Part 16 (1/2)

Then the pouring rain on her face brought her to her full senses and recognition of what had happened.

The knife was still in her hand and her hand was sticky and damp.

She said to herself: ”That is his blood.” The thought that perhaps she had killed him did not occur to her. The fear of him was still so intense, that it made him alive, alive somewhere in the surrounding darkness, and waiting to seize her. Then she began to steal off towards the sound of the sea. Twice as she went she stopped and turned, ready to strike again, then when the water was was.h.i.+ng round her feet she came up the beach a few paces and crouched down.

The sea was at her back and the haunting dread of being followed vanished.

It was now that she asked herself the question: ”Have I killed him?”

Meaning:--”Have I freed myself of him,”--hoping this was so.

The terror behind her having vanished she was now brave. It seemed to her that the sound of the sea had become sharper; then she realized that the sound of the rain had ceased. Her mind seemed working in a dual manner and she had not fully recognized the cessation of the rain till the sound of the sea clinched the fact.

Through the clear night now came the melancholy crying of the whale birds, and through the broken clouds a ray of the moon shewed a faint light in which the cliffs began to stand out.

The incoming tide washed round her so that she had to move, it seemed determined to drive her up to the caves. She could see now the whole beach desolate of life and before her, vaguely sketched in the cliff wall, the cave openings.

She came along the sea edge till she reached the break in the cliffs, then, looking behind her again to make sure, she took refuge in the bushes.

For the last few yards before reaching them she seemed wading through tides of nothingness. In the shelter of the bushes she forgot everything.

CHAPTER XVI

ALONE

She was awakened by the light of day. Kerguelen had cleared its face of clouds and the new risen sun was on sea and mountains and land.

A whole family of rabbits were disporting themselves close to her in a clear s.p.a.ce between the bushes and as she sat up they darted off, a glimpse of their cotton white tails shewing for a moment in the sun.

She was stiff from the damp, her clothes were wet despite the oilskin coat which she had left open, and her throat was sore, every bone ached as though she had been beaten. Her soul felt sick. It was as though the crawling beast of the night before had crawled over it like a slug, poisoning it. The knife lay beside her; she picked it up and looked at it; there were red traces upon the hilt and the lines in the palm of her right hand were red. She rubbed it clean with the damp leaves of the bushes, then she stood up, shaking and weak, heedless of everything but the friendly touch of the sun. Her fear was gone, but the effect of it remained in a sense of bruising and injury.

Out on the beach there was nothing, nothing but the breaking sea and the flying gulls and lines of long legged gulls stalking or standing on the sands, the 'get-away--get-away' of the kittiwakes came across the water and the barking of brent geese from beyond the rocks of the Lizard Point. The boat lay there on its side, everything was the same.

She drew towards the caves. Nothing stirred there. Then she halted and, changing her course, came right down to the water's edge. From here she could see the three cave mouths dark cut in the cliff. She watched them for a moment as though expecting something to appear, then she came up towards them, walking more cautiously as she drew near, just as she had walked on the plain where the death traps were.

The light shone into the cave where she had slept. She saw a naked foot with toes dug into the sand and beyond the foot a form lying on its side.

Then she drew back with a cry; something was moving there. A rabbit dashed out of the cave and scuttered away along the cliff base. Then she knew.

La Touche was dead, he would never crawl again. She had killed him. She cast the knife on the sand and wiped the palm of her hand on her dress half unconsciously, gazing at the foot.

The terror of him had burned away anything in her mind that might have fed remorse. She had not killed him consciously. Searching her memory she could vaguely recollect having struck out against something appalling in the darkness. Now she knew and guessed all, and she could have hated him only that death kills hatred.

She came to the mouth of the men's cave and sat down in the sun, the soreness of her throat, the weariness of her very bones, the feel of her horrible wet clothes, all these filled her with a craving for the sun and its warmth and light, fierce as the craving for drink. She spread out her hands to it, then, with shaking fingers she began to take off her clothes. They clung to her like evil things. Had this been a day of pouring rain she might just have lain down and died.

Without getting up, and leaning on her elbow, she spread out the skirt and coat and other things on the sand beside her, then she stretched her aching limbs to the warmth.

The wind had fallen to almost a dead calm, and as she lay she saw little rabbits stealing out to play in the suns.h.i.+ne on the sands. She watched them running in circles like things on wheels and moving by clockwork.