HOW HE HELD THE ROCK
The sun blazed hot next day, and he spread himself out in it to warm, and all his soaked things in it to dry, and blessed it for its wholesome vigour.
Nance or Bernel would be sure to come as soon as the tide served at night, and he would net be sorry for a change of diet; meanwhile, he could get along all right with the unwilling assistance of the puffins.
The birds had all crept out of their hiding-places, and were wheeling and diving and making up for lost time and busily discussing late events at the tops of their voices whenever their bills were not otherwise occupied. Where they had all hidden themselves during the storm, he could not imagine, but there seemed to be as many of them as ever, and they were all quite happy and quarrelsome, except the cormorants, who were so ravenous that they could not spare a moment from their diving and gobbling, even to quarrel with their neighbours.
He levied on the puffins again, and, after a meal, prowled curiously about his rock to see what damage the storm had done, but to his surprise found almost none.
It seemed incredible that all should be the same after the deadly onslaught of the gale. But it was only in the valley of rocks that he found any consequences.
There the huge boulders had been hurled about like marbles: some had been tossed overboard, and some, in their fantastic up-piling, spoke eloquently of all they had suffered.
But one grim—though to him wholly gracious—deed the storm had wrought there. For, out of the pool where the devil-fish dwelt, its monstrous limbs streamed up and lay over the sloping rocks, and he dared not venture near. But, in the afternoon when he came again to look at it, and found it still in the same attitude, something about it struck him as odd and unusual.
The great tentacles had never moved, so far as he could see, and there was surely something wrong with a devil-fish that did not move.
He hurled a stone, picked out of the landslip at the corner, and hit a tentacle full and fair with a dull thud like leather. But the beast never moved.
He was suspicious of the wily one, however. The devil, he knew, was sometimes busiest when he made least show of business. And it was not till next morning, when he found the monster still as before, that he ventured down to the pool and looked into it, and saw what had happened.
The waves had hurled a huge boulder into it—and there you may see it to this day—and it had fallen on the devil-fish and ground him flat, and purged the rock of a horror.
Gard examined the hideous tentacles with the curiosity of intensest repulsion; yet could not but stand amazed at the wonderful delicacy and finish displayed in the tiny powerful suckers with which each limb was furnished on the under side, and the flexible muscularity of the monstrous limbs themselves, thick as his biceps where they came out of the pool, and tapering to a worm-like point, capable, it seemed to him, of picking up a pin.
He was mightily glad the beast was dead, however. It had been a blot on Nature's handiwork, and the very thought of it a horror.
The strenuous interlude of the storm, which, to the lonely one exposed to its fullest fury, had seemed interminable—every shivering day the length of many, and the black howling nights longer still—had had the effect of relaxing somewhat his own oversight over himself and his precautions against being seen.
L'Etat in a furious sou'-wester is a sight worth seeing. Possibly some telescope had been brought to bear on the foam-swept rock when he, secure in the general bouleversement and cramped with hunger, had turned the forbidden corner with no thought in his mind but eggs.
Possibly again, it was sheer carelessness on his part, born once more of the security of the storm and the recent non-necessity for concealment.
However it came about, what happened was that, as he stood in the valley of rocks examining his dead monster, he became suddenly aware that a fishing-boat had crept round the open end of the valley, and that it seemed to him much closer in than he had ever seen one before.
He dropped prone among the boulders at once, but whether he had been seen he could not tell—could only vituperate his own carelessness, and hope that nothing worse might come of it.
He lay there a very long time, and when at last he ventured to crawl to the rocks at the seaward opening, the boat was away on the usual fishing-grounds busy with its own concerns, and he persuaded himself that its somewhat unusual course had been accidental. The incident, however, braced him to his former caution, and he went no more abroad without first carefully inspecting the surrounding waters from the ridge.
They would be certain to come that night, he felt sure, either Nance or Bernel, perhaps both. Yes, he thought most likely they would both come. They would, without doubt, be wondering how he had fared during the storm, and would be making provision for him.
