CHAPTER XXXI
With a beating heart Sisily gained the shelter of her room and locked thedoor, her eyes glancing quickly around her. She did not expect to seeanything there, but she had reached the stage of instinctive terror whenone fears lurking shadows, unexpected noises, or an imagined alteration inthe contour of familiar things. There was nothing in the room to alarmher, and her thoughts flew back to the face of the man she had seen in thestreet outside. The owner of the face had leered at first, and then hisglance hardened into suspicion as he looked. When she hurried past him hehad shifted his position to stare at her by the light of the street lamp.Had he followed her? That was the question she could not answer. She hadheard footsteps behind her in the dark street, horrible stealthy footstepswhich had caused terror to rush over her like a flood, and sent her flyingalong the street to her one haven. As she ran she had felt a touchingfaith in the security of her room, if she could reach it. Out there, inthe open street, it had seemed impregnable, like a fortress.
Now as she sat there she had a revulsion of feeling. The room was notsafe, the house was not safe. Not now. She had been very imprudent. Shehad run straight home to her hiding-place, her only refuge. Why had shenot waited to make sure that she was followed? Then she could have slippedaway in a different direction until she had evaded pursuit, and returnedto her room afterwards. She had been very foolish.
She approached her window and gazed down, but could discern nothing in thedarkness. She tried to shake off her fear, telling herself that it wasimagination. But her mind remained full of misgivings, and her innerconsciousness peopled the obscurity of the street below with lurkingfigures.
Weariness overcame her. She retired from the window and laid down on herbed, not to sleep, but to think. Her fright had turned her mindtemporarily from the contemplation of a greater disaster. That was thearrest of Charles Turold. She had learnt the news from an evening paperwhich she had bought at the corner of the street. The announcement wasvery brief, merely stating that he had been arrested in Cornwall. Theguarded significance of the information was not lost upon her. Charles hadbeen captured on his way back to her, and her agonized heart whisperedthat she was responsible for his fate.
Bitterly she now blamed herself for having let him go on the quest. Shehardly asked herself whether it had succeeded or failed, perhaps becauseshe had subconsciously accepted the view that Thalassa, after all, hadnothing to tell. Nor did she think of the calamity which had againovertaken her love. The effect of her original renunciation was stillstrong within her, and Charles's discovery of her and her promise to himhad not really altered her attitude. His finding her, and their subsequentconversation in the room below, bore an air of the strangest unreality toher, as if she had been merely an actor in a stirring scene which did notactually affect her. Some subtle inward voice told her that these thingsdid not matter to her.
It was part of a feeling which she had always within her--the sense ofliving under the shadow of some dark destiny which would not be mitigatedor withheld. It was a strange point of view for one so young, but it hadbeen hers ever since she remembered anything. The tragedy and the shamewhich had come into her life recently had found her, as it were, waiting.She regarded them merely as the partial fulfilment of the unescapablething which had been prepared for her before she was born, and had doggedher lonely footsteps since childhood. In the isolated circumstances of herlife and upbringings it was not strange, perhaps, that she had suchimaginings.
She had loved Charles Turold with all the strength of a passionatesolitary nature, and it was this feeling or instinct of fatality which hadgiven her the strength to renounce him. Indeed, it seemed to her that thatinseparable companion of her inmost thoughts had prompted her to lingeroutside the door at Flint House on this afternoon so that she shouldoverhear her father's words--catch that sinister fragment of a sentencewhich compelled her to refuse the love of Charles until she had learnt thetruth. She could not listen to him with that secret half-guessed. And, thefull truth known, no other course was open to her save renunciation.
She had not wavered. Sometimes, in the vain way of the young heart seekingfor happiness, she found herself wishing that she had not listened at thedoor to those few words which sent her back to Flint House that awfulnight to learn the truth from her father, or, at least, had not acted uponthem. The words she overheard had not told her much, and she might havetried to forget them. But she thrust that thought from her like an evilthing. She would have hated herself if she had followed that course andfound out the truth of her birth afterwards, deeming herself unworthy ofthe love of one who had been ready to sacrifice everything for her sake.No! It was better, far better, that she should know.
