Beached Keels/Blue Peter/Chapter 6
VI
All night a land-breeze swept overhead from the north, as if streaming down an interminable valley. Despite his weariness, he slept ill; his dreams were a riot of pictures,—the firs, the gulls, the witch-fire, Helen looking away from him at the sea, the boy rising, in fear, against the torchlight,—and through it all a troubled half-remembrance of the blow he had struck with the oar. When he woke, at sunrise, the wind had fallen. The house still lay drowned in sleep. He dressed, stole downstairs, and looked about for his cap, which he had left there two nights before. It was not to be found. He did not know then that Helen had taken it to her room, laughed and cried and committed pretty follies over it, and at last gone to sleep, intending to leave it in the hall before he should be up. So he went outdoors bareheaded.
The wind had swept away with it all vestiges of summer, and brought in a pure dawn of uncompromising autumn. The night had drawn a sharp line between the seasons. The air was crisp and chilly; gossamer-films of frost silvered the grass; and round the upper outline of the headland that shut off the south and east, a faint, cold smoke rose in the first warmth of morning. What remained of sky and sea was a dull sepia touched with flakes of pale yellow. Climbing over the fields to the pass, he was aware that some one sat waiting for him on the edge against the sky. He climbed faster. The figure resolved itself into the lean, solid body of Peter, his blue jersey, his heavy rubber boots rolled down below his knees in the fashion of some uncouth cavalier.
"How is he?" called up Archer. "How did it come out?"
The blue eyes under the blue-veined forehead looked down gravely, as Peter shook his head. Even through the dirty growth of beard, the lines of his face were hard and old. With fears suddenly full grown. Archer sprang upward and stood before him. Something made him wait for the other to speak.
"It's bad," said Peter, at last. "Bad;" and he stared out over the fields and the channel, like a steersman, who has the air of listening to talk in the boat while his eyes look miles out to sea. Then he said abruptly, "The boy's dead."
"Oh, Peter!" cried Archer, and was struck dumb. "Oh, my God, I'm sorry—I'm sorry for you." He could find no words, but the tone must have meant something, for the other suddenly lost his set composure, and covered his swarthy face and blue-scored forehead with his hands.
"I knowed you was a good feller all right," he said brokenly.
For a time neither spoke. It was Peter who began.
"I was up on the cliffs yesterday afternoon," he slowly declared, "and saw you. She heard me in the trees"—
"What!" cried Archer in surprise. And then with disappointment, "Well, I did n't think it of you, if"—
"Why," said the other, once more gazing off before him, "how was I to know, then? I had n't no means o' tellin' for sure that you was any diff'rent from the others"—
"Others!" Archer exclaimed, hotly and yet with wonder. "There are n't any others. That's a lie. There never were any."
The blue eyes looked squarely at him, deep, with a weary brightness.
"Oh, yes, the' was," the fisherman replied. "The' was one other. Wait!" he added sternly. "I'm slow at these things, but you 'll ketch my drift. It's eight years that I 've kep' an eye on her. Beaky was round after her. She never knowed it. The' was a girl ashore, over in town, he got after, that— Never mind. That was n't goin' to happen here, if I c'd stop it. I 've licked Beaky twice; and so long's he was on the island, I never left it,—never, for all his old man ordered me off. Don't ye see? When she'd go round down there all alone, playin',—God, I 've knowed 'er longer 'n you, anyway,—or up on the head—why, I was always round, spyin' out. Why, man, that's only why I stayed here." He looked down and fumbled with the dirty cloth lining of his boots, in a pathetic kind of bashfulness. "I'd never 'a' told this to a soul, but I see you was all square—an' meant right by 'er—an' how it was between ye. Well, she's never come to harm, an' 't was me that had the hand in that." He ground both fists between his knees, with the effort of expressing these long-stifled thoughts. Then he looked up once, in the pale light of sunrise. "I 'll ask ye to take that back what ye said about lyin'."
"I beg your pardon," said Archer, deeply humbled. "I took it wrong. I did n't understand all this. I beg your pardon."
"That's all right, then," he answered simply. "Now to come to the point. The' 's no time to lose. Beaky Lehane's paid for it. He's gone."
Sunlight, ledge, black firs, and circle of air, looked pale and sickly round Archer. He thought he could not have understood.
"You don't mean"—he began weakly, trying to stave off what he knew would be the truth.
