They entered the gulf in the darkness of the new moon. They sailed in a clump together, Tucket leading. They sailed without lights, but for the night-lights in the binnacles. They moved in blackness on the sea, great fish making fire-streaks, lumbering whales with their brood. The men aboard them, waiting in the darkness for the word, struck their shins on guns and longed to be off. Few of them took their hammocks from the nettings that night. They passed the hours talking and smoking, in slow sea-walks to and fro, humming old tunes over their pipestems. They had made themselves ready many hours before. Their guns had been oiled and loaded, and their belts filled with cartridges, during the afternoon. All that they had to do now was to buckle on their water-bottles and snapsacks, and get into their boats. They heard the surf tumbling on the Mestizos. Setting stars, like ships’ lights, burned out into the sea. The seamen watched them as they shifted their tides, talking of the past, with its memories, of ships and women, its memories of life and the sun.
The word was given some four miles from the city, lest the Indian sentinels should sight the ships from the walls. The land was like a cloud at that distance, like a sharply defined blackness on the sky, shutting off the rising stars. It was a dark morning; but to the seamen’s eyes it was light enough. They had been on deck since the setting of the watch. They had grown accustomed to the darkness. It was now an hour before the dawn. It was to be a red dawn above Tolu.
Captain Margaret stood with Cammock at the gangway watching his men go over the side to the canoas. All the men of war, twenty of his crew, and a few Indians, fifty men in all, were coming with him from the ship. They loitered about the gangway like sheep at a gap, they seemed a great company. They did not talk much among themselves. One or two, the wags of the fo’c’s’le, made jests about “Tolu soup”; and the laughter spread in the canoas, where the men were packed tightly, like lovers on a bench. One or two of the men, the most intelligent among them, asked to shake hands with Captain Margaret as they passed him at the gangway side. Perrin touched him on the shoulder when about half of them had gone.
“Charles,” he said, “Olivia wants to see you. She’s in the alleyway.”
“In a minute,” he answered. “Good-bye, West.”
“Good-bye, sir.”
“Look after them, captain. Don’t let them shove off without me.”
In the darkness of the alleyway he found Olivia. He could see her great eyes in the oval of her face. She was trembling.
“Well, Olivia,” he said gravely. He took her hands in his, wondering, dully, if he would ever see her again. “I’m just off, Olivia.”
“I wanted to see you,” she said, in a shaking little voice. “I know I’ve only a minute. I tried last night. I want to thank you, Charles. You’ve been good. You’ve been very good to me. Whether you succeed. Or don’t succeed. I mean now. On shore. I. I thank you. Thank you. God keep you.”
“You, too, Olivia.”
He felt that this was the supreme moment of his life, this moment in the dark, with the forms of seamen passing across the door, and the white, beloved face half seen, strained up towards him. He knew that he might kiss her face. Their souls were very near together, nearer, he knew, than they would ever again be. There was the beloved face near his; there was his reward, after all these days, after all this wandering the world.
“Good-bye, Olivia.”
She did not answer, but her hands pressed his hands to her side for a moment.
“We shall be back in a few hours, Olivia.”
“Ah, not that. Not that,” she said, shuddering. “Never that again.”
“Perhaps, Olivia, he may be with us.”
“No,” she said faintly.
“I must go now, Olivia. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” she murmured. “God keep you, Charles.”
He knew that he might kiss her face; but would not. He knew that it was the mood and the moment which brought them thus together. She should never reproach herself. He did not love for pay. He pressed her hands for an instant. “Good-bye then,” he said lightly.
“Thank you,” she said, so lowly that he could hardly hear her.
He knew that she stood there, leaning against the bulkhead in the dark, long after he had reached the deck. It was like waking from a dream to come on deck again.
“Good-bye, Cammock,” he said, putting his emotion from him. “We’ve got our bearings. Don’t stand further in for half an hour. If anything happens. Well. We’ve talked that out. Haven’t we? Good-bye, Edward.”
“Good-bye. Look here, Charles. Here are my pistols. I should like you to have them.”
“Very well,” he said. “Thanks. How do you put them on?” He slung the pistol-belt over his shoulder, in the sea-style. “Good-bye,” he said again. “Look after her.”
He passed quickly down the ladder to the waiting canoas, which still dragged at the gangway with their freights of armed men. A canoa was pulling towards them out of the night; her oars stroked the sea into flame. Gleams of flame broadened at her bows. Little bright sparks scattered from the oar-blades as the rowers feathered.
“Is that you, Captain Margaret?” said Pain’s voice. “I’ve sent Tucket’s party on ahead. They’ve got a mile further to pull than we got. We’re all ready ahead there. You’re all ready and loaded, and your guns flinted?”
“Yes. All ready here, Captain Pain.”
“Your oars are in grummets, ain’t they?”
“Yes, all of them.”
“And you’ve all got white scarves on your arms? Right. The word is ‘Up with her.’ ”
“ ‘Up with her.’ You hear that, all of you? The word is ‘Up with her.’ ”
“Up with her,” the men repeated. “We’ll rally her up for a full due.”
“We’ll shove ahead, then, cap,” said Captain Pain. “If any man speaks above a whisper, mind, we’ll deal with him after.”
“Silence in the boats,” said Margaret. “On a morning so still as this we may be heard a couple of miles off. Sound goes a long way over water. Remember, all hands. No looting. There’s to be no looting. After the city’s taken, we shall hold it to ransom. After the fight, the trumpeter here will sound the assembly in the Plaza. You will all fall in there. Understand?”
“Are you ready in the bows there?”
“All ready, sir.”
“Shove off. Give way together. Make it long, stroke oars.”
“Long and lairy, sir.”
“We’ll follow you, Captain Pain.”
“Right,” came the voice out of the darkness. The hulk of theBroken Heartfell away into the night. The ripple of flame at her bows died astern. The boats drew up into order, Pain’s canoa leading, the other fourteen following close behind, two and two together. There was silence in all the boats, a silence like the hush in a theatre. The wash of the hundred oars, and the slow breathing of the rowers, was all that could be heard. All that could be seen was the advancing oily swell of the water, the gleam where the oars dipped, the track of the great stars dancing on the swell. Dimly one could see the other boats. One could see the transom of Pain’s boat, a ghostly oval, dying away ahead, but never quite gone. Far in front, seeming slowly to climb higher, was the blackness of the shore, from which, very faintly, came the roll of the surf. So they rowed on, in the darkness, pausing sometimes to change their rowers, two hundred men, going to the presence of death.
Their first real sight of the shore was a twinkle of fire upon the beach, below the city. Some infected clothes had been set on fire there the night before. The fire had smouldered all night, and had then broken out, in little leaping tongues, lighting the town’s south gate. Those in the boat wondered when they saw it, thinking that Indians must be camped there, or travellers from Covenas, perhaps, arrived after the shutting of the gates. There was some anxiety lest it should be a signal; but the flames, lighting up the beach, showed them no watchers, and no answering signal shone in the south-west, either from shore or sea. They learned from the fire that they were pointing too near to the city. They swung off four points, and rowed to the south-east, into the shallow water off the mouth of the Pesquero.
