"My dear, I don"t know what you"re talking about," said Mrs. Peck, with a touch of acidity.
Columbine laughed a little. "Do you know, Rufus?" she said.
She did not look at him with the question; there was a quivering dimple in her red cheek that came and went.
"I"d like to know," said Rufus with simplicity.
"Would you, really?" Columbine polished the last plate vigorously and set it down. "The Minotaur," she said, in the tone of a schoolmistress delivering a lecture, "was a monster, half-bull, half-man, who lived in a place like the Spear Point Caves, and devoured young men and maidens.
You live nearer to the Caves than any one else, don"t you, Rufus?"
Again she ventured a darting glance at him. His look was still upon her, but its fiery quality was less apparent. He met the challenge with his slow, indulgent smile.
"Yes, I live there. I don"t devour anybody. I"m not--that sort of monster."
Columbine shook her head. "I"m not so sure of that," she said. "But I dare say you"d tame."
"P"raps you"d like to do it," suggested Rufus.
It was his first direct overture, and Columbine, who had angled for it, experienced a thrill of triumph. But she was swift to mask her satisfaction. She tossed her head, and turned: "Oh, I"ve no time to waste that way," she said. "You must do your own taming, Mr. Minotaur.
When you"re quite civilised, p"raps I"ll talk to you."
She was gone with the words, carrying her plates with her.
"She"s a deal too pert," observed Mrs. Peck to the saucepan she was stirring. "It"s my belief now that that Mr. Knight"s been putting ideas into her head. She"s getting wild; that"s what she is."
Knowing Rufus, she expected no response, and for several seconds none came.
Then to her surprise she heard his voice, deep and sonorous as the bell-buoy that was moored by the Spear Point Reef.
"Maybe she"d tame," he said.
And "Goodness gracious unto me!" said Mrs. Peck, as she lifted her saucepan off the fire.
CHAPTER IV
THE RISING TIDE
A long dazzling pathway of moonlight stretched over the sea, starting from the horizon, ending at the great jutting promontory of the Spear Point. The moon was yet three nights from the full. The tide was rising, but it would not be high for another two hours.
The breakers ran in, one behind the other, foaming over the hidden rocks, splashing wildly against the grim wall of granite that stood sharp-edged to withstand them. It was curved like a scimitar, that rock, and within its curve there slept, when the tide was low, a pool. When the tide rose the waters raged and thundered all around the rock, but when it sank again the still, deep pool remained, unruffled as a mountain tarn and as full of mystery.
Over a tumble of lesser rocks that bounded the pool to sh.o.r.eward the wary might find a path to the Spear Point Caves; but the path was difficult, and there were few who had ever attempted it. For the quicksand lay like a golden barrier between the outer beach and the rocks that led thither.
It was an awesome spot. Many a splinter of wreckage had been tossed in over the Spear Point as though flung in sport from a giant hand. And when the water was high there came a hollow groaning from the inner caves as though imprisoned spirits languished there.
But on that night of magic moonlight the only sound was the murmurous splash of the rising waves as they met the first grim rocks of the Point. Presently they would dash in thunder round the granite blade, and the sleeping pool would be turned to a smother of foam.
On the edge of the pool a woman"s figure clad in white stood balanced with outstretched arms. So still was the water, so splendid the moonlight, that the whole of her light form was mirrored there--a perfect image of nymph-like grace. She sang a soft, low, trilling song like the song of a blackbird awaking to the dawn.
"By Jupiter!" Knight murmured to himself. "If I could get her only once--only once--as--she--is!"
The gleam of the hunter was in his look. He stood on the rocks some yards away from her, gazing with eyes half-shut.
Suddenly she turned herself, and across the intervening s.p.a.ce her voice came to him, half-mocking, half-alluring, "Have you found your inspiration yet?"
"Not yet," he said.
She raised her shoulders with a humorous gesture, "Hasn"t the magic begun to work?"
He came towards her, moving slowly and with caution. "Don"t move!" he said.
