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Major Vigoureux, a novel by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
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Chapter 28. The Finding |
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_ CHAPTER XXVIII. THE FINDING The two men followed her out into the darkness and across the turfed slope towards the Keg of Butter. The Commandant, amid much that was bewildering, guessed that her boat lay moored there, and that she meant them to accompany her, either to Saaron or to Inniscaw. There was no danger of meeting anyone by the way, either on the hill or down by the shore; for the search had drawn off all the coastguard. Nevertheless, though he carried a lantern, he did not light it. The moon would not be up for an hour yet, but the nor'-westerly breeze had blown the sky clear of clouds. The stars--bright as always when the wind sets over the Islands from that quarter--lent a pale radiance by which Sir Ommaney managed to steer his way, and at a fair pace, beside his more expert companion, and the Commandant, when they reached the cliff-path, lent him a hand. "But you don't tell me you have come over from Saaron in that cockleshell of yours?" asked the Commandant, peering down into the darkness for a glimpse of the boat. Vashti, who was leading the way down the track, turned with a laugh. "No, and for a very good reason. I could not take you two back in her, for she would not carry you, and I could not borrow yours and leave her here for the coastguard to discover; and again the wind, though it has fallen, is against us--we shall have to pull, and there would be no sense in towing a boat, even a little one, for we are in a hurry. So I sailed across in Eli's. But please do not deride my poor cockleshell, as you call it; for without her I had never such news as I bring you." "When are we to hear it?" She laughed again as she stooped and found the shore-line of Tregarthen's boat. "Not yet. No, and you need not light the lantern. We shall want it just before our journey's end; not until then." The Commandant helped her to draw in the boat, and they clambered on board. "But surely you don't expect me to steer!" protested Sir Ommaney, gazing blankly around at the darkness, as Vashti directed him to take his seat in the stern sheets. "No, I have unshipped the rudder, and you will have nothing to do but sit still and wonder." She snugged away the sail. "Now, will you take bow oar or stroke?" she asked the Commandant. "Better perhaps leave me the bow oar and the steering." "Might one ask whither?" "For Inniscaw, and for the landing beneath the Great House. It will give us the farther to walk, but towards the north of the Island we shall find ourselves in a press of boats. To be sure, no one is likely to suspect us; it will be supposed that we are joining the search. Still, I would rather run no risks, and the southern landing is almost certainly deserted." She shipped her oar; and as the Commandant set the stroke she took it up with a will. At the fifth or sixth stroke she began to sing--not a set song, but little trills and snatches of melody, as though health, happiness, the joy of living, the delight of swinging to the oar in the cool night air--these together or something compounded of them all--filled her being and bubbled over. "You are silent, you two." She said it almost reproachfully, pausing to throw a glance over her shoulder and direct the steering. "And with excuse." Sir Ommaney answered. "Who is not mute when Mademoiselle Cara sings? And who, an hour ago, could have promised me that I should hear her sing, in this place, beneath the stars?" "Few will hear her any more," said Vashti, lightly. "She is tired of the stage and thinks of marrying." "Indeed, mademoiselle? And whom are we to congratulate? Who is it that selfishly appropriates what was meant for mankind?" "Faith, sir, I cannot tell you," she answered again, still in the same light tone. "But I came, just now, to kidnap the Commandant!" Without giving a chance of reply, she broke into singing again; the air, _Ah, fors e lui_. It gushed from her lips like a very fountain of happiness, irrepressible, springing towards the stars in jets and spurts of melody, falling with a ripple in which the music of the stars themselves seemed to echo; almost in the moment of its fall rising again, as though it panted with joy--not with weariness, for the spirit of it called impetuously to life. The two men listened, marvelling. Nor when the song ended was the spell broken; for still, as she pulled towards the looming shadow of Inniscaw, sinking her voice almost to a murmur, she took up the melody as though in echo, caressing, repeating it, loth to let it go. They came to the dark landing-quay. Sir Ommaney, stepping ashore, stretched out a hand; but she disregarded it, as she disregarded the Commandant's, held out to take the painter and make fast. "Thank you"--she stooped, apparently