The Lake of Wine

by Bernard Capes

He struggled off across the snow, followed by the tireless William. Angela, placed and supported between her brother and Dunlone, shrieked faintly after him. The girl must be held in durance—somewhere, in a place of safety. She should die were she brought again into her neighbourhood! Blythewood soothed her distress. She should be well protected, he swore. The lord, coming somewhat to himself, and perhaps relieved to be escaped under whatever conditions from that abode of brigands, cursed the lady under his breath for a little pretty whimpering,—and was half moved to slide his arm about her waist. He withheld that condescension, however, for the present.

The two men were seen to reach the stables—to force, after some strenuous effort, the door of the coach-house. From the gap made by them the terrified deer broke forth and scattered in all directions. Some sprang into drifts and were lost; some huddled against the wall, afraid to venture further; one or two came stumbling and leaping in the foot-tracks, and ran up, bleating very humanly for protection to those superior animals who could not find it for themselves.

And now ensued a period of intense anxiety and emotion; for minutes passed and the rescuers did not reappear. And, with incredible speed, rushing like a blood-wanton dog amongst a flock of sheep, the fire seized room after room and worried it, and raced on roaring until the whole building was involved. And young shoots of flame sprouted from the roof and grew and flourished in a moment like burning aloes, and the heat waxed intense.

From the first, indeed, no least hope of checking the conflagration had suggested itself. The old dry interior of the building caught as if all its solidity were so much illusion of lath and canvas; and the water-supply was frozen to a minimum.

Quite suddenly the little group made one mouth of a low moan of horror. Upon the north parapet of the roof a figure had come out—that of the missing girl. She stood beside a chimney-stack, whither the flames had not yet reached, and in the shaking glare she was as visible to all as though it were sunlight. She carried, it seemed, a bag of some sort in her hand, and she made no gesture of fear; but, in an instant, as a fountain of fire rose behind her, scattering sprays of sparks, she was dancing and kissing her hand to her own shadow on the chimney-stack.

Then they saw that the two men were come out of the stable and were standing beneath, calling frantically up to the mad creature; and she bent and looked down upon them, while sobs and cries broke from the watching women and the men breathed hard.

Her brother, it was evident, was beseeching her to throw herself, as her one chance, into a thick drift that lay beneath; and she could be seen to nod to him and to point exultantly to the bag on her arm. But in the act it slipped from her grasp and fell, and at once she fled after it, plunging from the parapet like a swimmer. Into the snow she went, as if it were foam, and flakes of the frozen crust of the drift span up and were flung against the wall. And the pent burden of the spectators found its shrill vent once more, and was lowered to sighs of pity as the two were seen coming across the snow with a limp shape looped between them.

She had dived, and over the brink of Cocytus. She had gone to the shades that were ever her kinsfolk. When they looked at her they saw a smile on her mouth; but her hair hung slack, as if the flame of her soul was withdrawn from it. She was reasonable at last; and to make her so just this had been needed—to snap her slender neck like a lily-stalk.

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When, by midnight, the great fire was died down to a cinderous glow, gasping and winking amongst walls of slag, the sad onlookers were moved pathetically to see the purple vault above them all embroidered with stars; the clerestory of the trees hung with them; the white pavement ghostly in their radiance. The candles of the vast cathedral, whose tapering walls are the cone of the earth’s own shadow, were lit, and the voiceless anthems of peace rose in the dreaming sighs of half the world.