CHAPTER III.
“All shall come right, everything shall be explained; you shall have immediate liberty, if, on behalf of your mother, you will promise me what I ask. I know perfectly well she will do it if you ask her. Now will you?”
The speaker is a middle-aged man, with deep, dark eyes, handsome features, and bold, resolute carriage. Grey hairs peep here and there from out his thick beard, moustache, and whiskers, and there are grey hairs in his once raven hair. He is dressed in a navy-blue serge suit, and wears the buttons of the royal yacht squadron.
To all appearance the person he is addressing is a young man of some twenty-three or twenty-four summers. He is tall, and slight, with a face of extreme beauty. He has rich gold-auburn hair, and his eyes are deep blue in colour. Nothing will compare with them but the sapphire.
He wears a well-fitting shepherd’s plaid kilt, stockings to match, and silver mounted brogues. A loose white flannel shirt and waistcoat and jacket complete his attire.
“I will not,” is the stern, cold reply which he gives to the speaker’s query.
This latter grinds his teeth, but checks the rising anger within him, and speaks once more in a persuasive, almost pleading voice.
“Think again. Consider all that depends on your decision. After all, my request is perfectly honourable. I simply ask that she shall consent to re-marry me.”
“Great God! and you call that an honourable request, Lord Westray? You think it a simple matter, that my mother should wed again my father’s murderer? I tell you a death of hideous torture would be more preferable to me, than that a fate so awful should befall her. Cease, I pray you, this subject. I have but one answer to your hateful proposal, and that is, no!”
“Have you weighed well in your mind the fate that awaits you, Hector D’Estrange, if you persist in this refusal?” asks Lord Westray threateningly.
“My name is Gloria de Lara, my lord, not Hector D’Estrange, as I think you know full well. The fate that awaits me I fully realise. I am condemned to death for a murder never committed; I am to die that your vile vengeance on my beloved mother may be fully wreaked. Do your worst. I do not fear death; and my mother will bear the blow as bravely and as nobly as she has borne others.”
She folds her arms proudly, and there is a world of scorn in her beautiful eyes as she fixes them on the cowardly brute before her. A wild gust of wind shrieks angrily above board as the smack rises and plunges in the trough of a choppy sea. The blood-red sun has vanished, an inky darkness has set in, and the wind is rapidly increasing from a fresh breeze into a regular fierce and nasty gale.
Lord Westray staggers, and almost reels up against her as the smack lurches forward on the crest of a more than usually excitable wave. There is a rush of feet on deck, and men’s voices are heard shouting above the noisy wind. She starts back from him in horror; she would not touch him for the world. His very presence in the close, stuffy little cabin seems to stifle her. Gladly would she seek an asylum in the ocean’s angry waves, and trust to Fate to enable her to reach the shore, or die.
The cabin door opens, and the skipper peers in.
“Beg pardon, sir,” he says, touching his oil-skin cap, “but I must put to sea, sir, I must. We’re in for a regular duster. I daren’t coast no longer, sir. It’s pitch black, and the shore for miles along is almighty dangerous.”
“I’ll come on deck, Hutchins,” answers Lord Westray quickly. He is a good sailor, but the intelligence does not please him. As he turns to leave the cabin Léonie steals in. She is drenched with sea water, and her hair is wringing wet. As she seats herself in a corner of the cabin she glances shyly at Gloria. This latter returns the look with one of mingled pity and contempt. Léonie’s eyes drop before that look. For the first time in her life a feeling of shame rushes over her.
“This is a terrible storm,” she says in a low voice, as a wave crashes along the deck, part of it finding its way into the cabin. “I heard one of the men say he did not think the boat would weather it.”
“God grant it may not!” answers Gloria sternly, and then, as if influenced by a sudden impulse, she continues gently, “Ah! Léonie, child, what could have tempted you to act so basely? What have I ever done to you that you should treat me thus?”
“I did my duty,” answers the girl sullenly. “I did what I was ordered to do. It is my trade.”
“Your trade, child? Good heavens! what are you, and who ordered you to betray me?”
