"It is the great art of the bon Dieu," said Jean simply.
And after a little while he went forward on his way again.
The road led upward now in a gentle slope toward higher land, though still following the line of the beach. Near the extremity of the headland was the cottage that the village always called the "house on the bluff," and in a moment now he should be able to see the light. There was always a light there every night, in good weather and in stormy—and never in fourteen years had it been otherwise, not since the night that Marie-Louise's father, the brother of old Gaston Bernier, steering for the headland in a gale had miscalculated his position and been drowned on the Perigeau Reef. From that day it had become a religion with Gaston, a sacred rite, that light; and, in time, it had become an institution in Bernay-sur-Mer—not a fisherman in the village now but steered by it, not one but that, failing to sight it, would have taken it for granted that he was off his course and would have put about, braving even the wildest weather, until he had picked it up.
The light! Jean smiled to himself. He was very wet, but he had found a most wonderful joy in the storm—and, besides, what did a little wetting matter? In a few minutes now Marie-Louise would cry out in delight at seeing him, and he would fling off his drenched jacket and pull up a chair to the stove beside old Gaston, and they would light their pipes, and Marie-Louise would prepare the spiced wine, and—he halted as though stunned.
He had reached the big rock where the road made its second turn and ran directly to the house—and there was no light. It was the exact spot from which he should first be able to see it—a hundred times, on a hundred nights, he had looked for it, and found it there—by the turning at the big rock. He dashed the rain from his face with a sweep of his hand, and strained his eyes into the blackness. There was nothing there—only the blackness. He reached out mechanically and touched the rock, as though to assure himself that it was there—and then he laughed a little unnaturally. There must be some mistake—for fourteen years that light had burned in the window, and it could be seen from this point on the road—there must be some mistake. Perhaps just another step would bring it into view!
And then, as he moved forward, something cold gripped at Jean's heart. There was no mistake—the light was out for the first time in fourteen years! The light that old Gaston had never failed to burn since the night his brother died, the light that had become a part of the man himself—was out! Was he ill—sick? Why, then, had Marie-Louise not lighted it? She had done it before, often and often before. But now neither one nor the other had lighted it, and they, just the two of them, were the only occupants of the house—Marie-Louise and her old uncle. Just the two of them—and the light was out!
Jean was running now, smashing his way along the road through the clayey mud and water, splashing it to his knees, buffeting against the wind; and, with every step, the sense of dread that had settled upon him grew heavier. It was no ordinary thing this! Old Gaston would have lighted the lamp while there remained strength in his body to do it; it was a sacred trust that he had imposed upon himself which had grown more inviolable as the years had crept upon him and he had grown older. It brought fear to Jean, and the greater stab at the thought of Marie-Louise. Things were wrong—and what was wrong with one was wrong with both. Was it not Marie-Louise who polished the great lamp chimney so zealously every morning and filled the big, dinted brass bowl of the lamp with oil; and was it not Marie-Louise who watched with affectionate understanding each evening as her uncle lighted it?
A shadowy mass, the house, loomed suddenly out of the darkness before him. It seemed to give him added speed, and in another moment he was at the door—and the door was open, wide open, blown inward with the wind.
"Marie-Louise!" he shouted, as he rushed inside. "Gaston! Gaston!" And again: "Marie-Louise!"
There was no answer—no sound but the shriek of wind, the groaning of the house timbers in travail with the storm. He pushed the door shut behind him, and something like a sob came from Jean's lips—and then he shouted once more.
Still there was no answer.
He felt his way to the kitchen, and across the kitchen to the shelf by the rear wall, found a candle, and lighted it. He held the flame above his head, sweeping the light about him, and, discovering nothing, ran back into the front room—and, with a low cry, stood still. On the floor the great lamp lay broken, the chimney shattered into splinters. He stared at it in a frightened, almost superstitious way. The great lamp broken! Did it mean that—no, no, it could not mean that! It was the wind that had blown it there in bursting in the door. See, there was no disorder anywhere! He ran into Gaston's room. Nothing! Nothing anywhere to indicate that anything had happened—and yet, apparently, the house was empty—and that was enough! Out? They had gone out somewhere, even in the storm, on some homely errand, to pay a visit perhaps? Impossible! With the lamp for the first time in fourteen years unlighted, and broken now upon the floor? It was impossible! While Gaston Bernier lived the light would burn!
He climbed the stairs and stood on the threshold of the little attic room, the flickering candle playing timorously with the darker shadows where the roof in its sharp angle spread into an inverted V. It was the first time he had ever looked into that room. It was Marie-Louise's room. It was all white, scrupulously white, from the bare floor to the patched quilt on the little bed. There was a freshness, a sweetness about it that seemed to personify Marie-Louise, to fill the room with her—and it swept him now with a sudden numbing agony, and his face, wet with the rain that dripped from the hair straggling over his forehead, showed grey and set as it glistened curiously in the yellow, sputtering candle light.
And then, half mad with anxiety, the sure, intuitive knowledge of disaster upon him, he rushed downstairs again; and, hurriedly exchanging his candle for a lantern, went out into the night.
A search around the house revealed no more than within. He ran then down the path to the beach, to where, well up under the protection of the low bluff and away from the reach of the highest tide, old Gaston stored his boats and fishing gear. And there, as Jean flashed his lantern around him, a low, strained cry, for the second time, came from his lips. Three boats old Gaston owned—who should know better than he, Jean Laparde, who fished with the other season after season!—but of the three boats only two were there upon the beach.
As a man wounded then and dazed with his hurt, Jean stood there. They had gone—out into that—Marie-Louise and old Gaston—and they had not come back. It was not true—it was beyond belief! No; it was not true—something only had happened to the boat—no man in Bernay-sur-Mer would have been so mad as to have ventured out!
Far to the south the heavens opened in a burst of flame, and, travelling far and fast, a zigzag tongue of lightning, like the venomous thrust of a serpent's fang, leaped across the skies. It lighted up the beach, and, further out over the waters, a quarter of a mile away, played upon the smother of spray that like a shroud flung itself over the Perigeau Reef—and the cry that came from Jean Laparde was wild, hoarse-throated now. What was that he had seen!
It was dark again out there. He swung his lantern, signalling frantically—then,