"Yes, ma"am-but not to bide long. They will soon be back again, and then they"d be sure to take a convenient and well-armored ship out to the islands, and call here."
Mrs. Dashwood now looked at her daughter; but Elinor knew better than to expect them. She recognized the whole of Lucy in the message, and was very confident that Edward would never come near them.
Thomas"s intelligence seemed over. Elinor looked as if she wished to hear more.
"Did you see them off, before you came away?"
"No, ma"am-the horses were just coming out, but I could not bide any longer; I was afraid of being late."
"Did Mrs. Ferrars look well?"
"Yes, ma"am, but to my mind she was always a handsome young lady-and she seemed vastly contented."
Mrs. Dashwood could think of no other question, and Thomas and the tablecloth, now alike needless, were soon afterwards dismissed; Thomas returned downstairs to begin slicing up crayfish for to-morrow"s breakfast.
Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters remained long together in a similarity of thoughtfulness and silence. Mrs. Dashwood feared to hazard any remark, and ventured not to offer consolation. She now found that she had erred in relying on Elinor"s representation of herself; and justly concluded that everything had been expressly softened at the time, to spare her from an increase of unhappiness, suffering as she then had suffered for Marianne. Elinor, for her part, experienced such pain as if her head were captured in a vice.
She felt at last that it was appropriate to explain to her mother and her sister that the source of her pain was not merely the violent tugs upon her heartstrings occasioned by the information regarding Edward and the new Mrs. Ferrars; she finally told them of the odd symbol that had first appeared in her mind about the time of the Steeles" first arrival among them in the islands; she further explained how it had re-occurred intermittently in the months since; and how, finally, she had glimpsed it one other place only-on the lower back of Lucy Steele, when they changed clothes after the Fang-Beast"s attack.
"I am at sea, my dear," said Mrs. Dashwood with a puzzled expression. "What can it mean? What connection can there be between this recurring pain in your brain, and this girl?"
"I shall tell you what it means." Sir John suddenly stepped into the shanty, looking very serious indeed; Mrs. Jennings stood beside him, wringing her hands together.
"What it means," Sir John continued, "is that she is not a girl at all. She is a sea witch! And Mr. Ferrars is in the gravest danger."
CHAPTER 48
"SEA WITCHES WANDER THE EARTH when it suits them, but their true habitation is in undersea grottos, where they live and thrive for many centuries," said Sir John with a grave look. "But they are not an immortal race, contrary to what is commonly said of them. Indeed, the rest of us might well be counted safer if they when it suits them, but their true habitation is in undersea grottos, where they live and thrive for many centuries," said Sir John with a grave look. "But they are not an immortal race, contrary to what is commonly said of them. Indeed, the rest of us might well be counted safer if they were were-since the only certain way for a sea witch to prolong its foul existence is by consuming human bone marrow, which is therefore, to them, the most precious of elixirs. Hence their occasional appearance, in the guise of attractive human women, among the terrestrial world-where they make love to an unknowing man, marry him unawares, and then, when the opportunity presents itself, kill him and suck out his marrow."
Elinor and Mrs. Dashwood heard this oration in stunned silence, struggling to reconcile the picture in their minds of charming Lucy Steele, who had lived among them for so many months, with this new picture, of a devil-spirit who had emerged from a watery cavern to drink the juice of human bones.
"And what of the elder elder Miss Steele," wondered Marianne. "How could she not know that her sister had been replaced by a sea witch?" Miss Steele," wondered Marianne. "How could she not know that her sister had been replaced by a sea witch?"
"It is impossible that she did not not know," Sir John answered, "For a sister to a sea witch is certain to be a sea witch herself." know," Sir John answered, "For a sister to a sea witch is certain to be a sea witch herself."
"And yet, Anne Steele did not find a man to marry her!" protested Mrs. Dashwood.
"As I said, the witches take the physical form physical form of human women," explained Sir John. "There is nothing they can do about their personalities." of human women," explained Sir John. "There is nothing they can do about their personalities."
