Ronsard smiled faintly.
“My friend, I understand, and I accept the law of change!” he said. “To me, as to all, it must come! The old must die, and the young succeed them. As for me, I shall be glad to go — the sooner the better, I truly think, for then none will taunt my Gloria with the simple manner of her bringing up; — none will remember aught, save her exceeding beauty, or blame her that the sun and sea were her only known parents. And if we credit legend, hers is not the first birth of loveliness from the bosom of the waves!”
Here the wind, tearing round the rafters, rattled and roared for a space like a demon threatening the whole construction of the house, and then went galloping away with a shriek among the pines down to the shore.
“A wild night!” said the Professor, with a slight shiver. “Alas! poor Lotys! — poor ‘Soul of an Ideal’ as Sergius Thord called her, — her frail mortal tenement will soon be drawn down to the depths in such a storm as this!”
“I never saw her!” said Ronsard musingly; “Thord I have seen often. Lotys was to me a name merely, — but I knew it was a name to conjure with — a name beloved of the People. Gloria longed to see her, — she had heard of her often.”
“She was a psychological phenomenon,” said the Professor slowly; “And I admit that her composition baffled me. No one have I ever seen at all like her. She was beautiful without any of the accepted essentials of beauty — and it is precisely such a woman as that who possesses the most dangerous fascination over men — not over boys — but over men. She had a loving, passionate, feminine heart, with a masculine brain, — the two together are bound to constitute what is called Genius. The only thing I cannot understand is the unexpected weakness she displayed in committing suicide. That I should never have thought of her. On the contrary, I should have imagined, knowing as much of her as I did, that the greater the sorrow, the greater the fight she would have made against it.”
A silence fell between them, filled by the thundering noise of the wind.
“Where is Thord?” asked Ronsard presently.
“I do not know. The last I saw of him was on board the vessel that bore her coffin; — he was laying flowers on the deck. He was not, I think, in any of the smaller boats that accompanied it; he must have returned with the crowd on shore. He has his duties as Deputy for the city now, we must remember!”
Ronsard’s eyes flashed with a glimmer of satire in the firelight.
“If it had not been for Lotys, he would not be a Deputy, or anything else, — save perchance a Communist or an Anarchist!” he said; “he used to be one of the fiercest malcontents in all the country when I first came here. Many and many is the time I have heard him threaten to kill the King!”
“Ah!” said the Professor meaningly, the while he bent his eyes on the flickering fire.
Again a silence fell. The wind roared and screamed around the building, and in the pauses of the gale, the minutes seemed weighted with a strange dread. Every tick of the clock sounded heavy and long, even to the equable-minded Professor. The storm outside was growing louder and even louder, and his thoughts, despite himself, turned to the ocean-wildernesses over which Prince Humphry’s home-returning vessel must be now on its way — while that other solitary barque, unhelmed and unmanned, whose sail bore the name of ‘Lotys’ was also voyaging, but in a darker direction, down to death and oblivion, carrying with it, as he feared, all the love and heart of a King! Suddenly a loud knocking at the door startled them; and as Ronsard rose from his chair, amazed at the noise and Von Glauben did the same with more alacrity, a man with wind blown hair and excited gestures burst into the little room.
“Ronsard!” he cried; “The King — the King!”
He paused, gasping for breath. Ronsard looked at him wonderingly. His clothes were saturated with sea-water, — his face was pale — and his eyes expressed some fear that his tongue seemed incapable of uttering. He was one of the coral-fishers of the coast, and Ronsard knew him well.
“What ails you, man?” he asked; “What say you of the King?”
Holding the door of the cottage open with some difficulty, the coral-fisher pointed to the sky overhead. It was flecked with great masses of white cloud, through which the moon appeared to roll rapidly like a ball of yellow fire. The wind howled furiously, and the pines in the near distance could be seen bending to and fro like reeds in its breath, while the roar of the sea beyond the rocks was fierce and deafening.
“It is all storm!” cried the man, excitedly; “The billows are running mountains high! — there is no chance for him!”
“No chance for whom?” demanded Von Glauben, impatiently; “What would you tell us? Speak plainly!”
