The Beloved Traitor (Mystery Classic). Frank L. Packard

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СКАЧАТЬ Gaston, the Perigeau, all were living before him in a daze now—the brain became subordinate to the bodily exhaustion. There was only a jumbled medley of hell and death and eternal struggle around him, and a subconsciousness that for him too the end had come—the good Father Anton would say a requiem mass for him—and Bernay-sur-Mer would tell its children that Jean would never make any more of the clay poupées for them—and the children would cry—and it was all very droll.

      He pulled on, mechanically, doggedly. His face was wrinkled where the muscles twisted in pain, drops that were not rain nor spray stood out in great beads upon his forehead, his back seemed breaking, his arms useless things that writhed with the strain upon them.

      Wild thoughts came to him. Why should he struggle there against the pitiless strength that was greater than his, until he could no longer even meet the waves with the bow of his boat, until they would turn him over and over and afterwards roll him upon the shore, where Papa Fregeau, perhaps, would find him! See, it would be a very easy matter to stop while he had yet a little strength left to guide the boat—and run with the waves—and it would rest him—and by the time he got to the shore he would be quite strong enough again to fight his way through the breakers. His lips moved, teeth working over them, biting into them, tinging them with blood. It came out of this hell and these storm devils around him, that thought! Marie-Louise was waiting, was she not, upon the Perigeau—and when the tide was high and the sea was calm one could row over the Perigeau, and sometimes see a dragonet, with the beautiful blue and yellow marking on its white scaleless body, looking for food in the rock crevices out of its curious eyes that were in the top of its head!

      A flicker of light! Yes—yes—the lantern! He was abreast of it again. The good God had not deserted him! He was still strong—there was iron in his arms again—the torture of pulling was gone. He could feel the boat lift now to the stroke.

      He pulled, taking his breath in catchy sobs. The boat swept downward into a great trough, rose again, trembling, balancing on the next crest—and the light had disappeared. A cry gurgled from Jean's throat, impotent, full of anguish. It was an hallucination, a torture of the devil! No! There it was once more—he caught it on the next rise, and each succeeding one now. And he, not it now, was making headway seaward. He was across the tide-race, it was the Madonna who had prayed for him! and in another little while, soon now, just as soon as the lantern showed a little further astern, he would get the lee of the Perigeau itself—it would be broken water, but it would be like a child's effort then. And that!—what was that!

      "Jean!"—it came ringing down with the wind, a brave, strong voice. "Jean!"

      It was Marie-Louise! His strength was the strength of a god again. He shot a hurried glance over his shoulder—it was done—but one had need for care that the boat should not thrash itself to pieces on the rocks. Yes; he saw her now—like a dark, wind-swept wraith.

      "To the right, Jean—there is landing to the right!" she called.

      "Ay!" he shouted back; and, standing, swung in the boat.

      The bow touched the edge of the rocks, grated, pounded, receded, and came on again—there was no beach here—only the vicious swirl and chop of the back-eddy. But as the keel touched again, Jean sprang over into the water; and as he sprang, a figure from the rocks rushed in waist deep to grasp the boat's gunwale on the other side—and across the bow, very close to him, Marie-Louise's white face was framed in the night. It was very dark, he could not see her features distinctly, but he had never seen Marie-Louise look like that before—it was not that her face was aged, nothing, bon Dieu! could take the springtime from that face, but it was very tired, and frightened, and glad, and full of grief.

      "Jean, ah, Jean, you—" the wind carried away her words. Then she shouted louder, a curious break, like a half sob, in her voice. "Uncle Gaston is hurt—very, very badly hurt. He is up there a little way on the reef. You must carry him. And if you hurry, Jean, I can hold the boat."

      "Gaston—hurt!" he cried in dismay. "You are sure then you can hold the boat, and—"

      "Yes, yes, if you hurry, Jean—he is there, a few yards back, a little to the left."

      "Guard yourself then that it does not pull you off your feet!" he cautioned anxiously, and began to scramble from the water and up the slippery, weeded rocks.

      And then, a few yards back on the ledge, as she had said, just out of the reach of the spray that lashed the windward side of the Perigeau, he came upon an outstretched form—and, kneeling, called the other's name:

      "Gaston! It is I—Jean Laparde!" He bent closer—one could not hear for the diable wind! "Gaston!" There was only a low moaning—the man was unconscious. "'Cré nom d'une forte peine!" muttered Jean, with a sinking heart, and picked up the other tenderly in his arms.

      But it was not easy, that little way back to the boat. Burdened now, the wind behind his back sent him staggering forward before he could find footing, and ten times in the dozen steps he lurched, slipped and all but fell before, close to the boat again, he laid Gaston down upon the rocks.

      "We must bale out the boat, Marie-Louise," he shouted, wading quickly into the water; "or with what we take in on the way back she will not ride. See, I will hold it while you bale—it will be easier for you."

      She answered something as she set instantly to work, but her words were lost in the storm. And Jean, through the darkness, as he gripped at the boat, watched her, his mind a sea of turmoil like the turmoil of the sea about him. Gaston was hurt—yes, very badly hurt, it would seem—how had it happened?—how had they come, Marie-Louise and Gaston, to be upon the Perigeau?—and he, who had given up hope, who had thought to perish out there in that crossing, he, too, was on the Perigeau—the way to get back was to run straight in with the bay—it would not be so hard if they could out-race the waves—if the waves came in over the stern it would be to swamp and—God had been very good to let them live and—

      Marie-Louise's hand closed over his on the gunwale.

      "It is done, Jean—what I could do," she said. "I will hold the boat again while you lift Uncle Gaston in."

      And suddenly Jean's heart was very full.

      "Marie-Louise, Marie-Louise!" he said hoarsely—and while her hands grasped the rocking boat, his crept around the wet shoulders for an instant, and to her face, and turned the face upward to his, and, in that wild revelry of storm, kissed her; and with a choked sob he went from her then and picked up the unconscious form upon the rocks.

      And so they started back.

      There was no sweep of tide to battle with now—the waves bore them high and shot them onward, shoreward; and the storm was wings to them. But there was danger yet; on the top of the crests it was like a pivot, each one threatening to whirl them broadside and capsize them on the breathless rush down the steep slope that yawned below—that, and the fear that the downward rush, breathless as it was, would not be fast enough to escape the crest itself, which, following them always, hanging over them like hesitant doom far up above, trembling, twisting, writhing, might break in a seething torrent and, sweeping over them, engulf them. It was not so hard now, the way back, there was not the pitiless current that numbed the soul because the body was so frail; but all the craft Jean knew, all the strength that was his was in play again.

      The boat swept onward. Marie-Louise was crouched in the stern supporting Gaston's head upon her lap. Jean could not see her face. When he dared take his eyes for an instant from the racing waves behind her, he looked at her, but he could not see her face—it was bent always over Gaston's head. And a fear grew heavy in Jean's heart—the old fisherman СКАЧАТЬ