HOW WE CAME ACROSS MAIN ROUGE
I was sorely tempted to run across to Brecqhou for one more sight of Carette before I left home, but decided at last to leave matters as they were. Beyond the pleasure of seeing her I could hope to gain little, for she was not the one to show her heart before others, and too rash an endeavour might provoke her to that which was not really in her.
As things were I could cherish the hopes that were in me to the fullest, and one makes better weather with hope than with doubt. Carette knew now all that I could tell her, and Aunt Jeanne would be a tower of strength to me in my absence. I could leave the leaven to work. And I think that if I had not given my mother that last day she would have felt it sorely, and with reason.
The deepest that was in us never found very full vent at Belfontaine, and that, I think, was due very largely to the quiet and kindly, but somewhat rigid, Quakerism of my grandfather. We felt and knew without babbling into words.
So all that day my mother hovered about me with a quiet face and hungry eyes, but never one word that might have darkened my going. She had braced her heart to it, as the women of those days had to do, and as all women of all times must whose men go down to the sea in ships.
And I do not think there was any resentment in her mind at my feeling for Carette. For she spoke of her many times and always in the nicest way, seeing perhaps the pleasure it gave me. She was a very wise and thoughtful woman, though not so much given to the expression of her wisdom as was Jeanne Falla, and I think she understood that this too was inevitable, and so she had quietly brought her mind to it. But after all, all this is but saying that her tower of quiet strength was built on hidden foundations of faith and hope, and her mother-love needed no telling.
Next day my grandfather and Krok made holiday, in order to carry me over to Peter Port and see the Swallow for themselves, and my mother's fervent "God keep you, Phil!" and all the other prayers that I felt in her arms round my neck, were with me still as we ran past Brecqhou, and I stood with an arm round the mast looking eagerly for possible, but unlikely, sight of Carette.
We were too low down to see the house, which lay in a hollow. The white waves were ripping like comets along the fringe of ragged rocks under the great granite cliffs, and our boat reeled and plunged under the strong west wind, and sent the foam flying in sheets as we tacked against the cross seas.
We were running a short slant past Moie Batarde, before taking a long one for the Grands Bouillons, when a flutter of white among the wild black rocks of the point by the Creux à Vaches caught my eye, and surely it was Carette herself, though whether she had known of our passage, or was in the habit of frequenting that place, I could not tell. I took it to myself, however, and waved a hearty greeting, and the last sight I had of her, and could not possibly have had a better, was her hand waving farewells in a way that held much comfort for me for many a day to come. I had told my grandfather about Torode's fine schooner, and had enlarged so upon it that he had a wish to see her for himself, and so we were making for the passage between Herm and Jethou, which I had travelled two days before. He knew the way and the traps and pitfalls better even than I did, and ran us in up the wind with a steady hand till the roadstead opened before us. But it was empty. Torode was off after plunder, and we turned and ran for Peter Port. We found John Ozanne as busy as a big bumble-bee, but he made time to greet my grandfather very jovially, and showed him all over his little ship with much pride. He was in high spirits and anxious to be off, especially since he had heard of Torode's going.
"He's about as clever as men are made," he said, "and when he goes he goes on business, so it's time for us to be on the move too. We'll make a man of your boy, Philip."
"A privateer!" said my grandfather with a smile.
"Ay, well! I can believe it's not all to your liking, but it's natural after all."
"I'm not complaining."
"I never heard you. But you'd have been better pleased if he hadn't wanted so much."
"Maybe," said my grandfather with his quiet smile. "But, as Jeanne Falla says, 'Young calves'—"
"I know, I know," laughed John Ozanne. "She's a famous wise woman is Jeanne Falla, and many a licking she gave me when I was a boy for stealing her apples round there at Cobo."
When my grandfather waved his hand, as they ran out past Castle Cornet, the last link broke between Sercq and myself for many a day. Before I saw any of them again—except the distant sight of the Island lying like a great blue whale nuzzling its young, as we passed up Little Russel next morning—many things had happened for the changing of many lives. I had seen much, suffered much, and learned much, and it is of these things I have to tell you.
We cast off next day, amid the cheers and wavings of a great crowd. Half Peter Port stood on the walls of the old harbour. Some had friends and relatives on board, and their shoutings were akin to lusty, veiled prayers for their safe return. Some had eggs in our basket, and in wishing us good speed were not without an eye to the future, and maybe were already counting their possible chickens. We gave them cheer for cheer, and more again for the St. Sampson people. Then, with all our new swing making a gallant show, we swept past Grand Braye, and Ancresse, and turned our nose to the north-west.
