She's All the World to Me

"Yes, yes; well, well?"

"The moment you see the light go down on the pier – no matter when – no matter what else has happened – do you that instant set fire to the gorse about you. Fire it here, there, everywhere, as if it were the night of May-day."

"Yes; what then?"

"Then creep down to the shore and wait again."

"What will happen, Mona?"

"This – Kisseck and the men with him will see your light over the Lockjaw, and guess that it is a signal of danger. If they have half wit they'll know that it must be meant for them. Then they'll jump into their boat and pull down to you."

"When they come, what am I to say?"

"Say that the police from Castle Rushen are after them; that four are cut off in the castle, and four more are on the Horse Hill above Contrary. Tell them to get back, every man of them, to Kisseck's house as fast as their legs will carry them."

Danny's intelligence might be sluggish at ordinary moments, but to-night it was suddenly charged with a ready man's swiftness and insight. "But the Castle Rushen men on the Horse Hill will see the burning gorse," he said.

"True – ah, yes, Danny, that's tr – . I have it! I have it!" exclaimed the girl. "There are two paths from the Lockjaw to Kisseck's house. I walked both of them with Ruby, yesterday. One goes above the open shaft of the old lead mine, the other below it. Tell the men to take the low road – the low road; be sure you say the low road – and if the police see your fire I'll send them along the high road, and so they will pass with a cliff between them. That's it, thank God. You understand me, Danny? Are you quite sure you understand everything – every little thing?"

"Yes, I do," said the lad, with the energy of a man.

"When they get to Kisseck's cottage let them smoke, drink, gamble, swear – anything – to make believe they have never been out to-night. You know what I mean?"

"I do," repeated the lad.

He was a new being. His former self seemed in that hour to drop from him like a garment.

Mona looked at him in the dim light shot through the window from the fire, and for an instant her heart smote her. What was she doing with this lad? What was he doing for her? Love was her pole-star. What was his? Only the blank self-abandonment of despair. For love of Christian she was risking all this. But the wild force that inspired the heart of this simple lad was love for her who loved another. Whose was the nobler part, hers who hoped all, or his who hoped nothing? In the darkness she felt her face flush deep. Oh, what a great little heart was here – here, in this outcast boy; this neglected, down-trodden, despised, and rejected, poor, pitiful waif of humanity.

"Danny," she murmured, with plaintive tenderness, "it is wrong of me to ask you to do this for me – very, very wrong."

His eyes were dilated. The face, hitherto unutterably mournful to see, was alive with a strange fire. But he said nothing. He turned his head toward the lonely sea, whose low moan came up through the dark night.

She caught both his hands with a passionate grasp. "Danny," she murmured again, "if there was another name for love that is not – "

She stopped, but her eyes were close to his.

He turned. "Don't look like that," he cried, in a voice that went to the girl's heart like an arrow.

She dropped his hands. She trembled and glowed. "Oh, my own heart will break," she said; "to love and not be loved, to be loved and not to love – "

* * * * * * * * * * * *

["I think at whiles I'd like to die in a big sea like that."]

Mona started. What had recalled Danny's strange words? Had he spoken them afresh? No.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

"Danny," she murmured once more, in tones of endearment, and again she grasped his hands. Their eyes met. The longing, yearning look in hers answered to the wild glare in his.

"Don't look at me like that," he repeated, with the same low moan.

Mona felt as if that were the last she was ever to see of the lad in this weary world. He loved her with all his great, broken, bleeding heart. Her lips quivered. Then the brave, fearless, stainless girl put her quivering lips to his.

To Danny that touch was as fire. With a passionate cry he flung his arms about her. For an instant her head lay on his breast. "Now go," she whispered, and broke from his embrace.

CHAPTER XIII

THE FLIGHT AND PURSUIT

Danny tore himself away with heart and brain aflame. Were they to meet again? Yes. For one terrible and perilous moment they were yet to stand face to face. As he ran down the road toward the town, Danny encountered a gang of men with lanterns, whooping, laughing, singing carols, and beating the bushes. It was the night before Christmas-eve, and they were "hunting the wren." Tommy Tear and Davy Cain were among them. Danny heard their loud voices, and knew they had trapped the harbor-master. The first act in to-night's tragedy had begun.

