The mate hesitated.
"You be cap'n, sir. But if 'twas my say we'd head back in to the Anchorage,Walrusor noWalrus."
My great-uncle stiffened.
"'Tis impossible," he replied haughtily. "However, we will bear up for theWalrus, and you may bid Coupeau to see what harm he can contrive against her with his chase-guns."
Martin saluted and went for'ard. My great-uncle led us to the poop.
"Your old sailor is eke much of an old woman into the bargain," he remarked perfunctorily, climbing the sta'b'd ladder ahead of me. "Let him but sniff the approach of a tempest, and he is all for the nearest haven—aye, the hardiest buccaneer no less than the law-abiding merchantman."
"O'Donnell was right, it seems, when he advised you to finish the task you had begun in the inlet," I snapped, none too pleased, myself, with the outlook.
"In that case, my dear nephew, a half of us must have perished," retorted my relative. "You have had some experience of these wolves of ours when their lusts are roused. No, no; I am no milk-and-water fighter, but I prefer to batter my enemy safely at long range rather than give him an equal opportunity to tear my throat."
Peter grunted.
"You said?" Murray inquired courteously.
"Neen, I saidt not'ings. But I t'ink—I t'ink it is all right if you get derWalrusand yourself come safe. If you don't do bot' it don't matter if you do der odder;neen."
My great-uncle raised his prospect-glass.
"You have ably stated one of the primary rules of success in any branch of warfare, friend Peter," he said. "Captain Flint is making better going of it than I had expected. Apparently by some perversity of our continuing ill-luck he hath a more constant wind close under the island than we out here. Ah! I hear Coupeau's bark."
A cloud of smoke rolled aft as the long eighteen on the la'b'd side of theJames'fo'csle boomed. The shot dashed up a fountain of water a few feet ahead of theWalrus, which was now running neck and neck with us. Flint replied with one of his long twelves, but the shot fell short, and he edged away as much as he dared, which was very little, for Murray had seen to it that he had bare sailing-room. Our chase-gun barked again, and this time the round shot ricocheted from the water's surface and slapped into theWalrus'hull.
"Neat," commented my great-uncle; "but what we require is a fair hit on a spar."
Coupeau realized as much, as was evidenced by his next two shots going high and striking the water beyond the target. But I was distracted from watching his efforts, for at the fifth discharge Moira O'Donnell crept up the poop ladder, her eyes wide with misgiving.
"Troth, yourself promised only a few minutes since you'd not leave me by my lone was there more fighting, Bob," she reproached me.
"'Tis no fight," I answered.
"Aye, we do but seek to drive yonder knaves ashore," Murray assured her. "They can not reach us at this distance."
She surveyed the scene with a doubting eye and was constrained to credit us.
"But why is the light so strange?" she demanded. "'Tis as if the door of a cookstove was ajar."
"We are in for bad weather, sweet," replied my great-uncle. "You must go below."
But she shrank away from him and clutched firmly an arm of Peter and me, each.
"No, no, I'll not be going down there again," she cried. "On the inside of a door I can think of naught but the sorrow that is come upon me. I'll stay up here in the open."
"Certes, this will be no safe place in a storm," I urged.
But she clung the tighter to us.
"I'll not go down. I'd sooner be taken by the pirates than go down. Down there the noises of the water and the ship will be like the crying of the banshee in the Green Room where grandfather died. No, no! In the cabin there is only death, and the light is dim, and the noises will be whispering at my elbow the livelong time. I'll have none of it! Sure, I care not what danger there is, if I can stay up here and meet it in the open."
"We let you stay," said Peter soothingly. "Ja, we better let der little gal stay, Murray. Bob andt I, we take care of her."
"That will we," I endorsed him.
My great-uncle eyed me a thought quizzically.
"You are, it seems, subject to change of opinion, Robert," he remarked. "By all means let Moira remain with us. I daresay she'll be none the worse for a wetting."
But the storm held off throughout our morning-long chase down the east coast of the island and then out to sea to herd theWalrusin from the north. Coupeau hulled the miserable craft again and again, and shot away her foretopmast; but she steadily clawed offshore and made desperate attempts to steal ahead of us and win a clear path before the wind, and when, toward noon, the breeze died completely the positions of the two vessels were practically the same as they had been from the beginning of the cat-and-mouse game that Murray played.
TheRoyal James, by nimbler handling, had gained in the last hour, and was more than a cannon-shot to the north-west of theWalrus, with the northernmost of the island's chain of hills—the one the pirates called the Foremast Hill—almost due southeast of us. If the wind sprang up again in anything like the same quarter theWalruswas fast in Murray's trap. She would have the choice of two alternatives: She could stand on and fight, with the practical certainty of destruction for all hands, or she could drive ashore, in which case the crew might take to the woods, with every prospect of eluding pursuit, unless Murray made a determined effort to comb the island's craggy recesses. After the long-range battering they had received all morning, on top of the hammering in the action in the dark, there was not much doubt that theWalrus'disorderly crew would take the decision into their own hands and choose the latter as offering a fair chance of life, no matter how circumscribed.
The helmsman had just turned the hour-glass, which lay beside the compass in the hooded box in front of the steering-wheel, when a shout came from Martin, who was half-way up the main-rigging, sweeping the horizon with a glass. My great-uncle had been pondering the desirability of getting out the boats and undertaking to tow theJameswithin range of the long eighteens, and he called back—
"Is it wind?"
"Aye, aye, sir," roared Martin—and there was no mildness now in the old fellow's tones. "There's the —— ——est blow o' wind as ever came out o' the —— —— bowels o' the sky or I'm a —— —— swab as ever was."
He tumbled from the ratlines and ran aft to the break of the poop, his face lifted earnestly in appeal.
"Best let me lay an ax to the mizzen, sir," he called.
My great-uncle took snuff, calmly deliberate.
"Curb your fears, Martin," he answered. "I have weathered a lifetime of gales in theRoyal James. Take in sail, of course; but if we sacrificed a mast needlessly 'twould cripple us for weeks. Where away is this wind?"
Martin waved an arm across the northwestern arc of the horizon.
"Look for yourself, cap'n. I be an old man, and I never seed the like."
Murray's reply was to swarm up the mizzen rigging with the uncanny agility of which he was capable, and I climbed after him. We were some fifty feet above the deck when we saw clearly with the naked eye a vast purple canopy arching forward across the northern sky, a thing of splendidly colorful intensity, savagely beautiful. Jagged streaks of lightning flashed forth from its mirky depths. A tattered fringe of storm-clouds whipped out ahead of it like the tentacles of some monstrous sea-creature. And it advanced at an incredible speed, covering miles of sea and sky in the few moments that we watched it.
My great-uncle's jaw squared grimly.
"'Tis too late to sacrifice the mizzen," he said. "We'd not have time to clear the wreckage."
His commands rang through the ship.
