“And the two agreements or estimates you signed.”
Scantlebray gave him the letter.
“The agreements also.”
Nervously the surveyor groped again, and reluctantly produced them. Captain Coppinger opened them with his available hand.
“What is this? Five pounds in pencil added to each, and then summed up in the total? What is the meaning of that, pray?”
Mr. Scantlebray again endeavored to disappear behind the curtain.
“Come forward!” shouted Captain Cruel, striking the window-sill with the pistol.
Scantlebray jumped out of his retreat at once.
“What is the meaning of these two five pounds?”
“Well, sir—Captain—it is usual; every one does it. It is my—what d’y’ call it!—consideration for accepting the estimates.”
“And added to each, and then charged to the orphans, who pay you to act in their interest—so they pay wittingly, directly, and unwittingly, indirectly. Well for you and for Mrs. Scantlebray that I release you of your obligation to act for Mother Dunes—I mean Miss Trevisa.”
“Sir,” said Cargreen, “under the circumstances, under intimidation, I decline to sully my fingers with the business. I shall withdraw.”
“No, you shall not,” said Cruel Coppinger, resolutely. “You shall act, and act as I approve; and in the end it shall not be to your disadvantage.”
Then, without a word of farewell, he stood up, slipped the pistol back into his pocket, and strode away.
Mr. Cargreen had become white, or rather, the color of dough. After a moment he recovered himself somewhat, and, turning to Scantlebray, with a sarcastic air, said—
“I hope you enjoy the jessamine. They don’t smell particularly sweet to me.”
“Orful!” groaned Scantlebray. He shook himself—almost shaking off all his limbs in the convulsion—“Old man—them jessamines is orful!”
CHAPTER XII.
THE CAVE.
Some weeks slipped by without bringing to Judith any accession of anxiety. She did not go again to Pentyre Glaze, but her aunt came once or twice in the week to Polzeath to see her. Moreover, Miss Dionysia’s manner toward her was somewhat less contrary and vexatious, and she seemed to put on a conciliatory manner, as far as was possible for one so angular and crabbed. Gracious she could not be; nature had made it as impossible for her to be gracious in manner as to be lovely in face and graceful in movement.
Moreover, Judith observed that her aunt looked at her with an expression of perplexity, as though seeking in her to find an answer to a riddle that vexed her brain. And so it was. Aunt Dunes could not understand the conduct of Coppinger toward Judith and her brother. Nor could she understand how a child like her niece could have faced and defied a man of whom she herself stood in abject fear. Judith had behaved to the smuggler in a way that no man in the whole countryside would have ventured to behave. She had thrown him at her feet, half killed him, and yet Cruel Coppinger did not resent what had been done; on the contrary, he went out of his way to interfere in the interest of the orphans. He was not the man to concern himself in other people’s affairs; why should he take trouble on behalf of Judith and her brother? That he did it out of consideration for herself, Miss Trevisa had not the assurance to believe.
Aunt Dunes put a few searching questions to Judith, but drew from her nothing that explained the mystery. The girl frankly told her of her visit to the Glaze and interview with the crippled smuggler, of his offer to her of some of his spoil, and of her refusal to receive a present from him. Miss Trevisa approved of her niece’s conduct in this respect. It would not have befitted her to accept anything. Judith, however, did not communicate to her aunt the closing scene in that interview. She did not tell her that Coppinger had kissed her hand, nor his excuse for having done so, that he was offering homage to a queen.
For one thing, Judith did not attach any importance to this incident. She had always heard that Coppinger was a wild and insolent man, wild and insolent in his dealings with his fellow-men, therefore doubtless still more so in his treatment of defenceless women. He had behaved to her in the rude manner in which he would behave to any peasant girl or sailor’s daughter who caught his fancy, and she resented his act as an indignity, and his excuse for it as a prevarication. And, precisely, because he had offended her maidenly dignity, she blushed to mention it, even to her aunt, resolving in her own mind not to subject herself to the like again.
Miss Trevisa, on several occasions, invited Judith to come and see her at Pentyre Glaze, but the girl always declined the invitation.
Judith’s estimate of Cruel Coppinger was modified. He could not be the utter reprobate she had always held him to be. She fully acknowledged that there was an element of good in the man, otherwise he would not have forgiven the injury done him, nor would he have interfered to protect her and Jamie from the fraud and extortion of the “dilapidators.” She trusted that the stories she had heard of Coppinger’s wild and savage acts were false, or overcolored. Her dear father had been misled by reports, as she had been, and it was possible that Coppinger had not really been the impediment in her father’s way that the late rector had supposed.
Jamie was happy. He was even, in a fashion, making himself useful. He helped Mr. Menaida in his bird-stuffing on rainy days; he did more, he ran about the cliffs, learned the haunts of the wild-fowl, ascertained where they nested, made friends with Preventive men, and some of those fellows living on shore, without any very fixed business, who rambled over the country with their guns, and from these he was able to obtain birds that he believed Mr. Menaida wanted. Judith was glad that the boy should be content, and enjoy the fresh air and some freedom. She would have been less pleased had she seen the companions Jamie made. But the men had rough good-humor, and were willing to oblige the half-witted boy, and they encouraged him to go with them shooting, or to sit with them in their huts.
Jamie manifested so strong a distaste for books, and lesson time being one of resistance, pouting, tears, and failures, that Judith thought it not amiss to put off the resumption of these irksome tasks for a little while, and to let the boy have his run of holidays. She fancied that the loss of his father and of his old home preyed on him more than was actually the case; and believed that by giving him freedom till the first pangs were over, he might not suffer in the way that she had done.
For a fortnight or three weeks Judith’s time had been so fully engaged at the parsonage, that she could not have devoted much of it to Jamie, even had she thought it desirable to keep him to his lessons; nor could she be with him much. She did not press him to accompany her to the rectory, there to spend the time that she was engaged sorting her father’s letters and memoranda, his account-books and collection of extracts made from volumes he had borrowed, as not only would it be tedious to him, but he would distract her mind. She must see that he was amused, and must also provide that he was not at mischief. She did take him with her on one or two occasions, and found that he had occupied himself in disarranging much that she had put together for the sale.
