In the Roar of the Sea/Chapter 53
CHAPTER LIII.
IN THE SMOKE.
Judith left Pentyre Glaze when she had somewhat recovered herself after the interview with Coppinger and her surrender. She had fought a brave battle, but had been defeated and must lay down her arms. Resistance was no longer possible if Jamie was to be saved from a miserable fate. Now by the sacrifice of herself she had assured to him a future of calm and innocent happiness. She knew that with Uncle Zachie and Oliver he would be cared for, kindly treated, and employed. Uncle Zachie himself was not to be trusted; whatever he might promise, his good nature was greater than his judgment. But she had confidence in Oliver, who would prove a check on the over-indulgence which his father would allow. But Jamie would forget her. His light and unretentive mind was not one to harbor deep feeling. He would forget her when on board ship in his pleasure at running about the vessel chattering with the sailors, and would only think of her if he wanted aught or was ill. Rapidly the recollection of her, love for her, would die out of his mind and heart; and as it died out of his, her thought and love for him would deepen and become more fixed, for she would have no one, nothing in the world to think of and love save her twin-brother.
She walked on in the dark winter night, lighted only by the auroral glow overhead, and was conscious of a smell of tobacco-smoke that so persistently seemed to follow her that she was forced to notice it. She became uneasy, thinking that someone was walking behind the hedge with a pipe, watching her, perhaps waiting to spring out upon her when distant from the house, where her cries for help might not be heard.
She stood still. The smell was strong. She climbed the hedge on one side and looked over; as far as she could discern in the red glimmer from the flushed sky there was no one there. She listened, she could hear no step. She walked hastily on to a gate in the hedge on the opposite side and went through that. The smell of burning tobacco was as strong there. Judith turned in the lane and walked back in the direction of the house. The smell pursued her. It was strange. Could she carry the odor in her clothes? She turned again and resumed her walk toward Othello Cottage. Now she was distinctly aware that the scent came to her on the wind. Her perplexity on this subject served as a diversion of her mind from her own troubles.
She emerged upon the downs, and made her way across them toward the cottage that lay in a dip, not to be observed except by one close to it. The wind when it brushed up from the sea was odorless.
Presently she came in sight of Othello Cottage, and in spite of the darkness could see that a strange, dense, white fog surrounded it, especially the roof, which seemed to be wearing a white wig. In a moment she understood what this signified. Othello Cottage was on fire, and the stores of tobacco in the attic were burning. Judith ran. Her own troubles were forgotten in her alarm for Jamie. No fire as yet had broken through the roof.
She reached the door, which was open. Mr. Scantlebray in leaving had not shut the door, so as to allow the boy to crawl out should he recover sufficient intelligence to see that he was in danger.
It is probable that Scantlebray, senior, would have made further efforts to save Jamie, but that he believed he would meet with his brother, and two or three men he was bringing with him, near the house, and then it would be easy unitedly to drag the boy forth. He did, indeed, meet with Obadiah, but also at the same time with Uncle Zachie Menaida and a small party of farm-laborers, and when he heard that Mr. Menaida desired help to secure Coppinger and the smugglers, he thought no more of the boy and joined heartily in the attempt to rescue the Preventive men and take Coppinger.
Through the open door dashed Judith, crying out to Jamie whom she could not see. There was a dense, white cloud in the room, let down from above, and curling out at the top of the door, whence it issued as steam from a boiler. It was impossible to breathe in this fog of tobacco-smoke, and Judith knew that if she allowed it to surround her she would be stupefied. She therefore stooped and entered, calling Jamie. Although the thick mattress of white smoke had not as yet descended to the floor, and had left comparatively clear air beneath it—the in-draught from the door—yet the odor of the burning tobacco impregnated the atmosphere. Here and there curls of smoke descended, dropped capriciously from the bed of vapor above, and wantonly played about.
Judith saw her brother lying at full length near the fire. Scantlebray had drawn him partly to the door, but he had rolled back to his former position near the hearth, perhaps from feeling the cold wind that blew in on him.
