They passed out of the cottage.
A heavy-browed jasmine, the flowers fading now, hung about the door.
The greensward ran smoothly away to a shingle bank that rose, long- backed and brown, some three hundred yards away. The bank crossed the horizon like a low breast-work, sweeping away eastward in long roan curve. On the right it ran into a little blunt hill, green-brown and bare. Beyond the bank the sea leapt to the eye.
The Parson was walking reverently.
There was about him something of the subdued air of the schoolboy going to interview a respected master.
"Step quietly," he murmured. "We are going into the presence of a saint."
In front of the cottage, about two hundred yards from it, a little knoll, shaded with sycamores, humped up out of the greensward.
At the foot of it, in the shadow of a tree, a tall old man was sitting bolt upright in a wooden chair with wheels. A brown book had fallen open beside him; and a musket, propped against the chair, threw a black shadow across the page.
"Loaded!" muttered the Parson, pointing. "He can draw a cork from a bottle at a hundred yards."
"More than most saints could," whispered the boy.
"He's a common-sense saint, not the ordinary run," replied the Parson with a grin.
The old man's back was towards them. He was gazing intently through a long glass at the privateer. Kit could see nothing but a straight back and moon-silvered head.
"Piper, I've brought a young gentleman of your Service to see you," said the Parson in the quiet tone in which a man addresses a woman or a superior.
The old sailor dropped the glass. His great hands fumbled with the wheels of his chair, and he slewed himself about.
Kit's heart gave a jerk.
The old man ended abruptly at the thighs!
Irresistibly the boy recalled a doll of Gwen's whose china legs he had once plucked off in passion, leaving saw-dust stumps.
The Parson saw the look on the boy's face.
"Ah, I should have told you. Lost both legs in the action with theCa Ira, wasn't it, Piper?"
The doll spoke.
"Not lost, sir—gone before."
Kit glanced at him sharply.
Was he joking?
No; in that grave face lurked no laughter. The old man had said the thing that he believed in simplest faith. And what a face it was! nobly large, worn as the earth, and as full of quiet dignity. Pale, too, but not with the pallor of ill-health. Indeed the old man looked hard and wholesome as a forest tree. Rather the boy was reminded of a cathedral seen in February sunshine.
The great upper lip was bare and stiff as clay. The wide mouth curled up at the corners, as though it often smiled. Friendly eyes, the colour of forget-me-nots, dwelt on the boy. A stiff white fringe framed all.
And the note of the whole was calm—calm invincible.
Then the boy's eyes fell on those blue bags thrusting out over the edge of the chair. A question leapt to his lips. It was out before he could stop it.
"Dud—dud—does it hurt?"
The old man's face broke up and shone. He chuckled.
A saint could laugh, then! the boy felt himself relieved.
"No, sir, thank you, ne'er a bit. And not nigh as much at the time as you might fancy—a tidy jar like to be sure…. One thing, I don't suffer from no bunions." He went off again into his deep chuckle; and again the boy felt comfort at heart.
The saint could joke!
"Tell him about it, Piper," said the Parson; "you and Nelson."
"Why, sir," said the old man, frank as a child, "the Captain were standin by my gun in the waist, where he'd no business to ha been reelly by rights. Flop I goes on the broad o my back, when it took me. He was down on his knees beside me in a second, dabbin with his little handkercher. 'Don't kneel in that, sir,' says I, 'your white breeches and all.' 'Ah, dear fellow!' says he, taking my hand, 'dear fellow! dear fellow!…' Then they carried me off to the cock-pit."
That was the whole story, but it was so simply told that the boy saw and felt it all.
"Yes, sir. There warn't a man aboard theAgamemnonbut'd ha died for Captain Nelson and proud too."
He put the spy-glass to his eye to hide the fact that he was blinking.
"She's had a rare mauling, surely. I'd just like to know her story."
"Here's the young gentleman can tell you, Piper," chimed in theParson.
There was a faint glow in the hollow of the old man's cheeks as he listened to the boy's tale, and he was rubbing his huge hands together slowly.
"Seems the powder's laid, but the match lies yet in the pocket of this here Gentleman," he said, as Kit concluded. "One thing's clear, sir! We want that boat!… Now if so be I might make so bold, if you and the young gentleman'd take the glass, and step across to the Wish there, you could see all along the shore past Cow Gap to the Head, and make out what they're up to."
"That's a good notion for a sailor!" cried the Parson briskly. "Come on, Kit."
"And I'll make my course for the cottage and see all's snug there," said the old man. "You never know what's comin next in this world. It's the wise man as is ready for the worst."
He trundled himself across the grass.
"Here's your book!" cried Kit, and bending picked it from the ground.
As he did so he saw the name.
It was Law'sSerious Call.
They passed out of the shadow of the sycamore into the sun-glare.
The greensward ran away into shallow creek lying between them and the little hill beyond. Crossing it, they began the ascent.
"This is the Wish," explained the Parson, climbing; "the Wash really, because the sea washed round it in old days. It's gone back along these parts. Old Piper says, when he was a boy, the creek used to fill at spring-tides."