"Aloft, topmen! Strip her to a storm-jib! Hola, Coupeau! Double-lash your chase-guns and be certain the broadside batteries are secured and the ports closed. Batten all hatches, Saunders!"
'Twas as much as I could do to keep pace with him as he descended to the poop.
"Fetch a coil of light rope, Robert," he ordered briefly. "We shall all require to be lashed fast."
"Shall I carry Moira below?" I asked.
He hesitated.
"No, she will have a better chance——"
He checked himself.
"Let her bide on deck. Here we can aid her at need. Haste, boy! We must have the rope before the wind strikes us."
I slid down a stay to the maindeck and dug the rope out of a chest of spare gear which was bolted to the cabin bulkhead. My great-uncle's last words had impressed me even more than the spectacle of that baleful curtain across the northern sky; and I was thrilled, too, by the tense celerity with which the entire crew leaped to the task of preparing the ship to meet the tempest. There was almost no noise—a few shouts of command and hails of acknowledgment; but every man worked as if his life depended upon it. When the jib-sheet fouled Martin slashed it free with his knife, and the sail came down with a run. By the time I had regained the poop the upper spars already were bare.
Murray was standing with Moira and Peter beside the helmsman, and while they stared, fascinated, at the oncoming storm, his eyes were upon theWalrus.
"Flint must be sober," he said bitterly. "He is taking in sail. Stap me, what a fit end to a luckless day! In the hollow of my hand, and now— Aye, 'twould be all ways fitting did he escape, whilst we——"
A snarling moan, as of great winds tortured and confused, came to us from the belly of the storm. The sky darkened. A gust of air, sulfurous and warm, ruffled my hair. The moan became a howl, a clamor.
My great-uncle snatched the clasp-knife from the belt of the helmsman, a splay-footed Easterling, whose flat, gap-toothed face had remained impassive during all the excitement since Martin's warning shout had announced the storm's approach.
"Give me that rope, Robert," he exclaimed. "I am a fool to stand talking. Here, Peter!"
He flung the Dutchman a length of it.
"Bind Mistress Moira to those ringbolts—and best knot her to yourself as well. She'll not be able to stand alone. Aid me with this fellow here, Robert. We must tie him to the wheel."
One of the clouds in advance of the storm curtain reached out over us with a crackle of lightning-bolts and spatter of rain, and our fingers flew as we secured first the helmsman and then ourselves. The voice of the tempest was become a sullen, animal roar, riven at intervals by the crash of the thunder. And the immense curtain of its front overhung theJames, impenetrably sooty at the base, opaquely purple as it toppled forward. TheWalruswas a specter ship to leeward, and disappeared in the gloom as I watched.
"Oh, holy Mother!" gasped Moira. "'Twill be the end of all things."
And so it seemed. TheWalruswas gone. The northern coast of the island dimmed and vanished. For an instant the peak of Foremast Hill hung in the upper air. Then that, too, was blotted out. The purple twilight deepened. Rain sheeted down from clouds scarce higher than our mast-heads. A lurid glare of lightning flickered and was quenched in the sea. And the wind smote us with a mad howl of exultation, sucking up into its embrace everything that was not fastened to the deck.
TheJamesshuddered under the blow, bearing down by the head and heeling to starboard. My great-uncle and I were pushed forward on our faces. The helmsman was doubled over the wheel. Peter bent to cover Moira, crouching above her on hands and knees.
Presently the ship righted herself; but as she neared an even keel there was a prolongedcraa-aa-ack!of breaking wood, and the wounded mizzenmast went by the board, crushing a score of men in its fall and brushing as many more through the hole it stove in the starboard bulwarks.
A wail of agony pierced thinly the tumult of the storm, and theJameswas jarred from end to end as the big spar, with all its litter of yards and top-hamper, lunged at the hull like a trip-hammer, its dead weight dragging us broadside on into the path of the waves which followed the wind's first irresistible rush. Steep walls of water dropped on us from as high as the mainyard, thudding hollow on poop and fo'csle. Giant combers crowded so fast that we choked beneath their deluge. The waist was a lather of creamy seas that wrenched and battered at hatchcoamings and bulwarks.
Murray staggered to his feet and set his lips to my ear.
"Must—cut—free—mizzen—breach—hull——"
So much I understood, and assisted him to slash the rope which bound us to the deck. Peter saw what we were up to and loosed himself, taking care in his deliberate fashion to strengthen Moira's lashings. Then the three of us fought our way down into the hell-reek of the waist, where small boats and water-butts and dead men swirled fore and aft in a torrent of pounding seas.
There were axes in the box from which I had procured the rope, and we equipped ourselves with them, waded thigh deep through the tangle of water and wreckage and attacked the maze of stays and rigging that united the dangling mizzenmast to the ship. Not a man helped us. There was not a living man in sight aft of the mainmast, and it was as much as a man's life was worth to try to work aft of that point, for on the one side there was a wide breach in the bulwarks through which the waves poured, and opposite was the gap the mizzenmast had crushed. Whoever crossed the deck there must have been carried overboard, one way or the other.
Where we were we had some slight shelter from the poop, but 'twas sufficiently hazardous in all conscience. I can see my great-uncle still, in his black silk coat and breeches, all adrip with the salt water as he labored with the energy of a man of half his age, always swift to perceive the strategic center of the tangle, always first to wade into the tricky web of cordage where a misstep meant a plunge overside.
Twice Peter rescued him from certain death, and once the Dutchman saved me when a mountainous sea curled down upon us over theJames'bulwarks and was like to have carried me off in its passing. And it was Peter whose brute strength and cool-headedness made the most of my great-uncle's agility of wit, and hewed and hacked the mizzenmast from its moorings. Aye, and none too soon; for when we clambered back on the poop Moira met us with hands clasped in terror and pointed to leeward where a rocky headland loomed through the gray rain.
Murray gave it one look and leaped for the wheel. The Easterling was bent over in the odd, huddled posture he had assumed from the moment the storm hit us, and he lolled sidewise as my great-uncle grasped his shoulder, his body all askew from the small of his back upward. He made no response, and slipped lower in the coils of rope that bound him to his post; his gnarled fingers slid off the spokes; his feet went out from under him.
"His back is broken," shouted my great-uncle.
TheJameshad begun to gather headway; but as the wheel was released from the dead helmsman's grip her head fell off, and she dropped sluggishly into the trough of the seas which surged over the shattered waist, and one green hill of water burst squarely on the poop, hurling us to the deck. Peter recovered his footing before either Murray or I, shoved the Easterling's body aside and gripped the wheel in his own hands. Slowly, the buoyancy all out of her, theRoyal Jamesswung around in response to the rudder's thrust and lumbered off before the wind.
The headland Moira had sighted faded into the mist; but my great-uncle shook his head sadly.
