Chapter Sixty.
The Lugger Ashore.
By this time half the town was out to watch the lugger in which John Tregenna was trying to make his escape, and, the story of his wrong-doing having passed from lip to lip, the crowd upon the harbour wall and the cliff began rapidly to increase.
Geoffrey heard of what had taken place, and hurried down to the cliff, and old Prawle was pointed out to him seated upon the pier, where the sea was already beginning to beat furiously as the wind rapidly gathered force.
“Why, Prawle,” he cried, when he had hurried down to his side, “what have you been doing?”
“Doing, lad? Trying to do to him as he did to me and mine. He’s got away,” cried the old man, hoarsely; “but I’ll have him yet.”
“Yes, but you must leave him to the law,” cried Geoffrey. “Come: walk home with me. You must not take this into your own hands.”
“Come home!” said the old man, with a fierce look in his eye. “Yes, when I have seen him drown, for it will come to that before many hours are past.”
Finding him immovable, Geoffrey stayed by the old man’s side till they were driven back to the head of the harbour by the waves that now dashed right over the wall where they had been standing but a few minutes before; and from thence Prawle, after some three hours’ watching, climbed to the cliff, where he leaned over the iron rail and gazed out to sea through his hands, held telescope fashion.
“She’s labouring hard,” he said, with a grim chuckle, “and they’ve taken in all sail they can. Look yonder, Trethick: see. There, I told you so. Tom Jennen’s give it up, and he’ll run for the harbour now.”
Geoffrey strained his eyes to try and make out what the old man had described; but he could only dimly see the two-masted vessel far out in the hazy spray, and that she was tossing up and down, for the sea was rising still, and the wind rapidly increasing to almost hurricane force.
Old Prawle was right, as the excitement upon the cliff showed, for, after hours of brave effort, the crew of the lugger had proved the hopelessness of their task, and were now running for home.
What had been a long and weary fight in the teeth of the wind resolved itself into quite a short run, with scarcely any sail hoisted, and the great white-topped waves seeming to chase the buoyant lugger as she raced for shelter from the storm.
The fishermen stood watching her through the haze, and shook their heads as they glanced down at the harbour, where the rocks were now bare, now covered by the huge waves that thundered amidst them, tossing the great boulders over and over as if they had been pebbles, and leaving them to rumble back with a noise like thunder, but only to be cast up again. All the eastern side of the bay was now a sheet of white foam, which the wind caught up and sent flying inland like yeast; and so fierce was the wind now in its more furious gusts, that posts, corners, rocks, and the lee of boats were sought by the watchers as shelter from the cutting blast.
Old Prawle seemed to mind the furious gale no more than the softest breeze, and at length he descended the cliff slope towards where the waves came tumbling in a hundred yards or so beyond the end of the huge wall of masonry that formed the harbour; and as he saw the sturdy fishermen taking the same direction, with coils of rope over their shoulders, Geoffrey needed no telling that the lugger would come ashore there, for, if expected to make the harbour, the men would have made no such preparations as these.
As they went down along the rugged slope Geoffrey touched the old man on the shoulder, and pointed to the harbour.
“No,” shouted old Prawle, in his ear; “she can’t do it, nor yet with three times her crew.”
The crowd had rapidly increased, for it was known now that Tom Jennen’s “boot” must be wrecked, and quite a hundred men had gathered on the shore ready to lend a hand to save. No vessel could have lived in the chaos of foam between them and the lugger unless it were the lifeboat, and that was seven miles away, while the lugger was now not as many hundred yards.
Through the dim haze Geoffrey could make out the figures of the men on board when the lugger rose to the top of some wave, but for the most part they were hidden from his sight; and as he stood there, drenched with the spray, he shuddered as he thought of the fate of these, now so full of vigour, if their seamanship should really prove unavailing to guide them into a place of safety.
“Is there danger, Trethick?” said a voice at his ear; and, turning, there stood the Reverend Edward Lee, his white face bedewed with the spray, and his glasses in his hand, as he wiped off the thick film of salt water.
“I fear so. Poor fellows!” was the reply.
“Is it true that that unhappy man is on board?”
Geoffrey nodded, and their eyes met for a few moments.
“God forgive him!” said the vicar, softly. “Trethick, can we do any thing to save his life?”
As he spoke, Geoffrey for answer pointed to one of the huge green rollers that now came sweeping in, curled over, and broke with a roar like thunder upon the rocky beach.
“Nothing but stand ready with a rope,” was the reply; and then the two young men stood watching the lugger till one of the fishermen came up with a great oilskin coat.
“Put it on, sir,” he roared to the vicar. “It’ll keep some of it off.”