“It was the King!” said the coral-fisher again, trying to express himself more collectedly— “I saw his face lit up by the after-glow of the sky — white — white as the foam on the wave! Listen! When the body of the woman Lotys was borne away on that vessel, a man came to me out of the thickest of the crowd (I was on one of the furthest quays) — and offered me a purse of gold to take him out to sea — and to steer him in such a way that we should meet the funeral barque just as she was cut adrift and sent forth to be wrecked in the ocean. I did not know him then. He kept his face hidden, — he spoke low, and he was evidently in trouble. I thought he was a lover of the dead woman, and sought perhaps to comfort himself by looking at her coffin for the last time. So I consented to do what he asked. I had my sailing skiff, and we went at once. The wind was strong; we sailed swiftly — and at the appointed place—” He paused to take breath. Ronsard seized him by the arm.
“Quick! Go on — what next?”
“At the appointed place when the vessel stopped, — when her ropes were cut and she afterwards sprang out to sea, I, by his orders, ran my skiff close beside her as she came, — and before I knew how it happened, my passenger sprang aboard her — Ay! — with a spring as light and sure as the flight of a bird! ‘Farewell!’ he said, and flung me the promised gold; ‘May all be prosperous with you and yours!’ And then the wind swooped down and bore the ship a mile or more ere I could follow it; but the strong light in the west fell full upon the man’s face — and I saw — I knew it was the King!”
“Gott in Himmel! May you for ever be confounded and mistaken!” exclaimed Von Glauben,— “I left the King in his own grounds but an hour before I myself started to witness this accursed sea-funeral!”
“I say it was the King!” repeated the man emphatically. “I would swear it was the King! And the vessel going out to meet the storm tonight, holds the living, as well as the dead!”
With a sudden movement, as active as it was decided, old Ronsard went to a corner in the room and drew out a thick coil of rope with an iron hook at the end, and slinging it round his waist with the alert quickness of youth, made for the open door.
“Where is your skiff?” he demanded.
“Ashore down yonder;” answered the coral-fisher; “But you — what are you going to do? You cannot sail her in such a night as this!”
“I will adventure!” said Ronsard. “If, as you say, it was the King, I will save him if he can be saved! Once a King’s life was nothing to me; now it is something! The tide veers round these Islands, and the vessel on which they have placed the body of Lotys, can scarcely drift away from the circle till morning, unless the waves are too strong for it—”
“They are too strong!” cried the coral-fisher; “Ronsard, believe me! There is no rain to soften or abate the wind — and the sea grows greater with every breath of the rising gale!”
“I care nothing!” replied Ronsard; “Let be! If you are afraid, I will go alone!”
At these words, the Professor suddenly awoke to the situation.
“What would you attempt, Ronsard?” he exclaimed; “You can do nothing! You are weak and ailing! — there is no force in you to combat with the elements on such a night as this—”
“There is force!” said Ronsard; “The force of my thirst for atonement! Let me be, f
or God’s sake! Let me do something useful in my life! — let me try to save the King! If I die, so much the better.”
“Then I will go with you!” said Von Glauben, desperately.
Ronsard shook his head.
“You? No, my friend! You will not! You will remain to welcome Gloria — to tell her that I loved her to the last! — that I did my best!”
He seemed to have grown young in an instant, — his eyes flashed with alertness and vigour, and instead of an old decaying man, full of cares and despondencies, he seemed like a bold adventurer, before whom a new land of promise opens. Von Glauben looked at him, and in a moment made up his mind. He turned to the coral-fisher.
“What think you truly of the night, my friend? Is it for life or death we go?”
“Death! Certain death!” answered the man; “It is madness to set sail in such a storm as this!”
“You are married, no doubt? And little ones eat your earnings? Ach so! Then you shall not be asked to go with us. Ronsard, I am ready! I can pull an oar and manage a sail, and I am not afraid of death by drowning! For Gloria’s sake, let me go with you!”
“For Gloria’s sake, stay here!” cried Ronsard; and with an abrupt movement he escaped Von Glauben’s hold, and ran with all the speed of a boy out of the cottage into the garden beyond.