"Yes," said Peter. "They found him 'bout four this mornin', on the beach."
Archer, wrestling with this thought, found that the fisherman had risen and was patting him roughly on the shoulder. "That's all right," he was saying. "Don't look so cut up. That's all right. 'T was n't you. He started out drunk—jus' got drowned, that's all. You did n't no more 'n give him a clip on the shoulder, jus' bruised him. That's straight. If ye had n't, I'd 'a' given worse to him. An' if ye had done it, I'd 'a' owed ye one. He's a good riddance. Don't ye see, sir, he was crooked, bad clean through. It's better for her now that he's gone. Don't take on, now. 'T was him that killed the little boy."
Archer was ashamed that he could receive better comfort than he had given this man. He pulled himself together.
"You said there was no time to lose," he ventured, remembering dizzily. "Well, what's to be done?"
"That's it!" cried Peter, with bitterness. "What? It's a bad business. Matt Lehane—the old man—they told 'im it was you that done for Beaky. He thinks it was about her—the girl. He 's down there ever since, holdin' a reg'lar devil's wake over 'im—it—there. An' drunk! Lord! But he don't lose his legs, nor his head; the drink jus' sharpens 'im. Well, he 'll git 'em all drinkin',—likely he's started that by now. Then he'll bring his gang up over here; it's you he's gunnin' for, but I won't answer for what 'll happen at Powell's, when they git started. It 'll be a pretty crowd. An' here's you an' me, an' old man Kellum,—an' p'raps Benny,—an' for a long guess Sebattis,—'cause Beaky was always cuffin' 'im round,—if he don't git drunk first. 'T won't do. 'T ain't enough of us. He 'll git fifteen or twenty,—the devil's rinsin's they are, too."
"I 'll go down and see him," said Archer. "That 'll keep them away from the house. I'm not afraid of him, I hope." And he told briefly of the encounter by the fire. "He did n't seem so terrible."
"That may all very well be—for last night," declared Peter, his blue eyes alight with keen thought. "He's rotten, an' a brute, but you must remember the' was jus' one good thing in 'im, he thought the world o' Beaky. He 's the only one to do that. Oh, I tell ye he's a devil anyway, an' worse when he's drunk. They 'll be too scairt not to foller 'im, anywheres he says. That's all that kep' 'em together as a gang. No, 't would jus' be murder if ye went down there now; an' you can't be spared. An' I'm not guessin' about this, for I went round, quick, too, to sneak a bo't,—mine got lost last night,—an' blessed if he ain't stole every pair o' oars out of every bo't. An' if we had 'em, it 'ud be no go, 'cause Benny's bo't's lent to his brother to go after smokewood, an' Kellum don't even own one,—poor old feller, he useter own a schooner once. An' the' ain't a stitch o' canvas on them pinkies. Oh, the Old Man's cute! He don't mean to have you git off this island. When he gits 'em lo'ded, he 'll go up to the house, an' whether you 're there or not, they 'll raise hell! An' now how 'll we stop 'em? We ain't got no guns. But the' 's axes an' bo't-hooks," he cried savagely. "We'll do for some one 'fore we git laid out."
"Powell let his boat go adrift last spring," Archer reflected, with bitterness. "There's just one way to get help. Swim it."
"By the Lord!" cried the other, astonished. Then shaking his head, "Can't live in that cold for two miles an' a half. An' it's slack water now. By young flood it 'll be the whirlpools."
"We must try it," said Archer. "It's been done once, years ago. I must take the chance. You delay them down there."
Blue Peter thought for a second, then nodded grimly. "You 're all right," he said. "I 'll put a spoke in his wheel. You 're all right. 'T won't be no easy job for 'em." He hesitated. "Look here, somethin' may happen. After this is over,—if she comes out of it all right,—I'm off for good, anyway. Nothin' left on this island for me. The poor little kid—he was what you call a—what is it?—massacree? no, they useter tell about 'em out o' the Bible—'sacrafice' the word? Well, he was bein' spoilt here in this crowd. Might 'a' gone to school an' learnt somethin'; but I kep' puttin' it off—usin' him to help me keep an eye out—he'd be up here watchin', whole afternoons. Might 'a' done better 'n me, nearin' thirty an' good for nothin' but fish. I want ye to promise me one thing," he jerked out. "Quick, 'cause we 've been standin' here talkin' too long."