Two hours and a half later Mona passed the same troop of men. They were now standing in the Market-place. Tommy Tear and Davy Cain had a long pole from shoulder to shoulder, and from this huge bracket a tiny bird – a wren – was suspended. It was one of their Christmas customs. Their companions came up at intervals and plucked a feather from the wren's breast. Tommy-Bill-beg was singing a carol. A boy held a lantern to a crumpled paper, from which the unlettered coxcomb pretended to sing.

Mona hurried on. Her immediate destination was the net factory. There she found the company of nine or ten men. She was taken into the midst of them. "This is the young woman," shouted Kerruish Kinvig; "and when some of you fellows," he added, "have been police for fifty years, and are grown gray in the service, you may do worse than come here and go to school to this girl of two-and-twenty."

There was some superior and depreciatory laughter, and then Mona was required to repeat what she knew. When she had done so she did not wait for official instructions. She quietly and resolutely announced her intention of going on to the cliff-head above Contrary with a lantern in hand. When the light on the pier was run down by the fishing-boat, she would light her lantern and turn it toward the castle as a sign to the men in hiding there. The determination and decision of this girl brooked no question. The police agreed to her scheme. And had she not been the root and origin of all their movements, and the sole cause that they were there at all?

But Mona had yet another proposal, and to herself this last was the most vital of all. The four men who were to watch Bill Kisseck's house must have a guide, or by their lumbering movements they would awaken suspicion, and the birds would be frightened and not snared. Christian had not been found. "He's off to Ramsey, no doubt," suggested Kinvig. "I'll be guide to you myself," said Mona. "I'll take you to the Head, place you there, and then go off to my own station." And so it was agreed. It is not usually a man's shrewdness that can match a woman's wit at an emergency like this. And then the men in this case were police – a palliating circumstance!

Half an hour passed, and Mona was on the cliff-head. She had so placed the four men that they could not see her own position or know whether she duly and promptly lit her lantern or not. The night was still very dark. Not a star was shining; no moon appeared. Yet, standing where she stood, with the black hill behind her, she could at least descry something of the sea in front. The water, lighter than the land, showed faintly below. Mona could trace the line of white breakers around the Castle Isle. If a boat's sail came close to the coast, she could see that also. The darkness of the night might aid her. There was light enough for her movements, but too little for the movements of the four strangers behind her.

Mona saw the boat leave the shore that carried Kinvig and his four assistants across the strait to the castle. In a moment she lost it in the black shadow. Then she heard the grating of its keel on the shingle, and the clank of the little chain that moored it.

Now everything depended on Danny. Had the lad wit enough to comprehend all her meaning? Even if so, was it in human nature to do so much as she expected him to do from no motive, but such as sprang from hopeless love? God brighten the lad's dense intellect for this night at least! Heaven ennoble our poor, selfish, uncertain human nature for one brief hour!

Mona strained her ear for the splash of an oar. Danny ought to be stirring now. But no; Mona could hear nothing but the murmur of the waters on the pebbles and their distant boom in the bay.

Look! coming up to the west coast of the castle were the sails of a fishing-boat silhouetted against the leaden sky. It was a lugger. Mona could see both mainmast and mizzen with mainsail and yawl. It was the "Ben-my-Chree." Christian was there, and he was in deadly peril. She herself had endangered his liberty and life. The girl was almost beside herself with terror.

But look again! Though no sound of oars could reach her, she could now see the clear outline of a boat scudding through the lighter patch of water just inside the castle's shadow. It was Danny! God bless and keep him on earth and in heaven! How the lad rowed! Light as the dip of a feather, and swift as the eagle flies! Bravely, Danny, bravely!

The clock in the tower of the old church in the Market-place was striking. How the bell echoed on this lonely height! – six, seven, eight, nine! Nine o'clock? Then the merchantman ought to be near at hand. Mona strained her eyes into the darkness. She could see nothing. Perhaps the ship would not come. Perhaps Heaven itself had ordered that the man she loved should be guiltless of this crime. Merciful Heaven, let it be so! let it be so!

