In the Roar of the Sea

CHAPTER XVII

FOR LIFE OR DEATH

Coppinger did not hesitate a moment now to leave the corpse on the beach where he had found it, and to hasten to the cave.

There was a third alternative to which hitherto he had given no attention. Judith, in ascending the cliff, might have strayed from the track, and be in such a position that she could neither advance nor draw back. He would, therefore, explore the path from the chimney mouth, and see if any token could be found of her having so done.

He again held his smouldering tinder and by this feeble glimmer made his way up the inclined beach within the cave, passed under the arch of the rock where low, and found himself in that portion where was the boat.

Here he knew of a receptacle for sundries, such as might be useful in an emergency, and to that he made his way, and drew from it a piece of candle and a lantern. He speedily lighted the candle, set it in the lantern, and then ascended the chimney.

On reaching the platform at the orifice in the face of the rock, it occurred to him that he had forgotten to bring rope with him. He would not return for that, unless he found a need for it. Rope there was below, of many yards length. Till he knew that it was required, it seemed hardly worth his while to encumber himself with a coil that might be too long or too short for use. He did not even know that he would find Judith. It was a chance, that was all. It was more probable that she had strayed on the down, and was now back at Polzeath, and safe and warm in bed.

From the ledge in front of the shaft Coppinger proceeded with caution and leisure, exploring every portion of the ascent with lowered lantern. There were plenty of impressions of feet wherever the soft and crumbly beds had been traversed, and where the dissolved stone had been converted into clay or mud, but these were the impressions of the smugglers escaping from their den. Step by step he mounted, till he had got about half-way up, when he noticed, what he had not previously observed, that there was a point at which the track left the ledge of stratified vertical rock that had inclined its broken edge upward, and by a series of slips mounted to another fractured stratum, a leaf of the story-book turned up with the record of infinite ages sealed up in it. It was possible that one unacquainted with the course might grope onward, following the ledge instead of deserting it for a direct upward climb. As Coppinger now perceived, one ignorant of the way and unprovided with a light would naturally follow the shelf. He accordingly deserted the track, and advanced along the ledge. There was a little turf in one place, in the next a tuft of armeria, then mud or clay, and there – assuredly a foot had trodden. There was a mark of a sole that was too small to have belonged to a man.

The shelf at first was tolerably broad, and could be followed without risk by one whose head was steady; but for how long would it so continue? These rough edges, these laminæ of upheaved slate were treacherous – they were sometimes completely broken down, forming gaps, in places stridable, in others discontinuous for many yards.

The footprints satisfied Coppinger that Judith had crept along this terrace, and so had missed the right course. It was impossible that she could reach the summit by this way – she must have fallen or be clinging at some point farther ahead, a point from which she could not advance, and feared to retreat.

He held the lantern above his head, and peered before him, but could see nothing. The glare of the artificial light made the darkness beyond its radius the deeper and more impervious to the eye. He called, but received no answer. He called again, with as little success. He listened, but heard no other sound than the mutter of the sea, and the wail of the wind. There was nothing for him to do but to go forward; and he did that slowly, searchingly, with the light near the ground, seeking for some further trace of Judith. He was obliged to use caution, as the ledge of rock narrowed. Here it was hard, and the foot passing over it made no impression. Then ensued a rift and a slide of shale, and here he thought he observed indications of recent dislodgement.

Now the foot-hold was reduced, he could no longer stoop to examine the soil; he must stand upright and hold to the rock with his right hand, and move with precaution lest he should be precipitated below.

Was it conceivable that she had passed there? – there in the dark? And yet – if she had not, she must have been hurled below.

Coppinger, clinging with his fingers, and thrusting one foot before the other, then drawing forward that foot, with every faculty on the alert, passed to where, for a short space, the ledge of rock expanded, and there he stooped once more with the light to explore. Beyond was a sheer fall, and the dull glare from his lantern showed him no continuance of the shelf. As he arose from his bent position, suddenly the light fell on a hand – a delicate, childish hand – hanging down. He raised the lantern, and saw her whom he sought. At this point she had climbed upward to a higher ledge, and on that she lay, one arm raised, fastened by a chain to a tuft of heather – her head fallen against the rock, and feet and one arm over the edge of the cliff. She was unconscious, sustained by a dog-chain and a little bunch of ling.

Coppinger passed the candle over her face. It was white, and the eyes did not close before the light.

