"So cardingly they march me away to the top o the coombe, where it's steep as a ship's side, and gave me a shove.
"Down I sprawls, rolly-bowly, anyhow all among the jumping hares, and brought up in the shadows at the bottom.
"And as I was feeling to see if my head still set on my shoulders, a chap on horse-back comes cantering up the shoulder of the coombe above me, black against the light….
"That was the first o this here Gentleman all the talk's on…."
The mist was blowing by in huge white puffs like the breath of a giant.
"That was the beginning," continued Reuben. "It warn't the end though not by no means. Many's the time since then them words of his about the blockade-chaps, and his queer way o sayin em's come back to me."
"Why?" asked the boy.
"Why, sir?—why, indeed?—Two days later a patrol was found at the foot o the Devil's Chimney, heads bashed in. Blow'd over o course!—Week a'terwards petty officer found drowned in dew-pond top o Warren Hill. Accident o course!—Next day common seaman hung in his own braces Jevington Holt. Suicide o course! And so it's been going on ever since—blockade-men murdered; blockade-men missin; blockade-men washed ashore—until last night."
"What then?"
"Ain't you heard, sir?" aghast. "Last night—eleven o'clock—full moon—clear as crystal—Diamond laid theKiteaboard the Revenue cutter off Darby's Hole."
"Well?" breathlessly.
"Ah, well indeed, sir!—No one'll ever knaw the rights o that yarn. Only one chap o the crew o theCurlewleft alive to tell the tale—poor Alf Huggett here alongside o me. Stove in a water-butt and hid in it—didn't you, Alf?"
There was a waiting silence.
"It's broke him up surely, sir," whispered Reuben. "And I don't wonder. Saw enough through that bung-hole to keep him thinking for the rest of his life."
"Fat George!" shivered a thin voice. "Fat George!"
"Ah!" came the windy chorus. "Him and old Toadie!"
"Anyways there it be!" continued Reuben. "At noon to-day theCurlewdrifted up against Seaford jetty, yards hung with her own crew, like carcasses in a butcher's shop."
"Brutes!" gasped the boy. "But what's the meaning of it all?"
Reuben shrugged till his oil-skins crackled.
"No sayin, sir. Summat's up; summat big. Diamond wanted the coast cleared; and he's cleared it—by thunder he has! Swep it up bald as the back o my hand."
The mist blew away faint and thin. Through it the bowed crest-line of a cliff loomed up to larboard.
"There's the last o the Seven Sisters!" said Reuben. "Birling Gap's just here along." He moved among his men. "Stations, boys. It's here or hereabouts…."
"Hush!" whispered Kit.
"D'you hear anything, sir?"
The boy made no reply, listening, listening.
Had he made a mistake?—was it only the swish of waters under the keel? … No!
"There! there, in front!"
This time there was no mistaking it—the noise of a boat's bow smashing into seas.
Reuben brought his fist down with a thump.
"To the tick!"
Just then the cloud-drift parted. Through tatters of mist the moon shone down.
Bowling out on the top of the tide came a lugger, the foam at her foot.
She was black in the moon, and barely a cable's length away.
"That her?" asked the gruff voice of the old Commander.
"That's theKite, sir," answered Reuben. "Know her luff anywheres. Foots it like a witch, and handles like a lady. A boy could sail her; and she'll carry farty at a pinch."
The old Commander watched her across the glimmering waters.
"Means havin it," he said with a grunt half of admiration, half of satisfaction.
"Ah, that's Diamond, sir!" answered the other. "God A'mighty couldn't stop him once he's set."
The old Commander measured the lessening distance between him and his prey.
"I shall keep as I go," he said deliberately. "Reck'n he'll do the same. We oughter meet. But if he should scrape through, why let him have it nice and hearty as he goes under my bows."
"Ay, ay, sir."
He stumped aft; while the men rammed down their sou-westers.
"I'll lay I bag Fat George in the belly," said one, spitting leisurely, as he fingered his musket.
"I'll lay you don't then," retorted another.
"I'll lay you couldn't miss it," chipped in a wag.
There was a rumble of laughter, quickly hushed.
The boy among them sniggered, to vindicate his courage.
How brave they were! and what beasts! They made him sick, and filled him with admiration. He should like to be like that—to feel nothing; to see nothing; to loll up against the side and spit about, and make bad jokes, a minute before he took the life of a brother man. That was fine: that was manhood. One day, please God, he would be the same.
He peeped at the lugger. She was holding on, hard-driven, a long-boat with high-cocked nose tearing astern.
The big ship was bearing down on her like a hawk on a sparrow. It was bullying but O! was it not glorious? The old thrill, the thrill of thrills, incomparable, made him tremble. He was manhunting once more.
"He'll carry the sticks out of her," muttered one of the men. "Crackin along all sail—capsize or no."
"He may crack along," said another. "He's done. Black Diamond's done."
The sea flopped in the moon. Here and there a gathering swell hissed into foam. TheTremendousscarcely felt it; but the lugger lay over on her side, seams dripping, and thrashed furiously along.
Her crew, squatting along the weather gunwale, turned bowed and shining backs to the sloop.
Only the man at the tiller had seen her; and he made no sign.
The moon was on his face, black and white and bearded; and his eyes on the sloop.
"Calm chap!" whispered one.
"Plucky meat," replied another. "Guts like a lion on him."
"Which is Black Diamond?" asked the boy.
"Him at the tiller, sir—moon on his face. He's seen us. 'Tothers ain't—not yet."
TheTremendouscrashed into a sea. The aftmost man on the lugger's gunwale turned.
He saw the Avenger towering over him, dark wings spread, snow-drifts spurting before her.
An awful horror convulsed his face.
"King's ship!" came a ghastly-screaming treble. "Put back, Diamond!"
The man at the tiller never stirred. One lightning arm flashed forward.
"Down, George!" came a voice of thunder. "I'm going through."