At the top of the hill Kit looked about him.
The Wish thrust out into the brown beach, a natural watch-tower, some hundred feet high. This was no doubt the bump of green he had seen from the dew-pond.
Eastward a long sweep of shingle embraced Pevensey Bay. Westward,Beachy Head shouldered out into the sea.
It was nearly low tide. Barriers of black rocks bound the sea.
On the edge of it a boy in a blue jersey danced. In his hand was a sea-weed scourge; and as the sea toppled in tiny ripples at his feet, he spanked it, leaping back to avoid the touch of the water. As he leapt he yelled; and in the stillness his pure treble rose to them.
"Hod back, ye saucy thing! hod back, I say!"
The Parson put his hand to his mouth.
"Blob!" he holloaed.
The boy looked up, and with a parting spank came towards them.
"Who's that?" asked Kit, "and what's he doing?"
"Blob—blobbing'," replied the Parson laconically.
"Who's Blob?"
The Parson took up his tale.
"You remember I told you Black Diamond promised to look me up some time. Well, I knew he'd be as good as his word. So very next day I had the windows barred, a brace of bullet-proof doors slung, got in a barrel of powder, and made all snug….
"And just as well I did, too. A couple of days later, just about the time the bats begin to twitter, I heard the thud of feet on the grass, and a laugh. They thought they'd taken on an easy job—just walk into the house, and cop me at my supper. We let em up to within twenty yards. Then we let em have it, the three of us—Piper, Knapp, and I….
"Such a panic! 'It's a trap!' screams one. 'Blockademen!' yells a second. Diamond was the only one of the lot to keep his head. ''Bout ship, boys!' he shouts. 'Call again another day.' And off they scuttled, quicker than they came….
"'Come on, Knapp!' says I, and bundles out after them, holloaing like a regiment. One or two turned, and there was a bit of a barney. I stuck one chap, and was just going to stick another—a fellow in blue jumping around in a queer kind of way—when all of a sudden he gave a jab in the back to one of his own chaps.
"Then he turned, and I saw he was a boy about your age, with a face like a pink moon.
"He came at me like a man, flashing his knife.
"'Here! who are you for?' says I.
"'Whoy, mesalf!' says he.
"'But what you at?' says I.
"'Whoy, foightin!' says he.
"'Who?' says I.
"'Whoy, the nearest!' says he, and smacks at me.
"Then Knapp tripped him from behind, and he was our prisoner….
"He's been with us ever since. Piper's been tryin to make a Christian of him."
"What's his story?"
"I don't know, and he can't tell us. He knows nothing—not even fear. I call him Blob, because blob's his nature. Piper found the name Hoad on his shirt. I daresay his people sold him to the Gap Gang; and they kept him."
"To be cruel to?" shuddered Kit.
"Not they," laughed the Parson. "He was plump as a little pig. They'd be kind to him because he wasn't right—superstition, you see. Kept him to bring em luck, probably. A kind of idol."
The boy in the blue jersey was coming up the hill towards them, slobbering at the mouth. His hands were in his pockets, and he lolloped along on his toes.
"Oi druv her back," he announced with complacent cunning. "She was creepin in on us, sloy-loike."
His face was that of a babe. Clearer eyes Kit had never seen, nor a more perfect mouth. But for the ears, large and flap, it might have been the face of a cherub, poised on the gawky body of fifteen. The expression, by no means vacant, was of slow and staring interest. Certainly this was no congenital idiot. Probably some chance blow on the head in infancy had arrested mental growth. The flesh had gone on; the mind had stopped. A baby-soul was sheathed in the body of a boy.
The two lads were much of a height, and much of an age. But what a difference between them!
The one was limp as a lolling flower, the other alert as a sword, and as keen. Experience had written nothing on the face of the simpleton. All there was blank as the moon. The haggard cheeks and anxious eyes of the other told that he had already drunk deep of the bitter waters of life.
Blob was staring at Kit with the solemn interest of a babe.
Then he pointed a finger.
"Boy!" he bleated.
"Call me 'sir'!" ordered Kit imperiously. "And take your hands out of your pockets when you talk to me."
"Go home, Blob!" said the Parson, patting him. "Home!" pointing, "Home! and stop making a blob o yourself for the present, there's a good boy. Mr. Piper wants you to help him."
Blob shook a slow head.
"Nay," he said in musical Sussex. "Oi'll boide with Maaster Sir."
Here was another boy in a land of men. In a dim way he felt their kinship.
The Parson was staring through the spy-glass at Beachy Head.
A mile and a half away, it lay in misty splendour, not unlike a lion sleeping.
At the foot of it a few tiny black figures moved among the rocks.
"I make out about a score of em," he said. "The boat's beached, and a man over it. I can catch the glint on his gun-barrel. We can't get at em except along the shore, hang it! They'd see us coming a mile off."
"If we can't get at the boat," said Kit, "neither can the Gentleman."
"That's truth," mused the Parson, dropping the glass.
"He'll prowl about till night-fall probably. Then he'll have a chance —if they've got liquor. The boat's his one hope. He's in a tightish place, mind!—enemy's country; wings clipped; his old friends his best enemies."
