第72章

No! the words wouldn't come.The dumb trembling held me in its grip.Icouldn't feel the driving rain.I couldn't see the rising tide.As in the vision of a dream, the poor lost creature came back before me.I saw her again as I had seen her in the past time -- on the morning when I went to fetch her into the house.I heard her again, telling me that the Shivering Sand seemed to draw her to it against her will, and wondering whether her grave was waiting for her there.The horror of it struck at me, in some unfathomable way, through my own child.My girl was just her age.

My girl, tried as Rosanna was tried, might have lived that miserable life, and died this dreadful death.

The Sergeant kindly lifted me up, and turned me away from the sight of the place where she had perished.

With that relief, I began to fetch my breath again, and to see things about me, as things really were.Looking towards the sand-hills, I saw the men-servants from out-of-doors, and the fisherman, named Yolland, all running down to us together; and all, having taken the alarm, calling out to know if the girl had been found.In the fewest words, the Sergeant showed them the evidence of the footmarks, and told them that a fatal accident must have happened to her.He then picked out the fisherman from the rest, and put a question to him, turning about again towards the sea: `Tell me,'

he said.`Could a boat have taken her off, in such weather as this, from those rocks where her footmarks stop?'

The fisherman pointed to the rollers tumbling in on the sand-bank, and to the great waves leaping up in clouds of foam against the headlands on either side of us.

`No boat that ever was built,' he answered, `could have got to her through that.'

Sergeant Cuff looked for the last time at the footmarks on the sand, which the rain was now fast blurring out.

`There,' he said, `is the evidence that she can't have left this place by land.And here,' he went on, looking at the fisherman, `is the evidence that she can't have got away by sea.' He stopped, and considered for a minute.`She was seen running towards this place, half an hour before Igot here from the house,' he said to Yolland.`Some time has passed since then.Call it, altogether, an hour ago.How high would the water be, at that time, on this side of the rocks?' He pointed to the south side --otherwise, the side which was not filled up by the quicksand.

`As the tide makes to-day,' said the fisherman, `there wouldn't have been water enough to drown a kitten on that side of the Spit, an hour since.'

Sergeant Cuff turned about northward, towards the quicksand.

`How much on this side?' he asked.

`Less still,' answered Yolland.`The Shivering Sand would have been just awash, and no more.'

The Sergeant turned to me, and said that the accident must have happened on the side of the quicksand.My tongue was loosened at that.`No accident!'

I told him.`When she came to this place, she came, weary of her life, to end it here.'

He started back from me.`How do you know?' he asked.The rest of them crowded round.The Sergeant recovered himself instantly.He put them back from me; he said I was an old man; he said the discovery had shaken me;he said, `Let him alone a little.' Then he turned to Yolland, and asked, `Is there any chance of finding her, when the tide ebbs again?' And Yolland answered, `None.What the Sand gets, the Sand keeps for ever.' Having said that, the fisherman came a step nearer, and addressed himself to me.

`Mr.Betteredge,' he said, `I have a word to say to you about the young woman's death.Four foot out, broadwise, along the side of the Spit, there's a shelf of rock, about half fathom down under the sand.My question is -- why didn't she strike that? If she slipped, by accident, from off the Spit, she fell in where there's foothold at the bottom, at a depth that would barely cover her to the waist.She must have waded out, or jumped out, into the Deeps beyond -- or she wouldn't be missing now.No accident, sir! The Deeps of the Quicksand have got her.And they have got her by her own act.'

After that testimony from a man whose knowledge was to be relied on, the Sergeant was silent.The rest of us, like him, held our peace.With one accord, we all turned back up the slope of the beach.

At the sand-hillocks we were met by the under-groom, running to us from the house.The lad is a good lad, and has an honest respect for me.He handed me a little note, with a decent sorrow in his face.`Penelope sent me with this, Mr.Betteredge,' he said.`She found it in Rosanna's room.'

It was her last farewell word to the old man who had done his best --thank God, always done his best -- to befriend her.

`You have often forgiven me, Mr.Betteredge, in past times.When you next see the Shivering Sand, try to forgive me once more.I have found my grave where my grave was waiting for me.I have lived, and died, sir, grateful for your kindness.'

There was no more than that.Little as it was, I hadn't manhood enough to hold up against it.Your tears come easy, when you're young, and beginning the world.Your tears come easy, when you're old, and leaving it.I burst out crying.

Sergeant Cuff took a step nearer to me -- meaning kindly, I don't doubt.

I shrank back from him.`Don't touch me,' I said.`It's the dread of you, that has driven her to it.'

`You are wrong, Mr.Betteredge,' he answered, quietly.`But there will be time enough to speak of it when we are indoors again.'

I followed the rest of them, with the help of the groom's arm.Through the driving rain we went back -- to meet the trouble and the terror that were waiting for us at the house.