She had not thought of suspicion falling on herself. Her youth andinexperience, borne upward on the lofty wings of sacrifice, had notforeseen the damning significance which might gather round her secretvisit to Flint House and her subsequent disappearance. Not even when sheheard of her father's death had the folly of her contemplated actiondawned on her. Her dreamy unpractical temperament, keyed up to the greatact of abnegation, had not paused to consider what the consequences mightbe to herself.
Lying there in the darkness of her room, she recalled how that revelationhad been made to her. It was the first night after her arrival in London,in the drawing-room of a private hotel near Russell Square, where she hadintended staying for a few days while she sought for some kind ofemployment. There was a group of women seated round the fireplace,talking. She was seated by herself some distance away, turning over theleaves of a magazine, when a loud remark by one of the speakers startledher into an attitude of listening fear. "Have you read about this Cornwallmurder?" The words, cold and distinct, had broken into her sad reflectionslike a stone dropped from a great height. They had gone on talking withoutlooking at her, and she had listened intently, masking her consciousfeatures with the open magazine. It was well that she did. They discussedthe murder in animated tones. The strangest case! ... A great title ...the Turrald title ... to be heard before the House of Lords next week ...and now the claimant was murdered ... he was very wealthy, too. Thus theytalked; then the first voice, which seemed to dominate all the others,broke in: "It was thought to be suicide at first, but I see by tonight'spaper that his daughter is suspected. She has disappeared, and is supposedto have fled to London. What are girls coming to--always shooting somebodyor somebody shooting them! It's the war, I suppose...."
The shock of that double disclosure had been almost too much to bear. Tillthen she had not known that her father had been murdered, much less thatshe was suspected of killing him. Dizziness had swept over her. Thingsseemed to spin round her, yet she saw them rotating with a kind ofdreadful distinctness--the false smiling faces of the women, thefurniture, a cat blinking on the hearthrug, an empty coffee cup on a smalltable. One stout lady, enthroned on a pile of red and blue cushions,sailed round and round on a sofa with the preposterous repetition andtragic reality of a fat woman on a roundabout. Then the circling faces andfurniture vanished. She swayed with the sensation of growing darkness, andhad the oddest fancy that the break of the waves on Cornish cliffs wassounding in her ears. She was dreamily inhaling the sea air....
She had pulled herself sharply together. She had something of her father'stenacity and courage in her composition, and that had nerved her to facethe ordeal and saved her from giving herself away. The darkness lightened,the electric lights danced dizzily back into view, and the room becamestationary once more. With an effort at calmness she rose from her seatand sought her room, and next morning she left the house. Henceforth herlot was one of furtive movement and concealment.
As she lay there, staring open-eyed into the darkness, her thoughtsslipped back to the night of her visit to Flint House in a vain effort torecollect some overlooked incident which might throw light on her father'smysterious death. There was one thing over which she had frequentlypuzzled without arriving at any interpretation of it. She thought of itnow. She saw herself stealing f
rom her father's room with the sound of hislast awful words ringing through her being. Beneath, near the foot of thestaircase, she could see Thalassa waiting, the glow of the tiny hall lightfalling on his stern listening face. She was walking along the passage togo to him when some impulse impelled her to glance through a window whichlooked out on the moors and the rocks near the house.
Her eyes had fallen on a shape, shrouded in the obscurity of the rocks notfar from the window, which seemed to have some semblance to the motionlessfigure of a man. She had stood there for a moment, glancing down intently,but it had not stirred. If it had human semblance, it seemed to be carvedin stone. She came to the conclusion that she was mistaken. Experience hadtaught her what strange shapes the rocks took after nightfall. Withanother fleeting glance she had hurried downstairs, and from the house.
She thought about it now without arriving at any conclusion as to what itwas that she had seen so indistinctly--whether man or rock. Charles hadbeen up there that night, but it was not Charles. This figure or rock wason the other side of the house.