There was a flash in the moon; the smothered crack of a pistol; and a furious tumble of men aft.
"Gor! they're knifin him!"
"Their own skipper!"
"That's the Gap Gang!" rose in a groaning chorus from the bows of the sloop.
Splash followed splash.
The crew of the lugger were jumping for the long-boat.
The moon shone down mildly on savage waters, and a tumult of men.
All about the boat was a fury of fighting. Some were in it, some in the water. Those within were slashing at the hands of those scrambling in.
Every man was for himself, and every man against his neighbour. They fought like beasts, beasts who could blaspheme.
Sin seen naked! Sin and its consequences!
Death-screams; bellowed blasphemies; howls for mercy rose as from the pit.
"No room!—It's me, Joe!—Too many aboard!—Knife the ——!—I'm done!—Elp us up!—Don't, George!"
Out of the torment of howls, oaths, prayers, came again the ghastly-screaming treble.
"Cut the painter!"
A boy, the last on the lugger, afraid before to trust the water, jumped now.
"Don't leave Jacky!" spluttered the thin boy's voice, tearful and terrified; as the little shaven head bobbed up by the boat.
"Ands off!" screamed the treble. "We're sinkin a'ready. What, you little ——! then ave it! ave it! ave it!"
A shrill squeal and then again that ghastly-screaming treble—
"Row, ye ——, row!"
Silence; tumbling waters; and the moon, sick with horror, darkened suddenly.
The lugger came bowling on, one man in her stern.
"Diamond's bested em!" rose in a roar from theTremendous.
And so it seemed.
TheKitewas making straight for the sloop, plunging giddily, as though wounded.
"All hands aloft!" roared old Ding-dong. "Back tops'ls!"
There was a scamper of feet along the deck; and up the shrouds a scurry of dark figures. Above was ordered bustle; from the deck a sounding voice ruled all, as God rules the world.
"Canst use a pistol, lad?"
The words, swift as hail, smote Kit's ear.
"I don't know, sir," babbled the boy, sick with excitement.
A minute back Hell had yawned, and he had peeped in. He was still aghast.
"Then find oot!" fierce as a sword. "Joomp into t'mizzen-chains, and pick off yon chap at the helm, as he cooms under ma counter."
He thrust a pistol into the boy's hands.
How limp the lad felt beside this masterful old man!
In another moment he was standing in the chains, the dark and giddy waters swirling beneath him. The blood thumped in his temples.
Was it to be his St. Vincent? his chance?
The lugger came tearing up. He could hear the swish of the waters, white at her foot; he could see the wet sail, the bucketing bows, the fore-deck awash. She would pass bang beneath his feet. He could see no man at the helm—only the jumping bowsprit, the thrashing foot, and that huge lug-sail, bellying over the water.
Suddenly his mind flamed. In the white glare of it he saw the thing to do, and had done it, before cold reason could check him.
He jumped.
The boat and giddy waters rose up to meet him. He fell as on to a mattress, full of wind. It was the lug-sail he had struck. Down it he sprawled to the deck, there to find himself upon his hands and knees, something soft beneath him.
One man was in the boat; and that man was staring him in the face.
There was no mistaking him. He was black, with diamond eyes. The moon was on his face; and about his lips a queer snarling smile.
Kit expected him to pounce; yet he did not, lolling back in the stern-sheets, very much at his ease. The tiller under his arm wobbled, and he wobbled with it. In spite of those staring eyes of his, there was a dreadful unsteadiness about the man. Was he wounded?—was he drunk?
Somehow the boy was not very much afraid. It was all too dream-like.He heard his heart thundering far-away on the remotest shores of being.He heard his own voice speaking, and was surprised at it—how steadyit was, and how small!
It was saying,
"I'm a King's officer. That's a King's ship. There are about a thousand men on board. It's all no go. D'you give in?"
The man grinned sardonically. Then his head fell forward. He lurched horribly. The tiller slipped from under his arm. The lugger fell away, and lay on the water like a wounded bird.
Then Kit understood.
Black Diamond was dead.
The boy's mind relaxed like a burst bladder.
He began to laugh.
Where was he?
Alone on the deep with a dead man.
Well, well. It was not for the first time surely. A ghost, long-laid, walked again. A sudden lightning had flashed upon his past. In it he had seen andremembered. Something of a forgotten self floated to the surface. In turmoil, his Eternal Mind had thrown up on the sea of Time a memory from its imperishable hoard.
Slowly he recollected himself, and looked about him.
He was kneeling on something soft, and his hands were warm and slimy.He looked down, and jerked back with a scream.
He was kneeling on a dead man, and his hands were crimson.
A gust caught the lugger: she staggered forward with a flap and swing of her boom. Her master, her mate, was dead; and the spirit had gone out of her.
No time for the horrors! he must be doing.
In a moment he was at work with his dirk. The great lug came down with a rattle.
Forward under the boom, he cut the sheet of the jib. It fluttered furiously, streaming lee-ward. Then he stumbled aft.
The murdered helmsman still lolled in drunken stupor, smiling inscrutably.
Astern the sloop lay with tall clothed masts, swaying, a phantom on the troubled waters.
A boat had put off from her, and was bucking towards him.
"Lugger ahoy!" came a windy voice across the water. "Is that you, sir?—all well?"
"I'm all right," cried the boy, and was ashamed to find his voice cracked with emotion.
The boat bumped alongside. Reuben Boniface's face popped up over the side.
"Plucky thing, sir!" he cried, bobbing with the boat; then seeing the man at the tiller—"Ah, Bert! a fair cop."
"He's dead," said the boy with a sob.
"Dead!" cried the other, thrusting forward. "By thunder! so he is. Boys, Black Diamond's dead!" He took the dead man by the hand. "Poor old mate!" he continued in hushed voice. "Fancy that now. Diamond dead!"
Another head bobbed up.
