CHAPTER XIV
THE DEATH TRAPS
From the highest shoulder of the point she could see La Toucheclambering over the seaward rocks.
He seemed more in search of shells and seaweed than of Bompard. Then,climbing down, she reached the lower ground and struck off inland. Ifshe did not succeed in finding Bompard she would at least succeed inavoiding La Touche.
Right from the Lizard Point the plain stretched to higher ground whichmarked the beginning of the sea cliffs, great rocks strewed the way andthe ground was torn by the beds of small water courses, depressions thatwould suddenly become little rivers in the deluging rains; stuntedbushes huddled as if for shelter at the rock bases and the voice of thesea came here, broken and mixing with the whisper of the bushes to thewind.
This place had once been a glacier bed, rounded boulders standing inpools of water told that.
A gull flying in from the sea and carrying a fish in its beak drew herattention; it was being pursued by a larger gull. They were both of theBurgomaster type, but the fish carrier was noticeable on account of theintense blackness of its tail plumage.
As they passed the fish dropped, fell on a patch of yellow ground justin front of the girl, sank, and vanished.
She stopped dead and drew back with a chill at her heart. Then shepicked up a stone and cast it on the patch of ground. It vanished evenmore swiftly than the fish.
It was one of the bogs the men had spoken of. They had described thetreacherous ground as white, this was yellowish and not very noticeable,it was also death and another dozen steps would have led her into it.
She advanced cautiously, reached the border line and kneeling downpushed her hand into the yellow mud. It was like pushing it into a coldslimy mouth. She could scarcely draw it out again, when she did the mudwas clinging to her hand like a yellow glove.
She came back to one of the rock ponds and washed her hand, it was liketrying to get rid of treacle and, as she washed, she tried to fancy whatwould have happened but for the gull, tried to picture herself beingslowly pulled down into that cold darkness and entombed there forever.
Then, skirting the place of danger, she went on, cautiously, examiningcarefully the ground before her. She had not gone ten yards when itseemed to her that a patch right in front of her was ever so slightlydarker and moister looking than the ground she was treading.
She picked up a stone and cast it on the patch. It vanished. Then sheknew the feeling of the man who finds himself ambuscaded.
This place was a death trap, or, rather, a series of death traps, theremight be pits lying in wait for her quite unnoticeable. She turned andbegan to retrace her steps, so shaken that she would not trust even theground that she had already covered but kept testing it by castingstones before her.
From a little distance an observer might have fancied her engaged insome new sort of game.
Near the safety of the Lizard rocks her eyes, closely scanning theground before her, caught sight of something. It was a half-burnedmatch. No one else but Bompard could have dropped that match. He hadstarted without his tinder-box, had evidently found that match in hispocket, lit his pipe and walked on. There was only one direction inwhich he would have walked unless he had struck inland, which wasimprobable. He would have made as she had made to cross to the higherground.
Even if he had walked inland he would not have escaped, for, casting hereyes in that direction she could see yellow patches spreading betweenthe rocks.
She knew now what had become of Bompard, and with lips dry as pumicestone she began to climb till she reached the point where she had satthat morning. If the mud had taken Bompard, had he cried out? If so, LaTouche would have heard his cries, for the caves were not so far fromthe Lizard rocks.
La Touche was nowhere to be seen, but she had no fear about him, or onlythe fear that he would come back. Bompard was gone. Bompard was dead,she knew it as though she had seen him engulfed, and she was here alone,in this place, with La Touche.
She put her hand to her side automatically to make sure that the knifewas there. Then she sat with her eyes fixed on the distant islands,haze-purple in the light of the westering sun.
The thought of the boat on the beach came to her with the idea that shemight launch it and escape, make for the islands and put all that seabetween herself and the man she hated. But she could not launch the boatsingle-handed and, if she could, it would have been impossible to workit single-handed with those big oars.
