the harbour--fish that had been torn by the nets; but he was only just
in time, for in the soft grey light he could see the gulls already busy
floating down on their ghostly-looking wings in the gloom, uttering a
mournful, peevish wail, and carrying off fragments of fish for their
morning meal.
"Another ten minutes, and there would not have been one left," muttered
Harry, as he strode along the rock-strewn shore to where his boat was
drawn up high and dry. He, however, soon had her afloat, and, taking
one of the oars, he stood up in the stern and sculled her out with that
peculiar fish-tail motion which is so puzzling to one not used to the
custom.
Half an hour's sculling took him out to a great buoy close by some
sunken rocks; and having made fast his boat to the rusty,
barnacle-encrusted ring, he proceeded to bait his lines, and lowered
down the leads into the deep water below.
"What's it to be this morning?" he said. "They ought to bite on such a
tide as this."
He held one line in his hand, twisted the other round one of the
thole-pins of the boat, and then sat waiting. There was black Carn Du
right in front, with the waters rising up dark and glistening, to fall
back fringed with pale ghostly white.
Then, as no fish bit to take up his attention, he began to think of the
great black mass of rock, and to ask himself whether it was worth his
while to go that or the next evening, and, climbing up, take the plunge
as he had seen so many young men take it before.
"If I did," he said, "it would please a good many people, and they would
no longer look upon me as a coward. I think I could--I feel sure I
could. But if I did take the dive how people would triumph after all,
and say that I was stung into doing it by what they had said!"
"No," he added, after a little more consideration; "they may say what
they like. I'll hold to my determination. Coward or no, I'm not going
to prove my courage for the sake of gratifying busy tattling people.
Better remain a coward all my--Ah, that's one!"
A sharp snatch at his line, followed by a long peculiar drag, told him
what was at his bait; and after a little giving and taking, he drew a
heavy twining conger eel over the boat's edge, having no little
difficulty in preventing it from tangling his line, for it was quite a
yard in length, and proportionately thick.
His captive was, however, soon safe in the large basket, and he had
hardly closed the lid and placed a boulder used as ballast upon it
before a tug at his other line made the thole-pin rattle, and after a
little hauling he dragged in a gloriously-coloured gurnard, whose
outspread fins looked like the wings of some lovely butterfly. Then he
drew in, one after the other, a couple of wrasse, all grey and green and
gold, with their protuberant mouths and curious teeth, after which there
was a pause, and, drawing up one of his lines, Harry placed thereon a
much larger hook, bound with wire right up the cord that held it. Upon
this he placed quite half a mackerel, secured it well to the hook with a
piece of string, and then, throwing it over the side, he waited, after
feeling the lead touch the rock below, and wondered whether he should
capture what he believed to be lurking amongst the ledges of the piece
of rock.
"I may either get a conger or a good hake," he thought to himself.
"There's always someone glad of a good hake."
He waited with all a fisherman's patience, and, used as he was to such
scenes, he could not help feeling gladdened at the glorious sight that
met his gaze, for, one by one, the stars had paled, till only that named
after the morning shone out resplendent in the now grey west; while to
eastward all was blushing with bright red and gold and purple and
orange, tints so wondrously beautiful and rich that Nature had enough to
spare for sea as well as sky. While the latter was growing moment by
moment more refulgent, the former caught the wondrous dyes, till the
water seemed everywhere like molten gold with ruddy and empurpled
reflections where the sea gave a gentle heave. Even the gulls and shags
that floated on the tide seemed to be glorified by the wondrous colour,
till Harry, as he sat there with the stout cord of his fishing-line
twisted round his hand, felt how majestic and awe-inspiring was the
coming of the new-born day, and involuntarily exclaimed:
"Who would stay in bed if they knew what the dawn is like on such a morn
as this!"
So rapt was he in the grandeur of the scene that he had forgotten all
about the object of his journey, but he was brought back to the
matter-of-fact present by a tremendous snatch which jerked his arm
hanging over the side, and made the cord cut so violently into his hand
that he was glad to give the line a twist and set it free to run for
some distance before he began to check it a little.
