Flower of the Gorse

Peridot's call came shrilly, "Keep her there, Ma'mselle!" Back swung the tiller, and Yvonne "kept her there," though during a long minute the Hirondelle tore at the rudder as a startled horse snatches at the bit, and it seemed as if she must capsize without fail.

Again the Breton's cry rang out, "Ease her now, Ma'mselle!"

The boat fell away before the wind. Soon she was on an even keel, save for the unavoidable rolling and pitching that resulted from the furious seas. But, if stout canvas and trustworthy cordage held, they were safe as though tied to the quay in the land-locked harbor at Pont Aven. Already Les Verrés were a furlong or more in the rear. It was impossible to see what had become of the Stella, because the spray was leaping high over the reef, until its irregular crests were bitten off by the gale. But a fishing smack which had gallantly put out from Brigneau was signaled back before it crossed the bar, and the signal station was hoisting a fresh set of flags which spelled in the lingua franca of the ocean, "Well done, Concarneau 415!" which was as near the Hirondelle's name as the watchers on shore could get on the spur of the moment.

Peridot paid Yvonne the greatest of all compliments by not coming aft to relieve her. But her father, who had betrayed no flurry even when death seemed unavoidable, drew near, and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"You're another Grace Darling, my dear!" was all he said.

But the look accompanying the words was enough, and the girl's eyes began to smart painfully, because the sudden moisture in them revealed how they had suffered from the spindrift.

And again, by sending her below on an errand of mercy, he only added subtly to Peridot's tribute.

"We can spare you now, Yvonne," he said. "Tell those men to come on deck, and you give an eye to the lady. You have some dry clothes down there. If she has no bones broken, she will recover more quickly in a warm bunk than under any other conditions. Get her undressed, and give her a little cognac. Take some yourself, – don't spare it, – and pass the bottle up here."

He took her place at the tiller, and she made off at once, only pausing to pat Lorry's wet and shaggy head.

Six men came up the companion stairway; but two returned at her call to lift the injured men into a lower and an upper bunk on the same side. They had contrived already to bandage the broken arm with handkerchiefs. The sprained ankle they could not deal with. The man with a broken arm was making some outcry; but the other sufferer was patient and even smiling.

"Gawd bless yer, Miss!" he said to Yvonne when he discerned her identity in the dim light of the cabin. "If it 'adn't a been fer you an' yer shipmites, we on the Stella 'ad as much chawnce as a lump o' ice in hell's flimes!"

The Cockney accent was new in Yvonne's ear, and its quaintness helped to soften the speaker's forcible simile.

"You'll soon be all right," she assured him. "We'll reach Pont Aven within the hour, and the good folk there will look after you splendidly. Please lie still now, as I must pin a blanket across these two bunks."

Then she was left alone with the insensible woman, who was alive, the sailors said, but completely unconscious. She had fainted, they believed, when the shaft snapped and the yacht was like to be lost forthwith. The immersion in the sea seemed to have revived her for a few seconds; but she swooned off again in the cabin, and, while the boat was lurching so heavily, they thought it wiser to pillow her head on a coat and not attempt to restore her senses.

On deck the captain of the Stella had picked out Ingersoll as the probable owner of the Hirondelle. He came and stood by the artist's side.

"Is this craft yours, Sir?" he inquired.

"Yes."

"And is that young lady your daughter, Sir?"

"Yes."

"Well, I need hardly say that we owe our lives to her, and you, and your two friends. I've seen some rum things durin' thirty years at sea; but I've never seen anything to ekal your pluck in runnin' into that death trap. And that girl of yours – the way she behaved! Well, there! I never could talk much. This time I'm clean stumped!"

"We did what we could. The real credit for your rescue lies with that cool-headed Breton fisherman yonder. Is the poor fellow who was killed the owner of the Stella?"

"Yes, Sir."

"And the lady is his wife?"

"Yes, Sir. Mr. and Mrs. Walter H. Carmac. Look out, Sir! You must ha forgotten you were leaning against the tiller."

The sailor acted promptly in bringing the Hirondelle back on her course; but, owing to her quickness in answering the helm, she had swung round a couple of points when an involuntary movement, a sort of flinching on Ingersoll's part, caused her to change direction.

Peridot came aft, smiling and debonair. "We're all a bit shaken, Monsieur," he said, noting the increased pallor of Ingersoll's ordinarily rather delicate-looking face. "A tot of cognac, eh? That's what we want. What do you say, Monsieur?"

The bluff English skipper had caught the key word of the sentence, and the Breton's merry eye supplied a full translation.

"Good for you, my hearty!" said he. "Gimme one fair pull at a bottle of decent stuff now, an' I'll load you to the bung with the same once we're ashore."