They landed about three miles from the town, and at once formed for action. Some Indian scouts led the party, then came Margaret with a dozen axemen, all carrying powder-kegs, for the destruction of the gate. TheBroken Heartmen formed the vanguard. Pain’s men followed, in rough order. The boats, with a boat-guard of thirty or forty men, some of whom were leeches, pulled out into the gulf, to prepare lint and salves for the hurt. The landing party looked to their firearms. There was a little confusion and splashing, owing to the narrowness of the beach, which forced some of them to stand in the sea. In a few minutes they were all ready. They set forward, as silently as they could, keeping a fast walk, lest Tucket’s men, now hidden among rocks a mile to the north of the town, should grow weary of waiting. It was still dark night about them; but they knew from the faintness of the wind that it was near dawn. The macaws were waking in the forest. Strange cries, strange primeval noises, sounded in the forest. There were stealthy patterings, quick scuttering droppings, as some animal brushed among the scrub, knocking off the dew. The Indian who walked by Margaret knew what these noises meant. He paused at each sound, as though to make sure that they were really what they seemed. A chicaly-chicaly made her sweet, sharp cry, from somewhere ahead. It touched Margaret to the heart; it was so like the tolling of a cuckoo. The Indian bent his head back and replied, so exactly that the bird answered. Margaret had never before heard this done; though he had read of it. He wondered, as he marched, if all knowledge ranked alike, if all power, all imagination, ranked alike, and whether this Indian, who could apprehend the natures of all these creatures in the wood, were not really a finer product than himself. He could not imitate a chicaly-chicaly, he could not raise the devil, he could not see a three-days’-old track on stones. He wished that in the march to a full life one had not to forget so much. One should have all the powers, all the savage powers even, one should be a divine spirit of apprehension, one should inform the whole world, feeling the pismire’s want as keenly as the saint’s ecstasy. One should be able to apprehend the wild things, the things of the wood, as well as the spirit of a poet in his divine moment. True life is to be alive in every fibre to the divine in all things. He wondered whether the Indians communed with the beasts, getting from them something which the white men ignored; coming, through them, to secrets unknown to white men, secrets of nature, of the universal spirit, of the spirit which binds the herds of peccary, and slinks in the wild cat, and sings in the bell-voiced golden-comb. He thought little of the business in hand. His mind was blank about it. All that he could think of the coming struggle was that he must bring back Stukeley, find him and bring him back, or never go back himself. The men were all round him, some of them even ahead of him by this time, for, going fast as they were, often up to their knees in the sea, it was impossible to keep good order.
After half an hour’s march they forded the Arroyo Francesco and came to the broader sands. Here they all marched in the wash; for now they were within twelve minutes of the town. They could see the dark mass of the town ahead of them, a city of sleepers, no light burning, no one stirring, only a little fire near the gate, and a dog baying in the Plaza. The dawn was beginning to change the darkness; it was growing lighter. The screams of the macaws set the monkeys swearing. The men halted, formed into order, and hurried on for another half-mile. They paused again, only four hundred yards from the walls. The pioneers with the powder-kegs made ready for their dash to the gate. The fusemen, carrying many yards of match, now lit their fuses in the scrub. The army marked time, feeling the chill of the dawn, waiting for Tucket to begin. Margaret could feel that many of his men were nervous, waiting like that, with the light growing above them. They had timed the attack well; but to stand, waiting, while the precious moments passed, was hard. Very soon the sentinels would see them. A low growl of discontent muttered up and down the ranks. Voices urged Margaret to attack at once, without waiting for Tucket. “We shall be seen.” “What’s the good of waiting here?” “Why, Lord love us, we could have took the town by this time.” “Shove ahead.” “This is a bit of ‘up with her,’ I don’t think, waiting ’ere.” There was a tendency to edge forward, to press towards the front, to see what was going on. Margaret urged them back, and passed word to Pain to keep his rear ranks from firing into the backs of the storming party. The rear ranks were the eager ranks, as they always are. The front ranks are nearest to the bullets; they have their minds engaged.
Lighter it grew. There was colour in the sky now; the men were surging forward, swearing that they would wait no more. Then from far away, on the farther wall of the town, a cry arose, a cry like a death cry, a cry of alarm. Two shots followed; then yells, shrieks, oaths, the roar of many guns. “Up with her, Tucket,” said the waiting men. Cries sounded within the town, dogs yelped, one or two women screamed, as the firing increased. “Come on,” Margaret called to the pioneers. They splashed out of the water on to the sands, and started towards the city at a run. As they ran, they heard Pain keeping back the ranks till the charge should have been fired. The feet splashed behind them slowly, growing fainter. The fire on the beach grew brighter, they were passing it; the walls were before them, only a hundred yards away. “Against the door,” he said, panting. “Against the hinges. One keg spilled below.” The town was aroused now. They could hear the cries and hurry. Still no sign came from the walls. “Sentinel’s asleep,” said one of the men. “There,” said another. “Up with her. Up with her. We’re seen.” A man showed upon the wall by the gate. “Ahi,” he screamed. “Piratas. Piratas. Piratas. Cuidado. Cuidado.” He fired his gun into the air; the flash shot up like the flash of a blast-charge. There came cries and a noise of running. A few heads showed. The wall spouted fire in a volley. They were up against the wall, against the iron-plated door, piling the kegs against the hinges, tamping them down with sods and stones. Margaret snatched one keg and spilled it along the door-sill. “There,” he said. “There. Now your fuse, fuseman.” The quick-match was thrust into a keg. “Up along the walls, boys. Quick. Scatter. Pronto.” He thrust them sideways. They saw what he wanted. When the imaginations are alert there is little need for speech. No man could have heard him. The racket in the town was uproar like earthquake. The whole wall above them was lit with fire spurts. Mud and plaster were tinkling in a rain upon them. They ran fifty yards like hares, paying out the quick-match. “Now,” said Margaret. The match flashed. A snake of fire rippled from them. They saw the shards of pots gleam, then vanish. They saw old bones, old kettles, all the refuse below the walls. “Down,” he shouted. “Down.” They flung themselves down. The beach to their left flashed, as the pirates fired at the wall.
There came a roar, a rush of fire, a shaking of the land. Mud, brick, stone, shards of iron and wood, all the ruin of the gate, crashed among them, flying far among the trees, thumping them on their backs as they lay. After the roar there was a dismayed silence. A wail of a hurt man sounded, as though the wrecked gate cried. Then with a volley the privateers stormed in. From where he lay, Margaret could watch them plainly; the dawn had broken. He saw them charging, tripping in the sand, their gun-barrels glinting. An Indian led them, a screaming Indian, who danced and spun round, waving his machete. “Lie still,” he shouted to his pioneers. “Let them pass. They’ll shoot you down. Lie still.” With yells and shots the storming party swept up the ruin. “Up with her,” they shouted. “Up with her.” They were clambering over the wreck, tripping, stumbling, kneeling, to fire, clubbing at the guard. “Now,” said Margaret, drawing his sword. They rose up from their nest among the tip. They were with their fellows, they were climbing the heaped stone, amid smoke and oaths and fire-lit faces. Margaret was inside Tolu. The south wall was won.