"Did you kill him, sir?" asked an awed voice.
"No, I didn't. I think it was this man. He killed Black Diamond; andBlack Diamond killed him back."
His heart was swollen almost to bursting.
A row of heads now bobbed all along the side, staring at the dead man. It awed them, this lay-figure with the dreadful stillness brooding about it, rocking with the rock of the sea. They spoke of it with lowered voices reverently.
"Funny thing—him so quiet. Don't seem nat'ral like."
"Warn't like that ten minutes since."
"That Black Diamond!—and can't lift his own hand now!"
"Ah, makes a change, Death, don't it?"
"One thing sure," ended a philosopher. "Like it or not—sooner or later—in this world we all gets our desarts."
So these solemn children, big of the sea, brooded over the Great Mystery. Heretheywere in the dark, the night blind about them, the old sea roaming round; and here wasIt. Dimly they tried to apprehendIt. SomehowItmade them feel strangely small, and somehow strangely great.
Reuben was still pumping the dead man's hand up and down, the tears coursing down his face.
"Poor old mate!" he kept saying. "He'd not ha been the same if things had been different—would you, old mate?—I wish I'd ha shook hands with you now, I do."
A shuddering voice spoke from the boat. It was the broken blockade-man.
"Ow much is he dead?" he asked.
"Why, dead as dirt," replied a matter-of-fact fellow, chewing his pig-tail phlegmatically.
"Sure he ain't learying?" came the voice of the man with the shivers.
"You fear'd on him still, Alf?" asked one curiously.
"Fear'd on him?—No, I ain't fear'd on him!" came a ghastly titter."Got no cause, ave I?"
"He won't urt you," replied the other, soothingly. "He's dead all right—ain't you, Diamond?—You can tweak his nose, see?—and then go ome, and tell the gals what you done. Tweak Black Diamond by the conk!"
"You let him be!" growled Reuben. "Time was you'd ha crawled to him. Now any snotty little toad can make game on him."
Kit looked up at the rising voices.
A fellow had seized Diamond by the nose, plucking back his head.
The dead man's mouth gaped. Into the cavern of it shone the moon.
"One moment!" cried the boy; and hating himself, he thrust a finger and thumb into the opening, and plucked out the thing which gleamed within.
It was a cut-glass scent-bottle.
They came under the counter of the sloop, the boat towing the lugger, and Black Diamond dead, the moon upon him.
A face, tallowy-nosed and black-whiskered, was leaning over the side.
"Say! was there a tall chap on a blood chestnut aboard?" asked a slushy voice. "Andshomish feller—might be own brother to me. If so, pass him up the side, there's a good biy. There's £1,000 on his head."
Kit went up the side, his heart beating high.
"Anything?" asked the old Commander shortly.
"Yes, sir."
He surrendered his treasure-trove.
"What! this all?" sniffed the old man, fingering the scent-bottle contemptuously—"gal's fal-lal."
He stumped below.
The boy's heart was white-hot with indignation.
This then was his thanks!
Somebody tickled him under the arms.
"You're in the old man's good books, Sonny," said a hilarious voice."Wha d'you think he said when you plumped overboard?"
"I don't know. What?"
"'Nelson might ha done that,' says the old man—Bible-truth, he did."And he shook out loose coils of laughter.
The compliment was so staggering that it humbled the boy.
A minute since he could have stabbed that old man with the stiff knee.Now he could have kissed him.
"No! did hereally?" he gasped.
The Gunner clutched the boy with one arm, and tilting his chin, looked down at the uplifted face.
"Thereisa look o the little man about the kid," he said—"kind o gal-like look—all eyes, and spirit, and long chin. Funny thing!—I've always noticed the best biys to fight are them as got most gal about em."
The purser's steward tripped up.
"Mr. Caryll, sir, Commander Harding desires to see you in his cabin."
"Told you, Sonny," crowed the Gunner. "It's to give you a certificate for valour, and a drop o brandy on a lump o sugar."
A purser's glim lit the cabin, bare save for a solitary print upon the bulk-head.
Facing it stood the old Commander, broad as a wall, his hands behind him, and the scent-bottle, unstoppered now, in one of them.
Kit recognised the face on the wall at once. It was Nelson's.
"That you, Mr. Caryll?"
"Yes, sir."
"Can ye read French?"
"A little, sir."
"Then what ye make o this?"
He thrust a hand behind him, never turning.
Kit took from it a tiny roll of tissue paper, and unfolded it.
"Shall I begin, sir?… It's headedMerton, [Footnote: Merton was at this time the seat of Lady Hamilton.] 17th, 2 a.m., and goes on—" he translated, stumbling—
Everything is going beautifully. There is only one man for England to-day; and for him there is only one woman. She is the absolute master of her N., and he of Barham and the Board. TheVictoryis due to-morrow. She expects him here on Monday, and will do all. The original plan holds good. He will be off Beachy Head Thursday. TheMedusa, 44.
Keep the frigate cruising. I am off to Dover at dawn to square up there. Diamond calls for me at the old rendezvous on Wednesday, and puts me on board the frigate that I may bein at the deathas our friends this side say.
The boy lifted dark eyes.
"It looks like a—"
The other cut him short.
"In our Service, sir, the Captain speaks when he's the mind; the FirstLieutenant all the time; and the midshipmen—never."
He snapped fierce jaws.
"What date, d'ye say?"
"Seventeenth."
"Seventeenth,sir…. That's to-day, ain't it?"
The old man grunted.
"Started this morning—sharp work."
"He was riding a thorough-bred … sir."
"What's a furrow-bred?… plough-oss?"
"Plough-horse!" sparkling scorn. "It's the best sort of horse going."
"What if it be?—I'm a sea-man myself—not a postboy…. How d'ye know he was ridin a what-d'ye-call-it?"
"He always does."
"Who does?"
"The man they call the Gentleman—the Galloping Gentleman."
