Part 2

On November 16th the men had finished their dinner and sat smoking under the lee of the wall and were expecting the call of the whistle when Taffy, with his pocket-aneroid in his hand, gave the order to snug down and man the cradle for shore. They stared. The morning had been a halcyon one; and the northerly breeze, which had sprung up with the turn of the tide and was freshing, carried no cloud across the sky. Two vessels, a brigantine and a three-masted schooner, were merrily reaching down channel before it, the brigantine leading; at two miles' distance they could see distinctly the white foam running from her bluff bows, and her forward deck from bulwark to bulwark as she heeled to it.

One or two grumbled. Half a day's work meant half a day's pay to them. It was all very well for the Cap'n, who drew his by the week.

"Come, look alive!" Taffy called sharply. He pinned his faith to the barometer, and as he shut it in its case he glanced at the brigantine and saw that her crew were busy with the braces, flattening the forward canvas. "See there, boys. There'll be a gale from the west'ard before night."

For a minute the brigantine seemed to have run into a calm. The schooner, half a mile behind her, came reaching along steadily.

"That there two-master's got a fool for skipper," grumbled a voice. But almost at the moment the wind took her right aback—or would have done so had the crew not been preparing for it. Her stern swung slowly around into view, and within two minutes she was fetching away from them on the port tack, her sails hauled closer and closer as she went. Already the schooner was preparing to follow suit.

"Snug down, boys! We must be out of this in half an hour."

And sure enough, by the time Taffy gained the cliff by the old light-house the sky had darkened and a stiff breeze from the northwest, crossing the tide, was beginning to work up a nasty sea around the rock and top it from time to time over the masonry and the platforms where, half an hour before, his men had been standing. The two vessels had disappeared in the weather; and as Taffy stared in the direction a spit of rain—the first—took him viciously in the face.

He turned his back to it and hurried homeward. As he passed the light-house door old Pezzack called out to him:

"Hi! wait a bit! Would 'ee mind seein' Joey home? I dunna what his mother sent him over here for, not I. He'll get hisself leakin'."

Joey came hobbling out and put his right hand in Taffy's with the fist doubled.

"What's that in your hand?"

Joey looked up shyly. "You won't tell?"

"Not if it's a secret."

The child opened his palm and disclosed a bright half-crown piece.

"Where on earth did you get that?"

"The soldier gave it to me."

"The soldier? nonsense! What tale are you making up?"

"Well, he had a red coat, so he _must_ be a soldier. He gave it to me and told me to be a good boy and run off and play."

Taffy came to a halt. "Is he here—up at the cottages?"

"How funnily you say that! No, he's just rode away. I watched him from the light-house windows. He can't be gone far yet."

"Look here, Joey—can you run?"

"Yes, if you hold my hand; only you mustn't go too fast. Oh, you're hurting!"

Taffy took the child in his arms, and with the wind at his back, went up the hill with long stride. "There he is!" cried Joey as they gained the ridge; and he pointed; and Taffy, looking along the ridge, saw a speck of scarlet moving against the lead-colored moors—half a mile away perhaps, or a little more. He sat the child down, for the cottages were close by. "Run home, sonny. I'm going to have a look at the soldier, too."

The first bad squall broke on the headland just as Taffy started to run. It was as if a bag of water had burst right overhead, and within quarter of a minute he was drenched to the skin. So fiercely it went howling inland along the ridge that he half-expected to see the horse urged into a gallop before it. But the rider, now standing high for a moment against the sky-line, went plodding on. For a while horse and rider disappeared over the rise; but Taffy guessed that on hitting the cross-path beyond, they would strike away to the left and descend toward Langona Creek; and he began to slant his course to the left in anticipation. The tide, he knew, would be running in strong; and with this wind behind it he hoped—and caught himself praying—that it would be high enough to cover the wooden footbridge and make the ford impassable; and if so, the horseman would be delayed and forced to head back and fetch a circuit farther up the valley.

