She put the question, still looking mechanically at the door by which her husband and Clara had gone out. Receiving no reply, she glanced round at Steventon. He was standing on the opposite side of the luncheon-table, with his eyes fixed attentively on the view from the main doorway of the boat-house. Mrs. Crayford looked where Steventon was looking. This time there was something visible. She saw the shadow of a human figure projected on the stretch of smooth yellow sand in front of the boat-house.
In a moment more the figure appeared. A man came slowly into view, and stopped on the threshold of the door.
Chapter 18.
The man was a sinister and terrible object to look at. His eyes glared like the eyes of a wild animal; his head was bare; his long gray hair was torn and tangled; his miserable garments hung about him in rags. He stood in the doorway, a speechless figure of misery and want, staring at the well-spread table like a hungry dog.
Steventon spoke to him.
"Who are you?"
He answered, in a hoa.r.s.e, hollow voice,
"A starving man."
He advanced a few steps, slowly and painfully, as if he were sinking under fatigue.
"Throw me some bones from the table," he said. "Give me my share along with the dogs."
There was madness as well as hunger in his eyes while he spoke those words. Steventon placed Mrs. Crayford behind him, so that he might be easily able to protect her in case of need, and beckoned to two sailors who were pa.s.sing the door of the boat-house at the time.
"Give the man some bread and meat," he said, "and wait near him."
The outcast seized on the bread and meat with lean, long-nailed hands that looked like claws. After his first mouthful of the food, he stopped, considered vacantly with himself, and broke the bread and meat into two portions. One portion he put into an old canvas wallet that hung over his shoulder; the other he devoured voraciously. Steventon questioned him.
"Where do you come from?"
"From the sea."
"Wrecked?"
"Yes."
Steventon turned to Mrs. Crayford.
"There may be some truth in the poor wretch"s story," he said. "I heard something of a strange boat having been cast on the beach thirty or forty miles higher up the coast. When were you wrecked, my man?"
The starving creature looked up from his food, and made an effort to collect his thoughts--to exert his memory. It was not to be done. He gave up the attempt in despair. His language, when he spoke, was as wild as his looks.
"I can"t tell you," he said. "I can"t get the wash of the sea out of my ears. I can"t get the shining stars all night, and the burning sun all day, out of my brain. When was I wrecked? When was I first adrift in the boat? When did I get the tiller in my hand and fight against hunger and sleep? When did the gnawing in my breast, and the burning in my head, first begin? I have lost all reckoning of it. I can"t think; I can"t sleep; I can"t get the wash of the sea out of my ears. What are you baiting me with questions for? Let me eat!"
Even the sailors pitied him. The sailors asked leave of their officer to add a little drink to his meal.
"We"ve got a drop of grog with us, sir, in a bottle. May we give it to him?"
"Certainly!"
He took the bottle fiercely, as he had taken the food, drank a little, stopped, and considered with himself again. He held up the bottle to the light, and, marking how much liquor it contained, carefully drank half of it only. This done, he put the bottle in his wallet along with the food.
"Are you saving it up for another time?" said Steventon.
"I"m saving it up," the man answered. "Never mind what for. That"s my secret."
He looked round the boat-house as he made that reply, and noticed Mrs.
Crayford for the first time.
"A woman among you!" he said. "Is she English? Is she young? Let me look closer at her."
He advanced a few steps toward the table.
"Don"t be afraid, Mrs. Crayford," said Steventon.
"I am not afraid," Mrs. Crayford replied. "He frightened me at first--he interests me now. Let him speak to me if he wishes it!"
He never spoke. He stood, in dead silence, looking long and anxiously at the beautiful Englishwoman.
"Well?" said Steventon.
He shook his head sadly, and drew back again with a heavy sigh.
"No!" he said to himself, "that"s not _her_ face. No! not found yet."
Mrs. Crayford"s interest was strongly excited. She ventured to speak to him.
"Who is it you want to find?" she asked. "Your wife?"
He shook his head again.
"Who, then? What is she like?"
He answered that question in words. His hoa.r.s.e, hollow voice softened, little by little, into sorrowful and gentle tones.
"Young," he said; "with a fair, sad face--with kind, tender eyes--with a soft, clear voice. Young and loving and merciful. I keep her face in my mind, though I can keep nothing else. I must wander, wander, wander--restless, sleepless, homeless--till I find _her!_ Over the ice and over the snow; tossing on the sea, tramping over the land; awake all night, awake all day; wander, wander, wander, till I find _her!_"
He waved his hand with a gesture of farewell, and turned wearily to go out.
At the same moment Crayford opened the yard door.
"I think you had better come to Clara," he began, and checked himself, noticing the stranger. "Who is that?"
The shipwrecked man, hearing another voice in the room, looked round slowly over his shoulder. Struck by his appearance, Crayford advanced a little nearer to him. Mrs. Crayford spoke to her husband as he pa.s.sed her.
"It"s only a poor, mad creature, William," she whispered--"shipwrecked and starving."
"Mad?" Crayford repeated, approaching nearer and nearer to the man. "Am _I_ in my right senses?" He suddenly sprang on the outcast, and seized him by the throat. "Richard Wardour!" he cried, in a voice of fury.
"Alive!--alive, to answer for Frank!"