"I must have a word with Piper."
The Parson was down the ladder in a flash.
The old foretop-man, humming his hymn in the eternal twilight, turned.
"Well, sir?"
"You've heard, Piper?"
"I've hard, sir. And if so be a common seaman might make so bold, there's but one thing for it, and that's the cold steel."
He laid his Bible aside and took up his cutlass.
"It's a forlorn hope, Piper."
"It's the only one, sir."
The Parson swung round.
"And there's another thing," he cried in terrible agony. "What about you, Piper? We shall take it in the open; butyou, you'll have to wait for it. Ican'tleave you to fall alive into the hands of those—those—O my God! my God!" stamping up and down.
There was quiet thrill in the voice that answered,
"They ca'an't touch me, sir. I'm safe in Jesus." The old man seemed to shine in the darkness.
"It's not death I fear for you!" cried the Parson. "No Christian fears that for his friend. It's—it's the old game—the Gap Gang."
"Ah, they won't have no time for no larks," interposed the other with a comfortable chuckle. "They can do their muckiest. It won't last long. The soldiers'll stop that."
The words, and the way of saying them, quickened the Parson to tremendous life.
"You're right, old friend," he cried, his voice naming in the gloom."Death to face, but nothing to fear."
"Death to face," echoed the old man, "and Christ to follow."
"I'm distressed to disturb you," came a cold voice from without. "But time's nearly up."
"You said five minutes, sir!" called Kit.
"You've had three, my boy. You've got two."
"And we'll make good use of em," gasped the Parson, and raced up the ladder.
Snatching the despatch-bag from the staple, he tumbled the contents on the floor, and set the whole ablaze. The papers curled and crackled; and their dreadful secret escaped joyfully in merry little flames.
"May God deal so with all traitors in his own good time!" prayed theParson.
He trod out the flames, and turned to the boys.
"I'm goin for em."
"So'm I, sir—and Blob."
"So be it!" said the Parson, short and fierce. "Out knives. Off coats.Tighten belly-bands."
He was on his knees, stuffing his coat into the empty despatch-bag, working in a white fury.
"Now ask no questions, but listen, and obey! I'm going to undo the back doornoisily. You'll undo the front doorquietly. I shall sally, the despatch-bag slung across my shoulders—so—see?— Give me a good start. Choose your moment. Then follow."
The words came swift as hail. The Parson was at his best—the Englishman in action, back to the door, face to Eternity. The shock and storm of circumstance made lightning in the dark of his mind. He saw all before him clear as a landscape at night in the flashes of a thunderstorm.
"Directly they begin to close on you, you'll get a panic—a screaming panic. Bolt back for the cottage; slam the door; lock and bar; through the house, out at the front, and make for the lugger! You may not be seen—the cottage'll cover you: and I'll keep em occupied as long as I can. If all goes as I hope, you'll find the lugger unguarded. The rest I must leave to you and the Almighty. It's a poor chance, but the only one."
"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" came the warning voice from without.
The Parson slid down into the darkness.
"Piper," he cried, hoarse and dry. "I believe—I believe these lads will win through. It's God's battle. Hemusthelp."
"He will, sir," replied the old man, firm as faith.
"I'm a clergyman. You're a good man. This is a desperate business.Will you give us your blessing?"
He was down on his knees, in his white shirt, his sword a gleam of silver on the slabs before him.
"Kit."
The boy, swift to grasp his meaning, knelt beside him, pulling Blob after him.
An arm stole round him; his stole round Blob.
So they knelt in the twilight, hugging close in that aweful sense of loneliness that comes to men when the Gates of Death are seen to swing back to let them through.
Kit thought of his Confirmation six months ago.
Now the end was come—so soon.
Well, well, he had often died before. And how clearly it all came back to him, this final stage in the little pilgrimage, these last few steps, solemn, beautiful, and slow, up to the familiar threshold; then the old door, the old smile, and—the old forgetfulness.
He had no regrets, and was strangely calm, strangely uplifted. He could look back without shame, and forward without fear. Now he was thankful that in these days of his ordeal he had been true to himself and to his trust. He had done his best. There was little more to do. That little should be done as became the son of his father.
In the gloom they knelt before this unanointed Priest of Jehovah.
His office sat upon that white old man, native to him as his soul.
He spread his great-knuckled hands above them, a patriarch, a prophet, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.
"God bless you, sir—and you, Master Kit—and you, Boy Hoad." He drew his hand across his mouth.
"So be. Amen," he added solemnly.
"Amen," said they all.
The Parson rose.
He gripped the old man's hand.
Blob he patted on the back.
"Kit," he said, and, drawing the boy towards him, kissed him.
"Time!" came the stern voice from without.
The Parson slammed back the last bolt with a clang, and whipped up his sword.
"Ready?"
The man was in a white flame, roaring for battle.
"Yes."
Time had stopped: Eternity was there.
"Then God help us all to die!"
He flung back the door and plunged.
It was a venture of despair; but there was no despair in that heart of oak.
Swift as a flood, and as silent, he made for the wall, the despatch- bag flopping in the small of his back. And his silence added to the terror of his coming.
The white-hearted crew huddling behind the wall felt it. Here and there a scared head dodged up only to duck again.
One man alone left cover and went out to meet the solitary swordsman.
The Gentleman vaulted the wall, and came across the sward with steady eyes, twisting his sword-knot about his wrist.
