|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 13
Geoffroi's position was (for him) extremely dangerous. A bold climber
might have extricated himself; but for a lame man to reach safety across
the sea-scourged rocks was almost impossible. Could he hold on long
enough and the sea rose no higher, he might be saved: but there would
yet be an hour before the turn of the tide, and already the waves were
racing over the ledge on which he stood. Antoine sprang over the
intervening rocks, scrambling and wading through the water, as if not
seeing what he did, till he set foot on the ledge, and stood face to
face with his enemy.
Geoffroi's face was white with fear. He knew his hour was come. In the
mighty strife of the elements, within an inch of death on every side, he
was at Antoine's mercy.
"Don't kill me," he cried abjectly. "Have mercy, for the love of God."
Antoine grasped the writhing creature by the shoulder. The white face of
Marie rose up before him. Geoffroi shrieked. A huge, heaving billow
advanced, swept round the feet of both and sank boiling in the gulf
beneath. The next that came would leave neither of them there. Antoine
stood with his hand on Geoffroi's shoulder, as if he would crush it.
Somewhat higher, but within reach, was a narrow projection in the rock,
to which there was room for one to cling, and only for one: and Geoffroi
with his lame foot could not reach it alone.
"Let me go," he shrieked. "I will confess all: but save me, save me!"
Suddenly another wave of feeling surged up in the soul of Antoine. He
seemed to see the cross on the hill side, as it stood in light that
evening when he was to have met Marie there. He saw the good God on the
cross again, as he used to see Him in the chapel. He had a strange, deep
feeling that he was God, or that God was he. He seemed to be on that
cross himself. The great, green wave towered above them twenty feet in
air. He grasped Geoffroi by both shoulders, and flung him up to the
ledge above with a kind of scorn. The next moment the rolling sea
descended. Antoine clung with all his force to the rock, but he knew
that he should never see the light again.
So was he drawn out into the great deep, in whose arms his father lay:
and the fisher-folk, when they knew it, looked for no sign of him more,
for they said he had gone back to the sea, from whence he came. For,
though they never knew the true story of his death, they felt that a
spirit of a different mould from theirs had passed from among them in
his own way.
[Illustration:]
TWICE A CHILD.
Halfway up the mountain-side, overlooking a ravine, through which a
streamlet flowed to the lake, stood a woodman's cottage. In the room on
which the front door opened were two persons--an infant in a wooden
cradle, in the corner between the fire-place and the window; and, seated
on a stool in the flood of sunlight that streamed through the doorway,
an old man. His lips were moving slightly, and his face had the look of
one whose thoughts were far away. On the patch of floor in front of him
lay cross-bars of sunlight, which flowed in through the casement window.
The sky overhead was cloudless, while the murky belt on the horizon was
not visible from the cottage door. In the windless calm no leaf seemed
to stir in the forest around. The cottage clock in the corner ticked the
passing moments; the wild cry of the "curry fowl" was heard now and
again from the lake; there was no other sound in the summer afternoon,
and the deep heart of nature seemed at rest.
The old man's eyes rested on the bars of sunlight, but he saw another
scene. On his face, in which the simplicity of childhood seemed to have
reappeared, was a knowing, amused look, expressing infinite relish of
some inward thought, the simple essence of mischief. Bars of sunlight,
just like those, used to lie on the schoolroom floor when he was a
little boy, and was sent to Dame Gartney's school to be kept out of
harm's way, and to learn what he might. He saw himself, an urchin of
five or six years, seated on a stool beside the Dame's great arm-chair.
She was slowly, with dim eyes, threading a needle for the tiny maiden
standing before her, clutching in her hot little hand the unhemmed
duster on which she was to learn to sew. The thread approached the
needle's eye; it was nearly in, when the arm-chair gave a very little
shake, apparently of its own accord; the old lady missed her aim, and
the needle and the thread were as far apart as ever, while the small imp
sitting quiet at her side was unsuspected. Not once nor twice only was
this little game successfully played. It used to enliven the hot, sleepy
afternoon, while the bars of light were crawling slowly--oh! so
slowly--across the floor. He knew school would be over when the outer
edge of sunlight touched the corner of the box-bed against the wall,
where the little girl that lived there and called the dame "Granny" was
put to sleep of a night.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|