Weird Tales volume 24 number 03 (21 page)

As the year wore on, Sarah became . more and more disturbed in her mind. Eric was always at hand to make love to her in his own persistent, masterful manner, and to this she did not object. Only one letter came from Abel, to say that his venture had proved successful, and that he had sent some two hundred pounds to the bank at Bristol, and was trading with fifty pounds still remaining in goods for China, whither the Star of the Sea was bound and whence she would return to Bristol. He suggested that Eric's share of the venture should be returned to him with his share of the profits. This proposition was treated with

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anger by Eric, and as simply childish by Sarah's mother.

More than six months had since then elapsed, bat no other letter had come, and Eric's hopes, which had been dashed down by the letter from Pahang, began to rise again. He perpetually assailed Sarah with an "if!" If Abel did not return, would she then marry him? If the 11th of April went by without Abel being in the port, would she give him over? If Abel had taken his fortune, and married another girl on the head of it, would she marry him, Eric, as soon as the trutii were known? And so on in an endless variety of possibilities.

The power of the strong will and the determined purpose over the woman's weaker nature became in time manifest. Sarah began to lose her faith in Abel and to regard Eric as a possible husband; and a possible husband is in a woman's eye different from all other men. A new affection for him began to arise in her breast, and the daily familiarities of permitted courtship furthered the growing affection. Sarah began to regard Abel as rather a rock in the road of her life, and had it not been for her mother's constantly reminding her of the good fortune already laid by in the Bristol bank she would have tried to shut her eyes altogether to the fact of Abel's existence.

The 11th of April was Saturday, so that in order to have the marriage on that day it would be necessary that the bans should be called on Sunday, the 22nd of March. From the beginning of that month Eric kept perpetually on the subject of Abel's absence, and his outspoken opinion that the latter was either dead or married began to become a reality to the woman's mind. As the first half of the month wore on, Eric became more jubilant, and after church on the 15th he took Sarah for a walk to the Flagstaff Rock.

There he asserted himself strongly:

"I told Abel, and you too, that if he was not here to put up his bans in time for the eleventh, I would put up mine for the twelfth. Now the time has come when I mean to do it. He hasn't kept his word "

Here Sarah struck in out of her weakness and indecision: "He hasn't broken it yet!"

Eric ground his teeth with anger. "If you mean to stick up for him," he said, as he smote his hands savagely on the flagstaff, which sent forth a shivering murmur, "well and good. I'll keep my part of the bargain. On Sunday I shall give notice of the bans, and you can deny them in the church if you will. If Abel is in Pencastle on the eleventh, he can have them canceled, and his own put up; but till then, I take my course, and wo to any one who stands in my way!"

With that he flung himself down the rocky pathway, and Sarah could not but admire his Viking strength and spirit, as crossing the hill, he strode away along the cliffs toward Bude.

During the week no news was heard of Abel, and on Saturday Eric gave notice of the bjAs of marriage between himself and Sarah Trefusis. The clergyman would have remonstrated with him, for although nothing formal had been told to the neighbors, it had been understood since Abel's departure that on his return he was to marry Sarah; hut Eric would not discuss the question.

"It is a painful subject, sir," he said with a firmness which the parson, who was a very young man, could not but be swayed by. "Surely there is nothing against Sarah or me. Why should there be any bones made about the matter?"

The parson said no more, and on the next day he read out the bans for die first time amidst an audible buzz from the

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congregation. Sarah was present, contrary to custom, and though she blushed furiously enjoyed her triumph over the other girls whose bans had not yet come.

Before the week was over she began to make her wedding dress. Eric used to come and look at her at work and the sight thrilled through him. He used to say ail sorts of pretty things to her at such times, and there were to both delicious moments of love-making.