"Who told you?"
"I picked it up, listening to the riding-officer."
The old man cocked an eye over his shoulder at the boy.
"I keep on a-listinin for thatsir," he said. "Reck'n I'm hard o hearin."
He resumed his study of the face on the bulk-head. A long while he gazed: then smacked one fist into the other.
"That gal!" he muttered. "I always know'd how it'd be," and turned at last.
Taking the paper from the boy, he packed it into the scent-bottle.
"When I've laid this here in Nelson's hands," he said deliberately,"I'll be ready to say what your father said aboord the Don."
A curious smile made kindly wrinkles about his eyes: it was half mischievous, half wistful: the smile of a child about to gratify an innocent spite, long cherished.
Then he shoved the bottle into his breast-pocket, and looked up. The light fell on his face; and for the first time Kit saw his Captain fairly.
Square shoulders; square face; square chin; a square brow, strangely white above the terra-cotta-coloured lower face; and blue eyes that looked squarely into yours. All square, body and soul. A true man, and a born fighter, the blue and white riband for St. Vincent at his breast.
"When you joomped aboord the lugger, was you scared?" he asked curtly.
The boy looked him in the eyes.
"Yes, sir."
The old man's hand lay for a moment on his shoulder.
"So'd I ha been," he said, and went out, nodding.
On deck the dawn glimmered faintly.
On their lee, high in the heaven, a glowing smother hung in the dark over a snaky brood, darting red tongues hither and thither.
"What's that?" growled old Ding-dong.
"The chaps as got away in the long-boat, sir. Set a light to the gorse on Beachy Head. Signal. An old game o their'n."
The old man swung about.
As he looked, a blue light spurted seaward, and another answered it.
"Thought so," he muttered. "Burning flares."
Then he turned again.
"Bout ship!" he barked. "Make your course for Newhaven. Send a look-out man aloft. And clear for action."
A roll of thunder woke Kit.
Starting up on his elbows he looked about him.
Where was he?
Yesterday he had waked in the blue room at the White Cellar, the sparrows chirping under the eaves, the smiling chamber-maid at the door saying, "Half-past seven, sir," and the rumble of the Lewes coach in the yard beneath.
It was an altogether different rumble that he heard now. He had never heard it before; yet how well he knew it.
It was the roll of the drum, beating to quarters.
Across the sea a bugle answered it.
The boy thrust his head out of the port.
All about him lay a shining floor of sea, gently undulating and six cable lengths away, bearing down upon the sloop, a black ship flying the tricolour.
Across the bulk-head a sudden roaring voice boomed out an order.
There was the scuffle and scamper of naked feet; the noise of tackle running, shot trundling along the deck, and the roll of guns.
Then all was silence but for the thumping of his heart, and the slop of the water about her sides as the littleTremendousfooted it into her last fight.
Kit rushed on deck.
The sloop, stripped to her topsails, was stirring the water faintly.
Only one man was on deck—old Ding-dong, conning the ship himself bareheaded.
He was in a worn frock-coat, and faded yellow kerseymere waistcoat, stained with soup and tar; and the hands on the wheel wore grimy kid gloves.
There was such a dinginess about the old man's garments, and such a dignity about his face, that Kit almost laughed to see him.
Last night the old Commander might have been a Channel pilot, in his rough sea-jacket and sea-boots. Today he was a King's officer, fighting a King's ship; and no mistaking it.
There was a change in his face too: something subtle, almost spiritual, that the boy could feel although he could not define it. In fact the explanation was very simple. Old Ding-dong was going into action, and had brushed his hair first as was his invariable custom.
"Morn, Mr. Caryll," said the old man, never taking his eyes off his topsails. "I was just going to send for you. You'll be my orderly midshipman. We're in for a little bit o business. See them two?" He jerked his head across the water.
Then Kit saw for the first time that two black monsters were sliding down upon them over the shining waters, side by side. The nearer was close on the larboard bow of the sloop; the other, on the same tack, lay on her consort's far quarter. Their bows hardly rippled the water as they stole forward. They seemed to flow with the flowing sea rather than sail. Phantom-ships, they might have been creatures of the night, surprised by day.
The boy could see nobody aboard. Save for the flapping of the tricolours, and the occasional creak of a spar, they were still as death. The silence and terror of their coming sickened the lad.
The voice of the old Commander, gruff and everyday at his elbow, reassured him.
"Privateers," he growled—"old friends both. This'n's theCock-ot.Happen you've heard tell of her. That'n's theCock-it.Sister-ships. And 'ot and 'it they'll be afoor long if I can make em so."
He spun the wheel discreetly.
"At dawn I found em atween me and Newhaven. So I went about; I wasn't on the fightin lay—half my ship's company short, and this here in my pocket for Nelson." He tapped his breast.
"Thought I'd run for Dover. I was hardly off on that tack when I found her"—with a backward jerk of his head—"athwart-hawse me."
Kit turned and saw a third ship, very tall, a league in their wake.
"Forty-four gun frigate," continued the old Commander. "Must ha given somebody the slip. But what she's doin here along o them two pints beats me."
"They must have been waiting to escort the lugger," ventured the boy.
"Happen so," said the other phlegmatically. "Well, they've got her now—the husk, that is: I've kep the kernel," tapping his breast-pocket once again. "I didn't want all three a-top o me at the first onset, so I cut the lugger adrift, and set her bowling, helm lashd. As I reckoned, the frigate stopped to pick her up. She won't be alongside for three hours yet…. As to them two, we've been dodging about all morning, but I reck'n we're about there now—just about. So-o-o!"
There was a roar and a huge splash beneath the stern of theTremendous. A cold avalanche sluiced the boy. He staggered blindly back, something crashing on the deck about him.
"O!" he cried, and opened his eyes faintly, expecting to find himself smothered with blood.
It was water, not blood, that was dripping from him.
