After what seemed to Coppinger to be an intolerable length of time, Uncle Zachie stumbled down the stairs again.
"I say," said Mr. Menaida, standing on the steps, "Captain--did you ever hear about Tincombe Lane?--
"Tincombe Lane is all up-hill, Or down hill, as you take it; You tumble up and crack your crown, Or tumble down and break it."
--It"s the same with these blessed stairs. Would you mind lending me a hand? By the powers, the banister is not firm! Do you know how it goes on?--
"Tincombe Lane is crooked and straight As pot-hook or as arrow.
"Tis smooth to foot, "tis full of rut, "Tis wide and then "tis narrow."
--Thank you, sir, thank you. Now take the candle. Bah! I"ve broke my pipe--and then comes the moral--
"Tincombe Lane is just like life From when you leave your mother, "Tis sometimes this, "tis sometimes that, "Tis one thing or the other.""
In vain had Coppinger endeavored to interrupt the flow of words, and to extract from thick Zachie the information he needed, till the old gentleman was back in his chair.
Then Uncle Zachie observed--"Blessy"--I said so--I said so a thousand times. No--she"s not there. Tell Aunt Dunes so. Will you sit down and have a drop? The night is rough, and it will do you good--take the chill out of your stomach and the damp out of your chest."
But Coppinger did not wait to decline the offer. He turned at once, left the house, and dashed the door back as he stepped out into the night. He had not gone a hundred paces along the road before he heard voices, and recognized that of Mr. Scantlebray--
"I tell you the vessel is the Black Prince, and I know he was to have unloaded her to-night."
"Anyhow he is not doing so. Not a sign of him."
"The night is too dirty."
"Wyvill--" Coppinger knew that the Captain at the head of the coast-guard was speaking. "Wyvill, I heard a pistol-shot. Where is Jenkyns? If you had not been by me I should have said you had acted wide of your orders. Has any one seen Jenkyns?"
"No, sir."
"Who is that?"
Suddenly a light flashed forth, and glared upon Coppinger. The Captain in command of the coast-guard uttered an oath.
"You out to-night, Mr. Coppinger! Where do you come from?"
"As you see--from Polzeath."
"Humph! From no other direction?"
"I"ll trouble you to let me pa.s.s."
Coppinger thrust the Preventive man aside, and went on his way.
When he was beyond earshot, Scantlebray said--"I trust he did not notice me along with you. You see, the night is too dirty. Let him bless his stars, it has saved him."
"I should like to see Jenkyns," said the officer. "I am almost certain I heard a pistol-shot; but when I sent in the direction whence it came, there was no one to be seen. It"s a confounded dark night."
"I hope they"ve not give us the slip, Captain?" said Wyvill.
"Impossible," answered the officer. "Impossible. I took every precaution. They did not go out to-night. As Mr. Scantlebray says, the night was too dirty."
Then they went on.
In the meantime Coppinger was making the best of his way to the downs.
He knew his direction even in the dark--he had the "new-take" wall as a guide. What the coast-guard did not suspect was that this "new-take"
had been made for the very purpose of serving as a guide by which the smugglers could find their course in the blackest of winter"s nights; moreover, in the fiercest storm the wall served as a shelter, under lea of which they might approach their cave. Coppinger was without a lantern. He doubted if one would avail him, in his quest; moreover, the night was lightening, as the moon rode higher.
The smuggler captain stood for a moment on the edge of the cliffs to consider what course he should adopt to find Judith. If she had reached the summit, it was possible enough that she had lost her way and had rambled inland among lanes and across fields, pixy-led. In that case it was a hopeless task to search for her; moreover, there would be no particular necessity for him to do so, as, sooner or later, she must reach a cottage or a farm, where she could learn her direction. But if she had gone too near the edge, or if, in her ascent, her foot had slipped, then he must search the sh.o.r.e. The tide was ebbing now, and left a margin on which he could walk. This was the course he must adopt. He did not descend by the track to the chimney, as the creeping down of the latter could be effected in absolute darkness only with extreme risk; but he bent his way over the down skirting the crescent indentation of the cove to the donkey-path, which was now, as he knew, unwatched. By that he swiftly and easily descended to the beach. Along the sh.o.r.e he crept carefully toward that portion which was overhung by the precipice along which the way ran from the mouth of the shaft. The night was mending, or at all events seemed better. The moon, as it mounted, cast a glimmer through the least opaque portions of the driving clouds. Coppinger looked up, and could see the ragged fringe of down torn with gullies, and thrust up into p.r.o.ngs, black as ink against the gray of the half-translucent vapors. And near at hand was the long dorsal ridge that concealed the entrance to the cave, sloping rapidly upward and stretching away before him into shadow.
