Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17.djvu/68

60 out, "what lies yonder, George? It might be Death's world, I think!"

The fisherman's arm shook, he fancied; but he answered steadily, in his usual piping, weak tones,—

"It don't matter whether it's God's world or the Devil's world, as I see, so long as it kin send ashore a grip on us like that,"—glancing down at his feet, where Jacobus saw the yellow, flaky foam curling up from under the sand. He stooped leisurely to examine it.

"What does this portend?" he asked.

"God! it be the tide, man," shrieked out Cathcart, with an oath. "Can't you see that it's broken over the topmost boundaries? You be standing now above the level of your own house."

One swift, sharp glance was enough to waken him into real life out of his vague dreams. The man, nervous and fierce, that had been smothered in the unable bookworm so long, sprang up to cope with the sudden death that faced him.

"You be too late!" he heard Cathcart's shrill cry, as he fought his way through the surging surf; and at the same moment there was a heavy crash,—where, he could not see.

The fog blinded him; the sand, driven by the resistless wind, cut his skin, penetrated his eyes and nostrils; while higher and higher, as he waded on, the muddy water crept up his body, slimy and cold, and tangling his feet in its undertow of kelp. There was a weight on his chest which strangled him when he tried to cry aloud.—No matter; the next headland passed and the house would be gained.

She was there, standing on a heap of fallen stone, her white night-dress torn and muddied by the rocks and branches which the water swept by her. Jacobus wondered if that were the house whose ruins curdled the dull sweep of water beneath her; then the thought of his wife blotted out all besides. Around her was a creeping, seething stream, widening each moment; he did not see how deep it was, nor that the unsteady pile of stones on which she had climbed was crumbling into it. He threw off Lufflin's coat and his shoes, calling out almost joyously to her, so fierce was the new strength in his muscles, and the passion in his heart.

"Sois tranquille!" he shouted. "Lotty! It is I who comes! I go to swim!"

She never heard the words, it is probable, for only a faint cry reached him, of which he distinguished nothing; but he saw her hand waving him back, and laughed.

"Poor child! she thinks to die, and stupid old Jerome so near! Foolish Sharley!"

But the water weighed him down already, as he struggled ignorantly in it, his gaunt limbs floundering, the tender smile yet on his bony face; it cramped his arms, closed over his head: with a groping wrench he recovered his footing, and breast-high in the rising tide looked at her.

"It is I who comes, Sharley!" he shouted, fiercely. "Wife! wife!" The old English word meant so much to him at that moment!

Whether hours or minutes passed in that struggle he never knew; but at its close he lay washed, like a poor wisp of weed, upon the shore. The stream between them, which he never should pass, deepened, deepened: it licked her feet now, her knees. She stretched out her hands to him,—whether for help, or to say good-bye, he never knew.

He made no sign in reply. Her face was turned to him, not heeding the death at her feet,—the thin face set in its iron-gray hair, with the beauty of all those years of love upon it, the same wistful smile on it with which it looked at him across the fire on winter evenings;—and he was to sit there, unmanned, impotent, helpless, to watch the slow death creep up to her lips, her eyes?

He lifted one hand feebly to his chest, with a dull hope of crushing out the faint life beating uselessly there; then, with a desperate clutch on the sand, struggled towards the water.

"I go to swim! Sharley! Sharley!" he cried, and that was all.