But she would not allow him wholly to get out of the way of looking to her as his companion, and she abandoned an afternoon to him now and then, as her work became less arduous, to walk with him on the cliffs or in the lanes, to listen to his childish prattle, and throw herself into his new pursuits. The link between them must not be allowed to become relaxed, and, so far as in her lay, she did her utmost to maintain it in its former security. But, with his father’s death, and his removal to Mr. Menaida’s cottage, a new world had opened to Jamie; he was brought into association with men and boys whom he had hardly known by sight previously, and without any wish to disengage himself from his sister’s authority, he was led to look to others as comrades, and to listen to and follow their promptings.
“Come, Jamie,” said Judith, one day. “Now I really have some hours free, and I will go a stroll with you on the downs.”
The boy jumped with pleasure, and caught her hand.
“I may take Tib with me?”
“Oh yes, certainly, dear.”
Tib was a puppy that had been given to Jamie by one of his new acquaintances.
The day was fresh. Clouds driving before the wind, now obscuring the sun and threatening rain, then clearing and allowing the sun to turn the sea green and gild the land. Owing to the breeze the sea was ruffled and strewn with breakers shaking their white foam.
“I am going to show you something I have found, Ju,” said the boy. “You will follow, will you not?”
“Lead the way. What is it?”
“Come and see. I found it by myself. I shan’t tell any one but you.”
He conducted his sister down the cliffs to the beach of a cove. Judith halted a moment to look along the coast with its mighty, sombre cliffs, and the sea glancing with sun or dulled by shadow to Tintagel Head standing up at the extreme point to the northeast, with the white surf lashing and heaving around it. Then she drew her skirts together, and descended by the narrow path along which, with the lightness and confidence of a kid, Jamie was skipping.
“Jamie!” she said. “Have you seen?—there is a ship standing in the offing.”
“Yes; she has been there all the morning.”
Then she went further.
The cove was small, with precipitous cliffs rising from the sand to the height of two to three hundred feet. The seagulls screamed and flashed to and fro, and the waves foamed and threw up their waters lashed into froth as white and light as the feathers on the gulls. In the concave bay the roar of the plunging tide reverberated from every side. Neither the voice of Jamie, when he shouted to his sister from some feet below, nor the barking of his little dog that ran with him, could be distinguished by her.
The descent was rapid and rugged, yet not so precipitous but that it could be gone over by asses or mules. Evidence that these creatures had passed that way remained in the impression of their hoofs in the soil, wherever a soft stratum intervened between the harder shelves of the rock, and had crumbled on the path into clay.
Judith observed that several paths—not all mule-paths—converged lower down at intervals in the way by which she descended, so that it would be possible, apparently, to reach the sand from various points in the down, as well as by the main track by which she was stepping to the beach.
“Jamie!” called Judith, as she stood on the last shoulder of rock before reaching the beach over a wave-washed and smoothed surface. “Jamie! I can see that same ship from here.”
But her brother could not hear her. He was throwing stones for the dog to run after, and meet a wave as it rushed in.
The tide was going out: it had marked its highest elevation by a bow of foam and strips of dark seaweed and broken shells. Judith stepped along this line, and picked out the largest ribbon of weed she could find. She would hang it in her bedroom to tell her the weather. The piece that had been wont to act as barometer was old, and, besides, it had been lost in the recent shift and confusion.
Jamie came up to her.
“Now, Ju, mind and watch me, or you will lose me altogether.”
Then he ran forward, with Tib dancing and yelping round him. Presently he scrambled up a shelf of rock inclined from the sea, and up after him, yelping, scrambled Tib. In a moment both disappeared over the crest.
Judith went up to the ridge and called to her brother.
“I cannot climb this, Jamie.”
But in another moment, a hundred yards to her right, round the extremity of the reef, came Tib and his master, the boy dancing and laughing, the dog ducking his head, shaking his ears, and, all but laughing also, evidently enjoying the fun as much as Jamie.
“This way, Ju!” shouted the boy, and signed to his sister. She could not hear his voice, but obeyed his gestures. The reef ran athwart the top of the bay, like the dorsal, jagged ridge of a crocodile half buried in the sand.
Judith drew her skirts higher and closer, as the sand was wet, and there were pools by the rock. Then, holding her ribbon of seaweed by the harsh, knotted root, torn up along with the leaf, and trailing it behind her, she followed her brother, reached the end of the rock, turned and went in the traces of Jamie and Tib in the sand parallel to her former course.
Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, on the right hand there opened before her, in the face of the cliff, a cave, the entrance to which was completely masked by the ridge she had turned. Into this cave went Jamie with his dog.
“I am not obliged to follow you there!” protested Judith; but he made such vehement signs to her to follow him that she good-humoredly obeyed.
The cave ran in a long way, at first at no great incline, then it became low overhead, and immediately after the floor inclined rapidly upward, and the vault took a like direction. Moreover, light appeared in front. Here, to Judith’s surprise, she saw a large boat, painted gray, furnished with oars and boat-hook. She was attached by a chain to a staple in the rock. Judith examined her with a little uneasiness. No name was on her.
The sides of the cave at this point formed shelves, not altogether natural, and that these were made use of was evident, because on them lay staves of broken casks, a four-flanged boat-anchor, and some oars. Out of the main trunk cave branched another that was quite dark, and smaller; in this, Judith, whose eyes were becoming accustomed to the twilight, thought she saw the bows of a smaller boat, also painted gray.
“Jamie!” said Judith, now in serious alarm; “we ought not to be here. It is not safe. Do—do come away at once.”
“Why, what is there to harm us?”
“My dear, do come away.” She turned to retrace her steps, but Jamie stopped her.
“Not that way, Ju! I have another by which to get out. Follow me still.”
He led the way up the steep rubble slope, and the light fell fuller from above. The cave was one of those into which when the sea rolls and chokes the entrance, the compressed air is driven out by a second orifice.