The land-breeze, very faint now, drifted the smoke slowly. He could see little. He could see in glimpses the whitewashed houses, the line of the south road, a man with his back to a wall, a woman fallen, figures rushing. He could see enough to know that the enemy were making no stand. He ran on up the road to the Plaza, one of a mob. Windows opened above him. People fired from the windows. Women were flinging pots, tiles, braziers. Some one had begun to ring the alarm bell in the church. The broken clang sounded out above the screams and the firing. Now it was all clear before him. He was in the Plaza, shouting to his mob to form. There in front of him the troops were mustering. They were running from their quarters, half clad, in rags, just as they had started from sleep. Heavy fire was rolling at the north wall. Troops were running thither. In the centre of the Plaza, about a cotton tree, a score of Spaniards were forming in line. A halberdier was dressing them. They stood firm, handling their guns, hearkening to their capitan. Margaret saw them clearly, and praised them in his heart for the flower of soldiery. They were of the old Spanish foot, the finest troops in the world. Even as he looked he saw them falling forward. He was among them. His sword jarred him to the shoulder as it struck on a gun-barrel. He saw them about him. They were breaking. They were gathering into clumps. They were being swept into the mob of citizens flying to the east gate.
Half an hour later the newly risen sun showed him a captured town. In the streets, in the Plaza, everywhere, lay the dead and dying. They lay in heaps in some parts. All the clutter and wreck of war, the clouts, the cast arms, the gear flung away by the fleeing, lay littered in the sands. The walls were chipped and starred with bullet marks. The stink of powder was everywhere. Women still screamed. Wounded men wailed where they lay, with the pitiful whimpering cry, like that of a beaten hound, which sickens all who hear it of the glory of war. Firing was still going on; but the fight was over; the town was in the hands of the privateers.
Margaret found himself at the east gate with Pain. About a dozen of the crew of theBroken Heartstood by him, waiting for orders. He took their names, and told them off to look out at the city gates, and to spike the guns on the sea-wall.
“I’m going to the Governor’s house there, to look for my friend,” he said. “Where’s my trumpeter? Sound the assembly, trumpet. Muster your men, will you, Captain Pain?”
The assembly sounded. The men fell in, answering to their names. The boat-guard with the doctors landed. The captains checked off their lists, scanning the ranks closely whenever a man failed to answer. The men were powder-blackened; some of them were wounded, many were cut about the head. They sent the boat-guard with the doctors to search the streets for the dead and hurt. Thirty-three men were missing, all of them, save one, from the party which had stormed the south wall.
“Strengthen the guards at the gates,” Margaret said. “Captain Tucket, you take the north gate. I’ll see to the east. Captain Pain, will you send a dozen to the south? Keep a sharp look out.”
He picked his own guard and sent them off to their duty. The other gate-guards fell out unwillingly. Some of the privateers were eating their breakfasts in the ranks.
“I’m going to the Governor’s house now,” he said to Pain. “Call me at once if the Spaniards send a trumpet. No straggling. No looting, mind.” As he turned towards the Governor’s house he heard the men behind him snigger. He heard a voice ask Pain if this was to be the new rule, now that Springer’s Key was full of college gents. Pain told the man to take a severe turn.
Margaret drew his pistols as he came near the house; for though most of the inhabitants had fled, a few poor men and slaves still lounged in the streets, having nothing to lose. A single man, richly dressed, might tempt these gangrels. He hailed a negro, who sat in the sun in the Plaza, sucking a wound in his wrist.
“Ho muchacho,” he said in his schoolboy Spanish. “Donde esta la casa del Gobernador?”
The negro waved his unhurt hand towards the house with a gesture full of dignity. Then he continued to suck his wound, like a dog licking a hurt paw.
“Gracias,” Margaret answered. “Pero el hombre Inglès. Donde esta?”
Again the negro waved his hand towards the house, pausing in his suction exactly like a dog. “He,” he said; then bent to suck again.
The house of the Governor fronted the Plaza. It was a big house, with a patio. The lower story had no outer windows, no door. Margaret had to climb the stone steps to the balcony, where a chained monkey leaped up and down in the sun, between bites at a plantain. The door leading to the inner part of the house lay open, just as the fugitives had left it. A woman’s shawl was on the floor. One runner had upset the monkey’s saucer of water. A chair had been upset. As Margaret entered the house, with his pistols cocked, he saw something beneath the chair, something bright, which he took to be a snake. It was the scabbard of a sword, flung aside in a soldier’s hurry. Margaret, pausing on the threshold to listen, wondered if Stukeley had flung it there. He listened intently, expecting to see Stukeley coming from the darkness of the corridor. His mind was busy with the thought of Stukeley. What was he to say to him? What was he to do to him? Suppose Stukeley came out fighting? “I must bring him back,” he repeated. “I must bring him back. He must be brought back.” A step sounded on the stairs behind him. It was West, one of theBroken Heart’sseamen.
“Beg pardon, sir,” the man said, “may I come with you? There’s maybe some of these Dons in the house.”
“Yes,” Margaret answered. “Listen.”
They listened in the doorway for a moment; but the house was still, save for the chinking of the monkey’s chain.
“Gone, sir, I guess,” said West.
“Come on, then,” Margaret said. “Cock your pistols and come on.”
They passed through the littered hall into the left-hand corridor. The jalousied shutters were shut on the patio side; but the doors of some of the rooms were open, giving light to the passage. It was a barely furnished house, hung with very old Spanish leather, ant-eaten and mothed and mouldy, falling to pieces. In the first room, a sleeping-room, the mosquito-nets had been torn from the cots, and lay wrecked on the floor with a silver chocolate service. In another, a chair stood against the wall, where a man had stood to snatch arms from a trophy. In another sleeping-room they found the clothes of a man and woman by the cot-sides just as they had been laid the night before, when the couple retired. It was like being in the presence of death to walk that house. It was as though they were looking on the corpse of a house, on a house dug up from the sands, the life of it gone and forgotten, only the pathetic husks left, that had once been helps to men. They opened a shutter and looked out upon the patio. A goat was tethered there, crying to be milked. They heard the stamping of horses. One horse was scraping with his forefeet against the floor of his stall. There was no sign of Stukeley there, no trace of him, nothing to mark his presence.
“Now the other corridor,” Margaret said. They retraced their steps, walking on tiptoe, listening intently. The first room in the other corridor was a dining-room, furnished with heavy Spanish furniture of the great period. A lute lay on the table, among wineglasses half full of wine, a box of Peruvian suckets, a box of candied quinces, a dish of avocat pears. Some one had been playing the lute, the night before. The unknown player had fitted a new string. The broken string lay among the litter where it had been thrown. Flies were black among the suckets. The air smelt of the stale gums which had burnt out before a crucifix on the wall. A shaft of sunlight came through a broken shutter. The dust quivered in it. On the floor, in its road of glory, a column of ants marched, stumbling over crumbs. There was much silver in the room. Over the side-board was a Zurbaran, too full of personality to be religious. Margaret looked at it, sighing, thinking that only lesser artists could save their souls. There was no trace of Stukeley here. “Let’s get out,” he said. “He’s not here.”
“There’s three more rooms,” said West. They entered the Governor’s office.
It was a barer room than the others. It contained a table and a few chairs. There were papers on the table; a locked account book, a list of resident Indians, a list of citizens capable of bearing arms, a diary in cipher. Under the table, in a coffer, were more account books, Cammock’s portolano, and a copy of the same, traced from the originals, now nearly finished.
“You see, West,” said Margaret. “You bear witness that I take these two books?”
“Yes, sir,” said West. He walked over to a corner and picked something up from a chair.
“Isn’t this Mr. Stukeley’s, sir?”
“Yes,” said Margaret, crossing over swiftly. “It’s his hat. And there’s his sword-belt.”