"We are making water," he shouted to me; "and the island is to leeward. We scarce can weather it, and if we do——"
A faint hail reached us from the fo'csle.
"Land——"
And a rent in the storm-clouds showed a second and lower headland fair over our larboard bow.
Peter started to put the helm down to enable us to bear off as much as possible and have whatever chance there was of clearing it; but Murray caught his arm.
"No, no, Peter!" cried my great-uncle. "Head up! Head up! 'Tis the North Inlet! If we can pass in to sta'b'd of that spit we are safe."
"Ja," squeaked Peter, and his iron muscles forced the rudder over until it neutralized the drive of the wind and sea; and foot by foot theRoyal Jamesmade her southing, passed the east spit with half a cable's length to spare and opened a narrow, bottle-shaped roadstead, with tree-clad shores that offered protection from any storm that blew.
The rain was still pelting down. The surf was foaming on the outer beaches; the wind whistled shrilly in the rigging. But to us that prospect was the fairest ever seen. Moira sank to her knees in prayer beside the dead pirate. My great-uncle stepped to the rail and bade the survivors of the crew get sufficient sail on the ship to give us steerage way. And I—I tried to shake Peter. He blinked at me solemnly.
"I t'inkGottspoke out loudt to der tdefil today, Bob," he said. "Ja!"
Another less self-assured than Andrew Murray must have been dismayed by the series of misfortunes which had beset him. We were safe, but no more. TheRoyal Jameswas taking in water so rapidly 'twas necessary to beach her on the mud-flats at the south end of the inlet. She leaked like a sieve where the mizzenmast had thumped her side, and her upper works were in splinters. In the fight with theWalrusand the storm we had lost eighty-odd men, but more serious than this were the deaths of the two mates. Martin's body was found near the stump of the mizzen; he had been struck down by the mast he so distrusted. Nothing was ever seen of Saunders, and we could only suppose that he had been swept overboard.
The crew were apathetic and sullen, inclined to be mutinous and resentful of my great-uncle's authority. For the first time they had reason to question his omnipotence, and it required a full display of his ruthless temper to reduce them to subjection—an accomplishment to which he was aided considerably by Coupeau, and I am free to admit, by Peter and me, who could not afford to risk the brutal license which would certainly follow a successful revolt of the gundeck's polyglot horde. The former galley slave was a redoubtable ally with the nine-tailed cat, and a bruiser whose fists were as deadly sure as the long eighteens he handled so deftly.
The rain and wind ceased with the approach of darkness, and my great-uncle had the men mustered under the poop, many of them still bleeding from the punishment they had received. And of all his feats I deem that the most remarkable: To face, practically unaided, upward of a hundred and fifty men, who had just been curbed in the act of mutiny, without even sufficient light to enable him to exploit the compelling gleam of his tawny eyes. He beat them down—and held them down—by sheer power of will and utter fearlessness.
"You stand upon the deck of a wrecked ship," he said bleakly. "Under hatches lies sufficient treasure to make every one of you comfortable for life, to buy you dissipation or place or fortune, whichever you prefer. One man can lead you to repair the ship and conduct you where the treasure will be of use to you.
"I am that man. Without me you are doomed to spend your days chasing the goats on those hills; and if there is any repetition of the disorder exhibited today I shall maroon all of you save a number required to handle the ship.
"Get to work. Before you rest I expect the maindeck to be cleared and stagings rigged overside for resheathing and calking."
He drove them until midnight, then sent them reeling to their hammocks.
In the morning a systematic plan of occupation was arranged. By Coupeau's advice a handful of the more amenable of the crew—mostly negroes, Portuguese, Italians and Frenchmen of the south—were organized as an after-guard, and the remainder were divided into squads headed by men selected for skill at some special trade. One squad were to overhaul the sails and cut and sew from spare canvas a suit for the new mizzen, which a second squad were to hew on the slopes of Spyglass Mountain and transport to the ship. A third squad were to repair all exterior damage to the hull; a fourth were to recalk the started seams; a fifth were to attend to whatever internal repairs were necessary.
Coupeau was placed in charge of the work aboardship, and the rest of us carried Colonel O'Donnell's body to the top of a small hill east of the head of the inlet. There, in the midst of a grove of pines, we laid him to rest. 'Twas a noble situation for a wanderer who had never reached his goal, with the clashing boughs and the distant thunder of the surf to sound a requiem until the end of time and a view over green meadows and dwarf woodlands to the white rim of the beach and the blue sea, shining in the sun.
Yesterday seemed years past. I blinked my eyes, looking from the peaceful garb of nature to Moira's slim body huddled in prayer beside the mound of raw earth amongst the pine needles. On the edge of the grove the men who had dug the grave were playing a gambling game with the pine-cones. Peter leaned on a musket, gravely compassionate. My great-uncle, his eyes puckered in thought, was staring out to sea. As I watched, he twitched my coat sleeve and drew me to one side.
"I shall leave you to amuse yourself as you choose for the remainder of the day," he said. "'Tis for you and Peter to safeguard the maid. I must ascertain, if possible, what hath become of Flint."
"And then?" I asked.
"Then?" His eyebrows arched in surprise. "Why, then, Robert, we shall continue as we have done hitherto."
"You must pursue this insane scheme?"
He was as patient with me as if I were a fractious child.
"'Tis no 'insane scheme,' but a coup of high politics of fascinating import, my boy. I own to disappointment it doth not appeal to you more readily. What? Shall we cry quits, simply because of shipwreck? And after every move hath turned as we plotted it should!"
I shook my head hopelessly, but decided to try again.
"Bethink you," I argued, "the longboat can speedily be made weather tight. In her we might reach——"
"Put it from your mind," he interrupted with a hint of iron in his voice. "You little know me, Robert, if you reckon me one to turn back from what I have begun—in especial, this matter which consummates the ambition of my life."
"But we——"
This time the iron was uppermost.
"Boy, you are essential to my plans. Much as I love you, I— But we'll not talk on that plane. I am none for threats. Let it suffice that you are not to mention the subject again."
He wheeled around and left me, and with his escort of tarry-breeks strung out behind him was soon buried in the undergrowth on the lower flanks of the hill.
The sun was past meridian when Peter and I induced Moira to abandon the unmarked mound, and to divert her mind we led her on a tramp to the shoulders of the Spyglass, where a score of theJames'men already had felled a giant fir and were lopping the branches from the trunk preparatory to removing the bark. In the forest near by we killed a mess of birds, and Peter skilfully broiled them over an open fire, and after that, since she professed to enjoy the silence of the mountainside, we pressed on, beyond hearing of the ringing ax-blades, and finally came to the foot of the steep pinnacle of rock which was the lens of the Spyglass.
Here we would have halted, but Moira had heard the story of the watch the pirates maintained from the summit, and she insisted on completing the ascent, despite the lateness of the hour. And we, because we were for doing anything that would please her that day and relieve her grief, consented.
