CHAPTER XVIII.
THE SANDS.
Splendor in heaven, and horror on the main! Sunshine and storm at once--a troubled day; Clouds roll in brightness, and descend in rain. Now the waves rush into the rocky bay, Shaking the eternal barriers of the land; And ocean's face is like a battle-plain, Where giant demons combat hand to hand.
EBENEZER ELLIOTT.
It was a wild and wicked morning, in the first red light of which,Eadwulf, awakening from the restless and uneasy sleep into which hehad last night fallen, among the scattered brushwood growing on theseaward slope of the sand hills of Lancashire, looked across the widesands, now left bare by the recess of the tide, stretching away to thebleak coasts of Westmoreland and Cumberland, and the huge mountainridges, which might be seen indistinctly looming up blue and massivein the distance inland, distinguishable from clouds only by the hardabruptness of their outlines, as they cut sharp and clean against thelurid sky of the horizon.
Along the sea line, which lay grim and dark in ominous repose, theheaven's glared for a span's breadth, as it appeared to the eye, witha wild brassy light, above which brooded a solid belt of purple cloud,deepening into black as it rose upward, and having a distinct,solid-looking edge, scolloped, as it were, into huge rounded masses,as material as if they had been earthy hills, instead of mere piles ofaccumulated vapor.
These volumed masses lay motionless, as yet, in the brooding calm;but, all upward to the zenith, the sky was covered with tortured anddistracted wrack-wreaths, some black as night, some just touched bythe sun, which was arising unseen by mortal eyes behind thecloud-banks which mustered so thick to the eastward, and some glowingwith a fiery crimson gleam, as if they issued from the mouth of araging furnace.
Every thing was ominous of a storm, but every thing as yet was calm,tranquil, and peaceful. In the very quiet, however, there wassomething awful, something that seemed to whisper of coming horror.The wide sands lay gray and leaden at the feet of the observer,reflecting the lowering clouds which overhung them, except where thebrassy glare of the horizon tinged their extreme verge with an angryrust-colored hue, that seemed to partake the nature of shadow ratherthan of light.
The face of the Saxon fell as he gazed over the fearful waste, beyondwhich lay his last hope of safety; for, though he had never beforeseen those treacherous sands, he had learned much of their nature,especially from the outlaws, with whom he found his last shelter; andhe knew, that to cross them certainly and in safety, the passenger onfoot should set out with the receding tide, so as to reach the midlabyrinth of oozy channels and half-treacherous sand banks, throughwhich the scanty and divided rivers of the fair lakeland found theirway oceanward, when the water was at its lowest ebb.
Instead of this, however, so heavily had he slept toward morning, theutter weariness of his limbs and exhaustion of his body havingcompletely conquered the watchfulness of his anxious mind, that thetide had so long run out, leaving the sands toward the shore,especially at this upper end of the bay, bare and hard as a beatenroad, that it might well be doubted whether it had not already turned,and might not be looked for, ere he could reach the mid-channel,pouring in, unbroken, as it is wont to do in calm weather, over thoseboundless flats, with a speed exceeding that of horses.
There was no time for delay, however; for, from the report of thehorseman who had overtaken him just before twilight, he could notdoubt that his pursuers had not halted for the night farther than fiveor six miles in his rear; so that their arrival might be looked for atany moment, on any one of the headlands along the shore, whence theywould have no difficulty in discerning him at several miles distance,while traveling over the light-colored surface of the sands.
Onward, therefore, he hastened, as fast as his weary limbs could carryhim, hardly conscious whether he was flying from the greater danger,or toward it. He had a strong suspicion that the flood would be uponhim ere he should reach the channel of Kent; and that he should findit an unfordable river, girdled by pathless quicksands. He knew,however, that be his chances of escape what they might by persistingonward, his death was as certain, by strange tortures, as any thingsublunary can be called certain, should the Normans overtake him,red-handed from what they were sure to regard as recent murder.
On, therefore, he fled into the deceitful waste. At first, the sandswere hard, even, and solid, yet so cool and damp under the worn andblistered feet of the wretched fugitive, that they gave him animmediate sense of pleasurable relief and refreshment; and for threeor four miles he journeyed with such ease and rapidity as, compared tothe pain and lassitude with which on the past days he had stumbledalong, over the stony roads, and across the broken moors, that hisheart began to wax more cheerful, and his hopes of escape warmed intosomething tangible and real.
