|
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 130
He turned about, and under the glimmer of the candle I could see
that the man had changed; his big pale face was grim with some
determined purpose, and there was about him the courage and the
authority of one who, after long wavering, at last hazards a
desperate venture. He broke the glass box and put the Buddha
into his pocket.
"It is good silver," he said, "and it has served its purpose."
The Oriental got softly onto his feet like a great toy of cotton
wood. His face remained in its expression of equanimity, and he
added no further word of gesture to his argument.
My uncle held the door open for him to pass out, and after that
he extinguished the candle and followed, closing the door
noiselessly behind him.
The thing was like a scene acted in a playhouse. But it
accomplished what the playhouse fails in. It put the fear of
death into one who watched it. To me in the dark hall, looking
through the crack of the door, the placid Oriental in his English
uniform, and with his precise words like an Oxford don, was
surely the most devilish agency that ever urged the murder of
innocent men on an accomplice.
The wind was continuing to rise and the mist now covered the loch
and the open sea. It was of no use to stand before the window,
for the world was blotted out. I was cold and I lay down on the
bed and wrapped the covers around me. It seemed only a moment
later when old Andrew's hand was on me, and his thin voice crying
in the room.
"Will you sleep, sir, and God's creatures going to their death!"
He ran, whimpering in his thin old voice, down the stair, and I
followed him out of the house into the garden.
It was midmorning. A man was standing before the door, his hands
behind him, looking out at the sea. In his long trousers and
bowler hat I did not at once recognize him for the Highlander of
my yesterday's adventure.
The coast was in the tail of a storm. The wind boomed, as though
puffed by a bellows, driving in gusts of mist.
The ship I had seen in the night was hanging in the sea just
beyond the crook of the loch. It fluttered like a snared bird.
One could see the crew trying every device of sail and tacking,
but with all their desperate ingenuities the ship merely hung
there shivering like a stricken creature.
It was a fearful thing to look at. Now the mist covered
everything and then for a moment the wind swept it out, and all
the time, the silent, deadly struggle went on between the trapped
ship and the sea running in among the needles of the loch. I
don't think any of us spoke except the Highlander once in comment
to himself.
"It's Ram Chad's tramp . . . . So that's the craft the man was
depending on!"
Then the mist shut down. When it lifted, the doom of the ship
was written. It was moving slowly into the deadly maw of the
loch.
Again the mist shut down and, when again the wind swept it out,
the ship had vanished.
There was the open sea and the long swells and the murderous
current boiling around the sharp points of the needles; but there
was no ship nor any human soul of the crew. Old Andrew screamed
like a woman at the sight.
"The ship!" he cried. "Where is the ship and the master?"
The thing was so swift and awful that I spoke myself.
"My God!" I said. "How quickly the thing they feared destroyed
them!"
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|