Von Glauben rushed after him, but found himself in the thicket of pines, trapped and hemmed in by the darkness of their stems and branches. The wind was so fierce and strong, that he could scarcely keep his feet, — every now and again the moon flew out of a great cloud-pinnacle and glared on the scene, but not with sufficient clearness to show him his way. Yet he knew the place well — often had he and Gloria trodden that path down to the sea, and yet to-night it seemed all unfamiliar. How the sea roared! Like a thousand lions clamouring for prey! Against the rocks the rising billows hissed and screamed, rattling backward among stones and shells with the grinding noise of artillery wagons being hastily dragged off a lost field of battle.
“Ronsard!” he called as loudly as he could, and again “Ronsard!” but his voice, big and stentorian though it was, made but the feeblest wail in the loud shriek of the wind. Yet he stumbled on and on, and by slow and difficult degrees found his way down to the foot of the high rocks which formed a pinnacled wall between him and the sea, — the rocks he had so often climbed with Gloria, and of which she had sung in such matchless tones of triumph and tenderness.
Here, by the sea.
My King crown’d me!
Wild ocean sang for my Coronation,
With the jubilant voice of a mighty nation!
The memory of this song came back to his ears in a ringing echo, amid the howling of the boisterous wind, which now blew harder and harder, scattering masses of blown froth from the waves in his face, with flying sand and light shells, and torn-up weed. Scarcely able to stand against it, he paused to get his breath, realising that it would be worse than useless to climb the rocks in the teeth of such a gale, or try to reach the old accustomed winding way down to the shore. He endeavoured to collect his scattered wits; — if the ceaseless onslaught of the storm would only have allowed him to think coherently, he fancied he might have found another and easier path to lead him in the direction whither Ronsard, in his mad, but heroic impulse, had gone. But the gale was so terrific, and the booming of the great waves on the other side of the rocky barrier so awful, that it seemed as if the water must be rolling in like a solid wall, bent on breaking down the coast, and grinding it to powder. His heart ached heavily; — tears rose to his eyes.
“What a grain of dust I am in this world of storm!” he ejaculated; “Here I stand, — a strong man, utterly useless! Powerless to save the life I would die to serve! But maybe the story is not true! — the man can easily have been mistaken! Surely the King would not give up all for the sake of one woman’s love!”
But though he said this to himself, he knew that such things have been; indeed, that they are common enough throughout all history. He had not studied humanity to so little purpose as not to be aware that there are certain phases of the passion of love which make havoc of a man’s wisest and best intentions; and that even as Marc Antony lost all for Cleopatra’s smile, and Harry the Eighth upset a Church for a woman’s whim, so in modern days the same old story repeats itself; and no matter how great and famous the position of a king or an emperor, he may yet court and obtain his own ruin and disaster, ay, lose his very Throne for love; — deeming it well lost!
Restless, miserable and troubled by the confusion of his thoughts, which seemed to run wild with the wild wind and the thundering sea, the unhappy Professor retraced his steps to the cottage, hoping against hope that Ronsard, physically unable to cope with the storm, would have returned, baffled in his reckless attempt to put forth a boat to sea. But the little home was silent and deserted. There was the old man’s empty chair; — the clock against the wall ticked the minutes away with a comfortable persistence which was aggravating to the nerves; the fire was still bright. Before entering, Von Glauben looked up and down everywhere outside, but there was no sign of any living creature.
Nothing remained for him to do but to resign himself passively to whatsoever calamity the Omnipotent Forces above him chose to inflict, — and utterly weary, baffled and helpless, he sank into Ronsard’s vacant chair, unconscious that tears were rolling down his face from the excess of his anxiety and exhaustion. The shrieking of the wind, the occasional glare of the moonlight through the rattling lattice windows, and the apparent rocking of the very rafters above him thrilled him into new and ever recurring sensations of fear — yet he was no coward, and had often prided himself on having ‘nerves of steel and sinews of iron.’ Presently, he began to see quaint faces and figures in the glowing embers of the fire; old scraps of song and legend haunted him; fragments of Heine, mixed up with long-winded philosophical phrases of Schopenhauer, began to make absurd contradictions and glaring contrasts in his mind, while he listened to the awful noises of the storm; and the steady ticking of the clock on the wall worried him to such an almost childish degree, that had he not thought how often he had seen Gloria winding up that clock and setting it to the right hour, he could almost have torn it down and broken it to pieces. By and by, however, tired Nature had her way, and utterly heavy and worn out in mind and body, and weary of the disturbed and incoherent thoughts in his brain, he lay back and closed his eyes. He would rest a little while, he said to himself, and ‘wait.’ And so he gradually fell asleep, and in his sleep wrote, so he imagined, a whole eloquent chapter of his ‘Political History of Hunger’ in which he described Sergius Thord as a despot, who, after proving false to the cause of the People, and grinding them down by unlimited taxation such as no Government had ever before inflicted, seized the rightful king of the country, and sent him away to be drowned in company with a woman of the People, whose body was fastened to his by ropes and iron chains, in the fashion of ‘Les Noyades’ of Nantes. And he thought that the King rejoiced in his doom, and said strange words like those of the poet who sang of a similar story:
“For never a man like me
Shall die like me till the whole world dies,
I shall drown with her, laughing for love, and she
Mix with me, touching me, lips and eyes!”