Elinor, consumed with concern for Edward, and hoping to find some justification for disbelieving Sir John"s counsel, inquired as to how he had arrived at his dire conclusion. "It is the five-pointed symbol you described, and its accompanying distress," came the reply. "Certain sensitive souls can sense their presence of sea witchery; they come to sense the distinctive presence of a witch, and it causes them a searing, throbbing pain, precisely as you have described it."
As if to confirm this conclusion, the pain returned to Elinor again, and she was overcome by a twisting pain, that gripped her body from her head to her guts. Edward Edward-Edward-was all she could think.
"If your friend has indeed been so fool enough to wed a sea witch," Sir John concluded, "then she has already come upon him sleeping, snapped his bones, and feasted upon the precious white fluid within as if it were mother"s milk."
Elinor realised-even as fresh waves of pain coursed through her body-that the hope she had harboured, in spite of herself, that something would occur to prevent Edward"s marrying Lucy, was grounded in some instinctual understanding of the horrid danger that his engagement posed; if only resolution of his own, some mediation of friends, or some more eligible opportunity of establishment for the lady, had arisen to a.s.sist the happiness of all, and prevent his being turned into an immortality-preserving snack for a sea witch! But he was now married, and thusly doomed. Except- "Wait a moment," she managed to say. "If the pain and sensitivity you mention function as a sort of alarm of a witch"s foul intentions-"
"As indeed it does."
"Why am I, even now, wracked by it-if Lucy Steele has already found her mark, and consumed him?"
Sir John, for once unsure of his answer, was trying to fashion one when Mrs. Dashwood beckoned them both to the window. The figure of a man clambering from a skiff, just tied to the dock, drew her eyes to the window. He approached their gate. It was a gentleman-it was Colonel Brandon! But why would Colonel Brandon, who had swum so n.o.bly to Marianne"s rescue and, they thought, shed his embarra.s.sment of his fishier qualities, now arrive onboard a skiff? No-it was not not Colonel Brandon- neither his air-nor his height-and no mucous-dripping tentacles. Were it possible, she must say it must be Edward. She looked again. He was at the bottom of the steps now. She could not be mistaken. It Colonel Brandon- neither his air-nor his height-and no mucous-dripping tentacles. Were it possible, she must say it must be Edward. She looked again. He was at the bottom of the steps now. She could not be mistaken. It was was Edward. Intact! And here! Edward. Intact! And here!
The pain evaporated from her mind, but still Elinor was overwhelmed. She moved away and sat down. "I will will be calm; I be calm; I will will be mistress of myself." be mistress of myself."
She saw her mother and Marianne change colour and whisper a few sentences to each other. She would have given the world to be able to speak-and to make them understand that she hoped no coolness, no slight, would appear in their behaviour to him; but she had no utterance, and was obliged to leave all to their own discretion.
No further syllable pa.s.sed aloud. They all waited in silence for the appearance of their visitor. His footsteps were heard climbing the rickety wooden steps of the gravel path; in a moment he was in the pa.s.sage, and in another he was before them.
His countenance, as he entered the room, was not too happy, even for Elinor. His complexion was white with agitation, and he looked as if fearful of his reception, and conscious that he merited no kind one. "My G.o.d!" muttered Sir John. "He is half consumed!" But a closer inspection revealed that he was walking upright and breathing normally, which would be impossible if several of his bones had been snapped and sucked upon.
Mrs. Dashwood, uncertain of the social requirements of a situation in which an acquaintance is newly married, but (unknowingly so) to a witch of the deep, met him with a look of forced complacency, gave him her hand, and wished him joy.
He stammered out an unintelligible reply. Elinor"s lips had moved with her mother"s, and, when the moment of action was over, she wished that she had shaken hands with him too. But in the next moment she resolved that she could not let her friend not know the truth about the woman he had wed. Elinor, resolving to exert herself to caution her old friend, though fearing the sound of her own voice, now said: "There is something we must tell you about Mrs. Ferrars! Some most terrifying information, so you best brace yourself."
"Terrifying information? About my mother?
"I meant," said Elinor, taking up some work from the table, "terrifying information about Mrs. Edward Edward Ferrars." Ferrars."
She dared not look up-but her mother and Marianne both turned their eyes on him. He coloured, seemed perplexed, looked doubtingly, and said, "Perhaps you mean-my brother-you mean Mrs. Robert Robert Ferrars." Ferrars."