They reached a sort of well or shaft, at the bottom of which they stood, but it did not open vertically but bent over somewhat, so that from below the sky could not be seen, though the light entered. A narrow path was traced in the side, and up this Jamie and the dog scrambled, followed by Judith, who was most anxious to escape from a place which she had no doubt was one of the shelter caves of the smugglers—perhaps of Cruel Coppinger, whose house was not a mile distant.
The ascent was steep, the path slippery in places, and therefore dangerous. Jamie made nothing of it, nor did the little dog, but Judith picked her way with care; she had a good steady head, and did not feel giddy, but she was not sure that her feet might not slide in the clay where wet with water that dripped from the sides. As she neared the entrance she saw that hartstongue and maidenhair fern had rooted themselves in the sheltered nooks of this tunnel.
After a climb of a hundred feet she came out on a ledge in the face of the cliff above the bay, to see, with a gasp of dismay, her brother in the hand of Cruel Coppinger, the boy paralyzed with fear so that he could neither stir nor cry out.
“What!” exclaimed the Captain, “you here?” as he saw Judith stand before him.
The puppy was barking and snapping at his boots. Coppinger let go Jamie, stooped and caught the dog by the neck. “Look at me,” said the smuggler sternly, addressing the frightened boy. Then he swung the dog above his head and dashed it down the cliffs; it caught, then rolled, and fell out of sight—certainly with the life beaten out of it.
“This will be done to you,” said he; “I do not say that I would do it. She”—he waved his hand toward Judith—“stands between us. But if any of the fifteen to twenty men who know this place and come here should chance to meet you as I have met you, he would treat you without compunction as I have treated that dog. And if he were to catch you below—you have heard of Wyvill, the Preventive man?—you would fare as did he. Thank your sister that you are alive now. Go on—that way—up the cliff.” He pointed with a telescope he held.
Jamie fled up the steep path like the wind.
“Judith,” said Coppinger, “will you stand surety that he does not tell tales?”
“I do not believe he will say anything.”
“I do not ask you to be silent. I know you will not speak. But if you mistrust his power to hold his tongue, send him away—send him out of the country—as you love him.”
“He shall never come here again,” said Judith, earnestly.
“That is well; he owes his life to you.”
Judith noticed that Cruel Coppinger’s left arm was no more in a sling, nor in bands.
He saw that she observed this, and smiled grimly. “I have my freedom with this arm once more—for the first time to-day.”
CHAPTER XIII.
IN THE DUSK.
“Kicking along, Mr. Menaida, old man?” asked Mr. Scantlebray, in his loud, harsh voice, as he shook himself inside the door of Uncle Zachie’s workshop. “And the little ’uns? Late in life to become nurse and keep the bottle and pap-bowl going, eh, old man? How’s the orphings? Eating their own weight of victuals at twopence-ha’penny a head, eh? My experience of orphings isn’t such as would make a man hilarious, and feel that he was filling his pockets.”
“Sit you down, sir; you’ll find a chair. Not that one, there’s a dab of arsenical paste got on to that. Sit you down, sir, over against me. Glad to see you and have some one to talk to. Here am I slaving all day, worn to fiddlestrings. There’s Squire Rashleigh, of Menabilly, must have a glaucous gull stuffed at once that he has shot; and there’s Sir John St. Aubyn, of Clowance, must have a case of kittiwakes by a certain day; and an institution in London wants a genuine specimen of a Cornish chough. Do they think I’m a tradesman to be ordered about? That I’ve not an income of my own, and that I am dependent on my customers? I’ll do no more. I’ll smoke and play the piano. I’ve no time to exchange a word with any one. Come, sit down. What’s the news?”
“It’s a bad world,” said Mr. Scantlebray, setting himself into a chair. “That’s to say, the world is well enough if it warn’t for there being too many rascals in it. I consider it’s a duty on all right-thinking men to clear them off.”
“Well, the world would be better if we had the making of it,” acquiesced Mr. Menaida. “Bless you! I’ve no time for anything. I like to do a bit of bird-stuffing just as a sort of relaxation after smoking, but to be forced to work more than one cares—I won’t do it! Besides, it is not wholesome. I shall be poisoned with arsenic. I must have some antidote. So will you, sir—eh? A drop of real first-rate cognac?”
“Thank you, sir—old man—I don’t mind dipping a feather and drawing it across my lips.”
Jamie had been so frightened by the encounter with Cruel Coppinger that he was thoroughly upset. He was a timid, nervous child, and Judith had persuaded him to go to bed. She sat by him, holding his hand, comforting him as best she might, when he sobbed over the loss of his pup, and cheering him when he clung to her in terror at the reminiscence of the threats of the Captain to deal with him as he had with Tib. Judith was under no apprehension of his revisiting the cave; he had been too thoroughly frightened ever to venture there again. She said nothing to impress this on him; all her efforts were directed toward allaying his alarms.
Just as she hoped that he was dropping off into unconsciousness, he suddenly opened his eyes, and said, “Ju.”
“Yes, dear.”
“I’ve lost the chain.”
“What chain, my pretty?”
“Tib’s chain.”
The pup had been a trouble when Jamie went with the creature through the village or through a farm-yard. He would run after and nip the throats of chickens. Tib and his master had got into trouble on this account; accordingly Judith had turned out a light steel chain, somewhat rusty, and a dog collar from among the sundries that encumbered the drawers and closets of the rectory. This she had given to her brother, and whenever the little dog was near civilization he was obliged to submit to the chain.
Judith, to console Jamie for his loss, had told him that in all probability another little dog might be procured to be his companion. Alas! the collar was on poor Tib, but she represented to him that if another dog were obtained it would be possible to buy or beg a collar for him, supposing a collar to be needful. This had satisfied Jamie, and he was about to doze off, when suddenly he woke to say that the chain was lost.
“Where did you lose the chain, Jamie?”
“I threw it down.”
“I thought I shouldn’t want it when Tib was gone.”
“And where did you throw it? Perhaps it may be found again.”
“I won’t go and look for it—indeed I won’t.” He shivered and clung to his sister.
“Where was it? Perhaps I can find it.”
“I dropped it at the top—on the down when I came up the steps from—from that man, when he had killed Tib.”
“You did not throw it over the cliff?”
