It was now blowing a whole gale, and the waves broke on the beach in thunder, dragging down the shingle in their ebb with a loud screaming. The rain fell in torrents, and the increasing of the storm decided me in my intention to carry the body with me.
I lifted it across my shoulder with some difficulty, for at each effort the cloths, already torn in the extrication of paper money, fell to pieces. However, at last I got it on my shoulder, face downwards, and started. I had hardly taken a step when, with an impulse which I could not restrain, I let it slip—or, rather, threw it—to the ground.
It had seemed to me to be alive. I certainly felt a movement. As it lay all in a heap on the beach, with the drenching rain sweeping the pale face, I grew ashamed of my impulse, and, with another, effort, took it up and started again.
Again there was the same impulse, with the same cause—the body seemed alive. This time, however, I was prepared, and held on, and after a while the idea wore away.
Presently I came to a place where a mass of great boulders strewed the shore. The stepping from one to another shook me and my burden, and as I jumped from the last of the rocks to the smooth sand which lay beyond I felt a sudden diminution of weight. As my load overbalanced, I fell on the sand higgledy piggledy with my burden.
Old Hoggen had parted in the middle.
As may be imagined, I was not long getting up. On a survey of the wreck I saw, to my intense astonishment, some large crabs walking out of the body. This, then, explained the strange movement of the corpse. It occurred to me that the presence of these fishes was incontrovertible proof that crabs did exist between Bridport and Lyme Regis, and not without a thought of Cousin Jemima and my mother-in-law, I lifted two or three and put them in the big pocket of my shooting coat.
Then I began to consider whether I should leave the departed Hoggen where he was or bring him on.
For a while I weighed the arguments pro and con, and finally concluded to bring him on with me, or it, or them, or whatever the fragments could be called. It was not an alluring task, in any aspect, and it was by a great effort that I undertook the duty.
I gathered the things together, and a strange looking heap they made—waxen limbs protruding from a wet heap of dishevelled rags. Then I began to lift them. It had been a task of comparative ease carrying the body over my shoulder, but now I had to pick up separate pieces and carry them altogether in my hands and under my arms. Often I had laughed, as I went through Victoria street, to see people of both sexes, worthy, but deficient of organizing power and system, coming forth from the co-operative stores bearing hosts of packages purchased without system in the various departments. Such a one I now felt myself to be. Do what I would, I could not hold all at one time the various segments of my companion. Just as I had carefully tucked the moieties of Old Hoggen under my arms, I spied some of his clothing on the shore, and in trying to raise these also lost a portion of my load. What added to the aggravation of the situation was that the wear and tear began to tell upon the person of the defunct. Thus while I was lifting the upper section, an arm came away, and from the lower a foot.
However, with a supreme effort I bundled the pieces together, and, lifting the mass in my arms, proceeded on my way. But now the storm was raging in full force, and I saw that I must hurry or the advancing waves, every moment rushing closer to the cliffs, would cut me off. I could see, through the blinding rain, a headland before me, and knew that if I could once pass it I would be in comparative safety.
So I hurried on as fast as I could, sometimes losing a portion of my burden, but never being able to wait to pick it up. Had my thoughts and ejaculations been recorded they would have been somewhat as follows:
“There goes a hand; it was lucky I took off the ring.”
“Half the coat; well that I found the bank notes.”
“There goes the waistcoat; a fortunate thing I have the watch.”
“A leg off—my! Will I ever get him home?”
“Another leg.”
“An arm gone.”
“His grave will be a mile long.”
“We must consecrate the shore that he may lay in hallowed ground.”
“The lower trunk gone, too. Poor fellow; no one can hit him now below the belt.”
“An arm gone, too; he would not be able to defend himself if they did.”
“Murder! But he’s going fast.”
“The clothes all gone, too—I had better have left him where he was.”
“Ugh! There goes the trunk; nothing left now but the head.”
“Ugh! That was a close shave anyhow. Never mind, I will keep you safe.”
I clung tight to the head, which was now my sole possession of the corpse.
It was mighty hard to hold it, for it was as slippery as glass, and the tight holding of it cramped my efforts and limited me as I leaped from rock to rock or dashed through the waves, which now touched in their onward rush to the base of the cliff.
At least, through the blinding rain, I saw the headland open, and with a great rush through the recoil of a big wave I rounded it and rested for a moment to breathe on the wide shore beyond.
Then I tried for a while to collect my scattered faculties, such being the only part of the goods scattered in the last half-hour which could be collected.
I felt ruefully that my effort to bring to the rites of burial the body of Old Hoggen had been a mistaken one. All had gone save the head which lay on the sand, and whose eyes actually seemed to wink at me as the flukes of the spume settled over the eyes, dissolving as the bubbles burst. The property was, I felt, safe enough. I put my hand into the pocket of my shooting coat but in an instant drew it out again with a scream of pain, for it had been severely nipped. I had forgotten the crabs.
