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CHAPTER XXVI
ON THE CLIFF

Next morning O'Hanlon went back by himself to Kilbarry. Jerry O'Brien made up his mind to stay a few days at Kilcash. His last words to the perturbed attorney were encouraging, reassuring. He would divulge nothing, nor indicate the nature of his hopes; but he told O'Hanlon in a confident manner that he might dismiss all thought of his brain being affected. "I now," he said, "verily believe you saw a ghost, the ghost of Mike Fahey, on the Black Rock within the past month. Will that satisfy you?"

O'Hanlon shook his head.

"I'm in the old fix still. I don't believe in ghosts; neither do you, I am sure. You are saying this merely to quiet my fears."

"You may trust me, I assure you. I am not saying anything out of a desire to quiet your fears. If I do not tell you all, I am prevented from doing so only by the want of conclusive evidence. I shall hang about here until some more evidence turns up. I really believe what you saw was no figment of your own brain."

They parted thus. O'Hanlon was little satisfied, still he had no resource but to endure. His faith in O'Brien was great in everything save this one subject, which so unpleasantly and threateningly engrossed his thoughts. He was a man of sanguine temperament, and now the strength and impetuosity of his mind was turned inward and preyed on his peace.

O'Brien had little or nothing to do. His curiosity was strongly excited. Owing to the uncertainty of the movements of the Fishery Commissioners he could not leave the country. His heart was in London; no hour went over his head that he did not think of his friends there. He wrote to Mr. Paulton, and to his great relief heard that Alfred was gradually recovering, and that Dr. Santley hoped to have his patient up and about in a short time, his youth and good constitution favouring rapid convalescence now that the acute stage of the disease was passed. All at Carlingford House were well, and joined in sending kindest regards to him, and hoped he would soon get rid of his troublesome business, and run back to them. There was a postscript to the effect that Dr. Santley had just that moment pronounced Alfred out of danger, and said that he hoped in a fortnight or three weeks the invalid would be able to seek change of air and scene-the two things which would then be sufficient to ensure his restoration.

O'Brien, upon reading this, struck the table with his hand, and cried out:

"Capital! – capital! Nothing could be better! This is the mildest climate in all Europe. He shall come here. I'll run over for him if all the Fishery Commissioners whom Satan can spare were to try and bar my way. The least I may do after causing that relapse is to nurse him for a while."

O'Brien had little or nothing to do in Kilcash. No newspapers came to him from London or Dublin. After luncheon he walked every day along the downs as far as the Black Rock. There, when the weather was fine, he lounged for an hour or so, and then strolled back to the hotel, where he read some book until dinner.

The "Strand Hotel" was of course deserted. He was the only guest, and the staff had been reduced to one maid-of-all-work.

"If Alfred wants quiet," thought Jerry, grimly, "he can have it here with a vengeance. As long as those wretched Commissioners are about, I could not stand Kilbarry. I'd be an object of commiseration there, and I can't bear commiseration. If I only had Alfred here I'd be as happy as a king. But until he comes I must try and keep up an interest in O'Hanlon's ghost. I begin now to think O'Hanlon is going mad, after all; for I can neither hear nor see anything of the late Mr. Fahey. It wouldn't do to tell my misgivings to O'Hanlon. He really is cut up about that spectre, and the only way to keep his spirits up is by professing an unbounded belief in his phantom."

No doubt Kilcash was dull, and would have been found intolerable by any one not used to such a place at such a time. But O'Brien had been brought up close to the sea, and its winter aspect was as familiar to him as its summer glories.

In summer, the sun and the clouds and the genial warmth of the air take the mind off the sea, and reduce it to a mere accessory to the scene. It is only one of many things which claim attention. In winter the sea is absolute, dominant-master of the scene. In its presence there is nothing to take the mind away from it. The land and the air and the clouds have suffered change: the sea is alone immutable. It is not then the adjunct to a holiday. In winter and summer its colour is the result of reflection; but the dull, gloomy colours it reflects in winter seem more congenial to it than the vivid brightness of gayer skies.

From his childhood O'Brien had been familiar with every phase of change that possesses the watery waste. There was for him no loneliness by the shore. He was no poet in the ordinary sense of the word. He had never tried to string rhymes together. He considered that a man who deliberately sat down to write verses which were not intended purely to bring in money must be in a bad state of health. He never concerned himself with elaborate analysis of his feelings, or moaned because the destinies had not ordained splendours for his career. He wished the Commissioners would let his weirs alone, so that he might marry Madge Paulton. He wanted to lead a quiet, unromantic life. He felt much more relief in abusing the Commissioners than he should feel in writing a mournful ditty against fate.

