 CHAPTER 25 THE WRECK OF THE SAMARITAN Taffy stood for a moment listening. He judged the wreck to be somewhere on the near side of the lighthouse 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 loo of the weather, deep in the hills hollow and trembling landlocked by the windings of the creek, but above him the sky kept it screaming as though the bare ridges of the headland were being shelled 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 northeast. 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 bows bent under his weight but they were tough, and he caught 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 law 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 bowels. Hello there. Hello, 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 bowels 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 near, 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 appeared at each other, but could not see. The man's teeth shattered 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 hell should I know? What's her name? Taffy had to ask the question twice. The Samaritan of Newport. Brigantine. Coles, she carried. Can't you such a thing as a match? It seems funny to me talking here like this and me not knowing you from Adam. He panted between the words and when he had finished lay back and panted again. Hurt, asked Taffy after a while. The man sat up and began to feel his limbs. Quite as though they belonged to some other body. No, I reckon not. Then we'd best be starting. The tide's rising. My house is just above here. He led the way along the slippery foreshore until he found what he sought, a foot-track slanting up the cliff. Here he gave the sailor a hand and they mounted together on the grass slope above. They met the gale and were forced to drop on their hands and knees and crawl. Taffy, leading and shouting instructions, the sailor answering each with aye aye mate to show that he understood. But about halfway up these answers ceased and Taffy looking round and calling, found himself alone. He groped his way back forth 20 yards and found the man stretched on his face and moaning, I can't, I can't, my poor brother, I can't. Taffy knelt beside him on the soaking turf. Your brother had you a brother on board? The man bowed his face again upon the turf. Taffy, upright on both knees, heard him sobbing like a child in the roaring darkness. Come, he coaxed and putting out a hand, touched his wet hair. Come, they crept forward again, but still as he followed the sailor cried for his ground-brother up the long slope to the ridge of the headland, where with the lighthouse and warm cottage windows in view all speech and hearing were drowned by stinging hail and the blown grit of the causeway. Humility opened the door to them. Taffy, where have you been? There has been a wreck. Yes, yes, the Coast Guard is down by the lighthouse. The men there saw her before she struck. They kept signaling till it fell dark. They had sent off before that. She drew back shrinking against the dresser as the lamp light fell on the stranger. Taffy turned and stared too. The man's face was running with blood and looking at his own hands he saw that they also were scarlet. He helped the poor wretch to a chair. Bandages, can you manage? She nodded and stepped to a cupboard. The sailor began to wail again like an infant. See, above the temple here, the cut isn't serious. Taffy took down at Lantern and let it, the candle shone red through the smears. His fingers left on the horned pains. I must go and help if you can manage. I can manage. She answered quietly. He strode out and closing the door behind him with an effort. Face the gale again. Down in the lee of the lighthouse, the lamps of the Coast Guard carriage gleamed foggily through the rain. The men were there discussing. George among them. He had just galloped up. The chief officer went off to question the survivor. While the rest began their search, they searched all that night. They burned flares and shouted their torches, dotted the cliffs. After an hour, the chief officer returned. He could make nothing of the sailor who had fallen silly from exhaustion or the blow on his head. But he divided his men into three parties, and they began to hunt more systematically. Taffy was told off to help the westernmost gang and search the rocks below the lighthouse. Once or twice he and his comrades paused in their work, hearing as they thought a cry for help. But when they listened, it was only one of the other parties hailing. The gale began to abate. Soon after midnight and before dawn, had blown itself out. Day came, filtered slowly through the rack of it to the southeast. And soon they heard a whistle blown, and there on the cliff above them was George Vile on horseback in his red coat, with an arm thrown out and pointing eastward. He turned and galloped off in that direction. They scrambled up and followed, to their astonishment, after following the cliffs for a few hundred yards, he headed inland, down and across the very slope up which Taffy had crawled with the sailor. They lost sight of his red coat among the ridges. Two or three, Taffy amongst them, ran along the upper ground for a better view. Well, this beats all, panted the foremost. Below them, George came into view again, heading now at full gallop for a group of men gathered by the shore of the creek, a good half-mouth from its mouth, and beyond midway across the sandy bed, where the river wound lay the hull of a vessel, high and dry. Her deck, naked of wheelhouse and hatches, counted toward them as if to cover, from the morning, the long wounds, ripped by her uprooted masts. The men beside him shouted and ran on, but Taffy stood still. It was monstrous, a thing inconceivable that the seas should have lifted a vessel of three hundred tons and carried her half a mile up that shallow creek. Yet there, she lay, a horrible thought seized him, could she have been there last night, when he had drawn the sailor ashore, and had he left four or five others to drown close by in the darkness. No, the tide at that hour had scarcely passed half-blood. He thanked God for that. Well, there she lay, high and dry, with plenty to attend to her. It was time for him to discover the damage done to the lighthouse, plant and machinery, perhaps to the building itself. In half an hour the workmen would be arriving. He walked slowly back to the house and found humility preparing breakfast. Where is he? Taffy asked, meaning the sailor, in bed. Didn't you meet him? He went out five minutes ago. I couldn't keep him to look for his brother, he said. Taffy drank a cup full of tea, took up a crust and made for the door. Go to bed, dear, his mother pleaded you must be worn out. I must see how the works have stood it. On the whole they had stood it well. The gale indeed had torn away the wire, table and cage, and thus cut off for the time all access to the outer rock. For while the sea ran at its present height, the scramble out along the ridge could not be attempted even at low water. But from the cliff he could see the worst, the waves had washed over the building, tearing off the temporary covers, and churning all within. Planks, scaffolding, everything floatable had gone, and screwed the rock with match wood, and the marvel to see one of those two heaviest winches had been lifted from inside, hurled clean over the wall, and lay collapsed in the wreckage of its cast iron frame. But so far as he could see the dovetailed masonry stood intact, a voice hailed him. What a night, what a night! It was old Pizzac, aloft on the gallery of that lighthouse in his yellow oilers, already polishing the lantern panes. Taffy's workmen came straggling and gathered about him. They discussed the damage together, but without addressing Taffy, until a little pockmark fellow, the wag of the gang, nudged a mate, slyly, and said aloud, By God, Bill, we can build a bit, you and me and the boss. All the men laughed, and Taffy laughed too, blushing. Yes, this had been in his mind. He had measured his work against the sea in his fury, and the sea had not beaten him. A cry broke in upon their laughter. It came from the base of the cliff to the right. A cry so insistent that they ran toward it in a body. Far below them, on the edge of a great boulder, which rose from the broken water and seemed to overhang it, stood the rescued sailor. He was pointing. Taffy was the first to reach him. It's my brother. It's my brother, Sam. Taffy flung himself full length on the rock and peered over. A tangle of oar, weed, awash, rose and fell about its base, and from under this, as the frothy waves drew back, he saw a man's ankle protruding, and a foot still wearing a shoe. It's my brother, way of the sailor again. I can swear to the shoe of M. End of Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Of The Ship of Stars This is a Libra box recording. All Libra box recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libra box dot org. The Ship of Stars by Arthur Quillar Couch Chapter 26 Salvage One of the masons lowered himself into the pool and thrusting an arm beneath the oar weed began to grope. He's pinned here. The rock's right on top of him. Taffy examined the rock. It weighed fifteen tons if an ounce, but there were fresh and deep scratches upon it. He pointed these out to the men, who looked and felt them with their hands, and stared at the subsiding waves, trying to bring their minds to the