“No—I threw it down. I did not think I wanted it any more.”
“I dare say it may be found. I will go and see.”
“No—no! Don’t, Ju. You might meet that man.”
Judith smiled. She felt that she was not afraid of that man—he would not hurt her.
As soon as the boy was asleep, Judith descended the stairs, leaving the door ajar, that she might hear should he wake in a fright, and entering the little sitting-room, took up her needles and wool, and seated herself quietly by the window, where the last glimmer of twilight shone, to continue her work at a jersey she was knitting for Jamie’s use in the winter.
The atmosphere was charged with tobacco-smoke, almost as much as that of the adjoining workshop. There was no door between the rooms; none had been needed formerly, and Mr. Menaida did not think of supplying one now. It was questionable whether one would have been an advantage, as Jamie ran to and fro, and would be certain either to leave the door open or to slam it, should one be erected. Moreover, a door meant payment to a carpenter for timber and labor. There was no carpenter in the village, and Mr. Menaida spent no more money than he was absolutely obliged to spend, and how could he on an annuity of fifty pounds.
Judith dropped her woolwork in her lap and fell into meditation. She reviewed what had just taken place: she saw before her again Coppinger, strongly built, with his dark face, and eyes that glared into the soul to its lowest depths, illumining all, not as the sun, but as the lightning, and suffering not a thought, not a feeling to remain obscure.
A second time had Jamie done what angered him, but on this occasion he had curbed his passion and had contented himself with a threat—nay, not even that—with a caution. He had expressly told Jamie, that he himself would not hurt him, but that he ran into danger from others.
She was again looking at Coppinger as he spoke; she saw the changes in his face, the alterations of expression in his eyes, in his intonation. She recalled the stern, menacing tone in which he had spoken to Jamie, and then the inflexion of voice as he referred to her. A dim surmise—a surmise she was ashamed to allow could be true—rose in her mind and thrilled her with alarm. Was it possible that he liked her—liked—she could, she would give even in thought no other term to describe that feeling which she feared might possibly have sprung up in his breast. That he liked her—after all she had done? Was that why he had come to the cottage the day after his accident? Was that what had prompted the strange note sent to her along with the keg of spirits to Uncle Zachie? Was that the meaning of the offer of the choice of all his treasures?—of the vehemence with which he had seized her hand and had kissed it? Was that the interpretation of those words of excuse in which he had declared her his queen? If this were so, then much that had been enigmatical in his conduct was explained—his interference with the valuers for dilapidations, the strange manner in which he came across her path almost whenever she went to the rectory. And this was the signification of the glow in his eyes, the quaver in his voice, when he addressed her.
Was it so?—could it be so?—that he liked her?—he—Cruel Coppinger—Cruel Coppinger—the terror of the country round—liked her, the weakest creature that could be found?
The thought of such a possibility frightened her. That the wild smuggler-captain should hate her she could have borne with better than that he should like her. That she was conscious of a sense of pleased surprise, intermixed with fear, was inevitable, for Judith was a woman, and there was something calculated to gratify feminine pride in the presumption that the most lawless and headstrong man on the Cornish coast should have meant what he said when he declared himself her subject.
These thoughts, flushing and paling her cheek, quickening and staying her pulse, so engrossed Judith that, though she heard the voices in the adjoining apartment, she paid no heed to what was said.
The wind, which had been fresh all day, was blowing stronger. It battered at the window where Judith sat, as though a hand struck and brushed over the panes.
“Hot or cold?” asked Uncle Zachie.
“Thanky’, neither. Water can be got everywhere, but such brandy as this, old man—only here.”
“You are good to say so. It is Coppinger’s present to me.”
“Coppinger!—his very good health, and may he lie in clover to-morrow night. He’s had one arm bound, I’ve seen; perhaps he may have two before the night grows much older.”
Mr. Menaida raised his brows.
“I do not understand you.”
“I daresay not,” said Scantlebray. “It’s the duty of all right-minded men to clear the world of rascals. I will do my duty, please the pigs. Would you mind—just another drop?”
After his glass had been refilled, Mr. Scantlebray leaned back in his chair and said:
“It’s a wicked world, and, between you and me and the sugar dissolving at the bottom of my glass, you won’t find more rascality anywhere than in my profession, and one of the biggest rascals in it is Mr. Cargreen. He’s on the side against the orphings. If you’ve the faculty of pity in you, pity them—first, because they’ve him agin’ ’em, and, secondly, because they’ve lost me as their protector. You know whom they got in place of me? I wish them joy of him. But they won’t have his wing over them long, I can tell you.”
“You think not?”
“Sure of it.”
“You think he’ll throw it up?”
“I rather suspect he won’t be at liberty to attend to it. He’ll want his full attention to his own consarns.”
Mr. Scantlebray tipped off his glass.
“It’s going to be a dirty night,” said he. “You won’t mind my spending an hour or two with you, will you?”
“I shall be delighted. Have you any business in the place?”
“Business—no. A little pleasure, maybe.” After a pause, he said, “But, old man, I don’t mind telling you what it is. You are mum, I know. It is this—the trap will shut to-night. Snap it goes, and the rats are fast. You haven’t been out on the cliffs to-day, have you?”
“No—bless me!—no, I have not.”
“The Black Prince is in the offing.”
“The Black Prince?”
“Ay, and she will run her cargo ashore to-night. Now, I’m one who knows a little more than most. I’m one o’ your straightfor’ard ’uns, always ready to give a neighbor a lift in my buggy, and a helping hand to the man that is down, and a frank, outspoken fellow am I to every one I meet—so that, knocking about as I do, I come to know and to hear more than do most, and I happen to have learnt into what cove the Black Prince will run her goods. I’ve a bone to pick with Captain Cruel, so I’ve let the Preventive men have the contents of my information-pottle, and they will be ready to-night for Coppinger and the whole party of them. The cutter will slip in between them and the sea, and a party will be prepared to give them the kindliest welcome by land. That is the long and short of it—and, old man, I shall dearly love to be there and see the sport. That is why I wish to be with you for an hour or two. Will you come as well?”