There was a rimy look about his face, and a snarl in the voice that shouted to the crew behind him,
"Come! close in there! You've got to finish this job before you go.The soldiers are on your heels, remember."
Close at hand a sudden drum rolled.
It smote the guilty hearts of the Gang like a summons to the LastJudgment.
"What's that?"
They rose up like dead men and looked behind them. It was not much they saw, but it was sufficient.
Close in their rear, on a rise of the ground, a man stood against the sky, thundering fatally on a monster drum.
He wore a red coat; he was a soldier.
And as they gazed, he beat a furious rat-a-tan-tan and charged.
That was enough. The Gang broke.
The Gentleman flashed round to meet the new danger.
He saw a pair of twinkling legs, a huge drum, belly-borne, and two drum-sticks, brandished vaingloriously, driving a rout of men before them.
The humour of the thing seized him.
"Well done, Soldier!" he laughed, and was back over the wall in a trice, attempting to stop the rout.
He might as well have attempted to stay the tide. A torrent of men tumbled past him in howling tumult.
He stood like a lighthouse in the tide-way.
"What! one man lick the lot o you!" came the whipping voice. "O, goodGod!" with a passion of scorn—"you sweeps! you swine!"
His blade flashed and fell.
"Pretty stroke!" shouted the Parson, flying the wall. "At em again, sir!" He cut in fiercely on the flank. "Come on, Knapp!—That's the style! Bellyful for once! Bellyful for the boy!"
"I'm there, sir!" cried Knapp, very brisk and bright.
He had flung aside his drum, and was tearing up, wielding his drum- sticks like battle-axes.
"Into em!" bellowed the Parson. "Give em the glory o God! Give em theLord's own delight!"
He was hounding at the heels of the last smuggler, and the Gentleman was hounding at his.
"Ow's that-a-tat-tat? ow's that?" cried Knapp, racing up from behind, and came down with a flourish and a thump on the swordsman's head as he thrust.
Down went the Gentleman in sprawling ruin.
"That's a little bit o better, ain't it?" chirped the Cockney, and skipping over the fallen man, he was at the Parson's side, in the thick and fury of it, bringing down his drum-sticks to the battle-cry of,
"Ow's that-a-tat-tat? ow's that?"
The old man and the boys watched from the cottage. The door was ajar. They huddled behind it, peering. Beside them lay the table, a musket across it. In the silence they could hear each other's hearts.
"Say, Maaster Sir!" whispered Blob. "Be you fear'd?"
"Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies," replied Kit. "Be you?"
"Oi dun knaw," replied the cautious lad. "Moi insoide seems koind o swimmy loike."
"Then stand by to lend a hand with this table when I give the word," was all Kit's answer.
He was watching with all his eyes.
Parson and Gentleman were about to clash.
Then a little figure rose out of the earth, and sullen thunder smote on the silence.
Piper drew a deep breath.
"I thart so," he said, comfortably.
"Who is it?" asked Kit.
"Jack Knapp, sir," said the old man, picking his teeth. "Sneaked a drum from a travellin showman by the look on it, and tow-rowin like a rigiment. See him thump it. Ho! ho! That's joy to Jack, I knaw. Now he's for chargin em, drum and all. Ha! ha!"
Whoever else might escape there was no hope for that wingless old man. His fate was certain, his end was already come. Within five minutes at most the great doors would have slammed on him for ever. And here he sat chuckling like a boy at a fair.
It is something to be a saint, thought Kit, something to be as sure as that. This old man had built his house upon the Rock indeed.
They watched the stampede, and the Gentleman's vain attempt to stay it. Their hearts surged to the Parson's battle-cry, and sank to the Gentleman's thrust, to surge again as Knapp felled his man.
"Knapp'd him a nice un," chuckled the old man, not above a pun at death's door. "Reglar revellin in it is Knapp, I knaw."
"Our time's coming!" panted Kit. "Stand by, Blob!"
The Gentleman was down, the Gang upon the run. "Now, sir!" criedPiper. "Now's your chance."
"Now, Blob!—nippy with the table there!"
Out they rushed, and dumped the table down on the left of the door.
"That'll do, sir, thank you," said the old man, trundling out after them. "That'll cover my flank nicely…. Butter-my-wig!" with kindling eyes on the battle, "but Mr. Joy's busy."
"Come on, Blob!" yelled Kit.
"Come along, boys!" roared the Parson. "Pretty work forrad, and plenty for all!"
The Gentleman rose white-faced from his knees.
"A moil a moil" he shouted, waving.
Behind him Kit heard a yell, and the crash and scatter of men storming down the shingle-bank.
Then silence as they took the grass.
He flung his head across his shoulder as he ran.
The lugger-guard, loosed at last, were hurling across the greensward at him, bayonets at the charge.
Such tall and terrible men!—and how they strode along, bearskins a- bob, savage eyes smouldering, snapping fierce phrases at each other as they came!
Kit loosed his soul in a ghastly scream.
"Back, Blob!"
It was well done, and not difficult to do. He had but to utter the horror that was in him.
"O, Kit!" came the Parson's resentful bellow.
"I'm afraid!" screamed the lad. "I can't help it. O-o-o-h!"
He ran with huddled head, clutching at the boy before him.
"Attrapez ces gaillards! Ne tirez pas!" shouted the Gentleman. "Un deux d'entre vous leur coupent le chemin! Les autres, par ici!"
"Ah, oui, mon Général!" panted the Corporal. "Francois! Albert!"