measure of the spent gale. Here I must get out of this, said the man in the pool, as a small wave dashed in and sent its spray over his bowed shoulders. You're bad going to leave him, where the sailor. You're bad going to leave my brother Sam. He was a small, fussy man, with red whiskers, and even his sorrow gave him little dignity. The men were tender with him. Nothing to be done till the tide goes back. But you won't leave him. Say you won't leave him. He's a wife and three children. He was a saved man, sir, a very religious man, not like me, sir. He was highly respected in the neighborhood of St. Austell. I shouldn't wonder if the newspapers had a word about him. The tears were running down his face. We must wait for the tide, said Taffy gently, and tried to lead him away, but he would not go. So they left him to watch and wait while they returned to their work. Before noon they recovered and fixed the broken wire cable. The iron cradle had disappeared, but to rig up a sling and carry out an endless line was no difficult job, and when this was done, Taffy crossed over to the island rock and began to inspect damages. His working gear had suffered heavily. Two of his windlesses were disabled. Scaffolding, platforms, hods, and loose planks had vanished. A few small tools only remained, mixed together in a mash of puddled lime. But the masonry stood unhurt. All except a few feet of the upper course on the seaward side, where the gale, giving the cement no time to set, had shaken the dovetail stones in their sockets. A matter easily repaired. Shortly before three, a shout recalled them to the mainland. The tide was drawing towards low water, and three of the men set to work at once to open a channel and drain off the pool about the base of the big rock. While this was doing, half a dozen splashed in with iron bars and pickaxes, the rest rigged two stout ropes with tackles and hauled. The stone did not budge. For more than an hour they prized and levered and strained, and all the while the sailor ran to and fro, snatching up now a pick and now a crowbar, now lending a hand to haul and again breaking off to lament aloud. The tide turned, the winter dark came down, and at half past four Taffy gave the word to desist. They had to hold back the sailor, or he would have jumped in and drowned beside his brother. Taffy slept little that night, though he needed sleep. The salving of this body had become almost a personal dispute between the sea and him. The gale had shattered two of his windlesses, but two remained, and by one o'clock next day he had both slung over to the mainland and fixed beside the rock. The news spreading inland fetched two or three score onlookers before Ebb of Tide, miners for the most part, whose help could be counted on. The men of the Coast Guard had left the wreck to bear a hand if needed. George had come too. And happening to glance upwards while he directed his men, Taffy saw a carriage with two horses drawn up on the grassy edge of the cliff, a groom at the horse's heads, and in the carriage a figure seated, silhouetted there high against the clear blue heaven. Well he recognized, even at that distance, the poise of her head, though for almost four years he had never set eyes on her, nor had wished to. He knew that her eyes were on him now. He felt like a general on the eve of an engagement. By the almanac the Tide would not turn until 4.35. At four perhaps they could begin, but even at four the winter twilight would be on them, and he had taken care to provide torches and distribute them among the crowd. His own men were making the most of the daylight left, drilling holes for dear life in the upper surface of the boulder, and fixing the Lewis wedges and rings. They looked to him for every order, and he gave it in a clear ringing voice which he knew must carry to the cliff-top. He did not look at George. He felt sure in his own mind that the wedges and rings would hold, but to make doubly sure he gave orders to loop an extra chain under the jutting base of the boulder. The mason who fixed it, standing waist high in water as the tide ebbed, called for a rope and hitched it round the ankle of the dead man. The dead man's brother jumped down beside him and grasped the slack of it. At a signal from Taffy the crowd began to light their torches. He looked at his watch, at the tide, and gave the word to man the windlesses. Then, with a glance towards the cliff, he started the working chant. A-ee-ho! A-ee-ho! The two gangs, twenty men to each windless, took it up with one voice, and to the deep, intoned chant the chains taughtened, shuddered for a moment, and began to lift. A-ee-ho! Silently, irresistibly, the chain drew the rock from its bed. To Taffy it seemed an endless time. To the crowd, but a few moments before the brute mass swung clear. A few thrust their torches downward towards the pit where the sailor knelt. Taffy did not look but gave the word to pass down the coffin which had been brought in readiness. A clergyman, his father's successor but a stranger to him, climbed down after it, and he stood in the quiet crowd, watching the lighthouse above and the lamps which the groom had lit in Honoria's carriage, and listened to the baited voices of the few at their dreadful task below. It was five o'clock and passed before the word came up to lower the tackle and draw the coffin up. The vicar clambered out to wait it, and when it came borrowed a lantern and headed the bearers, the crowd fell in behind, eye and the resurrection and the life. They began to shuffle forwards and up the difficult track, but presently came to a halt with one accord, the vicar ceasing in the middle of a sentence. Out of the night over the hidden sea came the sound of men's voices lifted, thrilling the darkness thrice, the sound of three British cheers. Whose were the voices? They never knew. A few had noticed as twilight fell, a brig in the offing, standing in shore as she tacked down the channel. She no doubt, as they worked in their circle of torchlight, had sailed in close before going about. Her crews gathered forward. Her master, perhaps watching through his night glass, had guessed the act, saluted it and passed on her way unknown to her own destiny. They strained their eyes. A man beside Taffy declared he could see something, the faint glow of a binnacle lamp as she stood away. Taffy could see nothing. The voice ahead began to speak again. The vicar, pausing now and again to make sure of his path, was reading from a page which he held close to his lantern. Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty. They shall behold the land that is very far off. Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech than thou canst perceive, of a stammering tongue that thou canst not understand. But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams. Wherein shall go no galley with oars. Neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. For the Lord is our judge. The Lord is our lawgiver. The Lord is our King. He will save us. The tacklings are loosed. They could not well strengthen their mast. They could not spread the sail. Then is the prey of a great spoil divided. The lame take the prey. Here the vicar turned back a page and his voice rang higher. Behold, a King shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment, and the man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. And the eyes of them that shall see not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. Now Taffy walked behind, thinking his own thoughts. For the cheers of those invisible sailors had done more than thrill his heart. A finger, as it were, had come out of the night and touched his brain, unsealing the wells and letting in light upon things undreamt of. Through the bright confusion of this sudden vision the vicar's sentences sounded and fell on his ears unheeded. And yet while they faded, that happened which froze and bit each separate word into his memory, to lose distinctness only when death should interfere. Stop the active brain and wipe the slate. For while the procession halted and broke up his formation for a moment on the brow of the cliff, a woman came running into the torchlight. Is my Joey there? Where's he to, anybody? Have any one seen my Joey? It was Lizzie Petsack, panting and bare-headed with a scared face. He's lame. You'd knowin'. Have you got in there? He's wandered off. I shop, woman, said a bearer. Don't keep such a pour. The chills right enough some wetters, said another. Tis a man's body we've got. Stand out of the way for shame. But Lizzie, who is a rule shrank away from men and kept herself hidden, pressed nearer, turning her tragical face upon each in turn. Her eyes met George's, but she appealed to him as to the others. He's wandered off. Oh, say you've seen him, somebody! Catching sight of Taffy, she ran and gripped him by the arm. You'll help. It's my Joey. Help me find him. He turned half about, and almost before he knew what he sought, his eyes met George's. George stepped quietly to his side. Let me get my mare, said George, and walked away toward the lighthouse railing where he had tethered her. We'll find the child. Our work's done here, Mr. Saul. Taffy turned to the chief officer. Spare us a man or two in some flares. I'll come, myself, said the chief officer. My dear, and we'll fetch home your chills right as ninepence. I ate rollings, take a couple of men, and scatter along the cliffs there