The boy looked up in fear.
Old Ding-dong drenched too, the water trickling down his nose, still nursed his ship tender as a mother.
There was not the ghost of a smile on his face, no curl of contempt about his mouth.
Kit thanked him inwardly. After all the rough old fellow was a gentleman.
"Trying the distance with a bow-chaser," said the old man imperturbably."I'd have a lick back, only I can't spare no men for the deck carronades.All below with Lanyon."
The tip of his tongue shot out, and made the journey of his lips, cat-like. From behind that grim and weathered visage peeped the child, arch, mischievous, infinitely cunning.
"Master Mouche, hereckonsI'm going to cross his bows and rake him," he whispered. "HereckonsI'll keep my course to sarve his consort the same. Hereckonsto come up under my starn and rake me fore and aft, while his consort wears ship and pounds me with her broadside. That's his little game. 'Tain't mine though, ye know, Mr. Caryll—'tain't mine." He rolled a blue eye on the boy; and in that eye, twinkling cunning, bubbled the delight of a child about to play a practical joke on an elder.
So unexpected was the effect, and so tickling—this grim old veteran revealing in himself the Eternal Child who hides behind us all—that the Frenchmen at their guns, hearing in the silence the sudden ripple of a boy's laughter, whispered among themselves that the Englishman had a woman aboard.
The breeze was very light and fast falling away. Old Ding-dong kept one eye on his topsails, and one on his foe, sliding towards him across the water.
"Like the Shadow o Death a'most, ain't she?" said the old man in hushed voice—"so still-like and stealy." He dropped a kind eye on the boy's face. "Makes ye think first time, don't it?—I mind Quiberon. Guts feel fainty like."
He renewed his watch. The twinkle had left his eyes. He had withdrawn deep down into himself. Somewhere in the centre of that square body sat his mind, alert, cat-like, about to pounce.
The shadow of theCocottefell across the sea nearly to their feet. The wind breathed on the waters, dulling them. The languid topsails swelled faintly.
The old man spun the wheel. TheTremendousswung towards her enemy.
Delicately across the glittering floor the two ships drew towards each other, wary as panthers about to fight.
There was dead silence, alow and aloft. Only the tricolour at the enemy's fore flapped insolently; and the red-cross flag, at the mizzen gaff of the sloop, licked out a long tongue and taunted back.
"That's Mouche at the wheel," grunted the old Commander—"her skipper. A fine fighter, but treecherous like em all…. Funny thing no one on deck only him. Swarmin with men too, I'll lay."
The French skipper too was at the wheel: a dapper little personage, black-a-vised, with fierce moustachios and eye-tufts.
He wore a huge tricorne, and vast tawdry epaulettes.
"How do you, sair?" he called, all bows and smiles and teeth, as the two ships came within biscuit-toss. "Vair please to meet you once more."
"Queer lingo, ain't it?" muttered old Ding-dong. "All spit and gargle. Comes from eatin all them frogs, I reck'n. Stick in their throats or summat."
He raised his voice.
"Same to you and many on em," he growled. "I ain't seen that dirty phiz o your'n in the Channel since our little bit of a tiff off the Casquets last May. I yeard tell you was in the West Indies conwalescin a'ter an attack o deTremendous!" He chuckled at his joke.
The Frenchman shrugged and smiled.
"So I wass, sair, a while back. And now here—on express pisness; theEmperor's pisness."
"What's up?" asked the Englishman bluffly. "Tired o waitin to wopNelson? Goin to embark the Armee o England straight off?"
"Not yet," replied the other, showing his teeth. "All in goot time, my Captain. This first—this pit of pisness I do for my Emperor."
"Seems to me that Emperor o your'n must be put to the push if he's druv to gettin a mucky little pirit like you to do his business," grumbled the other.
The Frenchman waved the insult aside with utmost good humour.
"He send for me across the seas. 'I need my leetle Albairt,' he says. 'Come queegly.' So I spread my wings and come. AndLa Coquetteshe slip out from Rochefort. AndLa Guerrière"-with a backward jerk—"from Brest. Like swallows in April we flock to the rendezvous—to meet the Queen of Hearts, is it not?"
He bowed low, hand to his bosom.
"And now you've come, sure I ope you'll stay," rumbled the grim old seaman. "The trouble with you's always been your despart hurry to get away."
"This time we stay," replied the Frenchman with a smirk—"all three, for ever, if need be."
"We'll do our best to make you at ome, sir," grunted the Englishman; and turning to Kit—
"Slip below and tell Mr. Lanyon to begin to talk when we're locked fast—and not afoor."
Kit scampered below.
The main-deck was clear as a room before a ball: bulkheads up; hammocks slung. But for the sand on it, you might have danced there.
How big and sweet and clean it looked!—like the loft at home, where he and Gwen and the black cat's kittens played on wet days.
But there was something other than the black cat's kittens to think about now.
The sunshine poured in through the ports on the sleek guns crouching ready. On the breech of one somebody had scrawled in chalk—
God is Love. Hear me preach it:
on others obscene mottoes, texts, and lines from patriotic songs.
About each gun clustered her crew, naked to the waist, black handkerchieves bound about their foreheads. All had solemn puckers about the brows; some were silent, some ghastly-joking in whispers, and one, face averted, was obviously praying.
Up and down the sanded deck between the guns, picking his teeth, strutted a tall and faded splendour.
His cocked hat was a-rake; his kid gloves white as his skipper's were dingy; his whiskers, purple with dye newly applied, puffed out on cheeks touched with rouge.
Could this dilapidated dandy, so alert, so nonchalant, be the drunkard of last night?—
Yes. That tallowy nose, those eyes with the wild gleam in them, could not be mistaken. It was Lushy Lanyon.
Somehow he had scraped up a First Lieutenant's uniform: bright blue coat with long tails; white waist-coat, knee breeches, and stockings; black hat cockaded, worn athwart-ships; and sword slung from a shoulder belt. And the wonder was that it fitted and became him.
