Part 13 (1/2)

I think his first motion was to thrust me away; but I caught him by the hand, and with many protestations broke into my tale, giving him no time to forbid me. And presently he drew me inside, and shutting the door, stood upright by the table, facing me with his fingers on the rim as if they rested there for support.

”Paschal,” said he, when at length I drew back, ”this must not come to my lady's ears. She has been ailing of late.”

”Ay, sir, and long since: of a disease past your curing.”

”G.o.d help us! I hope not,” said he; then broke out violently: ”She is innocent, Paschal; innocent as a child!”

”Innocent!” cried I, in a voice which showed how little I believed.

”Paschal,” he went on, ”you are my servant, but my friend also, I hope.

Nay, nay, I know. I swear to you, then, these things do but happen in her sleep. In her waking senses she is mine, as one day she shall be mine wholly. But at night, when her will is dissolved in sleep, the evil spirit wakes and goes questing after its master.”

”Mahound?” I stammered, quaking.

”Be it Satan himself,” said he, very low and resolute, ”I will win her from him, though my own soul be the ransom.”

”Dear my Master,” I began, and would have implored him on my knees; but he pointed to the door. ”I will win her,” he repeated. ”What you have seen to-night happens more rarely now. Moreover, the summer is beginning--”

He paused: yet I had gathered his meaning. ”There will be less peril for the s.h.i.+ps for a while,” said I.

Said he: ”To _them_ she intends no harm. It is for her master the light waves. Paschal, I am an unhappy man!” He flung a hand to his forehead, but recovering himself peered at me under the shadow of it. ”If you could watch--often--as you have done to-night--you might protect others from seeing--”

The wisdom of this at least I saw, and gave him my promise readily.

Upon this understanding (for no more could be had) I withdrew me.

The next day, therefore, I moved my bed to a turret-chamber on the angle of the south-eastern wall whence I could keep my lady's window in view.

I was never a man to need much sleep: but if, through the year which followed, the apparition escaped once or twice without my cognisance, I dare take oath this was the extent of it. It appeared more rarely, as my Master had promised: and in the end (I think) scarce above once a month. In form it never varied from the cresseted globe of flame I had first seen, and always it took the path across the fields towards Cuddan Point. No sound went with it, or announced its going or return: and while it was absent, my lady's chamber would be utterly dark and silent.

My custom was not to follow it (which I had proved to be useless), but to let myself out and patrol the walls, satisfying myself that no watchers lurked about the castle. I understood now that Pengersick was reported throughout the neighbourhood to be haunted: and such a report is not the worst protection. These vague tales kept aloof the country people who, but for them, had almost certainly happened on the secret.

And night after night while I watched, my Master wrestled with the Evil One in his room.

The last time I saw the apparition was on the night of May 10th, 1529, more than three years after my lady's first coming to Pengersick.

I was prepared for it: for she had been singing at her window a great part of the afternoon, and I had learnt to be warned by this mood.

The night was a dark one, with flying clouds and a stiff breeze blowing up from the south-east. The flame left my lady's window at the usual hour--a few minutes after midnight--but returned some while before its due time. In ordinary it would be away for an hour and a half, or from that to two hours, but this night I had scarcely begun my rounds before I saw it returning across the fields. Nor was this the only surprise.

For as I watched it up the wall and saw it gain my lady's window, I heard the hound within lift up its voice in a long, shuddering howl.

I lost no time, but made my way to my Master's room. He, too, had heard the dog's howl, and was strangely perturbed. ”It means something.

It means something,” he kept repeating. He had already run to his wife's chamber, but found her in a deep slumber and the hound (which always slept on the floor at her bed's foot) composing itself to sleep again, with jowl dropped on its fore-paws.

The next morning I had fixed to ride into the Market Jew to fetch a packet of books which was waiting there for my Master. But at the entrance of the town I found the people in great commotion, the cause of which turned out to be a group of Turk men gathered at the hither end of the causeway leading to the Mount. One told me they were Moslems (which indeed was apparent at first sight) and that their s.h.i.+p had run ash.o.r.e that night, under the Mount; but with how much damage was doubtful.

She lay within sight, in a pretty safe position, and not so badly fixed but I guessed the next tide would float her if her bottom were not broken. The Moslems (nine in all) had rowed ash.o.r.e in their boat and landed on the causeway; but with what purpose they had no chance to explain: for the inhabitants, catching sight of their knives and scymeters, could believe in nothing short of an intent to murder and plunder; and taking courage in numbers, had gathered (men and women) to the causeway-head to oppose them. To be sure these fears had some warrant in the foreigners' appearance: who with their turbans, tunics, dark faces and black naked legs made up a show which Market Jew had never known before nor (I dare say) will again.

Nor had the mildness of their address any effect but to raise a fresh commotion. For, their leader advancing with outstretched hands and making signals that he intended no mischief but rather sued for a.s.sistance, at once a cry went up, ”The Plague!” ”The Plague!” at which I believe the crowd would have scattered like sheep had not a few st.u.r.dy volunteers with pikes and boat-hooks forbidden his nearer approach.

Into this knot the conference had locked itself when I rode up and--the crowd making way for me--addressed the strangers in the _lingua Franca_, explaining that my Master of Pengersick was a magistrate and would be forward to help them either with hospitality or in lending aid to get their s.h.i.+p afloat; further that they need have no apprehension of the crowd, which had opposed them in fear, not in churlishness; yet it might be wise for the main body to stay and keep guard over the cargo while their spokesman went with me to Pengersick.

To this their leader at once consented; and we presently set forth together, he walking by my horse with an agile step and that graceful bearing which I had not seen since my days of travel: a bearded swarthy man, extraordinarily handsome in Moorish fas.h.i.+on and distinguished from his crew not only by authority as patron of the s.h.i.+p, but by a natural dignity. I judged him about forty. Me he treated with courtesy, yet with a reticence which seemed to say he reserved his speech for my Master. Of the wreck he said nothing except that his s.h.i.+p had been by many degrees out of her bearings: and knowing that the Moorish disasters in Spain had thrown many of their chiefs into the trade of piracy I was contented to smoke such an adventurer in this man, and set him down for one better at fighting than at navigation.