Stupor descended gradually on her tired brain like the coming of darkness,and she fell into sleep--the first rest that had visited her since shelearnt of Charles's arrest. But her slumber was disturbed by dreams. Shedreamt that she was back in Cornwall, sitting on her old perch at the footof the cliffs, looking at the Moon Rock. The face in the Rock was watchingher, as it had always watched her, but this time with a dreadful sneerwhich she had never seen before. It frightened her so that she moaned andtossed uneasily, and awoke with a cry, shaking with terror.
As she reached out her hand for the matches by the bedside to light thegas, the sound of the front door-bell pealed through the house. Sisilysprang up, her eyes seeking to pierce the darkness, her ears listeningintently. Who could it be? She was alone in the house. Mrs. Johns had goneto one of her spiritualistic meetings, and was not likely to be home untillate. Besides, she had her own key, with which she always let herself in.She crept cautiously to the window and strained her eyes downward. She wasjust able to catch a glimpse of two vague figures underneath in thedarkness. The light of the street lamp glinted on something one of themwas wearing on his head. It was a policeman's helmet.
The terror of the hunted took possession of her. She sought to remaincalm; her trembling lips essayed a sentence of a prayer. But it was nouse. She was too young for philosophy or Christian resignation. Terrorshook her with massive jaws. She did not want to be caught, to be put inprison, to be killed. She wandered aimlessly about the room like a trappedcreature. She must escape--she would escape!
With a great effort she calmed herself to reflect--to calculate if therewas any chance of getting away. She esteemed it fortunate that she had notlit the gas in her room. The whole house was in darkness. The policemanmight think there was nobody in, and go away. But she dared not reckon onthat.
There came another and louder ring of the bell downstairs.
Again she crept to the window and looked down. The policeman and the otherman were conferring in a murmur which reached her ears. The policemanstepped back into the garden path and scanned the darkened windows of thehouse. She shrank back from the window.
The ring was followed by the sound of knocking at the front door--knockingheavy and prolonged, which reverberated solemnly through the silent house.Then once more there was silence.
In her ignorance of the methods of the law she wondered wildly whether thenext step would be to break in the door and search the house. Terror shookher again at this thought, scorched her with burning breath. She wouldescape--she must. But how? Her fingernails pierced the palms of her handsas she vainly tried to think out a way. Should she hide somewhere? Sherejected that plan as impracticable. The back way? But there was nooutlet--only a small garden abutting on other back gardens. There was adark side street only a few houses away. If she could only reach it....
She stood quite motionless, expecting the knocking to start again. But itdid not. She thought she heard the shuffle of feet and husky whispers inthe garden path underneath, but she could not be sure of that. What werethey doing? Why were they so silent? "Suppose they got in through thewindow?" she whispered to herself. Her soul died within her at thatthought. She tried to assure herself that the windows were locked, but herstaring eyes peopled the invisible staircase with creeping figures. Thedarkness grew intense and terrifying, like a rushing black torrent flowingover her head. She was alone, in an empty world ... The torrent ceased,and the darkness took the form of a great sable wing, moving, flapping,seeking to enfold her. She put up her hands to ward it off.
At that instant a sharp and decisive sound reached her. It was the clickof a shut gate. As she recognized the sound a new thought came to her--ahope, when hope seemed gone. She stepped noiselessly to the window andlooked down. She was just in time to catch a glimpse of two retreatingfigures revealed in dark contour beneath the rays of the street lamp. Thenext moment they passed out of sight.
They had gone! But they would return--she felt sure of that. She must getaway at once before they did--run out of the door and make for the sidestreet.
She listened for a moment longer. There was no sound anywhere now. Thehouse was lapped in absolute quietness. She felt for her hat, and calmingher nerves with a desperate effort, stole quickly from the room anddownstairs. As she stood in the silent hall, facing the closed door, sheagain thought she heard whisperings. She recoiled in fear, wondering ifthey were outside, waiting. It was her worst ordeal yet. Then desperationconquered her terror. Her trembling fingers pulled back the bolt, and sheissued forth.
There was no one there to check her flight. The streets seemed empty.Without turning her head she ran past the houses which intervened betweenher and the side street. She gained it, and turned into its friendlydarkness. She was as free as a bird again, for the moment.
