The Tremendous Event Read online

  CHAPTER II

  THE CROSSING

  Next day, at Newhaven, Simon Dubosc learnt that, at about six o'clockon the previous evening, a fishing-smack with a crew of eight handshad foundered in sight of Seaford. The cyclone had been seen from theshore.

  "Well, captain," asked Simon, who happened to know the first officerof the boat which was about to cross that day, having met him inDieppe, "well captain, what do you make of it? More wrecks! Don't youthink things are beginning to get alarming?"

  "It looks like it, worse luck!" replied the captain. "Fifteenpassengers have refused to come on board. They're frightened. Yet,after all, one has to take chances. . . ."

  "Chances which keep on recurring, captain, and over the whole of theChannel just now. . . ."

  "M. Dubosc, if you take the whole of the Channel, you will probablyfind several hundred craft afloat at one time. Each of them runs arisk, but you'll admit the risk is small."

  "Was the crossing good last night?" asked Simon, thinking of hisfriend Rolleston.

  "Very good, both ways, and so will ours be. The _Queen Mary_ is a fastboat; she does the sixty-four miles in just under two hours. We shallleave and we shall arrive; you may be sure of that, M. Dubosc."

  The captain's confidence, while reassuring Simon, did not completelyallay the fears which would not even have entered his mind in ordinarytimes. He selected two cabins separated by a state-room. Then, as hestill had twenty-five minutes to wait, he repaired to the harbourstation.

  There he found people greatly excited. At the booking-office, at therefreshment-bar and in the waiting-room where the latest telegramswere written on a black-board, travellers with anxious faces werehurrying to and fro. Groups collected about persons who werebetter-informed than the rest and who were talking very loudly andgesticulating. A number of passengers were demanding repayment of theprice of their tickets.

  "Why, there's Old Sandstone!" said Simon to himself, as he recognizedone of his former professors at a table in the refreshment-room.

  And, instead of avoiding him, as he commonly did when the worthy manappeared at the corner of some street in Dieppe, he went up to him andtook a seat beside him:

  "Well, my dear professor, how goes it?"

  "What, is that you, Dubosc?"

  Beneath a silk hat of an antiquated shape and rusty with age was around, fat face like a village priest's, a face with enormous cheekswhich overlapped a collar of doubtful cleanliness. Something like abit of black braid did duty as a necktie. The waist-coat andfrock-coat were adorned with stains; and the over-coat, of a fadedgreen, had three of its four buttons missing and acknowledged an ageeven more venerable than that of the hat.

  Old Sandstone--he was never known except by this nickname--had taughtnatural science at Dieppe College for the last twenty-five years. Ageologist first and foremost and a geologist of real merit, he owedhis by-name to his investigations of the sedimentary formations of theNorman coast, investigations which he had extended even to the bottomof the sea and which, though he was nearly sixty years of age, he wasstill continuing with unabated enthusiasm. Only last year, in themonth of September, Simon had seen him, a big, heavy man, bloated withfat and crippled with rheumatism, struggling into a diver's dress andmaking, within sight of Saint-Valery-en-Caux, his forty-eighthdescent. The Channel from Le Havre to Dunkirk and from Portsmouth toDover, no longer had any secrets for him.

  "Are you going back to Dieppe presently, professor?"

  "On the contrary, I have just come from Dieppe. I crossed last night,as soon as I heard of the wreck of the English fishing-smack, youknow, between Seaford and Cuckmere Haven. I have already begun to makeinquiries this morning, of some people who were visiting the Romancamp and saw the thing happen."

  "Well?" said Simon, eagerly.

  "Well, they saw, at a mile from the coast, a whirl of waves and foamrevolving at a dizzy speed round a hollow centre. Then suddenly acolumn of water gushed straight up, mixed with sand and stones, andfell back on all sides, like a rain of rockets. It was magnificent!"

  "And the fishing-smack?"

  "The fishing-smack?" echoed Old Sandstone, who seemed not tounderstand, to take no interest in this trivial detail. "Oh, yes, thefishing-smack, of course! Well, she disappeared, that's all!"

