Frenchman's Creek

A wave of recklessness came upon her, and "What does it matter?" she thought, "why do we go on pretending, we may both die tonight, or tomorrow, and there will be so much that we shall not have had together." And digging her nails in her hands and looking out with him across the harbour she said with sudden passion: "Oh, death and damnation, you know why I want to stay."

She felt him turn and look at her, and away again, and then he said, "I wanted you to go, for the same reason."

Once more there was silence between them, each one searching for words, and if they had been alone there would have been no need for speaking, for the shyness that had been a barrier between them had dissolved suddenly, as though it had never been, and he laughed, and reached for her hand, and kissed the palm of it, saying, "Stay then, and we will make a fight for it, and hang together from the same tree, you and I."

Once more he left her, and beckoned again to Pierre Blanc, who grinned all over his face because the orders were changed. But now the spots of rain increased, the clouds had gathered in the sky, and the south-west wind was blowing in gusts down the creek from the harbour.

"Dona," he called, using her name for the first time, but carelessly, easily, as though he had always done so, and "Yes," she answered, "what is it, what do you want me to do?"

"There is no time to lose," he said, "we must get the ship under way before the wind strengthens. But first we must have the owner on board."

She stared at him as though he were crazy.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"When the wind was off the land," he told her briefly, "we could have sailed her out of Fowey Haven before the lazy fellows ashore had rubbed the sleep out of their eyes. Now we shall have to beat out, or even warp her through the narrow channel between the castles. Philip Rashleigh will be safer on board his own vessel than raising the devil ashore, and sending a cannon-ball across our bows as we pass the fort."

"Are those not rather desperate measures?" she said.

"No more desperate than the undertaking itself," he answered.

He was smiling down at her, as though nothing mattered, and he did not care. "Would you like to do something with a spice of danger in it?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, "tell me what to do."

"I want you to go with Pierre Blanc and find a boat," he said. "If you walk a little way along the shores of the creek here, towards the harbour entrance, you will come to some cottages, on the hill-side, and a quay. There will be boats moored there by the quay. I want you and Pierre Blanc to take the nearest boat you find and cross over to Fowey town, and go ashore, and call on Philip Rashleigh."

"Yes," she said.

"You won't mistake his house," he said, "it is hard by the church, facing the quay. You can see the quayside from here. There is a light upon it now."

"Yes," she said.

"I want you to tell him that his presence is urgently required on board his ship. Make up any story you like, play any part you have a fancy for. But keep in the shadow. You are a passable enough cabin-boy in darkness, but a woman under the light."

"Suppose he refuses to come?"

"He will not refuse, not if you are clever."

"And if he suspects me, and keeps me there?"

"I shall deal with him then."

He walked to the water's edge, and the men followed him. Suddenly she knew why they none of them wore jackets, why one and all were hatless, and why they now kicked off their shoes, tying them round their necks with a cord through the buckle. She looked out towards the ship, straining at her moorings there in the creek, the riding-light swaying to the freshening wind, while the men on board her slept soundly; and she thought of those silent trespassers who would come upon her out of the darkness. No creaking of oars in the night, no shadows of boats, but a wet hand stretching from the water upon the chain, and a wet foot-mark upon the fo'c'sle head, and lithe dripping figures dropping down upon her decks, a whisper, and a whistle, and a strangled smothered cry.

She shivered for no reason, except that she was a woman, and turning to her from the water he smiled at her and said, "Go now, turn your back on us, and go," and she obeyed him, stumbling once more across the rocks and the seaweed, with little Pierre Blanc trotting at her heels like a dog. Not once did she look back over her shoulder to the river, but she knew that they were all swimming now to the ship, that the wind was blowing stronger every moment, and the tide was running swiftly. She lifted her face, and then the rain began to fall, hard and fast, from the southwest.

CHAPTER XIII