"Ascend the cliff alone," repeated Eberstein calmly, "and you, my daughter, kneel here in prayer that good may triumph over evil. May the will of God be fulfilled, and may the love of Christ"—he made the sign of the cross—"be with you in the hour of need, with the saving grace of the Holy Ghost."
Where he had been there was but the gloom of the cave faintly illuminated by the candlelight. Motionless with awe the lovers clung to one another, and Montrose, looking upward when movement came to him, breathed a voiceless prayer. Then he bent to kiss Alice, who had sunk on her knees, and loosening his clasp moved slowly towards the entrance to the cave. She did not seek to stay him, but with folded hands looked at his retiring form—it might be for the last time. But as she looked the exaltation and awe of that solemn moment opened her interior senses, and she saw a triangle of white flame, which showered on her lover's head purple rays of ineffable beauty. These shaped themselves into a cross as he disappeared, and then drew inward to a star, radiant and glorious, which shone in the gloom as the symbol of hope and salvation. To that high splendour—to the Power beyond—to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father through the Son, did she pray fervently. Not that her earthly parent might be spared the commission of a crime, not that her lover might be saved, but that the holy purpose of God, unknown and inexplicable, might be fulfilled according to His will. To such a height of trust in the Love which saves had the ever-compassionate Mercy of The Christ raised this weak, faltering, bruised soul.
[CHAPTER XXII]
RIGHT IS MIGHT
Montrose was so accustomed to obey his Master that he never questioned the order to climb the cliff and leave Alice alone in the cave. Yet as he straightened himself behind the bush which masked the entrance he wondered why such instructions had been given. Neither he nor the girl knew that Enistor watched for their coming, so the young man could only conjecture that Eberstein wished him to surrender to those officers of the law who were hunting for him. This seemed strange in the face of the doctor's telegram advising him to fly; but for want of knowledge Montrose was not in a state of mind to reconcile the apparent contradiction. His sole idea was to do what he had been told to do, even though—as seemed to be the case—he was risking loss of liberty and life. And indeed, with regard to the last Montrose believed that he might lose it otherwise than on the gallows.
The narrow, tortuous path sloped upward abruptly, with the cliff soaring high above it and the cliff dropping steeply below to unfathomable depths. Fortunately the mighty wind, which roared inland from the sea, enabled him to cling the more surely to the rocky face of the precipice, and by slow degrees he crawled towards his goal overhead. In a less degree than Alice was the young man accustomed to such perilous wayfaring, and only by persistent will-power did he manage to control his nerves. What with the screaming of the tempest above and the bellowing of the waters below, he nearly lost his head. The tumult of sound, the stormy darkness only fitfully dispersed by gleams of moonlight, his dangerous position midway between heaven and earth—these things were enough to daunt the bravest man. But that he had been supported by unseen powers, Montrose would never have succeeded in scaling that tremendous cliff. Yet he did so, painfully crawling upward inch by inch, shaken like a leaf in the grip of the wind and stunned by the uproar of great waters. At length, after many hours—so it seemed to him who had lost count of time—he reached the summit and cast himself breathlessly on the wet herbage. Panting painfully, he sat up after a pause, and then the lightning flaring in the dark sky showed him a tall figure rushing towards him. And at the very moment of the onset the winds swept clear the face of the moon to reveal in her waning light that Enistor had found him at last.
"I have you now," shouted the Squire, stumbling towards his victim with eager haste. "You shall not escape."
Montrose had no thought of escape and could not have saved himself even had he been so inclined. He was wholly spent with that fearful climb and was unable to cry out, much less shape his breath into speech. Yet with the instinct of self-preservation—since he was dangerously near the verge of the precipice—he rolled blindly to one side as Enistor dashed heedlessly towards him. One moment he saw the big man reeling with extended hands to clutch and capture in the half-light; the next and his enemy had disappeared over the cliff, crying hoarsely as he realised that he had underestimated the distance. The cry was echoed by Montrose, who nearly lost what few senses remained to him in the horror of the moment. Then it flashed across his bewildered mind that Enistor was dead and that there was no chance of capture for the moment. Striving to regain his breath, to control his mind, to master his nerves, that effort was the insistent thought which governed his whole being. Utterly unmanned, he sobbed hysterically.