A Gamble with Life

"No doubt of it."

"That's the reason, I expect, why I'm just aching to explore these cliffs, and the caves of which Sir Charles says there's any number."

"That won't take you very long," he answered, "though it would hardly be safe for you to go alone."

"That's what Sir Charles says; but would you mind telling me just where the danger comes in?"

"Well, you see, the rocks are often slippery. And if you are not acquainted with the tides you might get caught."

"Ah! that would be interesting."

"Well, scarcely. Strangers have been caught and drowned before now."

"They could not swim?"

"It would take a very strong swimmer to clear St. Gaved Point and get into the harbour."

She turned her eyes in that direction and looked grave.

He studied her face a little more closely and allowed his eyes to wander over her graceful and well-knit figure. She was very simply dressed, without ornament of any kind. A large picture hat shaded her pale face. Her eyes were large and dark, her forehead broad, her nose straight, her lips full and red.

She caught him looking at her and he blushed a little. "I don't think I could swim that distance," she said, turning her eyes again in the direction of St. Gaved Point.

"I don't think you would be wise to attempt it." Then he blushed again, for she turned on him a swift and searching glance, while her lips parted in a smile that seemed to say, "I did not ask you for advice."

For a moment there was silence, then she said, "Do you know the sea has been calling me ever since I came."

"Calling you?" he questioned.

"Well, I mean it fascinates me, if you understand. I want to get close to it, to paddle in it. It is so beautiful. It looks so cool and friendly. Beryl says she cannot bear the sea; that it is not friendly a bit; that it is cruel and noisy, and treacherous."

"Ah! she has lived near the sea most of her life."

"And yet you can scarcely see it from the Hall."

"But it can be heard on stormy nights, and when a westerly gale is raging its voice is terrible."

"You have lived here all your life?" and her lips parted in the most innocent smile.

"Here, and in a neighbouring parish," he answered, frankly.

"And do you like the sea?"

"Sometimes. On an evening like this, for instance, I could sit for hours looking at it, and listening to the low murmur of the waves. But in the winter I rarely come out on the cliffs."

"I have never seen the sea real mad," she said, reflectively; "but I expect I shall if I stay here long enough."

"Do you expect to stay long?" he questioned. If she asked questions he did not see why he might not.

"Well, I guess I shall stay in England a good many months anyhow," she answered slowly, and with an unmistakable accent; and she turned away her eyes, and a faint wave of colour tinged her pale cheeks.

He would have liked to have asked her a good many other questions, but he felt he had gone far enough.

"I fear I shall have to go back now," she said at length, without looking at him, "or they'll all be wondering what has become of me."

"You could not easily get lost in a place like this," he said, with a laugh.

"No, nobody would kidnap me," she said, arching her eyebrows.

"No, I don't think so," he answered in a tone that was half-mirthful, half-serious.

She raised her eyes to his for a moment in a keen searching glance, then, with a hasty "Good evening," turned and walked away in the direction she had come.

He stood and watched her until she had passed over the brow of the hill in the direction of Trewinion Hall. Then he slowly resumed his journey towards St. Gaved.

That night he awoke from a dream with a feeling of horror tearing at his heart. He dreamed that his great scheme had proved a failure, and that Felix Muller stood over him demanding the immediate fulfilment of the contract.

So vivid had been the dream that, for the moment, he seemed powerless to shake off the impression. He sat up in bed, and stared round him, while a cold perspiration broke out in beads upon his brow.

For the first time he realised, in any clear and vivid sense, the nature of the compact he had entered into. The possibilities of failure had seemed so infinitely remote that he had never seriously tried to realise what failure would mean.

Now that awful contingency forced itself upon his heart and imagination in a way that seemed almost to paralyse him. It was as though some invisible but powerful hand had pushed him to the edge of a dark and awful precipice, and compelled him to look over. His knees shook under him, his head seemed to reel, he struggled to get back to safer ground.

The feeling of horror passed away after a few minutes, and he lay down again.

