Part 22 (1/2)
”_The sand!_”
She pointed; and well I remember the gesture--the very gesture of the hand in the fresco--the forefinger extended, the thumb shut within the palm. ”_The sand_ . . . he told me . . .”
Her eyes were wide and fixed. She spoke, not excitedly at all, but rather as one musing, much as she had answered Laquedem on the morning when he waved the daisy-chain before her.
I heard an order shouted, high up the beach, and the dragoons came charging down across the sand. There was a scuffle close by the water's edge; then, as the soldiers broke through the mob of free-traders and wheeled their horses round, fetlock deep in the tide, I saw a figure break from the crowd and run, but presently check himself and walk composedly towards the cliff up which climbed the footpath leading to Porthlooe. And above the hubbub of oaths and shouting, I heard a voice crying distinctly, ”Run, man! Tis after thee they are! _Man, go faster!_”
Even then, had he gained the cliff-track, he might have escaped; for up there no horseman could follow. But as a trooper came galloping in pursuit, he turned deliberately. There was no defiance in his att.i.tude; of that I am sure. What followed must have been mere blundering ferocity. I saw a jet of smoke, heard the sharp crack of a firearm, and Joseph Laquedem flung up his arms and pitched forward at full length on the sand.
The report woke the girl as with the stab of a knife. Her cry--it pierces through my dreams at times--rang back with the echoes from the rocks, and before they ceased she was halfway down the cliffside, springing as surely as a goat, and, where she found no foothold, clutching the gra.s.s, the rooted samphires and sea pinks, and sliding.
While my head swam with the sight of it, she was running across the sands, was kneeling beside the body, had risen, and was staggering under the weight of it down to the water's edge.
”Stop her!” shouted Luke, the riding-officer. ”We must have the man!
Dead or alive, we must have'n!”
She gained the nearest boat, the free-traders forming up around her, and hustling the dragoons. It was old Solomon Tweedy's boat, and he, prudent man, had taken advantage of the skirmish to ease her off, so that a push would set her afloat. He a.s.serts that as July came up to him she never uttered a word, but the look on her face said ”Push me off,” and though he was at that moment meditating his own escape, he obeyed and pushed the boat off ”like a mazed man.” I may add that he spent three months in Bodmin Gaol for it.
She dropped with her burden against the stern sheets, but leapt up instantly and had the oars between the thole-pins almost as the boat floated. She pulled a dozen strokes, and hoisted the main-sail, pulled a hundred or so, sprang forward and ran up the jib. All this while the preventive men were straining to get off two boats in pursuit; but, as you may guess, the free-traders did nothing to help and a great deal to impede. And first the crews tumbled in too hurriedly, and had to climb out again (looking very foolish) and push afresh, and then one of the boats had mysteriously lost her plug and sank in half a fathom of water.
July had gained a full hundred yards' offing before the pursuit began in earnest, and this meant a good deal. Once clear of the point the small cutter could defy their rowing and reach away to the eastward with the wind just behind her beam. The riding-officer saw this, and ordered his men to fire. They a.s.sert, and we must believe, that their object was merely to disable the boat by cutting up her canvas.
Their first desultory volley did no damage. I stood there, high on the cliff, and watched the boat, making a spy-gla.s.s of my hands. She had fetched in close under the point, and gone about on the port tack--the next would clear--when the first shot struck her, cutting a hole through her jib, and I expected the wind to rip the sail up immediately; yet it stood. The breeze being dead on-sh.o.r.e, the little boat heeled towards us, her mainsail hiding the steerswoman.
It was a minute later, perhaps, that I began to suspect that July was. .h.i.t, for she allowed the jib to shake and seemed to be running right up into the wind. The stern swung round and I strained my eyes to catch a glimpse of her. At that moment a third volley rattled out, a bullet sh.o.r.e through the peak halliards, and the mainsail came down with a run.
It was all over.
The preventive men cheered and pulled with a will. I saw them run alongside, clamber into the cutter, and lift the fallen sail.
And that was all. There was no one on board, alive or dead. Whilst the canvas hid her, in the swift two minutes between the boat's putting about and her running up into the wind, July Constantine must have lifted her lover's body overboard and followed it to the bottom of the sea, There is no other explanation; and of the bond that knit these two together there is, when I ask myself candidly, no explanation at all, unless I give more credence than I have any wish to give to the wild tale which Joseph Laquedem told me. I have told you the facts, my friend, and leave them to your judgment.
[1] The legend is that as Christ left the judgment hall on His way to Calvary, Kartophilus smote Him, saying, ”Man, go quicker!” and was answered, ”I indeed go quickly; but thou shalt tarry till I come again.”
PRISONERS OF WAR
A REPORTED TALE OF ARDEVORA
You've heard tell, I dare say, about Landlord c.u.mmins and Billy Bosistow, and the great jealousy there was between them. No? Well, I see you going about Ardevora, and making a study of us; and I know you can read, because I've seen you doing it down to the Inst.i.tute.
But sometimes, when I ask you a simple little question like that, you force me to wonder what you've been doing with yourself all these years.
Why, it got into the Law Courts!
I know all about it, being related to them both after a fas.h.i.+on, as you might say. Landlord c.u.mmins--he that used to keep the Welcome Home-- married an aunt of mine on my mother's side, and that's part of the story. The boys used to call him ”Calves-in-front,” because of his legs being put on in an unusual manner, which made him walk slow all his days, and that's another part of the story. And Billy Bosistow, or Uncle Billy, was my father's father's' stepson. You needn't take any trouble to get that clear in your mind, because our family never owned him after he came home from the French war prisons and took up with his drinking habits; and that comes into the story, too.
As it happens, the occasion that took their quarrel into the Law Courts is one of the first things I can remember. It was in the year 'twenty-five. Landlord c.u.mmins, by dint of marrying a woman with means (that was my aunt), and walking the paths of repute for eleven years with his funny-shaped calves, got himself elected Mayor of the Borough.
You may suppose it was a proud day for him. In those times the borough used to pay the mayor a hundred pounds a year to keep up appearances, and my mother had persuaded my father to hire a window for Election Day opposite the Town Hall, so that she might have the satisfaction of seeing so near a relative in his robes of dignity.
Well, there in the window we were gathered on that July forenoon (for the mayors in those back-a-long days weren't chosen in November as they are now), and the sun--it was a bright day--slanting high down our side of the street, and my mother holding me tight as we leaned out, for I was just rising five, and extraordinary heavy in the head. And out upon the steps of the Town Hall stepped Landlord c.u.mmins, Mayor, with the town crier and maces before him, and his robes hanging handsomely about his calves, and his beaver hat and all the rest of the paraphernalia, prepared to march to church.
While he stood there, bowing to a score of people, and looking as big as bull's beef, who should step out from the pavement under us but Uncle Billy Bosistow! He was a ragged old scarecrow, turned a bit grey and lean with iniquitous living, but not more than half-drunk; and he stepped into the middle of the roadway and cut a low reverence to his wors.h.i.+p, flinging out his leg like a dancing-master. And says he, in a high cackle, very solemn but mocking:
”I salute thee, O Mayor! Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before thy G.o.d.”