The boy gave his message.
The Gunner bowed ceremoniously.
"Be so good as to give Commander Ardin my compliments, and say I don't pull a lanyard till I can see through her ports."
The other's formal politeness stirred the boy almost to laughter; yet somehow the faded splendour of the man touched him too.
It was as when a great light seeks to shine through smoked glass. Last night he had seen only the sodden body; now he beheld the soul, shining dimly, it is true, but shining still through its sullied habitation. The call to action had set it burning. It illuminated the blurred face, notable still. In his youth the man must have been extraordinarily handsome. Even now he was a noble ruin.
"Ah, you may stare, Mr. Caryll," said the Gunner, reading the other's thoughts. "It was Lushy Lanyon last night; this morning it'sMe!"
He swelled his chest, and stalked down the deck between his guns, shooting his cuffs.
"Yes, sir. A fight's meat and drink to me. It pulls me together, and makes me remember who I am." He threw back his head—"Magnificent Arry, the man that's played more avock with earts in his day than any other seaman afloat…. It's the whiskers done it," he added simply.
The two men in him were at war: the high and mighty fighting-man and the confidential toper. Each came bobbing out in turns.
"And if you should want to see a main-deck fought as a main-deck should be fought, why, sir, be good enough to take a seat."
He kicked a powder-monkey off his box, and offered it with a bow.
"Can't," said Kit, turning. "No time. See you again later."
The other stooped and peered out of a port.
"Doobious, I should say," he replied, picking his teeth. "Vairy doobious. Ah! ——"
A great black shadow stole across the port. Its effect on the Gunner was miraculous. He shot up like a flame. He was dark; he was terrible; there was something of the majesty of Satan about the man. Some huge sea of life seemed to lift him above himself, and land him among the giants.
"Stand by the starboard battery!" he roared.
Kit ran up the ladder out of that bellowing Inferno.
TheTremendousand her enemy lay side by side with locked spars; theCoquettebecalmed beyond.
Then Kit understood the ruse of that wary old fighter, his Commander. Old Ding-dong had placed theCocotteas a bulwark between him and her consort. As he had foreseen, the wind, falling away this hour past, had dropped to nothing now. TheCoquettecould not bring a gun into action.
Four hundred yards away, she might have been as many miles for all the assistance she could render her sister-ship.
As the boy came up, the old Commander was leaning against the wheel, bending towards his knee, and breathing hard.
There was a dark and peevish look about his face; and a trickle of red was running down his white knee-breeches.
"Tell ye 'taint etiquette to have men in your tops only in general actions and duels atween ships of the line," he was saying in slow and painful voice, very querulous. "In all my fifty years' experience o sea fightin, I never see sich a thing afoor, never! Dirty trick I call it."
The little Frenchman across the narrow lane of water dividing the ships, chattered excuses, all sympathy and shrugged shoulders.
"Ah, I so grieve. Pain! pain! terrible, n'est-ce-pas?—But what would you, my Captain?—It is no fault of mine. The Emperor's orders. 'I trust you, my Commodore,' says he. 'Coûte que coûte.'
"Emperor! about as much a h'Emperor as you are Commodore! And you're welcome to tell him so with my compliments," snorted the old man.
He threw his eye aloft.
"Mr. Caryll, take a party o small-arm men aloft, and clear them sneakin blay-guards out of her tops. Else they'll be boardin by the yards."
The boy rushed away.
Beneath his feet the deck staggered and shook. On the lower-deck of theTremendoushell had broken loose, in flame and smoke and horrible bellowings. The little ship was racked. In her agony she quivered from truck to keel.
Suddenly the spars of theCocotteabove him began to crackle and blaze. Plip-plop-plank! the bullets smacked all about him. He was under fire and he didn't like it. He wanted to dodge under the bulwark and lie there; but he daren't. So he ran breathlessly, skipping as a bullet spanked the deck at his feet.
They were in the enemy's main-top, swarms of them, tiny figures, crowding along the spars, grinning at him, he thought.
How on earth with a handful of men, climbing up the rigging under a pelting fire, he would ever clear that lot out!…
Even as he wondered the enemy's main-mast seemed to become alive. It swayed; it shook; it almost danced; the taut shrouds sagged.
At first the boy thought that horror had turned his brain, and he was going mad. He stopped dead and gazed.
Yes, it was coming down, coming towards him, towering, tremendous, like a falling spire.
It came in jerks, tearing its way with a snapping of stays and crashing of spars. Figures, like black birds, seemed to detach themselves, and flop through the air. They were men, thrown clear, and falling with floating coat-tails as they revolved.
One fell with an appalling bump on the deck of the sloop hard by the wheel, a man in a red coat, bear-skinn'd and gaitered. He did not stir, kneeling, his hands before him, head bowed, in attitude of adoration. A sudden pool of scarlet seemed to spurt out of the deck and island him.
Kit, his work accomplished for him, ran back to the wheel.
"Reck'n that's the chap as got me," said old Ding-dong, nodding at the dead man with a certain grim friendliness. "A red-coat, d'ye see?—Now what's the meanin o that?—I never yeard tell of a privateer carrying regulars afoor."
The old man was leaning against the wheel. His brow was puckered; and there was a tense, breathless air about his face. It came to the boy with a shock of surprise that a man hard-hit makes just the same sort of face as a man who has got one on the funny bone at cricket.
"Are you hurt?" he asked anxiously.
"Nay, I'm none hurt, but I am hit. They've took fifty years doin it, but they've done it at last. It was yon chap with the bashed skull. Haul him alongside o me, wilta? I'll set on him—ease my old stumps!"
He lowered himself.
"I'll larn him shoot me," he said, arranging himself comfortably on his corpse.
Kit giggled. Somehow this old man with the twinkle in his eye made him feel at home among these screaming horrors.