Two men sprang away from the rest and raced to intercept the boys.
What a pace they ran! Their black-gaitered legs seemed to skim the ground.
The boy had not allowed for such speed.
"Toi de l'autre côté de la chaumière. Moi ici!" called the swifter of the two.
He flashed behind the cottage, and flashed up again round the gable- end.
Kit recognised him. It was François, his friend of the dawn.
"Tiens! c'est toi, mon gars!" cried the man, with a quick smile.
A simple countryman, this François, he was a soldier because he had to be. That business beyond the wall, where the swords and shouts were, was little to his liking. This was a job after his own heart. He was a boy playing prisoner's base with another boy. Neither would be hurt.
So as he slewed round the gable-end he smiled.
Kit saw the smile and resented it. It angered him that this fellow did not take him seriously. He had not to resent it for long.
The smile died a swift and terrible death on François' face.
"Dâme!" he screamed, and slithered back on his heels. A musket barrel was thrusting into his flank.
"Pray!" said a solemn voice.
There was a horrible plop as the man collapsed, coughing.
The old man clapped his smoking musket down, and snatched his cutlass.
"Any more for me, sir?"
"Another on your right, Piper!"
"Very good, sir."
The old man spun himself to the corner, and waited behind the wall.
The boy, running with all his might, watched fascinated.
Round the corner the doomed man whirled with a grin. The cutlass swooped. The fellow sprawled over his slayer, the shock of the onset rolling the chair back. The old man shook off the body, as he might have shaken off a cloak, and backed himself, cutlass bloody in his mouth.
"In with you, Master Kit!"
"You too!" panted Kit, thrusting the chair before him.
"No, sir, no!" fiercely. "I can do a bit o business here yet." He was loading swiftly, eyes on the battle. "Starn agin the door, larboard in the loo'th, and cutlass-room all round—what better can a seaman want?"
"But—"
"Sharp, sir!—No time to waste. Here they come."
The Gentleman had gathered his Grenadiers in his hand, and was swinging them back at the cottage.
"In with you, sir!" urged the old man, ablaze. "Bolt and bar."
"O Piper!" whimpering.
"Nelson, sir!"
The word went home. The boy shot in, and slammed the door. All again was darkness, and Blob breathing heavily at his side.
"I'm through! I'm through!" came a triumphant yell.
Kit's eye was at a crack.
The Parson had broken away from the rout, and was making for the hills, the despatch-bag flopping in his back.
The Gentleman, leading the charge at the cottage, turned.
"Abattez moi eel homme là!" he sang.
A Grenadier dropped to his knee.
Outside the door a musket cracked.
The Grenadier leapt to his feet, whirled round with floating tails, bowed to his executioner in absurdest doll-fashion, and subsided languidly into death.
The Parson was away, the Gentleman after him with sleuth-hound strides.
The bunch of Grenadiers stormed on for the cottage.
Kit shot the bolts.
He was banging the door of life on that maimed old man, and he would as soon have slammed the gate of heaven in his mother's face.
"Good-bye,dearold Piper!" he whispered.
"Good-bye, sir," cheerily. "And if I might make so bold my sarvice toLard Nelson—Ralph Piper, oldAgamemnon."
There was silence: then the patter of feet and deep breathing of men racing to kill.
Kit could see the back of the old man's head on a level with his eye, and just beyond, growing hugely on his gaze, the face of the leading Grenadier, livid beneath his bearskin.
Kit shut his eyes as he rammed the last bolt home. Close to his ear, he heard a voice, low as the sea and as deep. It was humming
Soldiers of Christ arise.
That too ceased.
Old Faithful was spitting on his hands.
A crash and grunt covered the noise of the front door opening.
Kit peeped out. The way was clear.
"Now, Blob! for your life."
Out the boys sped.
How still it was on this side after the other!
There was a fury of fighting in the distance and a dreadful smothered worry against the back door; here a tranquil sward, trees bowing, and the shingle-bank a roan breast-work against a background of silver.
"Run quietly, boy! On your toes like me. You run like a walrus."
"Tidn't me," gasped Blob. "It's ma legs. They keep on a-creakin."
Swiftly they fled across the grass.
Was there anybody at the lugger?—were they free?
The boy was sick with hope.
Behind him he could hear far yells and the occasional clash of steel. Kit guessed what had happened. The Parson, wary old man of war, his ruse successful, the enemy drawn off, had flung back into the fight.
So far his plan had worked to a miracle.
The boy recalled Piper's last words.
His sarvice to Lard Nelson!
Piper never doubted then. Piper had been sure.
And Piper was right. The Lord was on their side. He felt it, and his spirit began to sing.
Then the song died, and his soul with it.
He could hear voices behind the shingle-bank. A double-sentry at the least had been left over the lugger.
Well, they must go through with it now.
"Knife ready?" he croaked.
"Ye'."
The grass was growing sparse about them. He began to hear his feet. So did the men beyond the bank. There was the click of a cocking musket. The fellow was ready: the fellow would pot them at twenty yards as they came over the crest.
Thought was lost in lightning action.
"Holà, l'ami!" he yelled.
"Qui vive?" came the unseen voice.
"Ami! à moi!"
Feet crashed up the shingle. As he topped the crest, a Grenadier, all eyes and bayonet and bristling chin, was plunging up the steep, another at his heels. The first flashed his eyes up in the boy's.