They stood together, looking at the things, wondering how lately the owner had flung them there, as he came in, hot, for the onzas. They felt him to be very near them there. It was as though he were coming sneering towards them, his fine teeth showing. His very words came into Margaret’s mind, with their exact inflections. “Found much? Eh?” Those were the words he would use.
“Hark,” said West suddenly. They listened.
“What did you think you heard?”
“There’s some one speaking in the next room, sir.”
“Listen.”
In the hush, they heard a sound like a sob, a low murmur of words; then a rustling, chinking sound.
“Like some one praying,” West said.
“Careful now,” said Margaret. “Come on after me.” They crept from the office on tiptoe, their pistols ready. In the corridor a board creaked beneath them. They paused guiltily, straining their ears to listen. They heard some one cross the room quietly. Then the door was flung open, letting a glare of light into the corridor. A priest stood before them, holding up a crucifix. Within was a bed. A woman knelt by the bed. Some one lay on the bed, covered with a cloth. Margaret raised his hand, and the priest stepped back, looking at their faces curiously.
“Donde esta el caballero inglès?” Margaret asked. “El señor Stukeley?”
A faint smile showed upon the priest’s mouth.
“Here,” he said in good English. He twitched back the bed-cloth reverently, to show the body of Stukeley lying dead. The face was a dull yellow, the mouth was inflamed. There was no need for further words.
“Vomito,” said the priest.
“Yes,” Margaret said, uncovering. “Vomito.”
“This morning,” the priest said.
The woman rose from the bedside, as though to drive them away. She was a black-eyed, hawk-nosed woman, of a crude and evil beauty. She was dressed in red and brown, in an outlandish style. She spoke in gasps, dreadful to hear; using broken English, laced with oaths and Spanish words. “Damn,” she said. “Damn perros. Cabrones de piratas.”
“De quién es?” Margaret stammered, meaning “Who are you?” He had no gift of tongues.
“Mrs. Stukeley,” the priest said. “The widow. His wife.”
“Me Anna,” said the woman. “Me ’is wife.”
Margaret bowed; words seemed useless. He was only conscious of the horror of it. He had not been prepared for this. He had sat at meat so many times with this corpse. He had seen him so often, full of life and health, going with a laugh to sin, in the pride of the flesh. Now a little thing, the bite of a fly, no more, had brought him to a death among strangers, in this low cot in the wilds, with his beauty turned to horror, and his strength, if anything, a fiery chain upon his soul. There he lay, under an Indian cotton, gone to his reward so soon. Margaret had hated him. He shuddered now to think how he had hated him. Looking at him as he lay there, in all the hideousness of death, he felt the remorse which a death brings. He felt ashamed, as though he had struck the corpse by hating him whom it had covered. “It was my fault,” he said to himself. “It should have been otherwise. One ought to live with this before one.” He saw where he had acted hastily, where he had failed. He knew all that he might have done. What moved him most was the thought that Olivia had loved this man, had loved him tenderly, and that he, Olivia’s lover had never known his character, had never guessed what it was in him which was beautiful to her. Now he would never know. Standing by the side of the corpse, he tasted all the bitterness of one who has failed to apprehend another, and learns of his failure too late. Stukeley was dead now, the old life was dead now. He would to God that he were dead in Stukeley’s place, and that the old life might be lived again. He would to God that this man’s passage to death had been made pleasanter. He blamed himself. He was touched and humbled almost to tears. “If I had only understood,” he thought, “you would not have cast yourself away thus.” Now he had this to tell Olivia.
“You were not what I thought, Stukeley,” he murmured aloud, looking down at the face. “You were not what I thought. You won her love. You were her chosen.
“My God,” he added to himself, “you won her by that very quality of certainty which made you cast her aside.” He stood there trying to create, in his moment of tenderness, fit words with which to tell her, words which might comfort her, staying in her heart. The words which came to him seemed blunt and cold. The only help that he could give to her was to bury this part of her with all reverent and noble rites.
“He was the Governor’s secretary,” said the priest. “He was not here long. Not long in the country. The vomito takes the new-comers.”
“Ah,” said Margaret, starting. “How well you talk English. Look here. Come aside here. We must bury him at once?”
“Before the sun,” the priest said, with a shudder.
“Where is the burial ground?”
He raised his hand in benediction over the corpse, then led Margaret out of the room. West followed them, reverent and awed, speaking in a hushed voice. The priest led them by a back way to the patio, thence by a postern to a side street, a good two hundred yards from the house. The burial-ground was hedged with stone, over which some creepers had grown. Little green lizards were darting among the creepers. They glittered like cut glass. The gate of the cemetery swung open on hinges of raw hide. When they entered, some large rats scuttled to their burrows among the graves.
“Much sickness here,” said the priest. “It is not good to dig deep in the ground.”
“I must dig this grave deep,” Margaret answered. “Look at the rats.”
“They are large,” the priest said. “Much sickness in this poor town.”
“Where can I find a spade?” Margaret asked.
“Who knows?” said the priest. “You will tell your men to find one? Ah?”
“I must do this myself,” he answered.
“But your men on the wall,” said the priest. “And your ship there. Ah?”
Margaret looked towards the west, over the low sea-wall. Some of his men were spiking the guns on the platform. He could hear the click of the malls upon the spikes, as they snapped the soft iron flush with the gun. Beyond them, very far away, were the ships; the tide and the land-wind had set them out to sea again.
“They are waiting for the sea-breeze,” said the priest. “No getting in till chocolate.”
“No,” said Margaret. “Now take me, please, to find a spade.”
“You are not a privateer?” the priest asked. “You do not sack us?”
“No,” he answered. “I am not a pirate. I demand the right to trade, and the recognition of Andria, King of Darien.”
“Don Andria,” the priest said. “Ah? Don Andria, the King. And so we are not sacked.”
“Now let us find a spade.”
They searched for half an hour before they found a spade.
“We do not use spades,” the priest said. “We tickle the earth with our toes and it laughs fruits for us.”
“I will lay him here, West,” Margaret said. “Looking towards England.”
“Sir,” the priest said, “he was a good Catholic. He must look towards the east.”
“Ah,” said Margaret. “And his wife would like that?”
“Yes. Ah, his wife, sir. Poor child. She was only married six weeks.”
“It is sad for her. He did not suffer much, father?”
“Ill for four days. But yesterday he was better. Then the fever grew again. As it does, sir, in some cases. The blood was before the dawn. Like a child, sir. And his eyes turned upon the Cross.”
“Then I will dig the grave here,” Margaret said. “This will be east and west by my watch.” He scratched a narrow oblong with the point of the spade.
“I’ll dig the grave here,” he said.
“Not you. Not in the sun,” the priest said. “There is very much sickness. Your men will dig.”
“I shall dig,” he answered. He felt that he was burying a part of Olivia. He would do her that service. He would make a grave for that unworthy part of her. That act of his should be a part of his penance towards the dead man’s ghost.
“It is very bad to dig this ground,” the priest said. “It is dust of the dead. We do not dig deep except for an Excellency. You see. The rats. Why toil, since God will bring them together at the Resurrection?”
“This is an evil country,” Margaret answered, driving the spade into the earth.
“There is fever and death. Very evil,” said the priest. “It is not wholesome to be in the sun, turning the earth, before chocolate. I will go to the widow.”
He left the cemetery, holding a handkerchief across his nose. The rats in their burrow-mouths watched him. One or two of them scuttled to other burrows. They seemed to play a game of general post, with Margaret as the “he.”
