The Children of the Castle

They were not far from the old fisherman’s cottage by this time. They stopped again to take breath. Mavis and the boat were not visible from where they stood, for the path went in and out among the rocks, and just here some large projecting boulders hid the shore from sight.

Suddenly, as if it came from some cave beneath their feet, both children grew conscious of a faint sound as of distant music. And every moment it became clearer and louder even though muffled. Bertrand and Ruby looked at each other.

“Mermaids!” both exclaimed.

“They always sing,” said Bertrand.

“Yes,” added Ruby, with her old confusion of ideas about syrens; “and they make people go after them by their singing, and then they catch them and kill them, and I’m not sure but what they eat them. I know I’ve read something about bare dry bones being found. Shall we put our fingers in our ears, Bertrand?” She looked quite pale with fear.

“Nonsense,” said the boy. “That’s only sailors at sea. They lure them in among the rocks. We’re quite safe on dry land. Besides, I don’t think it’s mermaids that do that. They’re miserable crying creatures; but I don’t think they kill people.”

The subterraneous music came nearer and nearer. Somehow the children could not help listening.

“Didn’t you say you and Mavis heard singing the day you were here before – at the wizard’s cottage, I mean?” said Bertrand.

“N-no, not exactly singing. It was laughing, and a voice calling out good-bye in a singing way,” answered Ruby.

As if in response to her words, the ringing suddenly stopped, and from below their feet – precisely below it seemed – came the sound of ringing, silvery laughter, clear and unmistakable.

“Oh,” cried Ruby, “come away, Bertrand. I’m sure it’s the mermaids, and they will catch us and kill us, you’ll see.”

Her boasted courage had not come to much. And yet there was nothing very alarming in the pretty sounds they had heard.

“And what if it is the mermaids?” said Bertrand coolly. “We came out to catch them, didn’t we? It’s just what we wanted. Come along, Ruby. How do we get to the cottage? There seems to be a sort of wall in front.”

“We go round by the back,” said Ruby. “It’s there there are the queer grottoes and little caves. But you won’t go far into them, will you, Bertrand? For I am not at all sure but that the mermaids come up from the sea through these caves; you see they do come some underground way.”

Bertrand gave a sort of grunt. What Ruby said only made him the more determined to explore as far as he possibly could.

They entered the strange little garden I have already described without further adventure. There seemed no one about, no sound of any kind broke the almost unnatural stillness.

“How very quiet it is,” said Ruby with a little shiver. “And there’s no smoke coming out of the chimney – there was the last time, for there was a good fire in the kitchen where old Adam was.”

And as she said this there came over her the remembrance of the kind old man’s gentle hospitality and interest in them. Why had she taken such a hatred to Winfried and his grandfather, especially since Bertrand’s arrival? She could not have given any real reason.

“I hope he isn’t very ill – or —dead,” she said, dropping her voice. “And Winfried locked up and not able to get to him. It would be our fault, Bertrand.”

“Nonsense,” said Bertrand roughly, with his usual scornful contempt of any softer feelings. “He’s fallen asleep over his pipe and glass of grog. I daresay he drinks lots of grog – those fellows always do.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t,” contradicted Ruby, feeling angry with herself as well as Bertrand. “Let’s go to the window and peep in before we look at the caves.”

She ran round to the front, followed by her cousin, taking care to make as little sound as possible. She remembered on which side of the door was the kitchen, and softly approached what she knew must be its window. But how surprised she was when she looked in! It was the kitchen; she remembered the shape of the room; she recognised the neat little fireplace, but all was completely deserted. Every trace of furniture had disappeared; old Adam’s large chair by the hearth might never have been in existence, well as she remembered it. Except that it was clean and swept, the room might not have, been inhabited for years.

Ruby turned to Bertrand, who was staring in at another window.

“I say, Ruby,” he whispered, “the room over here is quite – ”

“I know,” she said. “So is the kitchen. They’re gone, Bertrand, quite gone, and we’ve had all our trouble for nothing. It’s too bad.”

