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

that's puzzling," she said, "if you don't know it well."
"I am in thy hands, O Queen," he made light reply. "Lead me whither thou wilt!"
She laughed--a low, sweet laugh of sheer happiness. "And if I lead you astray?"
"I would follow you down to the nethermost millstone," he vowed.
Her hand tightened upon his. She paused a moment, looking out over the stretch of sand that intervened between them and the little fishing-quay. He had safely negotiated that stretch of sand by daylight, though even then it had needed an alert eye to detect that slight ooziness of surface that denoted the presence of the sea-swamp. But by night, even in that brilliant moonlight, it was barely perceptible. Columbine herself did not trust to appearances. She had learnt the way from Adam as a child learns a lesson by heart. He had taught her to know the danger-spot by the shape of the cliffs above it.
After a very brief pause to take her bearings, she moved forward with absolute assurance. Knight accompanied her with unquestioning confidence. His faith in his own luck was as profound as his faith in the girl at his side. And the tumult in his veins that night was such as to make him insensible of danger. The roar of the rising tide exhilarated him. He walked with the stride of a conqueror, free and unafraid, his face to the sea.
Unerringly she led him, but she did not speak again until they had made the passage and the treacherous morass of sand was left behind.
Then, with a deep breath, she stopped. "Now we are safe!"
"Weren't we safe before?" he asked carelessly.
Her eyes sought his; she gave a little shiver. "Oh, are we ever safe?" she said. "Especially when we are happy? That quicksand makes one think."
"Never spoil the present by thinking of the future!" said Knight sententiously.
She took him seriously. "I don't. I want to keep the present just as it is--just as it is. I would like to stay with you here for ever and ever, but in another half-hour--in less--the tide will be racing over this very spot, and we shall be gone." Her voice vibrated; she cast a glance behind. "One false step," she said, "too sharp a turn, too wide a curve, and we'd have been in the quicksand! It's like that all over. It's life, and it's full of danger, whichever way we turn."
He looked at her curiously. "Why, what has come to you?" he said.
She caught her breath in a sound that was like a sob. "I don't know," she said. "It's being so madly happy that has frightened me. It can't last. It never does last."
He smiled upon her philosophically. "Then let us make the most of it while it does!" he said. "Tonight will pass, but--don't forget--there is tomorrow."
She answered him feverishly. "The moon may not shine tomorrow."
He laughed, drawing her to him. "I can do without the moon, queen of my heart."
She went into his arms, but she was trembling. "I feel--somehow--as if someone were watching us," she whispered.
"Exactly my own idea," he said. "The moon is a bit too intrusive tonight. I shan't weep if there are a few clouds tomorrow."
She laughed a little dubiously. "We couldn't cross the quicksand if the light were bad."
"We could get down to the Point by the cliff-path," he pointed out. "I went that way only this afternoon."
"Ah! But it is very steep, and it passes Rufus's cottage," she murmured.
"What of it?" he said indifferently. "I'm sure he sleeps like a log."
She turned from the subject. "Besides, you must have moonlight for your picture. And the moon won't last."
"My picture!" He pressed her suddenly closer. "Do you know what my picture is going to be?"
"Tell me!" she whispered.
"Shall I?" He turned gently her face up to his own. "Shall I? Dare I?"
She opened her eyes wide--those glorious, trusting eyes. "But why should you be afraid to tell me?"
He laughed again softly, and kissed her lips. "I will make a rough sketch in the morning and show it you. It won't be a study--only an idea. You are going to pose for the study."
"I?" she said, half-startled.
"You--yes, you!" His eyes looked deeply into hers. "Haven't you realised yet that you are my inspiration?" he said. "It is going to be the picture of my life--'Aphrodite the Beautiful!'"
She quivered afresh at his words. "Am I really--so beautiful?" she faltered. "Would you think so if--if you didn't love me?"
"Would I have loved you if you weren't?" laughed Knight. "My darling, you are exquisite as a passion-flower grown in Paradise. To worship you is as natural to me as breathing. You are heaven on earth to me."
"You love me--because of that?"
"I love you," he answered, "soul and body, because you are you. There is no other reason, heart of my heart. When my picture of pictures is painted, then--perhaps--you will see yourself as I see you--and understand."
She uttered a quick sigh, clinging to him with a hold that was almost convulsive. "Ah, yes! To see myself with your eyes! I want that. I shall know then--how much you love me."
"Will you? But will you?" he said, softly derisive. "You will have to show me yourself and your love--all there is of it--before you can do that."
She lifted her head from his shoulder. The fire that he had kindled in her soul was burning in her eyes. "I am all yours--all yours," she told him passionately. "All that I have to offer is your own."
His face changed a little. The tender mockery passed, and an expression that was oddly out of place there succeeded it. "Ah, you shouldn't tell me that, sweetheart," he said, and his voice was low and held a touch of pain. "I might be tempted to take too much--more than I have any right to take."
"You have a right to all," she said.
But he shook his head. "No--no! You are too young."
"Too young to love?" she said, with quick scorn.
His arm was close about her. "No," he answered soberly. "Only so young that you may--possibly--make the mistake of loving too well."
"What do you mean?" Her voice had a startled note; she pressed nearer to him.
He lifted a hand and pointed to the silver pathway on the sea. "I mean that love is just moonshine--just moonshine; the dream of a night that passes."
"Not in a night!" she cried, and there was anguish in the words.
He bent again swiftly and kissed her lips. "No, not in a night, sweetheart. Not even in two. But at last--at last--_tout passe_!"
"Then it isn't love!" she said with conviction.
He snapped his fingers at the moonlight with a gesture half-humorous, yet half-defiant. "It is life," he said, "and the irony of life. Don't be too generous, my queen of the sea! Give me what I ask--of your graciousness! But--don't offer me more! Perhaps I might take it, and then--"
He turned with the words, as if the sentence were ended, and Columbine went with him, bewildered but too deeply fascinated to feel any serious misgiving. She did not ask for any further explanation, something about him restrained her. But she knew no doubt, and when he halted in the shadow of the deserted quay and took her face once more between his hands with the one word, "Tomorrow!" she lifted eyes of perfect trust to his and answered simply, "Yes, tomorrow!"
And the rapture of his kisses was all-sufficing. She carried away with her no other memory but that.


