CHAPTER IV

WATER THAT SWELLS AND SUCKS

Who is so vile a coward that one weaker than himself, in worse distress, shall not arrest his cowardice? Who that has given love so lost in fear as not to love anew, amain, when out of peril his love is called? Who so base then not to lose in gladness what held his soul in dread?

First Mr. Puddlebox only stared. Water that takes your breath had taken his. Water that takes your breath rose in a thin film over the rock where on his face he lay, passed beneath his body, chilled him anew, and took his breath again. He watched it ooze from under him and spread before him: lip upwards where he faced it and ooze beneath his hands. Then gave his eyes again towards the cave.

Who is so vile a coward? Mr. Puddlebox's teeth chattered with his body's frozen chill: worse, worse, with terror of what he had escaped--God, when that sucking water sucked!--fast, faster with that worse horror he besought heaven "not after that" should overtake him. Who so vile, so base? Ah, then that piteous thing that lay before his eyes! in shape so odd, so ugly--broken? dead? Whom he had seen so wild, so eager? who child had been to him and treated as a child? Who first and only in all these years of sin had looked to him for aid, for counsel, strength? Who must have fought this filthy, cruel, silent, sucking water, and fighting it have called him, wanted him? Ah!

Who is so vile? "Loony," Mr. Puddlebox whispered. "Loony! Hey, boy!"

He only whispered. He did not dare a cry that should demand an answer--and demanding, no answer bring. "Hey, boy! Loony!" He tried to raise his voice. He dared not raise it. Anew and thicker now the water filmed the rock about him. Here was death: well, there was death--that piteous thing....

Then change! Then out of death life! Then gladness out of dread! Then joy's tumult as one beside a form beneath a sheet should see the dead loved move.

About the slipway, as he watched, he saw the swelling water, as if with sudden impulse, swell over Mr. Wriford's boots, run to his knees, and in response the prone figure move--the shoulders raise as if to drag the body: raise very feebly and very feebly drop as if the oddly twisted legs were chained.

Feebly--ah, but in sign of life! Revulsion from fear to gladness brought Mr. Puddlebox scrambling to his feet and upright upon them. To a loud cry there would be answer then! Loudly he challenged it. "Loony!" cried Mr. Puddlebox, his voice athrill. "Hey, boy, what's wrong? I'm coming to you, boy!"

It was a groan that answered him.

"Are you hurt, boy?"

There answered him: "Oh, for God's sake--oh, for God's sake!"

"Why, that's my loony!" cried Mr. Puddlebox in a very loud voice. "Hold on, boy! I'm coming to you!"

Excitedly, in excited gladness his terrors bound up, quickly as he could, catching at his breath as his fears caught him, stifling them in jolly shouts of: "Hold on for me, boy! Why, here I come, boy, this very minute!" he started to make his way, excitedly pursued it.

"Hold on for me, boy!" The cliff along the wall of the inlet against which he stood shelved downwards into the dark, still sea. "Here I come, boy!" He went on his face on the table rock and with his legs felt in the water beneath him and behind him. "Hold on for me, boy!" His feet found a ridge, and he lowered himself to it and began to feel his way along it, his hands against the cliff, above his waist the still, dark sea. "Here I come, boy! This very minute!"

So he cried: so he came--deeper, and now his perils rose to fight what brought him on. Deeper--the water took his breath. "Here I come, boy!" Stumbled--thought himself gone, knew as it were an icy hand thrust in his vitals from the depths, clutching his very heart. "I'm to you now, boy. Here--" Terror burst in a cry to his mouth. He changed it to "Whoa!" He was brought by the ridge on which he walked to a point opposite what of the slipway before the cave stood dry. The ridge ended abruptly. He had almost gone beyond it, almost slipped and gone, almost screamed.

"Whoa!" said Mr. Puddlebox. "Hold on for me, boy!" He took his hands from the cliff and faced about where Mr. Wriford lay. Shaken, he felt his way lower. God, again! Again his foothold terminated! Abruptly he could feel his way no more. Like a hand, like a hand at his throat, the water caught his breath. "Hold on for me, boy!" His voice was thick. "Hold on for me, boy!" Clear again, but he stood, stood, and where he stood the water swayed him. Here the cliff base seemed to drop. Here the depths waited him. Facing his feet he knew must be the wall of the slipway. No more than a long stride--ah, no more! If he launched himself and threw himself, his foot must strike it, his arms come upon its surface where that figure lay. Only a long stride. What, when he made it, if no foothold offered? What if he missed, clutched, fell? He looked across the narrow space. Only that spring's distance that figure lay, its face turned from him. He listened. The silence ached, tingled all about him. Suddenly it gave him from the figure the sound of breathing that came and went in moans.