We were all in the best of spirits. The Swallow was well found and well armed, and showed a livelier pair of heels than I had looked for, and that, in an Ishmaelitish craft, was a consideration and a comfort. She was roomy too, and would make better times of bad weather, I thought, than would Torode's beautiful black snake. We were sixty men all told, and every man of us keen for the business we were on, and with sufficient confidence in John Ozanne to make a willing crew, though among us there were not lacking good-humoured jokes anent his well-known easy-going, happy-go-lucky proclivities. These, however, would make for comfort on board, and for the rest, he was a good seaman and might be expected to do his utmost to justify the choice of his fellow-townsmen, and he was said to have a considerable stake in the matter himself.
We had four mates, all tried Peter Port men, and our only fears were as to possible lack of the enemy's merchant ships in quantity and quality sufficient for our requirements. On the second day out, a slight haze on the sky-line shortening our view, the sound of firing came down to us on the wind, and John Ozanne promptly turned the Swallow's beak in that direction.
We edged up closer and closer, and when the haze lifted, came on a hot little fight in progress between a big ship and a small one, and crowded the rigging and bulwarks to make it out.
"Little chap's a Britisher, I'll wager you," said old Martin Cohu, the bo's'un.
"A privateer then, and t'other a merchantman."
"Unless it's t'other way on. Anyway the old man will make 'em out soon;" and we anxiously eyed John Ozanne working away with his big brass-bound telescope, as we slanted up towards the two ships, first on one tack then on the other.
The larger vessel's rigging we could see was badly mauled, the smaller ship dodged round and round her, and off and on, plugging her as fast as the guns could be loaded and fired.
"That's no merchantman," said old Martin. "A French Navy ship—a corvette—about fifteen guns a-side maybe, and t'other's an English gun brig; making rare game of her she is too. Minds me of a dog and a bull."
"Maybe the old man'll take a hand just for practice."
And John Ozanne was quite willing. We were ordered to quarters, and ran in, with our colours up, prepared to take our share. But the commander of the brig had his own ideas on that matter, strong ones too, and he intimated them in the most unmistakable way by a shot across our bows, as a hint to us to mind our own business and leave him to his.
A hoarse laugh and a ringing cheer went up from the Swallow at this truly bull-dog spirit, and we drew off and lay-to to watch the result.
The Frenchman was fully three times the size of his plucky little antagonist, but the Englishman as usual had the advantage in seamanship. He had managed to cripple his enemy early in the fight, and now had it all his own way. We watched till the Frenchman's colours came down, then gave the victors another hearty cheer, and went on our way to seek fighting of our own.
For three days we never sighted a sail. We had turned south towards the Bay, and were beginning to doubt our luck, when, on the fourth day, a stiff westerly gale forced us to bare poles. During the night it waxed stronger still, and the little Swallow proved herself well. Next morning a long line of great ships went gallantly past us over the roaring seas, shepherded by two stately frigates,—an East Indian convoy homeward bound. Late that day, the fifth of our cruising, we raised the topmasts of a large ship and made for her hopefully.
"A merchantman," said Martin Cohu disgustedly, "and English or I'm a Dutchman. One of the convoy lagged behind. No pickings for us this time, my lads."
But there was more there than he expected.
There was always the chance of her having been captured by the French, in which case her recapture would bring some little grist to our mill, and so we crowded sail for her. And, as we drew nearer, it was evident, from the talk among John Ozanne and his mates, that they could see more through their glasses than we could with our eyes.
"Guyabble!" cried old Martin at last. "There's another ship hitched on to her far side. I can see her masts. Now, what's this? A privateer as like as no, and we'll have our bite yet, maybe."
And before long we could all make out the thin masts of a smaller vessel between the flapping canvas of the larger. John Ozanne ordered us to quarters, and got ready for a fight. He gave us a hearty word or two, since every man likes to know what's in the wind.
"There's a schooner behind yonder Indiaman, my lads, and it's as likely as not she's been captured. If so we'll do our best to get her back, for old England's sake, and our own, and just to spite the Frenchman. If the schooner should prove the Red Hand, and that's as like as not, for he's the pluckiest man they have, you know what it means. It'll be hard fighting and no quarter. But he's worth taking. The London merchants have put a price on him, and there'll be that, and himself, and a share in the Indiaman besides, and we'll go back to Peter Port with our pockets lined."
