IV
The boy could swim at an age when to most lads walking is still an accomplishment. Now he waded quietly down a sandy reach between black rocks.
The water was warmer than the air. When it clasped his waist, he trusted himself to it faithfully.
The sea was his mother, and the mother of his race. Her arms were about him; her spirit entered into his. How pure she was, how strong, how good! He kissed her cool brow and dropped his head upon her bosom. Turning on his back, he saw the wall of the Downs, black beneath glorious stars. On the top of the wall poised the moon, peeping over the brim of the world at him. He waved to her, laughing: she too was a friend. And the moon, wise as innocent, smiled back.
He swam leisurely, without splash, almost without ripple, quiet as the tide.
He had the world to himself, and loved the loneliness.
Out here, the sea about him, the night above, he could feel the slow tides of God pushing onwards through the dark of Time.
Wars and tumults and all the tiny irritations and griefs of life, what were they to that immense-moving flood? And he was one with that flood. Stealing through the water with cleaving arms, he was assured of it.
V
Something rose shadowy and gaunt before him. It was the privateer.
The sight tumbled him out of Eternity into Time. His heart began to clamour, as though it would force its way out of his body.
No longer one with God, seeing all things with His large eyes, and loving them—he was a little boy, mortally afraid, alone in the vast and callous night.
In his flurry be began to splash about: then recollected himself, and trod water quietly.
The moon was deserting him, the sardonic moon he had thought of as a friend. Her silver rim glimmered behind the Downs and was gone. He missed her. Cold she was, still she had been company. He thought she might have stayed—just this one night! He felt aggrieved, and very much alone. And those stars strewing the night above him were so far, and had such hard little eyes.
The water grew dull and dark about him, and of a sudden greatly colder. The flag hung like a clammy halter about his neck. Verdun was not far, and death very near. But for the cold he would have cried. He wished he'd never come.
It flashed in upon him to hail the ship, and ask them for a cup of coffee. The thought amused him and saved the situation. He began to chuckle.
Squeezing the fear out of his mind, he set himself to the accomplishment of his task.
The thought of old Piper, calm invincibly, confirmed him in his purpose.
Yet he couldn't help reminding himself with a snigger, that old Piper was safe in an arm-chair on land, while he was out there in the water with the work to do.
Still, now if ever was his time. The moon was gone. In another hour the dawn would begin to glimmer. Between the two his chance lay.
Treading water a cable's-length away, he observed the ship intently.
She lay upon the water like a dead thing. The great dark hull, seen against the living night, appeared carcass-like. Her stillness was almost terrible.
Not a spar creaked, not a match glowed. She was dark as death, and as silent.
As he watched, a humming noise, rising and falling, came to him across the water. He held his breath. Then he recognised it, with a gasp of relief.
Somebody was snoring.
That domestic sound cheered him amazingly.
At least the ship was not a sepulchre. Her crew were neither dead nor devils. They were human. They snored.
He swam round the ship, stealthy as an otter in the Coquet.
So far as he could see there was not a soul on deck.
Then, as he came under her stern, he noticed for the first time that another vessel lay alongside.
A thought, swift as a dagger, struck at his heart.
Could it be that the Gentleman had somehow picked up a lugger, and so won aboard? Was he too late?
Then with a gasp of thankfulness he remembered.
It was the Kite, of course.
The tide had set her alongside; and now she lay scraping the side of the privateer. A handier stepping-stone he could not have asked.