Chapter Thirty Three.
Cain.
“Are you here, Roland?”
The tone was the faintest of whispers, but the voice was as if the silvern echoes of heavenly harps had suddenly been wafted to the listener’s anxious ear. He could hardly murmur a reply.
“Where are we? How dark it is!” continued she, in an awed whisper.
“We are safe.”
“Safe?—Oh, I remember.”
“Don’t talk yet, my darling. Lie still and let yourself be perfectly at rest, as much so as you can, that is, in this uncomfortable attitude. We shall have to hold on here for some time longer.”
“But you?”
“Never mind me. Wait. That’s better now,” shifting his position. And, indeed, it was a real relief—so great had been the strain upon his powers.
“Now try to sleep,” he continued. “We shall have to stay here for some time; in fact, it will be difficult to get down in the dark. We were literally washed up here—and here we had better stay.”
Though the seas no longer reached their place of refuge they still surged angrily through the chasm. Olive shivered.
“How cold it is!” she said faintly.
“Yes. Take a ‘nip’ of this. It is absolutely necessary!” he said, unscrewing the top of a small brandy flask.
She obeyed, for she felt very faint and exhausted. The potent cordial restored her a little and sent the blood coursing through her veins with renewed life.
“There! Fortunate I had it with me,” he went on. “And now, darling, you must sleep if you can. You will be perfectly safe until they find us, for they will be sure to send out a strong search party.”
“Poor dear father will be so horribly frightened. Roland, how soon can we go to him?” she asked faintly.
He made no reply at first. The question had called back his thoughts to the hard world again, to such as he more pitiless than the billows from which they had miraculously escaped, colder than the chill wind which whistled through the great dark vault. The exile’s soul was bitter within him again. They two had gone down into the Valley of the Shadow of Death together, and had emerged thence, only to be parted once more.
“It will not be safe to go from here—until they find us,” he replied. “But only think of the relief your father will experience when he finds you are safe! Why, it’ll be worth while going through the suspense he is in at the present moment. While I—”
He checked himself. No words could depict the awful desperation which lay upon this man’s soul at that dark hour. All his hopes in this life were dead—his very life itself was forfeited, could be claimed at any moment—and in the next he had little, if any, belief—certainly no hope. Why had the sea spared him, why had it not taken them both together, or, at any rate, him? Why was he not lying at rest for ever far beneath the tossing billows—beyond the reach of the storms and whirlwinds of this wretched life? Was he spared to eke out an accursed existence? Could there be any truth in the old story of Cain? He remembered it as one of the sacred teachings which had been instilled into his infantile mind with all the accompaniments of rod and task-room and unbending severity, and which he had since scouted, in common with other like stories, as a mere childish legend. “A wanderer on the face of the earth.” Ah, but then his sentence had begun before he had earned it. The curse of Cain had been upon him before he had committed Cain’s crime. And why had the temptation and opportunity been so thrust upon him? He had gone out that fatal night perfectly devoid of harmful intent—not so much as a thought of it, indeed, had entered his head. He had returned a murderer.
Then a horrid thought came over him. What if the purpose for which he had been brought to this spot was not, after all, accomplished? What might not the terrible sea yield up? That face with its look of awful despair, upon which he had so pitilessly gazed in the wan moonlight, as it sank into the black abyss—how could he bear its unearthly look now, should it suddenly appear before him with glassy, upbraiding eyes, and features hideous from the effects of its long immersion? Even as this thought struck him he descried something floating in the water—something long and dark, like a human form. Great God—it was terrible! A cold perspiration broke out all over him as, with a dilated stare, he watched the awful object. What could it be, swaying helplessly backwards and forwards on the ebbing surge? Then it disappeared.
The midnight gloom deepened, and the chill breaths of the mist-laden blast swept through the great fissure, playing about his face like the cold touch of shadowy, spectral hands. Every sound was re-echoed with a hollow clang from the chasm’s overhanging walls, and in the noise of falling water as it ran in torrents from the rocks with each receding swell, and in the many-tongued raving of the imprisoned surges, he seemed to hear the voice of a brother’s blood crying from the deep, and to feel the flap of demon wings in his ears. Had he been alone in this ghastly solitude his very reason might have given way.