“Let me have a go at that spade, Captain Margaret, sir,” said West.
“No. I must do this,” he answered. “It is dangerous at the top. Perhaps deeper down you shall give me a hand. Gather stones from the wall. I want you to keep away from me, West. This soil is full of infection. Here is some tobacco. I want you to smoke, all the time you are here.”
“No, sir,” said West, looking uncomfortable. “Not just now, thank you, sir.”
“It will keep away the infection. You do smoke?”
“Yes, sir. But it wouldn’t be right, sir, nor respectful to Mrs. Stukeley.”
“Ah,” said Margaret, feeling himself rebuked. He dug for a few minutes in silence; it was light, sandy earth, easily shovelled.
“I wish you’d let me do that, sir,” said West.
“No. Not yet, West.”
“He was a big man, too, sir. He’d ’ave been a fine big man if he’d taken care of himself.”
“Yes,” Margaret answered. “He was a beautiful figure.”
“There’s a lot of poor fellows killed, sir,” said West. “But somehow it don’t come ’ome like this one does. That yellow look, after what he was. And the Spanish lady. She wasn’t his real lady, sir.”
“No. She wasn’t his real lady.”
So they talked as they dug turn and turn about for an hour and a half, when they had to stop digging. They were coming to water. The bottom of the grave was an inch or two deep in water.
“We can go no further,” Margaret said. “Now we’ll get stones.” They lined the bed of the grave with stones, and turned to the house for the body.
The priest and the woman had laid the body out. Margaret ripped down one of the long, jalousied shutters for a bier, while West searched in the patio for rope. An old Spanish tapestry of the death of Absalom served as a pall. They carried Stukeley to the grave, the priest preceding them, intoning the burial service. Then, very reverently, they lowered him. West and Margaret went aside after this and gathered a heap of lilies while the woman and priest prayed together.
“Take her away, father,” Margaret whispered. The priest led the woman to the house. She walked like one stunned. Margaret and West leaned over the grave, to look their last on Stukeley. They could see the water soaking into the linen, and above that the frayed body of Absalom, the handsome youth, caught in the thicket, as he rode. The town was noisy beyond them, two hundred yards away. Singing and shouting came from the Plaza. It seemed to Margaret to be the dirge the man would have chosen, this singing and shouting of men.
“Is that gentleman’s service enough, sir?” West asked.
“Quite enough,” he answered. “You heard him say that Mr. Stukeley had changed his religion?”
“I’d feel easier if you’d say a few words, sir.”
He spoke the few words. Then with the shovel he began to fill in the grave, from the foot. He placed many heavy stones among the earth, so that the rats might be foiled. When he had levelled the surface he heaped a cairn of stones at the head, and laid the lilies there. He went to a neighbouring garden, and dug up an arnotto rose-bush, to plant upon the grave. When this had been planted, the rites were over, he could do no more. They stood looking down at the grave for a moment, before they left the graveyard. The singing was loud behind them. In front of them, darkening under the breeze, was the bay, with the ships and sloops running in, distant some two or three miles.
“Come, West,” Margaret said. “I must see after the wounded.” He took a last look at the grave, at the already drooping lilies and dejected rose-bush. “Good-bye, Stukeley,” he murmured. He stooped, and picked some rose-buds, and a little scrap of stone from the grave, putting them carefully in a pocket-case. “Now smoke, West,” he said. “And rub tobacco on your hands.”
He reproached himself for having neglected his wounded for so long; but he knew that Tucket and Pain would look to them. He wished that the singing and shouting would stop. “Old Rose” and “The green grass grew” were not songs which the army in his mind had sung. Thermopylæ was not possible to an army which sang such songs. Pistol-shots marked the singing of each stanza; there were yells and cries. He thought he heard the screams of women. He saw two men come from a house with their arms full of plunder. “My God,” he said to himself bitterly. “Is Stukeley to check me even in death?” He drew his pistols again. “Come on, West,” he cried. He ran to the two looters.
“What are you doing?” he said. “Take that stuff back where you got it.”
“Get ter hell,” said the men. “You ain’t our captain. Who in hell are yer talking to?” Both men were drunk. One of them had been wounded in the head.
“I been doing your dirty work all morning,” said the wounded man, with drunken gravity. “I’m a free man, and I’m getting a little for myself. You ain’t my cap. Wot d’yer talk to us for? Go and see ’em in the Plaza,” said the other man. “Git ter the swamps and shove yer ’ed in.” They rolled off shouting. The noise in the Plaza became louder at each moment. It was useless to shoot the looters; two-thirds of the whole force were looting. Pain himself was looting.
Indeed, the sight of the Plaza haunted Margaret like a nightmare till he died. Of the two hundred men gathered there, hardly thirty were sober. These stood aloof under Tucket, guarding the wounded and laughing at the antics of the rest. A heap of loot was piled under the cotton tree. At every moment a buccaneer added to the pile. Wine casks lay open about the square, with drunken men lying near them, in the sun, too drunk to stir. Other drunkards, with linked arms, danced and sang, making catcalls and obscene noises. A half-conscious girl lay against a wall, gasping, shaken by hysteria. Her wild eyes were hard and dry, her hands clutched the dress across her bosom. Parties of drunken men hacked at doors with axes, and tossed household gear through the windows on to the heads of other drunkards beneath. Some had been torturing a Spaniard with woolding. The man lay dead with the cords about him, his face in the sands. Others, in wantonness, were now firing the church, dancing obscenely about in the priests’ robes. Women were screaming in an upper room. A dozen savages pursued one shrieking woman. They bawled filthy jests to each other as they ran. Margaret stood over her, as she fell, moaning, unable to run further. He drove the ruffians back, threatening them with his sword.
“It’s the cap,” they said. “If the cap wants ’er he must ’ave ’er.” He placed the woman in a house which had been sacked; it seemed the safest place in that lost city. Pain came by him, drunk, dragging a silver tray.
“No looting,” the drunkard called. “Strictly college gents. No looting ’tall. None. Won’t have it. No.” He passed on, crying drunken catcalls. The eastern side of the town, fanned by the breeze, was fast spreading to a blaze. The dry wood crackled as the flame caught. The church roof was pouring smoke. Little flames were licking out from the eaves. “My God. My God,” said Margaret. “And this is my act and deed. My act and deed.” He went to Tucket, who stood with the wounded, grimly watching it all. He could not speak. He could only shake his head, white to the lips.
“How’s this for hell?” said Tucket. “This is Captain Pain.”
“Are the guards at the gates still?” Margaret answered.
“Some of ’em are. Your own men are. Mine are. I never saw men like these, though.”
“Let’s get the wounded to the boats. How many have we? How many men are steady still?”
“Sir,” Tucket answered, “I’ve twenty-five men by me. We lost fourteen killed. There’s nineteen hurt here. That’s fifty-eight. Say there’s twenty at the gates still. That leaves a matter of a hundred and seventy like what you see. Get them hurt into the carts, boys, and start ’em to the boats. Gently does it. That’s you.”
They laid the wounded men in litters and carts, and wheeled them down gently to the canoas. Margaret walked by the side of the carts, talking to the men about their wounds, fanning them with his handkerchief, getting drink for them, wetting their brows with water whenever they passed a cistern. The ships were then coming to anchor within half a mile of the town.
“You won’t be long in the boats,” he told the wounded men. “You’ll soon be in bed on board. You can see the ships. There they are. Do you see?”