Very carefully I took out one of these fish and held him legs upward, he making frantic efforts to seize me with his claws. He seemed a greedy one, indeed, for he was trying to eat the diamond ring which he had got half within that mysterious mouth which is covered with a flap like that over the lock of a portmanteau. Hence also projected part of the watch chain. I found that the brute had actually swallowed the watch, and it was with some difficulty that I relieved from his keeping both it and the ring. I took care to place the valuable property in the other pocket where the crabs were not.
Then I took up my head—or, rather Old Hoggen’s—and started on my way, carrying the final relic under my arm.
The storm began to decrease, and died away as quickly as it had arisen, so that, before I had traversed half the long stretch of sand that lay before me, instead of storm there was marked calm, and for blinding rain an almost insupportable heat.
I struggled on over the sand, and at length saw an opening in the cliff—which, on coming close, I found to be caused by a small stream which had worn a deep cleft in the blue-black earthy rock, and, falling and tumbling from above, became lost in the beach.
There was a look about the sand here that seemed to me to me somewhat peculiar. Its surface was smooth and shining, with a sort of odd dimple here and there. It looked so flat and inviting after my scramble over the rock and shingle and plodding through the deep sand, that with joy I hurried toward it—and at once began to sink.
By the odd shiver that traversed it I knew that I was being engulfed in quicksand.
It was a terrible position.
I had already sunk over my knees and knew that unless aid came I was utterly lost. I would at that moment have welcomed even Cousin Jemima.
It is the misfortune of such people as her that they never do make an appearance at a favorable time—such as this.
But there was no help—on one side lay the sea with never a sail in sight, and the waves still angry from the recent storm tumbling in sullenly upon the shore—on the other side was a wilderness of dark cliff; and along the shore on either way an endless waste of sand.
I tried to shout, but the misery and terror of the situation so overcame me that my voice clung to my jaws, and I could make no so
und. I still kept Old Hoggen’s head under my arm. In moments of such danger the mind is quick to grasp an offered chance, and it suddenly occurred to me that, if I could get a foothold even for a moment, I might still manage to extricate myself. I was as yet but on the edge of the quicksand, and but a little help would suffice. With the thought came also the means—Old Hoggen’s head.
No sooner thought than done.
I laid the head on the sand before me, and pressing on it with my hands, felt that I was relieving my feet of part of their weight. With an effort I lifted one leg and placed the foot on the head now embedded some inches in the treacherous sand. Then pressing all my weight on this foot I made a great effort, and tearing up the imbedded foot leaped to the firm sand, where I slipped and fell and for a few minutes panted with exhaustion.
I was saved, but Old Hoggen’s head was gone forever.
Then I went toward the cliff, cautiously feeling my way, testing every spot on which my foot must rest, before trusting my weight to it. I gained the cliff, and resting on its firm base passed behind the fatal quicksand and went on my course to the stable strand beyond.
On I plodded till at last I came near a few houses built in a green cleft, whence through the cliffs a tiny stream, on whose banks stood the pretty village of Chidiock, fell into the sea.
There was a coast guard station here, with a little rope-railed plot, where before the row of trim houses the flagstaff rose.
As I drew near a coast guard and a policeman rushed toward me from behind a shed and grasped me on either side, holding me tight with a vigor which I felt to be quite disproportionate to the necessity of the occasion.
With the instinct of conscious innocence I struggled with them.
“Let me go!” I cried. “Let me go—what do you mean? Let me go I say!”
“Come now—none of this,” said the policeman.
I still struggled.
“Better keep quiet,” said the coast guard! “It’s no use struggling.”
“I will not keep quiet,” I cried, struggling more frantically than ever.
The policeman looked at me right savagely and gave my neckcloth a twist which nearly strangled me. “Tell you what,” he said sternly, “if you struggle any more, I’ll whale you over the head with my baton.”
I did not struggle anymore.
“Now,” said he, “remember that I caution you that anything you say or do will be afterward used in evidence against you.”
I thought a policy of conciliation was now best; so with what heartiness I could assume I said:
“My good fellow, you really make a mistake. Why you seize me I do not know.”
“We know,” he interrupted, with a hard laugh, “and if you say you don’t know, why then you’re a liar!”
I felt choking with anger. To be held is bad enough, but when the additional insult of calling one a liar is added, rage may surely be excused. My impulse on hearing the insult was to break free and strike the man, but he knew my intention and held me tighter.
“Take care!” he said, holding up his baton.
I took care.
“I ask you formally,” I said with all my dignity, “on what authority do you treat me thus?”
“On this authority!” he answered, holding up his baton, and again laughing with his harsh, exasperating cachinnation. He playfully twirled his baton as if to impress upon me a sense of his proficiency in its use.
He then produced a pair of handcuffs, which were put on me. I struggled very hard, but the two men were too much for me, and I had to succumb.
He then began to search me. First he put his hand into the pocket of my shooting coat and pulled out the watch and chain. He looked at it with exultation.
“That is Old Hoggen’s watch,” I said.
“I know it is,” he answered, at the same time pulling out the notebook and writing down my words. Next he produced the diamond ring, and the purse.