The fishing-boat had disappeared. Yes, her sails were gone. But out at sea, far out, half a league away – what black thing was there? Oh, it must be a cloud; that was all. No doubt a storm was brewing. What was the funny sailor's saying that Ruby laughed at when Danny repeated it? No, no! it was looming larger and larger, and it was nearer than she had thought. It was – yes, it was a sail. There could be no doubt of it now. The merchantman was outside, and she was less than half a mile away.

Bill Kisseck and the three men who were to go ashore on the west of the Castle Isle must now have landed. Christian was one of them. Within fifty yards five men lay in wait to capture them. See, the "Ben-my-Chree" was fetching away to leeward. She was doubling the island rock and coming into harbor. How awkwardly the man at the tiller was tacking. That was a ruse, lest he was watched. To Mona the suspense of the moment was terrible. The very silence was awful. She felt an impulse to scream.

What about Danny? Had he reached the Lockjaw?

He must have rowed like a man possessed, to be there already. The "Ben-my-Chree" would sweep into harbor at the next tack. Could Danny get up onto the pier in time to see the lamp on the pier go down?

Mona could see the black outline of the Lockjaw headland from where she was stationed. Her heart seemed to stand still. She turned her eyes first to the pier, then to the Lockjaw, and then to the cloud of black sail outside that grew larger every instant.

Look again – the fishing-boat is coming in; she is almost covering the lamp on the pier; she has swept it down; it is gone, and all is blank, palpable darkness. Mona covers her eyes with her hands.

Is Danny ready? Quick, quick, Danny; one minute lost and all is lost! No light yet on the Lockjaw.

Bravo! Mona's heart leaps to her mouth. There is a light on the Lockjaw Head! Thank God and poor dear Danny forever and ever.

And now, the lamp down, the gorse burning, the merchantman drawing nearer and nearer, what must Mona herself do? She had promised to give the sign to the men in the castle the instant the light on the pier was run down. Then they would know that it was not too soon to pounce down on Kisseck and his men, with part of their plot – the least dangerous part, but still a punishable part – carried into effect. But Mona did not light her lantern. She never meant to do it so soon. She must first see some reason to believe that Christian and his companions had taken Danny's warning.

She waited one minute – two, three. No sign yet. Meantime the black cloud of sail in the bay was drawing closer. There were living men aboard of that ship, and they were running on to the rocks. This suspense was agony. Mona felt that she must do something. But what?

If she were to light her lantern now, she might save the merchantman; but then Christian would be pounced upon and taken. If she were not to light her lantern soon, the ship would be gored to pieces on the Castle Isle, and perhaps all hands would be lost. What was Mona to do? The tension was terrible.

She strode up and down the hillside – up and down, up and down.

Three minutes gone – a fourth minute going. Not a sound from the west coast of the castle. Perhaps Christian, Kisseck, and the rest had not landed. She must not let the merchantman be wrecked. Her lantern must be lighted for the crew's sake. Yes; they were men, living men – men with wives who loved them, and children who climbed to their knees. Mona thought of Christian and of Ruby. It was a fierce moment of conflicting passion.

Four minutes at least had gone. Mona had decided to light her lantern, come what would or could. She was in the act of doing so, when she heard footsteps on the cliff behind her. The four strangers had seen the light on the pier go down. They thought it must be time for them to be moving. Either Kinvig and the other four in the castle had taken their men, or they had missed them. In either case their own time for action had gone.

Mona, in a fever of excitement, affected certain knowledge that Kisseck's men must be captured. She recommended the police to go down to the shore and wait quietly for their friends. But at that moment they caught sight of Danny's fire on the Lockjaw Head. They suspected mischief, and declared their intention of going off to it.

At the same moment Mona's quicker eyes, now preternaturally quick, caught sight of a boat clearing the west coast of the Castle Rock, and sailing fast toward the Lockjaw. It was Christian's boat. Again Mona felt an impulse to scream.

And now there came loud shouts from the castle. At the sign of Mona's lantern, Kinvig and his followers had leaped out of their ambush, only to find their men gone. Then they had run off to the creek in which they had left their boat, meaning to give chase – only to find that the boat had disappeared. There had been treachery somewhere. They were imprisoned on the Castle Rock, and so they shouted, loud and long, to their comrades on the cliff.

