Michael's Crag

Chapter 7

PERIL BY LAND.

The Trevennacks dined in their lodgings at Gunwalloe at half-past

seven. But in the rough open-air life of summer visitors on the

Cornish coast, meals as a rule are very movable feasts; and Michael

Trevennack wasn't particularly alarmed when he reached home that

evening to find Cleer hadn't returned before him. They had missed one

another, somehow, among the tangled paths that led down the gully; an

easy enough thing to do between those big boulders and bramble-bushes;

and it was a quarter to eight before Trevennack began to feel alarmed

at Cleer's prolonged absence. By that time, however, he grew

thoroughly frightened; and, reproaching himself bitterly for having

let his daughter stray out of his sight in the first place, he hurried

back, with his wife, at the top of his speed along the cliff path to

the Penmorgan headland.

It's half an hour's walk from Gunwalloe to Michael's Crag; and by the

time Trevennack reached the mouth of the gully the sands were almost

covered; so for the first time in fifteen years he was forced to take

the path right under the cliff to the now comparatively distant

island, round whose base a whole waste of angry sea surged sullenly.

On the way they met a few workmen who, in answer to their inquiries,

could give them no news, but who turned back to aid in the search for

the missing young lady. When they got opposite Michael's Crag, a wide

belt of black water, all encumbered with broken masses of sharp rock,

some above and some below the surface, now separated them by fifty

yards or more from the island. It was growing dark fast, for these

were the closing days of August twilight; and dense fog had drifted

in, half obliterating everything. They could barely descry the dim

outline of the pyramidal rock in its lower half; its upper part was

wholly shrouded in thick mist and drizzle.

With a wild cry of despair, Trevennack raised his voice, and shouted

aloud, "Cleer, Cleer! where are you?"

That clarion voice, as of his namesake angel, though raised against

the wind, could be heard above even the thud of the fierce breakers

that pounded the sand. On the highest peak above, where she sat, cold

and shivering, Cleer heard it, and jumped up. "Here! here! father!"

she cried out, with a terrible effort, descending at the same time

down the sheer face of the cliff as far as the dashing spray and

fierce wild waves would allow her.

No other ear caught the sound of that answering cry; but Trevennack's

keen senses, preternaturally awakened by the gravity of the crisis,

detected the faint ring of her girlish voice through the thunder of

the surf. "She's there!" he cried, frantically, waving his hands above

his head. "She's there! She's there! We must get across and save her."

For a second Mrs. Trevennack doubted whether he was really right, or

whether this was only one of poor Michael's hallucinations. But the

next moment, with another cry, Cleer waved her handkerchief in return,

and let it fall from her hand. It came, carried on the light breeze,

and dropped in the water before their very eyes, half way across the

channel.

Frenzied at the sight, Trevennack tore off his coat, and would have

plunged into the sea, then and there, to rescue her. But the workmen

held him back. "No, no, sir; you mustn't," they said. "No harm can't

come to the young lady if she stops there. She've only got to sit on

them rocks there till morning, and the tide'll leave her high and dry

right enough, as it always do. But nobody couldn't live in such a sea

as that--not Tim o' Truro. The waves 'u'd dash him up afore he knowed

where he was, and smash him all to pieces on the side o' the island."

Trevennack tried to break from them, but the men held him hard. Their

resistance angered him. He chafed under their restraint. How dare

these rough fellows lay hands like that on the Prince of the

Archangels and a superior officer in Her Majesty's Civil Service? But

with the self-restraint that was habitual to him, he managed to

refrain, even so, from disclosing his identity. He only struggled

ineffectually, instead of blasting them with his hot breath, or

clutching his strong arms round their bare throats and choking them.

As he stood there and hesitated, half undecided how to act, of a

sudden a sharp cry arose from behind. Trevennack turned and looked.

Through the dark and the fog he could just dimly descry two men

hurrying up, with ropes and life buoys. As they neared him, he started

in unspeakable horror. For one of them, indeed, was only Eustace Le

Neve; but the other--the other was that devil Walter Tyrrel, who, he

felt sure in his own heart, had killed their dear Michael. And it was

his task in life to fight and conquer devils.

For a minute he longed to leap upon him and trample him under foot, as

long ago he had trampled his old enemy, Satan. What was the fellow

doing here now? What business had he with Cleer? Was he always to be

in at the death of a Trevennack?

But true to her trust, the silver-haired lady clutched his arm with

tender watchfulness. "For Cleer's sake, dear Michael!" she whispered

low in his ear; "for Cleer's sake--say nothing; don't speak to him,

don't notice him!"

The distracted father drew back a step, out of reach of the spray.

"But Lucy," he cried low to her, "only think! only remember! If I

cared to go on the cliff and just spread my wings, I could fly across

and save her--so instantly, so easily!"

His wife held his hand hard. That touch always soothed him. "If you

did, Michael," she said gently, with her feminine tact, "they'd all

declare you were mad, and had no wings to fly with. And Cleer's in no

immediate danger just now, I feel sure. Don't try, there's a dear man.

That's right! Oh, thank you."

Reassured by her calm confidence, Trevennack fell back yet another

step on the sands, and watched the men aloof. Walter Tyrrel turned to

him. His heart was in his mouth. He spoke in short, sharp sentences.