Ere long, the sun rose clear above the eastern fog-banks, and allseemed still fair and tranquil; the sands, dry as yet, and firm,smiled golden-bright under the increasing warmth and lustre of theday, and the little rivulets, by which the fresh waters oozed to thedeep, glittered like silver ribbons, checkering the yellow expanse.
The very gulls and terns, as they swooped joyously about his head,screaming and diving in the sunny air, or skimmed the sands in pursuitof such small fry as might have been left by the retreat of thewaters, seemed, by their activity and happiness, to give him freshhope and strength to support it.
Occasionally he turned, and cast a hurried glance toward the hills hehad just left, down which the slant rays were streaming, to the limitwhere the green grass and scattered shrubs gave way to the baresea-sands; and, as from each anxious scrutiny of the ground, hereturned to his forward progress without discovering any signs ofperil, his face lighted up anew, and he advanced with a freer and abolder foot.
Still so weary was he, and so worn with his past toils, that he madebut little real progress; and when he had been already an hour on thesands, he had accomplished little more than three miles of his route.The sands, from the point at which he had entered them, over againstthe city of Lancaster, and almost due west from that city to thenearest accessible headland of the opposite shore, were not less thannine miles in extent, the deepest and most dangerous parts being thosenearest to the farther coast; but, measured to the place for which hewas making, a considerable distance up the estuary of the Kent, theywere at least three miles longer.
Two or three channels the fugitive had already crossed, and wasrejoiced at finding the sandy bottom, over which the fresh waterflowed some two or three inches deep, perfectly hard and beaten; atthe end of his third mile he reached a broader expanse of water, wherethe sands were covered to the width of a hundred yards, and where thecurrent, if that might be called a current which had scarcely anyperceptible motion downward, took him nearly to the midleg. Thefoothold was, moreover, less firm than before, and his heavy broguessank to the latchet in the yielding soil. This was the course of thefirst and smaller of the two rivers which fall into the eastern sideof the bay from the county of Lancaster, and at about two milesdistant, he could see the course of the second, glittering blue amongthe low sand-rollers which divided them.
Here he paused, undecided, for a few moments. He knew not what shouldbe the depth of the water, or what the nature of the bottom; yetalready he almost doubted, almost feared, that the time was passed,and that the tide had turned.
He looked southward, in the direction of the sea, which lay broad inview, though at many leagues distance; and, for the first time, itstruck him that he could hear the moaning roll of its ever restlesswaves. He fancied, too, that the sands looked darker and more plashy,and that the silvery line which marked the margin of the waters, wherethe sun glinted on their quiet ripples, appeared nearer than when hehad descended from the solid strand.
But, on the other hand, the sun-lighted slopes and crags of theopposite Lancastrian shore, near Flockborough Head, and the greenpoint of Westmoreland, between the mouths of Windermere and the riverKent, lying in the full blaze of the unintercepted morning, lookedmuch neare
r than they really were, and seemed to beckon him forwardwith a smile of welcome. "Even if it be that the tide is turning," hethought, "I have yet the time to outstrip it; and, the quicker itmount, the wider the barrier it will place between me and my enemies."
Almost as these ideas passed his mind, a sound came to his ears, whichbanished in a moment every thought of the time, the tide, the peril ofthe sands.
It was the keen blast of a bugle, clearly winded on the shore fromwhich he had just departed, but at a point a little higher up, to thenorthward, than that at which he had himself left it. In an instant,before he had even the time to turn round and take observation, asecond bugle, yet farther to the north, took up the cadence, and, asthat died away, yet a third, so faint, and so far to the northward,that it seemed like a mere echo of the first, replied.
He looked, and, clustered on the brink of the sands, examining thetracks his feet had left on the moist surface, there stood a littleknot of three or four horsemen, one of whom it was easy to see, by theglitter of his mail-hood and hauberk, was completely armed. Two mileshigher up, likewise on the shore, was another group, that which hadreplied to the first bugle-note, and which was now exchanging signalswith those in the foreground, by the wafture of the pennoncelles whichadorned their long lances.