  The young man was silent, but the next moment continued:

  "Now my dear professor, tell me frankly, do you think there's anydanger in crossing?"

  "Oh, that's absurd! It's as though you were to ask me whether oneought to shut one's self in one's room when there is a thunder-storm.Of course the lightning strikes the earth now and again. But there'splenty of margin all round. . . . Besides, aren't you a good swimmer?Well, at the least sign of danger, dive into the sea without delay:don't stop to think; just dive!"

  "And what is your opinion, professor? How do you explain all thesephenomena?"

  "How? Oh, very simply! I will remind you, to begin with, that in 1912the Somme experienced a few shocks which amounted to actualearthquakes. Point number one. Secondly, these shocks coincided withlocal disturbances in the Channel, which passed almost unnoticed; butthey attracted my attention and were the starting point of all myrecent investigations. Among others, one of these disturbances inwhich I am inclined to see the premonitory signs of the presentwater-spouts, occurred off Saint-Valery. And that was why you caughtme one day, I remember, going down in a diving-suit just at that spot.Now, from all this, it follows. . . ."

  "What follows?"

  Old Sandstone interrupted himself, seized the young man's hand andsuddenly changed the course of the conversation:

  "Now tell me, Dubosc," he said, "have you read my pamphlet on _TheCliffs of the Channel_? You haven't, have you? Well, if you had, youwould know that one of the chapters, entitled, '_What will occur inthe Channel in the year 2000_,' is now being fulfilled. D'youunderstand? I predicted the whole thing! Not these minor incidents ofwrecks and water-spouts, of course, but what they seem to announce.Yes, Dubosc; whether it be in the year 2000, or the year 3000, or nextweek, I have foretold in all its details the unheard-of, astounding,yet very natural thing which will happen sooner or later."

  He had now grown animated. Drops of sweat beaded his cheeks andforehead; and, taking from an inner pocket of his frock-coat a longnarrow wallet, with a lock to it and so much worn and so oftenrepaired that its appearance harmonized perfectly with his greenover-coat and his rusty hat:

  "You want to know the truth?" he exclaimed. "It's here. All myobservations and all my hypotheses are contained in this wallet."

  And he was inserting the key in the lock when loud voices were raisedon the platform. The tables in the refreshment-room were at oncedeserted. Without paying further heed to Old Sandstone, Simon followedthe crowd which was rushing into the waiting-room.

  Two telegrams had come from France. One, after reporting the wreck ofa coasting-vessel, the _Bonne Vierge_, which plied weekly betweenCalais, Le Havre and Cherbourg, announced that the Channel Tunnel hadfallen in, fortunately without the loss of a single life. The other,which the crowd read as it was being written, stated that "the keeperof the Ailly lighthouse, near Dieppe, had at break of day seen fivecolumns of water and sand shooting up almost simultaneously, twomiles from the coast, and stirring up the sea between Veules andPourville."

  These telegrams elicited cries of dismay. The destruction of theChannel Tunnel, ten years of effort wasted, millions of poundsswallowed up: this was evidently a calamity! But how much moredreadful was the sinister wording of the second telegram! Veules!Pourville! Dieppe! That was the coast which they would have to makefor! The steamboat, in two hours' time, would be entering the veryregion affected by the cataclysm! On sailing, Seaford and Hastings; onnearing port, Veules, Pourville and Dieppe!

  There was a rush for the booking-office. The station-master's andinspectors' offices were besieged. Two hundred people rushed on boardthe vessel to recover their trunks and bags; and a crowd of distraughttravellers, staggering under the weight of their luggage, took
theup-train by assault, as though the sea-walls and the quays and rampartof the cliffs were unable to protect them from the hideouscatastrophe.

  Simon shuddered. He could not but be impressed by the fears displayedby these people. And then what was the meaning of this mysterioussequence of phenomena, which seemed incapable of any naturalexplanation? What invisible tempest was making the waves boil up fromthe depths of a motionless sea? Why did these sudden cyclones alloccur within so small a radius, affecting only a limited region?