"Mrs. Robert Ferrars!" was repeated by Marianne and her mother in an accent of the utmost amazement; and though Elinor could not speak, even her her eyes were fixed on him with the same impatient wonder. He rose from his seat, and walked to the window, apparently from not knowing what to do; took up a pair of scissors that lay there, and while spoiling both them and their sheath by cutting the latter to pieces as he spoke, said, in a hurried voice, "Perhaps you do not know-you may not have heard that my brother is lately married to-to the youngest-to Miss Lucy Steele." eyes were fixed on him with the same impatient wonder. He rose from his seat, and walked to the window, apparently from not knowing what to do; took up a pair of scissors that lay there, and while spoiling both them and their sheath by cutting the latter to pieces as he spoke, said, in a hurried voice, "Perhaps you do not know-you may not have heard that my brother is lately married to-to the youngest-to Miss Lucy Steele."
His words were echoed with unspeakable astonishment by all but Elinor, who sat in a state of such agitation as made her hardly know where she was.
"Yes," said he, "they were married last week, and are now at Dawlish."
Elinor could sit no longer. She ran out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first she thought would never cease. Edward, who had till then looked anywhere, rather than at her, saw her hurry away, and perhaps saw-or even heard, her emotion; for immediately afterwards he fell into a reverie, which no remarks, no inquiries, no affectionate address of Mrs. Dashwood could penetrate, and at last, without saying a word, quitted the room, and went for a happy walk along the beach-leaving the others in the greatest astonishment and perplexity on a change in his situation, so wonderful and so sudden.
Marianne, though, ventured to add one note of concern: "Doesn"t this mean, however, that Robert Ferrars will be, or has already been, consumed by the sea witch?" But none present felt that possibility was much to be concerned with, or regretted.
CHAPTER 49
UNACCOUNTABLE AS THE CIRc.u.mSTANCES of his release might appear to the whole family, it was certain that Edward was free; and to what purpose that freedom would be employed was easily pre-determined by all. For after experiencing the blessings of of his release might appear to the whole family, it was certain that Edward was free; and to what purpose that freedom would be employed was easily pre-determined by all. For after experiencing the blessings of one one imprudent engagement, contracted without his mother"s consent, as he had already done for more than four years, nothing less could be expected of him in the failure of imprudent engagement, contracted without his mother"s consent, as he had already done for more than four years, nothing less could be expected of him in the failure of that that, than the immediate contraction of another.
His errand on Pestilent Isle, at the rickety house known as Barton Cottage, was a simple one. It was only to ask Elinor to marry him-and considering that he was not altogether inexperienced in such a question, it might be strange that he should feel so uncomfortable in the present case as he really did, so much in need of encouragement and fresh air. He paced on the beach for a full five minutes, as Mrs. Dashwood peeked at him through the bay window. She once shouted "Watch out!" and would later relate that Elinor"s moment of great happiness was nearly undone before properly contracted, when a giant bivalve mollusk tried, and barely failed, to snap itself shut around his unprotected ankles.
How soon he had walked himself into the proper resolution, however, how soon an opportunity of exercising it occurred, and how he was received, need not be particularly told. This only need be said-that when they all sat down to table at four o"clock, about three hours after his arrival, he had secured his lady, engaged her mother"s consent, and was not only in the rapturous profession of the lover, but one of the happiest of men. His situation indeed was more than commonly joyful. He had more than the ordinary triumph of accepted love to swell his heart, and raise his spirits. He was released without any reproach to himself, from an entanglement which had long formed his misery, from a woman whom he had long ceased to love, and who (he was now informed) was an immortal and evil spirit, who had emerged from a cave many fathoms below sea level to secure a victim, from whom to suckle the very stuff of life for her own diabolical use. He was brought from misery to happiness-and the change was openly spoken in such a genuine, flowing, grateful cheerfulness, as his friends had never witnessed in him before.
His heart was now open to Elinor, all its weaknesses, all its errors confessed, and his first boyish attachment to Lucy treated with all the philosophic dignity of four and twenty.