A kind of exultation seized her at this unexpected deliverance from heradventure, but that mood passed as she reflected upon her presentposition. She had left the house without her few belongings, and what wasfar worse, without her money, which she kept in a hand-bag locked up inher small case in the bedroom she had just left.
She had not a penny in the world, and she dared not go back.
That was not the moment to reflect upon the grimness of her situation. Thesound of approaching footsteps shaped her fears of capture into renewedaction. She walked rapidly away.
The time was near midnight, and the streets were almost empty. She kepther way along dark obscure streets, shunning the lighted thoroughfares.She had no settled plan in her mind, except to keep on. Hers was theinstinct of the hunted creature for darkness and obscurity. Her feveredspirit hurried her along, spurring her with the menace of an imprisonmentwhich was worse than the cramped horror of the grave. In the grave therewas no consciousness of the weight of the earth above, but in prison, heldlike an animal, watched by horrible men, beating despairing hands againstlocked doors--ah, no, no! Her free young body and soul revolted withnausea at the thought. Death would be better than that. She walked stillmore rapidly.
With that possibility impending she shrank from any chance contact withpassers-by, turning into side streets to avoid any one she saw coming.Once, a policeman, appearing unexpectedly out of the shadows, set herheart beating wildly, but he passed by without looking at her.
It grew later, and the streets became quite deserted. She had been walkingfor more than an hour when she noticed that the houses were scattered,with open spaces now and then, and a bracing freshness in the air whichsuggested that she was getting away from where the herds of London slept,into open spaces. For some obscure reason this made her nervous, and sheturned back. After a while London closed in on her again, but this time ina more squalid quarter, a wilderness of dirty narrow streets, where evenin the darkness the debasing marks and odours of squalid poverty wereperceptible in the endless rows of houses which seemed to crowd in uponher. She came to a bridge and crossed it into an area of gaunt anddarkened factories. Here, strange nocturna
l noises and sights frightenedher. She saw shadowy forms, and heard rough voices on a wharf in theblackness of the river beneath her, followed by a woman's scream. She ranwhen she heard that--ran along the riverside till she came to anotherbridge, which she recrossed. She found herself in a quieter and betterpart of London, where the streets were wide and well-kept, and sheslackened her pace into a walk again.
The night wore on like eternity, with immeasurable slowness yet incredibleswiftness. She had been walking for hours, and yet she had no feeling offatigue. She seemed to move through the streets without any effort of herown. Towards the morning she was carried along with a complete absence ofbodily sensation, as if she had been in very truth one of thosedisembodied spirits of Mrs. Johns' spirit world, driven through thesolitude of the ages by the implacable decree of some incalculablemalignant force called immortality. She felt as though centuries of timehad rolled over her head when the murk of the lowering sky lightened, andthe London dawn was born, naked and grey.
The dawn brought London to life with a speed which was in the nature of amiracle. From the appearance of the first workers to the flocking of thestreets, was, as it were, but a moment. The 'buses and trams commencedrunning, and shops opened. Sisily found herself walking along Holborn,where the thickening crowds jostled her as she walked. But she did notcare for that now, nor did she seek the comparative seclusion of the sidestreets. Her fear of capture had passed away, and her only feeling wasimpenetrable isolation and loneliness. The people who were passing had nomore existence to her than if they had been a troop of ghosts. She had thesensation of belonging to another world and could not have communicatedwith them if she had wished. But the spirit which had sustained her duringthe night disappeared with the clamorous advance of the day. She became inan instant conscious of the grievous pangs of a body which seemed to havebeen flung back to her in a damaged state. It ached all over. Her headthrobbed with a dull buzzing sound, and she was so tired that she couldhardly stand. She felt as if she must lie down--in the street, anywhere.And she was tormented by thirst. But she still kept on.
She found herself, after a while, by one of those little backwaters whichare the salvation of strangers to London: a green railed square, withtrees and fountains, and a quiet pavement where a street artist wasdrawing bright pictures with crayons. An old four-wheeler was moored inthe gutter by the entrance, the horse munching in the depths of anose-bag, the elderly driver reclining against the side of the cab,smoking and watching the pavement artist.