"Of course, I shall not fail," he said to himself. "The contingency is so remote that I need not give the matter a second thought."

And yet the impression of that dream was destined to remain with him in spite of all his efforts to shake it off.

CHAPTER III

THE VALUE OF A LIFE

During the next few weeks Rufus Sterne was kept so busy that he had very little time for either retrospect or anticipation. His great complaint was that the days were all too short for the work he wanted to crowd into them. He had told Felix Muller that six months would see his scheme well on its way to completion. But he had not been at work many weeks before he began to fear that twelve months would be much nearer the limit. Contractors were so slow, workmen were so careless, and accidents – none of them serious – were so numerous, that delays were inevitable, and the days grew into weeks unconsciously.

He maintained, however, a brave and hopeful spirit. Delays and disappointments were, no doubt, inevitable. No one ever carried out a great scheme without encountering a few disappointments. Later on, when victory was assured, they would seem as nothing, and would be quickly forgotten.

He saw no more of the beautiful stranger who had so much interested him. For several days he kept a sharp look out, and wondered if by any chance he would cross her path. Then he heard that Sir Charles and all his family had gone to London till the end of the season, and he assumed that she had gone to London with them.

He had had a second interview with Felix Muller, which had left an impression that was not altogether pleasant. Muller was in his most cynical and ungenerous mood. He had not a word of encouragement to give to his client. On the contrary, he appeared to take a delight in pricking Rufus with pointed and unpleasant suggestions.

"It is well, no doubt, to hope for the best," he said to Rufus; "but it is equally well to be prepared for the worst."

"I really think you would not trouble much if I should fail," Rufus said, in a tone of irritation.

"Then you do me an injustice," was the suave and tantalising answer. "If you were to fail I might have trouble in getting my own."

"You mean that I would back out of the contract at the last?"

"No, I don't mean any such thing. I know you are not only a man of honour, but a man of courage; but if you should bungle – "

"Look here, we need not go any further into details," Rufus said, impatiently. "My point is you are not a bit troubled about me as long as you get your money back."

"Oh, but I am! I would rather you prospered than that you failed, any day. Still, if in the order of chance you should fail – well – ," and he shrugged his shoulders, "It would be in the eternal order, that's all."

"You would not fret, of course?"

"My dear fellow, why should I? We must all pass out into the great silence sooner or later. And now, or next year, or next century for that matter, matters little. You and I have got beyond the region of sentiment in such things. Nature sets no value on human life. We take our place among the ants and flies, and the human is treated as remorselessly as the insect. The wind passeth over both, and they are gone."

"Yes, that is true enough," Rufus answered, looking out of the window.

"Besides," Muller went on, as if he read his thoughts, "in the business of life we are bound to take risks."

"You mean money risks?"

"Not only money risks. A man who drives to market, who explores a mine, who crosses the sea in the interests of commerce, who fights for his country, not only risks his property, but he risks his life."

"Not always intentionally."

"Well, not always, perhaps. But in the greatest and noblest enterprises, yes. And what is more, it is counted to a man an honour when he risks his life in a great cause. If you become a martyr for a great ideal I shall revere your memory."

Rufus winced, and looked uncomfortable. "I am not risking my life in the public interest," he said, "but in my own."

"It all amounts to the same thing," Muller said, cynically. "You are part of the public, and anything that benefits a part benefits, more or less, the whole. I am taking risks myself on the same chance of doing good."

"Doing good to whom?"

"To myself in the first place. Charity should always begin at home."

"And don't you think also that it should stop there?"

"Well, in the main, I do. I am no sentimentalist, as you very well know. Every man for himself is the first law of life."

"So while Nature sets no value on human life, you think that each individual should set great value on his own?"

"No, I don't. Everything depends on the individual, or on his circumstances. If a man thinks his life is worth preserving, well, let him preserve it by all means. But if he thinks it is worthless, why should he not let it slip?"

"There seems no particular reason," Rufus answered, reflectively.

