The Beloved Traitor (Mystery Classic). Frank L. Packard
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 had not moved since he, Jean, had found the other on the reef. Once he shouted at Marie-Louise, shouted out the fear that was upon him—but she only shook her head.
The rain had stopped—he noticed the fact with a strange shock of surprise—surprise that he had not noticed it before, as though it were something extraneous to his surroundings. And then he remembered that as he had stood outside the Bas Rhône he had seen that the wind had changed, and had told himself that by morning it would be better weather. He glanced above him. The storm wrack was still there; but it was broken now, and the low, flying clouds seemed thinner—yes, by morning it would be bright sunshine, and of the storm only the heavy sea would be left.
He gave his eyes to the tumbling waters again—and, suddenly, with a great cry, began to pull until it seemed his arms must break. Roaring behind them, a giant wave was on the point of breaking—closer it came—closer—he yelled to Marie-Louise:
"Hold fast, Marie-Louise! Hold fast!"
And then it was upon them.
For a moment it was a vortex—a white, swirling flood of water churned to lather. It hid the stern of the boat, hid Marie-Louise and Gaston at her feet, as it poured upon them—and the boat, lifted high up, hung dizzily for an instant, poised as on the edge of an abyss, then the wave rolled under them, and the boat swept on in its wake, the shipped water rushing now this way now that in the bottom.
It was an escape! The blessed saints still had them in their keeping! Jean sucked in his breath. A foot nearer when the wave had broken, and, instead of the few bucketsful they had taken, the boat would have filled! And now Marie-Louise, already baling at the water, cried out to him.
"See! It was a mercy!"—her voice rang with a glad uplift. "It was sent by the bon Dieu, that wave! It has brought life to Uncle Gaston!"
It was true. The deluge of water had, temporarily at least, restored the old fisherman to consciousness, for he raised himself up now, and Jean heard him speak.
After that, time marked no definite passing for Jean. Occasionally he heard Marie-Louise's voice as she spoke to her uncle; and occasionally he heard the old fisherman reply—but that was all. In nearer the shore, where the current rushing through the narrows had lost its potency, he edged the boat across the heavy sea, gained the comparative calm under the lee of the headland, and began to work back to the upper end—it was easier that way, difficult and slow as the progress was, than to land and carry old Gaston along the beach. An hour? It might have been that—or two—or half an hour—when he and Marie-Louise, in the water beside him again, and close by where the lantern under the bluff still burned as he had left it, were dragging the boat free from the breakers and up upon the sand.
And