CHAPTER IV

THE HOME-COMING

Peridot had stipulated that the Hirondelle should start on her homeward run "not a minute later than three o'clock." He had cast off from the wharf at Le Pouldu slightly before that hour; but the wreck of the Stella and its attendant circumstances – not least being the necessity enforced by the change of wind to take the deep-sea course after leaving the reef – cost a good deal of time. As a consequence daylight had almost failed before the bar of the Aven was crossed.

On Pointe d'ar Vechen, within thirty feet of the Port Manech Hotel, stands a tiny lighthouse which sheds a mild beam over the entrance to the estuary. It is essentially a harbor light. A broad white band covers the safe channel extending from Les Verrés to l'Isle Verte, a red sector forbids the former, and a green one indicates the narrow inside passage between reef and mainland.

In crossing the bar, of course, each color became visible in turn. Ingersoll had seen the light scores of times. Never a week passed in summer that he did not spend a day, or even three days, at sea with the fishermen. His studies of the sardine fleet, in particular, were greatly in request.

Yet on this night of nights, when the return to his beloved Pont Aven might well be reckoned the close of the most notable achievement of his whole life, he seemed to have collapsed physically and mentally. His eyes had a vacant look. Their wonted expression of a somewhat sarcastic yet not intolerant outlook on life had fled for the hour, and he peered at the Breton and the sailor as though he had never before seen either. His slight but usually alert and wiry frame appeared to have shrunk. He remained deaf to Peridot's suggestion as to the brandy, and became curiously interested in the red gleam of the lighthouse which came in sight just before the bar was reached.

The Breton imagined that his employer's bodily resources had been unduly taxed. Catching the eye of the yacht's skipper (whose name, by the way, was William Popple), he nodded toward the tiller, pointed straight ahead, and held up a finger. "Wan mineet," he said.

Captain Popple was not to be outdone in linguistic amenities. "Comprenny," he grinned, and took control.

Peridot thrust his head into the hatch. "Ma'mselle," he said, "these poor devils' teeth are chattering with the cold. Will you pass the cognac?"

Yvonne felt the urgency of the request. Nearly every man was wet to the skin, and the wind bit keenly. She abandoned her nurse's work for the moment, opened a locker, and produced a bottle of generous size.

"Here you are," she said. "See that a little is left. I have given some to the men, and I hope my other invalid will soon be able to take a small quantity."

The fisherman removed a plug which had replaced the ordinary cork, and handed the bottle to Captain Popple. The brandy was a fine old liquor, brown, and mellow, and smooth to the palate, and Popple took a draft worthy of a Russian grand duke.

"Gosh!" he said, passing the bottle to Ingersoll, "that's the stuff! It warms the cockles of yer heart."

Ingersoll swallowed a mouthful. It seemed to restore his wits. The eye of the lighthouse had changed from red to green. "It is singular," he said, "how a quality of evil can be associated with certain colors. Red means danger and possible death, while green implies a jealous love perilously akin to hate."

He had not the least notion of the incongruity of such a remark just then. He might have been making conversation for some boarding-school miss whom Yvonne had brought on a summer cruise.

The other man, puzzled, stared stolidly into the gathering gloom.

"When you're plashin' at sea on a dark night you find them colored sectors mighty useful, Sir," was all he could find to say.

Ingersoll roused himself, as though from sleep, and indeed he had been wholly unconscious of his surroundings during the last few minutes. "Oh, doubtless," he said apologetically, "I was thinking aloud, a foolish habit. You were telling me about the owner of the Stella. Carmac is the name, I think? I knew a Walter H. Carmac many years ago. He was very tall, but slightly built. Surely a man cannot change his physique so markedly in the course of, say, twenty years!"

"Well, as to that, Sir, on'y the other day I was talkin' of Mr. Carmac's size to Mr. Raymond, the gentleman with the broken arm (Mr. Carmac's secretary, he is), an' he said the guv'nor used to be thin as a lath once. P'raps it was a case of laugh and grow fat. Very pleasant gentleman, Mr. Carmac was; an' his lady too – one of the best. Excuse me, Sir, but I couldn't help starin' at your girl. She's that like Mrs. Carmac it's surprising. If anyone said they was mother an' daughter, I'd agree at once – if I didn't know different."

There was a pause. Peridot had intrusted the supply of brandy to Tollemache for further distribution. He came aft now, as careful piloting would soon be needed.

"Once we're inside, Monsieur," he said, "we'll set the men at work by turns with the sweeps. That will drive the chill away."

Ingersoll explained the scheme to the skipper, who gave it his hearty approval.