Perhaps Nance was cooking for him at that very moment, and thinking of him as he was of her.
In the certain expectation of their coming, he decided he would not go to sleep at all that night, but would crawl down to the landing-place to welcome them.
He wondered if that mad woman Julie had given up watching them, and, if not, if they would be able to circumvent her again. In any case, he hoped that if only one of them came it might be Nance. He fairly ached for the sight and sound of her—and the feel of her little hand, and a warm frank kiss from the lips that knew no guile.
The sufferings of the storm became as nothing to him in this large hope and expectation of her coming.
The intervening hours dragged slowly. It would be half-ebb soon after dark, he thought; and he crept up to the ridge and gazed anxiously over at the Race between him and Brenière, to see if it showed any unusual symptoms after the storm.
It ran furiously enough, but, he said to himself, it would slacken on the ebb, and they were so familiar with it that it would take more than that to stop them coming.
Before dark the great seas were rolling past, a little quicker than usual, he thought, but in long, smooth undulations, which slipped, unbroken and soundless, even along the black ledges of his rock. And when the stars came out—brighter than ever with the burnishing of the gale—the long black backs of the waves, and the darker hollows between, were sown so thick with trailing gleams that he could not be certain whether it was only star-shine or phosphorescence.
It was all very peaceful and beautiful, however, and very welcome to eyes that had not looked upon sun, moon, or star for eight whole nights and days, and whose ears had grown hardened to the ceaseless clamour of the gale. Nature, indeed, seemed preternaturally quiet, as though exhausted with her previous violence or desirous of wiping out the remembrance of it; just as small humanity after an outbreak endeavours at times to purge the memory of its offence by display of unusual amiability and sweetness.
Eager to welcome his confidently expected visitors, Gard crept along the ridge as soon as it was dark, and posted himself on the point which, in the daylight, commanded the passage from Brenière.
And he sat there so long—so long after his hopes and wishes had flown over to Sark and hurried Bernel and Nance into a boat and landed them on L'Etat—that the night seemed running out, and he began to fear they were not coming, after all.
In the troubled darkness of the Race, he caught gleams at times which might be oar-blades or might be only the upfling from the perils below. The tide was ebbing, and soon the black fangs with which it was strewn would be showing.
At times he convinced himself that the brief gleams moved; but when, to ease his eyes of the intolerable strain, he looked up at the stars, it seemed to him that they moved also, and so he could not be sure.
But surely there was a gleam that seemed to move and come fitfully towards him—or was it only star-shine dancing on the waves of the Race which always ran against the tide?
He stood to watch, then lost the gleam, and crouched again disappointed.
The boat must come round Quette d'Amont, the great pile of rock that lay off the eastern corner, and the first glimpse he could hope to get of it in the darkness would be there.
Then, suddenly, in that curious way in which one sometimes sees more out of the tail of one's eye than out of the front of it, he got an impression—and with it a start—of something moving noiselessly among the tumbled rocks below on his left.
It was a dark night, but the glory of the stars lifted it out of the ebony-ruler category. It was a wide, thin, lofty darkness, but still black enough along the sides of his rock, and down there it seemed to him that something moved, something dim and shadowy and silent.
He thought of the dead man in his chamber down below. Could he be in the habit of walking of a night? He thought of ghosts, of which, if popular belief was anything to go by, Sark was full; and there was nothing to hinder them coming across to L'Etat for their Sabbat. And he thought of monster devil-fish climbing, loathsome and soundless, about the dark rocks.
He longed for a pair of Sark eyes, and shrank down into a hollow under the ridge to watch this thing, with something of a creepy chill between his shoulder-blades.
There was certainly something lighter than the surrounding darkness down below, and it moved. It turned the corner and flitted along the slope, slowly but surely, in the direction of his shelter. Its mode of progression, from the little he could make out in the darkness, was just such as he would have looked for in a huge octopus hauling itself along by its tentacles over the out-cropping rock-bones.
