Jeanne of the Marshes Part 8

"Idyllic!" Forrest declared cynically. "To sit upon a hard plank and to have one's digestion unmercifully interfered with like this is unqualified rapture. If only there were cabins one might sleep."

"There will be cabins on my yacht," Jeanne declared laughing, "but I shall not ask either of you. You are both of you knights of the candle light. I shall get some great strong fisherman to be captain, and I shall go round the world and forget the days and the months."

Forrest s.h.i.+vered slightly.

"The country," he remarked to the Princess, "is having a terrible effect upon your stepdaughter."

The Princess nodded and thrust a bonbon into the languid jaws of the dog she was holding.

"It is my fault," she declared. "It is I who have set this fas.h.i.+on. It was a whim, and I am tired of it. Tell our host that we will go back."

They tacked a few minutes later, and swept sh.o.r.eward. Jeanne, still standing in the bows, was gazing steadfastly upon the little island at the entrance of the estuary.

"I should like," she declared, pointing it out to Cecil, "to land there and have some tea."

Cecil looked at her doubtfully.

"We shall be home in a little more than an hour," he said, "and I don't suppose we could get any tea there, even if we were able to land."

"I have a conviction that we should," Jeanne declared. "Mother," she added, turning round to the older woman, "there is an island just ahead of us with a delightful looking cottage. I believe my preserver of this morning lives there. Wouldn't it be lovely to go and beg him to give us all tea?"

"Charming!" the Princess declared, sitting up amongst her cus.h.i.+ons. "I should love to see him, and tea is the one thing in the world I want to make me happy."

Cecil de la Borne stood silent for a moment or two, looking steadfastly at the whitewashed cottage upon the island. It seemed impossible, after all, to escape from Andrew!

"The man lives there alone, I believe," he said. "I don't suppose there is any one to get us tea. He would only be embarra.s.sed by our coming, and not know what to do."

Jeanne smiled reflectively.

"I do not think," she said, "that it would be easy to embarra.s.s Mr.

Andrew. However, if you like we will put it off to another afternoon, on one condition."

"Let me hear the condition at any rate," Cecil asked.

"That we go straight back, and that you show us that subterranean pa.s.sage," Jeanne declared.

"Agreed!" Cecil answered. "I warn you that you will find it only damp and mouldy and depressing, but you shall certainly see it."

The girl moved toward the side of the boat, and stood leaning over, with her eyes fixed upon the island. Standing on the small gra.s.s plot in front of the cottage she could see the tall figure of a man with his face turned toward them. A faint smile parted her lips as she watched.

She took out her handkerchief and waved it. The man for a moment stood motionless, and then raising his cap, held it for a moment above his head. The boat sped on, and very soon they were out of sight. She stood there, however, watching, until they had rounded the sandy spit and entered the creek which led into the harbour. There was something unusually piquant to her in the thought of that greeting with the man, whose response to it had been so unwilling, almost ungracious.

CHAPTER VIII

"Not another step!" the Princess declared. "I am going back at once."

"I too," Forrest declared. "Your smuggling ancestors, my dear De la Borne, must indeed have loved adventure, if they spent much of their time crawling about here like rats."

"As you will," Cecil answered. "The expedition is Miss Jeanne's, not mine."

"And I am going on," Jeanne declared. "I want to see where we come out on the beach."

"This way, then," Cecil said. "You need not be afraid to walk upright.

The roof is six feet high all the way. You must tread carefully, though. There are plenty of holes and stones about."

The Princess and Forrest disappeared. Jeanne, with her skirts held high in one hand, and an electric torch in the other, followed Cecil slowly along the gloomy way. The walls were oozing with damp, glistening patches, like illuminated salt stains, and queer fungi started out from unexpected places. Sometimes their footsteps fell on the rock, awaking strange echoes down the gallery. Sometimes they sank deep into the sand. Cecil looked often behind, and once held out his hand to help his companion over a difficult place. At last he paused, and she heard him struggling to turn a key in a great worm-eaten door on their right.

"This is the room," he explained, "where they held their meetings, and where the stuff was hidden. It was used for more than twenty years, and the Customs' people never seemed to have had even an inkling of its existence."

He pushed the door open with difficulty. They found themselves in a gloomy chamber, with vaulted roof and stone floor. A faint streak of daylight from an opening somewhere in the roof, partially lit the place. Here, too, the walls were damp and the odour appalling. There were some fragments of broken barrels at one end, and an oak table in the middle of the floor. Jeanne looked round and s.h.i.+vered.

"Let us go on to the end," she said.

Cecil nodded, and they made their way on down the pa.s.sage.

"The roof is getting lower now," he said. "You had better stoop a little."

She stopped short.

"What is that?" she asked fearfully.

A sound like rolling thunder, faint at first, but growing more distinct at every step, broke the chill silence of the place.

"The sea," Cecil answered. "We are getting near to the beach."

Jeanne nodded and crept on. Louder and louder the sound seemed to become, until at last she paused, half terrified.

"Where are we?" she gasped. "It sounds as though the sea were right over our heads."

Cecil shook his head.

"It is an illusion," he said. "The sound comes from the air-hole there.

We are forty yards from the cliff still."

They crept on, until at last, after a turn in the gallery, they saw a faint glimmering of light. A few more yards and they came to a standstill.

"The entrance is boarded up, you see," Cecil said, "but you can see through the c.h.i.n.ks. There is the sea just below, and the rope ladder used to hang from these staples."

She looked out. Sheer below was the sea, breaking upon the rocks and sending a torrent of spray into the air with every wave.

"We can't get out this way, then?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"No, we should want a rope ladder," he said, "and a boat. Have you seen enough?"