His position was vastly difficult. She hung there chained to the cliff, and he doubted whether he could sustain her weight if he attempted to carry her back while she was unconscious, along the way he and she had come. It was perilous for one alone to move along that strip of surface; it seemed impossible for one to effect it bearing in his arms a human burden.

Moreover, Coppinger was well aware that his left arm had not recovered its strength. He could not trust her weight on that. He dare not trust it on his right arm, for to return by the way he came the right hand would be that which was toward the void. The principal weight must be thrown inward.

What was to be done? This, primarily: to release the insensible girl from her present position, in which the agony of the strain on her shoulder perhaps prolonged her unconsciousness.

Coppinger mounted to the shelf on which she lay, and bowing himself over her, while holding her, so that she should not slip over the edge, he disentangled the chain from her wrist and the stems of the heather. Then he seated himself beside her, drew her toward him, with his right arm about her, and laid her head on his shoulder.

And the chain?

That he took and deliberately passed it round her waist and his own body, fastened it, and muttered, “For life or for death!”

There, for a while, he sat. He had set the lantern beside him. His hand was on Judith’s heart, and he held his breath, and waited to feel if there was pulsation there; but his own arteries were in such agitation, the throb in his finger ends prevented his being able to satisfy himself as to what he desired to know.

He could not remain longer in his present position. Judith might never revive. She had swooned through over-exhaustion, and nothing could restore her to life but the warmth and care she would receive in a house; he cursed his folly, his thoughtlessness, in having brought with him no flask of brandy. He dared remain no longer where he was, the ebbing powers in the feeble life might sink beyond recall.

He thrust his right arm under her, and adjusted the chain about him so as to throw some of her weight off the arm, and then cautiously slid to the step below, and, holding her, set his back to the rocky wall.

So, facing the Atlantic Ocean, facing the wild night sky, torn here and there into flakes of light, otherwise cloaked in storm-gloom, with the abyss below, an abyss of jagged rock and shingle shore, he began to make his way along the track by which he had gained that point.

He was at that part where the shelf narrowed to a foot, and his safety and hers depended largely on the power that remained to him in his left arm. With the hand of that arm he felt along and clutched every projecting point of rock, and held to it with every sinew strained and starting. He drew a long breath. Was Judith stirring on his arm?

The critical minute had come. The slightest movement, the least displacement of the balance, and both would be precipitated below.

“Judith!” said he, hoarsely, turning his head toward her ear. “Judith!”

There was no reply.

“Judith! For Heaven’s sake – if you hear me – do not lift a finger. Do not move a muscle.”

The same heavy weight on him without motion.

“Judith! For life – or death!”

Then suddenly from off the ocean flashed a tiny spark – far, far away.

It was a signal from the Black Prince.

He saw it, fixed his eyes steadily on it, and began to move sideways, facing the sea, his back to the rock, reaching forward with his left arm, holding Judith in the right.

“For life!”

He took one step sideways, holding with the disengaged hand to the rock. The bone of that arm was but just knit. Not only so, but that of the collar was also recently sealed up after fracture. Yet the salvation of two lives hung on these two infirm joints. The arm was stiff; the muscles had not recovered flexibility, nor the sinews their strength.

“For death!”

A second sidelong step, and the projected foot slid in greasy marl. He dug his heel into the wet and yielding soil, he stamped in it; then, throwing all his weight on the left heel, aided by the left arm, he drew himself along and planted the right beside the left.

He sucked the air in between his teeth with a hiss. The soft soil was sinking – it would break away. The light from the Black Prince seemed to rise. With a wrench he planted his left foot on rock – and drew up the right to it.

“Judith! For life!”

That star on the black sea – what did it mean? He knew. His mind was clear, and though in intense concentration of all his powers on the effort to pass this strip of perilous path, he could reason of other things, and knew why the Black Prince had exposed her light. The lantern that he had borne, and left on the shelf, had been seen by her, and she supposed it to be a signal from the terrace over the cave.

The next step was full of peril. With his left foot advanced, Coppinger felt he had reached the shale. He kicked into it, and kicked away an avalanche of loose flakes that slid over the edge. But he drove his foot deep into the slope, and rammed a dent into which he could fix the right foot when drawn after it.

“For death!”

Then he crept along upon the shale.