There was no time to be lost. Judith knew that flame must burst forth directly—directly the burning tobacco had charred through the rafters and flooring of the attic and allowed the fresh air from below to rush in and, acting as a bellows, blow the whole mass of glowing tobacco into flame. It was obvious that the fire had originated above in the attic. There was nothing burning in the room, and the smoke drove downward in strips through the joints of the boards overhead.
"Jamie, come, come with me!" She shook the boy, she knelt by him and raised him on her knee. He was stupefied with cognac, and with the fumes of the burning tobacco he had inhaled.
She must drag him forth. He was no longer half-conscious as he had been when Mr. Scantlebray made the same attempt; the power to resist was now gone from him.
Judith was delicately made, and was not strong, but she put her arms under the shoulders of Jamie and herself on her knees and dragged him along the floor. He was as heavy as a corpse. She drew him a little way and desisted, overcome, panting, giddy, faint. But time must not be lost. Every moment was precious. Judith knew that overhead in the loft was something that would not smoulder and glow, but burst into furious flame—spirits. Not, indeed, many kegs, but there were some. When this became ignited their escape would be impossible. She drew Jamie further up; she was behind him. She thrust him forward as she moved on upon her knees, driving him a step further at every advance. It was slow and laborious work. She could not maintain this effort for long and fell forward on her hands, and he fell also at the same time on the floor.
Then she heard a sound, a roar, an angry growl. The shock of the fall, and striking his head against the slate pavement, roused Jamie momentarily and he also heard the noise.
"Ju! the roar of the sea!"
"A sea of fire, Jamie! Oh, do push to the door."
He raised himself on his hands, looked vacantly round, and fell again into stupid unconsciousness. Now still on her knees, but with a brain becoming bewildered with the fumes, she crept to his head, placed herself between him and the door, and holding his shoulders, dragged him toward her, she moving backward.
Even thus she could make but little way with him; his boot-tops caught in the edge of a slate slab ill fitted in the floor and held him, so that she could not pull him to her with the additional resistance thus caused. Then an idea struck her. Staggering to her feet, holding her breath, she plunged in the direction of the window, beat it open, and panted in the inrush of pure air. With this new current wafted in behind her she returned amid the smoke, and for a moment it dissipated the density of the cloud about her. The window had faced the wind, and the rush of air through it was more strong than that which entered by the door. And yet this expedient did not answer as she had expected, for the column of strong, cold air pouring in from a higher level threw the cloud into confusion, stirred it up as it were, and lessened the space of uninvaded atmosphere below the descending bed of vapor.
Again she went to Jamie. The roar overhead had increased, some vent had been found, and the attic was in full flagrance. Now, drawing a long breath at the door, near the level of the ground, she returned to her brother and disengaged his foot from the slate, then dragged, then thrust, sometimes at his head, sometimes at his side; then again she had her arms round him, and swung herself forward to the right knee sideways; then brought up the other knee, and swung herself with the dead weight in her arms again to the right, and thus was able to work her way nearer to the door, and, as she got nearer to the door, the air was clearer, and she was able to breathe freer.
At length she laid hold of the jamb with one hand, and with the other she caught the lappel of the boy's coat, and assisted by the support she had gained, was able to drag him over the door-step.
At that moment passed her rushed a man. She looked, saw and knew Coppinger. As he rushed passed, the blood squirting from his maimed right hand fell on the girl lying prostrate at the jamb to which she had clung.
And now within a red light appeared, glowing through the mist as a fiery eye; not only so, but every now and then a fiery rain descended. The burning tobacco had consumed the boards and was falling through in red masses.
Judith had but just brought her brother into safety, or comparative safety, and now another, Coppinger, had plunged into the burning cottage, rushed to almost certain death. She cried to him as well as she could with her short breath. She could not leave him within. Why had he run there? She saw on her dress the blood that had fallen from him. She went outside the hut and dragged Jamie forth and laid him on the grass. Then, without hesitation, inhaling all the pure air she could, she darted once more into the burning cottage. Her eyes were stung with the smoke, but she pushed on, and found Coppinger under the open window, fallen on the floor, his back and head against the wall, his arms at his side, and the blood streaming over the slate pavement from his right gashed wrist. Accident or instinct—it could not have been judgment—had carried him to the only spot in the room where pure air was to be found, and there it descended like a rushing waterfall, blowing about the prostrate man's wild long hair.