We gave him a cheer and hungered for the fray.
John Ozanne took us round in a wide sweep to open the ships, and every eye and glass was glued to them. As we rounded the Indiaman's great gilded stern, about a mile away, it did not need John Ozanne's emphatic—"It's him!" to tell us we were in for a tough fight, and that three prizes lay for our taking. We gave John another cheer, tightened our belts, and perhaps—I can speak for one at all events—wondered grimly how it would be with some of us a couple of hours later.
The Frenchman cast off at once and came to meet us, the Red Hand flying at his masthead, the red lump at his bows, the red streak clearly visible just below the open gun-ports.
"Do your duty, lads," said John Ozanne. "There'll be tough work for us. He carries heavy metal. We'll close with him at all odds, and then the British bull-dog must see to it."
We gave him another cheer, and then a cloud of white smoke burst from the Frenchman's fore deck, and our topmast and all its hamper came down with a crash, and our deck rumbled with bitter curses.
"—— him!" said Martin Cohu. "That's not fair play. Dismantling shot or I'm a Dutchman! It's only devils and Yankees use shot like that. —— me, if we don't hang him if we catch him."
John Ozanne tried him with our long gun forward, but the shot fell short. In point of metal the Frenchman beat us, and our best hope was to close with him as quickly as possible.
But he knew that quite as well as we. He was well up to his business, and chose his own distance. His next shot swept along our deck, smashing half a dozen men most horribly, and tied itself round the foot of the mainmast, wounding it badly. And then I saw for the first time that most hideous missile which the Americans had introduced, but which other nations declined to use, as barbarous and uncivilised. It was a great iron ring round which were looped iron bars between two and three feet long. The bars played freely like keys on a ring, and splayed out in their flight, and did the most dreadful execution. Intended originally, I believe, for use only against hostile spars and rigging, this rascally freebooter put them to any and every service, and with his powerful armament and merciless ferocity they went far towards explaining his success.
For myself, and I saw the same in all my shipmates, the first sense of dismayed impotence in the face of those most damnable whirling flails very soon gave place to black fury. For the moment one thing only did I desire, and that was to be within arm's reach of the Frenchman, cutlass in hand. Had he been three times our number I doubt if one of them would have escaped if we had reached him. My heart felt like to burst with its boiling rage, and all one could do was to wait patiently at one's post, and it was the hardest thing I had ever had to do yet.
John Ozanne made us all lie down, save when a change of course was necessary, while he did his utmost to get the weather gauge of the enemy. And he managed it at last by a series of tacks which cost us many men and more spars. Then, throwing prudence to the winds, he drove straight for the Frenchman to board him at any cost. It was our only chance, for his heavier guns would have let him plug us from a distance, till every man on board was down.
We gave a wild cheer as we recognised the success of John Ozanne's manoeuvring, and every man gripped his steel and ground his teeth for a fight to the death.
But it was not to be. Death was there, but no fight. For, as we plunged straight for the Frenchman, following every twist he made, and eager only for the leap at his throat, our little ship began to roll in a sickly fashion as she had never done before, and men looked into one another's faces with fears in their eyes beyond any all the Frenchmen in the world could put there. And the carpenter, who had been on deck with the rest, bursting for the fight, tumbled hastily below, and came up in a moment with a face like putty.
"She's going!" he cried, and it was his last word. One of those devilish six feet of whirling bars scattered him and three others into fragments and then shore its way through the bulwarks behind. And the winged Swallow began to roll under our feet in the way that makes a seaman's heart grow sick.
The Frenchman never ceased firing on us. No matter. It was only a choice of deaths. Not a man among us would have asked his life from him, even if the chance had been given, and it was not.
My last look at the Frenchman showed him coming straight for us. I saw the great forecastle gun belch its cloud of smoke. The water was spouting up in white jets through our scuppers. It came foaming green and white through our gun ports. Then, in solid green sheets, it leaped up over the bulwarks, and for a moment the long flush deck was a boiling cauldron with a bloody scum, in which twirled and twisted dead men and living, and fragments of the ship and rigging.