"It's a monster," he said, as he felt the struggles of the fish, which
dragged so heavily that, to save his line from breaking, as it was, in
spite of giving and taking, nearly run out, he cast the boat loose and
let it drift as the fish tugged.
It was not big enough to drag it along, but it had some influence on the
boat, moving it slowly, and this eased the line, which Harry had hauled
upon, so that he kept getting in fathom after fathom ready for the
captive's next run.
This was not long in coming, for after keeping up a steady strain for
about a minute, and drawing the fish, whatever it might be, nearer and
nearer to the surface, there was a sudden snatch, and away it went again
straight for the bottom like an arrow, and then right away.
"The line will break directly," thought Harry. "It must be either a
great conger or a monster hake, or else it's a small shark. Small!--no,
that it isn't!" he exclaimed as he felt himself steadily drawn along
with the current; "I shall never get it."
Now he was able to haul in a little, the fish coming towards the surface
in obedience to his steady drag; now it turned and went off again to the
last yard of line, and then the boat was steadily drawn along, while
Harry's wonder was that the strands did not break or the hook drag out.
"This comes of having good new tackle," he said; and then, "Ah, I must
lose it if it pulls like this."
For the fish made so furious a strain upon the line that he felt that it
must break; no such line could bear it.
He felt in despair, for he was all eagerness now to see the monster he
had hooked, when a happy thought suggested itself, and in an instant he
had made three or four hitches round one of the oars with the end of the
line, and cast it overboard.
"There," he said, "you may tug at that, and I'll follow you."
Away went the light oar over the surface, bobbing down at one end, and
raising the blade in the air, while, putting the other over the stern,
Harry stood up, full of excitement, and began sculling after the novel
travelling float, when a wild cry for help, that seemed to send a
shudder through his frame, came from behind him over the surface of the
sea.
CHAPTER FOUR.
A FISH NOT FISHED FOR.
Hake, conger, shark, whatever it might be, forgotten as Harry Paul heard
that cry repeated. He had already begun turning his little boat, and
then, bending to his task, he forced it through the water as he stood up
in the stern, making the rippling waves rattle and splash against her
bows as a line of foam parted on either side.
He could see nothing for the moment, but he knew that some one must be
in deadly peril in the direction in which he had heard the cry, and,
exerting all his strength, he made for the place whence he thought it
must have come.
He was puzzled, for, save a few luggers swinging from the little buoys
that dotted the surface of the sea, there was not a sign of an accident
by the upsetting of a boat, or of any one struggling in the water.
Everything looked bright and cheerful in the morning sun, and after
sculling along for some time he was beginning to think that the cry must
have been uttered by some sea-bird, seeming weird and strange in the
early morning, when he suddenly recalled the fact that sound travels far
over a smooth, calm sea.
Had he felt any further doubt it was solved on the instant by a
repetition of the cry, this time clearer, and plainly to be interpreted
into that agonising appeal that thrills the hearts of weak and strong
alike--the one word "_Help_!"
And now, plainly enough, he could see the head of some one whose hands
appeared at intervals above the water, evidently in a fierce struggle
for life.
Whoever it was had lost his nerve and was in some peril, for though not
above a hundred yards or so from the shore he was in the race of a
fierce current that at certain periods of the tide ran so swiftly
amongst the rocks that a strongly-manned boat could not stem its force.
"It must be some stranger," thought Harry, as he exerted himself more
and more. "Poor fellow! I shall never get to him in time."
And then, with the big drops standing upon his forehead, he toiled on,
his eyes fixed upon the drowning figure, and the feeling strong upon him
of how awful it was for anyone to be called upon to yield up his life on
such a glorious morning as this.
At times his heart seemed to stand still with the chilling influence of
the horror he felt, for, in spite of his efforts, the boat seemed to
crawl over the surface of the water.
He was now near enough to see that it was a man--evidently a bather--who
was struggling for his life and in terrible danger. The poor fellow
seemed to have gone out too far, and, in his ignorance, had been drawn
into the fierce current--one that no one dwelling about Carn Du would
have ventured to approach; and, unless help were soon afforded, there
would be a dead body cast up somewhere by a weedy cove just about the
turn of the tide.
Harry Paul's thoughts were busy, coward as he was, while his heart was
beating so painfully that he seemed ready to choke.