There was now no longer a doubt. His pursuers had divided themselvesinto scattered parties, the better to scour the country, two of whichhad already discovered him, while there was evidently a third incommunication with these by bugle-blast, not yet discernible to theeye, but prepared doubtless to strike across the upper portion of thesands near the head of the bay, and to intercept his flight, should heescape his immediate pursuers.
Another wild and prolonged flourish of the bugle, the very note whichannounces to the jovial hunters that the beast of chase is afoot, rangwildly over the sands, was repeated once and again; and then, with afierce shout, spurring their heavily-barbed horses, and brandishingtheir long lances, the man-hunters dashed forward in pursuit.
The first party rode directly on the track of the fugitive, who toiledonward in full view as he ran, terror lending wings to his speed,almost directly northward, with his long shadow streaming westwardover the dank sands, cutting the bright sunshine with a blue, ripplingwake. The second, taking the passage higher up, rode at an obliqueangle to the first pursuers, laying up to the point of Westmoreland,in order to cut off the fugitive; and, in a few moments afterward, yetanother group might be seen skirting the shore line, as if intent tointercept him in case of his landing.
The soil and water, spurned from the feet of the heavy chargers, flewhigh into the air, sparkling and plashing in the sunshine, likeshowers of metallic dust. It was a fearful race--a race for life anddeath, with odds, as it would seem, not to be calculated, against thepanting fugitive.
At first, the horses careered easily over the surface, not sinking thedepth of their iron-shoes in the firm substratum, while the man,whether from fatigue and fear, or that he was in worse ground, laboredand slipped and stumbled at almost every step. The horses gained uponhim at every stride, and the riders shouted already in triumph. Itseemed, indeed, as if his escape was hopeless. The cavalry reached thefirst channel; it had widened a little, yet perceptibly, since Eadwulfhad crossed it; but the horses leaped it, or dashed through it,without an effort.
The fugitive was now nearly in the middle of the sands; but hispursuers had already crossed, in a few minutes, one half of the spacewhich it had cost him a painful two hours' toil to traverse; and, withat least five miles before him yet, what hope that he could maintainsuch speed as to run in the ratio of two to three of distance, againstthe strength and velocity of high-blooded horses?
But he had now reached the channel of the Beetham-water, and, as hecrossed it, he stooped to ladle up a few drops in the hollow of hishand, to bathe his parched lips and burning brow. He saw it in aninstant. The tide had turned, the waters were spreading wider andwider sensibly, they were running not slowly upward, they were salt tothe taste already.
His rescue or his ruin, the flood-tide was upon him; and, strange tosay, what at another time would have aroused his wildest terror, nowwakened a slight hope of safety.
If he could yet reach, yet pass, the channel of the Kent, which lay,widening every moment, at some two miles farther yet before him, hemight still escape both the cruel waters and the more savageman-hunters; but the distance was long, the fugitive weak withfatigue, weaker yet with fear, and the speed of thorough-bred horseswas hard, as yet, behind him.
He paused a moment to watch, as the first party, his direct pursuers,reached the broad river-bed--they crossed it, and that seeminglywithout alarm or suspicion of danger, though their heavily-barbedhorses sank belly-deep in the treacherous ford; but having stemmed it,as they charged onward, it was clear to Eadwulf that the horses buriedtheir hoofs deeper at every stride; soon they were fetlock-deep in theheavy sands.
The second party crossed the same water-course higher up, and withless trouble; and these were now within two miles of the pantingslave, shouting their war-cries, and spurring yet more furiouslyonward, having lost, if they had ever entertained any, all idea ofdanger, in the furious excitement of the chase, and taking no heed ofthe tokens of imminent and awful peril; and yet those tokens were nowsufficient to appall the boldest.
One of the peculiarities of those terrible and fatal sands is, thatthe first approach of those entering tides, which come on, not withthe ordinary roll and thunder of billows and flash of snowy surf, butswift and silent as the pestilence that flies by night, is harbingeredby no outward and visible sight or sound, but by the gradual and atfirst imperceptible conversion of the solid sands into miry andponderous sludge, into moving quicksand, into actual water.
When the sounds and sights are heard and seen, it is too late to makean effort. Death is at hand, inevitable.
And now sights and sounds were both clear, palpable, nigh at hand. Thedull murmur of the inrolling volumes might have been heard by the earsof any, so that they were not jangled and deafened by the clangor oftheir own iron-harness; the long white line of surf might have beenseen by the eyes of any, so that they were not so riveted on someother object, that they could take heed of naught else within therange of their vision.
