A difficult question, indeed, to decide with that grey mist curtain closing in and shutting out all, save a patch or two of bent at their feet.
"Stay here a bit," he continued, "and I will explore. Take the whistle. I won"t go beyond its reach or be away long; the road must be close by."
It was not, however, and he returned after a time with a clouded face.
"I don"t understand it. The sea seems to surround us except in one direction, and that is all sand and bent. I don"t remember any such point below Grada."
"Perhaps we are above it," suggested his companion.
"Quite impossible. The current runs south; a sort of back eddy from the big stream. That is what brings all the drift to Grada Sands. The question, however, is what we are to do. Take to the boat again and punt along the sh.o.r.e till we find a landmark, I should say. Best not to desert our ships."
But this again brought a disappointment, and half an hour"s rowing, punting, and towing resulted in nothing. By this time it was almost dark, the mist gathered denser than ever, and with the approach of night the north wind rose steadily.
"The sooner we settle ourselves the better, if we have to camp out, and it looks like it," said he at last. "Still, if we light a fire, some one may see it. Anyhow, there are stores and a sail in the boat, so we shall manage. Cheer up, Maud; imagine we are children again. How often haven"t we pretended to be cast away on a desert island together, and how happy we were!"
True enough; yet as she helped him to gather driftwood for the fire, her thoughts were on the difference between those days and these. And there was more to them in this mischance than there would have been to others. What had she meant to do when she stepped into the boat? She could not tell; only this she knew, that fate seemed to have decided for her. If the fire brought some one--well and good. If not, why then Eustace and she had gone adrift. That question was settled forever.
She sate feeding the fire, whilst he foraged for eatables in the boat, and each stick seemed to her another doubt dispelled. How they flamed and crackled and sparkled, as driftwood does out of sheer joy in burning. Yet no one came--no one.
Later on, with the tenderness which was a fierce delight to her, he found her what shelter he could on that bare waste of bent and shingle; though it was only a nook, backed on the windy side by a rough slab of rock half embedded in the sand. Still it was dry and warm, and with the boat"s sail wrapped round her, and her feet towards a freshly built fire, she could lean back comfortably and defy some of the growing cold and rising wind. She sate watching him silently as he sate by the fire, turning every now and again to a.s.sure himself of her comfort or tuck the sail, loosened by the wind, round her more closely.
Suddenly, during one of these ministrations, her eye caught the sparkle of dewdrops on his coat, and she stretched out her delicate hand to touch his sleeve. It was quite wet.
"There is plenty of room for you here, Eustace," she said quietly, "and the sail will cover us if we sit close together. I--I must not begin by being selfish." Then her calm gave way. "Oh, Eustace!
Eustace! we must love each other very dearly or I shall die of shame."
Something in the almost despairing surrender to fate roused the best part in his nature. He drew her head on to his shoulder and kissed her gently.
"Good-night, dear. Go to sleep if you can. I"ll watch the fire."
She gave a little shivering sob and clung to him. All was settled now; she had taken her life into her own hands; the struggle was over, and he was a haven of rest--a haven of rest. Her thoughts went no further than that, for she was utterly wearied out; but as he sate beside her, his mind went far afield into the afterwards which he had claimed as his right; and more than once as she stirred in the uneasy sleep into which she had fallen, he bent over her again and kissed her. She was his; the past was at an end; scruples must come later if they came at all. He had foreseen this ending from the beginning; perhaps he had tried to escape from it; perhaps he had not. This much was certain,--the stars had fought for him, and she was his. The wind swept steadily round them, but, safe sheltered as she was, he feared no harm, and when the dawn came their troubles would all be over--forever.
So sheltering her, as morning approached he, too, fell into a doze, and the fire, deprived of fuel, sank by degrees to a heap of smouldering ashes. Then the chill which comes before the day sought them out even in each other"s arms, and brought to both a vague, surprised consciousness of their surroundings. Where were they? What had happened? With eyes still full of sleep and dreams, she saw the grey mist hanging round them--the ashes of the fire which had burnt so bravely last night. Last night! Great G.o.d, how came she there?
"Eustace!" she cried, starting up wildly, one hand finding aid from the slab of rock behind her. Her pretty hair was damp with dew, her face flushed where it had rested on his shoulder.
For answer he caught her to him and covered her face with pa.s.sionate kisses. He, too, was fresh from sleep and dreams,--dreams of the hereafter. And now the day had come, and yonder, where the mist showed lightest, the sun was rising.
"Oh, no! no!" she panted, struggling to escape.
"Maud!"--his tone was full of surprised reproach as he fell back a step,--"what is it? What have I done?"
