THE CUT EMBANKMENT

DROWNLANDS had been for some time in the upstairs room that served as his office. He had brought out his account-books, lighted his lamp, and was endeavouring to engage his thoughts on his expenditure in wages, and to go over the names of his workmen, and strike out such as had taken part in the recent riot. But it was in vain. After a few futile attempts, he leaned his head on his palm, and gave himself over to thoughts of Zita.

It was poor comfort to him to know that she would remain in his house, but it was a comfort. He felt confidence in her—that, having passed her word to remain, remain she would, whatever might happen. Whatever animadversions might be made on her presence in his house, however deeply her reputation might suffer, she would stay with him. She had passed her word. It was not unlikely, he thought, that some swain might become enamoured of her, and ask her to join her lot with his, but she would refuse him. She would remain an old maid at Prickwillow, because she had passed her word. Not for a moment did Drownlands' faith in Zita give way. She had impressed the man indelibly with a conviction of her sincerity. Zita as a Cheap Jack was one thing, Zita in private life was another. She had one conscience for her dealings with the general public, another conscience for her dealings with individuals face to face. The sun might rise in the west and go down in the Orient sky, but Zita could not fail to keep her word.

Drownlands was startled from his reverie by the maid Sarah, who rushed in at the door, exclaiming—

'Master, the water be out!'

'What water?'

'The boy says the fen is flooded.'

'Flooded?'

'He says the bank be broke.'

'The Lark embankment?'

Drownlands realised instantly the significance of the announcement.

'Quick!' said he; 'light me the lantern. Sharp! No time is to be lost.'

He ran to the corner to snatch up a stick, and, without observing what he did, laid hold of the flail. He did not perceive his mistake till he had reached the foot of the staircase. Then he could not delay to return and exchange it for a staff. He caught the lantern from the hand of Sarah and went out into the yard. His feet at once splashed into water.

'What has happened?' he exclaimed, with an oath. 'It cannot be that they have cut the embankment.'

He splashed on. Over the frozen surface of the soil a ripple of water was running, followed by another ripple, and with each the film of water covering the yard was sensibly deepened.

'The bank must have broken. The frost has done it. They would never have dared to cut it.'

Swaying his lantern, Drownlands strode through the water, out of the stackyard and into the drove that led from his farm to the highway. This had been much cut up that day by his waggons carting roots. The heavy vehicles with broad wheels had crushed through the icy crust, and the hoofs of the horses had assisted in breaking up the frost case. Thus in places the water was able to act on the unfrozen peat, and undermine the surface that was hard frozen. The peat was dry, and when the water reached it, it swelled as a sponge.

A tide was flowing down the drove. On both sides were the frozen dykes; the water covered the ice, running along it, and but for the sedge and rushes that rose out of the ditches, their presence would have been undefined.

The brow of Drownlands darkened, and his cheeks glowed. Was this the meaning of the threats launched against him? He had never conceived it possible that the men would have recourse to such means as this to pay off their grudge against him, for to inundate the farm was to destroy their field of labour.

'I wish I had brought my gun,' said he. 'And then, should I see one of the scoundrels, I'd shoot him with no more scruple than I would a dotterel. As it is, let me come upon one,'—he raised and flourished his flail,—'and I will beat out his brains.'

Drownlands walked with difficulty. Where the surface under the water was frozen, there it was slippery. Where it was broken through and broken up by the wain wheels and horse hoofs, there it was slough.

Ruts, still frozen, were in places two or three feet in depth, and they were filled. Invisible under the water, he was liable to sink into them. He stumbled along, angry, swearing, advancing with labour, forced to hold his lantern, first to one side, then to the other, to make sure that he was not turning from his road, his sole guide being the sedge lines, one on each side.

The roads in the Fens are not made of stone, for stone is not to be found in the Fens. The soil hardens with drought and frost. In rainy weather it is a slough. The draining-machines, being almost constantly at work, suck all the moisture out of the soil, and as it dries it shrinks. Now that the water from the canal was overflowing the fen, it rippled on innocuously over the icy case, but wherever it could penetrate through that case, at every crack, at every dint, it was drunk in in heavy draughts by the thirsty soil, that immediately heaved and swelled as it imbibed the moisture, and in so doing dissolved into slough.