"There's no reason at all," Muller went on, dogmatically, "while a man is doing something, something useful I mean, something that is of benefit to himself and to others, he ought to keep agoing as long as he can. But when he is a failure, when he becomes a burden to himself and his neighbours, it is cowardly to hang on, and why should anybody fret because he makes himself scarce?"

"You mean this as a little homily to myself?" Rufus questioned.

"Oh, not a bit of it! I am not afraid of you not doing the right thing! Besides, you are not going to fail," and he laughed, cynically.

"No, I am not going to fail," Rufus answered, rising from his seat; "I am going to succeed."

"That's right. I hope you will. But don't forget that there is nothing certain in this world but death," and he smilingly bowed Rufus out of the room.

In the street Rufus purchased an evening paper, that he might get the latest news of the war. He did not open it until he got into the quiet lanes outside the town. There had been another big battle in which there had been an appalling loss of life. The work of extermination was going on rapidly. Modern civilisation was showing what it could do in preventing the too rapid growth of the human race.

Rufus hurriedly glanced down the columns, then folded the paper and put it into his pocket. "Yes, Muller is right," he mused. "Nature sets no value on human life, neither do governments, and neither does religion. I wonder how many thousands of human beings have been sacrificed during the last few weeks, and who gives to the matter a second thought. Religion accepts it as inevitable and even meritorious. Governments approve and applaud, and make provision for slaughter on a larger scale in the future. Nature, not to be outdone, tries her hand at earthquakes, or famine, or disease. It is only the individual who thinks his own life is of value, and he, of course, is a conceited prig."

He paused when he reached the hill-top from which the sea came into view. The days were beginning to shorten a little. The light of the sun was less brilliant, and the green of the fields had given place to harvest gold.

"It is curious that we should cling to life so much for its own sake," he said, reflectively. "Curious that the law should label a man a criminal who takes his own life when he has no longer any use for it. What hypocrites men are, especially those who make our laws. The weaklings and worthless they preserve, the able-bodied and useful they destroy. The single life, however pitiful, must be protected. The crowd is mowed down like grass to gratify some coward's insatiable ambition. The creatures who talk about the glory of dying for one's country are careful to keep out of the danger line themselves. The man who fails, after an heroic struggle, and takes his own life rather than be a burden to others, they brand as a coward or dub insane; while he who grows rich by trafficking on the weakness or vices of his fellows is made a Right Honourable, or given a seat in the councils of the State. It is all very sickening, and I refuse to be bound by such traditional falsehood and hypocrisy."

He hurried on at a more rapid rate, as if to get away from his thoughts, but his brain persisted in working in the same groove. The possibility of failure obtruded itself with obstinate persistency.

"I'm glad Muller does not doubt either my courage or my honour," he went on. "And really if I fail it will not matter to anyone but myself. I have no ties, neither father nor mother, brother nor sister, wife nor child. I am happy in that – "

Then he moved to the side of the road for a closed landau drawn by a pair of horses to pass him.

"Going to fetch the Hall people from the station very likely," he said to himself, and he turned and looked after the retreating vehicle.

"I wonder if she will return?" and a far-away expression came into his eyes. "I should like to see her again," he went on, "she is wonderfully fresh and natural."

For the rest of the way home he walked very slowly. Now and then he paused, and turned his head, and listened. But the sound of wheels, which he expected to hear, did not break the evening's stillness, nor did he see the face that he hoped to see.

It was nearly a fortnight later that he went out one afternoon on the cliffs alone. A somewhat difficult and complicated problem had unexpectedly presented itself to him, and he fancied he would be better able to see his way through it in the open air than in his workshop or study. Generally speaking, he could think best on his feet, and the sights and sounds of nature, instead of distracting him, soothed him.

It was a warm, drowsy afternoon. The wind slept, and a soft impalpable haze imparted a new mystery to the sea. The tide was coming in slowly and imperceptibly, and rippling like silver bells on the shingly beach. The distant landscape was an impressionist picture in which all the sharp outlines melted into space. The sunshine filtered through a veil of gauze. Half-way to Penwith Cove he sat down on a ledge of rock on the very edge of the cliff, and looked seaward. He saw nothing distinctly, heard no song of the sea. He was too intent on the problem that was baffling his brain.

