Chapter Thirty.
How the Sun went down behind Malin.
I think it was the sudden shock of this great discovery, and naught else, that arrested our feet in time and saved us from madly rushing on the doom of our lost enemy.
At such a time how could we think even of him?
Of all my long fierce journeyings, no part seemed half so long as the few minutes it took me to skirt round the fatal bog and reach the hand of my long-lost friend.
“Humphrey,” said he presently, after we had stood silent awhile, “I scarce knew thee. How rose you from the dead?”
“The God who parted us hath brought us together again,” said I. “Thanks be to Him.”
“Amen,” said he. “Therefore, while I lead you to the Don—”
“The Don!” cried I; “is he here then?”
“Why not, since the Rata came ashore weeks ago on these coasts?”
“And are the Spaniards all here too?” said I, with my hand feeling round my belt for my sword.
“Nay,” said he, smiling. “That is my story. Tell me yours.”
So I told him, and he listened, marvelling much. His brow grew black as thunder when I came to speak of the lost maidens. He wheeled round, and, laying his hand with a grip of iron on my arm, pointed to the black bog below us.
“Is it certainly Merriman who lies there?”
“As certain as this is you,” said I.
“God forgive him!” said Ludar, and walked on.
Then he told me how, missing me after the battle, and seeing the mast on which I had perched shot away, he had mourned for me as dead, and, for my sake, taken a gun with a good-will against my Queen. How, when after Gravelines the south wind sprang up and the Invincible Armada began to run, the Rata sailed as rear-guard and bore the brunt of the few English ships that dogged them. How it was resolved by the Spanish captains, Don Alonzo himself not protesting, that the shortest way back to Spain now lay by way of the Orkneys and the Atlantic. How, thereupon, that glorious fleet trailed in a long draggled line northward, never looking behind them, even when the Englishmen one by one drew off and abandoned the chase. How, after a while, when they looked out one morning they found the Rata staggering through the stormy northern seas alone.
“’Twas a sad sight,” said Ludar. “You would not have known the queenly vessel we had met scarce a month before off Ushant. Her main-mast clean gone, her tackle dishevelled as a wood-nymph’s hair; with flags and sails and pennons blown away, guns rusted in their ports, and the very helm refusing to turn. The bells, all save the dismal storm bell in the prows, were silent; the priests had crawled miserably to their holes. No one read aloud the King’s proclamation; and even the gallants of Spain sat limp and listless, looking seaward, never saying a word but to salute and cheer their beloved Don, or talk in whispers of the sunny hills of Spain.
“Captain Desmond, the one man on board who, after you, was my friend, had died in the fight off Gravelines. I had not the heart or the wish to seek new comrades; and, save when the brave Don himself gave me a passing word of cheer, I forgot what it was to speak or listen.
“Well, when off Cape Wrath (just as we sighted a few of our scattered consorts and hoped for food and comfort), a new storm overtook us from the north-east and drove us headlong, under bare poles, southward again. We none of us, I think, cared if the next gust sent us to the bottom. Many a weary young Don did I see fling himself in despair overboard; and but that we daily drew nearer to Ireland, I had been tempted to do the same.
“How long we drove I forget, or what wrecks we passed; but one day we found ourselves flung into a great bay, where, for a while, we held on to our anchors against the storm. But the Rata had lost her best thews and muscles at Calais, and, after two days, dragged towards the shore and fell miserably over, a wreck.
“We came to land in boats, or on floating spars, but only to meet worse hardships than on sea; for the savages on the coast, aided by your gallant Englishmen, fell on us, defenceless as we were, stripped us of all we had, and drove us from the shore in an old crank of a galleon, which, if it carried us thus far, did so only by the grace of God and His saints.”
“And where be we now?” I asked.
“At Killybegs,” said he, “and Heaven grant we may get out of it. For a while, Tyrone, the O’Neill in these parts, sheltered and fed us. But since the English came, he has left us to our fate, and the men lie rotting here as in a dungeon.”
“Why,” said I, “’twas rumoured in England that the Spaniards had descended on Ireland to take it, and so strike across it at the Queen.”
He laughed.
“May your Queen ne’er have sturdier foes, Humphrey. Come and see them.”
As we turned the corner of the hill, we came suddenly on three men, standing with their faces seaward and engaged in earnest talk. The oldest of them was white-haired and slight of build. But the nobleman shone through his ragged raiment and battered breastplate, and I knew him in a moment to be Don Alonzo da Leyva himself.