"Judith!" said he, looking at her, and he raised his left hand. "Judith, this is the end."
"Oh, Captain Coppinger, do come out. The house is burning. Quick, or it will be too late."
"It is too late for me," he said. "I am wounded." He held up his half-severed hand. "I gave this to you and you rejected it."
"Come—oh, do come—or you and I will be burnt." In the inrushing sweep of air both were clear of the smoke and could breathe.
He shook his head. "I am followed. I will not be taken. I am no good now—without my right hand. I will not go to jail."
She caught his arm, and tearing the kerchief from her neck, bound it round and round where the veins were severed.
"It is in vain," he said. "I have lost most of my blood. Ju!"—he held her with his left hand—"Ju, if you live, swear to me, swear you will sign the register."
She was looking into his face—it was ghastly, partly through loss of blood, partly because lighted by the glare of the burning tobacco that dropped from above. Then a sense of vast pity came surging over her along with the thought of how he had loved her. Into her burning eyes tears came.
"Judith!" he said, "I made my confession to you I told you my sins. Give me also my release. Say you forgive me."
She had forgotten her peril, forgotten about the fire that was above and around, as she looked at his eyes, and, holding the maimed right arm, felt the hot blood welling through her kerchief and running over her hand.
"I pray you, oh, I pray you, come outside. There is still time."
Again he shook his head. "My time is up. I do not want to live. I have not your love. I could never win it, and if I went outside I should be captured and sent to prison. Will you give me my absolution?"
"What do you mean?" And in her trembling concern for him—in the intensity of her pity, sorrow, care for him—she drew his wounded hand to her and pressed it against her heaving bosom.
"What I mean is, can you forgive me?"
"Indeed—indeed I do."
"What—all I have done?"
"All."
She saw only a dying man before her, a man who might be saved if he would, but would not because her love was everything to him, and that he never, never could gain. Would she make no concession to him? could she not draw a few steps nearer? As she looked into his face and held his bleeding arm to her bosom, pity overpowered her—pity, when she saw how strong had been this wild and wicked man's love. Now she truly realized its depth, its intensity, and its tenderness alternating with stormy blasts of passion, as he wavered between hope and fear, and the despair that was his when he knew he must lose her.
Then she stooped, and, the tears streaming over her face, she kissed him on his brow, and then on his lips, and then drew back, still holding his maimed hand, with both of hers crossed over it, to her heaving bosom. Kneeling, she had her eyes on his, and his were on hers— steady, searching, but with a gentle light in them. And as she thus looked she became unconscious, and sank, still holding his hand, on the floor.
At that instant, through, the smoke and raining masses of burning tobacco, plunged Oliver Menaida. He saw Judith, bent, caught her in his arms, and rushed back through the door.
A moment after and he was at the entrance again, to plunge through and rescue his wounded adversary; but the moment when this could be done was past. There was an explosion above, followed by a fall as of a sheet of blue light, a curtain of fire through the mist of white smoke. No living man could pass that. Oliver went round to the window, and strove to enter by that way; the man who had taken refuge there was still in the same position, but he had torn the kerchief of Judith from the bleeding arm, and he held it to his mouth, looking with fixed eyes into the falling red and blue fires and the swirling flocks of white smoke.
There were iron bars at the window. Oliver tore at these to displace them.
"Coppinger!" he shouted, "stand up help me to break these bars!"
But Coppinger would not move, or, possibly, the power was gone from him. The bars were firmly set. They had been placed in the windows by Coppinger's orders and under his own supervision, to secure Othello Cottage, his store-place, against invasion by the inquisitive.
At length Oliver succeeded in wrenching one bar away, and now a gap was made through which he might reach Coppinger and draw him forth through the window. He was scrambling in when the Captain staggered to his feet. "Let me alone," said he. "You have won what I have lost. Let me alone. I am defeated."
Then he stepped into the mass of smoke and falling liquid blue fire and dropping masses of red glowing tobacco. A moment more, and the whole of the attic floor, with all the burning contents of the garret, fell in.