It was more difficult than it looked, and the sun was low in the west when we reached the platform at the top, stained and blackened by the beacon fires that had burned there. But the view was glorious. The island was spread out beneath us like a map on a table, from the Foremast Hill on our left all the way southward along the rocky spine of the west coast to Mizzenmast Hill and a cape to the west of that which old Martin had called Haulbowline Head. Eastward the irregular shore ran north and south to the indentation of Captain Kidd's Anchorage, the tree growth matted and thick except for several savannas midway of the island and the silvery loops of two or three small rivers.
We identified the masts of theJames, rising above the headwaters of the North Inlet, and the opening in the trees north and east of Captain Kidd's Anchorage that was the site of the fort Flint had built. And then Moira cried out:
"Oh, blessed saints, will that be a ship? Do but see, Bob! Peter!"
She pointed eastward; and there, sure enough, was a ship, or rather, the tops'ls of a ship barely lifting over the horizon's rim. If it had not been for the fact that the sun's rays were striking level across the ocean floor, and so were reflected from the sheen of the canvas, we should never have seen it, not even with a glass.
"Aye, 'tis a ship," I said.
"Ja," nodded Peter. "It is Flint."
Moira shivered.
"Troth, and who would it be else?" she demanded. "There'll be no friends of us come a-calling, I'm thinking."
"It might be a King's ship—" I began.
"No, then," she denied, "if this island is gone all these years without the King's ships finding track of it, 'tis not like they will come upon it sudden in this moment."
"'Tis a ship indeed," I agreed unwillingly. "Aye, a full-rigged ship."
"Ja, a ship like Flint's," said Peter.
We were silent for an instant, the three of us, dazed by the suddenness with which our whole outlook on the future had been changed by this unexpected loom of tops'ls leagues away.
"He must have weathered the storm," I said foolishly.
"And now the red fighting will begin all over again," cried Moira. "My soul, will there not have been deaths enough for this treasure? Every piece of it must be specked with men's blood."
"We better tell Murray," said Peter, moving toward the lip of the rock platform.
"But how could Flint be back so soon?" I protested. "'Tis impossible, Peter. He could not——"
"He could,ja," returned the Dutchman imperturbably. "Der storm was by in two glasses—andt der ship is yet maybe ten leagues off,neen?"
We descended the Spyglass in silence. Twilight overtook us in the forest at its base, and we were obliged to retrace our course with extreme caution, so that eight bells rang from theRoyal James—so exact was the restored discipline on that stranded hulk—as we stepped from the trees on to the shore of the North Inlet and hailed for a boat.
My great-uncle met us at the gangway, immaculate in plum satin coat and blue plush breeches, white silk stockings and black pumps, silver-buckled, his hair neatly tied with a black silk ribbon.
"Well, well," he greeted us, "you have made a long day of it. I trust you are not overtired, sweet?"
This to Moira.
"I have delayed sitting to dinner in hopes that you would be here. You can see—" he waved an all-inclusive hand—"that we have not been idle aboard theJames. We begin to look like a ship again, eh? Did you by chance see the new mizzen?"
"You better come to der cabin," said Peter abruptly.
"I beg your pardon?" answered Murray.
"We have something to tell you," I said. "It can not wait."
His eyes plumbed mine, and I think he knew in that instant what our news was. He clicked open his snuff-box and dusted a pinch delicately into his nostrils.
"So?" he murmured. "Sets the wind in that quarter!"
And he offered Moira his arm with the fine, stately dignity he achieved to perfection, and led the way aft to the main cabin.
"You may place the viands upon the table, Gunn," he said to the steward when we were seated. "We will serve ourselves."
He turned to Moira.
"I recommend this fish. 'Tis fresh-caught, and Scipio—" the remaining blackamoor—"is a master at such dishes; he hath stuffed it, you see, with greens he procured from the woods."
"We have scant time to eat, let alone to admire our food," I interposed roughly. "From the peak of the Spyglass at sunset we sighted the tops'ls of a ship in the east."
"I presume that you believe her to be theWalrus?" he returned.
"Ja," said Peter. "It is Flint."
"My faith, and who else would it?" asked Moira.
"Doubtless you are right," he assented. "Indeed, I do not question it. Our examination of the northern and eastern beaches today failed to disclose a trace of evidence to indicate what had become of theWalrus, and had she sunk some wreckage must have washed ashore. Yes, yes, my friends, our ill-luck is still with us. Flint rode out the storm. But that, Robert, is no reason why we should not secure the maximum of satisfaction from this tasty meal—all the more particularly so when we consider 'tis like to be the last for some days we shall eat in such comfortable surroundings."
"You take it coolly!" I exclaimed.
"And why not? 'Tis a disaster, I grant you, yet irritation will not aid me to redress it."
"You don't stay here,neen?" said Peter.
"Quite right, friend Peter. TheRoyal Jamesin her present plight would be a death-trap. I shall abandon her tonight and shift to the fort Flint was so obliging as to construct for us by the anchorage."
"And the treasure?" I asked.
He held up his wineglass to the light and studied it reflectively.
"Obviously, we must be where the treasure is," he returned at length. "Or, if you please, put it the other way round: The treasure must be where we are. I foresee a busy night for our people."
Moira thrust out appealing hands toward him.
"Oh, sir, why won't ye just be after calling out to this ship when she comes and bid them take what they will and go? Sure, that would be better than——"
"Tut, tut," he rebuked her. "A part of this treasure is to supplement the eight hundred thousand pounds intended for your father's friends—and they, my lass, are King James' friends. You are a good Jacobite, I trust, and would not see our Cause deprived of a single doubloon that might buy muskets in Lyons or swordblades in Breda?"
"Ah, 'tis little enough I feel for King James or any of them that will have sent thepadreto his doom!" she cried. "And what is a Jacobite or a Hanoverian, or what worth King George or King James, that you must be murdering and slaying and he that was a good man and kind—when he wasn't in liquor—should lie in heathen ground?"
She leaped up, quivering with passion lashed aflame.
"Jacobite! The toe of my boot to the word and them that use it! Little enough hath it meant to me but poverty and exile and the death of her that bore me and now—and now—thepadre—and now——"
She fled from the cabin in tears, and her stateroom door slammed after her.
"Poor lass! Poor lass!" sighed my great-uncle. "It hath been a trying day for her. We must be lenient."
"You should be down on your knees, beseeching her forgiveness, you who wantonly dragged her into this danger!" I snarled at him.
"'Wantonly,' Robert?" he objected mildly. "Certes, you should know better by now. My reasons were of the best, my motives of the highest."
He rang the silver bell in front of him, and when Gunn appeared said——
"Send Coupeau to me."
Then he turned to me again——
"You, of all persons, Robert, have least cause to censure me for Mistress O'Donnell's presence."