"When first I met her, Lucy appeared everything that was amiable and obliging. She was pretty too-at least I thought so then then; and I had seen so little of other women, that I could make no comparisons, and see no defects. I did at times notice, now that I think of it, that her eyes, on odd occasions, would flash the deepest, most crimson red, and that when she laughed at a j.a.pe, she would cackle rather alarmingly. Considering everything, therefore, I hope, foolish as our engagement was, foolish as it has since in every way been proved, it was not at the time an unnatural or an inexcusable piece of folly.
"And now," he concluded, his eyes firmly affixed on Elinor"s beaming countenance, "I feel that the world has shifted under my very feet."
There was a long silence, in which all present realised that Edward"s choice of phrase, if accidental, bore a literal as well as a figurative accuracy; the room had, in fact, shifted beneath their feet; and even as they all adjusted to this slight but discernible tilt, it jerked in the other direction, and they all were thrown violently to the ground.
"My G.o.d!" cried Sir John, emerging from the instinctual barrel roll he had gone into at the room"s first moving, and standing with legs spread far apart, firmly balanced himself against the alarming angle of the floor.
"Goodness," echoed Mrs. Jennings from under the tea table. "What is happening?"
"It is beginning," came a raspy voice from the doorway of the cottage, and all eyes turned to find young Margaret-although no longer did she look young, nor even like a girl at all-but like a fearsome, troll-like creature of the darkness: Her head pin-bald, her cheeks caked with dirt, her eyes squinting against the daylight.
"Margaret!" said Mrs. Dashwood with a wail. "My darling!"
At her approach, with arms outstretched, Margaret hissed like a snake, baring razor-sharp teeth at her mother. "Come no closer, woman of earth! Leviathan wakes-we must be girded for its waking!" And then, throwing back her head and screaming in a loud, unnatural voice, "K"yaloh D"argesh F"ah! K"yaloh D"argesh F"ah!"
This e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n received the predictable startled reaction; all present exchanged concerned expressions, before they were distracted as the house trembled once more, and tilted dramatically, from forty-five to eighty-five degrees in the opposite direction. Mrs. Jennings rolled wildly out from under the table and slammed with a resounding thud against the pianoforte.
"It was all true," Sir John moaned. "Palmer warned me-I wouldn"t listen-it is all true!"
"K"yaloh D"argesh F"ah! K"yaloh D"argesh F"ah!" shouted Margaret again.
Elinor, having tumbled from the heights of happiness into a miasma of terror-and from one end of the parlour to the other-found herself now staring wide-eyed out the southerly aspect of the cottage. There she saw Mount Margaret, a streak of grey-black smoke pouring forth from its top, while all along the craggy hillside hideous troll-like creatures crawled like insects towards the summit.
"What?" she cried out to Edward, who was bleeding copiously from a cut he had received in the first roll of the room. "What is happening?"
This was the last phrase anyone was able to emit for a long time. In the next instant, the entire house and all inside it, were lifted a hundred feet up in the air, and tossed into the sea.
Elinor surfaced in the cold, choppy waters off of the Devonshire coast, grasping for a sc.r.a.p of furniture on which to secure herself, and thinking longingly of the Float-Suit she had worn in Sub-Marine Station Beta. Bits and pieces of Barton Cottage were borne past her by the agitated churning of the water: wood beams from the doorframe, several steps from the rickety wooden staircase; the piano bench; her collection of driftwood sculptures-all of it so much sea-borne rubbish now, as, she feared, was she herself.
And then-straight ahead of her-Elinor saw the most horrible sight her vision had yet comprehended. Pestilent Island, her home, was lifting itself out of the water-in a long, fluid motion the four-mile sweep of the island rose and rose and rose, revealing beneath the surface the irrefutable aspect of a face face-it was a beast of impossible size, and the island that had been their home was merely the head-no, merely the crest crest of the head. Up it rose, with sea-water streaming down around it on all sides, a wall of mighty waterfalls crashing into the ocean. of the head. Up it rose, with sea-water streaming down around it on all sides, a wall of mighty waterfalls crashing into the ocean.
THE LEVIATHAN LOOKED THIS WAY AND THAT, ITS GARGANTUAN EYES ROLLING WILDLY.
