Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/70

60 The sight of the sea had a strange fascination for her, and she could not tear herself away. It was autumn. The day had been sultry and oppressive. The crimson sun had sunk into the sea without a cloud to veil his retreat. Not a breath of wind had cooled the parched air. The sea was smooth and oily. It rose and fell in long unbroken heavings in the offing. In-shore it was still and calm, without a ripple on its surface.

The mother watched the rising of the moon, watched it light up the silent scene with a ghastly radiance, and at last shut herself in her room.

She had lain long awake, and had at last sunk into an uneasy slumber, when she was roused by hearing cries as of a vessel in distress. She fancied she was dreaming. There could be no wreck on a night so calm. She turned her head to sleep. Again the cries broke on her ear. She started up to assure herself of her delusion. Hastily flinging on some scanty clothing, she ran to the door, and looked out from the very spot on which I stood.

The moon was still shining coldly and clearly on the sea. The scene was still unruffled. But the sea had gone down. She ran towards the brink of the water, and soon saw that she was not alone upon the sand. Old Manon le Roy was gazing eagerly seaward. Widow Nodier was imploring a group of three or four sailors to haul down a boat and pull out behind the rocks where now the fort was standing. Thérèse Fanjeaux was hurrying her brother down to the sea. Altogether some score of people were gathered on the beach. It was not only Madame Barjac who heard the cries. It was evident that they were no figment of her brain. No, in truth, they were only too real; for hark! once more came that sad sound, “nearer, clearer, deadlier than before,” the sound of men shouting shrilly in extremity of peril.

The cries seemed to come from close in-shore. Every eye on the sands was gazing intently to seaward, but gazing in vain. Down from the dark slate-coloured heaven of a clear night the moon poured a flood of light which was scarcely broken as it fell upon the sea, so calm was the unrippled surface. Far out to sea a broken spar would not have floated by unseen on such a night. But no floating thing could be descried. The sea was a desert.

Then again the shout of distress rang through the air. And so near was it that different voices could be clearly distinguished. They sounded through a dismal accompaniment, the loud clap of rent canvas, the crash of shivered woodwork, and the noise of angry breakers. Through all the din of wreck and wretchedness one voice was easily recognised. Commanding in no tremulous tones, exhorting to effort and endurance, at times even cheerful in the midst of peril, Madame Barjac knew her husband’s voice. The sounds came yet nearer. The band on the beach stood rooted to the place, gazing in wondering horror at the blank unruffled sea, listening in rapt attention to the ghostly din. Louder roared the shreds of sailcloth; louder crashed the wreck upon the rocks. And in every cadence of prayer and of despair the listeners heard the voices of their friends. A moment of yet louder noise, and the deep tones of the captain were silent. Then the tragedy seemed so near at hand, that Madame Barjac could distinguish even words. She heard old Thibaud le Roy’s rough tones commanding in the stead of the deeper voice that was still. Then came the loudest crash of all. Madame Barjac heard distinctly a childish voice call “Mother! mother!” She knew the cry of her last-born and her dearest boy, and swooned away.

“Ah, Monsieur! I have lost them all; but I shall find them again. For so many years I have thought of them on this day up there,” and she pointed towards the church. “Soon the Holy Virgin and the good God will make me to rejoin them. You do not believe me, Monsieur? You think that I recount to you a dream! Was it a dream? Unhappily a dream which came true. But that was no dream. Monsieur can ask of the Widow Nodier; or of old Manon le Roy; or go to Thérèse Nodier, who lives in the third house from the—ah! what say I? They are dead—they are all dead. I alone—I stay yet.

“Monsieur will not perhaps believe. But all the world knew the history. Now it is I only who live to tell it. Monsieur will guess the rest?”

Then she told me how she was carried to her home again: how, when she was once more conscious, she talked of all that had happened with those who had seen as well as herself: how the time that elapsed between her rushing to the shore and her fainting fit could not have been more than five minutes; how of the neighbours some laughed, some wondered, and all doubted; how all those whom the mystic cries had summoned to the sand doubted nothing, but waited hopelessly for the confirmation of what they already knew.

It was long before the confirmation came. Many weeks went by, and nothing was heard of the fate of the Belle Marie, till one day all Orbec was roused by the arrival of Jacques Nodier. He (the sole survivor) told the tale of the Belle Marie’s ill-starred voyage. Her journey had been very profitable. The skipper’s coffers were well filled with English gold. They were sailing merrily homeward, when a strong north-east wind began to blow, and drove them on the lee-shore. The little vessel went to pieces on the rocks of “Scarrebourre.” Much was done by the good English folk, but nothing that was of avail to save the ship or the crew. The captain was washed off the deck before the craft broke. Le Roy tried to get a rope to the shore, but the rocks were too steep, and the waves were too high. Little Jules was clinging to the wreck to the last. Jacques himself was tossed on a shelving rock, bruised and bloody, but alive. And all this happened on the north-east coast of England, on the very night on which the Orbec people had been awakened by the cries at sea.

Such was the story I heard from Madame Barjac. It differed from ordinary ghost stories in this. Most ghosts are seen by only one person. This was a vision seen—no; there was nothing seen; nothing but the calm sea. This was an illusion represented as having been carried through their sense of hearing to some score of persons. But these were all dead, with the exception of old Marie Barjac. “Is there not one of your