The Castle by the Sea/Chapter 20

OW can I picture to you the terror of that reaction! In the moment of our triumph, at the very instant that we had succeeded in getting upon the trail to the upper air and the beautiful world of light and sound, our hopes were dashed to flinders. The supply of oil had at given out. It had given no warning, but the flame had gone out with a single flicker. I uttered an oath for which surely I shall be pardoned; and Norroy, in the suddenness of the surprise, lost his footing and pitched heavily against me.

"The oil's gone!" I exclaimed tragically.

He recovered himself, and I heard him sit down in the darkness opposite to me.

"Damn it!" he remarked simply: and then, "What about the matches?"

I knew they were too few in number, but they were our only hope now. I struck one, and with all possible speed followed up the tracks till it went out. then I lit another, and repeated the operation, Norroy blowing hard behind me. There were six matches in all, and I succeeded in traversing some  fifty yards by their help. And then darkness once more, and this time darkness from which there was no possible relief, unmitigated deep darkness, and darkness in our hearts.

The first thing to secure was that we should keep together; and so it was arranged that we should call to each other constantly, to prevent any possibility of either going astray. Next, we resolved to move forward along the gallery in which we were by feeling on the walls. We proceeded perhaps a dozen yards in this way, and then the wall terminated under my hands, and I knew we had come to a cross track. Despair seized us. We had no means of telling in which direction we should move now, whether forward, or to right or to left; everything must go by blind chance.

"Let's try the right," said Norroy, and we tried it.

It harrows me even at this distance of time to look back upon that dreadful night in day and to recall the emotions to which we were subject. Norroy's matter-of-fact voice was at first of some assistance to one's nerves. It did not seem as if anything could be so far wrong with that placid temper beside one. And I think I felt his collapse, when it came, all the more. I had not looked for it, and it shocked me.

His voice ceased gradually and he sank into silence; and the silence imposed upon that maddening darkness seemed to reinforce our terrible condition. I spoke to him, and he did not answer. I called, fearing that he had moved away.... I put out my hand and it touched him.

"What is it?" he asked dully.

I don't think he had heard; he had sunk into apathy, almost into coma. My voice passed him as if he were inanimate, and it was only at my touch he woke.

"Don't let's lose heart!" I pleaded in dread. "If we do we are done for."

"I suppose," said Sir Gilbert, slowly, as if thinking. "I suppose starvation will do the trick. I'd sooner have that than the other,"

"What other?" I asked in a low and frightened voice.

"Well, look here," he said, "how much of this can you stand?"

"Probably as much of it as we shall have to," I answered rallying.

"No, you won't," he said slowly. "I 've had a bit. I know. I dare say you 'll stand it longer than I will."

"What are you afraid of?" I whispered again, in a terrible fascination.

"Going off my head," he returned in his dull tone. It was unlike the Norroy I knew. I was scared.

"Nonsense!" I protested weakly.

"I know," he said. "I 've had it. I 've been here ten days."

That he had not yet been there four days made the effect of his statement worse. I did not correct him. I had no heart. We sank into silence again.

I do not know, of course, how long I slept, but I know I fell off in the mercy of God, and when I woke I was afraid to speak lest I might awake a sleeping comrade. I sat still, therefore, my mind flowing drearily onwards. The awful moaning of the waters again filled the caverns. I fixed my thoughts on Perdita—Perdita in the light, Perdita with the sunshine playing on her bronze-gold hair, Perdita with her vivid rose face. I shut my eyes, as if to pretend that the darkness was only within me, and that the day was broad without, and the curtains of my vision parted and I saw Perdita. She was always in the light.

What I had loved first and always about Perdita was the sunshine of her face. Her presence lit up a room; she was radiant with color and brightness. I could see her now.... The wailing of the lost souls came up the rocky corridors. I shut my eyes tighter, and strove to close my ears to all but Perdita's voice. Sweet and low and infinitely various in its inflections it sounded in my ears. And I saw her dewy eyes, full of tenderness, under the inspiration of love. Was not this the day I was to go to Perdita and ask for Perdita's hand? I wondered what hour it was. It was time I was there for certain. I should, perhaps, be at this moment entering the little sitting-room at Mrs. Lane's.... Perdita rose from the window and came forward to meet me, silent, with no sound, but only with her eloquent face. I took her in my arms.

