Page:Weird Tales Volume 44 Number 7 (1952-11).djvu/21

 Moira laughed. She felt gay and triumphant.

"Not a bit of it, Mrs. Bunty! Run along home to your family! I'm off for a walk along the cliff."

Mrs. Bunty took one step toward her. Her eyes held Moira's.

"Madam—don't take that dog with you! Whatever you do, promise me you'll not take that dog with you—or here I stay!"

Moira wanted to laugh. Mrs. Bunty was so terribly in earnest.

"All right, then—I promise. I'll lock the door behind me."

But when Mrs. Bunty had gone, her mood was a little deflated. The house was so very quiet. From the window she could see the lurid sunset. The water shone crimson as blood among the rocks.

I will go for a swim, she thought suddenly. Charles is an old granny, but he needn't know'. After all, I can swim.

A few minutes later she was slipping down the rocky path in her swim suit, fastening her rubber cap. From the house behind her came a sharp, angry barking, and she laughed aloud. Silence followed, and then as she was almost down to the pool there was again the familiar sound of padding footsteps behind her.

"Oh, bother!" Moira said, under her breath. "Jet's jumped through the window!"

For a moment she stood undecided, while on sky and water the crimson stillness deepened. Should she go back to the house and lock Jet more securely? She seemed almost to hear the housekeeper's warning voice again, with that note of curious urgency.

Then she shrugged and laughed, turning once more to the sea, as Jet came down the rocks behind her. It was really rather funny. She looked back at the dog with amusement.

"I'm sure you're waiting, dear, for me to commit suicide too. What a hope! I can swim, you know!"

Silent, indifferent, the dog followed.

When Moira had squeezed through the twin rocks that held the entrance to the cove, Jet sat down between them, her body blocking the passage. The overcast sky, fiercely lit by an angry sun, was red.

OIRA slid into the water, gasping at the coldness of it. The surf was rougher and stronger than she had expected, but she found it exhilarating and rolled over in the water, gasping with delight. The little pool was quite deep, the tide still coming in fast.

There in the narrow confines of the rocks the waves seemed to break with intensified force.

"I should have expected that," she thought, clinging for a moment to a rock while she got her breath. The red of the sky was fading, but the water was still like blood. "A fine idiot I'll look if a wave bangs me against a rock and bashes my silly head in!"

In a lull between waves, she loosed her hold on the rock and began swimming toward the passage. Jet still sat there impassively, silhouetted against the sky.

Moira cast an uneasy glance over her shoulder. That big wave was rushing in fast—best grab on to something—no, there was nothing to grasp—faster, faster! She could feel the swell of it beneath her, lifting her up like a feather—and then cried out in pain and fright as the wave hurled her against the sheer rock wall of the inner cove.

For a moment she lost consciousness. When she came to, choking and spluttering, she was clinging desperately to a tiny spar of rock near the water's edge. Her side was numb; there was a sickening pain in her head. The pool had faded to gray now, but around her the water was red. Dizzily, she tried to shake the water from her eyes. It was blood.

The passage. She must get to the passage, drag herself somehow over the rocks and home. Bracing herself with one hand against the sheer rock, she made a weak essay to swim with the other. Her arm hung limp and lifeless beside her.

For one instant, in a lull between waves, she thought dizzily, she heard someone calling.

"Charles!" she screamed, but her voice was drowned in the roar of the incoming surf.

With her one hand she clawed at the rock wall, feebly pushed against it with one