Chapter XVIII: A Strange Figure on the Shore

The fit of weeping passed when reason had come to her own again, and Marian sat a long while gazing wistfully over the rippling sheen of the sunlit sea. Once she thought she heard a gun fired in the distance; and this spoke to her of a life being lived around her, of other isles near by, wherein men’s voices were heard and the laughter of children. She began to argue that she had but to wait for the flood of the tide to put off her boat and come at some neighbouring shore which should offer more welcome harbourage. Weary and faint as she was, with hope dimmed and courage broken, despair was not for such an hour. She had the idea to go up to the cliff and there to drink at the spring which she had seen jetting forth from the face of the rock. Thereafter she would sleep, and night would bring her food and friends.

While she knew nothing of her situation, of the land upon which she was cast, or of its environment, she was in reality upon that place known to the Finns as the island of the Holy Well. In circuit perhaps the third part of a mile, this speck of land lay five miles from that other isle which had harboured the _Esmeralda_ from the storm. But it was a kindlier shore, for the cliff reared its head only on the westward side, and elsewhere silver sand made a bed, as of the dust of jewels, for the gentle seas which fell upon it. A few sickly trees stood sentinels about the spring, and heather-like bushes thrived and flourished in the path of the water. Marian sought the scanty shade of these trees so soon as it was plain to her that she must await the will of the sea. She drank long draughts of the fresh water and bathed her face and hands in the translucent pool. Now that the sun shone gloriously upon the island her heart was lighter and her hope returning. She perceived other isles, distant more than a mile, and she could distinguish the cottages of the fishermen. Night should find her sleeping in one of those huts, she argued. She would sleep the sounder because of the sacrifice, because she had found strength to give as it had been given unto her.

“I shall live my life with little Dick,” she said. “There is always a living in England for those who will work. We will face the world together, the child and I, and God will show us the road. I must forget that it has ever been otherwise. Paul will marry a Russian woman, and yesterday will be scored out of the book.”

She was tearing at the grass vindictively when she said this, and the sheen of the pool glowing radiantly, she beheld her own face in it--a face white and drawn and pitiful, with curls run wild and eyes shining from black rings. Ill as the picture pleased her, a little vanity helped to recall the faces of the Russian women she had known; and therein she found a great content. It was good to tell herself that Paul’s wife would have the face of a Japanese; that her figure would be flat like a board; that her skin would be parched and brown, and that her dresses would come from Paris and would not fit her. She said that she hated all Russian women; but the woman who was to be his wife she hated already with a hatred which, when she reflected upon it a little while, compelled her to laugh. She was still laughing when she saw the apparition on the beach.

So intent had she been upon her occupation of gazing into the pool that for the time being she lost all memory of the island and of the silent seas about her. When she looked up again and came back to remembrance, her first thought was of the boat lying down there upon the silver sand below her. Quickly her eyes sought it out; but she could scarce trust them when she beheld a strange figure, come, she knew not whence, to stand by the seashore and watch her vain employment.

The figure was the figure of a man garbed in a flowing robe of brown cloth girdled at the waist with a coarse knotted rope. Huge in stature, the monk, for such he seemed to be, stood motionless as a pillar of rock. His long waving hair fell upon his shoulders abundantly and was caught by the gentle breeze, which tossed it over his haggard face so that his features were hidden. The glowing eyes shone cadaverously with a light of fasting and of faith. So old were the leather sandals he wore that they permitted the sharp rock to cut his feet, the sea to wash them. Strange and forbidding, like some wild man of the woods, the apparition stood with folded arms to watch the girl, while she in turn, speechless with fear and dread of the mystery, crouched upon the grass and found herself unable to utter a word or stir a step from the place. Never in all her life had she been so conscious of that ultimate terror of the unseen, which surpasses the terror of death itself. Sure as she was that no human thing had moved upon the island when she first trod it, this apparition seemed to have risen up before her from the very heart of the rock. Her impulse was to cry out, to flee the place as an abode of dreadful images, but her limbs did not answer to her will. The cry she would have uttered froze upon her lips; she shook with the beating of her heart. For some little while indeed the trance of fear passed to oblivion. She fell in a swoon, and when consciousness returned to her the apparition had vanished.