"Lucky shot o Lanyon's," continued old Ding-dong. "There's a lot o luck in fightin; and good job for us too. Luck's the favour o God. He always favours us. We're straight, ye see."
He peered through the eddying smoke-drift.
"That there top-hamper o their'n makes a tidy bridge atween ships. Now if they was to tumble to that, reckon they'd boord—and we'd be about done."
Kit looked round.
The enemy's main-top had fallen across the deck of the sloop.
The lightning that is genius flashed in the boy's mind.
In a second he was across the self-fashioned drawbridge between the two ships and on to the deck of the Frenchman. It was deserted save for the dead men, red-coats all, flung from the falling top, and sprawling broadcast everywhere. Even Mouche had disappeared.
Beneath him on the lower deck was the same bellowing Inferno as on theTremendous. He felt the privateer stagger and rend to a broadside of the sloop, as though her bowels were being torn out. He rushed to a hatchway belching smoke. In the pit below he could see dim figures flitting about, and could hear the howls of those in torment. Deafened, blinded, dizzied, he slammed the hatch upon them, clamping it down. Swiftly he passed from hatchway to hatchway, making all fast.
With dancing heart, he ran back to the bridge.
As he did so a whimpering voice stayed him.
"O mon enfant!"
The French skipper was lying abaft the binnacle, a yard across his lower body.
There was no make-believe about him now, no mockery. He was naked man, stripped of his tinsel, and laid bare to the soul by the inexorable Master, Pain. Across his chin, as though to mock him, lay his false moustachios.
"Tuez-moi!" he whimpered hoarsely. "Tuez-moi!"
"I can't!" gasped Kit—"not in cold blood!"
The lad was face to face with one of the most appalling of God's mysteries, and was unhinged by it. Gwen with the toothache had been nothing to this.
The agonised man rolled his head from side to side.
"Sainte Mere de Dieu, intercédez pour moi!" he wailed.
Again that lightning flashed in the boy's mind.
The man's silver-mounted pistol lay on the deck beside him. He thrust it into the other's hand.
"Here, sir!"
The man clutched it, as one dying in a desert may clutch the flagon of water that means life to him.
The head ceased its dreadful weaving.
"Petit ange! petit Anglais!" he whispered, and tried to smile.
Kit ran for his bridge. Halfway across it, he heard a crack, and looked back.
He could not see the French skipper; but what he could see made his heart sick.
Boats, crammed to the teeth, were putting away from theCoquette. Black and scurrying, they tore across the water towards him, like rats racing for blood.
Kit rushed madly aft.
"Here they come, sir!" he screamed.
Old Ding-dong sat propped on his corpse, shaving a quid of tobacco.
"Who come?"
"The boats, sir—boarding."
"That's the game, is it?"
He shut his jack-knife deliberately, and arranged his plug in the corner of his jaw.
"Fetch me that ere boardin-pike. Now give me a hike up. Then nip below and pass the word to Mr. Lanyon."
As Kit turned, he heard the rip of the first boat under the counter of the sloop and a sharp command in French, sounding strange and terrible in his ears.
Furiously he sped along the deck. As he bundled down the ladder, he caught a glimpse of the old Commander, braced against the bulwarks, and spitting into his hands.
The boy dropped into hell.
Down there was no order. All was howling chaos. Each gun-captain fought his own gun, regardless of the rest. Billows of smoke drifted to and fro; shadowy forms flitted; guns bounded and bellowed; here and there a red glare lit the fog.
Through the shattering roar of the guns, the rendings of planks, the scream of round-shot, came the voices of men, dim-seen. Jokes, blasphemies, prayers, groans, issued in nightmare medley from that death-fog.
"Chri', kill me!—My God, I sweats!—Pore old Jake's got it!"
On mid-deck a shadow was pirouetting madly. Suddenly it collapsed; and the boy saw it ended at the neck.
A dim figure lolled against an overturned gun. As the lad gazed, it pointed to a puddle beside it.
"That's me," it said with slow and solemn interest.
The boy trod on something in the smoke. A bloody wraith, spread-eagled upon the deck, raised tired eyes to his.
"That's all right, sir," came a whisper. "Don't make no odds. I got all I want."
A hand out of the mist clutched his ankle.
"Stop this racket," gasped a voice, querulous and tearful. "I ain't well." A stump flapped in his face.
A ghost, sitting up against the side close by, began to titter.
"Once I was mother's darling. Mightn't think it to see me now."
A shot, screeching past the boy's nose, took his breath away. He staggered back, and brought up against a gun-captain, his shoulders to the breech of the gun.
The man turned with a grin. It was the Gunner, naked to the waist, and smoke-grimed.
"Sweet mess, ain't it?" he coughed. "How d'ye like your first smell o powder, sir?"
"They're boarding!" panted Kit. "Quick!"
The man leapt up.
"Boardin!" he roared. "BoardME!I'll give em board."
He snatched up a chain-shot, and raced down the deck.
"Up aloft the lot o you!" he howled. "Heaven waits ye there!"
As he flamed through the smoke-drift, the crew caught fire from him.
Behind him in roaring flood they poured—black men and bloody, snatching each the weapon nearest to hand.
An aweful joy seemed beating up through mists in their faces. Time and Eternity warred within them. Man, the creature, hideously afraid for his flesh, strove with Man, the Creator, impregnable in his immortality.
Kit, swept off his feet, was borne along with the flood. The fury of enthusiasm, which the splendid drunkard had roused in the hearts of his men, had seized him too.
His body was aflame; and his veins ran fire. Now for the first time he knew what it was to be alive—Life spurting from his finger-tips, making madness in his blood, issuing riotously from his lips. He sang; he yelled; he laughed, battering at the lunatic in front. He caught the blasphemies of his battle-fellows, and echoed them shrilly and with joy. The light in his comrades' eyes revealed to him deeps of being undreamed of before. His spirit was pouring through his flesh, making glory as it went.
