CHAPTER XIII
WHERE IS BOMPARD?
When they had re-settled themselves she rose to go, nodded to them andturned away towards the river. Then she looked back. The big bull wasfollowing her and the rest of the herd were moving slightly in the samedirection. The bull paused when she turned, then, when she went on, hecontinued following her, lazily and as if drawn by some gentle magneticattraction.
Across the river she turned and waved her hand to them. Then she wenton.
In some extraordinary way the creatures had made the place less lonelyand the wonder of them pursued her as she walked, keeping to the sandpatches where the rocks were and then striking along the great levels ofpure sand.
Her feet did not hurt her and she was beginning to recognise that touchwith the world which comes to those who walk without boots, somethingthat humanity has all but forgotten, all but ceased to remember.
As she drew near the caves she looked for the men, but the beach wasdeserted. Then, looking into the men's cave, she saw La Touche lying onhis back asleep, his pipe beside him and his arm flung across his eyes.
Where was Bompard?
He ought to have been back by this, and as she turned and looked up anddown the beach a vague uneasiness came upon her.
It was as if for the first time she had recognized the value of Bompardin their small society. Bompard with his age and heaviness and patenthonesty, despite his stupidity, was a presence not to be despised.
If La Touche had been another man she might have awakened him to makeenquiries. As it was, she preferred to let him lie.
Bompard she had last seen crossing the rocks of the Lizard point. It wasthere that she must look for him.
She went to the cave where she had left her boots and put them on forthe climb. When she reached the point she found the work easier than shehad suspected. The rocks were not strewn at random, they were in realitybreaks off and tables of the basalt; the whole point was like a greatlizard that, creeping stealthily towards the sea, had been stricken intorock.
She climbed, and in five minutes was on the highest point with a newview of the coast before her. It was like looking at Ferocity. Here therocks were broken and tumbled about, indeed, rocks, huge and spired likechurches, cliffs black and polished with the washing of the waves,monoliths standing out in the blue-green water and all ringing andsinging to the chime of the sea. Inland, canons of night and shouldersof dolerite and plains where nothing grew leading to great levelbastions, fortifications that seemed built by rule and plumb line, withthe markings of the basalt visible through the clear air. Basalt hasthat terrible peculiarity. It seems the work of a hand, it makes castlesand fortifications whose ruled markings bear the inevitable suggestionsof masonry.
And across all that not a sign of life save the wings of the tirelessbirds, teal and duck, cormorants, and beyond the seaward rocks the greatsea geese fishing and the guillemots flighting and the white terndarting like dragon-flies.
Where was Bompard?
Had he, by any chance, come back and taken some other road off thebeach? There was only one way: the break in the cliffs, beyond thecaves. She thought it highly improbable that he would have come backonly to leave the beach by another way, the descent from where she stoodand towards the bed country was quite easy, alluringly easy. No, hewould have gone on.
She sat down to rest and watch.
At any moment he might appear in the distance. From where she sat thesea lay straight before her and the far off islands, to the left therock strewn coast, to the right the great curving beach.
Behind her the country stormed away, stern, grey-grim and treeless, tothe foothills whose misty mauve lay stretched before the mountains.
Every now and then she would turn towards the left searching the countryand cliffs with her eyes, but no form appeared.
She remembered now that he had talked about sea birds' eggs and how toget them. Might he have gone hunting for eggs over those cliffs andfallen?
She remembered also when the two men had come back from their expeditioninland they had brought an alarming story of a bog like a quick sand. LaTouche had blundered into it and he would have gone down only for hiscompanion. They had also said something about pot holes like shafts inthe basalt. She turned her mind away from these thoughts and passing herfingers through her hair removed the comb which held it in a rough knot,shaking it free to the sun and wind. She combed it with her fingers andrearranged it and then looked again--nothing.
It came to her suddenly that though she were to sit there forever thevigil would be useless, that Bompard had gone--never to return.
She reasoned with this feeling, and reason only increased her fears. Itwas now noon, Bompard was not the man to go on a long expedition byhimself; he was too inactive and easy-going. No, something had happenedto him and he might at that moment be lying dead at the foot of somecliff or he might have broken a leg and be lying at the foot of somerock unable to move.
She rose up and came swiftly down to the beach. Reaching the caves shefound La Touche opening a tin. It was dinner-time.