“My master, Mr. Trackem,” answers Léonie, simply. “I belong to his detective gang. I’ve served him ever since I can remember. I’ve never failed him yet, and he told me not to fail him this time. I promised I would not, and I have obeyed him.”
There is an evident sincerity in her tone, and Gloria, with her power of deep insight into character, reads Léonie’s at a glance.
“Have you no mother, no father, my poor Léonie?” she inquires softly, as she comes over to the girl’s side, and lays her hand on her curly head.
“Mother, father? No, of course not,” answers Léonie, with a slight laugh. “They are both dead. Mr. Trackem always says he’s acted father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, and cousin by me. I don’t quite know what he means by that, but that is what he says.”
“Poor Léonie, poor wee Léonie. God! what a fate! You are not to blame them, my poor child. Ah! how fully I forgive you,” says Gloria, as with a sudden impulse she stoops and kisses the girl who has betrayed her, on the cheek. Only another revelation has come to her from that cesspool of Modern Babylon; only another fearful wrong unknown, unstudied, and unforbidden, brought to light.
Léonie looks up quickly. There is a queer expression in her intelligent eyes.
“Why do you kiss me? Why do you speak so kindly? Why do you forgive me for betraying you?” she inquires rather eagerly.
“Because I believe in God,” answers Gloria gently.
“God! Why, Mr. Trackem always laughs at God,” interposes Léonie, with a shrug of her shoulders. “He always tells me that God is an invention of the devil, and all clergymen and priests are fallen angels.”
“Oh, hush, Léonie; hush, my poor, poor child! This is terrible. Do not talk in that awful way,” and the tears start trembling to Gloria’s lovely eyes. “Léonie, God is good; He is our friend, He helps those who pray to Him. If we die to-night we shall be brought face to face with Him.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” answers the girl quietly, “but I do know this. I expected abuse and reproaches from you, but I have received only kindness, forgiveness, and gentle words. You have kissed me, and no one has ever done that before. I am sorry now I betrayed you. Yes, I am; and I will try and save you if I can—unless, unless we are drowned to-night. Do you think we shall be drowned? You can swim, I know, but I can’t. Mr. Trackem never taught me how to do that.”
“If it comes to swimming I will do my best to help you, Léonie, at least so long as God gives me strength to do so,” answers Gloria quietly.
Again Léonie looks up. In her untrained, untutored mind Nature is beginning to assert its sway, and gratitude knocks gently at her heart.
“You would do that for me, would you? You would try to save my life, after what I have done to you? Did God teach you that?” she asks with a quivering voice.
“Yes, Léonie.”
“Then I love God, and I love you. May I give you a kiss, just as you kissed me? I want to show you how I love you,” cries Léonie, with a half sob. “No one has ever been kind to me like this before.”
She rises as she speaks, and takes one of Gloria’s hands. This latter is almost startled by the extraordinary likeness which for a brief moment sweeps across the girl’s features, a likeness to Bernie Fontenoy.
There is a terrible crash overhead. It sounds like falling timber. Again, a rush of feet, and Gloria and Léonie hear the skipper’s voice raised in loud command.
“He is ordering out the boat, Léonie. That must have been the mast that went with that crash. I can feel by the movement of the ship that she’s helpless. We shall drift on the rocks, and then she’ll soon break up,” exclaims Gloria, almost eagerly.
“Then we shall be drowned,” answers her companion in a quiet, composed voice. “I’m not afraid. I think I should have been if this had happened yesterday, but I am not now.”
She stops suddenly as the cabin door creaks open to admit Lord Westray.
He looks flurried and anxious, but his glance at once seeks Gloria.
“The smack is practically a wreck,” he says quickly, “and we are going to take to the boat. I will save you if you will promise me what I asked you.”
“Go!” cries Gloria sternly. “Now you know that I will die rather than do so. Go, bad man! and may God have mercy on you.”
He looks at her furiously. But there is no time for arguing; the skipper is calling to him to hurry.
“So be it,” he bursts out, with a coarse laugh. “Your blood be on your own head. I’ll leave you, and save the gallows the trouble of hanging you. Come on, girl.”
These last words are addressed to Léonie.
“What! go with you, and leave her? I’ll drown rather!” exclaims Léonie, with a contemptuous laugh.
