CHAPTER XXI.
THE VILLAIN'S DEN.
'Twas as I have writ, a night vastly different from the precedent one, beautifully calm in this little channel, or river, with the moon arising behind the wood that bordered its eastern bank, and with a cool breeze coming from the sea and rustling through the leaves. And as the moon rose above the treetops she flooded all the river with light, making a great shadow of the Etoyle on the water, and also of the galliot.
I lay me down upon the deck of my craft wrapped in a boat-cloak, as soon as I had gotten things a little ship-shape for the night (I had anchored the galliot before I went off to the Snow), but sleep came not easily. There were, indeed, many things a-running through my brain. Firstly, there were my poor dead sailors sleeping below in the water--probably already food for the great variegated crabs that do here abound--whom I could not but lament, and especially Israel Cromby, with his dying thoughts of the poor old dependent mother at Rotherhithe. Then there was the position to be thought of in which I now stood. I had the galliot to get me away in, 'twas true, to the adjacent islands, some of which were inhabited by my own countrymen, and not far off neither--but, supposing I got back the treasure from the pirates, should I ever get it safe home to England? I knew not, as yet, how much it was; whether the casket was all or only a portion; whether also that portion was a huge mass of gold or silver, or a small one of jewels. Above all, should I get it in any form or shape whatever? Was it buried in the river ere the last of the pirates died, or were those two men alive, and had they got ashore and buried it there? Still my fatigues were such that, in spite of all my conflicting and unhappy thoughts, I slumbered at last. Long and peacefully I slept aboard the little craft, which had none other now but myself for its inhabitant, with the cool night wind blowing all over me, and freshening me as I lay.
Yet I awoke ere daylight had come--startled by something, I knew not what!
The moon was at her full height now, the channel was as light as day, 'twas that, I thought to myself, had waked me; and I turned over on my side to sleep again. Yet, as I dozed, and should soon have been gone again, once more I was disturbed. "Perhaps 'tis a beast," thought I, "in the wood, crashing through the undergrowth,"--for such I fancied to be the sound--"perhaps 'tis--"but here I ended my speculations, for I saw what had aroused me.
'Twas the two villains, Alderly and his diver, a-standing on the bank of the river gazing into it. 'Twas their steps I had heard crunching on the underbrush.
Now it did so happen that our galliot had a cabin aft, with, cut into it on either side of the sternpost, two portholes, so that, lying here, I could very well see through those scuttles what they were a-doing without their seeing me. Whether they thought I was not in my vessel I could not guess; or whether they knew I was, having watched me all the latter part of the day from the wood, but deemed me now asleep, 'twas impossible for me to tell--yet doubtless 'twas the latter, since they seemed wary in their movements.
Yet was it obvious to me, watching them as I did, that both were still under the influence of the drink; as they stood gazing into the water, first one would give a lurch, then the other, or one would hiccough, and the other would curse him under his breath for making of a noise; and once the diver--whose name I knew not--nearly fell forward into the river, and would have done so, had not Alderly clutched him and hauled him back. And all the time the moon enabled me to see the latter's tawdry finery, all smirched with dirt, with powder and filth, and his broken feather in his hat, and the stains and grime about him, while, as for the other, he had nought but the coarsest of apparel upon him.
Now, seeing they were still drunk, I did begin to think they had a resort of some sort in this isle, perhaps comrades upon it from whom they could get drink, since 'twas hours since they had had any in the Snow. Which led me to reflect that, if there were more of these wretches here, my case was a bad one. However, watching of their actions drove these reflections from out my head, for a time at least.
Presently, one, Alderly, stoops him down, going on to his hands and knees and, baring his arm up to the shoulder, thrusts it into the water, and begins moving it backwards and forwards as though feeling for something in it. And shortly he found what he wanted, for he lifted up a stone as big as my head, with round it a rope that ran on, into, and under the water as he lifted of it up. This was easy to perceive, for the drops of water sparkled on it like diamonds as he held it at his end.
"Ha!" thinks I to myself. "I do guess what's at t'other end now. Well, well, we will see." Yet, as I so thought, I looked to my priming. I thought it would not be very long ere I should have to shoot these two ruffians, and take my chance of there being more of the same sort on the isle. But the time had not come yet, I did perceive, and meanwhile I lay perfectly snug watching their doings.
A moment after Alderly had gotten the stone and rope up, he threw away the former, and began, with his comrade's assistance, hauling and tugging at it, and presently they got ashore from under the water a long box of about four feet--though 'twas not what I expected to see, namely, the casket. This, I made sure, would have been fished up, but 'twas not. I never did see it again.
'Twas plain to observe there was no more to come, for no sooner was this box up than they made as though they would depart, Alderly letting the rope drop back gently into the water; and then, as I could see by his gestures, making signs to the diver to pick the box up and carry it. But this led to an argument between them; I could observe them shrugging of their shoulders with a drunken gravity, lurching about now and again as they did so, and stumbling against the box more than once; and then, suddenly, I perceived Alderly strike the other in the mouth and knock him down.
"Now," thinks I, "this leads to more things. If they go on like this, there will be only one pirate soon for me to contend with, so far as I know."
Even as I pondered, my words came true. The diver got up, whips out a long knife, and made a rush at the other--the weapon sparkling as though it was dipped in phosphorus in the rays of the moon--and in another moment they had closed together.
But Alderly was the best man of the two--which was perhaps why he was chief of the Etoyle--and ere long he had hold of the other's wrist with one hand and had got him round the body with the other. Then, by degrees, he did bring the body down until it lay across his own knee, face upwards, and having, as I did see, the strength of a bullock, or a vice, he forced the other's arm up and down, directing so his clenched hand that he compelled him to plunge his own dagger into his own breast. Once, twice, thrice, he did it!--the diver screaming with the first plunge of the knife into his bosom, groaning with the second, and with the third making no noise. Then Alderly lets go the diver's fist from out of his own, and frees his own body from his grasp, and down the diver fell to the brink of the river.
