CHAPTER XXIX
WAT'S ISLE OF REFUGE
But there were two men in the ill-fated boat when she so heedlesslyrushed into the strange and dangerous outer defences of my Lord Barra'swarded Isle of Suliscanna. What had become of the other?
Wat Gordon of Lochinvar was not drowned--it is hardly necessary tosay so much. For had his body been lying in some eddy of the swirlingwaters about the outer reef of the Aoinaig narrows, this narrativeof his history could not have been written. And of his life with itschequered good and bad, its fine instincts, clear intents, and haltingperformances, there would have been left no more than a little swardedmound in the bone-yard of dead and forgotten mariners.
When their boat overset among the whirlpools and treacherous watervolcanoes of the Suck of Suliscanna, Wat Gordon had been sculling atthe stern. And when the water swallowed him, pulling him down as thoughhe had been jerked through a trap-door by the arm of some invisiblegiant--or, more exactly, drawn slowly under by the tentacle of thedread Kraken of these Northern seas--he kept a tight grip on the oarwith which he had been alternately steering and propelling the boat, asJack Scarlett cried him his orders from the bows.
Wat Gordon had been born in the old tower of Lochinvar, in the midst ofthat strange, weird, far-withdrawn moorland loch, set amid its scantypasture-meadows of sour bent-grass and its leagues of ambient heather.As a boy he had more often gone ashore by diving from his window orpaddling out from the little stone terrace than by the more legitimatemethod of unhooking the boat from its iron lintel and pulling himselfacross to the main-land. But this was a different kind of swimming, forhere in the tumble and tumultuous swirl of angry waters Wat was no morethan a plaything tossed about, to be tantalized with the blue sky andthe summer sea, and then again to be pulled under and smothered in theseething hiss of the Suck of Suliscanna.
Nevertheless, Wat found space to breathe occasionally, and as he wasdriven swiftly towards the north along the face of the great Lianacraigprecipices and close under them he clutched his oar tighter, holding itunder his arm and leaning his chest upon it. So close to the land washe that he voyaged quite unseen by the watchers on the cliffs above,who supposed that he had gone down with the boat. But the current hadseized him in its mid-strength, and after first sweeping him closeinshore it was now hurrying him northward and westward of the isle,under the vast face of the mural precipice in which the cliffs ofLianacraig culminated. The boat had cleared itself of its mast andsail, and Wat could see that she floated, upturned indeed, but stillbecking and bowing safely on the humps and swirls of the fierce tidalcurrent which swept both master and vessel along, equally derelict andat its mercy.
The whole northern aspect of the Isle of Suliscanna is stern andforbidding. Here the cliffs of Lianacraig break suddenly down tothe sea in one great face of rock many hundreds of feet in height.So precipitous are they that only the cragsmen or the gatherer ofseabirds' eggs can scale their crests of serrated rock even from thesouth, or look down upon the little island of Fiara, the tall southerncliffs of which correspond humbly to the mightier uprising of theprecipices of Lianacraig upon the larger isle. But Fiara has for agesbeen set in the whirl of the backwater which speeds past its greaterneighbor on either side, and has taken advantage of its position tothrive upon the waste of its rival. For the tide-race of the Suck,which sets past Suliscanna with such consuming fury, sweeps its prey,snatched in anger from the cliffs and beaches of Suliscanna, andspreads it in mud and sand along the lower northern rocks of Fiara. Sothat this latter island, instead of frowning out grimly towards thePole, extends green and pastoral on the other side of the deep straitand behind its frowning southward front of rocks.
At this time Fiara was wholly without inhabitant, and remained as ithad come from the shaping hand of the tides and waves. And so mainly itabides to this day. The islanders of Suliscanna had indeed a few sheepand goats upon it, the increase of which they used to harvest when myLord of Barra's factor came once a year in his boat to take his tithesof the scanty produce of their barren fortress isle.
It was, then, upon the northern shore of this islet of Fiara that Wat,exhausted with the stress and the rough, deadly horseplay of the waves,was cast ashore still grasping his oar. He landed upon a long spitof sand which stretched out at an obtuse angle into the scour of therace, forming a bar which was perpetually being added to by the tideand swept away again when the winds and the waters fought over it theirduels to the death in the time of storm.
Thus Wat Gordon found himself destitute and without helper uponthis barren isle of Fiara. His companion he had seen sink beneaththe waves, and he well knew that it was far out of the power of thesoldier Scarlett to reach the shore by swimming. Also he had seen himentangled in the cordage of the sail. So Wat heaved a sigh for thegood comrade whom he had brought away from the solvent paymasters andthe excellently complaisant landladies of Amersfort, to lay his bonesfor his sake upon the inhospitable shores of Suliscanna--and, what wasworse, without advantage to the quest upon which they had venturedforth with so much recklessness.
Wat knew certainly that his love was upon that island of Suliscanna.For months he had carefully traced her northward. With the aid ofMadcap Mehitabel he had been able to identify the spot at which thechief's boat had taken off Captain Smith's passenger, and a long seriesof trials and failures had at last designated Suliscanna as the onlypossible prison of his love.