He greeted Ludar kindly, and looked enquiringly at me.
“Do the spirits of English printers walk on earth?” asked he.
“No, Sir Don, not till their bodies be dead,” said I, saluting; “I am here to warn your Excellency that the English soldiers are drawing a cord around this place, and will fall speedily upon you in force.”
“’Tis well they come only to slay and not to eat us,” said he, with a grim smile.
And I perceived that both he and his companions were half-starved.
“Yet they should not delay, for if they haste not, they will find us gone. Sir Ludar, the Gerona,”—here he pointed to a large galliass that lay at anchor in the bay—“is ready, and sails to-night for the Scotch coast. I claim your services yet, as you claim those of your squire.”
Ludar looked at me. I knew what passed in his mind, for ’twas in mine also. How could we leave Ireland thus, on a desperate venture, while those two fair maids—
But before we could even exchange our doubts, there sprang out upon us from behind a rock half-a-dozen fellows with a horseman at their head, who waved his sword and called loudly on us, in the name of the Queen, to yield.
I groaned inwardly as I pulled out my sword. Once more I was about wickedly and grievously to wage war on her Majesty, and break my vows of allegiance. Yet, how could I otherwise now?
The Don deigned no reply, but waited calmly for the attack. We were but five to six, and the two Spaniards were so lean and ill-fed as scarce to count as a man betwixt them. At the first onset one of them dropped dead, and the other, after scornfully running his adversary through, fell back himself in a swoon of exhaustion.
Meanwhile, the Don was struggling with the horseman. I can remember, occupied as I was with the sturdy rogue who flew at me, how noble he looked, as, with head erect and visage calm, he parried blow after blow, stepping back slowly towards the rock.
’Twas a sharp fight while it lasted; for, though Ludar made short work of his first man, the other three were stubborn villains, and, being well-fed and well-armed, put us hard to it.
Presently, he on the horse, enraged that, for all his advantage, he got no closer to his foe, pulled out a pistol from his holster and levelled it full at the Don’s head.
With a shout like a lion’s, Ludar flung away his own assailant, and rushed between the two, dealing the horseman a blow which sent him headlong from his saddle and echoed among the rocks like a crack of thunder.
He was none too soon, for the shot had flashed before ever the blow fell, and, only half diverted, rattled on the Don’s breastplate, hard enough to fell and draw blood, though, happily, not hard enough to kill.
After that, Ludar and I had a merry time of it, with our backs against the rock, and four swords hacking at our two. I know not how it was; but as I found myself thus foot to foot again with my dearest friend, listening to his short, sharp battle snort, and seeing ever and anon the flash of his trusty steel at my side, I felt happy, and could have wished the battle to last an hour. I forgot all about my Queen, and, but for sundry knocks and cuts, had half forgotten my adversaries themselves. Nor were they any the better off for my daydream; for the four swords against us presently became but two, and these ere long were in the hands of flying men.
When we had leisure to look at one another and see how we stood, we found we had been playing no child’s play. Ludar was pale, his sleeve was bloody, and his sword broken in two. As for me, drops were trickling through my hair and down my cheek, and I needed no astronomer to tell me the earth turned round. But the Don, when we came to him, was in a worse plight yet. For he lay where he had fallen, white as a marble statue, his eyes closed, his breath coming and going in quick, short gasps. As best we could we tore off his breastplate, and looked to the wound beneath. ’Twas but a gash, the ball having grazed the ribs and flattened itself on the steel beyond. But the blood he had lost thereby, and the feebleness of his ill-nourished body, made it more dangerous a wound by far than our vulgar scratches.
We caught the Englishman’s riderless horse, which grazed quietly near, and laid the gallant gently on his back; and so, painfully and slowly, brought him off.
Even as we did so, we could see on the crest of the far hills behind the figures of men on foot and horse moving our way; and, nearer at hand, when we stood and halted a moment, the sound of a trumpet broke the air.
There was no time to lose, verily, if these worn-out Dons were to leave the place alive. And as for Ludar and me, wounded and weak as we were, what chance was there for us to break through the lines and wander on foot in search of our lost ones?
“Humphrey,” said Ludar, guessing what was in my mind, “we sail with the Don to Scotland. Thence we will cross to the Glynns, and so be where we must be sooner than if we ventured by land.”
“So be it,” said I.
The sight of the wounded Don completed the panic which had already set in among the Spaniards at the report of the coming of the English.