By this time the squalls were coming fast on each other's heels and the strength of them flung him forward at each stride. He had lost his hat, and the rain poured down his back and squished in his boots. But all he felt was the hate in his heart. It had gathered there little by little for three years and a half, pent up, fed by his silent thoughts as a reservoir by small mountain-streams; and with so tranquil a surface that at times—poor youth!—he had honestly believed it reflected God's calm, had been proud of his magnanimity, and said "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." Now as he ran he prayed to the same God to delay the traitor at the ford.

Dusk was falling when George, yet unaware of pursuit, turned down the sunken lane which ended beside the ford. And by the shore, when the small waves lapped against his mare's fore-feet, he heard Taffy's shout for the first time and turned in his saddle. Even so it was a second or two before he recognized the figure which came plunging down the low cliff on his left, avoiding a fall only by wild clutches at the swaying alder boughs.

"Hello!" he shouted, cheerfully. "Looks nasty, doesn't it?"

Taffy came down the beach, near enough to see that the mare's legs were plastered with mud, and to look up into his enemy's face.

"Get down," he panted.

"Hey?"

"Get down, I tell you. Come off your horse, and put up your fists."

"What the devil is the matter? Hello!... Keep off, I tell you! Are you mad?"

"Come off and fight."

"By God, I'll break your head in if you don't let go.... You idiot!"—as the mare plunged and tore the stirrup-leather from Taffy's grip—"She'll brain you, if you fool round her heels like that!"

"Come off, then."

"Very well." George backed a little, swung himself out of the saddle and faced him on the beach. "Now perhaps you'll explain."

"You've come from the headland?"

"Well?"

"From Lizzie Pezzack's."

"Well, and what then?"

"Only this, that so sure as you've a wife at home, if you come to the headland again, I'll kill you; and if you're a man, you'll put up your fists now."

"Oh, that's it? May I ask what you have to do with my wife, or with Lizzie Pezzack?"

"Whose child is Lizzie's?"

"Not yours, is it?"

"You said so once; you told your wife so; liar that you were."

"Very good, my gentleman. You shall have what you want. Woa, mare!" He led her up the beach and sought for a branch to tie his reins to. The mare hung back, terrified by the swishing of the whipped boughs and the roar of the gale overhead; her hoofs, as George dragged her forward, scuffled with the loose-lying stones on the beach. After a minute he desisted and turned on Taffy again.

"Look here; before we have this out there's one thing I'd like to know. When you were at Oxford, was Honoria maintaining you there?"

"If you must know—yes."

"And when—when this happened, she stopped the supplies."

"Yes."

"Well, then, I didn't know it. She never told me."

"She never told _me_."

"You don't say——"

"I do. I never knew it until too late."

"Well, now, I'm going to fight you. I don't swallow being called a liar. But I tell you this first, that I'm damned sorry. I never guessed that it injured your prospects."

At another time, in another mood, Taffy might have remembered that George was George, and heir to Sir Harry's nature. As it was, the apology threw oil on the flame.

"You cur! Do you think it was _that_? And _you_ are Honoria's husband!" He advanced with an ugly laugh. "For the last time, put up your fists."

They had been standing within two yards of each other; and even so, shouted at the pitch of their voices to make themselves heard above the gale. As Taffy took a step forward George lifted his whip. His left hand held the bridle on which the reluctant mare was dragging, and the action was merely instinctive, to guard against sudden attack.

But as he did so his face and uplifted arm were suddenly painted clear against the darkness. The mare plunged more wildly than ever. Taffy dropped his hands and swung round. Behind him, behind the black contour of the hill, the whole sky welled up a pale blue light which gathered brightness while he stared.

The very stones on the beach at his feet shone separate and distinct.

"What is it?" George gasped.

"A ship on the rocks! Quick, man! Will the mare reach to Innis?"

"She'll have to." George wheeled her round. She was fagged out with two long gallops after hounds that day, but for the moment sheer terror made her lively enough.

"Ride, then! Call up the coast-guard. By the flare she must be somewhere off the creek here. Ride!"

