It was a wild dash up the coast; Le Blanc driving, Herbert handling the siren, the others packed in, crouching close, Gaston holding to the foot-board, where he roared in our ears the details of the impending calamity, his breath having now come back to him. The cliff, he explained, that supported the tennis court of an adjoining villa had given way, taking with it a slice of madame’s lawn, leaving only the gravel walk under her library windows. The surf, goaded by the thrash of the wind, was, when he left, cutting great gashes in the toe of the newly exposed slope. Another hour’s work like the last—and it was not high water until four o’clock—would send the cottage heels over head into the sea. Madame was in Paris, and the caretakers—an old fisherman and his wife—too old to work—were panic-stricken, calling piteously for Monsieur Lemois, whom their mistress trusted most of all the people in and about the village.
The end of the shore road had now been reached, our siren blowing continuously. With a twist of the wheel we swerved from the main highway, climbed a short hill, and chugged along an overhanging road flanked by a row of little black lumps of cottages in silhouette against the white fury of the smashing surf. The third of these, so Gaston said, was madame’s. Thank God it was still square-sided and the chimneys still upright. We were in time anyhow!
More than once have I helped in a fire or lent a welcoming hand to a shipwrecked crew breasting an ugly sea in a water-logged boat; but to hold on to a cottage sliding into the sea—as one would to the heels of a would-be suicide determined to dash himself to pieces on the sidewalk below—was a new experience to me.
Not so to Herbert—that is, you would never have supposed it from the way he took hold of things. In less time than I tell it, he had swung wide the rear door of madame’s villa, stationed Brierley, Le Blanc, and myself at the side entrances to keep out poachers, formed a line of fishermen (whom Gaston knew) to pass out bric-à-brac, pictures, and rare furniture to the garage at the end of the lawn—the only safe place under cover—and, with Louis to help, was packing it with household goods.
While this was going on, although we did not know it, Lemois was half-way down the slope watching the encroaching sea; calculating the number of minutes which the villa had to live; watching, too, the slow crumbling of the cliff. He knew something of these earth slides—or thought he did—and, catching sight of our rescue party, struggled up to warn us.
But Herbert had not furled a mainsail off Cape Horn for nothing. He also knew the sea and what its savage force could do. He, too, had swept his eyes over the crumbling slopes, noted the wind, looked at his watch, and, bounding back, had given orders to go ahead. There was possibly an hour—certainly thirty minutes—before the house, caught by the tide at high water, would sag, tilt, and pitch headlong, like a bird-cage dropped from a window-sill, and no power on earth could save it. Until then the work of rescuing madame’s belongings must go on.
Louis’ enormous strength now came into play: first it was an inlaid cabinet, mounted in bronze, with heavy glass doors. This, stripped of its curios, which he crammed into his pockets, was picked up bodily and carried without a break to the garage, a hundred yards in the rear; then followed bronzes that had taken two men to place on their pedestals; pictures in heavy frames; a harp muffled in a water-proof cover, which became a toy in his hands; even the piano went out on the run and was slid along the porch and down the steps, and, with the aid of Gaston and another fisherman, whirled under cover.
The fight now was against time, Lemois indicating the most valuable articles. Soon the first floor was entirely cleared except for some heavy pieces of furniture, and a dash was made upstairs for madame’s bedroom and boudoir, filled with choice miniatures, larger portraits, and the little things she loved and lived with. The pillows were now torn from the beds, emptied, and every conceivable kind of small precious thing—silver-topped toilet articles, an ivory crucifix, bits of Dresden china—all the odds and ends a woman of quality, taste, and refinement uses and must have—were dumped one after another into the pillow-sacks and carried carefully to shelter. Then followed the books and rare manuscripts.
Herbert, who, between every trip to the garage or to the crowd of willing workers outside, had paused to watch the sea, now bawled up the staircase ordering every man out. The last moment of safety had arrived. Lemois, intent on rescuing a particular portfolio of etchings, either would not or did not hear. Gaston, more alert, and who had been helping him to carry down an armful of the more precious books, sprang past Herbert, despite his cry, and dashed back up the steps, shouting as he raced on that Lemois was still upstairs. Herbert made a plunge to follow when Louis threw his arms around him.
“No, for God’s sake! She’s going! Out of this!—quick! Jump, Herbert, or you’ll be killed!”