  All around him the tumult increased, amid repeated painful scenes. Oneof these he found particularly distressing; for the people concernedwere French and he was better able to understand what they weresaying. There was a family, consisting of the father and mother, bothstill young, and their six children, the smallest of whom, only a fewmonths old, was sleeping in its mother's arms. And the mother wasimploring her husband in a sort of despair:

  "Don't let us go, please don't let us go! We're not obliged to!"

  "But we are, my dear: you saw my partner's letter. And really there'sno occasion for all this distress!"

  "Please, darling! . . . I have a presentiment. . . . You know I'malways right. . . ."

  "Would you rather I crossed alone?"

  "Oh no! Not that!"

  Simon heard no more. But he was never to forget that cry of a lovingwife, nor the grief-stricken expression of the mother who, at thatmoment, was embracing her six children with a glance.

  He made his escape. The clock pointed to half-past eleven; and MissBakefield ought to be on her way. But, when he reached the quay, hesaw a motor-car turning the corner of a street; and at the window ofthe car was Isabel's golden head. In a moment all his gloomy thoughtswere banished. He had not expected the girl for another twentyminutes; and, though he was not afraid of suffering, he had made uphis mind that those last twenty minutes would be a period of distressand anxiety. Would she keep her promise? Might she not meet with someunforeseen obstacle? . . . And here was Isabel arriving!

  Yesterday he had determined, as a measure of precaution, not to speakto her until they had taken their places on the boat. However, as soonas Simon saw her step out of the car, he ran to meet her. She waswrapped in a grey cloak and carried a rug rolled in a strap. A sailorfollowed with her travelling-bag.

  "Excuse me, Isabel," said Simon, "but something so serious hashappened that I am bound to consult you. The telegrams, in fact,mention a whole series of catastrophes which have occurred preciselyin the part which we shall have to cross."

  Isabel did not seem much put out:

  "You're saying this, Simon, in a very calm tone which does not matchyour words at all."

  "It's because I'm so happy!" he murmured.

  Their eyes met in a long and penetrating glance. Then she continued:

  "What would you do, Simon, if you were alone?"

  And, when he hesitated what to answer:

  "You would go," she said. "And so should I. . . ."

  She stepped onto the gangway.

  Half an hour later, the _Queen Mary_ left Newhaven harbour. At thatinstant, Simon, who was always so completely his own master and who,even in the most feverish moments of enthusiasm, claimed the power ofcontrolling his emotions, felt his legs trembling beneath him, whilehis eyes grew moist with tears. The test of happiness was too much forhim.

  Simon had never been in love before. Love was an event which heawaited at his leisure; and he did not think it essential to preparefor its coming by seeking it in adventures which might well exhausthis ardour:

  "Love," he used to say, "should blend with life, should form a part oflife and not be added to it. Love is not an aim in itself: it is aprinciple of action and the noblest in the world."

  From the first day when he saw her, Isabel's beauty had dazzled him;and he needed very little time to discover that, until the last momentof his life, no other woman would ever mean anything to him. The sameirresistible and deliberate impulse drove Isabel towards Simon.Brought up in the south of France, speaking French as her nativetongue, she did not feel and did not evoke in Simon the sense ofembarrassment that almost invariably arises from a difference ofnationality. That which united them was infinitely stronger than thatwhich divided them.

  It was a curious thing, but during these past four months, while lovewas blossoming within them like a plant whose flowers were constantlyrenewed and constantly increasing in beauty, they had had none ofthose long conversations in which lovers eagerly question each otherand in which each seeks to find entrance into the unknown territoryof the other's soul. They spoke little and rarely of themselves, asthough they had delegated to gentle daily life the task of raising theveils of the mystery one by one.

  Simon knew only that Isabel was not happy. After losing at the age offifteen a mother whom she adored, she failed to find in her father thelove and the caresses that might have consoled her. Moreover, LordBakefield almost immediately fell under the dominion of the Duchess ofFaulconbridge, a vain, tyrannical woman, who rarely stirred from hervilla at Cannes or her country-seat near Battle, but whose maligninfluence exerted itself equally close at hand and far away, in speechand by letter, on her husband and on her step-daughter, whom shepersecuted with her morbid jealousy.

