Dracula's Guest
and his own put up; but till then, I take my course, and woe to anyone
who stands in my way!” With that he flung himself down the rocky
pathway, and Sarah could not but admire his Viking strength and spirit,
as, crossing the hill, he strode away along the cliffs towards Bude.
During the week no news was heard of Abel, and on Saturday Eric gave
notice of the banns of marriage between himself and Sarah Trefusis. The
clergyman would have remonstrated with him, for although nothing formal
had been told to the neighbours, it had been understood since Abel’s
departure that on his return he was to marry Sarah; but Eric would not
discuss the question.
“It is a painful subject, sir,” he said with a firmness which the
parson, who was a very young man, could not but be swayed by. “Surely
there is nothing against Sarah or me. Why should there be any bones
made about the matter?” The parson said no more, and on the next day he
read out the banns for the first time amidst an audible buzz from the
congregation. Sarah was present, contrary to custom, and though she
blushed furiously enjoyed her triumph over the other girls whose banns
had not yet come. Before the week was over she began to make her
wedding dress. Eric used to come and look at her at work and the sight
thrilled through him. He used to say all sorts of pretty things to her
at such times, and there were to both delicious moments of love-making.
The banns were read a second time on the 29th, and Eric’s hope grew
more and more fixed though there were to him moments of acute despair
when he realised that the cup of happiness might be dashed from his
lips at any moment, right up to the last. At such times he was full of
passion—desperate and remorseless—and he ground his teeth and clenched
his hands in a wild way as though some taint of the old Berserker fury
of his ancestors still lingered in his blood. On the Thursday of that
week he looked in on Sarah and found her, amid a flood of sunshine,
putting finishing touches to her white wedding gown. His own heart was
full of gaiety, and the sight of the woman who was so soon to be his
own so occupied, filled him with a joy unspeakable, and he felt faint
with languorous ecstasy. Bending over he kissed Sarah on the mouth, and
then whispered in her rosy ear—
“Your wedding dress, Sarah! And for me!” As he drew back to admire her
she looked up saucily, and said to him—
“Perhaps not for you. There is more than a week yet for Abel!” and then
cried out in dismay, for with a wild gesture and a fierce oath Eric
dashed out of the house, banging the door behind him. The incident
disturbed Sarah more than she could have thought possible, for it awoke
all her fears and doubts and indecision afresh. She cried a little, and
put by her dress, and to soothe herself went out to sit for a while on
the summit of the Flagstaff Rock. When she arrived she found there a
little group anxiously discussing the weather. The sea was calm and the
sun bright, but across the sea were strange lines of darkness and
light, and close in to shore the rocks were fringed with foam, which
spread out in great white curves and circles as the currents drifted.
The wind had backed, and came in sharp, cold puffs. The blow-hole,
which ran under the Flagstaff Rock, from the rocky bay without to the
harbour within, was booming at intervals, and the seagulls were
screaming ceaselessly as they wheeled about the entrance of the port.
“It looks bad,” she heard an old fisherman say to the coastguard. “I
seen it just like this once before, when the East Indiaman _Coromandel_
went to pieces in Dizzard Bay!” Sarah did not wait to hear more. She
was of a timid nature where danger was concerned, and could not bear to
hear of wrecks and disasters. She went home and resumed the completion
of her dress, secretly determined to appease Eric when she should meet
him with a sweet apology—and to take the earliest opportunity of being
even with him after her marriage. The old fisherman’s weather prophecy
was justified. That night at dusk a wild storm came on. The sea rose
and lashed the western coasts from Skye to Scilly and left a tale of
disaster everywhere. The sailors and fishermen of Pencastle all turned
out on the rocks and cliffs and watched eagerly. Presently, by a flash
of lightning, a “ketch” was seen drifting under only a jib about
half-a-mile outside the port. All eyes and all glasses were
concentrated on her, waiting for the next flash, and when it came a
chorus went up that it was the _Lovely Alice_, trading between Bristol
and Penzance, and touching at all the little ports between. “God help
them!” said the harbour-master, “for nothing in this world can save
them when they are between Bude and Tintagel and the wind on shore!”
The coastguards exerted themselves, and, aided by brave hearts and
willing hands, they brought the rocket apparatus up on the summit of
the Flagstaff Rock. Then they burned blue lights so that those on board
might see the harbour opening in case they could make any effort to
reach it. They worked gallantly enough on board; but no skill or
strength of man could avail. Before many minutes were over the _Lovely
Alice_ rushed to her doom on the great island rock that guarded the
mouth of the port. The screams of those on board were faintly borne on
the tempest as they flung themselves into the sea in a last chance for
life. The blue lights were kept burning, and eager eyes peered into the
depths of the waters in case any face could be seen; and ropes were
held ready to fling out in aid. But never a face was seen, and the
willing arms rested idle. Eric was there amongst his fellows. His old
Icelandic origin was never more apparent than in that wild hour. He
took a rope, and shouted in the ear of the harbour-master:
“I shall go down on the rock over the seal cave. The tide is running
up, and someone may drift in there!”