But now a blessed ray of light and hope beamed in upon the outer darkness. If he had destroyed life, had he not also saved it? This horrible abyss which had been the scene of his crime had also witnessed his act of reparation—or what might well stand as such—for now he could not help realising that had he not appeared on the beach when he did, his companion would never have retraced her steps in time—even apart from the delay of which he had been the cause. And she would have perished miserably, for her own unaided exertions would never have availed her to reach this place of refuge, or to take advantage of it when there, had she reached it.
The soft, regular breathing of the sleeping girl betokened that her slumbers were peaceful. Her head rested on his shoulder as she reclined against him, a beautiful picture of the most perfect dependence and trust. This pure, sweet, innocent life which he had saved should be his own ark of refuge now. Passionately he kissed the slightly-parted lips.
“My beautiful—my pure guardian angel! I can defy all the demons of the nethermost shades while you are with me!”
She stirred in her sleep and murmured slightly. Then her hands tightened yet more clingingly upon his, and nestling closer to him she slumbered again. No supernatural terrors could appal him now, no fearful imaginings begotten of cold and darkness. Morbid temperament and crime-laden conscience counted for naught as he sat there in the heart of the wild cliffs at midnight, and the pure, lovely life of her who slumbered so peacefully and confidingly in his arms, was dependent on him for its preservation. Whatever grisly secret those grim waters held, they might keep or divulge; it was powerless to scare him while her presence was with him. And so the dark hours wore on, one by one, over the sleeper and over the watcher.
“This way, sir, and mind ’ow you walk. Better let me go fust—if you’ll wait ’ere!” said a rough seafaring voice, and then, in a lower tone, as if addressing another person, it went on, “Better keep him ’ere, sir. If we do find the poor young lady in ’ere—well you know, sir, there ain’t a ghost of a chance of her being alive.”
Lights began to flash in the chasm, feeble and glimmering in contrast with the gigantic ruggedness of its massive walls. Then Roland Dorrien started as if he had been shot. Their time of emancipation had come. She was about to be taken from him, and he must wander forth again. Rapidly he resumed his tinted glasses, which in the uncertain light would suffice to guard against recognition.
“This way?” he called out in a harsh, quavering voice which needed no disguise. “The young lady is perfectly safe, and you will find her here.”
Twice that night did these stern cliffs echo a great cry. First, the awful outpouring of a human soul in its last depths of anguish, now a shout of unparalleled joy and thankfulness. The searching party rushed in the direction of the sound, stumbling and nearly falling in their eagerness.
“Here we are. Now, careful,” cried Roland. And Olive’s half-fainting form was lowered from the ledge which had proved such an ark in the time of need, and placed in her father’s arms. The rough fishermen turned away their heads, and honest Jem Pollock’s manful attempts to clear his throat resulted in a series of dismal barks, which echoed hideously from the overhanging heights.
“Well, I’m darned!” he said, looking up at the ledge. “Who’d ha’ thought such a blessed bit o’ good luck? Well, I’m darned—ahum!—beg pardon, Muster Turner,” he interjected apologetically, becoming aware of the young curate’s presence, right at his elbow.
The first joy of success over, they began to eye the stranger with some curiosity. He stepped forward.
“I fancy the young lady will soon come round,” he said in his assumed voice, which grated with an anxious harshness upon the ears of the listeners. “She has been rather frightened, I fear, and is very wet. The sooner you get her between warm blankets the better.”
“You have earned for yourself the gratitude and blessing not only of a father but of an entire community, sir,” said Turner, extending his hand to him.
“Indeed! How?”
“Why, by saving this young lady’s life,” went on Turner in surprise. “Anyone can see with half an eye that she could never have reached that place of refuge but for you.”
The other smiled sadly.
“I fancy the young lady saved both our lives, since it was she who suggested falling back on this place at all,” he replied. “There was no other chance for us, and so I acted on the idea—happily, as it transpired. And now, if I might suggest—she should be taken home as soon as possible.”
