The Gully of Bluemansdyke, and Other storiesDoyle, Arthur Conan
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The Gully of Bluemansdyke, and Other stories
Doyle, Arthur Conan
Detective and mystery stories, English; Fiction; Short stories
That night a great wind rose up from the sea, and the wild waves
shrieked upon the shore as though they would tear it back with them into
the ocean. The turmoil and the uproar were congenial to my vexed spirit.
All night I wandered up and down, wet with spray and rain, watching the
gleam of the white breakers, and listening to the outcry of the storm.
My heart was bitter against the Russian. I joined my feeble pipe to the
screaming of the gale. "If he would but come back again!" I cried, with
clenched hands; "if he would but come back!"
He came back. When the grey light of morning spread over the eastern sky
and lit up the great waste of yellow, tossing waters, with the brown
clouds drifting swiftly over them, then I saw him once again. A few
hundred yards off along the sand there lay a long dark object, cast up
by the fury of the waves. It was my boat, much shattered and splintered.
A little farther on, a vague, shapeless something was washing to and fro
in the shallow water, all mixed with shingle and with sea-weed. I saw at
a glance that it was the Russian, face downwards and dead. I rushed into
the water and dragged him up on to the beach. It was only when I turned
him over that I discovered that she was beneath him, his dead arms
encircling her, his mangled body still intervening between her and the
fury of the storm. It seemed that the fierce German Sea might beat the
life from him, but with all its strength it was unable to tear this
one-idea'd man from the woman whom he loved. There were signs which led
me to believe that during that awful night the woman's fickle mind had
come at last to learn the worth of the true heart and strong arm which
struggled for her and guarded her so tenderly. Why else should her
little head be nestling so lovingly on his broad breast, while her
yellow hair entwined itself with his flowing beard? Why, too, should
there be that bright smile of ineffable happiness and triumph, which
death itself had not had power to banish from his dusky face? I fancy
that death had been brighter to him than life had ever been.
Madge and I buried them there on the shores of the desolate northern
sea. They lie in one grave deep down beneath the yellow sand. Strange
things may happen in the world around them. Empires may rise and may
fall, dynasties may perish, great wars may come and go, but, heedless of
it all, those two shall embrace each other for ever and aye in their
lonely shrine by the side of the sounding ocean. I sometimes have
thought that their spirits flit like shadowy sea-mews over the wild
waters of the bay. No cross or symbol marks their resting-place, but old
Madge puts wild flowers upon it at times; and when I pass on my daily
walk, and see the fresh blossoms scattered over the sand, I think of the
strange couple who came from afar and broke for a little space the dull
tenor of my sombre life.
_THAT LITTLE SQUARE BOX._
"All aboard?" said the captain.
"All aboard, sir!" said the mate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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