Генри Хаггард: Mary of Marion Isle

She saw him also and through the scream of the gale that gathered moment by moment, he heard her voice cry faintly, "Help her!"

Oh, thank God! it was Mary, and Mary alive. Now if she drowned, he could drown with her!

With frantic efforts he drove himself forward against the sea and wind, and at last amidst the crest foam of a great comber they met. Then he saw that Mary had her left hand twisted in the hair of another woman, a senseless woman whom she was dragging with her through the water. She was almost spent, but still she did not leave go, but struggled forward with slow strokes. Their bodies knocked together. He ranged himself alongside of her and with his left hand gripped the arm of the senseless woman. As he did so, she turned over and he saw her face. It was that of Clara still clad in her heavy furs.

Had it not been that the seas and the ever–growing gale were behind them, driving them onwards, never could they have come to the shore, but as it was, more dead than living, they reached it at last and staggered through the shallowing water, dragging Clara between them and clinging to rocks to save themselves from being swept seawards again by the backwash of the waves. They reached the little spit of sand where was the stone on which lay Andrew's skin robe with Mary's. They pulled Clara from the water and then fell in a heap exhausted, spitting foam from their mouths. Presently Andrew raised himself upon his knees and looked at Clara as a doctor does. She was still and white with her mouth and eyes open.

"I think that she is dead," he gasped.

"I tried to save her," said Mary in a kind of choking wail. "I went to lose myself and found her , washed from the boat."

Then Mary rose also and made as though she would re–enter the sea. With a spring he was upon her, flinging his arms about her body.

"No!" he cried. "If you move I will stun you."

Now muttering, "I did my best, I did my best to save her!" she sank down in a heap upon the sand.

"Swear that you will not," and he pointed to the sea. "Swear by God Who has given you back your life."

"I swear," said Mary, and her head fell upon her breast.

Then he brought the robe into which she slowly thrust her arms, while he also clothed himself, for the wind was bitter. They tottered to Clara, and he did all that his skill taught him should be done to those who seemed to be dead from drowning, at least all that he could there, pressing the water from her lungs.

Still she did not stir.

"We must get her to the caves," said Andrew. "Help me if you can."

So with frightful efforts, between them they dragged and carried her over that rocky road, and at last laid her down by the fire. Here Andrew renewed his attempts to revive her. For two hours he worked although the blood from a cut in his head almost blinded him, but without avail.

Clara's tale was told. She was dead. Towards the end of the time they saw men standing before them, the survivors of the boat's crew, for only one had been drowned; the rest had clung to it and, being a lifeboat, it did not sink, but at last was washed ashore. They helped as best they could, and from them Andrew learned the story.

During the night the glass had begun to fall so rapidly that before dawn the captain had said that if Lady Atterton wished to fetch the people from the island, she must do so as soon as it was light, as he feared a gale was coming up which would force him to put out to the open sea within a few hours. Clara consented unwillingly, as Andrew guessed, because she knew that no one except herself could persuade him to leave that place, and that if the sailors were told to bring him by force, a course of which perhaps she thought, that he would run away and hide with the woman and child, or fight them. So she went, thinking doubtless, as the captain did, that there was plenty of time before the gale came. As it happened this rose with startling suddenness when the boat, with Clara on board, had only been a few minutes in the water. With her siren the ship signalled to them to return. As they were putting about Clara grew frightened and stood up in the boat. At this moment a big sea struck them and washed her overboard. Again they turned and tried to follow her, with the result that the boat was overset. Soon afterwards they saw that a woman was trying to save her. Then they saw no more, for they and the boat were blown far away from the pair and great seas rose between them. That was all, except that in their confusion and emergency they believed that Mary had swum out to rescue Clara and for no other purpose. Nor did anyone undeceive them.

To these men Andrew gave what food and clothes he had, and sent them to live in the other cave until such time as the cruiser, that had beat out to sea to escape shipwreck, should return again.

The gale was hellish, though fortunately it was but beginning when Mary in her holy madness had met it in the Race. Even so she must have perished, weighted as she was with the senseless Clara, had not her native strength and daily practice for many years enabled her to swim like a seal and to dive through breaking waves. It blew and blew with hurricane strength, turning over great rocks and, for the first time since it had been lit, carrying away the fire in front of the cave, to the last glowing ash.

There in the shelter of that cave and with their child, the two lay exhausted, listening to its raging. At length, when the wind abated somewhat, Andrew went out and with the assistance of the seamen dug a deep grave at that very spot round the protecting corner of rock where he and his wife had talked together on the previous day. In this grave he laid Clara, and there for the third time read the Burial Service on Marion Isle, as now he learned that it was called.

Then Andrew returned to the cave and spoke alone with Mary, for night was falling, and the child had been put to sleep.

"I suppose that we are both sinners," he said, "but if so, I hope and believe that the agony which we have passed has paid the price. When you tried to take your life this morning, Mary, you did a thing as wrong as it was noble, not understanding that if you had succeeded, the penalty would have fallen on me for whose sake it was done, as well as on you, since then I believe that I also should have died, and our darling would have been orphaned. Even as it is I feel as though what I have endured and what I know you have suffered, had made an old man of me. Well, whatever Power rules us intervened and, as it chanced, in attempting to save the life of another, you preserved your own and mine, and therefore our days are left to us to spend together in uprightness and atonement, for which, let us thank God, as I think God for His gift to me in you."

She listened with bowed head, then crept to him and kissed him.

"All Mary did," she whispered in her old childish talk, "Mary did because she loves Andrew, and God Who is good knew that and saved Mary in the Race—though," she added doubtfully, "God took Clara."

Now suddenly she dropped upon her knees and began to repeat the Lord's Prayer, just as she said it when first he saw her, a lonely waif upon the desert isle; just as she said it before for love's sake she committed her body to the deep and her soul to its Creator.

"Forgive us our trespasses," she murmured, "as we forgive them that trespass against us, and keep us from the evil, Amen."

Then once more Mary kissed him and he kissed her, after which she took the pearl necklace and tied it about Janet's neck. Herself she would wear it no more, because of all the agony of which it reminded her.