Coppinger mused. If one were to fall from above, would he drop between the cliff and this curtain, or would he strike and be projected over it on to the shelving sand up which stole the waves? He knew that the water eddying against friable sandstone strata that came to the surface had eaten them out with the wash, and that the hard flakes of slate and ribs of quartz stood forth, overhanging the cave. Most certainly, therefore, had Judith fallen, her body must be sought on the sea-face of the masking ridge. The smuggler stood at the very point where in the preceding afternoon Jamie and the dog had scrambled up that fin-like blade of rock and disappeared from the astonished gaze of Judith. The moon, smothered behind clouds, and yet, in a measure self-a.s.sertive, cast sufficient light down into the cove to glitter on, and trans.m.u.te into steel, the sea-washed and smoothed, and still wet, ridge, sloping inland as a seawall. As Coppinger stood looking upward he saw in the uncertain light something caught on the fangs of this saw-ridge, moving uneasily this way, then that, something dark, obscuring the glossed surface of the rock, as it might be a ma.s.s of gigantic sea-tangles.
"Judith!" he cried. "Is that you?" and he plunged through the pool that intervened, and scrambled up the rock.
He caught something. It was cloth. "Judith! Judith!" he almost shrieked in anxiety. That which he had laid hold of yielded, and he gathered to him a garment of some sort, and with it he slid back into the pool, and waded on to the pebbles. Then he examined his capture by the uncertain light, and by feel, and convinced himself that it was a cloak--a cloak with clasp and hood--just such as he had seen Judith wearing when he flashed his lantern over her on the platform at the mouth of the shaft.
He stood for a moment, numbed as though he had been struck on the head with a mallet, and irresolute. He had feared that Judith had fallen over the edge, but he had hoped that it was not so. This discovery seemed to confirm his worst fears.
If the cloak were there--she also would probably be there also, a broken heap. She who had thrown him down and broken him, had been thrown down herself, and broken also--thrown down and broken because she had come to rescue him from danger. Coppinger put his hand to his head. His veins were beating as though they would burst the vessels in his temples, and suffuse his face with blood. As he stood thus clasping his brow with his right hand, the clouds were swept for an instant aside, and for an instant the moon sent down a weird glare that ran like a wave along the sand, leaped impediments, scrambled up rocks, and flashed in the pools. For one moment only--but that sufficed to reveal to him a few paces ahead a black heap: there was no mistaking it. The rounded outlines were not those of a rock. It was a human body lying on the shingle half immersed in the pool at the foot of the reef!
A cry of intensest, keenest anguish burst from the heart of Coppinger.
Prepared though he was for what he must see by the finding of the cloak, the sight of that motionless and wrecked body was more than he could endure with composure. In the darkness that ensued after the moon-gleam he stepped forward, slowly, even timidly, to where that human wreck lay, and knelt on both knees beside it on the wet sand.
He waited. Would the moon shine out again and show him what he dreaded seeing? He would not put down a hand to touch it. One still clasped his brow, the other he could not raise so high, and he held it against his breast where it had lately been strapped. He tried to hold his breath, to hear if any sound issued from what lay before him. He strained his eyes to see if there were any, the slightest movement in it. Yet he knew there could be none. A fall from these cliffs above must dash every spark of life out of a body that reeled down them. He turned his eyes upward to see if the cloud would pa.s.s; but no--it seemed to be one that was all-enveloping, unwilling to grant him that glimpse which must be had, but which would cause him acutest anguish.
He could not remain kneeling there in suspense any longer. In uncertainty he was not. The horror was before him--and must be faced.
He thrust his hand into his pocket and drew forth tinder-box and flint. With a hand that had never trembled before, but now shaking as with an ague, he struck a light. The sparks flew about, and were long in igniting the touchwood. But finally it was kindled, and glowed red.
The wind fanned it into fitful flashes, as Coppinger, stooping, held the lurid spark over the prostrate form, and pa.s.sed it up and down on the face. Then suddenly it fell from his hand, and he drew a gasp.
The dead face was that of a bearded man.
A laugh--a wild, boisterous laugh--rang out into the night, and was re-echoed by the cliff, as Coppinger leaped to his feet. There was hope still. Judith had not fallen.
CHAPTER XVII.
FOR LIFE OR DEATH.
Coppinger did not hesitate a moment now to leave the corpse on the beach where he had found it, and to hasten to the cave.
There was a third alternative to which hitherto he had given no attention. Judith, in ascending the cliff, might have strayed from the track, and be in such a position that she could neither advance nor draw back. He would, therefore, explore the path from the chimney mouth, and see if any token could be found of her having so done.
He again held his smouldering tinder and by this feeble glimmer made his way up the inclined beach within the cave, pa.s.sed under the arch of the rock where low, and found himself in that portion where was the boat.
Here he knew of a receptacle for sundries, such as might be useful in an emergency, and to that he made his way, and drew from it a piece of candle and a lantern. He speedily lighted the candle, set it in the lantern, and then ascended the chimney.