"Whose child is Lizzie"s?"
"Not yours, is it?"
"You said so once; you told your wife so; liar that you were."
"Very good, my gentleman. You shall have what you want. Woa, mare!"
He led her up the beach and sought for a branch to tie his reins to.
The mare hung back, terrified by the swishing of the whipped boughs and the roar of the gale overhead: her hoofs, as George dragged her forward, scuffled with the loose-lying stones on the beach. After a minute he desisted and turned on Taffy again.
"Look here; before we have this out there"s one thing I"d like to know. When you were at Oxford, was Honoria maintaining you there?"
"If you must know--yes."
"And when--when this happened, she stopped the supplies?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, I didn"t know it. She never told me."
"She never told _me_."
"You don"t say--"
"I do. I never knew it until too late."
"Well, now, I"m going to fight you. I don"t swallow being called a liar. But I tell you this first, that I"m d.a.m.ned sorry. I never guessed that it injured your prospects."
At another time, in another mood, Taffy might have remembered that George was George, and heir to Sir Harry"s nature. As it was, the apology threw oil on the flame.
"You cur! Do you think it was _that?_ And _you_ are Honoria"s husband!" He advanced with an ugly laugh. "For the last time, put up your fists."
They had been standing within two yards of each other; and even so, shouted at the pitch of their voices to make themselves heard above the gale. As Taffy took a step forward George lifted his whip.
His left hand held the bridle on which the reluctant mare was dragging, and the action was merely instinctive, to guard against sudden attack.
But as he did so his face and uplifted arm were suddenly painted clear against the darkness. The mare plunged more wildly than ever.
Taffy dropped his hands and swung round. Behind him, the black contour of the hill, the whole sky welled up a pale blue light which gathered brightness while he stared. The very stones on the beach at his feet shone separate and distinct.
"What is it?" George gasped.
"A ship on the rocks! Quick, man! Will the mare reach to Innis?"
"She"ll have to." George wheeled her round. She was f.a.gged out with two long gallops after hounds that day, but for the moment sheer terror made her lively enough.
"Ride, then! Call up the coast-guard. By the flare she must be somewhere off the creek here. Ride!"
A clatter of hoofs answered him as the mare pounded up the lane.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE WRECK OF THE "SAMARITAN."
Taffy stood for a moment listening. He judged the wreck to be somewhere on the near side of the light-house, between it and the mouth of the creek; that was, if she had already struck. If not, the gale and the set of the tide together would be sweeping her eastward, perhaps right across the mouth of the creek. And if he could discover this his course would be to run back, intercept the coast-guard, and send him around by the upper bridge.
He waited for a second signal to guide him--a flare or a rocket: but none came. The beach lay in the lew of the weather, deep in the hills" hollow and trebly land-locked by the windings of the creek, but above him the sky kept its screaming as though the bare ridges of the headland were being sh.e.l.led by artillery.
He resolved to keep along the lower slopes and search his way down to the creek"s mouth, when he would have sight of any signal shown along the coast for a mile or two to the east and north-east. The night was now as black as a wolf"s throat, but he knew every path and fence. So he scrambled up the low cliff and began to run, following the line of stunted oaks and tamarisks which fenced it, and on the ridges--where the blown hail took him in the face--crouching and scuttling like a crab sideways, moving his legs only from the knees down.
In this way he had covered half a mile and more when his right foot plunged in a rabbit hole and he was pitched headlong into the tamarisks below. Their boughs bent under his weight, but they were tough, and he caught at them, and just saved himself from rolling over into the black water. He picked himself up and began to rub his twisted ankle. And at that instant, in a lull between two gusts, his ear caught the sound of splashing, yet a sound so unlike the lapping of the driven tide that he peered over and down between the tamarisk boughs.
"Hullo there!"
"Hullo!" a voice answered. "Is that someone alive? Here, mate--for Christ"s sake!"
"Hold on! Whereabouts are you?"
"Down in this here cruel water." The words ended in a shuddering cough.
"Right--hold on for a moment!" Taffy"s ankle pained him, but the wrench was not serious. The cliff shelved easily. He slid down, clutching at the tamarisk boughs which whipped his face. "Where are you? I can"t see."
"Here!" The voice was not a dozen yards away.
"Swimming?"
"No--I"ve got a water-breaker--can"t hold on much longer."
"I believe you can touch bottom there."
"Hey? I can"t hear."
"Try to touch bottom. It"s firm sand hereabouts."
"So I can." The splashing and coughing came nearer, came close.
Taffy stretched out a hand. A hand, icy-cold, fumbled and gripped it in the darkness.
"Christ! Where"s a place to lie down?"
"Here, on this rock." They peered at each other, but could not see.
The man"s teeth chattered close to Taffy"s ear.
"Warm my hands, mate--there"s a good chap." He lay on the rock and panted. Taffy took his hands and began to rub them briskly.
"Where"s the ship?"
"Where"s the ship?" He seemed to turn over the question in his mind, and then stretched himself with a sigh. "How the h.e.l.l should I know?"