did not and could not exist. She was wrong. I know now she was wrong, Mr. Davey. My uncle is one of them; he told me so himself.'
Still her companion made no reply; he sat motionless, like a stone thine, and she went on again, never raising her voice above a whisper:
'They are in it, every one of them, from the coast to the Tamar bank; all those men I saw that first Saturday in the bar at the inn. The gipsies, poachers, sailors, the pedlar with the broken teeth. They've murdered women and children with their own hands; they've held them under the water; they've killed them with rocks and stones. Those are death waggons that travel the road by night, and the goods they carry are not smuggled casks alone, with brandy for some and tobacco for another, but the full cargoes of wrecked ships bought at the price of blood, the trust and the possession of murdered men. And that's why my uncle is feared and loathed by the timid people in the cottages and farms, and why all doors are barred against him, and why the coaches drive past his house in a cloud of dust. They suspect what they cannot prove. My aunt lives in mortal terror of discovery; and my uncle has only to lose himself in drink before a stranger and his secret is split to the four winds. There, Mr. Davey; now you know the truth about Jamaica Inn.'
She leant back, breathless, against the side of the carriage, biting her lips and twisting her hands in an emotion she could not control, exhausted and shaken by the torrent of words that had escaped her; and somewhere in the dark places of her mind an image fought for recognition and found its way into the light, having no mercy on her feelings; and it was the face of Jem Merlyn, the man she loved, grown evil and distorted, merging horribly and finally into that of his brother.
The face beneath the black shovel hat turned towards her; she caught a sudden flicker of the white lashes, and the lips moved.
'So the landlord talks when he is drunk?' he said, and it seemed to Mary that his voice lacked something of its usual gentle quality; it rang sharper in tone, as though pitched on a higher note; but when she looked up at him his eyes stared back at her, cold and impersonal as ever.
'He talks, yes,' she answered him. 'When my uncle has lived on brandy for five days he'll bare his soul before the world. He told me so himself, the very first evening I arrived. He was not drunk then. But four days ago, when he had woken from his first stupor, and he came out to the kitchen after midnight, swaying on his two feet — he talked then. That's why I know. And that's perhaps why I've lost faith in humanity, and in God, and in myself; and why I acted like a fool today in Launceston.'
The gale had increased in force during their conversation, and now with the bend in the road the carriage headed straight into the wind and was brought almost to a standstill. The vehicle rocked on its high wheels, and a sudden shower spattered against the windows like a handful of pebbles. There was no particle of shelter now; the moor on either hand was bare and unprotected, and the scurrying clouds flew fast over the land, tearing themselves asunder on the tors. There was a salt, wet tang in the wind that had come from the sea fifteen miles away.
Francis Davey leant forward in his seat. 'We are approaching Five Lanes and the turning to Altarnun,' he said; 'the driver is bound to Bodmin and will take you to Jamaica Inn. I shall leave you at Five Lanes and walk down into the village. Am I the only man you have honoured with your confidence, or do I share it with the landlord's brother?'
Again Mary could not tell if there was irony or mockery in his voice. 'Jem Merlyn knows,' she said unwillingly. 'We spoke of it this morning. He said little, though, and I know he is not friendly with my uncle. Anyway, it doesn't matter now; Jem rides to custody for another crime.'
'And suppose he could save his own skin by betraying his brother, what then, Mary Yellan? There is a consideration for you.'
Mary started. This was a new possibility, and for a moment she clutched at the straw. But the vicar of Altarnun must have read her thoughts, for, glancing up at him for confirmation of her hopes, she saw him smile, the thin line of his mouth breaking for a moment out of passivity, as though his face were a mask and the mask had cracked. She looked away, uncomfortable, feeling like one who stumbles unawares upon a sight forbidden.
'That would be a relief to you and to him, no doubt,' continued the vicar, 'if he had never been involved. But there is always the doubt, isn't there? And neither you nor I know the answer to that question. A guilty man does not usually tie the rope around his own neck.'