He could not rest there. He must see. He crawled along the ridge as quietly as he could manage it, and would have felt happier, whatever it was, spirit or monster, if he had had his gun. Now and again it stopped, and when it stopped he lay flat to the ground and held his breath, lest it should discover him. When it went on, he went on.
When he came to the end of the ridge he saw that the nebulous something had apparently stopped just where his house must be.
And then, every sense on the strain, he heard his own name called softly, and he laughed to himself for very joy of it, and lay still to hear it again, and laughed once more to think that in her simplicity she still thought of him as "Mr. Gard." He would teach her to call him "Steen," as his mother used to do.
Then he got up quickly and cried, as softly as herself, but with joy and laughter in his voice—
"Why, Nance! My dear, I was not sure whether you were a ghost or a devil-fish;" and he sprang down towards her.
And then, to his amazement, he saw that she was clad only in the clinging white garment in which he had seen her swim.
Her next words confounded him.
"Is Bernel here?"
"Bernel, Nance? No, dear, he is not here. Why—"
"Did he not get here last night?" she jerked sharply.
"No. No one. I was hoping—"
But she had sunk down against the great stones of the shelter, with her hands before her face.
"Mon Gyu, mon Gyu! Then he is dead! Oh, my poor one! My dear one!"
"Nance! Nance! What is it all, dearest? Did Bernel try to come across last night—"
"Yes, yes! He would come. He said you must be starving. We were all anxious about you—"
"And he tried to swim across?"
"Yes, yes! And he is drowned! Oh, my poor, poor boy!"
She was shaking with the sudden chill of dreadful loss. He stooped, and felt inside the shelter with a long arm for the old woollen cloak and wrapped her carefully in it. He raked out the blanket and made her sit with it tucked about her feet. And she was passive in his hands, with thought as yet for nothing but her loss.
She was shaken with broken sobs, and in the face of grief such as this he could find no words. What could he say? All the words in the world could not bring back the dead.
And it was through him this great sorrow had come upon her. He seemed fated to bring misfortune on their house.
He wondered if she would hate him for it, though she must know he had had no more to do with the matter than with Tom's death.
He put a protecting arm round the old cloak, tentatively, and in some fear lest she might resent it, but knew no other way to convey to her what was in his heart.
But she did not resent it, and nothing was further from her mind than imputing any share in this loss to him.
Some women's hearts are so wonderfully constituted that the greater the demands upon them the more they are prepared to give. At times they give and give beyond the bounds of reason, and yet amazingly retain their faith and hope in the recipients of their gifts.
But that has nothing to do with our story. Except this—that these various demands on Nance's fortitude, incurred by her love for Stephen Gard, far from weakening her love only made it the stronger. As that love came more and more between her and her old surroundings, and exacted from her sacrifice after sacrifice, the more she clung to it, and looked to it, and let the past go. The partial ostracism brought upon her by Gard's outspoken declaration of their mutual feeling—even this final offering of her dearly-loved brother—these only bound her heart to him the tighter.
"Nance dear!" he said at last, when she had got control of herself again. "Is it not possible to hope? He was so good a swimmer. Maybe he found the Race too strong and was carried away by it. He may have been picked up, and will come back as soon as he is able."
"No," she said, with gloomy decision. "He is dead. I feared for him, for I had been to look at the Race just before sundown, and it looked terribly strong. But he would go—"
"Why didn't he get a boat?"
"Ah, mon Gyu!" and she started up wildly. "I was forgetting. I was thinking only of myself and Bernel. There isn't a boat left alive outside the Creux, and he couldn't get one there without them knowing. But"—in quick excitement now, to make up for lost time—"they have seen you here, and they may come to-night—Achochre that I am! They may be here! Come quickly! Your gun!" and she was all on the quiver to be gone.
Gard stooped and pulled out the gun from its hiding-place inside the shelter.