The whole fearsome head lifted itself from the water, and a pair of huge rolling eyes, surveyed the horizon line; two barbed and scaly claws, each as big as a battleship, set to thrashing about in the water. The Leviathan looked this way and that, its gargantuan eyes rolling wildly, as a blast of steam shot upwards from the blowhole on the very crest of its head-what Elinor now realised they had called Mount Margaret for all these many months. The whole head was dotted here and there with flexing, viscous gill-like slits and holes; it was one such gill-set, she thought, where she and Marianne had sat and talked last of Willoughby, where she had watched the mist roll in and out of the pond, one minute facet of the ma.s.sive operation of the Thing"s respiratory system. The pool had not seemed seemed to breathe, it to breathe, it did did breathe. breathe.
As she watched, the Leviathan brought one gigantic claw down into the water, scooped up a school of monstrous tuna, each one as big as a cow, and tossed them into its maw like peanuts.
The island was awake, and it was hungry hungry.
Elinor swam. She swam as fast as she could, kicking and paddling, setting her eyes for Allenham, the next island in the chain, though she knew it to be four miles, and too far a swim for her to make; and could not she hope to outswim the creature that, simply by outstretching its gigantic front claw, could scoop her up in an instant.
Where were her mother and Marianne? Had the Leviathan already consumed them, like it had those tuna? And where where was her dearest Edward? was her dearest Edward?
On she swam, banishing all thoughts, thinking only of breathing, of swimming-of survival.
What a rapid turn of events this day had wrought! First, that great change which a few hours had wrought in the minds and the happiness of the Dashwoods! And now this-a race for life, to stay ahead of the sleep-hungered Leviathan that once had been her home.
On she swam, until her arms grew tired and her head grew heavy; the impossibility of her task weighed on her as much as her heavy woolen frock; she would never make it. With despair she began to feel a powerful tidal pull beneath her-though there was no undertow, not out here, miles from sh.o.r.e. Glancing back over her shoulder she confirmed her fear: The monster had brought its snout down to the water line and opened its mouth, and was simply sucking in sea-water. The water was rushing into its insatiable mouth, and dragging Elinor with it. She fought the undertow with all her ability; she kicked furiously, battling the tidal force with all the strength in her body.
"That"s it!" shouted a voice. "Those are the calves I love!"
She turned her head, raised it from the water, and beheld her dear Edward, swimming beside her. He held out his hand to her, and she hers to him; just by touching, their energies combined, and each felt their individual power increase. They swam that way, as one swimmer, stroking simultaneous, towards the safety of the schooner.
A schooner? Indeed-for here was Mr. Benbow, with the familiar scowling face and feathers tied in his beard, calling from the prow of the Rusted Nail! Rusted Nail!
"Ahoy!" he called, as his mates appeared; there was Mr. Palmer and One-Eyed Peter and Two-Eyed Scotty and gentle Billy Rafferty-and even Mrs. Palmer, laughing cheerily with babe in arms. The crew l.u.s.tily cheered Elinor and Edward forward, urging them on with foulmouthed piratic exhortations. In a moment the pair pulled free of the monster"s tidal force; in another instant they were climbing the ropes and ladder tossed from the bow, and were aboard the schooner.
"Hard to port, Peter!" called Mr. Benbow. "Hard to port and steady as you go. We must escape this island-turned-fiend, or we"ll all be swimming in its dank digestive juices by sunset!"
Marianne, Mrs. Dashwood, and the rest had already been plucked from the sea, and in a quarter hour"s time, they had sailed clear of the Devonshire coast and the Leviathan. All were wrapped in blankets, seated with cups of hot grog on the fo"c"sle of the Rusted Nail Rusted Nail, listening to Mr. Palmer"s solemn-voice explanation of what they had just witnessed.
"What my wife insists on calling drollery drollery," said he, "and what others call bitterness bitterness or or dyspepsia dyspepsia, I can call what it is in truth: The kind of desperate soul-deep melancholia that comes from having looked into the dark eye of time and seen the darkest secrets of the earth.
