Part 4

The night had not darkened, but the curious grayness which was the prevailing quality of the atmosphere in the valley had deepened, and the forms of the beasts on guard became less distinct. Yet it seemed only to increase the penetrating gaze of their eyes, which flamed at us like a circle of watch fires. The sentinels were noiseless as well as motionless. The wind whimpered gently through the leaves of the trees, but there was nothing else to be heard in the valley, and saving ourselves and the buffaloes, nothing of human or animal life to be seen. Redfield said to me that he wished our guards would move, that while they stayed in such fixed attitudes he felt as if we were watched by so many human beings. His voice was at a higher pitch than usual, and I felt a strange pleasure in noticing it, for I knew then that he had been affected as I by our peculiar position. He burst suddenly into a laugh, and when I asked him where he found amusement, he reminded me that both of us yet carried our rifles, though we seemed to have forgotten the use for which they were made. He added that the sentinels were within easy range, and since our object was now self-preservation and not sport, we could sit on the boughs in perfect safety and shoot as many of them as we chose, unless they retired.

It was the power of surprise and fear that had prevented us from thinking of this before, though the weapons were in our hands, and I felt a sense of shame that we had permitted ourselves to be overwhelmed in such a manner. I waited before raising my own rifle, to see the effect of Redfield’s shot. I saw him select his target and look down the barrel of his rifle as he sought to make his aim true. The eyes of the buffalo had seemed so human in their intelligence and anger that I expected to see the animal, knowing his danger, retreat when the rifle was raised. But he made no motion, looking straight into the muzzle of the weapon which was threatening him. Redfield pulled the trigger and fired, and then both of us cried out in surprise and displeasure.

The buffalo did not move, and if the bullet had touched him there was no mark upon him that we could see to tell of its passage. Redfield said it was the bad light that had made him miss, but I believed it was a trembling hand—that the chill, though the night was warm, which affected me had seized him, too. Yet I steadied myself now that my own time to fire had come, and took good aim at the buffalo nearest to my tree. It may have been the strength of my imagination, and in reality the eyes of the brute may not have been visible at all at such a distance and in the night, but I was sure that they were staring at me with human malice, and another expression, too, that I interpreted as defiance. I was seized with a sudden and fierce anger—anger because I had been afraid, anger because there was a taunt in the eyes of the beast.

I pulled the trigger and looked eagerly at the result of my shot; then I cried aloud in disappointment, as Redfield had done. The buffalo, untouched, was staring at me with the same malicious eyes, not even moving his head when I fired.

Redfield laughed once more in a mirthless way, and I told him angrily to hush; that he was afraid but I was not, and I would fire again. I put in a second cartridge but the shot was as futile as the first, and Redfield, who tried once more, had a similar lack of success. But we told each other, and with all the greater emphasis because we were not sure of it, that it was the imperfect light and our nerves strained by the descent of the rough cliff. I noticed that Redfield’s voice was growing louder and more uneven as we talked, and his eyes were gleaming.

At last we exhausted our cartridges without touching the silent ring of sentinels, or making any of them move, and Redfield, throwing his rifle to the ground, laughed in the curious, unnatural way that makes one shiver. I bade him stop and I spoke with anger, but he paid no attention either to my words or my manner. His laughter ended shrilly, and then he said that he understood it all: that these animals had been hunted from the face of the earth except this lone herd, which was left here to hunt any man who came against it. Behold the present as the proof of what he said!

I laughed at him, yet my laughter, like his, sounded strange even in my own ears, and looking at the silent ring of sentinels, I believed his words to be true. When or how we should escape I could not foresee, and I did not feel the fear of death; and yet there was nothing that I had in the world which I would not have given to be out of the valley. The rifle which I had used to such little purpose burned my hands, and I let it drop to the ground.

Redfield laughed again in a shrill, acrid way, and when I asked him to stop, jeered at me and bade me notice how faithful our besiegers were to their duty.

Not one of them had moved from the circle, their forms becoming duskier as the night deepened, but growing larger in the thick atmosphere. The sky above was cloudless, and we seemed to see it from interminable depths; the huge cliffs rose out of the mists, shapeless walls, and the trees became gray and shadowy. Redfield began to talk, volubly and about nothing, varying his chatter with the same shrill, unpleasant laughter, and I, finding it useless to bid him hush, said nothing. Yet I wished that he would cease, and I might hear other sounds, the leap of a rabbit or the scamper of a deer, anything to disturb that horrible chatter, and the equally horrible silence, otherwise. Securing myself in the crook of a bough and the tree I tried to sleep, and I think that at last I fell into a kind of stupor, in which I heard only Redfield’s shrill laugh. But I awoke from it to find a clear moon, and our silent line of sentinels still there. The wind, risen somewhat, was moaning up the valley and the night was cold.