Uplifted as a lover, the wine of War drowned his senses. In the glory of doing he had no thought for the thing done. His was the midsummer madness of slaying. In that singing moment how should he remember the bleak and shuddering autumn of pain inevitably to follow?—the winter of clammy death?—the March-wind voices of distant women wailing their mates?
"Jam, ain't it?" yelled a man in his ear, as they raced up the ladder.
"Glory! glory!" sang the boy, beside himself with passion.
Aft and alone stood the old Commander, a dead man at his feet.
Another swarmed over the side. The old Commander's boarding-pike met him fair in the face. Back the fellow went into darkness and death.
"Good old Ding-dong!" came the Gunner's rollicking bellow, as he stormed up on deck, swinging his chain-shot like a battle-axe. "That's your sort!—bash em! blast em!—disembowl the —— Turks!"
Behind him, out of the smoke, poured the men, red-hot and roaring, like lava spewed up from the bowels of a volcano.
A stream of boarders, trickling over the bulwarks, raced across the deck to meet them.
"Love and War! O my God, ain't they glory?" howled the Gunner, and plunged into the opposing flood.
One man he felled with his chain-shot; then flung it aside.
"Naked does it!" he roared, and swept up a boarder in his arms. "Ow, the luscious little armful! no good kickin, duckie! You've got to ave it!" He rushed to the side, hugging his man, and screaming fearful laughter.
"Love me and forgive me, pretty tartie!" he roared, and smashed his burthen down over the side.
The fellow crashed into a ladder of boarders, swarming up one behind the other. Back they hurled into the boats, a hurricane of men, one on top of t'other. The boat rocked, crumpled up, and sank.
The tears were rolling down the Gunner's face.
"Quenched their little ardour!" he bellowed, leaping on to the bulwark. "That's the style below there, boys! Go it, ye cripples! Give em the littleTremendous!"
Beneath him the sea was black with boats. From the port-holes of the main-deck the wounded were leaning out, hailing round-shot down into the boats.
"Plug em! ply em!" roared the Gunner. "Red ot shot—cannister—case! anything ye like only give em slaughter for eaven's sweet sake!"
He was back in the thick of it, raving up and down the deck, sowing death broadcast, his great voice everywhere.
Not a man on board but seemed to have caught something of his heroic fury. The purser's steward, primmest of Methodists, who was said to pass his time in action converting the cook, came tripping out of the galley, a black-jack of boiling water in his hand.
"Glory for you!" he screamed, and flung the contents in the face of a boarder.
"There's the proper Christian!" gasped the Gunner, slammed up against the main-mast. "Propagate the Gospel ow ye can!—bilin bilge!—buckets o filth!—spit in his face if ye can't do no better."
A tall Frenchman pistoled the little steward.
The ship's cook, a flabby great flat-footed man, all in white, and snorting strangely, bundled up with a poll-axe, and cleft the Frenchman's skull.
"It a chap your own size!" he yelled, and felled from behind, went down himself.
Up and down the deck the battle raged: here a scrimmage; there a single fight; men at hand-grips; men hurling round-shot. They swayed, they staggered about in each other's arms; they shocked, parted, came together again. Dead men lay in the scuppers; wounded men crawled the deck; and up and down among them the living reeled. One man, turned cur, crouched under the bulwark with ghastly face uplifted, and met his death, whimpering. Another, strangely quiet amid the dance of devils, stood against the foremast, nursing a broken arm. Nobody heeded him. They were too busy.
To Kit a sudden madness seemed to have possessed the world. The deck danced before him. He was bumped; he was battered; he was hurled to and fro—a twig in a torrent.
All was dreadful; all was dizzy. Strange faces with appalling eyes rose before him; men breathing terribly flitted past. There was a smell of blood and sweat in his nostrils; a sound of panting and blasphemies in his ears.
This then was a battle—not much like the stories! All the same he wished they wouldn't tread on his toes so.
Blindly the boy slashed about him. Whether he killed them, or they killed him, he hardly knew, and didn't greatly care. A sort of instinct told him the men to stab at—the dirty beasts in shirts who showed their teeth. The naked men were his own lot.
Once he heard a voice beside him.
"Go it, little un! you're almost a man!"
Then the Gunner staggered by, all black eyes and straining face, his arms about a huge boarder, his teeth deep in the fellow's shoulder.
"Rip this ——'s backside up!" came a gurgling voice.
His hand went up automatically; automatically his dirk came down.A mountain fell on top of him….
As he crept out a voice panted hard by,
"Old man's down."
Dizzily he saw the old Commander sprawling to a fall, a man on top of him. The boy heard him grunt as he fell. That grunt angered him.
"I'm coming, sir!" he cried, and ran wrathfully with bloody dirk."Beast!"he yelled."Leave him alone!"
There was no need for him to cry.
The old man had done his own work from underneath with the jack-knife. Out poked his badger-grey head from under his man, much as the boy had often seen a ferret from beneath the body of a disembowelled rabbit.
"So fur so good," grunted the old man, crawling out on hands and knees, the scent-bottle between his teeth. "How's things forrad?"
Forward the deck was all but clear.
The remnant of the boarders, jammed up in the bows, were being hammered to death. A last fellow in a red night-cap, swarming out on the bowsprit, plumped into the sea.
The Gunner leapt on to the bulwark.
"Cleared, be God! alow and aloft!" he roared, swinging his chain-shot about his head. "Ats off all!—
God save h'our gracious King."
A bandaged head poked out of the hatchway.
"They're swarmin in through the port-holes!" came a husky scream.
Old Ding-dong lifted on his elbows.
"Leave the quarter-deck to me and the boy!" he roared. "Clear the main-deck."
"Ay, ay, sir," answered the Gunner, racing for the ladder. "Back to hell, the leetle beetches!"