When I came up through the roaring green water I found myself within arm's length of the foretopsailyard, to which a strip of ragged sail still hung. I hooked my arm over it and looked round for my comrades. About a score of heads floated in the belching bubbles of the sunken ship, but even as I looked the number lessened, for the Island men of those days were no swimmers. A burly body swung past me. I grabbed it, dragged it to the spar and hoisted its arm over it. It was John Ozanne, and presently he recovered sufficiently to get his other arm up and draw himself chest-high to look about him. The light spar would not support us both, and I let myself sink into the water, with only a grip on a hanging rope's end to keep in tow with it.
John Ozanne gazed wildly round for a minute, and then raised his right arm and volubly cursed the Frenchman, who was coming right down on us.
"Oh, you devils! You devils! May—" and then to my horror, for with the wash of the waves in my ears I could hear nothing, a small round hole bored itself suddenly in his broad forehead, just where the brown and the white met, and he threw up his arms and dropped back into the water.
I made a grab for him, but he was gone, and even as I did so the meaning of that hideous little round hole in his forehead came plain to me. The Frenchman was shooting at every head he could see.
I dragged the spar over me, and floated under the strip of sail with no more than my nose showing between it and the wood, and the long black hull, with its red streak glistening as though but just new dipped in blood, swept past me so close that I could have touched it. Through the opening between my sail and the spar I could see grim faces looking over the side, and the flash and smoke of muskets as the poor strugglers beyond were shot down one by one.
I lay there—in fear and trembling, I confess, for against cold-blooded brutality such as this no man's courage may avail—till the last shots had long died away. And when at last I ventured to raise my head and look about me, the Frenchman was stretching away to the north-east and the Indiaman was pressing to the north, and both were far away. The sun sank like a ball of fire dipped in blood as I watched. The long red trail faded off the waters, and the soft colours out of the sky. The sea was a chill waste of tumbling waves. The sky was a cast-iron shutter. The manhood went out of me, and I sank with a sob on to my frail spar, for of all our company which had sailed so gallantly out of Peter Port five days before, I was the only one left, and the rest had all been done to death in most foul and cruel fashion.
CHAPTER XIX
HOW I FELL INTO THE RED HAND
I must have fallen into a stupor, as the effect of the terrible strain on mind and body of all I had gone through. For I remember nothing of that first night on the spar, and only came slowly back to sense of sodden pain and hunger when the sun was up. Some sailorly instinct, of which I have no recollection whatever, had taken a turn of the rope under my arms and round the yard, and so kept me from slipping away. But I woke up to agonies of cold—a sodden deadness of the limbs which set me wondering numbly if I had any legs left—and a gnawing hunger and emptiness. I felt no thirst; perhaps because my body was so soaked with water. In the same dull way the horrors of the previous day came back on me, and I wondered heavily if my dead comrades had not the better lot.
But the bright sun warmed the upper part of me, and I essayed to drag my dead legs out of the water, if perchance they might be warmed back to life also. They came back in time, with horrible pricking pains and cramps which I could only suffer, lest I should roll off into the water. And if I had, I am not at all sure that I would have struggled further, so weary and broken had the night left me.
All that day I lay on my spar, warmed into meagre life by the sun, and tortured at first with the angry clamour of an empty stomach, for it was full twenty hours since I had eaten, and the wear and tear alone would have needed very full supplies to make good. But in time the bitter hunger gave place to a sick emptiness which I essayed to stay by chewing bits of floating seaweed. And this, and the drying of my body by the sun, brought on a furious thirst, to which the sparkling water that broke against my spar proved a most horrible temptation. So torturing was it in the afternoon that the sodden cold of the night now seemed as nothing in comparison, and to relieve it I dropped my body into the water to soak again.
Not a sail did I see that whole day, but being so low in the water my range was of course very limited. In the times when I could get away for a moment or two from my hunger and thirst, my thoughts ran horribly on the previous day's happenings—those hurtling iron flails against which we were powerless—that little round hole that bored itself in John Ozanne's forehead—that cold-blooded shooting of drowning men—the monstrous brutality of it all! What little blood was in me, and cold as that was, surged up into my head at the recollection, and set me swaying on my perch.
And then my thoughts wandered off to the poor souls in Peter Port, hopefully speculating on the luck we were like to have, counting on the return of those whose broken bodies were dredging the bottom below me,—to the shocking completeness of our disasters. Truly when it all came back on me like that I felt inclined at times to loose my hold and have done with life. And then the thought of Carette, and my mother, and my grandfather, and Krok, would brace me to further precarious clinging with a warming of the heart, but chiefly the thought of Carette, and the good-bye she had waved to me from the point of Brecqhou.