He could not see the star now. His sweat, rolling off his brow, had run over his eyelids and charged the lashes with tears. In partial blindness he essayed the next step.

“For life!”

Then he breathed more freely. His foot was on the grass.

The passage of extreme danger was over. From the point now reached the ledge widened, and Coppinger was able to creep onward with less stress laid on the fractured bones. The anguish of expectation of death was lightened; and as it lightened nature began to assert herself. His teeth chattered as in an ague fit, and his breath came in sobs.

In ten minutes he had attained the summit – he was on the down above the cliffs.

“Judith,” said he, and he kissed her cheeks and brow and hair. “For life – for death – mine, only mine.”

CHAPTER XVIII

UNA

When Judith opened her eyes, she found herself in a strange room, but as she looked about her she saw Aunt Dionysia with her hands behind her back looking out of the window.

“Oh, aunt! Where am I!”

Miss Trevisa turned.

“So you have come round at last, or pleased to pretend to come round. It is hard to tell whether or not dissimulation was here.”

“Dissimulation, aunt?”

“There’s no saying. Young folks are not what they were in my day. They have neither the straightforwardness nor the consideration for their elders and betters.”

“But – where am I?”

“At the Glaze; not where I put you, but where you have put yourself.”

“I did not come here, auntie, dear.”

“Don’t auntie dear me, and deprive me of my natural sleep.”

“Have I?”

“Have you not? Three nights have I had to sit up. And natural sleep is as necessary to me at my age as is stays. I fall abroad without one or the other. Give me my choice – whether I’d have nephews and nieces crawling about me or erysipelas, and I’d choose the latter.”

“But, aunt – I’m sorry if I am a trouble to you.”

“Of course you are a trouble. How can you be other? Don’t burs stick? But that is neither here nor there.”

“Aunt, how came I to Pentyre Glaze!”

“I didn’t invite you, and I didn’t bring you – you may be sure of that. Captain Coppinger found you somewhere on the down at night, when you ought to have been at home. You were insensible, or pretended to be so – it’s not for me to say which.”

“Oh, aunt, I don’t want to be here.”

“Nor do I want you here – and in my room, too. Hoity-toity! nephews and nieces are just like pigs – you want them to go one way and they run the other.”

“But I should like to know where Captain Coppinger found me, and all about it. I don’t remember anything.”

“Then you must ask him yourself.”

“I should like to get up; may I?”

“I can’t say till the doctor comes. There’s no telling – I might be blamed. I shall be pleased enough when you are shifted to your own room,” and she pointed to a door.

“My room, auntie?”

“I suppose so; I don’t know whose else it is.”

Then Miss Trevisa whisked out of the room.

Judith lay quietly in bed trying to collect her thoughts and recall something of what had happened. She could recollect fastening her wrist to the shrub by her brother’s dog-chain; then, with all the vividness of a recurrence of the scene – the fall of the man, the stroke on her cheek, his roll over and plunge down the precipice. The recollection made a film come over her eyes and her heart stand still. After that she remembered nothing. She tried hard to bring to mind one single twinkle of remembrance, but in vain. It was like looking at a wall and straining the eyes to see through it.

Then she raised herself in bed to look about her. She was in her aunt’s room, and in her aunt’s bed. She had been brought there by Captain Coppinger. He, therefore, had rescued her from the position of peril in which she had been. So far she could understand. She would have liked to know more, but more, probably, her aunt could not tell her, even if inclined to do so.

Where was Jamie? Was he at Uncle Zachie’s? Had he been anxious and unhappy about her? She hoped he had got into no trouble during the time he had been free from her supervision. Judith felt that she must go back to Mr. Menaida’s and to Jamie. She could not stay at the Glaze. She could not be happy with her ever-grumbling, ill-tempered aunt. Besides, her father would not have wished her to be there.

What did Aunt Dunes mean when she pointed to a door and spoke of her room?

Judith could not judge whether she were strong till she tried her strength. She slipped her feet to the floor, stood up and stole over the floor to that door which her aunt had indicated. She timidly raised the latch, after listening at it, opened and peeped into a small apartment. To her surprise she saw the little bed she had occupied at her dear home, the rectory, her old wash-stand, her mirror, the old chairs, the framed pictures that had adorned her walls, the common and trifling ornaments that had been arranged on her chimney-piece. Every object with which she had been familiar at the parsonage for many years, and to which she had said good-by, never expecting to have a right to them any more – all these were there, furnishing the room that adjoined her aunt’s apartment.

