“By the Almighty God, His creation is wondrous! This is a scene worthy of the end!” cried David, suddenly, in a hoarse, emotional tone.
Alixe started violently. The sound of a human voice, breaking in upon the universal murmur of the infinite waters, sent a sudden stab to her heart. In a quick flash, she beheld Lenore’s baby holding out its feeble hands to her. Near it stood Laure, the penitent; and, on the other hand, madame, with her great, grave, sorrowful eyes fixed full upon herself, Alixe.
“David!” cried the girl, suddenly, wildly, above the roar of the tide: “David! We must escape!—Quickly! Quickly! Quickly!”
As she spoke, she left the ledge, to find herself swaying almost shoulder deep in the fierce, swelling water. “Come!” she cried, her face livid with her new-born terror.
For an instant, David looked down upon her with something resembling a smile. Then he followed her, and would have been carried off his feet in the water, had not Alixe steadied him with one hand, while, with the other, she clung to the rock above her head. The sudden chill woke David’s senses, and he said sharply: “We must hurry, Alixe! There is no time to lose.”
Hand in hand, by the murmurous
sea, they walked.—Page [427]
Then the two of them began their work of getting out of the cave. David, with his small, lithe body clad in tight-fitting hosen and jerkin, started to swim lightly through the water, diving headforemost into the beating breakers, and rounding toward the shore with rather a sense of pleasurable skill than anything else. But with Alixe, the case was different. Her long skirts were soaked with water, and clung disastrously about her feet. The idea of her swimming was vain; and she grimly gave thanks for her height. But she found that the matter of walking had its dangers too. The bottom of the cave and the outer stretch that lay between her and safety was very uneven. She stumbled over rocks and sank into sudden hollows, continually hampered by her clinging skirts. Presently she fell, and a great breaker came tumbling over her. In it she lost her self-control, and was presently rolling helpless in the tide, gasping in sea-water with every terrified breath, and unable to get her limbs free from their binding, clinging robe. Alixe was very near death in earnest, now, and she knew it. Presently, where a sweeping wave left her head for a moment above water, she sent one hoarse, guttural shriek toward David, who had regained the land; and he turned, horrified, to look at her. She heard his cry of amazement and distress, and then she was rolled upon her face, and knew nothing more till she found herself lying on the sand, with David bending over her, whiter than death, and trembling like a woman.
She was dizzy and weak and sick, and her lungs ached furiously; yet with it all, she saw David’s distress, and managed to keep herself conscious by staring at him fixedly.
“Up, Alixe! Up!” he muttered. “Thou must get up to the Castle. I cannot carry thee there, and here thou’lt perish. Up, I say! Here, hold to my belt. See, the water is upon us again.”