The tide continued to flow. In the yard the water had been hardly as high as the instep. It now flowed over the boot tops.

The water was intensely cold.

Drownlands had on his boots, such as he wore ordinarily, but not his wading boots that reached to the thighs. He had not thought it necessary to wear such protectors in frosty weather. Those he wore did not extend higher than his calves. Already, in one of his plunges into a rut filled with water, he had soaked his feet, his boots, so far from serving as a protection, being an encumbrance. The flail, moreover, was of small service; the handfast was not of length sufficient for him to probe the water before him and sound his way. Would that he had drawn on his wading-boots—would that he had brought a leaping-pole!

Drownlands turned his head over his shoulder and looked back at the house. He could see the light from the kitchen and that from his office—the latter partially, as, owing to the broken glass in the window, he had closed the shutters. He had left his lamp burning, and he could distinguish its light in a line where the shutters closed imperfectly.

It seemed to the man that the distance he had come was greater than it really was.

The difficulty of advancing must increase with every few minutes. In a quarter of an hour it would not be possible to traverse the distance between Prickwillow and the embankment save by boat.

He must reach the tow-path, and hasten along it to the nearest station, where a gang of workmen was quartered, with implements and material ready on an emergency.

There was no time to be lost. Every minute was of importance. Drownlands knew but too well that if his farm were inundated, it would be rendered valueless for several years. It would not be utter ruin, as he had the savings of the past to eat into, but it would prevent his reaping advantage from his land till it had been completely recovered of the effects of the flood.

Struggling with the rising tide, he succeeded in getting upon the highway. But now his difficulties were the greater, for he had entered into the current that poured from the Lark. The water rushed over his knees. The cold was almost insupportable. With body bent, step by step, helping himself onwards with the flail, but unable always to trust it, owing to the pits in the submerged surface, he advanced slowly.

He held up the lantern and looked round. The tallow candle through the horn sides but feebly illumined the night. It showed the gurgling water in which he was wading, but it showed nothing beside. He did not any longer know his direction. He must stem the current, but was unable to judge where the edge and where the centre of the current were that poured against him.

When he lowered his lantern, he was aware of a lurid light in the sky above the embankment, and saw now and then a brilliant spark thrown up. That there was a fire somewhere he could not doubt, and concluded that the rioters who had cut the embankment were continuing their incendiary work as before. He could not see the wheel of fire; he was too low down for that, but he saw the illumination caused by it. Suddenly his feet gave way, and he fell in the water. He had gone into one of the deepest cart-ruts. As he fell, his lantern was extinguished.

It was now impossible for him to return. He could not, if he wished it, have retraced his steps. His only possible course was to scramble up the bank, and to do this he now devoted all his energies. But unhappily he had reached precisely that point where the bank had been cut through, and was therefore exposed to the full force of the outrush of the river. As, by a desperate effort, he recovered his feet, he could see the lip of water curling over, reddened by the reflection of the fire beyond. He was drenched in the ice-cold water, but that was nothing to the anguish in his feet; they were turning dead, numbed by the water in which they had been immersed so long without proper protection.

But this was not all. No sooner had Drownlands reached the slope of the embankment than he became aware that the little assistance rendered him by the frost was at an end. The rush of water had broken up the gault of which the bank was formed, was eating at every moment farther into it, and widening the mouth by which it poured from the bed of the river upon the low reclaimed land. The moistened marl was greasy under his feet. When he slipped and endeavoured to catch at the bank, his hands sank into the sodden clay, and the tenacious matter held his fingers like glue. His feet, moreover, went deep into the clay, and to extract them was difficult.

It became apparent to Drownlands that he must battle for his life against the current.

He endeavoured to assist himself in his ascent by the staff of the flail, but this proved of no help to him, as it sank with the pressure applied to it in the glutinous mass. He strove to heave himself up, and could not; his feet, dead with cold, and, through their loss of sensation, no longer able to feel the bottom, slipped from under him. He could not extract his staff from the marl. All he was able to do was to cling to it, and pant and recover breath, and then make another desperate effort forward.