"Sapristi!" he cried, and tried to come down to the ready. The shingle roared away beneath his feet. Back he slithered. And as he did so, Kit launched down on him.
"Sacré nom!" the fellow screamed, and toppled back on the bayonet of his mate.
Kit ran over his falling body into the arms of the other.
"Take the man behind!" he yelled back.
Arms wound about him: a stertorous breathing was at his ear: for a moment the two rocked, then fell.
The boy was buried alive. A stifling carcase blotted out the sun. His arms were pinioned, but his hands remained free.
Short-handling his dirk, he turned it in.
"Assassin!" muttered the man, in his ear.
Kit pressed and slowly pressed. The man writhed and tried to rise. The boy's lithe young arms, though they could not squeeze to death, could hold; and hold they did. The man saw it, ceased to struggle, and hugged.
Thank God the boy had the under-grip. His arms protected him. Else he must have burst.
A groan was squeezed out of him.
"Quittez donc!" in his ear.
"Jamais," faintly.
He pressed and pressed. The man hugged and hugged. One must give. Which should it be? Not he, not he, not he, though he fainted. Piper had beensure.
A warm gush spouted out upon his fingers, and trickled down his fore- arm.
It was horrible. He felt it to be murder, not war. Yet that python- embrace was squeezing the heart out of his mouth.
Great heavens!—was the man made of iron?—would he never have enough?
Then he felt a prick in his own flesh. Perforce he stayed his hand.
Well, he had done his best. And even at that moment, his brain swimming to a death-swoon, his humour flashed out of the darkness to his succour.
If that didn't stop the chap, hang it! he deserved victory.
But it did.
Gently, very gently, the arms relaxed. He could feel the man fading away and away in his embrace. All that power and stress of life was pouring out into infinity. The man was dying at his ear. Lying his length upon the boy, he shuddered from head to heel.
"Marie," he sighed.
There was a last ripple of life, and the boy knew he was holding earth.
He wriggled out into the light with throbbing temples.
His hand and shirt-cuff caught his eye. He started back. They followed him. He tried to fling his hand away. It would not be flung. He stared, breathing like a frightened horse.
His jaw dropping, he looked at his handiwork.
The fellow was lying on his face, long legs wide. But for the hilt of the dirk sticking out of his loins, he looked much as other men. Yet— he was not. Think! A minute ago—and now! How wonderful it all was, and how terrible! The mystery of it made chaos in his brain.
He was frightened at himself, even more than at the dead man, or his deed.
Leaning back on his hands, the man he had killed at his feet, those instant questions which oppress us all in the rare moments when we stand still and are compelled by the shock of circumstance to look inward on ourselves, drummed at his brain.
What was he?—where was he?—why was he?
He staggered to his feet, pressing his hands to his eyes, to try to recollect his meaning.
He failed, only recalling his mission of the moment.
Shutting his eyes, he grasped the dirk.
"Awful sorry," he whispered hoarsely. "I must," and plucked it forth with a shudder.
Then he looked up.
The first Grenadier lay spread-eagled on the slope above him.
Blob was crawling out from beneath him, his pink muzzle thrust up with an air of grave and innocent amazement.
Kit pointed a finger.
"Ha! ha! you do look funny!" he laughed madly. "You're like one ofMagic's puppies poking out to have a first peep at the world."
"Oi loike killin better'n bein kill'd," Blob announced solemnly, and crept out on hands and knees, a tip of pink tongue travelling about his lips. Then he turned to his dead.
Kit wound up again.
"Never mind about him," he said, staggering to his feet. "He'll keep.This way. Bring his musket along. Quick!"
He picked up the musket of his own dead, and swayed blindly down towards the lugger.
Blob followed at first reluctantly. Then some memory amused him, and he began to brim slow mirth.
"Er says—'Dear! dear!' and Oi says—'Theer! theer!' and plops it in, and plops it in."
Still adrift on the sea of his emotions, Kit paid no heed.
He was swimming down the shingle-bank, aware of nothing but the tip of his nose and vague bad dreams at the back of his heart.
The lugger was lying on the steep of the shingle, poised as though for launching.
The swarthy jib was bellying seaward. She was yearning for the water.
Kit rallied.
The slope was with them; the wind was with them; the very boat was with them. And the tide, running in with a splash, already flopped about her keel.
How soon would she float?
Two minutes might do it—or twenty.
There was not a moment to be lost.
"Throw your musket aboard her!" cried Kit, bringing up against the lugger. "Now put your shoulder to and heave with a will! heave!"
They might as well have tried to move a mountain. Yet even as the boy strained, a wave shot up and sluiced his feet. And how that cold clasp warmed his heart!
The tide was tumbling in, the Lord God thrusting it. A minute, a little minute, and they would be away.
"Aboard her, Blob!" he panted. "That's right, clumsy! Noisy does it! Now chuck every single thing you can lay hands on, overboard—except the muskets, idiot!"
Fiercely the boys set to work. Kits and cans, ballast and blocks, spare spars and tackle, higgledy-piggledy overboard they went, some on the shingle, some splashing into the tide, to be snatched and tumbled and ducked.
As yet they were not discovered. Kit working madly in the belly of the boat could see nothing; but afar he could hear the Parson's terrible roar, and Knapp's crisp,
"Ow's that-a-tat, ow's that?"
Somehow, only the Lord knew how, those two inspired warriors still kept the ring.
It was great, but it could not last. The end must come, and it must come soon.
