Part 48 (1/2)
”Whither?” asked Cary
”To the south end The crag above the Devil's-liave a htful suspicion crossed hierous place!”
”What of that?” said Aoing to leap over cliff? I have not heart enough for that On, lads, and setthe rocks”
So slowly, and painfully, they went on, while Amyas murmured to himself: ”No, no other place will suit; I can see all thence”
So on they went to the point, where the cyclopean wall of granite cliff which forms the western side of Lundy, ends sheer in a precipice of some three hundred feet, topped by a pile of snohite rock, bespangled with golden lichens As they approached, a raven, who sat upon the topht blue sky, flapped lazily away, and sank down the abysses of the cliff, as if he scented the corpses underneath the surge Below them from the Gull-rock rose a thousand birds, and filled the air with sound; the choughs cackled, the hacklets wailed, the great blackbacks laughed querulous defiance at the intruders, and a single falcon, with an angry bark, dashed out fro the sea-fohich swung slowly round and round below
It was a glorious sight upon a glorious day To the northward the glens rushed doard the cliff, croith gray crags, and carpeted with purple heather and green fern; and from their feet stretched away to the ard the sapphire rollers of the vast Atlantic, croith a thousand crests of flying foam On their left hand, soainst the sky the purple wall of Hartland cliffs, sinking lower and lower as they trended away to the southward along the lonely ironbound shores of Cornwall, until they faded, dim and blue, into the blue horizon forty miles away
The sky was flecked with clouds, which rushed toward the south-ind; and the warh the heather-bells, and howled in cranny and in crag, ”Till the pillars and clefts of the granite Rang like a God-swept lyre;”
while Aenial strea chest, and seeust All three were silent for awhile; and Jack and Cary, gazing doith delight upon the glory and the grandeur of the sight, forgot for awhile that their companion saw it not Yet when they started sadly, and looked into his face, did he not see it? So wide and eager were his eyes, so bright and calm his face, that they fancied for an instant that he was once h undeceived them ”I know it is all here--the dear old sea, where I would live and die And my eyes feel for it; feel for it--and cannot find it; never, never will find it again forever! God's will be done!”
”Do you say that?” asked Brierly
”Why should I not? Why have I been raving in hell-fire for I know not how many days, but to find out that, John Brimblecombe, thou better man than I?”
”Not that last: but Amen! Amen! and the Lord has indeed had h his honest tears
”A the rocks without fear of falling--for life is sweet still, even without eyes, friends--and leave me to myself awhile”
It was no easythe heathery turf slopes down all but upright, on one side to a cliff which overhangs a shoreless cove of deep dark sea, and on the other to an abyss even more hideous, where the solid rock has sunk away, and opened inland in the hillside a smooth-walled pit, some sixty feet square and some hundred and fifty in depth, aptly known then as now, as the Devil's-limekiln; the mouth of which, as old wives say, was once closed by the Shutter-rock itself, till the fiend in malice hurled it into the sea, to be a pest to mariners A narrow and untrodden cavern at the bottom connects it with the outer sea; they could even then hear the e in the subterranean adit, as it rolled huge boulders to and fro in darkness, and forced before it gusts of pent-up air It was a spot to curdle weak blood, and to make weak heads reel: but all the fitter on that account for Amyas and his fancy
”You can sit here as in an ar hiranite tors
”Good; now turn my face to the Shutter Be sure and exact So Do I face it full?”
”Full,” said Cary
”Then I need no eyes ith to see what is before me,” said he, with a sad smile ”I know every stone and every headland, and every wave too, I o, and leave me alone with God and with the dead!”
They retired a little space and watched him He never stirred for many minutes; then leaned his elbows on his knees, and his head upon his hands, and so was still again He re thus, that the pair beca quick and heavily
”He will take a fever,” said Brier with his head down in the sunshi+ne”
”We ently if ake him at all” And Cary moved forward to hi it to right and left, felt round hihtless eyes
”You have been asleep, Amyas”
”Have I? I have not slept back reat useless carcase of et to Burrough, I think, and , eh? So! Give uides heard with surprise this new cheerfulness
”Thank God, sir, that your heart is so light already,” said good Jack; ”it makes me feel quite upraised myself, like”
”I have reason to be cheerful, Sir John; I have left a heavy load behind me I have been wilful, and proud, and a blaspheht ht Nofor me now, my masters God will send no such fools as I upon His errands”
”You do not repent of fighting the Spaniards”
”Not I: but of hating even the worst of theed ht el out of heaven But God has shown me my sin, and we have made up our quarrel forever”
”Made it up?”
”Made it up, thank God But I am weary Set me dohile, and I will tell you how it befell”
Wondering, they set him down upon the heather, while the bees hummed round them in the sun; and Amyas felt for a hand of each, and clasped it in his own hand, and began: ”When you left me there upon the rock, lads, I looked away and out to sea, to get one last snuff of the ain And as I looked, I tell you truth, I could see the water and the sky; as plain as ever I saw theain But soon I kneas not so; for I saw ht over the ocean, as I live, and away to the Spanish Main And I saw Barbados, and Grenada, and all the isles that we ever sailed by; and La Guayra in Caracas, and the Silla, and the house beneath it where she lived And I saw hi with her on the barbecue, and he loved her then I sahat I saw; and he loved her; and I say he loves her still
”Then I saw the cliffs beneath e; I saw them, William Cary, and the weeds beneath the alleon, Will; she has righted with the sweeping of the tide She lies in fifteen fathoe of the rocks, upon the sand; and her ment-day”
Cary and Jack looked at hiht, and full of ; and yet they knew that he was blind His voice was shaping itself into a song Was he inspired? Insane? What was it? And they listened with awe-struck faces, as the giant pointed down into the blue depths far below, and went on
”And I saw hientle round him, with their swords upon the table at the wine And the prawns and the crayfish and the rockling, they swam in and out above their heads: but Don Guzman he never heeded, but sat still, and drank his wine Then he took a locket from his bosom; and I heard him speak, Will, and he said: 'Here's the picture of my fair and true lady; drink to her, senors all' Then he spoke to h the oar-weed and the sea: 'We have had a fair quarrel, senor; it is tiiven me; so your honor takes no stain' And I answered, 'We are friends, Don Guzed our quarrel and not we' Then he said, 'I sinned, and I am punished' And I said, 'And, senor, so am I' Then he held out his hand to me, Cary; and I stooped to take it, and awoke”
He ceased: and they looked in his face again It was exhausted, but clear and gentle, like the face of a new-born babe Gradually his head dropped upon his breast again; he was either swooning or sleeping, and they had ht-and-forty hours, in a quiet doze; then arose suddenly, called for food, ate heartily, and seeeon bade theet hi enough to go So the next day the Vengeance sailed, leaving behind a dozen oods which should be washed up from the wreck
CHAPTER xxxIII
HOW AMYAS LET THE APPLE FALL