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Foul Play, a novel by Charles Reade |
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Chapter 46 |
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_ CHAPTER XLVI HELEN had forgotten all about the bonfire. She now asked whether he was sure those on board the steamer could see the bonfire. Then Hazel told her that it was now of prodigious size and height. Some six months before he was crippled he had added and added to it. "That bonfire," said he, "will throw a ruddy glare over the heavens that they can't help seeing on board the steamer. Then, as they are not on a course, but on a search, they will certainly run a few miles southward to see what it is. They will say it is either a beacon or a ship on fire; and, in either case, they will turn the boat's head this way. Well, before they have run southward half a dozen miles, their lookout will see the bonfire, and the island in its light. Let us get to the boat, my lucifers are there." She lent him her arm to the boat, and stood by while he made his preparations. They were very simple. He took a pine torch and smeared it all over with pitch; then put his lucifer-box in his bosom and took his crutch. His face was drawn pitiably, but his closed lips betrayed unshaken and unshakable resolution. He shouldered his crutch, and hobbled up as far as the cavern. Here Helen interposed. "Don't you go toiling up the hill," said she. "Give me the lucifers and the torch and let me light the beacon. I shall be there in half the time you will." "Thank you! thank you!" said Hazel, eagerly, not to say violently. He wanted it done; but it killed him to do it. He then gave her his instructions. "It is as big as a haystack," said he, "and as dry as a chip; and there are eight bundles of straw placed expressly. Light bundles to windward first, then the others; it will soon be all in a blaze." "Meanwhile," said Helen, "you prepare our supper. I feel quite faint--for want of it." Hazel assented. "It is the last we shall--" he was going to say it was the last they would eat together; but his voice failed him, and he hobbled into the cavern, and tried to smother his emotion in work. He lighted the fire, and blew it into a flame with a palmetto-leaf, and then he sat down awhile, very sick at heart; then he got up and did the cooking, sighing all the time; and, just when he was beginning to wonder why Helen was so long lighting eight bundles of straw, she came in, looking pale. "Is it all right?" said he. "Go and look," said she. "No, let us have our supper first." Neither had any appetite. They sat and kept casting strange looks at one another. To divert this anyhow, Hazel looked up at the roof, and said faintly, "If I had known, I would have made more haste, and set pearl _there_ as well." "What does that matter?" said Helen, looking down. "Not much, indeed," replied he, sadly. "I am a fool to utter such childish regrets; and, more than that, I am a mean selfish cur to _have_ a regret. Come, come, we can't eat; let us go round the Point and see the waves reddened by the beacon that gives you back to the world you were born to embellish." Helen said she would go directly. And her languid reply contrasted strangely with his excitement. She played with her supper, and wasted time in a very unusual way, until he told her plump she was not really eating, and he could wait no longer, he must go and see how the beacon was burning. "Oh, very well," said she; and they went down to the beach. She took his crutch and gave it to him. This little thing cut him to the heart. It was the first time she had accompanied him so far as that without offering herself to be his crutch. He sighed deeply, as he put the crutch under his arm; but he was too proud to complain, only he laid it all on the approaching steamboat. The subtle creature by his side heard the sigh, and smiled sadly at being misunderstood--but what man could understand her? They hardly spoke till they reached the Point. The waves glittered in the moonlight; there was no red light on the water. "Why, what is this?" said Hazel. "You can't have lighted the bonfire in eight places, as I told you." She folded her arms and stood before him in an attitude of defiance; all but her melting eye. "I have not lighted it at all," said she. Hazel stood aghast. "What have I done?" he cried. "Duty, manhood, everything demanded that I should light that beacon, and I trusted it to you." Then Helen's attitude of defiance melted away. She began to cower, and hid her blushing face in her hands. Then she looked up imploringly. Then she uttered a wild and eloquent cry, and fled from him like the wind. _ |
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