The Tidal Wave - Ethel May Dell (top books to read TXT) 📗

sprang suddenly after him and held him back. Charlie wheeled instantly. The light of a lantern striking on his face revealed it, unafraid, even laughing.
"You silly ass!" he cried. "Hang on to the rope instead of behaving like a fellow's grandmother!"
"You shan't do it!" Fisher said, holding him fast. "It is certain death!"
"All right," Charlie yelled back. "I choose death, then. I prefer it to sitting still and seeing others die. My life is my own. I choose to risk it."
He looked at Fisher closely for a moment, then, with one immense effort, he wrenched himself away. He went leaping down the steps as a boy going for a summer-morning dip.
Fisher turned round and met Bertie Richmond hurrying to help him.
"Let him go!" Fisher said briefly.
Thereafter came a terrible interval of waiting. The sky was clearing, but the tempest did not abate. The rope ran out with jerks and pauses. Fisher stood and counted at the head of the steps, his eyes on the tumult that had swallowed up the slight active figure of the one man among them all who had elected to risk his life against those overwhelming odds.
"He must be dashed to pieces!" Bertie Richmond gasped to himself, with a shudder.
The rope ceased to run. Fisher had counted four hundred and fifty. He counted on resolutely to five hundred, then turned and raised his hand to the men who held the coil. They hauled at the rope. It was limp. Hand over hand they dragged it in through the foam. Fisher peered downwards. It came so rapidly that he thought it must have parted among the rocks. Then he saw a dark object bobbing strangely among the waves. He went down the steps, that quivered and trembled like cardboard under his feet.
Clinging to the iron rail, he reached out a hand and guided the rope to him. A great sea broke over him and nearly swept him off. He saved himself by hanging with both hands on to the rope. Thus he was dragged up the steps to safety, and behind him, buffeted, bleeding, helpless, came two limp bodies lashed fast together.
They cut the two asunder by the light of the lanterns, and one of them, Charlie, staggered to his feet.
"I've got to go back!" he gasped. "You pulled too soon. There are two others."
He dashed the blood from his face, seized a pocket flask someone held out to him, and drained it at a long gulp.
"That's better!" he said. "That you, Fisher? Good-bye, old chap!"
The first pale light of a rising moon burst suddenly through the cloud drift.
"I'll go myself," Fisher abruptly said.
Even in that roar of sound they heard the boyish laugh that rang out upon the words.
"No, no, no!" shouted Charlie. "Bless you, dear fellow! But this is my job--alone. You've got to stay behind--you're wanted."
He stood a few seconds poising himself on the steps, drawing deep breaths in preparation for the coming struggle. The moonlight smote upon him. He lifted his face to it, and seemed to hesitate. Then suddenly he turned to Fisher and laid impetuous hands upon his shoulders.
"Lookers-on see most of the game," he said. "And I've been one from the first, though I own I thought at one time I should like to take a hand. Go on and prosper, old boy! You've played a winning game all along, you know. You're a better chap than I am, and it's you she really cares for--always has been. That's how I came to know what I'd got to do. I find it's easy--thank God!--it's very easy."
And with that he plunged down again into the breakers. The tide was on the turn. The worst fury was over. The awful darkness had lifted.
Those who mutely watched him fancied they heard him laugh as he met the crested waves.