to the right. Lame, you say. He can't have gone far. Taffy, we'll find the child. Taffy, with the chief officer and a couple of volunteers, moved off to the left, and in less than a minute George caught them up on horseback. I say, he asked, walking his mare close alongside of Taffy. You don't think this serious, eh? I don't know. Joey wasn't in the crowd, or I should have noticed him. He's daring beyond his strength. He pulled a whistle from his pocket, blew it twice, and listened. This had been his signal when firing a charge. He had often blown it to warn the child to creep away into shelter. There was no answer. Mr. Bael had best tried along the upper slope, the chief officer suggested, while we searched down by the creek. Wait a moment, Taffy answered. Let's try the wreck first. But the tide's runnin'. He'd never go there. He's a queer child. I know him better than you. They ran downhill toward the creek, calling as they went, but getting no answer. But the wreck, exclaimed the chief officer, it's out of reason. Hi, what was that? Oh, my good lord, groaned one of the volunteers. It's the creek, master. It's Langona Creek, calling the drowned. Hush, you fool, listen. I thought as much, like a flare. Mr. Saul, he's out there calling. The first match sputtered and went out. They drew close around the chief officer while he struck the second to keep off the wind, and in those few moments the child's wail reached them distinctly across the darkness. The flame leaped up and shone, and they drew back a pace, shading their eyes from it, and peering into the steel blue landscape which sprang on them out of the night. They had halted a few yards only from the cliff, and the flare cast the shadow of its breast-high fence of tamarisks forward and almost halfway across the creek. And there, on the sands, a little beyond the edge of this shadow, stood the child. They could even see his white face. He stood on an island of sand, around which the tide swirled in silence, cutting him off from the shore, cutting him off from the wreck behind. He did not cry any more, but stood with his crutch planted by the edge of the widening stream and looked toward them. And Taffy looked at George. I know, said George quietly, and gathered up his reins. Stand aside, please. As they drew aside, not understanding, he called to his mayor. One living creature, at any rate, could still trust all to George Valle. She hurdled past them and rose at the tamarisk hedge blindly. Followed silence. A long silence. Then a thud on the beach below and a scuffle of stones. Silence again. And then the cracking of twigs as Taffy plunged after through the tamarisks and slithered down the cliff. The light died down as his feet touched the flat slippery stones. Died down and was renewed again and showed up horse and rider, scarce twenty yards ahead, laboring forward. The mayor is sinking fetlock deep at every plunge. At his forced stride, Taffy's feet too began to sink. But at every stride he gained something. The riding may be superb, but thirteen stone is thirteen stone. Taffy weighed less than eleven. He caught up with George on the very edge of the water. Make her swim it, he panted. Her feet mustn't touch here. George grunted. A moment later all three were in the water, the tide swirling them sideways, sweeping Taffy against the mayor. His right hand touched her flank at every stroke. The tide swept them upwards, upwards for fifteen yards at least, though the channel measured less than eight feet. The child, who had been standing opposite the point where they took the water, hobbled wildly along shore. The light on the cliff behind sank and rose again. The crutch, Taffy gasped. The child obeyed, laying it flat on the brink and pushing it toward them. Taffy gripped it with his left hand and with his right found the mayor's bridle. George was bending forward. No, not that way. You can't get back. The wreck man, it's firmer. But George reached out his hand and dragged the child towards him and onto his saddle-bow. Mine, he said quickly, and twitched the rain. The brave mayor snorted, jerked the bridle from Taffy's hand, and headed for the shore she had left. Rider, horse, and child seemed to fall away from him into the night. He scrambled out and snatching the crutch ran along the brink, staring at their black shadows. By and by the shadows came to a standstill. He heard the mayor panting. The creaking of saddle-leather came across to the nine or ten feet of dark water. It's no go, said George's voice, then to the mayor. Sally, my dear, it's no go. A moment later he asked more sharply. How far can you reach? Taffy stepped in until the waves ran by his knees. The sand held his feet, but beyond this he could not stand against the current. He reached forward holding the crutch at arm's length. Can you catch hold? All right. Both knew that swimming would be useless now. They were too near the upper apex of the sandbank. The child first. Here, joy, my son, reach out and catch hold for your life. Taffy felt the child's grip on the crutch head, and drawing it steadily toward him, hauled the poor child through. The light from the cliff sank and rose behind his scared face. Got him? Yes. The sand was closing around Taffy's legs, but he managed to shift his footing a little. Quick, then, the bank's breaking up. George was sinking, knee deep and deeper, but his outstretched fingers managed to reach and hook themselves around the crutch head. Steady now, must work your loose first. Get hold of the shaft, if you can. The head isn't firm. Work your legs, that's it. George rinsed his left foot loose and planted it against the mare's flank. Here, there, too, she had trusted her master. The thrust of his heel drove home her sentence, and with scream after scream, the sand holding her past hope, she plunged and fought for her life. Still, as she screamed, George, silent and panting, thrust against her, thrust savagely against the quivering body, once his pride for beauty and fleetness. Pull, he gasped, freeing his other foot with a wrench which left its heavy riding-boot deep in the sucking mud, and catching a new grip on the crutch head, flung himself forward. Taffy felt the sudden weight and pulled, and while he pulled, felt in a moment no grip, no weight at all. Between two hateful screams of face slid by him out of reach, silent with parted lips, as it slipped away he fell back staggering, grasping the useless, headless crutch. The mare went on screaming. He turned his back on her, and catching Joey by the hand, dragged him away across the melting island. At the sixth step the child, hauled off his crippled foot, swung blundering across his legs. He paused, lifting him in his arms, and plunged forward again. The flares on the cliff were growing in number. They cast long shadows before him. On the far side of the island the tide flowed swift and steady, a stream about fourteen yards wide, cutting him from further sandbank on which, not fifty yards above, lay the wreck. He whispered to Joey, and plunged into it straight, turning as the water swept him off his legs, and giving his back to it, his hand slipped under the child's armpits, his feet thrusting against the tide in slow, rhythmical strokes. The child, after the first gasp, lay still, his head obediently thrown back on Taffy's breast. The mare had ceased to scream. The water rippled in the ears as each leg thrust drove them little by little across the current. If George had but listened, it was so easy after all. The sandbanks still slid past them, but less rapidly. They were close to it now, and had only to lie still and be drifted against the leaning stanchions of the wreck. Taffy flung an arm about one, and checked his way quietly, as a man brings a boat alongside a quay. He hoisted Joey first upon the stanchion, then up the tilted deck to the gap of the main hatchway. Within this, with their feet on the steps and their chests leaning on the side panel of the companion, they rested and took breath. Cold, sunny? The child burst into tears. Taffy dragged off his own coat and wrapped him in it. The small body crept close, sobbing against his side. Across, on the shore, voices were calling, blue eyes moving. A pair of yellow lights came towards these, traveling swiftly upon the hillside. Taffy guessed what they were. The yellow lights moved more slowly. They joined the blue ones and halted. Taffy listened, but the voices were still now. He heard nothing but the hiss of the black water across which those two lamps sought and questioned him like eyes. God help her. He bowed his face on his arms. A little while, and the sands would be covered. The boats would put off. A little while. Crouching from those eyes, he prayed God to lengthen it. End of Chapter 26. Chapter 27 of The Ship of Stars. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Ship of Stars by Arthur Quillar Couch. Chapter 27. On a Rea. She was sitting there rigid, cold as a statue, when the rescuers brought them ashore and had her on the boat. They brought them ashore and helped them up the slope. A small crowd surrounded the carriage. In the rays of their moving lanterns, her face altered nothing to their furtive glances of sympathy, opposing the same white mask. Someone said, There's only two then. Another, with a nudge and a nod at the carriage, told him to hold his peace. She heard. Her lips hardened. Lizzie Petsack had rushed down to the shore to meet the boat. She was bringing her child along with a fond, wild babble of tender names and sobs and cries of thankfulness. In pauses, choked and overcome, she caught him to her, felt his limbs pressed his wet face against her neck and bosom. Taffy, supported by strong arms and hurried in her wake, had a hideous sense of being paraded in her triumph. The men around him who had raised a faint cheer sank their voices as they neared the carriage. But the woman went forward, jubilant and ruthless, flaunting her joy as if it were a flag blown in her eyes and blindfolding them to the grief she insulted. Stay! It was Honoria's voice, cold, incisive, not to be disobeyed. He had prayed in vain. The procession halted, Lizzie checked her babble and stood staring with an arm about Joey's neck. Let me see the child. Lizzie stared, broke into a silly triumphant laugh, and thrust the child forward against the carriage's step. The poor wave, drenched, dazed, tottering without his crutch, caught at the plated handle for support. Honoria gazed down on him with eyes which took slow and pitiless account of the deformed little body, the shrunken puny limbs. Thank you. So, this is what my husband died for. Drive on, please. Her eyes as she lifted him to give the order rested for a moment on Taffy. With how much scorn he cared not, could he have leapt in intercepted Lizzie's retort. And why not? A son's a son, curse you, though he was your man. It seemed she did not hear, or hearing did not understand. Her eyes hardened their fire on Taffy, and he lapped in their scorn, thanked God she had not understood. Drive on, please. The coachman lowered his whip. The horses moved forward at a slow walk. The carriage rolled silently away into the darkness. She had not understood. Taffy glanced at the faces about him. Ah, poor lady, said some one. But no one had understood. They found George's body next morning on the sands a little below the footbridge. He lay there in the morning sunshine as though asleep, with an arm flung above his head and on his face the easy smile for which men and women had liked him throughout his careless life. The inquest was held next day in the library at Carwithil. Sir Harry insisted on being present and sat beside the coroner. During Taffy's examination his lips were pursed up as though whistling a silent tune. Once or twice he nodded his head. Taffy gave his evidence discreetly. The child had been lost, had been found in a perilous position. He and deceased had gone together to the rescue. On reaching the child, deceased against advice, had attempted to return across the sands and had fallen into difficulties. In these his first thought had been for the child whom he had passed to witness to drag out of danger. When it came to deceased's turn the crutch on which all depended had parted in two and he had been swept away by the tide. At the conclusion of the story, Sir Harry took snuff and nodded twice. Taffy wondered how much he knew. The jury under the coroner's direction brought in a verdict of death by misadventure and added a word or two in praise of the dead man's gallantry. The coroner complimented Taffy warmly and promised to refer the case to the Royal Humane Society for Public Recognition. The jury nodded and one or two said here, here. Taffy hoped fervently he would do nothing of the sort. The funeral took place on the fourth day at nine o'clock in the morning. Such, in the day I write of, was the custom of the country. Friends who lived at a distance rose and shaved by candlelight and day break found them hoarse and well on their way to the house of mourning. Their errand announced by the long black streamers tied about their hats. The sad business over and done with, these guests returned to the house where until noon a mighty breakfast lasted and all were welcome. Their black habiliments and lowered voices alone marked the difference between it and a hunting breakfast. And indeed this morning, Squire Williams, who had taken over the hounds after Squire Moyle's death, had given secret orders to his huntsmen. And the pack was waiting at Three Barrow Turnpike, a couple of miles inland from Carwithio. At half past ten, the mourners drained their glasses, shook the crumbs off their riding-bridges, and took leave. And after halting outside Carwithio gates to unpin and pocket their hat bands, headed for the meat with one accord. A few minutes before noon, Squire Williams, seated on his grave by the edge of the Three Barrow break, and listening to every sound within the covert, happened to glance an eye across the valley and let out a low whistle. Well, said one of the near group of horsemen, catching sight of the rider pricking toward them down the farther slope. I knew him for an unbeliever, but this beats Hall. And his only son, not three hours under the mold, brought up in France as a youngster he was. And this, I suppose, is what comes of reading Voltaire. My Lord for manners, and no more heart than a warmed nut. That's Sir Harry, and always was. Squire Williams slewed himself round in his saddle. He spoke quietly at fifteen yards distance, but each word reached the group of horsemen as clear as a bell. Rabilin, he said. As a damned fool obliged me during the next few minutes by keeping your mouth shut. With this he resumed his old attitude in his business of watching the covert side, removing his eyes for a moment to nod as Sir Harry rode up and passed on to join the group behind him. He had scarcely done so when deep in the undergrowth of blackthorn a hound challenged. Spend a go for a fiver, and well found by the tune of it, cried Sir Harry. See that patch of gray wall, Rabilin? There, in a line beyond the master's elbow. I lay you an even guinea. That's where my gentleman comes over. But honest reprobation modeled the face of Mr. Rabilin, Squireen, and as an honest man he spoke out. Let it go to his credit, because as a rule he was a snob and inclined to cringe. I did not expect, he cleared his throat, to see you out today, Sir Harry. Sir Harry winced and turned on them all a gray woeful face. That's it, he said. I can't bide home. I can't bide home. Honoria bided home with her child and mourned for the dead. As a clever woman, far cleverer than her husband, she had seen his faults while he lived, and yet had liked him enough to forgive without difficulty. But now these faults faded, and by degrees memory reared and altered to him as a man little short of divine. At the worst he had been amiable, a kinder husband never lived. She reproached herself bitterly with the half-heartedness of her response to his love, to his love while it dwelt beside her, unvarying in cheerful kindness. For it was the truth alas, and a worm that gnawed continually. Passionate love she had never rendered him. She had been content, but how poor a thing was contentment. She had never divined his worth, had never given her worship. In all the while he had been a hero, and in the end had died as a hero. I offer one chance to redeem the wrong, for one moment to bow herself at his feet and acknowledge her blindness. Her prayer was ancient as widowhood, and heaven, folding away the irreparable time, returned its first and last and only solace. A dream for the groping arms, waking in darkness, and an empty pillow for her tears. From the first her child had been dear to her. Dearer, so her memory accused her now, than his father, more demonstratively beloved at any rate. But in those miserable months she grew to love him with a double strength. He bore George's name, and was, as Sir Harry proclaimed, a very miniature of George. Repeated his shapeliness of limb, his firm shoulders, his long lean thighs, the thighs of a born horseman. Learned to walk, and lo within a week walked with his father's gate. Had smiles for the whole of his small world, and for his mother a memory in each. And yet this was the strange part of it. A mystery she could not explain, because she dared not even acknowledge it. Though she loved him for being like his father, she regarded the likeness with a growing dread. Nay, caught herself correcting him stealthily when he developed some trivial trait which she and she alone recognized as part of his father's legacy. It was what in the old days she would have called contradictions. But there it was, and she could not help it. The nearer George and her memory approached to faultlessness, the more obstinately her instinct fought against her child's imitation of him. And yet, because the child was obstinately George's, she loved him with a double love. There came a day when he told her a childish falsehood. She did not whip him, but stood him in front of her and began to reason with him and explain the wickedness of an untruth. By and by she broke off in the midst of a sentence, appalled by the shrillness of her own voice. From argument she had passed a furious scolding, and the little fellow quailed before her, his contrition beaten down under the storm of words that whistled about his ears without meaning. His small faculties disabled before this spectacle of wrath. Her fingers were closing and unclosing. They wanted a riding switch. They wanted to grip the small body they had served and fondled, and to cut out. What, the lie? Honorea hated a lie. But while she paused and shook, a light flashed, and her eyes were open and saw that it was not the lie. She turned and ran, ran upstairs to her own room, flung herself on her knees beside the bed, dragged a locket from her bosom, and fell to kissing George's portrait, passionately crying it for pardon. She was wicked, base. While he lived she had misprized him, and this was her abiding punishment, that not even repentance could purge her heart of dishonoring thoughts, that her love for him, now, could never be stainless, though washed with daily tears. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still. Must that be true, Father of all mercies? I misjudged him, and it is too late for atonement. But I repent, and am afflicted. Though the dead know nothing, though it can never reach or avail him, give me back the power to be just. Late that afternoon, Honoria passed an hour piously in turning over the dead man's wardrobe, shaking out and brushing the treasured garments and folding them against moth and dust in fresh tissue paper. It was a morbid task, perhaps, but it kept George's image constantly before her, and this was what her remorseful mood demanded. Her nerves were unstrung and her limbs languid after the recent tempest. By and by she locked the doors of the wardrobe, and passing into her own bedroom, flung herself on a couch with a bundle of papers. Old bills, soiled in folded memoranda, sporting paragraphs cut from the newspapers. Scraps found in his pockets months ago and religiously tied by her with a silken ribbon. They were memories of a sort, and George had written few letters while wooing, not half a dozen first and last. Two or three receded bills laid together in the middle of the packet. One a saddler's, a second a nurseryman's for pot plants, kept for the sake of its queer spelling. A third the reckoning for a hotel luncheon. She was running over them carelessly when the date at the head of this last one caught her eye. August 3rd. It fixed her attention, because it happened to be the day before her birthday. August 3rd, such and such a year, the August before his death, and the hotel, a well-known one in Plymouth. The hotel, in fact, at which he had usually put up, without a prompting of suspicion, she turned back and ran her eye over the bill. A steak, a pint of claret, vegetables, cheese, and attendance. Never was a more innocent bill. Suddenly her attention stiffened on the date. George was in Plymouth the day before her birthday. But no, as it happened, George had been in Truro on that day. She remembered, because he had brought her a diamond pendant, having written beforehand to the Truro jeweler to get a dozen down from London to choose from. Yes, she remembered it clearly, and how he had described his day in Truro. And the next morning, her birthday morning, he had produced the pendant, wrapped in silver paper. He had thrown away the case. It was ugly, and he would get her another. But the bill, she had stayed once or twice at this hotel with George and recognized the handwriting. The bookkeeper, in compliment perhaps to a customer of standing, had written George Vial, Esquire, in full, on the bill head, a formality omitted as a rule in luncheon reckonings. And, if this scrap of paper told the truth, why then George had lied? But why? Ah, if he had done this thing, nothing else mattered, neither the how nor the why. If George had lied, and the pendant, had that been bought in Plymouth and not as he had asserted in Truro, he had thrown away the case. Jewelers print their names inside such cases. The pendant was a handsome one. Perhaps his checkbook would tell. She arose, stepped halfway to the door, but came back and flung herself again on the couch. No, she could not. This was the second time today. She could not face the torture again. Yet, if George had lied, she sat up, sat up with both hands pressed to her ears to shut out a sudden voice clamoring through them. And why not? A son's a son, curse you, though he was your man. End of Chapter 27, Chapter 28 of the Ship of Stars. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Ship of Stars by Arthur Quiller Couch. Chapter 28. Alo Trance. Lizzie Pizzak had put Joey to bed and was smoothing his coverlet when she heard someone knocking. She passed out into the front room and opened to the visitor. On the doorstep stood a lady in deep black, on a ria. Beyond the garden wall the lamps of her carriage blazed in the late twilight. The turf had muffled the sound of wheels, but now the jingle of shaken bits came loud through the open door. Ah! said Lizzie, drawing her breath back through her teeth. I must speak to you, please. May I come in? I have a question. Lizzie turned her back, struck a match, and let a candle. What question, she asked, with her back turned. Her eyes on the flame as it sank, warming the tallow, and grew bright again. It's—it's a question, on a ria began weakly, then shut the door behind her and advanced into the room. Turn around and look at me. Ah! you have a question. You hate me. Ah! you hate me, I know. Yes, Lizzie ascended slowly. I hate you, but you must answer me. You see, it isn't for me alone. It's not a question of our hating. In a way, it concerns others. Yes, but it's cowardly of me to put it so, because it concerns me, too. You don't know. Maybe I do. But if you did, on a ria broke off and then plunged forward desperately. That child of yours, his father, alone here, by ourselves. Think before you refuse. Lizzie sat down the candle and eyed her. And you, she answered at length, dragging out each word. You can come here and ask me that question? For a moment, silence fell between them and each could hear the others' breathing. Then on a ria drew herself up and faced her honestly, casting out both hands. Yes, I had to. You, a lady! Ah! but be honest with me. Lady or not, what has that to do with it? We are two women. That's where it all started. And we're kept to that. Lizzie bent her brows. Yes, you are right, she admitted. And, on a ria pursued eagerly, if I come here to sue you for the truth, it is you who forced me. I, by what you said that night, when George, when my husband, was drowned, when you cursed me, a son's a son, you said, though he was your man. Did I say that? Lizzie seemed to muse over the words. You have suffered, she asked. Yes, I have suffered. Ah, if I thought so. But you have not. You are a hypocrite, Mrs. Viall. And you are trying to cheat me now. You come here not to end that suffering, but to force a word from me that'll put joy and hope into you, that you'll go home hugging to your heart. Oh, I know you. You do not. I do, because I know myself. From a child I've been dirt to your pride, an item to your money. For years I've lived a shamed woman, but one thing I bought with it, one little thing. Think the price high for it, I'd say it is. But I bought and paid for it. And often when I turned it over in my mind, I don't count the price too dear. I don't understand. You may, if you try. What I bought was the power over you, my proud lady. While I keep tight lips, I have you at the end of a chain. You come here tonight to break it. One little word, and you'll be free and glad. But no and no. And no. You may guess till you're tired. You may be sure in your heart, but it's all no good without that little word you'll never get from me. You shall speak. Lizzie shrugged her shoulders and picked up the candle. Simmy, she said. You'd best go back to your carriage and horses. My little boy's in the next room trying to sleep, and tisn't fit, he heard much of this. She passed resolutely into the bedroom, leaving her visitor to darkness. But Honoria, desperate now, pushed after her, scarcely knowing what she did or meant to do. You shall speak. The house door opened and light footsteps came running through the outer room. It was little George, and he pulled at her skirts. Mummy, the horses are taking cold. But Honoria still advanced. You shall speak. Joy, catching sight of her from the bed, screamed and hid his face. To him she was a thing of horror. From the night when, thrust beneath her eyes, he had cowered by her carriage step. She had haunted his worst dreams. And now, black-robed and terrible a face, she had come to lay hands on him and carry him straight to hell. Mother, take her away! Take her away! His screams rang through the room. Hush, dear, cried Lizzie, running to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. But the child, far too terrified to know whose hand it was, flung himself from her with a wilder scream than any, flung himself all but free of the bedclothes. As Lizzie caught and tried to hold him the thin night-shirt ripped in her fingers, laying bare the small back from shoulder to buttock. They were woman to woman now, cast back into savagery, and blindly groping for its primitive weapons. Honoria crossed the floor, not knowing what she meant to do or might do. Lizzie sprang to defense against she knew not what. But when her enemy advanced, towering, with a healthy boy dragging at her skirts, she did the one thing she could, turned with a swift cry back upon her own crippled child, and caught at the bedclothes to cover and hide his naked deformity. While she crouched and shielded him, silence fell on the room. She had half expected Honoria to strike her, but no blow came, nor any sound. By and by she looked up. Honoria had come to a standstill, with rigid eyes. They were fastened on the bed. Then Lizzie understood. She had covered the child's legs from sight, but not his back, nor the brown mole on it. The large brown mole, ringed like Saturn, set obliquely between the shoulder