groping among the bottom-boards. "I will moor the boat myself. But wait: I have something for each of you to carry." In the darkness she passed up a double tackle and a coil of rope. "I fetched these from Saaron on my way to you," she explained. "We shall need them. Have you fairly strong heads for a climb? Very well, then"--she sprang ashore with the painter in her hand, made it fast to a ring above the quay steps, and picked up the lantern. "Now forward! And no talking, please, until we are well past the house and out of hearing!" Sir Ommaney picked up the tackle, the Commandant the coil of rope, and the pair followed her one behind the other. In Indian file they stole up through the plantations, almost to the foot of the glimmering terrace; thence, bearing to the left, along dim paths through the mazes of the gardens, thence again through the north-west plantation, and out upon the path which the Lord Proprietor had taken, on his way to North Inniscaw. Here, on the uplands, the breeze met them, and at his feet Sir Ommaney, for the first time, saw spread the wonderful circle of the great sea lights. Smaller lights twinkled like a thread of gems along the north and north-eastern horizon. They belonged to the boats still prosecuting the search. From the first Vashti had led the way without faltering or appearing to hesitate for a moment. Even when clear of the woods her companions observed the prohibition she had laid upon them at the start, and exchanged scarcely a word. "You have followed well," said Vashti, as they reached the foot of Pare Coppa. She pointed to the mass of shadow ahead, and the granite blocks on the summit faintly touched by the starlight. "I know now what it feels like to command soldiers, and it feels good. There, by that high rock to the left, our march ends." They breasted the slope and arrived at the rock panting, after seven or eight minutes' climb. It was the same on which Sam Leggo had last seen the Lord Proprietor sitting with his gun across his knees. But why she had brought them to this spot the two men were as far as ever from guessing; for almost straight beneath them lay the sea. After a minute's rest Vashti lowered herself over the western edge of the rock, at the same time warning them to follow with extreme caution; and so all three came to the ledge of the adit. But their business did not lie here. Indeed, in the darkness neither Sir Ommaney nor the Commandant observed the opening, and Vashti had no leisure to call their attention to it. Clambering, still to the left, across a boulder which fairly overhung the sea, she struck a match, lit the candle in her lantern, and held it up before a dark hole--a second adit--pierced in the cliff-side and running west, as the other ran south-by-east. "Be careful, now!" she warned them again, and ducked her head as she entered the tunnel, which was scarcely more than five feet high. They stooped and followed down the slope of it for about thirty yards, and halted behind her as she waved the lantern over what appeared at first to be a terrific chasm, opening at her feet. "Eli, ahoy! Ahoy, there!" she called. "Ahoy!" the voice came up from the depths. "Ahoy, there, Vashti!" "I have brought the Commandant, with a friend--and the tackle. Shall I fix it here?" "That's no work for you, my dear," called up Eli. "Let them come down if they've heads for it, and afterwards I can climb up and fix it. Or, stay! Let the one come down, and the other bide aloft, to help me." "Do you dare?" Vashti asked the Commandant, pointing down to the pit, and then with a wave of her lantern indicating the stairway by which he must descend. It was a ladder of rope, suspended from an iron bar driven into the solid rock about a foot above the floor-level on which they stood. It dangled down into darkness, and the Commandant perceived to his horror that its iron rungs lay close against the cliff. "Surely you are never going down that way?" he asked. But Vashti was already stooping to slip off her shoes. "You need not follow unless you choose." "Where you go, I go. Let me lead the way." But while he unlaced and kicked off his boots she had already grasped the iron bar and swung herself out over the abyss, feeling with her toes for a rung and a good foothold. "For my part," said Sir Ommaney, controlling with some difficulty the tremor of his voice as he saw her anchored safely for the moment, "I am content to smoke a pipe here and wait. For God's sake be careful you two!" he added, as the Commandant also gripped the bar, then a rung, and began to lower himself. Far below the Commandant could see a light glimmering, drawing faint twinkles from the wet rock around him. Just beneath him he could hear Vashti's hands rhythmically catching at the rungs--down, down.... Once his feet slipped from the staves, and he hung for a moment by his hand-grip only. Twice Vashti spoke up to him, warning him to press a knee against the rock, and so make room for his toes