Redfield was silent then, but when I called to him he answered in a natural tone for the first time in hours and asked me if I had anything to suggest, as we must change our present position very soon. I told him that we must descend from the trees, find the path out of the valley and leave by it, at once. He pointed to the sentinels and said nothing would induce him to face them, but I told him we must do it since it was the only thing left for us, though I will admit that my own sense of fear was of such strength that my words were braver than myself.

The moon came out again and the forms of our guards grew more distinct, ceasing to have the shadowy quality which at times in the last hour had made them waver before me. Nevertheless, the light still served to distort them and enlarge them to gigantic size, and my imagination gave further aid in the task.

Redfield became silent again, and I thought he might be asleep, but when I looked at him I saw his eyes shining with the same unnatural light that I had marked there before, and I felt with greater force than ever that we must not long delay our attempt to leave the valley. But I remained for a while without movement or without thought of what we should do. The belief that we had come there to be hunted by the survivors of the millions whom we had hunted out of existence became a conviction, and I felt a reluctance to meet the eyes of the avenging beasts, eyes that I could always see with my imagination if not with my own gaze. The light of the moon struck fairly on the sides of the great cliffs and the grotesque and threatening faces which my fancy had carved there in the rock lowered at us again. I could even distort the trees into gigantic half-human shapes, leaning toward us and taunting us, but I shut my eyes and drove them away. I had not forgotten the curious light gleaming in Redfield’s eyes.

An hour later I told Redfield that we must descend, that we could not stay forever where we were and it was foolish for us to delay, wearing out our strength and weakening our wills with so long and heavy a vigil. He said no, that he would not stir while those beasts were there watching; he could see a million red eyes all turned upon him and he knew that as soon as he touched the earth the owners of those eyes would rush upon him and trample him to death. I felt some of his own reluctance, but knowing that it was no time to waste words I told him that he could stay where he was, if he chose, but I was going; I had seen enough of the valley and certainly I would never come near it again. So speaking I began to descend the tree, and Redfield instantly began to tremble and beg me, like a child, not to go. He said he could not be left there alone and he would not be for all the world. Strengthened in my purpose by his pleadings and believing that my method would compel him to come I again bade him stay if he wished, it was nothing to me; but while I said these things I continued to descend. When he saw that I was in truth going he began to lower himself from his tree, though still begging me not to make the attempt.

My foot struck the ground and I stood there afraid, but resolute. Our guards still gazed at us but made no movement to attack, and I drew courage from the fact.

Redfield was shivering, and perhaps my own courage was not of the best, but I pointed to a dark line in the face of a distant cliff where the moonlight fell clearly, and asked if it were not the ravine by which we had come. He said yes, and not giving him time to think and to hesitate about it I seized him by the arm and pulled him on, telling him that we must reach the ravine as quickly as we could and leave the valley. Then we advanced directly toward that segment of the watchful circle which stood between us and the point we desired to reach.

I retained my firm grasp upon Redfield’s arm and I felt the flesh trembling under my fingers. We did not recall until long afterward that we had forgotten our rifles. As we advanced, the line of buffaloes parted and we passed through it. Redfield cried out in childish delight and said they were afraid of us, but I shook him, more in anger than from any wiser motive, and hastened our steps. Fear rolled away from me and I felt an exhilaration that made me walk with buoyant step. I dropped my hand from Redfield’s arm and we walked on at a swift pace, my eyes fixed on the dark line in the cliff which marked the ravine, our avenue of escape from the valley. Redfield suddenly put his hand upon my shoulder and motioned me to look back. When I obeyed I saw the buffaloes following us in a long line, as regular and even as a company of soldiers. Redfield laughed in the mirthless way which marked him that night and said we had an escort who would see that we did not linger in the valley. I could not say that he was wrong, but I grew impatient with him when he tried to make a jest of it and talked of our bodyguard. I knew that he was trembling, and I asked angrily, though not in words, why they could not let us alone. We were leaving as fast as we could, and as for coming back, nothing could drag me to that valley again; no, nothing, and I said the “nothing” aloud with angry emphasis.

Our guard did not desert us, but followed at fifty or sixty yards with noiseless step. And again I noticed that there was no other animal life in the valley, though the grass was green and the woods abundant, a place that the birds and rabbits should love.

The outlines of the pass grew more distinct, the tracery of bushes and vines that lined it was revealed, and in a few minutes we would arrive at the first slope. I felt like a criminal, a murderer, taken in disgrace from the place of his crime, and this feeling once having seized me would not leave, but grew in strength and held me. Redfield was my brother in crime, and certainly his face, his nerveless manner, showed his guilt.

I hastened my footsteps, eager to leave the place. Redfield kept pace with me, and in silence we reached the first slope. It was a rugged and toilsome ascent, but I thought little of such things, the joy of escape from the valley mastering all other emotions. A third of the way we paused, and, looking back, saw the silent line of sentinels watching at the foot of the cliff, their eyes turned up at us.