Anxiously the boy peeped over the side. The tide seemed to mock them. With what a swoop it rushed to their rescue, and with what a scream of derision it withdrew again! Kit compared it unconsciously to the to and fro of the emotions in his heart, now surging him heaven-high, now leaving him stranded.
Then he spied a greased bat for launching lying on the slope. In a trice he was overboard, had seized it, and racing down the streaming shingle as a wave withdrew, thrust the bat beneath the keel. The wave curled, stemmed by the advancing water, and swept about him to the knee.
As it clasped the lugger, a puff of wind leapt from the land, and skirmished across the sea.
The jib filled to it, and strained seaward.
Was he wrong?—or did she stir and tremble, like a girl to her lover?
How to help her?
If they could hoist the main-sail!
He was back over the side in a moment.
The boat was clean-swept now of everything but the muskets and a mess of shingle for ballast at the bottom. The anchor had gone over the stern and trailed on the slope. Even Blob had disappeared.
Kit pushed at the boom to thrust it over.
"Blob! Blob! where are you?"
"Here Oi be!" panted a voice forward.
Kit turned to see Blob, his shoulders rounded, and arms taut, heaving at the main-mast.
"She wun't budge!" he cried, his face crimson with honest effort."Seems she's grow'd in loike."
"Fool!" he cried. "Lend a hand with the boom here! Shove, boy, shove! —Now on to the main-brace! No, fool, no!—Here—on to this! Now all together—heave! heave! heave!"
The great sail rose, groaning terribly.
Heaven send the smugglers hadn't heard!
But they had.
So much a far scream told them.
"We're seen!" panted Kit. "Now whistle for the wind, my boy, and hand me that musket."
The water was slopping all about the lugger. Empty as a barrel she began to rock to the rocking of the tide. A puff would launch her.
The boy glanced seaward.
Over there was that white glimmer, clearer now. It was like the arm of a drowning woman flinging up for help. The glimpse of it inspired the boy.
"I'm coming, sir," he called across the waters. "One more fight first."
He hitched his belt. Now he had no doubt of the issue. Here his friend, the sea, was beside him, whispering to him, loving him, taunting him. She was his hope, his heart, his strength. And for the first time it flashed upon the lad what the fight was really for. It was for her, the World's Woman. She went to the Victor, and she was on his side: for he was England, and England had won her first, and, true woman that she was, she clove to her first conqueror.
They were coming.
He thrilled to them.
"Now, Blob! you take that side. I'll take this. Pick off a man as he comes over the crest. Then out knives, and do your best!"
He leapt on to the taffrail, balancing by the mizzen. Tiptoeing so, he could just see over the crest of the shingle-bank.
And he was never to forget the sight he then saw.
Towards him across the greensward, a torrent of men streamed like a tide-race, silent all.
A huge Grenadier led them. Behind in a bunch came the smugglers, Fat George shambling along in the midst with a fury of arm-work. As his swifter comrades passed him, he clutched at them covetously.
"Ands off!" screamed a lanky lad.
The fat man's knife flashed. The lad fell.
The others raced on. What was it to them?
As they came, they tossed up tormented faces. Their eyes were peep- holes. Through them he stared into the bottomless pit, and there beheld things not meant for human vision.
His eyes passed with relief to the wholesome ugliness of the littleEnglishman pounding at the smugglers' heels.
Knapp had dropped his drumsticks, and was limping along now naked- fisted. His eyes were shut, and his running drawers red in patches as his tunic. He was merry no more, his head on one shoulder, labouring painfully in his stride. It was clear that he was hard-hit, and just as clear that he meant going through to the finish.
Behind him three Grenadiers, one behind the other, strung out across the green. The Parson coursed the last of them; the Gentleman coursed the Parson.
They were all running swiftly, but the last two were the swiftest.
The Parson was gaining on the Grenadier, and the Gentleman on theParson.
It was such a race as Kit had never seen before.
Which would reach his man first?
On that, it seemed to his prophetic vision, hung all.
He tried to yell,
"Come on, sir!"
But his voice stuck as in a nightmare, and seemed to suffocate him.
A blade soared and swooped.
"One!" came the Parson's voice, clear across the green, as he took the falling man in his stride.
The Gentleman, hard at his heels, tripped over the dead man.
Collected as always, he snatched the fellow's musket, and sprawling on his face, fired at the Parson's back.
A smuggler fell.
"Thank ye!" gasped the Parson. "Two!" as the second Grenadier went down.
Then the flight of men, pursuer and pursued, dipped out of sight; but Kit could hear the stampede of feet behind the bank racing towards him, then a hiss and stumbling fall.
"Three!" panted the Parson's voice, and in a dying roar, "Mind yourselves, boys! They're on you."
"Ready, Blob!"
The boy was white as steel.
He had no body. He was not afraid.
Nelson was calling him, and he should not call in vain.
Over the crest stormed the leading Grenadier, monstrous-seeming against the sky.
Kit fired at the man's cross-belts.
Down the shingle the fellow sprawled, whether dead or alive, wounded or whole, Kit knew not till he splashed into the water, and lay still in the flop of the tide.
Behind him came the smugglers.
As they topped the crest a star hung above their heads, then fell, flashing.
"Four—and—five!" came the Parson's voice.
"He's on us!" screamed Dingy Joe. "Sword and all!"
They broke away to right and left along the ridge like a covey of partridges when the hawk swoops.