Suddenly he started and opened his eyes wide. Was it a human voice he heard, or was it merely fancy? He looked round him swiftly in all directions, but no one was in sight. "It was only the cry of a sea-gull, I expect," he said to himself, and he half closed his eyes again. The next moment he was on his feet and staring round him in all directions. "Surely that was a cry for help," he said, and he looked over the edge of the cliff and swept with his eyes the narrow stretch of sand, but there was no one in sight in any direction.

For a moment or two he stood irresolute, listening. "There it is again," he said, with blanched cheeks, and he lay flat on the ground and dragged himself forward slowly till his head and shoulders overhung the cliff.

"Help! oh, help!" came a feeble voice from the abyss below.

"Where are you? What is the matter?" he called, searching in vain for any sign of life.

"Oh, save me!" was the quick response. "I cannot possibly hold on much longer."

"Have you fallen over the cliff?" he called.

"No, no. I tried to climb up, and I cannot get back again."

"Then shut your eyes and hold tight," he called. "I'll be round in a few minutes."

"Oh, do be quick, for I'm getting faint."

"If you faint you're lost," he called. "Hold on like grim death and don't look down. I'll be with you directly."

It was a long way round by Penwith Cove, but there was no nearer way. He ran like a man pursued by wild beasts. The path was narrow and uneven, and followed the irregularities of the cliffs. A dozen times he came within an ace of breaking his neck, but he managed to keep on his feet. The question of his own safety never once occurred to him. Someone was in deadly peril, and a moment later or earlier might be a matter of life or death.

The path into the cove was by a series of zigzags; but he took a straight cut in most instances to the imminent risk of life and limb. A few cuts and bruises he did not mind. His clothes might not be fit to wear again. Tobogganning without a toboggan might not be elegant, but it was certainly exciting, and if it did nothing else it would find work for his tailor.

He was never quite certain whether he reached the beach head foremost or feet foremost. He found himself stretched full length on the sand, bleeding from innumerable cuts and quite out of breath.

There was no time, however, to make an inventory of his own hurts. Indeed, he was scarcely conscious that he had received any damage whatever. Picking himself up, he began to run with all his remaining strength. He limped a good deal, but he was not aware of it; neither did he make any attempt to pick his way. He swept eagerly the face of the cliff as he ran, and feared that he was too late.

At length he caught a glimpse of something white perched high above the beach.

"Good heavens; how did she get there?" he said to himself; and pausing for a moment he drew in a long breath, then shouted: "Hold tight, I'm coming!" though even as he spoke his heart failed him.

How was he to get to her, and even if he succeeded in reaching her side, how was he to get her down? The face of the cliff was almost perpendicular, the footholds were few and treacherous. Empty-handed, he might climb up and back again without very much difficulty; but with a half-fainting woman in his arms the descent would be practically impossible.

He was still running while these thoughts were passing through his mind, his breathing was laboured and painful, his bruised limbs were becoming stiff and obstinate.

He came to a full stop at length, and the fear that had haunted him from first hearing the cry became a certainty.

"Can you hold on a little longer?" he called.

"I guess I'll have to try," came the cheery answer, though there was the sound of tears in her voice. It was evident she was making a desperate effort to keep up her courage.

"Don't lose heart," he said, with a gasp, "and keep your eyes shut."

Then he shut his teeth grimly and began the ascent. "I'll save her or die in the attempt," he said to himself, with a fierce and determined look in his eyes.

Then something seemed to whisper in his ear: "Why trouble about a single life? One life more or less can make no difference. If people like to fling away their life in foolish adventures, let them do it; why should you worry?"

But his philosophy found no response in his heart just then. His own life might be of little consequence, but this fair creature must be saved at all costs.

He made his way up the face of the cliff surely and steadily. "It is easier than I thought," he said. Then he came to a sudden stop, while a groan escaped his lips.