"Is it loaded?" she asked sharply.
"Yes. I cleaned it to-day."
"Take your charges with you, and do you hasten back to the place we landed the first night. You know?"
"I know. And you?"
"I will go to the other landing-place. But they are not likely to come there."
"And if they do?"
"I will manage them," and she slipped into the darkness with the big cloak about her.
Gard crept along the slope, and found a roost above the landing-place.
His brain was in a whirl. Bernel had tried to cross to him and was drowned. Nance had swum across. Brave girl! Wonderful girl! For him!—and for news of Bernel. It was terrible to think of Bernel, dead on his account—terrible! It would not be surprising if Nance hated him. Yet, what had he done?—what could he do? He had done nothing. He could do nothing; and his teeth ground savagely at the craziness of these wild Sark men who had brought it all about, and at his own utter impotence.
But Nance did not hate him. And she had swum that dreadful Race to warn him. Brave girl! Wonderful girl!
And then—surely the grinding of an oar, as it wrought upon the gunwale against an ill-fitted thole-pin—out there by the Quette d'Amont!
His eyes and ears strained into the darkness till they felt like cracking.
And the muffled growl of voices!
His heart thumped so, they might have heard it.
He must wait till he was sure they meant to come in. But they must not come too close.
It was an ill landing in the dark, and there were various opinions on it. But there was no doubt as to their intentions. They were coming in.
"Sheer off there!" cried Gard.
Dead silence below. They had come in some doubt, but their doubts were solved now, and there was no longer need for curbed tongues, though, indeed, his hollow voice made some of them wonder if it was not a spirit that spoke to them.
"It's him!" "The man himself!" "We have him!" "In now and get him!"—was the burden of their growls, as they hung on their oars.
"See here, men!" said Gard, invisible even to Sark eyes, against the solid darkness of the slope. "There has been trouble and loss enough over this matter already, and none of it my making. Do you hear? I say again—none of it my making. If you attempt to come ashore there will be more trouble, and this time it will be of my making. Keep back!"—as an impulsive one gave a tug at his oar. "If you force me to fire, your blood be on your own heads. I give you fair warning."
Growls from the boat carried up to him an impression of mixed doubt and discomfort—ultimate disbelief in his possession of arms, an energetic oath or two, and another creak of the oar.
"Very well! Here's to show you I am armed." The report of his gun made Nance jump, at the other side of the island, and set all the birds on L'Etat—except the puffins, deep in their holes—circling and screaming.
The small shot tore up the water within a couple of yards of the boat, which backed off hastily—much to his satisfaction, for he had feared they might rush him before he had time to reload.
He had dropped flat after firing and recharged his gun as he lay. He was sure they must have come armed, and feared a volley as soon as his own discharge indicated his whereabouts.
As a matter of fact, they had come divided as to the truth of the report that there was a man on L'Etat—even then as to him being the man they sought. In any case, they had expected to take him unawares, and never dreamt of his being armed and on the watch for them.
Thanks to Nance, he had turned the tables on them. It was they who were taken unawares.
But if he spoke again, he said to himself, they would be ready for him, and their answers would probably take the rude form of bullets. So he lay still and waited.
There was a growling disputation in the boat. Then one spoke—
"See then, you, Gard! We will haff you yet, now we know where you are. If it takes effery man and effery boat in Sark, we will haff you, now we know where you are. You do not kill a Sark man like that and go free. Noh—pardie!"
"I have killed no man—" A gun rang out in the boat, and the shot spatted on the rocks not a yard from him.
Coming in, they knew, meant certain death for one among them, and, keen as they were to lay hands on him, no man had any wish to be that one.
The oars creaked away into the darkness, and he climbed to the ridge to make sure they made no attempt on the other side.
But discretion had prevailed. One man could not hold L'Etat from invasion at half-a-dozen points at once. They could bide their time, and take him by force of numbers.
He heard them go creaking off towards the Creux, and turned and went back along the ridge to find Nance.