Part 35 (1/2)
”I will go with you,” he said eagerly, ”and you will lend me your bladders to get back with.”
”You would never get back to L'Etat in the dark”--and he knew that that was true. ”We of Sark can see, but you others--”
”I shall be in misery till I know you are all right,” he said anxiously.
”I will run home. My things are in the gorse above Breniere. And I will get a lantern and come down by Breniere and wave it to you.”
”Will you do that? It will be like a signal from heaven,” he said eagerly, ”a signal from heaven waved by an angel from heaven.”
”And to-morrow I will go to the Vicar, and the Senechal, and the Seigneur, if he has come home, and I will make them stop these wicked men from coming here again.”
”Can they?”
”They shall. They must. They are the law and it is not right.”
”It is worth trying, at any rate,” he said cheerfully, as they reached the eastern corner and struck down across his puffin-warren to the point immediately opposite Breniere. But he had not much hope that the Vicar and the Senechal and the Seigneur all combined would avail him, for the men of Sark are a law unto themselves.
”But I've found another hiding-place, Nance, where they could never find me.”
”Here?--on L'Etat?”
”Yes--inside. I'll show you some time, perhaps, if--”
”Is this where you came ash.o.r.e?” he asked, as she came to a stand on a rough black shelf up which the waves hissed white and venomous.
”We--we always landed here when we swam across,” she said, with a little break in her voice, as it came home to her again that Bernel would swim the Race no more.
”Nance dear, don't give up hope. He may come back yet.”
”I have only you left, and they want to kill you,” she said sadly.
”I wish I could come with you,” as the dark waters swirled below them.
”It feels terrible to let you go into that all alone.”
”It is nothing. The tide is dead slack, and I have these”--swinging the bladders in her hand--”if I get tired. Oh, if Bern had only taken them--”
”I will kneel on the ridge and pray for your safety till I see your light. Dear, G.o.d keep you, and bless you for all your goodness and courage!”
He strained her to him again, as if he could not let her go to that colder embrace that awaited her below.
”I could kiss the very rocks you have stood on,” he said pa.s.sionately.
She kissed him back and dropped the cloak, waited a second till a wave had swirled by, then launched into the slack of it, and was gone.
He stood long, peering and listening into the darkness, but heard only the welter of the water under the black ledges below, and its scornful hiss as it seethed through the fringing sea-weeds.
Then at last he turned and climbed, slowly and heavily, up to the ridge; for now he felt the strain of these last full hours, coming on top of the longer strain of the storm; and this, and the lack of proper feeding, made him feel weak and empty and weary. He knelt down there in the darkness, with his face towards the Race where Nance was battling with the hungry black waters, and he prayed for her safety as he had never prayed for anything in his life before.