CHAPTER XII
THE VANISHING OF EMMELINE (continued)
He dropped the line, and turned with a start. There was no one visible.He ran amongst the trees calling out her name, but only echoesanswered. Then he came back to the lagoon edge.
He felt sure that what he had heard was only fancy, but it was nearlysunset, and more than time to be off. He pulled in his line, wrapped itup, took his fish-spear and started.
It was just in the middle of the bad place that dread came to him.What if anything had happened to her? It was dusk here, and never hadthe weeds seemed so thick, dimness so dismal, the tendrils of the vinesso gin-like. Then he lost his way—he who was so sure of his wayalways! The hunter’s instinct had been crossed, and for a time he wenthither and thither helpless as a ship without a compass. At last hebroke into the real wood, but far to the right of where he ought tohave been. He felt like a beast escaped from a trap, and hurried along,led by the sound of the surf.
When he reached the clear sward that led down to the lagoon the sun hadjust vanished beyond the sea-line. A streak of red cloud floated likethe feather of a flamingo in the western sky close to the sea, andtwilight had already filled the world. He could see the house dimly,under the shadow of the trees, and he ran towards it, crossing thesward diagonally.
Always before, when he had been away, the first thing to greet his eyeson his return had been the figure of Emmeline. Either at the lagoonedge or the house door he would find her waiting for him.
She was not waiting for him to-night. When he reached the house she wasnot there, and he paused, after searching the place, a prey to the mosthorrible perplexity, and unable for the moment to think or act.
Since the shock of the occurrence on the reef she had been subject attimes to occasional attacks of headache; and when the pain was morethan she could bear, she would go off and hide. Dick would hunt for heramidst the trees, calling out her name and hallooing. A faint “halloo”would answer when she heard him, and then he would find her under atree or bush, with her unfortunate head between her hands, a picture ofmisery.
He remembered this now, and started off along the borders of the wood,calling to her, and pausing to listen. No answer came.
He searched amidst the trees as far as the little well, waking theechoes with his voice; then he came back slowly, peering about him inthe deep dusk that now was yielding to the starlight. He sat downbefore the door of the house, and, looking at him, you might havefancied him in the last stages of exhaustion. Profound grief andprofound exhaustion act on the frame very much in the same way. He satwith his chin resting on his chest, his hands helpless. He could hearher voice, still as he heard it over at the other side of the island.She had been in danger and called to him, and he had been calmlyfishing, unconscious of it all.
This thought maddened him. He sat up, stared around him and beat theground with the palms of his hands; then he sprang to his feet and madefor the dinghy. He rowed to the reef: the action of a madman, for shecould not possibly be there.
There was no moon, the starlight both lit and veiled the world, and nosound but the majestic thunder of the waves. As he stood, the nightwind blowing on his face, the white foam seething before him, andCanopus burning in the great silence overhead, the fact that he stoodin the centre of an awful and profound indifference came to hisuntutored mind with a pang.
He returned to the shore: the house was still deserted. A little bowlmade from the shell of a cocoa-nut stood on the grass near the doorway.He had last seen it in her hands, and he took it up and held it for amoment, pressing it tightly to his breast. Then he threw himself downbefore the doorway, and lay upon his face, with head resting upon hisarms in the attitude of a person who is profoundly asleep.
He must have searched through the woods again that night just as asomnambulist searches, for he found himself towards dawn in the valleybefore the idol. Then it was daybreak—the world was full of light andcolour. He was seated before the house door, worn out and exhausted,when, raising his head, he saw Emmeline’s figure coming out from amidstthe distant trees on the other side of the sward.
The Blue Lagoon: A Romance Page 35