"The coastguard's wife told us," he said. "We've come down to get her

off. I've sent word direct to the Lizard lifeboat. But I'm afraid it

won't come. They daren't venture out. Sea runs too high, and these

rocks are too dangerous."

As he spoke, he tore off his coat, tied a rope round his waist, flung

his boots on the sand, and girded himself rapidly with an inflated

life-buoy. Then, before the men could seize him or prevent the rash

attempt, he had dashed into the great waves that curled and thundered

on the beach, and was struggling hard with the sea in a life and death

contest. Eustace Le Neve held the rope, and tried to aid him in his

endeavors. He had meant to plunge in himself, but Walter Tyrrel was

beforehand with him. He was no match in a race against time for the

fiery and impetuous Cornish temperament. It wasn't long, however,

before the breakers proved themselves more than equal foes for Walter

Tyrrel. In another minute he was pounded and pummeled on the unseen

rocks under water by the great curling billows. They seized him

resistlessly on their crests, tumbled him over like a child, and

dashed him, bruised and bleeding, one limp bundle of flesh, against

the jagged and pointed summits of the submerged boulders.

With all his might, Eustace Le Neve held on to the rope; then, in coat

and boots as he stood, he plunged into the waves and lifted Walter

Tyrrel in his strong arms landward. He was a bigger built and more

powerful man than his host, and his huge limbs battled harder with the

gigantic waves. But even so, in that swirling flood, it was touch and

go with him. The breakers lifted him off his feet, tossed him to and

fro in their trough, flung him down again forcibly against the sharp-

edged rocks, and tried to float off his half unconscious burden. But

Le Neve persevered in spite of them, scrambling and tottering as he

went, over wet and slippery reefs, with Tyrrel still clasped in his

arms, and pressed tight to his breast, till he landed him safe at last

on the firm sand beside him.

The squire was far too beaten and bruised by the rocks to make a

second attempt against those resistless breakers. Indeed, Le Neve

brought him ashore more dead than alive, bleeding from a dozen wounds

on the face and hands, and with the breath almost failing in his

battered body. They laid him down on the beach, while the fishermen

crowded round him, admiring his pluck, though they deprecated his

foolhardiness, for they "knowed the squire couldn't never live ag'in

it." But Le Neve, still full of the reckless courage of youth, and

health, and strength, and manhood, keenly alive now to the peril of

Cleer's lonely situation, never heeded their forebodings. He dashed in

once more, just as he stood, clothes and all, in the wild and

desperate attempt to stem that fierce flood and swim across to the

island.

In such a sea as then raged, indeed, and among such broken rocks,

swimming, in the strict sense, was utterly impossible. By some mere

miracle of dashing about, however--here, battered against the sharp

rocks; there, flung over them by the breakers; and yonder, again,

sucked down, like a straw in an eddy, by the fierce strength of the

undertow--Eustace found himself at last, half unconscious and half

choked, carried round by the swirling scour that set through the

channel to the south front of the island. Next instant he felt he was

cast against the dead wall of rock like an india rubber ball. He

rebounded into the trough. The sea caught him a second time, and flung

him once more, helpless, against the dripping precipice. With what

life was left in him, he clutched with both hands the bare serpentine

edge. Good luck befriended him. The great wave had lifted him up on

its towering crest to the level of vegetation, beyond the debatable

zone. He clung to the hard root of woody sea-aster in the clefts. The

waves dashed back in tumultuous little cataracts, and left him there

hanging.

Like a mountain goat, Eustace clambered up the side, on hands, knees,

feet, elbows, glad to escape with his life from that irresistible

turmoil. The treacherous herbs on the slope of the crag were kind to

him. He scrambled ahead, like some mad, wild thing. He went onward,

upward, cutting his hands at each stage, tearing the skin from his

fingers. It was impossible; but he did it. Next minute he found

himself high and dry on the island.

His clothes were clinging wet, of course, and his limbs bruised and

battered. But he was safe on the firm plateau of the rock at last; and

he had rescued Cleer Trevennack!

In the first joy and excitement of the moment he forgot altogether the

cramping conventionalities of our every-day life; and, repeating the

cry he had heard Michael Trevennack raise from the beach below, he

shouted aloud, at the top of his voice, "Cleer! Cleer! Where are you?"

"Here!" came an answering voice from the depths of the gloom overhead.

And following the direction whence the sound seemed to come, Eustace

Le Neve clambered up to her.

As he seized her hand and wrung it, Cleer crying the while with

delight and relief, it struck him all at once, for the very first

time, he had done no good by coming, save to give her companionship.

It would be hopeless to try carrying her through those intricate rock-

channels and that implacable surf, whence he himself had emerged,

alone and unburdened, only by a miracle. They two must stop alone

there on the rock till morning.

As for Cleer, too innocent and too much of a mere woman in her deadly

peril to think of anything but the delightful sense of confidence in a

strong man at her side to guard and protect her, she sat and held his

hand still, in a perfect transport of gratitude. "Oh, how good of you

to come!" she cried again and again, bending over it in her relief,

and half tempted to kiss it. "How good of you to come across like that

to save me."