I might, perhaps, with reason have remembered that what had happened to us was but one of the natural results of warfare—barring, of course, the murderous treatment of which no British seaman ever would be guilty. But I did not. My thoughts ran wholly on the actual facts, and, as I have said, faintly at times, but to my salvation, on Carette and home.
While the sun shone, and the masses of soft white cloud floated slowly against the blue, hope still held me, if precariously at times. At midday, indeed, the fierce bite of his rays on my bare back—for we had stripped for the fight and I had on only my breeches and belt—combined with the salting of the previous night and the dazzle of the dancing waves added greatly to my discomfort. I felt like an insect under a burning glass, and suffered much until I had the sense to slice a piece off my sail with my knife and pull it over my raw shoulder bones. But when night fell again, the chill waste of waters washed in on my soul and left me desolate and hopeless, and I hardly hoped to see the dawn.
I remember little of the night, except that it was full of long-drawn agony and seemed as if it would never end. But for the rope under my arms and the loop of the sail, into which some time during the night I slipped, I must have gone, and been lost.
In the morning the sun again woke what life was left in me. I had been nearly forty-eight hours without food or drink, and strained on the edge of death every moment of that time. It was but the remnant of a man that lay like a rag across the spar, and he looked only for death, and yet by instinct clung to life.
And when my weary eyes lifted themselves to look dully round, there, like a white cloud of hope, came life pressing gloriously towards me—a pyramid of snowy canvas, dazzling in the sunshine, the upper courses of a very large ship.
She was still a great way off, but I could see down to her lower foretop-gallant sail, and to my starting eyes she seemed to grow as I watched her. She was coming my way, and I have little doubt that, in the weakness of the moment and the sudden leap of hope when hope seemed dead, I laughed and cried and behaved like a witless man. I know that I prayed God, as I had never prayed in my life before, that she might keep her course and come close enough for some sharp eye to see me.
Now I could see her fore and main courses, and presently the black dot of her hull, and at last the white curl at her forefoot, as she came pressing gallantly on, just as though she knew my need and was speeding her best to answer it.
While she was still far away, I raised myself as high as I could on my spar and waved my rag of sail desperately. I tried to shout, but could not bring out so much as a whisper. I waved and waved. She was coming—coming. She was abreast of me, and showed no sign of having seen me. She was passing—passing. I remember scrambling up onto the spar and waving—waving—waving—
I came to myself in the comforting confinement of a bunk. I could touch the side and the roof. They were real and solid. I rubbed my hand on them. There was mighty comfort and assurance of safety in the very feel of them.
I lay between white sheets, and there was a pillow under my head. I tried to raise my head to look about me, but it swam like oil in a pitching lamp, and I was glad to drop it on the pillow again. The place was full of creakings, a sound I knew right well.
A door opened. I turned my head on the pillow and saw a stout little man looking at me with much interest.
"Ah ha!" he said, with a friendly nod. "That's all right. Come back at last, have you? Narrow squeak you made of it. How long had you been on that spar?"
"I remember—a night and a day—and a night—and the beginning of a day," I said, and my voice sounded harsh and odd to me.
"And nothing to eat or drink?"
"I chewed some seaweed, I think."
"Must have been in excellent condition or you'd never have stood it."
"What ship?"
"Plinlimmon Castle, East Indiaman, homeward bound. This is sick-bay. You're in my charge. Hungry?"
"No," and I felt surprised at myself for not being.
"I should think not," he laughed. "Been dropping soup and brandy into you every chance we got for twenty-four hours past. Head swimmy?"
"Yes," and I tried to raise it, but dropped back onto the pillow.
"Another bit of sleep and you shall tell us all about it." And he went out, and I fell asleep again.
I woke next time to my wits, and could sit up in the bunk without my head going round. The little doctor came in presently with another whom I took to be the captain of the Indiaman. He was elderly and jovial-looking, face like brown leather, with a fringe of white whisker all round it.
In answer to his questions I told him who I was, and where from, and how I came to be on the spar.
"But, by ——!" he swore lustily, when I came to the flying flails and the shooting of the drowning men, "that was sheer bloody murder!"
"Murder as cruel as ever was done," I said, and told him further of the round hole that bored itself in John Ozanne's forehead right before my eyes.
"By ——!" he said again, and more lustily than ever. "I hope to God we don't run across him! Which way did he go, did you say?"
