Where Deep Seas Moan

by E. Gallienne Robin

The rain poured in torrents. The wind roared and howled. Several times the mare paused, trembling. But Dominic lashed her on, and in pain and terror she tore across the moorland, striking fire from the stones as she flew. He reined her in at last and fastened her to a hook in the side wall of the Haunted House. He laughed as he thought what a help she would be in keeping all comers away, for she seemed to shed a white dim light from her drenched skin, and her loud breathing might easily be taken for groans.

He scrambled down the face of the cliff. Fortunately, the wind blew in from the sea, and in safety he reached a large cave, brilliant with the light of many torches. His boon companions, the roughest gangs of the two parishes, greeted him with shouts and jests, and an hour of drinking and feasting followed. Then, with no little difficulty, kegs of brandy were hauled up the cliffs and deposited in the Haunted House. With wonderful skill, the men worked almost all the while in the dark, only using lanterns when it was absolutely necessary. At last, all the kegs were stowed away. The men scattered to fetch their horses from various sheds belonging to friendly people, and the master of Orvillière was left alone.

He looked carefully round at the precious kegs stowed half way up the walls. Ah—what was that! One of the barrels leaked! Brandy, velvety fragrant brandy was oozing out on the earthen floor! He knelt down and caught a few drops in his hand. It was superfine, the best stuff he had ever tasted. Greedily he drank again and again from his hand. But that process was too slow. Catching up a hatchet, he enlarged the leak, and throwing himself flat on the ground, he lapped the golden spirit that filled him with ecstasy. At last, he had had enough. He fumbled at the leak, making futile efforts to stop it. But he was too drunk to know what he was about. He had just sense enough to darken his lantern, to reel out of the Haunted House and fling himself on the drenched grass beside his shivering mare. Presently his debauch turned into a heavy sleep, and the hours passed. Suddenly he woke and sat up. He heard, quite distinctly, the sharp click of a horse's hoof. It had rung through his drunken sleep like a knell. He had dreamt he heard again the passing bell that had tolled for Blaisette.

All at once the click passed into a smothered sound of pounding and slushing. The horse had left the high road and must be on the moorland!

Sobered, Le Mierre leapt to his feet, unloosened the mare and jumped on her back. He turned her inland and urged her forward. But, trembling in every limb, the mare refused to move. Nearer and nearer came the pounding of the horse. It stopped. A lantern flashed out. Le Mierre saw the figure of a well known exciseman riding a powerful black horse. A voice cried above the howling of the wind.

"Give yourself up, and all will be well! I've looked for you far and wide. At last I find you. Come, Le Mierre, don't be a fool about this. It will only be a fine, and perhaps not even that, if you give up the other chaps."

But the master of Orvillière was not to be reasoned with. He was in a towering rage. He wrenched the pistol from the saddle. He fired it at the exciseman. It missed him. But he, too, lost his temper. In an instant he was beside Le Mierre and had dragged the pistol away and flung it against the house. Dominic, beside himself and unnerved with the night's carouse, grappled with the exciseman and tried to throttle him.

A terrible struggle. A wild pounding of hoofs. Cries and oaths. The fall of the lantern. Gusts of rain, and wind that shrieked as if an agony of warning. Then, the mare broke away at last, in a frenzy of terror, and made straight for the edge of the cliffs behind the Haunted House.

Not one word came from Dominic Le Mierre as the mare stumbled, fell, and, with a horrible, almost human cry, rolled over and over down the precipitous height.

The exciseman dismounted, groped for the lantern, lit it, and fought his way half down the cliff, at the risk of his life, as the wind had changed and was blowing out to sea. But there was not a sign of the mare and her rider.