A clatter of hoofs answered him as the mare pounded up the lane.

XXV

THE WRECK OF THE SAMARITAN

Taffy stood for a moment listening. He judged the wreck to be somewhere on the near side of the light-house, between it and the mouth of the creek; that was, if she had already struck. If not, the gale and the set of the tide together would be sweeping her eastward, perhaps right across the mouth of the creek. And if he could discover this, his course would be to run back, intercept the coast-guard and send them around by the upper bridge.

He waited for a second signal to guide him—a flare or a rocket; but none came. The beach lay in the lew of the weather, deep in the hills' hollow and trebly landlocked by the windings of the creek; but above him the sky kept its screaming as though the bare ridges of the headland were being shelled by artillery.

He resolved to keep along the lower slopes and search his way down to the creek's mouth, when he would have sight of any signal shown along the coast for a mile or two to the east and northeast. The night was now as black as a wolf's throat; but he knew every path and fence. So he scrambled up the low cliff and began to run, following the line of stunted oaks and tamarisks which fenced it; and on the ridges—where the blown hail took him in the face—crouching and scuttling like a crab, sideways, moving his legs only from the knees down.

In this way he had covered half a mile and more when his right foot plunged in a rabbit hole and he was pitched headlong into the tamarisks below. Their boughs bent under his weight; but they were tough, and he caught at them and just saved himself from rolling over into the black water. He picked himself up and began to rub his twisted ankle. And at that instant, in a lull between two gusts, his ear caught the sound of splashing—yet a sound so unlike the lapping of the driven tide that he peered over and down between the tamarisk boughs.

"Hullo there!"

"Hullo!" a voice answered. "Is that someone alive? Here, mate—for Christ's sake!"

"Hold on! Whereabouts are you?"

"Down in this here cruel water." The words ended in a shuddering cough.

"Right—hold on a moment!" Taffy's ankle pained him, but the wrench was not serious. The cliff shelved easily. He slid down, clutching at the tamarisk boughs which whipped his face. "Where are you? I can't see."

"Here!" The voice was not a dozen yards away.

"Swimming?"

"No—I've got a water-breaker—can't hold on much longer."

"I believe you can touch bottom there."

"Hey? I can't hear."

"Try to touch bottom. It's firm sand hereabouts."

"So I can." The splashing and coughing came nearer, came close. Taffy stretched out a hand. A hand, icy-cold, fumbled and gripped it in the darkness.

"Christ! Where's a place to lie down?"

"Here, on this rock." They peered at each other, but could not see. The man's teeth chattered close to Taffy's ear.

"Warm my hands, mate—there's a good chap." He lay on the rock and panted. Taffy took his hands and began to rub them briskly.

"Where's the ship?"

"Where's the ship?" He seemed to turn over the question in his mind, and then stretched himself with a sigh. "How the hell should I know?"

"What's her name?" Taffy had to ask the question twice.

"The Samaritan of Newport, brigantine. Coals she carried. Ha'n't you such a thing as a match? It seems funny to me, talkin' here like this, and me not knowin' you from Adam."

He panted between the words, and when he had finished, lay back and panted again.

"Hurt?" asked Taffy, after a while.

The man sat up and began to feel his limbs, quite as though they belonged to some other body. "No, I reckon not."

"Then we'd best be starting. The tide's rising. My house is just above here."

He led the way along the slippery foreshore until he found what he sought, a foot-track slanting up the cliff. Here he gave the sailor a hand and they mounted together. On the grass slope above they met the gale and were forced to drop on their hands and knees and crawl, Taffy leading and shouting instructions, the sailor answering each with "Ay, ay, mate!" to show that he understood.

But about half way up, these answers ceased, and Taffy, looking round and calling, found himself alone. He groped his way back for twenty yards, and found the man stretched on his face and moaning.

"I can't ... I can't! My poor brother! I can't!"

Taffy knelt beside him on the soaking turf. "Your brother? Had you a brother on board?"