He spoke to Tucket, urging that they should withdraw the guards from the east and north gates, lest the Spaniards, guessing what had happened, should attack suddenly, and overpower them.
“I’ve already sent,” said Tucket. “I ain’t goin’ to lose good men because these swine choose to raise hell. This was Captain Pain’s piece. The sooner we’re off the better.”
“I’d sound the assembly,” Margaret said. “But the trumpeter’s drunk.”
“Could we ring the church bell or something, sir?” said one of the men.
“The church is on fire.”
“Beg pardon, sir. But we’d oughtn’t to wait,” said Tucket. “We’d ought to get these fellers on board. The sun’s strong. And we got to make two journeys as it is.”
At the boats they were joined by the north-gate guards, about a dozen men in all.
“We can only send away six canoas at a time,” Margaret said. “That’ll mean twenty-four oars. Two wounded men in each canoa. You can’t put more, comfortably.”
“That’s so,” said Tucket. “Get ’em in, sons. Ask Captain Cammock to fire guns.”
They manned six canoas, and laid the worst cases in the sternsheets. The one sober doctor went with them. He was a clever surgeon, pretty well known all over the Indies as Doctor Glass Case. He had left England under a cloud; it was not known why. No man knew his real name.
“Take them aboard theBroken Heart,” Margaret said. “And then come back for the rest. Tell Captain Cammock how things stand here.”
The boats shoved off from the shore below the water-gate. Boat-covers propped on oars made awnings for the wounded. Margaret and Tucket watched them quartering on each other, stringing out into line, some of the stroke oars splashing, so as to spatter water, by request, into the faces of the wounded.
“Gully-shooting,” Tucket said.
“They’re racing,” said Margaret. He thought how strongly these men resembled boys. They never lost a chance of competing. Now, in that hot sun, after seven hours of exertion, they were making the broad oars bend, driving the canoas through it, racing to the ship.
Men came straggling to the water-gate, asking if they were to go aboard. Margaret and Tucket told them to tend the wounded, while they returned to the Plaza to try to bring off the rest of the hands. There was no question of holding the town. The east side was a roaring bonfire. All that they could hope was that the Spaniards would not attack.
“There are three garrisons only twelve miles away,” Margaret said.
“Yes,” Tucket answered. “And them we fit this morning must be in the woods.”
“I thought I could have trusted Pain,” said Margaret. “They would have ransomed the town. It’s a merchant town. Look at all the balsam sheds. And now they’ve thrown it away.”
“That was Captain Pain,” said Tucket. “He said as all he wanted was for you to help him take the town. He’d do the rest, he said. He’s deceived you, sir. Deceived you all along. He was telling his hands just now, he was going to seize your ship, as soon as he got the stuff aboard.”
They were entering the Plaza as Tucket said this. They were just in time to see the church roof fall in, with a sudden uprush of fire. Many of Pain’s men were dragging the loot out of the heat. They were stripped nearly naked. They tossed the heavy silver from hand to hand. Sometimes a piece was flung at a man’s head, and then a fight would begin. At least thirty men lay drunk about the square, too drunk to move. About thirty others formed a rank across the eastern side, firing and clubbing at the rats which ran from the burning houses. They turned and fired at the rats which broke through them. The Plaza hummed with flying bullets. Bullets were chipping the adobe walls. Splintered tiles of a soft warm redness lay in flakes below each house. Whenever a rat was killed, the slayers yelled and screamed, swinging the corpse by the tail, hitting each other in the face. Tears ran down Margaret’s cheeks. He had never before seen a sight like this. He had never seen a mob at work. And these were the men he had led; these were the men who were to found a new nation with him.
A sudden roar of cannon made them turn to look seaward. TheBroken Heartwas wreathed in smoke from a broadside; but as the smoke blew clear they could see the danger signal; the foretopsail dropping to the cap, and a red weft dipped at the peak. Two musket-shots followed from the fo’c’s’le.
“Danger from the south,” said Margaret. “Here are the garrisons.”
Pain lay in the sand, propped against a wine cask, with his hat tilted over his eyes. Margaret ran to him and shook him. “Up,” he cried. “Wake up, man.”
A man came running from the south gate shouting, “The Dagoes. The Dagoes.” He was bleeding from his mouth. He was gasping his life out as he ran. “Dagoes,” he gurgled. “Dagoes, you.” He stood for a moment, swaying, pointing half round the compass behind him.
“Right, son,” said Tucket. “Take a rest. You’re hit. Lie down.”
The man stared at him stupidly, groping with his hands. “Take. These feathers. Off my teeth,” he gasped, and sank forward gently from his knees, dead.
Tucket kicked Pain savagely.
“Wha’s a marrer? Wharrer hell’s the marrer?” said Pain, struggling to his feet.
“We’re attacked,” said Margaret, shaking him. “Get your men. Lord, man, get your men to the south gate.”
“Hands off, you damcarajo,” he answered angrily. “Why the hell couldn’t you look out? Hadn’t you sense enough to set a sentry? I’m awake. You Port Mahon fiddler. What in hell are you looking at me for? Get the men.”
The guns of theBroken Heartopened fire in succession, blowing white rings over the trucks. Heavy musket-fire was breaking out at the south gate. Some of the rat-catchers ran towards it.
“Don’t talk to me like that,” said Margaret. “You drunken little boor. See what you’ve done. You and your gang of thieves. Look at your work. Look at it. Answer me again and I’ll run you through.”
“Lord’s sake,” Tucket cried. “They’re on to us. Here they are. Cuidado, sons.”
“I’ll talk t’you later,” Pain said. “Up with her, sons. Rally an’ bust ’em.” He unslung his piece, and ran, followed by the others, to the south road. They reached the mouth of it in time to see their fellows scattering towards them from the breach. All the wall was covered with clambering Spaniards, hundreds of them. They came swarming on like a wave of bodies, firing and dropping down to load, firing again, ever firing, till the air was full of fire. Margaret saw privateers running up to support him. They came from all sides, fifty or sixty men in all, enough to make a rough double rank across the street. They made a stand here, at the corner of the Plaza, fighting steadily and well, but losing heavily. Margaret picked up a gun and fired with them, praying only that a bullet might find him soon. He had no thought of anything save that. He had failed. Now he would die unpitied in a hopeless fight against odds. There were several hundreds of Spaniards coming up, and the privateers’ ammunition failed. They were searching the dead for cartridges. Men were running back to the Plaza to search the drunkards for cartridges. A few men climbed to the roof of a house, and fired above the smoke into the enemy. Margaret climbed up with them, so that he might order the battle. He lay on the tiles with the rest, firing and cheering. For ten minutes they lay there, firing till they had no more powder. Then, as the smoke cleared away, he saw that a troop of horse was coming up. He saw the Indian lances swaying like boat-masts in a sea. He climbed down from his perch, at that, and gave the word to retire, fighting, to the boats. He knew that the fight now was only a matter of moments.