The bans were read a second time on the 29th, and Eric's hope grew more and more fixed, though there were to him moments of acute despair when he realized that the cup of happiness might be dashed from his lips at any moment, right up to the last. At such times he was full of passion—desperate and remorseless—■ and he ground his teeth and clenched his hands in a wild way as though some taint of the Berserker fury of his ancestors still lingered in his blood. On the Thursday of that week he looked in on Sarah and found her, amid a flood of sunshine, putting finishing touches to her white wedding gown. His own heart was full of gayety, and the sight of the woman who was 50 soon to be his own so occupied, filled him with a joy unspeakable, and he felt faint with a languorous ecstasy. Bending over he kissed Sarah on the mouth, and then whispered in her rosy ear:

"Your wedding dress, Sarah! And for me!"

As he drew back to admire her she looked up saucily, and said to him: "Perhaps not for you. There is more than a week yet for Abel!" and then cried out in dismay, for with a wild gesture and a fierce oath Eric dashed out of the house, banging the door behind him.

The incident disturbed Sarah more than she could have thought possible, for it awoke all her fears and doubts and in-

decision afresh. She cried a little, and put by her dress, and to soothe herself went out to sit for a while on the summit of the Flagstaff Rock. When she arrived she found there a little group anxiously discussing the weather. The sea was calm and the sun bright, but across the sea were strange lines of darkness and light, and close in to shore the rocks were fringed with foam, which spread out in great white curves and circles as the currents drifted. The wind had backed, and came in sharp, cold puffs. The blow-hole, which ran under the Flagstaff Rock, from the rocky bay without to the Harbor within, was booming at intervals, and die sea-gulls were screaming ceaselessly as they wheeled about the entrance of the port.

"It looks bad," she heard an old fisherman say to the coast guard. "I seen it just like this once before, when the East Indiaman Coromandel went to pieces in Dizzard Bay!"

Sarah did not wait to hear more. She was of a timid nature where danger was concerned, and could not bear to hear of wrecks and disasters. She went home and resumed the completion of her dress, secretly determined to appease Eric when she should meet him with a sweet apology—and to take the earliest opportunity of being even with him after her marriage.

The old fisherman's weather prophecy was justified. That night at dusk a wild storm came on. The sea rose and lashed the western coasts of Skye to Scilly and left a tale of disaster everywhere. The sailors and fishermen of Pencastle all turned out on the rocks and cliffs and watched eagerly. Presently, by a flash of lightning, a ketch was seen drifting under only a jib about half a mile outside tlie port. All eyes and all glasses were concea-

W. T.—7

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trated on her, waiting for the next flash, and when it came a chorus went up that it was the Lovely Alice, trading between Bristol and Penzance, and touching at all the little ports between. "God help them!" said the harbormaster, "for nothing in this world can save them when they are between Bude and Tintagel and the wind on shore."

The coast guards exerted themselves, and, aided by brave hearts and willing hands, they brought the rocket apparatus up on the summit of the Flagstaff Rock. Then they burned blue lights so that those on board might see the harbor opening in case they could make any effort to reach it. They worked gallantly enough on board; but no skill or strength of man could avail. Before many minutes were over the Lovely Alice rushed to her doom on the great island rock that guarded the mouth of the port. The screams of those on board were fairly borne on the tempest as they flung themselves into the sea in a last chance for life. The blue lights were kept burning, and eager eyes peered into the depths of the waters in case any face could be seen; and ropes were held ready to fling out in aid. But never a face was seen, and the willing arms rested idle.

Eric was there amongst his fellows. His old Icelandic origin was never more apparent than in that wild hour. He took a rope, and shouted in the ear of the harbor-master:

"I shall go down on the rock over the seal cave. The tide is running up, and some one may drift in there."

"Keep back, man!" came the answer. "Are you mad? One slip on that rock and you are lost: and no man could keep his feet in the dark on such a place in such a tempest!"

"Not a bit," came the reply. "You remember how Abel Behenna saved me W. T.—8

there on a night like this when my boat went on the Gull Rock. He dragged me up from the deep water in the seal cave, and now some one may drift in there again as I did," and he was gone into the darkness.