"What have _I_ done?" she echoed swiftly. "I can"t remember! Oh, G.o.d!
what"s that?" Her voice rose to a shriek; she clung to him convulsively with one hand while her eyes fixed themselves on the stone slab which had sheltered her--and him.
The north wind had done work during the night, and the embedded slab was clear now; more than clear. It formed part of a stone coffin whence the wind had driven the sand, leaving the contents exposed to view. Only a few bones, but, backed by the drifted sand, they still kept the semblance of a skeleton sitting staring out into the mist.
Eustace Gordon recoiled--the best of men would have done so much in such a situation; then memory aided him.
"It is Eilean-a-fa-ash, Maud--Eilean-a-varai--you remember. We must have drifted north somehow. Don"t look so scared, my darling. It is only Eilean-a-fa-ash--the Island of Rest--that is all."
She did not heed him; her eyes, full of an almost insane terror, were fastened on the fleshless hand which lay so near--oh! G.o.d in heaven!--so near her own as it clutched the side of the coffin.
"The ring," she whispered. "Look! look--the ring, my ring, my ring."
Yes! on the dead as on the living hand he saw the ring with its legend, "Beautiful, constant, chaste." A chill came over even his pa.s.sion; yet he turned to her with sudden petulance.
"Well! what then?--you know whence it must have come, what it must have been from the beginning, I suppose. Come! let us leave these horrors, let us leave the past and be sensible. Come, Maud."
She gave him one look,--a look he never forgot,--and with a cry of "Rick"s ring! Rick"s ring!" broke from him and disappeared into the mist.
"Maud! Maud! don"t be silly! Maud! where are you going? For G.o.d"s sake, Maud! come back. The mist--the sea--are you mad? Maud! Maud!"
Then he, too, was blotted out, and the growing light of day found nothing human there save the bones of a woman who had been loved.
Nothing but that and the ashes of a fire which had gone out.
"Maud! Maud!" The cry hit on the mist and came echoing back to him, as, following her faint footsteps, he pursued her. Once looming through the fog he thought he saw her pausing as for breath, but his pa.s.sionate entreaty for her to wait for him, his eager reminder that he was Eustace--Eustace, her lover--brought no response. Did he imagine a faint cry as if she started off in renewed alarm, or was it only some sea-bird hidden in the mist, uttering its plaintive note?
He brought himself up suddenly with a gasp of horrid fears as his feet gave way beneath him--deeper? deeper? No! that was right: firm ground once more, but where was he? Where were those faint footmarks leading him?
"Maud! Come back! It is not safe!" Still he went on. Not safe, indeed!
He floundered desperately for a moment, and then stood with laboured breath and a dew of deadly fear on his face, looking round him. The sun rising steadily had, by this time, turned the mist into a golden haze, through which he could see that a few seaweed-hung boulders had been gathered to a heap whence sprang a cross-shaped post. It must be a ford--the sea ford to Eilean-a-fa-ash. That way then lay safety, for a few hours; but which way had she gone? He stooped to see, with fear for her and for himself fighting with his love. Then he stood up, pale as death. "Maud! Come back. Maud! I will not hurt you." Surely, surely there was an answering cry. The relief seemed to blind him, deafen him.
"Here! Here! where are you? It is I!"
The next instant Rick Halmar was beside him, fiercely imperative.
"Where is she? Where is she?"
Eustace Gordon looked at the eager boyish face stupidly, and faltered, "She was afraid--she ran away. I don"t know why. Call her. She might come to you. Call her."
Those bright blue eyes seemed to pierce him through and through, before they sought the ground. There was not much to be seen; only the print of a woman"s foot in the sand, a foot going south; due south.
"Coward!"
The word rang out clear from the golden mist like a voice from heaven, and Eustace Gordon was left standing alone beside the cross pointing towards safety. Rick Halmar had gone south; due south.
VIII
Then a new cry beat itself upon the curtain of mist: "Lady Maud! Lady Maud! it is I--Rick! Rick Halmar." And the boy"s voice reached further than the man"s, as moment by moment the sea-haugh lightened, softened, rose, until it seemed no more than a golden halo round the climbing sun.
"It is I--Rick! Rick Halmar."
His hands clenched tighter and tighter as he ran. To Eustace the danger had been uncertain, unreal, but Rick knew every inch of the ground, and knew that each step left hope further behind. Already his accustomed ear had caught the curious whispering hush with which the land gives way before the sea. And he knew what that meant on Grada Sands. Firm foothold for a second and then a shivering and murmuring sliding gulf. Oh, horrible, most horrible to think of her.
"Lady Maud! it is I--Rick, only Rick."