The men fell back, losing heavily. The Spaniards pressed on, cheering, trying to flank them. At the boats was a mob of flying drunkards, struggling with the boat-guard. They were trying to get the canoas for the loot. The beach was littered with loot. A couple of thousand pounds’ worth of plate was lying in the sands. Seventy or eighty men were fighting in the water, shouting and damning, tugging the canoas to and fro. They left the canoas when the fight ranged down to the beach. They ran to save the plate from the sands, to snatch the loot from under the feet of the fighters. They shrieked, with tears in their eyes, to the fighters. They struck at them with fists and guns and candlesticks, telling them to save the loot, damn them, save this precious gear, never mind the Dagoes. The fighters struck back at them, clubbing their guns. That was the end of the fighting. The ranks broke. Fighters, drunkards, boat-guard, all the wreck of the force, were jumbled in a mob among the boats, knee-deep in water. Margaret, Tucket, and a few more, managed to keep clear of the mob, and fired at the sallyport as the Spaniards pressed through to end them. Tucket’s mate cooly filled their pockets with cartridges, helping himself from the men about him. Two canoas upset; a third, with only three men in her, drew clear and pulled for the ships. Spaniards were on the walls above them, firing into them from the platform. The dead and dying men were beaten down and stamped on by the herd of wild beasts in the water. Margaret was careless how it ended for him. He had no wish to live. He felt only the horror of having mixed with men like these, of having led them, of having soiled his honour for ever with them. His gun was shattered with a bullet; the wound in his shoulder had broken out again; he could feel his shirt, sized with blood gluing to his skin. He drew his sword, and waited, looking at the walls, watching the heads of the Spaniards showing in glimpses among the smoke. As he looked there came a rush above him. A yard of the wall shattered into dust with a burst. Cammock had opened on the town with his broadside. That saved them.
He was in the water still. Some loaded canoas were pulling clear. The last canoas were loading. A dozen steady men, calmed by the gun-fire, were covering the retreat. One by one they climbed into the canoas, firing over the gunwales, standing up to fire, anxious to have the last word. A canoa which had pulled clear backed up to Margaret, and a voice shouted in his ear. Looking round, he saw that it was Pain, a grimed and bloody scarecrow, still savage with drink.
“You Portuguese get,” the drunkard screamed. “You called me down just now. Did you, by God. You junk-laid carajo. Now I’m even. See?” He swung his knobbed pistol on to Margaret’s brow with a smash, knocking him senseless. “Give way,” he shouted. “Give way. That’s what I give to college gents what gets gay with Captain Pain.”
When Margaret recovered consciousness he was in the last canoa, a hundred yards from the shore. One of the Indians was mopping his brow with water. Tucket, who was steering, was uncorking a rum-flask with his teeth.
“You’ll be all right,” Tucket said. “Take a rinse of this.”
“I’m all right,” he answered, with a little, hysterical laugh. “Where is that man? The man who hit me?”
“Gone aboard your ship,” said Tucket.
“My God,” he answered. “Give way then, quick.”
He sat up, fully roused, splashing water over his head. He felt ill and stupid; but the thought of possible danger to Olivia roused him. Looking back, he saw Tolu blazing above the palm-tree tops, the flames sucking at the forest, scorching the boughs. Looking forward, he saw theBroken Heart, with men struggling on her gangway amid the flash of pistols.
“Captain Pain,” Tucket said. “Up with her, boys.”
“I cain’t row no harder,” said one of the men petulantly, like a child about to cry. “I see old Jimmy shot, as I owed the dollar to. It ain’t my fault, cap.”
“If I put any more weight on,” said another rower, “this oar’ll go in the slings. It’s got a chewed slug through the service.”
Margaret noticed then, for the first time, that the canoa had a foot of water in her. There were seven men in her. Tucket, himself, an Indian, and four rowers, all of them wounded.
“Let me take an oar,” he said. “Give me your oar, bowman. You’re hit.”
“I ain’t goin’ to lay up,” the bowman answered. “A sailor don’t lay up, nor he don’t take medicine, not till he’s dying, and then he don’t need to.”
“Let me double-bank the stroke then.”
“You stay still,” Tucket said. “You been as near it as most. We’re the last canoa. D’ye know what that means? We five got an upset boat and righted her. The Spaniards were riding after us finishing the wounded. Robin there, the Indian, saved you. He swam a matter of thirty yards with you before we picked him up. Then we’d to lie-to and bale her out before she sank, with the Dagoes blazing hell at us. As it is, we’re only crawling.”
“Robin,” said Margaret, “I shall tell Don Toro to call you by my name.”
The Indian sucked in his golden nose-plate, and cringed upon his hams, grinning. He was the only happy man in the force, this Indian “sin razon.” Tucket added to his happiness by hailing him with his new name, in his own speech of San Blas pigeon, a jumble of Spanish and Indian, spoken as English.
“You Captain Margaret now, Robin. Sabe? You Capitano. Capitano sobre tula guannah anivego. Mamaubah. Eh? Shennorung Capitano. Muchas mujercillas. Eh?”
Five hundred yards further on the rowers had to rest. They splashed themselves with water, took a drink of spirits, and lay back in the stern-sheets. They were worn out. Margaret was worn out, too. He had no strength left in him. He lay back, dully, watching the ship; noting, though with no intellectual comprehension, an array of men passing down the gangway, making a great noise. It was still, after the roar of the battle. The cries and oaths came down the wind to him, clearly, across the water. He saw three long canoas, full of men, pull clear from the ship’s side, with one man, not very big, standing in the sternsheets of the largest, shrilly cursing at the ship. “That’s my note,” were the only words which he could catch. “That’s my note.” He wondered whose note and what note it could be. But his head was reeling; he didn’t really care.
“There’s a woman in the canoa there,” said one of the rowers.
“My God,” he said, rousing up, as the beaten boxer rises, though spent, at his second’s cheer. “It’s not Mrs. Stukeley? It’s not Mrs. Stukeley?”
“No, sir,” said a rower. “The other lady.”
“Yes,” he said, looking intently. “The other. Mrs. Inigo. What’s happened?”
“Pain’s got your crew,” Tucket answered. “He’s leaving you to the Spaniards.”
Dully, as they passed about the rum-flask, they saw the boats draw up to Pain’s ship. They saw sail made upon her, the sprit-sail for casting, the topgallant-sails in the buntlines. Soon she was under way, lying over to the breeze, sailing a point or two free, bound past the Mestizos to the southward. Her men, gathered on her poop to hoist the mizen, cursed theBroken Heartfrom the taffrail, firing a volley of pistols at her in farewell. Two of the three sloops sailed at the same time. As they passed away, crowding all sail, foaming at the bows with their eight-knot rush, Margaret heard the chanties at the halliards, a broken music, coming in the gusts of the wind.
Tucket took one of the oars, and sat at the thwart wearily, searching for a helper among the sternsheets. Captain Margaret, the Indian, could not row. The other five were exhausted. “Boys,” he said, “if we don’t get a gait on us, we’ll be sunstruck. We’re losing way, too. The breeze is setting us ashore.”
Margaret rose up wearily, like a man in a dream, and sat down to row at the thwart. They pulled a ragged stroke together. They were too tired to do much. They pulled a few strokes, and paused, to look round. Then pulled again painfully and again paused. One of the men took up a pistol and fired into the air. “We’ll never make it,” he said. He fired again and again, till some one in the ship caught sight of them and fired in reply. A boat manned by half a dozen men put off to them, veering out line astern, so that those aboard might heave them in at the capstan. Cammock and Perrin were two of the rowers, the only two who could pull an oar; the negro steward steered. The rest of them rowed like marines on pay-day going through the platoon. The wounded and weary smiled to see them; they had never seen such rowing. Slowly they drew up. Margaret saw Perrin and Cammock glancing over their shoulders at him. They cheered and waved when they saw him. He waved his unhurt arm to them. The canoa swung round and backed alongside. Cammock, laying in his oar, shifted his towing-line to the bow, and bent to it the painter of Tucket’s canoa, so that the boats might tow together. “Let your oars swing fore and aft, boys,” he said. He lifted his voice, and yelled to the ship to heave in. “Well, sir,” he said, coming aft alongside Margaret. “And how are you? I’m glad to see you alive. The men said you were killed.”