"And he doesn't know whether the privateer's a Frenchman or not," said Kit. "Though, of course, he might come down to the shore and signal her—on chance."
"Not while it's light," replied the Parson grimly; "If he signalled from anywhere it'd be from here. And here I squat till dark. After dark he can signal till he's black in the face—he hasn't got a lantern."
The boy's anxious eyes were sea-ward.
The old pain of heart, forgotten for the moment in the cottage, had returned, the old sickening sense of failure. After all, the responsibility washis, and his alone. It was inhimold Ding-dong had trusted; it was tohimthe scent-bottle had been bequeathed; the fate of Nelson rested onhisshoulders.
Hither and thither his mind darted, seeking a way of escape from the net of circumstance.
"If we could only make sure of his thinking her an Englishman!" he fretted.
"She's flying no colours," said the Parson, "that's one good thing."
"I wish she'd fly the Union Jack," replied the boy.
The remark annoyed the Parson, practical or nothing.
"What's the good of wishing what can't be?" he snarled. "You might leave that to the women."
"Why can't it be?" retorted the boy hotly.
A sound behind him caught his ears. He turned to see the flag in the cottage chimney ruffling it behind the sycamores.
It flashed a message to his heart.
"By Jove, sir!" he panted. "I've got it."
The blood had rushed to his face, and ebbed as suddenly.
"Lend me your flag, and I'll swim out with it after dark!"
The Parson stared.
"To the privateer?"
"Why not? It can't be more than a few hundred yards. I've often done more."
"Well, what if you did get there?" curt and sarcastic. "Summon her to surrender, else you'd take her by storm and put the lot to the sword, I suppose?"
"Why, board her, sir, and run the flag up! She's not a man-of-war.They'll be keeping no watch, likely as not."
The boy was in a white blaze.
"They won't see it till broad daylight!" he panted, pressing. "And by that time the Gentleman, if he's hanging about, will see it too. If they haul it down then and run up the tricolour, he'll think it's a decoy."
There was something contagious about the lad's white-hot enthusiasm.
The light was coming and going in the Parson's eyes.
The scheme was as mad as you like. Still, there was a chance of success, a fighting chance. And was it not the only one?
Himself he no more doubted the lad's story than he doubted that a month since he had crossed swords with Fighting Fitz. But who else would believe?
Of course he must send Knapp over to Lewes at once to report to BeauBeauchamp, the Commandant there; but what would come of that?
Loving his old Service with passionate jealousy, he was not blind to the weakness of its traditional logic: it was not probable; therefore it was not true; and so to sleep again, dear boys!
And Beau Beauchamp, of all men!
The Parson had not yet forgotten the reception that heavy sensualist had given to his report that Fighting Fitz was riding up and down the land just outside his lines.
"May I, sir?"
The boy was burning at his side. Perforce the Parson began to smoulder too.
The adventure had just that smack of romance about it that tickled this man of prose. Could he have run the risk himself, he who could hardly swim to the bottom, he would have ventured it with laughing heart. Was he justified in staying the sailor-boy?
No, no, no! his heart thundered the answer at him.
There must always be a risk. And was ever risk better worth running than this one? But what a boy!
He was flaming merrily now.
"May I, sir?"
He turned to the lad, pale beside him, and smacked a hand into his.
"Kit!" he cried with gusty laughter, "you should have been a soldier!"
Kit awoke with the horrors.
All was black about him, and a great hand lay on his breast.
He gripped it, gurgling.
A calm voice, already strangely familiar, reassured him.
"By your leave, sir, it's about time for you to rouse and bitt."
It was Nelson's old foretop-man. The moon, slanting through the window, shone on his white head and those tranquil, big-dog eyes of his.
Kit relaxed his hold.
"That you, Piper?" he sighed. "I was dreaming of Fat George. What's the time?"
"It's a little better'n two o'clock, sir; you've had a tidy sleep. The tide's pretty near down, and the moon's a-nigh off the water. By than you get alongside there'll likely be a bit o' mist on the water crep up from the eastud with the sun."
The boy slipped off his clothes, shivering.
"Where's Mr. Joy?"
"He came in from the Wish just on midnight. 'No Knapp yet?' says he. 'Then I shall make a reconnaissance in force myself.' 'Beggin your pardon, sir,' says he, don't see the force—one man agin a score.' 'Ah,' says he, 'you forget my lady.' And he whips up his Polly, and off he pops over the grass like a lad a-courtin." The old man chuckled as he told.
"What's Knapp up to?" trembled the boy.
"Why, sir, gone over to Lewes for the soldiers, and should ha been back hours sen."
"Wonder why he's not?"
"Got fightin and foolin on the road, sir, I'll lay," chuckled the old man. "Like a lamb with the heart of a lion is Knapp, sir. Frisks into trouble, and then fights out again. This is first time he's been let out of hissalf since he went into training. So he's all of a bubble like. Bubble or bust—that's how Knapp feels."
Stripped, the boy stood up in the darkness.
"Got the flag, Piper?"
"Here it be, sir. How'll you carry it?"