"It was on a sea journey, some half dozen years after I left His Majesty"s service to go adventuring with Sir John and his crew, in search of whatever tribal curse it was that affected the Alteration. We ran aground on a patch of rock several hundred nautical miles north-northwest of the Tasmanian sh.o.r.e. There we lived for fourteen terrible months, sacked out on rocks, under makeshift tents we st.i.tched from pieces of our ravaged sail; by day we wandered, hunting wolves and apes for food; at night we slept, at constant peril from the lash of the wind and the sting of a thousand different species of mosquito and night crawler.
"One day I found a cave; from within its depths, I saw a pair of gleaming eyes inside, and heard a queer chanting. Wearied by tedium of our island life, and certain regardless that my life would soon be meeting its end, I saw no risk in venturing after the source of the mystery. And so I decided to explore the cavern-how bitterly I have wished, every subsequent day, that I had decided otherwise!
"After travelling only a few yards within the cave, I was seized all at once by what felt like a thousand grasping hands and pulled to the dirt floor. The things that a.s.saulted man-for things things I was certain they were, merciless beasts, though later I would find that they were men-chanted as they dragged me into the cave-floor, chanted with one horrible voice: I was certain they were, merciless beasts, though later I would find that they were men-chanted as they dragged me into the cave-floor, chanted with one horrible voice: K"yaloh D"argesh F"ah! K"yaloh D"argesh F"ah! K"yaloh D"argesh F"ah! K"yaloh D"argesh F"ah!
"All the hair was shaved from my body; with bits of flint they filed my teeth to sharpened points. At last I was left alone, naked, trembling and bleeding, with one that acted as the leader. I need not tell you how startled I was when he began to speak in English, though his voice was raspy as if out of practice."
Palmer explained that the man was a member of a tribe of subterranean cave-men, who had once dwelt above ground like other human races, but now lived in caverns below the earth"s surface, and worshipped a pantheon of cruel and hidden monster-G.o.ds called the K"yaloh K"yaloh. The K"yaloh K"yaloh were an ancient race, older than man, older than beast, older than the Alteration, older than time itself. They laid in slumber, waiting for the day of waking. When they woke, all that we know would be destroyed. were an ancient race, older than man, older than beast, older than the Alteration, older than time itself. They laid in slumber, waiting for the day of waking. When they woke, all that we know would be destroyed.
"K"yaloh D"argesh F"ah," the leader told Palmer. "Leviathan slumbers, but day will come of wakening." the leader told Palmer. "Leviathan slumbers, but day will come of wakening."
"The tale of my escape, and of my journey home, is long," Palmer concluded. "But it is not a tale worth telling, because, well, because nothing is worth anything. If I am quiet-if I am droll-it is because since that day, life has held little interest. For how could it-what purpose is there in pursuing the trivial amus.e.m.e.nts of man?"
"K"yaloh D"argesh F"ah," he repeated slowly. "Day will come of wakening."
He glanced backwards at their churning wake, back towards the swirling waters where once Pestilent Isle had sat. "Day has come."
It must be that there is something in the hearts of human beings, some natural fluid perhaps, that insists on happiness, even confronted with the most powerful arguments against it. For having heard Mr. Palmer"s tale, and not doubting its veracity, the Dashwoods continued in their happy excitement at the engagement that had unfolded, just before the Leviathan woke from its ageless slumber. Indeed, Mrs. Dashwood, too happy to be comfortable (and additionally sleeping on One-Eyed Peter"s bunk, which he had gallantly ceded to her) knew not how to love Edward nor praise Elinor enough, how to be enough thankful for his release without wounding his delicacy, nor how at once to give them leisure for unrestrained conversation together, and yet enjoy, as she wished, the sight and society of both.
Marianne could speak her her happiness only by tears. Comparisons would occur-regrets would arise-and her joy, though sincere as her love for her sister, was of a kind to give her neither spirits nor language. "Arrrgh," she could only say, taking inspiration from the pirates that surrounded her. "Arrgh." happiness only by tears. Comparisons would occur-regrets would arise-and her joy, though sincere as her love for her sister, was of a kind to give her neither spirits nor language. "Arrrgh," she could only say, taking inspiration from the pirates that surrounded her. "Arrgh."