The Sea Priestess

by Dion Fortune

  CHAPTER XVIII

  I SHALL never forget that attack so long as I live. I have never had one like it, before or since. Morgan Ie Fay, who knew by previous experience what to expect, got straight into her car and went for a doctor. I had made her open the windows before she left me so that I could get as much air as possible, and as I lay alone I heard between spasms a curious low moaning note in the sea that I had never heard before. I knew that the barometer had been falling rapidly all day, and I wondered whether this sound heralded the storm. A gust of wind bellowed in the chimney, setting the ash dancing on the hearth, and there began a high shrill whistling overhead; then the first of the rollers struck the rocks with a boom and I heard the overcarried spray come pattering down in the forecourt. I realised that there was trouble afoot of a kind we had never weathered before out at the fort, though we had already been through some pretty good blows. I wondered whether Morgan would be able to get back to me, and whether the doctor would be able to make it, and got into a sudden panic at the idea of being left there alone and unhelped all night. I lay fighting for breath and listening to the steadily growing thunder on the rocks and the pelt of the spray in the forecourt. Presently it sounded to me as if something more solid than spray were coming over. From where I lay I could just see out through one of the big windows, and all of a sudden I saw the gleam of water outside. I don't suppose it was more than ankle- deep in the forecourt, but the sight of it threw me into a complete panic. I felt it was impossible for Morgan Ie Fay to get back, and that I should be alone all night. I got to my feet and struggled across the room to the window, and stood leaning against the pillar and looking out into the night. It was pretty dark, but in the light that shone out from the room I could see the foam going high up in the air as the breakers hit the rocks. It was a terrific night, and every minute it was getting worse. I had made up my mind it was impossible for Morgan Ie Fay to get back to me, and that I had got to stick it out alone, when I saw a beam of light come wheeling into the forecourt, and knew that it was the headlights of her car. The din outside was such that I did not hear her enter the room, and the first thing I heard was her cry as she discovered the empty couch and made up her mind that I had gone out into the storm. I came out from behind the curtains looking like my own ghost, and she called my name and rushed at me and caught hold of me, to my very great surprise, for I had no notion she felt like that about me, and was almost forgetting my asthma in wondering what it meant, when another paroxysm came on and reminded me. Then, over her shoulder I saw the doctor, who looked as if he too were wondering what it meant, and between them they got me on to the sofa. I do not think that any of us who went through that night out at the fort will ever forget it. It was, in any case, one of the worst storms that ever swept England, and the wind was just a point or two south of west, which meant that the waves came on to the fort with the whole force of the Atlantic behind them. It was like a bombardment. Even lying on a bed upstairs I could feel the jarring thud as the tremendous combers hit the end wall. The storm rose with the tide, and towards midnight it was at its height. There was no question of the doctor getting back; here he was, and here he had to stop. The forecourt was swamped, but, thank God, it was only the wind-blown crests and not the solid body of the waves that was coming over; and the windows held, which was lucky, for the" pergola went to glory and I was afraid that chunks of it would' get thrown at them by the force of the wind. The din was indescribable. There was the high shrill | screeching of the gale, every pinnacle of rock and point of the I building whistling its own note; then there was the general roar ' of the sea all round us, and the thundering bang, bang, bang, S as the breakers hit the point broadside on; there was a furious I rushing sound as the broken water raced up the rocks, and the: smack and spatter of the crests of the waves coming over into the forecourt. I have never heard anything like it in all my days. There is something shattering about very loud noise anyway, even when there is no actual danger; but we did not know what was going to happen out there on the point, for if the sea had once succeeded in knocking a gap in any of the embrasures, there was a very good chance of our being drowned out, like lost Atlantis. And it came pretty near doing it, too, as I discovered when I climbed round the footings a week later and found the underpinning pulled out in half a dozen places. So there we were, out on the point in the din and the darkness, and then, to add to the gaiety of nations, my heart began to give out. I had the best of it after that, for I slipped into unconsciousness, leaving the other folk to get on with it. It was then I met the sea-gods. It seemed to me that I was out of my body, floating upright and clad in a shroud. I was hung in mid-air over the fort, and though the din and uproar of the storm were all around me, I did not feel its force, for I was of another dimension to the warring elements. There was a fitful moonlight coming and going amid the wind-torn clouds; when it shone, I could see rank upon rank of whitecrested billows driving in from the Atlantic, rising and falling in long regular lines like galloping cavalry; then, off the point, where the currents and tides took charge, everything broke up into a welter of foaming, roaring water, with squirts and boilings where the sunk reefs checked the rush. Then the moon would disappear behind jagged masses of cloud and in the darkness the roaring and thundering sounded louder than ever; then out she would come again as the driving gale swept the sky, and I could see the reef and all the sunken rocks roaring and spouting like fountains. Then I noticed that in all the din there was a rhythm, and my ear began to pick out the tremendous orchestration of the storm; I could hear the deep-toned roar of the surf under the cliffs, and the clangour of the waves on the outlying rocks of the point, and the tenor of the roaring gale and high piccolo notes of the wind round the buildings. Through it all came clarion-calls and bells, which I suppose, if the truth were known, were the drugs singing in my head, but which I thought were psychic phenomena. In my delirium I rode the gale as a sea-gull rides, balancing against the pressure of the wind. And then the faces began to appear in the waves, and out of the wind-whipped foam and the shadows forms built themselves up, and I saw that the white horses had riders. Some had winged Viking helmets and armour, and some had wild flying robes and hair, and these last were the Choosers