Part 3 (1/2)

”Give me some more cartridges,” she cried. He did so, but nothing followed.

”It is no use,” she said at length, ”the cartridges are wet. I cannot get the empty cases out. But perhaps they may have seen or heard them.

Old Edward is sure to be watching for me. You had better throw the rest into the sea if you can manage it,” she added by way of an afterthought; ”we may have to swim presently.”

To Geoffrey this seemed very probable, and whenever he got a chance he acted on the hint till at length he was rid of all his cartridges.

Just then it began to rain in torrents. Though it was not warm the perspiration was streaming from him at every pore, and the rain beating on his face refreshed him somewhat; also with the rain the wind dropped a little.

But he was becoming tired out and he knew it. Soon he would no longer be able to keep the canoe straight, and then they must be swamped, and in all human probability drowned. So this was to be the end of his life and its ambitions. Before another hour had run its course, he would be rolling to and fro in the arms of that angry sea. What would his wife Honoria say when she heard the news, he wondered? Perhaps it would shock her into some show of feeling. And Effie, his dear little six-year-old daughter? Well, thank G.o.d, she was too young to feel his loss for long.

By the time that she was a woman she would almost have forgotten that she ever had a father. But how would she get on without him to guide her? Her mother did not love children, and a growing girl would continually remind her of her growing years. He could not tell; he could only hope for the best.

And for himself! What would become of him after the short sharp struggle for life? Should he find endless sleep, or what? He was a Christian, and his life had not been worse than that of other men. Indeed, though he would have been the last to think it, he had some redeeming virtues. But now at the end the spiritual horizon was as dark as it had been at the beginning. There before him were the Gates of Death, but not yet would they roll aside and show the traveller what lay beyond their frowning face. How could he tell? Perhaps they would not open at all. Perhaps he now bade his last farewell to consciousness, to earth and sky and sea and love and all lovely things. Well, that might be better than some prospects. At that moment Geoffrey Bingham, in the last agony of doubt, would gladly have exchanged his hopes of life beyond for a certainty of eternal sleep. That faith which enables some of us to tread this awful way with an utter confidence is not a wide prerogative, and, as yet, at any rate, it was not his, though the time might come when he would attain it. There are not very many, even among those without reproach, who can lay them down in the arms of Death, knowing most certainly that when the veil is rent away the countenance that they shall see will be that of the blessed Guardian of Mankind. Alas! he could not be altogether sure, and where doubt exists, hope is but a pin-p.r.i.c.ked bladder. He sighed heavily, murmured a little formula of prayer that had been on his lips most nights during thirty years--he had learnt it as a child at his mother's knee--and then, while the tempest roared around him, gathered up his strength to meet the end which seemed inevitable.

At any rate he would die like a man.

Then came a reaction. His vital forces rose again. He no longer felt fearful, he only wondered with a strange impersonal wonder, as a man wonders about the vital affairs of another. Then from wondering about himself he began to wonder about the girl who sat opposite to him. With the rain came a little lightning, and by the first flash he saw her clearly. Her beautiful face was set, and as she bent forward searching the darkness with her wide eyes, it wore, he thought, an almost defiant air.

The canoe twisted round somewhat. He dug his broken paddle into the water and once more brought her head on to the sea. Then he spoke.

”Are you afraid?” he asked of Beatrice.

”No,” she answered, ”I am not afraid.”

”Do you know that we shall probably be drowned?”

”Yes, I know it. They say the death is easy. I brought you here. Forgive me that. I should have tried to row you ash.o.r.e as you said.”

”Never mind me; a man must meet his fate some day. Do not think of me. But I can't keep her head on much longer. You had better say your prayers.”

Beatrice bent forward till her head was quite near his own. The wind had blown some of her hair loose, and though he did not seem to notice it at the time, he remembered afterwards that a lock of it struck him on the face.

”I cannot pray,” she said; ”I have nothing to pray to. I am not a Christian.”

The words struck him like a blow. It seemed so awful to think of this proud and brilliant woman, now balanced on the verge of what she believed to be utter annihilation. Even the courage that induced her at such a moment to confess her hopeless state seemed awful.

”Try,” he said with a gasp.

”No,” she answered, ”I do not fear to die. Death cannot be worse than life is for most of us. I have not prayed for years, not since--well, never mind. I am not a coward. It would be cowardly to pray now because I may be wrong. If there is a G.o.d who knows all, He will understand that.”

Geoffrey said no more, but laboured at the broken paddle gallantly and with an ever-failing strength. The lightning had pa.s.sed away and the darkness was very great, for the hurrying clouds hid the starlight.

Presently a sound arose above the turmoil of the storm, a cras.h.i.+ng thunderous sound towards which the send of the sea gradually bore them.

The sound came from the waves that beat upon the Bryngelly reef.

”Where are we drifting to?” he cried.

”Into the breakers, where we shall be lost,” she answered calmly. ”Give up paddling, it is of no use, and try to take off your coat. I have loosened my skirt. Perhaps we can swim ash.o.r.e.”