The man bowed his face again upon the turf. Taffy, upright on both knees, heard him sobbing like a child in the roaring darkness.

"Come," he coaxed; and putting out a hand touched his wet hair. "Come—." They crept forward again; but still as he followed, the sailor cried for his drowned brother; up the long slope to the ridge of the headland where, with the light-house and warm cottage windows in view, all speech and hearing were drowned by stinging hail and the blown grit of the causeway.

Humility opened the door to them.

"Taffy! Where have you been?"

"There has been a wreck."

"Yes, yes—the coast-guard is down by the light-house. The men there saw her before she struck. They kept signalling till it fell dark. They had sent off before that."

She drew back, shrinking against the dresser as the lamplight fell on the stranger. Taffy turned and stared, too. The man's face was running with blood; and looking at his own hands he saw that they also were scarlet.

He helped the poor wretch to a chair.

"Bandages—can you manage?" She nodded, and stepped to a cupboard. The sailor began to wail like an infant.

"See—above the temple here: the cut isn't serious." Taffy took down a lantern and lit it. The candle shone red through the smears his fingers left on the horn panes. "I must go and help, if you can manage."

"I can manage," she answered, quietly.

He strode out, and closing the door behind him with an effort, faced the gale again. Down in the lee of the light-house the lamps of the coast-guard carriage gleamed foggily through the rain. The men were there discussing, and George among them. He had just galloped up.

The Chief Officer went off to question the survivor, while the rest began their search. They searched all that night; they burned flares and shouted; their torches dotted the cliffs. After an hour the Chief Officer returned. He could make nothing of the sailor, who had fallen silly from exhaustion or the blow on his head; but he divided his men into three parties, and they began to hunt more systematically. Taffy was told off to help the westernmost gang and search the rocks below the light-house. Once or twice he and his comrades paused in their work, hearing, as they thought, a cry for help. But when they listened, it was only one of the other parties hailing.

The gale began to abate soon after midnight, and before dawn had blown itself out. Day came filtered slowly through the wrack of it to the southeast; and soon they heard a whistle blown, and there on the cliff above them was George Vyell on horseback, in his red coat, with an arm thrown out and pointing eastward. He turned and galloped off in that direction.

They scrambled up and followed. To their astonishment, after following the cliffs for a few hundred yards, he headed inland, down and across the very slope up which Taffy had crawled with the sailor.

They lost sight of his red coat among the ridges. Two or three—Taffy amongst them—ran along the upper ground for a better view.

"Well, this beats all!" panted the foremost.

Below them George came into view again, heading now at full gallop for a group of men gathered by the shore of the creek, a good half-mile from its mouth. And beyond—midway across the sandy bed where the river wound—lay the hull of a vessel, high and dry; her deck, naked of wheel-house and hatches, canted toward them as if to cover from the morning the long wounds ripped by her uprooted masts.

The men beside him shouted and ran on, but Taffy stood still. It was monstrous—a thing inconceivable—that the seas should have lifted a vessel of three hundred tons and carried her half a mile up that shallow creek. Yet there she lay. A horrible thought seized him. Could she have been there last night when he had drawn the sailor ashore? And had he left four or five others to drown close by, in the darkness? No, the tide at that hour had scarcely passed half-flood. He thanked God for that.

Well, there she lay, high and dry, with plenty to attend to her. It was time for him to discover the damage done to the light-house plant and machinery, perhaps to the building itself. In half an hour the workmen would be arriving.

He walked slowly back to the house, and found Humility preparing breakfast.

"Where is he?" Taffy asked, meaning the sailor. "In bed?"

"Didn't you meet him? He went out five minutes ago—I couldn't keep him—to look for his brother, he said."

Taffy drank a cupful of tea, took up a crust, and made for the door.

"Go to bed, dear," his mother pleaded. "You must be worn out."

"I must see how the works have stood it."