to catch the rungs.... At length they reached a point where the ladder hung clear of the cliff; but here a hand from below caught it and held it steady. "Nervous work, sir!" said Eli Tregarthen, as the Commandant, with a gasp of relief, felt his feet touch solid rock. "But where are we?" demanded the Commandant; for close at hand sounded the boom of heavy waves. "In Piper's Hole." The Commandant stared aloft. Slowly the explanation dawned on him. The adit, piercing its way from the cliff top, broke through the wall of the cave, high up, close to the roof. He turned, and his eyes followed Vashti, who had caught up Eli's lantern, and was picking her way across the rocky floor. Presently she bent to a kneeling posture, as the rays fell on what at first appeared to be a long bundle. He hurried after her, but stopped short with a cry. "Sir Caesar!" "Even so, my friend. Alive, thanks to our friends here; and, but for a shaking and a twisted ankle, sound as well as safe. Yes, and the ankle is mending, thanks to Miss Cara's skill and a plenty of salt-water bandages." The Lord Proprietor's face was pale as he leaned on his elbow and stared at the Commandant across the lantern. It was scratched, too, and scarred; but it was the face of a sound man. "But how in the world----?" "Easily enough. I was leaning over the cliff above here, with my gun beside me, when a piece of earth gave way under my head. I went down the slope head foremost, as I guess, and my coat must have caught in the gun's trigger-guard. At any rate, it went off, and by the mercy of Heaven without wounding me; but either the noise of it stunned me or the fall must have knocked me foolish, for tumbling among the bushes that grow in the hollow above the cave's entrance, I had not the sense to catch hold, but slid through them, and clean over the edge into the sea." "Eh? But pardon me, how can you possibly remember this?" stammered the Commandant. "I saw it," said Vashti, quietly. "Oh!" The Commandant stared at her, and began to understand. "So you _were_ the mermaid!" She nodded. "I happened to be on the rock, outside the entrance, with my small boat lying in a low spot under its eastern shelter, and so I put off to him at once. There was a strong run of water into the cave; the depth was not above three feet when the waves ran back. So I clutched hold of him--though making sure he was dead--and drew him into the cave, above high-water mark. It was hard work, though not so hard as dragging the boat after us." "Why should you want to drag the boat so far?... You don't mean to tell me that you have been hiding here, on purpose, while the search has been going on all around you!" Vashti laughed. "Why, of course we have! I heard you and Mr. Rogers last night. You were standing together on the very spot over which I had hauled the boat: only I had taken the precaution to smooth the sand over the track of her keel. From the ridge of rock there I launched her on the freshwater pool, and paddled her across with the Lord Proprietor safe on board. I was dreadfully afraid, while I listened to your voices, that you would cross the pool and discover her. "It lies close?" "About thirty yards from where we stand." "To confess the truth," put in the Lord Proprietor, "my fall seems to have knocked some daylight into me, or else Miss Vashti is a witch. While she bound up my hurts we had some conversation together----" "It was I who did the talking," interposed Vashti. "And that, perhaps, explains why in so short a while I learnt so much. I learnt enough, sir, at any rate, of you and of Eli Tregarthen to make me suspect that I had done you both some injustice. I was willing to hear more; to prolong the adventure which"--he bowed after a fashion towards Vashti, and not ungallantly--"had its--er--romantic side. I decided that if Miss Cara spoke with knowledge, it would do me good to see myself for a brief while as others in the Islands see me, even to hear what they said of me by way of obituary criticism." He paused at a sound on the far side of the cave. It came from the ladder; the sound of Eli's hobnailed boots, rung upon rung, as he climbed aloft towards the adit, to fasten the tackle there. "It seems a monstrous height to be swung in air, helpless as a babe. But Tregarthen says it can be done, and I am willing to trust him. If at the top you can rig up some kind of litter for me, and convey me home without noise ... I have a fancy, and it is also Miss Cara's, that we keep the main part of this mystery to ourselves. But who is the helper aloft there?" "Sir Ommaney Ward." "Hey?" "Sir Ommaney Ward." "The devil! And I sent for him! Forgive me, Commandant----" "And excuse me, Sir Caesar, but I prefer to believe he is here because my letter brought him." The Lord Proprietor held out his hand. "Will you take it, Commandant? Miss Cara has told me of that letter. You are a good man, and I have wronged you." _ |
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