“They!” repeated Bertrand, “you can’t say they, when you know that Winfried is locked up in the turret-room.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Ruby starting, “I quite forgot. He must have hidden his grandfather somewhere. And yet I don’t see how they could have managed it so quietly. We always know when any of the village people are moving their furniture; they send to borrow our carts.”

“Well,” said Bertrand, “there’s one thing certain. If you didn’t believe it before, you must now; I should think even Mavis would – the old fellow is a wizard, and so’s his precious grandson.”

“Shall we go into the house?” said Ruby, though she looked half afraid to do so.

“Isn’t the door locked?” said Bertrand, trying it as he spoke. It yielded to his touch; he went in, followed, though tremblingly, by Ruby.

But after all there was little or nothing to see; the three rooms, though scrupulously clean, even the windows shining bright and polished, were perfectly empty. As the children strolled back to the kitchen, annoyed and disappointed, feeling, to tell the truth, rather small, something caught Ruby’s eye in one corner of the room. It was a small object, gleaming bright and blue on the white stones of the floor. She ran forward and picked it up, it was a tiny bunch of forget-me-nots tied with a scrap of ribbon; the same large brilliant kind of forget-me-not as those which she and Mavis had so admired on their first visit to the now deserted cottage. She gave a little cry.

“Look, Bertrand,” she said, “they can’t have been long gone. These flowers are quite fresh. I wonder where they came from. They must have been growing in a pot in the house, for there are none in the garden. I looked as we came through.”

Bertrand glanced at the flowers carelessly.

“Wizards,” he began, “can – ”

But his sentence was never finished. For as he spoke there came a sudden gust of wind down the wide chimney, so loud and furious that it was as startling as a clap of thunder. Then it subsided again, but for a moment or two a long low wail sounded overhead, gradually dying away in the distance.

“What was that?” said Bertrand. While the sounds lasted both children had stood perfectly still.

“The wind of course,” said Ruby. She was more accustomed than her cousin to the unexpected vagaries of the storm spirits so near the sea, still even she seemed startled. “It’s often like that,” she was beginning to say, but she hesitated. “It was very loud,” she added.

“There must be rough weather coming,” said Bertrand. “We’d better go home by the road, I think, Ruby.”

“We,” exclaimed Ruby indignantly. “Do you mean you and me, Bertrand? And what about Mavis?”

“She can come on shore,” replied the boy carelessly. “She knows where we are. It’s her own fault. Come along, there’s nothing to wait for in this empty old hole. I want you to show me the caves outside.”

“I’ll try to signal to Mavis first,” said Ruby. “I’ll tie my handkerchief to a stick and wave it about. She can see us up here quite well, and perhaps when she finds we’re alone she’ll come.”

They left the cottage, and Ruby got out her handkerchief. But it was small use. For just as they stepped on to the rough little terrace in front from whence they could clearly see the shore, there came another and even – it seemed so at least now they were standing outside – more violent blast. It was all Ruby could do to keep her feet, and when she recovered from the giddying effect of the wind she was still breathless and shaken. And that the hurricane was gathering strength every second was plain to be seen; the waves were dashing in excitedly, the sky at one side had that strange lurid purple colour which foretells great disturbance.

But it was not these things only which made Ruby turn pale and shiver.

“Bertrand,” she gasped, “I don’t know if there’s something the matter with my eyes, I can’t see clearly – Bertrand – look – where is Mavis – Mavis and the boat; can you see them?”

Bertrand shaded his brow with his hand and gazed.

“’Pon my soul,” he said, “it’s very odd. I can’t see them. And there’s not been time for Mavis to have rowed out to sea or even to have drifted out; we can see right out ever so far, and there’s no boat; not a sign of one.”

“Can – can she have landed and dragged the boat ashore somehow?” said Ruby, her teeth chattering with cold and fear.

“No,” said Bertrand, “we’d certainly see her and the boat in that case.”

“Then, where is she?” cried Ruby. “Bertrand, you must care. What do you think has become of her?”

“Can’t say, I’m sure,” said the boy. “The boat may have capsized: the sea’s awfully rough now.”