And before we could stop him he was gone.
We tried to follow him, but the wind caught us again at the edge of the ridge. I’d have been over and lost if it hadn’t been for Simmons. I think I must have fainted from the shock of it. There’s a blank about there, though the rest of the night seemed centuries long.
The wind stopped at sunrise, and we made our way home along the ridge, looking down on a beach swept clean of every human mark, pavilion, grove, native huts and all. The house was still standing, but in a wreck of fallen branches and torn lianas. Scared servants and ashen-faced women and children came out to meet us, and began asking for their master. Simmons, granite faced as ever, did not answer them, but pushed on down to the beach.
Cartwright had come home ahead of us. He was lying on the shore, unscarred except for a faint streak of blue across one temple. He looked beautiful as some sleeping creature of the sea. The wreck of the piano was just above him. Simmons’ composure gave way when he saw that.
“You’ve broken the thing he loved, and you’ve killed him, too. I hope you’re satisfied at last!” he snarled, shaking his fist at the lagoon. I wondered if he was talking to Lulukuila. It was a terrifying outburst—from a man like Simmons.
Next morning they came over from Taku to look for us. The sea was smiling as ever, and the little launch came dancing over the rose and amethyst water as if there never had been a storm to ruffle it. I caught sight of Molly first, then I noticed another woman, sitting between her and Davidson. As she leaned forward to search the shore I was startled with the likeness of her face to Cartwright’s. Yet there was a difference. Her beauty was gracious and human, and—well, comfortable is the only word I can think of for it.
As they came near the beach she saw just Simmons and me and the staring natives. She cried out sharply and swayed a little. I saw Davidson put his arm out as if he would shield her from a blow. Faithful fellow, Davidson, and he got his reward at last.
It was Cartwright’s Charlotte, and Cartwright was not there to meet her. Lulukuila had seen to that.
It was the Feast of the Assumption, and the archbishop, as he left his palace and stepped into the summer sunlight, breathed a prayer of thanksgiving for the brilliance that glowed about him. For, during the mass which was about to be celebrated in the great cathedral, the passion of his life, one of the most impressive moments occurred when the sun shot its rays with pure and dazzling radiance for the first time into the middle of the apse. With exact calculation the architect had arranged that this took place on the fête day of St. Remi, the patron saint of Rheims, and when the day was overcast or rain obscured the sun it seemed to the archbishop that the Almighty was expressing His displeasure of some negligence or wrongful act on the part of the guardian of this, to him, most precious and wonderful trust in the world.
