Ridgwell Cullum - The Men Who Wrought

Through the rents which time and weather had wrought he saw the warm glow of daylight above, for all was ruin in the great old mill, ruin within and without. As it was with the walls of stone, and the great tower of woodwork above them, so it was with the outbuildings beyond the doorway, within which he stood. The walls remained, heavily buttressed by the hardy hands of a race of men who had understood so well the necessity for fortifying their homes against all eventualities, but the timbers of the roofs had long since fallen victims to the inclemencies of the seasons and the ruthless "North-easters" which, probably, since the time when the iron shores of Britain first emerged from beneath the waters, had beaten their relentless wings against the barrier which held up their freedom.

Ruxton set his lantern on the ground and moved away to the wide doorway, which no longer possessed the remotest sign of the old wooden doors which had probably been at one time heavy enough to resist a siege. Here he drew a letter from his pocket and read it carefully over by the light of the sunset.

"Dear Mr. Farlow:

"I never knew your wonderful coast could be so interesting, even absorbing. I feel I owe you personal thanks for a delightful time, simply because you live – where you live. I have discovered a most wonderful spot. I say discovered, but probably you have known it from the days when you were first able to toddle about by yourself. However, I must tell you of it. It is an old, old, ruined mill, regarded by the folks on your coast as an evil place which is haunted by the spirits of the smugglers who once upon a time used it as the headquarters for their nefarious trade. But the incredible part of it is we unearthed a secret in it which has remained hidden for generations, possibly centuries. Now listen carefully and I will tell you of this secret. In the middle of the stone chamber under the mill there is the entrance to a passage which communicates with that villainous cove over which the evil eye of the old mill forever gazes. Six inches beneath the surface of the debris on the floor there is a slate slab, and, on raising this, you will discover a stone staircase which goes down, down, – follow it, and you shall see what you shall see. I have since discovered that this is the only means of reaching the beach of the cove – unless you possess wings . But I began this note with the intention of only telling you how much I am looking forward to seeing you again on Thursday evening at eight o'clock. I do hope you are taking full advantage of your vacation from parliamentary work, and are storing up plenty of good health upon your wonderful, wonderful moors.

"Yours very sincerely,

"Vita Vladimir."

Ruxton refolded the letter and put it away. He understood it was the final summons to that great adventure which was to tell him of the threat overshadowing his beloved country.

He had obeyed it readily, eagerly, and now that the reality of the whole thing was developing he paused to consider the motives urging him.

He was going to witness things first hand. He was glad. His understanding of duty assured him that it was the only means by which he could hope to convince others, when the time came. But was this his sole motive? Was this the motive which had inspired that feeling of exaltation when he first read the perfumed note, so carefully written lest it should fall into wrong hands? He knew it was not.

His eyes were raised to the glistening sea away beyond the cove. He was gazing straight out through the narrow opening of the cove where the precipitous cliffs rose sheer out of the blue waters and marked the entrance which the country-folk sensationally loved to call "Hell's Gate." His mind was searching and probing the feelings which inspired him, and he knew that the beckoning hand of the woman was exercising a greater power than any sense of duty. He did not blind himself. He had no desire to. Those dark Slavonic eyes of his were wide and bright, and the half smile of them was full of an eager warmth. The idealist mind behind them was widely open to its own imagery. He saw through those Hell's Gates the perfect, palpitating figure which had poured out its burden of soul to him on the edge of those very cliffs; and she was – beckoning.

The youth of him had been engulfed in the soul of the woman. Nor, as yet, did he realize the extent of the power she was exercising. All he knew was that he had neither the power nor desire to resist the summons, and herein lay the distinguishing mark of those whom Destiny claims.

After a few moments he glanced at his watch. And at once the alertness of the man was displayed. It was twenty minutes to eight, and shortly after eight it would be low tide. The appointment had been made with regard to that, and that while he approached from the land, she would come by water. Therefore he must not delay.

Dismissing every other consideration he turned back to the mysterious stairway he had unearthed and began its descent, aided by the light of the lantern he had discovered secreted upon the top step, ready for his use.

His progress was rapid and easy. The vaulted, declining passage beneath the mill was high and wide, and constructed of masonry calculated to withstand the erosion of ages. It was moist and slimy, and the steps were at times slippery, but these things were no deterrents.

The stairway, however, seemed endless in the dim lantern light, and by the time he had completed the journey he had counted upwards of one hundred steps. At the bottom he paused and looked back up the way he had come, but, in the blackness of the tunnel, his light revealed little more than the first few steps.

Without further pause he turned to ascertain the nature of the place upon which the stairway had debouched. It was a wide and lofty cavern of Nature's fashioning, except that the walls and the natural obstructions of the flooring had been rendered smooth and clear by the hand of man. It was easy to estimate the purposes of this subterranean abode. There was less imagination in the legends of the old mill than he had supposed. If the books of his childish reading had any foundation in their local color this was certainly the den of some old-time smugglers.

He passed rapidly along the declining passage, and the end of it came as he expected to find it. It was a cave which opened in the face of the cliff overlooking the cove, but so ingeniously hidden by Nature that its presence could never have been even guessed at by any chance visit from the sea.

He stood at the opening and gazed out upon the already twilit cove. But he could not see the sea from where he stood; only along the face of the cliff to his right, down which, zigzagging and winding, a sort of rough-hewn stairway communicated with the beach below. In front of him a great projection of rock, as though riven from the main cliff at some far-off time by the colossal forces of Nature, hid the entire entrance of the cavern. And so narrow was the space intervening that he could touch it with an outstretching of his arm. It was a remarkable hiding-place. Nor did he marvel that he had never heard of it before. But the rapidly deepening twilight of the cove warned him of the approach of the hour of his appointment. So he blew out his lantern and began the descent to the beach nearly fifty feet below.

Within five minutes he was standing in the centre of a patch of golden sand with the still ebbing water of the cove lapping gently at his feet.

A curious change had come over him. All interest inspired by the journey through the cavern was entirely gone. Even, for the time, he had no longer any thought of the purpose for which he was there. His mind was absorbed in the curious weird of the place, and the dreadful feeling of overwhelming might bearing in and down upon him.

The appalling grey barrenness, the height of the frowning ramparts which surrounded him on all sides, except the narrow opening to the sea. The absolute inaccessibility of those frowning walls, and the melancholy scream of the thousands of gulls which haunted the place. It was tremendous. It was terrible. But added to all these things was a discovery which he made almost upon the instant. With the instinct of personal security his eyes sought the high-water mark upon the beach. There was none. It was high up on the cliff sides at no point less that ten feet above the highest point of the beach. Herein lay the terror of the cove which lived in the minds of the dwellers upon the moors. Here was its real terror. A rising tide, and the secret of the smuggler's cavern undiscovered, and – death! He smiled as he thought of the name given to the entrance to the cove. Hell's Gate! It was surely —