Mary made a helpless movement with her hands, and he must have seen the despair in her face, for his voice became gentle again that had been harsh hitherto, and he laid his hand on her knee. 'Our bright days are done, and we are for the dark,' he said softly. 'If it were permitted to take our text from Shakespeare, there would be strange sermons preached in Cornwall tomorrow, Mary Yellan. Your uncle and his companions are not members of my congregation, however, and if they were they would not understand me. You shake your head at me. I speak in riddles. 'This man is no comforter,' you say; 'he is a freak with his white hair and eyes.' Don't turn away; I know what you think. I will tell you one thing for consolation, and you can make of it what you will. A week from now will bring the New Year. The false lights have flickered for the last time, and there will be no more wrecks; the candles will be blown.'
'I don't understand you,' said Mary. 'How do you know this, and what has the New Year to do with it?'
He took his hand from her and began to fasten his coat preparatory to departure. He lifted the sash of the window and called to the driver to rein in his horse, and the cold air rushed into the carriage with a sting of frozen rain. 'I return tonight from a meeting in Launceston,' he said, 'which was but a sequel to many other similar meetings during the past few years. And those of us present were informed at last that His Majesty's Government was prepared to take certain steps during the coming year to patrol the coasts of His Majesty's country. There will be watchers on the cliffs instead of flares, and the paths known only at present to men like your uncle and his companions will be trodden by officers of the law.
'There will be a chain across England, Mary, that will be very hard to break. Now do you understand?' He opened the door of the carriage and stepped out into the road. He bared his head under the rain, and she saw the thick white hair frame his face like a halo. He smiled again to her and bowed, and he reached for her hand once more and held it a moment. 'Your troubles are over,' he said; 'the waggon wheels will rust and the barred room at the end of the passage can be turned into a parlour. Your aunt will sleep in peace again, and your uncle will either drink himself to death and be a riddance to all of you, or he will turn Wesleyan and preach to travellers on the highroad. As for you, you will ride south again and find a lover. Sleep well tonight. Tomorrow is Christmas Day, and the bells at Altarnun will be ringing for peace and good will. I shall think of you.' He waved his hand to the driver, and the carriage went on without him.
Mary leant out of the window to call to him, but he had turned to the right down one of the five lanes and was already lost to sight.
The carriage rattled on along the Bodmin road. There were still three miles to cover before the tall chimneys of Jamaica Inn broke upon the skyline, and those miles were the wildest and most exposed of all the long one-and- twenty that stretched between the two towns.
Mary wished now that she had gone with Francis Davey. She would not hear the wind in Altarnun, and the rain would fall silently in the sheltered lane. Tomorrow she could have knelt in the church and prayed for the first time since leaving Helford. If what he said was true, then there would be cause for rejoicing after all, and there would be some sense in giving thanks. The day of the wrecker was over; he would be broken by the new law, he and his kind; they would be blotted out and razed from the countryside as the pirates had been twenty, thirty years ago; and there would be no memory of them any more, no record left to poison the minds of those who should come after. A new generation would be born who had never heard their name. Ships would come to England without fear; there would be no harvest with the tide. Coves that had sounded once with the crunch of footsteps on shingle and the whispered voices of men would be silent again, and the scream that broke upon the silence would be the scream of a gull. Beneath the placid surface of the sea, on the ocean bed, lay skulls without a name, green coins that had once been gold, and the old bones of ships: they would be forgotten for ever more. The terror they had known died with them. It was the dawn of a new age, when men and women would travel without fear, and the land would belong to them. Here, on this stretch of moor, farmers would till their plot of soil and stack the sods of turf to dry under the sun as they did today, but the shadow that had been upon them would have vanished. Perhaps the grass would grow and the heather bloom again where Jamaica Inn had stood.
She sat in the corner of the carriage, with the vision of the new world before her; and through the open window, travelling down upon the wind, she heard a shot ring out in the silence of the night, and a distant shout, and a cry. The voices of men came out of the darkness, and the padding of feet upon the road. She leant out of the