Sisily entered the empty square to rest herself. As she sat there on oneof the wooden seats the full misery of her situation came home to her, andshe asked herself anxiously what she was to do. She had nowhere to go, andno money to buy food or shelter--nothing in the world that she could callher own except the clothes she was wearing. They were the coat and skirtshe had put on to come to London, and she noticed with feminine concernthat the dark cloth showed disreputable stains and splashes of her night'sexposure. Hastily she took her handkerchief from her pocket to remove thetell-tale marks. As she did so a bit of buff cardboard fluttered on to thegravel at her feet. She stooped and picked it up. It was the return halfof her ticket to Cornwall.
The remembrance of her arrival at Paddington revived in her as she lookedat it--the fright she had had when the ticket collector caught her by thearm to return half of the whole ticket she had given up. She had put theticket in the pocket of her jacket and never thought of it again. Had Fatedecreed her original mistake of taking a return ticket when she neededonly a single one? She was at that moment inclined to think so.
The question of its use was decided as soon as she saw it. The ticketwould take her back to Cornwall and Thalassa. Thalassa would help andshield her.
The gilt hands of a church clock opposite the square pointed to half-pasteight. She knew that the morning express for Cornwall started shortlyafter ten, but she did not know what part of London she was in or thedirection of Paddington. Animated by a new hope, she left her seat andasked the cabman for directions.
The cabman looked at her with a ruminating eye. That eye, withunfathomable perspicacity, seemed to pry into her empty pockets and pierceher penniless state. He did not ask her if she wanted to be driven there,but intimated with a shake of his grey head that Paddington was a goodishwalk. Then he gave her directions for finding it--implicit and repeateddirections, as though his all-seeing eye had also divined that she was astranger to the ways of London.
Sisily thanked him and turned away, repeating his directions so that sheshould not have to ask anybody else. First to the right, second to theleft, along Tottenham Court Road to Oxford Street, up Oxford Street toEdgeware Road, down Edgeware Road to Praed Street--so it ran. She followedthem carefully, and found herself on Paddington station a quarter of anhour before the departure of the express.
She entered a third-class carriage, but sat in a corner seat, longing forthe train to move out. The minutes dragged slowly, and passengers keptthronging in. All sorts of people seemed to have business in Cornwall atthat late season of the year. They came hurrying along in groups lookingfor vacant compartments. Sisily kept an eager eye upon the late arrivals,hoping that they would pass by her compartment. By some miraculous chanceshe was left undisturbed until almost starting time, then a group of fatwomen dashed along the platform with the celerity of fear, and crowdedponderously in. The next moment the train began to slip away from thestation, and was soon rushing into the open country at high speed.
Of the details of that journey she knew nothing at all. She sat staringout of the window, her thoughts racing faster than the train. The eventsof the last few days receded from her mental vision like the flying housesand fields outside the carriage window, fading into some remote distanceof her mind. Relief swelled in her heart as the train rushed west andLondon was left farther and farther behind. Something within her seemed tosing piercingly for joy, as though she had been a strange wild birdescaping from captivity to wing her way westward to the open spaces by thesea. London had frightened her. Its crowded vastness had suffocated her,its indifference had appalled her. She had felt so hopelessly alone there;far lonelier than she had ever been in Cornwall or Norfolk. Nature couldbe brutal, but never indifferent. She could be friendly--sometimes. Thesea and the sky had whispered loving greetings to her, but not London.There was nothing but a hideous and blank indifference there. She was gladto get away--away from the endless rows of shops and houses, from theunceasing throngs of indifferent people, back to the lonely moors ofCornwall, to look down from the rocks at the sea, and breathe the keengusty air.