But he was in love, and dwelling by the sea in winter. He had inadvertently caused his dearest friend a serious relapse in illness, and he was asked by another friend to help him over a horrible suspicion that this other friend had of his own sanity. Here surely was matter for abundance of thought. So that, on the whole, he had no moment of the day that was not filled with engrossing reflection of some kind or another.

He answered Mr. Paulton's letter at once. He was overjoyed to hear the good news of Alfred, and he had made up his mind beyond any chance of alteration that the finest place in the world for Alfred would be the south of Ireland, and that there was no spot in the south of Ireland at all equal to Kilcash for any one who needed recruiting. Then he sent his very kindest regards to each member of the family by name, and tried to write "Miss Paulton" like the rest of the letter, but failed, so that it was the most ill-written part of all. He had little hope of Alfred's coming.

To his astonishment he got a reply thanking him for his kind invitation, and saying that although Dr. Santley at first thought the south of Europe would be preferable, he had at length yielded to Alfred's earnest importunities to be sent to Ireland, where he could enjoy the society of his friend Jerry, which he was certain would tend more to his recovery than anything else in the world.

"I am astonished," thought O'Brien, "that he did not insist on going abroad, if it was only for the chance of meeting that siren who has bewitched him. There is one thing plain from this-he has not only got over his dangerous physical illness, but that much more dangerous affection of the heart from which he has been suffering. What a madness that was! I hope and trust, for his sake, that woman has married Blake by this time. But no-I do not. That would be too bad a fate to wish even to an enemy; and surely she has never done me harm."

O'Brien did not repeat his visit to the "Blue Anchor," but now and then he met burly Jim Phelan, the boatman, and talked to him about the Black Rock and the Whale's Mouth.

For the first week O'Brien was at Kilcash the weather had been singularly calm. It had rained nearly every day; nothing else was to be expected there at that time of the year. But scarcely a breath of wind touched the sea. The long even rollers slid into the bay, and burst upon the sands in front of the village. They flung themselves wearily, carelessly against the cliffs without the bay, and after tossing their arms languidly a moment in the air, fell back exhausted into their foamy bed.

One morning, as O'Brien was walking on the strand after breakfast, he met Jim Phelan, and, as usual, got into talk with him. After a few sentences of ordinary interest, Jim said:

"The other night, sir, at the 'Blue Anchor,' you asked me a whole lot about the Black Rock and the Whale's Mouth. Did you ever see her spout?"

"No," answered O'Brien, looking at the south-western region of the sky. "I have often been here, winter and summer, but I have never been so fortunate. Do you think there's going to be a gale?"

"Yes, sir; there's going to be a heavy gale from the southward and westward, and it will be high water at about three. You can see the scuds flying aloft already, and I'm greatly mistaken if we haven't a whole gale before a couple of hours are over. That won't give much time for the sea to get up, but I am sure she'll spout to-day even before the top of high water. Anyway, if she doesn't, I'm greatly mistaken. Would you like to go over and see it, sir?"

"Yes, Jim. I have nothing particular to do to-day, and I certainly should like to see it."

"Very good, sir. I have nothing particular to do to-day either, and if you like I'll go over with you."

"I should be very glad. When shall we start?"

"Well, sir, if you are to see it you may as well be there at the beginning, so we'll be off at once. Did you feel that?"

"Yes."

A puff of warm wind touched the two men, and then the air was still again.

"Go on, then, sir, to the hotel and put on your oilskins. I'll run and get mine, and be back in a minute."

"But I haven't got oilskins!" said O'Brien, with a smile. "Will a mackintosh and gaiters do?"

The boatman looked long and fixedly into the south-west before he answered:

"No, sir; a mackintosh would not be any use out there against what's coming. This will be a whole gale, or I'm a Dutchman. It's been brewing a long time, and we're going to have it now, and no mistake. I'll get you a set of oilskins, and maybe if you went up to the hotel and put your flask in your pocket, it wouldn't be out of the way by-and-by. I'll bring the oilskins up to the hotel."

"All right," said O'Brien; and he set off.

In less than half-an-hour he found himself in a clumsy, ill-fitting set of oilskins a size too big. Jim had brought a sou'-wester also. He himself wore his own oilskins and his sou'-wester, and, so equipped, the two set out for the Black Rock.

As they reached the high ground of the downs, another gust of wind, stronger and of longer duration than the former one, struck them. Jim tied the strings of his sou'-wester under his chin, and O'Brien followed his example.

"It will be a sneezer," said the boatman, shaking himself loose in his over-alls, as if getting ready for action.

