Part 24 (1/2)

”He is not likely to do that,” said Landless, with a smile. ”You may rest a.s.sured that he is far from this by now.”

She drew a long breath of relief. ”Oh! I hope he is!” she cried fervently. ”It was dreadful! No storm could frighten me as did that face!” and she shuddered again.

”Try not to think of it,” he said. ”It is gone now; try to forget it.”

”I will try,” she said doubtfully.

Landless did not answer, and the two sat in silence, watching out the dreary night. But not for long, for presently Patricia said humbly:--

”Will you talk to me? I am frightened. It is so still, and I cannot see you, nor the slaves, only that horrid, horrid face. I see it everywhere.”

Landless came nearer to her, and laid one hand upon the skirt of her wet robe. ”I am here, close to you, madam,” he said; ”there can nothing harm you.”

He began to speak quietly and naturally of this and that, of what they should do when the day broke, of Regulus's wound, of the storm, of the great sea and its perils. He told her something of these latter, for he knew the sea; piteous tales of forlorn wrecks, brave tales of dangers faced and overcome, of heroic endurance and heroic rescue. He told her tales of a wild, rockbound Devons.h.i.+re coast with its scattered fisher villages; of a hidden cave, the resort of a band of desperadoes, half smugglers, half pirates, wholly villains; of how this cave had been long and vainly searched for by the authorities; of how, one night, a boy climbed down a great precipice, scaring the seafowl from their nests, and lighted upon this cavern with the smugglers in it, and in their midst a defenseless prisoner whom they were about to murder. How he had shouted and made wailing, outlandish noises, and had sent rocks hurtling down the cliffs, until the wretches thought that all the goblins of land and sea were upon them, and rushed from the cavern, leaving their work undone. Whereupon, the boy reclimbed the cliff, and hastening to the nearest village, roused the inhabitants, who hurried to their boats, and descending upon the long-sought-for cave, surprised the smugglers, cut them down to a man, and rescued the prisoner.

The man who told these things told them well. The wild tales ran like a strain of sombre music through the night. His audience of one forgot her terror and weariness, and listened with eager interest.

”Well--” she said, as he paused.

”That is all. The ruffians were all killed and the prisoner rescued.”

”And the boy?”

”Oh, the boy! He went back to his books.”

”Did you know him?”

”Yes, I knew him. See, madam, it has quite cleared. How the moon whitens those leaping waves!”

”Yes, it is beautiful. I am glad the prisoner escaped. Was he a fisherman?”

”No; an officer of the Excise--a gallant man, with a wife and many children. Yes, I suppose he prized life.”

”And I am glad that the smugglers were all killed.”

Landless smiled. ”Life to them was sweet, too, perhaps.”

”I do not care. They were wicked men who deserved to die. They had murdered and robbed. They were criminals--”

She stopped short, and her face turned from white to red and then to white again, and her eyes sought the ground.

”I had forgotten,” she muttered.

The hot color rose to Landless's cheek, but he said quietly:--

”You had forgotten what, madam?”

She flashed a look upon him. ”You know,” she said icily.

”Yes, I know,” he answered. ”I know that the perils of this night had driven from your mind several things. For a little while you have thought of, and treated me, as an equal, have you not? You could not have been more gracious to,--let us say, to Sir Charles Carew. But now you have remembered what I am, a man degraded and enslaved, a felon,--in short, the criminal who, as you very justly say, should not be let to live.”