"So." He wound it up in a coil and tied it about his neck, scarf-like.
"Now I'm ready."
The old man wheeled out to the edge of the shadow of the house.
All about was black and silver in the moon. A faint breeze ruffled the sycamores upon the knoll. Stars strewed the heavens. Beyond the shingle-bank the sea glistened like satin.
It was very still, very cold, very lonely.
Kit set his teeth to prevent them chattering. The night air kissed him coldly, and the moon, white above the inky Downs, glistened on his shoulders.
"There she lays, in the Channel off the Boulder Bank," whispered the old man, pointing to the privateer, dull-black against the glitter. "And it's my belieft there's not a sober man aboard of her. All stow'd away dead drunk under hatches—that's my belieft, sir. They kep it up from dark till midnight—dancin, drummin, fightin, and all manner. More like a cage full? wild beasties from Bedlam than a Christian ship. And for the last hour she might ha been a hulk full o corpuses."
He dropped his voice still further.
"He's in it, sure!" jerking his thumb starward. "Made em blind to the world for His own good purpose—which is as you should lay em aboard unbeknownst and knife the blessed lot if so be it was your fancy."
The boy choked a laugh brimming on the edge of being. The old man's solemnity, his profound simplicity, touched the springs of mirth within him.
"Perhaps," he panted. "I hope so."
"Ah! I'm certain sure," replied the other with firm confidence.
Faith, the most infectious quality in the world because the truest, seized the boy's heart and lifted it.
"Good-bye, Piper."
"Good luck, sir."
The lad plunged into the moonlight.
A moon-clad wisp, he flitted across the greensward, the fringe of the flag-scarf fluttering behind him. It was a fine thing to do, but he wished devoutly somebody else had the doing of it. On the Wish in the sunshine, the Parson at his side, when the idea first struck him, it had seemed splendid. Now, alone in the dark, with the idea to translate into reality, he saw it very differently. It gave him no thrill of glory. He felt exactly as he had felt last March on the way to the dentist to have a tooth out—a mean sense of his own mortality, and an earnest desire to run away.
The turf shaded off into long bents growing out of sand; and that again ran away into shingle. As he breasted the bank, his hands succouring his feet, he heard steps behind him.
"Who's that?" he snarled, crouching.
Blob was standing at gaze a little way behind him.
"What ye want?"
The boy made no answer, staring with round moon-eyes.
"He's noiked," came a musing voice. "Oi dew loike to see un."
He shot out a finger, and, flinging back his head, gurgled laughter.
"Here, boy!" called Kit. "As you are there, you can carry me over these pebbles."
He leapt on the other's back, and Blob, sturdy as he looked limp, crashed down the shingle and across the stretch of wet sand at a loose-jointed canter.
"That'll do, my boy, thank you," said Kit, slipping down at the edge of the tide. "I'd give you a penny, only I've not got one. No, you can't come any further. It's too dangerous. This is a job for officers."
He began to paddle out, the ripples playing about his ankles.
Blob's presence braced him to his task. It called to his spirit of a gentleman. He would just show this lout what blood meant.
Blob followed him with awed eyes.
"She's aloive," he warned his brother-boy. "She'll swallow ee."
"No, she won't," Kit replied. "She's an old friend of mine."
The boy could swim at an age when to most lads walking is still an accomplishment. Now he waded quietly down a sandy reach between black rocks.
The water was warmer than the air. When it clasped his waist, he trusted himself to it faithfully.
The sea was his mother, and the mother of his race. Her arms were about him; her spirit entered into his. How pure she was, how strong, how good! He kissed her cool brow and dropped his head upon her bosom. Turning on his back, he saw the wall of the Downs, black beneath glorious stars. On the top of the wall poised the moon, peeping over the brim of the world at him. He waved to her, laughing: she too was a friend. And the moon, wise as innocent, smiled back.
He swam leisurely, without splash, almost without ripple, quiet as the tide.
He had the world to himself, and loved the loneliness.
Out here, the sea about him, the night above, he could feel the slow tides of God pushing onwards through the dark of Time.
Wars and tumults and all the tiny irritations and griefs of life, what were they to that immense-moving flood? And he was one with that flood. Stealing through the water with cleaving arms, he was assured of it.
Something rose shadowy and gaunt before him. It was the privateer.
The sight tumbled him out of Eternity into Time. His heart began to clamour, as though it would force its way out of his body.
No longer one with God, seeing all things with His large eyes, and loving them—he was a little boy, mortally afraid, alone in the vast and callous night.
In his flurry be began to splash about: then recollected himself, and trod water quietly.
The moon was deserting him, the sardonic moon he had thought of as a friend. Her silver rim glimmered behind the Downs and was gone. He missed her. Cold she was, still she had been company. He thought she might have stayed—just this one night! He felt aggrieved, and very much alone. And those stars strewing the night above him were so far, and had such hard little eyes.
The water grew dull and dark about him, and of a sudden greatly colder. The flag hung like a clammy halter about his neck. Verdun was not far, and death very near. But for the cold he would have cried. He wished he'd never come.