As the journey advanced and the train swept farther west she became dull,languid, almost inert. Lack of food and the previous night's exposureinduced in her a feeling of giddiness which at times had in it somethingof the nature of delirium. In this state her mind turned persistently toThalassa, and the object of her return to him. She was struggling towardshim, up great heights, under a nightmare burden. She seemed to see himstanding there with his hands outstretched, ready to lift the burden offher shoulders if she could only reach him. Then she was back in thekitchen at Flint House, watching him bending over his lamps, listening tothe wicked old song he used to sing--
"The devil and me we went away to sea, In the old brig 'Lizbeth-Jane...."
The train caught up the refrain and thundered it into her tired head ..."Went away to sea, went away to sea, In the old brig 'Lizbeth-Jane." And,listening to it, she fell into a dazed slumber.
She awoke with a start to find that it was getting dusk and the train wasrunning smoothly through South Cornwall. As she looked out of the window agrey corpse of a hill seemed to rise out of the sea. It was Mount St.Michael. Then she caught a glimpse of Carn Brea and the purple moors. Thepeople in the carriage began to collect light luggage and put on coats andwraps. The next moment the train came to a standstill at Penzance station.
She clung to the safety of the throng in passing through the barrier,fearing most the St. Fair wagonette which might
be drawn up outside. Shewas not known in Penzance, but the driver of the wagonette might recognizeher. But Mr. Crows, indifferent to shillings, had not yet arrived. Sisilyhurried past a group scanning the distant heights for the gaunt outline ofthe descending cab, like shipwrecked mariners on the look-out for a sail.
She reached the moor road by a short cut through the back part of thetown, and set out for Flint House in the velvety shadows of the earlygloaming.
It had been raining, but the rain had ceased. The sun, hidden through along grey day, shone with dying brilliance in a patch of horizon blue,gilding the wet road, and making the wayside puddles glitter like mirrors.A soddened little bird twittered joyfully in the hedge, casting a roundblack eye at her as she passed. The moors, carpeted with purple, stretchedall around her, glistening, wet, beautiful.
In the train she had felt hungry and tired, with burning head and coldlimbs. As she walked these feelings wore off, and were replaced by afeeling of upliftment which was magical in its change. Her misery and herburden dropped from her. The softness of the moors was beneath her feet,and a sweet wind touched her lips and cheeks with a breath which was acaress. The plaintive distant cry of a gull reached her like a greeting.The solitude of Cornwall surrounded her.
When she reached the cross-roads she struck out across the moors. Beforeher, at no great distance, she could see the swelling mountainous reachesof green water breaking on the rocks in a long white line of foam, and thedark outline of Flint House clinging to the dizzy summit of the blackbroken cliffs.
Her false strength failed her suddenly as she neared her journey's end.The house loomed dimly before her tired vision in the fast gatheringdarkness. She stumbled with faltering steps round the side of the houseto the kitchen door, and turned the handle. It was locked. She knockedloudly.
As in a vision she saw the white furtive face of Mrs. Thalassa peering outat her from the window, and her fluttering hands pressed against theglass, as though to thrust her back. Sisily rushed to the window.
"Let me in!" she cried. "It is I--Sisily."
The window opened suddenly, and Mrs. Thalassa stood there looking out ather like a small grey ghost--a ghost with watchful glittering eyes.
"Go away--go away," she whispered with a cunning glance. "Quick! They'relooking for you--they'll catch you."
Sisily's heart went cold within her. "Where is Thalassa?" she faltered."Send him to me--tell him I have come back." Her eyes travelled vainlyaround the gloom of the empty kitchen in search of him.
"He's gone--gone away!"
"Gone? Oh, no, no! Don't say that. Where has he gone?"
"I don't know. He went away. He's not coming back." She shook her headangrily, with a wild gleam in her eye. "You go away, too, or they'll catchyou--the police. They come every night to look for you."
She cast another cunning look at the girl, and shut down the window.Sisily could see her reaching up and fumbling with the lock. Thalassagone! Despair clutched her with iron hands, and held her fast. She glancedup at the window of her father's study, and thought she saw the dead manthere, his stern face looking coldly down upon her. She turned awayshuddering. Where could she go? She had nowhere to go, and she knew herstrength would not carry her much farther.
She plunged blindly into the shelter of the great rocks near the house.She found herself wandering among them like a being in a dream. Thencomplete unconsciousness overtook her, and she sank down.