"You slew yourself," says he, looking down at him; "'twas your own knife that did it, your own hand that plunged it in." And here he laughed, an awful, blood-curdling laugh. The laugh of a maniac or a fiend! Then he put his foot to the dead man's body and tumbled it over into the river, so that I saw it no more. Next, seizing on to the long box--and nearly falling over it as he did so in his half-drunkenness--he lifted it on to his shoulder and went into the wood. Only, as he departed I saw him also lift up his foot and touch his shoe with his finger, and hold that finger up in the moon to look at; and then he gave again that awful laugh. He was a-laughing at the dead man's blood in which he had trampled!
"Now," says I, "is my time; I will find out if he can also slay me. At any rate he shall not escape without doing so," and with these words I lowered the boat again, got into it and went ashore--the distance from the galliot being not twenty yards. And then, securing of the boat to the trunk of a small tree by the river's brink, I plunged in after him to the wood. Only, you may be sure, I had my pistols with me and my sword.
At first the little wood was so dark that I could not see, or scarce see, the moon a-shining dimly through the thickness--a thickness all made of wild orange, citron, and pomegranate trees, as well as of campeachy trees, and mountain cabbage palms. Yet soon this wood opened out somewhat; there rose before my eyes a little glade, on which the moon did here shine as though on a sweet English field at home, and, reaching this, I perceived by stopping and looking carefully that my man had passed this way. The long grass was all trodden down--nay, so much so, that the two must have also come this way when they set out as comrades--and, since the imprints of the footsteps were most uneven and without regularity, I felt sure my drunken pirate had struggled and staggered along this track.
So across the little glade I went, following ever the irregular crushings down of the grass, until I came to where it was bordered by more thick underbrush and shrub, and then, even had I doubted I was on the steps of Alderly, I could do so no longer. For now through that thick brushwood and tangled growth of briar, and lacery of trailing things, there was crushed aside a most distinct opening through which a man, or men, must have passed, while, had I desired further proofs of where the man had gone whom I sought, it was before me. Lying on the brushwood, catched off and torn by a thorn, was the broken end of Alderly's red feather, the piece that had hung down over his savage face as he forced the diver to slay himself, and that gave, even in that awful moment, an appearance to him of almost comicality. A comicality, though, to cause a shudder!
Now did I, therefore, loosen my blade in its sheath and set my pistols in my belt carefully, for, since by this time I had gone a mile at least, 'twas not very like I should go much farther before coming on to the desperado, unless he should have turned off at an angle--a thing I could not judge he should have any reason to do. And so I went on very carefully, keeping ever a watch about and around me, so that I should fall into no trap.
Soon, however, I did perceive that the path turned, as I guessed it might perhaps do, and I thought the time was not yet come for me to get up with my chase, when, to my astonishment--in spite of my former ideas that there might be other buccaneers upon this isle--there came to me the sounds of singing and revelling, of shouting and whooping and drinking of healths, and clapping of canikins or glasses on a table.
"The health," I heard a voice shout, "of Winstanley, the diver of Liverpool, the man who strove to contend with Alderly. His health in the place where he is gone, and another to his taker off!" And then there followed the banging and smashing of drinking vessels on the table again, and huzzas and shriekings.
Next uprose a voice a-trolling of a song.
"When money's plenty, boys, we drink To drown our troubles, oh-oh! Carouse, revel, and never think, Upon the morrow, oh-oh!"
"When money's plenty," I heard Alderly repeat. "When money's plenty! Why, and so it is, my blithe lads. Look here in this box, my hearties. Here's enough and to spare for all. Diamonds, sapphires, pearls, gold and silver. Ha! ha! Drink, my lads. Give me the bowl. Peter Hynde, my lad, drink up, and you, Robert Birtson, and Will Magnus, you, and you, Petty, and Crow, and Moody, and fat John Coleman. Drink, you dogs, I say, drink."
"I have landed on a nest of them!" thinks I to myself. "A dozen at least, I believe. Well, I will lie hid awhile, and if they o'ermaster me, why--"
"When money's plenty, boys, we drink! And bring the girls along, oh! Of blood we've shed we never think, Midst dance and jocund song, oh!"
burst out the ruffian again. Then he yelled out, "A toast! a toast! The health of Phips and that accursed Crafer, whose blood I've drunk," at which I started. "So," thinks I, "he deems me dead. 'Tis perhaps best. Yet shall he learn," I muttered twixt my set lips, "that in spite of him and his horde I am alive--he shall--"
"And Bess, my Coromandel girl, bring in the meats!" the villain now shouted. "Ha! ha! here she comes with the steaming turtle! Fall to, my boys, fall to; and here comes our Queen of Port Royal, our golden-haired Barbara who loves us well. My lads! a health to the girl of Port Royal!"
And again there came the banging on the table of fists, then cans, and the voice of Alderly whooping and shouting.
"I must see this crew," I whispered to myself, "e'en though I die for it. I must see these ruffians in their den with their loathsome womankind. I have four shots in my belt, and a good sword. All must be drunk and I am sober! I will do some execution amongst them."
So through the brushwood I went a pace or so, parting the leaves as gently as might be--though that I should be heard there was no fear amidst the infernal clamour and din and shouting of Alderly.
Then, next, I saw before me a hut, or big cabin, built of logs, with a wide, open door and thatched with palm leaves; from out the door there gleamed the light of a lamp, and as I parted some boughs and bushes to get me a view, I could see very well into the hut.
And this is what I witnessed.