It flashed in upon him to hail the ship, and ask them for a cup of coffee. The thought amused him and saved the situation. He began to chuckle.
Squeezing the fear out of his mind, he set himself to the accomplishment of his task.
The thought of old Piper, calm invincibly, confirmed him in his purpose.
Yet he couldn't help reminding himself with a snigger, that old Piper was safe in an arm-chair on land, while he was out there in the water with the work to do.
Still, now if ever was his time. The moon was gone. In another hour the dawn would begin to glimmer. Between the two his chance lay.
Treading water a cable's-length away, he observed the ship intently.
She lay upon the water like a dead thing. The great dark hull, seen against the living night, appeared carcass-like. Her stillness was almost terrible.
Not a spar creaked, not a match glowed. She was dark as death, and as silent.
As he watched, a humming noise, rising and falling, came to him across the water. He held his breath. Then he recognised it, with a gasp of relief.
Somebody was snoring.
That domestic sound cheered him amazingly.
At least the ship was not a sepulchre. Her crew were neither dead nor devils. They were human. They snored.
He swam round the ship, stealthy as an otter in the Coquet.
So far as he could see there was not a soul on deck.
Then, as he came under her stern, he noticed for the first time that another vessel lay alongside.
A thought, swift as a dagger, struck at his heart.
Could it be that the Gentleman had somehow picked up a lugger, and so won aboard? Was he too late?
Then with a gasp of thankfulness he remembered.
It was theKite, of course.
The tide had set her alongside; and now she lay scraping the side of the privateer. A handier stepping-stone he could not have asked.
In a minute he had clambered aboard the lugger.
The privateer had dropped a hawser over her side as buffer. The boy was up it in a moment, and on to the deck, his heart beating high.
The deck was empty.
No! a figure was leaning over the side, his back to Kit. No sailor, obviously. He was wearing a great bearskin, and Kit caught the glimmer of a bayonet. A sentinel, and not asleep, nor drunk; for he was hummingÇa Ira.
La Coquettetoo then carried soldiers!
Stealthy as a cat, the boy drew away along the deck. Piper, weather- wise old man, had told him truth. Thin wisps of mists were sweeping over the sea, veiling the stars.
How God helps His little children who help Him!
Up the shrouds of the foremast. The ratlines seared his feet. A little wind licked his body. The mist was chill as a winding-sheet.
There was no danger of being seen. He was nearer the stars than the deck. Between him and it now lay a blanket of mist.
But what was that in the East?
It was the whitening of the dawn.
There was no time to be lost.
He swarmed up the top-gallant mast, unwound the flag, and made it fast.
How it fluttered!—what a rollicking tow-row!—had ever flag rampaged so boisterously!
The man below stopped humming. Kit could not see him; so he could not see the flag.
Down he slid, the mast scraping his knees as he went; but he scarcely felt the pain. His heart was swelling. The privateer was flying British colours. She was his. Single-handed he had taken a French ship. He was half in tears, half laughing. It seemed so dream-like, so ridiculous.
Down the shrouds, and back to the deck.
Not a soul stirred. Forward somewhere a man shouted in his sleep. Aft the sentinel was whistling now.
Swift as an eel, the boy flashed to the side, and poised for his plunge.
No! the splash would be heard.
Swiftly along the deck, making for his steppingstone, the lugger.
His work done, his heart brimming, the boy was ripe for mischief as a happy girl.
As he stole along the deck, his eyes never left the soldier's back. The fellow was leaning over the bulwark, his trousers tight, and their contents rounded and tempting. Should he, should he spank him?
A moment the boy struggled with his imp-self, and prevailed.
Nelson! Duty!
He slipped over into the lugger. The tide had shifted her position.Now she bumped under the stern of the privateer.
The port of the stern-cabin was open, and light poured from it.Standing on the weather-boarding, Kit peeped in.
A little fat man was sitting at a table, dead asleep, and snoring stertorously. His arms were on the table, and his head on his arms. He was quite bald, and very red. His lips pouted, and the under one thrust up towards his nose. The little round body rose and fell, bladder-like. His nose was a snout, short and cocked. A more pig-like little person Kit thought he had never seen.
A great bottle stood on the table before him, and beside it a scratch- wig and guttering candle. On the table a pistol pinned down a chart, and under the sleeper's head was a sheet of paper and a pen.
Piggy had fallen asleep writing.
Flung into a corner was a cocked hat. Beside it lay a much-mounted sword, and on a chair a blue frock-coat, with tawdry epaulettes.
The boy lifted his eyes. An obscene print decorated the bulk-head. It smote him in the face like a handful of filth. He snatched his eyes away. They fell upon a tarpaulin-bag hung on the door. On the bag was an eagle, beneath it a large
That settled it.
The boy meant to have that bag.
He was through the port in a twinkling.
The man was sleeping like the dead, his head askew on his hands, and lips compressed in pouting content. For the time being the body had mastered invincibly any soul there might be within. The man was so much slow-heaving earth.
The naked boy leaned over the sleeper. The pen had fallen from Piggy's hand, and left a little scrawl across the letter he had been writing.
The character was flourishing, self-complacent, and, above all, easy to read.
