was saved. A swift act of his own, brave and wonderful,struck the sucker from the limb and set him free. Aye, what a mind tothink of it! What other man, I ask, would have let go his hold of therocks when hold meant so much to him and that fish swam below?Nevertheless, the doctor did so. I see it now--the quick turn--theknife drawn from its sheath--the severed tentacle cut clean as a cork,the devil-fish itself drawing back to the depths of the crimson pool.And then once more I am asking the doctor if he is hurt; and he isanswering me, cheerily, "Not much, captain, not much," and we four arefollowing after him as white as women, I do believe, our nervesunstrung, our hearts quaking as we crossed the dreadful pit.
Well, we went over well enough, shirk it as we might. The bullets whichsent the devil-fish to the bottom sent him there to die, for all Iknew. The pool itself was red with blood by this time, and the waterssettling down again. I could see nothing of the fish as I crossed over;and Seth Barker, who came last and, like a true seaman, had forgottenhis fear already, swung the lantern down to the water's edge, butdiscovered nothing. The doctor himself, excited as you might expect,and limping with his hurt, simply said, "Well over, lads, well over";and then, taking the lantern from Seth Barker's hands, he would notwait to answer our curiosity, but pushed on through the tunnel.
"It's not every man who has a back-door with a watch-dog like that,"said he, as he went; "Edmond Czerny, may-be, does not know his luck;I'll tell him of it when we're through. It won't be a long while now,boys, and I'm glad of it. My foot informs me it's there, and I shallhave to leave a card on it just now."
"Then the sooner you let us look at it the better, doctor," said I."Aye, but you were nearly gone. My heart was in my throat all the timeyou stood there."
"Which is no place for a man's heart to be," said he, brightly;"especially at the door of Edmond Czerny's house."
He stood a moment and bade me listen. We were in an open place of thetunnel then, and a ray of light striking down from some lamp above usrevealed an iron ladder and a wooden trap above it. The sea I couldhear beating loudly upon the reef; but with the sea's voice cameothers, and they were human.
"Yes," said the doctor, quietly, "we are in the house all right, andGod knows when we shall get out of it again!"
And then, with a cry of pain, he fell fainting at my feet.
CHAPTER XV
AN INTERLUDE, DURING WHICH WE READ IN RUTH BELLENDEN'S DIARY AGAIN *
* The editor has thought it well to give at this point the above extract from Ruth Bellenden's diary, as permitting some insight into the events which transpired on Ken's Island after Jasper Begg's discovery and Edmond Czerny's return.
May 5TH.--My message to the sea has been heard. Jasper Begg is on Ken'sIsland. All that this means to me, all that it may mean, I dare notthink. A great burden seems lifted from my shoulders. I have found afriend and he is near me.
May 6th.--I have seen Jasper to-night, and he has gone away again. Heis not changed, I think. It is the same honest, English face, the samecheery English voice. I have always said that Jasper is one of thehandsomest Englishmen I have ever seen. And just as on my own yacht, sohere on Ken's Island, the true English gentleman speaks to me. ForJasper is that above all things, one of Nature's gentlemen, whom therough world will never disguise nor the sea life change. He would bethirty-five years of age now, I remember, but he has not lost hisboyish face, and there is the same shy reticence which he never couldconquer. He has come here according to his promise. A ship lies in theoffing, and he would have me go to it. How little he knows of my truecondition in this dreadful place. How may a woman go when a hundredwatch her every hour?
May 7th.--Clair-de-Lune, the Frenchman, came to the bungalow very earlythis morning to tell me of certain things which happened on the islandlast night. It seems that Jasper is still here, and that the storm hasdriven away his ship. I do not know whether to be sorry or glad. Hecannot help me--he cannot!--and yet a friend is here. I take newcourage at that. If a woman can aid a brave man to win her liberty, Iam that woman and Jasper is the man. Yesterday I was alone; but to-dayI am alone no longer, and a friend is at my side, and he has heard me.His ship will come back, I say. It is an ecstasy to dream like this!