The vicar was about to refuse, but his good feeling prompted him to accept the offer, and a few minutes later another came up and offered one to Geoffrey, who shook his head, and, in place of taking it, stripped off his coat and moved farther down to meet the waves.
The vicar followed him quickly, for the crucial time had come. As far as those ashore could make out, the crew of the lugger had hoisted their fore-sail a few feet higher, and, as they raced in, there was just a chance that she might obey her rudder and swing round into shelter; but it was the faintest of chances, and so it proved.
On she came, light as a duck; and, as she neared the shore, she seemed almost to leap from wave to wave, till at last, when she came in, riding as it were upon one huge green wall of water, nearer and nearer, with the speed almost of a race-horse.
“Now—now—now, Tom!” rose in chorus, heard for a moment above the wind; and, as if in obedience to the call, the head of the lugger was seen to curve round, and in another minute she would have been in shelter, when, as if fearful of missing their prey, the waves leaped at her, deluging her with water; she was swept on and on towards where the crowd had gathered; and then there was a shriek as the lugger was seen to be lifted and dashed down upon the rocks—once, twice—and there was something dark, like broken timbers, churning about among the yeasty foam. The boat was in a hundred pieces tossing here and there.
For a few moments the fishermen ashore stood motionless, and then a man was seen to run out, rope in hand, into the white foam towards something dark, catch at it, and those ashore gave a steady haul, and one of the crew was brought in, amidst a roar of cheers, to where Geoffrey and the vicar stood.
Again there was a dark speck seen amongst the floating planks, and another man dashed in with a rope, and a second member of the little crew was dragged ashore.
Again another, who was stoutly swimming for his life, was fetched in; and almost at the same moment Geoffrey saw something that made his blood course fiercely through his veins.
“I can’t help it,” he muttered; “villain as he is, I cannot stand and see him drown.”
There was no momentary hesitation; but, drawing a long breath, he dashed into the foam that seethed and rushed up the shore, for his quick eye had detected a hand thrust out from the surf for a moment, and his brave effort was successful, for he caught the sleeve of one of the drowning men. Then they were swept in for a time but sucked back; and but for the aid lent by one of the fishermen with a rope, it would have gone hard with them, though, in the excitement, Geoffrey hardly realised the fact till he found himself standing in the midst of a knot of fishermen and the vicar clinging to his hand, but only for the clergyman to be roughly thrust aside by Tom Jennen, for it was he whom Geoffrey had saved; and the rough fellow got hold of his hand and squeezed it as in a vice.
“Where’s Mr Tregenna?” cried Geoffrey, hoarsely, as soon as he could get breath, for he had caught sight of the rough, dark figure of old Prawle running to and fro in the shallow white water where the waves broke up.
“Hasn’t he come ashore?” said Tom Jennen, with his face close to Geoffrey’s.
The latter shook his head and looked inquiringly at the rough fisherman; but Tom Jennen staggered away to sit down, utterly exhausted by his struggle.
Planks, a mast with the dark cinnamon sail twisted round it, the lugger’s rudder, a cask or two, a heap of tangled net, a sweep broken in half, and some rope—bit by bit the fragments of the brave little fisher-vessel came ashore, or were dragged out by one or other of the men; but though a dozen stood ready, rope in hand, to dash in amongst the foam and try to rescue a struggling swimmer, John Tregenna’s hand was never seen stretched out for help, nor his ghastly face looking wildly towards the shore. And at last, as the fragments of the lugger were gathered together in a heap, the crowd melted away, to follow where the half-drowned fishermen had been half-carried to their homes, and Geoffrey gladly accepted the hospitality offered to him by Edward Lee.
Tom Jennen had fared the worst, for he had been dashed once against a part of the lugger, and his ribs were crushed; but he seemed patient and ready to answer the questions of a visitor who came to him after he had seen the doctor leave.
“Were he aboard, Tom Jennen, when you tried to make the harbour?”
“Aboard? Who? Tregenna?”
“Ay.”
“Of course.”
“And he was with you when you struck?”
“Holding on by the side, and screeching for help like a frightened woman,” said Jennen.
“And where do you think he’d be now?” said the other.
“Drowned and dead, for he hadn’t the spirit to fight for his life,” said Jennen, “and I wish I’d never seen his face.”
“I’d like to have seen it once more,” said Tom Jennen’s visitor, grimly. “Just once more;” and he nodded and left the cottage.
“I don’t feel as if I ought to face my Bess till I’ve seen him once again,” he muttered, as he went on along the cliff path; “but I don’t know—I don’t know. He was too slippery for me at the last;” and old Prawle went slowly and thoughtfully homeward to the Cove.