“Bless me!” exclaimed Mr. Menaida, “not I! You don’t suppose Coppinger and his men will allow themselves to be taken easily? There’ll be a fight.”
“And pistols go off,” said Scantlebray. “I shall not be surprised or sorry if Captain Cruel be washed up one of these next tides with a bullet through his head. Ebenezer Wyvill is one of the guards, and he has his brother’s death to avenge.”
“Do you really believe that Coppinger killed him?”
Mr. Scantlebray shrugged his shoulders. “It don’t matter much what I think, to-night, but what the impression is that Ebenezer Wyvill carries about with him. I imagine that if Ebenezer comes across the Captain he won’t speak to him by word of mouth, nor trouble himself to feel for a pair of handcuffs. So—fill my glass again, old man, and we’ll drink to a cold bed and an indigestible lump—somewhere—in his head or in his gizzard—to Cruel Coppinger, and the wiping off of old scores—always a satisfaction to honest men.” Scantlebray rubbed his hands. “It is a satisfaction to the conscience—to ferret out the rats sometimes.”
CHAPTER XIV.
WARNING OF DANGER.
Judith, lost for awhile in her dreams, had been brought to a sense of what was the subject of conversation in the adjoining room by the mention of Coppinger’s name more than once. She heard the desultory talk for awhile without giving it much attention, but Scantlebray’s voice was of that harsh and penetrating nature that to exclude it the ears must be treated as Ulysses treated the ears of his mariners as he passed the rock of the Sirens.
Presently she became alive to the danger in which Coppinger stood. Scantlebray spoke plainly, and she understood. There could be no doubt about it. The Black Prince belonged to the Captain, and his dealings with and through that vessel were betrayed. Not only was Coppinger, as the head of a gang of smugglers, an object worth capture to the Preventive men, but the belief that he had caused the death of at least one of their number had embittered them against him to such an extent that, when the opportunity presented itself to them of capturing him red-handed engaged in his smuggling transactions, they were certain to deal with him in a way much more summary than the processes of a court of a justice. The brother of the man who had been murdered was among the coast-guard, and he would not willingly let slip a chance of avenging the death of Jonas Wyvill. Coppinger was not in a condition to defend himself effectively. On that day for the first time, had he left off his bandages, and his muscles were stiff and the newly set bones still weak.
What was to be done? Could Judith go to bed and let Coppinger run into the net prepared for his feet—go to his death?
No sooner, however, had Judith realized the danger that menaced Coppinger than she resolved on doing her utmost to avert it. She, and she alone, could deliver him from the disgrace, if not the death, that menaced him.
She stole lightly from the room and got her cloak, drew the hood over her head, and sallied forth into the night. Heavy clouds rolled over the sky, driven before a strong gale. Now and then they opened and disclosed the twilight sky, in which faintly twinkled a few stars, and at such times a dim light fell over the road, but in another moment lumbering masses of vapor were carried forward, blotting out the clear tract of sky, and at the same time blurring all objects on earth with one enveloping shadow.
Judith’s heart beat furiously, and timidity came over her spirit as she left the cottage, for she was unaccustomed to be outside the house at such an hour; but the purpose she had before her eyes gave her strength and courage. It seemed to her that Providence had suddenly constituted her the guardian angel of Coppinger, and she flattered herself that, were she to be the means of delivering him from the threatened danger, she might try to exact of him a promise to discontinue so dangerous and so questionable a business. If this night she were able to give him warning in time, it would be some return made for his kindness to her, and some reparation made for the injury she had done him. When for an instant there was a rift in the clouds, and she could look up and see the pure stars, it seemed to her that they shone down on her like angels’ eyes, watching, encouraging, and promising her protection. She thought of her father—of how his mind had been set against Coppinger; now, she felt convinced, he saw that his judgment had been warped, and that he would bless her for doing that which she had set her mind to accomplish. Her father had been ever ready frankly to acknowledge himself in the wrong when he had been convinced that he was mistaken, and now in the light of eternity, with eyes undarkened by prejudice, he must know that he was in error in his condemnation of Coppinger, and be glad that his daughter was doing something to save that man from an untimely and bloody death.
Not a soul did Judith meet or pass on her way. She had determined in the first case to go to Pentyre Glaze. She would see if Captain Cruel were there. She trusted he was at his house. If so, her course was simple; she would warn him and return to Mr. Menaida’s cottage as quickly as her feet would bear her. The wind caught her cloak, and she turned in alarm, fancying that it was plucked by a human hand. No one, however, was behind her.
In Pentyre lane it was dark, very dark. The rude half-walls, half-hedges stood up high, walled toward the lane hedged with earth and planted with thorns toward the field. The wind hissed through the bushes; there was an ash tree by a gate. One branch sawed against another, producing a weird, even shrill sound like a cry.
The way led past a farm, and she stole along before it with the utmost fear as she heard the dog in the yard begin to bark furiously, and as she believed that it was not chained up, might rush forth at her. It might fall upon her, and hold her there till the farmer came forth and found her, and inquired into the reason of her being there at night. If found and recognized, what excuse could she give? What explanation could satisfy the inquisitive?
She did not breathe freely till she had come out on the down; the dog was still barking, but, as he had not pursued her, she was satisfied that he was not at large. Her way now lay for a while over open common, and then again entered a lane between the hedges that enclosed the fields and meadows of the Glaze.
A dense darkness fell over the down, and Judith for a while was uncertain of her way, the track being undistinguishable from the short turf on either side. Suddenly she saw some flashes of light that ran along the ground and then disappeared.
“This is the road,” said a voice.
Judith’s heart stood still, and her blood curdled in her veins. If the cloud were to roll away—and she could see far off its silvery fringe, she would become visible. The voice was that of a man, but whether that of a smuggler or of a coast-guard she could not guess. By neither did she care to be discovered. By the dim, uncertain light she stole off the path, and sank upon the ground among some masses of gorse that stood on the common. Between the prickly tufts she might lie, and in her dark cloak be mistaken for a patch of furze. She drew her feet under the skirt, that the white stockings might not betray her, and plucked the hood of her cloak closely round her face. The gorse was sharp, and the spikes entered her hands and feet, and pricked her as she turned herself about between the bushes to bring herself deeper among them.