She could see the boat from where she sat and the line of the beachleading away past the seal-nursery and the sea elephant strand to therocks that formed the north-eastern horn of the bay. In stormy weatherthose rocks would be invisible in the smoke of the breakers, to-day theywere clearly defined. She could see the great seals as they moved slowlyhither and thither and the ship's figure-head as it stood to this sideof them and, like a pin point of white the great white skull on thesands, a desolate scene, but almost benign when compared to the savageryof rocks and cliffs visible on her other side and that sinister plain,where the death traps were set and waiting with the patience ofmalignity for what might come to feed them.
She had fought the human failing that makes men brood and trouble aboutthe future, a failing that is mostly born of houses and artificial life;already the struggle against it was less. She was coming more and moreunder that which has dominion over all things that live in the open andhave to fight for life--the moment. If she had examined her own mind shewould have found that the death of Bompard, of which she felt certain,affected her far less than it would have done some days ago, that herdesire to escape to the islands was caused by the hatred of La Touchemore than by fear of the future with him.
She would have found that her capacity for hatred had increased and alsoher dangerous qualities, and she would have found all this because Godhad so ordered life that it is adaptable, making the defensive andoffensive qualities of the being capable of increase or decrease inanswer to environment or need.
She came back to the beach. It wanted, still, a couple of hours ofsun-down. There was no sign yet of La Touche, but, just as she knew inher heart that Bompard was dead she knew that La Touche was all right.He had been keeping to the rocks by the sea, leaving that aside; sheknew that he would come back. He was of the sort that remains unscathedwhen the better man is taken.
She had one dread; that La Touche might get the knife from her, throw itaway, and be master by his superior strength.
She had his clasp knife in her pocket, but it was a thing of littleaccount in a struggle. Well, she must be on her guard. Then came thethought: "But how can I be on my guard when I am asleep?"
Nothing would be easier, if he were really in earnest, than for him tocreep upon her whilst she slept, and disarm her.
She tried to dismiss this idea. La Touche was not crafty enough for thatand, besides, would he go to the lengths of a physical struggle? He hadbeen on the point of hitting her, it was true, but that was in a momentof excitement. Was she not painting him in too desperate colours?
Argue as she would on the question, reason, instinctive reason, alwayscame back with the same answer: "Be on your guard, that knife is theonly barrier between you and heaven knows what. Without it you would beat the mercy of a superior force. La Touche is no melodramatic villain;he is, what is perhaps worse for you, a creature of low instincts,stronger than you. Beware of being at his mercy."
With her mind filled by these thoughts she set to work getting supperready. La Touche had taken the tinder box with him, so a fire was out ofthe question and she contented herself by laying out the beef that hadserved for dinner, and some biscuits.
Then she saw that she had only laid two plates. Workinghalf-unconsciously she had ruled Bompard out. She looked at the thingslying there on the sand, then she turned away from them. La Touche hadcrossed the rocks and was coming along the beach. He was trailing a longribband of seaweed he had picked up and as he drew closer she saw thathe had left his ill-humor behind him.
"
There was no sight of Bompard," said he, "he has not come back, then?"
"Bompard will not come back," replied the girl, "we will never see himagain."
Then she told of the death traps beyond the rocks and of the match.
La Touche listened, standing, and still holding the ribband of seaweedin his fingers.
She could see that he believed what she said and yet his words gave thelie to what was in his face.
"Oh, Bompard will come back all right," said he. "He's not such a foolas to get into any of those bogs; he's sulking, that's all."
He shaded his eyes, looking back towards the rocks as though on thechance of seeing the missing one; then he sat down before his plate andhelped himself to food and the girl, loathing him and the food as well,sat down and made a pretence of eating.
She noticed that he was cheerful, for a wonder. He ate with goodappetite and shewed in his movements and manner and voice when he spokea restrained vivacity new to him.
His blondness, the washed-out blue of his eyes, his features, his voice,she considered all these anew as she sat opposite to him. It seemed toher that anything truly manly about him had come from the sea; thatessentially he was a product of Mont Martre or the Banlieu of old Paris.She loathed him now as only a woman can loathe a man and, woman-like,her loathing focussed itself upon his blondness and the colour of hiseyes.