"What has become of Bompard?" she asked. "Have you seen him since hewent off this morning over those rocks?"
"Bompard," replied the other, "Mon Dieu! How do I know? No, I have notseen him, he is big enough to take care of himself."
"That may be," she replied, "but accidents happen no matter how big aman may be. He has not returned--"
"So it would seem," said La Touche, who had now got the tin open and wasturning the contents on to a plate. "But he will return when heremembers that it is dinner-time."
Her lips were dry with anger, there was a contained insolence in themanner and voice of the other that roused her as much as hiscallousness. His mind seemed as cold as his pale blue eyes. All hermixed feelings towards him focussed suddenly into a point--she loathedhim; but she held herself in.
"If he has not returned when we have finished dinner," said she, "wewill have to look for him." She took a plate and some of the beef he hadturned from the tin and with a couple of biscuits drew off and takingher place outside in the sun began her wretched meal. A rabbit that hadrun out on the sands sat up and looked at her as she ate, then it ranoff and as she followed it with her eyes she contrasted the littlefriendly form with the form of La Touche, the dark innocent eyes withthose eyes of washed-out blue, without depth, or, perhaps, veilingdepth.
When she had finished eating she put the plate by her side and satwaiting for La Touche to make a movement.
Bompard that morning had left his tinder box behind him in the cave, sheheard the strike of flint on steel. La Touche was lighting his pipe. Shewaited ten minutes or more, then she came to the cave mouth.
"Are you not coming to look for Bompard?" asked she.
"I'll go when I choose," said he, "I don't want orders."
"I gave you no orders," she replied, "I asked you, are you not coming tolook for Bompard who may be in difficulties, or lying perhaps with abroken limb--and you sit there smoking your pipe. But I give you ordersnow; get up and come and help to look for him. Get up at once."
He sprang to his feet and came right out. It seemed to her that she hadnever seen him before. This was the real La Touche.
"One word more from you," he shouted, "and I'll show you who's master.You! Talk to me, would you! A--woman more trouble than you're worth. Offwith you, get down the beach--clear!"
He took a step forward with his right fist ready to strike,open-handed. Then he drew back. She had whipped the knife from itssheath.
The boat hook, which she had brought back with her, was propped againstthe cliff behind her and out of his reach, he had no weapon.
She did not add a word to the threat of the knife. He stood like a fool,unable to sustain her gaze, venomous, yet held, as a snake is held by aman's grip.
"Now," she said, "get on. Go search for your companion and if you dareto speak to me again like that I will make you repent it. You thought Iwas weak being a woman and alone. You were going
to strike. Coward!--Geton, go and search for your companion."
He turned suddenly and walked off towards the Lizard rocks. "I'll gowhere I choose," said he.
It was a lame and impotent end of his rebellion, but she held nodelusions. This was only the beginning--if Bompard did not return.
She put the knife in its sheath and then she put the boat hook away,hiding it behind the sailcloth in her cave, then she went into themen's cave. La Touche's clasp knife lay there on the sand, it was notmuch of a weapon but she took it. She examined the dinner knives again.They were almost useless as weapons. Then she came out. La Touche haddisappeared beyond the rocks and she came to the boat. There was nothinghere in the way of a weapon that he might use, unless the oars. Theywere heavy, but he was strong. She determined to leave nothing tochance and, carrying the oars down the beach to the break in the cliffs,she hid them amongst some scrub bushes. Then she remembered the axe,sought for it and hid it.
Then she came back and sat down to reconsider matters.
The position was as bad as could be.
As bad as La Touche. Once let this man get the upper hand and she waslost. She would be his slave and worse. She had measured him finely.Instinct, never at fault, told her that to pull down anything above himwould be meat and drink to La Touche's true nature and that his hatredof her superiority was deepened by the fact that she was a woman.
Were she weak he would beat her and make her cook for him, trample onher, make her his woman to fetch and carry, and, if Bompard did not comeback, she was here alone with him and would have to fight this thingout.
Well, she could not fight it by brooding over it, and she was nothelping to look for Bompard.
She drew the knife from its sheath and held the eight inches of razorsharp steel balanced in her hand for a moment as though admiring it.Then she replaced it in the sheath and started towards the LizardPoint.