Marian had never known, until she came to Russia, what the meaning of a nervous system might be. Though her nerves had been shattered by the terrors of Alexander and by days and nights of dreadful contemplation, she was still able to recover quickly from panic and to laugh at it. When she found herself crouching upon the grass, and was conscious of a great glare of sunlight in her eyes, she did not, upon the instant, recall why she had swooned. The island about her was as desolate as when first she set foot upon it. The sea droned its lazy song as though welcoming the restful spring; the beach showed no sign of human thing. She watched it dreamily for a little while and then recalled the terror.

“It was a dream,” she said, though she shuddered again at the memory. “I must have been asleep. How could there be anyone here? Or if there is, why should I be afraid of him? What nonsense to think of such things!”

Consoling herself thus, she sprang up lightly and ran down to the shore. Her boat was just as she had left it; but when she turned to examine the sand thereabout she discovered unmistakably the imprint of a sandalled foot; she could trace the steps to the border of the grass, but thereafter they were lost. And at this she stood spellbound again, not fearing because a man was with her upon the island, but because he hid himself thus from her, and his place of habitation was not to be discovered by her eyes. She had heard, it is true, of fanatical hermits who build pillars for themselves upon these lone rocks of Finland, but the traditions did not help her reasoning. She thought that she could never rest until she had seen and spoken to the unknown. The terrible hunger from which she suffered drove her rather to desire a meeting with him. She must know that he was human. Calling out with all her strength, she began to run across the island. She searched the beach and all the little caves and crannies cut out in the heart of the rock. She stood to listen for the sound of steps, but the dreadful silence was unbroken. No dwelling place nor other trace of man, save those footsteps upon the shore, was to be discovered. It was an awful thought for her, this thought of mystery and concealment; it was more dreadful to think that night might come and trap her still on the haven.

The sun had passed the meridian by this time. It was nearly three in the afternoon. Hunger, relentless and increasing, became an added punishment of her pilgrimage. She had the strength to walk no more, yet feared to sleep. She knew not what might happen to her if she lost consciousness and the apparition should stand over her while she dreamed. Her place of refuge was a ledge of rock raised ten feet above the sand, and so narrow that anyone coming up to her must awake her in the act. Here she was sheltered from the sun; a great boulder of granite hid her from the view of anyone who might pass on the beach below. At the very moment when she said that she would not close her eyes, nature prevailed above her resolution and she fell into a sound sleep. When she awoke, the sun was dipping into the sea and the chill of a spring sunset was upon the island.

The West was aflame then with mountains of crimson light merging at the crown of the arc into orange and purple and the finer shades of yellow. The monitive stillness of the coming night lay heavy upon the waters. There were gray shadows everywhere and darkness in the glens of the rock. Marian sat up, blaming herself that she had slept so long. Her brain burned and her hands were hot and dry. She had never known that hunger could be such a cruel foe. It seemed to her then that she would have given half her years for a drink of milk and a cake of bread. All the dainties she loved were shaped in fancy before her eyes; she could have eaten the very grass. Slowly and painfully she rose, determined to go up again and drink a little water at the spring, but no sooner was she upon her feet than she cried out with joy and clasped her hands as a child that hears of a holiday.

While she slept someone had set a rough earthenware dish at her side. She opened the dish to find that it contained a loaf of coarse brown bread with a mess of meat and vegetables, and close by there was a bottle of red wine, rough and sour, but more sweet to the little wanderer than all the vintages of Champagne.

“A miracle! a miracle!” she cried gladly, while she took the black bread in her hands and drank a long draught of the wine. “The ghost has been here while I slept, and I share his dinner. Oh, how good it is to eat and drink!”

The wine warmed her as a strong cordial. Blood suffused her cheeks; there was a nervous pulsation in all her limbs. She feared the apparition no more, for she knew that some wandering priest must be with her upon the island and that he had set the food at her side. All her thought then was to get her boat into the water and to set off for that unknown port which should be to her a port of safety. She would not delay another hour upon the desolate isle, for the flood was now surging upon the beach and the heralds of night were winging in the East.

Strong in the desire to quit the lonely scene, she ate her food quickly and ran down to the beach; but there she stood once more irresolute, for a ship lay in the offing, and it was one of the most curious she had ever seen.