"He went off nor'-east, but his prowling-ground is hereabouts. What guns do you carry, sir?"
"Ten eighteen-pound carronades."
I shook my head. "He could play with you as he did with us, and you could never hit back."
"—— him!" said the old man, and went out much disturbed.
The cheery little doctor chatted with me for a few minutes, and told me that both they and the Indiaman we saw Red Hand looting belonged to the convoy we had seen pass three days before, but, having sprung some of their upper gear in the storm, they had had to put into Lisbon for repairs, and the rest could not wait for the two lame ducks.
"Think he'll come across us?" he asked anxiously.
"I'll pray God he doesn't. For I don't see what you can do if he does."
"I'm inclined to think that the best thing would be to let him take what he wants and go. He let the Mary Jane go, you say?"
"She went one way and he the other, when he'd sunk us, and we were told he rarely makes prizes. Just helps himself to the best, like a pirate. He's just a pirate, and nothing else."
"Discretion is sometimes the better part of valour," he said musingly. "When you can't fight it's no good pretending you can, and this old hooker can't do more than seven knots, and not often that. We've been last dog all the way round. The frigates used to pepper us till they got tired of it;" and he went out, and I knew what his advice would be if he should be asked for it.
About midday I felt so much myself again—until I got onto my feet, when I learned what forty-eight hours starving on a spar can take out of a man—that I got up and dressed myself, by degrees, in some things I found waiting for me in one of the other bunks.
I hauled myself along a passage till I came to a gangway down which the sweet salt air poured like new life, and the first big breath of it set my head spinning again for a moment.
I was hanging on to the handrail when a man came tumbling down in haste.
"It's you," he cried, at sight of me. "Cap'n wants you;" and we went up together, and along the deck to the poop, where the captain stood with his officers and a number of ladies and gentlemen. From the look of them they all seemed disturbed and anxious, and they all turned to look at me as if I could help them.
"Carré," said the captain, as I climbed the ladder, "look there! Is that the —— villain?" and pointed over the starboard quarter.
One look was enough for me. I had stared hard enough at that long black hull three days before, while it thrashed us to death with its whirling devilries. And there was no mistaking the splash of red on his foretopsail.
"It's him, captain;" and the ladies wrung their hands, while the men looked deadly grim, and the captain took a black turn along the deck and came back and stood in front of them.
"It's not in an Englishman's heart to give in without a fight," he said gruffly, "and I'm not in the habit of asking any man's advice about my own business, but from what this man says that —— villain over yonder can flay us to pieces at his pleasure and we can't touch him;" and he looked at me.
"That is so," I said.
"If we let him have his way the chances are he'll take all he wants and go. If we fight—My God, how can we fight? We can't reach him. What would you do now? You've been through it once with him," he turned suddenly on me.
"I'd give five years of my life to have a grip of his throat—"
"And how'd you get there under these conditions, my man?"
"You can't do a thing, captain. And anything you try will only make it worse. He'll send you one of his damnable cart-wheels aboard and you'll see the effect. You know how far your carronades will carry."
"Get you below, all of you," he said to his white-faced passengers. "No need to get yourselves killed. He'll probably go for our spars, but when shots are flying you can't tell what'll happen. Stop you with me!" he said to me, and the poop cleared quickly of all outsiders.
The schooner came on like a racehorse. While yet a great way off a puff of smoke balled out on his fore-deck and disappeared before the report reached us.
"That's blank to tell us to stop. I must have more to justify me than that," said the captain, and held on.
Another belch of white smoke on the schooner, and in a minute our foremast was sliced through at the cap, and the foretopmast, with its great square sails, and their hamper, was banging on the deck, while the jibs and staysail fell into the sea to leeward, and the big ship fell off her course and nosed round towards the wind.
"—— him! That's dismantling shot and no mistake about it. There's nothing else for it. Haul down that flag!" cried the captain; and we were captive to Red Hand.
"Sink his —— boats as he comes aboard, sir!" said one of the mates in a black fury. "He's only a —— pirate."
"I would, if we'd gain anything by it," said the captain grimly. "But it'd only end in him sinking us. Our pop-guns are out of it;" and they stood there, with curses in their throats—it was a cursing age, you must remember—and faces full of gloomy anger, as helpless against the Frenchman's long-range guns as seagulls on a rock.
The schooner came racing on, and rounded to with a beautiful sweep just out of reach of our guns. Practice had made him perfect. He knew his damnable business to the last link in the chain.