She waited for him on the edge of the pool. There was laughter in her eyes, laughter and the sublime daring of innocence.
He reached her. They stood together on the same flat rock. He bent to her, in his eyes the burning worship of beauty.
"Columbine!" he said. "Witch! Enchantress! Queen!"
The red blood raced into her face. Her eyes shone into his with a sudden glory--the glory of the awaking soul. But the woman-instinct in her checked the first quick impulse of surrender.
She made a little motion away from him. She laughed and veiled her eyes from the fiery adoration that flamed upon her. "The magic is working--evidently," she said. "What a good thing I brought you here!"
"Yes; it is a good thing," he said, and in his voice she heard the deep note of a mastery that would not be denied. "Do you know what you have done to me, you G.o.ddess? You have opened the eyes of my heart. I am dazzled. I am blinded. I believe I am possessed. When I paint my picture --it will be such as the world has never seen."
"Hadn"t you better begin it?" whispered Columbine.
He held out his hand to her--a hand that was not wholly steady. "Not yet," he said. "The vision is too near, too wonderful. How shall I paint the rapture that I have hardly yet dared to contemplate? Columbine!"
His voice suddenly pleaded, and as though in answer she laid her hand in his. But she did not raise her eyes. She palpitated from head to foot like a captured bird.
"You are not--afraid?" he whispered.
"I don"t know," she whispered back. "Not of you--not of you!"
"Ah!" he said. "We are caught in the same net. There is nothing terrible in that. The same magic is working in us both. Let it work, dear! We understand each other. Why should there be anything to fear?"
But still she did not raise her eyes, and still she trembled in his hold. "I never thought," she faltered, "never dreamed. Oh, is it true?"
"True that you are the most beautiful creature that this earth contains?" he said, and his voice throbbed upon the words. "True that the very sight of you turns my blood to fire? Aphrodite, G.o.ddess and sorceress, do you doubt that? Wait till you see my picture, and then ask! I have found my inspiration tonight--yes, I have found it--but it is so immense--so overwhelming--that I cannot grasp it yet. Tonight, dear, just for tonight--let me worship at your feet! This madness must have its way. In the morning I shall be sane again. Tonight--tonight I tread Olympus with the Immortals."
He was drawing her towards him, and Columbine--Columbine, who suffered no man"s hand upon her--was yielding slowly, but inevitably, to the persuasion of his touch. Just at the last, indeed, she made a small, wholly futile attempt to free herself; but the moment she did so his hold became the hold of the conqueror, and with a faint laugh she flung aside the instinct that had prompted it. The next instant, freely and splendidly, she raised her downcast face and abandoned herself utterly to him.
To give without stint was the impulse of her pa.s.sionate, Southern nature, and she gave freely, royally, that night. The magic that ran in the veins of both was too compelling to be resisted. The girl, with her half-awakened soul, the man, with his fiery thirst for beauty, were caught in the great current that sweeps like a tidal wave around the world, and it bore them swiftly, swiftly, whither neither he in his restlessness nor she in her in experience realised or cared. If the sound of the breakers came to them from afar they heeded it not. They were too far away to matter as yet, and Knight had steered a safe course for himself in troubled seas before. As for Columbine, she knew only the rapture of love triumphant, and tasted perfect safety in the holding of her lover"s arms. He had won her with scarcely a struggle, and she gloried with an ecstasy that was in its way sublime in the completeness of her surrender. On such a night as that it seemed to her that the whole world lay at her feet, and she knew no fear.
The still pool slept in the moonlight, a lake of silver, unspeakably calm. Beyond the outstretched blade of rock the great waters rose and rose. The murmur of them had swelled to a roar. The splash of them mounted higher and ever higher. Suddenly a crest of foam gleamed like a tongue of lightning at the point of the curve. The pool stirred as if awakening. The moonlight on its surface was shivered in a thousand ripples. They broke in a succession of tiny wavelets against the encircling rocks.