Anything to get away from that avenging voice roaring out of a whirlwind of lightnings!
"After em, Knapp!"
Slung along by his own impetus, the Parson hurled down the steep.
"Warm work!" he panted, grinning luridly at the boy, and he brought up with a bang against the lugger.
As he shocked against the boat, the great tan sail filled. Shock and wind together gave the necessary impulse. The lugger, light as a bubble, swayed, slithered, crunched down the shingle, felt the greased bat, and took the water with a dip and lovely curtsey.
"We're through!" roared the Parson, sprawling upon the side.
The anchor was trailing down the shingle-bank after them.
The Gentleman had picked it up, and came walking down the slope, leaning back a little as he came.
He was smiling the brave man's wistful smile.
He had lost and he knew it.
Blob snatched a musket and aimed at his waistcoat.
The Parson struck up the barrel.
"Your friends are safe, sir," he called, hoarse and quiet. "I've burnt the despatches."
"They don't deserve to be, but thank you all the same," replied the other as quiet.
He let the anchor go. It fell with a splash into the water.
"I salute a gallant soldier, a gallant sailor, and my friend Monsieur Moon-calf!" he said, and stood, the water to his ankles, and hilt to his lips.
On the ridge the man-pack was at the worry.
Suddenly a face gleamed up through the thick of them.
"Sir!" screamed a voice.
The Parson started round.
"Knapp!" he cried, with sickening face. "Put back!"
A hand was on his shoulder. It was Kit.
The boy did not speak; he did not weep; he pointed seaward to where a topsail flashed white on the horizon.
The Parson looked at the green waters swinging by.
"And I can't swim!" he groaned. "God forgive me!"
An inspiration seized him.
He leapt on to the taffrail.
"Sir," he shouted, pointing, "that's a brave man!"
The Gentleman turned and saw the bloody business going on behind him.
"I am the servant of the brave," he cried, and stormed back.
The Parson sat down, and broke into tears.
The crash of the waves on the shingle grew faint behind.
The lugger began to prattle, as she took the water bobbingly. Overhead the sky was blue, with wisps of snow. Kit hugged the tiller, shivering in spasms.
On his right Beachy Head, rusty of hide, waded white-footed into the deep. Before him opened the sea, a plain of palest blue, blurred with wind and patched here and there with silver. Eastward a road of twinkling light ran across the water. Pevensey Levels lay behind him, brown beyond the shingle. At back of them a range of dim hills rose and launched into the sea; and Northward a vague gloom in the sky told of man's great camping-place by the Thames.
The great sea lolled about the boy, breathing in sleep.
How soothing was the slow large life of the waters after the hubbub and horror of those last few minutes, already so remote!
Above him a kittiwake dreamed. The boy let himself drift, his mind rocking to the rock of the sea.
The waters swung by, singing to themselves. They poured peace upon his troubled spirit. Their strong life entered into his, a resistless tide. Feebly he tried to stay it. He wanted to go back to his distress, to dwell upon it, to worry it, as a young dog frets to go back to the kill.
Nature, the Comforter, would have none of it. She loved her ailing little one over well to let him have his way. She had him in her arms, and would not let him go. She sang in his ear; she rocked his spirit to sleep. The floodgates were open; and that tide of healing stole in upon his being. In his mind it made religious music. He could not resist it. Half reluctant he let himself drift on those sweet waters.
The sea roamed blindly by. He watched her as a sick child watches his mother. Sense was alive; self was dead. His body was the eye of his soul, the avenue of spirit. It had no life of its own to cloud his clear vision.
The tide of healing swept forward, smoothing the rough surfaces, washing away the jagged edges of pain. As it flowed on, that squabble on the beach a few minutes back receded, ultimately to be lost to view. It had been drowned by the incoming waters.
He was walking backwards on himself towards the centre that some callChrist; withdrawing from the Circumference, where the winds of the Worldmoan always. And in that Centre, always for all men the same, there wasPeace and Love and Life Eternal, as on that Circumference there had beenWar and Darkness and Discord.
Lying on the bosom of the mother-deep, watching her breathe, the boy smiled.
The Parson at his side was stroking his calves.
The boy watched him with dreamy eyes.
"Are you hurt, sir?" he asked in a far-away voice.
It came from the depths of no-where. It seemed no longer his. He listened to it with awe.
"Nothing that matters," replied the Parson. "Thank God for His great mercies, and my dear lady here."
Lifting his sword, he kissed the hilt.
"She was inspired," he said in reverent whisper. "I never saw the like and never shall again." He wiped the blade upon his knee-breeches. "Their beastly hairs stick yet—see!"
The boy heard no word. He sat quite still, his eyes on that twinkling waste beneath the boom. The sun, which had been shining through mist, now blazed hot upon his face. He eased the boat away, and the shadow of the great brown lug fell upon him comfortably.
"It's all very wonderful," he said, his eyes on the musing waters.
"It's a miracle—nothing less," replied the Parson, unslinging the despatch-bag. "This bag did me yeoman service. Look!" It was slashed to ribands, the rolled coat within gashed through and through; and as he shook it a bullet fell out of the folds. "I owe my life to it and Piper's shooting. The old man dropped a chap dead at two hundred yards as he was braining me."
The boy woke at last.
"What of him—old Piper?"
"Ah, what?" said the Parson, grey and grave beneath the sweat.
Neither spoke again.