She stood looking around in surprise, till she heard a step on the stair outside, and, supposing it was that of Aunt Dionysia, she ran back to bed, and dived under the clothes and pulled the sheets over her golden head.

Aunt Dunes entered the room, bringing with her a bowl of soup. Her eye at once caught the opened door into the little adjoining chamber.

“You have been out of bed!”

Judith thrust her head out of its hiding-place, and said, frankly, “Yes, auntie! I could not help myself. I want to see. How have you managed to get all my things together?”

“I? I have had nothing to do with it.”

“But – who did it, auntie?”

“Captain Coppinger; he was at the sale.”

“Is the sale over, aunt?”

“Yes, whilst you have been ill.”

“Oh, I am so glad it is over, and I knew nothing about it.”

“Oh, exactly! Not a thought of the worry you have been to me; deprived of my sleep – of my bed – of my bed,” repeated Aunt Dunes, grimly. “How can you expect a bulb to flower if you take it out of the earth and stick it on a bedroom chair stirring broth? I have no patience with you young people. You are consumed with selfishness.”

“But, auntie! Don’t be cross. Why did Captain Coppinger buy all my dear crinkum-crankums?”

Aunt Dionysia snorted and tossed her head.

Judith suddenly flushed; she did not repeat the question, but said hastily, “Auntie, I want to go back to Mr. Menaida.”

“You cannot desire it more than I do,” said Miss Trevisa, sharply. “But whether he will let you go is another matter.”

“Aunt Dunes, if I want to go, I will go!”

“Indeed!”

“I will go back as soon as ever I can.”

“Well, that can’t be to-day, for one thing.”

The evening of that same day Judith was removed into the adjoining room, “her room,” as Miss Trevisa designated it. “And mind you sleep soundly, and don’t trouble me in the night. Natural sleep is as suitable to me as green peas to duck.”

When, next morning, the girl awoke, her eyes ranged round and lighted everywhere on familiar objects. The two mezzotints of Happy and Deserted Auburn, the old and battered pieces of Dresden ware, vases with flowers encrusted round them, but with most of the petals broken off – vases too injured to be of value to a purchaser, valuable to her because full of reminiscences – the tapestry firescreen, the painted fans with butterflies on them, the mirror blotched with damp, the inlaid wafer-box and ruler, the old snuffer-tray. Her eyes filled with tears. A gathering together into one room of old trifles did not make that strange room to be home. It was the father, the dear father, who, now that he was taken away, made home an impossibility, and the whole world, however crowded with old familiar odds and ends, to be desert and strange. The sight of all her old “crinkum-crankums,” as she had called them, made Judith’s heart smart. It was kindly meant by Coppinger to purchase all these things and collect them there; but it was a mistake of judgment. Grateful she was, not gratified.

In the little room there was an ottoman with a woolwork cover representing a cluster of dark red, pink, and white roses; and at each corner of the ottoman was a tassel, which had been a constant source of trouble to Judith, as the tassels would come off, sometimes because the cat played with them, sometimes because Jamie pulled them off in mischief, sometimes because they caught in her dress. Her father had embroidered those dreadful roses on a buff ground one winter when confined to the house by a heavy cold and cough. She valued that ottoman for his sake, and would not have suffered it to go into the sale had she possessed any place she could regard as her own where to put it. She needed no such article to remind her of the dear father – the thought of him would be forever present to her without the assistance of ottomans to refresh her memory.

On this ottoman, when dressed, Judith seated herself, and let her hands rest in her lap. She was better; she would soon be well; and when well would take the first opportunity to depart.

The door was suddenly thrown open by her aunt, and in the doorway stood Coppinger looking at her. He raised his hand to his hat in salutation, but said nothing. She was startled and unable to speak. In another moment the door was shut again.

That day she resolved that nothing should detain her longer than she was forced. Jamie – her own dear Jamie – came to see her, and the twins were locked in each other’s arms.

“Oh, Ju! darling Ju! You are quite well, are you not! And Captain Coppinger has given me a gray donkey instead of Tib; and I’m to ride it about whenever I choose!”

“But, dear, Mr. Menaida has no stable, and no paddock.”

“Oh, Ju! that’s nothing. I’m coming up here, and we shall be together – the donkey and you and me and Aunt Dunes!”