Chapter XVI: Alone

The westerly gale held throughout the day, and was still at its height when the men of the _Esmeralda_ turned into their bunks. They had watched unceasingly during the afternoon for any sign of ships upon the horizon or for token of life upon the neighbouring shore of Finland. But the sea continued to run mountains high in the broad of the Gulf, and there was a haze of mist and spray over the land which served them well in those anxious moments of waiting. They argued that the Baltic Fleet would not attempt to weather such a gale, but would be already snug and sheltered at Helsingfors or at Revel. As for the fishermen of the neighbouring isles, the circumstance of the day accounted for them and for their ships. No little craft could live in such a gale; no peasant would patrol the shores while the west wind swept up the Gulf and the breakers thundered upon the outer reef. To-morrow the wind would fall away and the calm would come. To-morrow they would begin to live again.

The night fell dark and misty and threatening, so that there was no need of any watch upon the decks of the little ship. Guarded by the breakers without and the towering crags for sentinels within, the haven befriended her beyond hope. No lights shone from the ports of the _Esmeralda_ upon the swirling waters of the channel. Her men went to and fro silently as though afraid to speak. They welcomed the hours of truce, for therein they could sleep and rest. Marian alone kept a vigil of the night. For her sleep had become a fitful friend. There were terrors of her dreams which no waking argument could shake off. She slept to imagine herself once more in the cell at Alexander; she awoke to ask herself if she would ever come to England again. She remembered that she was an outcast and had struck at the honour of the man she loved in her fall.

Old John Hook and Reuben, the engineer, went ashore several times during the night to see if there was any abatement of wind or sea; but when at four o’clock they found the gale still blowing, it was evident to them that the necessity for watchfulness existed no longer--at least until the day dawned. They were sound asleep in their bunks when Marian dressed herself in the darkness at four o’clock and left the cabin wherein sleep had brought her so many terrible dreams. She had no set purpose in quitting her bed other than the desire to breathe the fresh air of morning. The gray beams of light shining behind banks of sullen cloud were welcome to her after the darkness and confinement of her little cabin. Silently she trod the steps of the companion, and ran to the bow of the yacht to stand there and hear the water lapping monotonously upon the face of the cliff. The nameless islands around began slowly to shape themselves in a vista of spray and haze. Strange birds went screaming from crag to crag; but of human life there was no sight or sound.

It had been an impulse which brought her to the deck, but this was to prove a morning of impulses. Ever present through the weary night of waiting had been the desire to save the man she loved from the consequences of her folly. Just as at Kronstadt, in the hour of her necessity, a woman’s weakness had cast her upon his pity and devotion, so now was she convinced that she must rely upon that pity and devotion no longer. She told herself, but with the vaguest notions of reasoning, that if Paul were alone, it would be easy for him to return to his own country with some story that would convince Bonzo and old Stefanovitch of his fidelity. And she must not deny him that opportunity. He had given all; her gift should not be less.

“I will save him from himself,” she said again and again. “They shall not find me upon his yacht. He will go back to Russia and forget. I have been alone so many years; it is nothing that I am alone until the end.”

She repeated the words while she stood at the bow of the _Esmeralda_ and watched the sea racing in the narrow of the channel. To save the man who had lost all for her, to give him back country, friends, honour--she cared not at what cost--that must be her purpose. All the happiness of his love which had come into her life must wither and die. If God willed, she would still have the love of the child. Her unbroken courage suggested that she would find the way to England when once she was alone. Half-formed schemes of a place of hiding in the hut of a peasant, of flight in a fisherman’s ship, helped her resolutions. She remembered that she had rowed a boat often upon the river Dart, and that weeks of imprisonment had still left much of her girlish strength. And so the great idea took finite shape and was resolved upon.

Quickly, silently, with deft hands, she drew the yacht’s boat, then lying at the stern of the ship, to the gangway, which had been left down during the night. A feverish haste characterised all her movements. She was afraid that they would come and rob her of success; she feared that someone would awake to prevent her emprise. Her great love for Paul surged up in her heart, yet did but quicken her steps. A rebellious anger urged her on to a war against circumstance: a war she must wage alone and without friends.

Stealthily the little gray-clad figure moved in the morning light. Hither and thither, pitiful in the agony of a farewell she could not speak, tears falling upon her cold hands, anger (she knew not why) in her heart, the girl bent down to kiss the deck beneath which her lover was sleeping.

“God bless you, Paul, my love! God bless you for your love of me!”

And so the voyage began, and the pilgrim was alone again, and the curtain of the mist shut the yacht from her sight.

* * * * * *

They awoke the master of the _Esmeralda_ and told him of her flight. He did not answer them, but stood long peering into the mists which enveloped the island seas. When Reuben spoke to him at last he turned quickly and fell senseless upon the deck of the silent ship.