"I can only do one thing," he thought--"try to reach him with the boat.
If I jump over and swim, I shall get there no faster, but if I do he
will seize me in a drowning clutch, and we shall both go down."
A curious shuddering sensation ran through him, and the remembrance of
what he had gone through on the previous day came back with a strange
exactness, in which he seemed to feel once more the cold clinging touch
of the net upon his bare skin, and for the moment he felt as if he were
paralysed.
He shook off the horrible sensation, though, and, toiling away at his
oar, sent the boat rapidly on, so as to get into the current at right
angles to its course, and be swept on towards the drowning man.
The help must come quickly if it was to be of use, for the swimmer was
becoming a swimmer no longer. The horror of his position had robbed
him, as it were, of his knowledge, and instead of striking out slowly
and calmly, almost without effort, and keeping his head as low down in
the water as possible, he was making frantic efforts to raise himself
from time to time, and beating the water with his hands.
Then Harry could see an effort of the reason made over the animal
faculties, and for a few moments the drowning man took a few steady
strokes, but only to utter a gurgling cry and throw up his hands, beat
the water again, and go under.
The moment before Harry Paul seemed to have been exerting his full
strength to force the boat through the water, but an accession of
strength came to him, and with a few fierce thrusts he drove her bows
into the edge of the current, which gave it so quick a snatch that it
was whirled round, and its occupant nearly lost his footing; but he was
too practised a boatman for that. Recovering himself directly, he
planted a foot on either side, the oar bent in the water, and, getting
the boat's head right, he forced her along farther and farther into the
current, with which she seemed to race onward towards the drowning man.
He was quite a hundred yards from him yet; but rapidly diminishing the
distance now, for the boat seemed to tear along; but Harry's heart sank
lower and lower, and the chilly feeling of despair grew more strong as,
just when he had reduced the distance to about fifty yards, he saw a
hand appear for a moment above the water, and then disappear, leaving
the glistening surface perfectly blank.
Harry uttered a hoarse cry as he still sculled along, his eyes fixed
upon the spot where the hand had disappeared, and then tracing in
imagination the course the drowning man would take as he was swept along
beneath the surface, he made for the place.
It was in imagination, but his mental calculation was not far wrong, for
within a few yards of where it might be expected, and not ten from where
he was now sculling, he saw something roll up as it were to the surface,
there was a gleam of white in the sunlit water, and then it was
disappearing again, when, acting upon the impulse of the moment, Harry
loosened his hold of the oar, took two steps forward over the thwarts,
and leaped into the sea.
As Harry Paul disappeared in the swift current the boat rocked and
danced, and was sent many feet away by the impulse it received; but as
he rose to the surface, regardless of everything but the drowning man he
was striving to save, the boat swept by him, lightened of its load, and
was whirled slowly round and round.
It was a matter of impulse, and Harry Paul's experience should have
taught him that keeping perfectly cool, and urging the boat along to
where he had last seen the body, was the surest way of rendering help.
But there are times when even those of the strongest mental capacity
find it is difficult to retain their presence of mind.
It was so here. Led away by his feelings and the gallant desire he felt
to succour someone in distress, Harry had as it were kicked away what
meant life for both; but he did not realise the danger then.
As he plunged beneath the surface of the racing current he recalled the
fact that he was almost fully dressed, for the thick flannel jersey he
wore seemed to cling to his arms and impede his action, but that was
forgotten directly, as he rose in the water and looked around.
There was nothing visible. He was too late, so it seemed; but he swam
strongly on, the cold immersion seeming to lend additional vigour to his
frame.
Now there was something!
No; it was only a bunch of seaweed floating by, with its long streamers
spreading out in the clear water like a woman's hair. He was too late,
too late, and--Yes, that was something white down in the water rising
now, and--Yes, he had it--a man's wrist, and the next moment he had
given it a drag which brought its owner's head above the surface.
He was not dead, for, as Harry Paul turned him so that he floated on his
back with his face above water, the drowning man began to make frantic
clutches with his hands, so that it was only by loosing his hold and
getting behind that Harry Paul avoided what would have been a deadly
embrace.