of the Slain, who caught up to their saddle-bows those whom the charging white horses rode down and bore them away to Valhalla; and behind these flying outriders, as the great surge follows the surf, I saw the sea-gods come, moving with an irresistible momentum, not rising into the air as the riders rose, but deep in their own element, unhasting, unresting; for the power of the sea is in the weight of the waters and not in the wind-blown crests. These Great Ones rose with the tide, and like the tide, nothing might withstand them. Their faces were vast and calm; they were the rulers of the great waters and in their realm their word was law. By their grace and not otherwise life moved on the surface or lived at the tide-mark, and only those might live who knew this. ' And I saw with clear eyes the folly of men who thought they might master the sea. For only by grace of the sea-gods does ' man live upon the face of the land, for if they gathered themselves together in wrath they could drown the earth. And I saw that man's life is spun like a thread between irresistible forces that with a breath could destroy him, but that nevertheless, from them he draws his strength. For there is in the earth a reservoir of elemental force, just as there is a fountain of life beyond the far stars, and from the violence of the sea the violence of man's own nature draws its energy even as he draws breath from the air, for all things arc but one thing at the last analysis and there is no part of us that is not of the gods. That within me which answered to the sea was awakened by the storm, and I knew that there can be in man a dynamic force that bears down opposition by sheer momentum; but this can only be in a man when he is as cruel as the sea and cares nothing for destruction or self-destruction, for the twin poles of this force are courage and cruelty, and there is a nobility about it that the world has forgotten in the cult of love. With the turn of the tide the sea began to go down, and
at peep of day the Dickmouth medico went off in his car and got a Bristol consultant on the phone, and likewise Beardmore, and in due course the whole party met at the fort and held what looked like being the beginnings of a post mortem on me. The Dickmouth man had got all sorts of fancy degrees and went by the book; old Beardmore had got the least that enabled him to sign a death certificate and went by human nature, and they wrangled over my body like a couple of hyenas. Beardmore was in the habit of shooting me full of morphia and chancing my dying on him, doing as he would be done by in like circumstances; the Dickmouth gent said that this was not according to Hoyle; then they began to reproach each other bitterly anent the Dangerous Drugs Act and I started to stop breathing. The consultant intervened then, and saved my life by agreeing with both parties impartially and shooting a squirtful of his own patent dope into me without telling them what it contained, and I slept till the following afternoon and woke up greatly cheered. I knew what that syringe contained all right, for you can't fool anyone who has once had morphia, but I kept my mouth shut. I had been nearer eternity than I quite fancied. As always, I had a quick pick-up when Morgan Ie Fay was about or in the offing, for I do not get the ghastly depression that usually follows an attack; and Morgan was having tea with me, and I was reviving nicely, when suddenly we heard a commotion to the landward side of the fort, and shrieks of fury from Mrs Treth. Morgan went down to see what the fuss was about, and returned with Scottie. I could not understand why Scottie had caused so much excitement, and demanded further information, for I could see that Morgan was trying hard to stifle her smiles. It transpired, in response to my questioning, that Beardmorc had informed the family of my predicament, and my sister, with that martyred air I knew so well, had proposed putting aside her parish work and coming out to the fort to help nurse me; but Beardmore, whom may God reward, said she ought not to leave my mother and he would get Scottie to go instead. Now Scottie did not run a car of his own, as I always tooled him about in mine whenever he wanted to go anywhere, and to hire a car to take him out to the fort would have cost a quid, which Scottie grudged greatly. So he hit on the bright idea of asking his father-in-law to run him out. Now Scottic's fathcr in-law, as I think I have mentioned before, is the local undertaker, and he does not keep a private car either, but runs a kind of pre-hearse in which he takes round the coffin and the'' layers-out, and it was this thing, with a mute at the wheel, that he and Scottie drove up in, for the old boy elected to come too,; though whether for the sake of the drive or with an eye to busi-'; ness, I do not know. So it was no wonder that Mrs Treth went up in the air when she saw them arrive. As soon as I heard old Whittles was there I made him come up, for I like old Whittles. He came in, looking rather embarrassed, for he had never met a client at my stage of development before, and didn't know quite what line to take with him; deprived of his tape-measure, he was at a loss. To put him at his ease, I asked him what he generally did when the corpse sat up and winked at him, and he said it depended entirely on who it was--some folk he screwed down quick. Morgan gave him a cocktail, and he settled down to cheer us with tales from the tomb. I have never laughed so much in my life. An undertaker off duty and abreacting his repressions is really awfully good fun. We could hear roars of laughter from the kitchen, too, where the Treths were entertaining the mute. Then, in the middle of it all, the Bristol consultant turned up again, anxious to see what effect his injection had had on me, and when he saw Whittles' equipage standing at the door, concluded he had polished me off, and got a most fearful wind up, seeing his reputation going west. However, Morgan led him in and soothed him with a cocktail, and then he too joined the party upstairs, and there were more cocktails all round, and my convalescence progressed by leaps and bounds. It seemed that Whittlcs's grandfather, who founded the business, had started life as a body-snatcher. You should have seen Scottie's face when this bit of information came out! However the Bristol specialist put everybody at their ease by volunteering the information that his grandfather had been a butcher. Not to be outdone, I told them of my ancestor who had been hanged for house-breaking. Then we had more cocktails all round and discussed the Mendelian theory of heredity. Finally, when the party broke up, Whittles and the specialist were such pals that Whittles offered to show him the short cut through the marshes, and they departed with Whittles's pre-hearse in the lead and the specialist's luxurious limousine following behind, which was a reversal of the usual order of things.