“To sea! to sea!” they cried, and followed us as we bore their beloved captain to the bay.
The Gerona, Ludar told me, had been found on the coast, a half wreck, some weeks since, and, by dint of great labour and patching, had been made passably seaworthy.
“She will carry but three out of every four of this company,” said he. “After the nobles are all on board, there will be but place, I hear, for one hundred beside, and these must work at the oars. Lots have already been drawn, and, unless I mistake, ’twill be a hard parting betwixt those who go and those who stay.”
So indeed it was. No sooner had we the Don safely on board, and delivered him to the leech (to whom he opened his eyes, and showed signs of returning life), than a strange turbulent scene ensued on shore. The Don’s second in command, fine gentleman as he was, had little power to deal with a rabble that was fighting for dear life. He drew up his men on the beach and bade no man stir for the boats till his name was called, under penalty of death.
While the young nobles (who, of course, were exempt from lot), silently and anxiously took their places in the boats and were rowed out to the ship, all stood gloomily by, mute and obedient. But when, these being safely embarked, the order was given for the hundred who had drawn the lot to follow, a hubbub and tumult began which it was pitiful to witness. Men, desperate with hunger and fear, fought tooth and nail to reach the boats. They that had the right and they that had none were mingled in a fray which strewed the water’s edge with corpses. Some flung themselves into the sea after the boats, yelling and cursing till the flash of a sword or the pitiless thud of an oar sent them back into silence. Some, rather than others should go and not they, tore the craft board from board, and fought with the fragments. Some with muskets poured fire on the boats. And some wreaked their vengeance on the haughty Spanish gallant and hurled him from the rock on which he stood into the depths below.
’Twas a hideous scene; and when, after all was done, sixty gasping souls scrambled on board, glaring at one another like beasts of prey, and hissing defiant taunts at the wretches on shore, it boded ill—very—ill for this voyage.
For a while neither Ludar nor I was fit to take our seat on the thwarts or lend a hand with the oars, much as help was needed.
For two days, indeed, the Gerona’s sails were of little service owing to the perverse south-wester, which threatened to imprison us in the bay of Killybegs, and well-nigh defied every effort of the crew to bring the galley beyond the great headland of Malinmore.
But once out in the open, where the south-wester would have favoured our course to Scotland, the wind veered to westward and drove us in perilously near the rocks. So that we at the oars (for, by then, Ludar and I perforce had to take our share of the toil) were kept hard at work, and the roar of breakers on our starboard quarter never ceased, day nor night.
The Gerona, moreover, had been but indifferently patched, and, in the heavy sea across which she laboured, answered her helm hardly, and could by no means be counted upon to sail more than a point or two out of the wind. So in this hard cross gale her canvas was all but useless, and, had it not been for the oars, she would have been on the rocks about the Bloody Foreland before a week was out.
How we rounded that dreadful head I scarce know. Strong man as I was, I was well-nigh dead with the endless toil of the rowing, broken only by short snatches of repose when I laid my head down in the galley-slaves’ reeking hold. Ludar, on the contrary, grew mightier and bolder day by day. He neither wearied nor lost heart; but like a man who has recovered faith in his destiny, he talked as if each stroke brought us nearer, not to Scotland, but to the end of our hopes and the arms of those we loved.
“Courage, Humphrey,” said he, “I can row for you and me both. Save your heart, brother, for those who shall welcome you when all this tossing and toil shall be passed.”
“You talk of beyond the grave.”
“Beyond the grave!” cried he. “I never talked less of it. Come, are you, too, like these Spanish gentles, down in the mouth for a puff of wind and a pailful or two of salt water over the deck? Courage, man. If you be an Englishman, show these Dons how an Englishman can hold up his head and keep a stiff upper lip.”
That brought up the courage in me; and though for a day or so the weakness of my thews caused me to rest my hands idly on the oar, while he lugged at it cheerily and mightily, my heart came up from my boots and knocked louder and stronger within me day by day.
So, after ten days out, we came off the black headland called Malin, where, as the wind still held westerly, the welcome order was given to ship oars and spread all canvas for the Scottish coast.
Ludar alone looked grave when the order came, and pointed to the furious, livid swirl of purple clouds that crowded round the setting sun.
“I have seen yon sky before,” said he, “often when I was a boy. And they taught us, when we saw it, to pray the saints for those at sea.”
“May be there are saints ashore who see it and pray for us to-night,” said I.
“There had need be,” said he, solemnly.