"I have most!" I retorted hotly. "I am so unfortunate as to be related to you, and therefor must be in some measure a sharer of the obloquy attached to your deeds."
He wagged his head sadly.
"Words! What rash, unreasoning words will not youth sponsor in its blind prejudices! Peter, I appeal to you: Doth not my grandnephew lie in my debt for my conduct in arranging for him the opportunity to squire our little Irish maid?"
Peter drained a glass of brandy.
"You better not say any more, Murray," he grunted. "Neen! Maybe you say too much."
"I had supposed myself the model of diplomacy," protested my great-uncle.
Peter's little eyes twinkled behind their protective rolls of fat.
"Ja, you been pretty smart, Murray. But der smart feller, he has to look oudt or he gets too smart.Ja! Andt when he gets too smart he is in trouble."
Coupeau's hideous mask of a face showed in the companionway entrance.
"Oui, m'sieu?" he growled.
"Ah, Coupeau," answered Murray. "A strange sail approaches the island, perhaps Flint, perhaps another. To us it matters not. We must entrench ourselves ashore. The treasure and sufficient stores for two weeks' sojourn will be shifted to the stockaded fort on the hill north of Captain Kidd's anchorage. The men must work all night again if necessary. Do you understand?"
"Oui, m'sieu," replied the gunner.
"That is well. You will rout them out at once."
"Oui, m'sieu."
And Coupeau clumped off down the companionway. A moment later his hoarse voice split the quiet of the ship as he commenced to bark his orders.
"A stout fellow, Coupeau," commented my great-uncle. "I have never regretted the salvaging of him. But perhaps it would be as well if we went on deck and lent him moral support."
As a matter of fact, there was less disposition than we anticipated on the part of the crew to object to this new labor. And the reason was not far to seek. The transfer of the treasure to the fort by the Anchorage furnished them an opportunity to establish an intimacy of contact with it they had not known previously, an intimacy alluring, stimulating, discomposing. True, they already had transferred the entire cargo of theSantissima Trinidadonce, had removed the half of it from theRoyal Jamesto the Dead Man's Chest, and only two days since had broken out the remainder for division with theWalrus.
But that was very different from shifting the squat, weighty, little chests and kegs and the canvas-jacketed bars overland in the darkness, along brush-paths dimly illuminated by occasional lanthorns and torches, into a corner of the log block-house which was the citadel of Flint's ramshackle fort—very different, too, from the realization that the treasure's well-nigh fabulous wealth was outside the charmed hull of theRoyal James, where Murray's personality and the arbitrary divisions of rank and intellect had reared an insuperable barrier betwixt it and themselves, lying instead in a promiscuous heap without a door to guard it, where any one of them could gloat over its bright mysteries.
Peter and I, with Moira and Ben Gunn and Scipio, followed the main column of the evacuation about midnight. Coupeau had led the first contingent, some of whom we met returning to the ship, to fetch a second load of stores. My great-uncle was to come after us with these and the remainder of the crew, leaving behind on theRoyal Jamesonly some twenty-odd men who had not yet recovered sufficiently from wounds received in the two actions with theSantissima Trinidadand theWalrusto permit of their removal, and who were made as comfortable as possible on the gundeck.
I noted uneasily that the groups who passed us were talking eagerly amongst themselves, with no appearance of the surliness to be expected normally from any sailors put to extra work, although they fell silent as soon as they saw who we were.
"They have never been drinking," I muttered to Peter.
"Neen," he answered. "But they get drunk on der treasure."
"Do but see how it is a fell curse upon all who touch it," said Moira. "Ah, blessed Virgin, that it were all in the depths of the ground where God first planted it!"
Our misgivings were justified when we toiled up the sandy slopes of the hill upon which the stockade was built. The glare of an immense bonfire showed through the trees, and rude voices were chanting that sinister sea-song which had been my introduction to the pirate brotherhood:
"Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest—Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!Drink and the devil had done for the rest—Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"
I had never heard it sung by theJames'crew before.
As we approached the palisades we descried through the openings a score or two of them, comical in their broad pantaloons, their belts bristling with cutlasses and pistols, prancing around the fire like Mohicans dancing a scalp.
They paid no attention to us, and we crossed the cleared area inside to the door of the blockhouse, where Coupeau lounged against the log wall.
"M'sieu le capitaineees com'?" he inquired.
I told him yes.
"Ees com' queeck?" he insisted.
I shrugged my shoulders to this, and he grunted.
"Maybe so we mak'—— com' at those rrrrascal," he suggested.
"Have they had any rum?" I asked suspiciously.
"Non. They have zee fire—and they see much trrreasure."
He paused.
"Maybe so you com'," he said, and without waiting for us to answer, strode alone toward the fire.
I shoved Moira inside the blockhouse, and Peter and I started after him. I made to draw a pistol, but Peter caught my arm.
"Neen," he said. "We do this wit' our fists andt our voice, Bob—or we don't do it at all."
Such were Coupeau's tactics—but he relied mostly upon his fists. He waded into the dancers, smiting right and left, and Peter and I came behind him. Several men reached for their cutlasses, but these we got to before they had time to draw steel. In the middle of the row Murray's voice flashed out from the shadows like a sword, and our opponents cowered away.
"'Sdeath," he drawled. "Will you fellows think to take advantage of me because I turn my back upon you for an hour or two?"
He came forward into the circle of light.
"I warned you no longer ago than last night," he went on icily. "It should have been sufficient. Coupeau!"
"Oui, m'sieu."
"Who began the trouble this time?"
The gunner fastened his awful visage upon the whitening faces of the group of trouble-makers.
"That man."
He pointed.
"Heem. Heem. Heem. Heem."
"Very good," said my great-uncle. "Most of us prefer to sleep, seeing that we confront the certainty of a busy morrow; but I have no wish to disappoint those who would amuse themselves tonight. Nay, I will provide entertainment for them. Take those five, Coupeau, and the fellows who broiled with them, and stand by whilst their followers lay on an hundred and fifty lashes with the cat for each."
There was an instant's silence, then a gasp of terror, and one man commenced to sob.
"Oh, Gawd, cap'n, sir, we'm can't stand no hun'erd'n' fufty lashes! No mortal man could. Doan't 'ee say it, sir! We'm'll crawl to 'ee, cap'n, sir, 'deed we will."
"You should have thought of that beforehand," replied Murray, unmoved.
"Not a hun'erd an' fifty, cap'n," pleaded a second man. "'Twill kill us, sure."
"I should not be surprized if it would," agreed my great-uncle, taking snuff. "In fact, were I in your shoes I should hope that it would. Take them away, Coupeau—out of earshot, if you please."
Daylight revealed theWalrusheading in toward the mouth of the Anchorage; but the smoke from our cooking-fires obviously puzzled her, and she heaved to and lowered a boat which pulled up the channel to investigate. 'Twas impossible from our hill-top to see what the boat's crew did; apparently they turned back so soon as they had convinced themselves theJameswas not lurking in ambush. And theWalrustook the boat in tow and bore off to the northward under full sail.
