CHAPTER XIX
MY TURN
I had known for some time that Sir Gilbert Carstairs had a small yachtlying at one of the boathouses on the riverside; indeed, I had seen herbefore ever I saw him. She was a trim, graceful thing, with all theappearance of an excellent sea-boat, and though she looked like a craftthat could stand a lot of heavy weather, she had the advantage of beingso light in draught--something under three feet--that it was possible forher to enter the shallowest harbour. I had heard that Sir Gilbert wasconstantly sailing her up and down the coast, and sometimes going wellout to sea in her. On these occasions he was usually accompanied by afisherlad whom he had picked up somehow or other: this lad, Wattie Mason,was down by the yacht when I reached her, and he gave me a glowering lookwhen he found that I was to put his nose out for this time at any rate.He hung around us until we got off, as a hungry dog hangs around a tableon the chance of a bone being thrown to him; but he got no recognitionfrom Sir Gilbert, who, though the lad had been useful enough to himbefore, took no more notice of him that day than of one of the pebbles onthe beach. And if I had been more of a student of human nature, I shouldhave gained some idea of my future employer's character from that smallcircumstance, and have seen that he had no feeling or consideration foranybody unless it happened to be serving and suiting his purpose.
But at that moment I was thinking of nothing but the pleasure of taking acruise in the yacht, in the company of a man in whom I was naturallyinterested. I was passionately fond of the sea, and had already learnedfrom the Berwick sea-going folk how to handle small craft, and themanagement of a three-oar vessel like this was an easy matter to me, as Isoon let Sir Gilbert know. Once outside the river mouth, with a nicelight breeze blowing off the land, we set squaresail, mainsail, andforesail and stood directly out to sea on as grand a day and under asfair conditions as a yachtsman could desire; and when we were gailybowling along Sir Gilbert bade me unpack the basket which had been putaboard from the hotel--it was a long time, he said, since his breakfast,and we would eat and drink at the outset of things. If I had not beenhungry myself, the sight of the provisions in that basket would have mademe so--there was everything in there that a man could desire, from coldsalmon and cold chicken to solid roast beef, and there was plenty ofclaret and whisky to wash it down with. And, considering how readily andhealthily Sir Gilbert Carstairs ate and drank, and how he talked andlaughed while we lunched side by side under that glorious sky, glidingaway over a smooth, innocent-looking sea, I have often wondered since ifwhat was to come before nightfall came of deliberate intention on hispart, or from a sudden yielding to temptation when the chance of itarose--and for the life of me I cannot decide! But if the man had murderin his heart, while he sat there at my side, eating his good food anddrinking his fine liquor, and sharing both with me and pressing me tohelp myself to his generous provision--if it was so, I say, then he wasof an indescribable cruelty which it makes me cringe to think of, and Iwould prefer to believe that the impulse to bring about my death camefrom a sudden temptation springing from a sudden chance. And yet--Godknows it is a difficult problem to settle!
For this was what it came to, and before sunset was reddening the westernskies behind the Cheviots. We went a long, long way out--far beyond thethirty-fathom line, which is, as all sailors acquainted with those watersknow, a good seven miles from shore; indeed, as I afterwards reckoned, wewere more than twice that distance from Berwick pier-end when the affairhappened--perhaps still further. We had been tacking about all theafternoon, first south, then north, not with any particular purpose, butaimlessly. We scarcely set eyes on another sail, and at a little afterseven o'clock in the evening, when there was some talk of going about andcatching the wind, which had changed a good deal since noon and was nowcoming more from the southeast, we were in the midst of a great waste ofsea in which I could not make out a sign of any craft but ours--not evena trail of smoke on the horizon. The flat of the land had long sincedisappeared: the upper slopes of the Cheviots on one side of Tweed andof the Lammermoor Hills on the other, only just showed above the line ofthe sea. There was, I say, nothing visible on all that level of scarcelystirred water but our own sails, set to catch whatever breeze there was,when that happened which not only brought me to the very gates of death,but, in the mere doing of it, gave me the greatest horror of any that Ihave ever known.
I was standing up at the moment, one foot on the gunwale, the other onthe planking behind me, carelessly balancing myself while I stared acrossthe sea in search of some object which he--this man that I trusted sothoroughly and in whose company I had spent so many pleasant hours thatafternoon, and who was standing behind me at the moment--professed to seein the distance, when he suddenly lurched against me, as if he hadslipped and lost his footing. That was what I believed in that startlingmoment--but as I went head first overboard I was aware that his fall wasconfined to a sprawl into the scuppers. Overboard I went!--but heremained where he was. And my weight--I was weighing a good thirteenstone at that time, being a big and hefty youngster--carried me down anddown into the green water, for I had been shot over the side withconsiderable impetus. And when I came up, a couple of boat's-lengths fromthe yacht, expecting to find that he was bringing her up so that I couldscramble aboard, I saw with amazed and incredulous affright that he wasdoing nothing of the sort; instead, working at it as hard as he couldgo, he was letting out a couple of reefs which he had taken up in themainsail an hour before--in another minute they were out, the yacht movedmore swiftly, and, springing to the tiller, he deliberately steered herclear away from me.
