If a spectre had appeared the consternation had scarcely been greater.
But the next moment, recovering from their surprise, the people on all sides leaped up and rushed out of the church. In two minutes not a soul was left except Tommy-Bill-beg and Jemmy Quark Balladhoo, who still sang l.u.s.tily, oblivious of the fact that they had no audience.
CHAPTER XXII
ON THE MOAR REEF
This is what had happened.
When Christian and Mona turned away from the house in the quarry, with its dead man and solitary watcher, they thought they descried a sail far out in the black void beyond the line of wild sea that was lighted up by the burning gorse.
"Let"s hope they"re not in the down-stream, poor fellows, whoever they are," said Christian. "In a wind like this it would be certain to drive them dead on to the Moar Reef."
Then they continued their walk, and pa.s.sed the open shaft in which Christian had spent his night of peril and agony. There was so much to say that neither spoke except at long intervals. There was so much else to feel that neither felt weary, nor remembered the many hours in which both had been strangers to sleep. They might have wandered on--two dark figures against the red glow of the great fire--until the steep declivities of the Poolvash had stopped them, but that the wind rose higher every moment, and threatened to sweep them from their feet.
"Listen how the sea thunders," said Christian; and just then a cloud of hissing spray came up to them, high as they were, from the boiling surge below.
They turned back, laughing as every gust tore them a little apart.
Before they pa.s.sed the cottage on their return they were conscious of faint cries from beneath.
"Hark," said Mona, "surely they were voices from the sea."
There could be no doubt of it now. Several voices were calling in accents of fearful agony, and above the rest was one wild thin shriek.
It seemed to echo in the lowering dome of the empty sky--was such a cry of distress as might haunt one"s dreams for years.
"It"s from the boat we saw, and they"re on the Moar Reef, too surely,"
said Christian. Then they hastened on.
When they reached the sh.o.r.e they found the sea running high. A long ground-swell was breaking in the narrow strait between the mainland and the Castle Isle. Flakes of sea-foam were flying around them. The waves were scooping up the shingle and flinging it through the air like sleet.
The cries were louder here than above. By the light of Danny"s fire it was but too easy to see from whence they came. Jammed between two huge protruding horns of rock a fishing-boat was laboring hard in the heavy sea, rearing with a creak on the great waves, and plunging down with a crash and groan on the sharp teeth of the shoal beneath her.
The men on deck could be seen hacking at the mast to lighten her, and cutting away the gunwale forward to ease her off the horns that held her like a vise. But every fresh wave behind drove her head deeper into the cleft. The men shouted in mingled rage and fear. They tried to leap on to the rocks, but the weight of seas breaking on them made this a perilous adventure, even if the pitching of the boat left it possible.
Christian took in the situation in an instant. Two or three small boats were lying high and dry on the sh.o.r.e. He ran to them, cut away their cables, tied them together in strong knots, slung one end round his waist and pa.s.sed the other about an old spar that lay close by.
"They"re too near for us to stand and see them die," he shouted excitedly above the tumult of the wind.
Mona clung to him for an instant. Then she loosed him with a fervent kiss.
In another moment he had plunged into the water.
The strait was very narrow--sixty feet at most from the sh.o.r.e to the rocks. Yet what a toilsome journey to the man who was wading off with the rope. The tide was flowing and near the top. It never rose higher than four or five feet in this channel. A man might cross it if the swell did not sweep him back.
Through the boiling surf, piercingly cold, Christian struggled bravely.
He was young and strong. He reached the boat at last. It was prancing like an unbroken horse. But waiting for a receding wave, he rushed in, laid firm hold of the first man at hand, and carried him back to the sh.o.r.e. The man had lain in his arms a dead weight. Was he dead indeed?
Mona stooped and looked into his face. "It is Danny Fayle," she cried.
But Danny was not dead. He recovered consciousness, and staggered to his feet.
Loud and angry cries were now coming from the boat. Mingled with the curses of rage there came the words, "Why didn"t you give us the rope?"
Christian shouted that he was coming back with it. Then, watching again for an ebbing wave, he plunged off afresh. He reached the boat quicker this time. Being pulled aboard, he unlashed the rope and strapped it to the capstan. Then one of the men--it was old Quilleash--dropped over the side, and drew himself hand-over-hand through the water.
But the rope stretched and creaked with the rolling of the boat. The spar to which the end ash.o.r.e was strapped budged not an inch. Mona saw the danger too late. Before she could ease the rope it snapped.
Now Christian added one more to the number of those on the boat!
Old Billy, safe on sh.o.r.e, sat down on the shingle and sobbed terror-stricken and helpless. Thank G.o.d, the poor despised Danny had his wits about him. He saw what had happened, and ran for another rope.