But the pursuers heard, saw nothing--nothing, unless it were thebeating of their own savage hearts, the snorting of their laboringchargers, the clanking din of their spurs and scabbards, and thejingle of their chain-mail--unless it were the wretched fugitive,panting along, with his tongue literally hanging out of his parchedjaws, and his eyes bursting from their sockets, like those of anover-driven ox, stumbling, staggering, splashing along, often falling,through the mingled sand and water, now mid-leg deep.
The party which had taken the sands at the most northern point had nowso far over-reached upon the fugitive, that he had no longer a chanceof crossing the course of the Kent in advance of them. If he persistedin his course, ten minutes more would have placed him under thecounters of their horses and the points of their lances. The otherbody, who had followed him directly, had already perceived theirdanger, had pulled up, and were retracing their steps slowly, tryingto pick their way through the dryest ground, and, coasting up and downthe side of the Beetham water, were endeavoring to find a fordpassable for their heavy horses. Lower down the bay, by a mile or two,they were the first to be overtaken, the sands were already allafloat, all treacherous ooze, around them; the banks, dry places therewere no longer any, were not to be distinguished from the channels ofthe rivers.
Suddenly, seeing himself cut off, blinded by his immediate terrors,and thinking only to avoid the more instant peril, Eadwulf turnedsouthward--turned toward the billows, which were now coming in, sixfeet abreast, not two miles below him, tossing their foamy crests likethe mane of the pale-horse of the Apocalypse, with a sound deeper andmore appalling than the roar of the fiercest thunder. He saw thehopelessness of his position; and, at the same moment, the firsthorror of their situation dawned on the souls of his s
avage pursuers.
In that one glance, all was revealed to them; every thought, everyincident, every action of their past lives, flashed before the eyes oftheir mind, as if reflected in a mirror; and then all was blank.
Every rein was drawn simultaneously, every horse halted where hestood, almost belly-deep in the sands, snorting and panting, blown anddead-beat by that fruitless gallop; and now the soil, every wherebeneath them and about them, was melting away into briny ooze, withslimy worms and small eels and lampreys wriggling obscenely, where alittle while before, the heaviest war-horse might have pawed long anddeep without finding water; and the waves were gaining on them, withmore than the speed of charging cavalry, and the nearest shore wasfive miles distant.
Within a furlong, on a solitary black stone, which might overtop theentering flood for an hour's space or better, lay Eadwulf, the serf.Utterly beaten, unable to move hand or foot, unable even to raise hishead, or look the coming death in the face, where he had fallen, therehe lay.
Two minutes, and the farthest of those horsemen might have taken him,might have speared him, where he lay, unresisting, unbeseeching. Butnone thought of him--none thought of any thing but the sea--the sea.
They paused for an instant to breathe their horses, before turning toride that desperate race--but in that instant they saw such a sight aschilled their very blood. The other party, which had now retreatedbefore the tide to within a mile of them to the eastward, had nowdetermined, as it seemed, at all risks, to force their way backthrough the channel of the Beetham water, and entered it one by one,in single file, the unarmed guide leading, and the mail-clad riderbringing up the rear. Each after each, lower they sank and lower,their horses struggling and rolling in the surge. Now their croupes,now their withers disappeared from the eyes of the beholders; now thenecks only of the horses and the bodies of the riders were visibleabove the wash. A moment of suspense, almost intolerable, for everyone of those mute gazers felt that he was looking on the counterpartand perfect picture of what must in a few minutes, more or less, behis own fate also! A moment, and the guide's horse struggled upward,his withers reappeared, his croupe--he had cleared the channel, he wassafe. A light page followed him, with the like success; two half-armedtroopers followed; already, presaging safety, a shout of exultationtrembled on the lips of the spectators, when the mail-clad rider onhis heavy horse reached the mid-passage--reached the spot where hishorse should have gradually emerged--then in an instant, in thetwinkling of an eye, before one could breathe a sigh or syllable, alast "God save him"--he sank, sheer and sudden, as if the bottom hadyawned under him, and without an effort, a cry, a struggle, was suckedunder.