From where she lay she could see the faintly illumined horizon, and against that horizon figures were visible, one—then another—a third—she could not count accurately, for there came several together; but she was convinced there must have been over a dozen men.
“It’s a’most too rough to-night, I reckon,” said one of the men.
“No, it is not—the wind is not direct on shore. They’ll try it.”
“Coppinger and his chaps are down in the cove already,” said a third. “They wouldn’t go out if they wasn’t expecting the boats from the Black Prince.”
“You are sure they’re down, Wyvill?”
“Sure and sartain. I seed ’em pass, and mighty little I liked to let ’em go by—without a pop from my pistol. But I’d my orders. No orders against the pistol going off of itself, Captain, if I have a chance presently?”
No answer was given to this; but he who had been addressed as Captain asked—
“Are the asses out?”
“Yes; a whole score, I reckon.”
“Then they’ll come up the mule path. We must watch that. Lieutenant Hanson will be ready with the cutter to run out and stop their way back by water to the Prince. The Prince’s men will take to the sea, and he’ll settle with them; but Coppinger’s men will run up the cliffs, and we must tackle them. Go on.”
Several now disappeared into the darkness, moving toward the sea.
“Here, a word with you, Wyvill,” said the Captain.
“Right, sir—here I be.”
“Dash it!—it is so dark! Here, step back—a word in your ear.”
“Right you are, sir.”
They came on to the turf close to where Judith crouched.
“What is that?” said the Captain, hastily.
“I thought I trod on something like cloth. Have you a light?”
“No, sir! Home has the dark lantern.”
“I suppose it is nothing. What is all that dark stuff there?”
“I’ll see, sir,” said Wyvill, stooping, and with his hand. “By George, sir! it’s naught but fuzz.”
“Very well, Wyvill—a word between us. I know that if you have the chance you intend to send a bullet into Coppinger. I don’t blame you. I won’t say I wouldn’t do it—unofficially—but looky’ here, man, if you can manage without a bullet—say a blow with the butt-end on his forehead and a roll over the cliffs—I’d prefer it. In self-defence of course we must use fire-arms. But there’s some squeamish stomachs, you understand; and if it can come about accidentally, as it were—as if he’d missed his footing—I’d prefer it. Make it pleasant all around, if you can.”
“Yes, sir; leave it to me.”
“It oughtn’t to be difficult, you know, Wyvill. I hear he’s broke one arm, so is like to be insecure in his hold climbing the cliffs. Then no questions asked, and more pleasant, you know. You understand me?”
“Yes, sir; thank you, sir.”
Then they went on, and were lost to sight and to hearing. For some minutes Judith did not stir. She lay, recovering her breath; she had hardly ventured to breathe while the two men were by her, the Captain with his foot on her skirt. Now she remained motionless, to consider what was to be done. It was of no further use her going on to Pentyre Glaze. Coppinger had left it. Wyvill, who had been planted as spy, had seen him with his carriers defile out of the lane with the asses that were to bring up the smuggled goods from the shore.
She dare not take the path by which on the preceding afternoon she had descended with Jamie to the beach, for it was guarded by the Preventive men.
There was but one way by which she could reach the shore and warn Coppinger, and that was by the chimney of the cave—a way dangerous in daylight, one, moreover, not easy to find at night. The mouth of the chimney opened upon a ledge that overhung the sea half-way down the face of the precipice, and this ledge could only be reached by a narrow track—a track apparently traced by sheep.
Judith thought that she might find her way to that part of the down from which the descent was to be made; for she had noticed that what is locally called a “new-take” wall came near it, and if she could hit this wall, she believed she could trace it up to where it approached the cliff: and the track descended somewhere thereabouts. She waited where she lay till the heavy clouds rolled by, and for a brief space the sky was comparatively clear. Then she rose, and took the direction in which she ought to go to reach the “new-take” wall. As she went over the down, she heard the sea roaring threateningly; on her left hand the glint of the light-house on Trevose Head gave her the direction she must pursue. But, on a down like that, with a precipice on one hand, in a light, uncertain at best, often in complete darkness, it was dangerous to advance except by thrusting the foot forward tentatively before taking a step. The sea and the gnawing winds caused the cliffs to crumble; bits were eaten out of the surface, and in places there were fissures in the turf where a rent had formed, and where shortly a mass would fall.
It is said that the duties on customs were originally instituted in order to enable the Crown to afford protection to trade against pirates. The pirates ceased to infest the seas, but the duties were not only taken off, but were increased, and became a branch of the public revenue. Perhaps some consciousness that the profits were not devoted to the purpose originally intended, bred in the people on the coast a feeling of resentment against the imposition of duties. There certainly existed an impression, a conviction rather, that the violation of a positive law of this nature was in no respect criminal. Adventurers embarked in the illicit traffic without scruple, as they did in poaching. The profit was great, and the danger run enhanced the excitement of the pursuit, and gave a sort of heroic splendor to the achievements of the successful smuggler.
The Government, to stop a traffic that injured legitimate trade and affected the revenue, imposed severe penalties. Smuggling was classed among the felonies, “without benefit of clergy,” the punishment for which was death and confiscation of goods. The consciousness that they would be dealt with with severity did not deter bold men from engaging in the traffic, but made them desperate in self-defence when caught. Conflicts with revenue officers were not uncommon, and lives were lost on both sides. The smugglers were not bound together by any link, and sometimes one gang was betrayed by another, so as to divert suspicion and attention from their own misdeeds, or out of jealousy, or on account of a quarrel. It was so on this occasion: the success of Coppinger, the ingenuity with which he had carried on his defiance of the law, caused envy of him, because he was a foreigner—was, at all events, not a Cornishman; this had induced a rival to give notice to the Revenue officers, through Scantlebray—a convenient go-between in a good many questionable negotiations. The man who betrayed Coppinger dared not be seen entering into communication with the officers of the law. He, therefore, employed Scantlebray as the vehicle through whom, without suspicion resting on himself, his rival might be fallen upon and his proceedings brought to an end.