So soon as he was certain of this he had come straight to the spotwith the reckless confidence of youth, only to see his hopes shatteredupon the natural defences of the isle, before ever he had a chance toencounter the other enemies whom, he doubted not, Barra had set toguard the prison of Kate of the Dark Lashes.
But even in his sad and apparently hopeless plight the knowledge thathis love was near by stimulated Wat's desire to make the best of hiscircumstances.
First of all he set himself the task of exploring the islet, and ofdiscovering if there was any way by which he could reach that otherisland, past which he had been carried by the current of the race, andon which he hoped to find his love.
From the summit of the south-looking crags of Fiara which he ascended,he could look up at a perpendicular face of vast and gloomy cliffs.Lianacraig fronted him, solid and unbroken on either side as far ashe could see. That lower part of it on which the surf fretted and theswell thundered was broken by caves and openings--none of them, saveone, of any great size.
But that one made a somewhat notable exception. It was a gateway,wide and high, squarely cut in the black front of the precipice,into which one might have driven two carriages, with all their horsesand attendants, abreast, and yet have left room to spare on eitherside. The swell which pulsed along the narrow strait between Fiara andSuliscanna, regular as the beating of a strong man's heart, was lostwithin its wide maw, and did not as elsewhere come pouring back againin tessellated foam, white as milk curdled in a churn. The squaretunnel to which this was the imposing entrance evidently penetrated farinto the rock, and communicated with some larger cavity deep within.
The rest of the isle, which had so unexpectedly become Wat'sprison-house, was cut on its northerly aspect into green flats ofsparse grass, terminating in sweet sickle-sweeps of yellow sand, overwhich the cool, green luxury of the sea lapped with a gliding motion.And as Wat looked down upon them from above he saw lights wavering andswaying over the clean-rippled floor, and could fancy that he discernedthe fishes wheeling and steering among the bent rays and wanderingshadows that flickered and danced like sunshine through thick leaves.
So Wat stood a long time still upon the topmost crest of Fiara,printing its possibilities upon his heart.
Two hundred yards across the smooth, unvexed strait, which sleptbetween its two mighty walls of rock, rose the giant cliffs ofLianacraig, with the ocean-swell passing evenly along their base fromend to end--smooth, green steeps of water, dimpled everywhere intoknolls and valleys. Seabirds nested up there by thousands. Gillemotssat solemnly in rows like piebald bottles of black and
white.Cormorants stood on the lower skerries, shaking their wings for hourstogether as if they had been performing a religious rite. And here withhis gorgeous beak, like a mummer's mask drawn over his ears for sport,waddled the puffin--the bird whose sad fate it is, according to therhyme, to be forever incapable of amorous dalliance. For have not halfa dozen generations been told in rhyme how
"Tammy Norrie o' the Bass Canna kiss a bonny lass?"
But as Wat looked for a moment away from the white-spotted, lime-washedledges of Suliscanna to the green-fringed, sandy shores of his ownisland, he saw that in the water to the north which sent him off ata run. Long ere he reached the beach he had recognized the boat fromwhich John Scarlett and he had been capsized, bobbing quietly up anddown at the entrance of the bay.
The rebound or "back-spang" of the current from some hidden reef to thenorthward had turned the boat aside, even as it had done Wat himselfwith his oar, and there the treasure was almost within his reach. Wat'sclothing was still damp from his previous immersion, so that it was nosacrifice to slip it off him and swim out to the boat. Then, laying hishand on the inverted stern, he managed easily enough to push her beforehim to a shelving beach of sand, where presently, by the aid of a sparof driftwood, he turned her over. To his great joy he found that thelittle vessel was still fairly water-tight and apparently uninjured,in spite of her rough-and-tumble steeple-chase with the white horsesof the Suck of Suliscanna. Wat opened the lockers and saw, as he hadexpected, that the pistols and powder were useless. But he found, too,Scarlett's sword and his own trusty blade, together with a dagger, allof which he had the satisfaction of polishing there and then with finesand held in the palm of his hand.
Then he swung his sword naked to his belt, and felt himself another manin an instant.
The lockers also contained a pair of hams of smoked bacon, which hadsuffered no damage from the water, and which, so far as sustenancewent, would at least serve to tide him over a week or two should he becompelled to remain so long upon the isle.
Nevertheless, when Wat sat down to consider his position and plans, hefelt that difficulties had indeed closed impenetrably upon him.
Yet he wasted no time in idle despondency. Lochinvar was of othermettle. He believed his love to be on the island close to him--it mightbe in the power of his enemy himself, certainly in the hands of hisemissaries. John Scarlett, his trusty comrade, was equally surely lostto him. Nevertheless, while his own life lasted, he could not ceasefrom seeking his love, nor yet abandon the quest on which he had come.
So, using the dagger for both knife and cooking apparatus, he cut andate a slice of the smoked bacon. Then he quenched his thirst witha long drink out of a delicious spring which sent a tiny thread ofcrystal trickling down the rocks towards the northern strand of Fiara.
Lochinvar: A Novel Page 32