He was there--he was gone; never more to be seen above the face of thewaters. At the same instant, just as they uttered one wild cry ofhorror and despair, or ere they could turn their horses' headslandward, a deep, cold, wet wind breathed upon them; a gray mist sweptdown on them, out-running the trampling squadrons of the foamy waves;a fierce hail storm smote them; and, in an instant, everything--shores, billows, skies--vanished from them, wrapped in uttergloom. Then they dispersed, each struggling through therapidly-mounting waters in that direction which he fancied, in hisblindness, should be shoreward. No one of them met other, more, inthis world.
Strange it is to tell, but truths are ofttimes very strange, strangerthan fiction, at that sharp, awful cry, wrenched by the horriblecatastrophe of their comrade from the souls of his pursuers, arousedfrom the stupor which had fallen upon him, between the excess ofweariness and the extremity of despair, Eadwulf raised his head. Hesaw the white surf tossing and breaking furiously in the distance; hesaw the long line of deep, unbroken, swelling water, which had notbeen driven up from the sea, but had gushed and welled upward throughthe pores of the saturated sand, rolling in five feet abreast, far inadvance of the white rollers; swifter than either, darker and moreterrible, he saw the ink-black, ragged hail-storm, a mere mist on thewaters' surface--but, above, a contorted pile of solid, convolutedclouds, driving in, like a hurricane, before the breath of the rushingsoutheaster.
But, in that one lightning glance, he saw also, on the dark polishedsurface of the smooth water, in advance of the breakers, under thestorm-cloud, a long black object, hurrying down before wind and tide,with speed exceeding that of the fleetest race horse, right upon thespot where he sat, despairing. He recognized it, at once, for one ofthe leathern coracles, as they were called, or rude fishing-boats ofthe natives of those wild and stormy shores; the rudest perhaps, butat the same time the most buoyant and seaworthy of boats. She wasempty, he saw that at a glance, and rode the waves, outstripping thebreakers, gallantly. Could he reach her, he might yet be saved.
He sat erect on his rock, resolute, with every nerve quivering withintense excitement, with every faculty braced, ready for the lastexertion.
The cloud fell on him black as midnight; the fierce wind smote hiself-locks, making them stream and shiver in its currents; the cuttinghail lashed him with arrowy keenness. Quickly as it came, it passed;and a gleam of troubled sunshine shimmered through a rent in the blackstorm, and glanced like a hopeful smile upon the waters. In thatmomentary brilliance, the wretch caught a glimpse of the black boat,floating past his solitary rock, and without an instant's hesitation,rushing waist deep into the frothy eddies, fought his way, he neverwell knew how, through surge and quicksand, till he had caught her bythe gunwale. Then, spurning the yielding sands with a tremendouseffort, he leaped, or hurled himself rather, into her, and lay for abreathing-space motionless, and stunned by the very perception of thestrange vicissitude to which he owed his safety.
But it was no time for self-indulgence; and, ignorant as he was,semi-barbarous, and half-brutalized, he perceived the nature of thecrisis. The oars or paddles by which the coracle was impelled werelashed by thongs to her row-locks, and, getting them out at once,Eadwulf plied them vigorously, keeping her right stern before theentering tide, and pulling with all his might, to outstrip the combingof each successive roller.
For a short space, the glimmer in the air continued; then the mistgathered down again, and all was gloom, except the white caps of thebreakers, tossing and shivering in the twilight. But it was now mistonly; the wind had sunk, and the storm-cloud been driven landward.
And now, so dexterously had the serf managed his little vessel, that,as he shot away from each combing sea-cap, the surges had swept underinstead of over him, and he found himself riding buoyantly on thelong, gentle swell, while the surf, gradually subsiding, ran up thesands, murmuring hoarsely far before him.
Suddenly, close ahead of him, not as it seemed ten yards from the bowof the boat, there arose an angry clash of steel, a loud cry, "Jesu!Jesu Maria!" and a deep groan; and, the next instant, the body of ariderless horse, with its head half submerged, panting and snortingout its last agonies, was swept so close to his vessel that he couldhave touched it with the oar. One other minute, and a light air wasfelt sensibly; the mist began to lift and shiver; the darkness seemedto melt, and to be penetrated and imbued with the sunbeams, till itresembled a gauzy screen interposed before a strong light.