It was now very dark. Judith had reached and touched a wall; but in the darkness lost her bearings. The Trevose light was no longer visible, and directly she left the wall to strike outward she became confused as direction, and in the darkness groped along with her feet, stretching her hands before her. Then the rain came down, lashing in her face. The wind had shifted somewhat during the evening, and it was no guidance to Judith to feel from what quarter the rain drove against her. Moreover, the cove formed a great curve in the coast-line, and was indented deeply in some places, so that to grope round the edge without light in quest of a point only seen or noticed once, seemed a desperate venture. Suddenly Judith’s foot caught. It was entangled, and she could not disengage it. She stooped, and put her hand on a chain. It was Jamie’s steel dog-chain, one link of which had caught in a tuft of rest-harrow.
She had found the spot she wanted, and now waited only till the rain had rushed further inland, and a fringe of light appeared in the sky, to advance to the very edge of the cliff. She found it expedient to stoop as she proceeded, so as to discover some indications of the track. There were depressions where feet had worn the turf, and she set hers therein, and sought the next. Thus, creeping and groping, she neared the edge.
And now came the moment of supreme peril, when, trusting that she had found the right path, she must go over the brink. If she were mistaken, the next step would send her down two hundred feet, to where she heard the roar, and felt the breath of the sea stream up to her from the abyss. Here she could distinguish nothing; she must trust to Providence to guide her steps. She uttered a short and earnest prayer, and then boldly descended. She could not stoop now. To stoop was to dive headlong down. She felt her way, however, with her feet, reached one firm station, then another. Her hands touched the grass and earth of the ragged margin, then with another step she was below it, and held to the rain-splashed fangs of rock.
Clinging, with her face inward, feeling with her feet, and never sure but that the next moment might see her launched into air, she stole onward, slowly, cautiously, and ever with the gnawing dread in her heart lest she should be too late. One intense point of consciousness stood out in her brain—it told her that if, while thus creeping down, there should come the flash and explosion of fire-arms, her courage would fail, her head would spin, and she would be lost.
How long she was descending she could not tell, how many steps she took was unknown to her—she had not counted—but it seemed to her an entire night that passed, with every change of position an hour was marked; then, at last, she was conscious that she stood on more level ground. She had reached the terrace.
A little further, and on her left hand, would open the mouth of the shaft, and she must descend that, in profoundest darkness. A cry! A light flashed into her eyes and dazzled her. A hand at the same moment clutched her, or she would have reeled back and gone over the cliff.
The light was held to pour over her face. Who held it and who grasped her she could not see; but she knew the moment she heard a voice exclaim—
“Judith!”
In her terror and exhaustion she could but gasp for breath for a few moments.
By degrees her firmness and resolution returned, and she exclaimed, in broken tones, panting between every few words—
“Captain Cruel!—you are betrayed—they are after you!”
He did not press her. He waited till she could speak again, lowering the lantern.
Then, without the glare in her eyes, she was able to speak more freely.
“There is a boat—a Revenue cutter—waiting in the bay—and—above—are the Preventive men—and they will kill you.”
“Indeed,” said he. “And you have come to warn me?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me—are there any above, where you came down!”
“None; they are on the ass-path.”
“Can you ascend as you came down?”
“Yes.”
He extinguished his lantern, or covered it.
“I must no more show light. I must warn those below.” He paused, then said—
“Dare you mount alone.”
“I came down alone.”
“Then do this one thing more for me. Mount, and go to Pentyre. Tell your aunt—three lights—red, white, red; then ten minutes, and then, red, red, white. Can you remember? Repeat after me: ‘Three lights—red, white, red; then, ten minutes, and next, red, red, and white.’”
Judith repeated the words.
“That is right. Lose no time. I dare not give you a light. None must now be shown. The boat from the Black Prince is not in—this lantern was her guide. Now it is out she will go back. You will remember the signals? I thank you for what you have done. There is but one woman would have done it, and that Judith.”
He stepped inside the shaft to descend. When hidden, he allowed his light again to show, to assist him in his way down. Judith only waited till her eyes, that had been dazzled by the light, were recovered, and then she braced herself to resume her climb; but now it was to be up the cliff.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAINED.
To ascend is easier than to go down. Judith was no longer alarmed. There was danger still, that was inevitable; but the danger was as nothing now to what it had been. It is one thing to descend in total darkness into an abyss where one knows that below are sharp rocks, and a drop of two hundred feet to a thundering, raging sea, racing up the sand, pouring over the shelves of rock, foaming where divided waves clash. When Judith had been on the beach in the afternoon the tide was out; now it was flowing, and had swept over all that tract of white sand and pebble where she had walked. She could not indeed now see the water, but she heard the thud of a billow as it smote a rock, the boil and the hiss of the waves and spray. To step downward, groping the way, with a depth and a wild-throbbing sea beneath, demanded courage, and courage of no mean order; but it was other to mount, to be able to feel with the foot the ascent in the track, and to grope upward with the hand from one point of clutch to another, to know that every step upward was lessening the peril, and bringing nearer to the sward and to safety.
Without great anxiety, therefore, Judith turned to climb. Cruel Coppinger had allowed her to essay it unaided. Would he have done that had he thought it involved danger, or, rather, serious danger? Judith was sure he would not. His confidence that she could climb to the summit unassisted made her confident. As she had descended she had felt an interior qualm and sinking at every step she took; there was no such sensation now as she mounted.
She was not much inconvenienced by the wind, for the wind was not directly on shore; but it soughed about her, and eddies caught her cloak and jerked it. It would have been better had she left her cloak above on the turf. It incommoded her in her climb; it caught in the prongs of rock.
The rain, the water running off the rock, had wet her shoes, soaked them, and every step was in moisture that oozed out of them. She was glad now to rest on her right hand. In descending, the left had felt and held the rock, and it had been rubbed and cut. Probably it was bleeding.
Surely there was a little more light in the sky where the sky showed between the dense masses of vapor. Judith did not observe this, for she did not look aloft; but she could see a steely tract of sea, fretted into foam, reflecting an illumination from above, greater than the twilight could cast. Then she remembered that there had been a moon a few nights before, and thought that it was probably risen by this time.
