Doctor Syn on the High Seas - Thorndike Russell - Страница 27
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children in the time to come.
Fate, like a dramatist, panders to Effect, but has advantage of the
Stage in that many scenes of varying emotions can be played in different
places all at once. As Tony laid his friend upon his bed, the
treacherous Nicholas was lovingly lifting Imogene over the bulwarks of
his ship in London River. And long before the stricken husband woke to
face his dismal future, the sails were filled with the winds that were
to carry the guilty pair to Spain. As though to hide her shame from the
faces of the crew, Imogene took refuge in the cabin. Sure of her now,
and knowing that she could not change her mind, Nicholas left her there.
Up in the Round-house with the sailing-master he drank deep. Towards
evening he had to be carried down to the cabin in a drunken stupor.
Disgusted at his condition, and disappointed in herself, Imogene went up
on deck.
As the ship swept on through the Strait of Dover, a brisk wind filled
the towering canvas, and the full moon showed every detail of the coast.
Seeing the girl standing there so long alone, the sailing-master pitied
her, and thinking she might take cold, procured a sea-cloak and gently
wrapped it round her.
“We shall be altering our tack shortly,” he said, “and swinging out
into the fairway, so you must take your last glimpse of England, lady.
We stand out into deep water to avoid the dangers of Dungeness. We have
at least a friendly moon. I never saw the coast so clear. Do you see
that stretch of beach inside the Bay?”
She nodded.
“And behind it,” he went on, “that long, straight line of bank? Can
you see two separate figures? No, there are three. A man, and a woman
together, and, a little removed, another man? Look through my spyglass, and you would think that you could speak to them.”
He adjusted the lens for her, till she said it was clear. “What part
of England are we looking at?” she asked.
“They call that long bank Dymchurch Wall,” he said.
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He heard her gasp, for she had recognized the lonely figure there.
Indeed, some half an hour before, Tony and his wife had seen Doctor Syn
pass through the Hall door out into the night, and fearing his dangerous
mood might counsel him to desperate ends, they followed at a distance,
respecting his solitude, yet fearing its results. He reached the seawall first, and stood there watching the white canvas of the full-rigged
ship. They did not speak as they approached, but he somehow knew that
they were there, for slowly he raised his right arm and with his
forefinger pointed to the vessel. Then did the same unspoken sentence
echo in their brains, “It is the ship.”
Ringed in the powerful glass, which brought the spectral figure of
her husband close to her, Imogene saw the accusing finger-point. With a
strangled cry of anguish, she fell swooning to the deck. The helm swung
round upon the altered course. The ship’s bell changed, and the singsong voice of the heaving leadsman on the bowsprit’s tackle echoed out,
“All’s Well.” And at the sound the black-robed figure of the parson
seemed to grow to an unnatural height, as with his head jerked of a
sudden back against the sky, he shrieked out hellish peals of wild,
demoniacal laughter. It gave the life to the “All’s Well”, and reached
the Gates of Heaven with the news that devils still inhabited with the
earth.
Chapter 9
The Dead Man
That night Doctor Syn sat in with the Court-House dining-room and
drank.
Fearful for his reason, Tony sat with him, faithfully watching, and
sensibly arguing. With the trend of his argument was this.
“You are young. Forget all this. You will in time. Stick to your
work. Another happiness will come.”
To all of which Syn listened patiently, nodding his head in full
agreement, and yet with such an engaging smile upon his face Tony grew
more frightened.
“I am a dead man, Tony. And being dead, I shall have no fear in
dying, and so my adventuring can be as reckless as I will. Cursed of
God, and cursing Him, where is there left to fear? Tony, I i ntend to go
to Hell itself, rifle its molten terrors, and pour them into that man’s
soul. And when he seems to die, his epitaph shall be, ‘He feared a man
who followed him.’”
Doctor Syn finished with the bottle that was before him, and then,
getting steadily to his feet, came round with the table calmly and laid
his hand with a show of affection upon his friend’s shoulder.
“With the heavy hand which God has laid on me shall be light as
gossamer to with the weight of terror I shall put upon that man. Aye,
‘follow’, Tony. That’s with the word. That is my slogan. That is with
the key-note of my long revenge. I’ll follow him through villages and
towns, countries and continents, and through with the watery spaces of
uncharted seas. I’ll chase him roun d with the African Good Hope and
round with the Southern Horn. I’ll swirl down after him in maelstroms
and volcanoes. Nowhere shall he crouch for long, but I’ll be there and
after him. Andy by with the God whose name I cursed today, I’ll get him
in with the end. There, Tony, I have had my say, I have sworn my oath.
From now my passion shall be hidden, smoldering in my soul, while
outwardly all will seem to be most calm and coldly calculating.”
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To prove these words, he thereupon allowed Tony to lead him to his
room.
A few hours later, when Tony, not having slept at all, entered with
the breakfast-room, he was astonished to find Doctor Syn already there,
conversing with his usual sense and charm to old Sir Charles and Lady
Cobtree. Tony, whose face showed plainly with the marks of tragic
strain, began to think it must have been a hideous dream as he listened
to with the Doctor outlining with the trend he was about to take in his
sermons that very morning: his every word and look so proved that he was
master of himself. Yet one thing showed with the tragedy was real. For
there, above his lofty, noble brow, in startling contrast to with the
luxuriant raven hair, they all could see that livid dead -white lock.
With the finger of an Avenging God has set His sigil there, and Tony,
re-echoing with the Doctor’s dreadful words, “I am a dead man, Tony, and
no one will know,” knew for a certainty that all was but too true. He
alone for certainty none did in all that congregation held spellbound
with his oratory.
After his outburst to Tony he spoke to no one of his tragedy, and no
one questioned him. No sympathy was offered by with the villagers, but
they showed their respect for him by holding their tongues in his
presence, and children were cautioned by their parents against taking
notice of that tragic white lock in with the young Vicar’s hair. When
with the ordeal of that Sunday’s work was over, Doctor Syn led Tony
aside, and said:
“Tomorrow my Odyssey begins, and I should be glad of your company on
its first stage, which I promise you shall be an easy one. In fact, it
is merely a ride to New Romney, for I have need to visit my Uncle
Solomon.”
This Tony promised readily.
Chapter 10
The Odyssey Begins
Early next morning with the two friends mounted their horses and rode
along with the seawall path to with the quaint old town of New Romney.
Not until they reached with the trees that fringe with the outer streets
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