Somehow Miss Fuller entered the room, started and went back. She was ever a discreet woman, and I had given her a message for Perdita. I saw Miss Fuller's heap of parcels rolling in the dust again. I picked them up for her. There was an envelope with its contents strewn, and what was it—"Miss Rivers?" I wondered why.

Through a rift in my consciousness the voices of the damned and dying rolled in upon my soul. A groan sounded by me.

"Are you awake, Norroy?" I asked.

"I've never been asleep," he answered. "I was keeping quiet for you."

"And I for you," I replied. "But I have slept, and I wonder how long."

"I don't know," he answered. "All time's the same here. Is n't that sound awful?"

"Don't think of it," I enjoined. "Keep your mind going. think of something you value."

"I suppose it is all up with us, Brabazon," he said presently. "There is n't any chance."

"Only the chance of their relenting," I said, "and I suppose that is n't much. But we can go under with the flag flying, old chap,"

"Oh, yes," he assented listlessly, and then, "They must have seen your footmarks. I wonder what the devil it all means."

That reminded me. This patient creature was still in the dark as to the secret of the caves; and so I told him. To my astonishment he grew quite interested.

"Golly!" he exclaimed. "A copper mine! Who the deuce would have thought it! I say, Brabazon, if we did manage to squeeze out of this that would be all right for me, what?"

"Let us suppose we shall!" I suggested.

He laughed harshly. "All right. It won't do any harm. I 'll lend you a couple of thousand, old chap, if you want it."

"I can do with it," I said with alacrity, "and then we 'll take a holiday in the Pyrenees for the winter."

"It would n't be bad," he said. "They 've got damn good golf courses at Biarritz and Jean de Luz. But oh, hang it, what's the use. We 're cooked!" His odd mind reverted to the discovery. "Cunning beggar, that Naylor man. He's a real crook, I should think. Damn it, Brabazon, to think that I shan't be able to turn up at my case! We 'll be skeletons before that time. Oh, he's an artful beggar, and I 've been a silly cuckoo." I heard a sound and guessed he had got on his feet "Look here, old man, I'm not going to be diddled by these bounders. I'm  going to get out, what?"

"Excellent!" said I, glad to see his obstinate will stiffen. When it cooled in its mould there were few chances of breaking it.

"Come along," said he. "Let's have another shot it."

I rose, too, and together, keeping touch with each other, we made our last essay.

It was a gallant effort, and when we succumbed I recognized it was the end. But Norroy's temper was as unbending iron; he clung to his resolve with the tenacity of an animal at bay. Tired, weakened with his long incarceration, beaten to his knees, he still fought on.

"We 'll have a bit of a rest," he panted, "and then go on again."

We drank the last of the whiskey and sank down, and compassionate nature sent us the relief of sleep. The last thing of which I was conscious was the droning of the waters somewhere that we could not reach.

I was awakened by an odd sensation on my face which had sunk to the level of the sandy floor. I had a strange and ugly and broken nightmare, and I awoke to the lapping of water on my cheek. I put out an arm half unconsciously and it went into cold water. I started. I as fully awake. What was this? And then I knew. It was the tide!

I shook Norroy, who came to with difficulty, owing to his weakness, and told him of my discovery.

"The tide!" he cried. "Good Lord, then we 're—"

"Saved!" I ejaculated. "This is the high-water mark in the underground passages to which we have blundered in the darkness. If we wait now till the sea goes down, and follow it up as it retires we are bound to come out. God be thanked!"

"Bully!" cried Norroy, feebly. "Did n't I say we'd see it through, old man? Look here, where is it? Let me feel it."

He leaned eagerly forward and dabbled his hands in the wavelets that rippled in by our legs.

"I say, Brabazon," he said presently, "we 'll stick to that arrangement, my boy."