blades. She rose from the bed slowly. Honoria turned on little George, with the gesture as if to fling off his velvet jacket. But Lizzie stamped her foot. No, she commanded hoarsely. Let be. Mine is a cripple. So it is true. Honoria desisted, but her eyes were wide and still fixed on the bed. Yes, it's true. You have all the luck. Mine is a cripple. Still Honoria stared. Lizzie gulped down something in her throat, but her voice, when she found it again, was still hoarse and strained. And now go. You have learnt what you came for. You have won because you stop at nothing. But go, before I try to kill you for the joy in your heart. Joy. Honoria put out a hand toward the bed's foot to steady herself. It was her turn to be weak. Yes, joy. Lizzie stepped between her and the door, pointed a finger at her and held it pointing. In your heart you are glad already. Wait, and in a moment I shall see it in your eyes. Glad, glad. Yes, your man was worthless, and you are glad. But, oh, you bitter fool. Let me go, please. Listen a bit. No hurry now. Plenty of time to be glad was only your husband, not the man of your heart. Look at me and answer. I don't count for much now, do I? Not much to hate in me now that you know the name of my child's father, and that isn't Taffy Raymond. Let me go. But seeing that Lizzie would not, she stopped and kissed her boy. Run out to the carriage, dear, and say I'll be coming in a minute or two. Little George clung to her wistfully, but her tone meant obedience. Lizzie stepped aside to let him pass out. Now, said Honoria. The next room is best, I think. Lead me there, and I will listen. You may go, if you like. No. I will listen. Between us two there is— There is— That, Lizzie nodded towards the child, huddling low in the bed. That, and much more. We cannot stop at the point you've reached. Besides, I have a question to ask. Lizzie passed before her into the front room, lit two candles, and drew down the blind. Ask it, she said. How did you know that I believed the other, Mr. Raymond, to be— She came to a halt. I guessed. What, from the beginning? No, he was after a long while, and then all of a sudden something seemed to make me clever. Did you know that, believing it, I had done him a great wrong, injured his life beyond repair? I knew something had happened, that he'd given up being a gentleman and taking to Builder's work. I thought maybe you were at the bottom of it. Who was it told you lies about him? Must I answer that? No, no need. George Valle was a nice fellow, but he was a liar. Couldn't help it, I believe. But a dirty trick like that? Well, well, Honorea stared at her, confounded. You never loved my husband? And Lizzie laughed. Actually, laughed, she was so weary. No more than you did, my dear. Perhaps a little less. Eh, what two fools we are here, fending off the truth. Fools from the start. And now, send me, playing foolish to the end, I, when all said and naked between us, when all said and naked between us. Leave us quit talking of George Valle. We nod George Valle, you and me too. And here we be, left to rear children by him. But the man we hated over, wasn't George Valle. Yet if, as you say, you loved him, the other one, why, when you saw his life ruined and guessed the lie that ruined it, when a word could have righted him, if you loved him, why didn't I speak? Ladies are most dull, somehow, or else you don't try to see. Or else, wasn't he near me, passing my door every day? Oh, I'm ignorant and selfish. But hadn't I got him near? And wouldn't that word have lost him? Send him God knows where, to you perhaps. You, you'd had your chance and squandered it like a fool. I never had no chance. I courted him, but he wouldn't look at me. He'd have come to your whistle once. Nothing to hinder but your money. And from what I can see and guess, you piled up that money in his face like a hedge. Oh, I could pity you, now. For now, you'll never have it. God pity us both, said Honoria, going. But she turned at the door. And after our marriage, you took no more thought of my, of George? The question was an afterthought. She never thought to see it stab as it did. But Lizzie caught at the table edge, held to it swaying over a gulf of hysterics, and answered between a sob and a passing bitter laugh. At the last, just to try, no harm done as it happened. You needn't mind. He was worthless anyway. Honoria stepped back, took her by the elbow as she swayed, and seated her in a chair. And so stood, regarding her, as a doctor might, a patient. After a while, she said, I think you will do me injustice. But you must believe as you like. I am not glad. I am very far from glad or happy. I doubt if I shall ever be happy. But I do not hate you as I did. She went out, closing the door softly. End of Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Of The Ship of Stars This is a LibraVox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org. The Ship of Stars, by Arthur Quillar Couch Chapter 29 The Ship of Stars Taffy guessed nothing of these passions in conflict. He's weak agonies. He went about his daily work, a man grown, thinking his own thoughts. And these thoughts were of many things. But they held no room for the problem which meant every single one of them. No room for the problem which meant everything in life to Honoria and Lizzie. Yes, and to humility, though it haunted her in less disturbing shape. Humility pondered it quietly, with a mind withdrawn while her hands moved before her on the lace pillow. And pondering it, she resigned the solution to time. But it filled her thoughts constantly, nonetheless. One noon, Taffy returned from the lighthouse for his dinner to find a registered postal packet lying on the table. He glanced up and met his mother's gaze. But let the thing lie while he ate his meal. And having done, picked it up and carried it away with him, unopened. On the cliffside, in a solitary place, he broke the seal. He guessed well enough what the packet contained. The silver medal procured for him by the two officious coroner. And the coroner, finding him obstinate against a public presentation, had forwarded the medal with an effusive letter. Taffy frowned over its opening sentences, and without reading farther, crumpled the paper into a tight ball. He turned to examine the medal, holding it between finger and thumb. Or rather, his eyes examined it, while his brain ran back along the tangled procession of hopes and blunders, wrongs and trials, and lessons hardly learnt, of which this mocking piece of silver symbolized the end and the reward. In that minute he saw Honoria and George, himself and Lizzie Petsack, as figures travelling on a road that stretched back to childhood, saw behind them the anxious eyes of his parents, Sir Harry's debonair smile, the sinister face of old Squire Moyle, malevolent yet terribly afraid, saw that the moving figures could not control their steps, that the watching faces were impotent to warn, saw finally, beside the road, other ways branching to left and right, and down these undestined and neglected avenues, the ghosts of ambitions unattempted, lives not lived, all that might have been. Well, here was the end of it, this ironical piece of silver. With sudden anger he flung it from him, sent it spinning far out over the waters, and the sea, his old sworn enemy, took the vote of offering. He watched it drop, drop, saw the tiny splash as it disappeared, and with that he shut a door and turned a key. He had other thoughts to occupy him, great thoughts. The lighthouse was all but built, the chief engineer had paid a surprise visit, praised his work, and talked about another sea light soon to be raised on the North Welsh coast, used words that indeed hinted, not obscurely, at promotion, and taffy's blood tingled at the prospect. But out of working hours his thoughts were not of lighthouses. He bought maps and charts. On Sundays he took far walks along the coast, starting at daybreak, returning as a rule long after dark, mired in footsore, and its supper too weary to talk with his mother, whose eyes watched him always. It was a still autumn evening when honorea came riding to visit humility, the clothes of a golden day. It's gold lingered yet along the west and fell on the whitewashed doorway where humility sat with her lacework. Behind, in the east, purple and dewy, climbed the domed shadow of the world, and overall lay that hush which the earth only knows when it rests in the few weeks after harvest. Out here on the barren cliffs above the sea, folks troubled little about harvest. But even out here they felt and knew the hush. Inside of the whitewashed cottages honorea slipped down from her saddle, removed aid to camp's bridle, and turned him loose to browse. With the bridle on her arm she walked forward alone. She came noiselessly on the turf, and with the click of the gate her shadow fell at humility's feet. Humility looked up and saw her standing against the sunset in her dark habit. Even in that instant she saw also that honorea's face, though shaded, was more beautiful than of old. More dangerous, she told herself, and rose, knowing that the problem was to be solved at last. Good evening, she said, rising. Oh, yes, you must come inside, please. But you will have to forgive our untidiness. Honorea followed, wandering as of old at the beautiful manners which dignified humility's simplest words. I heard that you were to go. Yes, we have been packing for a week past, to