"And what will become of Paul de Vaux?" I asked.
He laughed grimly. "He must take his chance. He knows the whole story.
He has known since last night. Adrea, tell me once more," he pleaded: "you never loved him really,--say that you never did!"
"Are you jealous, sir?" I asked lightly. My left hand was wandering down his side! Ah! there was his heart! How it was beating! My right hand was on the floor, cautiously feeling its way towards the screen.
It reached the dagger! I clutched it by the hilt! Now was the time.
There was his heart. I knew the exact spot.
"Adrea, are you ill?" he asked. "How white and strange you look! Ah!"
It was done! Lucrezia Borgia could not have bungled less! He lay doubled up in the chair, with a long Genoese dagger buried in his heart, and it was I who had done it!
Gomez crawled from behind the screen, and looked first at him and then at me with protruding eyes. He tried to speak, but his teeth chattered.
"It is done!" I said calmly, "and you are saved, Paul, my love," I whispered to myself. "Be a man, Gomez. We must carry it into the wood.
Lift him gently; there must be no blood here."
It took all our strength to move him, and we had to drag him, yard by yard, down the avenue and across the road into the little wood.
My pen is weary of horrors. The memory of that hour is not to be written about. But when he turned away I took the flowers which he had begged for from my corsage and threw them down amongst the wet leaves.
It was my sole moment of relenting.
CHAPTER x.x.xII
"THE LORD OF CRUTA"
A strange figure stood on the edge of the castle cliff, looking across the bay of Cruta to the sea. He was tall, loose jointed, and gaunt, and the long grey beard and unkempt locks of flowing hair which streamed behind in the breeze showed that he was an old man; but his eyes, set back in deep hollows, and fringed with long, bushy grey lashes, were still dark and piercing. Great pa.s.sions had branded his face with deep-set lines, but had failed to belittle him. On the contrary, his presence, though forbidding and awesome, was full of latent strength and dignity. To the islanders, who never mentioned their lord"s name save with bated breath and after having zealously crossed themselves, he was the object of the most unbounded superst.i.tion. His personality and the strangeness of his habits appalled them. They scarcely believed him a being of the same world as their own. The most ignorant amongst them firmly believed that the sea obeyed his uplifted hand, and that when he spoke the thunder rolled amongst the hills. When stories were told of the mystery and strange isolation in which he lived, they nodded their heads and were willing to believe everything. No one ever met him or had speech with him, for twenty years had pa.s.sed since he had issued from the castle gates. But sometimes, most often when a storm was brewing, they could see a tall, dark figure standing on the giddy edge of the castle wall which overhung the sea, or walking, with slow, stately movements, up and down the narrow foot-path at the summit of the cliff. If the moon had risen, or the sky were clear beyond, they could see the huge, gaunt figure outlined with grim distinctness against the empty background, always with his face to the sea, and with a long black cloak flowing behind. It was not often that they saw him, but when they did they told one another in whispers; and though the sky were cloudless and the sea calm, the women whose husbands were out in their fishing boats beyond the bay told their beads and prayed for their safe return, and those who had remained behind prepared for rough weather. Once, at a marriage feast, when all the little village was making merry, the whisper had gone about that "the Count was walking;" and immediately they had all departed for their homes in fear and silence, and the luckless bride and bridegroom had hastened to the priest and besought him to unloose the knot, that they might celebrate their wedding on some less ill-omened day.
To-night the storm was already breaking when the Count appeared on the castle wall and turned his face seaward. One by one the fishing smacks were crossing the gathering line of surf, and gaining the deep, still waters of the bay. As they pa.s.sed underneath the towering ma.s.s of granite rock, against the base of which the waters were boiling and seething, the men in the boats gazed fearfully up at that black speck far away above their heads, and crossed themselves. The Count had stood there for an hour, they whispered, ever since that piled-up ma.s.s of angry, lurid clouds had first gathered, and a warning breath of wind had swept across the smooth, gla.s.s-like surface of the water, now troubled and restless. Not one of them doubted but that his coming had brought the storm; but there was not one of them who dared to utter a word of complaint. Only they stood up in their boats, and shielding their eyes with an uplifted hand from the fierce rays of the sinking sun, gazed out seaward, searching for the boats not yet in safety.