X

Molly had spent a night of feverish restlessness. It was with a feeling of relief that she answered a tap that came at her door in the early dusk of the January morning; but she gave a start of surprise when she saw Mrs. Langdale enter.
She started up on her elbow.
"Oh, what is it? It has been a fearful night. Has something dreadful happened?" she cried.
Mrs. Langdale's usually merry face was pale and quiet. She went quickly to the girl's side and took her hands into a tight clasp.
"My dear," she said, "Gerald Fisher asked me to come and tell you. There has been a wreck in the night. A vessel ran on to the rocks. There were three men on board. They could not reach them with an ordinary boat, and the life-boat was not available."
"Go on!" gasped Molly, her eyes on her friend's face.
Mrs. Langdale went on, with an effort.
"Charlie Cleveland--dear fellow--went out to them with a rope. He reached them, brought one safely back, returned for the others--and--and--" Her voice failed. Her hands tightened upon Molly's; they were very cold. "He managed to get to them again," she whispered, "but--the rope wasn't long enough. He unlashed himself and bound them together. They pulled them ashore--both living. But--he--was lost!"
The composure suddenly forsook Mrs. Langdale's face. She hid it on Molly's pillow.
"Oh, Molly, that darling boy!" she cried, with a burst of tears. "And they say he went to his death--laughing."
"He would," Molly said, in a strange voice. "I always knew he would."
She lay back again. Her face was suddenly pinched and grey, but she felt not the smallest desire to cry.
"I wonder why!" she presently said. "How I wonder why!"
Mrs. Langdale recovered herself with an effort. The frozen voice seemed to give her strength.
"Have we any right to ask that?" she whispered. "No one on this side can ever know."
"Oh, I think you are wrong," Molly said. "We can't be meant to grope in outer darkness."
Mrs. Langdale whispered something about "those the gods love." She was too broken-down herself to be able to offer any solid comfort.
After a painful silence she got up and busied herself with reviving Molly's fire, which had almost gone out. She felt as she had felt only once before in her life, and that had been ten years previously, when her only child had died suddenly. She wished passionately that she were back in Calcutta with her husband. She hated the bleak English winter, the cruel English seas.
Molly lay quite still for some time, her young face drawn and stricken.
At length she got up and went to the window. It was a morning of bleak winds and shifting clouds. The sea was just visible, very far and dim and grey. She stood a long while gazing stonily out.
"Can I get you anything, darling?" said Mrs. Langdale's voice softly behind her.
"No, thank you," the girl said, without turning. "Please leave me; that's all!"
And Mrs. Langdale crept away through the hushed house to her own apartment, there to lay down her head and cry herself exhausted. Dear, gallant Charlie! Her heart ached for him. His irrepressible gaiety, his reckless generosity, these had become the attributes of a hero for ever in her eyes.
After a while her hostess came to her, pale and tearful, to beg her, if she possibly could, to show herself at the breakfast table. Captain Fisher had repeatedly asked for her, she said; and he seemed very uneasy.
Mrs. Langdale rose, washed her face, and made an effort to powder away the evidence of her grief. Then she went bravely down and faced the silent crowd in the breakfast room. No one was eating anything. The very air smote chill and cheerless as she entered. As if he had been lying in wait for her, Fisher pounced upon her on the threshold.
"I must speak to you for a moment," he said. "Come into the smoking-room!"
Mrs. Langdale accompanied him without a word.
"How is she?" he demanded, almost before they entered. "How did she take it?"
There was something about Fisher just then with which Mrs. Langdale was wholly unacquainted. He was alert, impatient, almost feverish. She answered him with brevity.
"I think she is stunned by the news."
He began to pace to and fro with heavy restlessness.
"Ask her to come to me if she is up!" he said at length. "Tell her--tell her not to be afraid! Say I am waiting for her. I must see her."
Mrs. Langdale hesitated.
"She asked me to leave her alone," she said irresolutely.
Fisher wheeled swiftly round.
"I don't think she will refuse to see me," he said. "At least try!"
There was entreaty in his voice, urgent entreaty, which Mrs. Langdale found herself unable to withstand.
She departed therefore on her thankless errand and Fisher flung himself down at the table with his face buried in his hands. In this room but a few short hours ago Charlie had faced and turned away his anger with all the courage and sweetness which, combined, had made of him the hero he was.
It seemed to Fisher, looking back upon the interview, that the boy had done a braver thing, had offered a sacrifice more splendid, there, in that room, than any he had done or offered a little later down on the howling shore.
There came a slight sound at the door and Fisher jerked himself upright. Molly had entered softly. She was standing, looking at him with a strange species of wonder on her white face. He rose instantly and went to meet her.
"I have something to give you, Molly," he said. She raised her eyes questioningly.
"It was brought to me," he said, controlling his voice to quietness with a strong effort, "after Mrs. Langdale went to tell you of--what had happened. I wish to give it to you myself. And--afterwards to ask you a question."
"What is it?" Molly asked, with a sudden sharp eagerness.
"A note," Fisher said, and gave her a folded paper. "It was found on his dressing-table, addressed to you. His servant brought it to me."
Molly's hand trembled as she took the missive.
Fisher turned away from her, and stood before the window in dead silence. There was a long, quiet pause. Then a sudden sound made him swing swiftly round and stride to the door to turn the key. The next moment he was stooping over Molly, who had sunk down on the hearth-rug and was sobbing terrible, anguished sobs.
He lifted her to a chair with no fuss of words, and knelt beside her, stroking her hair, comforting her, with something of a woman's tenderness.
Molly suffered him passively, and the first wild agony of her trouble spent itself unrestrained on his shoulder. Then she grew calmer, and presently begged him in a whisper to read the message which Charlie had left behind him.
For a moment Fisher hesitated; then, as she repeated her desire, he took up the scrawl and deliberately read it through. It had evidently been written immediately after his interview with the writer.

"Dear Molly," the note said, "It's all right with Fisher, so
don't you worry yourself! I clear out to-morrow, so that there
may be no awkwardness, but we haven't quarrelled, he and I.
Forget all about this business! It's been a mistake from start
to finish. I ought to have known that I was only fit to be a
looker-on when I fell at the first fence. You put your money on
Fisher and you'll never lose a halfpenny! I'm nothing but a
humble spectator, and I wish you--and him also--the best of
luck. If I might be permitted, to offer a little, serious,
fatherly advice, it would