  Naturally enough, Isabel and Simon exchanged a mutual promise. And,naturally enough, on coming into collision with Lord Bakefield'simplacable will and his wife's hatred, they arrived at the onlypossible solution, that of running away. This was proposed withoutheroic phrases and adopted without any painful struggle or reluctance.Each formed a decision in perfect liberty. To themselves their actionappeared extremely simple. Loyally determined to prolong theirengagement until the moment when all obstacles would be smoothed away,they faced the future like travellers turning to a radiant andhospitable country.

  In the open Channel a choppy sea was beginning to rise before a steadylight breeze. In the west the clouds were mustering in battle array,but they were distant enough to promise a calm passage in glorioussunshine. Indifferent to the assault of the waves, the vessel spedstraight for her port, as though no power existed which could haveturned her aside from her strict course.

  Isabel and Simon were seated on one of the benches on the after deck.The girl had taken off her cloak and hat and offered to the wind herarms and shoulders, protected only by a cambric blouse. Nothing morebeautiful could be imagined than the play of the sunlight on the goldof her hair. Though grave and dreamy, she was radiant with youth andhappiness. Simon gazed at her in an ecstasy of admiration:

  "You don't regret anything, Isabel?" he whispered.

  "No!"

  "You're not frightened?"

  "Why should I be, with you? There is nothing to threaten us."

  Simon pointed to the sea:

  "That will, perhaps."

  "No!"

  He told her of his conversation with Lord Bakefield on the previousday and of the three conditions upon which they had agreed. She wasamused, and asked him:

  "May I too lay down a condition?"

  "What condition, Isabel?"

  "Fidelity," she replied, gravely. "Absolute fidelity. No lapses! Icould never forgive anything of that sort."

  He kissed her hand and said:

  "There is no love without fidelity. I love you."

  There were few people around them, for the panic had affected mainlythe first-class passengers. But, apart from the two lovers, all thosewho had persisted in crossing betrayed by some sign their secretuneasiness or their alarm. On the right were two old, very oldclergymen, accompanied by a third, a good deal younger. These threeremained unmoved, worthy brothers of the heroes who sang hymns on thesinking _Titanic_. Nevertheless, their hands were folded as though inprayer. On the left was the French couple whose conversation Duboschad overheard. The young father and mother, leaning closely on eachother, searched the horizon with fevered eyes. Four boys, the fourolder children, all strong and robust, their cheeks ruddy with health,were coming and going, in search of information which they immedi
atelybrought back with them. A little girl sat crying at her parents' feet,without saying a word. The mother was nursing the sixth child, whichfrom time to time turned to Isabel and smiled at her.

  Meanwhile, the breeze was growing colder. Simon leant toward hiscompanion:

  "You're not feeling chilly, Isabel?" he said.

  "No, I'm used to it. . . ."

  "Still, though you left your bag below you brought your rug on deck,very wisely. Why don't you undo it?"

  The rug was still rolled up in its straps; and Isabel had even passedone of the straps around an iron rod, which fastened the bench to thedeck, and buckled it.

  "My bag contains nothing of value," she said.

  "Nor the rug, I presume?"

  "Yes, it does."

  "Really? What?"

  "A miniature to which my poor mother was very much attached, becauseit is a portrait of her grandmother painted for George III."

  "It has just a sentimental value, therefore?"

  "Oh dear no! My mother had it set in all her finest pearls, whichgives it an inestimable value to-day. Thinking of the future, she leftme, in this way, a fortune of my own."

  Simon laughed:

  "And that's the safe!"

  "Yes, that's the safe!" she said, joining in his laughter. "Theminiature is pinned to the middle of the rug, between the straps whereno one would think of looking for it. You're laughing, but I amsuperstitious where that miniature is concerned. It's a sort oftalisman. . . ."

  For some time they spoke no further. The coast had disappeared fromsight. The swell was increasing and the _Queen Mary_ was rolling alittle.

  At this moment they were passing a beautiful white yacht.