It was written in French, and ran, translated,
_Sire,
I have to inform your Majesty that Sunday dawn I was lying off Seaford Head, waiting to escort the lugger_ Kite, _according to your Majesty's instructions. As I was on my knees inviting the good God to shower blessings on the sacred head of you, His so faithful servant, a sail was seen.
I bore up for her immediately. She was an English ship of the line.
I engaged her at once, fearless of the odds, knowing that the good God is always on your Majesty's side. Desperate valour was displayed by your Majesty's seamen. We were out-numbered four to one.
She carried 120 guns in three tiers and was alive with men—all sent by me to answer before the Great Judge for being in arms against your anointed Majesty. May He deal with them as they deserve!
The Englishman was towing the luggerKite. Knowing the vital importance of the mission on which she was engaged, I cut her out from under the enemy's stern, leading the boat attack myself, under a terrific fire from her stern-galleries.
TheKitehad two dead men aboard, one of them, helas! the brave Monsieur de Diamond, so devoted to your Majesty's interests. He was sitting upon the despatch-bag, which thus had escaped the vigilance of his murderers.
My lord the General was not on board. I am lying off Beachy Head waiting for him. Should he not appear by tomorrow noon, I shall not dare to wait longer, but shall make all sail with the despatches I have captured.
I permit myself to congratulate your Majesty upon my victory, and sign myself with effusion,
Your Majesty's humble and adoring servant,
P.S.—I have prepared, and now send, the chart for which your Majesty asked. As your Majesty's eye will see at a glance all is in order. We do but wait the last word from my lord the General. The red crosses mark the stations…._
Here the pen had dropped from the writer's hand.
The boy turned with beating heart: he had struck gold indeed.
Unshipping the despatch bag, he slung it about his shoulders.
Lifting the pistol, he snatched the chart, and thrust it under the flap of the locked bag.
The action set the candle swaling. It shot out a snake-like flame that licked the bald pate of the sleeping privateersman.
He awoke with a start and asacre, clapping his hand to his singed head.
Then through drink-and-sleep-blurred eyes, he saw the naked figure by the door.
He half rose, little fat man, so pleased.
"Mon ange!" he cried, and fluttered both arms, much as Gwen's young canaries fluttered their wings when seeking food from their mother.
In a flash the boy had turned the key in the lock behind him, and flung it through the open port.
Then he swung the despatch-bag.
Many a pillow-fight with Gwen up and down the twisting passages of their attic nursery had made him expert. Crash it came down on Piggy's bald skull.
"One from yourange!" cried the lad, and followed up with a left-hander between the eyes.
Down crashed the amorous gentleman, spluttering.
A foot, planted fair on his mouth, stifled his cry.
Before he could recover, the boy was through the port, on to the lugger, and had slipped into the sea, quiet as a water-rat.
Behind him a dreadful scream woke the ship.
"Les depeches! Les depeches!"
The ship awoke suddenly from her swoon.
An appalling clamour boiled up from the still waters.
Bugle-calls split the air; drums rolled furiously; a carronade went off with a shattering roar; there was a rush of feet and tumult of voices. Above the confusion could be heard Piggy thumping at the door and squealing,
"Les depeches! Les depeches!"
Kit, sliding through the water, was thankful for the flash of insight that had made him lock the door, and throw away the key. That action meant minutes gained; these minutes might mean life.
The tide was with him now. But for that, and this merciful mist, his chances would benil.
His ears behind him, he swam like a hunted otter.
Aboard the privateer things were moving fast. The confusion abated; order began to reign; with it the danger grew. Somebody was at work with an axe on the door. It came down with a crash. There was a shrill command and the scamper of feet.
Piggy was on deck.
"Feu, imbecile! par la! dans le brouillard!"
A bullet plopped into the water wide on the boy's right.
"Au bateau!"
Again that scamper of feet: then the rattle of blocks and creak of pulleys. Besides all was swiftness, and fierce silence; and that silence terrified the lad far more than the preceding tumult.
"Depechez vous donc, gredins!"
They were lowering a boat; and he was getting done.
The despatch-bag was heavy between his shoulders. His hold upon himself was relaxing: dissolution was setting in. The firm mind, which at all times and in all places means salvation, was dissipating. He tried not to think. All there was of him he needed for his swimming. Thought was waste; so was fear. And swim he did, and swim, through endless water, with sickening brain and failing arms.
Behind him he heard a splash, as the privateer's boat took the sea.
They'd be coming soon now. He didn't mind much: he was too tired. And they couldn't hurt him: he was too far away.
He heard the splash of oars, and thumping rowlocks.
Here they came—straight towards him!
Then with a start he recollected: the privateer's boat would be pursuing; this was coming to meet him.
Had he been swimming round and round like a drowning dog?
No. Behind him he could hear shouts and orders on the privateer as the crew jumped into the boat.
This must be some other craft.
It was coming from the land, and a landsman was rowing it. He could tell by the uneven splash of the oars, the slish along the surface as a crab was caught, and the muffled curse as the man recovered himself.
Could it be the Parson come to his assistance?
The question answered itself.
