The Obstacle Race | Page 8

III
MAGIC

The scent of the gorse in the evening dew was as incense offered to the
stars. To Juliet, wandering forth in the twilight after supper with
Columbus, the exquisite fragrance was almost intoxicating. It seemed
to drug the senses. She went along the path at the top of the cliff as one
in a dream.
The sea was like a dream-sea also, silver under the stars, barely rippling
against the shingle, immensely and mysteriously calm. She went on and
on, scarcely feeling the ground beneath her feet, moving through an
atmosphere of pure magic, all her pulses thrilling to the wonder of the
night.
Suddenly, from somewhere not far distant among the gorse bushes,
there came a sound. She stopped, and it seemed to her that all the world
stopped with her to hear the first soft trill of a nightingale through the
tender dusk. It went into silence, but it left her heart throbbing strangely.
Surely--surely there was magic all around her! That bird-voice in the
silence thrilled her through and through. She stood spell-bound, waiting
for the enchanted music to fill her soul. There followed a few liquid
notes, and then there came a far-off, flute-like call, gradually swelling,
gradually drawing nearer, so pure, so wild, so full of ecstasy, that she
almost felt as if it were more than she could bear. It broke at last in a
crystal shower of song, and she turned and looked out over the
glittering sea and asked herself if it could be real. It was as if a spirit
had called to her out of the summer night.
Then Columbus came careering along the path in fevered search of her,
and quite suddenly, like the closing of a lid, the magic sounds vanished
into a deep silence.
"Oh, Columbus!" his mistress murmured reproachfully. "You've
stopped the music!"
Columbus responded by planting his paws against her, and giving her a
vigorous push. There was decidedly more of common sense than poetry
in his composition. The passion for exploring which had earned him his
name was his main characteristic, and he wanted to get as far as
possible before the time arrived to turn back.

She yielded to his persuasion, and walked on up the path with her face
to the shimmering sea. For some reason she felt divinely happy, as if
she had drunk of the wine of the gods. It had been so wonderful--that
song of starlight and of Spring.
It was very warm, and she wore neither hat nor wrap. If she had come
out in a bathing-dress, no one would have known, she reflected. But in
this she was wrong, for presently, as she sauntered along, she became
aware of a faint scent other than the wonderful cocoa-nut perfume of
the gorse bushes--a scent that made her aware of the presence of
another human being in that magic place.
She looked about for him with a faint smile on her lips, but the
cliff-path ran empty before her, ascending in a series of fairly stiff
climbs to the brow of High Shale Point. Columbus hurried along ahead
of her as if he had made up his mind to reach the top at all costs. But
Juliet had no intention of mounting to the summit of the frowning cliff
that night. She had a vagrant desire to track that elusive scent, but even
that, it seemed was not to be satisfied, and at length she stopped again
and sent a summoning whistle after Columbus.
It was almost at the same moment that there came from behind her a
sound that shattered all the fairy romance of the night at a blow. She
turned sharply, and immediately, like a fiendish chorus, it came again
spreading and echoing along the cliffs--the yelling of drunken laughter.
Several men were coming along the path that she had travelled. She
saw them vaguely in the dimness a little way below her, and realized
that her retreat in that direction was cut off. Swiftly she considered the
position, for there was no time to be lost. To pursue the path would be
to go farther and farther away from the village and civilization, but for
the moment she saw no other course. On one hand the gorse bushes
made a practically impenetrable rampart, and on the other the cliff
overhung the shore which at that point was nearly two hundred feet
below. From where she stood, no way of escape presented itself, and
she turned in despair to follow the path a little farther. But as she did so,
she heard another wild shout from behind her, and it flashed upon her
with a stab of dismay that her light dress had betrayed her. She had

been sighted by the intruders, and they were pursuing her.