When she came to herself again night had descended and a storm wasbrewing. She sat up wonderingly and looked around her, indifferent to therain which had commenced to fall on her uncovered head. Graduallyremembrance came back to her. She saw that she was lying on the great slabof basalt which overhung the Moon Rock. She could hear the beat of the seafar beneath her, but she felt no fear. She was not conscious of her bodyor limbs--of nothing but a burning brain, and wide-open eyes which gazedout into the darkness and stillness around her.
As she looked it seemed to her startled imagination that the masses ofrocks which littered the edge of the cliff moved closer to each other,starting out of the shadows into monstrous grotesque life, then circlinground her in a strange and dizzy whirl. It was as though the old Cornishgiants had come back to life for a corybantic dance with the demirips oftheir race--dancing to the music of the sea sucking and gurgling into thecaves at the base of the cliffs. With swimming eyes Sisily watched themcareering and pirouetting around her. Faster and faster they went,advancing, retreating, bending clumsily, then wavering, toppling, reeling,like giants well drunk. A great stone fell into the sea with a splash, asif dislodged by a giant foot. As though that signalled the cockcrow oftheir glee, the dancers stopped in listening attitudes, and sank back intorocks once more.
Sisily turned her eyes weakly from the slumbering rocks to the hills. Thelight of a coming moon behind them showed the outline of the granitepillars and stone altars of the Druids, where they had once sought toappease their savage gods, like the Israelites of old. Sisily had oftenmeditated by these places of sacrifice, trying to picture the scene. Now,as she looked, it was enacted before her eyes. A red light brooded on oneof the hills, growing brighter and brighter. Brutish shaggy figures cameout of the darkness, dragging a youth to the altar. Sisily saw himdistinctly. He was naked, with a beautiful face, haggard and white, andwas bound with cords. Suddenly he freed himself, and dashed down the slopeinto the darkness. He was pursued and brought back, and the cries of hispursuers mingled with an appalling scream for help which seemed to floatdown the mountain side to where she lay, filling the silent air withechoes.
This scene, too, faded away, and the beams of the rising moon, nowbeginning to show over the hill-tops, formed in her mind the mirage of abeautiful day--one of those exquisite days which Nature produces at longintervals. Sisily saw a blue sky, sunlight like burnished silver, greenfields and clear pools in which everything was reflected ... a slumbrousperfect day, with drowsy cattle knee-deep in grass, bees, and floatingbutterflies, and the shrill notes of happy birds.
Once more the tangled loom of her fevered brain wove a new picture. Shewas back in her bedroom at Flint House, looking down at the graven face ofthe Moon Rock. As she looked, a great hand seemed to come out of the seaand beckon to her. The summons was one she dare not disobey. She left herbed, crept downstairs in the darkness, out to the edge of the cliff, andlooked down. The face of the Moon Rock was watching her intently. Shethought it called her name.
Ah, what was that cry? She came to her senses, startled, and lookedfearfully round her. She was alone on the cliffs, above the Moon Rock, andshe could hear the sea hissing at its base. But what else had she heard?Had somebody called her name? It was still very dark. To the south thelight of the Lizard stabbed the black sky with a white flaming finger asif seeking to pierce the darkness of eternity. Nearer, the red light ofthe Wolf rock gleamed--a warning to passing souls flying southward fromEngland to eternal bliss to fly high above the rock where the spirit doglay howling in wait. Had the cry come from there?
"Sisily! Sisily!"
No. It was not the howl of the Wolf dog that she had heard. That was herown name. She crept closer to the edge of the cliff and looked down intothe sea--down at the Moon Rock. The old Cornish legend of the drowned lovecame back to her. Was Charles dead? and calling her to him? She would goto him gladly. She had loved him in life, and if he wanted her in deathshe would go to him.
She clutched a broken spur of rock on the brink and looked down to wherethe sea bored round the black sides of the Moon Rock. She could see herown pool too, lying peaceful and calm in the encircling arm of the rock.In her delirium she struggled to her feet and started to climb down theface of the cliff.
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