CHAPTER IV.
Peace after the storm! Ay, in so far that the tempest fiend has vanished, leaving behind him only the low moan of the dying gale. High above the heights which look down on Eilean Fianan, Tiorin’s ruins, and the lovely woods of Shona’s Isle, hover the cloud mists of rising morn, through whose seemingly tissue veil glint and gleam the joyous sparks, fantastic offspring of the new-born sun.
Its light, too, is warming those heights with a rosy glow, and the thick dark woods are pierced with its golden shafts. Like myriad diamonds sparkle the raindrops on the pines, and the dew on the glades and fairy rings, where elfin goblins have held their midnight orgies.
Yet the gale has left its after-birth in the rolling swell, which beats in relentless fury on the rock-girt coast of Shona’s Isle, and lashes the sandy stretch of beach between Ardtoe and Ru Druimnich. High tide is rising on those shores, an inland current has set in, and in its grasp are the trophies of the storm-fiend’s victory over the handiwork of man.
What are these trophies? Why, here and there a spar, a tossing barrel, a broken oar. There is something floating, too, on the heaving swell with which the waves are making merry, for they carry it to the sandy beach and drag it back again, toss it still further inland, and smother it in their spray.
It is a choice plaything; the salt sea waves are battling for it hard, but the tide and the inland current say them nay, and the sandy beach gives it a rugged welcome. There for a time it may rest.
It! But what may it be? A human body, surely?
Out in the bay the yacht Eilean is coasting up and down. Eager eyes are scanning the waste of water, and every sign of wreckage is minutely observed. Ever and anon the voices of the men aloft shout down some new discovery to the anxious watchers on the deck below. There is a look of intense agony in the eyes of the young Duke of Ravensdale as he paces that snow-white deck. His features are drawn and haggard, his cheeks are deathly pale, and the lines of care have seared their mark indelibly across his high and noble brow.
“Wreckage ahoy!” The men on the look out have spied another victim of the gale which the inland current is drawing to Ardnamurchan’s shores. What can it be? It looks like the back of a whale, or a huge porpoise turning over in its course. What can it be?
The Eilean steams towards it, and comes close up alongside it. No, it is no whale. Only the remnant of a fishing smack, part of which appears to have been bodily severed from the whole.
The sharp order to man the lifeboat cutter is given. In a few minutes it is riding the heaving swell. All eyes are occupied with this new discovery; even the look-out men have forgotten their duty aloft. Suddenly, however, Flora Desmond’s voice rings out. She has been keeping silent, faithful watch by Evie Ravensdale.
“What’s that?” she cries.
In a moment he is straining with an eager, hungry look those wild, despairing eyes. She is pointing away to starboard, and he sees, unmistakably sees, a human head and shoulders rising up and down on the grey ocean’s surface. With a low cry he springs forward. Were it not for Flora’s restraining clutch he would be overboard and swimming to meet it.
“Wait, Evie!” she says imploringly. “The boat will fetch it in a moment. Don’t go, Evie. Alas, it is not she!”
She has a clear sight has Flora Desmond. She has caught a glimpse of the dead white face thrown back as it rises on the crest of the heaving swell, and she knows that it is not the face of Gloria de Lara. But when the lifeboat cutter retrieves the body, and it is hoisted on to the deck, then indeed Flora cannot restrain a cry of horror as she recognises in the set, rigid face, wide open, staring eyes, and close clenched teeth the unmistakable features of the girl traitoress, the female Judas, Léonie.
“Take her from my sight! Oh God! take her away!” bursts from the pale lips of Evie Ravensdale, as in a moment the sight of the body before him drives from his heart the clinging hope that Gloria is not dead. He knows now that the storm-fiend has claimed her for his victim, that on this earth the dark blue eyes will never look their love again.
As they bear Léonie from his sight an unnatural calmness seizes him. He turns to Flora.
“We must do our duty, Flora. Mine is to see you safe. We will put the helm about, and steer for the great free land. And when we get there Flora, you will see her mother and break it to her, won’t you?”
His words are so cold and measured, his face so unmoved, that Flora is half fearful for his reason. She lays her hand gently on his arm.
