I
"There's nowt here," called a voice from below. "A fall of the cliff belike."
The boat put back.
Kit stayed on hands and knees on the grass plateau, his forehead bowed to the ground in attitude of prayer.
He was sick with humility and thankfulness.
Already the boy began to have that sense which distinguishes the great man from the herd, swinging him over obstacles to others insurmountable, the sense that God is with him, and therefore he cannot fail.
A fly was buzzing somewhere near. It comforted him amazingly. It was earthy and every-day, that solid buz-z-z-z; reminding him of the kitchen at home, fat Maria kneading dough, and the smell of fly- papers. It steadied him as a feast of bread and meat steadies a man heady with long fasting.
Rolling over on his back, he lay flat, panting.
How good it was to feel the earth beneath him once more! Faithful old thing! she wouldn't give way beneath her child. He hammered her with his heels; he patted her with his hands; he wriggled his shoulders into her: all massive, all motherly, all good.
Turning on his side, he kissed her.
A while he lay there, arms and legs wide, eyes shut, breathing in security and peace. Angels fanned him; strong arms held him up. Yes, yes. It was all true. He was loved.
The sea rustled beneath him, flowing on and on. How happy it was in its work! He could have listened to it for ever. The sun, labouring too, was climbing upwards in a shroud of glory. It stared him fiercely in the face, bidding him rise and get to business.
He sat up and looked round.
It was as he had thought. He was on a flying buttress of the cliff, at his feet a floor of water, silvery-ruffled.
On his right cathedral cliffs blocked out the light. Mighty-towering, they made a white and awful gloom between him and heaven. The shadow of them darkened his heart. Crouching fly-like there, he cowered as he peered up at them. They were terrible: so stern, so white, so inexorable. Had he wronged them?—They seemed to stand over him in fearful and affronted majesty. Yet with the awe there came a pride, the pride of possession. They were his, these tremendous battlements; they were England's. With what a high and massive steadfastness they challenged France! Surely they knew themselves impregnable.
Beneath him the sea, a vast plain of silver-blue, merged in a sky white as diamonds. The one drifted, the other was still; the one sparkled, the other shone: for the rest there was no distinction, no dividing line. Each ran into the other; and all was splendid with light and life.
Below, those dark dead men still scavenged on the edge of the tide. He could have dropped a pebble on them. Dingy Joe's whine floated up to him….
"This cove's rings won't come off."
"Ain't you got a knife, then?" growled the brutal Toadie— "talks like a Miss."
"Say! look at this chap's lady-bird."
Bandy Dick held something aloft.
"He won't want no lady-bird no more. She'll ave to get another fancy-man."
Followed filthiest jests on women … love…. Such love!
Pah!—Were they men?—The beasts were purer.
The boy straight from his own white home and gayhearted mother sickened as he heard.
Hell?—What need of Hell hereafter for these men, when they had plunged into it on earth?
The words of a greater than Bunyan rang in his ears—
Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
Servants! slaves rather; slaves of themselves.
From his perch in the high heavens the boy looked down on them as an angel may look down on souls in torment.
An aweful anger seized his heart. He longed to do God's work for Him— to avenge.
"Vengeance is mine," came a voice. "I will repay."
He started back, amazed.
Had he spoken? had the Lord?
The lightning words flashed down out of the heavens on the self-damned below.
Dingy Joe flung up a ghastly face, screamed, and falling on his knees in the water, began to babble about his Redeemer.
Fat George took to his heels. Furiously he splashed along, yellow locks flopping. Kit could hear him snorting as he ran. All his life the fat man had been running away from God, the Great Enemy; and still He was there. Some day He would catch him—Fat George never doubted that … some day … but not while he had legs.
How should he know that as he ran, God ran with him?
The others huddled together like thunder-frightened cattle. Bandy Dick cocked a scared snook, while Red Beard was man enough to loose his musket at the zenith.
"Not yet, Governor!" he shouted with a roaring laugh—"not yet!"
Fools!—they were living in the Hell they feared. Their punishment was now. They had long been damned. While they lived God, the Avenger, would punish them inexorably. When they died, God, the merciful Saviour, would take them and make them clean.
Death, the death they feared and fled from, would be their Salvation, as it is every man's.