The bows of a boat thrust on him through the mist. He saw a man's back, giving to his stroke.
"Hi!" he gasped, the boat's nose hard on top of him.
The rower glanced round.
There was no mistaking that falcon-face.
It was the Gentleman.
"Who's there?" peering suspiciously.
"Boy Hoad, powder-monkey o theDreadnought."
"Is that theDreadnought?" sharply.
"Dreadnought, forty-four. Oi'm drownin, sir. Take us in."
His hand was on the boat's gunwale.
"What the deuce you doing here?"
"Desartin, sir. They was for floggin me at sun-up."
"What for?"
"For—for fun."
"For what?"
"For funk, sir," panted the boy, recovering. "Oi don't care for being shotted. So when the guns begins to bang, Oi goos to bed."
The Gentleman threw back his head and ran off into laughter.
"You're the right sort, Mr. Toad. Come on board by all means. But for you and your likes the world'd be a dull place."
Kit clambered in.
"What's that bag?" asked the Gentleman, swift as a sword.
"Duds," replied the boy as swift.
The Gentleman, sitting still as death, stared. It was an appalling moment. The boy could not face those eyes. He looked behind him. As he did so, the mist above drifted away, and the Union Jack at the foretop of the privateer floated out.
"There's her colours!" he panted.
"By Jove, you're right," cried the Gentleman, and began to row the boat clumsily about. "Stop that hole in the bottom with your foot, will you?"
The boat was water-logged and filling fast. The water was already over the Gentleman's spurs.
Down on his knees the boy baled for his life.
Behind him he heard a word of command: then the splash of oars, and the regular thump of rowlocks. The privateer's boat was away—a ten- oared galley from the sound of her, and they were driving her.
"Row, sir, row!" urged the boy. "They're after us!"
The Gentleman flung back into his oars.
Kit could not but admire him. He was rowing, as he believed, against death. The boat was sodden; he could not row; and the pursuers were coming up hand over hand. Yet his eyes danced, as he gasped,
"This is life."
The boy was looking behind him. He could not see the pursuing boat, but he could hear the sizzle of foam under her keel as she slipped through the water, and the rhythmical sweep of oars.
There was a terrible beauty about it—this swooping of Death on them out of the fog. He could hear the wings he could not see. She was close now, the Angel of the Swarthy Pinions.
On the thwart lay a pistol. He snatched it.
"Good boy!" panted the Gentleman.
Kit glanced forward.
He could see the loom of the land.
"There's the shore, sir!" he cried.
"And here are they!" gasped the other. "Pretty thing, by Jove!"
A boat's bows shot up behind them. A figure was standing in the stern.
"Les voila!" screamed a voice.
The Gentleman threw up his oars.
"French!"
Kit clapped the pistol to his head.
"Row!" he screamed. "Row!"
The other tumbled back into his oars. Up sprang his foot. The pistol was kicked out of the boy's hand, and the Gentleman was on him.
"O, you are a villain, Little Chap!" chuckled a voice in the lad's ear.
For a moment they hugged, the boat rocking beneath them.
"Can you swim?" came the voice at his ear.
"Yes," gurgled the lad, and as he felt the boat going sucked in a breath.
"Then shift for yourself. I can't."
As the waters closed about them the arms of the Gentleman loosed their hold.
A boy was wading shoreward dizzily. As he surged through the water, his body made long rippling waves. He watched them with dull fascination, pointing.
Then he began to whimper peevishly. He was tired, he was cold. The shore waved up and down before his eyes. He knew he couldn't do it.
From behind him a yell penetrated his dying mind.
It stopped him dead.
He was a little child, nightmare-bound.
Waving to and fro, the water to his knees, he stretched both arms shoreward.
"Mother!" he wailed.
A shout answered him.
Some one was crashing down the shingle, racing across the sand, and plunging through the water towards him.
The boy began to titter.
"Come on, Kit! come on!" came a rousing voice. "Don't look behind you!That's the style! Come on!"
What was this black splashing figure, sword in hand? Was it the Angel of Death in full regimentals? Surely he recognised the face beneath the shako?
"You aren't mother," the boy giggled, swaying.
A strong arm was round him; a body, firm and full of life, was pressed against his dying one; a voice, quickening as the Spring, was in his ear.
"Splendid, Kit! Well done indeed! Lean on me. Lots o time."
"Have the soldiers come?" sobbed the boy, struggling forward.
"One has," came the sturdy voice—"a Black Borderer."
They waded through the shallows, the ripples breaking prettily about them.
Behind them a fierce voice sang out an order.
The galley, which had brought up with a bump against the submerged longboat, had hoisted the Gentleman on board, and was swooping in pursuit.
The boy heard the beat of the oars, and sank on his knees at the edge of the sea.
"I can't, sir. Take the bag. O go on!"
Two strong arms clutched him, and he was hoisted up.
All things were swimming away from him.
The last thing he knew was that he was in somebody's arms, and the somebody was running.
The boat swept shoreward.
A man with a musket, standing in the bows, was about to fire at the fugitives.
A sharp voice stayed him.