North Wales it is, a forsaken spot, no better than this. But I suppose that's the sort of spot where lighthouses are useful. The sun slanted in upon the packed trunks and dismantled walls, but it blazed also upon brass window catches, fender knobs, door handles, all polished and flashing like mirrors. I am come, said Honorea, now at the last to ask your pardon. At the last, humility seemed to muse, staring down at one of the trunks, then went on as if speaking to herself. Yes, yes, it has been a long time. A long injury, a long mistake. You must believe it was an honest mistake. Yes, said humility gravely. I never doubted you had been misled. God forbid I should ask or seek to know how. Honorea bowed her head. And, humility pursued, we had put ourselves in the wrong by accepting help. One sees now it is always best to be independent, though at the time it seemed to find prospects for him. The worst was our not telling him. That was terribly unfair. As for the rest, well, after all, to know yourself guiltless is the great thing, is it not? What others think doesn't matter in comparison with that. And then, of course, he knew that I, his mother, never believed the falsehood. No, not for a moment. But it spoiled his life. Now humility had spoken and still stood, with her eyes resting on the trunk. Beneath its lid she knew, and on top of Taffy's books and other treasures lay a parcel wrapped in tissue paper, a dog collar with the inscription, Honorea from Taffy. So, by lifting the lid of her thoughts a little, a very little more, she might have given Honorea a glimpse of something which her actual answer, truthful as it was, concealed. No, I wouldn't say that. If it had spoiled his life, well, you have a child of your own and can understand. As it is, it has strengthened him, I think. He will make his mark, in a different way. Just now he is only a foreman among masons, but he has a career opening. Yes, I can forgive you at last. And, being humility, she had spoken the truth. But being a woman, even in the act of pardon, she could not forego a small thrust, and in giving must withhold something. And Honorea, being a woman, divined that something was withheld. And, Taffy, your son, do you think that he— He never speaks, if he thinks of it. He will be here presently. You know, do you not, they are to light the great lantern on the new lighthouse tonight for the first time? The men have moved in, and he is down with them making preparations. You have seen the notices of the Trinity Board? They have been posted for months. Taffy is as eager over it as a boy, but he promised to be back before sunset to drink tea with me in honour of the event. And afterwards I was to walk down to the cliff with him to see. Would you mind if I stayed? Humility considered before answering. I had rather you stayed. He's like a boy over this business, but he's a man after all. After this they fell into quite trivial talk, while humility prepared the tea-things. Your mother, Mrs. Venning, how does she face the journey? You must see her, said Humility, smiling, and let her into the room where the old lady reclined in bed with a flush on each wax and cheek. She had heard their voices. Bless you! She was quite cheerful. I'm ready to go as far as they'll carry me. All I ask is that in the next place they give me a window where I can see the boy's lamp when he's built it. Humility brought in the table and tea-things and set them out by the invalid's bed. She went out into the kitchen to look through the kettle. In that pause Honoria found it difficult to meet Mrs. Venning's eyes, but the old lady was wise enough to leave grudges to others. It was enough in the time left to her to accept what happened and leave the responsibility to Providence. Honoria, replying but scarcely listening to her talk, heard a football at the outer door. Taffy's football. Then the click of a latch and Humility's voice saying, There's a visitor inside. Come to take tea with you. A visitor. He was standing in the doorway. You, he blushed in his surprise. Honoria rose. If I may, she said, and wondered if she might hold out a hand. But he held out his, quite frankly, and laughed. Why, of course! They will be lighting up in half an hour. We must make haste. Once or twice during tea he stole a glance from Honoria to his mother, and each time fondly believed that it passed undetected. His talk was all about the lighthouse and the preparations there, and he rattled on in the highest spirits. Two of the women knew, and the third guessed, that this chatter was with him unwanted. At length he too seemed to be struck by this. But what nonsense I'm talking, he protested, breaking off midway in a sentence and blushing again. I can't help it, though. I'm feeling just as big as the lighthouse tonight, with my head wound up and turning round like the lantern. And your wit occulting, suggested Honoria, in her old light manner. What is it, three flashes to the minute? He laughed and hurried them from the tea-table. Mrs. Vinning made them a merry goodbye as they took leave of her. Come along, mother. But humility had changed her mind. No, she said. I'll wait in the doorway. I can just see the lantern from the garden gate, you know. You two can wait by the old lighthouse and call to me when the time comes. She watched them from the doorway as they took the path toward the cliff, toward the last ray of sunset fading across the dusk of the sea. The evening was warm, and she sat bare-headed with her lacework on her knee. But presently she put it down. I must be taken to spectacle soon, she said to herself. My eyes are not what they used to be. Taffy and Honoria reached the old lighthouse and halted by its white-painted railing. Below them the new pillar stood up in full view, young and defiant. A full tide lapped its base, feeling this comely and untried adversary as a wrestler shakes hands before engaging. And from its base, the column, after a gentle inward curve, enough to give it a look of lissomeness and elastic strength, spraying upright, straight, and firm to the lantern, ringed with a gallery and capped with a cupola of copper not yet greened by the weather. In outline, as simple as a flower. In structure, to the understanding I, almost as subtly organized, adapted, and pieced into growth. So, that is your ambition now, said Honoria after gazing long. She added, I do not wonder. It does not stop there, I'm afraid. There was a pause as though her words had thrown him into a brown study. Look, she cried. There is someone in the lantern with a light in his hand. He's lighting up. Taffy ran back a pace or two toward the cottage and shouted waving his hand. In a moment humility appeared at the gate and waved an answer, while the strong light flashed seaward. They listened, but if she called the waves at their feet drowned her voice. They turned and gazed at the light. Counting, timing the flashes. Two short flashes, with but five seconds between. Then darkness for twenty seconds and after it a long steady stare. Abruptly he asked, Would you care to cross over and see the lantern? What, in the cradle? I can work it easily. It's not dangerous in the least. A bit daunting, perhaps. But I'm not easily frightened, you know. Yes, I should like it greatly. They descended the cliff to the cable. The iron cradle stood ready as Taffy had left it when he came ashore. She stepped in lightly, scarcely touching for a second the hand he put out to guide her. Better sit low, he advised, and she obeyed, disposing her skirts on the floor caked with dry mud from the workman's boots. He followed her and launched the cradle over the deep twilight. A faint breeze, there had been none perceptible on the ridge, played off the face of the cliffs. The forward swing of the cradle, too, raised a slight draft of air. Honoria plucked off her hat and veil and let it fan her temples. Halfway across she said, Isn't it like this, in mid-air, over running water, that the witches take their oaths? Taffy sees pulling on the rope. The witches? Yes, I remember something of the sort. And a word spoken so is an oath and lasts forever. Very well. Answer me answer me what I came to ask you tonight. What is that? But he knew. That when, you know, when I tell you I was deceived, he will forgive. Her voice was scarcely audible. I forgive. Ah, but freely. It is only a word I want, but it has to last me like an oath. I forgive you freely. It was all a mistake. And you have found other ambitions and they satisfy you. He laughed and pulled at the rope again. They ought to, he answered gaily. They're big enough. Come and see. The seaward end of the cable was attached to a doorway thirty feet above the base of the lighthouse. One of the underkeepers met them here with a lantern. He stared when he caught sight of the second figure in the cradle, but touched his cap to the mistress of Carwithio. Here's Mrs. Valle, Travarthen, come to do honor to our opening night. Proudly welcome, ma'am, said Travarthen. You'll excuse the litter we're in. This here's our cellar. But you'll find things more ship-shape upstairs. Mind your head, ma'am, with the archway. Better let me lead the way, perhaps. The archway was indeed low and they were forced to crouch and almost crawl up the first short flight of steps. But after this, honoria, following Travarthen's lantern round and up the spiral way, found the roof heightening above her and soon emerged into a gloomy chamber fitted with