"She is bound for the North Inlet," commented Murray, pocketing his glass. "Flint will find theJamesand be with us again by mid-afternoon."
"When his battery will make short work of this gimcrack fortress," I said disagreeably.
"You are unduly pessimistic, Robert," he reproved me. "'Tis impossible for a vessel of theWalrus'draft to lie so that she can bring a full broadside to bear."
"Why not make terms with them?" I argued. "You have the eight hundred thousand pounds safe."
"I stated my opposing reasons last night to Mistress O'Donnell."
"But you had not then been compelled to flog five knaves to death," I objected. "This is no crew to fight a forlorn hope."
"They and their like have fought for me these thirty years," he replied placidly. "Nor do I consider the approaching struggle a forlorn hope. Let me involve Flint in an attack upon us here, and I promise you he'll not bring off enough men to work his ship. Also, you err in your first assertion, Robert. Only three of last night's mutineers have died. The other two are yet alive—albeit uncomfortable, I fancy; exceeding uncomfortable."
"And how they must love you!" I sneered.
"Fear me, you should say," he corrected. "As I have told you, I have developed my opportunities in life rather by stimulating men's fears than by angling for their affections. Affection, Robert—and the argument is applicable alike to that tender sentiment which arises periodically betwixt the sexes—is a most unchancy emotion. Fear, on the contrary, once aroused, is never forgotten."
"Ja," said Peters, "andt from fear grows hate."
My great-uncle smiled.
"I find myself, as always, moved to admiration of the philosophy you have distilled from your wide range of experience, friend Peter," he answered. "But suffer me to remind you that, in the language of the alchemists, fear and hate are mutually reactive principles, the one consuming and neutralizing the other."
Peter chewed a grass-stem without replying, and after a courteous pause to allow him ample opportunity, Murray inquired:
"Shall we ascertain if Mistress O'Donnell hath completed her toilet? I own to a normal morning hunger."
"Your mention of her is the mightiest argument for a settlement with Flint," I protested. "What hope is there for her, if you——"
"Robert," he interrupted gently, "you speak to no purpose. The maid's entire future is entangled with my success—and of my success there can be no reasonable doubt. What? Shall I bow the knee to that misbegotten crew of gallowscheats aboard theWalrus? You have seen them!"
His voice rose.
"You know how much of discipline there is amongst them. Do you think that men of their stamp can overcome me? 'Tis incredible, I say! I can not fail."
"Ja," said Peter, spitting out his grass-stem. "Once you failed."
"Failure is a word of relative significance," retorted my great-uncle. "By that which you term failure, Peter, I was impelled to adopt the career which hath nourished me to this pitch, that I am the center of a conspiracy which shall overturn kingdoms. Failure! You will be telling me next that I am lacking in godliness!"
"Ja," said Peter, unperturbed.
"I concede the point!" exclaimed my great-uncle, chuckling. "And seeing that we are at last in agreement upon one point, let us sink our other differences in a pot of chocolate."
There was no more to be said, and however unwillingly, Peter and I were constrained to do all that we could to aid in strengthening the position. 'Twas Peter's idea that the men be set to digging shallow pits behind the stockade to provide additional shelter against musketry fire from the border of woods and undergrowth at the base of the hill. 'Twas likewise Peter who suggested, vastly to her indignation, that we construct for Moira a shot-proof cubby-hole of treasure chests and kegs in one corner of the blockhouse.
We had scarce finished these preparations when theWalrusreappeared and tacked up the Anchorage to the elbow where it bends sharply around the larger island which covers the entrance. Farther she was unable to go because of shoal water, and for the same reason she was obliged to anchor practically bow on to us, which meant that, as Murray had predicted, she could train on the hilltop only her chase-guns and two or three of the carronades mounted for'ard on her gundeck. But she showed no immediate disposition to use her battery. Her people seemed to be concerned entirely with the task of disembarkation, and in the space of a glass we reckoned that all of a hundred and fifty men were landed and straggled irregularly into the forest.
Then there was a lull in Flint's activities, and we made our final dispositions for the anticipated attack. Murray stationed his men all around the circuit of the stockade, except for those included in what I have termed the after-guard. These fellows, about twenty in number, were held in the blockhouse as a reserve to be thrown to the support of any part of our line which might require assistance. Murray himself with Coupeau, Peter and me stood in the center of the enclosure where he could keep watch upon all that went on.
The afternoon was warm and drowsy. TheWalruslooked like a toy ship on the oily-smooth surface of the inlet. There was not a sign of life aboard her, and the forest that spread betwixt us and the shore hugged silently whatever secrets it covered.
My great-uncle frowned thoughtfully.
"This is not like Flint," he remarked. "He must always fly bull-headed to the attack."
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a shout came from the side of the stockade fronting the inlet.
"Here be Flint's Redhead!"
And conflicting cries:
"Shoot mun!"
"'Tis flag o' truce!"
"Ta lucky lad!"
We ran forward to the stockade, bidding the men withhold their fire, and Peter boosted me up on the cross-bar that bound the logs together. From this height I could survey the denuded slopes of the hill and the jungle growth of scrub trees and bush that cinctured it. And forth from the forest wall projected the unmistakable flaming locks of Darby McGraw, with one arm which flourished diligently what once had been a white shirt. At the first glimpse of me he scrambled into the open.
"Will ye be letting me come in, Master Bob?" he called.
"Why, that depends," I answered him. "Are you for spying upon us?"
"Sure, the thought was never in me mind. I ha' a message for himself."
"Who?"
"Himself—him that's uncle to ye."
"Well, seeing that we hear each other excellently as we are, suppose you speak your message from the spot you stand on," I said.
"Troth, that will suit me fine," he replied with alacrity. "And 'tis easy said. Flint will ha' Cap'n Murray shift the treasure to the foot of the hill, and that done, theWalruswill take it and go. If he won't, we'll be takin' it anyways—or if by chance we don't, we'll blow theJamesout o' the water and leave ye all marooned."
He waxed confidential.
"Aye, and he means that same, Master Bob. Ye may take me word for it. We're a wild, angry crew for the surprize ye give us in the dark."
"'Twas a fit reward for your treachery, Darby," I returned with some heat.
He hung his head, digging with his toe in the sand.
"Ah, but that's what pirates will be doing," he said. "And what way will there be kindness betwixt men if they do be fighting? Or wanting, the one, what the other has?"
"Maybe we haven't the treasure here at all," I suggested.
"We know dif'rent. The wounded men in theJameswere afther tellin' us."
I looked down inquiringly at my great-uncle.
"If they seek terms, they are uncertain of success," he said. "Send the boy away."
"But if they destroy theJames?"