"What arrangement?" I asked, wondering at him.

"Why, about the two thousand quid, and the Pyrenees and so on. Look here, what do you think? Would the Harveys come?"

It was pleasant to talk thus, and I was almost as light of mind and heart as was he in the wonderful reaction.

"Yes, if you angled them properly," I said.

"You'd better," he said after a pause, "I'm not much of a pet with women."

"Why, I'm sure both Mrs. and Miss Harvey think a lot of you," I replied.

"Think so." he asked eagerly. "Does she really? Honest injun?"

I knew which he meant by his singular pronoun, and I reassured him of my sincerity, which profoundly delighted him. He began to draw up a wild scheme for future holidays in which the Harveys and myself were to participate. But he never mentioned Perdita. Oh, Sir Gilbert Norroy, dear, dull Englishman, was the most kindly and self-centered and stupid of men. But I let him talk; nay, I encouraged him to do so—and all the time the tide was turning.

It began to go down at last, and it ran out fast. Keeping one to each side of the passage, we pressed on, never losing touch of the miraculous water by a foot's width. Out ebbed the sea with a ripple and babble of water, and with every moment our hearts grew lighter and brighter.

We cared nothing now for tides and cross-roads and and exits and turnings. Our sightless eyes were fixed forward ever towards the receding sea, and step by step we tramped after it, telling one another of the upper world without and the light and the free breath of heaven.

And now I began to perceive a sensible loosening of the darkness. It grew lighter, as it were the darkness of the night when the dawn is coming up. I almost felt that I could make out the rocky walls by which we guided ourselves through the cavernous places. And foot by foot we were on our way towards the light.

The light! Yes, it was light to us, though the world above us was lying wrapped in deep night. I saw that much when we reached the inner cavern, and I could catch a glimpse of the blue-black sky without. The sea stole out reluctant into the outer cavern and we advanced with it. It hung there, as if loath to retreat farther; and beyond the mouth of the cave the wild water was roaring on the rocks. The sky, as I have said, was light to us, but in reality it was black with storm. The rain beat on the sea in sheets, and the wind blew out of heaven in a gale. We stood, waiting with incredible patience for the withdrawal of the tide beyond the cavern, which would give us access to the rocks and the face of the cliffs beyond.

And then between us and the sky-line, suddenly I was aware of something blacker, starker than the heaven.

"A boat! A boat!" cried Norroy, seizing my arm.

It was a boat under spirit sails, and it seemed to be riding across the face of the water in front of the cave.

"What is she doing in so close?" I asked aloud. "On such a night, and in such a storm what could induce men to take so great a risk?"

Has she been blown in perchance by the gale, a fisher boat from the channel? I strained my eyes to make out what I could, and after that terrible darkness of the caverns I was able to see more clearly than I otherwise should have done. Her bow appeared to be turned towards the cliff, and the rag of the sail blotted out the mast, but as she drove nearer in the storm a figure was visible clinging to the sheets. Behind that mass of black cloud I knew there was a moon somewhere lightening the general cast of the sky; and now through a jagged breach in heaven it showed, slight and silver, for a moment, and in that instant the boat, headed for the caves, bore down upon us, and was lit up from end to end. In the stem was a man struggling with the tiller in the draw and suck and maelstrom of the waters. But my eyes only dwelled on him momentarily; for the form in the prow arrested my attention. It was a woman's. She stood, with both hands upon the shrouds by her, hatless, with blown hair and blown gown, and even through the mist of rain and spray I knew her. I uttered a cry. It was Perdita, recognizable in every line of her body, recognizable in the poise of her head and neck, in the upward curve of her arms. For one instant she stood thus above the level of my fascinated gaze, a spirit of the storm, as it seemed, a wild sea-maiden out of the tempestuous waters. And the next the boat plunged, rode down upon the caverns, lurched and cracked like brittle china on the outlying rocks of the cliff. But more than that I saw not; for as she went down in the water, carrying my heart and life, I was aware of a dull pain in the head and consciousness left me.