  "That's the Comte de Bauge's _Castor_," cried one of the four boys."She's on her way to Dieppe."

  Two ladies and two gentlemen were lunching under an awning, Isabelbowed her head so as to hide her face.

  This thoughtless movement displeased her; for, a moment later, shesaid (and all the words which they exchanged during these few minuteswere to remain engraved on their memories):

  "Simon, you really believe, don't you, that I was entitled to leavehome?"

  "Why," he exclaimed, in surprise, "don't we love each other?"

  "Yes, we love each other," she murmured. "And then there's the lifewhich I was leading with a woman whose one delight was to insult mymother. . . ."

  She said no more. Simon had laid his hand on hers and nothing couldreassure her more effectually than the fondness of that pressure.

  The four boys, who had disappeared again, came running back:

  "You can see the company's mail-boat that left Dieppe at the same timethat we left Newhaven. She's called the _Pays de Caux_. We shall passher in a quarter of an hour. So you see, mama, there's no danger."

  "Yes, but it's afterwards, when we get closer to Dieppe."

  "Why?" objected her husband. "The other boat hasn't signalled anythingextraordinary. The danger is altering its position, moving fartheraway. . . ."

  The mother made no reply. Her face retained the same piteousexpression. The little girl at her knee was still silently crying.

  The captain passed Simon and saluted.

  And a few more minutes elapsed.

  Simon was whispering words of love which Isabel did not catch verydistinctly. The little girl's constant tears were causing her somedistress.

  Shortly after, a gust of wind made the waves leap higher. Here andthere streaks of white, seething foam appeared. There was nothingremarkable in this, as the wind was gaining in force and lashing thecrests of the waves. But why did these foaming billows appear only inone part and that precisely the part which they were about to cross?

  The father and mother had risen to their feet. Other passengers wereleaning over the rails. The captain was seen running up thepoop-steps.

  And it came suddenly, in a moment.

  Before Isabel and Simon, sitting self-absorbed, had the least idea ofwhat was happening, a frightful clamour, made up of a thousandshrieks, rose from all parts of the boat, from port and starboard,from stem to stern, even from below; from every side, as though theminds of all had been obsessed by the possibility of disaster, asthough all eyes, from the moment of departure, had been watching forthe slightest premonitory sign.

  A monstrous sight. Three hundred yards ahead, as though in the centreof a target at which the bows of the vessel were aimed, a hideousfountain had burst from the surface of the sea, bombarding the skywith masses of rock, blocks of lava and flying masses of spray, whichfell back into a circle of foaming breakers and yawning whirlpools.And a wind of hurricane force gyrated above this chaos, bellowing likea bull.

  Suddenly silence fell upon the paralysed crowd, the deathly silencethat precedes an inevitable catastrophe. Then, yonder, a rattle ofthunder that rent the air. Then the voice of the captain at his post,roaring out his orders, trying to shout down the monster's myriadvoices.

  For a moment there seemed some hope of salvation. The vessel put forthso great an effort that she appeared to be gliding along a tangentaway from the infernal circle into which she was on the point of beingdrawn. But it was a vain hope! The circle seemed to be increasing insize. Its outer waves were approaching. A mass of rock crushed one ofthe funnels.

  And again there were shrieks, followed by a panic and an insane rushfor the life-boats; already some of the passengers were fighting forplaces. . . .

  Simon did not hesitate. Isabel was a good swimmer. They must make theattempt.

  "Come!" he said. The girl, standing beside him, had flung her armsabout him. "We can't stay here! Come!"

  And, when she struggled, instinctively resisting the course which hehad proposed, he took a firmer hold of her.

  She entreated him:

  "Oh, it's horrible . . . all these children . . . the little girlcrying! . . . Couldn't we save them?"

  "Come!" he repeated, in a masterful tone.

  She still resisted him. Then he took her head in his two hands andkissed her on the lips:

  "Come, my darling, come!"

  The girl fainted. He lifted her in his arms and threw one leg over therail:

  "Don't be afraid!" he said. "I will answer for your life!"

  "I am not afraid," she said. "I am not afraid with you. . . ."

  They leapt into the water.