Beyond the Boulder Bank the wind freshened. The lugger began to breast the water merrily, plumping into the swells with a delicious shock, shooting the water aside in spurts of foam, and ploughing a furrow white behind her.
The Parson stared about him with startled eyes.
"Good Lord!" he said, breathing deep, as one just awaking to a new and terrible danger.
Kit looked at him, and was shocked at the change that had come over him. He could scarcely recognise in this grey-green spectre the roaring swordsman of the shingle-bank.
"I'm tired," said the Parson suddenly, "very tired."
He flopped forward on his knees.
"My sins have found me out," he moaned. "May mother forgive me!"
His courage had faded with his colour.
Collapsing, he lay like a dead thing in a slop of sand and water at the bottom of the boat.
Kit heard his voice as in a dream.
The boy was sitting quite still, the smell of the sea in his nostrils, the wind in his hair, the hiss and flop of the waters in his ears.
The life of the body was coming back to him. The good salt breeze flushed his veins. The tiller began to pull at his hand. The lugger swung and curtseyed, graceful as a dancing girl. She was alive. She was careering over the swells, snatching for her head. She knew her mission, and revelled in it.
Nelson, Nelson, Nelson! she whispered, hissed, and sang the word.
The boy began to hand her over the seas, as a man hands his lady down a ball-room. She was so swift so strong: throbbing-full of life. He loved her, and began to live again.
Blob was sitting cocked up in the bows, pink as ever and as impassive.
At the sight of the boy Kit felt a certain resentment, and, with the swift self-knowledge peculiar to him, was glad to feel it, for it told him he was coming round. He wished the boy to collapse alongside the Parson. Why didn't he, the silly little land-lubber? Kit, the one sailor aboard, here on his own element, wished to lord it out alone.
"How d'you feel, Blob?" he called, hoping for the best.
"Whoy," said Blob, the breeze in his teeth, "Oi'm that empty Oi can hear me innuds rollin. Oi could just fancy a loomp o porruk—fatty-loike."
The Parson raised himself.
"Swine," he moaned, "have you no soul?"
He turned on his elbow.
"Can't you take her where it's flatter?" he snarled.
"I like a bit of a bobble myself, sir," answered Kit.
"Calls himself a sailor!" sneered the other, and collapsed again.
The frigate was drawing near, the lily flag of a Vice-Admiral of theWhite at her foretop-gallant mast-head.
A tide of delicious tears surged up in the lad's heart as he beheld her. She was England; she was his own. He possessed her, and was she not beautiful?
Stately lady, she walked the waters, swaying them, her breasts splendid in the sunshine. Her head was in the heavens, a stir of snow at her feet. She was mistress of the seas, and mother of them. And with what noble mirth she lorded it in this her nursery! The turbulent little folks swarmed to clutch her skirts as she swept by. She moved among them, their play-fellow and yet their sovereign lady: here a mocking bow, there a laughing curtsey; anon a stoop, a swift kiss, and she rose, an armful of blossom-babies smothering her.
The boy's heart went out to her in a passion of worship.
She was a tall Princess, stone-blind and beautiful, walking to her doom; and he a boy-knight bucketing across the moor on his pony to save her and the burthen she bore so preciously in her arms—her little son.
And hewouldsave her. Nay, hehadsaved her.
He was so proud he could have shouted; he was so moved he could almost have wept.
The lugger thumped through the seas, tugging at her tiller, eager as himself. She reminded him of the scuttling haste with which old Trumps, his pony, bustled along, head set for home; and he laughed merrily. The fuss and fury of the little thing contrasted so ludicrously with the majestic calm of the swan-lady sweeping towards him.
The frigate was close on him now.
As the lugger topped the ridges, Kit, peering beneath the boom, could see the black and yellow of the Nelson chequer on her sides.
Clouds of canvas, tier on tier, towered above him.
He could see the shine of her bows as she lifted, dripping. The water spurted from her foot in foaming cataracts as she plunged.
He steered as though to cross her bows. When he heard the swish of the green waters cleaving before her keel, he put his helm hard down.
"Hail them, Blob!" he screamed, and scrambling forward brought the lug-sail down with a rattle.
"Boat ahoy_" a voice from the frigate "who are you?"
Blob stood in the bows, one hand on the flapping jib. "Oi'm Blob Oad what killed Nabowlin Bownabaardie," he yelled.
The frigate, standing stately on, swung up alongside. Kit, rushing to the side, fended her off, as she slid past, huge above him.
"Heave to!" he screamed, bumping against the sliding side. "Heave to!"
A deep voice above him spoke.
Kit looked up. A man, leaning over the side, was watching him bump stern-wards with a sardonic grin.
"Bye-bye," he murmured deeply. "My love to the little gurls."
Was he mad? was he mocking?
Kit thought he had never seen so striking a face. The man was a giant with moon-splendid eyes. There was a power about the face, the power of darkness. The sun never shone upon it—only the moon, the moon. But for her wan glimmer it was without light. Kit thought of a wild night at sea, the moon gleaming fitfully on savage waters. The moon, always the moon!
"Despatches for Nelson!" screamed the boy—"for Nelson, Nelson, Nelson!"
The moon went out. There was one flash of lightning, then horror of darkness. The man's life had shocked to a halt. He did not stir, he did not wink, he did not breathe.
Then the blackness lifted, and the moon shone out once more between dark scuds.
"Nelson ain't a-board," he said.
The man folded his arms and gazed down at the boy, mildly amused.