Who is so vile a coward? Swiftly Mr. Puddlebox crouched, nerved, braced himself to spring. Ah, swifter thrust his mind, and bright as flame and fierce as flame, as a flame shouting, flamed flaming vision before his starting eyes. He saw himself leap. He saw himself clutch, falling--God, he could feel his finger-nails rasp and split!--fallen, gone: rising to gulp and scream, sinking to suffocate and gulp and writhe and rise and scream and gulp and sink and go. Like flame, like flame, the vision leapt--upstreaming from the water, shouting in his ears. Thrice he crouched to spring; thrice like flame the vision thundered: thrice passed as flame that bursts before the wind: thrice left him to the stillness, the sucking water, the sound of moaning breath. A fourth time, a last time: ah, now was gone the very will to bring himself to crouch!

He stood a moment, vacant, only trembling. His senses fluttered back to him, and gone, so they informed him, something that before their flight had occupied them. What? In his shaken state he was again a vacant space searching for it before he realised. Then he knew. There was no sound of breathing....

Trembling he listened for it, staring at the figure. Still; there was no sound. Suddenly he heard it. Dreadfully it came. Feebly, a moaning inspiration: stillness again--then a very little sigh, very gentle, very tiny, and the prone figure quivered, relaxed.

Dead? Again, as on the table rock, afraid to call aloud, "Loony!" Mr. Puddlebox whispered. "Hey, boy!"

No answer. Swelling about him came the creeping water, swayed him, swelled and swayed again: high to his chest, higher now and moving him--moving, sucking, drawing. Here was death: ah, well, wait a moment, for there was death--that piteous thing face downwards there. He spoke softly: "Hey, boy, are you gone?" The water rocked him. He cried brokenly, loudly: "Loony! Are you gone, boy?"

Again, again, life out of death, joy's tumult out of fear!

He saw Mr. Wriford draw down his arms, press on his elbows, raise, then turn towards him his face, most dreadfully grey, most dreadfully drawn in pain.

Who so vile, so base?

Swift, swift revulsion to gladness out of dread. "Why, that's my loony!" cried Mr. Puddlebox in a very loud voice.

Mr. Wriford said: "Have you come?"

"Why, here I am, boy!" He steadied his feet.

Very feebly, scarcely to be heard: "I don't see you."

"Why, there's no more than my nob to be seen, boy! I'm here to my nob in the water." His feet were firm. He braced himself. "I'm to you, boy, and I'm in the most plaguy place as I challenge any man ever to have been." He crouched. "I've to jump, boy, and how to the devil--"

He launched himself. His foot struck the slipway bank--no hold! Smooth rock, and his foot glanced down it! He had thought to spring upward from what purchase his foot might find. It found none. Clutching as he fell, he obtained no more than his arms upon the shingle of the slipway, his chin upon it, his elbows thrusting deep, his fingers clutching in the yielding stones.

"Loony!" Mr. Puddlebox cried. "Loony!"

He slipped further. He suddenly screamed: "Loony, I'm going! Christ, I'm going!"

His face, in line with Mr. Wriford's, two arm's-lengths from it, was dreadfully distorted, his lips wide, his teeth grinding. He choked between them: "Can you help me, boy?"

Mr. Wriford was trying to help him. Mr. Wriford was working towards him on his elbows, his face twisted in agony. As he came, "My legs are broken," he said. "I'll reach you. I'll reach you."

Eye to eye and dreadfully eyed they stared one upon the other. A foot's breadth between them now, and now their fingers almost touching.

"I'm done, boy! Christ, I'm done!" But with the very cry, and with his hand so near to Mr. Wriford's slipped again beyond it, Mr. Puddlebox had sudden change of voice, sudden gleam in the eyes that had stood out in horror. "Curse me, I'm not!" cried Mr. Puddlebox. "Curse me, I've bested it. I've found a hole for my foot. Ease up, boy. I'm to you. By God, I'm to you after all!"

Groan that was prayer of thanks came from Mr. Wriford. Fainting, his head dropped forward on his hands. There was tremendous commotion in the water as Mr. Puddlebox sprang up it from his foothold, thrashing it with his legs as, chest upon the shingle, he struggled tremendously. Then he drew himself out and on his knees, dripping, and bent over Mr. Wriford.

"I'm to you now, boy! You're all right now. Boy, you're all right now."

The swelling water swelled with new impulse up the shingle, washed him where he knelt, ran beneath Mr. Wriford's face, and trickled in the stones beyond it.

Mr. Puddlebox looked back upon it over his shoulder. He could not see the table rock where he had lain. Only the pulpit rock upstood, and deep and black the channel on either hand between it and the walls of their inlet. He looked within the cave mouth before him and could see its inner face. It was no more than a shallow hollowing by the sea. He looked upwards and saw the cliff towering into the night, overhanging as it mounted.

He passed his tongue about his lips.