Читать книгу The Serpent In The Garden - Ethel M. Dell - Страница 5

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The appearance of the two half brothers seemed to be the signal for the whole of the visiting population of the neighbourhood to take to the water. Peter, swimming with long, slow strokes out towards the pine-crowned headland, looked back with a snort of disgust. Pierre, vigorous and graceful at his side, laughed and splashed water into his face.

“There are not many who will have the energy to come out so far. It is only on the return that we may find some congestion.”

Peter spat at him rudely. “The sea will be sticky with humanity. All your fault, Pierre! If you’d only come to me in England! There’s a decent swimming pool—diving board—everything.”

“But so cold!” said Pierre, turning on his side. “So clean—so safe—so English!”

“I’ll make you swim on your head in a minute,” rejoined Peter.

Pierre laughed mockingly and dodged like an eel from his outflung hand. “Then I turn back,” he threw at Peter. “I do not go to the end of the cape. It is called—Point des Sirènes. But—it is more dangerous than many mermaids. There are currents—et puis encore des courants. And there are no ‘Bewares’—as there would be in England.”

“Rot!” said Peter. “Bewares or no bewares, I’m going.”

Pierre turned on his back and floated inert. “I leave you to the sirens then, mon ami,” he called. “And I do not come to the rescue.”

Peter swam on. He was a stronger swimmer than Pierre and he had no fear of the currents. His muscular limbs spurned the blue water fearlessly. He revelled in the exercise with a sturdy pleasure. It was to his mind almost the only thing worth doing in the fierce heat of the south which was so alien to his blood.

He left Pierre and the seething crowd of bathers far behind. The jutting headland with its pines shaded him from the slanting rays of the sun. Before him gleamed a still stretch of water of so intense a blue that it looked like a shadowed inland lake, and beyond it there shone a pearly ripple where the waters on the other side of the headland joined the waters of the bay. Close inshore there were a few brown rocks that might have been painted in for effect. The whole outlook had an impressionist touch, like the back cloth of a stage. It was as if in that many-coloured hour when the evening sky clasped the heat-laden earth, the world itself paused for a space awaiting the coming of fresh actors upon the scene of life.

And Peter, swimming brawnily, felt the lull and the expectancy and looked about him half in doubt, as if a sense of unreality had forced itself upon him. A few more strokes brought him into the glassy water that lay as if charmed, motionless and silent against the shoreward rocks. He knew that practically the whole of that jutting, pine-clad slope of rocks was owned by an Italian nobleman of whom hotel proprietors spoke deferentially as “Il Conte” or “Le Comte”—a superior being who was reputed to spend a good deal of his time at Monte Carlo, though he occasionally—like a raven—swept down upon the nearer if less exciting prey of the gaming tables at Ste Marguérite close at hand. Neither counts nor gaming tables held the smallest interest for Peter. He hated the jam of people in the casino and the brazen or furtive greed in their watching faces. But he felt a passing admiration for the curving line of bay and the straight trees above it that hid the villa from all prying eyes. It surmounted the height and looked straight out to sea, they said; but the trees grew so thickly that it was invisible save from the open sea itself. From the decks of yachts and steamers it had been seen, a fairy dwelling of dazzling whiteness rising from terraces of flowers—a palace of dreams standing inviolate above a dreaming sea. The ripples that broke at the foot of its rocks were opalescent, almost mesmeric. No one could tread there. The rocks were too high, the water too deep.

But it was not closed to swimmers, and Peter, scorning the quiet water, stretched himself towards those far ripples with a sudden dogged determination to see all there was to be seen. If there were any sirens about, they would be well worth the venture.

He had left Pierre far behind without a thought, and Pierre’s warning regarding the currents had slipped as serenely into the background of his consciousness. The water slid past him almost unbroken, and he was impatient of its stillness. A few more yards, and he had reached the fretted edge beyond. Then in a moment he felt the turmoil, the freshness of wavelets that came from the open sea, the first gentle buffet of a colder, deeper force. He braced his muscles to meet it, his hardy British blood tingling in swift appreciation. He felt a sudden eagerness which the warmer and more sheltered waters had failed to impart. He changed to the overarm stroke, spurning the semitropical luxury behind him, and with a new energy he drew gradually abreast of the Point des Sirènes.