Something chill and wet brushed her face. It startled her for a moment, and then she knew by the scent that it was a bunch of samphire growing out of the side of the crag.
Shrill in her ear came the scream of a gull that rushed by in the darkness, and she felt, or believed she felt, the fan from the wings. Again it screamed, and near the ear it pierced her brain like an awl, and then again, still nearer, unnerving her. In the darkness she fancied that this gull was about to attack her with beak and claws, and she put up her left arm as a protection to her eyes. Then there broke out a jabber of sea-birds’ voices, laughing mockingly, at a little distance.
Whither had she got!
The way was no longer easy—one step before another—there was a break of continuity in the path, if path the track could be called.
Judith stood still, and put forward her foot to test the rock in front. There was no place where it could rest. Had she, bewildered by that gull, diverged from the track? It would be well to retreat a few steps. She endeavored to do this, and found that she encountered a difficulty in finding the place where she had just planted her foot.
It was but too certain that she was off the track line. How to recover it she knew not. With the utmost difficulty she did reach a point in her rear where she could stand, clinging to the rock; but she clung now with both hands. There was no tuft of samphire to brush her face as she descended. She must have got wrong before she touched that. But where was the samphire? She cautiously felt along the surface of the crag in quest of it, but could not find it. There was, however, a little above her shoulder, a something that felt like a ledge, and which might be the track. If she had incautiously crept forward at a level without ascending rapidly enough, she was probably below the track. Could she climb to this point—climb up the bare rock, with sheer precipice below her? And, supposing that the shelf she felt with her hand were not the track, could she descend again to the place where she had been?
Her brain spun. She lost all notion as to where she might be—perhaps she was below the path, perhaps she was above it. She could not tell. She stood with arms extended, clinging to the rock, and her heart beat in bounds against the flinty surface. The clasp of her cloak was pressing on her throat, and strangling her. The wind had caught the garment, and was playing with the folds, carrying it out and flapping it behind her over the gulf. It was irksome; it was a danger to her. She cautiously slid one hand to her neck, unhasped the mantle, and it was snatched from her shoulders and carried away. She was lighter without it, could move with greater facility; cold she was not, wet she might become, but what mattered that if she could reach the top of the cliff?
Not only on her own account was Judith alarmed. She had undertaken a commission. She had promised to bear a message to her aunt from Coppinger that concerned the safety of his men. What the signal meant she did not know, but suspected that it conveyed a message of danger.
She placed both her hands on the ledge, and felt with her knee for some point on which to rest it, to assist her in lifting herself from where she stood to the higher elevation. There was a small projection, and after a moment’s hesitation she drew her foot from the shelf whereon it had rested and leaned the left knee on this hunch. Then she clung with both hands, and with them and her knee endeavored to heave herself up about four feet, that is, to the height of her shoulders. A convulsive quiver seized on her muscles. She was sustained by a knee and her hands only. If they gave way she could not trust to recover her previous lodgement place. One desperate strain, and she was on the ledge, on both knees, and was feeling with her hands to ascertain if she had found the track. Her fingers touched thrift and passed over turf. She had not reached what she sought. She was probably farther from it than before. As all her members were quivering after the effort, she seated herself on the shelf she had reached, leaned back against the wet rock, and waited till her racing pulses had recovered evenness of flow, and her muscles had overcome the first effects of their tension.
Her position was desperate. Rain and perspiration mingled dripped from her brow, ran over and blinded her eyes. Her breath came in sobs between her parted lips. Her ears were full of the booming of the surge far below, and the scarcely less noisy throb of her blood in her pulses.
When she had started on her adventurous expedition she had seen some stars that had twinkled down on her, and had appeared to encourage her. Now, not a star was visible, only, far off on the sea, a wan light that fell through a rent in the black canopy over an angry deep. Beyond that all was darkness, between her and that all was darkness.
As she recovered her self-possession, with the abatement of the tumult in her blood she was able to review her position, and calculate her chances of escape from it.
Up the track from the cave the smugglers would almost certainly escape, because that was the only way, unwatched, by which they could leave the beach without falling into the hands of the Preventive men.
If they came by the path—that path could not be far off, though in which direction it lay she could not guess. She would call, and then Coppinger or some of his men would come to her assistance.
By this means alone could she escape. There was nothing for her to do but to wait.
She bent forward and looked down. She might have been looking into a well; but a little way out she could see, or imagine she saw, the white fringes of surf stealing in. There was not sufficient light for her to be certain whether she really saw foam, or whether her fancy, excited by the thunder of the tide, made her suppose she saw it.
The shelf she occupied was narrow and inclined; if she slipped from it she could not trust to maintain herself on the lower shelf, certainly not if she slid down in a condition of unconsciousness. And now reaction after the strain was setting in, and she feared lest she might faint. In her pocket was the dog-chain that had caught her foot. She extracted that now, and groping along the wall of rock behind her, caught a stout tuft of coarse heather, wiry, well rooted; and she took the little steel chain and wound it about the branches and stem of the plant, and also about her wrist—her right wrist—so as to fasten her to the wall. That was some relief to her to know that in the event of her dropping out of consciousness there was something to hold her up, though that was only the stem of an erica, and her whole weight would rest on its rootlets. Would they suffice to sustain her? It was doubtful; but there was nothing else on which she could depend.
Suddenly a stone whizzed past, struck the ledge, and rebounded. Then came a shower of earth and pebbles. They did not touch her, but she heard them clatter down.
Surely they had been displaced by a foot, and that a foot passing above.
Then she heard a shot—also overhead, and a cry. She looked aloft, and saw against the half-translucent vapors a black struggling figure on the edge of the cliff. She saw it but for an instant, and then was struck on the face by an open hand, and a body crashed on to the shelf at her side, rolled over the edge, and plunged into the gulf below.
She tried to cry, but her voice failed her. She felt her cheek stung by the blow she had received. A feeling as though all the rock were sinking under her came on, as though she were sliding—not shooting—but sliding down, down, and the sky went up higher, higher—and she knew no more.