"First they will attack—and after that we will deal with the problem of protecting the ship."
And as I hesitated——
"Be so good as to answer him at once, Robert, or I shall have him shot as he stands."
"Go back, Darby," I called. "Captain Murray will have none of your offer."
"God save us!" he exclaimed involuntarily. "I'm thinkin' that will be the death of many a tall feller, Master Bob. Well, good luck to ye and to Master Peter and the elegant young maid. If we all come out safe——"
My great-uncle leaped upon a tree-stump and fired a pistol over Darby's head. The boy stood motionless a moment, mouth agape.
"The old devil!" he howled then, and fled down the hillside for all he was worth.
Flint did not wait to receive Murray's verbal answer; that pistol-shot was sufficiently explicit. Three musket-shots echoed it from the foot of the hill, and at once there was a renewed bustle of men on the fo'csle of theWalrus. A puff of white smoke blew up from the deck, and the crack of a long twelve started myriads of seabirds from the seaward marshes. The shot sang over us and crashed into the forest beyond. The other chase-gun bowled a shot into the enclosure, where it simply buried itself in the soft sand. Two carronades, with lower mounts and shorter range, discharged missiles that fell short of the stockade. And that first salvo might pass for a chronology of the bombardment to which we were subjected until sunset.
One man was killed, and no material damage was done. The carronades were unable to reach the blockhouse with their heavier shot, and the Long Toms lacked the power to penetrate the green wood of the walls. Most of the round-shot plumped into the sand. Three posts of the stockade were knocked over and promptly set up again. That was all. The noise was most impressive, with the echoes reverberating across the island from the sounding-board of the Spyglass, but the net result was to imbue me with a confidence I had not previously entertained. When darkness intervened and the firing ceased we felt that we had been the winners of the first bout of the struggle.
In the mean time we had not seen a trace of the landing-party from theWalrus, and as the night shut down we all peered curiously through the posts of the stockade, expecting momentarily to discover a rush of crouching figures. But hour after hour passed without a sound to disturb the silence, and even Murray, whose nerves were of forged steel, became uneasy as he up-ended the hour-glass for the third time since sunset and decided to inspect the circuit of the defenses.
"There is another hand than Flint's behind these Fabian tactics," he observed. "Perhaps John Silver's. 'Tis a clever rogue, and a cunning. We can not be too vigilant."
Moira, poor lass, was asleep beneath the stack of gold and silver inside the blockhouse. Ben Gunn and black Scipio, equally frightened, were huddled on the doorstep; and the men of the after-guard were sprawled in the sand, some of them asleep, some of them gambling—the pirates of both crews were inveterate gamblers—at pitch-penny or with pebbles and shells or at a kind of mumbletypeg with their clasp-knives.
Coupeau joined us on the southern arc of the stockade. He reported dim flittings and shadowy movements on the lower hillside, but naught in the nature of an advance or a threat of one. Elsewhere the men rose from their burrows and sullenly or stupidly, according to their dispositions, affirmed they had seen no enemies. On the north side we came to a pit which was empty, and in the one next to it a man lay on his stomach as if asleep.
Murray prodded him with his sword, and the fellow groaned, but did not stir.
"What is the matter with this man?" demanded my great-uncle.
"Please, zur, 'tis Job Pytchens," answered the man next beyond.
"I asked what was the matter with him," said my great-uncle coldly.
"He'm wur one o' they as had a hun'erd 'n' fufty lashes, cap'n, zur."
I shuddered. My great-uncle took snuff.
"And who is gone from this vacant place?" he pressed.
"Tom Morphew, zur. He'm dead, zur."
"Was he shot?"
"No, zur, cap'n. He'm had a hun'erd 'n' fufty lashes, too."
"Where is he?"
There was a barely appreciable pause.
"Please, zur, us buried him," the man answered.
"Where?"
The man waved an arm vaguely over the sandy top of the hill.
"Ah! Well, you will leave unburied the next man who dies, be he Job or another—else I shall have the cat administered to all of you who have abandoned your posts without permission."
"'Iss, zur. Thank 'ee, zur," replied the man—but there was no thanks in his snarling voice; his face was masked by the darkness.
"Stap me," said Murray, turning away, "but these rascals are becoming as slack as Flint's tattertails!"
Across the clearing a musket exploded. Then another and another. A volley crackled from the lower slopes, and our men replied. A hoarse yelling underscored the firing.
"At last!"
Murray's voice vibrated with exultation.
"Now we shall scoop the rogues like so many grains of sand. The fools! A night attack is fatal with undisciplined men."
We ran past the blockhouse, where the after-guard were scrambling to their feet and Moira was wringing her hands in the doorway.
"Ye won't be leaving me!" she cried to us.
"You must remain under cover, my dear," said my uncle kindly. "'Twould distress all of us had we to be concerned for your safety."
"'Tis not lead or steel I will be fearful of," says she, "but the cruel memories that do be creeping from the treasure boxes. My troth, I'd liefer be here in the open than within."
My great-uncle hesitated, plainly exasperated by her persistence in remaining outside.
"Where is Gunn?" he asked.
"Oh, him!"
Moira's laughter trilled as lightly as if there were no messengers of death in the air.
"He's where ye would have put me first—under the treasure. And he's welcome to it."
"Be that as it may," he snapped, giving rein to his exasperation, "here you shall not stay, my lass, and we are pressed——"
A great roar of firing burst out upon the northern front of the stockade, and mingled with the reports of the muskets were shouts of:
"Down arms,Jameses!"
"Step aside,Jameslads!"
"All we want is old Murray!"
And a wailing voice cried over and over again—
"Here be Tom Morphew 'n' his bloody back, mates!"
The firing sputtered and dwindled and was succeeded by a prodigious scuffling and clatter of cutlasses.
"We'll do 'ee no harm,Jameses!"
And now I recognized Silver's voice.
"Strike arms,Jameses!"
Three men, one of them with a broken arm, raced up to us.
"Long John's in," sobbed one.
"Tom Morphew let 'em in," panted a second.
"Excellently planned," drawled Murray.
I heard the click of his snuffbox.
"Yet observe how fate hath tricked our opponents," he went on. "They timed their second attack to catch me on the southern side of the stockade, whereas, thanks to the perversity of womankind, I am strategically disposed to exploit the disorder which attends their success. I think we shall teach the clever Master Silver a lesson."
"Yes, if your men are loyal," I said angrily.
"Any crew are loyal in victory, Robert," he answered.
"Ja," spoke Peter, "but you better not let dot feller talk about his bloody back."
"You are squeamish, it seems, Peter," murmured my great-uncle. "Well, I shall even seek to humor you. Coupeau!"
His voice hardened.
"Oui, m'sieu."
The gunner stepped from the huddled ranks of the after-guard.
"We attack."