“Not yet, Evie. We must put back to Shona first. We must not give up the search yet. I mean to examine the whole coast line between this and Ru Druimnich.”
“But she is dead, Flora. Don’t you know she is dead?” he says coldly.
“Still, Evie, we may find her dear body. Oh no, Evie, we must not give up the search; we must seek on,” answers Flora. She dare not buoy him up with the fresh hope that Gloria may be alive. The sight of Léonie has told her this cannot be; yet still she is resolved more than ever to search on for the body of her friend. The boatswain is standing near. She sends him with instructions to the captain, to put the yacht’s head about and run for Moidart’s Loch, and then she resumes her watch by Evie Ravensdale. Time flies, but he does not notice her; his eyes are staring out over the ocean wave. As they near the Loch, Nigel Estcourt comes up.
“A moment, Flora,” he says, motioning her to come apart. “The doctor is trying to bring Léonie round. He says life is not extinct. If he can only succeed, we may be able to extract from her what has happened. Will you go and see her? I will keep Ravensdale company while you go down?”
“You must be very gentle, Estcourt. You must watch him closely, too; I am terribly afraid for his reason. He seems turned to stone since he set eyes on Léonie. It is a bad sign. If tears would come they would relieve him. Ah! God help him. It is terrible.”
She sighs deeply as she turns from him. Heavy at heart, yet is Flora’s heart heavier still when it thinks of the agony which Evie Ravensdale is suffering. What would she not endure to bring comfort and peace to his tortured soul!
She makes her way down to the cabin where Léonie is lying; the doctor, with the stewardess and her assistant, are busy treating her. He looks up hopefully as Flora enters.
“She has moved; she has struggled for breath,” he observes quickly. “Lady Flora, she will live. She seems to me a mere child. I wonder who she is.”
But Flora does not answer, only she moves over to the couch, and looks down on the motionless girl.
It is strange, but as she looks she sees the same remarkable resemblance in this girl to Bernie Fontenoy, which Gloria had remarked the previous night. Certainly it is strange, very strange.
There is a long-drawn sigh, and then a struggle for breath. Léonie clutches the air with her hands, and her lips move.
“I am stifling,” she gasps; “don’t choke me, don’t, please don’t! Let me breathe, please let me breathe!” The doctor raises her up slightly, and again Léonie sighs. Then she draws a long breath. “I love you,” she says softly; “I love you, Gloria. I love God, too. I wish I hadn’t betrayed you now. But you have forgiven me, you have been kind to me, you have kissed me. Oh! those waves, those dreadful waves! They will kill you; you have given me the life-belt, and you have not got one. Take it off, Gloria. Put it on yourself and leave me. I don’t mind drowning. I would like to drown for you. Let me kiss you first. Let me sleep now; let me die.”
Her hitherto fixed and staring eyes shoot with a gleam of returning intelligence. She closes them, and her head falls forward.
“She will sleep now,” observes the doctor, as he lays her down and turns her on her side, “and when she awakes she will be all right. A marvellous recovery. She must have wonderful vitality in her. We will leave her now quiet, Lady Flora. The yacht is in motion again. Do we continue the search?”
“Yes, but along the coast. I must go now, doctor. You will let me know later how the patient is, won’t you?”
“Certainly,” he answers cheerfully.
Flora returns on deck. Léonie’s words have puzzled her. They were clearly addressed to Gloria, and yet these disjointed utterances can convey but one interpretation of her fate. Gladly would Flora swallow a grain of hope, but she knows that it would only make the reality harder to bear, a reality which she has faced and accepted already.
“Gloria,” she whispers, “if you can hear me now, you will know how true was Flora’s friendship. God help me, and I will clear your name of that foul charge laid to your door. Léonie may know something of it, and she will tell me, for on the threshold of death has she not said that she loves you?”
Brave, noble Flora! Self is buried in those generous words. She never pauses to think of the danger in which she stands, or the trouble which she must suffer. But Flora is heroic.
The yacht is gliding into Moidart’s Loch, and again the lifeboat cutter is manned and lowered. Flora has determined to search the whole shore within the radius of the drifting inland current, which long experience of these coasts has taught her, draws wrecks thereto.
