Angels' Shoes, and Other Stories. Marjorie L. C. Pickthall

the sand sucking under their hooves. Monseigneur’s nostrils were blood-bright, his eyes dreadful. On the steps, the men were holding their master back by main force.

      “Wait an instant, sir—”

      “Give Mr. Geoffrey a chance, sir. He knows what he’s doing—”

      “Ah, look!” Monseigneur’s shoulder, Geoffrey’s strength were thrusting the mare at the steps. Her head was almost within their reach. She saw safety and flung forward, with the last of her strength, up and away from the water. A dozen hands were at her bridle. They had her up four steps before she crumpled forward and fell, and William leaped back with Lucia.

      He gave no more than a look at the life in her beautiful dazed face, and let them take her, and turned to his friend. But it was long enough.

      Heard even above the storm, there was a great cry.

      The men on the steps, waiting with arms locked for Monsiegneur as they had waited for the mare, were up to the waist in surf. But a dozen strong hands were ready for the bridle as the horse rose pawing for an instant at the lowest stair. Someone screamed: “Jump for it, Master Geoff.” But Geoffrey stayed in the saddle, the backwash scoured the sand from beneath Monseigneur’s hooves, and somehow the ready hands fell short. Half the sea seemed to raise itself and hang poised above the beach and the gardens, a grey wall curbed and ramparted with running white. They saw them an instant clear—the dreadful straining head of the great horse; Geoffrey with his hand up and his face raised. It was not pale or lost, but flushed with the very fulness of life, the face of one who looks on a thing that is good. His lips moved. It seemed that something went past them on the wind, a voice and a cry—“Lucia—”

      Then the great wave fell.

      Launce flung face down on the gravel like the kitchen-maid. The world went out. Voices and wild words passed him.

      “He reined him back, I tell you, as I’m a living man!”

      “What d’ye mean?”

      “There, at the foot of the steps. We’d a’ had Monseigneur as we had the mare. Sim’s hand was on the bridle. But Master Geoff reined him back.”

      “For God’s sake, don’t say so to the master, then. He’s like mad down there. We had to hold him, or he’d have killed Sim that caught him out of the rush.”

      “He reined Monsiegneur back, or we’d a’ had him up the steps before the wave fell. We’d a’ saved him.” The groom seemed to be sobbing.

      “Not against his will, lad. He’s al’ays took his will, has our Master Geoff—”

      “And her ladyship—?”

      “Hush. None’ll know that—”

      Someone picked Launce up, and carried him indoors and put him to bed; but the world did not come back. The house was silently astir. Mrs. Annerley, weeping, sat by the child all day, her prayer-book in her hand. The storm was full of voices—the voice of a man who walked up and down the terrace calling openly for his friend, and the voice that cried for ever in the wind, would cry for evermore—“Lucia, Lucia—”

      At night the wind lulled and he could hear Mrs. Annerley reading softly—“Graciously look upon our afflictions. Pitifully behold the sorrows of our hearts. Mercifully forgive the sins of Thy people.” He fell asleep, and awoke to the world again. But it was a changed world.

      The wind was still, the sky blown cold and clear. A great swell broke in silver on the beach. All the wall and the lower terrace was gone, the flowers and the young larches were gone, and the sleeping faun was gone also, swept away and buried in the ruin of the sand. All along the line of the breakers, men moved quietly, searching.

      Launce took the white mice and ran to the stables. He found old Simmons sitting on a bucket in Monseigneur’s empty stall, his hands over his ears, and Launce knew that both listened to the same thing. He would have no need to explain. He spoke with a sob. “I can’t bear it any more. Take me home, Simmons, take me home.”

      So the old man took him home, to the dove-house and the brown rabbit and Pansy and the kind, mild faces he knew best, which should presently heal him and set him at rest.

      But he was a child no more.

LUCK

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I

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      There were four bunks in the shanty, and three of them were filled.

      Ohlsen lay in one, a great bulk under the Hudson Bay Company blankets, breathing like a bull; in the next was Forbes, with eyes as quick as a mink’s, and now red rimmed from snow blindness, twinkling from time to time over his yellowish furs. Nearest the door was Lajeune, singing in his sleep. In one corner an old Indian cowered, as little regarded as the rags and skins in which he was hidden; and Desmond sat by the stove, drinking to his luck, fingering it and folding it.

      It was all there in a bag—raw gold, pure gold, the food of joy. At the weight of it in his rough palm, Desmond chattered and chuckled with delight. He had sat there talking and laughing for hours, while the glow of the stove grew darker and the cold crept in. Little blots of snow from the snow-shoes, first melting, had turned again to dark ice on the floor; the red light clung to them until each little circle seemed to be one of blood. Outside the world trembled under the shafts of the bitter stars; but Desmond, with the very fuel of life in his hand, was warm.

      Dreams ran in his brain like a tide and dripped off his tongue in words. They were strangely innocent dreams of innocent things; sunlight on an old wall, honey, a girl with sandy eyebrows, and yellow ducklings.

      “And maybe there’ll be a garden, with fruit you can pick off the bushes. ’Twas under a thorn-bush she used to stand, with the wind snapping her print gown. Or maybe I’ll see more of the world first in an easy fashion, never a drink scarce, and no man my better at it. I know how a gentleman should behave. Are you hearing me, boys?”

      Ohlsen breathed as slowly and deeply as a bull. Forbes blinked a moment over the greasy furs and said, “I’m hearing you.” Lajeune gave a sudden little call in his sleep, like a bird.

      “They’re all asleep, like so many hogs,” said Desmond, with a maudlin wonder; “they don’t care. Two years we’ve struggled and starved together in this here freezing hell, and now my luck’s come, and they don’t care. Well, well.”

      He stared resentfully at the bunks. He could see nothing of Ohlsen but blanket, yet Ohlsen helped him to a new outfit when he lost everything in a snow-slide. Forbes was only an unheeding head of grimy fur, yet once he had pulled Desmond out of a log-jam. And Lejeune had nursed him laughingly when he hurt his foot with a pick. Yet now Lejeune cared nothing; he was asleep, his head flung back, showing his smooth, lean throat and a scar that ran across it, white on brown. Desmond felt hurt. He took another drink, strode over to the bunk, and shook him petulantly.

      “Don’t ye hear when a friend talks t’ ye?”

      Lajeune did not move, yet he was instantly awake. His eyes, so black that they showed no pupil, stared suddenly into Desmond’s muddled blue ones. His right hand gripped and grew rigid.

      Desmond, leaning over him, was sobered by something in the breathless strain of that stare. He laughed uneasily.

      “It’s only me, Jooney. Was you asleep? I’m sorry.”

      He backed off bewildered, but young Lajeune smiled and yawned, showing his red tongue curled like a wolf’s.

      “Still the gold, my friend?” he asked, drowsily.

      “I—I