Suddenly a little murmur arose from amongst them, and a word was pa.s.sed from one to another of their little crafts. The blinding glare of the sun and its reflection, stretched far away across the surface of the sea, had dazzled their eyes, and for the last quarter of an hour they had seen nothing on the westward horizon. But now the bright silver light was fading into a dull, glorious purple; and full upon its bosom a strange sail was seen, making direct for the harbour. The sunlight was still flashing upon its white sails,--little specks of gold upon a background of richer colouring--and they saw that she was a handsome, shapely-looking vessel, very different to the dirty Italian lugger which put in at their harbour for a few hours week by week.
"Will she need a pilot?" cried Francesco, rising in his boat, and watching the stranger. "Let us wait here, and see if she signals for one!"
"Let us all go! There will be something for each!" cried another.
"We will race," Antonio answered, whose boat was the fastest. "The first to reach her shall have the stranger"s money!"
"No, no! that is not fair," chorused the others. "We will draw lots!"
Then up rose old Guiseppe, the father of them all. He shook his head, and turned a sorrowing face seawards. "Peace! children. You are like chattering seabirds squabbling over a bait which will never be yours.
Yonder ship will need no pilot! She is no stranger to Cruta!"
They looked at her, and shook their heads. "We have never seen her before," they said.
"Some of you are too young to remember her," the old man continued, "and you were all away when she was here within a twelvemonth ago! But I know her! Three times has she entered this harbour, and each time has she left sorrow and grief behind her. It is the ship of the English lord who stole away the daughter of our Count many years ago!"
There was a little murmur of suppressed wonder. Then, as though moved by a common instinct, every face was turned upward to the castle wall.
The Count had gone. But, even as they looked, he reappeared, leading another figure by the hand. They held their breath with wonder. No one had ever seen him there save alone, and now a woman stood by his side. They could see nothing of her, save her long hair flowing in the breeze, and the bare outline of her figure. "Who was she? Guiseppe must know! Who was she?" they asked him eagerly.
He shook his head. "Better not ask," he answered. "Better not know!
Strange things have happened up there! It is not for us to chatter of them!"
"One night as I sailed homeward," Antonio said, in a low tone, "I heard strange cries from the castle. The night was still, and the breeze brought the sound to my ears. They came from up above, and when I strained my eyes I fancied that I could see a white figure--the figure of a woman--standing on the castle walls. She was crying for help, but suddenly, as though a hand were placed over her mouth, her cries ceased, and the figure vanished. It was three nights before the English lord died at the monastery!"
Ferdinand stood up. "On that same night," he said, in a low, hoa.r.s.e whisper, "I saw a figure steal up the path to the castle. It was the English lord! On the morrow I traced him back again with drops of blood. They led right into the monastery courtyard. Two days afterwards he died."
"Silence! all of you!" commanded Guiseppe, with shaking voice. "Are these things to be spoken of thus openly? Know you not, you children, that the winds have ears, and he listens there above us."
"It is a thousand feet!" muttered Antonio. "To him our boats can seem only as specks upon the water."
"You fool!" answered Guiseppe. "Do you think that the man whose presence brings storm and wind upon us is like ordinary men? Do you think he cannot hear what he chooses!"
"Ave Maria!" cried Antonio, crossing himself. "I would as soon face the devil himself as the Count! I shall ask Father Bernard to say a prayer for me to-night!"
"Do! and I hope his penance will be a stiff one," answered Guiseppe grimly. "Come, let us trim our sails, and get homeward. The English ship will not want us, and we can watch who lands from the beach."