“Keep back, man!” came the answer. “Are you mad? One slip on that rock
and you are lost: and no man could keep his feet in the dark on such a
place in such a tempest!”
“Not a bit,” came the reply. “You remember how Abel Behenna saved me
there on a night like this when my boat went on the Gull Rock. He
dragged me up from the deep water in the seal cave, and now someone may
drift in there again as I did,” and he was gone into the darkness. The
projecting rock hid the light on the Flagstaff Rock, but he knew his
way too well to miss it. His boldness and sureness of foot standing to
him, he shortly stood on the great round-topped rock cut away beneath
by the action of the waves over the entrance of the seal cave, where
the water was fathomless. There he stood in comparative safety, for the
concave shape of the rock beat back the waves with their own force, and
though the water below him seemed to boil like a seething cauldron,
just beyond the spot there was a space of almost calm. The rock, too,
seemed here to shut off the sound of the gale, and he listened as well
as watched. As he stood there ready, with his coil of rope poised to
throw, he thought he heard below him, just beyond the whirl of the
water, a faint, despairing cry. He echoed it with a shout that rang
into the night. Then he waited for the flash of lightning, and as it
passed flung his rope out into the darkness where he had seen a face
rising through the swirl of the foam. The rope was caught, for he felt
a pull on it, and he shouted again in his mighty voice:
“Tie it round your waist, and I shall pull you up.” Then when he felt
that it was fast he moved along the rock to the far side of the sea
cave, where the deep water was something stiller, and where he could
get foothold secure enough to drag the rescued man on the overhanging
rock. He began to pull, and shortly he knew from the rope taken in that
the man he was now rescuing must soon be close to the top of the rock.
He steadied himself for a moment, and drew a long breath, that he might
at the next effort complete the rescue. He had just bent his back to
the work when a flash of lightning revealed to each other the two
men—the rescuer and the rescued.
Eric Sanson and Abel Behenna were face to face—and none knew of the
meeting save themselves; and God.
On the instant a wave of passion swept through Eric’s heart. All his
hopes were shattered, and with the hatred of Cain his eyes looked out.
He saw in the instant of recognition the joy in Abel’s face that his
was the hand to succour him, and this intensified his hate. Whilst the
passion was on him he started back, and the rope ran out between his
hands. His moment of hate was followed by an impulse of his better
manhood, but it was too late.
Before he could recover himself, Abel encumbered with the rope that
should have aided him, was plunged with a despairing cry back into the
darkness of the devouring sea.
Then, feeling all the madness and the doom of Cain upon him, Eric
rushed back over the rocks, heedless of the danger and eager only for
one thing—to be amongst other people whose living noises would shut out
that last cry which seemed to ring still in his ears. When he regained
the Flagstaff Rock the men surrounded him, and through the fury of the
storm he heard the harbour-master say:—
“We feared you were lost when we heard a cry! How white you are! Where
is your rope? Was there anyone drifted in?”
“No one,” he shouted in answer, for he felt that he could never explain
that he had let his old comrade slip back into the sea, and at the very
place and under the very circumstances in which that comrade had saved
his own life. He hoped by one bold lie to set the matter at rest for
ever. There was no one to bear witness—and if he should have to carry
that still white face in his eyes and that despairing cry in his ears
for evermore—at least none should know of it. “No one,” he cried, more
loudly still. “I slipped on the rock, and the rope fell into the sea!”
So saying he left them, and, rushing down the steep path, gained his
own cottage and locked himself within.
The remainder of that night he passed lying on his bed—dressed and
motionless—staring upwards, and seeming to see through the darkness a
pale face gleaming wet in the lightning, with its glad recognition
turning to ghastly despair, and to hear a cry which never ceased to
echo in his soul.
In the morning the storm was over and all was smiling again, except
that the sea was still boisterous with its unspent fury. Great pieces
of wreck drifted into the port, and the sea around the island rock was
strewn with others. Two bodies also drifted into the harbour—one the
master of the wrecked ketch, the other a strange seaman whom no one
knew.
Sarah saw nothing of Eric till the evening, and then he only looked in
for a minute. He did not come into the house, but simply put his head
in through the open window.
“Well, Sarah,” he called out in a loud voice, though to her it did not
ring truly, “is the wedding dress done? Sunday week, mind! Sunday
week!”
Sarah was glad to have the reconciliation so easy; but, womanlike, when
she saw the storm was over and her own fears groundless, she at once
repeated the cause of offence.
“Sunday so be it,” she said without looking up, “if Abel isn’t there on
Saturday!” Then she looked up saucily, though her heart was full of
fear of another outburst on the part of her impetuous lover. But the
window was empty; Eric had taken himself off, and with a pout she
resumed her work. She saw Eric no more till Sunday afternoon, after the
banns had been called the third time, when he came up to her before all
the people with an air of proprietorship which half-pleased and
half-annoyed her.
“Not yet, mister!” she said, pushing him away, as the other girls
giggled. “Wait till Sunday next, if you please—the day after Saturday!”