Chapter Thirty.
In the Queen’s Name.
As they stood together at the lower end of the rocky point listening and waiting, it seemed to Louise Vine as if she were about to be an actor in some terrible scene.
Vine muttered a few words now and then, but they were inaudible to his child, who clung to his arm as he walked untiringly to and fro, watching the harbour and the way back into the town, while when he paused it was to fix his eyes upon the dimly-seen lantern of the lugger lying out beyond the point. The portion of their walk nearest the town was well kept and roughly paved with great slabs of granite, in which were here and there great rings for mooring purposes, while at some distance apart were projecting masses roughly hewn into posts. But as the distance from the town increased and the harbour widened, the jutting point was almost as if it had been formed by nature, and the footing was difficult, even dangerous at times.
But in his excitement Vine did not heed this, going on and on regardless of the difficulties, and Louise unmurmuringly walked or at times climbed along, till they were right out at the extreme point where, some feet below them, the water rushed and gurgled in and out of the crevices with terrible gasping noises, such as might be made by hungry sea-monsters thronging round to seize them if either of them should make a slip.
Here Vine paused again and again to watch the lantern in the lugger, and listen for the rattle of oars in the rowlocks, the oars of the boat conveying his son to the men who would at once hoist the sails and bear him away to a place of safety. But the dim light of the horn lantern rose and fell, there was no rattle of oars, not even the murmur of a voice; nothing but the sucking, gasping noises at their feet, as the tide swirled by like the race of waters from some huge mill.
Louise clung more tightly to her father’s arm, as he stood again and again where she had often from a rock behind watched her uncle deftly throwing out his line to capture some silvery-sided bass or a mackerel, glowing with all the glories of the sea at sunrise.
“If he should slip,” she said to herself, as she tightened her grasp of her father’s thin arm, “if he should slip!” and she shuddered as she gazed down into the deep, black rushing water, where the star reflections were all broken up and sparkled deep down as if the current were charged with gold dust, swirling and eddying by. Then she started as her father spoke aloud to himself.
“No, no, no!” he murmured. Then sharply, “Come, let us get back.”
Louise crept along by him in silence, her heart giving one violent leap, as Vine slipped once on the spray-wet rocks, but recovered himself and went on without a word. Again and again, she suffered that terrible catching of the breath, as her father slipped, caught his foot in some inequality, or would, but for her guidance, have stumbled over some projecting rock post and been thrown into the harbour. For as he walked on, his eyes were constantly searching the dark surface as he listened intently for some token of the escaping man.
But all was still as they neared the town, still with the silence of death. No one could have told that there were watchers by the ferry, where a rough boat was used for crossing from side to side of the harbour; that two boats were waiting, and that Duncan Leslie was patrolling the short arm of granite masonry that ran down to the tower-like building were the harbour lantern burned.
“Hist!” whispered Louise, for there was a step some little distance away, but it ceased, and as she looked in its direction, the cliffs seemed to tower up behind the town till a black, jagged ridge cut the starry sky.
“Let’s go back,” said her father, huskily. “I fancied I heard a boat stealing along the harbour; we cannot see the lugger light from here.”
“George!” came from out of the darkness ahead.
“Yes, Luke!” was whispered back sharply, and the old man came up.
“Seen anything of him?”
“No. Have you?”
“Not a sign. I sent one of the fishermen up to the police to see what he could find out, and—”
“Uncle!” panted out Louise, as she left her father to cling to the old man.
“Poor little lassie! poor little lassie!” he said tenderly, as he took her and patted her head. “No news, and that’s good news. They haven’t got him, but they’re all out on the watch; the man from London and our dunderheads. All on the watch, and I fancy they’re on the look-out close here somewhere, and that’s what keeps him back.”
Louise uttered a low moan.
“Ah, it’s bad for you, my dear,” said Uncle Luke, whose manner seemed quite changed. “You come with me, and let me take you home. We don’t want mother trouble on our hands.”
“No, no,” she said firmly, “I cannot leave him.”
“But you will be ill, child.”
“I cannot leave him, uncle,” she said again; and going back to her father, she locked her fingers about his arm.
“Hi! hoi! look out!” came from a distance; and it was answered directly by a voice not a hundred yards away.
A thrill of excitement shot through the little group as they heard now the tramp of feet.
“I knew it,” whispered Uncle Luke. “He’s making for the harbour now.”
“Ah!” gasped Vine, as he almost dragged Louise over the rugged stones.
“Stop where you are,” said Uncle Luke, excitedly; and he placed something to his lips and gave a low shrill whistle.
It was answered instantly from the other side of the harbour.
“Leslie’s on the look-out. Yes, and the men with the boat,” he whispered, excitedly, as another low whistle was heard.
Then there was a few moment’s silence as if people were listening, followed by steps once more, and a quick voice exclaimed from out of the darkness:
“Seen him?”
Neither of the group answered, and a man stepped up to them and flashed the light of a lantern quickly over them before closing it again.
“That’s you, is it?” he said. “I’ll have a word with you by-and-by; but look here, I call upon you two men in the Queen’s name to help me to take him. If you help him to get away, it’s felony, so you may take the consequences. You haven’t got to do with your local police now.”
The man turned away and walked swiftly back toward the town, the darkness seeming to swallow him up. He paused for a few moments at the edge of the harbour, to throw the light of his lantern across the water.
“The London man,” said Uncle Luke, unconcernedly. “Well, God save the Queen, but I’m sure she don’t want us to help to capture our poor boy.”