The projecting rock hid the light on the Flagstaff Rock, but he knew his way too well to miss it. His boldness and sureness of foot standing to him, he shortly stood on the great round-topped rock cut away beneath by the action of the waves over the entrance of the seal cave, where the water was fathomless. There he stood in comparative safety, for the concave shape of the rock beat back the waves with their own force, and though the water below him seemed to boil like a seething cauldron, just beyond the spot there was a space of almost calm. The rock, too, seemed here to shut off the sound of the gale, and he listened as well as watched. As he stood there ready, with his coil of rope poised to throw, he thought he heard below him, just beyond the whirl of the water, a faint, despairing cry. He echoed it with a shout that rang out into the night. Then he waited for the flash of lightning, and as it passed flung his rope out into the darkness where he had seen a face rising through the swirl of the foam. The rope was caught, for he felt a pull on it, and he shouted again in his mighty voice:

"Tie it round your waist, and I shall pull you up."

Then when he felt that it was fast he moved along the rock to the far side of the seal cave, where the deep water was something stiller, and where he could get foothold secure enough to drag the rescued man on the overhanging rock. He began to pull, and shortly he knew from the rope taken in that the man he was now rescuing must soon be close to the top of the rock. He steadied himself for

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a moment, and drew a long breath, that he might at the next effort complete the rescue. He had just bent his back to the work when a flash of lightning revealed to each other the two men—the rescuer and the rescued.

Eric Sanson and Abel Behenna were face to face, and none knew of the meeting save themselves—and God.

On the instant a wave of passion swept through Eric's heart. All his hopes were shattered, and with the hatred of Cain his eyes looked out. He saw in the instant of recognition the joy in Abel's face that his was the hand to succor him, and this intensified his hate. Whilst the passion was on him he started back, and the rope ran out between his hands. His moment of hate was followed by an impulse of his better manhood, but it was too late.

Before he could recover himself, Abel, encumbered with the rope that should have aided him, was plunged with a despairing cry back into the darkness of the devouring sea.

Then, feeling all the madness and the doom of Cain upon him, Eric rushed back over the rocks, heedless of the danger and eager only for one thing—to be amongst other people whose living noises would shut out that last cry which seemed to ring still in his ears. When he regained the Flagstaff Rock the men surrounded him, and through the fury of the storm he heard the harbor-master say:

"We feared you were lost when we heard a cry. How white you are! Where is your rope? Was there any one drifted in?"

"No one," he shouted in answer, for he felt that he could never explain that he had let his old comrade slip back into the sea, and at the very place and tinder the very circumstances in which that comrade had saved his own life. He hoped by one bold lie to set the matter at rest

for ever. There was no one to bear witness—and if he should have to carry that still white face in his eyes and that despairing cry in his ears for evermore, at least none should know of it. "No one," he cried, more loudly still. "I slipped on the rock, and the rope fell into the sea." So saying he left them, and, rushing down the steep path, gained his own cottage and locked himself within.

The remainder of that night he passed lying on his bed—dressed and motionless —staring upward, and seeming to see through the darkness a pale face gleaming wet in the lightning, with its glad recognition turning to ghastly despair, and to hear a cry which never ceased to echo in his soul.

In the morning the storm was over and all was smiling again, except that the sea was still boisterous with its unspent fury. Great pieces of wreck drifted into the port, and the sea around the island rock was strewn with others. Two bodies also drifted into the harbor—one the master of the wrecked ketch, the other a strange seaman whom no one knew.

Sarah saw nothing of Eric till the evening, and then he only looked in for a minute. He did not come into the house, but simply put his head in through the open window.

"Well, Sarah," he called out in a loud voice, though to her it did not ring truly, "is the wedding dress done? Sunday week, mind! Sunday week!"

Sarah was glad to have the reconciliation so easy; but, woman-like, when she saw the storm was over and her own fears groundless, she at once repeated the cause of offense.

"Sunday so be it," she said, without looking up, "if Abel isn't there on Saturday!" Then she looked up saucily, though her heart was full of fear of another out-