Then we resumed our ascent, and, reaching the top of the cliff, left the lost herd, forever.

THE ISLES OF SCILLY.

By James Henry Stevenson.

Do not visit The Scillies. Go to Penzance—a charming spot that has not received the attention from the tourist that it deserves—and see the hopeful passengers take ship in the morning for the “blessed isles;” inspect them again on their return in the evening; if you are still curious go to Land’s End—a drive of eight or ten miles—and look across the sea that lies between you and The Scillies; buy a guide book and a few pictures when you come home, and bless your stars that you did not tempt the deep.

This is the advice which I vowed I would give, when, one day last summer, for three awful hours I “hove” with the heaving deep. I am not usually a poor sailor. Indeed I have generally crossed the Atlantic without making my offering to the gods of the Abyss. Anything in reason I am prepared to do, but the demands of the little steamer that plies between the Islands and Penzance are altogether unreasonable.

It was a beautiful morning and Mount’s Bay, on which Penzance is so picturesquely situated, was as placid as a swimming tank, but I noticed that the wind was blowing fresh from the southeast, and I mentally observed that there was likely to be trouble when we rounded Land’s End. I am proud of that prophecy now, though trouble came sooner than I had anticipated.

Long before we had lost the shelter of the rocky and fascinating coast that girts the shores of Cornwall towards Land’s End, many a swain, who had started off that morning with a light heart and “Arriet,” sadly admitted that “all was vanity.”

When we reached Land’s End I lost interest in the scenery and gave up—among other things—the unequal struggle. The “Lyonesse” was crowded and there was no place to lie down. Indeed one was fortunate to find a seat. I secured a camp stool and a vacant place in the gang-way, and as I watched, or rather was conscious of, the movements of our vessel, she seemed like a fabled sea monster sporting in the deep. Poised for a moment jauntily on the wave’s crest, or plunging her nose beneath a huge billow, she was equally happy. I called to mind the legend of the Lyonesse, the continent that once stretched between Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, and which in the days of “good king Arthur” sunk below the deep at the command of Merlin, engulfing Mordred and his host as they thundered hard after the remnant of the slain Arthur’s army. I thought of this and then I knew that our ship was trying to justify her high sounding title. Just at this moment she made a plunge towards the sunken continent and a huge wave swept in over the bow, most thoroughly drenching a party of ambitious sightseers who were tempting Providence on the ship’s nose. The wave rolled on towards me but I was too busy just at that moment to successfully evade it.

As we passed close by Land’s End I roused up for a moment to look at the celebrated point and again as we came in sight of Woolf lighthouse, a solitary sentinel in the waste of waters, midway between the mainland and the islands, and an eloquent witness for the Lyonesse legend.

As for the rest, I can say I was conscious of existence, but not taking much interest in life, when a sudden cessation of the turmoil within and without re-awakened somewhat my torpid senses, and as we made fast to the dock, I dragged myself ashore and followed the haggard and bedraggled passengers through a narrow street into the town. A short walk brought me beyond the city to a grassy hillside, where, with my camera for a pillow, having cast aside all literary and artistic aspirations as worthless, I was soon blissfully unconscious of the beauty and romance I had come so far and braved so much to see. In the course of an hour or so, I was awakened by a grazing horse on the alert for something green, and, recollecting my mission, started forth to make the tour of the island.

We landed, as a matter of course, at Hugh Town, St. Mary’s, the largest and most important island of the group, with Star Fort situated on its eastern promontory, and Hugh Town on a narrow isthmus connecting this promontory with the main body of the island.

As I have already intimated, the first thing of interest to me, on coming ashore, was a vacant bit of real estate wherein to lie down and forget my past. So, after shaking myself awake, I walked up a hill and came in sight of the historic little church which is situated at the head of the bay of Old Town, formerly the chief town of the island. The church, a very quaint old structure, stands in an enclosure which rises in successive terraces on the hillside and is filled with a striking mixture of English and tropical vegetation.

Among the many interesting monuments in the churchyard, I noticed a granite obelisk, erected by Mr. Holtzmaister of New York, to the memory of his wife, who perished in the wreck of the ill-fated S. S. _Schiller_, May 7, 1875. The inscription reads: “In memory of Louise Holtzmaister, born at New York, May 15th, 1851, who lost her life in the wreck of the S. S. _Schiller_ off the Scilly Isles, May the 7th, 1875. Her body rests in the deep. This monument has been erected to her memory as a mark of affection by her surviving husband.”