Mona thought she would have laughed yet louder and longer had she dared. But the police were still with her, and the desire to laugh was quickly swallowed up in fresh fear. She took the strangers to the high path that led to the Lockjaw. "Follow this," she said, "and take no other, as you value your limbs and necks." She told them to be very careful as they passed the open shaft of the old lead mine. It would lie three yards on their right. Away they went.

What had happened to the merchantman? She had seen danger, and was already beating down the bay. She and her crew were safe. Putting down the lantern on the hillside, Mona ran with all speed to Kisseck's cottage. In the darkness she almost stumbled down the little precipice on to the back of the roof. Running round the path, she pushed her way into the house. Bridget Kisseck was there. In breathless haste Mona told the woman that the police were after Kisseck and his friends; urged her to get pipes, tobacco, cards, ale, spirits, and the like on the table. The men would be here in three minutes. They must make pretense that they had never been out.

Then Mona ran back to the angle of the two mountain paths, the high path and the low one.

Bridget, who had not comprehended Mona's instructions, took fright at her intelligence, put on her shawl and bonnet, and, without waiting for her husband, hurried away to the town.

CHAPTER XIV

"BILL IS GONE TO BED"

What was happening to Danny at the Lockjaw Creek?

Throughout two hours and a half he had lain in the cold, motionless and silent, among the rocks outside the castle. When the time came he had leaped into the boat which the police brought with them, and pulled away. He had strained every muscle to reach the Poolvash, knowing full well that if he gained it one minute late it might be indeed the bay of death. Before he had crossed that point at which the two streams meet midway in the strait he could see the "Ben-my-Chree" tacking into the harbor. Then, indeed, he sculled with all his strength. He ran ashore. He mounted to the cliff-head. With the matches in his hand he peered through the darkness to where the lamp still burned on the end of the pier. Yes, he was in time. But what was the red riot that was now rising in his heart?

It was then, and not till then, that the thought came to him, "What am I here for?" What for? Who for? Why? It was a moment of blank bewilderment. Then in an instant, as if by a flash of lightning, everything became plain. Mona, Christian, Ruby – these three, linked together for the first time in the lad's mind, flashed the truth, the fact, the secret upon him. Danny had at length stumbled into the hidden grave. He saw it all now. What had lain concealed from other and wiser heads, vainer heads, heads lifted above his in lofty pride, was revealed to his simple intelligence and great yearning heart.

Yes, Danny knew now why he was there. It was to save the life of the man who was beloved by the woman whom he loved.

The world seemed in that moment to crumble beneath his feet. He dropped his eyes in deep self-abasement, but he raised them again in self-sacrifice and unselfish love. There was no doubt as to what he should do. No, not even now, with the life of Christian in the palm of his hand. Some power above himself controlled him.

"For her sake," he whispered. "Oh, for her sake, for all," he murmured, and at that moment the light on the pier went down.

He struck his matches and lighted the gorse. It was damp, and at first it would not burn. It dried at last and burst into flame. Then the lad crept down to the water's edge and waited.

The water lay black as the raven outside, but the light of the burning gorse overhead gilded the rolling wavelets at his feet.

In five minutes the dingey of the "Ben-my-Chree" shot into the creek, and four men leaped ashore. One was Kisseck, another Christian, and the other two were Paul Corteen and Luke Killip. All were violently agitated.

"What for is all this, you young devil?" cried Kisseck. "What does it all mean? – out with it, quick! – what tricks have you been playing? Damn his fool's face, why doesn't he speak?"

And Kisseck struck the lad, and he fell. Danny got up strangely quiet, strangely calm, with great wide eyes, and a face that no man could look on without fear. Kisseck trembled before it, but – from dread alone and without waiting for a word of explanation – he raised his hand once more.

Christian interposed. Danny told his story; how the police were on the cliff-head as well as the island; how they would certainly make for this spot; how Mona Cregeen would send them along the high path; and how they – Kisseck, Christian, and the others – were to take the low path, get back with all haste to the cottage, and make pretense that they had never been out.

Christian started away. He had climbed the precipitous cliff-head in a minute, the others following. When they reached the top, Danny was side by side with his uncle, staring with wild eyes into his face. Kisseck stopped.

