Nearly the whole of the next day was spent by Ruxton upon the cliffs,
where, with powerful glasses, he searched the calm surface of the
treacherous grey waters of the North Sea. His search remained
unrewarded, but he was indefatigable. His watch was kept up with the
aid of a confidential man of his father's to relieve him, and when
evening came he decided that a night watch must follow the day. He had
carefully calculated the time from the date and hour of the Baltic
firing, and, in the light of the experience of his own journey to
Borga, he calculated that if the Prince had actually escaped, and was
making for Dorby, he would reach the coast some time during the next
twelve hours.
From three o'clock in the afternoon until darkness set in he had
rested, leaving his assistant on guard. Then he set out alone to keep
his night vigil.
His way took him across the wild moorland in the direction of the black
remains of the old mill, and, in setting out, he remembered that night
which now seemed so far back in his memory, when, out of the darkness,
he had heard those tones he had now come to love so well. This time,
however, his dinner coat and thin shoes had been abandoned in favor of
a heavy tweed ulster and thick shooting boots. For the autumn night was
bitter with a light breeze from the northeast, and a great silvery
moon, and the cold diamonds of a starlit sky, suggested that the
speeding hours were likely to bring with them many degrees of frost
before he could return to the warmth of his bed.
His direction gave him no trouble. Every foot of the moorland cliff was
familiar to him with the instinct bred through childish years of
association. Then there was the great, heavy moon yielding a light by
which it would almost have been possible to read.
So he strode on towards his goal, the blackened skeleton, which marked
the old dishonest times of battles fought out against authority. With
the detachment of youth his thoughts had been left free to wander from
the purpose of his journey. A deep concentration had completed every
detail of the work that lay before him. And so the resiliency of his
brain had caused a rebound to those wonderful thoughts which claimed
his every human sensation.
He was thinking of Vita. His mental faculties had visualized once more
the perfections which were hers, and those with which this love of his
endowed her. His big heart was stirred to its very depths with the
memory of her final, wistful appeal. He felt that if human effort could
serve her, that effort, the whole of it that was in him, was at her
service. He felt that all quite suddenly a great new power had been
vouchsafed him, a power to do, to act, and to think--all for the woman
who had inspired in him this wonderful, wonderful feeling of love.
Nothing, no task, no labor, however great, was too arduous for him to
accomplish. More, it was a happiness, such as never in his life he had
known, to be privileged with the task of contributing to her happiness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account