But indeed the attack was made upon us. We had not advanced four paces from the shelter of the blockhouse when fifty or sixty of the invaders stormed out of the night, howling and waving their cutlasses. We fired one smashing volley that dropped a fourth of them, and charged. A few pistol-shots met us, but most of theWalrus'men had discarded their muskets, preferring to fight sailor-fashion with the cutlass, and they were utterly disheartened by the unexpectedness of the reception we gave them.
Murray's slender dress-sword was a bodkin of death which pricked a path through the densest ranks. On one side of him Peter swung a clubbed musket which shattered heads and limbs at every step. On his other side Coupeau wielded a cutlass with equal effect.
A yellow crescent moon was riding over the treetops, and we halted in the gap the attackers had torn in the stockade to survey our situation by its light. Half-way down the hill a group of theWalrus'men rallied and commenced to fire up at us; and Coupeau was for pushing after them, but my great-uncle checked him.
"No, no, Coupeau! Yonder is John Silver, astraddle of the stockade. See, he is helping up another fellow. They have been cut off by our charge, and if you please, we'll deal with them first."
I will admit a pang of sympathy for Silver. He was not more than twenty yards from us, and by dint of well-nigh incredible efforts, with the other man to boost him, he had succeeded in scaling the stockade and was sitting there, with his one leg dangling inside. When we discovered him he started to swing his leg over the top, evidently intending to abandon his companion. But whether because of something the other man said or because he feared he must injure himself in dropping the eight feet to the ground without any one to check his fall, he abruptly changed his mind and faced about toward us very resolutely, seizing hold of the crutch which hung from his neck by its thong.
The man at the foot of the stockade gathered himself together like a coiling serpent and plucked a long knife from his belt. He had been in the shadow until then, but now the moonlight shone over his torso and we recognized him for the blind man, Pew. He had lost his green eyeshade, and his pockmarked face was cadaverous in the yellow glow. His eyes were open, and they seemed to smolder dully as they strained at us. His knife glinted in his hand.
"Will you be assisted down and be hanged whole, or must we cut you down, Silver?" hailed Murray.
He, like the rest of us, ignored the blind man. Our attention was fixed upon Silver, his broad face very calm in the moonlight.
"Them there ain't exackly tempting terms, Cap'n Murray, sir," Silver answered temperately. "Couldn't ye be a mite more generous?"
"I am serving you a dish no more highly sauced than that you intended for me," returned my great-uncle dryly.
"Now, sir; now, sir," remonstrated Silver. "How can ye say that? All we done was to try and persuade ye to give us our share o' the treasure—you havin' eight hundred thousand pound stowed away special, accordin' to your own story. And if we come in by the back door a'ter it, why that was so's we'd hurt ye least."
"You'd argue yourself to a block of ice in Hell, Silver," rejoined my great-uncle amusedly. "Throw down that crutch! Drop that knife, you, sirrah, Pew—or whatever your name is!"
Sword in hand, he advanced ahead of the rest of us, who were strung out all the way from the gap in the stockade. Coupeau was at his elbow, and Peter and I close behind.
"Come," he adjured them a second time. "I'm in no mood to talk terms, and if you delay 'twill make your end the more painful."
Silver's face went livid in the moonlight.
"Aye," rasped the one-legged man, "ye'll lash us bloody-raw like the lads as let us in tonight."
And as Murray continued to advance, he struck out with his crutch.
"Keep off," he shrieked. "Keep off!" And then: "I can't reach him, Ezra. Let him have it!"
Pew crouched with his knife-hand drawn back.
"Aye, it takes blind Pew to let him have it," he croaked in his hateful voice.
His hand jerked forward. There was a flash in the moonlight, and my great-uncle staggered, the flung knife buried to the hilt in his side.
"I am stabbed," he gasped.
Silver brandished his crutch over his head.
"Pew's stabbed Murray!" he shouted. "Come on,Walruses! Lay off, yeJameslads—we'll not harm ye, mates. Treasure for all, and no more tyranny!"
Peter and I caught my great-uncle as he fell. Coupeau jumped at the blind man with a bellow of rage, cutlass raised to strike; but as he came within reach Silver poised his crutch like a spear, leaned over and drove the sharp spike of the ferrule through the gunner's eye into the brain. Coupeau dropped in his tracks.
"I ha' done for Coupeau," Silver shouted again. "Don't make Long John do it all, lads!"
There was such a rush of enemies, such a howl of exultation, as took my breath away.
"Do you hold Murray, Peter," I said. "I'll finish that precious pair."
And I ran in at Pew, albeit more warily than Coupeau; but the blind man—and certes, if he was blind his hearing was so marvelous as to make up for it—retained a clubbed pistol, which was a serviceable weapon at close quarters, and Silver covered him overhead with that deadly crutch. I shouted to the after-guard to shoot them, but our people had not reloaded their pieces, and many were already engaged with the party we had just driven out, who swarmed in again through the same gap. Those of theJames'men who were nearest were palpably lukewarm, and Silver, atop of the stockade, perceiving his advantage, thrust his crutch at me and continued trumpeting his rallying-cries.
"Murray's a goner, mates! Coupeau's shark-bait! There's only the two Buckskins left. Go easy wi' theyJameses. Naught for ye to fight about,Jameslads! We'll divide square with ye."
Men swirled toward us from all sides of the stockade, theJames'crew mingled with theWalrus, and where our people fought at all 'twas faint-heartedly and to no purpose. We were pressed back, and presently were put to it to avoid being surrounded.
"We go to der house, Bob," squeaked Peter. "DerJamesmen don't fight for us no more."
He had Murray's limp body slung over one shoulder and still retained the iron barrel of his musket—the stock had been demolished; but he ran easily beside me through the sand.
There was tremendous confusion within the stockade enclosure, and but for this and a considerate cloud which draped the new-risen moon we should never have gained the blockhouse. Our men disappeared at every yard. Two were slain in the beginning of the retreat, and the continuous cries of "stand off,Jameses—us won't hurt 'ee," sapped the remainder of such loyalty as had survived the vicissitudes of the last few days.
We reached the blockhouse alone on the side opposite the door, and circled it cautiously, no little concerned for Moira's safety, for pistols were popping and cutlasses clashing in several directions close at hand. With the moon obscured we could not see a musket's length ahead, and as I turned in toward the black oblong of the doorway I tripped over a corpse.
"'Tis on your own head your death will be, my man," said a cool voice. "I can hear you fine, and if you're not after——"
"Moira!" I exclaimed.
"And is it you, Bob? Oh, blessed saints, but I'm that glad. I thought you were— Is that Peter?"
"Ja," said Peter.
"And what will ye have on your shoulder? A dead man? Is it him I shot a few minutes back?"
"'Tis Captain Murray," I answered, making way for Peter.
"Oh, Queen of Heaven! Sure, we're in bad case."
"We are," I assented grimly as I followed Peter inside. "Have you a light?"