On the whole, they had stood it well. The gale, indeed, had torn away the wire cable and cage, and thus cut off for the time all access to the outer rock; for while the sea ran at its present height the scramble out along the ridge could not be attempted even at low water. But from the cliff he could see the worst. The waves had washed over the building, tearing off the temporary covers, and churning all within. Planks, scaffolding—everything floatable—had gone, and strewed the rock with match-wood; and—a marvel to see—one of his two heaviest winches had been lifted from inside, hurled clean over the wall, and lay collapsed in the wreckage of its cast-iron frame. But, so far as he could see, the dove-tailed masonry stood intact. A voice hailed him.

"What a night! What a night!"

It was old Pezzack, aloft on the gallery of the light-house in his yellow oilers, already polishing the lantern-panes.

Taffy's workmen came straggling and gathered about him. They discussed the damage together but without addressing Taffy; until a little pock-marked fellow, the wag of the gang, nudged a mate slyly and said aloud:

"By God, Bill, we _can_ build a bit—you and me and the boss!"

All the men laughed; and Taffy laughed, too, blushing. Yes; this had been in his mind. He had measured his work against the sea in its fury, and the sea had not beaten him.

A cry broke in upon their laughter. It came from the base of the cliff to the right—a cry so insistent that they ran toward it in a body.

Far below them, on the edge of a great bowlder which rose from the broken water and seemed to overhang it, stood the rescued sailor. He was pointing.

Taffy was the first to reach him.

"It's my brother! It's my brother Sam!"

Taffy flung himself full length on the rock and peered over. A tangle of ore-weed awash rose and fell about its base; and from under this, as the frothy waves drew back, he saw a man's ankle protruding, and a foot still wearing a shoe.

"It's my brother!" wailed the sailor again. "I can swear to the shoe of en!"

XXVI

SALVAGE

One of the masons lowered himself into the pool, and thrusting an arm beneath the ore-weed, began to grope.

"He's pinned here. The rock's right on top of him."

Taffy examined the rock. It weighed fifteen tons if an ounce; but there were fresh and deep scratches upon it. He pointed these out to the men, who looked and felt them with their hands and stared at the subsiding waves, trying to bring their minds to the measure of the spent gale.

"Here, I must get out of this!" said the man in the pool, as a small wave dashed in and sent its spray over his bowed shoulders.

"You ban't going to leave en," wailed the sailor. "You ban't going to leave my brother Sam."

He was a small, fussy man, with red whiskers; and even his sorrow gave him little dignity. The men were tender with him.

"Nothing to be done till the tide goes back."

"But you won't leave en? Say you won't leave en! He've a wife and three childern. He was a saved man, sir, a very religious man; not like me, sir. He was highly respected in the neighborhood of St. Austell. I shouldn't wonder if the newspapers had a word about en...." The tears were running down his face.

"We must wait for the tide," said Taffy, gently, and tried to lead him away, but he would not go. So they left him to watch and wait while they returned to their work.

Before noon they recovered and fixed the broken wire cable. The iron cradle had disappeared, but to rig up a sling and carry out an endless line was no difficult job, and when this was done Taffy crossed over to the island rock and began to inspect damages. His working gear had suffered heavily, two of his windlasses were disabled, scaffolding, platforms, hods, and loose planks had vanished; a few small tools only remained mixed together in a mash of puddled lime. But the masonry stood unhurt, all except a few feet of the upper course on the seaward side, where the gale, giving the cement no time to set, had shaken the dove-tailed stones in their sockets—a matter easily repaired.

Shortly before three a shout recalled them to the mainland. The tide was drawing toward low water, and three of the men set to work at once to open a channel and drain off the pool about the base of the big rock. While this was doing, half a dozen splashed in with iron bars and pickaxes; the rest rigged two stout ropes with tackles, and hauled. The stone did not budge. For more than an hour they prized and levered and strained. And all the while the sailor ran to and fro, snatching up now a pick and now a crowbar, now lending a hand to haul and again breaking off to lament aloud.

The tide turned, the winter dark came down, and at half-past four Taffy gave the word to desist. They had to hold back the sailor, or he would have jumped in and drowned beside his brother.