“I’m all right,” he said. “But we had. We had enough, over there. What has happened in the ship?”
“Well, sir,” said Cammock. “Pain’s gone off with most of what were left to us. That’s what happened.”
“Tell me,” Margaret said. “How was it?”
“I was on deck with Mr. Perrin till the last canoas were putting off,” Cammock answered. “We’d been working the guns. We saw there was rather a mess. Then the doctor sends for us two to help him take off Jowett’s leg. So we went into the wardroom, where he was working. We heard the boats come alongside, and Pain lashing out like a chocalatto-north; so when we got the arteries fast, and Jowett in a cot, we ran on deck to see if you were safe and to see what the row was. They’d been making enough row to caulk a flagship. That was too late, then. Pain had been saying that you were dead, that you’d spoiled the show and got a hundred of ’em killed. God knows what he hadn’t said. More’n half of them were drunk. Our lot had been up all night. So by the time we got on deck they were bundling their bags into the canoas. There was that Fraser fellow going down the gangway with one of our guns. I knocked him back where he belonged. Then they began to fire. I’ll show you my hat when we get aboard. Then they tried to rush the gangway. So I cut the fall, and spilled ’em off it. We’d a lively fight for a few minutes. Pain and Ackett’s lots (Ackett’s lot weren’t so bad) went off then. It was them really kept Pain back a bit. They said they’d play hell with Springer’s Key for me. Ackett’s lot said I’d better stand in with them. They said they’d seen you corpsed on the beach.”
“He wasn’t far off it,” Tucket said. “But for this capitano here.”
“Mrs. Inigo went off with Iles,” said Perrin. “They’ve gone with Pain and the rest.”
“The rest. The rest. What rest? We must have lost. Oh, my God,” said Margaret weakly. “We must have lost half. Was any roll called?”
“No,” said Perrin. “Twelve of your men went to your sloop, Captain Tucket, after bringing off some wounded. They said there was hell to pay ashore, so they stayed here. That was before the attack. And you’ve five more here; seventeen that makes, besides your ship-keepers.”
“We’ve got eleven left,” Cammock said, “besides nineteen wounded and the doctor. Not counting them. Tucket, we got thirty-nine able-bodied between us. Twenty-four of them yours.”
“By the way, I’ve got your maps, Cammock,” Margaret said. “Here they are. I’m sorry they’re so wet. I fell in the sea coming off.”
Cammock took the maps with a groan. “Thank you very much, sir,” he said. “But I don’t much value the maps, though, when I think of what’s happened.”
“It must have been hell,” said Perrin.
“Yes,” Margaret answered. “It was hell.”
“Why didn’t Pain take the ship?” Perrin asked. “That’s what puzzles me.”
“Afraid you’d government friends, sir. Besides. He thought if he took your men the Dagoes’d get you.”
Very slowly the men at the capstan walked the canoas to the side. Margaret stood on his own deck again, asking himself how many years had gone since he last stood there. The guns were cast loose. Round shot, fallen from the garlands, rolled to and fro as the ship rolled. The decks were littered with wads. Smears, as of lamp-black, showed where the gun-sponges had been dropped. The hammock-nettings were fire-pocked and filthy. There were marks of blood on the coamings, where wounded men had lain, waiting to be carried below.
“Charles,” said Perrin, “you come to the cabin and lie down. I’ll fetch Olivia to you. She’s with the wounded. What about Stukeley?”
“He’s dead, Edward. He died of yellow fever this morning. I buried him.”
“My God. Dead?”
“Yes. He was married there.”
“He deserted then, that time?”
“Yes.”
“And so he’s dead. The dead are.”
“The dead are our only links with God, I think,” Margaret said gravely. “I’ve been in hell to-day, Edward. In hell. In hell.”
He lay down on the window-seat in the cabin, where Stukeley had so often lain. The breeze had swung the ship head to sea. He had only to turn his head to see the fire of Tolu, burning below its pillar of cloud. The sea-wall spurted with smoke at intervals. The flashes were very white and bright, not like the smoke of firelocks. Cammock came in to him with a mess of cold poultice for his head.
“We’re getting under way, sir,” he said. “The Dagoes are blowing the spikes out of their guns. They’ll be firing soon. We’re cutting our cable, sir. We haven’t strength to weigh. Tucket the same. Mrs. Stukeley is coming to you, sir. I told her you were hurt. She wants you not to get up, sir.”
He then went away. By and by Olivia entered.
“Don’t get up, Charles,” she said. “Oh. Don’t get up.”
He raised himself to greet her, looking at her sadly. She came up to him and took his hand, and sat at his side.
“Olivia,” he said gently. “Olivia, I bring another sorrow for you. Your husband is dead, Olivia. He died this morning.”
“Yes,” she answered quietly. “I knew he would be dead.”
He tried to read her thought; but his head was stupid with pain; he could not. He saw only the calm, pale face with that quality of mystery upon it which is upon all beauty.
“I feel for your sorrow,” he stammered.
“Yes, Charles,” she answered. “You feel for my sorrow, I know.”
“Olivia,” he said, “would it pain you too much to hear. To hear about it?”
“You ought not to be talking with your wound, Charles.”
“I must tell you, Olivia. If you can bear it. It may be harder to-morrow.”
“Tell me then,” she said. “If you feel. If you wish. I am quite calm, Charles. Tell me everything.”
“He died of yellow fever, Olivia. In the Governor’s house there. The tall house above the bastion there.”
“I can’t look, Charles. Don’t tell me where. I’m. Yes?”
“He was ill for four days,” Margaret continued. “They thought he was getting better yesterday.”
“They, Charles? Who were ‘they’?”
“The Governor and a priest, Olivia.”
“He was in the Governor’s house,” she said. “As a friend?”
“A secretary there.” His mouth had grown very dry; it was hard to answer these questions.
“Then he stole the book of maps, Charles?”
“Yes.”
“Did you find it?”
“Yes. I found it.”
“Was there fighting? Fighting in the town? Was he alone when he died?”
“He died before the fighting began. An hour or two before.”
“Who was with him, Charles?”
“A priest was with him.”
“A Roman Catholic priest?”
“Yes. I found the priest in the room with him. The priest had attended him. At the end.”
“He had become a Roman Catholic?”
“Yes, Olivia.”
“I want to picture it, Charles. Was there fighting in the town when you. When you found him?”
“There was a little firing. But the men were at breakfast. I heard a few shots. Distant shots. So. So I left the men. And West and I made a grave. We buried him there, Olivia. The priest. There was a service.”
“And then. What happened then, Charles?”
“I picked these rosebuds, and this pebble, Olivia. From the grave. For you.”
The rosebuds were crushed and dropping. She took them in the hollow of her hand. There was a grace in all that she did. The holding out of her delicate palm was beautiful; the movement showed curiously her exquisite refinement; it was as though she had said some beautiful thing; her mind showed in it. She took the relics, looking not at them, but at Charles, her eyes swimming with tears, her dear mind wild with tears.