"I 'll promise it," said Archer.
"Don't tell her—Helen," said Blue Peter, looking down, "none o' what I told ye—'bout me or the boy—an' our doin's. I knowed some one 'ud come along like you—I ain't a fool. Just you promise that."
"All right, then," said Archer. Suddenly he held out his hand. "Peter, you 're the best fellow I ever knew anywhere."
Their grip was strong but brief.
"I wish we'd 'a' growed up together—Hugh," said the fisherman. "Now hurry. Swim the best ye know how. I 'll hold on till you get back. That's my promise, for yours. I 'll hold 'em."
He went scrambling downward to his desperate politics. Archer bounded off down the slope, through the field and the frost-bitten rows of vegetables, to the back door.
The good old woman was lighting her kitchen fire. He cut short her wrinkled smile of welcome.
"Barbara," he said, snatching a bottle of oil from her shelf, "I must frighten you a little, but you must stand it, for Miss Helen's sake. There's danger from that crowd over in Black Harbor. Just how much I can't say. I'm going across to the town, and bring over some men to see no harm's done. But meantime, you must keep the house shut up, tight. Don't let them go out, or any one in."
The old woman's face looked very white, but there was pluck in her eyes.
"It's for Miss Helen's sake," he repeated. "Keep up your courage. I 'll be back."
"All right, Mr. Archer, sir," she faltered. "I 'll do it, sir."
He was off, running to the beach, and along it northward, to make his start as far as possible above the line where the whirlpool might appear. Ripping off his clothes, he ran naked down to the water's edge, doused the oil over his body, and rubbed hastily till the great white muscles glistened in the sun. He felt hollow from lack of food and sleep; the water stretched hopelessly far to the mainland; but the excitement as he ran splashing out, and the cold shock of the plunge, set his heart thumping stoutly. His first thought was one of despair,—"It's too cold." But he shut his mind to that, and clove his way ahead through the bright green water, swimming with a powerful side stroke. That lowness of vision over a flat surface which is peculiar to swimming made colors and lines abnormally distinct. With his cheek gouging through the water, he could see the ruddy cliffs retreating behind him, the greenness and the black shadows of little trees that clung in crevices, the pink curve of the beach, the shining, shifting lines of the water, his own legs, distorted by refraction till they looked ridiculously pale and green and thin, kicking away like alien marine things in pursuit of his body and of the big, glistening deltoid that capped his shoulder, strongly contracting and relaxing. Ahead, as he shot his arm forward, appeared his first distance mark, a white can-buoy two thirds of the way across the channel; beyond that, a broad eddy of the tide, a slightly raised surface, smooth and yellowish-white, like a sheet of ice, where hundreds of white gulls wheeled or floated in search of break- fast; and beyond these again, the wharves and meagre shipping of the town,—the square-rigged shapely tangle of his own ship, the Elizabeth Fanning.
The numbness began to leave him, though an ice-cold ring circled his neck where wind and water met. Like all swimmers, he grew confused in his sense of time, and had strange thoughts. Halfway to the can-buoy now; no longer slack water; must hurry. A half-eaten apple came bobbing peacefully toward him on the young flood. He wondered who had eaten it, and whether it were sweet or sour. But where the devil had all his Latin gone to? Her father had said "enaviganda." Did that mean it could be swum through, or it could n't? He suffered a morbid worry over the meaning of this word, as if it contained the secret of his present fate. The thing had been done—that fellow in '56. At all events, he shifted his stroke again, and swam on tediously.
Of a sudden he noticed that the apple was bearing rapidly down,—was alongside, on a little raised rim of water like a moving flaw in glass. Next instant he had spun about and was facing seaward. Something below twirled his legs violently.
"Hello!" he sputtered aloud. "Good Lord!" he thought. "This is bad. I must get out of this."
