Miranda of the Balcony: A Story

by A. E. W. Mason

"You are right, Mrs. Warriner, he was not. But he was a man whom you and I knew as Thomas Discipline, first mate of the schooner-yacht the Ten Brothers, of which Captain Ralph Warriner was the certificated master. And observe, please, the whole crew of the Ten Brothers was reported lost upon Rosevear."

"Thomas Discipline might have left the Ten Brothers before," argued Miranda. "His presence on the Tarifa does not connect my husband with that boat."

"That's precisely the objection which occurred to me," said Wilbraham, coolly. "But here was at last a fact which fitted in with my guess-work, and I own to being uplifted. That evening I got the ticket that the Tarifa was to put to sea the next day, and sure enough in the morning she swung out into the fairway and waited for the evening ebb. I passed that day in an altogether unenviable state of anxiety, Mrs. Warriner; for if by any chance I was wrong, if she did not mean to take up another cargo of a more profitable kind by dark, if she were to sail clean away for Ushant on the evening ebb, why, the boat might be the Ten Brothers or it might not, and the master might be the late Captain Warriner or he might not. Any way the bottom fell clean out of my little business. But she did not; she got her anchors in about eight o'clock and reached out towards the Lizard in the dusk with a light wind from the land on her beam."

"The story so far," Miranda interrupted, "seems nautical, but hardly to the point."

"Think so?" said Wilbraham, indifferently. "Did I mention that at the mouth of the harbour the Tarifa passed a steam launch pottering around the St. Anthony Light? Between you and me, Mrs. Warriner, I was holding the tiller of that steam launch."

"You!" she exclaimed.

"Just poor little me," said he, smiling politely, "with a few paltry thick-uns in my pocket to speculate in the hire of a steam launch. I gave the Tarifa a start and followed, keeping well away on her lee with her red light just in view. That first half-hour or so was a wearing time for me, Mrs. Warriner, I assure you," and he took off his hat and wiped his forehead, as though the anxiety came back upon him now. He laboured his breath and broke up his sentences with short nervous laughter. He seemed entirely to forget his companion, and the sun, and the Andalusian sierras across the plain; he was desperately hunting the Tarifa along the Spit to the Lizard point.

"I was certain of one thing: that no Captain Warriner had come aboard at Falmouth. So if the Tarifa kept out to sea, why, there was no Captain Warriner to come aboard, and here was I spending my last pounds in running down a will-o'-the-wisp, and the world to face again to-morrow in the grim old way, without a penny to my purse. On the other hand, if there was a Captain Warriner, he would come aboard with the cargo somewhere that night, and I fancied I could lay my finger on that somewhere. I had another cause for anxiety. Grant my guess-work correct, and the last thing the Tarifa was likely to hanker after would be a wasp of a steam launch buzzing in her wake. The evening was hazy, by a stroke of luck, but the wind was light and the sea smooth, and my propeller throbbed out over the water until I thought it must reverberate across the world, and the Esquimaux on Franz Josef Land and the Kanaka in the Pacific would hear it plain as the pulsing of a battleship. However, I slowed the launch down to less than half-speed, and the crew of the Tarifa made no account of me. The brigantine was doing only a leisurely five knots--she was waiting for the dark, I conjectured. Conjectured? I came near to praying it. And as if in answer to my prayer--it sounds pretty much like blasphemy now, doesn't it?--but at that moment I believed it--all at once her red light vanished and my heart went jumping in the inside of me as though it had slipped its moorings. For the Tarifa had changed her course; she was pointing closer to the wind and the wind came offshore; she was showing me her stern instead of her port beam; on the course she was lying now she couldn't clear the Manacles--not by any manner of means. She was heading for the anchorage I hoped she would; she was standing in towards Helford river. In a little she went about, and seeing her green light, I slowed down again. I could afford to take it easy."

He drew a breath of relief and lolled back upon his seat. Miranda no longer put questions; there was a look of discouragement upon her face; she began bitterly to feel herself helpless in this man's hands, as clay under the potter's thumb.

"Do you know the creek?" he asked, and did not wait for an answer. "I hadn't anchored there for twenty years, but I had a chart of it in my memories." His voice softened, with perhaps some recollection of a yachting trip in the days before his life had grown sour. "Steep hills on each side, and on each side woods. The trees run down and thrust their knees into the water like animals at their watering places of an evening. A mile or so up, a little rose and honeysuckle village nestles as pretty as a poem. There's a noise of birds all day, and all night and day the trees talk. Given a westerly wind, and the summer, I don't know many places which come up to Helford river," and his voice ceased, and he sat in a muse. A movement at his side recalled him. "But that's not business, you say," he resumed briskly. "I left the Tarifa at the mouth of the creek. The little village a mile or more up is on the southward side; opposite to it, on the Falmouth side, is the coast-guard station; nearer to the mouth, and still on the Falmouth side, a tiny dingle shelters a school-house and half-a-dozen cottages, and still nearer, the road from Falmouth comes over the brow of the hill and dips down along the hill-side. At one point the steep hill-side is broken, there's an easy incline of sand and bushes and soil between the water and the road. The incline is out of sight of the coast-guard. Besides, it is only just round the point and close to the sea. And for that reason I was in no particular hurry to follow the Tarifa. I edged the launch close in under the point, waded ashore, and scrambled along in the dark until I reached the break in the hill-side. Then I lay down among the bushes and waited. All lights were out on the Tarifa, but I could see her hull dimly, a blot of solid black against the night's unsubstantial blackness. I waited for centuries and æons. There was neither moon nor any star. At last I heard a creaking sound that came from the other end of the world. It was repeated, it grew louder, it became many sounds, the sounds or cart wheels on the dry road. I looked at my watch; the glimmer of its white face made it possible for me to tell the hour. It was five minutes to eleven. For five minutes the sounds drew infinitesimally nearer. Higher up the creek six bells were struck upon a yacht, and then over the waters from the direction of the Tarifa came cautiously the wooden rattle of oars in the rowlocks of a boat. A boat, I say, but it was followed by another and another. The three boats grounded on the sand as the carts reached the break in the hill-side. There were few words spoken, and no light shown. I lay in the bushes straining my ears to catch a familiar voice, my eyes on the chance that a match might be struck and light up a familiar face."