Flying into the town, he shouted, "Help, help!" But all Peel seemed to be at the "carvals." He ran to the church. Screams of laughter and the tumult of noisy singing came out into the darkness. Scarce knowing what he did, he burst open the door, and cried, in a piercing voice, "The "Ben-my-Chree" is on the rocks." Then, with the new rope in his hand, he fled away to the sh.o.r.e.
When Danny got back a great mult.i.tude was at his heels. Old Quilleash still sat wailing and helpless. Mona ran up and down the sh.o.r.e in an agony of suspense. The lad looked at neither. The hillside of fire behind them showed but too clearly what had occurred. Chilled to the bone by the raw winter wind, four of the men had dropped overboard. A fifth had leaped into the water, and after a fearful struggle for life had been lifted off his feet by the breakers and broken on the rocks.
He was seen no more. Only two remained on the deck, and one of the two was Christian. He could be seen clinging to the bowsprit, which was shipped. The dingy had been torn from the lugger, and thrown by the rising tide high and dry on the shingle. Danny pushed it to the water"s edge, jumped in, strapped one end of the new rope about his body, threw the other to a group of men on the sh.o.r.e, and looked round for a.s.sistance. None stepped out. Many fell back. "It"s no use throwing more lives away," muttered one. "They"re past saving," said another. Women clung to their husbands, and would not let them stir. Other women, the wives of men who had been on the boat, cried "Help." Little children, crouching together with fear and cold, wept piteously.
Danny pushed off his boat, but in an instant it was lifted on to the top of a snow-capped billow and pitched ash.o.r.e. Danny himself was thrown out on the shingle. "No use, man," shouted many voices, and the lad was compelled to desist.
The wind clamored louder every minute. Timbers cut away from the fishing-boat were swept up with every wave. The surf around the rocks was like snow. The water was beaten into seething foam around the boat also; between the billows the long swell was red with the reflection of the fire, but the sea was black as ink beyond the line of the Castle Isle, save where, at the farthest line of wave and sky, a streak of ashen light shone in the darkness.
Danny had coiled the rope from end to end around his waist. Then he stood and waited. He knew that the tide must soon turn. He knew too that, having once begun to ebb, it would flow out at this point as fast as a horse might gallop. But low water never left those rocks dry between which the fishing-boat was jammed. The men aboard of her would still need succor. But help might then come to them from the castle side of the channel.
The crowd knew his purpose, and laughed at it. One grizzled old fisherman took Danny by the arm, and would have held him. But at the first glimpse of the reef that ran across the highest and narrowest point of the strait, the lad shook himself free, and bounded across to the Castle Isle.
"Brave Danny," said Mona, in a deep whisper.
"Brave? Is it brave? Aw, well, it"s mad I"m calling it," said the old salt.
There is a steep pathway under the east wall of the castle. It runs up from the sh.o.r.e to a great height above the water. It is narrow enough to be called a ledge, and the rocks beneath it fall wellnigh precipitously.
Danny ran along this path until he came to the square turret, whose truncated shaft stands on the southeast corner of the castle. While he was under the shelter of the walls the wind did not touch him, but when he reached the east angle a fierce gust from the west threatened to fling him over into the sea. He tried to round the corner and could not.
The wind filled his jersey like a sail. He took the jersey off and threw it aside. Then, on hands and knees he crawled round inch by inch, clinging to the stones of the turret and the few tussacs of long gra.s.s that grew between them.
Every movement he made could be watched from the opposite side of the channel. The light of the gorse fired over the Poolvash fell full upon him, and lit up the entire castle and rocks and the shuddering boat beneath with an eery brilliance. The townspeople were congregated in thousands on the Horse Hill and the sh.o.r.e of the mainland. "Who"s yonder madman?" cried one. "Danny Fayle," answered another. "No, not Danny, the gawk?" "Aw, yes, though, Danny, the gawk." Kerruish Kinvig was there, striding up and down, and shouting like thunder itself above the tumult of the wind, "Clear the road. Stand back, the ruck of you." There was nothing else that Kinvig could do. Mylrea Balladhoo had been sent for.
He came and sat down on the spar to which Christian had strapped the rope. The broken piece still hung to it. Mona stood beside him, and spoke to him at intervals. He answered nothing, but stared vacantly before him.
The people held their breath as Danny rounded the turret, expecting every instant to see him lifted from the ledge and hurled into the surf beneath. When he had cleared the corner, and stood full in the wind on the south side of the castle, directly above the two protruding rocks that held the fishing-boat in their grip, the crowds rushed down the sh.o.r.e and along the top of the Contrary Head to keep him in view. What other mad act would the lad attempt?
"He"ll go round to the west, and come back on the shingle."
"Not him, man; the sh.o.r.e there is in six feet of water."
Danny emerged presently. He was seen to tie one end of his rope through a hole in the old castle wall to a huge stone built into it. The other end was still about his waist. "He"s going down the rocks to the boat."
"Gerr out of that. He"d be cut in pieces." "Aw, dear, the poor boy"s not mad enough for that, anyway."