May 10th.--I have spent four anxious days--more anxious, I think, thanany in my life. The ship has not returned, and Jasper Begg is still afugitive in the hills. There are three of his companions with him, andwe send them food every day. What will be the end of it all? I am moreclosely watched than ever since this was known. I fear the worst for myfriends, and yet I am powerless to help them.
May 10th (later).--My husband, who has now returned from San Francisco,knows that Jasper is here and speaks of it. I fear these moods ofconfidence and kindness. "Your friend has come," Edmond says; "but whyam I not to know of it? Why is he frightened of me? Why does he skulklike a thief? Let him show himself at this house and state hisbusiness; I shall not eat him!" Edmond, I believe, has moments when hetries to persuade himself that he is a good man. They are dangerousmoments, if all a man's better instincts are dead and forgotten.
May 11th.--Clair-de-Lune, Edmond tells me, has been sent to the lowerreef. I do not ask him why. It was he who helped my friends in thehills. Is it all real or did I dream it? Jasper Begg, the one man whobefriended me, left to die as so many have been left on this unpityingshore! It cannot be--it cannot be! All that I had hoped and plannedmust be forgotten now. And yet there were those who remembered RuthBellenden and came here for love of her, as she will remember them, forlove's sake.
The drawing-room is a cave whose walls are of jewels.]
May 13th.--The alarm bell rang on the island last night and we left ingreat haste for the shelter. The dreadful mists were already risingfast when I went down through the woods to the beach. The people fledwildly to the lower reef. It is not three months since the sleep-time,and its renewal was unlooked for. To-night I do not think of my ownsafety, but of those we are leaving on the heights. What is to becomeof Jasper, my friend--who will help him? I think of Jasper before anyother now. Does he, I wonder, so think of me?
May 13th (later).--The House Under the Sea is built inside the reefwhich ties about a mile away on the northern side of the island. Therecan be nothing like it in the world. Hundreds of years ago, perhaps,this lonely rock, rising out of the water, was the mouth of some greatvolcano. To-day it is the door of our house, and when you enter it youfind that the rocks below have been hollowed out by Nature in a mannerso wonderful that a great house lies there with stone-cold rooms andimmense corridors and pits seeming to go to the heart of the world.None but a man with my husband's romantic craving would have discoveredsuch a place, or built himself therein a house so wonderful. Forimagine a suite of rooms above which the tides surge--rooms lighted bytunnels in the solid rock and covered over with strongest glasses whichthe sea cannot break. Imagine countless electric lamps lighting thislabyrinth until it seems sometimes like a fairy palace. Say that yourdrawing-room is a cave, whose walls are of jewels and whose floor is ofjasper. Night and day you hear the sea, the moaning winds, the breakingbillows. It is another world here, like to nothing that any man hasseen or ever will see. The people of a city could live in this placeand yet leave room for others. My own rooms are the first you come to;lofty as a church, dim as one, yet furnished with all that a womancould desire. Yes, indeed, all I can desire. In my dressing-room aregowns from Douse's and hats from Alphonsine's, jewels from the Rue dela Paix, furs from Canada--all there to call back my life of two shortyears ago, that laughing life of Paris and the cities when I was free,and all the world my own, and only my girlhood to regret! Now Iremember it all as one bright day in years of gathering night.Everything that I want, my husband says, shall be mine. I ask forliberty, but that is denied to me. It is too late to speak of promisesor to believe. If I would condone it all; if I would but say to Edmond,"Yes, your life shall be my life, your secrets shall be mine; go, getriches, I will never ask you how." If I would say to him, "I will shutout from my memory all that I hav
e seen on this island; I will forgetthe agony of those who have died here; I will never hear again thecries of drowning people, will never see hands outstretched above thewaves, or the dead that come in on the dreadful tides; I will forgetall this, and say, 'I love you, I believe in you'"--ah, how soon wouldliberty be won! But I am dumb; I cannot answer. I shall die on Ken'sIsland, saying, "God help those who perish here!"
May 14th.--Three days have passed in the shelter, and Clair-de-Lune,who comes to me every day, brings no good news of Jasper. "He is onthe heights," he says; "if food were there he might live through thesleep-time." My husband knows that he is there, but does not speak ofit. Yesterday, about sunset, I went up to the gallery on the reef,where the island is visible,