"Not on board?" gasped Kit faintly. "Where is he, then?"
The moon was out again and shining serenely.
"Why, where I'd like to be—with his best gurl."
He took out a tooth-pick, and began to clean his teeth with gusto.
Kit hardly heard. Desperately he clutched the sliding side. It seemed to him as though the world was slipping away from him. If he let go all was lost.
"Mr. Dark!"twanged a nasal voice from the deck.
The giant leapt round.
"My lord."
"What's that boat doing under my quarter?"
"A Deal hovel, my lord, asking for brandy."
Feet came towards the side.
"First time I ever heard of a hovel stopping a King's ship to ask for brandy."
"That's what I told him, my lord,"came the firm reply.
"You didn't!" screamed Kit from far below. "You didn't. Heave to! Heave to! or—"
"You'll sink me, I suppose, young gentleman!"
Kit looked up.
A one-eyed little man was twinkling down at him.
The boy came over the side.
He was without hat and in his shirt, a pale stripling, gaunt of cheek, and with flaming eyes.
"Liar!" he cried, and transfixed the giant with a finger.
The one-eyed little man, one-armed too, four stars on his breast, turned on the boy in a cold blaze.
"Remember in whose presence you stand!" he said. "I am Lord Nelson."
"He said you weren't on board, sir," cried the boy stubbornly.
"I said nothing of the sort, my lord," replied the giant calmly. "I said I wasn't going to stop the way of your lordship's frigate to let a smuggler's brat liquor up."
"And quite right too," said Nelson. "What is it the boy wants?"
"I understood him to ask for brandy, my lord—for the corpse in the boat."
"What! is there a corpse in the boat?"
"O yes, my lord—a nice little bit of a corpse. But whether the two young gents killed him and are bringing him off to your lordship for a present, as I ave known done in the Caribbees, or whether they dug him up and took him aboard for ballast, only the young gents know."
Those strange eyes dwelt upon the lad sardonically. One thing was plain.Mr. Dark was amusing himself.
Nelson seemed not to hear him.
"Who are you?" rounding on the boy.
"I'm of the same Service as yourself, my lord," replied Kit, white as ice. "A midshipman. My name is Caryll."
"What ship?"
"TheTremendous, my lord."
"TheTremendous! let's see. What do I know of theTremendous?"
"Gone where we've all got to go some day, my lord—down, down, down," said the giant. "Posted missing Tuesday night." He had folded his arms and was leaning up against the side, moody as the devil. "For some it makes a change; for others it don't. I'm one of the last sort. It's all stale to me. I live there—down, down, down." He yawned with creaking jaws.
Nelson stared at him, then turned to the boy.
"And may I ask what you're doing here, Mr. Carvell?"
"He said he had despatches for you, my lord," interrupted the giant languidly. "Don't see em myself."
Kit's swift mind leapt at the fellow's mistake.
Swift as he was, there was one present swifter—the man who in a flashing moment had won the day at St. Vincent.
Nelson swept round on the giant.
"He said—he had—despatches—for me?You just told me he wanted brandy. How d'you account for that?"
The stillness before the storm was never so appalling as that calm. In all the world only the giant's slow eyelids seemed to stir. The boy felt lightning in the air: he felt it in his heart.
Dark remained unmoved. He lolled against the bulwark, legs crossed. It was scarcely respectful to the great seaman who stood before him; but the man seemed a law to himself. His chin dropped, his arms folded, those glimmering eyes of his never lifted from his feet.
"I don't account for it, my lord," came the deep voice. "I can't account for myself—much less for my lies."
Far down in those strange eyes Kit caught a gleam. Was it humour?—was it anguish?—what was it? He did not know. The man baffled him. He was groping in the dark and finding—darkness. He was at war with this man, war to the death; and yet, yet, yet, he felt they had something in common. What was it?—a kindred soul?—who should say?
For a long minute Nelson gazed gravely at the other.
"You're mighty strange, Mr. Dark," he said at last.
The man nodded and nodded.
"I'm mighty dark, Mr. Strange," he said—"mighty dark."
Nelson turned to the boy.
"Come below," he said.
"My lord," came a voice as out of a fog.
Nelson turned.
The giant was following them at a panther-prowl.
As Kit saw him a phrase from the Old Book flashed to his mind—the Body of this Death.
Only the eyes lived; abysms through which the boy gazed down to behold the last nicker of a drowning soul.
It was not quite out, that gallant little light. Down there in the tumult of dark waters it fought for life despairingly.
Without, the man was black and white and strangely still. Within, God andDevil were at battle. And the Devil was winning.
The giant prowled across the deck, kneading his hands.
"Can I have a word with your lordship?"
The voice was clogged and husky as the voice of one dead for centuries.
"By all means," briskly.
"Alone, my lord?"
"Certainly. Here?"
The man rolled his eyes up at Kit. The boy's knees gave. He almost fainted. The soul flickered its last before his eyes. The man was dark forever.
"Over here, my lord. By the side, if you please."
His words came stifled as out of the grave.
Kit heard them remotely.
His voice tried to burst through iron blackness and failed.
His soul yelled,
"Murder!" but no sound came. Feet and tongue stuck fast. The Powers of Darkness had prevailed over him also.
The two were walking away across the deck, side by side, the big man and the little.
Nightmare-bound, the boy watched their backs, the one huge-shouldered, slouching, the other sprightly and slight as a lad's.