Leonard Lindsay ;

by Angus B. Reach

‘Is that a black corby on the thorn-bush near the boat’s grapnel?’

At this extraordinary speech, the Englishmen in the canoe turned sharp round to me, and Stout Jem asked what I meant. At his voice all the dreamy sensations left me, and I felt myself blushing up to the roots of my hair, and wondering what I had said, for I remembered not a word.

‘Here,’ said Stout Jem, kindly, ‘swallow this, my good boy;’ and he held me a great flask of spirits. ‘You have been breathing over-much marsh fog on an empty stomach, but you’ll live to pay off Jack Spaniard yet.’

I took the flask and held it to my head, when suddenly the greasy leathern bottle appeared to swell and lengthen, until it seemed a puncheon which I held. A curious nervous feeling came crawling over my limbs, and my breath grew thick, and my eyes dim. The first taste of the brandy banished these sensations, and the cordial marvellously restored me.

‘You must eat somewhat when we go ashore,’ said Nicky. ‘I am ravenous; and then we will consult on what we can do to take our revenge.’

‘No, no; no eat,’ said Blue Peter, the Mosquito Indian; ‘sleep mosh, sleep good, smoke pipe, and sleep cool and long.’

But I felt so much better that I fully intended to make a good dinner. We landed in one of the bushy coves which abound in the frith of the Marmousette, and which could not be seen by the Spaniards on the other bank. Stout Jem then despatched the Indians to hunt, and ordered the rest of the party to aid in building a hut. Nicky and myself, however, were so weak from want of food, that we were excused; and the Dutchman having some biscuits and smoked beef in his pocket, generously gave us enough to make a good meal. Meantime, Stout Jem, Black Diamond, and Meinheer, were actively at work. They had two hatchets, and their long knives, and with these they felled and prepared sufficient wood for their purpose, driving stakes into the earth, and interweaving leafy branches, with the skill of experienced foresters. Nicky and I were then set to work to pull a quantity of coarse long grass, which grew upon the beach, for beds; and one of the Mosquito men returning, he kindled a fire, and began to cook the hind quarter of a fine boar which he had shot in the wood. Meantime, I was plucking the grass, sometimes sitting by the seaside, for I felt weak and ill. The food I had eaten was no refreshment. My temples throbbed strangely and my skin was fevered and dry. Then these horrible wandering thoughts began to come again, and I squeezed my head with my hands, as though I could thus drive them out. Sometimes I thought I felt again the hot marsh vapour sickening the air; then the sea-breeze fanning me, I would tear the clothes from my chest, and put back my long dank hair to let the blessed cool wind play freely on me, and cool my seething blood.

All at once I saw, under the shade of a genipa tree, a tall stout man, who stood motionless, and watched me. Deeming him a Spaniard, I would have shouted out, but my tongue refused to obey me, and turning hot and dry, rattled as it were against my teeth, while no sound but a low hiss could I form. Still the figure stood there; and now I saw a glimmer as of a naked weapon which it held. The sun being now setting, his rays came slanting down, and one of these quivering through the trees fell full upon the face of the stranger, and I saw that it was Walshe, with his great eyes glaring at me, just as they glared when the shark rose in the mangrove canal, and pulled him down beneath his crunching teeth. I stood trembling, and trying to pray. The features were livid and blue, and the eyes sunk and expressionless, yet horribly bright. Just at this moment one of the last puffs of the sea-breeze shook the trees around, and the sunlight falling in a different stream, and chequered by other branches upon the appearance, the face gradually seemed to change. Feature after feature melted away, until the agonized countenance of the unfortunate seaman was gone, and, instead of it, there remained the massive features and pensive gravity of my preserver on board the Frenchman—Wright. Just then the weapon, which I had formerly observed to glitter, moved, and I saw the figure heave up a great broad axe on one hand, and point to it with the other. It was, indeed, the regicide, with the emblem and the instrument of his deed.

Making a sudden effort, I burst the leaden bonds which seemed to confine me, and with a strange courage rushed forward. As I did the phantom grew dim and dimmer, and when I placed my hand upon its breast, I felt but the gnarled bark of the genipa tree, whilst the axe, at the same instant, seemed to become a branch with clustering foliage dancing in the wind. I grew directly sick and faint.

‘Oh, my God!’ I murmured, ‘I am going mad! My brain is whirling, and my eyes make me see things which are not and so I sank upon the ground, and sobbed. Presently, I was somewhat better, and I manned myself. ‘It is but a feverish attack,’ I thought. ‘I will return and try to sleep.’ It was, however, with some difficulty that I arrived at the hut. My limbs felt as if loaded with lead, and the pain of an intense headache went like hot iron wires into my brain. When I reached our half-finished abode, I saw everything through a sort of haze, and the voices at my ear appeared to come from miles away. I was soon placed, lying upon bundles of grass, in the windward side of the hut, and after that I remember little more of what happened during three nights and three days. Only I know that my sufferings were very great; that my mind appeared to ramble as though it were a disturbed spirit or ghost flitting all over the world. Now, I would seem to be far away on the pleasant coast of Fife. The sun would shine, and the corn rustle and the yellow broom by the burnie’s banks smell sweet in the summer’s breath. But I could enjoy nought. I was as it were seared, and the sources of pleasure dried up. I saw the forms of people I loved, but I could speak to none. I saw my mother sitting on a sandy knowe, resting her head upon her hand, and looking over the blue sea. But when I would embrace her, there came darkness and pain, and the vision vanished. Then, perhaps, in my delirium, I would fancy I was at sea; sometimes it was in the old fisher-boat, the Royal Thistle. No wind would stir, the sky would be glowing like a heated copper globe, and the boat would lie moveless as though nailed to the unstirring sea. Suddenly my father’s eyes would look into mine with a long wan stare, and so would we sit glaring at each other, like famishing and despairing beasts, while months, and years, and ages, would appear to come and go and bring no change. Anon, the mood would alter. Then I was on board the old brig, Jean Livingstone, with a merry breeze and a blithesome crew. The bonny crags of St. Andrew’s Bay would seem under our lee, with the ruined towers of abbeys and churches rising over the green links, and fading from our sight, as we worked gallantly seawards. But the scene would straightway change to a furious storm in a mid-winter night, with the foam of the sea and the snow-flakes flying together. Then round the light of the binnacle there would crowd ghastly faces, staring into mine—faces with shaggy antique beards like the ancient sailors of Sir Patrick Spens, long, long sleeping in the wild North Sea; and so surrounded by these fishy eyes of hapless drowned mariners, I would feel the good brig seem to founder beneath my feet, so that I would start struggling up from my bed of grass, crying out that I was drowning—that the boiling waves were choking me!