The water, tearing through the fissure in the bank, broke off masses of the clay, half frozen, and whirled them down, and along with them blocks of river ice that had broken up. It was sometimes difficult to ascend the embankment, the slope of which was steep, in the face of a strong wind; it was a hundred times more difficult now, when it had to be done against a rushing torrent, and that of water which curdled the blood in the veins, knotted the muscles with cramp, and paralysed the sinews.

No thought of revenge on those who had cut the bank now occupied the mind of Drownlands—no thought of having the leak stopped. The one absorbing consideration was how to escape from the deadly-cold raging current.

Then a sharp cant of ice whirled down, cut his knuckles and jarred his fingers, so that he let go the flail with one hand, but seized it in time with the other to save himself from being swept away. He was carried off his feet, and in trying to right himself drove one foot so deeply into the marl, that, when he endeavoured to pluck it forth, the tenacious matter held his boot and tore it off his foot. The intensity of the cold was, however, so great, that he was not sensible of the loss. He looked up. The red auroral light was still illumining the sky behind the bank. He held to the flail that was planted in the clay. If that gave way, his hold on life would be gone.

Now he saw above him a dark figure on the bank, and he cried, 'Help! help!'

'Who calls there?'

'It is I—Ki Drownlands.'

The man made no effort to descend. He folded his arms, and said slowly in harsh tones—

'I cannot help you. I am Ephraim Beamish. You are prepared to testify against some twenty of my comrades, and to send them to the gallows. Which is of most worth, your life, you Judas, or theirs?'

'Help! I will say nothing.'

'I cannot trust you,' said Beamish. 'Wretched man, water was created of God to cleanse away transgression. Go, wash thee and be clean—wash thee and be free from thy sins.'

Then a torch flared above the bank. Mark was there with Zita.

'Who is there? What is this?' Mark asked, with an agitated voice. The blazing tarred wood, sending up a golden burst of flame, illumined the upturned countenance of Drownlands. The struggling man raised his arm to wipe the water and sweat from his eyes and screen them from the brilliant light.

'It is the master,' said Zita. 'Save him, Mark! Oh, do save him!'

Instantly, but with caution, Mark descended, digging his heels deep into the marl at each step, and held the torch aloft, wavering, guttering, throwing out sparks in the wind. 'Give me your hand,' said the young man.

The exhausted, desperate Drownlands withdrew his arm from before his eyes.

In the burning wood was a copper nail, and this now sent forth a lambent, grass-green flame, in the light of which Drownlands' face was like that of a corpse. The man, in his extreme peril and desire for help, stretched forth his hand.

Then the wind blew the flame so that the face of Mark was illumined. Suddenly Tiger Ki snatched his hand back again.

'A Runham—no!'

He endeavoured by a frantic effort to ascend the bank by his own efforts. There ensued a terrible scene—the struggle of a well-nigh spent man with the adverse elements to deliver himself from his position. He fought with the water and the clay, tossing a spray about him, pounding with his feet, one shod, the other bare, churning clay and water around him.

Failing to mount one step above where the flail was rooted, he discontinued his profitless effort, and, clinging with both hands to the stay, cried—

'Zita, I will owe life to you, or to none!'

Without a thought for herself, the girl leaped to his aid.

In a moment his disengaged arm was round her.

'We may die—if we cannot live—together.'

'Let go!' shouted Mark, and laid hold of Zita by the arm. 'Let go!'

'To you—never!'

Without consideration Mark drove the burning torch against his hand that clasped the girl.

With a shriek Drownlands relaxed his hold.

At that moment, Ephraim, who had descended carefully, had laid hold of the flail above where Drownlands' hand had clutched it. He stooped, and, exerting his full force from above, drew it forth from the clay in which it was fast.

At once Drownlands slid away in the stream. Still clinging to the flail, he was carried off his feet, out of the range of light cast by the torch, and under water.

'Go!' said Beamish, waving his hand over the torrent. 'Go! thou accuser of thy brethren! Go, wash away thy sins in the water that drowns thee!'

He saw the flood before him glittering like gold. He looked round. The gangers had come—summoned by Kainie.

'Save him! save him!' cried Zita.

'Where is he?—who can say? Carried forth into the outer darkness; rolled away in the baptismal flood—who can say whither?' answered Ephraim.

'No,' said one of the gangers. 'No help is possible.'

'God have mercy on a sinful soul!' said Ephraim.