“Ayee-ho!”
Silently, irresistibly, the chain drew the rock from its bed. To Taffy it seemed an endless time, to the crowd but a few moments before the brute mass swung clear. A few thrust their torches down towards the pit where the sailor knelt. Taffy did not look, but gave the word to pass down the coffin which had been brought in readiness. A clergyman—his father’s successor, but a stranger to him—climbed down after it: and he stood in the quiet crowd watching the light-house above and the lamps which the groom had lit in Honoria’s carriage, and listening to the bated voices of the few at their dreadful task below.
It was five o’clock and past before the word came up to lower the tackle and draw the coffin up. The Vicar clambered out to wait it, and when it came, borrowed a lantern and headed the bearers. The crowd fell in behind.
“I am the resurrection and the life....”
They began to shuffle forwards and up the difficult track; but presently came to a halt with one accord, the Vicar ceasing in the middle of a sentence.
Out of the night, over the hidden sea, came the sound of men’s voices lifted, thrilling the darkness thrice: the sound of three British cheers.
Whose were the voices? They never knew. A few had noticed as twilight fell a brig in the offing, standing inshore as she tacked down channel. She, no doubt, as they worked in their circle of torchlight, had sailed in close before going about, her crews gathered forward, her master perhaps watching through his night-glass had guessed the act, saluted it, and passed on her way unknown to her own destiny.
They strained their eyes. A man beside Taffy declared he could see something—the faint glow of a binnacle lamp as she stood away. Taffy could see nothing. The voice ahead began to speak again. The Vicar, pausing now and again to make sure of his path, was reading from a page which he held close to his lantern.
“Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off.
“Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech than thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue that thou canst not understand.