But the running ocean was stronger. The water hissed, curved on a slant, boiled upward, regurgitated in patches white as with melting snowflakes. A submarine force, gigantic and appalling, spun him round and round and whirled him downward. He wrestled frantically. His head sank inside a wide cylinder of smooth green glass, laced about spirally with running silver threads. His ears, long deafened by the noise of swimming, were filled with a strange roar. "Whirlpool! It's all up. I 'll see where it goes to, anyway," he thought insanely, and strained for a last breath as he shot under. In a green light he was slatted about dreadfully, spinning upright, then horizontal, his useless arms and legs flying wide and shaken. A giant weight, a personal, hateful weight, began pressing on his back, pressing him slowly down into the dark. Acute worry seized him because this thing was unfair—would not give him a chance to get just one more breath—was squeezing him down into a funnel, and he did not think the bore at the end was big enough to let him through. "Why," he thought, "why, this is It! This is dying. What they call Death!—I'm very sorry for them all up there." And then he thought, as suddenly, "Hold on! I can't yet, because before this sort of thing I'm due to come back to the island,—I 've drunk from her spring—Helen—that was the agreement"—But still he was pressed downward, and the pain grew heavy and dull. No one would ever tell her of the cold, the dark, the loneliness. It was all years ago, anyway, and very deep.
Slowly he was rising. "Where next?" he thought cynically. Perhaps it was over now, and this was just the fellow's soul going up, up. "No, by golly, there's too much pain about it. It's lighter— The sun— It's me, and I'm out— Air!"
He struck out in leaden imitation of swimming, just to take it up where he had left off; then stopped; then began again. He was more interested in a pale thing that accompanied him, large and speckled, like a potato, but twitching round the edges, round the nostrils. "Why, it's my nose, and I've got one eye shut. How silly!" The humor of this woke him up, and now he really swam. "I 've wasted a lot of time down there," he mourned.
Something large, white, and round came rushing at him through the water. The can-buoy,—the tide was carrying him past, he must n't lose that. He lashed out for it blindly, and managed to be flung against the slope. Though it dipped, swayed, and rolled, he slowly climbed up, over barnacles and painted sheet-iron, to where he could grasp the iron ring at the top. It must have been for a long time that he clung there. The tiny knives of the barnacles had sliced his legs, and blood ran in slow, red streams through the hair on his shins. "It's all up," he reflected, watching the tide race by. "I 've come through the upper tip-edge of the whirlpools, off there. Just a baby one that got me; but it's done the trick. This is a mighty poor exhibition. What will Peter say, and Helen?" The only answer was despair; he grew colder and weaker, his aching fingers loosened, time dragged on, and he longed to go to sleep.
There came a puffing from somewhere. He looked up to see a smoky, brindle-colored tug off to the left, making for the town. He waved one arm, and gave a feeble hail. Nothing happened. He tried again and again, without much hope. At last she gave a short toot of her whistle, came about, headed toward him, turned near at hand, and stood off in a lathering wake. Two staring men lifted him precariously into a rowboat, and pulled back through the sweep of tide.
"How many men have you got aboard?" he kept asking, as plainly as he could for the chatter of his teeth.
"He's bughouse," flatly asserted the man at the oars. "Lord, he's blue as my shirt. Git him down into the engine-room. Spike, an' give him a slug o' whiskey.—What'd ye try to swim it fer?—No use askin', he's bughouse."
Then all that Archer remembered was being lowered into the warm depths of the tug, and standing before the red blaze of the furnace door, with the water forming inky puddles round his feet in the coal dust. And the deck-hands choked him with vile Irish whiskey. Then he found himself talking lucidly with a fat, jovial, and astonished captain, and, by a last effort of the will, making him understand that he, Archer, this naked swimmer, could pay a hundred dollars to have a posse of men taken over at once to the island. And then they had touched at a wharf, where dozens of men had sprung aboard, shinning down the slimy green spilings. The tug was off again. The engineer gave him cotton waste to rub down with, and dressed him in a blue jumper and overalls. They sped past the can-buoy again, where already the whirlpools had vanished in the tide. Throughout this dream every one was wonderfully kind to him, and seemed to think him a decent fellow, somehow. The captain introduced him formally to Sheriff Moriarty, a keen, elderly man with a gnawed mustache, who asked many questions briskly, and kept repeating, "Always said so. Knew something of the kind would happen. Old man Powell's a fool. I knew it." And then in admiration, "Young man, there's few could have swum to that boo-y at any time of tide."
Yet all this was unreal; it was only when they steamed into the cove, and could see the close-shuttered house, that men and things seemed to Archer more than a tangled farce of dreams. Three boatloads pulled quickly landward. But as they rowed. Archer saw a little squad of men appear over the slope, running toward the house; and a man in a blue jersey was running with the first of them. The island was very still in the growing warmth of late forenoon.