Here a wind met him straight out of the sunset—the first breath of the mistral which would not reach the incurved shore for another hour. It was like a challenge, soft but unmistakable, and he lifted his head to it with an odd, passionate defiance. It had the coldness of a steel weapon cutting through the heat-laden air, inviting him, mocking him. He swam on.

He reached the sunlight that smote across the water beyond the Point, but it imparted no warmth, for here he suddenly found himself in a tumble of waves that seemed to come pouring in upon him from all directions. He was in the thick of them almost before he knew, and in the midst of the churning water something seized and dragged at his legs, pulling him downwards.

With an immense effort he resisted, forcing his head and shoulders upwards, fighting the menacing waters. The currents had caught him indeed. He was in a foaming whirlpool, being tossed hither and thither like a cork despite his utmost efforts. It flashed upon him that he had ventured too near inshore where the currents met, and to extricate himself he must get out to sea. But though he turned his face southwards and battled resolutely, a wild race of breakers held him back, forcing him towards the brown wall of rock that bounded the Point, while the unseen power below dragged mercilessly at his legs, compelling him to use his utmost strength to keep afloat.

Further progress was impossible, and in despair he turned and tried to swim back. It was then that a sudden chill went through him that was like an iron hand gripping his heart. For in that moment he saw quite clearly and beyond all doubting that there was no return. The vortex raged behind as well as before. He had swum straight into the heart of it. The waters seemed to be fighting for him, while the rocks stood grimly waiting, and the undercurrent sucked him relentlessly downwards and ever downwards.

Panic was a sensation with which Peter was completely unfamiliar, but he realized the situation with a cold clarity that had in it a certain grim horror. He was in a trap, but—stubbornly he told himself the while he fought to keep his head above the foam—there must be a way out. He had never been trapped before but instinctively he summoned all his will power to keep his senses steady. There must be—there was—a way out, and he would find it.

The surging and rushing of waters filled his ears, and the spray buffeted and choked him. To swim out to sea was impossible; to return as he had come was equally so. He could not hope to force his way round the headland. There remained one chance alone and that a desperate one. Those towering rocks might give him some sort of refuge. Somewhere along their slimy base there might be some foothold, some crevice in which at least he might find a little breathing space, if nothing more. For he was becoming exhausted and he knew it. His limbs had begun to feel the weight of a leaden inertia. The water was beating him down, and the strength to fight was going from him.

He would probably be hurled against the face of the rock, but he must take the risk or be drowned where he was. The swirling currents were sucking him under, and he was spluttering and gasping like a child learning to swim. For the first time in his life he found himself in the grip of the inevitable, and his muscles felt puny and ineffectual. It was as if some giant had caught him and were whirling him to destruction, not maliciously, but as though he were a thing of no account.

It took more courage than he anticipated to turn himself towards that frowning rock. He did not quite know how he did it, for he was gasping and nearly spent. And the moment after he would have turned back had he been able; but it was too late. As if seized by an immense hand he was encompassed by the racing water and borne beyond all resistance towards that wetly shining wall. For an instant he seemed to be poised in air and the sun blazed level into his dazzled eyes. And then he was flung forwards and downwards. He seemed to be going straight to the bottom and he thought his lungs would burst. There came a frightful, groping pause—a greenness that was somehow intolerable—a silence that he thought was death, and then he floated up again. His head bobbed above the surface and he drew a vast breath that meant life renewed. The eddies still snatched at his feet and broke in ripples around him, but the rage and stress of the whirlpool was past. He was under the massive cliff in comparatively calm water.

He dared not float though he was conscious of an almost overwhelming exhaustion. He swam feebly—it was rather like the paddling of a dog—along the edge of the rock, nearly blinded and weakly feeling his way, until his knee encountered something hard and firm, and he suddenly awoke to the fact that some jutting obstacle was in front of him.

He grasped at it with a somewhat piteous floundering and felt a support for his feet. There was a ledge here slanting upwards, widening to a definite shelf above him. Weakly he dragged himself up from the water, all his joints feeling jellified and undependable. Up and up on hands and knees out of the treacherous, dancing water, creeping like a lizard with limbs outspread and yielding, he made his uncertain way. He felt horribly sick but he would not suffer himself to pause on that account. If he fainted he might fall over. So, feebly crawling, he pressed on till he reached what seemed to be a sort of alcove in the rock. It was well above the water. It was safe. Battered and dizzy, he crept into its shelter and sank down on his face.