"I cannot do it," he gasped; "nobody can do it. Without ropes and ladders she is doomed."

CHAPTER IV

PAYING THE PENALTY

When Madeline Grover got used to the cliffs they did not seem nearly so forbidding or dangerous as at the first. Exploring the caves and crannies for sea shells and lichen and gulls' eggs became a favourite pastime of hers. To stay within the precincts of Trewinion Park she declared was like being in prison. To wander across the level lawns, or through the woods by well-kept paths, was an exercise altogether too tame and unexciting. She loved something that had in it a spice of adventure. To do something that nobody else had ever done was very much more to her taste.

Sir Charles took her to task gently on several occasions. It was not quite the proper thing to go out alone and unattended. She would need to put a curb on her exuberant and adventurous spirit. She would have to remember that she was no longer in America, where, in his judgment, girls had far too much freedom. She must learn to fall into English ways and customs, with a good deal more to the same effect.

Madeline always listened patiently and good-humouredly to all Sir Charles had to say, and even promised him that she would be all he could desire; but she generally forgot both the lecture and the promise five minutes later. She had been used all her life to go her own way. At home, in America, she received her own friends of both sexes without reference to her father or mother. A liberty of action had been allowed her that seemed almost shocking to Sir Charles and Lady Tregony, and now that she had come to live in England for an indefinite period it was all but impossible for her to drop into English ways at once.

As a matter of fact, she did not try very much. She told Beryl Tregony that she had no desire to be a tame kitten, and since she was responsible to no one, she followed in the main the prompting of her own heart.

It was by no means difficult to slip away unobserved, and to be absent for hours on the stretch without being missed. She had her own rooms at the big house, and often when she was supposed to be quietly reading somewhere, she was out on the cliffs or down on the shore searching for rare flowers or shells, or else talking to the fishermen.

She found life terribly dull after her return from London. Yet, on the whole, she was not unhappy. The great sweep of the Atlantic had an unfailing attraction for her. The cliffs were glorious, and offered infinite scope for adventure. While the people of St. Gaved – particularly the fishermen – caught her fancy amazingly, and she became a prime favourite with them all.

Here was a young lady of the upper circle, a distant relative of the squire, who was not in the least exclusive or proud; who went in and out among the ordinary toiling folk as though she was one of them, and who had always a smile and a cheery word for the humblest. It was so different from the Tregony tradition, that it took their honest hearts by storm.

Rufus Sterne considered himself particularly unfortunate that when she came into St. Gaved he always missed her. Three or four times he heard of her being in the town – it was really only a big village, but the St. Gavedites all spoke of it as a town; but he was either in his workshop or away directing the operations of others; consequently, she came and went without giving him a chance of renewing their acquaintance.

"Not that it mattered," he said to himself. She was nothing to him. She belonged to a circle far removed from his. Yet for some reason he was curious to look again into her bright, laughing eyes, and listen to her naive and unconventional talk. Moreover, when he heard people talking about her, and praising her good looks and charming freeness of manner, he had a feeling that he had been cheated out of something to which he was justly entitled.

What added to the interest excited by the pretty young American was the fact that nobody had been able to find out the exact relationship in which she stood to the Tregony family. Neither had anybody been able to discover why she had come, or how long she intended to stay.

Any number of guesses had been hazarded, but they were only guesses at best. Some said she had been sent to England by her parents simply to learn society ways and manners. Others, that her parents were dead, and that her mother being related to Sir Charles, the latter had taken her out of charity. Mrs. Tuke, who, in the one glimpse she got of her, had been greatly impressed by the richness of her attire, ventured the opinion that she was an heiress in her own right, and that Sir Charles, who was not noted for his generosity, had not undertaken to be her guardian for nothing. But all these guesses lacked the essential thing, and that was authority. Sir Charles was as close as an oyster about his own family affairs. Moreover, he would no more think of talking to anyone in St. Gaved about his visitors than of taking a journey to the moon. And if he thought they were so impertinent as to desire to know, that would be a double reason why he should, under no circumstances, allude to the matter.