A bird of passage

by B. M. Croker

Helen laughed, turned the handle and entered; the moon shone clear through the paneless port, and showed her a cabin exactly similar to the others—just two wooden worm-eaten bunks, and that was all. Behind the door—ah! a little song she was humming died away upon her lips, and she uttered a stifled exclamation, as her startled eyes fell upon a tall, powerful man in convict's dress, in short, no less a person than Aboo Sait! In a twinkling his grasp was on her throat, crushing her savagely against the wall. Vain indeed were her struggles, he was strangling her with iron hands; his fierce turbaned face was within an inch of hers, she felt his hot breath upon her cheek! She could not scream or move, her hands fell nerveless at her sides, her sight was failing, hearing seemed to be the only sense that had not deserted her! she could distinctly catch the faint, irregular lapping of the water against the old ship's sides, and Mrs. Creery's querulous voice calling "Nip, Nip, Nip!" whilst she was dying!

"Well, have you found Blue Beard or Nip?" demanded Mr. Lisle, pushing back the door as he spoke. "Good God!"

In another instant she was released—she breathed again. That awful grip was off her throat, for with one well-delivered blow Aboo's prey was wrenched from his grasp, and he himself sent staggering across the cabin; but his repulse was merely momentary; the convict was armed with a knife,—the knife; in a second it shone in his hand, and with a tigerish bound he flung himself on the new-comer.

And now within the narrow space of that cabin commenced such a struggle for life and death as has seldom been witnessed. Mr. Lisle was a middle-sized, well-made, athletic Englishman, endowed with iron muscles and indomitable pluck—but he was over-matched by the convict in bone and weight. Aboo was six foot two, as wiry as a panther, as lithe as a serpent, and all his efforts were edged by the fatal fact that he had everything to gain and everything to lose!

The issue of this conflict meant to him, liberty and his very existence on one hand, and Viper Island and the gibbet, on the other.—Win he must, since the stake was his LIFE!

They wrestle silently to and fro, finally out of the cabin, locked in a deadly embrace. The Englishman, though stabbed in the arm, had succeeded in clutching the convict's right wrist, so that for the moment that sharp gleaming weapon is powerless! Aboo, on his side, holds his antagonist in a wolfish grip by the throat—they sway, they struggle, they slide and stagger on the oozy floor of the saloon. At the moment, the advantage is with Aboo Sait—if he gets the chance he will strangle this Feringhee devil, and cut the throat of that white-faced girl, who is still leaning against the cabin wall, faint and breathless.

But he has not reckoned on another female—a female who has ceased to call "Nip, Nip, Nip, Nip," and has now rushed up on deck with outstretched arms, shrieking, "Murder! murder! murder!"

"Fly, save yourself!" gasped Mr. Lisle to Helen, at the expense of an ugly wound in the neck. She cannot fly; a kind of hideous spell holds her to the spot, gazing on the scene before her with eyes glazed with horror. Her very hair seems rising from her head, for she is perfectly certain that murder will be done; the convict will kill Mr. Lisle, and she will be an involuntary witness of the awful deed! And yet she cannot move, nor shake off this frightful nightmare; she is, as it were, chained to her place. But hark! her ears catch distant singing, and the rise and fall of oars. This familiar noise is the signal of her release—the spell is broken.

"They are coming! they are coming!" she screamed, and rushed upstairs, calling "Help! help! help!" She sees the boats approaching steadily in the moonlight, but, alas! their occupants are so entirely engrossed in chaunting "Three Blind Mice," that her agonized signals, and Mrs. Creery's piercing cries, are apparently unnoticed. And whilst they are singing, what is being done in that dark cabin down below? She thought with sickening horror of those two struggling figures, of that gleaming, merciless knife, and hurried once more to the head of the stairs. As she did so, she heard the sound of a heavy fall, and in another moment, fear thrown to the wind, she was in the saloon.

Mr. Lisle had slipped upon the slimy boards, made a valiant effort to recover himself, but, overborne by the convict's superior weight, he fell, still locked in that iron embrace. In the fall, the weapon had flown out of Aboo's hand,—but only a short way, it was within easy reach; and now, Gilbert Lisle, your hour has come! He sees it in the criminal's face, he knows that his life is to be reckoned by seconds, and yet his eye, as it meets that malignant gaze, never quails, though it seems a hard fate to perish thus, in this old hulk, and at the hands of such a ruffian! With his knee pressed down upon his victim's chest, a murderous smile upon his face, Aboo stretched out a long, hairy, cruel arm, to seize the knife, just as Helen reached the foot of the ladder. Like lightning she sprang forward, pounced on it, snatched at it, secured it—and running down the cabin, flung it far into the sea, which it clave with one silvered flash, and then sank.