand, and I offer ye a free passage to a safe place. Haven't ye
wits enough about ye to take it and be thankful?"
"I will not turn my back." Caius reiterated his defiance.
"And ye'll stroike out with yer fist at whatever comes to harm ye? Will
ye hit in the face of the frost and the wind if ye're left here to
perish by cold, with your clothes wet as they are? or perhaps ye'll come
to blows with the quicksand if half a dozen of us should throw ye in
there."
"There are not half a dozen of you," he replied scornfully.
"Come and see." O'Shea did not offer to touch him, but he began to walk
towards the opening in the dune, and dragged Caius after him by mere
force of words. "Come and see for yourself. What are ye afraid of, man?
Come! if ye want to look death in the face, come and see what it is
ye've got to look at."
Caius followed reluctantly, keeping his own distance. O'Shea passed the
shivering pony, and went into the opening of the dune, which was now all
in shadow because of the black cloud in the sky. Inside was a small
valley. Its sand-banks might have been made of bleached bones, they
looked so gray and dead. Just within the opening was an unexpected
sight--a row of hooded and muffled figures stood upright in the sand.
There was something appalling in the sight to Caius. Each man was placed
at exactly the same distance from his fellow; they seemed to stand with
heads bowed, and hands clasped in front of their breasts; faces and
hands, like their forms, were hooded and muffled. Caius did not think,
or analyze his emotion. No doubt the regular file of the men, suggesting
discipline which has such terrible force for weal or woe, and their
attitudes, suggesting motives and thoughts of which he could form not
the faintest explanation, were the two elements which made the scene
fearful to him.
O'Shea stopped a few paces from the nearest figure, and Caius stopped a
few paces nearer the opening of the dune.
"Ye see these men?" said O'Shea.
Caius did not answer.
O'Shea raised his voice:
"I say before them what I have said, that if ye'll swear here before
heaven, as a man of honour, that ye'll walk from here to the loighthouse
on The Cloud--which ye shall find in the straight loine of the
beach--without once turning yer head or looking behoind ye, neither man
nor beast nor devil shall do ye any hurt, and yer properties shall be
returned to ye when a cart can be got to take them. Will ye swear?"
Caius made no answer. He was looking intently. As soon as the tones of
O'Shea's voice were carried away by the bluster of the wind, as far as
the human beings there were concerned there was perfect stillness; the
surf and the wind might have been sweeping the dunes alone.
"And if I will not swear?" asked Caius, in a voice that was loud enough
to reach to the last man in the long single rank.
O'Shea stepped nearer him, and, as if in pretence of wiping his face
with his gloved hand, he sent him a hissing whisper that gave a sudden
change of friendliness and confidence to his voice, "Don't be a fool!
swear it."
"Are these men, or are they corpses?" asked Caius.
The stillness of the forms before him became an almost unendurable
spectacle.
He had no sooner spoken than O'Shea appealed to the men, shouting words
in the queer guttural French. And Caius saw the first man slowly raise
his hand as if in an attitude of oath-taking, and the second man did
likewise. O'Shea turned round and faced him, speaking hastily. The
shadow of the cloud was sending dark shudderings of lighter and darker
shades across the sand hollow, and these seemed almost like a visible
body of the wind that with searching blast drifted loose sand upon them
all. With the sweep of the shadow and the wind, Caius saw the movement
of the lifted hand go down the line.
"I lay my loife upon it," said O'Shea, "that if ye'll say on yer honour
as a man, and as a gintleman, that ye'll not look behoind ye, ye shall
go scot-free. It's a simple thing enough; what harm's there in it?"
The boy had come near behind Caius. He said one soft word, "Promise!" or
else Caius imagined he said it. Caius knew at least what the boy wished
him to do.
The pony moved nearer, shivering with cold, and Caius realized that the
condition of wet and cold in which they were need not be prolonged.
"I promise," he shouted angrily, "and I'll keep the promise, whatever
infernal reason there may be for it; but if I'm attacked from
behind----" He added threats loud and violent, for he was very angry.
Before he had finished speaking--the thought might have been brought by
some movement in the shadow of the cloud, and by the sound of the wind,
or by his heated brain--but the thought came to him that O'Shea, under
his big fur-coat, had indulged in strange, harsh laughter.
Caius cared nothing. He had made his decision; he had given his word; he
had no thought now but to take what of his traps he could carry and be
gone on his journey.