The sea was still unruffled. The two puffs of wind which had come as the advance guard of the storm had passed lightly and daintily over the sleeping ocean. The long clean-backed rollers swept slowly shoreward, staggering a little here and there when they passed over some sunken rock. Down in the south-west the sky was leaden-coloured, with long fangs of cloud stretching towards the land and gradually stealing upward and onward. An unnatural stillness filled the air. No wild bird of any kind was to be seen. The gulls had long ago sailed far inland. There were few sea birds here but gulls.

"We'll be there before the first puff," said Phelan, buttoning the lowest button of his coat. "She hasn't spouted now since a little after Christmas. In that southerly gale we had then she spouted fine."

"Did it come over the cliffs?"

"No, sir-not quite up to the cliffs. 'Twas a southerly gale, you know; and it takes a south-westerly gale to send it over the cliffs. Ah, that was a stiffer squall than the last! It's coming on. Heaven help the ship that makes this a lee shore for the next twenty-four hours!"

The prediction was verified, for a fierce gust had caught O'Brien in front and threatened to tear the strings out of his sou'-wester.

The two men turn and resume their way. The torn skirts of the south-western pall of cloud are now almost overheard. They are hurrying on at a dizzy rate. Out far upon the water under the lowering cloud a dulness has crept. The great mirror of the sea has been breathed upon and sullied by the wind. In shore, the waves rise and fall tranquilly.

The squalls now become frequent. Although the solid mass of the water beneath is still unchanged, when the gusts fly across the waves and strike the cliffs the foam is blown upward, hissing, and bursts into smoke against the crags. From under the broadening cloud a faint whispering sound comes, thin and shrill like a broadened whisper of the wind in grass.

"Do you think the storm will last so long as twenty-four hours?"

"Impossible to say, sir. But I think there's that much due to us. Turn your back to it, sir."

They draw near the Black Rock. Each man keeps his body bent to windward ready to meet the next onslaught of the gale. Now only a few seconds pass between each gust. Each gust is stronger and longer than the former one. When they are within a few hundred yards of the rock, when they can plainly see the outline of the little bay in which it is wedged, the storm bursts fully upon them. One blast strikes them, and lasts a minute. They are obliged to stand still, leaning against the gale. A lull of a few seconds follows, and then the broad, mighty torrent of the wind bursts upon them in its uninterrupted fury, and for a while it seems as if they must be swept away by its persistent, tremendous force.

At length they turn round, and, holding on their sou'-westers, gaze into the face of the wind. The sea is now boiling, churning, but not yet roused. Foam spurts aloft, where, before, the dull blue waters rose and fell unbroken. The spray crawls further and further upward against the red-brown cliffs. The roar and tumult of the wind is pressing against them. The roar and tumult of the waters have not yet begun.

At that moment Phelan catches O'Brien by the arm, and points towards the Black Rock. The figure of a man is seen clearly against the sky-line. It gradually sinks from view. It is descending the path to the Black Rock below.

"Let us run," shouts Phelan. "It is certain death if he goes down."

They run at the top of their speed in their clumsy oilskins. They reach the cliff directly over the fatal rock. They look down, around, at one another. Both start back with cries of surprise and horror.

No one is to be seen.

CHAPTER XXVII
THE MONSTER LET LOOSE

Neither man spoke. Phelan's amazement had bereft him of words. He knew the place thoroughly. He had known and feared it from his earliest years. To left and right were perpendicular cliffs. In front stretched the evil Black Rock. From where they stood descended the pathway to the table rock below. On the broken ground around them was nothing taller than dwarf bushes, which could not conceal a goat and to reach which the sure-footedness of a goat would have been needed. In his youth Phelan had been as bold as any lad in the village. But neither he nor any other lad of the village had ever dared to tempt death on those steep, friable, rotten slopes.

Beyond all doubt he had seen the figure of a man disappear over this cliff a few moments ago. Where was he-it-now? The Black Rock lay bare, naked, at their feet. A man's head could not be hidden there. Whither had that figure gone? It could not have reached the sea in the time. The monster had not yet broken loose, and the man could not have been swept into the water. No shattered corpse lay on the greasy rock beneath. A man cannot fly. What had become of this man? Or had they seen a ghost?

He turned to O'Brien and noticed that the latter looked pale and scared.

"You saw him?" he shouted above the storm. "You saw him as plain as daylight?"

"Yes."

"What do you make of it?"

"I don't know."

Once more Phelan looked carefully around him. Absolutely no trace of man was to be seen. Except for their presence, the place might have been alone since the making of the world. He again turned to O'Brien.

"Heaven be between us and all harm, but it must have been a ghost!"

"He could not have got to the Hole in the time."

"Not if he had wings."

"Did you ever see Fahey? Of course you did. You told me about him."