cupboards and water tanks. The provision room. From this, a ladder led straight up through a manhole in the ceiling to the lightroom store, set round with shining oil tanks and stock with paint pots, brushes, hands, signaling flags, coils of rope, bags of cotton waste, tool chests. A second ladder brought them to the kitchen and a third to the sleeping room, and here the light of the lantern streamed down on their heads through the open manhole above them. They heard too the roar of the ventilator and the ting ting, regular and sharp, of the small bell reporting that the machinery revolved. Above, in the blaze of the great lenses, ol' Petzak and the second underkeeper welcomed them. The pair had been watching and discussing the light with true professional pride, and Taffy drew up at the head of the ladder and stared at it and nodded his slow approbation. The glare forced honoria back against the glass wall and she caught at its lattice for support. But she pulled herself together, ashamed of her weakness and glad that Taffy had not perceived it. This satisfies you, she whispered. He faced round on her with a slow smile. No, he said. This lighthouse is useless. Useless. You remember the wreck that wrecked the Samaritan? She came ashore here, right beneath our feet, by no fault or carelessness. A lighthouse on a coast like this, a coast without a harbor, is a joke set in a death trap to make game of dying men. But since the coast has no harbor, I would build one. Look at this. He pulled a pencil and paper from his pocket and rapidly sketched the outlines of the Bristol Channel. What is that? A bag. Suppose a vessel taken in the mouth of it, a bag with death along the narrowing sides and death waiting at the end. No deep water harbor, no chance anywhere. And the tides, you know the rhyme. From Padstow Point to Lundy Light is a watery grave by day or night. Yes. There is Lundy. He jotted down the position of the island. Hit off the lee of Lundy, if you can, and drop hook, and pray God it holds. But this harbor, what would it cost? I daresay a million of money, perhaps more. But I work it out at less. At Porthquen, for instance, or Lundy itself, or even at St. Ibe's. A million, she laughed. Now I see the boy I used to know, the boy of dreams. He turned on her gravely. She was exceedingly beautiful, standing there in her black habit, bare-headed in the glare of the lenses, standing with head thrown back, with eyes challenging the past and a faint glow on either cheek. But he had no eyes for her beauty. He opened his lips to speak. Yes, he could overwhelm her with statistics and figures all worked out. Of shipping and disasters to shipping. Of wealth and senseless waste of wealth. He could bury her beneath evidence taken by Royal Commission and Parliamentary Committee. Commissioners reports, testimony of shipowners and captains, calculated tables of tides, sets of currents, prevailing winds, results of surveys hydrographical, all the mass of facts he had been accumulating and brooding over for eighteen long months. But the weight of it closed his lips, and when he opened them again it was to say, Yes, that is my dream. At once he turned his talk upon the light revolving in their faces, began to explain the lenses and their working in short direct sentences. She heard his voice, but without following. Petzak and the underkeeper had drawn apart to the opposite side of the cage and were talking together. The lantern hid them, but she caught the murmur of their voices now and again. She was conscious of having let something slip, slip away from her forever. If she could but recall him and hold him to his dream. But this man, talking in short sentences, each one so sharp and clear, was not the taffy she had known or could ever know. In the blaze of the lenses suddenly she saw the truth. He and she had changed places. She who had used to be so practical. She was the dreamer now. Had come thither following a dream, walking in a dream. He, the dreaming boy, had become the practical man. Firm, clear-sided, direct of purpose, were the dream yet in his heart, but a dream of great action, a dream he hid from her. Certainly a dream in which she had neither part nor lot. And yet she had made him what he was. Not willingly, not by kindness, but by injustice. What she had given he had taken and was a stranger to her. Muffled wings and white breasts began to beat against the glass. A low-lying haze, a passing stratum of seafog, had wrapped the lighthouse for a while, and these were the wings and breasts of seabirds attracted by the light. To her they were the ghosts of dead thoughts, stifled thoughts, thoughts which had never come to birth, trying to force their way into the ring of light encompassing and unwrapping her, trying desperately, but foiled by the transparent screen. Still she heard his voice, level and masterful, sure of his subject. In the middle of one of his sentences a sharp thud sounded on the pain behind her, as sudden as the crack of a pebble and only a little duller. Ah, what is that? she cried and touched his arm. He thrust open one of the windows, stepped out upon the gallery, and returned in less than a minute with a small dead bird in his hand. A swallow, he said, they had been preparing to fly for days. Summer is done with our work here. She shivered. Let us go back, she said. They descended the ladders. Travarthen met them in the kitchen and went before them with his lantern. In a minute they were in the cradle again and swinging toward the cliff. The wisp of sea fog had drifted past the lighthouse to Leeward, and all was clear again. High over the cupola Cassiopeia leaned toward the pole, her breast flashing its eternal badge, the star pointed W. Low in the north as the country tail went, tied to follow her emotions, externally separate, eternally true to the fixed star of her gaze, the wagoner tilted his wheels and drove them close and along and above the misty sea. Taffy, pulling on the rope, looked down upon Honorea's upturned face and saw the glimmer of starlight in her eyes, but neither guessed her thoughts nor tried to. It was only when they stood together on the cliff side that she broke the silence. Look, she said, and pointed upward. Does that remind you of anything? He searched his memory. No, he confessed. That is, if you mean Cassiopeia up yonder. Think, the ship of stars. The ship of stars? Yes, I remember now. There was a young sailor with the ship of stars tattooed on his chest. He was drowned on this very coast. Was that a part of the story you were to tell me? What story I don't understand? Don't you remember that day, the morning when we began lessons together? You explained the alphabet to me, and when we came to W, you said it was a ship, a ship of stars. There was a story about it, you said, and you promised to tell me some day. He laughed. What queer things you remember. But what was the story? I wonder. If I ever knew I'd forgotten, I daresay I had something in my head. Now I think of it, I was always making up some foolish tale or other in those days. Yes, he had forgotten. I have often tried to make up a story about that ship, she said gravely. Out of odds and ends of the stories you used to tell. I don't think I ever had the gift to invent anything on my own account, but it last after a long while. The story took shape. Tell it to me, please. She hesitated and broke into a bitter little laugh. No, she said. You never told me yours. Again it came to her with a pang that he and she had changed places. He had taken her forthrightness and left her in exchange his dreams. They were hers now, the gaily-colored childish fancies, and she must take her way among them alone. Dreams only. But just as a while back he had started to confess his dream and had broken down before her, so now in turn she knew that her tongue was held. Humility rose as they entered the kitchen together. A glance at Honoria held out her hand for good-bye told her all she needed to know. And you are leaving in a day or two? Honoria asked. Thursday next is the day fixed. You are very brave. Again the two women's eyes met, and this time the younger understood. Whether thou goest, I will go. And where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people. And thy God my God. That which the Moabaitis said, for a woman's sake women are saying for men's sakes, by the thousands every day. Still holding her hand, humility drew Honoria close. God deal kindly with you, my dear, she whispered and kissed her. At the gate Honoria blew a whistle, and after a few seconds aid to camp came immediately out of the darkness to be bridled. This done, Taffy lent his hand and swung her into the saddle. Good night, and good-bye. Taffy was the first to turn back from the gate. The beat of aid to camp's hooves reminded him of something, some music he had once heard he could not remember where. Humility lingered a moment longer and followed to prepare her son's wedding. But Honoria, fleeing along the ridge, hugged one fierce thought in her defeat. The warm wind sang by her ears. The rhythm of aid to camp's canter thudded upon her brain. But her heart cried back on them and louder than either. He is mine, mine, mine. He is mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, and always will be. He is lost to me, but I possess him. For what he is I have made him, and at my cost he is strong. End of Chapter 29 End of The Ship of Stars by Arthur Quillar Couch