“That also,” said I, “and that!”
Again he wrote down my words—this time in silence. Then he put in his hand again and drew it out, saying:
“Only wet paper!”
He next to put his hand into the other pocket, but drew it out again in an instant—not in silence this time.
“Curse the thing! What is it?”
I smiled as he lifted a crab out of the pocket with great carefulness. When he had got thus far, he continued:
“Now, young fellow, what have you got to say for yourself?”
For the last few minutes a very unpleasant thought had in my mind been growing to colossal proportions. It was evidence that I was being arrested for the murder of Old Hoggen, and here I was arrested when in possession of his property, but with no witnesses to prove my innocence, and with no trace of the lost man himself to substantiate my story. I began to be a little frightened as to the result.
“What I have to tell you is very strange,” said I. “I left the Charmouth early this morning to walk to Bridport to get some crabs for my mother-in-law.”
“Why, you have got crabs with you,” said the policeman.
“I got them on the shore beyond,” said I, pointing westward.
“Come! Stow that!” said the policeman. “That won’t wash here. There isn’t a crab to be found on the shore between Bridport and Lyme.”
“That’s true, anyhow. Every fool knows that!” added the coast guard.
I went on:
“I found the body of Old Hoggen floating in the water. I tried to carry it on here, but the storm came, and it was as much as I could do to escape. Besides, the body all feel in pieces, and at last—”
“A nice story that!” said the policeman. “But if it fell to bits, why didn’t you bring one on with you?”
“I tried some, but they fell to bits.”
“The head didn’t,” said he. “Why did you not bring it? Eh?”
“I did bring it,” said I, “but I got into the quicksand and it was lost.”
The coast guard struck in.
“There’s only one bit of quicksand on all this coast, they say, for I never seen it myself. Why, man alive, it doesn’t show once in twenty years.”
“And the crabs?” asked the policeman.
“They were in Old Hoggen’s body!”
“And what were you doing with them?”
“I was bringing them to my mother-in-law.”
“Oh, the filthy scoundrel” ejaculated the coast guard.
“Did you carry them through the quicksand?” inquired the policeman.
“I did,” said I, “and when I got out, I found that the big fellow had eaten the watch and was trying to swallow the ring.”
The policeman and the coast guard seized me roughly, the latter saying:
“Come, take him off. He’s the plumpest liar I ever seen.”
“Let us finish the search first,” said the policeman, as he renewed his investigations.
The thought that I was in a really suspicious position now began to make me most uncomfortable. “My poor wife! My poor wife!” I kept saying to myself.
The policeman, in his zeal, again put his hands in the pocket with the crabs, and drew it out with a yell. Then he took out the biggest crab, which by the way, as is sometimes the case, had one claw very much larger than the other. The left claw was the larger. He threw the crab on the shore and was about to stamp on it, when the coast guard put him back, saying:
“Avast, there, mate. Crabs isn’t so plenty here that we walk on them. None here between Bridport and Lyme.”
The policeman continued his search. He took the mass of wet papers and notes from the other pocket, and threw them on the ground, and went on diving into the recesses of the pockets. The coast guard was evidently struck with something, for he stooped and looked at the papers, turned them over, and fell down on his knees beside them with a loud cry. Then, in an excited whisper, he called out:
“Look here! Mate, look here! Its all money. It’s thousands of pounds.”
The
constable also dropped beside the papers, and over the mass the two men gazed at each other with excited faces.
“Take care of it—take care!” said the policeman.
“You bet!” said the other shortly.
“What a fortune!”
The two men looked at each other, and then at me furtively, and somehow I felt that they have in common some vile instinct by which I was felt to be in the way. I remained, therefore, as passive as I could.
The two men eyed the papers. Said the coast guard:
“Where are the other things?”
“Here!” said the policeman, slapping his pocket.
“Better put them all together.”
“Not at all. They are quite safe with me.”
The two men looked at each other and seemed mutually to understand, for, without a word, the policeman took the watch and ring and purse from his pocket and laid them on the shore.
Both men eyed the lot greedily. Suddenly the policeman looked round and ran down the beach like a maniac, shouting, “Stop thief! Stop thief!” At the very edge of the water, he stopped and lifted the crab, which had been making its escape. He brought it back and laid on its back beside the other things. As he eyed the heap suspiciously, as if to see that nothing has been removed, he said, shaking his fist at the crab:
“You infernal brute, you may have been stealing something.” The accent with which he said the word “you” was evidently meant as a caution and suspicion of the coast guard. The latter took it as such and said angrily:
“Stow that!”
The two men then proceeded to search me further. They took from me everything which could by any torturing of greed have been construed into a valuable. They opened a seem of my coat and turned out the lining.
Then, drawing away, they whispered a little together, and, returning to me, tied my legs together, put a gag in my mouth, and carried me round the point of a rock where we were out of sight of any chance comer. Then they brought hither the valuables, and, sitting down, began to record the worth of the lot.
The Bram Stoker Megapack Page 216