Leaving reluctantly his recovered child, Dr Ingelow hurried up.
“God bless you, sir, whoever you may be!” he cried, seizing both the strangers hands. “Pray do me the favour of making my house your resting-place—you must be wet through and thoroughly tired out—and of allowing me to become further acquainted with one who has rescued my darling child from a terrible death.”
The exile’s heart thoroughly knew its own bitterness, as he heard once more the true, kindly tones. But it could not be. He would accompany them until they reached the high road, when he would make some excuse, and hasten to fly from the temptation to which he dared not yield. So he consented.
The waves were breaking with a hoarse, sullen boom, as though disappointed of their prey, as the party returned along the beach in the pitchy darkness of the small hours of the winter’s morning, and the light of the lanterns shone with a weird gleam upon the receding surf. Olive had been placed in an improvised litter of shawls and wraps slung on to two stout poles which they had brought with them, and was borne by two sturdy fishermen. Exhaustion and the terrors she had gone through had reduced her to a state of semi-unconsciousness, in which her mind was hardly sensible of what went on around her. Her father, still terribly anxious, walked at her side, and the stranger, who evinced no disposition to talk, had taken up his position on the other side—an arrangement not exactly to Turner’s taste, who, however, took comfort from the thought that the man was fifty or sixty at least, even though he was well-made and free of step still, and undeniably a gentleman. At last a stray light betokened the vicinity of Wandsborough.
“Now, let me see,” mused the stranger. “This is the Battisford road, I believe. Do not think me very rude, Mr—Ingelow—but on turning things over I find I must unavoidably be back in London to-day. I should have gone up by the night train but for this unfortunate—this fortunate, rather should I call it—walk of mine. On some future occasion, perhaps, I may have the great pleasure of renewing our acquaintance.”
“My dear sir, we really cannot allow such a thing,” cried the rector, aghast. “You will surely reconsider this. At any rate, put off your flight for a few hours. It is a long way to Battisford, and we are just home now. You shall be driven over later if you wish it. Now do oblige me—”
All who witnessed it thought they had never seen such a curious look before, as that which came into the other’s face. A sharp struggle was going on within him.
“Go back with them—tell them who you are,” said the lonely heart of the exile. “You will have friends—a way will be found out of your difficulties somehow, and then what love and peace and happiness will be yours!”
“You—a beggar, penniless, ruined, destitute?” whispered Pride. “You, whose memory is under a cloud, and who are without the barest means of existence—will you go back to accept the charity of those with whom you moved as equal? Only reveal your identity and see how their grateful overtures will cool!”
Said Conscience, “Leave her—assassin. Can red blood-guiltiness and pure white innocence ever mate? Leave her, ere she comes to abhor your name.” And Pride and Conscience triumphed over Heart. “I greatly fear I must excuse myself for being unable to accept your kind hospitality,” he said at last. “But if you will do me one favour, I shall feel thankful to you.”
“Certainly. What is it?” said the rector. “If you will drop me a line to this address once or twice, and let me know how the young lady gets on, it would be a satisfaction to me. I cannot but feel greatly interested in my companion in adversity,” replied the stranger, rapidly scribbling on a card, which he handed to Dr Ingelow.
“Why, most certainly,” said the rector, hardly glancing at it. “Most certainly. But—”
He stopped short, gazing blankly into the darkness. The stranger had disappeared.
Roland Dorrien returned to Battisford in the grey winter’s morning, and having put together his few possessions at “The Silver Fleece,” he left that ancient hostelry for the railway station, to the unfeigned regret of the garrulous waiter, whom even a liberal honorarium could hardly console for the loss of so congenial a recipient of local gossip. Yet, up to the last moment, he found himself inconsistently cherishing a wild hope that, his identity being cleared up, the rector might come over in post haste to insist upon his return to Wandsborough. But no such summons came, and when he took his seat in a hard, cushionless third-class carriage, down whose rattling windows the pelting rain streamed in torrents, his case was about as hopeless and desperate as the lot of mortal man could well be.