" – , what for do you look at me?" he cried. Then again he lifted his hand and struck the lad and threw him. When Danny rose to his feet after this second blow he laughed aloud. It was a laugh to freeze the blood. Christian turned back. He took Kisseck by the shoulder. "By – ," he said, between gusts of breath, "touch him again and I'll pitch you into the sea."

Kisseck was silent and cowed. There was no time to stand quarreling there. "Come on," cried Christian, and he set off to run. He speedily outran the rest, and they lost sight of him.

The two paths that led to the Lockjaw came together within a hundred yards at the end. In the darkness, in the confusion, in the turmoil of soul, Christian missed the lower path and followed the higher one. He did not realize his mistake. Running at his utmost speed, however, he heard footsteps in front of him. They were coming toward him. They were the footsteps of the police. Christian was uncertain what to do. For himself he cared little. But he thought of his father, of Mona, of little Ruby, and then life and fame were dear.

The cliff was on the right of him, as he supposed, the sea on the left. He reckoned that he must be near to Kisseck's cottage now. Perhaps he could reach it before the men came up to it. They were drawing very close. Along the higher path Christian ran at his utmost speed.

Ah! here is the cottage, nearer than he had expected. He must have run faster than he supposed. In the uncertain light Christian sees what he takes to be the old quarry. There is no time to go round by the road and in at the front. He must leap down the back of the shallow quarry, light on the thatch, and lie there for a minute until the men have passed.

He runs, he leaps, but – he has jumped down the open shaft of the old disused lead mine.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Meantime Kisseck and Danny Fayle, with Corteen and Killip, found the low path and followed it. They heard the strangers pass on the high path, but they were themselves running softly on the thin grass, and a cliff was between the police and them. When they got to the angle of the roads and turned down the footpath in front of the house they passed Mona. As they entered, "Who was that woman?" said Kisseck.

"Mona," answered Danny.

"Damn her, I'll lay my soul that craythur is at the bottom of it all."

Danny's dilated eyes flashed fire. But he was otherwise outwardly quiet and calm.

"Where's that other fellow – Christian?" said Kisseck. "He has led me into all this cursed mess."

"That's a lie," said Danny, with the color gone from his cheeks.

Kisseck walked across to him with uplifted arm. Never flinching, the lad waited for the blow. Kisseck dropped his hand. Curling his lip in biting mockery, he said, "What for is that she-devil sthrowling around here?"

One bright spot of blood came into the lad's face, and as he drew in his breath it went through his teeth. But he was silent still.

"She has the imperience of sin," said Kisseck. "If she comes here she'll suffer for it."

Danny walked to the door and pushed the bolt. Kisseck laughed bitterly.

"I knew it," he said. "I knew she was in it. But I'll punish her. Out of the way, you idiot waistrel."

There was a hurried step on the road outside.

Danny put his back to the door. His eyes melted, and he cried beseechingly:

"You'll not do that, Uncle Bill?"

"Out of the road, you young pauper," cried Kisseck; and he took hold of Danny and thrust him aside.

"You shall not do it," screamed the lad, running to the hearth and snatching up a poker.

All Danny's unnatural quiet had forsaken him.

There was a knock at the door, and an impatient footstep to and fro.

Kisseck walked into an inner room, and came back with a pistol in his hand.

"Men, don't you see it plain? That woman is at the bottom of it all," he said, turning to Corteen and Killip, and pointing, as he spoke, to the door. "She brought us here to trap us, and now she has come to see if we are at home. She has the men from Castle Rushen behind her; but she shall pay for it with her life. Out of the way, I say. Out – of – the – way."

Danny was standing again with his back to the door. He had the poker in his hand. Kisseck put the pistol on a table, and closed with Danny to push him aside. There was a terrible struggle. Amid curses from Kisseck and shouts from Corteen and Killip, the poker was wrenched from Danny's grasp and thrown on the floor. The lad himself was dragged away from the door, and the bolt was drawn.

Then in an instant Danny rushed to the table and picked up the pistol. There was a flash, a deafening explosion, a shriek, a heavy fall, and Kisseck rolled on the floor dead.