He knew well enough what he ought to do, namely, seize the drowning man
by the hair, and then turn upon his own back and float, drawing the
other after him; but on trying this a difficulty met him at the offset:
the man's hair was very short; but he got over it by grasping his ears,
and then, throwing himself back, he struck out with his legs so as to
keep afloat and go with the racing current.
CHAPTER FIVE.
COALS OF FIRE ON AN ENEMY'S HEAD.
Harry Paul had been so busily employed in avoiding the drowning man's
grasp that, for the moment, the boat was forgotten. Now, however, that
he had mastered him, he raised his head a little to look; but the boat
was far away beyond his reach, and progressing at such a rate that he
could not have overtaken it even had he been alone.
A feeling of dread would have mastered him now, but for the strong nerve
that he brought to bear. There was no help there. They were several
hundred yards now from the shore, and every moment being carried farther
away. The part they were in was hidden by the great black pile of rocks
by Carn Du from the little town and harbour, so that their peril could
not be seen. It was evident, too, that the loud cries for help had not
reached the ears of those about the harbour, and that no one was
anywhere about the boats that swung from the buoys. On the one side
there was the open sea, on the other the piled-up granite, which rose up
like hand-built buttresses, composed of vast squared masses rising tier
upon tier. At their foot the foam fretted and beat, and the forests of
seaweed washed to and fro, presenting an almost impenetrable barrier to
any one wishing to land; though here it was impossible, for the racing
current formed another barrier, which a boat propelled by stout rowers
would hardly have passed.
The act of his keeping the drowning man's face slightly above the water
had a bad effect for Harry Paul, inasmuch as it made him he was trying
to succour struggle and endeavour to clutch at the arms that held him.
Once he could do this, Harry knew that his case would be hopeless, for
from that death-grapple there could be no escape. He held the man then
firmly and swam on, feeling himself moment by moment grow more weary,
for he was swimming in his clinging clothes, and unless help soon came
he knew that he must loosen his grasp and strive to save his own life.
Terrible coward as he was deemed, though, this was not in Harry Paul's
disposition. He possessed all the stern, dogged determination of the
true Englishman--that determination which has made our race renowned
throughout the length and breadth of the world. He had determined to
save this drowning man; he felt that it was incumbent upon him to give
his best efforts to that end; so, setting his teeth, he cleverly managed
to elude every clutch made at him, and swam on.
He did not know where he was going, but he felt that his only chance was
to go with the current till he should be swept near some of the outlying
rocks, when they might be drawn into an eddy, and so be able to climb up
on to the shell-covered stones, and wait there till they were seen.
Try how he would, after some struggle with his captive it was impossible
to help feeling a chill of dread, for he knew that he was swimming more
laboriously, and that his limbs were like so much lead; but still he
struggled on. Every now and then, too, the water washed over his face,
telling him that his position was lower, and at last, when all seemed to
be over and his strength was ebbing away, he raised his head for a last
farewell look-out for help, and one of his hands struck against a rock.
Almost as he touched it the stream bore him by, but there was another
mass close at hand, hung with tresses of seaweed and thickly strewed
with mussels, and here he got a hold for a few moments, in spite of the
drag of the rushing water.
It required no little effort to hold on and support the drowning man as
well, but even a few moments' rest gave him some return of power, and he
was helped now by his companion, who in a feeble struggle to get at and
clutch something, caught at the seaweed, into which his fingers
convulsively wound themselves, and thus gave Harry Paul a hand at
liberty for his own use.
It was some time, though, before he dared to do more than cling to the
rock. He was too weak and helpless. At the end of a few minutes,
however, he felt stronger, and summoning up his energies for the effort,
he got one hand higher, then the other, and clung there half out of the
water.
There was less drag upon him here from the stream; his breath came more
freely, and with it returning strength, sufficient to enable him to
climb right out of the water, lie face downwards upon the rock, and,
stretching down his hands, clasp the wrists of his companion, whose
fingers seemed to have grown into the tough weed to which they clung.
This act brought his face within a foot or so of his companion's
countenance. Their eyes met, and in his surprise Harry Paul nearly let
go, for he now for the first time realised the fact that he had been
risking his life in an endeavour to save that of the man whom he had
heard accused of an attempt to destroy him the night before.
