When the signal to draw up was given, she felt as if each passing clock-tick were a year. The dread which had sprung up in her, when she saw Gaunt hang brooding over the chasm, could never be dispersed, if he were dead. She would never know whether he truly wished to die or whether life was sweet to him.
How slowly they were hauling in the rope! How endlessly long it seemed.
Then, at last, she saw him drawn from the living tomb—limp, inert, ghastly. She rose, though her knees would hardly support her, and crawled to him as they undid the rope from about him.
The man who had gone down stood near, wiping the sweat from his eyes, and reeling slightly on his feet. He coughed, and spat, and seemed as if he would be sick. "Just hell down there, 'm," he told her, apologetically. "I'm afraid it's all over with him, God help you!"
*****
Gaunt was adrift upon a summer sea. The waves rose and fell, with a lulling cadence. He felt only one desire—the desire for sleep; but a perpetual calling kept him perversely awake. When he reached the land he would, he knew, attain perfect repose. He made an inquiry of some unseen companion as to what was the name of the land which they would reach. The answer to this was: "They call it Virginia."
This answer delighted him. Virginia! Country of all joy and beauty. He was going to Virginia, if only this summons would cease—if only some far away, disturbing voice was not calling to him from infinite distance, begging him to make some response. He tried to plead that this voice might be silenced. But it grew more and more insistent. He could not hear what it said, but he knew that he was wanted. He might not drift out into the peace he craved. He must stop, and answer, and find out what was expected of him. He tried as hard as he could to turn a deaf ear to the calling. He almost succeeded, several times, in dropping off into real, sound sleep. But just as he was sure that now he would be let alone, something shook him, something interfered with him; and there was a pulsing in his ear, terribly loud, like the voice of a drum, so that one could not escape it.
The calling went on. "Osbert! Osbert! I want you! Do you hear me?"
Quite suddenly his mind changed, and he knew that it was of supreme importance that he should answer. The difficulty lay in the manner of so doing. How can one communicate with the beating of a drum? He wished that he could explain how unreasonable it was to expect any response from him. He heard right enough, but how could he let anybody know that he heard, with the sea lapping all about and the drum beating in his ears?...
Then came a curious sensation, touching a chord which vibrated throughout his entire being. He remembered quite long ago that he had been carrying a girl upstairs. Her arms were round his neck, and her heart beat, beat, against his ear. Was that noise the sound of a drum after all, or was it the quick throbbing of a girl's heart?