CHAPTER V
MIDSUMMER MORNING

It was two mornings later, very early on Midsummer Day, that Rufus the Red, looking like a Viking in the crystal atmosphere of sky and sea, rowed the stranger with great, swinging strokes through the fishing fleet right out into the burning splendour of the sun. Knight had entered the boat in the belief that he was going to see something of the raising of the nets. But it became apparent very soon that Rufus had other plans for his entertainment, for he passed his father by with no more than a jerk of the head, which Adam evidently interpreted as a sign of farewell rather than of greeting, and rowed on without a pause.
Knight, with his sketch-book beside him, sat in the stern. He had never taken much interest in Rufus before; but now, seated facing him, with the giant muscles and grim, unresponsive countenance of the man perpetually before his eyes, the selecting genius in him awoke and began to appraise.
Rufus wore a grey flannel shirt, open at the neck, displaying a broad red chest, immensely powerful, with a bull-like strength that every swing of the oars brought into prominence. He had not the appearance of exerting himself unduly, albeit he was pulling in choppy water against the tide.
His blue eyes gazed ever straight at the shore he was leaving. He seemed so withdrawn into himself as to be oblivious of the fact that he was not alone. Knight watched him, wondering if any thoughts were stirring in the slow brain behind that massive forehead. Columbine had declared that the man was an oaf, and he felt inclined to agree with her. And yet there was something in the intensity of the fellow's eyes that held his attention, the possibility of the actual existence of an unknown element that did not fit into that conception of him. They were not the eyes of a mere animal. There was no vagueness in their utter stillness. Rather had they the look of a man who waits.
Curiosity began to stir within him. He wondered if by judicious probing he could penetrate the wall of aloofness with which his companion seemed to be surrounded. It would be interesting to know if the fellow really possessed any individuality.
Airily he broke the silence. "Are you going to take me straight into the temple of the sun? I thought I was out to see the fishing."
The remote blue eyes came back as it were out of the far distance and found him. There came to Knight an odd, wholly unwonted, sensation of smallness. He felt curiously like a pigmy disturbing the meditations of a giant.
Rufus looked at him for several seconds of uninterrupted rowing before, in his deep, resounding voice, he spoke. "They won't be taking up the nets for a goodish while yet. We shall be back in time."
"The idea is to give me a run for my money first, eh?" inquired Knight pleasantly.
He had not anticipated the sudden fall of the red brows that greeted his words. He felt as if he had inadvertently trodden upon a match.
"No," said Rufus slowly, speaking with a strangely careful accent, as if his mind were concentrated upon being absolutely intelligible to his listener. "That was not my idea."
The spirit of adventure awoke in Knight. There was something behind this granite calmness of demeanour then. He determined to draw it forth, even though he struck further sparks in the process.
"No?" he said carelessly. "Then why this pleasure trip? Did you bring me out here just to show me--the 'Pit of the Burning'?"
His eyes were upon the dazzling glory of the newly risen sun as he threw the question. Rufus's massive head and shoulders were strongly outlined against it. He had ceased to row, but the boat still shot forward, impelled by the last powerful sweep of the oars, the water streaming past in a rush of foam.
Slowly, like the hammer-strokes of a deep-toned bell, came Rufus's voice in answer. "It wasn't to show you anything I brought you here. It was just to tell you something."
"Really?" Knight's interest