"Merciful Lord, it was Fahey!"

The two men looked mutely into each other's faces. Anything like a regular conversation was now impossible owing to the force and noise of the storm.

O'Brien had had a theory. The events of the last two minutes had shattered his theory to atoms. The two policemen who had seen Fahey jump into the Hole had not been mistaken. It was no ghost they saw. They had tracked their man as surely as they had ever tracked any one on whom they laid hands. He, being innocent, was suspected of a crime; or, rather, he had innocently, in ignorance, committed a criminal act, and being pursued and hard pressed, had flung himself headlong into that awful pit. Within a couple of weeks or so, O'Hanlon had seen that same figure in this place, and now he (O'Brien) had seen such a figure, and Phelan had identified it. This was monstrous. What came of all his inquiries respecting the Whalers Mouth and the accessibility of the cave? Nothing-absolutely nothing. His theory was childish. He was glad he had spoken of it to no man.

What was to be his theory now?

Phelan was stupefied, and stood staring at the cliffs and the rock as if he expected them to undergo some stupendous change, display some more incomprehensible marvel. O'Brien stood back a few paces from the brink, and kept his eyes fixed on the horizon, which had lowered and come nearer.

Suddenly Phelan stepped back to O'Brien, and, putting his mouth close to the ear of the other, shouted-

"She blows!"

O'Brien dropped his eyes to the Black Rock.

From the Hole a thin wreath of sea-smoke rose, and, bent sharply by the gale, almost touched the cliff. A booming, hollow sound, like the flapping of distant thunder among hills, weighed on the air, and then came a shrill, loud hiss, as of falling water, and again the wind was drenched in sea-smoke.

Phelan stretched out his hands towards the Hole, and shouted-

"Look!"

The word was scarcely uttered when the ground shook, and from that Hole a solid column of water sprang aloft with a shriek that drowned the raging of the storm. It rose fifty feet into the air, turned inward towards the cliff, and then toppled and fell with a mighty crash that again made the gigantic bases of the immemorial cliffs tremble to their lowest depths.

The monster had broken loose!

O'Brien started back. He had from childhood heard of the awful Puffing Hole, but had never seen it in action before. His first feeling was that this could be no display of ordinary power, but that the cliffs and rocks were riven by some Titanic force never exercised before. He felt certain that when again he looked down he should see the Black Rock shattered, disintegrated, annihilated. What could withstand such a blow?

The boatman drew him towards the edge of the cliff once more. He was scarcely in position when the huge shaft of water sprang once more into the air, this time to twice its former height. He was appalled, and again sprang back. The gale caught the capital of the column and lifted it bodily, dashing it against the cliff. O'Brien was covered from head to foot with water.

The two men shifted their position, so as to get out of the reach of the water, and then stood mutely looking at the terrible phenomenon.

When O'Brien's alarm subsided, and he knew by the conduct of his companion that there was no occasion for fear, he stood fascinated by the stupendous spectacle. He had heard this described hundreds of times, but his imagination had not had space for grandeur such as this. The Hole did not spout at every wave, but took breathing space like a living thing. Now he understood why the opening of the cave was called the Whale's Mouth. Now he understood why the people said "she spouts" when the Puffing Hole flung its hundreds of tons of water a hundred feet into the air. It was a daring fancy which saw in the strange freak of nature a colossal representation of the spouting of the whale. The Black Rock was the head, the cave the jaws, the shaft in the rock the blow-hole of a whale multiplied a thousand times.

And he, presumptuous fool that he was, had imagined a boat might enter that cave and come out uninjured-that a man might throw himself into that awful funnel and survive!

In half an hour O'Brien and Phelan left the edge of the cliff and turned their faces towards the village. Notwithstanding the oilskins, both were wet through, for the spray and fine mist from the sea penetrated at the neck, the wrists, and under the buttons in front. They kept more inland on their way back. Phelan was the first to speak of the mysterious figure they had seen. He had no difficulty in the matter. They had seen the ghost of Fahey, who had committed suicide there ten or eleven years ago. Nothing could be simpler or more natural than this explanation. It was a horribly wicked thing to commit suicide, but to throw one's self into the Puffing Hole was a double crime; for, in addition to making away with life, it was defying Providence-it was courting the most awful death that could be sought by man. The supernatural appearance that day was to be a warning to O'Brien, who had displayed an unwise curiosity as to the Puffing Hole and the Whale's Nose. From the nature of O'Brien's inquiries, it was, notwithstanding his denials, almost certain that he had formed a design of going in a boat up the cavern. The spirit of the dead man had been sent to show him the penalty of any such impious risking of life, and to remind him of the fate he would surely encounter if he dared to do anything so rash.