""Twould be no such bad thing if she struck on the rocks, if she brings such ill luck to the castle," muttered Antonio, as he unfurled the sail and grasped the tiller. "There would be some pickings for us, beyond doubt--some pretty pickings!"
CHAPTER x.x.xIII
"THE DAWN OF A SHORT, SWEET LIFE"
The little group of fishing smacks, homely-looking and uncleanly, on close examination, presented a very different appearance from the deck of the English yacht fast nearing the harbour. Their brown sails had gleamed purple in the dying sunlight, and their rude outline seemed graceful and shapely as they rose and fell on the long waves. Paul, who stood on the captain"s bridge of his yacht, uttered a little cry of admiration as they sailed out from the shadows of the huge rock, and fell into a rude semicircle across the bay.
"What colouring one sees in these southern waters!" he remarked. "Did you notice the glinting light on those sails?"
His companion, who was holding firmly the rail by his side, looked up and smiled. "Yes," she said softly; "it is beautiful! We have seen more beautiful things on this voyage, I think, than I ever saw before in my life. I have never been so happy! You are not angry with me now for coming, are you?"
He looked down into her wistful, upturned face, and then away to the distant line where sea and sky met. "No! I am not angry," he said softly.
Adrea was very beautiful. The fresh sea air and the southern sun had been as kind to her as to one of their own daughters. Only a very faint, delicate shade of pink had stained her clear, transparent skin, harmonising exquisitely with the slight olive hue of her complexion.
The strong breeze had loosened the coils of her dark hair, and it was waving and flowing in picturesque freedom about her face. There was a change, too, in her appearance, greater than any the wind or sun could effect. Her dark eyes were glowing with a new life, and a soft, wistful joy shone in her face. Those few days had been like heaven for her. She had been alone, for the first time, with the man she loved; sailing upon a sunlit sea hour after hour, with his voice ever in her ears, and his tall figure by her side. The sense of his presence was ever upon her, bringing with it a calm, sweet restfulness, a happiness beyond anything which she had ever imagined.
And it was heaven, too, after h.e.l.l! Thrust away in a dark corner of her memory was the recollection of a day and a night full of grim, phantasmal horrors, which were fast becoming little more than a dream to her. The time was not yet come for remorse. In that deep glow of pa.s.sionate and self-forgetful devotion, quickened now into fullest and sweetest life by his constant proximity, even sin itself, for his sake, seemed justified to her. Everything, too, which lay behind her brief stay in that bare, wind-swept country was fast a.s.suming a far distant place in her thoughts. It was such a change from her little rooms in Grey Street, dainty and home-like though they had been, from the brilliantly lit drawing-rooms where she had performed, and the same wearisome compliments ever in her ears. The bonds of town life had always galled her. She was an artist, although she had denied it. She had become subject to her environment but it had been an imprisonment. Nature was her mother, and Nature had claimed her now.
She knew it all; she knew that she could never be a dancer again. She had stolen out on to the deck each morning in her slippers, and had seen the dawn break through the clouds and descend upon the quivering waters. She had seen the eastern sky streaked with faint but marvellous colouring, growing deeper and deeper, until the sun"s rim had risen from out of the water. Grey had become mauve, and white amber. It was wonderful! And by night she had leaned over the side of the yacht, and looked up into a sky ablaze with trembling stars, casting their golden reflections down upon the boundless waves which rose and fell beneath--waves which were sometimes green, and sometimes golden in the wonderful phosphoric light which touched them with a weird splendour. It was like the opening of a new world to Adrea. All that had gone before seemed harsh and artificial! It was the dawn of a new life.
Paul had noticed the change. To him it had appeared chiefly as an increased womanliness, a gentle softness of speech and mannerism very charming and attractive. Those few days at sea together had been like a dream to him. He had come on board as nearly broken-hearted as a strong man could be, and fiercely anxious to reach his destination and know the whole, cruel truth. In a few hours all had been changed. His sorrows seemed numbed. He was no longer battling alone with his grief.