It was a strange position, and Harry Paul, as he bent down holding
Penelly there, recalled all he had heard, and, in spite of his manly
feelings, he could not help believing that in a sudden fit of dislike,
or under a momentary temptation, Penelly had thrown the nets over him,
though evidently repenting the next moment of what he had done.
Penelly, too, was fast recovering his strength, and with it the horrible
sense of confusion was passing away. He, too, realised that the man
whom he had so cruelly assailed was now sustaining him after evidently
swimming to his aid.
He gazed for a few moments straight into Harry's eyes, and in their
stern gaze as they seemed to read him through and through, he saw, or
fancied that he saw, his own condemnation, and that Harry was going to
thrust him from his hold.
It was a strange reaction as he hung there--he, the brave and daring
swimmer, famed for his dives off Carn Du, held up by the man he had
always denounced as a terrible coward; whom he had hated from boyhood
almost, without cause, and whom really, under the impulse of a horrible
temptation, he had on the previous night tried to hamper in his
swimming, though not really to drown.
Neither spoke, neither stirred for some time. There was no great strain
upon Harry's hands now, since Penelly's grasp was desperate. The former
was content to lie there gazing into his enemy's eyes, for his strength
was returning with every breath; that breathing was less laboured, and,
in place of his heart throbbing and jumping, sending hot gushes of
blood, as it were, choking to his throat, it began to settle steadily
down to its ordinary labours in the breast of a strongly-built, healthy,
temperate man.
"Conscience makes cowards of us all;" so the great writer has said; and
truer words never stood out bold and striking from the paper on which
they were written.
In his abject misery and dread, Mark Penelly saw, in the stern gaze
before him, anger and a vindictive desire for revenge; he saw therein
fierce hate, and an implacable, unchanging condemnation; he felt that
Harry was sustaining him there where he had dragged him to make his
sufferings more acute, and that, after holding him up for a while, he
would loosen his hold, causing him to sink at once into the deep water
by the rocks, and be swept away by the tremendous current.
He judged Harry Paul, in fact, by the same measure as he would have
meted out to an enemy himself; and so terrible were his thoughts, so
horrifying to him was the thought of the death from which he had
escaped, that he was robbed of all energy; he had not strength to do
more than hang there clinging to the weeds with desperate clutch, and,
with only his head out of water, gaze up in Harry's stern eyes.
And they were stern, for strange thoughts had intruded themselves,
seeming to take possession of the young man's mind, and making him speak
and act contrary to his wont.
At last he spoke, and the trembling wretch beneath him shivered and
uttered a despairing cry.
"How came you in the water?" said Harry sternly.
"Oh, in mercy, spare me, Harry Paul," shrieked the miserable wretch,
"and I'll tell you all."
"Then he _did_ throw the nets over me," thought Harry, in spite of
himself; and he began to wonder why it was he did not make an effort to
drag Penelly on to the rock.
"Tell me, then," he said in a low hoarse voice, that he did not know for
his own.
"I will--yes, I will tell you," said Penelly; "only promise me you'll
spare me."
"Tell me this moment," said Harry sternly.
"You are going to let me sink down," cried Penelly in horror-stricken
tones. "Oh, Harry Paul, my good, brave fellow! help me out--save me--
save me!"
A curious smile curled the young man's lip, one which horrified Penelly,
who shrieked out:
"Yes, yes; I'll confess all. Zekle Wynn threatened to tell--to tell--"
"That you threw the net over me last night?"
"Yes--yes--I did; but it was an accident--an ac--"
"What?" roared Harry.
"No, no--I confess," said Penelly feebly, for he felt that his last hour
had come. "I did it. I felt tempted to do it when you swam round; but
Heaven's my witness, Harry, I only meant to duck you. I meant to help
drag you out after a minute, and so I did."
"How came you in the race this morning?" said Harry, in a cold, cutting
voice.
"I'll--I'll confess all," said Penelly faintly, "only help me out and
save my life. I'll go away from Carn Du, Harry Paul. I'll be like your
dog in future, only save me."
"The dog of a terrible coward?" said Harry coldly.
"Oh, no; but you are not a coward, Harry. Help!"
"How came you in the race?"