"Ne tirez point! Nous les prendrons vivants. Ce n'est qu'un seul homme et le gosse."
A bugle from the shingle-bank retorted defiantly.
"Halte!"
The boat stopped short.
The crew looked over their shoulders.
"Les soldats!"
Upon the ridge a shako bobbed up.
A figure in uniform rose and ran at it
"Keep your eads down there all along the line!" it shouted. "Wait tillI give the word, Royal Stand-backs."
The Gentleman sprang up in the boat.
"Ramez toujours, mes enfants!" he cried. "C'est une ruse!"
The men hung on their oars.
"Laches!" cried the Gentleman, smote the man on the foremost thwart a buffet, and leaping overboard floundered through the water.
The man in the bows fired.
There was no reply from the shingle-bank.
The men of the galley took courage. The boat swished through the shallows, and bumped ashore.
Out tumbled her crew, and stormed across the sand at the heels of theGentleman.
The Parson was staggering up the shingle-bank, the boy in his arms.
At the top he paused, heaving like an earthquake, and looked back on his scampering pursuers.
"Yes, my beauties," he panted. "You just won't do it."
Knapp, keen as a terrier, bobbed up at his side.
"Shall I charge em, sir?" his little brown eyes bursting with desire— "me and the boy. Down the ill and into em plippety-plumpety-plop! O for God's sake, sir!" whimpering, dancing. "Ave mercy as you ope for it. Let me ave me smack if it's only for the glory of the old rigiment."
"Certainly not," said the Parson sternly. "This is war, not tomfoolery."
The little man collapsed sullenly.
"From the right—retire by companies—on your sup-ports!" shouted the Parson in measured regimental voice.
From his manner he might have been addressing a Brigade and not merely Blob, disguised in an ancient shako, lying on his stomach, and armed with a hay-rake.
He plunged down the bank.
As he reached the greensward a warning shout from the cottage reached him.
"Ha! what's this?" joggled the Parson sharply. "Flank attack! who the pest? Oh, Gap Gang—I forgot."
A stream of fierce dark figures with running legs poured down the Wish and across the greensward at him.
"Hold tight round my neck, Kit!" he panted, taut to meet the new attack. "I want my sword-arm free. What! the boy's fainted!" He gave the limp body a hoist on his shoulder. "Now, Knapp! Let's see these guts o yours!"
Knapp shot by him, his arms working like piston-rods.
"Come on, Blob, me boy. Slaughder for somebody!" He pranced into action, throwing his legs like a hackney trotter. "Pray, duckie darlins, pray!" he called. "I'm a-comin! I'm a-comin! I'm a-comin!"
The life was bursting out of him. It made him laughing-mad. He was lusty as a young lion.
"Here they come!" muttered the Parson, labouring behind.
And come they did at a hound-slink, bunched together, and babbling. It was clear they were uncertain of each other and of success. Sin, the mighty Disintegrator, was at work upon their spirits. A more half- hearted crew of blackguards never attempted murder. They needed Black Diamond. He, and he alone, might have held them and swung them, as a fine horseman holds and swings a refuser at a fence.
And what dark faces! what dreadful eyes! what voices popping up like foul bubbles from a sewage pond!
_"Them three all?"
"Enough too, ain't it?"
"I'm for gain back. Look at the face on that buster with the sword!"
"H'into em!"came a shrill treble from the rear."Cheerily, chaps, cheerily!"_
A crack from the cottage, the crack of doom.
The leading ruffian, a lumbering great horse-faced fellow, clapped his hand to his side.
"What's that?"he snapped.
"That's death!"came a solemn voice from across the green.
The man bowed his head as though in acknowledgement.
"I got it,"he said, and fell like a falling tower.
His fellows wavered. This sudden arrow from the quiver of the GreatBowman, so unexpected expected, pierced the hearts of all.
Into them, toppling, bowled Knapp like a cannon-ball.
"Ow,dear!Ow'sthat?Ow,my pore face!"
The chirpy Cockney voice popped out from the thick of them like a cork from a bottle, and a smack from a sledge-hammer fist punctuated each ow.
Blob, at a lurching gallop, plunged into the opening his leader had made, flashing his knife with a gurgling "Ho! ho!"
Last came the Parson with terrific sword.
It was all over before it had begun: a scuffle, a squeak, the flicker and tinkle of steel; and the cloud burst and scattered into its component drops.
The smugglers scampered away.
The Parson was wiping the point of his sword on a man.
"Dirty skunks!" he panted. "Had their bellyful before I'd begun."
Blob was laughing to himself.
"Oi loike killin," he gurgled. "It goos in so plop-loike."
A figure, tall and black as a winter tree, shot up against the light on the shingle-bank, and hung a second there.
The Parson waved.
"Too late, Monsieur le Poseur," he called mockingly. "Better luck next time."
The little party trotted across to the cottage, and entered.
Piper, awaiting them, slammed the door, and made all fast.
"Near thing, sir," chuckled the old man.
"Would have been but for that shot of yours," said the Parson, laying his burthen on the bed.
He leaned up against the wall, and panted, his good red face dripping.
"First round to England—eh?" he grinned.