A Monk of Cruta

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

The little group of fishing smacks, homely-looking and uncleanly, on close examination, presented a very different appearance from the deck of the English yacht fast nearing the harbour. Their brown sails had gleamed purple in the dying sunlight, and their rude outline seemed graceful and shapely as they rose and fell on the long waves. Paul, who stood on the captain's bridge of his yacht, uttered a little cry of admiration as they sailed out from the shadows of the huge rock, and fell into a rude semicircle across the bay.

"What colouring one sees in these southern waters!" he remarked. "Did you notice the glinting light on those sails?"

His companion, who was holding firmly the rail by his side, looked up and smiled. "Yes," she said softly; "it is beautiful! We have seen more beautiful things on this voyage, I think, than I ever saw before in my life. I have never been so happy! You are not angry with me now for coming, are you?"

He looked down into her wistful, upturned face, and then away to the distant line where sea and sky met. "No! I am not angry," he said softly.

Adrea was very beautiful. The fresh sea air and the southern sun had been as kind to her as to one of their own daughters. Only a very faint, delicate shade of pink had stained her clear, transparent skin, harmonising exquisitely with the slight olive hue of her complexion. The strong breeze had loosened the coils of her dark hair, and it was waving and flowing in picturesque freedom about her face. There was a change, too, in her appearance, greater than any the wind or sun could effect. Her dark eyes were glowing with a new life, and a soft, wistful joy shone in her face. Those few days had been like heaven for her. She had been alone, for the first time, with the man she loved; sailing upon a sunlit sea hour after hour, with his voice ever in her ears, and his tall figure by her side. The sense of his presence was ever upon her, bringing with it a calm, sweet restfulness, a happiness beyond anything which she had ever imagined.

And it was heaven, too, after hell! Thrust away in a dark corner of her memory was the recollection of a day and a night full of grim, phantasmal horrors, which were fast becoming little more than a dream to her. The time was not yet come for remorse. In that deep glow of passionate and self-forgetful devotion, quickened now into fullest and sweetest life by his constant proximity, even sin itself, for his sake, seemed justified to her. Everything, too, which lay behind her brief stay in that bare, wind-swept country was fast assuming a far distant place in her thoughts. It was such a change from her little rooms in Grey Street, dainty and home-like though they had been, from the brilliantly lit drawing-rooms where she had performed, and the same wearisome compliments ever in her ears. The bonds of town life had always galled her. She was an artist, although she had denied it. She had become subject to her environment but it had been an imprisonment. Nature was her mother, and Nature had claimed her now. She knew it all; she knew that she could never be a dancer again. She had stolen out on to the deck each morning in her slippers, and had seen the dawn break through the clouds and descend upon the quivering waters. She had seen the eastern sky streaked with faint but marvellous colouring, growing deeper and deeper, until the sun's rim had risen from out of the water. Grey had become mauve, and white amber. It was wonderful! And by night she had leaned over the side of the yacht, and looked up into a sky ablaze with trembling stars, casting their golden reflections down upon the boundless waves which rose and fell beneath—waves which were sometimes green, and sometimes golden in the wonderful phosphoric light which touched them with a weird splendour. It was like the opening of a new world to Adrea. All that had gone before seemed harsh and artificial! It was the dawn of a new life.

Paul had noticed the change. To him it had appeared chiefly as an increased womanliness, a gentle softness of speech and mannerism very charming and attractive. Those few days at sea together had been like a dream to him. He had come on board as nearly broken-hearted as a strong man could be, and fiercely anxious to reach his destination and know the whole, cruel truth. In a few hours all had been changed. His sorrows seemed numbed. He was no longer battling alone with his grief. Adrea knew all, and as they sailed southwards together, the sense of the present was strong enough to drive past and future from his thoughts. The clouds cleared from his face, and his heart was lightened. It was Adrea who had saved him from despair.

He thought of this as she stood by his side, and he answered her question. Before their eyes, Cruta was rising up from the sea. The grim castle was there, looking as old as the rocks on which it was perched, the wide, open harbour, and the little fleet of fishing smacks. The seabirds circled about their heads; every moment brought the rocky little island more distinctly into view. Paul looked down into Adrea's face gravely.

"It is our destination, Adrea," he said. "You must go now. There will be a lot of surf crossing the bar, and I shall have enough to do to run her in. Look behind! It is just as well we are going into harbour!"