In Maremma/Volume 3/Chapter 40

by Marie Louise de la Ramée

 

CHAPTER XL.

 

HEN she unclosed her eyes from out of the trance of death, she lay upon the stone floor of the tomb before the wood fire.

Este kneeled beside her; her hands were in his, his breath was on her cheek.

'What has happened?' she said stupidly; then suddenly remembered.

'The oil and the wine are lost!' she cried; then grew drowsy and stupid again as the warmth from the burning wood stole over her and rejoiced all her cramped and frozen body.

'What matters that?' he murmured over her. 'You are saved; you live.'

She smiled dreamily, her eyelids had dropped again, She was but half awake. It was so pleasant to lie there, at home, with the glow of the fire spreading over all her wet numb limbs, and the sense of his hands on hers, of his voice on her ear.

Her head rested on a log of wood covered with a goatskin; her damp curls began to grow crisp, and the gold in them shone in the light of the blazing wood; her face was pale as marble; her slender feet lay bare and white upon the other goatskins he had spread beneath her; she was more lovely so in her helplessness than she had ever seemed to him in all the plenitude of her strength and health.

He murmured tender and passionate words over her; he kissed her curls and her hands and her feet; it had been those kisses which had awakened her.

Now, as she lay half dreaming, half smiling, only half conscious yet, he drew back from her a little; he was afraid to alarm her; life in her had seemed for a time so still that he had thought her dead. She had had no more motion, no more breath in her, than a broken lily thrown down on the grass.

But Glaucus had only played with this his favourite child; he had not killed her.

She lay still for many minutes; now and again her eyes looked for a moment up at the familiar shadows of the tomb and then closed with the dreamful pleasure of a child that lies half asleep and hears sweet music.

'I was afraid,' she murmured once, 'I was so afraid—for you!'

Then she lay still and seemed again to dream; her eyes closed, her lips parted with a faint glad smile.

The tears fell from the eyes of Este.

After awhile she raised herself quite suddenly, and a look of alarm and of fuller comprehension came upon her face.

'I was drowning,' she said aloud. 'I was thrown out of the boat and was drowning. What has happened? I was coming back and the storm broke. The wine and the oil were lost. I am sure that I swam, and the water threw me down and buried me. How am I here? Who helped me?'

'Do not ask that?' said he tenderly. 'It is enough that you are here. Be still—forget.'

She raised herself higher and leaned on the skins with one elbow, and so sat half erect and fastened her gaze on him.

'Tell me, tell me; I want to know! I am not mad? I have not dreamt it, have I? I was drowning; oh yes, I was drowning—is it long ago? Who brought me home? Is the boat safe?'

'I brought you home, dear.'

'You! Tell me about it; tell me quick! I do not think I am mad. I am sure there was a storm; I was sure I went underneath the sea, down—down—down. The water was in my mouth and in my ears. I have not dreamt it. Where is the boat?'

'Be quiet; try to be calmer and I will tell you. Yes, you went out in the boat today and there has been a storm, a terrible storm. It is not over yet, but you are safe here.'

'Yes?'

She listened as a child listens to a tale, her eyes dilated, her lips parted, leaning still on one arm upon the goatskins before the fire. She was quite warm now; the colour had returned to her face, her curls were scarcely wet, and lay heavy and soft over her brows.

'Yes, you are safe here,' he answered her, afraid that her consciousness was still dim and her thoughts were vague, and speaking in the simplest and the clearest words he could that they might find their way to her brain without startling her. 'You are home and with me; we are both safe. When the storm came I sat here till I could bear to hear it no longer, knowing that you were out upon the sea. I do not know the time—it may have been at Ave Maria or later—that the horror of the thought grew too great for me to sit here and endure it. I was in safety, warm beside the hearth that you had made for me; and you were there alone in the dark on the waters. I got up and I went out. I could see nothing for the rain, I could hear nothing for the wind; I could only tell that out at sea the night was terrible. I lighted your lantern, and I walked on and on, on and on, making for the shore as well as I could guess. You had told me certain landmarks, and by the lantern light I could avoid the bogs and the trunks of the trees. Still I think I must have been a long time getting to the shore. It seemed to me the whole night—perhaps it might be less than an hour—I cannot say. I could hear a minute-gun far away over the waters; and I knew you were out at sea, unless by Heaven's mercy you had had some warning of the storm and had stayed in harbour. But I thought, whatever the weather was you would be trying to come back to me. I was sure that you were in the boat in that awful darkness. I walked and walked; there was not a star to guide me, all above and below was black as ink. I could only hear the rushing of the wind, the crashing of the boughs. Once a herd of cattle and horses tore past me, mad no doubt with fright; they almost trampled me down amongst them. I saw no other living thing. I forgot that I was a hunted felon; I only remembered you. I felt the wind was from the south-west, and so walking against it I hoped to come to the beach at last. If I had known the country as well as you, I should have had no fear. As it was, I knew I might walk the whole night yet never find the sea. But all at once I felt my feet wet. I stooped and tasted the water; it was salt. The roar of the wind was so loud that I had missed the sound of the sea, but the sea it was. By the lantern light I could see the foam on a breaking wave. Now I was there I seemed no nearer you. I had no boat; I could do nothing; my sight could not pierce the darkness by a yard's length. You might be drowning, I knew, within a foot of me, and I helpless, knowing nothing of it. On Gorgona I saw many storms, but none so dark as this. I wandered miserably up and down, to and fro, on that stretch of sand. The sea had rolled up, I think, much higher than it rises in fair weather. I could not tell what to do; only I could not go home, thinking you were lost in that hissing, boiling, howling blackness, that seemed to have swallowed up both earth and sky. The soldiers might have taken me if there had been any there; I do not think I should have known they touched me. Going along the shore, to and fro, like a lost dog, with the great wall of those waves you love beside me, and the water rolling with a sound like thunder, I touched something with my foot. It was you! You were lying there in the wet sand, with the foam of the surf all about you. How you came there I cannot tell. The sea loved you because you never feared it, and so saved you, I suppose. I suppose the breakers had nursed you like a child, and thrown you gently at last upon the lap of the shore. You were quite insensible, but your heart was beating. I carried you here. I missed my way twice or thrice, and the way was long. But at last we came home. That is all. Ah, dear, do not say I do not love you ever again.'

She had heard him in perfect silence, her eyes wide open, her lips parted, pushing back her hair with her hand, and seeming to hang upon each accent of his voice.

When his words ceased, she gave a startled cry that was half a sob.

'You did that for me?' she said, in a wondering whisper. 'You ran that risk—for me?'

He stooped and kissed her.

With a sigh and a smile in one breath, she threw her arms about his throat.

 

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