Then, when she had done with the pretence of eating she rose up and,leaving him to remove the things, walked down to the water's edge andalong towards the break in the cliffs.
The tide was nearly out and the sea scarcely broke on the rocks; she hadnever seen it calmer nor the islands closer. They seemed to have drawnin shore during the last half hour and as she looked she saw a greatflock of gulls coming landward, and, as she turned to watch them, shenoticed the far-off mountain tops visible through the cliff break. Theywere fuming. One might have fancied that fires had been lit all alongtheir tops and round the highest peak a turban of cloud was windingitself, coil on coil.
Then as she stood watching, and from away over, there came a rumble,deep and cavernous, as if a gargantuan dray were being driven oversubterranean roads. It died out in echoes amongst the foothills andthe silence returned broken only by the wash of the sea on the beach.
She turned towards the sea. It had altered suddenly in colour and fromaway beyond the islands the wind was coming. She could see it, rakingthe sea like a comb. Then it struck the beach and yelled away up thebreak in the cliffs like a hunter in a hurry to get to the wild workgoing on amidst the hills.
She turned back towards the caves.
La Touche had left the tin plates lying on the sand and the wind, whichseemed to possess a hundred fingers, was chasing them about. He wastrying to recapture them and as he brought them back he laughed. It wasthe first time she had seen him laugh. Then as he stowed them away heshewed a disposition towards intimacy and talkativeness.
"That's what the winds are in this place," said he, "no wonder shipssteer clear of it."
"I'm not thinking of the wind," said she, "I'm thinking of Bompard."
"Oh, Bompard will come back all right," said he, "the grub's here andthat will bring him. Bompard will come back all right."
"No," said she, "he will never come back and you know it."
She turned away from him. Dusk was now falling and as she entered hercave the wind from the sea suddenly fell dead. Almost immediately itbegan to blow again, but now from the land and as though this land windwere spreading a pall over the sky darkness fell suddenly and with thedarkness she could hear the rain coming with the sound she had heardonce before like the murmuring of a great top spun by a giant.
Then the rain burst on the beach with a roar through which came the hissof the rain-swept sea.
The sound was almost welcome. As she lay in the darkness it seemed likea protecting wall between herself and La Touche. La Touche's ill-temperwould have disturbed her less than his cheerfulness and amiability, bornso suddenly and from no apparent reasons. She had determined not tosleep and she had lain down fully dressed; even to the oilskin coat andwith her boots on; to-morrow she would go off and hide amongst thebushes beyond the cliff break and get some sleep, but to-night she wouldnot close her eyes; so she told herself.
She had taken the knife from its sheath and placed it beside her, herhand rested on it. An hour passed, and now, as she lay listening to thepouring of the rain her fingers felt the pattern of the hilt. The hiltwas striated cross-ways to give a better grip, and as her fingerswandered up and down the strictions the cross bars of a ladder weresuggested to her. The steady pouring of the rain seemed to work on thisidea and make it more real. Then she was climbing a ladder set againstthe cliffs. La Touche was holding it at the foot and Bompard was waitingfor her at the cliff top. He helped her up and then the dream changedto something else, and to something else, till she woke suddenly to therecognition that she had been asleep for a long time and that fear,deadly fear, was clutching her by the throat.
She sat up, leaning on her elbow. The rain was still falling, though thesound of it was much less, and the blackness was so intense that itseemed moulded round her. She felt for the knife and found it. Then shelay down again, listening.
The tide was coming in and she recognised, and not for the first time, acurious singing, chanting echo that always accompanied the waves of theincoming tide.
Fear is reasonless, it is also Protean, and this sea voice comingthrough the night turned the fear of La Touche to the fear of Bompard.What if he were to return, cold and wet, from that terrible grave-yardbeyond the rocks?