“Drown like a rat, then,” he says with an oath, as he bangs the door and leaves them. They hear him scrambling up the little companion ladder, they hear his voice shouting to the skipper, but the wind shrieks louder, and the howl of the tempest drowns all other sounds.
Again there is a rush of water along the deck, a hissing and washing sound, as the huge wave which has occasioned it tears madly on its course, part of it bursting open the cabin door, and flooding the floor on which Gloria and Léonie are standing.
“We must get on deck, Léonie; we can’t stay here, child. Here, take hold of my hand; we must keep together,” exclaims Gloria in a quick, peremptory voice.
They are half-blinded by the thick spray which sweeps in their faces as they stagger up the ladder, clinging like grim death to the rails. It is pitch dark, not the faintest gleam of light gives them the smallest indication of their whereabouts, only the white foam of the towering billows now and again flashes across their aching eyes, blinded by the salt sea water.
Plenty of wreckage is floating about on the deck, and amongst it a life-belt knocks up against one of Gloria’s ankles. With a pleased exclamation she at once secures it, and proceeds to slip it over Léonie’s shoulders.
“If this poor wreck founders,” she explains as she does so, “this will keep you afloat, child. I am glad I saw it.”
“But you,” says Léonie quickly; “you have not one.”
“Never mind me, child. You forget that I can swim. If we manage to stick together, this belt will be a great help to me, as you will see. And now, Léonie, we can do nothing but cling to these rails and trust in God. Keep a good look out for the waves. When you see one rushing this way don’t try and stand up against it, it will only knock you backwards, but bend yourself, hold your breath, and put your head through it. Quick, have a care, child!” She utters these last words in a sharp warning tone as she tightens her grasp on Léonie’s hand. A dense dark wall seems to tower above them, a swirl and a rush is all she hears as a monster wave envelops her and Léonie in its folds. It tears the rail, to which her left hand clings, from her grasp. She feels herself lifted up like a straw, and borne forward by the resistless rush and volume of water. With the desperation of death in her clutch, her right hand still grips the still, cold fingers of her young companion, whose grasp has slackened altogether. A floating spar strikes her with some force. She clutches at it, but it sweeps past her, and is gone as the wave carries her ever onwards.
A sudden ebb in the resistless current as if by magic arrests her course. She feels herself dragged back along the line she has come. Then the volume of water abruptly leaves her, and her feet touch the deck again.
Gloria is up in a moment; she knows there is not a minute to spare. In her present position another such a billow would sweep her clear of the smack altogether into the raging sea.
“Jump up, Léonie!” she shouts, but Léonie never stirs. As Gloria tugs at her arm to try and arouse her, she knows by the dead weight of the girl’s body that Léonie is either dead or insensible.
With a supreme effort she raises the now helpless girl in her arms, and staggers forward to the cabin with her burden. A wave strikes her as she reaches it, and dashes her once more to the ground. For a second time she is swept like a straw along the deck, and for the second time the ebb arrests her progress, and leaves her in the same position as before.
“Oh God!” she gasps, “how long? This is indeed a living death.”
She still grasps the stiff, clammy fingers of the helpless girl, but hope has left her. She only now wishes that death may come, and come quickly.
There is a wild shriek ahead. It rises high above the wind’s roar. Then a ghastly, unearthly sound comes out of the blackness of night. Even on death’s threshold it awakes to attention the senses of Gloria de Lara. Through the blinding spray she strains the last glance on life which she feels is left to her. High above, like a huge black mountain rising suddenly out of the sea, looms a gigantic apparition. It towers above her like some fearful, unknown spectre. There is a flash of light in the air, a loud shout, a grating sound. Loud o’er all shrieks the tempest whistle, she feels the smack part from her, a mighty current sucks her beneath the waves; down, down it drags her into the bottomless abyss of the ocean’s awful crater, as the great ship sweeps forward on its course. Even in this moment of death’s agony Gloria’s brain is clear. She relaxes her grasp of Léonie, who, with the life-belt around her, has that one straw of hope to cling to. As the waters of the surging Atlantic sweep over her her last cry is to God; her last vision of the life which she is quitting, is the face of Evie Ravensdale.