Another moment, and it rose bodily from the water, floated upward intothe skies, and left all below laughing, clear in the sunlight. Therewas no sand now to be seen, save a narrow yellow stripe on the edge ofthe soft verdant points, which stretched out from the shores ofWestmoreland, sparkling in the sun and glittering in the rain-drops,into the broad bosom of Morecambe Bay, which was now filled with thetide, though it had not as yet nearly risen to its highest mark--buthere and there, at intervals, dark spots showed in the expanse ofwaters, where the tops of the highest sand-banks were scarcelysubmerged at all, on which the gentle eddies rippled and sparkled, aswavelet after wavelet rolled in by its own mounting impulse, buthastened by no angry gust or turbulent billow.
On one of these sand-banks, having so long escaped, Heaven knows how,quicksands and breakers, and having made his way thus far landward,sat a tall, powerful man-at-arms, sheathed from head to heel in ac
omplete panoply of chain mail. His horse was likewise caparisoned inthe heaviest bardings--chamfront and poitrel, steel demipique andbard proper--nothing was wanting of the heaviest caparison with whichcharger or man ever rode into the tilt-yard or melee.
The tide was already above the horse's belly, and the rider's platedshoes and mail hose were below the surface. Deep water was around himon every side, the nearest shore a mile distant, and to swim fiftyyards, much less a mile, under that weight of steel, was impossible;still he sat there, waiting his doom, silent and impassive.
He was the last of the pursuers; he alone of the two parties, who butthree short hours before had spurred so fiercely in pursuit of thewretched slave, had escaped the fate of Pharaoh and his host, when theRed Sea closed above them. He alone breathed the breath of life; andhe, certain of death, awaited it with that calm composure, which comesto the full as much of artificial training as of innate valor.
As the clouds lifted, this solitary man saw, at once, the boatapproaching, and saw who rowed it--saw rescue close at hand, yet atthe same time saw it impossible. His face had hardly the time to relaxinto one gleam of hope, before it again settled down into the ironapathy of despair.
The coracle swept up abreast of him, then paused, as Eadwulf, halfunconsciously, rested on his oars, and gazed into the despairing andblank features of his enemy. It was the seneschal of Waltheofstow, thebrother of the man whom he had slain in the forest.
Their eyes met, they recognized each other, and each shuddered at therecognition. For a moment, neither spake; but, after a short, bitterpause, it was the rider who broke silence.
"So, it is thou, Saxon dog, who alone hast escaped from thisdestruction!"
"It is I, man-hunter. Where are thy boasts and threats now? Why dostnot ask the serf, now, for life, for mercy?"
"Because thou couldst not give it, if thou wouldst; and wouldst not,if thou couldst. Go thy way, go thy way! We shall meet one day, inthat place whither our deeds will carry us. Go thy way, unless thouwouldst stay, and look how a Norman dies. I fear neither death, northee. Go thy way, and the fiend go with thee."
And, with the word, he went his way, coldly, sternly, pitilessly, andin silence; for he felt, in truth, that the seneschal had spokentruly, that he could not save him if he would, unless he would savehis own sworn destroyer. Sullenly, slowly, he rowed onward, reachedthe land; and still, as he looked back, with his horse's neck and hisarmed trunk eminent above the level waters, glittering in his brightmail, sat the fearless rider. Wearied and utterly exhausted, both inmind and body, the serf gazed, half-remorsefully, at the man whom hehad so mercilessly abandoned to his fate, and who bore it so sternly,awaiting the last inevitable moment with more than a stoic's fortitudeand pride. For a moment he hesitated whether he should pursue hisjourney; but an irresistible fascination compelled him to sit down andawait the end, and he did so.
And there those two sat, face to face, at a mile's distance, for along half hour, in plain view, each almost fancying that he couldperuse the features, almost fancying that he could read the thoughtsof his enemy--each in agony of soul, and he, perhaps, in the greateranguish who had escaped, as it would seem, all peril, and for whomdeath seemed to wait, distant and unseen, at the end of a farperspective.
At the termination of half an hour, there was a motion, a strife--thewater had reached the nostrils of the charger. He tossed his head afew times, angrily; then, after rearing once or twice, with his rideryet erect in his saddle, subsided into deep water, and all was over.
Eadwulf crept away up the bank, found a thick dingle in the wood, and,coiling himself up in its densest spot, slept, dreamless andunrepentant, until the morrow's sun was high in heaven.