We could see his deck black with men, and presently a boat dropped neatly and came bounding towards us.
"Depress your carronades and discharge them," ordered a black-bearded young man in her, in excellent English, as they hooked on. "If one is withdrawn, we will blow you out of the water."
The guns were discharged. The schooner gave a coquettish shake and came sweeping down alongside the Indiaman; some of her crew leaped into our main chains, and lashed the two ships together. Then a mob of rough-looking rascals came swarming up our side, and at their head was one at sight of whom my breath caught in my throat, and I rubbed my eyes in startled amazement, lest their forty-eight hours' salting should have set them astray.
But they told true, and a black horror and a cold fear fell upon me. I saw the bloody scum swirling round on the Swallow's deck as she sank. I saw the heads of my struggling shipmates disappearing one by one under those felon shots from the schooner. I saw once more that little round hole bore itself in John Ozanne's forehead on the spar. And I knew that there was not room on earth for this man and me. I knew that if he caught sight of me I was a dead man.
For the last time I had seen that grim black face—which was also the first time—he was leaning over the rock wall of Herm, watching me steadfastly as I pulled away from him towards Peter Port, and his face was stamped clear on my memory for all time.
It was Torode of Herm, and in a flash I saw to the bottom of his treachery and my own great peril. No wonder he was so successful and came back full from every cruise, when others brought only tales of empty seas. He lived in security on British soil and played tinder both flags. By means of a quickly assumed disguise, he robbed British ships as a Frenchman, and French ships as an Englishman. That explained to the full the sinking of the Swallow and the extermination of her crew. It was to him a matter of life or death. If one escaped with knowledge of the facts, the devilment must end. And I was that one man.
His keen black eyes had swept over us as he came over the side. I shrank small and prayed God he had not seen me.
He walked up to the captain and said gruffly, "You are a, wise man, monsieur. It is no good fighting against the impossible."
"I know it, or I'd have seen you damned before I'd have struck to you," growled the old man sourly.
"Quite so! Now, your papers, if you please, and quick!" and the captain turned to go for them.
All this I heard mazily, for my head was still whirring with its discovery.
Then, without a sign of warning, like one jerked by sudden instinct, Torode turned, pushed through the double row of men behind whom I had shrunk—and they opened quickly enough at his approach—and raising his great fist struck me to the deck like an ox.
When I came to I was lying in a bunk, bound hand and foot. My head was aching badly, and close above me on deck great traffic was going on between the ship and the schooner, transferring choice pickings of the cargo, I supposed, when my senses got slowly to work again.
But why was I there—and still alive? That was a puzzle beyond me entirely. By all rights, and truly according to my expectation, I should have been a dead man. Why was I here, and unharmed, save for a singing head?
Puzzle as I might, I had nothing to go upon and could make nothing of it. But since I was still alive, hope grew in me. For it would have been no more trouble to Torode to kill me—less indeed. And since he had not, it could only be because he had other views.
For a long time the shuffling tread of laden men went on close above my head—for hours, I suppose. The sun was sinking when at last the heel and swing of the schooner told me we were loosed and away.
No shot had been fired, save the first one calling the Indiaman to stop, and the second one that drove the command home. To that extent I had been of service to them, bitter as surrender without a fight had been, for an utterly impossible resistance could only have ended one way and after much loss of life.
Long after it was dark a man came in with a lantern and a big bowl of soup, good soup such as we get in the Islands, and half a loaf of bread, and a pannikin of water. He set the things beside me, and untied my hands, and placed the light so that it fell upon me, and stood patching me till I had finished.
From his size I thought it was Torode himself, but he never opened his mouth, nor I mine, except to put food into it. When I had done, he tied my hands again and went out.
I slept like a top that night, in spite of it all, and felt better in the morning and not without hope. For, as a rule, civilised men, ruffians though they may be, do not feed those they are going to kill. They kill and have done with it.
The same man brought me coffee and bread and meat, and stood watching me again with his back to the porthole while I ate.
It was, as I had thought, Torode himself, and I would have given all I possessed—which indeed was not overmuch—to know what was passing concerning me in that great black head of his. But I did not ask him, for I should not have expected him to tell me. I just ate and drank every scrap of what he brought me, with as cheerful an air as I could compass, and thanked him politely when I had done.
CHAPTER XX
IN THE CLEFT OF A ROCK.