I suppose I saw his purpose all at once. Perhaps it drove me wild, mad,frenzied. The yacht was going away from me fast--faster; good swimmerthough I was, it was impossible for me to catch up to her--she was makingher own length to every stroke I took, and as she drew away he stoodthere, one hand on the tiller, the other in his pocket (I have oftenwondered if it was fingering a revolver in there!), his eyes turnedsteadily on me. And I began first to beg and entreat him to save me, andthen to shout out and curse him--and at that, and seeing that we werebecoming further and further separated, he deliberately put the yachtstill more before the freshening wind, and went swiftly away, and lookedat me no more.
So he left me to drown.
We had been talking a lot about swimming during the afternoon, and I hadtold him that though I had been a swimmer ever since boyhood, I had neverdone more than a mile at a stretch, and then only in the river. He knew,therefore, that he was leaving me a good fourteen miles from land withnot a sail in sight, not a chance of being picked up. Was it likely thatI could make land?--was there ever a probability of anything coming alongthat would sight me? There was small likelihood, anyway; the likelihoodwas that long before the darkness had come on I should be exhausted,give up, and go down.
You may conceive with what anger, and with what fierce resentment, Iwatched this man and his yacht going fast away from me--and with whatdespair too. But even in that moment I was conscious of two facts--I nowknew that yonder was the probable murderer of both Phillips and Crone,and that he was leaving me to die because I was the one person living whocould throw some light on those matters, and, though I had kept silenceup to then, might be tempted, or induced, or obliged to do so--he wouldsilence me while he had so good a chance. And the other was, thatalthough there seemed about as much likelihood of my ever seeing Berwickagain as of being made King of England, I must do my utmost to save mystrength and my life. I had a wealth of incentives--Maisie, my mother,Mr. Lindsey, youth, the desire to live; and now there was another addedto them--the desire to circumvent that cold-hearted, cruel devil, who, Iwas now sure, had all along been up to some desperate game, and to havemy revenge and see justice done on him. I was not going to give inwithout making a fight for it.
But it was a poor chance that I had--and I was well aware of it. Therewas small prospect of fishing boats or the like coming out that evening;small likelihood of any coasting steamer sighting a bit of a speck likeme. All the s
ame, I was going to keep my chin up as long as possible, andthe first thing to do was to take care of my strength. I made shift todivest myself of a heavy pea-jacket that I was wearing and of theunnecessary clothing beneath it; I got rid, too, of my boots. And afterresting a bit on my back and considering matters, I decided to make a tryfor land--I might perhaps meet some boat coming out. I lifted my headwell up and took a glance at what I could see--and my heart sank at whatI did see! The yacht was a speck in the distance by that time, and farbeyond it the Cheviots and the Lammermoors were mere bits of grey outlineagainst the gold and crimson of the sky. One thought instantly filled anddepressed me--I was further from land than I had believed.
At this distance from it I have but confused and vague recollections ofthat night. Sometimes I dream of it--even now--and wake sweating withfear. In those dreams I am toiling and toiling through a smooth sea--itis always a smooth, oily, slippery sea--towards something to which I makeno great headway. Sometimes I give up toiling through sheer and desperateaching of body and limbs, and let myself lie drifting into helplessnessand a growing sleep. And then--in my dream--I start to find myself goingdown into strange cavernous depths of shining green, and I wake--in mydream--to begin fighting and toiling again against my compelling desireto give up.
I do not know how long I made a fight of it in reality; it must have beenfor hours--alternately swimming, alternately resting myself by floating.I had queer thoughts. It was then about the time that some men wereattempting to swim the Channel. I remember laughing grimly, wishing themjoy of their job--they were welcome to mine! I remember, too, that atlast in the darkness I felt that I must give up, and said my prayers; andit was about that time, when I was beginning to feel a certain numbnessof mind as well as weariness of body, that as I struck out in themechanical and weakening fashion which I kept up from what littledetermination I had left, I came across my salvation--in the shape of apiece of wreckage that shoved itself against me in the blackness, as ifit had been some faithful dog, pushing its nose into my hand to let meknow it was there. It was no more than a square of grating, but it washeavy and substantial; and as I clung to and climbed on to it, I knewthat it made all the difference to me between life and death.