Meanwhile, Ronsard, true to the instinct within him, had fulfilled his intention and had put out to sea. The fisherman who had brought the tidings which had moved him to this desperate act, was too much of a hero in himself to let the old man venture forth alone, — and so, following him down to the shore, had, despite all commands and entreaties to the contrary, insisted on going with him. The sailing skiff he owned was a strong boat, stoutly built, — and at first it seemed as if their efforts to ride the mountainous billows would be crowned with success. Old Rene had a true genius for the management of a sail; his watchfulness never flagged: — his strenuous exertions would have done credit to a man less than half his age. With delicate precision he guided the ropes
, as a jockey might have guided the reins of a racehorse, and the vessel rose and fell lightly over the great waves, with such ease and rapidity, that the man who accompanied him and took the helm, an experienced sailor himself, began to feel confident that after all the voyage might not be altogether futile.
“The sea may be calmer further out from land!” he shouted to Rene, who nodded a quiet aquiescence, while he kept his eyes earnestly fixed on the horizon, which the occasional brightness of the moon showed up like a line of fretted silver. Everywhere he scanned the waves for a glimpse of the fatal vessel bearing Death — and perhaps Life — on board; but over the whole expanse of the undulating hills and valleys of wild water, there was no speck of a boat to be seen save their own. They swept on and on, the wind aiding them with savage violence — when suddenly the man at the helm shouted excitedly:
“Ronsard! See yonder! There she sails!”
With an exclamation of joy, Ronsard sprang up, and looking, saw within what seemed an apparently short distance, the drifting funeral-barque he sought. So far she seemed intact; her sails were bellying out full to the wind, and she was rising and plunging bravely over the great breakers, which rolled on in interminable array, one over the other, — with rugged foam-crests that sprang like fountains to the sky. A five or ten minutes’ run with the wind would surely bring them alongside, — and Ronsard turned with an eager will to his work once more. Over the heads of the monstrous waves, rising with their hills, sinking in their valleys, he guided the few yielding planks that were between him and destruction, trimming the straining sail to the ferocious wind, and ever keeping his eyes fixed on the vessel which was the object of his search, — the sole aim and end of his reckless voyage, and which seemed now to recede, and then to almost disappear, the more earnestly he strove to reach it.
“To save the King!” he muttered— “To save — not to kill! For Gloria’s sake! — to save the King!”
A capricious gust from the beating wings of the storm swooped down upon him sideways, as he twisted the ropes and tugged at them in a herculean effort to balance the plunging boat and keep her upright, — and in the loud serpent-like hiss of the waves around him, he did not hear his companion’s wild warning cry — a cry of despair and farewell in one! A toppling dark-green mass of water, moving on shoreward, lifted itself quite suddenly, as it were, to its full height, as though to stare at the puny human creatures who thus had dared to oppose the fury of the elements, and then, leaping forward like a devouring monster, broke over their frail skiff, sweeping the sail off like a strip of ribbon, snapping the mast and rolling over and over them with a thousand heads of foam that, spouting upwards, again fell into dark cavernous deeps, covering and dragging down everything on the surface with a tumult and roar! It passed on thundering, — but left a blank behind it. Skiff and men had vanished, — and not a trace of the wreck floated on the angry waves!
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 581