She will conduct the search in this direction herself, while, as is now arranged, Estcourt and Archie Douglasdale will prosecute it along Shona’s rocky coast in the large gig. Archie had returned to Glenuig Bay, on the evening before, only to find the fishing box deserted, his sister, Ravensdale, and Estcourt gone. One of his trusty Ruglen retainers awaited him, however, with the information that they had crossed the hills by Kinlockmoidart for Eilean Shona, where the duke’s yacht lay anchored. The message which Léonie had been entrusted to convey was to this very effect, the duke having further commissioned her to apprise Gloria of his intended arrival alone, from the Loch Eilort side.
“Evie,” says Flora gently, “you will come with me, will you not? I am going to search the sand beaches in the cutter up to Ru Druimnich. Come, Evie.”
He turns almost sullenly. God help him! The torture he is suffering is writ in his eyes. “She is dead,” is all he says. But he follows Flora, nevertheless, and they enter the cutter together. Then he bows his face in his hands and remains silent.
The search they make is thorough. How could it be else with Flora in command? And gradually the cutter creeps slowly on in the direction of the body on the shore.
It is sighted at length; the look-out man utters his warning cry, and Flora stands suddenly up and stares eagerly ahead.
Yes, there it lies, high and dry on the sandy beach. Undoubtedly a human form.
“Bend to your oars, lads!” she cries. “I’m going to beach her;” and with that she brings the boat’s nose sharply for the shore. “Evie,” she says again, “rouse yourself, Evie. We shall be in the breakers in a minute. There is a body on the beach.”
He looks up quickly. Just a gleam of hope is in his wild eyes, and he is thoroughly on the alert. The boat rushes forward; it rises high on the first breaker, and is hurled towards the shore. True is the hand that holds the tiller and the nerve that guides it. Straight as a dart does Flora keep the cutter’s nose, and her voice encourages the oarsmen to their duty, the seething foam half fills the boat, but it gallantly rides the water still, as another breaker bears it onward. Now the keel grates the sandy bottom.
“Ship oars, lads, and out of her!” Flora commands, but she sets the example, too.
She is in the water waist high. In a moment the stalwart sailors have obeyed her. Rough, willing hands grasp the cutter’s sides, and with combined force to the seaman’s cheery “Pull, boys, together,” run her high and dry on to the beach.
But Evie Ravensdale has rushed forward. Hope still surges in his heart. The body is stretched out upon the sand, the figure is lying on its face, the hands are clenched. It is easy, however, to see that the body is not that of a woman; it is plain as plain can be that it is a man.
He sees this at once, and turns away with a bitter, despairing cry. It was a mad, vain hope to have indulged in, and yet in his breaking heart, Evie Ravensdale had prayed to be allowed to look upon her face once more, ay, even though it were in death.
An exclamation from Flora for a moment attracts him. She has followed him and has turned the body over.
“Evie!” she cries, and there is a passionate ring of triumph in her voice, “though Gloria be dead, her pure, fair fame is saved. Though God has taken her, He has dashed to the ground the foul lie with which they sought to doom her. Look, Evie, look! Her noble name is cleared.”
With a startled, eager look he comes to her side. He sees at his feet the pallid upturned face of a dead man. This man has dark hair, and a dark thick beard, moustache and whiskers in which grey hairs are stealing fast. This man has dark eyes, but the lustre of life has left them, and his white teeth are clenched together with a horrid grin.
He stares down at the corpse below him. The wild, hungry look in his beautiful eyes is dying now. Triumph and exultation are there.
“Gloria!” he cries, “my darling, you have triumphed. They thought they could kill you with a false and awful lie. There is your answer. Nor shall your great cause die. I swear to win it for you! I swear—I swear it now!”
He turns away with a gasping sob. But Flora has no longer any fear for him. Evie Ravensdale’s vow will bid him live, live on for Gloria’s sake.
Calmly and quietly she turns to the sailors. “We will carry that body to Dorlin, my lads. Guard it well. There lies the man whom a too confident jury declared to be dead, for whose murder the noblest of women was unjustly condemned. That corpse is Lord Westray!”