The memory fain would linger round some spot where the beloved take their last long sleep. Tennyson’s beautiful lines awaken a heartfelt response in every human breast:

“Oh to us The fools of habit, sweeter seems To rest beneath the clover sod, That takes the sunshine and the rains, Or where the kneeling hamlet drains The chalice of the grapes of God, Than if with thee the roaring wells Should gulf him deep in fathom brine; And hands so often clasped in mine Should toss with tangle and with shells.”

The people of these islands have witnessed many a tragedy of the sea in their day, but perhaps none more awful than that which this monument recalls. The _Schiller_, a staunch boat, built on the Clyde in 1873, was in command of Captain Thomas, an Englishman by birth, but then a naturalized German. She left New York on the 27th of April with fifty-nine saloon, seventy-five second, and one hundred and twenty steerage passengers. She was due at Plymouth on the 8th of May, but for three days previous to the disaster no observations were obtained on account of the weather. Early on Friday, the 7th, a heavy fog came down. Captain Thompson, thinking he was near the islands, ordered the engines at half speed, but about 10 P.M. she ran on the Retarrier Ledges, near the Island of St. Agnes. Few were in bed at the time of the accident; the boats were quickly launched, the sailors behaved splendidly, but the sea was running high, and as the women and children crowded together into the pavilion a heavy sea swept over it and carried all away. About forty-five out of three hundred and forty-five were saved. Mrs. Jones was the only lady survivor. By Saturday evening seventy-eight bodies, nearly all with life-preservers on, had drifted ashore.

The old church, which is now restored and used only as a mortuary chapel, was originally built in the form of a cross. In 1662 it was enlarged. On each side of the communion table ran a long seat, the one for the members of the Council and the other for their wives or the widows of dead councilmen. In 1732 it was decreed that if a councilman died, his wife was entitled to a seat among the wives of living councilmen during her widowhood, but if she married she was deprived of that privilege, unless she married a councilman. This high esteem in which they held their women, and the fact that they used the church as a council chamber, throw an instructive sidelight on the character of these old representatives of the right of the people to govern themselves.

We leave the quiet churchyard and its tragic story to continue our walk around the island. A tramp on the promontory Peninnis, which stretches out southward into the sea, brings to view many fantastic rock formations. Great boulders are left curiously poised upon each other by the action of wind and wave in ages past. Pulpit Rock, composed of huge flat blocks of stone resting on each other and leaning out to sea, is perhaps the most famous, though why it should be called “Pulpit Rock” is more than one can well guess. It looks more like an hundred other things than it does like a pulpit. Most of all it resembles a great gun mounted on the rock to command the sea at this point. We next encounter the Logan Rock (pronounce _loggan_). Everyone who has read Baedaker’s “Great Britain” knows of the existence of Logan Rock in Cornwall, a rock of sixty-five tons weight so delicately poised that it can be set in motion quite easily. I was not aware before that the phenomenon had repeated itself, but I learned last summer that there was quite a number of these “_loggan_,” or rolling rocks to be found at different places.

The Logan Rock at St. Mary’s is quite famous and was discovered somewhat recently by accident. A resident of the town, overtaken by the storm, took shelter beneath a huge rock. The wind was blowing fiercely and to his great surprise, if not terror, he discovered that the rock was moving gently to and fro. He could scarcely believe his senses at first, but on further examination, he found it was so poised that it readily responded to his efforts and could be made to sway back and forth. Its estimated weight is three hundred and sixty tons, and while it requires some energetic effort to put it in motion it rocks with ease afterwards.

Hugh Town, the port and principal town of the island of St. Mary’s, and indeed of the entire group of islands, enjoys a very unique situation. On the southwest a promontory juts out into the sea. This is the site of Star Fort, and one can make its circuit in about half an hour. It is joined to the mainland by a narrow isthmus of sand which separates St. Mary’s Pool, the harbor on the north, from Porth Cressa Bay, on the south. On this narrow strip of land, across which a boy can cast a stone, and over which the high tide threatens to leap, Hugh Town is built. There is no pretension to architecture, no striking buildings, none even that have the interest of antiquity to recommend them. The town is practically contained on the narrowest part of the isthmus, though westward, where the strip of land widens, the houses scatter somewhat. Save for its audacious situation, daring, as it does, the rage of the sea from both sides, it is commonplace and uninteresting.

Too much cannot be said in favor of the islands as a health resort. They are so small in area, and lie so low, that living on them is practically living at sea. One may here take a protracted cruise with no reeling deck beneath him, and no nightmare of _mal-de-mer_ to threaten his dreaming hours.

There are no manufactures of any kind on the island, nor is anything present to vitiate the air. Sea breezes, from the illimitable reaches of the ocean, sweep at will across these tiny bits of land, from every point of the compass, in quick succession. In winter the mean temperature is 45 and in summer it is 58. The rain fall is very moderate and, with fine consideration for the tourist, the rain generally comes at night, a phenomenon noticeable in Cornwall also.