"Do you hear any sound?" she asked.
"None," said Messenger, who had drawn rein with her.
"You have no ears," said she; "listen again, and tell me."
"Except for the bird whistling," said he, "I hear nothing."
She laughed at him.
"The bird whistling is my man Pedro!" said she. "We can go on—slowly."
The wood continued for a third of a mile or more, the path through it beginning to rise when they had gone a hundred yards, and thence mounting with a severe gradient, which the ponies attacked with the skill of habit, until it became but a ribbon-way against a hill-side. After this they entered a second wood, and, coming to the edge of it, they behe1d, both upon the seaboard and inland, the country lying below them at a great depth, and the sea itself—still, with the glassy surface of a lake. But—and this only was of moment to them—in the hollow where the first village was the sky-blue coats and red breeches of a company of lancers shone conspicuous in the clear light; and these men were leading out their horses, and presently, being mounted in haste, they galloped away quickly in the direction of the shore.
As the eyes of Messenger turned toward the sea the explanation of this action was given to him. A coasting-steamer, flying some flag which he could not read, was running very close in upon the foreland; and near, in pursuit of her, stood the British cruiser which had haunted the bay of the haven for so many days. From the high ground whence they looked down upon the scene it was possible to observe both the danger of the flying ship and the commotion upon the shore which her appearance had brought about. Scores of wild men now flocked from the village to the sea; others, already standing upon the sandy beach, were waving their arms and scurrying hither and thither, as though they could help the one ship on or arrest the pursuit of the other; the lancers themselves were riding along the low land, and appeared to be waiting for the cruiser to drive the crew of the steamer ashore. The latter vessel was now forced in so close upon the land that the probability of her striking the rocks of the promontory was apparent even to Messenger; but before he could give words to his thoughts the woman at his side spoke them for him.
"Voyez-vous mon ami," said she, "here is news."
"I was thinking so," he answered. "I wonder if Kenner is aboard her?"
"We shall know soon," she cried. "Look at that!"
The exclamation followed a crash of shot from the pursuing vessel, and as the shell fell into the sea before the steamer's bows she dropped anchor and lowered her flag. At the same moment a boat was put off from her side, and three men entered it, the foremost being Kenner. He had hoped to reach the shore before the long-boat, now let go by the other, could come up with him; but as his men bent their backs to the work the woman cried, and this time with feeling.
"Look!" she said; "my score against your friend is about to be paid. If he puts ashore on those sands, Heaven help him!"
"He cannot escape the mounted men, any way," said Messenger. "Well, he was always a tenderfoot. I looked for him to come five days ago."
He spoke callously, though he felt much, and truly Kenner's position was critical. The cruiser's boat was coming in toward the shore at a great pace; his own men were struggling with the current, which swept their dingy toward the neck of the peninsula. Their first intention of landing, and doubtlessly of making a dash for the hills, was checked when they perceived the troop of cavalry, now standing prominent upon the beach; and while they hesitated, the seamen of the cruiser drew up to them with long and powerful strokes.
Thus the position stood when Kenner—no longer able to tolerate the suspense—leaped boldly from his dingy to the sea, and began to swim toward the sands. A great cry from the shoremen followed his venture; and as he came in the shallows where he could walk the cry was taken up again, as a cry of warning.
"Wait for it now," said the Spanish woman; "he is on the death-patch, and the lancers have had their ride for nothing."
The scene was exciting almost beyond endurance, even viewed from the distant height of the hill as they viewed it.
There, upon the sand, the water lapping about his knees, Kenner swayed and hesitated, while the men of the beach bellowed their warnings, and the pursuing boat drew so near that a seaman at the bows rose to clutch the hunted man. Driven by a hundred impulses and fears, the American at last made two or three quick steps in the endeavour to throw himself flat upon the water; but he tripped in the effort, and reeled so that he dropped at last upon his knees, and was engulfed to his waist. In that supreme moment his pitiful cry rose up from the water, and echoed from hill to hill, the death-cry of a man who fears death alone. Even the shouts of the others were hushed in the face of his overwhelming peril, and it was pitiful to look upon his violent struggles as, inch by inch, the sand gripped him, and he saw himself going down to the oozing grave at his feet. And the irony of it was that none could give him help, not even the men of the ship's boat who had come to arrest him—for the place wherein he sank had not a foot of water over it, and the boat grounded upon its edge, leaving the seamen to watch his doom. Thus, with one long, piercing scream, he went down; and as the waters closed above his head, the spell of the grim scene was broken, and the men upon the beach, who had held nerveless, began to move again. The lancers returned toward the village, the Spanish woman whipped up her pony and began to descend from their place of watching.
"It was a strange meeting," said she, "that of your friend and myself; but life is full of these things. We must think of ourselves now. Let us haste, for dark is coming down."
XXIV. BEACONS ON THE HEIGHTS
The woman rode for some way in silence and with great caution in the precipitous descent. She did not seem to fear any immediate press of danger from the neighbourship of the troops, and when Messenger asked her, she answered curtly—
"We have the best of them by an hour, and that is enough. They have something to report now, and may sleep on it." After that she left it to her pony to feel his way down the hill-side, and did not even press him to the canter when they entered the woods again.
She had said that night was coming down upon them; but as yet there was only a shimmer of twilight seen through the canopy of branches, though the breeze sang with a melancholy note in the heights of the pines, and the grass rustled with the uneasiness it betrays often at sunset. Otherwise the woods were very still; no living soul seemed to tread them; the multitudinous birds were roosting, the herds of hogs were lying lazily upon the sward, even the streams trickled lazily, as bums wearying for rest. At any other time the scene would have glowed with an infinite charm for all who enjoyed it; but the two who now beheld it were harassed by so many thoughts, so many hopes, even by so many fears, that its beauties escaped them. They only rode on in mutual silence—glad of the solitude and of its meaning.
They must have now come within a mile and a half of the castle, and had reached an open clearing where they had some view of the wood-capped heights of their own bay. Here the woman drew rein for the first time on the homeward journey, and looked up expectantly to the highest of the peaks which towered above her home. A thin, cloud-like reek of smoke was rising up from it; and as they stood to observe it the cloud broke into bright flame, such as would exude from kindled logs. This beacon, rapidly becoming a bush of light, was quickly answered by the flare of a second fire on the nearer hill; and soon from peak to peak and valley to valley the signal flashed—woods lighting up as fairy scenes where the glow spread upon them; the granite rocks all ruddy as ore of ruby where they stood incarnadined; the chasms of quartz and marble and granite glowing with a sheen of a thousand lights in the play of the flames which shot up from crags and ridges, from the swards of the forests and the open faces of the woodland glades.
The desolate land had, indeed, become alive with the life of its beacons. Though no man was seen upon the hills, though the silence of nightfall yet lingered in the woods. Messenger felt that many watched near to him, that unseen hands were working to the