“Nothing can be done,” answered one of the oldest men in answer to Nicolas’s cry, “nothing, nothing! We do not know where the child is lost. See! there are leagues and leagues of sand; and one might wander miles away from where the poor little creature is at this instant. The great archangel St. Michel protect her!”
“I will go,” said the mother, lifting herself up; and, raising her voice, she called loudly, with a cry that rang and echoed against the walls, “Phine! Phine! my little Phine, come back to thy poor mother!” But there was no answer, except the sobs and prayers of the women and children clustering behind her.
“Thou canst not go!” exclaimed Nicolas; “there are our other little ones to think of; nor can I leave thee and them. My God! is there then no one who will go and seek my little Delphine?”
“I will go,” answered Michel, standing out from among the crowd, and facing it with his white face and resolute eyes; “there is only one among you all upon the Mont who will miss me. I leave my mother to your care. There is no time for me to bid her adieu. If I come back alive, well! if I perish, that will be well also!”
Even then there was no cordiality of response on the hearts of his old friends and neighbours. The superstition and prejudice of long years could not be broken down in one moment and by one act of self-sacrifice. They watched Michel as he laid his full creel down from his shoulders, and threw across them the strong square net with which he fished in the ebbing tide. His silence was no less expressive than theirs. Without a sound he passed away barefooted down the rude causeway. His face, as the sun shone on it, was set and resolute with a determination to face the end, whatever the end might be. He might have so trodden the path to Calvary.
He longed to speak to them, to say adieu to them; but he waited in vain for one voice to break the silence. He turned round before he was too far away, and saw them still clustered without the gate; every one of them known to him from his boyhood, the story of whose lives had been bound up with his own and formed a part of his history. They were all there, except his mother, who would soon hear what peril of the sea and peril of the night he was about to face. Tears dimmed his eyes, and made the group grow indistinct, as though the mist had already gathered between him and them. Then he quickened his steps, and the people of Mont St. Michel lost sight of him behind a great buttress of the ramparts.
But for a time Michel could still see the Mont as he hurried along its base, going westward, where the most treacherous sands lie. His home was on the eastern side, and he could see nothing of it. But the great rock rose up precipitously above him, and the noble architecture upon its highest point glowed with a ruddy tint in the setting light. As he trampled along no sound could be heard but the distant sigh of the sea, and the low, sad sough of the sand as his bare feet trod it. The fog before him was not dense, only a light haze, deceptive and beguiling; for here and there he turned aside, fancying he could see Delphine, but as he drew nearer to the spot he discovered nothing but a post driven into the sand. There was no fear that he should lose himself upon the bewildering level, for he knew his way as well as if the sand had been laid out in well-defined tracks. His dread was lest he should not find Delphine soon enough to escape from the tide, which would surely overwhelm them both.
He scarcely knew how the time sped by, but the sun had sunk below the horizon, and he had quite lost the Mont in the fog. The brown sand and the gray dank mist were all that he could see, yet still he plodded on westward, toward the sea, calling into the growing darkness. At last he caught the sound of a child’s sobs and crying, which ceased for a moment when he turned in that direction and shouted, “Phine!” Calling to one another, it was not long before he saw the child wandering forlornly and desolately in the mist. She ran sobbing into his open arms, and Michel lifted her up and held her to his heart with a strange rapture.
“It is thou that hast found me,” she said, clinging closely to him. “Carry me back to my mother. I am safe now, quite safe. Did the archangel St. Michel send thee?”
There was not a moment to be lost; Michel knew that full well. The moan of the sea was growing louder every minute, though he could not see its advancing line. There was no spot upon the sand that would not be covered before another hour was gone, and there was barely time, if enough, to get back to the Mont. He could not waste time or breath in talking to the child he held fast in his arms. A pale gleam of moonlight shone through the vapour, but of little use to him save to throw a ghostly glimmer across the sands. He strode hurriedly along, breathing hardly through his teeth and clasping Delphine so fast that she grew frightened at his silence and haste.